'Milk tea gathering' makes solving issues more efficient in NW China's Xinjiang People's Daily Online) 13:14, July 10, 2024 On June 23, political advisors, community officials, and residents gathered under grape trellises in the courtyard of a house located on Liuxing street, a historical block in Yining city, Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where they enjoyed cups of milk tea while engaging in relaxed conversations. The owner of the courtyard, 78-year-old Abdu Keyum, has become accustomed to neighbors visiting for chats. Hua Jiakui (middle), a political advisor and deputy chairman of the Federation of Industry and Commerce in Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, takes part in a "milk tea gathering." (People's Daily Online/Li Long) "Let's grab some milk tea while I fill you in," said Didaer Kunayi, head of the political advisors office in Liuxing street community. "We had received complaints from residents about low water pressure in residential houses, B&B hotels, and hotels, especially during peak hours. Moreover, the installation of gas pipeline pillars was compromising the architectural style. After several discussions, we have addressed the issue of low water pressure, and the gas pipelines have been relocated underground," said Didaer Kunayi. The residents expressed their satisfaction with the prompt and effective resolutions. After addressing the previous concerns, Didaer Kunayi asked the residents whether they have come across other issues recently. "Issues between neighbors can often be resolved by sitting together, enjoying a bowl of milk tea, and having a conversation. It's amazing how conflicts can be resolved through 'milk tea gatherings'," said Hua, a political advisor and deputy chairman of the Federation of Industry and Commerce in Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture. In Ili, milk tea is a traditional daily beverage that serves as a bond of inclusiveness and integration among different ethnic groups. The "milk tea gathering" has become a platform for local political advisors to perform their duties and engage in interactions with local residents. Qian Ziyang, a lawyer, solves disputes in the political advisors office in Hongshiliu community, Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County, Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (People's Daily Online/Li Long) "Milk tea gatherings" are a long-standing tradition and a powerful tool for promoting harmony in Hexiang village, Huiyuan township, Huocheng county. Since its establishment less than a year ago, the political advisors office in Yangbulake village, Huiyuan township, has helped over 40 college graduates find jobs and provided assistance to more than 3,500 surplus laborers in the township. At the "milk tea gathering" held in Hexiang village, Huiyuan township, a villager plays the dutar, a local musical instrument, and others sing, expressing their contentment with life. (People's Daily Online/Li Long) These gatherings play an important role in addressing pressing issues that directly affect people's everyday lives. Over time, they have become platforms where people can openly discuss and exchange their concerns, leading to the development of a unique grassroots governance model in Ili. By the end of 2023, grassroots Party organizations in Ili had organized over 5,100 "milk tea gatherings," collecting more than 5,970 suggestions and solving over 5,480 issues of concern for the people. (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) Anthony Franze is a native Texan and very passionate about covering any weather that is thrown at him. He can be reached at anthony.franze@express-news.net. Anthony earned a degree in Meteorology from Valparaiso University in 2017. He has worked as a broadcast meteorologist for six years, one at NBC Montana and the next five at NewsWest 9 in Midland before joining the Express-News in July 2023. In his free time, Anthony enjoys watching sports, checking out local restaurants and breweries, and getting outside whenever the heat allows for it. If you have any story ideas, questions about the weather or restaurant suggestions, drop him a line. The ongoing electrification drive and the EV revolution have elicited dire forecasts about the imminent demise of the nearly two-century old oil & gas industry. Last year, Bloomberg predicted that global demand for road fuel will peak in 2027 at an all-time high of 49 million barrels per day before entering terminal decline. Bloomberg says that rapid adoption of electric vehicles, shared mobility and ever-improving fuel efficiency are the biggest bear catalysts for oil, with EVs expected to displace a staggering 20 million barrels per day in oil demand by 2040, or 10x the current estimate. And, the Chinese EV sector is expected to play a big part in disrupting the global fossil fuel industry. Chinas oil market is closely watched by energy experts not only due to its sheer size but also because of the ongoing EV revolution in the Middle Kingdom. According to Lu Ruquan, president of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.'s Economics & Technology Research Institute, EVs will displace more than 20 million metric tons of crude demand this year, good for 10% of the countrys gasoline and diesel consumption. At a time when internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle sales continue to decline, retail sales of new-energy cars (NEV) in China, including electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, rose 28.6% to 856,000 units in June from a year earlier, thanks to continued high demand for NEVs with by government subsidies, tax breaks and steep discounts helping bring buyers back into showrooms after a sluggish start to the year. Related: Russian Moguls Received $11 Billion in Dividends in the Past Year Not surprisingly, Big Oil companies are betting the farm on another pivotal energy sector: petrochemicals. Petrochemicals, which go into plastics, polyester and many other cheap and lightweight commodities that underpin modern life, could help oil companies stay afloat long after demand for transport fuels has peaked. As we have reported before, among the major energy agencies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) tends to be the most pessimistic about the long-term oil demand outlook. Over the medium-and long-term, only the IEA sees global oil demand peaking before 2030, even in its most optimistic forecast (high growth). However, the IEA says an oil demand peak doesn't necessarily mean a rapid plunge in fossil fuel consumption is imminent, adding that it will probably be followed by an undulating plateau lasting for many years. The Paris-based energy watchdog has predicted that oil demand will grow to 105.45mn barrels per day in 2030, from 102.24mn bpd last year, with 2.8mn bpd--more than 85% of the overall increase in demand--coming from petrochemicals. A 2023 review of the major oil and gas and chemicals companies found that over the next three years, Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) plans to invest over $20 billion in expanding plastic production; CPChem will spend $14.5 billion and Dow Inc. (NYSE:DOW) plans to invest USD 10 billion. A lot of those petrodollars are flowing into the Chinese market. According to Ciaran Healy, oil market analyst at the IEA, ~6.7mn bpd, or 6.5 per cent of all global oil use, currently goes to supply China with petrochemicals. The International Energy Agency has reported that 90% of Chinas increased oil demand from 2021 to 2024 comes from chemical feedstocks like LPG, ethane, and naphtha. IEA notes that between 2019 and 2024, additional Chinese production capacity for ethylene and propylene will exceed the combined current capacities of Europe, Japan, and South Korea. Between 2018 and 2023, Chinas output of synthetic fibers alone rose by 21 million metric tons--enough to spin more than 100 billion T-shirts a year. A new breed of private refiners such as Hengli Petrochemical and Rongsheng Petrochemical has emerged in China whereby they are spending billions of dollars building plants specializing in chemicals, rather than gasoline and diesel. Ironically, petrochemicals are crucial for the green energy transition, with EVs typically using more thermoplastics, foams, fibers and rubber pads than ICE vehicles. Indeed, US chemical practice leader at Deloitte David Yankovitz has told the Financial Times that EV makers are substituting plastic resins for metal parts to make lighter cars. Yankovitz says that roughly three-quarters of all emissions-reduction technologies require chemicals, most of which are oil-derived. China has met much of that demand through domestic processing of imported crude. But the US shale oil boom has also formed a mutually reinforcing symbiosis with growing Chinese demand for petrochemicals. According to ICIS data, between 2019 and 2023, the U.S. was the only major producer to boost its polymer exports into China, Exxon is currently building a petrochemical complex in southern Chinas Guangdong province, as well as expanding its own chemical production at existing facilities on the US Gulf Coast. According to Exxon, the chemical complex will produce performance polymers used in packaging, automotive, agricultural, and consumer products for hygiene and personal care. Demand for performance polymers will continue to increase in China, and were well positioned to meet the needs of that growing market, We look forward to progressing this exciting project as we work to build a competitive growth platform in Dayawan, said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company, at the unveiling of the project in 2021. Meanwhile, last year, Saudi Aramco acquired a 10% stake in Shenzhen-listed Rongsheng Petrochemical for $3.6bn, and has entered talks to buy a stake in Hengli Petrochemical, a top Chinese producer of chemicals for plastics. Last year, Aramco-owned S-Oil broke ground on a $7bn petrochemical factory in South Korea. By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com As many countries are battling to curb their coal production, some Asian powers continue to increase their dependency on the dirtiest fossil fuel, massively hindering a regional green transition. For years there have been big worries about China remaining heavily dependent on coal, but this trend has spread across Southeast Asia. Despite the development of climate pledges and energy strategies in favor of a green transition, with support from international donors, it looks like the regions heavy reliance on coal could continue for several more years. A recent report from the energy consultancy Ember showed that The Philippines reliance on coal power increased by around 62 percent in 2023, overtaking China, Indonesia, and Poland. Coal contributed 61.9 percent of the countrys electricity in 2023, compared to 59.1 percent the previous year. Coal generation also increased by 9.7 percent, which was higher than the rise in electricity demand. This marked the 15th consecutive year of increased coal production, despite its goal to reduce reliance on coal to less than half of its total electricity production by the end of the decade. The Philippines has not been successful in significantly increasing its renewable energy capacity to date, as it falls behind several other countries in the region. Between 2015 and 2023, its wind and solar generation increased at a far slower pace than neighboring countries, from 1 terawatt hour to 3.7 TWH. To decrease its reliance on coal-generated power, The Philippines must diversify its energy mix to ensure that it can keep up with the rising energy demand. Several countries in Southeast Asia continue to depend heavily on coal for their power, despite increased pressure from the international community to shift away from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives. Further, coal is seen as the dirtiest form of fossil fuel, with many favoring oil and gas above coal for mid-term decarbonization. The Southeast Asian region saw a 2 percent growth in coal reliance in 2023, from 31 percent in 2022 to 33 percent last year. This is despite Chinas efforts to reduce its reliance on coal, which now contributes around 60.7 percent of power generation compared to 67.7 percent in 2015. Indonesia is the fifth-largest coal producer in the world, a rapid increase from 11th place in 2015. Its coal dependency is just behind that of The Philippines, with coal contributing 61.8 percent of the countrys power generation in 2023. Two-thirds of Indonesias electricity demand rise was filled with coal last year, with the rest being delivered through gas, and solar and wind power contributing just 2.3 percent. Solar and wind power increased by just 1.2 TWh between 2015 and 2023, accounting for 4 percent of renewables growth. Bioenergy generation doubled in this period, from 9.8 TWh to 22 TWh, contributing 40 percent of renewable electricity growth, followed by hydropower at 34 percent, and geothermal at 22 percent. The Ember report suggested that The Philippines and Indonesia could both reduce their reliance on coal by deploying alternative cheap sources of electricity, such as solar and wind power. Kostantsa Rangelova, Embers Global Electricity Analyst, explained, Indonesia and the Philippines could instead accelerate their development to meet the rising power demand, thereby moving closer to their net-zero targets. In November, Indonesia announced plans to spend $20 million on developing its renewable energy capacity, with funding coming from global lenders under the Comprehensive Investment and Policy Plan (CIPP). Indonesia's Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) outlines plans to reduce grid emissions to 250 million metric tonnes of CO2 by 2030, compared to the previous estimate of 350 million metric tonnes of CO2. Indonesia hopes to increase the contribution of renewable energy to the total energy mix to 44 percent by 2030, from just 12 percent in 2022. As The Philippines and Indonesia rapidly increase their coal dependency, other Asian countries are showing little signs of slowing their longstanding coal reliance. In India, coal contributes around 77.01 percent of the countrys electricity generation. Indias coal production stood at 893.19 million tonnes in 2022-23, compared to 778.21 million tonnes in 2021-22, an increase of 14.7 percent. Its coal imports have also been increasing in recent years. There has been a steady increase in Indias coal production over the last decade, despite rising pressure to diversify its energy mix. There is significant potential for India to increase its renewable energy capacity, with one report suggesting that India has a potential green energy generation of 2.1 million MW. Several countries across Southeast Asia continue to be heavily reliant on coal for their energy production, with Indonesia and The Philippines seeing an increase in coal dependency year on year. Coal is a major contributor to carbon emissions and a rise in coal use in some countries could undermine efforts to cut coal production and use in others. Meanwhile, governments must look to diversify their energy mix, to both reduce carbon emissions in line with climate aims and boost energy security. By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com NATO leaders gathered in Washington for a landmark summit are set to look into ways to bolster support for Ukraine in its war against Russia's aggression as U.S. President Joe Biden strongly reaffirmed the 32-member alliance's "full support" for Kyiv. NATO leaders on July 10 are to discuss a proposal by outgoing Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to provide Ukraine with 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military aid for next year, after member states couldn't agree on a multiyear military aid package for Ukraine that Stoltenberg had proposed. In an opening address to the summit on July 9 marking NATO's 75th anniversary, Biden said Russia is seeking "nothing less" than to "wipe Ukraine off the map," but he forcefully insisted that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not prevail and announced that Washington and its allies will provide Ukraine with further weapons, including additional air-defense systems. "Ukraine can and will stop Putin, especially with our full collective support. They have our full support," Biden said as he announced Western donations of additional Patriot missiles systems and interceptors to Ukraine. The United States and partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air-defense systems in the coming months, Biden said. Ukraine will also receive hundreds of NASAMS interceptors over the next year, he added. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on July 9 that U.S. leaders must be "strong" and "uncompromising" in helping to defend his country's democracy against Putin's aggression. "Strong decisions are needed and we are waiting for them, Zelenskiy said during a discussion he headlined at the Reagan Institute in Washington. White House national-security adviser Jake Sullivan also said on July 9 that the alliance will announce in the coming days a new NATO military command in Germany, led by a three-star general, to coordinate the training and equipping of Ukrainian troops. It will also station a senior NATO representative in Kyiv. The summit takes place against the backdrop of U.S. political uncertainty and Russia's intensification of its bombing of Ukraine. Outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking just before Biden, said that should Russia be victorious in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it would embolden Iran, China, and North Korea and shape the global-security environment for decades to come. "There are no risk-free options with an aggressive Russia as a neighbor," Stoltenberg said. "There are no risk-free options in a war. And remember, the biggest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine. We cannot let that happen." The summit also comes after one of the worst Russian air attacks on the country since the Kremlin launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The barrage of missiles fired across Ukraine on July 8 struck several civilian facilities, including Kyiv's Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital, killing at least 43 people in total and injuring scores more in what Biden called a "horrific reminder of Russia's brutality." Zelenskiy said at the Reagan Institute that Ukraine needs at least 128 F-16 fighter jets to be able to fend off Russia's overwhelming air power. A senior NATO official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said that despite dwindling resources, Russia would likely be able to maintain its war economy for three to four years. However, the official added that the Kremlin lacked the munitions and troops to launch a major offensive against Ukraine in the near term. Zelenskiy has also pressed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion for a pathway to Ukraines eventual membership in the alliance, which so far has been received coolly by some countries who say such a move is unthinkable while the war is under way. However, the summit will not extend an invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance. Carpenter said there was still no consensus on the issue among the 32 allies. Biden and Zelenskiy will meet on July 11 and be joined by the leaders of about two dozen other countries that have signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine. Biden last month signed a 10-year agreement that calls on the United States, among other things, to help bolster Ukraine's military-industrial complex through co-production and joint ventures with U.S. industry. NATO unity on Ukraine, however, will be challenged at the summit by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose pro-Russian views have irked the alliance. Orban, who just took over the rotating presidency of the EU, flew to Moscow last week and then to China without informing the bloc ahead of time to discuss an end to the war with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Defense spending by NATO members will be another hot topic at the summit. NATO members committed a decade ago to reach a defense spending target of at least 2 percent of gross national product by 2024. Stoltenberg said that 23 of the alliance's 32 members will meet that target this year. Biden's performance at the summit will also be closely watched amid concerns about his age and ability to lead after a dismal showing in a debate with Republican rival Donald Trump as Americans prepare to vote in a presidential election on November 5. A growing number of fellow Democrats have called for Biden to end his reelection campaign since the debate on June 26. Biden's poor debate performance and the specter of another Trump presidency has many European allies worried. By RFE/RL More Top Reads From Oilprice.com The European Commission has approved the proposed acquisition of the European business of UK-based biofuels producer Greenergy by commodities trading giant Trafigura. Following a review of the proposed transaction under the EU Merger Regulation, the Commission concluded that the deal would not raise competition concerns, because the companies would have a limited combined market position resulting from the deal. Trafigura announced it March that it had agreed to acquire Greenergys European business from Brookfield Asset Management and its listed affiliate Brookfield Business Partners for an undisclosed sum. Greenergy, founded in 1992, is currently one of Europes largest suppliers of biofuels with manufacturing plants in the UK and the Netherlands and a leading distributor of road fuels in the UK. The acquisition of Greenergy presents a unique opportunity for Trafigura to strengthen its fuel supply operations in Europe and to add the physical production and distribution of renewable fuels to its growing biofuels business, the commodities trading giant said at the time. Ben Luckock, Global Head of Oil at Trafigura, commented: As Europe transitions to a lower carbon future and the refining industry adapts to changing market dynamics, companies like Greenergy become increasingly important. Trafigura and other oil trading giants have amassed huge profits over the past two years of market uncertainty and volatility, and are now looking to reinvest part of the profits into expanding operations into refining and biofuels supply. Trafigura said in April that Rhone Energies, its consortium with Entara LLC, has entered into exclusive negotiations to buy the Fos-sur-Mer refinery and the Toulouse and Villette de Vienne terminals from ExxonMobils local unit Esso. The commodity trading industry currently has the means to reinvest strategically in long-term deals and strategic decisions, according to consultancy Oliver Wyman. One winner move for reinvesting the profit windfalls could be to invest in assets, which gives traders greater optionality and influence over the commodities they trade, Oliver Wyman said in a report earlier this year. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Recent data from Kpler reveals a significant decline in crude oil exports from major OPEC+ producers in June, driven largely by weak demand in Asian markets and increased domestic consumption in the Middle East. This has resulted in Saudi Arabia's exports plummeting to their lowest level in over a decade. OPEC+ production fell to its lowest point of the year as Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iraq all implemented cuts to curb overproduction and respond to lower Asian demand. Saudi exports decreased dramatically by 930,000 barrels per day to 5.42 million barrels per day, a level not seen since at least 2013. Other Middle Eastern producers, including Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, and the UAE, also reduced their exports significantly. In June, Middle Eastern crude flows hit a three-year low, primarily due to reduced availability of medium-density grades. This decline is attributed to stronger domestic consumption, higher crude burn for power generation, and possibly coordinated efforts to tighten the market. Saudi refinery runs rose by 207,000 bpd to 2.7 million bpd, driven by the return of major units from maintenance, and crude burn increased by 81,000 bpd to 553,000 bpd. The key factor behind the export reduction is the tepid demand from Asian markets. Chinas economic indicators, such as PMIs, are below 50, signaling contraction. Indias imports of Saudi oil fell to a ten-year low in June at 428,000 bpd. As the monsoon season approaches, Indian imports are unlikely to rebound soon. The weak demand has prevented a rebound in the Asian medium sour crude market despite reduced cargo availability. Prices for Middle Eastern medium sour grades have softened due to weak demand and ample supplies. The reopening of the West-East arbitrage window and attractive Russian crude prices are expected to draw interest away from regional grades. This scenario suggests that producers may further cut their official selling prices (OSPs) in the coming months. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Russias natural gas producer Novatek is offering liquefied natural gas to potential Chinese customers through a new marketing team, although its uncertain whether the Russian company would attract many clients with attractive prices, Chinese traders told Reuters on Wednesday. Novatek is now offering part of an LNG cargo from its majority-owned Yamal project in the Arctic. The cargo is set to arrive in China later in July, the China-based trading sources told Reuters. However, traders doubt the Russian company would see profitable margins from LNG trade in China, where pipeline gas supply from Russia is growing, while major LNG importers own shares in the import infrastructure. Novatek doesnt have any foothold in Chinas import terminals or gas distribution network. Earlier this year, Novatek was said to be opening an office in China and creating a team based there to sell gas. Novatek, which is the biggest LNG producer and exporter in Russia, has been working to set up a marketing and business development team based in China for months, according to multiple undisclosed sources who spoke to Reuters in February. Unlike the Yamal project which sells LNG cargoes to Asia and even to Europe, Novateks new Arctic LNG 2 project has been basically on ice since the U.S. imposed in November fresh sanctions on the Russian project. Located in the Gydan Peninsula in the Arctic, the Arctic LNG 2 project was considered key to Russias efforts to boost its global LNG market share from 8% to 20% by 2030-2035. However, foreign shareholders suspended participation in the Arctic LNG 2 project after the Biden Administration announced the new sanctions, effectively withdrawing from the financing of the project and for offtake contracts for the new plant. The EU added insult to injury last month as it banned new investments, as well as the provision of goods, technology, and services for the completion of Russian LNG projects under construction, such as Arctic LNG 2 and Murmansk LNG, in the first sanctions targeting Russias gas sector. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com The final proceeds for Saudi Arabia from the secondary sale of shares in its oil giant Aramco came in at $12.35 billion after the exercising of an over-allotment option, boosting the Kingdoms total gain from the sale by $1 billion. Saudi Aramco sold last month a 0.64% stake in a secondary offering. Aramco priced 1.545 billion shares on offer in its latest share sale at $7.27 (27.25 Saudi riyals) apiece, based on the results of the book-building process. That was a discount of 6% compared to the closing price of Aramcos shares on the Saudi stock exchange, Tadawul, on the day before the secondary offering was announced at the end of May. This sale raised $11.2 billion for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But after the so-called stabilization period ended, and the over-allotment option was exercised, the Saudis are netting an additional $1 billion and total proceeds came in at $12.35 billion, according to a statement carried by Bloomberg. Saudi Aramco made its debut on the Saudi Stock Exchange in December 2019 and raised around $30 billion in a share listing which became the worlds largest ever. Since the IPO, the Saudi rulers, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have said on several occasions there would be more Aramco shale sales in the future. Additionally, Saudi Aramco now plans to raise at least $3 billion from a new bond issue that would be its first in three years, sources with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg earlier this week. Saudi Aramco plans to offer bonds with 10, 30, and 40 years of maturity and is expected to begin meetings with fixed-income investors on Tuesday, according to Bloombergs sources. The proceeds from Aramcos new bond sale are expected to go to refinancing existing borrowings and helping the investment program of the worlds largest oil company by market value and production. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com For the first time in its nearly three-decade history, Norways oil fund, the worlds largest sovereign wealth fund, has just exceeded the market value of 18 trillion Norwegian crowns, which equals $1.691 trillion as of Wednesday. Government Pension Fund Global, as the Norwegian fund is officially known, was created in the 1990s and the government started transferring revenues from Norways oil and gas industry into the fund in 1996. Since then, the fund has invested in equities and fixed income globally, raising its value with the returns. In October 2019, the value of the fund exceeded 10 trillion Norwegian crowns and in May 2023, the funds market value topped the threshold of 15 trillion Norwegian crowns. The weak Norwegian crown against the U.S. dollar has contributed somewhat to the new height of the funds value, but it is the equity investments in the U.S. stock market, in which the fund is heavily weighted, that have driven the record value, Nils Kristian Knudsen, an analyst at Handelsbanken, told Norwegian outlet FinansWatch. For the first quarter of 2024, the fund returned 1.21 trillion crowns ($113 billion), which was the highest quarterly return in absolute terms since the fund was set up in 1996. Our equity investments had a very strong return in the first quarter, particularly driven by the tech sector, Trond Grande, Deputy CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, said in April, commenting on the funds performance in Q1. The Norwegian fund owns on average 1.5% of all listed companies globally. The equity investments which account for 72.1% of the funds total investments consist of ownership shares in about 9,000 companies worldwide. A total of 26% of the funds assets are invested in fixed income, 1.8% in unlisted real estate, and 0.1% in renewable energy infrastructure. The fund, which is commonly referred to as Norways oil fund because it was created with oil and gas revenues, is a shareholder in many large companies in the world, including Big Oil, and has the power to influence other investors with its investment decisions. As of the end of 2023, they held stakes in 220 energy firms in 35 countries, representing 2.6% of all investments. The fund held 3.4% in BP, 2.88% in Shell, 2.42% in TotalEnergies, 1.35% in ExxonMobil, and 1% in Chevron. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com The man who attacked Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, inside his San Francisco home with a hammer in 2022, was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced David DePape's sentence on Friday, after he was convicted by a federal jury of assault and attempted kidnapping charges in November 2023. Prosecutors sought the maximum 40-year sentence. According to the Associated Press, DePape's attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley to sentence him to just 14 years, saying he had no criminal history and was going through a difficult time. Corley imposed a 20-year sentence for one count and a 30-year sentence for the other, to run concurrently. DePape was given credit for 18 months served in custody since the attack. "The Pelosi family couldn't be prouder of their Pop and his tremendous courage in saving his own life on the night of the attack and in testifying in this case," read a statement from the Pelosi family, shared by spokesperson Aaron Bennet. "Speaker Pelosi and her family are immensely grateful to all who have sent love and prayers over the last eighteen months, as Mr. Pelosi continues his recovery." DePape still faces an upcoming trial on state charges in connection with the attack, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary, false imprisonment and threatening the life of or serious bodily harm to a public official. -- with reporting by TMX A civil liberties group has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking to compel a federal agency to release records related to two Nebraska cities efforts to ban immigrants not legally in the country from renting in their communities. The ACLU of Nebraska sought the records more than two and a half years ago. The group specifically submitted an email request to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency under the Department of Homeland Security, on Nov. 9, 2021, seeking copies of correspondence between officials, agents, contractors or individuals regarding the implementation or enforcement of city ordinances in Fremont and Scribner. To date, USCIS has failed to respond to produce the documents sought in the request in any way, let alone process the request promptly, as required by FOIA for all requests, ACLU attorney Dylan Serverino wrote in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court of Nebraska in Lincoln. The 21-day statutory period to respond has long since passed. Serverino said the ACLU is seeking the records in order to further public understanding of the implementation and enforcement of the ordinances. In June 2010, Fremont passed an ordinance requiring prospective renters there to obtain occupancy licenses. To get one, renters have to complete an application and answer questions about their immigration status. The Fremont Police Department then checks the information with USCIS Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to determine if they are lawfully in the country. In November 2018, Scribner passed an ordinance that did substantially the same thing. The ACLUs request for information followed. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, asks a federal judge to order the federal agencies to conduct a search for the records and produce them promptly. The ACLU also is seeking attorney fees and other litigation costs. The ACLU says USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security have the records and the ACLU has a legal right to obtain them. Failure to provide them violates the Freedom of Information Act, Serverino said. Severino said the years-long wait made it clear that it would take a lawsuit to force a response from federal officials. Nebraskans have a right to know if and how federal officials have been involved in any efforts to enforce anti-immigrant ordinances that invite discriminatory questions and racial profiling, he said Tuesday. Federal law includes clear guidelines on processing public records requests, and there is no excuse for years of inaction on any request let alone one that involves something as important as fair access to housing. In 2010, the ACLU sued Fremont seeking to overturn the rental ban, saying it conflicts with the federal governments sole authority to regulate immigration and has a discriminatory effect. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the challenge in a split decision. Earlier this year, Fremont Mayor Joey Spellerberg gave the welcome address at the Nebraska Immigration & Workforce Summit there, saying things have changed in the town of 27,000 about an hour north of Lincoln. He told the Nebraska Examiner that to fill its jobs today, the city needs to embrace the immigrant community. While the ordinance remains on Fremonts books, Spellerberg said it is impossible to enforce. LINCOLN A Utah-based consultant estimates that Nebraska could chisel $531 million out of state spending this year by shrinking the cash reserve, drawing down more federal dollars and improving state services and contracting. Gov. Jim Pillen hired Epiphany last June in a bid to find better, less-costly ways to run state government so taxpayer dollars could be used for property tax relief. The firm recently issued a year-end report, listing eight key strategies to produce savings and detailing steps already accomplished. This report represents the initial savings identified by Epiphany through its analysis of systemwide vacancies, programs, contracts, expenditures, fund reserves and more, said Pillen spokeswoman Laura Strimple. The goal of using this approach is two-fold reduction of state operating costs and meeting the needs of Nebraskans, she said. By reducing state costs and elevating our level of service, we will be able to deliver significant cost savings to Nebraska taxpayers. Epiphany was founded by Kristen Cox, a former executive director of the Governors Office of Management & Budget in Utah. During her tenure there, Utah calculated that she orchestrated a 35% improvement in efficiency across executive branch agencies. Nebraska signed a $10 million, four-year contract with her firm in June 2023 in hopes of getting similar results. The contract calls for Epiphany to provide an efficiency review and improvement services for one year at $2.5 million, with the option of three one-year renewals. Under the contract, Epiphany was to recommend ways to improve state agency services by 25% while identifying hard cost savings equal to at least 3% of state general fund appropriations in the fiscal year that ended June 30 and at least 6% in the current fiscal year. General fund appropriations this year were set at $5.45 billion. In its report, the firm projected the biggest budget impact would come from reducing the states cash reserve, or rainy day, fund and the 3% cushion required in the state budget. Epiphany recommended that the two combine to equal between 4% and 8% of the annual budget. Currently, they exceed 19% of the annual budget. The change would free up an estimated $150 million this year, the report said. Uncertainty about appropriate budget buffer levels or too much risk aversion leads to excess financial buffers sitting idle in state budgets and forecasts, which leads to significant resources that are not used to benefit Nebraska citizens, it said. Going after more federal dollars in such programs as child welfare and Medicaid would have the second-largest impact. The report projected that Nebraska could bring in about $105.9 million more federal dollars, thus freeing up state tax funds. That projected total includes about $35 million from implementing a just-passed state law that uses assessments paid by Nebraska hospitals to match federal Medicaid dollars. The report also calls for increasing federal child welfare payments, a long-standing recommendation from child advocacy groups. The third-largest impact would come from improvements in key areas of state government, according to the report. Epiphany called for using a systems approach to both improve performance and cut costs, starting with the child welfare system, Medicaid, Lincoln Regional Center and Department of Correctional Services. The report estimated that potential savings from those programs and other priority areas could total $138 million, with $53.8 million coming from child welfare. The report emphasized that any cuts should wait until after operations improve and programs have the opportunity to invest some of the freed-up resources into better serving Nebraskans. So far, the report said, system improvements have nearly doubled the proportion of first-time unemployment payments made on time, while cutting appeal rates. Average wait times for walk-ins at the Department of Motor Vehicles Metro South office in Bellevue have been cut to five minutes, down from 22 minutes. Child welfare cases for children kept with their families are getting closed in an average of 243 days, down from 359 days previously. Other savings could come from improving the states contracting process, better targeting its economic development efforts and ensuring better outcomes from information technology investments, the report said. Epiphany recommended reviewing projects in all three areas to see if the costs are justified by the results for what the consultant calls customers. State Sen. Rob Clements of Elmwood, the Appropriations Committee chairman, said he thought the consultants ideas would be beneficial as long as there is not a negative impact on government services. He noted that lawmakers have had concerns about the states contracting process and the outcomes of information technology projects in the past. But he said he would need to know more before supporting the proposed cuts in state budget reserves. Lawmakers have worked to rebuild the states cash reserve fund to provide stability during economic downturns. Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln, a former Appropriations Committee member, was more skeptical of the report. She said many ideas have been proposed previously and the report was pretty light on details about how the cost savings were calculated. She also had concerns about the proposal to shrink the cash reserves, saying she doesnt want to undermine the states strong fiscal position. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of July 2024 Nigerian Ruler, Muhammadu Buhari says 90 percent of Boko Haram victims are Muslims and that the insurgents are seeking to use religion to divide Nigerians. He said there is no room for those who seek to divide Nigerians on the basis of religion. The ruler said this in an article on Christianity Today on the death of Lawan Andimi, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Michika local government area of Adamawa state on Monday. Andimi was abducted in Michika and killed by Boko Haram insurgents. In the article, Buhari said the death of the religious leader by Boko Haram was aimed at pitting Christians against Muslims. He said Nigeria is winning the fight against Boko Haram insurgents, and that the group has failed in its campaign, but now seeks to divide Nigerians using religion as a weapon. Indeed, it is the reality that some 90 percent of all Boko Harams victims have been Muslims: they include a copycat abduction of over 100 Muslim schoolgirls, along with their single Christian classmate; shootings inside mosques; and the murder of two prominent imams, he wrote. It is a simple fact that these now-failing terrorists have targeted the vulnerable, the religious, the non-religious, the young, and the old without discrimination. And at this point, when they are fractured, we cannot allow them to divide good Christians and good Muslims from those things that bind us all in the sight of God: faith, family, forgiveness, fidelity, and friendship to each other. The terrorists today attempt to build invisible walls between us. They have failed in their territorial ambitions, so now instead they seek to divide our state of mind, by pulling us from one from anotherto set one religion seemingly implacably against the other. Of course, there is much of Christianity and Islamboth in teaching and practicethat are not the same. Were that not so, there would be no need for the separateness of the two religions. Buhari asked religious leaders to learn from the life of Andimi, who acted selflessly in so many regards, including giving alms and prayers to both Christians and Muslims who suffered at the hands of the terrorists. I call on Nigerias faith leaders, and Nigerians everywhere, to take these words of concordand the many more that existto their hearts and their deeds. Just as my government, and our international partners, quicken our campaign to defeat Boko Haram within and without our borders, we must turn our minds to the future. There is no place in Nigeria for those who seek to divide us by religion, who compel others to change their faith forcibly, or try to convince others that by so doing, they are doing good, he wrote. The ruler had vowed that the insurgents would pay a heavy price for killing the CAN chairman. But in a swift reaction, a former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode said via tweeter: This is a lie. The overwhelming majority of communities that BH targets are Christian. The same with the Fulani militias. The killing of Christians in Nigeria is a common blood sport which shall continue as long as Buhari is President. South Africas President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned a wave of looting and violence that has mostly targeted foreign nationals. There can be no justification for any South African to attack people from other countries, he said on Tuesday. Dozens of people were arrested in Johannesburg on Monday after rioters looted shops and torched vehicles. Other African governments have issued warnings to their citizens over the violence. Attacks on businesses run by foreign nationals is something totally unacceptable, something that we cannot allow to happen in South Africa, Mr Ramaphosa said in a video posted to Twitter. I want it to stop immediately, he added. I condemn the violence that has been spreading around a number of our provinces in the strongest terms. Im convening the ministers in the security cluster today to make sure that we keep a close eye on these acts of wanton violence and find ways of stopping them. pic.twitter.com/sizZkwIyPO Cyril Ramaphosa ?? (@CyrilRamaphosa) September 3, 2019 Separately, the African Union (AU) issued a statement condemning the despicable acts of violence in the strongest terms. Police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades in an attempt to quell the unrest on Monday. The surge in violence also saw mobs target lorries that were driven by foreign nationals. Violence continued on Tuesday in Johannesburgs Alexandra township. What has the reaction been? Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari sent an envoy to South Africa on Tuesday to express Nigerias displeasure over the treatment of her citizens. In a statement, the countrys high commission in South Africa described the situation as anarchy. The government alleges that Nigerian-owned businesses were targeted in Johannesburg and it has called on Nigerians to come forward to report what has happened to them. Ethiopias embassy in South Africa has advised its citizens to close their businesses during the ongoing tension, according to Ethiopias state-linked Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC). It also says that Ethiopians are advised to distance themselves from any confrontation and conflict and not go out wearing expensive jewellery. Meanwhile, Zambias transport ministry has said that lorry drivers should avoid travelling to South Africa until the security situation improves. The statement refers to reported attacks on foreign lorry drivers. The South African IOL news site says that there have been numerous incidents of vehicles being looted. But South Africas police minister, Bheki Cele, said on Monday that criminality rather than xenophobia was to blame for the senseless violence. [Xenophobia] is used as an excuse, he told reporters after visiting Johannesburgs Central Business District, where much of the unrest has been taking place. Nothing has sparked any form of conflict between the South Africans and foreign nationals. CHICAGO Mayor Brandon Johnson was tight-lipped Monday on the fate of the NASCAR Chicago Street Race after a lackluster audience showing and criticism from some over the diversion of hundreds of police officers to Grant Park during the historically violent holiday weekend. Speaking at a news conference at Chicago police headquarters, the mayor condemned the grim tally of more than 100 people shot in the city over the Fourth of July weekend. But Johnson and Chicago Police Department Superintendent Larry Snelling were noncommittal on moving the downtown NASCAR event to a different weekend, with Johnson instead punting the blame for its timing to his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot. Obviously, those were dates that we inherited. We will continue to assess how this particular weekend for NASCAR best benefits the people of Chicago, Johnson told reporters. But no decision has been made on which weekend in particular is best suited because Ill just say it like this: Whether its a holiday weekend or a weekend as someone whos celebrating their wedding anniversary, the point of our work is to ensure that every single weekend in the city of Chicago is as safe as possible. The three-year contract for an annual NASCAR street race in Chicago was secured by Lightfoot, but she lost her reelection bid before the first event took place on July Fourth last year. However, the Johnson administration opted to keep the same schedule this summer, instead of moving the race for its second year. The mayors growing embrace of the race complete with pulling up to it in a car-racing outfit signals his recent attempts to balance downtown business interests with his promise to help disenfranchised communities. Backing such a high-profile event that brought Chicago positive publicity last year, when picturesque shots of the skyline drew widespread admiration, could be a useful step in that direction. Hes in a tricky spot, however. The race idea was widely panned upon its announcement by progressive Lightfoot critics who make up an important part of Johnsons base. And a report on last years NASCAR race showed the economic benefit fell far below expectations. At the Monday news conference, Snelling also chimed in on NASCAR and argued there were far fewer cops diverted from the neighborhoods to the event in and around Grant Park this July than last time. We had significantly less officers at that event this year, the top cop said. We recognize that we had a level of security around that event where we didnt need as many officers. So we were able to scale that down this year, and well continue to do that. Asked to provide estimates or totals backing up that claim, Chicago police spokesman Thomas Ahern responded, We do not divulge the number of officers deployed for any events or operations. When the Tribune showed him a recap of a discussion between former CPD Superintendent David Brown and Ald. Brendan Reilly in which Brown did provide the number of officers he anticipated deploying for NASCAR in 2023, Ahern responded that he would follow up later. In that 2022 exchange from a budget hearing for the Police Department, Reilly, 42nd, asked Brown how many cops were diverted to the Lollapalooza music festival that summer, to which Brown responded, A little over 800, and then said it was quite possible the same amount of cops would be assigned to the NASCAR race. One unanswered question is if and when NASCAR will reimburse the city $2 million to cover costs for roadwork setup and public safety overtime. That promised payment was secured by the Johnson administration in what appears to have been a handshake deal, as the administration said it has no records of a written agreement. Last year, the city spent $3.5 million to host the race and got $620,000 in return, the Tribune has reported. Johnson, asked whether he is confident NASCAR will pay the city what its owed, responded: So thats my comptrollers responsibility. I dont just walk around the city collecting checks from people. Our comptroller does a really good job at that. You know, as far as the overall economic benefit, again, well be assessing, analyze, and well make a decision accordingly. Besides the flat $2 million payment to the city, NASCAR is also required to deposit $550,000 to the Chicago Park District which must be paid 90 days before the event plus compensate the agency with $2 per ticket sold and 20% of net food, beverage and merchandise sales. The contract signed by the Lightfoot administration expires in 2025, and the NASCAR race is currently again scheduled for the Fourth of July weekend. The base fee for the Park District will go up to $605,000, while the cut of concessions sales will grow to 25%. However, the Park District can terminate the agreement for convenience at least 180 days before the event, as can NASCAR with 90 days notice. NASCAR can also request to extend the contract for two more years, until 2027, within 90 days after the end of next years race. Chicago Tribunes A.D. Quig contributed reporting. United Nations rights experts are accusing Israel of waging a targeted starvation campaign on the children in Gaza. "We declare that Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza," said 10 independent United Nations experts in a statement on Tuesday. While the UN has not officially declared a famine in the Gaza Strip, experts, including UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, persisted that there is no denying the famine conditions affecting the Palestinian territory. "Thirty-four Palestinians have died from malnutrition since October 7, the majority being children," revealed experts, who were appointed by the UN Human Rights Council; however, do not speak on behalf of the United Nations, according to CBS News. Israel's mission to the UN in Geneva quickly shut down these claims. "Mr. Fakhri and many so-called 'experts' who joined his statement are as much accustomed to spreading misinformation as they are to supporting Hamas propaganda and shielding the terrorist organization from scrutiny." Since the start of the war, Israeli leaders and military commanders have continually blamed all the human suffering in Gaza on the militant group Hamas. UN rights experts listed three children who had recently died from malnutrition, following a number of others who were said to have starved to death in northern Gaza earlier this year. "Fayez Ataya, who was barely six months old, died on May 30, 2024, and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on June 1, 2024, at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah," the report read, adding that nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died just two days later in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. "With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza," it stated. Gaza has faced a catastrophic humanitarian crisis since the war broke, and the UN has been warning for months of an impending famine. It's important to note that a famine declaration does not carry any legal implications, but it can help to incentivize international support for an affected population. "The world had not done more to avert the disaster. When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan Al Kafarneh died of hunger on February 24 and March 4, respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza," they said. "The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel's genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths... Inaction is complicity." Meanwhile, the Israeli Mission highlighted that the latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership determined that famine had not materialized after aid access improved somewhat in Gaza. "Israel has continuously scaled up its coordination and assistance in the delivery of humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip," it said, claiming Hamas "intentionally steal and hide aid from civilians." Israeli officials also stated that the aid piling up on the Gaza side of border crossings is because of the agencies refusal to distribute it over fears of looting and violence, reported The Times of Israel. Multiple aid agencies have accused Israel of limiting access to aid in Gaza as well as creating bureaucratic obstacles to movement around the enclave. The management of Groupe Nduom, led by its chairman, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom has lined up a series of meetings with presidential aspirants asking them to support the reinstatement of the license of GN Savings. The Bank of Ghana (BoG) in late 2018 reclassified GN Bank as GN Savings and gave it a six month period to meet specific requirements. This was after GN Bank was unable to meet the Bank of Ghana's minimum capital of GH400 million by December 31, 2018 Other requirements of the BoG included changing of the name and downsizing and even went further to assign an advisor. When the six-month period elapsed, the BoG in August 2019 revoked the licenc together with 22 other insolvent savings and loans companies and finance house companies. But the management of Groupe Nduom has constantly argued that it met all the requirements and therefore it was a surprise the BoG revoked the GN Savings licence after meeting all the requirements it gave to them. On Tuesday, the management met with Nana Kwame Bediako, popularly known as Cheddar or Freedom Jacob Caesar of the New Force and Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen of the Movement for Change. They are both independent presidential aspirants. Alan Kyerematen was part of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government and served as Minister of Trade and Industry, a Cabinet position at the time the license of GN Savings was revoked by the Bank of Ghana (BoG). They have planned to also meet former President John Dramani Mahama who is contesting the December presidential election, asking to be re-elected as president on the ticket of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). They have another meeting with Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who is contesting on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the incumbent government under whose governance GN Bank was downgraded back to a savings and loans entity and eventually a license revocation. During the separate meetings with the two independent presidential aspirants on Tuesday [July 9, 2024], the senior management of Groupe Nduom presented a two-page petition to them, asking them to support the call for the restoration of the licence of GN Savings. They first met with Nana Kwame Bediako and later went to Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen. Dr Nduom underscored the need for governments to support the growth of indigenous Ghanaian businesses, noting that it was the only way to make the countrys economy strong. Groupe Nduom wants flag bearers to consider the reinstatement of the licence of GN Savings/Bank should they win the December 7 presidential election, and subsequently become president of Ghana; if the current administration fails to restore the licence before it leaves office. At Alan Kyerematen's office, he acknowledged Dr Nduoms contributions to the development of Ghana in the area of job creation. The Groupe Nduom chairman before presenting the petition pointed out that, his intention of establishing GN Bank was for financial inclusion and job creation hence the reason for the many branches the bank opened across the country. He told Mr Kyerematen that, GN Bank was reclassified as GN Savings and Loan and given a six month period to meet specific requirements which he said were all satisfied. The requirements the Bank of Ghana (BoG) gave them included changing of the name and downsizing. He said the BoG even went further to assign somebody, Yaw Sarpong as advisor to GN Savings. According to Dr Nduom, it was therefore a surprise to him when the BoG revoked the GN Savings licence after meeting all the requirements it gave to them. We are here today to present a petition to you so that if you become president, then you know there is GN Savings licence issue you have to resolve, Dr Nduom said. He added: As president you inherit good and bad things so I know if this administration doesnt give the licence to us you will do it After receiving the petition, Mr Alan Kyerematen assured the GN team of his support and promised to bring GN Savings back if elected as Ghanas president in the December 7 polls. The leader of Movement for Change noted that, the decision to revoke the licences of some Ghanaian owned banks including GN Savings was a policy failure. He did not understand why the BoG after reclassifying GN Bank went ahead and revoked its licence when it was in the process of putting things in place. Among other things he said the BoGs decision to revoke the licence of GN Savings and others amounted to policy failure was the money the government borrowed to collapse the banks and the governments inconsiderate posture of not thinking about many Ghanaians who lost their jobs in this so-called banking sector clean-up. According to him, even if those banks were facing some challenges, what they needed was not the revocation of their licences but technical and financial support from the government to help them stay in business. To this end, he promised to investigate the reason for the revocation of the licences of the Ghanaian banks as it is alleged that some people may have done that just for the benefit they would get from it. If indeed there was no justification for the withdrawal of the licences of some banks as it has been alleged I promise you(Dr Nduom) that if I am elected I will ensure those who did that are held accountable for their deeds, he stressed. Source: graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Head of Linguistics of the University of Ghana, Professor Kofi Agyekum has admonished parents and guardians to fuel exam malpractices by pampering their school children. Professor Kofi Agyekum, popularly called "Opanyin Agyekum", highlighting some malpractices that have characterized this year's ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) during Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show, expressed worry over the misconduct of some students in the exam halls. He condemned the practice where students send foreign materials among others to the exam halls to aid their answering of the questions and partly blamed parents and guardians for such behaviors of their wards. Opanyin Agyekum wondered why parents would resort to financial inducements in the name of assisting their children by way of buying what in local parlance is referred to as "apor" to pass their exams. To him, such actions must be discouraged, hence called on the parents to desist from it and allow their children to study and pass their exams. 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 Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, George Mireku Duker has called for an immediate arrest of individuals and institutions indiscriminately awarding honorary degrees to individuals. Hon. Mireku Duker, who doubles as Member of Parliament (MP) for Tarkwa-Nsuaem in the Western Region, expressed disgust over the rampant honorary degrees in the country, stating on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show that there is a team moving around, calling and honoring people with such degrees. "They sow big church choir robes with big hats and put on the individuals. This thing shouldn't be encouraged because it depletes the hard work of PhD students," he fumed. He stressed; "Those people must be called to order. Arrest them if they have to be arrested...Those things are unlawful because before a person will be awarded a PhD, it must come from an institution with accreditation. So, if you are not even accredited to honor or give someone a PhD, you don't qualify to honor any individual as a PhD holder." Watch video below 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
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Two days into the 2024 Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) for School and Private Candidates, 16 teachers, some of them examination officials, have been arrested at various examination centres in the country over complicity in examination malpractice. They were arrested by the National Investigations Bureau (NIB) and local agents recruited by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), and handed over to the police. All 16 are being processed for court. Arrests Briefing the Daily Graphic, the Head of the Public Relations Unit of WAEC, John Kapi, said three teachers Patience Serwaah, Oscar Ben Azumah and Thomas Gyimadu were picked up for trying to assist candidates at the Save our Souls exam centre at Bekwai in the Ashanti Region. Two others, Christian Osei and Kyei Baffour Alex, who were unrelated to the examination but came around the same centre, were also arrested for attempting to assist the candidates. Mr Kapi said at the Jinijini Senior High School examination centre in the Bono Region, two invigilators, Kingsley Boateng and Atibu James, were apprehended for taking snapshots of the English Language question papers and posting them on a WhatsApp platform named Koraso Ma JHS, while at the Nkoranza Senior High School centre in the Bono East Region, an invigilator, Abeam Danso, was arrested with a mobile phone on which answers to the Religious and Moral Education questions were found. Mr Kapi further added that at the Chemu Senior High School centre in Tema in the Greater Accra Region, a teacher, Amoako Joseph, was arrested for taking pictures of the question papers and posting them on a platform named Apor Lord for BECE 2024, while an invigilator at the Liberty Hills School centre in the Greater Accra Region, Patrick Faaweerie, was arrested for taking pictures of the Science paper. At the Jachie Pramso examination centre in the Ashanti Region, an invigilator, Ebenezer Danso, had a phone on him in the examination hall, while a second invigilator, Emmanuel Mensah, had pieces of paper containing answers to the questions of the English Language paper. Four teachers from DESVY International School were arrested at the Santoe Basic School examination centre in the Greater Accra Region. They were Thomas Ativor, 37, a Twi Language teacher; Emmanuel Ammisah, 47, a Mathematics teacher; Edwin Goodluck, 39, a Science teacher, and Richard Boateng, 32, a Computing teacher. Mr Kapi said the four were found on their school bus solving the Science questions for onward transmission to their students in the examination hall. Briefing sessions He explained further that before the commencement of the examination, briefing sessions were held with district directors and supervisors mainly to keep them abreast of the new rules governing the examinations. Among other things, the supervisors were prohibited from bringing along mobile phones to the examination centres. A stern warning was issued against this practice. However, some chose not to heed this advice, and so have been arrested, Mr Kapi told the Daily Graphic. Advice to candidates The WAEC official said the council wished to advise all candidates to desist from soliciting assistance from invigilators, supervisors or any other external persons around the examination centres. Any such attempt is a breach of the rules of the examination. The questions are certainly within the reach of the candidates, and we believe that given the tuition they have all received, they should be able to answer and pass without seeking any form of assistance from any quarters. We do not want to be pushed into the unpleasant situation of cancelling any subject or the entire results of any candidate. We wish the candidates well in the rest of the papers, Mr Kapi said. Source: UTV/graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Former President and flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, says he will support any Bill that seeks to improve the free senior high school (SHS) policy, stressing that the free SHS policy has come to stay. It is a political gimmick that is being played around. Free SHS has come to stay. Nobody can roll it back," Mr Mahama said last Sunday during his encounter with the media in Accra. "What we are saying is let's improve the implementation, remove the bottlenecks, abolish the double track system, and decentralise the school feeding programme," he added. The former Presidents comments were in response to a question about his disposition to the free SHS policy in the wake of publicly espoused fears by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) that the NDC could cancel the policy should it return to power. Policy launched in 2015 But Mr Mahama said he launched the policy in 2015 under a progressive arrangement, and questioned how he could abandon or be against a programme he had initiated. Upon the launch of the policy in 2015, he said, the then flag bearer of the NPP and now President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who first proposed the policy at a public debate in 2012, lauded then President Mahama for giving life to his proposal. Mr Mahama said the NDC government started the policy with Day students, and after the second year, we absorbed 170,000 into the free SHS. UNESCO congratulated us for launching the free SHS, he added. The event was graced by the stalwarts of the party, including his running mate, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang; Chairman of the National Campaign Team, Prof. Joshua Alabi; the NDC General Secretary, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey; former Trade and Industry Minister, Dr Ekow Spio-Gabrah, and the Director of Election and IT of the party, Dr Edward Omane Boamah. Free SHS bill Mr Mahama said the policy must be implemented under a freer environment where stakeholders, including teachers and administrators, would have the freedom to discuss the challenges with the system without having to look over their shoulders because of possible victimisation. He said stakeholders and teachers who dared to raise issues about challenges confronting the implementation of the programme are either sacked or they are transferred to Siberia. And so we must change that. We must free them to be able to come out and talk about it, and discuss free SHS and how we can improve it. My commitment is to improve it, he stated. Commenting on the free SHS Bill intended to be brought to Parliament, he said he had not seen the Bill so he could not make informed comments on it. He, however, explained that he was in support of any Bill that would improve the education at pre-tertiary level, stressing that he would support any Bill that would improve the quality and sustainability of the countrys education system. Stakeholders Former President Mahama emphasised the importance of stakeholder consultation on the proposed education Bill, which aims to merge junior high school and senior high school. "I support any Bill that improves our education, makes it sustainable, and affords quality education for our children," Mahama said. "However, I haven't seen the Bill, and I don't think it has undergone stakeholder consultation yet," he added. Mr Mahama stressed the need for input from parents, teachers and all stakeholders in the education sector, saying, "If you're making fundamental changes to the educational system, everyone with a stake in education must be involved". He urged the relevant parliamentary committee to thoroughly engage in stakeholder consultation to ensure that all voices were heard before any decisions were made on it. Source: graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video As a pacesetter in Ghanas food manufacturing space, Promasidor Ghana (PGH) has received the latest version of Food Safety System Certification (FSSC) 22000 in line with its goal of enhancing food safety practices and Sustainable Development Goals. PGH is Ghanas first FMCG to attain FSSC V6 in Ghana. FSSC 22000 is a globally recognized certification scheme for food safety management systems, developed by the Foundation for Food Safety Certification to deliver impact on global food safety. Certified by SGS Ghana and accredited by United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), PGH becomes one of the very few food and beverage companies in the world to have achieved this important landmark. Commenting on the Ghana-first FMCG to receive FSSC version 6 recognition, the Managing Director (MD) of PGH, Festus Tettey said the certification is a testament of PGHs devotion to improved food processes and controls. As a formidable business in its 25th year of operation, the certification reinforces our efforts at continuously improving our product quality, validates our excellent operating standards, adoption of world-class standards and our reputation for integrity, professionalism, excellence and accountability. The PGH MD added We are proud to be the first Ghanaian business to be certified to FSSC V6 by SGS in Ghana and we pledge to improve continuously. Explaining why PGH opted for FSSC V6, Bernadette Klu, Head of Quality, Safety, Health & Environment (QSHE) at PGH said FSSC v6 offers a globally affirmed, comprehensive approach to food safety. She highlighted that food safety is fundamental to Promasidor Ghanas commitment to providing our local and global consumers with Quality Food Products in line with our values of Customer focus, Respect for all and the environment, Excellence in execution, Support for each other and Trust. Ms Klu said this feat lends credence to the authenticity of PGHs consumer-centric drive to assure the delivery of unparalleled Quality and Food Safety throughout the manufacturing and supply chain; a clear marker of leadership within the food and beverage space of the FMCG fraternity. Kwasi Okai-Mensah, SGS Ghanas Business Assurance Manager commended PGH for successfully reaching the end of a long journey for getting certified for the enviable FSSC 22000 V6. As the first FMCG in Ghana to be certified to FSCC 22000 V6, this historic achievement would not have been possible without your stern resolve to be customer focused and consistently supply your customers with nothing but safe and quality products. Promasidor Ghana Limited (PGH) is a leading food manufacturing company providing quality food products to consumers. PGH launched its first brand, Cowbell and has pioneered flavored milk drinks including Cowbell Strawberry, Cowbell Mocha, Cowbell Chocomalt, Cowbell Coconut, Cowbell Banana and Cowbell Coffee. The business introduced Onga powder variant of food seasoning in 2003, followed by Onga Shrimp tablet in 2011. Other product lines introduced by the business are the Miksi dairy product and Yumvita infant cereals in the year 2005 and 2010 respectively. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Tema Traditional Council has commended the Ghana Police Service for the peace the Tema traditional area is enjoying. According to the traditional leaders, the new regional commander deployed to the area by the Inspector-General of Police Dr. George Akuffo Dampare has been effective in dealing with security matters in the Tema area. Speaking at a ceremony at Tema when the IGP paid a courtesy call to the traditional council on Wednesday, July 10, 2024, the Tema Mankralo Nii Adjetey Agbo said the people are grateful for the leadership of the IGP. Your humility and respect for both the old and young in society is commendable. We appreciate your leadership. The Commander you brought here has been very good and efficient in dealing with crimes in our communities. Because of you, Tema is safe and we are grateful for your leadership, the Mankralo said. On his part, the IGP thanked the traditional leaders for their support and collaboration with the Police in the fight against crime in the country. He noted the Police are servants of the people and must work to the satisfaction of the people. 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 Two Texans were crushed to death when trees fell onto their homes following the wrath of Hurricane Beryl and its climbing death toll. Harris County, Texas, police said the victims were one male, aged 53, and one female, aged 74, both in separate incidents. At least six people have died in Texas and one in Louisiana from Hurricane Beryl, as a massive clean-up and restoration project is due to reconnect 2.3 million energy customers who lost power during the storm's devastating procession through the region. Montgomery County Emergency Management has confirmed the deaths of three people: a male in his 40s who was hit by a tree while operating a tractor, and two people whose bodies were found in a tent in a wooded area in Magnolia, according to NBC News. The Houston Police Department confirmed Monday that information security officer Russell Richardson, 54, "was caught in rising flood waters and tragically lost his life." The 2024 edition of the World Public Relations Day (WPRD) Festival Summit comes off July 16 at the Ghana Shippers Authority in Accra, announced by Global Media Alliance, lead organizer of World PR Day in Ghana. The event sets to climax the World PR Day 2024 Festival, following a series of activities from April to July. This years festival put the spotlight on AI and Sustainability, two areas shaping the practice of public relations in todays world. In line with this years WPRD theme, The Future of PR in a Changing World, the Summit aims to discuss how PR practitioners can navigate the evolving landscape and continue to drive meaningful engagement and positive change through digital innovations, diversity, and a human-centric approach. The Summit promises to be an insightful and transformative experience for professionals in the public relations industry. The event will bring together leading PR experts, thought leaders, practitioners and PR students to share their knowledge, experiences, and innovative strategies that are shaping the future of public relations. The event will assemble distinguished speakers and industry experts giving keynote speeches and sharing nuggets through a specially curated panel session. Ahead of the Summit, Emma Wenani, Chief Director of Global Media Alliance, expressed excitement about hosting the World PR Day Festival for the fourth consecutive year to impact the PR industry. We are thrilled as we get ready to host this years WPRD Festival; an event that will highlight the transformative power of public relations in today's dynamic landscape. After successfully creating impactful narratives with our two masterclasses in PR, AI, and Sustainability, we are poised to provide a bigger platform for sharing insights on how to shape the future of PR in the ever-changing world, said Emma Wenani. We look forward to engaging with thought leaders and practitioners from around the globe to explore the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead, added Emma Wenani. The 2024 WPRD Summit is sponsored by Telecel Ghana, Samsung Ghana, Ghana Shippers Authority, Twellium Industries, and Kasapreko. It is supported by eProductions, Perception Management International (PMI), YFM, Happy FM, and Comms of Africa. The World Public Relations Day Festival is a series of events organized by the Global Media Alliance to bring PR professionals together to have a unified global agenda towards making the world understand and utilize PR better. 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 A mechanic has been k!lled after he was sucked into a Boeing passenger jet's engine at Chabahar Konarak airport in southern Iran. Local mechanic, Abolfazl Amiri was doing routine maintenance work on Iranian domestic airline Varesh Airline's Boeing 737-500 when he was sucked into the engine. According to Bild, the engine on the right-hand side had been started for a test run with the cover flaps open. A safety area had been set up around the engine as is usually required. Unfortunately, when Amiri realised he had forgotten a tool on the engine, he went back and was sucked in and k!lled before the engine caught fire. Amiri's remains were recovered after the airport fire brigade arrived at the scene. Iran's aviation authority has ordered an investigation into the accident. Back in May, a man was k!lled after being sucked into a KLM passenger plane engine at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport. Passengers and crew members on board the Embraer 190 aircraft told a local outlet that a 'hellish noise' came from the engine, which quickly began trailing smoke. The Dutch Royal Military Police investigating the incident later said that the man 'intentionally climbed into the engine, indicating this is a case of su!c!de'. They additionally said that he had been 'identified as an employee of a company operating at the airport'. 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 Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has called for enhanced trade among African countries for accelerated development. It is our responsibility as leaders in government, industry, finance, small-scale enterprises (SMEs), startups, regulation and civil society to harness our collective resources and capabilities towards an efficient market in trade and services, job creation and prosperity for all Africans, she said. The minister made the call at the opening of the sixth Swakopmund International Trade Expo (SWAiTEX) in Namibia. The theme for the expo is: "Efficient connectivity and resource beneficiation for sustainable growth in Africa. In attendance were business leaders in Namibia and two southern African Presidents and members of their Cabinets. The event in Swakopmund, 360 kilometres west of the capital, Windhoek, was attended by Presidents Nangolo Mbumba of Namibia and Mogkweetsi Masisi of Botswana, whose delegation included his Vice-President, Slumber Tsogwane. AfCFTA "The African Continental Free Trade Area is the beacon of hope for Africa's economic resurgence, the minister, who quoted the South African AfCFTA Secretary-General, Wamkele Mene, said, adding we agree wholeheartedly. Resplendent in an African-print attire and a hand-woven kente shawl over her shoulders, Ms Botchwey, a former Deputy Trade Minister, further urged the people to make African products our preferred products, while building partnerships regionally and across the continent to service the common market. As a free trade area, connecting 1.3 billion people across 55 countries, with a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $3.4 trillion, she said AfCFTA, which is headquartered in Ghana, promises immense new markets, accelerated industrialisation and fresh investment opportunities. Ms Botchwey acknowledged that African economies were currently facing challenging headwinds, including cascading impacts on debt, energy, food security, cost of living, unemployment and climate crisis. She, however, said that the transformative potential of the AfCFTA show that we can overcome our challenges and build resilient economies. She commended Namibia for joining an AfCFTA-Guided Trade Initiative with Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Cameroun. Initiative The Guided Trade Initiative was established in 2022 as an interim measure to begin trade among interested parties after meeting the minimum threshold for trading under the AfCFTA. It is designed to test the agreements capacity to function as envisaged, and identify and fix imperfections. A Memorandum of Understanding was also signed in April 2023 between the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre and the Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board to facilitate investment and trade flows between the two countries under the umbrella of AfCFTA. Ms Botchwey, a candidate for Commonwealth Secretary-General, has made trade and investment a major plank of her vision. Namibia, Botswana and Ghana are among Africas 21 Commonwealth countries. There are 56 of them altogether. She said developing countries with an overlapping membership in multilateral institutions must work together consciously and strategically to change their marginalised status in global trade and governance. Source: graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The purpose of the bill is described as to effectively redress social, cultural, economic and gender imbalance in the country, based on historical discrimination against women emanating from persistent patriarchal socio-cultural systems and norms in spite of de jure equality of men and women. To do this, the bill places several requirements on public and private actors. Below are examples to illustrate the nature of the requirements. Equality policies All arms of government, public sector bodies and institutions, independent constitutional bodies, political parties, and private sector employers including media houses are expected to develop and submit gender equality policies and plans to the Gender Equality Committee within 12 months of the coming into force of the law. The plans shall include targets for achieving gender equality according to a prescribed schedule by the bill as follows a) 30 per cent by the year 2026; b) 35 per cent by the year 2028; and c) 50 per cent by the year 2030. The bill also requires the submission of annual gender equality reports indicating the extent of compliance with the law to the Gender Equality Committee. Directory The Public Services Commission is expected to maintain and update yearly a directory of qualified women from which appointment into the service will be made. In addition, if there are bodies for which there is a specific number of members required for appointment purposes, the commission is expected to reserve a specific number of seats for women. The education sector is expected to a) review the curricula from basic schools to tertiary institutions and include courses on gender; b) monitor the progress of the girl child all the way from secondary school through tertiary; and c) lower cut-off points for female applicants to the university and reservation of slots for those from deprived districts. The National Media Commission for example is expected to ensure that a) media programmes are gender sensitive; b) women are portrayed positively and gender stereotype is eliminated; and c) the reporting and analysis on the rights of women and gender equality issues are scaled up. For private sector employers, gender equality policies and plans are expected to be a) made in consultation with their employees; b) part of their strategic plan; and c) submitted to the Gender Equality Committee for review. Technology infrastructure Undoubtedly, the dictates of the bill create new demands on all actors. To comply, actors will need a) a state-of-the-art technology infrastructure with appropriate software tools; b) human resources in terms of a compliance team with the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities and who are positioned to shoulder the burden for the organisation; c) financial resources to build and maintain the compliance assurance system; and d) a new organisational culture where there is real commitment to gender equality. The bill does well to incentivise compliance. As discussed in Part II, private sector employers who meet the quota targets will potentially receive tax incentives from the Ministry of Finance. In addition, receiving a Gender Equality Compliance Certificate allows a private sector employer to be given preferential treatment in the award of government contracts. Hopefully, these incentives are strong enough to motivate private sector employers to commit to achieving gender equality. There is not an equivalent set of incentives for actors in the public sector though and this is something that must be corrected before the bill becomes law. Prospects for Passage There is no way to predict the fate of this latest attempt to legislate gender equality. The proposed legislation is yet to gain traction in public spaces including media platforms. Given the current public energy and enthusiasm observed, it may be tempting to downplay the importance and urgency of the legislation and conclude that there is a lack of interest among Ghanaians. However, that is not the case. At least there is interest among Ghanaians to see government action on this issue. In Afrobarometer Round 9 (2022), fifty per cent (50%) said government and elected officials should be doing more than they are doing now to advance the rights and equality of women, with another seventeen per cent (17%) saying somewhat more. In the same survey, Ghanaians identified the following as the top three womens rights and equality issues government and the larger society must address a) too few women in influential positions in government; b) unequal opportunities or pay in the workplace; and c) gender-based violence. Lastly, the percentage of Ghanaians rating government performance well when it comes to promoting opportunities and equality for women has declined significantly from sixty-eight per cent (68%) as per Afrobarometer Round 7, 2019 to forty-four per cent (44%) as per Afrobarometer Round 9, 2022. The current legislation therefore presents our policy makers an opportunity to respond positively to Ghanaians by working in a bipartisan way to finally legislate an affirmative action and gender equality bill. Source: graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Ghana's Most Respected Female Clergy and the President of the Abena Tay Ministries, H.E AMB. Rev. Dr. Abena Tay, has been crowned Ghana's Most Outstanding Female in Philanthropy at the just-ended 10th Feminine Ghana Achievement Awards 2024 held at the luxurious Accra Marriot Hotel on 5th July. The priceless award is a testament to her stunning leadership qualities and exceptional commitment to providing charity to the needy and also for being an extremely respected personality advocating for best practices in the sector. The Feminine Ghana Achievement Awards organised by The Business Executive Margazine Limited seeks to publicly recognize women in Ghana who have achieved outstanding accomplishments in various forms of endeavor across both the public and private sectors, such as entrepreneurs, professionals, corporate executives, public institutional managers, diplomats, sportswomen, traditional rulers, and others. The accolade automatically ushers her as a " SHE ACHIEVER " which is the topmost connective female network platform in Ghana. The initiative is an executive association which embodies top female CEOs and past Feminine Ghana Achievement Awards winners and creates a platform on which members can more easily reach out for assistance in a required field without incurring costs. It also stands for Women's Empowerment and gets the voices of women heard on important social matters. Speaking to the media after receiving the important honor, Ambassador Rev. Dr. Abena Tay expressed her deep gratitude to God for using her as a vessel to help many needy people in society. According to her, this reflects her commitment to delivering the highest standards of winning souls for Christ through charity and also setting a benchmarks for others to follow. "I thank the Almighty God for his guidance and protection over the years and the privilege to be honoured at this highest magnitude. This will go a long way to help motivate my team and I to do more. I am grateful to all the partners who have supported me in all our endeavour", she said. Rev.Dr. Abena Tay took the opportunity to call for Peace during this coming 7th December, election. Abena Tay Ministries is positioning itself as a leader in the industry with credibility and reputation in the market. *PROFILE ABOUT H.E AMB. REV. DR. ABENA TAY, CDSE ( PRESIDENT, ABENA TAY MINISTRIES) H.E Amb. Rev. Dr. Abena Tay, CDSE is the President of the Abena Tay Ministries. She is a product of St. Roses Secondary School, Woolwich College in the UK, University of Ghana, Legon, and International Theological Seminary. She is a UN Ambassador for Peace, with also an ambassador for Peace Award from the Universal Peace Federation. H.E Amb. Rev. Dr. Abena Tay, CDSE is a woman who exudes grace, compassion, and true beauty. Aside her roles as the Head Pastor and founder of Abena Tay Ministries, L.R. Dr. Abena Tay is also an entrepreneur, a teacher, a philanthropist,and wears many other hats. H.E Amb. Rev. Dr. Abena Tay, CDSE is the founder and president of Abena Tay Ministries, a group of faith-based initiatives aimed at bringing developmental change through leadership training, empowerment, social reformation, and excellence to the lives of various classes and categories of men, women, the youth and children through the service of Christ and mentorship. The Abena Tay Foundation (ATF), formerly known as the CIN Foundation, is a non-profit organization established in 2019 by H.E. Ambassador Rev. Dr. Abena Tay, CDSE. The foundation was created to provide hope and support to those in need. Driven by a profound sense of philanthropy, Dr. Tay is dedicated to instilling hope, offering assistance, and bringing about positive change in the lives of widows, orphans, single mothers, women, and street children. ATF actively promotes a community of hope, where individuals uplift and empower one another. It is important to highlight that Ambassador Tay's philanthropic endeavours have roots that date back to 1994. Throughout her journey, she has consistently demonstrated a commitment to making a difference in the lives of the less fortunate. At ATF, the core focus is on empowering individuals and fostering a sense of upliftment within the community. The foundation believes in the inherent strength and potential of every individual and aims to provide them with the necessary support and resources to overcome challenges and thrive. By offering hope and assistance, ATF seeks to create a positive and transformative impact in the lives of those it serves. Through various initiatives and programs, ATF endeavours to address the specific needs of widows, orphans, single mothers, women, and street children. The foundation works tirelessly to uplift these individuals, providing them with opportunities for education, skills development, economic empowerment, and community integration. Additionally, ATF recognizes the importance of mental health and offers support to women affected by bipolar disorder, promoting their overall well-being. Under the leadership of Ambassador Tay, ATF has become a beacon of hope for those facing adversity. The foundation's vision is to create a society where every individual is empowered to thrive and contribute meaningfully. By fostering a community of hope and compassion, ATF continues to make a positive and lasting impact in the lives of the needy. H.E Amb. Rev. Dr. Abena Tay is a highly sought-after speaker and frequently ministers on platforms of leading ministries in Ghana and overseas. Her dynamic and insightful teachings, preaching and Apostolic ministry has taken her to many countries in Africa, Europe, and the United States of America. H.E Amb. Rev. Dr. Abena Tay, CDSE flows in the apostolic office with her ministry characterized by the fivefold ministry gifts and evidenced by signs and wonders. She was a speaker at the World Peace Summit, South Africa 2020 which hosted some high-profile dignitaries including The Queen of Sheba, Deputy President of World Peace Committee. Also, as a cultural ambassador with AIDO she brought into her home country Ghana cultural leaders from all over the world to the 3rd Annual AIDO convention which was held at one of Ghanas prestigious hotels. Her works have been recognized internationally and locally and have earned her the following awards; ELITE WOMAN IN MINISTRY, 2015 LA EXPOSE, EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLES AWARD (TEXAS) WOMAN OF EXCELLENCE, 2016 LA EXPOSE, EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLES AWARD (FLORIDA) DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY ALPHA INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY HONORARY DOCTORATE AWARD (DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY), 2016 KING OF KINGS WORLD FOUNDATION AFRICAN HUMANITARIAN AWARD FOR LEADERSHIP AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT, 2017 ECCLESIASTICAL BISHOPS AND LEADERS CONFERENCE OF AFRICA HUMANITARIAN AWARD, 2018 SHEPHERD TO SHEPHERD NETWORK OF CLERGY FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE AWARD, 2018 LA EXPOSE, EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLES AWARD (ATLANTA GEORGIA) THE AIDOER HONOUR OF EXCELLENCE AWARD, 2019 AKETER INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION (DUSSELDORF, GERMANY) UNCOMMON CAPACITY BUILDING AND HUMANITARIAN SERVICE AWARD, 2022 AFRICAN WOMEN OF UNCOMMON LEGACY AWARD AND CONFERENCE PAPA LEADERSHIP AWARD, 2023 PREDECESSORS AWARDS WORLDWIDE, PRESTIGIOUS ANNUAL PREDECESSORS AWARDS INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SERVICE & LEADERSHIP AWARD, PRESIDENTS AWARD, 2024 LA EXPOSE, EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLES AWARD (COLORADO SPRINGS) H.E Amb. Rev. Dr. Abena Tay, CDSE obtained her first degree in Nursery Nursing and Child Psychology from Woolwich University in the United Kingdom. She also holds a diploma in Counselling and Youth studies from the University of Ghana, Legon. She obtained her Doctorate in Biblical Studies from Alfa International Theological Seminary. She is the Vice President of the Shepherd to Shepherd Network of Clergy for Ghana and Director for the Greater Accra Region. She is a certified international chaplain with the Community of The Way International Task Force, CANADA. As Commander of the Most Distinguished Order Special Envoy specialized in the field of Christian Leadership, she has obtained ambassadorial status by the Word of Life Ministries International, an organisation accredited by The United Nations Economic and Social Council. H.E Amb. Rev. Dr. Abena Tay, CDSE also an educationist, has been the proprietress of Sensels School, a Preschool and Junior secondary school running successfully for over 26 years. She has to her credit amongst many others, a vibrant and highly patronized clothing line, Heavenli by Abe Tay which is also a Christian shop aimed at providing high-quality clergy apparel, church supplies, and Christian literature She is the author of the Chavvah Magazine, a highly sought-after magazine for women in leading. She is married and blessed with five biological sons. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Minority caucus in Parliament has formally notified the Ghana Police Service of their intention to stage a demonstration demanding the resignation of Dr. Ernest Addison, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), and his two deputies. Mahama Ayariga, Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, addressed this notification in a letter to the Greater Accra Regional Police command. In his letter, Mr Ayariga underscored the caucus's firm stance on not only calling for the resignation of the Governor and his deputies but also advocating for the departure of all current members of the BoG's board. Scheduled for Tuesday, July 30, 2024, the protest is set to begin promptly at 8 am and conclude by 6 pm in Accra, specifically within the Greater Accra Region. The chosen venue for this demonstration is starting at Obra Spot, located at Kwame Nkrumah Circle. From there, demonstrators will march through Adabraka towards Kingsway, culminating their procession at the frontage of the Bank of Ghana headquarters. A primary concern voiced by the Minority caucus centres around the ongoing construction of the BoG's new head office in North Ridge. This development has sparked significant apprehension within the caucus, prompting them to take proactive measures in expressing their dissent through a peaceful assembly and protest. 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 James Kwabena Bomfeh Jnr., has censured his friend and senior, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the running mate for the New Patriotic Party over his comments about the achievements of President Akufo Addo surpassing that of Ghana's first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Dr. Bomfeh, popularly called Kabila, posited that NAPO "goofed" reloative to that particular comment during his unveiling at the Jubilee Park, in the Ashanti region. To him, it was denigrating and sent a "wrong signal to the persona and the great achievements of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Contributing to a panel discussion on PeaceFM's "Kokrokoo" Morning Show, the former Convention People's Party (CPP) General Secretary believed while President Akufo Addo has made significant contributions to the growth of the economy in terms of infrastructure by making great significant strides in the education and health sector, as well as impactful social interventions, the platform the NPP Running Mate used to tout the credentials of the current president was inappropriate. He should not have made that statement, simply because he wouldnt have had time to explain to the audience what he meant by the statement he made that Akufo Addos achievements surpasses that of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. I believe that what added salt to injury was his comment of your Kwame Nkrumah which sends a wrong signal to the persona and the great achievements of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. I want him to know and understand that, we dont undermine Kwame Nkrumah. Admittedly, Kwame Nkrumah wasnt a perfect human being, but he was able to lead Ghana to gain our Freedom, thereby making Ghana the first Country in sub-Sahara Africa to gain independence from colonial rulers. Beyond his great works, he has also penned down lots of articles and books more than any other President in the history of Ghana, intellectually contributing to the development of the minds of Ghanaians and the world at large, especially among the black race and the suffering people around the world. Senior NAPO, I am saying this to your understanding that, if you listen to the advice given to you by Otumfour Osei Tutu II, it will help all of us. From now till the elections is held, you must be guided by Nana Kwabena Nketiahs words let us avoid making mistakes and repeating mistakes must be your clarion attention, Dr Bomfeh Jnr stated. Kabila's admonishing comes on the heels of a controversial statement made by Dr. Opoku Prempeh in Kumasi during his unveiling on July 9, 2024. During his speech, NAPO boldly stated; Since independence from 1957 till today, weve not had any president that has helped Ghana like Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. I say from 1957 till today, you can bring your Kwame Nkrumah... no president has protected Ghana and moved the country forward like Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. This statement sparked widespread reactions, with several members of the public expressing outrage and disbelief since they consider it as an insult to the memory of the graet statesman. 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 National Democratic Congress Presidential candidate, John Dramani Mahama has called on Ghanaians to embrace the change that the party seeks to bring to all Ghanaians come December 7, 2024. The former President urged Ghanaians to cast their votes for him and his running mate, Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, adding that, Ghanaians must reject what he describes as corrupt, greedy and arrogant NPP government. According to the former President, Ghana, under the leadership of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government, has lost her integrity in the eyes of the international communities, hence, a vote for the NDC will restore the lost integrity. He believes that the current administration has diminished the stature of the office and is seeking a mandate to revitalise it. Former President John Mahama was hopeful that Ghanaians will give them the mandate come December 7 in order to alleviate their economic pains. The former President made this statement during a press release dated 10th July, 2024, where he said, With your votes, Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang and I will restore dignity, humility, vision, and experience to the presidency. The TIME for CHANGE is coming and like many Ghanaians, I am certain that on 7th December, you will vote for change to end the suffering of this nation. Mr. Mahama highlighted his motivation for seeking the mandate of the electorate in the December polls, emphasising his commitment to creating decent jobs, reviving the struggling economy, and implementing policies that will improve the livelihoods of Ghanaians Mr. Mahama added, On 7th December, I will need your vote to RESET our beloved country, Ghana, fix the broken economy, create decent and well-paying jobs for the youth through the 24-hour economy initiative and establish a National Womens Bank to provide financial assistance to one million women businesses. Read below the statement by John Mahama 150 DAYS TO ELECTION 2024 THE TIME FOR CHANGE IS COMING. Today is one hundred and fifty (150) days to the December 7, 2024, presidential and parliamentary elections. The TIME for CHANGE is coming and like many Ghanaians, I am certain that on 7th December, you will vote for change to end the suffering of this nation. I urge you, my fellow Ghanaians, to vote for John Dramani Mahama and the NDC for CHANGE to signal the need for us, all, to build the Ghana we want together. Building Ghana together means voting MAHAMAyour experienced, visionary, truthful and humble servantas the next President of Ghana. Building Ghana together means rejecting the arrogance, corruption, and greed of this non-performing NPP administration that only seeks to extend the misrule and socio-economic hardships imposed on us by the Akufo-Addo Bawumia government. On 7th December, I will need your vote to RESET our beloved country, Ghana, fix the broken economy, create decent and well-paying jobs for the youth through the 24-hour economy initiative and establish a National Womens Bank to provide financial assistance to one million women businesses. I need your vote to investigate and punish the corrupt NPP officials who have stolen and continue to steal from the poor taxpayer, scrap the COVID and E-levies, abolish ex-gratia and reduce the size of government drastically to a maximum of sixty ministers. With your votes, Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang and I will restore dignity, humility, vision, and experience to the presidency. God bless you for deciding to vote for CHANGE on December 07. John Dramani Mahama Flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress 2024 Wednesday July 10, 2024. 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 Dr. Kwame Nkrumahs Convention Peoples Party have responded to the Presidential running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), calling for a retraction of the comments made about President Akufo-Addo achieving much more than Ghanas first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, during his unveiling at the Jubilee Park in Kumasi on July 9, said among other things, that no president of Ghana has developed the country more than President Akufo-Addo, not even Ghanas first head of state, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. In the presence of the rank and file of the NPP, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh who was welcomed to the podium by thunderous shouts from enthusiastic party supporters said, I can boldly say that if the history of Ghana is told from 1957, we have never had a President that has helped Ghana more than Nana Akufo-Addo. I mean from 1957, even including your Kwame Nkrumah, none of them has protected Ghana and developed the country more than Nana Akufo-Addo. According to the Minister for Energy and Member of Parliament for Manhyia South, President Akufo-Addo has developed Ghana to the admiration of all and sundry. In view of that, the NPP will not allow what happened in 2008 where they lost to the NDC to repeat itself, adding that it will be most appropriate for Nana Akufo-Addo to hand over to his able vice, Dr Bawumia. In the morning of Tuesday, July 9, 2024, Dr Opoku Prempeh was ushered beautifully to the Manhyia palace where he was introduced formally to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, who happens to be his uncle. Otumfuo cautioned NAPO against the assertion that he is arrogant, stating that, he should not make Dr. Bawumia regret for choosing him as his running mate. However, NAPOs statement of comparison came as a shock as many people described the statement as unfortunate. In light of that, the CPP has said, The Convention Peoples Party calls on the Honourable Minister, within 24 hours, to do the Honourable thing for the sake of the Countrys image, and immediately resign from all Governmental and political positions, and issue an immediate apology and retraction." Failing which the party calls on His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to withdraw the Hon. Minister from his position as Minister of Energy, and also calls on His Excellency Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to withdraw him as his Vice Presidential candidate, for the sake of the countrys image, and its long term political and economic fortunes. Ghanaians and Nkrumaists worldwide, will have no choice but to hit the streets to register their displeasure if the above, or similar measures, are not immediately enforced within 24 hours." As the popular saying goes, 'one who puts on his armour should not boast like one who takes it off', there is an election to be fought, albeit at the ballot box, and it would serve the sitting Government well to heed the voice of the people, lest their imminent electoral defeat becomes even worse than it is predicted to be. 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 James Kwabena Bomfeh has registered his displeasure with the statements by Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh during his unveiling ceremony as Running Mate of the New Patriotic Party in the Ashanti Region. Delivering a speech after being showcased to the people in Kumasi, the Energy Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, also called NAPOsaid; Since independence from 1957 till today, weve not had any president that has helped Ghana like Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. I say from 1957 till today, you can bring your Kwame Nkrumah... no president has protected Ghana and moved the country forward like Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. James Kwabena Bomfeh, former General Secretary of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), cautioned NAPO against denigrating Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghanas first President, and his reputation. Mr. Kwabena Bomfeh, popularly referred to as Kabilla, stressed no one should joke with Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and told that they respect his legacy. Kwame Nkrumah is not a person to joke about. Even though he is not without blemish, he led Ghana to gain our independence. Aside this and beyond his good works, hes written more than any President in the Republic of Ghana, intellectually contributing to the minds to the development of the mind of Ghanaians and the world at large, especially among black race and suffering people around the globe, he said. He also admonished the NPP Running Mate to avoid making mistakes as he and his flagbearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, hope to win the December general elections. Let us avoid making mistakes or repeating mistakes should be your clarion attention, he warned. He made these submissions on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show. 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 Jason Wells, who will take over as CenterPoint Energy CEO in January, 2024, poses for photos prior to a question and answer session with media Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023 at CenterPoint Energy Tower in Houston. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer In January, CenterPoint Energy announced Jason Wells' appointment as president and CEO. He comes to the utility company with years of experience including work at PG&E for 13 years in roles including executive vice president and CFO. Who is the CEO of CenterPoint Energy? Before becoming the president and chief executive officer of CenterPoint Energy, Jason Wells served as the president and chief operating officer. As part of his role, Wells managed CenterPoints operations, including electric, natural gas and power generation. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He joined the utility company back in 2020 as its executive vice president and chief financial officer. Did the former CEO of CenterPoint Energy get fired? Wells replaced Dave Lesar, who retired. It has been an honor and a privilege to lead CenterPoint Energy these past three-plus years and to work with our outstanding people to transform the company into the leader it is today, Lesar said in his retirement announcement. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I am incredibly proud of the significant achievements weve accomplished together and the work we have done to make the pursuit of progress possible on our path to a premium market valuation. We have reached this momentous milestone after a rigorous and purposeful succession journey and I am confident that Jason is the best leader to be at the helm of our company as it continues to move forward. Whats the CEO of CenterPoint Energys salary? CenterPoints most recent proxy statement shows Wells had a base salary of $969,039 in 2023, during which he was president and chief operating officer. He received other compensation in the form of stock, non-equity incentive plan compensation and what the company described as all other compensation of $3.9 million, just under $2 million and $220,210, respectively. His total compensation for 2023 was just above $7 million. Wells' base salary increased to $1.15 million with his elevation to CEO in January. Advertisement Article continues below this ad BERYL POWER OUTAGES: CenterPoint outages still affecting 1.3M customers Wednesday morning Lesar, who retired on Jan. 5, had a base salary of $1.5 million, with stock awards of $9.9 million, $4 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation and $742,421 in other compensation. His full compensation package totaled $16.2 million. According to the proxy statement, the company defined non-equity incentive plan compensation as short-term incentive awards with respect to performance in the designated year and paid in the following year. all other compensation refers to expenses such as security-related services such as using a personal driver, protective security personnel or a company or chartered jet. Who is the CFO of CenterPoint Energy? CenterPoint named Christopher Foster executive vice president and chief financial officer in 2023. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Foster oversees the companys financial structure, including internal audit and investor relations, accounting, financial planning and analysis, treasury and tax. The paramount Chief of the upper Dixcove traditional area, Obrempong Hima Dekyi XIV has praised NPP Running Mate, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, for leading the successful implementation of the partys flagship Free Senior High School (SHS) policy. According to Obrempong, the energy with which the policy was implemented makes him the best person to support Dr. Bawumias selfless leadership and bold solutions for the future agenda. He made these assertions when the Vice-Presidential Candidate called on him on Wednesday a day after he was unveiled in Kumasi. At first, we used to receive numerous requests from people seeking support for their wards but now because of this huge relief we are no more burdened. I believe you have what it takes to support Dr. Bawumia and so we are solidly behind you as Ahanta man, he said. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh expressed appreciation for the warm reception, asking for prayers for him and Dr. Bawumia as they travel across the country to make their case to Ghanaians. The NPP Vice presidential candidate was outdoored on Tuesday, 9th July, and has since zoomed into action campaigning vigorously for his flagbearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. 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 Omanhene of the Wasa Amenfi traditional area and President of the Western Regional House of Chiefs has assured NPP Vice presidential candidate, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, popularly known as NAPO, of the Chiefs prayer for him and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to see their dream become a reality. The Omanhene made these remarks when Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh paid a courtesy call on him at his palace in Wassa Amenfi. I am grateful that, right after your outdooring, you are here to pay homage. It is a testament of your reverence to me and traditional authority. Keep your focus as we also pray for you and Dr. Bawumia, the Omanhene stated. He continued; I am grateful that, right after you were outdoored, my palace is your first point of call. Those who say the things they say about you dont know you and so dont worry. It is said that, if you want to test the intelligence of people, intentionally lie against them. I urge you to keep your focus as we continue to pray for the dream of yours and that of Bawumia to come to pass soon." On his part, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh expressed gratitude to the Otetrete, asking for more of his prayers for him and his flagbearer as they tour the country canvassing the electorates for their votes. For me, I have always held that there should be a perfect relationship between the political class and traditional authority. I am committed to this more because that is the vision of Dr. Bawumia, he said. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh was unveiled as the 2024 NPP Vice Presidential Candidate on Tuesday, 9th July, in Kumasi and has since hit the ground running, touching base with Ghanaians in a strong campaign to support Dr. Bawumia. 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 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: Located in the foothills of Mount Elgon near the Kenya-Uganda border, Kakapel Rockshelter is the site where WashU archaeologist Natalie Mueller and her collaborators have uncovered the earliest evidence for plant farming in east Africa. Credit: Steven Goldstein A trove of ancient plant remains excavated in Kenya helps explain the history of plant farming in equatorial eastern Africa, a region long thought to be important for early farming but where scant evidence from actual physical crops has been previously uncovered. In a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, archaeologists from Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Pittsburgh and their colleagues report the largest and most extensively dated archaeobotanical record from interior east Africa. Up until now, scientists have had virtually no success in gathering ancient plant remains from east Africa and, as a result, have had little idea where and how early plant farming got its start in the large and diverse area comprising Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. "There are many narratives about how agriculture began in east Africa, but there's not a lot of direct evidence of the plants themselves," said WashU's Natalie Mueller, an assistant professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences and co-first author of the new study. The work was conducted at the Kakapel Rockshelter in the Lake Victoria region of Kenya. "We found a huge assemblage of plants, including a lot of crop remains," Mueller said. "The past shows a rich history of diverse and flexible farming systems in the region, in opposition to modern stereotypes about Africa." The new research reveals a pattern of gradual introductions of different crops that originated from different parts of Africa. In particular, the remnants of cowpea discovered at Kakapel rock shelter and directly dated to 2,300 years ago constitute the earliest documented arrival of a domesticated cropand presumably of farming lifewaysto eastern Africa. Cowpea is assumed to have originated in west Africa and to have arrived in the Lake Victoria basin concurrent with the spread of Bantu-speaking peoples migrating from central Africa, the study authors said. "Our findings at Kakapel reveal the earliest evidence of domesticated crops in east Africa, reflecting the dynamic interactions between local herders and incoming Bantu-speaking farmers," said Emmanuel Ndiema from the National Museums of Kenya, a project partner. "This study exemplifies National Museums of Kenya's commitment to uncovering the deep historical roots of Kenya's agricultural heritage and fostering an appreciation of how past human adaptations can inform future food security and environmental sustainability." Constantly changing landscape Situated north of Lake Victoria, in the foothills of Mount Elgon near the Kenya-Uganda border, Kakapel is a recognized rock art site that contains archaeological artifacts that reflect more than 9,000 years of human occupation in the region. The site has been recognized as a Kenyan national monument since 2004. One unusual crop that Mueller uncovered was field pea, burnt but perfectly intact. Peas were not previously considered to be part of early agriculture in this region. Credit: Proc. Royal Soc. B "Kakapel Rockshelter is one of the only sites in the region where we can see such a long sequence of occupation by so many diverse communities," said Steven T. Goldstein, an anthropological archaeologist at the University of Pittsburgh (WashU Ph.D.), the other first author of this study. "Using our innovative approaches to excavation, we have been uniquely able to detect the arrival of domesticated plants and animals into Kenya and study the impacts of these introductions on local environments, human technology and sociocultural systems." Mueller first joined Goldstein and National Museums of Kenya to conduct excavations at the Kakapel Rockshelter site in 2018. Their work is ongoing. Mueller is the lead scientist for plant investigations at Kakapel; the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (in Jena, Germany) is another partner on the project. Mueller used a flotation technique to separate remnants of wild and domesticated plant species from ashes and other debris in a hearth excavated at Kakapel. Although she has used this technique in her research in many other parts of the world, it is sometimes difficult to use this approach in water-scarce locationsso it has not been widely used in east Africa. The scientists used direct radiocarbon dating on carbonized seeds to document the arrival of cowpea (also known as the black-eyed pea, today an important legume around the world) about 2,300 years ago, at about the same time that people in this area began to use domesticated cattle. Researchers also found evidence that sorghum arrived from the northeast at least 1,000 years ago. They also recovered hundreds of finger millet seeds, dating back to at least 1,000 years ago. This crop is indigenous to eastern Africa and is an important heritage crop for the communities that live near Kakapel today. One unusual crop that Mueller uncovered was field pea (Pisum), burnt but perfectly intact. Peas were not previously considered to be part of early agriculture in this region. "To our knowledge, this is the only evidence of peas in Iron Age eastern Africa," Mueller said. The exceptional pea is pictured in the paper, and it represents its own little mystery. "The standard peas that we eat in North America were domesticated in the near east," Mueller said. "They were grown in Egypt and probably ended up in east Africa by traveling down the Nile through Sudan, which is also likely how sorghum ended up in east Africa. But there is another kind of pea that was domesticated independently in Ethiopia called the Abyssinian pea, and our sample could be either one!" Many of the plant remnants that Mueller and her team found at Kakapel could not be positively identified, Mueller said, because even modern scientists working in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda today don't have access to a good reference collection of samples of plants from east Africa. (As a separate project, Mueller is currently working on building such a comparative collection of Tanzania's plants.) "Our work shows that African farming was constantly changing as people migrated, adopted new crops and abandoned others at a local level," Mueller said. "Prior to European colonialism, community-scale flexibility and decision-making was critical for food securityand it still is in many places." Findings from this study may have implications for many other fields, Mueller said, including historical linguistics, plant science and genetics, African history and domestication studies. Mueller is continuing to work on identifying the wild plants in the assemblage, especially those from the oldest parts of the site, before the beginning of agriculture. "This is where human evolution occurred," Mueller said. "This is where hunting and gathering was invented by people at the dawn of time. But there has been no archaeological evidence about which plants hunter-gatherers were eating from this region. If we can get that kind of information from this assemblage, then that is a great contribution." 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: In this image from video provided by NASA, astronauts Suni Williams, left, and Butch Wilmore give a news conference aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Credit: NASA via AP Two astronauts who should have been back on Earth weeks ago said Wednesday that they're confident that Boeing's space capsule can return them safely, despite a string of vexing breakdowns. NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing's new Starliner capsule early last month, the first people to ride it. Helium leaks and thruster failures almost derailed their arrival at the International Space Station, and have kept them there much longer than planned. Now the earliest they could return may be the end of July, officials said. In their first news conference from orbit, the pair said they expect to return once thruster testing is complete here on Earth. They said they're not complaining about getting extra time in orbit, and are enjoying helping the station crew. Both have previously spent stints at the orbiting lab, which is also home to seven others. "I have a real good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring us home, no problem," Williams told reporters. The test flight should have lasted eight days, ending on June 14. NASA's commercial crew program director Steve Stich said the earliest the Starliner astronauts might return is the end of July. The goal is to get them back before SpaceX delivers a fresh crew in mid-August, but that, too, could change, he noted. In this photo provided by NASA, the Boeing Starliner spacecraft with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard approaches the International Space Station on Thursday, June 6, 2024. Credit: NASA via AP This week, NASA and Boeing are trying to duplicate the Starliner's thruster problems on a brand new unit at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, one of the prime landing sites in the U.S. western desert. The trouble is in the propulsion system, used to maneuver the spacecraft. Five thrusters failed as the capsule approached the space station on June 6, a day after liftoff. Four have since been reactivated. Wilmore said there should be enough working thrusters to get him and Williams out of orbit. There are also bigger engines that could fill in, if necessary. "That mantra you've heard, failure is not an option, that's why we are staying here now," Wilmore said. "We trust that the tests that we're doing are the ones we need to do to get the right answers, to give us the data that we need to come back." Boeing and NASA consider the ground tests essential to determine what might have gone wrong since that part of the capsulethe service moduleis discarded before landing. The leaks also are located in this disposable section. So far, testing has not replicated the hot temperatures reached during the flight, according to Stich. Managers want to make sure the suspect thrusters are not damaged, before bringing Starliner back. They were fired more frequently than anticipated early in the flight, and the extra demand on them may have caused them to fail, Stich noted. In this photo provided by NASA, a U.S. flag is displayed from a window of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft docked to the International Space Station on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. Credit: NASA via AP At the same time, ground tests are being conducted to better understand the helium leaks, which could stem from bad seals. Officials have previously said there is ample helium left for the trip home. Hurricane Beryl slowed some of the work. Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to the control centers for both NASA and Boeing, was closed earlier this week to all but the most critical staff. Boeing's Mark Nappi stressed that in an emergency, Starliner and its crew could return right now. While the company does not believe the thrusters are damaged, "we want to fill in the blanks and run this test to assure ourselves of that." NASA ordered up the Starliner and SpaceX Dragon capsules a decade ago for astronaut flights to and from the space station, paying each company billions of dollars. SpaceX's first taxi flight with astronauts was in 2020. Boeing's first crew flight was repeatedly delayed because of software and other issues. There have been no discussions with SpaceX about sending up a rescue capsule, Stich said. 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. 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: Harrison Haines from Pexels Auroras have inspired myths and portents for millenniabut only now, with modern technology dependent on electricity, are we appreciating their true power. The same forces which cause auroras also cause currents that can damage infrastructure which conducts electricity, like pipelines. Now scientists writing in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences have demonstrated that the impact angle of interplanetary shocks is key to the currents' strength, offering an opportunity to forecast dangerous shocks and shield critical infrastructure. "Auroras and geomagnetically induced currents are caused by similar space weather drivers," explained Dr. Denny Oliveira of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, lead author of the article. "The aurora is a visual warning that indicates that electric currents in space can generate these geomagnetically-induced currents on the ground." "The auroral region can greatly expand during severe geomagnetic storms," he added. "Usually, its southernmost boundary is around latitudes of 70 degrees, but during extreme events it can go down to 40 degrees or even further, which certainly occurred during the May 2024 stormthe most severe storm in the past two decades." Lights, color, action Auroras are caused by two processes: either particles ejected from the sun reach Earth's magnetic field and cause a geomagnetic storm, or interplanetary shocks compress Earth's magnetic field. These shocks also generate geomagnetically induced currents, which can damage infrastructure that conducts electricity. More powerful interplanetary shocks mean more powerful currents and aurorasbut frequent, less powerful shocks could also do damage. "Arguably, the most intense deleterious effects on power infrastructure occurred in March 1989 following a severe geomagnetic stormthe Hydro-Quebec system in Canada was shut down for nearly nine hours, leaving millions of people with no electricity," said Oliveira. "But weaker, more frequent events such as interplanetary shocks can pose threats to ground conductors over time. Our work shows that considerable geoelectric currents occur quite frequently after shocks, and they deserve attention." Shocks which hit the Earth head-on, rather than at an angle, are thought to induce stronger geomagnetically induced currents, because they compress the magnetic field more. The scientists investigated how geomagnetically induced currents are affected by shocks at different angles and times of day. To do this, they took a database of interplanetary shocks and cross-referenced it with readings of geomagnetically induced currents from a natural gas pipeline in Mantsala, Finland, which is generally in the auroral region during active times. To calculate the properties of these shocks, such as angle and speed, they used interplanetary magnetic field and solar wind data. The shocks were divided into three groups: highly inclined shocks, moderately inclined shocks, and nearly frontal shocks. Angle of attack They found that more frontal shocks cause higher peaks in geomagnetically induced currents both immediately after the shock and during the following substorm. Particularly intense peaks took place around magnetic midnight, when the north pole would have been between the sun and Mantsala. Localized substorms at this time also cause striking auroral brightening. "Moderate currents occur shortly after the perturbation impact when Mantsala is around dusk local time, whereas more intense currents occur around midnight local time," said Oliveira. Because the angles of these shocks can be predicted up to two hours before impact, this information could allow us to set in place protections for electricity grids and other vulnerable infrastructure before the strongest and most head-on shocks strike. "One thing power infrastructure operators could do to safeguard their equipment is to manage a few specific electric circuits when a shock alert is issued," suggested Oliveira. "This would prevent geomagnetically induced currents reducing the lifetime of the equipment." However, the scientists didn't find strong correlations between the angle of a shock and the time it takes for it to hit and then induce a current. This may be because more recordings of currents at different latitudes are needed to investigate this aspect. "Current data was collected only at a particular location, namely the Mantsala natural gas pipeline system," cautioned Oliveira. "Although Mantsala is at a critical location, it does not provide a worldwide picture. In addition, the Mantsala data is missing several days in the period investigated, which forced us to discard many events in our shock database. It would be nice to have worldwide power companies make their data accessible to scientists for studies." More information: First direct observations of interplanetary shock impact angle effects on actual geomagnetically induced currents: The case of the Finnish natural gas pipeline system, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fspas.2024.1392697 Provided by Frontiers 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 Devastating floods led to more than 175 deaths and 423,000 people displaced in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul in May. It was the state's worst natural catastrophe in almost a century, but Brazil is no stranger to mass population movements triggered by climate change. Over the past two decades at least eight million Brazilians have fled or migrated due to storms, floods, forest fires, drought, and sea-level rise. In 2023 alone, around 745,000 people were displaced by extreme climate events combined with the effects of El Nina and El Nino. These events not only reveal the perils of a changing climate, but also a public that is unprepared for the coming storms. Whether in Brazil or elsewhere, the decision to stay or leave is not only informed by increasingly intense and frequent climate shocks and stresses. In fact, persistent socio-economic risks such as food insecurity, poverty, inequality, and access to basic services also play a central role. The truth is that no one actually knows how many Brazilians are moving because of climate change for the simple reason that there are no centralized monitoring or registration systems in place. While spectacular crises periodically draw attention to the issue, people involuntarily displaced, voluntarily migrating, or relocated due to natural disasters and environmental degradation, as well as vulnerable populations who are "trapped" and unable to move, are generally invisible. Scientific studies show that Latin America and Caribbean countries face a future of increasing climate threats ranging from floods and forest fires to droughts and rising sea levels. In Brazil, temperatures are projected to rise between 1.7C and 5.3C by the end of the century. Annual precipitation is also expected to increase in the northern, center-west and southern areas while drought risks are worsening in the north and northeast. At least 2,000 municipalities are "extremely vulnerable" and urgently need "climate emergency" plans. Yet just 14 of Brazil's 26 states have prepared such strategies. Notwithstanding growing public concern, national and state authorities have simply not prioritized climate-related adaptation and resilience strategies. Brazil's federal, state and municipal leaders need to develop and implement a national strategy and coordinated interagency response that is commensurate with the scale of the threat. The forthcoming National Plan on Climate Change and Green Climate Fund must include clear provisions for addressing climate mobility, including pilots in the most vulnerable areas. Likewise, Brazil's National Adaptation Plan (NAP) was drafted a decade ago and urgently needs an upgrade. The National Center for Monitoring and Alert of Natural Disasters (CEMADE) should also start monitoring climate mobility as part of its mandate. Brazil needs to shift its posture from one that reacts to climate-related crises to one that proactively mitigates their impacts by strengthening resilience. This will require expanding the country's early warning and response capabilities, including at the state and municipal levels. Investment in ecosystem-based adaptation strategies should be directed toward both expulsion and relocation areas to minimize risks before, during and after people move. Priorities include targeted infrastructure upgrades in flood-prone and coastal communities, expanded access to drought resistant crops and livestock, and measures to upskill and retrain people whose livelihoods will be impacted by a changing climate. Brazilian authorities could also accelerate action by updating the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and NAP to reflect the rapidly evolving risks of climate mobility. To its credit, the last version of the NAP underlines the threats posed by increasingly frequent extreme events and the risks of changing weather to job opportunities and migration patterns, especially among the poor. The NAP also singles out the increase in so-called "environmental refugees" and migration to cities. It also features a national sectoral strategy with provisions for relocating and redistributing populations in priority areas. These strategies should be upgraded and accelerated, including with adequate financing from the Brazilian National Development Bank and potentially the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank. Faced with the certainty that climate shocks and stresses are set to increase, bolder steps are warranted. Brazil could draw inspiration from Colombia which is set to approve a new "climate mobility" law that specifies the rights of affected populations, proposes a unified registry to monitor population movements, and assigns clear responsibilities for action from the federal to the municipal level. Brazil could also look to the experience of Chile which has already invested in preparatory planning for climate displaced and migrant populations, including identifying areas for potential relocation of climate displaced populations based on their absorptive capacity. And in several Caribbean states, including Saint Lucia, local authorities are investing in restoring coastal land to reduce the likelihood of relocation. And to build local resilience, Brazil should expand efforts to formalize precarious settlements, invest in safe and sustainable housing, and regularize land tenure. As the implications of a warming world becomes clearer, Brazil faces complex trade-offs in how it prepares for people on the move. Like major cities from China and Indonesia to the US and Europe that are being overwhelmed by rising sea levels, Brazil may have to build entirely new cities. In Rio Grande do Sul, this is already a real possibility. The state's Vice Governor explained that "we cannot rule out having to remove entire cities from where they are and rebuild cities in other locations." With over half of all Brazilians living within 150km of the coast, these challenges may be closer to home than many understand. 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: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Amid the many historic appointments in his cabinet, the new prime minister Keir Starmer made one particularly noteworthy announcement: James Timpson to become minister for prisons, parole and probation. Timpson is not a politician but the head of the key-cutting and shoe repair company of the same name. He was also the CEO of the Prison Reform Trust and a well-known figure within prison reform circles. The terms rehabilitation and resettlement have been thrown around by past governments, but with little work to turn them into practice. As a result, UK prisons are now at a breaking point of overcrowding. Timpson's appointment has been met with unbridled enthusiasm from prison reform advocates. We will hopefully get to see what it means for someone who really understands the value of rehabilitation to approach this role. He is known for visiting prisons in person on a regular basis to interview prisoners nearing release for a job in his firm. This is a business strategy, not a gimmickTimpson says that one in nine of his workforce is a former offender, and that "it's brilliant. They are talented, they are loyal and they work hard." But how will he approach prison reform for the whole country? Speaking to Channel 4 News earlier this year, Timpson said that in his view only a third of people in prison actually needed to be there. Others, he said, would be better off with mental health support, while prison for women is basically a disaster. He added that in the Netherlands the prison population halved, emphasizing that radically reducing the prison population is not impossible. With colleagues in the Netherlands I recently studied this phenomenon. Between 2005 and 2015 the Dutch prison population was indeed reduced by 44%. Much was to do with a drop in serious crime which led to fewer people going to court, and ending up in prison. But shorter sentences are also part of the picture, as are alternatives to prison, and more specifically tailored mental health support for those offenders who need it. Closing prisons is possible In the Netherlands, there is widespread acceptance of the fact that in most cases a prison sentence does more harm than good. A survey in 2014 found widespread acceptance for suspended sentences in the country. This seems unlike the discourse in England and Wales, where heavy sentencing is more widely regarded as a solution to crime and disorder. This process of decarceration led to many prisons being closed or repurposed. And it caused very little social disquiet. The government did its modeling and then cautiously went ahead with its program of prison closures. The most vocal against prison closures were trade unions, understandably worried about prison officers losing their jobs, and on occasion threatening legal action. There is nothing particularly unique about prison populations falling. As I discuss in my forthcoming book, prison numbers have massively dropped even in Russia, which nearly halved its prison rate in a decade. Also the US, famous for its high prison rates, has seen a notable drop in its prison rate (some 14% since 2018). While prison rates are dropping in many countries, some stubbornly refuse to follow this trend and the UK is one of them. Experts refer to this as penal populism: politicians implementing harsh policies that they think the public will like, rather than following the evidence that harsh sentences solve little and perpetuate social problems. Prison populations can go down: the sky won't fall in and governments don't necessarily topple either. Like in the Netherlands, crime has dropped in the UK. However the intention to punish more severely and to build more prisons to accommodate that remains the typical response, such as by the then justice secretary Dominic Raab in 2022. A promising perspective After 14 years of Conservative rule, Timpson's comments are more than refreshing. They signal a very different intent such as the aforementioned Raab, whose answer was always to build more prisons. They come at a time when prison overcrowding in Scotland is leading to acute problems (with hundreds of prisoners possibly released early) and prisons in England are days away of being literally full. Prisons are in crisis, and have been for a very long time. A commitment to radically reduce the prison population would be a real trend break for the UK, where prison populations have been projected to increase by 25% to over 100,000. We now have an unorthodox prison minister who may shift the dial in our use of prisons. In his February interview, Timpson was clear that prison policy does not easily change. "I think we need a government that's brave," he said. He is now in a position to show that bravery in practice. To be fair, he has already shown it by tangibly improving the life of some 1,500 prisoners through work. Can he now overhaul a system that holds over 87,000? A brow beaten and overstretched prison system will be anxious to find out. 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: A scientist holds up a mosquito at the laboratory of the World Mosquito Program in Medellin. The jars of larvae in stagnant water and thick clouds of mosquitoes at a Colombian lab may seem like the stuff of nightmares. They are in fact crucial to a project to fight the spread of dengue fever. For nearly ten years, the World Mosquito Program (WMP) has been replacing local populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with biologically modified insects to prevent the spread of a virus that has killed over 4,500 in Latin America and the Caribbean so far this year. Rather than deploying harmful insecticides, "this technology is designed so that a living bacterium, within a mosquitoan organism that is also alivecan be released to continue preserving life," said biologist Nelson Grisales. The project, supported by American multi-billionaire Bill Gates, has achieved promising results: dengue cases have fallen 95 percent in the northwestern Antioquia department, health authorities say. Gates is a popular target of conspiracy theories and the mosquito project is no different, with viral rumors "that the mosquitoes we release are equipped with Bill Gates' mind control chips, that they can make people homosexual or that they transmit stronger diseases," said Grisales. Rather, scientists are producing mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia, a bacteria common in other insect and mosquito species, hoping the Aedes aegypti will spread it in the wild. Mosquitoes are bred infected with a bacteria that reduces the spread of dengue in the wild. Wolbachia works in two ways: it boosts a mosquito's immune system, making it less likely to contract dengue. But if the mosquito does get infected, Wolbachia makes it harder for the virus to grow inside the insect and be transmitted to humans. "This is not a genetic modification," said another biologist at the WMP, Beatriz Giraldo. "The bacteria enters the mosquito cell and makes a biological modification." As planet warms, dengue spreads People will still suffer an annoying mosquito bite, but will be spared dengue fever, which causes joint and bone pain, earning it the nickname "breakbone fever." The virus can provoke hemorrhagic fever in severe cases, and even death. Dengue cases have soared in recent decades, and Latin America experienced its worst outbreak on record in the first months of 2024, attributed to a muggy summer intensified by the El Nino weather phenomenon. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are shown during an event aimed at preventing tropical diseases. The European Union's health agency has warned of rising cases in Europe as climate change creates warmer conditions perfect for mosquito breeding. In Colombia, the modified mosquitoes are brought in jars to areas hard-hit by the virus and released into the wild to breed with, and slowly replace, local populations. Wolbachia's dengue-fighting abilities were discovered by scientists in Australia, where the first trials were held in 2011. In Colombia, the first infected mosquitoes were introduced in the city of Medellin in 2015, and the project was later taken to the city of Cali. The same experiment has been conducted in Indonesia and Brazil and will soon be implemented in El Salvador. The program "has accelerated at the same time as the dengue problem has grown," said Grisales. For now, the project operates as a private initiative authorized by local authorities, but Grisales hopes it will soon become "public policy." Modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are released in the Colombian city of Cali in June. In Cali, where Wolbachia mosquitoes have been flying since 2019, "many people did not like the initial impact of the mosquito releases," said resident Albency Orozco. "But as the monitoring and proper explanations were carried out, people accepted it." 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: Proposed scenario for the formation of diamond at Mercury's core-mantle boundary. (a) Crystallization of the carbon-saturated silicate magma ocean and the potential, yet unlikely, early production of diamond at its base. Graphite was the major phase to form in the magma ocean and accumulated at the surface to form a primordial graphite crust. (b) During crystallization of the inner core, diamond exsolved and floated to the core-mantle boundary. Such a late diamond layer would have continued to grow throughout core crystallization. Credit: Dr. Yanhao Lin and Dr. Bernard Charlier. A recent study in Nature Communications by scientists from China and Belgium suggests that Mercury's core-mantle boundary (CMB) includes a diamond layer, potentially up to 18 kilometers thick, deep within the planet's interior. Mercury, the smallest and innermost planet in our solar system, has long puzzled scientists with its remarkably dark surface and high core density. Previous missions, such as NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, had revealed that Mercury's surface contains significant amounts of graphite, a form of carbon. This led the researchers to believe the planet's early history involved a carbon-rich magma ocean. Phys.org spoke to one of the co-authors of the study, Dr. Yanhao Lin, from the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in Beijing. "Many years ago, I noticed that Mercury's extremely high carbon content might have significant implications. It made me realize that something special probably happened within its interior," Dr. Lin said. What we know about Mercury Most detailed information on Mercury comes from NASA's MESSENGER and Mariner 10 missions. Previous observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft had revealed that Mercury's surface is unusually dark due to the widespread presence of graphite. The abundance of carbon on the surface is believed to have come from an ancient layer of graphite that floated to the surface early on. This suggests that Mercury once had a molten surface layer or magma ocean containing a significant amount of carbon. Over time, as the planet cooled down and solidified, this carbon formed a graphite crust on the surface. However, the researchers challenge the assumption that graphite was the only stable carbon-bearing phase during Mercury's magma ocean crystallization. This is when the planet's mantle (middle layer) cools and solidifies. Early assumptions about the graphite crust relied on lower temperature and pressure predictions at the CMB. But newer studies propose that the CMB is deeper than once thought, prompting researchers to reassess the graphite crust. Additionally, another study has also suggested the presence of sulfur in Mercury's iron core. The presence of sulfur may have an effect on Mercury's magma ocean crystallization, thereby questioning the original claim over the presence of only graphite during that phase. Recreating conditions of Mercury's interior To recreate the conditions of Mercury's interior, the researchers used a combination of high-pressure and temperature experiments and thermodynamic modeling. "We use the large-volume press to mimic the high-temperature and high-pressure conditions of Mercury's core-mantle boundary and combine it with the geophysical models and thermodynamic calculations," explained Dr. Lin. They used synthetic silicate as the starting material to resemble Mercury's mantle composition. This is a commonly used method for studying the interiors of planets. Pressure levels of up to 7 Giga Pascals (GPa) were achieved by the researchers, approximately seven times the pressure found at the deepest parts of the Mariana Trench. Under these conditions, the team studied how minerals (those found in Mercury's interior) melt and reach equilibrium phases and characterized these phases, focusing on those of graphite and diamond. They also analyzed the chemical composition of the experimental samples. "What we do in the laboratory is to mimic the extreme pressures and temperatures of a planetary interior. It is sometimes a challenging thing; you need to push the devices to fit your needs. Experimental setups must be highly precise to simulate these conditions," explained Dr. Lin. They also used geophysical modeling to study the observed data about Mercury's interior. "Geophysical models mainly come from the data collected by spacecraft, and they tell us the fundamental structures of a planet's interior," said Dr. Lin. They used the model to predict phase stability, calculate CMB pressures and temperatures, and simulate graphite and diamond stability under extreme temperatures and pressures. Diamonds form under pressure By integrating the experimental data with geophysical simulations, the researchers were able to estimate Mercury's CMB pressure at around 5.575 GPa. At roughly 11% sulfur content, the researchers observed a considerable 358 Kelvin temperature change in Mercury's magma ocean. The researchers propose that though graphite was likely the dominant carbon phase during the magma ocean crystallization, the crystallization of the core led to the formation of a diamond layer at the CMB. "Sulfur lowers the liquidus of Mercury's magma ocean. If the diamond forms in the magma ocean, it can sink to the bottom and be deposited at the CMB. On the other hand, sulfur also helps the formation of an iron sulfide layer at the CMB, which is related to carbon content during planetary differentiation," explained Dr. Lin. Planetary differentiation refers to the process where a planet becomes internally structured, i.e., the center or core, to which the heavier minerals sink, and the surface or crust, to which the lighter minerals rise. According to their findings, the diamond layer at the CMB has an estimated thickness between 15 and 18 kilometers. They also suggest that the present temperature at Mercury's CMB is close to the point where graphite can transition into diamond, stabilizing the temperature at the CMB as a result. Carbon-rich exoplanetary systems One of the implications of these findings is for Mercury's magnetic field, which is anomalously strong for its size. Dr. Lin explained, "Carbon from the molten core becomes oversaturated as it cools, forming diamond and floating to the CMB. Diamond's high thermal conductivity helps transfer heat effectively from the core to the mantle, causing temperature stratification and convection change in Mercury's liquid outer core, and thus affecting the generation of its magnetic field." In simpler terms, as the heat is transferred from the core to the mantle, it influences the temperature gradients and convection in Mercury's liquid outer core, which affects its magnetic field generation. Dr. Lin also pointed out the crucial role played by carbon in the formation of carbon-rich exoplanetary systems. "It also could be relevant to the understanding of other terrestrial planets, especially those with similar sizes and compositions. The processes that led to the formation of a diamond layer on Mercury might also have occurred on other planets, potentially leaving similar signatures," concluded Dr. Lin. More information: Yongjiang Xu et al, A diamond-bearing core-mantle boundary on Mercury, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49305-x. Journal information: Nature Communications 2024 Science X Network 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: One of the complete skeletons found in the Fralsegarden passage grave (Individual B/FRA043). The skeleton is that of a 30-40 years old woman, related only in the second degree to individuals in the kinship tree. According to strontium isotopes in her teeth she was born outside the sedimentary geology of Falbygden, probably in a neighboring region of western Sweden. The cranium was removed earlier during the excavation. Credit: Karl-Goran Sjogren. Ancient DNA from bones and teeth hints at a role of the plague in Stone Age population collapse. Contrary to previous beliefs, the plague may have diminished Europe's populations long before the major plague outbreaks of the Middle Ages, new research published in the journal Nature shows. In the 14th century Europe, the plague ravaged the population during the so-called "Black Death," claiming the lives of nearly a third of the population. But the plague arrived in Scandinavia several thousand years earlier, and despite several theories suggesting otherwise, the plague might have caused an epidemic, according to new research from the University of Copenhagen. In collaboration with researchers from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, researchers from the Globe Institute, have analyzed DNA from ancient teeth and bones of 108 individuals who died 5,000 years ago. "The analyses show that 18 of these individuals, 17%, were infected with the plague when they died. Furthermore, our results suggests that the youngest plague strain we identify might have had epidemic potential," says postdoc Frederik Seersholm, who led the DNA analysis. This means that the plague at that time may have been a contributing factor to the population collapse in the end of the Neolithic, known as the Neolithic decline. This population bust caused large parts of the farming population in Scandinavia and Northwestern Europe to disappear within just a few centuries, 5,000 years ago. The skulls of the two second generation individuals in the right branch, FRA022 and FRA023, placed beside a limestone slab covering the ancestral individual, FRA021. Credit: Karl-Goran Sjogren. "We cannotyetprove that this was exactly how it happened. But the fact that we can now show that it could have happened this way is significant. The cause of this population decline, which we have known about for a long time, has always been subject of debate," says Seersholm. The archaeological material analyzed comes mainly from passage graves in Sweden, but one of the individuals is from a stone cist in Stevns, Denmark. Ancient DNA provides answers The analyses were conducted using a method called "deep shotgun sequencing," which allows researchers to extract highly detailed information from archaeological material, even though ancient DNA is often heavily damaged or degraded. The researchers examined DNA from tooth and bone material from the Neolithic time period, studying both familial relations and diseases in the individuals. Excavation of the Fralsegarden passage grave in 2001. The bones were labeled and measured individually with a total station. Credit: Karl-Goran Sjogren "We have been able to carry out a comprehensive mapping of plague lineages, and a detailed description of other microbes in the DNA data. At the same time, through these analyses, we have been able to look at the human DNA from a broad perspective to a local oneand right down to the individual level, getting a picture of the social organization that existed back then," says Associate Professor Martin Sikora at the Globe Institute, who is also behind the study. The finding that 17% of the individuals whose DNA was analyzed had plague, indicates that the plague was common in Scandinavia during the late Stone Age. In one of the analyzed families, at least three plague outbreaks were observed over the six generations in the family that researchers have been able to map. "The question of possible kinship relations between individuals whose bones and teeth have been found in megalithic tombs has been debated for at least 200 years. There have been many theories and speculations, but now, thanks to DNA, we have data," says Karl-Goran Sjogren, Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Gothenburg, who was also involved in the new study. Plague spread in Neolithic Scandinavia. Each individual in the study is represented by colored shapes. Only Neolithic individuals are show. Squares represent males and circles females; triangles represent a person of unknown sex. Colors indicate genetic ancestry, and black crosses designate individuals with the plague. Credit: Seersholm et al., Nature (2024) Seersholm believes that the new results rule out previous theories suggesting that the population decline could not have been caused by plague. "In connection with the population decline in the end of the Neolithic, both war and outbreaks of infectious diseases, including plague, have been suggested. There have been several theories involving the plague, and one of them suggested that the plague could not have caused an epidemicbut that assumption no longer holds," says Seersholm. More information: Frederik Seersholm, Repeated plague infections across six generations of Neolithic Farmers, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07651-2. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07651-2 Journal information: Nature Downed transmission power lines are shown near Grand Parkway and West Rd. after a storm Thursday, May 16, 2024, in Cypress. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer The powerful windstorm that crippled Houstons power grid seven weeks ago could cost CenterPoint as much as $475 million to repair, the company estimated last week. That was before Hurricane Beryl veered toward the region and compounded the damage. Beryl brought the nations fourth-largest city to its knees on Monday as it further damaged poles and wires that carry electricity to Houstons homes and office buildings. Roughly 1.6 million customers were still without power on Tuesday as the heat index climbed above 100 degrees. The storm hit as CenterPoint executives were out of the country, traveling with with Gov. Greg Abbott as part of a Texas trade delegation to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. The delegation also includes five state legislators and 23 business and community leaders, including those from Greater Houston Partnership, Houston Airport System and Calpine. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Storm-related recovery costs eventually make their way to consumers monthly utility bills. And while the cost of damage inflicted by Beryl, which knocked out power for more Houston-area customers than any storm in CenterPoints history, is still being tallied, it will certainly add to the tab. CenterPoint was still fixing damage caused by the May wind storm known as a derecho and by another damaging storm on May 28 when Beryl hit, Jason Ryan, CenterPoints executive vice president of regulatory services and government affairs, said in a July 1 interview. He estimated that CenterPoint would pay between $425 million and $475 million to repair poles, wires and transmission lines damaged during the two May storms. Insurance does not cover damage to electrical poles, wires and transmission lines, and the cost for repairing damage from extraordinary events such as derechos and hurricanes is funded by bond offerings that are approved by the PUC and repaid through added charges on consumer bills. Youre looking at significantly less than $1 a month impact on customer bills, even though the number sounds very large, Ryan said of the estimate. Obviously, we wont know until we get the final number, go through the process at the (Public Utility Commission) for them to review those costs and then approve or not the securitization. Advertisement Article continues below this ad CenterPoints costs associated with the recovery from Hurricane Ike was $663 million, which added a $1.83 charge to customers' bills between 2009 and 2022. That process of seeking approval to issue the bonds will continue into next year, he said. Work that remained ongoing after the May storms included swapping out temporary transmission towers for permanent ones and replacing weak or broken poles that crews had temporarily braced, Ryan said. CenterPoint has not yet said what equipment was damaged by Beryls winds and whether any of its new or temporary equipment was damaged. The company did not immediately reply to questions Tuesday. Advertisement Article continues below this ad During the July 1 interview, Ryan said it would take a number of months to get permanent structures installed. 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: Cultured meat with the flavor-switchable scaffold. Credit: Yonsei University A team of chemical and biomolecular engineers at Yonsei University, working with a pair of colleagues at Kangwon National University, both in the Republic of Korea, has developed a gelatin-based scaffolding that releases a meaty-flavored compound at high temperatures. In their study, published in the journal Nature Communications, the group sought to replicate the sensations of eating steak cooked on a grill. Raising animals for consumption not only requires a lot of resources, but plays a major role in releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. So chemists and engineers have been looking for ways to create it artificially. When meat is cooked, it undergoes a chemical reaction at temperatures of 150Ccalled a Maillard reaction, it occurs between sugars and amino acids that exist naturally in the meat. The result is the burst of flavor commonly associated with cooking meat. In this new effort, the researchers attempted to replicate the Maillard reaction using a gelatin-based scaffolding. The researchers began by noting that most current efforts to grow artificial meat focus most heavily on appearance and texture. They suggest this approach overlooks more important characteristics, such as tastemost specifically the unique taste conferred by a Maillard reaction. This, they further suggest, means that to create a reasonable facsimile of meat, the process should begin with making sure that a Maillard reaction occurs when it is cookedappearance and texture can be figured out later. Cell seeding on the flavor-switchable scaffold to produce cultured meat with meaty flavors. Credit: Yonsei Univeristy Schematic illustration of switchable flavor system. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49521-5 To that end, the team created what they describe as a gelatin-based scaffolding that is flavor-switchable at high temperatures, releasing what they describe as a meaty-flavored compound based on furfuryl mercaptan. The release happens, they note, as the scaffolding breaks down under high heat. Until then, it is held in place by a binding group. The result does not look at all like meatit looks more like thick pink Jello. But chemical analysis and human taste tests showed that it tastes remarkably like grilled beef. The research team notes that the texture of the resulting product is not too far off from that of real beef; thus, all they need to do is find a way to make it look like the real thing. More information: Milae Lee et al, Flavor-switchable scaffold for cultured meat with enhanced aromatic properties, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49521-5 Journal information: Nature Communications 2024 Science X Network 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: Coring barrel stowed along the starboard rail of the R/V Armstrong. Credit: Christopher Griner Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution New evidence of changes to the Gulf Stream during the last ice age could indicate additional sensitivity to future climatic changes, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The research, published in Nature, found that during the last ice age about 20,000 years ago, the Gulf Stream was stronger than today because of more powerful winds across the subtropical North Atlantic. This could mean that if climate change causes a reduction in subtropical winds in the future, as initial research is beginning to indicate, the Gulf Stream could also weaken. This would limit the amount of tropical heat that reaches Europe, cooling the continent and causing higher sea levels in North America, but the likely size of this potential effect is still unclear. The Gulf Stream is a surface current that flows up the east coast of the US then crosses the Atlantic to Europe, carrying warm tropical water with it. This warm water releases heat into the atmosphere, warming Europe. The researchers found that during the last ice age, when ice sheets covered much of the northern hemisphere, stronger winds in the region resulted in a stronger and deeper Gulf Stream. However, despite the stronger Gulf Stream, overall, the planet was still much colder than today. Close up of multicorer rig on the stern of the R/V Armstrong. Multicorers are used to collect the most recently deposited ~50cm of sediments, which includes the uppermost layer at the water/sediment interface. Credit: Dr. Alice Carter-Champion Lead author Dr. Jack Wharton (UCL Geography) said, "We found that during the last ice age, the Gulf Stream was much stronger because of stronger winds across the subtropical North Atlantic. As a result, the Gulf Stream was still moving lots of heat northwards, despite the rest of the planet being far colder. "Our work also highlights the Gulf Stream's potential sensitivity to future changes in wind patterns. For example, if in the future winds are weaker, as shown in a recent study using climate models, it could mean a weaker Gulf Stream and a cooler Europe." The Gulf Stream is also part of the vast Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which is driven by both deep water formation in the subpolar North Atlantic, where cooling causes surface waters to become dense and sink, as well as winds. Scientists have previously raised concerns about how climate change could weaken the AMOC as melting glacial water pouring off Greenland could disrupt deepwater formation, preventing warm tropical water from reaching Europe and thus cooling the continent. Together, the combined effect of weakening winds and reduced deep water formation could significantly weaken the Gulf Stream. If the AMOC were to collapseconsidered an unlikely but possible future scenarioEuropean temperatures would cool by 10 to 15 degrees Celsius, wreaking havoc on continental agriculture and weather patterns, and the decrease in the wind-driven part of the Gulf Stream would further exacerbate this. Multicorer rig on the stern of the R/V Armstrong. Credit: Dr. Alice Carter-Champion Co-author Professor Mark Maslin (UCL Geography) said, "It's not always recognized how much ocean currents are responsible for transferring heat around the planet and shaping our climate. Paradoxically, the warming of the climate could cool down much of Europe by disrupting the AMOC. Our new research adds to this understanding, and shows that the weakening of the winds which drive the Gulf Stream could reduce the circulation of heat, further affecting the continent." Though the AMOC and its constituent currents, including the Gulf Stream, is sometimes referred to as a giant conveyer belt, this study highlights the system's complexity, with each part of the current capable of having its own unique response to climate change. Co-author Professor David Thornalley (UCL Geography) said, "Rather than the established conveyor belt metaphor, perhaps it is better to think of the AMOC as a series of interconnected loops. There is the subtropical loopthat the Gulf Stream is part ofand a subpolar loop, which carries heat further northwards into the Arctic. "During the last ice age, our findings show that the subtropical loop was stronger than it is today, whereas the subpolar loop is thought to have been weaker. Therefore, when investigating anthropogenic climate change and the AMOC, we need to consider how these different parts may change and what climate impacts each is associated with." Close up of long sediment core recently retrieved from Hudson Canyon in the Northwest Atlantic. Credit: Dr. Alice Carter-Champion (Left to right) Dr. Jack Wharton, Dr. Alice Carter-Champion, and Prof. David Thornalley (all UCL) inspect a sediment core recently retrieved by a multicorer onboard the R/V Armstrong. Credit: Dr. Alice Carter-Champion To gauge the strength of the prehistoric Gulf Stream, the researchers analyzed the fossil remains of foraminiferamicroorganisms that live at the bottom of the oceantaken from sediment cores recovered off the coast of North Carolina and Florida, in collaboration with researchers based at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. The researchers found that foraminifera taken from layers dating to the last ice age in sediment cores from different locations beneath the Gulf Stream had isotopic signatures (the ratio of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16, which is controlled by a combination of temperature and salinity) that indicated a Gulf Stream that was twice as deep and flowing twice as fast compared to today. More information: Jack Wharton et al, Deeper and stronger North Atlantic Gyre during the Last Glacial Maximum, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07655-y. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07655-y Journal information: Nature 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: Schematic representation of the evolution of the Labrador Sea, Baffin Bay and Davis Strait through the Paleogene. Abbreviations: Pre-Ungava Transform Margin (Pre-UTM), Davis Strait proto-microcontinent (DSPM), Ungava Fracture Zone (UFZ). Credit: Longley et al. 2024. Plate tectonics are the driving force behind Earth's continental configurations, with the lithosphere (oceanic and continental crusts and upper mantle) moving due to convection processes occurring in the softer underlying asthenospheric mantle. Many earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and mountain formations are direct consequences of the movements of these globe-spanning plates, particularly at their margins. One such plate boundary occurs between Canada and Greenland, which has formed the Davis Strait seaway connecting two ocean basins, the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay. The tectonic evolution of the Davis Strait is dated to ~3361 million years ago (Ma) during the Paleogene, during which one particularly unusual feature formeda thicker than normal (1924 km) fragment of continental crust in the ocean. This is now deemed to be a newly-recognized, incompletely rifted and submerged microcontinent offshore of west Greenland: the Davis Strait proto-microcontinent. Understanding the mechanism and reason for this crustal anomaly is the focus of new research, published in Gondwana Research. Doctoral researcher Luke Longley and Dr. Jordan Phethean (University of Derby, UK) alongside Dr. Christian Schiffer (Uppsala University, Sweden) have generated a reconstruction of the plate tectonic movements spanning ~30 million years that resulted in the proto-microcontinent's formation. They define proto-microcontinents as "regions of relatively thick continental lithosphere separated from major continents by a zone of thinner continental lithosphere." Dr. Phethean explains why this particular location is so important for this research and why looking at past microcontinent formation is vital for today. "The well-defined changes in plate motion that occur in the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay, which have relatively limited external complications affecting them, make this area an ideal natural laboratory for studying microcontinent formation. "Rifting and microcontinent formation are absolutely ongoing phenomenawith every earthquake we might be working towards the next microcontinent separation. The aim of our work is to understand their formation well enough to predict that very future evolution." Model of plate tectonic evolution between Canada and Greenland, identifying the position of the Davis Strait proto-microcontinent (DSPM), as well as indicating the location of transform faults along the Mid-Atlantic mid-ocean ridge and continental crust thicknesses. Credit: Longley et al. 2024. To explore this further, the research team used maps derived from gravity and seismic reflection data to identify the orientation and age of faults pertaining to rifting, the mid-ocean ridge (where Greenland rifted apart from the North American plate), and associated transform faults (where two tectonic plates slide past each other). The scientists identified initial rifting between Canada and Greenland began ~118 Ma during the Lower Cretaceous, with seafloor spreading commencing in the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay at ~61 Ma. Subsequently, the period ~4958 Ma is noted as being key to the formation of this proto-microcontinent, with the orientation of seafloor spreading between Canada and Greenland altering from northeast-southwest along the Pre-Ungava Transform Margin, to north-south, rifting off the Davis Straight proto-microcontinent. By ~33 Ma, ocean spreading ceased as Greenland collided with Ellesmere Island, after which Greenland joined the North American plate. In this model, the Davis Strait proto-microcontinent is identified based upon crustal thicknesses, where the microcontinent appears in the range of 1924 km-thick thinned continental crust, surrounded by two narrow bands of thin (1517 km) continental crust that separate it from mainland Greenland and Baffin Island. This research has applicability to other microcontinents globally to understand their calving from continental crust, including the Jan Mayen microcontinent northeast of Iceland, East Tasman Rise southeast of Tasmania, and the Gulden Draak Knoll, offshore western Australia. Dr. Phethean notes, "Better knowledge of how these microcontinents form allows researchers to understand how plate tectonics operates on Earth, with useful implications for the mitigation of plate tectonic hazards and discovering new resources." More information: Luke Longley et al, The Davis Strait proto-microcontinent: The role of plate tectonic reorganization in continental cleaving, Gondwana Research (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.gr.2024.05.001 Journal information: Gondwana Research 2024 Science X Network 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 The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the consequent displacement of millions of people will have a significant impact on the country's long-term population structure. Researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, IIASA, and the University of Vienna are forecasting a substantial population decline of 2131% by 2052. The latest edition of the European Demographic Data Sheet, which is published every two years by scientists from the Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capitala collaborative center of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Vienna Institute of Demography), IIASA, and University of Viennareveals the long-term impact of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine on population size and structure. Additionally, it examines and visualizes population trends in 45 European countries. Largest migration flow in recent European history The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 resulted in the largest population displacement in Europe since the period after World War II. By mid-2023, 5.9 million people, primarily women, had fled Ukraine, while an additional 5.1 million were displaced within the country. "The war in Ukraine has triggered the largest migration flow in Europe since the expulsion of Germans from many countries after the Second World War," says Tomas Sobotka from the Institute of Demography at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, one of the editors of the European Demographic Datasheet. "This movement has dramatically accelerated the long-term trend of population decline and low birth rates in Ukraine, and it will have a lasting negative impact on the country's population structure and dynamics for many decades to come. The latest analyses also highlight the significant role migration will play in Ukraine's future demographic changes." The impact of migration on Ukraine's population IIASA Population and Just Societies Program Director, Anne Goujon, a demographer and one of the primary authors of the study, collaborated with the European Commission Joint Research Centre to analyze the impact of four distinct migration scenarios on population projections until 2052. "Exploring potential futures using 'what-if' scenarios with varying assumptions is necessary to provide policymakers with a nuanced picture of how migration could impact the future of the Ukrainian population. More importantly, this research can help to make informed decisions about the allocation of support in line with the country's needs," she explains. In the most pessimistic scenario of "long war and low return," the population could shrink by 31%. Even in an optimistic scenario where Ukraine quickly recovers, a population decline of 21% is forecasted. These scenarios underscore that migration will be as pivotal as fertility and mortality for population dynamics in the Ukraine post-war period. According to the researchers, the expected sharp population decline is accompanied by the challenges of an aging population and a shrinking work force, which will put further strain on the country's economy and social security systems. Where are the Ukrainian refugees? "In addition to Germany, many refugees have fled to nearby European countries, especially Poland and the Czech Republic, which historically had a low proportion of refugees in their population," notes Sobotka. By mid-2023, 976 thousand Ukrainians had found refuge in neighboring Poland, and one million in Germany. In mid-2023, 349 thousand Ukrainian refugees were living in the Czech Republic, 213 thousand in the UK, 178 thousand in Spain, 165 thousand in Italy, and 161 thousand in Bulgaria. 100 thousand people from Ukraine have fled to Austria. The countries with the relatively highest proportions of Ukrainian refugees in relation to their total population are Montenegro (6.8%), Moldova (4.3%), and the Czech Republic (3.2%), as well as the Baltic states of Estonia (2.8%), Lithuania (2.4%), and Latvia (2.3%). In Austria, the share is 1.1%. More information: European Demographic Data Sheet: www.populationeurope.org/en/ 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 rim and floor of Gale Crater as seen from NASA's Curiosity Rover. Credit: NASA The question of whether Mars ever supported life has captivated the imagination of scientists and the public for decades. Central to the discovery is gaining insight into the past climate of Earth's neighbor: Was the planet warm and wet, with seas and rivers much like those found on our own planet? Or was it frigid and icy, and therefore potentially less prone to supporting life as we know it? A new study finds evidence to support the latter by identifying similarities between soils found on Mars and those of Canada's Newfoundland, a cold subarctic climate. The study, published in Communications Earth and Environment, looked for soils on Earth with comparable materials to those of Mars's Gale Crater. Scientists often use soil to depict environmental history, as the minerals present can tell the story of landscape evolution through time. Understanding more about how these materials formed could help answer long-standing questions about historical conditions on the Red Planet. The soils and rocks of Gale Crater provide a record of Mars' climate between 3 and 4 billion years ago, during a time of relatively abundant water on the planetand the same time period that saw life first appear on Earth. "Gale Crater is a paleo lakebedthere was obviously water present. But what were the environmental conditions when the water was there?" says Anthony Feldman, a soil scientist and geomorphologist now at DRI. "We're never going to find a direct analog to the Martian surface, because conditions are so different between Mars and Earth. But we can look at trends under terrestrial conditions and use those to try to extrapolate to Martian questions." NASA's Curiosity Rover has been investigating Gale Crater since 2011, and has found a plethora of soil materials known as "X-ray amorphous material." These components of the soil lack the typical repeating atomic structure that defines minerals, and therefore can't be easily characterized using traditional techniques like X-ray diffraction. When X-rays are shot at crystalline materials like a diamond, for example, the X-rays scatter at characteristic angles based on the mineral's internal structure. However, X-ray amorphous material does not produce these characteristic "fingerprints." This X-ray diffraction method was used by the Curiosity Rover to demonstrate that X-ray amorphous material comprised between 15 and 73% of the soil and rock samples tested in Gale Crater. "You can think of X-ray amorphous materials like Jello," Feldman says. "It's this soup of different elements and chemicals that just slide past each other." The Curiosity Rover also conducted chemical analyses on the soil and rock samples, finding that the amorphous material was rich in iron and silica but deficient in aluminum. Beyond the limited chemical information, scientists don't yet understand what the amorphous material is, or what its presence implies about Mars's historical environment. Uncovering more information about how these enigmatic materials form and persist on Earth could help answer persistent questions about the Red Planet. Feldman and his colleagues visited three locations in search of similar X-ray amorphous material: the Tablelands of Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, Northern California's Klamath Mountains, and western Nevada. These three sites had serpentine soils that the researchers expected to be chemically similar to the X-ray amorphous material at Gale Crater: rich in iron and silicon but lacking in aluminum. The three locations also provided a range of rainfall, snowfall, and temperature that could help provide insight into the type of environmental conditions that produce amorphous material and encourage its preservation. The study site in the Tablelands of Newfoundland. Credit: Anthony Feldman/DRI At each site, the research team examined the soils using X-ray diffraction analysis and transmission electron microscopy, which allowed them to see the soil materials at a more detailed level. The subarctic conditions of Newfoundland produced materials chemically similar to those found in Gale Crater that also lacked in crystalline structure. The soils produced in warmer climates like California and Nevada did not. "This shows that you need the water there in order to form these materials," Feldman says. "But it needs to be cold, near-freezing mean annual temperature conditions in order to preserve the amorphous material in the soils." Amorphous material is often considered to be relatively unstable, meaning that at an atomic level, the atoms haven't yet organized into their final, more crystalline forms. "There's something going on in the kineticsor the rate of reactionthat is slowing it down so that these materials can be preserved over geologic time scales," Feldman says. "What we're suggesting is that very cold, close to freezing conditions, is one particular kinetic limiting factor that allows for these materials to form and be preserved." "This study improves our understanding of the climate of Mars," Feldman adds. "The results suggest that the abundance of this material in Gale Crater is consistent with subarctic conditions, similar to what we would see in, for instance, Iceland." More information: Anthony D. Feldman et al, Fe-rich X-ray amorphous material records past climate and persistence of water on Mars, Communications Earth & Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-024-01495-4 Journal information: Communications Earth & Environment 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: University of Maine If you've felt the familiar itch of browntail moth rash, seen the grayish-green needles of an infested hemlock or watched as woodpeckers bore into ash trees for a meal hidden beneath the surface, you've experienced the devastating effects of non-native pests. Browntail moth, hemlock wooly adelgid and emerald ash borer are only three of the many pests that have wreaked havoc on Maine's public health, economy and ecological landscape. Angela Mech, assistant professor of entomology at the University of Maine, is an expert on forest insects, specifically the invasive ones. "When talking about non-native insects that invade North America, the first time something is detected, those of us who work in the field hold our breath, because we have no idea if it's going to be the next emerald ash borer, the next browntail moth, the next really bad thing," Mech said. Mech has been grappling with how to predict which of these invaders may cause the next ecological disaster since 2016, when she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington. "Why do some species do all these bad things? But the majority of them don't?" Mech said, posing the same question that brought the group together initially. That question inspired Mech and her collaborators to develop a tool to predict the risk a non-native insect may pose if introduced to a certain area. Its name is, fittingly, pest predictor. The i-Tree Pest Predictor tool is the result of seven years of work by Mech and colleagues representing institutions across the United States. It launched in fall 2023 and uses input data determined by hypotheses to predict the probability of a non-native insect becoming a high-impact pest. It is hosted by i-Tree, a peer-reviewed software suite from the Forest Service that provides urban and rural forestry analysis and benefits assessment tools. To create the tool, researchers compiled factors that may affect non-native insects' ability to reshape a forest. Traits of the insect, traits of the North American host trees, insect evolutionary history and tree evolutionary history were each evaluated and then combined into a single model that predicts the risk a given insect poses for each North American tree species. "We had to collect all this data to test those hypotheses," Mech said. "Our conclusion was that, like every recipe, there are multiple ingredients, and so there was no single answer. It was actually multiple things. Sometimes it does have to do with the host and then it also has to do with evolutionary history. It's about having these things lined up in the right way. It's the recipe for destruction." Nathan Havill, a research entomologist with the Forest Service's Northern Research Station was one of many of the pest predictor's key developers. Havill works in the agency's invasive species unit, concentrating on pests that impact trees and forest ecosystems. He focuses mainly on genetics and evolutionary biology, examining new pests to find out more about where they come from and their natural enemies that may have the potential to stem their spread. At present, Havill is gathering information about approximately 70 species of non-native insects. His intent is to input this information into the model, which can help determine if any have the potential to become high-impact pests. "Oftentimes, when a non-native insect gets introduced and it rears its ugly head as a pest, it's a scramble to figure out what it is and where it came from. During the time when we're trying to figure out that basic information, the pest is killing trees," Havill said. "If we can focus our efforts on particular groups of insects and study those before they get here, then we can reduce some of our time trying to figure out those basic elements. That's really the benefit that I see for this tool: being able to focus the research and make it more efficient to study those insects that have a higher probability of becoming mega invaders." Havill also noted that the use of a tool of this kind creates a more efficient and cost-effective workflow for eradicating pests once they arrive. "Oftentimes we're caught by surprise, and by the time we realize that an invasive insect is a serious pest, it's spread so much that eradication is really difficult. If we can recognize and understand what the pests are earlier, and be able to identify them and find them earlier, then we can potentially eradicate them before they spread and become pervasive pests," Havill said. Mech and Havill both see this tool as a proactive solution to the reactive work they both do daily. With the tool's ability to help predict the next ecological disaster, their next step is to spread the word and connect with researchers worldwide to determine how it can make an impact in their own countries. 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 Some of the records are in journals filed away in cabinets of small universities around the state. Some are in the hand-scribbled notes that priests and nuns used a century ago to teach about Minnesota's plants. Others are in the meticulously kept collections, computers and notebooks of professors, bird watchers and botanists. Now the goal is to get all known records of every living thing that's been found in Minnesota into a single public online databasethe Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas. "There might be a specimen of a very rare thing in some of these smaller collections," said George Weiblen, the science director of the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum. "That's where we find these little gems. The answers to some of our big questions are potentially sitting in a cabinet somewhere, and now is the time to get them, before we lose a lot of these old notebooks." Weiblen and other researchers with the Bell Museum are painstakingly expanding the atlas to include the collections and biodiversity records of other colleges, agencies and nonprofit groups across the state. This month they began adding thousands of insect, plant and animal records from Concordia College and Minnesota State University Moorhead. When it's finished, the atlas will offer the most comprehensive record ever made of living things in the state and offer biologists and wildlife managers a powerful tool to find out where and why species are struggling the most, and where they are thriving. The work comes as the world faces a mass extinction crisis, as countless species in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are being lost to habitat destruction, climate change and pesticide use. The biodiversity atlas doesn't just show what's been lost, but is used to map out how certain species are spreading and predict where plants and animals are going to be in the near future, Weiblen said. "Our environment is changing faster than ever before in human history," he said. "Change is challenging for all of us. We don't like change. We don't like things we can't control. But those are two of the most fundamental aspects of nature. So we're going to need to adapt." The online atlas was created in 2016 with the digitization of the Bell Museum's vast records in St. Paul. It's now grown to more than 650,000 records of plants and animals, ranging from beetles and minnows to moose and bear. It's already helped scientists understand one of the region's more drastic die-offs. In 2019, researchers at the College of William and Mary in Virginia used the atlas, along with similar databases in Wisconsin and other parts of the Midwest, to find out when the massive decline of monarch butterflies began. The leading theory at the time had been that herbicides used on genetically modified crops over the last few decades killed off the milkweed that monarch caterpillars needed to survive. But researchers found that Minnesota's milkweed has been steadily disappearing since the 1940s, long before modified crops were widely used. The consolidation of smaller farms and the loss of farmland to development most likely the main factors in the decline of monarchs, the study concluded. "It's research like that that really helps us decide where we need to focus our efforts here," Weiblen said. The collections at Concordia College and Minnesota State Moorhead will help fill in a gap in the atlas of western Minnesota species, especially insects. Concordia has collected more than 4,500 specimens of insects, including tiger beetles, a wide variety of bees and other prairie natives, said Joseph Whittaker, a biologist and professor at Concordia. "The great thing about this is that it makes these collections and this data really approachable for the public," he said. "It will help scientists who need to find specific specimens to study genetics, and it's going to help third grade teachers and students and just interested people find the spread of rare species, and learn more about what's in their backyard." While the atlas does show species in decline, it also shows an impressive resilience of wildlife, Weiblen said. Minnesota's recent history shows how quickly species can bounce back if given the right attention, he said, pointing to the recovery of eagles, wolves and peregrine falcons. Sometimes the solutions are relatively simple and cheap. Digging out a series of shallow oxbow ponds a few feet deep and less than 100 yards long seems to have entirely saved one of Minnesota's most endangered fishthe Topeka shiner. The towering old cottonwood trees that have been dying off in the Mississippi River's floodplains are starting to come back. It just took digging small trenches to provide a fresh layer of silt for seedlings to take root, Weiblen said. "Sometimes we just have to pay attention, we just have to get out there and look at stuff," he said. The hope is the atlas will encourage more people to start logging what they see and when, and to keep adding more observations. 2024 StarTribune. 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: B. eremicarminis specimen a) overview of skeleton (photograph by Stephanie Abramowicz); b) color-coded interpretation of skeleton (drawing by Dr. Nicole Klein). Credit: photograph by Stephanie Abramowicz; drawing by Dr. Nicole Klein The surprising discovery of a new species of extinct crocodile relative from the Triassic Favret Formation of Nevada, U.S., rewrites the story of life along the coasts during the first act of the Age of Dinosaurs. Described in a study published in Biology Letters, the new species Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis reveals that while giant ichthyosaurs ruled the oceans, the ancient crocodile kin known as pseudosuchian archosaurs ruled the shores across the Middle Triassic globe between 247.2 and 237 million years ago. "This exciting new species demonstrates that pseudosuchians were occupying coastal habitats on a global basis during the Middle Triassic," said Dr. Nate Smith, lead author of the paper, and Gretchen Augustyn Director and Curator of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Capturing fossil life from the eastern Panthalassan Ocean of the Triassic, the locality that includes the Favret Formation is known for fossils of sea-going creatures like ammonites along with marine reptiles like the giant ichthyosaur C. youngorumfinding the newly described B. eremicarminis came as a bit of a shock. "Our first reaction was: What the hell is this?" said co-author Dr. Nicole Klein of the University of Bonn. "We were expecting to find things like marine reptiles. We couldn't understand how a terrestrial animal could end up so far out in the sea among the ichthyosaurs and ammonites. It wasn't until seeing the nearly completely prepared specimen in person that I was convinced it really was a terrestrial animal." Pseudosuchian archosaurs have been unearthed in fossil beds from the shores of the ancient Tethys Ocean, but this is the first coastal representative from the Panthalassan Ocean and western hemisphere, revealing that these crocodile relatives were present in coastal environments worldwide during the Middle Triassic. Interestingly, these coastal species aren't all from the same evolutionary group, suggesting that pseudosuchians (and archosauriforms more broadly) were independently adapting to life along the shores. A map of the Middle Triassic oceans and the archosauriforms described from eastern coastal settings (yellow dots), as well as the new species B. eremicarminis from the Panthalassan coast (red star). Credit: Nate Smith "Essentially, it looks like you had a bunch of very different archosauriform groups deciding to dip their toes in the water during the Middle Triassic. What's interesting, is that it doesn't look like many of these 'independent experiments' led to broader radiations of semi-aquatic groups," said Smith. During the Triassic, archosaurs, "the ruling reptiles," arose and split into two groups with two surviving representatives: birds, the descendants of dinosaurs, and crocodilians (alligators, crocodiles, and gharials), the descendants of pseudosuchian archosaurs like B. eremicarminis. While today's crocodilians are similar enough to be mistaken for one another by most people, their ancient relatives varied wildly in size and lifestyle. The evolutionary relationships of B. eremicarminis and its relatives suggest that pseudosuchians achieved great diversity very quickly following the End-Permian mass extinctionthe extent of which is waiting to be discovered in the fossil record. "A growing number of recent discoveries of Middle Triassic pseudosuchians are hinting that an underappreciated amount of morphological and ecological diversity and experimentation was happening early in the group's history. While a lot of the public's fascination with the Triassic focuses on the origin of dinosaurs, it's really the pseudosuchians that were doing interesting things at the beginning of the Mesozoic," Smith said. The new species underlines the multiplicity of these ancient reptiles during the Triassic, from giants like Mambawakale ruhuhu to smaller animals like the newly described B. eremicarminis, which probably reached around 56 feet in length. Exactly how long B. eremicarminis was and how it survived along the coasts remains shrouded in the past. Only a few elements of the individual's skull were found, and any clues to how it fed and hunted are similarly absent. What's more clear is that B. eremicarminis likely stuck pretty close to the shore. Its well-preserved limbs are well-developed without any of the signs of aquatic living, like flippers or altered bone density. The research team wanted a name that paid respect to the original human inhabitants of the Augusta Mountains where the specimen was found, and so consulted a member of the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe to decide on an appropriate name. "Benggwi-Gwishinga," a word that means "catching fish" in Shoshone, was combined with the Greek word for Sobek, the Egyptian crocodile-headed god, to coin the new genus, Benggwigwishingasuchus. The specific epithet eremicarminis translates to "desert song," honoring two supporters of NHMLAC who have a passion for the paleontology and opera of the Southwest. Thus, the full name is meant to translate roughly as "Fisherman Croc's Desert Song." More information: Nathan D. Smith et al, A new pseudosuchian from the Favret Formation of Nevada reveals that archosauriforms occupied coastal regions globally during the Middle Triassic, Biology Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0136 Journal information: Biology Letters 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: David Rosch teaching a class at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Credit: College of ACES Colleges and universities often highlight leadership development as a critical component of their curriculumbut there is no clear consensus on what constitutes effective leadership education. In a new paper, two educators from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and John Carroll University provide a roadmap for training competent leaders, suggesting a comprehensive, practical approach for postsecondary institutions to follow. The work is published in the Journal of Leadership Education. "Our purpose was to discuss what it means to develop leaders and what a model for leadership education could look like, based on what we know about adult development and the needs of today's contemporary organizations. The goal is to help people in higher education think in a more organized way about what they want to accomplish and how they can set their programs up to get there," said David Rosch, associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education & Communications, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at Illinois. Leadership education should encompass two dimensions: horizontal and vertical development. Both approaches are necessary and complement each other, Rosch said. "Horizontal development is skill development. These are things you can train someone to do and competencies you can master. If you're going to be an effective leader, you need to know different aspects of conflict management and be able to decide which of these are most productive in a particular context," he stated. Vertical development is about wisdom and maturity, being able to understand the world from a bigger perspective than just your own viewpoint and thinking about your responsibilities in a more global sense. It progresses in a continuum from thinking primarily about yourself, then considering one's group, and finally being able to consider the greater good. "You can have a good toolbox and know how to use your tools, but if you don't combine that with maturity and wisdom, you are still going to make poor decisions," Rosch stated. "On the other hand, if you don't have your toolbox of competencies, you might be able to understand the bigger perspective, but you won't know what to do about it. You need both horizontal and vertical skills to be an effective leader." Rosch said most leadership education programs are good at providing horizontal skills but do not necessarily combine them with vertical skill development. He and co-author Scott Allen, associate professor of management in the Boler College of Business at JCU, provide a pathway to do so by outlining concepts and strategies that can be embedded in the coursework. They base their suggestions on a popular model of adult learning that includes five pillars focusing on different dimensions: Cognitive learninginformation processing and knowledge acquisition Behavioral learningskill development Humanist learningself-actualization and development of personal goals Constructivist learningmaking meaning of one's experiences through critical reflection Social cognitive learninghow environment and culture shape understanding. All five orientations must be integrated in order for horizontal and vertical leadership development to be successful, Rosch noted. Some examples of instructional elements to address these dimensions include a multiple choice exam (cognitive), role-playing as manager and employee (behavioral), writing an essay on how ethical leadership practices affect students' career goals (humanist), reflecting on an ethical dilemma they have faced (constructivist), and a guest lecture from an experienced manager (social cognitive). "This model of learning has been around for 20 years, but it hasn't been consistently used in leadership education. Dr. Allen and I show the answers are available, we just need to apply them in a coherent way, so leadership development is not just a concept in a mission statement, but a mission-critical outcome of higher education," Rosch said. "There are already great things going on across college campuses, but it's often done without clear guidelines. We're trying to provide people who design instructional curricula with a comprehensive checklist they can use to see what they might be missing. These principles can also be implemented for quality control and assessment to ensure effective leadership education," he concluded. More information: David Michael Rosch et al, From mission statements to mission critical: a conceptual model for getting serious about student leader development, Journal of Leadership Education (2024). DOI: 10.1108/JOLE-01-2024-0003 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) Water bill delinquencies schematic, illustrating our three delinquency metrics: (1) penalty frequency, (2) debt duration, and (3) normalized debt severity, which are detailed in (b) a table of metric definitions. Credit: Environmental Research Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad5609 Rising water prices are forcing many households in the United States to choose between rationing water or risking shutoff by leaving bills unpaid. A study in Environmental Research Letters shows that government agencies and water utilities may be underestimating the true number of households at risk of losing affordable access to basic water serviceand offers a solution. "Water affordability is a growing problem and we need new tools to better address it," said senior study author Sarah Fletcher, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and School of Engineering. Aging water infrastructure, climate change, extreme droughts, and increasing costs tied to water quality maintenance all threaten to exacerbate the challenge, which disproportionately affects low-income households and communities of color. "Applying the methods we demonstrated in this study could provide a better sense of how many households are currently struggling to pay their water bills," said Aniket Verma, a Ph.D. student in civil and environmental engineering, who co-led the study with Jennifer Skerker, also a Ph.D. student. Accurate assessments of water affordability are important because they inform decisions about utility rates, assistance programs, and eligibility for government financing for infrastructure improvements. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which sets limits for contaminants including dangerous "forever chemicals" in drinking water, considers affordability when evaluating the impact of new standards on water suppliers and when negotiating deadlines for wastewater treatment facilities to comply with regulations. Problems with the affordability ratio Water utilities, non-governmental organizations, and regulators generally assess water affordability by looking at total monthly water bills as a portion of household income, or what experts call the "affordability ratio." The method has faced growing criticism because affordability ratios fail to capture a given household's actual water needs, which depend on family size, appliance efficiency, and other factors. Furthermore, the affordability ratio is usually obtained as an average or snapshot in time of a census block or city, meaning the metric is not specific to individual households or necessarily accurate over the longer term. "The traditional metric compares a household's water bill to the household's income as a way of trying to assess the household's ability to pay, but there are important nuances that this metric cannot capture and it's not granular enough in many cases," said Fletcher, who is also a fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. The new Stanford research suggests metrics based on past payment behavior at the individual household level can provide a clearer view for water planners and regulators, policymakers, and non-governmental organizations. Moving beyond the status quo To explore new ways of evaluating water affordability, the Stanford researchers drew upon 13 years of water billing data for about 40,000 households in Santa Cruz, a small coastal city in California with a wide income distribution. The researchers applied to this dataset a series of so-called delinquency metrics based on water bill payment patterns, similar to metrics used to assess housing and energy affordability. Unlike the standard water affordability ratio, these delinquency metrics are tied more to a household's day-to-day financial decisions. "Delinquency metrics aim to gauge a given household's ability to pay based on how well that household has actually been able to pay in the past," said Skerker. "Our study is the first to compare potential delinquency metrics that might capture different aspects than the affordability ratio." Fletcher and colleagues designed three delinquency metrics. The first is frequency, measuring how often, on average, a household falls behind on its water bill. The second metric is duration, capturing how long, on average, a household does not pay their bill. The third metric is severity, meaning how much water bill debt a household goes into when not paying the bill. A new approach to ensuring water access Intriguingly, the study revealed that census blocks with similar affordability ratios, which would ordinarily be lumped together, often displayed a wide range of delinquency behavior. This finding indicates that the widely used affordability ratio approach might gloss over subpopulations of households struggling to maintain access to water for drinking and sanitation, a fundamental human right. Overall, the study suggests that delinquency metrics could reveal a lot more about water security in households than the standard approach. More information: Jennifer B Skerker et al, Alternative household water affordability metrics using water bill delinquency behavior, Environmental Research Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad5609 Journal information: Environmental Research Letters At Tex-Mex favorite Los Tios near West University Place, customers formed a line out the door, huddling under an olive green pergola. A hostess estimated that it would take one to 1 hours before anyone would be seated. Still, families waited as parents watched their children doing cartwheels on the concrete. A barback looked at all the customers, laughed and folded his hands in a prayer position. Restaurateur Michael Sambrooks, who stopped by Los Tios, wished he couldve opened his handful of restaurants to feed the legions of hungry Houstonians. I think a lot of people were looking to get out and relax, Sambrooks said. They were tired of being in a hot house. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Local restaurants stared down yet more all-too-familiar obstacles with Hurricane Beryl. But those that were able to open, especially that first day, experienced a rush of business. Craft Pita chef-owner Rafael Nasr saw the bombardment coming. As Beryl made its way north Monday afternoon, Nasrs phone started ringing every five to 10 minutes as people wanted to know if his restaurants were open. Craft Pita has two locations: a storefront a few doors down from Los Tios and an original location along Fountain View in Briargrove. In between checking his restaurants for any weather-related damage and that no food had spoiled, there wasnt enough time to open, Nasr said. He added that public transportation, which many of his employees rely on, was still down. If we couldve opened (Monday), we wouldve been busy as hell, Nasr said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad HOUSTON EATS: The Chronicles top 100 restaurants Burger Beodega was unable to process delivery orders through apps like Uber Eats but it remained open to customers dining at the restaurant and for takeout. Some restaurants remained closed Tuesday because of power outages, but Craft Pita was able to reopen. Nasr said it was the busiest lunch service so far this summer. For a few hours, there were no empty tables, he said, and customers ordered extra food for takeout. People were happy they werent eating ramen or Kraft mac and cheese, Nasr said. They were thankful we were open. They could get a salad or something they dont know how to cook. The rush was welcomed, but it didnt make up for closing early Sunday and all day Monday, Nasr said. Employees, whom are paid hourly, also suffered with the closures. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This is a way of life for a restaurant owner in Houston, Nasr said. Smashburgers at Burger Bodega were popular orders following Hurricane Beryl's passage in Houston Abbas Dhanani, the owner of Burger Bodega, described business as brisk for his popular smashburgers and cheese-drenched fries. But foot traffic was down with nearby offices closed, and his Wi-Fi wasnt working properly, which took away a significant amount of orders normally processed by delivery platforms such as UberEats or DoorDash. Home Slice, which started in Austin, closes only on Thanksgiving, Christmas and one other day of the year for a staff party, said Jeff Mettler, a partner in the pizzeria who lives in Montrose. Beryl, however, forced the Midtown restaurant to close Monday. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Its so important to be there for our guests; thats why were here in the first place, Mettler said. Were a little heartbroken that we couldnt be open" Monday. Business was fierce Tuesday. One company placed an order with Home Slice for 45 pizzas to feed 200 employees to be delivered within one hour, Mettler said. MORE FROM BAO ONG: Need to work and recharge after Hurricane Beryl? Here are Houston coffee shops that are open Walter Kurt, left, and his wife Denise Kurt sit to eat at Niko Nikos Greek & American which remained open the day after Beryl made landfall, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Houston. The Kurts are long term diners at Niko Nikos visiting since the opening of their first location. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer The demand for familiar fare wasnt surprising to Sambrooks, who operates two locations of barbecue joint the Pit Room, Tex-Mex restaurant Candente and upscale steakhouse Andiron, which was closed Tuesday. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Lunch numbers were up nearly 30% at the Pit Room in Montrose, he added. I dont know if anyone feels like dressing up right now and ordering a steak, Sambrooks said. Comforting food served quickly and at affordable prices is key at the moment, said Dimitri Fetokakis, the owner of Niko Nikos, a Greek restaurant in Montrose that's been around since 1977. While his new Woodlands outpost is still without power, Fetokakis kept his Montrose and Memorial locations open with a generator Monday. A line grows at the register at Niko Nikos Greek & American which remained open the day after Beryl made landfall, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Houston. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer Customers formed lines out the door leading to the parking lot, he said. He was prepared with a limited Storm Menu 2024 featuring popular items such as gyro sandwiches stuffed with chicken kabobs, falafel patties, salads and dips. Advertisement Article continues below this ad People will always need to eat, Fetokakis said. They need to have that normalcy. 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 with the Washington Predator-Prey Project collared 280 white-tailed deer to monitor their movement, survival and reproduction. Credit: Laura Prugh Humans drove wolves to extinction in Washington state around the 1930s. Thanks to conservation efforts, by about 80 years later, wolves had returnedcrossing first from the Canadian border into Washington around 2008 and later entering the state from Idaho. Since then, wolf numbers in Washington have been steadily growing, raising questions about what the return of this large predator species means for ecosystems and people alike. In northeast Washington, where wolves have recovered most successfully, researchers from the University of Washington and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife tracked one of their primary preywhite-tailed deerin part to see what impact wolf packs are having on deer populations. The answer? So far, wolves aren't having as much of an impact on deer as other factors. In a paper published June 18 in Ecological Applications, the team reports that the biggest factors shaping white-tailed deer populations in northeast Washington are the quality of habitat available and a different, long-established large predator in the state: the cougar, also known as the mountain lion or puma. Wolves were a distant third in their impact. "A big take-away from this study is that wolves are not returning to empty landscapes. These are places with humans and other carnivore species, like cougars, which will affect the impact that wolves can have," said lead author Taylor Ganz, who conducted this research for her UW doctoral degree as part of the Washington Predator-Prey Project. "This area has a relatively high human footprint compared to other areas where wolves have been studied. These are not national parks or dense, old-growth forests. They are areas with active logging, farming, ranching and towns. Our findings show that these factors are likely limiting the impact of wolves on one of their primary food sources." It's not that wolves aren't preying on white-tailed deer. According to the study, they are just not enough to take a large bite out of the population as a whole. This image shows two female adult white-tailed deer and one fawn. A new study shows that humans had both positive and negative influences on this species in northeast Washington. Researchers found that some activities, especially agriculture and logging, increased food available to deer. But, the study also found that vehicle collisions were one of the most common causes of death for deer. Credit: Taylor Ganz White-tailed deer are widespread east of the Cascades. The state's highest-density population of this species lies within the study area, which includes farmland and timber forests in parts of Stevens and Pend Oreille counties in northeast Washington. For the study, researchers radio-collared 280 white-tailed deer, 14 wolves, 50 cougars, 28 coyotes and 33 bobcats from 2016 to 2021. At the time of collaring, the researchers also noted vital statistics, including body condition, age and whether females were pregnant. When collared animals died, the team conducted a mortality investigation, if possible, and attempted to determine the cause of death. The team, which also includes researchers with Washington State University and the Spokane Tribe of Indians, used the resulting dataset to estimate the growth rate of the white-tailed deer population over the four-year study, and to identify the major factors shaping it. The analysis determined that the white-tail population in the study area was likely stable, or slightly declining, but that wolves were not largely responsible. The biggest factor impacting the deer population was habitat quality, including the amount of forage available for deer. For white-tailed deer, which are highly adaptable to human activity, foraging sites can range from forests and shrublands to agricultural fields. The study area includes both agricultural land and forests recently harvested for timber, both of which could provide deer with high-caloric density foraging sites, according to Ganz. After habitat quality, the study found that predation by cougars had a smaller effect on the white-tailed population. Wolf predation had a still smaller impact. Bobcats and coyotesboth medium-sized predatorshad a negligible impact on deer numbers. "Studies like this provide valuable insights about the complexity of these systems and how managing predator and prey populations is challenging and dynamic," said co-author Melia DeVivo, a research scientist with the WDFW. "It's important to continue evaluating these systems to understand the impacts of management decisions. Prior to this study, one might have expected that relying solely on wolf management strategies would result in a booming deer population, when it is clearly more complex than that." The new study focused on the Washington Predator-Prey Project's study area in northeast Washington, shown in green. Credit: Taylor Ganz Since their return, the number of wolves in Washington has risen steadily, reaching a minimum of 260 in 2023, according to state researchers. Four wolf packs reside in the northeast Washington Predator-Prey Project study area. The total number of wolves in the study areaabout 23remained steady overall during the research period. The team's findings contrast with studies of long-established wolf populations in protected areas, like Yellowstone National Park, which show a higher impact of wolves on the population dynamics of their prey species. To the authors of this new study, those differences highlight the importance of studying wolves in a variety of habitats. "This study reminds us that the population dynamics of predator and prey species can vary quite a bit," said senior author Laura Prugh, a UW associate professor of environmental and forest sciences. "Habitat quality, the species that are present and the degree of human activity all affect the impact that large predators like wolves will have. It's critical to compare different types of sites." The paper is part of the Washington Predator-Prey Project, a partnership between the UW and the WDFW to investigate the impact of the wolves' return on state ecosystems. Additional co-authors are Sarah Bassing , a UW doctoral alum in environmental and forest sciences; Lauren Satterfield, a UW doctoral student in environmental and forest sciences; biologists Brian Kertson and Benjamin Turnock with the WDFW; Lisa Shipley, a professor at WSU; Savannah Walker and Derek Abrahamson, both biologists with the Spokane Tribe of Indians; Beth Gardner, a UW associate professor of environmental and forest sciences; and Aaron Wirsing, a UW professor of environmental and forest sciences. More information: Taylor R. Ganz et al, Whitetailed deer population dynamics in a multipredator landscape shaped by humans, Ecological Applications (2024). DOI: 10.1002/eap.3003 Journal information: Ecological Applications MARGATE The Jewish Community Center formerly known as the Milton & Betty Katz JCC is being rededicated in honor of Lewis Katz, a philanthropist and former co-owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The center will now be known as the Marjorie & Lewis Katz Jewish Community Center. To celebrate the rededication, the center will hold an event from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday at the center at 501 N. Jerome Ave. The celebration will feature games and activities, live music, Kosher-style carnival food and a tribute book commemorating the day. We deeply appreciate the steadfast support and significant contributions of the Katz family to our community, said Marg Rosenblatt, CEO of the Jewish Community Center. This rededication event honors their legacy and celebrates the promising future of our JCC. Katz, a native of Camden, established several different programs to help children there and has donated generously to Jewish organizations, such as the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey, Congregation Beth El in Voorhees, and the National Museum of American Jewish History. He also directed the Katz Foundation, which established an annual prize and endowed a visiting professorship in cardiovascular research at Columbia University in New York, and gave $15 million to the Dickinson School of Law at Penn State University, resulting in buildings bearing his name. Temple University's Lewis Katz School of Medicine also was dedicated to him. Katz died in 2014. For more information on the event and to participate in the tribute book, contact Brian Adler at badler@jccatlantic.org or 609-822-1167, ext. 159. 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. GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP Stockton University will become the first college in New Jersey to offer an undergraduate degree in cannabis studies this fall. The Bachelor of Science in hemp and cannabis business management through the university's School of Business will prepare students to join an industry that has seen a 66% increase in the number of jobs in New Jersey, Stockton adjunct professor Rob Mejia said Wednesday in a statement. The number of cannabis- and hemp-related jobs in the state increased from about 7,400 to 12,200 from March 2023 to March 2024, according to Vangst, a cannabis industry job platform. As the state continues to open new licensing classes in distribution, wholesaling and delivery, and the edible cannabis business expands, job demand in the industry continues to increase, the college said. Warren Kleinsmith, dean of the School of Business, said the hands-on learning experience of the new degree is one of its strengths, with two cannabis field internships offered. The degree also builds on Stocktons cannabis studies minor that was introduced in 2018 and has over 70 graduates, the college said. In addition to courses that focus on cannabis cultivation, social justice and its medicinal uses, the degree includes classes on cannabis business policy and strategies, marketing principles and macroeconomics. Vehicles line up for a supply distribution at Woodforest Bank Stadium after Hurricane Beryl made its way through the Greater Houston area, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Shenandoah. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Vehicles line up for a supply distribution at Woodforest Bank Stadium after Hurricane Beryl made its way through the Greater Houston area, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Shenandoah. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Volunteers across various Montgomery County nonprofits and government agencies distribute supplies, including water, ice, MREs and other supplies to 1,500 vehicles at Woodforest Bank Stadium after Hurricane Beryl made its way through the Greater Houston area, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Shenandoah. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Bill Forschler with the Montgomery County Food Bank helps distribute supplies, including ice, water, fruit, MREs at Woodforest Bank Stadium after Hurricane Beryl made its way through the Greater Houston area, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Shenandoah. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Vehicles line up for a supply distribution at Woodforest Bank Stadium after Hurricane Beryl made its way through the Greater Houston area, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Shenandoah. Montgomery County Office of Emergency Managment in coordination with the Montgomery County Food Bank distributed water, ice, MREs and other supplies to 1,500 vehicles. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Vehicles line up for a supply distribution at Woodforest Bank Stadium after Hurricane Beryl made its way through the Greater Houston area, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Shenandoah. Montgomery County Office of Emergency Managment in coordination with the Montgomery County Food Bank distributed water, ice, MREs and other supplies to 1,500 vehicles. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer August Lenarz with the Texas A&M Fire Service, holds a ba of ice during a supply distribution at Woodforest Bank Stadium after Hurricane Beryl made its way through the Greater Houston area, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Shenandoah. Montgomery County Office of Emergency Managment in coordination with the Montgomery County Food Bank distributed water, ice, MREs and other supplies to 1,500 vehicles. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Bill Forschler with the Montgomery County Food Bank helps distribute supplies, including ice, water, fruit, MREs at Woodforest Bank Stadium after Hurricane Beryl made its way through the Greater Houston area, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Shenandoah. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Bottles of water are seen before theyre distrusted to 1,500 Montgomery County residents at Woodforest Bank Stadium after Hurricane Beryl made its way through the Greater Houston area, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Shenandoah. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough said power restoration in the county is progressing, but Entergy officials say it could take several days to repair damage from Hurricane Beryl. Entergy Texas storm crews have restored power to more than 70,000 customers late Tuesday after heavy rain and strong winds from Hurricane Beryl caused widespread outages across the area. CenterPoint has restored electricity to more than 850,000 of the more than 2.2 million customers that lost power during the storm. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Keough said more than 56% of Entergy customers and 60% of CenterPoint's customers in Montgomery County were still without power, leading to an increase in 911 calls about heat-related illnesses and carbon monoxide poisoning from misuse of portable generators. Do not use your generator in your home even if your doors and windows are open; dont do it, Keough said. It gives off carbon monoxide and that can be deadly. Misti Willingham, public information officer with the Montgomery County Hospital District, confirmed the emergency calls but did not have specific numbers. WATER SAFETY: More boil water notices issued for Houston area as power outages continue after Hurricane Beryl According to Entergys website, as of 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, crews had reduced power outages from 253,460 to 189,000. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Conroe network, which includes Montgomery, Panorama Village, and Willis, has approximately 57,000 customers without power. Power has been restored to areas between FM 3083 and Loop 336, areas around FM 3083 and Frazier. Crews were actively working to restore power in Grangerland on FM 2920 between FM 1485 and FM 3083, FM 3083 south of FM 2920 and Texas 242 west of Old Houston Road. There are currently 125 workers in the area to assist with restoration. Damage assessments are 40% complete, and have found 28 poles down, 24,300 downed wires, 25 damaged transformers, and 41 broken cross arms. Approximately 41,000 customers are without power in The Woodlands network, which includes Oak Ridge North, Shenandoah, and Woodloch. Crews have restored power in Sterling Ridge Subdivision, Alys Luxury Living, and are actively working to restore power near Oakridge School Road, Jetoma Road, and surrounding areas. The estimated number of customers restored is 4,103. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Damage assessments are approximately 50% completed and have found 32 poles down, 37,200 feet of downed wire, 14 damaged transformers and 37 broken crossarms. The New Caney network, which includes Huffman, Porter, Roman Forest, and Woodbranch, has approximately 30,000 customers without power. Crews are actively working to restore power along Gasoline Avenue from Bethal Baptist to Grace Lane, Lazy Pine Drive to North Wood Country Drive. Subdivisions: Summer Hill, The Heights, Riverwalk, Cumberland, Brookwood Forest, Northpark Woods, Porter Mills, Timberland, Valley Ranch, Country Village. Damage assessments are underway and found 19 downed poles, 27,300 feet of downed wire, 24 damaged cross arms, and 3 blown transformers. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Cleveland network, which includes Patton Village, Plum Grove, and Splendora, has approximately 20,000 customers without power. Quad-Cities community foundations are encouraged by new legislation in Illinois and hope to see more charitable giving next year. Beginning in 2025, the Illinois Gives Tax Credit Act will allow any Illinois taxpayer to claim a 25% state income tax credit back on eligible gifts over the next five years, in an effort to increase giving and funding for nonprofits. Gary Rowe, executive director of the Rock Island Community Foundation (RICF), said a simple example of this is "if you give $100,000, you get a $25,000 credit." The tax credit act requires all donations to be made to a permanent endowment fund held by a qualified Illinois community foundation in order to receive tax credit, ensuring dollars stay within the state. Anne Calder, vice president of development at the Quad Cities Community Foundation (QCCF), said donations will generate grants for nonprofits each year. QCCF houses almost 200 funds for local nonprofits. "Donors can give to an existing fund that benefits Illinois charities and causes. Those eligible funds will have an impact going forward," she said. "That's the way an endowment works. Every single year the charity receives dollars from that gift." A news release from the QCCF states Illinois Gives will incentivize up to $100 million over the next five years in new donations made to permanent endowments held by qualified, state community foundations. Calder said each year the state will allocate $5 million in tax credits, enough to provide the credit for $20 million in donations. "So in five years, $100 million in gifts to charitable endowments will have happened, and $25 million in credits will be awarded as well," Calder said. Rowe said the program was modeled off of the state of Iowa's Endow Iowa Tax Credit program, which was enacted in 2004. According to the Iowa Community Foundations' website, Endow Iowa has leveraged over $359 million in endowment gifts since its inception. Paul Plagenz, president and CEO of Moline Regional Community Foundation (MRCF), said with Illinois Gives, there is now money available for organizations on each side of the river. MRCF houses roughly 120 partner funds, he said. "There's everything from The Arc, to Two Rivers YMCA, to Friendship Manor, plus many other that we have that are Illinois-based," Plagenz said. In an effort to encourage charitable giving among everyday citizens, Rowe said, Illinois Gives reserves 25% of the total statewide credits for donations under $25,000. Rowe said according to Endow Iowa's 2021 report, 96% of donors gave less than $30,000. "So it's a great opportunity for the donors who say 'Well, I'm not Bill Gates.' You don't have to be," he said. "Your $1,000 gift is important." This year, Rowe said RICF made grants to 50 nonprofit organizations that serve Rock Island residents. Rowe said there is no minimum set for donations. However, there is a cap. According to an Illinois Gives FAQ sheet provided by Calder, the maximum tax credit available per filer is $100,000. In order to reach that, she said, a taxpayer must donate $400,000. Calder said Illinois Gives also allows more people to itemize their taxes. After the 2017 Trump Tax cuts, she said only around 11% of the nation itemizes. "Everybody, regardless of whether or not they itemize, can now receive a financial incentive towards their tax income that encourages them to invest in their state," she said. Illinois Gives ensures equity across organizations, Calder said. According to the Illinois Gives FAQ sheet, no community foundation can account for more than 15% of the total $5 million in tax credit. Calder said this assures each qualified community foundation will be able to benefit from the legislation. Qualified community foundations, she said, are organizations "accredited by the Community Foundation National Standards Board (CFNSB) with support from the Council on Foundations." According to the CFNS's website, in order to receive accreditation, foundations must follow the 26 national standards. Plagenz said he hopes the state of Illinois continues the program after its set five years, as well as increasing the cap from $5 million in total credits per year. In Iowa's tax credit program, he said, the money is normally all allotted by January. "It's money that was raised and earned here in Illinois that will go back into our community, that will improve our communities, and the people that live in our communities forever," Plagenz said. "And that's really what I consider very progressive thinking by the legislators and our current governor, to push this forward and make sure people understand that giving back is a way to help you too." Judge Frank Aguilar's suspension has been lived. Here he listens during a hearing in the 228th District Criminal Court on Jan. 24, 2023, at the Harris County Criminal Courthouse in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer The State Commission on Judicial Conduct has lifted the suspension of a Harris County felony court judge after a misdemeanor assault case against him was dismissed. The chair of the state commission on July 8 signed an order lifting Judge Frank Aguilars suspension, explaining that the decision came after the criminal case ended. The order of suspension required that such suspension remain in effect until the charge set forth in the information is dismissed Chair Gary Steel wrote. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Prosecutors earlier this month contended probable cause exists against Aguilar, of the 228th District Court, who was accused of assaulting his girlfriend at his Galveston property, but there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, according to their motion to dismiss. A judge signed off on the dismissal. Aguilar had denied the allegations from the beginning. Mayor Levar Stoney defended the citys procurement card policy Tuesday afternoon, saying that they swiftly respond to breaches in rules. We have an expectation that all of our employees, no matter what position they hold, will follow the procurement policies to a tee, and when they dont, there will be consequences, Stoney said. Im grateful that the procurement department was able to monitor spending out of that specific office and suspended the cards necessary. Stoneys comments come after Petula Burks, former communications director, resigned last week following a Times-Dispatch report that she spent nearly $100,000 with consulting and advertising firms operated by a former business partner. The Times-Dispatch acquired a purchasing card transaction log through a Freedom of Information Act request. It showed Burks used her card to spend $43,930 at LC Studios LLC and $55,050 at Play 4 Production. Both companies list Cameus Chicoye among their leadership. Burks and Chicoye in 2015 partnered to form the corporation Name of Grace Graces Love Corporation, where Burks was president and Chicoye served as vice president, public records show. Prior to coming to Richmond, Burks was the chief of staff for the mayor of Augusta, Georgia. She resigned from that position in January 2022 to take the job in Richmond. Six months earlier, a probe into former Mayor Hardie Davis city-issued credit card revealed $24,000 worth of charges to LC Studios LLC, which had the appearance of conflict, The Augusta Chronicle reported. Burks has declined to comment about her resignation. Stoney, who is now a candidate for lieutenant governor, created the Office of Public Information and Engagement with a mission to connect communities with city government through accessible public information, meaningful engagement, and compelling storytelling, according to a press release announcing her hire. Since January 2023, the citys procurement office headed by Rene Almaraz has suspended five purchasing cards three in the Richmond General Registrars Office and two in Burks former office. Raymond Dark Jr., an executive assistant in the communications office, abruptly stopped using his procurement card in September after charging nearly $64,000 in the first nine months of 2023. City spokesperson Gianni Snidle confirmed that card was suspended. Tamara Jenkins, the offices public information manager, in 2023 used her card to obtain $6,500 worth of services from Play 4 Production. Jenkins charges to Play 4 Production came after Burks card was suspended, records show. City department directors, managers and cardholders oversee the day-to-day usage of P-cards within their respective departments. But the process can vary depending on the department, Snidle said. The purchasing cards, which are issued to individual city officials on behalf of the city, are funded through budgeted taxpayer dollars. As of 2023, there were 336 issued procurement cards. While Stoney declined to comment on the nature of Burks resignation citing personnel matters, he said he is grateful for all of her work and wishes her well in future endeavors. Meet the candidates for Richmond mayor Andreas Addison Danny Avula Michelle Mosby Maurice Neblett Harrison Roday Out of the running Funeral services were held Tuesday for Kat Simons, a longtime Richmond radio personality. Known for her love of animals, Simons served as a midday DJ on Richmonds Mix 98.1 for over 25 years. On her show, Kats Mix Cafe, she ran a Pet of the Day segment where she partnered with local shelters to help find homes for stray cats and dogs. She died peacefully at home on June 28, according to the radio station. She was 63. She was more than a voice on the radio; she was a cherished friend and a comforting presence, always offering a kind word or a sweet question with sincere curiosity. Kats life was a symphony of kindness and dedication, played out over the airwaves of Virginia radio, the station released in a statement. I worked with Kat for over a decade, Bill Bevins, another longtime Richmond DJ and current co-host of Virginia This Morning on CBS 6, said. She was one of those people that just sounded great coming out of the speakers, which is all that really matters. Everybody would ask me, She cant be that sweet, kind and loving in person, can she? And I would say, Shes actually more kind and loving and sweet in person. She was just that kind of person. She cared. It made all the difference in the world. People got it and they connected with her, Bevins said. Simons grew up on a farm in Elkins, West Virginia, which sparked her love of animals. She was a 1979 graduate of Elkins High School and a graduate of Davis & Elkins College. She got her start at the Elkins radio station WDNE, followed by a job in radio in the Outer Banks, before moving to Richmond and taking a job with Mix 98.1, then known as Lite 98.1 FM. Besides her work at the radio station, she was devoted to animals and finding homes for rescues. She lived in Midlothian. Animals never had a better or more devoted friend than Kat Simons. She was remarkable in every way, giving generously of her time and many talents to support the causes near to her heart, and we were lucky to be in her orbit, Tamsen Kingry, chief executive officer at Richmond SPCA, said. At the Richmond SPCA, she emceed our annual Dog Jog, 5K and Block Party for nearly two decades, invited us into her studio weekly to promote pets for adoption, and raised awareness for our events and lifesaving programming on her community affairs show, among so much more. We miss her deeply and will work hard to honor her memory by saving and protecting the animals she so loved, Kingry added. Simons also volunteered her time with several charity organizations including Richmond and Hanover ARC, Relay for Life, the Alzheimers Association, Arthritis Association, SPARC, The Faison Center and many more. She cared about everything. She took care of everybody but herself, Bevins said. Her health was not good, he added. A cause of death was not disclosed. Services were held at Maplewood Cemetery in Elkins, West Virginia, on Tuesday. Condolences may be expressed to the family at The Tomblyn Funeral Home of Elkins, tomblynfuneralhome.com. Cats and dogs that need homes in the Richmond area Utility workers from Ohio prepare their truck outside a power station in the Independence Heights neighborhood on Tuesday in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer How are we holding up, Houston? Its been a tough 48 hours with many of us going on for about as many hours without power following Beryls rampage through Greater Houston. The Southeast Texas heat has us all feeling a tad on edge, as many are dealing with daunting repairs, rotting food from warm refrigerators and aching arms weary from flapping fans. Lets collectively take a deep breath, exhale and get into the forecast: Wednesday will be another hot day. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Forecast highs Wednesday arent going to be record-breaking. They arent even going to be record-tying. Forecast highs of 92 to 95 degrees would be just another day in July for Houston ordinarily. But with more than a million utility customers still without power, its a potentially dangerous day of heat. Heat index values, the humidity-driven approximations of air temperatures, will top out between 100 and 105 degrees in most of Southeast Texas. The National Weather Service office for Houston and Galveston has already issued a heat advisory for Wednesday to raise awareness about the need to practice heat safety. HOW HOT DOES IT GET? : See how hot it could be at your location Wednesday by checking the Texas Heat Tracker here. Advertisement Article continues below this ad With it being July in Houston, daily high temperatures will generally land in the 92 to 94 degree range through the weekend. Additional heat alert days are expected as so many suffer through this heat without power. If you are a lucky enough to have air conditioning, consider inviting friends or family that you know are still without power to come over for a chance to cool off. Sharing is caring, especially in July when air conditioning is a hot commodity. Few more storms Thursday This weeks heat may come with a few stray showers or storms. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Thursdays storm potential is a bit higher as a moisture-rich air mass gets pulled into the region from the Gulf of Mexico. For Houston, rain chances Thursday will peak between 30% and 50%, with slightly higher rain potential toward the coast. The resulting showers wont be enough to significantly slow down power restoration efforts or post-Beryl recovery tasks, but they may be enough to take the edge off the heat a bit. Consider it a welcome relief if it does happen in your neighborhood. Shown is the North American Mesoscale model of how future weather radar could look Thursday afternoon. Storm chances are around 40% for much of Southeast Texas, so a few more storms could dot the radar. WeatherBELL Even more storms may bubble up Friday into Saturday. Weekend outlook An influx of moisture is expected to arrive late this week and into the weekend. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The result will be rain chances around 40% to 60% in the Houston metro area through Saturday. Downpours could result in a quick half-inch to an inch of rain, with locally higher amounts in heavier storms. Scattered storms will help to keep temperatures in check for the most part, with daytime highs of between 90 and 93 degrees, which is pretty typical for this time of year. New substations being added to keep up with Quintana Roo housing demand Riviera Maya, Q.R. Given the constant growth of Quintana Roo and the increased need for electricity, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has planned five new substations over the next three years. Miguel Verdin Ruiz, head of CFE communications in Cancun said housing and hotel expansion is eating away at them so work is being done to add substations and reduce blackouts. In this area, the expansion is catching up with us and eating away at us. There is a lot of housing, a lot of hotel rooms and perhaps the network is not completely prepared or adequate to be able to provide its services, he said. He says the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) is working on increasing the number of substations with the aim of not only reducing blackouts, but also providing service to the new developments of which 150,000 are expected over the next five years. In the meantime he said the existing lines and substations are being modernized and recalibrated to offer better service. In Cancun, the consumption is usually 600 megawatts, but this summer it has risen to approximately 900 megawatts. In the entire Peninsula, the consumption is approximately 1,900, meaning that Quintana Roo receives 40 to 45 percent of the demand for the service, he explained. New substations are planned to keep up with the 150,000 new homes expected over the next five years. Photo: Govt QR. At the moment there are no plans for Quintana Roo to install a combined cycle plant that could generate independently from those operating in Merida and Valladolid, only the substations that would be established in a period of two or three years, one of which is already in operation. He explained that the supply is not being exceeded, that what is consumed is what is generated, but when there is maximum demand, any variation in the system can cause blackouts, hence the importance of these substations which will help mitigate the frequent blackouts. Every year, millions of American families with college students complete a government form known as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. The application is administered by the U.S. Department of Education, which processes the form and produces a report that is then sent to colleges and universities. The report often dictates the amount and type of financial aidboth public and privatethat college students may be entitled to receive. While colleges are not required to use the reports for awarding private aid, most do so as not to burden families with similar applications requesting essentially the same information. So a lot of college-related decisions are dependent on these reports. This year, the Department of Education overhauled the system, promising a new and improved process. But, as if on cue, the government whiffed. They fumbled the ball. They failed. The rollout was a nonsuccess. But fear not: Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona has promised transformational changes in the office responsible for FAFSA. There is very little that inspires less confidence than a letter from a bureaucrat expressing faux sympathy with as much Orwellian obfuscation as the intern writing it can muster. I am sure American families waiting to make life-altering decisions lost a lot more sleep than did anyone at the Department of Education. This example of administrative incompetence is only one of thousandsnay, millions!of examples both large and small that could be proffered. Whether it is the indignity of waiting for hours in a dingy government office only to be turned away to the back of the line because someone in another dingy government office didnt check the right box with the right ink, or getting a thick envelope from the IRS (assuming that the postal service has competently delivered it)dealing with government agencies is never pleasant. And it is even worse when they have the freedom to define the rules and move the goalposts, and are almost completely insulated from any kind of external accountability. So, for all those weary of the myriad petty and serious ways the administrative state makes the sun just a little less bright, the breeze just a little less cool, and life a little less enjoyable, the Supreme Courts decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo should be a cause for celebration. In this case, the Court overturned a precedent that established what has become known as Chevron deference, which had obligated federal courts to defer to an agencys interpretation of statutes under most circumstances. Interestingly, the Supreme Court with a slightly different composition declined to overturn a related precedent known as Auer deference that gives federal agencies the power to interpret its own ambiguous regulations. While not directly on point, Loper likely signals that Auer deference is on life support, which is also a very good thing. Under the Chevron and Auer schemes, administrative agencies have been incentivized to look for statutory ambiguity and even create regulatory ambiguity that has disadvantaged American citizens in ways that have been almost entirely shielded from any reasonable recourse. In more concrete terms, this has meant that administrative agencies have been functioning as judge, jury, and executioner in their interactions with the American public. The case that gave rise to the Chevron doctrine provides as good an example as any. Congress enacted an amendment to the Clean Air Act in 1977 that subjected any project that created a new stationary source of air pollution to a complex approval process administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Conflict arose as to the definition of a source of air pollution. Is it a new air conditioning window unit, a new nuclear power plant, or something else entirely? The EPA had interpreted source expansively until the Reagan administration changed the interpretation to mean an entire plant or factory, rather than a new machine, building, or component less than the whole. Thus litigation that would ultimately conclude with the Supreme Courts articulation in 1984 of what became known as the Chevron doctrine commenced. A federal appeals court ruled that the new interpretation conflicted with prior judicial interpretations of the statute, but the Supreme Court reversed and found that the ambiguous statute simply created the space for the EPA to make a policy decision that was not reviewable by the judiciary as the nonpolitical branch of the government. This decision traded one problem for another. Prior to Chevron, activist organizations would litigate in sympathetic courts to lock in a particular interpretation of a statute that would then bind an agencys ability to be responsive to the policy decisions of the executive branch. After the Supreme Court decided Chevron, agency decisions were largely unreviewable by courts, leaving citizens with no recourse other than to lobby Congress for changes in the law or to participate in the largely perfunctory public-comment process in the promulgation of regulations. In many cases, however, the decisions impacted by Chevron are not those addressed via public comment. So, to avoid judicial overreach, Chevron set the stage for administrative overreach. Does Loper merely signal a pendulum swing back toward judicial overreach? It is too early to tell. Loper does not, as some critics claim, turn the field of administrative law into the wild west. The Court expressly states that prior decisions that relied on the Chevron test are left untouched by this decision. And another earlier precedent, Skidmore v. Swift & Co., which established a much more reasonable case-by-case balancing test that determines whether an agencys interpretation deserves deference, is still operative. Justice Kagan, however, points out in dissent that the balancing test in Skidmore will provide fertile ground for contention in future litigation. Or, in other words, it will obligate judges to decide relevant questions of law, as the Administrative Procedure Act requires. While Chevron did need to be scuttled, it remains unclear to me if Loper goes far enough. The dissent is correct in at least one observationCongress could always overrule the decision in Chevron. Article I vests the legislative power of the United States in the Congress. Article III vests the judicial power of the United States in the courts. The net result of Chevron has provided mechanisms by which executive bureaucracies usurp the judicial power of the United States while often illegitimately exercising the legislative power of the United States. Unilateral changes in the interpretation of statutes and regulations have the effect of statutory amendment by unelected bureaucrats rather than through the constitutionally prescribed legislative process entrusted to elected constitutional officers serving in the U.S. Congress. Compounding the constitutional injury to the separation of powers, Chevron has compel[ed] judges to abdicate their Article III judicial Power. But this is a mess that Congress has created and has always had the power to fix. Loper (and Skidmore) likely provide the best option in the face of congressional dysfunction and fecklessness. As it stands, members of Congress from either party can praise or criticize the regulatory decisions of administrative agencies and disclaim direct responsibility. But the reality is that government bureaucracy touches far too many areas of life and is far too bloated and onerous to navigate. Enabling statutes passed by Congress that empower various administrative officers to particular tasks are rarely more than 500 words but quickly metastasize into thousands of pages of complex, opaque regulation. At least with Chevron gone and Auer (likely) on borrowed time, American citizens have some recourse against administrative overreach. But administrative agencies are still too large, too cumbersome, and too lacking in democratic accountability. Until the political will exists to solve the more fundamental constitutional issues at play, we are probably destined to function somewhere along the arc of a pendulum swinging from judicial overreach to administrative overreach and back to judicial overreach again. A Kansas man who posed online as being from Roanoke and other cities to befriend about 200 minor girls, who he then convinced to share nude photographs of themselves, was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison. Andrew Kent, 22, received the sentence from U.S. District Judge Norman Moon after pleading guilty in April to child exploitation charges. Kents potential punishment ranged from a mandatory minimum of 15 years to life in prison. In January 2023, Kent met a 14-year-old girl from Lynchburg on Twitter, now known as X. After first pretending to be a 20-year-old woman, he eventually identified himself as Leo and truthfully said he was 21 years old, according to court records. Kent, who at the time was a graduate student at Kansas State University, sent the victim generic photographs of Roanoke to convince her that he lived nearby as their conversations became more graphic. After several weeks of chatting, he convinced the girl to send him nude photographs and videos of herself, as well as images of self-harm that included her carving the word Leo into her thigh, a statement of facts signed by Kent attested. Kent persisted even after the girl told him she suffered from bipolar depression. After his arrest last June, Kent agreed to an interview with FBI agents. During the course of this interview, Kent told law enforcement that he habitually sought out minors online, primarily using Twitter, court records state. Kent told authorities that he had obtained nude photographs from about 200 underage girls, often saying he lived near their addresses as he gradually secured their trust. Although he never had physical contact with his victims, he expressed remorse for the emotional harm he caused. I abhor the person I used to be, Kent wrote in a letter to Judge Moon. I was deceitful in nearly every aspect of my life, from the people I talked with online to my friends and family. After discovering pornography at an early age, Kent wrote, it quickly became a sexual addiction that consumed by life. I preyed on the young and vulnerable to fuel my sexual desires, the handwritten letter, admitted as evidence in U.S. District Court in Lynchburg, stated. I have left many young women in my path of destruction, and there is no way to sugarcoat that at all. BLACKSBURG Virginia Tech is set to open Hitt Hall, its newest on-campus building, when students return in August. Hitt Hall is a three-story, 99,429-square-foot building on the northwest edge of campus, near where West Campus Drive and Perry Street intersect. It contains classrooms and a dining center, called Perry Place. The facility cost $85 million including $47 million for dining and broke ground on Feb. 2, 2022. Leaders of the past had a vision of what Virginia Tech would look like in the future. It looked bigger, said Mark Owczarski, Virginia Techs director of news and information. We have grown our student enrollment from around 20,000 to 30,000, where we are today. This is part of that growth. The Hitt family, which founded the construction company HITT Contracting, donated $5 million through its charitable foundation to the project. It was about a decade ago when the Hitt family and HITT Contracting which is a major company in Virginia said, Hey, we need better talent, Owczarski said. They saw the potential at Virginia Tech and they invested in it by providing the funds to, in large part, build this building. The new building will house the Virginia Tech Myers-Lawson School of Construction within the College of Engineering. Its incredibly important to the construction industry in Virginia and across the country, Owczarski said. Theres a need for the talent that comes out of the school of building construction, and Hitt Hall now provides that quality space, that quality environment, allowing us to offer that degree to more students. Perry Place will contain nine distinct dining concepts five on the first floor and four on the second. The first floor will contain a grab-and-go market, a coffee shop, a full-service Chick-Fil-A, a diner serving all-day breakfast and a deli with Boars Head products. The second floor will consist of options for Mediterranean cuisine, Asian street food, barbecue and fast-casual Italian food. Dining options will be open on Mondays through Thursdays from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Fridays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. To find dining vendors, Owczarski said the planners first sought out student feedback. He emphasized how potential students increasingly weigh dining options and other aspects of campus life when deciding whether or not to attend a college. Today, students seek out schools that offer a variety of choices, in terms of food and amenities and housing and all of that kind of stuff, he said. Students not only seek a degree that they can receive, but they also seek an experience that Virginia Tech is building and offering, with their input and feedback. Perry Place plans to staff 364 employees 290 student wage positions, 20 non-student wage positions and 54 salaried positions. Owczarski said finding staff is an ongoing process. Hiring has been going on for months, Owczarski said. You dont start it once the building is done; you start it well in advance. When you bring them in, they may work at other facilities, but then they will calibrate their staff to where their needs are. During the fall semester, Owczarski said the university will host a grand opening event, although the building will already be in operation by then. The key is when we have students begin the fall semester when we have cadets showing up early, we have RAs showing up early that this will be ready for when students arrive, he said. We will acknowledge and celebrate this, in some way, when the semester is underway. Owczarski said the university has been in the process of adding more buildings Hitt Hall included for two decades, as Virginia Techs student body expanded. We knew that if we were to grow to 30,000 [students], as we are today, we needed to be able to feed them, we needed classroom space, we needed laboratories for STEM education, he said. Hitt Hall is the first new campus building to open since the Data and Decision Sciences Building and the Corps Leadership and Military Science Building opened in 2023. The construction project comes in the midst of construction crews tearing down and rebuilding a classroom building at the site of old Randolph Hall, routine maintenance per Owczarski of Burruss Hall and a renovation of War Memorial Hall. Owczarski said War Memorial Hall, a gym that initially closed in December 2019, will reopen before the fall semester. Its a big project, Owczarski said. Renovation is actually more difficult than new construction, in terms of time and all of that. But as I understand it, War Memorial is on schedule for the fall semester. CHARLOTTESVILLE Central Virginians are about to see the Trump name in a lot more places, and not just because of the upcoming November presidential election. The Trump family has been in the wine business in Virginia for roughly 13 years, after purchasing the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard just south of Charlottesville in 2011. Trump Winery, as it is now known, has established itself as one of the better known, distributed and awarded labels in the Virginia wine country. Now that investment in the region is bearing new fruit: apples, to be exact. Trump Cidery has opened its doors south of Charlottesville directly across Carter Mountain Road from Trump Winery in the latters old tasting room, recently renovated for the expansion. The expansion has been a longtime dream of the winerys owner, Eric Trump, son of businessman, former president and current presidential contender Donald Trump. [Eric Trump] really wanted to do cider for a long time. He always kind of hinted at it and wanted us to think about doing it, Trump winemaker Jonathan Wheeler told The Daily Progress. He just thought it was super fun. The cider discussions began in earnest in 2022, and a partnership was soon established with Silver Creek & Seamans Orchard in Nelson County, which grows and presses the fruit before shipping it up the road to Wheeler. While the first saplings have been planted, Trump Cidery does not yet support an adult orchard on premises. For Wheeler, the shift to fermenting apples was not that far of a stretch and allowed the winemaker to tap into his creative side. [With] wine, youre very serious, you try to add as little as possible and just let the grapes do their thing, he said. Then for cider, its kind of like the restraints are off. You can do whatever you want, whatever you feel like as long as the people like it. Wheelers imagination has run free while playing around with some different flavor additives, even spicing up the menu with a mango habanero cider, which became a crowd favorite just weeks after the cidery opened. Customers looking for a drink with a little less heat can also enjoy some of Wheelers other experiments in hopped ciders as well as a couple of sparkling brews a nod to Trump Winerys trademark sparkling wines, some of the first produced in the region. The winery won five gold medals at this years Governors Cup competition, the commonwealths top contest for winemakers, one of which was for its 2017 sparkling blanc de noir. Wheeler implements similar traditional techniques to produce sparkling wines and ciders. Ive been making wine for a long time, but its just kind of a different way to be a little less serious but still make a really high-end product, said Wheeler, who has worked in wineries from the Finger Lakes of New York to New Zealand. While Trump plans to source its apples from Silver Creek & Seamans Orchard for now, it has planted eight of its own acres of apple trees across the parking lot from its tasting room. Most of the orchard, which runs all the way up to the estates rows of cabernet sauvignon grapes, is dwarf trees. That is, they are apple trees spliced at the root with a dwarfing rootstock that limits their growth and keeps them 3 feet from their nearest neighbor. Wheeler estimates the orchard should be yielding good fruit by the fall of 2026. Once the trees are mature, visitors will be encouraged to grab a basket and pick some of their own Ginger Golds or Aztec Fujis. If theyre craving a less nutritious snack, the Trump Cidery food menu features a selection of pub fare including a pulled pork sandwich, a smashburger, barbecue cider house fries and chicken wings a little more rustic than the caviar tasting plates and charcuterie boards on offered at the winery across the street. In spite, but also because, of the business connection to a polarizing political figure, Trump Cidery is already popular. Open for less than a month, the cidery tasting room was crowded on a recent Friday afternoon even before the band of cowboy-booted bachelorettes poured through the door. Wheeler said Trump is keeping a close eye on foot traffic over the next few months to see if the tasting room might need to be expanded. The winery across the street once used the tasting room itself until it outgrew the real estate three years ago. Wheeler said Trump is also monitoring which cider varieties are most popular in order to cater the menu to customers tastes. The cidery is operating on the 4,000 to 5,000 cases he started out with in 2022. Wheeler is gathering feedback from both staff and patrons, but he also experiments with out-of-the-box and off-the-wall flavors, including a peach ginger concoction and a blueberry basil bath (the latter of which received mixed reviews). For now, were trying to do everything well, so everyones having a good time here, said Wheeler. And then if we want to expand, we can expand. Mounted patrol team becomes a tourist attraction in N China's Inner Mongolia People's Daily Online) 14:33, July 10, 2024 A mounted patrol team consisting of 12 police officers has gained popularity on the internet in the area around the Mo'ergele River in Chenbaerhu Banner, Hulunbuir city, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The horseback patrol team has become a tourist attraction, drawing visitors from far and wide eager to witness the courage and strength of this group. Some tourists even traveled a long way to capture a photo with them. Aside from their responsibilities, members of the horseback patrol team go out of their way to accommodate the needs of the tourists. A tourist poses for a picture with members of the horseback patrol team at the Mo'ergele River in Chenbaerhu Banner, Hulunbuir city, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. (Photo/Odeni) "Even though tourists might just be snapping pictures, they act as a watchful eye, motivating us to consistently enhance our work," said Dalintai, a member of the horseback patrol team born in 1995. Dalintai, who hails from a pasturing area and started riding horses at the age of 4, has always been an active participant in horse racing events. When asked about whether he wanted to join the patrol team, Dalintai didn't think twice. "When the herders need our assistance, we must be there for them; when tourists seek our help, we must also be readily available," he said. Photo shows Dalintai and his horse. Dalintai is a member of a horseback patrol team working in the area around the Mo'ergele River in Chenbaerhu Banner, Hulunbuir city, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. (People's Daily Online/Kou Yanan) Along the 206-kilometer border of Chenbaerhu Banner, the mounted police officers diligently safeguard the pasturing area, ensuring border stability and protecting the lives and property of tourists. "They are the true unsung heroes among us! I deeply respect them and simply want to take a photo with them," said tourists visiting the area. While on a mission during the Naadam Festival, Shi Yongzhi, head of the mounted patrol team, found that riding horses could be more efficient and faster than driving cars on the grassland. With the backing of the relevant authorities, Shi handpicked skilled police officers to create the horseback patrol team. "In the past, if there was an emergency across the river, we had to take a 60-kilometer detour by car, which would take at least 40 minutes to get there. But now, we can just hop on our horses and cross the shallow portion of the river, reaching our destination in less than 10 minutes," said Shi. A member of the horseback patrol team (first from left) awaits departure orders. (People's Daily Online/Liu Yilin) (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) Barge 295 owner Mike Robinson discusses the history and future of the historic eatery and bar on Clear Lake Tuesday, July 9, 2024 after the barge the establishment sits on sank as Hurricane Beryl passed through the area bringing high waves and strong winds Monday. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Damage to the deck and boardwalk adjacent to Barge 295 in Seabrook, is visible Tuesday, July 9, 2024, after the barge the establishment sits on sank into Clear Lake as Hurricane Beryl passed through the area bringing high waves and strong winds Monday. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Barge 295 owners and brothers from left, Mike and Patrick Robinson discuss the history and future of the historic eatery and bar on Clear Lake Tuesday, July 9, 2024 after the barge the establishment sits on sank as Hurricane Beryl passed through the area bringing high waves and strong winds Monday. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Long time customer and NASA employee Sean Collins tells of his experiences with Barge 295 Tuesday, July 9, 2024, as well as the previous establishments that have existed at the location over the years, as the historic bar and eatery may be forced to shut down after sustaining damage after the barge the establishment sits on sank while Hurricane Beryl passed through the area bringing high waves and strong winds Monday. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Loyal customers were devastated this week to learn that Seabrooks floating bar, Barge 295, sank into Clear Lake as Hurricane Beryl hammered Galveston Bay. The bars co-owners, brothers Mike and Patrick Robinson and Michael Hessemer, hope to resurrect the bar. Its a Texas landmark, and were sure going to try, Mike Robinson said Monday night. LIVE UPDATES: CenterPoint promises more restorations, Biden says Texas leaders delayed aid Advertisement Article continues below this ad Its a daunting task, however. The Robinsons stood on the rickety deck of the bar at 2613 NASA Parkway on Tuesday, peering into what was left of their business. This is the first time Ive looked inside, said Mike Robinson. The floating bar, built on top of a defunct 1970s Brown & Root work barge and known for years as The Turtle Club before it became Barge 295, was lying in piles of debris. Damage to the deck and boardwalk adjacent to Barge 295 in Seabrook, is visible Tuesday, July 9, 2024, after the barge the establishment sits on sank into Clear Lake as Hurricane Beryl passed through the area bringing high waves and strong winds Monday. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Equipment tools, furinture and fixtures are visible though a broken widow at Barge 295 Tuesday, July 9. 2025, after the barge the establishment sits on sank into Clear Lake as Hurricane Beryl passed through the area bringing high waves and strong winds Monday. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Tables and chairs, packets of spices for crawfish, glasses, wall decor, insulation, a stray freezer and the main bar were all collapsed into one heap. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Im just wondering how salvageable it is, Robinson said. A water line stain on the windows indicates that the entire first floor, the main bar, was submerged in about four to five feet of water. Im thinking about all our employees that are going to lose an opportunity to earn money for their families, and about the community that isnt going to be able to enjoy this unless we can get it going again, said Patrick Robinson. The barge would need to be raised out of the water before the owners could fully assess the extent of the damage and understand what it would take to get the bar open. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Unfortunately, this is going to shut us down for a while, Mike Robinson said Monday night. A sign painted on the wall is visible above damage to the deck and boardwalk adjacent to Barge 295 in Seabrook, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, after the barge the establishment sits on sank into Clear Lake as Hurricane Beryl passed through the area bringing high waves and strong winds Monday. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer The barge was used as a marine vessel until it was reborn in the early 1980s, as The Turtle Club, and again as Lances Turtle Club. In 2016, the Robinson brothers took over and opened Barge 295 in 2017, and it remains one of the few in Texas. Mike Robinson said he was keeping an eye on the bar via cameras as the hurricane came in, but lost power at around 7 a.m. Sometime after that, he said, friends nearby reported that the barge started taking on water and went down fast. The bar was more than a business venture for the owners and their staff. Its a regional landmark, neighborhood fixture and an emotional investment, said Patrick Robinson. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Being a small business owner, youre going to have a lot of trials and tribulations, youre fighting every day to keep going, he said, adding that despite the devastating setback, the customers' support inspires them to keep going. Weve all been emotionally implanted in this place since 2017, said Mike Robinson. Were going to remain hopeful for as long as we can. Bill Hummel, general manager for two years, said hes talked to longtime customers from all over the country. Just the stories that you hear, you realize what it means to people, he said. Its a historical stop and it needs to continue. If the barge is not structurally sound enough, the Robinsons said they hope to replace it. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Sean Collins, a graphic designer for NASA, met his wife walking along the deck leading to the barge when it was the Turtle Club, and its become the couples go-to place for Budweiser and wine on the weekends. I feel sad, but I know theyll be back, said Collins, 62. He and his wife have supported every iteration of the bar through every storm, and during COVID, and plan to keep coming back. Until they tow this thing out of here, this isnt the end, Collins said. As long as its still docked here, its still here. For now, the Robinsons will set up a food truck at an adjacent outdoor space, The Yard, which is used for concerts, weekly church services, fundraisers, and other events. Mike Robinson said theyre especially concerned with figuring things out as fast as possible for the sake of more than 30 employees. Im not sure how well recover, we have a lot of work ahead, said Mike Robinson. Congestion at the shipping terminals could last through August, analysts have said. Ships anchored around the Sentosa Island in Singapore, on Thursday, June 13, 2024. Singapore's port, already one of the busiest in the world, is facing a sustained period of congestion as vessel diversions to avoid the Red Sea push more container ships to the Asian maritime hub. (Photo: Aparna Nori/Bloomberg) By Serene Cheong (Bloomberg) Container ship congestion in Singapore, one of Asias busiest ports, is spreading to neighbouring Malaysia, snarling supply chains and causing delays in the movement of consumer goods. Around 20 container vessels are anchored in a cluster off Port Klang, on the western coast of Malaysia near Kuala Lumpur. Both Klang and Singapore sit on the Straits of Malacca, a vital waterway that links Europe and the Middle East to East Asia. The maritime logjam is being caused by ships avoiding the Suez Canal and Red Sea due to attacks by Houthi rebels, who support Hamas in the war with Israel. Many vessels heading toward Asia are opting to travel around the southern tip of Africa, meaning theyre not able to refuel or unload cargo in the Middle East. Port Klang is an important terminal, given its proximity to Kuala Lumpur, but a queue of this magnitude is rare, with ship-tracking images showing many vessels unloading at its berths. Slots at Singapore and Tanjong Pelepas, a Malaysian port just across the border from the city-state, also appear to be full, but there are fewer ships waiting off those terminals. Congestion at the shipping terminals could last through August, analysts have said. Container vessel rates have surged as a result of the delays and rerouting. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2024 Bloomberg L.P. SIOUX CITY Woodbury County is currently undecided on whether or not to reestablish an elected officials compensation board. A new Iowa bill signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds in May allows boards of supervisors in each county to decide whether they want to utilize a compensation board or set the salaries of elected officials themselves. Supervisors Matthew Ung and Dan Bittinger brought the topic forward at Tuesday's meeting, looking for guidance on how to proceed from the board majority. The board discussed asking previous compensation board members if they are still willing to serve before making a decision. County compensation boards annually recommended salaries for each county elected official. The members were appointed by the elected officials, who were barred by state law from setting their own salaries. The law dissolved all county compensation boards on July 1. County boards of supervisors can establish a compensation board by a majority vote if desired. If no compensation board is established, the responsibility of setting elected officials' salaries falls on the board of supervisors. The two supervisors shared that the biggest argument for a compensation board is transferring the burden of proof to a group of citizens and making "board meetings less of a spectacle," Ung said. He also shared that the biggest argument against comp boards is efficiency because the topic will eventually go before the board to be approved and discussed anyway. The board suggested waiting to receive input from all elected officials in the county and whether the previous compensation board members are willing to continue. The members last year were Bob Stewart and Dan Lynde representing the board of supervisors, Rhonda Brockamp-Bridges representing Treasurer Tina Bertrand, Doug Phillips representing Sheriff Chad Sheehan, Al Sturgeon representing Auditor Pat Gill, and Ryan Beardshear representing County Attorney James Loomis. The compensation board costs little to nothing to the county. Ung said the only expense is if the members submit mileage to attend the one meeting. Supervisor Jeremy Taylor suggested revising this topic after the November election to allow the new members to weigh in. There is no timeline on when a compensation board would need to be established, but the Iowa State Association of Counties suggests counties look at their typical timeline for compensation board deliberations. Board members would still be appointed by the elected officials, but would now serve four-year terms. Other changes to the compensation board were a "show your work" provision. The board would be required to demonstrate how it determined the compensation schedule, including information on comparable officers in other counties, states and the private sector. After a compensation board made its recommendation in the past, the board of supervisors had the option to approve the recommendation as is or increase/decrease the recommendation by the same percentage for all elected officials. Supervisors did claim Iowa Code allows the board to separate the supervisor's pay from other elected officials 30 days before approving the compensation board's recommendation. The new law change provides the board of supervisors more flexibility. Now the supervisors can approve a compensation schedule that is more or less than the compensation board recommendation; and make adjustments to the recommendation for individual elected officials instead of adjusting by the same percentage for all officials. Whoever is in charge of setting the elected officials compensation will still be required to follow the "Back the Blue" law signed by Reynolds in 2022, which requires the sheriff's compensation to be set based on police chief salaries in cities with comparable populations. For Sheriff Chad Sheehan, that would be Sioux City Police Chief Rex Mueller. Woodbury County elected officials compensation has been contentious in the past. In 2022, the compensation board recommended a 31.5 percent increase to Sheehan's pay and a 22 percent increase to the supervisors. The compensation board attributed the increase to the "Back the Blue" law, as well as years of low wage increases for the supervisors and comparably sized counties. Late last month, as I watched President Joe Biden flail in his first presidential debate against Donald Trump, I kept telling people I wanted just one thing: a peek at the texts of just about any elected official to confirm were they seeing what I was seeing? So, when I called up Rep. Mike Quigley this week, I straight up asked: What was going on in your DMs that night? I was getting a ton of texts and messages and phone calls from constituents, friends, family, staffdifferent waves of panic. A lot of WTF?, he said. Quigley is a Democrat who represents Illinois 5th District, which is part of Chicago and its suburbs. Hes been on the Hill for 15 years. He says the debate was sad for him to watch, like it was for a lot of people. The worst part of this was the visual at the end of the debate, after the debacle that it was, with the first lady walking across the stage and him needing her help to get down the stairs, he said. But afterward, Quigley didnt just wring his hands in private. Instead, he started showing up on cable news. At first, he simply implied he was open to a new nominee for president. After a few days, though, he got more blunt, saying, Biden simply cant be on the top of the ticket. I reached Quigley at a strange time. After a handful of politicians like him had gone public with their concerns, Democratic members of Congress all got in a room to privately hash things out at DNC headquarters. This was Tuesday morning. To the reporters staking this meeting out, it certainly looked like the president was consolidating his support. Congressional leader Jerry Nadler told reporters, We have to support Joe Bidendespite having misgivings just a few days ago. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, The matter is closed. Joe Biden is our nominee. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This vibe shift, though, did not seem to be bugging Quigley. This is a process. Everyone follows a different path. This is unprecedented. It has, I suspect, freaked people out. But I think theyll get there. My message is: Take whatever time you need, but we need to act, and we dont have unlimited time, he said. On Wednesdays episode of What Next, we heard from a calm, thoughtful voice, who thinks Biden should not be leading the ticket. A portion of our conversation, which has been condensed and edited for clarity, has been transcribed below. Mary Harris: When was the last time you saw President Joe Biden in person? Mike Quigley: The State of the Union. Howd he seem at the time? Advertisement I thought he had a good night. I will just tell you that its hard to deny the fact that he appears somewhat frail. Even then he seemed a little frail to you? Oh sure, but thats just the reality of the situation. Him being 81? Yeah. And I think thats OK. I think he can function very effectively as president. I think the added burden of an extraordinary campaign that will be brutal as it moves forward is probably too much to ask for. Advertisement If President Biden did leave the race, it would throw a huge wrench into the election cycle. Why, in your opinion, does he have to go? I dont think anything has gotten better since the debate. Its gotten worse. Why do you say that? Advertisement Look, what would be the normal course of action after that debate? Youre on the phone the whole next day. Youre doing tons of press with no holds barred. Youre pushing back. Not by what youre saying, by what youre doing. Advertisement Youre saying it looks like the presidents on the backfoot. Hes on the backfoot, hes being defensive, and now everythings in the context of the prism of what people saw that night. Im not into the speculation thats out there about whatever issues might exist with the president, but the fact is thats what everyones talking about. Therefore, youre not talking about how bad Donald Trump will be as president. Im not a pundit, but the polls are going the wrong way in a hurry. Big donors are drying up. The presidents underperforming down-ballot races. Thats a recipe for a red wave. You just have to be honest with yourself what the situation is, and take the appropriate action. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The problem is that the president seems to have made a decision here that hes staying in. He wrote an open letter to elected officials like yourself saying as much. He told people like you who are calling for him to leave the race to go ahead and challenge him at the convention. Are you prepared for that kind of outcome? No. This is a decision he needs to make not by a challenge in that manner. And he knows better. I think hes just trying to buy time and hope this all passes. And respectfully, its not. Its getting worse. And, theres a point of no return. Its tough to do all this because I respect him. This is very hard to do. But its just being honest with the situation. Advertisement You say youre not prepared for chaos at the convention, which will be in your hometown. Do you think about what that conventions going to look like? Advertisement Before the debate, my concern for the convention was disruption. Im all for First Amendment rights and healthy protest. I was concerned that there would be those that take it too far and attempt to disrupt or commit violence. That was before the debate. I think if theres a change, the process will take care of itself. There are rules. The president would relinquish his delegates. And then theres a natural process that follows. Respectfully, that process from the outside could look like chaos. Advertisement It doesnt have to be that way. But I think the first day of a second Trump administration would be very similar to the last days of the first Trump administration. I was in the room on Jan. 6. So if youre balancing Gee, it doesnt look good for Democrats versus a real threat to what I believe is a fragile democracy and a Supreme Court, which has told a lawless president that youve got a green light to do whatever the hell you want. So if Im to balance the greater good, any day of the week, Ill take a little intensity at the convention. Advertisement If Biden hangs on until the convention, will that be that for you? Like, youre on the Biden train? Look, at some point if hes the nominee, Im with him because, again, the worst day of Joe Biden is better than the best day of Donald Trump. But I guess the question is: When is at the end of the day? Im going to give the economist answer: It depends. Im doing this a day at a time. Nobody was trained to be in this position. You just have to assess where we are. Listen to people. Im listening to my constituents. Im listening to the best political experts I know, legal experts I know. And trying to tell the truth. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ive noticed you making this argument again and again that the reason youre calling for Joe Biden to leave the race isnt just about the White House, although thats important to you. Its about down-ballot races. But it seems to me like youre a strange person to make this argument because you personally are in a seat that the Cook Political Report calls safe. Very safe. Youre not part of top congressional leadership, whose job it is to look out for the majority. Why put yourself out there anyway? You put the Democratic Party, in all the races this fall, in serious jeopardy by staying in the race. Rep. Mike Quigley The Senate is virtually a tie every term. The House is single-digit control, and weve seen what that does, especially with the Republicans, who cant seem to handle the responsibility of power and have a habit of getting rid of their speakers. So, the races are going to be tight. The division between power and being in the minority is night and day. And every votes going to count. So, the presidential years, you really need the top of the ticket to be strong. It will make all the difference. Ive heard people even say, Well, look, this could be a bad election, but we can correct all this in 2028. I would tell you: This could be what we saw as our last totally free and fair election. And people say thats hyperbole. Well, no one would have thought Jan. 6 would happen and that the person who instigated it would get away scot-free and be the president of United States again. And lets just remember where the Republicans have been on limiting access to the polls. If you give them both houses and the White House, I shudder to think what they would do. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You always hear this, but this is the most important election of our lives. I dont want to tell my grandkids that I had my opinion, but I just kept quiet. Id like to think therell be more joining me soon. I think thats accurate, but the pace will have to increase pretty quickly. There have been a few different theories about what should happen after a hypothetical Biden drop. One is that there should be some kind of mini-primary, and another is that the nomination should just go to Kamala Harris, the vice president. What do you think should happen? Neither of those are going to happen. Why do you say that? Theres no structure and time for there to be whatever primary that people think might exist. So thats just not going to happen. Second, if we want the process to be viewed as legitimate, to simply say were going to coronate one person over the others makes that a much tougher sell. Advertisement Arguably Kamala Harris has been the person people elected to be the backup plan for Joe Biden. Well, thats in terms of succession. And do I think Kamala Harris, the vice president, would be a great candidate? Absolutely. Im just saying that the on-high folks cant just say, Oh, its the vice president. I want to make sure the public sees this as a process where people had some input. Advertisement Advertisement Dont you think theres a problem of legitimacy no matter what direction it goes? Because you cant redo the primaries. Yeah but any number of reasons the nominee cant be the nominee the Democratic Party has rules and a process. But in my lifetime, Ive never had a bunch of delegates at a convention decide who my nominee is going to be for president. Itll be a new thing. Advertisement Advertisement I know, but isnt that originally what they were supposed to do? Yes! OK! We can survive this. We cant survive Trump round two. Subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts Get more news from Mary Harris every weekday. Heres something I keep returning to: Even if the president does change the narrative on Capitol Hill, convinces other electeds to get in line behind him, the polling is still quite bad for him. My first message to the White House is: You dont have to convince me. What you should be focusing on is doing what you havent done so far, and thats actually convincing the American people that this was a single bad episode. But thats not happening. And I would respectfully suggest its because the presidents not capable of changing that narrative. And the polls wont get better. They will get worse. He is a shaky base, and I dont think politically he can win back the swing voters that he lost. So thats the ballgame. Are you saying Trump will win if Biden remains in the race? Right now it would be very hard to change the tide. Never say never. But you put the Democratic Party, in all the races this fall, in serious jeopardy by staying in the race. This is Totally Normal Quote of the Day, a feature highlighting a statement from the news that exemplifies just how extremely normal everything has become. Most of our caucus is still with him meaning hell stay in. Which sucks for our country. an unnamed House Democrat speaking to Axios after attending a meeting with a small group of swing-district Democrats Democrats are having a pretty miserable weekand its only Wednesday. Since President Joe Bidens disastrous debate performance two weeks ago, the party has been in a tizzy trying to figure out whether he should remain their nominee for the 2024 ticket or exit the race. And a small group of Democrats desperate to replace Biden are frustrated about how things are going. Advertisement Most of our caucus is with him meaning hell stay in. Which sucks for our country, an anonymous House Democrat told Axios on Tuesday, right before the larger caucus met in a meeting described as a come-to-Jesus moment for Bidens candidacy. So far, 10 Democrats have called on Biden to step aside and let a different, younger member of the party take on Donald Trump in November. Their efforts dont seem to be working, with Biden going on a media blitz to double down on his message: I am still running. In a prime-time interview with ABCs George Stephanopoulos on Friday, Biden said he would only drop out of the presidential race if the Lord almighty told him to. Then he sent a letter to congressional Democrats that kicked off with I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump. Shortly after that, Biden went on MSNBCs Morning Joe and said he believes voters still want him as their Democratic nominee, therefore hes not dropping out. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But some Democrats arent buying this, acutely aware of just how alarming Bidens performance was in the debate and even in his recent media circuit, which was supposed to reinvigorate confidence but instead reinforced that Biden cannot communicate a coherent message. During a radio interview last week, the president said he was the first Black woman to serve with a Black president. House Rep. Raul Grijalva, a progressive representing Arizonas 7th District, told the New York Times he wants the party to draw a line with Biden now, adding that the stakes of this election are too high to risk him losing to an antidemocratic, authoritarian despot. Other Democrats have also tried to emphasize just how dire for democracy it would be if Biden were to lose to Trump. A second Trump term is a continuation of the last days of his first term, which is a nightmare in every respect, Mike Quigley, a House Democrat from Illinois, told MSNBC, referencing Jan. 6. Advertisement Related From Slate Biden Hasn't Managed to Stop the Bleeding Read More Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hinted in an interview with Morning Joe that she believes Biden should reevaluate his decision to run, but when pressed, she would not outright call for him to step aside as the partys nominee. I want him to do whatever he decides to do, she said, without actually saying what she would like Biden to do. Advertisement But party leaders are mostly ignoring these calls and sticking by Biden, despite the risks. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters on Capitol Hill they were unequivocally on Team Bidendespite Democratic House members privately telling Jeffries they want Biden to drop out. In a surprising but strategic decision, even Congress progressive Squad members are sticking by the 81-year-old president. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him, Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters this week. Since the BidenTrump debate, the president has consistently been trailing Trump in the polls. New Cook Political data shows Biden is losing at least three battleground states, all while a 59-year-old Black and Asian woman vice president is forced to sit on the sidelines and watch a historic opportunity become one of the messiest episodes for the Democratic Party in decades. And that does, truly, suck for our country. A convoy of electric trucks from several different states gather to support power outage efforts the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Houston causing mass power outages on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Utility workers from Ohio prepare their truck outside a power station in the Independence Heights neighborhood on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer A convoy of electric trucks from several different states gather to support power outage efforts the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Houston causing mass power outages on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer A convoy of electric trucks from several different states gather to support power outage efforts the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Houston causing mass power outages on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer A convoy of electric trucks from several different states gather to support power outage efforts the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Houston causing mass power outages on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer A convoy of electric trucks from several different states gather to support power outage efforts the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Houston causing mass power outages on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer As 1.4 million Houston-area customers approach another sweltering night without power after Hurricane Beryl, CenterPoint Energy still isnt sure when the lights will come back on. After Beryl slammed the Houston region Monday morning, the utility went four hours without posting updates of any kind, and it didnt release its first estimate of when power would be restored until after 9:30 p.m. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In that message, CenterPoint said it hoped to restore 1 million customers by the end of Wednesday but that some others would face prolonged outages. On Tuesday afternoon, the utility reiterated that goal, stressed the severity of the damage and asked for patience as crews work to first restore power to essential facilities critical to health and public safety like hospitals, police and fire facilities. Its going to be days, said Paul Lock, CenterPoints manager of local government relations, at a press conference with Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. We live here, we work here. Its miserable. Nobody wants to sleep in a house thats 85 degrees. Were motivated to get people back on as quickly as possible. Were doing everything we can do. City workers look at a downed line the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall nearby Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Houston. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer The company has provided few details for the customers who would remain without power Thursday and has provided no information about which areas were likely to be reconnected first. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Lock said a restoration timeline would be released as soon as possible, but cautioned it may not contain the granular street-by-street detail residents want. He also acknowledged that CenterPoint had initially sought only 2,500 mutual assistance workers to respond to the storm, then upped that to 12,000 after the storms path shifted away from South Texas and toward Houston as landfall approached. Lock said crews were staged nearby but outside the storms path for their safety. A fraction were in the field Monday, he said, and all 12,000 were deployed by Tuesday. CenterPoint says its more effective to assess the damage before sending crews out to begin repairs. We cant send them out until we do our assessment, Lock said. Its painful for a day or two but its more efficient in the long run. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who was overseeing the states response while Gov. Greg Abbott was on a trade mission in Asia, addressed CenterPoints preparations at a press conference in Galveston earlier Tuesday. A group of Linemen that form part of a convoy of electric trucks from several different states gather to support power outage efforts the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Houston causing mass power outages on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer CenterPoint will have to answer for themselves if they were prepared and if they were positioned, he said. Ill tell you whether Im satisfied or not when I have a full report of where their crews were, when they were asked to come in and how quickly they get power back. That will be the tale of the tape. How soon are people getting their power back? Any thought that people were surprised that the storm might come to Houston is shocking to me, Patrick continued. We moved very quickly at the state level. How CenterPoint or anyone else read the weather and the track, I cant answer to that. Lock declined to address Patricks comments. Advertisement Article continues below this ad HEAT INDEX: Houston should prepare for heat index approaching 105 again as power restoration continues Hidalgo, for her part, joined reporters in asking numerous questions of Lock at her press conference, but said the utility appears to be operating in good faith. None of us are happy, she said. What gives me hope is that we have not discussed, This is going to be like (Hurricane) Ike, its going to take many weeks. Its not in their interest to not solve this. Adding to public frustration are apparent flaws in one of CenterPoints main tools for keeping the public informed about outages. A convoy of electric trucks from several different states gather to support power outage efforts the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Houston causing mass power outages on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer The utilitys Power Alert Service has long let customers sign up for emails, text messages and phone calls about outages affecting their address, including when the power goes out and comes back, and updates about the arrival of repair crews and estimates of how long their work will take. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Numerous Houstonians including those who said they had signed up for the service this year and those who signed up many hurricanes ago reported receiving no updates at all. Others said they received only general messages, and some said they received specific messages referencing their home address, like those they received during past outages. At Hidalgos Tuesday press conference, CenterPoint spokeswoman Michelle Hundley said her understanding is that the alert system is working. If customers are not receiving updates, she said it could be because of inadequate cellphone service preventing the messages from going through. CenterPoint has not answered repeated written questions about the alert system, or about incongruous data its general outage tracker, another key tool for public updates, has posted. The tracker has repeatedly listed rising numbers of customers restored while also reporting rising numbers of active outages and fewer outages restored, while the number of customers affected stays static. A convoy of electric trucks from several different states gather to support power outage efforts the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Houston causing mass power outages on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Hundley said apparent disconnects in the trackers data are not cause for concern. As we continue to assess, as we continue to make our way, working and reenergizing, those numbers are going to fluctuate, she said at Hidalgos press conference. Our internal processes tell us whos on, whos off. We have that info. The tool that had until recently served as CenterPoints main public information system also was offline when Beryl arrived. A mid-May derecho knocked out power to 922,000 homes and businesses and took the companys interactive Outage Tracker map down with it, felled by a combination of high demand and widespread outages. The utility restored power to nearly all customers in six days but never got the map back online. CenterPoint said it knew the maps absence was an inconvenience, pledged to roll out a new one by August, and urged residents to use its outage tracker and alert service in the interim. Beryl dealt CenterPoint a huge challenge: It knocked out power for more than 2.26 million Houston-area customers roughly 80% of CenterPoints Bayou City service area and an even larger number than lost power during Hurricane Ike in September 2008. Cayla Harris contributed reporting. Franklin Bigelow Olmsted, 94, of La Plata, Maryland, a prominent lawyer, died peacefully on 5 July 2024 surrounded by his family. Born on 25 November 1929 in New York City, he was the only child of the late Franklin Fessenden Olmsted and Ernestine Frances Glover Olmsted. A successful trial lawyer, Mr. Olmsted was a formidable adversary in Court and a champion of personal liberty for those he represented. He began practicing law in 1957 with a local firm before opening his own office in 1959, where he specialized in criminal law. Inclined to help those less fortunate, he was known for a large body of pro bono work. In 1972, he was sworn in as the first Public Defender for the tri-county area of Southern Maryland. He set up, fostered and supervised the organization, and continued diligently in that role for three years before returning to private practice. Mr. Olmsted's stellar legal reputation was recognized again in 1976 when he was appointed by Maryland's governor to serve on the Commission to Revise the Annotated Code. Through this sweeping review of the State's laws, he worked to modernize and make the statutes more understandable, and the vast majority of the Commission's recommendations were voted into law. For his expert work, he was named an "Admiral of the Chesapeake Bay" by Governor Harry Hughes in 1982. He volunteered on the Code Commission, and its successor the Code Revision Committee, in various leadership and review positions for more than 40 years until the Committee finished its work. A native of New York State, Mr. Olmsted spent his childhood in Manhattan and in the mountains at "Kleiner" in Garrison, across the Hudson River from West Point. Though his forebears had lived in New England and New York for hundreds of years, his family moved in 1940 to "Hard Bargain," a farm in Mount Victoria, Maryland, where he helped to grow tobacco and raise cattle. In 1947, he graduated with the highest grade-point average from St. Andrew's School, a preparatory boarding school in Middletown, Delaware. After a gap year, he attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a Phi Beta Kappa key, and letters in track and cross country running (which became a lifelong hobby). After a two-year tour in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps at Camp Lee, Virginia, he attended the University of Virginia School of Law and graduated in 1957. Mr. Olmsted married the love of his life, the former Alice Irene Richards, on 3 June 1961 at St. Peter's Church, Waldorf, Maryland, and together they raised a daughter and two sons. His lovely bride was a proficient legal secretary, so they joined forces at his law practice and worked side-by-side for decades; with their boys, also lawyers, joining the firm as the years went on. He took great delight in this family partnership. A voracious reader, Mr. Olmsted was seldom without a book at hand. He spoke French and Spanish, but was a perpetual student of his native language and authored the English usage and style book "Writers' Mistakes A Handbook of Common Blunders and Ways to Mend Them." A keen duplicate bridge player, he achieved the rank of Bronze Life Master in the American Contract Bridge League. He also enjoyed visiting historical sites, where his knowledge and fine storytelling brought details to life. Known as an intelligent, kind and honest gentleman, he will be greatly missed. He is survived by his devoted children: Julia Olmsted Beaudry (Edward), William Franklin Olmsted (Cynthia) and Edward Warren Olmsted (Alexis); and six grandsons: Andrew Franklin, Zachary William, Franklin Alexander, Charles Edward, Ethan James and James Aaron Olmsted. His beloved wife of 57 years, Alice Richards Olmsted, died in 2019. Friends will be received on Sunday, 14 July 2024, from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m., with prayers beginning at 7 p.m., and on Monday, 15 July, from 9 to 10 a.m., at Arehart-Echols Funeral Home, 211 St. Mary's Avenue, La Plata, MD 20646. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Monday, 15 July 2024, at 10:30 a.m. at St. Peter's Church, 3320 St. Peter's Drive, Waldorf, MD 20601. Burial to follow in the church cemetery. Father Keith A. Woods will officiate. Pallbearers will be Messrs. Andrew F. Olmsted, Zachary W. Olmsted, Charles E. Olmsted, James A. Olmsted, Michael B. Millett and Karl R. Grebe. Memorial contributions may be made to the American Stroke Association, P.O. Box 840692, Dallas, TX 75284-0692 (www.stroke.org). George Aloysius Mattingly Jr., 73, of Leonardtown, MD, passed away July 5, 2024, at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., of complications from lung cancer. He was born Dec. 6, 1950, in Washington, D.C., the son of George A. Mattingly Sr. and Elizabeth "Betty Wise" Duke Mattingly. George graduated from Chopticon High School in 1969. He served in the National Guard and the Army in the early 1970s. After the service, he moved to Garrett County where he worked at the Wisp ski resort and the Coca Cola Bottling Plant. He returned to Southern Maryland in 1978. George was an auto body technician for more than 40 years. He worked at several car dealerships and body shops in Leonardtown and Lexington Park before operating his own business in Great Mills. He had a love of cars that began when he was a child. He watched his father and his uncle Nace Mattingly race cars and spent lots of time hanging around garages learning all he could about cars. He joined some of his cousins as they took up drag racing as a hobby and raced their own cars at local tracks such as Aquasco Speedway and Maryland International Raceway. He raced on and off for 20-plus years. Later in life, he enjoyed being a spectator and watching his son Andrew race. George attended events at MIR up until the last 2 years of his life. He was a collector of old bottles, always looking for sites where he could dig. He also enjoyed making abstract art with auto paint, at one time having a piece accepted in a community art show at the North End Gallery in Leonardtown. He loved to paint rocks with his initials "G.A.M." and "Leonardtown" on the back. He would place them at the Wharf and around town. George is survived by his son Andrew of Charlotte Hall; ex-wife Linda Groves Talton of Charlotte Hall; sister, Angela Mattingly Breck (Andrew Scott) of La Plata; six half-siblings; and many nieces and nephews. George was predeceased in death by his parents and his sister, Katherine "Kay" Mattingly Aud of Leonardtown. Family will receive friends on Monday, July 15, 2024, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., with a Memorial Service celebrated by Reverend Joe Orlando at 5 p.m. at Brinsfield Funeral Home, 22955 Hollywood Road, Leonardtown, MD, 20650. Memorial contributions in George's name may be made to Hospice of St. Mary's, 44724 Hospice Lane, Callaway, MD 20620. If someone tells you to go to Prcice, is that a good place to visit? Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share If you upset Slovaks as I often manage without even trying, there is a good chance that you'll be told to "Chod do pekla!" (Go to hell!), but that's not the only destination that could be recommended. I'm too polite to give a full description of where you're being told to go if someone says "Chod do riti!" but suffice it to say that a) you don't want to go there and b) you're probably sitting on it right now. A more pleasant place to be sent is Prcice, a small village in the Czech Republic, although people are being far from polite when they tell you to "Chod do Prcic!" In fact they are using it as a euphemism, connected to female body parts - however, you can hear almost anyone say it. One former colleague of mine would often mumble "Do Prcic!" to herself, and then give a shocked apology if she realised anyone was actually within hearing. Town names often have a story behind them. For example, there is the Welsh village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll Llantysiliogogogoch, which translates to "St Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St Tysilio of the red cave". With a name like that the village should not be too hard to find. The name was artificially created in the 1880s to try and encourage tourism. It worked. With the Disneylandification of folklore, "kroje" are becoming propaganda. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share The nationalist, homophobic, Austria-based culture minister of Slovakia, Martina Simkovicova (Slovak National Party), sat down last week in the TASR news agency studio and chatted with host Daniel Forgacs in mutual understanding, only occasionally insulting minorities. All the while, the great potential for another of her failures hung in the air. Simkovicova wore a short blue vest (lajblik) for the interview, and they spent the first few minutes discussing whether traditional costumes (kroje) should become part of everyday attire. video //www.youtube.com/embed/5EY9REaJbXY The minister also announced that she would wear a full traditional costume to the famous Vychodna folklore festival, which took place the weekend following the interview. Indeed she wore the costume, but it turned out as things usually do when Simkovicova is involved: superficial, incomplete, and empty. The Finance Ministry is reportedly negotiating with the refinery. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share The Bratislava refinery Slovnaft has said that it will not pay the temporary special tax, also known as the solidarity contribution, potentially causing the Fico government to lose hundreds of millions of euros it relies on, writes the Index magazine. The company did not meet the criteria for paying the solidarity contribution, the firm claims, citing a European regulation under which Slovnaft might no longer be subject to this temporary tax. The measure was introduced two years ago by former prime minister Eduard Heger, who was then a member of the ruling OLaNO party. In 2022, global oil prices were high due to Russias war in Ukraine. However, Slovnaft imported cheaper Russian oil and profited from the sales of its more expensive byproducts. Before tax it made a profit of 1 billion. In light of this, Hegers government decided to act against the refinery. The government imposed an extra 55-percent tax on the refinery in 2022, followed by a 70-percent tax last year. The refinery criticised the measure, calling it discriminatory. In 2022, the refinery paid 625 million in taxes, with the special tax accounting for over 500 million. Yet it still achieved a record profit of over 400 million. Read also Read also Slovnaft made record-high profit from cheap Russian oil, but its joy did not last long Read more Slovnaft interprets regulation differently Today, Slovnaft explains its refusal to pay the special tax by noting that, according to the European regulation, the obligation only applies to companies generating at least 75 percent of turnover from activities in the oil, natural gas, coal, and refinery sectors. The company argues that its business increasingly involves less processing of fossil fuels. The current government under Robert Fico relies heavily on extra funds from Slovnaft, which earned a net profit exceeding half a billion euros last year. Last winter, the government and parliament extended the validity of the special 70-percent tax for Slovnaft for this year, setting it much higher than the earlier EU recommendation (at least 33 percent). The state had planned to collect an extra 180 million from Slovnaft this year. However, Slovnaft, owned by the Hungarian company MOL, plans to pay only 1.9 million when it comes to the special tax, the remaining sum for 2022. The refinery will also pay regular taxes, sending the state at least 130 million. Czech exemption expires later this year Slovnaft can currently import Russian oil by the Druzhba pipeline as it does not fall under the European embargo. In 2022, it secured an exemption on importing Russian oil, due to Slovakias particular reliance on Russian oil as well as its geographical location. Problematically, this exemption does not cover exporting products made from Russian oil. A further exemption which allowed these products to be exported to the Czech Republic is set to expire in December of this year. Slovnaft can export its products to Ukraine. Negotiations are under way between the Slovak oil giant and the Finance Ministry, reports the Index magazine. Exploring Slovakia's town names, one-day motorway vignettes, and French Day festivities. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share Good evening. Here is the Wednesday, July 10 edition of Today in Slovakia - the main news of the day in less than five minutes. Slovak industry wants to regulate foreign workers A manufacturing hall of Kia Slovakia's car plant in Zilina. (Source: TASR) More and more foreigners from third countries are purposefully applying for business permits instead of work permits, threatening Slovak craftspeople, the Association of Industrial Unions and Transport (APZD) claims. "It is important to regulate the number of foreign labourers with a trade licence and to focus on agencies that offer their work freely," say representatives of Slovak industry. According to them, foreign sole traders perform dependent work, which is a circumvention of the Labour Code and essentially illegal employment. Moreover, the association claims it is easier for a citizen from a third country to move to other EU countries this way. Employers in Slovakia have been grappling with a long-term labour shortage. They are trying to address the problem through labourers from third countries, whose numbers are increasing. While the share of people with work permits is decreasing, the number of applications for temporary stays for the purpose of doing business is rising, the association points out. Foreign workers are motivated to apply for business permits for various reasons. For one, obtaining a business permit is much easier and faster compared to getting a work permit. There is no regulation in this area, says the association. Additionally, in the first year, self-employed individuals are exempt from contributions to the Social Insurance Agency and only pay a minimal health insurance fee. Also, the Labour Code does not apply to self-employed people. MORE STORIES FROM THE SLOVAK SPECTATOR WEBSITE Business: The state faces a revenue shortfall after the Slovnaft refinery ignores a special tax. The state faces a revenue shortfall after the Slovnaft refinery ignores a special tax. Opinion: The culture minister's attempt at a folk costume was a disaster. The culture minister's attempt at a folk costume was a disaster. Slovak Matters: Have you ever thought about why Slovak towns are called what they are called? 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. FEATURE STORY A studied Ukrainian chemist works in a Slovak grocery shop, but she does not complain Im a small woman, but I tell myself I can handle anything, Yaroslava Lopushanska says, noting that she misses her husband a lot. And he misses me too. (Source: Elizaveta Blahodarova) Before the war, the chemist Yaroslava Lopushanska and her husband, a prominent Ukrainian scientist, lived a happy life in Uzhhorod, western Ukraine. They have been together for more than 30 years, but the war divided their family. "War is evil, stress, pain and tragedy for the whole nation, which will last for years. So many families have lost someone," she says. In Kosice, where she lives and works today, she is happy. The fact that she cannot do the job she was so good at does not make her angry. She hopes that one day, as a chemist, she will be able to help in Slovakia. She also hopes that someday she and her husband will be together again, without borders and war dividing them. EVENT French Day video //www.youtube.com/embed/Gq5B4k6DdOM Imagine strolling through the bustling Main Square in Bratislava, where the air is filled with the aromas of cheeses and sweet desserts from a French market. As you wander, you hear French all around you, soft strains of French music enhancing the festive atmosphere. Well, you do not have to imagine it. You have the chance to join in celebrating the French national holiday (July 14) on Friday (July 12) in the heart of Bratislava. The programme will kick off at 14:00. IN OTHER NEWS From August, drivers will be able to drive on motorways with a one-day motorway vignette. Its price will be 5.40 and it will be valid until midnight of the day of purchase. Its price will be 5.40 and it will be valid until midnight of the day of purchase. President Peter Pellegrini welcomes the decision of US President Joe Biden to strengthen Ukraine's airspace defence. "For Slovakia, as a member of NATO's eastern flank, it is crucial that the air defence of the eastern flank as such is strengthened," said the Slovak president. He confirmed that Slovakia will participate in NATO's overall aid package for Ukraine worth $40 billion and will include these expenditures in its 2 percent defence spending. (TASR) "For Slovakia, as a member of NATO's eastern flank, it is crucial that the air defence of the eastern flank as such is strengthened," said the Slovak president. He confirmed that Slovakia will participate in NATO's overall aid package for Ukraine worth $40 billion and will include these expenditures in its 2 percent defence spending. (TASR) Half of the people believe that the independence of news reporting of the private television station Markiza and the new public media entity Slovak Television and Radio (STVR) is threatened. Approximately half of the people also rejected the abolition of RTVS and its replacement by the new institution STVR, according to a new Ipsos survey. (Dennik N) Approximately half of the people also rejected the abolition of RTVS and its replacement by the new institution STVR, according to a new Ipsos survey. (Dennik N) The government reportedly distributes subsidies during its meetings outside Bratislava to districts where voters elected coalition mayors. According to the opposition, these districts receive 10-30 times more money than municipalities run by independent or opposition mayors. The Government Office has denied the accusations. (TASR) According to the opposition, these districts receive 10-30 times more money than municipalities run by independent or opposition mayors. The Government Office has denied the accusations. (TASR) After successfully placing the fourth Slovak satellite, GRBbeta, into Earth's orbit, scientists established first contact with it on July 9 at 23:03. The received message indicated that the launch of the Ariane 6 rocket from the spaceport in French Guiana proceeded smoothly. (TASR) The received message indicated that the launch of the Ariane 6 rocket from the spaceport in French Guiana proceeded smoothly. (TASR) The chair of the Public Procurement Office, Peter Kubovic, will earn a salary of 6,114 a month. The government approved the change on Wednesday. Lioness Laura with ice-cream in the Kosice zoo on July 10, 2024. (Source: TASR) WEATHER FOR THURSDAY: Thursday will be mostly partly cloudy. Showers and thunderstorms may occur sporadically during the day. Daytime temperatures will range from 30C to 37C. High-temperature and storm warnings have been issued by the meteorological office. (SHMU) JULY 11 NAME DAY IN SLOVAKIA: Milota. 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, LinkedIn and Instagram (@slovakspectator). https://sputnikglobe.com/20240709/biden-says-us-european-allies-to-provide-ukraine-with-dozens-of-new-air-defense-systems-1119319468.html Biden Says US, European Allies to Provide Ukraine With Dozens of New Air Defense Systems Biden Says US, European Allies to Provide Ukraine With Dozens of New Air Defense Systems Sputnik International WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States and several European partners will provide Ukraine with dozens of additional air defense systems in the coming months... 09.07.2024, Sputnik International 2024-07-09T22:35+0000 2024-07-09T22:35+0000 2024-07-09T22:35+0000 military joe biden ukraine germany netherlands us sputnik nato nato summit https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/0f/1118967024_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_b1180836a56c4d0a31e93ddffae2b63f.jpg "Today, I'm announcing the historic donation of air defense equipment for Ukraine," Biden said on Tuesday. "The United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Italy will provide Ukraine with the equipment for five additional strategic air defense systems. In the coming months, the United States and our partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air defense systems." Moreover, Biden said that Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional missile interceptors over the next year. The White House in a separate press release noted that the five additional strategic air defense systems include new Patriot batteries donated by the United States, Germany, and Romania; Patriot components donated by the Netherlands and other partners to enable the operation of an additional Patriot battery; and an additional SAMP-T system donated by Italy. The United States and its partners are coordinating closely with the Ukrainian government so that these new strategic air defense systems can be utilized rapidly, the release said, adding that another announcement can be expected later this year of additional strategic air defense systems for Ukraine. The tactical air defense systems expected to arrive in Ukraine in the coming months include additional NASAMS, HAWKs, IRIS T-SLM, IRIS T-SLS, and Gepard systems, the release added. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240707/watch-russian-troops-blow-up-two-patriot-missile-systems-in-odessa-region-1119268902.html ukraine germany netherlands Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International joe biden, ukraine, germany, netherlands, us, sputnik, nato, nato summit https://sputnikglobe.com/20240709/stoltenberg-says-nato-enlargement-was-not-easy-decision-over-fears-of-provoking-moscow-1119319781.html Stoltenberg Says NATO Enlargement Was Not 'Easy Decision' Over Fears of Provoking Moscow Stoltenberg Says NATO Enlargement Was Not 'Easy Decision' Over Fears of Provoking Moscow Sputnik International WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The enlargement of NATO and opening its doors to other countries were not an "obvious" choice and an "easy decision" because of fears of... 09.07.2024, Sputnik International 2024-07-09T23:11+0000 2024-07-09T23:11+0000 2024-07-09T23:11+0000 world jens stoltenberg joe biden moscow russia nato sputnik washington newsfeed nato summit https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/09/1119319624_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_97203c41751cc02ed6c3fda839948854.jpg "The question was whether we were ready to open our door [to other countries]. Some feared that enlargement would delude and weaken NATO and provoke Moscow. Just as at previous crossroads, it was not an obvious choice, it was not an easy decision, and it took time," Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. The NATO summit kicked off in Washington on Tuesday and will run through July 11. Despite prior pledges, NATO has progressively expanded eastward toward the Russian border, with Sweden and Finland becoming the bloc's most recent member states, citing regional insecurity sparked by the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has for years objected to NATO's continued expansion and military buildup near Russian borders. Ukraine's plans to join the military bloc were among the reasons why Russia launched its special military operation in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.During the summit, US President Joe Biden awarded Stoltenberg the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the US can give to a civilian. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240709/summit-of-uncertainty-nato-facing-crisis-of-leadership-nonpayments-and-untenable-obligations-1119316672.html moscow russia washington Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International jens stoltenberg, joe biden, moscow, russia, nato, sputnik, washington, newsfeed, nato summit https://sputnikglobe.com/20240709/us-to-triple-ammunition-production-in-couple-of-years---state-dept-1119318832.html US to Triple Ammunition Production in Couple of Years - State Dept. US to Triple Ammunition Production in Couple of Years - State Dept. Sputnik International The United States plans to triple is ammunition production over the next couple of years, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Bonnie Jenkins said. 2024-07-09T22:09+0000 2024-07-09T22:09+0000 2024-07-09T22:09+0000 military military & intelligence us ukraine general dynamics https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/18/1119093069_0:36:803:487_1920x0_80_0_0_f16db5ad8556c21f4fb5ae7c00496b0e.png "In just a couple of years, we will triple ammunition production in the United States," Jenkins said on Tuesday. "These shells will replenish US stockpiles, enhance the alliances' deterrence posture and help Ukraine win its war against Russia." In May, US Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said at the opening of a General Dynamics plant for manufacturing parts for artillery shells that the facility would enable a significant bolstering of national shell production. This new plant is part of the US governments effort to boost the number of artillery shells made in the United States every month, which will also be important for Ukraine, according to White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby. Western countries have ramped up their military, financial and other aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, numbering in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Russia has consistently warned against continued arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying it would lead to further escalation of the conflict. Russian officials have also warned that any cargo containing weapons for Ukraine are legitimate targets. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240526/russia-outperforms-west-three-times-over-in-shell-production-1118642104.html ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International military industrial complex, us weapons production, general dynamics plant https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/10-un-experts-say-famine-has-hit-all-of-gaza-1119319920.html Famine Has Hit All of Gaza, Ten UN Experts Say Famine Has Hit All of Gaza, Ten UN Experts Say Sputnik International 10 high ranking UN officials said on Tuesday that famine has hit all of Gaza and called on the international community to take action against Israel. 2024-07-10T01:04+0000 2024-07-10T01:04+0000 2024-07-10T04:56+0000 world palestinians yoav gallant palestine gaza strip hamas the united nations (un) middle east israel israel-gaza conflict https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/19/1119113211_0:118:3072:1846_1920x0_80_0_0_b87e14246d7faec64a7f331975d90938.jpg The whole of Gaza is suffering under famine, ten top UN experts said in a statement released on Tuesday.The group does not represent the UN as a whole but declared that famine in Gaza can no longer be denied, noting three children who have died from malnutrition across Gaza recently.Fayez Ataya, who was barely six months old, died on 30 May 2024 and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on 1 June 2024 at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. Nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died on 3 June 2024 in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. All three children died from malnutrition and lack of access to adequate healthcare, the statement read.The statement accused Israel of enacting an intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people which it called a form of genocidal violence that has spread the famine across all of Gaza.Two days after the Hamas-led surprise attack on Israel which resulted in 1,189 deaths, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared a complete siege of Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed, describing Palestinians as human animals and warning the Israeli military would act accordingly.The experts also criticized the international community, saying that stronger action against Israel should have taken place earlier.In response to the statement, Israel accused the experts of working for Hamas, saying that the experts are as much accustomed to spreading misinformation, as they are to supporting Hamas propaganda and shielding the terrorist organizations from scrutiny.Israel pointed to a UN-backed study published last month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee (FRC) as evidence that famine had not taken over Gaza yet. While that report noted that aid had increased in Northern Gaza it also noted that the situation in Gaza remains catastrophic and that the slightly improved situation should not allow room for complacency about the risk of Famine in the coming weeks and months.The IPC/FRC report also stated that there remains a high and sustained risk of Famine persists across the whole of the Gaza Strip as long as conflict continues, and humanitarian access is restricted, adding that due to the increased vulnerability of the population, famine could occur at any time during the projection period [June 16 - September 30].On Friday, the Lancet medical journal issued a conservative estimate saying that 186,000 Palestinians in Gaza have likely been killed by Israel since October through direct and indirect deaths. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240527/report-israeli-settlers-idf-team-up-to-destroy-gaza-aid-amid-full-blown-famine-1118646626.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240709/israeli-strike-on-school-in-southern-gaza-strip-kills-29---gazas-govt-1119318307.html palestine gaza strip israel Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Ian DeMartino Ian DeMartino News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Ian DeMartino famine in gaza, israel genocide, palestinian genocide, hunger in gaza After Hurricane Beryl, millions of Houstonians lost power -- and with it, life-saving air-conditioning. The city of Houston struggled to power its cooling centers, but at the first one that it managed to open, Houstonians found relief. Here's what the editorial board saw at the first center Southwest Multi-Service Center, located between Gulfton and Sharpstown. Sharon Steinmann, Houston Chronicle Extreme heat doesnt announce its presence with the furor of a hurricane, knocking trees to the ground and flooding underpasses. But every year in the U.S., it kills more people than all other natural disasters combined. To state the obvious, its especially a problem here in swampy, scorching Houston, where hurricanes easily knock out the electric grid, and with it, our air-conditioning. So it seems shocking that, of the citys 13 multiservice centers for people seeking A/C and refuge from the heat, only one has a permanent generator. The city has only seven backup generators that it can send to the centers, and none of those is powerful enough to power an entire building. When the derecho hit in May, killing eight people and leaving nearly a million without power as temperatures soared, CenterPoint had to provide 13 emergency generators to help power lifesaving facilities like cooling centers. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The first city cooling center to open after Hurricane Beryl was the Southwest Multi-Service Center, located between Gulfton and Sharpstown in Houston, TX. Sharon Steinmann Mayor John Whitmire told the Chronicle at the time that he reached out to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and President Joe Bidens administration for a more long-term solution. It didnt come in time for Hurricane Beryl. Over 48 hours after the hurricane hit the city, at least 1.3 million Houstonians remained without power even as feels-like temperatures are predicted to reach 106 degrees. As of Wednesday, only six city cooling centers have been opened to the public. Thats unacceptable. Thania Cotoc, 23, and her daughter Kaithlyn Cotoc, 5, wait to charge a phone at the Southwest Multi-Service Center, located between Gulfton and Sharpstown in Houston, TX. It was the first city cooling center to open after Hurricane Beryl. Sharon Steinmann People charge their devices outside the first city cooling center to open after Hurricane Beryl at the Southwest Multi-Service Center, located between Gulfton and Sharpstown in Houston, TX. Sharon Steinmann Sisters Alejandra Guardado, 11, right, and and Alaia Guardado, 7, sit with their pug Romeo just inside the door of the Southwest Multi-Service Center, located between Gulfton and Sharpstown in Houston, TX. It was the first city cooling center to open after Hurricane Beryl. Sharon Steinmann Its not just a lack of generators that has complicated efforts to open the centers, Whitmires spokesperson Mary Benton told us this week. In the days leading up to Beryl, Whitmire kept a close eye on the forecast as he coordinated with the Office of Emergency Management and prepped every department, shoring up their facilities and supplies, she said. The hurricanes unexpected power and northward turn toward Houston still took city responders by surprise. Advertisement Article continues below this ad City employees are struggling just like all Houstonians, she said. Folks prepared but woke up without electricity and with a tree through their roof. How do you prevent that? In some cases you cant. For 38-year-old Vanessa Orellana, who moved here from El Salvador 12 years ago, its hard to understand how a modern city like Houston could be so vulnerable in extreme weather. I feel like were never prepared for anything here, she told an editorial board member in Spanish. If theres a freeze, the grid fails. If theres extreme heat, it fails. Hurricanes, tropical storms all of it can shut down our electricity. Sisters Alejandra Guardado, 11, left, and and Alaia Guardado, 7, hold their pug Romeo outside the the Southwest Multi-Service Center, located between Gulfton and Sharpstown in Houston, TX. It was the first city cooling center to open after Hurricane Beryl. Sharon Steinmann We met Orellana on Tuesday afternoon outside the Southwest Multi-Service Center in between Gulfton and Sharpstown. It was the first city cooling center that opened after Beryl, and the third that Orellana had visited that day. She and her husband had been desperately searching for a place where their two young daughters, Alejandra and Alaia, could cool off. But with their 3-year-old pug Romeo in tow, the family had been turned away at Lakewood Church and the West Gray multi-service center; no pets other than service animals were allowed inside. Hair matted with sweat, Alejandra carried a furiously panting Romeo, his tongue hanging lopsided out of his mouth. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Southwest center originally told them the same, but the family was eventually allowed to sit at the entrance for some reprieve. They were told that the center accepts pets if theyre in a cage, but that hadnt been made clear in the text message Orellana received with the list of available cooling centers. Sisters Alejandra Guardado, 11, right, and and Alaia Guardado, 7, sit with their pug Romeo just inside the door of the Southwest Multi-Service Center, located between Gulfton and Sharpstown in Houston, TX. It was the first city cooling center to open after Hurricane Beryl. Sharon Steinmann Joseph Cashin hadnt even gotten that text message. The 21-year-old British man was in his apartment when the hurricane hit, knocking out his power, internet and cell service. Without family or friends in Houston, he didnt know where to go. After wandering outside to get out of his hot apartment, he spotted a mobile charging van outside of the Southwest center and was relieved to find a place to cool off. I feel like Im inside someones mouth, he told us. Its so hot. Neither Cashin or Orellanas family had any idea of where to go once the center closed at 6 p.m. They told us they had no choice but to return home to toss and turn through the muggy night. Government-run cooling centers arent a panacea. In fact, most people first turn to informal cooling centers for help, such as H-E-B, Kroger and Walmart. Often, its because many people arent even aware that the citys cooling centers exist. A 2011 survey of Houston adults found that, of the 322 respondents who felt too warm inside their home, only 36% knew what cooling centers were. When people do hear about them, they might find the places too out of the way, or they may assume that they serve only the very poor and the elderly. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Thania Cotoc, 23, and her daughter Kaithlyn Cotoc, 5, wait to charge a phone at the Southwest Multi-Service Center, located between Gulfton and Sharpstown in Houston, TX. It was the first city cooling center to open after Hurricane Beryl. Sharon Steinmann For now, Houstonians looking to beat the heat have several options, including city cooling centers and facilities hosted by nonprofits and county partners. In addition to multi-service centers, Houston libraries (except for the downtown location) will function as cooling centers during normal business hours. People without adequate transportation to a designated cooling center can call 3-1-1 to request a free ride from METRO or zTrip. The city should certainly do more to get the word out about available centers, starting with posting the full list of available places on the cooling center section of their website. They should also clearly specify pet policies so people arent left to waste limited gasoline, time and energy hopping from place to place. Turning cooling centers into shelters with overnight capacity should also be a priority as critical as the generators. But the first order of business should still be to make sure that all cooling centers have electricity. Whitmire seems to agree. Were glad to hear that when U.S. Rep. Al Green and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz were in town after Beryl, the mayor was very blunt with them, Benton told us. Houston needs recovery funding, fast and generators are at the top of the list. Four centers already have grant funding identified for generators, she said. Last summer, the hottest in human history, Texas set a new state record in heat-related deaths. We shouldnt wait for the first reported heat death after Beryl to act with urgency. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/chinas-trade-with-russia-beyond-reproach-should-not-be-criticized---embassy-1119331920.html China's Trade With Russia Beyond Reproach, Should Not Be Criticized - Embassy China's Trade With Russia Beyond Reproach, Should Not Be Criticized - Embassy Sputnik International The Chinese embassy in Washington said that China's trade with Russia is beyond reproach and should not be criticized by NATO nations. 2024-07-10T21:59+0000 2024-07-10T21:59+0000 2024-07-11T04:17+0000 world china chinese embassy beijing nato russia sputnik https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/0e/1116156804_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_50351770e428455d5e2e63ed32dfb5c3.jpg NATO released earlier a joint declaration that for the first time singled out China as a challenge to Euro-Atlantic security because of its latest modernization efforts across a range of sectors and because of its alleged support of Russia's defense industrial base through dual-use technology. "China does not provide weapons to the parties to the conflict and strictly controls the export of dual-use articles, which is widely applauded by the international community," Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu responded. "Our normal trade with Russia is done aboveboard. Its consistent with WTO rules and market principles, which is beyond reproach and should not be criticized." https://sputnikglobe.com/20240613/china-opposes-any-illegal-unilateral-sanctions---beijing-on-new-us-sanctions-1118927783.html china beijing russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International nato summit, china russia trade, are china and russia allies, does china trade with russia, is china helping russia https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/israels-strike-on-school-in-gaza-attempt-to-sabotage-ceasefire-talks-turkiye-says-1119321799.html Israeli Strike on Gaza School Attempt to Sabotage Ceasefire Talks, Turkiye Says Israeli Strike on Gaza School Attempt to Sabotage Ceasefire Talks, Turkiye Says Sputnik International The Turkish Foreign Ministry has condemned an Israeli strike on a school in the Gaza Strip's Khan Yunis city and called it an attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to sabotage ceasefire negotiations. 2024-07-10T04:52+0000 2024-07-10T04:52+0000 2024-07-10T08:21+0000 world benjamin netanyahu middle east israel turkiye palestine hamas palestine-israel conflict https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/18/1119087129_0:261:3072:1989_1920x0_80_0_0_d24e8e727da9b9b371e08b86ca548402.jpg Gaza's government said on Tuesday that 29 people were killed in an Israeli strike near a school entrance in Khan Yunis. The ministry added that Israeli authorities "will be held accountable before the law for their actions, which defy all values of humanity and international law." On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a large-scale rocket attack against Israel and breached the border, attacking both civilian neighborhoods and military bases. Nearly 1,200 people in Israel were killed and some 240 others abducted during the attack. Israel launched retaliatory strikes, ordered a complete blockade of Gaza, and started a ground incursion into the Palestinian enclave with the declared goal of eliminating Hamas fighters and rescuing the hostages. As many as 120 hostages are believed to be still held by Hamas in Gaza and 43 hostages died in captivity. More than 38,100 people have been killed and over 87,900 others have been wounded in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israel's military operations, Gaza authorities said. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/10-un-experts-say-famine-has-hit-all-of-gaza-1119319920.html israel turkiye palestine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International israel's strike, school in gaza, benjamin netanyahu, ceasefire talks https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/more-than-2600-bridges-in-us-lack-protection-from-collisions-by-ships-1119327010.html More Than 2,600 Bridges in US Lack Protection From Collisions by Ships More Than 2,600 Bridges in US Lack Protection From Collisions by Ships Sputnik International Two thirds of the 4,000 bridges in the United States that allow ships to pass under them lack functional pier protection against being hit and potentially demolished by collisions, US Senator Tom Carper said in a hearing on Wednesday. 2024-07-10T16:01+0000 2024-07-10T16:01+0000 2024-07-10T16:01+0000 americas us baltimore cargo ship bridge collapse bridge https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/107939/43/1079394329_0:321:3071:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_cc39a8591c65ea0b38e9f0f5594c0f11.jpg "After the collapse of the Key Bridge it came to light that of the 4,000 bridges in the United States that allow ships to pass under them, two thirds lack fundamental pier protection," Carper told the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The Key Bridge in the Port of Baltimore collapsed on March 26 after being hit by a cargo ship. Six construction workers on the bridge were killed and the port had to be closed for repairs for the next two months, disrupting the US industrial supply chain. The 700-feet-wide, 50-feet-deep Fort McHenry Channel spanned by the bridge was reopened on June 10 after being restored by the US Army Corps of Engineers. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240326/key-bridge-in-baltimore-collapses-rammed-by-boat-cars-in-water-1117553710.html americas baltimore Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International us, american bridges, bridges in the us, baltimore bridge, key bridge in baltimore https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/orban-says-asked-erdogan-to-support-hungarys-efforts-on-ukraine-peace-initiative-1119324660.html Orban Asks Erdogan to Support Hungary's Efforts on Ukraine Peace Initiative Orban Asks Erdogan to Support Hungary's Efforts on Ukraine Peace Initiative Sputnik International Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday he had asked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to support Budapest's peace initiative on Ukraine and join efforts toward the conflict resolution. 2024-07-10T10:01+0000 2024-07-10T10:01+0000 2024-07-10T10:21+0000 world viktor orban recep tayyip erdogan ukraine hungary russia the united nations (un) nato https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/05/1a/1118644276_0:0:3071:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_3add6953c0006503e3b76b8b6c93dd5b.jpg "I asked the president to support us in our peace mission. The positions of the warring parties are still far from each other, but if the friends of peace join forces, together we can take the next step in the direction of peace," Orban said in a video address published on X after talks with Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington. The Hungarian prime minister also called the Turkish president the only leader with successful experience in mediating the Ukraine conflict by concluding the Black Sea Grain Initiative, also known as the grain deal. Last week, Orban visited Russia for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hungary's prime minister described his visit as a continuation of the "peace mission" he began with a trip to Kiev early last week. The Turkiye- and UN-mediated Black Sea Grain Initiative, signed in July 2022, which provided for a humanitarian corridor to allow safe sea exports of Ukrainian and Russian agricultural products and fertilizers, expired July 18, 2023, after Russia refused to extend its participation, citing persistent violation of the package deal's component to facilitate Russian grain and fertilizer exports. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240708/putin-sends-no-message-to-biden-nato-countries-through-orban---kremlin-1119288083.html ukraine hungary russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International hungary's efforts on ukraine peace initiative, hungarian prime minister viktor orban, turkish president recep tayyip erdogan https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/poland-to-deploy-17000-troops-to-guard-eastern-border-1119326051.html Poland to Deploy 17,000 Troops to Guard Eastern Border Poland to Deploy 17,000 Troops to Guard Eastern Border Sputnik International The Polish army will increase the number of military personnel to guard its eastern border to 17,000, with 9,000 in a rapid border reaction force, Deputy Defense Minister Pawel Bejda said on Wednesday. 2024-07-10T13:19+0000 2024-07-10T13:19+0000 2024-07-10T13:19+0000 world poland east belarus european union (eu) nato border https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/1e/1119197924_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_7969e4a7c6a3e6a03c26d4051b1a8e34.jpg "If anything happens at the border, these 9,000 soldiers will reach the border together with their ammunition and weapons within 48 hours," Bejda told a press conference in Warsaw dedicated to the East Shield national defense and deterrence plan. Currently, there are almost 6,000 Polish military personnel deployed at the border, and ultimately there will be 8,000 soldiers directly guarding the Polish border, he added. The East Shield deterrence plan entails an investment of over 2 billion euros ($2.17 billion) in reinforcing Poland's eastern border with Russia and Belarus. Its realization is expected in 2024-2028. Poland, along with other NATO countries, increased military training of its troops after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The alliance started reinforcing its eastern flank by sending additional ships, planes, helicopters and ground troops to the region and putting them on high alert. Moreover, Poland has been continuously taking measures to reinforce its eastern border following the migrant crisis that unfolded in 2021. Tens of thousands of irregular migrants from the Middle East and Africa crowded on Belarus' side of the border, aiming to cross into the European Union via Poland, as well as neighboring Latvia and Lithuania. Polish authorities tightened border controls, deployed troops, and accused Belarus of orchestrating the migrant crisis. Minsk rejected the accusation, saying Warsaw was abusing the migrant crisis narrative to aggressively push migrants into Belarusian territory. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240524/poland-baltics-join-forces-to-build-maginot-style-defensive-line-on-border-with-russia-belarus-1118615830.html poland east belarus Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International polish army, deputy defense minister pawel bejda, military personnel https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/review-of-un-sanctions-against-n-korea-should-not-be-linked-to-preconditions---moscow-1119321105.html Review of UN Sanctions Against N. Korea Should Not Be Linked to Preconditions - Moscow Review of UN Sanctions Against N. Korea Should Not Be Linked to Preconditions - Moscow Sputnik International The process of review of United Nations sanctions against North Korea should come without preconditions for Pyongyang, the director of Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of International Organizations told Sputnik. 2024-07-10T03:14+0000 2024-07-10T03:14+0000 2024-07-10T03:14+0000 world north korea pyongyang russia americans sanctions https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/19/1119113829_0:0:2813:1583_1920x0_80_0_0_6e2d7005439f7f96d0fbe4533d6b12f6.jpg "In a political sense, loosening the sanctions shackles would help revive the atmosphere of trust, which has been undermined by a long period of ever-increasing pressure, and would give diplomacy a real chance. At the same time, putting forth new conditions will only push Pyongyang away, where they remember well the dishonest game of the Americans behind the fog of words not backed by clear guarantees," Ilyichev said. The Russian diplomat added that lifting some economic sanctions imposed on North Korea "would give an impetus to the development of the national economy of North Korea, enrich the country's foreign ties with new useful content, and improve the welfare of its citizens." https://sputnikglobe.com/20240630/north-korea-accuses-us-japan-south-korea-of-creating-asian-version-of-nato-1119188258.html north korea pyongyang russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International sanctions on north korea, north korean russian relationship, north korea opening to the world https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/russian-forces-destroyed-improved-american-launchers-in-ukraine-1119326577.html Russian Forces Destroyed Improved American Launchers in Ukraine Russian Forces Destroyed Improved American Launchers in Ukraine Sputnik International Russian forces have destroyed three HAWK air defense missile launchers, made and improved by the US, in the special operation zone over the past day, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. 2024-07-10T14:48+0000 2024-07-10T14:48+0000 2024-07-10T16:48+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine russia ukraine kiev russian ministry of defense russian armed forces mig-29 army tactical missile system (atacms) high mobility artillery rocket system (himars) https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/0a/1119326415_0:86:2622:1561_1920x0_80_0_0_6e84828a3955e0213e2dd81877e2391b.jpg "Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops, and the artillery of the Russian Armed Forces, have destroyed an AN/MPQ-46 radar and three HAWK air defense missile launchers made and improved in the US," the ministry's daily briefing stated.Additionally, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported the destruction of storage facilities for Ukrainian unmanned boats, and strikes on enemy personnel and equipment in 131 locations.Russian air defense systems have shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter, 4 ATACMS missiles, and 55 drones in the past day, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.Since the beginning of the special operation, 627 Ukrainian military aircraft, 277 helicopters, 27,496 drones, 545 air defense systems, 16,539 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,373 multiple rocket launchers, 11,685 field artillery guns and mortars, and 23,515 units of special military vehicles have been destroyed. Furthermore, over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian armed forces have lost up to 600 soldiers in battles with Russias Yug Battlegroup."The Ukrainian armed forces lost up to 600 soldiers, six vehicles, two 152-mm D-20 guns, and two US-made 105-mm M119 howitzers," the ministry said.Russia's Tsentr Battlegroup have repelled five Ukrainian counterattacks, with Kiev losing up to 510 soldiers, the ministry said, adding that Ukraine also lost up to 495 soldiers in battles with its Zapad Battlegroup.Meanwhile, Russia's Sever Battlegroup also repelled two Ukrainian counterattacks, with Kiev losing up to 275 soldiers, the ministry concluded. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240706/what-did-russian-specialists-discover-after-examining-us-made-atacms-missile-1119259771.html russia ukraine kiev Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russian special military operation, ukraine, ukrainian crisis, ukrainian conflict, war in ukraine, atacms, himars https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/some-french-left-wing-wish-to-split-from-coalition-that-won-parlt-elections---reports-1119320475.html Some French Left-Wing Wish to Split From Coalition That Won Elections - Report Some French Left-Wing Wish to Split From Coalition That Won Elections - Report Sputnik International Some left-wing lawmakers in Paris have proposed creating a new group separate from the New Popular Front which recently won parliamentary elections. 2024-07-10T01:21+0000 2024-07-10T01:21+0000 2024-07-10T04:57+0000 world jean-luc melenchon socialist party france https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/08/1119286474_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_688e0f531e55686b020dca8b9ce4cf13.jpg The broadcaster reported on Tuesday that some elected lawmakers from the NFP have offered the Greens party and the French Communist Party, who are also a part of the coalition, to split from the coalition and create their own group. The initiative was voiced by lawmakers Clementine Autain, Alexis Corbiere and Francois Ruffin, who sent an official letter to the said parties on Tuesday, BFMTV reported. The purpose of the new group is reportedly to compete with Jean-Luc Melenchon's France Unbowed party and the Socialist Party, and they reportedly will not participate in meetings in the same group as the France Unbowed party. On Monday, the NFP coalition won the parliamentary elections, receiving 182 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, with France Unbowed receiving 75 seats, the Socialist Party - 65 seats, the Greens - 33 seats, and the French Communist Party - nine seats. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240708/victory-of-left-coalition-in-france-nominal-foreign-policy-will-not-change---eu-lawmaker-1119300613.html france Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International french elections, coalition government in france, who will be france's new prime minister https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/ukraine-seeking-to-convince-us-to-fully-lift-ban-on-strikes-inside-russia---reports-1119324517.html Ukraine Seeking to Convince US to Fully Lift Ban on Strikes Inside Russia - Reports Ukraine Seeking to Convince US to Fully Lift Ban on Strikes Inside Russia - Reports Sputnik International Kiev is seeking to convince Washington to lift a ban on Ukrainian strikes inside Russian territory with US-supplied weapons in the course of the NATO summit, Politico reported, citing Ukrainian presidential office head Andriy Yermak. 2024-07-10T09:59+0000 2024-07-10T09:59+0000 2024-07-10T09:59+0000 world ukraine kiev washington joe biden nato army tactical missile system (atacms) https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/02/1119217488_0:219:2863:1829_1920x0_80_0_0_0e2f5390e4b8ff34eac42770dd1c050f.jpg In May, the Biden administration authorized Ukrainian forces to use the transferred weapons against targets on Russian territory adjacent to the Kharkov (also known as Kharkiv) region for counter-fire purposes, but left in place a ban on cross-border strikes using ATACMS missiles and other long-range firearms. The Ukrainian authorities plan to increase pressure on the White House during the ongoing NATO summit so that it lifts all restrictions on striking Russian territory with US weapons, including the use of ATACMS, Yermak told Politico in an interview out Tuesday. Ukraine has been raising the issue with the Biden administration for several months through several meetings and phone calls with high-ranking US officials, Yermak told Politico, outlining his plans to bring up the matter again during meetings with the US administration. Kiev also intends to request more details from the US authorities on the number of weapons it plans to provide in the coming months and the expected delivery dates, the Ukrainian official said. The NATO summit kicked off in Washington on Tuesday and will run through July 11. On Monday, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said no changes had been made to the US policy regarding Ukrainian strikes on targets inside Russian territory. Kirby made the remarks when asked whether Washington was mulling policy changes following a missile attack on the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialized Hospital in Kiev, which Ukraine says was carried out by Moscow. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240709/natos-irreversible-path-for-ukraine-a-symbolic-move-amid-us-concerns-over-corruption-1119316347.html ukraine kiev washington Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International ban on strikes inside russia, ukrainian strikes, us-supplied weapons https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/west-to-supply-ukraine-with-squadrons-of-f-16-fighter-jets-1119326732.html West to Supply Ukraine With 'Squadrons' of F-16 Fighter Jets West to Supply Ukraine With 'Squadrons' of F-16 Fighter Jets Sputnik International Western allies intend to supply Ukraine with entire "squadrons" of modern American-made F-16 fighter jets, according to a joint statement from the leaders of the US, Netherlands, and Denmark. 2024-07-10T14:04+0000 2024-07-10T14:04+0000 2024-07-10T15:34+0000 military antony blinken joe biden ukraine netherlands denmark nato f-16 https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/101668/24/1016682422_0:58:2168:1278_1920x0_80_0_0_1c1db97c23eb9e9ffd6932c00164ee97.jpg They announced that the transfer of the first of these aircraft has already begun, allowing Ukrainian forces to start using them this summer. The coalition, according to the leaders, intends to assist with the maintenance, armament, and pilot training for these jets.US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in turn, announced that a transfer of F-16 fighter jets was currently underway from Europe to Ukraine. "I'm also pleased to announce that as we speak, the transfer of F-16 jets is underway, coming from Denmark, coming from the Netherlands, and those jets will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression," Blinken said at the NATO Public Forum. Commenting on the development, Andrey Kartapolov, head of the State Duma Defense Committee told Sputnik that the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will not affect the course of the special operation and will change nothing."We have known for a long time that they would give them something by the end of the summer; they have nothing else left but the F-16. Now they will be giving them, perhaps a dozen or so, but it will not change anything at all. We have been expecting them for a long time, and we have been preparing. It will not affect the course of the special operation," said Kartapolov. He noted that after the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine, Russian pilots and air defense personnel "will have new stars on their fuselages and new medals on their chests."Russia has consistently warned against the West's continued arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying that they only prolong the conflict. New supplies of weapons by the West to Kiev, including F-16s, cannot fundamentally change the situation on the ground, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov previously said. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/zelensky-admits-abrams-tanks-toothless-on-battlefield-seeks-scores-of-f-16s--1119322003.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240508/russias-military-hammers-ukrainian-critical-infrastructure-airfield-set-to-receive-us-f-16s-1118335062.html ukraine netherlands denmark Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International ukrainian conflict, ukrainian crisis, war in ukraine, f-16 to ukraine, us, netherlands, denmark, f-16 will not change anything, russia, antony blinken A convoy of electric trucks from several different states gather to support power outage efforts the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Houston causing mass power outages on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer When Whataburger has a better-functioning power outage map than Houstons largest electricity provider, something is terribly wrong. By now, Houstonians have set a pretty low bar for CenterPoint Energy. We all know that regardless of the disaster Mother Nature cooks up, be it a freeze, derecho or hurricane, power outages are likely and its a crapshoot whether youll be lucky enough to keep your lights on. What we do expect from our power utility is transparency. Preparation. Resiliency. In the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, which tore through our city on Monday, knocking out power for more than 2 million Houstonians the most since Hurricane Ike in 2008 it appears that CenterPoint failed on all counts. Advertisement Article continues below this ad What we got instead were vague promises cloaked in cryptic corporate-speak. Power would be restored only after crews complete a damage assessment, a CenterPoint spokesperson told the Chronicle on Monday. Of course, what that assessment entails and how long it would take is anyones guess. Yet if youre in one of the hardest-hit areas wherever that may be because, again, the company wont even provide an outage map you should prepare accordingly for an outage. Speaking of preparation, how about a little from CenterPoint? The company didnt even have the foresight to stage out-of-town repair crews in Houston prior to Beryl making landfall. KHOU reported Monday evening that these crews still hadnt arrived yet, roughly six hours after the storm exited the city. When asked why they werent here already, a CenterPoint spokesperson told KHOU, Beryl made more of an impact to our area than many believed was going to happen. Of course, anyone with a weather app on their smartphone had known for days that the Houston region was directly in the storms path. Fixing its outage-tracking map, which purportedly crashed from high demand during the May derecho, also shouldve been a top priority well in advance of hurricane season. Yet by the time CenterPoints new system debuts at the end of July, we may very well be staring down another tropical storm or hurricane barreling through the Gulf of Mexico. For now, the best CenterPoint can do is encourage customers to enroll in its power alert system for updates. A downed power line on Memorial Drive after Hurricane Beryl made landfall nearby Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Houston. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer These are just the near-term concerns we have with CenterPoint. Were also left wondering how a Category 1 storm couldve caused more power outages in Houston than a stronger Category 2 storm 16 years ago. Is it possible that our disaster planning has regressed? Advertisement Article continues below this ad In the wake of Ike, which left around 2 million without power, some for more than two weeks, then-Mayor Bill White commissioned a task force, which included representatives from CenterPoint, to examine the cause of Houstons power outages and outline needed improvements. Many of the recommendations, released in 2009, are as salient now as they were then, yet its unclear whether CenterPoint has followed through on all of them. The utility did not respond to our request for comment. Among the reports findings was that tree limbs falling on power and service lines during high winds caused most of the grid failures during Ike. In the years since, CenterPoint trimmed tens of thousands of trees in the Houston area. Texas' Public Utility Commission requires utilities to file annual reports about vegetation management, but, because this is Texas, doesnt impose any specific requirements. In its 2023 filing, CenterPoint reported proactive vegetation management along 4,608 miles of power distribution circuits last year, with plans for another 3,500 miles in 2024, but the company didnt specify where exactly that work was done. Whites task force recommended building out an intelligent grid system with remote units attached to power poles that would allow CenterPoint to automatically re-route power where its needed without a technician showing up to fix it. NPR reported in 2013 that 25% of the Houston power grid was equipped with these devices, but its unclear if that work has been completed. The report even floated the idea of placing power lines underground, which would protect parts of the grid from extreme wind events. This undergrounding process, however, can be prohibitively expensive: $35 billion for all of Houston, at least in 2009 dollars. And guess who would pay? The customers. Instead, the report recommended undergrounding lines primarily for critical facilities such as sewage treatment plants, hospitals and assisted living facilities. A convoy of electric trucks from several different states gather to support power outage efforts the day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Houston causing mass power outages on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Burying power lines, it should be noted, can also be problematic in a place like Houston that floods, and when lines are damaged below ground, it can take longer to identify the problem and make repairs. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Still, technology is always improving and there are other solutions out there for states that are willing to look. Florida, frequently battered by powerful hurricanes, provides a beacon of hope. After a series of major storms in 2004 and 2005, the Florida Public Service Commission forced its utilities to adopt several measures to buttress its grid, including replacing wooden transmission poles with sturdier concrete ones, proactive tree-trimming and undergrounding some power lines. When Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm, hit the state in 2022, more than 2.1 million people lost power, yet within 24 hours roughly two-thirds of customers got it back. Within eight days, except for parts of the state where the grid needed to be rebuilt, every customer had their lights on. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/zelensky-admits-abrams-tanks-toothless-on-battlefield-seeks-scores-of-f-16s--1119322003.html Zelensky Admits Abrams Tanks Toothless on Battlefield, Seeks Scores of F-16s Zelensky Admits Abrams Tanks Toothless on Battlefield, Seeks Scores of F-16s Sputnik International Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said during his remarks on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington that it is unlikely that the 31 US-supplied Abrams tanks made much of a difference on the battlefield in Ukraine. 2024-07-10T05:36+0000 2024-07-10T05:36+0000 2024-07-10T10:15+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine volodymyr zelensky sergey lavrov ukraine russia nato f-16 m1a2 abrams m1a1 abrams tank m1 abrams tank https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/04/1e/1118188336_0:0:1280:720_1920x0_80_0_0_25a450db12a2654c3dcb176473c612a7.jpg "I'm not sure that such a number of tanks can change the situation in the battle," Zelensky said on Tuesday. In May, CNN reported, citing Ukrainian crews maintaining the M1 Abrams tanks supplied by the United States, that there were numerous issues with using the armored vehicles on the battlefield. The crews said that the $10 million vehicles did not have sufficient armor against modern weapons such as drones, thus failing to adequately protect personnel against attacks. One member said the tanks had become Russian forces "number one target." They also reportedly said that the tanks appeared to have technical issues; for example, condensation affected electronic components. They noted that the tanks were not suitable for Ukraines situation, given that air power and artillery, which Ukrainian forces lack, help clear the battlefield before tanks and troops advance. The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly reported the destruction of Abrams tanks in the special operation zone. Ukraine Needs 16 'Immediately'Urging Western leaders to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, Zelensky emphasized that Kiev needs them immediately.As of May, Ukraine's allies in the West have committed to providing some 85 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, but the timeline for some of those deliveries is unclear.In June, Politico reported, citing US and NATO officials, that Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium planned to deliver more than 60 US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine this summer, but Ukraine would not have a full squadron of trained pilots until the end of 2025. Only 20 Ukrainian F-16 pilots are reportedly expected to finish the training by the end of 2024, which is half of the staff needed to operate a squadron of 20 aircraft.Ukraine wants the United States to train more Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 fighter jets, but there is currently no room to accept more pilots into the training program, according to US officials.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last year that Russia would consider the delivery of nuclear-capable F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as a deliberate signaling action by NATO in the nuclear sphere.The Kremlin has consistently warned against continued arms deliveries to Kiev since the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, saying it would lead to further escalation of the conflict. In April 2022, Russia sent a diplomatic note to all NATO countries on the issue of arms supplies to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that any cargo containing weapons for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for Russian strikes. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240613/watch-russian-drone-hunt-down-abrams-tank-1118926132.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240614/training-for-ukrainian-f-16-pilots-pretty-meager-media-reports-1118945342.html ukraine russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky, nato summit, us-supplied abrams tanks Nijinsky will have the opportunity on Saturday to become the 11th horse in history to win both the North America Cup and Meadowlands Pace. His stablemate, Legendary Hanover, will be among the horses with the opportunity to stop him. Undefeated in six races this year, Nijinsky will head to the $650,000 USD Meadowlands Pace for three-year-olds at The Meadowlands as the 2-1 morning line favourite. Nijinsky won his Pace elimination this past Saturday by three-quarters of a length over Funtime Bayama in 1:47.3, equalling the fastest time for an elim in Pace history. Legendary Hanover, who finished fifth in the North America Cup, is the 3-1 second choice on the morning line after capturing his Pace elim by 1-1/4 lengths over Mirage Hanover in 1:48. The colt, who received the 2023 OBrien Award for best two-year-old male pacer in Canada, has three victories and two seconds in six races this season. Nijinsky and driver Louis-Philippe Roy will start from post three on Saturday. Legendary Hanover and driver James MacDonald will leave from post six. Both horses are trained by Anthony Beaton, who is making his Meadowlands Pace debut. Its extremely special, said Beaton. Like I said going into the N.A. Cup, were going in with two legitimate shots. Some people are lucky to get one shot in their life, and Ive got two great shots. Im very fortunate. I really appreciate the ownership group trusting me to take care of these horses. Nijinsky won the North America Cup in June by 1-1/2 lengths over Captains Quarters, who also is a Meadowlands Pace finalist. Of the five horses to accomplish the Cup-Pace double this century, three were named Horse of the Year in Dan Patch Awards voting Gallo Blue Chip, Rocknroll Hanover and Tall Dark Stranger while the other two, Well Said and Captaintreacherous, were named Pacer of the Year. Last year, Nijinsky hit the board in six of 10 races, but found his way to the winners circle only once. We always had some issues leaving the gate, said Beaton. Hes always showed the high speed for home, but when we were never in the races, he just couldnt get there in the end. He was just too far out of it a lot of times. [Im impressed with] how he matured from two to three, and his handiness now. Now, Louis can leave a little bit with him and there doesnt seem to be an issue. Being in the races, he can show off his stuff and get the accolades that he deserves. In his elimination, Nijinsky took the lead heading into the last turn, then fended off a challenge from Funtime Bayama to remain unbeaten this season. What makes my horse so easy to drive, you just need to be alert on the track and hes going to allow you to do whatever you want in the race with him, said Roy. Its not going to be a one-horse race," He added about the Pace final. "Funtime Bayama went a crazy trip. Legendary Hanover, we always know hes a really fast horse and he was given the right trip [in his elim]. Its going to all come down to the draw and whatever happens on the track. Nijinsky, a son of Bettors Delight-Pirouette Hanover who has earned $757,609 in his career, is owned by West Wins Stable, John Fielding and Mark Dumain. West Wins Stable and Dumain also own Legendary Hanover, along with Eric Good. The son of Huntsville-Lillian Hanover has hit the board in 13 of 15 career races, winning nine and earning $540,847. He finally got a half-decent trip [in his elimination], which is something hes needed for a while. Hes been doing a lot of the heavy lifting, said Beaton. He deserves the accolades hes getting [after the elim] because he has done a lot of work and hes raced very well each start. It almost seems like some people were losing faith in him because he wasnt winning those races, but I never lost faith in this horse. Ive said it in the past, he may be one of the best horses that Ive ever trained myself. Hes a big, strong, powerful horse. Hes so professional. Hes almost too smart for his own good. You could have a baby almost jog him, hes so relaxed. Its nice to go to the barn and jog a horse like that; it kind of sets you up for a good day. Its nice to have that nice horse, mild mannered, just a sweetheart to jog. He brightens your day. In his elimination, Legendary Hanover settled in third, where he remained heading into the stretch. He paced his last quarter in a blistering :24.4 to earn the victory. It was my job to find a nice trip for him, said MacDonald. Unfortunately, in the big ones, I havent been able to map them out for him, but Im hoping [in the final] I can get the job done. Hes just a great horse. He can do anything. He finishes like a freight train, hes great on the front, he can rough it first-up if youve got to. Hopefully, I can work something out for him in the final. Some people maybe got down on him, but Tony and I and his ownership group have never given up on him. We think the sky is the limit still for him. Racing begins at 6:20 p.m. (EDT) at The Meadowlands. Post time for the Meadowlands Pace, which is race 11 on the program, is approximately 10:43 p.m. The complete field is listed below in post position order. $650,000 USD Meadowlands Pace Post - Horse - Driver - Trainer - Morning Line Odds 1. Its Saturday Night Andrew McCarthy Nifty Norman 20-1 2. Funtime Bayama Dexter Dunn Andrew Harris 7-2 3. Nijinsky Louis-Philippe Roy Anthony Beaton 2-1 4. Mirage Hanover Tim Tetrick Jake Leamon 9-2 5. Gem Quality Yannick Gingras Chris Ryder 10-1 6. Legendary Hanover James MacDonald Anthony Beaton 3-1 7. Captain Albano Todd McCarthy Noel Daley 5-1 8. Captain Luke Scott Zeron Tony Alagna 15-1 9. Captains Quarters Jody Jamieson Herb Holland 8-1 10. Number Cruncher Jordan Stratton Erv Miller 20-1 (USTA; Photo of Nijinsky and trainer Tony Beaton) The five-year-old Dover Dan gelding Dover In Motion returned to Oak Grove Racing, Gaming & Hotel on Tuesday, July 9 and put forth an exhibition in the $68,493 Open Trot, registering the fastest mile ever trotted over the track with an open-length win. Starting from post four, driver Ricky Macomber Jr. floated Dover In Motion forward to race fourth past a :26.1 first quarter as Oh Look Magic (Devon Tharps) planted himself on the point out of post eight. Macomber tipped his charge off the pylons moving to a :55.1 half and thrusted forward up the backside to quickly open ground on Oh Look Magic in the third-quarter sprint. Dover In Motion clicked past the third station in 1:22 and motored through the final turn and the stretch under wraps to notch a 6-3/4-length victory over pocket-popper Pioneer As (Marvin Luna) in 1:50.4. Sparks Fly (Marcus Miller) grabbed third and Amigo Volo (Joey Putnam) closed from last for fourth. The mile by Dover In Motion, giving him his 20th win from 45 starts and adding to his bankroll now worth $721,144 for owners M&M Racing and Macomber Racing, bested the previous track record for aged trotting geldings of 1:51.2 established by Kildare King in 2022. Dover In Motion's mile also bests the all-time trotting record of 1:51.1 tied by stallions Cuatro De Julio and Keg Stand. Jamie Macomber trains the $3.40 winner, who also scored in a lifetime-best time. Trainer Anette Lorentzon led all conditioners with three wins on the 12-race card. Her hat trick started early in the afternoon with a win by Eye Ofa Tiger As (Marvin Luna, 1:54.2 winning mile; $15.36 to win) and later wrapped with a sweep of the late daily double by Cleopatra As (Marvin Luna, 1:56.4; $3.24) and Brodeur (Marvin Luna, 1:53.1; $3.48). Live harness racing resumes at Oak Grove on Sunday, July 14 with nearly $1-million USD in purses up for grabs. Sunday's card will feature eight $100,000 USD finals of the Kentucky Sire Stakes for two- and three-year-olds of both sexes and gaits, as well as a $60,000 USD Open Pace that will contend Midwest champion Little Rocket Man against Oak Grove's hometown champ and track record holder Admiral Hill. A pair of Pick 5 carryovers are also on offer Sunday, with the Early Pick 5 (starting in Race 1) featuring a $1,678.72 carryover and the Late Pick 5 (starting in Race 6) offering a $367.06 carryover. Free program pages for every race day, courtesy of TrackMaster, are available on the Oak Grove Racing website. (Oak Grove) A Houston firefighter looks at downed power lines on Kings River Drive in Kingwood after Hurricane Beryl caused trees to fall throughout Harris County. Sharon Steinmann It was just a Category 1. What happened? Regarding When will power be back in Houston after Beryl? CenterPoint says it could be a while. (July 8): As we sit here in the heat without A/C along with millions of others in the Greater Houston area, I believe the mayor and governor should call for a full investigation of CenterPoint Energy. This hurricane did not sneak up on the company, even with the unpredictability of hurricanes. Because of the unpredictability they should have been even more prepared while not using that as an excuse for their ineptitude. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We as customers are oftentimes reminded of our responsibility to make preparations for these storms. CenterPoint should be reminded of its responsibilities to its customers. At the very least, officials should demand significant refunds since we are required to pay our bills in a timely manner regardless of the unpredictability of hurricanes. Will Walk, Spring We just moved here to Seabrook three months ago. Lifelong Texan. Lived through the snowpocalyspe, and distinctly remember the crowing and chest-pounding the governor, lieutenant governor and others did after the storm, telling us all is okay. Fast-forward to Beryl. A somewhat minor Category 1 hurricane. Despite being told our electric grid was fine, that it was hardened against bad weather, 2 million people in the fourth-largest city in the U.S. lost power? Advertisement Article continues below this ad This is an absolute embarrassment for the state, for Houston, for ERCOT and especially for CenterPoint Energy, which lost not only electric service, but gas service too in many areas. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made multiple appearances prior to the storm, once again extolling the preparedness of folks for the storm while warning about its potential impacts. Credibility issues abound. David Price, Seabrook It is disgraceful that so many people lost power during Hurricane Beryl. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It reflects the generational lack of leadership on the part of city and state officials, and their unwillingness to hold their campaign donors in the energy industry accountable. It was embarrassing to see the acting governor on TV suggesting that with 80 mph winds, power outages are to be expected. Houston should be able to withstand the weakest category of hurricane. Its not like Houston has never had a hurricane before. Who is to blame for the power going out? Is it the single mom working two part-time jobs to get by, or the energy executive in an exurban McMansion trying to figure out how to shift the rebuilding costs onto the backs of the poor? Wayne Lorentz, Houston CenterPoint Energy needs to find out why so many homes and businesses lost power during Hurricane Beryl. It is no fun not being able to turn on the lights, especially at night. Was it tree branches breaking the electric wires? We need research in these days of advanced technology so that this unnecessary disaster does not happen again. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I trust the Chronicle will stay on top of this story until improvements are made in our electric grid. Jimmy Dunne, Houston Thanks, Chronicle delivery What great service! Here it is late Monday morning. The storm has pretty much passed. As I go out into my front yard to survey the damage what do my eyes behold? A Houston Chronicle double wrapped in plastic bags sitting on my lawn. A great big thanks to the Chronicle carriers who made the effort to deliver despite the horrible weather. My understanding is that my carrier drives 140 miles a day to deliver the newspaper to customers. Advertisement Article continues below this ad And they do a great job. Japanese voice actress and singer Aya Hirano made an appearance at the 2019 FanimeCon held in the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. Hirano is best known for her iconic role as the protagonist of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Her other popular works include Lucky Star and Fairy Tail. Hear about what she has been up to in the past few years, including her studies in New York and her aspirations. T-ONO: We heard you got to look around San Francisco. Was there anything you enjoyed? Hirano: This is my first time in San Francisco. On my first day, I was able to visit some of the famous sightseeing areas. On the second day before the opening ceremonies, I went to Silicon Valley and was able to visit and take some photos in front of Google, Facebook, and Apple. T-ONO: I noticed youre wearing a Google jacket, was there anything you thought was interesting while visiting those places? Hirano: Yes! [laughs] I was able to visit the Golden Gate Bridge which Ive only seen in movies and it was really impressive. While at Google, I was actually wearing the colors of Google so I looked like someone who really likes Google. [laughs] T-ONO: Whats the most interesting thing youve seen so far at FanimeCon? Hirano: I had an autograph session and panel yesterday and I had a really warm reception from the fans. I was able to take a group photo with all the fans during the panel. I also came to the United States in 2007 for Anime Expo in Los Angeles, and a lot of fans in my panel were there as well. I was able to meet a lot of the same fans again after 12 years. There was actually one person who wasnt able to get my autograph at that event but was able to finally get one this time. This made me really glad to see my old fans too. T-ONO: Before coming to Fanime in San Jose, you also made a couple of appearances this year including Hawaii and Quebec. Can you please tell us what sparked your recent tour? Hirano: Two years ago I studied abroad in New York and at that time, I noticed language and words were more important than I thought. I thought itd be nice If I could help spread anime to the world by being able to use English. From now on, Id like to actively participate in more events, including holding concerts abroad. T-ONO: While you were in New York, can you tell us a little about your studies? Hirano: I came to study English and take vocal lessons; Im actually doing musicals right now. I try to go at least twice a year for vocal lessons. T-ONO: What was it like adjusting to living in America? Hirano: When I first arrived, I didnt know anyone in New York. It was as if I was living alone again, so it made me very anxious. I ended up making a lot of new friends from different countries that were in the same level classes. We all studied together, and it was pretty fun. When I was still a student in Japan, I was already working. I feel like I wasn't able to experience typical student life, such as hanging out with friends, because I had to take time off school for work. Studying in America gave me the feeling of being like a normal student again. I feel like that filled me with more happy moments than tough ones. When I first started classes, I was keeping the fact that I was working as a voice actress a secret. However, during our self-introductions, we had to talk about what kind of work we were doing. I thought about which one of my roles would be the easiest one to be recognized, so I said I was Dende from Dragon Ball, so everyone kept calling me Dende. T-ONO: Outside of your visit to the anime shop Forbidden Planet while in New York, were you ever recognized by fans? Hirano: Everyone actually thought I was a child. [chuckles] I actually didnt get noticed at all. There were shops that sold the Fairy Tail manga, so I was always reading it, but nobody really noticed me. T-ONO: What lead you to your interest in stage theater? Hirano: As a child, I have always wanted to become a musical star. At the age of 10, I joined a stage group [Tokyo Child Theatrical Group] and auditioned for Annie and many other different musicals, but I failed to get any parts. When I was about to give up, I received another offer for an audition, and finally was able to land a role in Les Miserable. T-ONO: With your interest in musicals, how did you end up working in voice acting? Hirano: When I was 12 years old, I took part in a drama that also had an anime. I was able to work in both the live action and the anime. That was probably the first time I lent my voice to an anime. One part of the role was sort of like a narration; I had to read a four-page script which felt kind of like a strange role. This role was sort of the reason I got into the anime industry. The director of the show and my manager at that time told me my voice and narration were amazing and suggested I should try auditioning for anime roles. Thats how I made my debut in anime. T-ONO: Was it difficult coping with your sudden rise in popularity as a voice actress? Hirano: When I was young, I wasnt very popular. I appeared in small commercials and some television dramas. Afterward, I started working in an idol unit, and at the same time became a voice actress. I think it was more like I was a sort of unknown voice actress at the time. I did a few years of voice acting before Haruhi Suzumiya's role came into my hands. At that time, Twitter was just becoming popular, and I was exposed to the entire world along with Haruhi and became popular. Although it didnt feel like a short period of time, I felt like I didnt understand what was happening to me, so it was very surreal. T-ONO: With such a prolific career including voice acting, singing, stage acting, television shows, etc. what are your plans moving forward? Hirano: Hmm, I wonder what? [laughs] Ive been able to do so many different types of jobs, but Id really like to do something only I can do and do so at an international level. My dream is to do a sort of solo world tour. When it comes to musicals, I used to live in New York when I was a child, so its always been a dream to be able to be in a Broadway musical. T-ONO: With your background in voice acting and musicals, have you ever considered performing in 2.5D (anime) musicals? Hirano: Ive never been in any 2.5D musicals, and I think theyre very difficult; however, I do think that all voice actors are already somewhat 2.5D. Having said that, I think that those types of musicals should be left to actors who specialize in 2.5D. T-ONO: Can you tell us a little about what you are currently working on and any information on upcoming projects you could possibly share? Hirano: In Japan, the final season of Fairy Tail is currently being aired and its currently getting into the climax, so hopefully people will watch it until the end. The original manga series has ended, but Fairy Tail has a number of spinoffs as well, so when we were recording, we would always talk about those and how we hope more would be made. T-ONO: Lastly, a message for the readers and fans. Hirano: This was my first time being able to come to San Jose and San Francisco, the climate feels really nice and I felt very refreshed as soon as I got here. If I could come back for an event, I would really love that. If possible, Id like to be able to do a Haruhi concert the next time I come! Follow Aya Hirano: Twitter https://twitter.com/hysteric_barbie FLOW has performed in the US several times but San Jose is the first and only place where they've performed three times. Debuting in 2003, the band consists of KOHSHI (Vo/Gt), KEIGO (Vo), TAKE (Gt), GOT'S (Bass), and IWASAKI (drums). The band is famous for their many anime opening and ending songs. We had the chance to chat with them and ask what their thoughts were about their first appearance at Crunchyroll Expo and about their concert from the night before. T-ONO: Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us. The last time you were here was eight years ago and this marks your third time in San Jose. This was your first time performing on Crunchyroll Expo's stage; what was different from your past events? KEIGO: We are very happy to come back after eight years, and since this is our third time here, San Jose has become our most visited location in the US. Even though this was our first time performing at Crunchyroll Expo, we noticed there were people who had attended our concerts eight years ago and it made us very happy to see them again. Of course, there were people seeing us for the first time which also makes us very happy. T: The concert was sold out yesterday. How was the view from the stage? TAKE: We were really surprised and greatly appreciate it. There were fans that waited eight years for us plus fans seeing us for the first time. We were glad we could perform in front of such a big crowd. T: The setlist was composed of all anime songs this time. How was the setlist created and why did you specifically choose all anime songs? In past events, you have sung "Answer" and "Surfin USA." GOTS: We sold our souls to anime songs. KEIGO: What the heck are you saying? *laughs* KOHSHI: The setting was we sold our souls *laughs* KEIGO: We did try to choose just anime songs but there were also songs that we didnt have eight years ago. For example, Kaze no Uta from the Tales of Zestiria series, and since it is our third time here we definitely wanted to add that in. Of course, since it is our first time at Crunchyroll Expo we tried adding songs that fans would know from past animes. Theyre very important songs that we perform at our concerts regularly so we included them in the setlist. T: Even though it was your third time here in San Jose, were you able to experience anything new or go to new places? GOTS: We actually didnt do any sightseeing this year. T: Then were you able to go shopping or eat at places that you have previously visited and wanted to visit again? KOHSHI: The electric scooters? TAKE: Yes, we really want to try out those scooters. KOHSHI: We heard they were really popular so we wanted to try them out. KEIGO: We see a lot of people using them. T: I have never tried riding one of those, but I always fall on just regular scooters, so please try them out for me as well. TAKE: Then you definitely shouldnt ride on them. KOHSHI: IWASAKI-san downloaded the app so I think he was planning to ride it soon. IWASAKI: Im trying to find some time to ride one before we leave and maybe post videos if possible. GOTS: Hes going to break a couple of bones and go home. KEIGO: Dont do that. We have a concert in Germany in four days! T: During your Q&A session, your collaboration music video with the Naruto voice actors was brought up. Could you tell us more details about the story behind it? KEIGO: We had already met Junko Takeuchi-san (voice actress for Naruto Uzumaki) during Naruto events. As for the other actors we had been invited to their radio shows in the past so it wasnt our first time meeting them at the recording. GO!!! was our first anime song and it is a very special song for us. Just having the voice actors participating in this was a very special opportunity. For them to come out and represent their series like Code Geass, Tales of Zestiria, Eureka Seven, it was a very precious moment. TAKE: Please add Samurai Flamenco, Durarara!!, and Durarara!! X2 Ketsu. KEIGO: We were given the opportunity to watch them record as well. We even made some requests to have them say lines from their anime. TAKE: We took advantage of our position. *laughs* We asked Renton to say I can fly! and we asked Sakura-chan to say Shaan Narou! T: You have now entered your 17th year. Do you have any new goals or anything you would like to do this year or achieve in your future years? Maybe KOHSHI-san can answer this for us? KOHSHI: Wait, me?! I really dont have anything. Lets have Goto-san (GOTS) answer this for us. GOTS: Eh? Okay, I would love to challenge new things. I would like to learn the perfect way to communicate with other people. KEIGO: Is it okay for me to answer then? *laughs* We have been working as a team for 17 years now and have not changed members or lost anyone. We've come this far and would like to continue as long as possible. This is our third time in San Jose but there are still many places that we have not visited yet and would love to go. We are going to Germany for the first time in a few days. We would like to keep the main focus on our concerts and be able to go to many new places and sing in front of many new faces. T: In April you just released a new album, TRIBALYTHM, and it has a different type of tempo and rhythm than your past songs. Why did you choose to have a tribal type of sound for this album? TAKE: Our inspiration actually came from Burn, the first piece we worked on from the Tales of Zestiria. This continued with the next Tales series and that is where this piece came to be. And because of the fantasy taste the series has, we tried using bagpipes and banjos to create something different. T: So do you have a new album theme you would like to do for new projects? If you can, any details? TAKE: Anime is usually what inspires us and opens new doors for us. If any new projects come up then maybe there will be a new type of piece that will be put into place. T: Last but not least, could you give a message to the fans that were not able to make it here today? KEIGO: We are really focusing on our lives and concerts so we would love to come back here to San Jose again. If there are any fans out there who were not able to make it to our concerts we will definitely come back someday. Thank you very much and we hope to see you then! 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 Imagine walking through a bustling railway station. You're in a hurry, weaving through the crowd, unaware that cameras are not just watching you but also recognizing you. These days, our biometric data is valuable to businesses for security purposes, to enhance customer experience or to improve their own efficiency. Biometrics, are unique physical or behavioral traits, and are part of our everyday lives. Among these, facial recognition is the most common. Facial recognition technology stems from a branch of AI called computer vision and is akin to giving sight to computers. The technology scans images or videos from devices including CCTV cameras and picks out faces. The system typically identifies and maps 68 specific points known as facial landmarks. These create a digital fingerprint of your face, enabling the system to recognize you in real time. Face landmarks include the corners of the eyes, the tip of the nose and the edges of the lips. They help to create a mathematical representation of the face without storing the entire image, enhancing both privacy and efficiency. From supermarkets to car parks and railway stations, CCTV cameras are everywhere, silently doing their job. But what exactly is their job now? Businesses may justify collecting biometric data, but with power comes responsibility and the use of facial recognition raises significant transparency, ethical and privacy concerns. When even police use of facial recognition can be deemed unethical, then the business justification becomes less convincing, especially as little is known how businesses store, manage and use data. Capturing and storing biometric data without consent could violate our rights, including protection against surveillance and retention of personal images. Balancing safety, efficiency and privacy rights is a complex ethical choice for a businesses. As consumers, we may often be reluctant to share our personal information. Yet facial recognition poses more serious risks, such as deepfakes and other impersonation threats. Take for instance the recent revelation that Network Rail has been secretly monitoring thousands of passengers using Amazon's AI software. This surveillance highlights a critical issue: the need for transparency and stringent regulations, even when a company is watching us with the aim of improving services. A Network Rail spokesperson said, "When we deploy technology, we work with the police and security services to ensure that we're taking proportionate action, and we always comply with the relevant legislation regarding the use of surveillance technologies." One of the core challenges is the issue of consent. How can the public ever give informed consent if they are constantly monitored by cameras and unaware of who is storing and using their biometric data? This fundamental problem underscores the difficulty in resolving privacy concerns. Businesses face the daunting task of obtaining clear, informed consent from people who might not even know they are being observed. Without transparent practices and explicit consent mechanisms, it's nearly impossible to ensure that the public is truly aware of and agrees to the use of their biometric data. Think about your digital security. If your password gets stolen, you can change it. If your credit card is compromised, you can cancel it. But your face? That's permanent. Biometric data is incredibly sensitive because it cannot be altered once it's compromised. This makes it a high-stakes game when it comes to security. If a database is breached, hackers could misuse this data for identity theft, fraud, or even harassment. Another issue is algorithmic bias and discrimination. If data is used for decision-making, how can companies ensure that diverse and sufficient data is included to train the algorithm? Companies might use biometric data for authentication, personalized marketing, employee monitoring and access control. There is a significant risk of gender and racial biases if the algorithm is primarily trained on data from a homogenous group, such as white males. Companies should also be ensuring that digital bias is not perpetuated. Failing to do so may lead to societal inequalities. Legislation and awareness As facial recognition becomes more common, the need for robust legislation becomes urgent. Laws must mandate clear consent before capturing anyone's biometric data. They should also set strict standards for how this data is stored and secured to prevent breaches. It's equally crucial that the public becomes more aware of the issue. While people are becoming more conscious about data protection, facial recognition often flies under the radar. It's invisible in our everyday lives, and many don't realize the risks and ethical issues. Educating the public is vital. Incorporating the principles of responsible AI into the deployment of facial recognition technology would be a good place to start. Responsible AI emphasizes fairness, accountability, transparency and ethics. This means that AI systems, including facial recognition, should be designed and used in ways that respect human rights, privacy and dignity. However, businesses might not necessarily prioritize these principles if they are not being held accountable by regulatory bodies or the public. Transparency is a cornerstone of responsible AI. If organizations using facial recognition remain secretive about their practices, we cannot trust them with our biometric data. Companies armed with only your personal information can be very powerful in terms of manipulative marketing. It takes only "one like" for bespoke campaigns to target you very accurately. But now, political parties such as the PTI in Pakistan have embraced vision-AI technology to allow leader Imran Khan to campaign despite serving a prison sentence. AI allowed Imran Khan to address his followers from prison. Visual data capturing and analysis are particularly critical compared to non-visual data because they provide richer, more intimate and more immediate insights into human behavior and identity. That's why its growing use by businesses raises so many concerns about privacy and consent. While the public remains unaware of the extent to which their visual data is being captured and utilized, their information will be vulnerable to misuse or exploitation. 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: New cars for export wait for transportation on a vehicles carrier vessel at a dockyard in Yantai in east China's Shandong province on Nov. 2, 2023. Chinese auto sales slumped in June, 2024 as the domestic economy remains weak, but strong exports kept overall sales growth in positive territory, an industry association said Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Credit: Chinatopix via AP, File Chinese auto sales slumped in June as the domestic economy remained sluggish, but buoyant exports offset the decline at home, an industry association said Wednesday. Sales in China dropped 7.4% compared to a year earlier to 1.8 million cars, while exports rose 29% to 400,000 units, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said in a monthly report. In the first six months of the year, exports rose 31.5% while domestic sales edged up 1.6%. The surge in exports comes at a time of growing concern in Europe and the United States that inexpensive China-made cars could overwhelm established automakers in the West. While much of the concern has been focused on China's flashy and moderately priced electric cars, export growth has been concentrated mainly in gasoline-powered vehicles. They climbed 36% in the first half of the year and accounted for 78% of vehicle exports. Chinese EV exports were down 2.3%, while hybrids jumped 180% from a smaller base. The exports have helped make up for weaker sales of gasoline vehicles in China as the overall market has stagnated and buyers have shifted to electric vehicles and hybrids. Russia is by far the largest and a still rapidly growing export market, where Chinese makers have filled a void left by the departure of other automakers after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Other sizeable markets include Brazil and Mexico in Latin America, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in the Mideast and Belgium and the U.K. in Europe. The European Union imposed provisional duties on Chinese electric vehicles last week, alleging that government subsidies give automakers in China an unfair advantage. Chinese makers are moving production overseas. BYD, the country's largest EV maker, opened a plant in Thailand last week and plans to build factories in Brazil, Hungary and Turkey. The sales drop in China was the second monthly decline in a row. Separate figures tabulated by the China Passenger Car Association show three straight months of falling sales. A severe real estate slump has dampened economic growth and depressed consumer confidence. 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. 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: Schematic illustration of the operando HAXPES measurement and close-up illustration of the operando cell. Credit: ACS Energy Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.4c01072 Solid-state batteries have several advantages: They can store more energy and are safer than batteries with liquid electrolytes. However, they do not last as long and their capacity decreases with each charge cycle. But it doesn't have to stay that way. Researchers are already on the trail of the causes. In the journal ACS Energy Letters, a team from HZB and Justus-Liebig-Universitat, Giessen, presents a new method for precisely monitoring electrochemical reactions during the operation of a solid-state battery using photoelectron spectroscopy at BESSY II. The results help to improve battery materials and design. Solid-state batteries use a solid ion conductor between the battery electrodes instead of a liquid electrolyte, which allows lithium to be transported during charging and discharging. This has advantages including increased safety during operation and generally higher capacity. However, the lifetime of solid-state batteries is still very limited. This is because decomposition products and interphases form at the interfaces between the electrolyte and the electrode, which hinders the transport of the lithium ions and leads to consumption of active lithium so that the capacity of the batteries decreases with each charge cycle. Now a team led by HZB researchers Dr. Elmar Kataev and Prof. Marcus Bar has developed a new approach to analyze the electrochemical reactions at the interface between solid electrolyte and electrode with high temporal resolution. Kataev explains the research question: "Under what conditions and at what voltage do such reactions occur, and how does the chemical composition of these intermediate phases evolve during cell operation?" SEM images of LPSCl pellets before (left) and after (right) the operando HAXPES experiment. Credit: 10.1021/acsenergylett.4c01072 For the study, they analyzed samples of the solid electrolyte Li 6 PS 5 Cl, a material that is considered the best candidate for solid-state batteries as it possesses high ionic conductivity. They worked closely with the team of battery expert Professor Jurgen Janek from the Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU Giessen). An extremely thin layer of nickel (30 atomic layers or 6 nanometers) served as the working electrode. A film of lithium was pressed onto the other side of the Li 6 PS 5 Cl pellet to act as a counter electrode. In order to analyze the interfacial reactions and the formation of an interlayer (SEI) in real time and as a function of the applied voltage, Kataev used the method of hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES) exploiting the analytical capabilities of the Energy Materials In-situ Laboratory Berlin (EMIL) at BESSY II: X-rays hit the sample, exciting the atoms there and the reaction products can be identified from the photoelectrons emitted as a function of the applied cell voltage and time. The results showed that the decomposition reactions were only partially reversible. "We demonstrate that it is possible to use an ultra-thin current collector to study the electrochemical reactions at the buried interfaces using surface characterization methods," says Kataev. The HZB team has already received inquiries from research groups in Germany and abroad that are also interested in this characterization approach. As a next step, the HZB team wants to extend this approach and also investigate batteries with composite polymer electrolytes and a variety of anode and cathode materials. More information: Burak Aktekin et al, Operando Photoelectron Spectroscopy Analysis of Li6PS5Cl Electrochemical Decomposition Reactions in Solid-State Batteries, ACS Energy Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.4c01072 Journal information: ACS Energy Letters 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: LlavaGuard judges images for safety alignment with a policy providing a safety rating, category, and rationale. Credit: arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2406.05113 Researchers at the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Lab (AIML) in the Department of Computer Science at TU Darmstadt and the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence (hessian.AI) have developed a method that uses vision language models to filter, evaluate, and suppress specific image content in large datasets or from image generators. Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to identify objects in images and videos. This computer vision can also be used to analyze large corpora of visual data. Researchers led by Felix Friedrich from the AIML have developed a method called LlavaGuard, which can now be used to filter certain image content. This tool uses so-called vision language models (VLMs). In contrast to large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, which can only process text, vision language models are able to process and understand image and text content simultaneously. The work is published on the arXiv preprint server. LlavaGuard can also fulfill complex requirements, as it is characterized by its ability to adapt to different legal regulations and user requirements. For example, the tool can differentiate between regions in which activities such as cannabis consumption are legal or illegal. LlavaGuard can also assess whether content is appropriate for certain age groups and restrict or adapt it accordingly. "Until now, such fine-grained safety tools have only been available for analyzing texts. When filtering images, only the 'nudity' category has previously been implemented, but not others such as 'violence,' 'self-harm' or 'drug abuse,'" says Friedrich. LlavaGuard not only flags problematic content, but also provides detailed explanations of its safety ratings by categorizing content (e.g., "hate," "illegal substances," "violence," etc.) and explaining why it is classified as safe or unsafe. "This transparency is what makes our tool so special and is crucial for understanding and trust," explains Friedrich. It makes LlavaGuard an invaluable tool for researchers, developers and political decision-makers. The research on LlavaGuard is an integral part of the Reasonable Artificial Intelligence (RAI) cluster project at TU Darmstadt and demonstrates the university's commitment to advancing safe and ethical AI technologies. LlavaGuard was developed to increase the safety of large generative models by filtering training data and explaining and justifying the output of problematic motives, thereby reducing the risk of generating harmful or inappropriate content. The potential applications of LlavaGuard are far-reaching. Although the tool is currently still under development and focused on research, it can already be integrated into image generators such as Stable Diffusion to minimize the production of unsafe content. In addition, LlavaGuard could also be adapted for use on social media platforms in the future to protect users by filtering out inappropriate images and thus promoting a safer online environment. More information: Lukas Helff et al, LLavaGuard: VLM-based Safeguards for Vision Dataset Curation and Safety Assessment, arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2406.05113 Journal information: arXiv 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 Toyota logo is shown at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Sept. 13, 2023. Toyota said Wednesday, July 10, 2024 its investing in Ionna, teaming with seven other automakers to support the companys implementation of its charging network for battery electric vehicles across North America. Credit: AP Photo/Paul Sancya, file Toyota says it's investing in Ionna, teaming with seven other automakers to support the company's implementation of its charging network for battery electric vehicles across North America. The investment announced Wednesday gives Toyota and Lexus customers access to the public network of DC fast chargers Ionna will start deploying later this year. Toyota currently has two mass-market battery EVs in the U.S. and Canada. They are the Toyota bZ4X and the Lexus RZ. The company is looking to offer 30 battery EV models worldwide across its Toyota and Lexus brands and make up to 3.5 million battery EVs annually by 2030. Ionna, based in Durham, North Carolina, plans to install at least 30,000 charge ports in North America by 2030. Stations will include both CCS and NACS connectors to support all battery EV drivers. The majority of electric vehicles currently have one of two types of plug styles to connect to public fast-charging stations. The first is called the Combined Charging System, or CCS, and the second is the North American Charging Standard, or NACS, used by all Tesla vehicles. The White House is lending its support to an auto industry effort to standardize Tesla's electric vehicle charging plugs for all EVs in the United States, part of a broad effort to stimulate their sales to help combat climate change. Other automakers supporting Ionna include BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis. 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin released an executive order for establishing state guidance and school policies that could restrict cell phones by January 2025. The state joined Florida, Indiana, and Ohio, which have previously passed their laws, to limit phone usage in schools. Read Also : Mississippi Blocked from Implementing Age Requirement Law on Social Media Apps Virginia Relates Gadget Exposure With Lowered School Performance Youngkin's order cited several studies, proving that "students who use their phones during class learn less and achieve lower grades." He also mentioned the increasing mental health risk among teens due to social media exposure. In Virginia, several school districts have started to limit phone use during school hours. Loudoun County Public Schools passed a policy prohibiting cell phones for elementary students during the school day. Middle school students are allowed to use phones before and after school hours. They are also required to leave their phones in lockers during class hours. High school students can bring their phones to the classroom cubby but the device must be in silent mode during classes. Virginia School District Supports Phone Restriction The National Center for Education Statistics shared that 76% of public schools are already implementing a policy that bans "non-academic cell phone use" from 2021 to 2022. Youngkin has received the full support of the superintendent of public schools in Virginia. Some schools reported an increased student engagement in class and interaction among peers after initiating a cellphone ban on some of their students. Regardless, the Virginia Education Association (VEA) is expecting the state to approach the regulation with a "nuanced perspective." James Fedderman, president of the VEA, stated that their priority is to ensure that the policies will be practical and are based on the interests of educators, students, and families. The Virginia Department of Education announced that the order will undergo an official regulatory process as it aims to be enacted by 2025. The man accused of driving a stolen 18-wheeler into the Brenham Texas Department of Public Safety office in April has been indicted on capital murder charges, according to the Washington County District Attorneys Office. Clenard Parker, 41, of Chappell Hill was indicted Tuesday by a grand jury on two counts of capital murder, three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, one count of evading arrest, criminal mischief and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, according to the Washington County DAs office. The April 12 crash into the building resulted in the deaths of two people 63-year-old Cheryl Turner of Brenham and 78-year-old Bobby Huff. The crash also injured 12 other individuals. The day before the incident, Parker went to the Brenham DPS office and was denied a renewal of his commercial drivers license. The next day, Parker allegedly stole an 18-wheeler and was being pursued by the Washington County Sheriffs Office when he took a sharp turn into the one-story brick DPS office along U.S. Highway 290. Officers said Parker was not injured in the wreck. Police believe Parker drove into the building in retaliation for having been denied his renewal license. There was no reason given for the rejection of his license renewal. Special Prosecutor Lisa Tanner will assist in the case, according to the Washington County DAs Office. Tanner previously worked for the Brazos County District Attorneys Office and has experience in capital murder cases. Capital murder is a capital felony punishable by life without parole or death. Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000. Evading arrest in a motor vehicle is a third-degree felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000. Unauthorized use of a vehicle is a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000. Criminal mischief can be upgraded to a third-degree felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000. Parker is being held under a $4,050,000 bond at the Washington County Jail, according to jail records. Power demand for Texas has continued to increase and, within six years, could double. Solutions are needed and many local communities, including Bryan, are now considering battery systems that can store energy until needed. According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2023 was the hottest ever recorded in Texas, and demand on the power grid reached a daily record of 85 gigawatts. According to the city of Bryan, there has been a rapid expansion of energy storage projects proposed across cities in the United States, including a Battery Energy Storage System, also known as BESS. A BESS is a collection of batteries that charge, collect and store energy from the grid or power plant. Whenever energy demand is high, the BESS can discharge stored energy into the system, easing the demand for power. A BESS may consist of one or more batteries, is typically a stationary divide, and can range in size and intensity based on the magnitude of the power grid. Previously, there were no specific ordinances or defined uses for BESS-related projects. During Bryans City Council meeting Tuesday, councilors discussed including guidelines for building a BESS in areas that are zoned as industrial, including regulations and requirements. Councilors unanimously approved the agenda item. Incorporating this land use into the City of Bryan Zoning Ordinance will better prepare the City for future BESS proposals. The standards proposed within the attached ordinance were developed in partnership with the City of Bryan Fire Marshals Office and Bryan Texas Utilities, or BTU, city officials said in their proposal. According to the new supplementary regulations, a BESS must be located on a lot that is, at minimum, one acre and should be enclosed by a minimum 6-foot tall security fence with anti-climbing devices to prevent accidents. A BESS must also be landscaped with plant materials that screen the developed site from public view. Each BESS will need to be 1,000 feet away from residential zoning districts to ensure a far proximity from neighborhoods. Similarly, a BESS cannot be located within 500 feet from another property that also has a BESS. Benjamin Johnson, staff planner for the city of Bryan, wrote a memorandum to the Planning and Zoning Commission with some background information regarding the decisions made in the proposed addition. In order to create the BESS regulations and outline the process for relegating space, city staff at Bryan, like Johnson, looked at other cities in Texas as a case study for what worked and what didnt. Tomball, a Houston suburb, similarly implemented city ordinances for the construction of a BESS, but specified the importance of a Conditional Use Permit, or CUP, to approve construction. On June 19, 2023, the Tomball City Council denied a CUP for an electric storage system due to the immense amount of opposition expressed in the public hearing, and for concerns allowing these systems near residential areas, Johnson said. In the case staff report, Tomball city staff suggested the inclusion of screening, buffers, and additional fire precautions if the CUP is recommended for approval. Citizens previously voiced concerns at other Texas city council meetings regarding BESS construction. These included battery sites possibly catching on fire or exploding, causing injuries or fires that are difficult to put out due to their chemical nature. Johnson said Bryan city staff met with the Bryan Fire Marshals Office to discuss solutions. Staff proposes to allow BESS on properties zoned Industrial District only with prior approval of a Conditional Use Permit [CUP] from the Planning and Zoning Commission. Allowing for the review of suitable locations and the proposed special and supplementary regulations will provide additional standards to protect citizens from any potential adverse effects of a BESS, he said. James Edge, who was acting as mayor pro tem for the Tuesday council meeting, helped clarify to councilor Ray Arrington that cities will only be able to construct a BESS in areas that are zoned industrial. This is designed in some ways to protect the public from the industrial qualities of a battery storage facility, he said. It could be detrimental to that of a residential area or other area. This is just designed to try and protect our neighborhoods. The AI-powered bullet vending machines are more likely to be targets of cyberattacks and software exploits to allow even non-ID holders to acquire live ammunition, according to a cybersecurity expert via Business Insider. Norwegian security firm Promon's Andrew Whaley claimed AI-powered services become likely targets for bad actors as they can exploit weaknesses much more easily and bypass security measures. Not only could hackers purchase live ammunition illegally, but the vending machines are also vulnerable to being abused to collect customer information through their facial recognition software. This is despite the services undergoing rigorous security checks and being installed with cybersecurity systems. Vending machines distributor American Rounds assured that its smart vending machines do not store or sell customers' personal data, ensuring a "better environment for all law-abiding gun owners." The vending machines are currently available in select locations in Oklahoma, Alabama, and Texas. Another set of machines is set to be installed in Colorado within this week. AI-Powered Software, Services May Experience More Cyberattacks These cybersecurity issues are not isolated to American Rounds' AI-powered bullet vending machines, it is all digitized services currently using AI to operate. Whaley warned that similar problems may arise on other AI-integrated services as retailers "inevitably broaden the attack surface for cybercriminals." The Center for Security and Emerging Technology has earlier alerted the public on the huge risks in relegating service operations to AI due to how susceptible the technology is to exploits, more than the regular systems used before. AI services are even more attractive to hackers due to the high amount of information they usually collect from customers, a low-hanging fruit ripe for picking. How to Protect AI-Powered Services from Cyberattacks? Whaley advised AI-powered service operators to issue security updates and conduct penetration testing regularly to improve the technology's security. Providing ways to address all potential vulnerabilities in the machine could also help dissuade hackers from attempting to breach the services. Elections are fast approaching, and while there are five presidential candidates, only two have the real possibility of being elected. One of them, particularly Trump, is hell-bent on waging a campaign against illegal voters in the US, and to top it of, he threatens to send Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to prison. Trump's Threat Towards Meta CEO Whether US citizens like it or not, Donald Trump has a real chance of winning the upcoming elections, and he already has his eyes set on who to punish before he's even seated. While his quarrel is directed at undocumented immigrants, Mark Zuckerberg was especially mentioned. In the former US President's post on Truth Social, he expressed that he will "pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time" should he win the election this November. "We already know who you are. DON'T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!" he concluded. Zuckerbucks, of course, is no other than the Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Trump has already used this nickname for the tech CEO before, as per Gizmodo. However, the post was mainly about the SAVE Act, which is a law that would make it illegal for undocumented immigrants to vote in federal elections. It's absolutely unnecessary given that it already is illegal for non-citizens to vote. Mark Zuckerberg is a US citizen, so why exactly is Trump associating his name with Election Fraudsters? It's because he has accused the Meta CEO of cheating on the elections before, insisting that the whole system is rigged. "Why isn't he being prosecuted? The Democrats only know how to cheat. America isn't going to take it much longer!" he exclaimed prior to the recent Truth Social post. This doesn't come as a surprise anymore seeing as Trump has been beefing with the social media platform for a while now. Trump has accused Facebook of conspiring against him, saying that the social media platform is an "enemy of the people." With Zuckerberg being the creator and the CEO of Facebook's parent company, he's the one who gets to endure the presidential candidate's rants. Read Also : Donald Trump's Truth Social is Looking to Launch its Own Streaming Service Delusions Can Turn Ugly The presidential candidate tends to rant about things he is convinced are true, even if there is overwhelming evidence against it. In a recent presidential debate, he brought up once again that he had won the previous election and should've been reelected. He maintained his belief and declared himself the winner, accusing Biden and the Democrats of ballot stuffing, along with other methods like dead voters and malicious voting-machine. He then encouraged his supporters to rally and march to oppose the results, per Britannica. He maintained his conspiracy theories and this eventually led to people taking action, which is now known to history as the January 6 US Capitol Attack. While Trump didn't explicitly tell his supporters to commit illegal acts, he did tell them to "fight like hell." Donald Trump is currently in the lead in the polls with a 42.1% rate, while his main competitor, US President Joe Biden, is at 39.9%. Even if the latter refused to step down or drop out of the election, Trump has a real chance of winning regardless. US officials and several allies cracked down on supposed state-sponsored "bot farms," which cover thousands of fake accounts, spreading disinformation on X (formerly Twitter). In a joint cybersecurity advisory, government agencies from the US, the Netherlands, and Canada announced that they took down several state-sponsored "bot farms" to disseminate disinformation. The report accused the Russian government of masterminding most of the "foreign malign influence activities" on the platform since 2022. New Disinformation 'Bot Farms' Becoming More Realistic Unlike the bot accounts from 2016, the new "bot farms" feature more realistic accounts with detailed biographies and post original content to appear more legitimate and organic. The fake accounts were only spotted after law enforcement spotted patterns with the "fictitious online personas" repeating "pre-existing false narratives" from bots the agencies have taken down previously. US officials did not disclose how many organic accounts have been exposed to these disinformation machines but noted that the operation had targeted users from the US, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Spain, Ukraine, and Israel. Related Article : X Preps Users for Another Round of Bots, Spammers Deletion State-Sponsored 'Bot Farms' Likely Invaded Other Social Platforms, Officials Claim While most of the disinformation campaigns were found on X, officials believe similar state-sponsored operations are likely happening on other social platforms "to alter public opinion." According to cybersecurity experts, the technology used on X hint plans that it "would likely be expanded to other social media networks" to command fake accounts en masse effectively. Similar situations have earlier been reported on Facebook and Instagram as their parent company Meta removes waves of AI-generated disinformation campaigns from China and Israel on its platforms. With the 2024 US Presidential Elections just around the corner, experts warn that online disinformation will only surge as "propaganda, falsehoods, and conspiracy theories" more apparent in political discussions. Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark visits Seychelles again after 14 years China Military Online) 15:13, July 10, 2024 The picture shows the scene of the welcome ceremony. (Photo by Liu Zhilei) VICTORIA, July 9 -- The Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark arrived at Seychelles, the first stop of Harmonious Mission 2024, for a seven-day friendly visit and humanitarian medical service on July 5, local time. This marks the Peace Ark hospital ship's second visit to Seychelles in 14 years, following its last visit in 2010. The ship Peace Ark arrived in Port Victoria at 10 a.m. and received a grand welcome ceremony held by the Seychelles side at the dock. Seychelles Minister for Health Peggy Vidot and Chief of Defense Forces Michael Rosette attended the ceremony and toured the ship. Seychelles military and government officials, Chinese Ambassador to Seychelles Lin Nan and other embassy staff, representatives of Chinese-funded institutions, and overseas Chinese welcomed the ship at the dock. During the following seven days, Peace Ark will provide medical services to local patients with onboard facilities, while sending medical teams to carry out free clinic and academic exchange activities in local hospitals and communities. The 19th Chinese medical team dispatched to Seychelles will assist the services during the whole process. As of July 7, visiting medical staff have treated over 1,000 patients, with cataract surgeries, excision of surface tumors, digestive endoscopies, and numerous examinations being carried out. These efforts were warmly received by local residents. The picture shows the scene of the welcome ceremony. (Photo by Liu Zhilei) Medical staff of Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark are ready for service. (Photo by Cao Chunyao) (Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun) (Photo : Photo by Bo shou) According to a press release, a coalition of labor unions representing thousands of Disneyland workers will vote next week to authorize a strike following allegations against Disney of unlawful conduct during contract negotiations. A Strike Authorization to Make Voices Heard The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 83, the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West (SEIU-USWW), the Teamsters Local 495, and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 324, collectively representing 14,000 cast members at Disneyland, Disney California Adventure, Downtown Disney, and the Disney hotels announced a scheduled strike authorization vote for Disneyland cast members, citing hundreds of labor violations by Disney during negotiations, which the unions claim have hindered their efforts to secure a fair contract for cast members. The unions have been negotiating with the corporate giant since April, but the company hasn't budged on multiple important issues. At the same time, other workers in the park just won a different effort to unionize. We recently spoke to them: pic.twitter.com/5wakp4efxS More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) July 9, 2024 The Disney Workers Rising Bargaining Committee is determined not to settle for less than they deserve. They highlight that Disney undermining their rights only hinders their ability to effectively serve guests and maintain park safety. As their contract has expired, they plan to conduct a vote next week on authorizing a strike, intending to make sure Disney understands the voices of Disneyland's cast members. According to the statement, the union's objective throughout negotiations has been to achieve an agreement with Disney that ensures cast members receive wages sufficient to live in Southern California, the respect commensurate with their years of dedication to the company, and an attendance policy that balances the needs of everyone while ensuring the safety of park guests. READ ALSO: Magic United: Disney Performers' Petition for Fair Compensation, Humane Scheduling, Safety Assurances And Respectful Communication Disney Workers' Negotiation for Enhanced Workplace Experience The workers of Disney's largest bargaining unit in California, encompassing a wide range of roles from custodians and ride operators to candy makers and merchandise clerks, began negotiations with the company on April 24, advocating for fair wages, an equitable attendance policy, seniority increases, and enhanced safety measures for both cast members and guests in the parks. In May, Disney cast members announced that they had filed unfair labor practice charges against Disney on behalf of 14,000 resort workers, alleging unlawful discipline, intimidation, and surveillance of 675 cast members who were exercising their right to wear union buttons at work. A 'Slower Than Turtle' Progress Cindy Marquez, a member of the bargaining committee speaking with USA TODAY, expressed frustration that meetings with the company have been progressing slower than a turtle, which might require more than 25 additional meetings before employees can achieve livable wages. The unions informed Disney they were at a standstill until the company took their demands seriously. A company's success hinges on the work done on the ground level. "It shouldn't be the top getting wealthy" but should be spread throughout the entire park, ensuring employees come to work feeling content, healthy, and motivated, Marquez added. Hilary Plata, an attractions hostess at Pirates of the Caribbean who worked at the park for 18 years, shared that she had to live in her car for over a month because she could not afford to live in Southern California despite working 50 hours a week. Plata's career revolves around bringing joy and fulfilling dreams. According to her, Disneyland visitors seek kindness and magic, which she and her colleagues strive to deliver, insisting all Disneyland workers deserve fair compensation, fair treatment, and recognition as real people. The contract for cast members at Disneyland expired on June 16, while the contract for Disney California Adventure and Downtown Disney cast members is set to expire on September 30. Results of the strike authorization vote are anticipated to be announced by July 20, following the conclusion of voting and notification of cast members by the unions, according to the release. RELATED ARTICLE: Disneyland Cast Votes Overwhelmingly for Actors' Equity Association, Fulfilling Dreams of Union Representation 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. John McGuires victory in Virginias 5th Congressional District GOP primary over incumbent Bob Good was very close, but not so close that the state will pay for a recount. And while Good has said he will pay for a recount himself, he is running out of time to raise the substantial money required by Fridays deadline. I dont think he has the money to do it, one senior GOP aide, granted anonymity in order to speak candidly, told The Daily Progress. Ill be surprised if he pulls it off. Two weeks ago, Goods campaign said that it had already raised thousands of dollars in donations and that it would pursue a recount once the state certification was completed. State election officials completed that certification on July 2 as scheduled, confirming that McGuire had edged out Good by just 374 votes in a bitter contest that split Republicans across the sprawling, deep-red district. But with that certification date come and gone, and while his campaign insists it has the money, Good still has not filed for a recount. The Department of Elections has not received official word that a recount petition has been filed, Brian Tynes, a spokesman for the department, told The Daily Progress. The deadline to file a petition with the state is July 12. We have money for a recount, Goods campaign manager Diana Shores told The Daily Progress. We will petition the state in the timeline required by the law. But the fact that the campaign has not actually filed a petition raises questions about whether Goods team is still scrambling for funding. If he has the money, why hasnt he filed yet? said the senior GOP aide. If McGuires margin of victory was 0.5% or less, Virginia law would require the state to pay for a recount. But the margin was 0.6%, meaning Good will have to foot the bill himself. There are several variables that affect the cost of a recount, and while the Department of Elections does not provide cost estimates, its clear the price tag is high. Good began to fundraise days after the June 18 election, when in an email he told donors that the campaign needed to raise $100,000 immediately to succeed in our recount challenge. With less than a month between Election Day and the filing deadline, its a substantial amount of money to raise in a short amount of time. Good raised $1.15 million over his entire campaign cycle, taking in nearly $350,000 over the first nine months of 2023. Donations increased in the final quarter of the year, with bigger contributions rolling in as there were whispers that McGuire was planning to launch a challenge. Half of the total fundraising came in 2024 after McGuire had announced his candidacy. It was the most money Good ever raised in a Republican contest, but largely out of necessity; in his previous two nominations, Good won via convention, a contest where only a few thousand delegates are permitted to cast a ballot, meaning a campaign only has to appeal to a few thousand people. Good raised less than $200,000 in 2020 when he ousted incumbent Denver Riggleman. But this year the nomination was decided in a state-run primary, which allows every registered voter in the district to partake. As a result, campaigns must get their message out to more people. That messaging often in the form of television advertisements is expensive. The $1.15 million brought in by Goods team this cycle is easily the most hes raised in a GOP nomination contest. Still, McGuire edged him out slightly, raising $1.2 million, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The need to bring in far more money than he had in previous contests posed a new challenge for Good. Now he finds himself having to raise even more. This is the first time hes actually had to raise money, said the senior GOP aide, referring to Good running in a primary as opposed to a convention. One longtime Good supporter, Carolyn Ley, expects that the incumbent will be able to scrounge up enough donations to cover the cost of a recount. I believe Bob is doing this out of respect for his volunteers and supporters. Essentially, he is making certain all of the Is are dotted and the Ts are crossed, Ley told The Daily Progress. He is walking it all the way to the finish line. Its a compelling situation and people will give. On the campaign trail, Good has boasted about his grassroots support, noting that much of the money raised by his campaign comes through small individual donors. But that poses a problem for him now as he is faces a hefty price tag and a fast-approaching deadline. The senior GOP aide doesnt believe there are any large donors Good can immediately turn to who could write big checks to cover most of the recount cost. He doesnt have a plethora of donors who can make that happen. He has a lot of small donors, but translating that into wire money out the door is a tall task, the aide said. If he had someone who was willing to finance [the recount], it wouldve happened. Instead, Good will have to collect many small donations from many different individuals. And he will have to convince them to donate to a cause that is unlikely to change the outcome of the race. Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginias Center for Politics told The Daily Progress that even though the race was close, the odds of a recount changing the result are slim. The prospects of success are not good. Theres a reason why the state pays if its within 0.5%, because thats within the range you might expect to find some error to change the process. Last week, Good wrote on social media that his team would move into a recount. In a race with nearly 63,000 votes that is separated by a 0.6% margin, Republican voters across the 5th District deserve to know that all legal votes have been accurately counted, Good wrote, a nod to other comments hes made in the days after the election making unsubstantiated claims that the vote was somehow rigged against him. We will vigorously pursue that objective over the coming days and weeks, as permitted by Virginia law. While the statement makes clear that he is pursuing a recount, it does not fully commit to a recount happening. I dont know if hes hedging or not, said Kondik. I dont know how open the donors are or arent to this. Its not nothing in terms of the money he needs to raise. The clock continues ticking as Good who heads the hard-right House Freedom Caucus looks to a possible recount as his last hope at clinging on to political power. McGuires team does not expect a recount to change the result and sent an email to supporters shortly after the election was certified calling his victory the honor of a lifetime. I thank Bob Good for his service. Now, it is time for citizens of the 5th to unite. Whether or not you voted for me in the primary, I humbly ask for your support in November, reads the email. McGuire will face Democrat Gloria Witt in the general election. He enters the race as a clear favorite in a district where Republicans often win with comfortable margins. The last Democrat to represent the 5th was Charlottesvilles Tom Perriello in 2011. Which states have the worst substance abuse problems? Which states have the worst substance abuse problems? Drug deaths are rising Fentanyl's damage has been widespread Which states have the worst substance abuse problems? Vietnam real estate tycoon hit with travel abroad ban over tax dues By Tri Duc Wed, July 10, 2024 | 7:42 pm GMT+7 Nguyen Ngoc Thao, chairman and legal representative of real estate developer Trungnam Land, has been banned from leaving the country from June 7 onwards until the firm pays its tax arrears. In a recent announcement, the Danang Tax Department said Trungnam Land owed arrears of VND583 billion ($22.9 million). Trungnam Land office. Photo courtesy of VietNamNet newspaper. Trungnam Land, part of the Trungnam Group conglomerate, was established in the central city of Danang in December 2021. It has since achieved fame as investor of the citys Golden Hills City, a $1.67 billion real estate project covering 351 hectares. In February 2023, the Danang Tax Department slapped a collection enforcement notice for VND445 billion ($17.5 million) against Trungnam Land after the firm missed a 90-day payment deadline. Trungnam Land said the notice was related to the Golden Hills City project. It said that its financial obligations were based on the projects progress and business plan. As of end-2022, the firm had reportedly paid VND93 billion ($3.7 million) in resettlement fees and VND419 billion in land taxes, but had yet to receive land use right certificates for the project over some legal issues. This negatively impacted the firms ability to fulfil its tax obligations and business operations, the firm explained. (Photo : Pexels/Photo by Aditya Singh) The U.S. Department of Justice disrupted a Russian 'bot farm' that allegedly impersonated Americans to spread disinformation efforts through AI-powered fake social media accounts in support of Russia's war in Ukraine and other pro-Kremlin propaganda, the Justice Department announced. Russia's Social Media 'Bot Farm' Russia aimed to employ a bot farm to spread AI-generated foreign disinformation, utilizing A.I. to expand their efforts in undermining Ukraine and shaping geopolitical narratives beneficial to the Russian government, says FBI Director Christopher Wray. According to court documents, a bot farm is an advanced software system designed to create fake identities on social media platforms, equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities, including features for generating images or text. The operation was orchestrated by a deputy editor at R.T., formerly known as Russia Today, which the Kremlin owns. R.T. operates television channels in English and various other languages but appears more popular on social media compared to traditional broadcasting platforms. READ ALSO: U.S. Woman Engaged in "Laptop Farming," Busted for Conspiring and Aiding North Korea's Munitions Over the years, R.T. has promoted the Russian government's agenda to global audiences, including in the U.S. However, its influence has diminished since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, leading to actions like the European Union's ban on Russian state media and certain tech companies limiting access, such as TikTok, Facebook, and Google. According to the DOJ, R.T. has been actively seeking alternative distribution channels, and the bot farm was a part of those efforts. R.T.'s press office asserted that "Farming is Russians' beloved pastime," NPR News reported. Justice Department's Effort to Disrupt Russian Conspiracy The DOJ says nearly a thousand fake profiles on X, previously known as Twitter, were linked to the Russian campaign. Among them was a user who purported to live in Minneapolis and shared videos of Russian President Vladimir Putin justifying Russian actions in Ukraine, asserting that parts of Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania were "gifts" from Russian forces following World War II. While X suspended the accounts due to violations of its terms of service, the extent of the fake accounts' followers and interaction with their posts remains unclear, and X did not respond to requests for comment. The Justice Department also seized two websites used to distribute emails linked to the bot accounts and instructed X to provide information regarding 968 accounts identified as bots by investigators. The use of U.S.-based domain names for registering the bots constitutes a violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. At the same time, the payments associated with this infrastructure are alleged to violate federal money laundering laws. The Justice Department said that its investigation is ongoing, with no criminal charges being disclosed publicly as of the moment. According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, today's actions mark a significant step in disrupting a Russian-sponsored generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm. RELATED ARTICLE: Ex-Google Engineer Busted Working with Chinese Companies, Faces Four Theft Counts for Stealing AI Trade Secrets 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. BALTIMORE U.S. Coast Guard Sector Maryland-National Capital Region bid farewell to Capt. David OConnell and welcomed Capt. Patrick Burkett as the sector's new commanding officer during a recent change of command ceremony in Baltimore. Patrick Burkett U.S. Coast Guard Sector Maryland - National Capital Region bid farewell to Capt. David OConnell and welcomed Capt. Patrick Burkett as the sec The ceremony was held at the Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine and was presided over by Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath, commander, Fifth Coast Guard District. OConnell has departed to continue his Coast Guard career as the chief of the First Coast Guard Districts Prevention Division. OConnell led Coast Guard operations across the Maryland and Washington, D.C., region since April 25, 2021, managing Coast Guard operational forces in the execution and coordination of maritime safety, security and environmental stewardship. This includes eight multi-mission stations, three aids to navigation teams and one Coast Guard cutter. Burkett promoted Lt. Patrick Burkett has been promoted to the grade of lieutenant commander in the U.S. Coast Guard. He also led the Coast Guards response during the Motor Vessel Ever Forward grounding and the Key Bridge Response 2024, serving as the incident commander for both responses. Burkett reported to Sector Maryland-National Capital Region after previously serving as the chief of the 13th Coast Guard Districts Prevention Division from July 2021 to June 2024. I could not be more humbled and excited to serve as the commander of Sector Maryland-National Capital Region and captain of the port, Burkett said. Command is both a great privilege and a great responsibility. I am honored to join the outstanding team of Coast Guard members carrying out the long legacy of mission excellence. I am equally excited to work with our maritime partners to serve the citizens of this region. Previous operational assignments include Prevention Department head, Sector Jacksonville; executive officer, Marine Safety Unit Pittsburgh; investigating officer, Sector Hampton Roads, and marine inspector, Sector New Orleans and Sector Miami. Burkett is a 1995 graduate of Hunter-Kinard-Tyler High School and a 1999 graduate of South Carolina State University and the Coast Guard College Student Pre-Commissioning Initiative. He also served as the Coast Guard liaison to Military Sealift Command, in which he was the primary advisor to the MSC commander to ensure vessel readiness for over 130 naval auxiliary vessels tasked to sustain global warfighting capability, provide combat support, and humanitarian aid around the globe. The area of responsibility for Sector Maryland National Capital Region spans the Potomac River, Chesapeake Bay north of the Virginia-Maryland line and its tributaries, as well as Ocean City and offshore Atlantic Ocean providing maritime safety, security, and environmental protection for the region. In an average year, Sector Maryland-National Capital Region personnel conduct the following missions for the nations capital and throughout the upper Chesapeake Bay, numbering approximately: 500 search and rescue cases 750 law enforcement boardings 100 marine casualties 75 merchant mariner investigations Responds to 350 oil and chemical spills Serve and oversee nearly 2,400 aids to navigation Ensures the safe movement of 2,500 foreign vessels, and 350 domestic vessels, including 294 small passenger vessels Get TheTandD.com for $1 Support local journalism by becoming a member at www.TheTandD.com. View our latest offer at TheTandD.com/subscribe (TBTCO) - Gia xang dau trong nuoc hom nay (10/10) uoc du bao co the uoc ieu chinh tang manh. Theo o, gia xang trong nuoc co the tang tu 950 - 1.250 ong/lit; gia dau diesel co kha nang tang khoang 820 - 1.050 ong/lit. Tren thi truong the gioi, gia dau giam sau khi du lieu cua Hoa Ky cho thay luong dau tho du tru tang, nhung muc giam bi han che boi rui ro gian oan nguon cung cua Iran do xung ot Trung ong va con bao Milton o Hoa Ky. Extremists had hijacked the venue meant to celebrate cultural exchange between artists from Serbia and Kosovo. From Global Voices. The organizers of the Miredita, Dobar Dan! (Good day! in Albanian and Serbian) Festival announced on 27 June that they received a notification from Serbias Ministry of the Interior banning all their events in Belgrade, which had been scheduled to start that evening. Festival-related unrest began two days earlier after police allowed various hooligan and neo-Nazi groups to freely occupy the venue and block the nearby streets. The ban, which initially came verbally and then in writing, was formally communicated as an order to cease the gathering, and encompassed all activities associated with the festival that had been promoting peace between Kosovo and Serbia. Such events had been happening since 2014 in the capitals of Pristina and Belgrade, with the ultimate goal being reconciliation and healing of the wounds left from the past wars. Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs Ivica Dacic confirmed that the ministry issued orders to end the festival because of danger to the security of people and property, and the danger of violations of public order to a greater extent. With this order, festival organizers warned that the Ministry of the Interior violated the Constitution of Serbia, specifically [the right to] freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, as well as a number of laws, including at least two articles of the Law on Public Assembly due to the application of disproportionate measures. They disagreed with the ministrys move to place the burden on the organizers instead of addressing the hooligans associated with extremist and neo-Nazi groups Delije Sever, Peoples Patrol, Group 451, and Zetropa Serbia, saying that failing to ensure the gathering runs counter to the legal and constitutional order of the Republic of Serbia, as well as the standards and practices upheld by the European Court of Human Rights. Ban Breaks a Decade-Long Tradition Founded in 2014 by the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, the Civic Initiative from Belgrade, and the Pristina NGO Integra, the Miredita, Dobar Dan! Festival aimed to promote cultural exchange. By bringing together artists, rights activists, and opinion makers, it hoped to foster a tradition of collaboration that would contribute to permanent peace and the normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Balkan Insight reported that, while the festival has been denounced by right-wing groups since its inception, authorities in Belgrade have largely let the festival pass without comment at least during the first 10 years of its existence. This year, however, Serbian officials voiced strong criticism, culminating in an official ban. Festival-related unrest began on 25 July after various hooligan and neo-Nazi groups were allowed to freely occupy Dorcol Platz, the designated cultural space where the festival was to be staged. The buildings outer walls were defaced with threatening, chauvinistic messages targeted at festival guests. The next day, festival organizers cleaned the hateful graffiti. On 27 June, a group of about 150 hooligans stopped traffic along Dobracina Street and blocked the entrance to Dorcol Platz so that no guests or festival organizers, not to mention employees who work in the area, could enter or leave the complex: @YIHRSerbia, @gradjanske, and @Integra NGO, organisers of Miredita, Dobar Dan! Serbia-Kosovo reconciliation festival, said that by banning the event Serbian Interior Ministry violated the Serbian Constitution "specifically freedom of expression and freedom of assembly". pic.twitter.com/w2L72OfM8q Balkan Insight (@BalkanInsight) June 27, 2024 Festival organizers said that there was an insufficient number of police in the area and in addition, the Ministry of the Interior failed to send reinforcements, leaving the impression that there was no will to hold the festival at all. After the ban was declared, the right-wing nationalist extremists who were blocking the venue celebrated by setting off fireworks and lighting flares. Organizers specifically blamed Minister of Culture Nikola Selakovic, Minister of Family Welfare and Demography Milica Durdevic Stamenkovski, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin, the Mayor of Belgrade Aleksandar Sapic, and Minister of the Interior Ivica Dacic for the hateful campaign against the festival. They also found it ironic that the promotion of hatred and intolerance by those whose responsibility it is to protect people and promote peace, were the ones who fostered the hostilities, fundamentally leading to the banning of the festival: The Miredita, Dobar Dan! is not the enemy of the state, but the hooligans whom it has sided with, and for whose sake it has failed to fulfill its own obligations. The fundamental duty of the state is to ensure the freedoms and rights guaranteed by law, and to appropriately sanction those who infringe upon or organize against these freedoms and rights of citizens. The festival committee also revealed that they were ordered, under threat of consequences, to ensure that all foreign participants leave Serbia. The bus carrying participants from Kosovo was stopped on the outskirts of Belgrade and forced to returned to Kosovo under police escort: #Kosovo delegation due to take part in @MDDfestival were stopped by #Serbia police, some 20 miles before making it to Belgrade. According to @portalikohanet they were told there is an order in place not to allow them enter Belgrade. pic.twitter.com/xU4EFjzBn4 Xhemajl Rexha (@xhemajl_rexha) June 27, 2024 By banning the festival, the Ministry of the Interior and the Government of Serbia have once again demonstrated that freedom of assembly applies only to hooligan groups, not to festival participants and guests, a festival statement stressed. Visitors already in Belgrade for the event were also forced to leave: Danas smo zajedno sa nasim saborcima i saborkinjama ispratili ucesnike i ucesnice festivala "Mirdita, dobar dan!" Zao nam je zbog odluke MUP-a da se festival "Mirdita, dobar dan!" zabrani. pic.twitter.com/3yQ99XZSjd Miredita, dobar dan festival (@MDDfestival) June 28, 2024 Today together with our comrades we sent off the participants of the festival Miredita, Dobar Dan! We regret the decision of the Ministry of the Interior to ban the festival Miredita, Dobar Dan! Organizers also expressed profound concern for the state of society characterized by violence, hatred, and intolerance a model of behavior that officials and institutions fail to recognize as contentious and perilous. Condemnation of the Ban Leading Serbian civil society organizations, including CRTA, Slavko Curuvija Foundation, Humanitarian Law Center, YUCOM, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, and Centre for Nonviolent Action, expressed solidarity with the festival. On 2 July, 91 civil society organizations from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, North Macedonia, and Serbia issued a joint proclamation condemning the decision to ban the festival, which it said had been the target of attacks by criminal structures [and] members of far-right groups, which endanger safety and gravely threaten its organizers and participants. The international community also reacted, starting with Serbias European Union Delegation. As a candidate for EU membership, Serbia is obliged to uphold human rights: Disappointing to hear that the EU-funded "Miredita, Dobar Dan" festival, taking place since 2014, was banned today. This commendable CSO initiative builds bridges between the peoples, an important part of the Belgrade-Pristina normalisation efforts.@EGiaufretEU EU u Srbiji (@eusrbija) June 27, 2024 The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights also expressed grave concern: ODIHR is concerned by the closure of an annual peacebuilding festival in Belgrade. We call on the #Serbia authorities to respect the fundamental rights to #FreedomOfExpression and to peaceful assembly, and to guarantee the safety of all #HumanRights defenders. OSCE/ODIHR (@osce_odihr) July 2, 2024 In the days that followed, 11 embassies, including those of the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany, also expressed support online and conducted a joint visit to the festivals offices: Expressed strong support for @YIHRSerbia today, after @MDDfestival was banned and organisers were threatened. Intimidation and violence must not be permitted to compromise peaceful cultural exchange and basic human rights. Responsible authorities should act. #freedomofexpression pic.twitter.com/E5bA4Y7ngI Dutch Embassy in Serbia and in Montenegro (@NLinBelgrade) July 3, 2024 On 4 July, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights expressed gratitude to everyone who offered support via social networks. While it engages in EU-facilitated dialogue to normalize relations with Kosovo, the current Serbian government doesnt recognize its independence, which was declared in 2008. Composed of a coalition of populist parties that utilize Serbian nationalism and regional hegemony expressed through the irredentist political ideology of the so-called Serbian World modeled on Putins Russian World many top officials were members of Slobodan Milosevics regime in the 1990s. Since they came to power again in 2012, there has been a shift towards authoritarianism, including the repression of domestic opposition and civil society. The Metamorphosis Foundation for Internet and Society is a Global Voices content partner from Skopje, North Macedonia. It works on strengthening the awareness and capacity of citizens and civil society to assume their fullest possible role as activists for democracy while supporting media and governments to fulfill their democratic role in serving society. This article is based on the coverage by Meta.mk and was later published on Global Voices. Reprinted by permission under a Creative Commons license. Mastercard, in partnership with the Ministry of Sustainable Development of Bahrain, has launched the Mastercard Challenge on Financial Inclusion for the SDGs under the theme Solving for the Future. Run in collaboration with The Benefit Company, The Labour Fund (Tamkeen) and StartUp Bahrain, the competition invites Bahrains university students to propose innovative ideas and data-driven solutions which can help accelerate progress on the UNs Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through financial inclusion as a key enabler. This collaboration falls in line with the Ministry of Sustainable Developments plans to strengthen partnerships with the private sector in advancing the SDGs while recognising the crucial role of youth in global development and shaping a more sustainable future. Digital economy It also supports Mastercards commitment to driving financial inclusion and bringing one billion people and 50 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) worldwide into the digital economy by 2025. Financial inclusion is a powerful tool that has a significant impact on achieving several SDGs, including improving health and well-being, promoting gender equality, fostering economic growth, and supporting job creation. Recognising the innovative spirit and dedication of youth, the competition aims to ignite the creativity and leverage the talent of university students in Bahrain to tackle pressing development challenges across all 17 SDGs. Noor bint Ali Alkhulaif, Minister of Sustainable Development and Chief Executive of the Bahrain Economic Development Board, said: Over the years, Bahrains inclusive financial system has helped position the kingdom as a pioneer in digital financial infrastructure innovation by expanding mobile payments, strengthening regulations, prioritising financial integrity and stability, and promoting digitisation, financial literacy, and financial innovation. Given the role of financial inclusion as an enabler of several SDGs, the Mastercard Challenge seeks to encourage Bahrains youth to develop new solutions which can unlock its full potential by creating more economic opportunities, enabling economic diversification, and boosting sustainable growth. Empowering youth Maha Abdulhameed Mofeez, CEO, Tamkeen emphasised the importance of empowering youth to pursue innovation and facilitating their inclusion in the process of national economic development. She stated: We believe in the capabilities of Bahraini youth and their potential to drive impactful change in the Kingdom. We are excited to collaborate with the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Mastercard, and Benefit to offer this unique opportunity to Bahraini students to tackle a pressing topic through innovation and gain access to expert knowledge and a valuable platform to showcase their solutions. Supporting the Mastercard Challenge is aligned with our commitment to enabling Bahraini talent to pursue an entrepreneurial path through training, mentorship, and access to funding. Adam Jones, Division President, West Arabia, Mastercard, said: At Mastercard, we are committed to harnessing the power of our vast global network to achieve the SDGs, and driving financial inclusion is an important part of our collective efforts. We are delighted to join forces with our valued partners in Bahrain to introduce the Mastercard Challenge that empowers youth to apply its immense innovation potential to ideate out-of-the box solutions to the worlds most urgent issues. Abdulwahed AlJanahi, Chief Executive of Benefit, said: "At Benefit, empowering Bahrain's youth has always been a core value. We're excited to join forces with Mastercard, the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Tamkeen and StartUp Bahrain on the Mastercard Challenge on Financial Inclusion for the SDGs. This competition perfectly complements our recent youth-focused initiatives by providing a platform for university students to develop innovative solutions. We believe that empowering young people through financial inclusion equips them to tackle global challenges and build a more sustainable future. We encourage all university students to participate to unlock their potential and gain valuable experience. UNs Summit of the Future Paving the way for the UNs Summit of the Future, which will take place from September 22 to 23, 2024, the Mastercard Challenge is open to all undergraduate and postgraduate university students in Bahrain. The competition participants will explore real-life challenges facing the SDGs from a multi-disciplinary perspective in sectors that include education, healthcare, climate, the environment, tourism, and business. They will discover how financial inclusion and data from the financial services industry can contribute to building a brighter and more resilient future for all. Challenge winners will benefit from complimentary enrollment in Mastercard Academy for one year, a visit the Mastercard EEMEA HQ, and a paid internship at Benefit to develop and scale their solutions, they will also gain access to technical expertise, mentorship, and training from Mastercard and Benefit, including an AI masterclass, 10 mentoring sessions and three online sessions with Mastercards experts, and engage with selected Startup Bahrain resources and partners. The deadline for applications is July 31 at 7 pm Bahrain time. After this, a panel of distinguished experts with experience in financial services at the frontier of social impact and industry will review the submissions and announce the shortlisted entries. Qualifying applicants will attend an intensive three-week mentorship summer bootcamp in August, featuring industry experts from knowledge partner organisations, who will deliver training sessions on critical topics. Participants will gain valuable insights on the SDGs, sustainability in the age of AI, success stories from Bahrains financial sectors digital transformation journey and more. The bootcamp will culminate in a semifinals pitch in September. The final pitch will be held at the flagship Fintech Forward 2024 conference this October in Bahrain. This unique platform will provide the finalists with the opportunity to showcase their refined business ideas, gain valuable feedback, attract potential investment, and implement their ideas in Bahrains thriving financial ecosystem and beyond.--TradeArabia News Service Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies, an industrial player committed to the decarbonation of the construction sector that designs and markets innovative clinker-free cements, has signed a 30-year licensing agreement with Hoffmann Green USA, owned by Olivier Ducimetiere-Monod and his associate Francis Beauvallet, for the US market. The deal was inked by Hoffmann Green with the US group after a conclusive series of tests and several months of discussions. Olivier Ducimetiere-Monod, based in the US since 1988, is a successful construction and property development entrepreneur. With more than 35 years' experience in the sector, Olivier Ducimetiere-Monod has a strong network in the American political and economic ecosystem as well as precious expertise to support Hoffmann's development throughout the states. Francis Beauvallet, CEO of Beauvallet Construction, a key player in the monument restoration and financial engineering sector in France, will also bring his complementary expertise to the deployment of the Hoffmann model in the United States. The contract signed also includes the option, until 2025, of an extension of the licence to the entire United States in exchange for a total entry fee of 20 million ($21.5 million), it added. This strategic licensing agreement comes just months after Hoffmann Green Cement had sealed a similar deal in Saudi Arabia. TradeArabia had reported in September last year that the French group had signed a 22-year exclusive licensing agreement with Shurfah Group, a Saudi conglomerate that boasts more than SAR6 billion ($1.6 billion) in residential and real estate investments. The deal will see the construction of several green cement units across the kingdom in the coming years. Hoffmann Green Cement produces innovative extremely low-carbon cements with a carbon footprint five times lower than traditional cement that present, at equivalent dosage and with no alteration to the concrete manufacturing process, superior performances than traditional cement. This exclusive 30-year licensing agreement with a firmly established partner in the US is aimed at benefitting from Hoffmann Green's 0% clinker technologies and replicate Hoffmann units on the vertical model of the H2 production unit. In return for the industrial and technological transfer and exclusivity in the first American states, Hoffmann Green will receive a first entry fee of 2 million as well as fixed and variable annual royalties based on sales generated by the commercialisation of Hoffmann cements. The contract also gives the partner the option of sub-licensing Hoffmann units in these states. This option represents an additional growth driver for Hoffmann, generating more royalties and extending the sale of premix to sub-licensees. Negotiations with key sub-licensees are already in progress. This licensing agreement reaffirms the interest of international partners in Hoffmann Green's innovative solution and the viability of its international development model, it stated. Julien Blanchard and David Hoffmann, co-founders of Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies, said: "The signing of this key licensing agreement in the US is the concrete result of the pre-agreement announced at the end of last year. We are delighted to join forces with two partners who share our vision of the construction sector and have both significant expertise and in-depth knowledge of the local ecosystem." "After the licensing agreement signed in 2023 in Saudi Arabia, this step strengthens our international development strategy in two key states of the American construction sector, with the option of extending this agreement to the entire US territory by 2025," they added.-TradeArabia News Service Dubai-based Iman developers has announced the groundbreaking of its landmark mixed-use development - One Park Central - in the heart of Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC). Strategically located facing Central Park in JVC, One Park Central is set to become a vibrant community hub offering an exceptional lifestyle as well as an innovative design and extensive amenities to its residents, said the developer. The project is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2027. Valued at AED700 million ($191 million), the One Central Park will house 482 residential apartments, 38 commercial units, and six retail spaces across a structure of a basement, a ground floor, five parking floors, 23 residential floors and one rooftop floor. The residential unit sizes range from studios (356 to 529 sq ft) to luxurious four-bedroom penthouses with private pools (3800 to 3845 sq ft), catering to a diverse clientele seeking the epitome of luxury and convenience. The key project boasts an impressive array of features, including fitness and wellness facilities and beautifully landscaped areas that foster a sense of community and well-being, stated Iman developers in its statement. On the ground breaking, CEO Ismail Marfani said: "This moment marks the beginning of Iman developers transformation into an elevated destination that pushes the boundaries of conventional luxury. Together with our existing masterpieces, we are committed to creating a place that empowers discerning individuals to live their best lives. We look forward to sharing further developments in the future." According to him, One Park Central is designed to attract discerning international and Middle Eastern buyers from all around the world from Germany, the UK, Russia, China, and Asian and Arab expatriates. With starting prices ranging from AED650,000 to AED3 million, the development offers a variety of options to suit different lifestyles and preferences. One Park Central will offer residents an impressive array of over 60 premium amenities. It promises to help residents unlock their new lifestyle through a holistic living experience with meticulously crafted retail, commercial, and residential units harmonizing convenience with opulence, he stated. "Our commitment to delivering unparalleled living experiences is evident in every aspect of this project, designed to cater to the diverse needs and preferences of modern urban dwellers," remarked Marfani. "One Park Central is committed to sustainability, incorporating green building certifications and advanced sustainable practices to ensure an environmentally friendly living environment," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Medcare Women & Children Hospital, which has successfully treated over 120 patients with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) from across the world, has now introduced a new ground-breaking treatment in the UAE for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Cinar Atar, a six-year-old boy from Turkey, suffering from this genetic condition has been successfully treated with the novel gene therapy. DMD is the most common form of muscular dystrophy, a rare genetic disorder that causes skeletal and cardiac muscle weakening in predominantly boys, causing severe disability and premature death if not treated properly. It is a rare muscle disorder affecting approximately 1 in 3,500-5000 male live births worldwide. Genetic testing Cinars parents discovered his symptoms during a normal routine health checkup in Turkey when he was four years old. His leg muscles were weaker, prompting additional examinations and genetic testing to confirm the diagnosis of DMD. Dr Vivek Mundada, Consultant Paediatric Neurologist at Medcare Women and Children Hospital, described the medical condition as progressive muscle degeneration and weakness. It is caused by mutations in the dystrophin gene, which is required for muscle integrity. Muscle cells get injured and weaker over time in the absence of dystrophin. DMD usually becomes apparent when boys start walking at approximately around 15-17 months. Cinar's lack of dystrophin resulted in considerable muscle underdevelopment, notably in his legs, severely limiting his activities like running and climbing. The new gene therapy, which is only administered once, has shown promise in over 400 patients worldwide. However, there are limited medical facilities around the world that offer this treatment, he added. Gene therapy for DMD At present, the UAE, USA, and recently added in the list, Qatar, are the only countries that provide gene therapy for DMD. With no treatment options available in Turkey, Cinar's parents turned to physiotherapy and swimming to support his muscle development. These measures, though helpful, were insufficient to combat the progression of the condition. Recalling their experience at the time, the boys parents said: "We were devastated by Cinar's diagnosis and sought every possible way to help him. Volunteers and charities suggested that we seek treatment in Dubai at the Medcare Women and Children Hospital as it was the only private hospital outside the US offering the treatment our child needed to be able to lead a full life." Families with children like Cinar who are unable to travel to the US often seek out medical facilities like Medcare Women and Children Hospital as a ray of hope, and it is in these situations that Dr Vivek and his multidisciplinary team are called upon to help. "Our method comprised a complete evaluation and infusion of the medication, a prescription gene therapy that is one of the world's most expensive life-saving treatment. The treatment is designed to strengthen muscles by delivering a shortened version of the dystrophin gene, known as micro-dystrophin which eventually produces smaller but functional dystrophin protein. Following the infusion, we carried out a comprehensive post-infusion monitoring and observation for five to eight weeks, during which the child came in for weekly blood tests, physiotherapy and rehabilitation. This multidisciplinary effort was crucial in ensuring the best possible outcome for Cinar," he said. Comprehensive support Dr Mundada said: "At Medcare Women and Children Hospital, we ensure that our patients receive comprehensive support from the moment they arrive until they return home. Through facilities like teleMEDCARE, our telemedicine platform, we offer real-time monitoring and continuous care post-infusion and discharge. This allows us to track the patient's progress closely, provide necessary medical advice, and address any concerns promptly. This type of end-to-end patient experience ensures that patients like Cinar receive the best care possible even after they leave the hospital. Our physiotherapists also work with parents, guiding them on how to support their child's rehabilitation journey once they return home. This holistic approach ensures that our patients have the best chance at a full recovery and a better quality of life," he said. Expressing their gratitude, the boys parents said: "We are immensely grateful for the health of our child and the expertise of Dr Vivek and the medical team. Their commitment and expertise have given our son a new lease of life."--TradeArabia News Service Saudi Authority for Industrial Cities and Technology Zones (Modon) has joined forces with key entities - Saudi Export-Import Bank (Exim); Saudi Export Development Authority (Saudi Exports); Local Content and Government Procurement Authority; the Saudi Industrial Development Fund (SIDF); the National Industrial Development and Logistics Program and the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu - for a key initiative aimed at developing the kingdom's industrial sector, reported SPA. . The awareness campaign, "Expand Globally: a Journey Between Industry and Export," launched by these Saudi entities is aimed at boosting the kingdom's non-oil exports and strengthening its position in the global market to support the goals of Vision 2030. The campaign is part of the kingdom's efforts to raise awareness among industrial sector investors about the system's role in empowering local industrialists and exporters. It aims to create a diverse and inclusive investment-attracting economy and contribute to sustainable economic diversification, it added. The initiative seeks to build an industrial community capable of driving industrial development in the kingdom, leveraging available resources and initiatives to create an investment-attracting industrial economy, said the SPA report. Its impact extends to the growth of local content, the enhancement of non-oil Saudi exports, and strengthening the kingdom's position as a strategic industrial and logistics center globally, it added. According to Modon, the campaign's implementation relies on the system's entities introducing their customers to the opportunities and capabilities provided by Exim. The initiative aims to stimulate the growth and development of local institutions and companies in the sector while enriching local content and expanding its presence in global markets, it added. Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone (Rakez) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with The All India Association of Industries (AIAI), to open up new avenues for mutual trade and investment. The MoU was signed by AIAI President Dr Vijay Kalantri and Rakez Group CEO Ramy Jallad, at World Trade Center Mumbai (WTCM) in the presence of WCTM Executive Director Rupa Naik. The collaboration is designed to encourage enterprises from diverse Indian industries to explore opportunities in Ras Al Khaimah. It focuses on stimulating business opportunities, fostering cooperation, and creating synergies for development across both regions. Kalantri said: This collaboration not only reflects the strong economic relationships and shared entrepreneurial spirit between India and the UAE but also aligns with the objectives of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), enhancing our mutual interests. We are excited to partner with Rakez and unleash the plethora of opportunities this collaboration will bring to our members. More Indian investors Jallad said: Our alliance with AIAI is a strategic step towards welcoming more Indian investors and businesses into Ras Al Khaimah. With a majority of companies in Rakez being Indian-owned, this MoU aims to create a robust platform for enterprises to thrive and expand in a market renowned for its business-friendly environment and strategic geographic location. This initiative is about fostering long-term economic growth and deepening the ties between Ras Al Khaimah and India. In conjunction with the MoU signing in Mumbai, Rakez senior leadership engaged in business-to-business (B2B) meetings with high-profile companies from various sectors, including electric vehicles (EV), plastics and packaging, food and beverage, real estate, and chemicals. The UAE is Indias third-largest trading partner and its second-largest export destination, reflecting a robust bilateral trade relationship. Within Rakez, around 6,000 Indian companies are flourishing and contributing to its diverse economic landscape. Leading firms Leading firms such as Ashok Leyland, Dabur, Mahindra, Royal Gulf Industries, Sejal Glass, Motherson, and Bosco Aluminium underscore the dynamic business ecosystem that Rakez offers to Indian enterprises. These companies benefit from the economic zones strategic partnerships with government entities, private service providers, and prominent business groups. Aligned with the objectives of supporting CEPA, Rakez has been actively engaged in B2B meetings, events and exhibitions, and forging new collaborations.--TradeArabia News Service Global demand for ocean freight container shipping hit an all-time record in May amid soaring spot rates and severe port congestion. The 15.94m TEU (20-foot equivalent container) transported by ocean in May beats the previous record of 15.72 TEU set in May 2021, according to data released by Xeneta and Container Trades Statistics. The record levels of demand in May brings year-to-date volumes to just under 74m TEU, which is an increase of 7.5% compared to the first five months of 2023. Perfect storm Emily Stausbll, Xeneta Senior Shipping Analyst, said: More containerised goods are being shipped by ocean than ever before at a time when available capacity is impacted by diversions around Africa due to conflict in the Red Sea and severe port congestion in Asia and Europe. This is a perfect storm of pressure on ocean supply chains which has resulted in the chaos of recent months. In many respects it is impressive that global shipping networks have been able to transport this enormous volume of containers under such challenging circumstances. The record-breaking level of global demand is largely driven by volumes out of the Far East, with China seeing an all-time-high 6.2m TEU exported in May (including 853 000 TEU of intra-China container demand). This accounts for 39% of global container trade in May and coincided with spiralling spot rates on major fronthaul trades. The latest data from Xeneta the leading ocean and air freight rate benchmarking and intelligence platform shows average spot rates from the Far East to US West Coast stood at $7,840 per FEU on July 9, up by 200% since April 30. Into the US East Coast, average spot rates have increased by 130% in the same period to stand at $9,550 per FEU. Into North Europe and the Mediterranean, spot rates have increased by 148% and 88% respectively to stand at $8,030 and $7,830 per FEU. Spot market climbing Stausbll said: Given we are already seeing record-breaking volumes in May ahead of the traditional peak season in Q3, you can understand why shippers are so concerned. The spot market is still climbing, the conflict in the Red Sea shows no signs of ending and the port congestion we are seeing in Asia and Europe will take time to de-pressurise. The big question for the market is whether the record volumes in May will mean reduced volumes in the traditional peak season. Numerous factors come into play, not only underlying consumer demand, but also nervous shippers frontloading imports and the potential for further tariffs on China imports. While this combination could keep demand high moving through the next few months, there must be a limit to how long the record-levels of demand can last. The impact of the record levels of demand combined with longer sailing distances around the Cape of Good Hope is demonstrated through TEU-mile calculations. This data reflects the distance each container is transported globally. TEU-miles increase TEU-miles have increased by 17.9% globally in 2024 to date compared to the same period in 2023. This is mostly driven by the Red Sea diversions and longer sailing distances around the Cape of Good Hope. However, the trades most impacted by the Red Sea diversions are the major deep-sea trades out of the Far East, which are also the trades which are driving the record-breaking levels of ocean container shipping demand. Had ocean container carriers continued to utilise the Suez Canal, TEU-miles would have increased by a lesser, but still significant, 8.6% in 2024 to-date. Stausbll said: Earlier this year we saw increasing ocean freight shipping spot rates and wondered if there really was a capacity crunch or whether it was a case of the market panicking unnecessarily following the escalation of conflict in the Red Sea. We can now clearly see in the data the squeeze on capacity was very real, especially when you factor in the TEU-mile increase on top of the record-breaking global volumes and port congestion. It also demonstrates how much oversupply of capacity there would have been in the market in 2024 had the Red Sea conflict not occurred.--TradeArabia News Service Google Cloud has announced the opening of its new offices in Kuwait licensed by Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA) at an event attended by Omar Saud Al-Omar, Minister of Commerce and Industry and Minister of State for Communication Affairs. This expansion further signifies Google Cloud's commitment to supporting Kuwait's national digital transformation journey, including the modernisation of government services and the advancement of economic development. The Google Cloud offices in Kuwait will serve as a hub for collaboration and innovation, bringing together experts from across Google Cloud to work closely with their customers and partners. "Under the visionary leadership of His Highness the Amir, His Highness the Crown Prince, and the guidance of His Highness the Prime Minister, Kuwait has made great strides towards realizing its National Vision 2035," stated Al-Omar at the inauguration of Google Cloud's Kuwait headquarters. "This progress includes driving digital transformation, accelerating our smart economy, and developing crucial infrastructure." He continued: "The significance of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and digital technologies in general, cannot be overstated. They are fundamental to economic growth and national development. By leveraging these technologies in government services, we can significantly improve the quality of life for our citizens and residents, foster sustainability, and drive innovation. Our partnership with Google Cloud has already yielded numerous successes, which we are confident will enrich Kuwait's economy and create promising employment opportunities for our youth." In January 2023, Google Cloud announced a national alliance framework agreement with the Kuwaiti government to develop a roadmap for a comprehensive digital transformation program across government entities and key state-owned enterprises. The partnership will bring Google Cloud's cutting-edge technology, data expertise, and AI capabilities to government agencies and key state-owned entities, enhancing their operations and cybersecurity. Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, Managing Director of Google Cloud in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa, said at the event: Opening Google Cloud offices in Kuwait is yet another step to meet the demand for our services and expertise in Kuwait to support the New Kuwait Vision 2035 vision which aims to transform the country into a digital society and diversify its economy. We are working with the Government of Kuwait towards digitising citizen services and increasing the productivity of government employees, in addition to participating in the implementation of several digital transformation initiatives in healthcare, education, disaster recovery, and smart living. Shaymaa Alterkait, Country Manager of Google Cloud in Kuwait, said: At Google Cloud we believe that technology, when combined with the coordinated efforts of governments, the private sector, and civil society, can drive economic growth and stability for all communities. Our expansion in Kuwait reinforces our dedication to this vision. Google Cloud is working within the framework of the strategic alliance with the government in cooperation with KDIPA, the Communications and Information Technology Regulatory Authority (CITRA), and the Central Agency for Information Technology (CAIT). Since establishing a presence in Kuwait, Google Cloud has been collaborating with CAIT through a national skilling program to upskill government employees, entrepreneurs, and recent graduates in digital technologies with Google Clouds cutting-edge advanced data analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and information security solutions. According to a Google-commissioned study by Access Partnership, digital technologies enabled by cloud computing could create a potential opportunity for up to $3.4 trillion per year of economic impact in the major and emerging economies in the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, by 2030. In Kuwait, research conducted by Access Partnership identified that in a scenario where all entities in respective sectors were to fully adopt Cloud technologies, the combined annual economic impact they could bring to Kuwait could reach up to $29.8 billion by 2030. - TradeArabia News Service Saudi Arabia's National Center for Environmental Compliance (NCEC) recently organized the first practical workshop on "Monitoring and Surveillance of Groundwater and Surface Water Quality in the Kingdom" project. Specialists from 45 public, private, and non-profit sector entities, as well as several international experts from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), attended the event. During the workshop, international UN experts provided an in-depth overview of the importance of unified efforts to protect groundwater and surface-water quality and their impact on achieving water sustainability and preserving it as a natural resource. NCEC Chief Executive Engineer Ali Al Ghamdi said the workshop marked the first step of the national initiative launched by the Centre last month. The initiative is aimed at monitoring and assessing water quality by collaborating with relevant stakeholders as a joint national team that aligns with national environmental and water strategies. Eng Al Ghamdi said this comes as a response to the increasing environmental challenges facing the kingdom, particularly concerning the quality of groundwater and surface water. The goal is to establish a baseline for groundwater and surface water quality using best international practices and advanced technologies for monitoring and analyzing water quality in the future, he added. NCEC Executive Director (Monitoring Operations) Nadia Al Amoudi, said through this initiative it seeks to build a comprehensive database to develop specialized indicators for monitoring groundwater and surface water. "This will aid decision-makers in safeguarding water, a crucial environmental component used by both the government and private sectors," she noted. NCEC, through a scientific study conducted to launch the national initiative to monitor and assess water quality in Saudi Arabia, had identified the targets of the initiative's launch by collecting over 2,000 samples of surface and groundwater from various regions of the kingdom. The aim is to evaluate current practices, document compliance levels with standards, address gaps, and gather necessary data for this initiative phase. Nadia pointed out that the initiative focused on creating a unified reference framework for monitoring aquatic environments across the kingdom. This involves collaborating with relevant government sectors and leveraging research and studies related to water quality in Saudi Arabia, she added.-TradeArabia News Service Future Motors, a division of Business Trading Company (BTC) and Al Rabban Holding, which is owned by Abdulaziz Bin Mohammed Al Rabban and Nasser Al Rabban, has launched brand BAIC for automotive enthusiasts in Qatar. With this launch, the company is presenting BAICs famous models BJ80, BJ60, BJ40C, X7, X55 II and U5 plus to the citizens and residents of Qatar. Established in 1958, Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co, Ltd (BAIC) has a rich heritage of innovation and evolution within the automotive sector and is ranked 162nd in the Fortune 500. BAIC is one of the largest Government-owned automobile groups in China covering R&D and manufacturing of vehicles, parts, automobile service trade, comprehensive travel services, finance, and investment, etc. Key role Since its inception, BAIC has played a key role in China's automotive industry, adapting to global trends, and embracing advanced technologies with a focus on quality and excellence, BAIC has achieved strategic milestones, formed impactful international partnerships, and expanded its product range to include a diverse array of vehicles, from conventional to electric. BAIC Group has strategic partnership with leading global brands. In 1983, the company launched a joint venture with American Motors Corporation (the parent company of the JEEP brand) and established the first vehicle manufacturing joint venture in China's automotive industry, that is, Beijing Jeep Corporation. It also established the first vehicle manufacturing joint venture with Hyundai Korea Beijing Hyundai Auto Co, Ltd and established Beijing Benz Automotive Co, Ltd. with Mercedes-Benz jointly. BAIC Group, now focuses on three primary businesses of vehicles, parts, and service trade, boasts its own private cars: ARCFOX, BEIJING, and BAIC ORV; independent commercial vehicles: BAIC Foton, BAIC Changhe; joint venture brands: Beijing Benz, Fujian Benz, Beijing Hyundai Motor, and Foton Daimler. BAIC products are sold in 110 countries and regions worldwide with cumulative sales exceeding 31 million units. Leading role At the launch, Nasser Al Rabban, stated: Launching the brand BAIC in Qatar complements Future Motors vision to play a leading role in the on-going development of mobility in Qatar and represents a significant step forward in our commitment to bringing innovative, high-quality automotive solutions. We believe in the strong heritage of BAIC as it matches the culture of Qatar, and its vehicles are suitable for Qatars unique terrain. Zaher Hayji, General Manager, Future Motors, said: We are excited to launch BAIC in Qatar, one of the earliest Chinese brands that entered the GCC region. It has a rich Chinese heritage where its upscale and luxurious cars are used by dignitaries and VIPs in the People's Republic of China. Its vehicles like the BJ80 are a true classic 4x4 SUV with all the modern features. The BJ60 is a large 7-seater family SUV with advanced off-roading capabilities, providing outstanding value to our customers. Compared to similar brands, BAIC delivers similar, if not superior, features and reliability, making it an ideal choice for discerning city and off-roading drivers in the region." All BAIC models launched in Qatar come with a 5 Year or 150,000 KM warranty. The models BJ80 is a mid-size four-wheel-drive luxury SUV that comes with a classic 4x4 design and solid build quality. BJ60 the largest and most luxurious SUV from BAIC for everyone perfectly combines elegant design, innovative technologies, and robust off-road performance. An authentic off-road oriented SUV in design and execution, the BAIC BJ40 with a removable car top is a rugged and versatile off-road SUV designed to conquer challenging terrains with ease and style. It is also available in a two-door version. The X7 is a cross-over mid-size premium SUV offering a blend of luxury, space, and cutting-edge technology perfectly suited for a mid-size family. Designed in Italy, it is C-NCAP 5-star rated SUV with the latest turbo technology. X55 II SUV is a symphony of style, strength, and sophistication. It is a sleek and sporty SUV packed with modern features, C-NCAP 5-star rating perfect for young adventurers and urban explorers. The U5 plus sedan is a new generation car with 1.5L CVT transmission. Car financing In an effort to make car financing easier, Future Motors has joined forces with a leading financial institution, Al Jazeera Finance (AJF), Tamweel to redefine the vehicle financing journey for its customers. This strategic alliance aims to provide customers with unparalleled access to BAIC vehicles through excellent financing schemes and zero down-payment options, further solidifying Future Motors commitment to a customer-centric business approach. This partnership agreement was signed at the official launch of the BAIC showroom in the presence of the management from Future Motors and Al Jazeera Finance. Under this financing agreement, Al Jazeera Finance will provide an easy and quick loan approval process to Future Motors customers. The BAIC showroom is located at the Barwa Commercial Avenue.--TradeArabia News Service On July 1, 2023, a methane leak of 3,947 kg/h was emitted from a gas field in the Balkan region of Turkmenistan. This leak was discovered when Momentick, an emissions intelligence company, monitored various oil and gas assets in Turkmenistan's Balkan Region from January 2021 to April 2024, finding a total of 107 additional leaks during this period across 6 out of 8 monitored assets on various dates. The detailed below presents the results of emission monitoring of 1 out of the 6 assets in the Balkan region of Turkmenistan. The emissions depicted are like many thousands of similar events occurring daily across the globe in oil and gas operations. Using satellite observations, Momenticks algorithms autonomously identified the emissions and accurately measured the detected events emissions in gas flow rate. Momentick multi-satellite approach also enabled us to monitor the site over time, confirming that this was not the only methane leak event at the facility in the months before and after the detected emission event. Methane emissions in Turkmenistan are particularly significant due to the country's extensive natural gas production and infrastructure. Efforts to quantify and mitigate these emissions have been challenging due to limited monitoring capabilities. Addressing these emissions is crucial not only for reducing global greenhouse gas levels but also bare extreme potential for improving the economic efficiency of Turkmenistan's energy sector. The Balkan Region emissions demonstrate the success of using multi-satellite imagery to accurately detect and measure one-time, spontaneous and accidental emission events as well as continuous monitoring operations. Methane emissions in the energy sector arise from widespread leaks, flaring, and venting practices during the production, processing, and transportation of Oil & Gas. Predominantly composed of methane, natural gas is approximately 28-34 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year period and accounts for 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions that directly contribute to the global warming effect. Various components used in the production and transportation of natural gas, such as compressors, valves, pumps, gauges, and pipe connectors, are prone to leaks. Flaring and venting occur when field operators burn (flare) or release (vent) the "excessive" gas that accompanies natural gas production. Routine flaring, while generally less harmful than venting, still releases significant volumes of potent greenhouse gasses, including high levels of methane, black soot, and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Each year, around 140 billion cubic meters of natural gas are emitted globally, contributing to an estimated annual revenue loss of $60 billion for the global energy sector (when translated to market prices). Most of these events are occurring at production or transmission infrastructure and go by undetected, resulting in dangerous and costly amounts of methane being released. With the exponentially growing proliferation of satellites in orbit, continuously monitoring the planet, remote sensing based on multi-satellite imagery provides an accessible, scalable and cost-effective solution for monitoring facilities in any location. A recent article in The Guardian estimated that in 2022, Turkmenistans two main fossil fuel fields' global warming contribution was more significant than the entire carbon emissions of the UK. The share scale of the emissions detected in Turkmenistans Balkan Region are a challenge but also present an enormous opportunity of reduction potential and huge economic value. Continuous monitoring, detection and quantification of Oil & Gas operations are an essential step in realising both financial and climate related values. --OGN/ TradeArabia News Service Diriyah Company has awarded contracts worth more than SAR7.8 billion ($2 billion) for the development of a mixed-use district in the ancient Saudi city. Announcing the contract award, Diriyah Company said it involves the construction of advanced educational institutions, cultural venues, modern offices, and a luxury hotel. The contracts, the largest ever awarded in the company's history were inked with a joint venture of El Seif Engineering Contracting Company (ESEC) and China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC). The work is set to begin in the third quarter of this year. The mega mixed-use district, which will come up in the northern part of Diriyah, will be executed by some of the most prominent real-estate developers from Saudi Arabia and around the world, contributing to the realization of the Diriyah Company, which represents one of the most important historical and cultural destinations in the Kingdom and a key project of Saudi Vision 2030. "This represents a major step in our accelerating development strategy and commitment to making Diriyah one of the most important and prominent tourist, humanitarian, and cultural destinations in the world, said Diriyah Company Group CEO Jerry Inzerillo after signing the deal with ESEC Chief Executive Officer Engineer Ahmed Al Bassam and CSCEC's KSA Branch CEO Chuanhai Wei. "This contract is one of the largest in terms of size, scope, and significance within the development plan for the Diriyah project," stated Inzerillo. "This agreement also represents another example of the close economic relations and strong commercial partnerships being established between Saudi Arabia and China," he added. According to him, the agreement was a testament to the local and global stature of the Diriyah project and its ability to attract more economic opportunities to the kingdom. "The project offers tremendous investment opportunities and an attractive business environment characterized by the highest standards of governance, contributing to increasing job opportunities, raising the gross domestic product, and making Diriyah the world's premier destination for heritage and culture," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Bahrain-based Kooheji Development has opened its Onyx Rotana Hotel in Bahrain Bay, thus marking a significant milestone for the hotel and real estate development sectors, and adding value to family tourism facilities in the kingdom, reported BNA. It was inaugurated by Shaikh Khalid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, the Deputy Prime Minister, today (July 9) in the presence of senior ministers incluidng Fatima bint Jaffar Al Sairafi, Tourism Minister and Chairperson of the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority as well as other key officials and guests. Shaikh Khalid was welcomed at the hotel by Abdulghaffar Al Kooheji, Chairman of Kooheji Development, and Mohammed Al Kooheji, Chief Operating Officer at Kooheji Development. Speaking at the opening, the Deputy Prime Minister said the new launch emphasises Bahrains status as a preferred tourist destination bolstered by its investment-friendly environment, which offers incentives for high-quality hotel projects that meet global standards. "This aligns with the goals of the comprehensive developmental process, led by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and overseen by His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister," he stated. Shaikh Khalid said this status reflects the success of efforts to enhance Bahrains tourism appeal through infrastructure development, waterfront enhancements, and services catering to tourists worldwide. These efforts align with the role of the tourism sector as a key contributor to growth and a high-potential economic sector with a positive impact on the GDP, he added. He lauded the developer's efforts, highlighting the importance of private sector partnerships in achieving the goals of Bahrains Economic Vision 2030. After touring the facility, Shaikh Khalid said the hotel was a significant milestone in the progress of development plans in Bahrain Bay. The tourism minister pointed out that private sector contributions were crucial for achieving Bahrains tourism strategy goals (2022-2026), said the BNA report. "We welcome the private sector's participation in developing infrastructure, operating tourism facilities, and offering attractive services and products, which contributes to promoting Bahrain as an ideal and comprehensive global destination," stated Al Sairafi. She also commended Kooheji Development for its role in advancing real estate, tourism, and hospitality, highlighting Onyx Rotanas unique appeal in enhancing family tourism and waterfront development. Abdulghaffar Al Kooheji lauded Shaikh Khalid for his support to the private sector and also for the tourism projects that contribute to the national economy. He pledged to continue pursuing investments that positively impact Bahrains real estate and tourism sectors. Rosewood Jeddah said it has appointed one of its long-term employees as Managing Director for showcasing exceptional leadership, elevating the hotel's market position, driving commercial excellence, and cultivating an inclusive culture. Hussein Dayekh joined Rosewood Jeddah in 2015, and has played a pivotal role in the hotel's success, with his commitment empowering the diverse associates at Rosewood Jeddah to deliver outstanding guest experiences. With over two decades of experience in the hospitality industry, including 14 years with the esteemed Rosewood brand, Dayekh brings a profound understanding of guest needs and operational excellence. His results-driven approach aligned with Rosewood's core values makes him ideally suited to reinforce Rosewood Jeddahs purpose-led status and lead the hotel into a new era of success. Hussein is instrumental in driving Rosewood Impacts' vision forward, with his leadership inspiring his team to push boundaries and achieve significant results. Committed to innovation, excellence, and sustainability, Dayekh aims to make a meaningful difference in communities and beyond. Under his leadership, Rosewood Jeddah will continue to solidify its position as the premier luxury destination in the region, setting new standards in hospitality, a statement said. Located on the pristine shores of the Red Sea, Rosewood Jeddah promises luxury and world-class services. The hotel boasts meticulously designed rooms and suites with sea views, and exquisite dining options. TradeArabia News Service Curtis Killman Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Curtis Killman Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today The state Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday dismissed an appeal from the state of Oklahoma in a multicounty grand jury case involving a Delaware County attorney. The court ruled that the states appeal of the dismissal of three criminal charges against Winston Connor II could not go forward because the reason for the appeal was not authorized under Oklahoma law. The appeal stems from Tulsa County District Judge Clifford Smiths denial in 2023 of a request by the state to transfer the case to another venue after he dismissed other counts from the indictment. The district court denied the States motion to transfer and ultimately dismissed Counts 2, 7, and 8 not because of facts beyond the face of the Information, but because of the venue allegations in the Information which showed the charges were not committed in Tulsa County, the Court of Criminal Appeals ruling states. Seven other charges linked to a 10-count grand jury indictment naming Connor were either previously dismissed by the judge or the state, thus ending the case. Tulsa attorneys Paul DeMuro and Clark Brewster issued the following statement regarding the Court of Criminal Appeals ruling: The State made a public spectacle of its indictment against Mr. Connor, making sure that every news outlet in Oklahoma covered his indictment and arrest. Today, the States case ends with a whimper. This case was so baseless, none of the 10 charges even made it to trial. This case was about payback against a high-profile criminal defense attorney who had successfully beaten the State in numerous cases. At the States request, police intentionally waited to arrest Mr. Connor as an alleged fugitive when he was coming home from a family vacation, just to inflict maximum pain on him. Knowing Mr. Connor was out-of-state, law enforcement chose that time to force entry to Mr. Connors law office and home, seizing all of his computers and electronic devices. They found nothing, no evidence of wrongdoing. After five-plus years of grueling litigation, including four appeals, this nightmare is finally over for Mr. Connor. His reputation is, and should be, fully restored. Connor thanked his lawyers, friends, family and colleagues who have supported him and always believed in his innocence, according to a statement released on his behalf. Oklahomas multicounty grand jury indicted Connor in 2018 on 10 charges that were made public with his January 2019 arrest. The most serious charge of the 10 was solicitation for first-degree murder and a violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act. Prior to Smiths ruling, Tulsa County Special Judge April Seibert dismissed the murder solicitation count, saying recordings of communications between Connor and Slint Tate a Grove man serving life without parole for a 2001 Rogers County murder did not meet the legal burden of intent to solicit a homicide. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Gentner Drummonds office declined to comment on the ruling when asked by the Tulsa World. The Tulsa World is where your story lives Felix Clary Tulsa World Indigenous Affairs Reporter Follow Felix Clary 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 group of Black Creek freedmen descendants who have sued the Muscogee Nation to gain citizenship are asking that a tribal special judge be recused from an appeal in their case, claiming that he has supported legislation in the past that bars freedmen from citizenship rights. Damario Solomon-Simmons, lead attorney for the Creek freedmen descendants group, alleges racial discrimination on the part of the Muscogee Nation after tribal officials picked a new special judge to hear their case, which is scheduled for oral arguments on July 26. A previous Muscogee Nation judge ruled for citizenship of the Creek freedmen last fall. In 1979, the Muscogee Nation used a version of the Dawes Roll to determine that Creek freedmen descendants were excluded from citizenship. Black freedmen descendants Rhonda Grayson and Jeff Kennedy applied for citizenship last year and were denied. In a legal challenge in tribal court, they argued that the Muscogee Nation improperly denied their citizenship, and Muscogee Nation District Judge Danette Mouser ruled in their favor. Mouser determined that the Muscogee Nations 1866 treaty with the United States, which granted the tribes freedmen former slaves of Muscogee citizens and their descendants citizenship rights, was still in effect and had not been nullified by the tribes 1979 constitution. Special Judge James Jennings was appointed by tribal officials to hear the appeal. Solomon-Simmons said at a Tuesday press conference in Tulsa that this appointment is an act of racial discrimination because Jennings has in the past expressed support of legislation barring freedmen descendants from Muscogee citizenship. There is nothing in our constitution that allows them to do what theyre doing. They know this, and yet they still did it, said Solomon-Simmons. They literally did this under the cover of darkness one night. They did this in an emergency session. They do not allow any members of the Creek Nation or citizens to review this law. Jason Salsman, press secretary for the Muscogee Nation, told the Tulsa World: The brazenness with which this group lies is appalling. First, individuals of African descent who are also Creek are more than welcome as citizens. The issue here is that the individuals seeking citizenship are not Creek at all, and our Constitution does not allow citizenship for anyone who is not Creek descendant by blood. Salsman said in a Tulsa World interview that if Grayson and Kennedy had Muscogee blood, they would have no issue in becoming citizens. Black freedmen descendants are granted citizenship if they have any Muscogee blood-quantum. Salsman said he believes it is Solomon-Simmons goal to gain citizenship for any Black freedmen who are descended from people who were owned as slaves by the Muscogee Nation, whether they have Native blood or not. Solomon-Simmons showed a video at the press conference of Jennings responding to a comment about his opinion on Black freedmen. Jennings said he will continue to support citizenship for people who are Muscogee by blood. Solomon-Simmons said this would violate a portion of the Treaty of 1866 that freed the slaves owned by the Muscogee Nation and guaranteed that Black Creeks and Creeks of African descent would have full citizenship. His argument is that this portion of the treaty allows citizenship for descendants of Black freedmen regardless of blood-quantum. Salsman told the Tulsa World that the Mouser video is no bombshell. Its nothing more than a candidate committing to do what every other government official in America is obligated to do uphold the Constitution they swore an oath to uphold. The notion that any official of government should pick and choose when to follow the law is dangerous and nonsensical. As a U.S. military veteran and longtime Muscogee Creek Nation Council representative, this is something Mr. Jennings would understand well. The Creek freedmen legal team alleges that it received whistleblower proof at the end of June that this appointment happened on June 5, and Solomon-Simmons said his team had not been notified of the change. Solomon-Simmons said that in order for the special judge to be appointed, the Muscogee Nation Council had to introduce and pass a bill amending Title 27 of the tribes Code of Laws titled Judicial Processes. Solomon-Simmons said he could not find any other examples of special judges being appointed like this in Muscogee court history. Salsman told the Tulsa World that the appointment of special judges follows the process used for every other judge. The attacks on the appointment of special justices are a distraction. Every issue that comes before the court deserves the consideration of a full panel of justices, and the appointment of special justices follows the same process of every other judge. Judges are nominated by the executive branch and confirmed by the legislative branch, Salsman said. The Tulsa World is where your story lives Curtis Killman Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Curtis Killman Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today The company that built an 84-turbine wind farm in Osage County in 2014 without seeking the proper permit should be ordered to pay at least $37.7 million in damages, the federal government said Tuesday on the final day of a bench trial on the matter. During closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nolan Fields said that amount was needed to compensate the Osage Minerals Council for the damage caused to the mineral estate when the wind farm was built without authorization. This was about money, Fields said regarding the decision by the wind farm owner not to seek the required permit, adding that it was also about complete disrespect for the Osage Minerals Council. The Minerals Council is an arm of the Osage Nation that owns and manages all the mineral rights in Osage County. Wind farm owner Enel Green Power North America Inc. claimed in its closing argument that the U.S. government wrongly calculated the damages amount owed. Enel said the true amount of damages is $68,993, based largely on the market value of the limestone that was blasted out of the ground to build the turbine tower foundations. The case is now in the hands of U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves, sitting by designation. Since the U.S. Supreme Courts McGirt ruling in 2020, several federal visiting judges from other jurisdictions have helped ease the Tulsa federal court case load that resulted from that ruling. Choe-Groves, who was assigned the case in February 2023, ruled in December that granting permanent injunctive relief by ejecting the wind farm for continuing trespass was warranted since Enel never obtained the necessary permit to blast the rock to make the foundations. But Choe-Groves did not formally grant the injunction. Rather, she requested a plan and schedule to remove the turbines. She also held a bench trial beginning in May to determine the amount of damages owed by Enel. After several days of testimony in May, the trial recessed until Monday, when closing arguments were held. The case began in 2014 with the U.S. government and Osage Minerals Council going to federal court to stop the wind farm construction, which was underway at the time. A federal judge initially ruled that the blasting of the rock to build the turbine foundations did not constitute mining and thus did not require a permit or lease from the council. But the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017 ruled that the use of subsurface rock and dirt for wind farm tower support did constitute mining and require a lease from the Mineral Council. The U.S. Supreme Court later rejected Enels appeal of the 10th Circuit ruling. Fields argued that Enel should pay $242,000 in damages for converting the minerals it mined for its use as turbine tower support. That amount could climb to $2.4 million if the judge opted to rely on the market value rather than the royalty value of the materials mined, Fields said. Fields also said actual pretrial damages of $12.5 million for trespassing should be increased to $37.5 million under a law that provides for tripling damage awards when certain conditions, such as wrongful intent, are shown. Gregg Costa, an attorney for Enel, argued that the trial came down to largely a battle of the experts, and he then proceeded to criticize the governments experts. Costa said one of the governments top experts who provided damage estimates at the trial was unreliable and provided inflated valuations. Enels estimate of $68,993 in damages that it believes it owes may not be much money, but it is what the real world numbers show, Costa said. He also said there was no evidence that Enel acted with malice when it opted not to obtain the mining lease. Minerals Council attorney Jeffrey Rasmussen countered that Enel knew the risks when it proceeded with construction of the wind farm without the required permit. They knew the risks and took them, Rasmussen said, adding that the action showed a disregard for the rights of the Minerals Council. Choe-Groves said she would issue an opinion at some point soon and asked about any efforts by the parties to settle the lawsuit. Costa said all that had been planned was for the parties to meet after the hearing Tuesday to discuss logistics if there were to be substantive negotiations. The Tulsa World is where your story lives Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket successfully blasted off for the first time on Tuesday, releasing satellites into orbit and restoring the continent's independent access to space. European space efforts have suffered a series of blows, including four years of delays to Ariane 6, that have robbed the continent of its own way to launch missions into space for the past year. But with the successful inaugural flight of Europe's most powerful rocket yet, European space chiefs were keen to move on from recent setbacks. "It's a historic day for Europe," European Space Agency head Josef Aschbacher said. "Europe is back," announced Philippe Baptiste, head of France's CNES space agency. Anticipation was high for the first launch, which is hoped to bring an end to a difficult time for European space efforts. Photo: AFP Surrounded by jungle on the South American coast, the rocket launched from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 4 pm local time (1900 GMT). Initially delayed for an hour by a small problem that was noticed in the morning, the rocket lifted off into clear skies. The mission faced a slight setback as the rocket deviated from its trajectory towards the end of the flight, failing to carry out its planned re-entry into the earth's atmosphere and landing in the Pacific. But that did not dampen the spirits of European space chiefs, whose objective was to put satellites into orbit. "It's a great success despite the slight disappointment" at the end, said Walther Pelzer, head of Germany's DLR space agency. Spectators watch Ariane 6 take-off. Photo: AFP 'Not yet complete' The crew in the Jupiter control room, located 17 kilometers (10 miles) from the launch site, portrayed calm at first. Then head of operations Raymond Boyce announced "propulsion nominal", meaning that the launch was going as planned. Applause rang out in the room. Even louder applause came a little over an hour later when the rocket successfully delivered microsatellites into orbit. NASA chief Bill Nelson on X welcomed the "giant leap forward" for the ESA. But Martin Sion, the CEO of the rocket's manufacturer ArianeGroup, emphasised that "the mission is not yet complete". It will only be fully completed when the reusable Vinci engine in the rocket's upper stage has fallen back into Earth's atmosphere. That was expected around three hours after liftoff. Europe's Ariane 6 rocket. Photo: AFP 'Magical' When it launched, Ariane 6 carried with it the hopes of European sovereignty in space. Since the last flight of its workhorse predecessor, Ariane 5, a year ago, Europe has had to rely on rivals such as Elon Musk's US firm SpaceX. Selected by the ESA back in 2014, Ariane 6 will able to place satellites in geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above Earth, as well as satellite constellations a few hundreds of kilometers up. Ariane 6's first launch, originally planned for 2020, is hoped to bring an end to a difficult time for European space efforts. Photo: AFP The first flight was carrying a payload of university microsatellites, various experiments and two atmospheric re-entry capsules that will be jettisoned near the end of the mission. The last of three ignitions of the Vinci engine will be to shoot the Vinci engine back down into the Pacific Ocean, so it does not contribute to the space debris cluttering Earth's orbit. Successful inaugural flights are by no means guaranteed. Historically, nearly half of the first launches of new rockets have ended in failure. That includes Ariane 5, which exploded moments after liftoff in 1996. But out of 117 launches over nearly 20 years, only one other Ariane 5 flight completely failed. On the other side of the world, thousands of people in the French city of Toulouse watched the lift-off on a big screen while sitting on a lawn at the Cite de l'Espace museum. Catherine Gerard, 56, said she was delighted to witness "something a bit magical". Europe's Ariane 6 rocket ahead of blastoff in French Guiana. Photo: AFP Skyrocketing competition Space has become big business and competition is soaring, particularly from SpaceX's fully re-usable Falcon 9 rockets, which now launch around twice a week. Yet Europe has recently found itself without an independent way to give lucrative satellites a ride into space. Russia pulled its Soyuz rockets, long used for European launches at Kourou, after Moscow carried out its attack on Ukraine in 2022. Later that year, Europe's Vega-C light launcher was grounded after a launch failure. Ariane 6 delays compounded the crisis. After months of analysing the rocket's inaugural launch, a first commercial flight is expected before the end of the year. The next challenge will be to "successfully ramp up" the number of flights, ESA space transportation director Toni Tolker-Nielsen said. Rocket launches since 1957. Photo: AFP Six launches are scheduled for next year, and eight for 2026. The rocket has an order book of 29 missions, many of which are to deploy some of Amazon's Kuiper constellation of internet satellites. But just weeks before the launch, the program suffered a surprise setback. Europe's weather satellite operator EUMETSAT cancelled plans to use Ariane 6 in favour of SpaceX's Falcon 9, citing "exceptional circumstances". ESA chief Josef Aschbacher said the European operator's decision to ditch the European rocket was "difficult to understand". NAXOS, Greece -- The biggest reservoir on the Greek island of Naxos has dried up, useful only to the turtles that cruise its muddy shallows. Downstream, sea water has seeped into empty irrigation wells, harming the island's prized potato crop. Further south, on Karpathos island, authorities have imposed restrictions on topping up swimming pools, while in the northern island of Thasos, officials are seeking a desalination unit to make sea water drinkable. Most of Greece has seen little or no rain in months. Now, as the country's islands prepare to host a record number of summer tourists, the strain on water supplies has rarely been heavier, officials, farmers and scientists said. "There has been an intense shortage of rainfall across the Mediterranean and, on Naxos particularly, our surface reservoirs are empty," said the island's mayor, Dimitris Lianos. Millions of tourists visit Greece each year to enjoy its ancient sites, pristine beaches and turquoise waters. But climate change impacts, including higher temperatures, erratic rainfall and wildfires threaten the future of the country's biggest economic driver. A tourist visits the Great Door to the Temple of Apollo, known as Portara, on the island of Naxos, Greece, June 20, 2024. Photo: Reuters This year feels especially fraught. After its warmest winter on record, wildfires began unusually early, some in areas where there would normally be snow. At least six tourists, including well-known British television presenter Michael Mosley, died last month as heatwaves swept the country. Climate experts fear the worst is yet to come. Andrea Toreti, the coordinator of the European and global drought observatory of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, said once the effects of drought become visible, it is too late to take action. "We need to avoid thinking in an emergency mode, (instead) looking at prevention and preparedness," Toreti said. A worker inspects the hardware inside a desalination plant, on the island of Naxos, Greece, June 20, 2024. Photo: Reuters Sickly crops The water shortage is stark in Naxos, a mountainous island of 20,000 people in one of the most popular - and dry - parts of the Aegean Sea. Tens of thousands of tourists flock to its shores each day during summer. The island's two reservoirs hold 220,000 cubic meters (7.7 million cubic feet) of useable water, a third of last year's level and the equivalent of just a few dozen Olympic swimming pools. Authorities have secured three portable desalination units that will treat sea water to make it safe to drink, and which mayor Lianos said should cover the shortfall for houses, hotels and pools. But farmers will not receive any of the treated water and have to rely on wells that have been contaminated by sea water aquifers. Farmers said that this contamination occurs when the wells are empty enough for the salty water to creep in. Stelios Vathrakokoilis grows Naxos' famous potatoes, which are loved in Greece for their buttery taste and are protected from imitation under EU rules. His yields will be more than halved this year because of the salty irrigation water, he said. "It's a big disappointment because we humans didn't succeed in anticipating that climate change would knock on our doors too," he said as a handful of workers harvested potatoes nearby. A farmer waters his animals, on the island of Naxos, Greece, June 20, 2024. Photo: Reuters Short supply Countries across the Mediterranean, including Spain and Italy, are looking for ways to back up their water supplies by using desalination, but suppliers said units were in short supply this summer due to soaring demand. Even in Thasos, which is much greener than rocky Naxos, officials said they wanted to buy a unit for future use. Greece-based manufacturer Sychem could not fully meet customer demand this summer because of a shortage of key components and longer building times, Chief Executive Alexandros Yfantis said. New units should be available after September. "Since the problem is all around, any temporary equipment has been already leased," Yfantis said. Tourists rest next to a hotel pool, on the island of Naxos, Greece, June 20, 2024. Photo: Reuters A drone view shows the Eggares irrigation dam, on the island of Naxos, Greece, June 20, 2024. Photo: Reuters A drone view shows a part of the Eggares irrigation dam, on the island of Naxos, Greece, June 20, 2024. Photo: Reuters A tourist walks past a desalination plant, on the island of Naxos, Greece, June 20, 2024. Photo: Reuters Tourists visit the Great Door to the Temple of Apollo, known as Portara, on the island of Naxos, Greece, June 20, 2024. Photo: Reuters An express boat service linking Ho Chi Minh Citys Nha Be District and Con Dao Island off the coast of the southern province of Ba Ria - Vung Tau will be suspended from July 29 until further notice, just two months after its launch. Phu Quoc Express JSC, the operator of the service, has informed its partners and customers of the planned suspension on account of its inefficient operation. The company said the distance of over 20 kilometers from central Ho Chi Minh City to Saigon - Hiep Phuoc Port in Nha Be District has discouraged passengers from using the speedboat. Many passengers complained it was hard to find a taxi from the port to downtown Ho Chi Minh City. As a result, the service has not met expectations, and the firm decided to temporarily stop it. The speedboat service was launched on May 13 to meet the growing travel demand and enhance the connectivity between the city and the southeastern provinces. The Thang Long boat, which is over 77 meters long and nearly 9.5 meters wide, is used to carry passengers on the express boat route. It is able to transport up to 1,017 passengers and can travel at 35 nautical miles per hour, featuring modern equipment and ensuring ultimate safety for the passengers. A speedboat ride between Ho Chi Minh City and Con Dao Island lasts for some four hours. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Authorities warn that bluebottles are increasingly appearing on the beaches in Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province, south-central Vietnam during their breeding season, posing potential health risks to beach-goers. Often called bluebottles or the Pacific Man of War, bluebottles are clusters of polyps usually located in the Indian and Pacific oceans, according to health information website WebMD. Bluebottles are not jellyfish. Technically, they are a zooid or a colony of individuals that need each other to live. Bluebottles are easy to spot with their bright blue tentacles and floats. While their floats are generally small, they can have very long tentacles. Usually, huge groups of them wash up on beaches during the high tide. They can also be seen from afar in the water and on the sand. Bluebottle stings are prevalent because they gravitate toward shallower waters where people are more likely to swim. The bluebottle uses its tentacles to catch, sting, and kill its prey. The venom it uses is a mix of phenols and proteins that are deadly to their prey, but not to humans. Immediately after a person gets stung by a bluebottle, they will feel an intense jolt of pain. This pain will increase if the tentacles move around the persons body or the area that has been stung is touched. The pain can last for minutes to hours, depending on each particular situation. It will then wane to a softer pain and later go away entirely. The victim will also develop an inflammatory reaction in their skin which usually forms in a line. In its warning, the Nha Trang Bay management board also gave instructions on treatment for bluebottle stings, Huynh Binh Thai, head of the board, said on Tuesday. If someone is stung by a bluebottle, immediately remove them from the danger zone and carefully remove tentacles from the skin using clean tools. Avoid touching the affected area to prevent spreading infection. Rinse the sting with vinegar or seawater to neutralize toxins; substances like ammonia, alcohol, or baking soda can also be used, and applying cool compresses to the affected area is beneficial. Never use fresh water, as it can exacerbate toxicity. Additionally, provide pain relievers, antihistamines, and apply corticosteroid creams as needed. For severe symptoms, such as swelling, vomiting, abdominal pain, or low blood pressure, seek urgent medical attention at the nearest medical facility. Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Huy, head of the pediatrics department at Khanh Hoa General Hospital, emphasized that bluebottle tentacles contain toxins, causing poisoning upon contact. Mild cases may result in itching and burning skin reactions, while severe cases can lead to anaphylactic shock, which is potentially fatal if not promptly treated, the doctor added. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Ha Tinh Provinces General Hospital in north-central Vietnam confirmed on Wednesday that it had transferred a 56-year-old resident to the Hanoi-based National Hospital for Tropical Diseases for testing and further treatment, after he was diagnosed with probable diphtheria. The patient, P.H.D., returned to Ha Tinh from the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak five days earlier before developing several symptoms, such as a sore throat, neck pain, and itchy eyes, according to his medical record. He was taken to a grassroots-level hospital and then Ha Tinh Provinces General Hospital, where he was given an ear, nose, and throat endoscopy and was diagnosed with suspected diphtheria. He was sent to the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases for diphtheria testing and treatment at around 4:30 pm on Tuesday. His test results are expected to be available on Wednesday, Nguyen Chi Thanh, director of the Ha Tinh Center for Disease Control (CDC), told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper the same day. The Ha Tinh CDC already started tracing people who had come into close contact with the suspected case. If he tests positive for diphtheria, those in such close contact with him will be quarantined and take preventive medicines, the local health official said. A few days ago, two 18-year-old girls hailing from Nghe An Province, north-central Vietnam were hospitalized and quarantined following the death of their roommate who contracted diphtheria. According to health authorities, diphtheria is an acute bacterial infection that affects the throat and the upper respiratory tract including the nose, nasopharynx, nasal cavity, and pharynx. This contagious disease can lead to outbreaks and can be fatal. Diphtheria patients without proper treatment can die in 6-10 days. To avoid catching the disease, people are advised to keep personal hygiene, wash hands regularly with soap, cover their mouth when coughing or sneezing, refrain from having contact with those with probable or confirmed diphtheria, and keep their homes and the surroundings clean and airy. People with suspected diphtheria should seek medical attention as soon as possible. Diphtheria is not only treatable but also preventable with vaccines. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Filming has commenced on a second season of Shipwreck Hunters Australia for Disney+. The next six-part documentary series follows a team of ocean adventurers who uncover new stories of incredible survivals and devastating tragedies along Western Australias Treasure Coast. Season 2 picks up with the returning crew made up of Captain Ash Sutton, Andre Rerekura, Nush Freedman, Johnny Debnam and Ryan Chatfield, supported by expert maritime archaeologists from the Western Australian Museum. Shipwreck Hunters Australia season 2 is a co-production between VAM Media, Terra Australis Productions and Barking Mad Productions. Were thrilled Shipwreck Hunters Australia is returning to Disney+ for another season, The Walt Disney Company Australia and New Zealand Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Kylie Watson-Wheeler, said. The series captivated our audiences worldwide with its mystery, adventure and exploration. Were excited for this next chapter of shipwreck tales and to see even more breathtaking underwater filmmaking in a place of such rare and true natural beauty. Screen Australia COO Grainne Brunsdon said: Were excited to support the highly anticipated second season of Shipwreck Hunters Australia. This talented team of ocean adventurers continue to explore enchanting local histories, highlighting First Nations perspectives and captivating wreckage events. Set against Western Australias majestic coastline, the series will appeal to adventure enthusiasts worldwide. Screenwest CEO Rikki Lea Bestall said: Were excited to see Shipwreck Hunters Australia return to Western Australia for another instalment. This series shines a global spotlight on our unique coastal landscape as well as our incredible local creatives and crew we cant wait to tune into Disney+ and see what the Shipwreck team discover this time! Shipwreck Hunters Australia Director and Producer Brendan Hutchens said: Our team is absolutely pumped to be setting off on more ocean adventures looking for shipwrecks, uncovering remarkable stories and exploring the spectacular West Australian coast that we love. We are so grateful for the support we have received from Disney, our funding partners and especially from people of all ages and from all over the world who loved season one! So good. Executive Producer Steve Bibb added: Were thrilled to embark on a second season of Shipwreck Hunters Australia. We thank the team at The Walt Disney Company Australia and New Zealand, and all our funding partners, for backing us to deliver more exciting Australian stories to audiences here and around the world. The adrenaline-pumping expeditions take viewers into the oceans depths to investigate maritime mysteries, experience unique and stunning ocean wildlife, and explore Western Australias coastline, which is believed to be the home of more than 1,600 shipwrecks. Season 1 included the incredible historic maritime discovery of the 111-year-old sunken Finnish-owned sailing ship Glenbank and a 1942 Flying Boat sunk during World War 2 in Broome. The series will be directed and produced by VAM Medias Brendan Hutchens (Shipwreck Hunters Australia, Drawn to Water, Walking Man), together with series producer Russell Vines (Ningaloo: Australias Other Great Reef, The Waler: Australias Great War Horse, Australias Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Mosley) and executive producer Steve Bibb (Shipwreck Hunters Australia, Inside the Sydney Opera House, Matildas: The World at Our Feet). Shipwreck Hunters Australia season 2 has received major production investment from Screen Australia. Financed with support from Screenwest, Lotterywest, and the Western Australian Regional Screen Fund and Tourism Western Australia. The Western Australian Museum is also supporting. Developed with the assistance of Screen Australia, Screenwest and Lotterywest. EXCLUSIVE Its official. The Block is indeed heading to Daylesford in 2025. Plans to film in Daylesford, originally plotted for 2024, had to be shelved after they were thwarted by an objection, leading to a last minute scramble to secure the Philip Island site. Theres obviously been a lot of speculation Executive Producer Julian Cress told TV Tonight. So after a lot of wrangling back and forth, the plans that we submitted to the council in Daylesford were finally approved a couple of months ago, so weve decided were going to go there. Were going to do the show that we wanted to do (last) year and were really excited about because, we think off the back of this kind of seachange series that were doing in Phillip Island, Daylesford is just a beautiful country town. Its the number one weekend destination in Australia. So again, I think its a town that will resonate with a lot of viewers and as a backdrop for The Block, its absolutely stunning and the community there is wonderful. While The Block can sometimes attract noisy press for inevitable building disruptions, production is also welcomed by local communities for the business it brings, speed for which it completes and increase in property values. Cress is confident Daylesford will be another feather in The Blocks cap. Its a great community in Daylesford and while we had one person objecting to us coming to make the show, 10,000 other people thought it was a great idea. So Im not worried about any pushback. I think we can do something that will really celebrate that community in the same way that I believe weve done for the people of Phillip Island, he said. The 1 Raglan Street site, about 90 mins north west of Melbourne, is vacant of houses and sits opposite a Mitre 10 store -a sponsor of the show- and the renowned Farmers Arms Hotel. Its directly opposite a hardware store, and directly opposite what I think is Australias best country pub, The Farmers Arms. So Scott Cam and I will be very happy to be making the show there! The food is magnificent! Not a bad spot to go and have lunch when youre working hard on a renovation site! he added. Season Two of Foxtel / Binge drama The Twelve embarks on its own story, under an all-female writing team. Belgiums De Twaalf, the basis for season one, only screened 10 episodes. Now applying the format elsewhere it shifts to Western Australia and its own originally-created saga. Sam Neill as lawyer Brett Colby is the sole returning cast member (given Marta Dusseldorps Prosecutor would not logically cross state lines). Colby is joined by colleague Meredith Nelson-Moore (Frances OConnor) in what becomes a joint murder trial in the small town of Tunkwell. For this the legal fraternity are on the circuit, taking justice to rural communities, if still managing to find a rather imposing courtroom in existence. But Tunkwell has lost one of its most polarising local characters, battleaxe farmer Bernice Price (Kris McQuade) whose body has been found at the bottom of a well. As the story progresses, it will be clear she had made her share of local enemies, allowing -presumably- for plenty of red herrings. On trial are her daughter Sasha (Amy Mathews) and charismatic farmhand Patrick (Erroll Shand) who have been getting hot n heavy in the hay bales when Bernice wasnt looking. Prosecuting this season, in place of Dusseldorp, is ambitious barrister Jude (Fayssal Bazzi). Like the first season, the trial plays out in the present with flashback scenes providing insight to the TV obseervers, if not necessarily the jury. Once again there is a diverse range of characters including Thelma (Tasma Walton), currently looking after her ageing mother, local footy legend Joey (Josh McKenzie), waitress Stefanie (Claudia DAngelo), a flour mill owner battling health issues named Winston (Anthony Brandon Wong) and more. Add to this list a judge, witnesses, town locals, family members, cops, business owners together with facts and flashbacks, theres a lot to take in. But the jigsaw puzzle of the case draws in the viewer and early flashbacks helps to connect us more to the victim than were offered in S1. This means we are more invested from the get-go and care more about the outcome. Being on circuit also allows for more cross-pollination between the legal eagles, and its clear Brett and Meredith are sharing more than just notes when not at the bar. Or at least the legal bar. What happens on circuit, stays on circuit Justice St. John Ross. Yet there are also secrets between the jurors and part of the lure of the series is watching how personal prejudice and expectations sway arguments around the juror table. Producers are to be applauded for casting so diversely once again, while audiences have the pleasure of watching some fine ensemble performances and character actors. Anthony Brandon Wong and Josh McKenzie are amongst early standouts. They contrast with the elegant performances by Sam Neill and Frances OConnor, whose refined delivery and attention to process, reminds us they are from well-bred stock -until the moments they too are defined by passion. The Twelve also includes cameos from Anthony Hayes, Shareena Clanton and the final performance by Keith Robinson as the trial judge. Written by Sarah L. Walker, Anchuli Felicia King, Anya Beyersdorf and Anna Barnes, and directed by Stevie Cruz-Martin, Mark Joffe, Ben Young and Emma Jackson, The Twelve holds up a mirror to bad choices when flawed people are pressed to make the right ones. The Twelve screens 8:30pm Thursday on Showcase / Binge. By John Irish, Sabine Siebold and Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States will start deploying longer range missiles in Germany in 2026, the two countries announced at a meeting of the NATO alliance on Tuesday, a major step aimed at countering what the allies say is a growing threat Russia poses to Europe. The decision will send Germany the most potent U.S. weapons to be based on the European continent since the Cold War, in a clear warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin. A U.S.-German statement said the "episodic deployments" were in preparation for longer-term stationing in Europe of capabilities that would include SM-6, Tomahawk and developmental hypersonic weapons with greater range. The move would have been banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1987 but that collapsed in 2019. "We cannot discount the possibility of an attack against Allies sovereignty and territorial integrity," the allies said in a communique released on Wednesday. More aid was headed to Ukraine as the allies bolster Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. A communique said the allies intend to provide Ukraine with at least 40 billion euros ($43.28 billion) in military aid within the next year, but stopped short of the multi-year commitment NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had sought. The document also strengthened past NATO language on China, calling it a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war effort in Ukraine and saying Beijing continues to pose systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security. Stoltenberg told reporters it was the first time the 32 allies had jointly labeled China a decisive enabler of Russias war and called it an important message. He said NATO was not an organization that imposes sanctions, but added: At the end of the day, this will be for individual allies to make decisions, but I think the message we send from NATO from this summit is very clear. The communique called on China to cease material and political support for Russia's war effort and expressed concern about China's space capabilities, referenced rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal, and urged Beijing to engage in strategic risk reduction talks. NATO, 'THE GREATEST ALLIANCE" Biden hosted NATO partners and allies at a dinner at the White House on Wednesday to celebrate what he called "the greatest alliance the world has ever known." Biden said in a speech on Tuesday that NATO was "stronger than it's ever been" and that Ukraine can and will stop Russian leader Putin "with our full, collective support." On Wednesday, he said he was pleased all NATO members were pledging to expand their industrial bases and to develop plans for defense production at home. "We cannot allow the alliance to fall behind," Biden said. "We can and will defend every inch of NATO territory and we'll do it together." At the White House, Biden and new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had a back-and-forth exchange and shared laughs and congratulations over England's 2-1 win over the Netherlands in the Euro 2024 soccer tournament. Biden described the United Kingdom as the "knot" tying together the trans-Atlantic NATO alliance and said that the two countries must continue to cooperate. He also met at the summit venue with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and Finland's President Alexander Stubb of Finland to discuss strengthening their trilateral cooperation on economic issues and on defense industrial production. Biden, 81, has faced questions about his fitness for office after fumbling a June 27 debate and hopes the NATO spotlight will help him stage a comeback of sorts, surrounded by allied leaders he has spent his three years in office cultivating. However, November's U.S. presidential election could presage a sharp change in Washington's support for Ukraine and NATO. Republican candidate Donald Trump, 78, has questioned the amount of aid given to Ukraine to fight Russia's invasion and U.S. support for allies generally. TRUMP WEIGHS IN On Wednesday, Trump told Fox News Radio he would not pull the U.S. out of NATO but reiterated that he wanted members to pay more. "I just want them to pay their bills. We're protecting Europe. They take advantage of us very badly," he said. Trump had pressed congressional Republicans to stall military aid for Ukraine before later reversing course. Uncertainty about U.S. leadership has unsettled NATO allies. "If theres one thing that Im concerned about with the United States, its the polarization of the political climate - it is, I have to admit, very toxic," Finland's Stubb told reporters. While Biden has been seeking to rally allies and domestic support, several high-ranking European officials met a top foreign policy adviser to Trump during the summit. The communique says the alliance will continue to support Ukraine "on its irreversible path to full Euro-atlantic integration, including NATO membership". That language had been a major point of contention among the allies. ($1 = 0.9243 euros) (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Sabine Siebold, David Brunnstrom, John Irish, Idrees Ali and Daphne Psalkedakis, Andrew Gray, Steve Holland, Andrea Shalal and Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Don Durfee, Michael Perry, Peter Graff, Timothy Heritage, Cynthia Osterman, Deepa Babington and Michael Perry) By Simon Lewis WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Hungary sees a potential return of former U.S. President Donald Trump as a "chance for peace" in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday as a NATO summit began with most allies hoping to send a firm message of support for Kyiv. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Moscow last week on what he called a peace mission, but the initiative angered some of Budapest's fellow NATO allies, who said the trip handed legitimacy to Russian President Vladimir Putin's claims to Ukrainian territory seized since Russia's 2022 invasion. The meeting of NATO leaders takes place in Washington as U.S. President Joe Biden is under pressure after a disastrous June 27 debate that boosted Trump in the polls ahead of a Nov. 5 election and raised concerns among allies about how the Republican candidate would approach the alliance and the war in Ukraine. In an interview with Reuters in Washington, Szijjarto said Hungary's aim was to bring an end to the war through peace talks involving both Russia and Ukraine. "I think a very strong external impact must take place in order to make them negotiate at least," Szijjarto said. "Who has the chance for that in the upcoming period? That's only President Trump if he is elected." Orban's recent meetings with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had demonstrated the vast distance separating the two sides, and other Western leaders were unwilling or unable to bring them together, he said. Trump has said he would quickly end the war. He has not offered a detailed plan to achieve that, but Reuters reported last month that advisers to the former president had presented him with a plan to end the war in part by conditioning any future aid to Kyiv on Ukraine joining peace talks. "We see a chance for peace if President Trump is winning. We see a chance for good Hungary-U.S. relationships if President Trump is winning," he said. Hungary's position on Ukraine contrasts to other NATO leaders, including Biden, who say Kyiv must decide when to negotiate an end to the war. Ukraine says it will not give up any territory in a peace deal. Szijjarto earlier met Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who said any initiatives to end the war should not be based on Russian narratives, Kuleba said on X. Szijjarto said Hungary does not see Russia as a threat to NATO or European Union members, saying Russia's leaders are "rational" and would not risk a direct conflict with the West. 'POLITICAL MISTAKE' Orban's visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Bejing, where he also discussed the war in Ukraine, have been sharply criticized by European Union members who said it gave the impression he was acting on behalf of the bloc. Hungary took over the rotating EU presidency this month. The chair of the European Council, Charles Michel, said that by holding talks with Putin just days after taking on the role, Orban was showcasing a position not shared by the vast majority of the EU's national leaders, who are seeking to isolate Russia. "This was a political mistake," he told reporters in Washington. Szijjarto dismissed the concerns over Hungary's use of the presidency as "bureaucratic" and said the Orban's delegation did not use EU flag during the visit, signaling it was not representing the bloc. The U.S. ambassador in Budapest, David Pressman, said last week that Orban's meeting with Putin and Szijjarto's repeated visits to Moscow were damaging to Hungary's relations with its allies. "This is not about 'peace'; it's about profit," the ambassador said on X. Szijjarto said the comment was "unacceptable" interference from a diplomat. "What the U.S. ambassador is doing in Budapest is political activism...He is the leader of the opposition," he said. NATO allies are expected to sign off on an arms and training package for Ukraine during the summit. Szijjarto said Hungary was not standing in the way of NATO approving the plan but would not participate in it. "We see a huge escalatory risk there," he said. "Looking at this war from a couple hours' drive or looking at this war from a perspective of a 10-hour flight. That's a different aspect, believe me," he said, citing the plight of Ukrainian refugees in Hungary as well as ethnic Hungarians inside Ukraine. (Reporting by Simon Lewis; additional reporting by Anita Komuves and Andrew Gray; Editing by Angus MacSwan) By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Hatem Khaled CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -An Israeli missile slammed into a tent encampment in southern Gaza on Tuesday just as displaced people had gathered there to watch a football match at a school, eyewitnesses said on Wednesday. At least 29 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the strike, according to Palestinian officials, which took place as spectators crowded the school grounds in Abassan east of Khan Younis and hawkers sold smoothies and biscuits. "They were watching a football match. There were injuries and martyrs. I witnessed this...people thrown around and body parts scattered, blood," a young woman, Ghazzal Nasser, told Reuters in Abassan. "Everything was normal. People were playing, others were buying and selling (food and drinks). There was no sound of planes or anything," she said. The Israeli military said it was reviewing reports that civilians were harmed. It said the incident occurred when it struck with a "precise munition" a Hamas fighter who took part in the Oct. 7 raid on Israel that triggered the war. The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it knew that a football match was going on when the strike was ordered. At the nearby Nasser Hospital, dozens of Palestinians bid farewell to loved ones before funerals and burials. "The schools were overcrowded with people and the street was full too, suddenly a missile hit and destroyed the whole place," said Asmaa Qudeih, who lost some relatives in the attack. "Bodies flew in the wind, body parts flew, I don't know how to describe it," she said. Israeli forces continued to press their offensive in north and central Gaza on Wednesday, and deepened their incursion into two Gaza City districts, carrying out house-to-house searches. The militant group Hamas said the renewed Israeli campaign threatened to derail efforts to secure a ceasefire in the nine-month-old war, with talks to resume in Doha on Wednesday. In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. Middle East envoy Brett McGurk he was committed to securing a Gaza ceasefire deal provided Israel's red lines were respected, his office said. Hamas has accepted a key part of a U.S. plan aimed at ending the nine-month-old war, dropping a demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before signing the agreement. Netanyahu has insisted the deal must not prevent Israel from resuming fighting until its war objectives are met. At the outset of the war, he pledged to annihilate Hamas. EVACUATION Leaflets were dropped on Gaza City on Wednesday, this time with a map marking "safe routes" for the evacuation of the whole city, not just certain districts. The Israeli leaflets urge civilians to head south to the central Gaza Strip. The city, home to more than a quarter of Gaza's population before the war, was destroyed by an Israeli assault in the first weeks of fighting last year, but hundreds of thousands of Gazans are believed to have returned to the ruins in recent months. Israeli forces patrolled the main road to the coast, snipers commandeered rooftops of some high-rise buildings still standing, and tanks were stationed inside the headquarters of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, residents said. The Israeli military said in a statement its forces were continuing operations in Gaza City against militants of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad, who they said had operated from inside the UNRWA facilities, using them as a base for attacks. The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had received dozens of desperate calls from residents in Gaza City trapped in their homes but teams were unable to reach them because of the intensity of the bombing. "The information coming from Gaza City shows residents are living through tragic conditions. (Israeli) occupation forces continue to hit residential districts, and displace people from their homes and refuge shelters," it said in a statement. The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said fighters fought with Israeli forces operating in the area with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs, and sometimes in close-range combat. The Israeli military announced that one of its soldiers was killed in fighting on Tuesday in central Gaza. It has published the names of 681 military personnel killed in the Oct. 7 attacks and subsequent fighting. Israel's Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said on Wednesday that 60% of the fighters of Hamas had been killed or wounded as a result of the military offensive in Gaza. In the central Gaza camp of Al-Nuseirat, medics said six Palestinians, including children, were killed in an airstrike on a house, while another airstrike killed two people and wounded several others in Khan Younis. More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, health officials in the Hamas-run territory said. The war erupted when militants led by Hamas infiltrated southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Hatem Khaled in Abassan and Khan Younis; Additional reporting by Christian Lowe in Jerusalem and Clauda Tanios and Tala Ramadan in Dubai;Writing by Ros RussellEditing by Peter Graff) MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Wednesday that its military was still working to create a "buffer zone" in Ukraine's Kharkiv region but this would take time. President Vladimir Putin said in May that Russia was creating a buffer to protect its border regions, especially Belgorod which lies adjacent to Kharkiv, from Ukrainian attacks. "Of course, the realisation of this task is time-consuming, it takes time. Work in this direction is under way," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked how long it would take for Russia to guarantee the security of Belgorod. Later on Wednesday, Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said one person was killed and seven more wounded in Ukrainian shelling of the Russian border town of Shebekino. According to Gladkov, three multi-storey residential buildings, several commercial facilities, an industrial enterprise and 20 vehicles were damaged in the incident. Shebekino and the wider Belgorod region have come under frequent attack by Ukrainian shells and drones in the course of the war which is now well into its third year. (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) By Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON (Reuters) - British Defence Secretary John Healey said on Wednesday other NATO members would need to go beyond the alliance's target of committing 2% of GDP to military spending and that Europe would have to do more of the "heavy lifting" whatever the outcome of November's U.S. election. Healey was speaking on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington a day after new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to fulfill a campaign pledge to increase U.K. defense spending to 2.5% of annual GDP, but stressed he would only do so when the country could afford it and after a review of defense strategy. The focus on NATO military outlays has sharpened amid Russia's war in Ukraine, and leaders meeting this week were putting together a new aid package for Kyiv. Republican candidate Donald Trump has suggested that should he win a second term against Democratic President Joe Biden in the election, he would not defend NATO members if they did not meet the defense spending target of 2% of their GDP. He has also questioned the amount of aid given to Ukraine. An analysis of U.K. defense spending published in April by the previous Conservative government showed NATO-qualifying defense spending was expected to be 2.32% of GDP in the 2024-2025 financial year. In 2014, the alliance agreed to a 2% target to ensure military readiness. This year, 23 of the 32 member countries will hit that level. Healey told reporters: "Any assessment of the growing threats that we face and the global instability suggest that all NATO nations are going to need to do more than simply 2%." "As European nations, we need to recognize that for America, whatever the result of the presidential election, the priority is increasingly going to shift to the Indo-Pacific, so that the European nations in NATO must do more of the heavy lifting," he said. "The U.S. should rightly look to European nations to pick up some of the financial burden, but also the leadership role responsibilities as well," Healey added. Asked whether his government was worried about NATO's future if Trump returns to office, Healey said no matter who was in the White House over the past 75 years, the view has been "a strong, stable, democratic Europe is in America's best interest". "Our British government will work well and work hard with whoever the American people decide to elect," he said. Starmer, whose Labour Party won a landslide victory last week, has pledged to maintain the Conservatives' support for Ukraine. (Reporting By Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Angus MacSwan) By Andriy Perun LVIV, Ukraine (Reuters) - A weeping crowd of mourners gathered to bury Svitlana Lukianchyk on a baking hot Wednesday in Ukraine's western city of Lviv after the young doctor was killed by a Russian missile strike that hit a children's hospital earlier this week. "She was a golden child, I don't understand how this could have happened, how the Lord could have taken her away," her grandmother, Alla Zherebetska, told Reuters through tears outside a church in central Lviv. The 30-year-old doctor, who grew up in Lviv, was killed when a Russian missile smashed into one of the buildings of Ukraine's largest children's hospital in the capital Kyiv on Monday. Two people were killed and dozens wounded. "I have no idea why. I don't have the strength for this. She was supposed to live a long life and just got married," her grandmother said. Lukianchyk was one of 44 people to be killed in airstrikes across Ukraine that day. The attack on Kyiv, which killed 33, was one of the largest carried out on the Ukrainian capital throughout the 28-month-old war with Russia, officials said. The capital, which had previously felt well-defended by an array of Western air defence systems, reeled from the shock of losing so many people in a single attack. Kyiv flew its flags at half mast for a day of mourning on Tuesday. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed retaliation against Russia for the attack. Russia said, without providing evidence, that a Ukrainian air defence missile struck the hospital. It has repeatedly denied targeting civilians during the war. Kyiv has said it has "unequivocal" evidence that the hospital took a direct hit from a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile and video footage obtained by Reuters showed a missile flying at high speed directly towards the hospital. The United Nations monitoring mission in Ukraine said it had established a high probability that the hospital had taken a direct hit from a Russian missile. Maria Prishchepa, a school friend of Lukianchyk, said that she had spoken on the phone with a man who was giving her first aid after the strike on Monday. He said Lukianchyk had been taking children to a bomb shelter, but did not make it in herself. "She didn't make it on time. The blast wave was very strong," said Prishchepa. (Reporting by Andriy Perun; writing by Max Hunder; editing by Tom Balmforth and Mark Heinrich) Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Divorced Muslim women entitled to maintenance from former husband: SC In a judgement likely to read as interference in the Muslim Personal Law, the Supreme Court of India Wednesday ruled that divorced Muslim women are entitled to maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Wednesday July 10, 2024 3:38 PM , ummid.com with inputs from Agencies New Delhi: In a judgement likely to read as interference in the Muslim Personal Law, the Supreme Court of India Wednesday ruled that divorced Muslim women are entitled to maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The SC bench, comprising of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Augustine George Masih, also said that the law for seeking maintenance applies to all married women, irrespective of their religion. The latest SC judgement vis-a-vis maintenance to divorced Muslim women came in response to a petition filed by Mohammad Abdus Samad. M Abdus Samad, a resident of Telangana, had challenged in the Supreme Court of India lower courts order asking him to pay maintenance to his divorced wife. A family court had ordered M Abdus Samad to pay a monthly amount of INR 20,000 to his divorced wife. He however challenged the order in Telangana High Court. The high court upheld the family courts verdict but lowered the maintenance amount to INR 10,000. Dismissing Abdus Samads petition the Supreme Court asked him to pay his divorced wife as directed by the Telangana High Court. "We are hereby dismissing the criminal appeal with the major conclusion that Section 125 would be applicable to all women and not just married women, the apex court said adding maintenance is not a matter of charity but a fundamental right of married women. A similar judgement pronounced by the Supreme Court of India in 1985 was overruled by an act of the Parliament. The case is famous as Shah Bano case and the consequent Parliament act overruling the SC Judgement in the Shah Bano Case is Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. As per this law, a Muslim woman can seek maintenance only during iddat -- 90 days after the divorce. Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. HA NOI Insurance companies and banks expect the State Bank of Vietnam to issue detailed guidance on implementing the insurance agency regulation under the new Law on Credit Institutions, because they are confused about the policy. According to the insurers and banks, Article 113 of the revised Law on Credit Institutions, which took effect from July 1 this year, regulates commercial banks are allowed to carry out insurance agency activities in accordance with regulations of the Law on Insurance Business and the State Bank of Vietnam. It means that the Law on Credit Institutions allows commercial banks to consult and offer insurance products to customers. However, Clause 5 of Article 15 of the Law on Credit Institutions prohibits banks from linking the sale of non-mandatory insurance products with the provision of banking products or services in any form. The regulation has been issued as despite unwillingness, some bank customers were forced to buy insurance products introduced by bank staff to get bank loans. Therefore, the new policy is aimed at stopping the bancassurance cross-selling mechanisms. According to industry insiders, not only banks and insurance companies, but also management agencies at localities have different understandings of the laws Clause 5 of Article 15, especially the concept of linking. While some said the regulation means banks are not allowed to force bank borrowers to buy insurance products, others thought the regulation means when making loan applications for customers, banks are not allowed to make any advice or offer insurance products. According to a leader of an insurance company, who declined to be named, his company has insurance consulting desks at many bank branches and it sells insurance products independently from banks products. However, after consultation with both State management agencies and legal experts, his company still cannot find whether it is legal or not if it advises and offers customers with insurance products and customers are free to choose whether to buy the insurance products or not. Due to the confusion, some banks have temporarily suspended the sale of insurance products, causing their revenue to decline sharply since the law took effect. A representative of BIC Insurance Company said that in the first two days of July 2024 alone, the company's insurance sales through banks decreased by up to 50 per cent. The main reason is that many bank branches temporarily stopped selling insurance and were waiting for specific guidance. The insurance industry recorded double-digit premium revenue growth in about ten consecutive years before 2023. However, insurance premium revenue declined in 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 following an insurance crisis, during which consumer trust was said to be at an all-time low after numerous scandals broke out. The crisis has negatively impacted the entire insurance industry and has forced management authorities to take action to rectify the sector. Since the crisis, regulatory agencies and insurance companies have taken measures to reassess the situation, considering it an opportunity to cleanse and readjust the market after a period of rapid growth. The focus is on developing the market sustainably, transparently and safely. Solutions have been proposed by the Ministry of Finances Insurance Supervisory Authority (ISA) to enhance market transparency and safeguard the rights of insurance participants. According to Pham Thu Phuong, deputy director of the ISA, the department last year completed the inspection of five insurance companies, including three life insurance companies and two non-life insurance companies. The inspections found that insurance companies violated regulations on supervising and managing insurance agents. Accounting of insurance companies were also still negligent, Phuong said, adding the ISA carefully reviewed the violations and imposed fines. In 2024, according to the approved plan, the ISA will inspect six insurance companies. VNS HA NOI Markets continued their upward momentum, ending higher on Tuesday, primarily driven by gains in rubber and banking stocks. This marked the ninth consecutive positive session. On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the VN-Index rose by 10.15 points, or 0.79 per cent, to 1,293.71 points. Market breadth was positive, with 226 gainers and 102 losers. Liquidity on the southern bourse reached its highest in 11 trading sessions, increasing by 9.7 per cent to nearly VN22 trillion (US$857.4 million), with a trading volume of 858 million shares. The VN30-Index, which tracks the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, increased by 5.95 points, or 0.45 per cent, to 1,321.78 points. In the VN30 basket, 25 stocks rose while five fell. Data from vietstock.vn indicated that Vietnam Rubber Group - Joint Stock Company (GVR) was the biggest gainer, rising over 4.11 per cent and contributing more than 1.5 points to the VN-Index. Banking stocks also performed well on Tuesday. Leading the sector was the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (VCB), which increased by 1.03 per cent, contributing over 1.2 points to the VN-Index. Other notable gainers included the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), which rose by 1.06 per cent, Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPB), up by 1.84 per cent and HCM City Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank (HDB), up by 3.48 per cent. Despite the rallies, some large stocks faced sell-offs. FPT Corporation (FPT) decreased by 1.5 per cent, Vietnam Airlines JSC (HVN) fell by 2.95 per cent and Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VRE) lost 0.93 per cent. On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index also closed higher, rising by 1.03 per cent to 245.66 points. During the session, shares worth more than VN1.6 trillion, equivalent to a trading volume of 69 million shares, were traded on the northern market. Foreign investors continued their net selling spree, offloading over VN463 billion on the HoSE. VNS TOKYO A seminar in Tokyo on Tuesday brought together Vietnamese and Japanese stakeholders to explore opportunities for collaboration in the burgeoning semiconductor industry. The event, hosted by the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan in collaboration with FPT Corporation, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation of Japan, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the National Innovation Centre of Vietnam (NIC), and the People's Committee of Viet Nam's Hai Phong city, drew around 300 guests, including representatives from leading Vietnamese and Japanese semiconductor firms. In his opening speech, Vietnamese Ambassador Pham Quang Hieu highlighted Viet Nam's ongoing efforts to establish a robust semiconductor industry. These efforts include developing a dedicated industry strategy, a comprehensive workforce development plan, and attractive incentive packages to lure leading international semiconductor manufacturers and design companies, including those from Japan. He announced Viet Nam's plan to train 50,000 qualified engineers for the semiconductor sector by 2030. At the same time, Viet Nam is fostering a national semiconductor ecosystem that will incorporate government bodies, businesses, universities, research institutions, financial institutions and startup incubators. Building on the strong and enduring relationship between the two nations over the past five decades, Viet Nam wants to collaborate with Japanese organisations and firms in promoting investment, facilitating technology transfer, fostering labour exchange, and deepening integration within the global semiconductor supply chain, he said. Shimizu Eiji, head of the Semiconductor Strategy Department at METI, called on both sides to seize opportunities and adopt specific solutions that leverage the strengths of each country, contributing to the future success of semiconductor cooperation. The event also featured presentations on the current state and future prospects of the semiconductor industry in Asia, the potential for Viet Nam-Japan partnership in the field, and Viet Nam's strategic advantages in the global semiconductor value chain. VNS HA NOI Viet Nam's wood industry has firmly established itself on the international market, with an annual export value exceeding US$10 billion. This positions Viet Nam as the world's fifth-largest exporter of wood and wooden products, second in Asia, and leading in Southeast Asia. However Nguyen Quoc Khanh, Chairman of the Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of HCM City (HAWA), emphasised the importance of maintaining this position and learning from other industries. He highlighted the example of the textile industry, where Viet Nam was surpassed by Bangladesh due to slower adoption of sustainable practices. With rapid urbanisation, Viet Nam sees 70-80 million square metres of new housing constructed annually, increasing the demand for interior and exterior furniture. One crucial goal is to enhance the competitiveness of Vietnamese wood, furniture, and handicraft enterprises compared to foreign-invested companies. This involves shifting from Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) to Original Design Manufacturing (ODM) to increase the value of 'Made in Viet Nam' products. Nguyen Quoc Khanh also pointed out that many Vietnamese companies currently operate as OEMs, manufacturing for large foreign brands. Enhancing national brand recognition is a challenge, but also a significant opportunity for domestic enterprises. HAWA representatives noted that Viet Nam's wood and wood product exports are growing, driven by positive signals from markets like the US and the EU. The US remains the largest market, accounting for 55 per cent of Viet Nam's wood export value. Staying abreast of the latest trends in the US market is crucial for Vietnamese companies to meet consumer preferences. Despite not being in peak season, Viet Nam exports $1.2-1.4 billion worth of wood products monthly. With current growth rates, the peak shopping season later in the year could see monthly exports reach $1.6-1.8 billion, aiming for a total of $17.5 billion in 2024. The 'Decoding Business' talk show on July 8 in Ha Noi brought together architects, designers and experts from various fields to discuss topics around the business of wood production, such as communication, branding, business, and technology in the furniture and construction sectors. This event is part of the Vietnam Interior & Build Expo (VIBE), which will take place from October 2-5 at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center (SECC). The VIBE expo will feature 45 product groups across eight categories related to interior, construction and digital services, showcasing equipment, furniture, construction materials and smart technology solutions. VNS HA NOI Agriculture ministers of Viet Nam and the Philippines have agreed to establish a rice industry alliance between the two countries and upgrade the trade relationship into an investment partnership in the rice industry. During a talk on Tuesday in Ha Noi Le Minh Hoan, Vietnamese Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that the Philippines is the largest rice export of Viet Nam, accounting for 35-40 per cent of the countrys total exports. The ministrys statistics showed that Viet Nams rice export totalled 4.68 million tonnes in the first half of this year, worth US$2.98 billion, an increase of 104 per cent in volume and 32 per cent in value over the same period last year. Viet Nams rice industry has been making significant transformations in production, domestic consumption and exports in the context of rapid changing global market and consumer tastes as well as climate change, Hoan said. Viet Nam has been focusing on improving quality, reducing costs, adapting to climate change, reducing emissions, ensuring the national food security, expanding export markets and building sustainable rice brands in the international markets, he said. Hoan said rice production plays a core role in ensuring the national and regional food security, as well as promoting economic development, ensuring social stability and leveraging the position of Viet Nam in the international arena. With the sustainable agriculture and rural development strategy by 2030 with a vision to 2045, Viet Nam is aiming at green and low-emission agriculture value chain. The Philippine's Secretary of Agriculture Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr, in response, said that the country has imported 2.17 million tonnes of rice in the first half of this year, of which 1.59 tonnes were from Viet Nam. Viet Nam has been the largest rice supplier to the Philippines for dozens of years. Last week, the Department of Agriculture of the Philippines visited Cuu Long (Mekong) River Delta to study the 1-million-ha rice cultivation model. Addressing challenges that the Philippines agriculture industry is facing, including low productivity and scattered production, which are weighing on food security, Francisco asked Viet Nam to establish a rice industry alliance between the two countries. This will promote the rice trade relationship into an investment partnership. He said that the Philippines will study the opportunities to import machinery and technologies from Viet Nam to apply in rice cultivation in the Philippines. The first thing would be for the country to import fertilisers from Viet Nam. Agreeing with Francisco, Hoan said that the investment partnership in the rice industry will allow Viet Nam to send appropriate technologies to optimise the rice production chain of the Philippines, instead of exporting just milled rice. Not only rice, Hoan also urged greater cooperation in the fishery sector. VNS HCM CITY The International Footwear & Leather Products Exhibition and the 24th Shoes & Leather Vietnam officially opened on July 10 in HCM City. The two exhibitions feature around 800 businesses from 21 countries, such as the UK, India, Korea, the US, China and Viet Nam. Viet Nam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association - the organiser - said that the exhibition is an exemplary event of the countrys leather and footwear industry, solidifying itself as a trustworthy forum for leading manufacturers and suppliers in the industry. Businesses exhibit machinery, raw materials and other products in the footwear and leather industry, such as equipment for processing garments, weaving, tanning machines, items for dyeing and finishing and other chemicals. There are also technical conferences on advancements in production, as well as new trends and developments in the industry, providing useful knowledge for businesses. Nguyen uc Thuan, chairman of the association, said that the events, organised annually, aim to help domestic and foreign businesses network and find trade partners. The exhibition, held at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Centre until July 12, is expected to attract over 15,000 visitors. VNS HA NOI Viet Nam imported 766,000 tonnes of cotton worth US$1.53 billion in the first half of this year, representing a rise of 21.6 per cent in volume and 9 per cent in value over the same period last year, according to updates from the General Statistics Office. Import prices averaged $1,995.5 per tonne during the reviewed period. Viet Nam mainly imports cotton from 11 markets, including Brazil (with a value of $443 million, up 111 per cent), the US ($400 million, down 18 per cent), Australia ($196 million, down 23 per cent) and India ($85 million, up 116 per cent). Cotton imports from Pakistan saw the strongest increase by 3,380 per cent to 5,186 tonnes in the first five months of this year, with revenues increasing from $0.2 million to $9.1 million in the period. Meanwhile, imports from the Republic of Korea dropped by 72 per cent to 324 tonnes. Cotton imported from China had the highest average price of $3,832.3 per tonne, followed by the Republic of Korea with $2,179 per tonne, the US $2,098 per tonne and Australia $2,092 per tonne. Cotton imported from Indonesia had the lowest price at $1,360 per tonne. Viet Nam is the third largest cotton importer in the world with an import volume of around 1.5 million tonnes per year, serving mainly its textile industry. Viet Nam is the sixth largest textile and the third largest garment producer in the world, after China and Bangladesh. According to the Viet Nam Textile and Apparel Association, domestic cotton production meets only 1 per cent of the demand for the sector, fibre 30 per cent and fabric 20 per cent. The International Cotton Advisory Committee forecasts that the global cotton prices will be on upward trend over 2024, due to recovering demand and drops in output. VNS HCM CITY Manulife Vietnam has celebrated its 25th anniversary, marking a quarter-century of development and success in serving customers across Viet Nam. As a leading global financial corporation headquartered in Canada, Manulife entered the Vietnamese market in 1999, becoming the first foreign-invested life insurance business licensed to operate in the country. Currently, the company holds the highest total investment capital in the insurance market, reaching nearly US$1 billion. Serving a portfolio of nearly 1.5 million customers across the country, Manulife Vietnam has paid more than VN38.29 trillion in health, medical, and maturity benefits to customers over the past 25 years, providing necessary financial support in times of need. On its 25th anniversary, Manulife Vietnam reaffirmed its long-term commitment to community health through its latest CSR campaign called 'Living Clean-Smart-Green.' The 'Living Clean-Smart-Green' campaign is designed to raise awareness about healthy living through three actions including Eat Clean, Live Smart, and Stay Green, aiming to protect digestive health and prevent stomach cancer. As part of the campaign, Manulife has collaborated with the Vietnam Young Physicians Association to organise free general health checkups and HP tests for low-income people in Ha Noi on July 6 and HCM City on July 13. Additionally, Manulife Vietnam will widely disseminate messages on HP infection and stomach cancer prevention through public media to increase awareness. For customers, Manulife Vietnam will organise seminars featuring leading experts and doctors who will share tips and solutions for preventing stomach cancer as well as HP bacterial infections. Stomach cancer is one of the five most common cancers today, with an alarmingly increasing rate among the youth. Concerningly, the bacterium Helicobacter Pylori (HP), a major cause of stomach cancer, is still not fully recognised by many Vietnamese people. According to data from the Ministry of Health, up to 70 per cent of Vietnamese people are infected with HP bacteria, and over 80 per cent of stomach cancer cases are related to this bacterium. "We are incredibly proud to launch the 'Live Clean-Smart-Green' campaign as an integrated part of Manulife's 25th anniversary in Viet Nam," Tina Nguyen, CEO of Manulife Vietnam said at a press conference in HCM City on Tuesday. "This campaign not only highlights the importance of digestive health but also underscores Manulife's dedication to protecting and enhancing the quality of life for Vietnamese people," she said. Nguyen Huu Tu, Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Young Doctors Association, said: "The infection rate of HP in Viet Nam is alarming, yet there is a lack of effective communication campaigns to raise public awareness about the dangers of this bacterium." "We highly commend Manulife Vietnam's initiative and the practical value they aim to bring to the community through this campaign. We are delighted to partner with Manulife. We believe that through the free health checks and HP screenings, public awareness about digestive disease prevention, particularly stomach cancer, will be significantly improved," he said. For his part, Ngo Trung Dung, Deputy General Secretary of the Vietnam Insurance Association, said that Manulife Vietnam's continuous innovation efforts, ranging from customer service enhancements and sales process improvements to insurance product initiatives, have actively contributed to the growth of the insurance industry and strengthened customer trust. "The 'Living Clean-Smart-Green' CSR campaign is another significant step forward, demonstrating Manulife's commitment to raising awareness and improving community health," he said. At the event, Dung also shared insights into the Vietnamese life insurance market and its recent developments. According to data from the Vietnam Insurance Association, in the first six months of 2024, the total assets of the life insurance industry reached an estimated VN819.56 trillion, marking a 9.6 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2023. Total investment was estimated at over VN721.28 trillion, reflecting a yearly rise of 10 per cent. Total reserves hit over VN600 trillion, up 13.2 per cent year-on-year. During the period, the total owners' equity of life insurance businesses was estimated to reach above VN159.88 trillion, an increase of 7.4 per cent year-on-year. Notably, total insurance benefit payments topped VN30.96 trillion, a significant 35 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2023. For Manulife Vietnam alone, total claim payments in the first half of 2024 amounted to over VN3.8 trillion. Previously, to mark 25 years of protecting Vietnamese people, Manulife Vietnam launched a customer appreciation programme called Manulife-25 years: better together with Viet Nam, offering exciting gifts to their customers. With a focus on continual development and innovation, Manulife Vietnam has implemented numerous initiatives since the beginning of 2024 to enhance transparency and professionalism in the life insurance industry. These initiatives include the implementation of the sales verification and supervision process M-Pro, sale illustration public tool, new policy kit, and M-PA application for agents. Improving call centre services, shortening TAT for the claims process to 1.6 days, upgrading transaction offices to the green standards, and launching the Manulife Vietnam application are also included. Looking ahead, Manulife is committed to further innovation by introducing an anytime, anywhere Customer Support Service and the Medallia Customer Feedback (tNPS) system. VNS The Ministry of Finance has just announced a draft amendment to the Special Consumption Tax Law. This draft proposes imposing an 80 per cent special consumption tax on spirits with an alcohol content of 20 degrees or more and on beer by 2026, with gradual increases each year, reaching 100 per cent by 2030. For spirits with an alcohol content below 20 degrees, the Ministry proposes a 50 per cent tax from 2026, rising to a maximum of 70 per cent by 2030. Nguyen Ngoc Tu, a tax expert, former Editor-in-Chief of the Tax Journal and currently a lecturer at the Hanoi University of Business, talks to Sai gon giai phong (Liberated Saigon) about the matter. The draft amendment to the Special Consumption Tax Law recently announced by the Ministry of Finance includes provisions for increasing the Special Consumption Tax on alcohol, beer and sugary soft drinks, which has attracted public attention. What are your thoughts on this draft? The main objective of this tax is to regulate consumer behaviour and manage goods and services that are not essential and are not encouraged for use due to environmental, public health and social welfare reasons. Currently, the Special Consumption Tax on alcohol, beer and alcoholic beverages is already between 60 and 65 per cent. Looking at these figures compared to the tax rates, Viet Nam still has room to continue increasing the Special Consumption Tax. However, beyond international practices and theoretical bases, each country sets its Special Consumption Tax based on its own management conditions, socio-economic conditions, income levels, and specific consumption habits and customs. The goal is to avoid a policy 'shock'. For alcohol and beer in Viet Nam, besides tax policies, there have also been a series of other policies affecting these products, such as the Law on Road Traffic Safety and Order, the Law on Prevention and Control of Alcohol, Beer, and Tobacco Harms and regulations on blood alcohol content for drivers. Consumer behaviour towards alcohol and beer has gradually decreased, indicating that we have achieved the intended purpose. In a recent petition to the government, the Viet Nam Beer, Alcohol, and Beverage Association (VBA) suggested that authorities consider extending the roadmap for increasing the Special Consumption Tax. Do you think the proposed roadmap in the draft is reasonable? In my opinion, the issue that needs attention is the impact on production and business enterprises. What effects will they face and how will these impacts affect state tax revenue? I believe the Special Consumption Tax policy should consider a longer-term roadmap than what the Ministry of Finance's draft proposes and should take into account various impacts. If there is a need to increase the tax, there should be a long-term plan, with each step spanning at least 10 years. For instance, when currently building the Special Consumption Tax, the minimum roadmap for each step should extend to 2035 or 2045. This is to avoid 'jerky' policy changes that make it difficult for businesses to adapt. Additionally, sometimes in Viet Nam, policy amendments are made without sufficient consideration, resulting in policies that, when implemented, do not achieve the desired effectiveness. When a tax policy is applied, it impacts not only consumers but also businesses. Each business has its own policies and development plans, and some have recently invested in production lines and machinery with life cycles of 5-10 years. When tax policies change, businesses may not be able to adapt quickly and will certainly incur losses. Therefore, tax policies need to be planned with an appropriate roadmap. Looking back at the 12 times the Special Consumption Tax on alcohol, beer, and alcoholic beverages has been reformed since 1990, we can see this tax's regulatory nature, characteristics, and complexity. There have been times of intense debate. The reason is that the benefits of the three main stakeholders - the state (management agencies), businesses (producers, distributors) and the public (consumers) - were not harmonised. When the drafting agency sets tax calculation methods, tax rates and policies, they must ensure consistency to provide stability for businesses in their investment and production operations. Changes in policies undoubtedly affect the business community, so it is essential to avoid excessive risks when adjusting policies. As you mentioned, the important aspect of a policy (including tax policy) is to consider and carefully review its feasibility and effectiveness after enactment. Some policies may seem reasonable in theory but fail to achieve the desired results in practice. Can you elaborate? Policy formulation must aim for harmony. Although Viet Nam's economy has grown significantly, it remains a developing economy with relatively low per capita income despite improvements. Businesses are still small-scale and have low competitiveness. In summary, although domestic businesses have made progress, their competitive capacity is still limited. Therefore, any tax policy must be carefully considered to avoid adding undue burdens on both the public and businesses. Tax policy formulation must meticulously consider the impacts and feasibility. Increasing the Special Consumption Tax requires synchronised tax administration. For example, if the Special Consumption Tax on alcohol and beer is raised to 100 per cent, how will tax administration for these products be managed, given that traditional alcohol production remains unregulated? This scenario could lead to tax inequity. Moreover, controlling alcohol and beer smuggling becomes crucial. Higher Special Consumption Tax increases product prices, making these goods highly profitable targets for smuggling. Can we effectively control this situation? If not, the policy could backfire, with smuggled alcohol and beer flooding the market while the state fails to collect taxes from these products. VNS GENEVA A Vietnamese delegation led by Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Bui The Duy is attending the 65th of Series of Meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), taking place in Geneva, Switzerland from Tuesday to next Wednesday. The event sees a record number of over 1,400 participants, including nearly 20 ministers and deputies ministers from 191 member countries and observers. Addressing the event, Duy congratulated WIPO on its outstanding achievements related to institution building work, specifically the adoption of the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge in May and the upcoming convening of a diplomatic conference to ratify the Design Law Treaty (DLT) next November. In his speech, Duy also emphasised that Viet Nam has issued the National IP Strategy until 2030, which mobilises all stakeholders in society to engage in IP activities with businesses playing a central role. He also announced that for the first time, Viet Nam has successfully built and published the 2023 local innovation index report. On the sidelines of event, Duy had a working session with WIPO Director General Daren Tang, during which he briefed on the major policies of the Vietnamese Party and State on science, technology, innovation and intellectual property. Thanking WIPO for its valuable support to his ministry in calculating the local innovation index, developing the National Intellectual Property Strategy and other important projects, he hoped that in the coming time, the organisation will expand cooperation with Viet Nam to other areas such as studies on the relationship between IP protection and innovations created by artificial intelligence (AI). For his part, the WIPO leader congratulated Viet Nam on its recent socio-economic development achievements, and appreciated Viet Nam's steady advancement in the global innovation index ranking. He also hailed Viet Nam as one of the few countries in the world which have published the local innovation index report. He affirmed that WIPO is ready to cooperate with Viet Nam in new areas that the Vietnamese official has mentioned. VNS HA NOI President To Lam is to head on his first overseas trip since taking office, on a state visit to Laos and Cambodia. At the invitation of Thongloun Sisoulith, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and President of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and King Norodom Sihamoni of Cambodia, President Lam will set off on a state visit to Laos and Cambodia from July 11-13. In anticipation of this visit, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs o Hung Viet gave insights into the visit's significance and the bilateral relations between Viet Nam and these neighbouring countries. Viet said this visit marks President To Lams first overseas trip since taking office, underscoring its substantial importance. It sends a clear message from the Party and State of Viet Nam, emphasising their highest priority on fostering the great friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation with Laos, as well as boosting fine neighbourly relations, traditional friendship, and comprehensive, sustainable and long-term cooperation with Cambodia. The visit also highlights the strong bonds and solidarity among Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia. The three countries share geographical closeness along with historical and cultural ties, originating from the Indochinese Communist Party. The peoples of these nations have historically united, sacrificing for national liberation, unification and development. The visit aims to implement high-level agreements, particularly the outcomes of annual meetings between the Politburo of the Communist Party of Viet Nam and the Politburo of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party, and the Standing Committee of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP). It is expected to mark a new development phase in Viet Nam-Laos and Viet Nam-Cambodia relations, fostering equality, mutual benefit, effective cooperation and respect for each others interests. This will contribute to strengthening strategic trust, deepening bilateral relations and enhancing solidarity among Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia and the ASEAN bloc. Viet Nam's relationships with Laos and Cambodia are developing positively and comprehensively, built on enhanced trust and connection, Viet said. Party-to-party cooperation plays a pivotal role in guiding the robust development of these relationships. Defence and security cooperation between Viet Nam and Laos, and Viet Nam and Cambodia, is becoming a strong pillar, significantly contributing to maintaining stability, security and social order in each country, particularly along the borders. The three countries adhere to the principle of not allowing hostile forces to use their territory to conduct actions against each other. Effective cooperation mechanisms include annual meetings between the Ministers of Public Security, annual meetings between the Ministers of Defence of the three nations, and joint rescue and disaster relief exercises among their armies. Economic, investment and trade cooperation continue to progress positively and effectively, with dynamic economic cooperation in border regions. This enhances connectivity among the three countries and contributes to improving the livelihoods of people in border areas between Viet Nam and Laos and Viet Nam and Cambodia. Regular meetings of the Vietnam-Laos Intergovernmental Committee ensure timely exchanges and solutions to enhance cooperation in key areas. Viet Nam remains one of the largest investors and trading partners of Laos, with 255 valid investment projects totaling US$5.5 billion. Viet Nam is currently the third largest trading partner of Cambodia and its largest within ASEAN, with 205 valid investment projects in Cambodia amounting to $2.94 billion. Laos and Cambodia are among the top destinations for Vietnamese investment abroad, out of 79 countries and territories. Educational and training cooperation receives special attention from the leaderships of all three countries. Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia prioritise disseminating extensive messages, especially to the younger generation, about the historical value of solidarity, traditional friendship and mutual sacrifice. Viet Nam focuses on supporting Laos and Cambodia in improving the quality of their work force. The number of exchange students between Viet Nam and Laos and Cambodia is increasing, with higher quality, contributing positively to each countrys development and fostering cultural exchange, understanding and interaction between their peoples. Cooperation in transportation, culture, society, tourism and science and technology is thriving. Significant progress has been made in resolving legal documentation for people of Vietnamese origin in Cambodia, laying the foundation for better conditions for the Vietnamese community living and working there. Recently, King Norodom Sihamoni signed a decree granting citizenship to three individuals. During the visit, President To Lam is expected to hold talks and meetings with all senior leaders of Laos and Cambodia. This provides a valuable opportunity for the senior leaders of both countries to review high-level agreements, key areas of cooperation, and set directions for future collaboration. The visit is anticipated to create new momentum, aiming to deepen and strengthen the great friendship, special solidarity, and comprehensive cooperation between Viet Nam and Laos, and the good neighborly relations, traditional friendship, comprehensive and sustainable cooperation between Viet Nam and Cambodia. It will also promote cooperation within multilateral frameworks such as ASEAN, the Mekong sub-regional cooperation mechanisms, and the United Nations. Speaking to the Vietnam News Agency (VNA)s resident correspondents in Vientiane ahead of the visit, Vietnamese Ambassador to Laos Nguyen Ba Hung said in order to continue to maintain and promote the special ties between the two countries, they should continue to stand side-by-side and strengthen fruitful collaboration, while focusing on major priorities. First, they should continue to make bilateral political relations deeper by effectively implementing high-level agreements, enhancing the efficiency of cooperation mechanisms between senior leaders of the two sides, and improving the common perception on the significance of the Vietnam-Laos special ties among Vietnamese and Lao people, the diplomat underlined. Then, it is necessary to accelerate bilateral economic cooperation by expanding and upgrading the East-West transport system and deploying synchronous cooperation mechanisms and special policies to optimise resources and provide the best conditions for businesses and people of the two sides in business and investment activities, while settling obstacles via breakthrough measures, promoting new cooperation models such as the Viet Nam-Laos Plus 1 cooperation, thus making full use of the potential and strengths of the two countries and optimising partners capacity in terms of capital, experience and technology, he said, adding that the two sides should bring into full play free trade agreements to further increase the efficiency of their trade, market expansion and investment attraction activities. Thirdly, it is crucial to concentrate on the quality and efficiency of human resources development to meet each countrys development requirements and contribute to fostering the close bond and solidarity between the two countries' people. VNS HA NOI President To Lams upcoming State visit to Laos is a vivid demonstration of the special friendship and comprehensive cooperation between Laos and Viet Nam, stated Lao Ambassador to Viet Nam Khamphao Ernthavanh. Speaking to Viet Nam News Agency (VNA) ahead of the visit, the ambassador said that President Lams choosing Laos as the destination for his first trip abroad as the State leader of Viet Nam, shows the special attention and priority that the nation attaches to Laos. Sharing close neighbourliness, a long-standing historical relationship and mutual support during different historical periods, leaders and people of Laos and Viet Nam have worked together to reinforce their great friendship and special solidarity initiated by President Ho Chi Minh, President Kaysone Phomvihane and President Souphanouvong. The two countries have supported each other throughout their national construction and defence process, she noted. During President Lams visit, the two sides will review their cooperation over the years, seeking measures to remove difficulties and obstacles facing their partnership and sketching out future collaboration orientations towards the purpose of further enhancing their comprehensive cooperation, the diplomat said. Noting that the regional and international situation is increasingly complicated, the ambassador underlined that Laos and Viet Nam need to strengthen their great relationship, special friendship and comprehensive cooperation and support each other to overcome all difficulties and thrive together. Regarding economic cooperation between the two countries over the years, Ambassador Khamphao Ernthavanh held that the two sides have worked hard together to promote partnership in trade, investment, agriculture and infrastructure development, while two-way trade has expanded. Many large-scale Vietnamese-funded projects in Laos, especially in the fields of energy, mining and agriculture, have not only contributed to the economic growth of Laos, but also created many employment opportunities for locals, she said. The diplomat said that leaders of the two countries have repeatedly emphasised the need to strengthen connectivity between the two economies and coordination in growth orientations for the interests of both peoples. She highlighted the active coordination among leaders of the Party, State, localities, organisations and businesses of Viet Nam and Laos in realising agreements reached between senior leaders of the two sides in economy and trade as well as implementing Vietnamese-invested projects in Laos. In order to beef up bilateral economic and trade cooperation, the two sides should focus on strengthening and promoting the efficiency of economic-trade cooperation mechanisms from central to local levels, she said. Ministries and sectors of the two countries should concentrate on implementing signed economic-trade cooperation plans, create favourable conditions for investors and businesses from both sides to cooperate, exchange experience and explore each others strengths for stronger partnership, the diplomat stressed. As for measures to promote cooperation among Laos, Viet Nam and ASEAN countries in the ASEAN Year 2024 spirit of 'Enhancing Connectivity and Resilience' Ambassador Khamphao Ernthavanh said that Viet Nam plays an important role in strengthening solidarity and centrality of ASEAN. President Lam once affirmed that ASEAN is a family of close neighbours, said the ambassador, holding that the Vietnamese leaders first State visit to Laos, the ASEAN Chair for 2024, will contribute to further deepen the special friendship and comprehensive between Viet Nam and Laos as well as between Viet Nam, Laos and ASEAN member countries. ASEAN will continue to strive for regional peace, stability and security. Dialogue and cooperation are essential in solving multidimensional, complex and unpredictable challenges. Laos, as Chair of ASEAN, aims to optimise ASEAN's potential for peace, security, stability and shared prosperity, stated the diplomat. President Lam's visit to Laos will emphasise the importance of ASEAN's solidarity, self-reliance and regional cooperation, in which Viet Nam plays an important role, the Lao ambassador concluded. VNS HA NOI Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Wednesday ordered the army to improve combat readiness and power to firmly protect the Fatherland's sovereignty, while attending the national political military conference. The conference, held by the Central Military Commission and the Ministry of National Defence, aimed to review six-month performance of the military tasks and launch new tasks for the second half of the year. Analysing the global and regional situation, especially challenges in the coming time, Chinh said the more difficult and complicated the situation is, the tougher tasks the defence force will take on. Reiterating five determinations, five initiatives mentioned by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the recent Central Military Commissions conference, Chinh asked the army to follow three nos. Do not be subjective, negligent, or invigilant. Do not stay strategically passive or surprised, especially towards strategic areas, important partners, dangerous objects and hostile forces. Do not get confused, or be late in handling emerging and newly arising issues. He ordered the force to improve the quality of training, education and drills as well as organisational, commanding and cooperation capacity. He said the army must coordinate with the Ministry of Public Security and relevant forces to maintain security, order and fight against crimes. The defence force has been told to improve the law enforcement effectiveness at sea, especially in preventing foreign ships from encroaching on the country's islands, combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing to contribute to the early withdrawal of the EC's IUU yellow card. The force must also play a key role in natural disaster prevention and control, incident response and search and rescue, he said. The army must act as a pioneer in innovation while promoting research, creating breakthroughs, and mastering science and technology in designing and manufacturing technical weapons and equipment. He expressed his wish that the army will be a pioneer in developing the digital economy, green economy and circular economy. The Prime Minister directed the army to research policies to attract and utilise talents, take care of the material and spiritual lives of officers and soldiers, especially those in remote, border and island areas. At the same time, the entire army must proactively, comprehensively and effectively implement international integration and follow four no's defence policy: no partaking in military alliances, no siding with one country to act against another, no foreign military bases in the Vietnamese territory or using Viet Nam as leverage to counteract other countries, and no using force or threatening to use force in international relations. VNS HA NOI The prospects of working abroad are broadening with a number of Eastern European nations expressing interest in hiring Vietnamese staff. Pham Viet Huong, Deputy Director of the Overseas Labour Management Department at the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said that alongside established markets like Japan, Taiwan (China) and South Korea, there is growing demand for Vietnamese labour in new markets such as Romania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Serbia. Vietnamese workers are currently employed abroad in diverse sectors such as mechanical engineering, textiles, footwear, electronics assembly, construction, agriculture, fisheries, elderly care, healthcare and household assistance. They enjoy favourable working and living conditions, including welfare benefits. Income levels for these workers are relatively stable and range from US$1,200 to $1,600 per month in markets like Japan and South Korea, $800 to $1,200 per month in Taiwan (China) and European countries, $700 to $1,000 per month for skilled workers and $500 to $600 per month for unskilled workers in the Middle East and Africa. Huong noted that Japan has consistently been the top destination for Vietnamese workers in recent years across multiple sectors. In June 2024, Viet Nam and Japan signed an agreement to increase the number of technical intern trainees, with plans for 40 trainees this year and 500 over the next five years. This agreement also broadens recruitment categories and conditions, particularly aiming to boost employment in large hospitals. Vietnamese workers in Japan typically comprise up to 50 per cent of the total annual overseas workforce. By 2023, Viet Nam had surpassed China to become Japan's largest group of foreign workers, numbering over 518,360 individuals - a significant 63.6 per cent increase over five years. In South Korea, this year's Employment Permit System (EPS) has seen a surge in Vietnamese applicants, hitting a record of nearly 45,000, three times the intake quota and the highest in its 20-year history. The Korean language proficiency test was held in four provinces and cities of Ha Noi, Thanh Hoa, a Nang and HCM City from March to June 2024. Currently, over 600,000 Vietnamese workers are employed in 50 countries and territories, contributing around $4 billion annually. Huong said that the Department of Overseas Labour Management plans to explore new markets and expand into Europe in the near future due to favourable working conditions and income opportunities. Several countries in this region currently have a demand for Vietnamese workers, particularly in agriculture. According to a report from the Overseas Labour Management Department, in the first six months of 2024, a total of 78,640 Vietnamese workers were employed abroad, reaching 62.91 per cent of the year's target. Japan led the way by accepting 40,596 Vietnamese workers, followed by Taiwan (China) with 27,837 workers, South Korea with 5,582, China with 1,080 and various other markets. In June 2024 alone, more than 12,780 Vietnamese workers were employed abroad. VNS HA NOI - The Project for Investment and Development of Primary Healthcare Services System, funded by loans and grants from the World Bank (WB), has been operating since 2020. The project holds significant importance for the healthcare sector, particularly for the primary healthcare network in thirteen economically and socially disadvantaged provinces. In an interview with the VNA, Phan Le Thu Hang, Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Finance at the Ministry of Health and Director of the Central Project Management Unit, provided insights into the project's achievements so far. Could you provide details on the progress of the Project for Investment and Development of Primary Healthcare Services System being implemented in the 13 provinces? The project is designed to enhance the quality and efficiency of healthcare services in the primary healthcare network of 13 provinces. It is being executed at the central level and in 13 provinces, including Ha Giang, Bac Kan, Son La, Yen Bai, Hoa Binh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Quang Ngai, Ninh Thuan, Tra Vinh, Hau Giang, Bac Lieu, and Long An. The project adopts a comprehensive investment strategy: upgrading infrastructure, renewing medical equipment, training healthcare personnel, improving health education communication activities, supporting the completion of policy frameworks related to primary healthcare and piloting innovative primary healthcare service delivery models. The project is expected to enhance the capacity of the primary healthcare network, thereby ensuring health, increasing life expectancy and improving the quality of life for people in difficult areas. Regarding funding scale, the Investment in and Development of Primary Healthcare Services System project is one of the largest investment projects in the healthcare sector, with a total budget of approximately US$120 million. This reflects the healthcare sector's strategy of prioritising investment resources for providing essential healthcare services in challenging areas. On a governance level, this is considered one of the first projects in the healthcare sector implemented under a new governance model that maximises local autonomy, whereby the project provinces act as the main investors for the sub-projects implemented in their areas. This governance model promises to have a long-term positive impact on the project management capacity of localities, which previously relied heavily on central-level management structures. Could you share the initial results of the project in these thirteen provinces? The project was implemented on May 18, 2020, coinciding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, posing significant challenges in the first two years. Despite this, the project has received decisive direction from the Ministry of Health, the efforts of the thirteen provincial People's Committees, the commitment of the Central Project Management Unit and provincial project management boards and enthusiastic support from donors to promote activities aimed at achieving the best results. After more than four years of implementation, the project has achieved expected results. The latest evaluation by the Ministry of Health and the World Bank in May 2024 shows that despite serious objective challenges such as the negative impacts of COVID-19 and changes in ODA disbursement and project management policies of the Government, the project is still rated as meeting requirements. The World Bank recognises this project as the best-evaluated among all healthcare projects funded by the World Bank in Viet Nam. In terms of investment, 412 construction projects, including upgraded or newly built health stations and medical centres in 109 districts/towns of the thirteen project provinces, have been completed and put into use, reaching over 86 per cent of the planned projects. The remaining projects are under construction and are expected to be fully completed by November 2024. Most provinces have also signed contracts to deliver essential equipment to local health stations, thus supplementing the stations with equipment for professional tasks. How has the project specifically implemented capacity-building for primary healthcare staff? The capacity-building component of the project, using grant aid from the World Bank and co-financiers, aims to address the capacity shortfall of primary healthcare staff. The project's training focuses on enhancing service delivery and managing priority health issues at the primary level, such as hypertension, diabetes, cervical cancer, maternal and child care, tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, acupuncture and rehabilitation. To ensure sustainable capacity building, the project develops a comprehensive training plan with a two-step approach: training provincial trainers (TOT) and training primary healthcare staff. This method ensures that after training, provincial trainers can conduct capacity-building sessions for all commune-level staff in the thirteen project provinces. The coverage rate of trained commune health staff is high. Provincial trainers, besides training commune-level staff, also continue to supervise and support them after the project ends to ensure sustainable capacity maintenance. To date, 1,857 provincial trainers and district supervisors have been trained (96 per cent of the total training plan) and 24,346 commune health staff have been trained (85.2 per cent of the training needs of the provinces). Regarding initiatives to improve the quality of commune-level healthcare services, the project has designed and piloted a Quality Scorecard for health stations to self-assess service quality, enabling them to plan improvements for unmet service criteria. Both the World Bank and the Ministry of Health have evaluated this intervention as a technical highlight. In terms of coverage, by the end of 2024, the percentage of health stations applying the scorecard is expected to reach 56 per cent, more than double the initial plan, and in terms of policy impact, due to the outstanding results in the thirteen project provinces, the Ministry of Health has decided to conduct an in-depth evaluation of this initiative to provide a scientific basis for scaling it up. The World Bank recognises this project as the best-evaluated among all healthcare projects funded by the World Bank in Viet Nam. Could you share lessons learned that other projects can learn from? After four years of project implementation amidst many unfavourable objective factors, the project has drawn several valuable practical lessons, not only for the remaining phase of the project but also for other programmes and projects in the healthcare sector. Firstly, the success of the project depends on the governance capacity of the participating localities, acting as the main investors for the sub-projects in their areas. Specifically, it involves the direction and coordination capacity of the provincial People's Committees, the coordination capacity among relevant provincial departments (Departments of Finance, Construction, Health, Provincial Project Management Boards), and the management capacity of the Provincial Project Management Boards. Provinces need to persistently pursue the long-term goals set by the project but be flexible in their implementation solutions to adapt to changing contexts and environments. Regular and continuous coordination, support, guidance and supervision by the Central Project Management Unit and the World Bank for the project provinces is crucial, especially given the relatively limited project management capacity of many provinces. Notably, the quality checklist model applied to commune health stations, designed by Central Project Management Unit experts, and the management and treatment model for non-communicable diseases at commune health stations with technical support from units have been evaluated as technical highlights of the project. VNS HA NOI Professor Nguyen Quang Tuan, 57, former director of Bach Mai Hospital and Ha Noi Heart Hospital, who went to prison on charge of corruption in medical bidding, is working as an intern at Ha Noi-based Huu Nghi Hospital to obtain a new professional certification. Sources told local media that after receiving the application, the hospital facilitated Tuans internship in accordance with regulations. The sources also said that Tuan must start from scratch like a fresh medical graduate to qualify for professional certification. Tuan started his internship on July 1. As per regulations, Tuan will need to intern for 12 months. After completing the internship period, Tuan can proceed with applying for a new professional certification. Once he gets that he can resume medical practice and prescription-writing, the sources said. Tuan is reportedly working in the internal medicine department of the hospital. Regulations stipulate that doctors must intern for nine months in internal medicine departments and three months in the intensive care. Previously, Tuan was sentenced to three years in prison (including the detention period) for 'violating regulations on bidding, causing serious consequences' on April 2023 by the Peoples Court of Ha Noi. In 2012, Tuan was appointed as Director of Ha Noi Heart Hospital. The indictment stated that since 2015, Tuan allowed two companies -- Hoang Nga Medical Equipment JSC and Kim Hoa Phat Biotechnology JSC -- to send medical supplies to be used in advance by the hospital. After extensive bidding procedures were legitimately completed, shortened bidding route was designated and Tuan approved the decision for these two companies to win the contract for extensive packages in 2016 and four designated packages in 2017. Tuan and other 11 defendants of the case abused their positions to illegally intervene in bidding activities, the court decided. They carried out many violations from the bidding dossier, unit price, type, quantity of stents and other medical supplies. The defendants at the hospital colluded with the defendants at AIC Viet Nam Valuation and Investment JSC, to issue appraisal certificates at the request and a fixed price of the hospital, which Tuan approved. This ensured that the two companies won the bids and sold medical equipment in violation of the Procurement Law, causing more than VN53.6 billion ($2.2 million) in damages to the hospital and the Social Insurance Fund across all five bidding packages. The court pointed out that it was a very serious case, infringing on the State's economic management order in the bidding for the procurement of medical equipment and supplies, affecting the reputation of the health sector and the hospital, causing insecurity among the people and going against the current fight against corruption. Tuan, who held the highest position at the Ha Noi Heart Hospital, had to bear the highest responsibility for the violations. But the court also determined that Tuan committed the crime while the health sector faced many difficulties and the procurement of medical supplies could not be met in time due to shortcomings of legal regulations. The court also took notice of the fact that Tuan was a leading physician with professional qualifications in the field of cardiology and was highly regarded by both domestic and international experts. The court heard that during his work, he was awarded many noble medals, trained generations of doctors and saved many lives. During the investigation and at the trial, Tuan was sincere, repentant and attempted to remediate the consequences. He already returned $10,000 that he received from Hoang Nga Medical Equipment JSC and VN6 billion ($256,000). These were believed to be extenuating circumstances to mitigate the sentence for him, the court said. Tuan is not prohibited from assuming positions or practising his profession, he can resume practising immediately upon receiving his certification. In 2018, Tuan was recognised by the State Council for Professor of Viet Nam for achieving the standard of Professor in Medicine in 2017 and was awarded the highest prize in the 'Vietnamese Talent Awards' in the medical field for the topic 'Intervention of coronary artery stenosis via stent placement'. In March 2020, Tuan was appointed director of Bach Mai Hospital. At that time, the COVID-19 pandemic was ongoing and the images of doctors from Bach Mai Hospital appeared in almost every region supporting pandemic prevention efforts.VNS Volunteer services for people with disabilities in China see major advancements 15:27, July 10, 2024 By Yi Shuran ( People's Daily Is it possible for the visually impaired to enjoy the pleasure of running? Absolutely! Recently, at the Beijing Olympic Forest Park, a unique sight unfolded as a group of visually impaired individuals ran in the soft morning light, assisted by volunteers. Individuals with visual impairment run at the Beijing Olympic Forest Park, guided by volunteers. (Photo/Zhang Ximeng) The runners and volunteers were connected by a 30-centimeter guide rope. Together, they swung their arms and took steps in unison, progressing from initial awkwardness to perfect coordination, from a slow walk to a brisk run. He Yajun, who has lost all sight, said that with the help of the volunteer guides, he could enjoy the happiness of wind rushing past his ears, which boosted his confidence in better integrating into society. It is not an easy task to help the visually impaired run. Every volunteer guide must go through professional training, during which they run with their eyes covered to understand the experience of those who cannot see. They must stay fully concentrated and always be vigilant of the surroundings, ready to alert the runners of any subtle changes. With their professionalism and dedication, these volunteers have become "clear eyes" for visually impaired runners. By the end of 2023, the number of volunteers for people with disabilities in China has reached nearly 1.89 million. Together, they had provided services to those with impairment 27.76 million times. A doctor pays a home visit to a senior with mobility problem in Mingxing village, Deqing county, Huzhou, east China's Zhejiang province. (People's Daily Online/Ni Lifang) Volunteer services for people with disabilities in China are becoming increasingly professional and diversified, expanding from simple visits and housekeeping to targeted and specialized assistance in recent years. This has further improved the living quality of those with disabilities while also providing them with emotional support, fostering a more inclusive social environment. For instance, in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu province, a volunteer team composed of special education teachers, university students and scholars has been offering customized reading assistance for children with autism at children's rehabilitation centers. In Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong province, volunteers who have received professional training are helping those with mental disabilities master essential life skills. To better meet the aspirations of people with disabilities for a better life, China has adopted a forward-looking approach to align the needs of people with disabilities with available volunteer resources, aiming to further standardize and professionalize volunteer services. In China, many regions have been actively engaging outstanding individuals from all walks of life, especially those with relevant skills, to serve as volunteers, and developing courses and textbooks for volunteer training, so as to improve the quality of volunteer services. A metro staff member helps a passenger in a wheelchair board a train in Beijing. (People's Daily Online/Chen Xiaogen) For example, in central China's Hunan province, regular training sessions have been conducted to offer courses such as "volunteer services and social governance" and "professional and sustainable development of volunteer services." These efforts have effectively improved the professionalism of both volunteer organizations and individuals. Besides, some regions in China have reinforced information sharing to leverage each volunteer's expertise to address the varied needs of people with disabilities. For example, Shanghai has launched a mini program that provides end-to-end communication services between volunteers and people with disabilities to ensure quick response to their personalized demand for mobility, medical assistance, and legal consultation. Moving forward, China will continue to build and improve relevant platforms to enhance data sharing and coordination of volunteer services region-wide and across the country, so as to make volunteer services more professional and reach more people with disabilities. The continuous advancement of volunteer services for people with disabilities in China reveals a deeper sense of social progress and compassion. China remains committed to improving volunteer services for people with disabilities through policy enhancement and increased funding, among others, and will continue to engage more professional and dedicated volunteers to help more people with disabilities enjoy a better life. (Web editor: Chang Sha, Liang Jun) Some of the 164 dining establishments on this years Michelin Guide have reported an increase in customer traffic within just over a week since the release of the list. According to The Royal Pavilion restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, bookings have increased by at least 30 per cent compared to before, especially on weekends, with the restaurant consistently being fully booked. The Royal Pavilion is among seven Michelin-starred restaurants in Vietnam in 2024 and the only restaurant to have been upgraded from Michelin Selected last year. Meanwhile, the Michelin effect has also helped My Hanh Seafood, a popular dining establishment listed as Michelin Selected in the central city of Danang, to consistently be fully booked. Renowned chef Peter Cuong Franklin, owner of Anan Saigon, a restaurant that achieved Michelin Star awards in 2023 and 2024, said that the accolade has significantly increased the number of international patrons within months. Many tourists have made reservations months in advance before their trips to Vietnam even begin. After one year, the number of diners at Anan Saigon has still maintained a growth rate of approximately 20 per cent. We have also made changes and increased the prices of certain dishes on the menu to meet demand and ensure the quality of service for our guests, said Franklin. The Michelin Guide list, released at the end of June, covers 164 dining establishments in Hanoi, Danang, and Ho Chi Minh City, including seven restaurants with one Michelin star, 58 dining establishments with Bib Gourmand awards, and 99 recognised as Michelin Selected. Compared to the 2023 rankings, the number of restaurants has increased in all categories, with no restaurants losing titles or stars. However, no restaurants have received more than one star. Danang is newly added to the list this year, adding to the diversity and richness of choices in the list with its unique local specialities representing central Vietnamese cuisine. Meanwhile, the Michelin Green Star recognises sustainability and environmental practices, and for the first time, it has been awarded in Vietnam to a restaurant in Danang. According to Ha Van Sieu, deputy director of the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism, culinary tourism is a strategic product in Vietnams tourism development strategy, along with heritage tourism. The Michelin Guide will empower and inspire restaurants to strive for excellence and contribute to improving the quality of tourism and culinary products, Sieu said. The tourism industry has received positive feedback from tourists who have experienced Michelin Guide restaurants. The increasing number of certified dining establishments in Vietnam will help our national tourism brand shine and establish a strong position in the global tourism market, he said. The Vietnamese food and beverages market is on a trajectory of success, with expected revenues of over VND655 trillion ($26 billion) and on-year growth of 10.9 per cent in 2024, according to an iPOS.vn report. Rene Marre, a restaurant and hospitality consultant, said that across the world, the Michelin Guide had strongly motivated awarded chefs to maintain their high standards and inspired others to improve their craft. This motivation has led to a higher level of attentiveness, seriousness, and improvement in details among the leading restaurants, significantly lifting the sector. Marre said, Vietnamese restaurants should try to capitalise on their inclusion in prestigious rankings like the Michelin Guide, TimeOut, TasteAtlas, and Asias 50 Best Restaurants by promoting their achievements in advertising, and ensuring consistently high-quality service and innovation. According to the Michelin Guide, Singapore currently leads Southeast Asia with 51 Michelin-starred restaurants, followed by Thailand with 35, Malaysia with five, and Vietnam with four. RMIT lecturer in Tourism and Hospitality Management, Dr. Pham Huong Trang, believes prestigious rankings and awards are important as they make Vietnamese food famous worldwide and attract more tourists. Working towards getting Vietnamese culinary arts recognised as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage could significantly boost the countrys culinary profile. In the long term, establishing a Vietnamese food museum could create a permanent showcase for the countrys rich culinary heritage, serving both as an educational resource and a tourist attraction, Trang said. Not only does the Michelin Guide influence high-end restaurants, but it also brings attention from tourists and consumers to street food in Vietnam. From roadside stalls to small eateries, they have started to receive recognition from international guests thanks to the Michelin Guide. Le Nguyen Hoan Long, president of the World Association of Master Chefs Vietnam Chapter, said, Leveraging international recognition through marketing can attract a wider audience, while enhancing customer experiences with exclusive menus and chef collaborations is vital for sustained success. From 2030, methane emissions caused by flatulence from cattle and pigs will be taxed at a rate of 300 kroner ($43) per tonne of CO2 equivalent. Denmark to introduce world's first livestock carbon tax, illustration photo/ Source: freepik.com This amount will rise to 750 kroner in 2035 under the terms of an agreement reached at the end of June between the government, part of the opposition and representatives of livestock farmers, industry and trade unions. The text still has to be approved by parliament which will examine it after the summer. For Christian Fromberg, a campaign leader at Greenpeace Nordic, the text "offers hope... in a situation where a lot of countries are backpedalling on climate action." "While the carbon tax should have been both higher and implemented sooner, it does marks a significant milestone," he told AFP. At the same time, Fromberg deplored the "missed opportunity" to bring about "a new direction for Danish agriculture". This is despite the fact that its practices remain highly intensive and discharges a lot of nitrogen, which is responsible for deoxygenating the water. Without oxygen, marine flora and fauna disappear. For the Danish Association for Sustainable Agriculture, however, the agreement is "useless". It is "a sad day for agriculture", it said in a press release. "As a farmer, I feel uncomfortable because we are taking part in an uncertain experiment" that could threaten "the security of the food supply", said the association's president Peter Kiaer, recalling New Zealand's abandonment of a similar proposal in the face of farmers protesting. To soften the bill for Danish farmers, the plan proposes a 60 percent tax deduction. The true cost to farmers is expected to be 120 kroner per tonne from 2030, rising to 300 kroner five years later. However, projections by the economy ministry estimate that up to 2,000 jobs could be lost in the sector by 2035 as a result of the agreement. The revenue generated by the tax will be reinvested in the ecological transition of the agricultural industry. Over 60 percent of the country's surface area is devoted to agriculture. In addition, the fallowing of 140,000 hectares (346,000) should help to increase carbon storage in the soil, thereby reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. "We have a great myth in Denmark of being a green frontrunner," said Fromberg. "It is very hard to make the case, that this agreement is historic. It is a continuation of the path of intensification that Danish agriculture has occurred for the last 70 years. And the deal incentivises that Danish agriculture will continue to be the most intensive meat-producing country in the world." Denmark is one of the world's leading exporters of pork, which accounts for almost half of the country's agricultural exports, according to the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. Vietnam sets out to deal with carbon tax and market barriers Vietnams market for carbon credits is likely to heat up, bringing with it various challenges for both regulators and businesses. Exporters anxious over EU carbon tax implementation With the European Union to begin use of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in October, the changes will have a direct impact on four categories of industrial products exported by Vietnam to the EU. Steel makers shape up to contend with new carbon tax Both foreign and local steel businesses are preparing for the upcoming implementation of the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which will take effect in October. With the approval of 93 per cent of deputies, the National Assembly (NA) two weeks ago green-lit the plan to establish a free trade zone (FTZ) in Danang in connection with Lien Chieu Port, with the aim of promoting investment attraction, finance, trade, tourism, and high-quality services. The central city of Danang is set to host the nations first-ever free trade zone The FTZ will include three functional areas covering production, port logistics, and trade services, and will have a defined geographic boundary. The zone will offer investment incentives similar to an economic zone, such as corporate income tax (CIT) incentives and land rental fee exemptions/reductions, along with other benefits. Detailed plans for investment and infrastructure development for the FTZs functional areas will be decentralised to Danang Peoples Committee. Establishing an FTZ is necessary to work in the context Vietnam participates in over 15 FTZs but has none in the country itself. Building FTZs has been an expectation of both state management agencies and the business community for several years, said Phan Huu Thang, former director of the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said, The FTZ is an urgent requirement in the context of the strict competition in attracting foreign investment capital on the globe and in the region. If the investment environment is not good enough, the investors will invest in other countries immediately. The minister referred to the specific example of the success of a pilot FTZ in Shanghai. The Chinese zone was established in 2013 and served as a model that was later successfully duplicated throughout the country. Thanks to the breakthrough policy in reforming the administrative producers, US carmaker Tesla took only 11 months to take its $2 billion factory into operation there. Another investor also took 68 days to build a shopping mall. Danang needs to have a mechanism to carry out such breakthrough activities, said Minister Dung. The Ministry of Planning and Investment is drafting resolutions on specific mechanisms for six economic regions of the country. The prime minister also assigned the ministry to review the policies of 10 localities with specific preferential policies to replicate effective models in other provinces, he added. Many NA deputies have also agreed that Vietnam has better conditions to develop FTZs with a long coastline and plans to boast more than 30 international seaports. This is a favourable point for Danang to pilot such projects, which can then be implemented in localities with similar characteristics such as Haiphong, Thanh Hoa, Quang Ngai, Can Tho, Tra Vinh, Ho Chi Minh City, and many others. Although the preferential policy has been approved, it will not be simple to create a breakthrough in foreign investment to localities, and Danang in particular. Incentives applied for FTZs are similar to those offered for economic zones, such as CIT, and decrease and exemption of land rent fees, Thang said. Thus, the localities must consider this policy as an added tool to contribute to improving the competition capacity along with the effort to reform the administrative procedures and improve the skilled labour force, among others. In addition, many foreign investors want to fund green and high-tech industrial parks, thus Danang should pay attention to this factor when completing the detailed mechanisms to entice effective investment capital, Thang added. Outwith Danang, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Peoples Committee previously laid out plans to develop an FTZ associated with the Cai Mep Ha seaport system. However, the plans have yet to be implemented due to complexities in the infrastructure network. Danang lines up fresh urban areas to match Asian standards Danang is aiming to become an international seaport city and the growth pole of the key economic zone of the central Vietnam and Central Highlands regions. Danang ready to take off in 2024 After Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh approved the planning for the rest of this decade and with a vision to 2050, the central city of Danang is converging many factors to create rapid development momentum. E-cigarette samples are designed to resemble toys and milk cartons to attract children. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi - The number of hospitalisations due to electronic cigarette use has been increasing recently, with most cases involving young patients experiencing acute poisoning. In the first six months of 2024, the Poison Control Centre at Hanois Bach Mai Hospital has treated around 100 cases of e-cigarette poisoning. On June 26, a 20-year-old man in Hanoi was rushed to Bach Mai Hospital after falling into a coma and suffering multiple organ damage due to using e-cigarettes. Around 4 am that day, his family heard strange noises and found him convulsing and unconscious. He was immediately taken to a nearby hospital and then transferred to the Poison Control Centre in a comatose state with respiratory failure, multiple organ damage, brain and heart injuries, severe metabolic acidosis and kidney failure. Tests on the e-cigarette he had used revealed the presence of synthetic cannabis. The young man had a history of using e-cigarettes for many years and had previously been hospitalised for e-cigarette poisoning in 2023. Dr Nguyen Trung Nguyen, Director of the Poison Control Centre said: In the first six months of 2024 alone, the centre received approximately 100 cases of e-cigarette poisoning. In contrast, in the years 2022 and 2023, the centre received nearly 130 cases of hospitalisation for the same reason. Notably, many tests on patients' e-cigarettes have returned positive results for drugs. A survey conducted by the Poison Control Centre on e-cigarette samples used by 120 patients revealed that 16 of these samples tested positive for drugs, accounting for 13.3 per cent. Toxicology tests on some specimens sent to the forensic institute detected drugs including ADB-Butinaca, MDMB-Butinaca, ADB-4en-PINACA, MDMB-4en-PINACA, EDMB-4en-PINACA, THC and PB-22. According to Nguyen, hospitalisations due to the use of new tobacco products have been increasing recently. The widespread use of e-cigarettes is growing rapidly, with most cases involving young patients suffering from acute poisoning after using this type of cigarette. Many people, especially teenagers, believe that e-cigarettes are harmless because they do not contain addictive nicotine. This is a misconception. E-cigarettes pose three major health risks: nicotine, artificial flavorings and drugs. Currently, the treatment costs for acute poisoning cases from drug-laced e-cigarettes range from over 10 million to hundreds of millions of dong," Nguyen said. "E-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and other new types of tobacco are harmful to health. They pave the way for abuse, addiction and exposure to synthetic chemicals, leading to numerous new diseases and health issues. They also complicate the problems associated with traditional tobacco and drugs. Therefore, it is crucial not to evaluate, research or experiment with these products," he warned. Nguyen Thi An, Director of HealthBridge Canada in Vietnam, said that e-cigarette products could now be easily purchased through social media platforms like Facebook and e-commerce sites. She said that with colleagues they had tried ordering e-cigarettes themselves and when the package arrived, it was labelled as 'anti-acne cosmetics' as a way for children to easily deceive their parents and teachers and purchase and use e-cigarettes. "In our research, when we asked why students used e-cigarette products, 60 per cent said they started because their friends shared them. With a product costing only around 10,000 VND, students can easily share and use it in class as it is very affordable. They can even buy these new-generation tobacco products by skipping just one breakfast," she said. An also noted that these products were incredibly easy to purchase, convenient and accessible at any time, even being sold as toys at drink stalls right outside school gates. "Thats why we always emphasise that if new tobacco products are only banned for children under 18, it is a failure. Products labelled as 'milk' are clearly targeting children. Moreover, e-cigarettes with appealing flavours are obviously aimed at children." From an economic perspective, An pointed out that allowing new tobacco products would not provide any economic benefit and, in the long run, negatively impact the health of future generations. A survey showed that in 2019, the rate of new tobacco product use among 13- to 17-year-olds was 2.6 per cent. This rate increased to 3.5 per cent in 2022 and 7 per cent in 2023. Specifically, among 13- to 15-year-olds, the 2023 survey indicated a usage rate of up to 8 per cent. According to reports from nearly 700 healthcare facilities, in 2023 alone, there were over 1,200 hospitalisations due to the use of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. The primary symptoms upon admission were allergies, poisoning and acute lung damage. Experts have proposed an urgent ban on the import, production, distribution and sale of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, as well as banning advertising and promotion of these products in Vietnam. In the long term, regulations from the resolution should be incorporated into the revised Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harm, they said. MoH proposes cigarette tax hike, e-cigarette ban Plans have been proposed to increase tax on tobacco, ban electronic vapes and tighten online advertising of cigarettes. Ministry urges tightening control of e-cigarettes The Ministry of Health (MoH) has demanded enhancing communications along with examination and settlement of the purchase, sale, and trading of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, which havent been licensed in Vietnam.+ Thailand cracks down on e-cigarettes at schools Thailands Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) will impose strict measures, such as searches of personal belongings, to crack down on vapes in schools following a "surge" in the number of students using them. What is the Michelin Guides assessment of Vietnamese cuisine after two years of ranking, and how is this years ranking different from 2023? Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the Michelin Guide Vietnamese cuisine is known for its rich flavours, fresh ingredients, and delicate balance, which continues to impress our inspectors. This years selection reflects both historical and modern culinary approaches, showcasing restaurants that are deeply rooted in tradition as well as those that bring innovative twists to classic dishes. These establishments guarantee authentic culinary experiences at a moderate, attractive price, allowing diners to immerse themselves in the lifestyles of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and the newest addition of Danang through their most important asset food. This year, the Michelin Guide has added Danang to our portfolio, marking an expansion and highlighting the evolving culinary landscape of Vietnam. The addition of Danang broadens the culinary map of Vietnam, showcasing the rich and diverse food culture beyond the established hubs of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. This expansion allows the Michelin Guide to introduce food enthusiasts to new and exciting gastronomic experiences in central Vietnam. And by including Danang, the Michelin Guide acknowledges the unique regional flavours and culinary traditions of Central Vietnam. This region boasts a distinct cuisine that differs from the northern and southern parts of the country, offering diners a chance to explore new tastes and culinary practices. In fact, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Danang each have their own characteristics. The countrys culinary scene sees the vitality, passion, and creativity constantly surprising the market. Not to mention that renowned chefs are increasingly opening restaurants in Vietnam, coupled with a new generation of Vietnamese chefs emerging with a growing customer base. What criteria must restaurants and eateries meet to be selected for the Michelin Guide, and do these criteria differ between countries? To assess the quality of a restaurant, inspectors rely on five criteria: quality of the ingredients, mastery of cooking, harmony of the flavours, expression of the chefs personality in the cuisine, and consistency, both over time and across the entire menu. As the guide has an international presence, it is essential that its selections are made according to the same criteria and the same methodology everywhere in the world. This is what ensures that a star in Hanoi shows the same promise of quality as a star in New York or Berlin. Cuisine is a part of a countrys culture and its presence on a global scale is rich and diverse. What factors influence the Michelin Guide on the cuisine of a country and its people? Cuisine is a fundamental aspect of a countrys culture, reflecting its history, traditions, and the creativity of its people. The Michelin Guide considers five key factors when evaluating restaurants and therefore local culinary scenes. Firstly, we believe that exceptional cuisine begins with exceptional ingredients. We seek out restaurants that source the freshest, most flavourful, and highest quality ingredients, whether they are locally grown, regionally renowned, or internationally sought-after. Secondly, our inspectors always appreciate a chefs skilful command of culinary techniques. This includes both classic and innovative approaches, the ability to elevate simple ingredients, and the precision to execute complex preparations flawlessly. Thirdly, a truly outstanding dish is more than the sum of its parts. We evaluate how chefs balance and harmonise flavours, creating dishes that are both delicious and thought-provoking, where each ingredient complements and enhances the others. Next, we believe that great cuisine tells a story. We look for chefs who express their unique personality, heritage, and creativity through their dishes, resulting in a dining experience that is both distinctive and memorable. Finally, consistency is a hallmark of excellence. We assess not only the quality of individual dishes but also the consistency across the entire menu and over multiple visits, ensuring that diners can expect an exceptional experience every time. How does the Michelin Guide select a restaurant to inspect, and do they have to pay an annual fee or have any obligations to the guide? Restaurant selections are exclusively made by the Michelin Guide inspectors. They consist of an international team, representing more than 25 nationalities, who used to be former professionals of the restaurant and hospitality industry and decided to join Michelin to work as full-time inspectors. To select restaurants, our team of inspectors first conducts research before deciding on restaurants to visit. The research comes from all sources, such as suggestions by our readers, emails, social media, review sites, and publications. Each team member can also nominate restaurants that we deem interesting or possess distinctive qualities such as chefs skills, tastes, ingredients, uniqueness, and consistency. Then, each restaurant is visited multiple times, by different inspectors, before inspectors gather to agree on a collective decision regarding the ranking. This decision will be yearly reassessed in order to make sure their recommendation is accurate, trustful, and relevant. Of course, being selected or awarded within the Michelin Guide is fully free of charge for the restaurants and they cant impact or exert pressure on the decisions made regarding the guide. Hong Kong street food gets nod from Michelin Guide Twenty three restaurants in Hong Kong were also added to the Michelin guide this year, while there were 12 new entrants from neighbouring Macau. Michelin Guide bestows stellar accolades on Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam is celebrating the recognition of four exceptional restaurants with coveted Michelin stars. This momentous occasion marks the accolades bestowed on a total of 103 remarkable dining establishments, spanning across four esteemed award categories. Bia Saigon sponsors Michelin Guide elevating reputation of Vietnamese brands Vietnamese cuisine attracts not only to Vietnamese people, but also to international tourists because of its rich diversity and uniqueness. By collaborating with and sponsoring the Michelin Guide, Bia Saigon reaffirms its commitment to elevating the reputation of Vietnamese brands to the world Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City now on the Michelin map As some restaurants in Vietnam were awarded Michelin stars for the first time, high hopes are set for the countrys food and restaurant scene. Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the Michelin Guide, talked to VIRs Linh Dan about the selection criteria and Michelins positive outlook for Vietnams culinary landscape. The Michelin Guide extends to Danang Danang has become the third Vietnamese city to see its gastronomic scene spotlighted by Michelin Guide inspectors, after Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City debuted on the guide last year. The completion of this acquisition bolsters MSD Animal Healths position in the aqua industry with a comprehensive approach to promoting fish health, conservation, and the welfare and sustainability of aquaculture and fisheries. MSD Animal Health is pleased to welcome new colleagues to join hands in advancing the goal of the Science of Healthier Animals "With this acquisition, we are well positioned to transform the aquaculture industry with a robust and comprehensive portfolio across warm and cold water, vaccines, antiparasitic treatments, water supplements and nutrition," said Rick DeLuca, president of MSD Animal Health. "We are excited to welcome our new colleagues to MSD Animal Health, and we look forward to working together, driven by our common purpose." The acquisition bolsters MSD Animal Health's position in the aquaculture industry As a result of the acquisition, MSD Animal Health now owns innovative products such as CLYNAV, a new generation DNA-based vaccine that protects Atlantic salmon against pancreas disease and IMVIXA, an antiparasitic sea lice treatment, and water treatment products for warm-water production, complementing MSD Animal Healths vaccine portfolio. The increasing use of medicines, vaccines, and nutritional supplements for aquatic species is being driven by the growing demand for protein and food safety, ensuring a supply of quality food produced with public health in mind. For more than a century, MSD Animal Health has been at the forefront of research, releasing medicines, vaccines, and innovative health solutions to challenge disease worldwide. The company offers veterinarians, farmers, producers, pet owners, and governments one of the widest ranges of veterinary pharmaceuticals and health management services as well as an extensive suite of connected technologies, including identification, traceability, and monitoring. MSD Animal Health is dedicated to preserving and improving the health, wellbeing, and performance of animals and the people who care for them. It invests extensively in dynamic and comprehensive research and development through a modern, global supply chain. MSD Animal Health is present in more than 50 countries, while its products are available in 150 markets. MSD Vietnam honoured with AmCham CSR award by US ambassador US Ambassador Marc E. Knapper presented MSD in Vietnam, a corporate social responsibility award from the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, on December 6 for its continuous efforts in bringing a positive impact to society. MSD Vietnam inaugurates new office in Hanoi Biopharma company MSD Vietnam, known as Merck & Co. in the US and Canada, inaugurated its new office in Hanoi on July 7. The data was derived from a recent report by global wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth and Swiss investment consultancy Henley & Partners. Vietnam sees fastest growth in millionaires globally New World Wealth, headquartered in South Africa, specialises in tracking the spending habits and trends of the world's wealthiest individuals. Their research spans 90 countries and 150 cities worldwide, with a particular focus on Asia and Africa. They collect data from their internal research division, often concentrating on company founders and individuals holding positions such as president, CEO, director, and manager. Since 2022, the company has been releasing annual reports covering various topics, including millionaires, real estate, cryptocurrencies, and the migration of wealthy individuals. The report highlights that while the United States remains the global leader in the number of millionaires with over 5.4 million, emerging economies like Vietnam, China, and India have seen the fastest growth rates. As of the end of last year, Vietnam had 19,400 millionaires, marking a 98 per cent increase over the past decade. However, only 58 individuals have assets exceeding $100 million, and there are just six billionaires in the country. Vietnam's high growth rate in millionaires is partly due to a low initial base of nearly 9,800 individuals in 2013. Nevertheless, the report attributes this rapid growth to Vietnam's recent economic success and suggests that the trend of wealth accumulation will continue to rise. Vietnam's economy has shown impressive growth during the evaluated period, aside from the years 2020 and 2021, which were impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. As the pandemic was brought under control in 2022, the economy rebounded with a GDP growth of over 8 per cent - the highest in over a decade. Average income nearly doubled during the same 10 years, from $1,960 in 2013 to $4,284 in 2023, reflecting the dynamic nature of the economy. Previously, New World Wealth predicted that Vietnam would see the most significant wealth growth globally, at 125 per cent over the next decade. The US still has the largest number of millionaires globally with a 62 per cent increase. China is approaching the milestone with nearly one million millionaires, making it the second country to reach this benchmark after the US. In contrast, the United Kingdom has experienced a slight decline in its number of millionaires over the past decade, influenced by factors such as Brexit and other economic uncertainties, highlighting the challenges faced by developed economies. African nations like Nigeria and South Africa have also seen a reduction in their millionaire populations, partly due to migration and economic instability. Nigeria's struggle with currency depreciation has further impacted its wealthy class, while South Africa recorded a significant 20 per cent decline in the number of millionaires. Russian Defence Ministry report on the progress of the special military operation (9 July 2024) Over the past 24 hours, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation delivered a group strike by precision weaponry at U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS that were prepared to deliver strikes at the territory of Crimea, as well as a place of meeting of the AFU command. The goal of the strike has been achieved. Four U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS launchers as well as 35 foreign specialists responsible for its maintenance were eliminated. Units of the Sever Group of Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the AFU 57th Motorised Infantry Brigade, 92nd Assault Brigade, 82nd Air Assault Brigade, and 13th National Guard Brigade near Volchansk, Tsirkuny, and Liptsy (Kharkov region). Nine counter-attacks launched by assault detachments of the AFU 36th Marines Brigade, 17th National Guard Brigade, and Lyut Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs were repelled. The AFU losses amounted to up to 310 Ukrainian troops, three motor vehicles, two U.S.-made 155-mm M777 howitzers, and one 122-mm D-30 howitzer. Units of the Zapad Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and inflicted losses on units of the AFU 21st, 63rd, 66th, 115th mechanised brigades, 103rd, and 110th territorial defence brigades near Berestovoye (Kharkov region), Makeyevka, Chervonaya Dibrova (Lugansk Peoples Republic), and Torskoye (Donetsk Peoples Republic). One attack launched by an assault detachment of the AFU 144th Infantry Brigade was repelled. The AFU losses amounted to up to 420 Ukrainian troops, one tank, and four pickup trucks. In the course of counter-battery warfare, two Polish-made 155-mm Krab self-propelled artillery systems, one U.S.-made 155-mm M777 howitzer, one U.S.-made 155-mm M198 howitzer, one 122-mm Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system, three 122-mm D-30 howitzers, one Anklav-N electronic warfare station, and four field ammunition depots were destroyed. 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 54th, 72nd, 93rd mechanised brigades, 56th Motorised Infantry Brigade, 10th Mountain Assault Brigade, 46th Airmobile Brigade, and 79th Air Assault Brigade near Spornoye, Grigorovka, Kurdyumovka, Maksimilianovka, Katerinovka, and Ostrovskoye (Donetsk Peoples Republic). One counter-attack launched by an assault detachment of the AFU 214th OPFOR Separate Battalion was repelled. The AFU losses amounted to up to 770 Ukrainian troops, one tank, one U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carrier, one U.S.-made Humvee armoured fighting vehicle, and 14 motor vehicles. In the course of counter-battery warfare, one UK-made 155-mm Braveheart self-propelled artillery system, two UK-made 155-mm FH-70 howitzers, one U.S.-made 155-mm M777 howitzer, two 152-mm D-20 howitzers, one 152-mm Msta-B howitzer, one 122-mm D-30 howitzer, one 120-mm Nona self-propelled artillery system, one U.S.-made 105-mm howitzer, and one UK-made 105-mm L119 howitzer were destroyed. One Nota electronic warfare station and five field ammunition depots were destroyed. As a result of active actions, units of the Tsentr Group of Forces liberated Yasnobrodovka (Donetsk Peoples Republic) and improved the tactical situation. Losses were inflicted on formations of the AFU 31st, 32nd, 110th mechanised brigades, 59th Motorised Infantry Brigade, and 132nd Reconnaissance Battalion near Krasnoarmeysk, Mirolyubovka, Timofeyevka, Vodyanoye Vtoroye, and Toretsk (Donetsk Peoples Republic). Five counter-attacks launched by assault detachments of the AFU 41st, 47th mechanised brigades, 68th Jaeger Brigade, and 95th Air Assault Brigade were repelled. The AFU losses amounted to more than 420 Ukrainian troops, one armoured fighting vehicle, four motor vehicles, two 122-mm D-30 howitzers, and one 100-mm Rapira anti-tank gun. Units of the Vostok Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the AFU 48th Assault Brigade, 123rd, and 128th territorial defence brigades near Makarovka, Prechistovka, Storozhevoye, Velikaya Novosyolka (Donetsk Peoples Republic), and Charivnoye (Zaporozhye region). Three attacks launched by assault detachments of the AFU 58th Motorised Infantry Brigade and 108th Territorial Defence Brigade were repelled. The AFU losses amounted to up to 150 Ukrainian troops, three armoured fighting vehicles, including one U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carrier, seven motor vehicles, one U.S.-made 155-mm M198 howitzer, and three field ammunition depots. Units of the Dnepr Group of Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the AFU 65th Mechanised Brigade, 35th, 37th marines brigades, 125th, and 126th territorial defence brigade near Novopokrovka (Zaporozhye region), Antonovka, Tokaryovka, and Tyaginka (Kherson region). The AFU losses amounted to up to 90 Ukrainian troops, five motor vehicles, one U.S.-made 155-mm Paladin self-propelled artillery system, one U.S.-made 155-mm M777 howitzer, and one 152-mm Msta-B howitzer. One field ammunition depot and two electronic warfare stations, namely, Polonez and Anklav-N, were destroyed. Operational-Tactical Aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, and Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have located and eliminated one low-altitude surveillance radar and two S-300PS SAM launchers. Moreover, one workshop and one depot of attack UAVs were destroyed, as well as enemy manpower and hardware engaged in 132 areas. Air defence units shot down 97 unmanned aerial vehicles and eight U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles. In total, 626 airplanes and 277 helicopters, 27,441 unmanned aerial vehicles, 542 air defence missile systems, 16,536 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,373 combat vehicles equipped with MLRS, 11,618 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 23,490 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation. Tags: WtR Thinkings 1. Dont waste too much time conversing with the West; instead, concentrate on deconstructing NATO (the North Atlantic Terrorist Organization), whose principal objective is to murder Russian citizens on Russian territory and eventually destroy Russia. Then never look back at the West except to guard your back from the future nasty Hordes 2. No matter who you are, anyone with an internet connection has no excuse not to know the truth. If you are too lazy to look for the truth, that is a personal problem, no one elses, and you will be held responsible for it on the Day of Judgment. You cannot use an excuse like they lied to me to get out of this 3. They have done what they are doing now previously, and they have blamed the USSR for it at that time. At least now that more people are aware of what is going on and Russias new strategy is in full motion, we should see results in about 5 to 10 years. If we all live that long 4. The west has determined that China, Iran and Russia must be eliminated as powers or the current Western World Order will come to an end. From the perspective of the West, there is only one way out of this: war 5. Its as if we in the East are looking at a simulation where lies and only lies are accepted as the reality in the West. Thus the Western people are living that simulation, as we watch Just thoughts What? You want more? Well, I have plenty, but you get bored easily WtR Russia wake up and dump the West in mind, body and soul Thousands of Minnesotans have received some form of student debt relief in the past four years, even as President Joe Biden's plans for wider loan forgiveness remain stalled following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year. The U.S. Department of Education had approved nearly 45,000 Minnesotans for some form of relief worth a combined $2 billion, as of this spring. Some of those payments were issued as the department updated longstanding programs that forgive loans for people who have disabilities or work in government or nonprofit jobs. Others were OK'd under new programs designed to better tailor people's repayment plans toward their income levels. "When I talk to people, I always like to encourage them to just look at their student loan situation and plan for the here and now," said Kim Miller, senior program manager for LSS Financial Counseling. "We can't predict what the future will bring." The issue continues to be a political talking point as the leading presidential candidates make competing pitches ahead of the November election and courts sort through legal challenges brought by Republican-leaning organizations challenging the validity of some of the Biden administration's student debt programs. Biden, a Democrat, has promised to continue working on new proposals, saying crushing debt is delaying too many people's dreams and harming too many local economies. Former President Donald Trump, a Republican, has derided student debt forgiveness and in one recent rally accused the Biden administration of "throwing money out the window." People who have been through the loan forgiveness process say it could be far smoother. Daniel Lauer-Schumacher, who graduated in 2007 from St. John's University, has spent his entire career working for government and nonprofit agencies, often in jobs that help people get housing. He applied three times for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, each time compiling a mountain of paperwork that showed he had been making payments for a decade on his $42,000 in student loans. The first two times, he was rejected. On the third attempt, he learned that he'd be getting $3,000 back that he had overpaid and that he should have been approved earlier. The program was created in 2007, but the Biden administration made changes that allowed some people to receive credit for loan payments that previously wouldn't have counted. Lauer-Schumacher gets frustrated when people describe it as though it were a magical handout. "I qualified for this thing," he said. "I followed all the rules." Tonja Trickel doesn't have any issue with programs that help people who work in public service. The physical therapist had about $5,000 of her roughly $80,000 in debt knocked off through a similar program. But the Illinois resident, who grew up in Minnesota, gets frustrated with broader student debt forgiveness programs. She spent about 20 years working to pay off her own loans. "Now, I feel like we're being asked to pay over again" for other people, she said. If she'd been able to keep that money, she might have a different house. She might have more money in a retirement account. She said some of her friends decided not to go to college because they wanted to avoid the debt and now question that decision. Public opinion surveys suggest Trickel's not alone in questioning the student debt relief. Just three out of 10 U.S. adults said they approved of Biden's handling of student debt issues, while four out of 10 disapproved, according to a poll conducted earlier this year by the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll also found a sharp partisan divide, with Democrats far more likely than Republicans to say the government should prioritize student debt issues. Jim Turchi, who went to the University of Minnesota's Duluth campus, has been working in manufacturing for 30 years and is struggling to find people for jobs that come with six-figure salaries. He sees some of the loan forgiveness proposals as politicians' efforts to say, "Hey, we'll pay for your education. Just keep us in power." Turchi said he believes a college education needs to come with a return on the investment, and he worries that the focus on loan forgiveness is distracting from another issue that needs to be solved: "I think education's important, but I think we really need to address the question of why is college so expensive." The Douglas County School Board met on Tuesday to discuss approving a contract with the district's new superintendent, Frankie Alvarado. The contract would include an annual salary of $175,000, and two motions were brought to the table. One motion would amend the contract to include a one-year probationary period while the other would approve the contract as written. It appears that both motions were passed on a 4-3 margin. 2 News Nevada will reach out to the Douglas County School Board tomorrow for clarification on the votes. Another vote on the certification of two recounts in Washoe County from the June primary election is expected next Tuesday, and one commissioner is expected to change their vote. The Ad Club Bangalore has announced LogoJam Logo Revamp Challenge designed to crowdsource a fresh, vibrant brand identity that embodies the dynamic spirit of the community and the future of the advertising and marketing industry. Designers from across India are invited to craft a new brand identity that reflects The Ad Clubs commitment to creativity, community, and the cutting-edge future of advertising. The contest runs between July 8 and 19, 2024 and the winner will receive a monetary reward of Rs 50,000. As technology and AI are transforming the landscape of marketing, the Ad Club is embarking on a journey to redefine its visual identity, heralding a new era for the 47-year-old-club. The LogoJam challenge is the first step in this transformation. We are in the process of re-visioning the role of Advertising Club Bangalore and our aim with LogoJam is to be collaborative and inclusive in our approach to set the new identity of Ad Club Bangalore, said Laeeq Ali, President of The Ad Club Bangalore. The new identity should symbolize Ad Club Bangalores core values of innovation, collaboration, leadership, and excellence. It will capture the spirit and future-forward approach of this community-focused, non-profit organization. From events like the Inspiration Room series to a vibrant member network, the club is committed to fostering a thriving community of advertising professionals. Winners of the LogoJam challenge will not only receive a monetary reward of Rs 50,000, but will also gain significant exposure through a publication feature in The Ad Club platforms, offering unparalleled recognition and potential future collaborations with The Ad Club and its members. As Ad Club Bangalore evolves, we believe our visual identity, too, should evolve. I am excited to lead this initiative to find the new identity that will be a beacon of our commitment to lead the advertising industry into a new era, added Nigel Mathew, a member of the executive committee. Global independent marketing and communications firm FINN Partners has acquired Claudine Colin Communication, a 25-person Paris-based PR agency focused on the arts and culture. The firm will be known as Claudine Colin Communication, A FINN Partners Company, and work alongside the sector-leading arts practice of FINN, headed by Philippa Polskin. Claudine Colin Communication, founded in 1990, is the leading arts PR firm in France and has been a long-term partner of Polskin Arts. CCC represents prestigious arts organizations in France, Europe, and abroad, including Musee national Picasso-Paris, musee du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Pinault Collection, Palais de Tokyo, The Rencontres d'Arles, LUMA Arles, Lafayette Anticipations, Fondation Cartier, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Musee du Louvre-Lens, Mucem, Musee Marmottan Monet, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Beaux-Arts de Paris, Fondation Pernod Ricard, Musee Yves Saint Laurent Paris, Cultural Olympiad for Paris 2024, 17th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, Art Basel across all shows (Paris, Basel, Miami, Hong Kong), and Fondation Beyeler. "We already have one of the largest and most esteemed arts practices in the PR agency world, and we are excited to expand and deepen this work by having Claudine and her team join us. We are also very pleased to enhance our presence in Paris. We currently have 15 people in that office, who work with sustainability, technology, consumer and health clients. Now we have added the premier practice in the French arts sector, and together we have 40 people in Paris. We look forward to working together as one team," said Peter Finn, CEO and Founder of FINN Partners. Claudine Colin (pictured) said: "I founded Claudine Colin Communication over 30 years ago and developed the business both in France and internationally with a professional and committed team to support managers in the artistic and cultural sphere, both public and her team, working side by side with them at FINN Partners at what is truly the forefront of cultural communications." Polskin Arts, recognized as one of the world's largest and most prominent cultural PR practices, has a distinguished and extensive client base in the US and around the world, and for decades has worked on international projects in close collaboration with the sector-leading partner CCC in Paris, and the extensive FINN Partners network around the globe. The FINN Partners acquisition of Claudine Colin Communication coincides with the recent and ongoing strategic expansion of Polskin Arts, which has added key senior executives and extended its deep connections to all areas, for-profit and not-for-profit, of the rapidly evolving field of arts and culture. Claudine Colin Communication will be part of FINN Partners EMEA, led by Chantal Bowman-Boyles. With the addition of CCC, FINN Partners EMEA will have total fees of about $27 million and total staff of about 270 people. CCC will work closely with Polskin Arts to expand the FINN Partners practice in the arts and culture sector. "France is the global center of art and culture, and we are proud and excited to have Claudine's team, with their unique knowledge and expertise, join us. Our office in Paris has a great reputation for delivering high-quality client service and for long-lasting client relationships both attributes we share with CCC. I have enjoyed getting to know Claudine and her team over the last few months, and I am confident that together we will achieve even greater successes in France and across the region," added Chantal Bowman-Boyles. ITC Mangaldeep, Indias premier agarbatti brand, has rolled out its new campaign, Dil se Karo Baat, Bhagwan Ke Saath, which translates to Make God your close confidant. The campaign by Ogilvy India celebrates ones divine connection with God. It illustrates the relationship between humans and God as that of between two friends where heartfelt conversations take place. With this campaign, the brand embraces a new positioning which encompasses a diverse set of lives, rituals and ways of expressing beliefs. The Dil se Karo Baat, Bhagwan Ke Saath embarks on a journey of strengthening the bond we share with God and persuades us to be transparent with him as he is our confidant. This joyful campaign reimagines this connection, fostering a personal and friendly bond with God. Inspired by everyday interactions, where individuals share worries, seek solace, express gratitude and celebrate events, the campaign emphasizes the human need for intimate communication with the divine. Watch the ad film: https://youtu.be/UwnEj-TBDAA?si=Tf-ywkl3Wx6GmqdE Being an enabler of devotion and a sense of well-being, the brand intends to be a part of both the grand festival celebrations as well as the prayers we do in between everyday moments. While Mangaldeep is an important part of temple visits, it also has a role to play in prayers which take place on the go, at workplaces, stadiums and shops, when we are in need. We have grown up believing that the temples are the holy abode of our Gods, but the brand also supports the view that God never leaves our side. Mangaldeep believes that prayers can bring our loved ones together while also strengthening our soul and creating a personal space of calm. Gaurav Tayal, Chief Executive, Matches & Agarbatti Business (MAB), ITC, commented, This campaign aims to illustrate our connection with the God. Through this campaign, we move beyond the idea of God solely residing in places of worship and instead emphasize the possibility of experiencing the divine presence throughout our daily lives. Through relatable scenarios, we showcase how this connection fosters not just a sense of respect for God's power, but also a sense of companionship. To take this campaign to its target set of audiences, ITC Mangaldeep has launched a new TVC visualized by Ogilvy India. Rajesh Mani, Group Creative Director, Ogilvy India, elaborated, Who do we have a heart-to-heart with? Usually someone we feel really close to. Theres a sense of ease and comfort that we feel. In this campaign, we ask people to speak to that one person who is in all our hearts God. He is the 24X7 friend, philosopher, and guide. He doesnt mind how you pray or for how long, as long as its from the heart, he will listen. Mangaldeep brings forth this beautiful thought in a slice of life fashion, expertly capturing the nuances and champions devotion and devotees. This film is a beautiful blend of tradition and modernity that is at the core of Mangaldeep. In addition to the flagship TVC launch, which will air from July 10 in the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh and Kerala, Mangaldeep has a set of digital and influencer activities planned in line to promote this new positioning among its customers. Leading Indian PR firm Kaizzen, known for its integrated communications approach, has secured funding from Maven Corporate Advisors in 2023. This investment has led to a shift in the company's ownership structure, with Maven acquiring a majority stake, according to sources. Vineet Handa, founder and managing director of Kaizzen, retains a significant share and remains at the helm, with no plans for his departure. Notably, Puja Handa has stepped down as director, while new board members Karan Singh Surjit and Krupa Dashsathbhai Limbachiya have been appointed. While the specific nature of Maven's involvement beyond financial backing remains unclear, sources indicate the investment is aimed at fueling Kaizzen's ambitious growth plans. Vineet Handa, founder and managing director of Kaizzen, retains a significant share and remains at the helm, with no plans for his departure. Notably, Puja Handa has stepped down as director, while new board members Karan Singh Surjit and Krupa Dashsathbhai Limbachiya have been appointed. While the specific nature of Maven's involvement beyond financial backing remains unclear, sources indicate the investment is aimed at fueling Kaizzen's ambitious growth plans. Kaizzen has set its sights on doubling its turnover in the 2023-2024 fiscal year compared to the previous year, aiming to reach a target of 50 crores. The secured funds will be strategically deployed to expand its service offerings in key areas like government relations and investor relations. Additionally, the company plans to leverage the investment to establish a presence in Dubai, further solidifying its regional footprint. Kaizzen's funding announcement comes amidst a significant period of consolidation within the Indian PR landscape. Over the past two decades, the liberalization of the Indian economy has seen a steady influx of international PR firms seeking a foothold, either through independent ventures or acquisitions of local players. Examples include Burson Marsteller's acquisition of Genesis PR in 2005, MSL's purchase of Hanmer and Partners in 2007, Cohn & Wolfe's acquisition of 6 Degrees PR in 2015, and WE Communication's acquisition of Avian WE in 2018. Notably, Edelman also acquired a 50% stake in R&PM, led by Roger Pereira, in 2005. India presents a unique scenario in the global PR market. Adfactors PR, an independent firm, stands out as the undisputed leader in terms of size. This independence stands in contrast to the challenges faced by international network firms struggling to achieve significant growth in the Indian market. As a result, India is rapidly emerging as a hotspot for these firms seeking expansion opportunities. Mid-sized and independent firms like Kaizzen are well-positioned to capitalize on their agility, creativity, and ability to better align their services with the working cultures of Indian companies. This unique offering could prove to be a major advantage in the competitive years to come. Authored by Prady, CEO and Managing Partner, NP Digital India Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing personalized marketing by transforming how brands engage with consumers. In India, with its rapid digital growth and diverse consumer landscape, AI-driven strategies are proving highly effective. These advancements enable brands to forge deeper, more meaningful connections with their audiences, significantly enhancing the consumer experience and driving brand loyalty. The Rise of Personalized Marketing Personalized marketing is not a new concept, but its execution has evolved significantly with advancements in technology. Traditionally, brands relied on broad demographic data to tailor their marketing messages. However, with the advent of AI, the precision and effectiveness of personalized marketing have reached unprecedented levels. AI enables brands to analyze vast amounts of data, uncover intricate consumer insights, and deliver highly tailored experiences that resonate on an individual level. AI and Data Analytics: The Backbone of Personalization In India, the explosion of digital platforms and the proliferation of smartphones have generated a wealth of data. AI leverages this data to understand consumer behavior, preferences, and purchasing patterns. Machine learning algorithms analyze data from various sources such as social media, e-commerce platforms, and browsing histories to create detailed consumer profiles. These profiles help brands predict future behavior and preferences with remarkable accuracy. The ability to analyze such comprehensive data allows for more than just surface-level personalization. Brands can identify not only what products or services a consumer might be interested in, but also the optimal timing and method for delivering these suggestions. This results in more engaging and effective marketing campaigns. Hyper-Personalization: Taking It a Step Further Hyper-personalization is an advanced form of personalized marketing where AI goes beyond basic preferences to create highly individualized experiences. By incorporating real-time data and contextual information, brands can deliver messages and offers that are relevant at the precise moment of interaction. This approach ensures that marketing efforts are not only relevant but also timely, addressing the immediate needs and interests of consumers. Such precision in marketing fosters a deeper connection between the brand and the consumer, enhancing loyalty and satisfaction. Chatbots and Virtual Assistants: Enhancing Customer Interaction AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants have become indispensable tools for personalized marketing. These intelligent systems can handle a multitude of customer interactions, providing instant responses and personalized recommendations. In addition to enhancing customer service, chatbots and virtual assistants collect valuable data from each interaction. This data is then used to refine and personalize future interactions, creating a more seamless and satisfying customer experience. Predictive Analytics: Anticipating Customer Needs Predictive analytics is another powerful application of AI in personalized marketing. By analyzing historical data and identifying patterns, AI can predict future trends and consumer behavior. This allows brands to proactively address customer needs and preferences, often before the customers themselves are aware of them. The use of predictive analytics enables brands to stay ahead of the curve, offering products or services that align with emerging trends and consumer demands. This proactive approach not only boosts sales but also positions the brand as a forward-thinking leader in its industry. Challenges and the Way Forward While the potential of AI in personalized marketing is immense, it is not without challenges. Data privacy concerns are paramount, as the use of AI necessitates the collection and analysis of vast amounts of personal data. Ensuring compliance with regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and India's Personal Data Protection Bill is crucial. Moreover, the implementation of AI requires significant investment in technology and talent. Brands need to build robust data infrastructure and employ skilled professionals who can harness the power of AI effectively. This can be a barrier, particularly for smaller companies with limited resources. However, the benefits of AI-driven personalized marketing far outweigh the challenges. By fostering deeper connections with consumers, enhancing user experiences, and driving higher engagement, AI can provide a significant competitive advantage in the crowded Indian market. Conclusion AI is undoubtedly a game changer for personalized marketing in India. By leveraging data analytics, hyper-personalization, chatbots, and predictive analytics, brands can create highly tailored experiences that resonate with individual consumers. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, the adoption of AI in marketing is set to accelerate, unlocking new opportunities for brands to connect with their audiences in meaningful ways. For those willing to invest in the technology and navigate the associated challenges, the rewards can be substantial, heralding a new era of personalized marketing in India. DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and Adgully.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. PR Professionals (PRP) the flagship of PRP Group has been awarded the prestigious integrated communications mandate for the Department of Education, Government of Bihar. Secured through a competitive multi-agency pitch, the comprehensive mandate includes digital, public relations, and branding work along with Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) activities for the Department. Emerging as a major player in the Education sector, this is the second prestigious and large-sized mandate that PR Professionals has secured this year. Earlier this year, PRP was entrusted with the integrated communications mandate for the Department of School Education, Andhra Pradesh. The integrated mandate for Andhra Pradesh includes the development and execution of extensive digital and media communication strategies aimed at generating awareness and impact of various transformative educational initiatives. PRP's work with the Department of School Education, Andhra Pradesh, covers several key programs such as the Supporting Andhras Learning Transformation Program (SALT), funded by the World Bank, Samagra Siksha, Mana Badi Nadu Nedu Programme, and the Jagananna Vidya Kanuka Programme. These initiatives are designed to bring substantial improvements to the state's educational landscape. We are honored to be chosen by the Department of Education, Government of Bihar, for this critical assignment. We're committed to amplifying Bihar's educational efforts and showcasing their impact. This collaboration strengthens our resolve to develop impactful communication strategies that empower India's education sector shared Dr. Sarvesh Tiwari, Founder & Managing Director PR Professionals. PRP has a proven track record in the education sector. It successfully tackled the challenge of promoting the Bihar School Examination Board's (BSEB) vision, mission, and goals to students and parents through digital channels. Their dedicated in-house digital team achieved remarkable results, not only meeting their objectives but also skyrocketing user engagement to millions. PRP's expertise extends to a wide range of educational institutions, including the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education Board (ICSE), IIT Roorkee, IIM Shillong, SGT University, Manav Rachna University, The Northcap University, MVN Group of Schools, and the Apparel Training & Design Center (ATDC) among others. Since its founding in 2011, PR Professionals has been a touchstone for quality and excellence in public relations and communications. In addition, the company has started many charitable endeavors. Businesses can become industry leaders by utilizing its end-to-end branding and personalized PR solutions. Having started small, PRP now has 12 offices in India and 6 branches abroad. The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) has announced an indefinite strike extension, which could potentially disrupt global tech supply chains. This escalation comes after what was initially planned as a three-day walkout to pressure Samsung management for better wages and benefits. The NSEU, representing roughly 30,000 workers or nearly a quarter of Samsung's South Korean workforce, began their strike on July 8th. The union claims their initial actions have already disrupted production, a claim Samsung refutes. "Samsung Electronics will ensure no disruptions occur in the production lines," a company spokesperson told BBC News. "The company remains committed to engaging in good faith negotiations with the union." However, the NSEU disputes this, stating that the company has no intention to engage in a dialogue even after the first general strike, thus "we declare a second general strike starting from July 10th, lasting indefinitely." The union is demanding a 3.5% base salary increase and an additional paid vacation day. This comes amidst a period of strong financial performance for Samsung. Last week, the company announced a projected 15-fold increase in profits for the quarter ending June 2024, driven by the global boom in Artificial Intelligence technology. The NSEU says around 6,500 workers participated in the initial strike and is urging more members to join the extended action. The potential impact on Samsung's production capabilities and the broader tech industry remains to be seen as the strike unfolds. Indias leading matchmaking platform, Shaadi.com, has launched its latest ad campaign Red Flags Se Savdhaan, highlighting the challenges of finding green flag partners in a world full of commitment-phobic individuals on dating apps. The 35-second tongue-in-cheek TV commercial, which also doubles as a digital ad film, features Super Shark and founder of Shaadi.com, Anupam Mittal. The film is being played across leading television channels and digital platforms. The campaign is built on the insight that dating apps are designed to keep you single and strongly positions Shaadi.com as the green-flag matchmaking platform. Through this, Shaadi.com intends to reach out to Gen Z and millennials seeking their green flag amidst the modern dating scene filled with ghosting, situationships, and commitment phobia. The brands ad film uses a hilarious visual hook to showcase how it is the go-to platform for the new generation of singles ready to take a meaningful step towards a lasting relationship. The ad film showcases a couple on a date in a restaurant, where the woman starts to remind her partner how theyd met on a dating app two years ago. Understanding that this is the beginning of a conversation about making things official between them, the man hands a gun to a nearby waiter and starts warming up. As she mentions meeting the parents, he signals to the waiter that he is ready. When the waiter fires a shot in the air, the man dashes towards the restaurant exit while the woman turns around, looking embarrassed. Anupam Mittal, who is seated at the next table, turns to the woman and advises that she, too, should run away from people who are afraid to commit, and that Shaadi.com is the place to be to find her green flag. Adhish Zaveri, VP Marketing, Shaadi.com, said: As someone deeply invested in understanding modern-day relationships, a large chunk of the youth appear to be unhappy and fatigued with dating apps. The pursuit of authenticity and meaningful connections seems to be lost. Unrealistic expectations from their partner and fear of commitment are keeping most people single and unhappy. Shaadi.com is designed for people who are seeking commitment and thus, a wonderful place to find meaningful and stable relationships. Several notable twelebs and X memers jumped on the bandwagon, adding their own unique twist to the ad film with memes and hilarious one-liners. This contributed significantly to the widespread popularity of the ad campaign. Conceptualised and executed by Moonshot, a Mumbai-based creative agency, the ad campaign has further cemented Shaadi.coms position not only as a household name in the online matchmaking industry but also as one casting a new-age perspective on the online matchmaking process. Kroger for the first time Tuesday identified the nearly 600 U.S. stores it plans to sell off to a competitor to secure approval for its $24.6 billion purchase of rival Albertsons. Kroger Co. announced plans to acquire Albertsons Cos., which owns Safeway, in October 2022. In a bid to mollify antitrust regulators, the two companies said they would sell 579 stores to New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers for $1.9 billion. The companies had not previously disclosed which stores would be sold. (Cant see the table? Click here.) The companies also plan to sell distribution centers in Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Washington state and a dairy plant in Denver. The two supermarket giants are awaiting a trial set for Aug. 26 in federal court in Oregon after the Federal Trade Commission and nine states filed suit in February to halt the merger. Federal regulators argued and the state attorneys general argued that combining Kroger with Albertsons would lessen competition and give the merged chain too much control over grocery prices and employees wages. -- Kristine de Leon covers the retail industry, small business and data enterprise stories. Reach her at kdeleon@oregonian.com. Numerous financial issues plagued Sumter County Schools in the 2023 fiscal year, a recent state audit found, painting a picture of just how messy the districts finances were in the months leading up to state intervention. The audit, published by the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts on June 21, found several flaws with the districts bookkeeping practices, as well as a failure to submit required reports tied to thousands of dollars of federal pandemic relief funds. Among the findings: The district was three months late to submit 2023 financial statements to the Alabama State Department of Education The school board did not elect a budget committee required by state law Staff improperly filed employee tax forms, costing the district $43,322 in fees to the IRS Staff failed to pay invoices and complete bank deposits in a timely manner and did not properly post local school receipts to accounting records Staff had not taken inventory since the 2021 fiscal year The district did not complete required spending reports for employees supported by $192,542 in federal Covid-19 Education Stabilization Funds The Alabama State Board of Education voted to take over the small, west Alabama school district in August 2023, citing its inability to complete a previous audit. The school district also has struggled with declining enrollment, facility conditions and poor student test scores for years. One of the primary reasons that we went into Sumter County last August was accounting difficulties and we knew it would take more than a few months to straighten out their books and establish new accounting protocols, State Superintendent Eric Mackey recently told AL.com. This has been one of our priorities and they are making great progress in that area of focus. The audit recently discussed is for the year ending September 2023, and we only took over operations in August 2023, he added. But, I am confident that the system is making great progress and is cleaning up its books, among many things that are going better than they were just a year ago. Superintendent Marcy Burroughs, who was tapped last summer to lead the districts turnaround, announced several big plans this year, including academic interventions , a school merger and $10 million for facilities improvements . As of June, the district had a remaining balance of about $7.7 million, up from just over $5 million a year ago, according to the districts latest financial reports. The 2023 audit covers the period between October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023 and was completed on May 20, 2024. District leaders said they have taken several steps to rectify issues this year. The books were in such disarray prior to state intervention that they couldnt be audited, John Heard, who was appointed by the state to act as the districts chief administrative officer last summer, said in an email. The staff needed a couple of months just to determine how much money the system actually had, and which account it should be coded to, he said. There was no CFO or federal programs coordinator. No bookkeeper had more than two years of experience. The high school and one elementary school did not have a principal. There was no accountability and there was systematic failure for all those responsible for planning and operating a budget. Heard said standard accounting procedures have since been put in place so that auditors were able to complete their work. Financial statements are now being posted monthly and detailed financial information is now available for planning and monitoring. The district was operating without a permanent chief financial officer until November, he added, but one now has been hired to oversee those operations. The audit classified most of its findings as significant deficiencies, or issues in need of urgent attention. Auditors gave the district a material weakness, which is a more severe classification, for failing to properly report pandemic relief spending. The district spent a total of just over $3 million in pandemic relief funding in 2023, the audit shows. Of that amount, just under $193,000 in personnel expenses were not properly reported. Two schools, Sumter County High and Livingston Junior High, also failed to comply with some standard bookkeeping procedures, including turning in receipts and bank deposits in a timely manner, auditors found. Recordkeeping issues are fairly common in school district audits, but they can lead to a serious risk of loss or theft if they go unaddressed. In a response to auditors, Burroughs said the district has made several changes to its financial and record keeping processes, including implementing weekly meetings between school leaders and the districts accountant. That started in April, she said, and will continue when the new school year starts back. The school board elected a budget committee in October, she added, and staff are working to correct several years worth of missing or misreported records noted in previous audits. Mackey said he anticipates a much better audit next year, but cautions that it will still take time to fix outstanding issues. That is, after all, the process of intervention, he said. When its all cleaned up and pretty, we will leave the intervention, and they are not nearly ready for that yet. Bessemer City Schools has been put on notice of a possible state takeover if the school board fails to address serious and systemic problems. State Superintendent Eric Mackey, in a July 3 letter to board members, said there are issues of major concern that impede the success of student outcomes and overall district operations in the district. Mackey cited multiple concerns about failure to follow required financial procedures, including not approving the 2024 budget and capital plan by a Sept. 15 deadline, and not approving a salary schedule for employees. Other financial and operational concerns included possible violation of the state bid law and the boards delaying hiring of key personnel at both the central office and in schools. Mackey said student outcomes do not reflect the knowledge and skills, nor the creativity and commitment of the students, families, faculty and staff of the System, and that the Board has created a culture of indifference that led to a system that cannot adequately support its students. Mackey said the way the board functions, citing the example of setting six meetings between January and June but then canceling them because not enough board members showed up, suggests that the Board is dysfunctional and ineffective in adequately addressing the needs of the system and its students. The department of education released a statement Tuesday evening, saying, We have taken the first step toward an intervention, but the board has not voted. Unless dramatic improvements are made, Dr. Mackey intends to recommend a state takeover in August. The State Board of Education would have to approve the takeover, which could happen immediately following the vote. The state took over Sumter County schools in September in part because of financial problems . Enrollment among Bessemer Citys seven schools has declined by nearly 1,000 students in the last 10 years, dropping from 4,000 students in 2014 to 3,000 students last year. Eight in 10 students are economically disadvantaged, an indicator of the level of poverty in the district. Among the student population, there are 1,200 fewer African American students than there were 10 years ago. The Hispanic student population has risen steadily from 200 in 2014 to 600 in 2024. Clearly dilapidated school facilities are a significant concern, Mackey said. An evaluation of the facilities by Volkert showed severe roof leaks, air conditioning and heating issues and buildings were not in compliance with federal law. These deficiencies are a matter of safety and well-being for students, teachers and administrators, Mackey said. Six of the seven elected school board members met for nearly three hours Tuesday night to discuss the concerns Mackey raised. During the meeting, board member Margie Varner said she was a little bit upset about the letter because she contacted Mackey in February about her financial concerns but did not receive a response. Varner said her first discussions with Daniel Boyd, who Mackey sent to review, observe and provide assistance were in February and that she heard nothing else from the department until the letter arrived. Central AFT President Erika Hughes told AL.com she has seen multiple worrisome actions taken by the board and superintendent over the past year and a half and has tried to get help from the state department. September of 2022 is when I reached out to Dr. Mackeys office begging for assistance both academically and financially, Hughes told AL.com. AL.com was unable to immediately confirm when the department began investigating concerns in the Bessemer school system. Hughes said among other issues, the board has been unresponsive and unwilling to follow its own policy. We have grievances that have been filed for months, she said. And according to their policy, theyre supposed to give us a response within 15 days. I filed a grievance back in December and had to get legal counsel to get a decision. And that was last week. Board members discussed multiple actions they could take to rectify Mackeys concerns, including participating in board training and reducing the need to call special board meetings by doing better planning and creating a plan to make needed repairs. Mackey gave the board 21 days from the date of the letter - a little more than two weeks from now - to send a written plan for how they will address four issues raised in his letter: improving school facilities, adequately supporting students, improving budgeting and financial practices and improving board governance. The Board agreed to review notes from the meeting and come up with a response to Mackeys letter but did not say when that would happen. Hughes, who has either attended or sent a representative to attend all board meetings for more than a year, said she wants to see the board be required to follow its own policies. I also hope that the kids of Bessemer City Schools are able to get all that they can get out of going to school in a clean environment, in an environment that has heating, air and a roof that doesnt leak or fall in, she said, and that they have a safe and nurturing environment. Superintendent Dana Arreola was appointed in June 2023 after former Superintendent Autumm Jeter took a position as assistant state superintendent at the state department of education in April 2023. Guys Chapel Methodist Church in Bay Minette has sued the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church in an effort to keep its property. The 100-member congregation argues in a lawsuit filed this month that it never agreed to the trust clause that binds the property of congregations to the United Methodist denomination. Guys Chapel filed its lawsuit in Baldwin County Circuit Court on July 2, asking that a judge declare that the church and four-acre property belongs solely to the congregation and not to the denomination. The church dates to 1910 and has been on its current property since 1953. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal maneuvers by churches attempting to leave the denomination. Two such lawsuits have already made it to the Alabama Supreme Court. The states high court ruled that Harvest Church in Dothan did have the right to have its case heard in civil courts. Guys Chapel is attempting to make a similar argument to Harvest Church, which also said it never agreed to the trust clause with the denomination. In another case, a group of 44 churches that sued the Alabama-West Florida Conference were told by the Supreme Court that they would have to pursue their cases through the church courts, not civil courts. We are saddened by this litigation, but we are confident the process we have adhered to is fair and just, the conference said in a statement about other churches that had filed a lawsuit against the conference asking to leave. Because of a continuing denominational feud over same-sex marriage and ordination of openly practicing gay clergy, the General Conference adopted guidelines for churches to leave the denomination and take their property with them after meeting financial requirements by Dec. 31, 2023. This year, the General Conference changed its traditional stance to approve same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBTQ clergy. The total of churches that disaffiliated from the Alabama-West Florida Conference by the 2023 deadline was 248. The churches that sued said they were not allowed to leave and take their property before the deadline. In the North Alabama Conference, 348 churches disaffiliated. Both conferences had more than 600 member churches before the disaffiliations. At the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist Church, meeting July 10-12, the denomination is moving toward combining the two conferences in Alabama into one Episcopal area, which will mean reducing from two bishops to one. The bishop assigned to cover Alabama and the Florida Panhandle is expected to be announced July 11, from the pool of current bishops in the Southeastern Jurisdiction. Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett, current head of the North Alabama Conference, has served the maximum 12 years and will no longer lead North Alabama churches after Sept. 1. Bishop David Graves, who has been head of the Alabama-West Florida Conference for the past eight years, is expected to leave that post and be assigned to another conference in the region. Troopers with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency investigated nine traffic deaths and three drownings over the July 4th holiday period, the agency said Tuesday. The period was defined by ALEA as being between 12:01 July 3 and midnight July 7. ALEAs statistics do do not include fatalities worked by other law enforcement agencies in the state. Unfortunately, this holiday period ended in tragedy for 12 individuals and their loved ones, which we extend our deepest condolences, said ALEA Secretary Hal Taylor. For law enforcement, this number is a stark reminder that our job is never done. While I commend all of our officers and the states first responders who worked tirelessly over the holiday away from their families, I also pledge to the public that our Agency will continue our mission of protecting and serving by conducting high-visibility enforcement details and providing educational opportunities to combat dangerous driving and boating habits and reduce such tragedies. The 2024 July 4th holiday period was the third consecutive year there were no boating-related fatalities investigating by ALEA, the agency said. The traffic fatalities occurred in Calhoun, Conecuh, Crenshaw, Cullman, Escambia, Jackson, Marshall and Tuscaloosa counties. Of those killed, six were drivers, one was a passenger and two were motorcyclists. Both motorcyclists were using helmets at the time of their crashes, but only one person of the seven traveling in vehicles equipped with seat belts was buckled up at the time of the crash. The three drownings occurred at Oak Mountain State Park in Shelby County, Wheeler Lake in Morgan County and Palmetto Creek in Baldwin County. July 3 was the only day during the period where no fatalities were reported, ALEA said. State troopers investigated 206 traffic crashes, made 48 DUI arrests, issued 2,429 citations for speeding and issued 1,211 citations for seat belts and/or improper child restraints, the agency said. Troopers with ALEAs Marine Patrol Division investigated 14 boating incidents, made 14 BUI arrests, issued 206 Marine Safety citations and issued 852 Marine Safety Warnings. Troopers also conducted 671 vessel inspections and patrolled 36 marine related events across the state, many of which were firework shows over the water. I echo Secretary Taylors comments: our jobs are never done. With the increase in summer activities and travel, it is imperative that safety remains a top priority for everyone, said Col. Jonathan Archer, director of ALEAs Department of Public Safety. Please remember to wear your seat belts, put down your phone and other distractions, and never operate a vehicle or boat under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Our Troopers will continue to work diligently to enforce traffic and boating laws to protect the lives of all Alabamians and its visitors. The division is continuing its 101 Days of Summer Safety educational campaign and the Rescue Swimmer Detail on the Gulf Coast, Archer said. On July 15, the division will kick off its Rural Road Safety Awareness Week while conducting a joint safety initiative with its counterparts in Georgia for Southern Slow Down, which focuses on speeding and reckless driving. ALEAs Aviation Unit, with assistance from the Gulf Shores and Orange Beach fire departments, participated in the Rescue Swimmer Detail from July 4 through July 8. The unit performed 12 patrol flights, responded to four calls for service and performed 10 practice deployments of rescue swimmers. ALEA cautioned prospective beachgoers that Tropical Depression Beryl brings threats of strong rip currents in the Gulf of Mexico. Visitors to Orange Beach and Gulf Shores can sign up for daily beach conditions and warning flag status by texting ALBEACHES to 888777. An Alabama youth minister is behind bars, accused in the repeated rape and sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl who attended his church. Terry Lewayne Murphree, 39, threatened to kill himself and his wife if the teen victim didnt comply with his demands, according to court documents. Murphree is charged in Blount County with 17 crimes: nine counts of a clergy member having sexual intercourse with a child, three counts of sexual abuse, and one count each of first-degree rape, electronic solicitation of a child, human trafficking, traveling to meet a child for sex, and first-degree attempted sodomy. Murphree was booked into the Blount County Jail Tuesday. The name of the church where Murphree served was not named in court records. The charging documents state that the alleged sexual assaults happened in March and continued through June. Murphree is accused of having forced sexual intercourse with the girl on multiple occasions, as well as performing sex acts on her. Intercourse against the girls will took place at least seven times and possibly as many as 15, records state. Those acts took place at the unnamed church, at Murphrees home and at the victims home. The suspect, prosecutors contend, used Snapchat and text message to demand nude photos from the victim. He also threated harm to himself and his wife, who filed for divorce from him last month if the teen didnt send him nude photos. Court records do not list an attorney to comment on Murphrees behalf. Prosecutors are asking that Murphree be denied bond. The defendant served in a position of trust within the community a youth minister, Assistant District Attorney Scott Gilliland wrote in his bond motion, and abused that position of trust to exploit a child in his care. Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels issued a statement Wednesday in support of his colleague, Rep. Kelvin Lawrence of Lowndes County, who was arrested on Tuesday. Ive served with Rep. Lawrence for 10 years, said Daniels, a representative from Huntsville who has led the Democratic caucus in the House since 2017. I know the great things he has done for the people of his district. I know him to be a good man and he deserves our support. We should not pass judgement on him until all the facts are known. Hes a man of faith and good character and I stand by my friend. Lawrence was charged with second-degree forgery and second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced. Both crimes are Class C felonies, punishable by a prison sentence ranging from one year and one day to 10 years. Lawrence declined to comment on Tuesday and said he would release a statement later through his lawyer. The indictment, which has not yet been made public, accuses Lawrence of using a falsely made, completed, or altered builders license with the intent to defraud. No additional details were released. Lawrence, a Democrat, was elected to the Alabama House in 2014. He represents District 69, which includes Lowndes County, most of Wilcox County, and parts of Autauga and Montgomery counties. He was previously mayor of Hayneville. Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter also issued a statement on Tuesday. Rep. Kelvin Lawrences indictment presents an unfortunate situation for his constituents and colleagues alike, Ledbetter said. I have full confidence in our justice systems ability to assess the facts of this case and determine an appropriate course of action. Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allens claim that the Biden administration is making it easier for undocumented immigrants to vote was amplified Monday by a social media account popular with conservatives. But experts say the claim, made in June, was boosted Monday by the X account Libs of TikTok, where it caught the attention of Elon Musk. The Tesla CEO boosted that tweet and another hours later from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claiming Biden and the Democrats want illegal immigrants to vote in the election this November. Our elections are NOT safe from mass interference as long as states do not require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. However, Allens claim isnt backed by either the law or studies that show an infinitesimally small number of cases of suspected non-citizen voting, let alone actual cases of undocumented immigrants voting. Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen exposed the Biden admin for helping illegals register to vote. Allen claimed the administration is using the National Voter Registration Act to require that non-citizens who come in contact with certain state agencies be given voter pic.twitter.com/Y3Y5unjTmU Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 8, 2024 The foundation of Allens allegation is built on the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires state agencies through which people receive public assistance or state-funded programs, such as drivers license offices and Medicaid, make voter registration forms accessible. We got some complaints from Alabama residents about their deceased relatives receiving a voter registration application in the mail from state Medicaid, which is federally funded, Allen said during a June 21 appearance on WVNNs The Yaffee Program. And so what we found as we dug deeper and went down the rabbit hole was anyone that came in contact with a state motor, state Medicaid agency, no matter if they received these benefits or not, received a voter registration form in the mail. And that means that any legal noncitizen or illegal alien, if they come into contact, if they try to get benefits from state Medicaid or DHR are receiving these voter registration forms. Allen claimed the NVRA coupled with a Biden executive order from March 2021 that the White House said directs federal agencies to expand access to voter registration and election information makes it easier for non-citizens to vote. Youre getting into some things that are appalling, and we are using every legal tool that we have in the secretary of states office to combat this, to make sure that we are operating under the Constitution and under our state laws, Allen said. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has stoked similar fears about non-citizen voting voting in the upcoming election, Stateline recently reported. It could, if there are enough votes, affect the presidential election, Johnson said as he stood with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. We cannot wait for widespread fraud to occur, especially when the threat of fraud is growing with every single illegal immigrant that crosses that border. That rhetoric is rooted in a fear about how the U.S. is changing demographically, becoming more diverse as the non-white population increases, longtime Republican strategist Mike Madrid told Stateline. Theres no problem being solved here, said Madrid, whose forthcoming book, The Latino Century, outlines the groups growing voter participation. This is all politics. Its all about stoking fears and angering the base. It is already is it illegal for non-citizens to vote and non-citizens would increase their risk of deportation by attempting to vote, wrote Sean Morales-Doyle, director of voting rights and democracy for the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal public policy institute. [B]y committing the crime, you create a government record of your having committed it. In fact, its the creation of the government record the registration form or the ballot cast that is the crime. So, youve not only exposed yourself to prison time and deportation, youve put yourself on the governments radar, and youve handed the government the evidence it needs to put you in prison or deport you. All so you could cast one vote. Who would do such a thing? Morales-Doyle wrote in April. A Brennan Center study that looked at 42 jurisdictions in the 2016 election showed that only 30 incidents of suspected non-citizen voting were referred for further investigation out of 23.5 million votes. Those 30 incidents were not necessarily proven. In other words, even suspected not proven noncitizen votes accounted for just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast, Morales-Doyle wrote. Even the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, found noncitizen voting was a nonissue in the 2020 election. There are likely many problems with Americas voting system and there is no doubt that a non-zero number of non-citizens illegally voted, but there is no good evidence that noncitizens voted illegally in large enough numbers to actually shift the outcome of elections or even change the number of electoral votes, wrote Alex Nowrasteh in a piece titled Noncitizens Dont Illegally Vote in Detectable Numbers. In voicing its disapproval for the Safeguard American Voting Eligibility (SAVE) Act, legislation championed by Johnson and other House Republicans that they say would prevent noncitizens from voting, the White House said the law and other effective safeguards are already in place to stop those occurences. It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal electionsit is a federal crime punishable by prison and fines. The alleged justification for this bill is based on easily disproven falsehoods, the White House said. Additionally, making a false claim of citizenship or unlawfully voting in an election is punishable by removal from the United States and a permanent bar to admission. States already have effective safeguards in place to verify voters eligibility and maintain the accuracy of voter rolls. Allens response to the argument that noncitizen voting is already illegal was that we want the most accurate, most clean voter files in the country in the state of Alabama. Thats what we want and non-citizens should not be receiving a voter registration at all. Thats a full stop there. And what the Biden administration should not be doing is making it easier for non-citizens, whether they be legal non-citizens in the country legally or illegal aliens, they dont need to be making it easier for those individuals to receive the voter registration form to even have a chance to slip through the cracks. Its really just a slap in the face to the American people to the Alabama taxpayers, he said. Theyre making a mockery of law and order, Allen said of Democrats. And were here, bringing this to light. And what weve got to do is put Trump back in the White House, get a GOP Senate and a GOP House to reform the NVRA to where we can verify citizenship and to make sure that none of these illegal aliens and none of these non-US citizens are receiving voter registration forms. Morales-Doyle said there are other obstacles preventing noncitizens from voting. Again, consider the fact that in order to commit these crimes you create a government record of having committed them. Indeed, anyone can look up your voter history on public voter files. And election officials conduct regular maintenance of these voter lists in fact, theyre required to by federal law, he wrote. Moreover, these are crimes that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers are instructed to look into during the naturalization process. So, if you ever try to become a citizen, youll be caught. Lensey King remembers working alongside his grandfather, one of the first Black licensed electricians in Etowah County, at only eight years old. Kings grandfather and uncles, all electricians, inspired him to start his business, Electrical Maintenance and Troubleshooting. Now, his wife and children help run it. His electrical business is not only his lifes work, but a part of his familys legacy as King passes the company on to his children. My grandfather was the first Black, licensed electrician during his time. That connection between his life, and his work and segregation made me understand the significance of what he was doing, King said. I know some of the struggles he had to go through just to even pursue that and obtain that license or credential. He thought enough about our family to train us at an early age. So out of respect for him, I make sure his grandchildren take advantage of that. Today, King spends his days doing the work that he loves, teaching his children the tricks of the trade and training others just as his family trained him. Experts say running a family business is not an easy feat, with only 30% of family-owned businesses in the United States surviving into the second generation, 12% into the third, and 3% into the fourth and beyond, according to a 2024 Score study. In 2021, Black-owned businesses made up about 3% of all U.S. firms, according to a Pew Research Center study. And in 2022, Black electricians made up only 7% of the trade with 877,000 electricians working in the United States and only 61,656 being Black electricians, according to a Data USA study. King says he has found success by putting his family first and doing the work in honor of the generations before him. Lensey King stands with his grandparents, Odessa Parker and Johnnie Parker Sr., after the electrical competition award ceremony.Lensey King Kings journey into the family business King said he has fond memories working alongside his grandfather as a child. Those days looked like handing him and my uncles tools, holding the flashlights for them, fetching equipment. I was their apprentice, King said. My son, Lensey III, started helping me at age six and my daughter Katelyn started helping me around the same age. I started them off the same way my grandfather did. Johnnie Parker Sr., Kings grandfather, was a vocational school instructor at J.K. Weaver Technical School and owned a small electrical contracting company in Gadsden, Parker Electric Company, which his family helped him run. Peggy Parker Hill, Kings mother, kept the books for her fathers business. Odessa Parker, Kings grandmother, delivered materials and meals for the business. When Parker Sr. retired, Kings uncle, Johnnie Parker Jr., began teaching electrical engineering at J.K. Weaver Technical School and encouraged King to participate in electrical competitions. A lot of the stuff he was teaching his students, I already knew at the age of eight, King said. In ninth grade, King came in third place in a district competition. He was disappointed, but persevered. He competed every year, growing in skill and confidence. By twelfth grade, King won first place in the district, first in the state and fifth in the nation. In 1998, after graduating from Gadsden High School, King attended Gadsden State Community College for a year, but found that college was simply not the right path for him. I wanted to go to work. Growing up in Gadsden, I wanted to work in the big city and, to me, that was Birmingham, King said. Griffin Electric, a sponsor for the electrical competitions, offered King an apprenticeship at age 19. While working at Griffin Electric, he balanced other electrical projects at R&T Electric and Parker Electric. In 2002, King went to work at CMC Steel Alabama, a steel mill in Woodlawn, where he did industrial electrical work at the recommendation of his uncle Roderick Parker, who is also an electrician. Overtime, King worked his way up the ladder, earning multiple electrical certificates and licenses. I started as an electronic technician, then I worked my way up to electrical specialist, then I became shift supervisor. And then my last position at the steel mill was electrical supervisor. No degree, no college other than that one year, but I just understood the trade, understood the theory, and I was intrigued by it and I just wanted to just keep learning it, King said. Johnnie Parker Sr. died in September 2007, but his legacy lived on as King started Electrical Maintenance and Troubleshooting in 2008. With his wife and children by his side, King grew the family business. A family business Today, the family sits around a table, laughing and sharing fond memories of working alongside each other. I remember putting fan blades together using the screwdriver. And even though that wasnt really like a big thing, it made me feel like I was helping a lot, the Kings daughter, Katelyn, 17, said. Its been fun. Its very fulfilling. It is very inspiring to see how hardworking he is and it makes me want to work hard too. It makes me want to pass it on too. Katelyn laughed as their parents shared a story about her first time getting fired at age 10 after being caught watching cartoons on the job. Its just cool to work with him and already have a job, but I still have to work pretty hard, the Kings son, Lensey III, 14, said. When I was just starting, I was just handing him tools and holding the flashlight and just doing whatever he asked. But now that Im starting the electrical work program at my school, hes having me start to wire stuff up and do more of the work that he would do. On another early contracting job, Lensey III and Katelyn could be found playing with cardboard boxes on their heads while their parents laughed along. To be his wife and to just jump in and help him fulfill his vision and his dream with the business has been very rewarding, Jennifer King, co-owner and CFO of Electrical Maintenance and Troubleshooting, said. Its a legacy for my children that he passed down. Today, both Lensey III and Katelyn are licensed electrician apprentices. My goal has always been to honor my grandfather and grandmotherIt is extremely important to not only continue my grandfathers legacy, but go further than he did. Valuable lessons and skills are passed down to us by grace. We should show gratitude by going further for the next generations to come, King said. English News Popularity of Chinese-style products overseas mirrors new momentum of China's foreign trade Alwihda Info | Par People's Daily - 8 Juillet 2024 It is believed that as more Chinese companies delve deeper into the essence of traditional culture to launch high-quality products and strengthen their brands abroad, Chinese-style products will receive more orders in overseas markets, thus showcasing the new charm of Chinese manufacturing on the world stage. By Luo Shanshan, People's Daily Thanks to the vogue for horse-face skirts, neo-Chinese styles and other Chinese fashion trends around the world, jacquard fabrics and products independently developed by a Zhejiang-based fabric company are seeing booming sales in overseas markets. In the first five months of this year, the company exported over 40 million yuan ($5.5 million) of such fabrics and products, successfully opening up markets in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and other regions. Apart from traditional Chinese attire, Chinese calligraphy, painting, porcelain, and other products are also hitting the European market via China-Europe Railway Express. Chinese beauty brands are gaining a large number of followers on overseas social media platforms as well. The combination of traditional culture and Chinese manufacturing is driving a "going global" trend of Chinese consumer goods, highlighting China's foreign trade and conveying the sector's new momentum of high-quality development to the world. What drives this trend is the relentless effort of Chinese companies to upgrade their manufacturing processes. In Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu province, a silk fabric company has established a technology-driven development model, following the trends of technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and consumer demand. The company's independently developed automated silk farming system for young silkworms enables automated and intelligent production. The company has built an efficient and stable system that covers the entire industrial chain, from a single mulberry leaf or cocoon to a silk thread and ultimately the final product, providing a solid foundation for producing high-quality silk fabrics. Whether it is silk, porcelain, or attire, Chinese-style consumer goods have distinct cultural characteristics and are imbued with rich cultural connotations. Many companies are exploring the multidimensional expression of traditional Chinese culture through inheritance and innovation. For instance, they collaborate with museums and historical blocks to develop co-branded products, and combine traditional culture with contemporary popular art and daily necessities. At the recent China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair, visitors were treated to an impressive display of cultural creativity. The diverse and beautifully crafted exhibits showcased fresh ways of expressing culture, giving traditional elements a modern twist and bringing new vitality to them. How can a traditional oil-paper umbrella quickly find its way into the homes of overseas consumers? With support and guidance from Hangzhou Customs, a tech firm in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province has started cross-border e-commerce retail business. Currently, the company ships nearly 100 orders of oil-paper umbrellas to its overseas clients on a daily basis. Cross-border e-commerce bridges manufacturing and consumption, opening a new window for foreign consumers to explore Chinese culture and purchase Chinese goods. It also provides a fresh channel for "China chic" products to go global. According to Hangzhou Customs, from January to May, Zhejiang province exported 61.99 billion yuan worth of cultural products, up 12.2 percent year-on-year. This showcases Chinese companies' proactive efforts to adapt and expand their trade methods. It is believed that as more Chinese companies delve deeper into the essence of traditional culture to launch high-quality products and strengthen their brands abroad, Chinese-style products will receive more orders in overseas markets, thus showcasing the new charm of Chinese manufacturing on the world stage. Dans la meme rubrique : < > Prospering telemedicine a reflection of China's rapid internet development To make China-ASEAN cooperation more fruitful China sees prospering development of marine economy Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) A recurring theme as we live our lives in modern America is the old saying, the generals are always fighting the last war. In elections, the application of the saying is to design a campaign to redress the special types of defeats we suffered last time. Its all over the media these days: Bank your votes early! Take advantage of the early vote! As long as the polls are open for a month before Election Day, take advantage of it and make sure your vote counts! This conclusion is based on the theory that the reason Republicans lost in 2020 was that too many Trump-supporters put off voting until Election Day, and then somehow forgot to vote. If they had voted early, the opportunity would not have been missed. But we should question this theory. Sure, voting early is infinitely preferable to not voting at all. No doubt about it. But voting on Election Day itself is infinitely preferable to voting early. A wise campaign would therefore be encouraging its less motivated voters to vote early, but should actually encourage its definite voters the ones who have never missed an election and never will to vote on Election Day itself. There are plenty of reasons for this, the first of which dates back a century or more probably much more. In big cities with functioning political machines, the precinct captains job has always been to monitor who voted throughout the day, so he could call his voters at home or at work and offer to take them to the polls before it was too late. The more corrupt the city, the more likely those party operatives would also use available names to cast ballots on their behalf during the lulls. As Election Day stretched into Election Month in recent years, such partisan crooks have just been given twenty, thirty, or even more days in which to use this information to fabricate additional ballots. Voter rolls include the names of people who never vote, along with people who are non-citizens and know they arent allowed to vote, in addition to the people who only occasionally or rarely cast a ballot of their own volition and might be susceptible to encouragement. And thanks to the automatic voter registration resulting from the issuance of drivers licenses, the voter rolls include people who cant, dont, or wont actually participate in the election at all. But as long as they are on the rolls anyway, these names are handy vehicles for the fraud universally known to be practiced by corrupt machines. And those arent the only reasons inactive names are on the voting rolls. There are people who have moved away, people who have died, people who became felons and lost their right to vote, and people who have both a summer home and a winter home, legally able to vote only from one, leaving the other registration sitting there doing nothing, ready to be picked up and activated illegally by someone else. Before we assume that such issues are a statistical nuisance, a drop in the bucket not worth our time, consider three statistics. First, about 3.5 million Americans die every year. Thats 3.5 million names that might have been valid the year before but are no longer. Just considering the normal attrition of the natural life cycle of a population, that means that over ten years time, 35 million registrations that were once valid become invalid, unless there is a continuing effort to purge those names. Second, hardly anyone lives in the same house or apartment all his life. Most of us move on our own at least a few times, leaving our formerly valid voter registrations to become legally invalid while remaining on the rolls upon our departure. Did you go to college, or did your children? If they changed dorms or apartments each year in college, they might have registered each year (unless they voted from home). Thats several more addresses per student, while of voting age, even before adulthood in dorms and off-campus apartments. How many of these are purged from the rolls? At any given time, there are about ten million students living at college. They dont all register to vote, but for those who do, every year, the number of voter registrations without a real resident behind them increases. Third, consider the level of immigration both legal and illegal in the United States. About 675,000 visas are issued each year for legal immigration, but as we all know, there have been hundreds of thousands more, all illegal, crossing the border each year for decades. Under the Biden-Harris regime, that rate has swollen to millions per year. The legal immigrants cant legally vote until they become citizens, and the illegal immigrants can never legally vote. But this isnt enforced when most people are registered, especially through those automated registration methods. Immigration both legal and gate-crashing therefore causes enormous padding of the voter rolls as well. Add just these three sources together and there are many more than these and you see the potential for our voting rolls to become chock-full of individual registrations that cannot legally be used, but often are used nevertheless. For this reason, political machines have two ways of using the voting rolls. They know which names are real and currently usable, and they can nag those folks to show up and vote. But they also know which names are not real, which names either never were legal or were once but are no longer. The more of these there are, the more a sophisticated political machine can make the most of them. And the more time they have to do it, the easier it becomes to take advantage of every opportunity. Lets imagine a fully staffed polling place on Election Day, with two or three Democrat poll workers and two or three real Republican poll workers. If the majority vote was on Election Day proper, then the Republicans would notice if there were three hundred more votes than they remember seeing walk in throughout the day. But now that we have a 30-day election period in so many states, theres no way the honest poll workers can be suspicious if the pre-election ballot envelope holds hundreds more. So they cant raise an objection; they almost have to accept them. This, more than anything else, is why the Democrats want long election seasons and push for the concept of banking your votes early. They get to spread out the fraud over a month or more so its less noticeable, and if Republicans vote early, too, that gives them a constantly updated target so they can always estimate how many votes they need to fabricate by the end. Do Republicans really want to help them in that quest? If we really want to learn from the last war, perhaps we should try this: instead of trying to beat the Democrats at their own game which Republicans can never do, because Democrats will always cheat maybe we should work harder at making the system fraud-proof. Instead of trying to get Republicans to vote early, we might try taking away the tools the Democrats use to rig the system. John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation manager, trade compliance trainer, and speaker. A one-time Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. Read his book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), and his brand new nonfiction book on the 2024 election, Current Events and the Issues of Our Age, all available on Amazon. Image: cagdesign via Pixabay, Pixabay License. During the White House briefing of July 8, spokesperson Kringe On-Pierre (no relation to Stratford-upon-Avon), repeatedly refused to identify the neurologist who examined Poseur Biden. Later that day, White House physician Kevin OConnor addressed the matter and identified Kevin Cannard as the neurology doc who examined Biden (D-Ementia) during his annual physical. From OConnors letter: Dr. Cannard was chosen for this responsibility not because he is a movement disorder specialist, but because he is a highly trained and highly regarded neurologist here at Walter Reed and across the Military Health System, with a very wide expertise which makes him flexible to see a variety of patients and problems. ... The results of this year's exam were detailed in my February 28th letter: "An extremely detailed neurologic exam was again reassuring in that there were 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, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy. Like a stopped watch, even Kringe can be right, though not as frequently. It was wrong to reveal Cannard as the culprit, despite his claimed agreement to being outed. There are a number of reasons for this conclusion. Here are some: 1. Cannard acted as a referral physician. In a sense, he works at the pleasure of the White House doc, OConnor. Frankly, his primary loyalty is to the referring doc and not the patient. Here is an example as explanation. A primary care physician refers a patient for an X-ray of the hips for evaluation of a gait disturbance. The radiologist thinks, Maybe it is a foot problem and not a hip problem. Should the radiologist, who does not know the patient as an entirety, as the PCP should, take it upon himself to do the feet, too? In the medical world, this would be irresponsible on a number of levels, not the least of which being that the radiologist went ahead and performed a test without knowledge of the patients complete history. The proper course of action would be to recommend other imaging in the report to the ordering doc. Persons unfamiliar with both medical etiquette and good medical practices may unfairly criticize Cannard for not doing more to answer the questions the public has about the Cognitively-Impaired-in-Chief. 2. There is no real report of Bidens physical available to the public. There is only the summary prepared by OConnor. The Venn diagram of esteem of the medical profession with the value of excrement shows substantial overlap. We are expected to believe that what is essentially secondhand info i.e., OConnors relating of Cannards findings and conclusions are accurate. Not only do we not know that, but we do not know the pressure Cannard was under to agree to OConnors statement. 3. Cannard is being thrown under the bus. There is no way, no how that Biden is not cognitively impaired by one means or another. Admittedly, this is not a formal medical diagnosis. That said, one does not need to be a licensed, board-certified physician to diagnose a limp, for example. The specific reason for it may require a pro, but the evidence of its existence is obvious to those willing to see. OConnor is blaming Cannard for the absence of a cause resulting in what all who are willing to see can see. 4. The February 28, 2024 report suggested that OConnor choreographed a predetermined outcome: Each of these specialists have independently reviewed the chart, examined the president, and concur with my findings and recommendations. Explicitly, the referral physicians were tasked to concur with OConnor, perhaps on pain of losing their rarefied positions. That an extremely detailed neurologic exam completely overlooks mental status is problematic. 5. Cannard is at risk of physical and professional harm. The latter may or may not be deserved. If he is such a great neurologist, with a very wide expertise which makes him flexible to see a variety of patients and problems, he should have been able to diagnose or at least question beyond his alleged expertise in Parkinsons and movement disorders. The former is a personal security risk, especially these days, as all sorts of miscreants are on the loose and unlikely to be reprimanded e.g., pro-Hamas Nazis. By revealing Cannard, the White House is imperiling him and setting him up to take the fall. He is a second-level participant and is being used as a human shield for those in charge i.e., OConnor and Biden. This is a disservice to him personally and professionally and a way to distract the public from assigning proper blame (if any you decide) by setting up a straw man. His identity should not have been disclosed. Image: The White House via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 US. A lot has been made of the disingenuousness of the Democrats, all of them pretending to be 'shocked, shocked' that Joe Biden is in such a bad mental state, as the June 27 presidential debate revealed. The worst of them has come forward now, movie star George Clooney, who led a $28 million fundraiser in Beverly Hills on his behalf two weeks before the presidential debate. According to Axios: ... and ... What he's saying: "I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. ... In the last four years, he's won many of the battles he's faced," Clooney wrote. "But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can." "This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president," he wrote. Axios noted that Biden had been begging donors to stay at his side, yet a lot of the Hollywood ones have pulled out, or said they wouldn't donate to Biden anymore. Now that Clooney has gone public, the latest et tu Brute, the most likely explanation is that the Hand of Obama is behind this about-face, as podcaster Stephen L. Miller noted. Clooney and Obama have always been particularly close, both infatuated with the Hollywood glamour factor. What's vivid here is what's happening. Clooney hosted the biggest fundraiser Biden had, raising $28 million for the old fool less than a month ago. Now he's saying he sees how senile Joe Biden is, and thus, has changed his mind. He didn't know that Biden was in this condition as he handed him $28 million dollars? That fundraiser, recall, featured this two-step that happened in front of the Cloonster's very eyes: Remember: This was the fundraiser where Obama had to lead Biden away by the hand. You were told by the Associated Press and others that this was a perfectly normal interaction, that Obama merely wanted to appear chummy, and that to suggest otherwise was a "cheap fake." https://t.co/sbezEk6xmY T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) July 10, 2024 JUST IN: George Clooney calls for a new Democrat nominee just 3 weeks after he helped Biden raise $30 million at a Hollywood fundraiser. Clooney said Biden, the man who was democratically nominated in the primary, needs to "save democracy" by stepping aside. "I love Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/Zbj71gDCPJ Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 10, 2024 What a flaming hypocrite. Of course, Clooney knew. He just seemed upset that voters now knew. And he was hardly the first to call on Biden to step down, he waited until all the moneybags had closed their knapsacks, and then he said Biden needed to go. He may consider Biden a friend, but he doesn't exactly sound like one when the 'in crowd' is going someplace else, and Obama gets out his pen and his phone. He's a Hollywood "friend," it seems. Whether Biden gets the cash now, I can't say. But I am guessing that this betrayal will cheese the Bidens off, since old Joe did change U.S. foreign policy just for George, who was concerned that his U.K. citizen wife would face U.S. sanctions over the recent International Criminal Court measure to arrest the prime minister of Israel over the Gaza war and get her U.S. visa yanked. Joe was for sanctioning the ICC for its meddling, before he was against it. I wrote about that here. And the fundraising went through, Clooney obviously cognizant of Biden's state, along with anyone else who watched the thing. Now he's calling for Biden to get out. That's some gratitude for changing U.S. foreign policy to please George and scarf up the money. Don't be surprised to see Biden change U.S. foreign policy yet again to get wifey Amal sanctioned. The quid pro quo will be blindingly obvious, along with the evidence that Clooney knew all about Biden's bad shape even as he sought money from others for Joe. Then Obama will plot another stab in the back for Joe. What a lovely presidency this is shaping up to be. /s Image: Screen shot from Twitter video "All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. --Sun Tzus Art of War. Ive been watching the political jaw-boning on the right celebrating the fact that President Joe Biden has finally been outed as a feeble, incontinent, fumbling old man. The media on the right are watching in joy as all their dreams are coming true with the collapse of the Biden campaign. They along with the Trump campaign are getting out of the way and presumably watching them implode right in front of their eyes. I have always had the belief that if something seems too good to be true it probably is. I watched the debate almost two weeks ago and honestly thought that with the exception of that first big fumble, eleven minutes in, Biden held his own well enough for the Democrats and the press to sell that he won many parts of the debate. But immediately after the debate, the onslaught of Oh my God, I cant believe what I just saw, media coverage flooded in from every corner of the collective left. This didnt settle with me. It felt as though I was being sold something that I didnt want. We have watched with much drama about who is going to ask Biden to drop out of the race? The Democrat House and Senate caucuses walk out as if they left a funeral after the grim circumstances facing their party this year. Then there is this new proposal by James Carville originally written by columnist Ezra Klein. Carville, according to a Daily Mail article, calls for skipping backrooms and orchestrating a public vetting process. In which former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are to host a series of townhalls bringing in prospective replacements across the nation, preceding the Democrat convention to allow the delegates to choose the best candidate to move forward. This begs the question that if President Biden is unfit to run as his party's nominee, then how in the hell is he qualified or capable enough to be running our country now? Especially in light of the faltering economy and the prospect of World War III hanging around just about every quadrant of the globe. It seems the Republicans and the conservative media are so desperate to finally hear the echos of what they have been saying for the last four years that they are willing to allow just about anything to take place for their candidate to win. But as with the Art of War democratic politics is built on deception and lies and this ploy to replace Biden is just that. The Democrats know they cant win with Joe Biden. They also know that they will lose with the logical replacement Kamala Harris. So they must create this chaotic scenario over here to distract the nation and their adversaries while over there they are actually getting done what they want. Republicans and the conservative media need to wake up and anticipate their opponents next move or as Sun Tzu says, "Fight your enemy where they aren't. This simply means dictate the theme, whereabouts, and the aspect of the matchup where your enemy is bound to lose and avoid fighting on his own terms and conditions. Drag your enemy onto a battlefield of your own and make sure you have the upper hand. This applies in war as much if not more so in politics. Trump, the Republicans and the conservative media better get ready for battle and be thinking more than their next move. Because our republic's future is at stake. Image: WorldHistoryPics.com, via Wikimedia Commons, Picryl // CC0 public domain dedication The recent outrageous, often unhinged, rhetoric from the left, the DNC, and other assorted self-styled elites regarding the position in which they find themselves now that Bidens mental deficits are fully revealed reminds me of my grandmother and her beloved heirloom grandfather clock. Politics are like a traditional grandfather clock because: It is typically large, impressive, and expensive; It makes a lot of noise at regular intervals; It requires frequent jerking of the chain to keep it ticking along; It cannot be relied upon to accurately tell the time. As we grandchildren discovered, when you gave the pendulum a nudge, it could be relied upon to swing erratically from left to right, and back again, never displaying the correct time until a greater force, gravity, would slowly return it to equilibrium. In fact, if you gave it a hard enough shove, the pendulum would swing so erratically that the chain would slip, and everything would crash to the floor. Image by AI. The level of chaos created, of course, always depends on how hard you were willing to nudge that pendulum. This is nothing new. Politics have always been conducted in this fashion, sometimes worse, sometimes better, but always inherently distasteful, if not downright dishonest. However, with the advent of Donald J. Trump on the American Political scene, the level of ugliness began to descend into chaos, deceit, and lawlessness. Then, just when we were beginning to believe, perhaps hopefully, that the political machinations could go no lower, along came Donald J. Trump 2.0 (aka Trump 2024). We are now seeing a new mutation of TDS being displayed by the self-styled elites, the MSM, and the Deep-State. The political apparatchiks, unwilling to have their power challenged, are now unleashing their own special brand of insanity on the American people, the Constitution, and the very structure of our nation. The pendulum and the chain have crashed to the floor, and we cannot tell the time. The United States of America is facing a constitutional crisis. Meanwhile, Congress, the White House, and the DNC, behaving like the Roman Emperor Nero, who reputedly fiddled while Rome burned, are again gaslighting the American public with rhetoric about whether its wise or possible to replace Biden as the Democrat nominee. This is not the Question. If Joe Biden is not fit to run for reelection, Joe Biden is not fit to hold the office of the president of America. The correct question is one of time. On which date will the 25th Amendment challenge against President Joe Bidens fitness to hold the Executive Office be presented to the American Congress? The rest is a waste of time, for its simply fiddling with the pendulum. In calling for a "Second American Revolution," the Heritage Foundation demonstrates its ignorance of the First. The revolution of 1776 overthrew the government of Great Britain in the 13 colonies, and substituted a new one, called the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. This was soon superseded, not overthrown, by the Constitution. We are in the process of reviving or resurrecting that Constitution, not overthrowing it. We are not revolutionaries, we are conservatives. We are already making giant strides in our political and legal campaign, even as the pivotal election of 2024 is months away. For 60 years we've been waiting for the courts to recognize "affirmative action" for what it is: state-sanctioned racial discrimination. Finally, at long last, the Supreme Court has ruled that benign intentions cannot justify discriminating against any racial group. For 50 years we waited for the great, and thoroughly unconstitutional exercise of eugenics and birth control known as Roe v. Wade to be overturned, and it finally happened. For 40 years we've waited for the sprawling, invasive administrative state to be brought under control, and with the overturning of "Chevron deference" it's finally happening. None of these cases were, in the least sense, revolutionary. They were, in turn, a restoration of equal protection, judicial restraint, and the separation of powers. They represent nothing more, or less, than a return to the principles set forth in the Constitution by the men who wrote it. And now, all of a sudden and in one debate, all the lies from the media about Joe Biden have been exposed, and his sordid political career is coming to its humiliating conclusion. The media has disgraced itself covering for Biden, and its reputation has been destroyed, perhaps permanently. We can hope. With big Republican victories across the country only four months way, it's going to get even better. All of us should be energized and motivated to do everything we can to make the November election a watershed, an historic turn in politics equivalent to 1932, the election that changed everything. For almost a hundred years now the federal government and the deep state have been accumulating power. Even the great Ronald Reagan, despite his best efforts, could not turn the tide. 2024 is our great opportunity to begin a reversal, and start returning power to the states, and the people. One election, even one as significant and promising as 2024, won't solve all our problems. We will remain a deeply divided country. There have always been deep divisions in a country as vast and diverse as the United States. Federalism allows such a nation to function successfully. Federalism means, in practice, live and let live. It means tolerance and diversity. It means let California be California, and let Alaska be Alaska. It's how our government was originally designed to work. The political alignment of 2024 is the most promising I've seen in my lifetime. We can't let this opportunity go to waste. Fritz Pettyjohn's first venture in politics was working for Goldwater for President in 1964. Image: Heritage Foundation The recent announcement by President Biden to bolster Ukraine's defenses with state-of-the-art Patriot missile systems has raised significant concerns about escalating the conflict with Russia into a potential nuclear war. The decision underscores the multi-million dollar private Biden family backdoor deal to support Ukraine. See the headlines here: Deploying additional Patriot missile systems, some diverted from Poland, highlights the lengths to which the Biden family is willing to go to reinforce Ukraine's air defenses, including giving Russia the moral high ground to attack and assimilate Poland. What more excuse does Russia need to take over Poland than Poland providing murderous weapons against Russia? However, the broader implications of this decision cannot be ignored. By significantly enhancing Ukraine's military capabilities, the U.S. risks further entrenching itself in a proxy war that could spiral out of control. The constant supply of advanced weaponry and the unwavering support for Ukraine's military efforts could provoke Russia into more aggressive actions, potentially leading to direct conflict between the two nuclear-armed superpowers, as both articles above describe. While some argue that this strong stance against Russian aggression is necessary to uphold international law and support a sovereign nation under siege, the potential for catastrophic escalation should not be underestimated. The current geopolitical climate is already tense, and any miscalculation could have dire consequences for global security. As far-fetched as it seems, a sensible alternative would be for both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to step down, allowing for a caretaker president, Mike Johnson, who would be next in line in Constitutional succession. If Harris objects, I would argue that she needs to be told in no uncertain terms that she is as guilty as Biden for treason against "We the People" and could be tried for treason if Trump wins. Im sure Trump and Mike Johnson would offer her a one-time agreement to be forgiven for her sins if she steps down simultaneously with Biden. Thats better than her spending the rest of her life in jail. Michael Letts is the founder, and CEO of Invest USA at https://InvestUSA.org, a private charity that donates bulletproof vests to police and other first responders. Image: Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED Data breaches are increasingly becoming common these days across online services and products. To tackle the misuse of user information via such breaches, the search engine giant Google has taken an important step. The company will start offering the Google One Dark web reports to all Google Account users by the end of this month. Google One Dark web reports are moving to the Results about you section The Dark web reports will no longer be available within the Google One app starting in late July. Instead, Google users can access this feature from the Results about you section. It can be accessed by going to the Manage your Google Account tab under your accounts avatar. Currently, these reports are only available to users with a Google One membership. However, by the end of July, anyone with a consumer Google Account will be able to access them. These reports help users to stay aware of any personal data breaches across the web. It appears to be a combined solution to help users protect their online presence. This change is coming after the company shut down the Google One VPN service last month. The Dark web reports can inform you if your personal information is found in data breaches As of now, Results about you allows users to find and request the removal of search results that contain their personal information. The Google One Dark web reports, on the other hand, monitor parts of the internet that are ordinarily not easy to access. It searches breaches for the leaks of your personal information, so you can easily safeguard your online presence. Together, these two tools will certainly be much more helpful for this purpose. The Dark web reports can inform you if your personal information is found in any data breach. It checks for data associated with your name, email, address, user name, and password. The breaches may also contain information including your phone number and Social Security Number (SSN). With these results, users can make informed decisions about how they can protect their data on the web. The Dark web reports are currently available in 46 countries across the globe including the US and the UK. Unfortunately, this feature is not available to users having a Google Workspace or a supervised account. The Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra are finally official, and if youre like us, you probably want to know when you can pre-order either or both of them. Both of these new watches usher in a new age of wearables with best-in-class features, some of them new and some of them features youve probably come to love from Samsungs past wearables. Things like Galaxy AI will deliver new possibilities that past Galaxy smartwatches havent. While trusty features like sleep tracking and analysis have improved capabilities and accuracy. Now that each watch has been officially announced, the clock is ticking on when you can put your very own on your wrist. The good news is that the wait wont be too long. As theyll be arriving just in time to finish out the Summer. You can pre-order the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra on July 10 If you want to get a head start on securing your new watch, you can do so right away. Samsung has confirmed that pre-orders for both begin today, July 10. So if youre looking to buy one, you can reserve yours now and be ready for when it starts to ship out to customers. As for costs, the Galaxy Watch 7 will start at a very reasonable and competitive price of $299. This has been a standard for Samsung in the last few smartwatch generations. So theres nothing really new here in terms of cost. What is new is the price tag of the Galaxy Watch Ultra, which is starting at $649. The cost is certainly higher, but the more durable design and added functionality may warrant the price. Where to place your pre-order When it comes to securing your Galaxy Watch 7 and/or Galaxy Watch Ultra, the usual places will apply. You can pre-order the watch directly from Samsung starting today, through Samsungs website. It should also be available to pre-order in physical retailer locations that sell smartwatches and other fitness trackers. Especially if they already sell Samsung wearable products and smart devices. Additionally, youll be able to pre-order both watches from places like Amazon, Best Buy, and other similar retailers online. On top of that, the LTE variants of either watch should be available from major US carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile as well. However, the timing on pre-orders may not be the same as with Samsung directly. Galaxy Watch 7 - Buy at Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra - Buy at Samsung No, Samsung isnt making a special edition Louis Vuitton Galaxy Z Flip 6 or Galaxy Z Fold 6. The company has denied reports of collaboration with LVMH, the French firm behind Louis Vuitton and many other luxury brands. The Korean biggie says it hasnt teamed up with anyone on an Olympic Edition or any other special edition foldable. However, it didnt explicitly rule out the possibility of releasing an Olympic-themed Galaxy device in limited quantity. Samsung denies rumors of a special edition Louis Vuitton foldable Samsung has gathered the tech industry in Paris, France for its latest Unpacked. The company is unveiling the Galaxy Z Flip 6, Galaxy Z Fold 6, and several other products at the event. Usually held in the US or South Korea, the Korean firm took the event to Paris to commemorate Summer Olympics 2024. Samsung is one of the biggest global sponsors of the mega sporting event, which is taking place in the City of Love later this month. A rumor recently surfaced that Samsung will celebrate the Olympic Games and foldable launch with a special edition Galaxy Z Flip 6 or Fold 6 in partnership with LVMH. The French fashion powerhouse, which makes luxury goods under Louis Vuitton, Dior, Loro Piana, Tiffany, Moet Hennessy, and many other brands, is also based in Paris. Since the Korean conglomerate has made Olympic-themed special special edition phones in the past, it all made sense. It turns out the rumor wasnt true. Samsung has officially confirmed that it doesnt have any product with LVMH partnership in the pipeline. The company hasnt partnered up with any brand on a special, Olympic-themed Galaxy Z Flip 6 or Galaxy Z Fold 6. However, the Samsung official who spoke to the Korean media declined to comment on whether it will produce a special edition phone on its own and distribute it to Olympic athletes. Samsung has collaborated with fashion brands in the past Samsung may not be making a special edition phone with Louis Vuitton or any other LVMH brand, but that doesnt necessarily mean we wont see it collaborate with fashion brands in the future. It has done so on numerous occasions in the past, with American fashion designer Thom Browne being one of the regular names. Alongside the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Galaxy Z Fold 6, todays Unpacked in Paris also brings the Galaxy Watch 7, Galaxy Watch Ultra, Galaxy Buds 3, Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, and Galaxy Ring. Stick around for more about these products. Samsung is getting ready to announce a bunch of new products today. The company will announce its new foldables, along with some new products. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 are coming, and you can watch Samsung announce them live. In addition to those two foldables, the Galaxy Ring is also coming, Samsungs very first smart ring. The Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra smartwatches will also launch, as will the Galaxy Buds 3 and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. Samsung will allow you to watch its Galaxy Z Fold 6 & Flip 6 launch event, live If youd like to watch the event, youll find the link embedded below the article. It leads to Samsungs YouTube channel. The event itself will kick off at 3 PM CET (local time), as the event is taking place in Paris, France. That event time translates to 9 AM EST, 6 AM PST, 2 PM BST, 6:30 PM India time, and 10 PM China and Korea time. Yes, this is a global launch event, as is usually the case with Samsungs unpacked events. Some of you may be wondering why is the Galaxy Tab S10 series not launching. Samsung has an odd schedule when it comes to its tablets. Its not exactly a yearly upgrade for Samsung, their cycle is a bit longer than for other products. The companys new tablets will not launch today Samsung will likely launch its new tablet series in January, alongside the Galaxy S25 series. Nothing is official yet, so were only guessing, but based on everything weve seen, the Galaxy Tab S10 will not arrive today, thats for sure. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 are prime devices from todays launch, though the Galaxy Ring may be able to steal their spotlight, at least a little bit. Samsung seemingly didnt change its upcoming foldables all that much, while the Galaxy Ring is the first of its kind. Either way, theres plenty to look forward to from todays event. Theres something for everyone, basically. Some Galaxy Watch users are starting to get a sleep apnea detection feature. This happens one day before the launch of the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra. The brand will probably debut the feature in its next-gen watches, while older models could receive it widely in the coming months. Recently, the company also launched a new BioActive sensor for future smartwatches. Sleep apnea is a delicate condition that causes interruptions in breathing during the sleep of those affected. The first time Galaxy Watches were linked to the monitoring of this condition was in February when Samsung received FDA approval to integrate it in the US. Since then, no new developments have emerged in this regard. However, now the feature seems to be closer than ever. Sleep apnea detection is available on some Galaxy Watch devices running beta software A Redditor reported that their Galaxy Watch got the Sleep Apnea feature in the last few hours. The option appeared after updating the Samsung Health Monitor app, which also includes details on how to use it. However, this does not appear to be a massive rollout but rather testing for One UI Watch 6 beta participants. Currently, the beta is available for the Galaxy Watch 4, 5, and 6. According to the Samsung Health Monitor app, sleep apnea detection requires analyzing the users sleep for at least two nights. During the analysis, the Galaxy Watch will track the number of relative blood oxygen decreases the person shows. This way, the device will be able to determine if the user suffers from the condition and at what level. After a couple of nights, the feature will turn off automatically. It will arrive on Galaxy Watch 4 onwards The Samsung Health Monitor app also includes compatibility details for the sleep apnea feature. It says that it will be available from the Galaxy Watch 4 onwards, on devices running at least Wear OS 5 with One UI Watch 6. While there is no official confirmation, it is likely that sleep apnea will be available first on the Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch Ultra. Meanwhile, older models may have to wait for the One UI Watch 6 wide rollout. Those interested in testing it can also enroll in the beta program. For a six-week-old orphaned sea otter, life is nothing but playtimeeven when you can barely keep your eyes open. This adorable fur ball was found last month on the coast of British Columbia, either orphaned or abandoned. At such a young age, the chances of survival were slim, as a baby sea otter that young requires round-the-clock care. Undaunted, the Vancouver Marine Mammal Rescue Society stepped in to show the baby sea otter some tender loving care, and their efforts have surely paid off, because now shes a growing girl, whose adorable appearance and endearing antics are delighting a worldwide audience on their social media page. View the original article to see embedded media. Tofino, named for the town in which she was discovered, is now about six weeks old, and still requiring massive amounts of care to keep her healthy. She eats thirty percent of her body weight per day in a specialized carnivore formula, which has been modified by vets for a sea otters particular health needs with extra fatty oils and other compounds. As her teeth are now growing in they have begun to feed her regular otter food like clams and other seafood. Related: Otter Asks for Cuddles in the Most Child-Like Way But being a growing otter is tiring, and shes growing so quickly hat her sleep needs are great. She sleeps about eleven hours a day, same as many other baby mammals, and sometimes she gets so tired she falls asleep in the middle of a play session. The Care and Feeding of a Baby Sea Otter Theyre also regularly putting her in the baths at the rescue center so she can learn how to swim. And after every swim she must be thoroughly dried and groomed in a labor-intensive process that requires a staff member, a comb, a towel, and an industrial fan to approximate the work the otter mama would manage in the wild. But its a vital process. Otter fur is the densest in the entire world and keeping baby Tofinos coat perfect is necessary for painting her health and proper body temperature. It is estimated that baby otters cannot thermoregulate if they lose even five percent of their thick dense coats. And dont think that its all this grooming that is responsible for Tofinos sweet smell. In truth, sea otters are the only members of the mustelids (the group of animals including weasels, minks, and even skunks) that do not have the strong scent glands associated with those animals. Can She Be Released Into the Wild? Unfortunately, losing her mom at such an early age all but guarantees that Tofino will not be able to be reintroduced into the wild. Rescuers can mimic her nutritional and grooming needs, but cant provide the tutelage that Tofino needs to become an efficient hunter and forager, and know how to find safety and avoid predators like wild otters. Additionally, the intense care she is receiving from the staff at the rescue facility mean that she is habituated to human interaction, another point in the negative column for her ability to live happily in the wild. Once the otter is grown, she will likely join other otters in similar situations at aquariums and research stations all over the Pacific coast. But for now, shes exploring learning how to swim, eat, and play with toys under the watchful eyes of vets and staff members. 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. TV presenters Chris Packham and Dr Chris van Tulleken are to front new science programmes for the BBC. Among the slate of new factual programmes announced is a five-episode docuseries called Evolution in which Packham, 63, will take viewers back in time to explore the evolutionary journey of different animals with the help of cutting-edge CGI. Elsewhere, virologist van Tulleken, 45, will set off on an international hunt for the source of the next global pandemic in an hour-long Horizon special called Disease X. BBC presenter Chris Packham will present a new series called Evolution (Jonathan Brady/PA) The documentarys title refers to the name the World Health Organisation (WHO) gives to the yet-to-be-discovered virus most likely to cause the next pandemic. The show will follow van Tulleken as he travels the world to speak to leading experts in the fields of virology, epidemiology, vaccinology and public policy. The doctor will also meet the teams who, since the Covid-19 pandemic, have continued their work in the science of preparation and visit their labs and outbreak monitoring facilities in the UK and abroad. A series returning to the BBC is The Secret Genius Of Modern Life, presented by Dr Hannah Fry, which tells the stories of the scientific innovations hidden in plain sight. The five-episode series will feature behind-the-scenes access to tech innovators like Ring, Bosch and Philips. The BBC has announced another Horizon special called Secrets Of The Brain which will see Professor Jim Al-Khalili investigate the evolution of the brain. Chris and Xand van Tulleken (Dominic Lipinski/PA) In the two hour-long episodes, Al-Khalili will find out: how vicious prehistoric predators gave us left and right brains; how warm-bloodedness evolved and shaped the brains ability to remember; and how competition, friendship, nurturing, playfulness, song, and laughter helped evolve our brains. Tom Coveney, head of commissioning, science, said: In a world where were bombarded with non-stop news and social media awash with misinformation, good science programmes arent just important, theyre a joyful inspiration. Im continually amazed and delighted by the work of British scientists and their international colleagues in these programmes: whether working tirelessly to prevent the next pandemic, engineering extraordinary tech to transform our lives, studying the inner workings of our minds, or exploring the origins and endless variety of life on Earth, theres something for everyone. Its thrilling to bring our viewers such a range of stories and specialisms, especially with this stellar line up of British presenters; some of the best science communicators on the planet. Evolution, Horizon: Disease X, The Secret Genius of Modern Life Series III, and Horizon: Secrets of The Brain will all be coming to BBC Two and BBC iPlayer. Deaths of children at same school unlikely due to bug outbreak health agency Two children at a primary school dealing with an infection outbreak have died, health authorities have confirmed. Both children were pupils at Millstead Primary School in Everton, Liverpool, which teaches children aged two to 11 years, who have special educational needs. But the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said a link between their deaths has not been established but both are unlikely to be due to a number of cases of an infection called Giardia. The agency has not confirmed the sex or ages of the children who have died. They were reportedly aged five and six. Giardiasis is an infection of the digestive system caused by tiny parasites known as Giardia lamblia, the UKHSA said. The infection can cause symptoms such as diarrhoea, stomach cramps, flatulence and bloating but it is generally not a serious risk to health and can be treated easily with antibiotics, the agency said. Emma Savage, consultant in health protection for the Cheshire and Merseyside Health Protection Team, said: UK Health Security Agency are aware of the sad deaths of two children who attend Millstead Primary School and our thoughts are with the family, friends and school community. The deaths are unlikely to be due to Giardia. Giardia usually causes a self-limiting gastrointestinal illness which can spread easily in households and school settings. Investigations are ongoing, and we have provided information and advice to the school and parents. Public health measures have been put in place to help prevent further cases. The agency has not said when either child died but a letter from the schools headteacher was sent on May 21, alerting parents to two cases of Giardiasis confirmed at the school. The UKHSA said a link between their deaths has not been established (Peter Byrne/PA) Millstead School head, Michelle Beard, said: The entire Millstead School community is devastated to have learned of the sad recent passing of two of our younger children. We have sent our sincerest condolences to both of their families. Both children filled their classes with joy during their time with us, and they will forever be in our hearts. We are working closely with our families, staff and pupils to support them as we come to terms with this terribly sad news. The UKHSA advises that once treated with antibiotics, symptoms should stop in about a week, but can sometimes last longer. Giardiasis can be spread by direct contact with infected people or animals, or from swallowing contaminated water, food or drinks. Multiple studies suggest Giardiasis is associated with travel and more prevalent in developing nations, but can also be locally acquired. A 2018 study published by Cambridge University Press said regions of the world where giardiasis thrives tend to be in those with poor living conditions, including malnourishment, squalor and unsanitary conditions which promote spread of the disease. Giardiasis can be prevented by washing your hands with soap and water and after going to the toilet or changing nappies and before handling or eating food. Any parents concerned that they or their child is displaying symptoms related to Giardia, should contact their GP or NHS 111. Further information is available on the NHS webpage: www.nhs.uk/conditions/giardiasis/ The Duke of Sussex is to appear in a new documentary about phone hacking, ITV has announced. Harry will discuss his mission to continue his fight to expose the illegal tactics of Britains tabloid press, the broadcaster said. It described the sit-down discussion for Tabloids On Trial, which airs on July 25, as Harrys first major interview since the conclusion of his court case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). Harry being interviewed by ITV Newss Rebecca Barry (ITV/PA) Harry was pictured sitting on a sofa being interviewed face-to-face by ITV Newss Rebecca Barry. Hugh Grant, Charlotte Church and Paul Gascoigne are among the celebrities who also feature in the documentary as they share their experiences. The duke, 39, sued MGN for damages, claiming journalists at its publications were linked to methods including phone hacking, so-called blagging gaining information by deception and use of private investigators for unlawful activities. In December, Mr Justice Fancourt ruled that phone hacking became widespread and habitual at MGN titles in the late 1990s and that Harrys phone was hacked to a modest extent by MGN, awarding him 140,600 in damages. The Duke of Sussex being interviewed for the ITV programme (ITV/PA) A trial found 15 articles were the result of unlawful information gathering, and MGN and Harry also settled the remainder of his claim in February with a substantial additional sum by way of damages and Harrys legal costs. ITV said: Featuring Prince Harrys first major interview since the conclusion of his court case with Mirror Group Newspapers, this documentary hears about his mission to continue his fight to expose the illegal tactics of Britains tabloid press and explores what those in charge at Fleet Street really knew as this scandal unfolded. It added: ITV Newss Rebecca Barry meets high-profile celebrities including Hugh Grant, Charlotte Church and Paul Gascoigne as well as people catapulted into the public eye, whose lives were ripped apart by newspapers. Harry hit out at former Mirror editor Piers Morgan in a statement in February, adding: We have uncovered and proved the shockingly dishonest way in which the Mirror acted for so many years, and then sought to conceal the truth. Harry with his barrister David Sherborne after giving evidence in the phone hacking trial against Mirror Group Newspapers in June 2023 (Jonathan Brady/PA) The duke said: Our mission continues. I believe in the positive change it will bring for all of us. It is the very reason why I started this, and why I will continue to see it through to the end. Harry is also one of a group of high-profile people, including Sir Elton John and Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, bringing legal action against the publisher of the Daily Mail over allegations it carried out or commissioned unlawful information-gathering. They have accused Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) of allegedly carrying out or commissioning unlawful activities such as hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars, blagging private records, burglaries to order and accessing and recording private phone conversations. ANL has firmly denied the allegations. The legal claims are in the preliminary stages. Actor Hugh Grant was also interviewed for the programme (ITV/PA) Meanwhile, Harry also alleges he was targeted by journalists and private investigators working for News Group Newspapers (NGN), the publisher of The Sun and the now-defunct News Of The World. He is bringing a case against NGN over alleged unlawful information-gathering but not allegations of phone hacking, with a full trial due to be held in January. Grant settled a High Court claim against the publisher of The Sun after being advised he risked being liable for a 10 million legal bill if his case went to trial. NGN has previously denied unlawful activity took place at The Sun. Tabloids On Trial airs on ITV1 & ITVX at 9pm on Thursday July 25. Lena Dunham has revealed body shaming while making Girls stopped her from starring in her new Netflix series Too Much. The 38-year-old actor, who has written the upcoming series, told The New Yorker she was just not up for having my body dissected again, and added she would also not be performing in any of her other forthcoming projects. Too Much is planned to be released in 2025, and follows an American woman in her 30s, who relocates to London and falls in love with a British musician. Lena Dunham wrote and starred in the hit HBO series Girls (Ian West/PA) The series mirrors Dunhams life, as the New York native now lives in London with her husband, British Peruvian musician Luis Felber, after they married in 2021. Initially, the actor said she planned to play the main role herself, but eventually decided to cast Megan Stalter in the role. She said: I used to think that winning meant you just keep doing it and you dont care what anybody thinks. I forgot that winning is actually just protecting yourself and doing what you need to do to keep making work. What makes me feel powerful is making my work. Its the only thing I want to do. Dunham said she was inspired by Stalter while working with her, describing the actor as a little Meryl Streep. She added: I was very inspired by her, shes unbelievable. I think people are going to be so blown away. I also think that I was not willing to have another experience like what Id experienced around Girls at this point in my life. Physically, I was just not up for having my body dissected again. It was a hard choice, not to cast Meg, because I knew I wanted Meg, but to admit that to myself. Dunham wrote and starred in the hit HBO series Girls, which ran for six seasons from 2012 and made stars out of the cast, including Dunham, Adam Driver and Allison Williams. The show was controversial for its frank depiction of sex and Dunham frequently appeared nude or partially clothed in the show. She said staying off social media had helped to improve her happiness. The actor said: These places dont protect women and minorities, I just realised that there was no way that I was going to move toward the ways I wanted to feel in my personal life if I still had access to those things. She also confirmed to the US publication she would not be producing the Polly Pocket film, despite saying she had worked on the script for three years. Dunham said of the movie: I felt like, unless I can do it that way Im not going to do it. I dont think I have that in me. I feel like the next movie I make needs to feel like a movie that I absolutely have to make. No one but me could make it, and I did think other people could make Polly Pocket. A 26-year-old man being sought over the murders of three women may have a crossbow, police have said. Kyle Clifford, from Enfield, north London, is wanted over the deaths of the women who were found fatally injured in a house in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, Hertfordshire, just after 7pm on Tuesday. Hertfordshire Police warned that he may still be in possession of a weapon and that members of the public should dial 999 if they see him. (PA Graphics) Investigators believe Clifford could be in Hertfordshire or north London. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she is being kept fully updated about the inquiry into the truly shocking deaths. Officers and emergency medical crews including two air ambulances were sent to try to save the women, who were related, but they all died at the scene. Local councillors for the North Bushey area said they were deeply shocked and saddened by the news of the deaths. A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she did not know the victims well but they were a friendly family. We would see them every day passing by and they would say good morning, she said. Its really sad whats happened, very shocking. Police at the scene in Ashlyn Close, Bushey (James Manning/PA) Another neighbour, Riaz, who is in his 50s and declined to give his surname, said: This has been an awful situation and I cant even imagine what the family must be going through. Local councillor Laurence Brass, who also lives nearby, told the BBC the area is a typical leafy British suburb. He said: At about eight oclock last night, I was watching the football on television, and suddenly a helicopter landed in the lawn outside my flat, which is at the top of this road, and then my phone started going, and I was told that there was a major incident here in Bushey and we should all keep away because there was somebody apparently on the run. This is not something that happens in Bushey. We cant remember a murder in our rather quiet neck of the woods, so (its a) terrible shock and our sympathies and prayers and thoughts are with the families of the three women. That really is a terrible thing to happen to anybody, and Ive gathered theyre all from the same family, which obviously makes it even more tragic, and well do everything we can as the local council to add our source of comfort where we can. Detective Superintendent Rob Hall from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit called for anyone with information to come forward. Police at the scene in Ashlyn Close, Bushey (James Manning/PA) Whilst we are still in the early stages of this investigation, we are actively seeking Kyle Clifford who we believe could be in the areas of Hertfordshire or north London, he said. Given the serious nature of the incident, I would ask anyone who knows where he is to contact police immediately. If you believe you see him, please do not approach him and dial 999 straight away. He may still be in possession of a weapon. Our inquiries will continue over the coming days to ascertain the full circumstances of what happened but I would also like to take this opportunity to appeal to anyone who was in the area around Ashlyn Close from around lunchtime on Tuesday until 7pm, and believes they may have seen anything that could assist the investigation, to contact us. An East of England Ambulance Service spokesperson said: We were called around 7pm on Tuesday July 9 to a property in Ashlyn Close in Bushey. Have you seen Kyle Clifford? Detectives investigating a triple murder in #Bushey yesterday evening (Tues 9 July) are actively seeking Clifford who is wanted in connection with the incident. He could be in #Hertfordshire or North #Londonhttps://t.co/2GuRTmAYjM pic.twitter.com/q790A1rlva Herts Police (@HertsPolice) July 10, 2024 Three ambulances, a rapid response vehicle, an ambulance officer vehicle, the Hazardous Area Response Team, the Essex and Herts Air Ambulance and London Air Ambulance were sent to the scene. Sadly, despite the teams best efforts, three women were pronounced dead at the scene. Local councillors for the area Louise Nicolas, Alan Matthews and Paul Richards said: We are deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic news that three women have lost their lives in a violent incident which took place in the heart of our local community. As North Bushey councillors, we extend our thoughts and condolences to their families and all those affected. We would encourage anyone who has information relevant to the inquiry to contact police. The previous government had considered tightening the laws around crossbows after would-be assassin Jaswant Singh Chail was encouraged by an AI chatbot to break into Windsor Castle on Christmas Day 2021 with a loaded crossbow to kill the late Queen. Currently there is no requirement to have a licence for a crossbow, but it is illegal to carry one in public without a reasonable excuse. Esther Shoebridge, 59, was diagnosed with myeloma, a type of blood cancer, after she had months of 'baffling symptoms'. (Myeloma UK/SWNS) (Myeloma UK/SWNS) A woman who experienced unusual symptoms including an uncontrollable thirst was shocked to learn it was actually a sign of something serious. Around five months after experiencing the "baffling symptoms", which also included numbness and neck pain, Esther Shoebridge, 59, from Beverley, East Yorkshire was told by doctors she had "millions of holes" and tumours in her body. She was diagnosed with myeloma, a type of blood cancer, and doctors revealed she may only have five years left to live. "When the consultant told me, about the holes in my spine, neck and skull, I burst into tears," she says of the moment. "All I could think was that my skull had millions of holes in it and was going to collapse into my head. "I was constantly trying to hold my neck up and I even bought myself a neck brace. "I had no idea my neck was actually broken and that two small tumours had blasted their way through my vertebra." Esther Shoebridge pictured with her husband Philip. (Myeloma UK/SWNS) (Myeloma UK/SWNS) The former optician first knew something was wrong in October 2020, when she was drinking around four litres of water a day but was still feeling thirsty. "I was thirsty every single minute, despite drinking so much water," she explains. "It was completely out of the blue." Around two months later, she describes feeling like she had cricked her neck. She didn't know it at the time but two tumours were actually pressing against her C3 vertebra which had caused her neck to snap. "I couldnt lift a thing," she explains. "I couldnt even lift my own kettle. "I used to go to the gym and be very fit it was really strange. I also started losing weight. "I started holding my neck up almost all of the time or going to lay down to rest it. "I went to the GP twice and they just gave me painkillers." In January 2021, Shoebridge was rushed to A&E after her face went numb and she lost sensation in her skin. She was diagnosed with myeloma a month later. Shoebridge wearing a neck brace. (Myeloma UK/SWNS) (Myeloma UK/SWNS) The mum and grandmother had chemotherapy straight after her diagnosis but the treatment didnt work as well as expected and her cancer has returned twice over the last three years. Although she was initially told she may have just five years left to live, she's refusing to accept her prognosis as she believes there will be a cure for myeloma soon. "I dont just think, I know, there will be a cure," she says. "They told me I would last till 2026, but the cancer doesnt know who its dealing with. "Im not accepting that. Im small but Im tough. "I go out and walk whatever the weather and, yes, my back aches but I keep fighting, Ive got to. "Im not taking any notice of how long they told me Ill live. "I have lots still to do and too much fun to have with my husband, family, bestie and friends." Esther Shoebridge with her grandchildren Lula, Oxford and Espen. (Myeloma UK/SWNS) (Myeloma UK/SWNS) Dr Sophie Castell, chief executive at Myeloma UK, says that people who having myeloma symptoms need help to "catch the disease earlier". "Every day counts while youre waiting for a diagnosis, and yet a third of patients visit their GP at least three times before being diagnosed," she says. "One of the biggest barriers remains identifying the symptoms quickly and before too much damage is done. "People with myeloma cant wait. "We need your help to spread the word about myeloma so we can catch the disease earlier." What is myeloma? Myeloma, also known as multiple myeloma, is a blood cancer arising from plasma cells. Myeloma UK estimates that approximately 5,900 people are diagnosed with myeloma each year and at any one time there are around 24,000 people living with myeloma in the UK. The condition accounts for 15% of blood cancers, and 2% of all cancers. While it mainly affects those over the age of 65, people much younger have also been diagnosed. The most common symptoms of myeloma include bone pain, recurring infection, kidney damage and fatigue. Myeloma UK says treatment for myeloma can be very effective at controlling the disease, relieving its symptoms and complications, and prolonging life. Unfortunately, however, myeloma is currently an incurable cancer. Additional reporting SWNS. Read more real lives Loose Women presenter Nadia Sawalha has stripped off for a campaign demanding a breast cancer drug be made available on the NHS in England and Wales. On Wednesday, a group of 31 women with painted chests, all of whom have been touched by breast cancer, appeared outside Westminster in a bid to be heard by the new Labour Government over the use of Enhertu for women with a subtype of incurable breast cancer called HER2-low. The drug, which is available in Scotland, is a treatment for several types of cancer and is already available on the NHS for certain patients with HER2-positive secondary breast cancer. Loose Women presenter Nadia Sawalha joins campaigners in Westminster, central London, who have painted their breasts with messages calling for the breast cancer drug Enhertu to be made available on the NHS in England and Wales (Lucy North/PA) Sawalha, 59, said: We are here to be heard. If this is what it takes to turn heads back in our direction and put Enhertu back on the agenda, so be it. We have been ignored for too long. In May, the All-Party Parliamentary Group On Breast Cancer (APPGBC) held a roundtable event focusing on Enhertu but campaigners say they have been ignored since then. Hannah Gardner, who has incurable breast cancer, said: We feel ignored. Its been over two months since patients met with Nice (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), NHS England, Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca at an APPG in Parliament and were promised the key players would get back around the table to thrash out a deal. But it hasnt come. Nothing has changed and the treatment remains out of reach for the 1,000 women a year its thought it would benefit. According to the charity Breast Cancer Now, trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu) is already recommended for use within the Cancer Drugs Fund for certain patients with HER2-positive secondary breast cancer, but it is now the first treatment licensed for HER2-low secondary breast cancer. Alec Baldwin was playing make-believe with a real gun when he shot and killed a cinematographer on the film set of a western, prosecutors said on Wednesday. The Hollywood actor is on trial for involuntary manslaughter after Halyna Hutchins was shot dead during the filming of Rust in 2021. In opening statements in a courtroom in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the prosecution said Baldwin asked for the biggest gun he could get and asked someone to film him running around shooting during a training session. His defence lawyers insisted that Baldwin was just an actor, acting, and that responsibility for gun safety on the set of Rust lay with other members of the crew. Prosecutor Erlinda Johnson accused the 66-year-old actor, who faces up to 18 months in prison if found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, of violating the cardinal rules of firearm safety. In her statement to the court, she said he had repeatedly failed to conduct safety checks with the armourer including on the day of the fatal shooting. When someone plays make-believe with a real gun in a real-life workplace and while playing make believe with that gun, violates the cardinal rules of firearm safety, peoples lives are endangered, and someone could be killed, Ms Johnson said. She continued: The evidence you will see will paint a real-life picture of a real-life workplace where this defendant mishandled this gun. You will see him using this gun as a pointer to point at people, to point at things. You will see him cock the hammer when hes not supposed to cock the hammer. You will see him put his finger on the trigger when his fingers not supposed to be on the trigger. You will hear about numerous breaches of firearm safety with this defendant and this use of this firearm. Defence lawyer Alex Spiro countered that Baldwin who took notes or looked away during the prosecutions statement could not be accused of violating rules that would not apply to actors on a film set. He was an actor, acting, playing the role of Harlan Rust, he said, referring to Baldwins outlaw character. An actor, playing a character, can act in ways that are lethal that just arent lethal on a movie set. These cardinal rules, theyre not cardinal rules on a movie set. Mr Spiro added: Youve all seen gun fights in movies. The defence said the responsibility for the gun lay with the films armourer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who loaded the live round into the gun and has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and assistant director Dave Halls, who failed to inspect the gun properly and pleaded no contest to a misdemeanour charge last year. Mr Halls handed Baldwin what he said was a cold gun meaning it did not contain a live round while they were rehearsing the scene that led to the death of Hutchins. Cold guns cant hurt people. Its impossible. Literally impossible for a cold gun to hurt somebody, Mr Spiro said, adding: You dont need to worry even about eye gear or ear plugs for that fake bang. Baldwin insists he cocked the hammer on the gun but did not pull the trigger when the fatal shot was fired. The prosecution claimed this was impossible, citing testing by an FBI forensic expert that did not show any defects with the Colt. 45 revolver. Mr Spiro claimed it was impossible to establish the state of the gun because it had been broken during the test, and downplayed the relevance of the argument. Even if [Baldwin] intentionally pulled the trigger like the prosecutor just demonstrated, that doesnt make him guilty of homicide, he said. None of it speaks to whether Alec knew or should have known those things. He didnt. No one on that set did. It was not foreseeable, he said. Actors dont check the weapons. Safety is ensured by dedicated personnel. Alec Baldwin made notes or looked away when listening to the prosecution arguments - Getty Images North America He signalled that members of the Rust crew would give evidence on behalf of Baldwin, and that none of them had known how the live round made its way into the prop gun. The first witness to give evidence was Nicholas LeFleur, a deputy with the local sheriffs office, who responded to the shooting and whose bodycam footage, played to the jury, showed the attempts to save Hutchinss life. A medic could be heard asking the cinematographer if she could open her eyes after she was taken off the set on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance. Under questioning by the prosecution, Mr Lefleur said members of the crew, including Baldwin, had disregarded his request not to talk to each other, potentially tainting their recollections. State prosecutors charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in January 2022. They dropped charges three months later after Baldwins lawyers presented photographic evidence the gun was modified, arguing it would fire more easily, bolstering the actors accidental discharge argument. Prosecutors called a grand jury to reinstate the charge in January after an independent firearms expert confirmed the 2022 FBI study. 10:06 PM BST Thats all for now Thanks for following our live coverage of the second day of Alec Baldwins trial. This live blog is now closed. Key moments today include: Prosecutors claimed Mr Baldwin had violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety The defence said the actor committed no crime and that the real issue was how a real bullet got in a movie set A sheriffs deputy was quizzed on why he had allowed Mr Baldwin to speak to potential witnesses after the shooting Prosecutors played bodycam footage as emergency responders attempted to save Halyna Hutchins life 09:33 PM BST Gun that killed Hutchins shown to court The revolver that killed Halyna Hutchins is shown to the court. This is the gun that the armourer, Hannah Gutierrez, handed me, Lt. Timoteo Benavidez confirms. 09:31 PM BST Pictured: Baldwin in court for expected eight-day trial Actor Alec Baldwin listens to opening statements on the first day of his trial for involuntary manslaughter in District Court in Santa Fe, New Mexico - Jim Weber/The Santa Fe New Mexican/Pool via REUTERS Actor Alec Baldwin talks with his wife Hilaria Baldwin before opening statements on the first day of his trial - Jim Weber/The Santa Fe New Mexican/Pool via REUTERS 09:29 PM BST Baldwin disobeyed police orders after shooting Prosecutors said that Alec Baldwin had disobeyed police orders in the aftermath of the fatal shooting in 2021. Nicholas LeFleur, a deputy with the sheriffs office, said he had told members of the crew, including Mr Baldwin, not to talk to each - but they did so anyway. He wanted to stay... [I] didnt see a big problem with it until later on when people were talking, he told the court, admitting it could taint the recollections of potential witnesses. Alex Spiro, acting for the defence, returned to the topic when he questioned the deputy. He wasnt really disobeying police orders was he, sir? he asked. To an extent, yes, Mr LeFleur responded. 09:13 PM BST Second witness called by prosecution Timoteo Benavidez, a former Sante Fe Police Department lieutenant who was the day shift command on the day of the shooting, is the second witness to be called by the prosecution. 08:43 PM BST Court resumes The jury is back in the courtroom and Nicholas LeFleur has returned to the witness stand. 07:43 PM BST Pictures: Baldwin watches on second day of involuntary manslaughter trial Actor Alec Baldwin listens during his hearing in Santa Fe County District Court - AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool 07:26 PM BST Court breaks for lunch Court has now broken for lunch. 07:10 PM BST Watch: Baldwin was just an actor, acting 07:05 PM BST Police officer cross-examined by defence lawyer Nicholas Lefleur is being quizzed by the defence about his contact with prosecutors and why he did not describe the shooting as an accident at the trial - which Alex Spiro says he has done in the past. Mr Lefleur said he had a brief pre-trial interview with prosecutors and spoke with them before proceedings today about the order of witnesses. 06:59 PM BST Prosecution finishes questioning police officer The prosecution has finished cross-examining Nicholas Lefleur, who has been passed onto the defence. 06:55 PM BST Prosecutors focus on Baldwin contact with potential witnesses Prosecutors are constantly coming back to Alec Baldwin speaking to potential witnesses on the set of Rust, and how he had been told not to by Nicholas LeFleur. Mr LeFleur admits that people were not following his instructions. 06:40 PM BST Baldwin wanted to stay put on set Why did you let Mr Baldwin sit there instead of putting him in some vehicle and separating him from other witnesses? Kari Morrissey asks, referring to the bodycam footage. Nicholas Lefleur answers that he wanted to maintain cooperation with people involved. Pressed by the special prosecutor, he adds: He wanted to stay... [I] didnt see a big problem with it until later on when people were talking. He eventually told the actor to stop talking to other people on set. Footage shows Mr Baldwin continuing to talk to members of the crew - potentially tainting their statements about the shooting. 06:26 PM BST Jury played footage of emergency response The jury is currently being played the footage of the emergency response following the shooting on set, while Nicholas Lefleur is quizzed by special prosecutor Kari Morrissey. Alec Baldwin is watching on with his arms crossed. 06:09 PM BST Officer says more than 100 people on set Mr Lefleur said there were more than 100 people on the set when he arrived. He said he saw a big old cowboy western themed city. There was a bunch of people running everwhere. Bunch of cars People were pointing when I got there. People pointing towards the church. 06:03 PM BST Prosecution calls its first witness - police officer Nicholas Lefleur Nicholas Lefleur is a police officer at the city of Santa Fe police department. He was on duty on Oct 21, 2021, when the call came through that Hutchins had been shot. A call came in that someone was shot on the movie set. Unclear who shot. How many were shot. I happened to be the closest person to the call and arrived on scene first, he said. 05:57 PM BST Court resumes The court has resumed after its break 05:32 PM BST Watch: Special prosecutor saying Baldwin violated the cardinal rules of gun safety Prosecutor Erlinda Johnson outlined arguments on Wednesday that Alec Baldwin disregarded safety during filming of the low-budget movie Rust before pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal, cocking it and pulling the trigger as they set up a camera shot on a set southwest of Santa Fe. The evidence will show that someone who played make believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin, Ms Johnson said. 05:26 PM BST Court is now on a break The court is taking a break. Heres a recap of how Baldwin pleaded not guilty. He has previously claimed the gun fired accidentally after he followed instructions to point it toward Hutchins, who was behind the camera. Unaware that it was loaded with a live round, he said he pulled back the hammer not the trigger and it fired. Prosecutors have said theyll present evidence that Baldwin went off script and failed to follow basic industry standards for firearms safety when he pointed the firearm at Hutchins on Oct 21 2021. 05:21 PM BST Analysis: Alec Baldwins fate rests on this tiny part of his gun Read below analysis from Susie Coen, The Telegraphs US correspondent. The defence is also expected to try to show it is not the job of an actor to make sure a gun is not loaded with live ammunition. In the months after Alec Baldwins Colt .45 discharged in his hands, killing a cinematographer in the set of a wooden church in the deserts of New Mexico, police focused on whether the Hollywood star had properly inspected the weapon beforehand. His claims that he was told that the gun was cold meaning it did not contain any live rounds appeared to be crucial to the first criminal prosecution for an on-set shooting death in US history. But during a set-piece television interview after the dust had settled, the Oscar-nominated actor made a claim that would change everything: he never pulled the trigger, Read her full analysis here 05:06 PM BST Spiro explains importance of term cold gun Mr Spiro stresses the definition of the term cold gun, which is what he says was yelled before Alec Baldwin was handed a gun on set. That is an important term youre going to learn in this case. It means the gun is cold. No one need worry. But even that requires a little more explanaton. Cold gun doesnt mean no live bullets. There are for sure no live bullets on movie sets. Cold means you dont even have the fake blank poof. It means its empty ... can do no harm. Cold gun all good to go and the armourer on the set hands a prop gun to Alec, he said. 04:49 PM BST Baldwin committed no crime Alec Baldwins lawyer Alex Spiro is now making opening statements for the defence. He said: These cardinal rules [the prosecution mentioned] are not cardinal rules on a movie set. Alec Baldwin comitted no crime. The most critical issue in this case is how a real bullet got in a movie set. Mr Spiro said movies use dummies and blanks which, on the face of it are, indistinguishable from real bullets, which is why live bullets can be nowhere near a movie set. 04:42 PM BST Baldwin takes notes as prosecutor speaks Alec Baldwin has been taking notes at the defense table while listening calmly to opening statements in his involuntary manslaughter trial. The 66-year-old is at the centre of a proceeding that is largely unprecedented in US history, holding an actor criminally responsible for a gun death during filming. 04:39 PM BST Prosecutor emphasises that Rust set was a workplace Ms Johnson said that the set of the film Rust, where cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed, was a workplace. The evidence will show that like in many workplaces, there are people who act in a reckless manner and place other people in danger, Ms Johnson said. That, you will hear, is the defendant. 04:27 PM BST Gun was in perfect working condition, says prosecutor The prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson says the gun used to kill Hutchins was a replica of an 1873 single action revolver manufactured by Pietta Firearms in Italy. She said that Alessandro Pieta will tell the court he made the gun in 2015 and explain the quality control methods to ensure the guns have no problems or issues. When Mr Pieta sent it to EMF, the US distribution company, this gun was in perfect working condition. 04:20 PM BST Prosecution says Baldwin violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety The prosecution has made their opening statement, saying Alec Baldwin violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety. Thats what this case is about. Its simple and straighforward. The evidence will show that someone who played make-believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendent - Alexander Baldwin. 04:04 PM BST Judge reads grand jury indictment The judge Mary Marlowe Sommer is now explaining trial procedures and reading the grand jury indictment. She said: The above named defendent [Alec Baldwin] did cause the death of Halyna Hutchins by an act committed with the total disregard or indifference for the safety of others and the act was such that the ordinary person would anticipate that might occur under the circumstances. Again Mr Baldwin is presumed innocent. The burden is always on the state to prove guilt beyond a resonable doubt. Judge Sommer reminds the jury they should not discuss the case with anyone until they retire to deliberate and only base their judgment on the evidence presented in court. 03:53 PM BST Baldwin takes seat in court room Alec Baldwin has taken his seat in the court room. The actor is dressed in a dark suit and glasses. The court room appears full with almost all the seats behind him occupied. There is currently no sound playing from the court feed. 03:35 PM BST How we have got here Todays trial follows Alec Baldwin being charged again with involuntary manslaughter over the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. A grand jury in New Mexico revived the case against the 65-year-old Hollywood star, nine months after the charges were dropped by state prosecutors. It is understood that at least eight of the 12 jurors agreed that there was probable cause to indict the actor. The actor has been charged with involuntary manslaughter through the negligent use of a firearm or alternatively without due caution or circumspection. If convicted, he faces a potential jail term of up to 18 months for a fourth-degree felony under New Mexico law. Click here to read the full story from earlier this year 03:26 PM BST Pictured: Baldwin arriving in Santa Fe for trial Actor Alec Baldwin was pictured arriving in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for his involuntary manslaughter trial. Since a police interview on Oct 21, 2021, the day of the shooting, Baldwin has argued the gun just went off. In an ABC News interview two months later, Baldwin told George Stephanopoulos he did not pull the trigger. US actor Alec Baldwin arrives for opening statements - FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images 03:21 PM BST Prosecutors will argue that Mr Baldwin disregarded safety during Rust filming Its been nearly three years since Halyna Hutchins was shot dead on the set of Rust. On Wednesday a New Mexico jury of 12 and four alternates -- 11 women and five men chosen Tuesday -- will hear prosecutors on Wednesday outline their arguments. They will argue that Baldwin disregarded safety during filming of the low-budget movie before pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal, cocking it and pulling the trigger as they set up a camera shot on a set southwest of Santa Fe. General Sir Roland Walker is the new Chief of the General Staff - MAX MUMBY/GETTY The new Chief of the General Staff has said nations win wars, not armies in an echo of his predecessors calls for a citizen army. General Sir Roland Walkers comments come after General Sir Patrick Sanders, the previous Army chief, used a speech to warn that the public could be called up to fight if the UK goes to war because the military is too small. Sir Roland, who made the comments in a video address on Wednesday ahead of the upcoming Rusi land warfare conference, said: Nations win wars, not armies and so this needs to be a discussion with allies, partners, academia, industry and technologists, as well as the British Army and Rusi. A Whitehall source said Sir Rolands comments reflected that in war the whole of society bands together. The Telegraph revealed in January that Sir Patrick was to warn the Government it would need to mobilise the nation in the event of war. He suggested the UK should train and equip a citizen army to ready the country for a potential land war and urged the Government to be clear-eyed about Russia, which he said was spending nearly 40 per cent of public expenditure on defence. He said at the time: Within the next three years, it must be credible to talk of a British Army of 120,000, folding in our reserve and strategic reserve. But thats not enough. We need an Army designed to expand rapidly to enable the first echelon, resource the second echelon, and train and equip a citizen army that must follow. Our friends in eastern and northern Europe, who feel the proximity of the Russian threat more acutely, are already acting prudently laying the foundations for national mobilisation. He cited the chairman of the Nato Military Committee, who warned last week of war with Russia within 20 years, and the fact that the Swedish government is preparing for entry to Nato. He said this showed that taking preparatory steps to enable us to place our societies on a war footing when needed are now not really desirable, but essential. We wont be immune, he warned. And as the pre-war generation, weve got to similarly prepare, and that is a whole nation undertaking. General Sir Patrick Sanders also warned of the dangers of an under-equipped and under-skilled Army - SGT JIMMY WISE/MOD His comments forced Rishi Sunak, the former prime minister, to rule out conscription. However, during his election campaign Mr Sunak vowed to bring back National Service for 18-year-olds. Sir Patrick later said the Conservatives had poisoned the debate by pursuing this pledge. Sir Roland, who will make his first speech as Chief of the General Staff at the Rusi conference later this month, said: This years conference is characterised by increasingly convergent and acute threats. Military strategy, deterrents and the use of force are critical components of how nations must respond. I look forward to a discussion about how we urgently develop and generate modernised land forces for this context, drawing lessons from wherever and anywhere we can find them. The opportunity, to my mind, is exploiting the promise of powerful technologies to make profound gains in our fighting power and lethality. James Cleverly, pictured arriving at The Spectator party in London with his wife Susie, has said the Conservatives need to carry out a 'sensible post-mortem on what went wrong' - George Cracknell Wright James Cleverly has warned against bitter infighting among the Tories, saying the party needs to get our act together before the race to replace Rishi Sunak as leader. Mr Cleverly has been appointed to shadow his former role of home secretary after Labours landslide win gave the Conservatives their worst-ever election result. Writing in The Times, he said the party needed to conduct a sensible post-mortem on what went wrong and finding the right path forwards. His comments came after a fraught day for the Tories in which an MP accused the 1922 Committee of being bent, Suella Braverman called Reform an existential threat to the party and Kemi Badenoch reportedly used Rishi Sunaks first shadow cabinet meeting to criticise his campaign and Mrs Braverman. Mr Cleverly wrote: We must remember two vital things. Firstly, it cannot descend into bitter infighting and finger-pointing. That is exactly how we ended up here. Secondly, we cannot delude ourselves that there are always simple answers, either to our problems as a party or the challenges we face as a country. A narrower offer will not win back voters that have been lost to the Left or Right, Mr Cleverly warned, adding: We must get our act together. We need to unite in order to deliver. It will take humility and hard work, to recover our reputation for competence and integrity, to rebuild trust in our party, and unite behind a broad platform that will give people a reason to vote Conservative again. James Cleverly, pictured with his wife Susie, warned Tories: 'We cannot delude ourselves that there are always simple answers' - George Cracknell Wright Last week, Mr Sunak last week announced that he would step down as party leader once the formal arrangements for choosing a successor were in place. If he throws his hat in the ring, Mr Cleverly could face competition from high-profile Right-wingers Mrs Braverman and Mrs Badenoch. Dame Priti Patel, who served as home secretary between July 2019 and September 2022, Robert Jenrick, a previous immigration minister, and Victoria Atkins, the former health secretary, could also put themselves forward. Tory MPs usually vote to select the top two candidates to put forward as potential leaders, with the party membership choosing the ultimate winner. The rules and timeline will be set out by the backbench 1922 Committee, which has elected Bob Blackman as its new chairman. Mark Francois, the Tory MP for Rayleigh and Wickford, claimed the vote to choose the new chairman was bent after he attempted to vote but was turned away. Voting took place in the Houses of Parliament between 5pm and 5.30pm on Tuesday, but some MPs were told in an email that they could vote until 6pm. This election was bent, said Mr Francois said as he left the room. I think the 1922s level of competence has reached a new low. Mrs Badenoch reportedly criticised Mr Sunak in the first shadow cabinet meeting after his election campaign, calling his decision to leave D-Day commemorations early disastrous and saying colleagues including Penny Mordaunt would have kept their seats had he stayed longer in France. She also reportedly said Mrs Braverman appeared to be having a very public nervous breakdown. Mr Sunak had reportedly opened the meeting with an apology. Kemi Badenoch reportedly criticised Rishi Sunak in the first shadow cabinet meeting after his election campaign - Belinda Jiao Mrs Braverman, meanwhile, hit out at liberal Conservatives at an event in Washington and at a Popular Conservatism event in London, calling Reform UK an existential threat to the Tories. Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary who lost his seat last week, was also at the event and spoke of the need to win back voters from Reform, which won five seats, including Clacton in Essex for Nigel Farage, the partys leader. Ms Braverman, appearing via a recorded video, said of the loss of her partys 80-seat majority from 2019: We were going to stop the wave of illegal migrants landing on our shores. We were going to cut taxes. We were going to stop the lunatic woke virus working its way through the British state. The harsh reality this is a lesson we all need to learn and face up to is that we did none of that. The Tories suffered a net loss of 251 seats at the election last week, leaving them with 121 MPs. Labour won a landslide with 412 MPs, ousting several senior Tory figures including Sir Jacob, Ms Mordaunt, a former Commons Leader; Grant Shapps, the ex-defence secretary, and Liz Truss, the former prime minister. Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi behind Joe Biden at the State of the Union address in 2022. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AP Joe Biden came under renewed moral pressure on Wednesday to abandon his presidential candidacy amid agonised appeals by a succession of senior Democrats for him to consider the broader picture. Those calls came as the US president dug in his heels to make it hard to supplant him as the nominee. Related: The Democrats who have called on Joe Biden to step down With the backlash over his 27 June TV debate fiasco refusing to abate, Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, became the most senior party member yet to subtly float the possibility of Biden stepping down while stopping short of explicitly telling him to do so. Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, gleefully sought to further tighten the screw by summoning three White House aides to testify about Bidens mental fitness. The summons came in the form of a subpoena from James Comer, the GOP chair of the House oversight committee, who demanded testimony from Anthony Bernal, the top aide to the first lady Jill Biden; the deputy White House chief of staff Annie Tomasini, and the presidents senior adviser Ashley Williams, Axios reported. Pelosi, 84, who was speaker until Republicans regained control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, told MSNBCs Morning Joe that its up to the president to decide if he is going to run, adding: Were all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short. That remark came as the president seemed intent on running down the clock until next months Democratic national convention in Chicago, to make it practically impossible to replace him. Pelosi later qualified her comments, claiming they had been subject to misrepresentations, while adding: The president is great. But they prefaced further critical interventions from Senate Democrats, who followed the lead of Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado in voicing doubts over whether Biden could beat Donald Trump in November. Bennet told CNNs Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday evening that Trump was likely to win Novembers poll in a landslide because of the widespread concerns over Bidens age and mental acuity. This race is on a trajectory that is very worrisome if you care about the future of this country, he said in an impassioned interview. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House. Its not a question about politics, its a moral question about the future of our country. He added: I have not seen anything remotely approaching the kind of plan we need to see out of the White House that can demonstrate that he can actually beat Donald Trump, which is not going to be about the accomplishments that we all had, you know, three and four years ago. This is something for the president to consider. Bennets comments stopped short of a full-blown appeal for Bidens withdrawal, in contrast to Democrats in the House where seven members have explicitly made such calls in the wake of the debate, where the president repeatedly appeared confused, mangled his words and allowed Trump to lie without effective contradiction. Related: George Clooney implores Biden to step aside in opinion article Soon after, Pete Welch of Vermont became the first senator to call on Biden to withdraw from the election. Welch said he was worried about the race because the stakes could not be higher. I understand why President Biden wants to run, Welch wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not. For the good of the country, Im calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race. Richard Blumenthal, a senator from Connecticut, also voiced concerns. I am deeply concerned about Joe Biden winning this November, Blumenthal told reporters, adding that the party had to reach a conclusion as soon as possible and that Biden still retained his support. A similarly circumspect call to reconsider came from Katie Hobbs, the Democratic governor of Arizona, a battleground state that was one of six moved by the Cook Political Report a non-partisan election forecaster in Trumps direction following the presidents post-debate poll slide. I want the president to look at the evidence and make a hard decision, Hobbs told reporters, adding that Biden had a lot to do to assure Americans and Arizonans. And on Wednesday evening, Representative Earl Blumenauer, the longest-serving Democrat in Oregons House delegation, put it bluntly: President Biden should not be the Democratic presidential nominee. The question before the country is whether the president should continue his candidacy for re-election. This is not just about extending his presidency but protecting democracy, he said in an emailed statement. It is a painful and difficult conclusion but there is no question in my mind that we will all be better served if the president steps aside as the Democratic nominee and manages a transition under his terms. There were even signs of slippage within the staunchly loyal Congressional Black Caucus, which had pledged its support on Monday night. On Wednesday one of its members, Marc Veasey of Texas, became the first to break ranks by telling CNN that Democrats running in tight races should distance themselves from Biden in an effort to do whatever it is they need to do to win. The public agonising illustrated how Bidens debate failure has plunged the Democrats into paralysis as the campaign approaches a key phase. Yet there seemed little imminent sign of Biden who has already written to the partys congressional group en masse telling doubters to challenge him at the convention yielding to pressure to bow out. He retains the support at least in public of key party figures such as the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer; the Democratic minority leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries; and Gavin Newsom, the California governor who has been touted as a potential replacement candidate but who has acted as a loyal surrogate. Related: Who could replace Joe Biden as Democratic nominee? Here are six possibilities Far from Biden retreating, plans were announced for a second primetime television interview this time with NBCs Lester Holt next Monday in the symbolic setting of the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas to follow last Fridays with ABCs George Stephanopoulos. The latest interview, coming on the heels of Bidens hosting of Natos 75th anniversary summit in Washington this week where he has been meeting a succession of world leaders appeared designed to reinforce the message that he intends to stay the course. On Wednesday, the president visited the Washington headquarters of the main US trade union body, the AFL-CIO, an important Democrat constituency. The trade union visit followed a virtual meeting from the White House on Tuesday evening with about 200 Democratic mayors, in which he restated his determination to remain and reportedly won their support. The first F-16 fighter jets are on their way to Ukraine and will be flying sorties this summer, according to a statement from the Dutch and Danish governments that was released by the White House at the Nato summit. Dick Schoof, the prime minister of the Netherlands, and Mette Frederiksen, his counterpart from Denmark, said the transfer process of F-16s to Kyiv was under way after months of pilot training and political negotiations. The two leaders said that Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer the first of about 85 of the combat aircraft that have been committed to Kyiv to turn around its fortunes on the battlefield, and Ukraine signalled more may be to come. The long-awaited supply of F-16s is part of what Natos secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said would be a substantial package of support for Ukraine, which includes the donation of four Patriot air defence systems, Nato-led training for Ukraines troops and a commitment that Kyivs eventual path to Nato membership is irreversible. Allies also criticised China, with stronger language than used before, for assisting Russias invasion of Ukraine, calling it a decisive enabler of the war by supporting Moscow in its no limits partnership, and supplying components for military equipment and chemicals for explosives. This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbours and to Euro-Atlantic security, they declared in the summit communique. An announcement on F-16s had been expected at the same time as the summit, and the hope is that the fighters will be able to stifle Russian glide bomb attacks launched from warplanes operating up to 43 miles (70km) away that have been devastating frontline positions. But it remains unclear how far Ukraine will be able to use F-16s to attack targets in Russian territory or airspace. The US had previously been concerned about the potential for escalation but partially relaxed its position to allow the bombing of targets inside Russia by long-range artillery. Keir Starmer, the UKs prime minister, said he was happy to see Ukraine use Storm Shadow missiles to attack targets inside Russia as long as they were used to defend itself, reconfirming existing UK policy. It is for defensive purposes, but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes, he said. It ends a lengthy wait for Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has been lobbying for at least 18 months for western jets to complement its small and ageing Soviet standard air force, which is no match for Russias. Zelenskiy said he was grateful to Denmark, the Netherlands and the US for taking what he described as practical steps of assistance and indicated that he was hopeful of more donations to boost numbers to a target of 130. F-16s will also be used to bolster Ukraines air defence. I am confident that they will assist us in better protecting Ukrainians from brutal Russian attacks, such as this weeks strike on the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital in Kyiv, the president said. Norway and Belgium have also committed to supplying F-16s in the future, but Zelenskiy went further and said: I anticipate that our air force capability coalition will be strengthened even further through the joining of new participants. Related: Nato will announce historic Ukraine aid package but hospital attack shows its not enough It remains unclear how effective the F-16s, a combat jet designed in the 1970s, will be in the war against Russia. Particularly important will be how they are concealed and protected when on the ground, at a time when Ukraines air defences have been stretched. This month, Russia said it had destroyed five Ukrainian Su-27 jets in an Iskander missile attack on an airbase in Myrhorod. Ukraine acknowledged some losses amid criticism that the planes were lined up on the tarmac in daylight within range of Russian missiles. On Tuesday night, Joe Biden, the US president, announced that Nato members would supply four Patriot anti-missile batteries, while Italy would supply a similar Samp-t, which could be used to protect airbases from Russian attacks. Confirming the development, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said: As we speak, the transfer of F-16 jets is under way, coming from Denmark, coming from the Netherlands. It should, he added, concentrate Vladimir Putins mind on the fact that he will not outlast Ukraine. Ukraine is not expected to become a member of Nato until the end of its war with Russia, as several countries, led by the US, believe that immediate membership would in effect lead to a war between Moscow and the military alliance. The newcomer is a four-door family car The Ford Capri is back and its had an electric makeover. The rakish fastback, dubbed the working mans Porsche between 1969 and 1986, is slated to go on sale this year. Ford announced in March last year that they were releasing their new Capri EV, but on Wednesday unveiled the model for the first time. And rather than being a relatively cramped-in-the-back coupe with two doors, the newcomer is a four-door family car. The Capri EV is essentially a re-bodied version of the Ford Explorer battery SUV, itself the result of a collaboration with Volkswagen using the German firms battery-specific chassis platform. The styling incorporates a roof that slopes towards the rear to suggest the coupe styling of the original car The Capri EV Two versions will be available at first, a 282bhp rear-wheel drive (like the original Capri) version delivering a claimed range of 390 miles and a twin-motor model with 335bhp and a range of 368 miles. Both weigh well over two tonnes and can be charged from 10 to 80 per cent in less than 30 minutes provided you can find a suitably rapid 185kW DC charger. The top speed of both is 112mph. The rear-drive version accelerates from zero to 62mph in 6.4 seconds, the more powerful all-wheel-drive version taking 5.3 seconds. Two versions will initially be available: a 282bhp rear-wheel drive and a twin-motor model with 335bhp The new Capri EV The styling incorporates a roof that slopes towards the rear to suggest the coupe styling of the original car, as well as a nod to the quad headlights sported by many petrol-engined Capris. Although there have long been rumours (and much wishful thinking) of attempts to revive the Capri name, the decision to use it for this battery-powered SUV coupe emerged in March 2023 when Amko Leenarts, Fords European design head, admitted he would love to bring back the Capri name. The new Capri EV The new Capri EV As soon as his comments were reported, the internet was awash with the usual polarised opinions that this was either the greatest or the worst decision in automotive history. Fans point to the cars iconic appearances in film and particularly TV. Car dealer Arthur Daleys tough guy Terry McCann, played by Dennis Waterman, drove a Mk2 Capri in Minder, while who can forget Bodie (Lewis Collins) vaulting the long bonnet of a Mk3 in The Professionals? Del Boy also drove one in Only Fools and Horses. The so-called Pratmobile was a lurid green Mk3 with tiger print seat covers and myriad spotlights on the front. A Capri also featured in the opening episode of Top Gear in 1977, driven by a young reporter named Angela Rippon. Detractors point out that any modern revival of a renowned car name is inevitably going to be a pale shadow of the original. Ford itself has been a victim of this, when in 2019 it named its first mainstream electric car Mustang, prompting outrage among fans of the hairy-chested, V8-engined muscle car of the Sixties. When the return of the Capri name was touted in March 2023, one Ford insider speculated that, should it be applied to something completely inappropriate, theres a danger well be hated by everyone of a certain age group. However, more than in any of Fords global markets, British drivers always had a soft spot for the Capri (and for Fords in general, but especially the Cortina and Fiesta). An advert for the Ford Capri Mk1 - Shutterstock As global sales declined, from November 1984 the UK was the only place where the Capri remained on sale. The last of 1,886,647 Capris across three generations, a limited edition Brooklands model with a V6 engine, was produced on 19 December 1986 at Fords factory in Cologne. UK production at Halewood ceased in October 1976. The Capri was followed by the less overt, front-wheel-drive Probe and Cougar coupes, neither of which caught the imagination in the manner of The car you always promised yourself, as Fords famed advertising described the then-new coupe in 1969. Doctors, scientists and statisticians have now come forward to challenge how the evidence was presented to the jury Several former Cabinet ministers have expressed concern over the conviction of Lucy Letby, the former nurse, with the issue likely to be raised in Parliament, The Telegraph understands. The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) has also announced it will convene a meeting in the wake of the verdicts, stating that it was aware of concerns from RSS members and the wider community regarding the use of statistical evidence in the case. In August 2023, Letby was convicted of the murders of seven newborns and the attempted murders of six other infants. A retrial which ended last week also found her guilty of the attempted murder of another child. As revealed in The Telegraph, doctors, scientists and statisticians have now come forward to challenge how the evidence was presented to the jury. This newspaper also understands that several former Cabinet ministers are troubled by the conviction and are hoping to take the matter further. One former Cabinet minister with a legal background told The Telegraph that several convictions based on scientific or medical evidence in recent years had troubled him. Speaking specifically about the Letby trial, he said: There is an increasing trend towards convictions being secured on the basis of medical evidence. Where there is no direct evidence of a persons guilt, one can understand why there may be some people who are concerned about it. Other former ministers described the verdicts as unsafe and have questioned how statistics and scientific evidence was presented to the jury. The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) has previously warned of a lack of knowledge in the legal profession over the interpretation of statistical evidence and in 2022 released a report specifically setting out how best to deal with cases of medical serial killers. However, none of the recommendations were followed in the Letby trial. Experts from several British universities have questioned shift pattern data used in the trial which showed Letby was present at every death and attempted murder. Dr Alexander Coward, a former lecturer at Oxford and the University of California Berkeley, said that it was possible to take an identical number of nurses and incident rate at a hospital with 170 shifts and place any nurse at the same number of events as Letby, simply through randomness. The RSS said it was hoping to see more collaboration between statisticians and lawyers in future. A spokesman for the RSS said: Were aware of concerns raised by some RSS members and the wider statistical community around the statistical aspects of the Lucy Letby case. Our 2022 report highlighted the challenges of interpreting statistical evidence in medical murder cases, and it proposed several recommendations for best practice. We will be convening a meeting to explore how best these recommendations can be put into practice. Edmund Bulmer, the former chairman of the Herefordshire Health Authority, and ex-MP for Kidderminster said he had contacted Rishi Sunak personally about the matter after Letby was first convicted last year. He said that he believed Letby was the victim of a monstrous miscarriage of justice. Francis Hoar, a public law barrister, described the Telegraph investigation as deeply troubling and said he felt uneasy about the trial. The statistical evidence was not questioned in the way that statisticians suggested it should have been, he wrote on X. Were an appeal brought on the basis of new evidence, after a successful application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the result may well be different. The Criminal Cases Review Commission has not yet said whether it will be looking into Letbys case. The CEO of Greyhound Racing NSW, Robert Macaulay, has resigned after a report alleging welfare issues in the industry was released and then removed from public view. Photograph: AAP The greyhound racing industry in New South Wales will face a government inquiry but not a ban after the resignation of the industry bodys chief executive and the release of a scathing report alleging welfare issues for the dogs. The chief executive of Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW), Robert Macaulay, resigned after the reports release on Tuesday in a decision his board described as an amicable one, and one he felt was best for the industry at this time. The document, written by the bodys former chief vet Alex Brittan, alleged that two-thirds of greyhound deaths had been excluded from official reports and that thousands of dogs recorded as being rehomed as pets were kept in industrial kennels. The premier, Chris Minns, insisted the greyhound racing industry would continue while the claims were fully investigated, ruling out a ban on racing like that proposed by then premier Mike Baird in 2016. Were not going to shut down the industry but we do take this report seriously, Minns said. Related: Animal welfare concerns prompt review of NSW rehoming facility for greyhound racing dogs The states racing minister, David Harris, confirmed hed announce an independent inquiry in coming days into welfare concerns including those raised by Brittan, while the industrys independent watchdog, the Greyhound Welfare and Integrity Commission, is investigating Brittans allegations. We want to make sure that we have a clear pathway going forward that has clear definitions in place about how the sport should be run, Harris said on Wednesday morning. Brittans report, emailed to GRNSW, GWIC and government bodies in mid-June and seen by Guardian Australia on Wednesday, details allegations that dog deaths were grossly underreported and dog rehoming numbers were exaggerated to include dogs left in industrial kennels. Brittan alleged that thousands of dogs were trapped in the industry due to insufficient rehoming and that GRNSW management responded to his concerns by saying if we can just ignore the problem long enough, it will die. A GRNSW spokesperson said the organisation took concerns about animal welfare, integrity and rehoming very seriously and was ensuring the matters raised by Dr Brittan are thoroughly investigated. GRNSW in June appointed former Victorian police commissioner Graham Ashton to review and make recommendations on the contents of Brittans document. Animal welfare advocates said the premiers pre-emptive rejection of a ban risked limiting the independence of the forthcoming inquiry. [Minns] comments make a mockery of any so-called investigation the minister is planning, said Emma Hurst, MP for the Animal Justice party. We need a public reassurance that no matter what the recommendations are that the government will take appropriate action, even if the recommendation is to shut down the industry, she said. Abigail Boyd, a NSW upper house Greens MP, demanded a transparent, open-ended inquiry with protections enabling whistleblowers to come forward. Anything else would be a continuation of the protection racket afforded to this corrupt industry that has been allowed to run by its own rules for far too long, she said. Related: They couldnt care less: fears for dogs welfare as Greyhound Racing NSW axes one of two adoption centres The GRNSW board was already under pressure after Harris threatened to sack them over governance and operational issues, including the boards failure to notify him of the damning report when it was first circulated early in June. In late June, Harris requested the board members show cause as to why they should not be stood down. The board has until Friday to respond. It is no secret that the relationship has become strained because I make no apology for asking for the highest level of welfare and integrity, he said. Harris is also reviewing a report into welfare concerns at a GRNSW-run dog rehoming facility in Wyee, prompted by claims from current and former staff in June that the centre has serious animal welfare issues. GRNSW has run a publicity blitz over the past week claiming 2023-24 was our best year ever, including press releases and online, radio and full-page newspaper advertisements. Additional reporting by Tamsin Rose A resident lights candles at dusk after losing electricity due to Hurricane Beryl in Surfside Beach, Texas, on Tuesday. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters Nearly 1.7 million people in Texas are entering a third day without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. The acting governor, Dan Patrick, said in a statement that bringing back power will be a multi-day restoration event. Governor Greg Abbott, who is on a trip to Asia, is facing criticism for his absence from the state during a natural disaster. Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas on Monday, taking down power lines that left nearly 3 million people without electricity at the peak of the outages. Much of south-east Texas including Houston is enduring dangerously high temperatures with no air conditioning amid an ongoing heatwave. With power outages continuing across south-east Texas, the lack of air-conditioning will aggravate the risk for heat-related illnesses as high temperatures warm into the lower and mid-90s, warns National Weather Service in Houston, where the heat index reached 106F (41C) yesterday and is expected to reach 105F today. Yesterday, President Joe Biden granted acting governor Patricks request for emergency disaster declaration, approving federal resources to help with recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. All 121 affected counties will receive 75% reimbursement for debris removal. The greatest concern right now is the power outages and extreme heat that is impacting Texans, read a statement from the White House. As you all know, extreme heat kills more Americans than all the other natural disasters combined. Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the US, killing more people each year than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined. Children, the elderly, pregnant people, outdoor workers and people with chronic medical conditions are more vulnerable to heat stress. Power outages pose a serious risk to people who rely on electricity-dependent medical equipment such as oxygen machines and ventilators. CenterPoint Energy, the main utility operator serving the Greater Houston area, said in a statement on Tuesday that it had restored power to more than 850,000 of 2.26 million ratepayers who lost power due to Hurricane Beryl. At a Tuesday press conference, when asked if he was satisfied with the utilitys efforts to restore power, Patrick said, Ill tell you whether Im satisfied or not when I have a full report of where their crews were when they were asked to come in, and how quickly they get power back. Any thought that people were surprised that the storm might come to Houston is shocking to me, Patrick said. No one shouldve been surprised. If Centerpoint wasnt [ready], thats on them. At least 10 people in the US died in the wake of the category 5 hurricane. Now a post-tropical storm, Beryl is making its way north, and is expected to bring severe rain, flooding, and potential tornadoes to the midwest and the north-east, according to the National Weather Service. Tori Towey moved to the UAE in April last year for her job with Emirates - BBC An air stewardess who was facing charges in Dubai of attempted suicide after trying to take her own life following alleged domestic abuse has been freed. Tori Towey was banned from leaving the UAE, where she works for the Emirates airline, and faced jail after being charged with attempted suicide and alcohol abuse. The 28-year-old, from Boyle in County Roscommon, Ireland, said she tried to take her own life after her South African husband allegedly attacked her, leaving her with severe bruises and injuries. She survived but was told at a police station that she would face criminal charges and her passport was blocked. On Wednesday, after diplomatic pressure from Dublin and international press attention, the travel ban and charges were ditched by authorities in the Gulf state. Tori Towey alleged that her South African husband attacked her The group Detained in Dubai had campaigned for the charges to be dropped. Radha Stirling, the chief executive of the advocacy group, said: The charges against Tori Towey have been officially withdrawn by Dubai police and the travel ban lifted. Tori and her mother are both over the moon and we are ever grateful for widespread support of the public, the media and the Irish government! We hope her transit at the airport will go smoothly and that no further attempts will be made to keep her in the country. Ms Toweys plight was raised in Irelands parliament, the Dail, on Tuesday. Shes under incredible stress, said Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Fein leader. Tori is a Roscommon woman, and she wants to come home. Speaking under parliamentary privilege, Ms McDonald said Ms Towey had been a victim of the most gross domestic violence. Simon Harris, Irelands Taoiseach, said he would be happy to intervene and see how we can support an Irish citizen in what sounds to be, based on what you tell me, the most appalling circumstances. Ms Towey's plight was raised in Ireland's parliament The next day, Mr Harris told the Irish parliament the travel ban on Ms Towey had been lifted. The Embassy will take Tori to the airport as soon as she is ready to go, Mr Harris told MPs on Wednesday. And the Embassy will of course continue to follow up the case which is still active as of now. Anyone found guilty of attempting suicide in Dubai faced a 1,050 fine or six months in prison before 2019, when the so-called offence was downgraded to a 210 fine. The Gulf State also relaxed its alcohol laws to allow tourists to buy alcohol in state-controlled shops, which were previously only accessible for licence-holding residents. Sarah Coombes, Labour MP for West Bromwich, tuned into a public inquiry from Westminster over a housing development A new Labour MP has opposed plans to build on the green belt in her first week despite it being a central part of the governments housing policy. Sarah Coombes, the newly elected MP for West Bromwich, tuned into a public inquiry from Westminster to speak on behalf of residents who are objecting to development at Peak House Farm in Great Barr, on the outskirts of Birmingham. The inquiry was launched after developers Wain Estates appealed against Sandwell councils decision to refuse permission for its plans to build 150 homes and a countryside park on the site, which is designated green belt land. It is likely to lead to accusations of hypocrisy from Labour, given the party has made building on the green belt a central part of its plans to deliver 1.5 million homes over the course of the next Parliament. On Tuesday evening, Ms Coombes wrote on social media: I took a brief break from the proceedings in Parliament today to speak on behalf of residents in Great Barr at the planning inquiry in relation to the proposed development at Peak House Farm. The post was accompanied by two photos: one appearing to show Ms Coombes addressing the inquiry, and the other depicting a group of residents holding up signs declaring save our green belt, hands off the green belt, protect our local wildlife from development and we need to keep our prime quality farmland. The public inquiry into the Peak House Farm proposals began on Tuesday, and was expected to last for six days. Sandwell council rejected the plans in January, warning the development would be inappropriate to the location and harmful to local wildlife. Developers had argued it would help address a chronic shortage of affordable homes in the area. In order to address Britains housing crisis, Labour has said it will build on what Sir Keir Starmer has called the ugly parts of the green belt, such as disused car parks or wasteland, dubbed the grey belt. During the election campaign, the party said nature spots would be ruled out of building plans, while work would be done to improve existing green spaces and make them accessible to the public. In her first major speech as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves confirmed Labour would reinstate compulsory housing targets as part of an overhaul of Britains planning rules. Labours manifesto outlined a slew of reforms to speed up planning and boost house building. It said the party would ensure councils have up-to-date local plans on where housing and industrial development was needed and would fund the employment of hundreds more planning officers. It also said that while a Labour government would prioritise brownfield sites for the construction of homes and industries, this will not be enough to meet our housing need. Ms Coombes was sworn into the House of Commons on Wednesday, having won her seat in last weeks general election. She tweeted: It was an incredible honour to have been officially sworn in as our MP for West Bromwich. It is a privilege to represent our area in Parliament. I will work tirelessly for our community and the change we need to see. Nancy Pelosi has refused to endorse Joe Biden's 2024 presidential bid Nancy Pelosi has suggested Joe Biden should reconsider his decision to stay in the race for president in the most high-profile intervention yet on his flagging candidacy. In comments that ignored Mr Bidens repeated insistence he will be the Democratic nominee, the former House speaker stopped short of endorsing him and said time was running short to make a decision. Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run, Mrs Pelosi said on Mr Bidens favourite morning news show, MSNBCs Morning Joe. Were all encouraging him to make that decision. I want him to do whatever he decides to do. And thats the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with. The remarks, by one of the most senior Democrats in Congress, were seized upon as an attempt to reopen the debate over whether Mr Biden should remain on the ticket. The 81-year-old president appeared to have temporarily silenced doubters within his party this week with a forceful letter to his colleagues and an interview with ABC when he said only the Almighty could get him to stand down. On Wednesday, some Democrats who had privately called on him to quit the race reversed themselves in public, as the Congressional Black Caucus and Left-wing congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighed in behind the president. Many House Democrats appeared resigned to him remaining on the ticket after a meeting in which they privately discussed concerns over his candidacy. The former speakers intervention is likely to reinvigorate efforts to persuade Mr Biden to stand aside for a younger replacement, after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump in which he repeatedly lost his train of thought. Mrs Pelosi, 84, said that the president and his party should focus on the Nato conference this week before coming to a decision on Mr Bidens future. The president is due to hold a press conference on Thursday evening in which his responses will be closely monitored for the slurring and moments of confusion that punctuated the debate. Lets just hold off, Mrs Pelosi urged on MSNBC, adding: Whatever youre thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you dont have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week. Mrs Pelosi is often cited as one of the few key Democrats who could influence Mr Biden's decision-making - OLIVIER DOULIERY Nate Silver, the prominent analyst and pollster, said that Mrs Pelosis remarks on Bidens favourite show were as close as possible to saying he should drop out without saying it outright, noting that the odds promptly jumped on Mr Biden quitting the race. Mrs Pelosi is often cited as one of the few key Democrats who could influence Mr Bidens decision-making, alongside the Obamas and his close family. Lloyd Doggett, the first Democrat to call on Mr Biden to stand down, said that the former speakers comments were keeping the situation very open, very fluid. I dont think it moves members, but I think it compromises the goal to solidify support for Biden/move forward, a senior Democratic aide told the news website Semafor. In the immediate aftermath of the debate, Mrs Pelosi said it was a legitimate question to ask if Mr Biden had a condition that caused his stuttering performance. It came after Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) warned Republicans could take the White House, the House and the Senate in a landslide win if Mr Biden stayed in the race. Its critically important for us to come to grips with what we face, if together, we put this country on the path of electing Donald Trump again, he told CNN. On Thursday, Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said that Democrats needed to consider the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate. Blindness is not bliss, he said, amid the terrifying threat of a Trump presidency. Mr Bidens presence on the ballot could turn New York into a battleground state, data show. The presidents lead in the state, which he carried by 23 points in 2020, has narrowed to just 8.9 per cent, according to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight. Mark Levine, the Democratic leader of the Manhattan borough, told Politico that while New York had been deep blue for decades, the data made him truly believe were a battleground state now. Nationally, Mr Bidens support has dropped from around 47 per cent on June 27, the day of the presidential debate, to 44 per cent, in what the Cook Political Report termed the most dramatic polling shift of the year. Court artist drawing of Lucy Letby giving evidence during her trial at Manchester Crown Court - Elizabeth Cook Almost from the moment she was arrested, doubts have been raised over the case of the nurse Lucy Letby, convicted last year of the murder of seven newborn babies and the attempted murder of six more. To some, it appeared inconceivable that a seemingly dedicated carer with no history of pathological behaviour could have committed such appalling crimes. Yet on the evidence presented to the jury, she was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison as the countrys most prolific child killer. Just last week, she was convicted of another attempted murder, a charge on which the original jury had been unable to reach a verdict. Her lawyers sought leave to appeal but this was turned down. There is always a danger in such matters of following the lead of conspiracy theorists. A number of websites have sprung up protesting her innocence, even though the jury had found her guilty. But an investigation published in this newspaper has detailed expert concerns about the safety of this conviction. This case has provoked concern not just here but across the world. The New Yorker magazine carried a lengthy investigation which could not be replicated in this country because the other trial was pending. The silence in the British media was taken by some to be complicity in a flawed process; but it was simply a legal prohibition on the publication of anything that could jeopardise the judicial process. Some might argue that Letby could not receive a fair hearing at the recent trial given her notoriety, of which the jurors were presumably well aware. To be found guilty of a crime, two things are required. First, it must be shown that an offence has been committed. Second, the case against an accused person must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. On the first, some have suggested that it was never properly established that there was any crime, as opposed to a tragic spike in the deaths of very ill premature babies in an understaffed neonatal ward at the Countess of Chester Hospital. The jury was presented with seemingly compelling evidence showing that Letby was present on the ward when each of the babies died, and yet other experts have questioned whether these statistics were misleading. To ensure that she is not the victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice imaginable, these questions surely need to be answered. Feature: China's FAST telescope provides new platform for astronomical cooperation between China and European countries Xinhua) 16:00, July 10, 2024 PESCARA, Italy/GUIYANG, China, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) located in southwest China's Guizhou Province has yielded significant scientific results and created a new avenue for astronomical collaboration between China and European countries in recent years. Li Di, a Chinese radio astronomer and chief scientist of FAST, received the Marcel Grossmann Award on Tuesday from the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network (ICRANet), becoming the first Chinese scientist to be awarded this prestigious international award in physics. Li, a researcher from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was awarded the prize for his groundbreaking contributions to the scientific capabilities of the world's most sensitive radio telescope, including precise measurements of interstellar magnetic fields and advancing the study of fast radio bursts (FRBs) to a high statistical significance, according to the committee of the 17th Marcel Grossmann Meeting underway in Pescara, Italy. Remo Ruffini, director of ICRANet, said that he has been collaborating with China and admiring the fantastic work Li has been able to create with FAST. He hopes to enhance collaboration in the future. The FRBs are the brightest millisecond-duration astronomical transients in radio bands with yet unknown origins. Less than 5 percent of those ever detected have been seen to repeat, and only a few are persistently active. Li said that the study of FRBs holds the opportunity for significant breakthroughs in understanding the mechanisms of extreme energy production and transport in the universe. Currently, FAST has detected the greatest number of bursting events, making epoch-making contributions to the FRB field, he added. Located in a naturally deep and round karst depression in Guizhou, FAST was completed in 2016 and started formal operations in 2020. Since its opening, FAST has attracted researchers from many European countries, including Italy. With its high sensitivity, FAST provides astronomers with a powerful tool for studying various cosmic objects, including pulsars in globular clusters, and some of the most ancient celestial bodies in the Milky Way. Renowned experts Paulo Freire from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and Alessandro Ridolfi from the Cagliari Astronomical Observatory of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, have both collaborated with Chinese scientists in exploring globular cluster pulsars using the FAST telescope and have discovered new pulsars with special properties. Ridolfi led the development and optimization of various pulsar data processing software, including pulsar observation data compression, search, and timing observations, contributing to a series of discoveries in globular clusters. In 2022, Ridolfi received funding from the CAS President's International Fellowship Initiative. He assisted astronomers from China's National Astronomical Observatories in using the FAST telescope to explore globular cluster pulsars, leading to the discovery of pulsars with special properties. "These new discoveries not only enrich our understanding of globular clusters but also provide valuable samples for future research and promote international exchange and cooperation through FAST," said Li, expecting more exciting discoveries with FAST in the future through international cooperation. China, as a founding member of the intergovernmental international radio telescope project Square Kilometer Array (SKA), has been carrying out joint research with European countries. Philippe Zarka, an astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory, joined colleagues from China's Peking University and Sun Yat-sen University in studying radio bursts produced by the active star AD Leonis, detected with FAST in the range 1-1.5 GHz, and took charge of the interpretation of these observations. "With FAST, we have observed radio bursts from the star AD Leonis, not for the first time, but with the highest sensitivity and time-frequency resolutions," said Zarka. He added that the exquisite sensitivity and high time-frequency resolutions of FAST were instrumental in his research. Zarka said that FAST may bring very interesting results on star-planet interactions, and he has high expectations for comparing FAST results at ~1 GHz with NenuFAR results below 100 MHz. FAST was officially opened to the world in 2021. Sun Chun, the engineer in charge of FAST measurement and control, said that as of April 2024, FAST has received applications from 15 foreign countries, including Britain, France, and Italy, and approved a total of nearly 900 hours for observation. "The collaboration with Chinese scientists was very nice and fruitful, and two proposals between Chinese and French scientists were submitted in response to the latest call from FAST for next year," said Zarka. There is significant expertise in developing low-frequency radio arrays in Europe, and Zarka expressed hope that cooperation with China on these subjects will continue to develop. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Former Conservative MP Rory Stewart - JEFF GILBERT Sir Keir Starmer has been warned against surrounding himself with Cabinet ministers who are blindly loyal. Speaking to the Telegraph Extra Book Club, Rory Stewart, the former minister of state for development, said that too little disagreement amongst ministers created a conformist thing with no sense of values, and likened Boris Johnsons style of leadership to the Bulgarian Communist party in the 1970s. He added that British politicians need some inquisitiveness, some interest in evidence and facts. The former Conservative MP said too little critical thought could take a government down a very, very dark route. You need critics, you need challenge, which under Boris Johnson was clearly absent. Having too many allies that strictly follow and abide by the Prime Ministers orders will not bring the improvements that the country needs. Mr Stewart added: If youre only promoting people who are blindly loyal creating something that feels like the Bulgarian Communist Party in the 1970s youre not going to end up with a very good government. Sir Keir Starmer is applauded by colleagues after becoming Prime Minister - JUSTIN TALLINS/AFP Mr Stewart, who in June ruled himself out of the race to become the next chancellor of the University of Oxford, saying there were much better candidates than me, hopes to return to public life in some form, although maybe not as an MP. He said he would be honoured to be invited by the Prime Minister to work on a cross-party committee to help improve the NHS. Reflecting on the recent past in British political life, he said Rishi Sunak was never going to be accepted by Conservative Party members after the way Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were perceived to have been treated. The reason the Conservatives just lost the election is because of Boris Johnson. We laid the seeds of our own destruction, he said. That inevitable path to him blowing himself up [over] partygate, the inevitable path of Liz Trusss catastrophe it meant that Rishi Sunak from the beginning was seen [by party members] as somebody who had betrayed Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. He was in the worst possible situation. Stewart was a vociferous critic of former prime minister Boris Johnson - YUI MOK/PA Mr Stewart held five ministerial posts in just three years. For 16 months between 2018 and 2019 he was prisons minister, in what he said was the most shocking, but also the most interesting and fulfilling job that I ever did in government. He stood as a candidate to replace Mrs May as leader of the Conservative Party. After losing he did not return to a government role, refusing to serve in Mr Johnsons Cabinet. He was eventually kicked out of the Conservative Party alongside a group of like-minded MPs opposed to a no-deal Brexit. He has suggested that the Labour Party under Sir Keir is perhaps more conservative than the Conservative Party. Keir Starmer is a serious former senior civil servant. One of the challenges is that the top team are a bit dull; they need to loosen up and develop a sense of humour, he said. This is an age of populist challenge and you cant win by only presenting yourself as a sensible, cautious family solicitor. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is greeted by US President Joe Biden as he arrives at the Nato 75th anniversary summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, in Washington DC, US Sir Keir Starmers attempts to promote his leadership credentials at the Nato summit would have a great deal more credibility if his Labour government could provide at least some clarity on precisely how it intends to repair the lamentable state of our Armed Forces. In his first appearance on the world stage since becoming Prime Minister, Starmer has been keen to demonstrate that, under his leadership, Britain intends to fulfil its obligations as a major world power. To this end, he is calling on Nato leaders attending this weeks summit in Washington to mark the 75th anniversary of the alliances formation to increase their spending on defence to 2.5 per cent of GDP. As David Lammy and John Healey, our newly-appointed Foreign and Defence Secretaries respectively, argued in their Telegraph article this week, it was vital that other members of the 32-strong military alliance should join Britain in increasing defence expenditure beyond the minimum 2 per cent Nato requirement. The only problem with this otherwise laudable ambition is that, in so far as the new Labour government is concerned, Starmer and co have little idea when, if ever, they will be able to meet the commitment of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP themselves. The need for Britain to increase military spending as a matter of urgency is not in doubt. The Army is too small and under-equipped to conduct major combat operations over a sustained period, the Royal Air Force is short of warplanes, and the Royal Navy barely has sufficient numbers of operational warships to fulfil its obligations now. These glaring shortfalls in our military readiness and at a time when the global threat environment becomes more dangerous by the day received belated recognition in the dying days of Rishi Sunaks administration. The Conservatives pledged to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent by the end of the decade, the equivalent of investing an extra 75 billion during the next six years. By contrast, Labour is tying itself in knots over its insistence that it will match Sunaks commitment, without being able to say with any certainty when the target will be met. The confusion within the Labour ranks was clearly evident in comments made yesterday by Luke Pollard, the new Armed Forces minister, when he suggested that any increase in defence expenditure was dependent on the new government achieving economic growth, without which there wont be the money for extra funding. Nor was Starmer able to provide any clarity when questioned on the issue ahead of his visit to Washington. The Prime Minister refused to put a timeline on when the extra funds would be delivered, while still insisting that spending 2.5 per cent of national income on defence was a cast iron commitment. To further confuse the picture, Labour is insisting that it first carries out a new strategic defence review before deciding when and where the new money will be spent, a process that could mean no firm decisions are taken until next year at the least. As James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, commented on Labours deepening discomfort over its approach to national security, Labour had failed at the first step to deliver a convincing outline on its future defence plans. Not that the Conservatives are in any position to criticise Labour. Most of the challenges facing the Armed Forces today stem from more than a decade of drastic defence cuts, dating back to the disastrous strategic defence and security review carried out by the coalition government in 2010, which effectively cut the nations war fighting capability by a third. Even when it finally dawned on ministers that the military was in dire need of new investment, especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sunak and his chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, insisted they would only commit to increased expenditure when the economic outlook allowed. The trouble with this kind of sophistry, for both Labour and the Conservatives, is that hostile states like Russia and Iran are not going to indulge us in the luxury of rebuilding our military strength before they engage in hostile acts. The worsening global threat environment is reflected in the fact that, twice in the past two-and-a-half years, the stability of the Western alliance has been severely challenged by the eruption of unexpected hostilities, first with Russias invasion of Ukraine and, more recently, the Gaza conflict. The Ukraine conflict obliged the West to display its resilience in defending the principle of territorial integrity, while the Gaza conflict has created a major threat to international trade routes, in the form of attacks against merchant shipping by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea. Both these conflicts point to escalating volatility in the global security landscape, threats that require an immediate response in terms of rebuilding our military strength, not the politics of procrastination that appears to be the Starmer Governments forte. The new Labour Government may be desperate to present its leadership credentials to the outside world, but no one is going to take it seriously until ministers have set out a clear and credible programme for safeguarding our national security. John Healey, the new defence secretary, has been attending a Nato summit in Washington DC. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Rex/Shutterstock Britain will be the leading European nation in Nato under a Labour government, the new defence secretary, John Healey, pledged in an interview at the Nato summit in Washington DC though spending may have to rise significantly if the UK is to remain ahead of Germany. The cabinet minister, appointed last Friday, acknowledged that European countries within Nato would have to take on more of the burden of defending the west against Russia regardless of whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump won the US presidential election in November. Whoever is elected to the White House, we have to recognise that American priorities are likely to shift to the Indo-Pacific, Healey said at the Nato summit in Washington, suggesting that the US will inevitably redirect its military focus to China. The consequences of that are that European nations in Nato must do more of the heavy lifting and some of the leadership that traditionally we have been able to look to the Americans to do. So Keir Starmers commitment during this summit, [is] that under the new government, Britain will be the leading European nation in Nato, Healey said. We recognise the responsibilities that with other European nations we must pick up. Related: Labour will not boost military spend without economic growth, says minister Labour has promised to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from its existing level of 2.32% but it has not said when it will do this. On Wednesday, Healey said a review of budgets would part of a strategic review that would be launched next week by the prime minister. The new defence secretary promised that the review would take place in less than a year and in such a way that we can get to grips with difficult decisions that need to be taken early. Britain has traditionally been the leading European nation in Nato, as measured by defence expenditure, outspending Germany and France. But since Russias invasion of Ukraine, Germanys chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has led a dramatic change in policy. Figures released by Nato showed that in dollar terms the UK spent $77bn (60bn) in 2023 compared with $73.1bn for Germany and $59.3bn for France. But, next year, Germanys budgets are expected to soar past Britain at $97.7bn compared with $82.1bn for the UK. Before the summit, Downing Street said Starmer would use his trip his first international engagement after becoming prime minister last Friday to call on Nato countries to increase defence spending further. The intention, a spokesperson said, was to send a strong signal to Russia as it continues to attack Ukraine. European Nato allies have principally worried about the impact of a fresh Donald Trump presidency. The Republican challenger to Biden threatened to leave the alliance in 2018 when he was last president, and has threatened that any member spending less than 2% of GDP on defence would not be protected by the US. A truck carries humanitarian aid across Trident Pier, a temporary pier to deliver aid, off the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, near the Gaza coast, 25 June 2024. Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters A US military pier, built two months ago as a way to bring sea-borne humanitarian aid into Gaza, is to be permanently dismantled within a few days, according to a new report. The Associated Press (AP) reported that the pier, which has had to be moved repeatedly to avoid bad weather, would be reconnected to the Gaza coastline on Wednesday but would operate for just the next few days before being disassembled by the US army and navy. The AP quoted unnamed officials as saying that the pier would be put back in place only long enough to move humanitarian supplies which have accumulated in Cyprus and on a floating dock offshore since the pier went out of action on 28 June as a result of weather conditions. The chief Pentagon spokesperson, Maj Gen Pat Ryder, said on Tuesday that the pier was currently at the Israeli port of Ashdod, the haven used during bad weather, but added: My understanding is that CENTCOM [US Central Command] intends to tentatively re-anchor the pier this week. Ryder did not comment on the longer term prospects for the pier. Aid workers familiar with the project had been predicting for weeks that the pier would not survive beyond July. The pier scheme, first unveiled by Joe Biden in his State of the Union address in March, was always intended to be a temporary measure to complement the meagre amount of aid being allowed across land crossings by Israel, but US officials told Reuters in June it would last until August or September. The eastern Mediterranean off the Gaza coast had been choppier in the summer months than had been expected with stormy weather making it necessary to move the pier in and out of position repeatedly. Since it was first manoeuvred into position on 17 May, the pier has been operational for fewer than 20 days, and for most of those days, aid deliveries were simply unloaded on the beach without being distributed around Gaza because of security concerns. The World Food Programme (WFP) suspended distribution convoys on 9 June, after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted a hostage rescue operation that saved four Israeli hostages but killed 274 Palestinians. Apart from a days operations to clear the backlog of humanitarian assistance on the beach, the WFP has continued to suspend its convoys pending a full security review. Over its two months in operation, about 8,800 metric tons of aid has been unloaded off the pier, about 500 truckloads, equivalent to a single day of deliveries before the war began. Critics of the scheme warned that the spectacular $230m project would divert attention from the international effort to pressure Israel to open the land crossings into Gaza, the most efficient means of delivering assistance to the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, more than a quarter of whom are in imminent danger of famine. Land deliveries have dwindled dramatically since Israel launched an offensive on the southern border city of Rafah in May. According to UN figures, the number of trucks entering Gaza through two remaining open crossings, Keren Shalom and Erez West, fell from 840 in May, to 756 in June to only 18 so far in July. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) referred questions about the piers future to the defence department but a spokesperson added: What we continue to focus on is getting urgently needed aid to people in need across Gaza through all available mechanisms. Ashdod port is open for humanitarian deliveries and we expect humanitarians will increasingly use this route, the spokesperson said. Erez West and Kerem Shalom are also open, though insecurity and kinetic operations are constraining onward distributions within Gaza. The United States is actively involved in discussions with Israel, the UN, and other humanitarian organizations to determine ways to overcome these constraints and allow assistance to reach people in desperate need. Sir Keir Starmer has refused to guarantee that he will meet his flagship commitment on defence spending within his first term in office, despite a cast iron promise to get there. The Prime Minister, who will meet US President Joe Biden and other Nato leaders on Wednesday at a summit to mark the alliances 75th anniversary, is pressing for European nations to increase defence spending. But decisions on reaching the UKs goal of spending 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) will follow a wholesale defence review being launched next week and must comply with the Governments strict fiscal rules on spending and borrowing. Sir Keir will hold talks with Mr Biden in the White House on Wednesday afternoon as the US President faces domestic pressures over his age and suitability to run for a second term. The prospect of Donald Trump being returned to the White House in Novembers election is a cause for concern in the alliance given his past criticisms of Nato and his threats to reduce aid to Ukraine. European Nato states face shouldering a greater burden as part of a drive to Trump proof the alliance should the Republican candidate return to office and weaken US commitment to the 32-nation bloc. Speaking to reporters, Sir Keir was repeatedly pressed on whether the goal of spending 2.5% of GDP would be reached within his first term. He said: We are committed to the 2.5%, as I have said before the election and I say again after the election. That is obviously subject to our fiscal rules, but the commitment is there. The strategic review will take place, that will happen next week, and we will set out the details of that. The manifesto commitment was that it would take place within a year, I would like it to be quicker than that if Im honest and well set out the details about how we are going to do it. (PA Graphics) Officials have described 2.5% as a cast iron commitment but the announcement a strategic defence review will be launched next week did not include any timetable for ramping up spending. Before his election defeat, Rishi Sunak had committed to reach 2.5% by 2030 at a total cost of 75 billion over six years. Nato members have an official goal of spending 2% of GDP on defence and 23 members are now thought to have reached that level. But in the context of this years US election, Sir Keir acknowledged more needed to be done, particularly on locking in support for Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is at the summit. On the question of how we show that commitment here at this summit, given there is going to be an election in America later this year, I think its very important at this summit, and I think there is a real opportunity for real unity, Sir Keir told reporters. Its the largest group of Nato countries, together with the additions that weve got, and the package that we are seeking to advance, it goes beyond the support thats been put in before and will be locked in I hope at this Nato conference. Nato leaders pose for a family photo before US President Joe Biden, front row centre, delivers remarks on Tuesday night (Evan Vucci/PA) There would be a financial package, military aid and an industrial strategy to support Ukraine, he indicated. Sir Keir confirmed that decisions on the use of UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles were for the Ukrainian armed forces to make, indicating they would be permitted to strike against targets within Russia. The UK military aid was for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes. The Russian strike on a childrens hospital in Kyiv on Monday was a tragic backdrop to this summit and strengthens the resolve of Nato against Vladimir Putin, he said. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Asked if it was a war crime, the Prime Minister said: In relation to its specific category within international law, that will be a matter for others in due course, but it is shocking and appalling and its the duty of everyone to describe it in those terms. He said the summit should demonstrate to Mr Putin the clear and united resolve of the alliance to stand with Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression, whether in relation to Ukraine or whether elsewhere including cyber aggression and other ways in which Russia is aggressive around the world. The summit marks Sir Keirs debut on the world stage and it is also an introduction for his wife Victoria to international diplomacy. She will take part in a series of engagements with other leaders wives and husbands. Sharon Stone said people financially took advantage of her while she was recovering from a near-fatal stroke. In 2001, the Basic Instinct star suffered a stroke that led to a nine-day brain bleed which forced her to take a step away from Hollywood for seven years while she recovered fully. People took advantage of me over that time, the US actress told The Hollywood Reporter. Sharon Stone in 1998 (Neil Munns/PA) I had 18 million dollars (14 million) saved because of all my success, but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone. My refrigerator, my phone everything was in other peoples names. I had zero money. The 66-year-old actress said instead of feeling bitter about what she experienced following her stroke, she chooses to focus on the positive. I decided to stay present and let go. I decided not to hang onto being sick or to any bitterness or anger, she said. If you bite into the seed of bitterness, it never leaves you. But if you hold faith, even if that faith is the size of a mustard seed, you will survive. So, I live for joy now. I live for purpose. Sharon Stone at a photocall ahead of the premiere of Basic Instinct II (Steve Parsons/PA) Stone said the stroke 100% changed the way her brain worked. She said: A Buddhist monk told me that I had been reincarnated into my same body. I had a death experience and then they brought me back. I bled into my brain for nine days, so my brain was shoved to the front of my face. It wasnt positioned in my head where it was before. And while that was happening, everything changed. My sense of smell, my sight, my touch. I couldnt read for a couple of years. Things were stretched and I was seeing colour patterns. A lot of people thought I was going to die. Sharon Stone previously said doctors thought she was faking what turned out to be a brain haemorrhage (Doug Peters/PA) Stone previously said doctors thought she was faking what turned out to be a brain haemorrhage that had resulted from a ruptured vertebral artery. In 2023, she told Vogue magazine: They missed it with the first angiogram and decided that I was faking it. My best friend talked them into giving me a second one and they discovered that I had been haemorrhaging into my brain, my whole subarachnoid pool, and that my vertebral artery was ruptured. I would have died if they had sent me home. The actress said that she takes medication daily to address the stuttering and severe brain seizures. Stone did not share details of her brain bleed for some years after it occurred as she was worried about public reaction. She is now a board member of the Barrow Neurological Foundation in the US which treats devastating brain and spine conditions. Starmer gives Biden Arsenal shirt to cement very special relationship with US Sir Keir Starmer will present Joe Biden with a personalised Arsenal shirt when the pair meet at the White House. The shirt, with Mr Bidens surname and the number 46 a reference to his presidential number will be handed over by UK officials to White House aides. The Labour leader is an Arsenal season ticket holder and he hopes the personalised present will help strengthen what he called the the very special relationship between the UK and US on Wednesday. The two world leaders alongside Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg (Stefan Rousseau/PA) A senior Downing Street official said: Its his team and he thought it would make a personal gift. The Prime Minister will also give the US leader a copy of the Atlantic Charter which paved the way for the formation of Nato, complete with then Labour leader Clement Attlees amendments. The new Prime Minister met the US President for the first time at the Nato summit in Washington before their talks in the White House later. The president, 81, is seeking re-election in November despite discontent within the Democrat ranks about his suitability due to his age and concerns about his health. Sir Keir, who has proposed forcing peers to retire from the House of Lords at 80, sidestepped a suggestion that meant Mr Biden was too old, instead insisting he was motivated by reducing the size of the Upper Chamber. Sir Keir told reporters accompanying him on his first international trip as Prime Minister: Ive already had a phone call with President Biden. I want to follow up on that, this is obviously a very special relationship we have between the UK and the US. We have, within that, a special aspect when it comes to defence and security for obvious reasons including our commitment to Nato. We make a unique contribution in Europe to Nato and therefore its a very good opportunity for me to talk to the President about how we take forward the important work at this summit. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer joins US President Joe Biden and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other Nato leaders for a family photograph at the Nato 75th anniversary summit (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Asked whether he believed his plan for peers to retire at 80 should apply across the board, Sir Keir said: In terms of the age in the House of Lords, the simple fact is that our House of Lords is massive. Its the second biggest political chamber in the world. I think its only the Chinese who have a bigger political chamber than our House of Lords, we have to reduce it. That is the primary driver of the retirement at 80. You can see why that needs to be done. Weve got 800-plus members of the House of Lords, its simply too big. We need to reduce it. So it doesnt reflect on how other elected representatives are chosen in other countries, its to do with the size of the House of Lords. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who accompanied Sir Keir on the trip to Washington, met his US counterpart Antony Blinken. The State Department said the pair re-affirmed the importance of ensuring Ukraine has the economic, security, and humanitarian assistance it needs to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. They also discussed the need to reach a ceasefire in Gaza that secures the release of hostages and lays the groundwork for durable peace. John Healey, the new Defence Secretary, also met his counterpart Lloyd Austin. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Austin shared a photograph of the two men together, but misspelled the UK Cabinet ministers name as Secretary Healy. Our shared ideals are at the heart of the US-UK special relationship. I look forward to working closely with my new UK counterpart to tackle todays security challenges, the US defence secretary added. Starmer meets Scholz in first of diplomatic flurry of Nato meetings Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as part of a frenzy of diplomacy as ministers push for a significant improving of security ties with Europe. This was Sir Keirs first meeting since he landed in Washington for the Nato summit, underlining the importance the Prime Minister is placing on European diplomacy. The Chancellor welcomed the Prime Ministers commitment to resetting the UKs European partnerships, noting how important our friendships with like-minded countries will be in a challenging international environment, a Downing Street spokesperson said. They discussed the need for enhanced defence co-operation in Europe to act as a deterrent for aggression by hostile actors. They also agreed that the Nato summit was an opportunity to strengthen support for Ukraine and firmly commit to striking a deep UK-Germany defence agreement, which they said they were determined to start work on without delay. The Prime Minister and the chancellor look forward to meeting again at the European Political Community summit in the UK next week to continue these discussions, No 10 said. This weeks Nato summit and the UK-hosted European Political Community (EPC) gathering on July 18 provide early opportunities for face-to-face talks on the future of the UKs relationship with its neighbours. Sir Keir said it meant that a series of meetings which would normally take months to arrange could happen within the first fortnight of his premiership. Nick Thomas-Symonds, who has been given the newly created job of minister for European relations, has joined Sir Keir on the trip to Washington for the Nato gathering. Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Defence Secretary John Healey are also in Washington. Mr Thomas-Symonds was also at the meeting with the German leader. Sir Keir Starmer meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington DC (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Sir Keir also met Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson, with the pair discussing the enduring friendship between their two countries. The Prime Minister welcomed Swedens ongoing military support for Ukraine, and the two leaders agreed the Nato summit provides an important opportunity to go further, a government spokesman said. They agreed their partnership would only deepen now that Sweden is a fully-fledged member of Nato. The Prime Minister told reporters he wanted to take full advantage of the diplomatic opportunities that the timing of the election had presented him with. He said: It has provided a really important window of opportunity for me and my team, because weve got the Nato summit within a week of the election, so we get the opportunity to strengthen our relations with various of the Nato leaders and others obviously that are there, including EU leaders. Now that is a follow-up, if you like, on some of the phone calls that Ive already had with international leaders that Ive been doing since the King invited me to form a government. And then of course weve got the EPC coming up at the tail end of next week, so thats why I wanted Nick and David and John and me I want to make sure we take full advantage of this opportunity. These are meetings that would probably take months and months and months for us to fit in as a team, if we were not taking advantage of this summit for the purposes of those relations and the EPC. The central purpose is obviously all about Nato but it is a very important opportunity to strengthen those relations. The Prime Minister wants to achieve an improved trading relationship with Brussels but he also wants greater defence co-operation with the EU. He said: On the defence and security pact this is really important to us. I do think there is scope for a significant improving of our defence and security relationship with the EU. I think this is complementary with Nato. Nato is still the cornerstone of defence in Europe and our approach on defence has always been Nato first. I do see scope for complementing that. That is why we are wanting to advance the defence and security pact or agreement with the EU. Sir Keir Starmer has said he wants to use the Nato summit to reset relations with world leaders and send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Prime Minister held talks with Ukraines Volodymyr Zelensky before arriving at the summit and will later meet US President Joe Biden at the White House. Sir Keir said he used his talks with Mr Zelensky to stress that the change of government in the UK makes no difference to the support that we will provide. The summit was also a chance for the new Labour Government to reaffirm our commitment to Nato on its 75th anniversary, he said. It was an opportunity to discuss with President Zelensky what further support he needs and to use our opportunity here with our allies to make sure that that support is agreed, Sir Keir said. And to reinforce, in a sense as a message to Putin, the resolve of Nato, bigger now than its ever been, more united than its ever been and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression, the Prime Minister added. The summit marks Sir Keirs debut on the world stage, less than a week after the Labour landslide which installed him in No 10. He told reporters in Washington DC his talks with world leaders were an opportunity to make sure that those relationships are reset, for me to be able to say that our position on the world stage leading on issues like defence and security, on climate change, and on energy are so important. The summit is expected to confirm what US and European officials have described as Ukraines irreversible path to Nato membership. But the alliances mutual defence pact means Ukraine will not join while it is at open war with Russia, as that could result in all-out conflict between the bloc and Mr Putins forces. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is greeted by US President Joe Biden and Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg as he arrives at the Nato 75th anniversary summit (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The summit comes as the alliance debates how to Trump proof its future and its support for Ukraine in case former US president Donald Trump is returned to the White House in Novembers election. He has been a vocal critic of European nations not doing enough to fund their own defence and has threatened to withdraw support for Ukraine. In the UK, the Government will launch a sweeping defence review next week which will set out a road map to spending 2.5% of gross domestic product on defence. But Sir Keir refused to guarantee that he will meet his flagship commitment on defence spending within his first term in office, despite the cast iron promise to get there. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the margins of the Nato summit in Washington (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Speaking to reporters, the Prime Minister was repeatedly pressed on whether the goal of spending 2.5% of GDP would be reached within his first term. He said: We are committed to the 2.5%, as I have said before the election and I say again after the election. That is obviously subject to our fiscal rules, but the commitment is there. The strategic review will take place, that will happen next week, and we will set out the details of that. The manifesto commitment was that it would take place within a year, I would like it to be quicker than that if Im honest and well set out the details about how we are going to do it. Officials have described 2.5% as a cast iron commitment but the announcement that a strategic defence review will be launched next week did not include any timetable for ramping up spending. Before his election defeat, Rishi Sunak had committed to reach 2.5% by 2030 at a total cost of 75 billion over six years. (PA Graphics) Nato members have an official goal of spending 2% of GDP on defence and 23 members are now thought to have reached that level. But in the context of this years US election, Sir Keir acknowledged more needed to be done, particularly on locking in support for Ukraine. The Prime Minister confirmed that decisions on the use of UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles were for the Ukrainian armed forces to make, indicating they would be permitted to strike against targets within Russia. The UK military aid was for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes, Sir Keir said. The Russian strike on a childrens hospital in Kyiv on Monday was a tragic backdrop to this summit and strengthens the resolve of Nato against Mr Putin, he said. I held my first meeting with the new UK Prime Minister @Keir_Starmer. I thanked Prime Minister Starmer for all the UKs military and financial assistance provided to our country. This morning, I learned about the permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military targets pic.twitter.com/zEHHpLh105 Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) July 10, 2024 President Zelensky wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he was grateful to the UK for its unwavering support for Ukraine and our people. He added: I thanked Prime Minister Starmer for all the UKs military and financial assistance provided to our country. This morning, I learned about the permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military targets in Russian territory. Today, we had the opportunity to discuss the practical implementation of this decision. The summit is also an introduction for the Prime Ministers wife Victoria to international diplomacy. She will take part in a series of engagements with other leaders wives and husbands, led by US First Lady Jill Biden. Sir Keir Starmer said his Government was prepared to be robust with China if necessary. The Prime Minister will carry out an audit of UK-China relations to understand the scale of the challenges posed by Beijing. Sir Keir said the Government would take action accordingly based on the findings of the audit. He told reporters accompanying him at the Nato summit in Washington his approach will be co-operation where it is necessary and it is on issues like climate change for example. But challenge where necessary, equally, and robust challenge with that. He added: One of the first things that we will do is carry out the audit that we set out in our manifesto of relations with China, of UK-Chinese relations. We will get on with that audit and take action accordingly. The Labour manifesto promised: We will improve the UKs capability to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities China poses through an audit of our bilateral relationship. The Young V&A has netted 120,000 after being named Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024. The funding is the single biggest museum prize in the world, with judges praising the Hackney museum for being truly inspirational. The Young V&A beat four other finalists Craven Museum in North Yorkshire, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Manchester Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London. Created alongside children, who worked as co-designers, the Young V&A aims to promote creativity among young people and to support art and design education. The Young V&A opened in its current guise in June 2023 (Art Fund/PA) The museum was originally called the V&A Museum of Childhood, but reopened under its new name July 2023, following 13 million of works. It has almost 2,000 toys, characters, objects and artworks on display from around the world and across history. Presenting the award at a ceremony at Londons National Gallery, TV presenter Vick Hope hailed the Young V&A as a special and unique place, and added she cant recommend it enough. She said: The museum truly places young people centre stage, encouraging them to play, design and get creative through a fascinating collection of objects and artworks. In such a short time the Young V&As global impact has been really incredible, demonstrating the potential of what museums can be for children around the world. The award was also welcomed by newly appointed culture secretary Lisa Nandy. She said: Our world-leading museums are a source of creativity and curiosity that can inspire lifelong passions for learning, history and the arts. This years Art Fund Museum of the Year was a tough competition with an exciting shortlist representing institutions from across the country. Congratulations to the Young V&A on this achievement, recognising their hard work to create a unique space dedicated to young people. The Young V&A will be awarded 120,000 (Art Fund/PA) Jenny Waldman, Art Fund director and chairwoman of the judges for Museum of the Year, hailed the attraction as being the worlds most joyful museum. She said: Young V&A is a truly inspirational museum. With a brief from its young co-designers to create the worlds most joyful museum, Young V&A has achieved that and more. It has radically reimagined the museum with and for young people, creating a museum experience thats active, empowering and dynamic, centred on learning through play. Young V&A has established a deep engagement with its local community and, at the same time, it has become an international beacon for what a childrens museum can be. I give my warmest congratulations to the fantastic team at Young V&A on being crowned Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024. You truly are the worlds most joyful museum and will inspire young people now and for generations to come. The award comes after the museums current manga exhibition was visited by the Emperor and Empress of Japan in June. Along with the winners prize, each finalist will also be granted 15,000 in funding, making the total prize money awarded 180,000, after it was increased in 2023 to mark 120 years of the Art Fund supporting museums. Prizes are funded by Art Fund members who buy a National Art Pass, which gives them discounts and benefits at museums across the country. The Universities of Nottingham and Birmingham have secured High Court orders for the possession of campus land that has been the site of weeks-long pro-Palestinian protest encampments. The two educational bodies took separate legal action against persons unknown and two named activists as part of bids to the end occupation of areas where tents had been set up since early May. In two written rulings on Tuesday, a judge granted summary possession orders a legal step to decide the cases in the universities favour without a full trial. The protest encampment at the University of Birminghams Green Heart site pictured in May (Phil Barnett/PA) Mr Justice Johnson concluded that protesters had no real prospect of showing that the universities had breached their duties or that an order would be incompatible with their human rights. The orders cover the University of Nottinghams Jubilee Campus, where there were around 10 to 15 tents near the Advanced Manufacturing Building. They also cover the University of Birminghams Green Heart outdoor area on its Edgbaston campus the site of more than 80 tents last month as well as its Exchange Building in central Birmingham and the Selly Oak campus where there are no protests. Over the course of two hearings in London last week, the judge was told that the camps were part of nationwide protests at British universities, held in solidarity with demonstrations in North America and in support of people in conflict-torn Gaza. Protesters, many of whom universities have been unable to identify, allege universities are complicit in the loss of life in Palestine and should divest from links to arms firms. Mariyah Ali, a defendant in the Birmingham case, attended a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London earlier this month (Tom Pilgrim/PA) Muslim British-Pakistani student Mariyah Ali, 20, from Walsall, the only named defendant in the Birmingham case, said the legal action was a censoring tactic and discrimination against the manifestation of her religious and philosophical beliefs. Former student River Butterworth, 24, from Warwickshire, the sole named protester in the Nottingham legal challenge, argued a court order helping to evict the encampment would be a disproportionate interference with their free speech and protest rights. Lawyers for the universities accused protesters of trespassing on private land, bringing a risk of public disturbance, causing disruption and financial loss as well as being allegedly linked to unlawful activities. Mr Justice Johnson said he came to his two rulings on the assumption that the camps were peaceful and did not rule on disputed accounts of alleged disruptive acts. The judge said the evidence showed the universities were not trying to regain their land because of the protesters beliefs and that the legal action was the least intrusive way of achieving this. He said there were many other ways activists could exercise their right to protest without occupying land, concluding that protesters were trespassing. River Butterworth claimed a court possession order would interfere with their rights to free speech and protest (Tom Pilgrim/PA) The rulings follow the London School of Economics securing a Central London County Court order indefinitely barring encampments in one of its buildings after students slept in its atrium for more than a month in support of Palestine. Queen Mary University of London has previously said it would take legal action to secure possession of its Mile End campus if protest encampments did not end. Ms Ali said after the ruling: I am incredibly disappointed by the courts decision today to restrict my right to protest. She added that she was deeply saddened that her university was trying to silence students to protect their ties with arms manufacturers such as BAE systems, adding that it had contradicted their values by restricting my right to challenge longstanding ideas and advocating for BDS (Boycott Divest Sanctions) and Palestinian liberation. The University of Birminghams legal team previously denied complicity over the impact of the conflict in Gaza. Oliver Edwards, a solicitor from law firm Hodge Jones & Allen, who represents Ms Ali, said she was disheartened but remains committed to her cause. Protests at universities have a long tradition in democratic society and we maintain that the university is breaching our clients fundamental human rights, he said. He added that Ms Ali intends to restate her BDS protest and is considering appealing. A University of Birmingham statement said: The courts decision will help us to ensure that all of our diverse community can go about their business and use the entirety of the universitys campus without feeling that there are parts of campus where they cannot go. It said it respected students and staffs right to protest within the law, adding: We will continue to uphold our strong commitment to free speech for the whole of the university community. A University of Nottingham spokesperson said: The University of Nottingham upholds freedom of speech and our priority is, and always will be, to ensure that opportunities to engage in debate or protest are safe, inclusive, dignified, respectful and responsible. The order from the court will allow us to ensure that we can take action should the need arise to protect the health and safety of our university community on campus and to minimise disruption to students and staff accessing the teaching, learning and research spaces they require. Wife and two daughters of BBC racing commentator killed in crossbow attack The wife and two daughters of a BBC sports commentator have been killed in a crossbow attack at their home. Carol Hunt, 61, who was married to BBC 5 Live racing commentator John Hunt, and two of their daughters died in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, Hertfordshire, on Tuesday evening, PA understands. A massive manhunt has been launched for their suspected killer, Kyle Clifford, 26, who is believed by police to be armed and in Hertfordshire or north London. Kyle Clifford, 26, who is wanted in connection with the murders of the three women in Bushey (Hertfordshire Constabulary/PA) The BBC confirmed that Mr Hunts wife and two daughters had died, in a post on the broadcasters news website. Messages of condolence were posted on social media by figures from the racing world. ITV racing commentator Matt Chapman wrote in an entry on X, formerly Twitter: No words needed for what has happened to @HuntyCaller and family today. Impossible to comprehend the pain. Just know we are all here for you John. We love you pal racing loves you. The Amateur Jockeys Association of Great Britain and Beverley Racecourse were among others sending their sympathies. The most shocking and sobering news. All thoughts and prayers with @HuntyCaller and his family. God give them strength to cope with this unimaginable tragedy. Amateur Jockeys GB (@amajox) July 10, 2024 Armed police searched a home in Rendlesham Road, Enfield, on Wednesday morning as the hunt for Clifford continued. He is wanted over the deaths of Mrs Hunt and two of her daughters who were aged 25 and 28. In a press conference on Wednesday, Chief Superintendent Jon Simpson from Hertfordshire Police told reporters the murders are believed to be targeted. The force also warned the public not to approach the suspect who may be in possession of a crossbow. Have you seen Kyle Clifford? Following a triple murder in #Bushey yesterday (Tues 9 July) we're seeking Clifford in connection with the incident. He could be in #Hertfordshire or North #London. He may be in possession of a crossbow, do not approach.https://t.co/7KonpBsLiB pic.twitter.com/C8nHkXLQy6 Herts Police (@HertsPolice) July 10, 2024 He said: Our overarching objective today is to protect public safety and to locate Kyle Clifford, who is wanted in connection with the murder of the three women in what we believe is a targeted incident. We have extensive police resources deployed to various locations in north London and also the Bushey area. The manhunt also involves armed police officers and specialist search teams responding at pace in the wake of what has been a horrific incident involving what is currently believed to be a crossbow, but other weapons may also have been used. (PA Graphics) Addressing Clifford directly, he said: Kyle, if you are seeing or hearing this, please make contact with the police. Investigators believe Clifford could be in Hertfordshire or north London. The force said it is looking at whether the force had contact with the victims or Clifford before the killings. Chief Superintendent Jon Simpson, of Hertfordshire Police, speaks to media outside Hatfield Police Station (Jacob King/PA) One neighbour described hearing screams from the suburban home where the three women died on Tuesday. The 46-year-old who works in the media and lives near the scene but asked not to be named, said absolute chaos then broke out as armed police put the road into lockdown. She told the PA news agency: It was between 6.30pm and 7pm last night and it literally just sounded like kids, somebody screaming, and then it was more shrill and I was like thats definitely a woman screaming, and within 15 minutes, it was absolute chaos. We had armed police running down, screaming stay in your house they shut us off and basically put us into lockdown. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she is being kept fully updated about the inquiry into the truly shocking deaths. Officers and emergency medical crews including two air ambulances were sent to try to save the women, who were related, but they all died at the scene. The previous government had considered tightening the laws around crossbows after would-be assassin Jaswant Singh Chail was encouraged by an AI chatbot to break into Windsor Castle on Christmas Day 2021 with a loaded crossbow to kill the late Queen. Currently, there is no requirement to have a licence for a crossbow, but it is illegal to carry one in public without a reasonable excuse. President Joe Biden on Tuesday clung onto the Democratic nomination on a high-stakes day in Washington, but the risks of his refusal to step aside were laid bare when one of his partys senators warned on CNN that Donald Trump could win in a landslide. Bidens stubbornness leaves Democrats increasingly fearful that the president could put at risk not just the White House but any chance of retaking the House or holding the Senate already an uphill battle. The White House did succeed in heading off rebellions in emotional meetings of Senate and House Democrats on Tuesday but even some members who back Biden expressed reservations about his tactics and capacity to run a winning campaign. And on Wednesday, uncertainty about the presidents prospects grew with comments from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and as actor and Democratic donor George Clooney called on Biden to voluntarily step aside. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet was among three Democrats who privately voiced fears that Biden couldnt win in November, sources told CNNs Dana Bash, and then became the first of his colleagues to go public. Its true that I said that, Bennet told CNNs Kaitlan Collins. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House. He added: So for me, this isnt a question about polling. Its not a question about politics. Its a moral question about the future of our country. The White House, in the time since that disastrous debate, I think, has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election. Bennets remarks do not represent the public position of all Democratic senators but there is no doubt the debate and its aftermath have created deep concern in the party. Pelosi referred to that anxiety among members when she appeared to suggest that, despite Bidens insistence hes going nowhere, the issue of his spot on the Democratic ticket was still uncertain. Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short, she said on MSNBC Wednesday morning. I want him to do whatever he decides to do and thats the way it is. And in a remarkable op-ed in The New York Times, Clooney turned on the president after appearing alongside him at a fundraiser last month. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate, Clooney wrote. We are not going to win in November with this president, he warned, adding that the lawmakers he has spoken with privately shared this view. The last two weeks have badly weakened Bidens standing in a party already unenthusiastic about his campaign. His terrible stretch threatens to further narrow an already tenuous path to reelection against an invigorated Trump, who burst back onto the campaign trail Tuesday night with a blistering rally in Florida, nine days before he accepts the Republican nomination. Deep disquiet over the presidents prospects hung over shaken Democratic senators and representatives in Washington Tuesday, as venting sessions took place behind closed doors at both ends of the US Capitol. But no critical mass of lawmakers emerged to seriously threaten Bidens hold on the nomination and the partys Senate and House leaders offered clear, if hardly effusive, support for the president. Ultimately, Bidens warning in a letter to lawmakers on Monday I am firmly committed to staying in this race and the knowledge that primary voters have spoken left his critics little leeway to act. Pelosi on Wednesday morning again implied that the question of the Democratic ticket was not closed. She advised Democrats, just hold off, whatever youre thinking, either tell somebody privately but you dont have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week. After Pelosis comments went viral, a spokesperson said in a statement that the former speaker fully supports whatever President Biden decides to do. Another Democrat, Rep. Ritchie Torres, offered a stark warning to CNN about the potential down-ballot effect of Bidens reelection bid Wednesday: If we are going on a political suicide mission, then we should at least be honest about it. There must be a serious reckoning with the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate, Torres also said in a statement. Biden will face a fresh test on Thursday when he holds a solo press conference at the end of the NATO summit. Any slip-ups or confusion would rip off the fragile patch Biden has fixed on the dam of Democratic Party support. The spectacle of a party debating the viability, strength and mental capacity of its nominee less than four months from Election Day encapsulates the crisis that has consumed the presidents campaign. There is little evidence so far that Biden is ready to throw himself into saturation-level town halls, campaign swings and media blitzes that many Democrats including those who think he should stay in the race have called on him to do. Some Democrats now see him as unlikely to win in November. And for all of them, the vibe is existential because Trump, the Republican presumptive nominee, has rarely been in a stronger political position since jumping into presidential politics. Biden survives a critical day Tuesday had been seen as a critical day for Biden because it was the first time lawmakers gathered en masse since the debate late last month and the July Fourth recess that followed. But even as the number of lawmakers calling for him to step aside ticked up, the president so far this week has managed to stabilize the post-debate crisis. We do want to turn the page. We want to get to the other side of this, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, although Bidens parlous political fortunes as the oldest-ever president mean this may be an impossible aspiration. Still, Biden delivered one of his strongest recent public appearances in welcoming world leaders to the NATO summit in Washington Tuesday, even if the effect of aging was obvious in his diction and movements. Remember, the biggest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine. We cannot let that happen, he said, while lauding the single greatest, most effective defense alliance in the history of the world. The boldness of Bidens rhetoric was a reminder that the summit should have been all about showcasing his leadership as one of the most significant leaders of the West since World War II and setting up a contrast with Trump, who spent his first term berating Americas European allies. Instead, the event has turned into a test of the presidents acuity. White House officials told CNNs Kayla Tausche that Tuesdays speech went off as planned and that staff hoped that Biden could now go back to business as usual. Thats unlikely to happen because every public event by the president has turned into an excruciating vigil with everyone braced for gaffes, awkward moments or freezes. And his every on-camera appearance is refracted through the prism of a debate performance that seared an unflattering picture of a struggling Biden on the minds of 50 million viewers. Its a low bar for a president to get through a short, scripted speech on a teleprompter at a summit without having a catastrophe. And Bidens often glacial pace in big public moments creates poignant contrasts with the wise-cracking force of nature that he used to be. The equation is unlikely to change over the next four months because its endemic to this matchup and the presidents decision to run for a new term that would end when he is 86. Biden needs one of his classic comebacks more than ever Still, its too early to count Biden out. Voters decide elections, not critical lawmakers or scathing media commentary. The president has repeatedly defied predictions of his political demise and has found inner steel in a life scarred by personal tragedy and political disappointments. And Trump, the first former president to be a convicted criminal, has an uncanny capacity to alienate moderate, suburban, and swing voters with his extreme rhetoric and threats against his opponents. The ex-president will be back center stage next week at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which is likely to turn into a MAGA festival that the Biden camp sees as a chance to reinforce the contrast with Trump that the presidents debate nightmare obliterated for the last two weeks. Most post-debate national polls suggest Biden lost at least a couple of points to Trump in what had been a race inside the margin of error. There is little high-quality polling in swing states so far that spans the debate aftermath. But Biden was generally seen as trailing Trump in many of the battlegrounds that will decide the election before the debate, which he needed to use to reset his clash with Trump. Instead, he created reverse momentum that hes still not arrested. And its not just a question of the horse race. Biden was unable to use his debate answers to frame a sharp contrast with Trump on the most important issues to Democrats, including abortion, taxes, character, and the ex-presidents perceived threat to democracy and founding US values. This along with Bidens somewhat delusional disbelief in his own mid-30s approval rating and the apparent state of the race fueled Democratic despair. That sense of disappointment with Biden was on display as lawmakers filed into their meetings on Tuesday, with many declining to speak to reporters on the way out. A source familiar with the Democratic Senate lunch told CNNs Bash that as well as Bennet, Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana told colleagues they dont think Biden can beat Trump. Its true that I said that, Bennet told CNNs Kaitlan Collins later Tuesday. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House. Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, said senators believe Biden must take on unscripted situations to answer questions from voters. King, asked what would happen if Biden stumbled in such settings, replied: It seems to me thats a risk they have to take. If hes OK, it shouldnt be a problem. One of Bidens most fervent supporters, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, defended the president. We concluded that Joe Biden is old; we found out, and the polling came back that hes old, Fetterman told CNN. But we also agreed that hes our guy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is rarely reluctant to speak at length, was asked several times about Biden but only replied, Im with Joe, in an apparent attempt to shut down the line of questioning. Biden got a boost when New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who had privately expressed doubts about the presidents spot on the ticket, said hed now support him. But the New York Democrat hinted that his decision had as much to do with the difficultly of pushing the presumptive party nominee aside as a feeling that he was a strong bet. Im not resigned to it. He made very clear hes going to run. Hes got an excellent record, one of the most excellent presidents of the last century. Trump would be an absolute disaster for democracy; so, Im enthusiastically supporting Biden, Nadler said. The president has also been bolstered by the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, a vital power player in the House Democratic Caucus. Many of the CBCs members are in solid blue districts and may be under less pressure than frontline Democrats who have criticized the presidents debate performance. Texas Rep. Marc Veasey expressed concern for those vulnerable colleagues when criticizing Bidens attempt to bounce back from the debate. Whatever I have seen so far hasnt shown me that thats going to be enough to get there. I just dont think that dog is gonna hunt, Veasey told CNNs Manu Raju. I think that he has a long way to go and I think there are stronger candidates that would be more likely to beat Trump at this point, but if he says that he is going to stay in, (then) hes the nominee, Veasey said. Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey lavished praise on Bidens presidency and his victory over Trump in 2020 but became the seventh House Democrat to call on him to stand aside on Tuesday. Because I know President Biden cares deeply about the future of our country, I am asking that he declare that he wont run for reelection and will help lead us through a process toward a new nominee. Some Democratic leaders sought to jump their members out of their angst by launching an attack against Trump. Every single member of the House Democratic Caucus is clear eyed about what the stakes of this election are, said Rep. Pete Aguilar, the chairman of the caucus. Donald Trump cannot be allowed near the Oval Office and his extremist allies must never be allowed to pass a national abortion ban or their dangerous Project 2025, which would erode our democracy and enable Trumps worst impulses, the California Democrat said. But the strength of his presentation in a press conference only served to highlight the lines of attack that Biden largely missed in the debate. There was a brighter mood around the Democratic ticket in Las Vegas, where Vice President Kamala Harris displayed the forensic rhetoric of a former prosecutor to attack Trump. I will say that someone who vilifies immigrants, who promotes xenophobia, someone who stokes hate should never again have the chance to stand behind a microphone and the seal of the President of the United States, Harris said. For those Democrats who think Harris would make a better nominee than the president, her fiery delivery was a reminder of an alternative 2024 path that Biden has acted to close off. This story has been updated with additional developments. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced new commitments from the U.S. and several NATO allies to strengthen war-torn Ukraines air defenses. "Today I'm announcing the historic donation of air defense equipment for Ukraine," Biden said in his remarks delivered on the 75th Anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium. "The United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, and Italy will provide Ukraine with the equipment for five additional strategic air-defense systems." In the coming months, the United States and partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air-defense systems, he said. Biden celebrates 75th anniversary of NATO with allies in Washington "In Europe, Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine continues and Putin wants nothing less than Ukraine's total subjugation," Biden said. "To end Ukraine's democracy, destroy Ukraine's culture, and to wipe Ukraine off the map. And we know Putin won't stop at Ukraine. But make no mistake, Ukraine can and will stop Putin." The announcement comes on the heels of a Monday attack by Russia, whose missiles hit targets across Ukraine including a children's hospital killing 36 civilians in a daylight attack. At the time, Biden was preparing to welcome NATO leaders to a summit aimed as shoring up the beleaguered nation more than 800 days into Moscow's invasion. Biden spoke about the progress the coalition of 32 nations has made during his tenure as president. In 2020, the year he was elected, Biden said only nine NATO allies were spending 2% of their GDP on defense. This year, 23 will spend at least 2%. US President Joe Biden (R) shakes hands with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, June 17, 2024. Monday's barrage was the deadliest air strike in months, officials said, and a pointed message to the Western military alliance. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, right, welcomes NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to the Pentagon on July 8, 2024. They are not collateral damage. They are not the victims of mishap or a misfire," Ruslan Stefanchuk, speaker of Ukraine's parliament told USA TODAY. "That was a premeditated and targeted attack on the children's hospital. In a joint statement, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said they were committed to providing Ukraine with additional air defense capabilities. These five strategic air defense systems will help to protect Ukrainian cities, civilians, and soldiers, and we are coordinating closely with the Ukrainian government so that these systems can be utilized rapidly, the statement said. In coming months, the United States and partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of tactical air defense systems, the leaders said. Several allies including Canada, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom will continue to play a role in the systems. Our message to Moscow and the world is clear: Our support for Ukraine is strong and unwavering, the leaders said. Biden ended his speech with a surprise move: He bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest civilian honor, presented to those who made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors. Biden lauded Stoltenberg, a diplomat and former prime minister of Norway, for his decade-long service to NATO and for guiding the alliance through the "most consequential decade for European security since World War II." "When Vladimir Putin launched his brutal assault on the people of Ukraine, betting that NATO would break, secretary General Stoltenberg proved him wrong," said Biden. "Under his stewardship, NATO has become stronger and more united than ever." Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @SwapnaVenugopal This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden pledges defense equipment to Ukraine, says Putin will be stopped WASHINGTON NATO leaders returned this week to the auditorium where the alliance was born to celebrate 75 years as a military-defense pact and mull over current and future threats to its stability. But hanging over the three-day summit like a dark cloud is a major concern thats not on the official agenda: the U.S. presidential election. President Joe Bidens physical and mental fitness after last months calamitous debate and former President Donald Trumps possible return to the White House after the November election are cause for alarm among European allies. This is an election where the Europeans are paying very close attention, said Rose Gottemoeller, who was deputy secretary general of NATO when Trump was president. Gottemoeller said she has taken several trips to Europe most recently in May and June and the first question out of people's mouth was what happens if Donald Trump returns to the White House and what will happen to the American commitment to NATO and to European defense. Fueling the fears are Trumps dismissive attitude toward NATO. He has mocked its defense pact as obsolete and threatened to let Russia do whatever it wants to member nations that do not carry their weight. The threats have left European governments scrambling to determine whether the U.S. could be counted on to defend them if they were to come under attack. President Joe Biden speaks during the NATO 75th Anniversary celebratory event at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington. Bidens shaky performance during the debate also alarmed European officials, who watched it with the same level of as many Americans. Dan Fried, the former U.S. ambassador to Poland, was in Warsaw the day of the debate and had a series of meetings with senior Polish officials the next day. Those officials expressed concern about the election, he said. Ive been hearing for a while from lots of other European officials that those concerns are widely shared, Fried said. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the organizations legislative arm, said he has tried to reassure European officials. They experienced Trump, he said. And they're very anxious about the prospect of his return. Connelly says he has told them: We're fighting it out. But from my point of view, American support for NATO and participation in NATO is solid. And we're going to do everything we can to make sure, no matter what the results of our election, that that stays that way. NATO gathering: His reelection campaign in crisis, Joe Biden hosts high-stakes summit in Washington Adding to the instability is that governmental turmoil extends far beyond the United States. French President Emmanuel Macron suffered a crushing defeat in European Union parliamentary elections in June on the same day Biden flew home after a five-day trip to Paris and Normandy. Macron responded by ordering a snap election and a vote nationwide. But the results of that parliamentary election, held on Sunday, muddled things further. Far-right leader Marine Le Pens National Rally party won more seats in Frances National Assembly than ever before yet fell short of a majority in parliament, thanks to a coalition of left-wing parties that banded together to stop the right-wing surge. The Netherlands swore in its first-ever far-right government last week. And in the United Kingdom, voters handed the government to the Labour Party after 14 years of conservative rule, giving the country its fourth prime minister in less than two years. There are a lot of discussions, doubts about the strength of our respective domestic political situations, a European official told reporters during a briefing on NATO last week. The goal for that summit is to counter that perspective. NATO is also getting a new secretary-general on Oct. 1. Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who left office this month, will replace Jens Stoltenberg at the end of his term. Stoltenberg has been in the role for the past 10 years and got along well with Trump. But it is the U.S. election that is particularly worrisome for European officials, who for decades have counted on the United States commitment to the mutual-defense alliance since Western nations banded together to sign the North Atlantic Treaty in an auditorium a few blocks from the White House on April 4, 1949. I think people want reassurance, especially from the United States, Connolly said. U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to hold a news conference after participating in the NATO Summit in Brussels, Belgium on July 12, 2018. Trump's NATO threats cause alarm What the former presidents approach to NATO might be has been a major source of consternation for allies. He has repeatedly suggested he wont help delinquent nations if they come under attack, even though NATOs treaty does not include dues or a defense spending obligation. Look, that's the way you talk as a negotiator. I'm negotiating because I want them to pay. I want Europe to pay, Trump said in an interview with Time magazine in April. I want nothing bad to happen to Europe, I love Europe, I love the people of Europe, I have a great relationship with Europe. But they've taken advantage of us, both on NATO and on Ukraine. Allies pledged at a 2014 summit in Wales that they would try to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense. They agreed last summer in Vilnius, Lithuania, that 2% should be a floor and not a ceiling. And while a decade ago, in 2014, just three NATO allies were spending 2% of their GDP or more, that number is projected to reach 23 by the end of 2024. It actually doubled under Biden, but much of that, experts say, is because of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. And yet, when Trump debated Biden in June, he doubled down on his position. Hes right about this, I said, no, Im not going to support NATO if you dont pay. And you know what happened? Billions and billions of dollars came flowing in the next day and the next months, he said. But now, were in the same position. Were paying everybodys bills. His constant disparaging of NATO and his threat to withhold Article 5 defense protections against members who dont meet their 2% pledge is alarming to NATO members, Fried said. A lot of NATO governments are not wringing their hands or just running around in a kind of panic, he said. What theyre doing is trying to figure out how to reach Trump world, what their message should be and how to affect possible Trump administration thinking. Moving forward: NATO may declare Ukraine's path to membership 'irreversible' at Washington summit 'Dangerous and deeply irresponsible' Trumps comments about leaving lagging European countries to fend for themselves have been interpreted by some as a threat to leave the alliance. A source close to Trump told USA TODAY that would not be the case. That doesn't mean you get out of NATO, the person said. He's never been there. Trump is approaching it like a businessman, the person said, and wants to force a conversation. I think people should just relax and see where it's going to go, the person said. And if it's got them a little bit nervous, I don't think that's necessarily bad. ... Youve got them now interested enough to make sure that they're moving forward as an alliance. ... It's a good discussion point, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Remarks disparaging NATO are unhelpful, said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank. When we invest in NATO, were investing in our own national security, and were deterring war, Bowman said. Comments from American political leaders that undermine NATO and make its deterrent less credible are dangerous and deeply irresponsible. Trump repeated several of his previous complaints in a social media post Tuesday afternoon as the leaders of allied nations arrived in the U.S. If it werent for me as President, there probably would be no NATO by now, he said on his social media platform, Truth Social, in a post that claimed European countries owe the United States billions for assistance to Ukraine. He claimed incorrectly that no other president had addressed the disparities. While the former president did successfully push allies to spend more while he was in office, the number has continued to go up under Biden, and the topic will be a major focus of the U.S. officials on both sides of the aisle during the Washington summit. Julianne Smith, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said in an interview that some of the countries that have not yet met the mark are expected to do so in the next two to three years. Others are spending above the floor. We have been pushing every ally to get there since President Biden came into office, she said. We will take a minute at the summit to celebrate the major milestone of getting to 23 allies. And certainly we will continue to talk with leaders. Biden and the leaders of the other 31 NATO nations are at the Washington summit, plus the heads of a handful of partner countries. And the best way to make progress is to talk to the head of state, the person that's in charge about the need to get there as soon as possible, Smith said. Stoltenberg, who as NATO secretary-general worked with Trump for all four years of his term, told reporters during a June roundtable in Washington that multiple U.S. presidents have fairly pushed European countries to spend more money on defense. The push in 2014 to spend 2% GDP came when Barack Obama was president. Trump got them to invest more. The number of countries meeting that marker has continued to rise under Biden. So I'm confident that the United States will recognize that European allies are now really stepping up, and I expect the U.S. to remain a strong NATO ally, regardless of the outcome of the elections, Stoltenberg said. Stoltenberg said he expects that to happen because it is in the United States interest for NATO to maintain its strength in light of U.S. concerns about China. Alone, the U.S. represents 25% of the world's GDP. Together, with NATO allies, it represents 50%, he said. Not only does polling show most Americans support the NATO alliance, Stoltenberg said, The criticism from former President Trump has not primarily been against NATO, it has been against NATO allies not spending enough on NATO, and that has changed. Trump's 'transactional diplomacy' Even in the U.S. Congress, where more than half of House of Republicans voted in April against Ukraine aid, support for the alliance has remained strong, U.S. officials pointed out. House Speaker Mike Johnson will meet Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A bipartisan group of senators from the NATO Observer Group are attending the summit. And as part of a defense spending bill that Congress passed last year and Biden signed, any future president would have to get the Senates approval for withdrawal. European leaders and Europeans more broadly are certainly following our election closely and will be interested to see the results in early November, but at the same time, I think what gives them faith and confidence in the U.S. position in the alliance is looking at, for example, congressional support, which remains bipartisan, said Smith, the current ambassador to NATO. Republicans and Democrats come through Brussels, where NATO is headquartered, and regularly talk about the importance of the alliance, she said. And so irrespective of what change might come in the United States, I think Europeans know that all U.S. presidents going back over seven decades have supported this alliance, and they assume that that will continue. And while Europeans are monitoring the election, she said, they also understand that candidates sometimes say things on the campaign trail that are different than what they actually do in practice. John Herbst, who was ambassador to Ukraine under George W. Bush, also said that despite the concerns, a fair number of them realize that when Trump was president, his statements were not actually reflective of his administration's policy. A lot of people believe both his supporters and his opponents that much of what he does is geared for transactional diplomacy, Herbst said. Its a ploy to get what he wants. Francesca Chambers and Michael Collins cover the White House. Follow Chambers on X @fran_chambers and Collins @mcollinsNEWS. How dangerous are China and Russia? Threats grow as NATO leaders meet in Washington. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Presidential election, Trump's possible return loom over NATO summit The hourslong disappearance, then confirmed death of a Dartmouth College fraternity member has police investigating the case as a possible hazing incident. The Ivy League school has suspended the 20-year-olds Greek organization, as well as a sorority. Won Jang, a member of Beta Alpha Omega, had last been seen by friends around 9:30 p.m., Saturday, at an informal social gathering at docks near the Dartmouth boathouse on the Connecticut River, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department said in a news release. When he didnt show up for an event the next day, authorities were notified, the agency said. Items found near the dock indicated Jang hadnt left the river area, which authorities searched while divers checked the water. About 3 1/2 hours after Jang was reported missing, his body was found in the Connecticut River by an underwater camera not far from the dock where he last was seen, the department said. While a cause of death remains unclear, the school forwarded to the nearby Hanover Police Department anonymous emails indicating hazing or alcohol may have contributed to Jangs death, Hanover Police Chief Charlie Dennis said during a Monday news conference. Certainly this is a tragic event, he said, asking anyone with information to come forward to help with the investigation. Hanover Police did not immediately reply to CNNs request for more information about the case. Jang had been a member of Dartmouths chapter of Beta Alpha Omega, according to the college and his profile on the fraternitys website, which has been taken down. As Hanover police investigate his death, Dartmouth suspended the Beta Alpha Omega fraternity, along with the Alpha Phi sorority, college spokesperson Morgan Kelly told CNN on Wednesday. Kelly would not say what role the fraternity or sorority played relative to the investigation into Jangs death. We arent able to provide details on an ongoing investigation, but we can say that at the time of the incident, Beta Alpha Omega was on alcohol probation following a fall-, winter- and spring-term suspension. Alpha Phi was placed on alcohol probation during the fall 2023 term and then returned to good standing, Kelly added. Beta Alpha Omegas local chapter and Alpha Phis national organization did not immediately respond to CNNs requests for comment. Jangs death and the police probe follow a spate of hazing deaths in recent years on or near US college campuses that have led variously to suspensions, expulsions, criminal charges and scrutiny of university oversight of fraternities and sororities. Seventy-three percent of students in US fraternities and sororities experienced what they called some form of hazing at least once, according to a University of Maine study released in 2008, the most recent available for such research. Jangs death comes nearly two months after another Dartmouth students body was found in the Connecticut River after she was reported missing, CNN affiliate WMUR reported. Their deaths do not appear to be connected. An amazing guy who was always smiling Jang had been studying biomedical engineering and economics at Dartmouth and worked part-time at the schools DALI Lab, a startup-like experiential learning program where students work in teams of designers and developers, according to his LinkedIn profile. Won wholeheartedly embraced opportunities at Dartmouth to pursue his academic and personal passions, Dean Scott C. Brown wrote on a site memorializing school community members who have died. We are in contact with Wons family and have expressed our sincere condolences at this most difficult time, he continued. Kledian Marinaj, a friend of Jang who recently had been trying to make plans to grab a meal with him, was upset by his death, he told CNN affiliate WMUR. Won was always an amazing guy, Marinaj said. I dont think there was ever a time when I didnt see him with a smile on his face. Jang had been his high school valedictorian in Middletown, Delaware, according to his LinkedIn profile and YouTube recording of the graduation ceremony. During an introduction to his speech at commencement, he was praised by an administrator for his wit, humility and motivation. CNNs Amanda Musa contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Donald Trump appeared to threaten Mark Zuckerberg with prison time. REUTERS/Marco Bello, REUTERS/Carlos Barria Donald Trump suggested he'd imprison "election fraudsters," including Mark Zuckerberg, if reelected. The feud between Trump and the Meta CEO dates back to Trump's presidency. Trump was temporarily barred from Facebook after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Former President Donald Trump doesn't want Mark Zuckerberg to forget about their long-running beef. Writing on his social-media platform, Truth Social, on Tuesday, the former president said that if he's elected in November, "election fraudsters" will be imprisoned. The post name-checked the Meta CEO. "They have no shame! All I can say is that if I'm elected President, we will pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time," Trump wrote. "We already know who you are. DON'T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!" he added. Trump made the threat in a post about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, more commonly known as the SAVE Act. The proposed legislation would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. In a February 2023 Truth Social post, Trump said the Facebook cofounder "cheated" in the 2020 election, linking to a Fox News report that said an investigation had been opened into a Zuckerberg-linked group's $2 million donation to a Georgia election board. "Why isn't he being prosecuted?" he wrote at the time. "The Democrats only know how to cheat. America isn't going to take it much longer!" The likelihood of Trump getting elected is looking stronger each day. Trump has been leading Biden in many national and battleground-state polls after the latter's disastrous debate performance, which was marked by verbal slip-ups and incoherent sentences. Trump's beef with Zuckerberg The pair's feud goes back to Trump's presidency. In June 2020, after Facebook faced criticism over Trump's violent remarks on the platform, Zuckerberg said he was "deeply shaken and disgusted by President Trump's divisive and incendiary rhetoric." Trump was ultimately barred from using Facebook following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot where violent Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington, DC. In a statement at the time, Zuckerberg said the company believed that "the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great." Meta announced in early 2023 that the ban would be lifted. At a rally in September 2022, Trump made confusing statements about his relationship with Zuckerberg. He said the Facebook founder had joined him at the White House for dinner "last week," though Trump had been out of office since January 2021. "Last week, the weirdo he's a weirdo Mark Zuckerberg came to the White House, kissed my ass all night," Trump said. "'Sir, I'd love to have dinner, sir. I'd love to have dinner. I'd love to bring my lovely wife,'" he said, mimicking Zuckerberg. Representatives for Zuckerberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Correction: July 11, 2024 An earlier version of this article misstated where the $2 million donation to a Georgia election board came from. It was from a Zuckerberg-linked group, not from Zuckerberg himself. Read the original article on Business Insider The US Justice Department said Tuesday that it seized two internet domains and searched nearly 1,000 social media accounts that Russian operatives allegedly used to pose as US residents to spread disinformation in the US and abroad. The so-called bot farm used artificial intelligence to create fake social media profiles purporting to be people in the US and used those phony accounts to post support for Russias war in Ukraine, according to the Justice Department. The elaborate scheme was organized by an employee of RT, the Russian state-owned media outlet, financed by the Kremlin, and aided an officer of Russias FSB intelligence, the Justice Department alleged. The news comes as US intelligence officials are on heightened alert for efforts by Russia or other foreign powers to meddle in the 2024 election. US officials are watching closely to see whether the United States support for Ukraine will lead the Russian government to take more risks in potentially interfering in the 2024 presidential election, FBI officials previously said. European countries have also been on high alert for a flood of Russian influence operations as the Kremlin tries to splinter support for Ukraines defense. Russian propagandists have ramped up efforts to denigrate the Paris Olympics this month, including through a fake documentary that uses AI to impersonate the actor Tom Cruise, according to Microsoft. Asked for comment, an RT spokesperson did not respond to the substance of the Justice Department allegations, and instead emailed: Farming is a beloved pastime for millions of Russians. We often hear accusations like these against Russia. And they are made with no arguments every time. We reject these accusations, the Kremlin press office said in an emailed statement from spokesman Dmitry Peskov: CNN has requested comment on the Justice Department announcement from the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, and the FSB. X voluntarily suspended the bot accounts identified in court documents, the Justice Department said. CNN has requested comment from X. It wasnt just the FBI that helped expose the alleged bot farm. US Cyber Command, the militarys offensive and defensive cyber unit, was involved, as were Dutch and Canadian security agencies. The bot farm also targeted Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine and Israel, according to an advisory released Tuesday by US, Dutch and Canadian authorities. Long a mouthpiece for the Russian government, RT has seen some of its influence in the US wane in recent years as social media platforms have taken steps to block access to its output. But the outlet has looked for new ways to reach audiences, including, the Justice Department alleges, through an army of fake X accounts. According to an affidavit from an FBI agent, RT leadership signed off on a proposal from an employee to use software to create a bot farm that in theory would create multiple social media accounts through which RT could distribute information on a wide-scale basis. The scheme kicked into gear when Russian operatives bought one of two domain names in 2022 from an Arizona-based company, Namecheap, that were used to set up the bot farm, according to court documents. The RT employee, an FSB officer and others had access to the bot farm, which included X accounts that purported to be interested in cryptocurrency, according to the Justice Department. In one case, a fake account purporting to be based in Minneapolis posted a video of Russian President Vladimir Putin claiming that parts of Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania were a gift from Russian forces that freed them from Nazi control during World War II, the Justice Department said. In another case, a fake account replied to an unnamed US politician running for federal office with a video of Putin trying to justify Russias war in Ukraine, the department said. The Justice Department will not tolerate Russian government actors and their agents deploying AI to sow disinformation and fuel division among Americans, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com A new poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris has a better shot than President Joe Biden at defeating Donald Trump in the 2024 election but former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a slight edge on both Democrats. The poll, conducted by the Democratic firm Bendixen & Amandi, shows Biden slightly behind Trump, 42 to 43 percent. Meanwhile, Harris has inched past Trump, 42 to 41 percent, as Clinton pulls ahead of the former president, 43 to 41 percent. Of course, while Harris is one of the top alternatives to Biden should he choose to step aside, Clinton hasnt been seriously discussed as an option. The survey also found that out of the 86 percent of likely voters who watched at least part of the debate between Biden and Trump in Atlanta on June 27, only 29 percent believe Biden has the stamina and mental capacity needed for another four years in the White House. Sixty-one percent say he doesnt, according to the poll, which was first shared with Politico. All told, 33 percent said Biden should carry on as the Democratic nominee and 52 percent said he should bow out. The poll found that a Clinton-Harris ticket has more support than the current Biden-Harris ticket, beating Trump 43 to 40 percent, four points ahead of the Biden ticket. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. Clinton leads Trump by two points in new poll (Getty) While voters have strong concerns about Bidens age and ability to do the job, those worries still havent led to a massive lead for Trump, who is saddled with a mountain of political and legal baggage. The survey appears to show that voters are open to Clinton returning to the national stage even as shes been largely dismissed as a serious presidential contender following her loss to Trump in 2016. She has also said publicly that she has no plans to run for president again and is backing Biden. At 76, shes younger than both Biden, 81, and Trump, 78. Other possible Democratic candidates were also tested in the poll, but it found them behind both Harris and Trump. California Governor Gavin Newsom trails Trump 37 to 40 percent, while Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer fell behind the former president 36 to 40 percent. The poll, which included 1,000 likely voters and was conducted between July 2 and 6, appears to show a willingness from voters to support a candidate who has been tested on the national and international stage. The survey comes as Democratic elected officials, donors, and activists are pushing Biden to step aside with increasing force. The president has made clear that hes not going anywhere, even going so far as to urge any other candidates to announce their campaigns and challenge him at the convention in August. The poll also found that a ticket with Harris as the presidential nominee and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate beats Trump 42 to 40 percent. If Whitmer steps in as the VP pick, the poll found the Harris-led ticket losing by 39 to 41 percent. Another question included in the survey was whether voters would back Biden even if he was unlikely to finish his next term because of an age-related impairment simply to stop Trump from winning. Forty-eight percent of respondents said they wouldnt back Biden for that reason while 44 percent said they would. Seventy-five percent of Democrats said they would back Biden even under those circumstances. Both Biden and White House officials have pointed to Bidens busy travel schedule and a cold as reasons for his poor performance in the recent debate against Trump. The administration has said that theres no reason for the president to undergo a cognitive exam. In the poll, 53 percent said they view Trump as a danger to democracy, with 37 percent stating that such comments are partisan. As fireworks lit up the sky on the Fourth of July, a small pup terrified of the booming noises escaped her leash and swam to an island in the San Francisco Bay area despite a fear of water. Leilani, an 8-month-old Goldendoodle, was at a Fourth of July celebration at the Port of Redwood City with her owners, Kevin and Elizabeth Dalonzo, when the exploding fireworks scared her. Leilani fled into the bay and swam to the small and deserted Bair Island, where she got stuck all alone for two nights. "Right when the first firework went off, she jetted off," Kevin Dalonzo told USA TODAY on Tuesday from the couple's home in Silicon Valley. "I started running after her. She had no sense of anything. She had her head down and was so scared, she kept running as fast as she could, not knowing where she was going." Though Dalonzo chased after her and kept calling out to her, he couldn't catch up and eventually lost her in the industrial port area. He kept searching for Leilani until 2 a.m. and couldn't find a trace of her. But luck ended up being on Leilani's side. Elizabeth Dalonzo with Leilani and Coconut at the Port of Redwood City for the Fourth of July fireworks. Paddler comes across howling Leilani Two days after Leilani's escape, longtime paddler Roger Dunn was in his outrigger canoe passing by Bair Island when he heard howling. At first, he thought it could be a coyote. "Then I looked over across the channel, across the mud, to the land, and I saw a dog running," the 75-year-old Dunn told USA TODAY on Tuesday. "I thought, 'Well, that's kind of weird.'" Dunn then spotted Leilani's collar and a leash dangling beside her. She was looking at him and barking. Knowing that Bair Island is deserted and has no food, water or shelter for a dog, Dunn knew he had to help. He paddled closer to the muddy shore and called to Leilani. She darted right for Dunn despite the thick mud. "Probably one of the most amazing things of this whole experience is, oh, she's actually coming to me," Dunn said. "You can tell it's very difficult. If you and I were walking in this mud, it would be up to your knees." Leilani at the vet. A boat rescue ensues for Leilani Dunn's next hurdle was getting Leilani to safety. He said that his boat is "very tippy" and that he was worried that it would flip. But Dunn managed to get her onto the boat and into his lap. Although she was covered in mud and filth from her adventures on the island, Dunn could make out the phone number on her dog tag and called it. He left a message and started heading slowly to safety, holding Leilani in one hand and paddling with the other. The 2-mile journey, which normally would take Dunn 20 minutes, instead took over an hour. When they arrived to a boat ramp, other paddlers helped him get Leilani back to land. A kayaker also took pictures of Leilani and Dunn, which the latter then sent to his wife so she could start reaching out to various animal organizations in the area in the hopes of finding Leilani's owners. Dunn took Leilani to a local animal hospital to see if she needed any medical attention. Dunn said the dog was exhausted by the time he put her in his truck. It was at the Adobe Animal Hospital in Los Altos where Dunn ran into Denise O' Brien of the Silicon Valley Watch Dogs, a community-based initiative to help pet owners in Silicon Valley. "Today I witnessed a miracle," O'Brien wrote in a Facebook post about Leilani's rescue. "I met an ANGEL in the waiting room. Actually, I realized he was a HERO and GOOD SAMARITAN who rescued a lost dog." O'Brien continued to write about the dangers Leilani was facing on the island, saying "she possibly would've died had Roger not cruised by in his yellow boat today." "Nobody lives on the island, there's no shelter and our temps were record-breaking and over 100 in much of the Bay Area," she wrote. The animal hospital gave Leilani water and snacks, which she immediately gobbled up, and administered first aid. Just as they were about to notify the chip company of Leilani's whereabouts, Dalonzo returned Dunn's call. Roger Dunn with Leilani at Adobe Animal Hospital in Los Altos, California. Emotional reunion Two hours later, Dalonzo tearfully reunited with Leilani. He said he was overjoyed when he found out that Leilani had been found, adding that he had been unable to sleep in the days she had been missing. Dalonzo said he was shocked when he heard that Leilani had swum across the channel to Bair Island, considering he always thought his pup was scared of water. He said that he and his wife adopted Leilani from a local adoption agency around 5 months ago and didn't realize she was so terrified of fireworks. Leilani, a Hawaiian name that means "heavenly flowers" or "royal child," was named after a restaurant in Hawaii where Dalonzo first told his wife he loved her, making the pet all the more special. The couple has one other pet, a dog named Coconut. Happiness and smiles as Kevin Dalonzo (R) reunites with Leilani. On the left is Roger Dunn, who rescued Leilani from Bair Island. O'Brien, meanwhile, urged pet owners to be "extra careful" on the Fourth of July and other fireworks events. "What started out as a disastrous nightmare for Leilani's family that evening, and a two-day search for their lost dog, led to a beautiful, filthy rescue," O'Brien said in her post. "Thank you, Roger for doing such a kind deed." Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X @saman_shafiq7. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dog rescued 2 days after July 4th fireworks escape in Bay Area Life-threatening heat is gripping southeast Texas, where more than 1.5 million homes and businesses remain without power and air conditioning for a third day after Beryl caused major power outages, including the largest in one major energy providers history. Restoring electricity across the region is expected to take days and in some cases weeks after Beryl tore through the state as a Category 1 hurricane Monday, flooding coastal communities, shredding homes and ripping down webs of power lines. And whats left of the storm is still threatening to cause destruction Wednesday in the form of tornadoes and flooding more than 1,000 miles away in the Northeast. So impactful was the storm in Texas that the utility provider responsible for most of the outages said it was a historic event. We have never seen an incident of this magnitude this is the largest outage in our history, Brad Tutunjian, CenterPoints vice president of Electric Distribution and Power Delivery, said during a Houston City Council meeting Wednesday. The utility has been servicing the area for over a hundred years, he noted. As power outages continue to plague Houston, there has been a three-time increase in call volume from residents contacting emergency officials. Weve seen over 200 carbon monoxide poisoning calls in the last 24 hours, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference. Pena cited the improper use of generators at homes and people turning on their cars to charge devices in their garages. He also said they are seeing an increase in medical emergencies related to the heat. Homes have become saunas and food languishes in warm refrigerators, mainly from Galveston to north of Houston, according to PowerOutage.us. Phone and internet access has also been cut off in some communities, including Galveston. No WiFi, no power, and its hot outside. Thats dangerous for people. Thats really the big issue, Houston resident Robin Taylor told the Associated Press. People will die in this heat in their homes. Beryl has been blamed for at least 11 deaths in Texas and Louisiana, mainly from fallen trees. Two deaths in Houstons Harris County were the result of carbon monoxide poisoning, Texas emergency officials said, prompting warnings about the dangers using generators in areas where families are living and sleeping. A 71-year-old woman died in Galveston County Monday after her oxygen machine ran out of battery while her power was out, state Sen. Mayes Middleton, confirmed in a news conference Tuesday. Cooling centers have opened across the region as air temperatures crept into the 90s and the heat index teased 105 degrees. The heat index a measurement of how the body feels under both heat and humidity will reach triple digits across Texas each afternoon through at least the weekend. Most of the West and South of the country are in the throes of a long-lasting heat wave that has seen dozens of records broken and caused multiple deaths. Prolonged heat exposure poses significant health risks for people without adequate cooling and may be especially dangerous for Texans working outdoors to clear debris or damaged infrastructure. Heat also presents increased risks for the elderly, people with chronic medical conditions, homeless people and children. Hospitals in Houston are at risk of overcrowding as they cannot release patients to homes without power, prompting city officials to organize overflow beds in an indoor sports stadium, Patrick said Tuesday. On Wednesday, the office of Houston City Council Member Joaquin Martinez delivered water to two senior facilities without power in his district. One room had some electricity in one of the facilities, but at the second, people had to gather outside to stay cool, a representative from his office told CNN. They were desperate and expressed concern, the representative said. The power outage also shuttered nine fire stations, as they didnt have generators, Houston Mayor John Whitmire said Wednesday afternoon. I get really, really upset when I learn the City of Houston does not have generators at essential services like a fire station, a frustrated Whitmire said during the news conference. Great cities should not operate like that its neglect, its severe neglect and were going to fix it as we go forward. Long lines of cars and residents snaked out of fast food restaurants, food trucks and gas stations in the hopes of getting a few minutes of cool air or a bite to eat, according to the AP. Dwight Yell, 54, had power at his house but took a disabled neighbor, who did not, to Dennys for some food, the outlet reports. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has stressed to CenterPoint Energy the importance of restoring power as quickly as possible. The utility estimates about 80% of its customers in Houston are without power. Its tough to be in the heat. Its tough not to be able to refrigerate anything and tough not being able to go out and get food, Patrick said. I made sure that CenterPoint was aware of that and asked them to pull out all the stops to get power back as quickly as they could. But CenterPoint officials say it could be several days before power is fully restored to its customers, though it hopes to restore service to 1 million customers by Wednesday night. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 1.2 million of its customers were still in the dark. Almost universally, people have lost patience with CenterPoint, City Council Member Julian Ramirez told CNN Wednesday. While some people are trying to stay with friends and family who have power, many cant afford to leave their homes, Ramirez said. Food is another concern, as many stores are still closed, he said, so his office, food banks and public services are trying to quickly distribute food to underserved areas. CenterPoint cant seem to tell us how long this is going to last, he said. A home in Surfside Beach, Texas, was destroyed by Hurricane Beryl on July 8. - Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images President Joe Biden on Tuesday approved a federal emergency disaster declaration that will assist with some recovery costs, including clearing debris, Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts office said. But before long-term recovery efforts get underway, many frustrated residents are grappling with how to address their immediate needs. Its catastrophic when you lose everything in your fridge and you are living check to check, Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones told the AP. Beryl barrels into Northeast Though Beryl has substantially weakened since slamming into Texas as a Category 1 hurricane, its remnants still pose serious flood and tornado threats Wednesday to the northern US. More than 10 million people are under flood watches across parts of the Midwest and Northeast. The watches will begin to expire for the Midwest by the end of the day Wednesday but will last in New England until Thursday morning. Heavy rainfall and a serious tornado threat began Wednesday afternoon in parts of the Northeast. Several tornado warnings occurred simultaneously in parts of New York and northern Pennsylvania. The most significant tornado threat will encompass areas from northern Pennsylvania to southern New Hampshire and Vermont through the evening. That includes Syracuse and Albany, New York, and Scranton, Pennsylvania. Beryl already whipped up more than a dozen tornadoes across Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana on Monday and two in Indiana and Kentucky on Tuesday. One damaging tornado in southwestern Indiana tore through a warehouse in Mount Vernon and shredded the roof and crushed tractor trailers. Wests heat wave stretches to second week Heat alerts engulf more than 140 million Americans on both coasts, but the brunt of the heat is still impacting the West, where communities have been baking under high temperatures for at least two weeks. Extremely dangerous heat has caused several deaths in the West and will persist in the region through Friday, bringing high temperatures well into the 100s in some areas as temperatures reach between 10 to 30 degrees above average to some areas. Californias Death Valley has reached or exceeded 125 degrees every day since July 4, and the streak is expected to continue through Friday, marking its second-longest streak of days above 125, behind 10 days in July 1913. In Nevada, Las Vegas hit 119 degrees Tuesday, which is its fourth straight day of breaking a daily high temperature record. The multi-day length and record warm overnight temperatures will continue to cause heat stress to anyone without adequate cooling and hydration, the National Weather Service warned. Human-caused climate change is driving far more frequent and intense heat waves across the globe, exposing communities to increasingly dangerous temperatures. When a person is unable to cool their body down amid prolonged heat, they are at risk for damage to the brain and other vital organs, as well as other heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion and stroke. The weather service in Houston has advised residents to limit outdoor activities, work early or late in the day, wear light clothing and sunscreen and check on loved ones, neighbors and pets. CNNs Robert Shackelford, Sarah Dewberry, Fabiana Chaparro, Mary Gilbert and Christina Zdanowicz contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com U.S. Border Patrol agents have found a Michigan mother and her baby at a southern Texas ranch four days after they were reported missing about 1,500 miles away. Laredo border agents found the mother and child walking barefoot at a ranch in Webb County on Saturday, the sheriff's office wrote on Facebook. Border Patrol agents identified the Michigan woman, who was reported missing on July 3 along with her child, using her state driver's license, according to the sheriff's office. The pair were taken to safety and got medical treatment at a local hospital. The Border Patrol then turned them over to the sheriff's office. Laredo North Agents located a missing Michigan mother and infant on July 6, 2024. Mother says she ran out of gas traveling to South Padre Island The woman told officials that she ran out of gas while driving to South Padre Island, a town off the southern coast of Texas. Border Patrol agents confirmed she was the mother who had been reported missing in Wyoming, Michigan, just outside of Grand Rapids. Vanessa and the baby were evaluated at a local hospital and returned to their family in Michigan. "I thank the United States Border Patrol for their quick response, and I commend my deputies for their efforts in coordinating with the woman's family to ensure her and her baby's safety," Sheriff Martin Cuellar said in a news release. He said the case serves as a reminder to "stay vigilant and report any suspicious activity." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Missing Michigan mother and baby found alive at south Texas ranch NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) An Arizona rancher who was unsuccessfully tried in the fatal shooting of a Mexican man on his property will not be retried, a judge ruled Tuesday. Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink denied a request by prosecutors who had argued that the possibility of a new trial should be left open in case new witnesses emerge. Fink agreed with attorneys for rancher George Alan Kelly who said the case should be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought back to court after it ended in a mistrial April 22 with jurors unable to reach a unanimous verdict. In his latest ruling, Fink said justice would not be served by letting prosecutors wait for a tactical advantage to retry Kelly, which he said would amount to harassment of the defendant. Fink noted that jurors could not be swayed by prosecutors' arguments during the trial and said another attempt would result in another hung jury or more likely an acquittal. The evidence simply was not there, the judge wrote. There is no reason to believe that another jury would come to any different conclusion. Prosecutors did not immediately respond to an email message seeking comment on the judge's ruling. After the trial, Deputy County Attorney Kimberly Hunley said the prosecution supported dismissing the case but wanted the option to retry it if circumstances change. She had said unknown witnesses may come forward and known witnesses in Mexico might become available. Kelly, 75, was on trial for nearly a month in Nogales, a city on the border with Mexico, in the death of 48-year-old Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, who was fatally shot on Jan. 30, 2023. Kelly was charged with second-degree murder. Cuen-Buitimea, who lived just south of the border in Nogales, Mexico, was in a group of men whom Kelly encountered that day on his ranch. Prosecutors claimed Kelly recklessly fired nine gunshots toward the group from about 100 yards (90 meters) away. Kelly said he fired warning shots in the air and not directly at anyone. In his ruling, Fink noted the testimony of a Honduran migrant who told jurors he was walking with Cuen-Buitimea that day. The judge wrote that any new witnesses would contradict testimony that the man was the sole witness and raise other credibility challenges. Fink also wrote that since the bullet that killed Cuen-Buitimea remains missing, there is no reliable forensic evidence to prove who shot him. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) reiterated his unwavering support for President Bidens reelection bid at a wildfire press conference Wednesday, describing the upcoming race as a critical juncture for the Golden State. This is a profound and consequential moment, the governor said. This is an all-in moment for all of us. This is serious for this state. No state has more to lose in this context. Responding to questions about not only Californias ongoing and devastating wildfires but also national political turmoil, Newsom fielded multiple inquiries about his continued endorsement of Biden amid growing concern about the incumbents age and health. Newsoms name has been raised as a potential replacement for the president on the Democratic ticket as some in the party have called upon Biden to step aside, but the governor has continued to back the president instead. Newsom last week visited the White House with other Democratic governors and toured multiple battleground states on the presidents behalf. The governor was quick to defend Biden when asked by one reporter on Wednesday about a Sacramento Bee article quoting former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as saying Biden should do whatever he decides to do. Acknowledging that he had heard from his staff members about the article but didnt have all the context, Newsom described Pelosis comments as unsurprising. It is obviously the decision of the president of the United States, the governor said, quickly shifting to the unprecedented crowds of support for the president he observed over the weekend. I think Ive had 100 media outlets asking the same question that kind of I think Ive amply answered, Newsom added. Thats where I am and thats where I stand. The governor also credited Biden for remarks the president made on Tuesday evening backing NATO in an address marking the creation of the organization 75 years ago. The president stood firm in supporting NATO last night in contrast to President Trump, who said he didnt even know what NATO was, Newsom said, referring to comments Trump shared on the campaign trail in 2016. Thats how unserious Donald Trump is, the governor continued. Contrast that with the steadfast support of President Biden in his remarks last night. Newsom characterized Bidens conduct as a master class in managing U.S. alliances, noting that NATO has never been stronger, NATO has never been bigger. Reiterating the profound differences between the two candidates, the governor maintained his focus on supporting this campaign, this candidate, a man of character, decency and honor. Contrast that with the darkness that is Donald Trump, he said. When about how hes balancing his effort to bolster the Biden campaign and the ongoing crises at home in California, Newsom responded, I need a day off. Despite the ongoing grind, however, he expressed the deep pride he feels about preserving democracy. For the 40 million strong Democrats, Republicans, independents that have enjoyed democracy in California, the governor said that he has a responsibility to meet this moment. Then pressed directly about whether supporting Bidens campaign has distracted him from Californias crises, Newsom had a definitive response: That could not be more untrue, he said, stressing that everything about this campaign will impact the state disproportionately. California, he stressed, is the tentpole of the American economy the fifth-largest economy in the world and the host of 16 percent of American jobs. He also recalled how the Golden State was involved in 122 lawsuits during the Trump administration. Dont you guys remember that? The chaos, the fear, the anxiety, how he played politics, politics and what he referred to at the time as pleasure California,' Newsom said. He was serious. He said we need to rake the forests daylight and darkness. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Colbert also appeared in several shows including 'Flamingo Road,' 'The Fall Guy,' 'Sisters' and 'True Colors' Everett Pat Colbert Actress Pat Colbert, best known for her work on Dallas and Leonard Part 6, has died at the age of 77. The actress sister Tami Colbert told The Hollywood Reporter that she died on June 23 at her home in Compton, Calif. According to the outlet, the news of the stars death comes after she experienced three strokes over the past decade. Colbert was born on January 16, 1947, in Los Angeles, according to her IMDB profile. She worked as a model for department store campaigns and as a fashion consultant before setting her eyes on Hollywood, according to THR. She made her first TV appearance in 1979s Eischiled as a model before co-starring in Flamingo Road, which ran from 1980-1981. Colbert appeared in the pilot and as a recurring character in the first season. Getty Images Pat Colbert Related: Paying Tribute to the Celebrities Who Have Died in 2024 From there, she obtained roles in several television shows including Capitol, Benson, The Fall Guy, Knots Landing, A Death in California, Sisters and True Colors. Ultimately, Dallas would become one of her most well-known projects, as she appeared in 67 episodes of the long-running series, which aired from 1983 to 1991. Colbert began starring in Dallas sixth season as the Oil Baron's Club host Dora Mae. The private club was sometimes featured on the show as a place where the main characters, the Ewing family and their associates would often hold events and dealings. Related: Grease Actress Susan Buckner, Who Played Sandy's Cheerleading Friend Patty Simcox, Dead at 72 Though Colberts role in the series was a supporting one, Hill Place blogger Shaun Chang told THR that she had played the role with elegance and intelligence. The leading characters, and the show itself, treated her with respect and without any sense of condescension, he told the outlet. Dallas had many recurring supporting characters who helped create a sense of community for a show set in a major city, and Dora Mae was part of the fabric of the series. She also appeared in several films including as a nurse in S.O.B. and Hysterical, and held a prominent role in the comedy Leonard Part 6 as the character Allison Parker. 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. Colbert appeared to take a break from acting in the late 90s and 2000s before appearing in 2014s Thom and Dusty Go to Mexico and 2015s If Not For His Grace the last time she was seen onscreen. She is survived by her son, Michael, and her siblings Tami, Aaron and Johnetta, per THR. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Police recovered 4,153 stolen Lego sets worth more than $200,000 after a monthslong investigation in Oregon, officials said Tuesday. Ammon Henrikson, the 47-year-old owner of a store called Brick Builders in Eugene, allegedly knowingly bought new, unopened sets of Lego that had been stolen from other stores, the Springfield Police Department said. Suspects would steal the sets, then bring them straight to Brick Builders in exchange for cash, police said. Brick Builders staff would buy the stolen sets "most often at a fraction of their actual retail value." Investigators said they learned many of the Lego thieves used the cash to buy illegal drugs. Some pricey sets retail for a whopping $849.99 on the Lego website. Police said several of the stolen sets found at the store had retail values of over $700. A spokesperson added that resale values for some of the Lego sets were well over $1,000 on independent online marketplaces, like eBay. Images of the Lego loot shared by police show a huge pile of the toys. Other pictures shared by officials show Lego officers arresting a Lego criminal and a Lego police cruiser. An image shared by the Springfield Police Department shows a Lego police officer arresting a Lego suspect. / Credit: Springfield Police Department Authorities said they worked with loss prevention officers from Target, Fred Meyer, Barnes & Noble and Walmart to find the Legos. "We all feel the impact of organized retail theft through the increasing cost of items we buy for our families. Recognizing this, SPD's Crime Reduction Unit, with the support of our retail partners, works diligently to hold accountable those who make the choice to engage in or support retail theft," Chief Andrew Shearer said in a Facebook post. Henrikson was charged with organized retail theft and theft by receiving. Police also arrested Albert Nash, 57, describing him as an accomplice and an employee. In January, a new law went into effect imposing harsher penalties for those convicted of retail theft, CBS affiliate KOIN-TV reported. A Lego police car sits in front of a stack of stolen Lego sets recovered in an image shared by the Springfield Police in Oregon. / Credit: Springfield Police Department Police have made several Lego-related busts in recent months. A California task force in April seized about $300,000 worth of stolen Lego sets throughout several raids. Last month, a 71-year-old man was arrested after police found nearly 3,000 boxes of stolen Lego sets sets at his California home. Sneak peek: Unmasking the Zombie Hunter Sneak peek: Murder by Clown The success of renewable energy may depend on battery storage Hurricane Beryl battered Houston this week. (Eric Gay/AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) HOUSTON Days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in southeast Texas, millions of people were still without power on Thursday amid stifling temperatures as they try to recover from the storm. At least 11 people were killed after the Category 1 hurricane made landfall on the Gulf Coast of Texas before moving inland, according to Fox26 Houston. Beryl caused massive flooding in Houston, with some areas receiving over 10 inches of rain in 24 hours. Winds that gusted as high as 90 miles per hour also toppled trees across the city. Heat advisories Since the storm passed and cleanup efforts have gotten underway, Houston has endured several days of temperatures in the high 90s and even in the triple digits. The National Weather Service has issued heat advisories for central and southeast Texas, where the temperature feels like 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Chelsea Lipstreu, who lives in northeast Houston, lost trees that landed over her backyard swimming pool. Power was also knocked out early Monday. While a backup generator kicked on at 6:30 a.m., she said, it only held out for three hours, and since then she and her family have been without power. The heat is unbearable, Lipstreu told Yahoo News. The humidity. ... We cant walk upstairs in our house. Its unlivable. We can open the windows at night to cool it off a little bit once the temperature gets below 85. Its very unpleasant. Frustration builds According to PowerOutage.us, over 1.3 million Texans were still without power on Thursday, leading to growing frustration by customers of Houston-area utility provider CenterPoint Energy. CenterPoint had a week to prepare us for Hurricane Beryl, and they shit the bed, Derrian Walton, a resident of Pearland, a suburb just south of Houston, told Yahoo News. Walton said he wanted to see CenterPoint be prepared with its communication, specifically with its online tracker so that customers could see what was happening. Many residents have called on CenterPoint to beef up its supply of generators to help keep police stations and wastewater facilities running when major storms hit. Its time for us to figure out what the solution is so when we have the next storm well be prepared and can respond, Randy Macchi, chief operating officer for Houston Public Works, told Houston Landing. Walton said he and his roommate walk down to their local bank every day to charge their phones, and then walk even farther to buy food as the restaurants closest to him are also still without power. Being in Pearland, we were basically one of the first ones to get hit. And being without power, going on day three, is a little bit ridiculous, Walton said, adding that the food he had in his refrigerator has now mostly gone bad. CenterPoint released a map showing its outages on Tuesday; however, it doesnt come with an official timeline of when the company will restore power to its customers. On Tuesday, as the heat index rose to triple digits, Houston Mayor John Whitmire addressed the city and assured it that everyone would be accounted for. Were doing everything we possibly can to see that your electricity is restored, he said at a press briefing. It affects everything were talking about today. Later, Whitmire seemed to acknowledge that he had little control over when the power would go back on. The city does not run CenterPoint, but were in this together, Whitmire said. On Tuesday, President Biden approved a disaster declaration for Texas, freeing up federal funds to help aid recovery efforts. With downed trees and standing water still blocking some streets and electrical poles snapped like twigs, the cleanup effort could drag on for weeks. A rough year for Houston Linda Tepera, who lives in the northeast Houston suburb of Cloverleaf, was in her house Monday with her 87-year-old mother when a tree was uprooted by the wind and fell on the roof. It was just a really loud boom, Tepera said. Its unnerving, but its fixable and we have everything lined up. ... Fifty-three years on this corner and weve been through several hurricanes and several tropical storms, and this is a first. Hurricane Beryl was just the latest severe weather event to hit Houston in recent months. In May, 2 million people lost power when a fast-moving, severe thunderstorm dumped between 8 and 12 inches of rain on the city and high winds damaged buildings and toppled trees. In June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for over 50 counties in the state, including Harris, where Houston is located, after Tropical Storm Alberto made landfall, bringing flooding due to extreme rainfall. WASHINGTON Just when it looked like President Joe Biden was starting to unite congressional Democrats around his embattled reelection bid, the dam has cracked. A drip-drip of calls from party faithful for a dramatic last-minute change atop the Democratic ticket this November is turning into something else entirely. What had started as pleadings from a few lone lawmakers, donors and media figures in its earliest days after the incumbent 81-year-old's poor performance at his June 27 debate with Republican Donald Trump now includes warnings from the country's first-ever female House speaker, plus senior Senate Democrats and the nation's most well-known celebrities. First came Sen. Michael Bennett, D-Colo., who gave a blistering assessment of Biden's reelection bid in an interview Tuesday night on CNN, warning that Trump could defeat the incumbent Democrat "by a landslide and take with it the Senate and the House." More: Jill Biden, facing calls for her husband to step down, defends him fiercely By Wednesday morning, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., seemed to question whether Biden should remain the Democratic nominee during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," a television program Biden himself called into two days earlier defending his 2024 candidacy and is widely known to regularly watch. "Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run," Pelosi said, even though Biden has made clear repeatedly since last month's debate that he's still running for reelection. "We're all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., previously supportive of Biden, told reporters he too is "deeply concerned about Joe Biden winning this election." U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y, said in a statement "there must be a serious reckoning with the down-ballot of whomever we nominate." "What matters is not how we feel but what the numbers tell us," Torres said Wednesday. President Joe Biden speaks as he meets with national union leaders at the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) headquarters in Washington, DC, on July 10, 2024. The shift comes after most Democrats in Congress, which reconvened this week, have so far held off on publicly calling for Biden to withdraw following his disastrous debate performance last month even as many express grave concerns about the odds of Biden beating Trump. Aiming to shore up support, Biden's campaign is making another effort Thursday by sending three senior campaign advisors to meet with Senate Democrats. The full caucus normally only meets once a week. What's at stake? Although nine House Democrats have said publicly Biden should end his campaign, no Democratic senators have gone as far, and the president has held onto support from the entire Black and Hispanic caucuses, two key voices in the Democratic coalition. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., a top Biden campaign surrogate, told reporters Wednesday he has "no feelings" about Pelosi's comments. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has been holding several meetings with Democratic lawmakers throughout the week to discuss Biden's candidacy and fitness to serve. Jeffries has told his members in those private discussions he will bring their concerns back to Biden, according to a House Democrat familiar with the meetings. When asked if Biden should remain the Democratic nominee, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told NewsNation: "I have complete confidence that Joe Biden will do the patriotic thing for the country. And he's going to make that decision. He's never disappointed me. More: 'I've been doing this a long time': Joe Biden courts pivotal Pennsylvania voters after rocky debate But Biden's mounting resistance extends beyond the Capitol. Actor George Clooney a major Democratic donor who just last month co-hosted a lucrative Hollywood fundraiser for Biden called for a new Democratic nominee in a New York Times opinion piece. He said the Biden he saw at the fundraiser was not the same man hes known for years, writing that the one battle Biden cant win is the fight against time. "We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate," Clooney wrote. Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner, another deep-pocketed Democratic donor, agreed. "We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside," Reiner wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. Biden did not address his party's unrest during a brief stop at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, where he spoke to union leaders. "I've never been more optimistic about America's chances, not because of me, but because of what we're doing together," Biden told the group. Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa declined to comment on the new calls for Biden to withdraw. He instead pointed to Bidens past remarks emphatically affirming hes staying in the race, including in a letter Monday to congressional Democrats. With the Democratic National Convention next month in Chicago and Republicans holding their convention next week Democrats face a time crunch if they want to find a different nominee. More: Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet warns Biden could lose to Trump in 'landslide' after debate Biden, who is hosting a NATO summit commemorating the alliance's 75th anniversary, is set to take questions from reporters at a press conference Thursday that some Democrats have circled as an important test for the president. But other Democrats are starting to sound the alarm with a greater sense of urgency. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who became the ninth House Democrat on Wednesday to call for Biden to step aside, said it was "a painful and difficult conclusion." "There is no question in my mind that we will all be better served if the president steps aside as the Democratic nominee and manages a transition under his terms." "Joe Biden is a patriot but is no longer the best candidate to defeat Trump," Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., who represents a swing district, said in a statement Wednesday. "For the good of our country, I am asking Joe Biden to step aside to deliver on his promise to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders" Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden's dam begins to crack with new Democratic detractors Queen Camilla, the wife of King Charles III, is a known dog lover and both her and The King have two adorable Jack Russell Terriers, named Beth and Bluebell. The palace has long been home to many a dog, with the late Queen Elizabeth having more than 30 Corgis during her reign. Not only did the King and Queen rescue their Jack Russel Terriers from the Battersea Dogs and Cats home in London, but Queen Camilla supports many different animal charities and trusts. Recently The Queen was bestowed with one particularly adorable and furry honor, which was the naming of a new medical detection puppy! View the original article to see embedded media. Medical Detection Dogs posted on Instagram, "Meet Freddy, our newest team member named by a very special supporter - our Patron, The Queen.Freddy will join the crew at @medicaldetectiondogs, who have been working for over 15 years to detect the tiniest traces of smell caused by medical conditions.The charity, and the extraordinary dogs that they train, makes a a huge difference not only through saving lives but through restoring the confidence and independence that so many of their clients lose when they become ill.Her Majesty was invited to name a puppy in celebration of her continued Patronage. Welcome to the team, Freddy!" Awww, Freddy is such an adorable name for such a special pup! Related: Queen Elizabeth's Lifelong Love of Corgis Will Never Be Forgotten Bio detection dogs use their nose to find illnesses such as cancer, Parkinsons disease, malaria, an even Covid. Medical Alert Assistance Dogs support individuals with complex health conditions who have limited awareness of an impending life-threatening medical event. What Are Medical Detection Dogs? View the original article to see embedded media. Medical Detection Dogs .org explains, "Using their amazing sense of smell, these dogs can be trained to identify minute odor changes emitted prior to an emergency and alert the person to take preventative action." The charity explains on their FAQ page that these bio detection dogs all live in people's homes with volunteer fosters and are picked up in the evening and dropped off in the morning. They work around four days a a week for about twenty minutes at a time. For the medical alert dogs, "Dog alerts need to be clear and persistent, as our clients often have no awareness of an imminent episode. The dogs are with their owners 24/7 and alert during both the day and night. Dogs are trained to alert by either jumping up and/or licking strongly. The type of alert will vary depending on the needs of the client." If you would like to make a donation to Medical Detection Dogs or learn more about this wonderful charity and these amazing dogs, you can visit their website here. Clarence Thomas (left) and Attorney General Merrick Garland (right). Getty Images Democratic Senators asked Merrick Garland for a special counsel investigation into Clarence Thomas. They seek to probe Thomas's ethics and the "serious possibility" of tax fraud from undeclared gifts. Thomas's financial ties to billionaire Harlan Crow and other elites have drawn increasing scrutiny. Two Democratic senators have called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to open a special counsel investigation into Clarence Thomas. in a letter released Tuesday, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ron Wyden of Oregon requested a probe into potential federal ethics violations and the "serious possibility" of tax fraud by the Supreme Court Justice. Thomas has faced increasing scrutiny over his personal and financial ties to billionaires like right-wing megadonor Harlan Crow, who has treated the justice to lavish international trips, gifts, and tuition for Thomas's grand-nephew, Mark Martin, to attend expensive boarding schools. In August of last year, Thomas updated his 2022 financial disclosures to include previously undeclared gifts and vacations from Crow. "We do not make this request lightly," the senators wrote: "The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have complied with their federal tax obligations. Presented with opportunities to resolve questions about his conduct, Justice Thomas has maintained a suspicious silence." A spokesperson for Whitehouse directed Business Insider to a press release about the letter, which indicated Whitehouse has for more than a year called for the Judicial Conference to investigate Justice Thomas's "omissions of billionaire-funded gifts and income from his legally required annual financial disclosure reports." A representative for Wyden, the chairman of the Senate's Committee on Finance, told Business Insider that the committee released a staff memo in October detailing that Thomas had never reported he'd received forgiveness on a $267,230 loan on his ethics forms, which prompted questions about his tax compliance. Following months of the committee's repeated requests for an explanation from Thomas and his attorney that went unanswered, the spokesperson said requesting a formal investigation was the necessary next step. A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment on the letter when reached by Business Insider. Representatives for the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Thomas has previously denied any wrongdoing, arguing gifts from Crow and others fall under a "personal hospitality exemption," meaning they don't require disclosure. Read the original article on Business Insider WASHINGTON - Four senators reached a bipartisan agreement Wednesday to advance legislation that would ban stock trading among members of Congress, their spouses and their dependents. The agreement was reached by Sens. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Gary Peters, D-Mich., Josh Hawley, R-Mo. and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore, according to a news release. The legislation would build off of Merkleys ETHICS Act and immediately prohibit congressional lawmakers from buying stocks and other covered investments and from selling stocks 90 days after enactment. It also requires congressional members, the president and vice president to divest from all covered investments starting in 2027, according to the release. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-MO, is part of a bipartisan group of senators backing legislation that would ban Congressional stock trading. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will take up the legislation during a business meeting on July 24th. The public should be confident that federal elected officials are making decisions that are in the best interests of the American people, not their own personal finances, Peters, who serves as the chairman of the committee said in the news release. I appreciate the leadership from Senators Merkley, Hawley and Ossoff on this important issue, and Im grateful to them for working closely with me to draft this bipartisan, commonsense agreement that strengthens accountability for the public and prevents bad actors from taking advantage of their positions for their personal financial gain, he added. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Senators reach agreement to advance legislation to ban stock trading Spain has moved on to the UEFA Euro 2024 final, but a bizarre postgame incident might impact whether Alvaro Morata will be available to play a part. The striker was hit by a tumbling security guard, who was sprinting in to stop a fan from taking selfies as Spain did a victory lap following its 2-1 victory over France. Morata had no idea what was coming as the security staffer careened into him while trying to stop and turn. Adding to the strangeness of the situation, stewards at the Allianz Arena had already managed to grab the young selfie-taker. The Atletico Madrid striker, who has started all but one of Spains matches in the tournament, immediately felt for his right knee, wincing and then limping away from the kerfuffle. The security person leaned in to check on the Spain captain, who seemed to simply want to hobble away from the entire situation. This cant keep happening. Its a disgrace, UEFA need to control it so much better. Somebody will get seriously hurt. #Euro2024 #Morata pic.twitter.com/Dp5KgEvq5h Ned Ozkasim (@nedoz9) July 9, 2024 In a post-match press conference, Spain manager Luis de la Fuente told reporters that Moratas status at this point was unknown. We have to wait and see tomorrow, said De la Fuente. We believe its nothing. It hurts, but we think its nothing. A security member slides into Spain player Alvaro Morata as he attempts to remove a pitch invader. Should Morata be unavailable, De la Fuente would likely be choosing between Mikel Oyarzabal (who replaced Morata in the 76th minute on Tuesday) or Joselu to lead the line in the final, which is on Sunday against either England or the Netherlands. This isnt even the first such incident involving an Iberian forward at this tournament. Portugal striker Goncalo Ramos ended up having a steward crash into him after a 3-0 win over Turkey on June 22. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Spain's Alvaro Morata hurt in Euro postgame incident vs. France The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, U.S., May 20, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo Andrew Davis wanted protection after other students carved homophobic slurs into the door of his college dorm room. Sydney Greenway hoped to avoid spending a week's grocery money on another textbook. Tashiana Bryant-Myrick sought relief from the student debt hobbling her family's future. For years, the U.S. Department of Education has been able to intervene to some degree in these scenarios. But a Supreme Court decision handed down just over a week ago reined in the agency's power to help everyday people. The news came as important deadlines loom for schools to implement key regulations, many of which now stand on shakier legal ground. Three current and five former Education Department staffers, some of whom were not authorized to speak publicly, told USA TODAY they were dismayed by the ruling, which they fear will blunt the agencys ability to oversee the American education system. Im really, really nervous about what this means, said Amy Laitinen, a former senior policy adviser on higher education in the Education Department and the White House. I dont think theres any doubt that it will be bad for students and taxpayers. Education policy in the United States is primarily hammered out by state and local governments. When it comes to taking federal action including to keep LGBTQ+ students safe, textbook costs down and student loan debt under control Congress is generally slow to pass new regulations. (The main federal law overseeing colleges hasnt been comprehensively reauthorized since 2008.) Helping students often falls to the bottom of lawmakers' to-do lists. In that vacuum, the Education Department's role overseeing schools, especially colleges, has only expanded. The department handles nearly $2 trillion in federal student loan debt and protects students and teachers from discrimination, including the antisemitism and Islamophobia that roiled campuses this year amid the Israel-Hamas war. During the Obama and Biden administrations, the agency has demonstrated a greater willingness to clamp down on predatory colleges. When it screws something up such as delivering college financial aid, which devolved into a crisis this year the ripple effects can be devastating. All of that authority may now be jeopardized by the ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. On June 28, the high courts conservative justices rejected a 40-year-old precedent known as "Chevron deference, a standard set by the 1984 case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which gave federal agencies latitude to clarify ambiguous laws passed by Congress. Read more about the Loper decision: Supreme Court curbs power of federal regulators, overturning 40-year precedent On the heels of a different verdict that could preclude those same agencies from imposing fines, the justices dramatically recast the balance of government power away from the executive branch. Officials immediately began panicking that the Education Department might lose some of its capacity to address real-life problems through regulation. Even before the decree was handed down, lower court judges in several states over the past few weeks were separately halting key Education Department policies, including rules affecting student loan borrowers, LGBTQ+ students and sexual assault survivors. The National Education Association, the largest union for educators, warned that students nationwide would pay the price for the demise of Chevron deference. Meanwhile, conservatives and for-profit schools have rejoiced at the ruling, which they consider a long-overdue blow to big government. No agency has overreached more in exceeding congressional authority than the current U.S. Department of Education, said Jason Altmire, the president of the group Career Education Colleges and Universities, which represents the interests of for-profit colleges. Supporters of the verdict, including Republicans in Congress, argued federal regulators have become too powerful. They praised the Supreme Court for transferring more authority to the judicial branch to interpret vague laws. The Education Department declined to comment directly but cited a statement from Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, who scolded the Supreme Court for yet another deeply troubling decision that takes our country backwards. How the ruling will affect schools will depend largely on how judges handle forthcoming legal challenges. If the federal judiciarys recent decisions are a harbinger of what's to come, the Biden administrations agenda for American schools could be in serious trouble. Vanessa Miller, an assistant professor of education law at Indiana University Bloomington, said that although federal regulations have long been vulnerable to litigation, the Supreme Court just made them even weaker. We dont really know how its going to unfold, she said. Thats the complicated and scary part. Protections for LGBTQ+ students threatened College brought Andrew Davis a sense of stability he had never experienced before. When he arrived in the fall of 2020 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, about three hours from his rural hometown, it was one of the first times in his life he had consistent food and housing. With a generous financial aid package in hand, he knew hed be relying on the school a lot. Andrew Davis, a queer and nonbinary student pursuing a master's degree at Brown University, has been advocating for Title IX reform since he says he was harassed by his peers at an Ohio college several years ago. By October of that year, that stability began to crumble. Other students started harassing Davis, who identifies as queer and nonbinary. A lot of the behavior took place outside his dorm room, where he said they would carve slurs into the door and dump their trash. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he could hear speakers blasting anti-queer insults. I didnt have anywhere else to go, said Davis, now 22. He filed a complaint against his peers under Title IX, a federal statute that prohibits sex-based discrimination on school campuses. The law was reinterpreted during the Trump administration in a way critics said bolstered the rights of people accused of sexual assault and harassment. Under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the department raised the burden of proof for victims. Davis case didnt meet evidence standards and was dismissed, he said. He watched hopefully as the Biden administration set out to reverse those Trump-era rules while pushing to codify protections that would prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ students like him. In April, the Education Department finalized part of its long-awaited rewrite of Title IX, quelling the anxiety of victim advocates who had grown restless after waiting years for change. The new guidance would officially expand the statute to include sexual orientation and gender identity in its definition of sex-based discrimination. The revised rules are supposed to take effect nationwide on Aug. 1, but lawsuits brought by Republican attorneys general in multiple states have placed them in a holding pattern in many parts of the country. A federal judge in Kansas, for instance, issued yet another preliminary injunction this month blocking implementation of the revised Title IX rules in four states. The ban applied to all the schools attended by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, too. Shiwali Patel, a former attorney in the Education Departments Office for Civil Rights, now with the National Womens Law Center, found the broad scope of that ruling troublesome. Opponents of civil rights and Title IX have really stopped at nothing, she said. Student debt relief in jeopardy Tashiana Bryant-Myrick, a 36-year-old California mom, was the first in her family to attend college. She now works in higher education, advising young people from marginalized groups. But her decision to work in academia came with a hefty price tag she owes tens of thousands of dollars on her student loans. We cant build generational wealth as a young Black family and try to plan for our future with our child, she said, because we really dont know what is going to happen. She hoped student loan forgiveness would make her life easier, but she is uncertain about whether the Education Department's efforts will ultimately help her. Since taking office, President Joe Biden has made student debt relief the centerpiece of his education policy agenda, forgiving roughly $170 billion for nearly 5 million Americans. In his State of the Union address this year, he credited himself with having fixed two major student loan repayment programs. Those aggressive, controversial and wildly expensive actions have made a sizable difference in many lives, especially for older borrowers who felt stuck after paying back loans for years. It wasn't long before the debt cancellation butted up against an unfriendly court system. The Supreme Court last summer struck down Bidens most ambitious plan to provide $400 billion in debt relief to tens of millions of Americans. The now-defunct program would have canceled up to $20,000 in student loans for a broad swath of the population. "This fight is not over," Biden vowed in a White House news conference following the June 2023 decision. Since those roadblocks, the administration has pursued different avenues for student debt relief. Most of them, however, rely to some extent on the deference historically given to federal agencies like the Education Department to implement laws passed by Congress. At the end of the day, none of this is good for students, said Daniel Zibel, vice president of the National Student Legal Defense Network, a group that advocates for borrowers. Numerous legal challenges have set in motion a game of regulatory pingpong that paused and then resumed one of Bidens signature student loan initiatives, which calculates payments based on borrowers' incomes. Miguel Cardona, Bidens education secretary, has routinely referred to that program as the most affordable repayment plan ever. Education Secretary Miguel Caronda testifies before congressional lawmakers in April. Recent preliminary injunctions on the program issued by federal judges in Kansas and Missouri forced the Education Department to place about 3 million borrowers in forbearance, temporarily halting their bills. A three-judge panel has since granted the Biden administrations request to stay one of those bans. Three states asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to take up the plan's legality. The volatile nature of the litigation doesn't bode well for Biden's student debt relief agenda surviving the courts in the long run. Biden administration ramps up college oversight When Sydney Greenway was starting her second semester at Wayne State University in Detroit, she noticed a $50 charge on her account. Greenway, now 21, didnt remember paying $50 for a textbook. She soon learned that her school was enrolled in a program that allowed her to be automatically billed for certain course materials (the goal was to bring prices down for every student on a larger scale). Greenway was certain she could have found a used copy of the book at a cheaper price. Sydney Greenway, a college student at the University of Pittsburgh, became a textbook affordability advocate after an unexpected charge her freshman year left her frustrated with what she considered to be an unfair system. It was a week of groceries for me, she said of the $50 charge. Its not insignificant. Biden has made it clear to his advisers that the administrations student loan relief efforts must be coupled with a broader strategy to bring down the soaring cost of college. A key tactic in that approach includes reining in often unpredictable expenses for food and textbooks. One regulation the administration is championing would give students more of a direct say in how they pay for course materials. The rule prompted fierce pushback from the publishing industry, which has argued the policy will only raise prices for students. Click here for a deep dive on textbooks: A fight over college textbook prices is leaving students unsure whom to believe about costs Some of the main college oversight changes crafted by the Biden administration would tighten up college accreditation standards, particularly for online and for-profit schools. Others would eventually force schools to disclose whether their programs provide students a good return on investment. Another rule would prevent colleges from pocketing some of the extra federal money low-income students use to pay for food. For any of these regulations to affect real peoples lives, the Education Department has to go through a lot of red tape. Though the specter of court challenges has always plagued government staffers who write those rules, they now worry their efforts will face even more scrutiny and students will have to wait longer for the help they need. Conservatives, for-profit advocates celebrate Overturning Chevron was the culmination of a decadeslong push by conservatives to dismantle what they have deemed the "administrative state." Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican on a congressional committee overseeing education policy, sent letters June 30 to more than half a dozen agencies, including the Education Department, insisting they explain how they plan to comply with the Supreme Courts ruling. He gave Cardonas agency until the end of next week to respond. The GOP senator said he was pleased to see the unfettered power of federal bureaucrats finally being curbed. In the Supreme Court's majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts concluded that it's the job of the judicial branch of government to interpret the law. Deferring to federal agencies, he wrote, "is simply not necessary to ensure that the resolution of statutory ambiguities is well informed by subject matter expertise." The dissenting justices disagreed harshly. Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court's liberal minority who worked in the Clinton administration decades ago, fretted over the consequences of leaving complex policy decisions up to judges. Shutting out the federal governments vast reserve of experts would come at a cost, she warned. In every sphere of current or future federal regulation, she wrote, expect courts from now on to play a commanding role. Contributing: USA TODAY data and graphics reporter Sara Chernikoff Zachary Schermele covers education and breaking news for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What the Supreme Court's Chevron decision means for schools The Utah CEO of an outdoor furniture company and his 16-year-old daughter have been killed after a bulldozer fell on top of their truck. Richard David Hendrickson, 57, and his daughter Sally were killed on a state highway in Ogden Canyon on Saturday afternoon when a mini bulldozer broke free from a tow truck during a right-hand curve, according to the state's department of public safety. Hendrickson and Sally, who lived in Uintah, were pronounced dead on the scene inside a GMC pickup truck that was towing a boat, state officials said in a news release. Hendrickson was the CEO and president of Lifetime Products, which announced his death in a news release posted later that day. Hendrickson's wife and two of their other children also sustained non-life-threatening injuries in the accident while another daughter was traveling overseas at the time, the company said. "It is with profound sadness that we announce the tragic and sudden passing of our CEO and President, Richard David Hendrickson, in a car accident," the statement reads. "This heartbreaking incident also claimed the life of one of his daughters, Sally." A mini bulldozer broke free from tow truck during a right curve State Route 39 in Ogden Canyon, Utah on July 6, 2024 killing a 57-year-old father and his 16-year-old daughter. Utah Governor calls Hendrickson a 'friend and incredible leader' Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox offered his condolences on X. "Richard was a friend and incredible leader," Cox wrote. "We are heartbroken by his tragic passing with his daughter Sally. We mourn with the surviving members of his family and pray they will find comfort and healing." Richard was a friend and incredible leader. We are heartbroken by his tragic passing with his daughter Sally. We mourn with the surviving members of his family and pray they will find comfort and healing. https://t.co/HgTS2yGUvF Spencer Cox (@SpencerJCox) July 7, 2024 Hendrickson was a visionary and a friend to many at Lifetime Products, according to the company. He was known for his "uniquely broad and extensive set of talents," a "legendary" mechanical aptitude and a "special" ability to connect with people. "Richard started as a welder and progressed through multiple levels of the company to become President and CEO due to his extraordinary talents and abilities," Barry Mower, who founded Lifetime Products in 1986, said in a statement. "He was one of my most trusted and cherished friends and will be sorely missed. Lifetime will not be the same without him." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bulldozer falls on truck in Utah, killing CEO and his teenage daughter Optus is planning to launch an MSP program to help leverage systems integrators and channel providers in an effort to expand its mobile offering to more customers. At a recent Optus roundtable, vice president of mid-market and enterprise Ben Vella told ARN that the telco should leverage diverse technologies to offer comprehensive solutions. Vella said this approach provides its channel partners with access to various technologies and solutions for their customers. We dont aim to do everything ourselves, he said. Instead, we are launching an MSP program to leverage the expertise of systems integrators and channel providers. This initiative aims to expand access to Optus Mobility, attracting more customers. The MSP program is currently in a pilot phase with one partner on-boarded so far, said Vella. We are onboarding the first providers and ensuring a positive experience for our MSPs, he said. After the pilot phase, we anticipate a broader launch within one to two months. Vella highlighted the healthcare sector as a significant area where it can provide impactful technologies. Optus was part of a project with Samsung, using its mobility products during Catholic Healthcares continuing digital transformation phase. As a channel partner, our focus is on delivering better solutions for our customers, said Vella. One key initiative is the frontline worker technology bundle, which weve successfully implemented with Victoria Health and various South Australian health organisations. Catholic Healthcare is a not-for-profit organisation providing aged care services. It operates 41 residential aged care homes and 13 retirement villages and offers home care services to about 7,000 Australians. Our mission focuses on providing care for the elderly and supporting people with mental health issues, vulnerable communities, and the financially disadvantaged, said Brett Reedman, Catholic Healthcares chief information officer. According to Reedman, the healthcare provider chose Optus because it understood Catholic Healthcare and its services. We currently utilise a range of Optus services, including SMS-based services, mobile solutions, broadband services for our sites, and most recently, weve transitioned all our device management to Optus, he said. Reedman said Catholic Healthcare has a strong IT strategy that is well-aligned with its business strategy and is in the midst of a significant digital transformation program. I often tell my staff that next year will be easier, but each year seems to bring new challenges, he said. We are replacing several legacy systems, which will lay a strong foundation for our future. Although Samsungs products were provided to Catholic Healthcare through Optus, Rob Taylor, director and head of the B2B division, understands the growing key area of frontline workers. Our Samsung rugged range has a strong presence and continues to grow in the healthcare sector due to its adaptability in various environments, including use with gloves, he said. Currently, Samsung operates as a 95 percent channel-driven business. We have close relationships with Optus and Telstra for our go-to-market strategy and through the open channel, he said. We also have an exclusive partnership with Dicker Data. It distributes our devices throughout its reseller community, so everything we do in the Australian market within the open channel goes through them. According to Taylor, Samsung is focused on wearables, such as smartwatches, which are increasingly important in healthcare and will be introducing a new device set to impact the healthcare sector by being less intrusive and more efficient in collecting patient health data. For our channel partners, these advancements mean shifting from merely selling products to offering comprehensive solutions. Its about selling a solution, not just a watch, which resonates more with end customers, particularly in healthcare, he said. Today's news: Chinese human rights lawyer Chang Welping released from prison but confined to Hainan Island; Controversy in Seoul over the statements of a politician who linked the suicide rate to the 'dominant' role of women; A resolution was introduced in the US House calling for an investigation into the death of Father Stan Swamy three years ago in India. INDIA - RUSSIA Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on his first foreign trip since returning to office for a third term in June. During the meeting, the Indian premier appealed for a ceasefire in Ukraine, because 'no solution can be found on the battlefield'. He also stated that he had obtained commitments from Moscow for the repatriation of Ionian citizens who had been drafted and sent to the front. CHINA Human rights lawyer Chang Weiping in China has returned to freedom after serving three and a half years in prison for 'subversion'. However, his wife, who lives in the United States, announced that the authorities had sent him to live in the southern island province of Hainan with a travel ban after completion. Chang Weiping had complained of torture during his detention. SOUTH KOREA A South Korean politician was criticised for linking the increase in male suicides to the increasingly 'dominant' role of women in society. Seoul city councillor Kim Ki-duck said the participation of women made it difficult for men to find jobs and women to marry. South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, but also one of the worst records on gender equality. INDIA - UNITED STATES A resolution was introduced in the US House urging India to conduct anindependent investigation into the death of Father Stan Swamy. According to the resolution, Father Stan played a key role in one of the most significant Adivasi movements in contemporary India, the Pathalgadi, which used the Adivasi tradition of stone carving to spread information among Adivasi communities about the rights guaranteed to them by the Indian Constitution. ISRAEL UN human rights experts have accused Israel of conducting a 'targeted starvation campaign' that has resulted in the deaths of children in Gaza. "Israel's deliberate and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has led to famine throughout Gaza," 10 independent UN experts said in a statement on Tuesday. ARMENIA The leader of the Armenian opposition movement 'Tavows in the name of the Homeland', Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, told journalists about upcoming protest initiatives against the government in Yerevan, assuring that "new structures are being formed and ideological contours are being defined", speaking to foreign journalists, but "without contact with other states". GEORGIA The President of Georgia, Salome Zurabisvili, wrote on X her congratulations "Bravo France!", praising the French for the "victory of democracy and dignity" in the parliamentary ballot, where with the defeat of the ultra-right, the "hope of all Europeans, including Georgians, who do not want to submit to the domination of the Russians" was recognised. Fighting has resumed in Shan and Rakhine in recent weeks. The juntas number two man, General Soe Win, and former president Thein Sein visited Beijing and Qingdao to discuss border stability, trade, and investment. According to some sources, new contracts have also been signed for the purchase of war materiel. Yangon (AsiaNews) As fighting intensified in Shan State and ethnic militias continued their advance in Rakhine, several representatives of Myanmars military junta travelled to China in recent weeks. According to some sources, Beijing may be providing new weapons to Myanmars military, which seized power in a coup in February 2021, plunging Myanmar into civil war. The juntas number two man, General Soe Win, on Saturday landed in Qingdao, Shandong province, to participate in a forum on sustainable development promoted by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the junta's media reported. He is the highest-ranking Myanmar political representative Beijing has hosted since the coup. General Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of Myanmars Defence Services and self-proclaimed chairman of the State Administration Council, the juntas formal name, has not yet visited China. But at the end of June, former President Thein Sein (who had favoured an initial period of democratic openings before the election of Aung San Suu Kyi) also flew to Beijing for a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. On 19 June, China's special envoy to Myanmar, Deng Xijun, met with the junta's foreign minister, Than Swe, in Naypyidaw, a few days before fighting resumed in Shan State, which had subsided in January thanks to a ceasefire brokered by China. Not surprisingly, this diplomatic effort coincides with renewed offensives by ethnic militias fighting against the regime. In recent days, the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), which together with the Arakan Army (AA) form the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance, have headed towards Lashio, one of the main cities in Shan State where the juntas Northeastern Military Command is based. Thousands of civilians have fled the area trying to reach the city of Taunggyi. In the meantime, the TNLA seized control of the Gokteik Viaduct, a colonial-era railway bridge, thus blocking all reinforcement and supply routes to the Northeastern Military Command. Fighting has also been reported in neighbouring Mandalay Region. The Arakan Army has also launched a new offensive to take Thandwe and Maungdaw, the last two cities still under military control in Rakhine State, on the border with Bangladesh. For its part, Myanmars Air Force has intensified its bombing campaign. According to Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica, 819 airstrikes were carried out between January and April of this year alone, killing 359 civilians and injuring 756 others. The latest moves by the anti-junta forces seem to be a new phase in Operation 1027, the offensive launched by the Three Brotherhood Alliance in October last year. Before the signing of a ceasefire in January, the Alliance had seized a large portion of territory on the border with China, including some border crossings, key to bilateral trade. Frustrated by the military junta's inability to stop online scams in which thousands of Chinese are caught up, Beijing had passively accepted MNDAA control in Kokang, an important sector in the border area. It seems that Beijing has now changed its mind. At the start of the month, China cut off power supply to Laukkai, the capital of Kokang, perhaps to signal to the MNDAA that it does not approve of its new offensive. A more obvious clue are the new weapons Beijing is sending to Myanmars military regime. The [regimes] shopping list is long and huge arms caches are on the way to Myanmar, writes The Irrawaddy citing sources familiar with the matter. They will arrive Myanmar in two weeks to a month, it added. For the military junta getting Chinese weapons is nothing new (even more so than from Russia). But it is likely that this is linked to recent visits by junta officials. As Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Army, General Soe Win has the power to sign weapons purchases. According to the regime's media, during the generals visit, which ended yesterday, the two sides discussed border stability, security for Chinese investments in Myanmar, eradication of online scam centres, promotion of bilateral trade, and even elections, a plan the junta has been putting forward for months. In addition, on Monday, the junta announced that Chinese New Year (better known in the region as Lunar New Year) would become an official holiday in Myanmar starting next year. by Santosh Digal Bishop David, president of the Bishops' Conference, issued an appeal for dialogue between Manila and Beijing at the end of the recent bishops assembly. "Nobody wants war, he said, stressing the need for dialogue. A prayer will be broadcast and recited across the country. A close encounter between two rival coast guards ships risks degenerating into a geopolitical conflict. Manila (AsiaNews) The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has issued an appeal to government authorities to resolve the ongoing territorial dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea through dialogue, not war. At a press conference at the end of the CBCP assembly in Cagayan de Oro, Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan, called on the country's Catholics to pray for a peaceful solution to outstanding issues. "We are spiritual and moral leaders, not political leaders, and we are aware of the tensions among our fellow citizens, Bishop David said, adding that nobody is in favour of conflict, and tensions must be quelled through dialogue. "Our parents, ancestors, and others have witnessed the dross of the Second World War. And no new generation should face the same again, he explained. At the heart of tensions between the Philippines and the People's Republic of China is navigation in areas that Beijing arbitrarily claims are under its sovereignty. In recent weeks, the Chinese Coast Guard has employed more aggressive tactics, seriously endangering the interests of Filipino fishermen. A few days ago, near the Spratly Islands that Manila claims as within its Exclusive Economic Zone, a Philippine military ship was also boarded. The clash over the South China Sea is not just a local issue. The West is looking at Chinese expansionism in the Pacific with concern, as do Japan and South Korea. The issue is also on the agenda of the NATO summit currently underway in Washington marking the 75th anniversary of the organisation. In recent days, contacts have been made between the Philippines and the People's Republic of China to ease tensions, but the risk of incidents remains high. In fact, controversy surrounds a rescue operation of a Philippine sailor living on a rusting warship beached in 1999 on the Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly to claim its sovereignty. The Chinese coast guard said that it "allowed" the evacuation on humanitarian grounds, while the Philippine navy disputed this claim, saying that the Chinese statement shows the "illegal" blockade imposed by Beijing. In view of the situation, Bishop David announced that a special Oratio Imperata (Obligatory Prayer) will be issued in coming days in support of peace amid geopolitical conflicts. The Church conducts this type of liturgical prayer in case of special events or calamities. "Praying for peace is just as important as working for it," Bishop David said. A few days ago, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, addressed the South China Sea dispute in Manila, calling on the parties to "abide by international law" and resolve their disputes amicably. 10 July 2024 12:56 (UTC+04:00) Ulviyya Shahin Read more The recent approval by the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan to sign the "Agreement between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Kyrgyz Republic on the elimination of double taxation and the prevention of tax evasion about income taxes" marks a significant step towards bolstering economic ties between the two nations. Signed on April 24, 2024, in Baku, and now awaiting ratification by the Jogorku Kenesh (Parliament) of Kyrgyzstan, the agreement is poised to attract foreign direct investment into Kyrgyzstan's economy. Under the stewardship of the Ministry of Economy and Commerce, the agreement aims to eliminate double taxation for foreign companies, thereby creating an attractive environment for investment across various sectors of Kyrgyzstan's economy. By ensuring that income is taxed only once and fostering fair tax practices between the contracting states, the agreement also emphasizes the protection of residents from discriminatory taxation and aims to prevent tax evasion. Moreover, the agreement facilitates the exchange of information between authorities in both countries, fostering transparency and compliance with international tax standards. This unified framework seeks to harmonize tax legislation relations between Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan, to increase trade turnover and encourage Azerbaijani investments in Kyrgyzstan. Currently, with significant investments already made by both countries in each other's economies, the agreement is poised to further deepen economic cooperation and mutual benefits between Azerbaijan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Member of the economic policy, industry, and entrepreneurship committee of the Milli Majlis, Vuqar Bayramov said in this statement to Azernews that increasing trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan has become a top priority for both nations. "In 2022, bilateral trade amounted to $10.18 million, a figure that surged to $65 million in 2023, highlighting a substantial increase. This growth can be attributed to rising exports from both Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. Opportunities for further expanding trade are abundant, particularly with the anticipated benefits from the recently approved tax exemption agreement." According to him, the agreement aims to eliminate double taxation barriers, facilitating increased mutual investments and bolstering trade between the two countries. "This strategic move is expected to foster a conducive environment for economic cooperation and the creation of an investment fund between Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan will further enhance foreign economic relations." "Ultimately, these measures are anticipated to stimulate investment inflows, encourage the expansion of export-import activities, and contribute to mutual economic growth for both nations," the MP concluded. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 19:48 (UTC+04:00) Elnur Enveroglu Read more The process of peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia continues its next and almost final stage. Although the soft policy that Armenia has seen from Azerbaijan still continues, Pashinyan's administration clearly feels that there is no longer any means to circumvent several unfinished obligations. For this reason, since the last month, visits from the United States to Yerevan have started to become more frequent. USAID head Samantha Power's visit to Yerevan the other day showed more concern of the West. Because the appearance of the agency, especially in the South Caucasus, has always been associated with significant events for the West. It seems that the latest statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan did not go unnoticed here. Thus, the last olive branch extended by the Azerbaijani side to Armenia regarding the issue of peace forced Yerevan to knock on the door of its ally, and on the other hand, the sensitive situation in Georgia. Therefore, USAID took it upon itself to visit the South Caucasus. However, the head of USAID's visit cannot necessarily be connected only to Armenia. Because the factor of Georgia's non-admission to the European Union, as well as the upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia, has somehow started to cause strong irritation in the West. It is known to everyone that USAID is the most active and profitable representation of the USA in the South Caucasus who also focuses on regional issues within its interests. Here, Armenia is no exception, and the US State Department is directly interested in the dynamics of the processes taking place in the country. For example, the tripartite meeting of US State Department Secretary Antony Blinken with the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in parallel with the NATO summit shows that the US is interested in the processes. Armenia's dilemma in the peace process There are several behind-the-scenes reasons why Armenia is more oriented towards the United States. One of them is related to the unknown political processes taking place in France. The defeat of the Macronists to the left wing in the last parliamentary elections and the question of whether the government will stay or go in the next stage have confused Yerevan. Because official Paris, which talked about military support to Armenia a few months ago, is experiencing a desperate situation in terms of ensuring its own security. So, the promised military aid has not been moved out of storage yet, let alone hit the road to Yerevan. In such a case, Armenia's last hope is Washington, as it assumes that it will gain time through its mediation to delay the issue of changing the constitution, which is stuck in its throat like a bone. Can changes to the constitution lead Yerevan to the next crisis? The current situation in Yerevan and the position of the masses against the Pashinyan administration do not indicate any disaster for the incumbent government. However, in addition to the fact that the Armenian leadership has repeatedly emphasised the importance of changing the constitution, the fact that it is still unable to implement it shows that the situation is somewhat serious from the point of view of the possibility of increased pressure from outside the country. Thus, the fact that Pashinyan struggles to fulfil his commitment clearly shows that he fears the political elite and lobby organisations rather than the masses, which are mostly influenced by foreign forces. Because the existence of the preamble in the Armenian constitution also means that the neighbouring state's position regarding its territorial claim is unchanged. In addition to directly contradicting the peace process, this also acts as a threat to Baku. However, the opposition forces in Armenia consider it the opposite. According to their opinion, it is the existence of preamble in that constitution that keeps Yerevan standing. Recall that Pashinyan's statement on the change of the constitution in Parliament on July 5 was criticised. The opposition side claimed that removing the preamble, which Pashinyan says a must to change, will include the personal views and political agenda of Pashinyan's government rather than the will of the people. Therefore, the pressure of the opposition forces once again shows that Yerevan does not want to understand the essence of the peace talks. However, the processes are still ongoing... --- Elnur Enveroglu is AzerNews deputy editor-in-chief, follow him on @ElnurMammadli1 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 12:16 (UTC+04:00) Fatima Latifova Read more The delegation led by Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov paid a business visit to Uzbekistan, Azernews reports, citing the post shared by the minister on his official "X" account. "Looking forward to exploring new opportunities to enhance our collaboration in upcoming meetings with our colleagues from the friendly nation," the post reads. Starting our working visit to #Uzbekistan today. Looking forward to exploring new opportunities to enhance our collaboration in upcoming meetings with our colleagues from the friendly nation.#EconomyAz pic.twitter.com/GsShtrIqd7 Mikayil Jabbarov (@MikayilJabbarov) July 10, 2024 --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 14:15 (UTC+04:00) Nazrin Abdul Read more Azerbaijan holds significant strategic importance for China due to its key role in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TNIR), also known as the Middle Corridor, Azernews reports. This observation was made by Farhad Kasenov, the head of the "A+Analytics" Research Center in Kazakhstan, as he discussed the outcomes of the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Astana. Kasenov emphasized that China views Baku as a crucial partner. He explained that it is only natural for the Chinese leadership to support Azerbaijans bid for observer status within the SCO, with the potential for full membership in the future. He said: Given that China will assume the chairmanship of the SCO next year, the signing of the Joint Declaration on establishing a strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and China at this years summit is a very positive development. A series of initiatives are planned for both China and Azerbaijan, aimed at strengthening economic ties between the two nations. Kasenov described the SCO summit, held on July 3-4 in Astana, as highly productive: In recent years, the number of SCO member countries has grown significantly from 5 to 10, with the Republic of Belarus joining the organization. Several important documents were signed at the summit, including two key agreements that will have a substantial impact on global energy security. These agreements are the Development Strategy of the SCO until 2035 and the Development Strategy of SCO Energy Cooperation until 2030. Kasenov highlighted that these documents will shape the future direction of the SCO and influence international energy policies. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 11:16 (UTC+04:00) Fatima Latifova Read more Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Pakistan Khazar Farhadov met with Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister Planning and Development, Member National Assembly (Narowal) of this country, Azernews reports, citing the post shared by pakistani minister on his official "X" account. "We discussed areas of mutual cooperation, ideas to enhance level of economic partnership and preparations for forthcoming visit of President of Azerbaijan H.E Excellency Ilham Aliyev," minister added. Met with H.E Amb Khazar Farhadov of Azerbaijan. Pakistan and Azerbaijan enjoy strong bond of brotherly relations. We discussed areas of mutual cooperation, ideas to enhance level of economic partnership and preparations for forthcoming visit of President of Azerbaijan H.E pic.twitter.com/xPLQCT6VKI Ahsan Iqbal (@betterpakistan) July 9, 2024 --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 16:13 (UTC+04:00) Fatima Latifova Read more On July 9, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov met with Javier Colomina, NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, on the sidelines of the NATO Summit, Azernews reports. The meeting discussed various aspects of the Azerbaijan-NATO cooperation agenda, including security, defense, energy security, protection of critical infrastructure, education, and other topics, as well as regional and international security issues. The successful continuation of the 30-year partnership under the "Partnership for Peace" program, which defines Azerbaijan's cooperation with NATO, was noted with satisfaction. Ceyhun Bayramov informed about Azerbaijan's chairmanship of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, stating that this chairmanship is a clear example of Azerbaijan's efforts to tackle global challenges. Discussing the current security situation in the region in the post-conflict period, the minister highlighted the ongoing mine threat to civilians posed by Armenia and the country's rapid armament. Additionally, it was noted that Azerbaijan, as a key initiator of the peace process with Armenia, is interested in establishing peace and stability in the region. Despite significant progress on the peace agreement project, Armenia's ongoing claims against Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty in its Constitution were mentioned. The meeting also included an exchange of views on other issues of mutual interest. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 17:57 (UTC+04:00) Laman Ismayilova Read more Azerbaijani delegation has participated in the annual conference of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), held in the Portuguese city of Braga, Azernews reports. The country was represented at the conference by the Culture Ministry's delegation with the aim of creating propaganda mechanisms aimed at expanding the export opportunities of cultural and creative industries. Founded in 2004, the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) aims to promote cooperation with and among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. Themed "Bringing Youth to the Table for the Next Decade", the conference featured thematic sessions, sub-network meetings, a forum of city mayors, as well as various cultural events. More than 250 Creative Cities from around the world gathered to celebrate the Network's 20th anniversary, emphasising the significance of youth engagement in urban development. The conference participants discussed strategies to better integrate culture into sustainable urban development. The discussions culminated in the endorsement of the Braga Manifesto, advocating for culture to be recognised as a standalone goal in the post-2030 sustainable development framework. In his speech, Director-General for Culture of UNESCO Ernesto Ottone Ramirez noted that Creative Cities recognise culture's role as a driver and enabler of sustainable development. "Through the UCCN Braga Manifesto, the Creative Cities around the world came together to recognise cultures role as a driver and enabler of sustainable development. Today, they made a strong call for the integration of culture as a standalone goal in the post-2030 international development agenda. UNESCO invites its partners and intergovernmental organisations to join this common global vision," he said. The Braga Manifesto charts a course of action for Creative Cities, building on the momentum from the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development, where the MONDIACULT 2022 Declaration was unanimously adopted by 150 States. Aligning with the Declaration, the Braga Manifesto outlines commitments across six priority areas to be implemented locally: strengthening individual and collective cultural rights; addressing the digital transformation in the cultural and creative sector, notably Artificial Intelligence (AI); harnessing culture for climate action; tapping into the economic dimensions of culture; protecting cultural heritage in times of crisis; enhancing the synergies between culture and education. In future, UCCN focuses on expanding the global impact of Creative Cities through strengthened cooperation and advancing cultural agendas in line with the MONDIACULT 2022 Declaration and Sustainable Development Agenda, addressing contemporary challenges and opportunities worldwide. The event participants were given the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the activities of cultural institutions and other government agencies in a number of countries. The delegates held meetings with international experts in the field of CCI and industry representatives from a number of cities included in the network. The possibilities of implementing joint projects to promote the export of products and services were highlighted as well. At the same time, the meeting participants were informed about the development processes of the cities of Baku, Shaki, and Lankaran, which are part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Baku Back in the early 20th century, Azerbaijan went through its first oil boom, and architects from all over Western Europe were attracted to the city to design buildings for the expanding city. The result is a charming mix of architectural styles and genuinely beautiful buildings that line the city's traffic-choked streets. Baku's skyline has grown more cosmopolitan with the addition of modern skyscrapers such as the Heydar Aliyev Centre, the Carpet Museum, and the Flame Towers. The modern architecture here perfectly co-exist with impressive examples of Azerbaijan's past. The Old City, including the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and Maiden Tower, became the first location in Azerbaijan to be classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Shaki The inclusion of Shaki in the City of Crafts and Folk Art category of the network is not a coincidence. The city has long been illustrated as the centre of crafts and folk art in Azerbaijan, owing to the alluring handicrafts made by the local craftsmen. Since ancient times, Sheki has been famous for its sericulture and especially for kelagayi, a silk headscarf for women. In addition to silk weaving, here the dyeing of fabrics, the production of chisels, and embroidery developed. Lankaran If you visit Azerbaijan, the Land of Fire, you should definitely taste its tea. Lankaran is well-known throughout Azerbaijan for producing the best tea in the country. The subtropical climate of the region is ideal for its growth. The first tea plantations appeared here in 1896. In 1937, the first packs of Azerbaijani tea were released. In Soviet times, Azerbaijani tea was very popular. Lankaran is also famous for its rich and delicious cuisine. Lavangi, Lankaran kulcha, marji plov, white plov, pumpkin plov, and turshu kebab are the best examples of local cuisine. ---- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 17:27 (UTC+04:00) Ulviyya Shahin Read more During the business visit of the delegation led by Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov to Uzbekistan, a meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Investment Company was convened, Azernews reports, citing the ministry. The event underscored the ongoing development of economic relations between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. The importance of successful joint projects and mutual investments was highlighted, with emphasis placed on the role of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Investment Company, which boasts a total capital of 500 million US dollars, in fostering enhanced cooperation and trade relations between the two countries' business communities. Discussions at the meeting also focused on opportunities to increase strategic investments and strengthen bilateral relations. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 17:12 (UTC+04:00) Ulviyya Shahin Read more Rector of INHA University in the Republic of Korea, Cho Myeong Woo along with the faculty, visited and toured the advanced laboratories at Baku Engineering University (BEU) that are designed to meet modern standards, Azernews reports. The guests received comprehensive information about the operational principles of various laboratories including Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electronics, and others. They were briefed on the facilities available for extensive research activities. It was highlighted that students utilize these laboratories to reinforce their knowledge through practical lessons, conduct high-quality research, and gain hands-on experience in real-world production processes, management, and regulatory protocols. The administration of INHA University expressed satisfaction with the well-equipped laboratories at BEU, which facilitate scientific research and innovative initiatives. They positively acknowledged BMU's efforts in promoting research-oriented development and fostering highly skilled professionals through a blend of theoretical learning and practical training. During the meeting, discussions centered on potential cooperation opportunities with INHA University, renowned for its extensive scientific and research capabilities in Korea. Since 2020, BEU and INHA have jointly conducted an international double diploma program in fields such as Civil Engineering, Information Technology, Electrical Engineering, and Electronics Engineering. Currently, 385 students are enrolled in the program, with 61 students graduating for the first time this year. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 21:10 (UTC+04:00) Jeyhun Bayramov, Azerbaijan`s Foreign Minister, met with Hadja Lahbib, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Affairs and Foreign Trade, and the Federal Cultural Institutions of Belgium on the sidelines of the NATO Summit. The meeting saw discussions on the prospects for the bilateral and multilateral cooperation agenda and the current post-conflict regional situation. They noted that the reciprocal visits between the two countries and contacts during international events have made an essential contribution to enhancing cooperation. Minister Bayramov emphasized that Azerbaijan's hosting of COP29 this year has opened up new avenues for cooperation in combating climate change. During the conversation, the two also explored the opportunities for cooperation within the regional and international organizations, including the relations with the European Union (EU). Discussing the current regional situation, Minister Bayramov addressed the normalization and peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the extensive mine threat. Bayramov underlined that Armenia's militarization policy poses a threat to the peace agenda. Briefing the negotiations on the peace treaty, the minister underscored that despite the considerable progress on the text of the peace agreement, the territorial claims against Azerbaijan in the Constitution of Armenia hinder the achievement of lasting peace. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 21:18 (UTC+04:00) At a tripartite meeting, the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expressed his satisfaction with the meeting involving Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia. Blinken said the two countries were working on an agreement "that is durable, one that is dignified and one that can open extraordinary possibilities for both countries, the region that they share and for their relationship with the United States." Antony Blinken emphasized that the United States supported this process along with the European Union and other partners. He noted that today's meeting is an opportunity to reconsider the progress made. "Based on all the engagements that we've had, including in recent weeks, I believe that both countries are very close to being able to reach a final agreement, one that the United States would strongly, strongly support," he said. America's top diplomat told the ministers that he wanted to see "what more the United States can do to be helpful in helping you reach an agreement." --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 10:00 (UTC+04:00) Fatima Latifova Read more The price of a barrel of Azerbaijani oil of the "Azeri Light" brand in the world market has decreased by $1.40, or 1.55%, to $88.89, Azernews reports. According to auction results, the price of August futures for "Brent" oil amounted to $84.41. In Azerbaijan's state budget for this year, the average price of a barrel of oil is calculated at $75. It should be noted that the lowest price of "Azeri Light" oil was recorded on April 21, 2020, at $15.81, and the highest price was recorded in July 2008 at $149.66. In Azerbaijan, oil is mainly produced within the framework of the contract for the development of the "Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli" (ACG) fields block. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has a 25% share in the contract. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 10:38 (UTC+04:00) Fatima Latifova Read more The Absheron gas and condensate field produced more than 1.5 bcm of gas and approximately 580 thousand tons of condensate during a year for the early production scheme (EPS) phase, Azernews reports, citing the post shared by Azerbaijan's Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov on his official "X" account. The #Absheron gas and condensate field produced more than 1.5 bcm of #gas and approximately 580 thousand tons of #condensate during a year for the early production scheme (EPS) phase. The plans of developing the Absheron field in stages and increasing the annual production from pic.twitter.com/bVKh83IWSm Parviz Shahbazov (@ParvizShahbazov) July 10, 2024 Minister added that the plans of developing the Absheron field in stages and increasing the annual production from 1.5 bcm to 6 bcm are significant contributions to the energy security of our country, as well as of our regional and European partners. It should be noted that the "Absheron" field was discovered by Azerbaijani geologists in the 1960s. The gas volume at the field is reported to be 350 billion cubic meters. A contract was signed in 2009 between the French company "Total" and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) regarding the "Absheron" field. On August 4, 2023, an agreement was signed with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) to acquire a 30% stake in the "Absheron" gas-condensate field. After the acquisition is completed, the participation shares of SOCAR and "TotalEnergies" will each amount to 35%. The first oil from the "Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli" field block, located approximately 100 km off the coast of Azerbaijan, was produced in 1997. The first production sharing agreement for the development of the field block was signed on September 20, 1994. On September 14, 2017, a new agreement was signed for the joint exploitation and production sharing of these fields, which is intended to continue until the end of 2049. The agreement on the exploration, development, and production sharing of the "Shah Deniz" prospective area was signed on June 4, 1996. The production sharing agreement (PSA) for "Shah Deniz" was ratified on October 17, 1996. The field, located 70 km southeast of Baku, was discovered in 1999. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 22:26 (UTC+04:00) Ulviyya Shahin Read more In January-June of this year, gasoline and diesel fuel totaling 1 billion 557.8 million manats were sold to consumers in Azerbaijan's retail trade network, Azernews reports. Access to paid information is limited Find the plan that suits you best. 10 July 2024 12:42 (UTC+04:00) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an important partner in our peacekeeping mission, says Hungarian Prime Minister Voktor Orban in a post he shared on X, Azernews reports. Attending the NATO Summit held in Washington, Orban stressed that Turkiye is the only country that has successfully acted as a mediator between the warring parties in the Russian-Ukrainian war. President @RTErdogan is an important partner in our peace mission! #Turkiye is the only country that successfully mediated between the warring parties in the Russia-Ukraine war. pic.twitter.com/w1prpGTGjb Orban Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) July 10, 2024 Note that today the leaders of NATO countries have gathered in Washington, the capital of the USA, to discuss the Ukraine crisis, which is the main goal of the peace mission. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 10 July 2024 18:41 (UTC+04:00) By Alimat Aliyeva The Republic of Korea has concluded a deal with Romania to sell a large batch of weapons worth about 1.3 trillion won ($939 million), Azernews reports. According to the signed document, the South Korean defense giant Hanwha Aerospace will export weapons and ammunition to Romania. In particular, the Romanian side will receive 54 K-9 self-propelled howitzers and 36 armored vehicles for the transportation of ammunition. According to Yonhap, this is the largest arms purchase deal by Romania in the last seven years. Seoul also expects that Romania will continue to cooperate with the Republic of Korea in the field of arms procurement and in the future will show interest in the Redback BMP and the K-2 tank. South Korea has already supplied self-propelled howitzers to several countries, including Australia, Egypt, India, Norway, Poland, Turkiye, Finland and Estonia. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz S. Oregon Coast's Coos Bay Gets Heritage All-Star Status for Historical Aspects - but More Beneath Surface Published 7/07/24 at 4:55 p.m. By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection (Coos Bay, Oregon) More opportunities to time travel in one little south Oregon coast town and more official recognition for it. (Photo Seaside Aquarium: wreck of the Olson that appeared in 2007 and rarely seen since) The Oregon Heritage Commission has just handed the prestigious title of Oregon Heritage All-Star Community to Coos Bay. It's an official designation that signifies the citys outstanding commitment to preserving and celebrating its local heritage, and opens the way for more funds towards that. Yet there's more to its history quite literally lurking in layers beneath the area. To achieve All-Star status, communities must meet at least 15 out of 24 specific criteria related to heritage. These criteria encompass a wide range of efforts, including heritage tourism initiatives, historic preservation programs, photo and document archives, museums, historic cemeteries, and vibrant downtown areas steeped in history. On July 23, 2024, during the Coos Bay City Council work session at 6:00 p.m., a representative from the Oregon Heritage Commission will formally acknowledge this prestigious designation. Coos Bay has a long and broad history, said Katie Henry coordinator for the Oregon Heritage Commission. The efforts of the city, tribes, museums, businesses, and community members in preserving and sharing local history contributes to the economy and livability of Coos Bay. To maintain its Heritage All-Star status, Coos Bay must continue to meet the established criteria. Technical assistance will be provided to support the city in sustaining and expanding its heritage offerings and facilities. Coos Bay joins an esteemed group of seven other All-Star communities, including Albany, Astoria, Bend, Cottage Grove, Oregon City, Roseburg, and Salem. Mayor Benetti stated This designation is a testament to the dedication and hard work of our community in preserving Coos Bays rich heritage, we are honored to receive this recognition and are committed to continuing our efforts in celebrating and safeguarding our history for future generations. House in Coos Bay where runner Steve Prefontaine grew up The town's historical aspects may not be a major tourism draw all by itself, but little segments add up. According to Oregon's Adventure Coast executive director Janice Langlinais, there's a lot of little pieces here that are fascinating. We are excited to have been a part of helping Coos Bay acquire this notable status, the said. As residents and visitors to our area can attest, Coos Bay offers so many cultural experiences - from a walk along the Boardwalk where a vintage tugboat is on display, to the Coos History and Marshfield Sun Printing Museums showcasing how our ancestors lived and worked, to a reverent walk through the Marshfield Pioneer Cemetery, Coos Bay's Heritage is always on display. We invite everyone to experience our culture and heritage on their next visit to Oregon's Adventure Coast: Coos Bay, North Bend, Charleston! Yet in some ways, parts of Coos Bay's history are right in your face and they provide some of the main attractions but you just don't know it. Photo courtesy Manuela Durson - see Manuela Durson Fine Arts Case in point: the Cape Arago Lighthouse just offshore is one of only two on the Oregon coast you can't walk up to, and its history goes back well over 100 years with some twists and turns. Tales of the End of a South Oregon Coast Lighthouse: Chief's Island and Arago Light Photo courtesy Brent Lerwill At Sunset Bay, there are ghost forests lying hidden in the low tides that date back to the first Viking invasions of England (rather young for ghost forests). [The Unheralded Ghost Forests of South Oregon Coast / Coos Bay in Photos] On its northern sands are two mysterious shipwrecks that sometimes appear but mostly stay hidden beneath the sands. The Sujameco is like the south coast's version of the Peter Iredale, popping up in almost full form during some low sand event periods. [Slow But Epic Oregon Coast Drama, Coos Bay's Sujameco Wreck Still Visible] Then there's the George L Olson that wrecked here in the '30s but everyone forgot about until it re-emerged in 2008 briefly. It's rarely been seen since. Coos Bay's Mystery Shipwreck of 2008, Forgotten S. Oregon Coast History The Oregon Heritage Commission consists of nine members appointed by the governor and nine agency advisors. Members are chosen from state agencies and statewide organizations, and represent a diverse geographical and heritage background. Assistance is available for communities seeking to acquire Heritage All-Star Community status. Oregon Heritage of Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, which houses the Oregon Heritage Commission, offers technical support, workshops, grants and other resources for all heritage projects in the state. To learn more, visit www.oregonheritage.org or contact Kuri Gill at Kuri.Gill@oprd.oregon.govc or 503-986-0685. Oregon Coast Hotels for this event - South Coast Hotels - Oregon Coast Vacation Rentals - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours MORE PHOTOS BELOW More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast. LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on Oregon Coast Beach Connection All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright Oregon Coast Beach Connection. Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted Oregon Coast Experts: Take Advantage of Minus Tides This Week Before Seaside's Razor Clam Closure Published 7/05/24 at 7:05 p.m. By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection (Seaside, Oregon) An outstanding set of low tides are running right now along the north Oregon coast's most clam-rich area, and wildlife experts are urging the public to take advantage of this before the yearly razor clamming conservation closure starts in the middle of this month. Clatsop beach essentially Seaside through Warrenton contain more than 90 percent of the state's population of the tasty shellfish morsel. However, that annual conservation closure begins at 12:01 a.m. July 15, according to Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). Since 1967, Clatsop beaches close each year July 15-Sept. 30 for conservation, ODFW said. This lets young clams settle on the beaches to provide future harvest opportunities. According to tide tables, you're looking at -1 foot to -6 inches tides, with some this weekend even lower than that. They happen around 8 a.m. and then get later everyday through July 10. Visitors to the north Oregon coast are encouraged to take advantage of these low tides to get in that last-minute seafood hookup. As of July 5, razor clamming is open from the Washington border to Yachats and from Coos Bay north jetty to the California border. However, it is closed from Yachats to Coos Bay north jetty due to elevated biotoxin levels. Biotoxin levels can change rapidly. Remember to always call Oregon Department of Agriculture's (ODA) shellfish biotoxin safety hotline at (800) 448-2474, the Food Safety Shellfish Desk at (503) 986-4726, or check the ODA recreational shellfish biotoxin closures webpage before clamming or crabbing. Seaside Aquarium More areas for bay clamming on the south Oregon coast just opened up after biotoxins closed it statewide in May. Now areas like Port Orford, Gold Beach and Bandon are again available for snagging the little shellfish. Know before you go: - Call the Shellfish Safety Hotline at 800-448-2474 before heading out to harvest shellfish. - You must have a shellfishing license. - Daily limit: first 15 clams dug, regardless of size or condition. - Each digger must have their own container, dig their own clams, and can only have one limit in possession while in the clam digging area (see exception under an Oregon Disabilities Hunting and Fishing Permit.) Clam diggers can check Clatsop tide charts and go to ODFWs clamming page for more information on razor clamming. View ODFWs video on how to razor clam. Contact ODFW for recreational license requirements, permits, rules, and limits. MORE PHOTOS BELOW Oregon Coast Hotels for this - South Coast Hotels - Oregon Coast Vacation Rentals - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours MORE PHOTOS BELOW Photos Seaside Aquarium More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast. LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on Oregon Coast Beach Connection All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright Oregon Coast Beach Connection. Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted As shortages among the anesthesia workforce continue to loom, two universities recently launched new training programs to combat a potential shortfall of CRNAs: 1. The University of Illinois Chicago plans to launch a nurse anesthesia program with the help of a $10 million donation. The new program is expected to begin its accreditation process in June. Jobs in the anesthesia field are projected to grow 18% in the next decade. Among Illinois' 102 counties, 31 lack registered anesthesia providers, according to research from UIC. 2. Meridian-based Idaho State University School of Nursing will begin offering the first nurse anesthesia degree program in Idaho. The first cohort will begin in the fall of 2025 at ISU's Meridian campus. The program could help to address workforce shortages in the state, as a majority of students stay in the state where they train to practice medicine. Oklahoma City-based law firm Federman & Sherwood has initiated an investigation into a November data breach that impacted employees and patients of Mount Kisco (N.Y.) Surgery Center. On Nov. 3, the ASC detected unusual activity in an employee's email account and determined May 30 that impacted information included patient names, Social Security numbers, drivers license or state identification numbers, dates of birth, medical information, including diagnosis information, treatment information, and prescription information, and health insurance information, including claim information and health insurance ID numbers and financial account information, according to a July 10 press release. The data breach impacted an estimated 22,139 patients, according to a July 5 report from the HIPPA Journal. A Texas hospital has returned to paper records after failing to secure a new EHR contract, D Magazine reported. Dallas-based White Rock Medical Center has been dealing with financial challenges in recent months, laying off more than a third of its staff and temporarily stopping the receipt of patients by ambulance. The hospital has also lacked supplies and been unable to pay certain vendors, according to the July 9 article. "Our IT leader was able to build out a simple record for the emergency department," Courtney Golden, leader of infection prevention and employee health at White Rock, told the publication. "However, the floor has 100% paper charting." The switch to paper has been a challenge to younger employees who have always used EHRs and has required "faxing copious information between facilities or floors," according to the story. Pipeline Health sold the hospital to Heights Healthcare of Texas in October, and the two sides have since been embroiled in litigation. Becker's reached out to White Rock Medical Center for comment. The board of managers for the University Medical Center of El Paso (Texas) has approved plans to ask county commissioners for their approval of a $396.6 million bond to go on the Nov. 5 ballot. Should the bond be approved, the taxpayer monthly impact would be a weighted average of $5.54 across 30 years of the bond, according to a presentation from the UMC of El Paso board of managers shared with Becker's. The presentation also shared how the El Paso area is experiencing care gaps including in-town cancer care, specialty care access, insufficient acute bed capacity and inpatient psychiatric bed capacity, lack of senior-focused clinics, and extended outpatient diagnostics and imaging wait times. To address these gaps, the hospital suggested improvements to its campus, including new cardiac catheterization, new surgical suites, a 25-bed expanded observation unit and enhanced imaging technology, parking and laboratory services. The county commissioners will vote Aug. 12 on the proposed ballot initiative, a UMC of El Paso spokesperson told Becker's July 10. While burnout among physicians fell overall last year, several specialties still reported rates above 50%, according to findings released July 9 from the American Medical Association's national physician comparison report. The report reflects data collected in 2023 from more than 12,400 physicians across 31 states. Respondents answered survey questions related to job satisfaction, job stress, burnout, intent to leave an organization, feeling valued by an organization and total hours spent per week on job-related activities. Last year, 48.2% of physicians reported experiencing one or more symptoms of burnout, down from 53% the year prior, according to the report. The highest percentages of burnout occurred in six specialties, per the report. Their 2023 and 2022 burnout percentages are: Emergency medicine 2023: 56.5% 2022: 62% Internal medicine 2023: 51.4% 2022: 52% Obstetrics and gynecology 2023: 51.2% 2022: 54% Family medicine 2023: 51% 2022: 58%. Pediatrics 2023: 46.9% 2022: 55% Hospital medicine 2023: 44% 2022: 59% For more about the report and how Texas Children's Pediatrics has addressed physician burnout, click here. OhioHealth, based in Columbus, signed an agreement to sell certain assets of its outreach laboratory services business to Quest Diagnostics. The parties expect the transaction to close in the third quarter of the year, pending regulatory approval. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. OhioHealth will transition its outreach testing to Quest Diagnostics' full service laboratory in Pittsburgh when the deal closes. OhioHealth will continue to own and operate its hospital labsand services for inpatient and hospital-based outpatient care, and anatomic pathology and oncology. "As healthcare transforms, we need to ensure we can continue to provide high-quality care to our patients that also provides them value," said Chris Clinton, president of OhioHealth's regional market and former vice president of shared services, in a news release. Last month, Minneapolis-based Allina Health also signed an agreement to sell some lab assets to Quest. From a Montana physician pleading guilty to participating in a $39 million scheme to the Justice Department filing charges against nearly 200 people for $2.8 billion in fraud schemes, here are 10 healthcare billing fraud cases Becker's has reported since June 20: 1. A physician with a St. Louis office and two employees have been accused of illegally prescribing controlled substances and healthcare fraud. 2. An Illinois physician pleaded guilty to billing Medicaid and private insurers for nonexistent services. 3. A podiatrist in Memphis, Tenn., was sentenced to four years in prison for a scheme to defraud Medicare and the state's Medicaid program out of nearly $4 million in foot bath medication reimbursements. 4. The Justice Department filed criminal charges against 193 defendants for their alleged participation in healthcare fraud schemes that involved around $2.75 billion in intended losses and $1.6 billion in actual losses. 5. Home health company VNS Health agreed to pay nearly $1 million to settle allegations that it fraudulently billed Medicaid for Assertive Community Treatment Services that it failed to provide or document. 6. A Whitefish, Mont., physician pleaded guilty to participating in a $39 million Medicare fraud scheme. 7. Two former owners of New York pharmacies who pleaded guilty to an $18 million healthcare fraud scheme were sentenced to 14 collective years in prison. 8. The former owner of a hospice care company was sentenced to 72 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $3.6 million in restitution for her role in a healthcare fraud scheme. 9. Houston-based Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, Baylor College of Medicine and Surgical Associates of Texas jointly agreed to pay $15 million to resolve claims they billed for concurrent heart surgeries that violated CMS teaching physician and informed consent regulations. 10. A Chicago-based healthcare company and its former owners agreed to pay $2 million to settle allegations that it submitted false claims to Medicare and Medicaid. The Financial Ombudsman is creating 44 new financial investigator jobs in Northern Ireland as it expands its services here. The free service makes thousands of decisions a year to settle disputes between consumers and financial businesses. It has three other regional hubs in Edinburgh, Manchester and Cardiff but said its now expanding into Northern Ireland to meet the needs of customers. Investigators are required to make decisions on topics such as banking and insurance. The Ombudsman said: The business is looking for candidates who are level-headed, curious and detail-focused and who want to play a key role in shaping fair financial outcomes for consumers and businesses across Northern Ireland. Prospective candidates are given a place in an 18-week training academy, including a week of residential training in London. There is a hybrid work pattern, with travel to a new office hub required every eight weeks. Abby Thomas, chief executive and chief ombudsman at the Financial Ombudsman Service, said: I am delighted were launching our recruitment campaign and opening a new hub in Northern Ireland, meaning we now have hubs in all four devolved nations. This will enable us to better reflect the needs of consumers and businesses. These are incredibly important roles when consumers ask us for help its often at very difficult times in their lives so its crucial, we have a first-rate team in place to investigate their complaints. Whilst case levels are rising, we have ambitious plans to resolve complaints faster and create a future fit workforce that can adapt and respond to the needs of our customers. Were looking forward to helping people take the next step in their career and become part of a team that is making a difference to the lives of people in Northern Ireland. The Ombudsman describes itself as an innovative, flexible employer offering benefits such as a generous pension, private medical insurance and opportunities for personal and career development. Lena Dunham said she decided not star in her project Too Much, after suffering body shaming while making Girls (Ian West/PA) Lena Dunham has revealed body shaming while making Girls stopped her from starring in her new Netflix series Too Much. The 38-year-old actor, who has written the upcoming series, told The New Yorker she was just not up for having my body dissected again, and added she would also not be performing in any of her other forthcoming projects. Too Much is planned to be released in 2025, and follows an American woman in her 30s, who relocates to London and falls in love with a British musician. Lena Dunham wrote and starred in the hit HBO series Girls (Ian West/PA) The series mirrors Dunhams life, as the New York native now lives in London with her husband, British Peruvian musician Luis Felber, after they married in 2021. Initially, the actor said she planned to play the main role herself, but eventually decided to cast Megan Stalter in the role. She said: I used to think that winning meant you just keep doing it and you dont care what anybody thinks. I forgot that winning is actually just protecting yourself and doing what you need to do to keep making work. What makes me feel powerful is making my work. Its the only thing I want to do. Dunham said she was inspired by Stalter while working with her, describing the actor as a little Meryl Streep. She added: I was very inspired by her, shes unbelievable. I think people are going to be so blown away. I also think that I was not willing to have another experience like what Id experienced around Girls at this point in my life. Physically, I was just not up for having my body dissected again. It was a hard choice, not to cast Meg, because I knew I wanted Meg, but to admit that to myself. Dunham wrote and starred in the hit HBO series Girls, which ran for six seasons from 2012 and made stars out of the cast, including Dunham, Adam Driver and Allison Williams. The show was controversial for its frank depiction of sex and Dunham frequently appeared nude or partially clothed in the show. She said staying off social media had helped to improve her happiness. The actor said: These places dont protect women and minorities, I just realised that there was no way that I was going to move toward the ways I wanted to feel in my personal life if I still had access to those things. She also confirmed to the US publication she would not be producing the Polly Pocket film, despite saying she had worked on the script for three years. Dunham said of the movie: I felt like, unless I can do it that way Im not going to do it. I dont think I have that in me. I feel like the next movie I make needs to feel like a movie that I absolutely have to make. No one but me could make it, and I did think other people could make Polly Pocket. Loose Women presenter Nadia Sawalha and artist Sophie Tea join campaigners in Westminster, central London, who have painted their breasts with messages calling for the breast cancer drug Enhertu to be made available on the NHS (Lucy North/PA) Loose Women presenter Nadia Sawalha has stripped off for a campaign demanding a breast cancer drug be made available on the NHS in England and Wales. On Wednesday, a group of 31 women with painted chests, all of whom have been touched by breast cancer, appeared outside Westminster in a bid to be heard by the new Labour Government over the use of Enhertu for women with a subtype of incurable breast cancer called HER2-low. The drug, which is available in Scotland, is a treatment for several types of cancer and is already available on the NHS for certain patients with HER2-positive secondary breast cancer. Loose Women presenter Nadia Sawalha joins campaigners in Westminster, central London, who have painted their breasts with messages calling for the breast cancer drug Enhertu to be made available on the NHS in England and Wales (Lucy North/PA) Sawalha, 59, said: We are here to be heard. If this is what it takes to turn heads back in our direction and put Enhertu back on the agenda, so be it. We have been ignored for too long. In May, the All-Party Parliamentary Group On Breast Cancer (APPGBC) held a roundtable event focusing on Enhertu but campaigners say they have been ignored since then. Hannah Gardner, who has incurable breast cancer, said: We feel ignored. Its been over two months since patients met with Nice (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), NHS England, Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca at an APPG in Parliament and were promised the key players would get back around the table to thrash out a deal. But it hasnt come. Nothing has changed and the treatment remains out of reach for the 1,000 women a year its thought it would benefit. According to the charity Breast Cancer Now, trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu) is already recommended for use within the Cancer Drugs Fund for certain patients with HER2-positive secondary breast cancer, but it is now the first treatment licensed for HER2-low secondary breast cancer. Garret Kavanagh, director of Openreach Northern Ireland, and Eoin Brannigan, editor-in-chief of Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Life, launching the Belfast Telegraph Property Awards (Picture: Aodhan Roberts/Belfast Telegraph) Entries are open for the Belfast Telegraph Property Awards which are being sponsored by broadband network provider Openreach for the second year in a row. The awards ceremony, the most eagerly awaited date of the year for the property industry, will take place at lunchtime on October 25 in Belfasts Crowne Plaza Hotel. There are 19 categories in total, including Property Personality of the Year, a non-entry category with the winner selected by the judges. The panel of industry experts is led by Dr Sharon McClements, a senior lecturer in built environment at Ulster University. Entries close at 12pm on September 13. This year, the new category of Regeneration Project of the Year is open to a project of any size involving the redevelopment, repurposing or retrofitting of an existing building that delivers social, economic and environmental change. Garret Kavanagh, director of Openreach in NI, said: Openreach is delighted to once again partner with the Belfast Telegraph as headline sponsor of the Property Awards for 2024. The awards are a unique opportunity for those in the property industry to come together and celebrate their achievements across the year. With 18 different categories to enter, it really is a fantastic showcase of what the best companies here have to offer. And those recognised on the night can be rightfully proud. At Openreach we build and maintain the largest broadband network in NI and we are proud of the huge part we play in making NI the most digitally connected region in the UK. Our rapid build of Ultrafast full fibre broadband means that currently more than 87% of premises here can access the ultimate future-proofed broadband network, with plans announced to take that to 97% over the next few years. Im especially delighted that the award categories showcase companies, like ourselves, who strive to deliver for their customers in an inclusive and sustainable way. Eoin Brannigan, editor-in-chief of the Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Life, said: We are delighted to announce the date of the 2024 Belfast Telegraph Property Awards, which for the second year in a row will be sponsored by Openreach. Id like to thank them and in particular Garret Kavanagh of Openreach for their continued support. Were excited to add a new category this year, Regeneration Project of the Year, which will highlight the property worlds contribution to sustainability. For more information on the Belfast Telegraph Property Awards or for sponsorship opportunities, contact Karen McGarvey at karen.mcgarvey@mediahuis.co.uk. Enter by clicking on the relevant link below. Property Awards Categories and sponsors: Title sponsor: Openreach Architectural Practice, Commercial: Mills Selig Enter here Architectural Practice, Residential: Mills Selig Enter here Commercial Fit-Out: WH Stephens Enter here Residential Estate Agency (Sole): TLT Enter here Residential Estate Agency (Multi): TLT Enter here Commercial Estate Agency: A&L Goodbody Enter here Commercial Development: Carson McDowell Enter here Property Deal of the Year: Wilson Nesbitt Enter here Best Property Management Company:Tenancy Deposit Sceme NI Enter here Residential Lettings Agency: Millar McCall Wylie Enter here Residential Development of the Year: Progressive Building Society Enter here Developer of the Year: MKB Law Enter here Mixed-use Development of the Year: Todd Architects Enter here Best Property Marketing of the Year: Brian Barrett Enter here Young Agent: Shoosmiths Enter here Regeneration Project of the Year: TSA Planning Enter here Young Architect: RTU Enter here Climate Initiative of the Year: Like Architects Enter here Property Legal Team of the Year: Radius Housing Enter here Young Property Professional of the Year: e.surv Enter here Wine sponsor: Tughans The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party has said the placing of a police car on top of bonfire in Co Tyrone is absolutely disgraceful. On Tuesday evening, images emerged of a 1.3 tonne silver Vauxhall Vectra decorated in police livery on top of the pyre in Moygashel. The bonfire, sitting around 150 pallets high, has been widely condemned for its toppers in recent years. In a comment shared on social media, Doug Beattie said: This is absolutely disgraceful. Those responsible undermine their own cries for cultural respect. Truly pathetic. Watch: Police car on top of Northern Ireland bonfire But loyalist activist Jamie Bryson, who addressed a crowd at the bonfire in 2023, said: I think this is a bit of edgy artistic expression, a bit like, for example, Kneecap. If that type of expression is welcome from the nationalist community, then I see no reason why similar unionist efforts would not draw similar applause unless of course there are double standards. When asked about his appearance at the controversial pyre last year, Mr Bryson said: I was delighted to be guest speaker at Moygashel last year, when they displayed a very topical message about the Belfast Agreement. That message is as relevant today as it was then. I do find it more than mildly amusing that theyve managed to place a full-sized police car on top of a bonfire, having first appropriated the wheels. "Id imagine their artistic message this year also seeks to emphasise a two-tier policing message. Speaking in March 2024, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher strongly rejected suggestions that there is two-tier policing in the PSNI. A police car on top of the Moygashel Bonfire An Irish tricolour and a poster of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar were placed on top of the loyalist bonfire in 2023. The large pyre in Moygashel also attracted major attention after a boat was mysteriously placed on it bearing a banner reading "Good Friday Agreement? That ship has sailed". A mock copy of the 1998 peace deal with the words "null and void" printed over was also added. A crowd of around 400 people gathered to watch the bonfire which was condemned widely by politicians. Speaking after the bonfire in 2023, a spokesman said: Our culture is under attack on a daily basis, and if not resisted with everything in our power, our Britishness will become unrecognisable. Our cultural celebrations that we have grown to enjoy with our families will be demonised to the point of extinction. The bonfire boat and our efforts are to highlight our strong opposition to the Irish Sea border. We believe that the implementation of the Union-dismantling protocol aligns our economy with the South and is a process of transition towards a united Ireland. Loyalist anger is at breaking point and we hope to see a peaceful [resolution] to the situation before it is too late. We fear time is running out. China's visa-free policy fuels surge in international visitors People's Daily Online) 13:57, July 10, 2024 The "China Travel" hashtag has emerged as a potent tool for online influencers seeking international attention, while Chinese tourist attractions are experiencing a significant increase in foreign visitors, according to recent data and trends. Data from online travel agency Ctrip shows that China's 72/144-hour visa-free transit policy has driven inbound tourism growth. In the second quarter of this year, travel orders from tourists from 54 countries covered by the visa-free transit policy increased by nearly 30 percent compared to the previous quarter. Chinese cities like Changsha, Harbin, and Guilin have a 72-hour visa-free transit policy, while Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Guangzhou have a 144-hour visa-free transit policy. Nearly 15 million foreign nationals entered China through various ports in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 152.7 percent, according to the National Immigration Administration (NIA). Of these, over 8.5 million entries were made under the visa-free policy, accounting for 52 percent and representing a year-on-year increase of 190.1 percent. International tourists go sightseeing at Binjiang Avenue, the Bund, Shanghai, on June 2, 2024. (China News Service/Yin Liqin) Many international tourists are no longer satisfied with traditional sightseeing and are seeking more diverse and unique experiences when visiting China. Shanghai, aiming to be the top choice for inbound tourism in China, has introduced 10 tour routes showcasing the city's distinctive tourism offerings. One route allows international visitors to accompany Chinese chefs to local vegetable markets, providing a glimpse into the everyday life of Shanghai's residents. Ctrip data shows that inbound tourism orders increased by 42 percent in 23 Chinese cities in the second quarter of this year compared to the previous quarter. Ge Lei, an expert from the China Tourism Association, emphasized the importance of building an attractive image of China that appeals to global tourists. He also highlighted the need for a comprehensive and foreigner-friendly public service system that provides convenience in areas like visa application, transportation, payment, internet access, and language support. (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) A base jumper who made history by completing the first jump from a bonfire has said he never would have made the leap if he hadnt been content it was safe. A video of Armagh man and professional base jumper Stephen Maginnis went viral after he parachuted off the Craigyhill bonfire in Larne on Monday evening. The video, shared widely on social media, shows Stephen jumping off the more than 200ft pyre before quickly opening a parachute and gliding to the ground while people gathered around the bonfire look on. This years structure, some 363 pallets high with a 35ft beacon perched on top, was completed on Sunday. Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Stephen also known as Sexy Drummer Bai said he had been planning a jump like that for around five years. Ive been base jumping for 11 years, and 13 years skydiving, so Ive a lot of experience of being around the world; in the Alps a lot, up in the mountains a lot, he said. Every jump you take differently and I like to do stuff thats never been done before. Stephen can hike for five hours for what he described as the rawest form of human flight which lasts just a couple of minutes. He said intense planning goes into base jumps of static objects, and as massive bonfires are unique to Northern Ireland, he was keen to do be first. I was blown away by the Craigyhill build, its so neat, its a work of art that one, he said. I went up to assess it and if I wasnt happy Id have come down again. I packed my parachute to get it flying quicker than normal and it worked perfectly. I had my landing areas planned out, I expected to get about three seconds under the canopy but thankfully the way the ground was falling away from me I got more time under it. Stephen said its like this will be a one and done scenario as he has ticked a bonfire jump off the bucket list. He thanked Craigyhill bonfire organisers for letting him make the record jump in aid of charity, raising funds for Skye Carson and Scarlett Rossborough. Scarlett, aged nine, was out on a day trip to see Carrickfergus Castle when she was tragically knocked down by a car. Her family have been raising funds on her behalf to the childrens hospice a place that is close to the familys hearts. Meanwhile, 15-months-old Skye has been diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer which has now spread to her spine. Its understood she starts chemotherapy on the Twelfth week for 18 months. There have been concerns and fears expressed about the size of the bonfire and the potential for someone to get hurt. But yesterday, bonfire organisers said the stunt was carried out by a professional, not some eejit (idiot) with a parachute, they posted on Facebook. He does this for a living plus he has a pilots licence as well. This professional had prepped for this days before. Larne bonfire as it neared completion (Photo by Kevin Scott) On Monday, Sinn Fein councillor James McKeown said there were questions for the organisers over safety at the site. There are grave concerns at the actual safety of that bonfire and the height it is. It is close to properties and certainly is something that the council should be taking another look at, he said. Certain standards have to be met; there are questions over what funding they are getting for it, or how much it is actually costing and how much it is costing the ratepayer. Its all well and good having a bonfire, but there is a big clear-up afterwards that is usually left to the council. There are questions to be asked about it, but hopefully it goes off safely. Despite the obvious risks that could be associated with thousands of people celebrating close to a 200ft bonfire as well as dangers during the pyres construction the builders have always insisted that they prioritise safety. In April, hundreds of mattresses were delivered to the site at Craigyhill, with organisers saying they were to be placed around the base of the structure for safety reasons. As part of efforts to promote safer bonfire building, Craigyhill have acquired a number of precautions to aid our ongoing pre-planned safety strategies, posted organisers on the Craigyhill Bonfire and Cultural Facebook page. The fundraiser can be found at gofundme.com by searching for Skye Carson & Scarlett Rossborough. The council confirmed the plans to remove the bonfire were within public interest The Annandale bonfire was set on fire on Tuesday night A Belfast city councillor has said she is absolutely disgusted at the planned removal of a south Belfast bonfire, which was set alight to prevent it being taken away. In a statement, Belfast City Council confirmed material from the Annandale Embankment bonfire site in south Belfast was due to be removed and said this was in the public interest. However, on Tuesday evening, bonfire builders set the small set of pallets on fire after details about a council meeting concerning the removal of the bonfire were leaked. Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, DUP councillor Tracy Kelly said she was absolutely disgusted at the ordeal and reiterated the bonfire was small and was intended for a childrens Eleventh Night party. The Annandale bonfire was set on fire on Tuesday night She hit out at the fact the bonfire was set for removal despite the lack of any paramilitary trappings or flags. "I am absolutely disgusted by it, she said. This is the smallest bonfire, it was well kept, tidy, nowhere near houses, no flags, no paramilitary trappings this was a childrens bonfire. "To take it away from a small community is outrageous. This is why they said they'd rather burn it. "The community had arranged an Eleventh day party, because they wont be able to do it next year because hopefully there will be a new pitch on the site. "It was a farewell, the last one and I just dont understand why the council wanted to lift it. Look at the other bonfires all around Belfast compared to others? I just don't understand. In a statement, Belfast City Council confirmed it was planning removing the material and it was within the public interest. Belfast City Councils approach to managing bonfires is led by elected members, a council spokesperson said. "A member-led decision-making process has been agreed to consider issues and make decisions on a site-by-site basis. "Members of the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee decided to act in the public interest and agreed that action would be taken to remove materials at the Annadale site. SDLP councillor Seamas de Faoite said it was disappointing details about a council meeting were leaked and said he will be asking Belfast City Council to investigate it. He also every political party should be working to see plans for funding and development in the area succeed. "This will be one of the most successful years for the councils beacon programme. Real progress is being made to reduce the number of contentious bonfires, which we welcome. Were in the business of building a new Ireland and we dont expect loyalism to simply disappear as a result, he said. "The SDLP has been very supportive of the broader community plans for Annadale embankment and the enhancement of green space for the benefit of everyone in the area. Every political party should be working to see those plans and the funding applications associated with them succeed. Its disappointing that the details of confidential committee meetings were leaked, resulting in a fire last night. We will be asking Belfast City Council officers to investigate this leak. Its also frustrating to read confidential details shared on social media by elected representatives who should know better. It comes after the bonfire was cancelled in 2021 when builders decided not to proceed with it, leading to large signs that read No Bonfire to be erected around the site. Before then a bonfire had been held every Eleventh Night at the location for years. It is usually erected near the Annadale Flats, not far from the car park of a large Dunnes Stores department store. The area overlooks the River Lagan and is popular with joggers and cyclists. In 2019 it benefited from Belfast City Councils Bonfires and Cultural Expression Programme, which provides grants of up to 1,750 to bonfire builders if they meet certain criteria. That includes not burning toxic materials such as tyres or having loyalist paramilitary displays around the site of a bonfire. News Catch Up: Tuesday 9 July 2024 New independent unionist North Down MP Alex Easton has announced he is to co-opt a DUP councillor into his Assembly seat, but has insisted he wont be rejoining his old party. Taoiseach Simon Harris speaks at the unveiling of a portrait of the late Senator Billy Fox in Leinster House, Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA) A reset in UK-Ireland relations means a victim-centred approach to legacy issues in Northern Ireland, the Taoiseach has said. The Irish Government recently mounted a legal case in the European Court of Human Rights against controversial legacy laws introduced by the previous UK Government which offer a limited form of immunity for perpetrators of Troubles crimes. Ahead of the elections in the UK, new Prime Minister and Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, vowed to repeal the contentious legislation provisions. Taoiseach Simon Harris and Sir Keir have both said there is an opportunity to reset relations between the UK and Ireland following the election. Speaking at an event on Wednesday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the killing of Irish senator Billy Fox, Mr Harris said he wanted to assert his unwavering commitment to protecting the rights and interests of all those who have suffered during the Troubles. Mr Fox, a former TD and senator, was shot dead by IRA gunmen on March 11 1974 after he interrupted their raid on a farmhouse the home of his girlfriend in Co Monaghan. Mr Harris said that Mr Fox was a peacemaker who had worked for all those on the island of Ireland. The Taoiseach added: We need to see a process to deal with legacy and reconciliation that is truth based, victim centred, that is aligned with human rights and is embedded in the letter and spirit of the Good Friday Agreement. To me, that is what a reset of Anglo-Irish relations looks like. The Irish Government has not committed to immediately dropping its inter-state legal case against the UKs Legacy Act. Mr Harris has previously said he wants to work with the Prime Minister in developing an approach to deal with the legacy of the Troubles. The Act sees investigations for unresolved Troubles deaths moved to a new truth recovery body, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR). The new arrangements have been controversial with victims groups and organisations, and are opposed by all of the main political parties in Northern Ireland. The commission has already been established and is operational. Chief commissioner Sir Declan Morgan said the bodys commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights is paramount. Suella Braverman hit out at reported comments by Kemi Badenoch about her having a breakdown (Andrew Matthews/PA) Suella Braverman has hit out at reported comments by Kemi Badenoch about her having a breakdown, as the rancour between the two Tory leadership rivals descended into a public slanging match. Shadow housing secretary Ms Badenoch reportedly used Rishi Sunaks first shadow cabinet meeting to criticise his election campaign and accuse Ms Braverman of having a very public nervous breakdown. Ms Badenoch on Wednesday said it was a shame the discussions had been leaked, but renewed her attack on the previous Tory government by saying there was too much nodding along in the room. 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 And she did not deny making the nervous breakdown remark about Ms Braverman. The former home secretary took to X, formerly Twitter, to say: Id be interested in knowing whether Kemi thinks Im having a very public nervous breakdown. The row came just hours after shadow home secretary James Cleverly called for the party to unite as he warned against bitter infighting. Mr Sunak is expected to address the 1922 Committee of backbenchers later on Wednesday after an acrimonious meeting of the panel which will set out the rules and timeline of the leadership contest. He announced last week that he would step down as party leader once the formal arrangements for choosing a successor are in place. Ms Badenoch, who is considered a frontrunner in the race, reiterated the criticism of Mr Sunaks administration she reportedly voiced in the first meeting of the Conservative front bench since losing power. She wrote in a post on X: Its a shame our discussions in Shadow Cabinet were leaked yesterday. If there is no private space to discuss our Partys challenges, we will never fully address what the electorate told us last week. The views of those outside these meetings matter too. Not just backbench MPs, but our party activists, members and friends who lost seats after giving everything to the campaign. In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it. That culture needs to change. We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards. In Tuesdays gathering of the shadow cabinet, she reportedly called Mr Sunaks decision to leave D-Day commemorations early disastrous and said colleagues including Penny Mordaunt would have kept their seats if he had stayed longer in France. If she throws her hat in the ring, Ms Badenoch could face competition from fellow right-winger Ms Braverman. Ms Badenoch reportedly made the nervous breakdown comment after Ms Braverman hit out at liberal Conservatives at an event in Washington DC and at a Popular Conservatism gathering in London. Ms Braverman on Wednesday echoed her previous words by posting on X: The liberals are having a meltdown about my speech. Basic truths about our Party are not easy to hear. But Ill keep telling them on behalf of the common sense, patriotic, conservative majority. Other possible candidates for the party leadership include Mr Cleverly; Dame Priti Patel, who served as home secretary between July 2019 and September 2022; Robert Jenrick, who previously served as immigration minister; and ex-health secretary Victoria Atkins. Right-wingers and more moderate Tories are expected to battle it out for the top job in a contest that could shape the party for years to come. Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt, a centrist figure in the party, has ruled out running. The 1922 Committee on Tuesday elected Bob Blackman as its new chair, but not without Tory MP Mark Francois complaining the vote was bent after he attempted to vote but was turned away. Sir Keir Starmer will promise the UK will support Ukraine for as long as it takes as he confirms the 3 billion a year funding package for Kyiv will continue. The Prime Minister, who met President Volodymyr Zelensky in the margins of the Nato summit in Washington on Wednesday, will tell members of the alliance that they need to send a clear message to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Sir Keir said the 3 billion a year military support for Ukraine will continue until at least 2030/31 and for as long as it is needed. Sir Keir Starmer, left, and Volodymyr Zelensky embraced during their bilateral meeting at the Nato summit (Stefan Rousseau/PA) At a special session on Ukraine at the Nato summit on Thursday, Sir Keir will warn that the frontline defence of the Euro-Atlantic region is the Ukrainian trenches. He will say: Nato was founded by the generation who defeated fascism. They understood not just the value of our strength, but the strength of our values. Those values are under attack once again. Putin needs to hear a clear message ringing out from this summit a message of unity and determination, that we will support Ukraine with whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to uphold our shared values and our shared security. Defence Secretary John Healey visited Ukraine shortly after taking office to promise artillery guns and shells and 90 Brimstone missiles. Defence Secretary John Healey met Volodymyr Zelensky at the weekend (Ministry of Defence/PA) The UK has also confirmed it will contribute 40 million to Natos comprehensive assistance package for Ukraine and the UK-administered international fund for Ukraine will place a new order, worth 300 million, for 120,000 rounds of 152mm Soviet-era ammunition. The summit is expected to cement Ukraines progress towards Nato membership. But because of Natos Article V, which commits to mutual defence, the allies will not allow Ukraine to join while it is still at war as that would trigger an immediate conflict with Russia. Nato allies are stepping up commitments on Ukraine while they await the results of Novembers US presidential election, where Donald Trump has threatened to reduce American support. Joe Biden has met with Sir Keir Starmer at the Nato summit (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Sir Keir Starmer will present Joe Biden with a personalised Arsenal shirt when the pair meet at the White House. The shirt, with Mr Bidens surname and the number 46 a reference to his presidential number will be handed over by UK officials to White House aides. The Labour leader is an Arsenal season ticket holder and he hopes the personalised present will help strengthen what he called the the very special relationship between the UK and US on Wednesday. The two world leaders alongside Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg (Stefan Rousseau/PA) A senior Downing Street official said: Its his team and he thought it would make a personal gift. The Prime Minister will also give the US leader a copy of the Atlantic Charter which paved the way for the formation of Nato, complete with then Labour leader Clement Attlees amendments. The new Prime Minister met the US President for the first time at the Nato summit in Washington before their talks in the White House later. The president, 81, is seeking re-election in November despite discontent within the Democrat ranks about his suitability due to his age and concerns about his health. Sir Keir, who has proposed forcing peers to retire from the House of Lords at 80, sidestepped a suggestion that meant Mr Biden was too old, instead insisting he was motivated by reducing the size of the Upper Chamber. Sir Keir told reporters accompanying him on his first international trip as Prime Minister: Ive already had a phone call with President Biden. I want to follow up on that, this is obviously a very special relationship we have between the UK and the US. We have, within that, a special aspect when it comes to defence and security for obvious reasons including our commitment to Nato. We make a unique contribution in Europe to Nato and therefore its a very good opportunity for me to talk to the President about how we take forward the important work at this summit. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer joins US President Joe Biden and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other Nato leaders for a family photograph at the Nato 75th anniversary summit (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Asked whether he believed his plan for peers to retire at 80 should apply across the board, Sir Keir said: In terms of the age in the House of Lords, the simple fact is that our House of Lords is massive. Its the second biggest political chamber in the world. I think its only the Chinese who have a bigger political chamber than our House of Lords, we have to reduce it. That is the primary driver of the retirement at 80. You can see why that needs to be done. Weve got 800-plus members of the House of Lords, its simply too big. We need to reduce it. So it doesnt reflect on how other elected representatives are chosen in other countries, its to do with the size of the House of Lords. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who accompanied Sir Keir on the trip to Washington, met his US counterpart Antony Blinken. The State Department said the pair re-affirmed the importance of ensuring Ukraine has the economic, security, and humanitarian assistance it needs to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. They also discussed the need to reach a ceasefire in Gaza that secures the release of hostages and lays the groundwork for durable peace. John Healey, the new Defence Secretary, also met his counterpart Lloyd Austin. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Austin shared a photograph of the two men together, but misspelled the UK Cabinet ministers name as Secretary Healy. Our shared ideals are at the heart of the US-UK special relationship. I look forward to working closely with my new UK counterpart to tackle todays security challenges, the US defence secretary added. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (left) meeting President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky for a bilateral meeting at a hotel in Washington DC in the US ahead of the Nato summit (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Sir Keir Starmer has said he wants to use the Nato summit to reset relations with world leaders and send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Prime Minister held talks with Ukraines Volodymyr Zelensky before arriving at the summit and will later meet US President Joe Biden at the White House. Sir Keir said he used his talks with Mr Zelensky to stress that the change of government in the UK makes no difference to the support that we will provide. The summit was also a chance for the new Labour Government to reaffirm our commitment to Nato on its 75th anniversary, he said. It was an opportunity to discuss with President Zelensky what further support he needs and to use our opportunity here with our allies to make sure that that support is agreed, Sir Keir said. And to reinforce, in a sense as a message to Putin, the resolve of Nato, bigger now than its ever been, more united than its ever been and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression, the Prime Minister added. The summit marks Sir Keirs debut on the world stage, less than a week after the Labour landslide which installed him in No 10. He told reporters in Washington DC his talks with world leaders were an opportunity to make sure that those relationships are reset, for me to be able to say that our position on the world stage leading on issues like defence and security, on climate change, and on energy are so important. The summit is expected to confirm what US and European officials have described as Ukraines irreversible path to Nato membership. But the alliances mutual defence pact means Ukraine will not join while it is at open war with Russia, as that could result in all-out conflict between the bloc and Mr Putins forces. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is greeted by US President Joe Biden and Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg as he arrives at the Nato 75th anniversary summit (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The summit comes as the alliance debates how to Trump proof its future and its support for Ukraine in case former US president Donald Trump is returned to the White House in Novembers election. He has been a vocal critic of European nations not doing enough to fund their own defence and has threatened to withdraw support for Ukraine. In the UK, the Government will launch a sweeping defence review next week which will set out a road map to spending 2.5% of gross domestic product on defence. But Sir Keir refused to guarantee that he will meet his flagship commitment on defence spending within his first term in office, despite the cast iron promise to get there. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the margins of the Nato summit in Washington (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Speaking to reporters, the Prime Minister was repeatedly pressed on whether the goal of spending 2.5% of GDP would be reached within his first term. He said: We are committed to the 2.5%, as I have said before the election and I say again after the election. That is obviously subject to our fiscal rules, but the commitment is there. The strategic review will take place, that will happen next week, and we will set out the details of that. The manifesto commitment was that it would take place within a year, I would like it to be quicker than that if Im honest and well set out the details about how we are going to do it. Officials have described 2.5% as a cast iron commitment but the announcement that a strategic defence review will be launched next week did not include any timetable for ramping up spending. Before his election defeat, Rishi Sunak had committed to reach 2.5% by 2030 at a total cost of 75 billion over six years. (PA Graphics) Nato members have an official goal of spending 2% of GDP on defence and 23 members are now thought to have reached that level. But in the context of this years US election, Sir Keir acknowledged more needed to be done, particularly on locking in support for Ukraine. The Prime Minister confirmed that decisions on the use of UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles were for the Ukrainian armed forces to make, indicating they would be permitted to strike against targets within Russia. The UK military aid was for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes, Sir Keir said. The Russian strike on a childrens hospital in Kyiv on Monday was a tragic backdrop to this summit and strengthens the resolve of Nato against Mr Putin, he said. 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 President Zelensky wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he was grateful to the UK for its unwavering support for Ukraine and our people. He added: I thanked Prime Minister Starmer for all the UKs military and financial assistance provided to our country. This morning, I learned about the permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military targets in Russian territory. Today, we had the opportunity to discuss the practical implementation of this decision. The summit is also an introduction for the Prime Ministers wife Victoria to international diplomacy. She will take part in a series of engagements with other leaders wives and husbands, led by US First Lady Jill Biden. Flight attendant Tori Towey (28) suffered severe bruising and other injuries after she was allegedly attacked in her home The Taoiseach has said he is ready to intervene in the case of Irish woman Tori Towey who is facing criminal charges and has been banned from leaving Dubai in what he called the most appalling circumstances. Tori Towey (28) suffered severe bruising and other injuries that required hospital treatment after she was allegedly attacked in her home, according to Detained in Dubai. The advocacy group has urged the Irish Government to intervene to have the charges against her dropped and allow her to travel home. Ms Towey, who is from Boyle in Co Roscommon, is now facing charges "of attempted suicide and the abuse of alcohol," the Dail heard today, and is desperate to come home. Local Sinn Fein TD Claire Kerrane, who knows the family, told the Irish Independent: "I spoke to Tori and her mother earlier today, along with my party leader Mary Lou McDonald. "Tori is in a living nightmare. She must be allowed to return home urgently. "This young woman has been treated in the most horrific way and simply wants to go home. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald told the Dail that Ms Towey had been the victim of domestic violence and is subject to a travel ban over alleged charges as she urged the Taoiseach to intervene. Radha Stirling, CEO of advocacy group Detained in Dubai, described the case and the travel ban against Ms Towey as outrageous. Toris experience is nothing short of tragic and quite frankly, she is lucky to be alive, added Stirling, who has helped in numerous domestic violence cases including that of Dubais Princess Latifa. Tori Towey The UAE used to charge rape victims with sex outside marriage. Now theyre charging domestic violence victims with attempted suicide and alcohol consumption. We are calling on Dubai authorities to urgently drop the charges against Tori, remove the travel ban and let her fly home to Ireland with her mother. We are also calling on Irelands prime minister Simon Harris, the head of Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin, Ambassador Alison Milton and local TDs Michael Fitzmaurice, Claire Kerrane and Denis Naughten as well as the UAEs Ambassador to Ireland, HE Mohammed Hmoud Hamad Rahma Alshamsi to help bring Tori home. Tori Towey While speaking to RTE Radio Ones Morning Ireland, Ms Stirling has confirmed Ms Towey is currently living in an Airbnb. "Right now, she's just happy to be with her mother in safety, because this is all very recent, but she is able to leave the apartment and move freely within the country, she said. Ms Towey would like Taoiseach Simon Harris to speak to Irelands counterparts in the UAE. Just simply say: We cant have this. This is obviously an error on behalf of the Dubai police. This never should have been charged or prosecuted. "And they need to be trained on victim care more than anything, and hopefully the Government of Dubai will see that these charges shouldn't happen and they need to protect women. "It's terrible PR for the country. You're going to have people worried to go there in the future. And of course, this is on the back of historically charging rape victims with sex outside marriage so they dont have the best reputation to start with. They've been trying to improve it. "So I think there'll be agreeable with the Irish government if there's enough diplomatic pressure put on them, letting them know that we absolutely want Tori home and there's just going to be no negotiation on that, she added. Tori Towey is due to appear in court next week. "In a best-case scenario, they will simply say: We're not going to proceed beyond this hearing- and we're going to let you go. "When it comes to a case like this, it's all about diplomacy. Without the support of the Irish government, she would be likely to face prison and charges and deportation. "With the support of the Irish government and diplomacy and there has been a lot various members of the Irish government have contacted UAE ambassador to Ireland, and of course, Ireland's ambassador in the UAE, and they're trying to get those diplomatic talks happening. "If that happens, that is the best and fastest way to get her home, Ms Stirling added. The 28-year-old Emirates Airlines cabin crew employee, now faces lengthy imprisonment in jails that are notorious for human rights abuses and torture, according to Detained in Dubai. Ms Towey moved to Dubai in April 2023 for a job with Emirates. The airline gave her time off work to recover after she suffered the injuries at her home, according to the human rights group. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald told the Dail she said she had spoken to Ms Towey and that her mother had travelled to Dubai to be with her. "Tori wants to come home, simple as that. She is a Roscommon woman and she wants to come home," she said. "I am asking now, as a matter of absolute urgency, that we have a statement from this House, that you intervene Taoiseach, that the ambassador is called and that it is made absolutely plain to the authorities of Dubai that no woman should be treated in this way, and an Irish citizen, an Irish woman will not be treated in this way." Mr Harris responded saying he was not aware of Ms Towey's case, and thanked Ms McDonald for bringing it to his attention and that of the Foreign Minister Micheal Martin. He pledged to work "to intervene and see how we can support an Irish citizen in what sounds to be, based on what you tell me, the most appalling circumstances". Photo: Tori Towey Local Sinn Fein TD Claire Kerrane, who knows Ms Toweys family, said the flight attendant was in a living nightmare. "I am determined to work with the ambassador, Foreign Affairs Minister and anyone necessary to ensure that her release is secured without delay, she told the Irish Independent. According to Detained in Dubai, Ms Towey found out there was a travel ban against her when replacing her passport, but wasnt sure why. She arranged to fly home to Ireland but when she arrived at the airport, was told a case against her had been dropped but that the travel ban remained. She attended the police station who assured her the travel ban would be lifted but it never happened. She was stuck, said Ms Stirling. Tori was told nothing could be done and that the cases against her were going to court on July 18, according to Detained in Dubai. The UAE has gone to great public relations efforts to promote alcohol as legal in the country. In reality, people are still regularly charged with alcohol consumption and possession, added Stirling. A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed it is aware of Ms Toweys situation. "The Department of Foreign Affairs is aware of the case and is providing consular assistance. "As with all consular cases, the department does not comment on the details of individual cases." At an event organized last month by the Indonesian counter-terrorism agency (BNPT), Abu Rusydan and 15 other leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah announced their groups dissolution. JI, the Southeast Asian affiliate of al-Qaeda, had carried out a string of devastating attacks in the 2000s, including Indonesias deadliest-ever terror attack the 2002 Bali bombings. But now it was ready to actively contribute to Indonesias progress and dignity, Abu Rusydan declared as he read from a prepared statement during the event on June 30. This is not the first time that a militant group has disbanded itself. The Provisional Irish Republican Army unilaterally broke up in 2005, throwing itself solely into legal activities through its political arm, Sinn Fein. In 2018, the Basque separatist organization ETA also unilaterally disbanded. But Jemaah Islamiyahs announcement surprised many people, and left others feeling skeptical. There are three interrelated questions that need to be asked about the move by JI: How did we get here? Is this for real? And what does this mean for regional security? How did we get here? Jemaah Islamiyah, which has its roots in the Darul Islam movement, was founded in Malaysia in 1993, when its two founders, Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir, were on the run from Suhartos New Order government in Indonesia. While in Malaysia, they served as a way-station for several hundred militants who traveled to Pakistan to join the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, putting them in direct contact with al-Qaeda. In 1996, a charter (the PUPJI) created the groups organizational structure and codified JIs Salafi ideology. At the time, the group also reached an agreement with the Philippine armed separatist organization, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, to allow al-Qaeda to establish training camps in the southern Philippines. RELATED STORIES Jemaah Islamiyah disbands: End of an era or strategic transformation? Ahead of 20th anniversary, Bali bombing survivors remember life-changing event 5 years after its birth, Bangsamoro autonomous region struggles to control violence In Indonesia, JI perpetrated terrorist attacks on Christian churches and established two paramilitary organizations to wage sectarian conflict in the Maluku Islands and Central Sulawesi province. Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the al-Qaeda leadership called for diversionary attacks. One of these was the twin Bali bombings that killed 202 people a year later. Police officers escort suspected militant Zulkarnaen (center), who is also known as Aris Sumarsono and believed to be the military leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah network, upon his arrival at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Indonesia, Dec. 16, 2020. [Achmad Ibrahim/AP] Between 2002 and 2007, JI perpetrated a major attack almost every year. But each attack left the organization weaker as counterterrorism forces became more adept and better resourced. This led to an ideological split in the organization between proponents of the line of targeting the far enemy, versus those who wanted to foment sectarian conflict in order to rebuild their depleted ranks. The government legally banned JI in 2008, but allowed it to operate as an entity as long as it refrained from violence. In 2010, more than 100 JI members were swept up, including Abu Bakar Bashir, breaking the organizations back. JIs last terrorist act took place that year. Yet, from 2020-2023, Indonesian counter-terrorism efforts were as focused on JI as it was on the pro-Islamic State umbrella group, Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD). Security forces originally saw JI as an off-ramp for the more radical JAD, but attitudes hardened. In 2019, when counterterrorism police arrested JIs emir, Para Wijayanto, they were shocked by the groups size and national reach. Its madrassas and charitable arms had grown, while its corporations and publishing arms had created a steady revenue stream. As many JI members were arrested in 2021 and 2022 as JAD suspects. Indonesian counter-terrorism forces have applied a softer approach. Though seemingly campy, theyve held mass rallies where former militants pledge allegiance to the republic. Former militants have established madrassas for the children of incarcerated militants, so they are not raised in JI or JAD-run schools, breaking terrorist social networks. Theyve gotten leaders, including the JAD Emir Aman Abdurrahman, who is on death row, and Umar Patek, to publicly renounce violence. Indonesian militant Umar Patek (right) uses his mobile phone to make a video call as his long-time friend Ali Fauzi, a former bomb maker who now runs a program aimed at de-radicalizing militants, joins during their meeting in Lamongan, East Java, Indonesia, Dec. 13, 2022. [Trisnadi/AP] Meanwhile the conflict in Poso, which served as a rallying point for all militant groups in Indonesia, has been stamped out. Internationally, there has been more cooperation amongst the regional security services. And while ungoverned space and institutional weakness remains in the southern Philippines, militant groups are no longer attracting JI and other foreign militants. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front continues to implement the peace process and build up institutions that will help the autonomous Muslim region transition to self-governance. There has been an unprecedented sustained attack on the Abu Sayyaf, which is now fighting for survival. Is this for real? While JI has not been in a position to engage in terrorism, until now, it has never renounced violence. Many in the organization were simply waiting for the right circumstance to resume operations. Its easy to be cynical about the groups prepared statement, especially at an event stage-managed by the BNPT. Some of those who were on hand had been arrested and gone through government disengagement programs. To young radicals, theyre sell-outs, and past their prime. The average age of the men who renounced violence was in the late 50s or older. To what degree will younger members follow the leadership and pursue a legal-political alternative? In many ways, this is more promising. JIs campaign of militancy failed to bring about the establishment of an Islamic State governed by Sharia. Democratic politics have advanced their political agenda more effectively. Its not that Islamist parties do terribly well at the national level. Indeed, in Indonesias 2024 general election, they collectively represented about 20% of the electorate and won 101 of 580 seats. But they are important members of political coalitions, which tend to give them a disproportionate voice. Its at the local level where we see faith-based parties make their mark, especially in the passage of public policy and Sharia compliant codes, which the majority of provinces and districts now have. Islamist parties are riddled with rivalries and have never formed a cohesive bloc. Perhaps for that reason, JI saw an opening for a tactical shift. In May 2021, JI established the Indonesian Peoples Dakwah Party (PDRI). Yet, counter-terrorism forces arrested its founder, Farid Ahmad Okbah, that November for being a senior member of JI. Two others were arrested. The PDRI did not contest the 2024 elections. But it seems likely that with JIs dissolution, the government will give former members more political space. What does this mean for regional security? JIs manpower and locus were largely-Indonesian based, but it remains a Southeast Asian organization. Some affiliates gravitated elsewhere. Darul Islam Sabah, for example, went from facilitating JI and the movement of foreign militants in and out of the southern Philippines to working with the JAD and other groups. There has always been more fluidity between Southeast Asian militant groups than those in the Middle East or South Asia. Abu Bakar Bashir defected from being pro-al Qaeda to being pro-Islamic State, with large numbers of acolytes, without consequence. As such, many younger militants who are committed to using violence to achieve their political aims are likely to defect to other groups. What those groups may be, though, is unclear. The JAD is decimated and leaderless, though to be fair, it was always far more horizontally structured. It has not executed a major terrorist attack since 2019. At present there is no apparent charismatic leader for militant Salafists to coalesce around. And while one would expect external events, such as the war in Gaza, to serve as a catalyst, to date it has not. Ailing radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir (center), arrives for medical treatment at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia, March 1, 2018. [Dita Alangkara/AP] JI still runs a network of madrassas, including some very large ones like al-Mukmin and Pesantren Hidayatullah in Balikpapan. These continue to be ideological incubators and hate factories. Its hard to see state educational personnel intervene and change their curriculum. But Indonesian security forces have not let up, despite the decline in organizational strength or the tempo of operations. Terrorism will be a persistent but manageable threat in Indonesia. JIs dissolution makes it more so, providing a legal-political alternative that is more moral, but also proven to be more effective. 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 BenarNews. READ MORE Malaysias tech sector risks putting itself in US crosshairs How the 2014 coup continues to shape Thai politics Gen. Prabowos electoral victory casts long shadow on Southeast Asia Families and colleagues of passengers and crew of Lion Air flight JT610, which crashed Oct. 29, 2018, cry on the deck of Indonesia Navy ship KRI Banjarmasin as they visit the site where the plane went down, along the north coast of Karawang in Indonesia, Nov. 6, 2018. UPDATED at 6:20 a.m. ET on 2024-07-11 Indonesian families of the 189 victims of a LionAir 737 Max flight that crashed in 2018 are angry that Boeing, the planes manufacturer, could evade a criminal trial and accountability for this and another air disaster involving the same model. Only months after the Indonesian airliner crashed into the Java Sea, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max also crashed minutes after take-off during a flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board. The Boeing Co. had entered a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors, which would allow it to plead guilty to fraud and pay another fine, if such an agreement were accepted by a district judge in the coming weeks, the Associated Press news agency and National Public Radio in the U.S. reported. Under the deal, Boeing, a key American government defense contractor, is expected to plead guilty to criminal fraud during the certification process for the 737 MAX planes in 2017, before the two crashes. Boeing would also pay a fine of U.S. $243.6 million and agree to invest at least $455 million in safety programs, the U.S. Justice Department said in a Sunday court filing. Anton Suhadi, a spokesperson for the Indonesian victims families, said that if Boeing were allowed to get away without further consequences, it would send a dangerous message that corporate malfeasance can be resolved with financial penalties alone. I feel this is very unfair if thats the only sanction for Boeing, Anton told BenarNews. This is a serious crime that resulted in the deaths of 189 victims, he said referring to the crash off the Indonesian coast. On Wednesday, Indonesias Ministry of Transportation said it would strengthen its oversight, in light of Boeings admission, to ensure aircraft are safe. The Ministry of Transportation urges Boeing to immediately restore public trust, it said in a statement. This is essential considering Boeing has faced a crisis of confidence regarding its safety record since the two accidents involving the 737 Max aircraft. Lion Air flight 610, a Boeing 737 Max 8, took off from Jakarta for the mining region of Pangkal al Pinang on Oct. 29, 2018. Minutes after takeoff, the pilot asked to return to the airport and then the plane lost radio contact with the control tower. About 11 minutes after takeoff the plane carrying six crew members, 178 adult passengers, one child and two infants plunged into the Java Sea. All aboard, most of them Indonesian, were killed. Indonesia experienced a boom in low-cost carriers after the aviation industry was deregulated in the early 2000s. This rapid expansion led to concerns about safety oversight and pilot training, contributing to the countrys poor aviation safety record back then. In 2007, the European Union had banned all Indonesian airlines from its airspace following a series of deadly accidents. Although some carriers, including flag carrier Garuda, were removed from the list in 2009 after demonstrating improvements, the ban was not fully lifted until 2018. Debris and other articles recovered from the ill-fated Lion Air flight JT 610 are laid out at a search and rescue operations center in a northern Jakarta port, Oct. 30, 2018. [Adek Berry/AFP] Barely five months after the Lion Air crash, another Boeing 737 Max 8 plane, run by Ethiopian Airlines, crashed six minutes after it took off from Addis Ababa on March 10, 2019. All 149 passengers and eight crew members on board were killed. Both crashes, investigators determined, were linked to a faulty flight control system known as MCAS, and other factors. MCAS repeatedly pushed the aircrafts noses down, causing the pilots to lose control of the plane, investigators said. A year after the Lion Air crash, Indonesias National Transportation Safety Committee concluded that a design flaw and lack of pilot guidance on the 737 Max 8 flight system feature were contributing factors to the disaster. The main issue was the MCAS, which malfunctioned, the committee said. The pilots of the Ethiopian Airlines flight were apparently aware of the MCAS issue but were not able to control the aircraft. Following that crash, authorities worldwide grounded what had become Boeings bestselling jet. According to a U.S Justice Department statement from 2021, Boeing admitted in court documents that it deceived the countrys federal aviation evaluators about MCAS issues. That deception led 737 MAX airplane manuals, even for U.S. airlines, to not contain information about MCAS. The crashes and subsequent grounding of the 737 Max fleet raised serious concerns about corporate accountability, regulatory oversight and the prioritization of profit over safety. Face the consequences Vivian Hasna, 23, was a passenger who perished on the Lion Air flight. Her mother Neuis questioned why Boeing did not pull the aircraft from service immediately upon discovering the flaws, rather than waiting for another tragedy the Ethiopian crash to occur. I am a mother who lost her child. Its very sad, especially since I cant visit my childs grave, I cant pay my respects because her body was never found, she told BenarNews. Those at fault should face the consequences, according to the law. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report referred to the Boeing Co. as an airline. The Philippines says the massive coast guard vessel has been in its exclusive economic zone since early July. China coast guard vessel 5901, known as The Monster, in Philippine waters on July 5, 2024. A Chinese coast guard ship dubbed The Monster for its size has maintained an illegal presence in Philippine waters for at least six days, a spokesperson for the countrys navy said. The ship, CCG 5901, was near Sabina Shoal (known in the Philippines as Escoda Shoal) since July 3, and Manilas biggest and most modern coast guard vessel the BRP Teresa Magbanua was shadowing its movements, Navy spokesman Roy Vincent Trinidad told reporters on Tuesday. The 2,260-ton Philippine multi-role response vessel, however, is dwarfed by The Monster which is five times its size. At some points, the Chinese ship was only about 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the BRP Teresa Magbanua, according to Trinidad. As of Wednesday, July 10, CCG 5901 was still in the vicinity of Sabina Shoal, Trinidad confirmed. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), foreign vessels can conduct so-called innocent passage and freedom of navigation operations. However, the spokesperson said: We are monitoring them because they should not be conducting any maritime research, they should not be doing anything detrimental to the security of the state. The Philippine coast guard first spotted The Monster anchored near Sabina Shoal last Saturday. The shoal, claimed by China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan, is less than 90 nautical miles (167 km) off the coast of Palawan island inside the Philippines exclusive economic zone (EEZ), where Manila has jurisdiction over natural resources. [Google Maps] Philippine coast guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said at the time his forces radio challenged the Chinese vessel, warning that it was operating inside the Philippine EEZ, but The Monster did not respond. Its an intimidation on the part of the China coast guard, Tarriela said. The 12,000-ton CCG 5901 is the largest coast guard vessel in the world and is heavily armed. When asked about the statement, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said the shoal belonged to China. Lin Jian said that it is part of Chinese Nansha islands, also known as the Spratly islands, not the Philippines EEZ. To patrol and conduct law enforcement activities by Chinese military and coast guard vessels in the waters near Xianbin Jiao is within Chinas domestic law and international law, including UNCLOS, Lin said, referring to Sabina Shoal by its Chinese name. Suspected land reclamation China lays claim to most of the South China Sea and draws a so-called nine-dash line on its maps to mark its historic rights. An international arbitration tribunal in a case brought by the Philippines in 2016 ruled that Chinas claims are unlawful but it has refused to recognize the ruling. The Monster last month conducted a 10-day patrol along the nine-dash line to reinforce it before returning to the Philippines EEZ this month. China has also been sending research vessels, naval vessels and other ships to Sabina Shoal, leading to suspicion that it is attempting to build an artificial island there. The Philippine coast guard said that crushed corals had been dumped on the shoal an indication of the early stage of land reclamation. Chinas foreign ministry dismissed the accusation as groundless and pure rumor. RELATED STORIES Chinese monster ship reinforces nine-dash line in South China Sea China deploys monster ship near disputed shoal Manila accuses Beijing of island building in South China Sea Manila: Philippines, China agree to de-escalate South China Sea tensions Sabina Shoal is also important to the Philippines as it serves as the meeting point for vessels resupplying troops stationed at the nearby Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippine and Chinese coast guards have been confronting each other near the shoal, where Manila ran aground an old warship the BRP Sierra Madre to exert its control. In an incident on June 17, a Filipino sailor lost a finger during an altercation between Philippine military and Chinese coast guard personnel there. Manila and Beijing have since held talks and agreed to de-escalate tensions but the situation remains largely unchanged. In the latest development, the Chinese navys Shandong carrier strike group has been spotted passing the northern Philippines on its way to drills in the Pacific. The carrier group includes Chinas second aircraft carrier Shandong, cruiser Yanan, destroyer Guilin and frigate Yuncheng. Philippine armed forces spokesperson Francel Margareth Padilla told reporters on Wednesday that the Philippines noted the deployment of the Chinese carrier strike group in the Philippine Sea with concern. We emphasize the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the region and urge all parties to adhere to international laws and norms, he said. Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a news service affiliated with BenarNews. Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews in Manila contributed to this report. 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. This Story in History is selected from the archives by Jeannie Maschino, The Berkshire Eagle. PITTSFIELD When Gov. Maura Healey breathed new life in the form of a $1 billion tax relief bill into the states Housing Development Incentive Program, she simultaneously revived a stalled housing project on Pittsfields North Street. Last week, over two months after Allegrone Cos. submitted its application, Healey awarded the company $4,099,686 for its redevelopment of the Wright Building block in Pittsfield, nudging the two-phase project closer to completion and closer to its funding goals. Allegrone Cos. is among the 13 housing projects, three of them in Western Massachusetts, to receive funding through the Housing Development Incentive Program (HDIP). The program is designed to encourage market-rate housing projects through providing tax credits and exemptions to housing projects in gateway cities with housing development zones. The company purchased the historic Wright Building in 2018, then the space next door formerly home to Jims House of Shoes three years later. The planned redevelopment will maintain the historic architecture of the former, while transforming both buildings into a total 35 housing units and six commercial storefronts. Of those 35 units, 20 percent (four in the Wright Building and three in the addition) will be designated as affordable housing, available to those making up to 80 percent of the citys area median income (AMI), in accordance with inclusionary zoning policy. That has always been a goal of the housing piece of the project; to be a mixed-income redevelopment, to create mixed-income units, said Louis Allegrone, principal of Allegrone Cos. Housing is needed in the city of Pittsfield and the state of Massachusetts in general at all income levels so it will serve as a potential precedent for future redevelopment. At the Wright Building, the hazmat crews are no longer at work. Allegrone said all hazardous materials and selected nonhistoric elements have been removed and overall stabilization finalized, thus completing the first stage of the project. With the HDIP award secured, as well as additional local funding from the city, the Wright Building project is now 100 percent funded and on track to begin reconstruction this fall, Allegrone said. As of now, the Wright Building, the existing building, will be kicking off in September and completing about 10 months later, Allegrone said. Thats phase one. Phase two, which will encompass reconstruction of the neighboring space, is still in the funding trenches. It received $1.5 million of the $4,099,686 total awarded to Allegrone Cos. through the HDIP; Allegrone said the remaining funding gap will be filled by the time reconstruction is slated to begin. Phase 2 is 90 percent funded. But were planning on closing that small gap by February or March when that phase kicks off, Allegrone said. If everything goes according to plan, Allegrone said he expects to open up applications and pre-leasing for the Wright Building in spring or summer of 2025. Occupants will begin moving in come fall. Stay up to date on Berkshires news with Berkshires in Brief, our free daily newsletter When North Adams Regional Hospitals parent company abruptly closed the facility in 2014, the question was, "How could this have happened?" Now, the question is how to make sure 2014 doesnt repeat itself. On June 20, Mass-Care, a nonprofit advocating for state-paid universal health coverage, published a paper with three chief proposals on how to avoid Massachusetts hospital closures in the future. The white paper, or informational document used to promote an organizations stance on an issue, comes as a response to Steward Health Care, which runs nine hospitals in the state and is the largest for-profit hospital chain in the country, filing for bankruptcy in May. The company is auctioning off eight hospitals on July 18 and is facing widespread criticism of mismanagement. But it also examines how the corporate and nonprofit health care model had a hand in the closures of 42 inpatient hospitals, including NARH, in the state between 2009 and 2022, and how to prevent occurrences like this in the future. In the papers appendix, it also names NARH as one of the 10 maternity units closed in the state since 2010. Dave Cohen of Mass-Care, who lives in Greenfield, says the state needs to address hospitals closing simply because they are not profitable, especially rural hospitals influenced by population decline. To me, the North Adams closure couldve been prevented, he said. It pointed out that hospitals need to be run on a basis of serving communities, and should not be left to a corporation, even supposedly non-profit corporations. I think we need to get back to the system of community-run hospitals, Cohen added. These days, they should be owned by the state but left to local control. Mass-Cares solutions include: The governor declaring a health care emergency in the event of a hospital closure to allow the Public Health Commissioner to take whatever steps necessary to protect public health." The state or local government use eminent domain to take over a hospital, and either run them as community hospitals or sell them to a non-profit organization." Massachusetts legislators enact Medicare for All. State Sen. Paul Mark, D-Becket, said a single-payer health care system could stabilize health care in the state, and I think for-profit health care is a terrible model that encourages the wrong priorities and wrong outcomes. A community coming together to save a local hospital is a good idea with the right supports and proper oversight, Mark said Tuesday. But the best solution is a model that encourages reinvestment in patients and employees and looks toward successful long-term outcomes. Mark has introduced an amendment to an economic development bill currently before the state Senate that would, among other things, estimate the money residents would save every year if the state moved to single-payer. Last year, Mark introduced a bill that stipulated a state agency could assume management responsibility of a hospital set to close. The bill still lives in the waning days of the session, which closes July 31. The paper acknowledges that eminent domain doesnt work in every case, but the underpinnings of the paper are clear: health care should not be left in the hands of those who only seek to make a profit. It is up to municipalities, the legislature, and the Governor to take action to prevent the closing of Steward hospitals and indeed, to stop the tidal wave of hospital closing in Massachusetts. Health care is a right, not a privilege, the paper continues. Most of the paper consists of legal justifications for its three primary proposals, as well as explanations of how each of the proposals would be carried out. Henry Rose, a retired physician who lives in Dalton, is in favor of all three solutions. He noted that a Medicare for All bill at the state level has been stalled for roughly 20 years, with current legislative leadership, including Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano, unwilling to pursue the legislation. When I spoke to Governor Healey at the Pittsfield First Street Common during her 2020 campaign, she told me she favors Medicare For All, but it's not her top priority, Rose said. That was an understatement. Our elected leaders do not have the stomach to oppose corporate donors in favor of enacting legislation to improve and save lives. State Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, D-Pittsfield, did not return a request for comment Tuesday. Berkshire Health Systems deferred comment to the Massachusetts Hospital Association, which was not immediately available for comment. State Rep. John Barrett, D-North Adams, said with increased attention paid to the states hospitals, the white papers solutions most likely wont be necessary. I have optimism that this issue of hospital closings in the state, especially the smaller community hospitals, will be better addressed in the future because of learning from past problems, Barrett said, but also because of coming changes and reform were seeing from the Speaker, who has been an advocate for saving community hospitals. Barrett wagered that during the next couple years, were going to see a plan in place where what happened with Steward, and others too, the North Adamses of the world, will be monitored or overseen more closely to prevent what has happened. SHEFFIELD Its a crime that killed 346 people, yet no one is going to prison and the public is still at risk. That's the message from Nadia Milleron of Sheffield, whose daughter Samya Stumo died in 2019 in the second of two Boeing 737 Max crashes. Milleron has joined some of the other crash victims families to express outrage at Boeing's plea deal announced on Monday, which she says wont protect the public from planes that were rushed through production for speed and profit and remain in use. The families plan to ask the federal judge in the case to reject the plea deal one that she says does not consider the deaths of our loved ones or deter the plane-maker from further malfeasance. Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to charges of criminal fraud conspiracy and pay a $243.6 million fine to resolve the prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice. That deal would also require the company to spend at least $455 million in the next three years for safety programs. The DOJ said that Boeing lied to the Federal Aviation Administration about problems with software that would automatically make a correction by pushing down the nose of the plane. While the software saved the company money, it was linked to the two Max crashes the first in Indonesia in 2018, and the second in Ethiopia five months later. It was the Alaska Airlines panel blowout during a flight in January that violated the DOJs deferred prosecution agreement and removed its shield from criminal liability from those two crashes. A separate federal investigation is still underway for the blowout incident. Milleron, who also is running as an independent for the U.S. congressional seat held for decades by U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, says the families now have a chance to force Boeing to protect the public by bringing the company to trial and forcing accountability through sentencing. Otherwise, she says, another crash is "just a matter of time." She pointed to ongoing problems with the Max jets reported by pilots due to what she says are apparent production defects. By fighting the plea deal, Milleron said, the families can extract more protection for the public. They also want to see a court-appointed, independent monitor of Boeing rather than one picked by the DOJ. While she would like to see Boeing executives prosecuted, Milleron said they are shielded because the DOJ is applying the five-year statute of limitations starting from the March 10, 2019, date of the crash to March 10 of this year. And the $243.6 million fine is a pittance to the company, Milleron added, noting that it wasnt levied for the 346 deaths but for the fraud charge alone. The DOJ, she noted, said this was the maximum fine. Divided by the number of deaths, the fine comes to $704,000 per victim. Milleron, whose experience seeking justice for crash victims led her to run for office, criticized the current federal administration and its agencies, and politicians who take campaign money from Boeing, saying, They go after the wrong people and they are not protecting the public. Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. OUR OPINION Our Opinion: As Pittsfield Public Schools plans 'transformation and accountability,' we must hold that endeavor itself accountable You are the owner of this article. As the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem, their hearts were filled with dreams of restoration and revival. It was a glorious moment for the Israelites after seventy years of captivity in Babylon. Eagerly they returned, hoping to reestablish their homeland. But the reality that greeted them was grim. Jerusalem was a city in shambles, its walls broken down, and the beautiful temple of Solomon reduced to rubble. With hope rekindled, they set about rebuilding their lives. The exiles immediately started working. They rebuilt their homes, planted vineyards, and reestablished their communities. With praise and thanksgiving to God, they rejoiced as they laid the foundation of the temple. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away (Ezra 3:12-14). Faced with overwhelming discouragement, their initial zeal faded into complacency. For sixteen years, the Israelites neglected the temples foundation as they focused on rebuilding their homes and vineyards. Haggai the Chastiser This misplaced priority didnt go unnoticed by God. Through the prophet Haggai, God issued a stern rebuke: Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin? (Haggai 1:4). This powerful question struck at the heart of their complacency and self-interest. Haggai confronted the peoples misplaced priorities, urging them: Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it. You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why? declares the Lord Almighty. Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands (Haggai 1:5-6, 9-11). Haggais message was clear: the people had prioritized their own comfort over their covenant with God. As a result, God withheld His blessing on them. Haggai rebuked the people for being self-centered and challenged them to prioritize Gods house above their own interest. This call to action went beyond physical buildings. It was a call to realign their hearts with Gods will. Convicted by Haggais words, Zerubbabel the governor, Joshua the high priest, and all the people, responded with renewed vigor. They obeyed the voice of the Lord and began the difficult task of rebuilding the temple. Haggais brief but powerful message reignited a nations spiritual fervor and redirected their focus to God. Haggai the Encourager As they labored together, the sound of hammers and chisels echoed through Jerusalem. The work was challenging, and they encountered resistance from neighboring countries. As opposition mounted, the people became discouraged. Haggai reassured them with a powerful promise from God: Now be strong, Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord, and work. For I am with you, declares the Lord Almighty (Haggai 2:4). This assurance of Gods presence revitalized their efforts and brought unity to their mission. It reminded the Israelites that their efforts were not in vain, and Gods presence was with them as they undertook this monumental task. By prioritizing the reconstruction of Gods temple, they not only sought to restore the building, but also to restore their relationship with God. Haggais message was not just about reconstruction; it also provided a vision of future glory. Addressing the discouragement some felt because the new temple didnt match the splendor of Solomons, Haggai declared: The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house, says the Lord Almighty. And in this place I will grant peace, declares the Lord Almighty (Haggai 2:9). Haggai pointed to a future filled with hope, finding its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who would usher in a new and greater covenant. His prophecy reflects the expectation of the prophets for the arrival of Gods kingdom. The promised Messiah would bring peace and salvation to a world desperately in need of it. Their perseverance paid off. In just a few years, they completed the temple. It may not have matched the splendor of Solomons temple, but it stood as a testament to their faith and obedience. More importantly, it symbolized the renewal of their covenant with God. Haggais Legacy Haggais call to the Israelites to give careful thought to your ways (Haggai 1:5) is a call to us as well. In our world filled with distractions and competing priorities, its easy to focus on personal goals and forget about our relationship with God. Haggai challenges us to align our lives with Gods will and to build our faith on the solid foundation of His eternal promises. May we never forget the importance of placing God at the center of all we do and recognize our efforts in His service are never in vain. Jesus said, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:33). Haggais emphasis on Gods presence reassures us we are not alone in our spiritual endeavors and encourages us to step out in faith. Whether we are rebuilding our personal faith, our families, or our communities, Gods promise, I am with you, (Haggai 1:13) remains steadfast. When we prioritize Gods work, we can know His strength and guidance are with us every step of the way. He guides, supports, and blesses our efforts, bringing about spiritual fruit that lasts. The last words Jesus spoke to His disciples is a promise for all of us. He said, surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20). Just as the Israelites did not see the ultimate glory of the temple they built; we may not see the spiritual results of our efforts. Haggais prophecy reminds us to trust in Gods greater plan, rather than focusing only on our current situation. It challenges us to trust that our present sacrifices and labors for Gods kingdom have eternal significance. The Apostle Paul wrote, Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). May Haggais life and ministry inspire us to prioritize Gods work, trust in His promises, and look forward to the greater glory that will come through Christ. May we find courage and strength in the lessons Haggai imparts, building not just for today, but for all eternity. Photo credit: Getty Images/Me 3645 Studio Brad Simon has shared Gods Word for over forty-five years, with a unique blend of storytelling and Bible exposition. He is a retired Master Jeweler and relies on the God-given creativity that won him several national and international jewelry design awards to craft Biblical Narratives and Life Stories that are engaging and thought-provoking. Once a speaker, author, and publisher for the jewelry industry, now he is putting those skills to work to promote the beauty and appeal of Gods Word. Download a free copy of his devotional on prayer. Borsa Italiana non ha responsabilita per il contenuto del sito a cui sta per accedere e non ha responsabilita per le informazioni contenute. Accedendo a questo link, Borsa Italiana non intende sollecitare acquisti o offerte in alcun paese da parte di nessuno. Sarai automaticamente diretto al link in cinque secondi. Taoiseach Simon Harris has confirmed a travel ban imposed by authorities in Dubai on Irish woman Tori Towey has been lifted. Ms Towey had been banned from leaving the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after she was charged with attempted suicide and consuming alcohol in Dubai. Advertisement Ive just been informed that the travel ban has been lifted, that the embassy will take Tori to the airport as soon as she is ready to go and that the embassy, of course, will continue to follow up on the case, which is still active as of now, Mr Harris told the Dail on Wednesday afternoon. Mr Harris thanked the Irish embassy in the UAE for its work on the case, and Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald and Roscommon TD Claire Kerrane who had raised the matter in the Dail on Tuesday. Speaking in the Dail on Wednesday, Ms McDonald criticised the medieval, grotesque treatment of women in the UAE. (Tori) does not belong to Dubai, she belongs at home in Ireland, Ms McDonald said. Advertisement Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin paid tribute to the Irish Ambassador to the UAE, Alison Milton, for her role in the matter. Speaking on RTE radios News at One, Mr Martin said he had anticipated good news from Tuesday evening. However, he said there was a process to go through, and he could not comment on cases until it was completed. He said he anticipated that Ms Towey and her mother Caroline, who had travelled to Dubai to support her daughter, would be returning to Ireland at the earliest opportunity now Ms Towey's passport had been returned. The Tanaiste said Ms Milton and her team in the UAE had opened up good channels of communication and engagement with local authorities, which had facilitated the lifting of charges against Ms Towey. Advertisement That's the importance of very strong diplomats on the ground It has been very, very challenging and traumatic for Tori over the last while, but I think our team there has been in contact and has engaged with the family, and indeed with the authorities as well, and it's been a constructive engagement and they have responded with the issue being resolved, Mr Martin said. He added: Different jurisdictions have different norms, and different approaches which sometimes don't approximate to ours, but we work with the authorities in such situations, and we work to try and resolve issues of this kind. That's the importance of very strong diplomats on the ground. People have good relationships and work those relationships to get the best outcomes for our citizens when difficulties and when challenges arise. Advertisement Our objective always is to make the best judgment calls and to work as effectively as we can to bring about resolutions for our citizens, positive outcomes for our citizens, and I'm glad, in this case with Tori, that we've managed to do that and to be of assistance to her. The update comes after the Government was commended by a human rights group for its swift action regarding Ms Towey's case. The chief executive of Detained in Dubai, Radha Stirling, told Newstalk radio on Wednesday morning: Im super impressed by Irelands response, it was so swift. When a government gets behind their citizens, when they go the extra mile, they are successful in getting citizens home. Advertisement Ms Stirling outlined the background of the case, explaining Ms Towey had moved to Dubai last year to pursue an aviation career. She was working as cabin crew for Emirates Airlines, and she ended up marrying a South African man. Things went south very quickly, and he became physically abusive to her. She went to hospital and had severe injuries. After that, there was another assault, and she broke free, ran up to the bathroom, and she woke up with paramedics and police over her, and she was taken to the police station and actually charged with attempted suicide and consuming alcohol, Ms Stirling said. On the outpouring of support for Ms Towey, Ms Stirling added: It's amazing to see people really standing behind her and wanting her home as soon as possible. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can contact Womens Aid (24-hour freephone helpline at 1800-341 900, email helpline@womensaid.ie), Mens Aid Ireland (confidential helpline at 01-554 3811, email hello@mensaid.ie), or the Samaritans (24-hour confidential freephone helpline at 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org) for support and information. Safe Ireland also offers a number of local services and helplines at safeireland.ie/get-help/where-to-find-help/. -Additional reporting by PA and Vivienne Clarke. Gardai have arrested a man after cocaine worth 3 million was seized in Dublin. It was discovered after gardai carried out a search of a home in Clondalkin on Tuesday. Advertisement The suspected cocaine will now be sent to Forensic Science Ireland to undergo analysis. A man in his 30s is currently detained at a Garda station in the Dublin area. Investigations are ongoing. A man who called himself a doctor and circumcised seven little boys in their homes has been jailed for six and a half years for endangerment. Philip Ogbewe referred to himself as 'Dr Philip' when he performed circumcisions on six infants and one five-year-old boy at various locations in Dublin, Kildare and Wexford in 2018 and 2019, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard this week. Advertisement He was contacted by parents who wanted their sons circumcised and who had heard of him through friends. Some of these parents had tried to get their child circumcised in hospital, but could either not access the procedure, or had been quoted around 1,500 for the surgery. Ogbewe charged the parents between 300 and 350 in most cases to carry out the procedure in their own homes, usually while the child was on their parent's lap or in one case on a kitchen table. He used an anaesthetic spray in some but not all instances, the prosecution stated. Advertisement On one occasion, Ogbewe handed a mother a plastic bag of detritus from the procedure to dispose of, while in another case he refused to tell a child's mother, who was a nurse, what kind of anaesthetic he had used on her son. All the children were later examined by medical practitioners and nothing untoward was found in relation to the circumcisions, except for one boy who was found to have scar tissue and an uneven scar line. Ogbewe (59), of Greenlanes, Drogheda, Co Louth, pleaded guilty to seven counts of endangerment and seven counts of assault causing harm in relation to each child on whom he performed the procedure on dates between January 1st, 2018 and October 23rd, 2019. The court heard he was arrested in November 2018 in relation to the circumcision of another child in 2015 who ended up being hospitalised with complications from the procedure. Advertisement He was on bail for this matter when he carried out the offences before the courts in this case. Ogbewe was jailed in May 2020 for three years for the endangerment of the child in the 2015 circumcision, which was backdated to November 2019 when he was taken into custody. He was released in October 2021. He has four other previous convictions for road traffic offences. Deception He was also charged with deception by making himself out to be a medical practitioner, but these charges were dropped by the prosecution. Advertisement Defence counsel maintained that while Ogbewe now accepts what he did was wrong, he maintains that he never made himself out to be a medical practitioner. His attitude was that he was highly qualified, highly experienced as a circumcisor, Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC, defending, told the court. As far as he was concerned, he was fully qualified and experienced to do it. Sentencing Ogbewe on Wednesday, Judge Elma Sheahan said reports provided to the court outlined the clear and obvious need for medical training, expertise and experience on the part of the professional carrying out a circumcision due to the risks of the procedure and its potential complications. She said the court was struck by the evidence of an absence of anaesthesia when dealing in some of these incidents, with small babies held in their parents' arms. Advertisement The judge said it was owing to luck that the children did not suffer more. She said Ogbewe's moral culpability was high and that the aggravating features included the persistent and serious nature of offending and its impact on the victims, even though they did not suffer long-term harm. She also noted Ogbewe has a previous similar conviction and had carried out these procedures when he knew or ought to have known that it should be performed by medical professionals, as he had made enquiries about the requirements to carry out circumcisions in Ireland. She said she took into consideration the mitigation, including Ogbewes guilty plea and his personal circumstances. Judge Sheahan said she would sentence Ogbewe on the endangerment counts, with the assault causing harm charges taken into consideration. She imposed a global sentence of seven and a half years, with the final 12 months suspended on strict conditions to encourage rehabilitation. 'Traumatised' Detective Garda Avril Foley told Eoin Lawlor BL, prosecuting, that some of the children's parents got Ogbewe's details from friends in the African community. Ogbewe maintained he always used a numbing or anaesthetic spray on the children, but some parents reported there was no medication used during the procedure. Some of the parents were devastated to hear Ogbewe was not a real doctor, the court heard. There was just one victim impact statement in court from one mother, who said she was traumatised to hear Ogbewe was not a real doctor as he claimed, adding that she is thankful her son has no memory of the procedure. Defence counsel said Ogbewe now accepts the dangers that were involved in carrying out the circumcisions. The court heard Ogbewe has a number of serious medical conditions, including a heart condition, diabetes and sciatica. He has a lengthy work history, including as a cleaner, shop worker, security and refrigeration services. A letter of apology was also handed into the court. Judge Sheahan imposed a four-and-a-half-year sentence on each of the seven counts of endangerment. She said it was necessary that one of these sentences would run consecutively, to reflect the seriousness of offending and the harm done, with the remainder to run concurrently. The judge said this gave a total sentence of nine years, which she reduced by 18 months to reflect the principles of totality and proportionality, giving an effective total sentence of seven and a half years. Judge Sheahan said it was clear from documents provided to the court that Ogbewe accepted his wrongdoing and was able to secure work in the community. She suspended the final 12 months of the sentence to encourage further rehabilitation. Judge Sheahan also granted the defence's application to extend legal aid in the event of an appeal. Provisional liquidators have been appointed by the High Court to businesses that operate 11 health food stores in the Leinster area. The appointments were made in respect of GNC Well Ireland Unlimited Company, and the related THSD Unlimited Company, which has 86 full and part-time employees in Ireland. Advertisement The businesses traded under 'The Health Food Store' brand in respect of 10 stores and as 'GNC' in respect of one store. The companies are part of the US-based GNC group, a health food retailer that operates over 4,000 stores in 50 different countries. The 11 Irish stores are located in Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare, while the firm's head office is based in Nutgrove Park in Rathfarnham, Dublin. The High Court heard the Irish businesses have been loss-making in recent years, and were deemed by its parent company as being unlikely to become profitable and commercially sustainable. Advertisement Following a strategic review of the businesses, which had been supporting the firms by way of intracompany loans, the parent company decided it was no longer prepared to provide further financial support which the firms required in order to continue to trade. On Wednesday, Mr Justice Liam Kennedy said he was satisfied to appoint Nicholas O'Dwyer and John Boland of Grant Thornton as joint provisional liquidators of the related companies. The judge said, based on the evidence put before the court, he was satisfied it was in the best interests of all the various stakeholders, including the employees, that the provisional liquidators were appointed. Seeking the appointments, Stephen Walsh Bl, for the companies, said the financial situation of the companies had deteriorated following the Covid-19 pandemic. Advertisement The firms' latest management accounts show they have significant balance sheet deficits of over 5.2 million. Counsel said that the stores had found sales to be challenging in recent years, noting there had been a 12 per cent drop in sales in the year ending 2021, followed by a 5 per cent drop in 2022. The firms had also experienced additional challenges, including increased business rates, wage increases, the implementation of VAT on products that had previously been zero-VAT, and the increase in costs on certain imported products. Counsel said the parent had conducted a process aimed at finding a buyer for the Irish businesses. Advertisement Unfortunately it was not possible to complete a sale. Counsel said, after considering all the options, the parent company decided to withdraw financial support it had been providing, and resolved to have the commercially unsustainable and insolvent firms wound up. Counsel said the appointment of provisional liquidators by the court would help ensure an orderly winding up of the businesses. The liquidators would be able to take steps to secure the stock and liaise with potential buyers with a view to maximising the proceeds available to creditors, counsel said, adding they would also be in a better position to deal with the firms' landlords and employees. The matter will return before the court later this month. An Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter in southern Gaza killed at least 25 Palestinians on Tuesday, as heavy bombardment in the north forced the closure of medical facilities in Gaza City and sent thousands fleeing in search of increasingly elusive refuge. Israels new ground assault in Gazas largest city is its latest effort to battle Hamas militants regrouping in areas the army previously said had been largely cleared. Advertisement Large parts of Gaza City and urban areas around it have been flattened or left a shattered landscape after nine months of fighting. Much of the population fled earlier in the war, but several hundred thousand Palestinians remain in the north. The fighting has been intense, said Hakeem Abdel-Bar, who fled Gaza Citys Tuffah district to the home of relatives in another part of the city. He said Israeli warplanes and drones are striking anything moving and that tanks have moved into central districts. The strike at the entrance to the school killed at least 25 people, according to an Associated Press reporter who counted the bodies at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. A hospital spokesman said the dead included at least seven women and children and that the toll is likely to rise. Advertisement A Palestinian man injured in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip is treated in a hospital in Khan Younis (Jehad Alshrafi/AP) Earlier air strikes in central Gaza killed at least 14 people, including a woman and four children, according to two hospitals that received the bodies. Israel has repeatedly struck what it says are militant targets across Gaza since the start of the war nine months ago. The military blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants fight in dense, urban areas, but the army rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children. The Israeli army said the air strike near the school and reports of civilian casualties are under review, and claimed the strike targeted a Hamas militant who took part in the October 7th attack on Israel. Advertisement There was also no immediate word on casualties in Gaza City. Families whose relatives were wounded or trapped were calling for ambulances, but first responders could not reach most of the affected districts because of the Israeli operations, said Palestinian Red Crescent spokeswoman Nebal Farsakh. Its a dangerous zone, she said. Advertisement Israeli soldiers block a road as smoke rises after a rocket fired from Lebanon hit the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights (Leo Correa/AP) After Israel called on Monday for an evacuation from eastern and central parts of Gaza City, staff at two hospitals Al-Ahli and the Patients Friends Association Hospital rushed to move patients and shut down, the United Nations said. Ms Farsakh said all three medical facilities run by the Red Crescent in Gaza City have closed. Scores of patients were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, which itself was the scene of heavy fighting earlier in the war. Advertisement We do not know where to go. There is no treatment and no necessities for life, said Mohammad Abu Naser, who is being treated there. We are dying slowly. The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it told hospitals and other medical facilities in Gaza City they did not need to evacuate. But hospitals in Gaza have often shut down and moved patients at any sign of possible Israeli military action, fearing raids. The Episcopal Church in the Middle East, which operates Al-Ahli, said the hospital was compelled to close by the Israeli army after the evacuation orders and a wave of nearby drone strikes on Sunday. In the past nine months, Israeli troops have occupied at least eight hospitals, causing the deaths of patients and medical workers along with massive destruction to facilities and equipment. Israel has claimed Hamas uses hospitals for military purposes, though it has provided only limited evidence. A Palestinian woman hugs her son at a hospital in Khan Younis after he was wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip (Jehad Alshrafi/AP) Only 13 of Gazas 36 hospitals are functioning, and those only partially, according to the United Nations humanitarian office. Israels campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas October 7th attack, has killed or wounded more than 5 per cent of Gazas 2.3 million Palestinians, according to the territorys Health Ministry. Nearly the entire population have been driven from their homes. Many have been displaced multiple times, and hundreds of thousands are packed into sweltering tent camps. The UN humanitarian office said the exodus in Gaza City is dangerously chaotic, with people instructed to flee through neighbourhoods where fighting is under way. People have been observed fleeing in multiple directions, not knowing which way may be safest, the agency said in a statement. It said the largest UN bakery in the city has been forced to close, and that the fighting has blocked aid groups from accessing warehouses. Maha Mahfouz, a mother of two, said she fled twice in the past 24 hours. She first rushed from her home in Gaza City to a relatives house in another neighbourhood. When that became dangerous, she fled on Monday night to Shati, a decades-old refugee camp that has grown into an urban district where Israel has carried out repeated raids. She described vast destruction in the areas targeted in the latest raids. The buildings were destroyed. The roads were destroyed. All has become rubble, she said. The Israeli military has said it had intelligence showing that militants from Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group were regrouping in central Gaza City. Israel accuses Hamas and other militants of hiding among civilians. In Shijaiyah, a Gaza City neighbourhood that has seen weeks of fighting, the military said it had destroyed 6km of Hamas tunnels. Hamas has warned that the latest raids in Gaza City could lead to the collapse of negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage-release deal. Israel and Hamas had appeared to narrow the gaps in recent days, with the US, Egypt and Qatar mediating. A Palestinian man holds the body of a child killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP) On Tuesday, CIA director William Burns met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo to discuss the negotiations, the presidents office said. More talks are due to be held on Wednesday in Qatar, where Hamas maintains a political office. But obstacles remain, even after Hamas agreed to relent on its key demand that Israel commit to ending the war as part of any agreement. Hamas still wants mediators to guarantee that negotiations conclude with a permanent ceasefire. Israel has rejected any deal that would force it to end the war with Hamas intact. On Monday, Hamas accused Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu of putting more obstacles in the way of negotiations, including the operations in Gaza City. Hamass cross-border raid on October 7th killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities. The militants took roughly 250 people hostage. About 120 are still in captivity, with about a third said to be dead. Israels bombardment and offensives in Gaza have killed more than 38,200 people and wounded more than 88,000, according to the territorys Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Fleishman Is In Trouble author Taffy Brodesser-Akner is back with her latest novel Fiction 1. First Wifes Shadow by Adele Parks is published in hardback by HQ. Available now Advertisement There is still time to pre-order a copy of FIRST WIFES SHADOW from Waterstones and receive a 50% discount if you enter the code PARKSWIFE2024 At the till point! Youre welcome! pic.twitter.com/xjnjlsh7Z0 Adele Parks (@adeleparks) July 2, 2024 Advertisement Emma is at the top of her game. Shes successful, motivated and happy in her own skin. She has fabulous friends that have been her whole world for decades. On a business trip, Emma meets photographer Matthew and quickly falls in love. Matthew comes with baggage, he is freshly widowed and Emma can feel his dead wife Beckys eyes burning into her soul. As the whirlwind romance turns into a runaway marriage, Emma starts to question herself, her friends and her new husband. But this is an Adele Parks story, and things are never as simple and straightforward as they seem. Usually there are three sides to every tale and in this case there are more than just Emmas, Matthews and the truth. An absorbing, unsettling and addictive read thats perfect for your travels this summer. 9/10 (Review by Rachel Howdle) 2. Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner is published in hardback by Wildfire. Available now Advertisement Today is the day! Long Island Compromise, the new book by @taffyakner, the bestselling author of Fleishman is in Trouble is out today https://t.co/hjKGYAxn6P pic.twitter.com/kUVRdVaSxk Headline Books (@headlinepg) July 9, 2024 Advertisement Fans of Taffy Brodesser-Akner will rejoice that Long Island Compromise is set in similar territory to her previous work, Fleishman Is In Trouble, liberally steeped in American Jewish history and culture. Here, the brutal kidnapping of business magnate Carl Fletcher in 1980 becomes the catalyst for shockwaves across the generations, which rise once again with the death of the Fletcher matriarch, 40 years later. Jarring and often heartbreaking, this novel doesnt shy away from documenting the resulting inherited trauma that unravels each of his childrens lives, or the burden of wealth as they edge ever closer to the cliff edge. As they try to gain some sort of control and purpose, its also tremendously tender and frequently darkly comic. This seemingly cursed family are multi-dimensional their story offers a dense, enthralling and powerful meditation on the corrupting power of riches. A compelling summer read. 8/10 (Review by Amanda Willard) 3. Whoever You Are, Honey by Olivia Gatwood is published in hardback by Hutchinson Heinemann. Available July 11th HOT NEW BOOK Welcome to Santa Cruz, where the houses overlook the pristine beach and those that live within are seemingly perfect . . . WHOEVER YOU ARE, HONEY is an electric psychological thriller about the race for female perfection from poetry star Olivia Gatwood pic.twitter.com/cTuPeSyo98 Advertisement Hutchinson Heinemann (@HutchHeinemann) January 25, 2024 Olivia Gatwood fully immerses the reader into a dynamic world of sand, sex and secrets in her debut novel. This addictive book pulls back a curtain of one of Santa Cruzs pristine waterfront houses, home to tech entrepreneur Sebastian and his passive girlfriend Lena. The prominent imbalance of power and wealth in their relationship leaves Lena insecure and desperate for friendship. Loneliness draws Lena and neighbour Mitty together and shocking secrets of their pasts are slowly uncovered throughout the novel. The narratives relaxed pace allows the reader to fully absorb themselves into Gatwoods beautifully crafted coastal setting. If you are a fan of Gatwoods coming-of-age feminist poetry, try Whoever You Are, Honey, as youll find similar themes interlaced within its pages. 7/10 (Review by Camilla Foster) Non-fiction 4. Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots Of Our Future by Daniel Lewis is published in hardback by Simon & Schuster. Available now (Simon & Schuster/PA) Trees make up a great percentage of our landscape, but have you ever wondered what this ancient species could tell us about the world around them? In Twelve Trees, Professor Daniel Lewis takes us on a research journey as he studies some of the worlds most threatened genus. Amongst other interesting finds, some species (the Longleaf Pine) thrive from being set on fire, while Lewis found that trees annual rings unveil information regarding drought or rainfall from their past. The book reports how some trees adapt to changeable conditions the Bald Cypress now lives in wet conditions the recent history of ebony, olive oil and how amber fossils show us a window to the past. This enlightening book is very informative, combining science and wonder and giving hope for the future that we might learn lessons from the 12 trees that are now under threat from various worldly factors. 7/10 (Review by Karen Shield) Childrens book of the week 5. Rabbit On The Rampage by Lorna Watson, illustrated by Rikin Parekh, is published in paperback by Walker Books. Available now (Walker Books/PA) This story follows the saga of Rabbit and her favourite curly carrot. Rabbit takes the carrot everywhere with her swimming, dance class, everywhere. One day, she notices the curly carrot is missing from its usual place, and chaos ensues. She then goes on a rampage backtracking her steps and accusing all her friends rather rudely and loudly of stealing the carrot. Each friend offers her an alternative vegetable to no avail. As you can probably imagine, Rabbit eventually finds the carrot and has to find a way to make it up to all her friends. This is a quirky and entertaining book with lovely colourful illustrations that will delight any child. 7/10 (Review by Joanne Brennan) BOOK CHARTS FOR THE WEEK ENDING JULY 6th HARDBACK (FICTION) 1. Babylonia by Costanza Casati 2. When The Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker 3. Long Island by Colm Toibin 4. Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors 5. Breaking The Dark by Lisa Jewell 6. You Are Here by David Nicholls 7. The Ministry Of Time by Kaliane Bradley 8. First Wifes Shadow by Adele Parks 9. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros 10. Murder At The Monastery by Reverend Richard Coles (Compiled by Waterstones) HARDBACK (NON-FICTION) 1. Pinch Of Nom Air Fryer by Kay Allinson & Kate Allinson 2. The House Of Beckham by Tom Bower 3. Keir Starmer by Tom Baldwin 4. MILF by Paloma Faith 5. Wimbledon by Sue Barker 6. My Family by David Baddiel 7. Operation Biting by Max Hastings 8. Cloudspotting For Beginners by Gavin Pretor-Pinney 9. Greekish by Georgina Hayden 10. Ask Not by Maureen Callahan (Compiled by Waterstones) AUDIOBOOKS (FICTION AND NON-FICTION) 1. The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer 2. Atomic Habits by James Clear 3. The Suspect by Rob Rinder 4. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman 5. Unruly by David Mitchell 6. None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell 7. The Trial by Rob Rinder 8. Politics On The Edge by Rory Stewart 9. A Game Of Thrones by George R.R. Martin 10. Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken (Compiled by Audible) An aid group that rescues migrants in the Mediterranean says one of its missions was interrupted by armed bandits who boarded the overloaded smugglers boat and sped away with it after the migrants threw themselves into the sea. SOS Mediterranee filmed the incident on Tuesday. The group said it occurred about 46 nautical miles north of Zuwara on Libyas western coast, a frequent launching point for smuggling operations to bring migrants to Europe. Advertisement According to the video, SOS Mediterranee volunteers were helping transfer the 93 passengers from the wooden boat onto their rescue vessel when two rubber dinghies approached. A masked bandit leapt onto the migrant boat, sparking panic among the remaining passengers, who threw themselves into the sea. Rescue personnel help transfer the passengers from a wooden migrant boat (Charles Thiefaine/SOS Mediterranee via AP) Advertisement The bandit took control of the empty boat and steered it away from the scene as the SOS Mediterranee crew plucked people from the sea. It was not clear if the bandits were trying to recover the boat for future smuggling operations. Often, when Italian maritime authorities encounter such boats, they intentionally sink them as a matter of maritime safety. But Valeria Taurino, general director of SOS Mediterranee, said governments are providing fewer resources to rescue operations, leaving aid groups to do the job in increasingly dangerous situations. The lack of rescue vessels left by the states in recent years in the central Mediterranean has generated a reckless increase in armed presence and illegal and dangerous actions for both the fleeing shipwrecked people and aid workers, she said in a statement. Advertisement Italian authorities say the presence of humanitarian rescue ships in the Mediterranean only encourages migrants to take the risky voyages, a charge they deny. The rescue was one of several reported by rescue groups this week, as smugglers appear to be taking advantage of summers often calm seas. That said, the number of migrants arriving in Italy this year by boat 27,744 is less than half the 72,036 who had arrived by this time last year, according to interior ministry statistics. The right-wing government of Premier Giorgia Meloni has made limiting migration a priority. Advertisement It has signed deals with individual African countries to block departures, imposed limits on the work of humanitarian rescue ships, cracked down on traffickers who reach Italy and taken other measures to deter would-be migrants from setting off. Suella Braverman has hit out at reported comments by Kemi Badenoch about her having a breakdown, as the rancour between the two Tory leadership rivals descended into a public row. Shadow housing secretary Ms Badenoch reportedly used Rishi Sunaks first shadow cabinet meeting to criticise his UK election campaign and accuse Ms Braverman of having a very public nervous breakdown. Advertisement Ms Badenoch on Wednesday said it was a shame the discussions had been leaked, but renewed her attack on the previous Tory government by saying there was too much nodding along in the room. Id be interested in knowing whether Kemi thinks Im having a very public nervous breakdown. #honesty #unity #wedontleak https://t.co/g4x9CLzAgR Suella Braverman MP (@SuellaBraverman) July 10, 2024 Advertisement And she did not deny making the nervous breakdown remark about Ms Braverman. The former UK home secretary took to X, formerly Twitter, to say: Id be interested in knowing whether Kemi thinks Im having a very public nervous breakdown. Advertisement The row came just hours after shadow home secretary James Cleverly called for the party to unite as he warned against bitter infighting. Mr Sunak is expected to address the 1922 Committee of backbenchers later on Wednesday after an acrimonious meeting of the panel which will set out the rules and timeline of the leadership contest. He announced last week that he would step down as party leader once the formal arrangements for choosing a successor are in place. Ms Badenoch, who is considered a frontrunner in the race, reiterated the criticism of Mr Sunaks administration she reportedly voiced in the first meeting of the Conservative front bench since losing power. Advertisement She wrote in a post on X: Its a shame our discussions in Shadow Cabinet were leaked yesterday. If there is no private space to discuss our Partys challenges, we will never fully address what the electorate told us last week. Advertisement The views of those outside these meetings matter too. Not just backbench MPs, but our party activists, members and friends who lost seats after giving everything to the campaign. In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it. That culture needs to change. We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards. In Tuesdays gathering of the shadow cabinet, she reportedly called Mr Sunaks decision to leave D-Day commemorations early disastrous and said colleagues including Penny Mordaunt would have kept their seats if he had stayed longer in France. If she throws her hat in the ring, Ms Badenoch could face competition from fellow right-winger Ms Braverman. Ms Badenoch reportedly made the nervous breakdown comment after Ms Braverman hit out at liberal Conservatives at an event in Washington DC and at a Popular Conservatism gathering in London. Ms Braverman on Wednesday echoed her previous words by posting on X: The liberals are having a meltdown about my speech. Basic truths about our Party are not easy to hear. But Ill keep telling them on behalf of the common sense, patriotic, conservative majority. Other possible candidates for the party leadership include Mr Cleverly; Dame Priti Patel, who served as home secretary between July 2019 and September 2022; Robert Jenrick, who previously served as immigration minister; and ex-health secretary Victoria Atkins. Right-wingers and more moderate Tories are expected to battle it out for the top job in a contest that could shape the party for years to come. Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt, a centrist figure in the party, has ruled out running. The 1922 Committee on Tuesday elected Bob Blackman as its new chair, but not without Tory MP Mark Francois complaining the vote was bent after he attempted to vote but was turned away. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has discussed the war in Ukraine with Austria, an ally of Kyiv that has a policy of military neutrality, emphasising the need for diplomacy a day after he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Mr Modi met Chancellor Karl Nehammer on what he said was the first visit to Austria by an Indian prime minister in 41 years. Advertisement Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, and Austrias Chancellor Karl Nehammer held talks in Vienna (Heinz-Peter Bader/AP) Mr Nehammer told reporters it is important to understand Indias position on Ukraine and convey Europes concerns. He said it was an important and significant signal that India took part in a summit in Switzerland last month and added that Austria could act as a bridge-builder in helping move forward peace efforts. Advertisement Mr Modis visit to Moscow, a longtime partner of New Delhi, was his first since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, is welcomed to Vienna with military honours by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer (Heinz-Peter Bader/AP) While in Moscow, the prime minister reiterated Indias neutral stance on the invasion. Advertisement He also alluded to an attack on Monday when Russian missiles struck across Ukraine, damaging the largest childrens hospital in Kyiv and killing at least 42 people nationwide, including some children. Be it war, a struggle or a terrorist attack, every person who believes in humanity, when there is loss of life, he is pained, Mr Modi said Tuesday. When innocent children are killed, when we see innocent children dying, then the heart pains. And that pain is very horrible. In his comments on Wednesday, Mr Modi said in general terms that he and Mr Nehammer had extensive discussions on all the worlds conflicts, including Ukraine. Advertisement He said problems cannot be solved in the battlefield and that the loss of innocent lives is not acceptable, wherever it may take place. Advertisement India and Austria both lay emphasis on dialogue and diplomacy for the rapid restoration of peace and stability, he said. Both of us are ready to provide all possible support to achieve this. The two men took no questions from journalists. More than 14,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the Channel. Figures from the UK Home Office show 419 people made the journey in six boats on Tuesday, suggesting an average of around 70 people per boat and taking the provisional total for 2024 to date to 14,058. Advertisement This is 10 per cent higher than the number recorded this time last year (12,772) and up 6% on the same period in 2022 (13,318), according to analysis of the data. (PA Graphics) Several children were among those pictured being brought ashore in Dover, Kent, amid calm weather conditions at sea on an overcast and rainy day. Groups of people were seen being escorted from Border Force boats and lifeboats wearing life jackets, with some wrapped in blankets. Advertisement The latest crossings mean 484 migrants arrivals have been recorded over two days of activity in the Channel since Sir Keir Starmer became UK prime minister following Labours general election victory last week. But windy conditions in the Channel on Wednesday may prevent crossings being attempted for a third day in a row. Last year, 29,437 migrants arrived in the UK after making the journey, down 36 per cent on a record 45,774 in 2022. In its most serious rebuke against Beijing, Nato allies have called China a decisive enabler of Russias war against Ukraine and expressed concerns over Chinas nuclear arsenal and its capabilities in space. The sternly worded final communique, approved by the 32 Nato members at their summit in Washington, makes clear that China is becoming a focus of the military alliance. Advertisement The European and North American members and their partners in the Indo-Pacific increasingly see shared security concerns coming from Russia and its Asian supporters, especially China. Beijing has denied that it supports Russias war efforts and insists that it conducts normal trade with its northern neighbour. #NATO leaders gather for a family photo at the historic #NATOSummit in Washington DC. pic.twitter.com/2018BfDjWH Advertisement NATO Spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah (@NATOpress) July 10, 2024 In the communique, Nato member countries said China has become a war enabler through its no-limits partnership with Russia and its large-scale support for Russias defence industrial base. Advertisement This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbours and to Euro-Atlantic security. We call on the PRC, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with a particular responsibility to uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, to cease all material and political support to Russias war effort, read the communique, which referred to China by the abbreviation of its official name, the Peoples Republic of China. Beijing has expressed displeasure at Natos growing interest in Asia and demanded the alliance stay out of the Asia-Pacific region and not incite confrontation. Nato should not use China to justify its insertion into the Asia-Pacific and attempt to disrupt regional dynamics, said Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, on Tuesday. China is a force for world peace, a contributor to global development and a defender of international order. Advertisement Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea sent their leaders or deputies to the Nato summit in Washington this week. They are partners, not members, of the alliance. Danny Russel, a former assistant secretary of state for Asia and now vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, called the new wording by Nato an extraordinary step, particularly since it was coupled with the warning that Beijing continues to pose systemic challenges to European interests and security in the same communique. It is a mark of how badly Beijings attempt to straddle Russia and Western Europe has failed and how hollow its claim of neutrality rings, Mr Russel said. Chinas attempts at divide-and-conquer have instead produced remarkable solidarity between key nations of the Euro-Atlantic and the Asia-Pacific regions. Advertisement In Washington, where leaders of Nato nations are convening this week to mark the coalitions 75th anniversary, President Joe Biden said the alliance must not fall behind Russia, which is ramping up weapon production with the help of China, North Korea and Iran. Jens Stoltenberg, general secretary of Nato, said in his opening remarks that Nato would be enforcing its partnerships in the Indo-Pacific. The search for those trapped in a deadly landslide on Indonesias Sulawesi island intensified on Wednesday, with more rescuers deployed to search an unauthorised gold mine where 23 people died over the weekend. More than 100 villagers were digging for grains of gold in remote Bone Bolango in Gorontalo province on Sunday when tons of mud plunged down the surrounding hills and buried their makeshift camps. Advertisement The provincial Search and Rescue Office said on Wednesday that 81 villagers managed to escape from the landslide, several of them pulled out by rescuers, including 18 with injuries. It added that 23 bodies have been recovered, including that of a four-year-old boy, while 33 other people are missing. An Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency worker tends to an injured victim of the landslide in Suwawa on Sulawesi island (BASARNAS/AP) Advertisement More than 1,000 personnel, including army troops, were deployed to increase the strength of search efforts, said Edy Prakoso, the National Search and Rescue Agencys operations director. He said the Indonesian Air Force would send a helicopter because it is the only way to speed up the rescue operation that has been hampered by heavy rain, unstable soil, and rugged terrain. Informal mining operations are common in Indonesia, providing a tenuous livelihood for thousands labouring in conditions that pose a high risk of serious injury or death. Landslides, flooding and collapses of tunnels are just some of the hazards facing miners. Much of gold ore processing involves highly toxic mercury and cyanide, with workers frequently using little or no protection. Advertisement The countrys last major mining-related accident occurred in April 2022, when a landslide crashed on to an illegal gold mine in North Sumatras Mandailing Natal district, killing 12 women who were looking for gold. Advertisement Environmental activists have campaigned for years to shut down such operation across the country, especially on Sulawesi, where the practice has grown in recent years. Sundays landslide reignited their calls. The local government which has allowed illegal gold mining activities in this area to continue has contributed to the deadly disaster, said Muhammad Jamil, who heads the legal division of the Mining Advocacy Network, an environment watchdog known as Jatam. He said gold mining involves many people who share blame, from those working on the ground to officials in the local council and even the police. Advertisement This mafia network appears to have helped shield the miners from law enforcement, even as they tear up protected forests, Mr Jamil said. When natural resources such as rivers, forests, land and the sea are damaged, it will be a complete loss to the countrys economy. Ferdy Hasiman, a mining and energy researcher from Alpha Research and Datacentre, said the proliferation of the pit mines has long been blamed for environmental damage in upstream areas that has in turn exacerbated flooding and landslides downstream. Flash floods and landslides would persist if illegal mining and the deforestation in the practice continue, he said. We call on the local and central government to expand their efforts to shut down illegal gold mining across the country. A suspected attack by Yemens Houthi rebels targeted a ship in the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Wednesday, as authorities acknowledged that the rebels had launched their longest-range attack yet on a US-flagged vessel near the Arabian Sea. The sudden burst of attacks by the Houthis comes after an unexplained pause of a week and a half by the rebels. Advertisement It is though they may be regrouping ahead of the arrival of a new US aircraft carrier to the region after the USS Dwight D Eisenhower began heading home. An F/A-18 Super Hornet prepares to launch from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in the South China Sea on July 5 (Seaman Aaron Haro Gonzalez/US Navy/AP) Wednesdays attack targeted a ship south of Mocha, the British militarys United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre said. The captain reported explosions off the ships side. Advertisement The vessel and all crew are safe, the UKMTO said. The vessel is proceeding to its next port of call. The Houthis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea corridor since November. The rebels did not immediately claim Wednesdays attack, although they often do not do so for hours or even days. On Tuesday, the Houthis said they launched missiles at a US-flagged container ship in the Gulf of Aden. The Joint Maritime Information Centre, which is overseen by the US Navy, identified the ship as the Maersk Sentosa and warned it was the longest-distance attack seen from Yemen by the Houthis since November Advertisement Late on Tuesday night, the Houthis issued a broad claim of responsibility for three attacks, which included the Maersk Sentosa. Maersk, a Danish firm that is the worlds biggest shipping company, confirmed to The Associated Press that its vessel had been targeted. No injuries to the crew or damage to the ship or cargo were reported, Maersk said in a statement. The vessel is currently continuing her voyage towards her next port of call. The rebels have targeted more than 70 vessels by firing missiles and drones in their campaign that has killed four sailors. They have seized one vessel and sunk two since November. In June, the number of Houthi attacks on merchant vessels increased to levels not seen since December, according to the JMIC. Advertisement An F/A-18 Super Hornet launches from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in the South China Sea on July 5 (Seaman Aaron Haro Gonzalez/US Navy/AP) US-led air strikes have been targeting the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes on May 30 killing at least 16 people and injuring 42 others, the rebels say. The Houthis maintain that their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain as part of rebel support for the militant group Hamas in its war against Israel in the Gaza Strip. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the Israel-Hamas war including some bound for Iran. Advertisement The sudden increase in assaults comes after a relatively quiet week and a half. The rebels gave no explanation for the suspension or the resumption of attacks. However, the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is due to enter the Middle East region to replace the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, which has spent months in the Red Sea to counter the Houthis. The US Navy has not offered any new details on the Roosevelts location, though an image published by the Navy put the carrier in the South China Sea last Friday. Amazon may be worried that it cant beat the two Chinese juggernauts of low-priced online retailing, Shein and Temu. So its decided to join them. Last week, the American e-retail giant organised an invitation-only meeting with a group of top Chinese sellers to test their appetite for signing up to a new section on its website that will be devoted to items that will generally sell for less than $US20 ($30) and will be delivered to customers within a range of nine to 11 days of ordering. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The online juggernaut is facing stiff competition from Shein and Temu. Credit: AP Amazon is planning to ship non-branded fashion, households goods and other discount items directly from a warehouse in China to the end-consumers. A point of difference between it and its Chinese competitors and its appeal to the Chinese sellers it is seeking to sign up is that it will allow them to set their own prices. That represents a significant departure from Amazons core business model. It currently ships in bulk from China and elsewhere to its vast network of warehouses, leveraging the sophistication of its distribution network to be able to deliver items within one or two days. Last year, it delivered more than 4 billion items to consumers in the United States within 24 hours. Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 (M) 181 minutes If you want to make an epic western at present, the easy way is to relocate the frontier to a post-apocalyptic future, or to outer space. Otherwise theres always TV. But evidently none of those options were good enough for Kevin Costner in this partly self-funded project, his first film as director since Open Range in 2003. Kevin Costner in a scene from Horizon. Credit: AP Sitting through the three-hour Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1, I assumed I was seeing the first half of an envisaged whole, akin to an old-fashioned miniseries spread over two nights. In fact, there are four films planned, meaning Costner is operating more on the scale of James Camerons Avatar saga itself a western by other means, starring Sam Worthington as a US soldier gone native among blue-skinned aliens, a scenario that owed something to Costners long-ago Oscar triumph Dances with Wolves. Coincidentally or not, Worthington shows up again in Horizon, as a US Army lieutenant showing cautious sympathy for the local indigenous. Cameron, though, has been careful to ensure that his two Avatar movies so far can each be enjoyed as stand-alone spectacles and, more vitally, that the audience knows from early on what the story is all about. On March 15, 2022, I led eight children into the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney, marking the end of an 18-month court battle. A year earlier, Justice Mordecai Bromberg had ruled that the federal environment minister had duty of care to protect current and future young Australians aged under 18 from the impacts of climate change. He noted in his judgment that the trauma and health impacts facing children will largely be inflicted by the inaction of this generation of adults, in what might fairly be described as the greatest intergenerational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the next. Anjali Sharma with Senator David Pocock. Within months, the then environment minister now the deputy leader of the opposition Sussan Ley appealed the ruling and pushed ahead approving new mining projects. It wasnt lost on any of us that this was a landmark case. The Federal Court had an opportunity, then and there, to set a groundbreaking precedent for the protection of the rights of children in the face of climate change. Instead, on March 15, 2022, Brombergs decision was overturned on appeal, by the full bench of the court. Just when this column thought it had absolutely wrung dry all possible permutations of news, titbits, comment, gossip and conjecture about Australias richest person, Gina Rinehart, and the use of her image in paintings, caricatures, cartoons, photographs and the like with her permission/against her will we were proved wrong. Driza-Bone advertisement featuring John Bjeke-Petersen and Gina Rinehart. Regular readers will recall the controversy over Rineharts hate of the unflattering Vincent Namatjira portrait in the National Gallery of Australia. Then there was the painting Rinehart actually approved of, which turned out to have been painted by Alix Korte, wife of Hancock Prospecting chief executive Garry Korte. But Holy Gruen Transfer! Rinehart has only gone and given permission for a full-page print advertisement starring herself. The ad, which has run in national newspapers, is for something she actually owns, the iconic rural brand Driza-Bone, famous for its oilskin coats. The teen was later arrested at a shopping centre near Frankston with three others aged 15 to 17. The three others have all since been released on bail, the court heard, including one girl also charged over the Glen Huntly incident. The court heard the 15-year-old is one of three teens charged over the false imprisonment of a student outside a primary school in Glen Huntly. An earlier hearing was told the 14-year-old victim was put into a six-day coma after being violently abducted while walking home. The scene of the fatal Burwood crash. Credit: Nine The vehicle took off as the boy was hanging from a passenger door, dragging him for about 150 metres before being thrown from the vehicle. He was then run over. Police believe if hes granted bail he will continue to reoffend in a manner that places the public and emergency-service workers at risk of serious injury or death, the prosecutor said. The 15-year-olds lawyer opposed his client being remanded in custody, arguing the teen was intellectually disabled, would be extremely vulnerable in custody, and may not be given any time in youth detention when sentenced. Alleged crimes involving the 15-year-old May 16, 2023: theft of a motor car May 26, 2023: theft of a motor car July 23, 2023: drive in a manner dangerous September 2023: series of armed robberies September 4, 2023: intentionally cause serious injury, reckless conduct endanger life November 27, 2023: theft of a motor car February 10, 2024: theft of a motor car March 1, 2024: theft of a motor car May 27, 2024: theft of a motor car June 18, 2024: theft of a motor car June 20, 2024: theft of a motor car, endanger emergency service worker He said his client had spent two remand periods at Parkville Youth Justice Centre in March and September before a court granted bail back in April. On Wednesday, the magistrate said the risk to the public was too great to bail the teen. I acknowledge that while custody has to be the last resort, I cannot see an alternative for [the accused boy] at this point, she said. The ongoing allegations are alarming. On Wednesday, the same court earlier heard that the 17-year-old charged over the Burwood crash had been released on bail on Friday on the condition that he remain at his mothers home between 7pm and 6am, which he breached two days later. William Taylor, 28, was killed in the crash in Burwood on July 2. The prosecutor applied to revoke his bail on what they described as serious charges, telling a magistrate that while no further offending was alleged, the accused teen absconded from home and was uncontactable from 2.30pm on Sunday to 6.30pm on Tuesday. He had also failed to attend a mandated Youth Justice appointment on Monday, they said. The court heard that the accused boy believed the bail conditions were harsh and required him to stay at home while completing his VCE. Loading There is no evidence before the court at this time that hes grasped the seriousness of charges, the prosecutor said. They said that on Friday, the teenager was granted bail as the magistrate then found he had met the compelling reasons test due to his young age, lack of prior convictions, supporting family, and stable and safe home. The court heard the teens mother had contacted police on Monday to report him missing and to advise that he was unlikely to attend his scheduled appointment with Youth Justice. At 7.50pm on the same evening, police attended the bail address for a curfew check. [The teenager] was not present at the premises, the prosecutor said. By 6pm on Tuesday, the 9th of July, [he] had not returned. At 7.20pm, his mother contacted police to advise he had returned home. The teens lawyer opposed the revocation, telling the court that the boy had been uncontactable because police had seized his phone as part of their investigation. It is alleged that Ashburton man William Taylor, 28, was left for dead when a stolen Jeep Cherokee ploughed into his Toyota Corolla as he attempted to turn right from Warrigal Road in Burwood on the evening of July 2. During the bail application last week, the court heard that Taylors family flew back to Melbourne from overseas after learning of his death. Police told the court in the boys last childrens court appearance that the family opposed his release on bail after he was charged with offences including culpable driving causing death. Police believe six young people in the Jeep ran from the scene while members of the public tried to help Taylor, who died at the scene. Two 15-year-old girls were arrested shortly after the crash and the 17-year-old boy was arrested on July 3. Loading The court heard police intended to use a pair of white sneakers and mobile phone data to place the 17-year-old behind the wheel in the collision, but the magistrate was critical of the evidence, telling the court many people in the community owned white shoes. The teen was released on bail on Friday on the condition that he stay with his mother, abide by Youth Justice-supervised bail, not associate with his female co-accused, and not drive a motor vehicle. A weapons supplier with more than $200 million in federal deals has emerged as one of the best-connected companies in federal politics, with former Labor and Liberal ministers helping it gain a central position in a massive push to build a guided-missile industry. Nioa Group appears set to gain more contracts to develop the missiles capability with the help of directors including former Liberal defence minister Christopher Pyne and former Labor parliamentary secretary for defence David Feeney, giving it contacts on both sides of parliament. David Feeney and Christopher Pyne are both working with Nioa Group. Credit: Marija Ercegovac But the companys success has also highlighted the gaps in the regime that is meant to monitor lobbying in federal politics, as most company directors are exempt from the scheme and most businesses do not disclose the in-house executives who seek to influence the government. Federal spending on defence is expected to double to $100 billion a year in a plan to acquire new submarines, warships, drones, missiles and other equipment over the decade ahead, setting up massive contracts for companies that gain insight into government plans. Hollywood star and newly minted author Rebel Wilson is taking a new approach to selling her Aussie investment apartment. The listing in Sydney is the latest severing of her real estate ties with Australia. In 2022, Wilson, 44, sold a $9.5 million residence in Birchgrove, on the Balmain peninsula, while retaining this property in her portfolio. Rebel Wilson is selling her Sydney investment property. Credit: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello The swish two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in Balmain is atop a converted soap factory and has sparkling cityscape views. It was pulled from its scheduled June 22 auction and is now listed for $2.3 million. It is understood Wilson, a producer and star of the Pitch Perfect movies, Bridesmaids and The Hustle, bought the dual-level property off the plan in the Lever Brothers Factory which shut in 1988 after its three-year transformation into high-end residences. When the public is invited in to see the view from the Buckingham Palace balcony for the first time next week, they will walk in the footsteps of the royal family. Perhaps unexpectedly, those footsteps will take them past hundreds of gold dragons from floor to ceiling, a Buddha statue that blows incense through its mouth and all the way up to arguably the most famous net curtains in the world. Buckingham Palaces Centre Room opens out onto the famous balcony. Credit: Inside the Centre Room at the palace, opened up at the request of the King, a first group of visitors will be allowed to peer out at where crowds gather for jubilees, royal weddings and birthdays. There is just one thing missing from a true royal outing: the television in the corner, watched by the King and his family on major national occasions so they can take in the full view down the Mall. The automaker emphasised that the decision was made, following material cost savings realisation earlier. (Photo: Reuters) Mahindra and Mahindra on Wednesday issued a clarification that the recent price cut on its certain XUV700 variants is not linked to the Uttar Pradesh EV/ hybrid policy for vehicles. In a stock exchange filing, the automobile manufacturer said the announced price cut of XUV700 is part of its business strategy that was pre-decided in a February meeting. We clearly outlined that we have to bring the average price point down to drive growth, it noted, referring to the meeting. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp The company said that it rolled out the move with the launch of AX5 select variant in May. We have also brought in a 3rd anniversary celebration variant for the higher-end XUV700 for a limited period of four months, the Mumbai-based company added. The automaker emphasised that the decision was made, following material cost savings realisation earlier and added that the price cut move is not expected to have a significant impact on their financials. It further noted that the demand for its XUV700 is robust and the company has subsequently increased its manufacturing capacity to meet the demands. The automaker dispelled the concerns of unsold inventory, noting that the XUV700 variant clocked a 23 per cent increase in bookings in June compared to the previous month. The development comes as the Yogi Adityanath-led UP government announced a complete waiver on the registration fee for hybrid cars, resulting in their on-road price decline up to Rs 4 lakh. The move is aimed at promoting green technology. The state logged the sale of about 100 strong hybrid cars per month in the financial year 2023-24. The development has resulted in a significant price drop for hybrid vehicles such as Maruti Suzukis Grand Vitara, which is now cheaper by about Rs 2 lakh in Uttar Pradesh. Upon his arrival, the Indian Prime Minister was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg | (Photo: Reuters) Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a State visit to Austria, received a ceremonial Guard of Honour at the Federal Chancellery in Vienna on Wednesday. Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer accompanied PM Modi who also signed the Guestbook at at the Federal Chancellery. PM Modi arrived in Austria on Wednesday (local time) from Moscow after concluding a two-day visit to Russia. Upon his arrival here, the Indian Prime Minister was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. Indian Ambassador to Austria, Shambhu Kumaran was also present at the airport. Taking to X, PM Modi stated, "Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more." Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that it was the first bilateral visit of Prime Minister Modi to Austria. "PM @narendramodi arrives in the historic city of Vienna on his first bilateral visit to Austria. Welcomed by FM @a_schallenberg at the airport. As the two countries are celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will add renewed momentum to India-Austria ties," Randhir Jaiswal said on X. Yesterday, PM Modi joined a dinner hosted by Austria Chancellor Karl Nehammer. In a post on X, Nehammar stated, "Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!" Thanking Nehammar for his warm welcome, PM Modi said that he looked forward to holding discussions. In a post on X, PM Modi stated, "Thank you, Chancellor @karlnehammer, for the warm welcome. I look forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good." Notably, the last visit to Austria of an Indian prime minister was that of Indira Gandhi in the year 1983. ETT | iByond, together with WorldVuer established WorldVuer iByonds joint venture to develop the worlds first artificial intelligence operating system, WiOS (WorldVuer iByond Operating System). This collaboration is poised to modernize the technology estates of global enterprises, multinationals, sovereigns, and governments, leveraging intelligent interoperability, speed of innovation, AI, and an airtight security platform. WiOS is poised to be one of the next big players to dominate the world stage alongside Android and iOS, concluded Mr. Michael Sutton, Chief Media Officer of WorldVuer Inc. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240709427149/en/ Dr. Kenneth Ekow Andam, CEO of WorldVuer Inc. & Christopher Condon, Chairman & CEO of ETT | iByond (Photo: Business Wire) ETT | iByond, renowned for its cutting-edge Intelligent Interoperability AI platform, offers seamless integration and intelligent solutions tailored to enhance business operations across various industries. With a commitment to driving technological advancement, iByond's platform empowers organizations to harness the power of AI, enabling smarter decision-making, improved efficiency, and significant cost savings for enterprises. The iByond platform will serve individual consumers with WorldVuers technology products. WorldVuer brings to this venture their existing ecosystem of customers, consisting of 25 countries and 98 Million households, estimated to bring this partnership USD $6 Billion+ in annual software subscription revenues. Additionally, WorldVuer has a diverse portfolio of seven pioneering technologies, each designed to push the boundaries of innovation. WorldVuers products are built with an emphasis on security, incorporating airtight cybersecurity measures to ensure the utmost protection for users. We are excited to partner with WorldVuer, a company that shares our vision of innovation and excellence, said Christopher Condon, Chairman and CEO of ETT | iByond. This partnership will enable us to deliver an unparalleled AI operating system with the highest level of speed, security, and data connection helping governments and enterprises worldwide to thrive in an increasingly digital world. Innovating an AI Operating System that is built to transition the current global interconnected cloud devices within our communities and countries into an efficient, corroborative, and dynamic Interoperable platform to power current and futuristic devices makes this initiative an exciting opportunity for both WorldVuer and ETT | iByond, commented by Dr. Kenneth Ekow Andam, CEO of WorldVuer Inc. As we continue to witness extensive adoption and investment in AI across the enterprise and consumer markets globally, the WorldVuer iByond operating system provides breakthrough innovation and value by integrating hardware, software, and platform technologies and services. speed, security, and scale are now in reach at a level far beyond the data management and AI solutions currently available. Lanny Cohen, Vice-Chairman & CPO, ETT | iByond About WorldVuer iByond At WorldVuer | iByond, a joint venture that provides cutting-edge intelligent technologies powered by the iByond | WiOS system, focused on Enhanced Security, Seamless Data Integration, Improved Data Governance, and Enhanced Collaboration. WorldVuer iByond provides top-tier data protection, smooth data flow, regulatory compliance, and efficient communication, empowering organizations to boost productivity, creativity, and competitiveness. For more information, visit www.worldvueribyond.com About ETT | iByond ETT | iByond is a leading provider of transformative solutions for enterprises, specializing in software, infrastructure, and innovations. iByond empowers businesses to embrace digital transformation and unlock new avenues for growth and success in todays rapidly evolving business environment connecting humanity through intelligent data. For more information, visit www.ettworld.com About WorldVuer Leaders in interactive content development. We build products to bring a lifestyle narrative and communications capabilities into your home and office. Buy WorldVuer products and join our new emerging media empowering solutions that help you build success for you and your family. For more information, visit www.wvistore.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240709427149/en/ City of Bertoua: Boissons du Cameroun facilitates access to drinking water. :: CAMEROON It is a relief and satisfaction after long years of waiting that the populations of Bertoua, region of Eastern Cameroon, have just experienced on July 2. It was in the presence of administrative and traditional authorities that the first citizen company proceeded on July 2 to hand over a drinking water borehole to the inhabitants of the said locality. It should be noted that by facilitating access to drinking water with the aim of combating water- borne diseases, Boissons du Cameroun illustrates its unwavering commitment to the well- being of communities. After Meri and Gazawa in the Far North of Cameroon, Pitoa and Gaschiga in the North region, Nkong- Zem in the West region, Loum in the Littoral region, Limbe in the South- West region and KRIBI in the Southern Region, It was the turn of the town of Bertoua in the Eastern region of Cameroon to benefit from this initiative of "Boissons du Cameroun" which aims to facilitate access to drinking water throughout the country. . At the end of this beautiful ceremony in which the administrative and traditional authorities took part, Suzanne, resident of NGAIKADA, in the 2nd district of the city of Bertoua, was delighted with this act: I am very grateful for this gift of potable water. This will make a difference in our lives and improve the well- being of our community, but also the health... CAMEROUN :: Man arrested over 'attempted murder' of his wife at Eyumojok :: CAMEROON A man has been arrested following the attempted murder of his wife at Eyumojok, south west region, Manyu division. The 45-year-old, wine tapper was on foot when he was injured in an incident involving a stolen bicycle, police said. The officer was conveyed to the central hospital of Mamfe with serious, but not life-threatening injuries, and has since been discharged. The vehicle bicycle stolen from Ibo quarter around 7.05pm that evening. At Eyumojok, it has been whispered that he had stolen this bike in order to sell it to please his wife, even though she was the companion of a well-known policeman in the city. After realizing the trick, he decided while they were in bed to tie up her partner. Fortunately she was able to escape in Adam's outfit to take refuge with the neighbours. For the moment, police investigations are ongoing to determine the causes of this act. CAMEROUN :: School year 2024-2025: Suspension of APEE fees in public schools. :: CAMEROON On the instruction of Madam Minister of Secondary Education of Cameroon Pauline Nalova Lyonga, the collection of due fees, examinations, and APEE (parents' and teachers' associations) in all public establishments for the school year 2024-2025 is suspended until further notice. This information is contained in a letter from the Regional Delegate of Secondary Teachers of the Western Region, dated July 9, 2024, addressed to the heads of public establishments. According to the letter, any deviation from this ministerial instruction will be severely punished. The Regional Delegate of Secondary Education for the Western Region expressed his confidence in the responsibility of school administrators for compliance with this directive. For the moment, the Minister has not mentioned the reasons for this suspension. However, it is useful to recall that in July 2022, during a parliamentary session, the honorable Nanga Marthe questioned the Minister of Secondary Education, Pauline Egbe Nalova Lyonga, on the need to harmonize APEE fees on the entire national territory. The Minister then firmly explained that there was no question of harmonizing these fees, each establishment having specific realities and needs. At the same time, she complained that establishment managers were placing more emphasis on obtaining APEE fees. It is necessary to note, APEE fees are often a source of discord at each school year in Cameroon. Set according to the needs of each establishment, they generally vary between 12,500 and 30,000 FCFA in high schools, which irritates many parents due to the opaque management of these funds. According to the heads of parent- teacher associations, these fees are used to pay the salaries of temporary teachers, to acquire computer equipment, to finance classroom construction work, and to purchase desks. The suspension of its APEE fees for the 2024-2025 school year, is a cry of relief for many parents of students with the lifestyle which is becoming more and more difficult in Cameroon, in the meantime the new directives, for heads of establishments accustomed to this practice, they will simply have to comply with this new measure, under penalty of suspension and severe sanctions. In an industry where creativity and innovation are essential, FlipaClip has already revolutionized animation with its user-friendly mobile platform, empowering millions of artists worldwide. The first edition of the FlipaClip Film Festival (FFF) aims to spotlight emerging talent and share their work with a global audience. The Essence of the Festival FFF introduces a groundbreaking concept to the world of animation. Participants are given original soundtracks with open-ended storylines and challenged to interpret and create short animated films approximately two minutes long. The festival presents four categories, each with a unique soundtrack: Comedy, Drama, Adventure, and Freestyle, which allows artists to come up with their own story. Winners for each category will receive a cash prize of $1,000. An exclusive panel of highly renowned judges including Scott Morse (Turning Red, Cars, Brave, and Soul), Ernest Chan (Trolls, Dora the Explorer, Kung Fu Panda, Fairly OddParents), and Mauricio Ferrazza (Executive Producer, Chairperson at MDC School of Gaming & Animation) are in charge of selecting the winners. FlipaClip invites everyone to join FFF. The competition begins July 3rd and submissions are due September 1st. Participation is completely free, ensuring that all aspiring animators as well as professional artists have the opportunity to be recognized by the animation community. All movies are expected to be primarily animated using FlipaClip. However, participants are encouraged to use additional software for editing or other production needs to bring their animation to life. For more information about the festival visit FFFs site. A Global Community of Storytellers FlipaClip is more than just an animation tool; its a comprehensive creative platform that empowers artists to become a one-man studio. FlipaClip artists write scripts, design characters, draft storyboards, and even do voice acting. Consider the story of Yanis, a 17-year-old emerging talent from Strasbourg, France. He has created dozens of episodes for his series Wouky on his YouTube channel, amassing half a million subscribers and 65 million views. Then theres Alexia from Brooklyn, a 21-year-old multi-talented artist who balances her job in retail with creating an animated series on her iPad, dreaming of one day seeing her work on Netflix. These stories illustrate the type of new talent that FlipaClip Film Festival (FFF) aims to discover and showcase to millions of animation enthusiasts. Learn more details and enter the festival at the FlipaClip website. Nigerian House of Representatives threatens to issue arrest warrants for Dangote ICR Newsroom By 10 July 2024 A committee from Nigerias House of Representatives, investigating the hike in cement prices, has warned it will issue arrest warrants for Dangote Cements management after executives failed to honour an invitation. Chaired by Jonathan Gaza, the House Committee on Solid Minerals issued the threat on 9 July during a National Assembly hearing after the company failed to show up. Gaza stated that the committee would give Dangote Cement another opportunity to comply before taking further action. On Dangote, my ruling is simple. The laws have given us the necessary powers, but we owe you a duty of care. We are going to give you one more chance. We are going to communicate a date. "Failure to comply with that date, a subpoena will be issued. A warrant of arrest will be given for you to make an appearance before the National Assembly. No single individual is bigger than the parliament of his country. No single Nigerian is bigger than the National Assembly," announced Gaza. Section 89 of the countrys Constitution affords the National Assembly the power 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 and does not excuse such failure, refusal, or neglect to the satisfaction of the House or the committee in question and order him to pay all costs which may have been occasioned in compelling his attendance or by reason of his failure, refusal, or neglect to obey the summons." While the House and its committees often issue such threats, it is rare that they deliver on them. Published under Breaking News Would you like to receive our breaking news news? Signup today! e-Edition Subscribers e-Edition Only - $39.00 Year This is the exact replica of our weekly printed paper. Great for searching archives! General Interest Imported List: General Interest It's never was an "exaggeration," Chattanooga, along with many cities around the nation, did indeed adapt a Gestapo style policing during a specific 21st century period. One that had nothing to do with rising crime or making everyone feel "safe." It's really a false concept to explain away and justify such tactis, by saying during that period away crime was down because of brute/aggressive tactics allowed and accepted as normal police work. I have and have had family members in the field. What took place had nothing to do with making everyone feel "safe" and "taking a bite out of crime." Reporting crime on a federal level is voluntary, and left up to the discretion of local law enforcement. They can overreport, underreport or even exaggerate or not report at all. It can come down to what the goals of police and local leadership are. Just leave the Gestapo style policing in the darker, evil bowels of history where it should forever remain. If you want examples, I'll be glad to give a few. From cops in plainclothes, driving around in a beat up old van, jumping out on citizens at stop signs, with these long military style guns pointed at them. I personally witnessed this one year while at a stop sign, heading east on 55th Street and Tennessee Avenue. The young man had pulled up to a stop sign heading west at 55th and Tennessee Avenue. When out of nowhere, an old brown raggedy van pulled up behind him, and a bunch of cops, not in uniform, burst out of the van and surrounded his car with those long rifles, normally seen at military installations or at war. For being outspoken, my home was often constantly being watched during that period of 21 century Chattanooga. They'd either be sitting across the street in an attempt to intimidate or drive up in front of the old homestead and just sit there, sometimes grinning/other times scowling. Of which, some of the young people in the community warned me not to try and help them, because I would just make myself a target. But being a child of the Jim Crow/segregated south, nothing much phases me anymore. Scare tactics don't work. They didn't work as a child either. None of these and other incidents took place in 20th century 1950s or prior Chattanooga. It was 21century "race-blind" Chattanooga, they were happening. I was on my front porch one spring? summer? day (can't remember which now) when a cop was across the street at a stop sign watching my house, which wasn't at all rare. It became their normal. I'd gotten used to it. They did that often in those days. A young man in a late large late model pickup pulled up behind the police car with his headlights on. The headlights reflecting through the cops rearview mirror must've startled him, he was so intense on watching my house, and being sensitive as some cops are, caught like a deer in the headlights, it must've embarrassed him as well. That's when he exited his car and began to harass the the young black man. At some point the young man was even handcuffed. The young man was calling out to me to give me a number to call his parents or someone to come to the scene. Another cop car pulled up with K-9 written on the side, and there was Rin-Tin-Tin in the backseat. I had no idea who the young man was or if he lived in the area. As I went to the edge of the front porch to better hear the phone number the young man was trying to give me, the K-9 cop opened his back door and his K-9 popped his head out and the cop threatened me to not leave my front porch. I got the message that if I'd have stepped down, even one step more, the cop was going to let his K-9 loose on me. So I backed up, came into the house and brought out the hubby's old antique non-working Bell & Howell One-Nine from his college days at Tennessee Temple (he did some photography work for the college while a student there), and pretended to be filming them. Cops like filming citizens. They just don't like being filmed by citizens. That kind of froze them at least until, I assume some other neighbor saw and heard what was going on, because the young man's family did come to the scene. Talk about "boots on the ground?" You ain't seen nothing yet 'til you've seen boot prints purposely left on a victim's face. The above is the very least of it. There's more much, much more. So when people claim brute, aggressive style policing works to bring down crime, they're mistaken. Breaking people down and using inhumane tactics, never works. It further erodes trust and just desensitizes those victimized by such tactics, and guarantees more violence bursting out in the immediate future. Brenda Washington The first cohort of Georgia Northwestern Technical College students in a new, accelerated CNA program developed from a partnership between Atrium Health Floyd and GNTC to remedy the shortage of area healthcare professionals will complete their classes on July 25.In an agreement signed by Atrium Health Floyd and GNTC on May 8, Atrium Health Floyd committed nearly $1.1 million to be disbursed over five years to increase total enrollment in the Respiratory Care Technology, Radiologic Technology and CNA (Nurse Aide Accelerated) programs at GNTCs Floyd County Campus in Rome.The agreement will help fund instructor positions and laboratory upgrades at GNTC and is expected to increase the number of respiratory therapists, radiologic technologists and certified nursing assistants in northwest Georgia.The collaboration between Atrium Health Floyd and GNTC is a great commitment to building the pipeline of caregivers while opening opportunities for our students, said Gina Clevenger, CNA instructor at GNTC. Lots of nurses start their careers as CNAs, and some nursing programs require students to be certified to enter their programs.The collaboration between the training programs and employers is the key to building a successful workforce, Ms. Clevenger said.Nursing is all I know, said student Breanna D. Callahan. I have taken care of residents and patients my entire life.Ms. Callahan began working at Atrium Health Floyd in 2016 in pre-operative care as a certified medical assistant. She worked in the same office as Ms. Clevenger. Ms. Callahan said based on Ms. Clevengers skills and knowledge, I dont think GNTC couldve hired anybody better to teach the class."My employer (Atrium Health Floyd) has always offered a lot of opportunities, so I was excited when I found out that they are helping their employees further their careers while still being able to work, Ms. Callahan said. I chose this eight-week course to earn an additional credential and to enable me to travel and provide a variety of patient care.Ms. Callahan said she plans to return to school to earn her registered nurse license, bachelors degree in nursing and a degree in radiologic technology.I became interested in nursing when I found out I was pregnant with my first child, said student Isabella L. Tucker. I knew I wanted to give her a better and stable life.Ms.Tucker said she chose the eight-week program to get into the field more quickly so that she would have a career in the field before her daughter is born. She plans to start off as a CNA to gain experience in the field and have a job while she chooses her next steps. Her goal is to join the nursing program after her daughters birth.The students are engaged and eager to learn, Ms. Clevenger said. I enjoy working with them.Classroom instruction includes basic anatomy, infection control, medical terminology, safety, communication skills, legal issues and patient rights. Students learn how to take vital signs, care for the patient and recognize abnormal changes with patients during their lab experience before they progress to clinical experience.Clinical experience provides students with the opportunity to perform supervised practice of required clinical skills, including bathing, feeding and transfer of patients/residents. Clinical experience can be taught in various settings under an instructors supervision.GNTC offers the program five times annually: twice in spring, once in summer and twice in fall, Ms. Clevenger said.GNTC is accepting admissions applications for the CNA program from all eligible applicants, not just students from Atrium Health Floyd, through July 29, Ms. Clevenger said. Applicants who are accepted must complete the CNA eligibility form at https://www.gntc.edu/cna-eligibility/ and attend orientation on Aug. 7. Classes begin Aug. 19.A high school diploma or High School Equivalency is not required to enter or graduate from the program, and a minimum of nine credit hours is required for graduation, Ms. Clevenger said.Some employers require that applicants have a high school diploma or High School Equivalency, Ms. Clevenger said. GNTCs Adult Education program offers High School Equivalency exam preparation classes at no charge.The relationships that I have at the hospital will help to get students plugged in and connected in the areas that they have an interest in working, Ms. Clevenger said, adding that having a CNA license can give students who wish to pursue a nursing career a competitive edge in program admissions.Ms. Clevenger, who began her 31-year career in nursing as a CNA at Atrium Health Floyd in 1992, went on to earn her bachelors degree and masters degree in nursing to become a family nurse practitioner.As a CNA, I established relationships and developed communication skills with patients, families, nurses, doctors and other caregivers, Ms. Clevenger said. The fundamentals have carried forward with me throughout my career in healthcare, and I feel that my experience helps me to teach and encourage my students to be great caregivers."Ms. Clevenger said throughout her career, she has maintained respect for the basic nursing care that CNAs provide. She has seen the difference it can make to patients and family members during some of the most difficult times in their lives.Ms. Tucker said she has been impressed with Ms. Clevengers dedication, saying that the instructor has provided students with many resources to succeed in the program. GNTC is dedicated to empowering students to succeed, she said.The ability to apply my knowledge and skills, to work in various other departments at Atrium Health Floyd and to travel have impressed me the most about the new program," Ms. Callahan said. Mayor Tim Kelly is hopeful of finding the next Chattanooga Police chief from within the department, Chief of Staff Jermaine Freeman said Tuesday. He said the job has been posted in the wake of the sudden resignation of Chief Celeste Murphy of Atlanta and her indictment the next day on charges relating to her residency. Mr. Freeman said the mayor "will thoughtfully consider all candidates," but focus in on a local choice. He also said that members of a Community Advisor Board will be announced soon. Mr. Freeman said the board will help interview and evaluate chief candidates. The panel is to include members of the police unions, the rank and file, and non-sworn CPD personnel as well as from the diverse community, community leaders, and business leaders. Mr. Freeman called the selection "a critical hire," saying public safety is "the bedrock of the community." A dig at George Washingtons mansion has unearthed a collection of artifacts from the 1700s. Remarkably, they have remained buried since the days before the Revolutionary War. It has been described as a blockbuster discovery. The mansion of the first president of the United States is located in Virginia, about 15 miles south of Washington, D.C. During a $40 million restoration project of the mansion, researchers discovered 35 glass bottles from the 18th century in the cellar. The bottles were found across five storage pits, and 29 of them were still intact. They contained preserved fruits, including gooseberries, cherries, and currants, that are likely 250 years old. The assortment of bottles was uncovered following the discovery of two intact glass bottles from the 18th century containing cherries, pits, and liquid. To our knowledge, this is an unprecedented find, and nothing of this scale and significance has ever been excavated in North America, Doug Bradburn, the president and CEO of the historic Mount Vernon estate, said. We now possess a bounty of artifacts and matter to analyze that may provide a powerful glimpse into the origins of our nation, and we are crossing our fingers that the cherry pits discovered will be viable for future germination. Its so appropriate that these bottles have been unearthed shortly before the 250th anniversary of the United States. The contents of the glass bottles were carefully removed and are currently being kept in refrigeration. Scientists plan to study them more closely for further information. Once the bottles are dried, they will be sent away for conservation. After performing an analysis on a small sample, researchers found 54 cherry pits and 23 stems. The stems had been cut with precision and were left on before the cherries were bottled. Researchers believe the pits are ripe enough for DNA extraction and possibly even germination. These artifacts likely havent seen the light of day since before the American Revolution, perhaps forgotten when George Washington departed Mount Vernon to take command of the Continental Army. This means the bottles are extremely fragile and require the utmost care, said Bradburn. Sign up for Chip Chicks newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox. Back in 2015, this woman got married to her husband, and ever since then, she has absolutely been living the life of her dreams. She knew her husband was the one for her, and they got engaged after less than a year of dating; thats how sure they were about one another. She and her husband have three children, and shes currently pregnant with their fourth child. She loves being a mom, and she loves her husband too. But several weeks ago, a strange woman sent her a message on social media saying she was dating her husband. This woman then questioned her about whether she knew about their relationship or not. At first, I didnt believe her, but she sent me screenshots of texts from his number to her detailing meetups,encounters, and lovey-dovey stuff, she explained. We moved from our native Mississippi to Florida in February, and thats when they stopped seeing each other. She said he never told her he was married and had kids. While they were still living in Mississippi, her husband got laid off from his job along with other people at his company. While she was upset about this, her husband reassured her he was hardly the only person let go, and when he insisted on looking for a job outside of their area, she thought it made sense. Looking back now, her husband getting laid off clearly wasnt the reason for their move. She believes he jumped on moving to Florida so he could have a fresh start away from the double life he was secretly living. Sign up for Chip Chicks newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox. Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Getty / Unsplash / WikiMedia Commons Why pray alone or with your family if you can pray with big-biceped celebrities on the Hallow app? Why limit yourself to reading or hearing the Gospels if you can have a Jesus with all the thrill and appeal of a bingeable Netflix series? Why cultivate the Ignatian prayer skill of active imagination when you can passively experience an immersive exhibit that brings a storm on the Sea of Galilee to life? Why be satisfied with an ordinary church when you can digitally tour Europes greatest cathedrals or listen to famous preachers comfortably at home? Or why settle for traditional depictions of Jesus or figures from the Bible and church history when images of what The Atlantic dubbed hot AI Jesus and hot AI saints now proliferate online? These are but some of the questions posed by our digital eras dizzying accelerations, and Christians best have an answer. Here, Ill focus on the artificial intelligence renderings of Jesus and explore how the example of historys greatest Christian artist, Michelangelo, can help us resist the enticements of artificial devotion. Sign up for Moore to the Point Join Russell Moore in thinking through the important questions of the day, along with book and music recommendations he has found formative. Email* Sign Up This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thanks for signing up. Please click here to see all our newsletters. Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again. The easiest response to AI Jesus is to say that the iconoclaststhe Christian icon-breakers who warned against or outright destroyed devotional images in eighth-century Byzantium and sixteenth-century Europehave been vindicated at last. An AI-generated image like shrimp Jesus is surely enough to cause some to hope that a modern equivalent of Oliver Cromwells stained glasssmashing soldiers will soon ride again. Modern iconoclasts would argue that churches should be clean and imageless, an ever more necessary weekly cleansing of our digitally exhausted visual palette. This is venerable and ancient counsel. When you are praying, wrote the fourth-century desert father Evagrius of Pontus, do not fancy the Divinity like some image formed within yourself. Avoid also allowing your spirit to be impressed with the seal of some particular shape, but rather, free from all matter, draw near to the immaterial Being and you will attain to understanding. In other words, delete the app. AI-Generated Image by CT / Midjourney / Facebook CT created hot AI Jesus (left) inspired by the social media trend on Facebook (right). Another answerfrom the iconophile, or image-loving onewould embrace these new developments wholeheartedly, channeling them to positive effect. Arguably, this was Michelangelos approach. As his career began, visually arresting classical sculptures were being dug up from the ground, prompting in many a crisis of faith: Had Christianity brought such visual splendor to a premature end? Michelangelos early sculptures answered with a resounding no, showing that Christian art could be just as beautiful as that of the classical world, or even more so. Perhaps, we should take a similar approach to the new medium of AI, both embracing and exceeding what the world offers us today. I tried that strategy myself, spending months using AI trying to resurrect a lost African saint in AI-generated icons. It left me cold. Truth be told, the strategy of total embrace left Michelangelo cold as well. So the affectionate fantasy, that made art an idol and sovereign to me, he wrote in a late sonnet in the 1550s, I now clearly see was laden with error, like all things men want in spite of their best interests. WikiMedia Commons The classical statue of Laocoon, unearthed in 1506, and one example of Michelangelos alluring Christian responses, Cristo della Minerva (15191521). But that disillusion with cultural production doesnt necessarily mean the iconoclasts win the argument. Michelangelo did not give up art completely. He instead returned with new intensity to a lifelong interest in the simpler and purer aesthetic of ancient Christian icons, which on several occasions he attempted to replicate or echo. One art historian convincingly argues that Michelangelo aimed to preserve traditions of religious imagery at a time when artistic developments threatened their integrity and dominance, and thatI believeshould also be our strategy today. Michelangelo also actively undermined the visual techniques he had mastered. Influenced by Reformation doctrines of grace, Michelangelos last works are deliberately impoverished. You can see this shift in the contrast between his first and more famous Pieta, made when he was in his early 20s, and the Rondanini Pieta, executed when he was in his 80s. In the first, a larger than life, impossibly youthful Mary holds Jesus; in the deliberately rough and unfinished second, Jesuseven in his deathappears to be upholding the appropriately aged Mary. WikiMedia Commons Michelangelos Entombment (15001501) and the humble ancient icon (1405) that helped inspire it. Michelangelos trust in ancient, humbler art forms and his deliberate embrace of visual poverty helped him navigate the tumultuous 16th century, and it can help us navigate our own time as well. Deluged with AIs slick and sexually suggestive images of Jesus, we can benefit from the wisdom of faithful iconoclasts without abandoning devotional images completely. Like Michelangelo, we can choose to make and contemplate Christian images that are humble, perhaps unimpressive but deliberately and faithfully so. We can seek art that does not dazzle our earthly senses but defers to heavenly realities. Owing to the fact that the current data sets these [AI] tools are trained on are biased toward hotness, the new tools are unlikely to help. We do better to embrace images that pronounce their poverty, images that say, like John the Baptist, He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30, KJV). Michelangelos example teaches us to be suspicious of concocted visual greatness. Even if machines can now sculpt as well as he could, the lesson of Michelangelos final years remains the same: Christian images, insofar as they deserve the name Christian, should be deliberately restrained, for their purpose is not to attract attention or glory but to turn our eyes toward Christ. The traditional canon of Orthodox icons, more affordable now than ever, still does this remarkably well. WikiMedia Commons Michelangelos early Pieta (149899) and his late Rondanini Pieta (1564). Faced with its own bewildering array of eloquent preachers and visually immersive pagan shrines, the ancient church asked questions like the ones with which I began. The apostle Pauls answer was candid, even blunt: I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God, he wrote to the Corinthian church. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness (1 Cor. 2:13). In this and the testimony of Michelangelo, then, I see a simple rule for sifting this fresh round of visual enchantments: Never trust an imageor a saviorwithout wounds. Matthew J. Milliner is a professor of art history at Wheaton College. He is author most recently of Mother of the Lamb: The Story of a Global Icon. Home News Young Christian girl kidnapped, forced into sham marriage, conversion to Islam 'May God have mercy on us and save our child' LAHORE, Pakistan Another Christian girl in Pakistan, this one 14 years old, has fallen victim to forced conversion and marriage by a Muslim kidnapper, sources said. Khalid Masih, a 48-year-old Catholic sanitation worker in Islamabad, said that a butcher in his neighborhood, Haider Ali, took his daughter, Alina Khalid, from their home in the Khanna Pul area of Islamabad on June 24. Some neighbors told us that they had seen an unidentified girl outside our house on the day Alina went missing, Masih told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. When we began searching for her, I came to know that Haider Ali, a 27-year-old butcher in our neighborhood, had planned Alinas abduction. 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 He filed a complaint with Khanna Police that day, but they took no action, he said. The FIR [First Information Report] was finally registered late on June 25, giving the accused sufficient time to go into hiding, Masih said. The Masih family learned on June 27 that their daughter had been forcibly converted to Islam and married to Ali, he said. We came to know about Alinas conversion and marriage after she recorded her statement in court in which she purportedly claimed that she had changed her faith and married Ali by choice, said Masih. The Nikah Nama (Islamic marriage certificate) states that Alinas age was 19, but it lacks her required national identity card number, he said. Typically, kidnapped girls in Pakistan, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of such Islamic marriages and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers, rights advocates say. Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to the childrens ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their legal wives. Masih said his daughter could not have gone with Ali willingly. Alina did not have a phone and never went out of the house alone, so I dont think she had any direct contact with Ali, he said. He has abducted her with the sole objective of exploiting her sexually. Like all other victims, Alina, too, was forced to do what her abductor said. Police have failed to recover Alina and present the suspect in court, he added. Masih faces a daunting challenge in his struggle to recover her. My wife is suffering from Hepatitis C and is also a diabetic, he said. Her health has started to deteriorate due to the trauma of Alinas abduction. The pain of losing our child and the thoughts of her suffering in captivity keep both of us awake all night. May God have mercy on us and save our child! Safdar Chaudhry, chairman of the Islamabad-based Raah-e-Nijaat Ministry, said that police were slow to act. The FIR was registered on our intervention after nearly 26 hours of the incident, Chaudhry said. Had the police acted on time, the accused could have been arrested, but inaction allowed him to disappear. The social activist called for legislative reforms to stop the exploitation of underage minority girls. The police must also realize its responsibility and should stop aiding the perpetrators. The same goes for Pakistani courts which are granting legal cover to such sham marriages, he said. New bill In a bid to criminalize underage marriages in Punjab province, the Punjab provincial government on April 25 submitted the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2024 in the Punjab Provincial Assembly, which would raise the legal age for marriage for both males and females to 18 years. Previously, the legal age for marriage for girls in Punjab was 16. Under the proposed bill, anyone who marries a girl or boy younger than 18 or arranges such a marriage including parents or guardians would face two- to-three years in prison and a fine of between 100,000 Pakistani rupees (US$360) and 200,000 rupees (US$720). At the time of marriage registration, the marriage solemnizer, secretary of the union council and marriage registrar would check the Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) of the girl or boy, passport, educational certificate or other documents proving both are at least 18 years old. Attested copies of these documents would be required to be attached with the application of marriage certificate. Rights activists say that, though raising the legal marriage age to 18 years for both boys and girls will help in preventing child marriages, certain amendments are required to ensure that minority girls also get due coverage of the law. Such amendments would override all special laws and maxims related to determining a girls age of maturity, they say, including Sharia (Islamic law) that allows girls attaining puberty to be considered adults. A Christian lawmaker recently appointed as the chairman of the Standing Committee on Minorities Affairs and Human Rights lauded the government-moved bill but said it did not contain any provision related to minority girls who change their faith for marriage. We are working on an amendment to address this issue, and we hope that all parties in the Punjab Assembly will endorse our stance, said Ejaz Alam Augustine. Our objective is to ensure that minority girls are protected in the same way as Muslim girls. Augustine, a former minister for Minorities Affairs and Human Rights in Punjab during the 2018-2022 government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, said he had submitted a bill seeking to prevent forced conversion and forced marriages of minority girls in 2021, but that it was not taken up for discussion under pressure from hardline Muslims. Theres some hope now, and I think it is the best time to make a legislation that protects the girl-child irrespective of her faith affiliation, he told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. 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. Originally published at Christian Daily InternationalMorning Star News Home News Legal defense fund for whistleblower surgeon Eithan Haim surpasses $1M The legal defense fund for a Texas surgeon who is potentially facing 10 years in prison for exposing alleged secret transgender procedures for minors at Texas Children's Hospital recently surpassed $1 million. Dr. Eithan Haim, 34, was slapped by the U.S. Department of Justice last month with four felony counts after he "obtained personal information including patient names, treatment codes and the attending physician from Texas Children's Hospital's (TCH) electronic system without authorization," according to a DOJ press release. Haim leaked such records to journalist Christopher Rufo last year after TCH told the public it had paused such procedures after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott labeled them as child abuse, though Haim uncovered documents that proved they were still performing such procedures. 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 the six-page indictment released in May, U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani alleged that Haim went to the press instead of the appropriate authorities within the hospital. Haim's crowdfunding GiveSendGo defense fund, the new goal of which has been raised to $1.5 million, has raised over $1,022,000, as of Wednesday morning. Haim told The Christian Post that the outpouring of support has been "surreal." "It goes to show how much support there is, and how much people are realizing that the federal government is going after innocent people to further their ideology," Haim said, adding that he has been "overwhelmed" by the number of personal letters he has been receiving at his office that express solidarity. Haim also blasted the Biden administration, and said that others have reached out to him who have experienced recent visits from federal law enforcement because of their political opinions. "We all know that Biden is not the president; that it is everyone behind the scenes who are making these decisions, because of his complete lack of mental capacity," he said. "So the people who are running the government are those who have no accountability, because we don't know their faces." Haim suggested that the actions of the federal government in his case have exposed their deep-seated depravity. "I think that what they've done is already beyond the scope of what even a corrupt government would do," he said. "So they've made their point, but we're going to take this to court." Jury selection for Haim's trial is slated to begin on Aug. 16. Haim also recently told CP that he senses divine providence in his battle with the federal government, which he characterizes as a battle against evil. "What kind of world will we live in if we don't stand up for these kids who are being harmed or against the government that's going after people who are telling the truth?" he said. "And if we think things are bad now, how much worse is it going to be in 10 years?" "And that's the world we would deliver our children into, and especially with my wife being 24 weeks pregnant now, that's not theoretical anymore, but that's real," he continued. "If we really love our children, we're willing to sacrifice for their future. So if that means I need to take on the most powerful federal Leviathan in human history, that's what it's going to take." Home News Gov. Youngkin calls for cellphone ban in public schools in executive order Over 3 hours on social media daily 'doubles risk of poor mental health' Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has released an executive order calling for the drafting of rules that would ban cellphones in public schools, citing mental health concerns. Known as Executive Order 33 and released on Tuesday, the measure directs the Virginia Department of Education to issue guidance creating a "cellphone-free" public school environment. The necessity of implementing cell phone-free education in Virginias K-12 public schools is increasingly evident, reads the executive order, in part. Cell phone-free education will significantly reduce the amount of time students can be on phones without parental supervision. 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 Children spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on social media, and recent studies indicate that spending more than three hours a day on social media doubles the risk of poor mental health for adolescents. The executive order noted that, up until now, the prohibition of smartphones in public school classrooms has been at the discretion of individual teachers, resulting in a variety of expectations and enforcement. The issue extends beyond mere distraction, continued the order, substantial phone and social media use can have a cumulative, lasting, and detrimental impact on adolescents ability to focus and engage on their studies. Youngkin said in a statement Tuesday that he believes the order will promote a healthier and more focused educational environment where every child is free to learn. Todays Executive Order both establishes the clear goal to protect the health and safety of our students by limiting the amount of time they are exposed to addictive cell phones and social media and eliminates clear distractions in the classroom, Youngkin added. It also kicks off the robust conversations among parents, students, teachers, and school and community leaders necessary to design and implement these policies and procedures at the local level. In recent years, there has been an increased awareness about the potential harms that can come to minors because of extensive smartphone use and exposure to various social media platforms. Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, wrote in a recent column for The Guardian that there was emerging scientific evidence that extended periods of screen time, as well as certain social media experiences, have negative consequences, especially for younger users. Experts have debated the role of smartphones in the rise of teen depression and anxiety since 2010, Sridhar added. While the pandemic accelerated rates of mental health issues, these trends were evident almost a decade before. Last month, the Los Angeles Unified School District in California voted to approve a resolution prohibiting smartphone use by students during the school day, which is set to take effect next year. LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin, who sponsored the resolution, was quoted in a press release in June as saying that the ban on cell phones is for students' well-being. Kids no longer have the opportunity to just be kids, said Melvoin. Im hoping this resolution will help students not only focus in class, but also give them a chance to interact and engage more with each other and just be kids. Home News IDF denies Episcopal Church claim it ordered evacuation of Gaza hospital The Israeli Defense Forces have rejected an allegation leveled by The Episcopal Church that it ordered the evacuation and closure of a church-run hospital in the Gaza Strip. The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem claimed Monday that the IDF "compelled" it to close the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City and evacuate all the staff and patients from the facility during its ongoing war with the terror group Hamas. There was military activity that took place in the vicinity of the hospital on Sunday. Responding to the allegation, the IDF told Reuters in a statement that it ordered civilians in certain areas of Gaza City to evacuate so it could reduce potential civilian casualties as it launched new military operations against terrorist groups. The IDF says it told Palestinian health authorities that hospitals could remain in use and there was no need to evacuate. 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 Specifically, the IDF told civilians on Sunday to leave the Tuffah, Daraj and Old City neighborhoods of Gaza City as they launched new operations and to go to the shelters located on the western side of the municipality. Al Ahli is situated near Tuffah. On Monday, the Israeli army sent out an updated announcement, according to The Times of Israel. IDF called on Palestinian civilians in the Sabra, Rimal, Tel al-Hawa and Daraj neighborhoods to evacuate due to the fighting and to head to the designated "humanitarian zone." Marwan al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital, reported that it received 80 patients and wounded people from Al-Ahli who had to be packed into "every corner," reported the Times. "Many cases require urgent surgeries. Many cases suffer from direct shots in the head and require intensive care. Fuel and medical supplies are dwindling," al-Sultan said, adding that his hospital received the bodies of 16 people killed in the Israeli incursion, half of whom were women and children. Israel began its military offensive in Gaza last October in response to Hamas, a terror group that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, launching a surprise attack in southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people. Around 240 were abducted. The Israeli government's stated goal with the offensive is to eradicate Hamas and secure the release of hostages. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says that over 38,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began but doesn't differentiate between combatants and civilians. In a statement on Monday, Archbishop Hosam Naoum, primate of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, denounced the Israeli military. "We protest the closure of our hospital in the strongest possible terms," said Naoum. "In a time of warfare and great suffering it is essential that emergency healthcare services are maintained to treat the injured and the dying." Outgoing Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry also denounced the hospital's reported forced closure and evacuation in a statement released by The Episcopal Church's Office of Public Affairs. "This action violates the dignity of already-vulnerable people and is against international humanitarian law," said Curry. "Let us pray particularly for the safety of the hospital's patients and staff and those who had been sheltering at the hospital who are now displaced again." During its 81st General Convention held in Louisville, Kentucky, last month, the Episcopal House of Bishops rejected resolutions that would have labeled Israel an apartheid state and endorsed divestment efforts against Israel but did pass measures calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Home News Robert Morris attorney blamed 12-year-old Cindy Clemishire for getting into his bed, initiating abuse A former attorney for Gateway Church founder Robert Morris suggested Cindy Clemishire, a 54-year-old woman who accused him of sexually abusing her over multiple years as a child, is partly to blame because she climbed into his bed when she was 12. He also stated that she acted inappropriately with two other adult men in her home as a child. In a 2007 correspondence cited by NBC News, Morris' then-attorney, J. Shelby Sharpe, who also served as personal attorney for former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson, suggested to Clemishire's attorney that she was at fault for the abuse she suffered when she tried to sue the megachurch founder. "It was your client, who initiated inappropriate behavior by coming into my client's bedroom and getting in bed with him, which my client should not have allowed to happen," Sharpe wrote in the Feb. 6, 2007, letter when Clemishire asked for $50,000 in restitution from Morris to pay for her counseling. 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 Gentner Drummond, Clemishire's attorney at the time who is now Oklahoma's attorney general, confirmed the correspondence with NBC News but didn't offer any additional comment. Sharpe, who no longer represents Morris, told the news network that he did not recall the settlement offer and denied knowing that Clemishire was a child when the abuse started. "I don't ever remember seeing that," Sharpe said when he was reminded of the letter. "I can tell you that the letters that you've seen, they speak for themselves," said Sharpe. "I will not amplify beyond those letters, because they speak for themselves." Sharpe reportedly stated in the 2007 correspondence that Clemishire "acted inappropriately with two other men who stayed in her home between 1982 and 1987," when she was between the ages of 12 and 17, according to NBC News. The letter noted that Clemishire "confessed her conduct" to Glenda Faulkner, a woman who attended Shady Grove Church near Fort Worth, Texas, in the 1980s, when Morris was also a pastor there. Clemishire told NBC News that two other men touched her inappropriately in her home as a child, but she did not initiate the incidents. She recalled one occasion, alleging Morris told her when she was 13 to go into a bedroom at her childhood home where another traveling evangelist was staying. She said the man, who she did not identify, began to kiss her once she was inside the room but stopped himself and told her she was too young. Another incident occurred in 1986. She said another man staying with her family climbed on top of her while she was sleeping on a sofa bed next to his 3-year-old daughter. She said she believed he was going to rape her but stopped suddenly. "I really think God intervened," Clemishire told NBC News. "God made him feel like someone was walking by, and he just rolled off of me and left." After the 1986 incident, Clemishire said she decided to confide in Faulkner-Woodliff, who insisted she tell her parents what was going on with Morris. Her father urged Olen Griffing, the then-senior pastor at Shady Grove Church, to have Morris step out of ministry. Morris resigned from Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, the megachurch he founded in 2000, on June 18. His resignation came after Clemishire reported that he began sexually abusing her on Dec. 25, 1982, when she was just 12 years old. She says the abuse continued for four-and-a-half years before it came to light. But Morris was later allowed to return to ministry. When questioned about the allegations by The Christian Post, Morris initially confessed to being involved in "inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady" more than 35 years ago and said he repented and was restored to ministry. Elders at Gateway Church, who have commissioned an independent investigation into Clemishire's allegations, initially defended Morris and stated that the pastor, who was a married and a traveling evangelist at the time of the alleged abuse, had already repented and biblically restored to ministry. Gateway elders later revised their public statement on the allegations in an announcement of Morris' resignation on June 18, saying they were not aware Morris had sexually abused a child. "Regretfully, prior to Friday, June 14, the elders did not have all the facts of the inappropriate relationship between Morris and the victim, including her age at the time and the length of the abuse. The elders' prior understanding was that Morris' extramarital relationship, which he had discussed many times throughout his ministry, was with 'a young lady' and not abuse of a 12-year-old child," the elders explained. "Even though it occurred many years before Gateway was established, as leaders of the church, we regret that we did not have the information that we now have. We are heartbroken and appalled by what has come to light over the past few days, and we express our deep sympathy to the victim and her family." Home News Choir teacher faces deportation to Mexico over 300 child porn videos A Mexican national who worked as a choir teacher at a Texas middle school will serve eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty to receiving 300 videos of child porn. Authorities say the 33-year-old man will likely be deported following his sentence. Orlando Diaz-Ramirez was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane last Wednesday for receiving child porn from 22-year-old Israel Flores of Los Fresnos. Diaz-Ramirez was a Rio Grande Valley middle school choir teacher at the time of the offense, according to news outlet KRGV. 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 U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Texas said in a July 3 press release that the court learned during the hearing that Diaz-Ramirez had an additional eight GB of child porn on his Dropbox account. The court also noted that Diaz-Ramirezs decision to seek out child porn fed into the market for the production of child pornography and the possible victimization of future children. The case was launched in October 2020 when authorities discovered an IP address to Diaz-Ramirezs residence in Donna was linked to a Dropbox account uploading child porn. When authorities executed a federal search warrant at the location in April 2021, Diaz-Ramirez admitted at the time that he had downloaded child porn through Kik and uploaded it to his Dropbox account. The choir teacher also said he had a USB drive containing child porn that he received from Flores. Diaz-Ramirez pleaded guilty in September 2023 to receiving the 300 videos of child porn from Flores. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the content in the videos showed minors as young as 12 engaged in sexual acts with adults. In addition to serving eight years in federal prison, Diaz-Ramirez was ordered to pay $24,000 to known victims, while Flores must pay $21,000. Flores, who was previously sentenced to eight years in federal prison, will have to register as a sex offender alongside Diaz-Ramirez. Both men must also serve five years on supervised release where their access to children and the internet will be restricted. Diaz-Ramirez is not a U.S. citizen, as the state attorneys office noted, and because of this, it's expected that the former middle school choir teacher will face deportation hearings after he's released from prison. Homeland Security Investigations was responsible for the case, while Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, Alexa D. Parcell, prosecuted the case. With todays sentencing, HSI has removed a dangerous child predator from the community, HSI Rio Grande Valley Deputy Special Agent in Charge Mark Lippa said in a statement Monday. Preventing and investigating crimes against children is a high priority for HSI. We will continue to dedicate law enforcement resources to identify and bring to justice child predators who traumatize and victimize children. In April, the Chambers County Sheriff's Office in Texas executed a search warrant after receiving a tip from the Internet Crimes Against Children database about child pornography downloads coming from a specific house. The sheriffs office responded to the scene alongside Department of Homeland Security agents and the Mont Belvieu Police Department. According to a statement from the sheriffs office at the time, authorities arrested 10 suspected illegal migrants at the Texas residence. When the officers arrived at the home, the occupants refused to open the door, requiring the deputies to force their way inside the house. Some of the suspected illegal migrants residing in the house appeared to have been of Asian descent, while others were believed to be from Guatemala. Home News 3 prominent Republicans advocating for GOP to take softer stance on abortion The Republican National Committee adopted a softened party platform on abortion that aligns with President Donald Trumps position that the issue should be left to the states and the GOP should not pursue a national abortion ban. The 2024 Republican convention platform committee voted 84 to 18 on Monday in favor of the proposed platform during a closed-door session. The proposed party platform, backed by Trump, softened the GOPs language on abortion and same-sex marriage. According to a copy of the document obtained by The Washington Post, the platform proposal states: "After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the states and to a vote of the people. While the document clarifies that the GOP will oppose late-term abortion, the party will also advocate for policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments). 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 Republican Partys 2024 platform has drawn criticism from some pro-life leaders and organizations. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a statement on Monday that while the 2024 platform includes campaign priorities, it is not a declaration of enduring principles for a political party. Perkins, a member of the RNC Platform Committee from Louisiana, claimed that delegates were not given enough time to review the platform. "Delegates were only given a few minutes of discussion before 'debate' was ended and a vote was taken, the FRC president said. Ironically, the document calls for a vigorous defense of free speech and the end of government censorship. Deprived of the opportunity to discuss amendments to the 'draft' platform document, we have submitted a minority report to supplement that campaign's platform. "The submission of a minority report is further evidence that the pro-life movement will continue to advance pro-life principles and policies at every level of government, Perkins added. "The right to life transcends other political debates and the interests of any and all political parties and candidates. It is truly the right without which no other right has any meaning. Live Action Founder and President Lila Rose released a statement Monday that denounced abortion as the intentional destruction of an innocent human life. The pro-life leader called it a devastating indictment of our national values when neither political party supports federal protections for preborn children targeted for death by the abortion industry. Rose cited the North Star, a plan supported by various pro-life groups that calls for equal protection for all under the 14th Amendment. The Live Action founder also emphasized that the 2024 platform would be the first time in decades the GOP platform did not include language calling for national abortion restrictions. While the new language is correct that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process, it is wrong when it says that the power to decide life or death has been given to the states and to a vote of the people, Rose added. When states discriminate against preborn children by denying the equal protection of their laws against homicide, they act unconstitutionally. As Trump campaigns on the promise that he will not sign a national abortion ban, several prominent Republican lawmakers appear to have also adopted a more subtle stance on abortion. Here are three Republicans who have adopted a softer position on abortion: Home Opinion False gospels in African churches Africans before the arrival of Christianity were very religious people. When Christianity came, they embraced it with joy. Originally, Christianity promised personal salvation after death and everyone who came to Christ then was looking forward to life after death. The missionaries who brought the Gospel to Africa abandoned their families, the comfort of their homes, all the luxuries in their home countries and jeopardized their lives to reach Africans with the Gospel and love of Christ. The first generation of Christians in Africa received the spirit of mission that was passed to them by the early missionaries. In 1857, the Rev. John Christopher Taylor an Igbo slave who left Sierra Leone for Onitsha in Southeast Nigeria on a missionary journey made a clarion call to all African Christians to come together to ensure that the people of Nsugbe were saved: Ye enlightened sons of Africa will you leave the 26,000 inhabitants of Nsugbe to perish for lack of bread of life? Ye sons of Africa in general whether born of Sierra Leone or West Indies here are tracks marked out for your usefulness. This call was made when the first missionaries arrived in Nigeria, when the biblical Gospel was first preached and believed. The Rev. John Christopher with other volunteers labored amid sufferings, persecutions, and frustrations to bring the people of Nsugbe to the saving knowledge of Christ. This trend of laboring to preach the whole Gospel lasted for centuries with the resultant discipleship of committed and dedicated Christians who denied themselves, carried their crosses, and followed Jesus. 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 prosperity gospel later came to Africa from the United States of America and penetrated the Pentecostal and evangelical denominations. It is presently thriving even among the orthodox churches because of its promises that is pleasing and soothing to many African worshipers who are looking for ways of escape from poverty, human degradation, bad governance and corruption. Gordon Fee, a New Testament scholar, described the prosperity gospel as an insidious disease that has very little of the character of the Gospel in it. This disease is currently ravaging the African churches due to certain factors. The majority of African worshipers are very poor and need solutions to their problems and the prosperity gospel promises them that God will solve all their problems only if they can give Him some portions of what they have. Worshipers wanting to escape poverty have given lavishly to these churches only to end up poorer in the process. There have been several cases in Nigeria alone of people going to church to request their money back when they saw that all the fake promises they received never came to pass. There is no doubt that the prosperity gospel is very popular in Africa. Most megachurches in Nigeria are owned by prosperity gospel preachers. The aura, intelligence, eloquence and charisma of these preachers are indisputable, and their arguments appear impregnable. They have succeeded in incorporating the African worldview into their preaching knowing fully well that African religion and tradition agree that the blessings of fertility, abundance and wealth are all signs of supernatural blessing from God. Many of us have embraced it to the detriment of our Christian faith. The majority of African Christians are now more interested in getting their earthly problems solved than they are in getting their spiritual problems solved by the power of the Gospel. The Gospel that Western missionaries risked their lives to bring to us is completely different from what many churches are preaching today. How could we claim to share the same goal of those first missionaries when we preach a different gospel to the one they preached? How we got to where we are now is surprising. Our forefathers who embraced Christianity labored steadfastly to preserve the true Gospel and handed it over to us. We cant betray them, nor the Lord they served. Home News 11 Christians sentenced to combined 90 years in prison in Vietnam go missing Eleven Vietnamese Christians, sentenced to a total of 90 years and eight months in prison for their religious activities, have mysteriously disappeared, raising significant concerns about the treatment of religious minorities in Vietnam. These individuals, arrested between 2011 and 2016, include six Protestants and five Catholics, now unaccounted for in the Southeast Asian nations prison system. The six Protestants are associated with the unapproved Degar Protestantism, and the five Catholics are from the Ha Mon Catholic Church, said the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern, noting that both religious movements lack official recognition from the Communist regime of Vietnam, which frequently targets such groups under accusations of undermining national unity policy. Protestants Ro Mah Pla, Siu Hlom, Rmah Bloanh and Rmah Khil were specifically targeted for their involvement in Degar Protestantism. 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 Meanwhile, Sung A. Khua faced arrest under the pretense of deforestation after refusing to renounce his faith, while Y. Hriam Kpa was detained for his refusal to close his church. The five Catholics Runh, A. Kuin, A. Tik, Run and Dinh Kuh faced similar charges for their involvement in Ha Mon Catholicism. The Degar, also known as Montagnards, are an indigenous group in Vietnams Central Highlands, historically allied with the United States during the Vietnam War and known for their Christian faith. Montagnard Christians are often coerced into renouncing their religion, facing severe repercussions like beatings and imprisonment if they resist, according to the Campaign to Stop Torture in Vietnam. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has reported continuous violations in Vietnam, including the destruction of homes and expulsion of families like that of Sung A. Khua, to suppress Christian activities. In 2018, Vietnam enacted the Law on Belief and Religion, which ostensibly regulates religious practices but has been criticized for its restrictive nature. The USCIRFs 2019 assessment labeled the registration process for religious groups as complicated and burdensome, noting prolonged delays in application approvals. This legislation not only controls recognized religions but also pressures unrecognized groups to conform to state-sanctioned practices, significantly hindering religious freedom. U.S. Representative Glenn Grothman, in a 2022 statement, condemned the Vietnamese governments actions, stressing the need for international leadership in defending religious liberty. He drew attention to the lack of awareness among many Americans regarding the severe human rights abuses occurring under communist regimes like that of Vietnam. The latest annual USCIRF report, released in May, states that religious freedom violations in Vietnam have persisted, with ongoing persecution of independent religious communities. It says the government has been particularly aggressive toward ethnoreligious minorities, implementing directives that infringe upon religious practices and language, as seen in the forced renunciations and disruptions of religious gatherings. USCIRF has recommended that Vietnam be redesigned as a country of particular concern for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act. Home News 2 UMC pastors killed in car crash after attending joint worship service together Congregations and family members are grieving the loss of two United Methodist Church pastors, the Rev. Charles Layton, 65, and the Rev. Carol Mart, 77, in a car accident in Bertram, Iowa, on Sunday. They were returning from a joint worship service they attended at the Veterans Memorial Building in Cedar Rapids earlier that day. The accident occurred around 1 p.m. local time on Blaines Crossing Road as they crossed Highway 13, resulting in a collision with another vehicle, The Gazette reported, saying both pastors were pronounced dead at the scene. Layton served the Asbury and Kenwood Park United Methodist churches, while Mart led the Buffalo United Methodist Church. The two had carpooled to the worship service and later went out for lunch together before the fatal incident. 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 This is a devastating shock to families, ministry colleagues, and the congregations they served. Please hold these two pastors and all who love them in your prayers, Pastor Jonathan Heifner of St. Pauls United Methodist Church, Cedar Rapids, wrote on social media. They have both had a positive impact upon our Circuit ministries and upon me as a colleague in ministry, and they will be missed. Scott Meador, pastor at Lovely Lane United Methodist Church and leader of the Cedar Rapids United Methodist circuit, described both individuals as having big hearts and a deep love for their congregations. You could tell that they loved their people, and their people really loved them back. That was a strong characteristic of both of them, Meador noted. Chuck Johnson, a member of the leadership team at Asbury, spoke about Laytons impactful ministry. He was a minister with a love of music and singing. He was part of the choir as much as possible. He loved, like all Methodists do maybe, he loved potlucks, Johnson was quoted as saying. He gave wonderful, beautiful sermons. He was very down to earth in his sermons. Mart, remembered for her engaging and personal teaching style, often shared lessons pulled from her family experiences. Bob Marrs, a member of the Buffalo congregation, recalled her approachability and genuine care for her community. She was very personable and really seemed to care. Pastors are paid to care, but I think she was someone where that was her fundamental personality, Marrs was quoted as saying. She worked very hard with thinking of ways to bring people into the church and make them feel comfortable. In his social media post, Heifner acknowledged, In moments like these, we remember the grief that comes with loss, and it is also a chance to remember the gift of being in a connectional church: none of us has to grieve alone. If you knew either of these pastors and youd like to talk through your own feelings at this tragic news, please reach out to one of our pastors, we are here for you. Home News 5 highlights from Biden's interview with George Stephanopoulos: 'The Lord's not coming down' President Joe Biden sat down last week with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos amid widespread criticism over his debate performance against former President Donald Trump that some critics described as "dismal." Biden has since faced calls for him to step aside as the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee, though he issued a letter on Monday asserting his intention to remain in the race. More than 51 million people tuned in to watch the unusually timed June debate last week, according to the Nielsen company. 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 Here are 5 highlights from Biden's interview with Stephanopoulos on Friday. Home News Ancient Hebrew-inscribed tombstone discovered on coconut farm in India deciphered The discovery of an ancient Hebrew tombstone in southern India dating back to the 13th century could potentially unveil a forgotten Jewish community within the region. The tombstone was discovered on a coconut farm in the city of Ramanathapuram in the state of Tamil Nadu. The inscription, a puzzle from the past, was deciphered by Thoufeek Zakriya, a Dubai-based history researcher and Hebrew calligrapher. His expertise led him to believe that the inscription dates back to the years 1224 or 1225 C.E. Zakriya told the Indian news magazine The Week that the tombstone is older than the Sarah Bat Israel Tombstone in Kerala's Chennamangalam Synagogue, which he noted is "considered the oldest Hebrew tombstone ever identified in India." 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 World Jewish Travel, the Chendamangalam Synagogue is one of the oldest ever built by the Malabar Jews in Kerala. The structure dates back to 1420 A.D or 1614 A.D. In front of the building is a tombstone with the inscription of Sarah Bat Israel, dating back to 1270 A.D., making it one of the oldest Jewish relics in India. Regarding the tombstone in Tamil Nadu, a 32-year-old chemical engineer named Hathim Ali from Ramanathapuram was the first to bring the tombstone to the public's attention. Ali heard of the discovery on a coconut farm from a friend. The farm owner, a man referred to as "Mr. Balu," found the tombstone in an old and unused well on his property. "When I went to inspect it, I understood that it was neither Tamil nor Arabic. Later, I thought maybe it could be Hebrew," Ali told The Week, saying that he informed government authorities about the tombstone, but no one came to inspect it. Ali told the newspaper Dinamalar about the discovery, a story Zakryia later read about in the paper. Zakryia works for the United Arab Emirates, and Rajaguru, the president of the Ramanathapuram Archaeological Research Foundation, forwarded the story to him. The Jewish history researcher contacted Ali, who then sent him pictures of the tombstone to decipher. "The Hebrew inscription bears the date as the 1st of Shvat (Hebrew Month) 1536 or 1537 of the Seleucid era," Zakriya told The Week. As the Jewish Virtual Library explains, the Seleucid Era was a system of numbering years for Jewish communities during the Second Temple period and a few communities in the late medieval period and modern times. In Hebrew, this era is often referred to as "minyan shetarot." "When converting the dates from the Seleucid era to the common era, it was found that the date on the tombstone inscriptions is approximately equivalent to January 1, 1224 AD, or January 18, 1225 AD," Zakriya told The Week. The researcher also informed the outlet that he could not decipher every line of the inscription due to damage to the tombstone. "So, I could not find the name of the deceased or his father. ... But I could see a name partially which could be read as Nehemiah in Hebrew," he said. "The initial analysis shows a strong Yemeni Jewish influence in the tombstone's pattern." However, Zakriya insisted that more studies should be conducted in the area, noting that this is the second tombstone with Hebrew inscriptions found in Ramanathapuram. The Jewish history expert lamented that no one appears to have deciphered the tombstone's date, which the historian referred to as a "tragedy." Home News Archbishop excommunicated from Catholic Church for opposing Pope Francis A Roman Catholic archbishop who questioned the legitimacy of Pope Francis and portions of the Second Vatican Council was excommunicated from the Catholic Church on Thursday for the canonical crime of schism. Carlo Maria Vigano, 83, who served as the Vatican's ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2016, was informed Friday by the Vatican's doctrinal office that it had found him guilty, according to a press release from the Holy See. "His public statements manifesting his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council are well known," the Vatican 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 "At the conclusion of the penal process, the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Vigano was found guilty of the reserved delict of schism," the Vatican added. According to canon law, schism is defined as a "refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him." The decision from the Vatican comes two weeks after the Catholic Church's disciplinary body issued a decree summoning Vigano to an extrajudicial trial in Rome for "the crime of schism." The archbishop did not appear at his own trial, according to The Washington Post. He had earlier tweeted that he assumed his sentence "has already been prepared, given that it is an extrajudicial process." In a lengthy statement on June 20, the prelate said he considered the charges against him "an honor." Now that he is excommunicated, he is formally considered to be outside of the Catholic Church and is barred from partaking in Catholic sacraments, including Communion, and is forbidden from ordaining priests or officiating Mass. Vigano had drawn attention in recent years by calling for the resignation of Pope Francis, whom he refers to using his given name Jorge Mario Bergoglio. In 2020, Vigano accused a cabal of leaders within the Catholic Church of permitting "heresy, sodomy and corruption" to run amok in the institution. In a letter to then-President Donald Trump, he claimed there was a "deep church" that was enabling evil. He described a group as "mercenary infidels who seek to scatter the flock and hand the sheep over to be devoured by ravenous wolves." Vigano also penned a letter in 2018 that alleged dozens of former and current high-level Catholic officials covered up accusations of sexual abuse against disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, according to the National Catholic Register. Vigano took special aim at the pope, accusing him of ignoring his predecessor's sanctions against McCarrick and urging him to resign to "set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarricks abuses." Weeks before his schism charge, Vigano alleged on May 29 that Francis had committed the "same abuses" as McCarrick while serving as a bishop in Argentina, though he offered no evidence. "Bergoglio does not want to oust homosexual seminarians and priests: he rather wants to complete the work of infiltration and corruption of the Clergy through homosexuality and pedophilia, so that by declassifying the serious sinfulness of sodomy and corruption of minors the door opens on the civil front to decriminalization of these crimes," Vigano said at the time. Vigano was relatively muted in his response to his excommunication on social media, though he retweeted figures such as Gen. Michael Flynn, who accused the pope of hurling the Catholic Church into a state of schism. "The church under this dark Pope is in a state of Schism," Flynn tweeted. "Church leaders and the laity world wide, especially in America, need to wake up. When someone of [Vigano's] stature is excommunicated, we Catholics are in serious trouble. Like many other globalist institutions, the Church of Rome under Bergoglio is out of touch with the sentiment of their ekklesia." "I say to my brothers: 'If you are silent, the stones will cry out,'" Vigano also tweeted, citing Luke 19:40. Home News Berlin bans Hamas red triangle used to target Jews, supporters of Israel The state Senate in Berlin, Germany, has passed a motion to ban the inverted red triangle, identified as a symbol used by Hamas and their supporters to mark targets, amid escalating tensions surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This decision comes as a response to the symbols increasing visibility in propaganda and public spaces, posing a direct threat to Jews and advocates for Israels security. The motion states that the banned symbol, a scarlet arrow icon, has been notably used in videos and graffiti to identify enemy targets, including pro-Israel academics and politicians, according to The Telegraph. A recent incident involved the defacement of Berlins Free University, where the graffiti Kai will pay was seen beneath the red triangle, directly targeting Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner after his decision to evict pro-Palestine protesters from the university, the British newspaper 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 symbol has seen a resurgence in Berlin, not just at protests but also as graffiti on buildings, homes and campuses such as Humboldt University, i24 News reported. This has prompted concerns about rising antisemitism, highlighted by incidents like threatening banners at Humboldt University and similar graffiti found as far as Brooklyn, New York. Humboldt University President Julia von Blumenthal has condemned the vandalism and threats, labeling them as shocking antisemitism and calling for heightened security measures. The motion, supported by a grand coalition of the Christian Democrat, Social Democrat and the AfD, also refers to the symbols historical roots. The red triangle, originally used by Nazis in concentration camps to mark political prisoners, has been repurposed by Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, to denote targets such as Israeli tanks in their propaganda efforts. The contentious use of this symbol in Berlin, home to Europes largest Palestinian population, has spurred a series of pro-Palestine protests and subsequent police actions. The federal government of Germany, a staunch supporter of Israel, has also expressed its alignment with the motion, citing Israels security as intertwined with Germanys state rationale. However, opposition to the ban has surfaced, citing legal and constitutional concerns. Green politician Vasili Franco argued that blanket bans on symbols could pose legal challenges, especially when symbols like the red triangle are used by different groups for varied purposes. For instance, the symbol is also part of the flag used by the association of victims of Nazi persecution. Niklas Schrader, a deputy from the Left party, also warned of potential legal implications that could extend to other organizations inadvertently. In May, The Times of Israel cited reports in German media saying that a Hamas terror cell was planning to attack the Israeli Embassy in Berlin and a U.S. military base in Germany. Authorities discovered the intended targets from data on a smartphone seized from a suspect arrested in Berlin in December. The suspect, of Lebanese origin, faced accusations from prosecutors of scouting locations to conceal weapons for the terror group. According to the report, he received directives from Hamas officials in Lebanon. In January, reports emerged of Hamas operating a network of operatives across Europe, directed by terror leaders based in Lebanon. The networks objective was allegedly to carry out attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets outside of Israel. Home News Biden doctor met with Parkinsons expert at White House, visitor logs show White House visitor logs reveal that President Joe Bidens personal physician, Dr. Kevin OConnor, met with Parkinsons disease expert Dr. Kevin Cannard from Walter Reed Medical Center earlier this year. The revelation comes amid heightened scrutiny over the presidents health following a concerning debate performance. In January, OConnor convened a meeting at the White House with Cannard, who specializes in movement disorders, and two other unidentified individuals, as disclosed by the White House visitor logs, the New York Post reported. Dr. John Atwood, a cardiologist from Walter Reed, was also present, although the identity of the fourth attendee remains unknown. 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 a White House spokesperson, the visit was part of a routine wherein specialists from Walter Reed regularly consult at the White House to treat military personnel stationed there, noted National Review. Cannards expertise in Parkinsons is well-documented, having co-authored research on the diseases early stages and actively engaged in ongoing studies with partners at Vanderbilt University. His profile on Doximity features his extensive work in this field. Parkinsons disease typically presents symptoms like tremors, movement difficulties, speech changes and impaired balance, which progressively worsen, often starting on one side of the body. The timing of this consultation coincides with 81-year-old President Bidens notably poor performance at his first presidential debate, where his speech appeared slurred, and he struggled with coherence, battling against former President Donald Trump, who is 78. The incident fueled widespread speculation and concern regarding his cognitive health, leading to calls from within his own party for reconsideration of his candidacy as the national convention looms. Following the debate, the White House confirmed that Biden had consulted OConnor about a cold he experienced during the debate, which had not been disclosed earlier. No medical evaluations have been reported since his annual physical in February, which concluded that Biden was fit for office. The results of any cognitive test were not released. CNN medical analyst Dr. Gupta has advocated for Biden to undergo a comprehensive neurological examination and make the results public, citing concerns about the presidents confusion and altered facial expressions. In an interview with ABCs George Stephanopoulos, Biden dismissed the necessity of an independent cognitive test, attributing his lackluster performance at the debate to merely a bad night. He refuted suggestions that he should undergo a separate neurological assessment, asserting that his daily activities are sufficient cognitive testing, noted The Guardian. During a recent meeting with over 20 Democratic governors, Biden discussed personal adjustments to his schedule, suggesting that he plans to avoid events after 8 p.m. to accommodate his need for more rest, The New York Times reported. His offhand comment about needing more sleep because its just my brain was interpreted by some attendees as a humorous remark, while others found it concerning. Moreover, Bidens campaign tactics, including providing pre-approved questions to interviewers, have sparked debates about the controlled nature of his public engagements and raised questions about his teams management of his public image. Amid the ongoing debate, The Wall Street Journal said both Biden and Trump exhibit typical age-related challenges, like occasional forgetfulness and speech mishaps. Geriatric experts note that while some cognitive changes are expected with aging, the extent and visibility can vary widely among individuals. People vary. Some people decline a little bit more in these areas, a little quicker. Some people maintain it and never decline, Dr. Mary Tinetti, geriatrician and professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, was quoted as saying. Home News Nurse alleges FBI threatened her, accuses Texas Children's Hospital of trans-related Medicaid fraud A Texas registered nurse who accused doctors at the largest pediatric hospital in the United States of committing Medicaid fraud related to gender interventions for minors claims FBI agents threatened her at her home in response to her speaking out. Vanessa Sivadge, a nurse at Texas Children's Hospital (TCH) in Houston, came forward last year to journalist Christopher Rufo to claim that the institution was pushing "gender-affirming care" on young patients while ignoring their underlying psychological problems. Sivadge reportedly approached Rufo following his May 2023 story about Dr. Eithan Haim, who leaked medical records suggesting that TCH was continuing to prescribe puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria despite claiming otherwise. 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 hospital claimed to have stopped such procedures following a February 2022 formal opinion from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that labeled some sex-change procedures and puberty blockers for minors as "child abuse" under Texas law. This is where we are now: The Biden Administration sent two FBI agents to intimidate a nurse who told the truth about the child sex-change program at Texas Children's Hospital. The regime is mobilizing to threaten and imprison anyone who opposes "transgender medicine." pic.twitter.com/XbtZVnp5Kw Christopher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) June 18, 2024 Two weeks after Rufo's story, two FBI agents appeared at Sivadge's door, according to footage Rufo posted to his X account earlier this week. The video showed special agents Paul Nixon and David McBride, dressed in blue jeans, showing up at Sivadge's front door and telling her they wanted to speak about "some of the things that have been going on at [her] work lately." After saying they hoped they weren't "interrupting dinner," the video shows them asking to be let inside, during which time Sivadge claimed they "threatened" her. "They promised they would make life difficult for me if I was trying to protect the leaker," she said. "They said I was 'not safe' at work and claimed that someone at my workplace had given my name to the FBI." Along with viral footage of the agents, Rufo tweeted: "This is where we are now: The Biden Administration sent two FBI agents to intimidate a nurse who told the truth about the child sex-change program at Texas Children's Hospital." "The regime is mobilizing to threaten and imprison anyone who opposes 'transgender medicine,'" he added. When reached for comment by The Christian Post, a spokesperson for the FBI said: "FBI and Department of Justice guidelines do not allow us to provide more information at this time. While individuals are free to speak about their interactions with the FBI, we do not discuss, describe, or confirm any contact we allegedly have with individuals." TCH did not respond to The Christian Post's request for comment. Sivadge told Rufo she later found evidence that doctors "cut corners" and fraudulently secured federal funds for sex-change interventions for minors that are now illegal in Texas. The state prohibits Medicaid funds from being used for "sex change operations." "The largest children's hospital in the country is illegally billing Medicaid for transgender procedures," Sivadge claimed to Rufo, according to City Journal. "It is evident that the hospital continues to believe it is above the law not just by concealing the existence of their transgender medicine program from the public, but by stealing from the federal government." Sivadge alleged that doctors Richard Ogden Roberts and David Paul were involved. Their profiles on the hospital's website have since been scrubbed, Rufo noted on Wednesday. Sivadge told Rufo that shortly after she accepted her dream job as a registered nurse helping children in 2021, she began growing disillusioned with TCH and "gender-affirming care" as she observed the rates of transgender-identifying young patients rising exponentially. "In the cardiac clinic, we were taking sick kids and making them better," she told Rufo. "In the transgender clinic, it was the opposite. We were harming these kids." Savidge's situation has drawn the attention of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office confirmed to The New York Post that it was investigating. GOP state Rep. Brian Harrison also called on the Texas Legislature to conduct immediate hearings and launch an investigation into the federal agencies and officials involved. "We need Republicans to be courageous in fighting back against the unconstitutional tyranny of the Biden administration," Harrison told the outlet. "And so what I'm asking is that the Texas House of Representatives act in the way that it should act, and the way that I'm demanding it to act, which is to hold immediate hearings, but also to launch formal investigation and subpoena any federal official, the DOJ and HHS, who may have been involved in this, any hospital executives who knew that they were engaged in practices that were, in fact, child abuse," Harrison continued. "The Biden administration, their goal here is to stifle dissent. They want to silence opposition," he added. Sivadge's case echoes that of Haim, who was slapped by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this month with a four-count felony indictment that could land him a 10-year prison sentence. He stands accused of violating HIPAA medical privacy laws. Home News Christian conservative groups launch effort to keep pro-life planks in GOP platform Editors' note: This is part 8 of The Christian Post's year-long articles series "Politics in the Pews: Evangelical Christian engagement in elections from the Moral Majority to today." In this series, we will look at issues pertaining to election integrity and new ways of getting out the vote, including churches participating in ballot collection. We'll also look at issues Evangelicals say matter most to them ahead of the presidential election and the political engagement of diverse groups, politically and ethnically. Read other articles in the series by clicking here. A coalition of Christian conservative activist organizations has joined together in a bid to preserve the pro-life planks of the Republican Party platform as differences have emerged between former President Donald Trump and advocates on the abortion issue. The Washington-based Family Research Council announced the Platform Integrity Project this week ahead of the 2024 Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, later this month. 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 Announced Tuesday, the project seeks to preserve issues of "life and family values" in the party platform ahead of former Trump's expected coronation as the Republican's 2024 nominee for president. Trump and pro-life advocates have not seen eye-to-eye on whether Republicans should push for federal restrictions on abortion, with Trump believing the issue should be left up to states. The Platform Integrity Project is a partnership between the Family Research Council and several other Christian and conservative advocacy groups, including WallBuilders, the American Principles Project, the Family Policy Alliance, Eagle Forum, the Danbury Institute and the Center for Christian Virtue among others. The initiative encourages the public to pray for Republican National Committee delegates to preserve the "strong pro-life, pro-family and pro-freedom" elements of the Republican platform as they meet to draft a new platform in Milwaukee from July 8-9. The project seeks to collaborate with the RNC and the Trump campaign to create an "open process that will help ensure the preservation of the GOP's solidly conservative platform, which contains longstanding pro-life, pro-family, and pro-Israel planks." As part of the effort, for the first time ever, individual votes of platform delegates will be scored as a way to track how delegates vote. "Party platforms matter," said FRC President Tony Perkins in a statement. "They state a party's principles and priorities. According to research by Dr. Lee Payne, the parties actually follow their platforms. Between 1980 and 2004, Republican lawmakers followed their platform 82 percent of the time." "America is an unprecedented place of moral and cultural confusion and is in dire need of leadership and moral clarity," he added. "The Republican Party must once again communicate a clear and hopeful contrast between the parties by painting a message for voters on the foundational issues life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not in pale pastels but in bright, bold colors." Insisting that "voters need to see a contrast between the two parties on their policy priorities," Perkins declared, "voters want and need a choice." He told the platform committee to "preserve life and families in the Republican Party platform so that social conservatives can continue to find a home in the GOP." Perkins, an elected RNC delegate from Louisiana chosen to serve on the platform committee, wrote a letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley Monday that highlighted his concerns about the possible omission of pro-life principles from the Republican platform and the process behind its crafting as a whole. In the letter, Perkins expressed opposition to what he called "the RNC Gag Rule," which he explained "restricts access to the deliberations of various committees and subcommittees only to the credentialed delegates of those committees." Characterizing the "Gag Rule" as an "unprecedented" apparent violation of RNC rules, Perkins warned that "based on the limited communications delegates have received, it appears that neither guests nor the press will be allowed to observe the platform committee or subcommitttee decisions of the Party's principles and policy priorities." "The RNC Gag Rule heightens speculation that the GOP platform will be watered down to a few pages of meaningless, poll-tested talking points," he lamented. Perkins cited such a scenario as an unwelcome contrast to "Ronald Reagan's call for a party platform, 'a banner of bold, unmistakable colors with no pale pastels,' challenging the nation with a clear vision for the future." He identified "bold principles on life, family, and freedom" as positions that "served the GOP well for over a half-century, starkly contrasting with the other Party and attracting many God-fearing Americans to the GOP." "There is great concern that the foundational efforts of patriots like Phyllis Schlafly and countless others who have built the Republican Party into a majority pro-life, pro-family, pro-ordered liberty party will be undermined by these unprecedented changes in the process," he wrote. Perkins said he attempted to "resolve these concerns privately" and characterized the responses he had received thus far as "stalling tactics." Perkins requested a formal response by 10 a.m. Tuesday. Perkins informed Whatley, "If the RNC Gag Rule is not removed and the committee and subcommittee process made open and fair by 10 am tomorrow, I will be forced to escalate this matter to all stakeholders in the GOP platform." "I understand that raising these concerns might make me the proverbial skunk at the wedding," he added. "However, I cannot forever hold my peace and remain silent when the Party that so many patriots have sacrificed to build is about to adopt a process that is not befitting of the Grand Ole Party. This process will likely result in an outcome that jeopardizes the Party's ability to continue being a stabilizing force for freedom in this nation, as it has been for nearly 175 years." Perkins formally requested the rejection of the "Gag Rule." He said that if the committee decided to "proceed," he would like to see "the RNC meeting minutes that recorded the motion and the vote, which allowed this unprecedented Gag Rule to be implemented." "The voice of the conservative movement has been throttled back more than ever before," Perkins told The Christian Post in an interview. He said he remains committed to ensuring that the Republican Party does not commit "self-harm" by watering down its pro-life positions. The concerns about the Republican Party's position on abortion stem from Trump's insistence that abortion should be left up to the states following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, which determined that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion. The ruling enabled states to enact restrictions or near-total bans on abortion. Pro-life advocacy groups have repeatedly countered that the federal government has the right to pass laws restricting abortion, or what some call "federal minimum protections for the unborn." "What's being stated now is different than what was stated in 2016 in that this is simply a state issue," Perkins told CP. He believes Trump's position diverges from that which is traditionally embraced by the pro-life movement, namely that all human life deserves to be protected. Additionally, Perkins rejected the idea that abortion can only be a state issue in light of the prevalence of the abortion pill, which is often times sent across state lines. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the national grassroots pro-life activist organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, asserted in a statement Tuesday that a decision to "remove national protections for the unborn in the GOP platform" would amount to a "miscalculation that would hurt party unity and destroy pro-life enthusiasm between now and the election." "For over a month, the pro-life movement has sought assurances from the Trump campaign that it will not gut the pro-life plank of the platform, which has for 40 years asserted a 14th Amendment justification for opposing the human rights tragedy of our time," she said. "We are now just two business days away from the platform committee meeting and no assurances have been made." Echoing Perkins' concerns that "every indication is that the campaign will muscle through changes behind closed doors," Dannenfelser stated, "passionate pro-life activists have been the grassroots backbone of the Republican Party" for decades. She warned that "this alliance is at risk of being severely weakened next week in Milwaukee." In a letter to Trump last month, Perkins and Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed asked that language in the Republican platform calling for the establishment of a "fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed" for unborn babies remain in the platform, Reuters reported. Their letter also pushed for legislation granting rights to unborn babies under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the passage of a Human Life Amendment prohibiting abortion. As highlighted in a comparison of the two parties' platforms compiled by the Family Research Council, the Republican Party platform currently contains language indicating that it is "[P]roud to be the party that protects human life and offers real solutions for women" and "strongly oppose[s] infanticide." Examples of pro-life legislation supported in the Republican platform include federal protections for babies who survive botched abortion attempts and prohibitions on abortion based on sex or disability. Additional pro-life protections embraced by the GOP include a ban on dismemberment abortions where "unborn babies are literally torn apart limb from limb," safety regulations for abortion clinics, a prohibition on human cloning and acts of experimentation on human embryos including three-parent embryos, a ban on the sale of aborted baby body parts and a law prohibiting the "use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned Parenthood." Home News Christian lawmaker takes on new calling speaking out for 'those who can't speak' after departing Congress Former Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., says she seeks to use her new role as a commissioner on the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to help persecuted believers "advance the cause of Christianity around the world." Last month, USCIRF, a Congressionally-mandated independent body of experts set up to make recommendations to the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Congress on global religious freedom matters, welcomed three new commissioners, including Hartzler. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., nominated his former colleague, who served in the lower chamber of U.S. Congress from 2011-2023. 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 Hartzler's appointment comes more than a year after she retired to seek an open U.S. Senate seat in Missouri but lost in the Republican primary to the state's then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt. "I'm looking forward to speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves around the world, those who are persecuted for their faith," she said in a recent interview with The Christian Post. "And it will be good to reconnect with my former members of Congress as well as members of the administration to try to advance this cause." Hartzler, 63, said that she accepted Christ when she was 9, and Jesus has been the Lord of her life since then. "And I want to do what I can to glorify Him and to help others be able to come to know him or live out their faith," she said. "This opportunity is a way to live out Hebrews 13:3, which says, 'Remember those who were imprisoned as if you were their fellow prisoner and those who are mistreated as though you were suffering.'" "This is an opportunity to speak out for those who cannot speak out for themselves and hopefully advance the cause of Christianity around the world," she reiterated. Hartzler said that while she was aware of USCIRF during her time in Congress, she didn't actively pursue the volunteer role after her departure from Washington. She said she was contacted by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., who asked if she would be interested in a two-year term as a USCIRF commissioner. "And I prayed about it and looked into it further and felt like this was definitely an opportunity to be able to make a difference for our Christian brothers and sisters around the world and all people of faith," she said. "Majority Leader Scalise passed along my recommendation to Speaker Mike Johnson, who went ahead and made that appointment. And I feel very honored to have this opportunity, that they thought of me and they've entrusted me with this very important mission of speaking up for the persecuted individuals around the world and advancing religious freedom," she added. As a former House Armed Services Committee member, Hartzler said she has always been concerned about China. She said she has "worked to try to not only secure our national defense but also shine the light on what China was doing to Christians, to the Uyghur Muslims, to the Falun Gong and other people of faith in China." "They have been imprisoning the underground church and pastors there for years. There are reports that they perform organ harvesting on the believers of Falun Gong," she said. Hartzler recalled that during the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared China was committing genocide against the Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang Province. "I hope to be able to continue to advocate for those people of faith in China and to try to encourage China to change its ways," she said. "I'm also concerned about many other countries, particularly Nigeria, where 80% of the Christians who were killed in 2021 were from Nigeria," she noted. "In fact, since 2015, there's been over [50,000] Christians who have been killed there, 18,000 churches and 2,200 Christian schools destroyed." Like many other religious freedom advocates, Hartzler expressed concern about the Biden administration's removal of Nigeria from the State Department's list of countries of particular concern after the Trump administration had placed it there toward the end of Trump's term. The CPC label is reserved for nations with egregious violations of religious freedom. Countries that receive that designation can be subject to what Hartzler summarized as "economic sanctions and other ramifications." Hartzler remains hopeful that "the next administration, whether it's President Biden or whether it's President Trump, will redesignate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern." She believes the U.S. has a "huge influence around the world" and "should use that influence for good to help people who desire to be able to live out their faith according to their deeply held beliefs." "I hope I'll be able to advocate for people to get out of prison that are in prison because of their faith," she continued. While Hartzler acknowledged that Americans "have a unique opportunity to live out our faith without being tortured or put in prison," she maintained that there has been an increase in "hostility towards [the] Christian faith here in America as well as other faiths." "We, for many years, have enjoyed religious freedom here, but we're starting to see those freedoms being stifled and vilified as well. So that's not the role of USCIRF, which is focusing on foreign and international threats to religious freedom. But I'm hopeful as we shine the light on abuses in other countries, it will spur people here in our own country to appreciate the freedoms we have and preserve them here as well." As Hartzler is one of three new commissioners appointed to USCIRF last month by leaders in Washington, the other commissioner picked by Johnson, Maureen Ferguson, is a senior fellow at the Catholic Association and co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show "Conversations with Consequences." Ferguson serves on the board of directors for the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. She is also a member of the advisory board at the Belmont Abbey Center, which USCIRF describes as "an initiative of Belmont Abbey College that seeks to restore civil society, cultivate religious freedom, and reclaim the public square for the common good." The third new commissioner, Asif Mahmood, was appointed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Mahmood is a "practicing physician, human rights activist, interracial and inter-faith community organizer, and philanthropist" with experience working in Democrat politics. He currently chairs the Organization for Social Media Safety and serves on the board of Hope the Mission, a homeless shelter in California. Two additional members of USCIRF, Stephen Schneck and Eric Ueland, were reappointed by President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., respectively, for new two-year terms. The sixth USCIRF Commissioner, Susie Gelman, will continue to serve in her role until her term expires next year. The appointment of Hartzler and the other new commissioners comes as the terms of six previous members of USCIRF expired last month. Home News Christian leaders respond to suicide bombings in Nigeria Christian leaders in Nigeria expressed shock and dismay at suicide attacks in Gwoza, Borno state that killed both Muslims and Christians. We are concerned about the resurgence of suicide bombing in our country and the threat it poses to the lives and livelihoods of Nigerians, said Archbishop Daniel Okoh, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), about the June 29 attacks in a statement issued on behalf of Nigerian Christian leaders on July 3. This senseless act of violence is a stark reminder of the evil that terrorism represents and the need for collective action to defeat it. Beginning with a female suicide bombing at a wedding of a Muslim couple, at least two other suicide bombings at other locations followed, killing more than 30 people and wounding many more, said Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shetim. 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 two subsequent bombings on June 29 targeted a funeral and a hospital in Gwoza, close to the border with Cameroon. No one has taken responsibility for the bombings, though Islamic extremist group Boko Haram and the terrorist group with which a faction has aligned, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), have long been active in the area and are suspected. Muslim victims killed during the attacks on Saturday were moved immediately to the towns cemetery for burial, where the second female suicide bomber struck. Christians who were able to identify victims in the first blast took them and buried the bodies on June 30. As Boko Haram and ISWAP are motivated by a radical Islamist ideology, they treat Muslims who do not profess their view as infidels and target them as they do Christians. Boko Harams 15-year drive to impose Sharia (Islamic law) throughout Nigeria originated in Borno state, displacing more than 2 million people and killing more than 40,000. In Saturdays attacks, injuries reportedly included skull and limb fractures. Okoh commended security agents for their efforts to contain terrorism. We encourage them not to relent in their efforts, as every necessary intervention is welcome to prevent a relapse into the dark days of suicide attacks, he said. We must not let down our guards, as the situation could escalate and affect not only innocent lives but also worship centers and other large gatherings. The president of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), the Rev. Amos Mohzo, is a native of Gwoza County. He told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News that he lost some church members and relatives in the attacks. Pastor Mohzo called for the government to make concerted efforts to stop terrorists in Nigeria. Nigeria remained the deadliest place in the world to follow Christ, with 4,118 people killed for their faith from Oct. 1, 2022 to Sept. 30, 2023, according to Open Doors 2024 World Watch List (WWL) report. More kidnappings of Christians than in any other country also took place in Nigeria, with 3,300. Nigeria was also the third highest country in number of attacks on churches and other Christian buildings such as hospitals, schools and cemeteries, with 750, according to the report. In the 2024 WWL of the countries where it's most difficult to be a Christian, Nigeria was ranked No. 6, as it was in the previous year. Originally published by Christian Daily International-Morning Star News Home News Christian pro-life protester sentenced to 6 months in prison: 'Worthy is the Lamb!' 'Lets stop pretending that everything is OK' A pro-life protester was sentenced to six months in federal prison in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday after being convicted earlier this year for violating a federal law against blocking access to abortion clinics. Calvin Zastrow was also sentenced by U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger to three years of supervised release and will be expected to self-report to prison by Oct. 1, according to The Daily Wire. He received no fine. In October 2022, Zastrow was one of originally 11 people indicted for blocking the entrance to the Carafem Health Center Clinic in the Nashville suburb of Mt. Juliet on March 15, 2021. The group gathered together at the entrance, sang hymns, and urged women not to go through with their abortions. 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 Seven of the 11 defendants faced conspiracy charges under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, and the other defendants were charged with misdemeanors that carried a punishment of up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine. The protesters were found guilty by a federal jury in January. Upon his sentencing at the federal courthouse, Zastrow reportedly maintained during remarks that his Christian faith prompted him to participate in the pro-life protest because "children are a blessing from God," and said he has endeavored to live his life "under the Lordship of Jesus Christ." According to Operation Rescue, Zastrow quoted the book of Revelation after his sentencing in the courtroom by shouting, "Worthy is the Lamb!'" Trauger, a Clinton appointee, was reportedly dismissive of Zastrow's remarks and told him she didn't need to hear a sermon. She also reportedly told him that his "religious fervor" had caused pain to others. Coleman Boyd and Dennis Green, two other protesters at the Carafem demonstration, were also sentenced Wednesday. Both received six months of house arrest and three years' probation. Zastrow has been involved with pro-life protests at abortion clinics for years, and in 2019 he filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against the city of Toledo, its police chief and two officers after he was stopped from holding demonstrations outside an abortion clinic there. A U.S. district court judge ruled in his favor at the time, arguing that Zastrow and his daughter have the legal right to peacefully protest outside abortion clinics. During a 2023 interview with The Epoch Times, during which he was asked why he continues to protest at abortion clinics, Zastrow said, "Because theyre still killing people. Lets stop pretending that everything is OK. I pray for more people to love Jesus enough, to love their pre-born neighbors as themselves." Paul Vaughn, a devout Christian father of 11, avoided prison time during his sentencing on Tuesday under Judge Trauger, though she slapped him with three years of supervised release. Despite claiming that Vaughn and the others were "imposing their religious beliefs on other people" with their protest, Trauger acknowledged that their demonstration was non-violent. The judge also conceded that his actions were an expression of his religion and considered the fact that he is a U.S. Navy veteran who has earned the respect of those in his community. Vaughn said he plans to appeal the judge's verdict, but glorified God for his sentence and presented it as a battle in a wider spiritual war engulfing the nation. More than 100 supporters showed up outside the federal court during the protesters' sentencing this week, singing hymns and praying, according to The Daily Wire. Home News Social worker denied job over biblical views: Dangerous precedent for Christians A 46-year-old devout Christian social worker in the U.K., Felix Ngole, has described an employment tribunal ruling as setting a dangerous precedent for Christians by upholding his employers decision not to reinstate him after being denied a position over his biblical views on homosexuality. The tribunal, presided over by Employment Judge Jonathan Brain, acknowledged that Ngole had been directly discriminated against when Touchstone Leeds, an NHS recruiter, withdrew the initial job offer, said the group Christian Concern, whose legal arm Christian Legal Centre supported Ngole. However, the tribunal rejected Ngoles claims of indirect discrimination and harassment during the subsequent procedures, including a second interview designed to probe his beliefs further, the group added. 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 Judge Brain reportedly said the decision to rescind the job offer was influenced by legitimate concerns over the potential impact of Ngoles publicly known views on the mental health of patients who identify as LGBT. The tribunal concluded that maintaining the trust and safety of clients was a paramount concern that justified the actions taken by Touchstone. This part of the ruling drew criticism for potentially setting a precedent that might limit employment opportunities for individuals who do not actively promote LGBT ideology, Christian Concern said. Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, criticized the ruling for what she described as contorted reasoning. According to Williams, the decision undermines the free expression of traditional Christian beliefs and could lead to widespread employment discrimination against those holding similar views. Ngole voiced his concerns about the implications of the ruling, stating it could prevent Christians from securing employment if they do not endorse and actively support LGBT ideology. In 2022, Touchstone offered Ngole a job as a hospital discharge mental health support worker after a successful interview where he outperformed 15 other candidates. However, his job offer was later withdrawn after Touchstone management discovered Ngoles involvement in a legal dispute over his religious statements on social media, specifically concerning homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Previously, Ngole had been involved in a high-profile case against Sheffield University, which had expelled him from his social work course due to his public expression of biblical views. In a landmark decision in 2019, the Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Ngole, stating that he would never discriminate against anyone despite his beliefs, and allowed him to resume his studies and qualify as a social worker. During this second interview, discussions were held concerning how Ngole would promote homosexual rights. He was also informed about mandatory LGBT awareness training, with restrictions expected on expressing his views, contrary to other staff members freedom to promote LGBT-affirming views. The ruling ultimately sets a dangerous precedent as it gives employers the freedom to block Christians, and anyone who doesnt promote LGBTQI+ ideology, from employment, Ngole said. If I was discriminated against when they withdrew the job offer then I dont see how I was not also discriminated against when they refused to reinstate me after the second interview. He added, I was told I was the best candidate for the job, then they suddenly found I was unemployable because they discovered that I am a Christian. No one has ever told me that I have not treated them well in my professional experience. I have never been accused of forcing my beliefs on anyone. I have supported vulnerable individuals from all backgrounds, including LGBT. Ngole is preparing to appeal the tribunals decision. Home News 'Reagan' star Dennis Quaid reflects on faith, humility of Ronald Reagan; reveals if he'll ever run for office Few U.S. presidents have left as indelible a mark as Ronald Reagan, known for his charisma, leadership during the Cold War and deep connection with the American people. But according to actor Dennis Quaid, who stars in the forthcoming film Reagan, it was the former presidents humility and deep faith that made him uniquely qualified to lead during a tumultuous time in American history. He was my favorite president, and I think the greatest president of the 20th century, for sure, Quaid, who plays Reagan in the film releasing Aug. 30, told The Christian Post. Everybody knows what Ronald Reagan looked like. Hes one of the most recognizable people in the world, like Muhammad Ali. 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 To truly embody Reagan a task Quaid said initially sent fear through his spine the 70-year-old actor knew he had to move beyond mere impersonation to help audiences see beyond the public persona of one of America's most iconic leaders. The public Reagan that's kind of easy, but thats kind of an impersonation. I wanted to get to feel him at his core, he said. This journey took Quaid to the Reagan Ranch, the Western White House, where he found a personal connection to the man behind the image. Driving up those 5 miles of bad road, getting to the top of that mountain where his place was at, I could really feel him as a person, he recounted. Reagan, I realized, was a humble man. The Academy Award-nominated actor said it was the modesty of the Reagans' 1,100-square-foot home, where they received the Queen of England, that struck him. They had a king-size bed that was two single beds zip-tied together. Three remote controls to operate the television with a note from Nancy on how to do it. I could really feel him, and thats what compelled me to say yes to doing the movie. When I play real people, I feel like I have a responsibility to portray them from their point of view, and it took me a while to really get there. Despite the great communicator that Ronald Reagan was, there was also a very private part of himself that made him difficult to really know, he added. Nancy, his wife, probably knew him better than anybody, and said there was a place there, too, that was difficult to penetrate. I think that that had to do with his relationship with God; it was very private. [The movie] was an honor to do, and I think we portray him as a human being like all of us. From ShowBiz Direct and set during the Cold War, "Reagan" tracks the life of the 40th president of the United States from his early days in a small town through his Hollywood career to his global political influence. The narrative, told through the perspective of Viktor Petrovich, a former KGB agent, explores Reagan's impact, which drew Soviet interest during his acting career. The film offers a different take on Reagan's legacy, shaped by his resolve and the support of his wife. In addition to Quaid, the film's cast includes Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan, Mena Suvari as Jane Wyman, Lesley-Anne Down as Margaret Thatcher, David Henrie as a young Reagan, Kevin Dillon as Jack Warner, and Jon Voight as Petrovich. The film is directed by Sean McNamara, known for "Soul Surfer" and "Miracle Season." Originally planned for a 2023 release, "Reagan" faced production delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns and was further postponed by an actors' strike. It resumed shooting seven months after initially shutting down. According to Quaid, Reagan aims to present a comprehensive view of Reagans life, from his early days in Dixon, Illinois, to his farewell to the American people after his Alzheimers diagnosis. The actor said through his portrayal of Reagan, he wanted to highlight the former presidents personal struggles and resilience without glossing over the difficult parts of his story. Its not a love letter. Its a kind of warts-and-all portrayal, Quaid explained. But its also a story of triumph, about us as much as it is about him. Reagan felt like, as an actor, he was a failure. He never got beyond playing in B movies, Quaid added. Yet, he stressed that Reagans journey from Hollywood to the presidency is a testament to finding purpose. His faith had a lot to do with him finding that purpose in life. When asked if he has political aspirations himself, Quaid laughed. Nope, no. God told me thats not my purpose, he said. Ive always been very interested in politics and in history as well, he added. As an actor, I just enjoy it so much because it's about what makes people tick, and Ronald Reagan has been like the epitome of that. For Quaid, who has starred in a slew of films over the last few decades, "Reagan" has become a career-defining project. Ive always said that The Right Stuff was my favorite movie. Reagan has knocked that off the top spot. Its my favorite movie that Ive ever done, he said. Quaid said he hopes Reagan entertains audiences Going into the theater and having an experience with an audience, its quite thrilling. And its the right spot for it, he said, adding that it provides hope at a time when the country desperately needs it. I have hope and faith in the wisdom of the American people winning in the end, he said. We're in times now that are very much like the times before Reagan came into office. He came along and won the Cold War and made us feel that we could do anything. I'm sure that Ronald Reagan would give credit for winning the Cold War to the American people. He said, You know, it's amazing how much you can get done in Washington if you're willing to not take credit for it. He had an amazing life and was an amazing person. The movie is, number one, to entertain people, and that's in the story of his life. Its an amazing love story, really, between him and Nancy that I think the public has not really seen before. You get to be like a fly on the wall for all these great events that happened this movie goes there. That's what I love about it. Tickets for Reagan go on sale July 4. The film will be released exclusively in theaters nationwide on Aug. 30. Home News Doctor who exposed trans procedures at Texas Children's Hospital faces 10 years in prison Eithan Haim's legal defense fund has raised more than $668K The U.S. Department of Justice has unsealed the four-count indictment against a doctor who potentially faces 10 years in prison after blowing the whistle on the largest pediatric hospital in the U.S. for allegedly prescribing puberty blockers to minors despite claiming otherwise. Dr. Eithan Haim, 34, who completed his surgical residency at Texas Childrens Hospital (TCH) in Houston, was slapped with four felony counts earlier this month after he "obtained personal information including patient names, treatment codes and the attending physician from Texas Childrens Hospitals (TCH) electronic system without authorization," according to a DOJ press release. Haim reportedly leaked such records to journalist Christopher Rufo last year because they exposed the "gender-affirming services" allegedly still being performed on minors at the hospital at the time, even though the hospital told the public it had paused such procedures. 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 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had earlier released a formal opinion in February 2022 that labeled some sex-change procedures and the use of puberty blockers as "child abuse" under Texas law, after which Gov. Greg Abbott issued an order instructing state agencies to investigate them as such. The six-page indictment released by U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani and reported by National Review alleges that Haim went to the press instead of the appropriate authorities within the hospital. BREAKING: The Biden Administration has unsealed the indictment against Dr. @EithanHaim, who blew the whistle on the child sex-change program at Texas Children's Hospital. He is now facing up to 10 years in prison for telling the truth about a practice that is now illegal. pic.twitter.com/l0isJJPKJd Christopher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) June 17, 2024 Last May, within 24 hours of Rufo publishing a story in City Journal based on Haim's leak, the Texas Legislature passed SB-14, which made such procedures for minors illegal in the state effective Sept. 1, 2023. GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law last June. Rufo's story also prompted Paxton to launch a formal investigation into TCH. The hospital's CEO, Mark Wallace, later issued a statement promising to finally shut down the facility's trans procedures for minors by the time the law went into effect. Rufo noted in a subsequent article last June that the information Haim leaked to him redacted key personal information, but the indictment claims the records retained dates of service, diagnosis, procedure codes and physician names. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tina Ansari, the lead DOJ prosecutor in his case who also signed his recent indictment, showed evidence of bias and went after both him and his wife, his lawyers claimed in a letter sent to members of Congress earlier this year. Ansari allegedly described trans procedures as the "last hope" for some families and pressed Haim to avoid felony prosecution by admitting to a crime. She also reportedly claimed it was not Haim's job to expose the trans procedures at the pediatric hospital and used a personal cellphone to communicate with Haim's attorneys. "These people are corrupt," Haim told The Christian Post in January. "And the only way to expose it is to not play into this Kabuki theater, like these people are practitioners of justice. Because if we were to collude with them, we would be sanctioning our own destruction." "Because these people are just petty tyrants and neurotic bureaucrats," he added. "And what that boils down to is that these people are simply bullies. When you're fearful, when you're afraid, that's when they're most effective. So to be fearful and scared is to seal your own death warrant." Haim's legal defense fund, which has a goal of $1 million, has raised more than $668,000 as of Tuesday. Home News Whistleblowing doctor facing 10 years in prison says he senses divine providence A Texas surgeon, who is potentially facing 10 years in prison for having leaked information exposing Texas Children's Hospital for allegedly continuing to perform trans procedures on minors despite claiming otherwise, said his ordeal has convinced him of God's providence. Dr. Eithan Haim, 34, told The Christian Post that he feels God is with him in his battle against the U.S. Department of Justice, which slapped him earlier this month with four felony counts after he "obtained personal information including patient names, treatment codes and the attending physician from Texas Children's Hospital's (TCH) electronic system without authorization," according to a DOJ press release. Haim reportedly leaked such records to journalist Christopher Rufo last year because the hospital told the public it had paused such procedures after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott labeled them child abuse, though Haim uncovered documents that showed otherwise. 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 six-page indictment released by U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani alleges that Haim went to the press instead of the appropriate authorities within the hospital. Haim went on a media blitz last week, giving interviews about his situation to prominent people such as Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Steve Bannon, Glenn Beck and Jordan B. Peterson. Haim, who conceded he finds his potential prison sentence "terrifying," told CP that his obligation to the future generation has become more pressing now that his wife is six months pregnant with their first daughter. "What kind of world will we live in if we don't stand up for these kids who are being harmed or against the government that's going after people who are telling the truth?" he asked. "And if we think things are bad now, how much worse is it going to be in 10 years?" "And that's the world we would deliver our children into, and especially with my wife being 24 weeks pregnant now, that's not theoretical anymore, but that's real," he continued. "If we really love our children, we're willing to sacrifice for their future. So if that means I need to take on the most powerful federal Leviathan in human history, that's what it's going to take." Haim believes the trans movement is driven primarily by ideology but that it is further enabled by people who reap the rewards of enabling it. "These are the people who are the true believers, who have never grown up with any type of moral tradition," he said of those propelling the movement. "And because of that, there's no way for them to make sense of life's suffering. Because they have no way to make sense of it, they have to latch on to something that can provide them with some form of meaning. But when that happens, they can latch on to anything, and the transgender ideology is what they've chosen. So these are the most radical people who are driving it." Haim believes every major institution in the U.S. has been "captured by this ideology" that endeavors to elevate narcissistic, selfish desires above objective reality and that anyone attempting to expose such things risks being attacked. "So if someone within those institutions is willing to tell the truth, it shines a light on their own degradation, which is why they try so hard to destroy those people," he said. "Because if they can destroy the one person who's telling the truth, who's shining the light, then they can reestablish the balance where everyone's degraded. But once you have one person who's going to speak the truth, who's willing to stand up, it will inevitably inspire others to do the same thing, too. And the process becomes exponential." Haim, whose legal defense fund has raised over $868,000 of its $1 million goal as of Thursday morning, told CP that he feels swept up in a spiritual war but feels God is protecting and providing for him. He said he has been inundated with support from Christians and Jews, which he described as "a miracle." "After everything that's happened, there's no denying it: these things happen for a reason," he said. "I think more people are coming to realize that, too. When you live by these things that we preach on Saturday or Sunday, we learn that God protects His own." "Never in a million years did I ever think so many people would join us in this way," he said, adding that he and his family had "sacrificed everything we've ever saved" to take a stand but that the donations flooding in have restored what they have lost. "That was done with a faith that if we did that, maybe other people would put their faith in us, and that's come true," he said. "It's amazing." Haim hopes his case can help set a precedent that will embolden other whistleblowing doctors who want to uphold their oath to "do no harm." "You can't just stand by in silence and let these hospitals lie to the people they take care of and harm these children," he said. He hopes other potential whistleblowers will see his example and be encouraged not to be afraid. "The thing they should be more afraid of is their own submission," he added. "Because they're going to lose their dignity, and they'll have to live with that for the rest of their lives." On Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sent a letter to Hamdani demanding answers regarding Haim's prosecution, which he maintained is politically motivated and par for the course under President Joe Biden's DOJ. BREAKING: Senator @TedCruz criticizes the indictment of whistleblower Eithan Haim as a "politically-driven prosecution" and demands documents from the US Attorney's office. The Biden Administration is manipulating the law to punish political opponents. They must be stopped. pic.twitter.com/d6tPj85jDy Christopher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) June 26, 2024 "I have had longstanding concerns with the impartiality of the Department of Justice under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland," Cruz wrote. "As such, while the present prosecution of Dr. Haim is troubling, it is also not surprising. Political prosecution of whistleblowers not only undermines the integrity of the Department of Justice, but also sets a dangerous precedent for intimidating others from exposing wrongdoing." "It has no place in our system of justice," Cruz added. Home News Global megachurch leader Enoch Adeboye cites Robert Morris fall as cautionary tale Global megachurch leader Pastor Enoch Adeboye, who serves as the general overseer of the Nigeria-based Redeemed Christian Church of God, recently warned members of his flock to flee youthful lust while alluding to the collapse of Gateway Church founder Robert Morris ministry over allegations of child sexual abuse he committed in the 1980s as a cautionary tale. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2:22, flee youthful lust. When it comes to sexual temptation don't fight, run, said Adeboye, who is the global general overseer of churches in his ministry, including in Africa, Europe and North America, in a recent sermon shared on YouTube. Remember, a couple of years ago when they accused one man of God of rape? I told my children, I said, I don't believe he committed rape. ... He did something, no doubt about that, but that he did it by force? [No.], he argued. 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 Adeboye then explained how he warned his own children, especially the boys, to be vigilant when it comes to sexual temptation. I warned my children, particularly the boys, I said, if the devil comes against you, tell the devil to get lost. When you see a girl smiling at you in one coy-coy way, run, because you can't win the battle. Some of you say, daddy what are you saying? Are you saying you are running from [sex]? I say [run] fast. Without your anointing? Does your anointing turn your body to stone? he asked before point to the story of Samson. Samson was anointed. Singlehandedly he killed 1,000 soldiers. A woman finished him, Adeboye declared. I hope the boys are listening. You see that woman smiling at you everywhere you go? She's there smiling and she's not your wife. Run! the megachurch leader said. And for you girls, when you see this boy who comes and begins to say, when I look at you, where have you been all my life? It looks as if the sun has just come out. He's calling you sunshine. By the time he [is] finish[ed] with you, you won't even know the difference between sunshine and sunset. You may laugh, mark my word, he insisted. Adeboye noted that even at the age of 82, he knows he still cannot be too careful when it comes to sexual temptation. Somebody said, 'Are you saying that even at your age you are still running?' Faster than before, he said. Why? Because the closer you get to the finishing point the more careful you must be. Write that down. I'm not joking. Can anybody still be interested [in] an 82-year-old man? he asked. It's not interested in you for you, he said, explaining how the devil works. Hes interested in you so that he can put an end to all the great work God had done through you. And with that comment, he alluded to the allegations against Morris without naming him. Didn't you read the paper that a man committed an offense or something around 42 or so years ago and now his ministry is finished, he said. Anybody tells you that whatever youve done is hid, its hid until the wind begins to blow, Adeboye explained. Don't say daddy didn't tell you. I've told you, [the] Bible say [s] flee youthful lust. Flee. He didn't ask you to stay and say grace will be sufficient. There's no grace for what God says you should run from. Maybe grace to run. Last month, Cindy Clemishire, 54, reported that Morris began sexually abusing her on Christmas Day in 1982, when she was just 12 years old. She says the abuse continued for four-and-a-half years before he was found out. But he was later allowed to return to ministry. When questioned about the allegations by The Christian Post, Morris only confessed to being involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady more than 35 years ago, and said he repented and was restored to ministry. Clemishire insisted to CP, however, that she was no young lady when Morris abused her. I was 12 years old. I was a little girl. A very innocent little girl. And he was brought into our home. He and his wife, Debbie, and their little boy, Josh, trusted and preached at the church that my dad helped start and then began grooming all of us to do this, which took me decades to wrap my brain around as an adult, she said. It went on for many years. He says there was no sexual intercourse, but he did touch every part of my body and inserted his fingers into me, which I understand now is considered a form of rape by instrumentation. I was an innocent 12-year-old little girl who knew nothing about sexual behavior. Gateway Church is now conducting an independent review of the allegations years after Clemishire said she had first contacted Morris via his Gateway email seeking restitution. "The leadership at Gateway received actual notice of this crime in 2005 when I sent an email directly to Robert Morris' Gateway email address. Former Gateway elder, Tom Lane, received and responded to my email, acknowledging that the sexual abuse began on December 25, 1982, when I was 12 years old," Clemishire said in a statement previously released by her attorney Boz Tchividjian. "Again in 2007, my then attorney Gentner Drummond (the current Attorney General of Oklahoma) sent a letter to Robert Morris with the hope that he would help reimburse me for the thousands of dollars I had expended in counseling as a result of this abuse. His attorney acknowledged the dates as well and then attempted to blame me for the abuse," she claimed. "At the very least, both the Gateway pastor and at least one elder had specific notice that I was sexually abused beginning when I was 12 years old. Gateway had the information but intentionally decided to embrace the false narrative Robert Morris wanted to believe." Home News Family pleads for help to find missing Chicago Pastor Warren Beard Family and friends of the Rev. Warren Beard, a beloved father of five, Sunday school teacher and assistant pastor at New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago, Illinois, are now desperately praying and calling on the public for help in finding him after he disappeared without a trace more than a week ago after visiting with friends in Joliet. We are all hurting right now because we know that Rev. Warren Beard is not someone who would just disappear without saying a word to his family, the 53-year-old pastors aunt, Theresa Boss-French, told reporters at a press conference cited by the Chicago Sun Times. She noted that his family is very wary and concerned for his safety. Information released by the Chicago Police Department said Beard was last seen on the night of July 2 at around 9 p.m., as he left the gathering of friends in Joliet. 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 Investigators told the pastors family that his black 2023 Honda HR-V with Illinois tag DY20511 was later spotted by a plate-reader at the intersection of Jefferson Street and Larkin Avenue about 10:30 p.m. on July 2. Since then, Beards family and friends haven't seen or heard from him. The pastor, who has multiple tattoos and a pierced left ear, was last seen wearing a white button-up short-sleeve shirt, with light blue and navy-blue polka dots, navy-blue pants, and black Cole Hann laced-up shoes. The Chicago PD is asking anyone with information on his whereabouts to contact them at (312) 747-8380 or call 911. New Israelite Missionary Baptist Churchs senior pastor, Chenier A. Alston, told reporters that Sunday was difficult for him without his assistant pastor. Sunday was the hardest day I had to preach here ... because I had to walk from my office into this church without the man that always stood behind me or beside me, Alston said while noting the church will host a prayer meeting for Beard at 7 p.m. Thursday. All were asking is if you know anything, anything, please send an anonymous tip to the police department. ... Send up a smoke signal. We just want to bring him home to us. Beard has served as assistant pastor of the church located at 1625 W. 75th Place for the last six years. He also works as a director at Preservation of Affordable Housing Communities, the Chicago Sun Times said. Alston said that hours before Beard went missing on July 2, he spoke with him on the phone and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He was jovial. He was happy, joking as usual, he recalled before they would eventually end the conversation telling each other I love you. The pastors family members told the outlet they are now considering hiring a private detective in an effort to answers. Home News Gateway Church settled lawsuit after multiple pastors accused of covering up sexual assault of minor Just two months before Gateway Church founder Robert Morris resigned over an explosive allegation of child sex abuse, the megachurch settled a lawsuit in which at least five Gateway Church pastors and a youth leader were accused of concealing the sexual assault of a minor by another member. The initial lawsuit was filed in Tarrant County Texas in August 2020 on behalf of a minor identified as A.D. and her mother, who The Christian Post doesn't name in this piece. Gateway Church, Denise Edwards and youth leader Logan Edwards were all named as defendants, along with Doug Vaughn and Gateway Church pastors: Kelly Jones, Rebecca Wilson, Samantha Golden, Mondo Davis and Sion Alford. The plaintiffs in the case were both members of Gateway and sought damages of more than $200,000 but not more than $5,000,000. 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 In settling the case on April 18, Gateway Church and its pastors, who were accused of gross negligence and breach of their fiduciary duty to the plaintiffs as members, admitted no liability and stated that they only settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount to buy peace. All parties having waived a jury, it was announced to the court that an agreement for settlement of all matters in controversy, approved and recommended by the parties and the Guardian Ad Litem, had been entered, subject to the approval of the Court; ..." The parties entered into a confidential compromise settlement agreement and release in full settlement of all claims of plaintiff against defendants. It was further announced that said compromise settlement agreement and release was being made on disputed claims against defendants and that defendants denied any liability to the plaintiff, the final judgement on the matter said. Defendants agreed to enter into the compromise settlement agreement solely to buy peace, without admitting any liability. According to the allegations in the case, prior to the sexual assault, the minor and her mother frequently attended worship services and participated in various ministries and church sponsored functions. On or around March 14, 2018, the minor was sexually assaulted by an unnamed member at the member's personal residence. In his capacity as a youth leader at Gateway Church, defendant Logan allegedly became aware of the sexual assault through conversations with the alleged perpetrator and other youth who attended Gateway. Logan went on to share the allegations with other pastors and defendants named in the lawsuit. Defendants Samantha, Sion, Kelly, Rebecca, and Mondo were all informed of the sexual assault accusations to which Plaintiff Doe subjected to as being the central leadership of Gateway. Although Defendants were made aware of the sexual assault accusations made by Plaintiff Doe, a minor, none filed a formal complaint with the necessary child protective agencies, law enforcement agencies, or even alerted Plaintiff Does mother, to the existence of the alleged assault, the lawsuit states. The Gateway pastors and other defendants in the case allegedly engaged in many conversations with the accused member and their parents. As soon as the minors mother eventually learned what happened to her daughter, she filed a report with the Haltom City Police Department. After the victims mother did that, the Gateway pastors were accused of trying to discredit the plaintiffs. The defendants who were ordained pastors of Gateway, embarked on a concerted campaign to conceal, misconstrue, and discredit the assault accusations while the active criminal investigation was ongoing. Defendants encouraged other members of Gateway to ostracize (minors mother) and had her removed from the various ministries of which she had served dutifully, the lawsuit claims. The minor and her mother claimed they were forced to endure immense shame and embarrassment, and emotional distress by the defendants who used their influence to taint the police investigation. Due to the weeks of active concealment by defendants, significant evidence of the alleged criminal assault was allowed to waste and degrade, further hindering law enforcements ability to accurately investigate the original assault, the lawsuit adds. Just last month, 54-year-old Cindy Clemishire reported that Gateway Church founder Robert Morris began sexually abusing her on Dec. 25, 1982, when she was just 12 years old. Morris was a young adult married traveling evangelist at the time. Clemishire says the abuse continued for four-and-a-half years before Morris was found out, but he was later allowed to return to ministry. Clemishire contends that officials at Gateway Church were informed of her allegations against Morris years ago. However, Lawrence Swicegood reiterated in a statement to The Christian Post that the current board of elders did not know that the megachurch founder had been accused of child sex abuse. The Board of Elders called a special meeting and accepted the resignation of Pastor Robert Morris several weeks ago. Gateway Church is committed to protecting people first and foremost children and the most vulnerable. Abuse simply cannot be tolerated, he said. The Board of Elders has retained the law firm Haynes and Boone, LLP to conduct a thorough and independent inquiry so that the facts can be understood. Even though this abuse occurred many years before Gateway was established, the Elders are committed to finding the truth and holding people accountable, he added. Regrettably, prior to Friday, June 14, the current Elders did not have all the facts. The Board of Elders is deeply committed to walking in integrity and finding the truth. Having this inquiry done by an independent and unbiased outside law firm is best practice. This review has begun, and the Board of Elders pledges its full cooperation. Home News Hawaii schools ordered to allow Good News Clubs access to campus A federal court has ordered the Hawaii Department of Education and six individual elementary schools to allow Child Evangelism Fellowship's after-school Bible clubs to operate on public school campuses just like any other club. The directive comes months after CEF sued education officials for blocking their student clubs from operating in four local school districts. The preliminary injunction protects Good News Clubs from viewpoint discrimination and compels school officials to respond promptly to facility-use applications, according to Liberty Counsel, the legal group that represented CEF. This decision stems from a lawsuit filed in January, alleging that the Hawaii Department of Education and six schools had continuously denied the Good News Clubs' access to school facilities over three years, citing instances of what the Liberty Counsel described as blatant religious discrimination. 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 During the legal proceedings, it emerged that one school had explicitly barred the club based on its religious nature, while another rejection was attributed to a misinterpretation of school policies. This is a great victory for Child Evangelism Fellowship, parents, and the students in Hawaii public schools, said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that public schools cannot discriminate against Christian viewpoints regarding use of school facilities, he pointed out. Child Evangelism Fellowship gives children a safe space that offers moral and character development from a Christian viewpoint. Before the pandemic, child Evangelism Fellowship of Hawaii had established Good News Clubs in over a dozen schools across Oahu and other islands. However, despite the restoration of after-school programs in 2022 following COVID-19 restrictions, the Department of Education, led by four superintendents and other officials, denied all requests from CEF to restart its programs. They rejected every appeal, allowing access only to other similar groups. The Good News Clubs aim to provide a safe space for children for spiritual growth and moral character development. These clubs, which meet weekly, immediately after school, are managed by trained local volunteers and offer religious teachings alongside activities promoting learning, service and leadership development. The clubs are free and open to children who have written permission from their parents. In their complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of the District of Hawaii, CEF Hawaii named several defendants, including the Hawaii Department of Education and Education Superintendent Keith Hayashi; and other area superintendents such as Rochelle Mahoe, Linell Dilwith, Janette Snelling and Richard Fajardo. The complaint argued that the denials of access violated constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments by preventing the clubs from communicating with students on equal footing with secular organizations such as the Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts. Good News Clubs should be in every public elementary school, Staver remarked. In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Good News Club v. Milford Central School that public schools could not ban the Christian student group from meeting on their property after class hours solely because the club was religious in nature. Home News Independence Day: 7 important victories in the American Revolution People across the United States are celebrating the nation's Independence Day, which marks the anniversary of when the 13 colonies declared their independence from the British Empire. The demand for independence, however, was not enough, as American colonists had to fight the United Kingdom to gain autonomy from the powerful European nation. While not an exhaustive list of victories on the part of the American rebels, the battles and sieges listed nevertheless showcase key moments in the struggle for independence. 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 Here are seven important victories in the American Revolution. They include one of the opening skirmishes, a battle that guaranteed foreign intervention on behalf of the rebellion, and the siege that ended it all. Home News Indonesia: Officials force congregation to stop wedding, ban Christian worship services SURABAYA, INDONESIA Local officials in Indonesia stopped a wedding ceremony and banned the church from further worship meetings at the site, sources said. Last Sunday, in Mergosari, Tarik District, Sidoarjo Regency of Java island, village head Eko Budi Santoso halted the wedding at the Pentecostal Church in Indonesia (Gereja Pentekosta di Indonesia, or GPdI) site and banned them from meeting, claiming the congregation lacked a building permit and that area residents opposed their church, local media reported. Area residents in the Muslim-majority country reportedly said they were not opposed to the presence of the church worshiping at the House of Prayer, a structure that doesn't have the function and markings of a church building. 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 Refusing to allow the congregation to finish the wedding and worship, Eko and five state officials took Pastor Yoab Setiawan to a roadside stall to tell him they were responding to public complaints about the existence of the prayer house and the lack of a permit, according to media outlet radarsidoarjo.jawapos.com. A video by the Hagios Legal Aid Institute (Lembaga Bantuan Hukum, or LBH), shows Pastor Setiawan telling the officials that they might first ban the prostitution taking place in front of the village head office. The pastors wife, Lidya Laviyanti, reportedly apologized and pleaded with officials. Were not causing any trouble, sir. Were sorry, we ask for your understanding. We come from everywhere. We are a minority group. Our congregation is small in number. So please understand." Village head Eko, motioning to the head of the community association and the head of the neighborhood association, said all activities must first obtain permission from the neighborhood. Pastor Setiawan and his wife asked him what activities first needed approval, and Eko responded, All activities. Period, and ends the discussion. The House of Prayer is registered through a local government report certificate signed by the Christian Community Guidance Regional Office leader, Luki Krispriyanto, on Dec. 7, 2023, according to International Christian Concern (ICC), which said Eko admitted he was not aware of the certificate. At a meeting with the parties in conflict at the office of the village head in Mergosari village, 10 miles from Surabaya, on Monday, the acting regent of Sidoarjo, identified only as Subandi, supported the ban at the site but said congregation members could worship at home, according to Celah.id. Officials at the meeting concluded that the church must obtain a building permit, which they said they would expedite. They gave a deadline of one month to complete the permit. While waiting for permission to be completed, you can worship at home, Subandi said on Tuesday, according to celah.id. It doesnt mean that you are not allowed to worship. Asserting that residents welcomed construction of a place of worship and upheld tolerance among religious communities, Subandi suggested the parties build good communication among themselves. An area resident said they were not disturbed by the congregations worship activities, according to detik.com. Even when hundreds of people attended, the residents welcomed them, said the resident, identified as 53-year-old Mulyati. Another resident, 25-year-old Agus Febro, said that residents, especially young people, never felt unrest due to the prayer houses Sunday activities. Bonar Tigor Naipospos, deputy chairman of the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, a human rights organization, said the case was a clear sign of state subordination to the will of the intolerant groups. Local political constellations and electoral interests, in gaining support from the masses, make public officials choose sides and accommodate the demands of intolerant groups, Bonar told Morning Star News. They intentionally ignore it, even though it is considered to violate the constitution. Indonesia ranked 42nd on Christian support organization Open Doors 2024 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. Indonesian society has adopted a more conservative Islamic character, and churches involved in evangelistic outreach are at risk of being targeted by Islamic extremist groups, according to the WWL report. Originally published at Morning Star News Home News 'People are afraid to go': Inside Israel 8 months after Oct. 7 What's life like inside Israel eight months after Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack? Christian Post reporter Samantha Kamman recently visited the Jewish state and spoke with residents to learn more about how people are faring amid the ongoing war in Gaza. She joined a recent episode of "The Inside Story" to discuss what she saw. Read more about Kamman's trip and how the Oct. 7 massacre has impacted tourism in the Holy Land by clicking here. 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 Inside Story takes you behind the headlines of the biggest faith, culture and political headlines of the week. In 15 minutes or less, Christian Post staff writers and editors will help you navigate and understand whats driving each story, the issues at play and why it all matters. Listen to more Christian podcasts today on the Edifi app and be sure to subscribe to "The Inside Story" on your favorite platforms: Edifi Anchor Breaker Google Podcasts Apple Podcasts Pocket Casts RadioPublic Spotify Home News Jesus Looney Tunes painting removed from exhibit amid outcry for mocking Christianity A gallery in Sydney, Australia, has removed artwork depicting Jesus as a Looney Tunes character following an onslaught of complaints from people protesting that the painting mocks Christianity. The oil painting, titled Jesus Speaks to the Daughters of Jerusalem, depicts Jesus and other biblical figures with the faces of characters such as Goofy and Daffy Duck. It was removed from the Blake Prize exhibition at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Sydney last Friday. Demands for its removal were sparked by a Catholic-led group known as Christian Lives Matter (CLM) and its founder Charlie Bakhos. The group is known for leading protests opposing same-sex marriage, abortion and trans ideology, according to the Herald. 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 Ive just gotten word that this shocking, disrespectful art mocking Jesus Christ has finally been removed, Bakhos wrote on Facebook last week, two days before the eight-week exhibition was to end, according to The Guardian. Bakhos said the painting by 48-year-old artist Phil James, who also goes by Philjames, was another cheap and low attempt at mocking Christianity here in Sydney, he said. James, who grew up attending Sunday school but is not religious, according to the Guardian, was described by The Sydney Herald's art critic John McDonald as a "satirist and "humorist. McDonald said James' irreverent artwork doesn't only strike at Christianity, but hits out at almost anything. On Friday, Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun said the artwork should be taken down because it was causing offense to the religious community. The Christian community and many Muslims take offense at Jesus Christ being portrayed as a 'Looney Tunes' character, he told the Herald. The right to free speech needs to be balanced with the right to practice your religion without fear, persecution or ridicule. According to The Telegraph, 40% of Liverpool's population is comprised of residents who were born outside of Australia, and hail from countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. James told the outlet that he had received dozens of threatening messages following CLM's campaign to have his painting removed from the exhibit. Its really sad that it has come to this, James told the Herald. Bakhos said in his Facebook post that he warned the Liverpool council that CLM was organizing "a few hundred people" to protest in person, to which the council responded by quickly ensuring the painting was taken down. Within hours of posting this rubbish art mocking Christianity, hundreds and hundreds of you uniting by commenting, emailing and calling respectfully. Ive just gotten word that this shocking disrespectful art mocking Jesus Christ has finally been removed, Bakhos wrote. James, however, indicated that not all commenters had been "respectful" because he was personally threatened with physical violence and was also concerned about the safety of the gallery's staff, The Telegraph reported. The Blake Prize is a biennial exhibition that features contemporary artists worldwide who take on religious topics. The winner receives $35,000. Home News Survivor Joyce Meyer, Dr. Ben Carson withdraw from Gateway Church series after child sex abuse allegations against Robert Morris Childhood sex abuse survivor and televangelist Joyce Meyer, along with renowned neurosurgeon and former Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, have both pulled out of a line-up of speakers scheduled for Gateway Churchs Lets Dive In! Summer Series in the wake of child sex abuse allegations against founder Robert Morris. Meyer, who has talked publicly about the childhood sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of her father, has been a regular speaker at Gateway Church over multiple years. She most recently spoke at the megachurch in May. She was scheduled to speak there again for the summer series on July 20-21, but a person close to Joyce Meyer Ministries, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Christian Post late Monday that the televangelist has decided to stop teaching at Gateway Church in light of the allegations against Morris. I can confirm that Joyce Meyer has decided to withdraw from teaching at Gateway Church. The ministry has not made any public statements about this matter. But there are many examples readily available of Joyce Meyer strongly condemning all types of abuse and her compassion for survivors, the spokesperson told CP. 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 In 2016, Meyer revealed that her father must have raped her at least 200 times while she was a minor until she became 18, and the devil convinced her it was her own fault. "He didn't force me physically, but through lies, and manipulation, and fears, and threats, I was still forced," she recalled. "Literally, what he did was rape me, every week, at least once a week, until the time I was 18. My father, who I was supposed to be able to trust, who was supposed to keep me safe, raped me a minimum of 200 times. The 81-year-old televangelist said dealing with the internalized guilt from the abuse was the most difficult stage of her healing and she struggled with it for most of her life. Well, I had a record playing in my head for most of my life 'What's wrong with me?' And I think it's so amazing [that] the first thing Jesus wants to give us is something right, she said. In a statement to CP on Monday, a spokesperson from Dr. Carsons conservative think-tank, American Cornerstone Institute, said the retired neurosurgeon was asked to cancel his July 6-7 engagement at the church. Given the circumstances, the church asked us to cancel our earlier commitment in order to allow for the healing process to take place. We are praying for their community during this difficult time, the ACI spokesperson told CP. Carson and Meyer were among several regular high-profile speakers scheduled to speak during Gateway Churchs summer series. Other speakers include the embattled megachurch Pastor Tony Evans. Evans leads Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship church in Dallas, Texas. He recently stepped away from his pastoral duties for a season of restoration due to sin that was undisclosed by his church on June 9. He was scheduled to speak at Gateway Church June 10-11 and there is no evidence that he fulfilled that engagement online. He is also scheduled to speak at Gateway Church July 13 -14. It remains unclear whether that engagement will continue as planned. Gateway Church did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CP on Monday. Though he also previously featured prominently in former President Donald Trumps Evangelical Executive Advisory Board, shortly after he resigned in the wake of the child sex abuse allegations last month, a spokesperson for Trumps 2024 presidential campaign said he no longer had a role on the board. While Morris hosted Trump at Gateway Church in June 2020 when Trump referred to him and fellow Pastor Steve Dulin as great people with a great reputation, campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told The New York Times that he was not included this year. President Trumps broad appeal among faith communities across the country is a testament to his unwavering commitment to upholding faith and the protection of religious liberties, Cheung said. Morris resigned from the megachurch on June 18, after Cindy Clemishire, 54, reported that he began sexually abusing her on Dec. 25, 1982, when she was just 12 years old. She says the abuse continued for four-and-a-half years before he was found out. But he was later allowed to return to ministry. When questioned about the allegations by CP, Morris initially confessed to being involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady more than 35 years ago, and said he repented and was restored to ministry. Clemishire insisted to CP, however, that she was no young lady when Morris abused her. I was 12 years old. I was a little girl. A very innocent little girl. And he was brought into our home. He and his wife, Debbie, and their little boy, Josh, trusted and preached at the church that my dad helped start and then began grooming all of us to do this, which took me decades to wrap my brain around as an adult, she said. It went on for many years. He says there was no sexual intercourse, but he did touch every part of my body and inserted his fingers into me, which I understand now is considered a form of rape by instrumentation. I was an innocent 12-year-old little girl who knew nothing about sexual behavior. Gateway Church initially defended Morris when the abuse allegations were first made and stated that Morris, who was a married and a traveling evangelist at the time of the alleged abuse, had repented. Gateway elders would later revise their public statement on the allegations in an announcement of Morris' resignation on June 18, saying they were not aware Morris had sexually abused a child. "Regretfully, prior to Friday, June 14, the elders did not have all the facts of the inappropriate relationship between Morris and the victim, including her age at the time and the length of the abuse. The elders' prior understanding was that Morris' extramarital relationship, which he had discussed many times throughout his ministry, was with 'a young lady' and not abuse of a 12-year-old child," the elders explained. "Even though it occurred many years before Gateway was established, as leaders of the church, we regret that we did not have the information that we now have. We are heartbroken and appalled by what has come to light over the past few days, and we express our deep sympathy to the victim and her family," the elders added. The elders further stated that they retained the law firm of Haynes & Boone, LLP to "conduct an independent, thorough, and professional review of the report of past abuse to ensure we have a complete understanding of the events from 1982-1987." Clemishire has disputed the claim by Gateway Church that the elders had no knowledge that she was a child. "The leadership at Gateway received actual notice of this crime in 2005 when I sent an email directly to Robert Morris' Gateway email address. Former Gateway elder, Tom Lane, received and responded to my email, acknowledging that the sexual abuse began on December 25, 1982, when I was 12 years old," Clemishire said in a statement released by her attorney Boz Tchividjian. "Again in 2007, my then attorney Gentner Drummond (the current Attorney General of Oklahoma) sent a letter to Robert Morris with the hope that he would help reimburse me for the thousands of dollars I had expended in counseling as a result of this abuse. His attorney acknowledged the dates as well and then attempted to blame me for the abuse," she insisted. "At the very least, both the Gateway pastor and at least one elder had specific notice that I was sexually abused beginning when I was 12 years old. Gateway had the information but intentionally decided to embrace the false narrative Robert Morris wanted to believe." Home News Kamala Harris fact-checked after claiming Trump 'would ban abortion nationwide' Vice President Kamala Harris falsely claimed that former President Donald Trump would pass a national abortion ban following the former president's debate with Joe Biden. "Donald Trump would ban abortion nationwide," the vice president wrote in a Sunday X post. "President [Joe Biden] and I will do everything in our power to stop him and restore women's reproductive freedom." A community note beneath the post cited multiple media outlets that reported on Trump's abortion stance, providing links to the articles. According to the community note, "President Trump has repeatedly said he will not sign a national abortion ban." 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 X owner Elon Musk tweeted: "He clearly said he would not do so in the debate." Trump has insisted that abortion policy should be left up to the states and that he wouldn't support efforts to enact federal legislation to limit abortion to certain gestations of pregnancy. The vice president has made it clear she opposes the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022, a ruling that restored regulatory authority over abortion to the states. Harris, a former senator from California, has been a staunch supporter of abortion throughout her political career. Earlier this year, pro-life advocates condemned Harris' decision to tour a Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Minnesota instead of visiting one of the state's numerous pro-life pregnancy centers. During the CNN debate on Thursday, Biden and Trump discussed various political issues, including immigration, foreign policy and abortion. In response to a question about whether he would "block" chemical abortions, Trump expressed support for the Supreme Court's recent rejection of a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Food & Drug Administration's approval of abortion pills. Trump also said that he supports each individual state deciding its abortion policies, and he clarified that he believes in abortion exceptions in cases of rape, incest or if the pregnancy presents a risk to the mother's life. The former president argued that the Democrats are "radical" on the issue, claiming that Democratic lawmakers support abortion "in the eighth month and ninth month and even after birth." He then highlighted comments from 2019 by former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who said that under a proposed Virginia law, an "unviable" newborn would be "kept comfortable," and a discussion would ensue between the parents and the doctor about whether the child should be "resuscitated." During the debate, Biden claimed that allowing states to dictate abortion laws is a "terrible thing," saying that it is a "little like saying we're going to turn civil rights back to the states, let each state have a different rule." Regarding the limits the president supports on abortion, Biden said that he supports Roe v. Wade. "I supported Roe v. Wade, which had three trimesters," Biden said in response to a question about whether he supported any abortion restrictions at all. "First time is between a woman and a doctor. Second time is between the doctor and an extreme situation. And a third time is between the doctor I mean, it'd be between the woman and the state." At one point during the debate, Trump claimed that Biden supports abortion in the ninth month or after the baby is born, to which the president claimed, "We are not for late-term abortion. Period, period, period." Biden later argued that Trump and Republican lawmakers would pass a "universal ban on abortion" if the former president wins the 2024 election. Earlier this year, the Republican presidential nominee posted a video to Truth Social outlining his campaign's abortion position, declaring that the Republican Party under his administration "will always support the creation of strong, thriving and healthy American families." Trump also expressed support for in-vitro fertilization "in every state in America." Various pro-life groups, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and March for Life, disapproved of Trump's abortion stance. SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser stated that the organization was "deeply disappointed in President Trump's position." "Saying the issue is 'back to the states' cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy," the pro-life leader stated. "If successful, they will wipe out states' rights." Home News Kansas Supreme Court strikes down dismemberment abortion ban, abortion clinic regulations The Kansas Supreme Court has struck down a state law prohibiting second-trimester dismemberment abortion procedures and a series of regulations put on abortion clinics. In a pair of decisions released last Friday, Kansas' highest court struck down multiple laws that restricted the dilation and evacuation abortions and added safety requirements for abortion clinics. In Hodes & Nauser, MDs v. Kobach, the state high court ruled that a state law passed in 2015, known as Senate Bill 95, that banned dilation and evacuation abortions, also called dismemberment abortions, was unconstitutional. 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 Justice Eric Rosen authored the majority opinion, writing that "section 1 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights protects a fundamental right to personal autonomy, which includes a pregnant person's right to terminate a pregnancy." "The State has not carried its burden to establish S.B. 95 is narrowly tailored to furthering any compelling interest. We affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment for the Provider," wrote Rosen. Rosen disagreed with the state's arguments that the law was meant to protect life, noting that other second-trimester abortion procedures would still be allowed and that "the State's interest, as stated, is so generic as to mean anything the State wants it to mean when it needs to justify anything it would want to do." "For example, this phrasing could justify government force to compel someone to donate a body organ if doing so would save a life," Rosen continued. Justice Caleb Stegall authored a dissenting opinion, arguing that "the majority cannot bring itself to acknowledge the government's compelling interest in unborn human life." "Yes, the majority maneuvers around this problem by skipping it in favor of its narrow tailoring analysis. But the truth is, the majority doesn't answer this question because it is so decidedly troublesome to the majority's new section 1 regime," Stegall wrote. In Hodes & Nauser, MDs v. Stanek, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled against a series of regulations on abortion clinics that were passed in 2011 and 2015, claiming that they violated the right to an abortion. These included requiring a physician to be present when a pregnant woman takes the chemical abortion drug mifepristone and that only physicians not nurses or midwives can perform surgical abortions. Justice Melissa Taylor Standridge authored the majority opinion, concluding that "the State failed to meet its evidentiary burden to show the Challenged Laws further its identified compelling interest in protecting maternal health and regulating the medical profession as it relates to maternal health." "But as we just discussed, any degree of infringement however slight on a fundamental right protected under section 1 triggers strict scrutiny," Standridge added. Stegall also authored a dissenting opinion, arguing that the decision effectively paves the way for any government regulation interfering with personal choice to be struck down if legally challenged. "In fact, dozens of other laws regulate a person's right to choose what happens to their body and must according to the majority's own holding be subjected to strict scrutiny," wrote Stegall. "A massive swath of government action is now subject to the most rigorous and exacting standard of constitutionality strict scrutiny. And no legal scholar or judge anywhere has ever even tried to suggest that all or even most of the plainly legitimate ends of government action could possibly survive such a test." Kansans for Life Communications Director Danielle Underwood denounced the rulings in a statement, arguing that these decisions were driven by partisan politics. "Adding insult to injury, extremely liberal judges of the Kansas Supreme Court have now overturned basic health and safety standards for abortion facilities when one of the state's largest abortion franchises recently operated for an unknown period of time with no medical oversight," stated Underwood. "It hurts to say, 'we told you so,' to the many Kansans who were misled by the abortion industry's assurances that it would still be 'heavily regulated' in our state if voters rejected the 2022 amendment." Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, whose organization helped to represent the plaintiffs in the litigation, celebrated the decisions, declaring that "the Kansas Supreme Court has decisively reaffirmed that the state constitution protects abortion as a fundamental right." "This is an immense victory for the health, safety, and dignity of people in Kansas and the entire Midwestern region, where millions have been cut off from abortion access," said Northup in a statement. "We will continue our fight to ensure Kansans can access the essential healthcare they need in their home state." In August 2022, Kansas voters rejected a pro-life amendment to the state constitution, which would have allowed state lawmakers to impose stronger restrictions on abortion or possibly ban the procedure. Home News Karine Jean-Pierre says Biden isnt being treated for Parkinsons In a clear denial, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has claimed President Joe Biden is not undergoing treatment for Parkinsons disease. The assertion comes amid inquiries sparked by a concerning debate performance and the frequent visits of a Parkinsons specialist to the White House, revealed through visitor logs and reports. Speaking to journalists, Jean-Pierre stressed that Biden is neither being treated for Parkinsons disease nor taking any related medication during a press briefing that addressed the swirling health concerns about the 81-year-old president, The Daily Wire reported. A series of reports highlighted the multiple visits by Dr. Kevin Cannard, a neurologist specializing in movement disorders, to the White House, adding to speculations about the presidents health following a notably weak performance at the first presidential debate and subsequent public appearances and persistent gaffes while speaking, such as saying he was the "first black woman to serve with a black president," and that voters in Philadelphia "got me across the line to win his Senate races in Delaware. 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 visitor logs cited by The Washington Times on Monday, Dr. Cannard has made 10 visits to the White House Medical Unit since November 2022, with the most recent visit recorded on March 28. The logs, last updated on July 1, detail his initial visit on Nov. 15, 2022, which included a meeting with Dr. Joshua Simmons, an emergency medicine specialist from Walter Reed and the William Beaumont Army Medical Center. The specific reasons for Dr. Cannards visits have not been disclosed in the logs, leaving it unclear whether they were directly related to the presidents health. A wide variety of specialists from the Walter Reed system visit the White House complex to treat thousands of military personnel who work on the grounds, the White House said in a statement Monday. Visitor logs show that Cannards interactions at the White House included meetings with other medical personnel, such as Bidens physician, Dr. Kevin OConnor and cardiologist Dr. John Atwood. These meetings, according to the logs, sometimes coincided with Bidens scheduled physical exams. Jean-Pierre said Biden has consulted with a neurologist three times during his presidency as part of his annual physicals, reinforcing that none of these consultations presented any indications of Parkinsons or similar neurological conditions. According to the results from a physical exam conducted on Feb. 28, which were made public by the White House, Bidens health was thoroughly evaluated, showing no signs of such diseases, The Hill noted. The inquiries into Bidens health are not just confined to the nature of Cannards visits but also touch on concerns about the presidents capability to manage his duties. The press secretary consistently refused to confirm specifics about Cannards visits or disclose whom the neurologist was meeting, citing privacy and security concerns. During interactions with the press, Jean-Pierre firmly rebutted questions about Bidens mental and physical fitness. She noted that regular health checks, including detailed neurological assessments, have been part of the presidents routine medical care, which found him fit for office. Meanwhile, the Washington Examiner reported Monday that Dr. Cannard has been making small contributions to Bidens campaign since February 2020, according to Federal Election Commission filings. These contributions, totaling over $3,300 across 44 donations, averaging $77 each, continued up to May 30. This financial support, though small, is under scrutiny as Republican lawmakers question Bidens fitness for the presidency and raise concerns about potential bias in his medical assessments by Dr. Kevin OConnor. Given that the Parkinsons disease expert who met with Dr. OConnor is a Biden donor, Americans should be rightly troubled by the potential clouding of the validity of both the Presidents medical assessments and mental state, Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Georgia, was quoted as saying. These medical professionals should be open and forthright with the American people and not be attempting to score political points by concealing vital information about the health of our commander-in-chief. Despite the press secretarys clarifications and the details provided in the physical exam reports, debates and speculations about Bidens health continue to surface, especially as the president faces criticism over his public appearances. As Biden prepares for the upcoming election cycle, some Democratic leaders are reportedly uncertain about his candidacy for another term. Home News Lakewood Church, others jump in to help after Hurricane Beryl batters coastal Texas After Hurricane Beryl barreled into coastal Texas on Monday morning, Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston is among several churches using their resources to help communities in need, with over 1.6 million homes and businesses remaining without power Wednesday. "Yesterday, we were honored to deliver food and water to 400+ disabled veterans and their families. Hundreds of guests came through Lakewood's Cooling Center, and 40,000+ bottles of water were distributed at our drive thru," the church said in a Facebook statement Wednesday with a video showing staff and volunteers moving food and supplies for relief. "Lakewood will continue to operate as a Cooling Center again today at 8:00 am." Lakewood Church made it clear the day the storm hit that they had every intention to help their community. 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 are praying for everyone on the Gulf Coast. Lakewood is working with the Office of Emergency Management and [is] standing by to help those impacted by the storm. Please stay safe!" the church declared on X on Sunday night. During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Lakewood Church received criticism from some in the mainstream media for not initially sheltering people inside the church during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. However, the church has said building was also taking on flooding at the time and was unsafe for hurricane evacuees. After the flooding subsided, church officials deemed it safe to host hundreds of evacuees after the city's main shelter reached capacity. Beryl made landfall early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane. The storm has caused at least six deaths in Texas and one in Louisiana. Eleven deaths have been reported in the Caribbean, according to The Associated Press. It has been incredible to see people in Houston coming together to help those affected by the storm. If you need a place to get out of the heat and cool off, you are welcome here! 3700 SW Freeway Houston, TX 77027 pic.twitter.com/XHWX9I5OYB Lakewood Church (@lakewoodchurch) July 9, 2024 "Local authorities are asking people to stay off the roads today. Beginning tomorrow, Tuesday 8:00am, Lakewood will serve as a cooling and water distribution center, and safe haven for anyone in need," Lakewood Church said in a message posted to social media Monday. Nearly 1.7 million customers impacted by the storm still lacked electricity as of Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us. This is an improvement on the 2.7 million customers who had no electricity on Monday. Some 30 minutes away from Houston, churches in Katy were also jumping in to help. Katy's PowerHouse Church offered food and supplies to anyone in need. "I knew that we had a lot of disaster relief supplies, and I figured they had plenty of food, so I gave them a call and said, 'What do you think about doing something?' and they said, 'We're on it,'" Marco Ruiz of the aid-group YAIPak Outreach told Fox 26 about their partnership with the church. And scores of people showed up for the aid. A man identified only as Lucas told the news outlet that he and his wife and their two children went to the church for help at 5 a.m. Tuesday. "We're able to get food right now, water, to feed the kids. It's a blessing," he said. The drive in Katy to help hurricane victims with supplies is an extension of the Katy Christian Ministries food pantry program. "When we're called to action, everybody gets together, and wants to help out," said Fernando Cruz of PowerHouse Church. "That's the bigger picture, here, to help your brother out." Home News Missing Chicago pastor found dead in Des Plaines River; colleague insists he was not suicidal Rev. Warren Beard, a beloved father of five, Sunday school teacher and assistant pastor at New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago, Illinois, who had been missing since July 2, was found dead Tuesday in the Des Plaines River. He was 53. Authorities in Rockdale told ABC 7 that a week after Beard went missing, an alert from Chicago police led them to a license plate reader hit of his vehicle near a closed section of the Brandon Road Lock and Dam, which is located 27 miles southwest of Chicago and two miles southwest of Joliet, where he was last seen alive after a visit with friends. Authorities said during a press conference that video surveillance first discovered on Tuesday morning by the lock master for the Army Corps of Engineers shows Pastor Beard's car plunging into the river very late on the night of July 2, according to Patch.com. 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 Rockdale fire officials said the pastor's black 2023 Honda HR-V was seen traveling south on Brandon Road before driving into the water. It appears, they said that the vehicle was driven around a barricade and through a 5.5-foot gap beneath the raised draw bridge, which had been closed for more than a year. "It was small enough, a small enough of a vehicle to make it under the bridge at the road in the bridge into the river," Rockdale Police Department Chief Robert Bake said. When the vehicle was fished from the riverbed Tuesday, the pastor's body was alone in the driver's seat. The Will County coroner positively identified the pastor but said it could be weeks before the cause of death is determined. The Illinois State Police and the Chicago Police Department are investigating the pastor's death. New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church's Senior Pastor Chenier A. Alston believes foul play may have been involved because Pastor Beard was not suicidal. "What I want answered is, 'Who did this," Alston said at the press conference. "I don't believe this. I may be jumping the gun, but ... Warren was not; he was not suicidal. The fact that his car launched off that bridge, [there] were barricades there that had to be driven around. And we know how passionate he was about his job, his wife, his children, so we just want answers. And whatever those answers are, we are going to get justice for him," he said. "He was the greatest person, one of the great men I ever met in my life, and this is painful." Beard had served as assistant pastor of New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church located at 1625 W. 75th Place for the last six years. He also worked as a director at Preservation of Affordable Housing Communities. Alston said that he spoke with him on the phone hours before Beard went missing on July 2. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. "He was jovial. He was happy, joking as usual," he recalled before they would eventually end the conversation, the way they always did by telling each other, "I love you." Alston told reporters that he wants Beard's death investigated because he was with someone in Joliet the night his car plunged into the river. "I would hope that the police would passionately pursue every single lead. He was with a person, he was last seen with a particular person, and we pray that police would definitely investigate him and really just give us some answers," he said. As news of the pastor's death continued to spread on social media Wednesday, many who knew him and the life he led publicly shared their condolences. "Met Warren 12 years ago and we bonded from day one, we got ordained together and that was a tough period for me and he used to call me every night after our classes and would help me with what I was struggling with," wrote Darnell Sharkey in a Facebook post. "I'm gonna miss my brother in Christ but my big brother overall, this one hurt bad man R.I.P Rev. Warren Beard." Home News Oklahoma mandates Bible teaching at public schools: 'Necessary historical document' The Oklahoma Department of Education has announced its intention to mandate that public schools in the state include Bibles in every classroom and teach about its historical significance as supporters of separation of church and state signal their intentions to fight back. Oklahoma State Superintendent of Instruction Ryan Walters said Thursday that he and his staff came to the conclusion based on the academic standards governing the state. "The Bible is a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system," he said during the State Board of Education Regular Meeting. 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 Identifying the Bible as "one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution and the birth of our country," Walters noted, "We also find major points in history that refer to the Bible, that reference the Bible." He cited the Federalist Papers used to convince states to ratify the U.S. Constitution, arguments used during the Constitutional Convention and Martin Luther King, Jr. as examples of documents and people who "tied many of [their] arguments back to the Bible." "It is essential that our kids have an understanding of the Bible and its historical context," he said. Walters announced that his agency was issuing a memo asking school districts in the state to require that "every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom to ensure that this historical understanding is there for every student in the state of Oklahoma in accordance with their academic standards." Throughout his remarks, Walters repeatedly mentioned Title 70 of the Oklahoma State Statutes when insisting that the state had the authority to require schools to teach about the Bible. The statute declares that "School districts shall exclusively determine the instruction, curriculum, reading lists and instructional materials and textbooks, subject to any applicable provisions or requirements as set forth in law, to be used in meeting the subject matter standards." "School districts may, at their discretion, adopt supplementary student assessments which are in addition to the statewide student assessments," the statute states. The memo comes after the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that a state-funded Catholic charter school was unconstitutional. "You're not going to find the Separation of Church and State in the Constitution," Walters asserted at the meeting as he reacted to the decision and transitioned into talking about why he saw it as necessary for schools to teach about the Bible. In a statement published Thursday, Americans United for Separation of Church and State President and CEO Rachel Laser proclaimed, "Public schools are not Sunday schools." "Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters has repeatedly made clear that he is incapable of distinguishing the difference and is unfit for office. His latest scheme to mandate use of the Bible in Oklahoma public schools' curriculum is a transparent, unconstitutional effort to indoctrinate and religiously coerce public school students," she added. "This is textbook Christian Nationalism: Walters is abusing the power of his public office to impose his religious beliefs on everyone else's children. Not on our watch. Americans United is ready to step in and protect all Oklahoma public school children and their families from constitutional violations of their religious freedom." Home News Pro-life Christian dad of 11 escapes prison sentence for protesting abortion: 'Spiritual battle' A devout Christian father of 11 children avoided prison time during his Tuesday sentencing for violating a federal law against blocking access to abortion clinics in Nashville, Tennessee. Paul Vaughn was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger to three years of supervised release related to his January conviction by a federal jury on charges of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and engaging in a conspiracy against rights in 2021. In October 2022, Vaughn was one of originally 11 people indicted for blocking the entrance to the Carafem Health Center Clinic in the Nashville suburb of Mt. Juliet on March 15, 2021. 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 Seven of the 11 defendants faced conspiracy charges under the FACE Act, while the remaining defendants were charged with misdemeanors that carried a punishment of up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine. After being indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Oct. 3, 2022, the FBI arrested Vaughn in front of his family during an early morning raid at his home. Vaughn has spoken about how his children have been afflicted with nightmares since the raid and said he would have been willing to "come down at any time" to speak with federal officials about his charges. Trauger maintained during Vaughn's sentencing hearing on Tuesday that he and the others had been "imposing their religious beliefs on other people," though she conceded that their demonstration was non-violent and hurt no one, according to The Daily Wire. The judge also acknowledged that Vaughn's actions were motivated by his deeply held religious beliefs and took into consideration the fact that he is a U.S. Navy veteran who commands the respect of those in his community. Vaughn said he plans to appeal the verdict and glorified God for his sentence, framing it as a battle in a wider spiritual war. We rejoice in Gods plans," Vaughn said in a statement. "Because this is at the heart a spiritual battle, we are thankful to have a strong advocate in the Thomas More Society. Not only are they experts at law, but they deeply understand the spiritual battle raging across our land." "We must stand and fight for what is right, we cannot bow down to the lie," he said. "Laws have to be grounded in truth, they have to align with the ultimate lawgiver, who is Christ our Lord. The false narratives plaguing our nation will fall when we stand up to them." Vaughn went on to characterize his prosecution as an "unlawful use of the law," and expressed hope that the Clinton-era FACE Act, which has been used to prosecute multiple pro-life protesters under the Biden administration, will be overturned. Concerns about the constitutionality of the FACE Act have recently arisen in both houses of Congress, and legislation has been introduced to repeal it. The nonprofit religious liberty law firm Thomas More Society, which helped to represent Vaughn, celebrated that he won't be in prison, but also expressed frustration that he is being punished at all. We are pleased the judge has shown leniency to Paul at todays sentencing hearing, and I know Paul is incredibly thankful to be able to celebrate Independence Day with his family. But it remains the case that his conviction is a deep injustice," Thomas More Society senior counsel Steve Crampton said in a statement. Crampton also noted the irony that Vaughn's hearing took place on July 2, the day the Continental Congress formally passed the resolution in 1776 declaring America's freedom. "On the anniversary of our nations charter declaring such rights 'inalienable,' Paul Vaughn and his co-defendants stand convicted of defending the inalienable right to life," Crampton said. "The weaponized and evidence-free charges brought here by the Biden Department of Justice against peaceful pro-lifers should have never been filed." More than 100 of Vaughn's supporters showed up outside the federal court before his sentencing on Tuesday to sing hymns and pray, according to The Daily Wire. Eva Edl, an 88-year-old whose family escaped the communist rule of then-Yugoslavia, was also among those who was charged for the protest in Nashville. In April, Edl told The Daily Signal that she is already resigned to the possibility that she will be imprisoned until the end of her life for her protests. Edl further noted that the U.S. government is increasingly resembling the communist regime her family escaped. Home News Robert Morris did not get severance after resignation over abuse scandal, Gateway Church reveals Gateway Church founder Robert Morris received no severance payout after he resigned from the Texas megachurch in the wake of allegations that he sexually abused Cindy Clemishire over multiple years in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12. Responding to questions from The Christian Post regarding the terms of Morris exit from the church on June 18, Lawrence Swicegood, executive director of Gateway Media, tersely told The Christian Post no when asked if the megachurch founder had received any kind of severance package. It was unclear Friday how much Morris, who is worth an estimated $117 million, was being paid by Gateway Church prior to his resignation. The Internal Revenue Service only requires that churches report income from unrelated trade or businesses. 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 look at Morris earnings associated with income generated from his preaching and teaching with the Robert Morris Evangelistic Association shows him progressing from being paid $15,000 plus an additional $25,787 in allowances in 2003 to as high as $350,000 annually in the last decade of the churchs operation. According to IRS 990 filings by the Robert Morris Evangelistic Association, in 2022, the ministry paid him $200,000 for 15 hours of work weekly. In 2021, he worked the same number of hours but was only paid $100,000. In 2020, records show he was paid $200,000. In 2019, Morris executive compensation from the ministry was $300,000. In 2018 and 2017, Morris was paid $350,000. In 2016 and 2015, he was paid $250,000. In 2014, he was paid, $300,000. In 2013, he reported $310,108 in compensation from the ministry. In 2012 he reported $120,631, and in 2011 he reported $131, 361. While in 2005 Morris reported $0 in compensation from the ministry, he received $93,240 in expense account and other allowances. He reported the same in 2006 and 2007 for 15 hours of work weekly. In 2008, he reported $20,500 in compensation plus $93,240 in expense account and other allowances. In 2009, he reported $29,905 in compensation plus $93,240 in expense account and other allowances. In 2010, he reported $97,000 in compensation plus $93,240 in expense account and other allowances. On Wednesday, the Board of Elders of Gateway Church and the Overseers of Pastor Robert Morris Ministries said in a joint statement posted on the Robert Morris Ministries' homepage that all future radio and television broadcasts for Morris had been canceled. Pastor Roberts sin and his lack of transparency to the churchs elders and leadership has disqualified him from continuing in his role as senior pastor at Gateway Church and as leader of Pastor Robert Morris Ministries. As a result, all future radio and television broadcast ministry from Pastor Robert Morris Ministries has been canceled, the ministry leaders said in their statement. Texas-based Daystar Television Network, one of the largest Christian television networks in the world, also removed all programming featuring Morris following his resignation from Gateway Church. Clemishire, now 54, reported last month that Morris began sexually abusing her on Dec. 25, 1982, when she was just 12 years old. She says the abuse continued for four-and-a-half years before he was found out. He was later allowed to return to ministry, however. Though Clemishire contends that officials at Gateway Church were informed of her allegations against Morris years ago, Swicegood reiterated in a statement to CP that the current board of elders did not know that the megachurch founder had been accused of child sex abuse. The Board of Elders called a special meeting and accepted the resignation of Pastor Robert Morris several weeks ago. Gateway Church is committed to protecting people first and foremost children and the most vulnerable. Abuse simply cannot be tolerated, he said. The Board of Elders has retained the law firm Haynes and Boone, LLP to conduct a thorough and independent inquiry so that the facts can be understood. Even though this abuse occurred many years before Gateway was established, the Elders are committed to finding the truth and holding people accountable, he added. Regrettably, prior to Friday, June 14, the current Elders did not have all the facts. The Board of Elders is deeply committed to walking in integrity and finding the truth. Having this inquiry done by an independent and unbiased outside law firm is best practice. This review has begun, and the Board of Elders pledges its full cooperation. Home News Smugglers using livestock trailers to sneak fentanyl into US: CBP memo The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a warning about smugglers using vehicles that transport livestock to sneak fentanyl into the country. A CBP memo obtained by NewsNation warns border officials to be watchful of a "trailer smuggling trend." The tactic to smuggle fentanyl through the U.S.-Mexico border involves hiding the drugs inside of the side rails and metal framings of livestock trailers. "The cartels are always a step ahead of us," Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland said in a statement. "Whether it's in between the ports of entry or actually at the ports of entry. It makes you wonder how long have they been getting away with it?" 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 Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid drug that carries a high risk of addiction. Fentanyl that is made illegally is often mixed with other drugs, including heroin and cocaine. According to a May report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, synthetic opioids like fentanyl contribute to nearly 70% of overdose deaths. Officials believe they are only able to catch between 5% and 10% of the drugs smuggled into the United States, according to NewsNation. Citing numbers from the port director in Nogales, Arizona, where the alert originated, the outlet notes that 45.8 million fentanyl pills were seized in 2023. The director said that nearly 24 million have been seized during fiscal year 2024. As KJZZ reported in May, CBP launched a new strategy alongside the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and Homeland Security Investigations to stop the trafficking of fentanyl, starting with the southern border from Arizona, in Nogales, Sonora. John Washington, a journalist who covered the story for Arizona Luminaria, told the station that estimates suggest about 40% of drugs smuggled into the U.S. go through Nogales Plaza. "The Department of Homeland Security's own estimate is that over 90% of all fentanyl is smuggled through the ports of entry," the reporter said. "That means it's being carried through mostly in cars, vehicles, hidden compartments, things like that. Also, sometimes individuals strap pills to their body or ingest the pills and then later retrieve them." According to DEA data, the agency has seized over 27.9 million fentanyl pills thus far this year. The DEA seized more than 80 million fentanyl-laced fake pills and nearly 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder in 2023. In addition to fentanyl, local residents and authorities have encountered migrants who committed crimes before they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Last Monday, the Sonora Attorney General's Office announced that authorities had apprehended 45-year-old "Alfredo' N,'" a suspect in the murder of 43-year-old "Eva Amanda' N.'" The Sonora attorney general's office stated that authorities located the suspect on June 30 in Arizona based on information obtained from CBP. The CBP handed the suspect over to the Ministerial Criminal Investigation Agency at the Dennis DeConcini International checkpoint near Nogales. Alfredo was subsequently transferred to Hermosillo, Mexico, and admitted to the Social Reintegration Center, where he is awaiting hearings, according to the attorney general's office. "The Attorney General's Office of the State of Sonora (FGJES) makes it clear that all victims of gender-based violence will have access to justice to ensure the protection of their rights and the application, in court, of the corresponding exemplary sanctions. to those responsible," the office stated. Alfredo was driving a tractor-trailer in December 2023 from the port city of Guaymas to Hermosillo when he allegedly attacked Amanda, a woman the state prosecutor's described as the suspect's significant other, WFXR reported. Amanda was struck on the head with a blunt object that cracked her skull and resulted in traumatic injuries that led to her death. The suspect is believed to have abandoned Amanda's body on the side of Mexico Federal Highway 15 before fleeing into the U.S. Home News 'Beyond anything I'd ever seen': Sudan facing worst levels of acute food insecurity ever recorded Many in Sudan are forced to fight over anthills for food as the country faces one of the worst levels of food insecurity ever recorded, according to the global Evangelical humanitarian organization World Vision. Edgar Sandoval, president and CEO of World Vision U.S., told The Christian Post in a recent interview that life in Sudan is currently one of fear and chaos as the country faces the harsh realities of civil war and the brink of famine. In addition to the threat of violence, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification reported that 25.6 million people in Sudan are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, and 8.5 million people are facing emergency food shortages. The IPC also warned about the risk of famine across 14 areas, impacting residents and refugees in areas like Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan. 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 civil war that began in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the government-sponsored paramilitary Rapid Support Forces does not appear to be the sole cause of the famine, however. World Vision noted last month that Sudan has had below-average precipitation for the third year in a row, resulting in harvest failures. As the charity has over 190 people working in Sudan to address the food crisis, Sandoval recently visited the Chad-Sudan border to speak with the people fleeing the country. "I saw a level of despair and hopelessness in the moms and the children that was just beyond anything I'd ever seen," Sandoval said. Sandoval met an 8-year-old girl who had lost her family to the raging violence happening in the country. While the girl's two aunts helped her escape, the girl saw her parents' deceased bodies. Sandoval said that the girl's story is "representative" of what children in Sudan are experiencing. Sandoval also met another mother and her son, who weighed only 26 pounds. He said his heart broke as the mother wept, telling Sandoval that people in her community are fighting each other over anthills because they're so hungry. She said they'll eat the millets stored there by the ants. "And they're fighting for that as the only source of food," Sandoval said. "I think that speaks to the level of desperation that the Sudanese people are facing. It's the situation that children and moms in particular are facing." In June, the United Nations Children's Fund announced that nearly 9 million children in Sudan face acute food insecurity and access to safe drinking water. More than 3,800 children have been killed since the fighting escalated in April 2023, and almost 4 million children under the age of 5 are suffering from acute malnutrition, with 730,000 projected to be at an "imminent risk of dying." Over the past year, World Vision has reached more than 1.2 million people, primarily women and children, providing them with emergency assistance, including food and cash assistance, health and nutrition services, water and sanitation and hygiene solutions. In addition to Sudan, the global relief organization works in Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic. A World Vision representative told CP that the U.N.'s response plan for Sudan calls for $2.7 billion, but only 17.4% has been funded. In April, the U.N. reported that only about 6% of the response plan had been funded. According to Sandoval, World Vision has been working in Sudan for decades, even before the current food insecurity crisis. He stressed that the organization is adept at addressing people's needs despite the danger. World Vision typically partners with local faith communities in Sudan to provide aid and employs several safeguards to ensure the right people receive assistance. "And in my experience, once American Christians are aware of the need, the level of generosity starts to pour out," he said, saying more global awareness is needed of the crisis. "Every little bit helps." Home News Terror attacks force denomination to close 70 churches ABUJA, Nigeria Terrorist attacks have forced a denomination to close 70 churches in central Nigerias Plateau state, while in the countrys northwest, Christians are celebrating the release of a kidnapped priest. The Rev. Amos Mohzo, president of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News that attacks by Fulani herdsmen and other terrorists have forced 70 congregations in Plateau states Mangu and Bokkos counties to stop services in the past two years. Previous Christmas attacks last December directly affected COCIN congregations, he 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 Rev. Amos Mohzo, president of the Church of Christ in Nations | Christian Daily International-Morning Star News Our members were killed, people were killed, people lost their houses, many [were] traumatized and we couldnt do anything, Pastor Mohzo said. We were stranded, but we had to face the challenge, and Christmas was celebrated by displaced Christians in Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) camps in spite of the tragedy. In the Mangu area, attacks forced at least 40 COCIN congregations to close, he said. Most of these members of our church were displaced, and many of them are living in camps outside their communities, Mohzo said. Most of these Christians have been moving here and there trying to survive or find succor. In the Bokkos area, the denomination lost about 30 congregations, he said. All our worship church buildings in these communities were burned down by the terrorists, Mohzo added. Internally Displaced Christians from these communities are still living in camps outside their communities. And even now, most of them who are farmers are unable to go to their farms. In some cases, Christians who have dared to return to their farms have formed communal groups for a greater sense of security, he said. Notwithstanding, our displaced church members still find it difficult to go to their farms for productive activities because of ceaseless attacks against them by armed terrorists, herdsmen and bandits, he said. With these developments, we have been making efforts to see that our church members who survived these attacks and are living in camps outside their communities are relocated back to their communities. But then, we have to rebuild not just worship buildings, but also their burned houses. At the same time, COCIN evangelistic outreaches in northeastern Nigeria have been hindered by attacks by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Im from the northeast of Nigeria, Gwoza Local Government Area, precisely from Limankara town, and my village is Ngoshe Sama, which is located on the hills, Mohzo said. Boko Haram took over the village years back, and theyre still there. So, these hills occupied by Boko Haram terrorists overlook Limankara and Gwoza towns. These terrorists come down from the hills to attack our communities and then retreat into the hills. The attacks on June 29 in Gwoza killed and maimed both Christians and Muslims, he said. We live together as a community, Mohzo explained. However, with the coming of insurgency, the emergence of Boko Haram in Borno state, many of our people have been killed, and others have been driven out and displaced to other areas of Nigeria. Those who have no places to go to had to stay back and make up their minds to die when attacked by the terrorists. Life has not been easy for the survivors, he lament ed. They cannot go to their farms because of the terrorists, so they depend on Non-Governmental Organizations to support them, he said. And with present economic hardship being experienced in the country, the NGOs, too, are unable to cater to these displaced Christians. The sheer number of kidnappings has also made it difficult for the COCIN to raise money to pay the ransom demand to release one of its pastors. The Rev. Paul Musa was kidnapped along with his wife by Boko Haram terrorists in March 2023, he said. We, as a church, are handicapped, because it is impossible to raise money at all times to pay ransoms to terrorists to secure the release of pastors being held captive, he told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. And this is because almost in all parts of northern Nigeria, our church members and pastors are being kidnapped by terrorists. So, where can we raise large sums of money to get them out from their captors? Nevertheless, COCIN leaders have been appealing to individuals and organizations to secure the release of Musa and other church members held captive. Musa and his wife have been held captive for more than a year. I was recently in the city of Maiduguri and visited his children, he said. Theyre traumatized. They pleaded with me to secure the release of their parents, and I told them that if it is within my reach I will not allow their parents to remain in captivity even for one second, but its beyond us. The children are always crying, always in tears for their parents. It pains my heart to see these children in this way. Boko Haram Islamic terrorists who kidnapped the pastor and his wife in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, in the third week of June threatened to kill him if the ransom wasn't paid within a week. The ultimatum issued has now expired, as its now more than a week when the threat was issued by the terrorists, and nothing has been heard from his captors, Mohzo said. We are appealing to the captors of Rev. Musa and his wife to please release them. They should have mercy on the couple and release them. He said terrorist attacks have also engulfed northwest Nigeria. Our churches in the northwest of the country are not spared by terrorists either. Christians in the northwest of Nigeria also suffer the same terrorists attacks, he said. Evangelization activities have been impeded in this part of the country. How can we deliberately jeopardize and endanger the lives of those called to ministry, when we know that theyll become targets of terrorist attacks? In northwest Nigerias Zamfara state, Roman Catholic Priest Mikah Suleiman was released on Sunday after being kidnapped on June 22, according to the churchs Sokoto Diocese. He and church officials failed to reveal who had kidnapped him or reveal the terms for his release. I want to thank you for your prayers and support towards my rescue, Suleiman said in a video released by the diocese on Sunday. By the grace of God, Im out from the hands of the bandits. Sokoto Diocese Communications Director Pascal Salifu thanked the authorities and all involved in securing Father Mikahs release. In the Open Doors' 2024 World Watch List of the countries where it's most difficult to be a Christian, Nigeria was ranked No. 6, just as it was in the previous year. Nigeria remained the deadliest place in the world to follow Christ, with 4,118 people killed for their faith from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023, according to the WWL report. More kidnappings of Christians than in any other country also took place in Nigeria, with 3,300. Nigeria was also the third-highest country in number of attacks on churches and other Christian buildings such as hospitals, schools and cemeteries, with 750, according to the report. Originally published at Christian Daily InternationalMorning Star News Home News Texas pastor fined $3,500 over donations from churches to his city council campaign A Texas pastor who ran for a city council seat was recently fined $3,500 after he violated state election law by accepting political campaign donations from churches and posting campaign signs on church property. Scott Beard, founding pastor at Fountaingate Fellowship who launched a failed campaign for Abilene City Council last year, was found guilty of violating state election codes by the Texas Ethics Commission in May, with the fine executed last month. According to the TECs order and agreed resolution, Beard failed to disclose the identified in-kind contributions on his campaign finance reports, accepted corporate contributions from FountainGate as a candidate, and accepted political contributions from other incorporated churches. 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 order also noted that Beard used his church office as a point for distributing campaign signs and buying campaign hats. Authorities allege Beard knowingly accepted political contributions that he knew were made in violation of the corporate contribution ban. The order listed other churches that contributed to Beards campaign, including Fountaingate Merkel, Remnant Church of Abilene and Hope 4 Life Church of Abilene, which is also identified as Hope Chapel Foursquare Abilene. Beard claimed that when he became aware that the churches donations constituted potentially corporate corporations, he returned the money. Kristin Postell, an Abilene attorney who filed a complaint with the commission, told The Texas Tribune and ProPublica that she was pleased with the result. I dont think anybody is going to be super cautious about following the rules unless there is a real financial burden to breaking them, stated Postell. In addition to the TEC order and fines, some Abilene residents have filed complaints with the Internal Revenue Service, accusing Beards church of illegal campaign activity, reported The Tribune and ProPublica. While Beards infractions deal with state law, federal restrictions on church political engagement have been in place for decades. In 1954, U.S. Congress approved an amendment by then Sen. Lyndon Johnson of Texas to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, specifically charities and churches, from engaging in political campaign activity. Known as the Johnson Amendment, the measure has garnered controversy in recent years, with some arguing that it wrongfully restricts the freedom of speech of religious organizations. Although President Donald Trump signed an executive order in 2017 calling on the IRS to relax the restrictions of the Johnson Amendment, the measure still remains in effect. Home News Third-party presidential candidate seeks to 'blow a hole in the Democrat Party' A pro-life activist running a third-party presidential campaign is hoping to persuade Americans to refrain from voting for Democrats in the 2024 election by showing them ads he believes will prove to them that the party is a fortress of evil that must be destroyed. Randall Terry is the Constitution Partys nominee for president in the 2024 presidential election. Terry, a pro-life activist who founded the pro-life organization Operation Rescue, which was established to organize blockades outside abortion clinics, is running a campaign to raise awareness about abortion by airing ads showing the graphic reality of killing preborn babies and is urging Americans not to support President Joe Biden and the Democrats. The campaign cites the overarching message behind the ads as to Defend Children, Defeat Biden, and Destroy the Democratic Party. So far, his campaign has produced nine ads. 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 About half of the ads feature Stephen Broden, the Constitution Partys vice presidential nominee and the founder of the National Black Pro-Life Coalition who also serves as senior pastor of Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas. The campaign intends to produce nearly 20 more ads. In an interview with The Christian Post, Terry said his campaign is producing the ads and showing them to people to raise money. The window where we can compel the stations to run the ads begins on September 5, so the [Federal Communications Commission] law requires that a TV station take the ad of a federal candidate who is on the ballot 60 days prior to the election. Terry told CP that his campaign is in the process of mapping out the strategy for where the ads will air. He said the final strategy will depend on how much money we raise. He added that he intends to have one of the ads, titled Stupid Celebrities, air on national television during The View. The ad, which shows images of outspoken celebrities who've expressed support for progressive causes, including The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg, features Terry declaring in a voice-over, I am so sick of stupid celebrities who embarrass themselves. In the ad, pictures of preborn and newborn babies appear on screen as Terry says, Hey morons, this is a human being. These are dead human beings, Terry declares as the ad transitions into showing the remains of babies murdered by abortion. He then asks the fools pictured in the ad to shut up and follow the science before urging those who still have brains to send Biden the baby-killer packing. At the end of the day, once pro-lifers recognize the power of these ads to defeat Biden and destroy the Democrat Party, thats when they'll start giving us money, Terry predicted. The Democrat Party is a fortress of evil that must be destroyed. My mission in the presence of God our mission as a campaign, is to blow a hole in the side of the Democrat Party and cause it to sink, he added. While Terry has raised about $200,000 so far, he hopes to raise between $5 million and $6 million and is looking to start a Super PAC. Although Terrys primary goal is to affect the outcome of the presidential race, he also hopes to have an impact on several abortion-related referendums slated to go before voters this fall that could have the effect of establishing constitutional rights to abortion in their states. Terry indicated that he plans to run ads against the proposal to establish a constitutional right to abortion in Florida, communicating the message that if you vote for this constitutional amendment, you have blood on your hands. Terry shared his belief that the pro-life movement missed their opportunity to defeat efforts to establish constitutional rights to abortion that passed in several states by not engaging in similar messaging. The most powerful weapon we have are the images of aborted children, he stated. The second most powerful weapon we have is saying that abortion is murder. Can you imagine fighting antisemitism without using the pictures of the Holocaust? Think about it. That is their best weapon is to show these horrifying images of these poor victims and say never again, he remarked. Terry noted that one of the ads features Pastor Broden detailing how America saw 100 years of the [Ku Klux Klan] lynching black men. Now, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party are killing for the KKK, Broden laments in the ad as pictures of the remains of aborted babies are shown on screen. Lynching black babies by abortion in their mothers womb, theyve convinced black women that the answer to unintended pregnancy is to murder their babies, Broden laments. Black people must repent of voting for these child killers. Terry contended that this kind of messaging is necessary to influence public opinion on abortion: Think about the firestorm thats going to create, a black man on national television saying, If you vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris they are doing the work of the Ku Klux Klan, lynching black babies in the womb. No one has ever done this. Terry also addressed concerns that his campaign would take away votes from former President Donald Trump, the most pro-life candidate among the two major party presidential hopefuls: Thats not our mission. And if you look at the ads, its clearly going after Biden and the Democrat Party. By destroying the Democrat Party and defeating Biden, we help Trump. I dont want Republican votes. I want their money, he insisted. Terry cited former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, as one member of the political right who is embracing his strategy. After viewing the ads, DeLay told Terry that every Republican should be giving you money. Terry remained confident that once Republican voters and those concerned about him spoiling the election for Trump see his ads, they will go, Oh, I get it. We are begging pro-life Christians to fund this campaign. We will show America the truth in a way that has never happened before, he vowed. We believe that America will not end abortion until America sees abortion. When asked about conservatives who are still unhappy with Trump over his support for COVID-19 lockdowns or his statements suggesting Congress shouldn't set abortion policy, Terry responded by stressing, Our ads are targeted at Catholic Democrats and Catholic African Americans. The pro-life presidential candidate identified both groups as key constituencies in the Democrat Party before discussing his strategy in detail. The largest voting bloc in the Democrat Party are Roman Catholics. The second largest voting bloc is African Americans. So we are tailoring our ads to Catholics and black Americans to say, if you vote for these candidates, you are voting for people who are at war with your family and at war with your faith. If we can cause 5 percent, just 5 percent of Catholics and blacks to leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party will capsize, it will go under, it will sink. Referring to other major American political parties that have gone extinct over the years, he forecasted that It will go the way of the Whig Party and the Southern Democrat Party. For the handful of dissatisfied pro-lifers who vote for us, they will be a small percentage compared to the Catholic Democrats and Catholic black Americans that we will reach and cause to switch their vote, he predicted. He expressed concern that over half of Catholics vote for a Democrat every single time and the majority of those Catholics say that theyre pro-life, identifying the ads as an effort to hold them accountable to their faith by causing them to refrain from voting for Biden. Terry outlined how his efforts have worked in the past on a much smaller scale. The pro-life activist sought the Democrat nomination in 2012 when then-President Barack Obama was seeking renomination. While Terry did not gain traction on a national scale, he received 18% of the vote by showing [similar] ads in Oklahoma. Eighteen percent of the vote in a closed primary. Thats the power of these ads. I carried 13 counties; I beat a sitting president in 13 counties in Oklahoma running these ads. I earned delegates at the Democrat Convention, which they took away, but these ads are so powerful that when Democrats see them, it strikes their conscience and they realize they cant vote for a child killer. Eighteen percent of the vote I carried in a statewide election, in a closed primary. Terry added, A closed primary means you cant switch. It wasnt independents, it wasnt Republicans who said, oh Im going to vote just to screw around. No, its a closed primary. You have to be a registered Democrat to vote in that primary, and I carried 18 percent of the vote showing aborted baby ads. Terry told CP that he would have run for president in both 2016 and 2020, but two of his sons suffered from severe illnesses during that time, causing him to sit out the elections. As of June 2024, the Constitution Party has ballot access in 12 states worth a combined 110 electoral votes: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming. While the Constitution Party has limited ballot access, Terry predicted a much larger presence for his party on presidential ballots across the U.S. based on recent history. If you look at the history of the Constitution Party, it has always had between 22 and 30 states. In some of the states it has perpetual ballot access. Some of the states, they have to get it every four years by signature gathering. Terry listed New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee as additional states where he expected to be on the ballot. In the past two presidential elections, the Constitution Party has had a negligible impact on the final results. In 2016, the party received just 0.15% of the vote, and it captured only 0.04% of the vote in 2020. Terry hopes this year will be different, describing his dream come true as the Constitution Party providing the margin of defeat for Joe Biden because they showed television ads of the victims of abortion. Home News Travel: Forget what youve heard about San Franciscos doom loop Having just returned from a visit to San Francisco, I can see why Tony Bennett left his heart there. From a streetscape defined by vintage cable cars traversing insanely steep hills to the iconic Golden Gate Bridge that spans the strait where the eponymous bay meets the Pacific, its hard to think of an American city in a more beautiful setting. Of course, one cant visit without acknowledging the elephant in the room: the widespread perception that San Francisco is trapped in some kind of doom loop a city hallowed out by the pandemic and overrun with crime and homelessness. 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 Im confident that I saw, did and experienced more than enough things over the course of four days to say that the prevailing Fox News narrative and viral social media videos of a couple years ago arent a true and accurate reflection of San Francisco today. Yes, San Francisco was hit hard by the pandemic. Too many offices remain partially empty, particularly on certain days of the week when workers are remote. A considerable number of retail stores, especially around Union Square, seem closed. At the same time, brick-and-mortar retail has been in a transition for a while. There is also no denying that, like other big cities, a homeless problem exists. At the same time, I saw more homeless last week during my visit to Gothenburg, Sweden, than I did in the City by the Bay. Ill also concede that San Francisco has political problems, but this isnt a political column and travel shouldnt be political. My observations were also confirmed through honest conversations with numerous locals, all of whom readily acknowledged that the overall situation has improved over the last six or so months. And with summer temperatures already soaring above 90 degrees in much of the country, San Francisco with her mild climate is a great escape from the heat and humidity. As the writer Mark Twain almost certainly never actually said, The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. What to do and see I based myself on Nob Hill. Before the great earthquake of 1906 that destroyed much of San Francisco, this was the home of high society. It was here where the predominately white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite had their mansions. Remnants from this chapter of history can still be seen. The most visible is the Pacific-Union Club, a mens-only club occupying the pre-1906 brownstone mansion of a silver baron. Back then, many members also attended Grace Cathedral, which is separated from the club only by a small park. The cathedral, seat of the Episcopal bishop of California, might look like its always been there but it hasnt. A rich patron who helped build the transcontinental railroad donated the land after his mansion was destroyed in the earthquake. Architecturally influenced by the great French Gothic cathedrals in Paris, Reims and Amiens, its especially notable for being constructed entirely of poured concrete. Built between 1910 and 1964, architect Lewis Hobarts design is quite remarkable, not least because anything built just 50 years later would have surely been a concrete brutalist design. While some planned architectural details were omitted due to cost, the extensive number of stained-glass windows, including 34 windows from Charles Connick Studios, and the west fronts central portal with its bronze doors exact copies of 15th century originals at Italys Florence Cathedral more than make up for anything thats missing. If you appreciate the art and architecture of Grace or the gilded age remnants of Nob Hill, youll likely want to visit the Legion of Honor Museum, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Housed within a full-scale replica of Frances pavilion at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which itself was a replica of the actual Palace of the Legion of Honor in Paris, the museum is one of the better big-city art museums. European art, including Monet, is a notable part of the collection. Keep an eye out for the 13th century reliquary casket of St. Thomas Becket, the martyred archbishop of Canterbury. The weekly Saturday market at the Ferry Building with its landmark 245-foot-tall clock tower, a rare survivor of the earthquake, is superb; both in terms of the quality and range of vendors and the people watching. From there, you can walk up-and-down the Embarcadero, a waterfront boulevard with more than 4 miles of walkways. China Town, which sits below Nob Hill, is interesting, especially for anyone who has never been to Hong Kong or one of the other old trading cities in Southeast Asia. Other than walking over the Golden Gate Bridge, the best views of San Francisco are probably from the top of Coit Tower at Telegraph Hill. Inside the tower, which feels like a column from antiquity, are noteworthy New Deal-era murals and paintings. Theres obviously a lot more to do and see in San Francisco, including a visit to City Hall with its 307-foot-tall dome (taller than the Capitol in Washington). Even over a long weekend I failed to complete my bucket list. If you go The 19-story brick and terracotta InterContinental Mark Hopkins, which was inspired by the great palace hotels of Europe, has rooms and suites facing Grace Cathedral. While I thought the overall standard of service fell short of five-star hotels, it has retained more old-school elegance than the nearby Ritz-Carlton, a major competitor. In terms of restaurants, plan for a nice dinner at the 116-year-old Johns Grill, a bigger lunch or early dinner at any one of the many vendors at the Ferry Buildings weekly market and a relaxed dinner at Sotto Mare, a fresh seafood restaurant and market at Washington Square in the heart of San Franciscos Little Italy neighborhood. Getting here is easy, as San Francisco International Airport is well-served by all the airlines. And no, Oaklands airport isnt in San Francisco, despite its recent name change. I only needed rides for the airport and Legion of Honor. In both cases, Uber drivers were widely available. While some of the steepest hills were a challenge, it was still easy to explore on foot. So much so that I did around 30,000 steps each day. Dennis Lennox writes a travel column for The Christian Post. Home News Trump proposes GOP platform that softens abortion stance despite pleas from Christian conservatives A proposed Republican Party platform backed by presumptive presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, would soften the pro-life stance of the GOP, removing calls for federal restrictions to abortion access and language opposing same-sex marriage. The 2024 Republican convention platform committee reportedly voted 84-18 on Monday during a closed-door session in favor of the proposed abortion plank, which does not call for a national abortion ban nor a constitutional amendment to protect unborn human life. In 2016 and 2020, Trump ran on a platform that called for a constitutional amendment to protect unborn life and for a national abortion ban with some exceptions at 20 weeks into a pregnancy. But in the build-up of the 2024 race, Trump has openly expressed support for states to determine their own abortion laws and pushed back on social conservatives seeking to enact federal restrictions on abortion. Trump previously criticized Florida for passing a six-week abortion ban. 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 document references the overturning of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had declared abortion to be a constitutional right. Trump nominated three of the justices involved in the decision to overturn Roe, and he has taken credit in his campaign speeches for that decision. "After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the states and to a vote of the people," reads the document in part, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. "We will oppose late term abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments). Trump's platform draft also removes language condemning the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision making same-sex marriage a national right, according to The Post. The new draft doesn't weigh in on same-sex marriage and states that "Republicans will promote a culture that values the sanctity of marriage, the blessings of childhood, and the foundational role of families, and supports working parents." Conservative Christian groups have lobbied the GOP to retain the socially conservative planks of the Republican Party platform, including its pro-life stance. The Washington-based Family Research Council launched the Platform Integrity Project along with several other Christian and conservative groups. "Party platforms matter," FRC President Tony Perkins, a platform committee member, said in a statement. "They state a party's principles and priorities. America is an unprecedented place of moral and cultural confusion and is in dire need of leadership and moral clarity." "The Republican Party must once again communicate a clear and hopeful contrast between the parties by painting a message for voters on the foundational issues life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not in pale pastels but in bright, bold colors." Ralph Reed, founder and chair of the Faith & Freedom Coalition and a longtime Christian conservative political activist, believes the language is "unapologetically pro-life." "The Republican Party platform makes clear the unborn child has a right to life that is protected by the Constitution under the due process clause of the 14th amendment," Reed told Politico. "That language has been in the GOP platform for 40 years and reflects the view of Ronald Reagan." "While aspirational, it applies to both the states and the federal government," he added. "The proposed ban on late term abortion also implies federal as well as state action." Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a 2016 presidential candidate, told CNN that he supported making the Republican platform "reflect our nominee." "Our nominee's position happens to be one grounded in reality. The reality of it is the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. What that basically means is now it's not states, it's voters at individual states who will get to decide how and what level they want to restrict abortion, if at all," he said. "I also think it's important to remember that Democrats, their last platform, basically endorsed abortion paid for by taxpayers at any time without any restrictions. I think the question here is are they going to have a radical plank in their platform that requires Americans to pay for abortions at any time for any reason up until the moment of birth." Perkins disagrees with Rubio. "I'm stunned by Sen. Marco Rubio's capitulation to the forces of abortion," Perkins tweeted. "There are so many inaccuracies in his comments that I don't know where to start. First, a human life amendment has never been within political reach, it has always been aspirational and so it should remain. I can assure you that if the GOP abandons the unborn in the Party Platform, it will dampen Bible-believing, conservative voter enthusiasm and turnout." Last week, Perkins sent a letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley opposing what he called an unprecedented "RNC Gag Rule," which he said "restricts access to the deliberations of various committees and subcommittees only to the credentialed delegates of those committees." The rule made it so "neither guests nor the press will be allowed to observe the platform committee or subcommitttee decisions of the Party's principles and policy priorities." "The RNC Gag Rule heightens speculation that the GOP platform will be watered down to a few pages of meaningless, poll-tested talking points," Perkins lamented. Home News What parents should do when their child deconstructs from the faith: Deconversion expert What should Christian parents do when their children deconstruct from the faith? A relationship expert joined Focus on the Family this week to offer tips for what parents should and shouldn't do as they look to disciple their children with an authentic Christian faith. Author John Marriott, a former pastor and researcher who has penned at least five books on the topic of Christian "deconversion," said in an interview that aired Wednesday that deconstructing from the faith usually happens when someone realizes that their beliefs have just evaporated or eroded away. This phenomenon of "deconstruction" has gained steam in the media in recent years thanks to the falling away from the faith of some well-known Christians. 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 haven't rejected the faith necessarily," Marriott, a faculty affiliate of The Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science, said. "They kind of just lost it. It is this slow loss of belief over time. And then, one day, they look down and their faith is gone." Marriott said when children come to their parents to tell them they have lost their faith, parents need to practice love and grace and emulate the kindness of God towards their children. The first thing a parent should do is not to panic. "The second thing I think that we need to do is to say, 'Hey, thanks. Thanks for telling me that because I know that it's going to be really hard for you.' When young people come and say, 'I'm not sure I believe this anymore,' we're talking about maybe their entire identity, their group of friends, who they are, what their worldview is; this can be really traumatic. And for them to be willing to share this with you means that you have a good relationship with them, I think, which is something to be grateful for," Marriott said. "But, also to be able to say: 'Hey, thanks. I really appreciate that you're willing to share that with me because I know that that can't be easy.' Then, I think that the next thing to do is to listen really well and ask some very basic questions seeking understanding, but nothing more. 'How long have you been feeling this way?'" Marriott added. "Are you at a settled position, or are you still in process? What are some of the issues that have been challenging for you? Are you interested in inviting me into this conversation? I think those are helpful questions to ask." Parents need to listen more than talking when hearing their deconstructing children share their thoughts about the faith. "I think that we listen far more than we talk as they share what's brought them to this place. Then, I think maybe the most important step of all is to say to them, 'You know, regardless of where you end up in this, whether you end up as someone who is a committed follower of Jesus like your mother and I or you say I don't believe in any of this anymore, we will still always love you. We will still be committed to your well-being, we'll still be your biggest champion. We will always be for you. We will never reject you,'" Marriott said. The author said it is important for parents to live out their faith and share that faith with the children regularly even if their children are falling away from the faith. "I think we want to plant a good seed. I think that good seed, it has a solid center and has soft edges. When it comes to my own kids. One of the things that my wife and I are intentional about doing is really trying to make sure they understand what is essential and what really is important when it comes down to what they believe as a follower of Jesus," Marriott stressed. "We would narrow that down to something like the Apostles Creed, that this is what is non-negotiable. If you're going to be a follower of Jesus, at least this is what you need to hold to. But, I have to recognize that not everything I believe is a non-negotiable and not everything I believe is an essential, and when I elevate those things to those levels, and I make my kids buy into all of them, that sets them up for disaster." Marriott, a former research and program coordinator for the Biola University Center for Christian Thought, advises parents to have their own personal spiritual disciplines that they regularly display openly to their children. "You will get from your kids what you are before them, and you can only be what you are before them in a deeply Christ-like way if you're connected to the source. If you are in His Word, and if you're spending time in prayer, if you're tapped into the vine, His life will live through you, and your kids will recognize and see that," Marriott said. "But, if you aren't, then oftentimes, what you will get is sort of a gospel of sin management or behaviorism, or living according to a set of rules, rather than living according to the life that Jesus gives us. I think that's really important." Parents should allow children to have second authority figures that are leading them toward Christ, Marriott noted. "I think another really helpful piece in all of this is finding what sometimes are called secondary authority figures, which are people outside of the family that are young people our children really gravitate towards or really like and appreciate and who can also fulfill the role of being an authoritative figure that can speak into their life and that they can share things with, that they wouldn't with us," Marriott said. "We have to sort of let them go and let them think. They're going to do what they're going to do anyway. The harder we hold on, the more of this sort of rebound effect will take place, and the rebellion will come," Marriott continued. "I think having secondary authority figures in their life is going to help the parent respond well who has this conversation with your child who has been kind of secretive about the faith." Home Opinion 10 ways woke culture is reframing civilization The book of Genesis recounts how Adam named and categorized the animals, highlighting the profound significance of defining and classifying Gods creation (Genesis 2:19-20). As Gods vice-regent, Adams act of naming was a powerful assertion of authority, underscoring that the one who defines a thing holds power over it. Throughout history, the control of categories, classifications, and definitions has been a critical tool for shaping narratives and influencing the perspectives of entire societies. Revolutionaries have consistently redefined reality and classifications to control the narrative and advance their agendas. The French Revolution (1789-1799): The revolutionaries dismantled the feudal system and abolished titles of nobility; redefining citizens as equals to establish a new social order. They also introduced a new calendar, renaming months and resetting the year to Year I, symbolizing a complete break from the past and creating a new identity. 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 Russian Revolution (1917): The Bolsheviks restructured society by emphasizing the proletariat (working class) and the bourgeoisie (capitalist class), instigating class warfare. They employed new symbols like the hammer and sickle and terminology like comrade to unify and motivate the masses. Their extensive propaganda efforts redefined justice, equality, and the role of the state. Nazi Germany (1933-1945): The Nazi regime redefined racial categories to assert Aryan superiority and justify the persecution of Jews, biblical Christians, and other minorities. Through relentless propaganda, they reshaped reality, portraying these groups as subhuman and dangerous. Nazi education policies indoctrinated the youth with these distorted values and racial theories. Today, Western nations are experiencing a profound revolutionary transformation under the woke ideology banner. This new wave of cultural redefinition is occurring in the following ways: 1. The inverted covenant with the earth: The rainbow, a sacred biblical symbol of Gods covenant with the earth, has been inverted by the LGBT+ community to illustrate their attempt to influence the whole earth as part of Woke ideology to reframe the foundational covenantal structure of the earth (Genesis 9:13). 2. Binary gender to gender fluidity: Traditional, biblically-defined gender roles are being replaced with fluid concepts of gender. Genesis 1:27 indicates God designed the human race with the construct of binary gender to represent His image. Entities like Facebook have recognized an extensive list of gender options to accommodate the diverse ways people identify. The most recent updates show that Facebook provides over 70 different gender options. 3. The redefinition of marriage In the beginning, God united one man and one woman in holy matrimony, a union reaffirmed by the Lord Jesus and upheld by Western civilization following the advent of Christianity (Genesis 2:21-24, Matthew 19:4-6). This divine design of marriage has been foundational to societal stability and moral order. However, woke ideology has progressively sought to challenge and redefine this sacred institution, culminating in the progressive-leaning Supreme Courts landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, which constitutionally codified same-sex marriage as the law of the land in the United States. 4. Biblical justice to critical race theory (CRT) The biblical notion of justice is being supplanted by CRT, which emphasizes systemic oppression and racial categorization. Scripture teaches that our identity is found in being children of God through Christ, not in our skin color or ethnicity (Galatians 3:28). The gospel unites us as one body in Christ, transcending racial and ethnic divisions. In contrast, woke ideology views reality primarily through the lens of skin color and victimization, promoting division and fostering resentment. As believers, we must reject this worldview and uphold the biblical principle that all are equal before God, striving for true justice and reconciliation through the Gospels transformative power. 5. From personal responsibility to state dependency The biblical principle of personal responsibility, as outlined in Galatians 6:7-8, is being eroded by a progressive woke ideology that fosters reliance on the state. This ideology resembles a nanny state, assuming responsibility for every aspect of its citizens lives. Scripture teaches that individuals reap what they sow and are accountable for their actions. In contrast, the increasing dependency on state intervention undermines personal responsibility and initiative, leading to a culture where the state is seen as the ultimate provider and caretaker. Thus, progressive ideology has the upper hand in controlling and defining civilization. 6. From meritocracy to victimocracy A Western culture that once celebrated merit and achievement is shifting towards one prioritizing victimhood. In a meritocracy, individuals are recognized and rewarded based on their abilities, hard work, and accomplishments, fostering a society of innovation and excellence. However, the rise of victimhood culture places greater emphasis on perceived oppression and grievances, often rewarding those who claim victim status over those who demonstrate competence and effort. 7. Culture of service to culture of entitlement The biblical call to serve others is increasingly overshadowed by a culture of entitlement, where personal demands and rights are prioritized over communal responsibility and selfless service (Mark 10:45). This shift fosters a societal expectation of receiving benefits without corresponding duties. 8. Highlighting days and months of the year Special emphasis is placed on certain days and months to saturate society with woke ideologies espoused by particular groups. For example: Pride Month (June). Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31). International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (May 17). National Coming Out Day (October 11). LGBT History Month (October). Transgender Awareness Week (2nd week of November). Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 20). 9. Through education Schools and universities are increasingly becoming centers of ideological indoctrination rather than bastions of serious, ordered learning. From celebrating drag queen story hours for small children to teaching anti-American revisionist history in universities, woke ideology is rebranding reality and shaping the minds of the next generation of cultural elites. This shift in education prioritizes ideological conformity over critical thinking, undermining the foundational principles of education. 10. Through politics and law The Biden administration has utilized taxpayer dollars to promote woke ideology both domestically and internationally. For example, the administration spent $4.6 million to support LGBT projects abroad, including organizing drag shows in Ecuador and funding advocacy groups in multiple countries to promote LGBT causes. For example, Your tax dollars at work: Biden admin spent $4.6 million on overseas LGBTQ activism, and Biden Spends Thousands On Ecuadorian Drag Shows. Additionally, the Department of Education has proposed grants that prioritize teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) and related themes, reshaping American history curricula to emphasize systemic oppression and racial biases. For more information: Biden Administration Prioritizes Wokeism, Critical Race Theory In Schools. These transformations represent a significant reclassification of societal norms and values, challenging long-standing biblical principles and profoundly reshaping civilization. My prayer is that Christ followers will once again take the lead as futurists, thought leaders, and cultural trend designers who participate with Jesus in the renewal of all things based on the kingdom of God. Home Opinion Are other people bigger sinners than you? Imagine driving down the road and seeing a large number between 1 and 100 on the windshield of every car. The driver who is the "biggest sinner" has #1 on the windshield, and the driver who is the "smallest sinner" has #100, with everyone else somewhere in between. What number do you think would be on your windshield? In other words, where do you rank yourself among sinners? Are you a bigger sinner than most, or a smaller sinner? If you are perhaps reluctant to rank yourself, that is a good sign. After all, "If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else" (Galatians 6:3-4). In other words, celebrate the good things Christ produces in your life, without comparing it to what someone else is doing. 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 Apostle Paul wrote, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14). The focus should never be on us, but only on Christ and the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross so "that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3:1). Comparing ourselves to others tends to produce arrogance and self-righteousness. The Bible declares, "To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech" (Proverbs 8:13). The Pharisees were experts at entertaining evil thoughts, and they often condemned others for their sins and struggles. Jesus told a parable about a Pharisee who "prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like all other men robbers, evildoers, adulterers or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get" (Luke 18:11-12). The Pharisee was far too proud of himself to recognize his own sins. He assumed he was better than everyone else, when in fact he was the biggest sinner of the bunch. And not only did he have the darkest heart, but he also assumed that his fasting and tithing made him righteous in God's eyes. He was so busy judging others that he didn't even recognize his own sinfulness and self-righteousness. Sadly, when you judge others, you are actually condemning yourself. The Bible states, "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" (Romans 2:1-5). Many people misunderstand what it means to "judge" someone. Perhaps you have been falsely accused of judging others simply because you identify certain behavior as sinful. But that is not what "judging" actually means. Those who do not know the Lord often attempt to define good and evil, while ignoring God's boundary lines that delineate right from wrong. God's descriptions of good and evil do not depend upon man's personal preferences or opinions. You and I judge others whenever we look down on people and view them as "bigger sinners." Jesus said, "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven" (Luke 6:37). The Bible tells us how God wants us to view others. "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves" (Philippians 2:3). So, do you consider others better than yourself, or do you consider yourself better than others? That is to say, are you less of a sinner than others? If so, then meditate upon this Scripture passage for a few minutes: "Whoever keeps the whole Law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10). Each one of us has fallen far short of God's perfect standard. But if you are born again, you no longer want to pursue sin. Instead, you want to live for Christ. "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life" (Galatians 6:7-8). Evangelist Billy Graham said, "Pride comes in looking at ourselves; meekness comes through looking at God." How much time do you spend every day looking at yourself and comparing yourself to others, and how much time do you spend every day listening to God in His Word and talking to the Lord in prayer? If you currently think other people are bigger sinners, you can experience a change of heart by confessing your sin of pride to the Lord and turning away from it. "He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy" (Proverbs 28:13). Each one of us is prone to assume that other people are bigger sinners. Thankfully, the Lord not only forgives our pride when we repent of it, but the Holy Spirit also helps us "fix our eyes on Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2) and on the cross instead of comparing ourselves to others. You see, we are all equal at the foot of the cross. Home Opinion Can Netanyahu still be a hero? In the fog of war, if we are honest, we often find it difficult to determine who is a hero and who is a war criminal. There is no better situation to illustrate this than the present Hamas-Israeli conflict. One can argue that the Israeli bombardment of Gaza has been quite over the top to quote President Biden. No one really knows the exact casualty figures as the information coming out of the conflict area is mostly from Hamas operatives, a questionable source indeed. However, one thing that cannot be denied is that most of the flak taken for the alleged 30,000 plus dead, and many wounded, has been Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is viewed by many in the international community as an out-of-control despot ethnically cleansing the Gaza strip, not so much to protect his country, but to grab more land for the notion of Greater Israel. 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 Considering the situation and the man himself, is this an accurate portrayal? One would think that this would be an easy question to answer since the International Criminal Court has actually issued an arrest warrant for him. Case closed? Not so fast. There are a number of issues one must understand in order to arrive at the best conclusion, apart from partisan manipulations. The first is the man himself. This is not a wild-eyed tyrant acting on his own behalf, although many who oppose him, even in the Knesset, think so. Rather, this is, whether you like his conclusions or not, a thinking man looking to the future. Ironically, as dark as the situation in Gaza is presently, even the Palestinians might eventually benefit by having the noose of Hamas removed from their necks. Indeed, one might argue that they voted Hamas in as their own government and thus deserve the consequences, but collective minds can be changed. Netanyahu lived in the USA for part of his life (his family briefly lived in Pennsylvania where he attended High School he also attended MIT), and he knows full well the western values that would be expected as a leader. He was later drafted into the Israeli military. This is not a man who is not unaccustomed with war and death; his own brother was killed in the raid on Entebbe, Uganda in 1976. Yet, his past actions show that he is not, as many think, a steel willed man not willing to give an inch. During his first tenure as Prime Minister in 1997, he agreed to a partial Israeli withdraw from Hebron. In 1998, he held extensive peace talks with Yasser Arafat that led to an exchange of land in return for diminishing terrorist acts. So, the canard that the Middle East is dealing with an out-of-control Caesar bent on erasing an ethnic population simply does not play out. Keep in mind both he and the Israeli government is reacting to a major terrorist action on their own soil over 1,200 Israelis killed and hundreds taken hostage. Was this a time to quietly negotiate? No one, except on the wildest fringe of pacifism, would say so; it was a time for decisive military action. Which brings us to the tactics itself. Consider: What action do you take when your enemy is embedded in the general population, and is hiding in schools, hospitals, bedrooms, in extensive tunnels, and uses women and children as shields? Obviously, in such a situation, your military plans and strategies are limited. To displace the enemy, you would have to strike where they are. The IDF, facing a foe that was nearly invisible because of where their lair was, had no choice but to strike in heavily populated areas. No sane human being delights in such methods or the innocent victims of such, but, as we mentioned, choices were limited. We would be amiss if we did not mention that there are many Israelis that, in fact, oppose Netanyahu. Of course, there are general political oppositions to his office simply because of a differing political bent. But we are talking about Israeli citizens demanding more action to release the hostages. Their feeling is that the Israeli government in general, and Netanyahu in particular, are not negotiating with enough urgency that they are more focused on heavy military engagement than getting their citizens back. Moreover, a lot of the underlying fear is that there will be a land for hostages deal, in which case, there is the fear that Netanyahu et al, are letting the country go. One would have to be sympathetic to both the families of the hostages, and any Israeli family that lost a loved one to protect the land that may be given away to a terrorist entity. Yet, no one really knows how all this will play out and who will blink first. Moreover, no one really knows how Netanyahu is negotiating, or what he feels is the best way to get those hostages back. We would have to assume that there are back-channel talks being held, and while we know that there is a pensive feeling throughout the Israeli population, cooler heads must prevail in order for the country to demonstrate a united front and not a country coming apart at the seams. Considering the complexities of the current crisis, it remains to be seen how ultimately Netanyahu will be seen by Israel and the world once the dust has settled and the peace, temporarily or permanently, arrives. It could be that Israel will be fighting an insurgent war for many years to come. Greater challenges may be ahead. They say that history is written by the victors, and if that is so, only a consensus of Israelis will be the final judge of Netanyahu. But, as they say, the jury is out until this segment of Middle East history plays its final note. That, as many concede, may be quite a while. Home Opinion Christians conquering the Babylon of proud scientists? The evening of the night that Babylon fell to the Medes and the Persians, the prophet Daniel recorded that Belshazzar the king made a feast for a thousand of his lords. He was so proud that he commanded the gold and silver vessels be brought that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem. And then he and his lords drank wine from them. Similarly, non-Christian scientists are having a party these days boasting about the wonders of modern science. They attribute these wonders to their own powers and scoff at religion. For example, famous cosmologist Stephen Hawking once stated, There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win, because it works. Figuratively, they are getting drunk by drinking out of the goblets of Christianity. Thats because modern science was founded on a biblical worldview. In particular, modern science developed from belief in: 1. a Creator Who is eternal, omnipresent and rational and therefore not capricious; 2. a Creator who made us in His own image and therefore we are capable of understanding His creation; and 3. our fallen nature inherited in Adam that therefore requires us to check scientific theories by peer review and observations. 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 Many proud non-Christian scientists behave like Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin, who wrote, we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. They protect themselves from God by living in something like Babylon. Their figurative Babylon is surrounded by the wall of biological evolution. Unbelievers cleverly erected that wall to try to keep God out of their lives. For example, Richard Dawkins claimed that Darwinism made him an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Just as in Babylon at the time of Daniel, many people of God have been taken captive there also. They are theistic evolutionists. How can one break down that wall? Why not just point out its many problems? While mainstream scientists are sure we got here by evolution, they have no idea of the supposed mechanisms for the origin of life or of sexual reproduction, for example. Good. But outside the wall of biological evolution is a big moat, representing billions of years of cosmological and geological evolution. Because of that moat, one cannot get weapons close enough to the wall to do much damage. Even if one could cause some damage to the wall, the moat would still be in the way. For example, people arguing for Intelligent Design havent gotten very far. They argue against theistic evolution, but generally do not see the problem presented by billions of years. Nevertheless, an astute observer would notice something similar to what the Medes and Persians noticed about ancient Babylon. The same river Euphrates that supplied water for the moat also flowed under the wall and through the city to supply the water needed for everyday life. According to Greek historian Herodotus, the Persian Cyrus the Great diverted some of the Euphrates River upstream of Babylon into side channels so that it was only about thigh high when it entered the city. Then at night his soldiers could enter the city through the river while Belshazzar and his lords were partying. Could one conquer the Babylon of proud scientists similarly? Surely biological evolution has no defense without billions of years. One could divert billions of years by citing many physical evidences for a young earth (available, for example, at answersingenesis.org, icr.org, and creation.com) and by appeal to the Bible itself. For example, one can point out that the early accounts in Genesis are historical narrative, not poetry, and are clearly meant to be understood literally. In the grammatical context of Genesis 1, the Hebrew word yom also can only refer to an ordinary day. Almost all Hebrew scholars agree. However, non-Christian scientists and philosophers have been shouting from the walls of their Babylon and demoralizing the armies of Christians outside. They have convinced most theologians and Christian intellectuals that the study of science must be separated from the Bible. That was the claim of 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who developed a type of pantheism that inspired Einstein, Hawking and modern humanists. If Spinoza were right, only scientists could know the truth about the physical origins of the universe. As a result, theologians for the past 250 years have been inventing various schemes to make Genesis 1 conform to the speculations of non-Christian scientists. Those schemes have included the gap theory, the day age theory, the framework hypothesis, the Cosmic Temple idea, as well as literal days separated by hundreds of millions of years. Correspondingly, theologians and intellectuals have generally ceased to attack speculations about billions of years. They also discourage other Christians from trying to mount such attacks. They sometimes cite Christians such as Augustine, Bacon and Galileo who cautioned in various ways against using the Bible as a source of scientific theories without checking them with observations. Nevertheless, all these Christians maintained the infallibility of revelation in the Bible concerning origins. On the other hand, speculations by non-Christian scientists about inherently unobservable origins use non-theistic presuppositions to interpret evidence left from the past. Belief by Christians in long ages undermines the character of God. If the fossils were hundreds of millions of years old, then they were buried, not in the Flood of Noahs time, but before the Fall of Adam. Biblical genealogies only allow for thousands of years between then and now. So the disease, violence and death seen in the fossil record would have begun and continued under the direction of God. On the contrary, Genesis 1:31 states that Gods creation was very good at the beginning. And 1 Corinthians 15:26 states that death is an enemy, surely not part of Gods work of creation. Let us divert the streams of billions of years and march with Gods help into Babylon to end the partying of proud scientists drinking the wine of evolution from stolen Christian goblets. Home Opinion Dealing with cosmic tyrants One of the oldest and most often repeated lies about religion and Christianity, in particular, is that its responsible for the majority of historical wars and bloodshed. Au contraire. Theres no question that atrocities have occurred because of religion (e.g., ISIS, the Crusades, the Thirty Years War, etc.). Still, they barely register on historys violence Geiger counter compared to the carnage and body count produced by secular governments. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, take your pick. 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 For proof, look to historians Philip and Axelrods three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars which shows that of the 1,763 wars waged throughout human history, only 123 have been religious in nature. That amounts to a surprisingly low 6.98% of all wars resulting from religion. Further, when wars carried out in the name of Islam are subtracted, the percentage falls to 3.23%, meaning that all religions combined minus Islam have been responsible for less than 4% of all humanitys wars and violent conflicts. The sobering fact that secular despotic governments account for the vast majority of all violence and war in human history is summed up by political science professor R. J. Rummel this way in his book, Death by Government: Almost 170 million men, women and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed or killed in any other of a myriad of ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people. It is though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not germs. Does reading Rummels synopsis of our violence give you pause? It sure has that effect on me and also makes me wonder while I know the Bible says that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Gen. 6:5), the degree of such atrocious behavior seems to exceed what even we are capable of. Almost like theres a higher-order evil thats masterminding the whole thing. And not surprisingly, thats exactly what the Bible says is happening. Suit up If youve been around the block a few times with your Bible, you know that Ephesians 6 is the chapter where the apostle Paul famously instructs us to suit up with the armor of God (vv. 11, 13-18). But the reason why were told to do so is because the evil we see around us has spiritual puppet masters behind the scenes pulling the strings of their human marionettes. Paul begins by saying, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood (vs. 12), with the term wrestle indicating a very personal, intense, hand-to-hand encounter. If you used to compete in wrestling like I did, you know its one of the most exhausting physical activities on the planet. And exhausting perfectly describes how it feels to deal with all the evil our culture oozes from its pores. The apostle then goes on to tell us who were up against: the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Of those listed, the most interesting one to me is cosmic power, which is the Greek term kosmokrator (used only here in the Bible) that denotes a cosmic tyrant, a power that presides over this present darkness. When R. J. Rummel says were suffering from a plague of Power, he didnt know how right he was it doesnt get any worse than that. Scripture tells us repeatedly that the devil owns our space. It says, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19); that he is the prince of the power of the air, with Jesus referring to him multiple times as the ruler of this world (John 12:31, 14:30) and not disputing his claim during His wilderness temptation when the devil said of the world: it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish (Luke 4:6). That being true, what are we to do? First, we need to recognize the deeds of the cosmic tyrants and not be fooled by the angel of lights (2 Cor. 11:14) surface-level appearance, which can sometimes be enticing. As Hamlet said, The spirit that I have seen may be a devil; and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape. Next, realize that the worst blow any of us can deal against the ones ruling over this present darkness is to bring someone into the light of Gods salvation. Gospel means good news on the battlefield, which is exactly what happens when someone receives Christ. This is why Paul referenced the enemys commanders when speaking about how the Gospel came so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places (Eph. 3:10). Remember also, The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8). Lastly, dont forget that all the evil cosmic tyrants operate only under the permissive will of the ultimate Cosmic Ruler who has them all on a leash. Sometimes that tether seems too long for our liking, but in the end, God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28). And sometimes, God reaches down and deals a supernatural defeat against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places that manipulate evil people. Take for example the historical account of the Assyrian king Sennacherib who came against Jerusalem to destroy it as he had other nations (see 2 Chron. 32:9-22). God miraculously destroyed Sennacheribs army sending the Assyrian king home to be murdered by his own children. This episode is not only in the Bible but in other historians accounts as well. An archaeological find, Sennacherib's Prism, which was discovered in the ruins of Nineveh in 1830, details the events of Sennacherib's campaign against Judah and bragged that he had trapped Hezekiah like a bird in a cage, which is exactly how the Bible depicts the event. But although Sennacherib boasted he had overcome all other nations; nothing is found about him taking Jerusalem. Instead, the Greek historian Herodotus records that Sennacherib failed due to being overrun by a horde of field mice that gnawed quivers and bows and the handles of shields, with the result that many were killed fleeing unarmed the next day. Or, God routed Sennacherib and his cosmic tyrant puppets just as Scripture says. Sometimes God punches through our space-time continuum Himself to KO the evil forces we cant see like in Sennacheribs case and other times we fret as He appears to let them have the upper hand. But sooner or later, His justice hammer falls on both the invisible cosmic tyrants and their in-the-flesh pawns. As A. W. Tozer said, The wheels of Gods justice may grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine. Until His grinder stops, lets continue to do our part by making as many sons and daughters of light as we can. Home Opinion Democrats do not love Joe Biden In a sense, Democrats dislike Joe Biden more than Republicans do. This shouldnt be hard to believe if you watched last week's debate. During the debate, I joked that I was more coherent than Joe Biden when I used to speak in tongues. Joe Biden could barely think or talk and walk after the debate. He looked confused, frail, and unfit for any job right now, let alone the most crucial political job in the world: the president of the United States. 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 It was so painful to watch. I was genuinely cringing whenever he would speak. It was so disastrous that some Democrats are saying Biden should step down so they can introduce a new candidate for the election in November. But Joe Bidens performance in the debate isnt a new development. Over the last four years, the whole world especially Democrats in the White House have known about Bidens deteriorating health. Hes consistently shown signs of advanced dementia throughout his presidency, a condition that appears to be worsening rapidly, especially since hes the president of the United States. Joe Biden shouldnt be President for Americas sake, for the worlds sake, and for his own sake. Bidens presidency isnt just bad for all of us, its bad for his health. A man in his condition should be resting and being cared for in his own house. He shouldnt be working in the White House. The Democrats know this. They know this re-election campaign and presidency isnt good for his health, but apparently they dont care. They are willing to sacrifice his health in order to maintain their power. After all, they sacrificed Bidens health to gain power in 2020, so why wouldnt they sacrifice his health again to maintain power four years later? Last nights debate, however, could apparently change their plans. But if they replace him it wont be because they are trying to protect his health, itll be because they are trying to protect their political future. So the Democrats do not love Joe Biden, and worse, his family seemingly loves the benefits of his presidency more than himself. If they loved him as they should, they wouldnt have encouraged him to pursue the presidency. But this shouldnt be surprising. People who do not love babies shouldnt be expected to love elderly people. Theres a reason people who support abortion also support euthanasia. People who sacrifice pre-born babies for political power will also sacrifice elderly people for political power. Thats why Democrats elected Joe Biden as President. Originally published at Slow to Write. Home Opinion Dont be naive those who attack Jews will soon attack you, too The violent attacks against Jews going to an event on Sunday at a local synagogue in Los Angeles are the latest in a long line of terrible precedents for the rights of people of faith across the country. We saw flagrant violations of civil rights and criminal assault on individuals based on their Jewish identity, resulting only in a single arrest. What is happening to Jews across America should be another canary in the coal mine for members of all other faiths. The response to Sundays violence from political leaders was underwhelming to say the least. President Biden, California Governor Newsom, and other top Democrats read from the same script the next day all were appalled by the violence. Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American. None of them mentioned the illegality of the violence or civil rights violations, or the intent to prosecute the perpetrators. 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 Despite what the New York Times called unusually swift and forceful condemnation from top Democratic leaders, it was only swift and forceful compared to their response to antisemitic campus protests in the past eight months. The public hemming and hawing and handwringing of politicians over antisemitic violence is more than a national embarrassment, its a travesty. Many of their past comments have reinforced an almost absolute right to free speech and freedom of association for antisemitic protesters. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that the right to freedom of association does not extend to joining with others for the purpose of depriving third parties of their lawful rights (Brown v. Hartledge, 1982), which the pro-Palestinian protesters were clearly doing. By virtue of targeting Jews specifically, they also were engaged in violations of Jews civil rights. Perhaps the key lesson from Sundays events is not a reaffirmation that the center of the Democratic party is still struggling to decide what to do with the antisemitic far left, but that leaders on the American left are no longer fully committed to protecting religious liberty and in many cases are assaulting it. Government now does precious little to protect religious groups from discrimination and hostility. The Anti-Defamation League tracked nearly 9,000 antisemitic incidents in 2023, up 140% from the the previous year. The Family Research Council counted more than 400 incidents of hostility against Christian churches in 2023, leaving aside individual cases of hostility. Anti-Muslim incidents have likewise increased significantly since 2020. But the numbers do not account for government-directed anti-religious laws and regulations, or selective prosecutions. On the one hand, prosecutors target Christian individuals and business owners like florists and cake artists, churches, and pro-life activists. On the other, they drag their feet investigating violence against pregnancy support centers, crimes committed by Antifa members, and antisemitic attacks. Antisemitism is focused on the racial identity of Jews, not on the beliefs of Judaism per se; however, Jewish belief and identity are closely intertwined. Anti-Muslim sentiments are based both on Islamic belief and on a perceived stereotypical Arab racial identity. Prejudice against Christians is focused primarily on religious beliefs and not racial identity. These individual acts of violence and hostility are accumulating rapidly into a broad social antipathy towards religious faith and identity, nursed along by activists, legislators, and prosecutors on the left. It is time that all of us began working together. We need to demand answers from local and state law enforcement chiefs and prosecutors about how they would handle a situation like what unfolded in Los Angeles. Demand that prosecutors keep the public apprised of their investigations into these crimes. Watch closely to see if they follow through on commitments to step up protection, work with the affected religious community, and combat anti-religious attitudes. In reflecting on the Holocaust, German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller penned these words: First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. Who will speak out for the Jews, and who will speak out for all those of religious faith in America? Home Opinion GOP, please don't betray your own platform Politicians pander. Platforms shouldnt. Each Partys manifesto is an articulation of their firmly held beliefs. The Democratic Party will oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to abortion. We see this belief carried out in every federal and state law proposed and passed by Dems: unlimited abortion throughout pregnancy for any reason. The Republican Party, to the contrary, emphasizes the Declaration of Independences inalienable right to life and has called for a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution to protect the unborn. The Democrats platform demands funding for Planned Parenthood and their abortion services. Republicans fully oppose taxpayer funding of the $2 billion abortion business, except for actual healthcare (e.g. breast cancer exams, pre-natal care, STD testing/treatment, and other services that are all drastically plummeting at Planned Parenthood). 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 Democrats believe some humans are merely property that can be bought, sold, and destroyed at the whim of others. Republicans dont. Its why the GOP platform emphatically states: We urge all states and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts. The contrast couldnt be more pronounced. Democrats are the Pro-Abortion Party. Republicans are the Anti-Abortion Party. Yet some forces want to blur those lines and dilute the principled stand the GOP has held since its inception. The Party founded on the belief that were all created equal is still fighting the Party that refuses to believe all humans are persons and therefore afforded the protections of the Constitution. Remember, it was the Democratic Party that was willing to go to war to protect the inhumane institution of slavery. In 1856, Democrats declared in their platform: Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences. Yes. Seeing everyone as having inherent and equal value is a dangerous thing to a political party that is still blind to this truth. When people tell you who they are, believe them. Sadly, too few bother to read party platforms and choose to be duped by a leftist news media that lies about everything (well, except its delusional and blatant hatred of conservatives and those with a Biblical worldview). Just like the 7-2 supremely wrong Roe decision, the Democratic Party also hailed the 7-2 Dred Scott decision in 1857. That ruling one of the worst judicial travesties in American history declared that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a federal territory and that our Founders proclamation of being created equal didnt apply to a certain group of human beings: slaves. Sounds familiar, in a post-Dobbs America, where Roe was overturned and sadly the injustice of abortion is being decided in a state-by-state basis. A certain group of human beings is, once again, violently denied constitutional rights. Thank Heaven for those Radical Republicans who refused to budge on what they believed about slavery, despite temporary legislative setbacks and even a Civil War. Todays GOP pales in comparison to those who knew who they were and what they believed, no matter the political consequences. Stop fearing what the Left is cheering! As someone whose ancestors were put in chains and treated inhumanely, I dont want politicians who are blown to and fro by every new wind of polling. As an adoptee and adoptive father, Ill always protect the defenseless. While the Democratic Party revels in killing our Posterity (see here, here, and here), why in the world do conservatives make apologies and excuses for defending the most vulnerable among us? The 14th Amendment affirms that Life is our unquestionable right.No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. This includes the women preyed upon, harmed and even killed by a predatory abortion industry and the millions of children aborted for profit as a result of our federal government failing in its most fundamental duties. The Preamble to our Constitution clearly states: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. This America, a beacon of Life, Liberty and Justice to the rest of the world, is meant for us and our children and our childrens children. Life is not a states rights issue, any more than slavery, womens right to vote, or Jim Crow laws were. It took federal action to defeat the unequal legal patchwork that had been sloppily made by a lack of moral courage. And it will take that same certitude to end the nationwide violent discrimination against the most marginalized the ones who cannot protest or vote or curry any favor. Tragically, the GOP Platform committee has just caved to those who want to shift the Republican stance. It removed language from the upcoming 2024 Platform calling for a Human Life Amendment, seemingly to assuage those who think the inhumanity of slavery abortion is a states rights issue. Im glad slavery abolitionists didnt settle for the middle ground by accepting the expansion of slavery into other states. The only way to guarantee equality was to ensure that each person was equally free from the bondage and violence of slavery in every state. The same applies to abortion. Dont turn away from your DNA, GOP. Speak the truth. Value all life. And fight for whats right. Home Opinion Happy 248th birthday, America Heres a trivia question for you. The Statue of Liberty holds a torch in one hand. What is she holding in the other? It looks like a book, in tablet form. The answer is the Declaration of Independence, since the tablet is engraved with July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals. The great British writer, G.K. Chesterton, once said, America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence. 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 Nearly 250 years ago, 56 men, representing some three million British colonists voted to approve the final wording of that revolutionary document. If they failed in their bid for independence, these men were voting for their own death. A month earlier, in June, the Continental Congress voted to approve declaring independence from Great Britain, and a committee was formed to write the document. Thomas Jefferson served on that committee and became the chief author. The bulk of what he wrote was accepted, with several alterations. On July 4, 1776, Congress voted to accept, by voice vote, the final wording of the now-modified Declaration of Independence. John Adams said about our national birth certificate: I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. Illuminations is another way of saying fireworks. What makes the Declaration so revolutionary? Above all, it says that our rights come from God. John F. Kennedy expressed it so well in his Inaugural Address in 1961, the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globethe belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. As Chesterton noted of the Declaration of Independence, It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived. In that sense, America is and always will be one nation under God. Unless we were somehow to be cut off from the Declaration, in which case, we would no longer be America. The essence of Americanism is God-given rights to We the people. For all our flaws, for all the ugly chapters in our history, for all the mistreatment of the Indians and of blacks as slaves and then as second-class citizens, God-given rights are the foundation for our past, present, and future. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, the problem with America is not our creed (as seen in the Declaration) but in our failure to live up to that creed. Im reminded of that musical prayer in the hymn, America the Beautiful: America! America! God, mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law! Soon after the July 4th voice vote to adopt the final wording of the Declaration of Independence, the 56 men of the Continental Congress began the process of signing the revolutionary document, for which the Delegates had to make their way back to Philadelphia during war time. The final signature was not affixed until January 1777. When John Hancock, the president of that assembly, signed it, he deliberately put his John Hancock on the form in a way that was so large that King George III could read it without his spectacles. When Ben Franklin signed it, he declared, We must hang together or most assuredly we shall hang separately. We forget sometimes just how impossible the situation must have looked. A betting man at that time could easily have felt that the odds were that the British would squash the rebellion in their American colonies. In little time. No wonder, during and after the War, George Washington said repeatedly how grateful he was to God for our incredible victory. In his First Inaugural Address, our first president said, No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. Happy 248th birthday to America. May God help us not to squander such freedoms, nor let them sift through our fingers. Home Opinion Healing from gay desires is possible Men who are struggling with gay desires must come to understand three truths in their healing journey. This is not an exhaustive list, but it is a good place to start. The first truth is that no one is born with hardwired homosexual desires. This argument is a creation of those who enjoy their sin and want to make an excuse to live the way they want to. Convincing oneself that you were born with homosexual desires is nothing more than a sinful coping mechanism. If you can convince yourself that you were born with homosexual desires, then you can convince yourself that the desires and the radical behaviors you indulge in are not sinful. I was born this way baby. What do I have to repent for? The Bible says that we are born with a sin nature (Ps. 51:5), not that we are born with predetermined genetic sinful desires. Just like there is no such thing as an I want to steal a pack of gum from the store gene, or an I want to cheat on my math exam gene, there is no such thing as an I want to commit homosexual acts gene. The idea that people are born with a genetic proclivity towards homosexual behavior is not taught anywhere in the Bible. This is in direct opposition to what the Bible says about the location of our sinful desires. This brings us to point number two. The Bible says that sinful desires, including sinful sexual desires, come from the heart (Matt. 15:19), not our genetics. And that through the power of Christ we can have our desires changed (Gal. 5:24). That we can have our minds renewed and find true and lasting freedom from the sin that is in our lives (Rom.12:2). Jesus said that a man who looks at a woman with lustful intent has committed adultery in his heart (Matt. 5:28), not his genetic code. Nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to ask God to change the desires of our chromosomes. Rather, through repentance and the supernatural work of the Spirit in our lives, we can become more like Christ and have our hearts transformed (1 Thess. 4:3-8). This brings us to our third point, which is really two points in one. 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 Men who struggle with gay desires must understand that their sinful desires to connect with men in a relationally disordered way is a result of a complex assortment of wounds that have been sexualized. These men must also recognize, believing fully in their hearts, that homosexuality is contrary to Gods design for gender, marriage, and human sexuality. Men were designed by God to relate platonically to one another as equal brothers. Fundamentally, homosexuality is predicated on men relating to one another not as equals, but within a sexualized hierarchy of dominance and submission. Truthfully, homosexuality is a desire/behavior to emasculate and/or be emasculated by another man. In homosexual world these are called tops and bottoms. When it comes to gender expression according to Gods design, a husband will always express his masculinity by giving, and his wife will always express her femininity by receiving. A husband and his wife become one-flesh in marriage because a husband and his wife were created from the same flesh to begin with (Gen. 2:23). Homosexuality takes this beautiful design and distorts it. A man was never meant to give to another man, and/or receive from another man. Homosexuality is thus, an attempt at recreating that relational dynamic, of which is proper for a husband and wife, but is improper for two people who share the same gender. Men who struggle with homosexuality must recognize that the desire to engage in any behavior that is homosexual, is a desire for something rebellious. Something rebellious against Gods design for gender, marriage, and human sexuality. The world says embrace these desires. God calls us to holiness (1 Thess. 4:3-8). A man for example, who desires a homosexual context, must humbly stand before God, recognizing it as a disordered desire. And that underneath the sinful desire for a sinful sexual context is a wound. The non-sexual desire, for example, to receive the love of an absent father figure is a very common wound amongst men who struggle with homosexual desires. And so, beyond repentance, there must also be a recognition in the individual that there are many wounds underneath the surface that need to be dealt with. This is not just I desire sinful sexual contexts, but also, I have wounds that I have sexualized from childhood that I need to bring before the Father who loves me. Healing requires a lot of reflection work. It can be painful to rehash the childhood wounds and family of origin issues that have negatively affected us, but it is some of the most valuable work to be done in this life. Men should be encouraged to know that God will be with them every step of the way. Even in the most painful parts of the journey. In my own life, as the Lord did this for me, I realized that at the core of my homosexual desires was a masculinity crisis, which began formulating as far back as early childhood. This was due to many factors in my home life and social settings. Recognizing that I had sexualized men during puberty in an attempt to satiate my own masculinity crisis, and deal with the layers of wounds I was struggling with at the core, has been a part of my healing journey. I didnt find healing from exclusively praying that God would take away the homosexual desires, but by simultaneously having the Lord go deep into the wounds of my heart that were giving life to the gay desires in the first place. Christian men who are struggling with gay desires are not only sealed with the Spirit of God, forgiven of all their sins, and given eternal life, but are in a right relationship with the Father who loves them and longs to sanctify them. That means that we can bring our sinful desires, childhood wounds, hurts, and pains to the Father, and ask Him to bring healing. We can ask Him to change our desires in His Fatherly love. To help us see our sin the way He sees our sin. As God begins to mature us in the faith and change us from within, the things we once wanted lose their power. Perhaps you need to get a journal and write letters to the Lord. Be as vulnerable and inquisitive as possible. Talk to Him about what you are going through. Ask him questions about the desires of your heart. Be expectant for Him to respond in your position of humility. Go on a walk with the Father. Ask Him to reveal to you your story. Ask Him to help you understand why you struggle with what you struggle with. Get together with a buddy or two. Process each others stories, speak into one anothers lives, and pray together. Ask God to be your counselor. Ask to be filled with the wisdom and clarity you need in order to understand all the complex portions of your story. The wounds that have caused you to struggle with gay desires in the first place. Bring your wounds to the Father. Bringing them to the altar of homosexuality will never give you what you are truly looking for. Only God can do that. Having God as our Father is like having the best therapist in the world. And the great news is that you dont have to pay for it. It was purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. Humbly surrender before Him, recognizing that homosexual desires and behaviors are sinful. That homosexual desires are not a result of genetics, but rather a result of sexualized wounds from our life stories. God wants to help you process and understand why you struggle with what you struggle with and bring healing. He is the loving Father who cares. By walking beside the Father as a son, the man who struggles with gay desires will find radical transformation and healing in the Lord. Healing is possible. And praise be to the Father who provides that healing and makes us more like His Son Jesus Christ! Home Opinion Intensifying debate: Bible and religion in public schools The state of Oklahoma has entered the emerging debate over the role that the Bible in particular and religion in general should play in the nations public schools. Ryan Walters, the states superintendent of education, has issued a directive that requires all public schools to include the Bible in lesson plans. Walters summarized his directive: We have issued this ... so we have standards, that are in place ... that our teachers are to teach the role religion played in the classroom. ... They are not talking about in their classroom the role that the Bible played in American history. So, we will be offering additional guidance to districts that they will have to comply with, which is to ensure the teaching of ... the role the Bible played in American history, dating back pre-Constitution, whether its the Mayflower Compact, the pilgrims, all the way through Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights movement, where he repeatedly quotes the Bible for what he is trying to do there. 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 Walters directive also mandates a physical Bible in every classroom. His opponents seized upon this language. Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, asserted: This is about claiming the Christian nationalist myth that America is a Christian country. And this is also about preaching, not teaching, because when Ryan Walters announced the policy, he made clear that he was requiring teachers to have the Bible in every classroom and quote to teach from it. Thats not education. Thats indoctrination and its unconstitutional. So, the lines are clearly drawn. Oklahomas effort to clearly introduce more about the Bibles role in American history is opposed by those who really want Americas public schools to be religion-free zones, which pretend that Americas society has not been, and is not, significantly religious. As I noted in my article last week in The Christian Post, Making Sense of New Louisiana Ten Commandments Law: Display vs. Recitation, this deep division and hostility can be traced back to the 1962 and the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning official prayer and Bible reading in public schools and the negative reaction they provoked. As Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg warned in his opinion Abington vs. Schempp (1963): Untutored devotion to the concept of neutrality can lead to ... approval of results which partake not simply of that noninterference and noninvolvement with the religious which the Constitution commands, but of a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular, and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious. Such results are not only not compelled by the Constitution, but it seems to me are prohibited by it. Unfortunately, Justice Goldbergs premonition became a reality in large segments of the American education establishment. In the 60 years since Justice Goldbergs warning, Americans have responded in widely divergent ways. America is a pluralistic society and this pluralism is certainly on display concerning the issue of how much religion should be on display in Americas public schools. A study undertaken last year by the University of Chicago illustrates the lack of common ground on the issue of the appropriate place of religion in the nations public schools. When they surveyed the American public they found that 37% felt there was not enough religion in the schools, 31% thought there was too much religion and 31% felt that there was a right amount of religion in the classroom, according to The New York Times. Of course, these results were a national, not state-by-state or regional analysis. Anyone familiar with American society knows that the answer to that study would vary widely from state to state. It is not just happenstance that Oklahoma is the state that has undertaken this religious initiative. Oklahoma is literally the most Baptist state in the union in terms of the percentage of the population belonging to that denomination. The recent Ten Commandments initiative is in Louisiana, another state with a rich religious history. It is difficult to imagine California or Oregon taking such initiatives. This regional diversity complicates the search for a national legal solution. In the case of the Oklahoma initiative, the attempt to teach the Bibles influence on Western Civilization and American history seems more achievable than teaching the Bible. As Superintendent Walters pointed out, it is impossible to teach a full-orbed American history from the Mayflower Compact to Martin Luther King Jr. without the influence of the Christian faith. However, when it comes to mandating the teaching of the Bible one enters difficult, treacherous territory. How do you teach the Bible objectively in a society where tens of millions of people believe it is a sacred text, the Word of God? If you take the devout Christian approach, you violate the rights of those who do not affirm that view. The same thing is true if you take a liberal, higher criticism approach to Holy Scripture. What can be done, however, is to teach courses in public high schools that teach objectively the basic tenets of the major religious traditions. In such a course you would lay out the basic tenets of Christianity (with Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Mainline, and Evangelical Protestant distinctives). Then, you do the same with Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. Such a course would certainly be useful in an increasingly religiously diverse society. And as school choice and voucher programs become increasingly available parents can choose alternatives to the public schools. One last word of caution to those Christians who want the public schools to teach their faith. You should never want the state to be deciding what is the correct understanding of religion. The last thing any devout follower of Jesus should want is government control of religion. The government will always get it wrong and pious followers of Christ will have their consciences violated. Our forefathers learned that lesson the hard way and with Gods guidance and assistance they bequeathed to us a legal system with more guaranteed freedom of religious conscience than any yet devised on this planet. My prayer is that God will give us the wisdom, and the courage to protect and preserve it. Home Opinion Iranian Christians haven't stopped fighting. Don't forget them When we read stories of persecution against Christians in Iran such as the recent harsh sentences against brothers and sisters like Yasin Mousavi, a Christian convert who was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison for his conversion from Islam our immediate reaction is one of deep injustice. These believers are peaceful, loving individuals who strive to be a positive influence in society, praying even for their nation's leaders. Yet, they face severe penalties simply for practicing their faith. Why does the Iranian government treat them so harshly? The primary reason for the severe persecution of Iranian Christians lies in the government's fear of Muslim-background believers. The Islamic Republic of Iran is acutely aware of the rapid growth of Christianity within its borders and feels threatened by it. This fear is rooted in the transformative nature of Christian faith; once someone converts to Christianity, they rarely revert to Islam. The dramatic life changes that come with this conversion are evident to friends and family, leading to a ripple effect of more conversions. The Islamic government knows that this faith is not just personal but contagious. The visible change in new Christians lives often prompts curiosity and interest among their social circles, leading to more conversions. This viral nature of Christianity poses a significant threat to the Islamic establishment's control over religious life in Iran. 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 main crime for which many Iranian Christians are imprisoned is attending house churches. This reveals the regime's fear of Christians gathering together. In 2013, all church buildings were closed to the public, except for a few that conduct services in Armenian and Assyrian languages. These churches are prohibited from admitting Muslims or Muslim-background Christians, under the threat of closure. This reaction stems from a recognition of the power inherent in communal Christian worship. In the West, church attendance is often seen as optional, but in Iran, the government seems to understand better than many Western Christians the profound societal influence a united church can wield. This is exemplified by the fact that if Christians in the U.S. were united, they could significantly influence political outcomes, such as elections. Knowing they cannot completely stop the growth of Christianity, the Iranian government's strategy is to intimidate and isolate believers. By imposing long prison sentences on those who witness or attend house churches, they aim to discourage Christians from gathering or sharing their faith. The message is clear: If you are a Christian and you stay at home without sharing your faith, you will be safe. But if you gather with others or witness, you face years in prison. This intimidation is not limited to ordinary believers. Iran Alive is also targeted. Despite not being a political activist, I am seen as a threat because of our large and growing following within Iran. The government fears that we could mobilize followers against them, causing significant unrest. In the face of this persecution, we can take actions that support our brothers and sisters in Iran. Pray: First and foremost, we must pray for their courage, wisdom, and close fellowship with God. Many imprisoned Christians testify to feeling the Lord's presence strongly while in jail and even use their time there to minister to fellow inmates. The Iranian government, aware of this, often places Christian prisoners in solitary confinement to prevent them from converting others. Send Letters: Letters can make a tangible difference. Former prisoners report better treatment, cancelled executions, and earlier releases when letters began arriving on their behalf. Send letters urging release at Article 18 or send an encouraging letter directly to prisoners through PrisonerAlert.com. By engaging in these actions, we can make a profound impact and stand in solidarity with Iranian Christians facing persecution. Their silent struggle calls for our support and unwavering prayer. Home Opinion July 4: How America won her freedom I have a book called 7 Leadership Lessons of the American Revolution by John Antal that has great leadership lessons but is told through the actions of those courageous founding fathers. It was not by the actions of any one individual, but by God working through all of them that America won her freedom. While the Committee of Five was drafting the Declaration of Independence, God was using hundreds of men to bring about His purposes for her freedom. While Samuel Adams was using his passion and persuasive skills to fight for no taxation without representation, George Washington was leading a rag-tag band of militia dubbed the Continental Army. They would, of course, go on to hold off the most formidable fighting force in the world the British army. The document whose anniversary we celebrate was the fruit of the collaboration by very gifted, yet very different men. Benjamin Franklin, the elder statesman, persuaded the 56 delegates that they needed to work together, and though many called him the least religious of the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin was among those who suggested the delegates call on God to guide their steps. 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 John Adams suggested that a committee be formed to write up grievances to be shared with the crown and explain the case for independence. It was Thomas Jefferson who was charged with creating the draft of the Declaration of Independence. The value of freedom The founding fathers were just people, like you and me, but their actions forged the first nation founded on the principle of liberty, where our rights come from God ... not from our government. Where We the People have the ultimate authority, if we will just claim it! The liberties we still cherish today were bought at a price. We still have the liberties as defined in the Declaration and our Constitution because of those who sacrificed to preserve our freedoms and defeat tyranny. That freedom means I can go to church and talk about my God without fear. It means I get to choose what I do with today, rather than someone else choosing it for me. It means that at the end of the day, I get to sit down with my family and focus on enjoying their company rather than fearing my government. It means that in a few short months, I can cast a ballot that will impact my nations future. Freedom is certainly something to be celebrated. While you are enjoying your backyard BBQ with friends and family, or watching an exhilarating fireworks display, reflect on the words of Ronald Reagan at his Memorial Day speech in 1986. We must always remember, he said, that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. The words from his inaugural address as governor of California also ring in my ears, Freedom is a fragile thing that is never more than one generation away from extinction. Remember the power that your freedom gives you ... and the responsibility that comes with it. You have a say in who gets to lead The Land of the Free. And it is only through diligent citizens upholding their duty of voting that freedom will be retained. Fight for your freedom To the men who founded this nation and to those who fought to preserve it, I am forever grateful. Thanks to them, I do not have to take up arms and fight a ground war. But to honor them, I must continue to fight for my country and my freedom in the best way I know how. Through prayerful and educated voting, I will strive to persevere in the freedoms that I so dearly enjoy on this day. I would like to encourage you to really take in and ponder all the privileges that come with freedom. Thank God for them and enjoy them! And then, use your voice and your vote to fight for freedom. Home Opinion Multicultural church counseling: Helpful or hurtful to faith traditions? The debate surrounding multiculturalism within the Church poses a critical question: does celebrating diverse cultures enhance social unity or risk diluting our faith traditions? At the heart of this discourse is exploring individual and cultural identities. Psychiatrist Daniel Siegel posits that our need for belonging, and connection is embedded in our biology, shaping our collective identity. In his book, City of God, St. Augustine observes the heavenly city, which, while on earth, embraces citizens from all nations and unites a diverse array of pilgrims speaking various languages. Understanding multicultural counseling necessitates grasping the essence of culture and multiculturalism. Is culture a singular concept or a mosaic of diverse expressions? Social thinker Daniel Bell describes culture as a framework that offers logical responses to existential challenges, molding our understanding of identity, purpose, and meaning. This implies that each person experiences culture uniquely, making multiculturalism highly relevant. Multicultural counseling acknowledges the significance of diverse cultural backgrounds and experiences in understanding individuals and providing practical, culturally responsive solutions to their problems. Nonetheless, contemporary Christians face the challenge of postmodern ideologys impact on multiculturalism. Postmodernism emphasizes the relativity of truth, suggesting that all perspectives are equally valid, in direct conflict with the Christian belief in absolute truth grounded in the Bible. However, the Bible transcends all cultures, urging Christians to filter cultural traditions and philosophies through biblical principles (Colossians 2:8). For example, in a culture that esteems individualism, the Bible promotes love for ones neighbor and community (Mark 12:31). By aligning cultural practices with biblical teachings, Christians can engage in multiculturalism in a manner that respects both their faith and the diversity of human cultures. 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 Multiculturalism is not just a societal construct, but it is a fundamental part of Gods design. Biblical narratives, from the creation story in Genesis to the prophetic visions in Revelation, consistently portray diversity as an aspect of Gods design. The act of creation is described as God speaking life into existence, transforming darkness into light, and subsequently generating a magnificent array of animals and plants. The skies and seas became vibrant with life, each creature proclaiming Gods boundless creativity. This includes majestic lions alongside delicate butterflies and towering oaks in harmony with gentle wildflowers, all reflecting the depth of His love and artistic brilliance. As the pinnacle of His masterpiece, God molded humanity in His image, creating man and woman in a beautiful display of diversity. Even after the Fall of Adam and Eve, God promised to restore creation, beginning with Abraham, whom He chose to be the father of many nations. In an ancient Greek translation of the Bible, the word for nations is ethne, meaning different people groups or ethnicities. This concept surpasses unity, celebrating the diversity of people and cultures on earth. Jesus further exemplified this by shattering cultural norms and embracing individuals from all backgrounds, ultimately sacrificing Himself for all humanity. His Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations, where nations is translated as ethne, emphasizes Gods enduring plan for diverse people groups across the globe, culminating in a vision of multiethnic worship before Christ, the Lamb of God. Multicultural counseling, when filtered through the Bible, becomes not merely a concept or practice but a lived theology anchored in biblical principles, aligning with the mission of the Great Commission and reflecting Christs love for all humanity. This integration of multicultural counseling and biblical principles underwent scrutiny in a small Christian community. A professional counselor, whom well refer to as Mr. Jones, sparked debate during a workshop for couples from various ethnic backgrounds. He emphasized the importance of embracing cultural differences within families to strengthen relationships. However, some members questioned its compatibility with their Christian beliefs, fearing it could dilute their faith. Despite efforts to bridge this gap, skepticism persisted among those struggling to reconcile their beliefs with counseling approaches incorporating cultural considerations. Recognizing different cultures can be challenging, yet it need not conflict with Christian beliefs. Our identities are shaped by Gods design, our upbringing, and our environment. Respecting different cultures requires sharing our uniqueness and recognizing that Gods love transcends cultural differences. By doing so, we honor Gods diverse creation and follow His command to love others. Returning to the initial question: does celebrating diverse cultures strengthen social cohesion or dilute our faith traditions? From biblical and counseling perspectives, diversity strengthens society. As followers of Christ, we can lead by example in recognizing multiculturalism through Gods Word and integrating cultural considerations into our interactions, including counseling. Diversity is not something to fear, not absolute, but it is a reflection of Gods magnificence. St. Augustine reminds us that the city of God works for earthly peace and calls us not to scruple over cultural differences as long as they do not hinder the worship of God. Multicultural counseling honors the inherent worth of every individual made in Gods image. Therefore, may we worship God, who is worthy of all our praise, and love one another despite our differences, remaining steadfast in our commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Home Opinion On July 4, let us remember where our true freedom is found The United States has a long history of fighting for freedom. The dumping of tea into Boston Harbor in 1773 symbolized the American struggle for liberty. This event ignited a revolutionary spirit, culminating in the fight for independence from British tyranny. Famously, the Declaration of Independence from 1776 stated that all people have unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from their Creator. This foundational belief in God-given freedom has shaped the nations identity and inspired countless movements for justice and equality. However, while the American Revolution secured political freedom, the Christian understanding of true freedom goes deeper, addressing the spiritual bondage that affects every human heart. In a world that often defines freedom as the ability to do whatever one wants to do, the Christian understanding of true freedom stands in stark contrast. 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 Rooted in the Scriptures, the theology of freedom offers a profound and liberating perspective that goes beyond the superficial and often deceptive allure of worldly freedom. This article explores the essence of true freedom in Christ, grounded in biblical principles, and its implications for our lives. The Illusion of worldly freedom Individualism and self-determination significantly influence modern conceptions of freedom. Society promotes the idea that freedom means being free from any constraints or obligations and pursuing ones desires and ambitions without hindrance. However, this notion often leads to bondage bondage to sin, selfishness, and the endless pursuit of personal satisfaction. The Bible warns against the worlds take on freedom. In Galatians 5:13, Paul writes, For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. As we can see in todays society, the decision to misuse our freedom to indulge in sinful desires will ultimately enslave us rather than liberate us. True freedom in Christ According to the Bible, true freedom is found in Christ alone. It is not about the absence of constraints but the presence of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). This freedom is a gift from God, made possible through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Submitting our lives to Christ will provide us with four distinct freedoms. Freedom from sin First and foremost, true freedom in Christ means freedom from the power and penalty of sin. Jesus declared in John 8:3436, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Christ has broken the chains of sin that once bound us through His atoning work on the cross, offering us forgiveness and a new life. Romans 6:22 further elaborates, But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. This verse underscores the transformative power of Christs freedom, leading us into a life of holiness and eternal joy. The Puritan writer Samuel Bolton profoundly expressed this freedom when he said, The law sends us to Christ to be justified, and Christ sends us to the law to be regulated. This highlights how true freedom in Christ is found not in abandoning Gods law but in living according to it through the power of the Holy Spirit. Freedom to serve Biblical freedom is not self-centered but other-centered. Galatians 5:13 exhorts us to use our freedom to serve one another in love, a radical departure from the worlds understanding of freedom. In Christ, we can lay down our lives for others, following His example of selfless love and service. Philippians 2:34 urges, Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. True freedom empowers us to prioritize the well-being of others above our own. Freedom to obey True freedom in Christ also involves the freedom to obey God. The Psalmist declares, I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts (Psalm 119:45). Obedience to Gods Word is not burdensome but liberating. It leads us into a life of purpose, fulfillment, and alignment with Gods perfect will. James 1:25 confirms this: But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. Obedience to Gods law of liberty results in blessings and true freedom. Puritan theologian Thomas Watson articulated this beautifully: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Cor. 3:17). Christs people are willing people; though they cannot serve Him perfectly, they serve Him willingly. They count it their pleasure to be in His service. This underscores the joy and willingness that come with the freedom to obey Christ. Freedom from fear In Christ, we are also set free from the bondage of fear. Romans 8:15 assures us, For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father!' As children of God, we can live confidently and boldly, knowing that our Heavenly Father is with us and for us. 2 Timothy 1:7 reinforces this truth: For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Our freedom in Christ dispels fear and empowers us with His strength and love. Puritan theologian John Owen captured this aspect of freedom well: The greatest unkindness you can do to the Spirit of God is to doubt His love, or question His ability and willingness to save. Our freedom in Christ rests on the assurance of His love and the power of His salvation. Transformational implications Understanding true freedom in Christ has profound implications for our daily lives. It transforms our relationships, our priorities, and our purpose. When we grasp the depth of Christs love and the freedom He offers, it transforms our relationships. We are empowered to forgive, to love unconditionally, and to seek reconciliation. This freedom fosters healthy, Christ-centered communities where each member is valued and cherished. Ephesians 4:32 encourages us, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. The freedom we receive from Christ enables us to extend grace and forgiveness to others. True freedom reorients our priorities. No longer enslaved to the pursuit of personal gain or worldly success, we are free to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). Our time, talents, and resources are directed towards eternal purposes, bringing glory to God. Colossians 3:1-2 reminds us, If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Our freedom in Christ shifts our focus to heavenly pursuits. Finally, true freedom gives us a sense of purpose. We no longer aimlessly wander through life but are called to be ambassadors of Christ, sharing the message of freedom with a world that desperately needs to hear it. Our lives become a testament to the transformative power of the Gospel. 2 Corinthians 5:20 declares, Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Our freedom in Christ compels us to spread the message of reconciliation and hope. Conclusion The theology of freedom in Christ offers a rich and liberating understanding of what it means to be truly free. It calls us out of the bondage of sin and self-centeredness into a life of righteousness, service, obedience, and fearlessness. As we embrace this true freedom, we experience the fullness of life that Jesus promised, and we become instruments of His peace and love in a world longing for genuine liberation. Let us, therefore, stand firm in the freedom that Christ has won for us and live out our calling with joy and purpose. As we celebrate July 4 and the political freedom we enjoy in the United States, it is important to recognize that this freedom came at a great price. Brave men and women sacrificed their lives so that we might live in a land of liberty. In our book Just Thinking About the State, Darrell Harrison and I emphasize the importance of understanding political freedom within a biblical framework, writing, True liberty is not the freedom to do what we want but the freedom to do what we ought, which is to glorify God and serve others following His will. In other words, political freedom, while valuable, must be stewarded in a way that honors God and promotes the common good. Yet, the greatest price ever paid was Christs substitutionary death for our eternal freedom. As Darrell and I further elaborate, The ultimate expression of freedom is found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which frees us from the bondage of sin and grants us the liberty to live righteously before God. Galatians 5:1 urges us, For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. May we live in Christs freedom, reflecting His love and truth in all we do. This freedom is a privilege and a profound responsibility to live as His ambassador, sharing the message of true freedom with a world in desperate need of hope and salvation. Originally published at the Standing for Freedom Center. Home Opinion Relationships are key to long-term health Since 1938, the Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed two groups of men. One is a group of 456 boys from Bostons most troubled families and roughest neighborhoods. The other consisted of 268 Harvard College students, chosen by a professor of hygiene specifically for their potential to become healthy, well-adjusted adults. The focus of the longitudinal study has been to discern the factors that best predict a long, healthy life. The researchers who have followed these young men have maintained a stunning 84% participation rate over eight decades. They have visited homes, spoken to parents and siblings, tracked medical exams, and followed marriages and careers. The study, which is currently tracking a second generation of participants, has produced a wealth of significant data. However, in a recent article published in The Wall Street Journal, director Dr. Robert Waldinger and associate director Dr. Marc Schulz pointed to the most significant contributing factor for physical health, mental health, and longevity. Close personal connections are significant enough that if we had to take all 85 years of the Harvard Study and boil it down to a single principle for living, one life investment that is supported by similar findings across a variety of other studies, it would be this: Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period. If you want to make one decision to ensure your own health and happiness, it should be to cultivate warm relationships of all kinds. 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 In fact, the importance of relationships for long-term health increased as the participants aged. Especially for older people, Waldinger and Schulz continued, loneliness is twice as unhealthy as obesity, and chronic loneliness increases a persons odds of death in any given year by 26%. Modern life strains our most important relationships in key ways, especially family relationships. According to Pew Research, nearly four in 10 adults ages 25-54 are neither married nor living with a partner, and the average age of marrying keeps climbing. Also, the U.S. is the world leader in single-parent households, with nearly one in four American children living with one parent and no other adults. Given this data, compounded by the average seven hours a day Americans spend looking at screens, is it any wonder that around 58% of adults, including 79% of those aged 18-24, report feeling lonely? In fact, these trends are shaping expectations. According to a Pew study, 98% of parents said it is extremely or somewhat important for their children to reach financial independence and hold a job they enjoy, but only 21% said it is extremely or very important that their kids be married. And only 20% said its extremely or very important for their kids to have children. Given the mountains of evidence that point to the long-term value of marriage for both individuals and society, this is more than an unfortunate development. Its a denial of reality. Because humans are made in the image of the God who is Trinity, relationships are as much a part of our created design as eating, sleeping, working, and breathing. In his masterful essay The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis argued that this relational aspect of our humanity has eternal implications: It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbors glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploitimmortal horrors or everlasting splendors. As it turns out, staying married, raising kids, investing in church, and maintaining lifelong friendships could be the most significant thing we do for ourselves and for others, for today and for eternity. Originally published at BreakPoint. Home Opinion The most important day in US history What was the most important day in our nation's history? Many would say July 4, 1776, and for very good reasons. We will commemorate Independence Day this week the day our forefathers signed one of the most important documents in history, the Declaration of Independence. Yet there was another July 4 that may be the more miraculous day: July 4, 1787. The Revolutionary War had been fought and won at great cost. The founding fathers wisely structured a government called the Continental Congress. But by 1787, a permanent government structure for the long haul was needed. They gathered in Philadelphia to put the structure in place and to write a constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation. It was not going well. The delegates could not agree on how states would represent themselves. This appeared to be an insurmountable obstacle that could not be overcome. Anger and tension filled the air. Some delegates walked out. Some threatened military action against other delegates. Frustration and disappointment abounded. Those who had pledged their lives and fortunes in hopes for a new nation, were now unsure their dream would ever come to pass, the outcome hanging in the balance. 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 On June 26th, 1787, all seemed lost. Suddenly, Ben Franklin asked to speak to the assembly. By now, he was an elder statesman known to be the least spiritual of all the founding fathers. This well-respected man walked to the front of the gathering, stopping at the podium. With great conviction and immovable resolve, he spoke to the delegates. In the beginning of the contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine Protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance. I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth that God governs in the affairs of men. The hall was quiet. No one dared speak. Yet, this riveting speech demanded a reaction. Therefore, a motion was immediately put forth and passed for the leaders to begin each day of deliberations with prayer and have a chaplain attend the meetings to lead this daily prayer. Additionally, they passed a motion to break and take three days to fast and pray. As the meeting adjourned that day, each man went his own way to enter into a time of prayer and fasting. They reassembled on July 4, 1787. When they gathered, everything was different. The anger and animosity was gone. Agreeable conversations took place where ill feelings had once resided. One of the delegates, Jonathan Dayton, wrote in his journal every unfriendly feeling had been expelled, and the spirit of conciliation had been cultivated. Prayer triggers cooperation. Prayer releases divine solutions. That day, they formed a committee that created the representative structure of the House of Representatives and Senate. With representation based on population (the House) and equally assigned to each state (the Senate), they called this plan the great compromise. It was the final large piece of the puzzle for the Constitution. A final draft was produced in about six weeks, and then the states ratified it. Today, I pose the same questions to our leaders that Ben Franklin asked the Continental Congress. Are we smart enough now to not need the assistance of the Almighty? Have we forgotten our powerful friend? Why would we not want to solicit the Supreme in the affairs of this nation? Why would we not want to petition for the power of Providence to act? Why would we not entreat the eternal God for wisdom? And why would we not appeal to divine power to solve the issues of today? Our nation was founded on prayer, and it would not be here without prayer, nor would it continue to thrive without prayer. This year, lets celebrate both July 4 days that shaped the United States of America, and lets pray that our leaders would ask God for the wisdom they need. Home Opinion What the Body of Christ needs to know about sign language Bible translation Five hundred years ago, people like me those born deaf were shunned or left to die. But today, there are more than 70 million sign language users and over 350 different sign languages worldwide. Even so, only one sign language has the full translation of the Bible, American Sign Language. At Wycliffe, we believe that language is a gift from God. Yet language can also be an enormous barrier to sharing the Gospel. Our goal is to see that barrier removed everywhere. 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 Though communicating through signs has existed since antiquity, the first known formal sign language education began in France in the 1750s. Since then, sign language has branched and grown throughout the entire world. Every individual is hardwired for communication. Just like you, I want to be known and understood. But unlike those who can hear, the spoken word has no meaning for people who are deaf our language is wholly embodied. This presents both a challenge and an enormous opportunity for communicating Gods Word through sign language. Years ago, a colleague of mine traveled to a school for deaf children in Nicaragua following the years of civil war. Deaf children had been isolated from each other and had very limited language, but within two to three years of interacting with each other at this new school, they developed a unique language incorporating both hand signs and facial expressions. After a few more years, the language became even more nuanced, proving that in all circumstances, people have an innate ability for language and a drive to communicate with each other. Traditionally and historically, the Bible has been translated into printed languages. For many deaf people those who understand most naturally through signs, or embodied communication reading can lack a connection to the heart. Moving from a word-by-word translation to natural sign language, Bible stories are internalized and shared with unparalleled richness. Once, a deaf woman who was a leader in her local church came to a sign language training. Despite having access to the written Bible, it was only after she saw the Gospel message signed that she truly realized what Christ had done for her. When people are given the message of the Gospel in their heart language, their lives are transformed. However many feel hesitant to lead the way in translation efforts. Because of this, we coined a sign for God-empowered that shifts peoples focus away from the translator and places the focus back on God. It is not any one of us who offers the power of the Gospel or gives the authority of translation. Its only God, and there is no question that hes giving power to communities all over the world for this work. Recently, I met the first deaf student in Benin. He grew up learning sign language and taught it to a number of others before he left the area for some time. In watching the younger generation translate when he returned, he was so impressed by the power of their storytelling and how beautiful and accessible their visuals were. The language had evolved, and now older generations are observing how younger ones are leading the way. Social media and digital communication have also changed the landscape of how deaf people interact in the world. From Chameleon, an AI sign language tool, to sharing videos of Bible stories through WhatsApp, instead of a deaf person having one teacher, younger generations are learning sign language from a much broader selection of people. Yet different languages have different signs such as how the sign for sin in one language can look similar to a sign for truth in another. This highlights the need for much patience and grace in translation work. Yet I am confident that once the concept of God-empowered makes its way into the vocabulary of sign languages throughout the world, we are going to see an explosion of deaf people coming to know Christ. If one person translates a Bible story, we want someone else to think, Now that I know this, I can translate it, too. God is ever speaking and drawing people to himself, though not exclusively through the written or spoken word. And as the body of Christ, its only fitting that we become aware of and support embodied language as a means of drawing people towards him. Home Opinion Where did this faith come from? Have you ever taken a bold step of faith and had it lead to failure? If so, let me thank you! I would rather try and fail than never try it all. It has been said, If at first you dont succeed, relax ... youre just like the rest of us! But what about those times when you take that step of faith and it succeeds? That reminds me of a Bible story. 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 disciples were crossing over the Sea of Galilee, when a violent wind came up, seemingly out of nowhere. Most of these men had been around this body of water their whole lives, but that didnt make the passage easy. Matthews account says the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it (Matthew 14:24, NIV). The Greek word used here for buffeting actually means to torture or torment. The waves were crazy that night, and the men in the boat may have thought their discipling days were over. Then, sometime between 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., they saw Jesus, robe billowing in the wind, walking toward them out of the darkness on the water. He called to them, Dont be afraid ... Take courage. I am here! (Matthew 14:27). And that set the stage for one of most dramatic encounters in the New Testament or anywhere else. Then Peter called to him, Lord, if its really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water. Yes, come, Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. Save me, Lord! he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. You have so little faith, Jesus said. Why did you doubt me? (Matthew 14:28-31) Dont you love that story? What a stunning step of faith Peter took that stormy night. He did what no one else in that boat would do or maybe even think of doing. Sometimes people criticize Peter for being outspoken or putting his foot in his mouth. A lot of ink is given in the Gospels to Peters faux pas and shortcomings. But lets not forget that he was the only one of the disciples who was willing to put it all on the line in the wee hours of the morning and walk on the water toward Jesus. He had no safety net, he wasnt wearing water wings, and there was no backup plan. It was either Jesus coming through for him or nothing. Where did this faith come from? From the word of Jesus. Peter had asked permission, and Jesus said, Come. The Scripture tells us that, Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17, NKJV). And Peter heard the word of God that blustery night, calling to him out of the darkness and across the water. I can think of many times over the years where Ive heard the Lord say to me, Come. No, I have never heard the audible voice of God and to be honest, Im suspicious of people who say they have. But I have had the Lord very clearly direct me. I can think of certain moments in my life where I knew without a doubt that it was the will of God for me to do a certain thing. But it was never a slam dunk. There was always risk involved. So, Peter took a huge step of faith. But it wasnt impossible for him, because he was looking across that stretch of tortured water at Jesus Himself, the Son of God. Thats the key. You look to Jesus. My mind goes back to an incident in the life of King Jehoshaphat, Davids great-great-great grandson. The little nation of Judah was under attack by multiple armies bent on their destruction (sound familiar?). Their enemies were already on the march, Judah was vastly outnumbered and there was no time to plan an adequate defense. So, the king made the best choice possible. He called for a national prayer meeting. All the nation assembled, men, women, and little ones. Standing up in their midst, Jehoshaphat prayed aloud: O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you (2 Chronicles 20:12, NIV). That has to be one of my favorite prayers in the Bible. Lord, we dont know where to turn, we dont know how to escape, we dont have a plan to defend ourselves, and we dont know what to do. But our eyes are on You, Lord. We look to You as our only help and hope. And as we know God came through in a spectacular, unforgettable way. The New Testament tells us to run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:1-2, NKJV). Fixing our eyes on Jesus. Thats what Jehoshaphat did, and thats what Peter didfor a moment or two. But then when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink (Matthew 14:30, Message). We will all have lapses of faith. You may be walking in faith one day, but then have an attack of fear in the night and not have it the next. You can have faith for an hour, but let it slip away a few minutes later. Youre believing God, youre taking risks, youre applying faith, youre quoting Scripture, and then all of a sudden the what if questions start buzzing around your head like a swarm of bees and you lose the handle on your faith and resolve. What do you do in a situation like that? You do what Peter did. He immediately called out to Jesus. Its interesting to me that Scripture says, he began to sink or he started to sink. It didnt happen instantaneously. But he felt himself slipping. He felt himself going under. And he cried out, Lord, save me! Matthew (who was intently watching all this from the safety of the boat) writes that Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. You of little faith, he said, why did you doubt? (Matthew 14:31, NIV). Dont you love that word immediately? Jesus didnt wait while Peter sank. He didnt say, Ill let the water get up to his neck to teach him a lesson. No, Jesus instantly reached out and pulled him back up. Did Peter think about that in later years? How was he pulled out of the water by the hand of God the hand that created the galaxies? Maybe as you read these words you are experiencing your own lapse of faith. Its okay. Its no disgrace. Just call out to Jesus. No matter what other people may tell you, we all all have those moments where we forget what we should remember. As someone has so aptly said, we should never believe our doubts and we should never doubt our beliefs. Instead, we should believe our beliefs and doubt our doubts. So yes, Peter failed. But what a spectacular failure. I have heard it said, If at first you dont succeed, relax. Youre just like the rest of us. I would rather take a bold step of faith in my efforts to honor God and fail falling flat on my face than tip-toe around all risk and accomplish nothing for Him. Many people do nothing at all with their faith, but then have the audacity to critique others who do apply their faith and venture into the unknown. Perhaps, at some point in your life, you took a bold step of faith, and it didnt go as you had hoped. You shared the gospel with someone, and they shut down or took offense. You started a little home Bible study, and no one showed up. Even the dog and cat left. Maybe you prayed for someone who was sick, and their condition got worse. I remember a friend of mine being really sick and asking me to pray for him. Of course, I said, Yes, I will! I did pray for himand he got violently ill after that. A couple of days later he called me and said, Do me a favor. Never pray for me again, okay? The Church is comprised of so many people who have stepped out who have crawled over the side of the boat and taken risks for the sake of the Name. Or maybe they have labored tirelessly behind the scenes, doing the work of God and holding up their brothers and sisters in prayer. Our Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Maybe, like Peter on the Sea of Galilee, you stepped over the side of the boat in 141 feet of water and sank like a rock. And maybe you also felt the strong hand of Jesus pull you up again and walk you to safety. The plunge into cold water would be well worth the remedy. Holding hands with the Lord of all. Home Opinion Why aren't pro-life Christians more supportive of pregnancy centers? Just two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to return the issue of abortion to the people and their elected representatives. In todays contentious political climate, it should come as no surprise that not all elected representatives support legal protections for unborn children. More surprising, though, is that some of those elected representatives also do not support true choice for women. Instead, they are actively working to eliminate womens choices by targeting pro-life pregnancy centers. Two decades ago, I was first introduced to the pro-life movement when my mom signed me up to volunteer at a local pregnancy center with my church. Today, I represent pro-life pregnancy centers in court as an Alliance Defending Freedom attorney. In many ways, pregnancy centers are the heart of the pro-life movement. These centers serve on the front lines by meeting women where they are and encouraging them to choose life for their unborn children. But pregnancy centers are also crucial to providing women with the information, support, and resources they need to make a true choice to continue an unplanned pregnancy. 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 Pregnancy centers offer both material and emotional support to women who want to choose life such as diapers, baby and maternity clothing, parenting classes, and adoption referrals free of charge. Many centers also offer free pregnancy testing and pregnancy-options counseling to women who are unsure what choice to make, and free post-abortion counseling or support groups for women who choose to terminate their pregnancy. Some pregnancy centers have licensed medical staff and provide free medical services, such as ultrasounds or STD testing and treatment. It is hard to imagine how anyone regardless of their opinion on abortion could oppose centers that offer free resources to women, children, and families. Yet many pro-choice elected officials are trying to shut down pregnancy centers. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey recently launched a million-dollar public education campaign to dissuade women from visiting pro-life pregnancy centers. Notably, the motivation behind this campaign is not to protect womens choice whether to bear or beget a child the right protected by the Supreme Courts now-defunct abortion cases but to protect[] and expand[] access to safe and legal abortion (emphasis added). Unfortunately, Massachusetts is not the only state where elected officials have declare[d] war on pro-life pregnancy centers. Last fall, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 15 other state attorneys general penned an open letter support[ing] Yelps efforts to warn consumers about pregnancy centers that do not provide abortions or abortion services and promising to take numerous actions ... to mitigate the harmful effects of these centers. When the letter was published, Bonta had already made good on that promise by bringing suit against five California pregnancy centers for advertising abortion pill reversal an evidence-based treatment that uses progesterone, a safe and natural hormone, to counteract the effects of the abortion drug mifepristone. Research shows that APR has a 64-68% success rate, and statistics indicate it has likely saved over 5,000 unborn children by countering the lethal effects of abortion drugs. Other states have followed suit. In Colorado, for example, ADF attorneys represent Chelsea Mynyk a licensed nurse practitioner, certified nurse midwife, and APR provider in a case challenging a state law that makes it illegal to prescribe progesterone for the purpose of reversing the effects of mifepristone. And, in New York, Attorney General Letitia James sued 11 faith-based, pro-life pregnancy centers and a network of affiliated centers in the state because they made positive and truthful claims about the safety and efficacy of APR. ADF represents two additional pregnancy centers and a nonprofit network of affiliated centers in a separate lawsuit challenging the attorney generals ability to censor the centers speech concerning APR. But the attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers are not limited to their provision of APR. Last summer, Vermont enacted a law censoring the ability of pregnancy centers to advertise their life-affirming services and counsel women about their pregnancy options. ADF filed suit, and just this month, a federal court rejected the attorney generals attempt to keep the case out of court, in part because the law specifically targets pregnancy centers for their pro-life beliefs. And ADF recently represented Illinois pregnancy centers at trial in a case challenging a state law that forces pro-life healthcare providers who have conscientious objections to abortion to inform women of the so-called benefits of abortion and give them a list of providers that offer abortion. Likewise, the New Jersey and Washington attorneys general have targeted pregnancy centers with burdensome and unlawful subpoenas and now face lawsuits from ADF. This war against pregnancy centers has shown the true colors of many pro-choice politicians who have chosen to support abortion at all costs, even at the expense of providing a true choice to pregnant women. Unfortunately, even pro-life Christians are lagging in their support for pregnancy centers. In a recent survey, only a third of churchgoing Christians reported that their congregation had been involved with pregnancy centers in any way. It is high time for pro-life Christians to step up to defend the crucial work of pro-life pregnancy centers. Clearly our elected representatives will not do it for us. Home Opinion Why the Ten Commandments belong in Louisiana classrooms Its impossible to divorce the Ten Commandments from the founding of America or civil society because Gods law is the foundation of law itself. Louisiana recently passed a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms using private funding. It only makes sense for the Ten Commandments to be displayed in Louisiana and classrooms nationwide given the Commandments indelible impact on our countrys laws and framework. This makes Louisiana the first, but hopefully not the last, state in the nation to require the Ten Commandments in the classroom. The Louisiana law notes the Ten Commandments role in state and national history, culture, and tradition, and recognizing the historical role of the Ten Commandments accords with our nation's history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the founders of our nation with respect to the necessity of civic morality to a functional self-government. 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 Ten Commandments, given by God to Moses at Mount Sinai, established the framework of law and the basis of morality as we know it and has done so for thousands of years. Its not surprising that anti-religion groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation didnt skip a beat in taking legal action against the anticipated Ten Commandments publication. Because of recent legal precedent and our nations moral foundation and religious mooring, I am confident the Ten Commandments will remain on classroom walls in Louisiana from January 2025 onward, as the law states, and hopefully set historic legal precedent. Death of the Lemon Test When it comes to religious liberty, the law is on our side. In 2005, I argued before the Supreme Court regarding the Ten Commandments in a historical display, and since then, Liberty Counsel has never lost a case on a stand-alone or historical display of the Ten Commandments. But the most significant legal precedent for religious liberty was established in 2022 with the death of the Lemon Test. The unanimous Shurtleff v. City of Boston win, where I represented Hal Shurtleff and his right to display the Christian flag in a public forum, was cited in Kennedy v. Bremerton, which was the death knell to Lemon. The Lemon Test, a result of the 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman decision, haunted the legal landscape for over 51 years and allowed government discrimination based on religious viewpoint. Freedom of religion became freedom from religion under the Lemon Test and was the reason activist courts removed crosses, Ten Commandments displays, nativity scenes, and other religious symbols from government property. For decades, activist courts and judges used the Lemon Test to sanitize the public square of religion, but now that Lemon is overturned, there is no legal ground to stand on for lawsuits against religious symbols like the Ten Commandments in public places. Lemon lies in the grave, never to stalk the Establishment Clause like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie, as Justice Scalia wrote in Lambs Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District. Myth of separation of Church and state The Ten Commandments, and other religious elements, played an integral role in American public education for nearly three centuries. When the Supreme Court decided to remove prayer from public schools in 1962 in Engel v. Vitale and to remove the Ten Commandments from public schools in 1980 in Stone v. Graham, many Americans wrote off the idea of Christian influence in public schools and embraced the myth of separation of church and state. This oft-misinterpreted phrase is found nowhere in our founding documents and was coined by President Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 during the time he was attending a national church service in the U.S. Capitol. Since the Danbury Baptists were rightfully concerned about religious freedom, this statement was to assure them that the American government would never impose a state religion like the Church of England. The Founders, however, never intended for God to be expunged from government. Instead, they established the Constitution for a religious and moral people, saying, it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other, in the words of President John Adams. President James Madison said, "[w]e have staked the whole future of our new nation ... upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments." Our Founders relied heavily on Gods Word and law to establish the United States. They would be pleased to see the Ten Commandments displayed in classrooms and shocked that they were removed in the first place. Supporting the Ten Commandments in public schools does not equate to permitting the Quran, the LGBT Pride flag, or other pseudo-religious materials in the classroom in the name of the First Amendment, and it is absurd to insinuate that allowing the Ten Commandments opens this door. Our nation was founded on the principles set forth in the Ten Commandments, and our education should reflect our Judeo-Christian founding, not ideologies antithetical to the core values embedded in our foundation. Indeed, there are about 50 displays of the Ten Commandments inside and outside the U.S. Supreme Court. The Ten Commandments is part of the official seal of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ten Commandments is ubiquitous because the Commandments clearly shaped American law and government. We would not be the United States of America without this moral and legal standard. Terror attacks force denomination to close 70 churches Terrorist attacks have forced a denomination to close 70 churches in central Nigeria's Plateau state, while in the country's northwest, Christians are celebrating the release of a kidnapped priest. The Rev. Amos Mohzo, president of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News that attacks by Fulani herdsmen and other terrorists have forced 70 congregations in Plateau state's Mangu and Bokkos counties to stop services in the past two years. Previous Christmas attacks last December directly affected COCIN congregations, he said. "Our members were killed, people were killed, people lost their houses, many [were] traumatized and we couldn't do anything," Pastor Mohzo said. "We were stranded, but we had to face the challenge, and Christmas was celebrated by displaced Christians in Internally Displaced People's (IDPs) camps in spite of the tragedy." In the Mangu area, attacks forced at least 40 COCIN congregations to close, he said. "Most of these members of our church were displaced, and many of them are living in camps outside their communities," Mohzo said. "Most of these Christians have been moving here and there trying to survive or find succor." In the Bokkos area, the denomination lost "about 30" congregations, he said. "All our worship church buildings in these communities were burned down by the terrorists," Mohzo added. "Internally Displaced Christians from these communities are still living in camps outside their communities. And even now, most of them who are farmers are unable to go to their farms." In some cases, Christians who have dared to return to their farms have formed communal groups for a greater sense of security, he said. "Notwithstanding, our displaced church members still find it difficult to go to their farms for productive activities because of ceaseless attacks against them by armed terrorists, herdsmen and bandits," he said. "With these developments, we have been making efforts to see that our church members who survived these attacks and are living in camps outside their communities are relocated back to their communities. But then, we have to rebuild not just worship buildings, but also their burned houses." At the same time, COCIN evangelistic outreaches in northeastern Nigeria have been hindered by attacks by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). "I'm from the northeast of Nigeria, Gwoza Local Government Area, precisely from Limankara town, and my village is Ngoshe Sama, which is located on the hills," Mohzo said. "Boko Haram took over the village years back, and they're still there. So, these hills occupied by Boko Haram terrorists overlook Limankara and Gwoza towns. These terrorists come down from the hills to attack our communities and then retreat into the hills." The attacks on June 29 in Gwoza killed and maimed both Christians and Muslims, he said. "We live together as a community," Mohzo explained. "However, with the coming of insurgency, the emergence of Boko Haram in Borno state, many of our people have been killed, and others have been driven out and displaced to other areas of Nigeria. Those who have no places to go to had to stay back and make up their minds to die when attacked by the terrorists." Life has not been easy for the survivors, he lament ed. "They cannot go to their farms because of the terrorists, so they depend on Non-Governmental Organizations to support them," he said. "And with present economic hardship being experienced in the country, the NGOs, too, are unable to cater to these displaced Christians." The sheer number of kidnappings has also made it difficult for the COCIN to raise money to pay the ransom demand to release one of its pastors. The Rev. Paul Musa was kidnapped along with his wife by Boko Haram terrorists in March 2023, he said. "We, as a church, are handicapped, because it is impossible to raise money at all times to pay ransoms to terrorists to secure the release of pastors being held captive," he told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. "And this is because almost in all parts of northern Nigeria, our church members and pastors are being kidnapped by terrorists. So, where can we raise large sums of money to get them out from their captors?" Nevertheless, COCIN leaders have been appealing to individuals and organizations to secure the release of Musa and other church members held captive. Musa and his wife have been held captive for more than a year. "I was recently in the city of Maiduguri and visited his children," he said. "They're traumatized. They pleaded with me to secure the release of their parents, and I told them that if it is within my reach I will not allow their parents to remain in captivity even for one second, but it's beyond us. The children are always crying, always in tears for their parents. It pains my heart to see these children in this way." Boko Haram Islamic terrorists who kidnapped the pastor and his wife in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, in the third week of June threatened to kill him if the ransom wasn't paid within a week. "The ultimatum issued has now expired, as it's now more than a week when the threat was issued by the terrorists, and nothing has been heard from his captors," Mohzo said. "We are appealing to the captors of Rev. Musa and his wife to please release them. They should have mercy on the couple and release them." He said terrorist attacks have also engulfed northwest Nigeria. "Our churches in the northwest of the country are not spared by terrorists either. Christians in the northwest of Nigeria also suffer the same terrorists' attacks," he said. "Evangelization activities have been impeded in this part of the country. How can we deliberately jeopardize and endanger the lives of those called to ministry, when we know that they'll become targets of terrorist attacks?" In northwest Nigeria's Zamfara state, Roman Catholic Priest Mikah Suleiman was released on Sunday after being kidnapped on June 22, according to the church's Sokoto Diocese. He and church officials failed to reveal who had kidnapped him or reveal the terms for his release. "I want to thank you for your prayers and support towards my rescue," Suleiman said in a video released by the diocese on Sunday. "By the grace of God, I'm out from the hands of the bandits." Sokoto Diocese Communications Director Pascal Salifu thanked "the authorities and all involved in securing Father Mikah's release." In the Open Doors' 2024 World Watch List of the countries where it's most difficult to be a Christian, Nigeria was ranked No. 6, just as it was in the previous year. Nigeria remained the deadliest place in the world to follow Christ, with 4,118 people killed for their faith from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023, according to the WWL report. More kidnappings of Christians than in any other country also took place in Nigeria, with 3,300. Nigeria was also the third-highest country in number of attacks on churches and other Christian buildings such as hospitals, schools and cemeteries, with 750, according to the report. Christian Daily InternationalMorning Star News Accenture has acquired Excelmax Technologies, a Bangalore-based semiconductor design firm to expand the range of chip design services it offers its clients. Excelmax was founded in 2019 and is into high-level semiconductor design, detailed physical layout and full turnkey execution. The firm offers custom silicon solutions for consumer devices, data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), and edge computing applications, with clients in the automotive, telecommunications, and high-tech sectors. The acquisition aligns with Accentures strategy of addressing the growing demand in the semiconductor market, driven by the proliferation of data centers, AI, and edge computing, the companies said. CIOs are under pressure to integrate generative AI into business operations and products, often driven by the demand to meet business and board expectations swiftly. But many IT departments might not thoroughly consider the prerequisites for successful GenAI deployment, and moving quickly can lead to costly errors and implementation failures. We examine the risks of rapid GenAI implementation and explain how to manage it. As organizations worldwide prepare to spend over $40 billion in core IT (technology budgeted and overseen by central IT) on GenAI in 2024 (per IDCs Worldwide Core IT Spending for GenAI Forecast, 2023-2027, January 2024), theres an urgent need to manage the risks associated with these investments. This massive expenditure reflects the rapid adoption of GenAI technologies across various industries, but it also raises significant concerns about the preparedness of IT departments and the greater business to handle the complex requirements for successful implementation. Notable GenAI blunders Recent incidents highlight the potential pitfalls of hasty GenAI adoption: ChatGPT falsely accused a law professor of harassment. falsely accused a law professor of harassment. Air Canada was ordered to compensate a customer misled by its chatbot. was ordered to compensate a customer misled by its chatbot. Google had to pause its Gemini AI model due to inaccuracies in historical images. had to pause its Gemini AI model due to inaccuracies in historical images. Samsung employees leaked proprietary data to ChatGPT. employees leaked proprietary data to ChatGPT. A ChatGPT bug exposed user conversations to other clients. These examples underscore the severe risks of data spills, brand damage, and legal issues that arise from the move fast and break things mentality. Mark Zuckerbergs famous quote should serve as a cautionary tale rather than a directive. Key risks in GenAI implementation Organizations face a myriad of risks when deploying GenAI, including but not limited to: AI and data poisoning Bias and limited explainability Brand threat Copyright infringement Cost overruns Environmental impact Governance and security challenges Integration and interoperability issues Litigation and regulatory compliance IDC research shows that two-thirds of companies are overspending on their cloud budgets (IDC CIO Quick Poll, December 2022), and similar budget overruns are expected with GenAI. Additionally, issues like bias, confabulation, and performance inaccuracies are prevalent. The decentralization of GenAI implementation by business staff without IT oversight further complicates governance. Vendor understanding and preparedness A significant portion of CEOs (45%) and CIOs (66%) believe that technology vendors dont fully grasp the risks associated with AI (IDC Worldwide CEO Survey and IDC CIO Quick Poll, January 2024). This skepticism necessitates rigorous questioning of vendors about privacy, data protection, security, and the use of training data. Effective partnering requires transparency and clear documentation from vendors. GenAI is increasingly being integrated into existing enterprise applications. When considering GenAI implementation risk, organizations cant forget that implementation can be their vendors adding GenAI functionality to products the organization already owns. About 35% of applications currently use some form of AI/ML with that number projected to grow to 50% within two years (Cloud Pulse 2Q23, IDC, August 2023 IDC). This is a risk that many organizations dont consider. For instance, Microsoft is embedding its Copilot into Windows 11, and companies like ServiceNow and Box are incorporating GenAI capabilities. Its crucial for organizations to understand how these integrations work, their implications on data privacy, and the conditions under which they operate. Organizations should prepare a comprehensive checklist of questions to evaluate these integrations and discuss the implications with their vendors. Organizations need to determine whether to allow or upgrade to the functionality depending on the privacy, security, accuracy, and transparency implications of the embedded implementation. Five components of GenAI implementation In an effort to mitigate GenAI implementation risk, consider the following five elements: Technology: systems, services, networking, and platforms underpinning GenAI (could be cloud, on-premises, or hybrid) Processes: bias mitigation, security, model transparency, data ingestion, and privacy Talent: technical, data, and model skills to be obtained through training, hiring, or partnering Governance: oversight, accountability, legal, statutory, and ethical expertise.Multi-disciplinary Data: good, known, understood data relevant to the use case IDC, 2024 Assessing AI maturity Understanding AI maturity is crucial for successful GenAI implementation. Organizations must realistically assess their AI maturity levels relative to the project requirements to avoid overcommitting resources. This maturity can be built, procured, or acquired through partnerships, with knowledge transfer being a critical component of any external collaboration. The key elements to understand when assessing maturity are technology, process, talent governance, and data not surprisingly, the five elements in the checklist above. The graphic below describes AI maturity levels as defined by IDCs MaturityScape model. IDC MaturityScape: Artificial Intelligence 2.0, May 2022 When examining use cases, choose ones that match your AI maturity (or the maturity you can procure with third parties). Dont get over your skis and attempt a use case that your organization is not aligned to support. Use case categories and their requirements GenAI use cases fall into three main categories: Productivity or efficiency: These are low-risk tasks like summarizing reports or creating RFPs, requiring minimal customization and talent. They correlate to a low AI maturity and typically bring limited benefits. Functional: These are medium-risk tasks like hyper-personalized marketing, necessitating good data and available in-house talent. They correlate to a moderate AI maturity and can bring moderate benefits. Industry or transformational: These are high-risk, high-impact use cases like generative drug discovery, requiring significant investment in talent and data quality. These can be competitive differentiators or create a competitive moat. They correlate to a high AI maturity and can bring big benefits. Build versus buy: A balanced approach Organizations should adopt a mix of build-and-buy strategies tailored to their specific business and technology contexts. This balanced approach ensures that projects align with organizational maturity and value requirements. The figure below illustrates how the use cases map onto maturity and value and then the related implementation options. Generative AI: Approaches for Competitive Advantage, IDC, October 2023 Conclusion Navigating the risks of GenAI requires a comprehensive understanding of an organizations AI maturity, a balanced build-and-buy approach, and rigorous vendor evaluation. By addressing these challenges and leveraging the right infrastructure, organizations can harness the transformative potential of GenAI while minimizing risks. International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the technology markets. IDC is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG Inc.), the worlds leading tech media, data, and marketing services company. Recently voted Analyst Firm of the Year for the third consecutive time, IDCs Technology Leader Solutions provide you with expert guidance backed by our industry-leading research and advisory services, robust leadership and development programs, and best-in-class benchmarking and sourcing intelligence data from the industrys most experienced advisors. Contact us today to learn more. Get more advice from IDC on managing the risks of GenAI and build versus buy for GenAI. Daniel Saroff is group vice president of consulting and research at IDC, where he is a senior practitioner in the end-user consulting practice. This practice provides support to boards, business leaders, and technology executives in their efforts to architect, benchmark, and optimize their organizations information technology. IDCs end-user consulting practice utilizes our extensive international IT data library, robust research base, and tailored consulting solutions to deliver unique business value through IT acceleration, performance management, cost optimization, and contextualized benchmarking capabilities. Daniel also leads the CIO/end-user research practice at IDC. This practice provides guidance to business and technology executives on how to leverage technology to achieve innovative and disruptive business outcomes. IDCs research enables clients to create grounded business and technology strategies and empowers IT leaders to deliver services and innovation that drive business growth and success. Daniel has over 20 years of experience in senior-level positions in both consulting organizations and delivering technology. Prior to joining IDC, he served as the CIO for a major Massachusetts state agency, where he led the agency through cloud migrations, digital transformation, technology modernization, enterprise platform reengineering, security in-depth and zero trust, and defense and response to a major cyberattack. He also held consulting positions at both Forrester and Gartner and was an IT director at a major aerospace and defense company. Before joining IDC, he owned a private IT management consultancy. Overview Saqib worked before in Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, first as CISO, then as head of digital innovation, how was the change to a CIO, and what are the advantages of having a background in cybersecurity for your new role? Register Now Aboneaza-te la rubricile dorite si primeste zilnic notificari pe email cu link-uri la articolele care au fost adaugate in ultimele 24 de ore. Notificarile vor fi expediate la adresa indicata mai jos. Daca doresti sa schimbi adresa - o poti modifica editand informatia de profil aici. Paul Farmer, the former Mind chief executive who has been hugely influential in changing the narrative around mental health and making illness much more widely understood, has been awarded the Daniel Phelan Award for Outstanding Achievement at this years Charity Awards. Farmer was presented with his prize at the Charity Awards ceremony last night by Cathy Phelan-Watkins, director of Civil Society Media and wife of the late Daniel Phelan, creator of the Charity Awards. He was honoured for three decades of leadership in the mental health sector, including key roles at Samaritans and Rethink Mental Illness, and culminating in 16 years at the helm of Mind. Throughout his career, he campaigned tirelessly for more humane and effective mental health legislation, and was a key proponent of the Mental Health Media Awards which played a critical role in changing how mental ill health is portrayed in the news and on TV programmes. He was one of the architects of Time to Change, the 15-year campaign that brought together charities, employers, schools, funders, government agencies, public authorities, the media, celebrities, and people with lived experience of the mental health system to shift the dial on perceptions of mental ill health and peoples reactions to it. He also wrote or co-authored several seminal reports which served to shift government policy, including the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health and the Thriving at Work review, which set out the minimum standards that all employers should adopt to preserve and protect the mental wellbeing of their staff. Over the course of Farmers career, understanding of and attitudes to mental health among the public, politicians and the media have been transformed. The stigma and discrimination that historically accompanied any form of mental ill health has been significantly reduced, and Farmers campaigning, advocacy and collaborative approach have been key to this change. Now, as chief executive of Age UK, he wants to effect a similar transformation for older people, to tackle the ageism that pervades much of society and ensure that every older person feels valued and included. Farmer responds Farmer collected his award alongside 10 category winners and the winner of the Overall Award for Excellence, LandWorks, at a black-tie ceremony at the Royal Lancaster London, hosted by writer and broadcaster Ayesha Hazarika. Accepting the award, Farmer pointed to the huge challenge facing the country but said the new government had a rare opportunity to reset. He urged the Starmer administration to apply three attributes to its work ahead: compassion and care; belief and hope; and progress and change. I think that we are in need of healing, he said. There is a lot of division, quite a lot of shouting in some ways we've never been so vocal. Yet there hasn't been a lot of talking and there hasnt been a lot of listening. So the solutions we know, many people in this room know, to many of the problems rest in communities, in bringing people together. He went on: We all saw it during Covid and we need to rekindle that spirit of looking out for our neighbours, our friends, our colleagues. I feel that belief and hope have been in pretty short supply. Im not just for England fans here. In fact, if you go to the cupboard marked belief and hope, you are not going to find a lot in it. A few streamers from 1997, a couple of London 2012 T-shirts. And yet, day after day I see the belief and the hope that many charities bring to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in this country and abroad as well. The volunteers, the voluntary sector staff are the "Belief-makers". As are many others that we work alongside. Increasingly, I think, the narrative of what is possible is going to be crucial. We showed with our work on mental health that you can focus on what people can do [] in order to be able to help change the tone and the attitudes. That is one of the important things I think weve learnt in that mental health conversation. We recognised that we all have mental health and we all work with it every day. He concluded with a message for the sector, urging charities to carry on speaking truth to power, but also to build on its strengths to help bring about a change of mood. Starting with more compassion for our neighbours, and our communities. Offering and building care so we can respond to people's needs, not just look and shake our heads quietly. Creating a sense of hope and possibility in people's lives, celebrating progress, however small, as an incremental step towards longer change. About the Daniel Phelan Award The Daniel Phelan Award for Outstanding Achievement is the only individual award given out, and the recipient is selected by Civil Society Media and approved by the judging panel. Farmer joins an illustrious list of winners, including Sir Roger Singleton, Baroness Jill Pitkeathley, Dame Julia Unwin, Sir Nicholas Young, and Dr Hany El-Banna. Daniel Phelan founded the Charity Awards in 2000. After he died in 2015, the organisers at Civil Society Media changed the name of the Outstanding Achievement Award to honour his memory. Read Tania Masons profile of Paul Farmer here . Click here to read the full list of Charity Awards 2024 winners . sign up to receive the Civil Society daily bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector, LandWorks has taken the Overall Award for Excellence at this years Charity Awards for its decade of work helping ex-prisoners to shake off their criminal identity and successfully exit the criminal justice system. Trainees who have received occupational training, pastoral care and peer support at the charitys site in Devon have far lower reoffending rates than prisoners who are released straight into the community 5% rather than the national average of 37%. The Charity Awards judges were impressed by the way the charity built trust with its trainees and helped them to rebuild their lives by understanding the experiences that led to their criminal behaviour in the first place. Priya Singh, chair of NCVO, said: This is not just about how you get a job after you come out of prison. This is about how you turn your life around, how you become a new you then a job will come. Thats what so powerful about this programme. LandWorks was established in 2013 and became an independent registered charity in 2016. The site has since grown to include a kitchen to teach the trainees cooking skills, a market stall to sell its produce, and pottery and carpentry workshops. The charity also offers counselling and therapy, tailored resettlement services and peer support. LandWorks says it provides a consistent and supportive environment in which trust can develop and change can happen. While lived experience is key to its ethos and many of its staff are former graduates of the programme, the charity is careful that trainees are not trapped by their criminal identity, and learn to see their potential beyond the justice system. In 2022-23, the employment rate for economically active LandWorks graduates was 94%, whereas only 30% of adults leaving prison are in employment within the first six months of their release. And the reoffending rate is just 5.2% far lower than the national rate of 37% for adults released from custody. Around 200 trainees have taken part in the LandWorks programme over its 11-year lifespan, at an average cost of 7,000 each, while the cost to the state of a single prison sentence and probation is closer to 70,000. Former chief inspector of prisons Nick Hardwick has supported LandWorks since its inception. He said: Ministers should note that LandWorks provides one of the best examples in the country of how we can reduce reoffending, turn lives around and prevent future victims. The charity has now secured funding to package up its decade of evaluation evidence and present it to policymakers in a bid to convince them to replicate the model in other places, and potentially in different formats, such as BikeWorks, CarWorks or FloristryWorks. The charitys founder and CEO, Chris Parsons, believes that resettlement ought to be viewed through a public health lens rather than a criminal justice lens, and hopes to persuade the Department of Health to take it forward as a public health programme. LandWorks was chosen as the Overall Winner by this years judges from a total of 10 category winners; it also took the top prize in the Social Care, Advice & Support category. The charity was presented with the two awards at a glittering ceremony at the Royal Lancaster London last night. Judges comments Charity Awards judge Anne Fox, CEO at Clinks, described Landworks as a highly innovative model of tackling recidivism. The way that they have created that community, its just different gravy, it really is. Theres just something nice about how they work theyre very, very person-centred. And because of politically where we are right now, any work supporting people to leave the criminal justice system that focuses on their right to do so in a positive way, really needs to be celebrated. It isnt even the economic argument that we need to make, its the argument that its ok to invest in offenders. Sharika Sharma, head of business development at CCLA, said the work LandWorks is doing is incredible, intensive and so badly needed. Martin Edwards, CEO of Julias House, added: They are doing everything right. The way they treat people with dignity and respect is so important, and they have a model that works. It seems to me that if you were just out of prison, this is the best place you could land. Matt Nolan, chief executive of Civil Society Media, congratulated LandWorks on winning the highly-coveted award. He said: At a time when our prisons are in crisis and too many offenders are largely consigned to the scrapheap, Landworks refuses to give up on people. Its person-centred and highly effective approach to resettlement looks beyond the offender label and supports people to navigate a way out to a life beyond crime. It has proved to be sustainable, successful, and scalable, and we are delighted to award it our highest honour. We can only hope that ministers will also see its potential and take it to the next level. Peter Hugh Smith, chief executive at CCLA, Overall Partner of the Charity Awards, said: Charities are experiencing extraordinary challenges, making it vitally important that we continue to promote their endeavours and celebrate excellence in the sector. This is why CCLA is proud to be the Charity Awards Overall Partner again this year so we can play our part in highlighting the heroic work of charities large and small, right across the UK. I pay tribute to all 10 winners who deserve full credit for their outstanding work. And I offer my heartfelt congratulations to Chris Parsons and all the team at LandWorks, who have won the much-coveted Overall Award this year. Your person-centred approach is an inspiring model for others. LandWorks response LandWorks founder and director, Chris Parsons, said: We were surprised enough to win our category, but to then go on to win the overall award is just amazing. We'd like to thank the judges who clearly understood what LandWorks is all about. This is recognition for our team, volunteers and supporters and for our funders whose belief in the project, and willingness to back us early on, made it all possible. Perhaps more than anything it is recognition of all the men and women who have been on placement at LandWorks and worked so hard to turn their lives around. It is not easy to change things when you've become involved in crime and offending, but it is possible. I hope that we have shown that there is a different way of doing things in the criminal justice system that works and that is in everyone's interest. With the right support, people can transform their lives and reoffending can be avoided. We hope we can take our message to MPs and Ministers in the new parliament. Other winners Alongside the nine other category winners and the recipient of the Daniel Phelan Award for Outstanding Achievement, LandWorks was presented with its two trophies at the ceremony hosted by writer, comedian and political commentator Baroness Ayesha Hazarika. Paul Farmer, who is currently chief executive of Age UK and was previously chief executive of mental health charity Mind for 16 years, won the Daniel Phelan Award for Outstanding Achievement. Click here to read why . Click here to read more about LandWorks on the Charity Awards website . Click here to read the full list of Charity Awards 2024 winners . sign up to receive the Civil Society daily bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector, Cargo claims are an inevitable part of the shipping industry, but the challenges associated with these claims are getting both more complex and frequent this year. From increasing technological advancements to the complexity of global trade, the freight insurance industry is facing several significant hurdles that must be addressed. Technology Use Within the Supply Chain One of the biggest challenges impacting risk levels in the supply chain is the increasing use of technology throughout the shipping process. Digitalization might be shaping a more efficient market, but it also opens up new digital vulnerabilities. For instance, the wider range of tech presents more opportunities for cargo criminals to infiltrate platforms and carry out fraudulent activity. In the last two years, weve seen an unprecedented leap in this type of sophisticated fraud. According to data from Truckstop, reported incidents of double brokering went up by 400% over the course of six months, which has unavoidably led to an uptick in corresponding claims. Plus, with the growing implementation of automation, as well as digital platforms like transport management systems and load boards, shippers and carriers are more vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks and data breaches too. These attacks can compromise sensitive information, disrupt the supply chain and lead to considerable financial losses. To mitigate this risk, shippers and carriers must invest in robust cybersecurity measures and implement disaster recovery plans to ensure that the impact of any attack is minimised. Navigating the Complexity of Global Trade Another issue thats contributing to the challenges in the cargo insurance industry is the sheer complexity of global trade. Goods are frequently transported across borders, through multiple jurisdictions with rules and restrictions to abide by along the way. Navigating the laws and regulations that apply to a particular shipment can prove very complicated. This can lead to disputes during the claims process, which prevents insurance providers from reaching a settlement quickly and fairly. Some cargo insurance providers successfully payout in 14 days, while others provide windows ranging from 30 to 90 days. Yet, regardless of the cargo insurance provider, its vital that shippers and carriers educate themselves on regulations that apply to their loads and have clear steps in place to resolve any disputes that arise. Alternative Modes of Transportation The rising use of alternative modes of transport in the freight community such as air and rail also poses a challenge to the cargo insurance industry. These different methods of shipping may each have varied levels of protection and liability, which can create confusion and complicate the settlement process, particularly when a single load is being shipped by multiple modes of transport. Not to mention, the U.S. intermodal freight market is only gaining traction; as recent figures show its projected to be worth $44.6 billion by 2032, which is sure to make intermodal cargo claims more common. To try and counter the effects of this issue, shippers and carriers should ensure they have a clear understanding of the coverage and limitations offered by each mode of transport, and check theyve got the right protection in place for each shipment. Finally, as the volume of cargo insurance claims continues to increase, its crucial that the industry find efficient and effective ways to manage this influx. That could mean investing in the right staffing levels or adopting new technology, like automated claims solutions, to enable them to process and settle claims more efficiently. Theres no shortage of obstacles facing cargo claims teams in 2024, yet with the right investments and preparations, these challenges can be overcome. By prioritising the adoption of new technology, streamlining processes, and focusing on customer service, the industry can ensure that cargo insurance claims are handled and settled as smoothly and justly as possible. Murphy is director of claims at Loadsure. He has more than three decades of experience in the cargo and freight claims industry. HSBC Holdings Plc won the dismissal of most claims brought by First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. over the hiring of dozens of Silicon Valley Bank employees following the lenders collapse last year. In an order Tuesday, US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler granted the bulk of HSBCs requests to dismiss the allegations but left in place certain claims of trade secret theft, though she expressed some skepticism about them. Maybe discovery will support claims for a nefarious scheme to poach trade secrets and steal a business model, but right now, the allegations against most defendants show only a failed bank and employees decamping to a better business opportunity, the judge wrote in her order. The pretrial fact-finding phase known as discovery is crucial because First Citizens will need to show exactly what secrets it claims were stolen. First Citizens, which had acquired Silicon Valley Bank shortly after its failure, alleged in a $1 billion lawsuit filed in San Francisco in May 2023 that HSBCs David Sabow, a former SVB executive, spearheaded a scheme called Project Colony to hire 42 SVB employees and obtain confidential information. It claimed HSBC and employees who defected violated trade secrets laws and breached company contracts governing confidential information and the solicitation of co-workers to leave the company. Beeler called First Citizens first version of its complaint confusing and in need of being cleaned up. First Citizens then filed an amended complaint, which claimed HSBC executives including Chief Executive Officer Noel Quinn knew of the hiring plan. HSBC countered that it lawfully extended job offers to former SVB workers whose employment status was up in the air after the First Citizens acquisition. First Citizens had agreed to pay the employees only until it decided whether to officially hire them, HSBC said in court filings, adding that a one-page New Hire Acknowledgment form the employees signed didnt constitute an offer letter. HSBC had asked the judge to dismiss all the claims other than trade secrets claims against SVB UK and HSBC Bank USA N.A., Sabow and another former SVB executive. Discovery will prove these claims are meritless, the bank said in its request for dismissal. The case is First Citizens Bank v. HSBC Holdings, 23-cv-02483, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco). Top photo: A former HSBC Canada bank branch with temporary signage in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, March 28, 2024. Royal Bank of Canada said it expects to complete its C$13.5 billion ($10 billion) purchase of HSBCs Canadian assets the largest transaction in Royal Banks history just before midnight and will work through the Easter holiday weekend to convert those operations, including information-technology systems. Photographer: Paige Taylor White/Bloomberg. Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. Elon Musk won dismissal of a lawsuit claiming he refused to pay at least $500 million of severance to thousands of Twitter employees he fired in mass layoffs after buying the social media company now known as X. U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco ruled on Tuesday that the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act governing benefit plans did not cover the former employees claims, and therefore she lacked jurisdiction. Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. Musks lawyers did not immediately respond to similar requests. The case is one of many accusing Musk of reneging on promises to former Twitter employees, including former Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, and vendors after buying the company for $44 billion in October 2022. Musk also runs the electric car company Tesla, and is the worlds richest person, according to Forbes magazine. According to the complaint, Twitters 2019 severance plan called for employees who stayed on after the buyout to receive two or six months of pay, plus one week of pay for each year of employment, if they were laid off. The plaintiffs Courtney McMillian, who oversaw Twitters compensation and benefits, and Ronald Cooper, an operations manager, said Twitter instead offered fired employees just one month of pay as severance, with no benefits. Thompson said ERISA didnt apply to Twitters post-buyout plan because there was no ongoing administrative scheme where the company reviewed claims case-by-case, or offered benefits such as continued health insurance and out placement services. There were only cash payments promised, she wrote. The judge said the plaintiffs can try amending their complaint, but only for claims not governed by ERISA. The case is McMillian et al v. Musk et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 23-03461. (Reporting by Stempel in New YorkEditing by Bill Berkrot) Blog Archive: Oct 2024 (50) Sep 2024 (149) Aug 2024 (155) Jul 2024 (155) Jun 2024 (150) May 2024 (153) Apr 2024 (149) Mar 2024 (155) 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) A Florida woman was arrested Monday in Georgia on motor vehicle, marijuana, and other misdemeanor state charges just one day before her scheduled voluntary surrender to begin a monthlong jail term for stealing and selling the diary of President Joe Biden's daughter Ashley Biden, prosecutors revealed in a New York federal court filing. On Wednesday morning, after reviewing that filing, a federal judge signed off on a request by prosecutors to have the woman, Aimee Harris of Palm Beach, taken into custody by U.S. marshals in light of her latest arrest. Within hours of that order, prosecutors told the judge that federal marshals in Georgia had transferred Harris to U.S. Bureau of Prisons custody "since the state facility where the defendant is being held is also utilized as a federal holding facility." Harris' arrest comes nearly two years after she pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to conspiring to steal Ashley Biden's diary and sell it to the right-wing media group Project Veritas weeks before the 2020 election. Harris, 42, was sentenced in April to one month in jail and three months of home detention. She had been scheduled to surrender Tuesday at noon to begin serving her jail sentence. On Tuesday evening, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, in a letter to Chief District Judge Laura Taylor Swain, said it was informed by federal pretrial services that Harris had been arrested Monday in McIntosh County, Georgia. Harris was "charged with multiple offenses, including driving with a suspended license, speeding, possession of an open container, possession of marijuana, and obstruction of a law enforcement officer," prosecutors wrote to Swain. "The defendant is currently in state custody in connection with those charges." The arrest report, obtained by CNBC by the McIntosh County Sheriff's Office, shows that Harris was arrested at 11:30 p.m. ET Monday after she was seen driving at 90 mph in a 70 mph speed zone southbound on Interstate 95 near the town of Darien, about 46 miles north of the Florida border. Harris on Sunday had emailed her supervising pretrial services officer that she was going on a "one day road trip up to" South Carolina on Monday and would return Monday night, the U.S. Attorney's Office wrote in its letter to Swain. Two federal judges in Kansas and Missouri on Monday at the urging of several Republican-led states blocked President Joe Biden's administration from further implementing a new student debt relief plan that lowers payments. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Loan forgiveness a sharp partisan issue Conservatives typically question the fairness of forgiving the debt of those who've benefited from a higher education, and saddling taxpayers with the costs of doing so. Just over a third of Americans aged 25 and older have a bachelor's degree, according to an estimate by Kantrowitz. "We are proud to stand with taxpayers in demanding the Biden administration abandon plans to force all Americans to take on the debt of a select few, something the Supreme Court has already deemed unconstitutional," said Ryan Walker, executive vice president of Heritage Action for America. "Biden's latest debt transfer gimmick is an illegal, unfair election year stunt that is backfiring and should cost him at the ballot box," Walker said. Almost half of all voters 48% say canceling student debt is an important issue to them in the 2024 presidential and congressional elections, according to a recent survey from SocialSphere, a research and consulting firm. It polled 3,812 registered voters, including 2,601 Gen Z and millennial respondents, between March 15-19. Additionally, 70% of Gen Z respondents said the action was "very" or "somewhat" important in the election, while 72% of Black voters surveyed and 68% of Hispanic voters believe the same. Many young conservatives also support student loan cancellation, with 49% of Gen Z and millennial Republicans surveyed saying some or all outstanding education debt should be erased. As president, Trump called for the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education's existing loan relief programs, including the popular Public Service Loan Forgiveness initiative. He also wanted to slash the department's budget, and his administration halted a regulation aimed at providing loan forgiveness to those defrauded by their schools. Now, as he runs for president again, Trump seems poised to make even deeper cuts to financial aid programs for students. He has repeatedly attacked Biden's loan relief policies, and he said in a campaign video in late 2023 that he wants to close the Education Department altogether. Republicans may try again to stop relief plan Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Biden's first attempt at wide-scale loan cancellation last summer, his administration has been working on its do-over plan. While the Education Department attempted to make the relief more targeted this time in an effort to increase its chances of survival, up to 20 million people still stand to benefit. For critics of broad student loan forgiveness, Biden's new plan looks a lot like his first. After Biden touted his revised relief program, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, wrote on X that the president "is trying to unabashedly eclipse the Constitution." "See you in court," Bailey wrote. Missouri was one of the six Republican-led states along with Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Carolina to bring a lawsuit against Biden's first sweeping debt relief effort. watch now Chinese exchange-traded funds saw a "staggering" growth in the last five years, with inflows consistently notching new highs, according to Morningstar. "Annual inflows to China ETFs surged almost fivefold over the past three years," Morningstar's Research Manager Wanda Wang said in a June report. According to data provided by the American financial services firm, total yearly inflows to Chinese ETFs swelled from 127.2 billion Chinese yuan ($17.49 billion) in 2021, to 387.2 billion yuan in 2022. In 2023, this figure hit 604.3 billion yuan. By the end of last year, the total assets under management (AUM) of ETFs in China more than doubled that at the end of 2020, and hit 1.82 trillion yuan. "Between 2018 and 2023, the annual assets under management growth rate of ETFs in China averaged a staggering 40%, and the total AUM reached record highs every year," the Morningstar report said. The broader China A-shares market has been "tepid" since 2022, with bright spots only in certain niche industries, the financial services firm said. "The growth of the Chinese ETF market over the past few years is explosive," Wang told CNBC. Against this backdrop, it became challenging for actively managed funds to outperform, helping propel China's ETF market and doubling the total AUM to 2 trillion yuan in less than three years. "The influx of investments by institutional investors have been into broad-based index-tracking ETFs, which is the most important part of the rapid inflows of ETFs in China," Wang added. Jim Cramer's daily rapid fire looks at stocks in the news outside the CNBC Investing Club portfolio. Intuit : The TurboTax and Credit Karma company announced a cut of about 10% of its staff. "I believe [CEO Sasan Goodarzi] that they are going to use AI to be able to take advantage of things and rationalize their workforce," Jim Cramer said Wednesday. "But people are not believing it at all. People believe there is genuine weakness. I don't see it." Chipotle : Longtime CFO Jack Hartung is set to retire next year. He'll be replaced by company veteran Adam Rymer. "[Hartung] was 'true north' during the horrible 2015 airborne illness situation. He was a steady hand when I called every day [back then]," Cramer said. Chipotle has been weaker since the 50-for-1 stock split. Cramer said it's due to questions about portion sizes getting small. CEO Brian Niccol told Cramer that's not the case. 3M : CFO Monish Patolawala is departing for Archer-Daniels-Midland . "That's what happens," Cramer said. "When you hear a new CEO, I know in a year you see the CFO leave." 3M brought Bill Brown on as CEO in May. "He's going to pick his own team," Cramer added. Carvana : Needham updated the stock to a buy. CEO Ernie Garcia "pulled the rabbit out of a hat," Cramer said. "The used car market is on fire because the used care prices have come down to the point where it makes a lot of sense to go shop." Mastercard and Visa : Bank of America downgraded both credit card companies to neutral from buy. The analysts also cut their price targets. "This is a classic case of whenever you sell these stocks ... you end up regretting it," Cramer said. "These guys have the greatest gross margins in the world. They have no credit risk. That's why people like them. I don't think you downgrade these stocks going into a slowdown where you might have credit risk." An oil pump jack is shown in a field in Stanton, Texas, on June 27, 2024. U.S. crude oil rose nearly 1% Wednesday, topping $82 per barrel as U.S. inventories declined while OPEC sees solid demand supported by stronger economic growth this year. U.S. oil inventories fell by 3.4 million barrels last week while gasoline stocks shrank by two million barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration. But implied oil demand, measured by products supplied to the market, softened by 334,000 barrels per day. Bulls are looking for sustained drawdowns in U.S. stockpiles to confirm expectations that summer fuel demand will pick up after a tepid start to the season. Here are Wednesday's closing energy prices: OPEC, meanwhile, maintained its oil demand growth forecast of 2.2 million barrels per day for 2024. The cartel revised global economic growth slightly higher for this year to 2.9%, buoyed by a better-than-expected first-half performance in Brazil, Russia, India and China plus a rebound in the eurozone. The recent oil rally has stalled out with prices falling for three straight days through Tuesday. Tamas Varga, analyst at oil broker PVM, attributed the latest round of selling to revived ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel as well as Hurricane Beryl. Oil infrastructure on the Gulf Coast appears to have avoided substantial damage from the storm, but the port of Houston was closed. Varga said the market may expect oil exports to decline as a result, which could lead to an increase in inventories when the next round of data is released next week. With election season underway and artificial intelligence evolving rapidly, AI manipulation in political advertising is becoming an issue of greater concern to the market and economy. A new report from Moody's on Wednesday warns that generative AI and deepfakes are among the election integrity issues that could present a risk to U.S. institutional credibility. "The election is likely to be closely contested, increasing concerns that AI deepfakes could be deployed to mislead voters, exacerbate division and sow discord," wrote Moody's assistant vice president and analyst Gregory Sobel and senior vice president William Foster. "If successful, agents of disinformation could sway voters, impact the outcome of elections, and ultimately influence policymaking, which would undermine the credibility of U.S. institutions." The government has been stepping up its efforts to combat deepfakes. On May 22, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel proposed a new rule that would require political TV, video and radio ads to disclose if they used AI-generated content. The FCC has been concerned about AI use in this election cycle's ads, with Rosenworcel pointing out potential issues with deep fakes and other manipulated content. Social media has been outside the sphere of the FCC's regulations, but the Federal Elections Commission is also considering widespread AI disclosure rules which would extend to all platforms. In a letter to Rosenworcel, it encouraged the FCC to delay its decision until after the elections because its changes would not be mandatory across digital political ads. They added could confuse voters that online ads without the disclosures didn't have AI even if they did. While the FCC's proposal might not cover social media outright, it opens the door to other bodies that can regulate ads in the digital world as the U.S. government moves to become known as a strong regulator of AI content. And, perhaps, those rules could extend to even more types of advertising. "This would be a groundbreaking ruling that could change disclosures and advertisements on traditional media for years to come around political campaigns," said Dan Ives, Wedbush Securities managing director and senior equity analyst. "The worry is you cannot put the genie back in the bottle, and there are many unintended consequences with this ruling." Some social media platforms have already self-adopted some sort of AI disclosure ahead of regulations. Meta, for example, requires an AI disclosure for all of its advertising, and it is banning all new political ads the week leading up to the November elections. Google requires all political ads with modified content that "inauthentically depicts real or realistic-looking people or events" to have disclosures, but doesn't require AI disclosures on all political ads. The social media companies have good reason to be seen as proactive on the issue as brands worry about being aligned with the spread of misinformation at a pivotal moment for the nation. Google and Facebook are expected to take in 47% of the projected $306.94 billion spent on U.S. digital advertising in 2024. "This is a third rail issue for major brands focused on advertising during a very divisive election cycle ahead and AI misinformation running wild. It's a very complex time for advertising online," Ives said. Despite self-policing, AI-manipulated content does make it on platforms without labels because of the sheer amount of content posted every day. Whether its AI-generated spam messaging or large amounts of AI imagery, it's hard to find everything. "The lack of industry standards and rapid evolution of the technology make this effort challenging," said Tony Adams, Secureworks Counter Threat Unit senior threat researcher. "Fortunately, these platforms have reported successes in policing the most harmful content on their sites through technical controls, ironically powered by AI." It's easier than ever to create manipulated content. In May, Moody's warned that deep fakes were "already weaponized" by governments and non-governmental entities as propaganda and to create social unrest and, in the worst cases, terrorism. "Until recently, creating a convincing deepfake required significant technical knowledge of specialized algorithms, computing resources, and time," Moody's Ratings assistant vice president Abhi Srivastava wrote. "With the advent of readily accessible, affordable Gen AI tools, generating a sophisticated deep fake can be done in minutes. This ease of access, coupled with the limitations of social media's existing safeguards against the propagation of manipulated content, creates a fertile environment for the widespread misuse of deep fakes." Deep fake audio through a robocall has been used in a presidential primary race in New Hampshire this election cycle. One potential silver lining, according to Moody's, is the decentralized nature of the U.S. election system, alongside existing cybersecurity policies and general knowledge of the looming cyberthreats. This will provide some protection, Moody's says. States and local governments are enacting measures to block deepfakes and unlabeled AI content further, but free speech laws and concerns over blocking technological advances have slowed down the process in some state legislatures. As of February, 50 pieces of legislation related to AI were being introduced per week in state legislatures, according to Moody's, including a focus on deepfakes. Thirteen states have laws on election interference and deepfakes, eight of which were enacted since January. Moody's noted that the U.S. is vulnerable to cyber risks, ranking 10th out of 192 countries in the United Nations E-Government Development Index. A perception among the populace that deepfakes have the ability to influence political outcomes, even without concrete examples, is enough to "undermine public confidence in the electoral process and the credibility of government institutions, which is a credit risk," according to Moody's. The more a population worries about separating fact from fiction, the greater the risk the public becomes disengaged and distrustful of the government. "Such trends would be credit negative, potentially leading to increased political and social risks, and compromising the effectiveness of government institutions," Moody's wrote. "The response by law enforcement and the FCC may discourage other domestic actors from using AI to deceive voters," Secureworks' Adams said. "But there's no question at all that foreign actors will continue, as they've been doing for years, to meddle in American politics by exploiting generative AI tools and systems. To voters, the message is to keep calm, stay alert, and vote." US actor George Clooney arrives for The Albies hosted by the Clooney Foundation at the New York Public Library in New York City on September 28, 2023. Hollywood superstar George Clooney said Wednesday that it was time for President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race, after Biden's disastrous debate performance and a fundraiser the actor and filmmaker co-hosted for Biden in June. "It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010," Clooney wrote in a New York Times op-ed. "He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate." The June event was a star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles featuring former President Barack Obama, actress Julia Roberts and comedian Jimmy Kimmel. The evening raised more than $30 million for Biden and his larger political operation, according to NBC News. Biden's fumbling debate performance opposite former President Donald Trump was on June 27, nearly two weeks after the fundraiser in Los Angeles. Clooney's op-ed was published Wednesday, nearly two weeks after the disastrous debate, and the same day former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to explicitly endorse Biden as the nominee. Getty Images The share of people with medical debt in collections that shows up in their credit reports has fallen in the past decade. Yet unpaid balances due to health-care costs continue to burden individuals and families. In 2013, 19.5% of Americans had medical debt in collections, while 10 years later, in 2023, that share fell to 5%, according to new research by the Urban Institute. The change is largely due to efforts by the major credit bureaus in 2022 and 2023 that removed paid medical debts from credit reports and delayed reporting of unpaid debts. Yet the median medical debt in collections increased in that time, to $1,493 in 2023 from $842 in 2013, the Washington, D.C.-based think tank found. "Consumers had previously had medical debt in collections on their files; since then, their credit scores have increased significantly," said Breno Braga, principal research associate at the Urban Institute. That can make it easier for debtors to access other types of credit, apply for jobs or rent housing, he said. watch now The states where consumers saw the biggest reductions in medical debt in collections from 2021 to 2023 were concentrated in the South, according to the Urban Institute. West Virginia saw its share of residents with medical debt in collections go from 25.8% to 6.7%; South Carolina went from 24.4% to 9.1%; Oklahoma went from 23.7% to 10.1%; Louisiana dropped from 21.3% to 8.1%; and Mississippi dropped from 18.5% to 6.1%. Colorado had no medical debt in collections in 2023 after it banned credit bureaus from including medical debt on credit reports. Other states with the lowest levels of medical debt in collections in 2023 included Minnesota, with 0.7%; Hawaii, 1.2%; Vermont, 1.2%; and Washington, 1.4%, according to the Urban Institute. 'Lots of people can't afford health care' The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in June proposed banning medical bills from credit reports. The independent government agency estimates the rule would remove up to $49 billion in medical debts from credit reports. "There's an increasing recognition that most people have health insurance, but lots of people can't afford health care," said Matthew Rae, associate director of the Health Care Marketplace Program at KFF, a nonprofit organization that provides health policy research. "We've got to think about affordability differently." While efforts to erase medical debts from credit reports will help debtors, it isn't the heart of the issue, according to Rae. Recent KFF research found people who carry medical debt are more likely to be financially vulnerable in other ways compared with adults who do not carry those unpaid balances. Of adults with medical debt, 72% reported carrying a credit card balance, 68% had no rainy-day fund, and 58% said they were just getting by financially, according to KFF's analysis of 2021 data. In comparison, just 37% of adults with no medical debt said they carry a credit card balance, while 37% had no rainy-day fund, and 28% said they were just getting by. A protestor at the 2022 March for Medicare for All in Washington, D.C. Probal Rashid | Lightrocket | Getty Images Adults with medical debt were also more likely to overdraw their checking accounts, to have been contacted by a debt collection agency, to use a pawn shop or to use a short-term payday loan one or more times, KFF's research found. "We find that people who have medical debt end up fighting all sorts of other debt," Rae said. However, it's unclear where the problem starts if people with, say, credit card debt are more likely to go into medical debt or vice versa, he said. Medical debt is "absolutely" a cause of bankruptcy, Rae said, especially when the high debts are combined with an inability to work. About $7 billion in medical debt to be canceled Certain states, cities and counties are canceling about $7 billion in medical debt through the American Rescue Plan Act, federal legislation that was enacted in 2021. The move will cancel medical debt for up to 3 million Americans, the White House estimated in June. "Today, I am issuing a call to states, cities, hospitals across our nation to join us in forgiving medical debt," Vice President Kamala Harris said during a June press call. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks on medical debt relief at an event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, in Washington, D.C., April 11, 2022. Stefani Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images Microsoft said it would give up its observer seat on the OpenAI board amid regulatory scrutiny into generative artificial intelligence in Europe and the U.S. Microsoft's deputy general counsel, Keith Dolliver, wrote a letter to OpenAI late on Tuesday, saying that the position had provided insights into the board's activities without compromising its independence. But the letter, seen by CNBC, added that the seat was no longer needed as Microsoft had "witnessed significant progress from the newly formed board." CNBC has reached out to Microsoft and OpenAI for comment. The European Commission previously said Microsoft could face an antitrust investigation, as it looked at the markets for virtual worlds and generative artificial intelligence. The commission, which is the executive arm of the EU, said in January that it is "looking into some of the agreements that have been concluded between large digital market players and generative AI developers and providers" and singled out the Microsoft-OpenAI tie-up as a particular deal that it will be studying. Elon Musk said Wednesday that his brain tech startup Neuralink hopes to implant its system in a second human patient within "the next week or so." Executives also said the company is making changes to address the hardware problems it encountered with its first participant. Neuralink is building a brain-computer interface, or a BCI, that aims to help patients by using breakthrough paralysis-control technology. The company's first system, called Telepathy, involves 64 "threads" that are inserted directly into the brain. The threads are thinner than a human hair and record neural signals through 1,024 electrodes, according to Neuralink's website. BCIs have been studied in academia for decades, and several other companies including Synchron, Paradromics and Precision Neuroscience are developing their own systems. No BCI company has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to commercialize their devices. In a livestream with Neuralink executives on Wednesday, Musk said the company is hoping to implant its device in the "high single digits" of patients this year. It is not clear when or where those procedures will take place. A spokesperson for Neuralink was not immediately available for comment. In January, Neuralink implanted its BCI in its first human patient, 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh, at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, as part of a clinical study approved by the FDA. Neuralink said in an April blog post that the surgery went "extremely well." However, in the weeks following the procedure, Neuralink said some threads from the implant retracted from Arbaugh's brain. The company reportedly considered removing the implant, but the problem hasn't posed a direct risk to the patient's health and safety, according to The Wall Street Journal. Musk and the Neuralink executives on the livestream said only around 15% of the channels in Arbaugh's implant are functional. Even so, he uses the BCI to watch videos, read and play chess and other video games sometimes up to 70 hours per week. For upcoming implants, the company said it is working to mitigate retraction and measure it more closely. Neuralink president DJ Seo said one way it plans to do so is by sculpting the surface of the skull to minimize the gap under the implant. Neuralink also plans to insert some threads deeper into the brain tissue and track how much movement occurs, according to the company livestream. Dr. Matthew MacDougall, head of neurosurgery at Neuralink, said it will insert threads "at a variety of depths" now that it knows retraction is a possibility. "The FDA will continue to monitor the safety of those enrolled in the study for Neuralink's implant device through required, regular reports," an FDA spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore (R) and Suni Williams, wearing Boeing spacesuits, depart the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy Space Center for Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida to board the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft for the Crew Flight Test launch, on June 5, 2024. With NASA astronauts docked at the International Space Station far longer than planned, the agency's leadership on Wednesday acknowledged potential alternatives to Boeing's Starliner for returning the crew to Earth. Still, the Boeing's spacecraft remains the primary option for returning crew, officials said. Officials say Starliner capsule "Calypso" may return as soon as the end of this month from its extended ISS stay, pending results of testing a faulty propulsion system. Starliner has now been in space 36 days and counting as the agency and Boeing perform additional testing in New Mexico before clearing the spacecraft to return. The mission is the first time Starliner is carrying people, flying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. NASA's Commercial Crew manager Steve Stich emphasized during a press conference that the first "option today is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner," adding, "we don't see any reason" currently to turn to the agency's other transportation option, which would be SpaceX's Crew Dragon, to bring back the astronauts. Stich while acknowledging that a SpaceX capsule could be part of contingency plans in case Starliner were to return from the ISS empty noted that NASA does not yet need to "make a decision as to whether we need to do anything different." "Certainly we've dusted off a few of those things to look at relative to Starliner, just to be prepared in the event that we would have to use some of those kinds of things," Stich said. "[But] there's really been no discussion with sending another Dragon to rescue the Starliner crew," Stich added later. Former U.S. president Donald Trump pictured during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at Winfield House, London on Dec. 3, 2019. NICHOLAS KAMM | AFP | Getty Images As NATO celebrates its 75th anniversary with a summit in Washington this week, the alliance is facing some familiar foes and challenges: Russia's war on Ukraine is ongoing, Moscow's alliances with China, North Korea and Iran are strong, and the military coalition's defense spending remains a perennial bugbear among members. Another familiar, yet unpredictable, challenge lies ahead: the possibility of another U.S. administration led by former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump. Trump had a tense and combative relationship with the military alliance during his last term in office over 2017-2021, lambasting various member states for not honoring their 2014 commitment to spend 2% of their national gross domestic profit on defense spending. While campaigning to return to office in the forthcoming presidential election, Trump rattled NATO members again in February, when he said he would not provide military protection to any member state that had not met its financial obligations to the bloc and would even "encourage" adversaries "to do whatever the hell they want" to that nation. President Donald Trump and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan leave the stage after family photo during the annual NATO heads of government summit at the Grove Hotel in Watford, Britain December 4, 2019. Peter Nicholls | Reuters The comments provoked outrage in the White House, which at the time described them as "appalling and unhinged." Outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, "any suggestion that we are not there to protect and defend all Allies will undermine the security of all of us and put at risk our soldiers, our personnel who are on the front lines to protect the whole Alliance." "One for all, all for one applies for all Allies and is the heart of NATO," Stoltenberg told reporters in February, referencing NATO's Article 5 clause that member states must come to each other's mutual defense. As the NATO summit takes place in Washington this week, member states are presenting a united front on the 75th anniversary of the defense pact, with leaders keen to emphasize their ongoing support for nonmember Ukraine by unveiling new military aid and a pledge to strengthen the country's beleaguered air defenses. 'Trump-proofing' NATO Leaders are also seen as wanting to "Trump-proof" military aid for Ukraine ahead of Trump's possible reelection, given that the Republican front-runner has been ambivalent on the subject of ongoing aid for Ukraine. While incumbent President Joe Biden's support for Ukraine is solid with the president reiterating his commitment to Kyiv's fight as he addressed delegates Tuesday his reelection is looking shaky, amid concerns over his fitness for office. Analysts at Eurasia Group said they expected NATO leaders to take steps to ring-fence the coordination of the coalition's aid spending for Ukraine, in a bid to protect it from a possible future Trump administration. "In a key step to "Trump-proof" Ukraine aid, NATO will take over substantial parts of the various coordinating efforts for Ukraine aid from the U.S." the analysts said Tuesday, flagging that such a step would make it harder, but not impossible, for a possible future Trump administration to thwart support efforts. U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speak during a meeting in New York on September 25, 2019. Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images Describing uncertainties around the U.S. presidential election and the prospect of Trump's return to the White House as a "shadow" cast over the NATO summit, the analysts said that "concerns about President Joe Biden's staying power will fuel early stage and informal discussions among several allies on two key issues: whether the West has a winning strategy for Ukraine and the question of nuclear deterrence in Europe in the face of a potentially diminished U.S. presence." NATO leaders' diplomacy Traveling to Washington for his first NATO summit, Britain's new prime minister, Keir Starmer, indicated that he hoped financial aid for Ukraine would be "locked in" at the meeting. Asked if allies could "Trump-proof" any deal on aid, Starmer told reporters the summit was an opportunity to cement the alliance's financial commitment to Ukraine. "It's the largest group of NATO countries together with the additions that we've got, and the package that we are seeking to advance, it goes beyond the support that's been put in before and will be locked in, I hope, at this NATO conference," he said, The Independent reported. Starmer has made a "cast-iron commitment" to raise U.K. defense spending to 2.5% of GDP, but has refused to give a timetable for the increase. The U.K. spent 2.3% in 2023, NATO figures show. For his part, Trump has previously said he could end the Russia-Ukraine war "in one day," without adding how he would do so. Treading a careful diplomatic line, NATO leaders told CNBC that such comments reflected Trump's tendency toward "bold" rhetoric and not necessarily the reality of what will be enacted. watch now "We'll react to actions, not words," Poland's foreign minister, Radosaw Sikorski, told CNBC on Tuesday, when asked whether he was worried that the trans-Atlantic alliance would not be a foreign policy focus, if Trump were reelected. "We are not going to interfere in our great ally's internal politics ... we want to have the best possible relations with whoever is in charge here," he told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick on the sidelines of the summit in Washington. Hanno Pevkur, Estonia's defense minister, emphasized that NATO allies did not interfere in each other's domestic politics and democratic processes. "The American people are the ones who are electing the U.S. president. So when, when the choice of American people is Donald Trump, then it's Donald Trump. Then all the countries in the world, including Estonia, including the NATO allies, have to talk with this administration who will be put in place." watch now "I strongly believe that also U.S. President Donald Trump wants to be the leader of the free world, and he wants to show that that U.S. will not lose the war in Ukraine, because more is [at] stake. It's not only the decision of the United States," he added. Trump's pressure on NATO members to raise their defense spending has been popular among his supporters ,and even his critics agree that there are a number of NATO allies including larger members such as Germany, Canada and France who have dragged their feet over the expenditure. NATO estimates on defense spending per member state in 2023 suggest only 11 of its now-32 members met or exceeded the 2% of GDP threshold, with Poland leading this group. On Wednesday, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told CNBC that he expected the U.S. to remain a "strong and staunch NATO ally" whoever became the next president. watch now He said it was in the U.S.' security interests to have a strong NATO, that there was broad bi-partisan support for NATO in the U.S. and, lastly, that there had been a "dramatic increase" in allies' defense spending in recent years. "Those allies who are not yet there, they have clear guidance in place to be at 2% soon," he told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick at the summit. Balazs Orban, political director for Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, told CNBC that Trump's pressure on European countries had been "very positive," as it had galvanized NATO allies into spending more on their own defense. "We Europeans have to take ourselves seriously," he told CNBC's Sedgwick, describing Trump as taking a "pro-European" position on defense. "If we rely only on American friends and we are not putting enough, energy, money and preparation into our own safety then what are we talking about?" watch now He added that Hungary began its military modernization program before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as a matter of "vital" national interest. "We can tell our American friends, 'it's wonderful that you are here. If you are in trouble, we are there to defend you. If we are in trouble, you can come and, please, help us,'" Orban said. "But first and foremost, we are responsible for our own safety, and we have to do our job and what [former] President Trump is saying, and how he is putting pressure on European countries, I think it's very positive." Express has been a shopping mall staple since the 1980s. But since its CEO Michael Weiss left the company in 2015, its sales and store count have been declining. In recent years, Express has been squeezed by thin margins and declining shopping mall traffic, combined with the rise of the athleisure category during the pandemic. What's more, cheaper fast-fashion alternatives like Shein and Primark have taken market share from the brick-and-mortar retailer. "Every time these kinds of expansions came through, they were cheaper than Express. Yes, the product wasn't as well built, but the customer didn't care. And so Express's market kind of kept on shrinking and it became much harder to sell fashion and to sell it at an affordable price," said Eric Beder, CEO of Small Cap Consumer Research. CNBC reported that Express was struggling to pay its vendors on time at the end of 2023 and beginning of 2024. By April, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Bankruptcy has helped Express to stay in business, get out of old leases and even given it a chance to revive its fortunes. A group of investors led by brand management firm WHP Global and mall operators Simon Property Group and Brookfield Properties moved to buy the company. The new joint venture, called PHOENIX, received New York court approval for the acquisition of Express on June 14. Watch the video to find out more about the rise and fall of Express and its likelihood of rising again under its PHOENIX owners. Members of the National Samsung Electronics Union stage a rally as they begin a three-day general strike outside the company's foundry and semiconductor factory in Hwaseong on July 8, 2024. Workers at South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics will extend an unprecedented strike over pay and benefits "indefinitely," its labor union said in a statement on Wednesday. The union's demands include a 3.5% increase in members' base wage, improved transparency in pay, and compensation relating to the economic losses of members who participated in the strike. The National Samsung Electronics Union, which has about 30,000 members, had begun a three-day general strike on Monday, after both parties could not agree on wage increase rate, vacation system and bonuses after several rounds of discussions, according to local media reports. This is the first strike by the labor union in Samsung Electronics' entire 55-year history, according to local media. "Don't get tired," the NSEU statement read, according to a Google-translation. "Absolutely prohibited from going to work until executive instructions are given," the labor union urged its members. Samsung, which told local media on Tuesday that chip production had not been disrupted in the first two days of the strike, said on Wednesday it would "ensure no disruptions occur in the production lines" with the extension of the strike. "The company remains committed to engaging in good faith negotiations with the union," Samsung said. The NSEU, which extended the strike saying Samsung management was not keen on holding discussions, asserted the strike had disrupted chip production. Samsung Electronics is the world's largest maker of memory chips, commonly found in consumer devices such as smartphones and laptops. Shares of Samsung Electronics were down 0.34% Wednesday morning. Separately, South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor and its labor union reached a tentative wage agreement on Monday, averting a strike planned for Wednesday and Thursday, local news agency Yonhap reported. The agreement includes a 111,200-Korean won ($81) increase in monthly basic salary, as well as a bonus and company shares. CNBC's Lim Hui Jie contributed to this report. The Samsung Galaxy Ring has the ability to track various health metrics such as heart rate. It is Samsung's first foray into the smart ring category of product as it hopes to keep users locked into its ecosystem of devices from smartwatches to smartphones. Arjun Kharpal | CNBC PARIS Samsung launched the Galaxy Ring on Wednesday, its first foray into "smart rings." The South Korean tech giant is looking to integrate its products such as smartphones and wearables and offer health-tracking features to rival Apple 's push into the space. The Galaxy Ring, which Samsung has teased for the past few months, is a lightweight ring equipped with sensors designed for health monitoring 24 hours a day, the company said at its Galaxy Unpacked event Wednesday in Paris. Samsung's push into a new product category comes at a time when smartphone sales are making a slight recovery but users are holding on to their handsets for longer. Device makers are looking for add-on electronics products to sell. For Samsung, the Galaxy Ring adds a new device to its portfolio that can track health features alongside its smartphones and smartwatches. Over the past few years, Samsung has been trying to market its health applications which are increasingly popular among consumers as a big reason to buy such products. And Samsung is positioning the ring as a device to be worn alongside its smartwatches and with a smartphone, powered by artificial intelligence software, to offer a comprehensive picture of a person's health, a move which could help drive sales to its other products. "This will be the star of the show with all eyes on this new device and category for Samsung," Paolo Pescatore, founder of PP Foresight, told CNBC. Pescatore said the ring is a "product that could help drive smartphones sales and migrate users over to its platform." Galaxy Ring key features and price Samsung says the Galaxy Ring can monitor the following things: Sleep: The device can monitor a person's movement during sleep, sleep latency, heart and respiratory rate, and give analysis of the quality of sleep. Menstrual cycle: Samsung says it uses skin temperature to help track a person's menstrual cycle. Heart rate: The Galaxy Ring can inform users when their heart rate is unusually high or low. Users can also check their heart rate in real time. Exercise: The Galaxy Ring can detect the kind of workout or activity a person is doing. The Galaxy Ring weighs between 2.3 grams and 3 grams, depending on what size you buy. The device comes in three colors. Samsung says the Galaxy Ring's battery can last up to seven days. There's a portable charging case, as with wireless air buds. The Samsung Galaxy Ring will be available on July 24 and starts at $399.99. Samsung ecosystem play On Wednesday, Samsung also took the wraps off its latest smartwatches the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra. It's the first time the company has released an "Ultra" model of its smartwatch, a device designed for athletes and those into activities like hiking and mountain climbing. Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra (left) and Galaxy Watch7 (right) are the South Korean giant's latest smartwatches. It is the first time Samsung has released an "Ultra" version of its wearable. Arjun Kharpal | CNBC The watches include new sensors and sports tracking features. Samsung also launched its latest foldable devices on Wednesday: the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6. With the ring, Samsung is trying to tie users more closely to its ecosystem of products. For example, when the smartwatch is connected to the phone, users can use a "double pinch" action with their fingers to answer calls or take a picture. When the Galaxy Ring, smartwatch and phone are paired together, Samsung said, users get a more detailed picture of their health, especially when sleeping, because the devices are taking data from more sources. Samsung said the battery life of the ring is extended when worn together with the smartwatch. "Indeed, the watch and the ring are part of expanding the ecosystem, which will become increasingly important as AI technology is laid on top of the data collected from different devices. The more devices a user has from the same brand, the more comprehensive the data collected, enhancing the effectiveness of AI digital assistants," Francisco Jeronimo, vice president for devices research for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at IDC, told CNBC by email. "This truly personalized experience will drive users to choose devices from one brand over another." Samsung, like Apple, has been pushing the interconnectedness of its devices over the past years to keep users engaged. watch now "It is little surprise that Samsung is doubling-down on linking its products with an 'ecosystem story.' Apple has shown that driving interdependence between products is an extremely effective way of locking consumers into a specific brand," Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, told CNBC. Ring is a 'niche' product Check out the companies making headlines before the bell: Tesla The electric vehicle maker gained nearly 1% after Goldman Sachs increased its stock price target by $73 to $248 per share on better than expected second quarter deliveries. Tesla has booked 10-straight days of gains. Though Goldman increased its price target, the investment bank remains neutral on Tesla, with the new price target implying about 5% downside from Tuesday's close of $262.33. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Shares of the company, which makes semiconductor chips for AI giants including Nvidia and Apple, added 2%. Taiwan Semiconductor reported revenue from April-June this year of T$673.51 billion, as compared to the T$654.27 billion expected by analysts polled by LSEG, according to Reuters. 3M Company Shares declined 1.2% after 3M announced its finance chief Monish Patolawala is leaving the company "to pursue another opportunity." The change is effective July 31. Carvana The car e-commerce platform jumped 4.5% on the heels of a Needham upgrade to buy from hold. Needham said the stock can become a "profitable secular growth story," with rising retail unit sales and gross profit per unit. Walmart Shares gained 0.3% after Jefferies said the stock remains a top pick , citing its progress in artificial intelligence. The analyst's $77 price target implies a rise of 10.2% over the next 12 months. LegalZoom.com The stock dropped more than 25% after the company cut its full-year revenue outlook and announced the departure of its CEO, Dan Wernikoff. LegalZoom now sees revenue coming in a range of $675 million to $685 million. The company had issued guidance of $700 million to $720 million. Spotify Technology The audio streaming giant fell more than 1% on the back of a downgraded to neutral, noting that revenue forecasts for the company are "too ambitious." CNBC's Lisa Han, Alex Harring and Spencer Kimball contributed reporting Tech giant Apple is expected to unveil its new iPhone later this year, and Bank of America has identified several stocks set to gain from the smartphone's evolution. "Following stabilized smartphone demand, we turn positive on Apple supply chain, as we expect material design changes and AI function to drive a more sustainable upcycle in the next 2-3 years," the investment bank's analysts wrote in a June 26 research note. They expect iPhone 16 series stocking of between 90 and 100 million units in the second half of this year just higher than last year's 90 million units. There has been much speculation about the next iPhone's functionality and looks. Renowned Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is expecting a bigger screen and periscope camera to feature on the iPhone 16 Pro, while analyst Ross Young also said he's expecting bigger screens. Drawing reference to past cycles, the BofA analysts noted that stocks on Apple's supply chain "generally outperformed before product launch," while their performance post-launch "depends on product spec/pricing vs consensus, shipment and also expectations on next year's new iPhone." Here are some of BoA's top buy-rated stocks to play as the iPhone evolves: Hon Hai Precision Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer is among the names on BofA's list. The company also goes by the name of Foxconn and assembles consumer products like Apple's iPhones. "A solid iPhone replacement cycle and spec upgrade should help HH's better sales/earnings in 2025-26," the investment bank's analysts wrote. Shares in Hon Hai are traded on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and in the U.S. as an American Depository Receipt (ADR). Its shares are on an uptrend, gaining nearly 116% year-to-date. BofA hiked its price target on the stock to 260 New Taiwan dollars ($7.98), from 200 New Taiwan dollars, giving it around 15.3% potential upside. Foxconn Industrial Internet Foxconn subsidiary Foxconn Industrial Internet , which manufactures iPhone cases, is also among BofA's favorites. The bank expects the China-based design and manufacturing giant to see strong margins as demand for its casings increases in tandem with better iPhone shipment cycles between 2025 and 2026. "We lift Foxconn Industrial Internet (FII)'s 2024-26E earnings by 2-6% on potentially better iPhone casing sales and strong AI server contribution," the analysts wrote. Foxconn has a dual listing on the Shanghai and Taiwan Stock Exchanges. Its shares are also traded as an ADR in the U.S. Its Shanghai-listed shares are up 91.8% year-to-date. BofA has a 12-month price target of 33 Chinese yuan ($4.54) on the stock, giving it around 13.8% potential upside. Luxshare Precision BofA is bullish on Chinese electronics manufacturer Luxshare , "a key beneficiary" of a stronger iPhone cycle. This is "thanks to its high exposure in various iPhone components (acoustic, haptic, wireless charging, cable connector, top/back module, LCP antenna, etc) as well as ongoing share gain at iPhone assembly (26%/30% share in 2024/25E vs 21% in 2023)," the bank's analysts wrote. With this, they expect Luxshare's earnings to increase by 3% between 2025 and 2026 on the back of "potentially better consumer business and ongoing share gain at iPhone assembly." Shares in Luxshare are listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and are also included in the KraneShares CICC China 5G & Semiconductor Index ETF (6.2% weight). BofA raised its price target on the stock from 39 to 46 Chinese yuan, giving it around 11.1% potential upside. BYD Electronic Also on BofA's radar is BYD Electronic which it says is set to gain from the consolidation of its iPhone casing business. "We expect BYDE's casing profitability to gradually improve on better operation efficiency (higher automation rate, improving yield)," the analysts wrote. They have lifted the company's 2025-2026 earnings expectations by 2% to "reflect potentially better iPhone volume, robust auto expansion as well as rising AI-related contribution (server, robot)." Shares in BYD Electronic, which is majority-owned by automotive giant BYD, are listed on the Hong Kong Exchange and as an ADR. BofA has a price target of 42 Hong Kong dollars ($5.38) on the stock, giving it 25.3% potential upside. CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report. Expats in Denmark are among the happiest with their work lives, according to the latest Expat Insider survey from InterNations, the online global community for people who've moved abroad. The Nordic country ranks No. 1 for where people are most satisfied with their jobs, career opportunities and work-life balance, among other aspects. That's based on survey responses from more than 12,500 people living in foreign countries and reflects their feelings on four broad categories covering work topics, including their career prospects, salary and job security, work culture and satisfaction, and work and leisure. Denmark ranks highest for two groupings: work culture and satisfaction, as well as work and leisure. Some 84% of expats in Denmark are satisfied with their work-life balance, compared to a global average of 60%; a similar share are happy with their work hours and, on average, work 39.2 hours per week, compared with 42.5 hours for the global average. Here are the top 10 countries where expats are happiest with their work lives abroad: Denmark Saudi Arabia Belgium Netherlands Luxembourg United Arab Emirates Australia Mexico Indonesia Austria Ilana Buhl, a CNBC Make It contributor and American teacher who moved to Denmark, says moving from Texas to Copenhagen brought about lots of positive changes to her work life: shorter workweeks, stronger boundaries around off-hours, five weeks of paid vacation, and a better salary to cover a lower cost of living. Outside of work, she also enjoys robust public transit, public health care, affordable day care, and ample maternity leave paid for by her employer and the government. Many of these factors contribute to the fact that Denmark consistently ranks as one of the happiest countries in the world, according to the annual World Happiness Report. West Bengal's suit against CBI probes is maintainable, rules SC The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that the suit filed by West Bengal against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), for allegedly proceeding with probes and filing FIRs in cases of post-poll violence without getting the state government's nod as required under the law, is maintainable. A Bench, headed by Justice BR Gavai, rejected the contentions raised by the Union government questioning the maintainability of the original suit filed by the plaintiff state under Article 131 of the Constitution. We clarify that the aforesaid findings are for the purpose of deciding the preliminary objections as raised by the defendant (Union government). However, the same will have no bearing when the suit is decided on its own merits, said the apex court, ordering the matter to be further listed on August 13 for framing of issues in the suit. Earlier in May, the top court had reserved its verdict on the issue of maintainability after hearing the oral arguments advanced by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the plaintiff state. The West Bengal government, in its plea, has referred to the provisions of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946 and said that the Central agency has been proceeding with investigations and filing FIRs without getting the nod from the state government as mandated under the statute. On the other hand, the Centre told the apex court that a state government cannot claim a right to issue omnibus, sweeping, and overarching directions to withdraw consent for a CBI probe into any matter. An affidavit filed by the Union Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said that the state government can exercise the power to grant/refuse consent only on a case-to-case basis and for the same, good, sufficient, and germane reasons have to be recorded. The CBI has lodged multiple FIRs in cases of post-poll violence in West Bengal. The top court had issued notice in the suit in September 2021. The state government has sought a stay of investigation in the FIRs lodged into post-poll violence cases by the CBI in pursuance of the Calcutta High Court order. The plea by the state government said that the general consent given to the CBI by the Trinamool Congress government had been withdrawn, and thus the FIRs lodged could not be proceeded with. People walk along Telegraph Avenue during First Fridays in Oakland last week. The future of the event is uncertain with organizers citing rising costs, decreased attendance and less vending space as challenges. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle Jabari Hopkins, owner of Oakland Native Clothing, sells the T-shirts and sweats he designs at as many Oakland events as he can but nothing compares to First Fridays. He loves the people who attend the monthly arts and culture event and the civic pride on display there. Its an Oakland thing, said Hopkins, who started coming to First Fridays in 2016. Since then, he went from one table to a dedicated vending space where he drops a new clothing design every month. He said First Fridays is now the biggest driver of his business. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But the future of the event remains uncertain, with organizers citing rising costs, decreased attendance and less vending space as challenges. If First Fridays, one of the citys biggest events, stops operating, it would be a huge loss for Oakland. Jabari Hopkins of Oakland Native Clothing sells clothing from his vendor stall during First Fridays in Oakland last week. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle First Fridays woes come as Oakland struggles with a wave of challenges, including budget shortfalls, vacant offices and storefronts downtown, and worries about violent and property crime. A San Francisco woman was shot and killed last week just a few blocks from where the event takes place. Despite the challenges plaguing Oakland, vendors and festival-goers said First Fridays reflect a different side of the city. The event, located on Telegraph Avenue and stretching from 22nd Street to 27th Street, is lined with local vendors selling anything from mouth watering oxtail to watercolor prints to shirts paying homage to Oaklands rich history with the Black Panther Party. Different performers also dot the streets, including a community drumming circle open to everyone. This is the heartbeat of the city, Rahsaan Smith, a long-time festival-goer, said at last weeks event. Its all about love. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Community art group Rock Paper Scissors Collective started First Fridays in 2005 as an art gallery walk, which included a one-block festival with just a few vendors off of 23rd Street. The event was later taken over by another arts group known as Oakland Art Murmur. The event quickly grew in popularity and more vendors started to set up shop, but the crowds also created problems. The Soul Beatz community drum circle at First Fridays in Oakland last week. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle The nonprofit Koreatown/Northgate Community Benefit District (KONO) took over the event in 2013 to bring in more oversight, though the event was on hiatus for about two years during the pandemic. These are the kind of events that people really, really need for their mental health, said Shari Godinez, executive director of KONO, who emphasized the importance of the event following the mass shooting at Lake Merritt a few weeks ago. Before the pandemic, First Fridays would see anywhere between 30,000 and 50,000 attendees, but recent attendance has been between 15,000 and 20,000. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The number of vendors in the program has also dropped from around 150 spots before the pandemic to about 70 due to bike lanes that took up some of the space. The spots are not selling out as fast as before the pandemic, which Godinez thinks might be due to concerns about crime. People stand in line at a food vendor stall along Telegraph Avenue during First Fridays in Oakland last week. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle Amid less foot traffic and fewer vendors, costs including for street closure, security and port-a-potties remain high. Each event usually costs around $35,000-$45,000 to produce and is paid for primarily through a mix of vendor fees and sponsor money. KONO also obtained some grant money for the event during the pandemic but that money is dwindling. Last year, the programs expenses totaled up to around $400,000, but the event only brought in about $300,000, which prompted organizers to cut costs, including getting rid of a main stage used for music and dance performances. Earlier this year, the festival was put on pause so event organizers could focus on raising money to keep it going. However, the break, which lasted from January to March, did not bring in the hoped-for revenue, according to Godinez. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Our festival director is leaving in August, and Im just not going to replace him to see if we can save some funds, Godinez said. Were just going to have a much smaller team and try to move forward and try to get more and more volunteers and see if we can survive. Small business owners and residents want the event to continue. First Fridays is how I got my brick and mortar, said Odain Miller, who runs Nalos Jamerican Soul. Hes a food vendor at the event who has been coming to First Fridays for about 14 years. This is the root of us. Charles Fisher cooks meat at Nalos Jamerican Soul vendor station at First Fridays in Oakland last week. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle Miller is not alone many businesses that come to First Fridays say the event is lucrative. Beyond the vendors, First Fridays also attracts people from all over the Bay Area and even abroad. Weve had people call us from Germany and Australia, wanting to know if the event was going to be open. Theyre planning their trips around this event, said Godinez. Advertisement Article continues below this ad First Fridays has also served as a model for San Franciscos new Downtown First Thursdays. Locals say the events boost community engagement and help the city feel more welcoming. A survey KONO conducted found that people tend to feel safer downtown on First Fridays than on other Fridays, Godinez said. Sewage undergoes biological treatment in a tank at the San Jose-Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility in 2022. Noah Berger/Special to the Chronicle 2022 Bay Area cities and counties will soon make major upgrades to their aging wastewater facilities to comply with new regulations that aim to protect the San Francisco Bay from harmful algal blooms. The upgrades are estimated to cost $11 billion across the region an average increase for ratepayers of $200 per year per household. The new regulations were finalized at Wednesdays meeting of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. Theyre part of a regional permit that is updated every five years. The need for the upgrades has been known for a long time but became urgent, regulators say, after major algal blooms in the bay over the past two summers turned the water rust red and killed tens of thousands of fish. Nutrients found in wastewater especially nitrogen which comes from human urine and other types of waste are major contributors to algal blooms. And algal blooms are expected to happen more frequently as water temperatures and other conditions change in the bay with global warming. Advertisement Article continues below this ad An algal bloom along the bay trail near Emeryville in July 2023. Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle Wastewater is already treated for pathogens and pollutants before going into the bay, but nutrients are not removed by most Bay Area facilities. The new permit requires agencies to take extra steps to reduce nutrients by 40% over 10 years. However, the water board also passed a resolution Wednesday that will allow it to explore ways to extend the timeline for more complex projects. We need more time to get the best projects and to mitigate the cost to our ratepayers, said Lorien Fono, executive director of Bay Area Clean Water Agencies, which represents 40 agencies under the regional permit. However, she said that the agencies agree with the need to take action to prevent more algal blooms. At the most basic level, removing nutrients usually involves moving treated wastewater through multiple tanks and encouraging the growth of bacteria that digest them. What makes the process challenging is that many Bay Area facilities dont have much space to expand in this way, and they have to keep their facilities running while they make major upgrades. Some of the upgrades will bring additional benefits. In Palo Alto, for example, a horizontal levee planned for the bay will send highly treated water into a restored wetland, which will remove nutrients while also providing wildlife habitat and protection from flooding and sea level rise. Dear sturgeon washed ashore at Point Molate Beach in Richmond during an algal bloom in August 2023. Don Feria/Special to the Chronicle The increased costs to ratepayers will come at a time when many other utility bills are spiking, and the exact amount will vary depending on where the ratepayer lives and how much work still needs to be done, Fono said. She said there are plans to lobby for federal and state funding to offset the expense of the upgrades. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The majority of the wastewater treatment facilities were built in the 1970s and 1980s and are overdue for other upgrades that can be completed at the same time. Some agencies have already begun updating equipment to comply with the new regulations, which have long been expected, while others are still in the process. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has budgeted $1.5 billion to address nutrient reduction from wastewater discharged into the bay from its Southeast Treatment Plant. Planning began last year and the project is expected to take approximately 15 years, said Nancy Hayden Crowley, SFPUC press secretary, in an email. We recognize that nutrient loading is the most important water quality issue facing San Francisco Bay, and the SFPUC will continue working as expediently as possible to continue to do its part to ensure the bay is healthy, but (we) urge the water board to provide agencies the time necessary to execute these complex and costly improvements, she said. The East Bay Municipal Utility Districts upgrades were originally estimated to cost $1.5 billion-$2 billion, but the agency recently found a solution that will bring expenses down to the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Andrea Pook, a spokesperson for EBMUD. Advertisement Article continues below this ad EBMUD expects the project to decrease nitrogen levels by up to 65% by the end of next year. Jon Rosenfield, a senior scientist at the environmental nonprofit San Francisco Baykeeper, called the new regulations a long overdue first step and agrees that they should be passed. But his organization has asked the water board to set earlier deadlines for less complex projects, in order to more quickly address the imminent risk of algal blooms. We just went through two summers of the bay turning a biblical color of red, Rosenfield said. A pair of birds onshore at Point Molate Beach in Richmond, where dead sturgeon washed ashore during an algal bloom in August 2023. Don Feria/Special to the Chronicle 2023 Baykeeper also argues that a reduction of nutrients by 40% is not enough to prevent harmful algal blooms, based on research that wastewater agencies have spent millions of dollars to support. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Fono agrees that there needs to be work done to reduce the uncertainty in our understanding of the impacts of nutrients in the bay. She said that Bay Area Clean Water Agencies understands that the limits could change in the future, but we caution that its difficult to plan projects to comply with a moving target. Exterior entrance of Impressions of Saratoga on Broadway in Saratoga Springs, operating as a pop-up tent Tuesday, July 9, 2024. The business, among others has been without power after a fire caused by a rupture in a water service line. Gov. Gavin Newsom, right, looks at damaged electrical equipment on the ground while walking with Curtis Brown, then assistant region chief at Cal Fire. This photo shows an August 2021 visit to a Plumas County community destroyed by the Dixie Fire. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle California officials Wednesday warned residents that the recent heat wave had made conditions across the state critically dry and dangerous, increasing the risk that routine activities like mowing grass could start a wildfire. Authorities have already arrested two men in two separate counties Sonoma and Lake on suspicion of igniting wildfires while mowing and trimming weeds. Wildfires have scorched more than 200,000 acres across California this summer, more than five times the average number to have burned by this date over the previous five years. Its a signal for everyone to be extra vigilant with activities such as mowing, towing, welding and shooting and other activities that can create a spark, said Cal Fire Director Joe Tyler, speaking alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state officials Wednesday at the McClellan Air Tanker Base in Sacramento. Advertisement Article continues below this ad About 95% of wildfires are started by human activity such as mowing, as well as sparks from toppled power lines. This year, early-season lightning strikes have also been a factor, starting fires east of Fresno. National Weather Service forecasters warned that more lightning could strike in the Sierra this weekend and issued a fire weather watch from 11 a.m. Saturday through Sunday night across the entire mountain range. Newsom said the state was prepared with greater firefighting resources and fire-detection cameras than ever before, but California was up against the reality of a changing climate, especially extended heat waves, noting that the hots are getting hotter. Were already experiencing a disproportionately high number of acres burned, Newsom said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Standing near Cal Fires night-flying helicopter fleet at the air base, Newsom said that California in recent years has amassed the largest (fire) suppression fleet in the world. Since the historically destructive Camp Fire in 2018 that destroyed the Butte County town of Paradise, the state has increased its firefighting personnel from 6,700 in 2018 to 9,700 this year, and plans to boost the force by another 2,400 people in the next five years. Cal Fire can take months to publicly confirm what caused a wildfire, but the agency moved quickly in recent weeks to arrest people suspected of starting blazes. In Sonoma County, officials said a man on a riding mower sparked the 11-acre Pocket Fire near Geyserville, which ignited just before 11 a.m. last Saturday during a red flag warning, the alert from the National Weather Service signaling dangerous fire weather conditions. That same day, Cal Fire law enforcement announced the arrest of another man suspected of igniting the 16-acre Adams Fire in Lake County. Officials said the man, who like the mower operator wasnt identified, had been cutting weeds with a weed trimmer in triple-digit temperatures on the afternoon of July 3. On Wednesday, Tyler implored the public to reserve mowing and other potentially fire-starting activities for cooler days and early-morning hours. Advertisement Article continues below this ad GUEST COLUMN: Jews must speak up for ceasefire. If not now, when? A Chronicle review of Oakland Police Department data shows a persistent problem with the agencys weekly crime reports. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle 2021 In recent months it seemed that Oakland a city famously grappling with a rise in crime had course-corrected in remarkable fashion. Statistics published by the police department showed year-to-year crime had dropped by 33% overall by the end of April, a dramatic shift after last years spike. Mayor Sheng Thao praised the city for turning a corner. Gov. Gavin Newsom quoted the 33% figure in a news release touting Oaklands partnership with the California Highway Patrol. The news spread through social media posts and optimistic headlines, including stories in the Chronicle. But a new Chronicle review of Oakland police data finds that the city overstated the improvements actually seen on the streets. More troubling, the analysis found a persistent problem in the Citywide Weekly Crime Reports published by Oakland police, which compare incomplete year-to-date figures from the current year with complete year-to-date figures from past years. Advertisement Article continues below this ad As a result, these counts inevitably, and at all times, create the impression that Oaklands crime trends up or down are better than reality. Highlighted areas contain data the Chronicle found particularly problematic. Oakland Police Department Given currently available data, it isnt possible to know just how much the 33% figure overestimated Oaklands overall reported crime drop. A Chronicle analysis of Oaklands underestimates in previous years suggests that though overall crime was almost certainly down in Oakland through April, that reduction may fall to 20%, possibly less, when the data is fully updated. The Chronicles reporting follows on the work of Oakland resident Timothy Gardner, who exposed the problem in his Substack newsletter, the Oakland Report. Advertisement Article continues below this ad My motivation is simply to stop the misinformation, Gardner said in an interview. Indeed, at a moment when public safety is one of Oaklands most divisive political issues, driving efforts to recall the mayor and the Alameda County district attorney, voters do not have access to a clear picture of crime rates in their neighborhoods. While acknowledging the flawed comparison and percentage changes in the reports, police blame technology constraints and say they are trying to balance the publics appetite for crime data with their duty to be as accurate and transparent as possible. They include a footnote in each weekly report, explaining that the data may be partially counted: Statistics can be affected by late reporting, the geocoding process, or the reclassification or unfounding of crimes. Because crime reporting and data entry can run behind, all crimes may not be recorded. Police officials, though, do little to correct the record when politicians and media outlets cite the inaccurate data and trends. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao speaks to the media during a visit to the 911 Communications Center on Jan. 30. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle Asked about the faulty data, Thaos office provided a statement. I appreciate OPDs efforts to provide weekly transparent crime data to the community, the mayor said. Her office declined to answer additional questions about the issue. A spokesperson for Newsom said the office had cited data from the police and would not comment beyond that. The Oakland Police Departments year-to-date statistics for homicides and violent crimes are mostly accurate. But the reports only partially count burglaries and other nonviolent crimes, which are a lower priority, generally not investigated right away and usually compiled from reports filed online by victims. Those online reports need to be verified and imported into a records management system, causing a lag of up to six weeks, police said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad There can be a delay in the overall number of reported property crimes based on our communitys use of the online reporting system, an OPD spokesperson said in a statement. Each of these online crime reports must be reviewed and verified by a member of our staff before being included in crime statistics. The impact of the backlog can be seen in the crime report published after the week of July 1-7. It tallied 17,969 incidents of what are known as Part 1 crimes for the year murders, assaults, robberies, rape, burglary, theft, auto theft and arson. That was an apparent 33% plunge from last years count of 26,903 crimes through July 7. However, the corresponding report, published one year earlier, had different 2023 figures: It logged 24,244 crimes as of July 9. Thats because the count was not yet complete. Year-end tallies for 2023 were closer to accurate, percentage-wise, but were still incorrect due to the undercounting of crimes like burglary and theft. Similarly, the year-end report for 2022 showed that overall crime had risen by 7%, though a complete report published a year later documented the actual rise of 20%. Spokespeople for the police department insisted that other jurisdictions experience similar delays caused by online reporting, and attach comparable disclaimers to their data. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Yet a Chronicle review of crime data from San Francisco, Berkeley, San Mateo, Fremont, Hayward and Vallejo showed that other cities either do not release year-to-date comparisons, or have lags that are less severe and include more obvious disclaimers. Lt. Barry Donelan, head of Oaklands burglary and general crimes detail, said the department is not trying to deliberately mislead the public. Rather, police staff are hobbled by decrepit IT infrastructure and different software packages that do not communicate with each other efficiently. A report management system issued to Oakland police in 2006 has yet to see an upgrade, he said. Do we know there are shortcomings in the numbers? Yes, Donelan said. Is there a desire among professional law enforcement to fix that? Oh, yes. Over the past few years, more Oakland crime victims have used the online portal to file reports, and the old computer systems havent kept pace, Donelan said. Its frustrating not only for residents and policymakers who want accurate information, he said, but also for police who need real-time data so they can strategically deploy officers. Apart from the weekly reports, the year-end crime data that Oakland submitted to the state Department of Justice several months ago appears to have a major error. It states that in 2023, aggravated assaults more than tripled compared with 2022 from 3,329 to 11,169 after remaining steady in prior years. No one in the Oakland Police Department could explain the implausible rise. In the citys year-end crime report, assaults rose from 3,222 in 2022 to 3,531 in 2023. Rik Belew, a computer scientist who worked for years to make OPDs data more accessible to the public, views the unreliable weekly reports as a snapshot of widespread deficiencies in technology and record-keeping. Inaccurate reporting from the police force has many downstream effects, Belew said. Real estate sites rely on the data to create crime maps for prospective home buyers. Residents and merchants lack key information about when and where crime happens. People are deprived of metrics to evaluate the police chief and other top law enforcement officials. Nonetheless, the weekly report format is deeply entrenched, and some critics of the technology still find value in the data, as do police supervisors, Donelan said. Crime is going down in many categories, including burglaries, as police devote more resources toward investigating them, he said. Thats led to more arrests and prosecutions. Tackling Britain's pervasive sick-note culture is a feat that has eluded many a government minister. Only last year former chancellor Jeremy Hunt was accused of 'demonising' disabled people when he attempted it. Despite these challenges, it is most welcome to hear Health Secretary Wes Streeting say that it is one of his key priorities to reduce the 2.8million on long-term sickness benefits. Encouragingly, he believes a fresh approach to the NHS can help achieve his goals. It can no longer rely on a 'begging bowl', he says, and can instead contribute billions in economic growth to the bottom line of Britain plc. Despite these challenges, it is most welcome to hear Health Secretary Wes Streeting (pictured) say that it is one of his key priorities to reduce the 2.8million on long-term sickness benefits As a Labour Secretary of State Mr Streeting may have more freedom to point out the shortcomings of our vastly expensive health and benefits systems. Conservatives were always forced on to the back foot when they even hinted at such reforms, which led to billions upon billions more being poured into the sump of an ever-thirsty machine, only to be burned off. The NHS is not set in aspic. It cannot be run on a model drawn up in 1948. The essential ingredient of Mr Streeting's announcement is his emphasis on the NHS healing the sick so they are able and willing to go back to work. A 'carrot and stick' approach may make it easier to carry along a resistant public sector that Michael Gove referred to as 'the Blob'. Perhaps the taxpayer will finally see reform introduced through pragmatism, not dogmatism. And not before time. Acid test for new PM Sir Keir Starmer will today face his sternest test yet as he arrives in Washington for a critical Nato summit. It would have been daunting enough as an untested leader stepping onto the world stage for the first time. But Vladimir Putin's bloody attack on a Kyiv children's hospital on Monday places an additional layer of pressure upon the new PM and other Western leaders, just as it was intended to do. Simultaneously, Chinese military are on exercise in Belarus Russia's lapdog and Indian PM Narendra Modi has repeatedly hugged Putin on a visit to Moscow. Where does this leave Nato and Ukraine and Britain's relationship with both? Foreign Secretary David Lammy insists support for Ukraine is 'ironclad', which we warmly welcome, and yet Labour still has not committed to a timetable for increasing defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. Sir Keir Starmer will today face his sternest test yet as he arrives in Washington for a critical Nato summit The great worry is that the occupants of the White House and the Elysee Palace are both emasculated, for different reasons. Germany has this week failed to significantly scale up its military spending. A Donald Trump victory in the US presidential election in November would place even greater pressure on Nato. All the more reason for Sir Keir and other leaders to agree a definitive package this week and to set it firmly in place, quickly. All this could prove an opportunity for Sir Keir to shine, and to guide reluctant members of Nato towards the light. It also has the potential to be a stumbling block and see him sidelined. We hope it is the former. We hope he has the mettle. The Government is right to look at reform of the water industry. Companies must expect the closest scrutiny if they unwisely decide to pay tens of millions in dividends and bonuses while polluting Britain's waterways. Labour describes it as a 'reset', but perhaps we need a full flush. Wes Streeting can certainly talk the talk. Labour's new Health Secretary promises to cut waiting lists almost immediately, understands the NHS model of health care is 'broken', plans to prioritise reform over investment and, for good measure, vows to get to grips with Britain's 'sick note' culture. It's an encouraging agenda, especially with its emphasis on NHS reform, which the Tories pretty much abandoned in their final years, as internecine warfare exhausted their energies, leaving no time for public-sector change. Whether Streeting can deliver is entirely another matter. The Left in his own party and beyond are already growling at his enthusiasm for using the private sector to enhance the medical capacity needed to cut waiting lists. The powerful vested interests within the NHS are none too happy about that prospect either. We shall soon see if he retreats at the first whiff of grapeshot from the unions and the bureaucrats or throws himself into the fray. Health Secretary Wes Streeting promises to cut waiting lists, understands the NHS model of health care is 'broken', plans to prioritise reform and vows to fight 'sick note' culture One thing is clear: if he means what he says, he will have a fight numerous fights on his hands. His ambition cannot be faulted. 'I want to the end the begging bowl culture, where the Health Secretary only ever goes to the Treasury to ask for more money. I want to deliver the Treasury billions of pounds of economic growth.' Fine words. But perhaps the sort of sentiments ministers express when they've barely got their feet under the desk, but then quickly forgotten when the pressures of office start crowding in and what seemed attainable in opposition looks daunting in government. I suspect the NHS will be rattling its begging bowl at the Treasury door for some time to come. But I see what Streeting is getting at. If Labour is to deliver its promise to kick start and maintain economic growth, it will need to tackle the 2.8 million people of working age who are classified as economically inactive because they are deemed to be suffering from long-term sickness. They are a drag on growth. It costs the Treasury billions in terms of lost tax revenue (because people are not working) and extra welfare spending. The number has grown by almost 130,000 in the past year alone and official forecasts have it rising for the rest of the decade to more than 3 million without a change in policy. Some are seriously ill and cannot work. The welfare state exists to look after them. Others are more marginal. They need to be coaxed, gently but firmly over time, to return to work. Some are simply skiving. They need to be treated robustly. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Streeting visit Bassetlaw Hospital in Nottinghamshire to discuss their plans to support the NHS with workers and patients The Tories used to be strong on 'welfare-to-work' policies. They lost the plot after the pandemic. When the last Tory chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, tried to revive welfare-to-work, he was immediately accused of 'demonising' disabled people. Streeting will need to gird himself for the same unreasonable onslaught. The media will pile on, especially the broadcasters. At the moment they're enjoying a honeymoon with Labour, acting almost like the broadcasting arm of the new government. But if Streeting is true to his word, it won't be long before they're showing 'hardship' cases of people supposedly forced back to work unreasonably or prematurely. It could be only a matter of months before the broadcasters start coming at the Starmer government from the Left. Nor is it clear if Streeting can get the waiting lists down quickly. About 7.7 million patients are waiting for treatment a disgraceful inheritance from the Tories including almost 400,000 who've been waiting for a year and more than 3 million who've been waiting more than 18 weeks. Streeting says he will create an extra 40,000 appointments a week by getting NHS staff to work at weekends and evenings, plus doubling the number of scanners. It remains to be seen if NHS staff will oblige, even with the carrot of generous overtime rates. The cost is meant to be met by subjecting non-doms (foreigners who live and work in Britain) to UK taxation on their worldwide income (until now they paid tax only on UK income). But non-doms are already fleeing Britain for friendlier shores. This is a goose that might have few feathers left to pluck. And even if it does, after all, raise the projected extra 2 billion, that's unlikely to be anywhere near enough to axe waiting lists. If an extra couple of billion was all that was required, given the sums recently pumped into the NHS, waiting lists would already be tumbling. Streeting is on his strongest ground when talking about using the private sector to increase resources available to the NHS. This is, of course, anathema to many in his own party and to most of the powers that be in the NHS. It is always met with cries of 'privatisation', a knee-jerk reaction which is never true, even under the Tories, but closes down debate and rational thinking. It is perfectly sensible to use private medical facilities for NHS patients on a waiting list many millions long if the patient's treatment is high quality and still free at the point of use. Who, bar the dumbest ideologue demanding that the state must provide all healthcare, could object to that. Yet only recently that was exactly the position of Streeting's party. Sensible folk will welcome his break with the past. Any attempt to reform the NHS by using the private sector for treatment or offering an element of choice state hospital or private clinic, for example is always met with privatisation claims and accusations of moving to an American-style private system. It has stymied serious debate and hindered real reform. The American and British health systems are, in their own ways, the two worst health systems in the rich world. Nobody has ever copied them. Nobody in their right mind would. Europe provides plenty examples of systems which still provide health care regardless of ability to pay but attract extra money though co-payments (small upfront charges), top-ups and the like, which result in better health outcomes. Labour is packed with Europhiles who often prefer European ways to our own. Except, because of a blinkered view of the NHS, when it comes to health. Streeting claims Labour's reform agenda 'will turn the NHS on its head. From a service focused on hospitals to one providing more care in the community, analogue to digital, sickness to prevention'. All sound sense. But the powerful vested interests of the NHS will resist much of what he proposes. Just imagine the rows to come when funds are moved from hospitals to community health services. Or the union backlash when new technology makes thousands of NHS jobs redundant. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the capacity to revolutionise health care, from testing to diagnostics to supply chains. But ours is a health service which wasted 10 billion on an IT system to digitise patient records which was abandoned without ever being introduced. That the NHS will somehow be in the vanguard of AI does require a leap of faith which past experience does not justify. The NHS now employs more than 2 million people, up from 1.56 million when the supposedly anti-NHS Tories came to power. The workforce will pass 2.5 million sometime in the next decade. It already accounts for one in three public sector workers, it's annual budget now more than 180 billion, up 50 billion since 2010 and still rising because no amount of money is ever enough. It has become a behemoth almost beyond reform or even political control. Wes Streeting has the right instincts. He knows, broadly, what needs to be done. I wish him luck. He's going to need it. Royal Collection Trust staff are preparing to open the East Wing of Buckingham Palace to the public for the first time ever on Thursday. The East Wing encompasses the front facade of the historic building, including the famous balcony, where the monarch and Royal Family members have gathered for public appearances during special occasions or historic moments since 1851. King Charles was instrumental in allowing visitors into the royal residence's east wing for the first time and almost 6,000 tickets were sold out within hours of going on sale in April. Attendees will view 19 rooms, getting a glimpse of George IV's love of oriental art and furniture during the tour in London. Ahead of the opening, Royal Collection Trust have released images of staff making the final preparations, revealing a glimpse into the royal artefacts on display in the Principal Corridor, Centre Room, and Yellow Drawing Room. Final preparations are made in the Yellow Drawing Room in the East Wing of Buckingham Palace, London, which is being opened to visitors for the first time this summer. Pictured: 1. Chimney Piece 2. Chinese celadon candelabra 3. Kylin clock 4. Chinoiserie table 5. Bailey & Sanders chair 6. 19th-century Chinese wallpaper Attendees will walk along the Principal Corridor in the East Wing of Buckingham Palace. Pictured: 7. Royal portrait by Thomas Gainsborough, John Hayes St Leger, 1782 lines the green walls of the corridor The famous Centre Room, where members of the Royal Family have gathered for public appearances during special occasions or historic moments since 1851, will also be open to the public. Pictured: 8. Lotus chandelier 9. Chinese 18th century Imperial Silk wall hangings 10. Chinese porcelain vases stand on tables The Royal Collection Trust has granted the public access to the East Wing following five years of refurbishment. The renovations were part of the Buckingham Palace Reservicing Programme, costing 369million, aimed at upgrading the buildings, improving infrastructure, and ensuring its longevity for future generations. Attendees will follow experts as they tour the rooms, which have not been open to the public before. YELLOW DRAWING ROOM A member of staff is photographed cleaning the Kylin clock, made of Chinese and French porcelain The Chinese-inspired room is decorated with early nineteenth-century Chinese wallpaper chosen by Queen Mary It is a special space filled with decadent installations that take inspiration from China. The Yellow Drawing Room is situated in the south-east corner of the East Wing, which was designed in 1840 by Edward Blore to provide more entertaining and living space for Queen Victoria and her expanding family. Blore's design included the famous central balcony on the front facade of the Palace, which was incorporated at Prince Albert's suggestion. The Yellow Drawing Room looks out over the forecourt and interconnects with the adjoining suite of visitors' bedrooms and dressing rooms. It was one of two rooms intended to contain the more extravagant fixtures and fittings from Brighton Pavilion. The space was redecorated and hung in richly figured yellow silk for the State Visit of the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie in 1855. The imperial couple spent three days at Windsor before moving on with Queen Victoria for a further three days at Buckingham Palace. In the years after the First World War, Queen Mary rearranged the room and installed the fine early nineteenth-century Chinese wallpaper that she had discovered in store. Fittingly, it too had hung in Brighton Pavilion. Today, the room is used by senior royals on a regular basis, including for portrait settings. Lavish Chinese-inspired ornaments fill the East Wing, including the Kylin clock (pictured left) and Chinese Pagodas (pictured right) Senior royals have posed for official portraits in the Yellow Drawing Room, including Queen Elizabeth's 2010 portrait by by award-winning painter, Isobel Peachey (pictured) The Yellow Drawing Room's main attraction is the chimney piece, originally made for the Saloon at Brighton in 1822. Designed by Robert Jones, the piece holds a pair of mounted Chinese celadon candelabra, also from the Brighton Pavilion. The Kylin Clock takes the centre spot on the chimney piece, which combines Asian porcelain with a French clock. Sat above the clock face is Hotei, the mythological Japanese God of good luck. Chinoiserie tables stand on either side of the piece, one French from 1780, and the other an English copy, along with a set of Bailey & Sanders chairs from the Banqueting Room Gallery. PRINCIPAL CORRIDOR A member of staff is photographed preparing to welcome members of the public to the Principal Corridor The Principal Corridor, which spans the entire length of the East Wing, is filled with Chinese-inspired artefacts Intricate paintings hang on the green walls of the 240-foot-long Principal Corridor, which spans the entire length of the East Wing. Artworks include those from German painter Franz Xaver Winterhalter, who was known for his portraits of royals, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and English portrait and landscape artist Thomas Gainsborough. The carefully curated collection of artworks aim to reflect the East Wing's Victorian history, with portraits of Queen Victoria, her family, and key events throughout her reign. Queen Victoria stands in an evening dress with her oldest son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, in Franz Xaver Winterhalter's portrait. In a different portrait, the monarch, who ruled for 64 years, is depicted arriving at St Paul's Cathedral in London during her Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Elsewhere, the 240-foot lavish corridor also holds State portraits of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. In line with the rest of the East Wing, the Principal Corridor is home to Chinese-inspired artefacts, including intricately designed Chinese pagodas. CENTRE ROOM The Centre Room holds a stunning newly restored glass chandelier originally inspired by a lotus flower Royal Collection Trust staff are cleaning the chandelier in preparation for the public on Thursday It is known as the Royal waiting room - where for more than 150 years kings, queens and royals have mingled - often nervously - before walking on to the world's most famous balcony. Buckingham Palace's Centre Room, which will be open to visitors for the first time this summer as part of an opening of up of the royal home's East Wing, has been a host for nerves and excitement since the reign of Queen Victoria. It is now home to a newly restored William Perry glass chandelier that is shaped to resemble a lotus flower and two Chinese 18th-century silk wall hangings that were presented to Victoria by the emperor of China to mark her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Lavish Chinese porcelain vases, originally supplied to George IV in 1807, also decorate the room. But, beyond the beauty of the ornate furnishings, it is the conversations that the royals have had inside it ahead of their balcony appearances that are most fascinating. Meghan Markle, on her first balcony outing in 2018, reportedly admitted to her husband Prince Harry that she was 'nervous', so it was in the Centre Room where she would have sought to calm those jitters. The room has also been host to at least one wisp of cigarette smoke. Prince Henry, the late Duke of Gloucester, was pictured enjoying a crafty puff on the balcony threshold in May 1952, when Queen Elizabeth II oversaw the first Trooping the Colour ceremony of her reign. At her Coronation the following year, four-year-old Charles and his then two-year-old sister Princess Anne would likely have been jumping up and down with excitement in the Centre Room before they faced the public with their family. During her 70 years on the throne, there were dozens more balcony outings that would have been preceded by the gathering of the royals in the Centre Room. The room, which holds a chandelier inspired by a lotus flower, holds numerous lavish Chinese-inspired ornate furnishings The Centre Room has been a part of many major royal events throughout history, including royal weddings It was in the Centre Room that the monarch prepared to make her final wave to the public from the famous Palace platform at her Platinum Jubilee in 2022. The following year, King Charles gathered his new 'slimmed down' monarchy in the same spot before the traditional balcony appearance at his stunning Coronation. On the day of the majestic wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, the new royal couple kissed on the balcony. And, five years later, when Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson tied the knot, they echoed Charles and Diana's kiss with a smooch of their own. Prince William and Catherine, now the Princess of Wales, also shared a kiss on the balcony when they married in 2011. Caroline de Guitaut, Surveyor of the King's Works of Art, said: 'It was Prince Albert's idea to have a balcony at Buckingham Palace, because he saw it as a way of enabling the royal family to connect with the people, and of course that's exactly how, in a sense, it continues to be used on important occasions.' She added: 'But it began to be used very early on in Queen Victoria's reign, from 1851 waving off the troops to the Crimean War and welcoming them back on return.' The public will not be able to step onto the balcony although they will have views down The Mall. Visitors with a standard ticket for the place's state rooms will tour the 19 rooms used by the royal family for official entertaining. In the ballroom, they can view artist Jonathan Yeo's new portrait of the King, with its striking red background. George IV's opulent oriental-style seaside palace, the royal pavilion in Brighton, was sold to finance the building work of the East Wing and its contents, some of the finest ceramics and furniture in the Royal Collection, were moved to the east wing and inspired the Chinese-themed decor of its principal rooms. They were carried from Brighton in 143 shipments on artillery carts, and although some items were loaned back to the pavilion, major items, like 42 fireplaces, were incorporated into Buckingham Palace along with tables, chairs, clocks and vases. Queen Letizia of Spain has put on a united front with her husband King Felipe and their daughters Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia as they stepped out together in Barcelona. The family appearance comes after the latest bombshell claims from Letizia's former brother-in-law Jaime Del Burgo, who earlier this year suggested they had an 'affair' after her marriage to the King. The businessman - who dated the Queen when she was still a newsreader and was married to her sister Telma from 2012-2014 - has since claimed that he is still in contact with the royal in an interview with Argentinian newspaper Clarin. He said: 'We have shared many years of our lives together. We have been a family. s I have always said, ours was not a relationship of lovers. The lover would be him, in any case. I mean Felipe.' But Letizia and Felipe, who have made no public response to the claims, showed no hint of turmoil as they attended a meeting with winners of previous editions of the Princess of Girona Foundation Awards during the events of the XV anniversary for the organisation at the Melia Lloret de Mar Hotel. Queen Letizia of Spain has put on a united front with her husband King Felipe and their daughters Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia as they stepped out together in Barcelona Letizia looked typically elegant in a cream sleeveless dress, featuring a daring slit and statement neckline, teamed with a pair of white heels and a matching handbag. Appearing equally sophisticated, her husband matched the Queen's style in a cream blazer and blue shirt. The Foundation, which is currently chaired by the King on behalf of Princess Leonor, works for young people in all areas that are critical for their future. It seeks to become a benchmark at national level in supporting young people in their professional and personal development. In particular, the awards ceremony recognises talented young people who are held up as role models for their good work. Meanwhile, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia of Spain, who had visited a sculpting studio in Barcelona earlier in the day, appeared perfectly in sync on Tuesday. The teenage daughters of King Felipe and Queen Letizia, 18 and 17, opted for a summery look as they made the special visit to renowned artist Jaume Plensa's studio. Their flawless appearance cemented their status once more as promising heirs to the throne and the future of the crown. The family appearance comes after the latest bombshell claims from Letizia's former brother-in-law Jaime Del Burgo, who earlier this year suggested they had an 'affair' after her marriage to the King. The royals have not responded to his claims But Letizia and Felipe showed no hint of turmoil as they attended a meeting with winners of previous editions of the Princess of Girona Foundation Awards during the events of the XV anniversary for the organisation at the Melia Lloret de Mar Hotel Letizia looked typically elegant in a cream sleeveless dress, featuring a daring slit and statement neckline, teamed with a pair of white heels and a matching handbag The Foundation, which is currently chaired by the King on behalf of Princess Leonor, works for young people in all areas that are critical for their future Leonor has stepped up her role since turning 18 last October, and it appears the crown is looking to her for a fresh start after years of scandal plaguing the monarchy. The princesses were immaculately turned out in their summery outfits, and even wore matching espadrille sandals from Spanish brand Macarena Shoes. Eldest daughter Leonor paired a blouse with puffed sleeves with matching jeans, looking radiant as she attended gold hoops and a star-shaped piercing. Meanwhile Sofia opted for wide leg trousers and a blouse from Ba&sh, one of her favourite brands in a boho-style design. The royal visit highlighted their interest in contemporary art and culture, as they admired Plensa's acclaimed works and engaged in discussions with the artist. The event is part of the Princess of Girona Awards, which will be presented on July 10. 'The Princess has a huge job to do. At 18, it's time to speak on behalf of so many like her who are looking for a space and a voice in society,' said the event's host, according to Spain's Hola Magazine. On Wednesday, Leonor is due to give another speech at a gala for the awards. Appearing equally sophisticated, her husband matched the Queen's style in a cream blazer and blue shirt Meanwhile, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia of Spain , who had visited a sculpting studio in Barcelona earlier in the day, appeared perfectly in sync on Tuesday Meanwhile, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia of Spain , who had visited a sculpting studio in Barcelona earlier in the day, appeared perfectly in sync on Tuesday King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia, Princess Sofia and Crown Princess Leonor of Spain attend a meeting with winners of previous editions of the Princess of Girona Awards The family day out comes amid a turbulent time for the Spanish royal family, which began earlier this year with the publication of a bombshell book by veteran Spanish journalist Jaime Penafiel. Letizia's former brother-in-law told the author that he met Letizia before 2000 and their alleged relationship began on a romantic trip to Venice, years before she met King Felipe. Jaime - who is the son of the former politician Jaime Ignacio del Burgo - claims he was planning to propose to Letizia when she announced that she was dating a mysterious 'diplomat' over dinner at the Ritz hotel in Madrid in 2002. Describing how 'serious and significant' their relationship was, the author made the unlikely claim that Jaime was 'carrying an engagement ring his his pocket' that evening. Letizia reportedly told him that she had 'met someone who would oblige her to quit her profession', which Jaime said led him to deduce her mystery partner was Felipe. After the pair reportedly decided to just be friends, Jaime is said to have advised Letizia: 'Don't announce the romance, just the wedding.' Following their engagement announcement in 2003, Letizia - who had divorced her first husband in 1999 - allegedly asked Jaime to be a witness at their wedding. What's more, the royal's ex-brother-in-law also made the far-fetched claim that he 'dealt' with Letizia's pre-nuptial agreement and helped to front the cost of the Queen's family's wedding outfits. Crown Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia during a visit to Jaume Plensa Studio in Barcelona The two were eye-catching in matching white outfits - even opting for the same pair of shoes Leonor paired a blouse with puffed sleeves with matching jeans, looking radiant The royal visit highlighted their interest in contemporary art and culture. Pictured: Princess Leonor The event is part of the Princess of Girona Awards, which will be presented on July 10 The sisters, who are the daughters of King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain, appeared curious and interested He was quoted as saying: 'When the wedding with Felipe came round, I dealt with the pre-nuptial agreement as you know, amongst other things. 'I also had to pay Letizia's family's expenses because [former King] Juan Carlos refused to pay or even go halves with me. So with the help of my friend Felipe Varela, I dressed her mum, grandmother and her sisters. And with the help of Jaime Jason, her father, grandparents and a cousin.' TIMELINE OF DEL BURGO'S CLAIMS ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH SPAIN'S ROYAL FAMILY Pre-2000 - Letizia Ortiz, who was a newsreader at the time, meets Jaime del Burgo - the son of a politician - and the pair start dating - Letizia Ortiz, who was a newsreader at the time, meets Jaime del Burgo - the son of a politician - and the pair start dating 2001 - Letizia and King Felipe meet on the site of a oil spillage. Jaime claims he was planning to propose when she told him about her new royal romance - Letizia and King Felipe meet on the site of a oil spillage. Jaime claims he was planning to propose when she told him about her new royal romance 2003 - Letizia and Felipe announce engagement. - Letizia and Felipe announce engagement. 2004 - The couple marry at Almudena Cathedral in Madrid. Jaime claims he was asked to be a witness during the ceremony - The couple marry at Almudena Cathedral in Madrid. Jaime claims he was asked to be a witness during the ceremony 2005 - The couple welcome Princess Leonor February 2007 - Letizia's sister Erika suddenly passes away - Letizia's sister Erika suddenly passes away April 2007 - Princess Sofia is born. During one of her pregnancies, Jaime claims Letizia sends him a selfie confessing her love. - Princess Sofia is born. During one of her pregnancies, Jaime claims Letizia sends him a selfie confessing her love. 2 010 - The couple reportedly profess their love for one another and allegedly meet with lawyers. Jaime claims they looked at properties in the US to move to. He also claims Letizia suggested they use a surrogate in LA to have a baby - The couple reportedly profess their love for one another and allegedly meet with lawyers. Jaime claims they looked at properties in the US to move to. He also claims Letizia suggested they use a surrogate in LA to have a baby 2011 - Jaime claims Letizia ends their relationship over the phone - Jaime claims Letizia ends their relationship over the phone 2 012 - Jaime marries Letizia's sister Telma. The couple relocate to New York - Jaime marries Letizia's sister Telma. The couple relocate to New York 2014 - Telma and Jaime announce their separation Advertisement Jaime also made the incredible claim that the Queen asked to see him the night before the wedding at the exclusive El Latigazo restaurant in Madrid - where she asked him to 'never leave' her. He sensationally claimed: 'When we met, she took hold of my hand and asked me why I had never asked her to marry me. Obviously I didn't reply. I encouraged her as best I could. The last thing she said to me before we said goodbye to each other in that restaurant was a request: 'Never leave me.'' In the book, Del Burgo described Felipe as a 'kind-hearted man' and even goes on to say that he had a 'great friendship' with the royal. He told the author: 'I told him my problems and he told [me] his.' The businessman even claims that Felipe 'uses [him] as a good man because he felt incapable of calming [Letizia] down' on occasions. Following the wedding, Jaime described how Letizia was like a 'fox in a chicken coop' as she was 'cleverer than any of them'. Jaime - who says the Queen nicknamed him her 'yogi pal' - claims he still had a romantic relationship with Letizia even after the wedding in 2004. He also claims he has kept 'photographs, videos, mobile phones' and text messages as evidence. The businessman claimed that 'love was always there' in their relationship since, he claimed, they travelled to Venice together. The photograph Jaime shared on Twitter was taken during one of Letizia's pregnancies between 2005-2007. In the book, Jaime sensationally claims that Letizia whispered that she loved him when they were lying in a hammock by a pool at her home following Princess Leonor's birth. Jaime Penafiel goes on to write that Jaime del Burgo subsequently wrote a play called 'La Hamaca, which in English is 'The Hammock', and edited it but never distributed it. Following this, Jaime alleges they 'took steps forward with the goal of being free' - which involved seeking legal advice and looking at properties in the US. A spokesperson for the Spanish Royal Family previously told FEMAIL: 'We have no comment to make about this.' An Irish air stewardess is trapped in Dubai and facing jail after drinking alcohol and trying to take her own life having allegedly suffered domestic abuse. Tori Towey, 28, from Boyle in County Roscommon and who works for Emirates Airlines in the UAE, said she was attacked in her home and has now been banned from leaving the state. A spokesperson for legal group Detained in Dubai (DiD) claimed Tori's South African husband went after her with a knife and punched her, before slamming her arm in the bathroom door trying to break it. Tori said she tried to take her own life after the attack, which left her with severe bruises and injuries. But after being taken to a police station, Ms Towey is now facing charges of alcohol consumption and attempting suicide by a court in Dubai. She said she is unable to leave the country as her passport was blocked, meaning she can't travel back home to Ireland. Tori Towey has been left stranded in Dubai after being faced with an attempted suicide charge Tori was pictured with extensive bruises over her body, which she says are from an assault Speaking through outreach group DiD, who are assisting the family, Ms Towey said: 'I don't know what's going to happen in court next week. 'I'm desperate to go home to Ireland and put all of this in the past. I'm asking the Taoiseach to please help us.' The DiD has said Ms Towey could face a lengthy prison sentence in a jail known for 'human rights abuses and torture'. Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, said: 'We are calling on Dubai authorities to urgently drop the charges against Tori, remove the travel ban and let her fly home to Ireland with her mother. She has been charged with attempted suicide and alcohol consumption. 'Strangely, the UAE has gone to great public relations efforts to promote alcohol as legal in the country. In reality, people are still regularly charged with alcohol consumption and possession. Tori's experience is nothing short of tragic and quite frankly, she is lucky to be alive.' She explained: 'Tori arranged to fly home to Ireland but, when she arrived at the airport, was told a case against her by her husband had been dropped but the travel ban remained. Dubai's draconian laws: Why attempting suicide and drinking alcohol is a 'crime' Prior to 2019, anyone found guilty of attempting suicide in Dubai faced a 5000AED fine (1050) or six months in prison. The 'offence' was one of 28 'minor crimes' downgraded to free up space in the Emirates' overcrowded courts system. Those found guilty of attempting suicide in the Gulf state now have to pay a fine of 1000AED (210) instead of facing a judge. In the same year, the Gulf state loosened its liquor laws to allow tourists to purchase alcohol in state-controlled stores, previously only accessible to licence-holding residents. The new laws also let visitors obtain liquor permits themselves for the first time, by applying online or going to a registered alcohol store to get one for free. Whie visitors must have a permit, it's no longer a criminal offence not to have one. A 30 per cent tax on alcohol was also axed on New Year's Eve 2022 to encourage tourists to flock to the Emirate. While the relaxation of the laws sends a message that it's safe to drink, the reality is more complicated. It is illegal to drink or even be under the influence of alcohol in public, outside of a licensed premises. Radha Stirling, founder and CEO of Detained in Dubai previously told MailOnline: 'Reducing the cost of alcohol in Dubai is sending a clear message to tourists and that is to drink. Considering Dubais alcohol laws prohibit the possession of alcohol in public, drinking in Dubai is inherently dangerous. 'If a visitors blood is tested and shows up even one drink, they can be criminally charged. Alcohol tests are often conducted when a complaint is made by a local. If a local is offended by a visitors dress sense, language or behaviour, they may call the police and have the visitor arrested, even if that person has only consumed a small beer. 'Dubais laws are highly contradictory. On the one hand, people are encouraged to drink but on the other, its a criminal offence to have any amount of alcohol in your blood in public. Encouraging visitors to drink more alcohol will most certainly result in increased detentions of Brits abroad in prisons notorious for human rights abuses and police brutality'. Advertisement 'She attended the police station who assured her the travel ban would be lifted but it never happened. The next day, Tori and her husband had some wine and he became enraged, accusing her of having an affair.' Ms Towey then attempted to take her own life and ended up in a police station. Ms Stirling explained: 'The next thing she remembers is an ambulance crew and police waking her up. She was taken to Al Barsha police station and kept for several hours before going home again. 'Her mother pleaded to the Irish Consulate but in the absence of their assistance, boarded a flight to Dubai. When she arrived, she wasn't allowed to see Tori alone, her abuser wouldn't allow it. 'The three met at Emirates mall then attended the prosecutor's office to find out what charges had been registered against her.' Ms Towey, who graduated from the Dublin Institute Of Technology, moved to the UAE in April 2023 Tori is pictured in 2021, before her move to the UAE - where she now hopes to return to Ireland Irish premier Simon Harris has said he will work to intervene in the 'appalling' case, while Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald raised Ms Towey's case in the Irish Parliament on Tuesday afternoon. Mr Harris thanked Ms McDonald for bringing the case to his attention, saying: 'I'm not directly appraised of the situation, but I'm very happy to be directly appraised of it now.' He said he would work with the deputy 'to intervene and see how we can support an Irish citizen in what sounds to be based on what you tell me the most appalling circumstances'. The Department of Foreign Affairs told the Irish Daily Mail it was aware of the case and was offering consular assistance. Ms McDonald told Dail Eireann that Ms Towey has been the victim of domestic violence and is subject to a travel ban over alleged charges. She said she has spoken to Ms Towey, and that the 28-year-old's mother has travelled to Dubai to be with her. 'Tori wants to come home, simple as that. She is a Roscommon woman and she wants to come home,' she said. 'I am asking now, as a matter of absolute urgency, that we have a statement from this House, that you intervene Taoiseach, that the ambassador is called and that it is made absolutely plain to the authorities of Dubai that no woman should be treated in this way, and an Irish citizen, an Irish woman will not be treated in this way.' Radha Stirling, CEO of DiD says Tori's husband attacked her with a knife and punched her, before slamming her arm in the bathroom door trying to break it. Pictured the injuries said to be from the alleged attack The 28-year-old moved to the UAE in April 2023 when she was offered a job as a flight attendant with Emirates Mr Harris responded saying he was not aware of Ms Towey's case, and thanked Ms McDonald for bringing it to his attention and that of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin. He pledged to work 'to intervene and see how we can support an Irish citizen in what sounds to be, based on what you tell me, the most appalling circumstances'. The Department of Foreign Affairs told the Irish Daily Mail it was aware of the case and was offering consular assistance. Talking to Sky News, Tori's aunt Ann Flynn said: 'She's doing her best.' She added: 'It's very stressful, it's stressful for all the family.' She described her niece as 'a beautiful young woman' who is 'fun-loving and loved to travel'. Ms Flynn said: 'She got the job of her dreams working for Emirates, and she could continue travelling with work. 'She loved Dubai, and had a good network of friends there.' The airline hostess has been told 'nothing could be done' and that the case will be going to court on July 18. In 2018, one member of Dubai Police said that they would focus on treatment rather than punishment when it came to suicide victims, even thought suicide and suicide attempts are a crime in the country. Brig Ahmed bin Ghalaita, then director of Al Refaa Police Station, told The National: 'The move is taken to provide support to suicide attempters and deal with them as victims who need moral support and help. 'Suicide cases are being examined by a police unit and experts in the psychology field to identify the causes behind their attempts and find solutions for them.' It comes as earlier this year, British wives boasting of luxury new lives funded by millionaire husbands in Dubai have been warned they risk being dumped homeless on the streets at any moment. Experts have revealed a surge in complaints from not only women but also men betrayed and dumped by wealthy partners after upping sticks for the Middle East. The alert comes amid a TikTok and Instagram trend of UK women sharing footage of spending sprees in the United Arab Emirates after wedding wealthy husbands. Mail Online had also reported on an influx of expats pampered by rich partners, enjoying days filled with shopping trips, extravagant meals and property upgrades. Yet there is a 'dark side' to Dubai that many women only discover too late, according to Manchester-based Aramas International Lawyers' Samara Iqbal. Advice for British wives marrying and moving to the Middle East Manchester-based lawyer Samara Iqbal has suggested potential brides moving abroad put these in place: 1. A pre- or post-nuptial agreement which can be done in the UK or filed with the Abu Dhabi Civil Court 2. A credit card/bank account in her own name with some emergency funds and money should she be cut off from her partner's bank accounts 3. A visa in her own name as this could also be cancelled and she would need to leave within 30 days if she cannot arrange a visa for herself 4. An agreement regarding the custody of any child/children - possibly in the pre-/post-nuptial agreement 5. Ideally a car and some accommodation under her own name, should she find herself thrown out of the marital home Advertisement She told of being inundated with calls for help from not only women but also men wanting protection amid fears they have been - or could be - exploited by a partner promising an alluring new lifestyle in the Middle East. And she has issued a hitlist of warning signs for anyone feeling tempted - while also highlighting a new civil court in neighbouring Abu Dhabi which could offer more help to women stranded overseas and yet which remains little-known to many. Ms Iqbal's firm is based in Manchester but a surge in cases has seen new branches open in Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. She too is a watcher of TikTok videos promoting what seem to be aspirational lives in the Middle East - but is now warning women to beware of hidden dangers. She outlined how many women find out only too late their husband might have as many as three other wives - and that while handing over upmarket clothes, cards and credit cards, everything remains documented in only his name. Ms Iqbal told Mail Online: Weve got lots of British women who are attracted by these promises of a luxurious lifestyle, even though their own families arent happy about it and not realising he can cut her off at any moment. 'People are literally being dumped on the street. It looks nice, but theres a dark side to Dubai it can be very scary out there if you find yourself in this position and don't know what your legal rights are.' Her firm is increasingly being approached for advice on potential pre-nuptial and also post-nuptial agreements as more and more women feel tempted by marriages to someone theyve met here before moving together overseas. She said: 'We often deal with cases more and more on a daily basis in which lots of women have married and moved out to the UAE only to be left stranded without any source of money and essentially being "cut off" by their rich partners. 'While these partners may be providing and funding their luxurious lifestyles - cars, designer items, expensive jewellery, holidays, meals out - none of this actually belongs to these women and there is nothing in their name. It's all in their partners name. 'Women are thrown out of marital homes as they do not belong to them - credit cards cut off and they have no recourse to any of the possessions, houses, companies and assets the partner has solely in his own name. 'These assets come under Sharia law and belongs to the person whose name its registered to and she would not be entitled to any of it if her name is not registered.' Potential husbands might swoop in during university days together, drinking and nightclubbing in a way they would no longer do when back in the UAE, she suggests. Women are not the only ones at risk, according to Ms Iqbal - she described being asked for advice by men serenaded in London and promised a better life abroad but worried they could be abandoned or blackmailed over their sexuality. In the past year a new civil court in Abu Dhabi has been opened which does recognise British civil orders and tends to look more favourably on UK wives wanting a settlement or at least joint custody of any children. Yet too many people still remain unaware it exists, Ms Iqbal said. Ms Towey's horrific story is not the first time Brits and Irish citizens in Dubai have been slammed with unfair charges. Radha Stirling - the founder of Detained in Duabi - was inspired to start up the organisation after in 2008 hearing that a colleague called Cat Le-Huy had been arrested by immigration officials in the nation. At first, she assumed it was all a big mistake. Her friend, a London-based producer with whom she worked at the TV production company Endemol, had been initially detained because an unidentified bottle of pills was found in his suitcase. After they turned out to be melatonin, a perfectly legal jetlag medication, customs staff announced with a flourish that they had also discovered cannabis among some dust in the depths of the holidaymaker's bag. The quantity of this illegal narcotic was, they claimed, exactly 0.03 grams. That's an amount smaller than a single grain of salt and virtually invisible to the human eye. Cat, who hails from Belsize Park, North London, was promptly slapped in handcuffs and transported to the Al Wathba prison, 40 miles north of the airport. Radha knew that her friend did not take recreational drugs so, initially, thought he would be promptly released. But she was wrong. Instead, she was told to her horror that he faced a four-year prison sentence for 'drug possession'. In the weeks that followed, she helped organise a noisy campaign on Cat's behalf, turning him into an international cause celebre. Finally, after the best part of a month in custody, he was released without charge and allowed to return home. As the dust settled, Radha was contacted by several other Westerners who claimed to be victims of grave miscarriages of justice in the tourist hotspot. 'People were basically saying, 'I saw how you helped him, can you help me, too?' she said in an interview with the Daily Mail. 'I suddenly realised that, behind the facade of this glamorous country, which touts its credentials as a popular destination with beaches and luxury hotels, there were huge problems with the rule of law and human rights, affecting vast numbers of innocent people.' She duly founded Detained In Dubai, a pressure group that lobbies on behalf of victims of the Emirate state's hardline laws. As of 2021, her organisation had helped an incredible 15,000 people an average of roughly three per day navigate a draconian legal system. 'We have dealt with cases in which rape victims were prosecuted for unlawful sex, foreigners jailed over social media posts, people convicted on the basis of torture and forced confessions, and victims of gross police and prosecutorial misconduct of a variety that staggers the imagination,' she revealed. 'All involve laws that people don't imagine could possibly exist in the modern era.' Among the victims Radha has personally helped is Princess Latifa al-Maktoum, the daughter of Dubai's autocratic ruler Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, who attempted to flee the country in a yacht in 2018. The princess was under armed guard, in 2021 sharing videos telling how she had been seized by commandos while in international waters, before being transported back to Dubai, where she had claimed to have been held hostage ever since. 'I spoke to Princess Latifa when she was on the boat and shots were going off,' Radha said. 'It was extremely harrowing. When even a member of the royal family is denied basic human rights, you can imagine how the country treats normal people who aren't even its citizens.' However, in 2022 the Princess Latifa said she is 'living as she wishes' a year after claiming she was being held against her will by her father. These and other high-profile cases shine a light on the dark underbelly of a destination whose status as a celebrity hotspot is deeply at odds with its legal system, under which everything from drinking alcohol to holding hands in public and sharing a bedroom with someone who is not your spouse is officially unlawful, and consensual gay sex can earn you a prison sentence of ten years. Among the victims Radha has personally helped is Princess Latifa al-Maktoum, the daughter of Dubai's autocratic ruler. The princess was under armed guard, in 2021 sharing videos (pictured) telling how she had been seized by commandos while in international waters, before being transported back to Dubai, where she had claimed to have been held hostage ever since Almost any visitor is also at constant risk of prosecution under strict cyber-crime laws. Should they or any other foreigner fall foul of a policeman, minor royal, business leader or powerful local, the country's authorities can (and often do) trawl through historic social media posts. 'These rules can, in theory, criminalise almost every Western visitor,' says Radha. 'If you're responsible for a Facebook post from five years ago they don't like, and if they want to go for you, then you are toast.' One example was Briton Laleh Shahravesh, who was arrested in Dubai in 2019 following a complaint from a local that she had used the social network to brand her ex-husband's new partner 'horse-face'. She was arrested on arrival in the country and only allowed back to the UK several weeks later, after agreeing to pay a 625 fine for making the supposedly 'defamatory' claim. Elsewhere Scott Richards, a 42-year-old father of two, was detained in 2016 after the police took exception to a Facebook post in which he had shared a link to a crowd-funding campaign to supply blankets for Afghan refugees. He spent three weeks behind bars because of a law that bans soliciting donations for non-profits that have not been approved by the government's 'Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities' department. In 2021, Detained In Dubai was also representing a 31-year-old HR manager from Gloucestershire arrested at the airport as she tried to return home after three years living in the country. Her alleged 'crime' is having told her ex-flatmate to 'f*** off' in a WhatsApp message, during a row over the use of the dining table at their home during lockdown. This is also, apparently, defamatory. For years, Sheikh Maktoum (pictured in 2019) has often intervened when ugly legal cases threaten his country's international reputation It is women's rights that are most commonly abused. A 2005 law states that 'a husband's rights over his wife' include the wife's 'courteous obedience to him', and places conditions on a married woman's right to work or leave the house. These rules are routinely used by estranged husbands to exert control over their spouses, even when both parties are Western expats. Radha says: 'We had one client, a German woman in the process of separating from her husband, who had decided to get a job. Her husband rang up the company and said, 'I didn't give her permission' and they had to fire her.' In Dubai, extra-marital sex is punishable by one year or more in prison. On the basis of this law, Amnesty says, a Swedish-run hospital in Ajman Emirate was forced to report pregnant, unmarried women to the police. Three years ago, a 29-year-old South African resident of Dubai called Emlyn Culverwell took his fiancee, Iryna Nohal, a Ukrainian, to a doctor, complaining of stomach pain. He promptly diagnosed that she was pregnant. But rather than offering treatment, the doctor called the police. The couple were arrested and jailed when they could not produce a marriage license. Eventually, they were released, apparently at the behest of Sheikh Maktoum. For years, he often intervened when ugly legal cases threaten his country's international reputation. If you need to talk to someone, call the Samaritans for free on 116 123 or visit Samaritans.org Teams of 'mystic meerkats' and 'psychic lions' have both had a turn at predicting who will win at the semi finals tonight as England get ready to take on the Netherlands - but fans aren't convinced. Appearing on Good Morning Britain on Wednesday, presenter Charlotte Hawkins reported that 'mystic meerkats' at Drusillas Park, East Sussex, have predicted a win for England. However, results from the lions later on This Morning were less clear with brother lions at Port Lympne Safari Park, in Adlington, predicting a difficult match between the two nations - the final results up for interpretation. Both animals were elected to predict the future by method of selecting from a container from which to chomp their breakfast. Speaking about the meerkats, Charlotte Hawkins explained: 'They had a bucket of nuts, each with the national flag and the bucket surrounded by the most meerkats was the winner and they went for England! The 'mystic meerkats' appeared in a segment on Good Morning Britain on Wednesday. They have predicted a win for England against the Netherlands in the semi-finals - but fans aren't convinced The meerkats predict the future win of different games by method of selecting from a bucket from which to chomp their breakfast 'And if you're sceptical about this, so far, the predictive pack have correctly picked all of England's results so I am sticking with the meerkats, England for the win tonight!' she said. England will face the Netherlands in Wednesday's semi-final after beating Switzerland in a penalty shoot-out on Saturday to reach the final four. Head keeper, Gemma Romanis, at Drusillas Park told PA media: 'You shouldn't doubt the mystic meerkats' psychic powers', adding her fellow keepers have 'everything crossed' for England. 'I think we were all quite surprised with Saturday's result, when yet again the England squad came through when we really needed them to,' Gemma said. 'It just goes to show, that you shouldn't doubt the mystic meerkats psychic powers.' Later, speaking on This Morning, zoo keeper Matthew Welland at Port Lympne Safari Park, introduced two lions, who are both three years old, to cast their predictions 'This is the first time for these lions that they have predicted however their mother, she's got a bit of a good spell with predictions. 'A couple of years ago, she predicted a few of England's scores with the lionesses so hopefully she's passed on the genetic wisdom to her sons and they can predict well today.' Speaking on This Morning, zoo keeper Matthew, introduced two lions, (pictured) who are both three years old, to cast their predictions It was the first time the brother lions, pictured chewing through England's box, were casting their predictions for a match before. However, the results were unclear The brother lions, Hasari and Kumani, were presented with two boxes containing hunks of meat, with flags of the two nations attached. However, the results were vague as each lion leapt towards different boxes, dragging them to different corners of the enclosure. Matthew said: 'Netherlands was the first one to get the box so it looks like they'll score first but England was very quickly picked up after so might be a draw or penalties but it looks like England is the tastiest one...!' The box containing the hunk of meat representing the Netherlands, was discarded before the England box, leading presenters to cast hopeful predictions on England pulling through overall. However, not everyone was as convinced as sceptics flocked to their comments to share their suspicions. One wrote: 'They didn't predict anything... They are just searching for food... I predict it will rain today, not because I'm clever, but because it's raining.' A second mocked the TV segment writing: 'Serious news station' alongside a tolling eyes emoji. A distrusting third wrote: 'Wise up' while another went as far as to make quite the opposite prediction, commenting. 'We have no chance'. Viewers of This Morning were equally sceptical, joking that the results might show England was 'going to be torn apart'. Another who clearly wasn't sure of the animal's predictions said: 'This programme manages to insult everyone's intelligence. Even Morons.' Not everyone was as convinced as the presenters of Good Morning Britain as sceptics flocked to their comments to share their suspicions Viewers of This Morning were equally sceptical, joking that the results might show England was 'going to be torn apart' In the meerkat's latest test, for the semi-finals, the win for England wasn't initially clear. Some of the predictive pack did show interest in the Netherlands bucket, which keeper of the meerkats, Gemma, thinks means it won't be an easy match for the Lions. 'But they do seem sure England will pull it out of the bag again and make it through to the finals. 'We're all keeping everything crossed for the England team and hoping they win as the meerkats have predicted. Despite fan's suspicions, the meerkats have been accurate in their predictions for England so far. Gemma said: 'The meerkats have already forecast that England have what it takes to play their way into the finals, so it's a double vote of confidence from them. Let's hope it comes true on Wednesday.' King Charles is a 'wonderful' people person and has 'amazing chat' according to Ellie Simmonds and Tyler West who reflected on the first time they met the monarch. Paralympic swimmer, Ellie, 29, and radio presenter and DJ, Tyler, 28, appeared on ITV's Lorraine on Wednesday to share their heartwarming encounters with the King. The two remembered the King's kindness and 'amazing ability to keep the conversation going from person to person'. Speaking to Lorraine at Buckingham Palace, the swimmer and DJ explained that the two have become regulars at the royal palace, having visited on more than one occasion. 'It's like it's become our second home!' Ellie joked. Paralympian swimmer, Ellie, 29, (right) and Tyler, 28, (left) who is a radio presenter and DJ, appeared on ITV 's Lorraine on Wednesday to share their heartwarming encounters with the King King Charles met Ellie Simmonds and Laura (right), the NatWest Enterprise Award winner, during a reception for Prince's Trust Award 2024 winners, supporters and ambassadors at Buckingham Palace in London earlier this year 'We've been very fortunate to have been here a couple of times, that's right,' Tyler replied. Tyler first met the king two years ago. 'When I met him, it's almost like when you go to shake hands with someone... I just forgot where I was for a second and went to fist bump him. 'But I was scared he was going to cabbage me so it was a bit of an awkward interaction so I said "I need to teach you how to fist bump now". So that's where it's developed to where we are now.' The King defied tradition in March earlier this year when he met with Tyler again. Charles was pictured skipping the formal handshake with Tyler West, opting for a fist bump while celebrating the winners, supporters and hosts of the Prince's Trust Awards. The DJ said that he and the King are now on very friendly terms. 'We've got like a six piece hand shake,' and said that the King even remembers to give him a fist bump when the two now meet. Ellie Simmonds recalled her first trip to Buckingham Palace when she first met the late Queen Elizabeth when she was just a teenager. Tyler (left) and Ellie (right) gushed about their conversations with the monarch with Tyler telling Lorraine the King had 'strong chat' Pictured: Tyler West and Ellie Simmonds on Lorraine on Wednesday. 'It's just normal chat,' Ellie said remembering her wholesome chat she had with Charles Pictured: The King defied tradition in March earlier this year when he met with Tyler again and gave him a nearly learned fist bump 'I was 14 when I first came here and I got my MBE by the Queen so yeah, it was a wonderful experience. I got to bring my grandma!' she remembered fondly. 'She loves the Queen, so for me to bring her along, was just .. I was quite nervous to meet her though. Really nervous.' Ellie was awarded her MBE by the former monarch at just 14-years-old following her success at the Bejing Summer Paralympics in 2008. She won gold medals in the 100 metres and 400 metres freestyle swimming events when she was 13. As well as his top notch fist bump, Tyler remembered the King's fantastic people skills, reflecting on conversations the two had had about 'jerk chicken and Brixton'. 'He's got this amazing ability to just keep the conversation going from person to person. 'He's got strong chat!' he said, sending both Ellie and Lorraine into fits of laughter. Ellie agreed, recalling, 'He was talking to me, when he came last he was talking to me about swimming with a dog, racing with a dog, and I just thought, "Isn't that just wonderful, that's such nice chat". 'It's just normal chat,' she said remembering the conversation she had with Charles. King Charles met Ellie Simmonds at the NatWest Enterprise Award winner, during a reception for Prince's Trust Award 2024 winners, supporters and ambassadors at Buckingham Palace, earlier this year. 'It's hard because you don't quite know where to put yourself with the royal family and they are so good at putting you at ease,' Lorraine commented, acknowledging it can be very 'nerve wracking being in these situations'. 'They're just human beings. And having that chat, it just brings everything down to earth and then it's like "Ah actually, you can relax now,"' Tyler said, praising the kind hearted royals. The TV presenter then went on to share some other positive memories of spending time at Buckingham Palace, telling Lorraine the hand cream in the bathrooms has always been another highlight for him. When Lorraine asked what Tyler would do when he next met King Charles, he joked ''m gonna have to kiss him on the forehead at this point!' 'Can you not teach him a bit of dance of DJing,' joked Ellie. In addition to the vehicle pursuit changes, the new general orders would allow police to bypass some paperwork thats deemed excessive or duplicative. Jacom Stephens/Getty Images The San Francisco Police Commission on Wednesday will decide whether to push forward seven amended policies stemming from this springs passage of Proposition E, a measure that will expand officers powers to catch suspects on the streets while curbing the time they spend behind a desk. The revised general orders spell out what police soon can or wont have to do as a result of the voter-approved measure. Among the most significant proposed changes are policies that broaden the circumstances in which police can initiate a car chase, a portion of Prop E that drew the most rebuke from critics, including civil-rights advocates. For instance, whereas vehicle pursuits were previously limited to people suspected of a violent felony, police could soon also pursue suspects believed to have committed any felony, which could include drug sale or commercial burglary; as well as violent misdemeanors like battery or sexual battery. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The policies would also allow the use of drones to assist in chases, and for police to initiate a pursuit of someone who has not yet committed a crime if they believe a felony or violent misdemeanor is about to occur. The voters approved Prop E and now we are doing the work to put policy into practice, said Mayor London Breed, who placed the measure on the ballot. By freeing up officers to spend more time out in the community and giving them the tools to be more efficient and hold people accountable, we will make San Francisco safer. Upon approval by the police commission, the police union will have an opportunity to weigh in on the proposed policies before they return to the commission for a final vote. Short of any delays, the new orders are expected to be adopted by this fall. Civil rights advocates with the ACLU of Northern California who opposed Prop E reiterated the same concerns they expressed before the measures passage. We continue to believe Prop E puts San Francisco residents in danger by increasing police chases and covering up use of force incidents, said the offices Criminal Justice Director Yoel Haile. We will monitor SFPDs practices to protect peoples constitutional rights. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In addition to the vehicle pursuit changes, the new general orders would allow police to bypass some paperwork thats deemed excessive or duplicative. For instance, one policy specifies that officers can rely on footage from body-worn cameras as an alternative to written documentation after detaining a suspect. Another states that if multiple officers are present during a use-of-force incident, only one is required to submit a written report. The other officers can instead submit their body camera footage. Kevin Benedicto, a police commissioner who opposed Prop E, said the oversight body has been working with police over the last few months to craft a policy that balances the measures required changes while also ensuring accountability from the department. Benedicto said hes especially interested in clarifying the policies surrounding police chases, noting their well-documented danger to the community. A recent Chronicle investigation found that at least 551 bystanders died in police chases across the country in the last six years. Whether you were a supporter of Prop E or not, everyone will agree that vehicle pursuits are a dangerous tactic for officers, for suspects and for bystanders, Benedicto said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad While most of the public conversation around the ballot measure centered on the car chases, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said the departments most prominent day-to-day changes may come from the relief of paperwork. Scott stressed that the police are not abandoning their reform goals, which include efforts to reduce uses of force and racial bias in policing. But we can do things more efficiently, Scott said. With staffing shortages the way they are, the more we can do to cut down on administrative work, I think will help us. And I think the public is demanding that. Nepo babies have long been known for making political statements. From Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke's daughter Maya telling a talk show 'f**k the Supreme Court' after its 2022 overruling of Roe v Wade, to Will and Jada Smith's Willow being vocal about her denouncement of Donald Trump and support of the Dakota Pipeline protests amid other campaigns - the trend is far from recent. Jane Fonda, daughter of legendary actor Henry Fonda - has famously worked with the Black Panthers, was engaged in the Civil Rights Movement, opposed the Vietnam War and has frequently been arrested over the decades. But a new contender is coming out of the mold - as Violet Affleck has attracted attention for human rights causes she sides with, all without flashy media appearances, a career in the spotlight, or even a public Instagram account. The 18-year-old daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner - who divorced in 2018 - recently made headlines with a passionate demand to impose 'mask mandates' in medical facilities and called for an end to all 'mask bans' to the governing body for Los Angeles County. Violet Affleck has attracted attention for a number of human rights causes all without flashy media appearances, a career in the spotlight, or even a public Instagram account. Pictured with her mother in May, carrying a book on health inequality The former Hollywood couple's eldest child, citing her experience of contracting 'a post-viral condition' in 2019, urged the LA County Board of Supervisors 'to confront the long COVID crisis' by strengthening pandemic-era protections in hospitals and government buildings. 'I demand mask availability, air filtration and Far-UVC light in government facilitates, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical faculties,' Violet, who is often seen wearing a face mask, said. 'You must expand the availability of high-quality free tests and treatment, and most importantly the county must oppose mask bans for any reason. They do not keep us safer.' And although it's her most vocal to date, it's far from being the first time Violet made a public stance. She has often made her political views clear through paparazzi photos - through clothing choices or by carrying books. Violet has also often been pictured wearing a mask at events with her family - even if she has been the only one to do so. In May, the teen also appeared to send a message for the cameras as she and her mother were snapped in Santa Monica. Wearing a pink summer dress and cream cardigan, Violet also had a mask on and carried a copy of The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher. Elsewhere in January, she accompanied her mask with a black sweater adorned with a watermelon. The clothing item sent a message of solidarity with Palestine, and sparked demand for the shirt Even one of Violet's more public appearances was in a political space. In 2022, she and her mother arrived at the White House to attend a state dinner - hosted by Joe and Gill Biden - for the visiting President Emmanuel Macron The former Hollywood couple's eldest child, citing her experience of contracting 'a post-viral condition' in 2019, urged the LA County Board of Supervisors 'to confront the long COVID crisis' The book examines global health inequality, in particular looking at the 'the racialisation, policing, and criminalisation of HIV'. An online Waterstones blurb reads: 'Told through the heart-rending stories of friends, activists, and teachers navigating the novel coronavirus, HIV, and other viruses, Dr. Thrasher brings the reader with him as he delves into the viral underclass and lays bare its inner workings. 'In the tradition of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste and Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, The Viral Underclass helps us understand the world more deeply by showing the fraught relationship between privilege and survival.' Elsewhere in January, she accompanied her mask with a black sweater adorned with a watermelon. The clothing item sent a message of solidarity with Palestine, and sparked demand for the shirt, which is made by a Chicago clothing company Wear the Peace, which is raising funds for aid in devastated Gaza. The long-sleeve Violet was wearing looks to be available for 27 online, and 100% of the profits are donated to Pious Projects of America. According to the website, 'the funds will be used for Pious Projects' on-ground team in Gaza to supply food, water, medical aid, and other necessities. 100% of profits is equal to $11'. It continues: 'This is after our costs of manufacturing in the US, garments, screen printing, transaction fees, rush fees incurred for logistics and transit, and warehouse employee wages to ship the items.' Speaking to the Chicago Sun Times, Murad Nofal and Mustafa Mabruk - who run the clothing line - said they had to hire extra staff after Violet's appearance. Some of her more lighthearted clothing choices have also been political in nature - in May, she donned a parody of a Barack Obama HOPE campaign shirt, replacing the former US president with Shiv Roy from Succession - and featuring the word POWER instead Even one of Violet's more public appearances was in a political space. In 2022, she and her mother arrived at the White House to attend a state dinner - hosted by Joe and Gill Biden - for the visiting President Emmanuel Macron. Some of her more lighthearted clothing choices have also been political in nature - in May, she donned a parody of a Barack Obama HOPE campaign shirt, replacing the former US president with Shiv Roy from Succession - and featuring the word POWER instead. It is perhaps no wonder that Violet has a mind for politics, given both her parents have been very involved in causes over the years. Although her views on Biden's current presidential campaign are not clear, Jennifer, 52, has been a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party and has featured in television ads for candidates. The actress has also been outspoken on climate issues. Elsewhere her father Ben, 51, has been staunchly interested in politics and throughout the 2000s even voiced an interest in running for office one day - although he has since said it's not an ambition of his. He has also been vocal on issues such as a fair minimum wage, reproductive rights, LGBT causes and the climate. In October, Ben was also one of the actors who called for a ceasefire in Gaza. It's also not surprising that Violet may want to voice her views in different ways, as her mother has spoken about not letting her use Instagram. Violet doesn't appear to have a public account, but it is not clear if she has a private one. In 2016, when Violet was in middle school, Jennifer told TODAY: 'She's not on social media yet her school has a no social media policy until 6th grade but I know it's coming soon.' But three years later - as reported by People - the mother revealed she was still on the fence about letting her eldest on the app during an appearance on Next Question with Katie Couric. 'She'll occasionally talk to me about getting Instagram, and I can see why because I'm on there and it's something kind of fun that I do, and I am modeling the opposite of what I want for her to do. How often is that in parenting?' she said. 'I just say, "When you can show me studies that say that teenage girls are happier using Instagram than not, then we can have the conversation". 'But everything you look at, I don't see anything positive for you out there. You can look at mine when you want to, we can go over it together, but I just don't see it.' Violet's latest impassioned plea to the government comes following her experience of contracting 'a post-viral condition' in 2019. She urged the LA County Board of Supervisors 'to confront the long COVID crisis' by strengthening pandemic-era protections in hospitals and government buildings. The teen's speech was met with both praise and criticisms, with some hailing her as 'courageous' and others 'utterly deluded'. Her plea comes just weeks after it emerged that Dr Anthony Fauci admitted the restrictions he put in place during lockdown didn't do much to 'slow the spread' of Covid, and as lawmakers are signaling an openness to reinstating mask bans amid a rise in clashes at protests. Violet argued that anti-mask measures are making 'vulnerable members of our community less safe' and 'make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together'. She also detailed her experience of contracting 'a post-viral condition' in 2019, and said she 'saw first-hand' that medicine doesn't always have answers to the 'consequences of even minor viruses'. Many on social media issued their support for the teen, saying she is a 'hero' and 'smart kid'. However, others were more critical 'Amazing testimony! Violet is 100% on COVID Twitter. Thank you!' another added. The teen, introducing herself, told the board: 'Hi, Violet Affleck, Los Angeles resident, first time voter, I'm 18.' She then shared: 'I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019. I'm okay now, but I saw first-hand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses.' Violet then spoke about the COVID-19 pandemic and how 'one in ten infections leads to long COVID, which is a devastating neurological, cardiovascular illness that can take away people's ability to work, move, see and even think.' 'It stands to exacerbate our homelessness crisis, as well as the suffering of many people in our city. It hits communities of color, disabled people, elderly people, trans people, women and anyone in a public facing essential job the hardest.' The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is the governing body for Los Angeles County, where Violet resides. The Board holds regular meetings where the public can register to speak on specific issues. Many on social media issued their support for the teen, saying she is a 'hero' and 'smart kid'. 'At 18 she has more courage than some people will ever have in their entire lifetimes,' one person wrote. 'I wish more celebrities had the courage of Violet Affleck. She's only 18 years old and is doing more than any politician.' 'Extremely impressive how much she fit into that one minute,' someone else chimed in. 'Violet Affleck is Ben Affleck's daughter. She continues to be even more impressive as a teenager. I can't wait to see what she does as an adult.' However others were more critical. 'Wait wait wait, hold up,' one X user wrote. 'Violet Affleck contracted a post viral condition *before* the CV19 pandemic, in 2019, and her family STILL don't mask around her?!? It is perhaps no wonder that Violet has a mind for politics, given both her parents have been very involved in causes over the years. Pictured with her mother in 2020 Although her views on Biden's current presidential campaign are not clear, Jennifer has been a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party and has featured in television ads for candidates. Jennifer and Violet pictured in 2019 Elsewhere her father Ben has been staunchly interested in politics and throughout the 2000s even voiced an interest in running for office one day - although he has since said it's not an ambition of his. Pictured in 2021 Affleck rekindled his romance with Lopez in April 2021. The two wed in Vegas in July 2022, followed by a lavish ceremony in Georgia in August. However, the pair's marriage has been hit by split claims for the past two months. Both pictured in February The former pair married in 2005. They announced their separation in 2015 after nearly 10 years of marriage, and officially filed for divorce in 2017; seen in May 2014 Garner and Affleck also share Fin (formerly Seraphina), 15, and son Samuel, 12; The actress is seen with her three kids in 2018 'How many images have we seen of her with her family, & she's the only one masked?? God what a travesty.' One echoed: 'This Violet Affleck kid is utterly deluded. She is still wearing a mask. Masks never worked but in the height of Covid fear, she may have had an excuse that others are wearing one.' Violet - who is rumoured to be heading to Yale University in the fall - has consistently been seen wearing a mask in the past years, though her parents never publicly explained why. She was seen wearing one at Michael Rubin's White Party in 2023, recently in May 2024 while spending time with her mom, and while attending a Broadway show with Ben and her stepmom Jennifer Lopez. Garner and Affleck also share Fin (formerly Seraphina), 15, and son Samuel, 12. The former pair met on the set of the movie Pearl Harbor in the early 2000s, but didn't start dating until later. In 2004, shortly after his first broken engagement to Lopez, the two sparked up a romance, before getting married in 2005. Violet was born that same year in December. Fin followed in 2009 and Samuel in 2012. The duo announced their separation in 2015 after nearly 10 years of marriage, and officially filed for divorce in 2017. Garner moved on with businessman John Miller - but they pair have since ended things. Affleck rekindled his romance with Lopez in April 2021. The two wed in Vegas in July 2022, followed by a lavish ceremony in Georgia in August. However, the pair's marriage has been hit by split claims for the past two months. Dear Jane, I am a widowed mother of a very irresponsible 23 year old who has thrown away his entire inheritance and is now expecting me to bail him out of a financial black hole. When my husband passed away six years ago, my son was only 17 years old, and his father's death understandably took its toll on him. He began acting out, rebelling, skipping school, the works. He destroyed his chances of getting into a good college although by that point he'd decided that he didn't want to go because he wanted to 'get out and see the world'. My husband knew that he was going to die about a year before he actually passed, and he went to great lengths to ensure that we would be taken care. He set up a college fund for my son, and he also left him a trust fund of about $120,000 that he would be able to access at the age of 22. Instead of college, my son spent two years traveling. I agreed that he could use some of his college fund to pay for these trips under certain stipulations: that he was never gone for longer than two months, that he picked up work whenever he was home, and that he did some form of charity work wherever he went. Although I was very nervous about the idea of him traveling by himself, I felt safe in the knowledge that I still had a hand in what he was doing. If I felt that he was behaving irresponsibly, I always had the option to cut him off. Dear Jane, my 23-year-old son has squandered his inheritance - and now he's demanding that I bail him out of his financial debt But when he turned 22, he got full access to his trust fund. There was nothing I could do to stop it, although I confess, I tried. At that point, he no longer really kept me in the loop with anything that was going on in his life. I suppose because he didn't need me anymore. Then this week, almost a year to the day since his 22nd birthday, he phoned me. My first thought was that there had been some kind of accident or that he was in trouble, but instead he asked to take me out to lunch. I was thrilled! But when I saw him in person, he looked exhausted, run down, and filthy, quite frankly. I asked where on Earth he had been staying and he said he'd been 'couch surfing' between his friends. Then it all came out it turns out he had decided to invest almost the entirety of his trust fund in a friend's cannabis dispensary. Apparently this friend had great visions for how this dispensary would differ from all of the others in our area (we live in Colorado), and spent a fortune bringing that vision to life. Sadly however while the two of them felt it was essential to spend thousands on things like 'sick display cabinets' and 'top shelf weed', what they didn't spend money on was hiring people with experience in business. So, two months after opening, they were shut down by the authorities for a spate of violations. Not only are they now facing criminal charges, but they are also left with no business and none of the money that they put into it. International best-selling author Jane Green offers sage advice on DailyMail.com readers' most burning issues in her Dear Jane agony aunt column After hearing all of this I was absolutely disgusted. How dare he squander all of the money that my husband worked so hard to leave us? But it got worse. Rather than admitting his wrongdoing, my son insisted that I immediately give him access to what remains of his college fund. I refused. At which point he said that he would hire a lawyer to sue me for the rights to the money. He is my son, and I love him, but Jane I truly don't recognize the person that he has become. I'm half tempted to just hand over the money and rid myself of him, but I know that my husband would be devastated to know that our relationship has come to this. So where do I go from here? From, In the Weeds Dear In the Weeds, I am so very sorry that you are in this position, which must feel untenable to you. As mothers we love our children so very deeply, and often make the mistake of thinking we have to do everything in our power to protect them from harm. But wrapping them in cotton wool, whilst protective, also stops them from learning from their mistakes. The great tragedy here is that the human brain doesn't fully develop until the age of 25. There was almost an inevitability in your son making a terrible choice with this money. I understand your dilemma with the rest of the college fund money, particularly given that your son has not proved himself to be responsible. I am wondering if you ought to see a trusts and estates lawyer. What is left of the college fund money could be held in trust until your son is older and less likely to make a poor decision. Ultimately, the money is for him, and there is only so much you can do, but please look for ways to protect your son from himself until he is a little older. Even then, he may make choices you disagree with, but he will have to learn the hard way, which is, after all, how we always learn the most important lessons in life. Consult with a lawyer, and know that your son has his own journey. It may be filled with choices that are not the choices you would make, but as his remaining parent, I encourage you to find a way to put these financial issues aside and love him despite his choices. A top chef has claimed that Marcus Wareing 'bullied' him when they worked together as young chefs, saying the MasterChef star left him so sick of the job that he quit. Ben Tish, who's written several cook books and has worked at multiple Michelin-starred restaurants, told the Go-To food podcast that it was the only time he'd ever left a job. The pair worked at L'Oranger in the mid Nineties, with head chef Wareing's career already soaring - he won the eatery a Michelin star when he was just 25. Tish, 49, who grew up in Skegness, said it got hot in the kitchen though, saying he felt forced to endure an atmosphere of 'one-upmanship' while working for Wareing, 53, who closed the doors to his one-Michelin restaurant Marcus in December last year. Top chef Ben Tish lifted the lid on a disastrous working relationship with Marcus Wareing, claiming the MasterChef star was a 'bully' when the pair worked together at London's L'Oranger restaurant He said the bad relationship eventually reached a crescendo, saying: 'I worked for him for seven or eight months and I ended up walking out, it's the only place I've ever walked out of.' Describing what happened, Tish told podcast hosts Ben Benton and Freddy Clode: 'It was a build-up and then there was a blow-out.' Working in close contact with Wareing was uncomfortable, Tish said, explaining: 'He was there every day, cooking and on the pass. 'It was really one-upmanship and kind of bullying. I'd say a little bit of physical pushing'. He said it reached a head when he decided to quit, saying: 'I was meant to be in one day and then just didn't go in. I was just so over it. Skegness chef Tish, who's just published a new book, Mediterra, told The Go-To podcast host Freddy Clode that Wareing was all about 'one-upmanship' in the kitchen Wareing was head chef at L'Oranger, with Angela Hartnett as sous chef, in the mid nineties - he was just 25 when he earned his first Michelin star there. Right: Wareing pictured at Wimbledon last week Tish revealed how the working partnership came to end, when Wareing, he claims, told him: 'Well, if you can't make it at my level then you might as well just hang up your apron and bugger off back to Skegness'. Marcus has found huge success both in the kitchen and on TV as a judge on BBC's Masterchef, pictured with co-host Gregg Wallace 'I'd said to him [Marcus], "I'm going to leave" and he said: "Well, if you can't make it at my level then you might as well just hang up your apron and bugger off back to Skegness". Tish said Angela Hartnett was on one of the sections at the restaurant as sous chef and the pair got on well, adding: 'Angela was lovely, I used to have a coffee with her in the afternoon'. MailOnline has contacted Marcus Wareing for comment. The chef told MailOnline in 2015 that his reputation as 'Mr Nasty' wasn't justified, saying: 'If someone cuts a corner in my kitchen I turn into Mr Shouty, but I'm always fair. I can be very relaxed.' Wareing famously fell out with his mentor Gordon Ramsay - and said it was 'the best thing that ever happened to them.' Another spat: Marcus Wareing has admitted he believes his feud with Gordon Ramsay was 'the best thing that ever happened to them' (the pair are pictured in 2001) The chef clashed with the legendary cook when they both worked at Gordon's swanky London restaurant Aubergine. Now, Marcus has admitted that his row with Gordon proved to be the making of them both, telling The Daily Mail's Richard Eden it pushed him to find 'another ambition'. Both have certainly gone onto have huge success, with Marcus now a judge on BBC's Masterchef: The Professionals, as well as the owner of his self-titled restaurant in Knightsbridge. Meanwhile Gordon has a total of seven Michelin stars across his franchise of restaurants, and has become one of the nation's most beloved TV chefs through his shows' including Hell's Kitchen and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. The guide dog of new Liberal Democrat MP has been dubbed the 'best politician in parliament' after winning hearts thanks to adorable pictures of her online. Golden Retriever Jennie, who belongs to Steve Darling, the member for Torbay, made her debut in the Commons this week - alongside 335 newly elected politicians. Darling, who is registered blind, since shared photos of her - causing social media users to say they would 'die for her' adding she is 'exactly what politics needs'. One person has even set up an X - formerly Twitter - account in her name, branding Jennie the 'leader of the oppawistion'. 'Can't wait to meet @Number10cat soon. I have a feeling we're going to be best friends,' one tweet reads - referring to Larry, the resident Downing Street cat and 'Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office'. Golden Retriever Jennie, who belongs to Steve Darling, the member for Torbay, made her debut in the Commons this week - alongside 335 newly elected politicians Jennie was also spotted on the campaign trial for the Liberal Democrats, sailing with the Disabled Sailing Association with leader Ed Davey and Darling in Torbay Harbour. Darling himself has recognised the pooch's new found fame, tweeting: 'Those not from Torbay - here is the Jennie content you're all here for. This morning before heading to the Commons, and this evening after a busy day,' showing snaps of her in the Commons. It's been a difficult journey for the service animal - who, after surviving an XL Bully attack last year was caught up in controversy during the General Election after Darling was allegedly falsely accused of faking his blindness and using her for political purposes. The attack, from now banned breed, was reported to the police with Darling calling on the Home Office for tougher action. Darling said at the time it took himself and three others to pull the XL Bully away from Jennie. Darling himself has recognised the pooch's new found fame, tweeting: 'Those not from Torbay - here is the Jennie content you're all here for. This morning before heading to the Commons, and this evening after a busy day,' showing snaps of her in the Commons Jennie is pictured on a TV speech in the commons as Ed Davey gives his maiden speech in the new parliament Jennie took centre stage as the 72 Lib Dems took their seat in Parliament Social media users have said Guide Dog Jennie is the best MP in Parliament 'Sadly, it just went straight for the throat,' Darling told the BBC at the time. 'It ended up being on the floor and screaming - something I never want to hear again in my life. I ended up wrestling with both dogs on the floor, [there was] no sign of the owner. 'We ended up having four people trying to get the dog off of Jennie. We then managed to get Jennie behind a gate while I just lay on the floor on top of this dog to hold it down, and it was really quite traumatic.' The animal was also caught up in controversy in Torbay, when a charity alleged Tory campaigners accused Darling of using her for 'political purposes'. Devon in Sight, a charity for visually impaired people, accused a Tory doorknocker of 'stooping to an all-time low' by suggesting Darling isn't actually blind. The charity's CEO, Grahame Flynn, who employs Darling's wife, who is also blind, said at the time: 'With Steve Darling's consent, I would like to confirm that he has been living with a rare genetic eye disease that started in childhood. The Lib Dems also used Jennie on their social media page - sharing snaps of her with Ed Davey 'He was formally registered blind in his teens with a deteriorating eye condition that may well end in total sight loss. Furthermore, Steve is registered with the council as severely sight impaired (blind). He first registered with our charity in 1986. 'Steve was on the waiting list for a guide dog for almost three years before being matched with Jennie, his current guide dog. To politicise someone's disability is highly unsavoury and Steve and everyone living with little or no sight in Devon deserves better.' The Conservative candidate Kevin Foster wrote on Twitter: 'Am out with my team regularly and never heard this type of line used. Odd the charity has not been in touch at all about this alleged incident, even to confirm if someone is actually a representative of my campaign.' Now however, it seems the Jennie is basking in her new found stardom. Steve Darling shared a snap of Jennie saying she was tired after a busy day 'My new favourite MP - Jennie the guide dog of Steve Darling,' said one Twitter user. 'A lot of talk about the Whitehall resident cats, but I am very excited weve got a new guide dog in the Commons! Im sure Jennie will smash it,' said another. 'Not being funny but I would die for Jennie the guide dog,' one person wrote. 'Beautiful addition,' said another. 'Can we informally consider Steve Darling's guide dog Jennie as the 73rd MP? That or lobby the house authorities to give her a little security pass that goes on her Harness?,' asked a Twitter user. 'Discovering Jennie the guide dog's twitter page is legit the best thing about this election,' said one. People on the web have shared the most chilling unsolved cases of all time - from the killer who still hasn't been caught despite murdering a woman on camera to the mysterious disappearance of a nine-year-old girl that ultimately sparked the creation of the Amber alert. Over the years, dozens of gruesome murders and horrific kidnappings have left authorities stumped - eventually becoming cold cases. Not only are the families of the victims still longing for answers, but in many cases, the perpetrators are walking free to this day - and unfortunately, they may never be resolved. In some cases, the police were left with little to no leads, with the culprit disappearing into thin air without leaving a trace, while in others, more than one person seemed like they could have committed the crime, sparking a slew of theories and a heated debate. Now, thanks to recent Reddit post, social media users are shining a light on some of the most unsettling crimes that were never solved. Dozens of gruesome murders and kidnappings have left authorities stumped, and Reddit users are discussing the most chilling unsolved cases of all time. JonBenet Ramsey is pictured In the Ask Reddit subreddit, a user who goes by Totsatot0 posted the question, 'What's a mystery you can't believe is still unsolved?' on Tuesday evening - and it sparked a furious conversation about infamous killings and disappearances that still remain a mystery. One person was quick to bring up Elizabeth Barraza in the comments section - a Texas woman who was brutally shot to death in her driveway in 2019. Surveillance footage captured the moment she was murdered - but law enforcement were never able to catch the killer. The video showed the suspect, who appeared to be a woman dressed in a robe, getting out of a black pickup truck and walking towards Elizabeth, 29. Upon approaching her, the killer lifted their arm and shot her at point-blank range, firing three times. 'It was caught on camera and the getaway vehicle was clearly seen,' the Reddit user said of the case. 'The murderer was speculated as being a woman or man in a wig. Truly bizarre.' 'Oh that one is wild,' someone else agreed, while another person added, 'Truly unfortunate [that] the camera angles are so close to revealing their identity by like mere centimeters and no cigar. Really don't understand the motive.' A user who goes by Totsatot0 posted the question, 'What's a mystery you can't believe is stull unsolved?' on the platform - and it sparked a furious conversation Another Redditor said they're still upset that Amber Hagerman's case was never solved. Amber's shocking 1996 abduction famously lead to the creation of the Amber alert. The nine-year-old was snatched off her bike by a man in a black pickup truck in Arlington, Texas, and was found dead near a creek days later. The suspect was described as being a white or Hispanic male in his 20s or 30s with dark hair. Police believed he was local, but they never figured out who was behind the tragic killing. The incident led Texas resident Diana Simone, who had been following the case, to reach out to a local radio station about putting an emergency alert system in place for child abductions. 'Amber Hagerman. She was about my same age and was killed in the city where I grew up,' the Redditor wrote. 'The Amber alert system in the US was named in her honor and has helped safely recover many abducted children. One person was quick to bring up Elizabeth Barraza (seen) in the comment section - a Texas woman who was brutally shot to death in her driveway in 2019 Surveillance footage captured the moment she was murdered - but law enforcement were never able to catch the killer 'However, Amber's murderer was never found and the tip hotline for her case remains open.' A different user said a mystery that still plagued them was the disappearance of Brandon Swanson - a Minnesota-based 19-year-old who crashed his car on the way home from a party. Another Redditor said they're still upset that Amber Hagerman's (seen) case was never solved. Her shocking 1996 abduction famously lead to the creation of the Amber alert He called his parents afterwards and gave them his location, but while they were on their way to pick him up, he suddenly exclaimed, 'Oh s**t,' and hung up the phone. When they arrived, he was nowhere to be found and they haven't heard from him since. While some believe he fell into a nearby river and died, his body was never discovered. Someone else pointed out in the Reddit thread that Kyron Horman, who was seven when he vanished from Portland, Oregon, will turn 21 years old this year. Kyron went missing from his school in 2010, and despite an extensive search by the police, no significant evidence regarding his disappearance ever came up and what happened to him still remains a mystery. In court filings, Kyron's dad Kaine Horman said he believed his estranged wife, Terri, was 'involved' in his disappearance; she has denied his claims. A different user said a mystery that still plagued them was the disappearance of Brandon Swanson (seen as a child) - a 19-year-old who crashed his car on the way home from a party He called his parents afterwards and gave them his location, but when they arrived, he was nowhere to be found and they haven't heard from him since. Brandon is pictured 'As a native of the Portland Oregon metro area, it's really sad that Kyron Horman's disappearance is still unsolved. He will be 21 this year. Disappeared at seven,' the Reddit comment read. 'In Massachusetts there was a young girl named Molly Bish that disappeared from her post as a lifeguard,' someone else commented about a separate case. Someone else pointed out in the Reddit thread that Kyron Horman (pictured), who was seven when he vanished from Portland, Oregon, will turn 21 years old this year 'Her body was found three years later. 24 years later and her killer has never been found.' Molly vanished while working at Comins Pond in Warren, Massachusetts, when she was just 16 years old in 2000. Her remains were discovered in the woods five miles away three years later. Authorities never tracked down a killer, but her family is still fiercely dedicated to trying to find out what happened to her and often post about her online. Other commenters brought up Sneha Philip, Terri 'Missy' Bevers, and JonBenet Ramsey's cases. Sneha was a doctor who went missing in New York City the night before the Twin Towers terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. She was last seen shopping at a downtown Manhattan department store on September 10, and was still missing the next morning when the 9/11 tragedy occurred. What happened to her that night is unknown, but her family has insisted that she perished while helping victims in the wake of the attack - despite lack of evidence proving that she was near the World Trade Center. Kyron went missing from his school in 2010, and no significant evidence regarding his disappearance ever came up. He's seen hours before his disappearance 'In Massachusetts there was a young girl named Molly Bish (seen) that disappeared from her post as a lifeguard,' someone else commented Molly vanished while working at Comins Pond in Warren, Massachusetts, when she was just 16 years old in 2000. Her remains were discovered in the woods five miles away three years later Also brought up was Sneha Philip (pictured), a doctor who went missing in New York City the night before the Twin Towers terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 Someone else cited Missy Bevers's case. She was found dead inside a Texas church in 2016, but the killer was never identified. She's seen before her death But a police report suggested that Sneha had been living a double-life in the months prior to her disappearance, pointing to alleged drug and alcohol abuse, extramarital affairs with women, and a pending criminal charge where she was accused of filing a false criminal complaint with the Manhattan District Attorney's office. In a separate case, Missy, 45, was found dead inside a Texas church in 2016, and the autopsy showed that she suffered from wounds to her head and chest. A suspect carrying tools consistent with the injuries was spotted on security footage walking through the church, but no arrests were made in the case. Meanwhile JonBenet's killing is one of the most baffling and notorious crimes in history, with millions across the globe becoming completely captivated by the case. The six-year-old child pageant star was found dead in her basement in 1996 after she was strangled and beaten, and over the last nearly three decades, people have debated in droves about what really happened to her. Some think it was her older brother who killed her, while others believe one of her parents did it or that it was a sadistic stranger. Her family have vehemently denied any involvement in her death. Hopefully, with the addition of new DNA technology some of these cases will get solved one day soon - but until then, they remain a mystery. The new Prime Minister may have been the inspiration for Mark Darcy thanks to his work as a human rights leader and dashing good looks in his youth. Sir Keir Starmer, 61, was a human rights lawyer, working on a series of high profile cases in the 90s at the time of Helen Fielding's columns in The Independent, which spawned the Bridget Jones's Diary series. Rumours Colin Firth's brooding character was based on the Labour leader have refused to go away since emerging in 2014, with the new PM himself saying he doesn't know if they are true or not. The writer may have met the politician when she lived in Leeds, while Keir read law at the city's university, or as his career blossomed while she was a journalist. Sir Keir Starmer , 61, was a human rights lawyer, working on a series of high profile cases in the 90s at the time of Helen Fielding's columns in The Independent, which spawned the Bridget Jones's Diary series Claims: Bridget Jones's love interest Mr Darcy is rumoured to have been based on new Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer While Sir Keir- previously suggested he was flattered by the claims, he insisted no one will ever know the truth - except for the writer herself. Speaking to ITV News, he said: 'Everybody asks me this question when they should be asking her the question because she knows the answer and I don't. 'It's a rumour that's been doing the rounds for some years but I honestly don't know the answer to it.' When quizzed whether he'd be flattered if it was true, Sir Keir replied: 'Of course I would, but I honestly don't know the answer.' It has also been rumoured that Colin Firth styled his performance on the father of two, with neither the actor, Fielding or Sir Keir publicly denying the claim. When quizzed whether he'd be flattered if it was true, Sir Keir replied: 'Of course I would, but I honestly don't know the answer The pairs' career paths even show similarities, as they both rose to prominence taking on pro-bono cases and as defence lawyers. The pair also both went to Oxford University, even though they were in different years. Social media users seemed split over the rumour the politician could have been the real Mr Darcy. One wrote: 'I really really want it to be true that Mark Darcy is based on Keir Starmer. Really really.' Another put: 'I was today years old when I found out that Keir Starmer was the influence for Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones' Diary.' It comes as the new Prime Minster jetted off to Washington DC for the NATO summit with wife Victoria And one person added: 'Finding out Keir Starmer was the inspo for Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones Diary has fully blown my mind.' But one man wrote: 'I had a moment of utter despair yesterday when I heard the rumour that Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones's Diary is based on Keir Starmer.' Despite years of the talking around the rumour - Helen Fielding may have hinted it's not true in a 2020 interview. 'They are very similar, though,' she told the Radio Times Christmas issue. 'He's so good and decent and intelligent, but so buttoned up. 'I always want to say, 'Come on, Keir, loosen your tie, ruffle up your hair. He doesn't think of himself as sexy, but he's really sexy.' The writer also likened Sir Keir's exchanges Boris Johnson in the Commons with the rows between Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver. She added: 'And when he and Boris spar, it does remind me of Mark and Daniel.' The pairs' career paths even show similarities, as they both rose to prominence taking on pro-bono cases and as defence lawyers. The pair also both went to Oxford University, even though they were in different years. Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth are pictured in Bridget Jones It comes as the new Prime Minster jetted off to Washington DC for the NATO summit. Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Defence Secretary John Healey have accompanied the PM aboard 'Keir Force One' for the trip and were seen taking off from Stansted Airport on Tuesday afternoon. Sir Keir said before he departed for Washington: 'My message is very, very clear. 'This Nato summit is an opportunity for allies to stand together, to strengthen their resolve, particularly in light of that appalling attack, against Russian aggression. The three-day summit will begin on Tuesday evening and marks the 75th anniversary of the organization. It will continue through meetings and a dinner with world leaders on Wednesday and accumulate in a press conference on Thursday. The gathering of the leaders from the 32 NATO countries plus Pacific partners Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, as well as Ukraine is expected to be one of US president Joe Biden's last appearances at an international forum before Election Day. Biden is expected to have bilateral meetings with Sir Keir and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the course of the summit. The couple can't legally live together due to her parole conditions Gypsy Rose Blanchard has admitted that the timing of her shock pregnancy to boyfriend Ken Urker is 'not where we wanted it to be' due to her current parole situation and ongoing divorce from husband Ryan Anderson. The Munchausen-by-proxy victim, 32, announced that she was expecting her first child with Ken, 31, in a video shared to her YouTube channel on Tuesday morning. She's currently got another 11 months left of parole after being charged with second-degree murder over the 2015 death of her mother Claudine 'Dee Dee' Blanchard. Due to her parole conditions, Gypsy can't even live with Ken despite their impending parenthood. 'He's going to have to stay at my parents' house for a couple of days and vice versa,' she told People magazine. Gypsy Rose Blanchard has admitted that the timing of her shock pregnancy to boyfriend Ken Urker is 'not where we wanted it to be' due to her ongoing parole situation and divorce The Munchausen-by-proxy victim, 32, announced that she was expecting her first child with Ken, 31, (pictured) in a video shared to her YouTube channel on Tuesday morning 'But until I'm off parole, I can't move in with him or us get a house. So, we'll have to work around that schedule.' The jailbird-turned-reality star is still married to husband Ryan, with the former couple's first divorce hearing set for July 29. 'I'm still going through a divorce... However, I take it in stride, move forward and I couldn't be happier,' she told the publication. It comes after Gypsy opened up about the fierce mood swings and emotional outbursts she's experienced while expecting her first child - and vowed to be 'everything her mother wasn't' as she detailed how her childhood would impact the way she raised her son or daughter. In a nine-minute-long YouTube clip, the felon opened up about everything from the pregnancy symptoms she's endured so far to how she planned to use what she went through as a child to be a better parent. While discussing her pregnancy, Gypsy, who was released from prison in December after serving seven years behind bars for her part in the killing of her abusive mother, Claudine 'Dee Dee' Blanchard, explained that looking back, there was one major change in her body that she completely overlooked at first: cravings. She revealed that she suddenly started wanting orange juice all the time, but didn't think anything of it at first. The jailbird-turned-reality star is still married to husband Ryan Anderson (pictured), with the former couple's first divorce hearing set for July 29. 'The first thing that I noticed was the cravings. I craved orange juice, and orange juice was not something I craved on a daily basis before,' the 32-year-old dished. 'So when I started craving orange juice was just like, "OK. I guess I want orange juice. I didn't think anything of it."' She explained that she soon started experiencing 'insatiable hunger' and recalled wanting to 'eat everything.' 'I really went on a binge and just started eating everything,' she continued. 'And then of course I missed my period.' But Gypsy said she still didn't think she was pregnant because her doctor previously had 'tested her fertility' and had expressed concern over her ability to ovulate regularly. Gypsy's currently got another 11 months left of parole after being charged with second-degree murder over the 2015 death of her mother Claudine 'Dee Dee' Blanchard She also vowed to be 'everything her mother wasn't' as she detailed how her childhood would impact the way she raised her son or daughter. She's seen as a kid with her mom She shared, 'I had seen my OBGYN and I had tested my fertility and she was like, "We're probably going to have to put you on fertility meds or something to make you ovulate because you're not ovulating on a regular." 'I had that appointment a month [before] so when I missed my period I thought I was just having issues with ovulation.' But after discussing her symptoms with Ken, Gypsy said he encouraged her to take a pregnancy test - and she was stunned when it came back positive. Gypsy revealed that she's now 11 weeks along, and admitted that she's since started suffering from 'crazy mood swings.' 'Poor Ken,' she joked. 'If he breathes wrong I am just [furious]. Pregnancy is not easy with the mood swings, but he's been very gracious and very forgiving about it.' She also confessed to being extremely emotional, recalling a recent time that she burst into tears over the song Let Her Go by Passenger after it came on the radio. 'That song had never made me so emotional [before], but I was just in tears,' she said. Gypsy spent her childhood posing as a wheelchair-bound invalid after her mom, Dee Dee, convinced the world she was suffering from leukemia and muscular dystrophy In 2015, Gypsy (left) let her besotted internet boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn (right), creep into their Springfield, Missouri, home to stab 48-year-old Dee Dee to death She also said she was 'always tired' - but added that she was 'very blessed' that her morning sickness hadn't been too bad. And despite her intense emotions, she branded her pregnancy as a 'breeze' so far. 'It's been completely manageable,' she insisted. 'I know it's still going to be a long journey ahead but I'm up for it.' Throughout the video, Gypsy also addressed people who may feel she's 'not ready to be a mother.' 'I don't know if anyone's really ready to become a mother,' she said. 'But I feel a shift in myself, when I found out I was pregnant nothing else mattered. 'The drama on social media... that didn't matter anymore. All that matters is making sure I'm healthy and the baby's healthy.' While she admitted that the pregnancy was 'completely unexpected,' she said she was 'very excited to take on this new journey of parenthood.' 'It's an amazing feeling when your whole world shifts and suddenly it's not about you, it's not about anything other than the tiny little life that's inside of you that you are now in charge of protecting,' she gushed. 'That tiny little life is a baby, a little tiny human that's yours and you have to make sure you protect, love, and take care of it - all of the things I wished I could have had when I was little.' The 32-year-old is pictured with estranged husband Ryan, who she dumped so that she could reunite with her ex Ken Gypsy began to get emotional as she spoke about how her horrific upbringing would affect her outlook on motherhood. 'All the things that I wanted in a mother, I want to give to this baby,' she stated. 'I just want to be a good mother to my child, I want to be everything my mother wasn't.' Gypsy said the pregnancy has given her 'freedom in a way she never expected,' and a newfound peace on 'everything that has ever happened to her.' 'It doesn't matter because it all lead to me to be who I am today,' she concluded. 'It all lead me to this moment right here right now.' Gypsy spent her childhood posing as a wheelchair-bound invalid after mom Dee Dee shaved her daughter's head, pumped her full of drugs and convinced the world she was suffering from leukemia and muscular dystrophy. Their 'inseparable' bond ended when Gypsy burst free of her warped mom's control in 2015 by letting her besotted internet boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, creep into their Springfield, Missouri, home to stab 48-year-old Dee Dee to death. She ultimately plead guilty to second-degree murder and spent nearly a decade locked up before she was granted early parole and released in late December. While in prison, she bonded with Ken after he sent her a letter; they started corresponding and things soon turned romantic, with him proposing in 2018. But after the Hulu show The Act - which starred Joey King as Gypsy and Patricia Arquette as her mother - premiered a few months later and put an intense spotlight on Gypsy's story, she admitted in her memoir that Ken couldn't handle all the sudden attention. They ultimately split and she moved on with Ryan Scott Anderson, and they wed in July 2022. Ryan was by her side when she was freed - but just three months later, news hit the web that they had split. Soon after, it was reported that Gypsy had reconciled with her ex, Ken. The iconic duo are perfect to combat dehydrated or brittle hair this winter Shoppers are rushing to nab the 'miracle' shampoo and conditioner duo that thousands swear have 'completely changed' their hair for the better. Australian beauty lovers are flocking to stores and updating online shopping carts to stock up on Olaplex's famous No.4 shampoo ($54) and No.5 conditioner ($54), because the duo are perfect for a winter haircare routine. The cooler temperatures that Australia is currently experiencing can leave hair dehydrated and brittle but the nourishing and bond-repairing formulas of the cult hair products offer the solution. Both products boast thousands of five star reviews each and the recommendations speak volumes. 'My hair has become so healthy and strong. Made an amazing turnaround since using Olaplex,' one five star reviewer said, adding that the products were a good hair investment. Another said: 'My hair has never been so smooth and healthy. I dye my hair a lot so I need a shampoo and conditioner that will keep my hair looking silky and healthy. This does just that. I tell all my friends to get it. Definitely worth it.' A-list celebrities with flowing tresses also favour the award-winning brand - with Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian and Dakota Johnson swearing by the products. Nicole Kidman and Drew Barrymore also cannot get enough of them. Shoppers cannot get enough of a 'miracle' shampoo and conditioner duo that thousands swear have 'completely changed' their hair for the better Australian beauty lovers are flocking to stores and their online shopping carts to stock up on Olaplex's famous No.4 shampoo ($54) and No.5 conditioner ($54) The Olaplex No.4 shampoo and No.5 conditioner are among the brand's bestsellers, praised by thousands who claim it 'makes my hair feel healthy, shiny, glossy and repairs broken ends' The Olaplex range has a range of patent-powered products endorsed by stylists for salon-quality hair at home. The Olaplex No.4 shampoo and No.5 conditioner are among the brand's bestsellers, praised by thousands who claim it 'makes [their] hair feel healthy, shiny, glossy and repairs broken ends'. Working on a molecular level, the hair treatment is said to help repair, strengthen, and restore broken bonds to improve the appearance and texture, no matter your hair type. Dr Crystal Aguh, an Associate Professor of Dermatology and an Olaplex Scientific Advisory Board Member, previously told FEMAIL that she recommends the No.4 shampoo and No.5 conditioner. The hair expert said the duo 'checks all the boxes' in terms of ingredients and results that many shoppers are looking for. The range is designed to strengthen the hair, combat dullness and lock moisture back in Dr Aguh recommends Olaplex to all her patients because it 'checks all the boxes' The range is designed to strengthen the hair, combat dullness and lock moisture back in as fast as possible, which is all the more important during the cooler winter months. Although the price point is more expensive than other shampoos on the market, customers agree that the products are worth it and that a little, goes a long way. One happy shopper shared: 'I have been using the product for a little over a year and my hair is the healthiest its been in years. Shiny and strong. Love it. Best part it is concentrated so I use 1/2 pump of shampoo and a full pump of conditioner. Lasts me much longer than other brands so dollar for dollar this is a much better deal. I have my coworkers using it now also.' Foodies are jumping at the chance to visit a popular 'all you can eat' sushi train in Sydney and the budget price is only half the appeal. Tara Sushi Bar on Crown Street in Surry Hills has turned heads with its inviting 'all you can eat' menu for just $39. Forking out an extra $6 will get you a glass of sake to go with your meal. Sydney foodie Nina recently raved about the hidden gem and claimed she would definitely be going back for seconds. 'You can take anything off the tray including ordering whatever you wanted from the all you can eat menu,' she said in a video. '[The extra menu] includes ramen, chicken karage, beef carpaccio, volcano rolls, and more.' You will also get one plate of sashimi, dessert, and a soft drink as part of the deal. 'I definitely took advantage of this hour and ate as much as I could,' Nina added. Foodies are jumping at the chance to visit a popular 'all you can eat' sushi train Tara Sushi Bar in Surry Hills has turned heads with its 'all you can eat' menu for just $39 The foodie revealed her favourites from the evening included the salmon and scallops nigiri. 'The offer is so good and I cannot wait to go back,' she said. Hundreds of others similarly raved about the popular spot. 'I come here every time I'm craving sushi or Japanese food,' one said. 'Such a cosy joint.' 'Great value for 'All you can eat' at $39. If you are beef lover, the grilled beef amayaki is highly recommended,' a second said. 'Amazing price and the sushi is so delicious,' another five-star reviewer said. 'The staff are so friendly - definitely the best sushi bar in the area.' However, a few customers complained about the sushi not being fresh and claimed the tempura batter was 'too clumpy'. A US woman shared what annoys her about living in Australia An American woman has complained about all the things Australia does worse than the US - including chocolate and carparks. The 27-year-old quit her job and moved Down Under 12 months ago to visit picturesque destinations around the country in her 2000 model Mitsubishi Pajero. While travelling in Australia she make a list of the small things which annoyed her about the country. 'Here's my list of unimportant, inconsequential things that I still think are actually worse in Australia than they are in the US,' she said on TikTok. 'I'm starting off with the worst things to be a little controversial.' She certainly got the debate she anticipated, with some infuriated by her criticisms. but others agreeing she had a point. To begin with, she dislikes the standard flush buttons on toilets and having to touch them in public bathrooms. In America, many public toilets are flushed with a lever rather than a button, which she presses with her foot, not her hand. An American expat who moved to Australia 12 months ago and listed the things that annoy her about living Down Under - from the flush button on toilets to chocolate and car parks (stock image) 'Y'all here are so nasty for the button flush. Every time I have to use my dirty little toilet fingers to push a button that everybody else [uses] I want to cry and move home,' she admitted. Next, the range of chocolate was also a problem as she is vegan and struggles to find treats that are not made with milk. 'The hold that Cadbury has over the Australian chocolate industry is wild,' she said. 'Finding chocolate here that isn't made with milk is so much harder, like why is all your chocolate made with milk? Even the 85 per cent dark chocolate.' The fact that a lot of grocery stores in Australia are located within shopping centres also caused a fuss. 'Here's my list of unimportant inconsequential things that I still think are actually worse in Australia than they are in the US,' she said in a TikTok (stock image) 'The amount of frustration that these [shopping centres] have given me is out of control,' she said. 'Why do I have to walk through a door into a public place to then walk through another door into an even more crowded place just to buy some produce? 'Why am I walking past shoe stores, bra shops, people getting a coffee? Then have to walk into a grocery store after all of that stimulation.' The traveller also claimed Australian car parks are often poorly designed and are difficult to exit - something locals agreed with. She jokingly said it seems like the councils and architects are 'committed' to making car parks 'the worst' experience for drivers. The video has since exceeded more than 420,000 views and opinions were divided. To placate those angered by her observation she said: 'I'm just having a silly complain on the internet, chill. I still think Australia is better than the US in so many ways.' One person who disagreed with the flush button on toilets said: 'But don't you wash your hands after going to the toilet?' 'We don't want massive great ginormous concrete parking jungles thank you,' another wrote. A third said: 'I love having the grocery store in the shopping centre. I can go to the pharmacy or do any other errand then finish with groceries all in one place.' But some agreed with her. 'Me covering the little flush button with toilet paper so I don't have to touch it. I agree with it all,' one woman said. 'American here currently living in Australia at least we don't have to worry about what the actual price of something is before we get to the cashier. Here if its $5.99 that means it's $5.99,' someone else wrote. 'The grocery store one I get,' one more added. Neon artist Meryl Pataky bends neon at her San Francisco studio. In addition to making custom neon pieces for clients, she offers one-on-one instruction to people to keep the craft alive. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Neon artist Meryl Pataky bends neon at her studio in San Francisco in June. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Artist Kelsey Issel bends neon at Meryl Patakys (not pictured) studio in San Francisco on June 12. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Neon artist Meryl Pataky works in her studio in San Francisco on June 12. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Neon artist Meryl Pataky works in her studio in San Francisco on June 12. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Neon artist Meryl Pataky, left, looks on as artist Kelsey Issel bends neon at Patakys studio in San Francisco on June 12. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Neon is illuminated at Meryl Patakys studio in San Francisco on June 12. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Artist Kelsey Issel checks the sketch for a neon piece shes making on June 12. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Christen Baker held a narrow tube of black glass over a flame. With one end of the tube in each hand, she began coaxing it into the shape of a cursive letter until it shattered with a ping, sending shards tinkling to the floor. But her teacher, Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez, reassured her that its all part of the process of learning to make neon lights. I remember being deterred from trying text for a long time because of people saying, Its really hard, and youre just going to break a bunch of glass, Melendez said. I hate this thing of, Dont even bother to try until youre a master. Everyone has to start somewhere. If my word looks janky, who cares? Im on that journey to perfection. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Baker and Melendez are resident artists with She Bends, a San Francisco collective of woman-identifying people in neon thats passing on this rare skill to those who historically havent had the chance to learn it. A neon sign that says She Bends is lit up at artist and She Bends co-founder Meryl Patakys studio in San Francisco. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle She Bends: Neon as Soulcraft, a new exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Design that opens July 20, will feature work by Baker, Melendez and four other neon residents. Their pieces will illuminate the gallery with wildflowers, butterflies, an intricate word cloud and a three-dimensional bear sculpture that radiates an otherworldly blue. Over the spring, She Bends and the Museum of Craft and Design selected three teacher-student pairs in Los Angeles, Seattle and Philadelphia for the residency, helping them grow their practices while building hubs of neon know-how across the country. By creating relationships where one artist is teaching a next generation this trade thats both an art form and a vocation, were not only supporting artists but also supporting a dying medium, explained Ariel Zaccheo, curatorial director at the museum. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Neon artist and She Bends co-founder Meryl Pataky bends neon at her studio in San Francisco on June 12. She Bends: Neon as Soulcraft, a new exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Design, opens July 20. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Neon combines glassblowing, chemistry and circuitry. An artist heats a small section of a glass tube with a specialized burner or torch, then removes it from the fire and quickly bends it, using a full-scale pattern of their design as a guide. Every single turn, every single bend of the glass is another session in the flame, said She Bends co-founder Meryl Pataky. There can be 13 bends just in one letter. As the artist works, they blow puffs of air into the tube to keep the bends from collapsing. Once theyve bent the tube completely into shape, they weld electrodes onto each end and bombard it, heating and vacuuming out the tube to remove impurities. Then they pump in noble gasses like neon or argon and electrify the tube to excite the gas particles, producing light. The color of the tube and the gasses inside it help determine the color of light neon glows red, for example, and argon purple. Neon artists Kelsey Issel (left) and Meryl Pataky pose for a portrait at Meryls studio in San Francisco on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Pataky hopes to demonstrate neon bending during the run of the exhibition, which is set to end on Nov. 24. Artists bending and bombarding tools will also be on display in the gallery, alongside a quilt made from residents practice bends and broken pieces. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Every neon sign you see requires human breath and human hands to manipulate that glass, Zaccheo said. Showing those off-cuts the scrap glass shows that there are mistakes in this process. Neon boomed in the U.S. from the 1920s through 50s as a symbol of modernity. San Franciscos Market Street once glittered with hundreds of neon signs advertising shops, hotels and theaters. The expensive machines and extensive training needed to master neon helped keep the field majority white and male. By the late 1960s, as downtowns hollowed out, neon became associated with vice and decay, and many of the glowing marquees disappeared. As sign-making shops have closed, its become even harder for aspiring neon makers to apprentice and learn the trade. Artist Kelsey Issel works with neon as shes reflected in a mirror at artist Meryl Patakys studio in San Francisco on June 12. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle The barriers to entry are equipment, money and access to someone who will teach you a person willing to provide a safe space for you in all ways, said Kelsey Issel, the other half of She Bends founding team. Advertisement Article continues below this ad More Information She Bends: Neon as Soulcraft: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday. July 20-Nov. 24. $8-$10 for adults; free for children 12 and younger; pay what you can on Wednesdays. Museum of Craft and Design, 2569 Third St., S.F. 415-773-0303. www.sfmcd.org Indeed, Melendez, who teaches at Temple Universitys Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, said, I dont come from preexisting wealth. I cant pay to play. But by paying the artists for their time and materials, She Bends and the museum have helped these artists overcome these barriers. For instance, thanks to the residency, Melendez and her student Baker, who has an MFA from Tyler, got to experiment with pricey black-light and cobalt glasses. Since 2018, She Bends has organized exhibitions at five museums, helped train eight residents and hosted educational events at the California Academy of Sciences and the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Pataky also teaches neon bending at her South of Market studio. Neon artist Meryl Pataky touches neon as she waits for it to warm up. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle In the last 5-10 years, as younger, more diverse artists get their hands on this material, the art form evolves, Issel said. The concepts being expressed, the way the material is used, the way its talked about, the way its taught that all changes when more people have access to it and want to pass it on. Advertisement Article continues below this ad For Leticia Maldonado, who teaches at the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles, and her student Mayra Zambrano, who just earned a BFA from California State University San Bernardino, the residency offered a chance to spotlight conservation. I struggle with being a human on this planet that we dont really take care of, said Zambrano, adding that she hopes her gleaming California poppy and lupine neon pieces will spur people to reflect about what you could do to change for the better for our environment. Neon is largely sustainable. If a neon light breaks, a bender can repair it many times (though some designs contain a small amount of mercury to enhance the colors, which must be disposed of safely). Less expensive LED lights that often replace neon, on the other hand, typically are made of plastic and have a shorter lifespan. Thats part of the reason neon and other handmade goods are coming back into fashion. In fact, San Francisco now offers grants to put up neon signs, noted Randall Ann Homan, co-founder of San Francisco Neon, which leads popular tours of the citys historic neon signs and advocates to save them. Artist Kelsey Issel bends neon at a studio in San Francisco in June. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Homan appreciates She Bends for sharing knowledge and passion for the art form. It goes hand in hand with preserving the Roxie or Castro Theatre, she said of the citys venerable movie theaters. The Castros neon signs are landmarked, but it doesnt do any good to landmark something if theres nobody around with the skill to maintain it. Long term, She Bends hopes to develop a curriculum and instructors for an undergraduate program in neon. A long time ago, if you went into a benders shop they would stop bending so you wouldnt see their trade secrets, said Maldonado. Now, people are being transparent about the process and welcoming new practitioners. Thats really important for the health of the craft, to keep it alive. How to support neon Take a neon class or workshop Get one-on-one instruction from master artist Meryl Pataky. Progress from creating a simple, abstract design in one day to making something more elaborate over a two- or three-day immersive session. Pataky also makes custom neon pieces for clients. Meryl Patakys neon studio: Inquire for hours and appointments. Bryant and Division streets, S.F. $600-$1,190. www.merylpataky.com Oakland arts mainstay the Crucible offers group neon classes for youth and adults, as well as open lab hours to continue honing your craft. The Crucible: Inquire for class and lab schedule. 1260 Seventh St., Oakland. $300-$625. www.thecrucible.org Design a sign Ames Palms, who has been bending neon for more than 20 years, can make a custom sign for your home or business, or repair an existing neon sign. Rebel Neon: Inquire for services. 1745 Yosemite Ave., S.F. www.rebelneon.com Take a tour San Francisco Neon, a local not-for-profit, offers tours of the citys historic neon signs by neighborhood. The organization also hosts an annual Neon Speaks symposium, which is scheduled for Sept. 7-8, and 14-15, this year. For more details, visit www.neonspeaks.org. Join the guild Tash Oakes has always struggled making friends and claims meeting new people as an adult is 'tougher than dating'. The 27-year-old Melbourne woman is often so terrified about building bonds that it's impacted her confidence and self esteem. And she's sick and tired of other women assuming not having many friends implies you're not a decent person or aren't fun to be around. 'I've never been able to find people who like me for my authentic self and in my opinion, it's much worse than the dating world,' Ms Oakes told FEMAIL. The frustrated young Aussie referenced trends seen on TikTok, including: 'When you find out the reason why the girl who has no friends has no friends.' In a video she said: 'It's heartbreaking and it feels like a personal attack towards me because my whole life I've struggled to make friends. 'As I've gotten older I'm still struggling. I've never really had consistent friends for long periods of time or through different seasons of life. 'I've come to grow up and have self-awareness to realise that they've all served a purpose.' Tash Oakes, from Melbourne, has always struggled making friends and is 'sick and tired' when others assume having no mates means you're not fun to be around The 27-year-old has tried making new friends before but it 'didn't end well', possibly due to her 'desperation' for authentic friendships Ms Oakes has tried making new friends before but it 'didn't end well', possibly due to her 'desperation' for authentic friendships. She often worries about other people's judgement but tries to block this out and ignore it. 'The ideology that spreads that if you don't have friends that you're worthy of having friends or people should want to steer clear of you is stopping me from achieving my goals and I'm afraid to go after what I need,' she said in a TikTok video. 'If people don't have large groups of friends or any friends. Let's not jump to conclusions on why that is.' And she's not alone - thousands of other Aussies have experienced the struggle of making new friends. The frustrated young Aussie referenced trends seen on TikTok , including: 'When you find out the reason why the girl who has no friends has no friends.' 'Making friends is hard, I've given up,' one woman admitted in the comments. 'As a girl with no friends I feel this in my soul. I'm crying with you,' another said. 'I struggle to find my people too,' a third wrote. Another added: 'I can so relate. My friendship circles have always been small my entire life. Even recently losing the strongest friendship I had in a while made me question myself, but we are so worthy.' 'I've never had friends for long periods, and now I have none,' one more wrote. She often worries about other people's judgement but tries to block this out and ignore it. 'I'm trying to be confident to find my people,' Ms Oakes said Earlier this week another young Aussie revealed the terrifying reality of trying to make new friends as an adult. Grace, a paramedic from Melbourne, is used to keeping cool in high-pressure situations but when it comes to making friends her palms start to sweat. And she's not alone, Millennials and Gen Zs have revealed meeting new people gives them crippling anxiety. Grace found herself needing to expand her circle when many of her friends started moving into the next phase of their lives by getting married and having babies. Now the 30-year-old has realised just how difficult meeting new people can be as an adult. While it was an easy 'norm' for older generations, it's something Millennials and Gen Z struggle to get it right. In February Grace stepped outside her comfort zone by asking a retail worker if she'd like to get a coffee. 'I was so nervous. I felt like I was asking someone out on a date, and I was so worried about being rejected,' she told FEMAIL. Grace, from Melbourne, is trying to meet new people - something thousands of Millennials and Gen Z are wanting to do right now In February the 30-year-old stepped outside her comfort zone by asking a retail worker if she'd like to get a coffee. 'I was so nervous. I felt like I was asking someone out on a date, and I was so worried about being rejected!' she told FEMAIL 'I have never really had to ask someone out on a friend date before, so it was new territory.' She had spoken to the employee several times while making purchases from the store. To her surprise, the young woman said she 'needs friends too'. Grace said the coffee 'date' went 'amazingly' well and the two have become close friends. 'She already knew bits and pieces of what was going on in my life because I had been buying outfits for different reasons and events - we got along like a house on fire,' she said. 'She came to my 30th birthday, we took our partners out on a double date to the Queen Vic night markets, and she is coming around for girls night this weekend to meet some of my other friends.' Grace said she's always struggled with social anxiety and have never been an big drinker or someone who went to a lot of parties. She met her current friends at school, university, and work, and hopes to meet new people in other ways such as by sharing an interest or hobby. Grace said the coffee 'date' went 'amazingly' well and the two have become close friends 'I have been through some of the hardest things in my life over the past four years and it was so incredibly difficult to go through because I felt so alone,' she said. 'Although I had a few friends, they were all getting married and having babies and I felt like it was really hard to find time with them. 'Being able to find some friends that are more in line with where I am in my life has been amazing.' Spiralling diabetes levels are fuelling a crisis in kidney health with the highest number in a decade awaiting transplants, a charity has warned. NHS figures released today show 6,250 people are waiting for a kidney 10 per cent more than a year ago. In the last 12 months, 608 people were removed from the transplant list because they were too unwell for the surgery while a further 258 people died waiting on the list. Today, a report by Kidney Care UK warns that urgent action is needed to stem the tide or years of progress increasing transplant rates will be lost. It notes the numbers of people in the UK requiring lifesaving treatment due to kidney failure is growing dramatically with someone diagnosed nearly every hour. NHS figures released today show 6,250 people are waiting for a kidney 10 per cent more than a year ago (stock image) Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure in the UK with one in five needing a transplant as a result of the disease. It's estimated that by 2033, there will be 7.6 million people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) a rise of almost half a million (stock image) In 2021, 8,175 adult patients started kidney replacement therapy either through dialysis or transplant an increase of 7.3 per cent from 2020. This is predicted to grow significantly over the coming decade, due to an increase in risk factors such as diabetes and high blood pressure and an ageing population, it states. It estimates that by 2033, there will be 7.6 million people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) a rise of almost half a million. Fiona Loud, policy director at the charity, said: Were extremely concerned and saddened that the waiting list for kidney transplants is at the longest it has been in a decade. Now is the time for the government to get a grip on transplantation. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the waiting list and opportunities have been missed to make the most of the change in organ donation law to an opt-out system. Almost 4.3 million people were living with diabetes in 2021/22, according to figures for the UK. And another 850,000 people have diabetes and are completely unaware of it, which is worrying because untreated type 2 diabetes can lead to complications including heart disease and strokes Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure in the UK with one in five needing a transplant as a result of the disease. Last year, Diabetes UK declared the UK was in a rapidly escalating diabetes crisis largely fuelled by unhealthy lifestyles with the number with the disease surpassing 5 million for the first time. Growing waiting lists and a failure to recover from the 30 per cent drop in transplants during the pandemic, have led to a worsening situation for transplant patients, the report said. In London alone, 1,753 people are on the kidney waiting list with patients waiting an average of 500 days for a transplant once they have been put on the list. The report identified widespread variation in the tests necessary to be considered for the transplant waiting list, and inconsistencies in labelling of whether someone is high risk resulting in a postcode lottery for transplants. One in three people reported that waiting times for tests made it more difficult to get on the waiting list or have a transplant. Patients reported unmet need for psychological support whilst on the waiting list with nearly one in five being called for a transplant that did not go ahead. There was also a lack of support once transplants were carried out. The report also identified many financial difficulties experienced by transplant patients including the immediate loss of non-means tested disability benefits following surgery, despite people still facing health challenges and costs of ongoing medications. The charity is calling on the new government to prioritise slowing the growth of the kidney transplant waiting list and use public health messaging to reduce the number developing the disease. Those at risk should be screened to allow for earlier detection and better access to treatments which can help slow the disease, they said, with more consistent care pre and post transplants. Greater public awareness about organ donation, NHS staff training, investment in transplant technology and access to theatre space for operations to take place are also vital to improve services, the report states. Ms Loud, added: We need the government to prevent more people developing kidney disease, the NHS to provide the best possible care, and for the provision of theatre spaces, technology, education and awareness or we risk more people dying before they get the chance to receive that life changing call. A spokesperson for NHS Blood and Transplant said: Over 6,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant. 'More than 3,300 kidney transplant operations took place last year, but we need more people to sign the NHS Organ Donor Register and we need to be innovative to make the best use of every precious organ. 'We look forward to working with Government to address this. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: 'Waiting lists are too high, meaning patients who need a kidney transplant have not been able to access the care they so desperately need so it is vital we get the NHS back on its feet and ensure it is fit for the future. 'We will provide an extra 40,000 appointments a week and double the number of CT and MRI scanners to help the NHS beat the backlog, with extra clinics at evenings and weekends.' Living in a bustling polluted city could raise the risk of an autoimmune condition affecting 50,000 Britons, alarming research has suggested. Scientists have long tried to unpick what exactly triggers systemic lupus erythematosus, more commonly known as lupus, to occur. The condition, which is also suffered by Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga and Nick Cannon, sees the body's immune system mistakenly attack healthy tissue. But researchers in China now believe long-term exposure to air pollution 'may increase the risk of developing lupus'. Dr Yaohua Tian, an expert in air pollutants and chronic disease at Huazhong University of Science and Technology and study co-author, said: 'Our study provides crucial insights into the air pollution contributing to autoimmune diseases. Scientists have long tried to unpick what exactly triggers systemic lupus erythematosus, more commonly known as lupus, to occur. The condition, which is also suffered by Selena Gomez , Lady Gaga and Nick Cannon , sees body's immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue instead But researchers in China now believe long-term exposure to air pollution 'may increase the risk of developing lupus'. Pictured, Lady Gaga who is known to have lupus 'The findings can inform the development of stricter air quality regulations to mitigate exposure to harmful pollutants, thereby reducing the risk of lupus.' Patients with the condition often experience flare-ups where symptoms like joint and muscle pain, extreme fatigue and rashes get worse. These episodes can last for weeks or longer. In the new study, the Chinese researchers followed 460,000 patients and found 399 people were diagnosed with lupus over a 12 year period. Average levels of six pollutants close to their homes were also assessed. These included PM2.5 which stands for particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter nitrogen dioxide (NO2), nitric oxide (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). All four have been linked to health woes such as heart disease and dementia. These particles, emitted by car exhausts, cleaning products and wood-burning stoves, among many other things, can be so small they travel deep into the lungs and bloodstream. The researchers there was one in 1,000 risk of lupus among those exposed to the highest levels of NO2, and just 0.075 in 1,000 risk in those exposed to the lowest levels. This trend was reflected among all three other particles. Writing in the journal, Arthritis and Rheumatology, the scientists said the results provide 'crucial insights into the environmental factors contributing to autoimmune diseases'. They added: 'Findings can inform the development of stricter air quality regulations to mitigate exposure to harmful pollutants, thereby reducing the risk of lupus.' Researchers, however, acknowledged the study had 'certain limitations' including the study's participants enrolling voluntarily. This means they 'may have been healthier, more health conscious or more willing to participate in the study, they added. The World Health Organization has long demanded countries take tougher action to combat the scourge of pollution, which is thought to kill 7million people every year globally. Patients with the condition often experience periods where symptoms like joint and muscle pain, extreme fatigue and rashes get worse. Such episodes can last for weeks or longer. Pictured, Nick Cannon who is known to have lupus It comes as separate research today revealed US scientists had discovered a molecular defect they believe may trigger lupus. These changes in molecules in the blood of lupus patients, means the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), which regulates cells' response to pollutants and bacteria, is not activated properly. Dr Deepak Rao, study co-author and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said: 'We've identified a fundamental imbalance in the immune responses that patients with lupus make, and weve defined specific mediators that can correct this imbalance to dampen the pathologic autoimmune response.' According to Lupus UK, about one in every 50,000 people in the UK have the condition. There is no cure for lupus with treatment instead designed to help people manage their symptoms. Lupus can range from mild, when it causes skin or joint problems to severe where it can cause life- threatening to organs. Flare-ups, periods where symptoms get worse are another aspect of the condition scientists are still trying to understand. Both what triggers them and what causes them to subside isn't yet clear. Further complicating the topic is that some patients don't experience flare-ups at all. Women with heart problems who catch Covid are most likely to be left with lingering symptoms, new research has suggested. Scientists found people took 20 days on average to recover after being struck down with the virus between 2020 and 2023. But more than one in five adults took over three months to recover a phenomenon now better known as long Covid. The researchers, who tracked more than 40,000 Americans who'd been infected with the virus, also discovered women were more at risk of lingering Covid symptoms despite fewer severe infections. It comes as Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's daughter Violet today revealed she contracted a post-viral condition in 2019 while calling for 'mask mandates' in medical facilities in a passionate speech to the LA County Board of Supervisors. Violet said she 'saw first-hand' that medicine doesn't always have answers to the 'consequences of even minor viruses' Violet who's often seen wearing a face mask shared her experience of contracting 'a post-viral condition' in 2019; Seen with Affleck and stepmom Jennifer Lopez in 2023 The 18-year-old urged the board 'to confront the long Covid crisis' by strengthening pandemic-era protections in hospitals and government buildings. US officials suggest one in ten people who catch the virus will develop long Covid, while around two million people in the UK are reported to live with the condition. Symptoms are wide-ranging, from fatigue and breathlessness to muscle and joint pain. In the new study, researchers analysed data from more than 4,700 adults, who 61 on average, who were asked to self-report how long it took to recover after infection. What is long Covid ? Most people with Covid feel better within a few days or weeks, but those with long Covid take much longer to recover. The symptoms include: Fatigue, shortness of breath, loss of smell and muscle aches. It can also cause: Memory problems, a tight chest, insomnia, heart palpitations, dizziness, joint pain, pins and needles, tinnitus, stomach aches, loss of appetite, high temperature, a cough, rashes and depression. Source: NHS Advertisement All were enrolled in the study between April 2020 and February 2023. They found those who battled the infection at home had an average recovery time of 33 days. By comparison, patients hospitalised spent 58 days recovering. People who had received a Covid vaccine had around a 70 per cent less chance of spending more than three months recovering. Writing in the journal JAMA Network Open, the researchers also said: 'Although studies have suggested that many patients with long Covid experience mental health challenges, we did not find that depressive symptoms prior to Covid infection were a major risk factor for long Covid.' Professor Elizabeth Oelsner, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, also added: 'Our study underscores the important role that vaccination against Covid has played, not just in reducing the severity of an infection but also in reducing the risk of long Covid. 'It clearly establishes that long Covid posed a substantial personal and societal burden. 'By identifying who was likely to have experienced a lengthy recovery, we have a better understanding of who should be involved in ongoing studies of how to lessen or prevent the long-term effects of Covid infection.' It comes as Violet Affleck, the eldest daughter of the Argo director, 51, and 13 Going on 30 star, Jennifer Garner, 52, today detailed her experience of contracting 'a post-viral condition' in 2019. Addressing the LA County Board of Supervisors she said she 'saw first-hand' that medicine doesn't always have answers to the 'consequences of even minor viruses'. She added: 'You must expand the availability of high-quality free tests and treatment, and most importantly the county must oppose mask bans for any reason. They do not keep us safer.' 'They make vulnerable members of our community less safe, and make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together.' Often self-diagnosed, the term 'long Covid' was coined for a number of symptoms following Covid infection, which can persist for months or even years after the initial infection. Around 1.9 million people in the UK are reported to suffer with it, with the term covering everything from fatigue and breathlessness to muscle and joint pain The JN.1 variant, dubbed Juno, has been dominant in the UK and USA for the past few months. Covid cases have continued to slowly increase across the UK, in recent weeks after infection rates dwindled over the spring. Health chiefs have already issued an alert over a variant, nicknamed FLiRT, they had begun monitoring. Virologists are using the term FLiRT to describe a family of different variants KP.2, KP.3, JN.1.7, JN.1.1, and KP.1.1. They are all descendants of Juno. But ministers have repeatedly said that they won't resort to imposing lockdowns unless a doomsday variant appears. A wall of immunity among the population built up by repeated waves of infection and vaccine rollouts has given officials confidence to consign pandemic-era measures to history. Spikes in Covid cases can still cause mass illness across the country, sparking chaos in schools, the health service and public transport. Officials also no longer track the prevalence of the virus in the same way they used to, as part of the Government's ushering in of pre-Covid normalities. The Biden Administration is being forced to fend off uncomfortable questions about whether the president has Parkinson's disease. Visitor logs reveal a doctor who specializes in Parkinsonism an umbrella term for brain disorders that cause slowed movements, stiffness and tremors visited the White House eight times in eight months this past year. The official explanation for at least one of those visits was not accurate and had to be corrected by the president's press secretary last night, leading to growing suspicion and concerns about Biden's health. Several doctors were telling DailyMail.com months ago they suspected Biden, 81, had Parkinson's, though many insisted on remaining anonymous for fear of backlash. Now, they are speaking out about what the next four years could look like if the President does indeed have the condition. They say the public should know what they're signing up for. The three signs of Parkinson's include forgetting words (shown) A stiff gait Walking problems affect 90 percent of Parkinson's patients Dr W. Chris Winter is a neurologist in Virginia who has treated hundreds of patients with Parkinson's. Dr Abhi Kapuria is also a neurologist based at the University of North Carolina. Both did not want to perform an 'online diagnosis' and reiterated that they had not examined him in person. They did, however, say they suspected neurological issues. Dr Winter said President had a 'laundry list' of the hallmark symptoms of the condition, from a stiff gait and balance problems to a quiet voice and mixing up his words. In an attempt to assure voters and Democrats that Biden is fit enough to win the election year and serve another term, the president and his team have promised he will rest more, and stop performing duties after 8pm. But Dr Kapuria and Dr Winter told this website that if the president does have Parkinson's, the symptoms cannot be relieved with rest. They said that within five to 10 years of a diagnosis, patients' speech becomes increasingly soft and slurred. Walking becomes harder, while patients are also struck with persistent tiredness. But if patients are not treated and the White House claims Biden is not then they can deteriorate much more quickly. Over the next 12 months, the doctors warned the President would likely continue to suffer from 'more of the same' symptoms that happen 'more frequently'. 'So that's more falls, more cognitive impairment, I saw him freeze at Juneteenth it's just more of that really,' said Dr Winters. Within three to four years, Dr Winters warned Biden could be at risk of other complications. These include long and wakeful nights where he struggles to get to sleep, as well as suffering from nightmares and hallucinations that make him increasingly fatigued and confused during the day. It's also possible that he declines to such a point where he is 'not there much anymore' cognitively, meaning he would seem aloof, distracted and struggle to engage with aides and advisers. Parkinson's has five stages, with moderate Parkinson's considered to be stage 2 or 3 when symptoms are noticeable and restrict someone in their daily life. Dr Winters doesn't use the staging system but believes Biden definitely has moderate Parkinson's at the least saying it was definitely impacting his daily living. In severe Parkinson's, at stage four, patients are able to stand without assistance but may need to use a cane or walker to stay up. Biden at a Democratic nominee debate in 2019 looking sharp (left) and the ailing president in 2024 They are also likely to be suffering from a cognitive impairment or dementia, with the Parkinson's Foundation saying online only 30 percent of patients do not develop dementia when they have the disease. By stage five, the final stage of the disease, sufferers are often bedridden and can only move around with a wheelchair because of stiffness in their legs making it impossible to stand or walk. Dr Kapuria warned that if Biden did have Parkinson's then a further decline would be visible within his second term in office. He said the President still appeared well enough to avoid needing a wheelchair by the end of his term but added that those with Parkinson's can decline quickly especially when they are not being treated. After about ten years with the disease, most patients have at least one major issue like dementia or a physical disability. Experts fear that not being treated combined with having a punishing schedule such as his four-month campaign for the Presidency only raises the risk of the disease progressing more rapidly. They also highlighted that the President, if he has Parkinson's, would not get better from the condition and only stay the same or get worse. About a million Americans have Parkinson's, which is the second most common neurodegenerative condition in the US behind Alzheimer's. It is a progressive disease caused by the deterioration of neurons in the basal ganglia, an area at the base of the brain that regulates movements. This leads to less dopamine in this area of the brain, a neurotransmitter, causing problems with movements and leading them to become more stiff. The reduction in dopamine is also thought to be linked to the cognitive issues associated, such as attention problems, memory and language issues and a slower speed of mental processing. Doctors point out that the condition is not fatal, but it does raise the risk of life-threatening complications. Patients are at a higher risk of falling due to balance and movement issues, which can prove fatal over time in older individuals because of the risk of serious injury. Patients may also have higher risks of swallowing and coughing fluids into their lungs, raising the risk of pneumonia which is also more dangerous in older adults. For those with stage five Parkinson's, patients can normally only expect to live six to 12 months according to estimates. Nearly 50 percent of those diagnosed with the disease at age 70 years die within a decade, a study suggests, compared to 20 percent among those who don't have it. Biden was pictured stumbling on the stairs of Air Force One in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2021. The stairs have since been shortened Medications are available to treat the condition with doctors saying these are 'highly effective' and can 'raise someone from the dead'. The lead among these is Levodopa, a pill given orally multiple times a day that provides the building blocks for dopamine, boosting its levels in the brain to help someone behave normally again. Patients have seen dramatic transformations on the drug, said Dr Winter, which can see them return to behaving almost normally. 'This drug can "raise people from the dead",' he said, 'I have patients' families who come in and say, "Oh my gosh, Dr Winter, his speech changed overnight, he's walking more confidently and his facial expressions are back. 'For some patients, when they wake up they are super off, but when they take Levodopa within a few moments they are pretty on again, but then they seem to turn off as it wears off. 'It becomes this coordinated effort really where you are dosing it frequently enough so that you are never crashing.' Other treatments include physio and yoga, which are used to strengthen muscles and to help patients walk in a way that minimizes the risk of falls. READ MORE: Ozempic could make you go BLIND , according to worrying study Almost nine in 10 patients on blockbuster weight loss drugs are quitting them early, a new analysis shows. Researchers analyzed more than 3,000 US pharmacy claims from patients prescribed injections like Ozempic and Wegovy. They found that just one in four patients who were taking the drugs for weight loss and not diabetes, stayed on Ozempic for at least two years. And just one in 15 stuck with less popular medications which work the same way, such as Saxenda and Victoza. The findings come as weight loss drugmakers face as many as 10,000 lawsuits due to severe side effects like stomach paralysis, tears in patients' food pipes, blindness, and suicidal thoughts. Just one in four patients on Ozempic and Wegovy have stuck with them after two years, according to a new analysis It's estimated that 15.5million Americans have taken a weight loss drug at some point The findings are also significant because previous research shows that when patients come off the drugs, as many as 80 percent fput the pounds back on. The researchers cautioned that it's unclear why the patients came off the drugs, though they suspect it could be due to side effects like nausea and stomach paralysis, as well as shortages and lack of insurance availability. Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic, said that it 'does not believe these data are sufficient to draw conclusions about overall patient adherence and persistence to various GLP-1 medicines, including our treatments.' Reports of unpleasant side effects have become more prevalent, with patients citing that they have suffered organ failure, suicidal thoughts, and had the fun sapped out of their lives. The analysis, from pharmacy benefits manager Prime Therapeutics and Magellan Rx Management, reviewed pharmacy and medical claims for 3,364 patients with insurance that covers weight loss medications. It is one of the first long term studies on the use of the drugs, which have only recently come on to the scene as treatments for diabetes and weight loss. All patients had received new prescriptions between January and December 2021 an were either diagnosed as obese or had a BMI over 30. The participants were prescribed one of the following medications: Ozempic, Wegovy, Trulicity, Rybelsus, Saxenda, or Victoza. Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus contain the active ingredient semaglutide. This mimics the hormone GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) which slows the movement of food through the digestive system, signalling to the body that it's full. Ozempic and Wegovy come in the form of weekly injections, while Rybelsis is available in tablets. Liraglutide, which works similarly, is the active ingredient in Saxenda and Victoza, while Trulicity uses GLP-1 agonist dulaglutide. The average participant age was 46.5, and 81 percent were female. Patients with type 2 diabetes, for which the drugs were originally made, were excluded from the research. The team found that, for all of the drugs, only about 15 percent of patients still took them two years later. Additionally, 24.1 percent of Wegovy patients kept taking the drugs, along with 22.2 percent of those on Ozempic. For Trulicity, 13.8 percent of participants persisted, along with 10.4 percent of those on Rybelsus. And just seven percent of patients stayed on Saxenda and Victoza. According to a 2024 Pew Research report, 8.2million precriptions were written for semaglutide medications in 2021, four times more than in 2019. Now, it's estimated that 15.5million Americans have taken a weight loss drug at some point. Meredith Hotchkiss (left), 56, told DailyMail.com her life has been 'devastated' by alleged side-effects of the weight-loss drug Mounjaro. Dina Fioretti (right), 60, from Illinois, said Ozempic caused her to vomit so much that she tore a hole through her esophagus Your browser does not support iframes. The reserach team noted that one in four patients switched drugs at some point during treatment, which they said could be due to shortages or changes in insurance coverage. They also suggested that patients could have stopped due to side effects, as well as shortages and a lack of continued insurance coverage. The findings come as drugmakers like Ozempic's Novo Nordisk and Wegovy's Eli Lilly face allegations of several severe side effects. Meredith Hotchkiss, 56, of Idaho, joined nearly 100 patients in a lawsuit against Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk after she was diagnosed with gastroparesis. Ms Hotchkiss had been taking Mounjaro and Trulicity, another Eli Lilly injection for type 2 diabetes. She was prescribed Mounjaro from July 2022 until around June 2023. She was also briefly prescribed Trulicity from December 2022 to March 2023. Though she has diabetes, her condition is 'well-controlled,' so she was given the drugs off-label for weight loss. 'I thought if I could lose weight and get Mounjaro, then I could try because everybody you see everybody's doing it,' she previously told DailyMail.com. 'The doctor told me that I could lose weight and that it works really well. He said that I would get really sick for four weeks and then after four weeks I'd feel a lot better.' Within weeks of starting the medications, her condition deteriorated and she couldn't stomach anything other than cottage cheese, mac and cheese, and yogurt. Doctors have also told her she can no longer travel overseas because of her health conditions, and she said she now fears she may never eat a solid meal again. And Dina Fioretti, 60, from Illinois, told DailyMail.com that she is suing Novo Norisk after Ozempic allegedly caused her to vomit so much that she tore a hole through her esophagus. Travel stocks lifted the London stock market with British Airways parent IAG and Upper Crust owner SSP among the big winners. On a steady day of gains, the FTSE 100 rose 0.66 per cent, or 53.70 points, to 8193.51 and the FTSE 250 was up 1.37 per cent, or 282.74 points, to 20,927.76. The rally came as airport and train station food outlet SSP enjoyed its biggest rise since June 5, 2020 thanks to a surge in demand for leisure travel. The company behind brands such as Upper Crust, Millies Cookies and Ritazza said sales in the third quarter to June 30 were 16 per cent higher than during the same period last year. Take-off: BA owner IAG was among the biggest blue-chip risers after analysts at US investment bank Morgan Stanley upgraded its rating from underweight to overweight Expansion across the Atlantic appears to have paid off as revenues in North America surged 27 per cent year-on-year. In May last year, the FTSE 250 firm bought Midfield Concessions, which runs 36 restaurants in airports in North America. Trading was also strong in the UK, with sales up 12 per cent. SSP remains on course to make between 3.4billion and 3.5billion of revenue this year alongside 210million to 235million of profit. Shares soared 10.4 per cent, or 16.2p, to 172.6p. At the same time, IAG was among the biggest blue-chip risers after analysts at US investment bank Morgan Stanley upgraded its rating from underweight to overweight. This follows expectations that the company will benefit from its exposure to long-haul travel. Stock Watch - Sure Ventures Shares in Sure Ventures soared 37.9 per cent, or 27.5p, to 100p as the investment vehicle looked set to cash in on a major deal. American tech group Infinite Reality, whose investors include the rock band Imagine Dragons, bought the UK metaverse start-up Landvault for 351million. Sure Ventures, which backs early-stage tech firms, expects to make about 6.5million. It owns more than a quarter of the SVV1 fund, which has a 7 per cent stake in Landvault. It also pointed towards initial green shoots of progress for BA and believes a turnaround will drive up profits the shares rose 3 per cent, or 5.1p, to 178p. Morgan Stanley also upgraded other airline stocks, with Wizz up 2.5 per cent, or 52p, to 2126p while Easyjet rose 2.8 per cent, or 12.9p, to 478.3p. Indivior clawed back some losses a day after the pharma firm dropped a schizophrenia drug and warned profits will be worse than hoped. Shares, down 36 per cent in the previous session, added 3.1 per cent, or 23.5p, to 780p. The Gym Group gained 8.5 per cent, or 10.4p, to 133p as sales rose 12 per cent to 112.1million in the six months to the end of June while its membership increased 4 per cent to 905,000. The company remains on track to open between ten and 12 gyms by the end of 2024 and 50 over the next three years. But Hostelworld fell 5.6 per cent, or 9p, to 153p as business took a hit from customers who were opting for cheaper holidays and solo travelling. Impax sank 10.8 per cent, or 45p, to 372p as clients pulled money from funds. Its assets under management fell 6.8 per cent to 36.9billion in the third quarter to the end of June. It announced that it has agreed to buy the European assets of the investment firm Sky Harbor Capital Management. Cordel Group, an AIM-listed AI platform, signed a contract with US customer G&W, which owns more than 100 railroads in North America, to generate more accurate data regarding maintenance work, and climbed by 2.3 per cent, or 0.1p, to 4.5p. Labour ministers have been urged to intervene after Royal Mail announced plans to stop transporting post by train after nearly 200 years. International Distribution Services, which owns the 508-year-old postal service, has confirmed it will scrap rail freight in October and sell its trains to cut costs. The announcement came after the plan was exclusively revealed by the Mail. The move sparked uproar among unions and businesses which sought urgent government action to protect the freight industry and jobs. End of the line: Royal Mail-owner International Distribution Services confirmed it will scrap rail freight in October and sell its trains It is a major headache for Keir Starmer and rail minister Lord Hendy, who is also chairman of Network Rail. And it comes as the Government faces calls to scrutinise the controversial 3.6bn takeover of Royal Mail by billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, known as the 'Czech Sphinx'. Unions branded the decision as 'disastrous' and 'an act of incredible short-sightedness'. Industry leaders said it was a 'profoundly disappointing' choice that raises concerns over the transition to net zero. But Royal Mail insisted the move is broadly neutral in terms of carbon emissions as it has about 5,000 electric vans and uses HGVs powered by biofuel. Mail was first moved on tracks in 1830 but all rail freight activities will cease from October 10 due to the increasing cost of running its 15 trains. About 50 workers are affected but will be redeployed to other roles. No postal service redundancies are expected and more than 30 full-time driving roles could be created. But the decision came as a 'major blow' to the rail freight industry, putting jobs at risk. Logistics giant DB Cargo UK, contracted to operate and maintain Royal Mail's trains, will seek urgent talks with the Government. The firm, the biggest rail freight operator in the UK, has been in touch with the Aslef and Unite unions. Its chief executive, Andrea Rossi, said: 'To learn that Royal Mail is planning to rely solely on road haulage to move customers' letters and parcels is not just disappointing for DB Cargo UK but the wider rail freight sector.' The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) said it was 'an act of incredible shortsightedness and shows the failings of privatisation'. General secretary Maryam Eslamdoust said: 'Royal Mail will regret turning away from rail freight which is key to our economy's low-carbon future. TSSA is ready and willing to work with the Government and our sister trade unions to reverse this disastrous decision.' The Campaign for Better Transport said: 'The new government should work with Royal Mail to reverse this decision.' According to industry group Rail Partners, a freight train removes up to 129 HGVs from the road. It said it wanted to work with the Government to make rail more competitive and drive continued private sector investment. Direct Line one of Britains biggest insurers is to start selling its own-brand policies on price comparison websites for the first time in a major change of strategy. The company has until now prided itself on dealing with customers directly rather than via portals such as Money Supermarket and Confused. But yesterday chief executive Adam Winslow, who joined in March, said the policy must change and criticised previous bosses for not doing so earlier. In the past five years, price comparison websites have continued to increase their share of new business from around 80 per cent to 90 per cent. To grow, winning on price comparison is critical, Winslow said. U-turn: Direct Line is to start selling its own-brand policies on price comparison websites for the first time in a major change of strategy He added Direct Line would launch bespoke products on the sites but with clear differentiation from those it continues to sell direct. Other brands in the group Churchill, Privilege, Darwin and By Miles already use them. The announcement was part of a major strategy as Direct Line reiterated plans to cut costs by 100million a year and said it would mean job cuts. Winslow said it was becoming more digitally focused, meaning it would need a different profile of resources and probably fewer resources, including people. He said that any announcement on job cuts would not be made without consulting staff. The company employs about 9,000 people. Winslow is battling to turn around its fortunes after a turbulent 2023 when previous boss Penny James stepped down amid a profit warning. And Direct Line has also had to fend off interest from Belgian insurer Ageas, rejecting a 3.1billion takeover bid this year. Winslow said it had suffered from historical underperformance and lost its technical edge. He said the business would now be doing fewer things better, focusing on home and commercial insurance and breakdown cover, while exiting or scaling back in other areas such as insurance partnerships with car makers. Shares rose 3.3 per cent, or 6.3p, to 199.2p and are nearly 10 per cent up on the year to date. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said Direct Line was finally caving in in what was a major change for the business. Its become second nature for people to buy insurance via comparison sites, now often the first port of call for getting a quote, Mould said. Keir Starmer has appointed Matthew Pennycook as Labour's new housing minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government. With the party having already announced a raft of ambitious house building plans, he already has plenty on his to-do list. But who is Pennycook, what will his top priorities be, and how does he plan to fix the country's long-standing housing crisis? New housing minister: Keir Starmer has appointed Matthew Pennycook as a minister for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) What is the housing minister's job? Matthew Pennycook will work alongside Angela Rayner, Labour's deputy prime minister and secretary of state for the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, and Jim McMahon who is expected to take on the local government brief. Pennycook finds himself in a role that has seen 16 different minsters in 14 years of Conservative rule. There were a further nine ministers during the previous 13 years under Labour's helm. Pennycook posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, following his appointment saying: 'It is a real honour to have been appointed Minister. 'Tackling the housing crisis and boosting economic growth is integral to national renewal. Time to get to work.' What are Labour's housing plans? Pennycook is tasked with delivering Labour's plan to fix the country's housing crisis, addressing the shortage of homes as well improving the rights of renters and leaseholders. His top priority will be delivering on Labour's pledge to build 1.5million homes over the next five years. Labour plans to do this by shaking up the planning system, allowing more homes to be built on less attractive parts of the green belt known as the 'grey belt' and helping public bodies such as councils buy land for homes more cheaply. There is also the unfinished Renters (Reform) bill to get through Parliament. This was set to include the ban of section 21 no-fault eviction notices, though some Conservative MPs were attempting to water down the plans before the election. There is also the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act, which despite securing Royal Assent in May, is yet to come into effect with considerable detail still required, meaning it needs to be enacted over the coming years by Labour. Who is Matthew Pennycook? Matthew Pennycook, 41, was the shadow minster for Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities - which has been renamed under Labour - for three years prior to the election. He is the MP for Greenwich and Woolwich in London having been elected in 2015. In last week's election he won a huge majority, beating his closest rival by 18,366 votes. Prior to his political career, he worked for a number of charities and voluntary sector organisations including the Child Poverty Action Group and the Fair Pay Network. He also worked as a researcher at the Resolution Foundation, an independent think-tank focused on improving the living standards for those on low to middle incomes. What are his priorities as housing minister? It's clear that the Renters (Reform) Bill and the scrapping of no fault evictions is a top priority for Pennycook. On 20 June this year he posted on X: 'The Tories broke their 2019 manifesto pledge to scrap Section 21 no-fault evictions. 'Labour will deliver where the Tories have failed and act to provide renters with the long-term security and better rights and conditions they deserve. Renters will be better off with Labour.' In an interview with Kay Burley on Sky News he said: 'We're going to enact legislation that properly protects renters, that truly and descively levels the playing field between landlords and tenants, and makes renters better off. We're going to do it as a priority and as soon as we possibly can.' A better deal for renters: Pennycook has the unfinished Renters (Reform) bill to get through Parliament. This will include the ban on Section 21 no-fault eviction notices However, it is perhaps the 1.5million housebuilding target that will weigh heaviest on the new housing minister. To achieve the target he is tasked with reforming the planning system. Planning departments have been affected by local Government budget cuts in recent years, creating a planning application backlog which some say is hampering investment in new housing. Pennycook aims to fix this by ensuring councils have up-to-date local plans and giving them cash to hire more planning officers, funded by a further stamp duty surcharge on overseas buyers. How much can you afford? Find out how much you can afford to borrow for a monthly payment amount with This is Money's mortgage affordability calculator. In a recent interview with the i newspaper, Pennycook said: 'We have a huge package of planning reforms. There is money for planning. We've already announced a 25million shot in the arm to get the system working an get more applications going through.' He also confirmed that Labour will be prepared to build on parts of the green belt, the plan being to target lower-quality, 'ugly' green belt land, known as 'grey belt' land, for development. Pennycook also made clear that reform of compulsory purchase rules will have to happen for Labour to deliver on its house building targets. Doing so could help public bodies such as councils buy land for homes more cheaply. Compulsory purchase is when a public body is able to force a landowner to sell, to allow new housing to be built. At the moment some landowners are able to charge huge sums, based on the value that the land will eventually have when it has planning permission and is converted into homes. Grey belt: Labour will target 'ugly' green belt land in its mission to get more homes built Agricultural land is worth an average of 25,000 per hectare in the UK whereas development land with planning approval is worth an average of 1.95million - about 80 times more, according to analysis by Capital Economics. Pennycook said: 'A huge part of the pressure on development is the cost of land, so we have to make further changes to CPO to ensure the market price of land when we are assembling and bringing forward development is based on a fair price. 'At the moment, there is a discretionary power which certain public bodies can use if they come and say to the secretary of state for special permssion but that's an extra layer of planning permission, which slows the system. 'We want a range of public bodies to have the certainty of being able to use this specifc power so that we can get more development across the country going.' A new audit found Berkeley fell significantly behind on restaurant inspections and responses to complaints of foodborne illness in 2023. Amy Osborne/The Chronicle Almost half of all food facilities in Berkeley, including nearly 200 restaurants, were never inspected by the citys health department in 2023, according to a new audit. In a damning report released Wednesday, the Berkeley City Auditor found that the Environmental Health Division, which is responsible for the citys food safety program, fell significantly behind on inspections and responses to complaints of foodborne illness. In 2023, the health department finished just 29% of its total required inspections, and 45% of food facilities were not inspected even once, according to the audit. By comparison, 3% of Alameda County food facilities werent inspected last year, according to the report. The main cause of the problems, the audit found, is chronic understaffing. The city left empty two key food safety roles, a supervisor and food inspector, for more than four years. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The report also flags issues with transparency and public accountability. The city auditor said Berkeleys program is an outlier in many ways compared to other jurisdictions in the Bay Area and statewide. Berkeleys food inspection program lags behind the rest of Alameda County, City Auditor Jenny Wong told the Chronicle. This is both in percentage of facilities inspected and information to the public. Department leadership acknowledged they fell behind on food inspection targets, according to the report, and multiple inspectors said that these targets were not achievable given prolonged staff shortages. The department agreed or partially agreed with the audits findings and recommendations, and has started to clear its inspection backlog. As of June 20, the division has cut the number of remaining uninspected food facilities from 418 to 260, according to its response to the audit, included in the report. In a statement, the city of Berkeley attributed the inspection backlog to the pandemic, but said its made significant progress in recruiting, filling staffing vacancies, and addressing the backlog of overdue restaurant inspections since the audit, including hiring a food inspector. All inspections should be completed by October, the city said. While there have been no clusters or outbreaks of foodborne illnesses in any restaurant in Berkeley since 2016, the findings of this audit are concerning and are being actively addressed, the statement reads. We are committed to upholding the highest food safety standards until all issues are fully resolved. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Berkeley is one of four cities in California that operates its own health department and food inspection program independent from the county. Berkeley, rather than Alameda County, is responsible for inspecting all permitted food facilities including restaurants, food trucks, grocery stores, schools and licensed health care facilities. A new audit found 45% of Berkeley food facilities were not inspected in 2023. Juliana Yamada/Special to The Chronicle Restaurants made up the largest group that were not inspected in 2023. The department also failed to meet its standards for inspecting all high or very high risk facilities, including restaurants and nursing care facilities, at least three times a year. The Environmental Health Division said in its response to the audit that it plans to deploy all available, qualified staff to focus their efforts on inspecting these higher risk facilities. The audit compared Berkeleys performance with several other California cities. At 45%, Berkeley had the second-highest percentage of food facilities that werent inspected last year, compared to 51% in San Francisco, 30% in Long Beach and 1% in Pasadena. (Pasadena and Long Beach also have city-led health departments.) The Environmental Health Division also lagged in its response to reports of possible foodborne illness, the audit found. Of 23 reports in 2023, the department responded to just six within its stated target of one business day. The department attributed this in part due to shifting public health priorities during the pandemic, according to the audit. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Wong said the audit didnt analyze whether this resulted in higher rates of foodborne illness in Berkeley. There were no confirmed foodborne illness outbreaks during or after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a 2023 city memo. Ultimately were talking about risk, Wong said. When you have a department that follows up on foodborne illness complaints, that means they are helping to address that risk right away. Berkeleys City Auditor found the citys food inspection program is chronically understaffed. Juliana Yamada/Special to The Chronicle Berkeleys food inspection program is severely understaffed, according to the audit. Under Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards, Berkeley should employ seven to eight full-time food inspectors. In 2023, it had just three. They were each assigned close to 600 routine inspections, far exceeding the FDA recommended workload, the report stated. Two senior staff members worked a combined 147 overtime hours, the audit found. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Vacant positions in the department were left unfilled, as the city failed to consistently recruit for them, even after a city-wide pandemic hiring freeze ended in 2022, the report states. The Environmental Health Divisions former deputy director cited a workforce shortage across the environmental health field, and argued that state and federal credentialing requirements, as well as compensation levels in Berkeley, contribute to hiring difficulties. Short-staffing is an issue city-wide, Wong said; her office found last year that Berkeley had the second-highest vacancy rate in 2022 compared to other Bay Area cities. The audit recommends the Environmental Health Division recruit to fill the vacant food-safety supervisor position, which it said it expects to do no later than October. The city also plans to start developing a trainee program, which the auditor recommended to build a pipeline into the inspector positions, by next July. Without the staffing piece, Wong said, the department is not going to be able to catch up and provide the level of service that city residents and visitors would like and probably expect. The public doesnt have access to complete or even accurate food-safety information in Berkeley, the audit found. Berkeley is the only city in Alameda County that doesnt require restaurants to post food safety scores on placards. (The health department plans to focus on staffing shortages first, before tackling a placarding program, which it said could take at least two to three years to implement.) Advertisement Article continues below this ad Information in the citys online public portal for restaurant inspections, the audit found, was incomplete or didnt match inspection reports, missing violations or overall inspection scores. There was no one responsible for maintaining the accuracy of the data, the report reads. Berkeleys inspection information is also not easily accessible as it is elsewhere, such as in San Francisco and Contra Costa County, the audit noted. The city auditor encountered its own problems with transparency in the Environmental Health Division. Despite repeated requests, the department did not release financial information about the food safety program, including revenue and expenditures, until the audit was completed. Because it was disclosed afterwards, which is not consistent with the longstanding audit process, the city auditor said it cant confirm whether the numbers are accurate. The health division did not have an established practice for tracking revenue and spending for the food safety program, the report stated. The Environmental Health Division estimates that the citys general fund subsidizes 40% of food inspection spending, which is high compared to the rest of Alameda County, the audit found, and the city of Pasadena, where officials stated that their food inspection program revenues cover most program costs. The increased cost of starting a business is pushing owners to rely on personal savings and the Bank of Mum and Dad, new research suggests. The average cost of starting a new business now stands at 16,000, or slightly lower at 11,500 for sole traders, according to data from SME bank Zempler, which this week rebranded from Cashplus. Access to start-up costs has proven to be one of the biggest barriers facing founders. Small businesses are struggling to access finance and relying on personal savings, according to Zempler Bank Zempler's research shows that while a quarter of businesses require no funding, 62 per cent of microbusiness owners used an average of 11,000 of personal savings. A further 13 per cent of entrepreneurs turned to the Bank of Mum and Dad, seeking a loan or gift of, on average, 6,400. Just 7 per cent of those surveyed sourced funding through a business loan, laying bare how small a role major lenders play in the everyday functioning of the country's smallest businesses. Small businesses have repeatedly raised concerns over the lack of access to finance with previous research showing nearly half resort to a personal credit card to fund their business. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has previously written to the Financial Conduct Authority highlighting the 'harsh' lending practices of banks that demand personal guarantees for business loans. Zempler Bank boss Rich Wagner says more needs to be done for small businesses Rich Wagner, CEO of Zempler told This Is Money: 'When I set up Zempler, I saw firsthand the difficulty in dealing with traditional high street banks. While we've seen significant improvement in recent years, especially in their investment in digital, they are still not set up to serve new businesses. 'The outcome is that microbusinesses and start-ups are deemed to be unprofitable and not worth the hassle. 'The research confirms much of what we have seen through years of working in this market. It's a real testament to the resilience and desire of many new businesses. Not all require money to start up and some will be able to 'bootstrap' as they begin to bring in income. 'It's telling that many will rely on personal savings or the Bank of Mum and Dad, this is all well and good, but what about those businesses that don't have this option? 'The average age of a microbusiness owner and data on business failures suggest that many businesses are held back or slowed down if they can't rely on funding from family and friends. 'This is where high street lenders and politicians need to acknowledge the value that these businesses could bring to the wider economy.' A lack of access to start-up funding was one of the biggest barriers facing founders, with 44 per cent saying it was a 'significant threat,' while 37 per cent found their poor credit held them back. Given the huge financial risk, fear of failure is the most common personal barrier according to Zempler's survey, as well as a lack of understanding of tax, managing finances and the loss of a previously steady wage. Just under a third of founders said that they found the process of starting their business harder than they had anticipated. Despite this, 83 per cent of entrepreneurs said that they did not regret setting up their own business and 86 per cent say they love working for themselves. Friends and relatives have defended the white couple accused of keeping their adopted black children as slaves in a barn, telling DailyMail.com they are not guilty and not racist. Donald Lantz, 63, and Jeanne Whitefeather, 62 of Sissonville, West Virginia, have been charged with child abuse after their five kids were found locked in a dilapidated shed after allegedly laboring on the surrounding farmland. Prosecutors in Kanawah County say that the couple targeted the children aged 16, 14, 11, nine and six because of their race and were used basically as slaves. But Whitefeathers brother, Marcus Hughes, 60, has defended his sister and her husband, telling DailyMail.com they are the least racist people around. Theyve been made out to be monsters which isnt true, he said. You're supposed to be innocent until you're found guilty.' Donald Lantz, 63, and Jeanne Whitefeather, 62 of Sissonville, West Virginia, previously pleaded not guilty to charges including human trafficking and forced labor of a minor The backyard shed where two of the couple's teenage adopted children were found. Cops say there was no way to open the door from the inside, and the kids were found without food or water Hughes added: Just because nobody's told her side of the story doesn't make her guilty. There were issues in the neighborhood because white people are raising black kids. His defense of the couple comes after DailyMail.com revealed that the couple fled Washington State to escape growing scrutiny there from police and child welfare authorities. They were arrested in Sissonville, West Virginia, 10 miles north of the state capital, Charleston, in October 2023 after reports from neighbors that the children were being mistreated. At a court hearing in June they pleaded not guilty to multiple new charges of human trafficking of a minor child, use of a minor child in forced labor, and child neglect creating substantial risk of serious bodily injury or death. Lantz and Whitefeather were initially arrested in October 2023, with the original police report stating that the two oldest children were locked in the squalid 20x14 shed with no lights, food or running water with a camera planted in the top left corner of the room. The children, who had bad body odor, were found wearing dirty clothes with sores on their feet after a wellness check was performed on the outhouse on Cheyenne Lane - which had no way of being opened from the inside. Hughes denied that the children were locked in the barn, claiming it was a playhouse for the children, and that there was a padlock for their safety with keys on both sides of the door. The structure sat on the grounds of the couple's five-acre, three-bedroom $295,000 Sissonville property, which they have since sold. Lantz and Whitefeather were originally arrested in October last year Jeanne Whitefeather is seen in court in June accused of child neglect, trafficking and slavery offenses Photos from inside the Sissonville shed where two teenagers were allegedly found locked inside, were shown during a bond hearing for Jeanne Whitefeather in October 2023 Lantz and Whitefeather previously owned an 80-acre $725,000 home 20 miles from the Canadian border in Tonasket, Washington, which they sold after their arrest in October. The couple signed over power of attorney to Hughes in October following their arrest, documents obtained by DailyMail.com show. A close friend of Whitefeather, Darren Wise, also rushed to her defense, telling DailyMail.com that he disagrees with all the allegations made against them. Wise helped the couple sell their home in Tonasket shortly before they moved to West Virginia, claiming the quick sale was because of the probe from cops and CPS. The family was treated horribly, he told DailyMail.com. Did Jeanne and Don make a mistake leaving? Probably. I wouldnt deny that. But the allegations, I dont see how they can be accurate. Jeanne had expressed to me that some of the neighbors in West Virginia werent as welcoming as they had anticipated or expected them to be, which is why they were in the process of moving. Neighbors told DailyMail.com that kids would be seen lining up on a daily basis to use an outhouse out front and be seen carrying 5-gallon buckets to water a new swath of trees. The family also had numerous animals including sheep and dogs. According to Wise, Whitefeather was also in the early stages of breeding wallabies. He said her husband had worked fighting wildfires. Both Wise and Whitefeathers brother claim that the couple bought their initial property in West Virginia sight unseen, and had hoped to move to a bigger property where all the children could have their own rooms. When he saw the property Lantz complained that the bar was too close to the road and didn't afford them the privacy they wanted. Wise also took aim at Washington authorities, saying it was typical of the government, adding: Law enforcement likes to point fingers whenever theres potential to point a finger at a white person. It is a system now that favors the child and wants to leave the parent completely out of it. They will just pull the kid from the home, regardless of finding all the facts. The treatment they got from the state of Washington drove them out. Donald Lantz complained that the barn on the West Virginia property was too close to the road and lacked privacy Whitefeather's brother Marcus Hughes took the pictures of the inside of the shed after she and her husband had been arrested He added that Whitefeather was terrified they were going to take her eldest child away, with Marcus confirming that the boy has been hospitalized due to mental health issues. Police reports in their prior hometown reveal that two of the children had run away from home and that they allegedly forced one of them at gunpoint to stay in his room, while using a bullwhip for punishment. On November 1 2020, police were called to a local hospital where the eldest son, in his early teens, was having a meltdown. When officers arrived, the dad was seen pinning his son to the floor after he purportedly freaked out and tried to run out, the police report states. Two days later, the same son accused his parents of abuse, telling hospital staff that they lock him in the bedroom with a bucket to use for the bathroom. The teen also accused his parents of physically abusing his sister. That triggered a call to police and a CPS referral. But the boy was promptly discharged to his family because there were no inpatient bed available, the report states. The deputy later stopped by the ranch, where the mom explained that the boy was receiving therapy for mental issues, but that with puberty coming on it has gotten worse'. Later that same month, the older boy, reportedly wearing a ragged old jacket over a t-shirt on a freezing night, ran away across a snowy field to a neighbors property where he called police. He claimed that hed had a fist fight with his dad and been grounded for speaking back to mother. He also revealed that there were weapons in the house, and that his mom waved a gun at him when he tried to leave his room, the records show. The boy told police that his mother wouldnt let him phone for help when he required medical attention and needed to increase his medication. Despite the crisis, the deputy wrote in his report that I found him to be mentally competent for his age, and that he didnt suspect mental health issues'. One of those neighbors, however, told DailyMail.com that the boy made some startling remarks. It was pretty strange, the woman recalled. He told us he was grounded because hed insulted his mother. He didnt say how he insulted her, but he did say why. 'He said it was because she had demons in her and he wanted to help get them out. 'He said he was part of a group online that believes the demons could change them into animals. He said he was becoming a lion. He said his voice was sore because all his practice roaring to become a lion, she added. I didnt really address the lion situation, just talked more about whether he was afraid of demons. The Tonasket, Washington ranch that the couple sold early last year to move to West Virginia Lantz, 63, and Whitefeather, 62, had been living in the small rural town of Tonasket, Washington since 2019, purchasing the 80-acre Big Rock Ranch to raise the adopted children Reports filed by cops in Washington have also revealed that Child Protective Services were threatening to remove their oldest son from the home. Lantz told officers on one occasion that his older son had assaulted his wife and the other children, and that they were all afraid of him returning home. Hughes confirmed that his sister had asked Washington CPS for help with their eldest son, because he has mental health issues. Hes in a mental hospital, he said. She was asking for help and not getting it. So she was scared of CPS because the last time she asked for help she got investigated. If they did something wrong then they should be accountable. Id turn my own kids in, if you do something wrong, you got to pay the price. But you shouldn't have to account for people's lives. There has been zero effort to find the truth. All five of the couples adopted children are being looked after by the state, with Hughes claiming they arent being told their location or condition adding they wont let the family give them their clothes and toys. He said that the family are no longer advocates for adoption, following the allegation, saying the family moved from Washington for a normal life. We dont even know how to spell racists. Its just not part of the culture there. Were the least racist people around, its not who we are, and to be accused of that is just icky for our family. I'm a blue stripe guy. Ive always backed in the cops. But then we got to this, and we went out in the house and looked at ourselves, and we said this doesn't seem right. They just lied. Its not even a mistake. They're being held in jail based on information thats not true. He says police have not spoken to him or his wife at all during the investigation, despite them attending a riverboat tour with the family just before their arrest and traveling to their house for a birthday party with the couple saying nothing was amiss. Kanawha County Sheriffs deputies previously said that a complaint was made back in May 2023 about the couple - and a second complaint was made in September. Outhouses on the Sissonville, West Virginia property. The couple sold the home in December 2023, after they had been initially arrested The nature of those complaints were similar to the charges the pair now face, with neighbors also calling CPS. In both cases last year, deputies said that they did not find any wrongdoing when they made a trip to their home with the report stating they saw the children inside the home, and on one occasion, they were eating dinner. Whitefeather told authorities that the barn where the girl, 16, and boy, 14, were found was a 'teenage clubhouse,' and they were not held against their will. The mother told deputies the children who were all homeschooled actually 'liked' the shed they were locked in. However, the teenage girl told deputies they had been locked in the building for approximately 12 hours and were last given food at 6am. The building only had a small RV porta-potty and no running water, according to images from inside and descriptions from the initial police report. The children were also forced to sleep on the hard concrete floor, they said. The criminal complaint stated: 'If there was a medical emergency or fire, the children would be unable to exit the locked room to safety.' Court documents said neighbors reported that the children were forced into farm labor and were not allowed inside the main house. Attorneyb Mark Plants, defending Whitefeather, told DailyMail.com that they have a powerful basis and defense in the case. My client denies the allegations, he said. They adopted five of these children eight years ago. They love them dearly. 'But there's a missing piece of information that's very, very important to this scenario, and they just absolutely deny the allegations, and any racial allegations are emphatically, absolutely denied. Plants added that there is a mental health issue with the children, particularly their oldest son who is very dangerous to his brothers and sisters. His comments come after concerns from Kanawha County prosecutors that their original cash bonds were obtained through trafficking profits after the couple was able to acquire the $400,000 bond money for their release from jail in February. The couple are now back behind bars on a bond that was double the original, at half a million dollars each. Plants had argued against the increase, saying his client was not a flight risk and had complied with house arrest and hundreds of restrictions. He added: These are very, very serious, heinous charges, but all the other factors favors my client and absolutely no criminal history had never been arrested. You're innocent until proven guilty, and a bond is to make sure that we're going to show up in court. With all those factors favored that the bond should remain the same. Their next court appearance is set for September 9. If you were walking through Capitol Hill on Tuesday you may have stumbled on a funeral procession. There were 'tears', drooped shoulders and shrugs as a line of glum men and women left a building after reminiscing about the accomplishments of an 81-year-old man. But the listless group wasn't made up of mourners, it was made up of Democrats leaving a closed-door meeting at the Democrat National Committee headquarters to try and decide whether they would be able to keep their jobs if President Joe Biden remains the party's leader. Members of the ailing commander-in-chief's party have been scrambling over whether it is time to choose a different candidate after Biden's disaster debate performance. Their current state is far cry from the party that gleefully mocked the chaos in the Republican party when conservative rebels ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The mutiny has gotten so bad Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said members arent even in the same book let alone on the same page, though he position on the president has remained unclear. On Wednesday Nancy Pelosi - a staunch Biden ally - sent shockwaves through the party by stopping short of telling Biden he should stay in the race, and suggested he should reconsider. And on Tuesday night, Colorado's Democratic Senator warned Biden is heading for a 'landslide' defeat in the general election if nothing changes. Democrat lawmakers have not been able to come to a consensus on whether they believe President Joe Biden should remain the party's presidential nominee since his disastrous presidential debate performance against Donald Trump which raised questions about whether he has the mental and physical ability to run the country for another four years Their statements mirror the fears by many that Biden could lead them into a disaster in November - in the general election and their own races. Just seven House Democrats have come out publicly to say Biden should step aside, while dozens have shared their worries in secret. Some won't go further than saying they are listening to voters concerns. The question that Democrats have so far failed to answer as a unit is: Do they stick with the languishing man with a 50-year Washington career who has beaten Donald Trump before, or do they dump him to avoid their worst nightmare in November. Almost all of the Democrat's concerns relate to President Biden's apparent cognitive decline, which both he and the White House have furiously denied. One of the most senior Democrats in the nation, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, is standing with the embattled president. But he is facing mounting pressure from members running for election in their districts in November who believe Biden could cost them victory. The progressive wing of the party are standing firmly behind Biden. AOC told DailyMail.com on Monday she is backing Biden: 'The matter is closed.' Black Democrats are also mostly in his corner. Democrats calling on Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 election Lloyd Doggett, Texas Raul Grijalva, Arizona Seth Moulton, Massachusetts Mike Quigley, Illinois Angie Craig, Minnesota Adam Smith, Washington Mikie Sherrill, New Jersey Pat Ryan, New York Earl Blumenauer, Oregon Sen. Peter Welch, Vermont Advertisement Regardless, hundreds of Democrats still have to reveal where they stand - whether for their own future or the party's. DailyMail.com breaks down all the Democrats who have publicly called for Biden to drop out, those who have flipped and the others who simply won't say. The Democrats who have called on Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race: Seven House Democrats have publicly stated it is time to move on from Biden. Adam Smith, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, is the most senior party member to come forward. The Washington lawmaker told DailyMail.com he was concerned about Biden's cognitive abilities before the debate. He doubled down on calls for Joe to be replaced as Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J became the seventh House Democrat to call for his ousting. They followed a handful of colleagues who broke ranks with Biden. The first was Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett. On July 2, just five days after Biden's CNN debate, Doggett released a statement calling on the president to withdraw from the race. Doggett, a veteran Democrat who has served since 1995, said Biden had fulfilled his pledge to be to be a 'transitional' candidate, and it was time for him to let someone else take the reins. A day later on July 3, Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona told the New York Times he too believes Joe Biden should drop out of the race. 'If he's the candidate, I'm going to support him, but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere,' Grijalva said. Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett was the first sitting Democrat in office to call for Joe Biden to get out of the presidential race. He said Democrat leadership did not try to keep him quiet Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., became the second sitting Democrat to publicly call for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 election 'What he needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.' The next day Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Seth Moulton also called on Biden to withdraw. 'President Biden has done enormous service to our country, but now is the time for him to follow in one of our founding father, George Washington's footsteps and step aside to let new leaders rise up and run against Donald Trump,' he told local outlet WBUR. On July 5, Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois went on MSNBC - one of the president's favorite networks - to call on Biden to withdraw. Additionally, on July 6, Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig posted on X she wants Biden out too. 'President Biden is a good man & I appreciate his lifetime of service,' she wrote. 'But I believe he should step aside for the next generation of leadership. The stakes are too high.' On Sunday the dam protecting Biden as the presumptive nominee cracked further. Democrat Reps. Mark Takano of California, Jerry Nadler and Joe Morelle of New York, and Smith all privately expressed on the conference how they want to see Biden step aside. Nadler then flipped and said he would be backing the president, but for the rest their minds were made up. On a private phone call Sunday, many Democrats, including Reps. Craig and Nadler (shown above), expressed how they want to see Biden withdraw from the race. Nadler later said Tuesday he is with Biden On Tuesday, a group of swing-district Democrats against Biden's reelection held a meeting about their support of the president. 'There were actual tears from people, and not for Biden,' a source told Axios of the meeting in which members were firmly against the president. After the Democrats' Tuesday morning meeting at their committee headquarters, many who had called on Biden to withdraw were more subdued than their announcements might have suggested. Democrats backing Biden's 2024 reelection bid: In total there are roughly 30 Democrat lawmakers that have firmly said they are on team Biden. That still leaves more than 150 who are either on the fence or having publicly commented. Some of these lawmakers include heavy hitters like South Carolina powerbroker Rep. Jim Clyburn. The list also boasts several senators, unlike the list of defectors which is comprised solely of House Democrats. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who ran against Biden for the Democratic party nominee in 2020, California Senators Laphonza Butler and Alex Padilla, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman all have come out in favor of the president's reelection gambit. Immediately after the two presidents debated, criticism from inside the Democrat party aimed at Joe Biden began circulating on social media and cable news Undecided Democrats and those who want Biden to prove himself: There are also around 10 lawmakers who are unsure whether they want Joe to step aside and others who want to see the president prove himself. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, for example, recently said he loves Biden and that he needs to do more to convince voters of his ability in the same interview. 'Personally, I love Joe Biden,' Murphy told CNN before addressing whether the president's interview with ABC last week quelled voter's concerns. 'I think the president needs to do more. I'm not advising this campaign, but if I were, I would probably suggest that the president get out there and do a town hall, that he do a press conference, and that he show the country that he is still the old Joe Biden.' Murphy's declaration of love for the president coupled with his call on Biden 'to do more' serves as a confusing middle-ground some Democrats find themselves in. This grey zone requires not throwing Biden under the bus, but not providing a full-throated endorsement of the elderly executive either. Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, when pressed on the Democrat best fit to lead the party in November, said, 'I don't think we know that yet.' 'I think everybody is waiting for the dust to settle from the aftermath of the debate,' he continued. President Joe Biden did an exclusive interview with ABC News as calls for him to withdraw from the election grew louder Though he lauded the president's ability to 'speak extemporaneously without a teleprompter or cue cards' and that he 'can interact with the public in various settings in an expressive way,' Connolly said he will be keeping a keen eye on Biden's performance in coming weeks as an indicator for whether he is fit for reelection. 'If he can't do that, then I think we are looking at some very hard judgments and hard choices we're going to have to face as a party,' Connolly continued. The CBC Chair Stevens Horsfor, D-Nev., came out of his call with the president bullish on Biden. 'I listened to my constituents during the district work period. I'm not going to judge the president on a 90-minute debate,' he said. A day at the beach for former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and his family ended with a cyclist in hospital and sparked a legal saga that continues on a decade later. Ryan Meuleman was 15-years-old and riding his pushbike on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula in January 2013 when he suffered extensive injuries after a collision with an SUV driven by Mr Andrews' wife Catherine. A now-adult Mr Meuleman is suing law firm Slater & Gordon, which represented him after the crash, for allegedly failing to act in his best interest when it negotiated an $80,000 compensation settlement with the Transport Accident Commission. Slater & Gordon has close links with the union movement. Mr Meuleman has been seeking Mr and Mrs Andrews' phone records as part of his case, with his lawyers initially requesting 11 years' worth but paring this down to just the day of the crash after pushback from Andrews' lawyers. Mr Andrews had fought against providing even this single day of records, but on Monday he relented and agreed to hand them over. What happened? Mr Andrews called a press conference in 2017, while sitting Premier, to address questions about the crash after a Freedom of Information request was made by media and subsequently denied. 'There are a lot of rumours flying around, there's a lot of pretty awful stuff being peddled around the place, and I want to answer it once and for all,' Mr Andrews said. Mr Andrews said he and his wife, along with their three children, were returning to their Mornington Peninsula holiday rental in Sorrento after a morning at the beach. His wife was behind the wheel of the Ford Territory as it travelled through the coastal town of Blairgowrie when it made a right turn from Melbourne Rd onto Ridley St. Dan Andrews and his family arrived back in Melbourne airport on Tuesday after a New Zealand holiday, a day after they agreed to hand over phone records linked to a 2013 crash The former Victorian Premier was in the passenger seat and his wife Catherine was driving when a collision occurred with a teenage cyclist who is taking his law firm to court, alleging that Slater & Gordon did not act in his best interests The Andrews had been driving their Ford Territory SUV to their holiday rental on the Mornington Peninsula (pictured, with the damage to the windscreen) A bike path runs parallel to Melbourne Rd, which Mr Andrews said was obscured by trees, and which then cuts across Ridley St about 17 metres from the Melbourne Rd intersection. He said the car came to a complete stop at the intersection, turned right from a 'stationary position' and was travelling very slowly. In her police statement, Ms Andrews said she had 'turned from Melbourne Rd after coming to a complete stop [and] just after we turned into Ridley St our car was struck heavily on the front driver's side by a cyclist who it seems was attempting to cross Ridley St at speed from the bike path'. Mr Andrews said the collision between the boy and car smashed the windscreen, sending pieces of glass into the backseat and causing his children to scream. 'He was moving at speed, he absolutely T-boned the car, hit it at such force he was literally inside the car. That's how much the windscreen was depressed, he flew up over the car and hit the road,' he said. Mr Andrews said his wife helped the boy, who asked her to call his sister, while he called triple 0. The teen suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and internal bleeding, and was left with 10 per cent of his spleen. He spent 11 days in The Royal Children's Hospital. The then 15-year-old cyclist Ryan Meuleman suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and lost 90 per cent of his spleen (pictured in hospital after the crash) The intersection where the collision happened, with the bike path visible parallel to Melbourne Rd and crossing Ridley St Mr Andrews also shot down suggestions he had been behind the wheel. 'She [Ms Andrews] was driving, but I wish I had been driving because then maybe she'd be spared some of the quite shameful stuff that's been put around, and maybe things would be different,' he said. Police bungle and differing accounts The two junior police officers who attended the scene did not breathalyse the driver, Ms Andrews, as is standard procedure; both mistakenly assuming the other had done it. Mr Andrews said one of the officers later apologised to his wife for not conducting the breath test. Mr Meuleman was also not given the opportunity to make a statement to police about the incident during the investigation, at first due to his severe injuries and treatment, but it was not followed up later. In April 2023, an ambulance report surfaced in the media which was made at the time by paramedics who attended the scene. It appears to conflict with Mr Andrews account their car was travelling very slowly and the cyclist had 'T-boned' them. The 'Patient Care Report' reads: '15YO on bike. Struck on L side by car travelling 40 to 60kmh PT onto bonnet, then onto windscreen which cracked on impact thrown onto roadway'. Pictures released in 2022 - grainy photocopies of police originals - show the SUV's windscreen smashed from a heavy impact on the driver's side. Photocopied police originals show the SUV's windscreen smashed from a heavy impact on the driver's side But they also show damage to the front corner bodywork ahead of the front tyre which the Meulemans insist supports their claim the Andrews' family drove into Ryan A few months after the ambulance report surfaced, The Herald Sun published the account of a witness, Portsea local and former nurse Jane Crittenden, 66, who was driving to visit a friend and was the first to stumble onto the scene in the aftermath. In a sworn statement as part of the current legal proceedings, she said she attended to the boy who was lying in the road alternating between screaming and whimpering and got a towel from her car to place under his head. 'He [Daniel Andrews] said to me that they were returning from the Sailing Club where they had been having lunch. I distinctly remember him saying these things,' she said in her statement to the Supreme Court. 'I did not know [at that point] who Daniel Andrews was while I was attending to the child, Daniel Andrews said to me words to the effect of 'I'm taking my wife and kids home, because they are so distressed',' she said. She said the family then drove away in the badly damaged car shortly after the police arrived and added that she was never interviewed by officers or given the opportunity to make a statement. She said she visited the Andrews' rental house later that day to tell them she believed the boy was going to be okay which prompted Ms Andrews to give her a 'big hug'. Mr and Mrs Andrews defended leaving the crash scene after emergency crews arrived saying they were concerned for their young children (the Andrews at Melbourne airport on Tuesday) Ms Andrews defended leaving the scene after emergency services arrived, telling reporters in 2022 that she and her husband had been concerned for their children. 'I don't know if you've ever been involved in an accident like this before. It was a terrible thing, so traumatic for everyone involved.' 'Our kids were really little, like Joseph was only five.' Police closed the case without pressing charges, and officers were later cleared of any wrongdoing by the corruption watchdog. Daily Mail Australia does not suggest any wrongdoing by Mr or Mrs Andrews. The court case and why the Andrews' phone records are important Mr Meuleman is suing the law firm Slater & Gordon. He claims they did not act in his best interests when they accepted an $80,000 settlement offer by the Transport Accident Commission for his injuries. Mr Meuleman recovering in hospital after the crash in 2013 He alleges that the law firm failed to conduct a 'full investigation into the circumstances' of the crash and that he was banned from discussing it as part of the settlement. Mr Meuleman's lawyer in 2023 said: 'A determination of who caused the accident is, amongst other matters, an important question to be decided in this proceeding.' The Andrews' phone records would shed light on whether they spoke to anyone other than emergency services after the accident. Of particular interest is who Mr Andrews - then an up-and-coming political figure - called in the aftermath of the crash and whether that included his then chief-of-staff Brett Curran, who went on to be assistant commissioner of Victoria Police. Dan Andrews' ex-chief of staff Brett Curran The court was told the subpoena for documents was initially served in February requesting about 11 years of phone records from the Andrews. This was reduced, first to six months and later to one month, before Mr Meuleman finally sought just the day of the crash. Mr Meuleman's barrister, James Catlin, said he had expected Monday's hearing to be 'fiercely contested', but the Andrews had indicated they would no longer fight the subpoena at 8.05am. 'As of 4pm yesterday they were still objecting, it's only at 8am today we get correspondence,' he said. Representing the Andrews, Sebastian Campbell told Associate Justice Daly it was appropriate for his clients to initially refuse to hand over the documents sought, labelling the subpoena 'oppressive'. What is next in the legal saga? The documents agreed upon will now have to be supplied to Mr Meuleman's lawyers by July 25. Associate Justice Daly said it was 'abundantly clear' from the evidence that Monday's hearing was unnecessary, questioning why the Andrews took two weeks to confirm they would consent to the revised subpoena. She ordered the Andrews pay Mr Meuleman's legal costs relating to Monday's hearing. The judge said it was reasonable for the Andrews to initially object to the subpoena, ordering Mr Meuleman to pay the costs incurred during negotiations up until June 25. The civil case will return to court later this year and a trial date is set for early 2025. Outside court on Monday, Mr Meuleman's father, Peter, hailed the progress as 'one step in a long battle'. Mr Meuleman's father, Peter, hailed the progress as 'one step in a long battle' 'It's going to be a long road for us but we're up to the fight and I want to thank everybody who has supported us and believed in us,' he said. He said his family was trying to gather as much evidence as possible, believing the initial police investigation failed to properly examine the incident. 'It's taken its toll on Ryan and we're trying to protect him as much as we can ... yes, it's an expensive ride and we'll tough it out as long as we can,' he said. Jay Slater's family have vowed to continue their 'desperate' search for the missing British teenager in Tenerife and have called on the police for more help. The 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer has not been seen since he went to a remote AirBnB at Masca, an hour from the party resort of Playa de las Americas on June 17, in the Parque Rural de Teno with two men. Family members have 'revealed' their despair after police told them to 'sit tight' after calling off the official man hunt on June 30. Mr Slater's uncle Glen Duncan, 41, said the family feels like they've been left on their own as they continue to conduct their own ad-hoc foot searches with small groups of volunteers. Speaking to Sky News, Mr Duncan said: 'So far we've just been in touch with the British consulate out here who have been saying it's still a live investigation, we have just got to sit tight. 'It's just adding to the despair really.' Jay (pictured with his mother Debbie Duncan) travelled to the Canary Islands for a musical festival with his friend Lucy and another friend Missing raver Jay Slater's father (right) has called for Interpol to get involved in the search for his son who has now been missing for three weeks on the Spanish island of Tenerife Mr Slater's family are continuing to conduct their own ad-hoc foot searches with small groups of volunteers Asked if the family wanted help from the force in the UK, he added: 'We would love that, it's just not as simple as that.' Mr Duncan said the family hadn't given up hope and were going to continue searching for Mr Slater because 'otherwise you're just sitting in the apartment staring at the same four walls'. Police and mountain rescue teams used dogs, drones and a helicopter during the 13 days they looked for Mr Slater before calling the search off on June 30. After halting their own operation, the Guardia Civil said the family could bring in their own search and recuse teams to look for the missing teenager. The investigation is still ongoing, police said, but they wouldnt disclose their current lines of enquiry. Debbie Duncan, Mr Slater's mother, provided an update on the search on a GoFundMe page set up to help find her son, which has now received more than 52,000 in donations. Thanking the local volunteers, she said: 'We have been overwhelmed by the kindness and support we have received and would like to thank the local hiking group for all of their help planning the routes to find our Jay.' Mr Slater's father Warren, 54, spent more than six hours yesterday searching a mountainside with the missing teenager's brother Zak, 24, in searing 25C temperatures as they continued their desperate hunt for him. Last week MailOnline identified one of the men who drove Jay back to the Airbnb as convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, 31, but he has insisted the youngster 'arrived alive and left alive'. Warren and Zak have been focusing their search on an area of the valley where Jay's phone last pinged and from where he sent his location to friend Lucy Mae Law, 19. Warren, pictured during the search, said: 'It's the fourth time I've done this. It was hard, I nearly put my eye out. Tell me where I look, I can only go off the last sighting' Jay, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, travelled to the Canary Islands for a musical festival with his friend Lucy and another friend Police and mountain rescue teams using dogs, drones and a helicopter spent 13 days looking for him before calling the search off on June 30 and have dismissed the men as 'irrelevant' Missing Jay posted a final picture at 7.30am on Snapchat from the house of 'two English lads' an hour before phoning his friend Lucy She said the last time she heard from him was at 8.50am on June 17 and he said 'his phone was down to one per cent, he was lost and thirsty' before the line went. Warren said: 'I've been through 80% of that valley, so we went further along. 'We've driven and we've walked down the path at the next village, up the mountain there's a viewpoint that looks down, you can either follow the road, but we didn't, we parked up and walked down.' Police say Jay walked up the hill from the village of Masca in the wrong direction, at 8.15am, after being told there was no bus back to his Paloma Beach hotel in Los Cristianos until 10am. They believe he then left the road and took a remote path down into the desolate valley in the mistaken belief it was a short cut back. But sceptical Warren said: 'It doesn't make sense, he's either hid himself, but why would he hide himself? Or he's just .? 'We've done the valley where his ping was, we've gone up the road to a vantage point, there's cliffs there and there's a valley and a village there. 'All I'm thinking is common sense, would you try and walk through there. Where we've been today you can see there's a hiker's path with proper stones. 'We've gone straight down, and you end up in the village.' Jay's father Warren and brother Zak pictured on Wednesday hiking through the mountain track where Jay's phone was last located A map showing Jay Slater's last known movements before he disappeared The 40-a-night Casa Abuela Tina holiday rental near the remote village of Masca where Jay spent his final hours before going missing Warren described how they had also searched a derelict stone cottage halfway down the track where there were water bottles, empty tea bag boxes and women's clothes. He said: 'I'd go into the first building you see. Ideal spot for shelter is that little cave isn't it, get a bit of shade, you're hung over, get your head down in there. 'The police are convinced that's where his last ping were. From the Airbnb, he's a fit lad, 25 minutes you can get to the top, to where the cafe is. 'If he's followed the road and been where we've been today, it's took him an hour and a half. 'Dozens of cars would have gone past him. We got here at 9am and the 10am bus passed us. And it would have passed him. 'I've been up here three weeks and I've never seen as many cars. 'We've been on two wild goose chases yesterday to abandoned buildings.' Spanish police have said the investigation remains 'open' and they are 'pursuing all avenues' but refuse to disclose if they believe there as any third-party criminal involvement. An appeals court has ordered the release of a Missouri woman whose murder conviction had recently been overturned after she served 43 years in prison - but the state's attorney general office is attempting to keep her behind bars. Sandra 'Sandy' Hemme, 64, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment at a prison northeast of Kansas City after the slaying of 31-year-old library worker Patricia Jeschke in 1980. But on July 8, a panel of appeals court judges ordered her release after Judge Ryan W. Horsman found her innocent and declared officials at the time forced to make false statements. The Missouri judge also stated in his last month's decision that the wrongfully accused woman must be freed within 30 days unless prosecutors decide to retry her. Sandra 'Sandy' Hemme, a Missouri woman imprisoned for 43 years for murder she did not commit, was finally found innocent. Hemme is seen here at some point during her incarceration The appeals court granted Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey's request to review Horsman's decision but told Horsman meanwhile to establish her bail terms and set her free. The attorney general's office then asked the appellate court to reconsider, saying the court didn't give them enough time to argue against her release. Bailey's office also argued that Hemme was sentenced decades ago to 12 years for violence in prison, and she would start serving that penalty now. Her attorneys responded today that keeping her incarcerated any longer would be a 'draconian outcome.' After an extensive review, Horsman found that Hemme was heavily sedated and in a 'malleable mental state' when investigators repeatedly questioned her in a psychiatric hospital at the time. Sandra 'Sandy' Hemme, 63, (left) was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment after the slaying of 31-year-old Patricia Jeschke (right) in 1980 Police ignored evidence pointing to a discredited fellow officer who died in 2015, and the prosecution wasn't told about FBI results that could have cleared her, so it was never disclosed before her trials. The prosecutor at her trial agreed, four decades later, that nothing linked her to the crime other than her confession, which followed multiple contradictory statements, the judge noted. Her attorneys described her ultimate confession in a court filing as 'often monosyllabic responses to leading questions.' 'She is the victim of a manifest injustice,' Horsman concluded in his 118-page ruling. 'This Court finds that the totality of the evidence supports a finding of actual innocence. Hemme is seen here in a booking photo provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections Hemme was arrested weeks after the death of Jeschke, who lived in St. Joseph, Missouri. After Jeschke missed work on November 13, 1980, her worried mother climbed through an apartment window and discovered her daughters nude body on the floor, surrounded by blood, with her hands tied behind her back and a telephone cord and a pair of pantyhose wrapped around her throat. A knife was under her head. These and other details were released to the media by the St. Joseph police chief, Robert Hayes, as the crime prompted a massive investigation. Meanwhile, the department took only a cursory look at Michael Holman, a since discredited St. Joseph police officer who was being investigated for insurance fraud and burglaries, and ended that investigation after evidence cast doubt on his alibi. Holman's plea deal included a promise not to prosecute him for any other 'criminal matters now under investigation.' He died in 2015, according to the judge's finding of facts. Later, it turned out that Hemme had been discharged from the hospital and hitchhiked out of town hours before Jeschke was last seen alive. She showed up that evening at her parents' home, more than 100 miles to the east. Hemme is now the longest held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the US, according to her legal team at the Innocence Project. A grieving mother is demanding answers after the death of her three-year-old daughter just days after a routine operation. Perth toddler Aliyah Yugovich passed on Sunday after undergoing a tonsillectomy at St John of God Murdoch Hospital in the city's south on June 28. Hours later on the Sunday night, Aliyah was rushed to Perth Childrens Hospital's (PCH) emergency department after the toddler developed a fever and flu-like symptoms, where she and her mum Jessica waited four hours to see a doctor. Aliyah was diagnosed with influenza A and discharged three days later on July 3, but early the next morning her condition rapidly deteriorated after she woke up coughing and vomiting blood. Paramedics were called to the home and performed CPR for an extended period before Aliyah was rushed to Midland Hospital and placed in a coma. She was then transferred to PCH, where she was placed on life support. By Saturday night, brain scans and an EEG revealed that Aliyah had no brain activity. The next morning, Aliyah's life support was turned off. Aliyah Yugovich (pictured) died on Sunday morning after her life support was switched off Her heartbroken family, including her mother Jess Yugovich, are still waiting for answers on why the toddler's health declined so rapidly. In an emotional tribute, Ms Yugovich said Aliyah put up a 'brief but courageous fight'. 'As we held her tight and the sun began to rise, she drifted off to the other side of the rainbow,' she said. 'You were to perfect for this world Aliyah Mae, life will never be the same without you. ' Aliyah has since been remembered as beautiful, smart, cheeky little girl who made everyone laugh and lit up the room. An online fundraiser has been set up to help support Aliyah's devastated parents Jessica, who is a small business owner and Josh, a contractor 'as they live through every parent's worst nightmare'. The couple have no personal leave days, have a mortgage and are raising their one-year-old son Elijah. 'We cant change what has happened or take away their pain, but we want to help where we can during this devastating time,' organiser Tessa Pritchard wrote. 'It means it is more time they will have to grieve without rushing back to work. 'It will also help them have more time to spend together & with their loved ones and cover funeral costs.' The online fundraiser has already raised more than $72,000. Ms Yugovich told The West Australian that Aliyah was 'one of a kind'. 'She left a mark on every single person she ever met,' she said. 'Even if you only met her for 30 seconds, you would never forget ever.' Ms Yugovich also paid tribute to the staff at PCH, stressing that they did everything they could to save Aliyah. But she and her husband also claimed to Seven News that they witnessed an under-pressure hospital system. The couple now have many questions and have demanded answers to ensure other families won't experience the same pain. A coroner's report is expected to provide some answers regarding Aliyah's cause of death in the coming days. Aliyah (pictured) spent two stints in Perth Childrens Hospital, where she lost her brave fight for life Child and Adolescent Health Service acting chief executive Simon Wood said a full examination of Aliyahs presentation and care would be undertaken. 'The death has been reported to the coroner, as is the usual process, and the cause of death will be determined following coronial post-mortem examination and investigation,' he told the publication. St John of God Murdoch expressed its heartfelt condolences to the Yugovich family. Two protestors dressed were met with brutal resistance at a Sunday NASCAR race in Chicago after they chained themselves to a fence and tried to fly a pro-Palestine flag. But a car racing fan quickly moved to stop them, with footage showing him up on the fence wrestling for control of the flag with one of the demonstrators. In the video posted to TikTok, a police officer appeared to stand by to make sure things didn't get any more violent while the crowd chanted in support of their fellow race car enthusiast. The flag said 'Bombs for Gaza, Prisons for Illinois,' a dual reference to Israel's ongoing war in Gaza and Governor J.B. Pritzker's $900 million plan to demolish and rebuild two state prisons. The protestors are seen up on the fence with the flag that was later ripped from their hands The man in the blue sweatshirt is seen ripping the flag from one of the protestors The NASCAR fan was victorious in the end, using his full body weight to rip the flag out of the man's hands. He fell several feet to the ground, but quickly got back up and flashed the crumpled piece of fabric at the two men still on the fence while he walked away. The crowd was heard laughing, whistling and shouting at the protestors throughout the confrontation. When one of the protestors appeared to check a bruise or some sort of injury on his leg, one person mockingly yelled: 'Aw, did you get hurt?!' This NASCAR race was held in the heart of Chicago at Grant Park and was supposed to kick off at 4:30 pm. A rain delay however gave the protestors more time to execute their plan. According to reports, the two men scaled the fence and affixed themselves to it at around 3:30 pm. The struggle between the men is seen from the fans' perspective Police scaled the fence roughly 40 minutes after the protestors chained themselves to it and arrested them on suspicion of criminal trespassing They also flew a flag much more aimed at Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, accusing him of being complicit in the 'genocide' of Palestinians by Israeli forces Forty minutes after that, Chicago police arrested them on suspicion of trespassing. The same NASCAR attendee that recorded the video of the man stealing away their flag also captured the moment the two protestors were cut from the fence and taken into custody. The crowd once again erupted into the cheers and began clapping when officers scaled the fence and cut them loose with bolt cutters. Viewers of both viral TikToks were baffled by the venue these men chose to protest at, with many saying they picked the 'wrong crowd' to mess with. Social media posts from the group these men were affiliated with said they were released on Monday morning after getting arrested. It's unclear if they were charged with any crimes in relation to this incident. Onlookers view the NASCAR Cup Series Grant Park 165 at Chicago Street Course Drivers take the stage before the start of the Grant Park 165 NASCAR Cup Series Race in Chicago The organizers of the protest also condemned Israeli NASCAR driver Alon Day, who was present at the race. His car was heavily damaged in a collision during testing before the actual race, which sidelined him from the event. Day's original plan was to race in honor of the Israeli hostages and soldiers, but his damaged car was still adorned with the Israeli flag and other Hebrew iconography, Newsweek reported. 'The pro-Hamas protests on the streets, especially in the streets of Chicago, which is actually getting really dangerous,' Day told FOX News. 'I was there for a couple of days, like a week ago, and I felt the need to check that I'm not wearing anything that can identify myself as Jewish. I mean, this is how bad it is. Sounds like Germany in the '30s that I need to hide my Judaism.' The number of children admitted to hospital with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the flu has spiked in Australia in one of the worst-ever outbreaks of both illnesses. Parents are being urged to vaccinate their children against the highly contagious viruses as cases skyrocket nationwide, with 117,650 people being infected with RSV this year. The majority of cases were in NSW, then Queensland, followed by Victoria and South Australia, 7 News reported. Influenza cases are also climbing although the flu season is not expected to peak until mid-August, with Queensland experiencing the most outbreaks. Queensland chief health officer Dr John Gerrard warned that flu cases would jump once children in the sunshine state return to school this week. During the school holidays, about 20 kids were being admitted to hospital with the flu each day, but Mr Gerrard warned this could increase to 50 over the coming weeks. Dr Gerrard is urging everyone eligible to get vaccinated in order to curb the knock-on effect of the virus that can spread quickly throughout a home and onto older and more vulnerable relatives, The Courier Mail reported. There were 24,256 cases of influenza in Queensland from January to the end of June, with 10 per cent admitted to hospital. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) (pictured RSV under a microscope) is highly contagious and there has been 117,650 cases so far this year Queensland health authorities have warned 50 children a day could be hospitalised with the flu over the coming weeks (pictured stock photo of sick child) Although influenza has the highest infection rate in Queensland, cases for RSV has doubled from the same time last year, and most patients hospitalised are under two years of age. In NSW, the flu has had high numbers in children under the age of 16, but the numbers of infection climbed across all age groups in June. But cases for RSV in NSW has slowed down, after experiencing its peak in April. But in South Australia children were succumbing to both viruses at a high rate. Children under the age of five were about half of the state's 125 patients who were in hospital with RSV or the flu. Deanne Tingey's seven-week-old daughter Winter got RSV around a fortnight ago. Ms Tingey said her baby's symptoms had escalated and she needed hospitalisation. 'In the morning she was just sneezing a little bit and she sounded a little bit congested,' she said. Health authorities are urging parents to get their children immunised for the flu and RSV, as numbers for children being hospitalised for both viruses spike across Australia 'Then she had gone completely off all of her feeds, and shed had no wet nappies for the whole day,' Ms Tingey said. The mother said hospital staff put Winter on oxygen as soon as she arrived at the hospital, as well as a nasal gastric tube. Ms Tingey is urging all parents not to send their sick children to childcare to help stop the spread of RSV. South Australia Public Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier said flu numbers in the state were probably going to be higher compared to the previous two years and were 'skyrocketing'. 'It is not too late to think about prevention. It is not too late to get a flu vaccine,' she said. Professor Spurrier said cases had also increased for whooping cough and mycoplasma pneumonia, but Covid cases were going down. Despite South Australia's rising flu cases, only 22 per cent of children from ages six-months to two-years have had the flu vaccine, and only 65 per cent of people aged over 65 are immunised. Professor Spurrier said currently only a RSV passive immunisation is offered to babies who are born prematurely or children with existing health conditions. The professor said an RSV vaccine should be available to South Australian women next year who are pregnant and it is expected more children will also be able to get immunised against RSV in 2025. A US Mayor has announced a $25,000 signing bonus for all those who apply to become police officers as the city struggles to fill hundreds of ranks. Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi declared the launch of the incentive in his State of the City address earlier this year in hopes to improve the city's officer shortage problem. Starting with this year's 213th Recruit Class, all new recruits will receive the bonus if they complete three years on the force. The Honolulu Police Department has lost 589 officers and only hired 274 new recruits, resulting in a loss of 315 officers between 2020 and 2023, according to a data analysis by the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers. Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi declared the launch of the incentive in his State of the City address earlier this year in hopes to improve the city's officer shortage problem During his address, Mayor Blangiardi described the incentive as an 'effort to entice young people to join' during his speech in March 2024. 'We realize it's a tough decision. I wanted to make sure our police department had every possible tool they could have in their recruiting efforts because that is what it is going to take to try to entice some young people to join our police department,' he said. A month after announcing the incentive, the department received 247 officer applications, compared with 153 in April 2023. But union officials believe that increasing hiring through incentives is not enough to compensate to fill the department's startling number of vacancies. Jonathan Frye, chair of the police union's Honolulu chapter explained that despite a huge number of applications, a number of them are expected to be rejected after not meeting minimum qualifications. But union officials believe that increasing hiring through incentives is not enough to compensate to fill the department's startling number of vacancies. (Stock image) He also estimated that about a third of those who make it to the police academy for training will drop out before graduation. The chair believes that the loss of officers is likely due to the bargaining contract expiring. He said it's common for those eligible for retirement to retire at the end of a contract and on average the department can lose about 140 to 150 officers per year. 'It was not uncommon to hear, especially the older more senior officers, saying, 'Hey, make sure you work 32 years, get that good retirement. It's a great place to be, you're going to love it. 'But you don't really hear talk like that as much anymore. And so, anecdotally, you're hearing more officers saying, "You know what? I'm going to get my 25 years and I'm out",' Frye told Associated Press. A month after announcing the incentive, the department received 247 officer applications, compared with 153 in April 2023 According to Jack Rinchich, president of the United States Law Enforcement Foundation, the department should also focus on retention policies rather than only recruitment incentives. 'Every time a seasoned officer leaves, I dont care how many you hire, you cannot replace that skill and expertise that exists within them. 'When you lose those senior officers, yeah, you could fill their slot, but youre bringing a person thats unseasoned,' he explained. In the past year alone, the department lost 143 sworn officers - out of which 68 retired, 35 permanently resigned, 23 resigned on 'probable' status, one person died in the line of duty and the remaining officers left for reasons including termination and discharge. The imposing trompo from Tacos Al Pastor Puebla in Oakland. Cesar Hernandez/The Chronicle Tacos from Tacos El Charro in S.F. Cesar Hernandez / The Chronicle Tacos and truck from Tacos El Chilanguito in San Jose Cesar Hernandez / The Chronicle From left: Jose Gabriel and Oscar Aguilar cook meat for tacos at Tacos El Guero in San Jose in 2022. The taco truck is located at 2448 Story Road. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle Sonora-style tacos from Tacos Mama Cuca food truck in Emeryville. Adahlia Cole/Special to the Chronicle Al pastor is the exhibitionist of the taco world. These tacos might send you into a trance, as you watch a staggering stack of ruby-tinted pork twirl like a giant top, sizzling and caramelizing under a high-octane flame. Trompo handlers the tromperos are skilled marksmen, shaving paper-thin slices from the large vertical spit. Then, with a swift flick of a knife, the trompero sends a shard of pineapple into the air before deftly catching it. These shepherd tacos are a fusion of shawarma techniques, introduced by Arab migrants in Mexico, combined with the countrys ingredients and flavors. Today, Mexico City and Puebla virtually live on the stuff. But running into a worthwhile trompo in the Bay Area is something of a small miracle. Read also: Where to find the best tacos in the Bay Area Advertisement Article continues below this ad Al pastor is not totally absent from the region; in fact, its a regular offering at most taquerias, though most tend to cook the marinated pork on a plancha losing its subtlety and crisp texture. Harder to find still are spots that actually shave the meat directly onto a tortilla this trompo-to-taco custom ensures optimal texture. But these places exist, dear reader, and theyre quite the spectacle. Currently, Pueblans make the majority of the Bay Areas top trompos. A few take inspiration from Mexico City, while others draw influence from Yucatan and Jalisco. Its worth noting that certain states prepare their al pastor also referred to as adobada by grilling it, as is the case with a Sonoran-style taqueria on this list. These are the best places to find al pastor tacos, in ranked order. Pastor negro from Al Carajo in S.F. Cesar Hernandez / The Chronicle Honorable mention: Al Carajo This Mission District taqueria brings a specific preparation of the filling called pastor negro, inspired by Yucatan. Instead of a ruddy-hued marinade, the pork here is doused in a recado negro, a black paste made from burnt chiles and spices. Doused in the charred adobo, the swine enters its goth phase, with a warm spicing reminiscent of jerk chicken, only with the smokiness of bacon. The pork is sliced from a trompo, then crisped until crunchy on a flattop. Cut through the richness with a squirt of lime and both salsas, cool green and creamy red. Advertisement Article continues below this ad 3224 22nd St., San Francisco. 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. alcarajosf.com Jose Gabriel cuts meat off the spit roast for al pastor tacos at Tacos El Guero in San Jose. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle 5. Tacos El Guero In east San Jose, Tacos El Guero brings the flavors of Tepatitlan, Jalisco. The loncheras specialty is tacos al vapor (steam) but it also has a worthy trompo inside the truck. The meat is sheared from the spit, then transferred to the plancha, where its diced. The crimson-hued pork has crispy ends and a flavorful adobo that reverberates with onions, acidity and chiles. Tacos are built on hot, steamed corn tortillas and served with grilled onions pineapple is optional. 2448 Story Road, San Jose. 3:30-11 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. 2828 Monterrey Hwy., San Jose. 2-10 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. instagram.com/tacos_elgueroestilotepa Advertisement Article continues below this ad Salsa with pineapple made for al pastor from Tacos Mama Cuca in Emeryville. Adahlia Cole/Special to The Chronicle 4. Tacos Mama Cuca Sonoran-style taqueria Tacos Mama Cuca has a different approach for al pastor. For one, tacos are made with pliable, translucent flour tortillas, as dictated by the northern Mexican states tradition. Thin, pork steaks coated in a scarlet red marinade are grilled over a sweet mesquite charcoal. This method brings flavorful depth, bolstered by a salsa specifically tailored for the filling. To make the salsa, peppers and tomatoes are charred and mashed in a molcajete before the addition of thick chunks of pineapple. These al pastor tacos ($5) are singular, and prove you can achieve excellence without a trompo. 5909 Market St., Oakland. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. instagram.com/tacos_mamacuca Tacos and truck from Tacos El Chilanguito in San Jose Cesar Hernandez / The Chronicle 3. Tacos El Chilanguito Food truck Tacos El Chilanguito is an envoy from the Distrito Federal, Mexico City, offering stellar al pastor. Here the technique shines most. Armed with a long, sharp saber and surgical precision, the trompero removes ribbons of pork from the slender, reddish-orange meat mass it might be smaller than its contemporaries, but its large in the flavor of guajillo chiles, achiote and spices. Each taco ($3.50) gets a sweet slab of pineapple. For maximum richness, opt for the al pastor gringa ($8), two flour tortillas glued together with melted cheese. Advertisement Article continues below this ad 115 Phelan Ave., San Jose. 5:30-10:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. instagram.com/tacos_el_chilanguito Trompo from Tacos El Charro in S.F. Cesar Hernandez / The Chronicle 2. Tacos El Charro For so long in San Francisco, you were more likely to be struck by a bolt of lightning than run into a good trompo. However, with its debut in the Mission District last year, Tacos El Charro is changing that. The Puebla-style taco stand does al pastor tacos ($4) justice, with an imposing trompo. The taquero manning the spit has a swashbuckling flair, swiping his blade along the curvature of the trompo and catching the shavings on a tortilla. The adobo is of the savory variety, with the taste of onions, spices and a faint pepper heat. The emulsified red salsa brings more savoriness and the habanero provides robust, fruity pinpricks. Mission Street at 18th Street, San Francisco. 7 p.m.-2 a.m. Wednesady-Sunday. instagram.com/tacoselcharrosf Advertisement Article continues below this ad Al pastor tacos topped with a shard of pineapple from Tacos Al Pastor Puebla in Oakland Cesar Hernandez / The Chronicle 1. Tacos Al Pastor Puebla Tacos Al Pastor Puebla, a stand near the Oakland Flea Market, is a true specialist, so serious about its al pastor that its the only meat filling on offer. The trompo is a fearsome hill of layered pork, tinted an opaque cherry-red. The tromperos here are meticulous masters of their craft. In a matter of seconds, the swordsman rotates the trompo against a raging flame until it chars, then, with electric zeal, peels sheets of marinated pork onto tortillas. Its a mesmerizing sight. The taquerias menu is centered around al pastor, stuffed into tacos ($4) and gringas ($10), both of which are exceptional. Dress your tacos with pickled onions and habanero and a bit of each salsa red is smoky while green is creamy and tangy. 4930 Coliseum Way, Oakland. 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Friday-Sunday. instagram.com/tacosalpastorpuebla The Richard Nixon Foundation slammed Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson after the Democrat placed the blame for crime in his city on the man who served in the White House - 40 years ago. Johnson, 48, sparked backlash following the July Fourth holiday weekend - where 19 were killed and over 100 were injured by shootings in Chicago - after he cited Nixon as a 'root cause' of the crimewave. 'Black death has unfortunately been accepted in this country for a very long time,' he said at a news conference. 'We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes, and people mocked President Johnson. And we ended up with Richard Nixon.' In response, Jim Byron, the president and CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation, told Fox News that Johnson was 'passing the blame, in this case ridiculously and gratuitously.' Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson sparked backlash after he blamed former President Richard Nixon as a 'root cause' for a bloodbath in his city over the Fourth of July holiday weekend At least 109 people were shot, 19 fatally, as violence took hold of Chicago last weekend Byron dismissed Johnson's characterization of the ousted president in his response, and said Nixon was a 'champion of civil rights as Vice President and as President.' He said the 'record is clear', and claimed that 'unfortunately, there are many misconceptions about Richard Nixon. 'But perceptions of years ago are now being reconsidered as we see renewed interest in studying and understanding his life and legacy in full. 'What is happening in Chicago is heartbreaking, and I imagine the people of Chicago want leaders who take responsibility and work together to solve problems rather than try and pass the blame, in this case ridiculously and gratuitously.' The foundation added that its response to Johnson's press conference garnered a million views on X, as it joined a chorus of conservative voices criticizing the Chicago Mayor's remarks. The CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation argued that the former president was a 'champion of civil rights', as he said Johnson was 'passing the blame, in this case ridiculously and gratuitously' The foundation's tweet listed several of Nixon's achievements in the civil rights space, including moves to continue desegregating schools, adding civil rights funding and funneling support for black-owned businesses. 'Mayor Johnsons reference to President Nixon is gratuitous and the facts are not on his side in his characterization of Richard Nixon and the Nixon administrations civil rights record,' it added. The Chicago Police Department said at least 109 people are known to have been shot - 19 fatally - in a weekend of horrific gun violence across the city over the July Fourth holiday. The spree spanned 74 separate incidents, including a horrific family slaying that saw an 8-year-old boy killed along with two relatives, while two other boys, aged 5 and 7, were injured in the same shooting. Eight people were also shot in a mass shooting in the city's Little Italy neighborhood. Comparably, in 2023, 11 people were killed and 62 were injured over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Officers and bystanders are pictured on a street where a horrific slaying saw an 8-year-old boy killed along with two relatives, while two other boys, aged 5 and 7, were injured in the same shooting Eight people were also shot in a mass shooting in the city's Little Italy neighborhood, with Chicago officials pledging to bring justice to victims following the weekend bloodbath Johnson said he asked for more resources from the federal government to help combat crime, but raised eyebrows as he elaborated that the 'root cause' of the violence began long ago. 'What weve experienced over the weekend is unacceptable and we didnt get here overnight. And everyone knows that. Lets tell the full story of what happened,' he said. Alongside seemingly blaming Nixon for the crimewave, Johnson, who notably supported the 'Defund the Police' movement, also said his office and the city's police department would clamp down hard on those responsible. 'This is a choice. The choice to kill. The choice to kill women, the choice to kill children, the choice to kill the elderly. These are choices that the offenders made and they calculated,' Johnson said. 'We are holding every single individual accountable for the pain and from the torment that they have caused in this city.' This video is no longer available This video is no longer available WARNING: DISTRESSING FOOTAGE Security footage has emerged of police officers repeatedly striking a teenager with a baton while they tried to restrain him in a solitary jail cell. The 17-year-old Indigenous boy, Jason*, was on his fifth day being held at a police watch tower in Brisbane's south on August 7 of last year, when the incident took place. Police watchhouses are meant to isolate and oversee serious offenders while they're waiting to appear before court. The LegalAid Queensland website claims a detainee usually 'won't stay in the watch-house for more than a few days'. Jason was being held in the cell without sunlight and just a thin mattress and blanket for five days on a series of charges including car theft. At the time of the incident, Justin was having a break from his jail cell in an exercise yard. He had attracted the attention of two guards when he tried to shout out to his brother, who was in a separate part of the watch house. Security footage has emerged of police officers repeatedly striking a teenager with a baton while they tried to restrain him in a solitary jail cell Police used the intercom to ask him to stop yelling. Two officers then walked down the hall towards the door of the exercise yard and asked him to move back into his cell. Jason complied and moved part of his mattress back into his cell before coming back for his blanked. Two officers then entered the exercise yard when Jason swore at them. However, he did not physically lash out. He was then set upon by the officers. The footage, obtained by the ABC's 7.30 Report, showed a male officer hitting Jason several times in the knees with the baton, before he fell to the floor. His arm was twisted behind his back by the female officer before he was forced to the ground. A third officer then rushed to help restrain the teenager. They escorted him back into his cell, before an officer pins him to the bench with his knee. He was locked inside, after an officer took off his handcuffs. The incident lasts for around two minutes. Jason made a formal complaint over the restraint to the Queensland Office of the Public Guardian, arguing the use of force was excessive. However, the investigation, overseen by the state's corruption watchdog, backed the officer's actions and claimed the use of force was 'lawful' as the teenager had 'grabbed the officer around the waist'. 'To use three individuals to restrain one person, reinforces the level of aggression that the officers were facing at that particular moment,' Chief Superintendent Wildman said. One officer can be seen striking the teen several times with a baton while the other holds his arm behind his back in an incident police claim was 'lawful and reasonable' (pictured) A Queensland Family and Child Commission spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that 'watch houses are not places for children'. 'Violence against children is never acceptable. Any report about the mistreatment of a child held in a watch house is exceptionally concerning and needs to be investigated and addressed, as a matter of urgency,' the spokesperson said. 'Our review into Queenslands use of watch houses to detain children made a series of recommendations to eliminate the practice, and we continue to call for these to be recommendations to be implemented.' Queensland Police confirmed an investigation overseen by the Crime and Corruption had been conducted after Jason's report. 'The matter was finalised, with the investigation determining that the actions of the members involved were lawful and reasonable and did not require further action to be taken,' a Queensland Police spokesperson said. The spokesperson confirmed that all officers involved are 'still currently performing operational duties'. Cafe known for its pastries and cakes A bakery with a cult following is the latest venue that has been forced out of business due to soaring operating costs. Abbots and Kinney closed the doors to their store on Elizabeth Street in Croydon, in Adelaide's north-west, on July 26. Managing Director Richard Wilson uploaded a post to Instagram to announce it was no longer profitable to keep the store open. 'Leases expiring, prices increasing its something were hearing more and more often these days with lots of businesses being forced to make tough decisions,' he wrote. 'Thank you to all our patrons past and present. All our staff and anyone who supported [us] along the way'. A Abbots and Kinney spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia there were also structural issues in the building where the store was located. 'The building was falling down and was unsafe and not up to commercial building standards,' the spokesperson said. The store will instead be relocated to a site in Norwood, in Adelaide's north-east. Customers took to social media to express their disappointment at the closure of the store (pictured pastries displayed at an Abbots and Kinney cafe) Customers took to social media to express their disappointment at the closure of the store. 'Devastated, but were lucky to have multiple locations,' one person wrote. 'So many memories and feelings of new motherhood linked to this place,' another person wrote. Customers still have the option of visiting the six remaining stores. Four stores are located in the city while the two others are located in Malvern and North Terrace. A new bakery is also set to be opened up in Adelaide's north-east at a date yet to be announced. The owner of the business John Pisanelli opened the first store at Pirie Street in June 2015. The business, which is known for their pastries, bread and cakes, quickly grew and more cafes were opened up. The bustling eatery was voted the best cafe in Adelaide in 2021 and was among the few cafes that continued to trade during the Covid-19 pandemic. Managing Director Richard Wilson said it was no longer viable to keep the store open (pictured the Abbots and Kinney cafe in Croydon) The collapse of the Croydon store comes after popular seafood restaurant Angler was forced to close its store in Stirling, in Adelaide's south-east, on Sunday. The co-founder of the restaurant Amanda Prance told Daily Mail Australia the move was made because fewer customer were coming in. 'We've been here for five years and [we are] not renewing the lease due to the massive drop in local customer traffic,' she said. A week is a long time in politics. But just five days after losing her South West Norfolk seat in an astonishing 'Portillo' moment, a smiling Liz Truss returned to Westminster on Tuesday night. This time, however, the former prime minister was only back for the glamorous Spectator Magazine party, which was hosted at their London offices just a stone's throw from the Houses of Parliament. Hours after a triumphant Sir Keir Starmer paraded his 411 Labour MPs in the Commons, Ms Truss put on a brave face as she strutted into the summer bash with fellow Tories Michael Gove, Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel and Claire Coutinho. Labour grandee Peter Mandelson, who described Sir Keir's majority as an 'electoral meteor' which had 'struck planet Earth', was also in attendance with other party members including new Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson. Sir Keir was not present, having jetted off to Washington DC for a Nato summit - his first international visit as Prime Minister. Reform UK's Nigel Farage and Richard Tice were at the party, however, and appeared in good spirits after securing five seats in the Commons, while broadcasters Piers Morgan and Andrew Marr also joined Westminster's elite. Conservative bigwigs, joined by Holly Valance's husband and Tory donor Nick Candy, arrived at the party just hours after Rishi Sunak's first Shadow Cabinet meeting descended into chaos after leadership hopeful Ms Badenoch 'ripped into' him over the election. Former Prime Minister Liz Truss arrives at the Spectator summer party - days after losing her South West Norfolk seat Michael Gove, who did not stand at the general election, was also seen arriving in the pouring rain Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was in good spirits after his party won five seats in Westminster Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch also attended - hours after hitting out at Rishi Sunak over the election Former Home Secretary Priti Patel, who did manage to keep hold of her seat, was all smiles as she left the summer bash The shadow communities secretary said his decision not to inform Opposition frontbenchers before calling the July 4 poll bordered on 'unconstitutional', while his early return from D-Day commemorations cost colleagues their seats. The Times reported that she also branded Craig Williams, who bet on the election date, a 'buffoon' and said Suella Braverman was having a 'very public' nervous breakdown. It came as Lord Frost called for an interim leader to prevent 'mudslinging' in the leadership race, while James Cleverly warned against 'bitter infighting'. Mr Cleverly has been appointed to shadow his former role of home secretary in the former prime minister's interim shadow cabinet after Labour's landslide win saw the Conservatives net their worst ever election result. The party needs to conduct a 'sensible post mortem on what went wrong and finding the right path forwards', Mr Cleverly wrote in The Times. He wrote: 'As we do this we must remember two vital things. Firstly, it cannot descend into bitter infighting and finger pointing. That is exactly how we ended up here.' A narrower offer will not win back voters that have been lost to the left or right, Mr Cleverly warned. He said: 'We must get our act together. We need to unite in order to deliver. Labour grandee Peter Mandelson was celebrating the party's landslide win on Thursday night Tory donor and husband of Holly Valance, Nick Candy, was seen chatting on the phone as he left the bash Claire Coutinho smiled as she left the party - after being appointed UK shadow energy secretary following the Tory defeat Broadcaster Piers Morgan joined Westminster's elite at the summer Spectator party on Tuesday night Labour's new Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson was in the mood to celebrate 'It will take humility and hard work, to recover our reputation for competence and integrity, to rebuild trust in our party, and unite behind a broad platform that will give people a reason to vote Conservative again.' Right-wingers and more moderate Tories are expected to battle it out for the top job in a contest that could shape the party for years to come. Mr Sunak last week announced he would step down as party leader once the formal arrangements for choosing a successor are in place. If he throws his hat in the ring, Mr Cleverly could face competition from high-profile right-wingers Ms Braverman and Ms Badenoch. Dame Priti Patel, who served as home secretary between July 2019 and September 2022, Robert Jenrick, who previously served as immigration minister and ex-health secretary Victoria Atkins could also put themselves forward. Jeremy Hunt, a centrist figure in the party, has ruled out running. Tory MPs usually vote to select the top two candidates to put forward as potential leaders, with the party membership choosing the ultimate winner. Sir Keir Starmer paraded his 411 MPs at the Houses of Commons on Tuesday afternoon He was not at the Spectator bash because he was jetting off to his first international trip with his wife Victoria on Tuesday night Mr Starmer speaks to journalists as he heads to Washington DC to attend a Nato summit However, the rules and timeline of the race would be set out by the backbench 1922 Committee, which has elected Bob Blackman as its new chair. Ms Braverman meanwhile has hit out at 'liberal Conservatives' at an event in Washington DC and at a Popular Conservatism event in London said that Reform UK is an 'existential threat' to the Tories. Ex-Tory MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg was also at the event and spoke of the need to win back voters from Reform, which won five seats, including Clacton in Essex for leader Nigel Farage. Ms Braverman, appearing via a recorded video, said of the loss of her party's 80-seat majority from 2019: 'We were going to stop the wave of illegal migrants landing on our shores. We were going to cut taxes. 'We were going to stop the lunatic woke virus working its way through the British state. 'The harsh reality - this is a lesson we all need to learn and face up to - is that we did none of that.' Lord Frost, who was the UK's chief Brexit negotiator, said the party must not be 'rushed' in selecting a new leader. His comments were later echoed by Lord Hague, the former Tory leader, who said it was 'better to get it right than to end up going around in circles'. Lord Frost warned against 'descending into the mudslinging of a rushed leadership election', telling the event event: 'I can't see why we shouldn't have an interim leader and time to debate things properly.' Speaking to the architects of the election defeat, he said: 'Those who decided upon the political strategy that got us here, those who stuck to it in the face of clear evidence it was failing and those who then slandered and tried to kneecap their opponents in the party, they need to get off the stage as soon as possible and let the rest of us move on.' The Tories made a net loss of 251 seats at the election last week, leaving the party with 121 MPs. Labour won a landslide with 412 MPs, ousting several senior Tory figures including Sir Jacob, former Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, defence secretary Grant Shapps and ex-prime minister Liz Truss. She added: 'Historically in British politics, we have had a monopoly on the right-wing vote. 'That's one of the reasons we have been so successful. 'The left, by contrast, for the last 100 years has been split. 'Left wing have had a choice of party to go for and we by contrast have had the luxury of a monopoly, but no longer, and that is why the Reform party presents an existential threat to us electorally.' Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame illustrated a cover for a magazine to raise awareness about the country's domestic violence epidemic. However, the artwork for InStyle Australia's July edition took several attempts to finalise due to the number of women allegedly killed by gendered violence this year. In an Instagram post on Tuesday, the InStyle page explained the statistic 'quickly became inaccurate' whenever the cover art neared completion. 'Each time, the number of Australian women killed in 2024 in an epidemic of gendered violence rose,' it said. 'Today, it stands at 49 women in 190 days. Tomorrow, that number could be different.' Thousands of Australians joined a national rally in April demanding the Albanese Government do more to protect women from gender-based violence following months of horrific attacks. Reflecting on the rally, InStyle wrote: 'We marched and pushed our government to take urgent action on gendered violence. 'Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared it a national crisis and pledged nearly $1billion in practical measures to stop the scourge. And then, silence.' Artwork created by Grace Tame for the July cover of InStyle Australia (pictured) featured a domestic violence death toll which had to be edited several times to keep up with the growing number of alleged victims Ms Tame (pictured), known for being a former Australian of the Year and activist, reflected on her own experience with domestic violence and called for the government to invest in better solutions InStyle Editor-in-Chief Justin Cullen said male violence was impacting Australian women more than any other issue, which was reflected in the cover design process. 'At the time of Grace making her first sketch, the number of dead women sat at 43. Three weeks later, when she sent us the final piece (or so we thought), it had risen to 47. That was two days ago,' she wrote on Instagram. 'By the next morning I had to ask her to amend the number on the illustration to 48, after the body of a woman was found dumped in a wheelie bin in Victoria. 'Grace supplied a nine while she was at it, just in case anything happened in the 24 hours before publication. 'What a thing to have to preempt. 'Then, yesterday afternoon, a 49th woman was confirmed dead, [allegedly] stabbed at home in NSW by a man she knew. 'She would have been the 50th if a woman hadnt escaped the [allegedly] purposefully lit house fire on Sunday, where three of her children became the 7th, 8th and 9th children killed in [alleged] incidents of domestic violence just this year.' Ms Tame shared her own statement regarding the creation of the cover, which featured hands holding a heart with the 2024 death toll of alleged domestic violence pinned on it. 'Part of the problem is that unless we have seen it up close, we readily ignore violence because it's too confronting,' she wrote. 'That the death toll has increased by 6 since I started this project on 13 June, speaks volumes.' Ms Tame also shared her own experiences with domestic violence and called out people who consider it a 'social problem affecting certain individuals or groups'. 'Incidents rarely happen in a vacuum, they typically form part of a wider pattern of abuse, enabled by a culture of normalised violence,' she said. 'We've been conned by the pernicious illusion that we can heal primarily through prevention education and discussion. '...Idealistic notions of respectful relationships miss the main point, although they are important. '...We need a holistic suite of solutions that engage every industry and demographic. 'This is a crisis of public health.' The July cover drew supportive comments from dozens of readers who applauded InStyle for keeping the domestic violence awareness at the forefront. 'Powerful and deeply moving. It is simply inexcusable that the citizens are keeping this epidemic front and centre, and not the government who have broken their promise. Yet again. Grace is extraordinary with her artwork,' one wrote. 'Incredible artwork. Important topic. Hard not to feel hopeless in the face of it all,' another said. Another wrote: '49 is 49 too many - how I wish we could stop that figure immediately.' Another commented: 'Amazing work. Having survived intimate partner and family violence I'm relieved to see this finally receive attention.' InStyle also reflected on how government action to help survivors of gendered violence had seemingly lulled since the news cycle moved past April's rally. The cover comes months after thousands of Australians marched in a nation-wide rally and demanded further action to protect women against gendered violence 'Ten weeks since those national rallies, eighteen more lives have been tragically lost; four women killed in 48 hours over the first weekend in June; three women murdered in three days last week, their wrongful deaths buried deep in newspapers and feeds,' it said. 'A fatal stabbing yesterday; an alleged domestic homicide on Saturday. '...Violence against women isnt a flash-in-the-pan crisis, its an epidemic.' Labour's new housing minister tried to block a 770million property development in his constituency - despite Rachel Reeves using her first speech as Chancellor to launch a campaign against Nimbys. Matthew Pennycook, the Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, objected to the 1,500-home project and moaned to the council that the proposed high-rise apartments were 'wholly inappropriate'. His letter, sent as the constituency MP in 2021, said the plans would have a 'detrimental impact' on the 'local heritage' - despite the developer claiming it would improve a brownfield industrial site, create 1,100 new jobs and generate 42million a year in 'socioeconomic value' to the area. It comes after Ms Reeves, the new Chancellor, revealed plans to relax planning laws in her first major speech. Ms Reeves has vowed a dramatic overhaul of the 'timid' planning system, aiming to build 1.5million new homes over the next five years. Despite his new role in delivering this, Mr Pennycook got involved in a planning dispute over a development called Modern Wharf in his east London constituency. Matthew Pennycook, the Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, objected to the 1,500-home project His letter, sent as the constituency MP in 2021, said the plans would have a 'detrimental impact' on the 'local heritage' The local council approved the plans in the autumn of 2021 but work has not started yet But Mr Pennycook claimed the council should reject it because of 'namely the excessive heights of several of the buildings' The development proposes a 19-acre site with four tower blocks rising between 21 and 26 storeys A Labour source told the Telegraph the minister remains convinced a better development could still be used for the brownfield site He opposed the plans for 1,500 homes - a third of which would be 'affordable' - as he complained high rise properties on the Greenwich Peninsular were too tall, The Telegraph reports. The local council approved the development - which proposes a 19-acre site with four tower blocks rising between 21 and 26 storeys - in the autumn of 2021, but work has not begun. Mr Pennycook - who was appointed housing minister on Friday - wrote at the time: 'I feel strongly that the proposals submitted would be inappropriate for the site in question and would have a detrimental impact on the existing character of the area.' He claimed the council should reject it because of 'namely the excessive heights of several of the buildings'. In his letter, he agreed in principle to mixed-use developments for 'what is unquestionably an underutilised site, it is imperative that any development authorised be appropriate' . He accepted tall buildings conformed to local planning policy, but objected to the height of the proposes high rises because the nearby tower blocks only had 18 storeys. The MP wrote: 'Four towers between 21 and 36 storeys would be inappropriate for this site and would have a detrimental impact on the existing character of the area and local heritage assets. 'They would represent an abrupt and dramatic increase in building heights relative to the adjacent buildings.' A Labour source told the Telegraph the minister remains convinced a better development could still be used for the brownfield site. 'Despite planning consent being acquired by the developer for this substandard, speculative application, not a single housing unit has yet been delivered,' they said. Chancellor Rachel Reeves used her first major speech yesterday to vow a dramatic overhaul of the 'timid' planning system Matthew Pennycook (second from right) and the rest of Labour's cabinet applaud after Chancellor Rachel Reeves' speech Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. 'Matthew believed at the time, and still does, that a better 1,500-home scheme could and should have been delivered.' A Greenwich council spokesman said: 'Construction work on Morden Wharf has not begun as revisions to the original plans are currently going through the planning process. 'As such, all pre-application discussions and objections are confidential. More information can be found on our planning portal. 'Following a transfer of ownership, the buyers are looking to revise the original plans, the council has not requested these changes.' An Arkansas couple has been charged with murder, after they left four children in a hot car - resulting in the death of their 2-year-old. Deja, 27, and Justin Rollins, 29, had already been facing child abuse and neglect charges for allegedly leaving their children unattended in the car outside of Arkansas Children's Hospital on Sunday, KARK reports. Officers said they responded to the scene after receiving reports that another of the children, an unidentified three-year-old, was brought in for urgent treatment. During the course of their investigation, the Jacksonville police learned that the couple had four other children - ages 2, 4, 7 and 10 - but the couple allegedly refused to tell the cops where the children were. Justin, left, and Deja Rollins, right, are facing murder charges for the death of their two-year-old, who was left in a hot car with his siblings on Sunday Police later found the children inside a car in the hospital's parking lot, and alerted hospital security - who were able to get the car open, according to Arkansas Online. All of those children suffered heat exhaustion, and were treated at the hospital, according to KATV. But the next day, 2-year-old Jay'Dien Rollins was pronounced dead. Over the course of an ensuing investigation, police also found a malnourished dog inside their Jacksonville home, and turned it over to Jacksonville Animal Services. Their children, ages 2, 4, 7 and 10 were found inside a car in the parking lot of Arkansas Children's Hospital The parents are now each facing five counts of first-degree domestic battery, five counts of neglect of a vulnerable person, five counts of endangering the welfare of a minor, one count of animal cruelty and one count of obstructing government operations. They pleaded not guilty to the murder charges at a hearing on Tuesday - just one day after they entered a not guilty plea on the earlier charges. Both Deja and Justin are now being held at the Pulaski County Regional Detention Facility without bond. A teenager who joined a racist mob that attacked a man with a screwdriver has been spared prison after the judge heard he had applied to join the Army. Harry Holcroft, 18, was high on ketamine when he joined Jack Mather and Dillon Smith, both aged 19, in a 'revenge attack' on Shantosh Surendra. The trio chased Mr Surendra from the Duke of Cambridge pub in St Helens town centre, near Liverpool at about 4.30am on October 21 last year. Once cornered they racially abused, punched, kicked and stamped on Mr Surendra before stabbing him multiple times with a screwdriver and puncturing one of his lungs. However, Holcroft was spared a sentence of immediate custody over the incident after Liverpool Crown Court heard he had been 'taking substantial steps to improve' himself by applying to the Army. Harry Holcroft was part of a mob who chased Shantosh Surendra from the Duke of Cambridge pub in St Helens town centre, near Liverpool, at about 4.30am on October 21 last year Jack Mather, 19, a member of the group which punched, kicked and stamped on Mr Surendra, received 22 months' detention Gerry Baxter, prosecuting, described how Mr Surendra also suffered numerous stab wounds during the 'prolonged and persistent' attack, leaving him with a collapsed lung and 'blood dripping down his back and arms'. However, an investigation was unable to determine which of the attackers had inflicted these injuries. Mather, of Gerards Lane in St Helens, and Smith, of Lakemoor Close in the town, were said to have known Mr Surendra for about 10 years before a falling-out in 2023. All four men had been drinking in the pub on the night in question when he noticed the defendants 'giving him the side eye' before they followed him onto New Cross Street at closing time. Mr Baxter said: 'Mr Surendra started to run, because he knew the three men wanted trouble. As he ran, they ran after him and cut him off. 'One of them said they wanted to speak to him, but they started kicking and punching him. Mr Surendra saw Mather take something from his waistband, a screwdriver or something similar. 'Mr Surendra was stabbed to his back and his chest. The men were shouting 'p***' and 'n****r'. 'They knocked him to the floor and continued to stab, kick and stamp on him.. They also called him a nonce. 'When the attack stopped, Mr Surendra got to his feet and found the blood was dripping down his back and arms. 'He felt dizzy. Fortunately for him, he was spotted by police officers who were patrolling in a police car.' A jacket with Mr Surendra's blood on it was later seized from Holcroft's home on Lowfield Lane in St Helens. All three defendants answered no comment under interview except for Smith who, when shown a CCTV image of himself, Mather and Holcroft at a nearby taxi rank, said: 'I am just telling you now, that picture, whatever you were saying, got f*** all. 'I'm just on that picture going home so whatever you want to try and do with that, you can. But that's it.' Dillon Smith, 19, also received 22 months' detention. Gerry Baxter, prosecuting, described how Mr Surendra also suffered numerous stab wounds during the 'prolonged and persistent' attack, leaving him with a collapsed lung and 'blood dripping down his back and arms' Liverpool Crown Court. All three defendants answered no comment under interview except for Smith who, when shown a CCTV image of himself, Mather and Holcroft at a nearby taxi rank, said: 'I am just telling you now, that picture, whatever you were saying, got f*** all' Carmel Wilde, defending Holcroft, told the court: 'The defendant is still a young man. He was previously of good character. 'It is a joint enterprise case, and all three were involved in this shocking attack. He wants to apologise to the complainant. 'He is disgusted with himself and has said that Mr Surendra could have died.. There seems to have been some misplaced loyalty to his older associates. 'He is a rather mild mannered young man. He has foolishly involved himself in someone else's feud. 'Jack Mather was obviously seeking revenge for what he thought the complainant had done. The defendant was the last to arrive and foolishly involved himself.' Ms Wilde told the court that her client had previously worked in a warehouse and had to decline a job offer from McDonald's due to his electronically monitored curfew. The lawyer: 'He could not be flexible and had to decline that offer of employment. He has completed an application form online for the Army, and is due to attend an interview soon. 'He is also due to start college in September and looking to undertake an apprenticeship. He is a young man who is trying to better himself and who has stopped taking drugs. 'That played a part in his poor decision making that evening. He has not been in trouble before and there is still hope that he can continue to improve his job prospects.' Holcroft was found guilty of unlawful wounding by a jury following a trial but cleared of the more serious offence of wounding with intent and possession of an offensive weapon in a public place. He was handed an 18-month jail term suspended for 18 months along with 150 hours of unpaid work and a rehabilitation activity requirement of up to 20 days. Mather and Smith previously received 22 months in a young offenders' institute after admitting unlawful wounding. Sentencing Holcroft, Judge David Potter said: 'You joined in that chase, albeit I am sure half heartedly and out of misplaced loyalty to people you hardly knew. 'You joined in that assault. It cannot be said that you inflicted any wounds on Mr Surendra but it is clear that, as a result of this group attack on an unarmed man, he suffered puncture wounds - probably caused by a screwdriver. 'He was fortunate. He was able to walk away. 'There is no evidence of any long term injury. You were substantially affected by ketamine and alcohol. 'Mather and Smith each received 22 months' detention, although both had previous convictions and played a greater role in the attack. You are the youngest of the three. 'You express significant remorse for becoming involved in someone else's argument. You have not offended since and have taken substantial steps to improve yourself. 'In your case, I take an exceptional course and suspend the sentence because I am satisfied that this is your first offence and there is a realistic prospect of rehabilitation. There is strong personal mitigation. 'Your actions have placed you at substantial risk of immediate detention in a young offenders' institute. You would not be so fortunate if you were foolish enough to involve yourself in further criminal activity. 'I will remember the 8th of July, the day on which I have given you an opportunity. If you commit any further offences, pack your bags.' Sir Keir Starmer has been warned against 'haranguing' Washington for help for Ukraine and has been told not to expect significant support from the US should Donald Trump be re-elected, one of the former president's allies said. Elbridge Colby, who is likely to be taking up a security role if Trump returns to the White House, said that the new Prime Minister needs to accept that the Ukraine war is Europe's problem. 'The biggest thing on the agenda with European states should be: are you taking primary responsibility for the conventional defence of Nato in Europe?' he told the Telegraph. 'You guys have got to take care of your own situation better, because we have to focus on China.' He also said that Britain should use a 'Britain first' strategy that focuses more on European security rather than the Indo-Pacific region. Sir Keir Starmer was warned against 'haranguing' Washington for help for Ukraine and was told not to expect significant support from the US should Donald Trump be re-elected, one of the former president's allies has said Donald Trump (pictured) has told NATO members they will be 'on their own' unless they increase defence spending if he wins a second term in office in November Sir Keir Starmer, who flew to Washington last night for a major Nato summit, said there was 'no more important duty' than safeguarding the nation Ukrainian servicemen fire an artillery in the direction of Siversk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on April 01, 2024 His comments come as Sir Keir is on his way to Washington for a Nato summit, where he will meet other leaders as Britain's Prime Minister for the first time. The summit is focused on bolstering support for Ukraine. But President Biden and others are expected to press member states in Europe to increase defence spending to deter the Russian threat. The UK is one of the few Nato countries to consistently meet the bloc's 'minimum' target of two per cent of GDP on defence. Sir Keir is also due to meet face-to-face to discuss the matter with Biden at the White House. Rishi Sunak had planned to use the event to press for the threshold to be raised to 2.5 per cent in recognition of the enhanced threat. The UK currently spends 64.6billion on defence, equal to 2.32 per cent of GDP. Sunak set out plans to raise it each year to reach 87.1billion by 2030, equivalent to 2.5 per cent of forecast GDP. Labour has so far set out only an aspiration to reach the spending target at an unspecified date. Trump has previously told Nato members they will be 'on their own' unless they increase defence spending if he wins a second term in office in November. The former US president said that if he was elected again, continued US support for Ukraine would be depending on Nato members matching the contributions. 'If you're not going to pay, then you're on your own,' Trump told Nato countries in an interview with Time magazine. At a campaign rally, Trump told his supporters that Russia could 'do whatever the hell they want' to any Nato country not meeting its financial obligations for defence. The 77-year-old doubled down on these claims in the Time interview published earlier this year and said: 'I wouldn't give [a penny] unless Europe starts equalising.' 'If Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay? They're much more greatly affected. We have an ocean in between us. They don't,' he added. Under the Biden administration, the US has sent more than 79.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine - EU nations have given the same. Nato members have agreed on a long-term support package for Ukraine last month, which will see alliance members commit 79.5 billion over five years to ensure long-term support, even amid a Trump presidency. The Labour Party has made several efforts to woo Trump and encourage him to support Ukraine, just like Sunak's team did. Trump ally Colby (pictured), who worked in the Pentagon during Trump's presidency, also discussed how the US and the UK could work should Trump return to the White House in November This comes after Sir Keir warned Putin that he 'will not succeed' after he faced questions about defence spending this week Trump ally Colby, who worked in the Pentagon during Trump's presidency, also discussed how the US and the UK could work should Trump return to the White House in November. He urged to focus more on European interests, adding that there was 'very little' the British forces could do in the Pacific or even further afield than that. Colby said Labour had been more 'understanding' than the Tories of Trump's plan to reduce US involvement in Ukraine. He told the Telegraph that a 'more restrained view of American power and American intervention' was 'understanding the American people where they are'. Colby added that former Foreign Secretary David Cameron's talks had been 'much more like political haranguing'. He also accused the UK of 'writing cheques that the American people are supposed to cash' by urging the US to supply Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine but 'only giving 3billion a year'. This comes after Sir Keir warned Putin that he 'will not succeed' after he faced questions about defence spending this week. He is expected to hold talks with a string of world leaders in the next 48 hours, including a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured) and face-to-face discussions with Joe Biden today Sir Keir will be accompanied by his wife Victoria (pictured), who is expected to join him for a leaders' dinner hosted by President Biden at the White House tonight The Prime Minister said there was 'no more important duty' than safeguarding the nation. He announced that the Government will launch a strategic defence review next week to assess the threats to the UK and the military capabilities needed to counter them. Government sources said the review would include a 'roadmap' to raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. But the decision to scrap Rishi Sunak's plan to reach the target by 2030 has alarmed experts who warn there is no time for delay. Setting a timetable after the review is likely to delay a decision on increased spending by at least a year. Sources said the review would reorient the UK to a 'Nato-first' stance, reversing the 'Indo-Pacific tilt' ordered by the last government. The move is likely to raise eyebrows given the threat posed to UK interest by China. Chinese troops were reported to be conducting joint military exercises with Russian forces in Ukraine's neighbour Belarus this week. As he prepared to travel to Washington last night, Sir Keir said: 'There is no more important duty for me as Prime Minister than keeping the people of our country safe. 'At a time when we face multiple threats at home and abroad, we must make sure we are ready to defend ourselves. That's why I have immediately ordered a root-and-branch review that will secure Britain's defences for the future. 'Our Strategic Defence Review will make sure the UK is sending a clear message to those who seek to undermine peace and democracy you will not succeed.' Downing Street said the PM would push other countries to raise defence spending this week, despite delaying his own decision on the issue. The PM's official spokesman said the 2.5 per cent spending target would be hit as soon as possible 'within our fiscal rules'. But military experts say there is no time for delay. General Sir Patrick Sanders, former head of the Army, told the Times that the UK's forces were so depleted they were capable of fighting only a small war and even then for no more than a month. River could soon be known as Goolay'yari Push to rename the Cooks River in Sydney A Sydney river could soon be renamed Goolay'yari under a proposal being pushed by local councils as part of a new Aboriginal partnership strategy. The Cooks River runs from a park in Bankstown in Sydney's southwest through Strathfield South, Tempe and Botany Bay in the city's south. The river was named after British Explorer James Cook after he landed in Botany Bay in 1770 and claimed possession for the UK of Australia's east coast. An Aboriginal partnership group is consulting with Sydney Water and a series of local councils over the proposal to rename or dual name the waterway. 'It's not really renaming, it's giving back the name that it's always had,' Dharawal man Gregory Andrews told ABC Radio Sydney. 'It doesn't detract from James Cook and all of his achievements as a great explorer of his time. If he had 'discovered' it today, he wouldn't call it after himself. 'He probably would ask what it was called.' An iconic Sydney river could soon be renamed Goolay'yari under a proposal being pushed as part of a new Aboriginal partnership strategy (pictured, the Cooks River in Sydney) Goolay'yari is the local Eora word for the Pelican Dreaming story. An island on the river, known as Fatima Island, looks like the shape of a pelicans foot, giving the waterway its name, Mr Andrews said. He said the river was once an important escape route for Aboriginal people who clashed with British settlers. Mr Andrews said in modern times, the river represented a safe space where people could take a break from the 'hustle and bustle'. The Bayside, Inner West, Strathfield and Canterbury-Bankstown councils will continue to discuss the renaming with the Cooks River Alliance. It's understood a final decision is yet to be made. Dharawal man Gregory Andrews says Fatima Island (pictured) on the Cooks River looks like the shape of a pelicans foot when viewed on Google Earth It comes after Fraser Island off the Queensland coast officially returned to the name K'gari, the name given to it by the native Butchulla people. The renaming was the result of a long-fought campaign by Indigenous elders. A renaming ceremony took place in late 2021 attended by Butchulla elders and Queensland's Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon. Uluru became the first landmark in the Northern Territory to be given a dual name when it was renamed Ayers Rock/Uluru in 1993. In 2002, the titles were reversed with its current official name Uluru/Ayers Rock. Supporters of the effort to recall Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao held a rally outside of City Hall on June 24 after Thao gave her first public comment since the FBI raid on her home days earlier. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Regarding Oakland is in a crisis: Residents say its the worst theyve ever seen and want change (East Bay, SFChronicle.com, July 8): I appreciate the even-handedness in Eli Rosenbergs story. He described the complexity of issues and pointed out why many remain committed to Oakland. Im a 40-year resident who raised my family here. I know my neighbors. I hike in the hills and around Lake Merritt. I shop at local stores and markets and eat at small restaurants that represent a global community. The diversity is unlike any other city. I would like to shout out Janani Ramachandran, my city council member. She operates by identifying issues and corrective actions. She does not point fingers. She called for the audit that uncovered the 911 issues and spoke up against a budget that relies on money that Oakland does not have. Advertisement Article continues below this ad When my neighborhood had an uptick in safety issues, she met with residents in my home, and we had a candid discussion. Janani gives me hope. We are heartsick over Oaklands problems, yet determined to continue living here and working to improve the Town. Marianne Lonsdale, Oakland End the blame game Regarding How the Supreme Court is doing its constitutional duty with recent rulings (Letters to the Editor, SFChronicle.com, July 7): The letters author states that several recent rulings involved regulations imposed by executive branch bureaucrats without a law permitting them passed by Congress. This is such a tiresome claim. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Regulations are written by professionals because Congress is not equipped with the scientific knowledge, for example, to determine the makeup of pollutants that change as new chemicals are created or assess their impacts on the environment. Judges are also incompetent arbiters of rules and regulations for environmental protection. Conservative presidential administrations can, and do, ignore the enforcement of previously written rules. Its time to stop blaming liberals, as well as bureaucrats. Pat Willard, Redwood City Test candidates fitness While many are asking whether President Joe Biden is physically and mentally fit to serve another four years, he should reply: If Congress passes a law requiring all presidential candidates to undergo an impartial physical and neurological exam with the complete results released to the public, then I will happily be the first one to do this. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Republicans in Congress would joyfully rush to vote this into law, thinking that Bidens test results would further damage his candidacy. If his health report is good, that will reassure Democratic voters. But if it shows that Old Joe has got to go, it would pave the way for a more vigorous, healthier candidate to forge ahead. Most corporations dont hire a CEO without seeing the results of a health and perhaps a mental examination. Why should voters not have the same right? If Biden can inspire the passage of this law, it could protect us from electing physically or mentally unfit presidents for generations to come. Ralph Harris, San Francisco Advertisement Article continues below this ad Religions dark side Regarding Teach right from wrong (Letters to the Editor, July 5): If schools insist on teaching religion as history, I do hope they include the nearly universal history of the religious slaughtering the faithful of competing religions. There should also be units on the use of religion to justify slavery along with the religious justification for the oppression of women, gay and trans people, Native Americans and others. Im not against teaching ethics but let it be done based on rational philosophy: How best to create a peaceful and productive society, not as blind faith. David Posner, Napa Advertisement Article continues below this ad State is tough on crime Regarding A photo of a sign that mocks brazen S.F. retail theft is circulating on social media. But is it real? (San Francisco, SFChronicle.com, July 2): I have to chuckle when I read that some are outraged by Californias high threshold of $950 for the value of a theft to be a felony. About Opinion Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership. Read more about our transparency and ethics policies Our states limit is one of the lowest in the U.S. Most states have thresholds at $1,000 or higher and those tough-on-crime Texans top the chart at a whopping $2,500. Please, spare us your outrage until you have cogent, fact-based solutions for addressing crime. A tourist claims to have had an 'amazing' interaction with a spirit at an old psychiatric hospital in rural Victoria. The woman said she was on the three-hour Paranormal Investigations tour at Aradale Asylum, in Ararat, on Friday, when she was scratched on the back. She said the red marks first appeared while she was exploring the staff quarters and gradually got worse. The woman shared a couple of photos online, saying the interaction was 'weird' but 'didn't hurt'. 'I actually felt like I had a prickle or something in my shirt... my partner had a look and said there were scratches,' she wrote on Facebook. 'I laughed because I thought he was trying to scare me, then he showed me the photo.' Steeped in dark history, Aradale, originally called the Ararat Lunatic Asylum, housed mentally ill and intellectually handicapped people for more than 126 years. Many believe that it is one of the most haunted places in Australia, saying the energy of the patients can still be felt while walking through certain rooms and wards. The woman said she was on the three-hour Paranormal Investigations tour at Aradale Asylum, in Ararat, on Friday, when she was scratched on the back Some visitors reported feeling feeling nauseous, fainting and experiencing sudden pains while others said they heard banging sounds and voices. Many social media users were intrigued by the woman's story, with some even saying they have had similar experiences. Others said it was 'sad' and 'ridiculous' to visit a place with such a controversial past, noting that people there were subjected to restraint and electroshock therapy. 'I was scratched in the womens ward last year... they were still bleeding and oozing weeks later,' one person said. 'One of the reasons why you should use sage before going to these type of events,' wrote another. 'It's not good to upset restless spirits,' a third person commented. 'I have had ghosts give me a hard times since I was five, and when I bought a house I was getting sh*t thrown across the room at me,' added another. Steeped in dark history, Aradale, originally called the Ararat Lunatic Asylum, and housed mentally ill and intellectually handicapped people for more than 126 years Others dismissed her claims as 'not likely', suggesting that the marks were merely an 'allergic reaction' or 'self-inflicted'. Another suggested that the scratches were there before she went on that the tour and that the 'highly charged emotional environment' caused an 'inflammatory flare up'. 'I stayed in Pentridge Prison for three months and ate under the gallows daily - not a scratch,' one person wrote. 'After too many spirits I end up with scratches too,' another joked. 'It's never like the ghost in Ghostbusters,' one more said. Daily Mail Australia contacted Eerie Tours for comment. King Charles offered Sir Keir Starmer a snifter of whisky, I hear, thinking the new PM might enjoy his audience more after a restorative dram. Starmer politely declined the offer. He's rarely associated with frivolity. At Labour's election victory party at Tate Modern, guests were given a voucher for one free drink. Old Labour was more fun. Old soaks boast that dinner invitations to its annual seaside conferences read '7 for 9pm' leaving adequate time for refreshment. King Charles offered Sir Keir Starmer a snifter of whisky, I hear, thinking the new PM might enjoy his audience more after a restorative dram Starmer politely declined the offer. He's rarely associated with frivolity. At Labour's election victory party at Tate Modern, guests were given a voucher for one free drink The Starmers will be taking their cat JoJo into No 10, no doubt after a consultation with long-term feline resident Larry. Meanwhile, it's rumoured the Starmer children are lobbying for a German Shepherd. If so, Sir Keir might seek advice on this when he meets President Joe Biden in Washington today. Biden's German pair, Major and Commander, have been accused of terrorising Joe's Secret Service agents. The Starmers will be taking their cat JoJo into No 10, no doubt after a consultation with long-term feline resident Larry Highlighting the fate of the planned West End musical version of TV classic Father Ted it died due to his highly publicised battle with the trans lobby writer Graham Linehan, pictured, blames Hat Trick Productions boss Jimmy Mulville, saying: 'He would rather scrap the Father Ted musical than admit that men cannot be women despicable cowardice in the face of mass delusion. 'It's a massive act of cultural vandalism and pre-emptive censorship.' No doubt Mulville thinks otherwise. Highlighting the fate of the planned West End musical version of TV classic Father Ted it died due to his highly publicised battle with the trans lobby writer Graham Linehan, pictured, blames Hat Trick Productions boss Jimmy Mulville While Labour veterans Harriet Harman, Margaret Hodge, Margaret Beckett and Rosie Winterton can now nestle their bottoms on the red leather benches of the Lords, this prize is withheld from a more distinguished former male colleague. Plain Jack Straw served as Lord Chancellor, as well as Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Leader of the House. The only honour to come his way since retiring is the Freedom of Blackburn, his former constituency. Why the dearth of ermines? Possibly the 2015 'cash for access' allegations against him although he was subsequently cleared by House authorities. Reports that the King isn't continuing his mother's interest in racing pigeons has raised fears about her other feathered friends. The young Queen Elizabeth began breeding budgerigars at Windsor after receiving a pair as a present. There's now a colony of 100 at the castle. They fly free, returning to their aviary at night. Sensitive Charles is said to be unsettled by their dawn-to-dusk chirruping. The young Queen Elizabeth began breeding budgerigars at Windsor after receiving a pair as a present Waiting for Spanish player Carlos Alcaraz to play on Centre Court, commentator Tim Henman came up with this pearl of wisdom: 'You can't win this tournament in the first week, but you can lose it.' I hope Tim is lavishly rewarded by the BBC for his insightful comments. Climate change minister Chris Bowen spent $30,564 of taxpayer money on flights to attend three international environmental conferences in under six months, all while urging Australians to reduce emissions. Documents published by the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority last week revealed that Mr Bowen billed taxpayers $19,204 for a trip to Japan, India, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore for a G20 environment meeting last July. He posted a single photo of the trip on social media, with a caption saying he had a 'busy few days promoting Australia as a renewable energy superpower' and met with other climate ministers to 'call for greater ambition in clean energy'. A month later, in August, he claimed $9,343 for a three-day trip to Fiji for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Mr Bowen then charged taxpayers a further $2,017 for two trips to Dubai in November and December for COP28, the UN's climate change conference, during which he copped heavy criticism. Carbon emissions from those trips alone lifted Mr Bowen's carbon footprint by an estimated 47 tonnes. At the conference, Mr Bowen boldly called for the end of coal and gas energy entirely yet other nations flatly rejected this. Chris Bowen is pictured with Assistant Minister for Climate Change Jenny McAllister at COP28 in December 2023 Climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen is pictured at the COP28 conference in Dubai 'We have to face this fact head-on,' he said at the UN meeting. 'If we are to keep 1.5 degrees alive, fossil fuels have no ongoing role to play in our energy systems. 'I speak as the Climate and Energy minister of one of the world's largest fossil fuel exporters.' But as Mr Bowen flew out from the two-week summit in Dubai, the conference released a draft deal that did not vow to end fossil fuels and was so watered-down in its commitments that climate advocates called it an 'embarrassing and dismal failure'. He was also criticised because his speech at the Dubai conference started with a modified Acknowledgment of Country, which is typically used to honour Aboriginal traditional owners. Despite the CO2-heavy plane trips around the globe, Mr Bowen has insisted Australians should be subject to fuel efficiency standards to reduce emissions as of 2025, which means imposing carbon penalties on certain vehicle models. Owners of Australia's top-selling car in 2023, the Ford Ranger, could potentially find themselves paying an extra $6,150 because of the penalty, according to estimates compiled by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. A graphic mockup of Chris Bowen's overseas trips Chris Bowen is pictured, centre, at the G20 conference, which was held in India, Korea and Japan Chris Bowen is pictured at a G20 meeting in India in July 2023 Mr Bowen's other expenses for the October-December 2023 quarter included $16,596 on commercial airlines for intestate trips, $3,815 worth of private car expenses, and $125,529 on printing and communications. Mr Bowen took ten employees on trips with him during that same quarter at a cost of $138,661 - $113,054 of that was on domestic travel, and the remaining $25,607 was for international trips. His total expenses for the quarter were $431,285 - almost double the amount he claimed for the final quarter of 2022, during which he spent $269,997. Last year, Mr Bowen was criticised for taking his own private jet to a climate announcement rather than hitching a ride with Anthony Albanese. . A man who prosecutors say stabbed five people, two fatally, in a July 4 attack on a California beach town has been charged with murder. Logan Christopher Kelley, 26, was taken into custody after he allegedly approached a group of people in Huntington Beach and stabbed them with a knife. He has also been accused of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and battery on a police officer, the District Attorney's office said. Kelley was charged under a provision known as 'special circumstance of multiple murders' - wherein if found guilty, he would be eligible for the death penalty or life without parole. Two people died and three others were wounded when a man armed with a knife began stabbing people during July 4 celebrations (scene is pictured) Witnesses say the man jumped out of the vehicle and began swinging the knife at everybody around him, fatally wounding two people and injuring three others (scene is pictured) According to officials, a group of people were watching fireworks in the street near the intersection of Pecan Avenue and 16th Street when the incident happened. Prosecutors claim that the accused was under the influence of alcohol and hallucinogenic drugs when he started stabbing people. During the rampage, Kelley allegedly stabbed Eric Hodges, 42, in the heart and William Collins, 47, in the lung and neck - which resulted in their death. The accused also stabbed two 35-year-old men as well one of the injured mens 68-year-old father, according to the District Attorney's office. In order to stop his murderous spree, nearby people including a 16-year-old boy detained him until cops arrived at the scene. Kelley was also charged with assaulting the boy, spitting on a police officer and using a racial slur while being arrested, prosecutors said. Police officers stand guard at the crime scene where police say multiple people were killed and injured in Huntington Beach The accused, who is from a nearby town of Redondo Beach, is believed to not know any of the people he reportedly attacked. Talking about the incident, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said: 'A day of celebrating America and all the freedoms we all enjoy turned into deadly chaos at the hands of a stranger.' Kelley's arrest comes days after the FBI and Homeland Security warned Fourth of July revelers should be on high alert for possible lone wolf 'attacks' as they celebrate the holiday. The security agencies said solo attackers and small extremist groups pose the biggest threat, cautioning that large crowds are often seen as 'attractive targets.' Deeandre Adams was visiting friends for the 4th at the site of the attack, and was friends with the two men killed. 'It's sad. It was horrible,' he told LA Times. He said a man pulled up in a car, jumped out and started stabbing everybody around him. Deeandre Adams was visiting friends for the 4th, at the site of the incident, when he said a man pulled up in a car, jumped out and started stabbing everybody A victim in a multiple stabbing is taken away as officers investigate the scene at the corner of 16th Street and Pecan Avenue in Huntington Beach Experts warn that high tensions across the nation due to the presidential election and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war are heightening the risks, and lone-wolf attacks are alarmingly hard to prepare against. 'The police are being told by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to be on watch for these types of things that are notoriously difficult to guard against,' security correspondent Aaron Katersky told ABC News. 'The political environment of the country certainly doesn't help.' The federal warning, which was also issued by the National Counterterrorism Center, urged police departments across the nation to be vigilant amid the celebrations. Although such bulletins are not uncommon before a national holiday, this July Fourth warning notably cites 'domestic' attacks that could be triggered by issues also including abortion and racism. Such terrorists would 'likely would use simplistic tactics and relatively easily obtainable weapons such as firearms, knives and vehicles.' The bulletin added that while the security agencies are not currently aware of any active plots to target the celebrations, attacks 'can occur with little to no warning.' Sir Keir Starmer could boost the size of Britain's armed forces and will renew his vow to increase defence spending - after warning Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin 'You will not succeed' in Ukraine. The Prime Minister, who flew to Washington last night for a major Nato summit on his first international visit, said there was 'no more important duty' than safeguarding the nation. He announced that the Government will launch a strategic defence review next week to assess the threats to the UK and the military capabilities needed to counter them. The Telegraph reports that the 'root-and-branch' review will 'look at everything on the table', including troop numbers which were slashed to their lowest since the Napoleonic era under the Tories. In 2021, the Ministry of Defence announced it would cut troop numbers from 82,000 to 73,000 by 2025. But it's understood Labour will look to increase numbers, while cutting the size of the army is off the table. The review is set to focus on the changing threats of war, including a focus on drones which have played a key role in the war of Ukraine. The readiness to fight will also be looked at - along with how to enhance the UK's defence partnerships. Government sources told the Mail that the review would include a 'roadmap' to raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. Sir Keir Starmer, who flew to Washington last night for a major Nato summit, said there was 'no more important duty' than safeguarding the nation Yesterday, Chinese troops were reported to be conducting joint military exercises with Russian forces in Ukraine 's neighbour Belarus Sir Keir Starmer is grilled by journalists on the flight to Washington DC for the Nato summit But the decision to scrap Rishi Sunak's plan to reach the target by 2030 has alarmed experts who warn there is no time for delay. Setting a timetable after the review is likely to delay a decision on increased spending by at least a year. Sources said the review would reorient the UK to a 'Nato-first' stance, reversing the 'Indo-Pacific tilt' ordered by the last government. The move is likely to raise eyebrows given the threat posed to UK interest by China. Yesterday, Chinese troops were reported to be conducting joint military exercises with Russian forces in Ukraine's neighbour Belarus. As he prepared to travel to Washington last night, Sir Keir said: 'There is no more important duty for me as Prime Minister than keeping the people of our country safe. At a time when we face multiple threats at home and abroad, we must make sure we are ready to defend ourselves. That's why I have immediately ordered a root-and-branch review that will secure Britain's defences for the future. 'Our Strategic Defence Review will make sure the UK is sending a clear message to those who seek to undermine peace and democracy you will not succeed.' This week's Nato summit marks the 75th anniversary of the alliance which faces the greatest threat level since the Cold War. The event is Sir Keir's debut on the world stage since his landslide election victory last week. He is expected to hold talks with a string of world leaders in the next 48 hours, including a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and face-to-face discussions with Joe Biden today. Sir Keir will be accompanied by his wife Victoria, who is expected to join him for a leaders' dinner hosted by President Biden at the White House tonight. The couple are expected to move in to No 10 from their north London home after they return on Friday. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Defence Secretary John Healey and Europe Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds will also attend the summit and meet counterparts. He is expected to hold talks with a string of world leaders in the next 48 hours, including a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured) and face-to-face discussions with Joe Biden today Sir Keir will be accompanied by his wife Victoria (pictured), who is expected to join him for a leaders' dinner hosted by President Biden at the White House tonight Foreign Secretary David Lammy (pictured), Defence Secretary John Healey and Europe Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds will also attend the summit and meet counterparts The summit is focused on bolstering support for Ukraine. But President Biden and others are expected to press member states in Europe to increase defence spending to deter the Russian threat. The UK is one of the few Nato countries to consistently meet the bloc's 'minimum' target of two per cent of GDP on defence. Mr Sunak had planned to use the event to press for the threshold to be raised to 2.5 per cent in recognition of the enhanced threat. The UK currently spends 64.6billion on defence, equal to 2.32 per cent of GDP. Mr Sunak set out plans to raise it each year to reach 87.1billion by 2030, equivalent to 2.5 per cent of forecast GDP. Labour has so far set out only an aspiration to reach the spending target at an unspecified date. In a letter to Mr Healey last night, Tory defence spokesman James Cartlidge urged Labour to match the 2030 timetable immediately. Mr Cartlidge told Labour it was 'high time you made clear to the country what your plans are for defence spending'. President Putin was embraced by India's prime minister Narendra Modi who has arrived in Moscow for talks just hours after Russia's air strike on a children's cancer hospital In Kyiv Modi said Russia was 'an ally that has been with us through good times and bad, as a trusted friend' Downing Street said the PM would push other countries to raise defence spending this week, despite delaying his own decision on the issue. The PM's official spokesman said the 2.5 per cent spending target would be hit as soon as possible 'within our fiscal rules'. But military experts say there is no time for delay. General Sir Patrick Sanders, former head of the Army, told the Times that the UK's forces were so depleted they were capable of fighting only a small war and even then for no more than a month. President Putin was embraced by India's prime minister Narendra Modi who has arrived in Moscow for talks just hours after Russia's air strike on a children's cancer hospital In Kyiv. Putin called Modi 'my dearest friend'. The invasion of Ukraine has been financed in part by Indian purchases of Russian oil products, which have increased almost 20-fold since 2021. Modi said Russia was 'an ally that has been with us through good times and bad, as a trusted friend'. President Zelensky said on social media: 'It is a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world's largest democracy hug the world's most bloody criminal on such a day.' This video is no longer available This video is no longer available The owners of a Tesla could be hit with a $330 fine for laying their EV charging cable across a footpath because they don't have a driveway. John Slaytor and Chantal Decaluwe, who live in the leafy suburb of Waverton, on Sydney's lower north shore, face limited options for off-street parking. The couple decided to run the charging cable from their home and across the footpath to allow them to charge the car outside. 'This is a dead end street, no one is here late at night,' Mr Slaytor told A Current Affair. He said it was also cost effective as he would otherwise have to pay up to $60 to recharge the environmentally friendly vehicle at a commercial charging station. The couple also placed cable guards on top of the cord to protect the safety of pedestrians and to limit damage to the wire. But the quick fix has not gone down well with North Sydney Council, who have threatened the pair with the massive fine if they commit the act again. The council deems electric vehicle cables that run along footpaths 'a risk to public safety'. John Slaytor (pictured right) and Chantal Decaluwe (pictured left) decided to run the charging cable along the footpath, as they don't have a driveway Mr Slaytor said the rule could stop motorists from buying EVs as there are not enough publicly available EV charging stations. 'I think it's an impediment to the take up of electric vehicles and we're in a climate emergency,' he said. 'Everything we can do to make it easier to take up electric vehicles should be considered'. Mr Slaytor wants the council to issue an EV charging licence to residents, who can prove their charging systems are safe. A North Sydney Council spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia council is actively taking steps to assist residents who use EVs. 'Council is working to develop an evidence-based approach to electric vehicle policy,' the spokeswoman said. 'The electric vehicle space is constantly evolving, and we need a coordinated and informed approach to ensure the best possible outcomes for the community'. The council has encouraged motorists to use the charging stations that are available at public car parks if they can't charge their vehicles at home. The couple also placed cable guards on top of the cord to protect the safety of pedestrians and to limit damage to the wire Any activity associated with the charging of electric vehicles must require council approval according to the Local Government Act 1993. Councils own and are responsible for the management of public electric vehicle charging units. The NSW government has committed to investing $260million into EV charging infrastructure. Sales of electric vehicles remain steady across Australia with 10,464 full battery EVs sold in March according to figures from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. A Bunnings' customer has unleashed at the hardware giant's policy of allowing dogs in stores, complaining that 'it's a shop, not a dog park'. The woman took to social media this week to share a photo of dog poo in the aisle at her local Bunnings in Campbelltown in Sydney's south-west. She said she had to warn people to watch their step before tracking down a staff member to ask them to clean it up - adding she wasn't a 'Karen' and was a dog owner herself but simply believed they shouldn't be allowed inside the store. The woman said when she returned with a staff member, another customer had already wheeled over the offending hazard with their trolley, making a bigger mess. 'Earlier during my visit, a young lab wrapped himself and his lead around the legs of another customer,' she said. 'A friend I saw not long after told me she witnessed a woman clicking her fingers in the air to get staff attention to come and clean up after her dog. 'The week prior there was a dog fight at the service desk. 'Why are we allowing non-service dogs into a hardware shop?' she asked. A Bunnings customer snapped a picture of dog poo in the aisle and said the store's policy should be changed to ban dogs indoors Many commenters on social media were supportive of not allowing dogs in the stores, with some saying it could even be a safety issue if animals got loose. 'Some people are allergic, some are scared, not everyone wants to be around your bloody dog. Leave it home,' one wrote. Poll Do you think dogs should be allowed in Bunnings? Yes No Do you think dogs should be allowed in Bunnings? Yes 53 votes No 266 votes Now share your opinion 'Totally agree... If it's hot for tradie dogs [in cars], make a [shaded] dog pen outside,' another said. 'When did this become acceptable,' a third added. 'Pets don't belong in retail stores. If it's a service dog that's different, but this has to stop,' a fourth said. 'I know a few Bunnings staff members who are tired of dogs crapping and worse, cocking a leg and p***ing ... No fun to have to clean it up,' said a fifth. Many also slammed the dog owner who left the pooch's business for someone else to clean up. 'As someone who takes their dog to Bunnings, I couldn't fathom being ok with letting the dog crap inside let alone leaving it! Disgusting act disgraceful,' one person said. 'The problem isn't the dogs, it's the owners,' another said. Bunnings said it 'welcomed' well-behaved pets but owners should clean up after them or they'll be asked to leave Bunnings said it 'welcomes' well-behaved pets but they must be controlled by owners who should also clean up after their animals. 'We've been welcoming pets into our stores for many years and love the feedback from customers about how much they enjoy having their four-legged companions with them while they shop with us,' Bunnings chief customer officer Rachael McVitty said. 'Like many other retailers that offer pet products, we take a common-sense approach when welcoming dogs into our stores. 'The feedback we receive shows that the vast majority of pet owners are respectful of other customers and our team when they're in our stores. 'We work hard to make sure our stores are safe, welcoming environments for everyone and we're disappointed to hear one of our customers had a negative experience.' McVitty said customers are encouraged to reach out to team members 'so we can resolve it on the spot'. READ MORE: Heartbreaking twist in search for missing girl A crocodile that snatched a child swimming in a creek in the Northern Territory has been destroyed. The 12-year-old girl went missing on the evening of July 2 near the community of Palumpa, about 360km southwest of Darwin. He was last seen swimming at Mango Creek. A 4.2 metre crocodile was shot by local rangers on Sunday and resurfaced on Tuesday. Police have confirmed it was the reptile that attacked the child and have notified his family. 'The events of last week have had a huge impact on the family and local police are continuing to provide support to everyone impacted,' Senior Sergeant Erica Gibson said. 'The family have requested privacy as they grieve.' A report will be prepared for the coroner. A crocodile that took a girl was shot by rangers on Sunday and resurfaced two days later The young girl was last seen swimming at Mango Creek, in the remote Northern Territory community of Nganmarriyanga, 360km south-west of Darwin (a map is pictured) Alec Baldwin and his wife Hilaria headed out to a family dinner just hours after jury selection was completed for the Rust actor's manslaughter trial. The actor, 66, was seen in exclusive DailyMail.com photos while strolling down the street in Santa Fe, New Mexico along with Hilaria and one of their seven children, 21-month-old Ilaria. Alec was wearing glasses and pushing an empty stroller as his wife walked in front of him while cradling their child. They then walked around the block to dine at Pranzo, an Italian restaurant serving up pizza. The actor shed his tie for the evening but wore the same grey suit as he did in court earlier in the day. During the proceedings, 16 jurors were seated for Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial over the tragic shooting on the set of the film 'Rust' in October 2021. Alec Baldwin could be seen pushing a stroller hours after a jury was selected for his manslaughter trial Hilaria Baldwin was all smiles as she held her child in adorable bunny slippers Baldwin looked unconcerned as he begins a trial that could land him in jail While Alec remained in his courtroom attire, his wife changed out of the tan pantsuit she wore earlier in the day, in favor of a more casual look with a jean jacket, long black skirt and sandals. The couple's toddler sported a white sweater over her Little Mermaid PJs and adorable bunny slippers. The three were joined by another unidentified woman, a possible caretaker, and huddled inside a private room to enjoy some family time. Their toddler Ilaria was seen standing precariously in his child seat, and Alec took photos of the gathering. One local man eating at the restaurant told DailyMail.com that he, his wife and their friend who works in film production spent their meal discussing the case, without knowing that Alec Baldwin was there dining with his family in a private room. I had no idea, the man marveled, and laughed thinking they may gave been speaking about him within earshot and upset the actors appetite. We were talking about the case and didnt know they were there, the man, who works in advertising, said. I hope he couldnt hear. I was bringing them up to speed on the case. I was saying - maybe you cant hold an actor totally responsible for knowing the weaponry, but he was also a producer. Theyre the ones who hired her (Gutierrez-Reed) when she was clearly not qualified. Still he was glad to learn Baldwin chose Pranzo, which he called some of the best Italian in the city. The trial will put Baldwin, 66, under intense pressure in a case which his lawyers have called an 'abuse of an innocent person whose rights have been trampled to the extreme' Hilaria leaving the restaurant after enjoying New Mexico's finest Italian food Hours earlier, the star watched as five men and 11 women were chosen by Santa Fe County special prosecutors and the actors team of defense attorneys. Twelve will be designated as the jury and four as alternates by the court only after they hear the case. The jurors will be tasked with deciding if Alec committed a felony when his revolver fired during rehearsal of his Western film Rust at Bonanza Creek Ranch, around 18 miles from where the trial is being held. Alec claims he believed the firearm was loaded with blanks when he aimed it at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, with the ensuing gunshot killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. The 30 Rock actor could be forced to serve up to 18 months in prison if the jurors unanimously find him guilty, in a trial expected to last 10 days. The trial's start comes after a twisting legal saga for the 66-year-old that saw his initial involuntary manslaughter charges dropped in April 2023, before they were brought again by New Mexico prosecutors for a second time in January. Hilaria and an unnamed caretaker strolled into an Italian restaurant Baldwin, seen here outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's offices on the day of the shooting, was sensationally charged for a second time in January this year Baldwin pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys branded the case against him an 'abuse of an innocent person whose rights have been trampled to the extreme.' The month after Baldwin was charged again, the film set's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 26, went on trial and was found guilty and jailed for 18 months for letting the live round get into the gun. Gutierrez-Reed's trial has offered a preview of the case against Baldwin, with prosecutors expected to accuse him of breaching industry standards about safety on set. This may include not pointing a gun at anyone or putting your finger on the trigger, alongside allegations that Baldwin was neglectful in his role as producer on the film. As part of their case, prosecutors are also likely to highlight how the New Mexico safety regulator issued a $136,000 fine to the Rust producers for 'willful and serious' safety failings. The family enjoyed dinner at Pranzo, an Italian restaurant that serves pizza As Baldwin's trial began this week, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said that the special circumstances of a celebrity trial shouldn't halt the jury selection process. Wanting to push ahead with opening statements on Wednesday, Judge Sommer said: 'I'm not worried about being able to pick a jury in one day. I think we're going to pick a jury by the afternoon.' Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey remained dubious that Baldwin's lawyers, with who she has clashed with in the run-up to the trial, would make that happen. Morrissey told the hearing: 'It is my guess that with this group of defense attorneys, that's not gonna happen.' Defense attorney Alex Spiro replied: 'I've never not picked a jury in one day. I can't imagine that this would be the first time.' Despite this, jury selection got off to a slow start in the case with questioning of prospective jurors not starting until more than two hours later due to technical problems. When Judge Mary Marlowe Summer asked the pool of 70 prospective jurors if they were familiar with the case, all but two raised their hands to indicate they were. Two others indicated they would not be able to be fair and impartial and were excused. No jurors had been selected before a mid-afternoon lunch break. Under questioning from prosecutor Kari Morrissey, a potential juror said she hates firearms, but many others acknowledged owning them and few people expressed strong opinions about guns. A woman who was fatally hit by a train after jumping on the tracks to retrieve a lost item has been identified as a Vietnamese tourist. Tuyet Nguyen, 52, was on holiday in Sydney to visit family when she was struck by the train at Punchbowl train station, in Sydney's south-west, on Tuesday afternoon. She had climbed down onto the track to retrieve something she had dropped - understood to be her slipper - and was unable to get back onto the platform before the train arrived. Ms Nguyen's nephew Toan Huyn told Daily Mail Australia his aunt holidayed in Australia - where her sister lives - every year. Tuyet Nguyen, 52, died after being struck by a train on Tuesday Ms Nguyen regularly shared photos of her visits of Sydney to social media - including a holiday in 2022 and a trip last year, where she posted images of the Opera House. The tragedy occurred at peak hour, with authorities closing down trains between Campsie and Bankstown in Sydney's inner west as emergency crews worked to free Ms Nguyen from beneath the locomotive. She was immediately transferred to an ambulance before being taken to St George Hospital, but died there on Wednesday morning. Police have spoken with a number of witnesses and have reviewed CCTV as part of their inquiries. The train driver returned a negative breath test. Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters ordered public schools in the state to incorporate the Bible into lessons. Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press 2022 Ive had a sneaking suspicion since college that Americans dont know much about the Bible. One day, I was sitting in an English seminar on William S. Burroughs Naked Lunch. The novel is an absolute bacchanalia of drugs, violence and sex, so I was surprised to see Burroughs write about throwing pearls before swine. Good pastors kid that I am, I raised my hand and asked the professor why the author was quoting Jesus. Hes not, he said. I was cowed, but I pushed on. Pearls before swine. Im pretty sure thats the Bible. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The professor replied dismissively, Not that Im aware of, and moved on. He was wrong. Pearls before swine is a famous image from Jesuss Sermon on the Mount. But my professor wasnt alone in his ignorance. Only about half of Americans know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, according to a 2019 religious knowledge survey from the Pew Research Center. And thats just part of the story. According to an earlier version of the survey, nearly 50% of Americans think the Golden Rule is one of the Ten Commandments. (Its not.) Less than half can name the four Gospels. And pretty much no one knows who Esther is. This is all pretty surprising in a country many consider to be the most Christian nation in the history of the world. I couldnt help thinking of my Burroughs professor and those Pew surveys recently when Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters mandated that all public schools in the state begin teaching the Bible. Just about everyone agrees that Walterss decree is unconstitutional a flagrant breach of the First Amendments Establishment Clause, which forbids the state from supporting or sponsoring one religion. I do, too, but I dont necessarily disagree with the superintendents rationale. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In defending the order, Walters argues that students need basic biblical literacy to recognize the full significance of crucial moments in American history, citing as examples the Declaration of Independence, the creation of the Constitution and the Civil Rights Movement. Hes right; familiarity with Judeo-Christian scripture adds depth and nuance to our understanding of these important events. But hes also cherry-picking sunnier moments to fit his argument. Because students also need to know the Bible if they are to understand some of our countrys most ghastly sins. Take as an early example the genocide of Indigenous people. To justify the submission and often the eradication of Native Americans throughout the continent, European colonizers often likened their victims to the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the Promised Land before the arrival of the Israelites. In the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges, God urges his chosen people to wipe out whomever they find there, offering divine sanction to merciless slaughter. And if the Native Americans were modern-day Canaanites, their destruction was also permitted. Or take as another example the pro-slavery sermons of antebellum preachers. Some of the most fervent defenses of the institution came from the pulpits of the American South, and Confederate clergymen frequently fell back on the Bible to justify slavery throughout the 19th century. One of their favorite scriptural passages (of many) was St. Pauls exhortation in the book of Ephesians that slaves obey their masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ. About Opinion Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership. Read more about our transparency and ethics policies But such uses (or misuses) of the Bible are not restricted to previous centuries. Indeed, some supporters of Donald Trump regularly use the Bible to explain their support of the former president despite or perhaps even because of his most noxious sins, from business fraud to perjury to sexual assault. The logic goes like this: For them, Trump is like Cyrus, the Persian king who allowed the Israelites to return home after the Babylonian exile. Crucially for this analogy, Cyrus was not an Israelite not a member of Gods chosen people. He was, rather, a vessel, an unexpected tool God used to carry out his plan. The message for some Christians then is simple: God can use anyone, from a heathen Persian monarch to an unscrupulous New York businessman, to do His will. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This video is no longer available This video is no longer available Toxic smoke is billowing in the sky above Melbourne with residents of some suburbs warned to stay indoors after an enormous chemical explosion in the city's west. Firefighters rushed to a huge blaze at Swann Drive in Derrimut, about 30km from the Melbourne CBD, about 11.20am on Wednesday. Thick, black smoke poured into the air - with the force of the explosion so massive it flung a chemical drum hundreds of metres into the sky. Residents of several Melbourne suburbs are being warned to stay indoors following a massive chemical explosion in Derrimut, in the city's west Earlier, during intense explosions at the chemical fire in Derrimut, I captured this drum flying through the air - one of many sent sky-high. Hate to think where they landed. Thankfully it seems to slowly easing now. #melbourne @7NewsMelbourne pic.twitter.com/d4BEOqHIxU Paul Dowsley (@paul_dowsley) July 10, 2024 An enormous explosion rocked Melbourne's western suburbs about 11.20am on Wednesday A watch and act alert has been issued for all residents and workers in Albion, Braybrook, Brooklyn, Derrimut, Laverton North, Sunshine, Sunshine West, Tottenham and Truganina. 'Wind is blowing toxic smoke towards the east across Derrimut,' the emergency alert said. 'Anyone located in the area affected by smoke should take shelter indoors immediately.' Residents away from home have been told not to return while those still in the area told to close all doors, windows and vents. The factory is located close to a gas pipeline but emergency services have not issued any alerts over the infrastructure. It is believed no one was injured at the factory People in the area have been advised to stay indoors as the air quality could be affected by thick smoke Last year, a worker died and two others were injured in a fire also triggered by an explosion at a factory on Swann Drive. Traffic has been diverted away from the area with outbound lanes of the Western Freeway near the factory and Swann Drive closed until further notice. Drivers in the area have been told to keep their windows up to avoid breathing smoke and have been told not to slow down to see the fire. Paramedics are also on the scene. A community advice warning has been issued for the suburbs of Albion, Braybrook, Brooklyn, Derrimut, Laverton North, Sunshine, Sunshine West, Tottenham and Truganina A Victoria Police spokesman said at this time there have been no reports of injuries. "It is believed everyone inside the premises evacuated safely. "Traffic in the area is expected to be impacted for some time with Swann Drive closed as well as westbound traffic on the Deer Park bypass being stopped for safety." Ambulance Victoria said crews arrived on the scene about 11.15am. "Crews are currently on scene providing health monitoring, no-one has been transported to hospital at this stage," a spokesman said. New Zealand suffered a net migration loss of 27,000 people to Australia in 2023, the highest number for a decade. More than 44,500 Kiwis sought to escape the post-pandemic economic downturn, compared with 17,500 Australians heading the other way. While the number of Australians heading to NZ had been roughly steady since 2021, the number of Kiwis in the departure lounges is spiking. Not since 2013 have so many NZ citizens sought to make Australia their home. In recent decades, NZ has generally experienced a loss of citizens to Australia each year. The exception was in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, when border settings resulted in a net migration gain with Australia. Those gains were attributed to the go-home factor during COVID and favourable NZ living and economic conditions through the pandemic. However, the restoration of normal border settings and an slumping economy has pushed Kiwis to the exit door. Last year, 5,000 New Zealand-based nurses registered to work in Australia over a six-month period, while fewer than 200 Australian nurses migrated the other way From a net trans-Tasman migration gain of 7500 in 2020, NZ lost 5500 citizens in 2021, 14500 in 2022 and now 17500 in 2023. New Zealanders are able to live and work in Australia, and vice versa, through specially-created visas. Recent Australian policy shifts have sweetened the offer for would-be Kiwi migrants. In 2023, Australia improved the path to citizenship for migrating Kiwis, allowing them to apply after four years of residency. Citizenship brings a raft of benefits, including a social security safety net, access to student loans and to work a range of public service and defence roles set aside only for Australians. Australian employers seeking workers in key industries - including policing and nursing - have also invested in campaigns to lure workers, including sign-on bonuses and covering moving costs. The higher wages on offer in Australia has been cited as a reason for the shortage of nurses in New Zealand However, the departure of many New Zealanders across the Tasman has not reduced the population, as inward migration is also surging. It has been welcoming more than 10,000 migrants every month since the start of 2023 in a record boom. Migrants from India lead the way, with 51,000 arriving in 2023, along with many from Philippines (36,000), China (26,900) and Fiji (11,100). Kiwis leaving for Australia in 2023 skewed slightly younger and more overseas-born than the general population. More than one-third (36 per cent) of trans-Tasman migrants were born overseas (27 per cent of the general population), with 52 per cent than half aged 20-39. The record single calendar year brain drain was 2011, when a net 43,000 left: more than one per cent of the population. Why a hardworking Kiwi couple decided to ditch New Zealand to live in Australia New Zealand couple Tim and Eva Mitchell are in the midst of a year-long trip around the world, but the adventurous Kiwi couple say the only thing that made it possible was leaving their homeland to live in Australia. In 2019, the pair followed the path of thousands of Kiwis across the Tasman in search of higher wages and more career opportunities. After only 16 months of living in Melbourne, where Eva, 28, worked as an IVF pharmacist and Tim, 33, worked for the same engineering company that employed him in New Zealand, the pair had saved enough to fund a year travelling overseas. 'If we stayed in New Zealand, we probably wouldnt be able to travel - we couldnt have saved enough,' Eva told Daily Mail Australia from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. 'Everyone is struggling all over the world, but in New Zealand, I think they are lagging behind.' New Zealand couple Eva and Tim Mitchell (pictured in Melbourne) said moving to Australia was the 'best thing they ever die' Better money for Kiwis who move to Australia She said by moving to Australia, the pair pulled in 30 per cent higher wages than at home, plus they found there were many other financial advantages, such as tax deductions for job expenses that just didn't exist in New Zealand. In their Make Cents of Travel blog Eva writes that the couple 'knew that moving to Australia would mean we would be able to save more money AND save money faster than if we stayed in NZ, solely by securing higher paying jobs'. 'What we didnt realise was the many other ways that living in Australia would present to facilitate our savings goals, starting with having to pay less income tax,' she writes. 'An average Australian full-time salary of $95k requires you to pay roughly $21,300 income tax per year. 'In New Zealand, on the same salary (if you can find a job that pays the equivalent), you would be required to pay around $23,200 in income tax per year.' However, that wasn't even the best bit. 'In Australia, you are entitled to claim tax back on a variety of work expenses,' she said. 'These include professional fees, working from home costs, work tools, conference costs, work clothing and so much more. 'At the end of the day, we found that Australia not only pays better; it lets you keep more of what you earn.' Eva recalled when the pair moved to Australia 'everyone was saying make sure you claim your tax back'. 'As far as we were aware we were never able to claim back the same expenses in New Zealand, not in normal jobs, perhaps if you had a business,' she said. 'The grass certainly is greener!' More career opportunities Both Eva and Tim enjoyed career opportunities in Australia they would not have in New Zealand. Eva went from being a pharmacist at a public hospital in Christchurch to working for a private IVF clinic and a private-sector pharmacy job that she said did not exist in New Zealand. The adventurous Kiwi couple have been travelling the world for a year (pictured in Cappadocia, Turket) 'With my new job came a pay rise, bonuses and a small team where I felt valued,' she wrote in the blog. Even if she had gone back into public sector pharmacy, the pay rise in Australia would have been substantial. Despite working for the same company, Tim also got 'a significant pay increase to transfer to Australia', which would have taken 'years' to obtain in New Zealand. 'Shortly after moving to Australia, Tim was able to secure a higher authority role, which is testament to the career progression opportunities Australian companies can provide for NZ professionals looking to relocate to Australia,' Eva wrote. 'On top of a pay rise, Tim's transfer agreement provided us both with flights to Melbourne, and a month of free accommodation in an apartment in the Melbourne CBD until we could secure our own rental property. Not a bad deal if I say so myself!' Better work life balance As if being paid more wasn't enough, Tim and Eva discovered Australians work shorter hours than Kiwis and that supermarkets are cheaper. 'The standard New Zealand working week is 40 hours (as opposed to 38 in Australia), so over the space of a whole year, it is about 100 hours difference,' Eva commented. 'It doesn't seem like much, two hours a week, but it is, and we found it convenient because it gives you time to pop into the banks when they are open.' She also said that in Victoria offers 'seasonal cashbacks on dining out, activities and electricity bills to all residents'. 'Thanks to these cashback schemes, we were reimbursed hundreds of dollars during our time spent living in Melbourne,' she writes. Eva and Tim also liked living in Melbourne, which has a population around four times the number of New Zealand's biggest city, Auckland. The couple said when they finish their travels in Europe and Asia they will be coming back to Australia 'If we wanted to anything close to Melbourne's size the only option is Auckland but obviously its pretty expensive to be there,' Eva said. 'It is probably on a par with Melbourne, but in Melbourne you get better wages. 'You just dont get the same opportunities. There is always something to do in Melbourne - there are always events on.' After a 10-month sojourn in Europe, the couple plan to have two more months in south-east Asia before heading home, which is now no longer in New Zealand. 'I cant see us going back to New Zealand,' Eva said. 'Pay is a big issue. If we could get the same pay we might go back but we are still missing out on the city lifestyle.' Eva said she and Tim did have some regrets. 'We do feel guilty for leaving, we do miss our celebrations back home so we feel guilty for missing out on that,' she said. Eva said they would not have 'deserted' their country if they 'could have looked out for us'. 'Australia has given us opportunities we just wouldnt have in New Zealand,' she said. 'People can call us unpatriotic but weve just got to do whats best for us.' A popular set of pyjamas have been pulled from the shelves of H&M stores across Australia due to safety fears. The pink and blue Hennes & Mauritz children's fleece pyjama set with feet do not meet current product safety requirements. A recall notice issued by Product Safety Australia (PSA) stated the clothing does not contain fire hazard labelling. 'There is a risk of serious burn injuries if exposed to a heat or flame source,' the recall notice read. 'Consumers may not be aware of this hazard'. The pyjamas, which have several decorative designs, were sold in H&M stores across the country between February 26 and June 14. Shoppers who purchased the products, have been urged to stop using the clothes immediately. Customers are advised to return the item to their nearest H&M store for a full refund. The pink and blue pyjama set (pictured) with feet does not contain fire hazard labelling The pyjamas, which also has several decorative designs, were sold in H&M stores across Australia between February 26 and June 14 (stock image) No receipt is required. H&M is a popular clothing retailer that operates hundreds of stores across the world. The global fashion company sells a range of brands and designer accessories suitable for men, women and children. The number of Australian businesses ordering workers back into the office for five days a week has surged in the last 12 months, according to new data. Almost 40 per cent of full-time staff are now required to attend work in the office for the full week, shedding remote or hybrid working arrangements established during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is double the number who were required to be in the office for the full week this time last year, according to research from recruitment firm Robert Half which surveyed 1,000 businesses. Last year the most common working arrangements for the companies surveyed were hybrid styles - with 26 per cent of workers required to come in three days a week and 28 per cent, four days a week. But it seems businesses are transitioning from this set-up back to full weeks with three and four-day hybrid arrangements dropping by roughly the same amount as five-day arrangements have surged. Those on one and two-day visits to the office have remained steady and are on 4 per cent and 14 per cent respectively. The number of workers who have retained full flexibility with their working arrangements - with no return to office mandates - are also steady at 14 per cent. 'The pendulum is swinging back to pre-pandemic levels where working-from-home was an anomaly rather than an expectation,' Robert Half Director Andrew Brushfield said. The number of Aussie companies switching back to full-time work in the office has doubled to 39 per cent in the last 12 months Hybrid working arrangements, such as three or four days in the office, have fallen over the same timespan Of those employees surveyed, 90 per cent noted benefits to working in the office such as collaboration, access to resources, enhanced company culture and sense of belonging. But almost as many - 84 per cent - noted drawbacks such as increased costs, less flexibility, heightened stress and poorer work-life balance. 'In the current workplace landscape where flexibility is the new high-level currency for many employees, not everyone is pleased with this change of direction away from remote and hybrid work,' Mr Brushfield said. 'Even with staff coming to terms with attending the office more frequently, the key for employers is to create an environment that highlights the positives of in-office work.' Colorado's Michael Bennet became the first Democrat in the Senate to join several house colleagues and break with Joe Biden after his disastrous first debate. Bennet, briefly a presidential candidate in 2020, was one of three liberal senators sourced as saying Biden would lose to Trump in November at the current rate, alongside Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana. In an interview later Tuesday, he confirmed that what was reported, that he thinks Trump is on pace to beat the 81-year-old Biden. 'Well, it's true that I said that and I did say that behind closed doors and you guys and others asked whether I said it, and that is what I said. So, I figured I should come here and say it publicly,' he said. Bennet, while not explicitly calling for Biden to drop out, said that he thinks Democrats could lose more than their hold on the presidency in this election. Colorado 's Michael Bennet became the first Democrat in the Senate to join several house colleagues to break with Joe Biden after his disastrous first debate 'Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House,' Bennet said. 'I think that we could lose the whole thing,' he told CNN. Bennet, unlike Tester and Brown, is not in a swing state and not even up for re-election this year. He sees it as a matter of Democrats - who put Donald Trump on a pedestal as a unique threat to democracy - not having the right candidate to defend it in Biden. 'It's not a question about politics. It's a moral question about the future of our country. And I think it's critically important for us to come to grips with what we face if together, we put this country on the path of electing Donald Trump again.' He said the Democrats in the Senate will continue to discuss the issue this week but that people have been pressuring him about Biden's health. 'These are my voters who have said to me, 'I've been through this with my mom, I've been through this with my dad. I'm terrified about what it will mean if Donald Trump is elected president again in this country.' Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz responded to Bennet's comments in a statement. Bennet, while not explicitly calling for Biden to drop out, said that he thinks Democrats could lose more than their hold on the presidency in this election Bennet said the Democrats in the Senate will continue to discuss the issue this week but that people have been pressuring him about Biden's health 'No one is more committed to defeating Donald Trump and defending our democracy than Joe Biden, and few know better than Joe Biden the importance of showing up and campaigning to earn the support of voters. This was always going to be a close race,' Munoz said. Bennet is the first member of the Senate to publicly suggest Trump will win the election, while Democrats in the House of Representative have been much more clear. Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey Democrat, on Tuesday became the 10th member of the Congress to request Biden drop out. She stated that she would support Vice President Kamala Harris as Biden's replacement on the ticket, according to the Washington Post. Senate Democrats have largely held the line backing the president as he vows to stay in the 2024 race. 'As I've said before, I'm for Joe,' declared Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to waiting reporters as he returned from a recess this week. He reiterated that position following lunch with fellow Democratic Senators on Tuesday. Even as some in his caucus have raised questions or concerns over the president's debate performance, no member in the Democrats slim Senate majority have openly called for President Biden to step down so far. Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said Biden has to 'prove to the American people' that he's 'up for the job for another four years.' Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) called for conversations on the strongest path moving forward. He says Trump is a threat to democracy What some Democratic senators have done however is pressure the president to prove he's up for the task of a vigorous campaign and second term. Bennet told DailyMail.com Tuesday it's 'really important for us as Democrats to have an open discussion' so they have a path to winning the White House and both chambers of Congress, but he stopped short of calling for the president to step aside. As questions swirl for Senate Democrats, Republicans eye Biden as a way to go after vulnerable senators up for reelection this year. Multiple incumbent Democrats are running in states that Trump won in 2020 and face tough challenges from GOP opponents. The 2024 map appears more friendly for Republicans taking the Senate majority. Republican candidates and party operatives in the past few weeks have seized on the president's debate performance to raise questions about Biden's fitness and attack Democratic senators suggesting they're covering for the president and White House. A group of Los Angeles thugs who are accused of killing a woman outside an upscale Newport Beach mall targeted the prominent couple after seeing them with expensive items. Doug McKay, a New Zealand business executive, was wearing an expensive watch and his wife, Patricia 'Trish' McKay was carrying bags of designer merchandise from their shopping trip as they exited the mall on July 2, prosecutors say, according to the Los Angeles Times. Those items apparently caught the attention of Leroy McCrary, 26, and Malachi Darnell, 18, both of LA, as well as Jaden Cunningham, 18, of Lancaster, Calif., who allegedly accosted the couple as they were waiting for their ride to show up outside of the Barnes & Noble store. They pulled up beside the couple and two masked men - later identified as Darnell and Cunningham - jumped out. Doug and Patricia McKay were reportedly targeted by a group of Los Angeles thugs when they left an upscale Newport Beach mall One of the suspects allegedly put a gun to the head of Mr. McKay, 69, demanding the watch he was wearing and forcing him to the ground. Another dragged his wife, 68, into the street in front of the Camry while trying to wrest her shopping bags from her. Doug reportedly jumped in front of the vehicle to protect his wife, but McCrary - with Darnell in the back of the car - accelerated and forced the husband out of the way. He then allegedly ran over McKay, trapping her under the vehicle and dragging her 65 feet until she was dead. Doug - a former chair of the Bank of New Zealand- was not injured in the incident. The suspects are accused of trying to rob the prominent couple before running over Patricia McKay and killing her Meanwhile, Cunningham was still running toward the moving escape vehicle, trying to jump in while a Good Samaritan was chasing him, trying to stop him. But, according to cops, the pursuer gave up the chase when Darnell fired three shots toward him from the Toyota, allowing Cunningham to get away with his two accomplices. Nobody was hit by gunfire. The men then fled north toward Los Angeles with the Toyota reaching speeds of up to 110mph. As it sped through Los Angeles County, Cunningham bolted out of the car and was arrested, according to police. McCrary and Darnell were later arrested in a residential community in South Gate. Police arrested Leroy McCrary McCrary, pictured, following a high-speed chase McCrary and his accomplices are now facing murder and robbery charges All three suspects are now facing murder charges with felony enhancements that make them eligible for the death penalty, as well as second-degree robbery. In addition, Darnell is charged with attempted murder and discharging a firearm after allegedly firing at the Good Samaritan. And McCrary - who cops say acted as the driver - was also charged with evading police while driving recklessly. They are all due back in court on Wednesday. In the meantime, Los Angeles County Sheriff George Gascon is facing a growing storm of anger for his decision to allow McCrary to be free on probation instead of behind bars for a string of earlier LA convictions - including one last year for a similar robbery. Prosecutors say that before last weeks robbery and killing, McCrary had prior convictions for residential burglary in 2018, criminal threats in 2020, and robbery in 2023. He pleaded no contest last year to the robbery charge plus another of being a drug addict in possession of a firearm. Yet he was only sentenced to two years probation and a three-year prison sentence was suspended, leaving him free on the streets. Our shopping centers and malls have become hunting grounds for criminals who are stalking innocent shoppers to rob them blind because our Governor and our Legislature refuse to hold anyone accountable for their actions, blasted Republican Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer when he announced the charges against the three men. He said that McKays murder was a crime that should have never happened, adding, Lawlessness and violence will not be tolerated in our society. McCrary, pictured, has a criminal history including a chillingly similar hold up at a different upmarket beach community Newport Beach Mayor Will O'Neill also reacted with anger to the horrendous slaying of McKay, saying that McCrary 'shouldn't have been in free society' because of his past crimes. Frankly, to hell with these guys These are thugs. Every community is now dealing with this. We have to do better as a society. We cannot tolerate this.' Asked to explain why McCrary didnt get jail time for his previous crimes, Gascon said in a statement that the case against him had significant problems with proof so the management team at the court authorized a plea offer that allowed him to be placed on probation, plus a prison sentence that was suspended. As millions of Texans suffer through the effects of Hurricane Beryl some have turned to a fast-food app to help track power outages. The super storm brought howling winds and torrential rain down on the southern state on Monday, causing the death of eight and leaving over 2.7 million without any electricity. Out of those left stranded, over 1.6 million are CenterPoint Energy customers who have been unable to access the online power outage tracker since it suddenly went offline. As many desperately tried to get in contact with the provider, some social media users have instead turned to using a popular burger-chain's app to track the outages instead. The super storm brought howling winds and torrential rain down on the southern state on Monday - causing the death of eight and leaving over 2.7 million without any electricity A X user named @BBQBryan pointed out that the Whataburger app has become a very handy source to track the power outage, unlike CenterPoint Energy's online tracker. The app allows customers to search any Whataburger restaurant and find out which areas are still suffering from no electric power. Eateries that are closed appear in gray and the ones that are open in orange. The well-meaning user also shared a screenshot of a map showing which locations had their power restored on X. 'The Whataburger app works as a power outage tracker, handy since the electric company doesn't show a map. Still nearly 1.9 million power outages,' he captioned the post. As many desperately tried to get in contact with the provider, some social media users have instead turned to using a popular burger-chain's app to track the outages instead Since the post went viral on the app, Texans have flooded the comment section with jokes about the unconventional solution while others raged. 'Between this and the Waffle House Index who even needs meteorologists?,' one X user questioned. While another quipped: 'Texas problems require Texas solutions...' One enraged X user also said: 'My proposal is that all of Houston NOT pay their July electric bill unless and until the following has been addressed.' While another joked: 'Private enterprise doing best what public service cannot. lol.' 'Whataburger and waffle House always pulling through better than Oncor on these things. Oncor couldn't find my address/account for days. Kept telling me I didn't exist so I don't believe their numbers at all,' a user complained. The app allows customers to search any Whataburger restaurant and find out which areas are still suffering from no electric power Whataburger President and CEO Ed Nelson also released a statement and 'encouraged residents to also call local units' Whataburger President and CEO Ed Nelson also released a statement and 'encouraged residents to also call local units'. 'Were glad the Whataburger app has been helpful to Houston residents to understand where power is available in the city. 'Keep in mind, the app should only be used as a general idea of power availability. We encourage residents to call local units to see if they are open and operating. Everyone please be safe if you leave your home.' Some hospitals in the Houston have also suffered damage during the storm and have been forced to close their doors Tuesday to non-emergency appointments. At least one is operating on generator power. Beryl hit land as a Category 1 hurricane, strengthening from a tropical storm over the Gulf of Mexico. It later weakened into a tropical depression with maximum wind speeds of about 35mph. The storm, which was expected to rapidly weaken as it moved inland, swept a destructive path through Jamaica, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines last week. It killed at least 11 in Mexico and the Caribbean and before reaching Texas. A well-known Jewish family were kicked out of a shop in Vietnam after the owner said he 'doesn't welcome' people from Israel. Dani Namdar and his wife Raizel, an Australian-Swedish couple who run the 'That Jewish Family' vlog, were visiting Train Street in Hanoi with their two young children when the owner started 'spewing hate'. They were sitting at a table outside the shop when the 'pro-Palestine' owner started yelling them after noticing that Mendel, 3, was wearing a Kippah. 'Get out of my shop. Out! Don't sit there. My shop doesn't accept people from your country,' he told the family. When Mr Namdar asked if his wife and kids were being kicked out because they are Jewish, the shop owner said, 'No, no, no. I dont welcome'. Mendel said the man told him that he should take his Kippah off, telling his mother, 'I want to keep it on... we keep it on even when we sleep'. 'That Jewish Family' shared footage of the incident on Instagram, racking up more than two million views in the past fortnight. 'This is not Germany in 1938. This is a "pro-Palestinian" shop owner in Vietnam yesterday,' the caption said. 'You say anti-Zionism is not anti-Jewish? We were casually chilling on the famous train tracks in Hanoi for a photoshoot when a "pro-Palestinian" shop owner started threatening our children once he saw Mendel's Kippah.' The parents described the incident as 'really traumatic', saying it is difficult to explain antisemitism to such a small child. 'How do you explain to a three-year-old what he witnessed? That someone doesnt like him because of the way hes born,' the video caption continued. 'We had a lot of conversations together afterwards and it just made me so sad that a three-year-old had to experience cruelty.' A second clip showed the owner giving the family the middle finger while saying 'Free Palestine' and 'We only welcome humans and animals'. When Mr Namdar asked if he is considered 'human', he was met with silence. At one stage the owner chucked as he told the family to be careful with their kids because 'Israel is sending bombs'. 'Be careful here. The baby is not safe. The bombs are automatic, they fly on the baby,' the owner said referencing the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. Despite this, the family said Jewish people are not victims and that they will not let anyone tear away their pride. 'This is so important to share as we cant turn a blind eye to reality. Anti-Zionism is antisemitism, period,' the caption read. 'I dont care, try and say its not but my three year old being thrown out of the store for wearing a kippah - you cant convince anyone otherwise. 'And saying that his store only welcomes humans, cats and dogs but not us, come on.' Dani Namdar and his wife Raizel, from 'That Jewish Family' vlog, were visiting Train Street in Hanoi with their two young children when the owner started 'spewing hate' But not everyone supported 'That Jewish Family', with many saying they would love to support that man's shop. 'Chill out. Not like your kids got blown to pieces after being told to evacuate to a safe place,' one person said. 'Thanks for the Awesome review. Will definitely visit the restaurant now! That dude is a hero,' a second person commented. Meanwhile others described the shop owner's behaviour as 'absolutely disgusting'. The family said this was the only anti-Semitic experience they had in Vietnam and that everyone else was very friendly. 'A comment on the previous post said something along the lines of "I am just going to focus on your boys response. Everything else is just noise" and we couldnt resonate more,' the caption concluded. 'There might be so much hate, but our focus needs to be on love, because that is what is going to heal this world.' Daily Mail Australia contacted the family for comment. Australia's worst food delivery driver has fled the country after racking up hundreds of demerit points and allegedly stealing a motorbike. NSW Police issued an arrest warrant for the French national, 23, who was hit with an extraordinary 385 demerit points while delivering for Hungry Panda and other services. But the manhunt could be futile after police told Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday that by the time the warrant was issued on June 19, the Frenchman was long gone. 'Officers attached to Traffic and Highway Patrol command have been conducting inquiries into the whereabouts of a 23-year-old man and on Friday 7 June 2024, attended an address in Zetland,' police said. 'However, he was unable to be located and subsequent inquiries revealed the man had left Australia on Thursday 6 June 2024.' The driver's appalling record - accrued over about just six months in Australia - also extended to him renting a black Yamaha scooter from City Car King at Alexandria, Sydney on March 21 - and allegedly not returning it. The Frenchman destroyed the bike's $400 tracker so he could keep the scooter without being found while working for various food delivery companies. Ryde Highway patrol stopped the delivery motor scooter rider who later went on to accumulate 385 demerit points and has now fled the country The 23-year-old French national earnt a massive 385 demerit points since arriving in Australia late last year - but police cannot find him (stock image) The man's shocking driving record was discovered after NSW Police highway patrol officers applied to Transport NSW for his full record due to his continual offending. It was while riding the Yamaha that the Frenchman received hundreds of demerit points, police said. The rider was convicted of larceny and destroying property in June, but it was handed down without him present after he failed to turn up to court on multiple occasions. The motorbike rider always produced his international licence to police when they pulled him over. Police said they were not in charge of the demerit system and it was Transport NSW's responsibility, which also maintains point tallies. The French national keeps changing addresses and not showing up for court. NSW Police now have an arrest warrant out for the rider (stock image of a food delivery rider) A Transport for NSW spokesman said it was 'actively managing the case' with both the police and Revenue NSW. Astonishingly, the bike theft is not the only one the Sydney business has had to deal with. A staff member said they didn't remember the Frenchman renting the scooter because they 'have about 50 of these cases where people steal bikes'. 'They come in here, some people dont even try and rent, they just steal a bike and go we give all the information to police,' the staff member said. This video is no longer available This video is no longer available Shocking footage has captured the moment a thief allegedly stole $330 in cash after he distracted a worker while he paid for a can of soft drink at a grocery store. The incident happened at a Betros Brothers shop on Russel Street, in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane at 10.15am on Sunday. The man, who was wearing a hoodie and a face mask, was captured on CCTV footage walking up to the checkout with a bottle of water and a can of Red Bull. The man paid for the items with coins, but as the 15-year-old female worker was processing the payment, he reached across and allegedly took some cash. He allegedly fled the scene with the money along with the bottled water and soft drink as the young staffer tried to stop him. Two other staff members gave chase, but the man managed to escape and was last seen heading past a railway track. The owner of the store, Bevan Betros, said the young worker was left traumatised by the event. 'It's a terrible thing to happen here,' he told 7 News. The man paid for the items with coins, but as the young staffer was processing the payment, he reached across and allegedly took some cash (pictured) The man, who was wearing a hoodie and a face mask (pictured) was captured on CCTV footage walking up to the checkout with a bottle of water and a can of Red Bull 'This is what you don't need, especially in a shop full of people.' Betros Brothers stores have been targeted several times in the past with thieves attempting to steal items from the store in 2023. During a separate incident, two women were involved in a wild brawl, with the pair captured on camera throwing a flurry of punches at each other. Mr Betros said he is fed up by the behaviour and has urged locals to try and identify the man allegedly involved in the most recent incident. 'What are we doing here? What's it all about?' he said. 'How much longer is this going to go on for?' A Queensland Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia officers are still trying to track the man down. 'Investigations are ongoing,' the spokeswoman said. Anyone with information about the incident has been urged to contact police. President Joe Biden stumbled over his words and lost his train of thought while debating Donald Trump on June 27. The next day, he was energetic and cogent at a campaign rally. My heart sank as I watched President Joe Biden stumble over his words and lose his train of thought in his debate against Donald Trump. While it may be hard to precisely define a mental and physical decline associated with aging, to millions of people who had tuned into the debate, it was unmistakable that Biden had become more frail. In response, major Democratic donors have pressured Biden to quit his campaign. House and Senate Democrats are debating whether they should continue to support Biden. The New York Times editorial board and others have called for him to step aside. As a physician who regularly cares for older patients, I have found the focus on President Bidens age and mental sharpness unsatisfyingly inadequate to make sense of what is unfolding before our eyes. Biden is old, but so is Trump. At times Biden struggles to complete his thoughts but also seems perfectly energetic and cogent at other times. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Some have called for Biden to take a cognitive test to understand his mental fitness for the presidency, but a widely used one such as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment is far from helpful for this purpose. The evaluation includes reading simple words such as velvet and recalling them after five minutes, and writing a sentence yes, any sentence. We would not assess the qualification of sprinters for the Olympics by seeing if they can walk 100 meters without falling over. We should not use cognitive tests designed to screen for dementia to determine someones fitness for the highest office in the country. Instead, I believe the framework of frailty can help us better make sense of what we see in President Biden, anticipate what we may see in him in the near future, and in doing so, help us make a better assessment of his fitness to serve four more years as our president. Frailty is broadly defined as a clinically recognizable state of increased vulnerability resulting from aging-associated decline in reserve and function across multiple physiologic systems such that the ability to cope with everyday or acute stressors is compromised. Frailty commonly manifests as exhaustion, slow gait, weakness and unintentional weight loss. Cognitive impairment, though seldom included in the clinical criteria for frailty, often affects frail adults. Importantly, disability seen in frailty tends to fluctuate daily, resulting in good days and bad days. Though frailty is associated with aging, the two are not synonymous. An 80-year-old who runs a mile every day and remains energetic would not be considered frail, whereas a 45-year-old with multiple medical problems who has to depend on others for everyday housework exhibits some degree of frailty. And, frailty is not a binary condition but exists on a scale. Someone with mild frailty could do most activities but simply become easily tired, whereas another person with severe frailty could be completely dependent on others for daily activities, such as bathing and dressing. I certainly would not try to clinically diagnose President Biden with frailty. Doing so would require an in-person clinical assessment by a trained medical professional and not simply reviewing his debate performance or radio interviews. Yet, based on what is visible to us, Biden certainly appears physically and mentally weaker more frail compared to just a few years ago. Thus, the framework of frailty can help us make sense of what we see in President Biden today and predict what we may see in the near future. Advertisement Article continues below this ad First, the fluctuating nature of frailty-associated disability helps us make sense of his recent uneven performance. Just a few months ago, Bidens State of the Union address was considered unexpectedly rousing. The day after his terrible debate performance, Biden was animated, coherent and furious at a rally in Raleigh, N.C., making people wonder, where was this guy last night? In an interview with a Philadelphia-based radio station just days later, Biden made a gaffe when he said: Im proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first Black woman, to serve with a Black president. Though his widely oscillating display of mental sharpness may be confusing when viewed from the mentally sharp vs. not sharp perspective, it is common in frail older adults. Second, an increased vulnerability to stressors in frailty helps us partially explain his abysmal debate performance. In my clinic, I frequently see frail patients come in with confusion resulting from seemingly minor stressors such as a urinary tract infection or a medication side effect. It is more than conceivable that Bidens explanation of having a cold may be accurate. The conclusion I would draw from it is not one of assurance, Oh, he just had a cold, but rather he is so frail that even a cold can visibly throw off his mental sharpness. And he will continue to experience stressors in his campaign, and potentially in his second term, ranging from common colds, jet lag and long days at multiple campaign stops. Biden reportedly told Democratic governors that he needs more sleep and less work at night. I agree with him that doing so will minimize stress on his body and mind. Unfortunately, this reality of frailty and increased vulnerability will leave us with a presidential candidate and a president who may have to significantly restrain his duties to remain functional. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Third, though disabilities associated with frailty may fluctuate daily, frailty and aging are both a one-way street in the long run. Partly, this occurs with steady and ongoing wear and tear of our vital organs but frequently happens as a result of a significant illness. A significant fall, a bad bout of flu and hospitalization due to pneumonia often debilitate frail patients to the point that they have a hard time getting out of bed, during which time their muscles can atrophy significantly; returning to a pre-illness level would require intensive training. As the campaign intensifies, stressors will surely become more frequent on the president as he juggles his presidential duties, including dealing with multiple wars, with campaign events that require him to travel frequently and stand for hours at end. We may likely see even more frequent lapses in mental acuity or incidents where he appears slow and weak more frequent bad days. Yet, I can empathize with President Biden and his confidence in his health, mental fitness and ability to serve. In my clinic, my patients often have told me, Oh, I dont really have any medical issues before a long list of medical problems and medications is revealed. I have come to appreciate that ones physical vulnerability is one of the most difficult things to process, perhaps because it hits too close to inevitable mortality and often incomprehensible irrelevance. About Opinion Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership. Read more about our transparency and ethics policies With my patients, Ive found that those who adhere to the lifestyle of their idealized self rather than adjusting to the realities of their frail body often accelerate their decline along the slope of frailty. We can only hope that President Biden, and those who care for him, make a decision thats best for him and the country. EXCLUSIVE Anthony Albanese stood up in Parliament eight months ago to apologise to his staff for pro-Palestine protesters blocking access to his office in his inner-west Sydney electorate. But fast forward to today and the PM's constituency office in Marrickville, in Sydney's inner west, is still closed to the public, with staff warned it is too dangerous to work there and the Prime Minister himself unable to visit. As the PM was branded 'weak' by the Opposition last night, Mr Albanese bizarrely refused to ask the authorities to move the protesters on - or at least, clear a path for locals. Mr Albanese already knew he had a problem last December, when he apologised to his staff days before Christmas for the havoc pro-Palestine demonstrations were causing. 'To Tim Murray [manager of the PMs electorate office] and my electorate staff I'm sorry that there are so many demonstrations at the moment,' the PM told Parliament. 'Blocking an electorate office of a member of parliament doesn't change a political decision. 'What it does is stop people who need their local member from getting access on issues of social security, health care and others.' But more than eight months later and the PM's constituents are still being prevented from discussing vital services such as Centrelink and Medicare assistance at his electorate office. Anthony Albanese stood up in Parliament eight months ago to apologise to his staff for pro-Palestine protesters blocking access to his office in his inner-west Sydney electorate The outside of the PM's office in Marrickville, in Sydney's inner west, has been occupied by a pro-Palestine encampment - preventing constituents from accessing the office Just yesterday, a spokesperson to the PM confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that the ongoing blockade of his office is causing a 'disruption for vulnerable Australians seeking help'. Yet Mr Albanese remains unwilling to break up the protests to do something about that. That's despite the fact the protestors are breaking the law by fixing signs to the taxpayer-funded electorate office and squatting within the boundaries of the property itself. When Daily Mail Australia enquired how such a situation could be allowed to happen, a spokesperson for the PM said 'citizens in a democracy have a right to peaceful protest.' Asked to explain the inconsistency between allowing protestors in the PM's backyard to block entry to his office and affix signs to the building when attempts to do the same thing at Parliament House in Canberra last week resulted in serious action, the PM's spokesperson declined to give a response. On those occasions protestors are arrested, fined and removed. Pro-Palestine protesters have stopped Mr Albanese from using his own office - and his constituents from visiting and accessing its services. Authorities haven't lifted a finger Some of the signage out the front of the property In his speech to Parliament last year the PM noted that 'the Middle East is a very difficult issue, but my electorate office are not responsible for anything that is happening there'. Despite not being responsible, staff have had to endure most of the year being dislodged from their workplace, with no end in sight. Meanwhile, constituents needing to access vital services such as assistance with Centrelink payments or help navigating the NDIS or guidance about how to access crisis support services can't get the help they need by visiting the office. The blockade also means constituents can't access the premises to obtain items such as Australian flags or copies of the Uluru Statement, which are made available in electorate offices across the country. The PM's electorate recorded one of the highest Yes votes for the Voice at last year's referendum. Pro-Palestinian protestors scaled onto the roof of Australian Parliament last week. Their presence was not tolerated All electorate offices are soon due to receive posters of King Charles to replace the posters of Queen Elizabeth II that have previously been available for constituents to access. But not in the PM's electorate, which recorded one of the highest republican votes at the 1999 referendum. Opposition Leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, told Daily Mail Australia the PM needs to take action: 'Anthony Albanese needs to act on the threat that Greens and extremists pose rather than acquiescing to them. 'Protests are rightly protected in a society of free speech but indefinite barricades and blockades are not. 'The PMs constituents deserve access to their local MP just like any other Australian. Its time for Mr Albanese to stop seeking sympathy for closures of his office and to get authorities to act on these blockades.' Liberal MP Ted O'Brien said Mr Albanese's constituents deserved better. 'It's true that the electorate office staff don't deserve this and nor do the locals, but it's also a sad indictment of the Prime Minister's authority or lack thereof,' he said. 'To leave the situation unresolved for so long sends a message of weakness beyond the Prime Minister's own electorate. 'I stand with the people of Grayndler.' Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said: 'The targeting of electorate offices is completely unacceptable and we need stronger action to stamp it out for good. We stand ready to support stronger measures to stop these attacks so electorate offices can reopen to do their important work. 'But it feels like this government has lost control on social cohesion, we are seeing real pressures boil over; our war memorials are being defaced, MPs are being targeted and our Parliament has been subject to unacceptable displays of hate and ignorance.' Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie said Mr Albanese needed to stand up to the protestors. 'The PM should no longer accept this indulgent behaviour,' she said. 'Being a prime minister, and the leader of the country, you cant be passive in this situation. Peaceful protests shouldnt be able to obstruct the work of local parliamentarians engaging with their constituents.' Sir Keir Starmer arrived in Washington today to meet US President Joe Biden and other Nato leaders at a summit to mark the alliance's 75th anniversary - amid a row over UK defence spending. The Prime Minister and his wife Victoria touched down with their entourage at Joint Base Andrews in the early hours of the morning for his first foreign trip since taking office. He will met the under-pressure US president and a host of other leaders including president Zelensky of Ukraine over the next two days in his first diplomatic blitz, accompanied by senior ministers. The trip comes as Sir Keir presses for European nations to increase defence spending, but has refused to guarantee meeting his flagship commitment to hit 2.5 per cent of GDP within his first term in office, despite a 'cast iron' promise to get there. The timescale will be set out after a wholesale defence review being launched next week - which may take a year - and must comply with the Government's strict 'fiscal rules' on spending and borrowing. However sources told the Telegraph that the review could also look at increasing the size of the British Army, whose strength fell to a 200-year low under the Tories. The summit is also an introduction for Lady Starmer to international diplomacy. She stayed largely out of the limelight during the election campaign but will take part in a series of engagements with other leaders' wives and husbands over the coming days. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria disembark from their plane at Joint Base Andrews, a US military facility near Washington DC, last night to attend the Nato summit Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer arrives at Joint Base Andrews near Washington DC last night Sir Keir Starmer's wife Victoria Starmer at Joint Base Andrews in Washington DC last night Your browser does not support iframes. Sir Keir will hold talks with Mr Biden in the White House this evening as the US President faces domestic pressures over his age and suitability to run for a second term. The prospect of Donald Trump being returned to the White House in November's election is being viewed as cause for concern within the alliance given his past criticisms of Nato and his threats to reduce aid to Ukraine. European Nato states face shouldering a greater burden as part of a drive to 'Trump proof' the alliance should the Republican candidate return to office and weaken US commitment to the 32-nation bloc. Speaking to reporters, Sir Keir was repeatedly pressed on whether the goal of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP would be reached within his first term. He said: 'We are committed to the 2.5 per cent, as I have said before the election and I say again after the election. That is obviously subject to our fiscal rules, but the commitment is there. President Joe Biden speaks at the 75th anniversary of Nato in Washington DC last night Nato leaders have a 'family photo' at the Andrew W Mellon Auditorium in Washington last night Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks on the sideline of Nato summit in Washington last night 'The strategic review will take place, that will happen next week, and we will set out the details of that. 'The manifesto commitment was that it would take place within a year, I would like it to be quicker than that if I'm honest and we'll set out the details about how we are going to do it.' Officials have described 2.5 per cent as a 'cast iron commitment' but the announcement a strategic defence review will be launched next week did not include any timetable for ramping up spending. Defence minister Luke Pollard told Times Radio today the Government will aim to complete the review in less than a year. But shadow defence secretary has urged the Government to provide 'clarity'. James Cartlidge wrote to new Defence Secretary John Healey to ask when spending would be increased. In his letter, Mr Cartlidge said: 'Making such a clear commitment is vital for our national security. 'Our armed forces need the certainty and clarity on their funding in order to plan and prepare for the future. It is necessary to prepare everything from accommodation and benefits for service personnel to ensuring that they are equipped with the latest capabilities, equipment and technology.' He added that it was 'high time' the Government made its plans on defence spending clear. Before his election defeat, Rishi Sunak had committed to reach 2.5 per cent by 2030 at a total cost of 75billion over six years. Nato members have an official goal of spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence and 23 members are now thought to have reached that level. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer talks to journalists on his plane to Washington DC last night Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria board a plane at London Stansted Airport yesterday Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks to media at Stansted Airport yesterday before boarding But in the context of this year's US election, Sir Keir acknowledged more needed to be done, particularly on locking in support for Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is at the summit. 'On the question of how we show that commitment here at this summit, given there is going to be an election in America later this year, I think it's very important at this summit, and I think there is a real opportunity for real unity,' Sir Keir told reporters. 'It's the largest group of Nato countries, together with the additions that we've got, and the package that we are seeking to advance, it goes beyond the support that's been put in before and will be locked in - I hope - at this Nato conference.' There would be a financial package, military aid and an industrial strategy to support Ukraine, he indicated. Sir Keir confirmed that decisions on the use of UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles were for the Ukrainian armed forces to make, indicating they would be permitted to strike against targets within Russia. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the House of Commons yesterday as Parliament returned Sir Keir Starmer during a meeting with English regional mayors at 10 Downing Street yesterday Sir Keir Starmer speaks to the media following his first Cabinet meeting at No.10 last Saturday Newly elected Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaking outside 10 Downing Street last Friday The UK military aid was 'for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes'. The Russian strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv on Monday was a 'tragic backdrop to this summit' and 'strengthens the resolve' of Nato against Vladimir Putin, he said. Asked if it was a war crime, the Prime Minister said: 'In relation to its specific category within international law, that will be a matter for others in due course, but it is shocking and appalling and it's the duty of everyone to describe it in those terms.' He said the summit should demonstrate to Mr Putin the 'clear and united resolve' of the alliance to 'stand with Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression, whether in relation to Ukraine or whether elsewhere including cyber aggression and other ways in which Russia is aggressive around the world'. In an alleged act of animal cruelty beyond belief, a woman is accused of trying to insert a bag of meth into her miniature Dachshund's anus after police pulled her over. Police stopped the 43-year old woman from Girrawheen in Perth's north after believing they saw her drive rapidly out of a shopping centre carpark. They allege she took a small package out of her bra when officers told her they were going to search her and her vehicle. She then attempted to insert the package into her dog's anus, police claim. The package was recovered, with police claiming it contained about two grams of meth. The incident was reported to the RSPCA WA and the woman's dog was seized. A vet examined the dog, which tested positive to amphetamine. There was also allegedly meth in its system but it was below reportable levels. The woman has been charged with animal cruelty, with RSPCA WA alleging she acted cruelly towards her dog by attempting to place a package containing illicit drugs into her dog's anus, knowing the dog's anal area was already infected and sore. A 43-year old Perth woman has been charged with animal cruelty for allegedly inserting a bag of meth into her dog's anus after police pulled her over in her vehicle (stock image) Police stopped the 43-year old woman from Girrawheen in Perth's north after they allege she drove rapidly out of a shopping centre carpark. WA Police car pictured 'RSPCA WA will also allege that the accused should have known that,' a spokesperson said. 'If she had succeeded in inserting the package into her dog's anus, it was likely that the methylamphetamine would be absorbed into the dog's body.' The maximum penalty is a $50,000 fine and five years in prison. The woman is due to appear in the Joondalup Magistrates Court on August 2. Two children who attended a Liverpool primary school which is battling an outbreak of an infectious stomach bug have died. The pair, believed to be just five and six years old, had been pupils at Millstead Primary School, which provides education for children with special needs in Everton, Merseyside. Their headteacher said everyone connected with the school was 'devastated' by their deaths, and that they had 'filled their classes with joy'. The school had been dealing with an outbreak of giardiasis, an infection caused by a parasite which causes diarrhoea, stomach cramps, flatulence and bloating. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) had been managing the outbreak of the illness and said that although the reason for their deaths has not been confirmed as of yet, it is 'unlikely' to be due to the bug. The two children had been attending Millstead Primary School in Everton, Merseyside, before their deaths The school is currently dealing with an outbreak of the stomach bug giardia, which is caused by the parasite giardia lamblia. Pictured: A photomicrograph image of a giardia lamblia parasite Giardisis is generally not considered to be a serious risk to health and can be treated easily with antibiotics. A spokesman for the UKHSA said: 'UK Health Security Agency are aware of the sad deaths of two children who attend Millstead Primary School and our thoughts are with the family, friends and school community. 'The deaths are unlikely to be due to giardia. Giardia usually causes a self-limiting gastrointestinal illness which can spread easily in households and school settings.' The agency has not said when either child died but a letter from the school's headteacher was sent on May 21, alerting parents to two cases of Giardiasis confirmed at the school. In a statement Michelle Beard, who is the headteacher of the special needs school, said the children would be 'forever in our hearts'. She said: 'The entire Millstead School community is devastated to have learned of the sad recent passing of two of our younger children. 'We have sent our sincerest condolences to both of their families. Both children filled their classes with joy during their time with us, and they will forever be in our hearts. 'We are working closely with our families, staff and pupils to support them as we come to terms with this terribly sad news.' The outbreak of giardia, which is caused by the parasite giardia lamblia, was first reported by the Liverpool Echo last month. Michelle Beard, the headteacher at Millstead Primary School, said the community was 'devastated' by the deaths of the children Since then health officials have put preventative measures in place to stop the outbreak, including closing the school entirely for one week in a bid to stop it spreading. Emma Savage, consultant in health protection for the UKHSA Cheshire and Merseyside Health Protection Team, said: 'Investigations are ongoing, and we have provided information and advice to the school and parents. Public health measures have been put in place to help prevent further cases.' Giardiasis can be spread by direct contact with infected people or animals, or from swallowing contaminated water, food or drinks. Once treated symptoms should stop in about a week but can sometimes last longer. The bug can be prevented by washing hands with soap and water, especially after using the toilet and before handling and eating food. Children should be encouraged to wash their hands regularly. A retired pub landlord who was 'held hostage' by a Turkish hospital for weeks after falling ill on holiday without insurance was forced to pay 25,000 to be allowed to go home. Malcolm Stocker, 68, began suffering from an upset stomach two days before the end of a two-week trip to Marmaris with his girlfriend Jane. He was admitted to the Ahu Hospital, where doctors said he was suffering from pneumonia and put in him an induced coma with a medical ventilator for two weeks. But when the grandfather recovered, the hospital refused to release him until his family paid the first half of the 49,000 medical bill they said he had racked up. His distraught children said that getting a lawyer helped them to reduce the bill to 25,000, and they launched a fundraiser to help pay the 'extortionate' sum. It raised more than 17,000, with the family picking up the remainder of the bill, and after more than a month of 'hell' Mr Stocker is now home in Exmouth, Devon. Malcolm Stocker's family have said it is a 'huge relief' to have the grandfather home in Devon The retired pub landlord was put in an induced coma and intubated before being brought out of it and heavily sedated, his family said Emma-Jane Stocker, 37, from Bournemouth, and her father Malcolm Stocker, 68, of Exmouth His son Lee, 42, said: 'It is a huge relief for dad to be back home. It has been an absolute nightmare not knowing what was happening one day to the next. 'The cost of it is just ridiculous, it feels like the hospital was just making up figures. I employed a lawyer and he got it down from 49,000 to 25,000. 'It is extortionate. It has been said that the hospitals there like to overcharge foreigners five times the amount, I don't know how they get away with it.' 'Everyone who donated is absolutely amazing. Without all the help and support of the people who donated we would not be here right now.' Mr Stocker's daughter Emma-Jane also thanked those who donated and said her father would still be in Turkey without their help. The 33-year-old added that her dad is now home and recovering, and is awaiting tests and to make sure his health is ok. Mr Stocker and his partner flew to Turkey on May 7 for a two-week break. The Ahu Hospital in Marmaris, Turkey, where Mr Stocker has been in an intensive care unit Due to several pre-existing conditions, he was refused medical insurance for the trip but still decided to go knowing he was not covered for an emergency. Just two days before he was due to fly home, Mr Stocker fell ill with a stomach bug and was admitted to hospital on May 19. He was severely dehydrated and his sodium and potassium levels were found to be dangerously low. A chest X-ray showed he had pneumonia and he was placed in a medical coma and intubated for two weeks, before being brought out of it. It was then his family were informed of the rising medical bill. Emma-Jane said she had heard reports of other foreign patients being unnecessarily sedated in Turkish hospitals to increase the medical bills. She said during their ordeal: 'It is like they are holding him hostage and won't release him until the first 20,000 is paid. They won't give us an itemised bill or any paperwork. It seems like it is all made up.' Ms Stocker, who works as a medical secretary, flew out to see her father with her older sister Kerry-Ann, 37. She said few staff at the hospital spoke English and they had not been granted access to any of his doctors. Malcolm Stocker, pictured before he fell ill, has been in intensive care for almost a month Lee, a taxi driver from Weymouth, was determined to stay by his father's side and spent six-and-a-half weeks with him in Turkey, with his employer Weyline kindly paying for his hotel. After flying back to Britain, Malcolm stopped off at the Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester for a check-up before returning home to Exmouth. Lee added: 'Dad is doing ok. He still doesn't feel well and is struggling with mobility after seven weeks in bed. 'He's got a bit of a way to go still and we're booking doctor appointments for blood tests and things to find out exactly what's going on. 'It's been a headache but we're so glad to be home.' Emma-Jane said: 'If anything comes from this, we hope this raises awareness. 'Please never travel without insurance and find yourself in this situation. Spare yourself weeks of hell and battling!' MailOnline has contacted Ahu Hospital for comment. A British hit-and-run driver has been sentenced to 22 years in prison in Cyprus for causing the death of a man after deliberately knocking him off his bike following a row outside a nightclub. The 46-year-old unnamed Brit was sentenced on Tuesday for the manslaughter of Ioannis Polycarpou in Paphos in January 2023. According to local reports, Polycarpou was at a local club in Paphos on January 21 when he got into a row with the Briton. The row escalated dramatically as the night went on. After leaving the nightclub, Polycarpou was riding his motorcycle down Tomsbs of the Kings avenue in Paphos when a car slammed into the back of his motorcycle. View of a police car parked in the streets of Paphos, Cyprus. A British man has been sentenced to 22 years in prison in Paphos for causing the death of a man after knocking him off his bike following a nightclub row Polycarpou was knocked off before the British driver fled the scene. He was rushed to Paphos General Hospital but was tragically pronounced dead on arrival. Hours later, the British man was found by police driving in his car, which reportedly had damage to it from the previous night's collision with the biker. He is said to have tried to cover it up with spray paint. He was also tested for narcotics, which came out positive. The Brit was arrested and has remained in custody since his arrest. He was initially charged with premeditated murder, but the charges were later reduced to manslaughter. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter after a heated row that led him to intentionally strike motorcyclist Polycarpou. The tragic incident comes two years after another British man was sentenced to two and a half years in a Cypriot prison after being accused of running down and killing a Swedish mother whilst driving a beach buggy in the holiday party town of Ayia Napa, and then fleeing the scene. Manraj Singh Sidhu, 25, appeared in court for allegedly killing Camilla Christina Pamdahl, 46, who suffered multiple injuries after being hit on a pedestrian crossing. The man was allegedly five times over the legal drink-drive limit and had cannabis in his blood when he ran the woman down. A spectacular photograph has captured the moment a bolt of lightning struck against the backdrop of a stunning double rainbow. Evie-Mae Parkinson, 19, took the 'once in a lifetime' photograph in Dereham, Norfolk, during a thunder storm. The teenager said she had gone outside to look at the rain when she saw the double rainbow. Ms Parkinson started taking photos of the rainbows as they stood out from the dark clouds behind, when the lightning struck. She added that capturing an image like this, which she managed to take on Sunday, was 'very rare'. Evie-Mae Parkinson, 19, captured this spectacular photograph where a bolt of lightning strikes against the backdrop of a stunning double rainbow Rainbows are optical illusions formed when sunlight hits drops of rain at a 42 degree angle or below. When a ray of light hits a rain drop, it is separated into its constituent colours, each of slightly different wavelengths, by a process called refraction. It is then reflected back towards the viewer in its dispersed form and when this happens on a big scale we perceive it as a colourful arch. Storms provide a prime opportunity for rainbows as their volatility often means there is rain in one direction but sun in another. For someone to perceive a rainbow, they must be between the sun and the rainfall. What is a double rainbow? Double rainbows are actually relatively common, but the second arc is often barely visible in its completion. The second, fainter rainbow is also always higher by 10 degrees, wider and the order of colours is reversed - putting red on the base and violet at the top. According to the Met Office, this phenomenon comes about when sunlight is reflected twice within a raindrop, hence why it appears upside down compared to what we are used to. Advertisement And in this case, the storm also provided the ingredients for a lightning bolt to cap off Ms Parkinson's snap. Met Office spokesman Grahame Madge said: 'Lightning and rainbows are both often derived from intense showery weather systems. So seeing both in the same area is not that unusual, but capturing the two together makes for a spectacular image.' Double rainbows are actually relatively common, but the second arc is often barely visible in its completion. The second, fainter rainbow is also always higher by 10 degrees, wider and the order of colours is reversed - putting red on the base and violet at the top. According to the Met Office, this phenomenon comes about when sunlight is reflected twice within a raindrop, hence why it appears upside down compared to what we are used to. The dark strip of sky between two rainbows is known as Alexander's band, after Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described it in 200AD. Between the angles required to make the two rainbows, no sunlight is scattered by raindrops, making the sky appear darker. The band forms because between the deviation angles of the primary and secondary rainbows none of the sunlight is scattered by the raindrops towards the observer giving the band of dark sky. One of the most high-profile instances of a double rainbow came in September 2022, as crowds gathered outside Buckingham Palace in the rain to mourn the late Queen Elizabeth II. Another appeared for those who had gathered at Windsor Castle to remember the monarch, with Brits saying the Queen 'sent us a sign' and that she has 'really left us'. The six children of an immigrant rags-to-riches dishwasher who ended up a multimillionaire curry tycoon are locked in a bitter court war over his 4.6m fortune. Abdul Khan, who died aged 67 in 2008, built up a lucrative property empire in London having started out as a humble dishwasher in a West End hotel after travelling to the UK from Bangladesh in the 1960s. He worked his way up to become a chef and eventually boss of a successful Indian restaurant, the Clapham Tandoori, on Clapham Common, before going on to buy up a string of south London properties, now worth millions. His children are now in a legal tug of war over who owns the string of homes, with Mr Khan's oldest son, Muhammed Khan, 49, insisting he 'is the sole beneficial owner'. But his five siblings, Ahmed, 43, Sarwar, 42, Shalima, 45, Farhana, 46, and Jennifer Khan, 44, claim Muhammed is a 'cuckoo' and insist they all have a stake in the property portfolio, which they say is held in a trust backed by their late father. They claim a binding deal was done at a 'family meeting' 20 years ago which would see each of the three sons receiving a one-third split from three of the properties, while Muhammed's three sisters would be given leasehold interest of the fourth. But Muhammed 'disputes the existence' of the agreement, claiming his brothers have invented the 'fictitious' 2004 meeting. Muhammed Khan, 49, (pictured at the High Court) son of the late multimillionaire curry tycoon Abdul Khan has insisted he 'is the sole beneficial owner' of the family's 4.6m fortune Barrister William East, for the five siblings, told London's High Court that canny entrepreneur Abdul Khan used profits from his successful curry house to buy houses in Tooting Bec, Norbury, West Norwood and Upper Norwood, currently worth around 4.6million. Muhammed's brothers and sisters insist they all have a stake in the portfolio, which they say was established as a family concern and for all their benefit. But Muhammed is 'resisting the claim in its entirety', said Mr East, adding: 'He says that he is the sole beneficial owner of all the properties'. Muhammed had gone through a rocky relationship with his father in the 1990s and the early 2000s, with Mr Khan criticising his oldest son having 'multiple children out of wedlock.' But relations between father and son thawed when Muhammed began to embrace his responsibilities and become more involved in the family property empire, the court heard, reaching a point where he ended up almost 'freezing out' his younger brother, Ahmed. Mr East said his clients seek a judge's confirmation that three of the properties are held on trust for the three sons in equal shares - and that the fourth property in Essex Grove, Upper Norwood, is held on trust for Abdul's three daughters. The respective houses are in Stapleton Road, Tooting Bec; Norbury Crescent, Norbury; Ullswater Road, West Norwood; and Essex Grove, Upper Norwood. Muhammed is accused of 'freezing out' his younger brother Ahmed Khan (pictured) from the family fortune - which Ahmed said all six siblings had a stake in, following a binding trust deal made during a 2004 'family meeting' They also seek court orders that Muhammed should transfer the leasehold interests in the Essex Grove house to the three sisters, plus orders for sale of the three other homes. From the witness box, Ahmed denied resenting his older sibling for muscling in on the family business after a 'missing decade' when he was alienated from his dad. And Muhammed's barrister, Simon Lane, suggested to him that he viewed his sibling as a 'bit of a cuckoo' when he returned to the family nest after things thawed with his mum and dad. Ahmed said that, as a young man, his older brother failed to fulfil his parents' expectations and was 'in their bad books'. However, Mr Lane put to him: 'Your brother became a bit of a cuckoo from your point of view, didn't he? He came in and he was doing what you thought you should be doing?' 'Not at all,' replied Ahmed. The barrister suggested Ahmed felt Muhammed had become their parents' favourite and was given a pivotal role in handling the property empire, adding that Abdul trusted Muhammed while Ahmed was 'frozen out of the conversation about what would happen to these properties'. 'I disagree, he trusted each and every one of us,' insisted Ahmed. Jennifer Khan, one of the five siblings now battling her older brother Muhammed over their father's 4.6million fortune is pictured arriving at London's High Court But Mr Lane said Ahmed resented his brother because Muhammed 'ended up with all the properties - that's how you see it', also suggesting that Muhammed had helped Ahmed out by letting him run the rental side of the business. 'I disagree,' he replied. Setting out the five siblings' case, Mr East insisted that a binding deal was done at a 'family meeting' in 2004 when it was agreed that each of the three sons would receive a one-third split of the family's expanding property venture. Under that agreement, Muhammed would run the new family nursery business in Norbury Crescent, Norbury - while Ahmed would run the residential letting side of the business. Muhammed had helped by providing mortgage finance to help his dad buy the new nursery property and was to hold the property 'on trust' for his siblings, said Mr East. But Muhammed 'disputes the existence' of the agreement, claiming that his brothers have invented the 'fictitious' 2004 meeting. He says the truth is that he ended up bailing out his mum and dad at the time because they were in financial difficulties, buying one of his properties off Abdul and also paying off some of his debts. But Mr East told the court: 'The claimants say that Muhammed's story simply does not add up. It is, in any event, inconsistent with the idea of Abdul and Fatima to benefit all of their children with their hard-won wealth - not just Muhammed, whose relationship with them had been very poor previously.' The trial continues. Russian intelligence services have once again set their eyes on the US election in an attempt to install ex President Donald Trump in the White House, a new report alleges. Several US officials with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in Washington confirmed the existence of the Russian plan when speaking to The Wall Street Journal. 'We haven't observed a shift in Russia's preferences for the presidential race from past elections,' a senior official is quoted as saying. Various security agencies have previously confirmed that similar Kremlin attacks on US democracy favored Trump. The report also mentions a smaller Iranian influence intended to drive discontent, encouraging people in the US to protest Israel's war in Gaza, Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence said this week. By contract, the WSJ report says that China will not be involved in any sabotage as Beijing views both US President Joe Biden and Trump as being hostile. That decree goes as far as preventing government officials from even mentioning a preference in the election. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has confirmed that her office is also tracking an Iranian election sabotage operation Russian President Vladimir Putin has long claimed that his security services do not interfere in foreign elections Once again, Russian operatives are attempting to install Donald Trump in the White House In addition to its online operations, the report alleges that agents are attempting to influence members of Congress but the scale of the operation is smaller than the one seen in 2016, which aided Trump's ascendancy. Iran's operation meanwhile is more that of a 'chaos agent,' Haines said. 'Americans who participate in protests are, in good faith, expressing their views on the conflict in Gazathis intelligence doesnt indicate otherwise.' Haines added that many protesters may not know that they are conversing with agents from a foreign government. On Tuesday, the Justice Department claimed a win after agents successfully broke up a Russian-run bot farm. Officials described the internet operation as part of an ongoing effort to sow discord in the U.S. through the creation of fictitious social media profiles that purport to belong to authentic Americans The profiles are actually designed to advance the aims of the Russian government, including by spreading disinformation about its war with Ukraine. The scheme was organized in 2022 after a senior editor at RT, a Russian-state-funded media organization that has registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent, helped develop technology for a so-called social media bot farm, security officials say. It received the support and financial approval of the Kremlin, with an officer of Russia's Federal Security Service - or FSB - leading a private intelligence organization that promoted disinformation on social media through a network of fake accounts. President Joe Biden continues to struggle in the polls against Trump as he also faces allegations about a cognitive decline The RT press office did not respond directly to a question about the allegations. The disruption of the bot farm comes as U.S. officials have raised alarms about the potential for AI technology to impact this year's elections and amid ongoing concerns that foreign influence campaigns by adversaries could sway the opinions of unsuspecting voters. This happened during the 2016 presidential campaign when Russians launched a huge but hidden social media trolling campaign aimed in part at helping Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. 'Today's actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm,' FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. 'Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government.' Among the fake posts, according to the Justice Department, was a video that was posted by a purported Minneapolis, Minnesota resident that showed Russian President Vladimir Putin saying that areas of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania were 'gifts' to those countries from liberating Russian forces during World War II. In another instance, the Justice Department said, someone posing as a U.S. constituent responded to a federal candidate's social media posts about the war in Ukraine with a video of Putin justifying Russia's actions. As part of the disruption, the Justice Department seized two domain names and searched 968 accounts on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. According to a joint cybersecurity advisory released Tuesday by U.S., Dutch and Canadian authorities, the software was used to spread disinformation to countries including Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine and Israel. The advisory said that as of last June, the software - known as Meliorator - only worked on X but that its functionality probably could be expanded to other social media networks. A man hired by a woman to blow up her mother-in-laws car in a bitter family feud has been jailed for 16 months. Luke Williams, 25, was enlisted by Alisha Anwar, 29, to torch 54-year-old Christina Place's vehicle outside her Wrexham, North Wales, flat in a twisted revenge attack because she felt her mother-in-law thought she wasn't 'good enough' for her son, Mold Crown Court heard. Anwar was handed a 16 months jail term last week for her role in the attack. Ms Place emerged to find her car ablaze, as flames spread to two other cars and a property which had to be evacuated. It took two fire crews 90 minutes to bring the inferno under control during the 'terrifying' incident. Pictured: Luke Williams, 25, the man hired by a feuding woman to blow up her mother-in-law's car has been jailed for 16 months Alisha Anwar, 29, paid Williams to torch 54-year-old Christina Place's vehicle outside her Wrexham, North Wales, flat in a twisted revenge attack because she felt her mother-in-law thought she wasn't 'good enough' for her son A judge today said it 'almost beggared belief' that one night Williams bought petrol from a garage and filled a jerry can with it before targeting the parked vehicle. Williams, of Gwenfro, Wrexham, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson. He was jailed for 16 months with eight more months, activated from a suspended sentence, to run consecutively. Prosecutor Oliver King said the defendant Williams and his then partner Morwenna Evans were giving Anwar a lift in June 2022 when she made the proposal. A judge in Anwar's trial last week was told Ms Place made it clear that she did not like her daughter-in-law - leading to issues between the pair. Ms Evans thought it was all 'bravado' and that Williams wouldn't be 'stupid enough' to do it, however, four days later CCTV footage showed Williams visiting a petrol station and filling up a jerry can at 6pm. At 12.30am on June 25 he was seen with a carrier bag in an alleyway near Brunel Court. He returned home 15 minutes later without the carrier bag. Ms Place's car was parked in her communal car park at Brunel Court, Wrexham. She was in her living room at about 1am that night when her dogs started barking, the court heard. She looked out and saw an 'orange glow' by a fence panel and soon realised her car was on fire. Emergency services were called. The blaze engulfed three cars and a fence. The heat was so intense it started to melt guttering, fascia boards and window frames of a neighbouring home. Repairs including a new window cost the owner 3,660. It took firefighters an hour and a half to bring the blazes under control. Later investigators found a bottle of petrol under Ms Place's car, said Mr King. Sentencing Williams at Mold Crown Court (pictured), Judge Niclas Parry called the facts of this case 'frankly staggering' Mr King said: 'Clearly had that been heated to boiling point by the car fire it could have exploded. Fortunately it did not.' Mr King said Ms Evans realised her partner was involved and was so worried that she ended their relationship and told police. Officers found Williams had searched for 'arson punishment UK' online. He also told a friend that he had been 'ratted out' by Ms Evans. Mr King said the defendant initially denied arson and was only 'out for a jog' that night. Myles Wilson, defending, said his client had been homeless for a time and had lived in a tent before he bought a car on credit which he should not have done and got into financial difficulties. He became desperate for money and 'stupidly' agreed to get involved in the arson plot, although it hadn't been for a large amount. Mr Wilson added Williams may have autism and ADHD and does not cope with loud, busy places, saying he wears headphones while working as a car valeter and had been 'dreading' the sentencing hearing. The judge, His Honour Niclas Parry, told Williams: 'The public will understand the inherent dangerousness of setting fire to a car near dwelling houses. Arson is always a very serious offence.' He called the facts of this case 'frankly staggering'. 'Unbelievably, you took up an offer to blow up or petrol bomb her car for 150' he said, in circumstances which 'almost beggar belief' and would have been 'terrifying' for residents. Jailing Williams at a time when crowded prison conditions are 'perhaps the most difficult they have been in two decades', the judge also imposed a two-year restraining order prohibiting the defendant from contacting Ms Place or Ms Evans, or going to Brunel Court. Last week, Anwar,also from Wrexham, was sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment for the same offence and was handed a similar restraining order. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, arrives at Democratic National Headquarters with other Democratic members of the House of Representatives to discuss President Joe Bidens candidacy on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. John McDonnell/Associated Press WASHINGTON Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi stopped short of endorsing President Joe Biden staying in the 2024 race, warning Wednesday that he needs to make a decision soon. Its up to the president to decide if hes going to run. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short, Pelosi told MSNBC. One of the most respected lawmakers in the Democratic Party, Pelosi rarely calls out fellow Democrats publicly, so her decision to continue urging Biden to determine whether he will continue to run particularly after Biden has said repeatedly that hes staying in the race could lead to more lawmakers publicly expressing their concerns. Her voice could also hold more sway with Biden because of her seniority, her ability to fundraise on behalf of other Democrats and her political savvy. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Pelosi, who herself stepped down as speaker of the House in 2022, is perceived as one of the wisest political strategists. (She) can read numbers better than almost anybody else in politics, and it sounded to me like she is signaling to the president that he needs to make a decision quickly and that the reason he would need to do so is if hes not going to run, said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics. Pelosi previously told MSNBCs Andrea Mitchell that its legitimate for voters to question Bidens fitness for office following the June 27 debate and urged him to prove himself to voters. This week is widely seen as pivotal for Biden, 81, with many expecting that his ultimate decision on whether to continue in the presidential race will be determined by the time Congress leaves town on Friday. Ive said, Everyone, lets just hold off whatever youre thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you dont have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week, Pelosi said. Biden told ABCs George Stephanopoulos in an interview Friday, If the Lord Almighty came down and said, Joe, get out of the race, Id get out of the race. The Lord Almightys not coming down. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Maybe Nancy Pelosi is stepping in for the Lord Almighty, Walsh said. She is the one congressional Democrat that has the heft and the experience and the kind of respect that might have an impact on his thinking. Bidens uneven performance in a debate against former President Donald Trump, 78, on June 27 ignited a firestorm about the presidents fitness for another term, a blaze that the White House has been unable to snuff out despite Bidens assurances that hes up to the job. While some expected a new flood of Democrats to come out against the president after Tuesday mornings meeting of House Democrats, those numbers have largely held steady. Nearly all Democratic senators had been publicly sticking with Biden until Monday evening, when Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the most senior Senate Democrat, said Biden must do more to demonstrate he can campaign strong enough to beat Donald Trump. California Sen. Alex Padilla pushed back on MSNBC, saying that with all due respect to Pelosi, Joe Biden has given us his answer. And so now its time to move forward because the more time and energy that we commit to questioning or wondering is time and energy that we need to be focusing on reaching out to voters. Biden has insisted in a letter to congressional Democrats and an interview Monday on MSNBC that he has made his decision and plans to stay in the race, but that hasnt stopped Democrats from speculating and discussing whether he is the best candidate for their party. Advertisement Article continues below this ad You think hes made his decision, that can be your opinion, but Im just saying that I would be careful to make an assumption, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told Business Insider on Tuesday. Its a little bit beyond the evidence. Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana reportedly told their fellow Democratic senators that they believe Biden will lose the election. Bennet later went public with those concerns on CNN. A man brutally slashed his ex-wifes throat multiple times at a McDonalds after he threatened to distribute a nude photo of her during a bitter divorce dispute, a court has heard. Mitesh Kumar, 45, appeared in Auckland High Court in New Zealand on Wednesday, where he pleaded guilty to attempted murder and two counts of failing to carry out obligations under search powers. In a sickening attack, Kumar repeatedly slashed his wife with a utility knife at a McDonald's in the Auckland suburb of Wesley earlier this year. Horrific details of Kumars evil actions have been laid bare after the agreed summary of facts were released in court this week. Married for 18 years, Kumar and his ex-wife had two children before going their separate ways in February last year. Prior to the January 11 attack, it had been four months since Kumars ex-wife had seen her children. The pair agreed to meet at the McDonalds, where Kumars ex-wife had expected to be reunited with her children, Stuff reported. Armed with a utility knife hidden in a trouser pocket, Kumar entered the McDonald's and sat at a table after ordering a drink, according to the agreed summary of facts. Mitesh Kumar, 45 appeared in court on Wednesday for the attempted murder of his ex-wife at a McDonald's in Wesley (pictured) in Aucklands south-west on January 11 Kumars ex-wife called him from outside and said that she couldnt see the children with him. He convinced her that the children were across the road and she could wait for them inside the McDonald's. As Kumar waited for his ex-wife, he removed the utility knife, which had a retractable blade, and hid it under his left leg. Kumars ex-wife entered the restaurant and sat opposite him. The agreed facts state Kumar questioned his wife about accepting a lower settlement offer as part of their divorce, and she replied that she didnt want to talk about that. Kumar then showed his ex-wife a nude photo of her on his phone, which had been taken a year earlier. He then threatened to show people the photo if she didnt accept the lower settlement offer. His ex-wife attempted to leave before Kumar stood up, removed the hidden knife, lunged forward and grabbed her. The agreed facts then describe the horrific attack. 'Using the knife, the defendant slashed across the left side of the complainants neck/throat three times,' the facts stated. Kumar pushed her and she fell backwards over a table, before he pushed her again and she was trapped in a corner. He stood over her, grabbed her by the hair and slashed the left side of her neck/throat another three times. Members of the public and McDonald's staff pleaded with Kumar to stop. Kumar was taken to the Auckland City Police Station where he told police his ex-wife wanted too much money in the divorce settlement (stock image) Kumar showed them the knife and said: Dont stop me, just stay away. He continued his attack despite witnesses attempting to intervene, while his ex-wife tried to protect herself. 'Youve wrecked me life...youve lost my kids,' Kumar said to her in Gujarati - a language native to the state on the west coast of India. As Kumar briefly paused the attack, his ex-wife attempted to sit up, but then he continued to repeatedly stab and slash at her neck, throat, upper body and back of her head. His ex-wife attempted to protect herself while huddled in a corner. Kumar paused the attack twice when the knife malfunctioned, but he continued. As members of the public confronted him again, Kumar yelled: 'I want her to die, you can call the police.' Kumar only stopped his attack when the police arrived almost eight minutes after the attack began. His ex-wife was rushed to hospital with multiple penetrating wounds to her upper chest area, throat, left ear, neck and the back of her head. Following Kumars arrest, he refused to provide police with the passwords and PINs to his phone. He continued to decline even after he was warned it was an offence to refuse. Kumar told police his ex-wife wanted too much money in the divorce settlement. 'If she dies, and I go to jail, everything goes to the kids. That is the motive.' Kumar was remanded in custody until his sentencing on November 5. An outraged Aussie has posted the eye-watering increase coming to their gas bill. Under the heading 'Dodo Gas Price Hike - 46 per cent', a Sydney Reddit user bemoaned the imminent steep increase by telecoms and energy retailer Dodo. 'Cue my surprise when I saw Dodo's email with their price increase,' the post said. 'Granted they are giving me a generous $5 discount because I have NBN with them too but a 46 per cent increase in daily (gas) supply charge is a tough stomach punch. 'The 1.4 per cent usage increase is almost humane compared to this.' In a reply to another person saying they had been lumped with a 10 per cent increase from AGL, the original author urged others to call out price hikes by energy providers. 'I have seen another thread regarding AGL a few days ago that inspired me to create this one,' they wrote. 'Hopefully helps to track the development and maybe get people to jump and shame their retailers.' A Reddit user was shocked to notified about a steep increase in the prices they pas for natural gas Many of those commenting offered some helpful advice. 'Just change providers. There's no reward for staying with a provider,' one wrote. 'Even if they lower the rates, it's on you to check and contact them proactively even though they'll happily charge you more.' Another asked: 'Do you rent or own?' 'If the latter, do what you can to ditch gas - induction cooker, heat pump air con and heat pump hot water, and get onto a time variable plan so your hot water sucks up cheap electricity during the day.' However, another Reddit User said that strategy was fatally flawed. 'I've looked into this,' they argued. 'Costs an absolute bomb to do all those electrification things! 'The payback on any energy costs savings is multiple decades. And there are no government incentives or rebates to help either.' Aussie consumers are being hit with higher gas prices something the energy regulator could happened for this and the next winter (stock image) The energy regulator previously warned that Australia's east coast could suffer severe gas shortages with extreme weather conditions hampering supply. Australian Energy Market Operator (AMEO) chief executive Daniel Westerman said falling production in the Bass Strait threatened gas supplies for the next three winters. There are risks of peak day shortfalls each winter, if there are periods of very high demand for both gas for heating and gas and power generation at the same time,' he told the ABC. 'From 2027 onwards, we're highlighting the need for investment in new sources of gas supply to overcome forecast annual shortfalls each year from then on.' Energy Economics and Financial Analysis expert Kevin Morrison told Daily Mail Australia that Aussies were paying twice the price for gas that Americans do despite both countries being major exporters of the energy source. Despite Australia being a major exporter of natural gas Australians are paying twice the price for the energy source that Americans do He said a lack of competition was largely to blame in Australia most domestically produced gas being exported. 'In the US, you have the big companies such as Chevron and Exxon as well as the likes of Shell are there in a major way,' Mr Morrison explained. 'In Australia, the biggest coal seam gas producers are three consortiums in Queensland, and the majority of the gas they produce goes offshore.' The other major gas producer for eastern Australia is the joint venture between Exxon and Woodside in the Gippsland Basin region of southeast Victoria. 'They and the Queensland consortiums control three-quarters of the gas reserves in eastern Australia,' Mr Morrison said. 'If you have a handful of producers, they would know what each other is doing, and they would be able to keep the markets from being too flushed with gas.' A mother who slammed Jetstar cabin crew as 'disgusting' after they allegedly refused to help her while travelling alone with her baby has hit back at critics who branded her 'entitled'. Larissa Davey, from Melbourne, was flying to the Gold Coast last Friday on a separate flight to her sister because their original booking had been cancelled by the budget airline. The mum-of-one, who runs a children's clothing company, claimed staff refused to help her, allegedly telling her it was not their responsibility. Jetstars treatment of women travelling alone with babies is absolutely disgusting, Ms Davey seethed in a video uploaded to social media. The mother claimed that she asked a staff member if someone could help her with her bags on the plane, to which the staff member allegedly replied: Only if they want to.' 'I've got my daughter on my hip, nappy bag, pram in the hand. I literally don't have a free hand,' she added. Ms Davey then asked another staff member if they could help her across the tarmac, to which she was allegedly told: 'It's not our responsibility.' 'That is actually disgusting,' she fumed. Mother-of-one Larissa Davey was flying to the Gold Coast last Friday on a separate flight to her sister because their original booking had been cancelled by the airline The mum-of-one claimed that Jetstar staff refused to help her, allegedly telling her it was not their responsibility (stock image) 'Like what about your responsibility as a freaking human? They are just a***holes.' She said the staff needed a 'lesson in manners - and a new job'. A spokesperson for Jetstar said their 'customer care team has reached out to her to better understand what happened'. 'We want all parents to feel welcome and comfortable on our flights and were really sorry to hear about her experience,' they added. However, not everyone agreed with the mother's rant. 'Ive flown with Jetstar four times by myself with a three-month-old and I only took the nappy bag as carry on because expecting someone to help or roll out the red carpet for you is crazy,' one mother wrote. Another added: 'Princess, it's not their job. 'Its your responsibility. Do you ask people at supermarkets to push your trolley cause you have a kid?' Another scathing comment suggested she should suck it up. 'Next time hire a private plane to travel seriously get over yourself,' the said. However, Ms Davey hit back. 'Think everyone is somehow missing the simple point that I am not saying it is anyones responsibility, Im saying they have no human DECENCY asking for help to get across a wet tarmac is not entitled,' she wrote. Dubai's prisons are notorious for their brutal conditions, with inmates packed into overcrowded cells, tortured for confessions and suffering from horrific illnesses. Miles from the emirate's famous beachfronts in the middle of the desert, the al-Awir central prison houses male and female criminals in separate buildings, with inmates including murderers and terrorists. Western tourists and ex-pats, in many cases without being charged or being forced to confess to a crime, are locked up alongside dangerous criminals in unsanitary, cramped cells. Rape is an 'every day occurrence' in the jail, according to a report from earlier this year, with violent assaults carried out both by inmates and guards. Conditions in the jails were brought sharply into focus after it emerged that Irish air hostess Tori Towey was facing the prospect of being locked up in the facility after she was charged with drinking alcohol and trying to take her own life having allegedly suffered domestic abuse. Travel restrictions on her have since been lifted allowing her to return home following frantic diplomatic efforts. Here, MailOnline takes a look at the harrowing accounts of former inmates which have shed light on the horrific conditions she, and others detained in Dubai, could face. Karl Williams claims he saw men torn apart by knife-wielding inmates, while others were forcibly infected with HIV during his time in the hellish Dubai prison. Here he is pictured in his cell during the horror ordeal Karl Williams has written about his experience inside the prison in a new autobiography called Killing Time. Here is a picture of one of the meals he was served Tori Towey was left stranded in Dubai after being faced with an attempted suicide charge - but has now seen travel restrictions on her lifted Karl Williams, a Brit who was jailed for a year in 2012, revealed in his memoir how he saw men being stabbed to death, had electric shocks administered to his testicles and feared corrupt police would gang rape him. He described seeing packs of guards stood by without intervening as inmates attacked each other: 'I saw men get stabbed in the neck and others sliced down their faces. Blood splattered every surface as prisoner after prisoner was sliced.' He also said the prison was run by Russian gangsters, who would use HIV-positive inmates to rape and infect others as a means of punishment. Mr Williams, along with fellow Brits Grant Cameron and Suneet Jeerh said they were given electric shocks and had guns held to their heads during their time in al-Awir. 'They pulled down my trousers, spread my legs and started to electrocute my testicles,' Mr Williams wrote. 'It was unbelievably painful. I was so scared. I started to believe that I was going to die in that room.' The men's lawyers also said that they were forced to sign documents in Arabic at gunpoint. Emirati police denied the allegations. Prisoners in the al-Awir jail must have a shaved head at all times, starting when they enter and they are punished if their hair gets long, while women reportedly have to wear head coverings. Punishments include bans on TV and calls to home, with phone access severely limited regardless. Prisoners are rarely allowed visitors. Several people share beds at a time, with as many as 20 people sharing cells designed for three or four people. While many of the most high-profile accounts of the grim conditions have come from men in recent years, the situation faced by women is feared to be even more brutal. A policeman enters Dubai's Al-Awir central prison in the United Arab Emirates Inmate Dinchi Lar said that in her jail there were a minimum of 10 people for three bunk beds, meaning she was forced to sleep on the floor. 'There's nothing like personal space... you are sleeping and somebody is in your face. You're literally sleeping on top of another person,' she told ITV. Over three months Ms Lar said she was only able to step outside and 'see the sun' for a 15-minute period. British former prisoner Zara-Jayne Moisey, who was locked up after reporting her own rape, recalled the horrific conditions she was forced to live in at the filthy Al-Barsha prison. 'It was the most frightening experience of my life, absolute torture, and all because I went to the police about what happened in the hotel room,' she told The Sun. 'I will never forget the jail, it's the worst place I have ever been. 'They kept the lights off in the day so we'd be eating in pitch blackness. Then they turned them on at night so no one could sleep.' Inmates have described both baking heat and freezing temperatures with 'extreme' air conditioning, with one saying: 'If being in prison doesn't break you, the temperature inside the prison will.' Illness is also rife in the prisons, with one British former inmate suffering from tuberculosis which he contracted while in there. A doctor shows a hallway at the medical centre of Al-Awir prison during the Covid pandemic Human rights campaigners say some with chronic health conditions were denied adequate medical care. A report in 2019 found that HIV patients in al-Awir were refused life-saving treatment. The cells were gripped by Covid during the pandemic as well, with cramped conditions making it impossible to social distance. Illness is made worse by freezing temperatures and lack of nutrition, with pictures showing the grim food served to inmates. Ms Lar said inmates in her jail were not seen by a doctor unless they were 'at the point of death'. Those who make it out of Dubai's prisons are usually left scarred by their experiences. Mr Williams told the Press Association following his release: 'When I came home I found it very hard to adjust. I used to wake up in the middle of the night screaming and crying, not knowing why. 'I had mood swings, it must have been hard for my family to be around me.' He added: 'I'm not sure why this happened to me. If I knew that I would have been able to avoid the situation.' JD Wetherspoon boss Sir Tim Martin was today celebrating record sales for his pub chain after axing 24 venues over the last year. Business has been booming for the business with sales up a 7.7 per cent for the year to date. Brits have been flocking to their local Wetherspoon's with visits up by 20 per cent in comparison to pre-pandemic footfall, despite one analysis estimating a Wetherspoon's pint could cost 11.22 by 2035. An increase in Lavazza coffee refills among elderly customers was also linked to the company's recent jump in sales. Despite their success, the firm has sold or surrendered the lease on 26 pubs in the last year with another 10 locations currently on the market or under offer. JD Wetherspoon boss Sir Tim Martin has called on the government to equalise tax between pub and supermarket drinks as his pub firm records 'record level' sales The increase of like-for-like sales comes as the company has surrendered the lease or sold 26 pubs and opened two other venues (file image) 'The gradual recovery in sales and profits, following the pandemic, has continued in the current financial year,' JD Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin said. 'Total sales are, again, at record levels, with fewer pubs.' A recent study discovered Wetherspoon's pints in London were among the most expensive in the country, costing 5.86. The average price across the UK, excluding airports was 3.38, however with the average rate of inflation the price of beer at Wetherspoons could double, according to CityAm. They predicted a lager at the popular boozer could set you back 16.25 in London, whilst costing 10.94 in Greater Manchester by 2040. Sir Tim Martin's announcement came as the pub firm continues to march onwards to it's 1,000 venue target, opening two new venues. At its peak in 2015, the pub firm had around 950 venues dotted around the UK, currently that number now sits at 801, with the chain revealing they closed venues which were 'smaller and older', or nearby another site. However, the business still aspires to meet their long-term hopes of growing the chain to 1,000 venues despite closing some of branches, amid efforts to reduce its debt burden. The pub firm plans to open new venues in Waterloo and Fulham Broadway stations in London and Marlow, Buckinghamshire over the next few months. On Wednesday, the pub firm shared their expected net debt to be around 670 million at the end of the financial year. The entrepreneur has now called on Sir Keir Starmer's new government to slash taxes on bar drinks to the same amount placed on supermarket beverages. 'The average Wetherspoon pub has generated taxes of one sort or another of 7 million in the last 10 years, as well as generating considerable employment and social benefits,' he said. 'The last government failed to implement tax equality between pubs and supermarkets, leading to pub closures and underinvestment. 'Wetherspoon hopes that the current Chancellor, with a Bank of England pedigree, will understand how many beans make five, and rectify this inequality.' This comes shortly after the pub boss announced he would not be backing any political party before this years general election. He had previously supported the Conservatives and Reform in the past and donated 200,000 to the Vote Leave campaign in 2016. This comes after the pub boss chose not to back any political party in this year's general election (pictured: Keir Starmer) He previously backed former PM Boris Johnson in his 2019 election campaign The Wetherspoon chief pictured with Nigel Farage in 2019. He backed Farage's Reform party in 2021 when it was set up At the last election in 2019, the founder and chairman of the pub chain gave 50,000 to a Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party. Two years later, the prominent Brexiteer handed Reform UK 25,000 when it was established by Nigel Farage and Richard Tice. The businessman has also donated money to the Labour Leave pressure group. He told The Telegraph: 'For a number of years I donated to the Brexit Party, Reform and Labour Leave. 'I decided not to back any party in this general election, which was my approach in all general elections before the referendum. I have made no donations to political parties this year.' The mother of an Irish air stewardess in custody in Dubai for trying to take her own life after allegedly suffering domestic abuse at the hands of her husband said she is 'desperate to get home' and has been through 'the worst time of her life'. Tori Towey, 28, has been banned from leaving the UAE and told she faces jail for drinking alcohol and attempting to take her own life following an alleged beating by her husband. Irish premier Simon Harris has said he will work to intervene in the 'appalling' case, while Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald raised Ms Towey's case in the Irish Parliament on Tuesday afternoon. Tori's mum Caroline told MailOnline: 'The support from the Irish government and the Irish people has been incredible and we weren't expecting it at all. It's a small country and the politicians are real people. 'We are both exhausted and desperate to get home. Thank you so much to everyone supporting us.' She added that her daughter had been through 'the worst time of her life and needs to come home with me and heal'. Caroline later said the 'victim support' unit with Dubai police have made contact to offer their support and the police have also offered the services of a lawyer raising hopes that a travel ban and any possible charged could be dropped within days. Tori Towey has been left stranded in Dubai after being faced with an attempted suicide charge Tori was pictured with extensive bruises over her body, which she says are from an assault Tori, pictured left with aunt, has been banned from leaving the UAE and told she faces jail for drinking alcohol and attempting to take her own life Dubai's draconian laws: Why attempting suicide and drinking alcohol is a 'crime' Prior to 2019, anyone found guilty of attempting suicide in Dubai faced a 5000AED fine (1050) or six months in prison. The 'offence' was one of 28 'minor crimes' downgraded to free up space in the Emirates' overcrowded courts system. Those found guilty of attempting suicide in the Gulf state now have to pay a fine of 1000AED (210) instead of facing a judge. In the same year, the Gulf state loosened its liquor laws to allow tourists to purchase alcohol in state-controlled stores, previously only accessible to licence-holding residents. The new laws also let visitors obtain liquor permits themselves for the first time, by applying online or going to a registered alcohol store to get one for free. While visitors must have a permit, it's no longer a criminal offence not to have one. A 30 per cent tax on alcohol was also axed on New Year's Eve 2022 to encourage tourists to flock to the Emirate. While the relaxation of the laws sends a message that it's safe to drink, the reality is more complicated. It is illegal to drink or even be under the influence of alcohol in public outside of a licensed premises. Radha Stirling, founder and CEO of Detained in Dubai previously told MailOnline: 'Reducing the cost of alcohol in Dubai is sending a clear message to tourists and that is to drink. Considering Dubai's alcohol laws prohibit the possession of alcohol in public, drinking in Dubai is inherently dangerous. 'If a visitor's blood is tested and shows up even one drink, they can be criminally charged. Alcohol tests are often conducted when a complaint is made by a local. If a local is offended by a visitor's dress sense, language or behaviour, they may call the police and have the visitor arrested, even if that person has only consumed a small beer. 'Dubai's laws are highly contradictory. On the one hand, people are encouraged to drink but on the other, it's a criminal offence to have any amount of alcohol in your blood in public. Encouraging visitors to drink more alcohol will most certainly result in increased detentions of Brits abroad in prisons notorious for human rights abuses and police brutality'. Advertisement Tori's aunt Ann Flynn also told Sky News: 'She's doing her best. It's very stressful, stressful for all the family. 'Tori's a beautiful young woman, fun-loving, loves to travel. She got the job of her dreams working for Emirates, and she could continue travelling with work.' Speaking to Irish broadcaster RTE, Ms Flynn said: 'I don't know will this court case go ahead, or if it does what will happen? We're just very hopeful. 'It's really terrible that this has happened to a young woman who was full of life and full of adventure.' A spokesperson for legal group Detained in Dubai (DiD) claimed Tori's South African husband went after her with a knife and punched her, before slamming her arm in the bathroom door trying to break it. Tori said she tried to take her own life after the attack, which left her with severe bruises and injuries. But after being taken to a police station, Ms Towey is now facing charges of alcohol consumption and attempting suicide by a court in Dubai. She said she is unable to leave the country as her passport was blocked, meaning she can't travel back home to Ireland. Speaking through outreach group DiD, who are assisting the family, Ms Towey said: 'I don't know what's going to happen in court next week. 'I'm desperate to go home to Ireland and put all of this in the past. I'm asking the Taoiseach to please help us.' The DiD has said Ms Towey could face a lengthy prison sentence in a jail known for 'human rights abuses and torture'. Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, said: 'We are calling on Dubai authorities to urgently drop the charges against Tori, remove the travel ban and let her fly home to Ireland with her mother. She has been charged with attempted suicide and alcohol consumption. 'Strangely, the UAE has gone to great public relations efforts to promote alcohol as legal in the country. In reality, people are still regularly charged with alcohol consumption and possession. Tori's experience is nothing short of tragic and quite frankly, she is lucky to be alive.' She explained: 'Tori arranged to fly home to Ireland but, when she arrived at the airport, was told a case against her by her husband had been dropped but the travel ban remained. 'She attended the police station who assured her the travel ban would be lifted but it never happened. The next day, Tori and her husband had some wine and he became enraged, accusing her of having an affair.' Ms Stirling explained: 'The next thing she remembers is an ambulance crew and police waking her up. She was taken to Al Barsha police station and kept for several hours before going home again. 'Her mother pleaded to the Irish Consulate but in the absence of their assistance, boarded a flight to Dubai. When she arrived, she wasn't allowed to see Tori alone, her abuser wouldn't allow it. 'The three met at Emirates mall then attended the prosecutor's office to find out what charges had been registered against her.' Ms Towey, who graduated from the Dublin Institute Of Technology, moved to the UAE in April 2023 Tori is pictured in 2021, before her move to the UAE - where she now hopes to return to Ireland Irish premier Simon Harris has said he will work to intervene in the 'appalling' case, while Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald raised Ms Towey's case in the Irish Parliament on Tuesday afternoon. Mr Harris thanked Ms McDonald for bringing the case to his attention, saying: 'I'm not directly appraised of the situation, but I'm very happy to be directly appraised of it now.' He said he would work with the deputy 'to intervene and see how we can support an Irish citizen in what sounds to be based on what you tell me the most appalling circumstances'. The Department of Foreign Affairs told the Irish Daily Mail it was aware of the case and was offering consular assistance. Ms McDonald told Dail Eireann that Ms Towey has been the victim of domestic violence and is subject to a travel ban over alleged charges. She said she has spoken to Ms Towey, and that the 28-year-old's mother has travelled to Dubai to be with her. 'Tori wants to come home, simple as that. She is a Roscommon woman and she wants to come home,' she said. 'I am asking now, as a matter of absolute urgency, that we have a statement from this House, that you intervene Taoiseach, that the ambassador is called and that it is made absolutely plain to the authorities of Dubai that no woman should be treated in this way, and an Irish citizen, an Irish woman will not be treated in this way.' Radha Stirling, CEO of DiD says Tori's husband attacked her with a knife and punched her, before slamming her arm in the bathroom door trying to break it. Pictured the injuries said to be from the alleged attack The 28-year-old moved to the UAE in April 2023 when she was offered a job as a flight attendant with Emirates The Department of Foreign Affairs told the Irish Daily Mail it was aware of the case and was offering consular assistance. The airline hostess has been told 'nothing could be done' and that the case will be going to court on July 18. In 2018, one member of Dubai Police said that they would focus on treatment rather than punishment when it came to suicide victims, even thought suicide and suicide attempts are a crime in the country. Brig Ahmed bin Ghalaita, then director of Al Refaa Police Station, told The National: 'The move is taken to provide support to suicide attempters and deal with them as victims who need moral support and help. 'Suicide cases are being examined by a police unit and experts in the psychology field to identify the causes behind their attempts and find solutions for them.' It comes as earlier this year, British wives boasting of luxury new lives funded by millionaire husbands in Dubai have been warned they risk being dumped homeless on the streets at any moment. Experts have revealed a surge in complaints from not only women but also men betrayed and dumped by wealthy partners after upping sticks for the Middle East. The alert comes amid a TikTok and Instagram trend of UK women sharing footage of spending sprees in the United Arab Emirates after wedding wealthy husbands. MailOnline had also reported on an influx of expats pampered by rich partners, enjoying days filled with shopping trips, extravagant meals and property upgrades. This video is no longer available This video is no longer available A massive chemical explosion rocked parts of Melbourne on Wednesday, with residents in some areas warned to stay indoors. Firefighters rushed to a huge blaze at Swann Drive in Derrimut, about 30km from the Melbourne CBD, about 11.20am on Wednesday. Thick, black smoke poured into the air - with the force of the explosion so massive it flung a chemical drum hundreds of metres into the sky. A watch and act alert has been issued for all residents and workers in Albion, Braybrook, Brooklyn, Derrimut, Laverton North, Sunshine, Sunshine West, Tottenham and Truganina. 'Wind is blowing toxic smoke towards the east across Derrimut,' the emergency alert said. 'Anyone located in the area affected by smoke should take shelter indoors immediately.' Residents away from home have been told not to return while those still in the area told to close all doors, windows and vents. The factory is located close to a gas pipeline but emergency services have not issued any alerts over the infrastructure. Residents of several Melbourne suburbs are being warned to stay indoors following a massive chemical explosion in Derrimut, in the city's west Earlier, during intense explosions at the chemical fire in Derrimut, I captured this drum flying through the air - one of many sent sky-high. Hate to think where they landed. Thankfully it seems to slowly easing now. #melbourne @7NewsMelbourne pic.twitter.com/d4BEOqHIxU Paul Dowsley (@paul_dowsley) July 10, 2024 An enormous explosion rocked Melbourne's western suburbs about 11.20am on Wednesday Last year, a worker died and two others were injured in a fire also triggered by an explosion at a factory on Swann Drive. Traffic has been diverted away from the area with outbound lanes of the Western Freeway near the factory and Swann Drive closed until further notice. Drivers in the area have been told to keep their windows up to avoid breathing smoke and have been told not to slow down to see the fire. Paramedics are also on the scene. It is believed no one was injured at the factory People in the area have been advised to stay indoors as the air quality could be affected by thick smoke A community advice warning has been issued for the suburbs of Albion, Braybrook, Brooklyn, Derrimut, Laverton North, Sunshine, Sunshine West, Tottenham and Truganina A Victoria Police spokesman said at this time there have been no reports of injuries. 'It is believed everyone inside the premises evacuated safely. 'Traffic in the area is expected to be impacted for some time with Swann Drive closed as well as westbound traffic on the Deer Park bypass being stopped for safety.' Ambulance Victoria said crews arrived on the scene about 11.15am. 'Crews are currently on scene providing health monitoring, no-one has been transported to hospital at this stage,' a spokesman said. Sir Keir Starmer's wife Victoria has a 'powerful presence' and will enjoy a major boost to her profile with her first foreign trip, a PR expert said today. Britain's new 'First Lady' landed with her husband in Washington DC today for a Nato summit that will see western allies discuss how to stand together against Russian aggression. Wearing a white dress and a pair of silver heels, Lady Starmer - an NHS occupational health worker - walked hand in hand with Sir Keir as they disembarked their plane at Joint Base Andrews early this morning. The PM's spouse has stayed largely out of the limelight during the election campaign but will take part in a series of engagements with other leaders' wives and husbands over the coming days. Publicity guru Mark Borkowski said Lady Starmer has been 'great from day one' and predicted her first foreign trip would provide a further boost to her public profile. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria disembark from their plane at Joint Base Andrews in Washington this morning The visit to the US will be the Starmers' first overseas trip as Britain's 'first couple' The PM's spouse has stayed largely out of the limelight during the election campaign but will take part in a series of engagements with other leaders' wives and husbands over the coming days 'While Victoria wasn't front and centre on the campaign trail, she's rapidly developing into becoming a significant ''First Lady'',' he told MailOnline. 'Americans like the idea of the First Lady, and with Jill Biden doing the heavy lifting at the moment with Joe there's something in the zeitgeist about powerful women being front and centre. 'I'm sure she's a great presence and a rock to him - which all leaders need. The expectation in years gone by that spouses like Denis Thatcher were in the shadows. 'But those days have changed and you need to project steadfastness. That wasn't the case with Rishi's wife, probably because of the negative headlines that went with her due to her family wealth. 'So when you see images of Keir with Victoria it shows he has strength at home and you get the subliminal idea that she will be offering good advice too.' Mr Borkowski said Lady Starmer's sense of style was already attracting attention. He continued: 'She's clearly got an amazing stylist. 'There are lots of photos being taken of her and you know things are going in the right direction when the fashion editors of the broadsheets start talking about your style. 'In America it's about aesthetics, so she'll need to avoid all the sexism that goes with that. 'But if you look at how powerful Kate has been to William and the vacuum that has been created by her coping with her health issues you'll see how important partners can be.' Friends have said that Britain should not expect Lady Starmer to stay in the public eye - because her focus is very much on their two children, one of whom has just completed their GCSEs. Both the Starmer teenagers are said to be 'completely freaked out' by the idea of being known for the first time, and the new Prime Minister admitted this week that he had promised them a dog if he were to win the election - to sweeten the move from their 1.75million north London home to Downing Street. And his wife will still work in the NHS as an occupational therapist while he gets on with running the country. The couple boarding a plane at Stansted Airport before their flight to America Sir Keir Starmer puts his hand out to greet his wife Lady Victoria after his first speech as Prime Minister 'She's a streetwise grounded, brilliant, gorgeous woman who wants as far as she can to get on with her own life and to protect it', Mr Starmer said recently. 'She loves working for the NHS. She loves the team that she's working with. And she and I are doing our best to raise two happy and confident children and that matters hugely to us.' Over the next two days, the Starmers will rub shoulders with US President Joe Biden and a host of other leaders including president Zelensky of Ukraine. The trip comes as Sir Keir presses for European nations to increase defence spending. However, he has refused to guarantee meeting his flagship commitment to hit 2.5 per cent of GDP within his first term in office, despite a 'cast iron' promise to get there. The timescale will be set out after a wholesale defence review being launched next week - which may take a year - and must comply with the Government's strict 'fiscal rules' on spending and borrowing. Sources told the Telegraph that the review could also look at increasing the size of the British Army, whose strength fell to a 200-year low under the Tories. Sir Keir will hold talks with Mr Biden in the White House this evening as the US President faces domestic pressures over his age and suitability to run for a second term. The prospect of Donald Trump being returned to the White House in November's election is being viewed as cause for concern within the alliance given his past criticisms of Nato and his threats to reduce aid to Ukraine. Sir Keir and Victoria with his parents Josephine and Rodney, taken on their wedding day in 2007 European Nato states face shouldering a greater burden as part of a drive to 'Trump proof' the alliance should the Republican candidate return to office and weaken US commitment to the 32-nation bloc. Speaking to reporters, Sir Keir was repeatedly pressed on whether the goal of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP would be reached within his first term. He said: 'We are committed to the 2.5 per cent, as I have said before the election and I say again after the election. That is obviously subject to our fiscal rules, but the commitment is there. 'The strategic review will take place, that will happen next week, and we will set out the details of that. 'The manifesto commitment was that it would take place within a year, I would like it to be quicker than that if I'm honest and we'll set out the details about how we are going to do it.' It's been less than a week since they were elected to Parliament for the first time - but five of Labour's newbie MPs have already been given ministerial jobs. Sir Keir Starmer last night made Georgia Gould, Miatta Fahnbulleh, Sarah Sackman, Alistair Carns and Kirsty McNeill members of his new Government. Their appointments came even before they had officially been sworn in to the House of Commons - a process that is taking place for all 650 MPs throughout this week. Most of the five new Labour MPs promoted straight into ministerial office have existing links to current or former Labour Cabinet ministers or, even, prime ministers. Their swift elevation to the Government comes despite Sir Keir having snubbed some of those who served previously him as shadow ministers, such as long-time MP Emily Thornberry. Sir Keir Starmer, pictured with his wife Victoria arriving in Washington DC last night for a NATO summit, has appointed five newbie MPs to his Labour Government Georgia Gould had been leader of Sir Keir's local Camden Council up until the general election and is the daughter of the late Philip Gould, who was a key adviser to Sir Tony Blair Miatta Fahnbulleh previously worked in Gordon Brown's strategy unit in No10 and for Ed Miliband when he was Labour leader Sarah Sackman has known Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, since they both attended Cambridge University together Alistair Carns gave up his military career to stand for Labour at the general election, while Kirsty McNeill is a former special adviser to Gordon Brown Ms Gould, 38, the new MP for Queen's Park and Maida Vale, has been appointed as a junior minister in the Cabinet Office. She had been leader of Sir Keir's local Camden Council up until the general election and is the daughter of the late Philip Gould, who was a key adviser to Sir Tony Blair. Her mother Gail Rebuck sits on the Labour benches in the House of Lords and Ms Gould was once dubbed a 'red princess' as the offspring of leading Labour figures. Ms Fahnbulleh, 44, the new MP for Peckham, has been appointed a junior minister in Ed Miliband's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. She previously worked in Gordon Brown's strategy unit in No10 and for Mr Miliband when he was Labour leader. The Liberian-born politician went on to join two left-leaning think tanks - the IPPR and the New Economics Foundation, before being elected to Parliament. Ms Sackman, 39, the new MP for Finchley and Golders Green, has been appointed as Solicitor General. She will deputise for new Attorney General Richard Hermer - her former colleague at Matrix Chambers - who was recently given a peerage by Sir Keir to enable him to join the Government. Ms Sackman has known Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, since they both attended Cambridge University together. Mr Carns, 44, the new MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, has been appointed as veterans minister in the Ministry of Defence. He is a former Royal Marine who was awarded a military cross in Afghanistan but quit the military in order to stand in the general election for Labour. His decision to leave the Armed Forces was seen as a huge surprise as he was due to be promoted from colonel to brigadier, which would have made him one of the youngest one-star generals. There is a political row over his appointment as veterans minister because, unlike his Tory predecessor Johnny Mercer, he won't sit around the Cabinet table. Mr Mercer has accused Sir Keir of backtracking on 'explicit personal promises' to appoint a veterans minister to his Cabinet. Ms McNeill, the new MP for Midlothian, has been appointed a junior minister in the Scotland Office. She is a former special adviser to Gordon Brown and, when he left No10 after the 2010 general election, she helped the ex-PM and his wife Sarah set up their office. She went on to become executive director of charity Save the Children and, during this year's election campaign, she spoke of being raised in an SNP-supporting family. 'I mean they are lifelong SNP members, activists. Everyone that I call auntie who is not my actual auntie is from the SNP,' she told the Daily Record. British military chiefs, including SAS hero Chris Ryan, last night blasted a top Donald Trump advisor for dismissing the Ukraine war as 'Europe's problem' - warning the claim would only 'embolden' Vladimir Putin. Elbridge Colby, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, triggered outrage last night over his remarks, which a former Colonel in British military intelligence branded 'dangerous'. In his astonishing critique, the US military strategist - who is widely tipped for a top security job in DC should Trump emerge victorious from November elections - said Britain must stop 'haranguing' the White House to help Kyiv. Colby's comments came on the eve of a key meeting between Western leaders in Washington for NATO's 75th-anniversary summit this week, attended by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and President Joe Biden. British special forces legend Chris Ryan has now lashed out, with the famed military hardman warning the American official's remarks would only spur on Putin to continue with his savage invasion in Ukraine. British military chiefs, including SAS hero Chris Ryan (pictured), have blasted a top Donald Trump advisor for dismissing the Ukraine war as 'Europe's problem' Chris Ryan has lashed out, with the famed military hardman warning the American official's remarks would only spur on Vladimir Putin (pictured) to continue with his savage invasion in Ukraine Elbridge Colby, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, said the war in Ukraine is 'Europe's problem' Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during a rally in Doral, Florida, on July 9, 2024 'Unless depleted or defeated Putin won't stop at Europe, victory would embolden him and the rest of the axis who work as proxies for one another,' the retired soldier-turned-author told MailOnline. 'The only choice is to stand together again as we did against Hitler. 'Elbridge clearly doesn't understand the concept that Europe is an extremely important buffer between the US and the East. 'For an educated man I can't understand why he doesn't see the totality of the threat the US faces and unfortunately choosing to concentrate on the front door leaves his back door wide open.' The former special forces operator added: 'Ukraine is fighting for us all and we are supporting their fight and 100 per cent should stand by them until the job is done.' Philip Ingram, a former Colonel in British military intelligence, also slammed the military strategist - as he chillingly warned the world was now on an 'accelerated path' to global war. 'The comments that Ukraine is Europe's problem and Britain should not pester DC are very dangerous when looking at support for Ukraine in isolation,' Colonel Ingram said. Philip Ingram (pictured), a former Colonel in British military intelligence, also slammed the military strategist - as he chillingly warned the warned was now on an 'accelerated path' to global war 'They will embolden Putin and trigger him to use all means possible to support Trump becoming the next US President.' But the former spymaster added: 'However, in a more global context they may be a recognition of realism. With the Middle East and south-east Asia becoming hugely more unstable, what is happening there could have a greater effect on the US and the US knows the EU and UK have little capability to help. 'This could be the first commentary recognising that we are on an accelerated path to global conflict and in that case, Ukraine would primarily be a European issue. The US would remain involved but not to the degree it is currently.' Further concerns have been raised by a senior Royal Navy officer, who agreed the comments would 'embolden' Putin. Commodore Steve Prest, the former director of naval acquisition in the Royal Navy, admitted we should be 'very worried' by the American's remarks. Commodore Steve Prest (pictured), the former director of naval acquisition in the Royal Navy, admitted we should be 'very worried' by the American's remarks 'Should we be worried that a key Trump ally has reportedly said that the war in Ukraine is "Europe's problem"? Yes, we should be very worried indeed,' the veteran naval officer said. 'Europe's security is underpinned by American military muscle. European Governments have, frankly, relied too heavily on Uncle Sam and neglected their own defence and security responsibilities in recent decades. 'President Trump gave the Europeans a wake-up call during his first presidency, and this was reinforced dramatically by the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine.' He continued: 'In the short-term, such words [by Mr Colby] will embolden President Putin. He will view such fractures in the willingness of the alliance to keep its word as weakness and he will try to exploit it.' The recently-retired naval officer said a credible 'deterrence' was key to 'stopping things before they start'. But he said for this to work, nations must show 'resolve'. 'Should we be worried that a key Trump ally has reportedly said that the war in Ukraine is 'Europe's problem'? Yes, we should be very worried indeed,' the veteran naval officer said 'That resolve is being tested by Ukraine and Nato needs to pass the test,' added Cdre Prest. 'That is in America's interest. America's own security is tied to that of Europe across the Atlantic and, to its West, what happens in the Asia-Pacific region. This was a lesson of the twentieth century and, despite some of the retreat of globalisation, it remains more true today than ever.' The senior officer said any show of weakness or 'fragility' in such alliances could spur on the like of China and Russia - states which political leaders in the West are most concerned about - to seize upon it. 'If further chaos ensues in Eastern Europe, the lesson from history is that 'Europe's problem' could escalate to become America's problem very quickly indeed,' he warned. The comments by Trump ally Colby were made in an interview with the Telegraph and come amid fears the US would significantly scale back its military aid to Ukraine should Trump succeed in securing a second term in the White House. Kicking off the three-day NATO 75th anniversary summit this week, President Biden announced a new air defence system for Kyiv and urged unity against Vladimir Putin, who launched the Ukraine invasion in 2022. The comments came as Putin launched a devastating salvo of missiles against Kyiv this week, which levelled a children's hospital killing at least 37 people and injuring dozens more. Biden promised to send Ukraine an additional Patriot system, on top of two new systems being given by Germany and Romania and one which the Netherlands has said it is putting together with parts from other allies. 'Make no mistake. Ukraine can - and will - stop Putin,' Biden said forcefully to applause. Emergency and rescue personnel along with medics and others clear the rubble of the destroyed building of Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital following a Russian missile attack in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on July 8, 2024 Emergency and rescue personnel along with medics and others clear the rubble of the destroyed building of Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital following a Russian missile attack in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on July 8, 2024 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky answers questions after delivering remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute as leaders from all member NATO states gather for the 75th Nato Summit on July 9, 2024 in Washington But the US president himself is facing a tough election challenge from Donald Trump, who has loudly questioned the utility of Nato and previously said he would be able to 'end the war in 24 hours' if he were in charge. The comments sparked fears that Washington would quickly withdraw its military support for Ukraine and seek to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept a peace deal that would see large swathes of territory ceded to Moscow. Earlier this year, Trump's Republican allies in the US Congress also forced a delay of months in approving new weapons for Ukraine. The notion is not lost on Nato leaders, with outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledging the question marks over ongoing US support. 'Ukraine has shown remarkable courage and Nato allies have provided unprecedented support. But let's be honest - not even our support for Ukraine has been a given,' Stoltenberg said. 'Remember - the biggest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine. We cannot let that happen.' Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Trump National Doral Golf Club on July 09, 2024 in Doral, Florida Volunteers, including medics, help emergency and rescue personnel to clear the rubble of a destroyed building at Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital following a Russian missile attack in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on July 8, 2024 Rescue workers take part in a response effort to Russia's attack on the Ohmatdyt National Specialised Children's Hospital with a Kh-101 strategic cruise missile US President Joe Biden delivers remarks during the Nato's 75th Anniversary Commemoration event at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington DC., United States on July 09, 2024 British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer talks to journalists as he travels onboard a plane to Washington DC to attend a Nato summit on July 9, 2024 A musical performance is played during a Nato 75th anniversary celebratory event at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium on July 9, 2024 in Washington Given the prospect of a Trump presidency, European Nato states face shouldering a greater burden as part of a drive to 'Trump proof' the alliance. Sir Keir Starmer, whose attendance at this week's summit comes less than a week after he became British Prime Minister, was repeatedly pressed by reporters in Washington yesterday on whether the goal of spending 2.5% of GDP on defence would be reached within his first term. He said the Labour government was 'committed to the 2.5%' and said that a strategic review of the defence budget will be held next week after the summit is concluded. 'The manifesto commitment was that it would take place within a year, I would like it to be quicker than that if I'm honest and we'll set out the details about how we are going to do it.' Nato members have an official goal of spending two per cent of GDP on defence and 23 members are now thought to have reached that level. But in the context of this year's US election and the drive to 'Trump proof' the security alliance, Sir Keir acknowledged more needed to be done to lock in support for Ukraine. He also indicated the UK is working with Nato partners to hash out a new financial package, military aid and an industrial strategy to support Ukraine. Burnt-out cars are pictured at a five-storey apartment block in the Holosiivskyi district destroyed by the Russian missile attack on Kyi Emergency and rescue personnel along with medics and others clear the rubble of the destroyed building of Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital following a Russian missile attack in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on July 8, 2024 Ukrainian families take shelter during an alarm in the basement of a heavily damaged building at Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital following a Russian missile attack in Kyiv on July 8, 2024 A man washes his face during a response effort at the Ohmatdyt National Specialized Children's Hospital Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute as leaders from all member Nato states gather for the 75th Nato Summit on July 9, 2024 Zelensky, who was invited to attend the Nato summit by Biden, yesterday thanked Ukraine's backers for the promise of new air defences and urged the United States and others to go further to help defeat Russia. But he is also in Washington to seek firm assurances that his nation will one day be able to join the security alliance. Ukraine's membership bid enjoys wide backing from Baltic and Eastern European nations still haunted by decades under the Soviet yoke and fearful of the prospect of more Russian aggression on their borders. But Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have led opposition, concerned that the accession of Ukraine to the alliance would effectively compel other Nato countries to join the war with nuclear-armed Russia. Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said negotiations were ongoing on the final language for the roadmap to Nato membership for Ukraine, adding that he was hopeful the world 'irreversible' would be involved. But US officials are seeking to play down expectations, speaking of creating a 'bridge' to future membership while making it clear that the prospect of a quick entry is not on the cards. Putin has repeatedly accused the West of antagonising Russia by entertaining Nato membership for Ukraine. 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 San Francisco police are investigating how an Australian grain executive landed in a local hospital with severe injuries. ER Productions Limited/Getty Images San Francisco police are seeking information about how an Australian executive who was reported missing landed in a local hospital. Colin Bettles, the CEO of Grain Producers Australia, experienced an injury, according to a statement from his company, which provided no details about the incident. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He had been in an induced coma for four days before family members discovered his whereabouts, Australian news outlet The Age reported, adding that Bettles was found in a San Francisco street with severe injuries. The report cited accounts from family members who believe Bettles was beaten while walking to his hotel after dinner on July 4. Friends and family said his wallet and phone were stolen and that he suffered a fractured eye socket along with head trauma. Spokespeople for San Francisco Police Department said the agency was aware of media accounts regarding a missing person from Australia who was found at San Francisco General Hospital, though the department has no record of an attack on Bettles. If people have information, they should contact SFPD, spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A man with a history of posting racist and misogynistic materials online and who is already behind bars, accused of committing vicious sexual offenses from inside of his home dungeon, is now facing a murder charge. Timothy Haslett Jr., 41, was first arrested in late 2022 after a 22-year-old black woman ran to the home of one of his neighbors and said she had escaped from his sex dungeon in the Kansas City suburbs after a month of captivity. On Tuesday, Clay County prosecutor Zachary Thompson announced that Haslett was now accused of the first degree murder of sex worker Jaynie Crosdale, 36. Her body was discovered in a barrel in a river in Missouri in June 2023. She was shot dead. The 22-year-old victim previously told investigators that Haslett mentioned two other black women he kidnapped who 'didn't make it.' That victim said that Haslett regularly drugged her, forced her to perform sexual acts, rarely fed her and liked to dress in women's lingerie in front of her. Haslett's behavior was described as 'barbaric' by Thompson. Timothy Haslett of Excelsior Springs, Missouri, already charged with rape, kidnapping and assault is now facing a murder charge Jaynie Crosdale, 36, was found dead in a barrel in the Missouri River in June 2023 Haslett was linked to Crosdale's death after the barrel she was found in was seen in pictures taken by investigators at his home. A photo was also found showing the slain woman in his dungeon, officials said. At the time the woman's body was found her cousin, Nikiyah Crosdale, told KCUR that the victim, who went by J-Bird, was 'full of energy and life.' The case against Timothy Haslett Jr. October 2022: A 22-year-old black woman says she escaped Timothy Haslett's Jr's sex dungeon in the Kansas City suburbs after a month of sexual abuse in captivity. November 2022: After being taken into custody, Haslett's ex-wife seeks full custody of their child. In a custody hearing, he denies the allegations against him. January 2023: Police announce that Jaynie Crosdale is considered a witness in the case against Haslett. February 2023: Haslett makes his first appearance in court and pleads not guilty to the slew of charges against him. June 2023: Kayakers find Jaynie Crosdale's remains in a barrel on the Missouri River. She has been shot dead. Shortly afterwards, officials confirm that they're eyeing Haslett in relation to the killing. July 2024: Haslett is officially charged with the murder of Crosdale in Missouri, a death penalty state. Advertisement Prosecutors believe that she was murdered in June 2022. Her body was found by kayakers on the Missouri River. Prior to that discovery, she had been considered a potential witness in the original case. The case against Haslett began in October 2023 when Haslett's surviving victim made her way to a home in the community of Excelsior Springs. She was scarred, starving and wearing a trash bag and metal collar around her neck. She managed to escaped as he took one of his children to school. Shortly after his arrest, his ex-wife sought full custody of the couple's young child. That woman told one of Haslett's neighbors, nurse Lisa Johnson, about her ordeal, describing the suspect's sex dungeon, equipped with restraints, weaponry, including shock devices, and cameras. She said that she was paid $350 by Haslett to go home with him. After she got in his truck, she accused Haslett of pulling a gun on her, forcing her to perform sex acts. He then drugged her, knocking her unconscious. Once inside his home, the victim said that she was abused and tortured on a daily basis while being forced to use a bucket as a toilet. 'It was such a soft, "help me",' Johnson told DailyMail.com in 2022. 'And I looked out through our clear screen door and this girl was hunched along the steps. 'I could see immediately she was in desperate trouble she looked like something out of a horror movie. 'She had a metal home-made device tight around her neck, there was duct tape that she had pulled down off her face which had been covering her mouth. 'Her wrists and ankles were messed up. You could tell she had been tied and whipped. The wounds over her body, wrists and ankles were actually bleeding.' After her rescue, investigators recovered a Samsung phone with pictures and videos of the dungeon and of women in captivity. 'The physical, psychological, and sexual torture described by the defendants surviving victim is brutal and barbaric,' Thompson said. The 22-year-old victim said she was only able to escape on Friday October 7, when Haslett, 39, took his child to school Law enforcement has erected a fence around Haslett's rundown rental property where he had allegedly been holding the woman captive since September After entering the property, Excelsior Springs Police officers said they found a room in the basement consistent with what the victim had described 'When crimes like this occur in our community, it can be devastating. I want the citizens of Clay County to know that the men and women of the Clay County Prosecutors Office are working hard inside and outside the courtroom to keep them safe and deliver justice.' As a result of her statements, Haslett was charged with rape, kidnapping and aggravated assault. In 2023, he entered a plea of not guilty. His bond has been set at $5 million. Despite his claims that two of his kidnapping victims died, Haslett is so far only charged with one murder. Missouri is a death penalty state. The ice cream makers behind the iconic Fab lollies have launched an investigation after furious shoppers claimed the chocolate section has been shrunk on the sly. Keen-eyed fans of the traditional summer treat say they bought lollies where the chocolate and sprinkle bit at the top was a full centimetre smaller than it should be. Fab makers Nestle have waded in on the argument, saying all three sections should be exactly the same size. And the producers of the ice cream are taking the less than Fab-ulous situation very seriously, even launching a probe into the case of the shrinking chocolate. A Fab lolly next to a tape measure, showing that the top third is too small A Fab lolly posted on a blog which shows that the top part is much smaller than the middle Keen-eyed fans of the traditional summer treat say they bought lollies where the chocolate and sprinkle bit at the top was a full centimetre smaller than it should be Ice cream lovers have posted pictures online showing their wonky lollies and engaging in speculation. In many, the top of the ice cream appears to be puny in size compared to the other two red and white sections. Often the white bit in the middle is larger than the other two bits and finding one with a bigger top half is almost impossible. It has led to claims the historic lolly's owners have secretly reduced the amount of chocolate and sprinkles they put on, with accusations of shrinkflation - something they vehemently deny. Fabs are one of Britain's oldest ice lollies and celebrated their 57th birthday this summer. They have been enjoyed by generations of children and adults and were introduced in May 1967 by J. Lyons & Co. The lolly consists of strawberry fruit ice and cream with the top portion dipped in chocolate and coated with sugar strands and packs of six cost around 2.50. One fuming fan took to Reddit to discuss the issue. She said: 'The chocolate on top of a Fab lolly has shrunk! Scandalous!' Ice cream lovers have posted pictures online showing their wonky lollies Pictured left: A Fab lolly taken from Wiki - the bottom is larger than the other two sections. Right: Nestle's own picture of how a Fab should look - although even here the top half is slightly larger than the middle The packaging of a Fab lolly where the proportions should be equal One poster replied: 'I had one this week and the bit at the top was centimetres smaller than it should have been. 'I think they're the latest classic to fall victim to shrinkflation. 'It's so disappointing when you devour the top bit in five seconds.' Another Reddit poster said: 'I'm sure FAB ice lollies are smaller than they used to be.' Just a few months ago, Joshua Sofaer blogged a comparison of a UK Fab with Norwegian version Diplom-Is' Sitting Original, which was introduced in 2008. Pictures he posted of his Fab show how small the top part is compared to the other two bits. The Fab aficionado said: 'Over years of experimentation, I have endeavoured various methodologies to actualise the desire to defer the consummation of the most delectable portion, until the conclusion. 'These have included the meticulous nibbling of the ice, ascending towards the milk, and tenaciously grasping the sprinkle-encrusted section as it invariably detaches, occasionally with calamitous outcomes. 'I have resorted to the severance of the apex, its subsequent preservation in the freezer, the consumption of the residual lolly, followed by a return to the excised section to finalise the experience, thereby inverting the potential anti-climax. 'However, these intricate consumption rituals invariably yield dissatisfaction.' Ice cream company Froneri produce all of Nestle's lollies and ice creams in the UK. A spokesman said: 'At Froneri we take quality very seriously and aim to delight consumers with our products and we are sorry to learn that someone has not received a product that meets our standards. 'We haven't made any changes to the size of Fab or any of its three sections. 'A Fab lolly should have three equally sized sections: strawberry at the bottom, vanilla milk ice in the middle and chocolate with sprinkles at the top. 'We are investigating this with our technical team, in order to address it from occurring going forwards.' An Iraqi court has sentenced to death a wife of slain Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on charges of detaining Yazidi women, the judiciary said on Wednesday. Asma Mohammed, one of the wives of the polygamous Baghdadi was brought back to Iraq after being detained in Turkey, according to judicial sources. 'The Karkh (west Baghdad) criminal court sentenced to death the wife of the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for the crime of working with the Daesh (IS) terrorist group and detaining Yazidi women in her house,' the Supreme Judicial Council said on its website. The slain leader's wife detained the Yazidis who 'were later kidnapped' by IS fighters in the Sinjar district of northern Iraq, it added. Washington announced in October 2019 that US troops had killed Baghdadi in an operation in northwestern Syria, five years after he proclaimed a 'caliphate' across swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq. Late Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is seen in an undated picture Asma Mohammed, one of the wives of the polygamous Baghdadi was brought back to Iraq after being detained in Turkey, according to judicial sources During their lightning advance through northern Iraq in 2014, the Islamist extremists of IS singled out the non-Muslim Yazidis, systematically killing thousands of men and forcing women into sexual slavery. Over several years, Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences as well as life prison terms under the penal code for membership in 'a terrorist group'. Among those convicted in Iraq were more than 500 foreign men and women found guilty of joining IS. Iraq announced in February it had secured 'the repatriation of the family' of Baghdadi, with a judicial source saying that Baghdadi's wife, 'detained in Turkey', had been returned along with her children. The announcement coincided with a broadcast of an interview with 'Baghdadi's wife' by Saudi-owned pan-Arab TV channel Al Arabiya. It named her as Asma Mohammed. In November 2019, Turkey said it had arrested a wife of Baghdadi, whom Turkish media identified as Asma Fawzi Mohammed Al-Qubaysi, in June 2018. US-backed forces defeated IS in Iraq in 2017, and in Syria two years later. But remnants of the group continue to attack civilians and security personnel in both countries. The Justice Department is claiming a win after announcing the shutting down of a Kremlin-backed bot farm that was set up in order to spread discord across the US regarding Russia's foreign policy. According to a press release from the DOJ, the bot farm ran close 1,000 accounts on Elon Musk's X social media platform. The South African billionaire has made dozens of posts in recent days regarding election integrity but has not so far mentioned the presence of politically active bot accounts on X. 'Today's actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm,' FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. 'Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government.' The person behind the scheme is believed to be a Russian national who is registered a foreign agent with the State Department. He was formerly the editor-in-chief of the state-controlled Russia Today. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long maintained that his government does not meddle in other country's affairs An example of a fake social media post that was created by the bot farm, according to the DOJ An example of a fake account that the Justice Department says was created to post pro-Russia content 'Since at least 2022, RT leadership sought the development of alternative means for distributing information beyond RT's standard television news broadcasts,' the DOJ's statement read. 'In response, Individual A led the development of software that was able to create and to operate a social media bot farm.' Russia's FSB security service agents also accessed the bot farm which saw accounts posing as Americans posting pro-Kremlin content. The advisory said that as of last June, the software - known as Meliorator - only worked on X but that its functionality probably could be expanded to other social media networks. A joint cybersecurity advisory from the countries involved in the operation, including Canada and Israel, is calling on the tech giants behind social media sites to do better in terms of security against nefarious foreign agents. 'We support all civic engagement, civil dialogue, and a robust exchange of ideas. But those ideas should be generated by Americans, for Americans. The disruption announced today protects us from those who use unlawful means to seek to mislead our citizens and our communities,' prosecutor Gary Restaino said Tuesday. The disruption of the bot farm comes as U.S. officials have raised alarms about the potential for AI technology to impact this year's elections and amid ongoing concerns that foreign influence campaigns by adversaries. Another fake account in which the 'user' encouraged followers to 'question everything' Russia's FSB security service agents also accessed the bot farm which saw accounts posing as Americans posting pro-Kremlin content Officials said that the Russian operatives intended for the bot farm to spread beyond X and on to other platforms Officials are concerned that bot farms could sway opinions of unsuspecting voters, as happened during the 2016 presidential campaign when Russians launched a huge but hidden social media trolling campaign aimed in part at helping Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. Among the fake posts, according to the Justice Department, was a video that was posted by a purported Minneapolis, Minnesota resident that showed Russian President Vladimir Putin saying that areas of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania were 'gifts' to those countries from liberating Russian forces during World War II. In another instance, the Justice Department said, someone posing as a U.S. constituent responded to a federal candidate's social media posts about the war in Ukraine with a video of Putin justifying Russia's actions. At the same time the farm was taken down, security officials in the US said they had not seen Russia shift on its preference from previous presidential elections on who it prefers to win this year, a U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday, indicating that Moscow again favors Trump. The official, briefing reporters on U.S. election security, did not name the former president and presumptive Republican nominee when asked who Moscow wants as the next U.S. president. But he indicated that Russia favored Trump, saying the U.S. intelligence community had not changed its assessments from previous elections. Those assessments had found that Moscow tried through influence campaigns to help Trump win in 2016, opens new tab against Hillary Clinton and in 2020 against President Joe Biden. This week, security officials in the US said that the Kremlin still wants Donald Trump in the Oval Office 'We have not observed a shift in Russia's preferences for the presidential race from past elections, given the role the U.S. is playing with regard to Ukraine and broader policy toward Russia,' said the official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The Trump campaign responded to this allegation by saying Biden was weak on Russia, as evidenced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 'When President Trump was in the Oval Office, Russia and all of America's adversaries were deterred, because they feared how the United States would respond,' Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign's press secretary, said in a statement. Trump frequently has criticized the scale of U.S. military support for Ukraine - some $60 billion since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 - and called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy 'the greatest salesman ever.' Two of Trump's national security advisers have presented him with a plan to end U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless it opened talks with Russia to end the conflict. On policy toward NATO, Trump has said he would 'encourage' Russia to do 'whatever the hell they want' to any alliance member that did not spend enough on defense and he would not defend them. The NATO charter obliges members to come to the defense of members that are attacked. The ODNI official conducted the briefing on condition of anonymity with ODNI colleagues and officials from the FBI and the National Coordinator for Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience, an agency that conducts cyber defense for the government and works with private industry. Russian-run bot farms were behind Hillary Clinton's defeat in the 2016 presidential election, experts believe He defined election influence as efforts to shape the outcome of polls or undermine democratic processes, while interference constitutes efforts to disrupt the ability of the U.S. to hold a free and fair vote. The U.S. has not monitored plans by any country to "degrade or disrupt" the country's ability to hold the November elections, he said. But Russia, he continued, through social media and other means has begun trying to influence specific groups of U.S. voters in battleground states, "promote divisive narratives and denigrate specific politicians," whom he did not identify. "Russia is undertaking a whole of government approach to influence the election, including the presidential, Congress, and public opinion," he said. Moscow "determines which candidates they're willing to support or oppose largely based on their stance toward further U.S. aid to Ukraine and related issues," said the official. "It's all the tactics we've seen before, primarily through social media efforts" and "using U.S. voices to amplify their narratives." A new intelligence community assessment published this week on the ODNI website said Russia "remains the primary threat to our elections" and that unidentified "Russian influence actors" secretly plan to "sway public opinion" in swing states and "diminish U.S. support for Ukraine." Russia recently has been seeking to influence U.S. audiences through "encrypted direct messaging channels," said the official. He did not elaborate. China is assessed as currently not planning "to influence the outcome of the presidential race," the official said. The U.S. views China as its leading geostrategic rival. Beijing and Washington have been working to ease strains. The Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Beijing is trying to expand its ability to collect and monitor data from social media platforms "probably to better understand and eventually manipulate public opinion," the official said. The official called generative artificial intelligence a "malign influence accelerant" being increasingly used to "more convincingly tailor" video and other content ahead of the November vote. Scottish First Minister John Swinney has been told to quit after just 65 days as SNP leader as the party plunged into fresh infighting following their election battering. Voters pummelled the pro-independence party at last week's general election as the SNP slumped to just nine MPs - a loss of 39 seats from the 48 they won in 2019. Douglas Chapman, who stood down as Dunfermline and West Fife MP before the 4 July contest, has now called for the SNP to make a 'fresh start'. He told Mr Swinney to step aside as part of efforts to 'clear the decks' and touted Kate Forbes and Stephen Flynn as 'frontrunners' for a new leadership team. Mr Chapman's intervention came after another former SNP MP branded ex-first minister Nicola Sturgeon as 'Stalin's wee sister' and labelled her leadership a 'cult'. Scottish First Minister John Swinney has been told to quit after just 65 days as SNP leader as the party plunged into fresh infighting following their election battering It came after ex-first minister Nicola Sturgeon was branded as 'Stalin's wee sister' and her leadership labelled a 'cult' Douglas Chapman, who stood down as Dunfermline and West Fife MP before the general election, called for a 'fresh start' Fresh civil war has broken out in SNP ranks despite Mr Swinney only becoming SNP leader on 6 May. He took over from Humza Yousaf who had quit after little more than a year since replacing Ms Sturgeon. Mr Chapman admitted their had been 'shortcomings' from the SNP leadership in recent years, telling the Herald newspaper: 'I believe we really do need that fresh start, that fresh impetus. 'And we need to look to our members to provide that and to be brutally honest with the leadership of the party about what they think has gone wrong and what they think the solutions might be. 'We are all well aware of the shortcomings that we've had in recent years and that's everything from the quality of delivery of services, the Scottish Government, and making sure that is reset and focused on, making sure we can get back to a situation where the people of Scotland actually trust us as their government.' When asked if Mr Swinney should remain as SNP leader, Mr Chapman said: 'I know he has not been in the post very long. 'But I think it's time to really clear the decks and use the next 700 days to make sure there is a pro-independence government in Holyrood come 2026.' He added: 'My own feeling is we need a completely fresh start and that points to a new leadership team with the attitude of putting independence at the forefront. 'The two frontrunners would be Kate Forbes and Stephen Flynn. They proved themselves over the campaign that they are articulate communicators. 'I think it would be a good combination with their presence both at Holyrood and Westminster.' Ms Forbes is currently Mr Swinney's Deputy First Minister, while Mr Flynn is the SNP's leader in the House of Commons. Earlier Jim Sillars, another former SNP MP, launched a scathing attack on Ms Sturgeon. The forme SNP deputy leader said: 'If the SNP is to recover, as it must if the independence movement is to have any hope of achieving its aim, the party's members should also realise that they have cause to repent. 'You acquiesced in changes to the constitution which shifted all power to a leadership cult, with the party then run by Stalin's wee sister imposing a politburo of two exercising an iron grip on the organisation.' He added: 'You made the mistake of believing that if you openly criticised the ineptitude of the Scottish Government, you were damaging the idea of independence, when in fact by not calling them out that is exactly what you were doing.' He said under Ms Sturgeon, the SNP had become 'just the referendum party committed to the suicidal policy of putting the cart before the horse' on independence. Mr Sillars added a 'reconstructed' SNP leadership must create a national Yes organisation in partnership with other pro-independence parties. Of the Scottish Cabinet, he said 'a good number' had to go, with SNP members told to 'demand a clear-out'. Mr Sillars concluded his letter by telling SNP members to 'reconstruct' the party with the 'tarnished old guard' stepping aside ahead of Scottish Parliament elections in two years' time. He said: 'Whether than happens is up to you. It is a responsibility you cannot escape. Another 2024 beckons in 2026 if you dodge it. 'And if you dodge it, you will be dealing what could be a fatal blow to independence.' Ms Sturgeon, who was a part of ITV's general election coverage, said on air last week that it would be the 'easy solution' for people to 'take refuge in somehow it's all my fault'. An Australian fighter has been killed in Ukraine after defying his family's wishes and travelling to eastern Europe to take on Russia. Brock Greenwood, from Rockhampton in central Queensland, had been a volunteer foreign fighter for the Ukrainian International Foreign Legion for the past 15 months. The 24-year-old's family were informed on Saturday he'd been killed after he was reportedly struck by Russian artillery. Although he had no connection to Ukraine and had never held a gun before heading to Ukraine, Mr Greenwood had wanted to put his life on the line to help people, according to his heartbroken family. 'He sacrificed his life to help others,' sister Kodie Greenwood told 7 News as she fought back tears. His mother Cassandra Parker added: 'I was proud of him and I loved him and I'm going to miss him.' Mr Greenwood's decision to travel to Ukraine to fight had previously been condemned by his family, who had tried to stop his original plan to leave Australia. Mr Parker had been living with his mother in Rockhampton when she said they had initially thwarted his Ukraine travel plans by making him 'miss his flights'. Brock Greenwood, 24, (pictured) had been a volunteer foreign fighter for the Ukrainian International Foreign Legion for the past 15 months Brock Greenwood's grieving sister Kodie Greenwood (pictured left) and his mother Cassandra Parker (pictured right) had tried to stop Mr Parker from travelling to Ukraine A few months later Mr Parker moved to Hervey Bay to live with his father, and he caught a flight to Melbourne and then on to Poland. 'I found out he was in Poland on April 20 (2023) because someone sent me a picture,' Ms Parker said. 'He caught the train the next day to Kyiv .' Kodie added that her brother was adamant on going . 'Even though we stopped him once, he said to me: 'I'm still going to go, but I can't be around you and mum because you make me feel guilty and make me want to stay. But it's what I want to do,' she recalled 'He truly was selfless. He wanted to put his life on the line to help people.' One of five siblings, Mr Greenwood has been remembered as having a 'really big heart. 'He wanted to help. He wanted to make a difference,' his mother said. Ms Greenwood said their only concern about her brother's determination to fight was he had no military experience. She said he had never held a gun before going to Ukraine. 'That's what we were really worried about,' she said. The family of Mr Greenwood (pictured) have created a GoFundMe to help cover his funeral expenses after he was killed fighting for the Ukrainian International Foreign Legion Even with no military experience, Mr Greenwood is believed to have excelled during his training and was made a leader of the team of foreign fighters. It's understood the Department of Foreign Affairs is providing the family with consular assistance. Australians have been discouraged from travelling to Ukraine, with the federal government enforcing a 'do not travel' alert in place for the war-torn country. Mr Greenwood's family have organised a GoFundMe to help raise funds for the family to give him the send-off he deserves. 'A much loved and missed son, grandson, brother, uncle, nephew, cousin, friend, and loved one,' the page states. Millionaires once accused of ruining a gorgeous town in Wyoming now complain they are being driven out of the area by billionaires. Jackson Hole has long been a popular vacation spot for celebrities including Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes and Matthew McConaughey. An influx of wealthy people sent house prices sky-rocketing and forced ordinary workers to live on the other side of the mountain on the Idaho-Wyoming border. But these same millionaires are being priced out by billionaires looking to buy multiple vacation homes and house prices have risen even further. The median income in Teton County is $108,000 a year while the average listing price for a single-family home sits at more than $7million. Jackson Hole in Wyoming is now so expensive that its millionaire residents are being priced out by billionaires. And it's even worse news for local workers on six-figure salaries Millionaires once accused of ruining a gorgeous town in Wyoming now complain they are being driven out of the area by billionaires An influx of wealthy people sent house prices sky-rocketing and forced ordinary workers to live on the other side of the mountain on the Idaho-Wyoming border 'The billionaires are buying out the millionaires,' construction worker John Smaellie told CBS News. 'You're making a great wage anywhere else in the country. But here? You're poverty-stricken.' He is only able to live on the other side of the mountains near Driggs in Idaho having been priced out of Jackson. 'A family like mine can't live here, not even an inkling of a chance,' Smaellie said. It takes him an hour to drive to downtown Jackson and the inequality in the area is easily visible on his commute. Town council member Jessica Sell Chambers said: 'This is beyond gentrification. This is super gentrification. 'It's unsustainable, too. Who's gonna run the place? Who's gonna work and be the backbone of all these services?' She is running to be mayor and says she would like to see more affordable options for multi-family housing. Jackson Hole has long been a popular vacation spot for celebrities including Ryan Gosling , Eva Mendes and Matthew McConaughey But these same millionaires are being priced out by billionaires looking to buy multiple vacation homes and house prices have risen even further The median income in Teton County is $108,000 a year while the average listing price for a single-family home sits at more than $7million Construction Worker John Smaellie is only able to live on the other side of the mountains near Driggs (pictured) in Idaho having been priced out of Jackson Pete and Sarah Wilson, who live in Driggs with their daughter Harper, feel as if they have been priced out of their hometown Jackson Pete and Sarah Wilson, who live in Driggs with their daughter Harper, feel as if they have been priced out of their hometown Jackson. He is a first responder in Jackson and said: 'I'm the help, even though I'm a firefighter-paramedic. 'Once we're done doing the job, we're expected to kick rocks, get lost. While Sarah added: 'If you're looking at the American Dream or whatever like, if you work hard enough you can have what you want but you can't.' Jackson Hole is famous for its beautiful mountains, wildlife and abundant nature views which extend in every direction. It is a popular spot for celebrities because of its privacy, peacefulness, luxury resorts and the various activities on offer. Gosling and his wife Mendes enjoyed a vacation in Jackson Hole with their daughters last August following the release of the hit Barbie movie he starred in. Of all the places he could go to wind down after his whole Barbie tour, he picked Jackson. Its so peaceful here, a source told People. People like it because you can fly under the radar. Its such a small community. Another added that the family stayed at the Caldera House which is where a lot of celebrities stay in the village its a members club and you can get a place there as well. The luxury hotel is located next to Grand Teton National Park and has welcomed celebrities including Mandy Moore, Gigi Hadid and the Kardashians. Oil and gas CEO John Truett moved to Teton County and said it allows him to become a normal person. I dont tell people that I live in a gated community. They accept me as a local, he told author Justin Farrell. DailyMail.com found two three-bedroom homes in Jackson listed for $3.8million and $3.3million Sell Chambers' home in Jackson has increased in value but she thinks the property taxes may drive her family out of the town. 'We don't want to go anywhere. The money's not important to us. It's the community,' she said. DailyMail.com found two three-bedroom homes in Jackson listed for $3.8million and $3.3million. The divide between the wealthy in Jackson and ordinary workers in Driggs was physically visible last month when a part of the mountain pass collapsed due to a landslide. Around 80 feet of the road was destroyed and could not be used for three weeks which separated the towns. Airlines could face forking out millions in compensation to customers following a Supreme Court ruling crew sickness is not 'an extraordinary circumstance'. Kenneth and Linda Lipton took British Airways to court after their flight from Milan landed in London two and a half hours late. Their original flight was cancelled due to a pilot becoming unwell shortly before the plane was set to jet off in January 2018. The airline refused to hand over 220 compensation to the couple for the delay, stating the pilot's illness was an unavoidable 'extraordinary circumstance'. The Supreme Court has now ruled in their favour, adding that although the sum was small, 'the decision has the potential to affect tens of thousands of claims'. Airlines face paying out millions in compensation to customers after the Supreme Court rules staff sickness is not 'an extraordinary circumstance' (stock image) Travellers who have had their claims rejected in the last six years in England and Wales can now resubmit claims for compensation. Passengers in Scotland can do so if their claim happened in the past five years. Two courts previously supported the company's decision to not compensate the Lipton's. But after the Court of Appeal ruled in the couple's favour the case was taken to the highest court in the land. On Wednesday, five Supreme Court justices unanimously dismissed the company's appeal. In their judgement, the judges also highlighted the intention of Regulation 261 to protect flyers rights and 'to ensure a high level of protection for consumers'. The Supreme Court said it 'does not matter' when the pilot fell ill, as the crew member remained an 'inherent part of the airline's operation' even when not on duty. They added: 'If the pilot drinks so as to be unfit to report for work and the flight is cancelled, then the reason for the cancellation is inherent in the airline's activity and operations. 'The same is also true of the need for the captain and other cabin crew to ensure that they are properly rested during stopovers. 'They have numerous obligations both to their employers and to the public during those periods.' Although two courts previously upheld British Airways decision not to pay Kenneth and Linda Lipton 220 for their delayed flight after the pilot fell ill, the Supreme Court has now ruled in the couple's favour (stock image) They also maintained staff sickness could not 'be categorised as extraordinary', as it's meaning implies 'something out of the ordinary' - to which they said workers falling ill is not. They added: 'These are all inherent in the carrier's activity and operations and if, for whatever reason, they are unable to attend for work as a result of something going awry during those rest periods, whether it is their fault or not, that failure to attend is not an extraordinary circumstance.' Coby Benson, a solicitor at Bott and Co told The Independent: 'This decision is an important step forward in protecting air passengers' rights. 'Airlines must now take their responsibilities seriously and ensure they are adequately staffed to avoid such disruptions, and if such disruptions occur, compensate passengers appropriately.' A British Airways spokesperson said: 'We are disappointed with this decision and respect the judgment of the Court.' MailOnline has approached Airlines UK for comment. Oxford University students have been ridiculed after the city's pro-Palestine encampment ended in time for summer getaways to the south of France. After 63 days of protest outside Oxford's Radcliffe Camera and other locations, Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) chose to end their camp, pending a legal order for their removal, 'in order to build the next phase of our movement'. However, as the encampment came to an end following threats of legal action by the university earlier this week, X users were scathing in their assessments of the decision. The group's encampments across various sites in the city began on May 6, when OA4P said 'we will continue to take action until our demands are met', including the university divesting from Israel and disclosing all finances. University authorities had said they would apply for a court order if the camp was not closed before the end of July 7. The university added it would not pursue disciplinary action against students if they left before that time. One comment read: '"Resistance by any means necessary!" (excluding school holidays)' Oxford University students have been ridiculed after Oxford Action for Palestine's encampment ended in the weeks after the end of term Pictured: A protest in the city in May which saw 16 arrested as protestors, including many students, occupied a first floor university office OA4P spent 63 days camped outside University landmarks (Radcliffe Camera pictured) before Monday's decision X users were scathing in their assessments of the decision as one said: '"Resistance by any means necessary!" (excluding school holidays)' Oxford University's summer term ended on June 15, and students will not return for teaching until the start of October. Though OA4P protests are not entirely made up of students, it describes itself as a 'student-led collective'. Other acerbic responses to the move to cease the camps read: 'Just in time to head to Mummy and Daddies house in the South of France. What a stroke of luck that is... 'Lol you just went home to your daddys mansion for the summer didn't you?... 'We really care about this movement unfortunately we've booked a villa in Tuscany for the summer. Up the revolution!... 'Revolution postponed! Summer holidays in Tuscany or the Dordogne beckon... 'Well that tan in the south of France wont happen by itself, will it. Trust fund rebels, eh?... 'Great news. Gaza liberated and just in time for holidays, too. Good job everyone... 'Did you achieve anything? No, didnt think so... '(we couldnt get a refund on the gite in the Dordogne)... 'In other words, its time for our holibobs at the parents villa so see you all in September... 'You're hilarious, go on home ,go on holiday, do indulge yourselves now you've achieved..............nothing.' Though OA4P say their movement is 'growing stronger by the day', many seemed to think that they had achieved 'nothing' Pictures from a May 23 demonstration showed a heavy police presence in Wellington Square, with students and protesters seen trying to engage with officers Pictured: Another Oxford pro-Palestine encampment, outside the Natural History Museum OA4P have been contacted for comment. In announcing the end of their encampment on Monday, they announced that though these protests were over, 'our movement has only just begun'. The statement continued: 'In the past two months we have built a historic coalition for Palestine across Oxford, and our movement grows stronger by the day. 'Rather than addressing its complicity in Israel's genocide, the University has chosen to target those protesting genocide instead. 'In the interest of our members and of the movement for Palestine, we have decided to redirect our momentum towards other forms of action, organising, political education, and the continued growth of our coalition. 'With pride, we close this chapter in order to build the next phase of our movement.' Following the end of the encampment, protestors moved to picket the university's administrative offices in Wellington Square - where a protest at the end of May saw 16 arrested. Pictures from that demonstration showed a heavy police presence at the scene with students and protesters seen trying to engage with officers before occupying a first floor office. Students said they would not move until they had spoken with the university's Vice Chancellor before eventually moving. On June 20, the university announced a review of of its investment policy, prohibiting investments into companies manufacturing arms that are illegal under UK law. An open letter to encampment students a week later said: 'This initiative was discussed with you at our meeting on June 21 and we note that you have welcomed this in your social media posts.' When the university threatened protesting students with legal action, it expressed its concerns around unlawful activity taking place on campus, 'interference with academic activity', the impact on users of the buildings being camped round, damage caused to university land and failure to consult university officials before setting up the camps. It continued: 'The University now gives notice that it intends to close the encampment around the Radcliffe Camera. You are instructed to disband the camps and vacate the land in accordance with the enclosed notice. 'If the camps are not disbanded by midnight, Sunday 7th July the University will apply to the court for a possession order. The University will not pursue disciplinary action against students in respect of their presence on the camps up to 7th July.' A statement from the university since the camps ended on July 9 added: 'The University welcomes the disbanding of the camp outside the Radcliffe Camera. We are now assessing the state of the lawn and what further action is required to clear and restore the site. 'The University has consistently expressed grave concern about the horrific events unfolding in Gaza. As a community we hope for a peaceful end to the conflict, a permanent ceasefire, the urgent delivery of vital medical aid and food, and the safe return of all hostages. 'Senior leaders of the University have been meeting regularly with a range of student and staff groups. We are committed to meeting with members of our community to understand and respond to their concerns, and consider how we can best contribute to rebuilding higher education in Gaza.' Supermarkets have built an 'ecosystem of data' from shoppers using loyalty cards as they make millions by 'relentlessly mining' information, insiders have revealed. Data science analysts go through purchases every day from Tesco and Sainsbury's customers who use their Clubcard or Nectar cards to benefit from lower prices. Teams at a firm called Dunnhumby, owned by Tesco; and another called Nectar 360, owned by Sainsbury's, take all this information to work out spending patterns. Details such as the store, time of day, how much was spent and the list of purchases are combined by experts to improve the targeting of advertising expenditure. Now, a new documentary on Channel 5 this evening called 'Loyalty Cards: Are They A Rip Off?' has heard from a former employee of both Dunnhumby and Nectar 360. Ed, a former employee of both Dunnhumby and Nectar 360, explained how the 'ecosystem of data' works once shoppers have made purchases on their Clubcard or Nectar card The worker, only referred to in the programme as 'Ed', said: 'The way in which I've worked in the industry is just through the pure benefit from the monetisation of it as an asset. So using data to then sell to suppliers.' Presenter Alexis Conran then said to him: 'So essentially, what you're telling me, if I've understood you correctly, the reason that Tesco and Sainsbury's and every other retailer wants you, the customer, to become part of a loyalty scheme is because by doing so I'm opening up a big and rather profitable source of income for the retailer, which is I'm giving them my data and they're going to make money off that.' And Ed replied: 'Yeah, that's true and there's been so many things especially in the last few years that have meant that retailers have had to change the way in which they price products. So if it's like the crisis in Ukraine, the pandemic. The price of products need to be cut. 'They need to find ways to find other revenue streams or profit sources that are going to help really reduce that threshold of price points for customers. So while I suppose it's very easy to be like 'oh, it is a source of profit'. Tesco has a 'Clubcard prices' scheme which offers lower prices for its loyalty card holders 'But actually that profit feeds into the bigger picture of how actually they can hopefully bring value back to customers.' Ed went onto explain what happens once someone has shopped with their loyalty card - with the supermarket knowing what has been bought, when and where. He continued: 'That one transaction is one entry point to the ecosystem of data. And I suppose the main benefit to a retailer is that learning they get from you, depending on how loyal you are. 'So it's a real way to learn how much your shopper (spends) and how loyal they are and how valuable they are as a customer to you, and therefore how you target them with advertising or learn from them from an insight point of view.' Dunnhumby made 362million in a year according to accounts for the year ended February 2022, although the firm does work with retailers other than Tesco. Presenter Alexis Conran said supermarkets want people to sign up as loyalty card holders because they open up 'a big and rather profitable source of income for the retailer' Asked about this total, Ed said: 'To my mind it sounds near enough, I was aware of it when I worked there, but I wouldn't say that, yeah, it's one of those where I wouldn't say is necessarily well-known and is in the public domain.' Tesco and Sainsbury's have both insisted that they do not sell data but 'share' anonymised details with participating companies in their schemes as specified in their terms and conditions. But Tesco recently hailed its Clubcard strategy as a major driving force behind a 159 per cent increase in pre-tax profits to almost 2.3billion. It added that there were 17,000 media retail campaigns in the last year using Clubcard retail insight. And consumer expert Harry Wallop told the programme: 'They can work out what you like, what you don't like, whether it's worth launching a new product or not. And they will relentlessly mine your data. 'You're giving access for companies to trawl through, digitally, your entire shopping, where you are, where you've been shopping, who else you shop with. They then take that data and they sell it. Tesco Clubcard and Sainsbury's Nectar sell that data. Sainsbury's has offered lower prices on products for Nectar card holders since April last year 'It may not be your individual name or your individual email or telephone number. They sell information about you and they make millions, millions upon millions every single year from your shopping habits.' While Tesco and Sainsbury's have denied claims of 'selling' data, they have said they share the information with other brands to improve customer engagement, and that their approaches are fully complaint with GDPR regulations. Among the companies which the supermarkets work with are the advertising arms of TV channels, including Channel 4. And Ed said: 'If I'm a squash brand and I want to show my squash brand on 4OD, it would go to every user on 4OD. 'But actually by using loyalty card data, you can make sure that you only show them to customers who are likely to buy squash and therefore it's a much more efficient use of brand spend.' In January, the UK's competition watchdog announced that it was reviewing whether supermarket loyalty pricing misleads or disadvantages shoppers. A company called Dunnhumby, owned by Tesco, analyses data from Clubcard spending The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the increase in some supermarkets making cheaper prices only available for loyalty card members had led to it examining the practice as part of its work to help tackle cost-of-living pressures in the groceries sector. It said it would consider whether any aspects of loyalty pricing could mislead shoppers for example, whether the loyalty price is a genuine promotion or as good a deal as presented and whether any groups of shoppers are disadvantaged by the promotions. It is also looking at whether loyalty pricing is affecting consumer behaviour, and whether this has an impact on how supermarkets compete with each other. The CMA is set to publish an update on its work this month, and expects to complete the review by the end of the year. And last September, consumer group Which? claimed Tesco and Sainsbury's were using 'potentially dodgy tactics' on some of their loyalty offers to shoppers. The Competition and Markets Authority announced in January that it is reviewing whether supermarket loyalty pricing misleads or disadvantages shoppers It said the supermarkets were, in some instances, giving the impression that savings for loyalty card members were better or more substantial than they really are. But Sainsbury's refuted the claims and said the Which? findings were based on a 'flawed methodology', while Tesco also dismissed and said 'all our Clubcard Price promotions follow strict rules'. In April last year, Sainsbury's introduced lower prices on hundreds of products in supermarkets and online for members of its loyalty card Nectar. This made it similar to the Tesco Clubcard scheme, which offers lower prices to cardholders who can also collect points to convert into vouchers or rewards. MailOnline has contacted Sainsbury's for comment on Channel 5's documentary. A Tesco spokesman told MailOnline: 'Clubcard unlocks the best value at Tesco and we have thousands of weekly deals on Clubcard Prices, offering customers potential savings of up to 360 a year. 'All our Clubcard Prices promotions follow strict rules, including considering how they compare against prices in the market, to ensure they represent genuine value and savings for our Clubcard members. These rules have been endorsed by our Trading Standards Primary Authority. 'We do not sell any Clubcard data. Our customers have full control over what they choose to share with us and can decide to opt out of marketing entirely, yet still access all the benefits of a Tesco Clubcard, including Clubcard Prices. 'When customers choose to share data with us, we use it to help us focus on providing more of the things that really matter to them.' Loyalty Cards: Are They A Rip Off? is on Channel 5 tonight at 7pm and on My5 The financial software company Intuit announced an AI-focused reorganization plan on Wednesday that includes laying off about 10% of its workforce. SOPA Images UPDATE: Intuit to cut 384 jobs in the Bay Area as part of sweeping layoffs Intuit announced on Wednesday that it will lay off 1,800 employees, roughly 10% of its workforce, and replace them with new hires focused on engineering, product development and customer service roles. This shift will include the closure of offices in Boise, Idaho, and Edmonton, Alberta, impacting 250 employees. Bay Area tech layoffs: These are the companies making the biggest cuts. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Sasan Goodarzi, CEO of the Mountain View financial technology giant, clarified that the layoffs were intended to reinforce the companys most critical areas, notably artificial intelligence. Intuit is in a position of strength; we have the strategy and momentum that we need to succeed, Goodarzi said. To fulfill our mission to power the prosperity of our customers around the world and strengthen our leadership position, we must accelerate our innovation and investments in the areas that are most important to our future success. Approximately 1,050 employees would be cut due to heightened performance demand. These are employees who are not meeting expectations and who we believe will be more successful outside of Intuit, Goodarzi said. Intuit TurboTax packages are seen on display in a Costco Warehouse. On Wednesday, the financial software company announced an AI-focused reorganization plan that includes laying off about 10% of its workforce, about 1,800 people. Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press Additionally, the company will reduce its executive team by 10%, consolidate technology roles at key sites, and eliminate more than 300 positions across the board. Despite these cutbacks, Intuit plans to increase its overall head count in the fiscal year 2025 and beyond. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, recently said that AI technology is unlikely to significantly eliminate jobs in the long term. However, the layoffs at Intuit suggest the short-term impact could be different. Smaller companies, such as San Francisco real estate firm Avenue 8, have also made job cuts to prioritize AI technology. Yet, Intuits restructuring is one of the most significant corporate shake-ups related to AI and employment in recent memory. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has warned employees that further cuts are expected in 2024. This comes as the company invests heavily in AI technology, including the development of its foundation model, Gemini, as reported by CBS. Intuits strategy to replace employees who lack proficiency in AI technologies with those who possess such skills is different than the more commonly discussed threat of AI replacing people altogether. Overall, the long-term impact of AI on the workforce remains uncertain. A report from McKinsey Global Institute forecasts that nearly 12 million U.S. workers, including office staff, customer service representatives and manufacturing workers, will need new employment by 2030 due to AI advancements. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Executives at OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, envision a future where AI eases workloads through automation and AI software assistants. However, OpenAIs Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati recently cautioned that the growing power of AI could eliminate certain creative-sector jobs. Intuit, known for its popular financial and tech products including Mailchimp, QuickBooks and Credit Karma, aims to significantly boost investments in data and artificial intelligence. Key initiatives include expanding its engineering team to further develop Intuit Assist, a generative AI-powered financial assistant, among other customer-focused solutions. Following the announcement, the companys stock fell by more than 3%. Sir Keir Starmer dodged questions about whether Joe Biden is too old to continue last night, as he prepared for his first face-to-face talks with the US President. President Biden has invited the new Prime Minister for private talks at the White House this evening just days after he secured his landslide victory. The PM and his wife Victoria will then attend a lavish White House dinner for NATO leaders. Speaking to reporters en route to Washington last night, Sir Keir said talks were likely to focus on the unique defence and security partnership between the countries. But he ducked questions about the President's age, amid a huge row in the US about whether the 81-year-old is fit to stand for a second term against Donald Trump in November. Labour's manifesto pledged to force members of the House of Lords to retire at the age of 80. But the PM insisted this did not imply politicians elsewhere should stand down at the age of 80. Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria, pictured arriving in Washington DC, are set to attend a lavish White House dinner for NATO leaders Joe Biden is facing calls from some Democrats to step aside following a disastrous TV debate with Donald Trump in which he repeatedly appeared to lose his train of thought Speaking to reporters en route to Washington last night, Sir Keir said his talks with Mr Biden were likely to focus on the unique defence and security partnership between the countries 'In terms of the age in the House of Lords, the simple fact is that our House of Lords is massive,' he said. 'It's the second biggest political chamber in the world. I think it's only the Chinese who have a bigger political chamber than our House of Lords, we have to reduce it. 'That is the primary driver of the retirement at 80. You can see why that needs to be done. We've got 800-plus members of the House of Lords, it's simply too big. We need to reduce it. 'So it doesn't reflect on how other elected representatives are chosen in other countries, it's to do with the size of the House of Lords.' President Biden is facing calls from some Democrats to step aside following a disastrous TV debate with Donald Trump in which he repeatedly appeared to lose his train of thought. He has vowed to fight on. But commentators have said his performance at this week's NATO summit could decide whether leading Democrats decide to oust him. Asked about his goals for today's meeting, the PM said: 'I've already had a phone call with President Biden. I want to follow up on that, this a very special relationship we have between the UK and the US. 'We have, within that, a special aspect when it comes to defence and security for obvious reasons including our commitment to Nato. 'We make a unique contribution in Europe to Nato and therefore it's a very good opportunity for me to talk to the President about how we take forward the important work at this summit.' The Tories leaked election votes to the left because of Rishi Sunak's watering down of green measures introduced by Boris Johnson, a new poll suggested today. Climate change was one of the top three reasons Labour and Lib Dem voters gave for supporting the parties on July 4, above housing and crime. And the analysis by More in Common found that even those who viewed it as less important also linked increasing generation of renewable energy to reducing the cost of living, the biggest factor driving voting at the election. And in a sign of how green the country is, more than 70 per cent of those polled backed Labour's plans for GB Energy, a state-run company designed to fund the move to green power. A majority of Tory and Reform voters (56 per cent and 59 per cent respectively) also said the state-run firm would be good for the country. It came as green Tories urged whoever replaces Mr Sunak as permanent Conservative leader later this year tacks back towards leading on environmental measures. The Tories lost more than 30 seats to the Liberal Democrats in the so-called Blue Wall heartlands in the south, and also came second in Waveney Valley in Cambridgeshire behind the Greens. Sam Hall, director of the Conservative Environment Network, said the election result had been 'devastating and painful' and the party needed to work out where it had gone wrong. 'A breakdown of trust, a lack of competence, and, particularly for Reform voters, a failure to reduce immigration are the key reasons for defeat. But this election has also reconfirmed the electoral limits of Net Zero row-backs,' he said. Climate change was one of the top three reasons Labour and Lib Dem voters gave for supporting the parties on July 4, above housing and crime. And the analysis by More in Common found that even those who viewed it as less important also linked increasing generation of renewable energy to reducing the cost of living, the biggest factor driving voting at the election. And in a sign of how green the country is, more than 70 per cent of those polled backed Labour's plans for GB Energy, a state-run company designed to fund the move to green power. 'In pursuit of winning back Reform voters, the Conservative campaign undermined and undersold the party's environmental record, which should have been an electoral asset. 'But this failed to move the dial. The victories in the Conservatives' rural heartlands by the Greens and Lib Dems with strong environmental messages shows the broad appeal of green policies. 'If the Conservatives want to rebuild trust with voters and get back to a winning position by 2029, we must champion the environment and put forward a positive conservative agenda to tackle climate change and restore nature.' Mr Sunak campaigned at the election on a platform of trying to make the UK net zero in carbon emissions by 2050, but refusing to do anything that might increase the cost for families. But critics said that slowing down the drive would only mean costs went up further down the line. Just six per cent of those polled by MiC for green think tank E3G believed that slowing down the green push was one of Mr Sunak's biggest achievements, with 11 per cent saying it was among his biggest mistakes. Last month former energy secretary Claire Coutinho said Labour's mission to hit net zero carbon emissions in Britain's energy supply by 2030 was 'unrealistic' and risks plunging the country into darkness. She attacked Sir Keir Starmer's pledge to fast-track wind and solar power projects in order to reduce the country's reliance on fossil fuels within six years for failing to account for Britain's readiness to make the switch. She said the plan to aim for net zero energy emissions - putting out no more carbon than is being captured - five years ahead of the Tories was too fast, without the capacity to cope with days where 'the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine'. But the Labour government has already ripped up planning rules with the specific aim of making it easier to build windfarms in the countryside. Luke Tryl, executive director at More in Common, said: 'Climate was an important issue for a small but key group of voters at this election. 'But even beyond those who shifted away from the Conservatives on climate specifically, the election was fought over the cost of living, and Labour's policy on GB Energy helped them win the argument that they would be the best party to reduce bills and leave people feeling better off. 'At the same time, Sunak's reversals on the country's climate targets simply weakened the Conservative brand, making the Prime Minister look inconsistent, unable to deliver on his pledges, and unserious about climate change something that made voters worry for their children and grandchildren's future.' And E3G's Ed Matthew added: 'The overwhelming majority of British people want more clean energy, to tackle climate change and lower their energy bills. By backing high cost fossil fuels over cheaper renewables, Rishi Sunak lost the confidence of middle England over tackling the cost of living crisis, bleeding votes to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. At the same time it did almost nothing to appeal to likely Reform voters. It was a catastrophic misjudgement.' A man was stunned to learn his $4.99 vase from Goodwill was actually worth up to $100,000. The 1920 Overbeck yellow vase featured on an Antiques Roadshow episode earlier this week when an unidentified guest brought it to an event in Indiana. The owner of the piece told appraiser David Rago that he and his wife were shopping at Goodwill when he spotted the 'beautiful' product on a shelf. When told it could fetch between $50,000 and $100,000 at auction, the man replied: 'My heart is thumping!' The shopper added: 'I knew it was good quality, but I knew nothing about it, so I picked it up and looked,' said the owner of the vase. A man brought a 1920 Overbeck vase to an event that aired on Antiques Roadshow. Appraiser David Rago told him the vase would sell anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000 'It had markings, and I thought, "Well, I don't know who it is, but for $4.99, I'm going to buy it."' Rago briefly described Overbeck pottery and turned the vase over to show the owner the 'OBK' marking that is used on nearly all its items. He added that the initials 'E' and 'F' below the 'OBK' were the initials of two of the sisters who created the vase. The female potters created several pieces of work during the 1900s, and the appraiser believed that the women did their best work around the 'late teens, early 20s.' The appraiser spoke highly of the vase's design that features 'a geometric distillation' Rago explained that he knew a tree was in the design because of the branches and the leaves, which are shown as triangles The 1920 vase 'falls into that power alley,' according to Rago. He added: 'The conventionalized design is an arts and crafts period design technique that uses a geometric distillation of the original design.' 'You can see that conventionalization in this design. You've got the repeated design. It's five or six times around the vase.' The appraiser also mentioned the running man in the striped suit, and the 'big pink sun' that is shining through a tree. Rago explained he knew it was a tree because of the branches and the leaves, which are shown as triangles. 'It's colorful, it's hand thrown, it's tooled... It's a seriously good piece of Overbeck.' David Rago told its owner that the initials 'E' and 'F' below 'OBK' were of two of the sisters who created the vase Overbeck pottery was produced between 1911 and 1955 by Margaret, Hannah, Elizabeth, and Mary Frances Overbeck. The majority of the four sisters' work was inspired by their surroundings, according to Waynet. The sisters collaborated with one another on most of their pieces, and the 'E' and 'F' initials on the Antiques Roadshow vase stood for Elizabeth and Frances. The women went on to win awards for their work in places like Paris, Chicago, and New York, and their work is featured in museums nationwide. Art enthusiasts can also take a look at their work at the Overbeck Pottery Museum in Cambridge City. Their pieces occasionally pop up on auction websites, and one of their works from 1915 was auctioned off for $52,920 last April. The expensive vase's worth was estimated to be $35,00045,000 before it was purchased. A family faced their biggest fear after their innovative father flew his homemade helicopter into the sky. On Friday morning Vincent Faber, 70, took off on his 'home-built type' Scorpion 133 Helicopter, but around 8am the chopper crashed and killed the beloved father in Andale, Kansas. At the time of the crash his kids were visiting him, but instead of spending time with him, they were left to plan his funeral. Vincent's son Jeremey Faber said that his father loved nothing more than to build and fix things himself- especially his helicopter. Although his creative passion made him happy, Vincent's family always feared it would put him in harm's way. On Friday morning Vincent Faber, 70, took off on his 'home-built type' Scorpion 133 Helicopter, but around 8am the chopper crashed and killed him Vincent's son Jeremey Faber said that his father loved nothing more than to build and fix things himself 'Shocked, I was always worried about it; Id always go out there to make sure he was parked,' Jeremy told KSNW. The Sedgwick County Sheriffs Office and Sedgwick County Fire responded to the fatal crash on the 5700 block of N. 255th St. West. Vincent's sister, Patsy Faber, said she was 'shocked' over his death and she couldn't stomach visiting the crash scene. 'I have not been out there. I'm afraid to go to the site,' Patsy said. Brittany Trotter, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman, told News-Press Now that Vincent's specific chopper is a small aircraft that can be bought in a kit for owners to assemble themselves. His family always feared that his passion would put him in harm's way one day It is unclear what exactly caused Vincent's chopper to crash. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating The manufacturer of the chopper, RotorWay, the 'largest kit helicopter company in the world', no longer makes the Scorpion 133 helicopter. From 1972 to 1984, the company sold about 5,000 kits. It is unclear exactly why RotorWay decided to stop producing the specific chopper. The aircraft is allowed to be flown at a number of sites, fits in most garages, is lightweight and does not need to be flown out of an airport, according to the American Helicopter Museum. It is unclear what exactly caused Vincent's chopper to crash. The National Transportation Safety Board is currently investigating. The agency is expected to release a preliminary report on the tragic accident in about 30 days, with a final report set to come out in 12-14 months. Jeremey said that more than anything his late father loved to work on his helicopter. 'Always working on something, his hobby was his helicopter,' he said. Vincent's sister, Patsy Faber, said she was 'shocked' over his death and she couldn't stomach visiting the crash scene (pictured) Eugene Faber, Vincent's brother, took to Facebook and posted a heartfelt tribute to him. 'I just thought I would let everyone know that knew my brother, Vince Faber that he died the morning of July 5th in a helicopter accident near his home. 'He had a kit built Scorpion helicopter that he built and was learning to fly it. The news said that there may have been engine problems. 'I haven't talked to his son or daughter yet. I know that there are people on here that knew Vince and went to school with him. I don't know anything else at this time,' Eugene said. In January, an experimental plane pilot and three others were killed after the homemade plane crashed into California's Half Moon Bay. The pilot, Australian Lochie Ferrier, died alongside his venture capitalist fiancee, Cassidy Petit, Willmer-Shile, and Isaaz Zimmern, the son of wealthy Zoom executive Johann Zimmern. Ferrier was known in the 'experimental aircraft' community and had graduated from MIT in 2019 with an aeronautical engineering degree. He worked at Beta Technologies - an electric plane company. He moved to California to work at Magpie Aviation in Hayward, which specializes in electric aircraft. The Arizona rancher who became the face of the border crisis when he was charged with killing a migrant on his land will not face trial again, a judge has ruled. George Alan Kelly, 75, was charged with the killing of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, a Mexican national found dead on Kelly's sprawling ranch in January 2023. The case led to a mistrial in April when jurors failed to reach a verdict after one hold-out refused to acquit. Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink denied the prosecution's request to keep the case open on the possibility that new witnesses could appear on Tuesday. 'The interests of justice are not advanced where the only thing to be accomplished by a dismissal without prejudice, where there is not possibility that a re-trial will occur, is the harassment of the Defendant,' Fink said in a decision obtained by KGUN 9. A judge ruled the prosecution cannot retry the case against George Alan Kelly (pictured), 75, who was accused of shooting a migrant on his ranch Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea (pictured), was a Mexican national found dead on Kelly's sprawling ranch in January 2023 'The interests of justice are not served by the dismissal without prejudice for case that cannot and will not be re-tried. 'The State's motion to dismiss without prejudice is denied. In the interests of justice the case is ordered dismissed with prejudice.' After the trial, Deputy County Attorney Kimberly Hunley said the prosecution supported dismissing the case but wanted the option to retry it if circumstances change. She had said unknown witnesses may come forward and known witnesses in Mexico might become available. Prosecutors claimed that Kelly recklessly fired his AK-47 nine times at a group of migrants 100 yards away who were trespassing on his 170-acre cattle ranch near the U.S.-Mexico border. The group, which included Cuen-Buitimea, were allegedly running from border patrol agents, according to law enforcement officials. had previously entered the US illegally several times and was deported, most recently in 2016, court records show. Kelly said he fired warning shots in the air to scare the group off and never intended to hit, let alone kill anyone Prosecutors claimed that Kelly recklessly fired his AK-47 nine times at a group of migrants 100 yards away who were trespassing on his 170-acre cattle ranch near the U.S.-Mexico border Cuen-Buitimea, who was found with a bullet hole in his back on Kelly's ranch, had previously entered the U.S. illegally several times and was deported Cuen-Buitimea, who was found with a bullet hole in his back on Kelly's ranch, At trial, prosecutors claimed that Kelly's story to border patrol officers kept changing, first saying he returned fire at all five individuals who were shooting him, then saying it was a group of 10 to 15 people armed with AR-styled rifles, ABC News reported. Kelly said he fired warning shots in the air to scare the group off and never intended to hit, let alone kill anyone. The defense said authorities were lying about Kelly admitting to shooting at multiple people. In his ruling, Fink noted the testimony of a Honduran migrant who told jurors he was walking with Cuen-Buitimea that day. The judge wrote that any new witnesses would contradict testimony that the man was the sole witness and raise other credibility challenges. A 'death capsule' designed to carry out assisted suicides has been banned by prosecutors in Switzerland weeks before it was set to be used for the first time. The Sarco, short for sarcophagus, would enable the euthanasia patient inside it to press a button and die 'within seconds', according to the company behind it, Exit Switzerland. The case - which looks like something out of a sci-fi film and has been described as the 'Tesla of euthanasia' - fills with nitrogen to starve the occupant of oxygen, rendering the patient unconscious before they die. Its creator, controversial assisted dying advocate Dr Philip Nitschke, claims his invention could allow users to die swiftly and painlessly. But now prosecutors in Switzerland's Schaffhausen Canton have warned that anyone assisting someone to use the pods could face up to five years behind bars, according to Swiss media reports. The Sarco, short for sarcophagus, would enable the euthanasia patient inside it to press a button and die 'within seconds', according to the company behind it, Exit Switzerland An early version of the Sarco Pod, which can be operated internally and works by reducing oxygen levels. No one has yet used it. The final prototype is in the finishing stages of being prepared Australian euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke, the man behind the Sarco Public Prosecutor Peter Sticher warned of 'serious consequences' for Nitschke for 'inducement and aiding and abetting suicide for selfish reasons'. In a letter obtained by Swiss media, Sticher said: 'There is no reliable information about the method of killing. '[It is] completely unclear who has control over which mechanical process during the dying process.' Prosecutors say that under section 115 of the canton's penal code, it would be impossible to establish who was responsible for the killing and as a result blocked the device's introduction. The ban followed after Nitschke revealed in an online forum on June 10 that Sarco's deployment in Switzerland was expected 'in the next few weeks.' He said: 'The machine can be towed anywhere for the death. 'It can be in an idyllic outdoor setting or on the premises of an assisted-suicide organisation, for example.' While the Australian researcher claims that his device would give people the chance to end their lives in a 'peaceful' way, pro-life groups have warned that the sleek, furturistic looking pods 'glamorise suicide'. Sources told Swiss media that Exit Switzerland's preparations to introduce the pods were largely complete, and said a candidate for the first euthanisation had been selected. It is unclear who that patient is and Dr Nitschke and his team have neither confirmed nor denied the reports. In an interview with MailOnline last year, Dr Nitschke explained how his invention works. 'The person will climb into the machine, they will be asked three questions and they will answer verbally - 'Who are you?', 'Where are you?' and 'Do you know what happens if you press the button?' 'And if they answer those questions verbally, the software then switches the power on so that the button can then be pressed. 'And if they press the button they will die very quickly. Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke is a former physician and head of the voluntary euthanasia campaign Exit International 'When you climb into Sarco the oxygen level is 21 per cent but after you press the button it takes 30 seconds for the oxygen to drop to less than 1 per cent,' he said. The doctor's plans to use Sarco for the first time caused uproar from 'pro-life' organisations, including CARE. James Mildred, its director of engagement, said: 'Philip Nitschke's device has been condemned by a broad range of commentators. 'Many people feel that it trivialises, and even glamourises, suicide. 'We believe that suicide is a tragedy that good societies seek to prevent in every circumstance. There are ethical ways to help human beings that don't involve the destruction of life.' Sarco's creators said in 2021 that it had passed legal review in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal and hundreds of people use the services of organisations such as Dignitas and Exit (a separate group to that of Dr Nitschke) every year. But Kerstin Noelle Vokinger, a Professor of Law and Medicine at the University of Zurich, said previously that Sarco may need to be certified under the country's medical devices act, which it is not. A somber Alec Baldwin was branded sick as he entered court for the second day of his manslaughter trial over the fatal shooting on the set of his ill-fated Western film 'Rust'. The baggy-eyed actor, 66, arrived on Wednesday in a convoy of three SUVs wearing a dark suit and avoiding questions from reporters camped outside the Santa Fe courthouse. Baldwin and his wife Hilaria, 40, appeared at the courthouse as opening statements were set to begin in the case involving the death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of the western film in October 2021. Baldwin was a producer and the star of Rust when he shot dead cinematographer Hutchins, 42, a mother-of-one, while filming with a prop gun that had a live round inside it. The film's director Joel Souza was also injured. The stakes for Baldwin are incredibly high and were starkly illustrated in February when Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 26, the armorer on the set, went on trial and was found guilty for the same charges in the same court. Outside court attorney Gloria Allred held a photo of Hutchins, her mother Olga and Hutchins son. Allred is representing Hutchins family in Ukraine as part of a civil negligence lawsuit they have brought against Baldwin in the US. The actor, 66, arrived in court on Wednesday in a convoy of three SUVs while wearing a dark suit and avoided questions from reporters Once inside, baggy-eyed Baldwin sat at the defense table and appeared nervous while Hilaria and his brother Stephen Baldwin, both seen behind the star, sat behind him in the public gallery According to Allred, the family had been unable to come because of the ongoing conflict in the country, saying: We would like the truth, we would like justice. She added: Baldwin, though his attorneys have attacked us unfairly, suggested they didn't have a close relationship with Halyna which is false. I know Alec brought one of his seven children, hes apparently signed up for a reality show. This is not a reality show! Halyna Hutchins died after being hit by a bullet from the prop gun that Baldwin was handling This is a trial of involuntary manslaughter of a young, talented cinematographer. She had a right to be safe on that set as did every member of the crew. I dont know whether Alec Baldwin decided to make holding his baby or his wife holding the baby and then handing her to a nanny or a producer [part of] the reality show. It is cynical and potentially a calculated public relations move to make him seem more sympathetic to the jury. Holding up the photo, Allred said: This is a child as well. This is Halyna's child who no longer has a mother. Lets not forget, this is a real case in Santa Fe, New Mexico and it has to be taken seriously! When asked what she thought him maybe maybe filming his reality show from jail, she added: I dont know what his plans are except if he uses this trial and his children as part of a reality show, I think its sick. In the court, Baldwin sat at the defense table and appeared nervous while Hilaria and his brother Stephen Baldwin, who is also an actor, sat behind him in the public gallery. In her opening statement, Erlinda Johnson, a special prosecutor appointed to the case, said that Baldwin had 'violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety and that he was 'reckless' on set. Baldwin is being represented by Alex Spiro, a high profile lawyer whose other clients include Elon Musk, Jay-Z, Mick Jagger and Naomi Osaka The Emmy award winning actor, 66, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter Johnson said that Baldwin had requested the biggest gun available after he arrived on the set in in October 2021. She told jurors: When someone plays make believe with a real gun in a real life workplace and while playing with the gun violates the cardinal rules of gun safety people's lives are endangered and somebody could be killed. 'Thats what this case is about. Its simple, straightforward. That someone who played make believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin.' Johnson said that the armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was a 'very young woman' and 'inexperienced'. She told the court that Baldwin didn't do a safety check with Gutierrez-Reed because he 'didn't want to offend her'. Johnson also criticized Baldwin's claim that he didn't pull the trigger saying that a firearms analyst ruled that Baldwin must have pulled the trigger. The analyst with the FBI only got the gun to fire without pulling the trigger by breaking it during an accidental discharge test, the court heard. Prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson speaks during actor Alec Baldwin's hearing at Santa Fe County District Court Baldwin, seen here outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's offices on the day of the shooting, was sensationally charged for a second time in January this year Baldwin, Hutchins and armorer Gutierrez-Reed are circled on the set of Rust alongside fellow cast members and staffers The movie was being shot on the Bonanza Creek Ranch film set in Santa Fe While defense lawyer Alex Spiro told jurors that the death of Hutchins had been an unspeakable tragedy but that Baldwin committed no crime. In his opening statement, Spiro said: There were people responsible for ensuring the safety of the firearm. Those people failed in their duties. On this set there was a real bullet something that should never be on a movie set. You will hear no evidence that Baldwin had anything to do with that real bullet being bought on that set. The actors job is to act, hes Harlan Rust, hes an outlaw running for his life. In this incident hes pulling a six shooter. His mind is in the being of another, a century away, an outlaw. He must be able to take that weapon and use it in ways that would be lethal in the real world but not on a movie set. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed poses for mugshot after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter Spiro told the court that investigators in the case saw Baldwin as being a shiny object they could go for. He said: Instead of trying to find the source of the lethal bullet they focused on Mr Baldwin. But Mr Baldwin was like any other actorsafety proceeds before the actor. A properly cleared gun cannot hurt anyone. Baldwin was said to be in a state of shocking grief following the incident, according to Spiro who described him as being a father, an artist, worried about his family. Spiro then criticized the law enforcement in the case saying that they didnt have a case against Baldwin and blasted them for destroying the gun. He said: This gun had a hair trigger. The owners manual of this gun says if you load it with a live round and you drop it, this type of gun can accidentally go off. The destruction of the gun is symbolic of this case. They weren't really investigating any more, they were trying to disprove Alec, to get Alec, to have this day [in court]'. Attorney Alex Spiro looks on during actor Alec Baldwin's hearing at Santa Fe County District Court Former Santa Fe County Sheriffs deputy Nicholas LeFleur was called as the first witness in the case, with the jury being shown footage from his body cam that he wore that day. LeFleur was first on the scene, with his body cam capturing him arriving on the set, getting out his car and retrieving a bag from his truck before running into the church. Hutchins can be seen laying on her back inside the set with tubes coming out of her body as medical teams tend to her. LeFleur can be heard saying: One female shot in the chest, male shot in the stomach and calling for an air evacuation. Director Joel Souza can be heard shouting out in pain and is seen thrashing his legs around in the clip. One person says of Souza: Hes good hes got a (inaudible) shoulder blade, apparently referring to a bullet. Hutchins face appears pale but appears to move her arm to behind her head. LeFleur was first on the scene, with his body cam capturing him arriving on the set, getting out his car and retrieving a bag from his truck before running into the church Hutchins can be seen laying on her back inside the set with tubes coming out of her body as medical teams tend to her Baldwin appeared to struggle at one point while watching the footage and put his hand on his forehead. His wife and brother watched intently from the public gallery A woman helping Hutchins to breathe says: Halyna deep breath, deep breath there you go. Deep breath Halyna. Jesus. Baldwin appeared to struggle at one point while watching the footage and put his hand on his forehead. His wife and brother watched intently from the public gallery. Several crew members and paramedics could be seen lifting Hutchins up on a stretcher. One person had a mask over her mouth and was pumping it to help her breathe. The footage also showed Baldwin in the immediate aftermath of the incident, speaking with crew members despite being ordered not to by cops. Dave Halls, the First Assistant Director, who had handed Baldwin the gun also arrives on the scene. One man can be heard saying that crew members had 'cleared' the gun at the request of Halls, something they had witnessed. Halls could be seen making a shaking motion and discussing a shake test - the court has previously heard that dummy rounds would have made a noise when shaken. Halls would later take a plea deal and serve months probation after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge. Photos taken by detectives with Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office show the aftermath of the incident in October 2021 Law enforcement officer Nicholas LeFleur testifies during actor Alec Baldwin's hearing at Santa Fe County District Court The court also heard the 911 call made from a member of the crew who identified herself as a script supervisor. The woman says to the dispatcher: Two people accidentally shot on the set by a prop gun. We need help. This f****** AD,' in an apparent reference to First Assistant Director, Dave Halls. The woman continued: 'That yelled at me at lunch. This motherf*****. Hes supposed to check the guns, hes responsible. The second witness to take the stand in the case was Timoteo Benavidez who at the time of the incident was a lieutenant with the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department. Footage captured by Benavidez body cam was shown to jurors, in which he can be heard saying: 'One shot in the chest and another shot in the stomach.' The jury was shown the body cam footage taken by Benavidez on the day Hutchins was shot. The second witness to take the stand in the case was Timoteo Benavidez who at the time of the incident was a lieutenant with the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department, seen here In court he said that it was the biggest crime scene he had ever been to, saying: 'There were people everywhere. I couldnt distinguish who it was, actors, film personnel, or bystanders. But there was a lot of people there. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was shown in the video, the first time she has been seen during the trial. Benavidez said he sought her out to find the gun and make sure it didn't go off agai, he can be heard asking her 'How do I know this is the gun?'. The jury was also shown the prop cart that was used on set and the disorganized pile of items on top of it including gun belts and ammunition. A second gun lay on the top along with two loose rounds next to it. During cross-examination by Baldwins lawyer Alex Spiro, Benavidez said that the prop cart was a mess. Marissa Poppell, a crime scene technician with the Santa Fe County Sheriff's office, said that she suspected that several of the rounds she found on the set of Rust were live ones, though the FBI crime lab was where they were analyzed. According to Poppell, she found six suspected live rounds including the casing for one which had apparently been used.Another round was in a box of bullets that were supposed to be dummies. A third bullet was in a gun belt which was assigned to Baldwin. According to Poppell, she found six suspected live rounds including the casing for one which had apparently been used The trial is the culmination of a nightmare for Mr Baldwin that has lasted for nearly three years and has finally come to court. The Emmy award winning actor, 66, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter. The case has had a long and tortured path to trial: Baldwin was originally charged in January 2023 with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. They were dropped three months later in light of new evidence, prosecutors said, adding they needed more time to investigate. Baldwin was sensationally charged for a second time in January this year with the same charges. Baldwin and his wife are currently filming a reality TV series about their family. It is not clear if a camera crew is trailing them in New Mexico, but the show is due to air in 2025 meaning filming is likely underway now. The case is expected to hear eight days of evidence and argument, followed by deliberations. An Irish stewardess who was detained in Dubai for an alleged suicide attempt after suffering brutal domestic violence has had a travel ban lifted and can return home, according to Irish premier Simon Harris. Tori Towey, 28, a flight attendant from Co Roscommon, was charged with attempted suicide and alcohol abuse after waking up in a police station after the attack by her husband, Irish parliamentarians were told. However, police in the United Arab Emirates have now withdrawn the charges against Towey, a lawyer working on her case has said. Dubai authorities had also reportedly banned her from leaving the state, sparking fears she was headed for a jail term in an Emirati prison. But Mr Harris said today: 'I've just been informed that the travel ban has been lifted, that the embassy will take Tori to the airport as soon as she is ready to go and that the embassy of course will continue to follow up on the case, which is still active as of now.' He thanked the Irish embassy in the United Arab Emirates for their work on the case. It comes hours after Tori's mother said she was 'desperate to get home' and has been through 'the worst time of her life'. Tori Towey has been left stranded in Dubai after being faced with an attempted suicide charge Tori was pictured with extensive bruises over her body, which she says are from an assault Tori, pictured left with aunt, has been banned from leaving the UAE and told she faces jail for drinking alcohol and attempting to take her own life Dubai's draconian laws: Why attempting suicide and drinking alcohol is a 'crime' Prior to 2019, anyone found guilty of attempting suicide in Dubai faced a 5000AED fine (1050) or six months in prison. The 'offence' was one of 28 'minor crimes' downgraded to free up space in the Emirates' overcrowded courts system. Those found guilty of attempting suicide in the Gulf state now have to pay a fine of 1000AED (210) instead of facing a judge. In the same year, the Gulf state loosened its liquor laws to allow tourists to purchase alcohol in state-controlled stores, previously only accessible to licence-holding residents. The new laws also let visitors obtain liquor permits themselves for the first time, by applying online or going to a registered alcohol store to get one for free. While visitors must have a permit, it's no longer a criminal offence not to have one. A 30 per cent tax on alcohol was also axed on New Year's Eve 2022 to encourage tourists to flock to the Emirate. While the relaxation of the laws sends a message that it's safe to drink, the reality is more complicated. It is illegal to drink or even be under the influence of alcohol in public outside of a licensed premises. Radha Stirling, founder and CEO of Detained in Dubai previously told MailOnline: 'Reducing the cost of alcohol in Dubai is sending a clear message to tourists and that is to drink. Considering Dubai's alcohol laws prohibit the possession of alcohol in public, drinking in Dubai is inherently dangerous. 'If a visitor's blood is tested and shows up even one drink, they can be criminally charged. Alcohol tests are often conducted when a complaint is made by a local. If a local is offended by a visitor's dress sense, language or behaviour, they may call the police and have the visitor arrested, even if that person has only consumed a small beer. 'Dubai's laws are highly contradictory. On the one hand, people are encouraged to drink but on the other, it's a criminal offence to have any amount of alcohol in your blood in public. Encouraging visitors to drink more alcohol will most certainly result in increased detentions of Brits abroad in prisons notorious for human rights abuses and police brutality'. Advertisement Tori had been banned from leaving the UAE and told she faced jail for drinking alcohol and attempting to take her own life following the alleged beating by her husband. Tori's mum Caroline told MailOnline: 'The support from the Irish government and the Irish people has been incredible and we weren't expecting it at all. It's a small country and the politicians are real people. 'We are both exhausted and desperate to get home. Thank you so much to everyone supporting us.' She added that her daughter had been through 'the worst time of her life and needs to come home with me and heal'. Tori's aunt Ann Flynn also told Sky News: 'She's doing her best. It's very stressful, stressful for all the family. 'Tori's a beautiful young woman, fun-loving, loves to travel. She got the job of her dreams working for Emirates, and she could continue travelling with work.' 'It's really terrible that this has happened to a young woman who was full of life and full of adventure.' A spokesperson for legal group Detained in Dubai (DiD) claimed Tori's South African husband went after her with a knife and punched her, before slamming her arm in the bathroom door trying to break it. Tori said she tried to take her own life after the attack, which left her with severe bruises and injuries. But after being taken to a police station, Ms Towey was facing charges of alcohol consumption and attempting suicide by a court in Dubai. She said she was unable to leave the country as her passport had been blocked. Speaking through outreach group DiD, who are assisting the family, Ms Towey said prior to the lifting of the travel ban: 'I don't know what's going to happen in court next week. 'I'm desperate to go home to Ireland and put all of this in the past. I'm asking the Taoiseach to please help us.' The DiD said Ms Towey had faced a lengthy prison sentence in a jail known for 'human rights abuses and torture'. Radha Stirling, CEO of DiD, said: 'We are calling on Dubai authorities to urgently drop the charges against Tori, remove the travel ban and let her fly home to Ireland with her mother. She has been charged with attempted suicide and alcohol consumption. 'Strangely, the UAE has gone to great public relations efforts to promote alcohol as legal in the country. In reality, people are still regularly charged with alcohol consumption and possession. Tori's experience is nothing short of tragic and quite frankly, she is lucky to be alive.' She explained: 'Tori arranged to fly home to Ireland but, when she arrived at the airport, was told a case against her by her husband had been dropped but the travel ban remained. 'She attended the police station who assured her the travel ban would be lifted but it never happened. The next day, Tori and her husband had some wine and he became enraged, accusing her of having an affair.' Ms Stirling explained: 'The next thing she remembers is an ambulance crew and police waking her up. She was taken to Al Barsha police station and kept for several hours before going home again. 'Her mother pleaded to the Irish Consulate but in the absence of their assistance, boarded a flight to Dubai. When she arrived, she wasn't allowed to see Tori alone, her abuser wouldn't allow it. 'The three met at Emirates mall then attended the prosecutor's office to find out what charges had been registered against her.' Ms Towey, who graduated from the Dublin Institute Of Technology, moved to the UAE in April 2023 Tori is pictured in 2021, before her move to the UAE - where she now hopes to return to Ireland Irish premier Harris said he would intervene in the 'appalling' case as Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald raised Ms Towey's case in the Irish Parliament on Tuesday afternoon. Mr Harris thanked Ms McDonald for bringing the case to his attention, saying: 'I'm not directly appraised of the situation, but I'm very happy to be directly appraised of it now.' He said he would work with the deputy 'to intervene and see how we can support an Irish citizen in what sounds to be based on what you tell me the most appalling circumstances'. The Department of Foreign Affairs told the Irish Daily Mail it was aware of the case and was offering consular assistance. Ms McDonald told Dail Eireann that Ms Towey has been the victim of domestic violence and is subject to a travel ban over alleged charges. She said she had spoken to Ms Towey, and that the 28-year-old's mother travelled to Dubai to be with her. 'Tori wants to come home, simple as that. She is a Roscommon woman and she wants to come home,' she said. Radha Stirling, CEO of DiD says Tori's husband attacked her with a knife and punched her, before slamming her arm in the bathroom door trying to break it. Pictured the injuries said to be from the alleged attack The 28-year-old moved to the UAE in April 2023 when she was offered a job as a flight attendant with Emirates In 2018, one member of Dubai Police said that they would focus on treatment rather than punishment when it came to suicide victims, even thought suicide and suicide attempts are a crime in the country. Brig Ahmed bin Ghalaita, then director of Al Refaa Police Station, told The National: 'The move is taken to provide support to suicide attempters and deal with them as victims who need moral support and help. 'Suicide cases are being examined by a police unit and experts in the psychology field to identify the causes behind their attempts and find solutions for them.' It comes as earlier this year, British wives boasting of luxury new lives funded by millionaire husbands in Dubai have been warned they risk being dumped homeless on the streets at any moment. Experts have revealed a surge in complaints from not only women but also men betrayed and dumped by wealthy partners after upping sticks for the Middle East. The alert comes amid a TikTok and Instagram trend of UK women sharing footage of spending sprees in the United Arab Emirates after wedding wealthy husbands. MailOnline had also reported on an influx of expats pampered by rich partners, enjoying days filled with shopping trips, extravagant meals and property upgrades. An Alabama inmate on death row set for execution next week asked the the state not to autopsy his body due to his devout Muslim faith. Keith Edmund Gavin, 64, was convicted of capital murder for the March 1998 shooting death of delivery driver William Clinton Clayton Jr., when he stopped to withdraw money from an ATM, Seattle Times reported. Gavin is set to die by lethal injection - the Southern state's primary execution method - in an execution held at the William C. Holman Correction Facility outside Atmore between midnight Wednesday July 17 and 6 am on Friday, July 19, according to Governor Kay Ivey's office. While it is standard practice in the state of Alabama to perform an autopsy after execution, Gavin asked through his attorney to prohibit the act following his death for religious reasons. On Tuesday, William Califf, a spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, said they are 'working on a resolution,' according to the news outlet. Keith Edmund Gavin, 64, is set to die by lethal injection on or around July 18 Alabama's lethal injection chamber at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore is pictured in this Oct. 7, 2002, file photo 'Mr. Gavin is a devout Muslim. His religion teaches that the human body is a sacred temple, which must be kept whole,' his attorney's wrote. 'As a result, Mr. Gavin sincerely believes that an autopsy would desecrate his body and violate the sanctity of keeping his human body intact. 'Based on his faith, Mr. Gavin is fiercely opposed to an autopsy being performed on his body after his execution.' Last month, Gavin's lawyers filed a lawsuit in state court in Montgomery after they were not able to meet with state officials to grant his request ahead of his execution, which will be the state's third one this year. They explained that the court filing was not an attempt to stay their clients execution, as per the news outlet. William C. Holman Correction Facility where the execution will take place Gavin's victim Clayton Jr. worked as a contract courier for Corporate Express Delivery Systems before his murder in 1998. After Clayton Jr. completed his deliveries for the day on March 6 of that year, he stopped at the bank to get money to take his spouse out for dinner, Atmore News reported. However, he would never make it home. Clayton Jr. was fatally shot while sitting in his van outside the Regions Bank in the downtown area of Centre. According to court documents, Gavin had been previously convicted of murder and attempted murder for shooting at a law enforcement officer, which led to two counts of capital murder, CBS News previously reported. A jury voted 10-2 in favor of the death penalty for Gavin and sentenced him to death. As of January 2024, there are 24 states that have the death penalty and 23 that do not - while a further three have a moratorium on it The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is typically reserved for especially heinous crimes in which a victim is killed, but each state can determine what specific circumstances make a murder eligible for a death sentence. As of January 2024, there are 24 states that have the death penalty, 23 that do not and three that have a moratorium in place, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Last year, there were 24 executions in the United States, all of them carried out by lethal injection. However, of the nine executions to take place in 2024, one of them was done by the controversial new method: death by nitrogen hypoxia. Up to 100 homeless migrants living in a tent city opposite a famous Park Lane hotel today vowed to dig their heels in as furious locals slam the council for inaction. The presence of tents opposite The Dorchester caused fury among residents and office workers who have accused the council of doing nothing to prevent one of the country's most famous addresses being used as a squatters' camp. But today a spokesman for the group, thought to be composed mainly of Bosnians, told MailOnline: 'We don't have any money [to go anywhere else]. We will just stay here until we can find something.' When we visited the Mayfair camp we found the group struggling to shelter from the rain in temporary shelters and without food, water or sanitation. The camp is at the centre of London's West End tourist Mecca, just a stone's throw away from Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Speaker's Corner, as well as Oxford Street. It is just yards from an Aston Martin showroom and prestige hotels such as The Dorchester, the Beaumont, the Hyatt Regency and the Connaught. Up to 100 migrants from eastern Europe have pitched up and are living in temporary shelters off Park Lane, one of London's most exclusive postcodes The migrants - mostly from Bosnia - are staying in a Sangatte-style town of tents in Mayfair today said they will ignore calls to move on and insisted: 'We're not going anywhere.' But for the tycoons who look out on the camp from their penthouses, to see people drinking at 7am and using Hyde Park's shrubberies as toilets is infuriating. Pictures appear to show homeless migrants drinking cups of vodka at 7am in their makeshift camp blighting London's swanky Mayfair district. One resident, whose neighbours include former PM Tony Blair and former Phones 4U chief John Caudwell, today told of his anger that the group hasn't been moved on. He told MailOnline: 'What must tourists think when they see this? 'They get onto their open top buses to see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and all that. And then they come to Park Lane and see this - what must they think?' He went on: How are they allowed to just live here? It's disgraceful. They have been here for months, and the council does nothing. 'Do you know how much I pay in council tax? And what does Westminster Council do? 'It's outrageous that they have been allowed to pitch here in the first place but the weeks go by and yet they are still here. 'And it's even getting worse - some tents have been there for a while but more have turned up over just the last few days.' The people living there say they arrived around two months ago and are looking for UK work Wealthy residents in Mayfair have complained about their presence having seen some of them drinking vodka at 7am Despite their presence ruffling feathers amongst those wealthy residents living in Park Lane, the migrants say they have no intention of leaving their camp. A self-appointed spokesman for the group gave MailOnline a guided tour around the rain-sodden tents. Sat on a rickety chair at a battered Formica topped table, the man in his 30s said: 'I came two months ago to look for a job. 'I came by plane. I haven't found a job yet but I will keep trying. We have all left our children at home. 'We don't have any food and we don't have any money. We just stay here until we can find something.' He said most of them had got into the UK on temporary visas and were in the country looking for work to send money back to their families. Among the junk dotted around the camp were old shopping trolleys, pallets, crates, bottles, cans, plastic bags and boxes. Despite their presence ruffling feathers amongst those wealthy residents living in Park Lane, the migrants say they have no intention of leaving their camp The camp is the latest migrant tent settlement to cause concern after popping up on public green space around Park Lane, Hyde Park and Mayfair He showed us the tiny camp stove they use to cook meals on and the pots and pans they use when they have anything to prepare. He said there are no toilets nearby and shrugged and waved a hand at the bushes when he was how they cope without them. Thousands of tourists get a close-up view from the open-topped buses which stop at a terminal on Park Lane so that drivers can change over. One driver said: 'It's not what people expect when they come on holiday to London. 'It's big enough to notice and our passengers always point and comment on it when we stop here.' The camp is the latest migrant tent settlement to cause concern after popping up on public green space around Park Lane, Hyde Park and Mayfair. Two months ago, a group of about 17 men and women left piles of rubbish - including plastic bottles, duvets, shoes and clothes - when they moved their tents away. In 2019, migrants put up shelters outside the Hilton Park Mayfair, and the previous year, Romanians and Bulgarians pitched up in the same area. A Westminster City Council spokesperson said: 'The land the encampment is on land that is managed by TfL and therefore we need to wait for them to take action. 'The council spends far more than any other council - 7m a year to help people who are rough sleeping. 'We work with and commission our charity partners to provide outreach teams across the city. These teams work day and night to offer support to people sleeping rough on our streets. Known gathering places are visited frequently.' A SkyWest Airlines flight, operating as United Express on an Embraer 175 jet, returned to Salt Lake City shortly after takeoff on Wednesday due to a reported smoky odor in the cabin. United Airlines A SkyWest Airlines flight bound for San Francisco returned to Salt Lake City shortly after takeoff on Wednesday due to a reported smoky odor in the cabin. Flight 5318, operating as United Express on an Embraer 175 jet, departed from Salt Lake City International Airport at 9:47 a.m. local time. Shortly after takeoff, the crew detected a potential safety issue, a SkyWest spokesperson said. The aircraft safely returned to Salt Lake City at 10:40 a.m. after reaching 36,000 feet. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Our technicians are investigating the cause of the odor, the spokesperson added. The safety of all onboard is our priority and we apologize for any inconvenience. Passengers were being rebooked on other flights to San Francisco. Enraged bear had to be shot dead so rescue teams could retrieve the teen's body A teenage tourist has been killed in a bear attack after the enraged animal dragged her away and dropped her 330ft down a cliff while she was on a hike with her boyfriend in Romania. The unnamed 19-year-old was hiking in the Bucegi mountains in central Romania, near the city of Brasov, on Tuesday when she was savaged by the bear in front of her horrified partner. According to the victim's boyfriend, the bear first grabbed the teen's leg and hauled her off the path before throwing her 330ft down a cliff. When rescuers arrived on the scene, they found the snarling beast circling the body. The 'aggressive' predator tried to attack them and was then shot dead. The victim's boyfriend, whose identity has also not been revealed, witnessed the horrific attack but was unharmed. He told Stirile Pro TV that he and his girlfriend were climbing towards the Spumoasa waterfall when the bear appeared on the path. Pictured: A bear in the mountains of Romania. On Tuesday, a 19-year-old woman in Romania was attacked and killed by a bear The attack happened in the Bucegi mountains in central Romania, near the city of Brasov, on Tuesday Pictured: Dragon's Ridge in the Bucegi Mountains, where Tuesday's bear attack happened He said: 'It was unexpected. I tried to scare the bear, but the misfortune happened. I'd rather it had been me'. He managed to save himself, the report added, and was found in a state of shock when rescuers arrived. Speaking to CNN's Antena 3, president of Salvamont Romania, the country's mountain rescue services, Sabin Corniou said: 'From the information we have, the bear attacked the young woman on the trail, dragged her into the vegetation next to the trail, and somewhere in this vegetation dropped her into a chasm and fell there. The bear came down after her.' 'My colleagues went down into the abyss, where unfortunately, the injuries the victim had were incompatible with life,' he added. Speaking to another outlet, EuropaFM, Cornoiu said: 'This is a situation we have not encountered before. [...] We have had situations where animals came, threatened, demanded food, and made their presence felt to receive something. 'But here, it seems we are already talking about a direct attack, and this is not typical of bears. It needs to be seen exactly what influenced it. Maybe the heat, maybe some disease the animal is suffering from. 'We need to see exactly what changed its behavior so radically that we end up with such events'. Meanwhile, Romania's prime minister is set to summon lawmakers to attend an extraordinary parliamentary session to seek ways to prevent bear attacks in the wake of the tragedy. Romania is home to Europe's largest population of brown bears - up to an estimated 8,000 - outside Russia. Marcel Ciolacu told reporters on Wednesday he would call politicians back from the recess that begins at the end of June and continues until the start of September. He did not specify when the extraordinary session would take place, but said the aim was to agree measures to target high-risk areas. 'There will not be a free-for-all on shooting bears in Romania,' he said. Local media have regularly reported bear attacks on people and livestock. In most cases, people have been injured rather than killed. The environment minister said in March that 26 people have been killed by bears in the last 20 years. In 2021, a government decree gave town and city authorities the power to shoot bears that break into people's gardens and houses if attempts to chase them off or relocate them had failed. Animal rights campaigners criticised the decree at the time and said officials had not done enough to try other prevention measures, including electric fences and better management. They have also said the attacks have increased because of human behaviour as the animals' habitats are threatened by construction, logging and climate change. Many bears are also attracted by rubbish dumps on the outskirts of cities and by food left by tourists. The most recent bear attack in Romainia comes after a British woman was mauled by a bear while visiting the country. Her injuries were not life threatening The Scottish tourist, 72, was driving through on a mountain road in Romania when she came across two bears After deciding she wanted to take a selfie with the bear, she rolled down her car window but one of the predators had jumped onto its hind legs According to government figures, there are around 8,000 brown bears in the Romanian Carpathians. It is the second largest bear population in Europe after Russia. The World Animal Foundation said that between 2016 and 2021, Romania had experienced 14 fatalities and 158 injuries from bear attacks. The attack comes just months after an elderly British tourist was mauled by a ferocious bear after she lowered her car window to take a selfie with in while visiting Romania. The 72-year-old Scottish woman was driving on the Transfagarasan mountain road in Arges County, on April 22, when she came across two bears. As she stopped the car to snap a photo with the impressive predators, one of the bears leaped onto its hind legs directly outside her vehicle. The tourist bravely rolled down her window to get a better view of the beast, preparing her phone for the photo. But in a grisly twist of events, the bear pounced forward and mauled her right arm. Her travel companion quickly stepped on the gas as the pair fled the horror scene, making a desperate attempt to escape further attack. The woman was dashed to a nearby hospital following the brutal attack in the Carpathian Mountains. Her injuries were not life-threatening, however. Romania's Environment Minister Mircea Fechet has been calling for higher quotas for bears to be shot to prevent brutal attacks. An eight-year-old girl suffered 'for days' after members of a faith-healing religious group including her parents allegedly withheld her lifesaving insulin medication. Fourteen members of the religious group, known as The Saints, are on trial in Brisbane Supreme Court over the death of Toowoomba girl Elizabeth Struhs back in 2022. The entire group entered no pleas to varying charges of murder and manslaughter at the start of the trial on Wednesday afternoon. Those charged over her death include her parents, Jason Richard Struhs, 52 and Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49 along with her older brother Zachary Alan Struhs, 21. Elizabeth, a Type 1 diabetic, was found dead at her family's Rangeville home, on January 7, 2022. The Crown alleges members of the closely-knit religious circle withheld the girl's life-saving insulin medication for several days before she died. Its members have professed to believe in the healing power of God and shun medical intervention. It is further alleged the group prayed for Elizabeth to be 'healed' by God instead of seeking medical attention. Elizabeth's parents Jason Richard Struhs (left) and Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs are among the 14 members of a religious circle charged over the girl's death. Picture: Supplied Brendan Luke Stevens the 67-year-old leader of The Saints and Jason Struhs are both charged with her murder. Twelve others, including Kerrie and Zachary Struhs, are facing charges of manslaughter only. The others include 67-year-old Loretta Mary Stevens the wife of Brendan Stevens and their adult children Acacia Naree Stevens, 31, Therese Maria Stevens, 37, Sebastian James Stevens, 23, Andrea Louise Stevens, 34, Camellia Claire Stevens, 28, and Alexander Francis Stevens, 26. Another couple Lachlan Stuart Schoenfisch, 34 and his wife Samantha Emily Schoenfisch, 26 and a third woman, Keita Courtney Martin, 22, are also charged with manslaughter. Crown prosecutor Caroline Marco told the court Elizabeth died sometime between the evening of January 6 and the morning of January 7, 2022. Ms Marco said the little girl's cause of death was from diabetic ketoacidosis resulting from her insulin medication being withdrawn, where she suffered 'for days'. Kerrie and Jason Struhs were well aware of Elizabeth's condition and the consequences of her not receiving her medication following an incident where the girl was hospitalised in 2019, she said. The court was told Kerrie Struhs was found guilty of failing to supply the necessaries of life over this incident in 2021 and was jailed for five months. A court sketch of the 14 defendants in Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday. The three with their faces more in profile are Elizabeth's father Jason Richard Struhs (wearing glasses) and the religious group's leader Brendan Struhs (with the long beard). Elizabeth's mother Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs is seated beside him. Picture: NewsWire Jason gave evidence against her during the proceedings. Ms Marco said Kerrie Struhs had been a member of the congregation for 17 years sharing the group's belief that God would heal all and rejecting medical intervention. Jason was baptised into the group while his wife was in jail because he was 'not coping' looking after their children and arguing with his son Zachary. 'Mr Jason Struhs knew if he did not change he would lose his wife and family,' Ms Marco said. But Jason Struhs did not fully embrace the group's belief regarding the rejection of medical intervention, especially around Elizabeth's need for insulin, Ms Marco said. The court was told on Monday, January 3, 2022 Jason and Kerrie Struhs both made the decision to completely withdraw Elizabeth's insulin in accordance with the congregation's 'extreme' beliefs. On Tuesday, Elizabeth started vomiting after each meal and was described as 'lethargic'. 'She was described as speaking little needed help going to the toilet, and being incontinent,' Ms Marco said. By Thursday, Elizabeth was mostly in a state of unconsciousness and had stopped speaking, Ms Marco said. The court was told members of the Stevens family were looking after overnight but by the next morning, it was discovered she was no longer breathing. 'She was just eight years old when she died,' Ms Marco said. 'She was too young to understand the dire consequences to withdraw the insulin which she ultimately paid for with the cost of her life.' Keita Courtney Martin is charged with the manslaughter of Elizabeth Struhs. Picture: Facebook Ms Marco said both Jason and Kerrie had Elizabeth a duty of care to provide the necessaries of life, and they breached this by not providing her insulin. 'Notwithstanding Jason Struhs' resistance, his wife and each of the other defendants united in a mission to persuade him to adhere to all aspects of their faith, including the fundamental tenet that God heals ' she said. 'And by the sustained pressure they placed upon him to conform, they succeeded in managing to convince him not to administer or require Elizabeth to take insulin and not to obtain medical care or treatment for her, consistent with the extreme beliefs of their faith.' 60 witnesses will be called by the crown, including Jayde Struhs the adult daughter of Kerrie and Jason Struhs who left home in 2014 when she was a teenager. Ms Marco said multiple text messages exchanged between the group would be relied upon throughout the trial. Some of the messages taken from the phones of members of the Stevens family were read out in court on Wednesday. Ms Marco said some of the messages showed Kerrie Struhs speaking with Loretta Stevens about Elizabeth's diabetes on July 11, 2019. On July 16, 2019, Kerrie Struhs allegedly tells Brendan Stevens her husband nearly took Elizabeth to hospital while she was ill. 'He's torn,' she allegedly states, later explaining she 'doesn't know how to stop him'. Brendan Stevens then allegedly responds with: 'God has it all in hand, and she (Elizabeth) is healed'. In another message, Brendan is alleged to have said: 'God shall prevail, not Jason' when told Jason Struhs is taking his daughter to the hospital the next morning. None of the members of the religious circle have sought legal advice or representation, nor applied for bail. The trial courtroom has been modified to accommodate all 14 defendants and allow them to meet each day before proceedings start. This includes two lengthy tables with microphones and screens to allow each of the defendants to During their arraignment on Wednesday afternoon, each of the defendants said 'no plea' or 'I do not enter a plea' when asked if how they pleaded to their respective charges. Supreme Court Justice Martin Burns directed pleas of not guilty for each of the accused be entered in response. He told the group he was obliged to give each of the defendants 'sufficient information' to assist them during the trial, as they were all unrepresented. 'But I cannot provide you with legal advice,' Justice Burns said. Lachlan Stuart Schoenfisch his wife and Samantha Emily Schoenfisch are among the 12 other defendants charged with Elizabeth Struhs' manslaughter. Picture: Supplied The trial follows protracted legal reviews which have progressed through the Supreme Court since indictments were first presented last year. Jason Struhs is charged with murder on the allegation he caused Elizabeth's death by failing to provide her insulin and medical care and treatment, knowing it would probably cause her death. Kerrie Struhs is charged with manslaughter on the allegation she failed to provide insulin to Elizabeth and/or did not provide medical care and treatment for her. Brendan Stevens' charge of murder relates to the allegation he counselled either or both Jason and Kerrie Struhs to cease providing Elizabeth insulin and/or medical care and treatment, knowing to do so would probably cause her death. In the alternative, the Crown alleges Brendan Stevens aided or enabled either or both Jason Struhs and Kerrie Struhs to unlawfully kill Elizabeth by encouraging and supporting them to cease providing insulin to her, and/or not to provide medical care and treatment to her, knowing that would probably cause her death. The other 11 defendants are charged with manslaughter on the allegation they 'counselled and/or procured and/or aided Elizabeth's parents by their words and actions' to unlawfully kill Elizabeth. The trial, before Supreme Court Justice Martin Burns, is scheduled to run for 55 days. Sir Keir Starmer is facing the first major row of his premiership today with questions over Labour's commitment to raising defence spending to counter Russian aggression. The Prime Minister arrived in Washington today to meet US President Joe Biden and other Nato leaders at a summit to mark the alliance's 75th anniversary, holding talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz this afternoon. But he is under pressure to spell out when the UK will increase its defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, having refused to guarantee it will happen in his first term in office. Ex-PM Rishi Sunak set a date of 2030 for hitting the milestone under the Tories, with fears of a new conflict in Europe. But a senior defence minister today suggested the new government may not even set a target for a year, after it has completed a review of the Armed Forces. Tory shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge wrote to new Defence Secretary John Healey today to ask when spending would be increased. In his letter, Mr Cartlidge said: 'Making such a clear commitment is vital for our national security. 'Our armed forces need the certainty and clarity on their funding in order to plan and prepare for the future. It is necessary to prepare everything from accommodation and benefits for service personnel to ensuring that they are equipped with the latest capabilities, equipment and technology.' He added that it was 'high time' the Government made its plans on defence spending clear. The Prime Minister arrived in Washington today to meet US President Joe Biden and other Nato leaders at a summit to mark the alliance's 75th anniversary, holding talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz this afternoon. But he is under pressure to spell out when the UK will increase its defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, having refused to guarantee it will happen in his first term in office. Tory shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge wrote to new Defence Secretary John Healey today to ask when spending would be increased. Your browser does not support iframes. The Prime Minister and his wife Victoria touched down with their entourage at Joint Base Andrews in the early hours of the morning for his first foreign trip since taking office. He will met the under-pressure US president and a host of other leaders including president Zelensky of Ukraine over the next two days in his first diplomatic blitz, accompanied by senior ministers. The trip comes as Sir Keir presses for European nations to increase defence spending, but has refused to guarantee meeting his flagship commitment to hit 2.5 per cent of GDP within his first term in office, despite a 'cast iron' promise to get there. The timescale will be set out after a wholesale defence review being launched next week - which may take a year - and must comply with the Government's strict 'fiscal rules' on spending and borrowing. However sources told the Telegraph that the review could also look at increasing the size of the British Army, whose strength fell to a 200-year low under the Tories. The summit is also an introduction for Lady Starmer to international diplomacy. She stayed largely out of the limelight during the election campaign but will take part in a series of engagements with other leaders' wives and husbands over the coming days. Sir Keir will hold talks with Mr Biden in the White House this evening as the US President faces domestic pressures over his age and suitability to run for a second term. The prospect of Donald Trump being returned to the White House in November's election is being viewed as cause for concern within the alliance given his past criticisms of Nato and his threats to reduce aid to Ukraine. European Nato states face shouldering a greater burden as part of a drive to 'Trump proof' the alliance should the Republican candidate return to office and weaken US commitment to the 32-nation bloc. Speaking to reporters, Sir Keir was repeatedly pressed on whether the goal of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP would be reached within his first term. He said: 'We are committed to the 2.5 per cent, as I have said before the election and I say again after the election. That is obviously subject to our fiscal rules, but the commitment is there. Sir Keir Starmer's wife Victoria Starmer at Joint Base Andrews in Washington DC last night President Joe Biden speaks at the 75th anniversary of Nato in Washington DC last night Nato leaders have a 'family photo' at the Andrew W Mellon Auditorium in Washington last night Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks on the sideline of Nato summit in Washington last night 'The strategic review will take place, that will happen next week, and we will set out the details of that. 'The manifesto commitment was that it would take place within a year, I would like it to be quicker than that if I'm honest and we'll set out the details about how we are going to do it.' Officials have described 2.5 per cent as a 'cast iron commitment' but the announcement a strategic defence review will be launched next week did not include any timetable for ramping up spending. Defence minister Luke Pollard told Times Radio today the Government will aim to complete the review in less than a year. Before his election defeat, Rishi Sunak had committed to reach 2.5 per cent by 2030 at a total cost of 75billion over six years. Nato members have an official goal of spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence and 23 members are now thought to have reached that level. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer talks to journalists on his plane to Washington DC last night Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria board a plane at London Stansted Airport yesterday Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks to media at Stansted Airport yesterday before boarding But in the context of this year's US election, Sir Keir acknowledged more needed to be done, particularly on locking in support for Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is at the summit. 'On the question of how we show that commitment here at this summit, given there is going to be an election in America later this year, I think it's very important at this summit, and I think there is a real opportunity for real unity,' Sir Keir told reporters. 'It's the largest group of Nato countries, together with the additions that we've got, and the package that we are seeking to advance, it goes beyond the support that's been put in before and will be locked in - I hope - at this Nato conference.' There would be a financial package, military aid and an industrial strategy to support Ukraine, he indicated. Sir Keir confirmed that decisions on the use of UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles were for the Ukrainian armed forces to make, indicating they would be permitted to strike against targets within Russia. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the House of Commons yesterday as Parliament returned Sir Keir Starmer during a meeting with English regional mayors at 10 Downing Street yesterday Sir Keir Starmer speaks to the media following his first Cabinet meeting at No.10 last Saturday Newly elected Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaking outside 10 Downing Street last Friday The UK military aid was 'for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes'. The Russian strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv on Monday was a 'tragic backdrop to this summit' and 'strengthens the resolve' of Nato against Vladimir Putin, he said. Asked if it was a war crime, the Prime Minister said: 'In relation to its specific category within international law, that will be a matter for others in due course, but it is shocking and appalling and it's the duty of everyone to describe it in those terms.' He said the summit should demonstrate to Mr Putin the 'clear and united resolve' of the alliance to 'stand with Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression, whether in relation to Ukraine or whether elsewhere including cyber aggression and other ways in which Russia is aggressive around the world'. A upmarket village dubbed the 'Prosecco Ghetto' for the number of wealthy tourists it attracts has become the latest to crack down on properties being used as holiday homes or lets. An overwhelming majority of locals in Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk voted for measures to control so-called 'lock and leaves' because they are being priced out of the market. It means the backlash against outsiders now covers a virtually unbroken 30-mile stretch of coast in the idyllic north of the county, one of the UK's most popular holiday destinations. More than 1,000 people out of 1,706 registered to vote took part in a referendum over a new neighbourhood plan which included a clause stipulating new builds can only be sold to someone using them as their 'principal residence'. Visitors enjoy the large sandy beach, sunbathing in 2022 in Wells-next-the-Sea Colourful beach huts at Wells-next-the-sea, north Norfolk Queen Camilla pictured visiting Wells-next-the-Sea last summer Of these, 819 (82.4 per cent) were in favour, 175 (17.6 per cent) were against, and 41 ballot papers were unmarked or spoiled. The outcome threatens to deepen a rift between locals and business owners in the region, with the former arguing measures are necessary to enable locals to live in the area, while the latter fear struggling to survive if their income is affected. Speaking before the referendum, Arthur Howell, a fourth generation butcher in Wells whose business was established in 1889, said: 'We need the business that holidaymakers bring in over the summer to get us through the winter. It would be very worrying if that was to stop.' But Wells town councillor Roger Arguile today insisted it was vital to take action, saying: 'Local people could not afford to buy houses in Wells. 'It was described by a housing needs assessment as a 'perfect storm' in that there was no way people's children could live here.' North Norfolk communities have complained of looking like 'ghost towns' during the off-season or weekdays when 'townies' go home, leaving town centres empty and houses plunged into darkness at night. Gulls feeding on scraps of food from tourists along the coast of Wells-next-the-Sea The harbour at Wells-Next-The-Sea harbour, north Norfolk Mr Arguile added: 'If you walk along High Street in the dark then more than 50 per cent of houses appear to be empty for a lot of the year.' Spending by second home owners represents a tiny fraction of the income received by local businesses, he added, because 'they arrive on Friday and the supermarket van which they booked in advance delivers their groceries' and then head home on the Sunday without visiting other businesses and attractions as they've seen them before. Some 627 of Wells' 1,560 properties registered for council tax are second homes or holiday lets around 40 per cent. In the most popular areas, the proportion rises to 90 per cent. The average price of a house is 530,000 according to recent Office for National Statistics data nearly 14 times the average income for the area. The neighbourhood plan which must be taken into account by the planning authority, North Norfolk District Council states: 'The growth in the number of second and holiday homes, as well as people from out of the county buying permanent homes in Wells, is putting pressure on local people and their grown-up children who want to live in the town.' In nearby Old Hunstanton, 91 per cent of people who took part in a similar referendum voted for curbs on holiday homes and lets in February. A quaint street in the seaside tourist hotspot where the average price of a house is 530,000 North Norfolk communities have complained of looking like 'ghost towns' during the off-season or weekdays when 'townies' go home, from the coastal hotspot Burnham Market, dubbed Chelsea-on-Sea due to the numbers of well-heeled Londoners who flock to boltholes there, has also taken action. The line of communities fighting to control the ebb and flow of tourists stretches from Heacham to Blakeney. Similar schemes have been introduced in holiday hotspots around the country, including in Cornwall, Dorset and North Yorkshire. Council tax on second homes will also double in many locations from next April. The discretionary measure was brought in under the Conservative government's Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. A New York University student has been deported from the United Arab Emirates after shouting 'Free Palestine' during his graduation ceremony. At the graduation ceremony of New York University Abu Dhabi this May, a student wearing the traditional Palestinian black-and-white keffiyeh scarf shouted 'Free Palestine!' as he crossed the stage to receive his diploma, witnesses say. Just days later, he reportedly was deported from the United Arab Emirates. The incident at the graduation comes as the UAE tries to balance its diplomatic recognition of Israel with the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. While offering aid to the Palestinians, there have been none of the mass demonstrations that swept the Arab world in the UAE, a federation of seven emirates that tightly controls speech and where political parties are illegal. A New York University student has been deported from the United Arab Emirates after shouting 'Free Palestine' during graduation ceremony t the graduation ceremony of New York University Abu Dhabi this May, a student wearing the traditional Palestinian black-and-white keffiyeh scarf shouted 'Free Palestine!' as he crossed the stage to receive his diploma, witnesses say That's stretched into academic life at NYU Abu Dhabi, where students say activities over the war have been barred, and into cultural events in the country's capital as well where those wearing the keffiyeh have been stopped from entering. 'I think the government and the laws of the country don't necessarily align with wanting to create an environment that appeals to the West as well, if we're talking about freedom of speech and so on,' said one student, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Responding to questions from The Associated Press, NYU Abu Dhabi said it has been 'guaranteed academic authority' on campus but that 'in none of our locations ... are members of the NYU community immune from local law.' 'NYU has no authority over any nation's immigration or law enforcement actions or decisions,' the school said. It added it advised students 'clearly and repeatedly about expectations, obligations, and boundaries, including the protocols for the NYU Abu Dhabi graduation.' Before the graduation ceremony, students had been told that 'displaying the Palestinian flag anywhere on campus is not permitted and this was strictly executed, even in residential buildings,' said another student, who similarly spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. In total, five students speaking on condition of anonymity described similar circumstances leading up to the graduation affecting those who earlier sought to bulk-buy keffiyehs as a fundraiser and organize vigils for the dead in Gaza. Jacqueline Hennecke, an NYU Abu Dhabi alumni who graduated in May, told the AP that the university sent an email prior to graduation banning all 'cultural attire' at the commencement including scarves. The student who disregarded the order and yelled 'Free Palestine!' on stage ultimately found himself in police custody prior to his deportation, according to the American Association of University Professors which supports free speech and academic freedom efforts. The university 'has been unable to protect students, staff and faculty from being taken into custody and interrogated at government security offices and has failed to prevent the deportation of one academic staff member and a graduate student,' a statement from the organization alleged. It also claimed that staff and students from non-Western countries had been 'detained, intimidated, and deported based on surveillance.' It did not elaborate. Before the graduation ceremony, students had been told that 'displaying the Palestinian flag anywhere on campus is not permitted and this was strictly executed, even in residential buildings' This is not the first time NYU Abu Dhabi has faced criticism when trying to balance the ideas of an American liberal arts education in the UAE, which has strict rules governing speech despite being a staunch American ally in the Mideast. Human rights groups criticized the school for using migrant workers to build the campus who they say had been subject to a range of violations including being forced to pay recruitment fees to get their jobs that were never reimbursed, living in overcrowded conditions and being forced to work overtime. Following the report, NYU commissioned an investigation, which found a number of workers hadn't been protected by the fair labor practices the school had said would be in place. The school promised reimbursement, though some workers later claimed they never received it. The journalism department at New York University in 2017 told the school it was cutting its ties to NYU's Abu Dhabi campus over two professors being denied work visas by the UAE, as well as the school's handling of the situation. The incident at the graduation comes as the UAE tries to balance its diplomatic recognition of Israel with the ongoing Israel-Hamas But NYU Abu Dhabi's actions come as the UAE maintains its diplomatic ties with Israel, which runs both a consulate in Dubai and an embassy out of Abu Dhabi. This comes just days after NYU settled a lawsuit filed last November by three Jewish students who said they had been subjected to 'pervasive acts of hatred, discrimination, harassment, and intimidation' since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. NYU and the plaintiffs' attorneys announced the settlement Tuesday. It includes undisclosed monetary terms and a commitment from NYU to update its antisemitism language in its Guidance and Expectations for Student Conduct. John Prescott has ceased to be a member of the House of Lords as the ex-deputy PM's parliamentary career - spanning more than half a century - came to an end. The 86-year-old was first elected to Parliament as MP for Hull in 1970, before going on to become a key member of Tony Blair's New Labour government. He earned the nickname 'two Jags' after it emerged he had two official Jaguar cars while deputy PM. He also infamously punched a protester before the 2021 election. Lord Prescott remained in the House of Commons until 2010, when he joined the Lords, but he has only spoken once in the chamber since suffering a stroke in 2019. He was among a number of peers who were today declared to have 'ceased to be members of the House by virtue of non-attendance in the last session of Parliament'. These also included one-time jailbirds Jeffrey Archer and Conrad Black. John Prescott has ceased to be a member of the House of Lords as the ex-deputy PM's parliamentary career - spanning more than half a century - came to an end Lord Prescott remained in the House of Commons until 2010, when he joined the Lords, but he has only spoken once in the chamber since suffering a stroke in 2019 The 86-year-old was first elected to Parliament as MP for Hull in 1970, before going on to become a key member of Tony Blair's New Labour government Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, a best-selling author, took his seat in the unelected chamber in 1992 having previously been MP for Louth in the early 70s Lord Black of Crossharbour is the ex-proprietor of the Daily Telegraph and a number of other world newspapers Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, a best-selling author, took his seat in the unelected chamber in 1992 having previously been MP for Louth in the early 70s. The former Tory peer had remained a member of the Lords despite being sentenced to four years in prison in 2001. He was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice in a previous libel case when he sued a newspaper over reports about money he gave to a prostitute. There are no records of Lord Archer having spoken in the chamber and he is shown to have voted just five times, the last in 2017 after a 17-year gap. Lord Black of Crossharbour is the ex-proprietor of the Daily Telegraph and a number of other world newspapers. He served more than three years in prison after being convicted of fraud and obstruction of justice in 2007. The Canadian-born British citizen was pardoned by then US president Donald Trump in 2019. Lord Black was the former head of Hollinger International, which once owned the Daily Telegraph, Chicago Sun-Times, Jerusalem Post and hundreds of community papers in the US and Canada. He was ennobled in 2001, having renounced his Canadian citizenship to become a Conservative peer. His downfall came in 2007 when jurors in Chicago found that he and other Hollinger International executives swindled shareholders out of more than six million dollars (then worth around 3 million) of their money. There are no records of Lord Black having spoken in the Lords and he had not voted since 2003. A teacher who physically threw a misbehaving 10-year-old boy out of his class, injured the child, will be allowed to continue in the profession. August Junior Leaupepe was working as a teacher's aide at Flat Bush Primary School in the south of Auckland, New Zealand, in July 2019 when the incident occurred. His class was doing a word search but the boy took another student's work and refused to return it. When Leaupepe told him to hand it back, the boy said 'you are not the boss of me'. Leaupepe replied that he was, but the boy said: 'No, my dad is.' The teacher grabbed the back of the boy's T-shirt with both hands, causing his feet to be lifted off the ground. He then forcibly walked the child to the classroom door. Opening the door with one hand, he forcefully threw the boy onto the outside deck. A New Zealand teacher has been disciplined by a professional tribunal after physically lifting and throwing an unruly 10-year-old out of his class (stock image pictured) It left the boy experiencing temporary trouble breathing as well as suffering grazes, bruises and general soreness on his right side. Leaupepe later told police he did not drag the student but lifted him and escorted him out of the class. He claimed the boy was holding his arm and he let go, so probably fell. While Leaupepe couldn't say how the boy was bruised, he acknowledged his grip 'got him hard'. In March 2021, Leaupepe admitted to a charge of assaulting a child, but was discharged without conviction in Auckland's Manukau District Court. Mitigating factors included Leaupepe's guilty plea, his genuine remorse, lack of previous convictions, the offer to take part in restorative justice (which the student declined) and to pay the boy $300 reparation. The boy's caregiver said the child was initially hurt and upset but had 'gotten over it'. In a decision published on Wednesday, from a hearing held last year, the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal found Leaupepe guilty of serious misconduct saying his use of force was both unjustified and unreasonable. The Tribunal stated there were other ways he could have dealt with the boy's behaviour, resulting in him being censured and ordered to undertake professional development. Leaupepe was also ordered to pay $1,582 in costs, according to a report by the New Zealand Herald. However, the tribunal also found as an inexperienced teacher, Leaupepe hadn't received the necessary support and was put in 'a precarious position'. The 10-year-old boy who was physically ejected from the class suffered temporary breathing difficulty along with bruises and grazes (stock image pictured) It stated Leaupepe would benefit from professional development with more support in classroom management and student behaviour management. 'The tribunal does not want to see Mr Leaupepe lost to the teaching profession, particularly at a time when Pasifika teachers are in short supply,' the Tribunal said in a statement. Despite being allowed to still work in the profession, and his previously stated aim of becoming a fully fledged primary school teacher, Leaupepe indicated in 2022 he no longer wanted to return to the classroom. Pauline Hanson has claimed she was ordered not film an interview next to a statue of Mary Poppins because the children's character is 'apolitical'. The One Nation leader was filming an interview with Sky News in Maryborough on Queensland's Fraser Coast Region on Wednesday night when she claims a local official threatened to ring the police. At the start of the interview with Steve Price, the One Nation Leader claimed that as they were setting up earlier, there had been a confrontation off-camera. 'So a staffer came from the council and told me that I can't film here next to Mary Poppins, because she's apolitical, and told me I shouldn't be here,' Senator Hanson explained. 'I told them "get lost, I'm doing the interview here".' Ms Hanson continued: 'They said "we're going to ring the police"... (and) they've gone away to ring them. 'So if the police turn up and you see a confrontation here, you know what's happening with it, because Mary Poppins is apolitical, and I shouldn't be actually doing the interview here.' Ms Hanson then held up an artwork to the camera depicting her as Mary Poppins created by a local. Pauline Hanson (pictured) claimed she told a local council official to 'get lost' after she was allegedly banned from filming an interview next to a statue of Mary Poppins A defiant Senator Hanson stood her ground as she vowed not to be bullied when she knew her rights. 'I'm not a pushover, and no one is going to bully me or tell me,' she continued. 'I know I'm in my rights, and I can stand here beside my mate Mary Poppins, and I will.' It's unclear why Senator Hanson decided to be filmed next to the Mary Poppins statue. Senator Hanson also revealed it had been the second time someone had threatened to call the police on her in Maryborough that day. She claimed the town was 'run by a bunch of bullies who don't want to see One Nation here.' 'I'm sick and tired of these people. This is the second time today,' she told Price. The statue of Mary Poppins is located in the Maryborough City Hall Visitor Information Centre and is a tribute to the creator of Mary Poppins, P. L. Travers, who was born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough in 1899. Ms Hanson explained she had wanted to inspect the site of an old TAFE. 'It was built about nine years ago. It's sitting there in wreck and ruin.' 'I went on the property to actually have a look at it.' 'I was told by the security guard, 'you're not allowed to come here.'' 'I said, ''I'm here as a Member of Parliament. I want to know where the taxpayers' dollars are going (with) this facility sitting there".' Ms Hanson said the security guard warned he would call the police. '"Good, call the police'', I said. Because I'm going to have a look around,' she recalled. Senator Hanson wanted to inspect the site as it could have been used for 'emergency housing, for aged care, for educational purposes'. The statue of Mary Poppins is located in the Maryborough City Hall Visitor Information Centre and is a tribute to the creator of Mary Poppins, P. L. Travers who was born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough in 1899. The top Republican lawmaker is sounding the alarm after a Chinese agricultural firm was approved to create 'genetically engineered soybeans' for consumption in the U.S. The suspiciously rapid approval by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) of Chinese biotech firm Qi Biodesign should raise major alarm bells, says Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich. That company, which specializes in gene editing, is partially funded by the Chinese government, he claims in a letter to President Biden's USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com. And the company specifically poses a threat to U.S. farming companies' secrets, he says. His concern comes at a time of heightened anxiety about China's meddling in U.S. agricultural efforts - as the country owns over 347,000 acres of farmland near sensitive military bases. Chinese entities own farmland in 29 out of the U.S.'s 50 states, totaling 347,000 acres 'Make no mistake, Qi Biodesign and other PRC firms like it are directly supported by the PRC government with the explicit purpose to replicate and replace U.S. agriculture biotechnology,' Moolenaar writes to Vilsack. The Michigan Republican's warning to the secretary included a list of questions demanding clarity on U.S. agricultural firms' relationships with Chinese counterparts, details on Qi Biodesign's approval process and USDA trade agreements with the PRC. 'We write to express alarm at the recent U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) positive determination of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) agriculture biotech firm Qi Biodesigns genetically engineered soybeans which will enable future sales in the United States.' 'As you know, the PRC has consistently refused to abide by its own commitments to facilitate the regulatory approval of U.S. agriculture biotechnology, forcing some U.S. agriculture biotech firms to wait years for PRC government approval,' the letter states. Further, the chairman says that USDA allowed the PRF firm to 'jump to the head of the queue' in the approval process while 'U.S. companies continue to face extensive delay.' 'USDA appears to have facilitated Qi Biodesigns regulatory status review in a matter of weeks, raising questions about the level of due diligence and motivation behind the rapid review.' 'As such, we ask that you immediately revisit the regulatory status review of Qi Biodesign.' 'Furthermore, the PRCs well- documented theft of U.S. intellectual property has repeatedly extended to theft of U.S. agriculture technology, through cyber attacks and outright theft of physical seeds,' Moolenaar writes. Five other members in addition to the chairman signed the letter. Reps. Neal Dunn, R-Fla., Dusty Johnson, R- S.D., Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., and Ben Cline, R-Va., also signed the letter. Qi Biodesign, a Chinese firm, was granted approval for sale of its 'genetically engineered soybeans' by the USDA in a matter of weeks, raising concern among Republican lawmakers China's snatching up of U.S. farmland - much near sensitive military sites - has been under heightened scrutiny. Congress has recently implemented several restrictions in the yet-to-be passed 2024 'Farm Bill' to restrict the PRC's ability to purchase U.S. land. The upcoming House Farm Bill will contain measures to restrict foreign entities like China from scooping up American farmland in a big win for national security, a Republican who helped secure the provisions previously told DailyMail.com. Foreign entities own a total of 40 million acres of U.S. farmland and China has bought up nearly 347,000 acres, according to the USDA. Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, amended the legislation to include provisions to more easily track foreign entities' purchases of U.S. agricultural land. 'Communist China shouldn't be allowed to buy another acre of American farmland, nor should we rely upon our top foreign adversary for key parts of our food supply chain,' Hinson told DailyMail.com in late May. Chinese firms own 346,915 acres of American agricultural land as of December 2022 A combine harvester cuts, threshes and cleans soybeans in Waynesfield, Ohio And Chinese leadership sees dominating the agricultural market as a way to gain a strategic leg up on the U.S., lawmakers say. 'Qi Biodesign and other firms like it, play a critical role to General Secretary Xi Jinpings desire to achieve self-reliance in agricultural technology at the clear expense of U.S. farmers and companies,' Moolenaar says in his letter. 'Given that the Chinese Communist Party sees a direct nexus between agriculture and national security, USDA should be vigilant to protect U.S. farmers from exploitation by the PRC.' The Republican asked for a response from the USDA by August 1. Clean beauty favorite, Beautycounter, plummeted from a multi-million dollar brand to closure after a private equity takeover, resulted in devastating pay cuts exceeding 50% for their employees. Gregg Renfrew, who started Beautycounter with a passion for clean skincare, began her multi-level marketing model in 2011. Carlyle, an investing firm with $425 billion in investor power, took a chance and invested $600 million in the brand in May 2021. But this investment turned out to be one of Carlyle's biggest failures in 37 years, with all of the money they put into Beautycounter lost. Not only did Carlyle's takeover destroy company morale, but sliced their sellers' income by more than half. Notable seller Renee Hill, who had at one point brought in millions of dollars for the company and received a $177,000 yearly paycheck, is now making $19,000, according to the lawsuit. Clean beauty favorite, Beautycounter, plummeted from a multi-million dollar brand to closure after a private equity takeover, resulted in devastating pay cuts exceeding 50% for their employees Pictured: Social media content for Beautycounter's products on Instagram 'There's a lot of damage that has been done,' Hill said. 'I don't believe I could ever step back into that space.' Upon acquiring a controlling stake in Beautycounter, Carlyle facilitated a partial sale of Ms. Renfrew's ownership for approximately $50 million, according to individuals directly involved in the transaction. Renfrew remained as the company's CEO, and both parties shared the ambitious goal of growing Beautycounter's annual sales from $400 million to $1 billion, culminating in a public offering. Prior to the acquisition, Renfrew had successfully built and sold a wedding e-commerce site from the ground up, but decided to follow her true passion of popularizing 'clean' beauty and create products without harsh chemicals and unnecessary additives in favor of minimal ingredients. Renfrew cultivated a passionate community of promoters, primarily women, who enthusiastically spread the word about Beautycounter to their loved ones. These promoters not only championed the brand's sugar scrubs, cleansers, and creams, but also embraced the opportunity to build their own sales teams. By recruiting others, they earned a commission on all sales within their network. Gregg Renfrew, who started Beautycounter with a passion for clean skincare, began her multi-level marketing model in 2011. Carlyle, an investing firm with $425 billion in investor power, took a chance and invested $600 million in the brand in May 2021 But this investment turned out to be one of Carlyle's biggest failures in 37 years, with all of the money they put into Beautycounter lost. Not only did Carlye's takeover destroy company morale, but sliced their sellers' income by more than half This strategy proved highly successful. At its peak, Beautycounter boasted a force of 60,000 sellers, initially called consultants and later transitioned to 'advocates' under Carlyle's ownership. Hill exemplifies the power of this approach. Having joined Beautycounter just weeks before welcoming her fifth child in 2016, she introduced the brand to her family and close friends. Over time, her personal efforts led to the recruitment of 40 individuals, who in turn expanded the network to 400 sellers, generating a six-figure annual income. In the past, she had been recruited by other multilevel marketing positions, but turned them down for the same reasons the other sellers became passionate about Beautycounter - Renfrew's leadership, her open dialogue with employees, and her advocacy for nontoxic ingredients in every day products. 'It made it really easy as well to not feel slimy about offering somebody a network marketing opportunity, because I felt so passionately about what we were doing and how we were doing it,' Hill told the New York Times. Renfrew fostered a strong sense of community by treating the independent sellers as valued members of her team. This loyalty extended to advocacy efforts, as sellers joined Ms. Renfrew on trips to Washington to lobby for stricter regulations in the personal care industry By 2020, the company, having achieved profitability the year prior, reached $395 million in sales, according to sources familiar with the company's finances. As soon as Carlyle bought the brand, the once devoted sellers started to leave and sales plummeted. The firm blamed the sudden exodus of sellers on the pandemic, citing declining enthusiasm for working. Fast forward to the end of 2023, Carlyle handed the business over to its lenders, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, which would be in charge of selling what was left. For Carlyle, that meant effectively giving up on a $700 million investment, valuing it at zero In a desperate effort to maintain the same sense of profitable comradery Renfrew had spent a decade building, Carlyle hired a new chief executive Marc Rey in February 2022 with expertise in mainstream beauty to save the company. Rey then restructured commission system for the sellers, which would reduce their commission, and complete redo of the company's main selling point of 'clean' beauty. By the end of 2022, Renfrew departed from the company, leaving her board position. Carlyle, the investment firm, provided additional funding of $65 million between late 2022 and early 2023. With their support, Rey, the new CEO, invested over $10 million in modernizing Beautycounter's technology and brought in consultants. He also secured a sales deal with Ulta, a major beauty retailer, to carry Beautycounter products. Despite these efforts and a 14% increase in overall prestige beauty product sales in 2022, Beautycounter's sales continued to decline. This led to Rey's resignation in May 2023. Fast forward to the end of 2023, Carlyle handed the business over to its lenders, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, which would be in charge of selling what was left. For Carlyle, that meant effectively giving up on a $700 million investment, valuing it at zero. Renfrew bought the rights to the Beautycounter name and other sets from its lenders for millions of dollars, but shocked sellers when she announced it would take her months to get the company up and running again. The man found guilty of the manslaughter of a Brazilian student by a single punch during a brawl over a stolen chip is appealing his four-year sentence. Ricky Lefoe, 32, was found guilty in February of killing Ivan Susin outside a Gold Coast kebab shop in September 2019 after his friend stole a hot chip from Mr Susin's mates. Moments after a fight broke out between the two groups, the 29-year-old Brazilian student was floored by a single punch from Lefoe. Mr Susin died 11 days after he suffered the fatal head injury. Lefoe's friend Shaun Simpson had stolen a chip from two of Mr Susin's friends sitting on a nearby bench, sparking a disagreement between the two groups. Mr Susin approached the group in an effort to help his friends and threw a punch at Mr Simpson. CCTV footage shown during the trial depicted the moment Mr Susin threw the punch but completely missed. It was this action that prompted Lefoe to throw the fatal punch that left Mr Susin unconscious on the ground. Ricky Lefoe, 32, is appealing his four-year jail sentence for delivering the punch that killed Brazilian student Ivan Susin Ivan Susin was tragically killed in a fight outside a Gold Coast kebab shop in September 2019 On Wednesday, Lefoe launched his appeal in the Queensland Court of Appeal. His barrister Stacey Francis told the court that during the trial the prosecution had run a line of questioning that 'closed off' part of her client's defence. Ms Francis said the jury were inadvertently asked to decide whether Mr Susin's failed punch towards Mr Simpson showed he had some level of 'self-control', and if the jury was 'satisfied' he was 'acting purposefully' to protect his friend, then the provocation argument led by the prosecution could not have been found. 'The appellant (Lefoe) didn't do what he did for the protection mechanism, it's because he wanted Mr Simpson to win the fight,' Ms Francis said. 'The conduct of the appellant is not more serious than the conduct of the deceased. In fact, it might be less serious because it didn't attract that element of force. 'The Crown did not go to the jury on the basis a threat (was) posed by the deceased other than the risk of grievous bodily harm.' The argument between the two groups broke out over a stolen chip but it had deadly consequences Justice Debra Mullins said she understood Ms Francis's 'argument theoretically' but after watching CCTV footage of the fight 'quite a few times', she found there was 'only one answer' to the question whether there was any provocation for Lefoe's actions and that answer was 'yes'. 'Someone can join the fight deliberately because of the provocation of someone who started the fight,' Justice Mullins said. 'All of the references you're taking us to don't deal with provocation.' Ms Francis said Mr Susin's actions were 'deliberate' and he hadn't lost control when he became involved in the fight. 'This was calculated, a punch designed to extract injury,' she said. 'All of these submissions understood as a whole are putting that the deceased was behaving with intent, with deliberation and calculation and that's not a loss of self-control. 'If the jury accepted the logic that the deceased was rational, controlled, deliberate ... it loses its forensic battle.' Recent graduates have flocked to New York City's skyscrapers and San Francisco's tech startups to kickstart their careers. Those two hubs remain reliable places to enter the job market but there are better metro areas, a new study shows. Raleigh, in North Carolina, has ranked as the best place for graduates to launch their careers. That's because the state capital has a strong economy, decent jobs, and relatively cheap housing and other living costs. Baltimore, Austin, Atlanta, and Charlotte rounded out the top five, in ADP Research Institute's study. Raleigh, NC, has a strong economy, decent jobs, and relatively cheap housing and other living costs. Graduates flock to New York City and San Francisco for jobs, but could do well to look elsewhere New York City and San Francisco scored in the top ten, but were downgraded by their eye-watering rents and living costs. 'Areas with the greatest balance of wages, affordability, and hiring aren't stereotypical tech and financial centers such as San Francisco, San Jose, or Seattle,' researchers said. Researcher Ben Hanowell says graduates should think outside the box 'They're places in the South with strong science and technology employment, including Raleigh, Baltimore, Austin, and Atlanta.' The survey comes as some four million people graduate from college this year, and most of them start looking for work and a place to lay down roots. The jobs market is strong right now, but is tighter for the skilled positions that graduates seek. Researchers analyzed data on more than 4 million 20- to 29-year-olds at some 27,000 employers, from January 2019 through April 2024. They focussed on the 55 US metro areas with more than one million residents. Raleigh took the top spot because it is relatively cheap the average monthly rent is $1,577 for a 950 sq ft apartment. That's less than half what graduates typically pay for digs in New York City or San Francisco. Also, there are plenty of decent jobs up for grabs, thanks in part to Raleigh's so-called 'research triangle,' which includes its three universities and roughly 300 science and tech companies. Salaries for 20-something workers in Raleigh are roughly $52,000 per year. Earnings are not as high as they are elsewhere, but Raleigh remains competitive, ranking in the top fifth, the report says. It also has a pleasant climate, small-town vibe, decent restaurants, and is a good place to start a family. The Baltimore area came in second place, thanks to its reasonable wages and high hiring rate for graduates. Raleigh's so-called 'research triangle' features its three universities and some 300 science and tech companies. Charlotte, North Carolina, ranked fifth, thanks to opportunities, decent earnings and lower-than-average living costs. The top-ranking cities has a large 'sweet spot' of decent wages, hiring, and affordability. Destination city San Francisco made it into the top 10 thanks to its higher wages, even though the cost of living is high. The Maryland city has ample openings in science, technology, engineering, and math jobs due to the presence of Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland and other top tier institutions, researchers found. Fast-growing Austin ranked in third place. The Texas boomtown has a large-and-growing technology sector, with major hubs for Tesla, Google, Dell, Apple, IBM, Meta, and other leading companies. Ben Hanowell, the group's research director, said recent graduates would do well to think outside the box and start their job search beyond New York and the West Coast technology hubs. 'There are metro areas where you could command high wages as a recent grad, but they're not affordable and hiring isn't robust, so that's the trade-off you're making,' Hanowell told CBS News. He pointed to Seattle, Washington, where wages are higher than 87 percent of the 55 biggest US metro areas. But it has a low hiring rate compared to other cities and is relatively expensive, with rent averaging at $2,200 for a 700 sq ft apartment, according to Rent Cafe. 'The median wage is an estimated $56,000, but once that's adjusted for the cost of living, it feels like $49,000,' said Hanowell. 'That's one way to look at these trade-offs.' The study also indicated the cities graduates would do well to avoid. Of all major US metro areas, Rochester, in upstate New York, came last. The rust belt city is relatively affordable, but low wages and a lack of jobs make it a bad place to start a career. Virginia Beach, New Orleans, Fresno, and Portland rounded out the worst five cities for job-seeking graduates. A six-year-old girl was attacked during a DoorDash delivery while riding a pink scooter outside her Georgia home. Khalani Ogletree was playing by herself on Saturday night in the Eagles Brook community when a 16-year-old DoorDash driver making a pizza delivery at a neighbors house fired a gel blaster gun at her and slurred profanities in the unprovoked attack. The terrified little girl was crying and ran into her house to safety. After the ordeal she told local WSB-TV News 'they called me a loser, and they said bad words to me.' Neighbor Nick Patel, who witnessed the attack, said he saw four men in a white car - one got out to deliver the pizza - before they drove off blowing through the stop signs, and saw the girl crying and running to her mother. 'These guys, I dont know what theyre doing. Shes just looking at them, so I think theyre making fun of her, laughing at her or something,' Patel said. Six-year-old Khalani Ogletree was attacked with a gel blaster gun while riding her scooter on Saturday night Neighbor Nick Patel's CCTV caught the moment the white car pulled up to Ogletree's house just before the shooting Patel said that he later saw the car zoom off make a roundabout and blow through stop signs. Henry County police tracked down the car, and officials have since said the 16-year-old who shot the young girl with a gel blaster gun is now facing charges of simple battery. He was later released to his mother following his arrest, according to the news outlet. While the teen was charged, Ogletree's mother, Shaterica Ellis, would like to see the others involved face charges too and admitted that her daughter was shaken by the incident. 'She was crying so bad. I didn't know what was the problem at first,' she said. Ogletree 'was crying so bad' after being targeted by a 16-year-old driving the white car, her mother said Khalani's mother Shaterica Ellis said that her daughter was shaken by the incident and believes all the other teens involved should be held accountable Disturbed by what he saw in his neighborhood, Patel agrees with Ellis and believes all four should be held accountable. 'It's just a little kid. If you are going to do it - do it to a grown up not a baby or a toddler,' he said. 'I think all four of them - whatever the one guy got charged with - all four of them should.' Ellis said now when she sees a white car, she gets fearful for her family. 'I can't believe they would do this to a six-year-old child.' 'These guys, I dont know what theyre doing. Shes just looking at them, so I think theyre making fun of her, laughing at her or something,' Patel said Pictured: A typical gel blaster gun that fires superabsorbent polymer water beads DoorDash made a statement to the local news outlet claiming that the delivery person was not a 'Dasher.' 'To be clear, this individual was not a Dasher, and we have deactivated the account that was wrongly used,' they wrote, in part. Gel blaster guns are known as the 'kid-friendly' version of paintball guns, but are illegal in New York State. Their pellets are gel-based made from non-toxic polymer water beads, and have less of an impact than a nerf gun or other pressurized water guns. A historic fixer-upper home in Massachusetts is being auctioned off for a minimum bid of $3,000 - but there is a reason the price is so low. The single-family pink home on 60 Plum Island Turnpike in Newbury, Massachusetts, is up for grabs as GSA Auctions opened it up for bidding on Wednesday morning. The abandoned house, built in 1922, is being offered at such a cheap price because it sits on a federal wildlife refuge. After going through many owners, the home, located along the Newbury Salt Marsh and near the Plumbush Creek, was sold to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife/Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in 2011. The winning bidder will have to move the three-bedroom, one-bathroom home, commonly known by locals as 'the little pink house,' off of the land where it currently sits. 'The little pink house' on 60 Plum Island Turnpike in Newbury, Massachusetts, is up for grabs as GSA Auctions opened up bidding for it on Wednesday morning After going through many owners, the home, located along the salt marsh and near the Plumbush Creek, was sold to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife/Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in 2011. (pictured: File photo of salt marsh) In addition to the home's unique requirement, it also has a slew of health hazards inside, including asbestos, mold and lead-based paint. The true fixer-upper is approximately 1,514 square-feet with an unfinished basement 'covered with standing water,' according to the listing. According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife/Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, the house frequently floods, and has already done so twice this year. The home itself is made up of pressboard, shingles, wood and an asphalt roof. The interior walls are constructed of sheetrock and plaster. Pictures showed the iconic pink paint chipped away on the exterior of the home, and sitting brown water on the floor of the 628 square-foot basement. Another image showed the run down kitchen fit with broken cabinets, old appliances, and holes in the ceiling. The listing explained that the home has not been lived in for decades and that the future buyer would have to remove the structure 'within 90 days of the execution of Bill of Sale.' In addition to the home's unique requirement, the future owners will also have to deal with a slew of health hazards inside the property, including asbestos, mold and lead-based paint The true fixer-upper is an approximately 1,514 square-foot two-story residence, and has an unfinished basement that is 'covered with standing water,' according to the listing As of Monday morning, nobody has bid on the neglected home. It is unclear how long it will be up for auction, as the listing has been marked 'TBD.' In July 1925, George and Gertrude Cutter purchased the plot of land that the home now sits on. The couple were members of a well-known Newburyport family that had multiple local businesses, including the Fern Show Company and a cafe, according to Support The Pink House. By November of that year, Gertrude's son Harry and his wife Ruth moved into the historic home with their baby boy Harry Jr. Between 1925-1947, though the home was still owned by the Cutter's, the deed was handed over to Gertrude's daughter Charlotte, before being passed on to Harry's second wife, Beatrice Bowry. In July 1947, Chester and Hilda Rogers bought the home before selling it to another couple, Harold and Hazel Proctor two years later. By 1950, the Rodgers' bought the home back after Hazel Proctor complained about salty running water inside the home, according to Support The Pink House. The home itself is made up of pressboard, shingles, wood and an asphalt roof. The interior walls are constructed of sheetrock and plaster The run down kitchen is seen with broken cabinets, old appliances, and holes in the ceiling Five years later another couple, William and Julia DeHart, bought the humble abode. In 1960, Milton and Juliette Scott purchased the home and lived there until 2011. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife/Parker River National Wildlife Refuge then bought the pink house for $375,000. In March, the agency found 'no significant impact' for its proposal to remove the century-old home. After a 30-day public comment period, the agency announced that once the house is removed, it will 'restore the habitat for wildlife and open a portion of the property to the public.' 'I want to thank our community partners who worked so hard as we exhausted every option to find a solution to this complex issue,' Refuge Manager Matt Hillman said. 'While we regret not reaching an outcome that satisfies all, were confident the decision aligns with our mission to protect and restore high-quality wildlife habitat and provide meaningful educational opportunities.' As Donald Trump's Milwaukee convention shapes up to be a full-on MAGA pep rally, prominent Republican dissenters in the Senate are saying they plan to skip it entirely. Trump's Senate critics, including all four of those who remain in office after voting to impeach him after January 6th, are steering clear of the Trump-centric blowout set to kick off Monday in a state key to his White House hopes. Among those skipping the affair is Maine Senator Susan Collins, who is opting for her home state, which has long served as a summer getaway for visitors. 'I don't go to every national convention. I always go to the state one,' she told DailyMail.com this week as the Democrats were in free fall over President Biden. 'I'd rather be in Maine. I've got events scheduled. Who wouldn't rather be in Maine?' she added, after dismissing the idea it had anything to do with substance. Collins' frequent Senate partner Sen. Lisa Murkowski is also opting for a schedule that will allow her to beat the political heat. Republican Sen. Susan Collins (right) won't be attending the Republican convention. 'I'd rather be in Maine,' she said 'The Senator will not be at the convention this year, she will be back in Alaska,' spokesman Joseph Plesha told DailyMail.com. Nor will retiring Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a perpetual Trump target. 'He wont be attending convention,' said spokeswoman Paige Waltz, without elaborating on his plans. That comes a few months after Romney, his party's 2012 nominee who became a prominent Trump critic in the Senate, revealed he won't be voting for the man who has staged a nearly complete takeover of the party, installing his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as a cochair of the Republican National Committee and dispensing with a platform plank on a national abortion ban that could be a political burden. 'My wing of the party is like a chicken wing, all right? Its a little, tiny thing that doesnt take the bird off the ground. So were going to have to change that in my view,' Romney told MSNBC in May. It's not just senators from cool weather climes or with multiple vacation homes like Romney who are declining to join the thousands of delegates descending on Milwaukee. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy also won't be there, and will instead be home in Baton Rouge. 'He will be spending time with his grandchild,' said his spokeswoman, Molly Block. None of the Republicans stated that their decisions had anything to do with Trump, as the party marches toward a convention armed with a new party platform that echoes many of the former president's speech applause lines, with a second plank calling to 'Seal the Border and Stop the Migrant Invasion.' Sen. Lisa Murkowski (upper right, above Collins) will spend the convention in her home state of Alaska, while Sen. Bill Cassidy (bottom second from left) will be at home in Louisiana 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney is also skipping the convention The moves come as Trump has expanded his control over his party, and put in place a platform that reflects his campaign speeches You know there was a lot of bad blood there. She stayed too long, Trump groused, after Nikki Haley said she won't attend the convention, and will be urging her delegates to get behind Trump 'I cannot support former President Trump and I voted to convict him on the second impeachment charges. So I don't think it should come as a surprise to anyone that I cannot support him,' Collins said in late March, as Trump secured the nomination, even while revealing she is 'not happy with President Biden's administration.' Of the seven Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after January 6, just four remain: Collins, Murkowski, Romney, and Cassidy. Three others, Sens. Ben Sasse, Richard Burr, and Pat Toomey, have left the chamber. On Tuesday, Politico reported that former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was Trump's final GOP presidential primary opponent, wasn't invited to the convention but is 'fine' with it. She is releasing her 97 delegates and urging them to vote for Trump. Haley 'was not invited, and shes fine with that,' said her spokesman. 'Trump deserves the convention he wants. Shes made it clear shes voting for him and wishes him the best.' Trump told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade he would 'take a look' at the matter, but then seethed about how Haley lingered in the race after it was all but over in a signal to his backers not to let bygones be bygones. You know there was a lot of bad blood there. She stayed too long, Trump groused. A Hindu religious leader accused of proclaiming himself 'god-on-earth' while abusing and raping his followers has claimed he is the victim of a 'fabricated' conspiracy to 'extort' millions of pounds from him. Rajinder Kalia is being sued in the High Court over claims he 'groomed' members of his temple to believe he is 'an incarnation of God,' while subjecting women and children to horrific sexual abuse. Mr Kalia - head priest at his Hindu-based temple in Coventry - allegedly claimed to perform 'miracles', including setting fire to water and squeezing blood from a lemon, to convince devotees. But giving evidence this week, Mr Kalia, 68, denied he had ever claimed to have divine powers, such as the ability to cure people or animals of cancer, and said he is the victim of a 'conspiracy' to 'extort' millions from him. 'The claimants have fabricated stories, and have lied, in order to extort money from me,' he told the judge, Mr Justice Martin Spencer. Rajinder Kalia is being sued in the High Court over claims he 'groomed' members of his temple to believe he is 'an incarnation of God' Mr Kalia (pictured with a follower kissing his feet), who began preaching in 1983 after moving to the UK from India, claims to have experienced a miracle as a teenager 'I have never claimed to be divine, to have a direct link to God, to be a manifestation of God, or to be an incarnation of God, as alleged by the claimants. 'I am merely the figurehead of the temple, who preaches to the congregation from my own experience. Like anyone else, I pray to God. 'I have never claimed to be able to perform miracles or heal life-threatening diseases, as alleged by the claimants. 'I explain to the congregation that healing is up to God and there are no guarantees. 'I pray to God, just like other people, to get better, or for others to get better, but there is no guarantee. 'When people come and talk to me about their ailments, I pray for them to get better. This is all I can do. 'I have never said that I can cure people or animals from illnesses or life-threatening diseases, such as cancer, nor have I ever charged a fee for praying to God for someone - or something - to get better, as alleged.' Mr Kalia said one of the claimants had alleged to have been 'coerced' into paying 5,000 for him to obtain a cure for her dog's cancer, which he said was 'entirely made up.' During a trial now in its third week, the court heard Mr Kalia is head of the Sidh Baba Balak Nath Ji Society of Coventry, a religious organisation which professes the founding principles of the Hindu religion. The sect is based on worship of Baba Balak Nath, a Hindu god whose main temple is in a cave in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, and who manifests as an eternally young blue-skinned boy riding a peacock. In his evidence, Mr Kalia, who began preaching in 1983 after moving to the UK from India in 1977, claimed to have experienced a miracle as a teenager which brought him closer to the divine. Following a motorbike accident, he had been told he would never walk again, but found himself back on his feet after a visit to Himachal Pradesh, centre of worship of Baba Balak Nath. Mr Kalia is head of the Sidh Baba Balak Nath Ji Society of Coventry, based on worship of Baba Balak Nath, a Hindu god 'He believes that this was a miracle and increased his faith, particularly in the deity Baba Balak Nath,' said his barrister Sarah Crowther KC. Four women are now suing Mr Kalia over claims he sexually abused them, while they and three other former devotees also claimed financial exploitation, although two of the latter cases have since been struck out. The former worshippers want millions in compensation. They claim Mr Kalia 'portrayed himself as an incarnation of God and/or the divine' through his performance of 'purported miracles,' including asserting he had a power of healing. He claimed to be infallible, that his 'utterances were to be obeyed without question' and that to question his authority was to be unworthy, putting them 'in dire peril of eternal damnation through a cycle of birth and rebirth.' Sexual abuse began against three of the women when they were underage, it is claimed. Giving evidence earlier in the trial, one of the four women alleging sexual abuse described Mr Kalia as a 'devil' in disguise. 'He isn't an incarnation of God, he is the devil,' she told the judge. 'I was groomed by him to believe he was God, because I was a child when I went to him.' Mr Kalia, head priest at a Hindu-based temple in Coventry, is disputing the claims against him saying they are part of a financially motivated conspiracy For the claimants, barrister Mark Jones said they claim to have been 'wholly subject to the charismatic and forceful personality of the defendant.' It meant their ability to freely consent to his demands for financial and - in the cases of four of the women - sexual benefits was overridden, he said. But from the witness box today, Mr Kalia - wearing tinted glasses due to an eye condition - accused the claimants of making 'fundamentally dishonest' claims against him. 'I did not have any sexual relations whatsoever - consensual or otherwise - with any of the claimants,' he told the judge. 'I note that the claimants have not pleaded any distinguishing features of my person.' One of the women had claimed in her witness evidence that he told her that if she did not make him happy, she would be 'damned to hell' and 'horrifically disabled in all future lives.' But Mr Kalia denied the accusation, and all the others, telling the judge: 'I have never said to...anyone...that sexual relations with a head priest, or 'Guru', is purifying or will keep a person 'pure.' 'There is no such thing as hell in Hinduism and I do not have theological jurisdiction to punish or disable someone in a future life.' He claimed that, having discovered his wealth, the complainants had come up with a 'plan to make false allegations against me' in order to 'extort me for money.' 'The claimants have been fundamentally dishonest,' he said. 'The complainants made false allegations to the police and contacted various entities, including newspapers, the Punjab Police, and the Charity Commission, to inform them of the baseless allegations being made. 'The complainants approached many people at the temple and asked female attendees to make false allegations against me to the police, stating that there would be money in it for them if they supported their stories. 'When the CPS declined to prosecute, with the decision upheld on appeal, the claimants brought these proceedings against me, in which they repeat the allegations made against me to the police and plead entirely new accusations. 'The claimants have made these allegations against me in an attempt to obtain money from me. Their motivation has always been, and continues to be, financial.' The court previously heard the victim claim followers of Mr Kalia (subject of painting) called by the prosecution are 'here to lie' Earlier, setting out his defence, his barrister Sarah Crowther KC said the complainants, like all temple attendees, could freely choose to attend and take part in its activities. 'They participated willingly, for their own spiritual and personal benefit. They were free to come and go at any time of their choosing,' she said. 'The allegations including those in respect of assault are untrue, fundamentally dishonest and the product of a conspiracy between the claimants to attempt to extort the defendant.' She added: 'It seems likely that the content of the false allegations was inspired by a mixture of previous experiences of some of the group, and previous allegations they had made of sexual misconduct, unrelated to the defendant, as well as media and/or internet reports of 'fake gurus'.' But Mr Jones said the claim to compensation - the amount of which has not been finally calculated but which runs into the millions - only came after the CPS refused to prosecute Mr Kalia. The trial began last month, with Mr Kalia facing allegations of financial and sexual abuse by four female former worshippers, and three more of financial abuse by other former members of his temple. But two of the latter cases were dramatically thrown out by the judge last week over irregularities relating to their witness statements. The pair had alleged they had been 'psychologically dominated' by Mr Kalia so that they handed over 276,000 to him or for his benefit, while also performing huge amounts of unpaid work. However, their claims were struck out after it emerged that, despite signing witness statements and other claim documents and confirming their truth, neither of the pair can speak, read or write English, or even read in their own Punjabi language. The judge said there was 'no acceptable explanation' for how the issue could have happened and not discovered until several days into the trial, adding that it was 'virtually contemptuous of the proceedings of this court.' The cases of the four women claiming sexual abuse and the one other former temple member claiming financial abuse are ongoing. As well as denying all of the allegations, lawyers for Mr Kalia say his accusers waited far too long to make their claims after the alleged events. Lifelong Democrat George Clooney has turned on President Joe Biden and demanded he step aside from the 2024 race after his disastrous debate and widespread concerns about whether he can serve four more years. The Hollywood megastar, who has hosted fundraisers for the 81-year-old, said Biden can't win the 'battle against time' in a scathing op-ed for the New York Times on Wednesday morning. The actor also condemned Democratic party leaders for ignoring 'every warning sign' of Biden's declining physical and mental health and for trying to defend his car-crash performance against Donald Trump. He added that Democrat voters 'collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.' The opinion pieces comes just three weeks after Clooney hosted a record-breaking $28 million fundraiser for the president on June 16. Clooney joins the scores of Democrats and Biden allies who have called for the president to step down in the two weeks since his meandering and mumbling showing on CNN. The actor hosted some of the biggest fundraisers in the party's history, including one last month for Biden's reelection. Biden has insisted he is not going anywhere and that he will still beat Trump in November, but Clooney's comments are an enormous blow to his embattled campaign. Lifelong Democrat George Clooney turned on President Joe Biden and demand he step aside from the 2024 race after his disastrous debate and widespread concerns of whether he can serve four more years: above is George Clooney, President Joe Biden, Julia Roberts and Barack Obama at a June 16 fundraiser that raised $28 million 'Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024,' the actor wrote in the op-ed. Clooney, who hosted a star-studded fundraiser for Biden in Los Angeles on June 16, said the person he saw there was the candidate the world saw at last week's presidential debate. 'I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he's won many of the battles he's faced,' Clooney wrote. 'But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,' he said. Biden and Clooney have a long relationship, going back to Biden's day as chairman of the Senate Foreign Services Committee. Clooney was working on issues in Darfur and connected with him. The president has honored Clooney for his support, hosting him at the White House for the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2022. The actor has become a major force in the Democratic Party, raising millions for its candidates. He's seen as an influential voice in American politics. His dis-endorsement of Biden could also hurt the Democratic Party in the pocket book. Hollywood donors, with their deep pockets, were said to be furious with campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg after Biden's debate performance. The donors, like many Biden supporters, said they felt misled and betrayed about the president's health. Clooney argued it was more important to beat Donald Trump in November than to keep Biden on the ticket. 'Our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn't see what we just saw. We're all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we've opted to ignore every warning sign,' he wrote. But Biden and Clooney also hit some bumps in their relationship. The actor was reportedly furious at the White House in early June after Biden attacked an attempt by Amal, Clooney's lawyer wife, to jail the Prime Minister of Israel, it emerged on Thursday. Amal Clooney signed off a bid by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court last month to seek the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu alongside Hamas leaders for war crimes a move the President denounced as 'outrageous.' Clooney reportedly called one of Biden's closest advisers to make his feelings known. But he still hosted a fundraiser - along with actress Julia Roberts and former President Barack Obama - later that month that helped raise $30 million for Biden's campaign last month. The fundraiser, however was overshadowed with questions about the president's health after a video appeared to show Obama having to guide Biden off stage. In the video, Biden and Obama are seen waving and smiling while receiving a standing ovation in the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Biden applauds and gives the audience a thumbs up but then he stops moving as he stares out over the crowd for several long seconds. That's when Obama, still smiling and waving, took Biden by the wrist and gave him a gentle tug. That's when the president appears to snap out of it. They proceed to walk off the stage together with Obama speaking into Biden's ear as he pats him on the back as they go. The White House called the video a fake. Officials also noted the fundraiser took place the day after Biden returned from participating in the G7 summit in Italy. Already some prominent Democrats are saying Clooney has a point. 'I am concerned.' Michael Douglas, a longtime Biden supporter, told ABC's The View. 'I think it's a valid point,' he said of Clooney's op-ed. George Clooney visited the White House where he was honored by the President in 2022 Obama seen giving Biden's arm a gentle tug and leading him off the stage after the president freezes during the applause at a fundraiser in Los Angeles in June Biden has been struggling to rally Democrats around his presidential bid as calls for him to exit the presidential race grow. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among those appearing to question Biden's decision to remain in the contest. 'It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short,' she said on Morning Joe on Wednesday. Some Democratic lawmakers have expressed their doubts about Biden's ability to beat Trump. Clooney said he's heard this concern from members of Congress he has spoken to, including worries the Democratic Party will lose the House and Senate. 'We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won't win the House, and we're going to lose the Senate. This isn't only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I've spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly,' he wrote. He argues a nominee should be picked at the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Chicago August 19th through August 22nd. And the actor suggested an array of candidates who could replace Biden and go on to win in November. 'Let's hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others,' he said, name checking several governors and the vice president. 'Let's agree that the candidates not attack one another but, in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar. Then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out,' he adds. Amal Clooney and George Clooney - Clooney was reportedly furious at the White House decision to question Amal's work on the war in Gaza Clooney met with then-President Barack Obama at the White House in 2010 to talk about the Sudan George Clooney with Bill Clinton at the White House Correspondents' dinner Biden has insisted he will stay in the race. He sent a letter to all Democratic lawmakers on Monday, announcing his decision. He's also reached out to party officials, donors and mayors as he tries to shore up his support with the party faithful. 'I want you to know that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,' Biden wrote to Democrats. Some Democrats are standing by the president. The Home Secretary is urgently considering whether tougher crossbow laws are needed after the murders of a BBC racing commentator's wife and two daughters. Yvette Cooper will look at the findings of a Home Office review carried out earlier this year after the deaths of John Hunt's family in Bushey, Hertfordshire, today. A major manhunt has been launched to find suspect Kyle Clifford, 26, who police believe may still be armed with a crossbow - which can be bought online for as little as 50. Killings involving a crossbow are typically rare but ministers had considered tightening laws in a bid to stop the weapons being used in violent attacks. The previous government looked at bringing in firearms licensing-style rules in the wake of an attempt to kill the late Queen with a crossbow. Jaswant Singh Chail was encouraged by an AI chatbot to break into Windsor Castle on Christmas Day 2021 with a loaded crossbow to kill the late Queen. He's seen in a photo taken before his arrest Yvette Cooper will look at the findings of a Home Office review carried out earlier this year after the deaths of John Hunt's family in Bushey, Hertfordshire, today A major manhunt has been launched to find Bushey attack suspect Kyle Clifford, 26 There is currently no registration system for owning a crossbow, no requirement for a licence and they appear to be readily available to buy online. But it is illegal for anyone under 18 to buy or own one, with anyone carrying a crossbow in public without a reasonable excuse facing up to four years behind bars. Plans for crossbow owners to face police checks were mooted as part of efforts to 'step up action to prevent violence on our streets', the Home Office said this year. The department launched an eight-week consultation in February to see if there should be a licensing system to control the use, ownership and supply of crossbows, with anyone looking to buy one facing police checks - similar to regulations already in place for firearms. The Home Office completed the work in April but the General Election being called stalled any further progress until now. Ms Cooper, who was appointed as Home Secretary last week in the wake of Labour's election victory, is understood to have been supportive of the move during her time in opposition. A Home Office spokeswoman said: 'This is an appalling incident and the Home Secretary is being kept updated by the police. 'We keep legislation under constant review and a call for evidence was launched earlier this year to look at whether further controls on crossbows should be introduced. 'The Home Secretary will swiftly consider the findings to see if laws need to be tightened further.' Convicted stalker Bryce Hodgson was shot dead by police in January after he broke into a London home armed with weapons including a crossbow A gas mask and crossbow arrows were seen by the house at Bywater Place, Surrey Quays Today's killings follow other recent incidents featuring the weapon. Convicted stalker Bryce Hodgson was shot dead by police in January after he broke into a London home armed with weapons including a crossbow. Former home secretary Priti Patel ordered the review of crossbow rules after would-be assassin Jaswant Singh Chail was encouraged by an AI chatbot to break into Windsor Castle on Christmas Day 2021 with a loaded crossbow to kill the late Queen. The 21-year-old was jailed for nine years in October last year and handed a further five years on extended licence after admitting treason, making a threat to kill the then Queen, and having a loaded crossbow. According to the Home Office, there were fewer than 10 killings involving a crossbow between 2011 and 2021 but the department said it was 'clear that when used as a weapon, crossbows do pose a risk'. Then-safeguarding minister Laura Farris said crossbows were 'used rarely in violent crime in this country but they can be highly dangerous'. CCTV issued by the Met of Jaswant Singh Chail being arrested in the grounds of Windsor Castle Chail after his arrest on December 25, 2021 In January last year a domestic homicide review found the Metropolitan Police missed opportunities to protect Sana Muhammad from her ex-husband in the years before he killed her with a crossbow. The 35-year-old was eight months pregnant when former nurse Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo, then 51, burst into her home and fired an arrow into her stomach in 2018. The pair had divorced four years earlier after entering into an arranged marriage in their home country of Mauritius in 1999, when Ms Muhammad was 17. She died after sustaining catastrophic internal injuries from the attack but her unborn son - who was delivered by Caesarean section - miraculously survived. Unmathallegadoo is likely to die in jail after he was found guilty of murder and handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 33 years in 2019. Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo used this crossbow to kill his wife in 2018 Unmathallegadoo is likely to die in jail after he was found guilty of murder and handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 33 years in 2019 A Tinder swindler who 'preyed on women looking for love' raped one victim while she slept and conned nine others out of a total of more than 214,000. Christopher Harkins, 37, targeted single women on dating websites and worked to gain their trust, portraying himself as a successful businessman. He then claimed to be experiencing issues with his bank account being frozen and asked some of his victims to lend him money for a short period of time, prosecutors said. Several women borrowed significant sums in order to help Harkins, who left what the judge described as 'a trail of emotional devastation and financial distress' in his wake. He pleaded guilty to 11 fraud charges at the High Court in Glasgow on January 16. Christopher Harkins, 37, 'preyed on women looking for love'. He raped one victim while she slept and conned nine others out of a total of more than 214,000 He pleaded guilty to 11 fraud charges at the High Court in Glasgow (pictured) on January 16 And following a trial at the High Court in Paisley in May, Harkins was found guilty of raping a woman and was also convicted of filming two women in intimate situations without their consent before sending them the graphic content. Judge Alistair Watson sentenced Christopher Harkins to 12 years in prison at the High Court in Kilmarnock on Wednesday. He said Harkins committed 19 separate criminal offences directed towards 10 different victims over a period of almost six years, defrauding nine of those victims of more than 214,000. Almost none of the conned cash has ever been repaid to the victims. One woman was also raped by Harkins while she slept. In a sentencing statement, later published online, he said: 'The degree of harm caused by you is extremely high. Many of your victims were deprived of all or some of their personal savings leaving some in financial difficulty. 'These frauds are what are commonly described as romance scams. The court recognises that this is a particular type of fraud which preys upon a person's compassion and emotions, where your contrived pleas and explanations as to your need for money were, in fact, calculated ploys designed to take advantage of the decent nature of those women. 'It is self-evident that this particular type of fraud is likely to have a devastating psychological effect on the victims quite apart from any financial loss to them. 'I have taken time to read the victim impact statements provided by a number of the victims of these crimes. They describe in detailed terms the feelings of shame, humiliation, stress and exhaustion suffered as a consequence of your course of criminal conduct.' Harkins, from Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute, also persuaded a number of the women to transfer him money for holidays, sending them screenshots of alleged destinations. He persuaded them to pay for half the cost but never booked the trips away and failed to return the majority of the funds given to him. His offending took place between 2013 and 2019 in the Airdrie, Cumbernauld, Dumbarton, East Kilbride, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley and Stirling areas, the Crown Office said. His name has been added to the sex offenders register indefinitely. Non-harassment orders, preventing Harkins from contacting or attempting to contact 10 victims, have also been granted for an indefinite period. Detective Inspector Iain Renfrew branded Harkins a 'violent and contemptible individual who preyed on women looking for love and companionship'. He added: 'Harkins met the women through a dating app and once he had formed relationships with them, he turned to manipulation, threats, coercive control and violence to obtain thousands of pounds which he used to fund his very lavish lifestyle.' Scotland's Procurator Fiscal for High Court Sexual Offences, Katrina Parkes, said: 'Christopher Harkins clearly poses an extreme danger to women through his calculating, manipulative and violent behaviour. 'His many victims have shown immense bravery in coming forward and reporting him to the authorities. 'This conviction will hopefully bring some comfort to the women he targeted while protecting others from his deplorable schemes and depraved actions. 'This was a complex case and I give thanks to the prosecution team for their efforts in securing this conviction.' A transgender double-murderer has been moved back to a male prison after being caught having sex with a female inmate at a Washington state women's prison. Bryan Kim, 35, who now goes by 'Amber FayeFox Kim', was caught having intercourse with 25-year-old Sincer-A Marie Nerton at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) on March 14. Months later, Kim, who identifies as female, has been moved back to the Monroe Correctional Facility for men. 'The reason for Kim's transfer was due to ongoing safety concerns,' a Department of Corrections official told the National Review. Kim was convicted in 2008 of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder for fatally stabbing his father, Richard Kim, and bludgeoning and strangling his mother, Terri Kim, as reported by the Spokesman-Review. In March, a corrections officer found Kim 'laying on the floor completely nude from the waist down with their cellmate Nerton on top of them also nude from the waist down actively having sex,' according to a report obtained by National Review. Bryan Kim, 35, who now goes by 'Amber FayeFox Kim', was caught having intercourse with 25-year-old Sincer-A Marie Nerton at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) on March 14 (pictured: Kim on trial, pre-transitioning) According to the report: 'This is against MSU rules and policy. WAC-504-Engaging in a sex act with another person within the facility that is not otherwise included in these rules, except in an approved extended family visit.' 'Technically, there is no consensual sex between the incarcerated,' a Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) employee told National Review. But 'Washington has been mitigating the sanctions on offenders involved,' he said. 'If both offenders call it consensual, then they seem to be getting into less trouble.' The incident resulted in an infraction with a hearing expected. Kim was convicted in 2008 of murdering his parents, Richard and Terri Kim, had previously struggled with mental health issues. He was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes. The gruesome murders occurred at their Mount Spokane home on December 5, 2006, upon their return from work. Following the killings, Kim attempted to clean the crime scene and conceal his parents' bodies in an outbuilding. The next day, he went shopping, using his father's debit card to withdraw $1,000 from their account. The convicted killer who murdered his parents before transitioning into a woman was discovered having sex with a female inmate at a Washington state women's prison. (Pictured: Kim in prison, post 'transitioning') Kim was convicted in 2008 of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder for fatally stabbing his father, Richard Kim, and bludgeoning and strangling his mother, Terri Kim (pictured) Initially housed at a men's facility in Washington, Kim was later transferred to Purdy in February 2021 under the state Department of Correction's gender-inclusion policy Kim received a life sentence for his crimes, with the defense arguing that he had struggled with mental health issues since childhood, attempting to cast doubt on the premeditated nature of the crimes. Initially housed at a men's facility in Washington, Kim was later transferred to Purdy in February 2021 under the state Department of Correction's gender-inclusion policy. This policy, approved by Washington's Democratic governor Jay Inslee, allows male convicts to be admitted to Purdy upon acceptance of their gender-dysphoria diagnosis by an administrative panel. Despite not being codified into law as in California, the policy has generated controversy within the state's prison system. Following Kim's transfer to Purdy, reports emerged in December 2021, indicating multiple instances of sexual exploitation by male inmates identifying as women towards female residents, as reported by National Review. A former female inmate, speaking anonymously to National Review, described witnessing and hearing of numerous cases of sexual assault by convicted transgender felons. Following Kim's transfer to Purdy, reports emerged in December 2021, indicating multiple instances of sexual exploitation by male inmates identifying as women towards female residents, as reported by National Review The gruesome murders occurred at their Mount Spokane home on December 5, 2006, upon their return from work (Kim, pictured) Kim received a life sentence for his crimes, with the defense arguing that he had struggled with mental health issues since childhood, attempting to cast doubt on the premeditated nature of the crimes Kim was convicted of fatally stabbing his parents with a knife (pictured) in 2008 One such inmate, known as Jonathan or 'Jazzy,' faced multiple complaints of sexual assault filed by female inmates. In one disturbing incident, a female inmate woke up to find Jazzy with an obvious erection touching her inappropriately. Despite these allegations, Purdy officials denied having any complaints on file. Jazzy also allegedly groomed his victims for weeks, making persistent sexual advances until the assault occurred. In November, the Huffington Post published a sympathetic piece titled 'Inside The Brutal Struggle For Trans Care In Prison,' featuring Kim's story. The article suggested that Kim's actions and subsequent incarceration were linked to mistreatment endured during his upbringing. Kim recounted instances of physical punishment and threats from his parents due to his effeminate behavior and cross-dressing during adolescence. The 22-year-old girlfriend of a suspected 'sugar daddy', 53, is behind bars, accused of killing him and then severing his thumb in order to use his banking and Uber app. The horror unfolded this past April in Washington DC. Police believe that Tiffany Gray killed Fasil Teklemariam inside his apartment. He was stabbed, suffered head trauma and had his thumb cut off - which has yet to be recovered. A witness told investigators that Gray and her accomplices then used the thumb to go on a spending spree, buying marijuana and booze. Surveillance footage around Teklemariam's apartment building in the Manor Park section of DC showed Gray and another woman, Audrey Miller, 19, alongside two other men, entering and leaving the building around the time of the killing. Teklemariam was found dead in his bedroom on April 5 surrounded broken glass. It's not clear if his thumb was removed before or after his death. Tiffany Taylor Gray, 22, the woman who referred to the victim Fasil Teklemariam as her 'sugar daddy' Audrey Miller, 19, was arrested first in relation to the gruesome murder. She was ordered to be held without bail on first degree murder charges in June Gray is seen walking into Teklemariam's apartment building in the aftermath of his death Fasil Teklemariam, 53, shown here in a publicly released image by police worked as a technician for the Washington DC Area Transit system His SUV was missing from its usual parking space in front of his building. The victim was last seen on April 1, walking with Gray into his apartment building. Gray entered and left the building multiple times between April 1 and April 5. During this time, the group could be seen Teklemariam's belongings out with them. In charging documents, detectives said that they have still not recovered several electronic and household items that belonged to the victim. In one clip, a member of the group brings cleaning supplies into the building. 'The suspects stole several items from resident. A search of [Teklemariam's] residence showed that several electronic devices and household items were stolen,' the criminal complaint alleges. The documents confirm that cleaning supplies were used in the apartment but that a bloody shoeprint was recovered. Police were led to Gray as a potential suspect when detectives discovered that in October 2023, he made a complaint to the DC police, accusing her of stealing his phone and running up charges of $1,800 on his banking app. The search clues then found that Teklemariam's cellphone was pinged close to a cellphone tower in College Park, Maryland, close to where Gray was living at the time, Teklemariam was the guarantor on the apartment.. Miller can be seen walking into Teklemariam's apartment building on April 1 Miller and the victim seen entering his apartment on April 1, it's not clear what their relationship was Miller is seen in the hallway of the apartment building The allegation that the victim was acting as the suspect's sugar daddy is mentioned in the criminal complaint and is attributed to 'witnesses.' Investigators believe that Gray has 'repeatedly' committed the crime of meeting men online and stealing from them. In one instance this past May, Gray is accused of meeting up with a man and then showing up at his home with two others, who were armed. The group are accused of robbing the man while tying his hands and feet with zip ties. Under threat of violence, the man revealed his banking pin codes. His home was also burglarized. Miller was first arrested on June 21 and charged with first degree murder. She was ordered to be held without bond. Gray was arrested on July 1 and charged with first degree murder and armed felony murder. One of the men who accompanied them into the apartment has been identified and is not charged with a crime. Authorities allege that Gray was using the pseudonym Taylor Greene in the aftermath of the murder. According to his Facebook page, Teklemariam was a native of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. It's unclear when he moved to the United States. His profile shows pictures of him with a family, consisting of a wife and two children. The most recent video on his page, shows his children paying tribute to him on Father's Day in 2022. 'I hope you live longer than any person in the world,' his son says. On his LinkedIn page, Teklemariam said that he worked as a technician for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Sir Keir Starmer greeted Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky with a hug today as he stressed Britain having a new Government meant 'no change' in UK support for Kyiv. The PM, making his debut on the world stage at the NATO summit in Washington DC, told the Ukrainian President there would be 'no change of approach'. 'As you know from the get go... there's a change of government but no change of approach,' Sir Keir said, as he met Mr Zelensky on the sidelines of the summit. The PM said this week's Russian attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv was 'just shocking' during the meeting. Defence Secretary John Healey and Foreign Secretary David Lammy joined the Prime Minister with officials and the Ukrainian delegation around a table. 'Thank you again that you are with us from the very beginning of the war,' Mr Zelensky said, as he thanked Sir Keir for his words. Speaking after the meeting, the PM said it was 'really important' for him to affirm Britain's continued support for Ukraine in a face-to-face meeting with Mr Zelensky. The two leaders had previously spoken on the phone shortly after Sir Keir was sworn in as Rishi Sunak's replacement as PM last week. Sir Keir has entered the summit facing the first row of his premiership with questions over his pledge to raise defence spending to counter Russian aggression. The PM is under pressure to spell out when the UK will increase its defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, having refused to guarantee it will happen in his first term. Sir Keir Starmer greeted Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky with a hug today as he stressed Britain having a new Government meant 'no change' in UK support for Kyiv The PM, making his debut on the world stage at the NATO summit in Washington DC, told the Ukrainian President there would be 'no change of approach' under his Government 'As you know from the get go... there's a change of government but no change of approach,' Sir Keir said, as he met Mr Zelensky on the sidelines of the summit Sir Keir has entered the summit facing the first row of his premiership with questions over his pledge to raise defence spending to counter Russian aggression The PM pictured with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg as they met in Washington DC The PM arrived in Washington today to meet US President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders at a summit to mark the alliance's 75th anniversary. He also held talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron this afternoon, less than a week after the Labour landslide which installed him in No10. Sir Keir told reporters in Washington DC his talks with world leaders were 'an opportunity to make sure that those relationships are reset, for me to be able to say that our position on the world stage leading on issues like defence and security, on climate change, and on energy are so important'. He also said the summit was a chance 'to discuss with President Zelensky what further support he needs and to use our opportunity here with our allies to make sure that that support is agreed'. 'And to reinforce, in a sense as a message to Putin, the resolve of NATO , bigger now than it's ever been, more united than it's ever been and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression,' the PM added. But Sir Keir is under pressure to spell out when he will meet a promise to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. Mr Sunak set a date of 2030 for hitting the milestone under the Tories, with fears of a new conflict in Europe. But a senior defence minister today suggested the new Labour Government may not even set a target for a year, after it has completed a review of the Armed Forces. Tory shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge wrote to Mr Healey to ask when spending would be increased. In his letter, Mr Cartlidge said: 'Making such a clear commitment is vital for our national security. 'Our Armed Forces need the certainty and clarity on their funding in order to plan and prepare for the future. 'It is necessary to prepare everything from accommodation and benefits for service personnel to ensuring that they are equipped with the latest capabilities, equipment and technology.' He added that it was 'high time' the Government made its plans on defence spending clear. The PM also held talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz this afternoon as he attended a summit to mark NATO's 75th anniversary Sir Keir pictured during a meeting with France's Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the NATO summit Sir Keir and his wife Victoria disembarked their plan at Joint Base Andrews in Washington DC last night Tory shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge wrote to new Defence Secretary John Healey today to ask when spending would be increased Your browser does not support iframes. The Prime Minister and his wife Victoria touched down with their entourage at Joint Base Andrews in the early hours of the morning for his first foreign trip since taking office. He will met the under-pressure US president and a host of other leaders including president Zelensky of Ukraine over the next two days in his first diplomatic blitz, accompanied by senior ministers. The trip comes as Sir Keir presses for European nations to increase defence spending, but has refused to guarantee meeting his flagship commitment to hit 2.5 per cent of GDP within his first term in office, despite a 'cast iron' promise to get there. The timescale will be set out after a wholesale defence review being launched next week - which may take a year - and must comply with the Government's strict 'fiscal rules' on spending and borrowing. However sources told the Telegraph that the review could also look at increasing the size of the British Army, whose strength fell to a 200-year low under the Tories. The summit is also an introduction for Lady Starmer to international diplomacy. She stayed largely out of the limelight during the election campaign but will take part in a series of engagements with other leaders' wives and husbands over the coming days. Sir Keir will hold talks with Mr Biden in the White House this evening as the US President faces domestic pressures over his age and suitability to run for a second term. The prospect of Donald Trump being returned to the White House in November's election is being viewed as cause for concern within the alliance given his past criticisms of Nato and his threats to reduce aid to Ukraine. European Nato states face shouldering a greater burden as part of a drive to 'Trump proof' the alliance should the Republican candidate return to office and weaken US commitment to the 32-nation bloc. Speaking to reporters, Sir Keir was repeatedly pressed on whether the goal of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP would be reached within his first term. He said: 'We are committed to the 2.5 per cent, as I have said before the election and I say again after the election. That is obviously subject to our fiscal rules, but the commitment is there. Sir Keir's wife Victoria Starmer at Joint Base Andrews in Washington DC last night President Joe Biden speaks at the 75th anniversary of NATO in Washington DC last night NATO leaders have a 'family photo' at the Andrew W Mellon Auditorium in Washington last night Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington last night 'The strategic review will take place, that will happen next week, and we will set out the details of that. 'The manifesto commitment was that it would take place within a year, I would like it to be quicker than that if I'm honest and we'll set out the details about how we are going to do it.' Officials have described 2.5 per cent as a 'cast iron commitment' but the announcement a strategic defence review will be launched next week did not include any timetable for ramping up spending. Defence minister Luke Pollard told Times Radio today the Government will aim to complete the review in less than a year. Before his election defeat, Rishi Sunak had committed to reach 2.5 per cent by 2030 at a total cost of 75billion over six years. Nato members have an official goal of spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence and 23 members are now thought to have reached that level. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer talks to journalists on his plane to Washington DC last night Sir Keir and his wife Victoria board a plane at London Stansted Airport yesterday Sir Keir speaks to media at Stansted Airport yesterday before boarding But in the context of this year's US election, Sir Keir acknowledged more needed to be done, particularly on locking in support for Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is at the summit. 'On the question of how we show that commitment here at this summit, given there is going to be an election in America later this year, I think it's very important at this summit, and I think there is a real opportunity for real unity,' Sir Keir told reporters. 'It's the largest group of Nato countries, together with the additions that we've got, and the package that we are seeking to advance, it goes beyond the support that's been put in before and will be locked in - I hope - at this Nato conference.' There would be a financial package, military aid and an industrial strategy to support Ukraine, he indicated. Sir Keir confirmed that decisions on the use of UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles were for the Ukrainian armed forces to make, indicating they would be permitted to strike against targets within Russia. Sir Keir in the House of Commons yesterday as Parliament returned Sir Keir during a meeting with English regional mayors at 10 Downing Street yesterday Sir Keir speaks to the media following his first Cabinet meeting at No10 last Saturday The newly-elected PM speaking outside 10 Downing Street last Friday The UK military aid was 'for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes'. The Russian strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv on Monday was a 'tragic backdrop to this summit' and 'strengthens the resolve' of Nato against Vladimir Putin, he said. Asked if it was a war crime, the Prime Minister said: 'In relation to its specific category within international law, that will be a matter for others in due course, but it is shocking and appalling and it's the duty of everyone to describe it in those terms.' He said the summit should demonstrate to Mr Putin the 'clear and united resolve' of the alliance to 'stand with Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression, whether in relation to Ukraine or whether elsewhere including cyber aggression and other ways in which Russia is aggressive around the world'. Las Vegas and the American West have been hit with a record breaking heatwave that has put millions under excessive heat warnings. Dozens of locations across the West tied or broke previous heat records over the weekend and are expected to keep doing so all week. Forecasters say that Las Vegas will likely hit a record fifth straight day above 115 F on Wednesday following a week of unprecedented heat. On Tuesday, Sin City flirted again with the all-time temperature record of 120 F reached on Sunday, but settled for a new daily mark of 119 F that smashed the old one of 116 F set for the date in 2021. 'This is the most extreme heat wave in the history of record-keeping in Las Vegas since 1937,' said meteorologist John Adair, a veteran of three decades at the National Weather Service office in southern Nevada. Las Vegas experienced record breaking 120 F temperatures on Sunday and has experienced four straight days above 115 F Tuesday's high temperature tied the mark of four straight days above 115 F set in July 2005, and experts believe this heatwave could extend through Friday. A very strong high pressure center is forecast to meander over southern Nevada the next couple days, pushing the sweltering temperatures to last at least through Friday, according to the National Weather Service. An excessive heat warning is in effect through 11 p.m. PT on Friday due to dangerously hot conditions for an unusually long period. 'Yeah, Im done with Vegas. Im done with this heat. Im ready to move back to California next week,' Candy Fuller, a 25-year Las Vegas resident told FOX5. 'I cant handle this hot weather anymore. This is the first time its ever been like this.' 'You never really get used to it. It feels like every summer it gets hotter,' said 35-year Las Vegas resident Michael Peetz. Las Vegas influencers demonstrated just how hot the scorching temperatures are by making s'mores with their car The National Weather Service in Las Vegas conducted an experiment with the heat by placing crayons outside 'Its hot. It gets hot, really. Like my mother says, she says stay hydrated, always drink water, buy lots of water, so Ive been doing that lately. I always wear sunblock as much as I can, I go inside to cool off.' Two Las Vegas influencers demonstrated just how hot the scorching temperatures are by making s'mores with their car. The duo roasted marshmallows on their car antenna and melted chocolate on the dashboard. 'Nice and gooey - oh they're actually hot,' the woman said as she pulled the marshmallows off and assembled her treat. The National Weather Service in Las Vegas conducted an experiment with the heat by placing crayons outside. Visitors dine under mist to keep cool in record heat in Las Vegas as an excessive heat warning in a effect through Friday Record-challenging heat continues today and the Excessive Heat Warning remains in effect through Friday. Remember to provide your kittens, cats, and all other pets with plenty of water and shade!#nationalkittenday #nvwx #azwx #cawx pic.twitter.com/fhN9O7DZMn NWS Las Vegas (@NWSVegas) July 10, 2024 They recorded a 30 minute time lapse that showed the colorful crayons melting on to canvases and creating art. With the excessive heat warning in a effect through Friday, the weather service advised residents to stay hydrated and provide plenty of shade and water for their pets. 'When you got to wait in this heat, its not fun. If theres no shade at the bus stop itself, I go into a local business inside somewhere close by, and I wait for the bus like that,' bus passenger Cris Pena told the local news station. 'Gotta stay hydrated so I dont pass out. Its tough. This heat is not good for anybody.' Hikers witnessed the heart-stopping moment a Cessna plane nearly crashed into the side of Colorado's Continental Divide. On Thursday, Tyler Dunn and his father Jason Dunn witnessed what would've been a major accident as they hiked to Devil's Thumb. Flight records showed that the Cessna 152 aircraft took off from the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield around 9.49am. The plane, which belongs to the Rocky Mountain Flight School, was rented, and eventually landed at the Granby/Grand County Airport at 11.04am. On Thursday, Tyler Dunn and his father Jason Dunn witnessed a Cessna plane nearly nosedive into Colorado's Continental Divide As the pair hiked to Devil's Thumb, they were stopped in their tracks as the plane got dangerously close to the mountainside Greg Boom, the owner of the flight school, told Ski-Hi News that he was unaware of the incident and that he was 'surprised' when he learned about it. Video of the astonishing moment shows a woman in a pink long sleeve top and shorts looking toward the descending plane. Tyler, who recorded the video, says: 'There's a plane!' as the aircraft flies dangerously close to the mountain, nearly nose-diving into land. The aircraft glides just above the grass before it flies back into the air as if nothing happened. Tyler's father, Jason, a former pilot, took to Facebook to explain the 'crazy' moment in detail. 'Crazy thing happened today while hiking up to Devils Thumb in Grand County. While sitting in the saddle on the ridge at the top (the Continental Divide), a plane came up the valley from the opposite (Boulder) side. 'It was clear the plane was struggling trying to clear the saddle. It was coming straight at us, and as a former licensed pilot, I was worried it would go into an aerodynamic stall. After almost crashing into the land, the plane quickly flew back up in the air and avoided a colossal crash Jason said the plane was 'coming straight at us' as his son captured the mind-blowing moment 'Then it either did, or the pilot made a last ditch effort to turn the plane around in a dead end valley before crashing into the mountain (or us). 'My son was further up the ridge line and caught most of it on video. As you can see, he made it by less than a couple of feet,' Jason said. Jason posted images of the out-of- control plane in the bright blue sky before it got extremely close to the mountainside. Boom said the school is currently trying to get in contact with the pilot who rode the plane that day. People quickly commented on his startling experience as one said: 'Oh.My.God. What a crazy experience! So glad you werent calling in a crash.' 'Back to the airport for a new pair of shorts and probably new seats too!!! That was incredibly close. Somebody better be hugging their loved ones a little closer tonight,' another wrote. Another said: 'Well now thats a heart stopper.' DailyMail.com contacted Rocky Mountain Flight School for comment. The plane, which belongs to the Rocky Mountain Flight School, was rented. Greg Boom, the owner of the school, said he was unaware of the incident and that he was 'surprised' when he learned about it A similar instance took place on June 29 as a homeowner captured incredible footage of a plane crashing into a forest of trees right outside her house in Maine. The single-engine Cessna 150 aircraft was seen skimming the trees as it tried to make an emergency landing. In the footage, the plane soared overhead before making a quick turn leading into its final descent. The crash occurred on Swan's Island near Bar Harbor just before 6 pm. In the moments before the crash, the aircraft narrowly missed a low-hanging powerline before finally plowing into a bank of trees. In the dramatic clip, the tree line's branches seemingly cushioned the aircraft's collision, with the plane remaining intact on impact. On June 29 a homeowner captured incredible footage of a plane crashing into a forest of trees right outside their house in Maine (pictured) 'It happened so fast that it was hard to process in the moment,' Meghan Joyce told Fox 22, who captured the frightening incident. 'He said he was trying to land and realized he couldn't and was trying to take back off,' she added. Pictures from the scene of the accident show the aircraft nearly vertical with its nose pointed straight into the ground. Incredibly, the pilot, who was the only person who was on board, sustained only minor injuries, according to the Hancock County Sheriff's Office. Joyce said the pilot escaped the wreckage with just a broken nose. 'When I got there he was trying to get out. He said he was fine. I was more worked up than he was, he was like, "I'm fine, I'm fine, calm down I'm good."' A Florida mother and her friend were seen smirking in their mugshot photos after being accused of drag racing with a baby in the car. Jamirria Blunt, 22, and Kiara Johnson, 22, were arrested and charged with highway racing and child neglect, according to the Ocala Police Department, Fox8Live News reported. Police said they observed the woman each in their own vehicles racing down the College Road driving well over the 45 miles per hour speed limit around 2 am on July 5. An officer clocked the women at 93 miles per hour. After the car's were pulled over, Johnson's eight-month-old infant was found in the Toyota strapped into a rear-facing child seat. The pair were booked into Marion County Jail and were each released on $1,000 bond. Kiara Johnson, 22, was driving the Toyota and had a eight-month-old baby in the car Jamirria Blunt, 22, had a 15-year-old passenger in her Cadillac sedan Ocala Officer D. Barry first saw the Cadillac and Toyota speeding down the 3100 block of SW College Road early Friday morning. The officer, using radar, recorded them both going nearly 50 miles over the 45mph speed limit in the traffic zone. He trailed the vehicles before pulling over Blunt first, who was driving a Cadillac sedan. A 15-year-old passenger was found in the front seat. It was not clear the relationship the juvenile and Blunt share. Johnson's vehicle was then pulled over, and another officer from the department arrived on the scene to assist. 'Racing presents serious dangers, including increased risks of severe accidents and death,' police said in a press release. 'We have zero tolerance for highway racing and will do everything we can to ensure that our roads are safe.' A bipartisan group of senators are pushing a new stock trading ban for members of Congress on an expedited schedule. The announcement comes as lucrative stock trades by lawmakers have been under more scrutiny as over $1 billion in trades were made in 2023 alone. Though there are some laws in place to restrict members from trading on their inside knowledge in Congress, critics say that doesn't always happen. A recent report from DailyMail.com found many members were trading millions of dollars in stock, including risky options, and others had traded a total volume of over $100 million. These shocking figures are well above the average member salary of $174,000. Four senators introduced a measure Wednesday that would ban members, their spouses and dependents from trading stock and other securities. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., speaks at a press conference announcing a Senate bill to ban congress members from trading stock Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., announced the legislation dubbed the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act. If passed it would ban trading for members 90 days after being signed into law. Restricted trading for spouses and and dependents would kick in later in March 2027. Notably, many of the expensive disclosers from notable congressional traders like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are done under the names of spouses, like Paul Pelosi - who also happens to be a venture capitalist. The penalties for violating the law would be 10 percent of the value of the asset bought or sold. 'Democrats, Independents, Republicans, overwhelmingly agree that members of Congress should not be playing the stock market,' Ossoff said at an event announcing the legislation. 'This is long overdue,' he said. 'This is necessary.' Ossoff mentioned how it was a campaign pledge of his to outlaw trading for members, saying, 'That's why I've been pleased to engage in this long and productive bipartisan effort to craft a path forward.' The Republican behind the bill Josh Hawley said, 'There is no reason that Congress ought to be profiting off of information that only they get.' 'No loopholes. No blind trusts. Lets get this done,' the senator posted on X after the event. Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Gary Peters, will address the bill in a markup on July 24. 'We're going to be taking what I believe is a historic step forward on legislation that will ban members of Congress from trading stocks,' Peters said in the Senate TV Gallery. 'Senators, Merkley, Hawley, Ossoff and I have come to a bipartisan agreement on legislation.' Merkley said of the bill: 'We must be here to serve the public, not our portfolios.' The lone Republican behind the bill Josh Hawley said, 'There is no reason that Congress ought to be profiting off of information that only they get' 'Democrats , Independents, Republicans, overwhelmingly agree that members of Congress should not be playing the stock market,' Sen. Ossoff said at the event. Also on Wednesday 20 lawmakers called on House leadership to get started on a stock trading ban in the lower chamber of Congress Nearly simultaneously, an even larger group of House lawmakers announced they had sent a letter to that chamber's leadership demanding action on a stock trading ban for members. 'We are writing to respectfully urge you to hold a vote on legislation to prohibit members of Congress from owning or trading stocks,' said a letter signed by 20 members addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. 'As we head into the last few months of the 118th Congress, we believe that taking action on this common-sense, bipartisan legislation will ensure that members of Congress are serving the country and their constituents, not their bank accounts,' it continues. In total 16 House Democrats and four Republicans signed the letter. Out of the 20 lawmakers who signed the bill, disclosures indicate only two of them have ever traded stock while in office: Reps. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts and Sharice Davids of Kansas. Nancy Pelosi's November 2023 financial disclosures reveal a significant purchase of Nvidia. That trade has seen over a 178 percent increase in value since 'Its been nearly two years since House leadership committed to holding a vote on a bill to reform stock trading practices for Members of Congress.' 'In a hyper-partisan political environment where American approval ratings of Congress are at an all-time low, this is a common-sense and bipartisan change, making it crystal clear that we come to Washington to serve our constituents, not to serve our own financial interests,' the letter said. Congressional stock trades have caught the public eye since the pandemic, when some lawmakers raised eyebrows by selling shortly after closed-door COVID-19 briefings before the stock market crashed. Pelosi, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., Rep. Dan Mueser, D-Pa., Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for example, have all traded over a million dollars in securities this year, according to federal data compiled by politician trade tracker Quiver Quantitative. According to data compiled by Quiver, Pelosi's net worth has doubled in the past decade from $123 million in 2014 to nearly $250 million in 2024 Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., the data firm estimates, is worth a cool $47.2 million Gottheimer has reported trading over $277 million worth of securities since 2017 In 2012, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act was passed to force politicians to disclose their trades. The act forces officials to publicly disclose their transactions valued over $1,000 within 30 days of receiving notice of the trade and 45 days of the date of the trade. However, it does not require members disclose the exact price of a trade but rather a range. Still, disclosures reveal that Congress traded over $1 billion in 2023 and certain savvy politicians raked in returns earning over 200 percent on some trades. Suella Braverman today hit back at reported comments by Tory leadership rival Kemi Badenoch about her having a 'very public nervous breakdown'. The ex-home secretary engaged in a public spat with Ms Badenoch, her former Cabinet colleague, despite pleas for party unity from senior Conservatives. There is growing rancour within Tory ranks in the wake of their worst-ever general election defeat and as various factions battle for future control of the party. It was reported Ms Badenoch had been scathing of Rishi Sunak's general election campaign in yesterday's first meeting of the Tory shadow cabinet. Following the Conservatives' thumping defeat at the ballot box, she was revealed to have told the former PM his D-Day debacle was 'disastrous'. It also emerged how Ms Badenoch suggested Ms Braverman appeared to be having a 'very public' nervous breakdown following a series of blistering interventions. Suella Braverman today hit back at reported comments by Tory leadership rival Kemi Badenoch about her having a 'very public nervous breakdown The ex-home secretary engaged in a public spat with Ms Badenoch, her former Cabinet colleague, despite pleas for party unity from senior Conservatives In a post on X - formerly known as Twitter - this afternoon, Ms Badenoch did not deny her reported comments Ms Braverman promptly ignored Ms Badenoch's suggestion that arguments should be held in private as she publicly responded on the social media site In a post on X - formerly known as Twitter - this afternoon, the shadow housing secretary did not deny she had made such comments. 'It's a shame our discussions in shadow cabinet were leaked yesterday,' Ms Badenoch wrote. 'If there is no private space to discuss our party's challenges, we will never fully address what the electorate told us last week. She added: 'In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it. That culture needs to change. 'We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards.' But Ms Braverman promptly ignored Ms Badenoch's suggestion that arguments should be held in private as she publicly responded on the social media site. She posted: 'I'd be interested in knowing whether Kemi thinks I'm having a 'very public nervous breakdown'. #honesty #unity #wedontleak' 'Kemi, and the rest of the Cabinet, should not have nodded along, as they and Rishi took the party to disaster. 'The refusal to take responsibility is at the root of our problem. It was not someone else's fault.' The spat came after James Cleverly, who succeeded Ms Braverman as home secretary last year, issued a plea for Tory unity in the wake of the election defeat. He used an article in The Times to warn that the Tories must not resort to 'bitter in-fighting and finger-pointing'. The party needs to conduct a 'sensible post mortem on what went wrong and finding the right path forwards', Mr Cleverly added. Chris Philp, the shadow leader of the House of Commons, told Times Radio his fellow Tories should keep in mind Ronald Regan's '11th Commandment' and 'never speak ill of a fellow Conservative'. Mr Sunak addressed the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs in Parliament tonight for a post-election meeting. Speaking after the gathering, Sir Bernard Jenkin said Mr Sunak's tone was 'sorrowful, apologetic, but I think the party felt a great deal of gratitude towards him'. Asked about how long Mr Sunak would remain in post, the Harwich and North Essex MP said: 'He will be staying on until he decides to trigger a leadership election, but he is not going immediately.' Sir Bernard added: 'You will certainly see him at the state opening. I have no indication beyond that. He is not rushing out of the door as some previous leaders have done.' Bob Blackman, the newly-elected chair of the 1922 Committee, told reporters his expectation was that Mr Sunak would be gone as Tory leader by the time of the party's conference in late September. It came as other senior Tories turned on Ms Braverman over her overtures to Reform UK's Nigel Farage. She was branded 'not credible' after urging Reform to join forces with the Tories and refusing to rule out defecting to the party herself. Tees Valley mayor Lord Houchen said Ms Braverman was 'not credible' and warned that if she became leader 'we can absolutely see ourselves in opposition for generations to come'. Ms Badenoch is the favourite of the Tory membership to take over from Mr Sunak, according to a new poll by YouGov for the Party Members Project, run by Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University. It came as other senior Tories turned on Ms Braverman over her overtures to Reform UK's Nigel Farage Your browser does not support iframes. James Cleverly, who succeeded Ms Braverman as home secretary last year, issued a plea for Tory unity in the wake of the election defeat Ms Braverman is also said to have lost the support of senior allies including Sir John Hayes, her long-time close associate. He is believed to be supporting ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick. Last month during the election campaign she told the Tories to embrace Mr Farage as she called on the party to 'unite the right'. She opened the door for the Reform UK leader to join the Conservative Party by saying she would welcome him into the ranks. But Lord Houchen told Times Radio: 'The fact that she continues to entertain Reform, and even I think in an interview the other day, didn't rule out joining Reform, shows just how out of step she is. 'I also think if the Conservative Party decides to go down the route of somebody like Suella Braverman, then we can absolutely see ourselves in opposition for generations to come. 'The road of redemption for the Conservative Party can be as long or as short as we wish to make it. And the idea that we should be more right wing...that is not the Conservative Party that I recognise. 'And I absolutely wouldn't support that. She, before the leadership contest has even started, has shot herself in the foot.' Ms Badenoch seems to be the candidate to beat in a leadership election later this year - quite when is yet to be decided. Right-wingers and more moderate Tories are expected to battle it out for the top job in a contest that could shape the party for years to come. Mr Sunak last week announced he would step down as party leader once the formal arrangements for choosing a successor are in place. Yesterday Ms Badenoch brutally attacked Mr Sunak to his face at the shadow cabinet meeting, saying his decision not to inform Tory frontbenchers before calling the July 4 election bordered on 'unconstitutional'. She also said his choice to return early from D-Day commemorations may have cost former Cabinet colleagues their seats. Ms Badenoch also branded Mr Sunak's closest parliamentary aide Craig Williams, who placed a bet on the date of last week's vote, a 'buffoon'. Ms Badenoch brutally attacked Rishi Sunak to his face at the shadow cabinet meeting, saying his decision not to tell senior Tories before calling the election bordered on 'unconstitutional' The ex-Business Secretary, warning that colleagues have not understood the 'enormity' of the situation, also said she was speaking for former colleagues who had lost their seat in the landslide defeat. She, Ms Braverman and Mr Cleverly are expected to run. Dame Priti Patel, who served as home secretary between July 2019 and September 2022, Robert Jenrick, who previously served as immigration minister, and ex-health secretary Victoria Atkins could also put themselves forward. Jeremy Hunt, the former chancellor and a centrist figure in the party, has ruled out running. Tory MPs usually vote to select the top two candidates to put forward as potential leaders, with the party membership choosing the ultimate winner. However, the rules and timeline of the race would be set out by the backbench 1922 Committee, which has elected Bob Blackman as its new chair. Tory MP Mark Francois said the vote to choose the new chair was 'bent' after he attempted to vote but was turned away. Voting took place in the Houses of Parliament between 5pm and 5.30pm on Tuesday, but some MPs were told in an email they could vote until 6pm, the PA news agency understands. 'This election was bent,' Mr Francois said as he left the room. 'I think the 1922's level of competence has reached a new low.' It came as Lord Frost urged the Tories to appoint an interim leader to stop the race to replace Rishi Sunak 'immediately descending into mudslinging'. The former cabinet minister, who was the UK's chief Brexit negotiator, said the party must not be 'rushed' in selecting a new leader. Lord Frost warned against 'descending into the mudslinging of a rushed leadership election', telling a Popular Conservatism event: 'I can't see why we shouldn't have an interim leader and time to debate things properly.' Speaking to the architects of the election defeat, he said: 'Those who decided upon the political strategy that got us here, those who stuck to it in the face of clear evidence it was failing and those who then slandered and tried to kneecap their opponents in the party, they need to get off the stage as soon as possible and let the rest of us move on.' Lord Frost speaks during the Popular Conservatism post-election event in London on Tuesday Last night, the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs elected Bob Blackman (pictured) as chairman after Sir Graham Brady stood down as an MP The Tory peer said the Conservative Party is in a 'moment of calamity', and must accept the 'painful reality' that 'for the time being nobody out there is that much interested in what we think'. But he called on activists to 'hold our nerve about traditional Conservative ideas and values' and to build the 'largest possible winning coalition' ahead of the next election. 'If we can do this then perhaps there will be no need for Reform,' he added. Former Tory leader Lord Hague, meanwhile, told a Tony Blair Institute conference yesterday that the party should maintain 'maximum distance' from Nigel Farage's Reform party. He said it would take 'a very long time' for the Tories to recover from their crushing defeat last week, and said the leadership contest should take time. He also admitted it was a mistake to allow party members to elect the leader. 'Things have changed since then,' Lord Hague said. 'Political parties have become much smaller in base membership. The Conservative party certainly has, so that it becomes very, very unrepresentative, even of the voters of that party. So I would give that back to the members of parliament.' Last night, the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs elected Bob Blackman as chairman after Sir Graham Brady stood down as an MP. Mr Blackman wrote to MPs earlier this week saying the party 'must take our time' with the leadership race. A 'British conwoman' has allegedly made off with 400,000 after duping a Turkish estate agent and swapping an envelope filled with cash. The suspected thief, known only as Florentina G., is said to have executed the scam in Istanbul on July 3 by faking an interest in a luxurious apartment worth 4million in the city. It is believed that she told the estate agent she wanted to buy the property on behalf of her company and suggested increasing the price from 3.2million to 4million so the two of them could split an 800,000 commission. It is said that he agreed, but she claimed before they could finalised the deal she needed to check he had enough money to pay her, her half of the commission once the sale had gone through. But when at his office she is suspected of secretly switching the envelope containing 400,000 in cash, for an envelope of Iranian rials worth only $5,000. The suspected thief, known only as Florentina G., is accused of executing the scam in Istanbul on July 3 by faking an interest in a luxurious apartment worth 4million in the city Florentina and her alleged accomplice are understood to have flown in from London on the morning of July 3 for the meeting, which she attended alone The estate agent claimed the woman first called him with an offer that her company would 'arrange the sale' of the property but first she needed to check that he had enough money to be able to split the commission. Florentina and her alleged accomplice are understood to have flown in from London on the morning of July 3 for the meeting, which she attended alone. When at the agent's office, she asked to check his half on the money, which he had in cash in an envelope, after examining it she allegedly put it into her purse. He claimed he protested saying, 'you will get the commission when the sale is completed', and that she did not argue and removed the envelope from her bag and handed it back to him. Her partner (pictured) was later caught on route to Berlin with $15,000. She had boarded a flight to Paris and successfully managed to get out of the country However, it is during this moment that she is suspected of secretly switching his money for Iranian rials worth only $5,000 and pocketing his 400,000 euros. When he later checked the envelope and realised that he no longer had the cash, he alerted the police. The police launched a swift investigation where they said they discovered she had gone to the local shopping centre to change her appearance by buying new clothes. Before meeting back up with her alleged accomplice and heading to the airport. Her partner was later caught by the authorities on route to Berlin with $15,000 cash on him. He told the police he did not know the suspect and that the money on him was his. Florentina however allegedly managed to board a flight to Paris and successfully leave the country. The Istanbul Police have been approached for comment. The White House has been forced to make yet another embarrassing clarification after Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said a meeting between the president's personal physician and a neurological specialist was not related to Joe Biden's personal care. In fact, it was part of Biden's annual physical, she has been forced to admit. It is the most recent gaffe by officials as the nation's oldest ever president fights for his political life amid questions about his fitness for the job. The clarifications have led to a growing sense that his aides are being less than straight with Americans about the health of the 81-year-old. On Monday, Jean-Pierre had to explain why she told a press conference Biden had not been checked by his doctor after his disastrous debate performance, when in fact he had been seen by Dr. Kevin O'Connor. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was forced to issue another clarification about the president's health care on Tuesday evening, reversing her earlier answer Then a day later, she had to issue a statement admitting that Biden had met neurologist Dr. Kevin Cannard for an exam despite publicly saying the opposite at a press briefing hours earlier. 'Because the date was not mentioned in the question, I want to be clear that the Jan. 17 meeting between Dr. O'Connor and Dr. Cannard was for the Presidents physical, Jean-Pierre said in a statement to the AP. 'It was one of the three times the president has seen Dr. Cannard, each time for his physical. The findings from each exam have been released to the public.' The White House has stumbled to explain Cannard's frequent visits to the White House ever since they became public at the weekend. On Monday, Jean-Pierre refused to even confirm his name, citing security and privacy concerns, sparking fury among reporters who pointed out that the visits were reported in visitor logs. A day later she was still struggling with questions about the nature of his visits. 'Can you say whether that one meeting [between Cannard and O'Connor] was related to care for the president himself?' she was asked Jean-Pierre replied: 'I can say that it was not.' Her subsequent clarification will do little to ease the sense of crisis enveloping the White House nor the sense that its press operation is not selling his side of the story. Biden has been under intense pressure to end his reelection effort ever since he delivered a stumbling debate performance last month, filled with awkward silences and non sequiturs. President Joe Biden, seen here at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, is fighting for his political life while aides are accused of being less than transparent Dr. Kevin Cannard (left), a neurological expert, visited the White House eight times in eight months, including one meeting with Biden's personal physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor (right) George Clooney became the latest high-profile supporter to demand he stand aside on Wednesday. Biden's health has dominated the daily White House press briefing. But on Monday, it was Jean-Pierre who was immediately under scrutiny amid accusations that officials were being less than transparent. 'My first question to you is on the credibility of this White House when it come to talking about the president's health,' is how the Associated Press's Zeke Miller, former president of the White House Correspondent's Association, opened things up. She insisted she had not meant to give misleading information when asked if Biden had had a check-up after the debate. 'I did not mean to steer anybody wrong. I was still thinking about the medical exam. I was still thinking about the physical,' she said. 'That's how I answered the question.' A memo released by the White House on Monday night after Jean-Pierre refused to discuss Cannard's visits. It revealed that he was the neurologist who examined the president for his annual medicals for the past three years Things only became more acrimonious later when she was asked about why Cannard had made eight visits in eight months. She said she could not comment for security and privacy reasons. 'You're not answering a very basic, direct question,' shouted Ed O'Keefe of CBS News. 'I am telling you he has seen a neurologist three times, the press secretary said, explaining that he had been examined by a neurologist each time he had a physical. 'So that is answering that question.' But what about Cannard's visits? Were they what she was talking about? 'I hear you guys, guys, hold on a second,' said Jean-Pierre. 'There's no reason to get back and go back and forth with me in this aggressive way.' It was only later that evening that the White House set the record straight, explaining that Cannard was indeed the physician who conducted the neurological examination of the president for his annual medical. More than 14,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after another 419 made the journey in six boats yesterday. Several children were among those pictured being brought ashore in Dover, Kent, amid calm weather conditions at sea on an overcast and rainy day. Groups of people were seen being escorted from Border Force boats and lifeboats wearing life jackets, with some wrapped in blankets. Home Office figures showed an average of around 70 people per boat successfully made the crossing yesterday - taking the provisional total for 2024 to date to 14,058. This is 10 per cent higher than the number recorded this time last year (12,772) and up 6 per cent on the same period in 2022 (13,318), according to PA news agency analysis of Government data. Several children were among those pictured being brought ashore yesterday in Dover, Kent, amid calm weather conditions at sea on an overcast and rainy day Groups of people were seen being escorted from Border Force boats and lifeboats wearing life jackets, with some wrapped in blankets The latest crossings mean 484 migrants arrivals have been recorded over two days of activity in the Channel since Sir Keir Starmer (pictured yesterday) became Prime Minister in the wake of Labours election victory last week The latest crossings mean 484 migrants arrivals have been recorded over two days of activity in the Channel since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister in the wake of Labours election victory last week. But windy conditions in the Channel on Wednesday is thought to have prevented crossings being attempted for a third day in a row. Last year, 29,437 migrants arrived in the UK after making the journey, down 36 per cent on a record 45,774 in 2022. Prior to this week, it had been over a week since any migrants arrived, with poor weather conditions making it difficult for people smugglers to launch boats from French beaches. So far in July, there have been 569 people in nine boats, this is down significantly on June, with 799 people arriving in 15 boats by the same point last month. The official figures for yesterday come after the Daily Mail saw two dinghies making their way to England from a beach near Dunkirk, with migrants onboard one of the boats holding toy rubber tyre rings instead of life jackets. Migrants pictured arriving in Dover yesterday after Sir Keir Starmer's landslide election victory An RNLI Lifeboat and a Border Force vessel pictured off the coast of Dover yesterday. For the second day in a row, people were brought ashore today at the port despite inclement weather The first migrants to cross the Channel since Labour's election victory arrived after crossings resumed on Monday for the first time in six days amid poor weather conditions at sea Adult life jackets have now sold out in the Dunkirk area, so migrants are instead reliant on any kind of inflatable they can purchase in a feeble bid to protect themselves. Seventeen packets of the toy beach inflatables were left on the sand behind them. And exasperated police, who raced to the scene too late with the aid of a couple of beach buggies, said they had earlier in the morning thwarted another two raids. Earlier in the hours of darkness they had seized two uninflated giant dinghies and outboard motors from the car of a trio of suspected people smugglers in the town of Gravelines. An officer told us yesterday: 'We catch some - but we can't catch them all. While my colleagues were arresting some of the ''ferrymen'' in town, then slashing their boats, scores more migrants were hiding in the dunes waiting for dinghies to arrive from the sea to pick them up. 'The migrants are so poised to come to England they have even set up a new camp for around a hundred of them right near the beach, so they are ready to board arriving ''taxi boats'' at any time. Migrants began crossing the Channel in earnest on Monday after a six-day pause for weather using children's toy rubber rings instead of life jackets Adult life jackets have now sold out in the Dunkirk area - so migrants are instead reliant on any kind of inflatable they can purchase in a feeble bid to protect themselves French police pick through discarded packaging and debris left behind by migrants yesterday 'And these toy rubber rings they are using, they are designed to be played with on holiday, not used for safety on the high seas. 'The shops have sold out of adult life jackets, so they buy kids' stuff instead, hoping it is better than nothing.' He added that a dozen migrants had turned back from the boat we had just seen set off because it was too full. 'With forty on board these dinghies it is dangerous enough,' said the officer. 'With fifty or sixty, it is a death trap - particularly if all you have is a children's rubber ring.' Astonishingly there were several dozen more migrants lurking in the dunes at the same time as the boat we photographed launched yesterday. Police said they were hoping a further boat would come from them, but retreated when police arrived. As we spoke yet another dinghy launched further east was also out to sea heading to Britain. A heavily overloaded dinghy is seen setting sail off the French coast yesterday Migrants camping in the sand dunes are seen running down to the beach to embark on the treacherous journey Our police source sighed as he said: 'The migrants land on Lampedusa, the Italian island near Africa, get an Italian police stamp in their passports and two days later they are here in northern France, waiting to go to England. 'Under European freedom of movement laws, there is no way of stopping them.' It comes as as three asylum seekers who brought legal action over their potential removals to Rwanda had their cases resolved at the High Court today after the new Labour Government decided to scrap the deportation policy. Crossings resumed on the same day Home Secretary Yvette Cooper launched a Border Security Command designed to crack down on the gangs orchestrating the crossings. Ms Cooper branded the Rwanda migrant deportation scheme a 'complete con' this week as she hinted Labour would try to recoup some of the 290million spent before it was axed. Ms Cooper said she planned to audit the programme to send Channel boat arrivals to east Africa, which was axed by Sir Keir Starmer in one of his first decisions after entering No10. But almost a third of a billion pounds has already been given to the Kagame government, despite the only migrants to leave Britain being four volunteers. The new Home Secretary Yvette Cooper pictured at Lewisham Police Station in south London on Monday. She said she planned to audit the programme to send boat arrivals to east Africa Pictured: A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, on Monday Questions will be raised over how much can be recouped. But Ms Cooper told LBC radio: 'We are auditing the whole scheme It has clearly been a complete con.' Ms Cooper said setting up the Border Security Command unit was Labour's first priority on migration as she faced questions on the future of the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is being used to house asylum seekers in Portland, Dorset. She did not confirm whether the Government would abandon use of the barge but told reporters: 'We need to clear the Conservatives' asylum backlog, but the first priority has to be to get the stronger border security in place, and that is why our first step is setting up the new border security command.' Over the weekend Sir Keir Starmer said the stalled multi-million pound plan to send migrants to Rwanda is 'dead and buried' as he confirmed the deportation policy is to be scrapped. The Prime Minister said he was 'not prepared to continue with gimmicks' as Labour announced plans to free the last two migrants who were detained ahead of anticipated flights. Asked if she has had any contact with Rwanda about winding the plan down and getting any money back, Ms Cooper said: 'Well, the Prime Minister has obviously set out the position on the Rwanda scheme where as we know, the Conservatives ran this scheme for two and a half years, and sent simply four volunteers as well as hundreds of millions of pounds.' She said her 'key priority' as incoming Home Secretary is to 'strengthen Britain's border security, where I think we have been let down for too long'. by F. William Engdahl The largest giveaway of a nations wealth in history. . . Mortimer Zuckerman, member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations, owner of US News & World Report, describing what took place in the looting of Russia under Yeltsin Russias Yeltsin Catastrophe Boris Yeltsin and his free market reformers were part of one of the most hidden and most criminal looting operations in CIA history. It was the rape of Russia by a corrupted circle of treasonous Soviet KGB generals, together with their select young KGB proteges, who were transformed through the operation into billionaire oligarchs. It was an economic rape only made possible through Western banks and the so-called democracy machinery of Washington under three successive presidentsRonald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. CIA Director George H.W. Bush in the lobby of the CIA building. [ Photo credit: Unknown ] Few people in the West could grasp the anger of Russian President Vladimir Putin when he told a select audience of Russian politicians from the Duma in the Kremlin in September 2016, You know how I feel about the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was unnecessary. We could have introduced reforms, including those of a more democratic nature, without allowing this. Putin did not need to describe this. Everyone present knew he meant the savage destruction of life, feeling of worth, and pride for most Russians after 1990. If anyone in the US or the EU thought about Putins commentscoming amid an unprecedented US and NATO vilification and demonization campaign against the Russian Federation and Putin personally, including economic sanctionsthey most likely saw it as confirmation of Washington claims that Putins Russia was out to rebuild the Soviet Union. What was unknown to most in the West was the true background of the destruction of life in Russia and the former member states of the USSR. The CIA operation began near the end of the 1980s with a network of CIA actors and their corrupted, bought-and-paid-for Soviet KGB generals. It was called the Yeltsin Era, and it lasted the entire decade of the 1990s until Yeltsin resigned on December 31, 1999. His resignation had been finally forced by a group of nationalist Russians led by a forty-seven-year-old former KGB officer who briefly headed the successor organization to the KGB known as the SVR, or Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation. The SVR man was Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, by then Yeltsins Prime Minister. The destruction of the Soviet Union was one of the darkest criminal operations ever undertaken by the US government or, more precisely, by a dark, deep state network buried inside that Washington bureaucracy, sometimes referring to themselves as the Vulcans, often simply called neoconservatives. The key roles in the rape of Russia were played by US President George H.W. Bush and later by Bushs close friend and protege, William Jefferson Bill Clinton. The venom directed from Washington towards Putin personally since his reelection as president in 2012 and even beginning his revitalization of Russia after his ascendency to the presidency on December 31, 1999, the day Yeltsin was forced to abdicate his imagined throne, would become clear. Slowly details emerged of what crimes Bush, Clinton, and their covert intelligence circles committed against Russia after 1989. Bushs CIA Old Boys George H.W. Bush, former director of the CIA, ran the entire foreign and national security operations of President Ronald Reagan from the Office of the Vice President. Through Executive Order 12333, a national security directive drafted by then vice president Bush and signed by Reagan, Bush had made sure he was in charge of all Reagan-era US foreign and national security operations after 1981. People close to CIA Chief Bill Casey said that as President, Reagan had little interest in foreign policy. The true role of Bush in the Reagan years was well hidden, however. When Bushs son George W. Bush took office as President in 2001, one of his first acts was to sign Executive Order 13233, an extraordinary act that cited national security as grounds to conceal records of past presidents, especially his fathers activities during the 1990 and 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist Eastern Europe states. Consequently, those records are no longer accessible to the public. The truth can be gathered by evidence of participants in Russia, Eastern Europe, and in the USA, deep research, and congressional and other testimonies of those with direct knowledge. The picture of the destruction that resulted is staggering. George H.W. Bush ran things covertly through his old boy CIA networks, often using various private companies they had set up during the Bushs illegal IranContra operation of the mid-1980s. The IranContra affair was an illegal, top-secret BushColonel Oliver North scheme to sell US weapons to Iran in violation of an official US arms embargo to Iran, then to divert a part of the Iran arms profits to illegally finance the CIA-backed Contras of Nicaragua, who paid for the weapons with cocaine dollars, hence the name IranContra affair. All was done without required the US congressional approval, in violation of US law. When President Jimmy Carter forced the early retirement of 800 CIA agents, many of them loyal to former CIA Director Bush, they regrouped as a private intelligence and business network, a kind of covert deep state, informally calling itself the Enterprise. This network, active for Vice President George H.W. Bush in the IranContra affair, was used by Bush, now as US president, to loot and deform all of communist Eastern Europe and, ultimately, Russia under their asset, Boris Yeltsin. The companies George H.W. Bush sanctioned under the code name the Enterprise were soon to be responsible for the CIA-financed coup that brought down Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet Union in 1991. But the machinery and organization of the Enterprise was also responsible for bribing or corrupting key KGB generals and creating what came to be called the Russian oligarchs to loot the crown jewels of the former Soviet State, now legally known as the Russian Federation. Their looting included the entire gold reserves of the Russian National Bank in the early 1990s. That loot was funneled into the vaults of handpicked CIA-controlled banks in Switzerland, offshore bank havens, and New York. The CIAs Yeltsin Democracy Coup The rape of Russiathe Russian nation, the Russian state, the Russian peoplewhich began at the end of the 1980s, was a coup detat engineered by the American CIAs rogue and not so rogue networks directed by former CIA Director, now President, George H.W. Bush. Western accounts of what took place inside the Russian Federation during the Yeltsin years of the 1990s speak of Russian mafia or Russian organized crime. Never do they mention or even hint that those Russians who plundered their own country were organized and paid, or made rich, by the West or, to be more precise, by the old boy CIA networks loyal to former CIA director and then US president George H.W. Bush. What took place in the 1990s under the Russian presidency of Boris Yeltsin was described by one knowledgeable US insider, Mortimer Zuckerman, himself an establishment member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations and owner of US News & World Report, as the largest giveaway of a nations wealth in history. The giveaway, or more precisely theft, was done through outright robbery, currency war, and a fraudulent loans-for-company stock shares program that was a precondition demanded by Washington to getting aid and loans from the World Bank and the IMFaid and loans that never touched ground in Russia, as Zuckerman noted. Washington, covertly working with a circle of very select US and European banks, made it possible for the Yeltsin clan to loot the Russian Treasury of its gold reserves. They then offered desperately needed US money to a privatization scheme that created and installed a kleptocracy regime, and created a cabal of hyper-rich oligarchs under Yeltsin, referred to by some in the Russian media as the Yeltsin Family, as in the Mafia. Washington and US mainstream media cynically called it bringing democracy and free market capitalism to post-communist Russia. In 1989, soon after his election, US President George H.W. Bush initiated the operation to loot the Soviet Union. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and covert US government money to Polands Solidarnosc had severely weakened Moscows control over Poland during the decade of the 1980s and ignited anti-communist protest movements all over communist Eastern Europe. That Polish successnotably, that it was not suppressed by Soviet Red Army tanks as in 1956 in Hungary or during the Prague Spring of 1968had given major encouragement to similar underground, anti-regime movements across Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, from Hungary to Czechoslovakia to East Germany. In Afghanistan, after ten bloody years, Soviet Red Army troops finally gave up and left the country in 1989, humiliated in defeat from CIA-trained and armed Islamist Mujahideen terrorists. In Dresden in East Germanythe German Democratic Republic as it was formally calledfrom the mid-1980s until the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, a young KGB officer named Vladimir Putin was stationed, watching as the power of Moscow evaporated everywhere. Moscow itself was financially in dire straits, dramatically so ever since a US State DepartmentSaudi oil price collapse operation was deliberately launched by Washington in 1986. That oil price collapse hit at the heart of the Soviet primary hard currency sources: its oil export. That oil price collapse severely hurt Soviet earnings of badly needed dollars for Western technology purchases, as well as for countering CIA operations in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe. The decade-long covert CIA campaign in Afghanistan, using fanatical Mujahideen terrorists mostly recruited by a Saudi CIA asset named Osama bin Laden, had given the Soviet Union what President Carters national security director, Zbigniew Brzezinski, later called Russias Vietnam. Then in 1989, President George H.W. Bush gave the order to launch an all-out takeover and looting of the crown jewels of the largest and most strategic part of the USSR, the formerly communist Russian Federation. The dissolution of the Soviet Union itself rapidly followed the August 1991 Ukrainian declaration of independence from the USSR. State-owned oil and gas companies, key raw materials, such as nickel and aluminum, and high-tech Soviet military companies were the prime looting targets of select Western interests trading with insider connections. Now finally as president, George H.W. Bush decided to go for the kill against a severely weakened Russian Federation. Bush and a CIA network of Western bankers, US government officials, and the International Monetary Fund, together with a cabal of young Harvard University economiststhey were dubbed the Harvard Boys, brought into Russia by George Soros in league with a corrupted network of KGB traitors, unleashed one of the greatest criminal looting operations in history. Confused Russian citizens, fed up with the years of Soviet control and lack of improvement in their daily lives from Mikhail Gorbachevs Perestroika attempts at reforming the Soviet system, naively and with great hope turned to the West, most especially to Wall Street and Washington. In 1987, in a desperate attempt to calm growing social unrest over the deteriorating Soviet economy, Gorbachev permitted Soviet citizens to own dollars. It was a disaster of untold dimension. Overnight, a huge black market for dollars grew and the ruble became de facto worthless inside the Soviet Union. Russians, forbidden to travel to the West, were fed the illusion that everything in America was bigger and better. Secret, prohibited shortwave broadcasts from the US State Departments Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty out of Munich fed those illusions of an American capitalist paradise. The majority of Russians believed, for the most part, nothing could be worse than life under Soviet communism with the chronic shortages in the shops, endless queues, and lack of basic goods, let alone of luxury goods. They were soon to realize they were dreadfully wrong. It could be worse. The bottom fell out in the daily life for most Russians as Yeltsins clan and their Western collaborators proceeded to loot the country following the abolition of a communist state during the 1990s. Pensions went unpaid and medical insurance ended abruptly, as did daycare for working mothers and most state support. Operation Hammer The Bush administrations attack on the post-communist Russian Federation, dubbed Operation Hammer, had four distinct covert elements.: 1) the CIA would secretly finance the August 1991 generals coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev; 2) they would use their secret financial war chest to destabilize the ruble; 3) they used corrupted Russian Gosbank national bank officials to organize the theft of the countrys official gold reserves; 4) and they began a systematic takeover of strategic energy, raw materials, and high-tech state military industries in the Soviet Union via IMF-dictated privatization operations run by Yeltsins finance minister Yegor Gaidar. Gaidar worked in league with Harvards Jeffrey Sachs and other friends of billionaire hedge fund speculator George Soros. Bushs Operation Hammer used estimated tens of billions of dollars of illegal fundsfunds not authorized by the US Congressto bring down the Soviet Union. The funds reportedly came from a secret CIA war chest of undisclosed gold seized from Japan after World War II. That Japanese looted war booty was buried between 19421945 in Japanese-occupied Philippines for security. The gold was buried there on orders of the Emperor Hirohito in the event of Japans losing the war. At some point during the 1970s, Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos, nominally a Washington asset who ruled as an iron-fisted dictator from 1972 until 1986, had discovered some of the secret sites where Japanese Emperor Hirohitos soldiers had buried gold stolen during the war. It was gold stolen from China, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries occupied by imperial Japan. Greed overwhelmed Marcoss sense of caution as he dug out the hidden gold. The Japanese military had stashed tons of stolen gold in caves and deep underground sites on the islands. Marcos had discovered part of that and was taking it for himself and depositing it, or the cash from selling the gold onto the market, in select secretive Swiss banks. His mistake was that he used a CIA asset, Saudi billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, to help him sell the gold onto the market. In 1986, aware of what Marcos was doing through their asset, Khashoggi, among others, the CIA decided they had another use for the Marcos goldnamely, as collateral for issuing tens of billions of Western dollar securities that would be offered in the buyout of Russias state economic crown jewels. Marcos, no longer of use to Washington, was driven from office in a CIA putsch that used the newly created NED as a cover to funnel millions of dollars to Marcoss opponent, Corazon Aquino, for organizing mass street demonstrations. Washington also used a local CIA-created organization, the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections, and co-opted genuine trade union democratic opposition to the Marcos dictatorship. Aquino, far from a peoples candidate, was scion of one of the wealthiest Filipino oligarch families, owning vast sugarcane plantations, insuring that Aquino would look to Washington for support. Murky Origins of Barrick Gold In 1986, under orders from Vice President George H.W. Bush, a CIA operation was led by close Bush associates to get rid of Marcos. The operation included Richard Armitage, Paul Wolfowitz, and Adnan Khashoggi, the mysterious CIA-linked Saudi arms dealer who had been helping Marcos secretly sell the stolen Japanese gold. After forcing the exile of a defeated Marcos to Hawaii, Bush arranged for the Marcos gold to be deposited in special accounts at several select international banksCitibank, Chase Manhattan, Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), UBS of Zurich, and Bankers Trust, later to become part of Deutsche Bank. The Marcos gold was held in a deep underground, high-security depository in Kloten, Switzerland, beneath the Zurich International Airport. At that same time, a murky Canadian businessman named Peter Munk, a business partner with the CIA-linked arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, cofounded a Canadian gold-mining company, Barrick Gold. Some years later Barrick Gold went on to become the worlds largest gold-mining company. To be continued F. William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst, strategic risk consultant, author, professor and lecturer. He has been researching and writing about the world political scene for more than thirty years. His various books on geopoliticsthe interaction between international power politics, economics and geographyhave been translated into 14 foreign languages from Chinese to French, from German to Japanese. A children's clown performer has been arrested after allegedly trying to start a second job as a male prostitute. Francis Bui was caught when he met with an undercover cop posing as a client after he allegedly agreed to have sex for $100 an hour in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He performed as The Amazing Franko and told police he was broke after coming back from traveling with a local circus, and turned to prostitution. Children's clown performer Francis Bui, 28, after arrested after allegedly trying to start a second job as a male prostitute Bui was caught when he met with an undercover cop posing as a client after he allegedly agreed to have sex for $100 an hour in Scranton, Pennsylvania Bui, 28, placed an ad on a local classifieds website in the escort section, advertising himself 'in a sexually explicit manner', police alleged. He left a phone number that Carbondale Police saw and texted under the guise of a prospective client, according to a probable cause affidavit. The moonlighting clown allegedly agreed to sex without a condom for $100 an hour at a hotel in Carbondale, part of the Scranton metro area. Undercover cops met Bui at the agreed time of 9.30pm on May 18 after he told them which car he was in, and he was arrested. He performed as The Amazing Franko and told police he was broke after coming back from traveling with a local circus, and turned to prostitution Bui, 28, placed an ad on a local classifieds website in the escort section, advertising himself 'in a sexually explicit manner', police alleged 'Bui said this was his first time prostituting and stated he knew it was wrong,' police alleged in the affidavit. 'He stated that money was low so he was prostituting to supplement his income. He admitting to agreeing to meet for sex for the amount of US currency.' Bui will face the Carbondale Magisterial District Court on August 16 for a preliminary hearing. A diabetic grandmother was found 'white and without a pulse' by a fellow guest during a slap therapy course, a court heard today. There was 'no discussion' of calling a doctor or an ambulance for Danielle Carr-Gomm despite her being bed-bound and vomiting before becoming totally unresponsive, jurors were told. Her condition had deteriorated as she took part in a three day fast whilst at the retreat run by alternative therapist Hongchi Xiao, who is accused of manslaughter. Fellow attendee Kamen Filipov told the court Mrs Carr-Gomm was looking 'white and tired' when he left her before finding her without a heartbeat. The 71-year-old died in 2016 after she stopped taking her insulin over the course of a four-day workshop run by Xiao, having been on the course to try to get rid of her type one diabetes. Grandmother Danielle Carr-Gomm was found 'white and without a pulse' during a slap therapy course Alternative Paida Lajin therapist Hongchi Xiao has been accused of manslaughter after allegedly refusing to call help for the gravely ill grandmother A court artist drawing of Hongchi Xiao appearing at Winchester Crown Court. The therapist insisted that Ms Carr-Gomm's condition was a 'healing crisis' as there is 'darkness before dawn breaks' Xiao is accused of her manslaughter after he allegedly refused to call for help despite her becoming gravely ill and 'howling' from pain. The 61-year-old practitioner of paida lajin is said to have known of the fatal risks of a type 1 diabetic not taking their insulin because Mrs Carr-Gomm became extremely unwell at his previous workshop and because a six year old boy died during another of his retreats. Jurors have been told the self-professed healer has an 'unshakeable' belief that Western medicine is 'evil' and claimed Mrs Carr-Gomm's worsening condition was a 'healing crisis' because there is 'darkness before dawn breaks'. Xiao said paida lajin, which involves patients being slapped and slapping themselves in certain areas and stretching, is a holistic self-healing therapy which can cure many diseases and conditions including diabetes. Following Mrs Carr-Gomm's death at the workshop at Cleeve House in Melksham, Wiltshire, in October 2016, Xiao is now on trial at Winchester Crown Court, Hampshire, and denies manslaughter. Today jurors were read a statement from Mr Filipov, who attended alongside Mrs Carr-Gomm in 2016, having met at a different one of Xiao's retreats earlier that year in Bulgaria. Mr Filipov said she was 'adamant' she did not want to take her insulin and took part in a fast in the Bulgaria retreat. During this time, he said she became unwell as she had 'no energy' and 'no power'. In his witness statement read to the court, he said: 'She really wanted to get off her insulin and discussed going down to half her dose.' After the Bulgaria workshop, he said the two booked onto another of Xiao's seminars, this time at Cleeve House. Mr Filipov said fasting began on the third day, alongside slapping, stretching and wall hitting - where attendees fall back into a wall. Xiao allegedly 'congratulated' Mrs Carr-Gomm (pictured) after she informed him she had stopped her insulin medication He said that although the fasting was supposed to last three days, he 'first became aware' she was unwell on October 18. The court heard she missed a seminar and stayed in her room because she was feeling 'unwell' and later vomited. The next day, Mr Filipov said she 'appeared to have ill health' as she was 'looking white and tired'. However, he said she refused any food brought to her and would only accept tea. It was heard she fell from her bed and her mattress was moved onto the floor as a precaution. 'Danielle looked unwell,' he said, 'and wasn't really responsive. '[Another attendee] was looking after her and seemed to know what to do. 'There was no discussion about calling for a doctor or an ambulance. 'There was no conversation with Danielle while I was there.' Mr Filipov said he went to bed on October 19, before waking up in the early hours of October 20 when he went to check on her. 'I asked how Danielle was and [heard] she was 'sleeping like a baby',' he said. 'I found she was white and without a pulse.' The court heard this prompted her resuscitation attempts to start, as she was given mouth to mouth and an ambulance was called. Jurors sitting on his three week trial were shown footage of his seminar in March 2015 in which he encourages participants to slap their arms 'just to see what happens' Xiao, from Cloudbreak, California, is accused of knowingly ignoring the consequences of Mrs Carr-Gomm stopping taking her insulin and using his 'influence' over her. She saw him as a 'messenger sent by God' and believed he could cure her diabetes, it has been heard. In 2019 Xiao was convicted of manslaughter in Australia after a six-year-old boy with type 1 diabetes died at his workshop in April 2015, having stopped taking his insulin at the instruction of Xiao. At the Wiltshire workshop in October 2016, Mrs Carr-Gomm stopped taking insulin on the first day but showed severe symptoms and was heard 'howling in pain'. Xiao claims through paida lajin - which means slap and stretch in Chinese - patients can unblock their 'meridian systems' and cure diseases. The trial continues. Zoom - the popular virtual meeting company, has announced a very ironic new rule for its employees. The platform, which became massive during the coronavirus pandemic and has continued to thrive with remote-based companies, has changed its tune for its own workers. Matthew Saxon, Zoom's chief people officer, recently implemented a new rule that would make employees who live within 50 miles of an office have to work from there twice a week. In the US, Zoom has four offices- its headquarters in San Jose, California, and three other locations in Santa Barbara, Denver, Colorado and Kansas City. Saxon, who joined the 17.3billion company in 2022, revealed that in a week the new rule drastically changed the workplace dynamic for Zoom employees. Zoom- the popular virtual meeting company, has announced that employees have to come back to work in the office. (pictured: Stock image) Matthew Saxon, Zoom's chief people officer, and his colleagues recently implemented a new that employees who live within 50 miles of an office, have to work from there twice a week 'We've seen a revolution, honestly, in how we work, and Im not just talking about Zoom. 'I talk about moving from surviving to thriving, and I think by and large, we check the box, as a society, on whether we can survive remotely. The question is still out on whether we can thrive, and what that looks like now,' Saxon told Fortune. He added that although the company is known to connect people virtually, a lot of the designs and features are actually created in the office. Saxon, who joined the 17.3billion company in 2022, revealed that in a week the new rule drastically changed the workplace dynamic Saxon also mentioned how customers range from at home workers to those who are in the office full-time. 'Weve got customers who are completely in the office. Weve got customers who are completely remote, and weve got all the various flavors of hybrid in between. 'We want to ensure were very customer-centric; that means really, truly understanding the customer use case and pain points,' he said. Despite making employees come into the office twice a week, Saxon will continue to work from home in Austin, Texas. 'I think I can manage people at Zoom effectively while working fully remotely. Saxon said that although the company is known to connect people virtually, a lot of the designs and features are actually created in office 'I go into the office from time to time, obviously, for my role, but the majority of the time, Im home,' he told Fortune. He explained that the push to have employees in the office was introduced so co-workers can collaborate together in meetings and training sessions. Saxon emphasized that he believes those who come into the office should solely work on group tasks, otherwise it would be the same as working from home. 'A sprinkle of in-person work every so often can really help, but again, we found people coming into the office to do their individual contributor work. 'In that case, theres no real difference if youre sitting on a Zoom call,' he added. He made sure to note that employees that decide to independently work are just as valuable for the company. Saxon also said that he's seen the direct impact on employees and bosses who work face-to-face in the office. 'Proximity bias certainly exists. I think its incumbent upon us to make sure that we have a quality of information flow, so things like asynchronous work can happen. 'We also need to make sure we have some degree of reporting and metrics.' Staying up to date on metrics can help make it fair for both at home and in office employees when it comes time for raises and promotions. When questioned by employees as to why they need to return to the office, Saxon said he was honest with them. 'We had a good, honest conversation about our products, our customer base, and how well improve. Saxon also said that he seen the direct impact employees and their bosses experience when face-to-face in the office 'When we had a more laissez-faire approach to coming in on certain days, it was sub-optimized, and we heard that from employees. So we said, "Okay, well, lets try this different model." I think its been a good success,' Saxon said. The company previously announced the same rule for UK employees in August 2023. The company has a workforce of between 5,000 and 10,000, according to its LinkedIn page, with around 200 working in its new UK office in London. A spokesperson for the firm previously said: 'We believe that a structured hybrid approach meaning a set number of days employees that live near an office need to be on site is most effective for Zoom. 'As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers.' The company also have offices based in India, China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Amsterdam and Karlsruhe in Europe. In February, the company's CEO, Eric Yuan (pictured) slashed Zoom's workforce by about 15 percent, or about 1,300 staffers. He also cut his own $1.1million salary by 98 percent In February, the company's CEO, Eric Yuan slashed Zoom's workforce by about 15 percent, or about 1,300 staffers. He also cut his own $1.1million salary by 98 percent. Yuan, who founded the company in 2013, said the layoffs impacted every department in the company, and that fired employees are going to receive up to 16 weeks salary and healthcare coverage. In his message to employees posted 30 minutes before the emails were sent out, Yuan wrote: 'We have made the tough but necessary decision to reduce our team by approximately 15 percent and say goodbye to around 1,300 hardworking, talented colleagues. 'I know this is a difficult message to hear, and certainly not one I ever wanted to deliver.' A former strip club worker who has been living at a 'secret' California beach for years has given a bizarre reason as to why he is the rightful owner. Ex-con Robert Simpson has based his RV at Oakland's Toll Plaza Beach ever since he stumbled on the remote spot more than three years ago. He says the length of time he's lived there means that he now technically owns the strip of sand. Simpson says he turned his back on a lifetime of drug dealing and prison stays after being 'chosen by God' to take care of the stretch. Colloquially known as 'Trash Beach', Simpson claims he conducts a daily beach clean, plucking garbage from the water. He has become a permanent fixture at the site next to Interstate 80, even after a devastating fire razed his original RV to the ground and left him badly burned. A former strip club worker who has been living at a 'secret' California beach for years is now claiming he is its rightful owner Ex-con Robert Simpson has based his RV at Oakland's Toll Plaza Beach ever since he stumbled on the remote spot more than three years ago However his way of life is under threat again, after city officials gave him and a dozen others living at the beach two weeks' notice to vacate. 'Who's going to walk the beach every day and clean up the debris?' Simpson told SF Standard. 'All I know is, it ain't up to me anymore.' Each day, Simpson wakes up to the kind of sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge which usually only prime real estate costing millions of dollars could secure. The 400 foot beach also boasts a vista out of Mount Tamalpais, Angel Island and the Tiburon Peninsula on the skyline. When he isn't relaxing in his backyard tiki bar or playing volleyball on his homemade court, Simpson says he helps broken down motorists or hands out refreshments to kite surfers. Living at the beach has given him a sense of purpose, Simpson said. However, the San Francisco Boardsailing Association disagrees and claims that Simpson's habitation is spoiling one of the best secret spots' for kiteboarding in the Bay Area. 'The site has been under some duress the last few years,' a statement from the group reads. But the San Francisco Boardsailing Association say Simpson's encampment is damaging the environment City officials have given Simpson and others living at the beach two weeks to vacate from June 26 'What started during the pandemic as one camper parked by the beach has mushroomed into a full-blown encampment, an unsafe situation for sailors, and and an environmental problem for the San Francisco Bay. 'The large encampment has created an epicenter for car break-ins while increased trash and direct sewage runoff have been flowing directly into the waters there.' Oakland's Public Works Department appears to agree and on June 26 an eviction order was issued to Simpson and the dozen other individuals living at the beach. It is unclear if they plan to offer the residents sheltered housing elsewhere. But Simpson is ready for a fight and says he plans to hire a lawyer to oppose the notice. 'I'll lose this all again, bro, it's nothing to me. I'll get it all back,' he said. 'My bounce-back game is so strong.' A near-collision between two passenger planes over a New York airport has sparked a Federal Aviation Administration investigation. The Delta Connection flight, carrying 80 people, was taking off at Syracuse Hancock Airport at the same time an American Eagle plane was landing just before noon on Monday. Police footage of the incident shows the Delta plane climbing through the sky while the other plane is descending towards the runway. But the aircrafts appear to be much closer together than they should be before crossing paths safely. A near-collision between two passenger planes over a New York airport has sparked a Federal Aviation Administration investigation The Delta Connection flight was taking off at Syracuse Hancock Airport at the same time an American Eagle plane was landing just before noon on Monday In the video, the Delta Connection flight is seen gaining speed as it gains altitude before the other plane comes into frame. The American Eagle aircraft is descending as it approaches the runway but the two planes cross paths and narrowly avoid each other. They came to around 1,000 feet within each other vertically, according to FlightRadar24. The FAA has not marked the incident as a 'close call' yet but confirmed it is investigating the incident. 'An air traffic controller instructed PSA Airlines 5511 to go around at Syracuse Hancock International Airport to keep it separated from an aircraft that was departing on the same runway,' a spokesman for the government agency said. A Delta spokesman said: 'Endeavor Air and Delta will work with aviation authorities as we always do in our shared commitment to safety above all else.' The incident comes after a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 flying to Baltimore from Portland, Maine had a heart-stopping incident on June 25. Police footage of the incident shows the Delta plane climbing through the sky while the other plane is descending towards the runway The plane departed from runway 29 at 5:43 am, just two minutes before it was scheduled to open for traffic. Alarmingly, the runway was undergoing a safety inspection at the time, with a ground vehicle present. While no one was hurt in the incident, the situation raised serious concerns. After the near-miss, the ground vehicle driver contacted the control tower, baffled as to why the plane had been cleared for takeoff from a closed runway. Shockingly, the tower responded that they had never communicated with the pilots. In leaked air traffic control recordings, controllers are heard repeatedly trying to warn Flight 4805 about the vehicle and the closed runway. One recording even captures a controller saying, 'just so you know, there is a vehicle on the runway, and it is closed...I tried warning him.' DailyMail.com has contacted Delta Airlines, American Airlines and the FAA for comment. Alec Baldwin was left looking in agony after dramatic footage was played out during the second day of his manslaughter trial, showing the aftermath of the fatal shooting on the set of his ill-fated Western film 'Rust'. In court, jurors were shown body cam footage captured by officer Santa Fe County Sheriffs deputy Nicholas LeFleur who was called as the first witness in the case. The baggy-eyed actor, 66, at one point appeared to struggle to watch the footage and put his hand on his forehead. Baldwin was a producer and the star of Rust when he shot dead cinematographer Halyna Hutchins , 42, a mother-of-one, while filming with a prop gun that had a live round inside it. The film's director Joel Souza was also injured. Camera footage shows Hutchins laying on her back inside the set following the shooting, with tubes coming out of her body as medical teams tend to her. LeFleur can be heard saying: One female shot in the chest, male shot in the stomach and calling for an air evacuation. Director Joel Souza can be heard shouting out in pain and is seen thrashing his legs around in the clip. Baldwin appeared to struggle at one point while watching the footage and put his hand on his forehead. His wife and brother watched intently from the public gallery Hutchins can be seen laying on her back inside the set with tubes coming out of her body as medical teams tend to her LeFleur was first on the scene, with his body cam capturing him arriving on the set, getting out his car and retrieving a bag from his truck before running into the church LeFleur was first on the scene, with his body cam capturing him arriving on the set, getting out his car and retrieving a bag from his truck before running into the church One person says of Souza: Hes good hes got a (inaudible) shoulder blade, apparently referring to a bullet. Hutchins face appears pale but appears to move her arm to behind her head. A woman helping Hutchins to breathe says: Halyna deep breath, deep breath there you go. Deep breath Halyna. Jesus. Several crew members and paramedics could be seen lifting Hutchins up on a stretcher. One person had a mask over her mouth and was pumping it to help her breathe. As the clip played out, his wife Hilaria and brother Stephen watched intently from the public gallery. The stakes for Baldwin are incredibly high and were starkly illustrated in February when Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 26, the armorer on the set, went on trial and was found guilty for the same charges in the same court. In her opening statement, Erlinda Johnson, a special prosecutor appointed to the case, said that Baldwin had 'violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety and that he was 'reckless' on set. Johnson said that Baldwin had requested the biggest gun available after he arrived on the set in in October 2021. She told jurors: When someone plays make believe with a real gun in a real life workplace and while playing with the gun violates the cardinal rules of gun safety people's lives are endangered and somebody could be killed. Baldwin is seen here speaking with his defense attorney Alex Spiro during the trial on Wednesday Baldwin interacts with his wife Hilaria Baldwin during his hearing on Wednesday The actor, 66, arrived in court on Wednesday in a convoy of three SUVs while wearing a dark suit and avoided questions from reporters 'Thats what this case is about. Its simple, straightforward. That someone who played make believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin.' Johnson said that the armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was a 'very young woman' and 'inexperienced'. She told the court that Baldwin didn't do a safety check with Gutierrez-Reed because he 'didn't want to offend her'. Johnson also criticized Baldwin's claim that he didn't pull the trigger saying that a firearms analyst ruled that Baldwin must have pulled the trigger. The analyst with the FBI only got the gun to fire without pulling the trigger by breaking it during an accidental discharge test, the court heard. While defense lawyer Alex Spiro told jurors that the death of Hutchins had been an unspeakable tragedy but that Baldwin committed no crime. In his opening statement, Spiro said: There were people responsible for ensuring the safety of the firearm. Those people failed in their duties. On this set there was a real bullet something that should never be on a movie set. You will hear no evidence that Baldwin had anything to do with that real bullet being bought on that set. Baldwin is being represented by Alex Spiro, a high profile lawyer whose other clients include Elon Musk, Jay-Z, Mick Jagger and Naomi Osaka The Emmy award winning actor, 66, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter Prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson speaks during actor Alec Baldwin's hearing at Santa Fe County District Court The actors job is to act, hes Harlan Rust, hes an outlaw running for his life. In this incident hes pulling a six shooter. His mind is in the being of another, a century away, an outlaw. He must be able to take that weapon and use it in ways that would be lethal in the real world but not on a movie set. Spiro told the court that investigators in the case saw Baldwin as being a shiny object they could go for. He said: Instead of trying to find the source of the lethal bullet they focused on Mr Baldwin. But Mr Baldwin was like any other actorsafety proceeds before the actor. A properly cleared gun cannot hurt anyone. Baldwin was said to be in a state of shocking grief following the incident, according to Spiro who described him as being a father, an artist, worried about his family. Spiro then criticized the law enforcement in the case saying that they didnt have a case against Baldwin and blasted them for destroying the gun. He said: This gun had a hair trigger. The owners manual of this gun says if you load it with a live round and you drop it, this type of gun can accidentally go off. Attorney Alex Spiro looks on during actor Alec Baldwin's hearing at Santa Fe County District Court Baldwin, seen here outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's offices on the day of the shooting, was sensationally charged for a second time in January this year Baldwin, Hutchins and armorer Gutierrez-Reed are circled on the set of Rust alongside fellow cast members and staffers The destruction of the gun is symbolic of this case. They weren't really investigating any more, they were trying to disprove Alec, to get Alec, to have this day [in court]'. Outside the court on Wednesday morning, attorney Gloria Allred held a photo of Hutchins, her mother Olga and Hutchins son. Allred is representing Hutchins family in Ukraine as part of a civil negligence lawsuit they have brought against Baldwin in the US. According to Allred, the family had been unable to come because of the ongoing conflict in the country, saying: We would like the truth, we would like justice. She added: Baldwin, though his attorneys have attacked us unfairly, suggested they didn't have a close relationship with Halyna which is false. Halyna Hutchins died after being hit by a bullet from the prop gun that Baldwin was handling I know Alec brought one of his seven children, hes apparently signed up for a reality show. This is not a reality show! This is a trial of involuntary manslaughter of a young, talented cinematographer. She had a right to be safe on that set as did every member of the crew. I dont know whether Alec Baldwin decided to make holding his baby or his wife holding the baby and then handing her to a nanny or a producer [part of] the reality show. It is cynical and potentially a calculated public relations move to make him seem more sympathetic to the jury. Holding up the photo, Allred said: This is a child as well. This is Halyna's child who no longer has a mother. Lets not forget, this is a real case in Santa Fe, New Mexico and it has to be taken seriously! The movie was being shot on the Bonanza Creek Ranch film set in Santa Fe Hannah Gutierrez-Reed poses for mugshot after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter When asked what she thought him maybe maybe filming his reality show from jail, she added: I dont know what his plans are except if he uses this trial and his children as part of a reality show, I think its sick. The trial is the culmination of a nightmare for Mr Baldwin that has lasted for nearly three years and has finally come to court. The Emmy award winning actor, 66, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter. The case has had a long and tortured path to trial: Baldwin was originally charged in January 2023 with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. They were dropped three months later in light of new evidence, prosecutors said, adding they needed more time to investigate. Baldwin was sensationally charged for a second time in January this year with the same charges. Baldwin and his wife are currently filming a reality TV series about their family. It is not clear if a camera crew is trailing them in New Mexico, but the show is due to air in 2025 meaning filming is likely underway now. The case is expected to hear eight days of evidence and argument, followed by deliberations. An Irish air stewardess, who was detained in Dubai and charged with attempted suicide after suffering brutal domestic violence, is 'over the moon' to return home. Tori Towey, 28, a flight attendant from County Roscommon, woke up in a police station in Dubai after she was attacked by her South African husband. Police in the United Arab Emirates charged the young woman with alcohol abuse and attempted suicide which she was due to fight in court later this month. Her passport was banned, preventing Ms Towey from returning home to her family in Ireland and sparking fears she was headed towards a jail term in an Emirati prison. But a campaign group working on her case has confirmed that the charges have been withdrawn, the travel ban lifted and that Ms Towey is 'relieved' to be headed home. Tori Towey has been left stranded in Dubai after being faced with an attempted suicide charge Tori was pictured with extensive bruises over her body, which she says are from an assault Detained in Dubai CEO Radha Stirling said: 'She is thrilled and relieved. She said she is over the moon and looking forward to getting home to Ireland and seeing the rest of her family. 'She is a little nervous too because there is that worry that something could happen before she gets on a plane but the overriding feeling is one of joy.' Ms Towey's family has thanked the Irish government and campaigners for their help, with her mum Caroline telling MailOnline the support 'has been incredible'. Caroline said: 'The support from the Irish government and the Irish people has been incredible and we weren't expecting it at all. It's a small country and the politicians are real people. 'We are both exhausted and desperate to get home. Thank you so much to everyone supporting us.' She added that her daughter had been through 'the worst time of her life and needs to come home with me and heal'. Tori's aunt Ann Flynn also told Sky News: 'She's doing her best. It's very stressful, stressful for all the family. 'Tori's a beautiful young woman, fun-loving, loves to travel. She got the job of her dreams working for Emirates, and she could continue travelling with work.' 'It's really terrible that this has happened to a young woman who was full of life and full of adventure.' Mr Harris, a lawyer working on the case, said: 'The embassy will take Tori to the airport as soon as she is ready to go and that the embassy of course will continue to follow up on the case, which is still active as of now.' He thanked the Irish embassy in the United Arab Emirates for their work on the case. It comes hours after Tori's mother said she was 'desperate to get home' and has been through 'the worst time of her life'. Tori, pictured left with aunt, has been banned from leaving the UAE and told she faces jail for drinking alcohol and attempting to take her own life Tori had been banned from leaving the UAE and told she faced jail for drinking alcohol and attempting to take her own life following the alleged beating by her husband. A spokesperson for legal group Detained in Dubai (DiD) claimed Tori's South African husband went after her with a knife and punched her, before slamming her arm in the bathroom door trying to break it. Tori said she tried to take her own life after the attack, which left her with severe bruises and injuries. But after being taken to a police station, Ms Towey was facing charges of alcohol consumption and attempting suicide by a court in Dubai. She said she was unable to leave the country as her passport had been blocked. Speaking through outreach group DiD, who are assisting the family, Ms Towey said prior to the lifting of the travel ban: 'I don't know what's going to happen in court next week. 'I'm desperate to go home to Ireland and put all of this in the past. I'm asking the Taoiseach to please help us.' The DiD said Ms Towey had faced a lengthy prison sentence in a jail known for 'human rights abuses and torture'. Radha Stirling, CEO of DiD, said: 'We are calling on Dubai authorities to urgently drop the charges against Tori, remove the travel ban and let her fly home to Ireland with her mother. She has been charged with attempted suicide and alcohol consumption. 'Strangely, the UAE has gone to great public relations efforts to promote alcohol as legal in the country. In reality, people are still regularly charged with alcohol consumption and possession. Tori's experience is nothing short of tragic and quite frankly, she is lucky to be alive.' She explained: 'Tori arranged to fly home to Ireland but, when she arrived at the airport, was told a case against her by her husband had been dropped but the travel ban remained. 'She attended the police station who assured her the travel ban would be lifted but it never happened. The next day, Tori and her husband had some wine and he became enraged, accusing her of having an affair.' Ms Stirling explained: 'The next thing she remembers is an ambulance crew and police waking her up. She was taken to Al Barsha police station and kept for several hours before going home again. 'Her mother pleaded to the Irish Consulate but in the absence of their assistance, boarded a flight to Dubai. When she arrived, she wasn't allowed to see Tori alone, her abuser wouldn't allow it. 'The three met at Emirates mall then attended the prosecutor's office to find out what charges had been registered against her.' Ms Towey, who graduated from the Dublin Institute Of Technology, moved to the UAE in April 2023 Tori is pictured in 2021, before her move to the UAE - where she now hopes to return to Ireland Irish premier Harris said he would intervene in the 'appalling' case as Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald raised Ms Towey's case in the Irish Parliament on Tuesday afternoon. Mr Harris thanked Ms McDonald for bringing the case to his attention, saying: 'I'm not directly appraised of the situation, but I'm very happy to be directly appraised of it now.' He said he would work with the deputy 'to intervene and see how we can support an Irish citizen in what sounds to be based on what you tell me the most appalling circumstances'. The Department of Foreign Affairs told the Irish Daily Mail it was aware of the case and was offering consular assistance. Ms McDonald told Dail Eireann that Ms Towey has been the victim of domestic violence and is subject to a travel ban over alleged charges. She said she had spoken to Ms Towey, and that the 28-year-old's mother travelled to Dubai to be with her. 'Tori wants to come home, simple as that. She is a Roscommon woman and she wants to come home,' she said. Radha Stirling, CEO of DiD says Tori's husband attacked her with a knife and punched her, before slamming her arm in the bathroom door trying to break it. Pictured the injuries said to be from the alleged attack The 28-year-old moved to the UAE in April 2023 when she was offered a job as a flight attendant with Emirates In 2018, one member of Dubai Police said that they would focus on treatment rather than punishment when it came to suicide victims, even though suicide and suicide attempts are a crime in the country. Brig Ahmed bin Ghalaita, then director of Al Refaa Police Station, told The National: 'The move is taken to provide support to suicide attempters and deal with them as victims who need moral support and help. 'Suicide cases are being examined by a police unit and experts in the psychology field to identify the causes behind their attempts and find solutions for them.' It comes as earlier this year, British wives boasting of luxury new lives funded by millionaire husbands in Dubai have been warned they risk being dumped homeless on the streets at any moment. Experts have revealed a surge in complaints from not only women but also men betrayed and dumped by wealthy partners after upping sticks for the Middle East. The alert comes amid a TikTok and Instagram trend of UK women sharing footage of spending sprees in the United Arab Emirates after wedding wealthy husbands. MailOnline had also reported on an influx of expats pampered by rich partners, enjoying days filled with shopping trips, extravagant meals and property upgrades. A city attorney in California has threatened to punish a Target store for repeatedly reporting thefts at the store in the crime-ridden state. Sacramento City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood's office said the retail store located at 2505 Riverside Blvd. in Land Park will be fined and slapped with a public nuisance charge if it continues to call police when there is a theft at the store. A person familiar with the incident, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, told The Sacramento Bee that city officials warned that an administrative fine would also be charged. Pursuing legal action against a business for reporting a crime has prompted lawmakers to add an amendment to a retail theft bill making such threats illegal. Sacramento City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood's (pictured) office issued a warning and will be charged with public nuisance if the Target at 2505 Riverside Blvd. in Land Park will continues to call police when there is a theft at the store Alexander Gammelgard, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, who testified at the Assemblys first retail theft committee meeting in December, appeared stunned by recent news and explained there is no 'place for that.' 'I ... (was) also surprised that anyone would ever attempt to make a nuisance case out of somebody calling to report a legitimate crime,' he told the Bee. Wood's office and the Sacramento Police Department told ABC45 News they were unaware such a threat had been made. Under the Proposition 47 initiative that was passed in 2014, lower-level crimes were set as misdemeanors and $950 felony threshold set for shoplifting. But many were opposed to the voter-approved plan that they believe has been the cause of the escalating theft in their state. According to reports, Governor Gavin Newsom has been working to tighten penalties on retail theft offenses by introducing a package with 14 bills specifically dealing with this issue later this year. Newsom is working alongside Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and state Senator Mike McGuire. They believe their legislation will help minimize retail theft crimes, rather than reform changes to Proposition 47, as per the news outlet. However, Californias Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, Ph.D. announced in June that she was gathering signatures to place a measure to reform Proposition 47 on the November ballot. A couple is seen walking into the Target in Auburn before surveillance footage capture them stealing from the retailer They were accused of swapping merchandise in boxes Retail theft has been on the rise in the state of California. On Friday, nearly 100 robbers ransacked a gas station in the middle of the night in Oakland that was captured on surveillance footage. The raid came just days after Oakland's progressive mayor bragged about a drop in crime in the crime-ridden city. In June, nearly twenty robbers swarmed a jewelry store in broad daylight at the Hacienda Shopping Center on the 700 block of E. El Camino Real near Sunnyvale, California. The thieves smashed jewelry cases with hammers and other weapons, and were later arrested. A couple in 2021 were arrested in a Target in Auburn after they were accused of swapping merchandise in boxes, CBS News Sacramento reported. Sacramento's Democratic District Attorney Thien Ho filed a lawsuit against the Democrat-led city in September 2023 over failure to clean up homeless encampments, escalating tensions between city leaders. After filing the suit, Ho said, 'wee have more homeless people in Sacramento than San Francisco. The community is at a breaking point.' According to police data obtained by The Bee, there were 375 calls related to theft, robbery and shoplifting in 2023, up from about 175 in 2022 and 87 in 2021 - reported from three different Target locations in Sacramento. The majority of calls, however, did not result in a crime report, an arrest or citation. A passenger bit a chunk of fabric out of a flight attendant's shirt and told an 'old lady' she should 'go back to Russia' during a mid-fight meltdown. The woman was on United Airlines Flight 762 from Miami to Newark but barely made it off the runway on Tuesday night before she became unruly. Video recorded by another traveler began after the crew restrained her wrists with zip-ties and she was wrestling with three of them. Suddenly she bit one of their shoulders, tearing off a piece of fabric and letting it float to the floor in front of the shocked plane. 'Stop touching me... let go of me, I'm a f**king girl, are you trying to kill me?' she shouted afterwards. A passenger bit a chunk of fabric out of a flight attendant's shirt in a mid-fight meltdown Suddenly she bit one of their shoulders, tearing off a piece of fabric and letting it float to the floor in front of the shocked plane The video cuts to the woman, now with her hands zip-tied behind her back and standing in the aisle, yelling at everyone not to fly United. 'These people have an attitude problem and they don't f**king do their jobs. They're handcuffing me. Why are you handcuffing me?' she yelled. 'Why b***h? Why the f**k are you handcuffing me? Why, why, why?' A passenger told her to stop yelling and she told her 'go back to Russia, old lady', then let out a steady stream of expletives and told her 'I'll f**king kill you, b***h'. Audio from the plane caught the woman yelling: 'You're a disgrace, piece of s**t, I wish I could f**king spit on you right now.' 'Don't do that, don't do that,' a male flight attendant warned her. 'You are insulting everyone on this aircraft.' Video recorded by another traveler began after the crew restrained her wrists with zip-ties and she was wrestling with three of them The video cuts to the woman, now with her hands zip-tied behind her back and standing in the aisle, yelling at everyone not to fly United Everyone on the plane clapped when she was kicked off after the flight diverted to Orlando and was delayed three-and-a-half hours. Witnesses said she threw punches and spat at people before she was restrained, according to TMZ. More videos from after the plane landed in Orlando showed the woman being marched out of the airport by police. 'The plane is here in Orlando and the crew is not going to continue on [to Newark] because of what happened between here and Miami,' staff announced. United said the passenger 'became aggressive and disruptive', causing the diversion to Orlando and lengthy delay. Staff announced the flight would be delayed in Orlando (pictured) and the staff would not continued to Newark after all the drama More videos from after the plane landed in Orlando showed the woman being marched out of the airport by police 'Our flight attendants worked to de-escalate the situation and protect other customers and after landing in Orlando, law enforcement met the flight, and the passenger was removed,' it said. 'We're grateful to our team for their professionalism and for looking out for the safety of our customers and their fellow United employees.' The Orlando Police Department said the woman was taken to hospital for a medical evaluation and no arrest has yet been made. The woman's identity and what sparked her meltdown are not yet known. Biden biographer Chris Whipple said Tuesday night that one of the president's 'closest friends' thinks he should get a 'full neurological exam' as questions continue to pile up about the 81-year-old's cognitive state. Whipple sat down with CNN's Abby Phillip as Biden continued to fight for his political survival after last month's disastrous presidential debate performance. So far, Biden has refused to sit down for a fresh cognitive exam, telling ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Friday, 'I've already done it,' pointing to the physical he received from the White House physician earlier this year. 'I will tell you that one of the president's closest friends thinks that Joe Biden should go up to Walter Reed, have a complete neurological exam, release the results, and let the chips fall,' Whipple said Tuesday. The author, who penned the 2023 biography The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House, was unsure if the message had been delivered. Biden biographer Chris Whipple said Tuesday night that one of the president's 'closest friends' thinks he should get a 'full neurological exam' as questions continue to pile up about the 81-year-old's cognitive state Biden has refused to sit down for a fresh cognitive exam, telling ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Friday, 'I've already done it,' pointing to the physical he received from the White House physician earlier this year. He attended the NATO summit Wednesday Author @ccwhip who wrote a Biden biography: One of the president's closest friends thinks that Joe Biden should go up to Walter Reed, have a complete neurological exam, release the results, and let the chips fall. pic.twitter.com/8C67AViApO Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) July 10, 2024 'Now, I don't think that friend has said this out loud to Joe Biden because that's a hard thing even for a close friend to tell him, but I don't think he's going there without a major push,' Whipple told Phillip. Biden and the White House have resisted greater transparency concerning the president's health on the heels of the debate and several 'freezing' moments, which press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called 'cheap fakes' and suggested the president was a victim of deceptive editing. Jean-Pierre botched the explanation of whether or not the president saw his doctor in the days before and after the debate. Biden said while it wasn't an 'excuse,' he was suffering from a cold onstage in Atlanta. And then Jean-Pierre changed her story after telling reporters that a meeting between the president's personal physician and a neurologist who specializes in Parkinson's disease was not related to Biden's personal care. The January 17 White House meeting was part of the president's annual physical examination, she later explained. Whipple said that none of his sources thought Biden was ailing, moreso that he was showing his advanced age. President Joe Biden's political future is on the line and the White House has had to clean up health information given to reporters, including whether he was treated for the cold he was suffering during the debate and why a Parkinson's specialist was meeting with his doctor The biographer told Phillip, 'by all accounts, the people I spoke to, including his closest friends, his inner circle, they all said that Biden was fine cognitively.' 'He obviously walked like a zombie because he has arthritis and all the rest of it, but no, I didn't get any indication that he was cognitively impaired, and everybody insisted otherwise,' Whipple told the TV host. The author also revealed that the president refused to speak to him by phone for their interviews as he was writing his book, instead requesting written questions which he then answered. This has been a hallmark approach of the Biden White House as the president's inner circle has limited off-the-cuff interactions between the president, press and the public. Whipple described it as the most 'scripted White House in modern history.' With his own political future on the line, President Joe Biden went back to his diplomatic wheelhouse and glad-handed world leaders at the NATO summit in Washington Wednesday. After a string of elected Democrats called on Biden to step down, the president is using the summit he is hosting in Washington to try to demonstrate his mastery of the global scene as well as the vigor critics in his own party found absent during his Atlanta debate disaster. He scheduled a high-powered meeting with Britain's new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, along with Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Defence Secretary John Healey. It was their first official meeting since Starmer's Labour Party ended 14 years of conservative rule. Earlier, Biden welcomed leaders of the 31 NATO countries for a series of grip-and-grin photos, joined by outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg shook hands. Among them was Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who played host to Biden and other G7 nations while hosting that summit in Bari, Italy. A clip of the two went viral when it showed Meloni placing her hands on Biden's arm and guiding him back toward a group of leaders for a photo after a parachute demonstration, after Biden walked a few feet away to speak to a parachutist nearby. Right this way: President Joe Biden greeted Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the NATO summit in Washington. She hosted him last month at the G7 in Bari, Italy, guiding him toward a photo-op at one point White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called it a 'cheap fake' when asked about it by DailyMail.com. 'The President walked over to give a thumbs up to divers who had just landed right in front of him,' she said at a press briefing last month. The Starmer meeting in the Oval Office was an opportunity for Biden to begin relations with the the first Labour government in 14 years on a firm footing. In a sign of how carefully the White House is watching the optics of the confab, the White House pushed back when a Republican National Committee X account compared him to a 'wax figure' with a short video clip from the summit. White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates posted the RNC's video, which is closely cropped, and added his own link. That link shows the president waiting and standing, arms at his side, before greeting and shaking hands with German Prime Minister Olaf Scholtz. Biden grins and raises his eyebrows during the grip-and-grin with Scholtz. Biden also took part in the traditional family photo, which required them to look into a camera for eight seconds. His own political fortunes are following him at the summit, with world leaders as well as his allies and foes in Congress watching to see whether he is likely to be in power next year. Biden didnt respond to a question about whether he still has support for former Speaker Nancy Pelosi following her comments on MSNBC, but shook his fist in a show of confidence. Biden scheduled his first official meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer (l) Meloni guided Biden while hosting him at the G7 summit in Italy Biden has spent a career engaging with foreign leaders, as a two-term vice president and former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He sent a signal that domestic politics are his top priority en route to the summit, being held a few minutes' drive from the White House. He stopped by the AFL-CIO, where he talked up the U.S. economy and the contributions of U.S. workers. During his first remarks to the summit, Biden read from printed remarks but occasionally looked up to reinforce a point. 'I will now ask the press to depart so that we can get started,' he said at the conclusion of his comments. Police are appealing for help to find a six-year-old boy who went missing over a month ago. Adam was last seen in Richmond, south west London on June 3. His mother, Karima, is believed to have broken a family court order and has also not been seen for over a month. Police are appealing for help to find missing Adam, 6 who was last seen in Richmond, south west London, over a month ago His mother, Karima, is believed to have breached a family court order Officers are looking for both the mother and her son. Adam is pictured with brown hair and eyes, while Karima has brown straight hair. Anyone who sees the pair or has information should call 101 quoting 01/421708/24. Actor and vocal Democrat George Clooney says the President Joe Biden America saw at the debate is the 'same man' he saw at a fundraiser in Los Angeles last month. While Democrats scramble to claim Biden, 81, just had a 'bad night,' insiders reveal that Biden is not the same man who was running for president in 2020. Clooney co-hosted swanky fundraiser with Biden in Los Angeles on June 16 just 11 days before the train wreck debate performance with Donald Trump where the president had to be guided off stage by former President Barack Obama. 'It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010,' the lifelong Democrat wrote in a New York Times op/ed. 'He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020.' 'He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,' Clooney admitted. The op/ed was a commanding call from Clooney for Biden to step-down as the party's candidate in November and allow someone else to lead the ticket. Lifelong Democrat George Clooney revealed what he thinks about President Joe Biden as he demanded in a scathing op/ed that he step aside from the 2024 race after his disastrous debate. Above is George Clooney, President Biden, Julia Roberts and Barack Obama at a June 16 fundraiser that raised $28 million Clooney co-hosted a fundraiser for Biden in Los Angeles last month where Obama had to Biden's arm a gentle tug and leading him off the stage after the president froze during the applause The Hollywood megastar, who has hosted many fundraisers, said the Biden can't win the 'battle against time' in a scathing op-ed for the New York Times on Wednesday morning. The actor also condemned Democratic party leaders for ignoring 'every warning sign' of Biden's declining physical and mental health and for trying to defend his car-crash performance against Donald Trump. 'Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn't see what we just saw,' Clooney wrote. He added that Democrat voters 'collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.' Clooney's LA fundraiser last month hosted along with Obama and actress Julia Roberts helped raise $28 million for Biden's reelection campaign. The event, however, was overshadowed with questions about the president's health after a video appeared to show Obama needing to grab Biden's arm and guide him off stage. In the video, Biden and Obama are seen waving and smiling while receiving a standing ovation in the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Biden applauds and gives the audience a thumbs up but then he stops moving as he stares out over the crowd for several long seconds. Obama, still smiling and waving at this point, took Biden by the wrist and gave him a gentle tug. That's when the president appears to snap out of it. They proceed to walk off the stage together with Obama speaking into Biden's ear as he pats him on the back as they go. The White House called the video a fake. Officials also noted the fundraiser took place the day after Biden returned from participating in the G7 summit in Italy. Clooney joins the scores of Democrats and Biden allies who have called for the president to step down in the two weeks since his meandering and mumbling showing on CNN. The actor hosted some of the biggest fundraisers in the party's history, including one last month for Biden's reelection. Biden has insisted he is not going anywhere and that he will still beat Trump in November, but Clooney's comments are an enormous blow to his embattled campaign. George Clooney visited the White House where he was honored by the President in 2022 'Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024,' the actor wrote in the op-ed. Clooney, who hosted a star-studded fundraiser for Biden in Los Angeles on June 16, said the person he saw there was the candidate the world saw at last week's presidential debate. 'I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he's won many of the battles he's faced,' Clooney wrote. Biden and Clooney have a long relationship, going back to Biden's day as chairman of the Senate Foreign Services Committee. Clooney was working on issues in Darfur and connected with him. The president has honored Clooney for his support, hosting him at the White House for the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2022. The actor has become a major force in the Democratic Party, raising millions for its candidates. He's seen as an influential voice in American politics. His dis-endorsement of Biden could also hurt the Democratic Party in the pocket book. Hollywood donors, with their deep pockets, were said to be furious with campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg after Biden's debate performance. The donors, like many Biden supporters, said they felt misled and betrayed about the president's health. Clooney argued it was more important to beat Donald Trump in November than to keep Biden on the ticket. 'Our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn't see what we just saw. We're all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we've opted to ignore every warning sign,' he wrote. Already some prominent Democrats are saying Clooney has a point. 'I am concerned.' Michael Douglas, a longtime Biden supporter, told ABC's The View. 'I think it's a valid point,' he said of Clooney's op-ed. Biden has been struggling to rally Democrats around his presidential bid as calls for him to exit the presidential race grow. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among those appearing to question Biden's decision to remain in the contest. 'It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short,' she said on Morning Joe on Wednesday. Some Democratic lawmakers have expressed their doubts about Biden's ability to beat Trump. Clooney said he's heard this concern from members of Congress he has spoken to, including worries the Democratic Party will lose the House and Senate. 'We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won't win the House, and we're going to lose the Senate. This isn't only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I've spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly,' he wrote. He argues a nominee should be picked at the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Chicago August 19th through August 22nd. And the actor suggested an array of candidates who could replace Biden and go on to win in November. 'Let's hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others,' he said, name checking several governors and the vice president. 'Let's agree that the candidates not attack one another but, in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar. Then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out,' he adds. Amal Clooney and George Clooney - Clooney was reportedly furious at the White House decision to question Amal's work on the war in Gaza Clooney met with then-President Barack Obama at the White House in 2010 to talk about the Sudan George Clooney with Bill Clinton at the White House Correspondents' dinner Biden has insisted he will stay in the race. He sent a letter to all Democratic lawmakers on Monday, announcing his decision. He's also reached out to party officials, donors and mayors as he tries to shore up his support with the party faithful. 'I want you to know that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,' Biden wrote to Democrats. Scots Tories have been warned any plan to split from the UK party would see an exodus of members and donors. MSP Murdo Fraser is considering standing in the forthcoming leadership contest with a renewed bid to split from the Conservative party south of the Border. But the proposal faced a growing backlash within the party yesterday amid concerns it will see support lost to rivals such as Nigel Farages Reform UK. Mr Fraser was also warned by a key financial backer from his unsuccessful 2011 leadership bid that the party is better together. Russell Findlay, who is the early favourite to become the next Scottish Tory leader, wrote in the Mail that the Conservatives can have a fresh start by setting out a positive case for a modern, popular conservatism. Scots Tory justice spokesman Russell Findlay is one of the early favourites for leader The Scottish Conservative party management board met last night to discuss the election campaign and the leadership contest. Former Tory MP and MSP Ross Thomson said: It is really tiresome that we are back to this again: bleating on about separating the party in Scotland, despite the whole idea being dismissed by the membership when Murdo stood for the leadership of the party. Quite simply, it is unacceptable to the members, they do not want it, and I think there is just a bit of arrogance to continue to advocate that idea that somehow the party is going to be more electable being separate. He said that the Scottish Tories can have a distinct identity but it is out of touch to think separation will boost election prospects. Mr Thomson added: Quite frankly, voters dont care what the structures of the Scottish Conservative party are. The Scottish Tories fell from six MPs to five in Scotland following last weeks election. The decline in seats and vote share was less severe than across the UK. Liz Smith, the Scottish Tory finance spokesman who backed Mr Frasers leadership bid in 2011, when he lost to Ruth Davidson, told the Daily Telegraph he probably will stand again and that a separate party has to be part of the mix. Murdo Fraser, left Jamie Greene and Maurice Golden and also thought to be likely candidates She said: There is a very strong case for a centre-right Conservative party in Scotland with its own principles and its own identity. A Tory source said: Splitting the party could be very risky with a Scottish parliament election less than two years away and Reform already trying to take centre-right votes. But Murdo has been planning The Caledonians, his proposal for a new party, for more than 14 years. He will presumably have a detailed plan on how to prevent our members, supporters and donors from going in different directions and avoid the Conservative party tearing itself apart. Care home entrepreneur Robert Kilgour, a key financial backer of Mr Frasers 2011 campaign, said: My immediate instinct these days, post-2011, is that we are better together. Douglas Ross announced his intention to resign as leader after a backlash over his decision to stand as candidate for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East instead of David Duguid, who was recovering from a spinal illness. Scottish Tory chairman Craig Hoy has not ruled out standing, while Maurice Golden has said he is weighing up whether to put his name forward. Former justice spokesman Jamie Greene is another potential candidate. A new voter ID bill aimed to keep illegal migrants from voting for President Biden in the 2024 election cleared the House, with the help of several Democrats. The SAVE Act would force election officials to verify citizenship of voters. It has the strong backing of Donald Trump who urged the House to pass it, or else 'go home and cry yourself to sleep.' Speaker Mike Johnson insisted legislation to make voters prove their citizenship could be one of the 'most important' bills to go through Congress in a lifetime. 'This will be one of the most important votes that members of this chamber will ever take in their entire careers,' he said on the House floor Wednesday. 'And it's an issue we never thought we would have to actually address, but that moment has come to us now,' he added. Interestingly, five Democrats helped get the bill across the finish line in the House 221-198. But it faces a certain death in the Democrat-controlled Senate and President Biden has also threatened to veto the legislation. Migrants walk through the Chihuahua Desert in Juarez, Mexico, on July 5, 2024 Speaker Mike Johnson, flanked by Rep. Chip Roy, insisted legislation to make voters prove their citizenship could be one of the 'most important' bills to go through Congress in a lifetime The speaker added: 'Should Americans and Americans alone determine the outcome of American elections? Or should we allow foreigners and illegal aliens to decide who sits in the White House and in the People's House and in the Senate?' The five Democrats who joined all Republicans in voting for the bill include Reps. Henry Cuellar, Texas, Don Davis, North Carolina, Jared Golden, Maine, Vicente Gonzalez Jr., Texas, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Washington. Most voting ballots require some kind of proof of identity to register to vote, such as a driver's license. Not all of those proofs of ID require citizenship - the bill would specifically require ID requirements like passports or birth certificates. A sampling from 2002 to 2022 of over 1 billion ballots found fewer than 100 cases of voter fraud. Democrat Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., said the bill is an 'overt effort' to 'make Americans believe elections are rife with faud,' calling it a 'scare tactic.' Johnson joined Trump world heavyweights Stephen Miller and Hogan Gidley and Rep. Chip Roy to get the legislation across the finish line in the House. The speaker previously couldn't disclose the exact number of non-citizens who have voted in elections, but had warned the number could be 'dangerously high.' 'We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it's not been something that is easily provable. We don't have that number. This legislation will allow us to do exactly that,' he said at a press event in May. Non-citizens who vote in federal and state elections are already breaking the law and putting themselves at risk of jail or deportation. A small handful of municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont allow illegal immigrants to vote in local elections. But federal law currently prohibits requiring documentary proof of citizenship in federal elections. Arizona requires it for state elections. A migrant walks through the Chihuahua Desert in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico 'We now have so many non citizens in the country that if only one out of a hundred of those voted, they would cast hundreds of thousands of votes,' Johnson told reporters. 'This is a dangerously high number' 'If a nefarious actor wants to intervene in our elections, all they have to do is check a box on a form and sign their name. That's it. That's all that's required,' Johnson said. Miller, the architect of Trump's immigration policy, called the bill the 'most important vote that most members of Congress take in their entire careers.' 'If this bill does not become law then Joe Biden and Democrats will have engineered, one of the greatest interferences in any democratic nation in the history of the world.' The bill would aim to close any loopholes that allow people to register to vote without proof of US citizenship or photo ID, require all 50 states to remove any unlawful immigrants from their voter rolls, add penalties of up to five years in prison for election officials who register non-citizens to vote and require proof of citizenship for those who vote overseas. Miller, the architect of Trump's immigration policy, called the bill the 'most important vote that most members of Congress take in their entire careers' There's little evidence that non-citizen voting is impacting election outcomes, and unlawful immigrants often steer clear of giving out personal information for fear or being caught by immigration authorities. It is possible to vote illegally as an undocumented immigrant, though. Two top universities have won the right to start eviction procedures against pro-Palestine protesters who set up encampments for weeks. Nottingham and Birmingham universities yesterday secured orders from the High Court which will allow them to kick out the activists. The summary possession orders mean that if the protesters do not leave, bosses can apply for them to be forcibly removed by bailiffs. Dozens of tents have been pitched at the two campuses for weeks, with students demanding universities cut any ties with Israel. Critics have said the encampments are disruptive to university life, and have created a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students. A student pro-Palestinian encampment at Birmingham University. Both Birmingham and Nottingham Universities have secured summary possession orders to remove the activists from their premises Muslim student Mariyah Ali, 20 called the legal action a 'censoring tactic' and said it amounted to discrimination against her beliefs A police vehicle outside the north gate of the University of Birmingham, which has previously threatened activists with legal action if they don't close their encampments Pro-Palestinian protestors wave flags while occupying part of Birmingham University. Critics of encampments say that the protests have created a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students on campuses The two universities each took separate legal action against the protesters in general, as well as two named activists. Muslim British-Pakistani student Mariyah Ali, 20, from Walsall, the only named defendant in the Birmingham case, said the legal action was a 'censoring tactic'.She also claimed it amounted to discrimination against the 'manifestation' of her religious and philosophical beliefs. Former student River Butterworth, 24, from Warwickshire, the sole named protester in the Nottingham legal challenge, argued it would be a 'disproportionate interference' with free speech and protest rights. However, lawyers for the universities accused protesters of trespassing on private land, bringing a risk of public disturbance, and causing disruption and financial loss. In two written rulings yesterday, Mr Justice Johnson granted the orders and concluded that protesters had 'no real prospect' of showing that the universities had breached their duties or that an order would be incompatible with their human rights. He said there were 'many other ways' activists could exercise their right to protest without occupying land, concluding that protesters were trespassing. Oliver Edwards, a solicitor for Hodge Jones & Allen, which represented Ms Ali, said: 'Naturally my client is disheartened by this judgment, but she remains committed to her cause. 'Protests at universities have a long tradition in democratic society and we maintain that the university is breaching our client's fundamental human rights.' He said the firm is considering appealing the judgement. The rulings follow London School of Economics securing a Central London County Court order indefinitely barring encampments in one of its buildings after students slept in its atrium for more than a month in support of Palestine. Queen Mary University of London has previously said it would take legal action to secure possession of its Mile End campus if protest encampments did not end. It comes after encampments were set up on campuses across the country, seemingly copying similar action at American universities. In May, former education secretary Gillian Keegan said there was 'always a fear' the protests could turn violent like those at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She said: 'What we don't want is our campuses becoming unsafe environments for students or staff and going down the route that you see in other places like the US...' There is always a contagion fear and obviously there are some groups that are encouraging this as well.' Tents set up by students in a pro-Palestinian camp at the University of Birmingham A cluster of tents set up at the Palestine encampment near the University of Birmingham A University of Birmingham spokesman said: 'The court's decision will help us to ensure that all of our diverse community can go about their business and use the entirety of the university's campus without feeling that there are parts of campus where they cannot go.' It said it respected students' and staff's right to protest 'within the law', adding: 'We will continue to uphold our strong commitment to free speech for the whole of the university community.' A University of Nottingham spokesman said: 'The University of Nottingham upholds freedom of speech and our priority is, and always will be, to ensure that opportunities to engage in debate or protest are safe, inclusive, dignified, respectful and responsible. 'The order from the court will allow us to ensure that we can take action should the need arise to protect the health and safety of our university community on campus and to minimise disruption to students and staff accessing the teaching, learning and research spaces they require.' The morning after Australians voted No to the Voice, constitutional lawyer Megan Davis did not get out of bed. Like so many other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Professor Davis said she did not want to leave her house or read the news following October's referendum result. Prof Davis has been campaigning for constitutional recognition for First Nations people for decades and advocated for the Voice to Parliament in the lead-up to the referendum. Eight months after the vote, the Cobble Cobble woman said she felt she could now speak about the referendum. 'It's been eight months and our leaders by and large have withdrawn from media and political engagement,' she said. 'As one of the leaders of that campaign, I've had a lot of time to think about the referendum and yarn about it and I feel in a better place to speak something about it.' Delivering the University of Queensland's annual NAIDOC lecture on Wednesday, Prof Davis said while the hurt from the referendum would not heal quickly, Indigenous people would not give up. 'Our people have endured far worse and we are not giving up,' she said. 'The no doesn't mean a legislative voice is off the table,' Megan Davis says of the voice referendum. She is pictured with Anthony Albanese when the voice referendum was announced 'We turn every no into a yes.' Prof Davis continues to campaign for the Uluru Statement of the Heart, which asks for a voice in the constitution, treaty, and a truth-telling process. 'They didn't vote no to truth-telling, they did not vote no to agreement-making,' she said. 'The no doesn't mean a legislative voice is off the table and the no is not a no to constitutional recognition.' Reflecting on the referendum campaign, Prof Davis said a 'cocktail' of racism, politicisation of the Voice, disinformation, poor understanding of the Australian constitution and fear of change led to the 'yes' vote's defeat. 'Obscuring everything in the referendum last year is one thing the nation won't talk about and that is the thick cloud of misinformation and disinformation,' she said. 'Throughout the campaign, lies spread from both ends of the political spectrum, politicians and opportunistic zealots got involved and they coloured the national conversation in a way that was divisive.' Heartened by the strength of young Indigenous people and the 6.2million people who voted 'yes' in the referendum, Prof Davis said the future had the potential to be bright if all Australians worked together. 'It's not about right and left, it's about right and left foot - getting out of bed again and putting one foot in front of the other and walking alongside all Australians in a movement of the Australian people for a better future,' she said. Freezing air from Antarctica will create a frosty weekend across Australia and the icy air is expected to linger into next week. The five-day cold snap will start along the east coast in NSW and Victoria before eventually making its way to Queensland on Saturday. The Bureau of Meteorology has warned temperatures will be as much as eight degrees below average for this time of year. Forecasters say the arrival of a strong high-pressure system in the Tasman Sea will trap the freezing air across the southeast until well into next week. 'The frigid air will be dragged from Antarctica by a cold front sweeping across the continent this weekend,' Weatherzone said. 'A high-pressure system will quickly follow in the front's path and remain over southern Australia until at least mid-next week, prolonging this cold outbreak.' However, in good news for Sydneysiders an 11-day rain streak ended on Tuesday with a total of 58.6mm of rain recorded so far in July. It fell just short of the record 14 straight days of rain in May, with six days receiving 20mm or more. Freezing cold air from Antarctica will see Aussies shiver through a frosty weekend with a polar blast to bring icy winds and frigid temperatures (pictured, people brave the cold in Sydney) On Tuesday and Wednesday, Sydney was treated to clear blue skies and relatively mild temperatures of 19C and 18C respectively. However, the arrival of Antarctic air will see temperatures plummet on Friday. Snow is tipped to fall across areas including NSW's Southern, Central and Northern Tablelands, the Blue Mountains, elevated parts of the ACT, Tasmania and the Victorian Alps and even the Granite Belt in Queensland's south. Sydney A shower or two is expected on Friday, however the rain will not be as heavy or frequent as it has been in July to date, Weatherzone said. Sydney so far this year has seen four rainy streaks of five days or longer. There was 14 days of rain from May 1-14, 11 days from June 30 to July 9, five days from January 14 to to 18 and five days from March 15 to 19. Five out of six months in 2024 have exceeded the monthly average with June being the rainiest month so far this year with 368.4mm of rain falling. This was almost triple the long-term average of 131.7mm. Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Dean Narramore said Sydney could be in for a 'prolonged break' from the wet weather. 'Sunshine is finally returning not just to Sydney but the whole east coast,' he said. '(The showers are) all gone now, the low that brought that weather has now moved off to Tasmania.' Meanwhile, the NSW Central Tablelands are expected to see snow flurries at higher levels around 12,000m as early as Sunday or Monday. Millions of Australia's in the southeast will shiver through a fresh cold snap this weekend Melbourne Victoria is in for a wet weekend, and showers are forecast for the rest of the week. Temperatures will struggle to climb over 15C on Friday, with lows of just 5C. Meanwhile, snow is expected to fall over elevated areas outside the Victorian Alps with the arrival of a prolonged outbreak of freezing air from Antarctica. Brisbane The state's southeast will receive showers and the possibility of storms on Thursday before a cool and dry weekend. Temperatures will remain below 24C with lows of 10C over the next few days before falling to just 8C next week with maximum temperatures in the low 20s. The cold snap comes after a thick blanket of fog developed over southeast Queensland Tuesday evening, with visibility at Brisbane Airport reduced to less than 200m on Wednesday morning. Canberra Temperatures will plummet in the nation's capital over the next few days with days to remain cloudy and cold as air is trapped by a low-pressure system. Elevated parts of the ACT, including relatively low hills on the fringe of Canberra and perhaps even parts of the city itself, could see some snow over the next few days. A prolonged outbreak of frigid air with Antarctic origins will cause temperatures to plummet (pictured is a Weatherzone map) Perth Cold fronts moving through Western Australia are bringing widespread rain and showers with the potential for thunderstorms. Temperatures will struggle to get over 20C in Perth with Saturday to receive some winter sun after a string of cloudy days. Adelaide Adelaide will receive some very cold conditions from Saturday amid an extended burst of cold air from Antarctica spreading across the southeast. A high-pressure system is expected to follow and linger over southern parts of the country for the next five days, prolonging the cold weather. Rain is also expected to fall over Adelaide for the next few days with maximum temperatures of 16C and lows of just 8C. Hobart Tasmanians will shiver through yet another cold weekend as a low-pressure system moves from the east coast further down the country. Like Victoria and SA, Tasmania will receive cold gusty wind and rain. Temperatures in Hobart are expected to get as low as 3C on Sunday. Darwin Further north in the Northern Territory, conditions are fine and sunny. Temperatures will linger between 19C and 33C for the rest of the week. Families are 'desperately' downsizing so they can afford to keep children in private schools as Labour's tax raid looms, a leading estate agency boss has said. Dominic Agace, chief executive of Winkworth, said the plan to levy VAT on school fees was weighing on parts of the property market as families try to save money. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said during the election campaign that Labour would slap the 20 per cent charge on independent schools within weeks of coming to power. The aim is to raise 1.5billion a year to recruit 6,500 specialist teachers in state schools and fund mental health support in every school. The tax will not be retrospective and it is expected to be introduced at the start of the new school year in September 2025. It is estimated that the policy will push tens of thousands of pupils into the state sector. Families are downsizing in order to afford Labour's school fee increase, a leading estate agent has said It is expected Labour will levy VAT on private school fees from the start of the school year in September 2025 Speaking about the frustrations of parents, Mr Agace said: 'If their child's in a school, they obviously desperately want to keep them in that school and will try to adjust accordingly.' Winkworth also revealed that, at the very top end of the property market, uncertainty over rules on non-dom tax status was hitting demand in 'golden' London areas, such as Kensington. Mr Agace added that uncertainty was affecting the market in London, the South East and South West, with more properties becoming available amid signs of downsizing. Parents are 'potentially looking at increased costs on education and releasing funds to cover that', he explained. 'That's affected the top end in zones two and three [in London], but actually, in the country markets, it's the higher end which is weaker.' This is compounded by higher mortgage rates taking their toll, Mr Agace said. Despite the election, the market has remained strong overall, he said, given Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's 'centrist' stance. 'But this taxation on schools issue that is having an impact, but it's probably only just started,' he added. Meanwhile, the departure of some pupils from fee-paying education could push up demand for properties near the best state schools. The CEO of Winkworth Dominic Agace added that uncertainty was affecting the market in London, the South East and South West The estate agent added that Starmer's plan to scrap the non-dom tax status was also hitting the top-end property market 'You might see people starting to push the competition to get into the right catchment areas. There's always been a premium to that, but I think you'll see that grow,' Mr Agace suggested. His comments came as Winkworth revealed the election 'appears to have had a less dramatic impact on the market' than previously, 'except for on the demand for high-end properties'. It said that 'a combination of the Conservative Party's removal of non-domiciled status, the Labour Party's stated intention of adding VAT to private school fees, and the higher cost of finance has weighed on this sector'. Foreigners who hold non-dom status pay tax on money earned in Britain, but not elsewhere. Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt earlier this year announced the scrapping of the status, which will take effect from April 2025. A Democratic senator admitted to DailyMail.com that Democrats are 'nervous' about President Biden negatively impacting down ballot races if he remains at the top of the ticket, as his party grapples with doubts about his health and ability to beat Donald Trump. After President Joe Biden's awful debate performance nearly two weeks ago, speculation about replacing him as the Democratic presidential candidate began - and it hasn't slowed. Some Democrat lawmakers have splintered off, saying they don't believe Biden is the best the party has to beat former President Donald Trump. So far at least nine House Democrats have publicly called on Biden to withdraw from the race, but there have yet to be any defectors in the Senate, at least not yet. In an exclusive video from Tuesday obtained by DailyMail.com, Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown openly admitted to donors that there's 'nervousness' among his colleagues about the upcoming election. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said there is 'nervousness' in the party about the 'national ticket' Brown of Ohio was discussing how down ballot Democrats will fare come November with Biden at the top. He stated that despite how many Democrat candidates are 'running ahead of the national ticket,' according to the recording of a fundraising zoom, it is worrisome to have Biden as the leader. The zoom, hosted by San Francisco-based consultant Jon Foster, sought to raise money for several Senate Democrat campaigns. The invite indicated money would go to the races of Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Colin Allred of Texas, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in Florida, Elissa Slotkin in Michigan and Ruben Gallego of Arizona. 'I've watched all five of these races, one had a particularly tough primary but all five of these candidates have shown great skill and know how to win their races,' Brown said on the zoom call. 'I like people that when they run for the Senate know how to win and when we've had really good years like this is going to be, I see that.' Then he mentioned the ongoing conversations in Washington, D.C., casting doubt on Biden's ability to win, which have been ongoing all week. 'So I know that there's some there's some there's some nervousness now,' Brown said. 'But I look at all of these candidates who are running ahead of the national ticket, all of them, as all the five targeted incumbents are. I know that when we won in 2020 and took the Senate after Ossoff and Warnock, the first Jewish, the first black senators from Georgia ever won, we were ready and we accomplished great things.' President Joe Biden durng the welcome ceremony of the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday Rep. Mark Takano, D-Cali., (second from right) keeps a straight face while ignoring reporter questions after the crucial meeting The odd stumbling over the party's current standing with their presumed nominee highlights Washington Democrat's current struggle to identify whether the president will shepherd the party to victory in November or implode their chances of beating Trump and maintaining control in Congress. 'I've talked to people across Ohio. They have legitimate questions about whether the president should continue,' Brown said Wednesday. He has dodged questions about whether Biden should withdraw as the party leader. Tuesday after a Senate Democrat meeting it was reported that multiple lawmakers were hesitant about Biden's chances against Trump. Brown and Sens. Michael Bennett of Colorado and Jon Tester of Montana expressed privately in the meeting to their colleagues they don't believe the president can beat the former president. But how Democrat lawmakers go about dealing with their Biden dilemma is yet to be seen. July 9, 2024: The numerous tank battles in Ukraine alarmed the Italian army because their current tank force consisted of 200 53-ton Ariete tanks delivered between 1995 and 2002. Lack of maintenance and upgrades meant only 50 of these tanks were operational when the Ukraine War began. The Italians were reminded that NATO membership required Italy to have at least 250 operational tanks. Now the army has the cash to upgrade 90 of its Arietes at a cost of $10 million each. If that upgrade works as expected, there is an option to upgrade 35 more. The Italian manufacturer of Ariete is no longer able to manufacture more Arietes at an affordable price. A German firm can supply 133 new Leopard 2A8 tanks at an affordable price and that is the option the Italian army wants money for so Italy can meet their NATO commitment for an adequate tank force consisting of at least 250 tanks. Italian firms would produce some of the Leopard 2 components for the Leopard 2s purchased by Italy. This form of co-production is common for an expensive, at about $15 million per vehicle, new tank like the Leopard 2A8. Earlier models cost half as much but had far fewer capabilities. Longer term, Italy could accept the new German Panther tank. This is a 59 ton vehicle armed with a new 130mm main gun with twenty 130mm rounds on board. Secondary armament consists of a 12.7mm (.50 caliber) machine-gun mounted next (coaxially) to the 130mm gun. If the gunner spots a target that does not require a 130mm shell, the coaxial machine-gun can be used instead. Another 7.62mm machine-gun is mounted on top of the turret as part of an RWS (Remote Weapons System) and can be operated from inside the tank. There is also an APS (Active Protection System) to deal with anti-tank missiles and rockets. Panther uses a unique armor system that consists of three layers. The inner layer is a relatively thin armor plate, the next layer is reactive armor and the outside layer is the APS system. This type of armor protection keeps the overall weight of the Panther down to 59 tons, a weight most bridges can handle. The 71 ton American M1 tank cannot use many bridges because of its weight. Panther also has day/night video cameras mounted on the outside of the tank so the crew can always see what is outside the tank without someone sticking their head and shoulders out of the top turret hatch. Crew size is three or four depending on the actual workload for the crew. Speed and road range on one load of fuel is apparently similar to that of the Leopard 2. Panther uses the same hull as Leopard 2 but with an updated turret. Currently there are only prototypes of the Panther, some using the 120mm main gun. Mass production is expected to begin in 2025 for customers like Italy, Germany, Hungary, plus any others who have not yet placed orders. Production of Panther is expected to be similar to that of the Leopard 2, which has had 3,600 built since production began in 1979. Leopard 2 is used by Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Poland, Canada, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey, Singapore, Chile, Qatar and now Ukraine, which has received 50 so far with several hundred more on the way. Leopard 2s encountered an intense combat environment in Ukraine, featuring the new FPV (First Person View) attack UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) or drones. The Leopard 2s did as well as other tanks, like the Americans M1 and Ukrainian T-72s they had since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Ukraine was where the Soviet Union stored a lot of its armored vehicles and Ukraine inherited hundreds of tanks. Before the Russian invasion Ukrainian firms did a good business in upgrading and exporting T-72s. Since the invasion those T-72s have been used against the Russians. Soaring numbers of those out of work is holding Britain's growth back, the Work and Pensions Secretary will declare today. Liz Kendall, speaking for the first time in her new role, will vow to bring down the 'unacceptable' figure of 2.8million people who are jobless due to long-term sickness. Her Back to Work plan first announced in March involves bringing together the NHS with JobCentres and devolving employment support to local areas. More than 9million (9.4million) people are now economically inactive meaning they are not actively looking for work, or are unavailable to start a job. She will also refer to the 900,000 young people one in eight currently not in education, employment or training and promise a 'youth guarantee' for those aged 18-21. Liz Kendall, speaking for the first time in her new role, will vow to bring down the 'unacceptable' figure of 2.8million people who are jobless due to long-term sickness Her Back to Work plan first announced in March involves bringing together the NHS with JobCentres and devolving employment support to local areas More than 9million (9.4million) people are now economically inactive meaning they are not actively looking for work, or are unavailable to start a job But last night the Tories warned that the welfare bill will spiral under a Labour government by more than 20billion a year by the end of the decade unless they slash benefits. The Work and Pensions Secretary will also point to the importance of working with local leaders to tailor the reforms during a visit to Leeds with West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin today. Ms Kendall will say: 'Growth is our number one mission and, as the Chancellor said, our Back to Work Plan is central to achieving our plans. 'Economic inactivity is holding Britain back it's bad for people, it's bad for businesses, and it's bad for growth. 'It's not good enough that the UK is the only G7 country with employment not back to pre-pandemic levels.' The former party leadership hopeful will announce plans to prevent 18-21 year olds from falling out of the workforce through investment in training and apprenticeships. She has previously said there will be 'no option of a life on benefits' for young people under a Labour government. Reforms include merging JobCentre Plus and the National Careers Service, and supporting disabled people to enter and stay in work (stock image) Ms Kendall (pictured on Tuesday outside No 10) will say: 'Economic inactivity is holding Britain back it's bad for people, it's bad for businesses, and it's bad for growth' Other reforms including merging JobCentre Plus and the National Careers Service, and supporting disabled people to enter and stay in work. 'It is time for change in every corner of the country,' she added. 'We'll create more good jobs, make work pay, transform skills, and overhaul JobCentres, alongside action to tackle the root causes of worklessness including poor physical and mental health. 'Change delivered by local areas for local people, driving growth and delivering opportunity and prosperity to everyone, wherever they live.' Overall, Labour will target an increase in the employment rate from 75 per cent to 80 per cent, which would be the highest in the G7 and mean over two million more people would enter the workforce across the UK. A Conservative Party spokesman said: 'Unless action is taken, the working-age welfare bill will rise by more than 20billion a year by the end of the decade. 'The Labour Party refused to match our measures to save billions of pounds from the welfare bill by the end of the next parliament. They must wake up to the fact that their approach on welfare will come at huge cost to the taxpayer.' Keir Starmer has warned that the number of migrants arriving in small boats is likely to increase in the near future. The Prime Minister said his plan to 'smash' the people-smuggling gangs would eventually 'stop those crossings' but admitted it could take years. He refused to guarantee the boats will have been stopped by the next election. Speaking to reporters on a trip to Washington DC, the Prime Minister said: 'Nobody but nobody should be making these crossings. The numbers are going up, not down. That is why we want to smash the gangs to stop those crossings. 'What I'm not going to do is pick an arbitrary date, an arbitrary number because that hasn't worked in the past. But I do want to be clear that my intention is to break down the gangs that are running this vile trade putting people into boats on the coast of France.' Keir Starmer (pictured today) has warned that the number of migrants arriving in small boats is likely to increase in the near future The PM has promised to to smash the gangs to stop the illegal crossings (stock photo) Already in Sir Keir's short time as PM, 484 migrants have reached Britain via the Channel 419 in six small boats on Tuesday and 65 in a single boat on Monday, according to the Home Office. Sir Keir scrapped the last government's Rwanda scheme within 48 hours of coming to office, despite warnings it would remove a possible deterrent. The PM has also indicated that tens of thousands of migrants barred from claiming asylum by the last government could now be allowed to stay. But yesterday he insisted that his plan to use a new Border Security Command to tackle the people-smuggling gangs would bear fruit. 'I have always said the previous government's Rwanda policy was a gimmick, it wouldn't be a deterrent,' he said. Already in Sir Keir's short time as PM, 484 migrants have reached Britain via the Channel 419 in six small boats on Tuesday and 65 in a single boat on Monday, according to the Home Office (stock image) Sir Keir scrapped the last government's Rwanda scheme within 48 hours of coming to office, despite warnings it would remove a possible deterrent. Pictured: Migrants disperse amid tear gas launched by French police on April 26, 2024 Sir Keir said the command would have a 'rich mix of security and intelligence, alongside prosecutors, alongside law enforcement'. He added: 'And we will get on with the recruitment and setting up that command at speed.' Shadow home secretary James Cleverly said: 'Without any deterrent, we can sadly only expect to see more [arrivals] in future.' Aviation experts have revealed the pivotal factors that led JFK Jr., his wife and her sister to fatally crash into the Atlantic Ocean. The late president's beloved son, 38 at the time, smashed his small Piper Saratoga plane into the ocean around seven miles from Martha's Vineyard in 1999, on his way to his cousin's wedding with the pair. Some have said that JFK Jr. was reckless when he decided to fly his wife Carolyn, 33, and her sister Lauren, 34, as he had supposedly not banked enough hours of practice to fly alone and regularly broke aviation rules. Aviation expert Jeff Guzzetti, who was part of the team that examined the wreckage, told PEOPLE that this may have played a role in Kennedy losing control of the aircraft, as he was forced to rely only on internal monitors and controls while flying through hazy night skies. 'He was trained to look outside to get his visual cues,' he said. 'There were no visual cues.' Carolyn and JFK Jr tragically died in July 1999 in a horror plane crash around seven miles from Martha's Vineyard JFK Jr. (pictured checking his plane, October 1998) lost his bearings over the Atlantic Ocean due to poor visibility and was not trained enough when he crash landed, an aviation expert said New details of the fatal flight have been revealed in the new book JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography, which includes perspectives from those involved in the notorious incident. Kennedy's plan on the day of the flight on July 16, 1999, was to fly with his wife and sister-in-law to Martha's Vineyard to drop Lauren off, before continuing with Carolyn to Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. He was planning to attend his cousin Rory Kennedy's wedding that weekend with his wife, although Carolyn had to be begged to go as her marriage to the former president's son was on the rocks. According to DailyMail.com columnist Maureen Callahan's new book 'Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed', Carolyn told friends and family she 'didn't trust' his flying skills. In an attempt to put on a strong marital front, she agreed to attend the wedding despite her reservations, which turned out to be a deadly mistake. Carolyn, with actress Jennifer Aniston at a New York City event, January 1990, reluctantly agreed to go on the fatal flight JFK Jr was among the most famous men in America when he crashed JFK Jr in the cockpit of his small aircraft with Carolyn John had only recently began flying the Piper Saratoga, which was a far more powerful and difficult jet than the one he was used to flying, a Cessna. He was still in the middle of training on the instruments, and was not cleared to fly based solely on cockpit controls when faced with bad weather or low visibility. After taking off from Caldwell Airport in New Jersey, John followed the Connecticut and Rhode Island coastlines until he reached the point to turn towards Martha's Vineyard, at which point he turned into the blank skies over the Atlantic Ocean. Guzzetti, who was an NTSB investigator on the crash who now owns Guzzetti Aviation Risk Discovery, told PEOPLE that the turn towards Martha's Vineyard changed Kennedy's visibility dramatically. 'As soon as he turned out to the black ocean with three to five miles of visibility in haze, it might as well be instrument flight rules (IFR) meaning you must scan your instruments and that tells you whether your wings are level or if you are climbing or descending,' Guzzetti said. 'He was trained to look outside to get his visual cues. There were no visual cues.' July 17, 1999: A coast guard helicopter lifts a rescue swimmer from the water during the search for debris of JFK Jr's plane Wreckage of JFK Jr's plane is lifted from the water In his final moments, Guzzetti said Kennedy's plane path was indicative of 'spatial disorientation', meaning he lost his bearings after relying only on cockpit controls due to the poor visibility. 'His flight path into the water is consistent with what is known as a graveyard spiral,' Guzzetti continued. 'The airplane makes a spiral nose down... kind of like going down a drain. The plane went into one final turn and it stayed in that turn pretty much all the way down to the ocean.' The aviation expert concluded that although those inside the plane were minutes from death, he believes the disorientation meant they were likely unlikely to know what was about to happen. 'In my personal opinion, I dont think the passengers knew what was happening to them,' Guzzetti said. 'They might have felt a little G-force pushing them down in their seats. You wouldve heard the rush of air over the fuselage accelerate or get louder, during the final fatal plunge... And then they hit the surface of the water and its over. 'I would expect that the pilot would be very confused and perhaps a little frightened because the instruments may have not been matching up with how he was feeling... The impact forces were tremendous.' He said in the end, the story of JFK Jr.'s demise is 'a cautionary tale for any private pilot to understand your own personal limitations.' A car which hurtled into a New York nail salon killing four people inside was literally airborne in the seconds before the crash, shocking new security footage reveals. Newlywed NYPD police officer Emilia Rannhack, 30, and three salon staff died when Steven Schwally, 64, smashed through the doors of Hawaii Nail and Spa in Long Island at high speed on June 28. He reportedly told police he had drunk 18 beers the night before, and has been charged with DWI. But the salon, which posted its neighbor's footage, has urged prosecutors to upgrade the charges. 'How unfair is this?' it demanded in its Instagram post. 'We hope that the law can severely punish the murderer, and he must pay for what he has done.' Off-duty NYPD officer Emilia Rennhack, 30, was killed during Friday's crash The security footage caught the split-second the car slammed into the salon, narrowly missing a pedestrian and killing four people inside Salon co-owner, Jiancai Chen, 37, died alongside two of his employees Meizi Zhang, 50, and Yan Xu, 41, while a 12-year-old girl was among ten other people injured. Chen's wife, Wen Jun, remains in hospital in a critical condition, and $72,000 has been raised so far by a Gofundme appeal set up to help their two children aged 10 and five. The video appears to show no deceleration at all as Schwally's 2020 Chevy Traverse barrels down the road opposite and into the car lot before hitting the salon. The sound of screams can be heard from the salon and customers from the neighboring business can be seen running out of their store to see what had happened. Prosecutors described the crash as having occurred with the driver having 'accelerated at a high rate of speed', and that Schwally allegedly: 'Drove in the opposite lane of travel, nearly striking pedestrians. 'He continued through the intersection, went airborne' as he slammed into the packed nail salon.' The car was only brought to a halt by the back of the building after destroying everything in its path. This is not Schwally's first time being charged with driving while intoxicated, Newsday reports. Driver Steven Schwally was taken to hospital after the crash but appeared at First District Court in Central Islip, New York York on July 1. He is due back in court on July 19 Jiancai Chen, owner of the Hawaii Nail & Spa salon in Deer Park was also killed in the crash An employee at the salon, Yan Xu, 41, also lost her life in the tragic crash Back in April 2014, he pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and had his license suspended. Schwally's brother Edward also claims he has had more than one prior DUI, recounting how he once drove his brother to probation after he refused to take a breathalyzer in 2010 or 2011. 'It's like my worst nightmare come true,' the brother told The Post. 'I feel terrible about innocent people getting hurt. He also admitted his brother had a habit of 'bad mouthing everyone'. 'He could be vicious at times,' he added. 'I mean I feel terrible for him that it ended up happening. There's nothing I can really do for him. It's out of everybody's hands. It's in the hands of the courts. 'He is not going to see the light of day. He's finished. There is no way to get out of that.' The nail bar's clients have reacted with horror to the graphic footage with some demanding the driver receive a life sentence. 'I'm terribly sorry for all you have had to endure,' wrote Christopher Steven. 'Hang in there nail salon ladies. Justice will be done.' 'Omg this is insane. They had no chance,' wrote Jenny Lynne. Schwally appeared in court sitting in a wheelchair and wearing hospital clothes 'The sounds of the people screaming from inside is gut wrenching. My god,' added another. Rennhack, a six-year veteran of the NYPD had been married to a fellow New York cop for less than a year and was getting her nails done for a colleague's wedding later that day. 'My daughter-in-law was a wonderful woman,' her mother-in-law Holy Rennhack said. 'She was beautiful. She was very kind. She was very compassionate. She was very special.' Schwally appeared in court on July 1 were he was remanded in custody on a $1 million bond. He is due back in court on July 19. The Prime Minister was under fire last night for refusing to say when he will provide the armed forces with a cash boost as a Labour split emerged over spending. Senior defence figures criticised his refusal to provide a timetable for replenishing weapons stocks and growing the Army, while a veteran Labour backbencher warned more cash risked 'escalating war'. Sir Keir Starmer is in Washington DC to meet US President Joe Biden and attend a Nato summit, but the row last night threatened to overshadow his first overseas engagement as Prime Minister. Britain currently spends 2.3 per cent of GDP on defence. The previous Conservative government pledged to hit 2.5 per cent by 2030 but Labour has repeatedly refused to say when it will reach that target. The Government is poised to commission a strategic defence review to assess where additional funds will be directed, which it says it will aim to complete in less than a year. Only after that will the new Government be able to set out a 'roadmap' to increasing spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. Sir Keir Starmer is in Washington DC to meet US President Joe Biden and attend a Nato summit, but the row last night threatened to overshadow his first overseas engagement as Prime Minister The Government is poised to commission a strategic defence review to assess where additional funds will be directed, which it says it will aim to complete in less than a year (stock image) No 10 yesterday slapped down armed forces minister Luke Pollard (pictured) after he suggested defence spending would increase only if the Government is able to boost economic growth Other Nato countries such as Poland and the US are already spending almost double that. No 10 yesterday slapped down armed forces minister Luke Pollard after he suggested defence spending would increase only if the Government is able to boost economic growth. Mr Pollard told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'If we don't grow the economy there won't be the money to support those public services and the ambitions we have, and that includes defence.' But a senior Downing Street official said: 'Commitment to defence is absolute and we are confident that we will get growth in the economy. I don't accept that we have to wait for growth to get to the other.' Sir Keir said he wanted the strategic defence review to report within a year but would not commit to hitting the 2.5 per cent defence spending target by the time of the next election. He told reporters travelling with him to Washington: 'We are committed to the 2.5 per cent. That is obviously subject to our fiscal rules, but the commitment is there.' Last night former Conservative armed forces minister James Heappey said: 'The armed forces cannot wait any longer. My message to the Prime Minister is to get on with it and start finding the money.' He added the 2.5 per cent rise 'achieves nothing more than bringing the Ministry of Defence's budget into balance'. Your browser does not support iframes. Nato leaders have a 'family photo' at the Andrew W Mellon Auditorium in Washington last night President Joe Biden speaks at the 75th anniversary of Nato in Washington DC last night Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks on the sideline of Nato summit in Washington last night Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove (pictured) said defence spending needed to be at 3 per cent of GDP to meet threats from Russia, China and their allies Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove said defence spending needed to be at 3 per cent of GDP to meet threats from Russia, China and their allies. He told Times Radio: 'There is an urgency, a major problem. We have a major war on the European continent, and it is not just that war, it is the wider dimensions such as Chinese support for Russia, and the support of Iran and North Korea. 'People might not accept this from me but [defence spending] is much more important than the National Health Service.' But Labour MP Diane Abbott, writing on X yesterday, said: 'The pressure should be resisted. We need to prioritise new spending on the NHS, housing, education and decent welfare support, not escalating war.' Defence Secretary John Healey said yesterday another reason for more defence spending was that the UK could soon be expected to play a bigger role in European security as the US was expected to prioritise the Indo-Pacific region in future. Republicans on Wednesday subpoenaed three senior White House aides demanding that they answer questions about President Joe Biden's health and fitness for office. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee want to grill Biden's top aide Anthony Bernal, deputy chief of staff, Annie Tomasini, and senior adviser Ashley Williams. The committee had previously tried to question the three as part of a probe into Biden's mishandling of classified documents, a move blocked by the White House. 'The White House has shielded three key aides from testifying about President Bidens mishandling of classified documents and now weve learned through reporting these same aides are also seeking to cover up President Bidens declining cognitive state inside the White House,' said committee chairman Rep. James Comer. 'President Biden is clearly unfit for office, yet his staff are trying to hide the truth from the American people. Key White House staff must come before our committee so we can provide the transparency and accountability that Americans deserve.' Republicans on Wednesday subpoenaed three senior White House aides demanding that they answer questions about President Joe Biden 's health and fitness for office. They included Anthony Bernal, deputy chief of staff, and senior adviser Ashley Williams The three maintain a low-profile but are among the Bidens' closest aides. Two have access to their official residence and often accompany them to their Delaware homes. In the meantime Biden is fighting for his political life as a growing chorus of Democrats calls on him not to seek reelection. The subpoenas will keep pressure on the president although it is unusual for committees to resort to legal arm twisting before offering a voluntary invitation to testify. 'Like everything Congressman Comer has done over the past year, these subpoenas are a baseless political stunt intended for him to get media attention instead of engage in legitimate oversight,' said Ian Sams, a White House spokesman. 'His partisan attacks on the president have been discredited, and now he continues to debase the House by weaponizing subpoenas to get headlines instead of seeking information through the proper constitutional process.' Comer lead an impeachment inquiry into Biden that included interviewing members of his family. But it led nowhere and Democrats accused him of leading a fishing expedition. In the meantime, Biden is locked in a battle for survival. Hollywood star George Clooney, a friend of former President Barack Obama, was the latest high-profile figure to call for Biden to step aside. He is under intense scrutiny after a bumbling debate performance against Donald Trump sent shockwaves through his party. The third aide, Annie Tomasini, is seen here with President Joe Biden in 2022 Although he swept to an easy victory in the Democratic nomination race, there is deep unease about his fitness to win reelection in November. It takes presidential politics into uncharted territory, with the White House press secretary forced to deny he is suffering from Parkinson's disease or hydrocephaly. On Tuesday evening Karine Jean-Pierre was forced to admit she had misled reporters, when she initially said a meeting between a leading neurologist and the president's personal physician was not related to Biden's health. It was the second time she had had to issue a clarification in a matter of days, heightening the sense of crisis. Comer asked the aides to respond to the subpoenas by July 17 and that they sit for interviews later this month. Despite all the recent changing of the guard at Downing Street, one thing remains constant. Larry, the Downing Street cat, has now set the record for being the first chief mouser to serve under six prime ministers. Sir Keir Starmer is the white and tabby cat's sixth housemate, beating Peter III who was appointed in 1947 after Peter II was hit by a car in Whitehall, and lived until 1964. The 17-year-old cat, who bears the official title chief mouser to the Cabinet Office, will have some competition, however, from the Prime Minister's rescue cat JoJo. Larry has been at the heart of British power since 2011 when, under then-prime minister David Cameron, he was adopted from the nearby Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. Larry, the Downing Street cat, has now set the record for being the first chief mouser to serve under six prime ministers Sir Keir Starmer is the white and tabby cat's sixth housemate, beating Peter III who was appointed in 1947 after Peter II was hit by a car in Whitehall, and lived until 1964 Larry has been at the heart of British power since 2011 when, under then-prime minister David Cameron , he was adopted from the nearby Battersea Dogs and Cats Home The government describes his role as 'inspecting security defences and testing antique furniture for napping quality' alongside 'contemplating a solution to the mouse occupancy of the house'. He served under prime ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak before Sir Keir took up residence on Friday. The former stray cat has gained a reputation for warning off rivals, famously taking on and chasing away a huge fox in 2022. Whether he will accept JoJo remains in doubt as his relationships with other cats have also been testy over the years. He maintained a four-year feud with his former nemesis the Foreign Office's chief mouser Palmerston, who retired from his post in 2020. In 2012, police also had to break up a fight between Larry and ex-chancellor George Osborne's cat Freya. Sir Keir has repeatedly spoken of his fondness for his own cat JoJo, who is also a rescue, telling BBC Derby: 'We've got a cat called JoJo, revered by the kids. His relationships with other cats has also been testy - maintaining a four-year feud with his former nemesis, the Foreign Office's Chief Mouser Palmerston, who retired from his post in 2020. Pictured: Larry and Palmerston scrap in 2019 Larry's previous battles with Palmerston repeatedly garnered media attention. Pictured: Palmerston in 2019 British domestic tabby Larry was born as a stray in 2007 and was adopted by Downing Street staff from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in 2011 He is the first cat to be bestowed with the official title Chief Mouser, with the government describing his role as 'inspecting security defences and testing antique furniture for napping quality' alongside 'contemplating a solution to the mouse occupancy of the house' 'JoJo was a cat we got from a rescue centre. JoJo is treated with far more respect in our household than I am. 'When I walk through the door I have to put the baggage of being leader of the Labour Party down, I'm Dad and I'm fair game for the kids to ridicule me, laugh at me. 'But JoJo, on the other hand, if JoJo wants food, or a seat on the settee, or to sit on the kid's bed he's got pride of place.' Peter III slept in a Cabinet Office in-tray on a mattress made from copies of The Times but voters protested that he was being starved after his 'salary', or food budget, was published. The Times reported that one received a reply saying that the mice he was employed to catch were not 'perks' but his 'staple food' and that to feed him more would encourage idleness. An official added that Peter had recently left a pigeon on his desk that was chewed but not eaten. 'This suggests he is not suffering from starvation,' he said. George Stephanopoulos was threatened with being taken off air if he didn't clarify his position on Joe Biden's ability to serve another four years, it is claimed. The ABC host gave his blunt assessment of the president's performance in a brief interview when he was ambushed on Tuesday. The former Bill Clinton aide was asked on the street in Manhattan if Biden should step down and responded: 'I don't think he can serve four more years'. Biden's interview with the former White House press secretary on Friday followed a disastrous debate performance on June 27. ABC News' star anchor George Stephanopoulos apologized after giving his blunt assessment of Joe Biden's performance in their blockbuster interview Friday Biden's television interview with the former White House Press Secretary on Friday followed a disastrous debate performance last month Stephanopoulos, 63, appeared to quickly regret his off-the-cuff remark and offered a statement of regret after he was allegedly issued an ultimatum. 'Earlier today I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldn't have,' he said. ABC News issued their own statement, saying, 'George expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News.' What the two statements didn't reveal was the alleged crisis Stephanopoulos' nine words kicked off at the highest level of the major network. News division president Debra O'Connell called a panicked meeting with advisers and executives on Tuesday night, including public relations consultants, it was reported. 'This was a fully fledged crisis and it exploded with far-reaching reverberations,' an insider claimed to Radar Online. She is then said to have hauled Stephanopoulos into a private meeting where she gave him an ultimatum: apologize or be yanked off air. Stephanopoulos both hosts Good Morning America and is a moderator on current affairs panel show This Week. ABC bosses were reportedly concerned the veteran broadcaster had expressed a private opinion that would fatally undermine his appearance of objectivity. '[O'Connell told him] in no uncertain terms that he is a newsman who is expected to be objective,' the insider told Radar. Stephanopoulos, 63, appeared to quickly regret his off-the-cuff remark and offered a statement of regret - but he reportedly was forced to do so News division president Debra O'Connell called a panicked meeting with advisers and executives on Tuesday night, including public relations consultants, it is claimed 'She was furious that someone of George's experience and status would compromise the news division's impartiality, and subject it to unnecessary and embarrassing headlines. 'George backed Debra into a corner. If he did not apologize, how could he continue with his duties at ABC News without the network facing an avalanche of criticism.' The insider, however, claimed that even though Stephanopoulos backed away from his comment and 'minimized it as a quip', ABC bosses knew the damage was done. 'You can expect the Trump campaign and GOP to seize on this. You can also expect the White House to avoid ABC News moving forward. Biden will never sit down with Stephanopoulos ever again,' they said. Biden's cognitive function has been under intense scrutiny since his car crash presidential debate against Donald Trump last month. Friday, he attempted some damage control with a sit down interview with ABC - a performance that was once again panned by members of his own party. Biden made it through the 22-minute ABC News interview on Friday without any major blunders but it appeared unlikely to fully tamp down concerns about his age and fitness for another four years and his ability to defeat Donald Trump in November Biden made it through the 22-minute ABC News interview on Friday without any major blunders. But it appeared unlikely to fully tamp down concerns about his age, or his ability to defeat Trump on November 5. The floundering has led to calls for Biden to withdraw from the race, but he has so far remained steadfast in his commitment to standing. In looking ahead, a senior Democratic aide told ABC News that the president should 'buckle up for a wild week.' Many hoped Friday's interview with Stephanopoulos would be a chance for Biden, 81, to prove the debate was a one-off. But the toe-curling performance, which included responding to questions in a raspy voice, losing track mid-sentence and going off on tangents, had many Democrats unconvinced. The president has remained adamant he's staying in the race since the interview. Some prominent Democrats are desperately looking for possible alternatives should Biden exit the race. A man accused of murdering a beloved English teacher and dumping her body in a wheelie bin has fronted court - but mystery still surrounds how they knew each other. Stephen Fleming, 45, of Coolaroo appeared before the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Wednesday accused of the murder of Annette Brennan, 67. Miss Brennan was found dead at a rubbish tip in Epping last week, about 8km from her home in Coolaroo, in Melbourne's north-west. Dressed in green and sporting a bald-headed half-mullet, the alleged killer sat quietly in the prison dock behind protective glass for the short filing hearing. The court heard it would take Victorian detectives 20 weeks to prepare their brief of evidence against Fleming. A prosecutor told Magistrate Louise Wildberger police needed to analyse and recreate multiple crime scenes and compile forensic evidence from computers and other technology linked to the alleged crime. Fleming's lawyer told the court her client had no custody management issues that needed attending to while he awaited his next court date in January next year. It is understood no-one from either Miss Brennan's family or that of the accused attended court for the hearing. Annette Brennan, 67, was found dead at a rubbish tip in Epping last week, about 8km from her home in Coolaroo. Steven Fleming appeared in court on Wednesday Police returned to Ms Brennan's property on Wednesday where detectives were seen entering her garage. Detectives had pounced on Fleming in Glenroy, in Melbourne's north-west, about 11.15am on Tuesday. They believe Miss Brennan's remains were put inside a bin that was picked up from her Hilgay Street home by a garbage truck on Tuesday last week. Staff at a tip in nearby Epping located her body while moving green waste on Wednesday last week and contacted police. A police spokesperson said Ms Brennan had known her alleged killer. While police refused to reveal how the pair knew each other, they have told reporters she is not Fleming's mother. One of Ms Brennan's former students, Simona Croce, told 9News that the teacher was a 'beautiful, loving and a kind woman'. 'She was amazing, I'm really shocked,' she added, calling her a 'second mum'. 'No one deserves to be treated this way, no one,' she said. A significant police canvass of the Coolaroo area for CCTV footage remains ongoing. Police visited the Coolaroo home on Monday where an officer was seen locking down the house Detectives are also keen to speak to anyone who may have witnessed any suspicious activity in the area around that time. The arrest comes on the back of rapid detective work which saw police track the route of the woman's body from the tip back to her Coolaroo property. On Saturday, police were seen collecting clippings from plants and shrubs at nearby properties, which are believed to have matched those found at the tip. Police also probed another brick home about 100m down the street, using a locksmith to enter the property about 1pm. It is understood detectives were keen to check footage from the home's CCTV cameras, which could provide vital evidence in the ongoing investigation. CCTV in the largely government housing area is not widespread, with police again calling on the public to come forward with any possible footage. Police are particularly keen to speak to anyone who may have CCTV or dashcam footage captured between Sunday June 23 and Tuesday July 2. Police at the Coolaroo home on Saturday Police were able to match leaf cuttings found at the tip to those near the woman's property On Monday, a lone detective was spotted entering the house through the front door. He was seen closing an open window at the front of the home before leaving about 10 minutes later. Apart from teams of media representatives, no-one was seen visiting the property on Monday. Nor did anyone attend to leave floral tributes, which have become routine at other similar tragedies. On Wednesday, no-one had appeared to have visited the property other than police. One neighbour told Daily Mail Australia the neighbourhood remained in shock following the suspected murder. 'We've never seen anything like this out here. It's just awful,' the man said. Other neighbours claimed the woman living at the home was quiet, but friendly. While she was not known to drive a car herself, neighbours had observed a car parked in the driveway, which was used by a man. One neighbour said he saw a man taking out bins from the property in the days leading up to the discovery. Chaithanya 'Swetha' Madhagani's body was found in a wheelie bin in March The scene outside the Coolaroo home on Monday was a far cry from the community response to the death of Chaithanya 'Swetha' Madhagani. Ms Madhagani's body had also been stuffed into a wheelie bin found on Mount Pollock Road in Buckley, west of Geelong, on March 8. Her death sparked an outpouring of emotion from the community, with friends gathering to honour her in Point Cook, where she lived. Ms Brennan is alleged to be the 48th woman murdered in Australia this year. Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or log onto www.crimestoppersvic.com.au July 10, 2024: The first of 85 American F16 fighters going to Ukraine became operational in Ukraine during May. Dozens of Ukrainian pilots have undergone training on how to operate the F-16. This training took place outside Ukraine at a U.S. Air Force base in Arizona. This is called transition training and more Ukrainian fighter pilots are undergoing it. One component of the training was the Ukrainian pilots learning to speak enough English to communicate with American pilots, ground crews and air traffic control operators. For international commercial aviation, English is required and is the common language of air traffic control worldwide. Transition training is now taking place in Denmark and Romania, which shares a border with Ukraine. The Netherlands and other NATO countries are training Ukrainian maintainers to keep the F-16s operational. Romania is spending billions of dollars to upgrade its military airbases and their support facilities. Romania believes that the Russian threat to nations bordering the Black Sea is long term. The Ukrainian pilots already operated Russian-designed jet fighters Ukraine had been using since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Using those Soviet era fighters, Ukrainian pilots have already destroyed over 350 Russian fighters. That has been costly for the Ukrainians, who currently have only 56 operational Russian designed jet fighters. Ukraine had several hundred of these fighters when the war began in early 2022. The air war with the Russians has been active and while Russian pilots are well trained, they are often misused by Russian commanders and counterproductive Russian operational doctrine. During the last two years Ukrainian pilots have had to be resourceful to deal with Russian air defenses and interceptor aircraft. One tactic the Ukrainians developed was to fly very close to the ground and avoid detection by Russian aircraft radars. When the Ukrainian aircraft got close to where the Russian aircraft were operating in the air, the Ukrainian fighters flew up and ambushed Russian aircraft. Ukrainian fighters also had to frequently change air bases they operated from. That was because the Russian aircraft would attack Ukrainian air bases. To deal with that, the Ukrainians used numerous air bases for combat operations. This meant the air controller and maintainer personnel, along with their equipment, had to frequently move to another base to receive Ukrainian warplanes that had switched bases. It was common for Ukrainian warplanes to take off from one base with instructions to land at another base. The Russians continued to attack abandoned Ukrainian air bases so air force officials decided to have local construction companies keep repairing runways damaged by these useless Russian attacks, and restore damaged buildings. That keeps the Russians guessing about which Ukrainian bases are operational. The arrival of F-16s has forced Ukraine to upgrade their airstrips because the F-16 engine is closer to the ground and can ingest any debris lying on the airstrip. The U.S. Air Forces keeps its air strips spotless as a matter of course and now the Ukrainians will have to do the same. It has been traditional for Russian warplanes to be designed to operate from crude airstrips, even ones consisting of dirt instead of concrete. Ukrainian pilots who have completed their F-16 training are eager to use the F-16s against the Russians because F-16s have a lot more modern electronics installed and that gives them capabilities Russian warplanes dont have. Ukrainian F-16 pilots expect to increase the number of Russian warplanes they shoot down while also carrying out more precision ground attacks. Westpac fears the price of Australia's biggest export will plunge by Christmas this year because China now has too much steel following the collapse of a mega apartment developer. The collapse of Evergrande means China is building less apartments, with millions of new homes remaining empty - leading to high-rise ghost cities. The debt crisis facing Chinese developers is also set to hit demand for Australian iron ore, the commodity used to make steel, meaning less tax revenue for the Australian government. Iron ore is now trading at $US110 a tonne but Westpac senior economist Justin Smirk has warned the price will plunge by 23 per cent by Christmas to $US85 a tonne - a level unseen since November 2022. Mr Smirk said China now had too much steel, which meant it was now exporting more of it. 'The record high level of steel exports from China is a concern to the rest of the world and points to an oversupplied Chinese market,' he said. 'Overall, China's steel demand remains soft due to robust crude steel exports, rising steel inventories and the ongoing compression of steel margins as input costs rise in the face of falling steel prices. 'We see little reason to change our longheld view that rising supplies and softening demand will see iron ore prices move lower through the second half of this year.' Westpac fears the price of Australia's biggest export will plunge by Christmas because China now has too much steel following the collapse of a mega apartment developer (pictured are unfinished residential buildings at Shijiazhuang in the Hebei province) The World Steel Association last month revealed Chinese crude steel production had fallen by 1 per cent in 2024 - based on melting iron ore and metallurgical coal into steel. Production was also lower in the European Union and North America. China now has a glut of steel after a Hong Kong court in January ordered the liquidation of heavily indebted apartment building giant Evergrande, leading to less demand for West Australian iron ore from the country, which is Australia's biggest trading partner. The Australian government is also downbeat about the price of iron, in the May Budget predicting the spot price would fall to just $US60 a tonne by the March quarter of 2025. 'The outlook for the terms of trade is highly uncertain, reflecting potential volatility in commodity prices,' Treasury said in May. 'Recent developments in the outlook for demand for steel in China and a modest improvement in iron ore and metallurgical coal supply has driven a sharp correction in iron ore and metallurgical coal prices.' This followed Chinese steel production reaching near record-high levels in 2023 as it imported an unprecedented level of iron ore. Iron ore is now trading at $US110 a tonne but Westpac senior economist Justin Smirk has warned the price will plunge by 23 per cent by Christmas this year to $US85 a tonne - a level unseen since November 2022 While Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered a $9.3billion surplus for 2023-24, a $28.3billion deficit is forecast for 2024-25 as falling iron ore and coal prices reduced company tax revenue. Iron ore was Australia's biggest export in 2023 and was worth $136billion - making up 20 per cent of Australia's exports. Western Australia produces 98 per cent of the world's iron ore. The state's Department of Energy and Mines said a tonne of steel production required 1.4 tonnes of iron ore and 800 kilograms of coal. Chinese Premier Li Qiang last month visited Australia, with this diplomatic mission following the axing of punitive Chinese tariffs on Australian agricultural exports, including wine and barley. They are the most recognisable French windows anywhere, draped with the worlds most famous net curtains. But only the Royal Family plus a few very distinguished guests have ever looked through them from the inside. Until now. From tomorrow morning, members of the public will be able to peek out from the Centre Room, the intricately decorated chamber which leads out on to the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Going out through these doors to stand behind the Portland stone balustrade has been a royal rite of passage for generations. Tourists will certainly not be doing that, nor will they even be allowed to tweak the curtains. Yet they will undoubtedly sense what it feels like to be royalty standing in the wings whenever the world assembles outside for a state occasion. From tomorrow morning, members of the public will be able to peek out from the Centre Room The intricately decorated chamber leads out on to the balcony of Buckingham Palace, used for major events such as the King's Coronation last year Visitors will also view an exotic collection of royal treasures, some of which are on display for the first time. These gems include surely the most over-the-top gold curtain rails in existence, exquisite Chinese craftsmanship, hand-painted wallpaper and some of Queen Victorias favourite paintings. They will also see the room which Elizabeth II liked to use as a studio when sitting for portraits while also keeping an eye on the traffic. For those who have ever wondered how the Royal Family view the rest of us, here is the answer. Thats because the East Wing is the outward-facing part of Buckingham Palace. As such, it is easily the best-known section of the royal headquarters. Yet it remains something of a mystery. Tomorrow, Buckingham Palace will open its doors to the public for the summer months to raise funds for the maintenance of the Royal Collection. Millions have already viewed the main state apartments, including the Picture Gallery and the Ballroom. This year, at the Kings behest, there is a new, additional visitor route hitherto seen by almost no one. However, it is only available to those quick enough to secure one of 6,000 online tickets all of which were snapped up months ago in a matter of hours. The East Wing has always been off-limits for the simple reason that much of it is in daily operational use. Hence the need to limit the number of tourists. The lower floors are office space and the upper floors are staff accommodation. In between, the grandest floor, known as the Principal Corridor, runs from one side of the Palace to the other with the balcony in the middle. The Palace will tomorrow open its doors to the public for the summer months to raise funds for the maintenance of the Royal Collection The grandest floor, known as the Principal Corridor, pictured, runs from one side of the Palace to the other with the balcony in the middle Final preparations are made in the Centre Room before it opens up to visitors With Queen Victorias accession and her growing family, a decision was made to build a new East Wing, turning the horseshoe-shaped building into a quadrangle. The Royal Pavilion at Brighton was sold to help pay for it. The canny Victoria kept most of the contents, an astonishing array of oriental exotica accumulated by the spendaholic Prince Regent, who later became George IV. Ticket-holders will proceed to the Yellow Drawing Room, named after the yellow silk damask with which Victoria and her husband Albert first lined this corner room. It was later decorated with hand-painted wallpaper from Brighton, depicting birds and trees, plus some stupendous porcelain vases. Originally designed to hold candles, they have been reconfigured as lamps (with energy-saving bulbs, we are told). Visitors will arrive in escorted groups via what are known as the Privy Purse Stairs and then head to the far end of the corridor. They will learn that the East Wing is actually the Palaces new extension. The original Buckingham House, owned by the Duke of Buckingham, was acquired by George III in the 1760s to provide a refuge from court for Queen Charlotte, and their children. His eldest, George IV, was keen that the British monarchy should have a proper palace to match the splendour enjoyed by other monarchies in Europe. So two wings, designed by architect John Nash, were added on either side, creating a U-shaped structure. Objects on display are cleaned by members of Royal Collection Trust With light from both the east and south, this was where Elizabeth II sat for many of the 200 artists who painted her during her lifetime. Some recalled her looking out at passers-by and even pointing out examples of bad driving. Out in the corridor, visitors will see giant porcelain pagodas and exquisite vases in brilliant turquoise, a colour never seen here until it was brought back from China in the 18th-century. The walls are lined with vast Victorian scenes and royal portraits, including George V and Queen Mary. She was the driving force behind the redecoration of the Centre Room with its exuberant silks and vases, plus an extraordinary 1818 frosted glass chandelier in the shape of a giant plant. The new route is being described as a trial run. However, given that it reflects the Kings wish to open up more royal residences to more people, it is likely to be a regular feature. Balmoral Castle has just opened for the first time, too. Those lucky enough to get a ticket will appreciate one irony of being royal. Here is surely the best vantage point from which to the view The Mall, Britains grandest ceremonial avenue. Except that the Royal Family cannot see it because Edward VII has parked his mother in the way. If it wasnt for the vast Queen Victoria Memorial, you would be able to see right up to Trafalgar Square. Dozens of illegal migrants were discovered hiding in the Rio Grande river as part of a disturbing new plan hatched by migrant smugglers. Fifty-four people were found in the waters separating Mexico and Texas Tuesday after being told to hide there by traffickers in a bid to avoid Border Patrol interception. While illegal immigrants have long crossed the river to get into the US, people usually try to spend as little time as possible in it, since its fast-flowing currents are notorious for drowning people. This is the first time officials in the El Paso, Texas area have seen migrants actually instructed to stay in the water, using it as cover, until the coast is clear and the migrants can be picked up by a car to be taken further into the US. Rescue workers watch as a dive team enters the Rio Grande River near El Paso, Texas to pluck 54 illegal immigrants out of the water Tuesday afternoon 'This is the largest group we ever rescue from the river,' Daniel Medrano of the Sunland Park Fire Department, one of several law enforcement agencies to respond, told KTSM. Some of the migrants had been wading in the water for three hours. 'Some of them were hiding around the bushes and also, some people were in the water,' El Paso Fire Department spokesperson Enrique Duenas told KFOX. The Border Patrol's El Paso Sector, which includes El Paso and all of Southern New Mexico, is currently the third busiest in the nation, with only Tucson and San Diego having more encounters. This part of the border has become increasingly deadly for migrants, many who are dropping dead of extreme heat. In the month of May alone, 23,478 migrants were encountered by US officials in El Paso. Nationwide, 241,022 migrants were stopped trying to enter illegally into the US. At least 2.2 million migrants have pass through the US' borders in fiscal year 2024, according to federal statistics. Shirtless migrants, who had been wading in the waters of the Rio Grande for over 3 hours, were rescued by dive teams and turned over to US Border Patrol A diver from the US law enforcement agency enter the Rio Grande Tuesday afternoon to help save migrants from certain drowning in the Rio Grande Several law enforcement agencies from El Paso, Texas and neighboring Sunland Park, New Mexico responded to this large rescue operation First responders sent in 30 divers from different agencies to pluck the border crossers out of the river, since the threat of drowning was considered imminent. Of the migrants were already showing signs of hypothermia, even in West Texas' triple digit temperatures. 'We did have about six (migrants) who were suffering from cold,' Medrano explained. 'They were in the water too long.' Three migrants were hospitalized, but the rest were turned over to the Border Patrol to likely face deportation from the US. Authorities in this region have constantly stressed that any safe passage that is promised to migrants by smugglers are bold, face lies. 'I have a message for the migrants: Crossing illegally is against the law and it is dangerous, Medrano stated. A new species of dinosaur that was as big as an American bison has been dug up in the Isle of Wight and is the 'most complete' fossil unearthed in the UK in a century. The specimen a plant-eating dinosaur that roamed the area 125 million years ago - was excavated from the cliffs of Compton Bay and has 149 bones in total. It has been named Comptonatus chasei, after the late fossil hunter Nick Chase and the place where it was found, and has been described as a 'remarkable' discovery by experts. The dinosaur belongs to a group of herbivores known as iguanodontians large, bulky creatures that are often described as the 'cows of the Cretaceous period' by palaeontologists. Jeremy Lockwood, a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth, who has spent years analysing the bones, said: 'This animal would have been around a tonne (1,000kg), about as big as a large male American bison. A new species of dinosaur that was as big as an American bison has been dug up in the Isle of Wight and is the 'most complete' fossil unearthed in the UK in a century The specimen a plant-eating dinosaur that roamed the area 125 million years ago - was excavated from the cliffs of Compton Bay and has 149 bones in total 'Evidence from fossil footprints found nearby shows it was likely to be a herding animal, so possibly large herds of these heavy dinosaurs may have been thundering around if spooked by predators on the floodplains over 120 million years ago.' For the study, published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, the researchers analysed every part of the fossil, including skull, teeth, spine and leg bones as well as a pubic hip bone 'about the size of a dinner plate'. Mr Lockwood said it is unclear why this hip bone, found at the base of the abdomen, was so big, but added: 'It was probably for muscle attachments, which might mean its mode of locomotion was a bit different, or it could have been to support the stomach contents more effectively, or even have been involved in how the animal breathed, but all of these theories are somewhat speculative.' For the study, published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, the researchers analysed every part of the fossil, including skull, teeth, spine and leg bones as well as a pubic hip bone 'about the size of a dinner plate' Mr Lockwood said it is unclear why the dinosaur's hip bone, found at the base of the abdomen, was so big When Comptonatus was first discovered, the specimen was thought to be different type of dinosaur called Mantellisaurus, three-toed plant-eaters that lived in Britain more than 120 million years ago. But Mr Lockwood said Comptonatus differed from Mantellisaurus because of the 'unique features in its skull, teeth and other parts of its body'. He said: 'Its lower jaw has a straight bottom edge, whereas most iguanodontians have a jaw that curves downwards.' Dr Susannah Maidment, senior researcher and palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, said the work could help researchers understand how ecosystems recovered after an extinction event at the end of the Jurassic Period, 200-149 million years ago. It has been named Comptonatus chasei, after the late fossil hunter Nick Chase (pictured) and the place where it was found, and has been described as a 'remarkable' discovery by experts 'Comptonatus is a fantastic dinosaur specimen - one of the most complete to be found in the UK in a century,' she added. The fossil was first discovered in 2013 by Mr Chase, who died of cancer just before the Covid-19 pandemic. However, because the dinosaur fossil was almost complete, it took Mr Lockwood and his colleagues several years before the specimen could be prepared for analysis. Eight extinct species from the Isle of Wight have been named in the last five years. Mr Lockwood said the latest 'remarkable find' shows the Isle of Wight and nearby areas may have once had 'one of the world's most diverse ecosystems'. The dinosaur has been added to the collections at the Dinosaur Isle Museum in Sandown on the Isle of Wight. Fans have waited more than 20 years for a sequel to Ridley Scott's blockbuster, Gladiator and now the official trailer has finally been released. 'Gladiator II' stars Irishman Paul Mescal as a gladiator and Denzel Washington as his owner. Despite the film being set in 3rd century Rome, Mescal puts on an English accent while Washington speaks in his native New York voice. So, is this historically accurate? MailOnline spoke to the experts to find out what the accents in Ancient Rome would have really sounded like. In the new film, Paul Mescal stars as Lucius, the grandson of Rome's former emperor Marcus Aurelius and son of Lucilla, who must fight for his liberty as a gladiator after being taken into slavery It's been in development for 20 years, but Ridley Scott's Gladiator sequel will finally be unleashed to cinemas this November The Roman Empire was a huge territorial empire that existed between 27 BC and AD 476, spanning across Europe and North Africa with Rome as its centre. Professor Eleanor Dickey, a linguist at the University of Reading's department of classics, said the Romans likely had several accents in the 3rd century (when Gladiator II is set). 'The empire was huge, so it is totally reasonable for the film to have people speaking in more than one accent,' she told MailOnline. Latin was the predominant language spoken in the western half of the Empire including Rome, while in the eastern half it was Greek but in both halves many other languages were also spoken. 'The western half of the Empire is in what is now Italy, Switzerland, France, the Low Countries, Spain and Portugal, England and Wales, Romania, former Yugoslavia, North Africa west of Egypt,' said Professor Dickey. Denzel Washington portrays Macrinus, a power broker who keeps a stable of gladiators and sees battle-hungry Lucius as a promising investment (pictured) The Roman Empire was a huge territorial empire that existed between 27 BC and AD 476, spanning across Europe and North Africa with Rome as its centre. This map marks out the Roman Empire in red at its greatest extent (117 AD) Today, English is the universal language, so it was always unlikely Ridley Scott would have his actors speaking Latin, Greek or any other dialect in a big Hollywood blockbuster. But in reality, English or rather an early variant of it wouldn't have been spoken in Rome at all 2,000 years ago. 'English was not spoken in Rome at that period, nor anywhere else,' Professor Dickey told MailOnline. 'It is difficult to say exactly when a distinct language that we might call "English" first emerged, but I don't think it could have been as early as the third century. 'However, languages related to English (i.e. predecessors of German) would sometimes have been heard in Rome.' The huge venues would host gladiator fights, chariot races and executions. Here, a gladiatorial fight is depicted in Rome's Colosseum, in 'Pollice Verso' an 1872 oil painting by France's Jean-Leon Gerome Bloody gladiator battles often to the death were fought in Rome's Colosseum, pictured left and depicted right in the new film Dr Andrew Sillett, a classics lecturer at the University of Oxford, said there's a lot we don't know about what a Roman accent actually sounded like. 'We do know that throughout Roman history, people noticed accents when listening to other people speaking Latin,' Dr Sillett told MailOnline. 'Sometimes an accent was exotic, sometimes it was a cause for mockery. Some people tried to conceal theirs, others took pride in it and tried to emphasise it.' But to try to sound posh, Roman Latin speakers would have used as many open vowels as possible. To use a modern word as an example, they would have said 'co-fee' instead of coffee. Dr Sillett explained: 'It's a bit like Manuel in Fawlty Towers, "Helloooooo, how aaare yoooooou?"' Decades have passed, but Maximus remains fresh in the memory as Paul Mescal 's Lucius picks up the sword in the first official trailer for Ridley Scott's Gladiator II In the new Gladiator II trailer, there doesn't appear to be adherence to these historical accuracies, but this is likely not an aim of the filmmakers. Although the exact plot of Gladiator II is a closely guarded secret, it's expected to be a reimagined version of Roman history while retaining some authentic aspects. In the film, released in the UK on November 15, Paul Mescal stars as Lucius, the grandson of Rome's former emperor Marcus Aurelius and son of Lucilla, who must fight for his liberty as a gladiator after being taken into slavery. Meanwhile, Denzel Washington portrays Macrinus, a power broker who keeps a stable of gladiators and sees battle-hungry Lucius as a promising investment. Back in 2004, The Day After Tomorrow might have seemed like nothing more than another far-fetched climate disaster flick. But scientists warn this film might soon become a reality, as a new study shows that climate change could plunge Europe into a deep freeze. Researchers from University College London have discovered that the Gulf Stream - a vital current of warm water - could be especially sensitive to changes in the climate. Their research suggests that global warming could lead to the collapse of the Gulf Stream, which would drop temperatures in Europe by up to 15C (27F). Lead researcher Dr Jack Wharton said: 'If in the future winds are weaker, as shown in a recent study using climate models, it could mean a weaker Gulf Stream and a cooler Europe.' Back in 2004, The Day After Tomorrow might have seemed like nothing more than another far-fetched climate disaster flick. But now, scientists warn this film could soon become a reality The Gulf Stream is a current of warm water which flows up the East Coast of North America and across the Atlantic to Europe. As it arrives, it releases heat energy into the atmosphere, keeping Europe at a higher temperature than it might otherwise be. Some research has already pointed to a weakening of the patterns of ocean currents which drive our planet's climate. But to understand how a big shift in climate conditions might affect the Gulf Stream in the future, the researchers had to look far back into the past. Around 20,000 years ago, the planet was in the grips of the last Ice Age which covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in a thick ice cap. However, the researchers now think that Europe might have been kept warm despite the surrounding climate by a particularly strong Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a strong current which carries warm water from the tropics up the coast of North America, across the Atlantic and into Europe What will happen if the Gulf Stream collapses? The Gulf Stream carries warm water from sub-tropical regions to Europe. During the last Ice Age, this current kept Europe warm even as the world was covered by ice. If the current collapses Europe will cease to be warmed. This would drop temperatures in Europe by up to 15C (27F), disrupting agriculture and weather patterns, Researchers warn it would also cause sea levels to rise by as much as 10cm in North America. That would trigger widespread flooding in places like Florida. Advertisement Researchers collected sediment samples from locations all along the coasts of North Carolina and Florida to look for the presence of ancient microorganisms called foraminifera. Co-author, Professor David Thornalley, told MailOnline: 'The fossils of foraminifera that lived during the last Ice Age were used because the chemistry of their shells records the density of the water they lived in when they were alive.' Because Gulf Stream water is very warm, it is less dense than subpolar water so the researchers could use the density recorded by the shells to work out where the Gulf Stream would have flowed. Since this faster current is able to carry larger pieces of material, the researchers also looked at the different sizes of grains in sediment to work out its speed. Using their measurements and some ocean physics, the researchers calculated that the Gulf Stream was twice as deep and twice as fast as it is today. Dr Wharton says: 'We found that during the last ice age, the Gulf Stream was much stronger because of stronger winds across the subtropical North Atlantic. 'As a result, the Gulf Stream was still moving lots of heat northwards, despite the rest of the planet being far colder.' Scientists used sediment samples taken from North Carolina and Florida (pictured) to learn how strong the Gulf Stream would have been during the last Ice Age. This revealed that global currents are very sensitive to climate change If temperatures continue to rise, there could be devastating effects here on Earth, including a dramatic loss of sea-life, an ice-free Arctic and more regular 'extreme' weather These findings have worrying implications for our future as they suggest the strength of the Gulf Stream is dependent on factors in the climate. Professor Thornally told MailOnline: 'The ocean moves vast amounts of heat around the globe - equivalent to the energy from millions of power stations. 'Changing the strength of ocean currents can therefore alter how much heat goes where. This alters our climate, and on shorter timescales our weather.' The Gulf Stream itself is just one part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a vast network of currents which pump hot water around the globe. Previous research (pictured) suggests that the collapse of a large system of ocean currents called the AMOC could lead to a temperature decrease of more than 5.4F (3C) per 10 years Although it is often described as a conveyor belt, Professor Thornally says it is better to think of AMOC as 'a series of interconnected loops'. He adds: 'There is the subtropical loopthat the Gulf Stream is part ofand a subpolar loop, which carries heat further northwards into the Arctic. 'During the last ice age, our findings show that the subtropical loop was stronger than it is today, whereas the subpolar loop is thought to have been weaker.' One of the biggest concerns is that warming global temperatures will disrupt the engine which drives that subtropical loop. As ocean water meets ice around Greenland in the sub-polar North Atlantic it rapidly cools, becoming extremely dense and salty. This causes the water to plunge downwards, pulling hot water in behind it and creating a vast circulation pattern. But as freshwater from Greenland's Ice sheet melts it is diluting these cold salty waters and making them less dense. Just like in the Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow (pictured), the collapse of the Gulf Stream could lead to rising sea levels and a deep freeze Some studies suggest this could slow down the turnover of the subtropical loop and weaken the Gulf Stream. Likewise, the authors of this paper point out that recent studies indicate climate change is already weakening the strong North Atlantic winds which help drive the Gulf Stream. Co-author Professor Mark Maslin says: 'Its not always recognised how much ocean currents are responsible for transferring heat around the planet and shaping our climate. 'Paradoxically, the warming of the climate could cool down much of Europe by disrupting the AMOC.' The cost of rising sea levels will be taken out of a country's gross domestic product (GDP). This map shows the countries most affected (with the biggest decrease in GDP due to the cost of rising sea levels) in red and orange, with the least affected in green Although the researchers say they cannot be sure how much of an impact this will have, in the unlikely event of the Gulf Stream's complete collapse temperatures could fall between 10 to 15C (18-27F) in Europe. The researchers point out that current climate models show a weakening Gulf Stream 'wreaking havoc' on continental agriculture and weather patterns. And, just like in the movie The Day After Tomorrow, the researchers note this could also lead to rising sea levels across North America. Professor Thornally adds: 'Changes in AMOC will also cause sea-level changes around the North Atlantic, with significant increases (tens of centimetres) along the North American east coast. 'However, even a more modest weakening of AMOC will still alter where heat is being moved around, which will disrupt our normal weather patterns, and is thought to lead to more extreme weather events, including flooding, and heatwaves and droughts.' This paper has been published in Nature. As much as we learn about the mysteries of black holes, many questions remain about these enigmatic objects. Now, scientists have discovered a vast black hole more than 8,200 times the mass of ours sun in a nearby star cluster which could unravel these voids' secrets. Located at the heart of the Omega Centauri cluster 18,000 light years away, this super-dense object is the closest example of a massive black hole ever discovered. Although it may seem vast, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the University of Utah, say this is just a middle-sized black hole. Researchers say this first-of-its-kind discovery could provide the 'missing link' in the mysterious evolution of black holes. Scientists have discovered a massive black hole just 18,000 light years from Earth which could be the missing link the evolution of these strange objects Black holes are formed when extremely large stars collapse in on themselves as they expend the last of their fuel. As the stars fall inwards, their remaining mass becomes compressed into an object so dense that not even light can escape its gravitational pull. These objects range in size from 'stellar black holes' only a few times the mass of our sun to truly vast monsters called 'supermassive black holes' with millions or billions of stellar masses. Co-author Matthew Whittaker, a undergraduate student at the university of Utah, says: 'There are black holes a little heavier than our sun that are like ants or spiderstheyre hard to spot, but kind of everywhere throughout the universe. 'Then you've got supermassive black holes that are like Godzilla in the centers of galaxies tearing things up, and we can see them easily.' However, so-called 'intermediate black holes' are extremely difficult to observe since galaxies tend to only have massive black holes at their centre. Mr Whittaker says: 'These intermediate-mass black holes are kind of on the level of Bigfoot. Spotting them is like finding the first evidence for Bigfootpeople are going to freak out.' Black holes form when huge stars collapse into dense objects which pull in everything around them. As they 'feed' on surrounding matter, some grow into supermassive black holes like the one at the centre of the Milky Way Researchers believe that the Omega Centauri cluster (pictured left) was once a galaxy of its own that was swallowed by the Milky Way. This makes it likely that there is a black hole (illustrated right) at its centre Luckily, the Omega Centauri cluster's unique history gave researchers a perfect opportunity to find one of these rare objects. Scientists believe that Omega Centauri was once a galaxy of its own that was swallowed up by the Milky Way billions of years ago. Stripped of its outer stars, the dense core of stars that we can see through our telescopes is all that remains of what once made up the galactic nucleus. That made it extremely likely that there was a young black hole trapped at the heart of Omega Centauri, frozen in time like a bug in amber. Unable to feed on surrounding stars, scientists predicted that the intermediate black hole should still be just as it was when the Milky Way first swallowed it. To test this theory, researchers examined 500 images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Although most of these pictures were simply taken to calibrate Hubble's instruments, they still allowed researchers to track the speed of 1.4 million stars. Using observations from the Hubble Space Telescope such as this one, researchers identified seven high-speed stars which are being pulled by a black hole at least 8,200 times the mass of our sun Out of that 1.4 million, scientists found seven stars right near the centre which were moving at unexpectedly high speeds. Dr Maximilian Haberle, of the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy, says: 'Looking for high-speed stars and documenting their motion was the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack.' Just one fast-moving star wouldn't have proven anything as the star's rapid transit could have been caused by any number of different factors. However, the presence of seven stars moving quickly in the same region is strong evidence that they are being dragged by the gravity of an extremely dense object. By pinpointing the speed of those seven high-speed stars, Dr Haberle and his co-authors were able to work out the likely mass and location of that hidden object. As they had predicted, at at least 8,200 solar masses, this object was likely to be an example of the long-sought-after intermediate black hole. This discovery could help explain how black holes like the one at the centre of our galaxy (pictured) come to be so large Co-author Dr Nadine Neumayer, also from the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy, says: 'Previous studies had prompted critical questions of "So where are the high-speed stars?" 'We now have an answer to that and the confirmation that Omega Centauri contains an intermediate-mass black hole.' The researchers now plan to study the centre of Omega Centauri in greater detail and have already secured permission to use NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. However, due to the lower mass of this black hole, it may take hundreds of years for the high-speed stars to complete a single orbit. That means that making a complete study of this black hole could remain a task for future generations. South Florida residents were shocked to discover a manatee swimming in a man-made lake last week as biologists theorize how the animal ended up so far from home. A resident captured a video of the animal swimming in a lake west of Fort Lauderdale last week, about 10 miles from the Atlantic Ocean where the species usually resides. Biologists have speculated that the manatee left the coast using underground passageways to reach Pembroke Pines Lake in search of food and warm, shallow waters. Manatees have struggled to find food in recent years and because they can survive in fresh, brackish and salty water, they can travel hundreds of miles from their home to find sustenance. Manatees, also called sea cows, can migrate hundreds of miles away from the Florida coast in search of food Manatees have struggled to find food in recent years and because they can survive in fresh, brackish and salty water, they can travel hundreds of miles from their home to find sustenance Manatees, also known as sea cows, can grow as big as 13 feet long, weigh over 3,000 pounds and can find their way into bodies of water like lakes and ponds by traveling through storm drains and nearby canals. Although these connecting passageways cant be seen on a map, Amber Howell, a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, told Business Insider there are large pipes called culverts under the roads. The culverts in this area are big enough for a manatee to safely swim through, she said. There is a floodgate they normally would have had to navigate, but its typically left open during Floridas rainy season which lasts from May through October. I grew up with manatees, Bill Barnett, a Pembroke Pines resident who saw the animal told WPLG Local 10, adding: This is the first one weve seen on the lake. Ive been here like 15 years. Another resident, Myriam Schenk told the outlet she had also witnessed the manatee. I saw the face and I said, What is this? I started taking a video and said, This is a manatee! According to Local 10, the lake contains fish and turtles but is not native to the manatee. A resident captured a video of the manatee swimming in Pembroke Pines Lake last week, about 10 miles from the Atlantic Ocean where the species usually resides The manatee - Floridas official state freshwater mammal - is classified as a threatened species that is dying out because of a reduced food supply. The reduction is due, in part, to algae blooms that are killing seagrass which serves as the main food source for the manatee alongside other vegetation like submerged and floating plants. Manatees typically spend up to eight hours a day eating sea vegetation and can consume four to nine percent of their body weight daily. Algae blooms, also known as harmful algal blooms (HABs) in the Atlantic Ocean include phytoplankton can make the water cloudy and limit the amount of sunlight that reaches the seagrass, damaging the vegetation and making it difficult for it to regrow. Some HABs are also toxic to manatees if they eat it, like the microalgae Karenia brevis which is common in Florida and caused the deaths of about 123 manatees between November 2022 and June 2023. The manatee - Floridas official state freshwater mammal - is classified as a threatened species that is dying out because of reduced food supply. The reduction is due, in part, to algae blooms that are killing seagrass which serves as the main food source for the manatee alongside other vegetation like submerged and floating plants Outside of the winter months, the animals tend to travel around Floridas waterways to search for food, mates and a shallow place to rest, sometimes traveling dozens of miles to reach a new area. Earlier this year, a separate manatee had traveled over 100 miles from the ocean to reach Lake Apopka in Oakland, Florida. However, this is not the first time the sea cow was spotted in Pembroke Pines Lake, with another reported by the local police department in 2021. At the time, the Pembroke Pines PD posted a video of the manatee and asked residents and visitors to be respectful of our native wildlife. Under Florida law, it is illegal to feed, harass, harm, pursue, or annoy a manatee. Please enjoy him/her from a distance. State wildlife officers eventually had to rescue the animal because it was underweight and swimming erratically, but biologists told Local 10 that the lakes newest resident appears to be healthy and has access to plenty of food. In this area, there is a lot of shoreline vegetation, which they'll take advantage of, Howell told BI, adding that theres absolutely no concern for the wellbeing of this manatee. Florida residents who want to report seeing a manatee who seems in distress can call the Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-3922. A gorgeous California beach resort has been named America's best - thanks to its stunning views and Michelin-starred food. The Mission Pacific Beach Resort in Oceanside has claimed the top spot in Travel + Leisure's prestigious reader survey, beating out luxury stalwarts and becoming the must-visit destination of 2024. This seven-story slice of paradise, which only opened its doors three years ago, has already made waves with its 161 sumptuous rooms with jaw-dropping ocean views. On top of that, it's got a Michelin-starred Mexican restaurant, an Instagram-worthy rooftop bar serving craft cocktails at sunset and an original 'Top Gun' house from the 1986 Tom Cruise classic. A gorgeous California beach resort has been named America's best - thanks to its gorgeous views, sumptuous rooms and Michelin-starred food The Mission Pacific Beach Resort in Oceanside has claimed the top spot in Travel + Leisure's prestigious reader survey, beating out luxury stalwarts and becoming the must-visit destination of 2024 (Hotel restaurant pictured) Tim Obert, area managing director of the resort, told The Mercury News, 'I think everyone was completely surprised,' 'It's our guests who voted for us, and they're well traveled and experienced. They know what great is, so it's flattering that they were kind enough to take the time to vote for us. We had hoped we would score well, but I don't think any of us expected that we would be No. 1.' But it's not just America that's fallen in love with this coastal gem. Mission Pacific Beach also snagged the No. 11 spot on Travel + Leisure's Top 100 Hotels in the World for 2024. This comes after Oceanside spent nearly a quarter century trying to develop a luxury waterfront hotel, with four failed attempts before their winning attempt. Despite opening during the Covid pandemic, the resort has hit gold. It's got a Michelin-starred Mexican restaurant, an Instagram-worthy rooftop bar serving craft cocktails at sunset and an original 'Top Gun' house from the 1986 Tom Cruise classic This seven-story slice of paradise, which only opened its doors three years ago, has already made waves with its 161 sumptuous rooms with jaw-dropping ocean views It now runs at 70 percent occupancy year-round with summer occupancy soaring above 80 percent It now runs at 70 percent occupancy year-round with summer occupancy soaring above 80 percent. Additionally, owners continually reinvest to keep it 'current and relevant.' More than 186,000 readers casted their votes. 'When it opened in May of 2021, it opened during COVID, a difficult time to launch any hotel,' Obert told the outlet. This comes after Oceanside spent nearly a quarter century trying to develop a luxury waterfront hotel, with four failed attempts before their winning attempt Sauna pictured in the hotel 'So it started slowly and now has gained its footing and competes very well in the market. We run around 67, 70 percent occupancy for the year, but this year we'll be closer to the low 70s,' he added. 'Like all resorts during the summer through Labor Day, we run well north of 80 percent occupancy. 'Our owners continue to reinvest in the property on a regular basis. They have a luxury retail background and they continue to reinvent the product to be current and relevant.' The cost for a night's stay during July is about $500 to $800. Faye Dunaway discusses her bipolar disorder diagnosis in the upcoming documentary, Faye, about her life and career. The Oscar winner, 83, credits the condition, marked by alternating periods of elation and depression, for some of her notoriously bad behavior in the film and theater industry. The National Institutes of Health estimates some 7,000,000 Americans experience bipolar disorder in a given year. Medication, the Network star said, has helped her regain control of her life. Faye Dunaway, 83, opens up about her bipolar disorder diagnosis in the new documentary FAYE (Pictured in New York Monday) 'I worked with a group of doctors who analyzed my behavior, who gave me prescriptions for pills they thought would be good for me. And that helped,' Dunaway said in the film, according to Page Six. 'So I am quieter. But throughout my career, people know there were tough times.' 'I don't mean to make an excuse about it. I am still responsible for my actions.' 'But this is what I came to understand was the reason for them,' she added. 'It's something you need to be aware of. You need to try to do the right thing to take care of it.' Bette Davis who co-starred with Dunaway in 1976's The Disappearance of Aimee, told Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show in 1988, that she found Dunaway to be 'totally impossible,' 'uncooperative' and 'very unprofessional.' Chinatown director Roman Polanski told Rolling Stone in 1974, that he found the actress to be a 'gigantic pain in the a**,' but he kept working with her because he had 'never known an actress to take work as seriously as she does.' The Bonnie and Clyde star's son, Liam, whom she shares with her ex-husband, the late photographer Terry ONeill, told the filmmakers his mom 'hit rock bottom' a couple of years ago. Dunaway told filmmakers she believes the disorder was responsible for some of her bad behavior on set. Chinatown director Roman Polanski said he found the actress to be a 'gigantic pain in the a**,' but he had 'never known an actress to take work as seriously as she does' Bette Davis called who worked with Dunaway on 1976's The Disappearance of Aimee said her co-star was 'totally impossible,' 'uncooperative' and 'very unprofessional' Dunaway's son Liam, said he was able to get his mother into treatment when she 'hit rock bottom' a few years ago. 'Thank God there is medication,' said Dunaway. 'I've been able to benefit from that' 'I kind of got to the point where I said, "Hey listen, let's get you to this clinic in Boston," he said. As part of her treatment, 'She went to lectures and classes and they got her on the right stuff and she came out like a whole new person.' Dunaway indicated the diagnosis and medication had been a game changer for her. 'Thank God there is medication and there are studies and there are doctors who deal with this, and I've been able to benefit from that. Medication is crucial, and without it you fall back into what is there psychologically and biologically.' FAYE debuts on HBO/MAX July 13. July 10, 2024: Much has changed in this region since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Central Asia is the nations of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. These five nations have a total population of 77 million and nearly all adults are literate, compared to 27 percent literacy in Afghanistan. Decades of peace have enabled the local economies to prosper, with total GDP growing from $347 billion in 2021 to nearly $500 billion by the end of the decade. Kazakhstan, which has oil deposits, has the highest per capita GDP of $33,000. Worst off is Kyrgyzstan, which has no known natural resource to export and a population of only 7.2 million, which explains its low per capita GDP of $6,300. Central Asians are largely Moslem and their young men were aware of the fighting involving Islamic terrorists in the Middle East and neighboring Afghanistan. Over the last two decades, thousands of young men who sought to join Islamic terror groups could not do it in Central Asia. Instead these men had to travel somewhere else to act on their impulse to be active Islamic terrorists. Many Central Asian men joined ISIL, but not in Central Asia. With the elimination of the ISIL caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2018, there were lots of documents and survivors, like families of ISIL men, some ISIL members, and local civilians, who could be questioned and lots of data analyzed. The results were some accurate numbers about Central Asian participation in ISIL though the end of 2018. As many as 5,000 Central Asians made it to Syria. Over half survived and got out. More worrisome was the fact that for every Central Asian who tried to get into Syria, two or three were stopped at the Syrian border in Turkey and turned back or, in a few cases, arrested. The Turks collected data on those turned away and some of those were later captured or killed in Syria. Some of those turned back eventually made it in, but few returned home to become active Islamic terrorists. That is the pattern; many get radicalized, leave, and never return. Because the potential Islamic terrorists left Central Asia and few returned, during the twenty years there were few Islamic terror attacks in Central Asia. After each of these the response was swift and usually led to the capture of those responsible and others who were among the usual suspects but not known to be active. This effective counterterror response motivated many radicalized young men to seek a safer nation in which to defend Islam with extreme violence. Most of the nations involved here used to be part of the Soviet Union and still have effective secret police and local dictators to ruthlessly suppress dissent. People are putting up with this so far but popular anger about corruption and inefficient government is growing. The region has become an economic and diplomatic battleground for Russia and China, and China is winning. This is something Russia doesnt like to discuss, but among Russians the real threat is from the east, not the west. China brings trade and prosperity, which Central Asians take advantage of. The one enduring problem in Central Asia is poor government. This is the result of decades of misrule by the Soviet Union until 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the five Central Asian states among the fourteen states to emerge from the Soviet Union, which had long been called by westerners, the Prison House of Nations. Local rule soon devolved into a form of local dictatorship with the dictator forced to behave in order to prevent a violent revolution. This allowed the new free-market economy to prosper, provide a better life for most Central Asians, and enough money for corrupt local rulers to live well and protect the new economies. Cardi B and Offset whisked themselves away to Disneyland Paris to celebrate their daughter, Kulture's, sixth birthday in an assortment of clips shared to Instagram on Tuesday. The Bodak Yellow rapper, 31 - who is being sued by music artists who claim she stole portions of Enough (Miami) - was joined by fellow performer, Offset, 32, for the special festivities, whom she secretly tied the knot with in 2017. Last year in December, Cardi B split from her husband - but the two have since been spotted together on various occasions. In May, she talked reconciliation rumors with Rolling Stone, stating they are 'all right now.' The star - who sparked speculation she is expecting their third child in June - uploaded reels to her Instagram stories to document the getaway. In the first video, Cardi B could be seen sitting inside a vehicle with her son, Wave, two, propped up on her lap. Cardi B, 31, and Offset, 32, whisked their family away to Disneyland Paris to celebrate their daughter, Kulture's, sixth birthday in an assortment of clips shared to Instagram on Tuesday Kulture officially turns six on Wednesday, July 10 She notably shares the little one, as well as daughter Kulture with Offset. In the backseat, Kulture - who officially turns six on Wednesday, July 10 - was seen, as well as two others who were also embarking on the vacation, such as Offset's other daughter, Kalea, nine, whom he welcomed with ex Shya L'amour. 'We're leaving to Paris!' Cardi B excitedly gushed to the camera while sporting a pink jersey and fashionable shades. The trio behind the music artist also shared their excitement, with the reel concluding as music was blasted on the radio. The next clip was taken after the group boarded a lavish, private jet as they prepared to head to Paris. In text added towards the bottom, the I Like That hitmaker typed out, '@hecjets thank you soo much..yall really helped me do my big one for my baby.' She also filmed Kulture - who wore a white tulle dress - before the plane took off, and told her daughter, 'I love you.' The birthday girl sweetly expressed the same, and Cardi B flipped the camera to film herself before the short reel came to an end. The star - who sparked speculation she is expecting their third child in June - uploaded reels to her Instagram stories to document the getaway; Offset's daughter Kalea Marie pictured with a family friend In the backseat, Kulture was seen, as well as two others who were also embarking on the vacation, such as Offset's other daughter, Kalea, nine, whom he welcomed with ex Shya L'amour The next clip was taken after the group boarded a lavish, private jet as they prepared to head to Paris The star - who currently boasts 166 million followers - also gave her fans a glimpse of the jet's interior, from the comfortable bed setup and a silver Chanel purse that was placed on top She also filmed Kulture - who wore a white tulle dress - before the plane took off, and told her daughter, 'I love you' After landing in France, Cardi B filmed Kulture and seemingly Kalea as they sat next to each other inside a van. While the birthday girl was nibbling on candy, she sweetly offered a piece to her little brother, Wave The star - who currently boasts 166 million followers - also gave her fans a glimpse of the jet's interior, from the comfortable bed setup and a silver Chanel purse that was placed on top. Another video showed both Kulture and her little brother, Wave, sitting on the same seat as they snacked on a tasty dinner. After landing in France, Cardi B filmed Kulture and seemingly Kalea as they sat next to each other inside a van. While the birthday girl was nibbling on candy, she sweetly offered a piece to her little brother, Wave. 'They going to be a kii when they grow up,' the performer wrote in text added to the bottom of the reel. And while visiting Disneyland Paris, the family had the chance to interact with Cinderella. Later, while on a ride, Cardi B filmed a selfie video and then panned to show Offset sitting next to her. The Don't You Lie rapper had his arms crossed and sent a bored look in her direction, and jokingly shook his head. 'Smile for the camera,' she asked the performer, who quickly flashed a small grin in her direction as the ride slowly continued. The next video showed Kulture commenting on the ride and characters, stating that some are 'creepy,' causing Cardi B to humorously said, 'These kids don't like nothing.' And while visiting Disneyland Paris, the family had the chance to interact with Cinderella Later, while on a ride, Cardi B filmed a selfie video and then panned to show Offset sitting next to her 'Smile for the camera,' she asked the performer, who quickly flashed a small grin in her direction as the ride slowly continued Offset also jumped to his own Instagram stories while on a ride with son, Wave, sitting on his lap Cardi B also filmed the music artist sitting in a blue car next to their son Wave as they had a blast on another ride Offset also jumped to his own Instagram stories while on a ride with son, Wave, sitting on his lap. 'Are you ready?' he asked the two-year-old, who responded with a quick, 'Yes.' 'Let's get it,' Offset added, with Wave sweetly saying, 'Okay,' as the rapper filmed themselves waiting for the ride to start. Cardi B also filmed the music artist sitting in a blue car next to their son Wave as they had a blast on another ride. Both stars first sparked romance rumors in February 2017 when they attended Super Bowl LI together. Later that same year in September, the pair secretly said 'I do.' The following month, Offset popped the big question during a public proposal at Power 99's Powerhouse concert in Philadelphia. In early 2018, cheating rumors surrounding Offset began to circulate, but the couple stayed together and announced they were expecting their first child together in April of that year. However, five months after Kulture was born, Cardi B announced their split in December 2018. Both stars first sparked romance rumors in February 2017 when they attended Super Bowl LI together. Later that same year in September, the pair secretly said 'I do'; seen in 2019 in L.A. However, five months after Kulture was born, Cardi B announced their split in December 2018; seen in 2023 in L.A. The next year, the two reunited and in September 2020, she revealed that there could be 'drama' in their relationship while talking to Elle. 'I don't really like talking about love much, but I feel like I have to do it, just because I want people to know a little bit,' she stated. 'There's always rumors about me and my husband, and I feel like people would rather start rumors because they want me to be heartbroken. They want me to be hurt.' The star added, 'I do know that my relationship has a lot of drama and everything. But there's a lot of love, there's a lot of passion, there's a lot of trust, there's a big friendship. It's always us against the world...' That same month, she filed for divorce - which was called off a few months later in November. In September 2021, their son Wave was welcomed to the world. Last year in June, Offset notably accused Cardi B of cheating - causing her to jump to X (formerly known as Twitter) - to respond with: 'That motherf***** spiraling and thinking s***.' 'Please boy, stop acting stupid. Stop acting stupid. Going crazy over a f***ing Space. Don't play with me. What the f***. Stop playing. That's all I'm gonna motherf***ing say.' And the next month in July, Offset said that she had never cheated on him - despite his previous claims. The next year, the two reunited and in September 2020, she revealed that there could be 'drama' in their relationship while talking to Elle; seen earlier this month in NYC However, since then, the two have been spotted on various occasions together, such as at a Knix game in April and they also attended a MET Gala after party in May; seen in April in NYC In December, she confirmed that she had split from Offset when she revealed during an Instagram Live that she has 'been single for a minute now.' However, since then, the two have been spotted on various occasions together, such as at a Knix game in April and a MET Gala after party in May. Cardi B opened up about reconciliation rumors in May during an interview with Rolling Stone and said that they are 'all right now.' In regards to their future, she said they will 'think it through' while explaining, 'Because we do love each other.' 'It's not even about love. We're best friends. And it's like, "Okay. Well, there was a time that I didn't have a best friend, or I didn't have a support system." It's not even about "How do you leave a partner?" How do you stop talking to your best friend?' And last month in June, speculation arose that she is expecting her third child with Offset at the 4th Annual Hollywood Unlocked Impact Awards (seen above) She later performed at the 2024 BET Experience in L.A. late last month, and continued to fuel pregnancy rumors when she opted to wear a sparkling, over-sized jersey on stage (seen above) And last month in June, speculation arose that she is expecting her third child with Offset. While attending the 4th Annual Hollywood Unlocked Impact Awards, she donned a loose-fitting blazer dress with sheer, black fabric that flowed down towards the ground. She later performed at the 2024 BET Experience in L.A. late last month, and continued to fuel pregnancy rumors when she opted to wear a sparkling, over-sized jersey on stage. Despite the speculation, Cardi B herself has yet to publicly address the rumors. Farmer Wants A Wife fans have been calling for an LGBTQIA+ storyline on the Channel Seven matchmaking show for years. But they were disappointed once again this week when the line-up of eight eligible bachelors for 2025 revealed another roster of straight men. A network insider has revealed it 'was not an intentional move from the producers' to axe the diverse storyline. 'There were some pretty strong discussions that Farmer Wants A Wife was going to have a diversity angle for the next season of the popular dating show but those plans have been dropped due to a lack of suitable applicants from both same-sex attracted farmers and potential love interests,' a source told Yahoo Lifestyle. 'We know that there are strong communities in regional areas, and we would love to have them take part in the long-running show. It is not for lack of trying. 'The audition process is quite extensive, and while there were a handful of options, in the end, the farmers picked were more suitable based on their personalities this time around.' The insider went on to say there is 'an unusual imbalance' when it comes to the queer community applying for reality dating shows in Australia. Though plenty are eager to sign up for series like Big Brother, The Voice and MasterChef, there is a significant lack of queer applicants who are comfortable appearing on dating shows. Farmer Wants A Wife fans have been calling for an LGBTQIA+ storyline on the Channel Seven matchmaking show for years. Pictured: Host Samantha Armytage Fans were left crushed over the previewed line-up for the 2025 season of FWAW when it was released last week. Channel Seven shared the line-up on Instagram as the network called for single Aussie women to sign-up and compete for the farmers' hearts. Viewers flocked to the comments to slam the lovelorn heartthrobs who are set to grace our screens next year - with many noting most of the farmers are rather young, aged in their 20s. 'Where are the mature farmers? Plus 40-55 would suit more of the single market,' one person wrote. 'Seriously where are the older Farmers in their 40s, 50s, 60s,' while a third added: 'Why does a 20 yr old need help to find a wife?' another commented. Viewers were disappointed once again when the line-up of eight eligible bachelors for 2025 revealed another roster of straight men. Pictured: Openly gay Big Brother star Farmer Dave 'One 35 and one 31 the rest are babies... ridiculous! Where are the older farmers??' someone else said. 'They are too young what about more mature farmers,' yet another remarked. 'Young bucks again, no doubt decent people. But where are the mature men in their 40s and above?' one commented. Eight handsome singles have been cherry-picked for the Seven dating show, but two men will be cut from the final line-up with just six farmers taking to screen next year. The farmers in the running for the 2025 cast include a 29-year-old banana and avocado farmer from Mareeba, Queensland, called Reidy. Dashing cattle farmer Jack, 26, from Oberon, New South Wales, is opening his heart to love in 2025, along with sheep farmer Jarrad, 21, from Stanthorpe, Queensland. Now a network insider has revealed it 'was not an intentional move from the producers' to axe the diverse storyline, reported Yahoo Lifestyle on Tuesday. Pictured: 2025 FWAW singles Beans, hay and cotton farmer Corey - who is 24 years old and hails from Biloela, Queensland - is also in the running for the official 2025 cast. Handsome singleton Jack L, 26, who runs a dairy farm in Railton, Tasmania has signed up along with sheep farmer Tom M, 31, from Borambola, New South Wales. Also on the quest for love are wheat, barley and lentil farmer Thomas, 35, from Kimba, South Australia and cattle farmer Chooka, 25, from Goornong, Victoria. With the show still in pre-production, it remains to be seen which two farmers will be cut and which six will make it to screen to kick off their search for true love. Brad Pitt has 'virtually no contact' with his older children according to a new report. Just a month after the 60-year-old actor's daughter Shiloh, 18, filed to drop his last name, a source revealed to People that Pitt's relationship with his older kids remains strained. 'He has virtually no contact with the adult kids. His engagement with the younger kids is more limited in recent months because of his filming schedule,' the insider shared. Pitt has a total of six children with ex-wife Angelina Jolie, 49. They share three biological children: Shiloh, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 15. They also have three adopted children, sons Maddox, 22, and Pax, 20, as well as daughter Zahara, 19. The source noted that the couple's custody agreement allows for visitation rights with the two minor kids. Brad Pitt, 60, has 'virtually no contact' with his four adult children and only visitation with his two younger kids, according to People; The actor seen in 2016 Brad's ex, Angelina Jolie, 49, seen with their six children: twins Vivienne and Knox, 15, Pax, 20, Shiloh, 18, Zahara, 19, and Maddox, 22 '[Angelina] has the kids most of the time, but per their agreement, he has visitation with the younger kids,' the insider added. The actor is on location in Europe filming his new racing movie F1, while Jolie lives in Los Angeles with their younger children. In June it was reported that Pitt is 'upset and aware' that his daughter Shiloh filed to drop his last name from her own on her 18th birthday. A source close to the Oscar winner said his erasure from his daughter's life is just another indication that he has 'lost his children,' according to People. 'He's aware and upset that Shiloh dropped his last name,' the source claimed. 'Hes never felt more joy than when she was born. He always wanted a daughter.' Notably, Pitt was already in the process of legally adopting a daughter who had been a part of his life for months before he and his then-partner Angelina had announced she was pregnant with Shiloh in January 2006. Jolie had traveled to Ethiopia to adopt her first daughter Zahara in July 2005, and Pitt had come with her on the trip. '[Angelina] has the kids most of the time, but per their agreement, he has visitation with the younger kids,' an insider shared; The former pair seen in 2021 'His engagement with the younger kids is more limited in recent months because of his filming schedule,' the source added. Pitt is in Europe filming his new racing movie F1, while Jolie lives in Los Angeles with their younger children; Seen in Northamptonshire in 2024 In June it was reported that Pitt is 'upset and aware' that his daughter Shiloh filed to drop his last name from her own on her 18th birthday; Angelina Jolie (Center) pictured with daughters Zahara (L) and Shiloh (R) in 2021 in Rome Pitt's youngest daughter Vivienne, also dropped the last name Pitt from her moniker in The Outsiders Playbill in May; Angelina and Vivienne pictured on April 11 He was reported to be in the process of becoming Zahara's adopted father in December 2005, a month before he and Jolie announced her pregnancy. 'The reminders that hes lost his children, is of course not easy for Brad,' the source continued. 'He loves his children and misses them. Its very sad.' They added that the distance between Pitt and his six children 'pains him.' However, they noted that 'hes still happy with Ines [de Ramon],' his current girlfriend. Another source described as close to Pitt told the publication that the Tree Of Life star 'still loves all of his kids tremendously.' 'This whole process has been very hard for the whole family,' they added. If Shiloh's request is granted and there is no indication that it would not be she will subsequently go simply by 'Shiloh Jolie,' rather than her original full name, 'Shiloh Jolie-Pitt.' People previously reported that Pitt's youngest daughter Vivienne who served as her mother's assistant when she produced the Broadways musical adaptation of The Outsiders had listed her name as 'Vivienne Jolie' in the Playbill for the show. Zahara previously introduced herself as 'Zahara Marley Jolie', while Maddox and Pax have reportedly not publicly used their father's last name in years, and both have been openly antagonistic toward him; Angelina, Shiloh, Zahara, Vivienne, Maddox, and Knox in 2021 Following Shiloh's 18th birthday in May, Vivienne and Knox are now the former pair's only remaining minor children; Angelina with (LR) Knox, Zahara, Vivienne and Shiloh in 2019 in LA It is unclear if Vivienne has legally changed her name, but the minor would likely need either parental consent or extenuating circumstances to be allowed to do so before turning 18. Zahara previously introduced herself as 'Zahara Marley Jolie' when she joined the Mu Pi chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority at Spelman College late last year. Pitt and Jolie's oldest sons, Maddox and Pax, have reportedly not publicly used their father's last name in years, and both have been openly antagonistic toward him. Pitt and Jolie began dating publicly shortly after he and his then-wife Jennifer Aniston announced their divorce in 2005. The Mr. And Mrs. Smith costars remained unmarried for years despite having multiple adopted and biological children together, but they got engaged in 2012 and finally tied the knot in 2014. However, it was only around two years later when the Maleficent actress filed for divorce in 2016. She and Pitt were declared legally single in 2019. However, the two A-listers have been embroiled in an ongoing divorce battle over assets and custody for years since. A central issue seems to be a notorious private jet confrontation in 2016. Pitt has been involved in an ongoing divorce battle for years, seemingly stemming from a 2016 incident on a plane in which Jolie accused Pitt of assaulting her; the family seen in 2014 An FBI report on the incident, which was published in 2022, saw Jolie accuse Pitt of physical assault while flying to California in 2016. She claimed that he was intoxicated and that he grabbed her by the head and shook her, and later pushed her down, as part of a confrontation allegedly related to their children. Jolie told the FBI that Pitt told the children that she was 'f***ing up this family,' and she said he punched the ceiling of the airplane four times. She claimed that at one point he poured beer on her and a blanket she was under with multiple children. Source close to Pitt later claimed that he never hit any of the children, though they admitted that he had been drinking. After 10 studio albums and 24 Grammy wins, Kanye West is allegedly retiring from 'professional music.' News of the Flashing Lights hitmaker's, 47, shock retirement plans were revealed in an alleged text message exchange with rapper Rich The Kid. Rich The Kid, 31, uploaded a screenshot to his Instagram Story of messages he'd received from an iPhone contact under the name 'Ye.' The text from a person believed to be West who legally changed his name from Kanye West to Ye in 2021 read: 'I'm retiring from professional music. Not sure what else to do' Rich then tried to convince the father-of-four to reconsider his decision, even bringing up the recent success of his Vultures 1 album with rapper Ty Dolla $ign. 'Retire? Why ? How ? The [people] NEED you the music you & Ty & we have made was the BIGGEST STAMP in culture to this date In 2024,' he wrote. After 10 studio albums and 24 Grammy wins, Kanye West is allegedly retiring from 'professional music'; seen with wife Bianca Censori in Februrary News of the Flashing Lights hitmaker's, 47, shock retirement plans were revealed in an alleged text message exchange with rapper Rich The Kid. After news of Ye's retirement gained traction online, Rich went on to delete the text screenshot from his Instagram Story Rich was notably featured on West and Ty's lead single Carnival, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart when it debuted in March. The song also marked West's first #1 hit in 13 years - his last being Katy Perry's 2011 single E.T. 'Drop Ye about mine & V2 and we do it all over again,' Rich continued. 'the kids need you big bra fasho maybe some time to chill buy retiring ain't it.' After news of Ye's retirement gained traction online, Rich went on to delete the screenshot from his Instagram Story. This sparked fan speculation that he may have made the post to stir up publicity for his upcoming album, Life's A Gamble. As just hours later, Rich returned to Instagram to reveal the release date as well as a peek at the track list that includes a new song with West. West who is rumored to have produced Life's A Gamble with collaborator Ty Dolla $ign will be featured on track 16, titled Plain Jane. Rich's album also lists Carnival as the album's closing track. 'LIFES A GAMBLE 7/19' Rich captioned the post, while also giving his nearly 12million followers a look at the album artwork. Fans took to the comment section to voice their frustration and confusion, with one writing: 'Long story short y'all lied for promotion?' Many wanted to know 'why' Rich had deleted the texts about 'ye retiring.' West released his first-ever rap EP Get Well Soon... in December 2002 through Jay-Z now-defunct record label Roc-A-Fella Records. His released his critically-acclaimed debut album, College Dropout, less than two years later in February 2004. This sparked fan speculation that he may had made the post to stir up publicity from his upcoming album, Life's A Gamble As just hours later, Rich returned to Instagram to reveal the release date as well as a peek at the track list that includes a new song with West West who is rumored to have produced Life's A Gamble with collaborator Ty Dolla $ign will be featured on track 16, titled Plain Jane Since bursting onto the rap scene over 20 years ago, West has sold an incredible 160million records worldwide and is a 24-time Grammy Award winner. He has two Diamond certified songs 2007's Stronger and 2011's N***as in Paris featuring Jay-Z and all 10 of his albums have been at least certified Gold. His 10th studio album, Vultures 1, went straight to No.1 when it was released in February 2024. It was done in collaboration with Ty Dolla Sign as their hip hop duo $. West previously teased that a follow-up album, Vultures 2, is in the works. The chatter around West's alleged musical retirement comes amid a slew of legal woes for the rapper - mostly relating to his crumbling Yeezy empire. Just last week, a new bombshell lawsuit accused West and his new wife Bianca Censori, 29, of sending porn to staff members - including minors - at Yeezy. A federal lawsuit filed in California claimed that Censori, 29, sent an employee a link to 'hardcore' sexual content after her husband announced the launch of his adult film business, Yeezy Porn, in late April. It alleged that the videos were accessible to underage staffers, but did not name her as a defendant in the suit - simply using the story to illustrate the work environment at the YZYVSN streaming service app. Censori has since denied the claims via West's former chief of staff, Milo Yiannopoulos, who told DailyMail.com he had permission to speak on her behalf. 'I've been authorized by Bianca to stress that any allegation that she showed or caused to be shown any pornographic material to minors is offensive, disgusting, abhorrent and categorically and wholly false,' the statement says. Since bursting onto the rap scene over 20 years ago, West has sold an incredible 160million records worldwide and is a 24-time Grammy Award winner; seen in March He has two Diamond certified songs 2007's Stronger and 2011's N***as in Paris featuring Jay-Z and all 10 of his albums have been at least certified Gold His 10th studio album, Vultures 1, was released on February 10 The 39-year-old British commentator went on in his statement Monday to dismiss the allegations against him in the federal lawsuit, which accuses him and Ye of engaging in 'forced labor and cruel inhuman, or degrading treatment.' Yiannopoulos slammed the claims, saying it 'takes more imaginative leaps than The Lord of the Rings,' and claiming it was filed by a man who had no authority at YZYVSN. 'The tragic, desperate, attention-seeking wannabee Yeezy staffer behind this egregious and repulsive pack of lies, Shemar DaCosta, has never had any kind of access to Ye, his family, or Yeezy, or any information pertinent to the company, and he never will,' Yiannopoulos said. 'DaCosta, known as 'Hotep Susan' in Yeezy circles for his histrionic and absurd race-baiting, faked an entire job history at Yeezy on his LinkedIn profilethe most tragic and thirsty lie imaginable. 'He claimed to be a lead developer for Yeezy. He has never worked at Yeezy. Read my lips: He will never, ever, ever land a job at the company after telling such odious lies about the Lady of the House. 'There's a simple reason DaCosta's clownish claimthat minors were shown Yeezy Pornisn't true and can't be true. Yeezy Porn doesn't exist. 'I made sure of that by falling on my sword and quitting over it. 'All I've done since is try to get these app developers paid, as voluminous correspondence demonstrates,' he continued - defending himself from claims that developers went unpaid for their work. 'Anyone asserting otherwise, including many in the press, are lazy or simply dishonest buffoons uncritically repeating mendacious lies from a lawsuit that takes more imaginative leaps than The Lord of the Rings.' He went on to hit out at the claims that he segregated employees by race, and named Discord chat rooms 'slaves' and 'new slaves.' 'Secret white chat rooms? No, the other team just hustled harder than you did,' the former Yeezy chief of staff said of DaCosta. 'Hostile working environment? How can that be? You were never hired. Minors working illegally? Give me a break. 'The only minors being taken advantage of are the poor suckers roped into this lawsuit, who have no idea what a pack of lies their names have been attached to,' he claimed. 'If anyone's taking advantage of kids, it's Shemar DaCosta and his bozo Instagram lawyer Ben Lockyer, whose area of legal expertise appears to be credulous African Americans with dubious causes of action,' Yiannopoulos concluded. 'Both of them should be ashamed of themselves. And if they're not now, they soon will be.' The chatter around West's alleged musical retirement comes amid a slew of legal woes for the rapper - mostly relating to his crumbling Yeezy empire; seen in February Just last week, a new bombshell lawsuit accused West and his new wife Bianca Censori, 29, of sending porn to staff members - including minors - at Yeezy; seen in June Yiannopoulos also included posts from X that he said backs his claims that the suit is frivolous. Several wrote that Yiannopoulos is trying to get the app developers paid, with one man who identified himself as a 'Yeezy developer waiting to get paid' saying Yiannopoulos has been the only (ex)employee trying to get us paid by doing everything he can and more.' 'This lawsuit has only made things far worse for everyone,' the post said. Another, who identifies himself as the lead developer for the app, agreed. 'So then suing him [because you] didnt get offered a job by them or make up other lies is crazy,' he wrote. The lawsuit alleges that West and Yiannopoulos hired an international developer group comprised of several black members, many of whom were underage, with some as young as 14. They then fostered an allegedly racist working environment and repeatedly made false promises about payment and working hours. It claims that Yiannopoulos promised the developer group $120,000 if they completed the app, agreed to the work conditions and didn't complain. But Ye then allegedly ordered all of the employees to sign NDAs and threatened to fire the minors if they didn't. The duo also allegedly required minors to sign 'volunteer' agreements. From then on, Ye's white managers reportedly used disparaging and racist language to create a hostile working environment. They reportedly harassed team members on the basis of their age, race, gender, sexual orientation and national origin. Milo Yiannopoulos hit out at the allegations made in the lawsuit in a statement sent to DailyMail.com Yiannopoulos sent DailyMail.com some posts from former YZYVSN that he says backs his claims that the lawsuit is frivolous The suit claims Ye ordered all of his employees to sign NDAs and threatened to fire the minors if they didn't The workers were also reportedly forced to work through the night without pay or sleep. If they did not agree with the long work hours without breaks, the plaintiffs were allegedly threatened with having their pay withheld. But even after the team allegedly finished one of the apps on May 1 and sent it to Ye, the suit claims he did not pay them - leading them to file the suit asking for damages for unpaid wages and overtime pay, as well as emotional distress. DailyMail.com has reached out to West for comment. Kyle Sandilands has broken his silence after falling short in the latest Melbourne radio ratings. The Kyle and Jackie O Show was beaten by their Nova rivals Jase and Lauren, who were axed by KIIS FM last year to make way for the Sydney-based hosts. During Wednesday morning's segment, the 53-year-old weighed in on the results and their show's progression after they were asked to appear on Channel Ten's The Project on Tuesday. Kyle explained that despite the results, the Kyle & Jackie O Show is slowly gaining momentum in the Victorian capital. 'I heard we were invited on The Project last night to talk about the Melbourne ratings, because not much happened for us in Melbourne,' Kyle began. 'We gained another 50,000 people, but apparently that wasn't good enough.' He added: 'It's a slow burn, you know, not everyone wants to hear about dildos and a**e-licking. 'If we're going to do any interviews, we'll be doing it on a high rating show, not some piece of s**t like The Project.' Kyle Sandilands (pictured) has addressed where his radio show stands against its Melbourne rivals after falling short in the latest radio ratings Lauren Phillips and Jason 'Jase' Hawkins had a huge win in the FM breakfast rankings, becoming the second most-listened to show in Melbourne. They boosted their 8.7 per cent share to 9.6 per cent in the latest survey, knocking FOX FM's Fifi, Fev and Nick, who dropped from a 10 per cent share to 9.5 per cent, down to third place. The Kyle and Jackie O show came in sixth place with a 5.9 per cent share behind smoothfm and Triple M's Marty Sheargold Show. GOLD FM's Christian O'Connell still has the highest rating FM breakfast show in Melbourne with a 10.8 per cent share. 3AW's Ross Stevenson & Russel Howcroft is the highest rating breakfast show overall in Melbourne with a 18.8 per cent share. ARN Chief Content Officer Duncan Campbell said: 'Despite their 25 years on air together, The Kyle & Jackie O Show is still a brand-new show for Melbourne, and we are encouraged by these early results. 'In particular, the increase in cume [cumulative audience] demonstrates that the show is attracting new listeners and as that cume is converted to loyal listening, we'll see share increasing. Lauren Phillips and Jason 'Jase' Hawkins had a huge win in the breakfast slot, becoming the second most-listened to show in Melbourne. Both pictured 'We know it'll take a few more surveys before their presence truly starts to resonate with the Melbourne audience, but we're excited to build on this foundation and are confident that Kyle & Jackie O will continue to capture the hearts of Melbourne listeners just as they have in Sydney.' The shock jocks faired better in Sydney, achieving a share of 14.1 per cent and attracting a weekly audience of 696,000 Sydneysiders. However it placed them behind overall winner, 2GB's Ben Fordham, who has pulled almost 3 points ahead of the pair, after they have dropped from 14.7 to 14.1. Fordham has gained 0.4 per cent to a solid 17 per cent of the listeners, while 2GB picked up 0.7 per cent to make it to the lead. Kyle and Jackie O have held onto a 5 per cent lead over WSFM's Jonesy and Amanda, who are at 9.1 per cent. Meanwhile, Smoothfm has come out at 9.8 per cent. The Kyle and Jackie O show came in sixth place with a 5.9 per cent share behind smoothfm and Triple M's Marty Sheargold Show On April 29, Kyle and Jackie O took their breakfast radio show to Melbourne in a huge multimillion-dollar expansion deal. The move triggered the axing of Jason 'Jase' Hawkins and Lauren Phillips' breakfast show. An unapologetic Kyle said he felt indifferent to his competitors being sacked, as it ultimately came down to who was attracting the most listeners. 'No, I don't care. That's why we went for Melbourne, we were like, 'We've given this Jase and Lauren on KIIS FM a good run, it can't get over fourth in the radio ratings, so we'll take it',' he told news.com.au. He added that the The Kyle and Jackie O Show was moved to Melbourne because it was a 'market in trouble' and their program could help regain listeners. However, Kyle's co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson took a different approach, adding that while she didn't like competitors being axed it was the unfortunate reality of the business. 'No one ever wants to move someone out of a job. I wouldn't want that to happen to me. It's a double edged sword, it really is,' she said. The Kyle & Jackie O Show can be heard from 6am to 10am on KIIS 1065 in Sydney and KIIS 101.1 in Melbourne, or listen on the iHeartRadio App. A woman accused Qantas of giving A Current Affair host Allison Langdon special treatment on a flight from Sydney to Fiji over the weekend in a wild TikTok spray - but the airline insists she got no such thing. Aussie mum Courtney, who was on the same flight as the Channel Nine presenter, claimed passengers in economy had asked staff for wine during the flight but were told the beverage wasn't on offer. She said Allison, 45, was also seated in economy and was not only offered wine, but her children - son Mack, 7, and daughter Scout, 4 - were allowed to use the bathrooms in first class, but other youngsters were denied access. 'There was a famous person from 60 Minutes on the plane, I think her name is Allison. She didn't get a first class seat, she got an economy seat,' Courtney ranted on TikTok. 'We flew Qantas. They were turning people down when they were asking for wine and that's fine. I didn't ask but I overheard a lot of people being rejected. 'But then they were offering her wine and handing it out in front of everyone else. So the people who were being declined alcohol had to sit and watch this famous lady be served alcohol when they bought the same ticket for the same price. 'The staff were treating her better than everyone else. It's just not fair. Why are these famous people getting treated better in front of you when you've both paid the same amount of money? 'If you're going to give someone special treatment just because you think they're famous, I think that's wrong. I don't understand what's going on with service these days.' But Courtney's account of what happened on the flight was quickly debunked. In photos obtained by Daily Mail Australia, Langdon was pictured with her husband Michael Willesee Jr. and their children at the Qantas business class check-in before flying out for the school holidays. They were also escorted to the gate by Qantas ground staff, a service usually only provided to business or first class passengers. If she was in business class, she would have paid for any 'special treatment' she received. Meanwhle, the Qantas website also clearly states all economy passengers on international flights are offered complimentary Australian wines, spirits and non-alcoholic drinks. A Qantas spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia 'it's ridiculous to suggest Allison was given any special treatment'. 'Any extras she was offered would be the same as we provide other similar frequent flyers whey they travel with us. 'Our crew often say how nice Allison is to deal with and never wants a fuss.' Daily Mail Australia has contacted Langdon for comment. A woman has accused Qantas of giving ACA host Allison Langdon special treatment on a flight from Sydney to Fiji - despite her being 'seated in economy'. However, photos obtained by Daily Mail Australia show Langdon and her family checking in at the business class desk The family was also escorted to the gate by Qantas ground staff, a service usually only provided to business or first class passengers Langdon and Willesee Jr. tied the knot in 2008 after meeting for the first time at a Sydney bar. 'We were at a bar and this guy walked in and he had his red T-shirt and dark jeans and you just have that moment where you just have like an overwhelming physical attraction to someone? I just got hit by this,' she previously said. Langdon recently revealed what she plans to do when she stops hosting ACA. She joined the program at the start of 2023, replacing Tracy Grimshaw, after a three-year stint co-hosting the Today show with Karl Stefanovic. In May, she said she hopes to stay on ACA for 'a while', and when she does eventually step aside, she intends to go back to university and start a new career. Kyle Sandilands has shared his theory about where Schapelle Corby's drug-filled boogie board bag really came from after her infamous arrest at Bali airport almost 20 years ago. Schapelle, 46, was incarcerated for nine years for attempting to smuggle cannabis into Indonesia. She was arrested at Bali airport in October 2004 with 4.2kg of cannabis wrapped in plastic inside her boogie board bag. Schapelle has always maintained her innocence and her lawyers argued she had unintentionally become a drug mule, suggesting baggage handlers put the drugs in her bag. Radio shock jock Kyle, 53, discussed her incarceration on The Kyle and Jackie O Show on Wednesday morning. He said he believes smugglers forgot to take the cannabis out of the bag after her transit flight from Brisbane to Sydney, leading to it accidentally travelling on to Bali. 'I think they didn't take something out that should have come from Brisbane to Sydney. They missed it and off it went and got redirected to Bali,' he shared. His co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson also shared her sympathies with Schapelle, claiming she didn't deserve the nine-year prison sentence. Kyle Sandilands has shared his theory about where Schapelle Corby's drug-filled boogie board bag really came from after her infamous arrest at Bali airport almost 20 years ago 'She nearly lost her mind over it. Either way, even if she did it, I don't think she deserved what she went through,' Jackie, 49, argued. Schapelle has made a new life for herself after her release from an Indonesian prison in 2014, and is now making a living as a successful clockmaker. Earlier this year, she promoted some of her colourful timepieces with her 162,000 followers, which typically retail for around $220. 'My new small size. Aren't they cute? Look how cute this is,' the SAS Australia contestant said as she held an ocean-themed mini-clock up to the camera. Schapelle, 46, was incarcerated for nine years for attempting to smuggle cannabis into Indonesia . She was arrested at Bali airport in October 2004 with 4.2kg of cannabis wrapped in plastic inside her boogie board bag Schapelle was released from Kerobokan Prison in 2014 and deported from Indonesia in 2017, with many believing she received a lifetime ban from the country. However, she shocked her Instagram followers earlier this year when she revealed she was only given a six-month ban from the tropical paradise. 'Not true,' she clarified of the reported lifetime ban. 'I was given a six-month ban.' But Schapelle revealed she has 'no yearning desire to go back' to Bali after her incarceration, despite being allowed to return. Phaedra Parks is reportedly 'negotiating her return' to The Real Housewives of Atlanta, which is currently in production on its 16th season. LoveBScott.com reported Monday that the 50-year-old reality star was unfortunately not able to iron out the details of her contract before Bravo cameras rolled at Cynthia Bailey's event at 'Lake Bailey' this past weekend. That same day, Phaedra - who boasts 3M Instagram followers - posted a BTS snap of herself getting glam captioned: 'I stay ready, so I never have to get ready.' The problem is Parks - who also happens to be a mortician - is already hard at work on the set of the 11th season of a different Bravo reality show, Married to Medicine. The OMGFashun guest judge was notoriously fired off the RHOA in 2017 for spreading a rumor that co-star Kandi Burruss 'wanted to drug and rape' their co-star Porsha Williams. Phaedra Parks is reportedly 'negotiating her return' to The Real Housewives of Atlanta, which is currently in production on its 16th season (pictured June 15) Phaedra (3-R) pictured at her final RHOA reunion for the ninth season in 2017 But Bravo execs were evidently impressed with how well Phaedra interacted with Porsha during their 'Frick and Frack' reunion on Watch What Happens Live's 15th anniversary special that aired June 30. Phaedra's appearances on The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip, The Real Housewives of Dubai, and The Real Housewives of New Jersey were also reportedly another 'test' to see if she could potentially make her Housewife return. Parks has already wrapped the Morocco-set fifth season of The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip - premiering later this year on Peacock - alongside Brandi Glanville, Vicki Gunvalson, Eva Marcille, Camille Grammer, Caroline Manzo, Alex McCord, and Gretchen Rossi. Opportunity unexpectedly arose following the June 14th firing of RHOA star Kenya Moore over allegations she revealed pictures of new cast member Brittany Eady performing a sex act during her Kenya Moore Hair Spa re-grand opening on June 6. In leaked audio from the event, the 53-year-old Miss USA 1993 could be heard claiming: 'Brittany does escort. There's an IG that put her emails out on blast. She charges $1,400 for an appointment. You not only a w****, you a cheap w****.' On June 26, Kenya denied everything on Instagram, writing: 'The rumors and narrative about me randomly showing nudes or revenge [porn] is 1000% untrue. I have proof and will share soon.' The RHOA season 16 cast includes Brittany Eady, Porsha Williams, Drew Sidora, Kelli Ferrell, Shamea Morton-Mwangi, and Angela Oakley along with former housewife Cynthia Bailey serving as a 'friend.' Meanwhile, The Traitors contestant used to run her very own legal practice, The Parks Group, after earning a law degree from the University of Georgia. On the personal front, Phaedra has primary physical custody of two sons - Ayden, 13; and Dylan, 11 - from her four-year marriage to convicted fraudster Apollo Nida, which ended in 2017. Porsha, Shamea, & Lauren filming at Lake Bailey yesterday! Are yall ready for Sweet 16? #RHOA pic.twitter.com/HhdfcsVxIw jay (@JaysRealityBlog) July 6, 2024 LoveBScott.com reported Monday that the 50-year-old reality star was unfortunately not able to iron out the details of her contract before Bravo cameras rolled at Cynthia Bailey's event at 'Lake Bailey' this past weekend That same day, Phaedra - who boasts 3M Instagram followers - posted a BTS snap of herself getting glam captioned: 'I stay ready, so I never have to get ready' The problem is Parks - who also happens to be a mortician - is already hard at work on the set of the 11th season of a different Bravo reality show, Married to Medicine (pictured September 20) The OMGFashun guest judge (R) was notoriously fired off the RHOA in 2017 for spreading a rumor that co-star Kandi Burruss (L) 'wanted to drug and rape' their co-star Porsha Williams But Bravo execs were evidently impressed with how well Phaedra interacted with Porsha (M) during their 'Frick and Frack' reunion on Watch What Happens Live's 15th anniversary special that aired June 30 Phaedra's appearances on The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip (pictured in 2022), The Real Housewives of Dubai, and The Real Housewives of New Jersey were also reportedly another 'test' to see if she could potentially make her Housewife return Opportunity unexpectedly arose following the June 14th firing of RHOA star Kenya Moore (R) over allegations she revealed pictures of new cast member Brittany Eady performing a sex act during her Kenya Moore Hair Spa re-grand opening on June 6 Uma Jammeh has broken her silence on why she dramatically quit the Love Island villa on Tuesday's episode. The 23-year-old shocked her fellow islanders when she walked from the show after Wil Anderson was dumped in the recoupling. Uma and Wil were coupled up and, after a rough period following Casa Amor, had patched things up. But bombshell Reuben Collins chose to couple up with Uma which meant Wil was left single and dumped from the villa. Uma immediately burst into tears and announced to the villa she would be leaving with him. Uma Jammeh has broken her silence on why she dramatically quit the Love Island villa on Tuesday's episode The 23-year-old shocked her fellow islanders when she walked from the show after Wil Anderson was dumped in the recoupling Speaking after her decision to quit the show, Uma said: 'I knew where my head and heart was at and its with Wil so I wanted to be true to my feelings for him.' The pair are looking ahead to growing their romance outside the villa, with Uma adding: 'We cant wait to just do normal things on the outside, stay inside and have a takeaway and go on cute dates. 'Wil wants to take me to Whitley Bay to see where hes from but weve also discussed him possibly moving to London so Im looking forward to the future with him. The only way is up from here.' Uma told how she felt an instant connection with Wil from the moment he entered the villa and found it tough being away from him during Casa Amor. She said: 'When Wil walked in I instantly felt a connection with him, he was all in for me which I really liked, and it was refreshing off the back of the Ayo situation. 'Once Wil took me to the other Villa for an overnight stay something clicked and I felt a special spark in that moment which made me realise he was the person for me. 'Thats why I found Casa hard for me as it made me miss Wil more. I feel so comfortable and happy around him. 'Seeing him waiting for me after Casa was such a special feeling, I know weve had our challenges but its made us stronger than ever. Hes my blueberry.' Speaking after her decision to quit the show, Uma said: 'I knew where my head and heart was at and its with Wil so I wanted to be true to my feelings for him' The pair are looking ahead to growing their romance outside the villa, with Uma adding: 'We cant wait to just do normal things on the outside, stay inside and have a takeaway and go on cute dates' Uma told how she felt an instant connection with Wil from the moment he entered the villa and found it tough being away from him during Casa Amor The islanders were all asked to sit by the firepit before it was revealed that new boys Reuben and Joshua Oyinsan would choose the girl they wanted to couple up with. 'The girl I've decided to steal is... Uma,' said Reuben. With tears in her eyes, Uma turned to kiss Wil multiple times before going up to stand with Reuben. Wil then received a text, which read: 'Wil you are now single and therefore have been dumped from the island. Please pack your bags and say your goodbyes.' As the islanders around the firepit gasped, Uma burst into tears and straight away said: 'I'm going to leave, sorry.' Speaking to the girls, Uma added: 'I'm leaving guys I'm not being funny, I'm going. I'm literally going guys, I'm not staying here without him.' 'If that's what you think is right then follow your heart,' Nicole said, as Uma replied: 'What the f*** am i doing here now, do you know what I mean? We just got back to a good place.' Love Island continues on Wednesday at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX. A newly-released death certificate for legendary late actor Donald Sutherland says that he was cremated. Sutherland died at the age of 88 on June 20 at the VITAS inpatient hospice unit at the University of Miami, according to a copy of the official death certificate reviewed by DailyMail.com. The cremation process took place at the Van Orsdel Crematory in Miami, according to the document issued by the state of Florida. The document also listed Sutherland's widow Francine Racette, 76, as his surviving spouse, and indicated his funeral would be held in Miami. The death of the Canadian actor, who spent more than five decades in show business, was announced in a post on X/Twitter by his son, actor Kiefer Sutherland. A newly-released death certificate for legendary late actor Donald Sutherland says that he was cremated following his death at 88 last month in Miami. Pictured in Italy in 2019 Fans left flowers on the actor's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the wake of his death 'With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away,' Kiefer said in the post, which was accompanied by a vintage photo of the pair. 'I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film. 'Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that. A life well lived.' Sutherland amassed more than 200 credits in TV and films in his career, including 1970's M.A.S.H., 1971's Klute, 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1980's Ordinary People, 1991's Backdraft, and multiple films in The Hunger Games franchise. The late actor was well-remembered by a number of his peers following news of his death. Sutherland's Klute costar and one-time love interest Jane Fonda said on Instagram that she was 'heartbroken' upon news of his passing. 'Donald was a brilliant actor and a complex man who shared quite a few adventures with me, such as the FTA Show, an anti-Vietnam war tour that performed for 60,000 active duty soldiers, sailors, and marines in Hawaii, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Japan in 1971,' Fonda said. Sutherland's M.A.S.H. costar Elliott Gould told the AP in a statement: 'Donald was a giant, not only physically but as a talent, he was also enormously kind and generous. 'It's never easy losing the caliber of a human being and actor like Donald Sutherland, but this one really profoundly hurts because Donald was like my brother, and a big part of my own career.' Actor Kiefer Sutherland confirmed his father's passing in a post on X/Twitter accompanied by a vintage photo of the pair The stalwart actor, who amassed more than 200 credits in TV and films in his career, was pictured at the Berlin premiere of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part in November of 2015 Helen Mirren, who collaborated with Sutherland on the 2017's movie The Leisure Seekers, called the late entertainer 'one of the smartest actors I ever worked with.' She added: 'He had a wonderful enquiring brain, and a great knowledge on a wide variety of subjects. He combined this great intelligence with a deep sensitivity, and with a seriousness about his profession as an actor. This all made him into the legend of film that he became.' Filmmaker Ron Howard said on social media, 'I was blessed to direct him in #Backdraft. One of the most intelligent, interesting & engrossing film actors of all time.' Howard praised Sutherland's 'incredible range, creative courage & dedication to serving the story & the audience with supreme excellence.' Sutherland, in a 2017 interview with the AP about him receiving an honorary Oscar, said he wouldn't mind passing away doing what he loved. 'Im really hoping that in some movie Im doing, I die - but I die, me, Donald - and theyre able to use my funeral and the coffin,' Sutherland said. 'That would be absolutely ideal. I would love that.' As students of all ages in China have started their summer vacation, "parent-child" travel welcomes its peak season, with museums being one of tourists' top choices. Tickets that have been released so far for many popular museums, including the Palace Museum in Beijing, and the Nanjing Museum in Nanjing, have all been fully booked, according to a report of thepaper.cn on Tuesday. Data from online platforms Meituan and Dianping show that the search popularity of "museum" has increased by 61 percent month-on-month since June, with "Shaanxi History Museum", "Shanghai Museum" and "National Museum of China" as related hot search phrases. The top five cities searched are Xi'an, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Wuhan, with the highest proportion of search users aged 30 to 35. According to online travel platform Ctrip, as of July 3, the number of museum orders during summer vacation increased by more than 90 percent on a yearly basis. "Early bird tickets" for some exhibitions have also sold out early. For example, the 200,000 early bird tickets for The Civilization of Ancient Egypt exhibition at the Shanghai Museum, which went on sale on May 20, have been sold out by June 19, said the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism. As of July 5, the top ten museums with a high search index on travel platform LY.com were the Palace Museum, Shaanxi History Museum, Shanghai Museum, Suzhou Museum, Luoyang Museum, Guanghan Sanxingdui Museum, Nanjing Museum, Guangdong Museum, Chengdu Museum and Henan Museum, the report said. The popularity of museums has also triggered demand for nearby accommodations. According to Ctrip, The Civilization of Ancient Egypt exhibition at the Shanghai Museum has driven summer orders of nearby hotels to a 20 percent increase year-on-year. Data from homestay bookings and operating platform Tujia show that guest house bookings around museums nationwide jumped nearly two times compared with the same period last year. Beijing, Chengdu, Xi'an, Chongqing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Luoyang and Zhengzhou are the most popular cities for booking guest houses around museums in China, with Luoyang and Zhengzhou seeing the highest increase in bookings, both more than doubling over the same period last year. Summer bookings for guest house around Guanghan Sanxingdui Museum jumped by more than 15 times year-on-year, the report said, adding that bookings of guest houses near Nanjing Museum and Shaanxi History Museum increased by nearly 1.5 times and 50 percent year-on-year, respectively. Megan Thee Stallion said 'me' when Steve Harvey asked her to name something that might be curvy on Tuesday's season premiere of Celebrity Family Feud on ABC. The 29-year-old Grammy-winning rapper insisted that she should be on the board and proudly spun around showing her curvy figure in her strapless red leather bustier and leather pants. 'It's true!' Megan said. 'Megan Thee Stallion should be the answer!' Megan said. Megan then got excited when the answer 'me' to the question of naming something that might be curvy actually got her 48 points. Megan Thee Stallion said 'me' when Steve Harvey asked her to name something that might be curvy on Tuesday's season premiere of Celebrity Family Feud on ABC The three-time Grammy-winning rap superstar was playing for the nonprofit group AVDA, a charity for aiding survivors of domestic violence, and went up against Ne-Yo, also a Grammy winner, and his family. Steve started the show by telling Megan that his wife and daughters love her. 'Oh, my god, we made it to Family Feud!' Megan yelled in delight. Megan brought along her manager Travis Farris and her best friends Jaela Mitchell, Kellon Williams, and Bryon Javar to compete for her team. Ne-Yo, also a three-time Grammy-winning artist, brought his mother Lorraine Smith, his sister Nicole Smith, his brother Jayvon Smith, and Jayvon's wife Antonia Soobyia for his team. He said he was playing for the charity Friendship Place that gives support to the homeless. Megan and Ne-Yo were the first to face off against each other. Steve said they asked 100 married people to name something they had done to their mate's feet and asked them to guess what the most popular response was. 'Massage,' Megan said. Her answer turned out to be the top answer on the board. The 29-year-old Grammy-winning 'Savage' rapper insisted that she should be on the board and proudly spun around showing her curvy figure in her strapless red leather bustier and leather pants Steve started the show by telling Megan that his wife and daughters love her Ne-Yo, also a three-time Grammy-winning artist, brought his mother Lorraine Smith, his sister Nicole Smith, his brother Jayvon Smith, and Jayvon's wife Antonia Soobyia for his team Megan and Ne-Yo were the first to face off against each other 'Pass or Play,' Steve asked. Megan said they were going to play. 'We're going to play!' Megan said. Travis went next and guessed 'cut their toenails' and Megan was shocked. Pedicure was actually on the board. Jaela went next. 'Suck them, Steve,' Jaela said. It wasn't on the board so Kellon guessed 'smelled them' and he was right. Bryon went last and said 'moved them' but that wasn't on the board either. Megan brought along her manager Travis Farris and her best friends Jaela Mitchell, Kellon Williams, and Bryon Javar to compete for her team 'Play footsies,' Megan guessed but it wasn't on the board. Ne-Yo's team then got a chance to steal. 'How about kiss them,' Ne-Yo said. His answer wasn't on the board so Megan's team won the round. For the second question, Travis faced off against Ne-Yo's mother Lorraine. Steve asked them to name something in the refrigerator that a cheap guy might use in his hair instead of styling gel. Lorraine suggested butter but Travis won with mayonnaise. Jaela suggested a man might put relish in his hair but that wasn't on the board. Kellon said Aloe Vera and Bryon said sour cream but neither of their guesses were there. Ne-Yo's team guessed eggs and ended up winning the round. Next, Jaela went up against Nicole with the question to name an alcoholic beverage that would be had poolside. Jaela guessed a Long Island iced tea, but Nicole guessed a margarita. Jayvon guessed Pina colada and his wife guessed beer and both answers were there. Jayvon said Hennessy for his second guess. Jaela suggested a man might put relish in his hair but that wasn't on the board 'You can't hide the hood,' Steve said. 'You tried to act like you weren't in the hood, but everyone in the hood went 'that's right.'' Unfortunately his answer wasn't there and Megan got a chance to steal guessing a sex on the beach, but it wasn't on the board either. Megan's team got to play the next round guessing what fruit starts with the letter C and they won the entire round guessing right each time. Megan jumped around and was so excited they made it to the final round. Megan then played Fast Money with Steve. He asked her what a flight attendant would hate to come into the cockpit and find the pilot and copilot and she said 'dead.' Megan then played Fast Money with Steve 'When you say you are taking a quick shower how many minutes is it?' Steve said. 'An hour,' Megan said. 'Name something a dog sees that makes it growl,' Steve said. 'Another dog,' Megan said. 'Fill in the blank, blank and eggs,' Steve said. 'Bacon and eggs,' Megan said. 'Name something that might be curvy,' Steve said. 'Me,' Megan said. Steve loved the answer and immediately started clapping. Megan then turned around and posed for the audience. Her answer surprisingly gained her 48 points. Megan ended up getting a respectable 125 points for her team. Her friend Bryon went next and when the curvy question came up, he also answered 'Megan'. Megan then turned around and posed for the audience as she showed her curves Megan ended up getting a respectable 125 points for her team Her friend Bryon went next and when the curvy question came up, he also answered 'Megan' Megan celebrated winning $25,000 for charity with her team Since the answer already had been provided, he then offered the answer 'road'. Bryon ended up scoring enough points for Megan and her team to win the $25,000 for her charity. Megan danced around in celebration as they won and then mingled with her friends and Ne-Yo and his family. Celebrity Family Feud will return next week on ABC. Anne-Marie Duff has revealed that for each new role, she showers at the specific time she thinks the character would - as well as picking out the perfect perfume. The Shameless actress, 53, has had a glittering career both on stage and screen, winning a BAFTA for Irish comedy Bad Sisters. But Anne-Marie has admitted she is superstitious and with each different role, she has certain rituals she needs to carry out to make sure everything goes to plan. 'I have my rituals,' she told Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett on the Dish from Waitrose podcast on Tuesday. 'I'll go, like, "I do this at this time", and "I do that at this time". 'You get little sort of obsessive-compulsive behaviours that are... theyre really rituals, superstitions, aren't they? Anne-Marie Duff has revealed that for each new role, she showers at the specific time she thinks the character would - as well as picking out the perfect perfume - she told The Mirror on Tuesday (Pictured in May 2023) The Shameless actress, 53, has had a glittering career both on stage and screen, having won a BAFTA for Irish comedy Bad Sisters in 2022 'I know exactly the time I have to have a shower before a show, and it depends on the character.' Anne-Marie also said that she picks a perfume to match each character to ensure she smells like she thinks they would. Her confession comes ahead of next Wednesday's return of her Channel 4 drama Suspect, for which she was spotted filming dramatic scenes in November. Anne-Marie and her co-star Dominic Cooper could be seen tussling as they filmed the dramatic scenes on a small fishing boat on the Thames. Both were wrapped up in thick padded coats as Dominic's character forced his hand over Anne-Marie's mouth to stifle her screams. And despite the dark themes both actors appeared in high spirits between scenes and chatted with the crew. Anne-Marie reprises her role as psychotherapist Dr Susannah Newman with Dominic making his debut as her mysterious new client Jon Fallow. But Anne-Marie has admitted she is superstitious and with each different role, she has certain rituals she needs to carry out to make sure everything goes to plan (Pictured with James McAvoy in Shameless) 'I have my rituals,' she told The Mirror on Tuesday. 'I'll go, like, "I do this at this time", and "I do that at this time" (Pictured in April 2022) The second season follows Susannah who is now on a desperate quest to track down a self-confessed serial killer before he kills again. But when a mysterious new client admits under hypnosis that he is a murderer and intends on killing another young female that evening, Susannah knows he must be stopped. Ben Miller also reprises his tole with other new additions alongside Dominic including Tamzin Greig, Eddie Marsan and Gina McKee. Actress Anne-Marie said: 'I'm so pleased to be returning to Suspect to be able to dig deeper into the character of Dr Susannah Newman'. 'Expect lots of twists, turns and revelations alongside more questions to be answered. I can't wait for viewers to see what we've done with the second series.' Anne-Marie also said that she picks a perfume to match each character to ensure she smells like she thinks they would (Pictured in 2018) Meanwhile Channel 4's Ben Wadey said: Were thrilled to be working with Eagle Eye Drama again to be bringing back Suspect for a second series'. 'With Anne-Marie Duff returning as Dr Susannah Newman plus a truly spectacular ensemble cast that includes Dominic Cooper, Tamsin Greig and Eddie Marsan, Channel 4 viewers are truly in for a ride when this hits our screens'. Series one of Suspect was broadcast earlier this year with James Nesbitt leading the cast as veteran detective Danny Frater. Ellen DeGeneres revealed that she will be 'done' with showbusiness after her next Netflix special. DeGeneres, 66, hit the stage for a stand-up show in Santa Rosa last week, for her Ellen's Last Stand Up tour, two years after her talk show was canceled following the toxic workplace scandal that tarnished her reputation as TV's favorite host. During the show the comedian discussed her exit from the spotlight and joked that she's next going to be cancelled for being 'old, gay and mean', as per SFGate. When questioned if she might return to fame sometime in the future, she firmly shut down the possibility. 'This is the last time you're going to see me. After my Netflix special, I'm done,' Ellen said of her upcoming one-hour show taping this fall. Ellen DeGeneres, 66, revealed that she will be 'done' with showbusiness after her next Netflix special; Seen in 2019 'Let me catch you up on what's been going on with me since you last saw me,' Ellen told the audience. 'I got chickens. Oh yeah, and I got kicked out of show business for being mean.' DeGeneres added: 'I used to say, "I don't care what people say about me." Now I realize I said that during the height of my popularity.' The 34-time Emmy winner noted how the first time she was 'kicked out of show business' it was for coming out as a lesbian in 1997. 'Next time, I'll be kicked out for being old. Old, gay and mean, the triple crown,' Ellen - who said her intention was never to hurt anyone - wisecracked. 'I can be demanding and impatient and tough. I am a strong woman. I am many things, but I am not mean.' DeGeneres famously voiced the forgetful fish Dory in Pixar films Finding Nemo (2003) and Finding Dory (2016) as well as the DVD special feature Exploring the Reef with Jean-Michel Cousteau (2003) - and one fan begged her for another. 'No,' the Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient dismissed. 'I'm going bye-bye, remember?' The comedian hit the stage for a three-night stand-up show in Santa Rosa last week, for her Ellen's Last Stand Up tour, two years after her talk show was canceled 'This is the last time you're going to see me. After my Netflix special, I'm done,' Ellen said of her upcoming one-hour show taping this fall, as per SFGate Ellen - who lamented over being 'kicked out of show business' twice - claimed to the crowd: 'I can be demanding and impatient and tough. I am a strong woman. I am many things, but I am not mean' During the show she also joked that she's next going to be cancelled for being 'old, gay and mean' Earlier this week Ellen chose not to address her fans before quietly canceling four scheduled shows in Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago on her 32-date comeback tour Her comedy special is coming out later this year. It will be her second Netflix special, following 2018s Relatable; She is pictured in 2019 DeGeneres' scandal was sparked by a single tweet penned by comedian Kevin T. Porter in March 2020 asking people for the 'most insane stories you've heard about Ellen being mean,' which amassed 2,600 replies. Four months later, BuzzFeed News published an expose featuring one current and 10 former employees of the Louisiana-born funnywoman's former self-titled daytime talk show alleging racism, workplace bullying, and sexual harassment. By August 2020, WarnerMedia had launched an internal investigation, Ellen had issued a formal apology to her 255 employees, and executive producers Ed Glavin, Kevin Leman, and Jonathan Norman were all fired from the show. DeGeneres - who also apologized to fans on air - broadcast her final episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show on May 26, 2022 after 19 seasons. She later branded it a 'coordinated misogynistic' attack on her and she has mostly stayed out of the spotlight since the talk show's finale aired on May 26, 2022. Earlier this week Ellen chose not to address her fans before quietly canceling four scheduled shows in Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago on her 32-date comeback tour. The comedian's cancellations came hours after SF Gate homepage editor Gabe Lehman published his detailed review of her show at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, CA. The Ellen DeGeneres Show went off the air in 2022 after 19 seasons on NBC following the toxic workplace scandal that tarnished her reputation as TV's favorite host 'Unfortunately, the Event Organizer has had to cancel your event,' Ticketmaster informed customers on Wednesday. 'You don't need to do a thing. We'll issue a refund to the original method of payment used at time of purchase, as soon as funds are received from the Event Organizer. 'It should appear on your account within 14-21 days. Please Note: If the tickets were transferred to you, the refund will go to the fan who originally purchased the tickets from Ticketmaster.' Ellen is next scheduled to perform on Monday at the Paramount Theatre in Denver, CO. Her comedy special is coming out later this year. It will be her second Netflix special, following 2018s Relatable. Rashida Jones shared an update on her relationship status with Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig. Even though she has been with the rock musician, 40, for many years, the Silo actress, 48, said they are not yet married but have plans to tie the knot in the future. 'We're not married,' she told The New Yorker in an article published on Sunday. 'We just kind of call each other that,' she continued. 'But we are what we are, in the eyes of God!' The Black-ish star who welcomed her first child, son Isaiah, now nearly six, with Koenig in 2018 added they do want to get married in the future but already call each other husband and wife. Rashida Jones shared an update on her relationship status with Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig; seen in March 'I'm sure we'll get married at some point, but we basically are,' she said. The Parks and Recreation alum who was first romantically linked to Koenig in 2016 also opened up about her life as the partner of a rock star. 'Like, vintage fur coats and bus life? No. Too old for bus life. But I'm extremely proud,' she said. 'He takes a very long time to make his albums, which is so lucky for me, because it means he's home a lot of the time,' she added. 'This is our second tour cycle really, so we'll see how far I go with rock wife,' she continued. The Office vet also spoke about her parents, record producer Quincy Jones and late model Peggy Lipton, and their marriage. 'My parents only got married when my dad had his first brain aneurysm and my sister was six months old, because of rights stuff,' she explained. Jones also said she is in her self-proclaimed 'kooky, middle-aged era.' Even though she has been with the rock musician, 40, for many years, the Silo actress, 48, said they are not yet married but have plans to tie the knot in the future; seen in March 2016 The Black-ish star added they do want to get married in the future but already call each other husband and wife; seen in November 2016 The pair were first romantically linked in 2016 and welcomed son Isaiah, now six, together in 2018; seen in October 2017 In addition to her many roles including being a musician's 'wife,' she also spoke about her latest acting gig. She spoke about starring in Sunny, an upcoming sci-fi series premiering on Apple TV+. The series, which is based on a novel by Colin O'Sullivan, stars Jones as Suzie, an American expat living in Kyoto, Japan. The story follows Suzie as she struggles to process the disappearance of her husband Masa, who is played by Hidetoshi Nishijima, and their son Zen after they are presumed dead in a tragic plane crash. She receives a homebot named Sunny, who tries to help her process her grief and get her life together. With the robot's assistance, she learns that her husband wasn't the refrigerator engineer he claimed to be. About the role, Jones said it was a different experience she was used to as she had to play a grieving lead character, also adding that the robot was 'very high-maintenance.' 'I've never gotten the chance to play this kind of role before, somebody who's propelling a mystery forward and has her own baggage that she's taking with her,' she told the outlet. In addition to her many roles including being a musician's 'wife,' she also spoke about her latest acting gig. She spoke about starring in Sunny, an upcoming sci-fi series premiering on Apple TV+ The series, which is based on a novel by Colin O'Sullivan, stars Jones as Suzie, an American expat living in Kyoto, Japan The story follows Suzie as she struggles to process the disappearance of her husband Masa, who is played by Hidetoshi Nishijima, and their son after they are presumed dead in a tragic plane crash. She receives a homebot named Sunny, who tries to help her process her grief and get her life together. The debut episode airs on Wednesday; seen in Tokyo on June 25 'I've never really played a lead in a series like this, where the story is being told through this one person's searching,' she said. 'I felt like, I'm old enough, I'm ready for the challenge. 'I love the sense that this character, unlike me, is isolated,' she continued. 'She's a bit misanthropic. She came to Japan and found her own people, her family and then she lost that very suddenly. It does feel like a show about figuring out where you belong. 'And the grief part is interesting to me,' she added. 'Grief has very much shaped my life in the past five years, because I lost my mother five years ago. 'I became a mother, and then seven months later I lost my mother. That squeeze in both directions forever changed me.' The debut episode of Sunny will be available to stream on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, July 10; episodes will be released every week. Ruby Tuesday Matthews turned heads on Wednesday when she flaunted her slender frame in a red bikini while at the luxury Calile Hotel in Fortitude Valley. The glamorous Byron Bay-based influencer, 30, who recently returned from a holiday in Bali, shared a reel of images showing off her hotel in Brisbane. Several snaps showed the extravagant dishes Ruby ate, while in another she lounged by the pool in a very revealing two-piece with daughter Holiday, one. 'Take me back @thecalilehotel,' Ruby captioned the reel of images as she was also seen posing in a stunning black gown as she went out for dinner. It comes after Ruby sent pulses racing in a daring see-through dress last month while enjoying a relaxing holiday in Bali with her family. The influencer took to Instagram to share her holiday look, which consisted of a $389 slip dress from St. Agni and a black string bikini. She paired her outfit with a black woven Bottega Veneta bag, black slides and posed outside Katamama restaurant near Seminyak before heading inside for a meal. 'Thinking I don't want to come home,' she captioned her post, adding that the dress was from the brand's previous season. Ruby Tuesday Matthews, 30, (pictured) turned heads on Wednesday when she flaunted her frame in a tiny red bikini as she stayed in the luxury Calile Hotel in Fortitude Valley Her hair was styled out in a short bob after as she ditched her recent 'Bali bogan braids', a hairstyle often seen on Aussie tourists visiting the Indonesian island. Ruby, who shares children Rocket, five, Mars, four, and Holiday, one, with ex partner Ryan Heywood and current fiance Shannan Dodd, also shared photos of the hair-do to her socials just days before. Sitting in the gutter on the side of a road with daughter Holiday, one, the mother-of-three had her dark locks twisted into rows of tight plaits. The glamorous Byron Bay-based influencer who recently returned from a holiday in Bali, shared a reel of images showing off her hotel in Brisbane. Pictured with daughter Holiday Several snaps showed the extravagant dishes Ruby ate, while in another she lounged by the pool. 'Take me back @thecalilehotel,' Ruby captioned the reel of images Ruby was also seen posing in a stunning black gown as she went out for dinner 'Tell me youre in Bali without telling me youre in Bali,' she captioned the series of photographs. Ruby later addressed her hairstyle in her Instagram Stories as she filmed a 'get ready with me' video. 'Obviously you can tell, I got a new hairdo. Really just going for it here right now. Who do I think I am?' she said. It seems Ruby quickly grew tired of the look, as she later took them out when she donned a glamorous look for dinner. Anna Paul recently sparked rumours she was dating Aymeric Urbain. And the TikTok superstar appeared to soft launch her new beau in an Instagram post on Tuesday. The social media star, 25 shared a series of photos as she enjoyed a holiday in Turkey with her family and Aymeric. In one image, Anna stretched her body out by a pool as the dark-haired hunk smiled at her while lying on an inflatable. She also shared another image of Aymeric looking out in the distance while standing in a lake as she stood behind him. 'Definitely a soft launch wow!' one excited fan commented on the post. 'Girlll!! Just tell us [he's] you're new man!!' another said while a third wrote: 'The way he's looking at you in all the pool pics.' 'Can we all stop acting like he's your family friend now? It's been so awkward Anna. Please release us,' another commented. TikTok superstar Anna Paul soft launched her new boyfriend during a holiday in Turkey after breaking up with long-term beau Glen Thompson The social media star, 25 shared a series of photos to Instagram during a holiday in Turkey, with her family and Aymeric The brunette bombshell, who split from her partner of eight years Glen Thomson last year, previously denied rumours she's dating Aymeric and was forced to explain he is just a friend. 'Apparently this is my new boyfriend' she said in a TikTok video posted last August. 'The s**t I have read just because we posted somebody we didn't fully introduce,' she continued. Known by her fans as 'Australia's Kim Kardashian', Anna boasts a whopping seven million combined followers on TikTok and Instagram. The brunette bombshell found fame on TikTok by sharing lip-sync videos and vlogs documenting her life. She then moved into a lucrative career posting content on adult subscription-based sites. In one image, Anna stretched her body out by a pool as the dark-hair hunk smiled at her while lying on an inflatable While Anna has claimed she grew up poor, the online star now leads a lavish lifestyle envied by many and boasts a reported net worth of over $10million. Her social media pages are filled with footage and images of lavish overseas trips, designer clothing and flashy cars. She and her brother, influencer and 'crypto bro' Atis, also live in a luxurious waterfront mansion on the Gold Coast. The sprawling property boasts a private elevator, cinema, jacuzzi, waterfront pool, ten-car garage and a $100,000 rock wall. Anna has previously spoken about her financial struggles prior to finding fame, even revealing in her posts how her family once 'lived off $30 a week for grocery money to feed a family of four'. Kelsey Grammer's daughter Spencer Grammer revealed that her stepfather, Dr. Bill Skinner, has passed away this week. The actress, 40, penned a touching tribute to Dr. Bill on Instagram, calling him 'the man I consider as my father' and sharing 'he has been there for me my whole life.' The Greek star shared that even though Dr. Bill and her mother Doreen Alderman split, he remained in her life. 'He was there. I always got to be his kid,' she wrote. The mom-of-one also posted a heartwarming photo of the two of them and her son, Emmett, smiling as they enjoyed a dinner together. 'I've never been very open about my private life. But the man I consider as my father and the man who taught me unconditional love is a man by the name of Dr. Bill Skinner,' she wrote in a lengthy caption underneath the photo. Kelsey Grammer's daughter Spencer Grammer, 40, revealed that her stepfather, Dr. Bill Skinner, has passed away this week; Pictured with Dr. Bill and her son, Emmett The actress penned a touching tribute to Dr. Bill on Instagram, calling him 'the man I consider as my father' and sharing 'he has been there for me my whole life' 'I've known him since I was 5 years old and when he married my mom he signed up to be my Dad too,' she continued. 'Even though he and my mom went their separate ways, he still showed up as my Dad. He has been there for me my whole life no matter what I needed. He was there. I always got to be his kid.' 'He always gave me a hug, always listened, always believed in me, and always supported me.' The Los Angeles native then went on to reveal that Dr. Bill had passed away, writing, 'He left us this week and our hearts are broken.' 'I wanted to spend so many more years with him. This picture is one of the last we took together. I always forget to take pictures when I'm with the people I love. A part of me is missing now. Truly deeply missing.' 'For those friends who were lucky enough to have known him or have met him, you know the kindness and generosity he spread and how much he meant to me.' 'It's a constant reminder to always make time. We lost him too soon.' The Greek star shared that even though Dr. Bill and her mother split, he remained in her life. 'He was there. I always got to be his kid,' she wrote; Seen in 2024 Spencer is the oldest daughter of Frasier star Kelsey, 69. The two are now on good terms, but their relationship has suffered some ups and downs over the years; The two seen in 2019 The two starred in the 2022 holiday movie 12 Days of Christmas Eve, and shared that they were able to repair their relationship in November 2022; Seen in 2022 She wrapped up the heartfelt caption writing, 'RIP Dad Bill Dr. Skinner. I know I wasnt always the best daughter but you loved me no matter what. I miss you so much and Ill always love you. Thank you for being in my life, Im beyond grateful to have known you. Ill miss you so much.' Spencer is the oldest daughter of Frasier star Kelsey, 69. The two are now on good terms, but their relationship has suffered some ups and downs over the years. The two starred in the 2022 holiday movie 12 Days of Christmas Eve, and shared that they were able to repair their relationship in November 2022. 'I certainly regret I let her down a couple of times,' Kelsey told People. 'Obviously she was a child of divorce. It was hard on us.' 'I feel sorry about it, but I'm also thankful that we had a chance to make amends,' he added. In addition to Spencer, six others call Kelsey dad. He shares Auden, seven, Kelsey, nine, and Faith, 11, with wife Kayte Walsh. He shares son Jude, 19, and Mason, 22, with ex-wife Camille Grammer. He is also dad to actress Greer Grammer, 32, with Barrie Buckner. 'I certainly regret I let her down a couple of times. Obviously she was a child of divorce. It was hard on us,' Kelsey told People; Spencer (R) seen with Kelsey and his wife Kayte Walsh in 2023 Kelsey has seven children from his four marriages. He shares Spencer with ex-wife Doreen Alderman, whom he was married to from 1982 until 1990; Doreen seen in 2011 At the time the actor also told People he was trying to 'iron out' some issues with his older children. 'I'm trying to iron it out now. Trying to sort them out,' he explained regarding some unspecified 'failings' in his relationships with some of his kids. Spencer is known for using her vocal talents as Summer Smith in highly-popular animated series Rick And Morty. She also starred as the female lead in ABC Family series Greek for all four seasons from 2007 to 2011. Jules Robinson's photographer has taken aim at cruel 'female trolls' who have criticised the reality star's nude pregnancy photoshoot. The Married At First Sight bride, 42, is just days away from welcoming her second child with her husband Cameron Merchant, after revealing she was due in July. She recently celebrated her pregnancy by proudly showcasing her baby bump in a stunning nude photoshoot reminiscent of Demi Moore's iconic Vanity Fair spread. However, her photographer Deanna Gaynor has now revealed the TV star has been targeted by unkind trolls who have taken aim at the artistic images. The Sydney-based photographer took to Instagram on Wednesday to clap back at 'nasty' keyboard warriors who have accused Jules of editing the professional pictures. She shared screenshots of cruel comments after the nude photoshoot was branded 'inappropriate' and 'unnecessary'. In a lengthy caption, Deanna urged the social media users, particularly the female trolls, to 'seek help' and said they should be 'ashamed' of their remarks. 'Dear trolls, especially the female ones. You should be ashamed of yourselves for your nasty comments,' she penned. Jules Robinson's photographer has taken aim at cruel 'female trolls' who have criticised her nude pregnancy photoshoot 'I wouldn't usually do this but I have been compelled too because of the nasty people that can't keep their thoughts to themselves. Jules you are amazing.' 'It's disheartening to see that pregnant women would be trolled and bullied for capturing their beautiful journey and wanting to share that so others build the confidence to do the same,' she went on. 'Being unsupportive and cruel doesn't just hurt them; it reveals a lot about you. If belittling others makes you feel better, it's time to reflect and seek help.' The pregnancy and newborn photographer went on to set the record straight on the editing accusations and insisted Jules had specifically asked her not to retouch her skin. She fumed: 'Just for the record, Jules skin is NOT photoshopped in this image. Yes I do use photoshop but she specifically asked me not to do any skin retouching. 'So what you see is creative lighting, camera exposure and saturation and colour balance and temperature and aperture at play. Her photographer Deanna Gaynor has now revealed that the TV star has been targeted by unkind trolls and clapped back at accusations that Jules had photoshopped the images In a lengthy Instagram post, Deanna urged the unkind social media users, particularly the female trolls, to 'seek help' as she argued they should be 'ashamed' of their remarks 'I won't accept her being bullied for this image, it's simply disgraceful. This image is ART and if you don't like it, keep your opinions to yourself.' It comes less than 24 hours after Jules first shared the gorgeous pregnancy photoshoot images to Instagram. In a caption, Jules said she knew the photoshoot wouldn't be 'for everyone' but said she wanted to 'embrace' and remember her 'beautiful' pregnancy journey. 'I'm aware doing this isn't for everyone, but Already so many messages, saying ''I wish I did this when I was pregnant ''If you want to do something like this, do it,' she penned in a positive message. 'Embracing this time, the change, my body and celebrating all the hard work I have done and did to get to this point.' Though she was targeted by cruel trolls, Jules also received an outpouring of love and support from her followers for the artful images. Taking to the comments section, one wrote: 'So really, honest, open, supportive. A wonderful role model. Wishing you nothing but health and happiness.' 'This is so absolutely beautiful. You look incredible and I love that you have shared this,' another said. The pregnancy and newborn photographer set the record straight on the editing accusations as she insisted Jules had specifically asked her not to retouch her skin While a third commented: 'Stunning!!! Nothing like a body that creates a little human being! Absolutely extraordinary.' And another added: 'So stunning so beautiful so proud. Gorgeous Memory forever more.' It is not the first time Jules has been trolled and she recently revealed the unique way she combats vile online messages. Earlier this month, she told Daily Mail Australia about her dedication to the ancient practice of kinesiology as a method of repelling negativity. 'I do kinesiology, which is something I've been doing for a number of years,' the influencer explained. 'And so with that, I envision my little silver bubble that I have around me, and it just bounces off me.' Kinesiology is a natural therapy that combines Western and Eastern wellness techniques to promote physical and emotional health. Jules is currently counting down the days until welcoming her second child with her husband Cam next month Jules said the online criticism she's received over the years has actually helped her to grow thicker skin. 'In a way, it's propelled me into being more confident because you just get to not care. You know, if you let the opinions of other people affect you all the time, you just become so insecure,' she said. 'It's honestly just life, you know? And I'm big enough and emotionally intelligent enough to go, '"t's actually not really about me".' Jules is due to welcome her second child in a matter of days and revealed she is already looking ahead to having a third child, just weeks ahead of her July due date. 'We want to have another baby,' Jules enthused, adding: 'Who knows? If think if there's a will, there's a way. 'Whatever that will be like, we will make it happen. I said that before a couple of years ago [before getting pregnant the second time].' Jules and Cameron were seriously considering IVF before she managed to conceive naturally - a feat she largely credits to Ayurvedic medicine. Ayurveda is an ancient Indian wellbeing practice that claims to help patients achieve balance through food, herbs, meditation, yoga and detoxing. The reality TV star, 42, is just days away from welcoming her second child with her husband Cameron Merchant, who she fell in love with on the sixth series of MAFS 'I discovered Ayurvedic medicine about two years ago, and when I sat down with the specialist, it just became very clear that there was no way that my body was going to make a baby,' Jules explained. Jules said she 'never lost faith' after years of trying for a baby, and had learned the importance of slowing down and focusing on her own needs during the process. 'It's really important message that as women we do need to take care of ourselves, you know?' Jules continued. 'It's just been a very big part of my life for the last 12 months. Like, putting my oxygen mask on first before someone else. When you're an entrepreneur and you're busy, you're doing a million things, and you're a mum, it's very easy to not put yourself first.' Jules and Cameron fell in love in front of the cameras during series six of MAFS in 2019 before getting married for real in November that year. The pair welcomed son Oliver, now three, in September 2020 and in March Jules announced she was expecting her second child. Angelina Jolie was joined by 15-year-old daughter Vivienne during an outing in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The 49-year-old Oscar-winning actress who was spotted out with son Knox, Vivienne's twin brother, earlier in the week looked effortlessly chic in a loose-fitting pale brown T-shirt. The Hollywood siren tucked the crew neck top into a pair of black trousers and rounded out the look with understated black footwear. She pulled her long, blonde-highlighted locks into a low ponytail and added oversized sunglasses. It comes months after her teenage daughter, who Jolie shares with ex-husband Brad Pitt, dropped the actor's last name. Angelina Jolie was joined by daughter Vivienne during an outing in Los Angeles on Tuesday The 49-year-old Oscar-winning actress looked effortlessly chic in a loose-fitting pale brown T-shirt Angelina carried a black leather handbag and wore tiny earrings. For her part, Vivienne was casually dressed in a light-colored, slightly oversized T-shirt and loose-fitting jeans. She cuffed the pants and punctuated her look with well-worn black and white Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers. Her light brown hair fell over her chest as she walked alongside her famous mother. In May, she dropped the last name Pitt from her moniker for her credit in The Outsiders Playbill. According to People, the former couple's daughter was listed as Vivienne Jolie in the literature, instead of Vivienne Jolie-Pitt. It's unknown if she has legally changed her name. The move came after Angelina was ordered by a judge to turn over every NDA agreement that she signed with a third-party over an eight-year period amid the ex spouses' ongoing legal battle. Angelina and Brad, 60, split over seven years ago, but the exes have been embroiled in a contentious feud over custody, the circumstances under which their relationship ended, and their ongoing business affairs. In addition to Vivienne and Knox, Jolie and Pitt share sons Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, and daughters Zahara, 19, and Shiloh, 18. Pitt has 'virtually no contact' with his older children according to a new report. It comes months after Vivienne, who Jolie shares with ex-husband Brad Pitt, dropped the actor's last name; Brad pictured with girlfriend Ines de Ramon July 7 Angelina and Vivienne pictured on April 11 Angelina and her kids Shiloh, Zahara, Vivienne, Maddox, and Knox in 2021 One month after Shiloh filed to drop his last name, a source revealed to People that Pitt's relationship with his older kids remains strained. 'He has virtually no contact with the adult kids. His engagement with the younger kids is more limited in recent months because of his filming schedule,' the insider shared. Angelina filed for divorce from the actor in 2019 after five years of marriage. The union ended on a contentious note and their children appear to have taken sides. The two filmmakers have been locked in a bitter battle over their French vineyard and home after the Tomb Raider star sold her $64 million stake to Russian billionaire Yuri Shefler in 2021. Pitt has branded his ex-wife a hypocrite for claiming he wanted to use an NDA in the sale of their French vineyard to 'control' her, despite regularly gagging her own staff with similar contracts. The Chateau Miraval estate, which produces an award-winning sparkling rose, is at the center of a long-running court battle between the pair. Sharon Stone revealed that she allegedly lost millions in savings as while recovering from a debilitating 2001 stroke. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter from Tuesday, the 66-year-old actress claimed that the $18 million that she had accrued after more than two decades in Hollywood had evaporated during the years she was unable to work due to brain damage from the stroke. Stone who controversially claimed that Kevin Spacey's banishment from Hollywood was partially inspired by homophobia in the same interview attributed her loss of millions to people around her who allegedly mismanaged her money as she struggled to regain basic functions, like the ability to read, which she lost 'for a couple of years.' In total, Stone said it took her seven years to mostly recover from the effects of the life-threatening stroke, which doctors gave her just one in 100 odds of surviving. 'People took advantage of me over that [recovery] time,' Stone claimed. 'I had $18 million saved because of all my success, but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone.' Sharon Stone said that her entire $18 million in savings had evaporated during her seven-year recovery from a debilitating stroke she suffered in 2001 in a Hollywood Reporter interview published Tuesday; pictured June 17 in Hollywood Stone, who suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage in 2001, said her brain bled for nine days, which temporarily robbed her of her 'sense of smell, my sight, my touch'; pictured the year of her stroke She described the surreal feeling of having little to her name one she was competent enough to take over her finances. 'My refrigerator, my phone everything was in other peoples names,' she revealed. Stone then clarified: 'I had zero money.' It's not clear what Stone had to pay in medical bills and years of therapies, but she described the sever symptoms caused by her subarachnoid hemorrhage. 'I bled into my brain for nine days, so my brain was shoved to the front of my face,' she explained, adding, 'It wasnt positioned in my head where it was before.' The physical change to her brain meant that 'everything changed.' 'My sense of smell, my sight, my touch. I couldnt read for a couple of years,' the Oscar nominee admitted. 'Things were stretched and I was seeing color patterns. 'A lot of people thought I was going to die,' she added. Beyond the changes to her senses, Stone agreed 'one hundred percent' that the stroke changed how she thinks. 'A Buddhist monk told me that I had been reincarnated into my same body,' she shared. 'I had a death experience and then they brought me back.' 'People took advantage of me over that [recovery] time,' Stone claimed. 'I had $18 million saved because of all my success, but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone' 'My refrigerator, my phone everything was in other peoples names,' she said of when she regained control of her finances. 'I had zero money'; pictured June 21 in Beverly Hills Stone, who said 'a lot of people' though she would die, shared her strategy for moving on from the stroke: 'Stay present and let go'; pictured June 17 in Hollywood In addition to her difficulty reading for years to come, Stone continued to suffer eyesight problems and had memory difficulties for years to come, which made it difficult for her to get acting jobs. Despite the debilitating symptoms she lived with for years, Stone said she was eventually able to move by 'stay[ing] present and let[ting] go.' 'I decided not to hang onto being sick or to any bitterness or anger,' she admitted. 'If you bite into the seed of bitterness, it never leaves you. 'But if you hold faith, even if that faith is the size of a mustard seed, you will survive. So, I live for joy now. I live for purpose,' Stone said defiantly. Lena Dunham explained why she cast Megan Stalter instead of herself in her semi-autobiographical 10-episode comedy series Too Much, which premieres next year on Netflix. 'I was not willing to have another experience like what I'd experienced around [my HBO series Girls] at this point in my life,' the 38-year-old Treasure producer-star explained to the New Yorker on Tuesday. 'Physically, I was just not up for having my body dissected again. It was a hard choice, not to cast Meg because I knew I wanted Meg but to admit that to myself. I used to think that winning meant you just keep doing it and you don't care what anybody thinks. I forgot that winning is actually just protecting yourself and doing what you need to do to keep making work.' Lena continued: 'I remember looking at Meg and being, like, "You are my muse. You inspire me every single day to go home and tap out pages upon pages." I definitely don't want to be my own muse.' Dunham gushed over how 'inspiring and unbelievably talented' the 33-year-old Hacks star is as her thinly-veiled character Jessica, who falls in love with a British musician called Felix (Will Sharpe) after moving from New York to North London. Lena Dunham (L) explained why she cast Megan Stalter (R) instead of herself in her semi-autobiographical 10-episode comedy series Too Much, which premieres next year on Netflix The 38-year-old Treasure producer-star explained to the New Yorker on Tuesday: 'I was not willing to have another experience like what I'd experienced around [my HBO series Girls] at this point in my life. Physically, I was just not up for having my body dissected again' (pictured in 2012) The eight-time Emmy nominee also happens to be a New Yorker who had a bad break-up (Jack Antonoff) and moved to London where she married British-Peruvian musician Luis Felber, who's the composer and co-creator of Too Much. 'It's not a huge leap. But I knew from the very beginning I would not be the star of it,' Lena noted. 'I was thinking a lot about, like, What is it that allows women to be complicated on TV and still be embraced and seen and understood? There's an openness to Meg's presence that I think goes a long way. She has whatever the opposite of resting bitch face is. She has resting angel face.' Dunham continued: 'Meg is one of the beautiful women working today. She is so alarmingly gorgeous. The fact that she is not a size 0, or that she's not part of the new class of Ozempic-thin women, is not part of it...It's really important to me that there be a love affair between a guy and a girl where the fact that she is not teensy-weensy doesn't drive it...We were, like, "We don't want anyone to think we're doing a show about a beautiful man doing someone a favor."' However, the tattooed millennial does have a small acting part in Too Much as the spouse of the character played by Andrew Rannells, who previously played her Girls character Hannah Horvath's gay best friend Elijah. 'I'm in the show! I think I just accidentally revealed that,' Lena confirmed. 'But it's a smaller part. Not a walk-on, but it's not a lead.' The ensemble cast also includes Emily Ratajkowski, Richard E. Grant, Adele Exarchopoulos, Rita Wilson, Andrew Rannells, Janicza Bravo, Rhea Perlman, and Stephen Fry. Lena continued: 'I remember looking at Meg and being, like, "You are my muse. You inspire me every single day to go home and tap out pages upon pages." I definitely don't want to be my own muse' (pictured March 26) Dunham gushed over how 'inspiring and unbelievably talented' the 33-year-old Hacks star (L, pictured December 11) is as her thinly-veiled character Jessica, who falls in love with a British musician called Felix (R, Will Sharpe) after moving from New York to North London The eight-time Emmy nominee also happens to be a New Yorker who had a bad break-up (Jack Antonoff) and moved to London where she married British-Peruvian musician Luis Felber (L), who's the composer and co-creator of Too Much Lena noted: 'I was thinking a lot about, like, What is it that allows women to be complicated on TV and still be embraced and seen and understood? There's an openness to Meg's presence that I think goes a long way. She has whatever the opposite of resting bitch face is. She has resting angel face' However, Dunham does have a small acting part in Too Much as the spouse of the character played by Andrew Rannells (L, pictured May 22), who previously played her Girls character Hannah Horvath's gay best friend Elijah The tattooed millennial confirmed: 'I'm in the show! I think I just accidentally revealed that. But it's a smaller part. Not a walk-on, but it's not a lead' The ensemble cast also includes Emily Ratajkowski (R, pictured June 3), Richard E. Grant, Adele Exarchopoulos, Rita Wilson, Andrew Rannells, Janicza Bravo, Rhea Perlman, and Stephen Fry Lena is currently starring in a major motion picture set in the English countryside that she 'cannot yet discuss,' and she's 'almost done writing' her second memoir Famesick which will be published on September 1 (pictured Tuesday) Dunham will next portray art teacher Ms. Lyons in Tommy Dorfman's critically-acclaimed feature directorial debut, I Wish You All the Best, which Lionsgate will soon release Dunham is currently starring in a major motion picture set in the English countryside that she 'cannot yet discuss,' and she's 'almost done writing' her second memoir Famesick which will be published on September 1. The Finding Your Roots guest star will next portray art teacher Ms. Lyons in Tommy Dorfman's critically-acclaimed feature directorial debut, I Wish You All the Best, which Lionsgate will soon release. The big-screen adaptation of Mason Deaver's 2019 non-binary coming-of-age novel stars Corey Fogelmanis, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Alexandra Daddario, Cole Sprouse, Amy Landecker, Lexi Underwood, Lisa Yamada, Judson Mills, and Brian Michael Smith. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's daughter Violet has demanded the imposition of 'mask mandates' in medical facilities and called for an end to all 'mask bans' in a passionate plea to the governing body for Los Angeles County. The 18-year-old, citing her experience of contracting 'a post-viral condition' in 2019, urged the LA County Board of Supervisors 'to confront the long COVID crisis' by strengthening pandemic-era protections in hospitals and government buildings. 'I demand mask availability, air filtration and Far-UVC light in government facilitates, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical faculties,' Violet, who is often seen wearing a face mask, said. 'You must expand the availability of high-quality free tests and treatment, and most importantly the county must oppose mask bans for any reason. They do not keep us safer.' Violet's controversial speech was met with both praise and criticisms, with some hailing her as 'courageous' and others 'utterly deluded'. Her plea comes just weeks after it emerged that Dr Anthony Fauci admitted the restrictions he put in place during lockdown didn't do much to 'slow the spread' of covid, and as lawmakers are signaling an openness to reinstating mask bans amid a rise in clashes at protests. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's daughter Violet, 18, attended the LA County Board of Supervisors meeting where she advocated for 'mask mandates' in hospitals Violet who's often seen wearing a face mask shared her experience of contracting 'a post-viral condition' in 2019; Seen with Affleck and stepmom Jennifer Lopez in 2023 She is the eldest of the Argo director, 51, and the 13 Going on 30 star's, 52, three children; Seen with her mom in Los Angeles in 2023 Violet argued that anti-mask measures are making 'vulnerable members of our community less safe' and 'make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together'. She also detailed her experience of contracting 'a post-viral condition' in 2019, and said she 'saw first-hand' that medicine doesn't always have answers to the 'consequences of even minor viruses'. The teen, introducing herself, told the board: 'Hi, Violet Affleck, Los Angeles resident, first time voter, I'm 18.' She then shared: 'I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019. I'm okay now, but I saw first-hand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses.' The eldest daughter of the Argo director, 51, and the 13 Going on 30 star, 52 who divorced in 2018 then spoke about the COVID-19 pandemic and how 'one in ten infections leads to long COVID, which is a devastating neurological, cardiovascular illness that can take away people's ability to work, move, see and even think.' 'It stands to exacerbate our homelessness crisis, as well as the suffering of many people in our city. It hits communities of color, disabled people, elderly people, trans people, women and anyone in a public facing essential job the hardest.' The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is the governing body for Los Angeles County, where Violet resides. The Board holds regular meetings where the public can register to speak on specific issues. Violet was slammed online for her controversial stance on masking, with some social media users accusing her of 'gaslighting her audience'. One X user wrote: 'This Violet Affleck kid is utterly deluded. She is still wearing a mask. Masks never worked but in the height of Covid fear, she may have had an excuse that others are wearing one.' 'Is Violet Affleck the original Karen?' another user questioned. One X user further went on to accuse the teen of 'gaslighting her audience', claiming that there are 'plenty of photos and videos of her NOT WEARING A MASK before, during and after the pandemic'. 'Why do people choose to believe the opposite of what their eyes prove?' they added. Another questioned: 'Are there actual mask bans? Is that a thing?' One X user said Violet was 'utterly deluded' for supporting mask mandates Another joked that she may 'pass out' while wearing a mask during her speech One furious critic alleged that Violet was 'gaslighting her audience', alleging she is sometimes seen without a face covering Another questioned if Violet was the 'original Karen' However, many X users issued their support for the teen, saying she is a 'hero' and 'smart kid'. 'At 18 she has more courage than some people will ever have in their entire lifetimes,' one person wrote. 'Amazing testimony! Violet is 100% on COVID Twitter. Thank you!' another added. 'I wish more celebrities had the courage of Violet Affleck. She's only 18 years old and is doing more than any politician.' 'Extremely impressive how much she fit into that one minute,' someone else chimed in. 'Violet Affleck is Ben Affleck's daughter. She continues to be even more impressive as a teenager. I can't wait to see what she does as an adult.' Violet received plenty of praise online for her mask stance. 'At 18 she has more courage than some people will ever have in their entire lifetimes,' one person wrote 'I wish more celebrities had the courage of Violet Affleck. She's only 18 years old and is doing more than any politician,' another person added 'She continues to be even more impressive as a teenager. I can't wait to see what she does as an adult' 'Extremely impressive how much she fit into that one minute,' someone else chimed in One person expressed that her famous parents must be very proud Another called Violet 'amazing' 'Good on you Violet,' yet another commentator wrote Violet has consistently been seen wearing a mask in the past years, though her parents never publicly explained why. She was seen wearing one at Michael Rubin's White Party in 2023, recently in May 2024 while spending time with her mom, and while attending a Broadway show with Ben and her stepmom Jennifer Lopez. Garner and Affleck also share Fin (formerly Seraphina), 15, and son Samuel, 12. The former pair met on the set of the movie Pearl Harbor in the early 2000s, but didn't start dating until later. In 2004, shortly after his first broken engagement to Lopez, the two sparked up a romance, before getting married in 2005. Violet was born that same year in December. Fin followed in 2009 and Samuel in 2012. The duo announced their separation in 2015 after nearly 10 years of marriage, and officially filed for divorce in 2017. Garner has since moved on with businessman John Miller. Affleck rekindled his romance with Lopez in April 2021. The two wed in Vegas in July 2022, followed by a lavish ceremony in Georgia in August. However, the pair's marriage has been hit by split claims for the past two months. Violet has consistently been seen wearing a mask in the past years, long past the COVID-19 mask mandates, though her parents never publicly explained why; seen with Ben in 2021 Garner and Affleck also share Fin (formerly Seraphina), 15, and son Samuel, 12; The actress is seen with her three kids in 2018 The former pair married in 2005. They announced their separation in 2015 after nearly 10 years of marriage, and officially filed for divorce in 2017; seen in May 2014 Violet's passionate plea to the LA County Board of Supervisors comes a month after the publication of Fauci's bombshell testimony in which he admitted to making up the six foot social distancing rule and other measures to 'protect' Americans from covid. Republicans put out the full transcript of their sit down interview with Fauci from January just days before his public testimony in June. Speaking to counsel on behalf of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic earlier this year, Fauci told Republicans that the six foot social distancing rule 'sort of just appeared' and that he did not recall how it came about. 'You know, I don't recall. It sort of just appeared,' he said according to committee transcripts when pressed on how the rule came about. He added he 'was not aware of studies' that supported the social distancing, conceding that such studies 'would be very difficult' to do. In addition to not recalling any evidence supporting social distancing, Fauci also told the committee's counsel that he didn't remember reading anything to support that masking kids would prevent COVID. 'Do you recall reviewing any studies or data supporting masking for children?' he was asked. 'I might have,' he responded before adding 'but I don't recall specifically that I did.' Dr. Anthony Fauci,(pictured in November 2022) former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, revealed that he made up the six foot social distancing rule and other measures to 'protect' Americans from covid The pandemic patriarch also testified that he had not followed any studies after the fact regarding the impacts that forced mask wearing had on children, of which there have been many. And his answer was an ironic COVID-esque pun, 'I still think that's up in the air,' Fauci said about whether masking kids was a solid way to prevent transmission. Kids' learning loss and social setbacks have been well documented, with one National Institute of Health (NIH) study calling the impact of mask use on students' literacy and learning 'very negative.' And the impacts from social distancing caused 'depression, generalized anxiety, acute stress, and intrusive thoughts,' another NIH study found. In May this year, a new study revealed that face masks haven't protected against Covid since at least 2022. Researchers in the UK re-analyzed data on more than 100,000 people's habits and Covid test results during the pandemic. They found that masks were linked to about a 30 percent lower risk of infections throughout 2021 - but the protective effect disappeared in February 2022. That was when the Omicron variant took off and became dominant in the UK, and that summer in the US, which the researchers believe made the virus too infectious for masks to stop people getting infected. While surveys show most UK adults are done with masks, they became highly politicized in the US. A poll from 2023 found that 12 percent of Americans were still wearing a mask in public and they are common in hospitals and doctor's practices. In other research, researchers looked at 78 studies involving more than a million people across the world. Results indicated that surgical masks reduced the risk of catching 'Covid or a flu-like illness' by just five percent - a figure so low it may not be statistically significant Masks have yet again become politicized in America, with some elected officials suggesting they are open to reinstating decades-old mask bans following tense clashes during pro-Palestine protests. Leaders in New York City and Los Angeles are among those considering mask bans, alleging that violent demonstrators use them to conceal their identities, NBC reported. Republicans in North Carolina recently signed a mask restriction legislation into law. Supporters cited safety concerns at demonstrations, while critics argued the legislation inhibited free speech rights. Similarly, student protesters at colleges in Florida, Ohio and Texas have been threatened by local police and school personnel that they could be arrested or face felony charges for wearing masks during demonstrations. Paul Walter Hauser is making amends after making 'mean-spirited' comments about Vin Diesel. The Black Bird actor, 37, took to Instagram to express his regret and say he is 'genuinely sorry' after what he said about the Fast & Furious star, 56, went viral. 'I no longer feel that way,' he said in a lengthy apology letter in a caption accompanied by a photo showing Bible verse 1 Thessalonians 4:11, which read: 'Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.' This comes after Hauser accused the actor of being unprofessional on set despite having never worked with him. Hauser also clarified in his apology letter than he never even met Diesel when he made the claims about him 'mistreating' people on set and being late. Paul Walter Hauser is making amends after making 'mean-spirited' comments about Vin Diesel; seen in February 2023 The Black Bird actor, 37, took to Instagram to express his regret and say he is 'genuinely sorry' after what he said about the Fast & Furious star, 56, went viral; seen in May 2023 His initial comments went viral after he said he did not want to be compared to Diesel while speaking to CinemaBlend during a press junket on June 14 for his latest film Inside Out 2. When the interviewer compared his voice acting performance to Diesel's in Guardian of the Galaxy, Hauser retorted, 'Please don't say that.' With a chuckle, he continued: 'I like to think I'm on time and approachable. 'Sorry, I love people, but when I hear stories about Hollywood actors who get paid really well and mistreat people, I out them constantly,' he added. 'And it's a blast.' Now, Hauser is taking back his comments, which he called 'careless' and 'needlessly mean-spirited.' He explained that he was 'exhausted' when he said what he said, adding that he 'no longer [feels] that way.' Diesel has not yet publicly addressed Hauser's initial statements nor his apology. 'A few weeks back, I made a random comment about Vin Diesel,' Hauser began in his post on Sunday. This comes after Hauser accused the actor of being unprofessional on set despite having never worked with him. His initial comments went viral after he said he did not want to be compared to Diesel while speaking to CinemaBlend during a press junket on June 14 for his latest film Inside Out 2; seen in February 2020 'I no longer feel that way,' he said in a lengthy apology letter in a caption accompanied by a photo showing Bible verse 1 Thessalonians 4:11, which read: 'Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life' Now, Hauser is taking back his comments, which he called 'careless' and 'needlessly mean-spirited.' Now, Hauser is taking back his comments, which he called 'careless' and 'needlessly mean-spirited' He explained that he was 'exhausted' when he said what he said, adding that he 'no longer [feels] that way' Hauser also clarified in his apology letter than he never even met Diesel when he made the claims about him 'mistreating' people on set and being late; seen in Fast & Furious 5 (2011) 'It started somewhat humorous, but unraveled into me dogging him out over behavior I had heard about on multiple occasions from multiple sources,' he continued. 'I had done a night shoot on Friday, gotten one hour of sleep, and then flew to LA from Atlanta at 6 a.m. to do a full day of press for Inside Out 2,' he explained. 'I was exhausted and, in my fatigued state, I shot my mouth off and made a careless, needlessly mean-spirited comment,' he said. 'That comment was recorded and then went viral.' He said that it can be 'momentarily satiating' to call out people for their misbehavior but contended that he should not have made the comments 'even if some of those things turned out to be true.' 'Just here to say that I am sorry for having made that comment,' he said. 'I do indeed get riled up by some of the behavior I've witnessed, or heard about, and "outing" people to any extent can feel momentarily satiating,' he explained. 'I no longer feel that way and am genuinely sorry for shooting my mouth off and not showing love to Vin, who I do not know and have never met,' he said. 'It isn't fair of me to make judgments of that kind, and even if some of those things turned out to be true, it is mean to shout them out and playfully attack someone,' Hauser added. He said as a 'self-professed Christian,' he said he wants to show more love towards people than hurt them. Diesel has not yet publicly addressed Hauser's initial statements nor his apology; seen in April 2017 He said that it can be 'momentarily satiating' to call out people for their misbehavior but contended that he should not have made the comments 'even if some of those things turned out to be true.' 'I no longer feel that way and am genuinely sorry for shooting my mouth off and not showing love to Vin, who I do not know and have never met,' he said; seen in January 2020 This comes about half a year after Diesel was sued by former assistant for sexual battery amid claims he 'forced himself on her' after a hotel party during production of Fast 5 in 2010; seen in June 2021 'I need to do a better job of loving people and not trying to "right a wrong," or allow my ego to posture itself with some sort of verbal flex,' he said. 'It just isn't additive to our culture, and it can hurt other people,' he added before addressing Diesel directly. To the A Man Apart star, he wrote: 'I apologize. Thank you for entertaining so many people and making them happy. I'm trying to do the same.' At the end of his note, he concluded, 'Time for me to be quiet. I sometimes talk myself into idiocy.' Larry Emdur is in the running for a coveted Gold Logie next month and on Monday he revealed the hilarious way he recently 'lost' a vote from one his fans. The Morning Show co-host, 59, is currently staying in the remote town of Marble Bar, WA, and shared a photo to Instagram which showed him standing outside a portaloo. Larry looked downcast as he sweltered in region, which is considered Australia's hottest town with temperatures averaging over 30 degrees in winter. He explained he had an embarrassing encounter with a fan after he used the portable toilet. 'How to lose a Gold Logie vote in 30 seconds. After two days of fried food and whisky I stepped into the portaloo in the campsite of Australia's hottest town,' he explained in the caption. 'As I stepped out a lovely lady holding her roll of toilet paper was ready to jump in, she said. "Oohhhh Larry, I'm voting for you for a gold Logie." 'I said "I'm pretty sure after you step into that portaloo you won't be voting for me",' he joked. Many of Larry's celebrity friends were quick to express their amusement over the post. 'We need to get you one of our new beanies! That one's from 1920!' joked Carrie Bickmore and Big Brother star Reggie Bird added: 'Bahahaha'. Larry Emdur is in the running for a coveted Gold Logie next month and on Monday he revealed the hilarious way he recently 'lost' a vote from one his fans after an embarrassing encounter outside a portaloo Larry faces stiff competition in the Gold Logie race to be crowned Most Popular Personality on Australian Television Larry faces stiff competition in the Gold Logie race to be crowned Most Popular Personality on Australian Television. Fellow contenders include Robert Irwin and his I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! co-host Julia Morris. Sonia Kruger, Asher Keddie and Andy Lee are also in the running for the prestigious gong. The ceremony will be held at The Star in Sydney on Sunday, 18 August. Kate Beckinsale posed on top of a bin in a quirky photoshoot after slamming 'a**hole' followers who criticised her weight. The British actress, 51, wore a pair of her signature towering platform heels, with stacked soles, silver glitter and a lace-up design. Kate, who recently revealed her weight loss is down to 'stress and grief', wore a pale blue satin shirt and white skinny jeans. She pulled her hair back into a glamorous piny tail and accessorised her outfit with a pair of huge sunglasses. After standing on top of the public bin, Kate later perched on the edge for another snap, which she shared to Instagram. Kate Beckinsale, 51, posed on top of a bin in a quirky photoshoot after slamming 'a**hole' followers who criticised her weight The British actress, 51, wore a pair of her signature towering platform heels, with stacked soles, silver glitter and a lace-up design She captioned the post: 'A la poubelle,' meaning 'in the bin' in French. Kate has caused concern on social media over several unexplained health scares over the last year, including spending weeks in the hospital and dropping so many pounds that fans called her 'too thin.' This week she revealed her weight loss is down to the 'stress and grief' of the death of her stepfather and her mother's cancer diagnosis as she hit back at trolls. The actress slammed some of her 'a**hole' followers, who told her she needed to put on weight in the comments section of an Instagram post. After sharing a video clip in a crop top and bikini bottoms, one follower queried where her 'a**' had gone and encouraged Kate to 'do some squats'. Another claimed her body had 'shrank' while another insisted that she 'seemed upset' in the video posted on Monday evening. However, Kate fired back at the cruel comments ands explained that there were several reasons for her changed figure, including a six-week hospital stint. She replied: 'No, actually, I watched my stepfather die quite shockingly, my mother has stage 4 cancer and I lost a lot of eight from stress and grief... Kate, who recently revealed her weight loss is down to 'stress and grief', caused concern on social media over several unexplained health scares over the last year She captioned a video: 'Let's have a toast for the douche bags. Let's have a toast for the a**holes. Let's have a toast for the scumbags' Kate's stepdad Roy Battersby died in January following a 'brief illness' after being diagnosed with two forms of cancer the summer before (pictured left with her mother Judy right) 'Quite quickly and then I was in hospital for six weeks because the grief had burned a hole in my oesophagus, which made me vomit copious amounts of blood, and I found eating very hard... 'And I just worked very very hard on a movie that was actually quite triggering because it also involved the theme of the death of my father so I'm not really concerned about what you think about my a**. Maybe you should worry about your own f***ing a**. I suggest shoving something up it, like a large pineapple or a brick.' Kate's stepdad Roy Battersby died in January after suffering 'a massive stroke' while battling two forms of cancer, which he was diagnosed with the summer before. Shortly after his death, Kate also revealed that her mother Judy Loe had also been told she has stage four cancer. In March Kate revealed she had been hospitalised after sparking concern among her fans with tearful selfies. She later explained the reason behind her hospital stint in a now-deleted Instagram post, writing: 'I spent six weeks in hospital due to copiously vomiting blood from a Mallory Weiss tear caused by the stress of a whole year ripping a hole between my oesophagus [sic] and stomach.' 'That's what I am prepared to disclose that has contributed to some weight loss. What you think of my appearance and how I should look, independently of any circumstances in my life and my family's is not important.' In recent months, Kate had been caring for her mother and late stepmother after flying them out from the UK to stay with her in Los Angeles. 'Kate has been caring for her parents, who both have serious illnesses, for most of the year,' a source exclusively revealed to DailyMail.com late last year. 'She brought them to her home in LA and has made looking after them her number one priority.' On January 10, Kate announced the death of stepfather Roy aged 87. The insider revealed that the actress whose biological father Richard Beckinsale died in 1979 at 31 from a heart attack in his sleep has been feeling the emotional toll in recent months. 'She was spotted this week several times crying in the corridors of UCLA hospital,' the source added. 'Her friends are very concerned that she has been under relentless strain for months and hardly sleeping or eating. 'Kate appears to be very strong but this has been incredibly hard and, given that she lost her father so young, is affecting her very deeply. Her friends are concerned for her own health.' A second source explained that her mother Judy has chosen to keep her health battle private, stating: 'She's extraordinary, you wouldn't even know by looking at her. She has been keeping a very positive attitude throughout everything.' Kate shared a picture of Roy's order of service that revealed he was cremated on Monday February 19 at Mortlake Crematorium near Kew in west London. After sharing a video clip in a crop top and bikini bottoms, one follower queried where her 'a**' had gone and encouraged Kate to 'do some squats' Kate fired back at the cruel comments ands explained that there were several reasons for her changed figure, including a six-week hospital stint Another person asked: 'How's your health Katie? You look like you have lost some weight?', to which she responded: 'It's great now thanks' At the time, Kate did not reveal why she was in hospital Last month, Kate shared a picture of Roy's order of service that revealed he was cremated on Monday February 19 at Mortlake Crematorium near Kew in west London Kate's mother Judy married Roy 18 years after Kate's father, Porridge star Richard Beckinsale, died. Roy enjoyed his own successful career as a director, working on major British on-screen hits including Inspector Morse and Cracker. His most recent directorial credit was for a 2006 episode of A Touch Of Frost. Kate's biological father Richard Beckinsale was best known for his roles as Lennie Godber in the BBC sitcom Porridge and Alan Moore in the ITV sitcom Rising Damp. He also had a daughter Samantha, 55 who is his only child from his marriage to Margaret Bradley. It's not quite as risque as that legendary Basic Instinct leg cross, but Sharon Stone still managed to raise eyebrows after sharing her latest Instagram content on Tuesday. The Academy Award nominated star stripped down to her bikini bottoms while working on a new painting at her California home. Stone, 66, an accomplished artist who has previously exhibited her work, shared a photo of the unfinished abstract while standing with her naked back to camera. Captioning the post, she wrote: 'Sometimes I just have to go from pool to painting.' In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, Stone claimed the $18 million she had accrued after more than two decades in the film industry evaporated during the years she was unable to work due to brain damage from the stroke. It's not quite as risque as that legendary Basic Instinct leg cross, but Sharon Stone still managed to raise eyebrows after sharing her latest Instagram content on Tuesday Stone is an accomplished and prolific artist who has previously exhibited her work in public Stone who has controversially claimed that Kevin Spacey's banishment from Hollywood was partially inspired by homophobia attributed her loss of millions to people around her who allegedly mismanaged her money as she struggled to regain basic functions, like the ability to read, which she lost 'for a couple of years.' In total, Stone said it took her seven years to mostly recover from the effects of the life-threatening stroke, which doctors gave her just one in 100 odds of surviving. 'People took advantage of me over that [recovery] time,' Stone claimed. 'I had $18 million saved because of all my success, but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone.' She described the surreal feeling of having little to her name one she was competent enough to take over her finances. 'My refrigerator, my phone everything was in other peoples names,' she revealed. Stone then clarified: 'I had zero money.' It's not clear what Stone had to pay in medical bills and years of therapies, but she described the sever symptoms caused by her subarachnoid hemorrhage. 'I bled into my brain for nine days, so my brain was shoved to the front of my face,' she explained, adding, 'It wasnt positioned in my head where it was before.' Stone claims the $18 million she had accrued after more than two decades in the film industry evaporated during the years she was unable to work due to brain damage from the stroke Stone, who suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage in 2001, said her brain bled for nine days, which temporarily robbed her of her 'sense of smell, my sight, my touch' (pictured the year of her stroke) The physical change to her brain meant that 'everything changed.' 'My sense of smell, my sight, my touch. I couldnt read for a couple of years,' the Oscar nominee admitted. 'Things were stretched and I was seeing color patterns. 'A lot of people thought I was going to die,' she added. Beyond the changes to her senses, Stone agreed 'one hundred percent' that the stroke changed how she thinks. 'A Buddhist monk told me that I had been reincarnated into my same body,' she shared. 'I had a death experience and then they brought me back.' A Place In The Sun's former host Scarlette Douglas shared her Strictly Come Dancing dreams on Wednesday as she joked that Aljaz Skorjanec 'needs a partner.' The presenter, 37, begged BBC bosses for a place on the competition following the news that the professional, 34, would be returning after a two year hiatus. Joining Ed Balls and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain to discuss the latest showbiz news, Scarlette said that her 'shoes were packed.' Speaking about the likelihood of Nadine Dorries joining the lie-up, she said: 'She's previously said she'd love to do Strictly and you know what, I'm going to be honest, so would I. 'So if you are listening out there Strictly team my dancing shoes are packed and I'm ready to make it all the way to Blackpool.' A Place In The Sun's former host Scarlette Douglas, 37, shared her Strictly Come Dancing dreams on Wednesday as she joked that Aljaz Skorjanec 'needs a partner' Susanna added: 'Because Aljaz Skorjanec needs a partner.' Scarlett continued: 'That would be a amazing. I'd absolutely partner with Aljaz. All this comes days after it was announced he's making his return to the ballroom. He went on hiatus back in 2022.' Aljaz announced his return to Strictly Come Dancing on Monday after it was confirmed that Giovanni Pernice would not be rejoining the lineup. The professional dancer, who welcomed a daughter Lyra with his partner Janette Manrara in July last year, said he hoped to make the one-year-old proud following his two year hiatus from the BBC show. Giovanni, 33, left the programme last month amid a scandal after he was accused of exhibiting 'threatening and abusive' behaviour towards his celebrity dance partners. During an appearance on The One Show this week, Aljaz confirmed he will be tearing up the dancefloor once more for the brand-new series this autumn. The fan favourite will be waltzing back onto screens for the 20th year of the dancing competition. Speaking on the show, he said: 'What haven't I missed. I got to look after my beautiful wife, my beautiful baby for two years. But I missed everything about Strictly. The presenter, 37, begged BBC bosses for a place on the competition following the news that the professional, 34, would be returning after a two year hiatus Joining Ed Balls and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain to discuss the latest showbiz news, Scarlette said that her 'shoes were packed' 'I could not be more ecstatic to be back with the Strictly family! This year is such a special one for this legendary show, I cant wait to be a part of it and make my return to the dancefloor.' As Strictly celebrates two spectacular decades of dance, this series promises to be extra special with even more glitz, glamour and unforgettable performances. Aljaz and his celebrity partner Abbey Clancy raised the Glitterball in his debut year on the show in 2013 and he came runner up in 2017 with partner, Gemma Atkinson. He added in a statement: 'I could not be more ecstatic to be back with the Strictly family! This year is such a special one for this legendary show, I cant wait to be a part of it and make my return to the dancefloor. 'I had an absolute ball during my nine year stint on Strictly, during my time away I became a parent, which has been an exciting challenge in itself and now Im ready to experience the Strictly magic again. 'It feels so right to be coming back, I missed the fun, glitter and the judges of course and I hope to make my daughter Lyra proud!' Sarah James, Executive Producer of Strictly Come Dancing added: 'We are all so thrilled that Aljaz is back in the Strictly Ballroom, bringing his incredible choreography and passion for dance.' She added: 'During his nine series he was a firm favourite with viewers across the country, Im sure everyone is in for a treat as he joins us to entertain the nation for a very special 20th year of the show.' The announcement comes after Giovanni laughed off his shock Strictly exit as he hosted a dance workshop with his company Ballando last week alongside Shirely Ballas and Anton Du Beke. While many have predicted what the dancer could do next, he didn't seem too fazed about his career prospects as he joked about making his pantomime debut. While teaching participants a Cha Cha Cha, the professional insisted that when they answered them they didn't say simply 'yes' but 'yes, Giovanni', as he added with a cheeky glint in his eye: 'Im getting used to doing panto, Im practising!' Aljaz announced his return to Strictly Come Dancing on Monday after it was confirmed that Giovanni Pernice would not be rejoining the lineup The professional dancer, who welcomed a daughter Lyra with his partner Janette Manrara in July last year, said he hoped to make the one-year-old proud Giovanni, 33, left the programme last month in a scandal after he was accused of exhibiting 'threatening and abusive' behaviour towards his celebrity dance partners In another quip about his career projection, the dancer gathered the group to help him film social media content, explaining: 'Well, I'm an influencer now!' While it's been claimed that BBC bosses have banned the cast from discussing the 'bullying row', the pair proudly showed their support for the star by teaching at his event. As Shirley, 57, came onto the stage to teach a Jive, she couldn't help but express her support for Giovanni - who quit Strictly this year amid the scandal. She told the dancers it was an 'honour and a privilege' to be at the workshop with Giovanni, 33, adding: 'Ive known him for 10 years and were good friends...' Offering a 'huge thank you' to the Italian professional for having her at his workshop, Shirley continued: 'I will be one person who will be by his side forever. What you see is what you get with him.' The Queen of Latin went on to share a story about Giovanni's caring side, revealing that when her mother Audrey battled cancer, Giovanni was a source of comfort for her. While Giovanni has been at the receiving end of much criticism amid the bullying row, Shirley can no doubt relate, having also dealt with backlash and trolling. The professional dancer is at the centre of a bullying row after claims made of misconduct by his Strictly partner Amanda Abbington, 52, and two other women. On Tuesday, sources told the Mail that the accusations have prompted bosses to extend the inquiry to look at other matters, and individuals, involved with the dance series as they prepare for its 20th anniversary. It means that Mr Pernice, who has already let his frustrations at the investigation be known, faces an even longer wait for an outcome after three former dance partners, including actress Amanda, instructed lawyers to make 'serious complaints' about his conduct. It also threatens to damage Strictly, the BBC's biggest Saturday night success story since The Generation Game. The professional dancer is at the centre of a bullying row after claims made of misconduct by his Strictly partner Amanda Abbington (pictured), 52, and two other women A television source told the Mail: 'This investigation is no longer just solely about Giovanni but other, more wider issues. The show has been going for 20 years and the whole veneer of Strictly is so sparkly and lovely, of course there will always be people who feel hard done by. 'Amanda's complaints have started something massive, it has opened the door for others to come forward about things they haven't been happy with. 'It is all a big headache for the BBC, it is about to celebrate a massive milestone with its 20th anniversary. 'Having the Giovanni complaint has been a big enough issue, but now it looks like there is more to be scrutinised and looked into.' Sources close to Mr Pernice say that he fully expects to be exonerated. Charlotte Dawson showed off her impressive two-stone weight loss transformation in a before and after bikini-clad video on Tuesday as she touched down in Mallorca. The influencer, 31, who has been on a public weight loss journey, looked sensational in a skimpy blue bikini which showcased her trim figure. In the before video, the beauty was filmed pulling funny faces as she documented her pre-weight loss figure in the same blue bikini. It was followed by an after video which featured Charlotte wearing the same blue bikini again showcasing her impressive almost two-stone weight loss. She captioned the video with: 'Arrived in Mallorca me darlings & I was buzzin to get in a chuffin bikini and theres SO much less jelleh on the belleh guys!' Charlotte Dawson showed off her impressive two-stone weight loss transformation in a before and after bikini-clad video on Tuesday as she touched down in Mallorca Crediting her personal weight loss programme with the transformation, she continued: 'Am feeling proper proud of where Ive got to after bubba number '2. Btw - do you agree with me that its harder to lose after the second pregnancy? Anyway am down almost 2 stone.' Charlotte's followers then flocked to the comment section to praise the star for her incredible transformation. Fans commented: 'You look amazing Charlotte. A true role model for young women xxx'; 'You look beautiful wish I looked like you x'; 'You look amazing. Where is your bikini from x'; 'You look stunning beautiful lady.' Charlotte has been taking her 1.3 million Instagram followers along with her on her weight loss journey, following the birth of her second child, Jude, in 2023. In April, she revealed she'd lost a whopping 1st 8lbs in just shy of three months, as the TV personality shared a side-by-side image of herself before and now. This was in addition to the 1st 5lbs she lost in the first eight weeks of her belleh blaster programme. It comes before, Charlotte shocked fans in May with another business venture: she and Matt had started a travel page. In the before video, the beauty was filmed pulling funny faces as she documented her pre-weight loss figure in the same blue bikini The before was then followed by an after video which featured Charlotte wearing the same blue bikini again showcasing her impressive almost two-stone weight loss In April, Charlotte revealed she'd lost a whopping 1st 8lbs in just shy of three months, as the TV personality shared a side-by-side image of herself before and now Charlotte wrote: 'My darlings.. We've been keeping a little chuffin secret!!!' 'We are so excited to let you all know how we have been earning from the Travel industry and how we are going to be helping you all do the same.' 'Travel Is something we absolutely love, even if it's just day trips with the kids, stag do's (yes Matthew that's aimed at you), Weeks in the Maldives crashing honeymoons or a night in a hotel the 2 of uswhich is never but it's a nice thought.' 'It's pretty limitless what you can do with this opportunity to and we aren't gatekeeping the secret anymore.. ' 'And don't worry, if you don't travel at all, this is still for you! You can be earning from your phone, just by helping others make memories from the comfort of your own home! It's come at a perfect time for me whilst I'm at home with the boyos all the time..' 'We also wanted to share more of our travel content with you all on a separate page, whilst we fill you all in on how you can get involved on the fun.' 'Follow @dawsysarsytravels and dm the page a for more info..' The Vultures were circling on Wednesday after Kanye West suggested he is ready to retire from the music industry. The pioneering rapper helped redefine hip-hop throughout the 2000's and 2010's, but his legacy has been tarnished by allegations of antisemitism and his vocal support of controversial former US President Donald Trump. West, 47, is expected to release Vultures 2, the second of three planned albums with Ty Dolla Sign, later this year. But a recently published text conversation - purportedly between West and fellow rapper Rich The Kid - suggests he is ready to throw in the towel on his 20-year career in music. News of his potential withdrawal from public life prompted an inevitably mixed response across social media, with die-hard fans urging him to continue while others expressed relief at West's possible retirement. The Vultures were circling on Wednesday after Kanye West suggested he is ready to retire from the music industry A recently published text conversation - purportedly between West and fellow rapper Rich The Kid - suggests he is ready to throw in the towel on his 20-year career in music Taking to X, formerly Twitter, one follower - evidently unimpressed with West's recent output - wrote: 'At least he wont ruin his discog any more.' A second added: 'Oh thank God.' While a third snapped: 'Good, hes washed and just ruining his legacy.' A fourth commented: 'Leaving his legacy off with vultures 1 is insane.' The text from a person believed to be West read: 'I'm retiring from professional music. Not sure what else to do' Rich then tried to convince the father-of-four to reconsider his decision, even bringing up the recent success of his Vultures 1 album with rapper Ty Dolla Sign. 'Retire? Why ? How ? The [people] NEED you the music you & Ty & we have made was the BIGGEST STAMP in culture to this date In 2024,' he wrote. Rich was notably featured on West and Ty's lead single Carnival, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart when it debuted in March. News of his potential withdrawal from public life prompted an inevitably mixed response across social media, with many followers expressing relief at West's possible retirement His 10th studio album, Vultures 1 (pictured) was released on February 10. Vultures 2 is expected to be released laser this year The song also marked West's first number one hit in 13 years - his last being Katy Perry's 2011 single E.T. 'Drop Ye about mine & V2 and we do it all over again,' Rich continued. 'the kids need you big bra fasho maybe some time to chill buy retiring ain't it.' After news of West's apparent retirement gained traction online, Rich went on to delete the screenshot from his Instagram Story. This sparked fan speculation that he may have made the post to stir up publicity for his upcoming album, Life's A Gamble. As just hours later, Rich returned to Instagram to reveal the release date as well as a peek at the track list that includes a new song with West. West who is rumored to have produced Life's A Gamble with collaborator Ty Dolla Sign will be featured on track 16, titled Plain Jane. Fans speculated that Rich may have made the post to stir up publicity for his upcoming album, Life's A Gamble, on which West features A mother who accused Qantas of giving A Current Affair host Allison Langdon special treatment on a flight from Sydney to Fiji has doubled down on her claims, despite admitting the star was 'lovely to everyone'. Mother-of-five Courtney Babic, who was on the same flight as the Channel Nine presenter, claimed that passengers in economy had asked staff for wine during the flight but were told the beverage wasn't on offer. She said Allison, 45, was also seated in economy and was not only offered wine, but her children - son Mack, 7, and daughter Scout, 4 - were allowed to use the bathrooms in first class, but other youngsters were denied access. Ms Babic's wild TikTok spray quickly unravelled after Daily Mail Australia revealed pictures of Langdon alongside her her husband Michael Willesee Jr. and their children dropping their bags at the business class check-in. Qantas also rubbished her claims, bluntly stating it was 'ridiculous to suggest Allison was given any special treatment'. 'Any extras she was offered would be the same as we provide other similar frequent flyers whey they travel with us,' a spokesperson for the airline added. 'Our crew often say how nice Allison is to deal with and never wants a fuss.' Despite this, Ms Babic has doubled down on her claims and insisted that Langdon was given special treatment. Courtney Babic admitted that the A Current Affair host was 'lovely to everyone' She was lovely to everyone but still not right of the staff to the other people who were in the same classed seat, Ms Babic wrote on social media. In another comment she added: 'No judgement to Alison though she was lovely' and that the special treatment from cabin crew didn't bother her. The remark prompted a woman claiming to be a former Qantas customer service manger to question Ms Babic's claims. 'I have never experienced no alcohol being served on an international flight,' she wrote. 'Sometimes there are shortages out of more isolated or smaller countries.' Ms Babic, a former primary school teacher turned social media influencer hit back at people who claimed she had not got her facts straight by insisting it was possible for Langdon to have used the business class check-in but still have been sat in economy. I wasnt the only one who witnessed it,' Ms Babic hit back at one critic. 'You think you cant get priority boarding in an economy seat? You clearly know nothing.' She mocked another commenter, telling them you clearly have never been in the FC (First Class) lounge'. It's possible for some Qantas Frequent Flyer members to take advantage of first class boarding and lounge access while still flying economy. Ms Babic told another keyboard warrior to 'get a life'. Daily Mail Australia approached Ms Langdon for comment. A woman has accused Qantas of giving ACA host Allison Langdon special treatment on a flight from Sydney to Fiji - despite her being 'seated in economy'. However, photos obtained by Daily Mail Australia show Langdon and her family checking in at the business class desk Ms Babic's original two-and-a-half-minute rant did not refer to Langdon by her full-name. 'There was a famous person from 60 Minutes on the plane, I think her name is Allison. She didn't get a first class seat, she got an economy seat,' Courtney she said on TikTok. 'We flew Qantas. They were turning people down when they were asking for wine and that's fine. I didn't ask but I overheard a lot of people being rejected. 'But then they were offering her wine and handing it out in front of everyone else. So the people who were being declined alcohol had to sit and watch this famous lady be served alcohol when they bought the same ticket for the same price. 'The staff were treating her better than everyone else. It's just not fair. Why are these famous people getting treated better in front of you when you've both paid the same amount of money? 'If you're going to give someone special treatment just because you think they're famous, I think that's wrong. I don't understand what's going on with service these days.' Courtney (pictured) claimed Langdon, 45, was sitting in economy and was not only offered wine, but her children - son Mack, 7, and daughter Scout, 4 - were allowed to use the bathrooms in first class, but other youngsters were denied access Langdon and Willesee Jr. tied the knot in 2008 after meeting for the first time at a Sydney bar. 'We were at a bar and this guy walked in and he had his red T-shirt and dark jeans and you just have that moment where you just have like an overwhelming physical attraction to someone? I just got hit by this,' she previously said. Langdon recently revealed what she plans to do when she stops hosting ACA. She joined the program at the start of 2023, replacing Tracy Grimshaw, after a three-year stint co-hosting the Today show with Karl Stefanovic. In May, she said she hopes to stay on ACA for 'a while', and when she does eventually step aside, she intends to go back to university and start a new career. Michelle Bridges is enjoying a sweet mother and son trip with her boy Axel. Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, the 53-year-old treated her followers to a series of clips as they wandered through the streets of Rome. In one clip, the fitness guru ensured they met their fitness goals as they conquered the iconic Spanish Steps. Bridges looked effortlessly stylish in a chic blue and white ensemble, flaunting a hint of her sun-kissed skin. She complemented the look with white sunglasses and a pair of trainers. The fitness fanatic shares son Axel, eight, with her former partner Steve 'Commando' Willis. The couple split in 2020 after meeting on The Biggest Loser in 2012. It comes after Bridges offered some inspiring words to women over 50 as she enjoys a mid-life career resurgence. Michelle Bridges is enjoying a sweet mother and son trip with her boy Axel and has been treating her followers to a series of Instagram clips as they wandered through the streets of Rome. Both pictured The author, who recently graced the screens of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Australia, told The Herald Sun that she refuses to let age deter her career. 'I'm a bada** and I'm about to kick butt. We're not going to get sidelined at this age, we're going to put our hand up and say pick me.' 'We've earned our stars, we've earned our stripes, we've got knowledge, maturity, wisdom and we can take it into an exciting next chapter,' she added. The personal trainer became the fourth star to be voted out of the jungle last weekend and described the experience as a 'reality check'. Discussing her stint on the show, Michelle admitted she missed her son 'like crazy', but was determined to continue in the competition. She also revealed she'd been invited to star on the show many times, and had finally 'found a gap in her schedule' this year. In one clip, the fitness guru ensured they met their fitness goals as they conquered the iconic Spanish Steps Bridges looked effortlessly stylish in a chic blue and white ensemble, flaunting a hint of her sun-kissed skin It comes ager Michelle admitted that she was disappointed to have missed out on the I'm A Celebrity final. 'I won't lie, I am disappointed. I really would have liked to have stayed a bit longer,' she confessed in her exit interview. 'I've loved meeting new people and I have made good friendships in there, I won't lie. There's some really great people I've connected with and I know that I'll have that connection on the outside.' Michelle was competing for her chosen charity, Women's Community Shelters. Rising to fame on The Biggest Loser in 2007, Michelle went on to appear on Celebrity MasterChef Australia in 2009, Dancing with the Stars in 2019, and Celebrity Apprentice Australia in 2021. He is the fan favourite that many hoped would take home the MasterChef crown. But sadly Harry Butterfield, 29, was shown the exit on the hit cooking show on Tuesday after a dramatic pressure test. Harry's elaborate Flounder Kandinsky left judge Josh Niland underwhelmed and the result had some viewers taking to social media to share their outrage over the result. 'Whos cutting onions? So devastated for Harry! Will definitely miss him,' shared one fan. Added another: 'I have always imagined Harry being the winner of this season. I am just speechless to see this verdict. Love you Harry 'I can't believe it,' posted another fan. Harry's exit was an emotional affair as judge Sofia Levin announced: 'I'm so sorry Harry, but you're leaving the competition today. 'You don't have to be sorry I know I made some mistakes,' Harry said. Popular MasterChef contestant Harry Butterfield, 29, was shown the exit on the hit cooking show on Tuesday after a dramatic pressure test. (Pictured) Harry's elimination left his fellow contestants emotional with all the MasterChef kitchen fighting back tears. Pictured: Nat during Tuesday's episode The result was particularly painful for Harry since has been known for his fish cuisine, while Josh was one of the popular contestant's food heroes. There was not a dry eye in the MasterChef kitchen as Josh paid tribute during his farewell to Harry. 'I wanted to say to you as well, there was a number of experiences that I've had where I was responsible for the kitchen and then all of a sudden, your mentor comes in and people that you admire more than they could imagine and I know that that's steered me wrong on a couple of occasions,' Josh said. He continued: 'And it does hurt because you cook with emotion. What you did today, you should be very proud.' Judge Andy Allen also paid tribute to Harry. 'I want you to look around and look at the impact that you've had on these people,' he said. Guest judge Josh Niland paid a tribute to Harry after delivering his final verdict (pictured) Contestants Savindri, Josh aka Pezza and Nat will now advance into the semi finals and a chance to win $250,000. Pictured: MasterChef judges Andy Allen, Poh Ling Yeow, French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli and food critic Sofia Levin with Josh Niland (centre) Before making his final exit Harry thanked MasterChef for the experience. 'I think the only place I've been where people care so much about your creativity and want you to do well is around my family, so I get it when people say that it's like a family here.' he said. 'Look, I'm gutted it's over, but I'm proud of the journey that I've been on and really grateful for the experience.' Contestants Savindri, Josh aka Pezza and Nat will now advance into the semi finals and a chance to win $250,000. Ferne McCann didn't spare any expense to celebrate her daughter Finty's first birthday as she threw a lavish fairy-themed party for her little one. The former TOWIE star, 33, marked her youngest child's milestone bash with elaborate purple balloon arches, a soft play area and even a 'sound healing bath'. Taking to her Instagram page with a carousel of heart-warming snaps, she wrote: 'Fintys Fairy First Birthday Party. Thank you to everyone who celebrated our little fairys first birthday with us. 'It was the cutest party at ours ending with a gorgeous sound bath at the end. I was so surprised that the kids sat down and soaked in the glorious sound energy. 'A perfect way to wind them down after a kids party.' Ferne McCann didn't spare any expense to celebrate her daughter Finty's first birthday as she threw a lavish fairy-themed party for her little one The former TOWIE star, 33, marked her youngest child's milestone bash with elaborate purple balloon arches, a soft play area and even a 'sound healing bath' The TV personality and her fiance Lorri Haines posed for a selection of pictures with Ferne's daughter Sunday, six, from her previous relationship with convicted acid attacker ex Arthur Collins. Arthur is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after carrying out an acid attack at a London nightclub in 2017, which saw 16 people suffer chemical burn injuries and three people left temporarily blinded. Ferne announced her engagement to businessman Lorri, 33, in 2022 and they later co-founded the mental wellbeing app Shoorah together. Finty's incredible birthday party was completed with a stunning soft play area with various slides, a ball pool, tents, and even tricycles. The place looked just like a fairy tale village, boasting balloons decorations in a palette of purple shades and white - matching the backdrops and signs of fairies and flowers and mushrooms. The entrance gave the feel of entering an enchanted forest through a tiny door, with a sign reading 'Finty's Fairy First Birthday'. The little one was also treated to a delicious three-tier cake crafted by Chingford's bakery Munches Cupcakes. The lilac heart-shaped sweet read: 'FINTY ONE', in red. The TV personality and her fiance Lorri Haines posed for a selection of pictures with Ferne's daughter Sunday, six, from her previous relationship with acid attacker ex Arthur Collins The incredible birthday party was completed with a stunning soft play area with various slides, a ball pool, tents, and even tricycles The place looked just like a fairy tale village, boasting balloons decorations in a palette of purple shades and white - matching the backdrops and signs of fairies and flowers The little one was also treated to a delicious three-tier cake crafted by Chingford's bakery Munches Cupcakes The proud parents were captured singing happy birthday to the tot in a sweet clip For the special occasion Ferne looked effortlessly elegant as she wore a cream mini dress with floral prints and puffed short sleeves, teamed with nude strappy heels. The former TOWIE favourite also posed alongside her mum Gilly, 64, who looked chic in a blue and white maxi dress. Sunday looked gorgeous in a pink fairy dress with tulle skirt. Doting dad Lorri sported a camel polo T-shirt and black denim to keep his look casual. Ferne and Lorri welcomed baby Finty into the world in July 2023. In 2022, the couple previously suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage, which Ferne revealed in an episode of her ITVbe show Ferne McCann: First Time Mum. She recalled the devastating moment during a couples counselling session. Ferne said: 'Very early on [in the pregnancy] I, I ummm, we had, we had a miscarriage as well. 'I was five weeks and I started bleeding. I was devastated.' Ferne said after scouring the internet she came to realisation that she was in fact suffering an early miscarriage. The couple got engaged in July 2022 after a whirlwind seven-month romance. Ferne confirmed her romance with the businessman in January, shortly after the collapse of her six-month relationship with DJ and marketing manager Jack Padgett. The guests in attendance seemed to be having the time of their life as they were treated to some activities with entertainers, and even enjoyed a 'healing sound energy' bath Lily James was having fun filming on the set of her new movie Swiped on Tuesday, as she was spotted aboard a Hollywood tour bus in Pasadena, California. The 35-year-old British actress plays Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd in the film, which is inspired by her epic rise as the youngest ever female billionaire. Production began on the biopic in late March and is expected to end this month, with Lily having previously been seen filming at Pomona College in Claremont. This time, the star seemed to be having a blast on set as she was being driven around in a large bus. Lily flashed a smile while being carted around in the vehicle and filmed by a cameraman. Lily James was having fun while filming on the set of her new movie Swiped on Tuesday, as she was spotted aboard a Hollywood tour bus in Pasadena, California The 35-year-old British actress plays Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd in the film, which is inspired by her epic rise as the youngest ever female billionaire In another snap, she cut a serious look as she glanced out of the bus, which has the writing 'Final Footsteps Tour' on the side, while it was driving away The actress was glowing in the sun as she wore her blonde tresses down and donned a pair of sunglasses for the scene. In another snap, she cut a serious look as she glanced out of the bus, which has the writing 'Final Footsteps Tour' on the side, while it was driving away. After a swift outfit change, Lily made her way across the set in a blue cami top, a mini skirt and some black tights. While filming previously in June, she donned Bumble merchandise such as a white sweater featuring a yellow stripe across the chest with the dating app's logo in black. The British actress also carried a yellow Bumble tote bag while filming scenes and talking with director Rachel Lee Goldenberg. The film was announced back in March, with the report from Deadline stating that it will be 'inspired' by Wolfe Herd's true story, and won't be 'based' on her actual life. There is no indication yet on how the film will differ from the actual rise of Wolfe Herd, who got her entrepreneurial start in her early 20s at Tinder. She was credited with changing the name from the initial MatchBox to Tinder, and helped grow its user base on college campuses during her tenure as Marketing VP. Whitney (left) co-founded the app months after she was forced to leave Tinder - another dating app she co-founded - following sexual harassment from a colleague. Lily (right ) was announced to star as Whitney and produce Swiped back in March Wolfe, now 35, became the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world when she took Bumble public in 2021 after launching in 2014 She left the company in 2014 after two years, and filed a sexual harassment lawsuit later that year, receiving more than $1 million plus stock in the settlement. Wolfe Herd moved to Austin in 2015 and founded Bumble, the female-focused dating app that had over 80 million matches in its first year alone. She took Bumble public in 2021, with Forbes calling her the world's youngest self-made female billionaire at just 31 years of age. Wolfe Herd stepped down as Bumble CEO in November 2023 to take an executive chair role, with Slack's Lidiane Jones replacing her. Lily, who will transform into the CEO, got her start in 2010 in episodes of Just William and a 2011 arc on Secret Diary of a Call Girl and her role as Lady Rose MacClare on Downton Abbey. She made her film debut in 2012's Wrath of the Titans, and just three years later had her breakthrough as the title role in 2015's Cinderella from director Kenneth Branagh. The actress continued to work regularly in Burnt, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Baby Driver, Darkest Hour, Little Woods, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and Yesterday. She most recently starred in FX's Pam & Tommy as Pamela Anderson and The Iron Claw, and she'll next be seen in Greedy People, in theaters October 10. Glen Powell has revealed he had a 'wild night' with Tom Cruise at the European premiere of Twisters in London on Monday. The Top Gun: Maverick star, 35, said Tom was Twisters' biggest hype man as he was laughing his head off inside the Cineworld Leicester Square cinema and 'riled up the audience'. Speaking on Tuesday's episode of BBC's The One Show, Glen revealed that Tom, 62, was in full support of his new movie. Speaking to Vernon Kay and Lauren Laverne, Glen admitted that he had a 'wild night' with Hollywood legend Tom as he was up cheering with the crowd. Glen shared: 'TC [Tom Cruise] showed up. It was a pretty wild night. Tom was next to me, Daisy is right behind me, Tony (Anthony Ramos) is right in front of me, and for every second of this movie Tom was just so excited for me and for all of us.' Glen Powell has revealed he had a 'wild night' with Tom Cruise during the European premiere of Twisters in London on Monday evening The Maverick star, 35, said Tom was Twisters's biggest hype man as he was laughing down the Cineworld Leicester Square cinema and 'riled up the audience' Glen continued: 'He is turning around to Daisy being like "that was great." He is such a rare individual who really roots for everybody and really roots for people who want to entertain audiences and this movie really is all about that. 'He was getting the audience riled up, he was laughing louder than everyone, cheering, it was great', he added. Tom surprised fans when he made an appearance at the European premiere. Stepping out to support his Maverick co-star Glen, the Hollywood A-lister posed for photos. Glen, who played Jake 'Hangman' Seresin in the Top Gun sequel, stars as 'tornado wrangler' Tyler Owens who is forced to confront a particularly catastrophic tornado in the upcoming thriller, Twisters. Arriving in the capital, Tom smiled for a photo alongside his co-star and captioned the Instagram post: 'Fun night with friends, watching a movie!!' Sharing the same snap to his own account, Glen wrote: 'When your wingman follows you into the storm' He appeared on BBC's The One Show on Tuesday and revealed that Tom, 62, was in full support of his new movie. Speaking to Vernon Kay and Lauren Laverne, Glen admitted that he had a 'wild night' with Hollywood legend Tom as he was up cheering with the crowd Tom surprised fans when he made an appearance at the European premiere Glen played Jake 'Hangman' Seresin in the Top Gun sequel (pictured) Leading man Tom Cruise as Capt Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick Glen looked dapper in a black suit with white piping as well as an unbuttoned shirt and dark red patent shoes. Meanwhile, Tom opted for a white T-shirt with a suede bomber jacket and smart trousers. In May, a trailer for the flick was released which opens an Oklahoma rodeo with a crowd watching a bull rider followed by a storm siren. The animals fled along with the crowd and a truck trying to drive away from the chaos was lifted up by the wind and tossed into an electric sign. 'A once in a generation tornado outbreak continues across Oklahoma,' a TV weatherman reported as Kate Cooper, played by 25-year-old English actress Daisy Edgar Jones, was studying the storm from afar at a federal weather agency. A supervisor asked Kate for help with tornadoes after admitting that he'd never seen any like them before. 'No, I don't chase anymore,' Kate said. After being told that her help could save lives, Kate reluctantly agreed to give him one week. Kate joined NASA and FEMA experts in Oklahoma and was surprised when self-described 'tornado wrangler' Tyler Owens, played by Glen, arrived. 'If you feel it,' Tyler said to his adoring fans. 'Chase it!,' they hollered back. Glen stars as 'tornado wrangler' Tyler Owens who is forced to confront a particularly catastrophic tornado in the upcoming thriller, Twisters A note at the end said that Universal Pictures is partnering with the American Red Cross to help people affected by disasters. Twisters is scheduled to be released in cinemas on July 19. The film directed by Lee Isaac Chung also stars Anthony Ramos and features Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Sasha Lane, Kiernan Shipka and Paul Scheer. Twisters is a stand-alone sequel to the 1996 film Twister that starred Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz and Cary Elwes. The classic film sees two storm chasers on the brink of divorce be forced to work together to create an advanced weather alert system by putting themselves in the cross-hairs of extremely violent tornadoes. Tina Malone shared devastating details about the death of her late husband Paul Chase who died by suicide earlier this year on her Twitter page on Monday. The former soap star, 61, said she is 'totally broken' following his passing as she deals with the 'pain and sorrow' she has been feeling in the months after his death. In a series of tweets posted on her page, Tina told how Paul left their home at 4pm and took his own life at the park opposite their home in Cheshire. The post read: '17 weeks ago at 4pm my husband left home, and took his own life at the park opposite our home. 'I'm broken totally the pain and sorrow is every day, he fought for his country for over then years! Yet hardly anyone has donated to our charity. He was a good man'. Tina Malone shared devastating details about the death of her late husband Paul Chase who died by suicide earlier this year on her Twitter page on Monday The former soap star , 61, said she is 'totally broken' following his passing as she deals with the 'pain and sorrow' she has been feeling in the months after his death In a series of tweets posted on her page, Tina told how Paul left their home at 4pm and took his own life at the park opposite their home in Cheshire Tina has set up the page Paul's Flame to raise money for people suffering with post traumatic stress disorder, which her partner suffered with after serving in the army. The description for the page, says: 'I have set up a charity to create a legacy for my husband Paul Anthony Chase Malone who took his own life on March 13th this year. 'After suffering with chronic ptsd for years after serving in the 22nd regiment of the Cheshires for over ten years serving in Calgary, Northern Ireland, Falklands, Cyprus, Iraq, Afghanistan... 'Struggling with debt, unemployment his depression manifested into alcohol and drug abuse, self harming! He felt lost, useless, a burden, hopeless culminating in his suicide. Leaving myself and our ten year old daughter devastated, heartbroken with overwhelming sorrow. 'We aim to create a fund that will support individuals, small charities in crisis. A board of twelve trustees will distribute the funds to those in need particularly for those with mental health issues... 'Veterans, single parents, working families struggling. The more money we raise the more people we help! Please donate every amount helps. Tina Malone x' Tina revealed she was trying to raise 10,000 for the charity, which has currently received 450 in donations so far. The Shameless actress shared her fury that she had not received more donations, assuring her followers that the money would go to 'people in crisis'. Tina has set up the page Paul's Flame to raise money for people suffering with post traumatic stress disorder, which her partner suffered with after serving in the army (pictured with Paul) Tina revealed she was trying to raise 10,000 for the charity, which has currently received 450 in donations so far Tina then added that she was going to try and get out of the house and take her dogs for a walk, but admitted that leaving the house makes her feel 'anxious' She said: 'I wanted to raise 10,000! For people in crisis, not for me or Flame! What's 10 per person? People raise 33M, 50,000. I can't even raise 5,000. Tina added: 'I better get off here or I'm going to say stuff I shouldn't... Am I missing something? Just makes me think what's the point of anything.' She later apologised for her rant, saying: 'Thank you for all of your comments, I apologise if I sounded aggressive last night, I'm just so bereft. Truly heartbroken, 15 years together. I miss him so badly. 'Thank you for your donations I am truly moved'. Tina then added that she was going to try and get out of the house and take her dogs for a walk, but admitted that leaving the house makes her feel 'anxious'. Tina recently admitted Paul's death did not come as a shock as she saw how badly his mental health had been effected by his time serving. She said he turned to 'drink, drugs and painkillers' in order to numb the pain. Tina also told how the house is exactly as it was since Paul died four months ago and she has washed and ironed all his clothes. Recalling his funeral, Tina added: ''After the funeral, we partied until late. We ate all of Paul's favourite food and I was the first on the dancefloor because, well, that was just me and Paul.' Tina added that her grief over losing Paul is still raw and she doesn't think she will ever love a man like him again. She said: 'I have never and will never love any other man like I do Paul. I want to be with him and I will be with him one day.' The actress told how she recently saw an old couple holding hands near her home and thought to herself she will never have that. The soap star said an army officer told her the army doesn't do enough to help soldiers readjust to civilian life, noting how other armies give ex-soldiers 'a pot of money' they can use to re-train or set up their onw businesses. Speaking to Closer magazine, Tina told how she and her daughter took a barbeque to Paul's grave to mark what would have been his 42nd birthday in late May (pictured in 2013) Tina recently launched Paul's Flame alongside her late husband's sister. The charity aims to help people with cash payments during desperate times. Tina and Paul met at a boot camp event where he was a personal trainer after her appearance on Celebrity Big Brother. But their relationship was troubled in 2017 as Tina was arrested and cautioned for cocaine possession - being sacked from a pantomime in the process - while Paul lost his job caring for violent teenagers. The couple were left facing bankruptcy and Tina says his mental health spiralled during this time, using prescription drugs and cocaine in an attempt to cope before attempting to take his own life. He was admitted to psychiatric care, and was given help by an veterans charity, but Tina said he would experience mood swings. Kate Beckinsale slipped into tiny denim shorts and an England shirt as she shared snaps supporting the Three Lions on Wednesday ahead of their Euros semifinal. The team will be taking on the Netherlands in Dortmund at 8pm, and actress Kate, 50, was ready for action. To show her support she shared snaps from previous games where she was cheering on the likes of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. Kate showed off her long legs in the outfit which she completed with chunky black boots and a large bow in her hair. She penned in her caption: 'Good luck England!' Kate Beckinsale slipped into tiny denim shorts and an England shirt as she shared snaps supporting the Three Lions on Wednesday ahead of their Euros semifinal The team will be taking on the Netherlands in Dortmund at 8pm, and actress Kate, 50, was ready for action Kate has caused concern on social media over several unexplained health scares over the last year, including spending weeks in the hospital and dropping so many pounds that fans called her 'too thin.' This week she revealed her weight loss is down to the 'stress and grief' of the death of her stepfather and her mother's cancer diagnosis as she hit back at trolls. The actress slammed some of her 'a**hole' followers, who told her she needed to put on weight in the comments section of an Instagram post. After sharing a video clip in a crop top and bikini bottoms, one follower queried where her 'a**' had gone and encouraged Kate to 'do some squats'. Another claimed her body had 'shrank' while another insisted that she 'seemed upset' in the video posted on Monday evening. However, Kate fired back at the cruel comments ands explained that there were several reasons for her changed figure, including a six-week hospital stint. She replied: 'No, actually, I watched my stepfather die quite shockingly, my mother has stage 4 cancer and I lost a lot of eight from stress and grief... 'Quite quickly and then I was in hospital for six weeks because the grief had burned a hole in my oesophagus, which made me vomit copious amounts of blood, and I found eating very hard... To show her support she shared snaps from previous games where she was cheering on the likes of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham Kate showed off her long legs in the outfit which she completed with chunky black boots and a large bow in her hair She penned in her caption: 'Good luck England!' as she got ready to cheer on the Three Lions tonight 'And I just worked very very hard on a movie that was actually quite triggering because it also involved the theme of the death of my father so I'm not really concerned about what you think about my a**. Maybe you should worry about your own f***ing a**. I suggest shoving something up it, like a large pineapple or a brick.' Kate's stepdad Roy Battersby died in January after suffering 'a massive stroke' while battling two forms of cancer, which he was diagnosed with the summer before. Shortly after his death, Kate also revealed that her mother Judy Loe had also been told she has stage four cancer. In March Kate revealed she had been hospitalised after sparking concern among her fans with tearful selfies. She later explained the reason behind her hospital stint in a now-deleted Instagram post, writing: 'I spent six weeks in hospital due to copiously vomiting blood from a Mallory Weiss tear caused by the stress of a whole year ripping a hole between my oesophagus [sic] and stomach.' 'That's what I am prepared to disclose that has contributed to some weight loss. What you think of my appearance and how I should look, independently of any circumstances in my life and my family's is not important.' In recent months, Kate had been caring for her mother and late stepmother after flying them out from the UK to stay with her in Los Angeles. 'Kate has been caring for her parents, who both have serious illnesses, for most of the year,' a source exclusively revealed to DailyMail.com late last year. 'She brought them to her home in LA and has made looking after them her number one priority.' On January 10, Kate announced the death of stepfather Roy aged 87. The insider revealed that the actress whose biological father Richard Beckinsale died in 1979 at 31 from a heart attack in his sleep has been feeling the emotional toll in recent months. 'She was spotted this week several times crying in the corridors of UCLA hospital,' the source added. 'Her friends are very concerned that she has been under relentless strain for months and hardly sleeping or eating. 'Kate appears to be very strong but this has been incredibly hard and, given that she lost her father so young, is affecting her very deeply. Her friends are concerned for her own health.' A second source explained that her mother Judy has chosen to keep her health battle private, stating: 'She's extraordinary, you wouldn't even know by looking at her. She has been keeping a very positive attitude throughout everything.' This week she revealed her weight loss is down to the 'stress and grief' of the death of her stepfather and her mother's cancer diagnosis as she hit back at trolls She captioned a video: 'Let's have a toast for the douche bags. Let's have a toast for the a**holes. Let's have a toast for the scumbags' Kate fired back at the cruel comments ands explained that there were several reasons for her changed figure, including a six-week hospital stint Kate's stepdad Roy Battersby died in January following a 'brief illness' after being diagnosed with two forms of cancer the summer before (pictured left with her mother Judy right) Kate shared a picture of Roy's order of service that revealed he was cremated on Monday February 19 at Mortlake Crematorium near Kew in west London. Kate's mother Judy married Roy 18 years after Kate's father, Porridge star Richard Beckinsale, died. Roy enjoyed his own successful career as a director, working on major British on-screen hits including Inspector Morse and Cracker. His most recent directorial credit was for a 2006 episode of A Touch Of Frost. Kate's biological father Richard Beckinsale was best known for his roles as Lennie Godber in the BBC sitcom Porridge and Alan Moore in the ITV sitcom Rising Damp. He also had a daughter Samantha, 55 who is his only child from his marriage to Margaret Bradley. He's currently attempting to re-build his career after being cleared of sexually assaulting four men last year. But after spending the last few years as persona non grata in Hollywood, it seems that Kevin Spacey still has a fan base and a captive audience in one country Armenia. The Oscar-winner, 64, is in the capital of Yerevan this week where he taught an acting masterclass to students after being named the 'guest of honour' at the Golden Apricot International Film Festival. Spacey, who last month admitted to being on the brink of bankruptcy due to his multi-million dollar legal fees, seems to be taking work opportunities where he can. His best friend Evan Lowenstein shared photos of the US actor, 'giving a masterclass to students in Yerevan, Armenia,' in which he appeared to be holding court with wannabe acting stars seated around him. Kevin Spacey is attempting to rebuild his career by teaching an acting masterclass in Armenia (pictured) He's currently attempting to re-build his career after being cleared of sexually assaulting four men last year A video then showed Spacey addressing a packed out room of fans at Yerevan's Cinema House an event that had to be relocated from the American University of Armenia, which appeared to disinvite him following a student protest. 'This is exciting and important for me,' he told the crowd, according to the Armen Press. 'It doesn't matter if you're on a professional stage or in a school troupe; you should simply act. 'While you can earn a lot of money in movies, a good actor is a good actor everywhere, and a bad actor is bad. If you think you can be in front of the camera or on stage, you will eventually get there.' Despite the huge turnout at the event, Spacey's visit to the country sponsored by the Yerevan municipality has proved controversial. Students at the AUA organized a protest upon finding out he was due to give a talk to students on their campus, hosted by the film festival organisers. 'We are deeply concerned and disappointed over the University's decision to provide a platform for a meeting with Kevin Spacey,' read the petition. 'This sends a troubling message to survivors of sexual assault and, more broadly, to the students, faculty, and community.' The Oscar-winner, 64, is in the capital of Yerevan this week where he taught an acting masterclass to students Spacey, who last month admitted to being on the brink of bankruptcy due to his multi-million dollar legal fees, seems to be taking work opportunities where he can Spacey has repeatedly denied the allegations of sexual assault, which first emerged in 2017, although he admitted his past behaviour was 'handsy' and 'pushed boundaries' Spacey is also set to be honoured at the Folkestone Independent Film Awards on July 20, for his role in action thriller Control in which he plays a voice part. Spacey has repeatedly denied the allegations of sexual assault, which first emerged in 2017, although he admitted his past behaviour was 'handsy' and 'pushed boundaries' during a recent interview with Piers Morgan. 'Being too handsy, touching someone sexually in a way that I didn't know at the time they didn't want... I am absolutely 150 per cent prepared to take accountability for those things that I did,' he said on Piers Morgan Uncensored. He added: 'This week, where I have been living in Baltimore, is being foreclosed on. My house is being sold at auction. 'I'm not quite sure where I'm going to live now...I still owe a lot of legal bills that I have not been able to pay.' Spacey was cleared of the charges brought against him at a high-profile trial at Southwark Crown Court last July. Despite the huge turnout at the event, Spacey's visit to the country sponsored by the Yerevan municipality has proved controversial Producers of Alec Baldwin's new reality show are preparing to keep the cameras rolling despite the trial and potential jail time for the actor following the Rust shooting incident. The Baldwins is set to premiere in 2025 on TLC, and showrunners have 'already factored the trial into their storylines and production,' a source told The New York Post on Wednesday. 'The Baldwins signed the deal while Alec was already dealing with his legal issues,' the insider reported. 'Everyone knew then and knows now that the trial could be part of the storyline. The show will still premiere in 2025.' Baldwin, 66, is facing a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison if found guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins which took place October 21 2021. The 30 Rock alum plead not guilty ahead of the July 9 trial. A second source revealed that if Baldwin is convicted, the show's tone will significantly shift. Producers of Alec and Hilaria Baldwin 's new reality show are preparing to keep the cameras rolling despite the trial and potential jail time for the actor following the Rust shooting incident The Baldwins is set to premiere in 2025 on TLC, and showrunners have 'already factored the trial into their storylines and production,' a source told The New York Post on Wednesday. 'Alec and Hilaria were willing to open up their lives for the show, no matter where their lives lead,' the source said. 'If hes convicted and spends time in jail, that will be part of the show. And if not, then his acquittal and the aftermath will be part of the show.' Last month, Alec and Hilaria announced the TLC show, which will is being billed as a peek into their home life alongside their seven children: Carmen, 10, Rafael, eight, Leonardo, seven, Romeo, six, Eduardo, three, Maria, three, and Iliaria, 20 months. The couple 'open up their lives for the first time and bring everyone in to join in the non-stop love, laughter and drama,' per a press release. In October 2021, Baldwin was rehearsing a cross-draw maneuver with the revolver when the gun went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has pleaded not guilty and claims the gun accidentally fired after he pointed it toward Hutchins and pulled back the hammer, when it fired. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer has ruled that his role as a co-producer isn't relevant to the trial, siding with his defense attorneys. Last week, the judge cleared the way for crucial firearms experts for the prosecution to testify about Baldwin's handling of the revolver and whether the gun was functioning properly prior to the fatal shooting. 'The Baldwins signed the deal while Alec was already dealing with his legal issues,' the insider reported. 'Everyone knew then and knows now that the trial could be part of the storyline. The show will still premiere in 2025' 'If hes convicted and spends time in jail, that will be part of the show. And if not, then his acquittal and the aftermath will be part of the show' In October 2021, Baldwin was rehearsing a cross-draw maneuver with the revolver when the gun went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza (seen on set of Rust) Prosecutors have argued that a state workplace safety investigation, which found serious violations on set, was incomplete, untrustworthy and should be prohibited from the trial. In April of this year, Hannah Guttierez-Reed, the armorer on set, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins's death and sentenced to 18 months. The night before the incident, six members of the camera crew quit because of their concerns over safety. The jury heard that Baldwin commissioned director Souza to write the script, which he owned the rights to. Baldwin was the lead actor on the movie and was also a producer. The court heard that Baldwin himself made the set unsafe by waving his gun like a 'pointing stick' at people. The FBI conducted an accidental discharge test on the gun by striking it from several angles with a rawhide mallet, eventually breaking the gun. Halyna Hutchins, 42, was a mother-of-one and up-and-coming cinematographer when she was fatally shot on the set of 'Rust' The infamous gun fired on set that ended up killing cinematographer Hutchins Rust armorer Hannah Guttierez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the involuntary manslaughter of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins Prosecutors plan to present evidence at trial that they say shows the firearm 'could not have fired absent a pull of the trigger' and was working properly before the shooting. Baldwin has twice been charged in Hutchins's death. Prosecutors dismissed an earlier charge, then refiled it after receiving a new analysis of the revolver that Baldwin pointed at Hutchins. Since the 2021 shooting, the filming of Rust resumed but moved to Montana under an agreement with Hutchins's husband, Matthew Hutchins, which made him an executive producer. The completed movie has not yet been released for public viewing. Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield's romantic drama We Live In Time has released its first trailer ahead of the world premiere in September. The film, directed by John Crowley, will be screened for the first time at Toronto Film Festival and will hit theatres in a limited release on October, 11. The first trailer sees Almut (Florence) and Tobias (Andrew) brought together in a surprise meeting that changes their lives forever. Through snapshots of their life together - including falling for each other, creating a home and building a family - a difficult truth is uncovered that rocks the relationship's foundation to the core. As they embark on a 10-year romance that is challenged by time limits, they learn to treasure every moment of their unconventional love story. Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield 's romantic drama We Live In Time has released its first trailer ahead of the world premiere in September The film, directed by John Crowley, will be screened for the first time at Toronto Film Festival and will hit theatres in a limited release on October, 11 The trailer sees Almut and Tobias first cross paths in a hospital room. Bruised and looking worse-for-wear with a brace around his neck, Tobias asks Almut, 'So sorry, but do we know each other?' 'Yeah, no,' she replies, before admitting that she is the reason he's injured because she's accidentally hit him with her car. The p[air eventually fall in love and have a daughter together, leading a blissful life up until the point when Almut receives an ominous diagnosis. Last year, the Dune 2 star and Spider-Man actor sparked traffic chaos in Orpington in Kent in May, 2023, as they shot scenes for their new film. The pair were filming for the new film, and fans gathered in the early hours of the morning to watch the behind-the-scenes action. But traffic seemed to be stacking up while Florence and Andrew filmed a scene in which Florence appeared to be going into labour. Traffic cones had been placed along the road and a man in a high-vis jacket was seen directing drivers as they passed by the filming area. The first trailer teased Almut (Florence) and Tobias (Andrew) being brought together in a surprise meeting that changed their lives forever Through snapshots of their life together - falling for each other, creating a home and building a family - a difficult truth is uncovered that rocks the relationship's foundation to the core As they embark on a 10-year romance path that is challenged by time limits, they learn to treasure every moment of their unconventional love story The two-minute clip saw the duo fall in love and have a daughter together, leading a blissful life up until the point when Almut receives an ominous diagnosis We Live in Time will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September At the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, the film production company StudioCanal sold the movie to A24 for U.S. distribution A sign stood on the street to warn pedestrians they were entering a filming location and could expect to appear in the movie. We Live in Time will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. At the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, the film production company StudioCanal sold the movie to A24 for U.S. distribution. Nick Payne, who has worked as a writer on The Crown, wrote the screenplay and developed the script. The film is executive produced by Benedict Cumberbatch via his company SunnyMarch alongside Leah Clarke, Adam Ackland and Guy Heeley. We Live In Time has yet to have an official UK release date. Jenna Dewan was spotted for the first time since welcoming daughter Rhiannon on June 14 as she ran errands in Los Angeles on Wednesday. The 43-year-old actress, who shares the newborn with fiance Steve Kazee, looked radiant as she held hands with their four-year-old son, Callum. Dressed in a strapless black maxi dress, the former World of Dance host, who also shares daughter Everly, 11, with ex-husband Channing Tatum, added a matching handbag and a set of chic sandals to the mix. She sported her signature raven hair parted in the middle, flashing a megawatt smile during the casual outing. This comes after Jenna took to her Instagram last week to share a photo of herself breastfeeding Rhiannon with the help of a nursing pillow. Jenna Dewan was spotted for the first time since welcoming daughter Rhiannon on June 14 as she ran errands in Los Angeles on Wednesday The 43-year-old actress, who shares the newborn with fiance Steve Kazee, looked radiant as she held hands with their four-year-old son, Callum 'Postpartum is truly a vibe,' wrote The Rookie star. Jenna and Steve announced the arrival of Rhiannon Lee Kathryn Kazee in a sweet post shared to her Instagram. 'Rhiannon Lee Kathryn Kazee June 14, 2024,' she captioned the post. 'From the moment you arrived, you have brought immense joy and love into our lives your gentle grace, sweetness, and beauty have captivated our entire family. 'Our hearts are overflowing with love, and we are truly blessed by your presence. Welcome to our world baby girl.' Jenna announced her pregnancy with Rhiannon back in January with video of her taking a bath with her baby bump in full view. At the time, Jenna revealed in her interview with Romper magazine that she and Steve decided not to find out the sex of the baby. The star also said it will be her last pregnancy. 'You don't race to the end because this is the last time. So there's a bit of joy and a little sadness. I'm really trying to enjoy it all and not try to just get through the days.' Jenna shared sweet snaps as she enjoyed getting to know her new baby Rhiannon, who was born June 14. 'Postpartum is truly a vibe,' wrote the actress Saturday, sharing a photo of herself breastfeeding her baby with the help of a nursing pillow Another sweet snap shows the Superman and Lois star enjoying snuggles on the bed with the infant Jenna was married to Channing from 2009 until they separated in April 2018, finalizing their divorce in November 2019. They first met on the set of their film Step Up in 2016; the stars welcomed their daughter Everly in May 2013. Jenna and Steve confirmed their romance in October 2018, announcing their engagement in February 2020. They welcomed their son Callum in March 2020. Channing, 44, is engaged to actress Zoe Kravitz, 35; they have been romantically linked since 2021 and got engaged in October 2023. The professional dancer told Romper magazine she's excited to see Steve with a 'little baby again.' 'He's so naturally domestic and nurturing, and he's so loving, and he's funny, and he's really... he's just incredible,' she said. 'It's one of those things where people just have a natural ability for parenting. I'm so excited to see him with a little baby again.' Jenna, who plays Bailey Nune on the TV series The Rookie, says working while pregnant has been 'exhausting' but 'amazing.' 'It helps balance my mind. And The Rookie is truly the most dreamy, incredible job. Everyone is so lovely. It's really fun, and it's easy, and it flows, and so I think that's a big part of why it's easy for me to work pregnant.' 'I've been on other sets that are obviously a lot more difficult. So I love it. You're tired, but when is a mom not tired?' Jenna and Steve Kazee confirmed their romance in October 2018, announcing their engagement in February 2020; (pictured April) Jenna beamed with happiness as she bonded with the newborn Steve introduced his son Callum to his new baby sister Dewan pictured displaying her bump earlier this month Jenna's first pregnancy took place when she was 32, her second at 39 and now her third at 43. 'I'm not sure the body necessarily gets right back into action the way it did years ago. We'll see.' 'I'll report back, but I do think there's a bit of ignorance, this dancer in me that just says, "Ok, well, you just get it done." I've recovered great every time, but I'm open to whatever happens.' Jenna added that she really loves 'being a mom,' noting that it's 'something I knew my whole life, but I really know it now.' Kanye West doesn't typical shun the spotlight, but on Tuesday he opted for an incognito look as he stepped out in Beverly Hills solo. The rapper, 47, was spotted heading to his Cybertruck, his face shielded beneath his hooded jacket. Further accentuating the undercover outfit, West - who seemingly announced his retirement from 'professional music' - also rocked a pair of black sunglasses. Despite his attempts, eyes were still on West as he returned to his unmissable car with his cell phone in hand. Kanye, also rocking a pair of billowing white trousers and black footwear, approached the driver's side door of his metallic vehicle Kanye West opted for an undercover look as he stepped out Tuesday in Beverly Hills solo The sighting comes after West seemingly announced his retirement from 'professional music' - following a prolific career which includes 10 studio albums and 24 Grammy wins. News of the Flashing Lights hitmaker's shock retirement plans were revealed in an alleged text message exchange with rapper Rich The Kid. Rich The Kid, 31, uploaded a screenshot to his Instagram Story of messages he'd received from an iPhone contact under the name 'Ye.' The text from a person believed to be West who legally changed his name from Kanye West to Ye in 2021 read: 'I'm retiring from professional music. Not sure what else to do' Rich then tried to convince the father-of-four to reconsider his decision, even bringing up the recent success of his Vultures 1 album with rapper Ty Dolla $ign. 'Retire? Why ? How ? The [people] NEED you the music you & Ty & we have made was the BIGGEST STAMP in culture to this date In 2024,' he wrote. Rich was notably featured on West and Ty's lead single Carnival, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart when it debuted in March. The song also marked West's first #1 hit in 13 years - his last being Katy Perry's 2011 single E.T. West was spotted returning to his unmissable Cybertruck vehicle 'Drop Ye about mine & V2 and we do it all over again,' Rich continued. 'the kids need you big bra fasho maybe some time to chill buy retiring ain't it.' After news of Ye's retirement gained traction online, Rich went on to delete the screenshot from his Instagram Story. This sparked fan speculation that he may have made the post to stir up publicity for his upcoming album, Life's A Gamble. As just hours later, Rich returned to Instagram to reveal the release date as well as a peek at the track list that includes a new song with West. West who is rumored to have produced Life's A Gamble with collaborator Ty Dolla $ign will be featured on track 16, titled Plain Jane. Rich's album also lists Carnival as the album's closing track. 'LIFES A GAMBLE 7/19' Rich captioned the post, while also giving his nearly 12million followers a look at the album artwork. The outing comes after West seemingly announced his retirement from 'professional music', which was revealed in an alleged text message exchange with rapper Rich The Kid West, pictured March, has won 24 Grammys and released 10 studio albums Fans took to the comment section to voice their frustration and confusion, with one writing: 'Long story short y'all lied for promotion?' Many wanted to know 'why' Rich had deleted the texts about 'ye retiring.' The chatter around West's alleged musical retirement comes amid a slew of legal woes for the rapper - mostly relating to his crumbling Yeezy empire. Just last week, a new bombshell lawsuit accused West and his new wife Bianca Censori, 29, of sending porn to staff members - including minors - at Yeezy. A federal lawsuit filed in California claimed that Censori sent an employee a link to 'hardcore' sexual content after her husband announced the launch of his adult film business, Yeezy Porn, in late April. It alleged that the videos were accessible to underage staffers, but did not name her as a defendant in the suit - simply using the story to illustrate the work environment at the YZYVSN streaming service app. Censori has since denied the claims via West's former chief of staff, Milo Yiannopoulos, who told DailyMail.com he had permission to speak on her behalf. West pictured performing back in 2016 The rapper and his wife Bianca Censori in Milan back in February 'I've been authorized by Bianca to stress that any allegation that she showed or caused to be shown any pornographic material to minors is offensive, disgusting, abhorrent and categorically and wholly false,' the statement says. The 39-year-old British commentator went on in his statement last Monday to dismiss the allegations against him in the federal lawsuit, which accuses him and Ye of engaging in 'forced labor and cruel inhuman, or degrading treatment.' Yiannopoulos slammed the claims, saying it 'takes more imaginative leaps than The Lord of the Rings,' and claiming it was filed by a man who had no authority at YZYVSN. 'The tragic, desperate, attention-seeking wannabee Yeezy staffer behind this egregious and repulsive pack of lies, Shemar DaCosta, has never had any kind of access to Ye, his family, or Yeezy, or any information pertinent to the company, and he never will,' Yiannopoulos said. 'DaCosta, known as 'Hotep Susan' in Yeezy circles for his histrionic and absurd race-baiting, faked an entire job history at Yeezy on his LinkedIn profilethe most tragic and thirsty lie imaginable. 'He claimed to be a lead developer for Yeezy. He has never worked at Yeezy. Read my lips: He will never, ever, ever land a job at the company after telling such odious lies about the Lady of the House. 'There's a simple reason DaCosta's clownish claimthat minors were shown Yeezy Pornisn't true and can't be true. Yeezy Porn doesn't exist. 'I made sure of that by falling on my sword and quitting over it. The chatter around West's alleged musical retirement comes amid a slew of legal woes for the rapper - mostly relating to his crumbling Yeezy empire 'All I've done since is try to get these app developers paid, as voluminous correspondence demonstrates,' he continued - defending himself from claims that developers went unpaid for their work. 'Anyone asserting otherwise, including many in the press, are lazy or simply dishonest buffoons uncritically repeating mendacious lies from a lawsuit that takes more imaginative leaps than The Lord of the Rings.' He went on to hit out at the claims that he segregated employees by race, and named Discord chat rooms 'slaves' and 'new slaves.' 'Secret white chat rooms? No, the other team just hustled harder than you did,' the former Yeezy chief of staff said of DaCosta. 'Hostile working environment? How can that be? You were never hired. Minors working illegally? Give me a break. 'The only minors being taken advantage of are the poor suckers roped into this lawsuit, who have no idea what a pack of lies their names have been attached to,' he claimed. 'If anyone's taking advantage of kids, it's Shemar DaCosta and his bozo Instagram lawyer Ben Lockyer, whose area of legal expertise appears to be credulous African Americans with dubious causes of action,' Yiannopoulos concluded. The rapper seen during the Vultures 1 playback concert at Rolling Loud earlier this year 'Both of them should be ashamed of themselves. And if they're not now, they soon will be.' Yiannopoulos also included posts from X that he said backs his claims that the suit is frivolous. Several wrote that Yiannopoulos is trying to get the app developers paid, with one man who identified himself as a 'Yeezy developer waiting to get paid' saying Yiannopoulos has been the only (ex)employee trying to get us paid by doing everything he can and more.' 'This lawsuit has only made things far worse for everyone,' the post said. Another, who identifies himself as the lead developer for the app, agreed. 'So then suing him [because you] didnt get offered a job by them or make up other lies is crazy,' he wrote. The lawsuit alleges that West and Yiannopoulos hired an international developer group comprised of several black members, many of whom were underage, with some as young as 14. They then fostered an allegedly racist working environment and repeatedly made false promises about payment and working hours. It claims that Yiannopoulos promised the developer group $120,000 if they completed the app, agreed to the work conditions and didn't complain. But Ye then allegedly ordered all of the employees to sign NDAs and threatened to fire the minors if they didn't. The duo also allegedly required minors to sign 'volunteer' agreements. From then on, Ye's white managers reportedly used disparaging and racist language to create a hostile working environment. They reportedly harassed team members on the basis of their age, race, gender, sexual orientation and national origin. The workers were also reportedly forced to work through the night without pay or sleep. If they did not agree with the long work hours without breaks, the plaintiffs were allegedly threatened with having their pay withheld. But even after the team allegedly finished one of the apps on May 1 and sent it to Ye, the suit claims he did not pay them - leading them to file the suit asking for damages for unpaid wages and overtime pay, as well as emotional distress. DailyMail.com has reached out to West for comment. Fans were left in tears after watching the new trailer for Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield's romantic drama We Live In Time on Wednesday. Directed by John Crowley, the film follows Almut (Florence) and Tobias (Andrew) as they embark on a 10-year relationship that is challenged by time limits in a deeply moving romance. Through snapshots of their life together - falling for each other, creating a home and building a family - a difficult truth is uncovered that rocks the relationship's foundation to the core. And fans have revealed they are 'already crying' after watching the trailer as they expressed their fears for their emotions when the film is released on October 11. They suggested it seems like an 'adult' version of hit 2014 film The Fault In Our Stars based on the novel by John Green. Andrew Garfield fans were left 'bawling' after watching his new movie trailer for We Live In Time alongside Florence Pugh as they compared it to an iconic 2010s romance film Directed by John Crowley, the film follows Almut (Florence) and Tobias (Andrew) as they embark on a 10-year relationship that is challenged by time limits in a deeply moving romance Starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, the film told the love story of Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters after they meet at a cancer support group. The two then embark on a life-changing journey which brings them even closer, through love and ultimate heartbreak. Taking to Twitter to share their reaction to the trailer, fans wrote: 'trailer for We Live in Time dropped, im crying at work, thanks'; 'IM BAWLING MY EYES ALREADY'; 'Saw the trailer of We live in time,,, it's over for me bros'; 'so i just saw the trailer of We Live In Time and that movie is gonna absolutely destroy me'; 'WE LIVE IN TIME is gonna make me ugly cry!'; 'just watched the trailer for we live in time and i fear for myself when it comes out' Referencing John Green's movie adaptation they added: 'Its giving The Fault in our Stars but for adults and its gonna make us cry as much if not more than TFIOS'; 'WE LIVE IN TIME TRAILER BROKE ME'; 'Fault in our stars for adult'; 'welcome back The Fault In Our Stars'; 'Why do I feel theyre gonna pull a fault in our stars and have it so she survives and he doesnt? I feel like its too obvious that shes gonna die:('; Fans suggested it seems like an 'adult' version of hit 2014 film The Fault In Our Stars based on the novel by John Green which starred Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort (pictured) Fans have revealed they are 'already crying' after watching trailer as they expressed their fears for their emotions when the film is released on October 11 Referencing John Green's movie adaptation they added: 'Its giving The Fault in our Stars but for adults and its gonna make us cry as much if not more than TFIOS' 'I just hope this doesnt turn into another Fault in Our Stars'; 'Looks like its really gonna nail the balance between love, joy and grief. Trailer is heavy on love and joy. I can tell the grief bits are gonna come like a punch to the gut.' The film, will be screened for the first time at Toronto Film Festival and will hit theatres in a limited release on October, 11. The first trailer begins as Almut and Tobias are brought together in a surprise meeting that changes their lives forever as they learn to treasure every moment of their unconventional love story. The trailer sees Almut and Tobias first cross paths in a hospital room. Bruised and looking worse-for-wear with a brace around his neck, Tobias asks Almut, 'So sorry, but do we know each other?' 'Yeah, no,' she replies, before admitting that she is the reason he's injured because she's accidentally hit him with her car. The pair eventually fall in love and have a daughter together, leading a blissful life up until the point when Almut receives an ominous diagnosis. Last year, the Dune 2 star and Spider-Man actor sparked traffic chaos in Orpington in Kent in May, 2023, as they shot scenes for their new film. The first trailer begins as Almut and Tobias are brought together in a surprise meeting that changes their lives forever as they learn to treasure every moment of their unconventional love story The trailer sees Almut and Tobias first cross paths in a hospital room after she hits him with her car Through snapshots of their life together - falling for each other, creating a home and building a family - a difficult truth is uncovered that rocks the relationship's foundation to the core The two-minute clip saw the duo fall in love and have a daughter together, leading a blissful life up until the point when Almut receives an ominous diagnosis The pair were filming for the new film, and fans gathered in the early hours of the morning to watch the behind-the-scenes action. But traffic seemed to be stacking up while Florence and Andrew filmed a scene in which Florence appeared to be going into labour. Traffic cones had been placed along the road and a man in a high-vis jacket was seen directing drivers as they passed by the filming area. A sign stood on the street to warn pedestrians they were entering a filming location and could expect to appear in the movie. We Live in Time will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. At the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, the film production company StudioCanal sold the movie to A24 for U.S. distribution. Nick Payne, who has worked as a writer on The Crown, wrote the screenplay and developed the script. The film is executive produced by Benedict Cumberbatch via his company SunnyMarch alongside Leah Clarke, Adam Ackland and Guy Heeley. We Live In Time has yet to have an official UK release date. Olivia Munn and John Mulaney quietly tied the knot over the weekend at a friend's home in New York. The actress, 44, and 41-year-old comedian, who share a two-year-old son named Malcolm Hie, wed during a 'simple, intimate ceremony.' A source close to Mulaney confirmed the happy news to People on Wednesday. The publication revealed that 'only their son and a witness were in attendance.' The couple's nuptials come just four months after she publicly revealed her 'terrifying' breast cancer diagnosis. Olivia Munn and John Mulaney quietly tied the knot over the weekend at a friend's home in New York; seen in March 2024 The X-Men: Apocalypse star recently had her eggs frozen for future IVF procedures before she had a hysterectomy as chemotherapy and radiation can affect a person's fertility. 'After my diagnosis, we decided to try one more round of egg retrievals and hoped it was a good month,' she told Vogue on Mother's Day. She also revealed at that time that she had tried the procedure on three different occasions when she was 33, 39 and most recently 42. 'John and I talked about it a lot and we don't feel like we're done growing our family, but didn't know if I would have to do chemotherapy or radiation,' she added. Ultimately, doctors retrieved seven eggs from the procedure, though their viability was questioned, as Olivia shared that only about one in 10 eggs typically yield a healthy embryo for women in her age range. 'A few hours later, we got the call from my doctor. He shared that we had two healthy embryos,' the actress recalled. 'John and I just started crying. It was just so exciting because not only did we get it in one retrieval, but it also meant that I didn't have to keep putting myself at risk. It was just amazing,' Olivia said. The actress, 44, and 41-year-old comedian, who share their two-year-old son Malcolm Hie, wed during a 'simple, intimate ceremony' (pictured last month) A source close to Mulaney confirmed the happy news to People on Wednesday; seen in March 2024 Last month, the pair sparked marriage rumors when Mulaney shared a photo of himself wearing a wedding ring, which he quickly deleted. Munn and Mulaney have been together since 2021, following his split from ex-wife Anna Marie Tendler after nearly seven years of marriage. The couple welcomed their son in 2021, a year after he went to rehab and got divorced. The former SNL writer went public with the pregnancy on Late Night With Seth Meyers, whose host had been part of his intervention in 2020. The publication revealed that 'only their son and a witness were in attendance' The couple welcomed their son in 2021, a year after he went to rehab and got divorced He gushed about their 'incredible' new relationship, saying: 'Olivia and this baby have helped save me from myself in this early journey out of recovery.' John entered a 60-day stint at a treatment facility for cocaine addiction and alcoholism in December 2020, Page Six revealed. His separation from his first wife went public in mid-May 2021 and he finally filed for divorce that July in New York. When news broke of his marriage breakup last May, Page Six insiders said that John requested a divorce from Anna Marie as early as that February. Munn and Mulaney have been together since 2021, following his split from ex-wife Anna Marie Tendler (seen in 2019) after nearly seven years of marriage 'I am heartbroken that John has decided to end our marriage,' she said when the split was announced. 'I wish him support and success as he continues his recovery.' A few days after their separation was announced last May, a People source claimed that John had become romantically involved with Olivia. Mulaney has stuck by Munn's side through multiple surgeries in the past 10 months after she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. In March, he thanked her for 'fighting so hard' to be with him and their son. Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer is being sued for wrongful death after he struck and killed a pedestrian with his vehicle at a crosswalk in March. According to a lawsuit obtained by TMZ, Klinghoffer, 44, who played with the band from 2009-2019, was driving a black GMC Yukon in Alhambra, California when he made a left turn and ran into a pedestrian who was using a crosswalk. Klinghoffer's attorney Andrew Brettler told DailyMail.com that Klinghoffer was driving the vehicle and that the incident was a 'tragic accident' - with the musician 'fully cooperating' with an investigation. The suit names the pedestrian as 47-year-old Israel Sanchez, and claims he was dragged across the asphalt during the collision and sustained blunt force trauma to his head, causing his death hours later. In video obtained of the incident, a man is seen crossing the street at the crosswalk when a black SUV makes a left turn. Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer is being sued for wrongful death after he struck and killed a pedestrian with his vehicle at a crosswalk in March - pictured 2018 The lawsuit claims Klinghoffer did not apply his brakes, while also alleging he was 'distracted behind the wheel' due to allegedly being on his phone. The suit adds that the family has 'video evidence' showing Klinghoffer on his phone just before the collision. The video then shows the SUV driver pulling over after striking the pedestrian, before walking over to the body and then turning around and walking back to the vehicle. The lawsuit states LA police have not made any arrests in the case. Brettler's statement to DailyMail.com read: 'This was a tragic accident. After the car struck the pedestrian, Josh immediately pulled over, stopped the vehicle, called 911, and waited until police and the ambulance arrived. 'He is fully cooperating with the traffic investigation.' Attorney Nick Rowley - who is representing the family of Sanchez, said in a statement obtained by Variety: 'Mr. Klinghoffer should be arrested and prosecuted for homicide. We have a video of him on his cell phone at the time he hit and killed Israel Sanchez, a loving father, in a crosswalk. 'Israel Sanchez was on his way to the grocery store to make soup for his family and never came home. He did everything right, looking for oncoming traffic and abiding by pedestrian signage, but tragically Mr. Klinghoffer, in a rush and on his phone, hit him fatally from behind with a large SUV. According to a lawsuit obtained by TMZ , Klinghoffer, 44, who played with the band from 2009-2019, was driving a black GMC Yukon in Alhambra, California when he made a left turn and ran into a pedestrian who was using a crosswalk(pictured 2021) Klinghoffer is pictured with the Red Hot Chili Peppers members Chad Smith, Flea and Anthony Kiedis in 2014 'The loss and grief that the Sanchez family now faces is immense. We will not stop until there is accountability and justice for Mr. Sanchez and his family.' Klinghoffer replaced John Frusciante in the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2009 and recorded two studio albums, I'm with You (2011) and The Getaway (2016), and the B-sides compilation I'm Beside You (2013). Age 32, Klinghoffer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2012, making him the youngest inductee at the time. After he was booted out of the group in 2019 following Frusciante's return, he became a touring and session member of both Pearl Jam (since 2021) and Jane's Addiction (2023). Advertisement Naomi Campbell, Michelle Rodriguez and Eiza Gonzalez looked on cloud nine as they enjoyed a yacht trip while on a group holiday in Ibiza on Tuesday. Supermodel Naomi, 54, displayed her jaw-dropping figure as she slipped into a brown and white patterned strapless bikini. The beauty put her hair in a durag as she gave herself a quick shower after going for a dip in the Mediterranean. Naomi also wore a pair of sunglasses and added to her look with a cream hat as she relaxed on deck with her pals, including film producer Mohammed Al Turki, 38. The model was also seen sipping on an ice cold drink as she made the most of her Spanish summer holiday. Naomi Campbell (pictured), Michelle Rodriguez and Eiza Gonzalez looked on cloud nine as they enjoyed a yacht trip while on a group holiday in Ibiza on Tuesday Michelle, 45, sent temperatures soaring as she showed off her washboard stomach in a gold two-piece while Eiza, 34, opted for a white bikini with a black stripe Supermodel Naomi, 54, displayed her jaw-dropping figure as she slipped into a brown and white patterned strapless bikini Michelle, 45, sent temperatures soaring as she showed off her washboard stomach in a gold two-piece. The Fast And Furious star let her brunette locks fall loose down her shoulders as she soaked up the sun with her famous friends. After giving herself a shower, Michelle wrapped herself in a towel and was seen chatting with Naomi and Eiza on deck. Eiza, 34, showcased her toned pins in a white bikini with a black stripe which she wore with a pair of sunglasses. Letting her brunette locks fall loose down her shoulders, the actress joined her celebrity pals as they went for a swim near the boat. The ladies were joined by a group of friends for the yacht trip including Italian model Afef Jnifen who looked incredible as she sunbathed in a red, white and blue bikini. Mohammed, 38, joined them on the decking after going for a swim. He is a Saudi Arabian film producer behind Arbitrage starring Richard Gere, 99 Homes and Crisis featuring Gary Oldman. In 2021, he launched the Red Sea Film Festivals Women in Cinema, an initiative to celebrate inspiring women in the industry. The outing comes after Naomi revealed that when she was young she faced teasing over her looks from other children at school. The supermodel admitted that despite finding global fame for her statuesque frame and striking good looks, she hadn't always felt confident. The ladies certainly made the most of their sun-drenched holiday as they were seen enjoying the warm weather on deck as they were joined by film producer Mohammed Al Turki, 38 Michelle let her brunette locks fall loose down her shoulders as she soaked up the sun with her famous friends Naomi put her hair in a durag as she gave herself a quick shower after going for a dip in the Mediterranean Michelle is best known for her roles in action films like Fast And Furious, Resident Evil and S.W.A.T Naomi also wore a pair of sunglasses and added to her look with a cream hat as she relaxed on deck with her pals Eiza appeared in good spirits as she went paddleboarding with Mohammed larking around on the board Eiza got her start on Mexican telenovelas before appearing in the 2017 action film Baby Driver Speaking on Cambon Podcast, she explained that kids had poked fun at her height and slender figure, comparing her to the cartoon character from Popeye, Olive Oyl. Naomi recalled: 'I wasnt at ease with myself because I was very skinny and quite tall for my age. And they used to call me Olive Oyl. 'And, you know, kids call each other names. My necks quite long, so I used to try to shrug my neck down so it wouldnt be so long. I felt awkward.' The catwalk queen explained that it was through dance that she came to embrace her body. While learning the rhythmic movements served her well when it came to doing photoshoots, and inspired her poses. She explained: 'I just would pose the movements and the poses that I did for dance, and that got me through. 'And creativity too. Its something that I loved and yeah, that will never change with me. I feel thats something thats really part of my DNA. 'My mother gave me a few pointers in the hallway of our home when I was a teenager and I remember even the music we were walking to was Lionel Richie and to listen to the rhythm.' The ladies were joined by a group of friends for the yacht trip including Italian model Afef Jnifen (left) who looked incredible as she sunbathed in a red, white and blue bikini Naomi went for a swim near the boat alongside Eiza, Alef and the film producer Alef looked sensational as she worked on her tan alongside Eiza and Michelle Eiza wore a pair of sunglasses and let her brunette locks fall loose down her shoulders After giving herself a shower, Michelle wrapped herself in a towel and was seen chatting with Naomi and Eiza on deck The outing comes after Naomi revealed that when she was young she faced teasing over her looks from other children at school The supermodel admitted that despite finding global fame for her statuesque frame and striking good looks, she hadn't always felt confident Speaking on Cambon Podcast, she explained that kids had poked fun at her height and slender figure, comparing her to the cartoon character from Popeye, Olive Oyl' Naomi recalled: 'I wasnt at ease with myself because I was very skinny and quite tall for my age. And they used to call me Olive Oyl' 'And, you know, kids call each other names. My necks quite long, so I used to try to shrug my neck down so it wouldnt be so long. I felt awkward' The catwalk queen explained that it was through dance that she came to embrace her body While learning the rhythmic movements served her well when it came to doing photoshoots, and inspired her poses Naomi also discussed the discrimination she faced and proudly declared that she had never been shy about standing up for herself. She said: 'I had a voice and I would speak out if there was something that was unfair and not just. 'Especially if I was working the same hours, doing the same job, but not being paid the same, I will speak about this.' Her candidness comes as a new exhibit celebrating her life and career has been launched at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The exhibit has been created to 'celebrate her creative collaborations, activism and far-reaching cultural impact.' She explained: 'I just would pose the movements and the poses that I did for dance, and that got me through' 'And creativity too. Its something that I loved and yeah, that will never change with me. I feel thats something thats really part of my DNA' She added: 'My mother gave me a few pointers in the hallway of our home when I was a teenager and I remember even the music we were walking to was Lionel Richie and to listen to the rhythm' She said: 'I had a voice and I would speak out if there was something that was unfair and not just' She added: 'Especially if I was working the same hours, doing the same job, but not being paid the same, I will speak about this' Her candidness comes as a new exhibit celebrating her life and career has been launched at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London But last week, Naomi declared that out of all her incredible achievements, becoming a mother was the 'proudest moment' of her life. The beauty shocked the world when she announced the surprise birth her daughter in 2021 aged 50 and posed with the newborn on the cover of Vogue, before welcoming a son in 2023. Appearing on Loose Women on Tuesday, she was asked what the proudest moment of her life was and firmly replied: 'Definitely becoming a mother, hands down.' Naomi recently confirmed that she welcomed both her children via surrogate, after previously admitting that her daughter, three, wasn't adopted. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman's onscreen chemistry in Deadpool & Wolverine is undeniable, even bordering on the flirtatious. The co-stars hilariously dished on their characters' 'sexual tension' in the upcoming superhero film during their interview for Variety on Wednesday. Given that Reynolds' Deadpool is famously pansexual, the duo was asked if the Marvel superhero felt any 'sexual chemistry or tension' with his cohort Wolverine (Jackman). 'I can't speak for Wolverine, but I feel like Deadpool has sexual tension with everything and everyone,' Reynolds, 47, joked, as Jackman, 55, chimed in, 'Don't deny this is special.' Reynolds added, 'Youre right. I feel it right now. My God, like two magnets facing the wrong direction.' Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman 's onscreen chemistry in Deadpool & Wolverine is undeniable, even bordering on the flirtatious; (pictured Jackman, Shawn Levy and Reynolds) The co-stars hilariously dished on their characters' 'sexual tension' in the upcoming superhero film during their in-depth interview for Variety on Wednesday Deadpool & Wolverine's director Shawn Levy weighed in, referring to Deadpool's alter ego Wade Wilson. 'Wade is a fan of the Wolverine. He drives [Wolverine] crazy off-screen and on. But theres a reverence. Theres a fanboy love,' he said. Ryan also gushed about working with Hugh on their first collaboration, 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. 'Hugh was a huge influence on me. It was the first time I saw how a movie star operates on set, and it defied all the preconceived notions for a movie star, he explained. 'He was so warm and welcoming. He made it safe to play. He knew every single persons name.' Last week, Ryan and Hugh launched the press tour for the new film in Shanghai. Long-time friends Hugh and Ryan often take part in a jokey rivalry, which began back more than a decade ago during Ryan's marriage to his first wife Scarlett Johansson from 2008 until 2011. Hugh told Daily Beast in 2020: 'It's gone back so long now... God, this is a classic sign where your feud has gone too long, where you don't even know why or how it started! 'I met him back on Wolverine, and I used to ream him because I was very close friends with Scarlett,' he added. Given that Reynolds' Deadpool is famously pansexual , the duo were asked if the Marvel superhero felt any 'sexual chemistry or tension' with his cohort Wolverine (Jackman) 'I can't speak for Wolverine, but I feel like Deadpool has sexual tension with everything and everyone,' Reynolds, 47, joked, as Jackman, 55, chimed in, 'Don't deny this is special' Reynolds added, 'Youre right. I feel it right now. My God, like two magnets facing the wrong direction' 'Scarlett had just married Ryan, so when he came on set I was like, 'Hey, you better be on your best behaviour here, pal, because I'm watching', and we started ribbing each other that way.' Things then 'escalated' when Ryan took on the role of Deadpool, proving to be a rival to Hugh's beloved portrayal of Wolverine, with their characters meeting in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). Since then, the pair have continued to poke fun and troll each other on social media, never shying away from an opportunity to hilariously prank the other. 'There's no doubt it's a lot of fun because let's face it, it's one of the great it should be an Olympic sport trolling Ryan Reynolds,' Hugh joked. 'I'm pretty sure I'll be out there for the gold, but I think everyone would enjoy the sport. I think every kid should do it.' They are soon set to bring their friendly rivalry to the big screen, starring opposite each other in the upcoming Marvel epic Deadpool & Wolverine. Hugh has played Wolverine ever since 2000's X-Men and his journey came to a close in the 2017 movie Logan, which was set in 2029 where mutants are nearly extinct. However, Hugh is now reprising his role for the upcoming release, which will not alter the events of Logan or his emotional death as it occurs in a different timeline. Earlier this week, Ryan and Hugh, who have remained close friends since their first collaboration in 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, launched the press tour for the new film in Shanghai The tour stop marks Hugh's sixth visit to South Korea , while Ryan last visited in 2018 to promote Deadpool 2 'Because of this device they have in the Marvel world of moving around timelines, now we can go back because it's 'science',' Hugh told The Jess Cagle Show in 2022. 'So I don't have to screw with the Logan timeline which was important to me and I think probably to the fans.' Deadpool & Wolverine is slated for release on July 26 and will see the two superheroes joining forces in an action-packed spectacular. The trailer has hinted at a rivalry between the pair as they are shown fighting one another in a tense stand-off before reluctantly joining forces in a comedic pairing. Alec Baldwin's lavish Hamptons home is still unsold after a $10million price cut and almost two years on the market - amid his Rust manslaughter trial. The actor, 66, who is currently on trial in New Mexico after the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, on October 21, 2021, first put the 10-acre estate on Town Lane in Amagansett on the market in September 2022 for $29million. The home has had its price repeatedly slashed and has gone on and off the market - in January 2023, the price was cut down to $24.9 million, before dropping again to $22.5 million in March 2023. The home was taken off the market in September 2023 and re-listed in January 2024 for $18.95million - amid claims the actor was suffering financial strain due to his 'lost jobs, mounting legal bills and growing brood of young dependent' per the NY Times. As of July 10, the home is still on the market. Now a source has denied to People that Baldwin - worth an estimated $70million - is having financial problems, saying: 'There is no financial strain. That house has been on the market for two years.' Alec Baldwin 's lavish Hamptons home is still unsold after a $10million price cut and almost two years on the market - amid his Rust manslaughter trial The actor, 66, who is currently on trial in New Mexico after the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins , 42, on October 21, 2021, first put the 10-acre estate on Town Lane in Amagansett on the market in September 2022 for $29million The star recorded a promo video at the property when it was relisted in January, saying: 'I fell in love with this place the moment I came here... you just cant get this out here anymore, you can't buy big pieces of land' In the wake of the Rust shooting Baldwin sold his lake house in upstate New York for $530,000 and bought a 55-acre farm in Vermont for $1.75 million, The star recorded a promo video at the property when it was relisted in January, saying: 'I fell in love with this place the moment I came here... you just cant get this out here anymore, you can't buy big pieces of land. 'I love it in the winter time because it's so peaceful and it's so beautiful.' The property, located 100 miles from the actor's family penthouse in Greenwich Village, is being billed as the perfect 'marriage of nature and luxury.' It features a 10,000-square-foot modern farmhouse, a pool, spa, covered porches, and a pavilion with a fieldstone fireplace overlooking acres of bucolic preserve in Amagansett's estate section. 'Every detail of this impeccable two-story cedar shingle retreat has been curated to maximize indoor/outdoor space and utilize natural light throughout the year,' the ad reads, with an accompanying video featuring sweeping drone footage over a chill jazz soundtrack. 'Entertain guests and family with a grand eat-in kitchen, dining room, movie theater, wine tasting room and a private wood-paneled library.' 'A nature and equestrian enthusiast's dream getaway offers a unique opportunity to cultivate the reserve or build private stables,' it continues. In February 2022, he purchased a historic 50-acre farm in Vermont for $1.7million - the same day he was hit with a wrongful death suit by the Hutchins family. The purchase by Baldwin in the small mountain town of Arlington where his wife Hilaria's grandfather lived, came after the actor spent months in the area following the tragedy in New Mexico. Baldwin was a producer and the star of Rust when he shot dead cinematographer Hutchins a mother-of-one, while filming with a prop gun that had a live round inside it. The film's director Joel Souza was also injured. Now a source has denied to People that Baldwin - worth an estimated $70million - is having financial problems, saying: 'There is no financial strain. That house has been on the market for two years' - Baldwin is pictured in court this week The home has had its price repeatedly slashed and has gone on and off the market - in January 2023, the price was cut down to $24.9 million, before dropping again to $22.5 million in March 2023 The stakes for Baldwin are incredibly high and were starkly illustrated in February when Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 26, the armorer on the set, went on trial and was found guilty for the same charges in the same court. In her opening statement, Erlinda Johnson, a special prosecutor appointed to the case, said that Baldwin had 'violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety and that he was 'reckless' on set. Johnson said that Baldwin had requested the biggest gun available after he arrived on the set in in October 2021. She told jurors: When someone plays make believe with a real gun in a real life workplace and while playing with the gun violates the cardinal rules of gun safety people's lives are endangered and somebody could be killed. 'Thats what this case is about. Its simple, straightforward. That someone who played make believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin.' Johnson said that the armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was a 'very young woman' and 'inexperienced'. Halyna Hutchins died after being hit by a bullet from the prop gun that Baldwin was handling She told the court that Baldwin didn't do a safety check with Gutierrez-Reed because he 'didn't want to offend her'. Johnson also criticized Baldwin's claim that he didn't pull the trigger saying that a firearms analyst ruled that Baldwin must have pulled the trigger. The trial is the culmination of a nightmare for Baldwin that has lasted for nearly three years and has finally come to court. The Emmy award winning actor has pleaded not guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter. The case has had a long and tortured path to trial: Baldwin was originally charged in January 2023 with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. They were dropped three months later in light of new evidence, prosecutors said, adding they needed more time to investigate. Baldwin, seen here outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's offices on the day of the shooting, was sensationally charged for a second time in January this year Baldwin, Hutchins and armorer Gutierrez-Reed are circled on the set of Rust alongside fellow cast members and staffers Baldwin was sensationally charged for a second time in January this year with the same charges. Baldwin and his wife are currently filming a reality TV series about their family. It is not clear if a camera crew is trailing them in New Mexico, but the show is due to air in 2025 meaning filming is likely underway now. The case is expected to hear eight days of evidence and argument, followed by deliberations. Amanda Abbington is reportedly considering fresh legal action against Giovanni Pernice after the professional dancer reportedly refused to release their rehearsal videos. While the former Strictly star has denied the claims against him, Amanda's lawyers believe the tapes will support misconduct accusations against the dancer as the BBC continues to investigate. The Sun have revealed Strictly insiders wondered 'what he had to hide' after he is said to have blocked the release of training footage with Amanda. A source told the publication: 'Amanda and her legal team asked to have access to the tapes. The BBC contacted Giovanni and his legal team to get their consent but they refused. 'Amanda's legal team are now weighing up an appeal to the Information Commissioner's Office to get access to the evidence as they think it is vital in helping support her claims. Strictly's Giovanni Pernice has reportedly been hit by fresh legal action from Amanda Abbington after MORE complaints emerged following misconduct claims The Sun have revealed Strictly insiders wondered 'what he had to hide' after he is said to have blocked the release of training footage with Amanda 'He claims the allegations are false she insists they will validate every one of her grievances. To be clear, the BBC are reviewing the tapes and taking them very seriously. But there are data implications to them ever being leaked so they are in an unenviable position.' MailOnline have contacted both the BBC and Giovanni's representatives for comment. The latest legal development comes after it was revealed the accusations have now widened after more complaints surrounding the hit show. Sources have told the Mail that the accusations have prompted bosses to extend the inquiry to look at other matters, and individuals, involved with the dance series as they prepare for its 20th anniversary. It means that Giovanni, who has already let his frustrations at the investigation be known, faces an even longer wait for an outcome after Amanda, Laura Whitmore and Ranvir Singh all came forward to complain about their dance partner. The investigation also threatens to damage Strictly, the BBC's biggest Saturday night success story since The Generation Game. A television source told the Mail: 'This investigation is no longer just solely about Giovanni but other, more wider issues. The show has been going for 20 years and the whole veneer of Strictly is so sparkly and lovely, of course there will always be people who feel hard done by. 'Amanda's complaints have started something massive, it has opened the door for others to come forward about things they haven't been happy with. 'It is all a big headache for the BBC, it is about to celebrate a massive milestone with its 20th anniversary. A source told the publication: 'Amanda and her legal team asked to have access to the tapes. The BBC contacted Giovanni and his legal team to get their consent but they refused It means that Giovanni, who has already let his frustrations at the investigation be known, faces an even longer wait for an outcome after Amanda, Laura Whitmore (pictured) and Ranvir Singh all came forward to complain about their dance partner Sources have told the Mail that the accusations have prompted bosses to extend the inquiry to look at other matters, and individuals, involved with the dance series as they prepare for its 20th anniversary Ranvir Singh and Giovanni during the dress rehearsal for Strictly Come Dancing 2020 'Having the Giovanni complaint has been a big enough issue, but now it looks like there is more to be scrutinised and looked into.' Sources close to Giovanni say that he fully expects to be exonerated. Insiders say also that the widened inquiry will now present Giovanni as possibly being a 'small fish' in Strictly's potential downfall. In May it was revealed that Amanda had instructed London law firm Carter Ruck to represent her against the BBC. The BBC previously refused to comment on the matter but it did confirm in a statement that more than one complaint has been made. It was revealed last week that a plea was made online for anyone involved in the show at any time in the past two decades to come forward and speak to the BBC if they had experienced any bad behaviour. Writing in The TV Mindset, a social media forum for TV industry workers, an anonymous member insisted: 'It is important to hear as many accounts as possible from others who were treated inappropriately, had grievances, or potentially identify others that were. The chaos surrounding the show was said to be typified by the surprise announcement on Monday that former fan favourite the dancer Aljaz Skorjanec (pictured) would be returning to the show after a two-year absence 'This is crucial in supporting Amanda's case, as well as potentially anyone else's. It is also ultimately to support all freelancers and the industry as a whole by standing up to such practices.' The chaos now surrounding the show was said to be typified by the surprise announcement on Monday that former fan favourite the dancer Aljaz Skorjanec would be returning show after a two-year absence. It comes a month after the full line up of professional dancers for the next series was announced by the Corporation. Some within the show have questioned why he was not unveiled alongside with the other professionals particularly because the Beeb left fans waiting for some weeks following Mr Pernice's departure before putting the final list out. Insiders also noted that the Press were not given a heads up instead, the announcement was made on the BBC's own magazine programme, The One Show, on Monday evening. One source said: 'Usually when something like this happens the BBC give the wider media a heads up but this time the first anyone knew of it was a chat with Aljaz on The One Show and then it was quietly put up on the BBC's press centre at 7.30pm the same day. 'It meant that the announcement was in keeping with the narrative the BBC wanted, no questions were asked as to why he was being unveiled now.' A BBC spokesman said of the widened investigation last night: 'We recently issued a statement urging the media not to indulge in speculation about complaints related to a high profile show and that position remains the same.' The daughter in Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield's We Live In Time still has adorable names for the Hollywood actors. Fans were left 'bawling' after watching the new trailer for the romantic drama We Live In Time on Wednesday. And they are sure to be left teary again if Film Updates was revealed that the child actor who plays the Hollywood stars' daughter in the film still calls them 'Mummy Florence' and 'Daddy Andrew'. Directed by John Crowley, the film follows Almut (Florence) and Tobias (Andrew) as they embark on a 10-year relationship that is challenged by time limits in a deeply moving romance. Through snapshots of their life together - falling for each other, creating a home and building a family - a difficult truth is uncovered that rocks the relationship's foundation to the core. The daughter in Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield 's We Live In Time still has adorable names for the Hollywood actors, it was revealed on Wednesdau Fans are sure to be left teary again if Film Updates was revealed that the child actor who plays the Hollywood stars' daughter in the film still calls them 'Mummy Florence' and 'Daddy Andrew' The trailer showed adorable clips of the family unit, and fans soon revealed they are 'already crying' after watching the trailer as they expressed their fears for their emotions when the film is released on October 11. They suggested it seems like an 'adult' version of hit 2014 film The Fault In Our Stars based on the novel by John Green. Starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, the film told the love story of Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters after they meet at a cancer support group. The two then embark on a life-changing journey which brings them even closer, through love and ultimate heartbreak. Taking to Twitter to share their reaction to the trailer, fans wrote: 'trailer for We Live in Time dropped, im crying at work, thanks'; 'IM BAWLING MY EYES ALREADY'; 'Saw the trailer of We live in time,,, it's over for me bros'; 'so i just saw the trailer of We Live In Time and that movie is gonna absolutely destroy me'; 'WE LIVE IN TIME is gonna make me ugly cry!'; 'just watched the trailer for we live in time and i fear for myself when it comes out' Referencing John Green's movie adaptation they added: 'Its giving The Fault in our Stars but for adults and its gonna make us cry as much if not more than TFIOS'; Fans were left 'bawling' after watching his new movie trailer for We Live In Time as they compared it to an iconic 2010s romance film Directed by John Crowley, the film follows Almut (Florence) and Tobias (Andrew) as they embark on a 10-year relationship that is challenged by time limits in a deeply moving romance 'WE LIVE IN TIME TRAILER BROKE ME'; 'Fault in our stars for adult'; 'welcome back The Fault In Our Stars'; 'Why do I feel theyre gonna pull a fault in our stars and have it so she survives and he doesnt? I feel like its too obvious that shes gonna die:('; 'I just hope this doesnt turn into another Fault in Our Stars'; 'Looks like its really gonna nail the balance between love, joy and grief. Trailer is heavy on love and joy. I can tell the grief bits are gonna come like a punch to the gut.' The film, will be screened for the first time at Toronto Film Festival and will hit theatres in a limited release on October, 11. The first trailer begins as Almut and Tobias are brought together in a surprise meeting that changes their lives forever as they learn to treasure every moment of their unconventional love story. Fans suggested it seems like an 'adult' version of hit 2014 film The Fault In Our Stars based on the novel by John Green which starred Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort (pictured) Fans have revealed they are 'already crying' after watching trailer as they expressed their fears for their emotions when the film is released on October 11 Referencing John Green's movie adaptation they added: 'Its giving The Fault in our Stars but for adults and its gonna make us cry as much if not more than TFIOS' The trailer sees Almut and Tobias first cross paths in a hospital room. Bruised and looking worse-for-wear with a brace around his neck, Tobias asks Almut, 'So sorry, but do we know each other?' 'Yeah, no,' she replies, before admitting that she is the reason he's injured because she's accidentally hit him with her car. The pair eventually fall in love and have a daughter together, leading a blissful life up until the point when Almut receives an ominous diagnosis. Last year, the Dune 2 star and Spider-Man actor sparked traffic chaos in Orpington in Kent in May, 2023, as they shot scenes for their new film. The first trailer begins as Almut and Tobias are brought together in a surprise meeting that changes their lives forever as they learn to treasure every moment of their unconventional love story The trailer sees Almut and Tobias first cross paths in a hospital room after she hits him with her car Through snapshots of their life together - falling for each other, creating a home and building a family - a difficult truth is uncovered that rocks the relationship's foundation to the core The pair were filming for the new film, and fans gathered in the early hours of the morning to watch the behind-the-scenes action. But traffic seemed to be stacking up while Florence and Andrew filmed a scene in which Florence appeared to be going into labour. Traffic cones had been placed along the road and a man in a high-vis jacket was seen directing drivers as they passed by the filming area. A sign stood on the street to warn pedestrians they were entering a filming location and could expect to appear in the movie. We Live in Time will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. At the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, the film production company StudioCanal sold the movie to A24 for U.S. distribution. Nick Payne, who has worked as a writer on The Crown, wrote the screenplay and developed the script. The film is executive produced by Benedict Cumberbatch via his company SunnyMarch alongside Leah Clarke, Adam Ackland and Guy Heeley. We Live In Time has yet to have an official UK release date. All Savannah Guthrie wanted for Christmas was her two front teeth or at least a molar after losing one at her holiday party. The 52-year-old TV host revealed she lost a tooth while celebrating at the Today show's Christmas party during her appearance on Tuesday's Watch What Happens Live. 'It did happen,' Guthrie replied after a caller inquired about the incident. 'That was the Christmas party, which when you're at the Today show Christmas party, it starts at, like, 3 p.m. A lot of day drinking,' She and co-guest Hoda Kotb then reminisced about being among the last ones standing, along with their colleagues Sheinelle Jones, Dylan Dreyer, Jenna Bush Hager, and Laura Jarrett. 'Anyway, we all left and the next thing I know, the morning I wake up, Im like, "I feel like somethings missing,"' she recalled. 'It was a molar and I was like, "Where is it?" And they were like, "Maybe it's at the Pebble Bar." It was gone.' Savannah Guthrie revealed she lost a tooth while celebrating at the Today show's Christmas party during her appearance on Tuesday's Watch What Happens Live alongside her co-anchor Hoda Kotb; (pictured 2022) 'That was the Christmas party, which when you're at the Today show Christmas party, it starts at, like, 3 p.m. A lot of day drinking,' she explained; (pictured April) Since it happened around the holidays, Guthrie admitted that she 'let it go for weeks,' while Kotb insisted it was 'longer than weeks.' 'I was like, "Go to the dentist!"' Kotb added. Guthrie contended that 'you couldn't see it' since it was a molar. On last nights episode, host Andy Cohen also disclosed that Carson Daly, from Today, 'refuses' to make an appearance on Watch What Happens Live. 'Weve asked so many times. Ive talked to him about it. Hes just like hes scared,' Cohen added. 'He thinks Im gonna dredge up all the mess. But I dont think theres any mess to dredge.' Savannah's milar mishap reveal comes after she and her husband Michael Feldman celebrated their 10th anniversary. The broadcast journalist and the 55-year-old PR consultant each posted heartfelt tributes on Instagram in March, featuring photos from their 2014 wedding ceremony in Guthrie's hometown of Tucson, Arizona. She and Kotb then reminisced about being among the last ones standing, along with their colleagues Sheinelle Jones, Dylan Dreyer, Jenna Bush Hager , and Laura Jarrett; (pictured with Gracie Abrams and Hoda Kotb in June) Savannah and her husband Michael Feldman celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary by posting tributes to Instagram in March The happy couple welcomed Vale in 2014 before adding Charley to their family two years later The journalist went on to share a pair of snaps featuring the couple's daughter Vale, 9, and their son Charley, 7. Guthrie also penned an affectionate message in her post's caption, which read: 'This was us - ten years ago today! And this is us now. I love you now and forever.' Guthrie and Feldman started dating in 2009 and got engaged in 2013. Prior to this, Guthrie was married to news presenter Mark Orchard from 2005 to 2009. Olivia Rodrigo sparked more Stanley cup chaos when fans were left fuming after being unable to purchase her special edition tumbler due to the website crashing. The Drivers License songstress, 21 - who recently signed a university student's dissertation during her Lisbon concert - collaborated with Stanley to launch her $55 Good 4 U Quencher H2.0 Tumbler. The bottle was named after her hit track of the same title - which is found on her 2021 album: Sour. However, fans only had 24 hours to enter a lottery to receive up to two bottles per individual - but some faced an assortment of technical issues during the process on Tuesday. On the brand's latest Instagram post which promoted Rodrigo's special cup, social media users flocked to the comment section to air out their frustrations, with one penning, 'Why was this war.' Olivia Rodrigo, 21, sparked more Stanley cup chaos when fans were left fuming after being unable to purchase her special edition tumbler due to the website crashing The Drivers License songstress collaborated with Stanley to launch her Good 4 U Quencher H2.0 Tumbler; seen in June in Barcelona On the brand's latest Instagram post which promoted Rodrigo's special cup, social media users flocked to the comment section to air out their frustrations, with one penning, 'Why was this war' Another wrote, 'What joke I have been trying to get on the list for the past 2 hours and it keeps declining all my credit cards I'm done I don't even care anymore!' One added, 'Hurt when your card was locked and U WERE A WINNER,' while another shared, 'It's not accepting my credit card,' followed by a crying face emoji. 'What is up with the card situation? Won't take my card?' one Instagram user questioned in the comments. 'Literally the worst experience, never purchased before so this is my first launch and of course I didn't get chosen to buy it...I wonder how many people did that are genuine,' a fan typed out. Fans that wanted to enter the lottery in order to have the chance to be picked to order the limited edition tumbler had to join a list via a website called EQL Launch - a third-party commerce platform. While some customers faced difficulties, others applauded the system, with one penning, 'Honestly, I actually didn't mind the new EQL system, it was way less stressful.' Another added, 'Yall are mad when there's a lottery, yall are mad when they sell out in seconds... what would yall like be so fr rn.' Others took to a Facebook page to vent out their feelings on the group called, Stanley Obsession, per The U.S. Sun. However, fans only had 24 hours to enter a lottery to receive up to two bottles per individual - but some faced an assortment of technical issues during the process on Tuesday Another wrote, 'What joke I have been trying to get on the list for the past 2 hours and it keeps declining all my credit cards I'm done I don't even care anymore!' One added, 'Hurt when your card was locked and U WERE A WINNER,' while another shared, 'It's not accepting my credit card,' followed by a crying face emoji 'Literally the worst experience, never purchased before so this is my first launch and of course I didn't get chosen to buy it...I wonder how many people did that are genuine,' a fan typed out While some customers faced difficulties, others applauded the system, with one penning, 'Honestly, I actually didn't mind the new EQL system, it was way less stressful' 'Did anyone else have issues entering!? the website wouldnt let me enter!' one wrote, while another shared, 'It keeps saying issue with processing my card I've tried like 6 different ones.' The Olivia Rodrigo Good 4 U Quencher H2.0 Tumbler is 40 ounces and if chosen from the lottery - customers pay $55 per cup. The lottery officially went live on Tuesday at 9am (PST)/12pm (EST) - with fans only having one day to enter. The tumbler itself comes in a lavender purple shade with small, star details scattered towards the top in hues of silver, purple and also red. A purple lid also comes with the product as well as a reusable straw, per the brand's official website. The special edition item was also described as, 'a galaxy of purple and a pop of red to hold and fill with good times and bad ideas, right?' 'As the Olivia Rodrigo collab unfolds, purple makes a rare transit. Orbiting through the quencher h2.0 flowstate tumbler, a clear Sour grape lid and reusable straw debut for the first time.' 'Drenched in her favorite color, the powder coat finish acts as a canvas. Studded in vampire-red and silver stars, celestial art embodies the soft-grunge essence of Guts,' the description concluded. Another added, 'Yall are mad when there's a lottery, yall are mad when they sell out in seconds... what would yall like be so fr rn' The Olivia Rodrigo Good 4 U Quencher H2.0 Tumbler is 40 ounces and if chosen from the lottery - customers pay $55 per cup The tumbler itself comes in a lavender purple shade with small, star details scattered towards the top in hues of silver, purple and also red Earlier this year, the popularity of Stanley cups created a craze as the bottles quickly sold out in stores within minutes, and the number of cups being limited to consumers upon purchasing. Along with her recent Stanley cup collaboration, Rodrigo has been keeping busy with her Guts World Tour. She concluded her European trek last month on June 23 in Lisbon, and has been enjoying a brief break before commencing concerts in the United States. The Vampire hitmaker is slated to resume dates later this month on July 19 in Philadelphia at the Wells Fargo Center. Later in September, she will whisk herself away to Asia with the tour officially coming to an end on October 22 in Sydney. A few months earlier in May, Rodrigo officially announced additional dates for her tour stop in Australia. She concluded her European trek last month on June 23 in Lisbon, and has been enjoying a brief break before commencing concerts in the United States The Vampire hitmaker is slated to resume dates later this month on July 19 in Philadelphia at the Wells Fargo Center; seen in February in Palm Springs The Guts World Tour began earlier this year in February and is in support of her second studio album of the same name - which was released last year in September 2023. During an interview with the Los Angeles Times late last year in December, the Vampire songstress opened up about her Guts World Tour. At the time, Olivia revealed that prepping for the concerts, 'is really making me examine my identity as an artist...' 'Because I love going to a show that's big and awesome, but I'm also not the type of girl who's gonna break into a dance routine. That's not me. So I've got to figure out a way to make it my own.' Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are still finalizing their divorce after eight years. The former couple, who were one of Hollywood's most iconic couples before calling it quits in September 2016, are reportedly 'slowly approaching a divorce settlement.' Still, a source told People that 'both sides are still talking' and their divorce negotiations are 'not done yet.' The former Mr. and Mrs. Smith costars, who share six children, were declared legally single by a judge back in 2019 as they continue their legal battle over Chateau Miraval and custody of their kids, who are legally adults, except their twins Knox and Vivienne, who will turn 16 on Friday. The exes are also parents to Maddox, 22, Zahara, 19, Pax, 20, Shiloh, 18. DailyMail.com has contacted both Pitt and Jolie's respective representatives for comment. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are still finalizing their divorce after eight years; seen in 2009 Earlier this week, a source revealed to People that Pitt has 'virtually no contact' with his older children. 'He has virtually no contact with the adult kids. His engagement with the younger kids is more limited in recent months because of his filming schedule,' the insider shared. The source noted that the couple's custody agreement allows for visitation rights with the two minor kids. '[Angelina] has the kids most of the time, but per their agreement, he has visitation with the younger kids,' the insider added. The actor is on location in Europe filming his new racing movie F1, while Jolie lives in Los Angeles with their younger children. In June it was reported that Pitt is 'upset and aware' that his daughter Shiloh filed to drop his last name from her own on her 18th birthday. A source close to the Oscar winner said his erasure from his daughter's life is just another indication that he has 'lost his children,' according to People. 'He's aware and upset that Shiloh dropped his last name,' the source claimed. 'Hes never felt more joy than when she was born. He always wanted a daughter.' Notably, Pitt was already in the process of legally adopting a daughter who had been a part of his life for months before he and his then-partner Angelina had announced she was pregnant with Shiloh in January 2006. Jolie had traveled to Ethiopia to adopt her first daughter Zahara in July 2005, and Pitt had come with her on the trip. The former couple, who were one of Hollywood's most iconic couples before calling it quits in September 2016, are reportedly 'slowly approaching a divorce settlement' (Pitt seen in 2021) He was reported to be in the process of becoming Zahara's adopted father in December 2005, a month before he and Jolie announced her pregnancy. 'The reminders that hes lost his children, is of course not easy for Brad,' the source continued. 'He loves his children and misses them. Its very sad.' They added that the distance between Pitt and his six children 'pains him.' However, they noted that 'hes still happy with Ines [de Ramon],' his current girlfriend. Another source described as close to Pitt told the publication that the Tree Of Life star 'still loves all of his kids tremendously.' 'This whole process has been very hard for the whole family,' they added. If Shiloh's request is granted and there is no indication that it would not be she will subsequently go simply by 'Shiloh Jolie,' rather than her original full name, 'Shiloh Jolie-Pitt.' People previously reported that Pitt's youngest daughter Vivienne who served as her mother's assistant when she produced the Broadways musical adaptation of The Outsiders had listed her name as 'Vivienne Jolie' in the Playbill for the show. Still, a source told People that 'both sides are still talking' and their divorce negotiations are 'not done yet' (pictured in 2015) The former Mr. and Mrs. Smith costars, who share six children, were declared legally single by a judge back in 2019 as they continue their legal battle over Chateau Miraval and custody of their kids It is unclear if Vivienne has legally changed her name, but the minor would likely need either parental consent or extenuating circumstances to be allowed to do so before turning 18. Last month, Shiloh filed to drop Pitt from her last name. Meanwhile, their big sister, Zahara, previously introduced herself as 'Zahara Marley Jolie' when she joined the Mu Pi chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority at Spelman College late last year. Pitt and Jolie's oldest sons, Maddox and Pax, have reportedly not publicly used their father's last name in years, and both have been openly antagonistic toward him. Pitt and Jolie began dating publicly shortly after he and his then-wife Jennifer Aniston announced their divorce in 2005. Brad's ex, Angelina Jolie, 49, seen with their six children: twins Vivienne and Knox, 15, Pax, 20, Shiloh, 18, Zahara, 19, and Maddox, 22 The Mr. And Mrs. Smith costars remained unmarried for years despite having multiple adopted and biological children together, but they got engaged in 2012 and finally tied the knot in 2014. However, it was only around two years later when the Maleficent actress filed for divorce in 2016. She and Pitt were declared legally single in 2019. However, the two A-listers have been embroiled in an ongoing divorce battle over assets and custody for years since. In June it was reported that Pitt is 'upset and aware' that his daughter Shiloh filed to drop his last name from her own on her 18th birthday; Angelina Jolie (Center) pictured with daughters Zahara (L) and Shiloh (R) in 2021 in Rome Pitt's youngest daughter Vivienne, also dropped the last name Pitt from her moniker in The Outsiders Playbill in May; Angelina and Vivienne pictured on April 11 A central issue seems to be a notorious private jet confrontation in 2016. An FBI report on the incident, which was published in 2022, saw Jolie accuse Pitt of physical assault while flying to California in 2016. She claimed that he was intoxicated and that he grabbed her by the head and shook her, and later pushed her down, as part of a confrontation allegedly related to their children. Jolie told the FBI that Pitt told the children that she was 'f***ing up this family,' and she said he punched the ceiling of the airplane four times. She claimed that at one point he poured beer on her and a blanket she was under with multiple children. Sources close to Pitt later claimed that he never hit any of the children, though they admitted that he had been drinking. Former child star Benji Gregory, known for his role on the sitcom ALF, has died tragically at age 46. Gregory - who played Brian Tanner on the iconic 80s sitcom, which ran from 1986-1990 - was found dead in his car alongside his service dog Hans at a Chase Bank parking lot in Peoria, Arizona, on June 13. Gregory's sister Rebecca told TMZ Gregory suffered from depression, bipolar disorder and had a sleep disorder that 'often kept him awake for days.' However, those close to him believe he went to the bank to deposit residual checks on June 12 and fell asleep in his car - dying from vehicular heatstroke. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner Office has not yet determined a cause of death. Former ALF child star Benji Gregory has died aged 46 Gregory was best known for his role as Brian Tanner on the sitcom ALF, which ran from 1986-1990 He was found dead in his car alongside his service dog Hans (pictured) at a Chase Bank parking lot in Peoria, AZ, on June 13 ALF ran for four seasons and was on the air from September 22, 1986, to March 24, 1990. It also starred Max Wright, Anne Schedeen and Andrea Elson. The plot of the NBC sitcom revolved around the Tanner family, a suburban middle-class family who reside in the San Fernando Valley area of California, who take in ALF and after he crash-lands in their garage. The series shows the Tanner family doing their best to hide the alien from nosy neighbors and government agencies. Gregory was just eight-years-old when he shot to fame on ALF. The well-known puppet was performed by director Paul Fusco. Gregory was born in Los Angeles in 1978 - with his father, uncle and sister also all actors. His TV appearances included Fantastic Max, The A-Team, T.J. Hooker, and The Twilight Zone. He made several appearances on the television sitcom Punky Brewster, playing an orphan named Dash. Gregory is pictured with his beloved pug Hans in a social media snap Gregory was born in Los Angeles in 1978 - with his father, uncle and sister also all actors Gregory battled depression and bipolar disorder - those close to him believe he went to the bank to deposit residual checks on June 12 and fell asleep in his car - dying from vehicular heatstroke Gregory is pictured with Max Wright, Anne Schedeen and Andrea Elson in ALF He also made an appearance in the feature film Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986). Gregory stepped away from acting in 2003 and enlisted in the US Navy. He was assigned to the USS Carl Vinson and received an honorable medical discharge in 2005. He married wife Sarah in 2006 - although it is not known if they were still together at the time of his death. His sister Rebecca has suggested donations in her brothers name to either The Actors Equity Foundation or the ASPCA. A Hollywood star-turned-EastEnders patriarch has dramatically exited the soap six months into his gripping storyline. EastEnders has aired the final scene for Stevie Mitchell (Alan Ford), who plays the neglectful father of Billy Mitchell (Perry Fenwick). Alan, 86, has starred in multiple films by billion-dollar grossing director Guy Ritchie - namely crime comedy Snatch (2000). In Thursday's episode, which is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer, Alan leaves the square in a black cab after being shunned by his children. In April, Stevie arrived in the square to try to forge a relationship with Billy, and he was followed by Billy's much younger half-brother Teddy (Roland Manookian). EastEnders has aired the final scene for Stevie Mitchell (Alan Ford), neglectful father of Billy Mitchell (Perry Fenwick) - both pictured Alan has starred in multiple films by billion-dollar grossing director Guy Ritchie - namely crime comedy Snatch (2000) However, Billy made it clear to Stevie that he didnt want him around and Teddy suggested he leave, and Stevie made plans to do so. Stevie's departure will devastate Billy's children Janet Mitchell (Grace) and Will Mitchell (Freddie Phillips). It comes after Stevie finally admitted he put Billy into care because he looked too much like his deceased mother. Stevie also abandoned his first child, son Charlie, leaving him with a relative, but when Teddy was born years later, Stevie lived with him . Before Stevie leaves, he asks Billy to say goodbye to his grandchildren, but Billy is cold and refuses. Despite this, Billy cries when he realises Stevie has gone, leaving only a black-and-white photo of himself, Billy, and Charlie on a beach in 1960 - and tens of thousands of pounds. The cash comes from Stevie's nemesis Phil Mitchell's Range Rover which Stevie had given to new flame Big Mo to sell. Stevie leaves in a black taxi, watching with glee as Phil angrily talks to police officers about his missing car. In Thursday's episode - available to watch now on BBC iPlayer - Alan leaves the square in a black cab after being shunned by his children In April, Stevie arrived in the square to try to forge a relationship with Billy, and he was followed by Billy's much younger half-brother Teddy (Roland Manookian, pictured) Stevie's departure will devastate Billy's children Janet Mitchell (Grace) and Will Mitchell (Freddie Phillips, pictured) It comes after Stevie finally admitted he put Billy into care because he looked too much like his deceased mother Despite this, Billy cries when he realises Stevie has gone, leaving only a black-and-white photo of himself, Billy, and Charlie on a beach in 1960 - and tens of thousands of pounds The cash comes from Stevie's nemesis Phil Mitchell's Range Rover which Stevie had given to new flame Big Mo to sell Stevie leaves in a black taxi, watching with glee as Phil angrily talks to police officers about his missing car Stevie made his first appearance on EastEnders in April when he attended Aunt Sal's funeral, but Phil chased him away Alan's arrival in Walford was confirmed in December 2023. On joining the cast of EastEnders, Alan says: 'I feel highly delighted to be playing a character close to my own age in this extremely popular television drama series.' As well as Snatch, Alan has appeared in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Exorcist: The Beginning. He also appeared as separate characters in eight episodes of The Bill and has taken to the stage severally. Renee Zellweger was seen filming new Bridget Jones scenes in the torrential rain on Tuesday, after angering A-list stars by asking them to leave their homes during filming. The actress, 55, is back in action as her famous character in the latest film in the franchise Mad About The Boy. Renee was forced to wear a hair protector hood and a black padded coat as she braved the bad weather on set in Hampstead. She later changed into an eye-catching green skirt and a fluffy grey jacket while attempting to keep dry with a large umbrella. The new Bridget Jones sequel is reportedly driving celebrities mad with its filming schedule in London. Renee Zellweger, 55, was seen filming new Bridget Jones scenes in the torrential rain on Tuesday, after angering A-list stars by asking them to leave their homes during filming At one point she was dressed in an eye-catching green skirt and a fluffy grey jacket while attempting to keep dry with a large umbrella Stars including Harry Styles and Rami Malek who live near the North London streets where filming is taking place on are not too happy with the production. According to The Sun, film bosses have put letters through the doors of local residents asking them to only come and go at certain times to not interfere with filming. A source said: 'The film is causing chaos in this part of North London where they are shooting a lot of the film. 'Neighbourhoods with stars such as Harry, Rami, Ricky Gervais and Rowan Atkinson, living there are all getting letters from the production about not interrupting shots.' The letters reportedly ask residents to either leave their homes during filming or not to come and go while the cameras are rolling. The insider added: 'It's like they're being held hostage by Bridget and it's driving everyone mad.' The movie is based on the novel of the same name as Bridget battles motherhood alone following the tragic death of Mark, who was played in the previous films by Colin Firth, 63. She will also embark on a love affair with a much younger man named Rockstar, played by One Day star Leo Woodall, 27. Renee was forced to wear a hair protector hood and a black padded coat as she braved the bad weather on set in Hampstead The actress, 55, is back in action as her famous character in the latest film in the franchise Mad About The Boy The new Bridget Jones sequel is reportedly driving celebrities mad with its filming schedule in London But stars including Harry Styles (left) and Rami Malek (right) who live near the North London streets where filming is taking place on are not too happy with the production Film bosses have reportedly put letters through the doors of local residents asking them to only come and go at certain times to not interfere with filming (Hugh Grant pictured filming) In the new film, Bridget enjoys a fling with Rockstar and PE teacher Mr Walker, as played by 12 Years A Slave actor Chiwetel Ejiofor as well as reviving her on-off relationship with Hugh Grant's Daniel Cleaver. Chiwetel, 46, was seen shooting scenes last week which means only Hugh and Colin Firth who has a small role in the movie as the late Mark Darcy are yet to be spotted in character. Renee and Leo were spotted filming together on May 18 in hilarious scenes as Bridget got stuck up a tree in Hampstead Heath. One onlooker said: 'Leo and Renee looked like they were having a great time. There were lots of giggles, they seemed to get on really well.' Bridget Jones filming comes on the heels of sheer delight from fans after the announcement of the beloved character's return to the big screen. Renee first appeared as Bridget in 2001's Bridget Jones' Diary and returned in 2004's Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and 2016's Bridget Jones' Baby. A source said: 'It's like they're being held hostage by Bridget and it's driving everyone mad' (Isla Fisher pictured) The most recent film, released in 2016, saw Bridget shocked when she found out she was pregnant. It ended with her marrying Mark, who was the father of the baby The movie was officially confirmed in May, with Renee and Hugh Grant's comebacks made official - after his love rat character Daniel Cleaver's death was falsified in 2016's third installment. The fourth movie in the franchise - based on the books by Helen Fielding - will be released by Universal film on US platform Peacock on Valentine's Day 2025 while internationally, the flick will be released in cinemas. Bridget's creator Helen Fielding has also been spotted at the filming as she prepares to say goodbye to the much-loved character. It was revealed last month that Bridget's obsession with losing weight will be 'played down' in the film amid fears they might be a bad influence. One of Nashville's iconic venues filed for bankruptcy last week Nashville's world-famous music scene was dealt a major blow after one of its iconic venues filed for bankruptcy last week. Plaza Mariachi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 1, amid an ongoing fraud probe into its owner and an attempt by a bank to auction off the venue. First Republic Bank, which is owed around $11 million in loans, foreclosed on the much-loved Hispanic venue and shopping center on June 6. The bank said it was looking to auction off the property on July 2, however the day before the business filed for bankruptcy, placing a halt on the sale. It comes after Plaza Mariachi owner Mahan Janbakhsh was indicted for bank fraud last month. Janbakhsh faces federal charges of falsifying assets. Plaza Mariachi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 1 following foreclosure Plaza Mariachi owner Mahan Janbakhsh faces federal charges of falsifying assets 'Mark Janbakhsh has pleaded not guilty and is vigorously defending himself against the charges' a representative told DailyMail.com on Monday. The venue is currently still open offering its usual array of music concerts, salsa nights, Mexican cuisine and shopping. Janbakhsh insists that the Plaza Mariachi is not actually in financial trouble but simply could not repay the entirety of its loans in full as its terms came to an end earlier in the summer. A representative for the business told The Tennessean that the company had been meeting its monthly payments on the loans but could not repay the principal balance of $8 million at the end of the term. 'That is what is causing the foreclosure and the Chapter 11, which we are confident that we will come out of in a stronger position,' Plaza Mariachi representative Randy Hinger said in a statement. 'We believe it is crucial for the public to understand that Plaza Mariachi was not behind on loan payments, which is a significant aspect of the foreclosure and subsequent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.' The company will now attempt to restructure its debts and assets under court supervision. The sale has been temporarily stopped for the next 6 days, David Anthony, an attorney representing First Financial Bank told The Tennessean on Tuesday. The venue is currently still open offering its usual array of music, shopping and dining The company will now attempt to restructure its debts and assets under court supervision If the business makes interest payments on its debt or files a court-approved reorganization plan the stop will likely remain in place, Anthony added. 'Absent something like a voluntary dismissal happening, in 60 days the automatic stay will still be in place, and no foreclosure will happen then either,' Plaza Mariachi attorney Sean Wlodarczyk also confirmed to the publication. 'The idea behind this is that the bankruptcy code keeps an overly aggressive creditor from being able to sell properties out from under people or businesses who are reorganizing their debt via the bankruptcy process,' he explained. The Plaza Mariachi plans to 'sell the exterior properties surrounding Plaza Mariachi as part of a restructuring and new mortgage to continue operating under terms that are attractive from a different lender,' the company said in a statement on Monday. Fast food restaurants in California are warning that they are having to cut jobs - to pay for the bumped-up $20-an-hour minimum wage. Staff who work at Wendys, Pizza Hut, Del Taco and Jersey Mikes in the state are all getting fewer hours or days. Franchisees who run the outlets echo that - saying they have had to cut staff hours or cut the total number of staff on the books, or both. One has cut staff by 20. The report by the Associated Press comes a month after a trade group said nearly 10,000 fast food jobs have been cut in California since the law came into effect on April 1. Unions disputed the figures. For Enif Somilleda, a general manager at a Del Taco in Orange County, the raise has been a mixed bag. She used to have four people working per shift. She now only has two. Lawrence Cheng, whose family owns seven Wendy's locations south of Los Angeles, works in the kitchen at his Wendy's restaurant in Fountain Valley, Calif., June 20 'Financially it has helped me,' she said. 'But I have less people so I have to do a lot more work.' Lawrence Cheng, whose family owns seven Wendy's locations south of Los Angeles, told AP he used to have nearly a dozen employees on the afternoon shift at his Fountain Valley location in Orange County. Now he only schedules seven for each shift as he scrambles to absorb a dramatic jump in labor costs after the hourly wage for fast food workers rose from $16. 'We kind of just cut where we can,' he said. 'I schedule one less person, and then I come in for that time that I didnt schedule and I work that hour.' Experts say it's still too early to tell the long-term impact of the wage hike on fast food restaurants and whether there will be widespread layoffs and closures. Past wage increases have not necessarily led to job losses. When California and New York nearly doubled their minimum wage previously to $15 compared to the federal level of $7.25 per hour, job growth continued, according to a University of California, Berkeley study. The two opposing sides - the unions that pushed for the raise and the restaurants - fought over the increase and are now doing the same over its impact. Joseph Bryant, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, which pushed for the raise, said the industry has not only added jobs under the new law but 'multiple franchisees have also noted that the higher wage is already attracting better job candidates, thus reducing turnover.' But many major fast food chain operators say they are cutting hours and raising prices to stay in business. And a trade group for the state The California Business and Industrial Alliance (CABIA) says almost 10,000 positions across chains from Pizza Hut to Burger King have been cut since the law came into effect on April 1. On top of that, chains have been shuttering restaurants - including Mexican chain Rubio's Coastal Grill, which this week filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed 48 locations in the state. 'I've been in the business for 25 years and two different brands and I never had to increase the amount of pricing that I did this past time in April,' Juancarlos Chacon, an owner of nine Jersey Mikes in Los Angeles, said. A turkey sub for under $10? It's now $11.15. While customers are still coming in, hes seeing them cut back - no drinks, no chips, no dessert. Since their core business is lunch, Chacon has been reducing staffing in the mornings and evenings. He's also cut a few part-time employees, going from 165 total to about 145. It wasn't only entry-level workers that got a pay raise. Shift leaders, assistant managers, and everyone else up the ladder had to get raises too, and labor represents about 35 percent of his costs. 'I'm very nervous,' Chacon said. Aaron Allen, founder and CEO of a global restaurant consulting firm, said hes gotten panicked calls from California restaurant operators and suppliers that are still recovering from the COVID-19 lockdown. He predicts a growing divide between corporations like McDonald's that have money to invest in automation and reduce costs through 'menu reconfiguration, versus smaller, more regional chains that might go under or face a major reduction in stores.' Cheng said he has no plans to lay off any of his 250 Wendy's workers and instead has turned to cutting overtime and reducing the amount of workers on each shift. He also raised menu prices about 8 percent in January in anticipation of the law. Still he said his books show that he was $20,000 over budget for a two-week pay period. Jot Condie, president and CEO of the California Restaurant Association, which opposed the minimum wage bill, said businesses are simultaneously feeling the squeeze from rising rents and food costs. 'When labor costs jump more than 25 percent overnight, any restaurant business with already-thin margins will be forced to reduce expenses elsewhere,' Condie said. 'They dont have a lot of options beyond increasing prices, reducing hours of operation, or scaling back the size of their workforce.' Julieta Garcia, who's been at a Pizza Hut in Los Angeles for a little over a year, said she's now working five days instead of six. But that's not a bad thing, she said, since she can spend more time with her four-year-old son. Cheng used to have nearly a dozen employees at the location during the day. Now, he only schedules seven for each shift as he scrambles to absorb a dramatic jump in labor costs Lawrence Cheng, left, whose family owns seven Wendy's locations south of Los Angeles, works with part-time employee Adriana Ruiz at his Wendy's restaurant in Fountain Valley, Calif., June 20 Lawrence Cheng hands an order to a customer at his Wendy's restaurant in Fountain Valley, Calif., June 20, 2024 The extra money means she can pay her cellphone bill on time, instead of having to turn off service, and take her son to get his tonsils checked out, she said. Gov. Gavin Newsom said the hike was necessary to give the state's more than half a million fast food workers a living wage. Howard Lewis, a 63-year-old retiree who works at a Wendy's in Sacramento, said he has been investing his extra money. 'Today was payday and I bought $500 worth of stock,' said Lewis. He's also helping his ex-wife fix the brakes on her car. The new alliance in Nepal aims to reshape the country's political landscape and introduce significant constitutional reforms to address the long-standing instability On Friday, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda will seek his fifth vote of confidence in the last 18 months which he will lose as former Prime Minister KP Oli's UML has withdrawn support to the Left alliance. A midnight 7-point deal last Monday between former Prime Minister's Sher Bahadur Deuba's Nepali Congress (NC) and Oli's UML (the largest and second largest parties) will form the fourth government since December 2022 to end the king- maker role or CPN Maoists, the third largest party. A NC leader told me that the arrest one day before the deal of one Bechain Jha, linked to the Bhutanese refugee scandal whose tread-marks lead to apex NC and UML leaders triggered the deal. Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane whom NC had been gunning and UML protecting in Parliament over the Pokhara Cooperative fraud case called the deal: "Oli and Deuba's bid to escape corruption cases". Balen Shah, Mayor of Kathmandu, made snide remarks about GiriBandhu Tea Estate corruption case. Just ten days ago the government had announced eight new envoys including replacing its NC appointed Indian Ambassador, Shankar Sharma who survived an earlier attempt when Oli was Prachanda's senior coalition partner. The 7-point deal is essentially about power-sharing during the remaining 40 months of Parliament with Deuba offering Oli the first PM as he wants to be premier before the 2027 elections. They have agreed over the number of ministries they will share with UML keeping Finance and NC taking Home ministry. NC and UML are sworn enemies with differing ideologies . Both their leaders are widely experienced and have done stints in jail. While Deuba has been PM five times, Oli has led Nepal twice. Deuba is recognized as India's blue-eyed boy and is favoured by the West, Oli is coveted by China though he is not a red-blooded Communist but a democrat at heart. Political instability has plagued Nepal since the first multi-party elections in 2008 under interim constitution. 16 PMs have played musical chairs over 16 years, even after the federal, democratic republican constitution of 2015. The electoral system produces a hung parliament. Removing this malaise is ostensibly the aim of the national consensus government by altering the constitution with a two thirds majority of 184 seats in a House of 275. It will propose deleting Proportional Representation (PR) system for 110 seats, making changes in the Upper House, turning Nepal into a Hindu state and even removing the federal system. These modifications are emerging from the speculation-mill in Kathmandu. But one message is also clear: the two mainline parties do not intend to be sidelined by so-called king- makers with 20 to 30 law-makers. Prachanda who led the 10 year long people's war and helped introduce transformative constitutional reforms is no greenhorn. He adores power and considers it the ultimate aphrodisiac. Even with his party's dwindling electoral scores, he has managed to capture the limelight. Despite the proposed Left-Centre alliance holding a sizeable majority of 167, Prachanda has refused to resign on moral grounds. He is expecting that since government formation was under Article 76 (2) of the constitution President Ramchandra Paudyal will invoke Article 76(3) to invite Deuba, leader of the single largest party to form a government which will deprive Oli of premiership. Both Prachanda and another former PM Madhav Nepal, formerly UML, despise Oli and would give their left arm to ensure he does not become PM again. Senior NC leader Shashank Koirala has said a NC -UML coalition will weaken opposition forces. Another NC top leader Shekhar Koirala noted that government formation may legally veer towards 76(3) not 76(2). This will wreck the midnight deal and ensure that Deuba is first PM with Prachanda ready to offer him PM for the entire remaining period. It will restore the democratic alliance of NC , CPN (M) and smaller parties that ruled for a year till March. As Paudyal is an NC appointee backed by CPN( M], he can be easily asked to follow 76(3) junking 76(2). Many in NC are unhappy with the deal. Neither China nor India has reacted to the impending fall of Prachanda-led government though news in the Kathmandu market is that India was not happy with the China-inspired Left alliance government. The Chinese Communist Party was keen to unite all Left parties under former President Bidya Devi Bhandari wife of late Madan Bhandari, UML's charismatic leader. But Oli rejected the idea. The Chinese will be disappointed with brief longevity of Left alliance, blaming India for it. This is the grapevine in Kathmandu even though Delhi does not want Oli as PM. For a national consensus government securing a two thirds majority will not be difficult. The NC and UML together have 167 lawmakers. 17 other lawmakers are needed for amending the constitution in order to bring political stability to Nepal. Already smaller parties are falling in line hoping for political stability. But key questions remain. What will become of the NC corruption crusade against Lamichhane who was being shielded by Oli and Prachanda? What about UML-driven change of NC-appointed envoys? Will Oli do to Deuba what he did to Prachanda in not honouring a power-sharing deal earlier? Can a government of opposite poles cohabit ? or will it collapse sooner than later? (The writer, a retired Major General, was Commander, IPKF South, Sri Lanka, and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the Integrated Defence Staff. The views expressed are personal) Running a website requires a lot of storage space for its content. That's where various hosting solutions for websites come into the picture. Whether you want to rent an entire physical server or are looking for a Virtual Private Server (VPS), knowing the difference is key. This dedicated server vs. VPS guide will explore the differences between these two servers to help you make an informed choice. After all, you want to ensure optimal performance of your website. Let's delve into the VPS vs dedicated server comparison topic: What is a Dedicated Server? The dedicated server revolves around the fact of using a physical server dedicated solely to ones website's needs. Thanks to this server, you can store every resource your website may have. 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Now that you know the VPS hosting meaning, let's know the advantages of using VPS for your website: Cost-Effective: Are you a medium-sized business? Do you want to optimize your online presence without paying too much? VPS is the go-to web hosting solution you may want to consider. Scalability: Is your website growing? It may need more space or processing power to ensure smooth functionality of your website. Scale your resources up with VPS hosting. Better Performance Than Shared Hosting: In shared server hosting, multiple websites share resources. But VPS offers dedicated resources to its users. If you want to improve the performance of your website use VPS for faster loading times. Ideal For: Small to medium-sized businesses with growing websites Websites experiencing moderate traffic volumes Businesses requiring more control and resources than shared hosting offers Applications needing moderate resources to function smoothly Detailed Difference Between a Dedicated Server and a Virtual Private Server Your website's performance depends on the right web hosting solution. Comparing VPS and dedicated servers will help you choose the right hosting server. Lets distinguish the key differences of these two servers: Performance: Dedicated Server: If you are looking for top-tier performance, dedicated servers are ideal. They provide you exclusive access to all the server's resources. This means you do not have to worry about the website's loading times. It will run smoother without a hitch. Plus, you will be able to handle unexpected traffic spikes better. VPS: VPS provides good performance with dedicated resources allocated to each user. However, the performance of your website may be compromised (during peak usage times). This is because multiple users share the physical server's underlying hardware. Cost: Dedicated Server: They offer the highest level of control and performance. But you will have to pay a hefty price. Yet there are didicated servers on offers which give the user a chance to try them without breaking the bank. VPS: It's a budget-friendly option unlike dedicated servers. If you are looking for a solution that does not cost you an arm and a leg, but ensures good performance, give VPS a shot. Scalability: Dedicated Server: Scaling a dedicated server can be more expensive and complex. This is because they often require upgrading the hardware. VPS: Scaling a VPS is more flexible. You are free to adjust your resource allocation within the shared environment. It helps you to meet your website's growing needs. Control and Customization: Dedicated Server: It offers complete control over the server environments. You can install any software, customize settings, and manage everything according to your specific needs. This is ideal for users requiring maximum control. VPS: VPS provides significant control over your virtual server's environment. You can customize settings and install most applications, but some limitations might exist compared to a dedicated server. Security: Dedicated Server: Need the highest level of security for your website? Choose a dedicated server for its isolated environment. There is no risk of security vulnerabilities from other users sharing the same physical hardware. VPS: Users may find it a somewhat secure option. As multiple users share the underlying physical server, it may run the higher risk compared to dedicated servers. Security practices become even more crucial for VPS users. Resource Allocation: Dedicated Server: If you want to have access to a fixed allocation of resources, dedicated servers are your best friend. VPS: It gives you the freedom of a dynamic allocation of resources, thanks to the shared physical server. You can adjust your allocated resources within a set limit as your website's needs evolve. Summary Table: Dedicated Server and VPS Differences Feature Dedicated Server VPS Performance Superior Good Cost High Moderate Scalability Hardware upgrades Resource adjustments Control & Customization Full control Significant control Security Highest Good Resource Allocation Fixed Dynamic Some tips to make the right VPS and dedicated hosting choice: Prioritize the best performance factor when it comes to choosing the right server like OVHcloud, ServerBasket, Hostgator, etc. Choose a server that provides you with unparalleled control. If your website is experiencing growth or requires more control than shared hosting, try VPS. Before you choose one, keep your future needs in mind. ' Eighteen people were killed and 19 injured when a double-decker sleeper bus headed for Delhi hit a milk tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway here on Wednesday. The accident occurred around 5 am near Jojikot village in Behta Mujhawar police station area. District Magistrate Gaurang Rathi said it appears that the bus, which was coming from Motihari in Bihar, was speeding and hit the milk tanker from behind. A probe has been launched into the matter, he said. Rathi said 20 passengers who sustained minor injuries were sent to Delhi in another bus, which was carrying 60 people. President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several other leaders condoled the loss of lives in the accident. Modi announced an ex gratia of `2 lakh for the families of the deceased. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said officials have been instructed to ensure the best treatment for the injured. "The loss of lives in a road accident in Unnao district is extremely sad and heartbreaking. My condolences are with the bereaved families," he said. Additional Director General of Police, Lucknow, S B Shiradkar said 14 men, three women and a child were killed in the accident. Bangarmau Circle Officer (CO) Arvind Kumar said due to the collision, both the bus and milk tanker overturned. Drivers of the two vehicles were among the dead. Glass shards and people's belongings lay scattered on the highway next to the overturned bus and milk tanker. Cranes were used to put the two vehicles back on their wheels and they were later towed away. The impact of the collision left the front portion of the bus badly mangled with one side ripped open. "We were sleeping. I don't know what happened," Mohd Shamim, a passenger who sustained head injuries in the accident, told reporters at the hospital. Another passenger, Dilshad, lost six of the eight family members he was travelling with. He said the bus driver was speeding all night. Later, Dilshad identified six members of his family -- Ashfaq (45), Ruby (40), Gulnaz (12), Suhail (4), Sonu (32) and Soni (28) -- in the post-mortem house. Four other deceased were identified as bus driver Ekhlaq (49), milk tanker driver Sunil Kumar (35), Deepak Kumar (27) and Shivdayal (28). In a day of multiple developments relating to the sensational BMW hit-andrun case, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena on Wednesday sacked the key accused Mihir Shahs father Rajesh Shah as the deputy leader of the Palghar district party unit, even as a city court remanded him in police custody till July 16. Simultaneously, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) demolished the unauthorised portion of Vice Global Tapas Bar where Mihir Shah consumed liquor along with his friends shortly before the shocking mishap.. The BMC pulled down the structure as the hotel management had carried out some alterations without taking permission from the civic body. On Tuesday, the Maharashtra Excise Department had sealed the Juhu bar. A day after his arrest, Mihir was on Wednesday produced before the court of chief Sewri metropolitan magistrate S P Bhosale who sent him to police custody for seven days. Sr Shah, who had earlier been arrested for ensuring the escape of his son but was released on bail, faced the wrath of the party leadership which sacked him from his party post, Within days after a BMW driven by his son Mihir Shah fatally knocked down a fisherwoman and injured her husband, the Shinde Sena removed Rajesh Shah as the deputy leader of the Palghar district party unit. In a one-line statement issued here, the Shinde Sena announced that it was relieving Rajesh from his post as partys deputy leader of Palghar as the direction of party president and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. It did not assign any reason for the removal of Sr Shah from the party post. Right from day one, Shinde has made no bones about his strong disapproval about Mihir Shahs involvement in the hit-and-run case and the manner in which his father tried to protect his 24-year-old son On Sunday when Mihir Shah fled the scene rammed into a couple borne-scooter that was returning from the Sassoon Dock at Colaba in south Mumbai after purchasing fish stock at an auction, chief minister Shinde said: What has happened is unfortunate, very sad....Law will take its own course, everyone is equal before law. I have spoken to the police and strict action will be taken against those found guilty. On the following day when the police issued a Look Out Circular (LOC) against Rajesh Shahs absconding son Mihir Shah, Shinde said that the State government stood firmly with the victim families in hit-and-run cases. Talking to media persons here on Monday, Shinde had said: I am deeply concerned by the rise in hit-and-run incidents in Maharashtra. It is intolerable that the powerful and influential misuse their status to manipulate the system. Such miscarriages of justice will not be tolerated by my government. The lives of ordinary citizens are precious to us. I have directed the State Police department to handle these cases with the utmost seriousness and ensure justice is served. In addition, we are implementing stricter laws and harsher penalties for hit-and-run offenders, the chief minister said. "No one, whether rich, influential, or the offspring of bureaucrats or ministers, affiliated with any party, will have immunity as long as I am the Chief Minister of the State. I have zero tolerance for injustice, Shinde said. "Let me make it clear that my administration stands firmly with the victims and their families. We are committed to creating a safer Maharashtra for all its citizens, the chief minister said. Eighteen people died and 19 were injured when a double-decker sleeper bus hit a milk tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway here on Wednesday, officials said. The accident took place around 5 am near Jojikot village in Behta Mujhawar police station area. District Magistrate Gaurang Rathi said prima facie the bus, which was on its way to Delhi from Motihari in Bihar, was speeding and hit the milk tanker from behind. Eighteen people died and 19 were injured in the accident. A probe has been launched into the matter, he said. Additional Director General of Police, Lucknow, S B Shiradkar told PTI that 14 men, three women and a child were killed. Bangarmau Circle Officer (CO) Arvind Kumar said due to the impact of the collision, both the bus and milk tanker overturned. Drivers of the two vehicles were among the dead. He said the injured were rushed to a hospital and their condition was stated to be stable. Police are trying to identify the victims. Many bus passengers were asleep at the time of the incident. "We were sleeping. I don't know what happened," Mohd Shamim, a passenger who sustained head injuries in the accident, told reporters at the hospital. According to an official release, the district administration has issued helpline numbers -- 0515-29707662, 0515-2970767, 10774 (toll-free), 96514327035, 94544174476 and 8081211297. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said officials have been instructed to ensure the best treatment for the injured. "The loss of lives in a road accident in Unnao district is extremely sad and heartbreaking. My condolences are with the bereaved families," he said in a post on X. "District administration officials have been instructed to reach the spot and expedite the relief work. I pray to Lord Shri Ram to grant a place to the departed souls at his feet and for the speedy recovery of the injured," the chief minister said. President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the loss of lives in the accident. In a post on X, Murmu said, "The news of the death of many people in a road accident on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh is extremely sad. I express my deepest condolences to the family members of those who have become victims of such sudden death and wish for the speedy recovery of those injured." PM Modi announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh for the families of the deceased. "The road accident in Unnao is extremely painful. My condolences to those who have lost their loved ones in this (accident). May God give them strength in this difficult time. Along with this, I wish the injured a speedy recovery," the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) quoted Modi as saying in a post on X. Modi said the local administration is extending all possible help to the victims under the supervision of the state government. "The Prime Minister has announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh from PMNRF for the next of kin of each deceased in the mishap in Unnao. The injured would be given Rs. 50,000," the PMO said. Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who heads the Shiv Sena, on Wednesday sacked Rajesh Shah, whose son Mihir Shah was allegedly involved in the BMW hit-and-run, as the party's deputy leader. A one-line notice by Shiv Sena secretary Sanjay More said Rajesh Shah has been relieved from the post of the party's deputy leader. Shah, however, continues to be a member of the Shiv Sena. A BMW car driven by Mihir Shah allegedly rammed into a two-wheeler in the Worli area of south-central Mumbai on Sunday morning, resulting in the death of Kaveri Nakhwa (45), who was riding pillion, while her husband Pradeep survived with injuries, police have said. According to them, Kaveri Nakhwa was dragged for around 1.5 km by the speeding car before Mihir pulled it over, swapped the seat with his driver, and fled in another vehicle. The driver allegedly ran over her while reversing the BMW. Israeli forces advanced deeper into the Gaza Strips largest city in pursuit of militants who had regrouped there, sending thousands of Palestinians fleeing on Monday from an area ravaged in the early weeks of the nine-month-long war. Hamas warned that the latest raids and displacement in Gaza City could lead to the collapse of long-running negotiations over a cease-fire and hostage release, after the two sides had appeared to have narrowed the gaps in recent days. Israeli troops were again battling militants in areas that the army said had been largely cleared months ago in northern Gaza. The military ordered evacuations ahead of the raids, but Palestinians said nowhere feels safe. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are packed into sweltering tent camps. Israel ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza in the first weeks of the war and has prevented most people from returning. But hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain, living in shelters or the shells of homes. We fled in the darkness amid heavy strikes, said Sayeda Abdel-Baki, a mother of three who had sheltered with relatives in the Daraj neighbourhood. This is my fifth displacement. Residents reported artillery and tank fire, as well as airstrikes. Gazas Health Ministry, with limited access to the north, did not immediately report casualties. Israel issued additional evacuation orders for areas in other neighbourhoods of central Gaza City. The military said it had intelligence showing that militants from Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group were in the area, and called on residents to head south to the city of Deir al-Balah. Israel accuses Hamas and other militants of hiding among civilians. In Shijaiyah, a Gaza City neighbourhood that has seen weeks of fighting, the military said troops raided and destroyed schools and a clinic that had been converted into militant compounds. The war has decimated large swaths of urban landscape and sparked a humanitarian catastrophe. Israel and Hamas seem to be the closest they have been in months to agreeing to a cease-fire deal that would pause the fighting in exchange for the release of dozens of hostages captured by Hamas in the October 7 attack that triggered the war. CIA Director William Burns returned to the region Monday for talks in Cairo, according to Egypts state-run Qahera TV, which is close to the security services. An Israeli delegation was also heading to the Egyptian capital, Israeli media reported. But obstacles remain, even after Hamas agreed to relent on its key demand that Israel commit to ending the war as part of any agreement. A key part of that shift, officials told The Associated Press, is the level of destruction caused by Israels rolling offensive. Hamas still wants mediators to guarantee that negotiations conclude with a permanent cease-fire, according to two officials with knowledge of the talks. The current draft says the mediators the United States, Qatar and Egypt will do their best to ensure that negotiations lead to an agreement to wind down the war. Israel has rejected any deal that would force it to end the war with Hamas intact a condition Netanyahu reiterated on Sunday. Hamas on Monday said it is offering flexibility and positivity to facilitate a deal, while accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of putting more obstacles in the way of negotiations. Meanwhile, Hamas top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, warned mediators of catastrophic consequences if Israel continued its operations in Gaza City, saying Netanyahu and the army would bear full responsibility for the collapse of the talks, the group said in a subsequent statement. The two officials said theres also an impasse around whether Hamas can choose the high-profile prisoners held by Israel that it wants released in exchange for hostages. Some prisoners were convicted of killing Israelis, and Israel does not want Hamas to determine who is released. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media. Bombing keeps responders from bodies Inside Gaza, residents saw no end to their suffering. Maha Mahfouz fled her home with her two children and many neighbours in Gaza Citys Zaytoun neighbourhood. She said their area was not included in the latest evacuation orders but we are panicked because the bombing and gunfire are very close to us. Fadel Naeem, the director of the Al-Ahli hospital, said patients fled the facility even though there was no evacuation order for the surrounding area. He said those in critical condition had been evacuated to other hospitals in northern Gaza. Marwan al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital, said it received 80 patients and wounded people from Al-Ahli who were packed into every corner. Many cases require urgent surgeries. Many cases suffer from direct shots in the head and require intensive care. Fuel and medical supplies are dwindling, he said in a text message. He said the hospital also received 16 bodies of people killed in the Israeli incursion, half of them women and children. Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Civil Defence first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government, said the neighborhoods of Tufah, Daraj and Shijaiyah had become inaccessible because of Israeli bombing. In a voice message, he said the military shelled houses in Gaza Citys Jaffa area and first responders saw people lying on the ground and were not able to retrieve them. The war has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Hamas cross-border raid on October 7 killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities. The militants took roughly 250 people hostage. About 120 are still in captivity, with about a third said to be dead. (): Pakistan has finally completed the 420-metre-long bridge at the Kartarpur Corridor zero line after a delay of two-and-a-half years, an official said on Tuesday. The need for the Kartarpur bridge arose from the vulnerability of the zero-line area to flooding, emphasising the importance of constructing a safe and secure passage for the visitors of the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur Management Unit Deputy Secretary Saifullah Khokhar told PTI. We have completed the bridge from our side on the zero-line Kartarpur Corridor. Now it is up to India to complete its side of the bridge, especially a 10-feet disputed one, he said. The bridge will be functional once the Indian side is completed, Khokhar added. Earlier, flooding incidents had disrupted visitors movements to the Kartarpur Sahib. The first deadline to complete the construction of the 420-metre-long bridge was December 2021. The construction works, however, had come to a halt temporarily because of some financial constraints and political issues.The Public Development Fund funded the project with an estimated cost of PKR 4.53 million. The Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) and National Engineering Services of Pakistan (Nespak) collaborated to carry out the construction. In November 2019, then Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan inaugurated the Kartarpur Corridor at a ceremony, paving the way for Indian Sikh pilgrims to visit one of their religions holiest sites in Pakistan without needing a visa. The 4-km-long Kartarpur corridor links Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan, the final resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev, with the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur district in Indias Punjab state. Khan has been in jail since August last year in multiple cases registered against him by the military-backed Shehbaz Sharif government. Lahore (PTI): Pakistan has finally completed the 420-metre-long bridge at the Kartarpur Corridor zero line after a delay of two-and-a-half years, an official said on Tuesday. The need for the Kartarpur bridge arose from the vulnerability of the zero-line area to flooding, emphasising the importance of constructing a safe and secure passage for the visitors of the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur Management Unit Deputy Secretary Saifullah Khokhar told PTI. We have completed the bridge from our side on the zero-line Kartarpur Corridor. Now it is up to India to complete its side of the bridge, especially a 10-feet disputed one, he said. The bridge will be functional once the Indian side is completed, Khokhar added. Earlier, flooding incidents had disrupted visitors movements to the Kartarpur Sahib. The first deadline to complete the construction of the 420-metre-long bridge was December 2021. The construction works, however, had come to a halt temporarily because of some financial constraints and political issues.The Public Development Fund funded the project with an estimated cost of PKR 4.53 million. The Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) and National Engineering Services of Pakistan (Nespak) collaborated to carry out the construction. In November 2019, then Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan inaugurated the Kartarpur Corridor at a ceremony, paving the way for Indian Sikh pilgrims to visit one of their religions holiest sites in Pakistan without needing a visa. The 4-km-long Kartarpur corridor links Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan, the final resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev, with the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur district in Indias Punjab state. Khan has been in jail since August last year in multiple cases registered against him by the military-backed Shehbaz Sharif government. 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 To the Russians, when it comes to war, everything is fair game. They especially have a penchant for bombing hospitals, women, children, babies, whatever, the Russkies love to murder in cold blood. It is just the Russian way. Russians enjoy bombing childrens hospitals so much they cheer into their vodka glasses with joy. The recent horrific bombing in Ukraine where the Ohmatdyt Childrens Hospital was deliberately targeted is an example of the brutal, psychotic actions that make up the Russian military forces, likely ordered by Putin himself. The same happened of course when Putin was helping out his fellow dictator mate Assad in Syria, where hospital bombings were a common occurrence. There is no indignity the Russians will not stoop to when it comes to getting what they want. Wheres NATO? However, are the Russians totally to blame here? It is in their engrained nature to commit horrific genocidal atrocities, the question is why does Ukraine not have an adequate missile defence system up and running? It looks like NATO have been dragging their feet in helping the Ukrainians with air defence systems, and are bogged down by European apathy towards the Ukraine war. While Joe Biden does not know what is going on, or where he is at the moment, one could say the USA is currently out of the picture as well as Europe. Hopefully, one day NATO and its members realise that Ukraine really needs some proper, serious assistance or the hordes of Russian orcs really will envelop the entire country. Once Ukraine goes, the rest of Europe is next. Eastlink's unwavering support for Dal-based Nova Scotia Math Circles over past decade has enriched students in all areas of mathematics and helped shape the next generation of problem solvers. Students like Maria Mihai, a Grade 11 student from Charles P. Allen High School, who has been involved in Math Circles for the past eight years. She credits her passion for math to her involvement in the program that was created by Dalhousies Department of Mathematics and Statistics more than 20 years ago. Math Circles sends math experts from Dal into classrooms around Nova Scotia to build engagement in the subject. Maria was one of more than 50 students from Grades 6 to 12 from three local schools who attended a Math Circles celebration event at Dal in late April. Students enjoyed a pizza lunch while participating in interactive math stations, led by leaders from the Math Circles program. What made Math Circles special for me was the people I met, Maria told attendees gathered April 23 in the Chase Building. I found myself surrounded by other math enthusiasts, each bringing their unique perspectives and talents to the table. Maria Mihai, Math Circles enthusiast. She said the program helped her to hone her problem-solving skills and participate in prestigious competitions like the Canadian Math Olympiad and the Asian Pacific Math Olympiad. As Maria looks towards the future, she said she is filled with excitement and possibility. Thanks to Math Circles, I've discovered a passion for math that I never knew existed. I'm determined to pursue it further, whether it's through a math major in university or a career that puts my math skills to the test, she said. A powerful partnership Eastlinks generous support of $1 million over the past decade has allowed the Math Circles program to thrive, reaching more than 6,000 students Nova Scotia in 2023 alone. Lee Bragg, executive vice chairman with the Halifax-based internet-service provider, has been involved in the partnership since day one. Lee Bragg, executive vice chairman or Eastlink, with the Dal Tiger. Im really happy to be here celebrating the power of Math Circles and its reach and impact on Nova Scotian students, he said. We have a long and meaningful relationship with Dalhousie built on shared values and principles. This partnership is rooted in mutual respect for the power of education. I think what makes our connection with Dal and this program special is that we share the same desire for continuous learning and innovative problem-solving. Dal President Kim Brooks moderated the event. &amp;amp;amp;amp;nbsp; Impacting Nova Scotian communities Tom Potter, a PhD candidate and program director of NS Math Circles for the past six years, shared the impact the program has on Nova Scotian communities. We visit as many classes as we can so that no students miss out. Thanks to the generosity of Eastlink, all presentations are completely free for the schools. In the future, we would like to do more outreach to rural communities, says Potter. Tom Potter, program director, NS Math Circles. Phillip Jackson, an African Nova Scotian student support worker with the Halifax Regional Centre for Education who is enrolled in the Bachelor of Social Work Africentric Cohort program at Dalhousie University, closed the event by discussing the impact the program has on African Nova Scotian students and communities. Its essential to bridge that gap between math and science and to broaden Dalhousies community. [NS Math Circles] comes to our schools to help facilitate activities for us. They have after school programs that our students dont always have the opportunity to come to. They come to us and thats how they are able to broaden the student experience, says Jackson. (L-R: Tom Potter (program director, NS Math Circles), Dr. Chuck Macdonald (Dean, Faculty of Science), Lee Bragg (vice president, Eastlink), Dal Tiger, Jeff Gillham (chief executive officer, Eastlink), Dr. Kim Brooks (president, Dalhousie University), Maria Mihai (guest speaker) and Phillip Jackson (guest speaker). To learn more about Nova Scotia Math Circles and how to get involved, please visit nsmathcircles.com. Dalhousie and the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia (ISANS) have a long-standing partnership focused on community support and newcomer integration. This bond was celebrated and strengthened at the Education Empowers fundraiser held in late June in the atrium of Dals Mona Campbell Building. The gathering highlighted the importance of community support and the transformative power of education and empowerment. It also created networking opportunities for newcomers and showcased the rich cultures of the refugee community while raising support for ISANS projects. Dr. Oyeleye Oyesode shared his testimonial, highlighting how ISANS supported his journey to professional fulfillment when he arrived in Canada from the United States. There is an ISANS program for everyone. For all walks of life, he remarked, showcasing the breadth of ISANS impact. Dr. Oyeleye Oyesode. Dr. Ovesode benefitted from an ISANS communication strategy course and the ISANS International Medical Graduates Bridging Program, which included clinical skills review sessions for the Medical Council of Canada exams. (Learn more about his story here). Ayomide Charles, who came to Canada from Nigeria, shared her inspiring journey of empowerment through the ISANS Settlement Online Pre-Arrival (SOPA) program. If my story can encourage just one person, its worth it to share, she said, emphasizing the transformative impact of ISANS on her career and integration into the community. Take a look back at a few other highlights from the gathering below: When you think of the global hotspots for great white shark sightings, places like South Africa, Australia, Mexico, or California likely come to mind. Now a new locale is making its way onto that list: the south shore of Nova Scotia, which by many accounts is seeing an influx of the apex predators every year. Talk of a rising great white shark population has traveled along the East Coast in recent years, from scores of shark sightings to a fatal encounter involving a dog. Nova Scotia recently decided to post shark warning signs on its beaches, citing the increase in great whites as a potential safety risk. The phenomenon has prompted researchers, fishers, and experts to examine why so many of the fabled species are choosing to venture north into Atlantic waters. Their work is being showcased in a new 40-minute documentary that brought together members of the Flower fishing family in Lunenburg, N.S. with shark expert and Dal veterinarian Dr. Chris Harvey-Clark to conduct a ground-breaking research expedition. The Mount Everest of sharks Great White North has its world premiere during Shark Week on Discovery Canada, Discovery US, and Discovery + on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;nbsp; The crew involved in the documentary also includes underwater cinematographer and Discovery Shark Week legend Andy Casagrande, oceanographer Greg Trowse, shark research pioneer Dr. Greg Skomal, and is led by award-winning filmmaker P.J. Naworynski. "The great white shark is the Mount Everest of sharks," says Dr. Harvey-Clark (pictured). "It's bigger, meaner and toothier than any other shark in the ocean. Since about 2018, we've seen all kinds of wacky things we didn't see before. A dog eaten before its owner while duck hunting. Deer attacked swimming between two islands. Numerous white sharks washing up dead on beaches. Nova Scotia is perfect ambush country for white sharks and there are seals all over the place. We're past half a million seals, so the table is set. Using an array of underwater cameras, groundbreaking early advance multi-beam sonar imaging, ROV cameras, underwater acoustic technology and drone photography, the team will prove that not only are great whites here, but in numbers that no one could have previously imagined. Answering questions about sharks in our region The expedition also breaks new ground in expanding our knowledge of these elusive animals. Many questions remain: how many great whites are visiting Nova Scotian waters and for how long? Are they reproducing here, or just summer visitors feasting on seals and tuna? What role does climate change play in the proliferation of sharks north of the 49th parallel? Are these curious juveniles carving out new territory, or mature breeding adults that are expanding their range? What impact are they having on the local ecosystem, and does their presence mean the North Atlantic Ocean is becoming healthier? "The increase in great whites in Atlantic Canada is fascinating," says Naworynski, a Canadian Screen Award-winning director of films like Love at the Bootcamp and Disasters at Sea. "It's such a thrill to join the research team and savvy local fishermen to chronicle their encounters. "The detailed database of images and research our team is compiling will help us all learn more about how big the population is, why great whites are migrating to Canadian waters and the best ways to keep people safe from the potential dangers of swimming with sharks." Great White North first airs at 9 p.m. Atlantic (8 Eastern) this Wednesday, July 10 on the Discovery Channel, and can subsequently be viewed on demand or online through Discovery+. On July 10th, the exhibition "Gazing at Olympus - The Ideal Life of Ancient Greeks" officially meets with the audience at the Shushan Pavilion (new pavilion) of Anhui Museum. The "Gazing at Olympus - The Ideal Life of Ancient Greeks" exhibition is the first time that precious collections from the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy, have been displayed in Anhui. It presents over a hundred exquisite cultural relics from the 6th century BC to the 2nd century BC, including large sculptures of ancient Greek mythological figures, as well as pottery, gold artifacts, and other types of relics unique to ancient Greek civilization. The ancient Greeks constructed their ideal form of life based on mythology. Over 2,000 years ago, ancient Greece and ancient China shone brightly at both ends of the Eurasian continent, contributing to the evolution of human civilization. The Anhui Museum also presents bronze artifacts from the same period in this exhibition, striving to establish a connection and interaction between ancient Greece and ancient China, presenting a landscape of diverse development paths in human civilization to the audience. This exhibition will run from July 10th to October 10th. Source: Anhui Daily Dhaka, July 10 (UNI) Bangladesh and China on Wednesday signed 21 instruments including three renewed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and made announcement of seven more projects to elevate "comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership" from "strategic partnership" between the two countries, media reports said. The agreements were inked following delegation-level meetings between the two nations at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, in the presence of Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, according to Dhaka Tribune. Prior to this, the Chinese counterpart Li Qiang and the prime minister of Bangladesh met bilaterally at the Great Hall of the People, where she was greeted with a red carpet. On her arrival at the premises of the Great Hall of the People, the prime minister was received by the Chinese premier. The bilateral talks mainly featured Rohingya issue, business, trade and commerce, investments, bilateral relations alongside various regional and international matters. After the delegation level meeting, the Bangladesh prime minister along with her Chinese counterpart witnessed the exchange of the documents. Agreements were made on trade and investment, digital economy, infrastructure development, disaster management support, building of the sixth and ninth friendship bridges between Bangladesh and China, export of agricultural products from Bangladesh, people-to-people connectivity, and cooperation in the economic and banking sectors. Among the instruments, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) Managing Director and Chief Editor Abul Kalam Azad signed a MoU with the China Media Group (CMG) and an Agreement with the Xinhua News Agency. The signed instruments are: 1. The MoU on Strengthening Investment Cooperation in the Digital Economy. 2. The MoU on Banking and Insurance Regulatory between China National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) and Bangladesh Bank. 3. A Protocol of Phytosanitary Requirements Export of Fresh Mangoes from Bangladesh to China. 4. The MoU on Exchange and Cooperation in the field of Economic Development Policy. 5. The MoU on Trade and Investment Cooperation. 6. The MoU on Strengthening Digital Economy Cooperation. 7. Signing of Minutes of Discussions on the Feasibility Study of the China-aid National Emergency Operation Centre in Bangladesh Project. 8. Exchange the Letter on the China-aid 6th Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge Renovation Project. 9. Exchange the Letters on the Feasibility Study of China-aid Construction of Nateshwar Archaeological Site Park in Bangladesh Project. 10. Exchange the Letters on the China-aid 9th Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge Project. 11. The MoU on Strengthening the Cooperation in Medical Care and Public Health. 12. The MoU on Strengthening the Infrastructure Cooperation. 13. The MoU on Cooperation on Green and Low-Carbon Development. 14. Renewing the MoU on Provision of Hydrological Information of the Yaluzangbu/ Brahmaputra River in Flood Season by China to Bangladesh. 15. The MoU between National Radio and Television Administration and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of Bangladesh. 16. The MoU between the China Media Group (CMG) and Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS). 17. The MoU between the China Media Group (CMG) and BTV. 18. An Agreement between the Xinhua News Agency and BSS. 19. An Agreement between the Xinhua News Agency and BTV. 20. Renewing the MoU between the Ministry of Education of China and the Ministry of Education of Bangladesh. 21. The MoU Regarding Public-Private Partnership for Sustainable Infrastructure Development. Announced projects are: 1. Announcement of the Conclusion of Joint Feasibility Study on China-Bangladesh Free Trade Agreement. 2. Announcing the commencement of negotiation on the Optimization of China-Bangladesh Bilateral Investment Treaty. 3. Announcing the completion of the Modernization of Telecommunication Network for Digital Connectivity project. 4. Announcing the completion of trial run of the Single Point Mooring with Double Pipe Line project. 5. Announcing the commencement of Rajshahi WASA Surface Water Treatment Plant. 6. Signing the MoU between Shandong Agricultural University and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Gazipur. 7. Announcing the construction of Luban Workshop in Bangladesh. UNI AKS SY GNK New Delhi, July 10 (UNI) Foreign Ministers of the seven BIMSTEC nations are meeting in New Delhi July 11-12 in an informal setting, to discuss issues including security, connectivity, trade and investment, and people to people ties, in the Bay of Bengal region and littoral. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will host his counterparts for the Second BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat in New Delhi. The Retreat will present an opportunity for the Foreign Ministers of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) countries to discuss, in an informal setting, avenues to broaden and deepen cooperation across the various sectors in the Bay of Bengal region and littoral, a statement said. The first edition of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat was held in Bangkok, Thailand on 17 July 2023. The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), brings together seven countries of South and South East Asia for multifaceted cooperation -- five from South Asia and two from Southeast Asia-- India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand. The bloc totals 1.73 billion people with a combined GDP of USD 5.2 trillion, as per data from 2023. The BIMSTEC Charter entered into force on 20 May 2024, providing legal and institutional framework for meaningful cooperation and deeper integration of the Bay of Bengal region. It enables BIMSTEC to partner with other interested countries/organisations and admit Observers and new Members. The current BIMSTEC Secretary General is Indramani Pandey, a seasoned Indian diplomat. BIMSTEC, formed on June 6, 1997, focuses on 14 priority sectors. The organization, akin to SAARC, is negotiating a free trade agreement, and the leadership rotates alphabetically. The permanent secretariat is based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. UNI RN The Domestic and Sexual Abuse (DSA) Helpline and Hourglass Northern Ireland have joined forces to highlight how older people in Northern Ireland experience coercive control/controlling behaviour, physical abuse and sexual abuse. They are encouraging older people, and those who care for them, to reach out for support. Hourglass research has revealed 1 in 5 older people in the UK are victims of abuse. This means approximately 18,205 older people experience abuse in this area. Joanne Barnes, CEO of Nexus, which hosts the Domestic and Sexual Abuse Helpline, said: Last year only 6 older people per week (approx. 300 in year) reached out to the DSA Helpline for support, with about half of callers citing experience of coercive control, one quarter sexual abuse and one quarter physical abuse. Given that we know an estimated 100k experience abuse across Northern Ireland, there are scores of thousands of older people suffering in silence without the help and support they deserve. No abuse or control is acceptable, even when you are in a long-term relationship. It is important to note that the DSA Helpline is anonymous and confidential, we provide advice and guidance for you to consider in your own time, no matter what age you are, when the abuse happened or how long the abuse has been going on. We also provide advice for people who care for older people in a personal or professional capacity. Veronica Gray, Deputy Chief Executive and Policy Director of Hourglass, added: Our own research tells us that the abuse and neglect of older people is on the rise. Without specialist services, older people will continue to suffer in silence, hence this unique partnership with the Domestic and Sexual Abuse Helpline. Hourglass NI has developed a unique community response approach to build tailored care plans and advocacy services for older victim-survivors and we stand ready to work with those who needs us. Detective Superintendent Heather Campbell from the PSNI Public Protection Branch, said: Unfortunately, abuse against older people happens here in Northern Ireland and is often unreported for many reasons. This may be the physical or mental ability of the victim, their dependency on the abuser for care and/or the fear of retaliation from the abuser. We recorded 2,522 domestic or sexual abuse crimes against people aged 55 or over in 23/24, representing approximately 10% (1in10) of all domestic and sexual abuse recorded crimes. We hope that raising awareness on spotting the signs will encourage and give people the confidence to report this crime. Older people are often scared to speak up in fear of what will happen to them. Therefore, it is important that we are their voice, and we are looking out for older people. We as a police service are committed to preventing, deterring and detecting crimes against older people in our communities. Older people who are experiencing abuse should reach out for advice by calling the DSA helpline, our experienced call handlers will provide advice and guidance, including signposting to relevant organisations such as Hourglass and provide information on the type of support they offer. You can call the Domestic and Sexual Abuse Helpline on 0808 802 1414, it is available 24/7 for any individual impacted by domestic or sexual abuse, either directly or indirectly. Support is also available via email at help@dsahelpline.org and online at dsahelpline.org to Live Chat with an advisor. If you are in immediate danger, please call the Police Service of Northern Ireland on 999. Hourglass has outlined key signs to look out for that may indicate that an older person is experiencing coercive control, physical abuse and/or sexual abuse. These can include: A security alert in the Creggan of Derry on Tuesday evening, during which police came under attack has been condemned. Footage of the incident has been widespread on social media as video and photo has been shared many times on the likes of Facebook, TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter. Police say children as young as six were involved in disorder in the Creggan area. Petrol bombs, masonry and fireworks were thrown at officers during a security alert in Southway. It began after police attending a sudden death in nearby Magowan Park found a suspect device, which was later declared an elaborate hoax. Children as young as six were involved in rioting in Derry, police have said. Officers were attacked after dealing with a sudden death. Derry's most senior police officer described the involvement of children as "criminal exploitation". pic.twitter.com/9hvLvrQoos UTV Live News (@UTVNews) July 10, 2024 Foyle MP Colum Eastwood has said that disorder in Creggan last night only hurts the local community and risks the future of children and young people caught up in it. SDLP leader Mr. Eastwood said that attacks on the police were unacceptable and has appealed for calm. He added: The disorder in Creggan last night is clearly unacceptable. Its particularly disheartening to hear reports that children may have been involved, risking their own futures for thoughtless attacks on police land rovers. People in Derry dont want this, we all want a future together and at peace with our neighbours. And none of us want to see children throwing opportunities away by getting involved in this. I would appeal for calm now. The SDLP will be engaging with local police and the community in Creggan to make sure there is no further escalation in the days ahead. DUP Foyle MLA Gary Middleton also spoke on the matter. He said: This was a disgraceful attack on police officers who are working on behalf of the entire community to keep us safe. There can be no excuse for such violence and I hope that everyone will point the blame solely towards those who orchestrated and engaged in such shameful behaviour. Thankfully there are no reports of injuries but there needs to be a stand taken right across the community in our city against such attacks. Sinn Fein Councillor Emma McGinley shares the sentiment about the incident on Tuesday night. Cllr McGinley said: Scenes of disorder close in Creggan last night are totally unacceptable, particularly so close to peoples homes and property. This reckless activity is not representative of this city and is in stark contrast to the hugely positive work that is being done to continue with the positive transformation of the city. All those engaging with the new truth recovery body will be allowed to be accompanied by a representative, under an updated operation framework. The changes include a charter of commitments which outlines what a victim, survivor, family member or witness can expect from their engagement with the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) Other changes include increased flexibility around changing the nature of requests if new information comes to light during an investigative process. It follows a public engagement process, which ICRIR chief commissioner Sir Declan Morgan said was key to finalising the framework for the body. The charter of commitments will be subject to further feedback. The Operational Design Framework also reiterates that the principles of European Convention on Human Rights-compliant investigations will be applied for all those who make a request. Sir Declan said: Our commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights to respect the principles of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement and providing meaningful information to those affected by the Troubles/conflict is paramount, and with the publication of our Operational Design Framework we are now able to detail how we will deliver on those commitments. We could not have developed it without the dialogue we have had with people across Northern Ireland and Great Britain, both in the consultation and through wider engagement including with victims groups and human rights representatives in the UN and the Council of Europe, and all those with an interest in the commissions work. This commission will always welcome constructive dialogue and we will take further learning from our operations and from feedback into account for future improvements. Commissioner for investigations Peter Sheridan said the design framework, which was published on Tuesday, reflects different approaches that might be taken by those engaging with the ICRIR. He said prosecutions would be available where supported by evidence but added that there would be other routes to provide more information and set out an acknowledgement of the wrongdoing. The commission has also announced Louise Warde Hunter will be its new chief executive officer. Ms Warde Hunter will leave her current position as principal and chief executive of Belfast Metropolitan College and join the commission during August. An urgent appeal has been made for blood donors to come forward ahead of the public holidays at the end of the week. The Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service (NIBTS) has made the appeal to ensure hospitals across the region are stocked up ahead of the weekend. They said that every week, hundreds of people in Northern Ireland rely on donated blood to help them survive traumatic injuries, surgeries, childbirth and illnesses such as liver disease and cancer. Blood donations are also used to help newborn babies. Barbara Mullin, head of blood and component supply services from the NIBTS, said most of the blood donated last week has already been used. We need a full house of blood donors to help our hospitals. Most of the blood we collected last week has already been used to save peoples lives, she said. Thats why we need one blood donor every eight minutes. We need our amazing donors to come forward today, tomorrow or next week. Every blood donation saves three peoples lives right here in Northern Ireland. She added: Do something truly fantastic, book your place now to give blood. Peoples lives depend on it. The organisation said first-time donors are welcome, and described the process of giving blood as quick and painless, taking as little as 27 minutes. They said sessions are taking place this week in Coalisland, Hillsborough, Carrickmore and Saintfield. Next week, sessions will be taking place in Garvagh, Carryduff, Bessbrook, Larne, Portadown, Dunloy and Holywood. Donors are encouraged to book their place by visiting www.nibts.org. People can also give blood at the Blood Donation Centre at NIBTS headquarters, within the grounds of Belfast City Hospital. New Delhi, July 10 (UNI) The Department of Communications has asked the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) to come forward and adopt villages and employ 5G technology to make the smart villages and create sustainable and prosperous future of Indias rural communities. Addressing a workshop on Transforming Rural Landscape: Designing 5G Intelligent Villages, DoT Secretary Dr Neeraj Mittal highlighted the importance of collaborative efforts in achieving the vision of intelligent villages. He discussed the concept of "smart" and "intelligent" villages, emphasizing the ability of these communities to interact, sense their surroundings, convey data, and extract knowledge, to be able to make informed decisions. Mittal urged Industry and TSPs to come forward and adopt villages and employ technology to make them intelligent villages. He expressed the hope that workshop will come out with smart solution and test use-cases for creating a sustainable and prosperous future for our rural communities. Member (T), DoT, Ms Madhu Arora emphasised on the need to bridge the digital gap between Urban and Rural landscapes. She said the evolving technologies have the potential to enrich the lives of people in rural areas in all spheres of life, be it education, health, environment, agriculture and conservation and intelligent use of natural resources etc. Senior ministry official firmly asserted that technology must enhance the lives of people in rural areas to be truly valuable. Therefore, we need to develop innovative solutions, ranging from 'Intelligent Display' to micro-robots, to create 5G Intelligent Villages that will positively affect all sectors and benefit the society at large, particularly the rural population. The workshop aimed at integrating technology and rural development to enhance quality of life. The integration of cutting-edge innovations, like 5G, with traditional rural practices was highlighted as a pathway to foster sustainable growth and improve living standards in rural areas. The 5G Intelligent Village Initiative of the DoT responds to the pressing need for equitable technological advancement by harnessing the transformative power of 5G technology to uplift rural communities. By leveraging such advancements, the government aims to ensure that rural areas are not left behind in the global push for technological progress and sustainability. UNI SKB CS1629 Northern Irelands health minister has said he is not afraid to take difficult decisions as he announced reform plans. Mike Nesbitt stressed that tackling inequalities between the poorest and wealthiest in society with a multi-department effort must at the heart of health reform. It comes after a department report earlier this year found that women in the most deprived communities in Northern Ireland can expect to live 14 fewer years in good health than those in the least deprived communities. Mr Nesbitt described this statistic as simply not acceptable as he announced a series of planned initiatives over the next six months. These include a live better initiative to increase uptake of health screening and vaccination, mental health support, building health literacy, nutritional advice and opportunities to be more physically active as well as a plan for hospital reconfiguration to be published for public consultation this summer. A three-year strategic plan for health and social care will be published in the autumn, while the author of a significant 2016 health reform plan, Systems Not Structures, Professor Rafael Bengoa is expected to return to the region later this year. Meanwhile Mr Nesbitt is also set to engage with other Executive ministers over cross department recommendations around the establishment of a Children and Families Arms Length Body, the appointment of a Minister for Children and Families, the expansion of the Sure Start Programme and the Gillen Review of Civil and Family Justice. Mr Nesbitt said the announcement is not about another review of the health service, but assessing work already undertaken and identifying action required. While he said it is not possible to do everything in the three years remaining of this Assembly mandate, he can do a very significant amount and set a direction of travel which I think will leave the successor with a much easier path to follow. The Bengoa Report is eight years old, weve had a pandemic, weve had five years of no government, he said. He said he believes Professor Bengoa will help reboot the public debate on health reform, which he said has become increasingly distorted, with reform too often misconstrued as a cost cutting programme, or a plan to close hospitals. This is damaging the objective of genuine reform which is to deliver better outcomes, he said. Speaking to media in Belfast on Wednesday, Mr Nesbitt said he was not afraid to take difficult decisions. I think if you ask people who know me, they will tell you I wont duck difficult decisions so if youre going to have to create areas of specialism, logically some places will not do things that they are currently doing, that has to be the way of it because we cant afford every hospital to do everything, he said. He also said he is confident of being supported in this bid by his colleagues. Health can do about 20% of the inequalities piece and the rest is socio economic, its environmental, its down to individual and family lifestyles, he said. I got a very good response (from ministers), there was nothing to indicate other than the other ministers will come in behind and help tackle things like the 26% economic inactivity we have at the moment. Its all inter-related and I am optimistic that well work together over the next three years. Independent unionist MP Alex Easton has selected a DUP councillor to replace him in the Stormont Assembly. Mr Easton, a former member of the DUP, has been an independent since resigning from the party in 2021. He was elected as MP for North Down as an independent backed by both the DUP and the TUV, unseating the Alliance Partys Stephen Farry at last weeks General Election. On Wednesday evening the DUP announced that its North Down councillor Peter Martin would be co-opted for Mr Eastons Assembly seat. DUP Leader @GRobinsonDUP has congratulated Bangor West Councillor @petermartindup who has been nominated to take up the Assembly seat vacated by Alex Easton following his election as Member of Parliament for North Down.https://t.co/hB43iTDIDu DUP (@duponline) July 10, 2024 Mr Martin said he will first and foremost be a voice for North Down and to deliver on the day-to-day issues they face. I want also to be a positive pro-Union voice within the Assembly chamber and demonstrate the benefits we will receive from being part of our United Kingdom, he said. DUP leader Gavin Robinson described the result in North Down as what can be achieved when various strands of unionism come together to maximise pro-Union representation. The DUP not only endorsed Alex Easton as a candidate, but representatives, members and supporters played a part in the successful campaign, he said. Peter is already a hardworking representative in North Down and is someone who won an additional pro-Union seat at the last election. He brings experience and enthusiasm to the Assembly and will ensure that the people of North Down continue to have a champion on the Assembly benches working together with colleagues in the constituency. Earlier it was announced that Alliance Castlereagh councillor Michelle Guy will take the Lagan Valley Assembly seat vacated following the election of her party colleague Sorcha Eastwood. Ms Eastwood won the Westminster seat previously held by the DUPs former leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. On Wednesday the Electoral Office said Ms Guy had been returned to serve as an MLA for Lagan Valley. Later in the day, it also confirmed that UUP Ballymena councillor Colin Crawford had been returned to replace Robin Swann as an MLA in North Antrim after Mr Swann was elected as MP for South Antrim. The TUV is expected to announce this week who will be co-opted in North Antrim to replace its leader Jim Allister, who won the Westminster seat in the constituency previously held by Ian Paisley. The Alliance Party said Ms Guy, 45, will resign from Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council before taking up the position as MLA, following her selection by local Alliance association members. In a statement, Ms Guy said she was delighted to be selected to serve as an MLA in the constituency where she lives. I look forward to getting straight down to work. Sorcha Eastwood leaves huge shoes to fill with her history-making election but I will continue to work closely with her as the new MP, as well as my constituency colleague David Honeyford MLA, she said. I look forward to building on their work and mine as councillor to serve the people of Lagan Valley on the issues that matter to them. Alliance leader Naomi Long described Ms Guy as a dedicated and passionate Alliance elected representative for many years. Alongside David and Sorcha, as well as our local councillors, Michelle will be a key part of our growing Lagan Valley team, who aim to deliver the Alliance vision of a fairer and better community for everyone across the entire community, she added. HIGHLIGHTS This scam involves fake messages which users are receiving via iMessage. Several iPhone users have flagged that they receive fake messages about undelivered parcels. The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued a warning to Apple users about this scam. If youre an Apple user, then you should read this article carefully. A new scam is doing rounds which is typically targeting iPhone users. This scam involves fake messages which users are receiving via iMessage. Even the Government of India has flagged this scam. Read along to find out whats happening. Several iPhone users have flagged that they receive fake messages about undelivered parcels at India Post warehouses. These messages are sent from random accounts and contain fishy links. When users click on this link, they are asked to pay a small amount to confirm the delivery. Once a user pays that amount and enters their OTP, the scammers get hold of all of their sensitive data and even empty their bank accounts. Also read: Hyderabad man lost Rs 12 lakh in FedEx Scam involving Aadhaar Card misuse What should you avoid? India Post: Your package has arrived at the warehouse, and we attempted delivery twice but were unable to due to incomplete address information. Please update your address details within 48 hours; otherwise, your package will be returned. Please update the address in the link: After the update is completed, we will re-deliver within 24 hours, India Post! To raise awareness for the same, The Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, through its cybersafety and cybersecurity awareness handle Cyber Dost, has issued a warning to Apple users about this scam. It was shared on its official X (formerly Twitter) handle. The post read: New Transnational #Scam Alert: #iPhone users are receiving scam messages via iMessage regarding packages from random accounts. Clicking on suspicious links may be avoided and read receipts may be disabled for such suspicious messages. So if you come across any such message, even if you have placed an order, dont randomly click on any link and first verify its authenticity. It takes only a matter of seconds before all your hard-earned money is gone. Berlin startup innovates carbon fiber eco-tech for sustainable electronics In the heart of Berlin, a small startup is poised to disrupt the electronics industry with a material that has been around for decades: carbon fiber. Carbon Mobile, led by CEO Firas Khalifeh, has developed proprietary technology that could revolutionize the way our devices are made, promising lighter, more sustainable products. "We replace metals with sustainable polymer-based composite materials in connected devices," Khalifeh explained. "Our unique intellectual property solves the decades-old electrical and antenna incompatibility issues of carbon fiber, unlocking integration into electronics-enabled industries." The company's breakthrough comes at a crucial time, as tech giants face mounting pressure to reduce their environmental impact. Carbon Mobile claims its materials can reduce the carbon footprint of new designs by 75% and e-waste by 38% compared to traditional metal-based electronics. Gaining Traction in the Industry With just a few employees spread across Germany, California, and Shenzhen, Carbon Mobile has already caught the attention of industry heavyweights. Qualcomm, the San Diego-based chip giant, is among the startup's first publicly announced customers. "We're working with different OEMs," Khalifeh said, hinting at partnerships he couldn't disclose. "We have some customers in the pipeline right now." Founded on deep tech and climate tech principles, Carbon Mobile aims to revolutionize the materials used in all types of electronic devices. By utilizing both recycled and virgin carbon fiber, the company is setting new standards in sustainability. Their flagship product, touted as the world's first carbon fiber smartphone, showcases the potential of their technology. "It's the thinnest and lightest smartphone ever," Khalifeh boasted. Expanding Horizons and Facing Challenges Carbon Mobile isn't stopping at phones. The startup aims to replace metals, primarily aluminum, in a wide range of electronic devices. Their proprietary technology allows carbon fiber to handle critical functions like grounding and shielding, previously the domain of metal components. As the company eyes expansion, it's setting its sights on the US market, with plans to open a branch in San Francisco. Taiwan, with its robust electronics manufacturing sector, is also in their crosshairs. "We have two partners now in Taiwan, and one investor," Khalifeh revealed. However, the road ahead isn't without challenges. Like many startups, survival is a daily concern. "The bigger challenge now is to run larger mass production projects with some of the customers we're working with," Khalifeh said. Navigating Geopolitical Complexities The geopolitical tensions between China, the US, and Taiwan add another layer of complexity to Carbon Mobile's global strategy. While acknowledging the risks, Khalifeh remains optimistic about Taiwan's role in their supply chain. "Taiwan has one of the best supply chains in carbon fiber, especially for what we do," he noted. Diversification, however, remains a priority for the startup. As the tech industry grapples with sustainability concerns and the need for innovation, Carbon Mobile's carbon fiber solution could be a game-changer. For now, this small Berlin startup is punching above its weight, attracting big-name partners and aiming to transform an industry. In the world of tech, sometimes the biggest disruptions come from the smallest players. Japanese robot leaders play the long game in humanoid market Humanoid robots are currently dominating discussions in the robot market, with manufacturers from the US and China at the forefront of this competition. Surprisingly, traditional Japanese robotics giants seem absent from this scene, and even the historically dominant "Big Four" robot manufacturersFanuc, ABB, Yaskawa, and Kukaappear unusually quiet. This has led the industry to question whether these companies are not optimistic about the development of humanoid robots or if other reasons are behind their passivity. Reports indicate that the Big Four robot manufacturers have explicitly or implicitly suggested they will not pursue the development of humanoid robots at this stage, choosing instead to focus on their core business of industrial robots. However, the phrase "at this stage" leaves much room for speculation. Despite the significant strides made by Tesla, Figure AI, and China's YuShu Technology (Untree brand) in the humanoid robot market, it would be incorrect to say that Japanese robot manufacturers lack interest in this area. Honda and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, for instance, invested in the development of humanoid robots early on and continue to do so. Kawasaki's humanoid robot, Kaleido, is already in its eighth generation. Although these companies are relatively low-profile compared to their US and Chinese counterparts, they may be waiting for a more opportune moment to enter the market. The Collaborative Robot Example The cautious approach of Japanese manufacturers is most evident in the development of collaborative robots (cobots). Denmark's Universal Robots (UR) launched the world's first cobot in 2008. Japanese manufacturers also introduced cobots to varying degrees in the past, but their market strategies suggest they were merely testing the waters. Judging from the impressive displays at the 2023 International Robot Exhibition (iREX) in Tokyo, industry insiders believe that 2024 will see a surge in Japanese companies entering the cobot market. The cobot market has been developing for over a decade, but it seems the real era is just beginning for Japanese robot makers. Fanuc has repeatedly hinted that at least 10% of its future production capacity will be dedicated to manufacturing cobots. A clear market trend is the increasingly blurred line between industrial and collaborative robots. In the past, cobots sacrificed speed and precision for safety, which posed a challenge for manufacturing industries prioritizing production efficiency. However, strategies from companies like Fanuc and Denso suggest a preference for combining collaborative and industrial robots by adjusting speed based on the robot's state. Additionally, with major companies like Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Electric appointing management with backgrounds in robotics and a focus on innovation, it is evident that robotics will be a key area of development for these companies. The Prudent Stance on Humanoid Robots From the example of collaborative robots, it is clear that Japanese robot manufacturers take a prudent stance on new product development. They adopt a cautious approach, waiting for market demand to become clearer and for practical issues to be resolved before making significant investments. Barry Lam, chairman of Quanta Computer, recently made remarks about humanoid robots that sparked considerable discussion. He bluntly noted that the cost-performance ratio of humanoid robots is low, wasting power and lacking practical commercial value, with the only advantage being that such robots don't get tired or go on strike. Indeed, for factory automation, traditional six-axis robots combined with autonomous mobile robots (AMR) are already sufficient for most scenarios. Introducing humanoid robots could create more problems, indirectly highlighting that the true practical applications of humanoid robots are still unclear. Industry experts familiar with robotics believe the development trajectory of humanoid robots might follow a similar pattern. With pioneers like Tesla and Figure AI leading the way, traditional robot giants may not need to venture into this still immature market at present. For Japan, a major player in robotics with top-tier technology and a significant global presence, adopting a wait-and-see approach aligns with the cautious style typical of Japanese companies. Given their absolute advantage, carefully assessing the situation and observing developments may be the most prudent strategy. Shanghai AI conference stuns with 45 cutting-edge robots, dragon-themed open-source humanoid The 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) opened in Shanghai, showcasing an impressive array of 45 intelligent robots, including 25 humanoids. Among them, the Healthy Loong (Qinglong), an open-source humanoid robot showcased by the National and Local Co-construction Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, captivated the industry's attention. Robin Li, founder and CEO of Baidu, emphasized at the conference that AI models, whether open-source or proprietary, should prioritize practical applications. This year's WAIC highlighted the emergence of AI applications, with a focus on robotics. Robots for the Year of the Dragon According to reports from Shanghai Securities News, Xinmin Evening News, 21st Century Business Herald, and The Paper, Healthy Loong stands 185 cm tall, weighs 82 kg, and boasts 43 degrees of freedom with joint torque peaks reaching 400 Nm and computing power of 400 TOPS. It supports multimodal mobility and perception, featuring high-mobility lower limbs and lightweight upper limbs. The robot can walk at 1 meter per second while carrying 40 kg, perform precise object manipulation, make coffee, climb stairs, and avoid obstacles. It remains stable even when pushed. The robot's brain is powered by the Zhuque large language model, handling human-robot interaction and decision-making, while the Baihu model acts as the cerebellum, ensuring stable movement. Jiang Lei, chief scientist at the Innovation Center, named the robot "Healthy Loong" to align with the Chinese zodiac, as 2024 is the Year of the Dragon. Jiang aims to create one new humanoid robot annually, each named after a zodiac animal, to foster an innovative and open-source humanoid robot community in China. Jiang believes standardization and generalization are best achieved through open-source platforms. The humanoid robot industry faces challenges such as a lack of product differentiation and long software development cycles, especially for dynamics. Yang Zhengye, the Innovation Center's market director, stated that open-source technology allows other robot teams to build on Healthy Loong's foundation, accelerating algorithm development and implementation. Healthy Loong was developed by the Shanghai-based research lab Humanoid Robot, with a registered capital of RMB 1 billion. In May 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Shanghai municipal government designated it as the National and Local Co-construction Humanoid Robot Innovation Center. The center is in Pudong, a hub with a RMB 20 billion robotics industry. In 2023, four of China's twelve newly released humanoid robots originated from Pudong. Plans are underway to establish a robotics industry fund exceeding RMB 10 billion to further enhance the local ecosystem. The path to AGI is robots Other Chinese companies, including Dataa Robotics, Uls Robotics, Zhiyuan, Unitree Robotics, Fourier, CETC, Robot Era, Leju Robotics, and Kepler showcased their robots at the conference as well. Although Elon Musk did not attend the AI conference, Tesla's second-generation Optimus humanoid robot was displayed. It featured improved control, balance, and a 30% increase in walking speed over the previous iteration. Wang Xing Xing, founder, and CEO of Unitree Robotics, remarked that while Large Language Models (LLMs) are impressive, achieving artificial general intelligence requires physical robots that interact with the real world, engage in human activities, and enhance their ability to mimic, learn, and understand human emotions. Moscow/New Delhi, July 9 (UNI) India and Russia released a Leaders Joint Statement on economic cooperation for the period up to 2030, following the summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on July 8-9. Seeking to give additional impetus to the deepening of bilateral interaction by promoting Russia-India trade and economic cooperation, the two sides declare the following: Bilateral economic cooperation is planned to be developed including in the following nine key areas: 1. Aspiration for elimination of non-tariff trade barriers related to bilateral trade between India and Russia. Continuation of dialogue in the field of liberalization of bilateral trade, including the possibility of the establishment of the EAEU-India Free Trade Area. Achievement of a mutual trade volume more than 100 bln USD by 2030 (as mutually agreed), including increased supplies of goods from India to achieve balanced bilateral trade. Reinvigoration of investment activities of the Parties, i.e. within the framework of the special investment regimes. 2. Development of a bilateral settlement system using national currencies. Consistent introduction of digital financial instruments into mutual settlements. 3. Increase of cargo turnover with India through the launch of new routes of the North-South International Transport Corridor, the Northern Sea Route and the Chennai-Vladivostok Sea Line. Optimization of customs procedures through the application of intelligent digital systems for barrier-free movement of goods. 4. Increase of the volume of bilateral trade in agricultural products, food and fertilizers. Maintenance of an intensive dialogue aimed at removing veterinary, sanitary and phytosanitary restrictions and prohibitions. 5. Development of cooperation in key energy sectors, including nuclear energy, oil refining and petrochemicals and expanded forms of cooperation and partnership in the field of energy infrastructure, technologies and equipment. Facilitation of mutual and international energy security, i.e. taking into account the prospects of global energy transition. 6. Strengthening of interaction in the fields of infrastructure development, transport engineering, automobile production and shipbuilding, space and other industrial sectors. Facilitation of entry of Indian and Russian companies in each others markets by creating subsidiaries and industrial clusters. Convergence of approaches of the Parties in the fields of standardization, metrology and conformity assessment. 7. Promotion of investments and joint projects across various sectors of digital economy, science and research, educational exchanges and internships for employees of high-tech companies. Facilitation of the creation of new joint (subsidiary) companies by providing them with favourable fiscal regimes. 8. Promotion of systematic cooperation in the development and supply of medicines and advanced medical equipment. Studying of the possibility of opening branches of Indian medical institutions in Russia and recruiting qualified medical personnel as well as strengthening of coordination in the field of medical and biological safety. 9. Development of humanitarian cooperation, consistent expansion of interaction in the fields of education, science and technology, culture, tourism, sports, healthcare and other areas. The President of Russia and the Prime Minister of India instructed the Russian-Indian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Cooperation to study the identified priority areas and to assess the progress at its next meeting. UNI RN Save my User ID and Password Some subscribers prefer to save their log-in information so they do not have to enter their User ID and Password each time they visit the site. To activate this function, check the 'Save my User ID and Password' box in the log-in section. This will save the password on the computer you're using to access the site. Note: If you choose to use the log-out feature, you will lose your saved information. This means you will be required to log-in the next time you visit our site. Taiwan unveils round 3.2 auction results: six offshore wind projects awarded The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) in Taiwan has concluded the Round 3.2 of its offshore wind power development auction, awarding six wind farms development rights with all bids coming in at NT$0 per kWh. This pricing structure necessitates that the projects secure Corporate Power Purchase Agreements (CPPA) to proceed. The ministry's final rankings, determined by localization criteria, saw Shinfox's YouDe, SRE's Formosa 6, and Orsted's Greater Changhua North-East offshore wind farm taking the top three spots, respectively. CIP's Fengmiao II, Corio's Haiding 1 (Formosa 3), and Enervest's DeShuai wind farm rounded out the fourth to sixth positions. The Energy Administration specified the capacity allocations, with the first-place project receiving a development capacity of 900MW plus a flexible 100MW, totaling 1,000MW. The second-ranked project is allotted 700MW with an additional 100MW flexible capacity, making 800MW in total. The third place secures 500MW plus 100MW flexible capacity, reaching 600MW. Projects ranked fourth to sixth each receive 500MW. However, with overlapping project areas, the ministry plans to finalize marine region maps before formally notifying developers of their capacity allocations. The feasibility of achieving the 3GW target remains under review. Developers, upon confirmation, must finalize preparations and sign contracts within three months, aiming for a November signing. The current offshore wind power plan targets grid connection between 2028 and 2030. However, Orsted is still on the award list, the final word on that might not be spoken until August or later in November. Six projects were awarded but there might be only 5 projects in the end due to overlapping areas. Taiwan's ambitious goal to achieve 13.1GW in offshore wind power installation by 2030 appears increasingly challenging. Orsted's Greater Changhua North-East wind farm ranked third, faces uncertainty due to substantial overlap with the second-placed SRE Formosa 6 wind farm. Nonetheless, Orsted remains on the award list, with final decisions expected by August or November. Despite six projects being awarded, overlapping areas may reduce the number of projects to five. Orsted, currently operating and constructing nearly 2GW of offshore wind farms in Taiwan, had a dramatic return to Round 3.2 after abstaining from Round 3.1, only to face a setback. Per Mejnert Kristensen, President of Orsted Asia-Pacific, expressed regret over not securing a spot in the Round 3.2 auction. He emphasized Orsted's commitment to Taiwan, highlighting the company's collaboration with local suppliers and corporate clients in submitting highly feasible technical and financial bid documents. Kristensen reiterated that Taiwan remains a crucial market for Orsted, with plans to continue developing, constructing, owning, and operating offshore wind farms in the region for decades to come. Vienna/New Delhi, July 10 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer met business leaders from both sides to boost commercial and trade linkages. The PM in a post on X said: Met business leaders from India and Austria. Our nations are confident of leveraging the many opportunities ahead to boost commercial and trade linkages. The Austrian Chancellor in a post said the business forum will enhance the bilateral economic cooperation. Together, Prime Minister @narendramodi and I will further strengthen the economic relations between India and Austria. Today's Business Forum in Vienna will make a significant contribution and enhance our economic cooperation. A statement said the two leaders jointly addressed a group of leading Austrian and Indian CEOs from diverse sectors including infrastructure, automobile, energy, engineering and start-ups on Wednesday. Both leaders acknowledged the role played by the industry leaders in strengthening bilateral relations and promoting economic cooperation between India and Austria. The leaders noted that trade and investment between the two countries has been increasing over the years and called for realizing the full potential of the India-Austria partnership through greater collaboration. Prime Minister called on the Austrian business stakeholders to look at the fast-unfolding opportunities in India, as the country moves to become the third largest economy in the world over the next few years. He noted that India had made transformative progress in the last ten years, and would continue on the same path given its strengths of political stability, policy predictability and its reform oriented economic agenda. He emphasized on the steps taken by Government to improve Ease of Doing Business that was attracting global majors to India. Talking about Indian economic growth and transformation, he noted Indias success in the field of start-ups, in creation of next generation infrastructure, and its commitment to forge ahead on the green agenda. He mentioned that the start-up bridge set up between India and Austria would yield substantial results. In this regard, he suggested that the two countries should come together and organize a joint hackathon. He further spoke about the success of Digital Public Infrastructure in the country and measures taken to improve connectivity and logistics. Given Indias strengths, Prime Minister urged Austrian majors to leverage Indian economic landscape for high-quality and cost effective manufacturing under MAKE IN INDIA programme both for domestic and international market, and as a global supply chain destination. In this context, he spoke about Indias Production Linked Incentive scheme to attract global manufacturing companies in the fields of semiconductors, medical devices, solar PV cells, among others. He noted that Indias economic strengths and skills and Austrian technology were natural partners for business, growth and sustainability. He invited Austrian businesses to utilize the investment opportunities in India and be a part of Indias stellar growth story, it added. UNI RN A 62 year old man who continued to act as a mortgage broker despite having his licence removed by the Central Bank, has been warned at Dundalk Circuit Court that a custodial sentence remains a possibility. Jimmy Cumiskey of Sliabh Na Glough, Jenkinstown, Dundalk originally faced 21 counts of theft and fraud offences in the book of evidence, but pleaded guilty to seven sample counts relating to four victims who gave him money thinking it was a deposit towards obtaining a mortgage. The court heard last Thursday that the defendant has not had a licence to act as a mortgage intermediary since February 2012 following a fitness inquiry by the Central Bank.But just over six years later, the first victim handed over a cheque for 9,840 at the defendant's office on Park Street in Dundalk where he traded as European Mortgages Call Centre. The second, who was a student, had handed over 7,000 from her savings between March and August 2018 and while some of that had been returned, just under 3,000 remains outstanding. The court heard a number of cheques the defendant had made out to her, had bounced. The third victim, had transferred 27,000 and just over 4,000 was paid back. The fourth client paid out 16,000.After his arrest, Jimmy Cumiskey protested that he had used the money to take steps to secure financing. The Defence barrister said that 3,000 was available in cash, on top of the 2,000 that had previously been paid and a further 9,400 was in his solicitor's client account. He said that following the Central Bank investigation, his client had received residential treatment from St. John of God's for over two months. The lawyer added that he had instructions that the grandfather of four had helped raise 100,000 for local charities through climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and claimed he had come up with the idea for the Santa Run in Dundalk in 2010. He described it as a fall from grace by his client who had been head of the Students Union at Dundalk Regional Technical College in 1981. The barrister added that his client completed an MBA after his first business failed but said "his best simply wasn't good enough" and while he was reckless the lawyer stressed that Mr Cumiskey had no "formal intent to defraud anyone" and "was trying to plug holes in a sinking ship". The counsel explained that the business had a monthly commission of 4,000 and while there had been prospective bidders, after the Central Bank investigation and public nature of that, there was no appetite for his business. However, Judge Dara Hayes said "He's made a litany of broken promises". The barrister replied that his client was in a business that was falling by the wayside and he was doing it to keep it afloat. However, Judge Hayes said the defendant had made reckless business decisions that had a devastating impact on these people. He put back the case to the next sitting of the court on October 8th to see what concrete plans were in place on how the money will be repaid. The judge added the possibility of a custodial sentence - irrespective of what resources might be made available "remains very live" as he said the fact that Mr. Cumiskey was operating without a licence was a significant aggravating factor. Judge Hayes said he would seek a report from the Probation Service for a risk assessment and directed that the money that was currently available be given to the four victims. Brown water in Dundalk and the impact that it is having on the town was raised with An Taoiseach in Leinster House last week by Deputy Ruairi O Murchu who said it is not good enough for the people of Dundalk. The Sinn Fein TD said it was a yearly issue and it was not the first time he had brought it up with An Taoiseach, which arises when increased manganese is in the water supply reacting with chlorine. He said: It also means this impacts on any repairs that get fixed or any flushing teams operating in other areas. Following my own interaction with the Taoiseach, I had a decent enough interaction with Irish Water at a high enough level. I have been informed there is a pilot scheme currently going into place at Cavanhill treatment plant to remove the manganese. If this pilot scheme works - and we will know by the end of the summer if it does - all works can then be completed by 2026. If it does not work, there is definitely a workable solution but that will take until 2028 to be completed. I wish to make sure that the Government will provide the resources to ensure we get this done as quickly as possible. This has been an ongoing issue and it is not good enough for the people of Dundalk. While there may be other issues around water pressure and old infrastructure, this is a vital issue which needs to be dealt with. I welcome the works that have been done. We just need to make sure the resources are there to make sure it happens as quickly as possible. In response, Taoiseach Simon Harris said: As to the brown water issue in Dundalk, which Deputy O Murchu has raised with me on a number of occasions, I am pleased the meeting with Irish Water went well. I will certainly work with him as Head of Government to make sure any resources required are in place." Speaking afterwards, Deputy O Murchu said he welcomed the update from Irish Water last week about the works at Cavanhill Treatment Plant, but said that the problems in Dundalk need to be brought to an end and he will be maintaining pressure on Irish Water and the government to ensure that happens. The Down Syndrome Centre North East (DSCNE), a charity based in Carrickmacross, has been awarded 18,000 from the RTE Toy Show Appeal grants by Community Foundation Ireland. This grant will fund their comprehensive 2024-2025 Early Intervention programme for children with Down Syndrome aged 2 to 6 years old and help to change childrens lives for good in the North East region which covers Monaghan, Cavan, Louth and Meath. This programme has been running in small groups since the centre opened in November 2018, but it has had to grow and expand to meet the growing demands and needs of their service users. Denise Marron, Services Coordinator who oversees the project says each year the project has grown, with the level of numbers enrolled increasing, meaning DSCNE is supporting as many children as possible with Down Syndrome from the North East region, to enable them to access the pivotal Early Intervention services that they require. By providing Early Intervention services, we are supporting and empowering individuals with Down syndrome to reach their full potential which is the greatest attainment. The project will provide an inclusive, nurturing environment to help the educational development of the children with Down syndrome that attend DSCNE, allowing them to grow in confidence, accessing personalised targeted interventions and making friends with peers from their localities, through fun, play-based regular intervention in the home from home environment that the centre offers. Receiving funding towards Early Intervention costs will enable DSCNE to ensure the charity can continue to provide other free and heavily subsidised services that children and their families, professionals and local community can access such as Occupational Therapy, Speech and Language Therapy, Music Therapy, School age programmes, counselling, dedicated Family Support Worker as well as monthly social clubs for tweens and teens, baby and toddler musical sensory sessions and holiday camps. Receiving this great news is also timely, with the start of the six-week programme of summer camps on Monday 1st July, the same day even further good news was received. DSCNE has also learned that they are a National Finalist of the National Lottery Good Causes Awards 2024 as part of the Health and Wellbeing Category. Each summer the centre runs an incredible programme of fun and social activities for children with Down Syndrome, and their siblings, which is partly funded the HSE National Lottery fund. Each of the 35 finalists will now receive 1,000 and proceed to the grand final where seven category winners will be announced at an awards ceremony this Autumn. Funding and recognition from national bodies such as Community Foundation Ireland and The National Lottery recognises and highlights the hard work and services that the charity is providing for the local community. DSCNE provides family-centred support services to meet the individualised needs of all children and families, clinical therapies, family support services, education, information and advice. They place a huge focus on families. The centre is a place for parents, siblings & extended family to meet, get information and advice. The heart of the centre includes a family room and coffee dock which provides space for individuals to come together to form friendships, share experiences and form a peer support network. New and expectant families, and volunteers, are always welcome and can find more information by contacting the centre. All details can be found via their website www.dscnortheast.ie or calling 042 942 3181. Currently the centre is supporting over 115 families and is parent-led and run by a voluntary Board of Directors. Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) recently hosted a closing ceremony for all the students who took part in the Institutes first ever Chinese Summer Camp. This completely booked out camp was open to local secondary school students from the region and focused on introducing the students to the Chinese Mandarin language and Chinese culture. This summer camp was coordinated by Ping Cao a lecturer in DkIT who was supported by the facilitators Ms Vicky Shuai (UCD) and Ms Ling Hensey (Castleknock Chinese School, Dublin). At the closing Ceremony DkIT welcomed Ms Zhu who is the Secretary for Education in the Chinese Embassy, Ireland. Ms Zhu presented the certificates to the students and was also pleased to give them all a gift of a book which was donated by the Chinese Ambassador. Also, in attendance at the event was DkIT President Dr Diarmuid OCallaghan and the Institutes Vice President for Academic Affairs and Registrar Dr Sheila Flanagan. DkIT President Dr OCallaghan said: This Chinese Summer Camp was an extremely significant piece of work around introducing students to a new language, and the energy and interaction from the participants was really obvious this afternoon. Dr Sheila Flanagan added: The closing ceremony was a fantastic day and obviously this camp was a really rich cultural experience for potential students from our region who participated. I was so impressed with the standard achieved in such a short period of time and the obvious engagement of the learners in the process." This Chinese Summer Camp initiative for DkIT was part of the Institutes strategy to encourage more students to investigate learning another language. Ireland currently has very low rates of student participation in languages at third level and nationally we are behind other European counterparts. It was also an opportunity for post-primary students to explore the Chinese language, a less-taught language in school. The camp allowed participants to discover a new language and culture by inspiring students through a combination of fun, creativity, and learning. Ping Cao DkIT said: I've received overwhelmingly positive feedback from parents and students who thoroughly enjoyed the camp, and they are looking forward to next year. It's a wonderful opportunity for secondary school students to immerse themselves in Chinese language and culture in a fun and creative manner, completely free of charge for two weeks. She added: this Chinese Summer Camp wouldnt have been possible without Patricia Moriarty, Brian Boyd and Shane Hills support and their encouragement. This camp was supported by Post-Primary Languages Ireland (PPLI) and Language Connect who offer funding for organising two-week activity-based language learning summer camps for post-primary level students. Funding is provided from the Department of Education under Irelands Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education 2017-26. The treatment of an Irish woman who has reportedly been charged by Dubai authorities with attempting suicide is utterly unacceptable, Irelands premier has said. Tori Towey, 28, from Co Roscommon, was a victim of domestic violence and has been banned from leaving the state, Irish parliamentarians were told on Tuesday. Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said in the Dail chamber that Ms Towey had been charged with attempted suicide and alcohol abuse as she urged the Irish Government to intervene. Speaking on Wednesday, Irish premier Simon Harris said he had spoken to Ms Towey and her mother Caroline, who is with her in Dubai. I dont want to say too much because theres a lot of, as you can imagine, diplomatic activity going on in the background, he said. Tory has been through, in my view, the most horrific situation and it is utterly unacceptable how an Irish citizen is being treated. Mr Harris said he had spoken to Irelands deputy premier Micheal Martin, who is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Irelands ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. He said it was his absolute priority to get Ms Towey home to Co Roscommon and will stay in contact with her. I do want to acknowledge our ambassador and our embassy have been working on this case for a period of time. Let me just say theres a lot of work going on in the background here. What Tory has been through is unimaginable for so many people in this country. Her aunt Ann Flynn said both were trying to stay positive. "If the Irish government backs Tori Towey and does everything that they can diplomatically it's highly likely that she will be home in Ireland next week" Radha Stirling. https://t.co/n3LiOqBIAl Radha Stirling (@RadhaStirling) July 10, 2024 Theyre very nervous and cant wait to get home, she told RTEs Morning Ireland. We keep hoping well get word that theyre on a plane on their way home. Its really terrible that this has happened to a young woman that was full of life, full of adventure, she loved travelling. Radha Stirling, founder of the Detained in Dubai group, said the support of the Irish Government had really warmed them and given them hope and inspiration. Right now shes just happy to be with her mother in safety. Its all very recent, Ms Stirling added. She said the case is due to be heard in court next week. I think when it comes to a case like this its all about diplomacy, she told RTEs Morning Ireland. Various members of the Irish Government have contacted the UAEs ambassador to Ireland and Irelands ambassador in the UAE and theyre trying to get those diplomatic talks happening. If that happens, that is the best and fastest way to get her home. The Department of Foreign Affairs told the PA news agency on Wednesday it was providing ongoing consular assistance in the case, as was Irelands embassy in the United Arab Emirates. The Irish ambassador to the UAE is in regular contact with our citizen (including this morning). The embassy is also engaging with all the relevant authorities in UAE on the case, the department said. Officials will continue to provide advice and consular assistance. The government is to receive recommendations on the future of the Road Safety Authority in the coming weeks, according to Finance Minister Jack Chambers. The news came in response to the news of the death of a woman in her 70s following a two-vehicle collision in Waterford this morning. The collision, involving a truck and a car, happened at around 9.20am on the N25 at Garranbane, near Dungarvan in Co Waterford. The driver of the car, a woman in her 70s, was treated by emergency services at the scene but later died from her injuries. The driver of the truck meanwhile has been taken to Waterford University Hospital where he is receiving treatment for injuries which are not believed to be life-threatening. The woman's death marks a grim figure, as it is the 100th road fatality so far this year, 13 higher than the same period in 2023. There has been an strong political focus on the number of road deaths in Ireland due to an increase in fatalities, incidents of drink and drug driving and other road behaviours. Minister for Finance Jack Chambers, who had been a junior minister in the Department of Transport, conveyed his condolences and said this year had seen a shocking continuation of the trend that we saw last year. We passed important road safety legislation earlier on this year, some of which is commenced. There is an important body of work around the future of the Road Safety Authority and Im certain that interim recommendations, which could be brought to government in the coming weeks, which are examining how the Road Safety Authority can be best placed to fulfil its remit for road safety in the future. Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe, a former Minister of Transport, added: I appreciate how hugely important road safety is and Im conscious of the further progress that we need to make. Passengers on a Ryanair flight landing at Dublin Airport this week were warned to turn off their phones and for a very important reason. Dublin Airport was backed up earlier this week as bad weather brought poor visibility and the airport was reduced to one runway for a time. Flights had to divert or queue up for landing while others getting ready to take off were delayed. The issue of visibility also caused major issues for pilots and one passenger took to social media to share their experience of being specifically requested to turn off their phone and other devices for a landing in Dublin. The individual took to X on Tuesday and said: "Landed at Dublin Airport this evening. Before landing- cabin crew asked for all electronic devices to be switched off as we had to land on autopilot anyone any idea why?" Resident aviation expert on X, Shaun Dunne of Shaun's Aviation, was quick to reply with the probably reason for the request onboard. READ NEXT: Warning to Irish tourists heading to Spain amid 'high' terrorist threat He explained: "During an 'Autoland', where the plane lands itself, it is crucial that phones and all electronics are switched off to prevent any unnecessary disturbance to the radio signal, which helps the aircrafts systems locate where it needs to land. "If a phone were on or receiving cell service, the signal between both phone and cell tower could disrupt the guidance radio signal." In response to a question about the potential use of 'signal blockers' onboard flights, Shaun said they "would also interfere if they were used." "As for cabin crew taking phones, they come around the cabin and make sure each passenger has their phone off, there have been cases in the past where passengers refused and had their phones taken from them for landing." Further explaining why an 'autoland' might be chosen by the pilot, he added: "There are certain visibility parameters, I'm not sure what they are exactly, but it's always down to the pilot, it's mainly used on foggy days when there is very low visibility." S Korean author Han Kang wins Nobel Prize in Literature 10 Oct 2024 | 6:50 PM Stockholm, Oct 10 (UNI) South Korean author Han Kang has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy announced on Thursday. see more.. 28 killed in Israeli airstrike on school in central Gaza 10 Oct 2024 | 5:44 PM Gaza/Jerusalem, Oct 10 (UNI) At least 28 Palestinians were killed and more than 54 others injured Thursday afternoon in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced persons in the central Gaza Strip, said the Palestinian Health Ministry. see more.. Ex-Bangladeshi MP Mohibur Rahman sent to judicial custody 10 Oct 2024 | 5:04 PM Dhaka, Oct 10 (UNI) Bangladesh's former Member of Parliament from Sunamganj-5 Constituency Mohibur Rahman Manik has been sent to judicial custody till his bail plea hearing is held next Monday, media reports said. see more.. ASEAN leaders, ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly highlight promoting regional connectivity 10 Oct 2024 | 4:28 PM Vietnam, Oct 10 (UNI) Leaders from the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) met to discuss several key issues aimed at strengthening connectivity and resilience within the ASEAN community. see more.. A Dublin man who overheard a womans conversation with a bank teller and returned the following day to steal from her has been sentenced to four years in jail. Joseph Joyce (31) was captured on CCTV inside an AIB branch in Artane on August 26, 2019, while a bank teller was asking a female customer to return the next day to collect 16,000 in cash. The woman returned to the bank the following day and while stopped at traffic lights on her drive home, a man smashed her car window and stole her handbag containing cash, jewellery and other items. Joyce, of Springdale Road, Raheny, Dublin 5, initially took a trial date but pleaded guilty last month to one count of theft at Oscar Traynor Road, Kilmore in Dublin on August 27, 2019. In a ruling at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court today, Judge Martin Nolan set a headline sentence of five to six years but reduced this to four years, on account of Joyces efforts at rehabilitation and his family circumstances. READ NEXT: 'I cannot find the words' - Body of boy (17) found at Cliffs of Moher after tragic fall Garda Pierce ODwyer told Jane Murphy BL, prosecuting, that the injured party withdrew 16,000 in cash from AIB in Artane on the day in question and was driving home, followed by Joyce and a co-accused in a Ford Focus. While the woman was stopped at a red light, one of the men got out of the car behind her and approached the passenger side of her car. Wearing a yellow Marigold glove on one hand, he smashed the passenger window with a hammer and grabbed the womans handbag while shouting at her. The handbag contained the 16,000 in cash, an iPhone worth 1,200, another sum of $2,000 in dollars, along with 250 worth of vouchers and jewellery estimated to be worth 200. The perpetrators car then made a U-turn and drove off and witnesses at the scene called 999. Gardai later stopped the Ford Focus in Clonshaugh as it had no tax displayed and discovered false registration plates on the ground beside the car. Joyces wife had driven to collect him in a black BMW and when this car was searched, gardai recovered 1,200 of fresh banknotes. This sum was returned to the victim, who remained at a loss for the remainder of the cash and the other items stolen. Joyce has 110 previous convictions, most of which are from the District Court with four from the Circuit Court. He has 30 previous convictions for theft. The court heard that Joyce is currently serving a four-year sentence which is due to expire in January 2026. A victim impact statement was handed to the judge but not read aloud in court. Gda ODwyer agreed with Anne Fitzgibbon BL, defending, that an initial charge of robbery had been replaced by the lesser count of theft. The garda also agreed that DNA matching the co-accused was found on the Marigold glove, but that no DNA from Joyce was found on it. Ms Fitzgibbon said her client is married with three young children, the youngest of whom has a serious heart defect which has required multiple emergency hospital admissions. Joyce, who is from a Travelling background, left school at the age of 12 and developed a drug and alcohol addiction in his teens, the court heard. This addiction was exacerbated by the deaths of his parents, to the point where Joyce was injecting cocaine with ecstasy, counsel said. The court heard that Joyce has addressed his addictions, attended a treatment centre and is doing very well in Mountjoy Prison where he is on an enhanced regime and working in the laundry. His wife and children are struggling to cope without him, counsel said, citing a letter from his wife. Joyce has completed upwards of 35 education and training courses while in custody, counsel said, and is adamant that he will not re-involve himself in addiction or crime. Judge Nolan said the offence had had a profound impact on the injured party, who was terrified, and that she had suffered substantial losses. He said theft in the context of violence was a serious matter, but that Joyce had taken steps to change his life and a probation report was optimistic for his future. Cancelled buses, late buses, and ghost buses have been criticised by Cork public transport users, with some calling the network absolutely unfit for purpose. Eighty-two pages of complaints to the National Transport Authority (NTA) about the 202, 203, 205, 214, 215, 220, and 225 bus routes over an 18 month period were released to The Echo under the Freedom of Information Act. People called the bus routes diabolical and an absolute disgrace. Im driving from now on as I cannot trust the service, one wrote. I missed a very important meeting due to this pitiful service, another wrote. One mother shared: The 220 was overcrowded, right behind it was another bus also overcrowded. My son and the rest of the children were not taken to school, and as a result, they were late, she said, adding: This is not the first time. The 214 was the most complained-about service, with one person saying: This bus gets consistently cancelled. Another complained: We are late getting to work in the mornings and we are left waiting for hours in the evening for a bus to take us home. One said that they had spent hundreds of euro in two weeks on taxis: Over the last two weeks, I have had to use a taxi in order to arrive to work on time eight times spending in excess of 250. That is paired with the many additional times when working in the city when the last two buses in the evening had left me stranded at midnight left trying to decide whether I choose between safely returning home at a premium of 30+ or waiting on a dark street without lights or a seat at the stop. Many raised the issue of elderly people left waiting for various bus services, with one person saying: Elderly commuters are being left in the dark and the cold in early morning to get to their appointments in CUH with not even a seat. Another wrote: As an 81-year-old pensioner with mobility issues, I use the bus every day. Some weekdays, I am waiting between 40 and 50 minutes for a service that is supposed to operate every 15 minutes. I depend on the bus to get my shopping, but I have lost all confidence in them if Bus Eireann cannot operate a reliable service, the service should be given to another operator. The late and cancelled buses received plenty of complaints, but the ghost buses were the subject of the majority of criticism. One person stated: Surely, if the phantom bus didnt exist it shouldnt be showing on the app or the display. Thats the kind of thing that loses you customers. Another called it a persistent, ongoing problem that is a constant source of frustration and ruined plans. Knowing a bus is delayed or cancelled is something you can plan around, they said. "You cant plan around a no-show that says its scheduled to arrive on time, which shows live updates on the signs and the app, but which is giving you false information. It wastes your time waiting for something that will never come and actively prevents you from taking other options. Imagine a friend who agrees to meet you in 30 minutes, then after that time passes they tell you theyll arrive in another two minutes. Then, after another two, they say theyre due to arrive right now. Then they cease all contact and dont appear. They do this every other time you arrange to meet. This terrible person wouldnt be your friend for long. Yet, this experience is constant on Bus Eireann services in Cork, they said, adding that it is an utterly miserable experience that should not happen. A spokesperson for Bus Eireann told The Echo: Bus Eireann carries out over 295,000 passenger journeys per week in Cork city, under contract with the National Transport Authority, across 25 routes and 10,693 scheduled services weekly, adding that routes, schedules, frequency, fleet, and fares are set by the NTA. They highlighted issues with congestion due to limited bus prioritisation, saying congestion means delays to services and can have a knock-on effect on the service. Issues in relation to motorists illegally blocking bus lanes or vehicles parking at bus stops are common in Cork, and they said that they are engaging with the authorities on the issue. Driver recruitment is also a big issue, and the spokesperson highlighted actions they are taking to address it including driver information and open days, a B to D driver training school, and several advertising campaigns. Following completion of the works due to take place on Patrick St and Grand Parade this summer, a review of several services will be undertaken, the spokesperson added. 2pm Tanaiste Micheal Martin has praised his constituency colleague and rival Simon Coveney, who has announced he will not contest the next general election, saying Mr Coveney was part of a long tradition of Cork politicians putting their city before their party. Since the days of his father Hugh, the Coveney family has given outstanding public service to the people of Cork, and Ive been working with Simon as a TD for Cork South Central now for 25 years, Mr Martin told The Echo. I worked with him in Government for the last four years and he has always been a strong advocate for Cork, so I wish him well in terms of his retirement, and I think hes garnered a lot of experience throughout his political life, which I think will be of good use to the community in the time ahead. The Tanaiste and Mr Coveney have not always seen eye-to-eye politically, but Mr Martin said his constituency colleague had always put the good of Cork first. We were political opponents, and we represent two separate parties, two separate political traditions, but in Cork South Central, there was always a tradition of crossing the aisle, if you like, or uniting to advocate in the best interests of Cork. I can remember the late Toddy OSullivan, Pearse Wyse and others, there was a tradition where youd put party positions to one side to advocate for particular projects for Cork, whether it was investment in Cork Airport, or the Port of Cork, these were issues that we were always in a position to work together on. Nominations for the local Fine Gael convention which will decide the partys candidates in Cork South Central close this Friday, and while senior coalition figures all insist the current Government will run its full term with the next general election in the spring, there has been much speculation that a giveaway budget at the beginning of October will fire the starting pistol for an autumn election. Asked if he was planning an early retirement from politics himself, the Tanaiste laughed and said he was not. Im busy getting ready for the next general election, Mr Martin said. Whenever that happens. 1pm Taoiseach Simon Harris has today paid tribute to Simon Coveney TD, as he announced his decision to stand aside from politics. Speaking today, the Taoiseach said: Simon Coveney is not just a colleague, he is a friend. For the past 25 years, Simon has served the people of Cork South Central, Fine Gael and his country with distinction. He has been a Minister for Agriculture, Housing, Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Enterprise. He has served as Tanaiste of this great country. He leaves an outstanding footprint in Irish politics. I think we can all agree Simons role during Brexit will be his legacy. It was his greatest contribution in politics and of immense importance to this country. Today, I particularly want to pay tribute to Simons wife Ruth, his three daughters Jessica, Beth and Annalise. Simons role as Minister for Foreign Affairs meant many nights away from home and I want to thank them today for lending him to the country. I know they and the wider Coveney family are so proud of the role he has played in Irish politics, continuing the legacy of his father Hugh. I wish him all the very best. 12.45pm Fine Gael Senator Tim Lombard described Simon Coveney's career as "long and distinguished". "Respected, dedicated, hard working and loyal, Simon Coveney has shown these qualities and more in his political life since winning the by-election in Cork South Central in 1998. "Ive known Simon all my life through our families. He is more than a colleague; he is a very good friend. I was involved in his by-election campaign in 1998 and in every campaign since. He has been an outstanding public servant, first as a TD, then as Councillor, MEP, TD, Minister and Tanaiste. He is someone I respect and admire and am proud to call him a friend. "I know that Simon will be as successful in the next chapter of his life as he has been in political life. I wish him, Ruth and his lovely girls the very best in the future." 12.30pm People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Mick Barry said he believes the Fine Gael party champions the interests of business and those in the upper echelons of society, and that Mr Coveney typified this. Fine Gael are a party which champions the interests of business and the well to do and there's no doubt that Simon Coveney was a consummate Fine Gael politician, the Cork North Central TD said. Mr Barry was less than complimentary about the political legacy Mr Coveney leaves behind, saying he believed the Cork South Central TD won't be remembered fondly by people at the sharp end of the housing crisis, asserting that the Rebuilding Ireland plan launched by Mr Coveney when he was Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government had failed disastrously. 12.25pm "On the day that Simon Coveney announces that he is retiring from politics at the next general election, I want to publicly say thank you to him," Fine Gael County Councillor Jack White said. "He brought me into politics before I became a Councillor in 2021, and subsequently I began working for him at his constituency office last year. "Simon has given me some great opportunities and guidance, and I will miss his leadership in our community & party when he goes. "He has been a major force in Irish politics for 26 years and was stellar in defending Irelands position during Brexit. "For now, we will continue to work hard together for our constituency and I wish Simon and his family the very best for the next chapter," he concluded. 11.50am Former finance minister Michael McGrath wished Simon Coveney "all the very best on the next chapter of his life". "Simon has served the public with distinction for 26 years and has been a deeply committed representative of the people of Cork. "He has made a positive difference on a local, national and international stage. "His work on behalf of Ireland during the Brexit negotiations was vitally important and helped to ensure there was no hard border on the island of Ireland. "As a constituency colleague of mine in Cork South Central for the past 17 years, I can say with authority that he was always willing to work together and cooperate across political party lines on local issues for the betterment of the community we both represent. "I'd like to wish Simon, Ruth and the girls all the very best on whatever comes next." 11.20am Sinn Fein TD Donnchadh O Laoghaire extended his best wishes to Simon Coveney and family for whatever the future brings. Despite many political disagreements, I have always found him a thoroughgoing gentleman. Very available to assist and willing to collaborate for the better interests of constituents and of Cork. He has given many years of public service and undoubtedly leaves a political legacy, his work on Brexit being particularly important, as well as much work in Enterprise and other departments, he continued. 10.55am Labour party councillor John Maher has said: "Thank you [Simon Coveney] for your service, while we may disagree on certain policy etc, our motivations to represent people & Cork are similar and we want the best for them. I wish you and your family good health & happiness. Enjoy the next chapter & take care." Minister for social protection Heather Humphreys said: "The work [Simon Coveney] did to protect Irelands interests during Brexit & ensure there would be no return to a hard border on our island should never be forgotten or underestimated. Simon Coveney TD, Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade with his daughter Beth (right) and her friend Chloe at a CUH Children's Unit fundraising concert #cuhheroes at Cork City Hall in 2019.Pic: Brian Lougheed "A great colleague & friend - best of luck in the next chapter." Cork Business Association added their voice to te tributes: "CBA would like to sincerely thank [Simon Coveney] for everything you have done for the Cork Business Community over the years, and the support you have given CBA. We wish you every success in the future." 10.45am Tributes are pouring in for former Tanaiste Simon Coveney who has said he will not stand in the next general election. Taoiseach Simon Harris said of Mr Coveney that he was not just a colleague, he is a friend. He has served his constituency, his party and his country with distinction, most particularly his contribution to protecting our national interest during Brexit is an outstanding legacy. Fine Gael councillor Shane O'Callaghan paid tribute to Mr Coveney on X: "Simon Coveney has been a giant of Cork & national politics for a quarter of a century. "He was an outstanding Minister in several Depts, particularly in Foreign Affairs during the Brexit negotiations. He has always championed Cork & prompted investment in Cork. Thank you Simon." Fine Gael senator Jerry Buttimer said: "Congratulations and best wishes. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to public service." 9.30am Simon Coveney said being elected for 26 years has been the privilege of my life. I will forever be grateful for the faith people in Cork South Central have put in me. Now is the right time for renewal in Fine Gael and for me to change direction, he said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter. He did not reveal what he would be doing instead, but said that he was to step out of politics. Simon Coveney with FG European election candidates Maria Walsh (left) and Nina Carberry and delegates at the Fine Gael selection convention for the Midlands-North West constituency for the European Parliament, at the Sheraton Hotel, Athlone in Match. Ive loved almost every day of public life. Ive had opportunities in politics that I could never have dreamed possible before 1998; as a councillor, a TD, a minister and as a Tanaiste. Mr Coveney stood aside as minister for enterprise in April as Simon Harris became Taoiseach and the new leader of Fine Gael. Simon Coveney TD pictured with 8-week-old sprinter puppy Lewis as the ISPCA celbrates 75 years of unwavering commitment to protecting, rehabilitating, and responsibly rehoming animals across Ireland at an event held in the Mansion House, Dublin. Pic. Robbie Reynolds I wouldnt be leaving if I didnt believe the future was bright, Mr Coveney said. Right across the country we saw new candidates emerge in the recent local elections. Our party is strong and ambitious, our new leader has brought an energy that is reinvigorating the organisation at every level. A Cork city councillor has expressed concern that staff shortages in Bus Eireann could compromise the planned expansion of Corks bus network. Green Party councillor Oliver Moran voiced the opinion at a council meeting this week the last before the summer recess. He tabled a motion, which was unanimously agreed, proposing that Cork City Council would write to Transport Minister Eamon Ryan outlining the severe difficulties in recruiting bus drivers in the city. Mr Moran said that the correspondence should state that Bus Eireann has informed elected members that a shortfall of 35 drivers exists to meet existing service levels, with 16 drivers currently in driver training with the company and that these recruitments will meet only existing service-level demands. The motion further proposed that the letter should request that the Department of Transport would engage with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to remove barriers to the recruitment of drivers from overseas, including the addition of bus drivers to the Critical Skills Occupations List. Nine months ago, we had Bus Eireann before us at the transport committee and they told us then that there was no issue with staffing levels in Bus Eireann in the city, Mr Moran said at the meeting. We discovered last week or the week before last that they are 35 drivers short and they have no plans to expand the staffing levels to deal with expansion of the city bus network. Mr Moran described the shortage of drivers as an absolute disaster for transport plans for the city and claimed that some people are losing confidence in Bus Eireann, adding: What has me incredibly worried is that for the first time among people who are serious about public transport, I am beginning to hear very serious questions about whether Bus Eireann is actually fit for purpose at all in this city. Unless we get to the bottom and provide answers to the solutions of staffing levels, which Bus Eireann dont appear to have any grip over, in my opinion, then we are not looking at BusConnects this time next year, we are looking at the same service without it being expanded. The new design for the Cork Metropolitan bus network is expected to commence implementation from 2025 subject to funding and resource availability. It will provide an increase in bus services in Cork, including the provision of bus services to previously unserved areas such as such as Upper Glanmire, Waterfall, and Kerry Pike. A number of councillors at Mondays meeting raised issues with the reliability of the current bus service, including Labour councillor Laura Harmon. Ive had people tell me theyve been late for work as other people have said late for work, late for school, people telling me theyve been late for dates, theyve been late for all different things, she said. Its impacting on peoples lives. A spokesperson for Bus Eireann told The Echo that a briefing session was held with local Cork public reps on June 25 and the driver shortage then was 35. This is a live figure and regularly changes due to recruitment, promotions, retirements etc, the spokesperson said. There are a number of drivers currently progressing through the Cork driver training school. This is supported by our ongoing intensive driver recruitment campaigns and regular driver open evenings. The spokesperson added that efforts to recruit drivers are under way, but that recruitment is an ongoing difficulty. The shortage of drivers, the spokesperson said, is down to factors such as a very competitive market and a lack of D licence holders. We are continuing to review and expand our approach and targeting drivers in international markets is now part of our strategy, the spokesperson concluded. The parents of a baby boy who died at Cork University Maternity Hospital rejected an apology today from the HSE and the hospital over their sons death and said it was four years too late. Baby Alfie OReilly from Midleton, Co Cork, was only four days old when he died in his fathers arms at CUMH on July 25, 2020. His parents Amanda and Aidan OReilly outside the Four Courts after they settled an action against the HSE over the death of their son said the impact Alfies death had on them as people and as a family is immeasurable. While the legal process ends here and the HSE and the State Claims Agency can put Alfies death behind them, we are forced to look forward and attempt to honour him as we live the rest of our lives. We have been left with a grave to visit instead of a son to raise. "So much has been taken from us, but Alfies whole life was taken from him and that's what needs to be remembered. Alfie should be here, they said in a statement. They said their sons death and their four-year legal battle means their trust in the health and justice system has been shattered. It has been clear that neither us nor Alfie have held any importance to the HSE or the State Claims Agency, which considering the admission of liability, is insulting. We can only ask that they treat families and our situation with more dignity in the future, the OReillys added. In the High Court, the familys counsel, Jonathan Kilfeather SC instructed by Michael Boylan Litigation, said the HSE admitted liability in the action where it was claimed that a delay in delivering the baby by Caesarean section had caused or contributed to the death of Baby Alfie. Amanda and Aidan OReilly, clutched a photograph of Baby Alfie in court as the settlement of their action against the HSE over the death of their son was ruled. Apology An apology on behalf of Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) and its staff was read to the High Court by HSE counsel Luan OBraonain SC. In the letter of apology heartfelt sympathies and condolences on the death of Baby Alfie" were expressed on behalf of the hospital and staff. It apologised unreservedly and sincerely for the failings in care during the course of the feto-maternal haemorrhage that caused the death of your son Alfie. The hospital said it did not underestimate how traumatic it has been for the OReillys and wished to acknowledge its enduring impact on them. Amanda OReilly told Mr Justice Michael P O Higgins that the apology had come almost four years too late. She said: "An apology was made here today. Your Honour, it was an apology that we had to ask for. An apology that has come almost four years too late." She added: The apology once again attempts to refute liability by laying reference to the feto-maternal haemorrhage that Alfie experienced. How can an apology over the liability for the death of our child be so insincere? She told the judge it was insulting, and she and her husband Aidan did not accept it. She said as well as enduring the grief and trauma following the death of their beautiful son Alfie, they had been forced to endure an almost four-year legal battle. She added: Throughout the legal process, Alfies short life and tragic death has not been shown the dignity it deserves, and this is something that has been incredibly distressing for Aidan and I. It has been clear from the outset that the aim of the HSE and the State Claims Agency has been to settle out of court, however they prolonged the process unnecessarily in what felt like an attempt to beat us down. She told the judge Alfie was absolutely perfect with navy blue eyes and the most perfect little nose. He was born into a family who already loved him immensely. Alfie, she said was so wanted so adored and he is so tragically missed. Alfies big sister, Emilia, she said is also impacted by her little brothers death. Emilia was born to be a big sister, she could not wait for him to be born and speaks of his absence daily. Emilia includes Alfie in every aspect of her little life and while it is endearing, it is also devastating. "Our little girl experienced death at an age that no child should and will live with those consequences for the rest of her life. Mr Justice OHiggins, who noted the settlement and the division of the statutory mental distress payment of 35,000, said Ms OReillys remarks had been heartfelt. The judge said he hoped the family would find solace in the finalisation of the proceedings. He said it was important for the court and legal practitioners to get feedback. Mr Justice OHiggins said he hoped the settlement of the proceedings would enable the family to achieve closure. Cillian Sherlock, PA The Cabinet has formally agreed to provide assistance to the UKs inquiry into the Omagh bombing. The dissident republican bomb exploded in the Tyrone town on August 15th, 1998, killing 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins. The UK government has outlined its terms of reference for the independent probe, which will be chaired by Lord Alan Turnbull. It will examine alleged security failings that led a judge to conclude the atrocity could plausibly have been prevented. Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin and Minister for Justice Helen McEntee secured approval to provide assistance to the inquiry at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. A Government spokesperson said this honours a commitment given to Omagh families. The spokesperson added: Ireland has accepted the invitation of the inquiry chairman Lord Alan Turnbull to be represented at a preliminary hearing on the 30th of July. This is a complex process that involves working with another jurisdiction, but we do have recent precedent for doing this. For example, the Omagh civil case and we also produced legislative means to assist inquests in Northern Ireland with Operation Denton and the independent review of activities into the Glennane gang. Officials will now explore a memo of understanding for the States engagement with this upcoming inquiry. Mr Martin has said the Government intends to do everything possible to assist the inquiry. Officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of Justice continue to work with the inquiry team on how best to structure engagement with the inquiry. The inquiry will examine the adequacy of the measures taken by UK state authorities, including the police, security forces and intelligence and security agencies, to disrupt dissident republicans who had been involved in attacks from December 1997 up to and including the Omagh bombing. It will assess whether that approach changed following the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed in April 1998. It will also probe alleged intelligence-sharing failures between the UK and Irish authorities in the year and a half leading up to the bombing. A number of families of Omagh victims have repeatedly called for an inquiry into the bombing to also be carried out in the Republic. However, Mr Martin has previously said he did not think it made sense to have two separate inquiries on both sides of the Border. Sanaa, July 10 (UNI) Yemen's Houthi group said they have attacked three ships owned by the United States and Israel in the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden. The targeted ships were "Maersk Sentosa, Marthopolis, and MSC Patnaree," said Yahya Sarea, the Houthi spokesman on Tuesday, in a televised statement aired by the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV. The first operation "targeted the U.S. ship, Maersk Sentosa, in the Arabian Sea with several ballistic and winged missiles," Sarea said. The second operation "targeted the ship, Marthopolis, in the Arabian Sea with drones" due to the company owning it had entered a port of Israel, he said. The third operation targeted "the Israeli ship, MSC Patnaree, in the Gulf of Aden with several drones," he said, adding that "the three operations achieved their goals successfully and the hits were direct and accurate." "Our operations will not stop until the Israeli aggression and siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip stop," he said. This is the latest in a series of Houthi attacks against ships transiting off Yemen since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict broke out last year. The Houthi group, which controls much of northern Yemen, began in November last year to launch anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones targeting what they said were Israeli-linked ships transiting the Red Sea, to show solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In response, the U.S.-British naval coalition stationed in the waters has since January conducted air raids and missile strikes against Houthi targets to deter the group, but this only led to an expansion of Houthi attacks to include U.S. and British commercial vessels and naval ships. UNI/XINHUA AKS THE dark days of the pandemic were difficult for everyone and expectant mothers were particularly affected. Due to Covid restrictions, they were without the usual supports of birth partners being permitted to stay with them throughout the entire process of labour. Cape Clear island resident Roisin OConnell, who runs Cotters bar, was one of the many women who gave birth during those difficult times and she recalls the experience. It was tough because my partner Cian could only stay for 20 minutes after our baby was born, and, as it was my first child, I would have loved to have had my mam with me too. When I look back at it now, its hard to believe all that we went through. Roisin grew up in Carraigaline and she has always loved the sea, so when in 2018 she saw an ad for people to work in the Cape Clear island shop for the summer, she jumped at the opportunity. I have worked in hospitality since I was 16 and I love meeting people, so the idea of spending the summer on an island really appealed to me, and I was lucky to get the job and off I headed to Cape, she said. Thats where I met my partner Cian McCann, who had grown up on the island. He was based in Kinsale at the time, and when summer ended, I headed back to the city to pursue my art course in St Johns, and he went back to Kinsale, but we continued on our relationship. Roisin O'Connell of Cotter's Bar, Cape Clear Island, Co Cork with partner Cian McCann and children Saorlaith-Re and Caoilfhionn, outside the public house. Picture: Larry Cummins In 2020, I realised I was pregnant and then Covid kicked in. I could not meet up with Cian and I had to tell him the big news over the phone. Then, as restrictions were tightened more and more, we were lucky, just in time before full lockdown kicked in, to be able to get back over to Cape Clear to be together. We stayed at his family home, and I worked back in the shop, and then, when it was time for our daughter to be born, I headed back to my mam to stay with her before the birth. After our baby was born, Cian and I were like two ships in the night for a while. I headed back to the island, while Cian had to stay on in Kinsale, and I was fortunate to be able to rent a house next door to Cotters pub, which myself and Cian now run full time. During those early days, I was on my own during the week, but looking back on it now it was very special to have that time together bonding with my baby. The islanders were so lovely and supportive. Youd never want for anything at all. They helped bring up my shopping from the boat, and anything I needed was only a phone call away. I never felt isolated, and when you think about it, heading to an island and living alone with a newborn sounds a bit mad, but it was actually a fantastic experience. Since those early days of her life on Cape Clear, Roisin has given birth to a second baby daughter, and herself and Cian are busy running Cotters bar together, which includes a full food menu. Its a very busy place during the summer months, located only a short walk from the pier, and very popular with tourists. In the winter months, Roisin opens the bar two or three times a week, alternating with the Club bar so that the islanders always have a place for a social outlet during the winter. Cotter's Bar, Cape Clear Island, Co Cork The winters are much quieter but we have lovely times here. Im only 24 and one of the things I really love about living here is that you have intergenerational friendships, especially amongst the women. When I lived on the mainland you would generally have friends from your own age group, but on the island that is not the case, and its really lovely. The women meet up in the bar a couple of times a week and play a Chinese tile game called Mahjong. Its become a really popular game on Cape, and it was started by one of the women who used to live in Dubai and she introduced it to the island. And if she wasnt busy enough already with running the business and looking after two small girls, Roisin is also in her second year doing the Art degree course on Sherkin island. I love the art course, its held on Sherkin every second weekend, and you do your work in between the lectures and classes. The tutors were really supportive of me when I had my second baby daughter. I took her along to the course with me as I was nursing her. She was born in June, and I was in college on Sherkin in September, so myself and the baby travelled out on the morning ferry, then we had a quick stopover for half and hour for a coffee in Baltimore, and then on to the Sherkin ferry for the course. I travelled back then in the evening to Cape. Roisin O'Connell of Cotter's Bar, Cape Clear Island. Picture: Larry Cummins I am really enjoying the course and am also interested in print-making and manual labour processes. I love island life, and of course I am very busy a lot of the time, but I have to say you could not live in a nicer community, and that extends out to the wider community in Skibbereen, Sherkin, and West Cork in general. For example, our shopping comes in on the ferry on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and you just ring in to Fields of Skibbereen with your order and they send it by van to the pier in Baltimore, then its brought over the eight miles across the sea to the island. The staff in Fields are so lovely to deal with. For example, as I am not physically in the shop to see the special offers, when I am ordering my shopping, they will let me know what sort of things are in for the baby. There was a recent offer on nappies which the staff told me about, they are so good, they always ask Do you need anything for the baby? The other thing is, if there is anything needed from the pharmacy, Clearys in Skibbereen are fantastic they will send your prescription, or whatever you might need, over to the van to go in with your shopping, its truly great to have that level of support. We have a WhatsApp group for the island and if there is anything needed, then all you have to do is pop a message on the group chat and there is always somebody on the mainland who will pick it up for you, youd never be stuck. Cotter's Bar is situated with a view of the harbour. Picture: Larry Cummins Of course, its the notice board for everything else too such as any social events happening in the club or pub, if a cow escapes, or somebody loses something, if anyone needs a lift, it really enhances life here for sure. I have a car parked on the mainland and I go out two mornings a week to bring my oldest daughter to playschool in Baltimore. I then head to Skibbereen to check out exhibitions at Uillinn, the West Cork Arts centre, or to meet up with friends for a coffee, I enjoy my mornings on the mainland. Apart from my family in the city, the only thing I miss on Cape is a chipper and take- away. My friends come in the summertime to do shifts at the pub and help out with the cooking. You have to learn to prepare in advance for everything. If theres one thing which island life has really taught me, its forward planning. The other thing I have learned is being resourceful. You have to be able to try things out and fix things yourself, living here has really improved my skills in that regard. A few summers ago, we had leaking pipes on the island and there was a water shortage. This made life challenging in terms of the pub, but we managed by filling up pots of water in the morning, and ensuring we had enough water for the day. Thankfully, that issue is now resolved. Looking to the future, there will be challenges. I am sad when I think that our family will probably be forced to leave the island in a couple of years when my daughter is ready to start primary school. Although it breaks my heart, I am not confident we will be able to stay. I would love if that was not the case, but I want to have my children socialised and right now there are not enough children in the school on the island. Its really sad, as we would love to stay here full time, but due to dwindling numbers in the population with young children, its not an option unless something changes. The main problem is that there is little to no accommodation for families who would locate and live fulltime on the island, and send their children to the local school. Right now, its impossible to get planning permission to build a home, and its very difficult, practically impossible to get housing to rent. I love it here, but I dont want to sacrifice future opportunities for my children to make a variety of friends and to have good social connections. Something needs to change in terms of policy to make it a viable place for young families with kids to continue on living here. Wed really love to make our living here and stay put, but sadly it might not be possible. Hopefully, something will change and the beautiful Cape Clear will endure on into the future for the generations to come, and not become depopulated with only homes for the exotic sea birds who continue to nest there. Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions. A new study by economists from West Virginia University (WVU) has found hot spots of harmful per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) forever chemicals in United States public water systems, including in higher-income, densely populated areas, as well as those that use groundwater. At least four PFAS contamination hot spots were identified in the eastern U.S. by Levan Elbakidze, a resource economics and management professor at WVUs Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Nabin Khanal, a doctoral student, a press release from WVU said. The researchers correlated their data with socioeconomic factors such as income, housing density and raw water intake sources and found that communities that were heavily populated, had higher incomes and industries like health care, manufacturing, defense and aviation showed concerning levels of PFAS contamination. Ninety-five percent of US adolescents and adults are exposed to PFAS, primarily through drinking water. Between 16 and 270 million people in the US rely on PFAS-contaminated drinking water. Therefore, it is important to understand the incidence and distribution of PFAS in public water systems, the authors wrote in the study. Lower income populations that were non-white and located in larger agricultural regions were found to have lower contamination levels. Communities that got their drinking water from aquifers had a higher chance of having contaminated water than those that used reservoirs and rivers. The researchers pointed out that addressing both consumer products and industrial emissions would be necessary in order to mitigate contamination. Theyre called forever chemicals because once they are made, they dont biodegrade, Elbakidze said in the press release. There are more than 9,000 PFAS, a group of synthetic chemicals known to cause serious health issues like heart and thyroid disease, cancer and infertility. The hazardous substances are found in many common products such as nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing and firefighting foam. They are also used in industrial processes because of their resistance to heat, water, grease and stains. The use and production of PFAS dates to more than 70 years ago when they were first used for uranium separation in the Manhattan Project. Since then, these substances have become ubiquitous due to their resistance to degradation, water solubility, and the ability to translocate easily from one system to another, the authors of the study wrote. The U.S. hot spots were found in 149 counties in 10 states. The hot spot covering the most counties spans Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, while the second largest stretches across New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware. The third biggest hot spot is located along the border of North and South Carolinas, while the smallest can be found in Colorado. The regional hot spots have PFAS manufacturing plants, industrial sites that utilize PFAS, and/or densely populated communities, while the Colorado hot spot encompasses counties with the U.S. Space Command, an Air Force Base and an Air Force Academy that uses PFAS as part of their operations, Elbakidze explained. Even small amounts of PFAS can be harmful, and millions of people are exposed to these toxic chemicals through their drinking water. In April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its first nationwide limits for PFAS in drinking water, potentially lowering exposure for approximately 100 million people. The researchers used EPA data, as well as data collected from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to get a better idea of the distribution of contaminant concentrations. Testing for PFAS had historically been centered on areas near facilities for the manufacturing of PFAS, aviation and defense. But the study indicated that contamination can happen through everyday products in communities a long way from industrial sites. Given the diverse sources of contamination, any water system whether a public water system or a private well could potentially be affected, Khanal said in the press release. Therefore, it is crucial to test your water for PFAS and take necessary measures to avoid using contaminated water for drinking or food preparation. The study, Peril in the Pipeline: Unraveling the threads of PFAS contamination in U.S. drinking water systems, was published in the journal PLOS One. We wash things, we wear water-resistant clothing. Thats PFAS. So, if you have a densely populated area, those things are consumed in greater amounts. PFAS gets washed down into the sewer. But wastewater treatment plants dont have technology to filter PFAS out of the wastewater before it gets released. Subsequently, drinking water systems that also lack necessary technology and draw water from the contaminated sources end up delivering PFAS in treated water, Khanal said. At first, the researchers thought underground aquifers would contain fewer contaminants since the groundwater gets filtered somewhat as it percolates. Most pollutants under the Safe Drinking Water Act are more prevalent in water systems that take water from the surface, Elbakidze said. But thats not the case with PFAS. Groundwater is more contaminated because the chemicals dont biodegrade or get destroyed, so they stay there for a very long time. Next, the researchers plan to look into the economic burden imposed by PFAS contamination on society so that they can measure its financial impacts and inform better management and policy practices. Calvin Po at The Spectator: In 1916 the Bank of England committed what Nikolaus Pevsner was to call the greatest architectural crime to befall London in the 20th century. It decided to demolish much of its own building, designed by the great Georgian neoclassical architect John Soane. Soanes lost masterpiece is the subject of the latest series from the essential architecture podcast About Buildings and Cities. The podcast, started in 2016 by presenters Luke Jones and George Gingell as a hobby, has slowly become a fan-funded staple for architects, offering a re-evaluation of the received wisdoms about the canon and some affable banter along the way. Soane worked on the Bank of England for almost 50 years. And the job provides the keystone to a sweeping look at the arc of his career. Even while still in training Soane had a thirst to prove himself with banger megalomaniac student projects, namely his over-elaborate Triumphal Bridge, which showed off his mastery of the classical idiom. Then theres the familiar hustling: as a bricklayers son he juggled scholarships, jobs and opportunistic freelance commissions to fund his education and Grand Tour. more here. The social media platform formerly known as Twitter has been at the center of multiple legal battles from the very beginning of Elon Musk's takeover. One such suit relates to the more than 6,000 employees laid off by Musk following his acquisition of the company and his alleged failure to pay them their full severance. Yesterday, Musk notched a win over his former employees. The case in question is a class-action lawsuit filed by former Twitter employee Courtney McMillian. The complaint argued that under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Twitter Severance Plan owed laid off workers three months of pay. They received less than that, and sought $500 million in unpaid severance. However, on Tuesday, US District Judge Trina Thompson in the Northern District of California granted Musk's motion to dismiss the class-action complaint. Judge Thompson found that the Twitter severance plan did not qualify under ERISA because they received notice of a separate payout scheme prior to the layoffs. Instead, she dismissed the case, ruling that the severance program adopted after Musk's takeover was the one that applied to these former employees, rather than the 2019 one the plaintiffs were expecting. The company said it reached a goal of sourcing all its power from clean energy sources in the past year. On Wednesday, Amazon claimed that it reached its goal of sourcing all its power from clean energy sources in the past year. If taken at face value, the announcement would mean it hit the milestone seven years ahead of schedule, which would be a monumental achievement. But environmental experts speaking to The New York Times, including a group of concerned Amazon employees, warn that the company is misleading the public by distorting the truth. The companys claim of achieving 100 percent clean electricity is based in part on billion-dollar investments in over 500 solar and wind initiatives. The companys logic is that the energy these projects generate equals the electricity its data centers consume ergo, even Steven. But the renewable energy sources it uses for those calculations are fed into a general power grid, not exclusively into Amazons operations. Environmental experts caution that the company is using accounting and marketing to make itself look good, as The New York Times put it. Amazon wants us to think of its data centers as surrounded by wind and solar farms, the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice wrote in a statement to The NYT. [But] the reality is the company is heavily investing in data center expansions fueled by West Virginian coal, Saudi Arabian oil and Canadian fracked gas. Amazon Clean energy experts say Amazons inclusion of renewable energy certificates (RECs) in its calculations can be highly misleading. This is because if any power plants on a grid burn fossil fuels, businesses cant know that the grid uses only clean energy. The Amazon employee group told The New York Times that, after subtracting the companys use of RECs in its calculations, its clean-energy investment was just a fraction of what was publicized. Buying a bunch of RECs doesnt help anything, Leah Stokes, associate professor of environmental politics at UC Santa Barbara, told The NYT. You just have to be investing in real projects. To be fair, any movement toward clean energy should be applauded. Amazon still received a B grade from the nonprofit CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), which was lower than Google and Microsofts A but still a passing grade. The problem comes when companies use the smoke and mirrors more often associated with marketing and PR to mislead the public into believing theyre doing more for the environment than they are. A company needs to actually outline, what are the sources that you are accounting for in that calculation? Simon Fischweicher, a CDP director, told The NYT. With the meteoric rise of AI and the financial pressures to compete in this new gold rush, companies are now reshuffling their decks and finding new ways to meet their climate goals. However, if that shakeup offers less tangible movement and more weasel words and sketchy logic, then thats creating a new problem on top of their alleged solutions for a genuine crisis. Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products . Samsung wrapped up its summer Galaxy Unpacked event yesterday, and there werent too many surprises. Leaks before the event pointed to fresh Galaxy Z Flip and Galaxy Z Fold phones, along with a pair of new watches and more info on the Galaxy Ring. What we got was... announcements of the Galaxy Z Flip 6, the Galaxy Z Fold 6, the Galaxy Watch 7, the Galaxy Watch Ultra and a proper unveil of the Galaxy Ring. Leakers is there anything they cant do? Perhaps the one surprise was news from Google that WearOS 5 will debut on the new Galaxy Watches before coming to over products later. If you want to relive the not-much-drama as it happened, you can either read back through our liveblog or watch a replay of Samsungs stream. If you dont have time for all that, weve rounded up all of the news in an easily digestible form below. Galaxy Ring Photo by Sam Rutherford / Engadget Kicking things off is a brand new product category for Samsung: a smart ring. The company had already made it clear that this device (much like the Oura Ring) is focused on health and wellness, and now we've got a clearer idea of how that might work, as well as how much you'll need to pay to snap up the Galaxy Ring. Samsung claims it's been able to cram its existing sensor tech into the smaller form factor of a ring. The titanium Galaxy Ring has an accelerometer, PPG sensors to measure blood flow and skin temperature detection. It can track metrics such as sleep score, movement during your slumber, heart rate, respiratory rate and menstrual cycles. Samsung will give you an overall Energy Score to help give you a snapshot of your overall health and offer suggestions on how to improve things. There's no subscription required for any of this, by the way, which is welcome news. Along with automatic workout detection, the ring can deliver heart rate alerts and nudge you to move around a little if it hasn't picked up much movement from you recently. Oh, and you can use the smart ring to remotely snap a photo with your Galaxy phone. The Galaxy Ring, which is said to run for up to seven days on a single charge and has a quick charging case, will run you $400. Pre-orders start today in the US. The wearable will start shipping on July 24. One other thing worth noting is that if you wear a Galaxy Ring and Galaxy Watch together, the battery life of the former will last for up to 30 percent longer, Samsung claims. Samsung Galaxy Ring $400 See at Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget Samsung's foldable phones are getting their annual refresh just in time to take them to the beach, perhaps to test how well those creases hold up these days. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Galaxy Z Fold 6 are the slimmest and lightest models in their respective lineups yet, and Samsung says they're more durable than ever. The company says there's a strengthened folding edge to help support the dual-rail hinge, while "enhanced layers" for the main screen help improve the crease without diminishing strength. Both smartphones have Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 to help make them more durable too. The handsets run on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. On the cooling front, the Z Fold 6 has a larger vapor chamber than its predecessor. The Z Flip 6 is the first Z Flip to include a vapor chamber, which should improve cooling. Because it's 2024, the phones have a ton of AI features (some of which appeared in the Galaxy Ultra S24), including a fully integrated Google Gemini app. They can generate a more detailed image based on a sketch and draft emails based on a prompt, while there are a bunch of AI-powered camera upgrades. One admittedly cool feature for the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 is that the Interpreter app makes the most of the dual screen format, so both the main and cover screens feature translations with the aim of fostering more natural conversations. The translations are handled on-device, rather than through the cloud. Speaking of the displays, those are slightly larger this year. The 7.6-inch main screen is 2.7mm wider, while the cover screen is 1mm wider. At 2,600 nits, the displays are also the brightest seen on a Galaxy Fold, matching that of the Galaxy S24. When it comes to the Z Flip 6, one of the major upgrades is a new camera system. The foldable boasts 50MP wide and 12MP ultra-wide sensors (the same as the base Galaxy S24). The former has 2x optical zoom with artificial intelligence powering a zoom function of up to 10x. Samsung has also bumped up the base memory from 8GB to 12GB. Both smartphones are available to pre-order today and general availability starts on July 24. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 starts at $1,900, while the Z Flip 6 starts at $1,100. Those who pre-order a Z Fold 6 will get a storage bump from 256GB to 512GB or 512GB to 1TB, while you can get a free 256GB to 512GB storage increase with a Galaxy Z Flip 6 pre-order. If you're interested in finding out more about the devices before taking the plunge though, you may be pleased to learn that we've had some hands-on time with them. You can read our first impressions of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 now or watch the video above. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 $1,900 See at Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra Photo by Sam Rutherford / Engadget Of all the possible words Samsung could have chosen for its new premium smartwatch, it had to plump for "Ultra." It's not like any of Samsung's major competitors has a smartwatch bearing that moniker or anything. Anyway, there's a new high-end Samsung smartwatch in town and it's called the Galaxy Watch Ultra. The Wear OS 5-powered device employs a new cushion design to bolster protection and what Samsung calls "visual completeness." The Watch Ultra is designed for durability, perhaps with extreme athletes in mind. For one thing, it's said to work at a wider range of altitudes, from 500 meters below sea level to 9,000 meters above it. It's water resistant to a depth of 100 meters and has a titanium frame. Adventurers should not have to worry about the device running out of juice in a hurry as Samsung says it will run for up to 100 hours in power saving mode and 48 hours when exercise power saving is enabled. Either way, it should have the longest battery life of any Galaxy Watch. Other features include multi-course workout tracking (for things like triathlons), advanced Personalized Heart Rate Zone and an emergency siren to bolster safety. The screen has a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, so it should be visible in very sunny conditions, and there's a night mode too. Samsung says the Galaxy Watch Ultra can even look for signs of sleep apnea. On top of all that, there's a new programmable Quick Button. For those who just want the latest Samsung smartwatch without too many bells and whistles, there's the Galaxy Watch 7. This model is the first with a 3nm processor, which Samsung says can deliver three times faster CPU performance and 30 percent better power efficiency. It has a dual-frequency GPS system to boost location accuracy, health tracking upgrades and the ability to control the device via double pinch gestures. Hmm, where have we heard that one before? The Galaxy Watch Ultra is only available in a 47mm size and costs $650. As for the Galaxy Watch 7, that comes in 40mm and 44mm sizes. It starts at $300. It's the same deal as with all the other new gear: pre-orders are open now with shipments and general availability starting on July 24. We've also had the chance to go hands on with the Galaxy Watch Ultra, so you can read all about our first impressions of Samsung's stab at a higher-end smartwatch. Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra $650 See at Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro Photo by Sam Rutherford / Engadget We have some new Galaxy Buds to go with the ring, watches and foldables. When the Galaxy Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro are paired with a Z Flip 6 or Z Fold 6, the Interpreter app can translate audio live into your ears. That might be helpful for anyone studying abroad or taking a foreign language class. Both models use their mics to analyze internal and external sound to optimize audio quality and active noise cancellation. The Buds 3 Pro can automatically adjust for noise via the adaptive noise control, siren detect and voice detect features. The in-ear Buds 3 Pro have a new blade (i.e. stem) design with lights built in. You'll be able to control the audio by pinching or swiping up or down. They boast dual amplifiers, planar tweeters and a super-wideband call feature too. Once again, pre-orders for the earbuds are open today, with general availability starting on July 24. Galaxy Buds 3 start at $180, while a pair of Galaxy Buds 3 Pro will run you $250. Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro $250 See at Samsung Catch up on all the news from Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked 2024 here! Update, July 11, 1PM ET: This story was updated after publishing to include links to the Samsung store and more links and references to Engadget's stories from the Galaxy Unpacked event. Part of the Data Transfer Initiative, the tool will roll out over the next week. Google and Apple are launching a new tool to transfer images from Google Photos to iCloud. As part of the Data Transfer Initiative (DTI), the tool will add iCloud transfers to Google Takeouts export options. 9to5Mac first spotted the announcement. The tool, which will roll out over the next week, automates the transfer process from Google Photos to iCloud, so you dont have to download, upload or do anything beyond initiating the process on the web. An Apple support page says it could take several hours to a few days to complete, depending on the transfer size. Transferring your pictures from Google to iCloud wont delete them from Google Photos, so youll have to do that manually if you want. In addition, the service wont work for child accounts, Managed Apple ID accounts (those set up through IT admins) or iCloud accounts with Advanced Data Protection turned on. The tool follows the 2021 launch of one that does the inverse: moving your images from iCloud to Google Photos. The DTI launched in 2023 as a collaboration between Apple, Google and Meta. Officially, it was formed to further the goals of the open-source Data Transfer Project (DTP), which began five years earlier. Unofficially, well, its probably not a coincidence the DTI commenced a couple of months before the European Commission named its gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act, and the DTIs goals happen to align with the governing bodys regulations. (Fancy that!) Once its live (we arent seeing it available just yet), you can begin the process in Google Takeout. In the meantime, you can read Google and Apples instructions for all the fine print. Microsoft has withdrawn from OpenAI's board of directors a couple of weeks after the European Commission revealed that it's taking another look at the terms of their partnership, according to the Financial Times. The company has reportedly sent OpenAI a letter, announcing that it was giving up its seat "effective immediately." Microsoft took on an observer, non-voting role within OpenAI's board following an internal upheaval that led to the firing (and eventual reinstatement) of the latter's CEO, Sam Altman. According to previous reports, Apple was also supposed to get an observer seat at the board following its announcement that it will integrate ChatGPT into its devices. The Times says that will no longer be the case. Instead, OpenAI will take on a new approach and hold regular meetings with key partners, including the two Big Tech companies. In the letter, Microsoft reportedly told OpenAI that it's confident in the direction the company is taking, so its seat on the board is no longer necessary. The company also wrote that its seat "provided insights into the board's activities without compromising its independence," but the European Commission wants to take a closer look at their relationship before deciding if it agrees. "Were grateful to Microsoft for voicing confidence in the board and the direction of the company, and we look forward to continuing our successful partnership," an OpenAI spokesperson told The Times. Microsoft initially invested $1 billion into OpenAI in 2019. Since then, the company has poured more money into the AI company until it has reached $13 billion in investments. The European Commission started investigating their partnership to figure out if it breaks the bloc's merger rules last year, but it ultimately concluded that Microsoft didn't gain control of OpenAI. It didn't drop the probe altogether, however Margrethe Vestager, the commission's executive vice-president for competition policy, revealed in June that European authorities asked Microsoft for additional information regarding their agreement "to understand whether certain exclusivity clauses could have a negative effect on competitors." The commission is looking into the Microsoft-OpenAI agreement as part of a bigger antitrust investigation. It also sent information requests to other big players in the industry that are also working on artificial intelligence technologies, including Meta, Google and TikTok. The commission intends to ensure fairness in consumer choices and to examine acqui-hires to "make sure these practices dont slip through [its] merger control rules if they basically lead to a concentration." Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products . Have you heard the song that goes anything you can do I can do better, I can do anything better than you? Well, it seems like the folks at Samsung have been listening to that on repeat. At its Galaxy Unpacked event today, the company unveiled a slew of products, including a few wearables that look remarkably familiar. The Galaxy Ring, which was teased in January, appears to be inspired by the Oura Ring. Meanwhile, the new Galaxy Watch Ultra seems to have borrowed many traits from a competing product at Apple, right down to its name. The resemblance doesnt end there, but there are a few key differences between Samsung and Apples high-end smartwatches. From my recent hands-on experience, though, Samsungs latest wearables dont seem to bring many new things to its familiar-looking products. The Korean company has a long history of aping Apple, and has even had to pay the iPhone maker millions of dollars as part of a multi-year patent infringement case. With everything from its name to appearance to features being so obviously similar to the Apple Watch Ultra, I dont think its too far for me to outright say that Samsung is copying the iPhone maker, and pretty brazenly so. In fact, even with the Galaxy Watch 7, Samsung seems to be bringing features that already launched elsewhere. Whats new on the Galaxy Watch 7 Most of the changes on the Watch 7 arent immediately visible. There is a new 3nm Exynos processor under the hood, which Samsung says is three times faster than its predecessor. Its also supposed to deliver 30% improved power efficiency, which should translate to better battery life. The Watch 7 also has a dual-frequency GPS system for more accurate location tracking. Apple brought dual-frequency GPS to its watches in 2022 with the original Watch Ultra. The similarities dont end there. Samsung is also offering new watchbands, including one in a very familiar-looking ripple style. The Galaxy Watch 7 and Ultra will also support a new double pinch gesture that will let you do things like trigger the camera or dismiss an alert by bringing your thumb and forefinger together twice. Apple formally launched Double Tap on the Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 last year, though the bones of the gesture-based navigation has existed as an accessibility feature for longer. I wasnt able to test double pinch at the hands-on event for myself, though Samsung reps onsite showed me how it would work. To be fair, it also took Apple weeks before it actually rolled out Double Tap to the public. Sam Rutherford for Engadget The Galaxy Watch 7 also comes with the usual set of new watch faces, and has a second-gen bioactive sensor that allows for faster and more-accurate readings. Theres also new software features like an AI algorithm for sleep analysis and a De Novo FDA-authorized Sleep Apnea feature that checks for potential signs of moderate to severe sleep apnea. The Galaxy Watch 7 (and Ultra) is also one of the first to run Wear OS 5, which was first teased at Google I/O back in May. Im recuperating from a recent injury and did not take a nap at the hands-on event, so I wasnt able to check out the new sleep features or really even jump about to see how long my heart rate changes might take to register. I can only say that on the outside the Galaxy Watch 7 looks a lot like the Galaxy Watch 6. Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra vs the Apple Watch Ultra I spent more time checking out the Galaxy Watch Ultra, which is, to give Samsung at least a little credit, the most different looking smartwatch its made in years. When rumors were rife that both Samsung and Apple were readying Pro models of their watches to launch in 2022, I was seriously underwhelmed when I finally saw the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. It was nothing like the Apple Watch Ultra, and seemed to be just a slightly more durable and souped-up version of the classic Galaxy Watch. With the Galaxy Watch Ultra, Samsung has managed to successfully change up the look of its long-standing series of smartwatches. This things appearance definitely makes a statement, and its not just Watch Ultra for Android! One thing Samsung did differently from Apple is that it kept the circle display, but framed it in a rounded square case, resulting in what the company described as a cushion design. Supposedly this enhances protection and visual completeness, but I suspect it has more to do with a round screen being easier for Samsungs manufacturing. The cushion style goes a long way in making the Galaxy Watch Ultra look different from other Samsung watches, but it still comes off like a slightly wider version of the Apple one. Both wearables have titanium cases and screens that can go up to 3,000 nits of brightness. They also offer water-resistance of up to 100 meters. Sam Rutherford for Engadget Apple does have a depth gauge and can be used for recreational diving at up to 40 meters, though, while Samsung doesnt have similar software. There are other small differences in dust- and water-resistance between the two Watch Ultras, with Samsungs rated at IP68 and Apples at IP6X dust-resistant. Though it looks bulkier, the Galaxy Watch Ultra actually has a smaller 47mm case compared to Apples, which is 49mm. The latter is also a hair heavier, weighing 61.4 grams (2.16 ounces) compared to Samsungs 60.5 grams. On my relatively small wrist, the Galaxy Watch Ultra looked a bit overwhelming, just like the Apple version did. If you have bigger bones and thought the Apple Watch Ultra was an alright size, you wont have an issue with Samsungs version. I will say that in my brief time with the Galaxy Watch Ultra, it never felt too heavy, and I almost forgot I was wearing it. I already described how Samsung is bringing double pinch to the Galaxy Watch series this year, which is basically Apples double tap but less sophisticated. In my brief experience, Apples implementation is more thorough and works in more parts of the interface (like for jumping through individual widgets in its smart stack, for example). Samsungs approach is fairly limited, since it appears to only be able to do one or two things. The Galaxy Watch Ultra does have one notable difference from the Apple Watch Ultra buttons. It has three on its right edge: the Home button on top and the back button at the bottom, just like previous models offered. But a new Quick Button sits in the middle and can be customized to launch an app or workout with a press. You can also determine what it does when you click it twice, but by default holding it down for five seconds will trigger the emergency siren, which is another feature that Apple also launched with the original Watch Ultra. A lot of Samsungs interface also looks similar to Apples here, though its alarm sounds more monotonous and shrill than the iPhone makers. Sam Rutherford for Engadget One thing about the Galaxy Watch Ultra annoyed me more than anything else. Although its a dial that can turn, rotating the Quick Button doesnt scroll through the interface. Theres also no physical spinning bezel here, so the only way you have to scroll through Samsungs software is by dragging your finger across the screen. For a smartwatch company thats best known for its rotating bezel that allows for easy scrolling, this seems like a glaring omission and a missed opportunity. Oh and just like the Apple Watch Ultras Action button, the Quick button is easy to accidentally press into when you bend your wrist backwards while doing pushups, for example. Theres a lot more of the Galaxy Watch Ultra Id like to test properly, like whether its 3nm processor truly translates to speedier performance and longer battery life. Samsung claims the Galaxy Watch Ultra can last up to 60 hours of typical use, 100 hours in Power Saving and 48 hours in Exercise Power Saving. Im also curious to see how Samsungs double pinch feature compares to Apples version, even though I dont find myself using the latter much in the real world anyway. Has Samsung really done anything better than Apple with the Galaxy Watch Ultra? Though Im skeptical at the moment, its a little too early to tell. Its definitely a good thing that Samsung has priced its Watch Ultra at $650, which is $150 less than the Apple Watch Ultra and certainly more palatable. But I can only wait till after Ive put the device to the test in the real world to know if its worth spending any money on. If youre already intrigued, you can pre-order the Galaxy Watch Ultra and Watch 7 starting today on Samsung.com and theyll be available on July 24. Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 $300 at Samsung Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra $650 at Samsung Catch up on all the news from Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked 2024 here! Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products . Samsung's new Galaxy Buds lineup is hardly a surprise thanks to a recent leak, but the company still had to officially debut its latest audio accessory at its Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event. Alongside new folding phones, watches and even a smart ring, Samsung revealed the Galaxy Buds 3 series. The new models have a more AirPods-like look thanks to their stickbud or "blade" design, and Samsung is playing catch-up with new features like an Interpreter tool, Adaptive EQ and others. Until now, Samsung has opted for the more common, rounded earbud design most companies favor for their products. The stick-based look has become increasingly popular though, and much of Apple's competition have debuted their own takes on the style. Now we can count Samsung among the fold. The company says its new "blade" design is based on "a variety of collected statistical data" and offers "a more intuitive physical experience" thanks to pinch and swipe controls another aspect of the AirPods Pro. The key difference is the "regular" Galaxy Buds 3 are an open fit like the "regular" AirPods while the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro have a tip that completely seals off your ear canal. Despite that variance, both offer active noise cancellation (ANC), but only the Pro model has ambient sound/transparency mode. Another big difference between the two models is the two-way speakers on the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. Samsung has paired a 10.5mm dynamic driver with dual amplifiers and a 6.1mm planar tweeter that offers "precise high range sound production." Both Galaxy Buds 3 models support ultra high quality (UHQ) sound up to 24bit/96kHz and 360 Audio when paired with a compatible Samsung device. The two models vary on battery life as well. The Galaxy Buds 3 will last up to five hours with ANC on (24 hours total with the case), but you'll get an hour more of noise-canceling performance on the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro (26 hours total with the case). Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 hands-on The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro sitting outside of the case. As you might expect, Samsung is sprinkling AI on its new earbuds. Both models offer an Interpreter feature that works with compatible Galaxy devices, a tool that relies on artificial intelligence to do its translating. It's similar to what Google has been doing on its Pixel Buds for a while now and all of the work is done by the connected device rather than the earbuds. The company says microphones on the Galaxy Buds 3 series monitor external noise in real time and apply tweaks with both an Adaptive EQ and Adaptive ANC. On the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, the noise cancellation setup can also detect sirens and your voice, and when it picks up the latter, it automatically reduces the volume and activates transparency mode. That feature, known as Voice Detect, was available on the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, but it's nice to see the feature return. Samsung has also added hands-free controls for music and other content with what it calls Voice Command. To improve overall voice quality, the company added a Super Wideband calls tool that allows Galaxy Buds 3 to transmit voice up to 16kHz. Samsung says previous earbuds only utilize up to the 8kHz band, but the Pixel Buds Pro supports Super Wideband too. Of course, the company also employs machine-learning models to battle background noise when you're speaking. The Galaxy Buds 3 and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro are available for pre-order now for $180 and $250 respectively. Both models come in silver and white color options, and if you buy them from the company's website before July 23, Samsung will throw in a free protective "clip case." Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 $180 at Samsung Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro $250 at Samsung Catch up on all the news from Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked 2024 here! Samsungs Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch Ultra will be the very first smartwatches to receive access to Wear OS 5, Googles latest operating system for wearables. This was unveiled at todays Unpacked event, alongside a slew of major product announcements . These product announcements also happened to include the aforementioned smartwatches . That means that Samsungs recently-announced gadgets are the very first smartwatches to get Wear OS 5, even before Googles own products. This will change later in the year when the Pixel Watch 3 is likely to drop. Interestingly, this is exactly how it went down with Wear OS 4. The operating system first came to the Galaxy Watch 6 before being included with the Pixel Watch 2. Google officially revealed Wear OS 5 two months ago at I/O 2024 and the new software is filled with useful updates. The UI is mostly the same as Wear OS 4, but the software has been optimized to improve battery life by up to 30 percent. There are some new health monitoring features, including analysis of stride length when walking or running. The operating system includes some efficiency upgrades, with Google saying that, for instance, running a marathon will consume 20 percent less power on Wear OS 5 when compared to OS 4. Theres a new grid-based app launcher and additional options for watch faces. This software update doesnt reinvent the wheel, but that extra efficiency is sure to be a boon for many consumers. Incidentally, theres no information as to when the operating system will be ported to Samsungs older smartwatches. Well just have to wait and find out. For now, you have to plunk down $300 for the Galaxy Watch 7 or $650 for the Ultra to access the OS. Catch up on all the news from Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked 2024 here! US officials and their allies have identified and taken down an artificial intelligence-powered Russian bot farm comprising almost 1,000 accounts. These accounts were able to spread disinformation and pro-Russian sentiments across X, formerly Twitter. The Justice Department has revealed the scheme was made possible by software created by a digital media department in RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet. According to a cybersecurity advisory from the FBI, intelligence officers from the Netherlands, and cybersecurity authorities from Canada, it centered on a tool called Meliorator, which can create authentic appearing social media personas en masse, generate text messages as well as images and mirror disinformation from other bot personas. For example, one account with the name Ricardo Abbott, which claimed to be from Minneapolis, posted a video of Russian President Vladimir Putin justifying Russias actions in Ukraine. The Justice Department is still tracing and trying to find all 968 accounts used by the Russian actors to disseminate false information. X has shared information with authorities on all the identified accounts and has already suspended them. Mat Smith The biggest stories you might have missed Logitech G launches a new $80 wireless recharging mouse Apple TVs new Time Bandits show just got a glorious trailer and a July release date Engadgets guide to the best smart plugs You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here! And what to expect. Samsungs next big event kicks off in a few hours. Well be covering all the announcements (and testing out devices), so tune into our liveblog . We expect to see the Galaxy Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6, but their updates could be minor, as well as Samsungs newest wearable, the Galaxy Ring. If you want some insight into what to expect, you can read up on that right here. Bookmark our liveblog. With not-so-new content from writers who havent worked there in more than a decade. The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has returned online nearly a decade after shutting down. But the new owners of the once venerable source of Apple news appear to have transformed it into an AI-generated content farm. The site, which ceased operations in 2015, began publishing new articles, many of which appear nearly identical to content published by MacRumors and other publications over the past week. Adding to the grossness, the site also has an author page featuring former writers names and photos that appear to be AI-generated. Continue reading. First-year students will only be able to make calls and texts. Eton College, the elite historic British boarding school with famous alumni Princes William and Harry, Ian Fleming and Tom Hiddleston has instituted a new mobile phone policy for its first-year students starting in September. Those students will have to leave their smartphones at home and bring their SIM card to school to put in an old-school Nokia cell phone with a simple number pad, which can only make phone calls and send text messages. Continue reading. BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), on Tuesday conferred a flag of honor on an army company of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which was awarded the honorary title of "Model Rocket Artillery Company." Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president, presented the honorary flag at a ceremony held by the CMC in Beijing. Representatives of the awarded unit saluted Xi before accepting the flag. Xi extended his congratulations. At the ceremony, Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the CMC, read out an order to grant the honorary title signed by Xi. He Weidong, another vice chairman of the CMC, presided over the ceremony. Gypsy Rose Blanchard took to social media to officially share her pregnancy with her first child. Over the weekend, Blanchard announced she is expecting and is due to give birth in January by posting a collage of photos with her baby daddy, Ken Urker. "We are proud to announce we are expecting our first child in January 2025 -- announcement video on YouTube (link in bio). Thank you to the photographer @m0therofchaos for the amazing photos," she captioned her post. Aside from the photo announcement, she uploaded a vlog about her pregnancy journey on her new YouTube channel. "Well...the rumors are true! Ken and I are so excited to start our family together and I can't wait to share my journey with you here on YouTube and my other social media platforms. Thank you for all your support so far and I can't wait to see our family grow," she wrote in the vlog's description. When she filmed the vlog, she said she was 11 weeks pregnant and that her pregnancy was unplanned. "This was not planned at all. It was completely unexpected. But we're both very excited to take on this new journey of parenthood," she told her viewers. She also admitted that people might feel like she's not yet ready to be a mother. "It's still going to be a long journey ahead but I'm up for it. I know that there are going to be people that feel like I'm not yet ready to be a mother and I just don't know if anyone's really ready to become a mother," she said. "I don't know anybody that said, 'Okay, I'm ready. I'm doing this.' You know? I think, in my experience, everybody that I've ever talked to, they're like, 'It just happened.'" Ending her video, she said, "We are a family now and as unconventional as this relationship and this child may have come from, I couldn't be happier. This is a blessing. I found my freedom in a way that I never expected..." Gypsy just got released from prison in December after spending eight years behind bars for her involvement in the murder of her mom, Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard, in 2015. When she got out of prison, she was already married to Louisiana teacher Ryan Anderson, whom she married in 2022 in a prison wedding ceremony. However, after her release, they split in March this year. A month after their separation, she rekindled her romance with her ex, Urker, whom she met in prison. They were previously engaged before she tied the knot with Anderson. A pastor reportedly hit his wife in the head while on a flight from Seattle, Washington, to Anchorage, Alaska, and is now banned from ever flying with the airline again. On July 2, Roger Allan Holmberg, Sr. and his wife were traveling for ministry related purposes. During the flight, the wife of the pastor's seat was upgraded, while his was not. Holmberg did not take to this well. According to 'ABC News,' a witness recalled Holmberg asking his spouse: "How the hell did you get the upgrade." His wife responded: "I'm a Gold Point member. Don't speak to me like that." The witness claims the pastor gave his wife the middle finger before swinging in her direction, hitting her in the head. Passengers reported the incident to airline police and upon further investigation, the wife revealed that the flight assault was not the first time he had got physical with her. She alleges that he had broken her finger in the past. Holmberg asserts that his wife is "disrespectful to him often and had anger issues." While talking to authorities, the pastor shared that he was unhappy that "he wanted his wife to travel with him and sit next to him. Although he was upset, he stated he was not a violent person and did not intend to hurt his wife." He alleged that the contact he made with her was simply an effort to "get her attention." A spokesperson for the airline said in a statement that "Mr. Holmberg has been banned from our flights and a simple assault charge was filed against him by the U.S. Gov't. (FBI) on July 3rd." 2 La Junta asegura que este viernes se "va a saber de que se tienen que preparar" los estudiantes andaluces para la PEvAU Donations poured in to help rebuild Kyiv's main children's hospital, as Ukraine mourned at least 40 people killed during a major Russian missile attack across the country a day before, including a main children's hospital. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he remained committed to increasing defense spending to 2.5% of GDP and would do so within his government's fiscal rules following a review of defense strategy. Morrisons has announced it will collaborate with The Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture (TIAH) to support its farmers with skills and net zero goals. The retailer will trial the skills organisation's digital platform, which is part-funded by Defra, to help address the skills gaps in agriculture. TIAH, together with the School of Sustainable Food & Farming at Harper Adams University, has developed four modules offering farmers a step-by-step approach to learning the key information. The topics will cover calving best practice; common beef disease; measuring and improving growth; and efficient forage. The news comes after Morrisons, McDonalds and the NFU founded the School of Sustainable Food & Farming in 2022 to support farmers to produce food more sustainably. The school has already welcomed more than 100 farmers to Morrisons stores where events have encouraged networking and helped provide farmers with a better understanding of the wider supply chain and sustainability. A further calendar of events is planned for the upcoming months, the supermarket chain confirmed. Stephen Jacob, chief executive of TIAH, said: We are pleased to be working with Morrisons to develop this unique programme to support livestock farmers with their sustainability goals. "We will work to ensure this trial will enable us to learn about the way in which farmers want to access and action learning for impact on their farms. Morrisons has a commitment to introducing sustainable products across all areas of its business through lower emissions sourcing and reducing the amount of plastic used. It forms part of the retailer's ambition to be completely supplied by net zero carbon British farms by 2030. Last year, it became the first supermarket to introduce its own carbon neutral egg. Sophie Throup, technical director at Myton Food Group for Morrisons, said: "Were proud to be the first retailer to partner with TIAH to support our livestock farmers in reducing their environmental impact. "We are looking forward to testing and trialling new practices with 20 of our farmers to help us develop the next phase of our march towards net zero by 2030. "Better information leads to better practices and this new partnership will help deliver that. Researchers want to hear from livestock farmers about the risk of bluetongue disease in Britain to help shape how to deal with it. The UK had been free of the notifiable insect-borne viral disease that affects sheep and cattle until recently, but new cases were recorded in late 2023 and early 2024. The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) has confirmed that there is a very high probability of a new introduction of the virus as summer gets underway. Higher temperatures and rainfall create conditions favourable to the biting midges that spread the disease. This means livestock may be more at risk, with vets and farmers being warned to be extremely vigilant by the UKs Chief Vet. Researchers at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen want to hear from sheep and cattle keepers about this emerging risk. The aim is to help them assess and inform policy makers in decision making when dealing with the disease, which does not affect humans or food safety. They have devised a short anonymous survey, with 5 to be donated to a choice of farming charity for each completed survey. Following Labour's landslide victory in the July general election, the British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) has called on the new government to fulfil its promise of change by prioritising the revival of the independent retail sector and high streets across the UK. In light of the election result, the association is reiterating its key priorities for the new government. These include lowering business rates for smaller retailers and reviewing corporate tax to encourage more investment by smaller businesses. Additionally, Bira is calling for continued investment in local high streets, addressing issues such as parking availability and cost, and increasing focus on combating retail crime, the association said in a news release. Following Labour's landslide victory in July, the British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) urged the new government to prioritise reviving the independent retail sector and UK high streets. Bira's key priorities include lowering business rates, reviewing corporate tax, investing in high streets, combating retail crime, and revising regulations. Other key priorities include a review of the cycle to work scheme to ensure that retailers also benefit, a coordinated plan to reduce wastage in the retail sector, and a review of regulations to prevent disproportionate impact on smaller retailers. Bira emphasised that these priorities are crucial for the survival and growth of independent retailers, which are the backbone of local economies and communities across the UK. "We know there is a commitment to reforming business ratesthat needs to happen at the earliest opportunity to protect high street businesses. We also need to see the commitment to investing in our town centres and local areas, where independent retailers play such a vital role in the local economy. We also hope that the nature of this election result boosts consumer confidence, resulting in economic growth," said Andrew Goodacre, CEO of Bira. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DP) Container freight rates sharply increased following disruptions in the Red Sea region a few months ago. Recently, China's rush to export goods before the US imposed higher import duties on August 1 further exacerbated the container shortage and rate hikes. Exporters from Asian countries, including India, are facing an acute container crisis. India reviewed the situation last week. The United States announced an increase in tariffs on imports of electric vehicles, batteries, computer chips, and medical products from China, effective from August 1. There are indications that Chinese exporters have ramped up the shipment of these products before the hike in import duty in the US. Container freight rates surged due to Red Sea disruptions and China's export rush before higher US import duties on August 1. Asian exporters, including India, face a severe container shortage. Red Sea disruptions and increased Chinese demand worsened the container crisis. Indian officials addressed the issue, noting shipment delays and financial stress. Industry sources report increased demand for containers at Chinese ports. Typically, ships arrive in China with imports from the US, Europe, and other Western regions, returning with exports from China and other Asian nations. However, disruptions in the Red Sea region due to the Israel-Hamas conflict have forced longer routes through Africa, leading to a shortage of ships and containers. The heightened demand from Chinese exporters has further strained shipping services for South and Far-East Asian countries. Purusottam Parmanandka, joint managing director of Tiruppur-based yarn trading company Kesharinandan Knit Fabrics Pvt Ltd, told Fibre2Fashion, Exporters are facing an acute crisis of containers at Indian ports. They are unable to ship their consignments, which causes financial stress. They cannot expect payment for their consignments on time if they get delayed. The entire textile sector is facing this serious problem. Last week, Indian Minister of Commerce Piyush Goyal met with exporter organisations and export promotion councils to address the container crisis. Export bodies expressed concerns over potential shipment delays and higher freight charges, which are causing significant challenges for the export community. The Drewry World Container Index (WCI) increased by another 10 per cent to $5,868 per 40-feet container for the week ending July 4. It was 298 per cent higher than the same week last year. Exporters anticipate that freight rates will likely stabilise once the rush from Chinese exporters subsides after the deadline. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL) The European Union (EU) and Turkiye recently discussed key cooperation areas like green transition and digital trade that have a bearing on the Customs Union, and ways to resolve additional priority trade barriers after the latter removed 11 trade barriers out of 26 in early 2021. At the first EU-Turkiye High-Level Dialogue on Trade in Brussels, delegations led by EU executive vice president and commissioner for trade Valdis Dombrovskis and Turkish minister for trade Omer Bolat discussed business mobility and the road transport quotas applied by EU member states to Turkish hauliers. They discussed further areas of cooperation, notably ways to prevent the circumvention of EU sanctions via the Customs Union. The dialogue gave political steer to the work on addressing the remaining bilateral trade irritants and allowed for a discussion on several areas of cooperation that would strengthen the functioning of the Customs Union, an official EU release said. EU-Turkiye bilateral trade was worth 206 billion in 2023. The dialogue was preceded by the EU-Turkiye Business Roundtable where representatives of major Turkish and EU business associations discussed current state of play in implementing the Customs Union and perspectives for enhancing bilateral trade and economic relations. Huizhou, China--(Newsfile Corp. - July 9, 2024) - BSL Battery - Industrial, a recognized leader in lithium-ion forklift batteries, today announced the closing of its first round of funding at $21 million to expand its cloud platform for AI-based energy management for batteries, as well as to increase sales and expand distribution. Figure 1 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/9276/215638_683d87bdc47ec844_001full.jpg According to Mr. Lin Peng, Technical Director, the cash injection will be used to fund new product technology innovation and product UL2580 certification, enabling the company to provide a fast return on investment for cost-sensitive warehouse operators who are looking to reduce worker safety risks, as today's challenges in recruiting and retaining workers make their safety a pressing concern for almost any operations or facility manager. To help protect workers, BSLBATT engineers developed advanced material handling batteries and chargers that address the challenges of forklift lead-acid batteries, including short battery life, additional maintenance, and some of the riskier replacement and maintenance activities associated with inefficient energy transfer to improve safety. Eric Yi, CEO of BSLBATT, said: "Completing this financing with the help of existing investors and new financing partners is a great proof that we are on the right track. With the new capital, we will have a balance sheet that will help us drive growth for existing customers through improved product performance and more UL2580 certifications, which will change the landscape of material handling in the warehousing and distribution sectors." Cannot view this video? Visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW7g1WWxQGo The research and development projects currently underway have not been disclosed, but the funds will also be used to recruit new employees. The company currently has a total of 288 employees. They plan to more than double the number of positions in engineering, automation, software, production and sales in the next 12 to 18 months. In the long term, Haley Ning, Chief Marketing Officer of BSLBATT, said BSL Battery - Industrial could diversify to include lithium-ion batteries in other areas, mentioning that competitors are developing similar batteries for Micro excavator, AGV, lithium battery for mining. However, the biggest demand right now is material handling in Europe and North America "There are more than 10 million forklifts in the world, and about 70% of them are in North America and Europe," he said. "So it's a very large market, and we're just starting to get involved in both markets." With lithium traceability becoming more stringent around the world, the company also plans to incorporate traceability of lithium from raw mines to battery cells into its software platform-a standard that Haley Ning said is already in place in Europe. To learn more about BSL Battery - Industrial, visit www.lithiumforkliftbattery.com, Follow us on YOUTUBE and LinkedIn. About BSL Battery - Industrial Founded in 2012, BSLBATT is an innovative high-tech company that designs and manufactures smart lithium-ion batteries (up to 50% more efficient than similar products on the market) for industrial forklifts used in the warehousing and distribution industry. The company's mission is to lead customers to clean, safe and innovative lithium technology platforms. BSLBATT offers a range of high-quality lithium-ion battery packs with UL2580, IEC62619, CE and UN38.3 certifications, including proprietary Battery Management System (BMS) and cloud platform technologies, providing customers with better performance, lower cost of ownership and greener solutions than traditional lead-acid and propane batteries in many usage scenarios. Lithium-ion battery packs reduce CO2 emissions and help improve fleet sustainability and ESG metrics. For more information about BSLBATT, visit lithiumforkliftbattery.com. Sales Contact BSLBATT Battery Room 608, Building 1 Zhonghui International Mansion, Huicheng District, Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China Name: Haley Ning Phone: +86-752-2819469 Email: inquiry@bsl-battery.com Web Site: https://www.lithiumforkliftbattery.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/215638 SOURCE: 500Newswire, LLC The Review Growth Index (RGI) by Doctor Marketing, MD awards the Top 10 Rated Plastic Surgery Practices in Austin, Texas after detailed analysis of over 6,000+ online patient reviews given to 133 medical practices. Austin is home to some of the best plastic surgeons in the Southwestern part of the United States. The Review Growth Index (RGI) by Doctor Marketing, MD has identified which Austin cosmetic practices made the list for the first quarter of 2024. After analyzing data from over 133 medical practices and 6,626 online Google Reviews, the Top 10 Plastic Surgery and Cosmetic Surgery Clinics in Austin stand out for their patient satisfaction rating and number of online reviews. The Top 10 account for 2,434 Google Reviews and 36.73% percent of all plastic surgery reviews online for Austin plastic surgeons. With an average of over 243.4 patient reviews per practice, these surgeons display surgical excellence that sets them apart from the rest. Austin patients share their positive cosmetic experiences from the thousands of reviews. For those consumers who want top cosmetic enhancements in the Austin metropolitan area, these 10 practices represent the best of the best for Austin residents ( Austinites ) to choose from. Austin Top 10 Plastic Surgeons , the best-rated in Austin, Texas. There were twenty-two plastic surgeons from the Top 10 Plastic Surgery Practices in Austin for Q1 of 2024. Data was compiled by the Review Growth Index (RGI) and is based on the number of Google Reviews received as of 11/30/23. Image Credit: Respective Austin Plastic Surgeons. Illustration by: Doctor Marketing, MD. "Our marketing agency has gathered comprehensive Google Review data from 133 plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgery practices in Austin, TX. The Top Rated Best Plastic Surgery Clinics in Austin are made up of 22 of the best Austin plastic surgeons that received a combined 6,626 patient reviews. Doctor Marketing, MD gives recognition to those Austin area medical practices and doctors for their achievements in generating the highest number of patient reviews and ratings based on patient satisfaction and quality of care," said Marty Stewart, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Doctor Marketing, MD, a top digital marketing agency that does plastic surgery marketing and content marketing for plastic surgeons , and the Review Growth Index (RGI). Top 10 Ranked Plastic Surgeons and Cosmetic Practices in Austin, Texas Here are the top ten: Mia Aesthetics Austin: 543 Reviews / 4 Stars - Ranked #1 - Dr. Rambod Charepoo - Dr. Anil Kashyap Westlake Dermatology & Cosmetic Surgery: 353 Reviews / 4.3 Stars - Ranked #2 - Dr. Daniela Atencio Face Austin: 257 Reviews / 5 Stars - Ranked #3 - Dr. Marcelo Antunes Buckingham Center For Facial Plastic Surgery: 222 Reviews / 4.9 Stars - Ranked #4 - Dr. Edward Buckingham - Dr. Erin Smith - Dr. Hudson Frey Austin Gynecomastia Center: 218 Reviews / 5 Stars - Ranked #5 - Dr. Robert Caridi The Piazza Center: 180 Reviews / 4.8 Stars - Ranked #6 - Dr. Rocco Piazza Synergy Plastic Surgery: 176 Reviews / 4.9 Stars - Ranked #7 - Dr. Mahlon Kerr - Dr. Ross Blagg - Dr. Lauren Crawford - Dr. Ankur Mehta - Dr. Aisha White Austin Face & Body: 165 Reviews / 4.8 Stars - Ranked #8 - Dr. Sean Paul - Dr. Jeanie Lujan - Dr. Chris Schneider - Dr. Cain Linville Austin Plastic Surgery Institute: 164 Reviews / 4.9 Stars - Ranked #9 - Dr. Scott Haydon - Dr. Justin Booth Andrew Trussler, MD, PLLC: 156 Reviews / 5 Stars - Ranked #10 - Dr. Andrew Trussler Review Growth Index (RGI) Best Plastic Surgeons in Austin, Texas for Q1 of 2024 For the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, Google Review data was compiled through November 30th, 2023 to determine the top best rankings for Austin, Texas (TX). Here is the in-depth data snapshot compiled by the Doctor Marketing, MD Review Growth Index (RGI): 146 total plastic surgeons and cosmetic practices in Austin, Texas were identified via Google My Business (GMB) profiles and Google Map listings for Austin. 133 plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery practices / clinics remained after removing duplicates. (Note: Some doctors have both a private practice under their own name, and are part of a larger medical group under a practice name, and were listed twice, thus removed) 6,626 total online Google Reviews for all Austin plastic surgeons as of 11/30/23. 103 practices (70.54%) had at least 1 online review. 43 practices (29.5%) had 0 online reviews. Average rating across all practices was 4.64 stars. 64.33 was the average number of reviews per practice. Statistics Exclusively for the Top 10 Austin Practices: 2,434 total reviews for the Top 10 combined. This was 36.73% of all reviews combined. 243.4 was the average # of Google Reviews per practice in the Top 10. Star Ratings ranged from 4.3 to 5 stars, with the average being 4.76 stars. About The Review Growth Index (RGI) The Review Growth Index (RGI) by Doctor Marketing, MD is an innovative metric designed specifically for the healthcare and medical industries, with current focus on the plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures sectors. It works by aggregating public data from major review platforms like Google Reviews to develop a comprehensive assessment of a doctor or surgeon's online reputation and performance. RGI analyzes the volume of patient reviews a surgeon receives, the star ratings given, and expressions of patient satisfaction. This provides prospective patients a reliable benchmark for choosing skilled, well-regarded doctors or surgeons with confidence. It also serves plastic surgeons by analyzing patient feedback patterns, enabling refinements to medical services and clinical approaches. Overall, RGI functions as an industry-specific gauge of excellence based on actual patient outcomes and experiences. Its insights help match discerning clients with surgeons delivering exceptional care and results. Prior curated lists of plastic surgeon reviews include the Top 10: Best Plastic Surgeons in Houston, TX Best Plastic Surgeons in New York, NY Best Plastic Surgeons in Chicago, IL Best Plastic Surgeons in Phoenix, AZ Best Plastic Surgeons in San Antonio, TX Best Plastic Surgeons in Dallas, TX About Doctor Marketing, MD Doctor Marketing, MD is a top healthcare marketing agency , specializing in digital marketing for medical practices , content creation, content distribution, and strategy. The firm works with Top Doctors and Surgeons, Healthcare Companies, Medical Professionals, Private Practices, Medical Groups and Clinics, Hospitals, Executives, and Leaders in the Healthcare Industry and specialty Medical sectors. Doctor Marketing, MD has built a world-class content writing team of award-winning writers, SEOs, copywriters, wordsmiths, and ghostwriters. They've perfected a proprietary content assembly line process, and further specialize in large-scale content production through well-crafted blog posts, articles, and medical content pieces that attract new patients. Doctor Marketing, MD Helps Medical Professionals and Healthcare Providers Attract New Patients and Increase Patient Acquisition: Better, Faster and with Less Effort. Need Strategic Marketing Guidance For Your Doctor's Office, Healthcare, Medical, Clinic, Medspa, Plastic or Cosmetic Surgical Practice? CONTACT: Doctor Marketing, MD Anna Goldstein Director of Media Relations 877-463-9777 ext. 3 anna.goldstein@doctormarketingmd.com https://DoctorMarketingMD.com/ Connect with Doctor Marketing, MD on Social Media: Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube Schedule a Deep-Dive Marketing Analysis for Your Medical Practice, Visit: https://DoctorMarketingMD.com/contact/ SOURCE: Doctor Marketing, MD (DRMMD) View the original press release on accesswire.com The World Spirits Alliance (WSA) has today launched a groundbreaking study that highlights the enormous economic impact of the global spirits industry. Conducted by Oxford Economics and the IWSR, the WSA Global Economic Impact Study reveals for the first time the sector's crucial role in driving economic growth, generating significant tax revenues and creating millions of jobs around the world. In 2022 alone the spirits industry injected an astonishing US$730 billion into global GDP while supporting 36 million jobs, equivalent to the entire workforce of the United Kingdom. Spirits generated US$390 billion in tax revenue, comparable to the tax intake of a top 20 global economy, while manufacturers spent US$120 billion with their suppliers, over half of which went directly to supporting agriculture. Launching the report, Philippe Schaus, CEO of Mo?t Hennessy and President of the WSA, remarked: "Our Global Economic Impact Study shows clearly the spirits industry's indispensable contribution to the world economy. From employment to tax revenue, and from fostering innovation to supporting sustainable practices, our industry plays a crucial role. Notably, more than half of the spirits sold globally are now at the premium level or above, proof that our consumers are embracing the 'drink less, but better' philosophy." Helen Medina, newly-appointed CEO of the WSA, added: "At a time of rising trade tensions, this report provides an important reminder of what a success story the global spirits sector is. I am excited and committed to navigate these opportunities and challenges together with my members. The figures featured in our landmark study underscore our significant economic role and the need for continued collaboration to maintain stability and progress. Prioritising responsible drinking, production and marketing practices remains at the forefront of our efforts to ensure the long-term success and positive impact of the spirits industry." Notes to editors The World Spirits Alliance (WSA) is a Geneva-based trade association. Together with its members, it is committed to responsible production, advertising and marketing practices and to encouraging adults who choose to consume spirits, to do so responsibly and in moderation. Access "Spirits: Global Economic Impact Study 2024" here. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240709906381/en/ Contacts: For more information, contact sonia.staicu@redflag.global Siegfried AG / Key word(s): Personnel Marcel Imwinkelried appointed as new CEO 10-Jul-2024 / 06:30 CET/CEST Release of an ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. The Board of Directors of Siegfried Holding AG has appointed Marcel Imwinkelried as the new CEO with effect as of September 1, 2024. He will succeed Reto Suter, who has been leading the Siegfried Group as CEO ad interim since May 1, 2024, and will now focus again on his role as CFO. Marcel Imwinkelried (1967) joined the Siegfried Group in January 2021 as Multi-Site Head for the Drug Products sites in Barbera del Valles and El Masnou (Barcelona) and Irvine (California) and was appointed Chief Operating Officer Drug Products in October 2021. Previously, he had worked for Novartis since 2005 in various roles with increasing responsibility and was appointed Global Head Technical Operations Solids in 2018. Andreas Casutt, Chairman of the Board of Directors: "Over the past three months, we have conducted intensive interviews with qualified external and internal candidates. Marcel impressed us not only with his professional track record, but also with his personality and strong leadership skills. As COO of our Drug Products division and a member of the Executive Board, he has already made significant contributions to Siegfried's success over the past three years. I am convinced that under his leadership Siegfried will continue its journey of growth." Contact Financial Analysts: Media: Dr. Reto Suter Peter Stierli CEO ad interim and CFO Head Corporate Communications reto.suter@siegfried.ch peter.stierli@siegfried.ch Tel. +41 62 746 11 35 Tel. +41 62 746 15 51 Siegfried Holding AG Untere Bruehlstrasse 4 CH-4800 Zofingen About Siegfried The Siegfried Group is a global life sciences company with sites in Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, Malta, the USA and China. In 2023, the company achieved sales of CHF 1.272 billion and employed on 31.12.2023 more than 3700 people at twelve sites on three continents. Siegfried Holding AG is publicly listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (SIX: SFZN). Siegfried is active in manufacturing pharmaceutical APIs (and their intermediates) as well as drug products (tablets, capsules, sterile vials, ampoules, cartridges and ointments) for the pharmaceutical industry and provides development services. Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This media release includes statements concerning the future. They are based on assumptions and expectations that may prove to be wrong. They should be considered with due caution as, by definition, they contain known and unknown risks, insecurities and other factors which could result in a difference in the actual results, financial situation, developments or the success of Siegfried Holding AG or Siegfried Group from the explicit or implicit assumptions made in these statements. expect more Exolaunch played a pivotal part in the deployment of four satellites for its customers at ESA, NASA, and Spacemanic, marking a significant milestone for Europe's growing space industry Exolaunch, the global leader in launch mission management, integration, and satellite deployment services, proudly announced the successful deployment of four satellites aboard Arianespace's Ariane 6 maiden flight. The liftoff occurred on Tuesday, July 9 at 1600 GFT from the Guiana Space Centre, also known as Europe's Spaceport, in Kourou, French Guiana. Representing customers ESA, NASA, and Spacemanic, this mission highlights Exolaunch's crucial role in broadening access to space and supporting new launch vehicle providers. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240709995719/en/ The historic Ariane 6 liftoff occurred on Tuesday, July 9 at 1600 GFT from the Guiana Space Centre, also known as Europe's Spaceport, in Kourou, French Guiana. Photo credits: ESA, Arianespace, CNES. This historic launch featured ESA's ISTSat-1 and 3Cat-4, NASA's CURIE, and Spacemanic's GRBBeta satellites. The successful deployment of these satellites underscores Exolaunch's commitment to facilitating groundbreaking scientific research and technological advancements through reliable and innovative satellite deployment solutions. ESA's ISTSat-1, developed by students at the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, aims to demonstrate ADS-B technology, validating detection capabilities and assessing antenna and receiver performance for receiving messages from commercial aircraft. 3Cat-4, a CubeSat from Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, features a flexible microwave payload technology demonstrator with scientific objectives related to GNSS for Earth observation and AIS receiver validation. NASA's CURIE mission comprises two near-identical 3U CubeSats designed to explore low-frequency radio interferometry in space. These CubeSats will study solar radio bursts by maintaining a 1-3 km separation post-deployment, contributing to the understanding of heliospheric space weather and serving as a proof of concept for future space-based interferometry observatories. Spacemanic's GRBBeta, a 2U CubeSat, acts as a tech demonstration for the future CAMELOT constellation, aiming to detect and localize gamma-ray bursts from space. Managed by Spacemanic and led by the Technical University of Kosice, this mission tests new subsystems, including an advanced GNSS positioning module and a radio modem for instant telemetry. The successful launch of Ariane 6 represents a significant milestone for the European space industry, heralding a new era of enhanced access to space for European entities. Ariane 6 is designed to offer flexibility and cost-efficiency, making it an attractive option for various space missions. Through supporting this historic launch, Exolaunch reinforces its dedication to fostering growth and innovation in Europe's space sector. "Exolaunch is honored to have been part of the Ariane 6 maiden flight, working alongside Arianespace, ESA, and CNES to provide our customers with dependable access to space," remarked Jeanne Allarie, chief commercial officer at Exolaunch. "We also extend congratulations to ESA, NASA, and Spacemanic on their successful satellite deployments. We are proud to support these innovative missions and look forward to the scientific and technological advancements they will each bring. This launch is not only a testament to the technical prowess and collaborative spirit of the European space community, but also a stepping stone towards a more robust, competitive European presence in the global space industry. We look forward to the opportunity to support future Ariane 6 launches and ensure that Europe remains at the forefront of space exploration." About Exolaunch Exolaunch (Germany, USA) is a global leader in launch mission integration and deployment technologies. With a decade of flight heritage and nearly 400 satellites launched across 29 missions to date, Exolaunch leverages industry insight to tailor turnkey solutions that meet customer needs and respond to market trends. Exolaunch fulfills launch contracts for industry leaders, the world's most innovative start-ups, research institutions, government organizations, and international space agencies. The company develops and manufactures its own flight-proven and industry-leading small satellite separation systems, with the fastest-growing heritage on the market. Exolaunch promotes safe, sustainable, and responsible use of space and is committed to making space accessible for all. For more information, please visit www.exolaunch.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240709995719/en/ Contacts: For media inquiries, please contact media@exolaunch.com LONDON, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Levine Leichtman Capital Partners ("LLCP"), a global private equity firm, announced today that it has agreed to invest in Improve International Group ("Improve International" or the "Company") in partnership with its management team. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 1998, Improve International is the world leader in veterinary postgraduate training and education. Founded by vets for vets, the Company is committed to elevating veterinary practice worldwide, giving veterinary professionals the confidence and skills to deliver compassionate animal care. Improve International works with veterinary professionals globally to upskill them, while also providing content and training for ongoing Continuing Professional Development requirements. Improve International leverages state-of-the-art training facilities with engaging digital content to deliver courses in 20 countries and in 9 different languages. Headquartered in Swindon, UK, the Company has more than 170 employees, with offices in Germany, Spain, Portugal, the United States and France. Improve International will continue to be led by CEO Heber Alves and the existing management team. Heber Alves commented, "Our partnership with LLCP comes at a very exciting time for Improve International. We are proud of the offering we have built and are excited to continue to broaden access to veterinary professionals across the world, so they can enjoy their lifelong learning journey, and benefit greatly from its many rewards along the way. LLCP's deep experience in education and medical training will be highly valuable to us as we enter the next phase of growth." Josh Kaufman, Partner and Head of Europe at LLCP, said, "We are delighted to partner with Improve International. The management team has built a leading education business that is well positioned to service the growing needs of the veterinary industry globally. We are excited to help them scale the business through organic initiatives, including new course development and geographic expansion, as well as through strategic M&A." Improve International will be the seventh investment of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners Europe II, SCSp. Across its funds, LLCP has invested extensively in education, including GL Education, Skill Dynamics, Therapeutic Research Center, Squla, CJ Fallon and Mander Portman Woodward. LLCP has also invested in the veterinary space through Suveto in the U.S. LLCP was advised by DC Advisory (debt), KPMG (financial), Deloitte (tax), Willkie Farr & Gallagher (legal) and CIL (commercial). LLCP has acquired its stake in Improve International from lower middle-market private equity firm RJD Partners and members of the Company's management team. The vendors were advised by EY (lead advisory), Capital Law (legal), Strategy& PwC (commercial) and Deloitte (financial and tax), whilst management advice was provided by Jamieson (equity terms), K&L Gates (legal) and RSM (tax). About Levine Leichtman Capital Partners Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, LLC is a middle-market private equity firm with a 40-year track record of investing across various targeted sectors, including Business Services, Franchising & Multi-unit, Education & Training and Engineered Products & Manufacturing. LLCP utilizes a differentiated Structured Private Equity investment strategy, combining debt and equity capital investments in portfolio companies. LLCP believes that by investing in a combination of debt and equity securities, it offers management teams growth capital in a highly tailored, flexible investment structure that can be a more attractive alternative than traditional private equity. LLCP's global team of dedicated investment professionals is led by 10 partners who have worked at LLCP for an average of 19 years. Since inception, LLCP has managed approximately $14.8 billion of institutional capital across 15 investment funds and has invested in over 100 portfolio companies. LLCP currently manages $10.2 billion of assets and has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Miami, London, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Media Contact: Cathy Thomas; cthomas@llcp.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349427/LLCP_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/levine-leichtman-capital-partners-to-invest-in-improve-international-in-partnership-with-management-302192874.html Stuttgart, the hub for the automobile industry in Europe, hosted increased attendees, highlighting globally recognized decisions and innovations in EV, battery technology and supply chain. The Battery Show Europe and Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo Europe , the premier European event for all things battery and H/EV technology, hosted over 20,000 attendees during the three-day event at the Messe Stuttgart, Germany on 18-20 June 2024. Top exhibitors included the likes of Siemens, Parker, Lyric Germany, Keyence, Atlas Copco, ScanTech and ThermoFisher Scientific. Along with top-notch exhibitors, the event featured product showcases, allowing attendees to dig into new technologies and experience the latest innovations first-hand. Another highlight of the show is the Open Tech Forum, which hosted more than 20 presentations covering battery production, development and quality control, predictive battery analytics, allowing for expanded educational opportunities. "The EV market is continuing to evolve throughout Europe with the region consistently introducing new regulations to support its growth," says John Lewinski, vice president, Informa Markets Engineering. "As the global leader of automotive, EV and energy storage, hosting The Battery Show in Stuttgart is crucial for supporting the intersection of European and global markets. This year's event brought together the best-in-class innovators at the heart of the automotive industry to discover new technologies that drive worldwide impact." "We are changing from teachers to become students," Sebastian Wolf, chief operating officer of Volkswagen's PowerCo battery unit and conference panelist at The Battery Show Europe, notes in Bloomberg. "We have to all focus on becoming faster and becoming cost efficient." The Battery Show Europe highlights the continued growth of the European battery and EV markets, valued at USD $250 billion, a topic covered during a panel titled Battery Regulation and Battery Passport: Efficient policies for a competitive European automotive sector. With the continued expansion, the German government most recently developed battery passports to function as digital ID technology that can be used to trace battery minerals and materials along their supply chains. This new technology was highlighted by Systemiq, a company working to integrate Battery Passports throughout the EU. The passports will also allow access lifetime to carbon emissions, recycled materials and more, to encourage more transparency from manufactures and aligning with the mandate for electric vehicles sold in the European Union beginning in 2027 to show the composition of batteries, including origin of key materials, carbon footprint and volume of recycled content. Along with heightened focus on Battery Passports, a new track for the show, "Exploring BESS Technology," featured Stationary Energy Storage Systems (ESS), as it is a significant growth sector for the industry. The technology, which allows for the storage of energy that can be turned into electricity when needed, can be used for both grid and mobility needs. Considered a form of renewable energy, ESS can also be utilized for sustainability initiatives. The Battery Show Europe returns to Stuttgart in 2025 on 3-5 June. The Battery Show North America takes place 7-10 October 2024 at a new location with significant growth in Detroit, Michigan at Huntington Place. Register for the largest battery and EV show in North America at www.thebatteryshow.com . Stay informed for the latest news in the industry, as well as two new inaugural events, The Battery Show South (16-17 April 2025, Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia) and The Battery Show Asia in Hong Kong (July 15-17, AsiaWorld-Expo) through the official show media partners, Battery Technology and DesignNews. The second iteration of the newly added The Battery Show India will also trade 3-5 October 2024 at the India Expo Centre. About The Battery Show The Battery Show is the largest and most comprehensive advanced battery technology event, co-located with Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo, the only trade show and conference exclusively dedicated to advanced battery and the electric and hybrid vehicle drivetrain. Visitors to our shows can discover and demo the latest products, technology, and solutions from nearly a thousand suppliers, network with tens of thousands of attendees and access a breadth of education across multiple tracks and technical sessions. The Battery Show is organized by Informa Markets Engineering and includes The Battery Show Europe, The Battery Show North America, The Battery Show India. In 2025, Informa Markets Engineering is set to launch The Battery Show South and The Battery Show Asia. Listed media partners include Informa Market's Battery Technology and DesignNews. For more information, please visit www.informamarkets.com . About Informa Markets Engineering? Informa Markets' Engineering portfolio, a subsidiary of Informa plc (LON:INF), is the leading B2B event producer, publisher, and digital media business for the world's $3-trillion advanced, technology-based manufacturing industry. Our print and electronic products deliver trusted information to the engineering market and leverage our proprietary 1.3-million-name database to connect suppliers with buyers and purchase influencers. We produce more than 50 events and conferences in a dozen countries, connecting manufacturing professionals from around the globe. The Engineering portfolio is organised by Informa, the world's leading exhibitions organiser that brings a diverse range of specialist markets to life, unlocking opportunities and helping them to thrive 365 days of the year. For more information, please visit www.informamarkets.com. Media Contact? Informa Markets Engineering? EngineeringPR@informa.com SOURCE: INFORMA MARKETS - ENGINEERING View the original press release on accesswire.com NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES Q2 Metals Corp. (TSXV:QTWO)(OTCQB:QUEXF)(FSE:458) ("Q2" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has arranged a non-brokered private placement of units of the Company to raise gross proceeds of up to $7,500,000 (the "Offering") as follows: Up to 10,800,000 units of Q2 at a price of $0.4625 per unit (the "Charity Units") for gross proceeds of up to $4,995,000. Each Charity Unit will consist of one flow-through common share of Q2 (a "FT Share") and one half of one share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder to acquire one additional non-flow-through common share of Q2 at a price of $0.50 per share for a period of two years; Up to 1,000,000 units of Q2 at a price of $0.35 per unit (the "FT Units") for gross proceeds of up to $350,000. Each FT Unit will consist of one FT Share and one half of one Warrant; and Up to 8,620,000 units of Q2 at a price of $0.25 per unit (the "NFT Units") for gross proceeds of up to $2,155,000. Each NFT Unit will consist of one non-flow-through common share of Q2 and one half of one Warrant. Gross proceeds from the issuance of the Charity Units and FT Units will be used to incur "Canadian exploration expenses" that qualify as "flow-through critical mineral mining expenditures", as such terms are defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the "Tax Act"), on Q2's lithium projects in Quebec that the Company will renounce to the subscribers pursuant to the Tax Act with an effective date not later than December 31, 2024. Where applicable, gross proceeds from the sale of the FT Shares from purchasers in Quebec will also qualify as "Canadian exploration expense" under the Taxation Act (Quebec) and qualify for inclusion in the "exploration base relating to certain Quebec exploration expenses" and the "exploration base relating to certain Quebec surface mining exploration expenses", under the Taxation Act (Quebec). Proceeds from the sale of the NFT Units will be used for general working capital. The Company may pay finders' fees in accordance with the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange. Closing of the Offering is subject to certain customary conditions, is expected to occur on or about July 31, 2024, and is subject to receipt of acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange. All securities issued with respect to the Offering will be subject to a hold period of four months and one day in accordance with applicable securities laws or the Exchange Hold Period under the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities issuable pursuant to the Offering have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act or any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons, absent registration or any applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws About Q2 Metals Corp Q2 Metals is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on unlocking its portfolio of lithium projects in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region of Quebec, Canada, that includes both its 100-per-cent-owned Mia Lithium Property and the Cisco Lithium Property. The Cisco lithium property is located approximately 150 km north of Matagami, Que., and comprises 222 mineral claims and is 11,374 ha in size. The property has district-scale potential with an already identified mineralized zone and a discovery drill result of 115.4 metres of 1.40 percent lithium oxide (hole CS-23-05), cumulatively in five separate pegmatites. The Company's exploration advancement at its 8,668-hectare flagship Mia lithium property is focused on the more than 10-kilometre-long Mia trend which is host to both the Mia 1 and Mia 2 lithium occurrences and 11 other mineralized zones along trend. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Alicia Milne Kevin Bottomley Jason McBride President & CEO Director Corporate Communications Alicia@Q2Metals.com Kevin@Q2Metals.com Jason@Q2Metals.com Telephone: 1 (800) 482-7560 E-mail: info@Q2metals.com Follow the Company: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian legislation. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believes", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "estimates", "plans", "may", "should", "would", "will", "potential", "scheduled" or variations of such words and phrases and similar expressions, which, by their nature, refer to future events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. Accordingly, all statements in this news release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations and orientations regarding the future including, without limitation, any statements or plans regard the geological prospects of the Company's properties and the future exploration endeavors of the Company. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this news release speak only as of the date of this news release or as of the date specified in such statement. Forward looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, the Offering, the focus of the Company's current and future exploration and drill programs, the scale, scope and location of future exploration and drilling activities, the Company's expectations in connection with the projects and exploration programs being met, the Company's objectives, goals or future plans, statements, exploration results, potential mineralization, the estimation of mineral resources, exploration and mine development plans, timing of the commencement of operations and estimates of market conditions. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include failure to obtain necessary approvals, variations in ore grade or recovery rates, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, unsuccessful 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, risks associated with regulatory changes, defects in title, availability of personnel, materials and equipment on a timely basis, accidents or equipment breakdowns, uninsured risks, delays in receiving government approvals, unanticipated environmental impacts on operations and costs to remedy same. Readers are cautioned that mineral exploration and development of mines is an inherently risky business and accordingly, the actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional risk factors are discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for its recently completed fiscal period, which is available under Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedarplus.ca. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be others that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update this forward-looking information except as otherwise required by applicable 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 release. SOURCE: Q2 Metals Corp. View the original press release on accesswire.com LONDON, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Thunes, a global money movement innovator, today welcomes LianLian Global, a leading Chinese e-commerce cross-border payment service provider, to the Thunes Global Network. The Chinese payment company is offering a new solution, the LianLian Global Payout Service (LGPS), that leverages Thunes' fully compliant payment network to facilitate payouts to digital wallets and bank accounts in over 130 countries. This collaboration demonstrates Thunes' commitment to support the growth of Chinese e-commerce and simplify cross-border payments internationally. LGPS addresses the challenges of traditional cross-border payments, such as high costs, slow processing times and complex procedures. By joining the Thunes Global Network, LianLian Global offers a transparent, efficient, real-time and secure payment solution for cross-border payment service providers (PSPs), banks and other licensed financial institutions. Thanks to this partnership, over 1 million Chinese businesses will be able to send payments to over 3 billion digital wallet accounts and 4 billion bank accounts in over 130 countries in more than 80 currencies. Floris de Kort, CEO of Thunes, said, "We welcome LianLian Global to the Thunes Global Network with direct, real-time connectivity to 3 billion digital wallets and 4 billion bank accounts around the world. LianLian Global is a highly respected leader in cross-border e-Commerce, and we are happy to partner with them to provide the fastest, most transparent and fully compliant global payment solutions in the industry to 1 million merchants in China." Shen Enguang, co-CEO of LianLian Global, added, "We are committed to building a digital payment network that helps enterprises expand globally. As we launch LianLian Global Payout Service with the support of our trusted partner, Thunes, we aim to enhance cross-border payment efficiency and create new opportunities in international trade, particularly supporting the dynamic growth of Chinese businesses in the global market." Contact: Laura King, thunes@headlandconsultancy.com, +44 (0)78 1032 9390; Rebecca Hackworth, Corporate Communications, Thunes, rebecca.hackworth@thunes.com About Thunes: Thunes is a global payment innovator enabling businesses to move money in real-time and in full transparency. We empower our customers to pay and get paid by anyone, anywhere, and however they prefer, closing the gap between payment systems worldwide. With Thunes, large, medium and small companies can Accept cards, bank transfers and 330 alternative payment methods, and Pay over 3 billion mobile wallets and over 4 billion bank accounts. Thunes facilitates payments in more than 80 currencies across 130 countries, using local payment methods, including 120 mobile wallets like PayPal, M-Pesa and Airtel, for gig economy giants like Uber and Deliveroo, super-apps like Grab and WeChat, IMTOs, Fintechs, PSPs and banks. Headquartered in Singapore, Thunes has a presence in 13 locations, including Barcelona, Beijing, Dubai, London, Manila, Nairobi, Paris, San Francisco and Sao Paulo. Thunes puts money in motion. For more information, visit: https://www.thunes.com/ About LianLian Global: LianLian Global, as a core brand of Lianlian Digitech, is a comprehensive and innovative enterprise in cross-border finance and services in China. With strong compliance strength and technological innovation capabilities, LianLian Global has built a global financial network to reach the world and a trade service network to cover the entire life cycle of merchants. Focusing on the core needs of cross-border enterprises, LianLian Global, together with industry eco-partners, has created a one-stop cross-border trade service platform that integrates store opening assistance, global funds collection, global acquiring, global payout, LianLian FX1, LianLian financing service platform2, tax refund assistance and other services to help Chinese brands expand their overseas markets. [1] The exchange rate of LianLian Global FX business is provided by partner banks. [2] The financing products and corresponding contents displayed on the LianLian financing service platform are provided by relevant licensed institutions. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/thunes-powers-lianlian-globals-new-payment-service-302192434.html Multi-disciplinary team adds depth in major European market LONDON and ZURICH, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Colliers, a leading diversified professional services and investment management company, is set to fortify its European presence through a partnership agreement with SPGI Zurich AG. This strategic alignment will see the Switzerland-based commercial property advisor join Colliers' expansive EMEA platform as an affiliate.? SPGI Zurich, a company of the Intercity Group founded in 1954, has over 25 employees in Zurich and Basel. This partnership brings a team of leading professionals with long-standing expertise in international and local markets to Colliers. SPGI Zurich's services cover all real estate requirements and include capital markets, landlord representation, tenant representation, occupier services, valuation, and consulting, with specialisms in retail, office, and industrial & logistics asset classes. Davoud Amel-Azizpour, CEO | Colliers EMEA, said of the partnership: "This strategic expansion not only strengthens Colliers' footprint in central and western Europe but also aligns us with an established and highly reputable team that shares our core values. I am confident that this collaboration will unlock greater opportunities for our clients and our combined EMEA teams."? The leadership team at SPGI Zurich AG includes:? Robert Hauri, Co-Owner & CEO Dr Martin Greiner, Head of Investment Advisory & Deputy CEO Natalia Ignatova, Head of Tenant Representation Gabriela Brandenberg, Head of Offices and Retail Robert Hauri, CEO Intercity Group and Co-Owner & CEO SPGI Zurich AG, added: "This partnership will enhance the services we offer to our domestic and international investor and occupier clients in Switzerland. We are excited to leverage Colliers' global reach, established infrastructure, and industry leadership to drive our growth, increase our market share, and enhance our client service capabilities and career opportunities for our team." In conjunction with agreeing on this partnership, SPGI Zurich is expanding its presence in Switzerland to include Lausanne and Geneva. When finalised, Colliers' presence in Switzerland will encompass Zurich, Basel, Lausanne, and Geneva. SPGI Zurich AG, which previously held an affiliate agreement with Cushman and Wakefield, will commence its rebranding to Colliers Switzerland following this announcement.? ??Media Contact?: Anna Silkstone Head of Content | EMEA Anna.silkstone@colliers.com ?? About? Colliers ??Colliers, X? @Colliers ?or? LinkedIn .? A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7b5607c6-6eef-4e4b-9ef3-5f9b82aa4276 GKN Automotive has signed a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) with Recurrent Energy covering 65% of its European electricity load This development is a key step in the company's SBTi-approved targets to reduce its direct Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1 and 2) by 45% by 2030 and achieve net zero across the entire value chain by 2045 The agreement facilitates the supply of approximately 2 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of renewable electricity to the European grid over a 10-year period LONDON, July 10, 2024 The 10-year VPPA agreement will cover 65% of GKN Automotive's European electricity load and 30% of its global load, significantly contributing to the company's commitment to using 50% renewable electricity globally by 2025 and 75% by 2030. The joint agreement with Recurrent Energy will establish The Rey I project, a new2 large-scale solar farm in Spain, which will contribute towards the increased supply of renewable electricity to the Spanish grid - simultaneously contributing to the decarbonisation of the European grid. The project will facilitate the supply of approximately 200,000 MWh of renewable electricity to the European grid annually, reaching approximately 2 million MWh over the 10-year agreement. GKN Automotive will receive Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) equivalent to 65% of its European 2023 electricity usage. This development is a key step in the company's SBTi-approved targets to reduce its direct Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1 and 2) by 45% by 2030 and achieve net zero across its entire value chain by 2045. GKN Automotive is actively pursuing further VPPAs across Europe and South America, with the aim of further decarbonising its electricity usage across its global operations. Dr. Clare Wyatt, Chief People, Communications & Sustainability Officer at GKN Automotive, said: "Signing this VPPA with Recurrent Energy underscores our commitment to achieving our 2045 net zero ambition and contributing to the decarbonisation of the industry. It reflects our intention to continue to drive a cleaner, more sustainable world, through supporting projects that add to the supply of renewable electricity." Ismael Guerrero, CEO of Recurrent Energy, added: "Recurrent Energy is pleased to support GKN Automotive's commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2045. Recurrent Energy has a long track record of executing projects at scale for major worldwide customers, and we thank GKN Automotive for trusting us with their first VPPA in Europe. This virtual power purchase agreement exemplifies the dedication of both companies to invest in renewable energy projects that not only benefit operations but also contribute to the broader goal of combatting climate change." Schneider Electric, a global leader in corporate renewable energy procurement and carbon management, advised GKN Automotive in the project selection and VPPA negotiations. John Powers, Vice President, Global Renewables at Schneider Electric, said: "We are excited to support our client in this landmark renewable energy endeavor. This collaboration demonstrates the immense potential of VPPAs in driving sustainability efforts and accelerating the transition to renewable energy on a global scale." 1 Virtual Power Purchase Agreements enable companies like GKN Automotive to influence the mix of electricity on national grids, helping to secure the wider use of greener energy. Through these agreements, GKN Automotive will support the creation and expansion of renewable energy projects across Spain to further decarbonise the electricity supply to the European grid. In return, the company will receive Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) equivalent to 65% of the energy use across all its European sites. 2The electricity generated through this agreement is "additional", meaning that without the collaboration between both parties in this instance, an entirely new large-scale renewable energy site would not undergo construction. ABOUT GKN AUTOMOTIVE GKN Automotive is a world-leading global automotive technology company at the forefront of innovation. Its origins date back to 1759 and for the last 70 years it has bee n putting key technologies into series production. It is the trusted partner for most of the world's automotive companies, specialising in developing, building, and supplying market-leading drive systems and advanced ePowertrain technologies. It is the global leader in sideshafts, with eight out of ten of the world's best-selling cars outside China using its sideshaft technology. GKN Automotive's first eDrive system was fitted to a production car over 20 years ago; today, over two million electrified vehicles worldwide are powered by this technology. GKN Automotive is part of Dowlais Group plc, a specialist engineering group focused on the automotive sector. https://www.gknautomotive.com For further information, please contact: GKN Automotive Corrie Raine External Communications Manager Email: corrie.raine@gknautomotive.com About Schneider Electric Schneider's purpose is to create Impact by empowering all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. At Schneider, we call this Life Is On. Our mission is to be the trusted partner in Sustainability and Efficiency. We are a global industrial technology leader bringing world-leading expertise in electrification, automation and digitization to smart industries, resilient infrastructure, future-proof data centers, intelligent buildings, and intuitive homes. Anchored by our deep domain expertise, we provide integrated end-to-end lifecycle AI enabled Industrial IoT solutions with connected products, automation, software and services, delivering digital twins to enable profitable growth for our customers. We are a people company with an ecosystem of 150,000 colleagues and more than a million partners operating in over 100 countries to ensure proximity to our customers and stakeholders. We embrace diversity and inclusion in everything we do, guided by our meaningful purpose of a sustainable future for all. www.se.com For media inquiries, please contact: Shannon Lappin Davies, Director of Creative & Communications Services: Shannonlappin.davies@se.com Photos accompanying this announcement are available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6538e3ef-7364-49b9-8cfc-d1a66e88d34f https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8ae5013d-4c73-45a0-96be-522e6244550f Jasper, Tennessee--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Air Scientist Solutions Inc., a company specialising in indoor air quality, Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) solutions, has announced the nationwide launch of its WiFi Smart Air Unit retrofit. This patented technology provides energy savings, streamlined installation, and improved comfort and safety for residential and commercial spaces across the United States. Logo The WiFi Smart Air Unit integrates directly into the HVAC system, offering a smart alternative to traditional and smart wall-mounted thermostats. This technology eliminates the need for additional wall space, wiring, and complex installation processes. The unit aims to provide HVAC systems with advanced real-time data, control capabilities and security. Donny Case, CEO and founder of Air Scientist Solutions Inc., stated, "Our WiFi Smart Air Unit retrofit results from extensive research and development to improve how we manage indoor environments. We aim to enable HVAC systems to operate more efficiently while providing enhanced comfort and convenience for users by utilising advanced technologies." Industry analysts project the U.S. HVAC equipment market will reach $33.3 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.9% from 2024 to 2030. Air Scientist Solutions Inc. believes its WiFi Smart Air Unit retrofit is well-positioned to capture a portion of this market due to its advanced features, including real-time monitoring,safety features, predictive maintenance, and remote control capabilities. Case added, "The WiFi Smart Air Unit is designed to address the needs of various stakeholders, including consumers, contractors, technicians, unit manufacturers, wall thermostat manufacturers and distributors. It aims to save energy, reduce labour and materials, and provide new possibilities for comfort management. We look forward to introducing this solution to the market and contributing to a safe and more sustainable future." Air Scientist Solutions Inc. has reported interest from major retailers, including a few potential $5 million dollar orders from some well known major distributors. The company plans to expand its product offerings and market reach while delivering solutions promoting energy savings, operational efficiency and consumer safety. Case concluded, "We have several innovative products in development, all to advance the HVAC industry. With our WiFi Smart Air Unit retrofit at the forefront, we aim to significantly impact how we heat, cool, and ventilate our spaces." Visit https://www.fundable.com/smartair to learn more about the WiFi Smart Air Unit and Air Scientist Solutions Inc.'s mission to disrupt the HVAC industry. About Air Scientist Solutions Inc. Air Scientist Solutions Inc. is an HVAC company focused on developing advanced innovative products that save energy, labour, and materials. Founded in January 2022 by Donny Case, the company aims to advance the field through smart technology and user convenience to transform the design and operation of HVAC systems. Contact: Donny Case, CEO and Founder Air Scientist Solutions Inc. Email: airscientistsolutions@gmail.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/215501 SOURCE: Baden Bower LOWERING OF ACCEPTANCE CONDITION AND OFFER UNCONDITIONAL AS TO ACCEPTANCES NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION (IN WHOLE OR IN PART) IN, INTO OR FROM ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OF SUCH JURISDICTION. As of 1:00 p.m. (New York City time) on 9 July 2024, valid acceptances received in respect of 78.43% of the issued share capital of MariaDB as of 8 July 2024. As of 5:00 p.m. (New York City time) on 9 July 2024, valid acceptances received in respect of 82.33% of the issued share capital of MariaDB as of 8 July 2024. MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On 24 May 2024, Meridian BidCo LLC ("Bidco") made an offer to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of MariaDB plc ("MariaDB") (the "Offer") with the terms and conditions of the Offer set out in the offer document despatched and filed by Bidco as Exhibit (a)(1)(A) to the Tender Offer Statement and Rule 13e-3 Transaction Statement filed on Schedule TO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on 24 May 2024 (the "Offer Document"). On 24 June 2024, Bidco filed an amended and restated Offer Document with the SEC to reflect the exercise of the Rollover Withdrawal Right, the withdrawal of the Unlisted Unit Alternative and certain updates to disclosures. On 5 July 2024, Bidco filed an amendment and supplement to the Offer Document and Tender Offer Statement on Schedule TO with the SEC to reflect certain further updates to disclosures. Capitalised terms used but not defined in this announcement have the same meaning given to them in the Offer Document (as amended and restated and supplemented). Lowering of Acceptance Condition Bidco today announces that as of 5:00 p.m. (New York City Time) on 9 July 2024 it formally lowered the Acceptance Condition for its Offer for MariaDB from not less than 80% of MariaDB Shares Affected, to not less than 78% in nominal value of the Maximum MariaDB Shares Affected, which carry, or if allotted and issued, or re-issued from treasury would carry, not less than 78% of the voting rights attaching to the Maximum MariaDB Shares Affected. Offer Unconditional as to Acceptances Bidco is pleased to announce that as of 1:00 p.m. (New York City time) on 9 July 2024, it has received valid acceptances in respect of a total of 54,165,973 MariaDB Shares, representing 78.43% of the issued share capital of MariaDB as of 8 July 2024. Accordingly, Bidco is pleased to announce that the revised Acceptance Condition has now been satisfied and the Offer has become unconditional as to acceptances. As further detailed in the Offer Document, Bidco had received irrevocable undertakings to accept the Offer from various parties, in respect of a total of 47,402,907 MariaDB Shares, representing 68.63% of the issued share capital of MariaDB as of 8 July 2024. As of 1:00 p.m. (New York City time) on 9 July 2024, valid acceptances have been received from MariaDB Shareholders of record in respect of a total of 21,989,588 MariaDB Shares which were subject to such irrevocable undertakings, representing 31.84% of the issued share capital of MariaDB as of 8 July 2024. Additionally, 25,202,793 MariaDB Shares, or 36.49% of the issued share capital of MariaDB as of 8 July 2024, are subject to such irrevocable undertakings from certain other MariaDB Shareholders who hold their MariaDB Shares through a broker, dealer, commercial bank, trust company or other nominee. Given the manner in which those MariaDB Shares are held in The Depositary Trust Company's ("DTC") system and tendered through those intermediaries, it is not possible for Bidco to identify whether valid acceptances have been received from each individual MariaDB Shareholder that holds those MariaDB Shares. However, the underlying irrevocable undertakings remain valid until the Offer closes. Bidco has also received irrevocable undertakings to accept the Offer from Vista Associates Corporation as a MariaDB Shareholder of record in respect of a further 210,526 MariaDB Shares, representing 0.30% of the issued share capital of MariaDB as of 8 July 2024, for which valid acceptances have not been received as of 1:00 p.m. (New York City time) on 9 July 2024. Save as set out above, neither Bidco nor, as far as Bidco is aware, any person acting in concert with Bidco has any other interests in MariaDB Shares. Acceptances Update Bidco is pleased to announce that as of 5:00 p.m. (New York City time) on 9 July 2024, it has received valid acceptances in respect of a total of 56,865,729 MariaDB Shares, representing 82.33% of the issued share capital of MariaDB as of 8 July 2024. Assuming acceptances remain above 80% as of 5:00 p.m. (New York City time) on 23 July 2024 (the "Expiration Time"), as previously announced, Bidco intends to apply the provisions of Sections 456 to 460 of the Companies Act 2014 to acquire compulsorily any outstanding MariaDB Shares not acquired or agreed to be acquired pursuant to the Offer or otherwise. Deemed Satisfaction of all Conditions as of the Expiration Time Following satisfaction of the Acceptance Condition, the Offer is no longer conditioned on the Acceptance Condition, whether or not acceptances fall below 78% in nominal value of the Maximum MariaDB Shares Affected prior to the Expiration Time. Concurrent with the satisfaction of the Acceptance Condition, Bidco also announces that all other Conditions to the Offer shall be deemed by Bidco to be satisfied, fulfilled or to the extent permitted, waived at Expiration Time. Accordingly, the Offer shall remain open for acceptances until the Expiration Time and will then close. Further Acceptance of the Offer MariaDB Shareholders who have not yet accepted the Offer are encouraged to do so without delay in accordance with the instructions set out in the Offer Document and Letter of Transmittal. As a reminder, if you wish to tender all or a portion of your MariaDB Shares to Bidco in the Offer, you must do the following: If you hold your MariaDB Shares directly as the holder of record, complete and sign the Letter of Transmittal (either manually or electronically) (or, in the case of a book-entry transfer, deliver an Agent's Message in lieu of the Letter of Transmittal) that accompanied the Offer Document (which constitutes the form of acceptance for the Offer for the purposes of the Irish Takeover Rules) in accordance with the instructions set forth therein and mail or electronically deliver the Letter of Transmittal with any required signature guarantees and all other required documents to Computershare Trust Company, N.A. (the " Exchange Agent "). Letters of Transmittal from certificated MariaDB Shareholders should be accompanied by share certificates in respect of the MariaDB Shares tendered. These materials must be delivered to the Exchange Agent prior to the Expiration Time. See Part 3 of Appendix 1 to the Offer Document for further details on the procedures for book-entry transfer. "). Letters of Transmittal from certificated MariaDB Shareholders should be accompanied by share certificates in respect of the MariaDB Shares tendered. These materials must be delivered to the Exchange Agent prior to the Expiration Time. See Part 3 of Appendix 1 to the Offer Document for further details on the procedures for book-entry transfer. If you hold your MariaDB Shares through a broker, dealer, commercial bank, trust company or other nominee, request your broker, dealer, commercial bank, trust company or other nominee to tender your MariaDB Shares through DTC's Automated Tender Offer Program ("ATOP") prior to the Expiration Time. We are not providing for guaranteed delivery procedures. Therefore, MariaDB Shareholders must allow sufficient time for the necessary tender procedures to be completed during normal business hours of DTC. If you accepted the Unlisted Unit Alternative prior to Bidco's exercise of its Rollover Withdrawal Right or if you purport to accept the Unlisted Unit Alternative after Bidco's exercise of its Rollover Withdrawal Right using the version of the Letter of Transmittal disseminated on 24 May 2024 (each as defined in Appendix 6 to the Offer Document), your election will be deemed an election for the Cash Offer and the consideration payable in respect of each tendered MariaDB Share will be settled in cash in accordance with the terms of the Cash Offer. If you wish to withdraw such acceptance, you must deliver a written notice of withdrawal with the required information to the Exchange Agent during the Offer Period. In all cases your acceptance of the Offer must be received by 5:00 p.m. (New York City time), on 23 July 2024 (or such later time(s) and/or dates(s) to which the Offer may be extended). Enquiries Lazard (Financial Advisor to K1 and Bidco) Adrian Duchini, Keiran Wilson, Charles White Tel: +44 20 7187 2000 Haven Tower Group (Public Relations Advisor to K1) Donald Cutler, Brandon Blackwell Tel: +1 424 317 4850 Important Notices The K1 Responsible Persons (being the investment committee of K1), the Bidco Officers and the Topco Officers accept responsibility for the information contained in this Announcement. To the best of the knowledge and belief of the K1 Responsible Persons, the Bidco Officers, the Topco Officers, (who have taken all reasonable care to ensure that such is the case) the information contained in this Announcement for which they have accepted responsibility is in accordance with the facts and does not omit anything likely to affect the import of such information. Lazard Freres & Co. LLC, together with its affiliate Lazard & Co., Limited (which is authorised and regulated in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct Authority) ("Lazard"), is acting exclusively as financial adviser to K1 and Bidco and no one else in connection with the Offer and will not be responsible to anyone other than K1 and Bidco for providing the protections afforded to clients of Lazard nor for providing advice in relation to the Offer or any other matters referred to in this Announcement. Neither Lazard nor any of its affiliates owes or accepts any duty, liability or responsibility whatsoever (whether direct or indirect, whether in contract, in tort, under statute or otherwise) to any person who is not a client of Lazard in connection with this Announcement, any statement contained herein or otherwise. Disclosure requirements of the Irish Takeover Rules Under Rule 8.3(b) of the Irish Takeover Rules, if any person is, or becomes, 'interested' (directly or indirectly) in 1% or more of any class of 'relevant securities' of MariaDB, all 'dealings' in any 'relevant securities' of MariaDB or any securities exchange offeror (including by means of an option in respect of, or a derivative referenced to, any such 'relevant securities') must be publicly disclosed by not later than 3:30 pm (U.S. Eastern Time) on the 'business day' following the date of the relevant transaction. This requirement will continue until the 'offer period' ends. If two or more persons cooperate on the basis of any agreement either express or tacit, either oral or written, to acquire an 'interest' in 'relevant securities' of MariaDB, they will be deemed to be a single person for the purpose of Rule 8.3 of the Irish Takeover Rules. Dealing Disclosures must also be made by any offeror and by any persons acting in concert with them in accordance with Rule 8.2 of the Irish Takeover Rules. In general, interests in securities arise when a person has long economic exposure, whether conditional or absolute, to changes in the price of the securities. In particular, a person will be treated as having an 'interest' by virtue of the ownership or control of securities, or by virtue of any option in respect of, or derivative referenced to, securities. Terms in quotation marks are defined in the Irish Takeover Rules, which can be found on the Irish Takeover Panel's website. Details of the offeree company in respect of whose relevant securities Dealing Disclosures must be made can be found in the Disclosure Table on the Irish Takeover Panel's website at www.irishtakeoverpanel.ie, including details of the number of relevant securities in issue, when the offer period commenced and when any offeror was first identified. If you are in any doubt as to whether or not you are required to disclose a 'dealing' under Rule 8, please consult the Irish Takeover Panel's website at www.irishtakeoverpanel.ie or contact the Irish Takeover Panel at telephone number +353 1 678 9020. Further Information This Announcement is for information purposes only and is not intended to, and does not, constitute an offer to sell or invitation to purchase any securities, or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction pursuant to the Offer or otherwise, nor shall there be any sale, issuance or transfer of securities in any jurisdiction in contravention of applicable law. In particular, this Announcement is not an offer of securities for sale into the United States. No offer of securities shall be made in the United States absent registration under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, such registration requirements. The release, publication or distribution of this Announcement in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law and therefore persons in such jurisdictions into which this Announcement is released, published or distributed should inform themselves about and observe such restrictions. This Announcement has been prepared for the purpose of complying with the laws of Ireland and the Irish Takeover Rules and the information disclosed may not be the same as that which would have been disclosed if this Announcement had been prepared in accordance with the laws of jurisdictions outside of Ireland. Overseas Shareholders The laws of certain jurisdictions may affect the availability of the Offer to persons who are not resident in Ireland. Persons who are not resident in Ireland, or who are subject to laws of any jurisdiction other than Ireland, should inform themselves about, and observe, any applicable legal or regulatory requirements. Any failure to comply with any applicable legal or regulatory requirements may constitute a violation of the laws and/or regulations of any such jurisdiction. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable Law, the companies and persons involved in the Offer disclaim any responsibility and liability for the violation of such restrictions by any person. Unless otherwise determined by Bidco or K1 or required by the Irish Takeover Rules, and permitted by applicable law and regulation, the Offer will not be made available, directly or indirectly, in any Restricted Jurisdiction, and the Offer will not be capable of acceptance from within a Restricted Jurisdiction where to do so would violate the laws in that jurisdiction. The release, publication or distribution of this Announcement in or into certain jurisdictions may be restricted by the laws of those jurisdictions. Accordingly, copies of this Announcement and all other documents relating to the Offer are not being, and must not be, released, published, mailed or otherwise forwarded, distributed or sent in, into or from any Restricted Jurisdiction. Persons receiving such documents (including, without limitation, nominees, trustees and custodians) should observe these restrictions. Failure to do so may constitute a violation of the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable Law, K1, the K1 Group and Bidco disclaims any responsibility or liability for the violations of any such restrictions by any person. MariaDB Shareholders who are in any doubt regarding such matters should consult an appropriate independent professional adviser in the relevant jurisdiction without delay. Further details in relation to overseas shareholders are contained in the Offer Document. If you are a resident of the United States, please read the following: This Announcement is not intended to, and does not, constitute or form part of any offer (including the Offer), invitation or the solicitation of an offer to purchase, otherwise acquire, subscribe for, tender, exchange, sell or otherwise dispose of, any securities, or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction, nor will there be any acquisition or disposition of the securities referred to in this Announcement in any jurisdiction in contravention of applicable Law or regulation. This Announcement is not a substitute for the Offer Document and the Form of Acceptance or any other document that Bidco may file with the SEC in connection with the Offer. An offer to buy MariaDB Shares has been made pursuant to a Tender Offer Statement and Rule 13e-3 Transaction Statement on Schedule TO that Bidco has filed with the SEC. MariaDB has filed a Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14D-9 with the SEC with respect to the tender offer. MARIADB SHAREHOLDERS ARE URGED TO READ ANY SUCH DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC CAREFULLY IN THEIR ENTIRETY IF AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE OFFER. SUCH DOCUMENTS SHOULD BE READ CAREFULLY BEFORE ANY DECISION IS MADE WITH RESPECT TO THE OFFER. Investors and MariaDB Shareholders are able to obtain free copies of these materials (if and when available) and other documents containing important information about MariaDB and the Offer once such documents are filed with the SEC through the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. The Offer has been made in the United States pursuant to the Exchange Act and otherwise in accordance with the requirements of the Irish Takeover Rules. Accordingly, the Offer is subject to disclosure and other procedural requirements, including with respect to withdrawal rights, offer timetable, settlement procedures and timing of payments that may be different from those typically applicable under US domestic tender offer procedures and law. In addition, the Offer Document and any other documents relating to the Offer have been or will be prepared in accordance with the Irish Takeover Rules and Irish disclosure requirements, format and style, all of which may differ from those in the United States. MariaDB is incorporated under the laws of Ireland. Some of the directors on the MariaDB Board at the date of this Announcement are resident in a country other than the United States. As a result, it may not be possible for United States holders of MariaDB Shares to effect service of process within the United States upon MariaDB or some of the directors of MariaDB or to enforce against any of them judgements of the United States predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the federal securities laws of the United States. It may not be possible to sue MariaDB or its officers or director(s) in a non-US court for violations of US securities laws. In addition, US holders of MariaDB Shares should be aware that, if K1 and Bidco elect to proceed pursuant to a scheme of arrangement (as described herein), the federal securities laws of the United States may not be applicable. Publication on website A copy of this announcement and the documents required to be published pursuant to Rule 26 of the Irish Takeover Rules will be made available, subject to certain restrictions relating to persons resident in Restricted Jurisdictions, will be made available on K1's website (https://k1.com/meridian-offer-update/). Neither the content of any such website nor the content of any other website accessible from hyperlinks on such website is incorporated into, or forms part of, this Announcement. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/882948/K1_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/recommended-cash-offer-for-mariadb-plc-by-meridian-bidco-llc-which-is-an-affiliate-of-k1-investment-management-llc-k1-as-general-partner-of-k5-capital-advisors-lp-as-general-partner-of-k5-private-investors-lp-302193358.html QX, one of the world's fastest-growing business process management companies, has reached a deal for Long Ridge to become a significant investment partner. The growth investment of 100 million+ investment comes on the heels of exceptional growth at QX. Long Ridge's investment will help support further platform development and global expansion. QX took a deliberate approach to finding the right partner to support the next phase and is enthusiastic in their selection of Long Ridge. LONDON, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- QX Global Group ("QX") is a leading provider of business process management ("BPM") services. QX has built a uniquely integrated platform that leverages its BPM expertise along with consulting services and automation technologies (including artificial intelligence) to unlock value for its customers. As QX seeks to further expand its platform capabilities and global growth footprint, it is pleased to announce that it has secured a growth investment of 100 million+ from Long Ridge Equity Partners ("Long Ridge"). QX specialises in business & digital transformation, BPM and consulting services within the accounting, recruitment, real estate, manufacturing, public sector, higher education, healthcare, consumer packaged goods, retail, and utilities and energy sectors. Based on its unique capabilities and specialized approach, the company saw revenue grow by approximately 30% over the past twelve months, and is rapidly emerging as a global leader in the space. QX spent over a year considering the attributes of a potential investment partner and met a number of potential investment firms as part of the process. Ultimately, the QX leadership team hand-picked Long Ridge because of their experience in the tech-enabled services industry and excellent track-record partnering with fast-growing, high potential businesses like QX. "The Long Ridge team brings a wealth of senior experience in the BPM and consulting sectors. I am so proud of everything that has been achieved at QX so far, and I couldn't have asked for a more impressive and experienced investment partner to support the next stage of the QX growth story." Chris Robinson, Founder of QX Global Group The partnership brings together one of the fastest-growing global BPM specialists with a recognised US-based growth equity firm with a stellar history of helping build some of the world's leading companies in the technology and tech-enabled services sectors. "We are very excited to welcome QX to the Long Ridge portfolio and have very high hopes of a truly rewarding growth partnership with Pom and his team over the coming years." Angad Singh and Jim Brown, Long Ridge Whilst the majority of the QX Board and management team will remain in their roles and reinvest in the company, the following key changes will come about as a result of the deal: Following the investment, Founder and Executive Chairman Chris Robinson will step down from the QX Board after leading the business for the last 20 years. Abid Neemuchwala will join the company as Chairman. Abid is a recognized leader in the BPM industry, and will work closely with the QX team as the company executes on its growth strategy. He is an advisor on Long Ridge's Executive Council and previously held the role of CEO at Wipro. Frank Robinson, QX Global Group's CEO since 2018, will step into the role of Board Executive Director and retain a significant investment in QX Global Group. Pom Chakravarti will assume the role of Group CEO. Pom has been with QX for nearly 20 years and has extensive experience as a leader across all the business's main divisions, and previously served as the company's Chief Strategy Officer. QX received corporate finance advice from Corbett Keeling, legal advice from Dechert, and financial and commercial vendor due diligence, and tax advice from Ernst & Young. Long Ridge received legal advice from Travers Smith and Choate, accounting and tax advice from KPMG, and debt financing from HSBC. About QX Global Group QX was founded in the UK in 2003 by Chris Robinson and a small team of 5 Indian accountants based in Ahmedabad. Over the last 20 years, QX has put itself at the heart of this dynamic sector and had a vision to enable transformation for its clients through end-to-end enterprise solutions. QX has grown to a team of over 3,000 staff spread across operations in 18 countries, including five delivery centres in India and one in Mexico. About Long Ridge Equity Partners Founded in 2007, Long Ridge is a US-based growth equity firm focused on investing in the tech-enabled services, enterprise software and financial technology industries. Over their 17-year history, they have had the opportunity to work with and help build some of the world's leading companies in the technology and tech-enabled services sectors. Media Contacts Vishal Kurani VP of Marketing, QX Global Group vishal.kurani@qxglobalgroup.com Rob Iles Managing Director, Visionise Ltd rob@visionise.co.uk Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2458101/QX_Global_Group.jpg Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2457513/4803353/QX_Global_Group_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/qx-global-group-secures-100m-growth-investment-from-long-ridge-equity-partners-302193370.html Amidst the wave of the digital economy, WikiBit, as an excellent blockchain regulatory information query platform, has officially become a member of the British Blockchain Association (BBA). Leveraging its multi-dimensional public data accumulated from years of deep industry engagement, WikiBit provides all-in-one information query services to over 10 million users in more than 170 countries and regions worldwide with its robust technical capabilities and professional service team. Committed to offering the most comprehensive, accurate, and latest information support, WikiBit aids users in safely investing in the blockchain industry. As a member of the British Blockchain Association, WikiBit will further enhance its information regulatory service advantages, helping investors find the most suitable blockchain trading projects and platforms. The BBA is the UK's first national organization that encourages and promotes the adoption of blockchain technology across the public sector, private sector, and the third sector. It is one of the world's largest blockchain associations, dedicated to driving blockchain innovation and application. The association brings together top-tier blockchain industry think tanks globally, with members spanning six continents, boasting strong industry influence and resource networks. WikiBit's inclusion will inject new vitality into the association, collectively promoting the healthy development of the blockchain industry with its powerful blockchain regulatory information query services. Professor Naseem Naqvi, founder and chairman of the BBA, has stated, "The swelling ranks of partners and members from around the world are joining us. We aim to connect governments, academics, businesses, startups, investors, and venture capitalists to drive the adoption of blockchain technology in the UK." Additionally, as a member, WikiBit will actively participate in the BBA's Global Universities Forum (BBA SF) and engage in deep collaborations with universities and research institutions to together drive blockchain technology innovation and application by way of utilizing its blockchain regulatory information database. Looking ahead, WikiBit is poised to host exhibitions in Europe, and the BBA as a co-organizer will fully support WikiBit's growth in the European region. Meanwhile, WikiBit will continue to collect professional data and other information on the global blockchain industry, providing users with more comprehensive, accurate, and transparent blockchain regulatory information query services. The renowned blockchain regulatory information query platform WikiBit has officially become a member of the British Blockchain Association (BBA). It will initiate in-depth collaboration between the two parties in multiple fields, such as technology development and talent cultivation to jointly drive blockchain technology innovation and application, explore the latest developments in blockchain technology, and improve the standards of regulatory information query services. In the meantime, both parties will join hands to develop more efficient and secure solutions, providing strong support for the healthy development of the industry. Media Contact Company Name: WIKIBIT CO. LTD Contact Person: Bob Email: wikibit@wikiglobal.com Country: China City: Hong Kong Website: https://www.wikibit.com SOURCE: WIKIBIT CO. LTD View the original press release on accesswire.com Design Organisation Approval (DOA) scope extension shows further confidence from UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in Vertical's engineering capability as it progresses towards Type Certification. CAA and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) agree how they will collaborate on Vertical's VX4 certification activities. Vertical Aerospace has active certification validation projects across five major regulatory agencies around the world. Vertical Aerospace (Vertical) [NYSE: EVTL], a global aerospace and technology company that is pioneering zero emissions aviation, today announced that the scope of its Design Organisation Approval (DOA) has been expanded by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The scope extension enables Vertical's own engineers to sign off compliance of an increasing number of technical areas, including further areas related to the flight control, avionics and electrical systems. Expanding Vertical's capacity to carry out certification activities streamlines the certification process. This shows further confidence from the CAA that Vertical has the in-house capability to obtain certification for the VX4 aircraft to the highest aviation safety standards, with safety targets the same as those that large commercial airliners adhere to. Vertical will now work with the CAA to expand its DOA privileges. This will enable the regulator to rely on Vertical's approval for certain activities, including those required for a Permit to fly for piloted flight tests on the VX4 programme. Vertical will soon complete the assembly of its most advanced full-scale VX4 prototype and will then begin its piloted flight test programme at its Flight Test Centre at Cotswold Airport. In March 2023, Vertical became the first eVTOL developer to be granted a DOA by the CAA, which authorises Vertical to conduct design activities and issue design approvals within the DOA's scope of approval today's news broadens that scope. A DOA is required to hold a Type Certificate, a prerequisite for an aircraft to enter into commercial service. At the same time, EASA and the CAA have agreed how they will collaborate on the certification of Vertical's VX4, under the technical implementation procedures agreed as part of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. Whilst both regulators have been working closely already, this sets the foundations for their certification experts to apply common standards and work together towards concurrent certification and validation of the VX4 by both authorities. In 2023, the CAA announced its intention to adopt EASA's Means of Compliance to SC-VTOL, the standards against which European and UK manufacturers design eVTOLs. About Vertical Aerospace Vertical Aerospace is a global aerospace and technology company pioneering electric aviation. Vertical is creating a safer, cleaner and quieter way to travel. Vertical's VX4 is a piloted, four passenger, Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft, with zero operating emissions. Vertical combines partnering with leading aerospace companies, including GKN, Honeywell and Leonardo, with developing its own proprietary battery and propeller technology to develop the world's most advanced and safest eVTOL. Vertical has 1,500 pre-orders of the VX4 worth $6bn, with customers across four continents, including Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, Japan Airlines, GOL and Bristow. Headquartered in Bristol, the epicentre of the UK's aerospace industry, Vertical was founded in 2016 by Stephen Fitzpatrick, founder of the OVO Group, Europe's largest independent energy retailer. Vertical's experienced leadership team comes from top tier automotive and aerospace companies such as Rolls-Royce, Airbus, GM and Leonardo. Together they have previously certified and supported over 30 different civil and military aircraft and propulsion systems. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that relate to our current expectations and views of future events. We intend such forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbour provisions for forward-looking statements as contained in Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Exchange Act. Any express or implied statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding certification and the commercialization of the VX4 and our ability to achieve regulatory certification of our aircraft product with any of our intended regulators on any particular timeline or at all, the design and manufacture of the VX4, business strategy and plans and objectives of management for future operations, the differential strategy compared to our peer group, expectations surrounding pre-orders and commitments, the features and capabilities of the VX4, as well as statements that include the words "expect," "intend," "plan," "believe," "project," "forecast," "estimate," "may," "should," "anticipate," "will," "aim," "potential," "continue," "are likely to" and similar statements of a future or forward-looking nature. Forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, including, without limitation: our limited operating history without manufactured non-prototype aircraft or completed eVTOL aircraft customer order; our history of losses and the expectation to incur significant expenses and continuing losses for the foreseeable future; the market for eVTOL aircraft being in a relatively early stage; our potential inability to produce, certify or launch aircraft in the volumes or timelines projected; the potential inability to obtain the necessary certifications for production and operation within any projected timeline, or at all; any accidents or incidents involving eVTOL aircraft could harm our business; our dependence on partners and suppliers for the components in our aircraft and for operational needs; the potential that certain strategic partnerships may not materialize into long-term partnership arrangements; all of the preorders received are conditional and may be terminated at any time and any pre-delivery payments may be fully refundable upon certain specified dates; any circumstances; the inability for our aircraft to perform at the level we expect and may have potential defects; any potential failure to effectively manage our growth; our inability to recruit and retain senior management and other highly skilled personnel, our ability to raise additional funds when we need or want them, or at all, to fund our operations; our limited cash and cash equivalents and recurring losses from our operations raise significant doubt (or raise substantial doubt as contemplated by PCAOB standards) regarding our ability to continue as a going concern; and the other important factors discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on March 14, 2024, as such factors may be updated from time to time in our other filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof and accordingly undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. We disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than to the extent required by applicable law. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240710188591/en/ Contacts: Justin Bates, Head of Communications justin.bates@vertical-aerospace.com +44 7878 357 463 Samuel Emden, Head of Investor Affairs samuel.emden@vertical-aerospace.com +44 7816 459 904 CHICAGO, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The report "Hydrochloric Acid Market by Grade (Synthetic, By-product), Application, End-use industry (Food & Beverage, Pharmaceutical, Textile, Steel, Oil & Gas, Chemical), Region (North America, Europe, APAC, MEA, South America), & Region - Global Forecast to 2029", is projected to grow from USD 2.2 billion in 2024 to USD 3.0 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period. The growth of the hydrochloric acid market is driven by various small-scale applications, including household cleaning, construction, and leather processing. Additionally, hydrochloric acid is used to dissolve calcium carbonate, such as in descaling kettles and removing mortar from masonry. When applied to brickwork, the reaction between the acid and mortar continues until the acid is completely converted, resulting in calcium chloride, carbon dioxide, and water. Browse in-depth TOC on "Hydrochloric Acid Market" 322 - Tables 53 - Figures 277 - Pages Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=75705978 Synthetic grade segment to be the fastest growing grade during the forecast period. Synthetic hydrochloric acid, a solution of hydrogen chloride (HCl) in water, is produced by directly synthesizing hydrogen and chlorine gases. It is a clear, colorless to slightly yellow liquid with a strong, pungent odor and high corrosiveness. Typically, available in concentrations ranging from 30% to 38% HCl by weight, it is widely used in industrial applications such as chemical manufacturing, metal processing, and water treatment due to its reactivity and ability to dissolve various substances. Synthetic hydrochloric acid offers advantages like ease of handling, consistent quality, and versatility in food processing, cosmetics production, and pharmaceutical synthesis. However, it poses risks of skin, eye, and mucous membrane irritation upon contact, emphasizing the need for careful handling and safety measures. Ore processing to be the third fastest growing segment in the hydrochloric acid market during the forecast period. Hydrochloric acid plays a crucial role in various mining operations, where it is utilized for ore treatment, extraction, separation, purification, and water treatment purposes. It is particularly significant in the recovery processes of molybdenum and gold. In specific applications, hydrochloric acid is essential for converting high-grade scheelite concentrate (CaWO4) and crude sodium tungstate into tungstic acid, a precursor for producing tungsten metal and chemicals. Additionally, it finds application in uranium and zirconium processing, solution mining of borate ores, as a pH regulator in the froth flotation of potash ores, and in the extraction of rare earth elements from bastnasite. Request Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=75705978 Europe is projected to be the third largest region in terms of value during the forecast period. The hydrochloric acid market in Europe is being propelled by several key factors. The region's robust industrial sector, which includes chemical manufacturing, steel production, and water treatment, drives significant demand for hydrochloric acid. Stringent environmental regulations governing industrial operations necessitate the use of hydrochloric acid for various applications such as wastewater treatment and emissions control. There is a growing emphasis on sustainable practices and eco-friendly alternatives in manufacturing processes, further boosting the demand for hydrochloric acid due to its versatility as a reagent in numerous industrial applications. The rising adoption of hydrochloric acid in the food and beverage industry for food processing and preservation purposes contributes to market growth in Europe. Furthermore, continuous advancements in technology and manufacturing processes enhance the efficiency and efficacy of hydrochloric acid utilization, driving further market expansion in the region. Request Customization: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=75705978 Market Players Some of the leading companies in the global hydrochloric acid market are BASF SE (Germany), Covestro AG (Germany), Olin Corporation (US), Westlake Chemical Corporation (US), Occidental Petroleum Corporation (US), Formosa Plastics Corporation (Taiwan), Tata Chemicals Limited (India), AGC Inc. (Japan), ERCO Worldwide (Canada), Detrex Corporation (US) and others. Browse Adjacent Market: Specialty Chemicals Market Research Reports Related Reports: Polylactic Acid Market - Global Forecast to 2028 Glycolic Acid Market - Global Forecast to 2027 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. Rohan Salgarkar MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/hydrochloric-acid-market.asp Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ Content Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/hydrochloric-acid.asp Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1951202/4609423/MarketsandMarkets.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/hydrochloric-acid-market-worth-3-0-billion-by-2029--exclusive-report-by-marketsandmarkets-302193117.html Newly established affiliate in Greece demonstrates Daiichi Sankyo's ongoing commitment to serve as many people living with cancer as possible In Greece, breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death among women and lung cancer among men 1 Greece's geographical location offers a unique opportunity to facilitate regional cooperation across Europe Daiichi Sankyo (TSE: 4568) today announced that it has opened a new affiliate for its oncology business in Athens, Greece. The establishment highlights the company's strong commitment to addressing treatment needs of people living with cancer in the European region. Thomais Konstantopoulou has been appointed Country Manager, Daiichi Sankyo Greece Single Member S.A. "We are very happy to open yet another new affiliate in Europe to bring our innovative medicines to patients who can benefit from them. To have representation in a country is the best way of doing this," said Thomais Konstantopoulou, Country Manager, Daiichi Sankyo Greece. "Our decision to establish a presence in Greece stems from our deep-rooted commitment to serving as many patients with cancer as possible with our innovative portfolio, aiming to improve outcomes and quality of life. It also is linked to a continuous effort of multiple stakeholders that elevates oncology in the country's healthcare agenda and promotes active dialogue. Daiichi Sankyo is investing in Greece, which aligns with the country's ambition to create conditions that foster innovation, talent retention, technology advancement and economic growth. We are focused on advancing meaningful innovation and creating jobs in a sustainable manner." Daiichi Sankyo has affiliates in 14 European countries, alongside representations in Norway, Finland, Sweden and Luxembourg. Europe has always been a focus for the company's medicines, as well as a key region for continuous investment. With 20 research and development sites across 12 countries, Daiichi Sankyo utilizes a global network to drive innovation. Currently, the company is focused on developing antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), which are targeted cancer medicines that combine target-specificity and anti-tumor activity in a single molecule. "From pursuing new medicines and new methods of drug discovery and delivery to achieving excellence throughout our organization by continuously examining new ideas, innovation is paramount for all we do," said Dr. Dimitrios Krikelis, Head of Medical Affairs, Daiichi Sankyo Greece. "Even before the establishment of the Greek affiliate, Daiichi Sankyo has been partnering with the local oncology community through our clinical development program. We are fortunate to have physicians with a wealth of clinical expertise and a vibrant research community in Greece." Daiichi Sankyo aims to be an active contributor to the Greek healthcare ecosystem by partnering with the scientific community, governmental organizations and patient advocacy groups in order to provide value to patients, healthcare professionals and health authorities. About Daiichi Sankyo Daiichi Sankyo is an innovative global healthcare company contributing to the sustainable development of society that discovers, develops and delivers new standards of care to enrich the quality of life around the world. With more than 120 years of experience, Daiichi Sankyo leverages its world-class science and technology to create new modalities and innovative medicines for people with cancer, cardiovascular and other diseases with high unmet medical need. For more information, please visit www.daiichi-sankyo.eu HQ/ONP/07/24/0007 _______________________________ 1 https://www.jto.org/article/S1556-0864(20)31099-6/fulltext View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240709254444/en/ Contacts: Daiichi Sankyo Europe GmbH Giedre Petkevice press@daiichi-sankyo.eu +49 151 1 6817 651 The FUEL token by iRocket is set for an early listing on the Deepcoin exchange in July, ahead of its originally planned October debut. This strategic move aims to revolutionize in-game economies, offering seamless and rewarding experiences for gamers, and is anticipated to attract significant interest from both the crypto and gaming communities. In a move generating significant buzz within cryptocurrency and gaming circles, the highly anticipated FUEL token is set to list on the Deepcoin exchange in July, ahead of its originally scheduled October debut. This strategic early listing has industry insiders closely watching its potential impact on the gaming sector, with many touting FUEL as a possible game-changer. The token, developed by iRocket, has been creating excitement in the crypto community, building up to its official market entry. FUEL, developed by the innovative team at iRocket, is designed to revolutionize the way players interact with in-game economies. The token aims to provide a seamless and rewarding experience for gamers, offering a new dimension of engagement through its integration into various gaming platforms. The decision to list on Deepcoin, a leading cryptocurrency exchange known for its robust security measures and user-friendly interface, underscores the strategic positioning of FUEL in the market. Deepcoin's extensive reach and reputation provide a solid foundation for FUEL's entry into the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem. Market analysts have noted the potential for FUEL to significantly alter the gaming landscape. By enabling players to earn and trade tokens seamlessly, FUEL offers a novel approach to in-game rewards and transactions. This could attract a new wave of gamers and investors looking for innovative ways to monetize their gaming experience. The listing date, set in the early half of July, is eagerly awaited by the community. Early adopters and gaming enthusiasts are preparing for what could be a transformative moment. While the exact trading strategies remain to be seen, the early listing has already been hailed as a proactive move by iRocket to capitalize on the growing interest in gaming-related cryptocurrencies. In anticipation of the listing, iRocket has maintained a steady stream of updates and community engagement, ensuring transparency and building trust. This approach has been well-received, further heightening the anticipation for FUEL's market debut. As FUEL prepares to launch on Deepcoin, the question on everyone's mind is whether it will indeed be the next game-changer in the gaming industry. With its promising potential and strategic early listing, FUEL is poised to make a significant impact. The coming weeks will be crucial in determining how this innovative token performs in a competitive and rapidly evolving market. For more info, do visit: https://irocket.live/ and https://irocket.live/pdf/iRocket-FUEL-Whitepaper.pdf Company Name: iRocket Contact Email: alicia@irocket.live Contact Person: Alicia Serra City: Victoria Country: Seychelles Website link: https://irocket.live/ SOURCE: iRocket View the original press release on accesswire.com Ensuring International Data Privacy Standards Gen II Fund Services, LLC ("Gen II"), a premier global private capital fund administrator, is excited to announce that it is officially a certified organization under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, maintained by the International Trade Administration within the United States Department of Commerce. Gen II's active participation in the Data Privacy Framework program demonstrates to clients and their investors, vendors, and employees that Gen II has robust mechanisms for securely transferring personal data to the United States from the European Union (EU), United Kingdom (UK), and Switzerland. This commitment ensures data protection that aligns with strict EU, UK and Swiss legal standards in addition to our existing alignment with applicable US federal and state privacy laws and regulations. The EU-US Data Privacy Framework, as well as the UK Extension and the Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework were developed to facilitate transatlantic commerce by providing clear guidelines for data transfer, ensuring that personal data from the EU, UK, and Switzerland can be securely transferred to the United States in compliance with strict privacy laws. By earning these certifications, Gen II maintains regulatory compliance, streamlines data transfer processes, and enhances reliable and responsible data privacy and protection. "As CEO of Gen II, I can say that our participation in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, the UK Extension, and the Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework is a critical and differentiated qualification as a leading international private capital fund administrator. These certifications are not just badges of compliance; they are a testament to our commitment to data security. In an increasingly digital world, safeguarding personal data is paramount. By adhering to these rigorous standards, we ensure that our clients and their investors, vendors, and employees can trust us with their most sensitive information, reinforcing our reputation as a leader in data protection and privacy," said Steven Millner, Chief Executive Officer, Gen II. To see Gen II's Data Privacy Framework, please click HERE. To see Gen II's Privacy Statement, please click HERE. About Gen II Gen II, a leading international fund administration provider, is exclusively dedicated to serving private capital asset managers and investors, with offices in North America and throughout Europe. Since its inception in 2009, the company has grown to become one of the largest independent private capital fund administrators, overseeing more than $1 trillion of private fund capital. Gen II is committed to offering private fund sponsors a best-in-class combination of people, process, and technology, enabling GPs to effectively manage their operational infrastructure, financial reporting, and investor communications. With the recent expansion into European markets, Gen II is poised to bring its expertise and innovative solutions to a broader audience of asset managers and investors worldwide. For more information, please visit gen2fund.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240710961835/en/ Contacts: Media Tom Faust 646-502-3513 Gen2PR@StantonPRM.com Kaspersky has been recognized as a Leader in the 2024 SPARK Matrix: Digital Threat Intelligence Management by Quadrant Knowledge Solutions for the second year in a row, reaffirming its technological excellence and customer impact. MIDDLETON, Mass., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the XDR and SOC Modernization report, 24% of companies stated they are not able to respond quickly to new cyber threats, indicating a need for advanced threat intelligence that can provide them with meaningful context about cyber risks. To successfully perform this challenge and deliver more effective cyber protection, companies should first and foremost choose a reliable cybersecurity vendor. The Quadrant Knowledge Solutions SPARK Matrix provides a detailed analysis of the global Digital Threat Intelligence market dynamics, major trends, vendor landscape, and competitive positioning to help companies evaluate different vendor capabilities, competitive differentiation, and market positions. For the second year in a row, Quadrant Knowledge Solutions has given Kaspersky Threat Intelligence strong ratings across the parameters of technology excellence and customer impact and emphasizing that the solution provides contextualized analysis for security teams to help them detect, respond, and mitigate external threats on time. "Kaspersky Threat Intelligence is regularly recognized as a global leader by various international analytical agencies, and we are proud that Quadrant Knowledge Solutions has also given us such a high rating. In addition to the fact that our research teams validate and analyze aggregated data from all over the world, we are constantly enhancing our capabilities to detect external threats in real time. This allows us to provide companies with the latest and most relevant information on cyberthreats, offering reliable protection for all their business assets. For over 26 years, Kaspersky has provided industry-leading expertise to customers around the world, and we will continue accomplish our mission of building a safer future," comments Alexander Liskin, Head of Threat Research at Kaspersky. "Kaspersky Threat Intelligence (TI) offers one of the richest and most comprehensive portfolios in the industry. This includes Data Feeds, TI reports (APT, Crimeware and ICS), Threat Analysis, Digital Footprint Intelligence, provided via Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Portal, TI Platform and other services. Kaspersky's global presence, particularly in countries where most attacks originate, has given the vendor a unique ability to collect, understand, analyze and distribute thoroughly vetted information thus providing a comprehensive view of the actual threat landscape for every organization. Kaspersky's research teams have a successful track record of spotting new threats early, they continuously discover, infiltrate and monitor closed communities and dark forums with restricted access worldwide. These capabilities enable organizations to stay ahead of potential threats and enhance their overall cybersecurity posture," states Riya Tomar, Analyst at Quadrant Knowledge Solutions. Kaspersky Threat Intelligence portfolio provides an all-encompassing view of an organization's security posture. It includes Threat Data Feeds, Threat Lookup, Digital Footprint Intelligence, Threat Analysis (Sandbox, Attribution, Similarity), Threat Intelligence Reporting, all provided via the Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Portal, a single access point where security services work interconnectedly, enriching and reinforcing each other. To learn more about Kaspersky Threat Intelligence, please visit the website. The full results of SPARK Matrix: Digital Threat Intelligence Management are available here. Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity and digital privacy company founded in 1997. With over a billion devices protected to date from emerging cyberthreats and targeted attacks, Kaspersky's deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company's comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection, specialized security products and services, as well as Cyber Immune solutions to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. We help over 220,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com . Media Contacts: Olga Shokhonova Olga.Shokhonova@kaspersky.com Quadrant Knowledge Solutions is a global advisory and consulting firm focused on helping clients in achieving 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/ Quadrant Knowledge Solutions Ajinkya Ingle Quadrant Knowledge Solutions Regus Business Center 35 Village Road, Suite 100, Middleton Massachusetts 01949 United States Email: ajinkya@quadrant-solutions.com Phone: (+1) 978-344-2770 Content Source: https://quadrant-solutions.com/press-release/quadrant-knowledge-solutions-grants-leader-status-to-kaspersky-digital-threat-intelligence-management-719 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 View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/quadrant-knowledge-solutions-grants-leader-status-to-kaspersky-digital-threat-intelligence-management-302193361.html DHAKA, Bangladesh, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Nagad Ltd., a leading fintech company in Bangladesh, and Huawei Technologies have joined hands, to provide world-class smart transaction experiences to customers through Nagad. In the presence of Honourable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, both parties struck the deal at the Shangri-La Hotel in Beijing on Tuesday (9 July 2024). Following this agreement, Nagad Digital Bank PLC and Nagad's existing MFS will be integrated with cutting-edge global technologies, enabling customers to enjoy international-standard digital financial services anytime, anywhere. Founder and CEO of Nagad Ltd. Tanvir A Mishuk and Pan Junfeng, president of Huawei South Asia Region and CEO of Huawei Bangladesh, penned the agreement on behalf of their respective sides. At the signing ceremony, Li Fei, vice-minister of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, highly praised Nagad's remarkable contribution to Bangladesh's economic growth and financial inclusion. Regarding the agreement, Farid Khan, chairman of Nagad Digital Bank PLC, said, "Nagad MFS has brought about a major revolution in Bangladesh's financial sector over the past five years. Now is the time to take it to a global standard. Nagad and Huawei will jointly work to achieve this for Bangladesh. Nagad Digital Bank will play a unique role in this, which will significantly contribute to building a smart Bangladesh." "To ensure the technological development required for a 100 percent cashless society, we have signed this agreement with the world-renowned company Huawei Technologies. Through this, our MFS and digital bank customers in Bangladesh will enjoy world-class services conveniently at affordable costs," he also said. Marking the golden jubilee of diplomatic relations between Bangladesh and China next year, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina began her China visit on 8 July 2024. During this visit, the two countries signed several notable agreements and memorandums of understanding, including the one between Nagad and Huawei. Eight years ago, when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Dhaka, Bangladesh, and China elevated their bilateral relations to a strategic partnership from trade and economic cooperation. Later, during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to China in 2019, China was termed as a comprehensive strategic cooperative partner in Bangladesh's development. In the continuity of such cooperation, this agreement between Nagad and Huawei is also significant in the global context of digital transactions, which will lead to the introduction of entirely new financial services and products in Bangladesh, thus transforming the trend of the country's digital transactions. About Nagad Ltd (https://www.nagad.com.bd/) Nagad Limited is one of the leading MFS operators in Bangladesh with 90 million registered customers and daily transactions of more than $153 million on average. It has also been recognised as the fastest unicorn startup by the Bangladesh government. The digital platform, a successful public-private partnership between Bangladesh Postal Department and the private sector, was inaugurated in 2019 by Honourable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. Contact: Lincoln Md. Lutforzaman Sarker Assistant Vice President (AVP), Media & Communications, Nagad Limited. Email: lincoln.lutforzaman@nagad.com.bd Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2420488/Nagad_New_Logo_English_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/nagad-partners-with-huawei-302193434.html Temas Resources Corp. ("Temas" or the "Company") (CSE:TMAS)(OTCQB:TMASF) is pleased to announce that Michel Lebeuf has been appointed to the newly created role of General Counsel effective immediately. Mr. Lebeuf currently serves as the managing partner of Lebeuf Legal and acts and has previously acted as director and officer for many listed issuers on the Canadian Securities Exchange and the TSX Venture Exchange. A seasoned corporate finance and securities attorney, Mr. Lebeuf has developed an expertise in securities law, particularly in the areas of natural resources, institutional and corporate financing, and public and private mergers and acquisitions. "Michel brings to the role a wealth of experience having served in senior roles for many publicly listed issuers in addition to his long successful career in securities law, especially in the natural resources sector," said Tim Fernback, CEO of Temas Resources. "His local knowledge will be an invaluable resource for our leadership team and we're very excited to welcome Michel to Temas." Mr. Lebeuf holds a degree in Political Sciences (international relations) and a Civil Law degree from the Universite de Montreal (UDM). His professional memberships include the Bar of Quebec (Barreau du Quebec), Montreal section. "I am honoured to join Temas and looking forward to contributing to the Company's continued success as it continues to advance its Quebec assets," said Mr. Lebeuf. Mr. Lebeuf's appointment underscores Temas' commitment to Quebec and fostering growth and opportunities in the local economy as the Company seeks to advance the La Blache and Lac Brule Iron-Titanium-Vanadium projects located in the province. About Temas Resources Temas Resources Corp. is focused on the advanced La Blache and Lac Brule Iron-Titanium-Vanadium projects in Quebec. The critical metals the Company is exploring for are key to our national mineral independence. Additionally, the Company invests in and works to apply its green mineral recovery technologies across its mining portfolio to reduce the environmental impact and carbon footprint of metal extraction through advanced processing and patented leaching technologies. All public filings for the Company can be found on the SEDAR+ website www.sedarplus.ca. For more information about the Company, please visit www.temasresources.com. For further information or investor relations inquiries: Tim Fernback President and CEO tfernback@shaw.ca or KIN Communications Inc. Tel: 604-684-6730 tmas@kincommunications.com Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor the Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information under the provisions of Canadian securities laws including statements about the Company's plans. Such statements are necessarily based upon a number of beliefs, assumptions, and opinions of management on the date the statements are made and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and future events to differ materially from those anticipated or projected. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors should change, except as required by law. SOURCE: Temas Resources Corp. View the original press release on accesswire.com Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Goldshore Resources Inc. (TSXV: GSHR) (OTCQB: GSHRF) (FSE: 8X00) ("Goldshore" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has engaged G-Mining Services Inc. ("G Mining") to deliver a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") for the Moss Gold Project ("Moss Gold Project" or the "Project"). The goal is to develop an optimized and staged mine plan, and infrastructure layout, and to advance the Project toward a Project Description that will provide clarity on the scope of permitting work required. Separately, the Company has retained the services of One-eighty Consulting Group Ltd ("one-eighty") to develop a comprehensive regulatory strategy aimed at facilitating a streamlined path to construction and commercial production. Michael Henrichsen, CEO of Goldshore commented, "We are pleased to continue to execute on our strategic plan through the appointment of both G Mining and one-eighty to meaningfully advance the Moss Gold Project. We believe the PEA will demonstrate the deep value proposition of the Project and, with the development of a strategic permitting plan, the Company will have a clear path forward as we advance the Project through prefeasibility and feasibility studies." Engagement of G-Mining Services to Conduct PEA: The appointment of G Mining Services to deliver a PEA is an important milestone for the Project as it will provide the first assessment of the project economics, including cash flows, NPV, IRR, and payback period. G Mining, founded in 2006 by Louis Gignac, the 2016 Mining Hall of Fame inductee, under the management of Mathieu Gignac since 2016, is recognized as an industry leader providing mining consultancy services around the world with a reputation of delivering accurate, high-quality assessments. G Mining completed the 2021 feasibility study on Equinox's Greenstone Gold mine located 275 km northeast of Thunder Bay. This puts the firm in an excellent position to evaluate the Moss Gold Project, which the Company considers to have many similarities to the Greenstone Gold Mine. The goals of the PEA are to outline a phased production approach prioritizing IRR and minimizing initial Capex with the study expected to be completed by the end of Q1 2025. The Company plans to take a rigorous approach to the PEA utilizing well-defined cost estimates to ensure the projected Capex aligns closely to prefeasibility study standards to enhance the study's accuracy. In addition, the PEA will define a work program that will allow the Company to advance towards a subsequent prefeasibility study as soon as possible. Engagement of one-eighty to provide strategic regulatory and engagement advice: The appointment of one-eighty demonstrates the Company's commitment to navigating complex regulatory landscapes while integrating socio-political, technical, and environmental considerations. Over the next three months, one-eighty will diagnose the critical factors that will enable an efficient and predictable permitting process, and will use this information to develop a strategic plan. The strategic plan includes a roadmap to minimize regulatory risks and build community support to ultimately position the project to efficiently navigate the environmental assessment process. In developing the strategic plan, one-eighty will work closely with CSL Environmental & Geotechnical Ltd ("CSL") and the Company's established community relations team, and by doing so will leverage the strong foundation the Company has cultivated over the last three years. The Company is pleased to be working with one-eighty as we strengthen our external team. Communications Program Update The Company has engaged Native Ads, Inc. ("Native Ads") to perform strategic digital media services, marketing and data analytics services including content development, web development, media buying and distribution and campaign reporting and optimization, for a total retainer of US$150,000 which is payable upfront from the general working capital of the Company. Native Ads has been engaged for a twenty-four (24) month term, or until the retainer is depleted. The Company and Native Ads act at arm's length and Native Ads has no present interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company or its securities. The Company does not propose to issue any securities to Native Ads in consideration for the services to be provided to the Company. The appointment of Native Ads is subject to approval by the TSX Venture Exchange. About Native Ads Inc. Native Ads is a full-service ad agency in business since 2014 that owns and operates a proprietary ad exchange with over 80 integrated SSPs (supply-side platforms) resulting in daily access to three to seven billion North American ad impressions. It is the only digital agency serving public companies that owns both its own ad network, as well as a financial publisher network. Native Ads has offices in Vancouver and New York and is led by its CEO Jon Malach who is its authorized representative for its investor relations services and will oversee services provided to the Company. For more than eight years, Jon has been facilitating the strategic pairing by Native Ads of premium publishers with premium advertisers, by providing elegant native ad units. Qualified Person Peter Flindell, PGeo, MAusIMM, MAIG, Vice-President, Exploration, of the Company, and a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101, has approved the scientific and technical information contained in this news release. About Goldshore Goldshore is a growth-oriented gold company focused on delivering long-term shareholder and stakeholder value through the acquisition and advancement of primary gold assets in tier-one jurisdictions. It is led by the ex-global head of structural geology for the world's largest gold company and backed by one of Canada's pre-eminent private equity firms. The Company's current focus is the advanced stage 100% owned Moss Gold Project which is positioned in Ontario, Canada, with direct access from the Trans-Canada Highway, hydroelectric power near site, supportive local communities and skilled workforce. The Company has invested over $60 million of new capital and completed approximately 80,000 meters of drilling on the Moss Gold Project, which, in aggregate, has had over 235,000 meters of drilling. The 2024 updated NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate ("MRE") has expanded to 1.54 million ounces of Indicated gold resources at 1.23 g/t Au and 5.20 million ounces of Inferred gold resources at 1.11 g/t Au. The MRE only encompasses 3.6 kilometers of the 35+ kilometer mineralized trend, remains open at depth and along strike and is one of the few remaining major Canadian gold deposits positioned for fast track through this development cycle. For more information, please visit SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) and the Company's website (www.goldshoreresources.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 Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or developments to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "could" or "should" occur. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, among others, statements relating to expectations regarding the exploration and development of the Moss Gold Project, the release of an updated preliminary economic assessment, the timing and completion of a strategic permitting plan and other statements that are not historical facts. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors and risks include, among others: the Company may require additional financing from time to time in order to continue its operations which may not be available when needed or on acceptable terms and conditions acceptable; compliance with extensive government regulation; domestic and foreign laws and regulations could adversely affect the Company's business and results of operations; the stock markets have experienced volatility that often has been unrelated to the performance of companies and these fluctuations may adversely affect the price of the Company's securities, regardless of its operating performance; and the impact of COVID-19. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of the Company as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216031 SOURCE: Goldshore Resources Inc. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Founders Metals Inc. (TSXV: FDR) (OTCQX: FDMIF) (FSE: 9DL0) ("Founders" or the "Company") announces the start of its 2024 Buese area drill program at the Antino Gold Project ("Antino" or "Project") in southeastern Suriname. The Company plans to drill up to 7,000 metres (m) at Buese in 2024 beginning with an initial 3,000 m phase 1 program. The drilling uses Founders' own recently acquired third diamond drill. The Company is focused on testing both high-grade shear zones along the margins of the Filuca intrusive and bulk-tonnage type targets hosted within the intrusive at Buese. Highlights Founders-owned third diamond drill rig now operating Start of 3,000 m phase 1 drilling program at Buese New induced polarization (IP) and ground magnetic surveys support previously unidentified mineralized structures confirmed with high-grade gold samples at surface Channel sample grading 9.34 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) over 8.0 m including 1.0 m of 42.56 g/t Au as well as previously released results of up to 113.0 g/t Au as well as previously released results of up to 113.0 g/t Au Over 35,000 m2 of mapped Filuca intrusive with potentially a much larger subsurface body supported by recent geophysics Buese Discussion The Buese area covers over 600 hectares (ha) and is ~6 kilometres (km) southeast of Upper Antino and the Froyo Gold Zone. Buese gold mineralization is mapped over 2 kilometres along the southeastern extent of the 8+ km Antino Gold Trend. Mineralization occurs within and along the margins of the Filuca tonalite intrusion. Recently exposed outcrops by artisanal miners show that the intrusion is heavily altered (quartz/sericite/iron-carbonate/tourmaline) and hosts multiple generations of centimetre to decimetre-scale quartz quartz-carbonate veins throughout the exposed body. Founders' recent exploration results combined with historical auger sampling and limited past drilling of the Filuca intrusive indicate significant, previously underexplored potential for bulk-tonnage gold mineralization. This represents a similar setting and style of mineralization as the multi-million ounce Omai and Yaou gold deposits in Guyana and French Guiana, respectively. Founders' exploration work to date includes new ground magnetic and IP geophysical surveys, auger and rock sampling, detailed mapping, and an analysis of historical drilling. From this work, Founders has defined several high-priority drill targets. Geological mapping has successfully defined over 35,000 m2 of the tonalitic Filuca intrusive and surface sampling confirms substantial gold mineralization spatially associated with an extensive quartz and quartz-carbonate stockwork vein system. The Company's channel sample results from Buese include 9.34 g/t Au over 8.0 m and 11.87 g/t Au over 12.0 m, with up to 113.0 g/t Au. Colin Padget, Founders' President & CEO, commented "We are very encouraged by the results of the preliminary work completed at Buese and are excited for the ongoing drilling. Historical work primarily targeted the high-grade shears and other mineralization separate from the Filuca intrusive. Given our recent work and updated geological interpretation, phase 1 of our drilling focuses on the bulk-tonnage potential of the Filuca intrusive and the high-grade shears zones along its edge." In addition to the maps below, take a virtual tour of the property by clicking here. Figure 1: Property Scale Map To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7574/216057_677690a814c7ba59_001full.jpg Figure 2: Plan Map of Buese To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7574/216057_677690a814c7ba59_002full.jpg Figure 3: Soil Anomalies & IP at Buese To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7574/216057_677690a814c7ba59_003full.jpg Figure 4: Cross-Section of Geology at Buese To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7574/216057_677690a814c7ba59_004full.jpg Figure 5: Cross-Section of Historical Drill Holes at Buese North To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7574/216057_677690a814c7ba59_005full.jpg About Founders Metals Inc. Founders Metals is a Canadian-based exploration company focused on advancing the Antino Gold Project located in Suriname, South America, in the heart of the Guiana Shield. Antino is 20,000 hectares and has produced over 500,000 ounces of gold from surface and alluvial mining to date1. The Company drilled 10,000 metres in 2023 and is fully financed for drilling in 2024. 12022 Technical Report - Antino Project; Suriname, South America. K. Raffle, BSc, P. Geo & Rock Lefrancois, BSc, P.Geo. Quality Assurance and Control Results from samples were analyzed at FILAB Suriname, a Bureau Veritas Certified Laboratory in Paramaribo, Suriname (a commercial certified laboratory under ISO 9001:2015). Samples are crushed to 75% passing 2.35 mm screen, riffle split (700 g) and pulverized to 85% passing 88 m. Samples were analyzed using a 50 g fire assay (50 g aliquot) with an Atomic Absorption (AA) finish. For samples that return assay values over 10.0 grams per tonne (g/t), another cut was taken from the original pulp and fire assayed with a gravimetric finish. Founders Metals inserts blanks and certified reference standards in the sample sequence for quality control. External QA-QC checks are performed at ALS Global Laboratories (Geochemistry Division) in Lima, Peru (an ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited facility). A secure chain of custody is maintained in transporting and storing of all samples. Drill intervals with visible gold are assayed using metallic screening. Rock chip samples from outcrop/bedrock are selective by nature and may not be representative of the mineralization hosted on the project. Qualified Persons The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Michael Dufresne, M.Sc., P.Geol., P.Geo., a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, Per: "Colin Padget" Colin Padget President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the use of proceeds from the Company's recently completed financings and the future or prospects of the Company. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect ", "is expected ", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to business, market, and economic risks, uncertainties, and contingencies that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, other factors may cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated, or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Other factors which could materially affect such forward-looking information are described in the risk factors in the Company's most recent annual management discussion and analysis. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information except in accordance with applicable securities laws. All material information on Founders Metals can be found at www.sedarplus.ca. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216057 SOURCE: Founders Metals Inc. CBD Life Sciences Inc. (OTC PINK:CBDL) through its wholly owned subsidiary, The CBD Vault Inc. a leader in the CBD industry, is excited to announce the launch of its new line of Kava & Kratom shots. Designed to provide a natural boost of energy and relaxation, these shots are the latest addition to the company's innovative product lineup. Product Highlights: Natural Ingredients : Our Kava & Kratom shots are crafted using the highest quality natural ingredients, ensuring a safe and effective experience. Convenient & Portable : Packaged in a sleek, portable bottle, these shots are perfect for on-the-go use, making it easy to enjoy their benefits anytime, anywhere. Balanced Formulation : The carefully balanced blend of Kava and Kratom provides a harmonious mix of relaxation and energy, helping you stay focused and calm throughout the day. Great Taste: Available in a delicious apple flavor, our shots are as enjoyable to drink as they are effective. About Kava & Kratom: Kava and Kratom are two powerful botanicals known for their unique properties. Kava, traditionally used in Pacific Island cultures, is renowned for its calming effects, while Kratom, native to Southeast Asia, is celebrated for its stimulating and pain-relieving properties. Together, they offer a synergistic effect that supports both mental and physical well-being. Why Choose CBD Vault's Kava & Kratom Shots? Quality Assurance : Our products are made with premium, lab-tested ingredients to ensure consistency and safety. Innovative Formulation : Developed by experts in the field, our shots deliver optimal benefits without any unwanted side effects. Commitment to Wellness: At the CBD Vault, we are dedicated to promoting a healthy lifestyle through natural solutions. Availability: The new Kava & Kratom shots will be available for purchase immediately on our website. Customers can also take advantage of our special launch promotion, offering a 10% discount on all orders placed within the first month. About The CBD Vault Inc. The CBD Vault Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CBD Life Sciences Inc. The CBD Vault has developed and is retailing/wholesale a full line of cannabidiol based organic products including CBD Drops, Pain Relief Creams, Anxiety & Sleep Supplements, Edibles, Coffee, Skincare Line, Pet Line, Tablets. The CBD Vault's products can be viewed and purchased on the Company's website at www.thecbdvault.com Follow our social media for the latest updates! X: https://www.x.com/CBDL_StockOTC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cbd.vault IR Contact: cbdvaultaz@gmail.com Forward-Looking Statements Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release are forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties. See CBD Life Sciences, Inc's, Inc.'s filings with OTC Markets, which may identify specific factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Safe Harbor Statement This release includes forward-looking statements, which are based on certain assumptions and reflects management's current expectations. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations. Some of these factors include: general global economic conditions; general industry and market conditions, sector changes and growth rates; uncertainty as to whether our strategies and business plans will yield the expected benefits; increasing competition; availability and cost of capital; the ability to identify and develop and achieve commercial success; the level of expenditures necessary to maintain and improve the quality of services; changes in the economy; changes in laws and regulations, including codes and standards, intellectual property rights, and tax matters; or other matters not anticipated; our ability to secure and maintain strategic relationships and distribution agreements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking ability to secure and maintain strategic relationships and distribution agreements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. SOURCE: CBD Life Sciences Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com Continues Direct-to-Consumer Portfolio Optimization and Diversification; Absolute-Net Lease in Place and Produces 13.4% Effective Cap Rate; Leased to Best-in-Class Operator, Sunday Goods; Financing Secured by Private Family Office Lender SCOTTSDALE, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Zoned Properties, Inc. ("Zoned Properties" or the "Company") (OTCQB:ZDPY), a technology-driven property investment company for emerging and highly regulated industries, including legalized cannabis, is excited to announce the acquisition of its property in Surprise, Arizona, with tenant Sunday Goods. The acquisition and development of this property have been capitalized through cash on hand and a $1.62 million construction loan from a private family office lender. Transaction Highlights: The Company will acquire the property for approximately $1.60 million, including purchase price, closing costs, and selling developer's improvements. The Company has obtained a $1.62 million non-recourse construction loan from a private family office lender. The Company will provide a $1.0 million tenant improvement allowance for Sunday Goods to use toward the construction and development of its retail dispensary on the property. The Company believes Sunday Goods will need to invest additional capital to complete the construction and development of its retail dispensary on the property. The investment property is leased to Sunday Goods under a long-term, absolute-net lease agreement, which will produce an approximate 13.4% effective cap rate when straight-lined over the term of the lease agreement. The lease includes 3% annual increases in base rent, yielding approximately $350,000 in annual base rental revenue when straight-lined over the life of the lease term. Market Highlights: Arizona's cannabis market is one of the strongest in the nation surpassing $1.4 Billion in total sales in 2023, with many projecting sales to reach over $1.5 Billion in 2024. Surprise, Arizona was ranked by a Smart Asset Report as the top place in the country for attracting homebuyers under 35, with a growth rate of 15.88% over a ten-year period. Management Commentary: Bryan McLaren, CEO of Zoned Properties, commented, "We are thrilled to announce the acquisition of our property in Surprise, Arizona, and to welcome Sunday Goods, yet another top-tier cannabis operator, to our growing tenant roster. This acquisition is a significant step in our expansion strategy and underscores our commitment to developing high-quality real estate assets in key markets focused on direct-to-consumer cannabis applications. The favorable terms of this construction loan, including its non-recourse nature, allow us to manage our financial strategy effectively while driving growth and value creation. This new property in Surprise, Arizona, represents our ongoing efforts to strategically expand our portfolio and support the growth of the legalized cannabis industry. The partnership with Sunday Goods highlights our ability to attract best-in-class tenants and execute on our mission of seizing above market average cap rates." About Zoned Properties, Inc. (OTCQB:ZDPY): Zoned Properties Inc. ("Zoned Properties" or the "Company") (OTCQB:ZDPY) is a technology-driven property investment company focused on acquiring value-add real estate within the regulated cannabis industry in the United States. The Company aspires to innovate within the real estate development sector, focusing on direct-to-consumer real estate that is leased to the best-in-class cannabis retailers. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Zoned Properties is redefining the approach to commercial real estate investment through its standardized investment process backed by its proprietary property technology. Zoned Properties has developed a national ecosystem of real estate services to support its real estate development model, including a commercial real estate brokerage and a real estate advisory practice. With a decade of national experience and a team of experts devoted to the emerging cannabis industry, Zoned Properties is addressing the specific needs of a modern market in highly regulated industries. The Company targets commercial properties that face unique zoning or development challenges, identifies solutions that can potentially have a major impact on their commercial value, and then works to acquire the properties while securing long-term, absolute-net leases. Zoned Properties targets commercial properties that can be acquired and rezoned for specific purposes, including the regulated and legalized cannabis industry. It does not grow, harvest, sell or distribute cannabis or any substances regulated under United States law such as the Controlled Substance Act of 1970, as amended (the "CSA"). Zoned Properties corporate headquarters are located at 8360 E. Raintree Dr., Suite 230, Scottsdale, Arizona. For more information, call 877-360-8839 or visit www.ZonedProperties.com. Twitter: @ZonedProperties LinkedIn: @ZonedProperties Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this press release are forward-looking statements. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "plan," "potential," "continue" or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties, and there are important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors, risks and uncertainties are discussed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investors should not place any undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Company's control which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Any forward-looking statement reflects the Company's current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to operations, results of operations, growth strategy and liquidity. The Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Investor Relations Zoned Properties, Inc. Bryan McLaren Tel (877) 360-8839 Investors@zonedproperties.com www.zonedproperties.com SOURCE: Zoned Properties, Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com ST. JOHN'S, NL / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Vulcan Minerals Inc. ("the Company" - "Vulcan" TSX-V:VUL), is pleased to provide the following exploration update on its 100% owned Colchester/Springdale and Red Cross Lake projects in central Newfoundland. Highlights: IP survey underway at McNeilly zone Environmental Approval for Red Cross Lake access Colchester Springdale (Copper-Gold) Further to our ongoing work on this project, the Company has commenced an Induced Polarization (IP) survey at the McNeilly zone where the Company has had recent drilling success in expanding the volcanic massive sulphide copper-gold deposit (see news January 12, 2024). Previous IP surveys by the Company and historic operators have shown a positive correlation to copper zones. McNeilly appears to exhibit more than one copper zone based on recent drilling in 2023. This survey will help distinguish the trend of these zones. The survey will tie into a previous IP survey on the Colchester main deposit to the north and help establish the relationship between the two deposits. The survey consists of 20 line kilometers and will assist in directing further drilling. The Company wishes to acknowledge the financial support of the Junior Exploration Assistance Program and the Provincial Critical Mineral Assistance Program administered by the Dept of Industry, Energy and Technology of NL in the amount of a $150,000 grant towards exploration work carried out in 2023 on the Colchester/Springdale project. Red Cross Lake (Nickel-Copper) As part of a proposed exploration program at Red Cross Lake, the Company applied for environmental approval for a river crossing at the outflow of Red Cross Lake to permit access for exploration and drilling activities. The project was registered with the NL Dept of Environment and Climate Change on May 09, 2024 and released from further review with conditions on June 20, 2024. President Patrick Laracy commented, "We are active on our 100% owned Newfoundland projects as we add value to each of them notwithstanding the bear market conditions our industry is currently experiencing. Value added today will be leveraged in more favorable markets in the future. These projects are all road accessible resulting in very cost-effective exploration. We plan to drill either the Colchester/Springdale project or Red Cross Lake this year. However, both projects warrant drilling in due course." About Vulcan Vulcan Minerals is a precious and base metals exploration company based in St. John's, NL. The Company has strategic land positions in multiple active Newfoundland exploration and development belts. The Company has leveraged its exploration exposure in much of this land position through equity ownership of other explorers obtained by way of option and royalty agreements. It also owns approximately 30 per cent of the shares in Atlas Salt Inc. (TSXV:SALT). Atlas Salt is currently developing the Great Atlantic salt mine in western Newfoundland. Patrick J. Laracy, P. Geo., President, is the qualified person who has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this news release as defined in National Instrument 43-101. We seek safe harbour. For information please contact: Patrick J. Laracy, P.Geo. CEO and President (709) 754-3186 info@vulcanminerals.ca www.vulcanminerals.ca 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 the referenced exploration program 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 the referenced assessments and analysis. 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: Vulcan Minerals Inc View the original press release on accesswire.com RONN, Inc. (OTC PINK:RONN) is pleased to share key takeaways from the recent Geneva Supercar Show, where our CEO, Ronn Ford, attended as a special VIP guest. Mr. Ford noted that this prestigious event attracts some of the world's most discerning automobile enthusiasts, including investors, business owners, VIP guests, and government dignitaries. The Geneva Supercar Show is a collaborative effort between Mr. Manjo Bairstow and globally recognized watchmaker Frank Muller. Several significant developments emerged from the show, particularly concerning the advancement of hydrogen technology. On the first day, Mr. Ford met with the Ambassador of India to Switzerland. They had an initial discussion about Ronn, Inc.'s initiatives, including several of the recently announced Joint Ventures between Indian companies and Ronn, Inc. aimed at expanding our global footprint in both the U.S. and India. Plans are underway for more detailed discussions in the near future. Additionally, Mr. Ford engaged in a casual yet promising conversation with officials from a renowned watch company about the feasibility of our new All Electric Hydrogen Hyper Automobile. They discussed incorporating new design elements into the Phoenix, which could inspire a special edition watch. This collaboration underscores our mutual commitment to advancing hydrogen technology and promoting a cleaner future. Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) are expected to be signed this week, paving the way for more in-depth talks. Furthermore, we learned of Hydrogen Horizons' interest in participating in any Joint Venture between India and Ronn, Inc., following the positive feedback from the Geneva Supercar Show and the growing interest in hydrogen technology. "The significance of this event cannot be overstated. It provided a unique platform for bankers, politicians, investors, and collectors to forge relationships and develop a shared vision, all within the vibrant atmosphere of a supercar show. Several introductions and key conversations we had that we believe will be great for the advancement of the company and the growing hydrogen industry and look forward to making more announcements regarding these developments," said Ronn Ford. About RONN RONN is a Hydrogen company at the forefront of sustainable technology solutions. While working to manufacture high-performance, environmentally responsible hydrogen electric vehicles, the Company has now added hydrogen production hub development to contribute positively to the planet. For more information, please visit www.ronnmotorgroup.com or contact John Morgan at jmorgan@ronnmotorgroup.com Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the success of RONN, Inc. initiatives in the hydrogen tax credit market. RONN, Inc. undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. SOURCE: RONN View the original press release on accesswire.com VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Pegasus Resources Inc. (TSXV:PEGA)(Frankfurt:0QS0)(OTC PINKSLTFF) (the "Company" or "Pegasus") is pleased to announce that on July 3, 2024 the Company finalized an agreement (the "Agreement") with KD Prospect (the "Vendor") to acquire an undivided 100% right, title, and interest in the Jupiter Project ("Jupiter Project"), a strategic uranium Project located in Emery County, Utah, USA. This acquisition is subject to the terms and conditions specified in the agreement. "The acquisition of the Jupiter Project, along with our Energy Sands Project, presents an exceptional opportunity for Pegasus and our investors." stated CEO Chris Timmins, "Energy Sands holds the potential for a discovery, supported by recent ground program findings and historical drilling data indicating a mineralized paleochannel. Meanwhile, Jupiter provides an advanced property with historical drilling, which will be instrumental in developing a future resource estimate. Together, these Projects offer a unique chance for investors to participate in both the development of a new resource and the excitement of a potential discovery." The Jupiter claim group is located 3 kilometers north of Energy Sands and consists of 48 unpatented claims situated in part, in sections 10 and 15, Township 21 S. Range 14 E. SLPM, Emery County, Utah. The claims occur in the Bureau of Land Management, and access is obtained over a well-maintained service road which joins I-70 near Green River, Utah. The Jupiter Project was previously held by Atlas Minerals from 1972 to 1983. During this period, the claim group consisted of 25 unpatented claims. Atlas Minerals conducted approximately 100+ drill holes on the Jupiter Project with the greatest density occurring in the vicinity of the northeast corner of section 15. The extensive drilling and exploration activities conducted by Atlas Minerals demonstrated significant potential, and the project was considered a viable mineral resource. Atlas Minerals was advancing the project towards full-scale mining before the collapse of the uranium market in the early 1980s. The historical drill logs reveal promising results, with notable uranium intercepts. Pegasus will utilize the valuable information provided to guide our exploration program. Our goal is to create a resource estimate in accordance with the current CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The historical data underscores the project's potential for substantial uranium mineralization. Terms of the agreement: Issuance of Shares: Pegasus will issue 2,200,000 common shares ("Consideration Shares") to the Vendor within 10 business days following TSX Venture Exchange approval of the Agreement. Cash Payments: The Company will make a payment of $25,000 USD to the Vendor within 30 days of signing the Agreement. Additionally, subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval, a further payment of $75,000 USD will be made on or before the earlier of November 1, 2024, or 10 business days following the closing of a Private Placement. By the Company. Pegasus commits to conducting a drilling program totalling 1500 meters on the Jupiter Project within 30 days following the first anniversary of the Agreement. Upon completing these payments and satisfying all obligations outlined in the Agreement, Pegasus will have earned a 100% interest in the Jupiter Project. This interest is subject to Resource Bonuses (as defined below) and a Net Smelter Return Royalty in favour of the Vendor. Figure 1: Utah Property Map Exploration Data and Future Plans: Pegasus is committed to advancing its exploration projects and enhancing shareholder value. As part of these efforts, the Company intends to conduct the necessary work to create a resource estimate in accordance with the current CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The exploration strategy includes twinning historical drill holes, a geological relog of old drill holes, and defining new drill targets. These activities are aimed at both expanding the known resources and discovering new mineralization zones. This integrated approach is expected to refine the geological model of the Jupiter Project and significantly contribute to the understanding and development of the Jupiter Project. Figure 2: Historical Drill Hole Locations Resource Bonus and NSR Royalty: As Pegasus establishes additional uranium resources on the Jupiter Project, the Company will pay the Vendor a Resource Bonus of USD $100,000.00 for every increment of 500,000 lbs of uranium up to 2,500,000 lbs, as discovered on the Jupiter Project. The first Resource Bonus payment will be due within 90 days from the date the initial Resource Calculation exceeding 475,000 pounds of uranium is issued. The vendor will retain the Net Smelter Return (NSR) royalty on the resource. Historical Overview of Uranium Mining in the San Rafael River (Tidwell Bottoms) District: The San Rafael River (Tidwell Bottoms) district, located in the Green River mining area in eastern Emery County, played a pivotal role in the history of uranium and vanadium production. Operating from around 1948 to the mid-1980s, this district emerged as a major U-V producer, ranking among the largest uranium producers in the state. The historical narrative of uranium mining in the Tidwell Mineral Belt, particularly within the district encompassing the Snow and Probe mines, reflects a significant era of mineral exploration and production. These mines, alongside others such as the Black Panther, Incline No. 14, and Sahara, were central to the region's economic development during this period. The district's geological setting proved ideal for sandstone-hosted, trend-type uranium deposits, characterized by their peneconcordant nature and channel-controlled mineralization primarily within the upper sandstone sequence of the Salt Wash Member of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation. Atlas Minerals played a pivotal role in the district, operating the Snow and Probe mines until their closure in 1982. The Snow Mine, operated by Atlas Minerals, began production in 1973 and closed in 1982. It produced a substantial 650,292 pounds of U3O8 at an average grade of 0.188% U3O8. The Probe Mines commissioning is not directly mentioned in the source data, but it closed in 1982, yielding 293,985 pounds of U3O8 at an average grade of 0.186% U3O8, according to data compiled by Wilbanks in 1982. The Snow and Probe mines stood out as two of the largest and most productive in the district. Continued exploration drilling in the late 1970s and early 1980s, particularly along the northeast extension of the Snow and Lucky Mines mineralization, led to the discovery of several new mineralized zones and deposits. One notable discovery was the Deep Gold deposit by Pioneer Uravan, which was identified between 1979 and 1981. This period saw the cessation of production with the closure of these two mines, marking the end of significant uranium mining activity in the area. The Tidwell District presents unique challenges with poorly documented historical work. A good example is the Snow Mine's original resource estimates only used surface drilling data, but the actual production exceeded initial estimates by 455% in tons of ore and 281% in pounds of U3O8. This discrepancy between expected and actual yields underscores the challenges faced in uranium mining, as noted by Wilbanks in 1982, and was a common trend for uranium mineralization in the Green River area. In summary, as quoted by Wilbanks (1982), "In the past most orebodies mined in the Green River (Tidwell District) area have ultimately produced more pounds of U3O8 than calculated in original reserves. In relation to the current transaction, Pegasus confirms that no finder's fee will be paid. Furthermore, it is important to note that there are no relationships involving any Non-Arm's Length Party between the Company, its insiders, and the Vendors of the asset. Additionally, no further information is required to be disclosed under MI 61-101 concerning this transaction. This statement ensures transparency and compliance with the necessary regulatory standards. NI 43-101 Disclosure The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Trevor Mills, P.G., SME-RM who is a Principal Geologist for Dahrouge Geological Consulting USA Ltd., and a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101, who has prepared and/or reviewed the content of this press release. The results discussed in this document are historical. Pegasus Resources nor the qualified person have not performed sufficient work or data verification of the historical data. Although the historical results may not be reliable, the Company nevertheless believes that they provide an indication of the Property's potential and are relevant for any future exploration program. Mineralization on adjacent Properties and may no be indicative of mineralization on Pegasus Resources Inc. Properties References: UTAH MINERAL INDUSTRY ACTIVITY REVIEW 1981-82 - UTAH GEOLOGICAL AND MINERAL SURVEY a division of Utah Department of Natural Resources Circular 72 May 1984 (Atlas Minerals Engineering Department, 1982; Gordon, 1982; Wilbanks, 1982) Gordon, Gail, 1982, Mine Shut Down Report - Probe and North Snow Mines - Date 7-22-82: Atlas Minerals Engineering Department Unpublished Company Report, 69 p -Wilbanks, Larry, 1982, Closure Report - Atlas Minerals Probe and Snow Mines, Emery County, Utah: Atlas Minerals Unpublished Company Report, p. 56-72. About Pegasus Resources Inc. Pegasus Resources Inc. is a diversified Junior Canadian Mineral Exploration Company with a focus on uranium, gold, and base metal properties in North America. The Company is also actively pursuing the right opportunity in other resources to enhance shareholder value. For additional information, please visit the Company at www.pegasusresourcesinc.com. On Behalf of the Board of Directors: Christian Timmins President, CEO and Director Pegasus Resources Inc. 700 - 838 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC V6C 0A6 PH: 1-403-597-3410 X: https://twitter.com/MrChris_Timmins X: https://twitter.com/pegasusresinc E: info@pegasusresourcesinc.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward Looking Statements Statements included in this announcement, including statements concerning the Company's plans, intentions, and expectations, which are not historical in nature are intended to be, and are hereby identified as, "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements may be identified by words including "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "expects" and similar expressions. The Company cautions readers that forward-looking statements, including without limitation those relating to the Company's future operations and business prospects, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. SOURCE: Pegasus Resources Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com WAKULLA SPRINGS, FL / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / The Florida State Parks Foundation yesterday joined Duke Energy Florida and its foundation, along with the Friends of Wakulla Springs State Park, to unveil a new, state-of-the-art accessible playground at Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park near Tallahassee. The new playground, located a short distance from the park's beachfront along the Wakulla River, includes several accessible play elements and a wide path to accommodate mobility devices. The playground's centerpiece is a large glider styled in the fashion of the park's iconic river tour boats. "Seeing a replica of the Wakulla Springs boat and all of the other fun playground experiences here brings a huge smile to my face," said Kathleen Brennan, president of the Florida State Parks Foundation board of directors. "Thanks to Duke Energy Florida and the amazing Friends of Wakulla Springs, this beautiful new playground will welcome smiling faces for many, many years to come." Playground materials and installation costs totaled $72,204. Duke Energy Florida donated $44,000 toward the project, while the Friends of Wakulla Springs State Park contributed $15,000 and the Foundation funded the remaining balance. The playground is open during regular operating hours and access is included with park admission. "The Foundation is constantly seeking opportunities to expand accessibility in our state parks, and we are proud to have played a part in creating a playground for all children who visit Wakulla Springs," said Julia Gill Woodward, CEO of the Florida State Parks Foundation. This is the latest in a series of collaborations between the Foundation and Duke Energy Florida to benefit Florida state parks. In recent years, Duke Energy Florida and its foundation have donated more than $300,000 to state parks amenities and projects, including all-terrain beach and trail wheelchairs, a new strike team trailer for the Florida Park Service's emergency response teams, and more than 100 water bottle refilling stations at parks across the state. "Vibrant communities do not happen by accident. They are the result of hard work, intentional investments and collaboration with key organizations to solve challenges and nurture the places where we live, work and play," said Melissa Seixas, Duke Energy Florida state president. "We are proud to support the Florida State Parks Foundation and all they do to protect Florida's most-treasured parks and expand access to outdoor recreation opportunities for all." The Foundation also unveiled the "Great Blue Heron" hybrid-electric tour boat at Wakulla Springs State Park late last year. The boat includes an extended dock ramp and wide spaces to accommodate people who use mobility devices. "We are committed to providing inclusive recreational experiences for all of our visitors, and we are so pleased to offer these new accessible features at Wakulla Springs," Florida State Parks Director Chuck Hatcher said. "This new playground will create fun park memories for our youngest guests, and we hope that it will help inspire a lifelong love of Florida's natural resources." Florida State Parks Foundation The Florida State Parks Foundation, founded in 1993 as Friends of Florida State Parks and renamed in 2018, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation whose mission is to support and help sustain the Florida Park Service, its 175 award-winning parks and trails, local Friends groups and more than 20,000 park volunteers. It does this through programs that preserve and protect state parks, educate visitors about the value of state parks, encourage community engagement and active use of state parks, and advocacy. These projects were completed through the Florida State Parks Foundation Services LLC, which is a limited liability company affiliate of the Foundation. The volunteer board of directors represents private and public sectors as well as local and statewide interests. Duke Energy Florida Duke Energy Florida, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, owns 12,300 megawatts of energy capacity, supplying electricity to 2 million residential, commercial and industrial customers across a 13,000-square-mile service area in Florida. Duke Energy Foundation The Duke Energy Foundation provides more than $30 million annually in philanthropic support to meet the needs of communities where Duke Energy customers live and work. The Foundation is funded by Duke Energy shareholders. Media contact: Audrey Stasko Media line: 800.559.3853 Twitter: @DE_AudreyS Florida State Parks Foundation media contact: Tim Linafelt 850.566.6118 tim@floridastateparksfoundation.org View original content here. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Duke Energy on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Duke Energy Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/duke-energy Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Duke Energy View the original press release on accesswire.com Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Zodiac Gold Inc. (TSXV: ZAU) ("Zodiac Gold" or the "Company") is proud to announce the appointment of Ryan Hanley to its Advisory Board. Mr. Hanley brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the company, with an impressive career spanning over 15 years in the mining and capital markets sectors. Adding a well-respected sell-side mining analyst like Mr. Hanley to the Company's Advisory Board is highly strategic for Zodiac Gold as his insights will provide critical guidance in our efforts to optimize the Company's investment appeal. Mr. Hanley will be joining Renaud Adams, current CEO of IAMGOLD Corp. (NYSE: IAG), and Michael Demeter, Managing Director of Fort Capital, on Zodiac Gold's Advisory Board. Mr. Hanley is currently the CEO of Springburn Capital Inc., a private investment & advisory firm providing services to early stage, pre-listed, and small/mid-cap public companies. Prior to Springburn, Mr. Hanley held the role of Director & Mining Analyst at Laurentian Bank Securities in Toronto, where he worked from March 2017 to May 2024. Before joining LBS, Mr. Hanley was an Equity Research Analyst specializing in Mining & Mining Services at Research Capital Corp. from 2012 to 2017. His career at Research Capital also included roles as a Mining Research Associate from 2009 to 2012 and an Investment Banking Analyst in 2008. Mr. Hanley has been consistently recognized as a leading analyst in the mining industry, earning accolades from Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, and Refinitiv. Among his numerous honors, he was notably ranked as the 3rd "Top Stock Picker (All Sectors)" in Canada in the 2017 Thomson Reuters Analyst Awards. Mr. Hanley holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. "We are thrilled to welcome Mr. Hanley to our Advisory Board," said David Kol, CEO of Zodiac Gold Inc. "His extensive experience and proven track record in the mining sector will be invaluable as we continue to advance our strategic initiatives and growth objectives. Our goal has always been to build a best-in-class team to support our growth and marketing strategy. Ryan definitely fills that role by bringing his analytical and research approach to the company. " About Zodiac Gold Zodiac Gold, Inc. (TSXV: ZAU) is a West-African gold exploration company focused on its flagship Todi Project situated in Liberia-an underexplored, politically stable, mining-friendly jurisdiction hosting several large-scale gold deposits. Strategically positioned along the fertile Todi Shear Zone, Zodiac Gold is developing a district-scale gold opportunity covering a vast 2,316 km2 land package. The project has undergone de-risking, showcasing proven gold occurrences at both surface and depth, with five drill-ready targets and high-grade gold intercepts. For further information, please visit the Zodiac Gold website at www.zodiac-gold.com or contact: 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 Information This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. 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 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 statements. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216013 SOURCE: Zodiac Gold Inc. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Golden Share Resources Corporation (TSXV: GSH) ("Golden Share" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has amended the option agreement with Delta Resources Limited (TSXV: DLTA) (OTC Pink: DTARF) (FSE: 6GO1) ("Delta") announced on May 23, 2024, in which the Company has granted an option to Delta to earn a 100% interest in the Band-Ore property (the "Property" or "Band-Ore"). The objective of the amendment is to fix the absolute maximum number of shares that could possibly be issued by Delta to Golden Share by fixing the minimum price per share that Delta would issue as part of the agreement. The minimum price of the Delta shares was therefore fixed at $0.075 for a maximum possible issuance of 9,333,333 shares that could be issued to Golden Share. The Property is located west of Thunder Bay, Ontario and covers approximately 2,115 hectares and comprises 16 patented mining claims, one mining claim lease, and 109 staked mining claims in Hagey and Conacher Townships of Ontario. Agreement Details: In order to acquire a 100% interest in the Property, the Company is required to make aggregate cash and security payments to Golden Share in the amount of $2,000,000 as below: On signing: $100,000 in cash Anniversary 1: $150,000 in cash and $100,000 in Delta shares Anniversary 2: $150,000 in cash and $100,000 in Delta shares Anniversary 3: $200,000 in cash and $100,000 in Delta shares Anniversary 4: $300,000 in cash and $200,000 in Delta shares Anniversary 5: $400,000 in cash and $200,000 in Delta shares *All share prices are based on 20-day VWAP, with a minimum price of $0.075 per share. Golden Share will retain a 2% Net Smelter Return Royalty ("NSR"). Delta will have the option to buyback a 1.0% NSR at anytime for $3M and will have a right of first refusal on the second 1.0% NSR. If Delta defines a NI 43-101 mineral resource on the property after earn-in, Golden Share will be entitled to a bonus of $500,000 for an estimate of 500,000 gold ounces contained up to 1,000,000 ounces and a bonus of $1,000,000 for an estimate of greater than 1,000,000 contained gold ounces. There are no work commitments on the property. The agreement is subject to regulatory approval. Qualified Persons The technical content disclosed in this press release was reviewed and approved by Wes Roberts, P. Eng., a Qualified Person as defined under NI 43-101. About Golden Share Golden Share Resources Corporation is a mineral exploration company focusing on the province of Ontario, Canada, a mineral rich and politically stable jurisdiction. WARNING: Certain statements in this press release may be forward-looking, including those with respect to the timing and content of up-coming work programs, geological interpretations, etc. Forward-Looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. The Company relies upon litigation protection for forward-looking statements. The reader is warned against undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. 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. For more information, please visit www.goldenshare.ca or contact: To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216038 SOURCE: Golden Share Resources Corporation Lachute, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Quebec Innovative Materials Corp. (CSE: QIMC) (FSE: 7FJ) ("QI Materials", "QIMC" or the "Company"), proudly congratulates its valued partners, HPQ Silicon Resources Inc. (HPQ) and Pyrogenesis Canada Inc's HPQ Silica Polvere Inc (HSPI), on signing a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Evonik Industries AG, a global leader in specialty chemicals. This significant development underscores QIMC's commitment to advancing innovation in high-performance materials, including fumed silica. Under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) inked between HPQ and QIMC on September 14, 2022, the Company has been steadfast in supplying HPQ with high-grade silica for testing purposes. The silica delivered from QIMC's Charlevoix facility has consistently met HPQ's stringent high-grade requirements, as confirmed in multiple news releases by QIMC on January 27, 2023, February 23, 2023, and March 14, 2023. On June 27, 2024, QIMC delivered additional batches of high-grade silica to HPQ for further testing. This ongoing collaboration underscores the Company's commitment to advancing the capabilities of HPQ and HSPI and in the realm of fumed silica and high-performance materials. "We are delighted with the continued success of our partnership with HPQ Silicon," said John Karagiannidis CEO of Quebec Innovative Materials Corporation. "The Company remains committed to delivering high-grade silica that supports HPQ and HSPI's innovative advancements in materials technology." The partnership between HPQ, QIMC and the signing of the LOI between HPQ, HPSI and Evonik marks a significant milestone in the journey toward developing cutting-edge materials solutions that meet the evolving demands of various industries. QIMC looks forward to further strengthening its collaboration with HPQ and HPSI. About Quebec Innovative Materials Corp. Quebec Innovative Materials Corp. is a mineral exploration, and development company dedicated to exploring and harnessing the potential of Canada's abundant resources. With properties in Ontario and Quebec, QIMC is focused on specializing in the exploration of white (natural) hydrogen and high-grade silica deposits, QIMC is committed to sustainable practices and innovation. With a focus on environmental stewardship and cutting-edge extraction technology, we aim to unlock the full potential of these materials to drive forward clean energy solutions to power the AI and carbon-neutral economy and contribute to a more sustainable future. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the CSE policies) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements". Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Quebec Innovative Materials' actual results, performance or achievements, or developments in the industry to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-Looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "could" or "should" occur. Although Quebec Innovative Materials believes the forward-looking information contained in this news release is reasonable based on information available on the date hereof, by their nature, forward-looking statements involve assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Examples of such assumptions, risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, assumptions, risks and uncertainties associated with general economic conditions; adverse industry events; future legislative and regulatory developments in the mining sector; the Company's ability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources, and/or inability to access sufficient capital on favorable terms; mining industry and markets in Canada and generally; the ability of Quebec Innovative Materials Corp. to implement its business strategies; competition; and other assumptions, risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of the Company as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. While the Company may elect to, it does not undertake to update this information at any particular time except as required in accordance with applicable laws. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216041 SOURCE: Quebec Innovative Materials Corp. Saguenay, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - First Phosphate Corp. (CSE: PHOS) (OTC: FRSPF) (FSE: KD0) ("First Phosphate" or the "Company") is pleased to report results from another 11 drill holes at its Begin-Lamarche project located in the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region of Quebec, Canada. The Company's 25,929 m drill program was completed ahead of schedule on April 29, 2024. All samples have now been shipped to Actlabs, ON, for analyses. Shortly, a 43-101 resource estimate will be initiated followed immediately by a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA"). Results of both studies are expected by end of fiscal Q4 2024. Highlights: Phosphate Mountain Zone: Drill hole BL-24-92 intersected 8.13% P2O5 (phosphate) over 177.0 m starting at a surface depth of 15.0 m. Drill hole BL-24-94 returned an intersection of 11.38% P2O5 over 99.0 m starting at a depth of 51.0 m including an interval of 14.56% P2O5 over 42.7 m starting at 89.0 m. Drill hole BL-24-95 returned an intersection of 8.90% P2O5 over 156.0 m starting at a surface depth of 6.0 m. Southern Zone: Drill hole BL-24-88 intersected 7.18% P2O5 over 144.0 m from a depth of 261.0 m. This intersection is one of the highest phosphate concentrations in the Southern Zone. Drill hole BL-24-89 intersected 5.99% P2O5 over 112.0 m starting at a depth of 233.0 m. Northwestern Zone Drill hole BL-24-91 intersected 7.63% P2O5 over 45.0 m starting from a depth of 84.0 m "So far, we have intersected significant phosphate layers in all but 2 holes continuously across the 3 km magnetic trend at our Begin-Lamarche project," said First Phosphate CEO, John Passalacqua. "We are dealing with a significant phosphate horizon to be quantified shortly by a 43-101 resource estimate followed immediately by a PEA." Phosphate Mountain Zone A total of 23 drill holes have been completed to date in the Phosphate Mountain Zone while results from 20 drill holes have been received to date. Data received from these 20 drill holes shows grades of over 10% P2O5 over widths ranging from 7 m to 99 m. The Phosphate Mountain Zone has been drilled for a total length of 250 m to date. This zone is beginning to merge (from the southwest) with the Northern Zone (See Figure 1) where a 500 m thick phosphate mineralized envelope exists, one which has delineated up to 5 individual layers ranging from 60 m to 100 m in thickness starting at surface and continuing down to a depth of 300 m. The overall strike length of the Phosphate Mountain Zone and the Northern Zone is approximately 600 m. Drill hole BL-24-90 intersected 10.15% P2O5 (phosphate) over 84.0 m starting at a surface depth of 6.0 m. Drill hole BL-24-92 intersected 8.13% P2O5 (phosphate) over 177.0 m starting at a surface depth of 15.0 m. Within this intersection, three phosphate layers with grades over 10% were intersected. Drill hole BL-24-94 returned an intersection of 11.38% P2O5 over 99.0 m starting at a depth of 51.0 m including an interval of 14.56% P2O5 over 42.7 m starting at 89.0 m. Drill hole BL-24-95 returned an intersection of 8.90% P2O5 over 156.0 m starting at a surface depth of 6.0 m. (See Table 1). Table 1 - Drill Results for the Phosphate Mountain Zone Hole From (m) To (m) Length1 (m) P2O5 (%) TiO2 (%) Fe2O3T (%) BL-24-85 102.0 134.0 32.0 11.54 4.28 25.80 BL-24-85 150.0 165.0 15.0 6.02 1.63 11.46 BL-24-90 6.0 90.0 84.0 10.15 2.82 21.43 including 6.0 35.0 29.0 10.95 3.09 26.07 including 54.0 90.0 36.0 12.29 3.23 21.60 BL-24-92 15.0 192.0 177.0 8.13 3.89 22.49 including 36.0 72.0 36.0 11.92 5.91 33.41 including 93.0 108.0 15.0 13.93 6.88 31.80 including 138.0 171.0 33.0 10.52 5.19 29.86 BL-24-94 51.0 150.0 99.0 11.38 3.98 25.37 including 5.0 27.0 22.0 9.62 5.14 29.73 including 89.0 131.7 42.7 14.56 4.52 26.11 BL-24-95 6.0 162.0 156.0 8.90 4.14 20.97 including 6.0 45.0 39.0 11.09 4.96 23.59 including 69.0 108.0 39.0 12.10 5.39 26.41 including 141.0 162.0 21.0 13.54 6.94 33.94 BL-24-98 18.0 33.0 15.0 4.62 2.24 12.74 1 Lengths are measured along the core. True widths are estimated to be between 70 and 90% of the core interval. Southern Zone The Southern Zone has been drilled at 100 m spaced sections over a strike length of 1,600 m. Results to date from the Southern Zone show continuous widths in excess of 100 m of phosphate mineralization. Drill hole BL-24-88 intersected 7.18% P2O5 over 144.0 m from a depth of 261.0 m. This intersection is one of the highest phosphate concentrations in the Southern Zone. Drill hole BL-24-89 intersected 5.99% P2O5 over 112.0 m starting at a depth of 233.0 m. These results show that phosphate grades seem to increase with depth while widths remain over 100 m wide (see Table 2). Table 2 - Drill Results for the Southern Zone Hole From (m) To (m) Length1 (m) P2O5 (%) TiO2 (%) Fe2O3T (%) BL-24-88 172.25 180.0 7.75 6.64 5.40 36.62 BL-24-88 219.0 363.0 144.0 7.18 4.61 31.02 including 261.0 307.6 46.6 8.89 5.25 34.84 BL-24-89 52.2 58.0 5.8 5.74 3.11 20.02 BL-24-89 128.7 141.0 12.3 4.65 2.83 16.20 BL-24-89 166.0 183.0 17.0 3.70 2.14 11.10 BL-24-89 195.7 199.0 3.3 7.64 5.17 28.45 BL-24-89 233.0 345.0 112.0 5.99 4.67 25.64 BL-24-93 132.0 349.4 217.4 4.92 4.08 21.90 including 324.0 349.4 25.4 7.44 4.95 28.33 1 Lengths are measured along the core. True width is estimated to be between 60% and 90% of the core interval. Northwestern Zone Drill hole BL-24-91 intersected 7.63% P2O5 over 45.0 m from a depth of 84.0 m and drill hole BL-24-99 intersected 7.25% P2O5 over 30.5 m starting at a depth of 92.0 m (See Table 3). These results show that the Northwestern zone has an average width of 40 m with grades between 7% and 9% P2O5. Table 3 - Drill Results for the Northwestern Zone Hole From (m) To (m) Length1 (m) P2O5 (%) TiO2 (%) Fe2O3T (%) BL-24-91 84.0 129.0 45.0 7.63 4.05 24.55 BL-24-99 92.0 122.5 30.5 7.25 4.03 24.94 1 Lengths are measured along the core. True width is estimated to be over 80% of the core interval. Summary The technical parameters of the drill holes being released in this press release are shown in Table 4 below and their location is shown in Figure 1 below. A summary of the mineralized intersections from the 2024 drilling program is presented in Table 5. Table 4 - Parameters for the Current Drill Holes Being Released Hole_ID Easting Northing Azimuth Dip Length (m) Zone BL-24-85 326970 5403759 330 -50 201 Mountain BL-24-88 326227 5403246 125 -45 366 Southern BL-24-89 325766 5401842 305 -45 366 Southern BL-24-90 326884 5403904 150 -75 150 Mountain BL-24-91 326231 5403247 330 -50 201 NW BL-24-92 326874 5403806 150 -45 252 Mountain BL-24-93 325558 5402120 125 -60 363 Southern BL-24-94 326874 5403805 330 -70 225 Mountain BL-24-95 326784 5403749 150 -45 162 Mountain BL-24-98 326780 5403667 305 -45 246 Mountain BL-24-99 326174 5403277 305 -80 252 NW Table 5 - Other Previously Released Results for the 2024 Drill Campaign Hole_ID From (m) To (m) Length (m) P2O5 (%) TiO2 (%) Fe2O3T (%) BL-24-22 195.0 259.0 64.50 5.80 2.94 21.04 BL-24-23 21.0 175.1 154.1 7.02 4.40 27.34 BL-24-24 61.3 190.9 129.6 5.22 3.63 22.32 BL-24-25 74.2 117.0 42.8 9.89 3.54 28.65 BL-24-26 6.9 96.0 89.1 9.44 3.92 27.59 BL-24-27 138.0 189.0 51.0 4.41 3.05 20.62 BL-24-28 73.25 152.2 78.95 5.48 4.07 24.68 BL-24-29 99.0 276.0 177.0 4.46 3.63 22.85 BL-24-30 33.0 78.65 45.65 4.28 2.97 19.83 BL-24-31 119.85 213.8 93.95 7.16 3.49 18.76 BL-24-32 159.0 228.0 69.0 5.51 3.82 24.60 BL-24-33 3.8 110.0 106.2 5.00 3.70 21.19 BL-24-34 93.0 192.0 99.0 6.34 2.74 20.09 BL-24-35 212.5 253.7 41.2 6.25 3.44 19.55 BL-24-36 234.0 342.0 108.0 6.83 4.33 28.34 BL-24-37 84.0 126.0 42.0 6.03 4.47 28.57 BL-24-39 102.0 150.0 48.0 5.51 2.20 16.64 BL-24-40 186.0 274.2 88.2 7.76 2.86 21.87 BL-24-41 96.0 141.0 45.0 5.18 3.08 17.68 BL-24-42 6.6 188.7 182.1 5.04 3.09 17.77 BL-24-43 111.0 369.0 258.0 5.41 4.33 22.19 BL-24-44 192.4 283.0 90.6 7.48 3.38 23.64 BL-24-45 22.0 60.0 38.0 7.97 3.15 20.54 BL-24-46 155.2 177.6 22.4 14.33 5.83 28.28 BL-24-47 153.0 304.0 151.0 3.89 3.36 19.51 BL-24-48 32.0 39.65 7.65 15.01 2.59 19.17 BL-24-49 72.5 105.5 33.0 8.65 3.77 24.05 BL-24-50 4.2 93.0 88.8 5.90 4.14 23.62 BL-24-51 70.0 111.0 41.0 7.72 1.88 16.09 BL-24-52 204.0 247.7 43.7 7.04 3.62 24.50 BL-24-53 70.1 132.4 62.3 9.50 4.12 28.45 BL-24-53 154.1 246.0 91.9 6.92 3.50 20.08 BL-24-54 61.1 101.1 40.0 9.18 4.80 28.16 BL-24-55 4.0 194.8 190.8 4.60 3.64 19.83 BL-24-56 6.5 99.0 92.5 11.82 5.29 30.96 BL-24-56 123.0 162.0 39.0 8.43 3.18 17.56 BL-24-57 183.9 194.0 10.1 6.58 3.86 22.58 BL-24-58 81.0 144.0 63.0 4.02 3.46 18.82 BL-24-59 6.55 59.4 52.85 12.44 5.65 33.60 BL-24-60 3.7 197.7 194.0 5.21 3.81 22.50 BL-24-61 No significant results BL-24-62 69.0 144.65 75.65 9.97 3.66 20.71 BL-24-63 37.7 297.0 259.3 5.21 3.80 21.65 BL-24-64 3.0 42.0 39.0 9.06 4.11 25.45 BL-24-65 144.7 162.5 17.8 10.37 5.40 31.00 BL-24-66 6.0 97.0 91.0 5.35 4.43 26.85 BL-24-67 3.0 87.0 84.0 11.85 5.09 32.49 BL-24-68 13.0 46.65 33.65 5.64 4.02 22.83 BL-24-69 29.0 65.1 36.1 9.81 3.26 22.36 BL-24-70 73.6 148.0 74.4 4.27 3.49 20.55 BL-24-71 73.3 174.9 101.6 4.76 3.52 19.60 BL-24-72 196.0 305.0 109.0 4.72 3.70 21.26 BL-24-73 195.2 366.0 170.8 5.23 4.13 22.38 BL-24-74 82.0 102.3 20.3 10.30 4.28 19.01 BL-24-75 118.2 135.0 16.8 6.01 4.34 26.65 BL-24-76 49.0 64.25 15.3 11.27 4.40 24.29 BL-24-77 174.0 360.0 186.0 4.53 3.23 19.64 BL-24-79 No significant results BL-24-78 47.55 102.7 55.15 8.72 3.18 19.87 BL-24-80 2.4 74.55 72.15 6.59 2.37 16.23 BL-24-81 190.15 265.3 75.15 5.05 3.61 20.30 BL-24-82 6.0 83.7 77.7 11.07 3.28 18.63 BL-24-83 5.0 216.6 211.6 5.81 3.52 24.00 BL-24-84 205.9 283.0 77.1 8.41 4.14 22.75 BL-24-86 9.3 44.55 35.25 6.24 4.46 23.61 BL-24-87 173.6 198.0 24.4 7.12 5.57 28.79 Detailed results from the 2024 drill program are available at: May 14, 2024: https://firstphosphate.com/May_14_2024 April 23, 2024: https://firstphosphate.com/April_23_2024 April 2, 2024: https://firstphosphate.com/drilling-2m-vein-of-massive-apatite March 19, 2024: https://firstphosphate.com/initial-assay-results Results for the earlier 4,661 m drill program conducted in 2023 can be found in the June 5, 2023 press release available at: https://firstphosphate.com/begin-lamarche-2023 Figure 1 - Drill Map for the 2024 Drill Program at Begin-Lamarche To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8917/216044_2e8d303324111add_001full.jpg Quality Assurance / Quality Control The sampling of, and assay data from, the drill core is monitored through the Company's implementation of a quality assurance - quality control (QA-QC) program designed to the CIM Mineral Exploration Best Practices Guidelines. A formal chain-of-custody procedure was adopted for security of samples until their delivery at the laboratory. Drill core (NQ size) is logged and samples are selected by Laurentia Exploration Inc. geologists and sawn in half with a diamond saw at the project site. Half of the core is retained at the site for reference purposes. Sample intervals may vary from 0.5 to 3 metres in length depending on the geological observations. A blank and a standard are inserted at the beginning of each sample batch, usually one complete hole, and a blank and a standard are then inserted alternatively each 10 samples. Half-core samples are packaged and sent by ground transportation in sealed rice bags to an independent laboratory, Activation Laboratories Ltd. of Ancaster, Ontario (ISO/IEC 17025:2005 with CAN-P-1579). The core samples are crushed up to 80% passing 2mm (10 mesh), riffle split 250 g and pulverized (mild steel) to 95% passing -200 mesh. Each sample is analyzed for whole rock analysis (code 4B) for 10 major oxides and 7 trace elements by lithium metaborate/tetraborate fusion of 3g of material and analyze by ICP-OES. The laboratory has its own QA/QC protocols. Qualified Person The scientific and technical disclosure for First Phosphate included in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Gilles Laverdiere, P.Geo. Mr. Laverdiere is Chief Geologist of First Phosphate and a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure of Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). Purchase of Additional Mineral Claims for Shares First Phosphate has entered into a mineral claims purchase agreement with arm's length parties to acquire 15 additional mineral claims within the Begin-Lamarche claim block in the area of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec. The effective closing date of the transaction is July 10, 2024 and compensation is to be satisfied through the issuance of 200,000 common shares of the Company (the "Shares") at a deemed price of $0.20 per Share. These Shares will be subject to a statutory four month and one day hold period from closing of the transaction as well as an additional escrow period of 24 months from the closing date. The newly acquired claims are free from any royalty. Stock Options The Company has approved the grant of 150,000 stock options to purchase common shares of the Company (the "Options") to an eligible person of the Company, at an exercise price of $0.40 per share, with an expiry date of three years from the date of issuance. The Options vest in 4 tranches (25% on December 31, 2024, June 30, 2025, December 31, 2025 and June 30, 2026). The terms of the Options granted are in accordance with the Company's stock option plan approved by shareholders of the Company on August 25, 2023. All securities issued are subject to a statutory hold period of four months plus one day from the date of issuance, in accordance with applicable securities legislation. Restricted Share Units ("RSUs") The Company has also granted 175,000 RSUs of the Company ("RSUs") to an eligible consultant of the Company. The RSUs vest in 3 tranches (14% on August 31, 2024, and 43% on both 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 ("CAM") for the lithium iron phosphate ("LFP") battery industry. First Phosphate is committed to producing at high purity level, at full ESG standard 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 CAM 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 material devoid of high concentrations of harmful elements. -30- Follow First Phosphate: Twitter: https://twitter.com/FirstPhosphate LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/first-phosphate/ 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, statements relating to the Company's planned exploration activities, including its drill target strategy and next steps for the Begin-Lamarche Property; and the Company's interpretations and expectations about the results on the Begin-Lamarche Property. 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/216044 SOURCE: First Phosphate Corp. On the heels of celebrating 150,000 environmental regulatory reports generated by customers, Ecobot widens its product offerings for the environmental consulting industry. ASHEVILLE, NC / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Ecobot, the company driving the digitization of environmental permitting, today announced the launch of its end-to-end photo reporting feature for environmental assessments. This feature release closely follows the expansion of the Ecobot platform to include stream and Ordinary High Water Mark (OHWM) assessments, encompassing a larger scope of consultants' field and reporting workflows. Ecobot's photo workflow bundles in-field photo capture with collection of field data and geospatial metadata, including latitude and longitude, elevation, cardinal direction, sampling point association, title, and description. This robust, centralized photo management system produces polished photo reports for environmental assessments. Automated suggestions and efficiency tools enable customers to further streamline their fieldwork-to-reporting workflows. Other feature releases: Earlier in Q2, Ecobot launched Stream and OHWM assessments on the platform. This expansion is particularly valuable for customers in the Southwest, where OHWM assessments are more common than wetland delineations, Ecobot's flagship product offering. Elena Capson, biologist at Utah-based engineering firm Bowen Collins & Associates, says Ecobot's OHWM tool has given her team unprecedented flexibility in the field. "We were thrilled when Ecobot released OHWM surveys since the USACE has been requesting them more often alongside delineations. We don't always know we need to do an OHWM survey until we're already in the field, so it allows us to be agile on site, and the workflow is really straightforward." Milestones: To date, customers have generated over 150,000 environmental regulatory reports in Ecobot across more than 18,000 projects. These reports are the critical first steps in multi-state pipelines, state-wide power grid updates, major transportation improvements, and smaller-scale developments across the United States. Averaging 20 minutes saved per report, Ecobot customers in the civil engineering and environmental industries have saved more than 50,000 hours of labor. Awards: On Earth Day, Ecobot was recognized with a Top Product in the Software + Cloud category by E+E Leader. "Ecobot is a simple-to-use yet robust set of tools that makes life easier for environmental consultants," said one judge. "Ecobot makes environmental compliance fast and easy, on both sides of the field work-environment manager coin." Earlier this year, Ecobot was recognized as a Top Product in the Products That Count Awards for the second year in a row, in the category of AI & Data. About Ecobot: Ecobot is leading the digitization of environmental data management in the AEC industry. The cloud-based platform simplifies environmental assessments and permitting, and unlocks data from environmental consulting work for the broad-scale analyses and insights needed to strategically mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss. Used to generate more than 150,000 environmental regulatory reports since 2018, Ecobot is the premier digital solution for the environmental consulting industry. Learn more or try it for free at ecobot.com. Contact Information Zoe Kovacs Communications Associate, Ecobot zoek@ecobot.com 610-551-4963 SOURCE: Ecobot, Inc. View the original press release on newswire.com. ZCCM INVESTMENTS HOLDINGS PLC [Incorporated in the Republic of Zambia] Company registration number: 119540000771 Share Code: ZCCM-IH ISIN: ZM0000000037 ["ZCCM-IH" or the "Company"] MARKET ANNOUNCEMENT MAAMBA COLLIERIES LIMITED 300 MW PHASE II POWER PLANT PROJECT The Board of ZCCM Investments Holding Plc ("ZCCM-IH" or the "Company") wishes to inform the shareholders and the market that Maamba Collieries Limited ("MCL"), has reached an agreement with anchor lenders in relation to financing for construction and installation of an additional 300 MW power plant at MCL referred to as the Project. MCL has already signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement ("PPA") with ZESCO Limited the national electricity utility company in Zambia for the Phase II Project. MCL was originally established as a coal mine in 1971 by the Government of the Republic of Zambia. MCL was privatised in 2010 with Nava Bharat Singapore Limited ("NBS" )selected as the strategic equity partner. NBS holds 65% while ZCCM-IH holds 35% shares in MCL. The company set up a 300MW coal-fired power plant in 2016 as Phase I of its power generation business. It is also a trading member of the Southern African Power Pool and currently generates more than 90% of its income from power sales. Regarding the Phase II Project, it is expected that the construction period will be twenty-four (24) months, from August 2024 to July 2026. The total cost of the Project is estimated at USD400m, of which a consortium of debt will finance approximately USD 300 million. The Phase II Plant will be identical to the current operation and will consist of two generating units of 150MW each, increasing the total number of generating units to four. The new plant will utilise existing auxiliary facilities for support infrastructure such as the transmission line and coal preparation plant. The Board of ZCCM-IH will update the market on the progress of the development and construction process in due course. By Order of the Board Charles Mjumphi Company Secretary Issued in Lusaka, Zambia on 10 July 2024 Lusaka Securities Exchange Sponsoring Broker T | +260-211-232456 E | advisory@sbz.com.zm W | www.sbz.com.zm Stockbrokers Zambia Limited (SBZ) is a member of the Lusaka Securities Exchange and is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Zambia First Issued on 10 July 2024 ------------------------ This publication embed "Actusnews SECURITY MASTER ". - SECURITY MASTER Key: mG1xZ5pqkmvHy2qcZMeZmJJkm2mTxJWZaWXHxmScY5fGZ26TyWlqbMrLZnFnnGtn - Check this key: https://www.security-master-key.com. ------------------------ Copyright Actusnews Wire Receive by email the next press releases of the company by registering on www.actusnews.com, it's free Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-86761-zccm-ih-mcl-announcement-sens-10.07.2024.pdf The company's battlefield-tested surveillance technology is poised to transform how armed forces manage complicated and multi-discipline reconnaissance missions VILNIUS, Lithuania, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Granta Autonomy, an innovative startup specializing in fully autonomous UAVs for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, today announced the successful completion of its 1 million seed funding round. ScaleWolf VC, the leading Lithuanian dual-use tech VC Fund and Accelerator, led the round, with participation from Brolis Defence and HFL holdings. The new capital will enable Granta Autonomy to accelerate the development and production of its cutting-edge lightweight surveillance and reconnaissance UAVs, micro gimbals, and digital Datalink software, which its team has personally tested over Ukraine's front lines. Granta Autonomy has been developing reconnaissance remote-controlled UAV aircraft, lightweight gimbals, and its unique Datalink software since 2015. Founded by former military engineers Gediminas Guoba and Laurynas Litvinas, the company now provides NATO forces across Europe with its range of hand-launched Hornet UAVs while also providing a range of partners with its proprietary, ultra-reliable, lightweight micro gimbals, which are the lightest direct drive gimbals on the market. Granta Autonomy's micro gimbals feature a powerful camera system that allows for clear daytime image capture at long distances (up to 5 kilometres) and provides vital thermal vision for nighttime operations, ensuring mission success around the clock. "The traditional battlefield is evolving, and Western armies require robust, reliable, and flexible solutions. Granta Autonomy is committed to ensuring our systems can be readily manufactured across Europe, reducing reliance on external sources. Today's funding enables us to ramp up our production capacity to deliver the large-scale deployments Europe needs," said Gediminas Guoba, founder and CEO of Granta Autonomy. "However, our focus goes beyond just numbers; our team works directly with soldiers on the battlefield, testing our products and software in combat zones and collaborating on solutions that excel in the toughest conditions. This battlefield experience, valued by our Western partners, fuels our mission to revolutionize drone reconnaissance for global militaries." Granta Autonomy's latest UAV, the Hornet XR, is a small, hard-to-detect, hand-launched mini reconnaissance UAV with several critical features for covert missions. With a simple throw take-off and a silent flight lasting up to 3 hours, it can cover vast distances (up to 160 km) undetected. Pre-programmed missions ensure autonomous operation, even in radio silence or GNSS-denied environments. The ultra-lightweight aircraft lands itself using a deep-stall method, making it easy to retrieve in tight spaces, and its compact, modular design allows for convenient transport in a car trunk. Granta Autonomy's powerful but lightweight GS-214X and GS-218X micro gimbal systems enable Hornets and other third-party drones to capture sharp images from long distances (up to 5 kilometres) during the day and include a thermal camera for missions at night. Granta Autonomy's Digital Datalink software ensures the gimbal integrates with most Ground Control Station (GCS) software. Guoba adds: "The Hornet XR exemplifies our design philosophy, which is rooted in the expertise of our military UAV operators and engineers, delivering industry-leading flight time, simple operation, and rugged durability, which brings greater efficiencies, lower costs, and unmatched reliability to complex, multi-disciplinary missions. The same goes for our micro gimbals; when we started, there were no gimbals on the market for small UAVs like ours; now, we are producing the lightest direct drive gimbals on the market." Edvinas Kerza, ScaleWolf VC's Managing Partner and former Vice Minister of Lithuanian MoD, adds: "Since we met Gediminas and the team, we have been impressed by the groundbreaking technology and vision of the Granta Autonomy team. Their innovative approach to developing surveillance and reconnaissance technology is second to none and has the potential to revolutionize the way armed forces manage complicated and multi-discipline reconnaissance missions. We proudly support their mission and look forward to seeing their autonomous UAVs impact the battlefield over the coming years." After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Vilnius-based Granta Autonomy started supplying its UAVs to the Ukrainian front. Today, the Ukrainian army operates a battery of Granta Autonomy UAVs funded by the Lithuanian and other European defence ministries. The company also provides its technology to NATO forces across Europe. Notes to editors: Granta Autonomy is an innovative and experienced engineering company with a focus on the development and production of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), integrations, and components for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR), search and rescue, and loitering munitions. To find out more, visit: https://www.grantaautonomy.com. Media contact: Nick Jones nick.jones@grantaautonomy.com View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/lithuanian-drone-startup-granta-autonomy-emerges-from-stealth-with-1m-seed-funding-round-302193501.html ACCELERATING COMMERCIALISATION Gemina Laboratories Ltd (CSE:GLAB)(OTCQB:GLABF)(FRA:8I7) (the "Company" or "Gemina") is pleased to provide a strategic update and summary of progress in H1 2024. In our last strategic update in March the Company indicated a focus on developing multiple revenue streams, including product development, licenses, and services. We are pleased to report very positive progress on this with a number of commercial partners and the achievement of maiden commercial revenues, alongside an update on our new protein production facility, new products and capabilities, as well as further opportunities for Gemina beyond point of care diagnostics. Developing strategic partnerships - first technology license and maiden revenues In April we announced the signing of our first license deal with a significant global diagnostics company to develop, manufacture and sell new products that incorporate Gemina technology. This was a significant milestone, providing validation of Gemina's technology after extensive evaluation over the last year by one of the most distinguished players in the diagnostics industry. (Watch IDG Interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v87RkY0v_us&t=108s) Today we are pleased to announce that we are in discussions with a further four significant diagnostic companies who, after an initial screening process over several months, have now signed Non-Disclosure Agreements with Gemina to allow further evaluation of several different Gemina technologies in significant detail. With our first license partnership signed and four more at the evaluation stage, Gemina has now advanced its commercial partner pipeline with companies responsible for around 25% of the Company's estimated $1.5B directly addressable revenue opportunity in lateral flow diagnostics. In June 2024, Gemina issued its first commercial invoice, signalling that we are on track to report maiden revenues in H2, in line with management expectations. Revenues will be modest this financial year with management anticipating a ramp-up to material revenue levels in 2025. Expanding our Solutions - additional assets and additional addressable markets beyond point-of-care Gemina's industry-leading R&D team continues to develop solutions to improve accuracy, reduce costs, improve useability and increase accessibility across the diagnostics sector. The team has worked diligently to create an "IP engine" within the Company that now represents a portfolio of 34 related inventions. For instance: The Company has pioneered the use of cellulose as an alternative to nitrocellulose for lateral flow tests, with important implications on bringing down the raw material and manufacturing costs, not forgetting the huge associated environmental impact reduction. Our solution to Biotin Interference, announced in March, will be launched formally later this year. In April the Company announced that it had licensed a novel biosensing architecture from the University of British Columbia. We have also recently entered into an additional academic research partnership to develop improved sensor particles (diagnostic reagents with stand-alone revenue potential). The Company is pleased to highlight that within our current confidential partnership discussions, there is evaluation of the use of Gemina technology beyond point of care diagnostics applications. Gemina Labs is beginning to develop a reputation as a provider of accuracy, performance, cost and useability improvements across the diagnostics space as a whole, opening up a larger addressable market that we estimate is over $7B, (much larger than the Company's $1.5B specific addressable market in lateral flow testing). Our development research in molecular assay design and our TB programme continue and we will provide a specific progress report later in the year. Protein production facility We expect to gain access to our new laboratory (in Vancouver, Canada) which will house the Company's GMP (good manufacturing practice) protein production facility in August, within a month of our previous communicated entry date. In the meantime, the Gemina team has been able to continue to optimise our production process in a development lab in advance of this , and has achieved significant process efficiencies that will drive attractive margins. During the balance of this calendar year the team will be installing, commissioning and testing the production lines in the new facility and we are confident that further production efficiencies will be achievable once the production is fully online. Expanding public market exposure Gemina recognizes the importance of having exposure to the global investor community. The Company continues to trade in both Canada and Germany, and in June announced the commencement of trading on the OTCQB Market in the United States under ticker GLABF. Watch the Life Sciences Investor Forum interview with CEO Brain Firth on 20 June 2024 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms58xMb3O-I Read a recent article by Benzinga here: https://www.benzinga.com/partner/biotech/24/06/39411329/one-of-the-most-significant-developments-in-rapid-in-vitro-diagnostics-since-its-invention-says-g "2024 is turning out to be a transformational year for Gemina," commented Brian Firth, CEO of Gemina Labs. "The number of partner discussions that have progressed as far as signed NDA's is further testament for the strength of Gemina's technology and to the focus that we have placed on independent validation of our chemistry by our potential industrial partners. The fact that we are ahead on the delivery of our planned strategic milestones for this year clearly illustrates the strength of the Gemina team. The accelerating commercial reality for Gemina means that we are on course to be a significant technologies provider to the sector. I look forward to further strong progression in the rest of 2024 and into 2025 and to what that means for customer solutions, shareholder returns and to our team." On Behalf of the Board of Directors Brian Firth CEO Gemina Laboratories Ltd. About Gemina Laboratories Ltd. Gemina Labs is a biosensor and binding technologies company initially focused on the diagnostics industry. Our technologies include transformative, patented, proprietary chemistries that power next generation testing platforms for a wide range of pathogens that affect human health and wellness, driving testing platforms that are fast, affordable and accurate, and easily self-administered. More information about how Gemina's technology works can be found here https://www.youtube.com/@GeminaLaboratories. Additional information on the Company can be found at www.geminalabs.com. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this Release. Forward Looking Statements This news release includes forward-looking information and statements, which may include, but are not limited to, information and statements regarding or inferring the future business, operations, financial performance, prospects, and other plans, intentions, expectations, estimates, and beliefs of the Company. Such statements include statements regarding the anticipated terms of any proposed transaction or engagement. Information and statements which are not purely historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information and statements involve and are subject to assumptions and known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause actual events, results, performance, or achievements of the Company to be materially different from future events, results, performance, and achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking information and statements herein. Although the Company believes that any forward-looking information and statements herein are reasonable, in light of the use of assumptions and the significant risks and uncertainties inherent in such information and statements, there can be no assurance that any such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, and accordingly readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such risks and uncertainties and should not place undue reliance upon such forward-looking information and statements. Furthermore, the Company is presently unable to fully quantify the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic will have on its operations and recognizes that certain eventualities may affect planned or assumed performance moving forward. As such, any forward-looking information and statements herein are made as of the date hereof, and except as required by applicable laws, the Company assumes no obligation and disclaims any intention to update or revise any forward-looking information and statements herein or to update the reasons that actual events or results could or do differ from those projected in any forward looking information and statements herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws. For more information regarding the Company, please contact: Gemina Laboratories Ltd Brian Firth, Chief Executive Officer Email: investor@geminalabs.com SOURCE: Gemina Laboratories Ltd. View the original press release on accesswire.com BOSTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / WHAT: Boston Fintech Week 2024 , now in its seventh year, is hosted by Fintech Sandbox and will take place from October 14 - 18. Boston Fintech Week 2024 includes the two-day ticketed conference - the Fintech Sandbox Innovation Forum - hosted by Fintech Sandbox at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on October 16 - 17. The theme of this year's event will be: "Fintech at Full Throttle: The Rapid Advance of Innovation". The community-driven fintech event brings together the entire financial services ecosystem, showcasing luminaries and leaders from across the industry. The week will involve a variety of community-hosted and sponsored events, such as fireside chats, masterclasses, roundtables, and receptions. Register for Boston Fintech Week here . If you're interested in becoming a sponsor for Boston Fintech Week, click here . WHEN: October 14 - 18, 2024 WHERE: The main stage Fintech Sandbox Innovation Forum will be hosted at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, with additional community events taking place in locations throughout Boston. WHY: Boston Fintech Week brings together the global fintech community for meaningful conversations with the industry's leaders. As innovators and entrepreneurs, we like it when things move faster. And the pace of change is rapidly accelerating - from the skyrocketing use of AI and faster payments to the great aging boom and looming climate change and much more. But, how do we keep up with this high speed of digitization and manage potential risks? Join us for Boston Fintech Week 2024, as we showcase the newest ideas, the latest advances in technology, and the boldest fintech entrepreneurs moving faster than the speed of light! Attendees will also have the opportunity to make engaging connections with the innovators, regulators, and investors building the future of financial services. It is an inclusive conversation amongst thousands of industry leaders and emerging fintechs from around the world. WHO: Everyone is invited to participate in Boston Fintech Week. Previous attendees include a mix of senior financial services executives, fintech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other investors, data providers, academics, regulators, students, and media members. Attendees come from around the world - across Europe, Asia, South America, Mexico, Canada, and almost every state. MEDIA CONTACT: fintechsandbox@calibercoporateadvisers.com ABOUT FINTECH SANDBOX: Fintech Sandbox is a nonprofit that provides a leg-up for entrepreneurs around the world by providing free access to critical datasets and resources to build their early-stage fintech products through its Data Access Residency. Fintech Sandbox startups, in return, collaborate with current and past residents, sharing learnings and advancements that benefit the ecosystem. Participating startups - more than 360 thus far - pay no fees and no equity is taken. Boston Fintech Week and Mass Fintech Hub - a public-private partnership dedicated to making the Commonwealth a global leader in fintech - are initiatives under the Fintech Sandbox umbrella. For more information, please visit https://fintechsandbox.org and https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintech-sandbox/ . ### SOURCE: Fintech Sandbox View the original press release on accesswire.com Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Big Ridge Gold Corp. (TSXV: BRAU) (OTCQB: ALVLF) ("Big Ridge" or the "Company") is pleased to announce its 2024 work program for the Hope Brook Gold Project located on the southwest coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. The program will follow up on the results of the successful 2023 geophysical program (see April 18, 2024, Press Release) in preparation for future drilling, completion of environmental baseline work initiated by the previous operator and additional ore sorting studies of Hope Brook ore. Highlights Mobilize team in mid-July Complete Environmental baseline work Continue Hope Brook ore sorting study Reconnaissance work to develop drill program on newly defined extensions to Main & 240 Zones Advance Hope Brook toward Preliminary Economic Assessment Prepare Project Registration Michael Bandrowski, President & CEO of the Company, commented: "We are excited to be heading back to Hope Brook to complete another phase of work to prepare for future drilling at the Main Zone and 240 Zone deposits and their potential extension to the southwest. We believe there is tremendous resource growth potential at Hope Brook and look forward to reviewing potential development scenarios that Newfoundland and Labrador presents." Environmental Baseline Work Environmental survey work was begun by Castillian Resources Inc. and successor Coastal Resources Inc. in 2010 with a view to compiling information to fulfill the requirements for an application for Project Registration of the Hope Brook Gold Project as required under environmental regulation in Newfoundland and Labrador. The study includes evaluation of the natural environment surrounding the former mine and its current condition as a brownfield mine site. Work in 2024 will continue to build on this required information. Newfoundland-based Fracflow Consultants Inc. will undertake the field work and studies. Ore Sorting and Gold Deportment In the second half of 2024 Big Ridge will conduct ore sorting tests to establish whether 'zero grade' lithologies within the HBGP mineral resource wireframes can be separated from mineralized lithologies. These tests will be conducted by the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC). Zero grade lithologies are comprised of post-mineralization mafic and intermediate dykes and sills which intrude the mineralized host rocks. In 2013, a preliminary X-Ray Transmission test of HBGP rocks suggested separation of non mineralized rock was possible. Available core from the project's 198 available drill holes has been selected, representing various grade and alteration characteristics of the deposit along with associated intervals of mafic and intermediate intrusive. Zero grade material in core accounts for 20-25% of material in the Hope Brook deposit wire frames. Many intrusive units intersected by drill holes in the wireframes may be too small to be excluded during mining. Two tests are planned; a) a success-based dynamic test of approximately 150 kg of sample, b) positive dynamic test results selectively removing mafic and intermediate dyke rocks will promote a performance test using approximately one tonne of mineralized material to be conducted in conjunction with advanced metallurgical testing. In addition to the ore sorting test SRC will conduct a gold deportment study on selected mineralized samples to assess distribution of gold and other metallic elements and their inter-relationships, including copper, a positive economic component of the mineralization. Preparation for 2025 Drill Program During 2024 field operations, Big Ridge staff will follow-up on the results and interpretations developed from the 2023 DC Induced Polarization, magnetometer, and reconnaissance sampling surveys, with a focus on a 5 km section of the Cinq Cerfs Deformation Zone, extending from the 240 Zone to the southwest. This stratigraphy contains variably argillic altered metavolcanic rocks and several prominent chargeability anomalies in strike continuation from the Hope Brook deposits (See Figure 1). The work will assist with placement of drill holes for a new campaign in 2025. The team will also investigate a suite of anomalous gold-in-rock results, located south of the Cinq Cerfs Deformation Zone also identified in 2023. Qualified Person William McGuinty, P. Geo., Vice President Exploration for Big Ridge, a Qualified Person within the meaning of NI 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release. About Hope Brook The Hope Brook Gold Project is an advanced stage, high-grade gold project that produced 752,162 ounces of gold from 1987 - 1997. Initial production consisted of an open pit before moving to underground mining. Hope Brook operated using both heap leach (1987 -1990) and conventional cyanidation milling methods (1989-1997) with a later inclusion of flotation concentration to recover copper (1991). Government records indicate that gold recoveries from milling ranged between a low of 78.8% in 1987 and a high of 85.9% in 1989. Government and company annual reports indicate that gold recoveries ranged between a low of 82.1% in 1994 and a high of 89.83% in 1996 following a change of ownership. Copper flotation produced a concentrate at approximately 22% Cu and 34.3 g/t Au for shipment in 1992. Hope Brook hosts an Indicated gold resource totalling 16,190,000 tonnes grading 2.32 grams per tonne gold for 1.2 million ounces and Inferred resources totalling 2,215,000 tonnes grading 3.25 grams per tonne gold for 231,000 ounces based on a 0.4 and 2.0 gram per tonne cut-off grades for open pit and underground resources respectively using a long-term gold price of US$1,750. The Hope Brook gold deposit is a high-sulfidation epithermal gold deposit hosted in the Proterozoic aged Whittle Hill Sandstone and is intruded by a Late Proterozoic quartz-feldspar porphyry sill-dike complex of the Roti Intrusive Suite. The deposit is located adjacent to and within an extensive advanced argillic alteration envelope which includes pyrophyllite, kaolinite, andalusite, and alunite. The principal gold mineralization occurs in a buff-colored massive, vuggy silicic alteration with an associated, less developed grey silicic alteration with pyrite, chalcopyrite and lesser bornite accessory minerals. Gold mineralization is also found with pyrite in units of advanced argillic alteration adjacent to or near silicic alteration horizons. The altered and mineralized zone is cut by mafic dykes whose contacts are often mineralized. All the altered and mineralized sequences and the intruded dykes have been folded. Hope Brook is located 85 kilometers east of Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. The project has well maintained infrastructure on site, including an operational 28-person camp, an 1,100-meter airstrip, ice-free docking facility and importantly, connection to the provincial electrical power grid via an on-site substation. About Big Ridge Gold Corp. Big Ridge Gold Corp. is an exploration and development company managed by a disciplined and experienced team of officers and directors. The Company is committed to the development of advanced stage mining projects using industry best practices combined with strong social license from our local communities. Big Ridge owns a 100% interest in the highly prospective Oxford Gold Project located in Manitoba and the Destiny Gold Project in Quebec. Big Ridge is the operator of the Hope Brook Gold Project located in Newfoundland and Labrador. The company currently owns 51% of the Hope Brook Gold Project and has an option to earn up to 80% by June 2026. Acknowledgement Big Ridge acknowledges and appreciates the Newfoundland and Labrador Ministry of Natural Resources' financial support of the Company's 2023 exploration programs through the Junior Exploration Assistance (JEA) Program. For more details regarding the Company's projects, please visit our website at www.bigridgegold.com ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD, Mike Bandrowski, President & CEO 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 Statements This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release. Forward-Looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "plans", "projects", "intends", "estimates", "envisages", "potential", "possible", "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. Forward-Looking statements in this news release relate to future events or future performance and reflect current estimates, predictions, expectations, or beliefs regarding future events, and include, without limitation, statements with respect to Big Ridge's intentions with respect to Caprock's shares. All forward-looking statements are based on Big Ridge's and its employees' current beliefs as well as various assumptions made by them and information currently available to them. 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, economic, competitive, political, and social 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. When relying on our forward-looking statements to make decisions with respect to Big Ridge, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. Big Ridge does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time by the Company or on our behalf, except as required by law. Figure 1: Hope Brook Area -2023 Exploration Program - Mineralized Zones on Chargeability Background To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/4910/216043_282b166e6438b910_002full.jpg To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216043 SOURCE: Big Ridge Gold Corp. SambaNova Systems, the generative AI solutions company with the fastest models and most advanced chips, announces that "Typhoon", a Thai Large Language Model (LLM) powered by SCBX and SCB 10X, has been introduced into the Samba-1 Composition of Experts (CoE) model. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240710409983/en/ The power and scalability of Samba-1 is now enhanced with Typhoon, a series of Thai Large Language Models (LLMs) (Graphic: Business Wire) Mr. Kasima Tharnpipitchai, Head of AI Strategy at SCB 10X, a subsidiary of SCBX Group, stated: "We are pleased that Typhoon is now a part of Samba-1, making it available to SambaNova's customers around the world. The power and scalability of Samba-1 is now enhanced with Typhoon, a series of Thai Large Language Models (LLMs)." Typhoon-1.5X has been recently launched, offering significant advancements in Thai NLP and AI. Available in 8B and 70B sizes, it is optimized for the Thai language and performs comparably to top models like ChatGPT and GPT-4. Built on Llama3, it features enhanced training and alignment techniques, including improved human alignment in instruct models. Typhoon is now available in open beta, offering two models.The Pre-trained Model focuses on Thai language proficiency, covering vocabulary, context, cultural nuances, and global knowledge. This model is open source and freely available for download, promoting competitiveness in Thailand's AI industry. The Instruction-tuned Model builds on this foundation, enabling tasks such as translations, summaries, and question answering, and is accessible through an API service. Mr. Kaweewut Temphuwapat, Head of R&D and Innovation Lab, SCBX noted: "Large language models have emerged as powerful tools, and Typhoon has the potential to truly lead the Thai AI landscape. It addresses the language gap in models primarily trained in English by overcoming resource limitations associated with the Thai language. By integrating Typhoon into Samba-1, we believe AI developers will have an enhanced experience, advancing AI innovations and strengthening Thailand's AI industry." "Samba-1 offers the most advanced models from open source, which ensures that we always have access to the world's best and fastest AI models," said Rodrigo Liang, Co-Founder and CEO of SambaNova Systems. "The addition of Typhoon fits into this strategy; we're pleased to incorporate its capabilities into this world-leading model." "AI developers across industries including banking and financial services, now have a new platform to accelerate their AI journey," said Marshall Choy, SVP Product, SambaNova Systems. "The integration of Typhoon LLMs into the Samba-1 Composition of Experts delivers highest inference performance with less infrastructure and cost than ever before." SambaNova's unique Composition of Experts architecture aggregates multiple expert models and improves performance and accuracy by selecting the best expert for each application. Typhoon runs optimally on SambaNova's SN40L chip with its 3-tier Dataflow memory architecture. About Typhoon Thai LLM "Typhoon" is a series of open source Large Language Models tailored for the Thai language, rivaling the capabilities of the GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models in Thai contexts. Its effectiveness has been assessed against benchmarks derived from Thai language exams akin to high school standards and other standardized assessments in Thailand. "Typhoon" addresses the language gap prevalent in models predominantly trained in English, rectifying the scarcity of resources for the Thai language. Interested developers can download the Typhoon models under open source licenses free of charge today. Find out more at https://opentyphoon.ai Disclaimer: The responses generated by this Artificial Intelligence (AI) system are autonomously constructed and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the developing organizations, their affiliates, or any of their employees. These AI-generated responses do not represent those of the organizations. The organizations do not endorse, support, sanction, encourage, verify, or agree with the comments, opinions, or statements generated by this AI. The information produced by this AI is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, anyone, or anything. It is not the intent of the organizations to align any group or individual. The AI operates based on its programming and training data and its responses should not be interpreted as the explicit intent or opinion of the organizations. About SCBX SCBX is the mothership of the SCBX financial technology business group comprising 12 companies across three key sectors: Banking, Consumer and Digital Finance, and Platform and Technology, including Climate Technology. SCBX aims to become the most admired financial technology group in the region by driving strategic initiatives. The company operates with flexibility, exercises careful risk management, and possesses the capability and potential to compete equally with global competitors. About SCB 10X SCB 10X is a disruptive technology investment arm of SCBX Group and was established in January 2020 with a "Moonshot Mission" to achieve exponential growth through technology innovation and investment in disruptive technologies such as Web3 (Digital Asset, Blockchain, the Metaverse) and DeepTech (AI/Machine Learning). For more information, please visit https://scb10x.com/ 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 and on X. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240710409983/en/ Contacts: Virginia Jamieson SambaNova Systems (650) 279-8619 virginia.jamieson@sambanova.ai Thanandorn Panichnok Thanandorn@scb10x.com +66869195552 Erinnern Sie sich, als Moderna und BioNTech von unbekannten Unternehmen zu globalen Marktfuhrern wurden und fruhzeitige Investoren reich belohnt haben? Die Branche steht vor einem erneuten Innovationsschub von bahnbrechenden Medikamenten bis hin zu revolutionaren Therapien. Warum sollten Sie dabei sein? Sie sollten jetzt in Biotech-Aktien einsteigen, weil wir am Beginn einer neuen Ara der medizinischen Innovation stehen konnten! Gen- und Zelltherapien, personalisierte Medizin und bahnbrechende Technologien konnten das Gesundheitswesen revolutionieren und die Aktienkurse in die Hohe schieen lassen. Die nachste Erfolgsgeschichte im Biotechbereich warten nur darauf, entdeckt zu werden. Wer jetzt investiert, hat die Chance, von gigantischen Durchbruchen und enormen Renditen zu profitieren. Warten Sie nicht, bis es zu spat ist - der nachste Biotech-Superstar konnte morgen schon durchstarten! Verpassen Sie nicht diese Chance! Fordern Sie sofort unseren brandneuen Biotech-Spezialreport an und erfahren Sie, welche 3 Biotech-Aktien das riesige Potenzial haben, Ihren finanziellen Erfolg zu sichern. Dieser Report ist komplett kostenlos und zeigt Ihnen zukunftstrachtige Investments im Biotech-Sektor. Handeln Sie jetzt und sichern Sie sich Ihren kostenfreien Report! Originally published on ASPCA This weekend, 40 dogs (30 puppies and 10 adults) were flown from Mobile SPCA in Mobile, Alabama, to the Laurence G. Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts, where they were then transported by ground to MSPCA-Angell: Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire SPCA in Stratham, New Hampshire, where they will soon be made available for adoption. This flight and animal transport, sponsored by Subaru of America, Inc., is part of our Animal Relocation Program, which works with overcrowded shelters to relocate their animals to other shelters where those animals have greater chances of being adopted. "We are grateful for Subaru's support of the ASPCA's Animal Relocation efforts," said Monique Ward, ASPCA Flight Manager. "Their contributions toward the animal transport flight allow the ASPCA to move more animals at once and enable the team to travel longer distances, like from Alabama to the Northeast, to shelters that have the capacity to take in adoptable pets and place them with families in their communities." This transport is vital to Mobile SPCA as their shelter has experienced overcrowding with a high number of puppies and dogs consistently in their care. The transport will increase Mobile SPCA's capacity to assist more animals in need in their community and given the transported animals a better chance at finding the loving homes they deserve. Our Relocation Program is the country's largest national transporter of animals, having transported over 260,000 animals since its inception. We also provide resources, support and training to both source and destination shelters with the goal to not only reduce overcrowding at partner shelters, but also to help shelters create and strengthen programs that will have a long-term effect on animal welfare in the surrounding community. Click here to read on ASPCA Photo courtesy of ASPCA View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Subaru of America, Inc. on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Subaru of America, Inc. Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/subaru-america-inc Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Subaru of America, Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com Strategic Innovations, Industry Recognition, and Massive Adoption by Global Brands Fuel the All-In-One Platform's Forward Leap Seattle, Washington, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Discuss, the all-in-one platform driving next gen human centricity, is excited to announce their continued momentum in the first half of 2024, marked by market share growth, strategic innovations, and impact on the industry. Market Momentum Discuss continued its successful trajectory in the first half of 2024, welcoming renowned brands into its community, including three out of the top ten largest global companies, by market cap, as well as dozens of other large global brands such as Tesco, Danone, Mondelez International, Jagermeister, PVH Corp. (parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger), Suntory Global Spirits, Super.com, AB InBev, Reckitt, and agencies including Verve, Fusion Hill, CMB, and ADEO Group - reaffirming its position as the preferred partner for empowering global organizations to scale human centricity. These new customers, along with the unlimited subscription model and new asynchronous feature that Discuss introduced last year, are driving platform adoption with usage 48% higher compared to the same period last year and a year-over-year ARR growth of 74% compared to the same period last year (H1). In the first half of the year, the organization's global workforce continued to expand significantly, with new hires across the globe in Development, Customer Success & Services, and Sales and Marketing. The influx of talent from diverse locations highlights Discuss' commitment to supporting its growing global customer base with a best-in-class, worldwide team. Next-Gen Innovations GenAI Tools to Scale Qual Research Genie, the company's GenAI suite of tools, continueds to outpace the industry with its added capabilities focused on instantly summarizing key themes on an even broader global scale. For example, if interviews within a research project include respondents speaking English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Mandarin, Japanese, or Polish, in one click, Genie instantly assesses each conversation and uses them to craft a project level summary and key themes along with supporting points and statements for each theme. The added language support now enables Genie to be fully leveraged across the 100+ countries where the rest of the Discuss platform is already being used for qualitative research today. Additionally, the precision of the auto-transcriptions used in generating the summaries also increased for dozens of languages, further enhancing Genie's ability to deliver exceptionally detailed and accurate session recaps, summaries, themes, and quotes on a global scale. Leveraging its deep expertise in market research, Discuss continues to tailor its GenAI tools for the unique demands of the insights industry while being able to use the most current large language models (LLMs) that make these giant quarterly leaps possible, and enable customers to understand and incorporate global consumer insights into their business decisions with ease. All-In-One Global Research Hub In the first half of 2024, Discuss continued to deliver a best-in-class, purpose-built platform to support unlocking human centricity at scale. In addition to further enhancing both its live and asynchronous capabilities, Discuss also made it even simpler to upload entire folders of videos from virtually any source in a few clicks. Once these off-platform videos are uploaded, transcripts are instantly created and Genie provides recaps of each file and across all the uploaded files. All the same great video editing and highlight reel tools can then also be leveraged to generate end reports more quickly and share key moments with stakeholders more easily. With these updates, Discuss is now being used as a global human centricity hub. An Unlimited Research Model Introduced in 2023, Discuss' innovative unlimited research model is now widely seen as the way for organizations to do more research, their way. With plans that not only include unlimited use of Discuss' live, asynchronous, and GenAI capabilities but also unlimited use of key services such as live technical support to ensure every focus group or in-depth interview (IDI) goes perfectly, or project management, or even recruiting while paying one fixed 'per researcher' seat fee, customers are running projects faster, more efficiently, and doing more qual research that's helping drive better strategic decisions and planning. This approach has proven to be loved by customers as it eliminates red tape of creating PO's, statements of work, and other paperwork typically required to get approved internally prior to starting a project. Customers have also loved that they can more easily budget their qualitative research and if they do more than planned, it won't further eat into their annual budget. Discuss also expanded its offerings beyond mere technological solutions with the introduction of Discuss University, a virtual launchpad providing on-demand resources, guides, and courses. This initiative aims to democratize human centricity by equipping researchers with the needed tools to extract valuable consumer insights effectively. Impacting Industry Conversations & G2 Recognition Continuing to lead industry conversations, Discuss facilitated numerous conversations on the new era of market research and GenAI. This involved engagements including TMRE@Home with PepsiCo, Quirk's events in London with Reckitt and in Chicago with Edgewell Personal Care, as well as IIEX Europe, once again collaborating with PepsiCo. Discuss continues to excel in innovation and customer satisfaction, receiving recognition in the G2 Quarterly Reports every quarter for two years running. In the Summer 2024 reports, Discuss was recognized as a Leader and a top Momentum Leader among 54 vendors in User Research and 14 vendors in Consumer Video Feedback. Notably, it was named #1 Best Results in Consumer Video Feedback, with users highlighting its ability to achieve a 6-month return on investment, over twice as fast as the industry average of 13 months. Additionally, for the third consecutive year, Discuss was named Overall SaaS Award winner in the Analytics and Business Intelligence category of the 2024 APPEALIE SaaS Awards. Pioneering the Future of Human-Centric Research Now more than ever, global organizations are prioritizing listening to their consumers and integrating their voices into strategic decisions. A large-scale studyby M&C Saatchi found that an empathy deficit in business costs the average brand over $300 million in lost revenue every year. While a study by Gallup Workplacereports that human-centric companies saw a 25% increase in customer loyalty and a 20% increase in customer confidence. Discuss' momentum in the first half of 2024 underscores its role in enabling global organizations to achieve human-centricity at scale with its all-in-one solution and next gen GenAI tools. With a commitment to continuous innovation, Discuss continues to lead its customers to the forefront of this new era. ### About Discuss Discuss stands as an all-in-one qualitative research platform, driving next gen human centricity. We believe in the transformative impact of truly listening, understanding, and valuing customers' experiences, recognizing their critical role in fostering empathy. Trusted by the leading Market Insights, CX, and UX professionals worldwide, Discuss goes beyond data points, delivering in-depth insights in real time and transforming consumer relationships. As a pioneering leader in the qualitative market research space, our platform is the choice of global brands and agencies, including Unilever, Viking Cruises, Ipsos, KraftHeinz, HP, Reckitt, and Mastercard, enabling them to make more informed strategic decisions faster than ever before. Talk to an expertto transform your insights into powerful, human-centric strategies that drive action and deliver results. H.I.G. Capital ("H.I.G." or "the Firm"), a leading global alternative investment firm with $64 billion of capital under management, is pleased to announce the final close of H.I.G. Europe Realty Partners III (the "Fund"). The Fund closed with aggregate capital commitments of approximately $1.3 billion,1 significantly above the predecessor's fund size. H.I.G. Europe Realty Partners primarily targets value-add investments in the middle market real estate segment in Europe. To date, the Fund has made over ten investments across various geographies in Europe. Sami Mnaymneh and Tony Tamer, Co-Founders of H.I.G., commented, "As we continue to expand our global real estate footprint, we are thrilled by the success of our European real estate platform as evidenced by the strong support from our investors. We believe the current environment, specifically in the U.K. and Germany, where market dislocations are driving meaningful repricing across asset classes, presents compelling investment opportunities for the Fund." Riccardo Dallolio, Head of Europe Real Estate, added, "The Fund is well-positioned to capitalize on the current market opportunity set in the less efficient middle market segment across Europe. It will invest across the capital structure and asset classes with a particular focus on value-add and operational improvements to generate substantial asset appreciation." The Fund was supported by a diverse and global group of limited partners including public and private sector pensions, endowments, foundations, asset managers, consultants, fund of funds, financial institutions, and family offices in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. 1Including separately managed accounts that co-invest alongside the Fund. About H.I.G. Capital H.I.G. is a leading global alternative investment firm with $64 billion of capital under management.* Based in Miami, and with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco in the United States, as well as international affiliate offices in Hamburg, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Dubai, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to mid-sized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/value-added approach: H.I.G.'s equity funds invest in management buyouts, recapitalizations, and corporate carve-outs of both profitable as well as underperforming manufacturing and service businesses. H.I.G.'s debt funds invest in senior, unitranche, and junior debt financing to companies across the size spectrum, both on a primary (direct origination) basis, as well as in the secondary markets. H.I.G. also manages a publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance. H.I.G.'s real estate funds invest in value-added properties, which can benefit from improved asset management practices. H.I.G. Infrastructure focuses on making value-add and core plus investments in the infrastructure sector. Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 400 companies worldwide. The Firm's current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of $53 billion. For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at hig.com. *Based on total capital raised by H.I.G. Capital and affiliates. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240710131210/en/ Contacts: Jordan Peer Griffin Executive Managing Director jpeer@hig.com Riccardo Dallolio Managing Director Head of H.I.G. Europe Real Estate rdallolio@hig.com H.I.G. Capital 1450 Brickell Avenue 31st Floor Miami, FL 33131 P: 305.379.2322 hig.com CHONGQING, China, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In a transformative effort to champion green development along the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Chongqing in southwest China has emerged as a model city, embracing its "upstream responsibility" with tangible environmental and economic initiatives. The foundation for Chongqing's green development was laid in January 2016, when President Xi Jinping convened a symposium in the city to discuss the advancement of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. President Xi emphasized the paramount importance of ecological restoration over unchecked development, advocating for collective protection of the river's ecosystem. Crucial to Chongqing's green development is its commitment to water conservation and quality. Yulin River, a primary tributary on the left bank of the Yangtze River, is a testament to this effort. Alex of iChongqing reported the joint process of water treatment, including river patrolling, monitoring, law enforcement, and ecological restoration. The results speak for themselves: since 2017, the water quality in Chongqing's segment of the Yangtze has consistently met Class II standards, with 100% of water quality monitored at 74 national checkpoints deemed excellent. Chongqing's collaborative governance with neighboring Sichuan has also been pivotal. The establishment of the first inter-provincial joint river chief office and the implementation of horizontal ecological compensation mechanisms have fostered cooperative management of the Yangtze and its tributaries. This innovative approach has improved water quality and biodiversity, with the water quality compliance rate at cross-boundary sections reaching 100%. As an old industrial base, Chongqing is leveraging its strengths to foster new industrialization and green development. A total of 200 green factories, 5 green supply chain management companies, 20 green parks and 24 near-zero carbon park pilots have been newly built in the city, and the comprehensive utilization rate of bulk industrial solid waste has stabilized at more than 70%. The city's digital transformation is enhancing its ecological governance. From smart river management systems to the "Eco Chongqing" digital platform, the integration of AI and big data is revolutionizing environmental monitoring and response. The system's real-time data collection and analysis capabilities have significantly improved the efficiency and effectiveness of pollution control measures. Chongqing's commitment to green development and ecological preservation is not just a regional effort but a significant contribution to China's broader goals of sustainable development and environmental protection. It sets a precedent for other regions within the Yangtze River Economic Belt and beyond. Videos on the topic: https://www.ichongqing.info/2024/07/08/be-part-of-the-plan-chongqings-efforts-in-conserving-biodiversity/ Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2458275/iChongqing.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/chongqing-champions-green-development-in-the-yangtze-river-economic-belt-302193626.html Carriers Can Now Save Money at the Diesel Pump in Every Region of the United States MEMPHIS, TN / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / TransConnect Services (TCS), an industry leader in over-the-road fleet diesel discounts and fuel expense management, celebrates a new milestone with more than 2,000 in-network fuel discount locations across the country. That means that TCS Fuel Card clients now have even more trucks stops where they can save money on diesel at the pump. The recent addition of Maverik, a popular fuel stop in 12 Western states such as Utah, Nevada, and Idaho, as a fuel partner means that TCS now has discount locations in every region of the United States - from north to south and east to west. The TCS Fuel Card has discounts that now cover the broad spectrum of the nation. "We are proud to announce that TCS now has over 2,000 truck stops that are a part of the TCS discount fuel network," says Chris Courts, TCS President and Managing Director. "There is certainly a balance that we are trying to achieve in having enough discount fuel locations to cover the continental U.S. but not having so many locations that it dilutes our value to our truck stop partners. This milestone supports and strengthens our mission at TCS, which is to level the playing field between small-to-medium-size trucking companies and larger fleets." TCS remains committed to offering great discounts at the pump, exceptional customer service, and a hassle-free digital experience for clients from setup to fueling: Top-notch discounts and service - TCS Fuel Card clients save an average of 48 cents* a gallon and pay $0 fuel transaction fees at more than 2,000 in-network locations including TA, Petro Stopping Centers, TA Express, 7FLEET Diesel Network - 7 Eleven, Speedway, and Stripes, AMBEST Fuel Stops, Maverik, Kwik Trip Kwik Star, Roady's, Road Ranger, Sapp Bros., Casey's, Fuel City, and Petroleum Wholesale L.P. TCS also empowers clients with useful tools such as the TCS Fuel Finder, which allows them to locate in-network discount locations along their route, the TCS Mobile App, the TCS client website, and 24/7 customer service. Hassle-free digital experience from setup to fueling - Our leading-edge technology ensures a hassle-free digital journey from setup to fueling. TCS Fuel Card clients enjoy the convenience of an online application, digital funding, and easy account management via web or app. With dynamic security PINs and an interactive discount locator map, TCS Fuel Card redefines safety and convenience. 24/7 frictionless card funding - TCS Fuel Card clients can take advantage of real-time funding through Zelle 24 hours a day, seven days a week to move money faster and avoid higher fees often associated with transferring funds. Carriers can also choose this cost-effective, just-in-time funding option to improve cash flow. *Average savings of 48 cents per gallon is based on actual in-network TCS client transactions for Q2 of 2024. About TransConnect Services Formed in 2014, TransConnect Services (TCS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Apex Capital Corp, is a fuel card platform for the trucking industry. The mission of TCS is to level the playing field between small-to-medium-sized carriers and the larger fleets. TCS wants each client to enjoy the advantages of exceptional customer service and receive the best savings possible. TCS is committed to responsive, personal service. For more information, visit the TCS website. Contact Information Mario Tarradell Senior Bilingual Communications Specialist mario.tarradell@apexcapitalcorp.com 800-511-6022 ext. 5020 SOURCE: TCS Fuel View the original press release on newswire.com. Bloomfield, New Jersey--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Alliance Advisors, LLC, a global shareholder engagement and advisory firm, today announced the acquisition of IR Labs Inc. ("irlabs"), Canada's leading investor relations agency. This acquisition marks a significant milestone for both companies, enhancing their capabilities and expanding their reach across North America and internationally. Founded by Alyssa Barry and Caroline Sawamoto, irlabs has established itself as a dynamic force in the investor relations ("IR") industry. Under their visionary leadership, irlabs has emerged as a leading investor communications firm, renowned for its innovative approach and exceptional client service. Joseph Caruso, CEO of Alliance Advisors, said: "The team at irlabs have redefined what it means to be an investor relations firm. Applying a cutting-edge approach to corporate communications, built on client success, represents the blend of innovation and tenacity needed in today's marketplace. We are excited to welcome irlabs to the Alliance family and look forward to the future as we continue growing our global IR capabilities. Our combined commitment to excellence and exceptional service will reinforce Alliance's mission to be the go-to investor communications firm in all markets." "We believe Alliance is the perfect partner to elevate our offering and continue our global expansion. It's an exciting time in the capital markets, and we are thrilled to be part of Alliance's vision for the future," said Alyssa. Caroline added, "For our clients, this is equally exciting. Our enhanced capabilities, including Alliance's investor intelligence, will make our IR offerings even stronger. We have collaborated with the Alliance team throughout the past year, leveraging their expertise in shareholder intelligence, ESG, governance, and proxy services. This has given us an edge in the IR space." As part of the acquisition, Alyssa will assume the role of President of Alliance's IR practice, and Caroline will become the Chief Operating Officer. Together, they will lead Alliance's global investor relations expansion, leveraging their extensive expertise in cross-border IR, activism, public relations, media, governance, ESG, and capital markets. About Alliance Advisors Headquartered in the U.S., Alliance provides strategic shareholder and investor advisory services to over 1,000 public companies operating in major capital markets around the world. Leveraging extensive intelligence and relationships across the global investor community, its team of professionals provides the guidance and execution for companies to achieve their complex corporate governance and shareholder communication objectives. For more information visit: www.AllianceAdvisors.com. Alliance Advisors is a global leader in investor relations and strategic advisory services, providing innovative and tailored solutions to public companies worldwide. With a focus on enhancing shareholder value, Alliance Advisors partners with clients to navigate the complexities of the capital markets. About irlabs Founded by Alyssa Barry and Caroline Sawamoto, irlabs is a leading IR firm in North America, recognized for its expertise in investor communications, capital markets, and public relations. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216063 SOURCE: Alliance Advisors LLC Manufacturers have successfully deployed only 20% of planned AI initiatives according to the second annual Gen AI survey commissioned by Lucidworks Less than 60% of manufacturers plan to increase AI spending in 2024 compared to 93% in 2023 Despite a slower-than-anticipated rollout, nearly half of manufacturers already report cost benefits from AI initiatives Only 1 in 4 companies across all industries have successfully launched AI initiatives in the past 12 months SAN FRANCISCO, July 10, 2024, a leader in search and total AI solutions, today released new manufacturing findings from its second annual Generative AI Global Benchmark Study. The study gathered input from over 2,500 leaders involved in AI technology decision-making worldwide. The report explores key areas of generative AI investment and organizations' progress in adopting generative AI. While initial excitement for AI was high, the actual implementation of planned initiatives has been sluggish across most industries. In 2023, more than 40% of manufacturing leaders had a positive view of AI, with 93% planning to increase investments. In 2024, only 58% plan to increase their spending. 30% worry that they're falling behind their competition, with only one in five successfully deployed initiatives. Despite slow deployment, manufacturers reported above-average cost benefits (48%). Across the board, concerns around security, response accuracy, and costs have forced most businesses to slow down their planned initiatives and be more strategic about the balance between cost and benefit. Security worries have tripled, accuracy concerns have grown fivefold, and transparency issues have quadrupled since 2023. Manufacturers have some of the most concerns around response accuracy (44%) and some of the least concerns around job displacement (3%) compared to other industries. The 2024 Generative AI Global Benchmark Study also includes the following findings: Investment Slowdown: Global AI spending plans are down sharply, with only 63% planning increases (vs. 93% last year). USA-based organizations remain above average with 69% planning to increase AI spend. Global AI spending plans are down sharply, with only 63% planning increases (vs. 93% last year). USA-based organizations remain above average with 69% planning to increase AI spend. Slow Progress: Delayed deployment and low success rates are commonplace with only 25% of planned projects fully implemented. This lag is stalling anticipated ROI, with 42% of companies yet to see significant benefits from generative AI initiatives. Delayed deployment and low success rates are commonplace with only 25% of planned projects fully implemented. This lag is stalling anticipated ROI, with 42% of companies yet to see significant benefits from generative AI initiatives. Spending Flattens: Across all organizations, 36% of leaders plan to keep spending flat, compared to only 6% in last year's survey. Across all organizations, 36% of leaders plan to keep spending flat, compared to only 6% in last year's survey. China's Sharp Decline: ?? Only 49% of Chinese leaders plan to increase AI spending in 2024, a massive drop from 100% in 2023. Only 49% of Chinese leaders plan to increase AI spending in 2024, a massive drop from 100% in 2023. Commercial LLMs Dominate: Nearly eight in 10 companies use commercial LLMs and 21% have opted for open source only. Nearly eight in 10 companies use commercial LLMs and 21% have opted for open source only. Competitive Concerns: A third of business leaders feel like they're falling behind competitors despite almost everyone struggling to implement this new technology. "While many manufacturers see the potential benefits of generative AI, challenges such as response accuracy and cost are causing them to take a more cautious approach. This is reflected in spending plans, with significantly fewer planning to increase AI investments compared to last year," said Mike Sinoway, CEO, Lucidworks. "However, above-average reported cost benefits in 2024 could make them more bullish in the coming year. B2B companies and manufacturers have much to gain if they can balance cost and risk to improve efficiency, enhance the buyer experience, and reduce operational costs using generative AI." Download the complete 2024 Generative AI Global Benchmark Study and accompanying manufacturing-focused findings today. Learn more about Lucidworks at Lucidworks.com. About Lucidworks Lucidworks clients are more than 2.5x more likely to successfully deploy generative AI initiatives than their peers. The world's largest brands including Crate & Barrel, Lenovo, and Red Hat rely on Lucidworks' suite of products to power commerce, customer service, and workplace applications that delight customers and empower employees. Contact us today to build your AI success strategy. Dallas, Georgia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Bemax Inc. (OTC Pink: BMXC), a private label development company with a focus on disposable diapers and women's hygienic sanitary products, is pleased to announce Kroger's invitation to attend the Supplier diversity program for vendors aimed at providing diverse-owned businesses with access to capital they need to secure corporate contracts. Bemax will participate in Kroger's diversity program for vendors on July 22, 2024. The program will provide Bemax the opportunity to connect with American businesses with the capital and technical know-how to help build inclusive, resilient communities of opportunity. This program will further provide a unique opportunity to expand the Bemax distribution network. "This initiative, which has brought JPMorgan Chase to partner with LISC, will further provide Bemax with increased exposure to capital and community networking among American businesses, especially potential major grocery store buyers of our private label brands," says Taiwo Aimasiko, CEO, Bemax Inc. "We continue to work to expand our distribution network, increase sales, and establish long relationships that present potential, beneficial partnerships." Consumers and retailers interested in pre-ordering the new brands can visit www.bemaxinc.com/webstore/ or www.walmart.com for more information and to place their orders starting on August 25, 2024. About Bemax Inc. Bemax Inc. is a forward-thinking company dedicated to delivering top-quality disposable diapers and women's hygienic sanitary products. With a focus on innovation and customer satisfaction, Bemax continues to expand its product offerings and distribution network, aiming to exceed the expectations of its growing customer base. Safe Harbor Statement This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by use of the words "may," "will," "should," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "project," "intend," and similar expressions. The Company may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in press releases and other written materials, and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. The Company cautions that these forward-looking statements are further qualified by other factors including, but not limited to, those set forth in the Company's Annual Reports on Form 10-K and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in completing various engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, and various other factors beyond the Company's control. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any statements in this release, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216068 SOURCE: Bemax Inc. WESTFORD, Mass., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- According to SkyQuest, the global Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) Market size was valued at USD 65.50 billion in 2022 and is poised to grow from USD 82.01 billion in 2023 to USD 495.09 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 25.2% during the forecast period (2024-2031). The increasing need for IoT with embedded AI technologies to enhance an organization's dynamic course and acceptance of edge investigation arrangements is predicted to fuel market growth. AIoT features including information analysis, continuous navigation, large-scale data analysis, and intelligent model management are also expected to boost the market. It is projected that throughout the fictitious time frame, growing industry usage of devices connected with AI technology will open revenue prospects for arrangement suppliers. The potential growth of the market may be restricted when companies lack skilled staff members that will help in making the modern cycle more efficient and developing Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) applications in it. Download a detailed overview: https://www.skyquestt.com/sample-request/artificial-intelligence-of-things-market Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) Market Overview: Report Coverage Details Market Revenue in 2023 $82.01 Billion Estimated Value by 2031 $495.09 Billion Growth Rate Poised to grow at a CAGR of 25.2% Forecast Period 2024-2031 Forecast Units Value (USD Billion) Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, and Trends Segments Covered Technology, Offering, Application, and Industrial Vertical Geographies Covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, Latin America Report Highlights Industrial automation & robotics in AIoT to boost up the service need and requirement Key Market Opportunities Convergence of AIoT with other emerging technologies Key Market Drivers AIoT enhancing operational efficiencies in healthcare sector Segments covered in Artificial Intelligence Of Things (AIoT) Market are as follows: Offering Hardware, software, services Technology Machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), generative ai, robotics, computer vision, autonomous, sensor technology Application Real-time machinery condition monitoring, supply chain management, predictive maintenance, inventory management, energy consumption management, others Industry Vertical BFSI, manufacturing, healthcare, automotive, retail, transportation & logistics, others Request Free Customization of this report: https://www.skyquestt.com/speak-with-analyst/artificial-intelligence-of-things-market Integrated AIoT Solutions for Real-Time Insights and Intelligent Decision-Making The global AIoT market offers integrated solutions that combine AI technologies with IoT devices. Real-time data processing, AI-driven analytics and intelligent decision-making models designed for various industry applications are part of it. It is important to have them mainly due to increase efficiency, enabling predictive maintenance, as well as fostering creativity in several sectors that together facilitate growth in market share and a competitive edge. In several industries, Software components are important in increasing the operational efficiency and permitting the use of innovative business plans. Services provided includes Real-time analytics, predictive insights as well as autonomous decision making. Software has a significant function in ensuring enhanced data processing, operational agility and actionable insights by ensuring that AI capabilities integrate well with IoT devices. The services allow smooth integration of AI with IoT infrastructure so that it can be tailored to meet industry-specific requirements. With their knowledgeable guidance and ongoing support, they assist organizations in the optimization of AIoT implementations, operational efficiency improvement and stimulation of innovation. They play an important role in providing expert knowledge required in running AIoT based solutions, handling operationalization and integration problems. View report summary and Table of Contents (TOC): https://www.skyquestt.com/report/artificial-intelligence-of-things-market AIoT's Impact on Operational Efficiency and Predictive Maintenance in Manufacturing and Beyond The market's included sectors, which include manufacturing, healthcare, automotive, and agriculture, use AIoT to boost customer experiences through data-driven insights, predict maintenance, and increase operational efficiency. Adoption of AIoT technology creates use cases that support the viability and efficacy of AI-integrated IoT solutions across a range of industries, as well as drives technological improvements and market growth. By combining AI with IoT devices for quality control, predictive maintenance, and real-time monitoring, AIoT improves operational efficiency in manufacturing. As one of the key industries embracing AIoT, manufacturing propels developments in supply chain management, industrial automation, and product quality control. Its use of AIoT technology raises productivity, speeds up digital transformation, and establishes standards for sustainability and efficiency across international businesses. AIoT shows great promise to change healthcare delivery and improve patient experiences internationally. It increases hospital operating efficiencies, improves patient outcomes, and lowers healthcare expenditures. AI's critical role in raising healthcare standards globally is highlighted by its integration with IoT devices in the healthcare industry, which not only increases efficiency but also stimulates innovation in precision medicine and medical research. Elevating Industry Horizons by AIoT's Strategic Impact on Operational Efficiency and Innovation The convergence of AI and IoT, or AIoT, is a game-changer in several industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and the automotive sector. Through intelligent decision-making, predictive maintenance, and real-time data processing, this synergy improves operational efficiencies. By streamlining procedures and enhancing consumer experiences, AIoT not only spurs innovation and market expansion but also establishes new standards for productivity and sustainability across international industries. The ability of AIoT to transform healthcare services, optimise manufacturing processes, and invent agricultural techniques highlights its critical role in influencing the global future of interconnected technologies, even in the face of obstacles like a lack of skilled labour. Related Report: AI Market Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Manufacturing Market Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Computer Vision Market Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chipsets Market Artificial Intelligence (AI) H ardware Market About Us: SkyQuest is an IP focused Research and Investment Bank and Accelerator of Technology and assets. We provide access to technologies, markets and finance across sectors viz. Life Sciences, CleanTech, AgriTech, NanoTech and Information & Communication Technology. We work closely with innovators, inventors, innovation seekers, entrepreneurs, companies and investors alike in leveraging external sources of R&D. Moreover, we help them in optimizing the economic potential of their intellectual assets. Our experiences with innovation management and commercialization has expanded our reach across North America, Europe, ASEAN and Asia Pacific. Contact: Mr. Jagraj Singh SkyQuest Technology 1 Apache Way, Westford, Massachusetts 01886 USA (+1) 351-333-4748 Email: sales@skyquestt.com Visit Our Website: https://www.skyquestt.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2446095/SkyQuest_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/artificial-intelligence-of-things-aiot-market-edge-solutions-and-embedded-ai-set-to-surpass-usd-495-09-billion-by-2031--skyquest-technology-302193252.html PARIS, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time, a team of scientists at Eligo has demonstrated it was possible to genetically modify bacteria with nearly 100% efficiency directly in the gut of animals. This work provides scientists with a novel strategy to better understand how genes from our microbiome drive disease, as well as creates new opportunities for the development of innovative therapies. (Read the study here / the full press release here ). The microbiome, composed of billions of bacteria, is essential to our health. However, we are discovering that bacterial genes are implicated in a growing number of diseases: from bacterial peptides that trigger autoimmune diseases to virulence factors that contribute to inflammation, tumor formation, and neurodegenerative diseases. "What Eligo has achieved shows that it's now possible to make specific changes to the DNA of bacteria in the gut, similar to how scientists have been editing human genes to investigate or treat genetic disorders," said David Bikard, cofounder of Eligo Bioscience and researcher at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. Eligo demonstrated the ability to engineer a bacteriophage-derived capsid containing a synthetic DNA payload encoding a base-editor system. After oral administration to mice, the capsid delivered the payload with extreme efficiency to target bacterial populations residing among the hundreds of bacterial species in the mouse gut. Remarkably, the system could precisely inactivate antibiotic resistance genes by creating single-base pair mutations in the corresponding genes. When targeting E. coli strains, the technology modified the target gene in over 90% of the bacteria, reaching up to 99.7% in some cases. Jesus Fernandez, Eligo VP of Technology and a senior author of the study, highlights how "this achievement is the culmination of eight years of work by the team at Eligo Bioscience and represents a paradigm shift in microbiome research. This leap forward provides Eligo with a unique edge within the industry to develop novel genetic medicines, as well as to find novel targets. We finally now have a tool to interrogate the role of specific bacterial genes in health and disease." About Eligo Bioscience Eligo is pioneering in microbiome in-vivo gene editing and is advancing a highly differentiated pipeline of precision medicines to address unmet medical needs in immuno-inflammation, oncology, and infectious diseases. For more information: https://eligo.bio/ Contact: DUPORTET Xavier; xavier.duportet@eligo-bioscience.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2458289/Eligo_Bioscience_Artwork_Credit.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1533529/Eligo_Bioscience_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/eligo-publishes-in-nature-a-landmark-study-that-unlocks-genome-editing-of-bacteria-in-the-gut-302193679.html Award is a research grant of 500.000 for AI-based solutions to prevent future pandemics Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany CEO Belen Garijo handed over prestigious prize Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, awarded Professor Lauren Gardner, representing Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, with the Future Insight Prize 2024 worth 500.000 for her contributions to develop advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems to help quickly discover and control future pandemics. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240710713003/en/ (Photo: Business Wire) "The exemplary work of Lauren Gardner and her team from Johns Hopkins University made a significant public health contribution during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, with her receipt of Future Insight Prize, we hope she can accelerate ongoing efforts to create a world that is better prepared to predict and prevent future pandemics," said Belen Garijo, Chair of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, when handing over the award in Mainz, Germany, today. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the interactive dashboard of Gardner and her team became the most authoritative and centralized data collection and sharing system for the reporting and tracking of Covid-19 health outcomes worldwide. The Future Insight Prize will enable her to further develop sophisticated public health models and data systems that can enhance international pandemic preparedness and response capabilities. At the award ceremony held at the Curious2024 Future Insight Conference in Mainz, Germany, Gardner shared her vision for the impact that the award will have upon her work: "Receiving the Future Insight Prize will further support our mission at Johns Hopkins University to refine predictive modelling and enhance decision making tools that are crucial for managing public health emergencies effectively. This recognition fuels our commitment to developing new AI-enabled solutions to anticipate and mitigate future threats from any known virus or other biological source." Gardner's current projects include enhancing epidemiological tools for early outbreak detection, creating a centralized open data repository, and advancing public health policy integration through training and capacity-building efforts. Her work aims to set new standards in using AI for public health and foster robust global responses to emerging infectious diseases. The Future Insight Prize was established by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in 2018 to support groundbreaking research that offers solutions to major global challenges. The prize recognizes not only past scientific achievements but is also meant to enable future breakthroughs. The Future Insight Prize 2025 will be allocated in the field of regenerative medicine. Proposals for potential candidates can be brought to the attention of the Future Insight Prize Jury. Previous Future Insight Prize winners Name Topic Year Institute Prof. Khalid Salita Pandemic protection 2023 Emory University, Atlanta, USA Prof. Tobias Erb CO2 conversion 2022 Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany Prof. Ting Lu Food generation 2021 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA Prof. Stephen Techtmann Food generation 2021 Michigan Technological University, USA Prof. Stefan Sieber Multi-drug resistance 2020 Technical University of Munich, Germany Prof. James Crowe Pandemic protection 2019 Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA Prof. Pardis Sabeti Pandemic protection 2019 Harvard University and the Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Yale University, New Haven, USA About Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, operates across life science, healthcare and electronics. Around 63,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people's lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From providing products and services that accelerate drug development and manufacturing as well as discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices the company is everywhere. In 2023, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, generated sales of 21 billion in 65 countries. The company holds the global rights to the name and trademark "Merck" internationally. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, operate as MilliporeSigma in life science, EMD Serono in healthcare and EMD Electronics in electronics. Since its founding in 1668, scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to the company's technological and scientific advances. To this day, the founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. All Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, press releases are distributed by e-mail at the same time they become available on the EMD Group website. In case you are a resident of the USA or Canada, please go to www.emdgroup.com/subscribe to register for your online, change your selection or discontinue this service. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240710713003/en/ Contacts: Media Relations gangolf.schrimpf@emdgroup.com Phone: +49 151 1454-9591 San Francisco, California--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - To help landlords and tenants understand the changes to California's rental laws for 2024, Law District has released the extensive guide "California Landlord-Tenant Rental Laws & Rights 2024" which provides clear information for both landlords and tenants to navigate these new changes. In 2024, California's rental laws will undergo impactful changes for both landlords and tenants. As early as January 1 and continuing until July 1, new laws have been put in place for security deposits, evictions, illegal occupancy, credit history discrimination, and more. New California Rental Laws and Tenant Rights To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7838/216069_ad11e2028498d8a7_001full.jpg Key Takeaways from the Law District's Guide There are 5 new laws to take into consideration: Security Deposits: Starting July 1, 2024, security deposits can't be more than one month's rent for any rental unit. Eviction Rules: As of April 1, 2024, if a homeowner ends a lease to move in, they must do so within 90 days and stay for at least 12 months. Illegal Occupancy: From January 1, 2024, landlords can report empty properties to the police, who can then remove trespassers. Trespass notices now last for 12 months instead of 30 days. Credit History Discrimination: Starting January 1, 2024, landlords can't reject rental applications just because of credit history and must give applicants enough time to provide all documents. Empty Home Tax in San Francisco: Beginning January 1, 2024, San Francisco will tax landlords with at least three properties that are empty for more than six months. Landlord and tenants rights and responsibilities: Lease Agreements: Detailed clauses are now required in lease agreements to protect both parties, including contact information, rent amounts, and disclosure requirements for lead-based paint and pest control. Detailed clauses are now required in lease agreements to protect both parties, including contact information, rent amounts, and disclosure requirements for lead-based paint and pest control. Landlord Rights and Responsibilities: The guide outlines the rights of landlords to collect rent, evict tenants for breaches, withhold security deposits for damages, and enter properties for emergencies and scheduled maintenance with proper notice. The guide outlines the rights of landlords to collect rent, evict tenants for breaches, withhold security deposits for damages, and enter properties for emergencies and scheduled maintenance with proper notice. Tenant Rights and Responsibilities: Tenants have the right to live in habitable and safe properties, and the guide provides information on how they can exercise their rights if these conditions are not met. Being a landlord in California means knowing state laws and regulations, and Law District's guide simplifies legal terms into clear steps, helping landlords manage their properties and tenants understand their rights. By adhering to these updated laws, landlords can avoid legal pitfalls and foster better relationships with tenants. The guide also includes practical tips for managing rental properties, handling disputes, and staying compliant with local ordinances. About Law District: Law District, led by a dedicated team of legal professionals and seasoned attorneys, simplifies and democratizes legal documentation. They provide affordable, legally sound templates and forms, benefiting individuals by streamlining legal processes and reducing attorney fees. Their extensive catalog of over 100 customizable templates and step-by-step guidance makes the law more accessible and user-friendly for all. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216069 SOURCE: Comunicae Seedrelease Network S.L. NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / T-Mobile (Updated 7/9/24 2:00CT) PM Update: July 9, 2024 Community Support Update Our Community Support team will be at cooling centers and shelters in Houston and Rosenberg this afternoon. The team will be providing power, Wi-Fi, device charging and charging supplies to anyone who needs it. Here's where you can find them: Houston: Tue, July 9 from 1 pm to 6 pm CT City of Houston Cooling Center Southwest Multi Service Center 6400 High Star Dr., Houston, TX Rosenberg: Tue, July 9 from 2:30 to 6 pm CT American Red Cross Shelter Fort Bend County Fairground 4310 TX-36 S, Rosenberg, TX AM Update: July 9, 2024 Our emergency teams are continuing to closely monitor Beryl as it advances through northern Arkansas into the middle-Mississippi and lower-Ohio valleys. As the storm went through parts of Texas, it brought with it tropical-storm-force winds, rain, widespread flooding and tornados that have impacted Houston and the surrounding areas. Here's the latest on our network and recovery efforts in the area: Network Update Commercial power outages and storm-related damage are creating service interruptions for some customers, T-Mobile President of Technology Ulf Ewaldsson shared on Monday evening. Ahead of the hurricane, our emergency restoration teams staged a fleet of heavy-duty network and disaster relief vehicles, as well as temporary connectivity solutions and portable generators, in multiple locations. Where our teams are able to safely assess network sites, they can quickly deploy these critical assets to restore connectivity. As we've begun assessing sites and kicking off restoration in the Houston area, we're continuing to monitor Beryl's progress and will provide additional updates. First Responders Update T-Mobile's Emergency Response Team is in-person at the Texas Department of Emergency Management (TDEM) State Emergency Operations Center in Austin to support first responders and coordinate restoration efforts and priorities. As these priority locations - which could include shelters, hospitals, fire stations, police departments and more - are determined, our engineers can bring in temporary network solutions to restore connectivity for critical services and agencies. We're also actively coordinating with federal, state and local public safety agencies, including FEMA and additional Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs). Community Support Update We are mobilizing Community Support trucks and trailers equipped with Wi-Fi, device charging and charging supplies. We have teams arriving in Houston today, and they'll be working with the City of Houston to support its cooling centers. July 5, 2024 As Hurricane Beryl moves toward the Mexico and Texas border, T-Mobile has activated its emergency plan in preparation for projected hurricane-force winds, heavy rainfall and flooding in southeastern and central Texas from late Sunday into Monday. See how our teams are getting ready (above). Network Preparation T-Mobile's Network and Emergency Management Teams have continued to strengthen and harden our network in areas likely to be impacted by Beryl, an extension of our year-round resiliency efforts. Network teams are working with utility companies, and our Network Operation Centers are closely monitoring network status. To help mitigate the impact of commercial power outages, our teams are working to refuel fixed generators, ensure battery backups are charged, prepare local fueling stations and stage additional portable generators for rapid deployment, if necessary. Additionally, our engineers, field technicians and rapid-response technologies such VSATs (Very Small Aperture Terminals), SatCOLTs (Satellite Cell on Light Trucks) and microwave solutions are ready to be quickly deployed and can provide temporary backhaul, boost coverage and offer critical support if needed. First Responders T-Mobile's Emergency Response Team is coordinating with the Texas Department of Emergency Management (TDEM) State Emergency Operations Center to support first responders and prioritize restoration efforts if needed following the storm. They're also coordinating with Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs) and other agencies along the projected path to prioritize their needs. Our team can swiftly deploy additional temporary equipment and resources, including VSATs, SatCOLTs, routers and other equipment. Our team stands ready to collaborate with state and local officials, first responders and organizations to provide necessary support. Agencies needing communications assistance can contact our 24-hour emergency hotline at 888-639-0020 or email at ERTRequests@T-Mobile.com. Community Support Our Community Support team, along with equipped vehicles, is on standby to assist with connectivity needs, offering Wi-Fi, device charging and charging supplies to customers and communities in the area. They are ready to support evacuation shelters or other locations as needed. Employees and Retail Stores We're actively preparing our employees, retail stores and other locations for any potential direct impacts. Please use our store locator to check your nearest store, as some locations may be temporarily closed or operating under modified hours in the coming days. More Information As Hurricane Beryl progresses, please follow any orders from local authorities, if issued, to stay safe. Here's a few more things you can do: See our newsroom for more information on T-Mobile 2024 Emergency Response Plan. ### T-Mobile's Community Support trucks arrive in the Houston area to provide Wi-Fi and device charging. They will be at the cooling center on High Star Drive in Houston and American Red Cross Shelter in Rosenberg today. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from T-Mobile on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: T-Mobile Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/t-mobile Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: T-Mobile View the original press release on accesswire.com PRESS RELEASE Decarbonizing the aviation sector: Global Bioenergies extends its technological process to the production of e-SAF a unique e-SAF with a record selectivity rate of 95% compared to existing technologies a complementary approach to ASTM-certified SAF technology, substituting a plant-based resource for a synthetic resource Evry, 10 July 2024 - 05:45 p.m.: Global Bioenergies announced today that it has adapted its process for the conversion of plant resources into Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) to produce e-SAF, using acetic acid as a resource. e-SAFs are derived from the combination of (i) CO 2 and (ii) hydrogen produced from renewable electricity: acetic acid can be produced from these two elements alone. e-SAFs maximize decarbonation impacts and offer an alternative to bio-SAFs, whose production relies on the use of plant resources. The e-SAF approach developed by Global Bioenergies stands out for its selectivity of over 95%, meaning that more than 95% of the molecules resulting from the process can be marketed as jet fuel. This selectivity exceeds that of other existing e-SAF technologies. SAFs and e-SAFs are regulated by the European Union's ReFuelEU Aviation regulation. By 2030, aircrafts taking off from European airports will be required to carry on average in their tank: - 4.8% bio-SAF, produced from plant resources, mandate which includes Global Bioenergies' bio-SAF process from plant resources, and - 1.2% e-SAF produced from CO 2 and low-carbon electricity, mandate which includes Global Bioenergies' e-SAF process. Marc Delcourt, co-founder and CEO of Global Bioenergies, commented: "The prospect of producing not only bio-SAFs, but also e-SAFs, adds another string to our bow. In regions where plant resources are abundant (USA, Brazil, South-East Asia...), our bio-SAF approach will have an important role to play. In regions where plant resources are only available in limited quantities, our e-SAF approach will be deployed primarily: this is the case in Europe and North Asia in particular." Eva van Mastbergen, Team Lead R&D at SkyNRG, said: "Given the growing global demand for SAF, driven by the ReFuelEU mandate and rising SAF ambitions, the industry must increase production and diversify technologies to convert various sustainable feedstocks into SAF. Following our successful collaboration on ASTM qualification of Global Bioenergies' SAF platform, we commend recent innovations supporting both bio-based SAF and e-SAF, advancing a more sustainable aviation industry." A new resource for the process: acetic acid Acetic acid ("AcOH") is well known to the general public as the acid in vinegar. In summary, it involves feeding the bacterial strains producing isobutene (then transformed into SAF by simple oligomerization), no longer with plant resources, but with acetic acid. Most of the 5 million tonnes of acetic acid produced every year is obtained by combining methanol and carbon monoxide, which can both be produced from CO 2 and hydrogen. (Hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis of water using low-carbon electricity). This approach is therefore in line with the specifications of e-SAFs, defined by the use of CO 2 and low-carbon electricity. AcOH, a new raw material for microorganisms Microorganisms naturally break down sugar (usually six-carbon) into acetic groups (two-carbon), which are then converted into numerous other molecules useful to life (fatty acids and amino acids, in particular). Although AcOH is well known to micro-organisms, which produce it endogenously, these micro-organisms are not naturally organized to use it as a resource massively supplied exogenously. It was therefore necessary to modify isobutene-producing strains so that they could accept AcOH, which has been successfully achieved in recent months. e-AcOH, a resource that could soon be available on a large scale A major player in the industrial production of AcOH is already producing e-AcOH based on CO 2 captured from industrial effluent gases, combined with low-carbon hydrogen. What stage of development has the e-SAF process reached? The process is now moving from proof of concept to pre-industrial development. At the same time, the performance of Global Bioenergies' bio-SAF process has improved significantly in recent months, and this progress has been transposed to the pilot scale. It will continue to improve over the coming months, to approach the theoretical optimum. The progress made on the bio-SAF process will be transposed to the performance of the e-SAF process. The competitive advantages of Global Bioenergies' e-SAF process Today, there is no industrial-scale production of e-SAF, and no aircraft has yet flown fully on e-SAF. Two families of e-SAF production processes are currently being developed by various players. Both are based on chemical approaches: - The first uses the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis process, - The second involves the production of e-methanol, which is then converted into e-SAF. In both cases, the selectivity of the process to SAF is lower than Global Bioenergies' e-SAF process, meaning a larger fraction of side-products will be marketed as e-gasoline or e-diesel, at a lower price. Global Bioenergies' e-SAF process provides an answer here: over 95% of the products from its process correspond to the aviation stream, which would benefit the industrial profitability of the corresponding plants. Conclusion This breakthrough in biology paves the way to a new e-SAF process, distinguished from other e-SAF technologies by its very high selectivity. It adds a valuable string to Global Bioenergies's bow, as it ensures a diversity of supply sources and a highly differentiated position in this emerging market. About GLOBAL BIOENERGIES Global Bioenergies substitutes products of fossil origin with products of natural origin. In their quest for naturalness without compromising on performance, the cosmetics players are the Company's first customers. By 2027, the Company will be operating its innovative process in a large-scale plant. By 2030, the Company plans to become a leader in the huge emerging market for sustainable aviation fuels, in order to fight against global warming. Global Bioenergies is listed on Euronext Growth in Paris (FR0011052257 - ALGBE). L'Oreal is its largest shareholder, with a 13.5% stake. About SkyNRG SkyNRG is a global leader in Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). Since 2009, the company has been scaling up SAF demand and production capacity for the industry to meet its 2050 net zero commitment. SkyNRG was the first in the world to supply SAF on a commercial flight flown by co-founder and shareholder KLM in 2011. To date, SkyNRG has supplied SAF to over 40 airlines across the world and is now developing dedicated production facilities to support the shift from fossil jet fuel to sustainable aviation fuel. Contacts GLOBAL BIOENERGIES +33 (0)1 64 98 20 50 martin.stephan@global-bioenergies.com (mailto:martin.stephan@global-bioenergies.com) Follow our news Receive information about Global Bioenergies directly by subscribing to our news feed on https://www.global-bioenergies.com/inscription-newsletter/ (https://www.global-bioenergies.com/inscription-newsletter/) Follow us on LinkedIn Global Bioenergies (https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-bioenergies) NewCap - Investor relations Louis-Victor Delouvrier Aurelie Manavarere globalbioenergies@newcap.eu (mailto:globalbioenergies@newcap.eu) +33 (0)1 44 71 94 94 NewCap - Media relations Nicolas Merigeau globalbioenergies@newcap.eu +33 (0)1 44 71 94 98 Attachment Finsbury Growth & Income Trust PLC - Transaction in Own Shares PR Newswire LONDON, United Kingdom, July 10 For immediate release 10 July 2024 FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST PLC (the "Company") MARKET PURCHASE OF COMPANY'S OWN SHARES The Company announce that it has today purchased 146,120 of its own shares ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 838.11 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 48,483,354; 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 176,507,949. The figure of 176,507,949 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 Company Committed to Support Global Health and Customers BD Taking all Available Measures to Mitigate Supplier Issue FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (NYSE: BDX), a leading global medical technology company, today issued the following statement related to a U.S. FDA letter to health care providers regarding the supply of blood culture vials: Nikos Pavlidis, worldwide president of BD Diagnostic Solutions said, "BD is experiencing reduced availability of blood culture vials from our supplier. We understand the critical role that blood culture testing plays in diagnosing and treating infections and are taking all available measures to address this important issue, including providing the supplier our manufacturing expertise, using air shipments, modifying BD manufacturing schedules for rapid production, and collaborating with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to review all potential options to mitigate delays in supply. As an additional stopgap measure, our former supplier of glass vials will restart production to help fill the intermittent gap in supply. "We take our responsibility to support health care providers and patients very seriously and, while we are able to meet the majority of global demand, we are taking all available measures to address this important issue. BD BACTEC blood culture vials are being allocated manually so we can best mitigate any impact to patient care. Customers have been advised to prioritize the use of blood culture vials based on clinical needs and following guidelines, such as the most recent update from the Infectious Disease and Society of America and/or the World Health Organization. "While this supplier issue is not expected to have a material financial impact on BD, we are fully focused on returning the supply of blood culture vials to normal levels." More information on BD BACTEC blood culture vials supply can be found at BDBACTEC-update.com. This matter is not related to BD Vacutainer blood collection tubes. About BD BD is one of the largest global medical technology companies in the world and is advancing the world of health by improving medical discovery, diagnostics and the delivery of care. The company supports the heroes on the frontlines of health care by developing innovative technology, services and solutions that help advance both clinical therapy for patients and clinical process for health care providers. BD and its 70,000 employees have a passion and commitment to help enhance the safety and efficiency of clinicians' care delivery process, enable laboratory scientists to accurately detect disease and advance researchers' capabilities to develop the next generation of diagnostics and therapeutics. BD has a presence in virtually every country and partners with organizations around the world to address some of the most challenging global health issues. By working in close collaboration with customers, BD can help enhance outcomes, lower costs, increase efficiencies, improve safety and expand access to health care. For more information on BD, please visit bd.com or connect with us on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/bd1/ and Twitter @BDandCo. Contacts: Media : Investors : Troy Kirkpatrick Adam Reiffe VP, Public Relations BD Investor Relations 858.617.2361 201.847.6927 [email protected] [email protected] SOURCE BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) Kupfer wird oft als das Gold der Energiewende bezeichnet, weil es aufgrund seiner hervorragenden elektrischen Leitfahigkeit eine zentrale Rolle in vielen Technologien spielt, die fur nachhaltige Energiesysteme entscheidend sind. Experten gehen aufgrund der Angebotsknappheit von einem Superzyklus aus. Korrektur als Einstiegschance Nach Hochststanden im Mai korrigierte das rote Metall stark. Die Abwartsspirale verstarkte sich in den vergangenen Tagen aufgrund schwacher Konjunkturdaten aus den USA und China. Langfristig konnte sich die aktuell laufende Korrektur als exzellente Einstiegsmoglichkeit herausstellen. 3 Kupferaktien mit hohem Potential Im neuen, kostenlosen Spezialreport stellen wir drei aussichtsreiche Unternehmen vor, die bei einem weiteren Anstieg uberproportional profitieren konnten. Handeln Sie jetzt und sichern Sie sich Ihren kostenfreien Report! *** Rising Global Tensions *** Sending heavy weapons to Israel Boosting military aid to Ukraine Pushing for AUKUS expansion Setting up an "Asia-Pacific NATO" to contain China When NATO leaders meet in Washington, is the Cold-War legacy meant for peace or a new Cold War? Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Canadian Critical Minerals Inc. (TSXV: CCMI) (OTCQB: RIINF) ("CCMI" or the "Company") is pleased to report record revenues for the Company from the sale of stockpiled copper, gold and silver mineralized material at the Bull River Mine ("BRM") project near Cranbrook, BC. During the month of June 2024, the Company trucked 694 wet metric tonnes ("wmt") of mineralized material to New Afton and the Company received a provisional payment of approximately USD$246,000 for the June 2024 shipments versus approximately USD$103,000 for May 2024 shipments. The mineralized material sent to New Afton graded 4.67% Cu, 0.89 g/t Au and 39.5 g/t Ag. The Company is using a Steinert KSS 100 X-Ray Transmissive Ore Sorter ("Ore Sorter") to pre-concentrate coarse mineralized material from a large surface stockpile at the BRM prior to transporting to New Afton for processing under an Ore Purchase Agreement ("OPA") (see press release dated October 5, 2023, on Sedar+). During June 2024, the Company transitioned to a Monday to Sunday dayshift only operation to better utilize the ore sorter and increase daily throughput. Rejects from the sorter are being stockpiled next to the fines stockpile. The fines stockpile, which represents approximately 25% of the total material on surface, was created during the original crushing and screening process and represents material that is less than 5/8 inches in size and too fine to be separated by the XRT process. Rejects are grading between 0.4% Cu and 1.0% Cu. The cut off grade ("COG") for milling copper mineralized material at the BRM that is already on surface is 0.4% Cu. This means that virtually all the fines and reject material can be economically processed at the Bull River Mine once the Company has received permission to restart the mill. 2024 Revenues from Sale of Stockpiled Material Bull River Mine in $USD (Monthly) To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2187/216074_a7b9069394b7da32_001full.jpg Ian Berzins, President and CEO commented, "We are encouraged by the June 2024 results which represent the highest-grade product produced to-date at the BRM through pre-concentration of stockpiled material. The run of mine mineralized material from the surface stockpile grades 1.39% copper, 0.29 g/t gold and 11 g/t silver, so we generated grade improvements of over 305% for all metals using the ore sorter during the month. The stockpile is not totally homogeneous in terms of grade, so we expect to see some fluctuation in results in coming months." Qualified person CCMI's disclosure of a technical or scientific nature in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Gary Low P.Geo., who serves as a Consultant to the Company and is a Qualified Person under the definition of National Instrument 43-101. About Canadian Critical Minerals Inc. CCMI is a mining company primarily focused on two near-term copper production assets in Canada. CCMI's main asset is the 100% owned Bull River Mine project (>135 million lbs of copper) near Cranbrook, British Columbia which has a Mineral Resource containing copper, gold and silver. CCMI also owns a 30% interest in the Thierry Mine project (>1.3 billion lbs of copper) near Pickle Lake, Ontario which has a Mineral Resource containing copper, nickel, silver, palladium, platinum and gold. Contact Information Canadian Critical Minerals Inc. Ian Berzins President & Chief Executive Officer M: +1-403-512-8202 E: iberzins@canadiancriticalmineralsinc.com Website: www.canadiancriticalmineralsinc.com Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release includes certain information that may constitute "forward-looking information" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements about strategic plans, future work programs and objectives and expected results from such work programs. Forward-looking information necessarily involve known and unknown risks, including, without limitation, risks associated with general economic conditions; inability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources, and/or inability to access sufficient capital on favourable terms; and other risks. Forward-looking information is 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 information and the risks identified in the Company's continuous disclosure record. 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 information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. All forward-looking information contained in this news release is given as of the date hereof and is based upon the opinions and estimates of management and information available to management as at the date hereof. 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, except as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this new release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216074 SOURCE: Canadian Critical Minerals Inc. YEREVAN, ARMENIA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Fastex hosted the fifth Harmony Meetup in Yerevan, gathering international specialists and representatives from the Web3 sphere. Over 70 leading organizations in igaming participated in the four-day event, engaging in discussions on industry challenges and participating in panel discussions. "Today's event focuses on blockchain, its developments, technological advancements, and potential solutions. We have successfully completed many projects and are now discussing new ideas. I am confident that Fastex will soon unveil new products and solutions," said Vakhtang Abrahamyan, CEO of Fastex. The main theme of the meetup was decentralization. Topics included the challenges of digital identity in Web3, applications of digital identity, benefits and features of Bahamut's second layer, products that received grants from the Bahamut Foundation, Fastex virtual and physical cards, and the current legal challenges of the DeFi industry globally and in Armenia. For the second consecutive year, over 500 representatives of the global Web3 community attended a special awards ceremony. Winners of 120 projects submitted in nine categories were announced, with a prize fund of 3,333,000 FTN dedicated to promoting the winning projects in the international market. About Fastex Fastex is the all-encompassing ecosystem that redefines the Web3 experience. Fastex stands at the forefront of blockchain and AI technology , seamlessly blending vast opportunities within a unified and user-friendly environment, such as Fastex Exchange , Fastex Card , Fastex Wallet and the e-commerce platform - ftNFT Marketplace with phygital spaces. Fastex distinguishes itself by prioritizing regulatory compliance, ensuring a secure and reliable experience for all users in the evolving landscape of Web3. Media Contact Head of PR Mariam Baladyan Head of PR mariam.baladyan@fastex.com SOURCE: Fastex View the original press release on accesswire.com Mr. Zhong's Elevation From Managing Director To Partner Follows A Decade Of Service To The Private Equity Firm PITTSBURGH, PA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / 3 Rivers Capital LLC ("3RC") has promoted Michael Zhong to the position of Partner, joining Managing Partner Rob Carskadden and Partner Dale Buckwalter in the leadership circle of the Pittsburgh-based private equity firm. Michael Zhong, 3 Rivers Capital Mr. Zhong joined 3 Rivers Capital in 2015 as an Associate before being named Vice President in 2017 and Director in 2021. He was promoted to Managing Director in 2023, where he became responsible for business development and deal sourcing, deal execution, capital relationships, and portfolio management. Headquartered in the 3 Rivers Capital Dallas-Fort Worth offices, Mr. Zhong will continue to serve in his lead transaction role as Partner. During his tenure with 3 Rivers Capital, Mr. Zhong helped lead the firm's ongoing investments into service sectors including healthcare, industrial services and niche manufacturing. Portfolio acquisitions completed under Mr. Zhong's leadership include Amazing Care Home Health Services, AGS Automotive Solutions and the Blue Chip Group, where he also serves on its Board of Directors. Mr. Zhong began his career in finance with Discover Financial Services where he was involved in strategic business transformation within the company's consumer banking and lending operations. Mr. Zhong earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics with a minor in Business from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree at Carnegie Mellon University-Tepper School of Business. "Throughout his nearly decade with 3 Rivers Capital, Michael has played an instrumental role in partnering with family and entrepreneur-owned growth businesses and has helped our portfolio companies achieve continued growth. Michael's contributions to 3 Rivers Capital are numerous and varied, always exhibiting strong business acumen and leadership skills. We are extremely proud to announce Michael's promotion to Partner and look forward to the many contributions he will be making to the firm in his new role," said Mr. Carskadden. "I am grateful that Rob Carskadden and Dale Buckwalter offered me a chance to join the 3RC team in 2015. Since then, it has been a privilege to work with our team at 3RC, as well as the amazing people at our portfolio companies. I am energized each day thinking about the different ways to grow our portfolio companies and drive investor returns and look forward to continuing doing so with our outstanding team," said Mr. Zhong. About 3 Rivers Capital: 3 Rivers Capital is a private equity firm focused on control acquisitions of small businesses with EBITDA between $3-10M. Since its founding in 2005, 3 Rivers Capital has built expertise in acquiring family and entrepreneur-owned businesses that present a clear and compelling opportunity to create significant value. 3 Rivers Capital adds value through active ownership and supportive partnerships with highly motivated management teams. For more information on 3 Rivers Capital please visit 3 Rivers Capital. # # # CONTACT: Steve Syatt SSA Public Relations steve@ssapr.com (818) 222-4000 SOURCE: 3 Rivers Capital View the original press release on accesswire.com Kunstliche Intelligenz hat spatestens nach dem Raketenstart von Chat GPT das Leben aller verandert. Doch der Superzyklus steht nach Meinungen von Experten erst am Anfang. 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Akara Partners takes the charge on launching more affordable luxury boutique condos in the heart of River North, redefining what urban luxury stands for in the bustling Chicago market marked by the launch of Chateau on Wells Private Residences, starting at $443,000. Sales will launch and hit the market Monday, July 15th, at 707 N. Wells, currently known as the Hensley Apartments, which will undergo a conversion to condos and transformation to offer modern, luxury boutique condos. This marks a historical milestone, as the first Class-A multifamily apartment building in River North to be converted into luxury condos since the economic downturn of the late 2000's. This 43 unit, 11-story, 50,000-square-foot building will be rebranded as Chateau on Wells Private Residences, a Parisian-inspired design, offering a unique blend of old-world charm and new-world sophistication. Units will include 1-to-3 bedroom layouts starting at $443,000, along with exclusive penthouse residences priced from $1-million and up. Each residence uniquely features its own oversized private balcony or terrace. "Our goal is to create a residential space that not only meets the high standards of luxury condo product but also integrates seamlessly with the vibrant culture of River North," said Rajen Shastri, CEO of Akara Partners. The property was originally developed by Akara Partners as a luxury rental building in 2016 by award-winning Architecture Firm Pappageorge Haymes. It was the first mid-rise luxury rental building to be developed on this desirable Wells Street corridor in the center of River North which was followed by thousands of units as the rental apartment boom ensued. This location affords renters to be a short walk to the Gold Coast, Michigan Avenue, Lake Michigan and the Loop along with easy access to the highway. Shastri went on to say, "Luxury apartment living has empowered young people to enjoy an elevated urban lifestyle with unparalleled flexibility. However, as rents continue to increase and as people make life choices to stay in a place for a longer period, the idea of buying a condo and building home equity while still living this elevated urban lifestyle could be a great alternative for current renters and a great financial decision. n. Yet, few newly built condo projects in urban centers are affordable for most buyers. Our product bridges this gap, offering luxury condos at an attainable price. By reverse-engineering a typical mortgage for an average-priced condo in our building, the cost is equivalent to paying the monthly rent on 10s of thousands of current city apartments and rents are expected to continue to increase annually. There are also a lot of city dwellers who moved to the suburbs during covid. We also believe there is a suburban buyer that may want to maintain a presence in the city in a new luxury condo building without breaking the bank." Designed by Aleksandra Nova Design, who derived inspiration from the charm of a French Chateau, effortlessly merging Parisian elegance with a modern, lighthearted vibe and lifestyle. Lobby Design: Step into the elegance of a residential lobby inspired by the opulence of a French Chateau. Dark walls adorned with decorative French-inspired moldings set a dramatic backdrop, invoking a sense of sophistication reminiscent of historic manors. Luxurious velvet drapery cascades from ceiling to floor, adding a touch of regal splendor and softening the space with its rich texture. Throughout the lobby, modern furniture pieces strike a balance between the old and the new, blending design styles to unite past and present worlds, while inviting guests to linger and admire the surroundings. Decorative artwork adorns every wall, from photography to intricately carved sculptures, adding layers of visual interest and cultural depth. Brass accented lighting fixtures, casting a warm and inviting glow that enhances the ambiance. Every detail in this residential lobby is meticulously curated to evoke the timeless beauty and sophistication of a Modern French Chateau, inspiring an elegant yet effortlessly chic lifestyle. Aleksandra Nova described it by saying, "Every detail at Chateau on Wells is carefully curated to evoke the carefree yet sophisticated Parisian lifestyle. It's a place where grandeur meets intimacy, providing a luxurious yet relaxed environment for residents and guests to enjoy life as the French do-carefree, sophisticated, and always in style." Residences / Model Unit Design: Discover expansive living redefined in our residences, featuring open floor plans, private terraces, and premium finishes. Spacious open floor plans, private terraces, and luxurious finishes. Each residence features bespoke lighting elements, chef's kitchens boast Quartz Calacatta Gold Monaco countertops. Living spaces are adorned with chandeliers, wood paneling, and accent walls. Contemporary elements like modern furniture, French-inspired photography, and dynamic modern art set the stage for a vibrant living space. Cowhide and plush rugs underfoot add warmth, complemented by sleek black metal finishes and innovative strip lighting. Click here to view the entire luxury condo rendering and photo gallery. Buyers will have the option to purchase the model units curated furniture design selections. Matt Laricy, of Laricy-Americorp Ltd will head sales alongside Core Capital Group, a real estate consulting firm. Laricy, the leader in volume in the Chicago market and industry expert said, "We are excited to introduce this new much needed product to the market. Given its unique features and prime location, we anticipate a very enthusiastic reception from buyers with only 43 available residences." Showings are available to the public starting July 15th, 2024. Click here to schedule your tour. THE TEAM Developer: Akara Partners Opportunity + Vision: We're building real estate platforms of the future. Our leadership team represents the best of the best in real estate finance, investment, development, construction, sales and marketing, branding, management, and operations. Our experience is the foundation on which Akara develops every day. Interior Designer: Aleksandra Nova Design Founded nearly a decade ago by Aleksandra Nova after her return from extensive international travel, Aleksandra Nova Design has distinguished itself as a highly sought-after design firm. Inspired by luxurious stays in some of the world's most elegant hotels, Aleksandra established her firm with the vision of bringing the same level of subtle indulgence to every project. Her mission is to collaborate with premier clients and skilled craftsmen to achieve a perfect blend of authenticity, functionality, and elegance in every space she designs. Contact: Name: Kelly Morris Contact Email: sales@chateauwells.com SOURCE: Chateau on Wells View the original press release on accesswire.com Acquisition of INBRIJA (levodopa inhalation powder) and (F)AMPYRA (fampridine) expands specialty neurology portfolio Lays groundwork for Parkinson's disease franchise and anchor in multiple sclerosis therapy Plans include growth of U.S. workforce by more than 50% Merz Therapeutics announces today the successful acquisition of INBRIJA (levodopa inhalation powder) and (F)AMPYRA (fampridine), and related assets from Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. AMPYRA (dalfampridine) is Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved in the U.S. and commercialized as FAMPYRA in the European Union and other territories throughout the world. This transaction was conducted through a court-structured 363 sale under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The completion of this deal, valued at USD 185 million in cash, bolsters Merz Therapeutics' market position by enhancing offerings for people living with Parkinson's disease and expanding into the multiple sclerosis (MS) space. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240710459851/en/ "The addition of INBRIJA and (F)AMPYRA to the treatment portfolio underlines Merz Therapeutics' global Pivot for Growth strategy to both evolve the current portfolio and achieve critical scale and global reach," said Stefan Konig, CEO of Merz Therapeutics. "Merz Therapeutics is well poised to build on what we have accomplished in the specialty neurology space, strengthening our market position in Parkinson's disease and expanding into the MS segment. This deal demonstrates Merz Therapeutics' interest and ability to acquire assets that will deliver greater, sustainable outcomes for more people living with neurological disorders." INBRIJA and (F)AMPYRA are projected to immediately add topline revenue which will enhance Merz Therapeutics' ability to accelerate clinical development of its existing and new assets. Its U.S. business is forecasted to contribute more than 75% of INBRIJA's and (F)AMPYRA's total global revenues over the next 10 years. Additionally, the company expects the U.S. workforce to increase by more than 50%. INBRIJA is a significant advancement for people living with Parkinson's disease as it provides an on-demand, inhalable form of levodopa, offering an effective way to manage "OFF" episodes. This method of delivery, achievable through the innovative and proprietary technology platform, ARCUS, is especially valuable for people who need rapid relief from their symptoms, which cannot be achieved reliably through oral intake. (F)AMPYRA is the first medication approved for improving walking in patients with MS, demonstrated by an improved walking ability. "Expanding the portfolio with INBRIJA, including plans for worldwide product roll-out, and (F)AMPYRA allows Merz Therapeutics the opportunity to leverage its experience in the specialty neurology space to serve even more patients living with neurological disorders and support the physicians who treat them," said Stefan Albrecht, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer. "Because these treatments complement the company's product portfolio and distribution system, we are well positioned to support patients who depend on these products seamlessly." About INBRIJA INBRIJA is an inhaled prescription levodopa medicine used to treat the return of Parkinson's symptoms (known as "OFF" episodes) in people with Parkinson's disease who are treated with carbidopa/levodopa medicines. It does not replace the regular carbidopa/levodopa medicines. INBRIJA is not to be used by people with Parkinson's disease who take or have taken a nonselective monoamine oxidase inhibitor, such as phenelzine or tranylcypromine, within the last 2 weeks. The most common side effects of INBRIJA are cough, upper respiratory tract infection, nausea and change in the color of saliva or spit. About FAMPYRA FAMPYRA is a prolonged-release (sustained release) tablet formulation of the drug fampridine (4-aminopyridine, 4-AP or dalfampridine). FAMPYRA is indicated in the European Union for the improvement of walking in adult patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) with walking disability (EDSS 4-7). In clinical trials, the highest incidence of adverse reactions identified with FAMPYRA given at the recommended dose was urinary tract infection. Other adverse drug reactions identified were mainly divided between neurological disorders such as insomnia, balance disorder, dizziness, paraesthesia and headache, and gastrointestinal disorders including nausea, dyspepsia and constipation. In post-marketing experience, there have been reports of seizure. Please see FAMPYRA EPAR for more information. About AMPYRA AMPYRA is an extended-release tablet formulation of dalfampridine (4-aminopyridine, 4-AP or fampridine). AMPYRA is a potassium channel blocker approved as a treatment to help improve walking in adults with multiple sclerosis (MS). This was demonstrated by an increase in walking speed. The most common side effects for AMPYRA in MS patients were urinary tract infection; trouble sleeping; dizziness; headache; nausea; weakness; back pain; problems with balance; multiple sclerosis relapse; burning, tingling, or itching of your skin; irritation in your nose and throat; constipation; indigestion; and pain in your throat. Please see the AMPYRA Patient Medication Guide for more information. About Merz Therapeutics Merz Therapeutics is dedicated to improving the lives of patients around the world. With its relentless research, development and culture of innovation, Merz Therapeutics strives to serve unmet patient needs and realize better outcomes. Merz Therapeutics seeks to address the unique needs of people who suffer from movement disorders, neurological conditions, liver disease and other health conditions that severely impact patients' quality of life. Merz Therapeutics is headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and is represented in more than 90 countries, with a North America affiliate based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Merz Therapeutics GmbH is part of the Merz Group, a privately held, family-owned company that has dedicated 115 years to developing innovations that serve unmet patient and customer needs. Please visit www.merztherapeutics.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240710459851/en/ Contacts: Press Contact for Global Inquiries: Merz Therapeutics GmbH Agnes Tesch Global Communications +49 69 1503 2129 agnes.tesch@merz.de Press Contact for North America Inquiries: Merz Therapeutics Nicole Lovern Corporate Communications 6601 Six Forks Road, Suite 430, Raleigh, NC 27615 (571) 442-9665 Nicole.Lovern@merz.com NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Enbridge University of Alberta program cultivates student interest in environmental education through summer research internships The University of Alberta may have one of the best summer gigs going. Forget office jobs. Since being launched in 2020, Indigenous students hired onto one of the research projects through the U of A's I-STEAM Pathways (I-STEAM) program could spend their summer studying water toxicity, regenerative agriculture, environmental policy or flood forecasting tools-just to name a few. "Many of our interns are actually hired out of non-STEM-related fields of study," says Dr. Makere Stewart-Harawira, professor at Edmonton-based University of Alberta and original co-founder of the I-STEAM Pathways program. "They might be enrolled in a health or psychology program, but this internship offers an opportunity to explore an enormous variety of other fields in engineering, biology or agriculture." The I-STEAM program is the first of its kind in Canada, and is dedicated to giving Indigenous students the opportunity to engage in environmental research, ideally leading them to consider it as a future career path. "There is a real call in both the research community and within Indigenous communities to increase the number of Indigenous people in positions of authority in environmental policy," says Dr. Stewart-Harawira. Open to students in their first year of undergraduate studies and upwards, I-STEAM matches students with carefully selected research projects and a dedicated mentor for a four-month paid internship over the summer. Last year, the program hired 18 students to environmental research projects, up from 16 in 2022. While the upward trend is encouraging, the program's ability to accept research proposals and facilitate summer internships is entirely donor dependent. In 2023, Alliance Pipeline donated $60,000 to the I-STEAM Pathways program as part of its commitment to communities. The funding facilitated internships for the program and contributed to research costs and student wages. After a 24-year span, Enbridge sold its ownership interest in Alliance to Pembina Pipeline Corporation in April 2024. The research projects are not just confined to labs-they often have real-world impact. Jordan Eleniak, a 2023 I-STEAM program participant and Metis student hailing from Lac La Biche, AB, developed a device that helps predict algae blooms during his internship. Eleniak is also the president of the U of A's Indigenous in STEM Students Association. "Jordan's work is exactly the type of hands-on research that we get excited about," says. Dr. Stewart-Harawira. "I am constantly moved by the interchange of knowledge and witnessing as students build a passion and interest in their environment." Dr. Stewart-Harawira, who is New Zealand Maori, arrived in Alberta in 2004 with the intention of spending "four or five" in Alberta, and ultimately to launch a program around Indigenous environmental education. But 20 years later, she's still here, with I-STEAM Pathways programming running strong, thanks at least in part to the good work of her co-leads in the program, Navajo environmental engineer Dr. Chelsea Benally and biological scientist Dr. Greg Goss, both at the University of Alberta and equally dedicated to the program. "I guess I've just been having so much fun," she says. TOP PHOTO: I-STEAM program participants work on their projects at the University of Alberta. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Enbridge on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Enbridge Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/enbridge Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Enbridge View the original press release on accesswire.com BANGALORE, India, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Edge Server Market is Segmented by Type (Blade, Rack, HCI), by Application (Industrial Servers, Commercial Servers): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2024-2030. The global Edge Server Market was valued at USD 2873.1 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach USD 18990 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 30.6% during the forecast period 2024-2030. Get Free Sample: https://reports.valuates.com/request/sample/QYRE-Auto-25B8939/Global_Edge_Server_Market Major Factors Driving the Growth of Edge Server Market: Because of the growing need for real-time applications and low-latency data processing, the edge server market is expanding significantly. Closer to the end users, edge servers enable better performance and faster data handling for activities like IoT device management, autonomous driving, and infrastructure for smart cities. The development of 5G technology, the rising use of AI and machine learning at the edge, and the expanding need for effective data management solutions are the main factors driving this market expansion. In order to guarantee uninterrupted data processing capabilities, lower latency, and improve operational efficiency, businesses are substantially investing in edge computing infrastructure; as a result, the edge server market is an essential part of the contemporary digital ecosystem. View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-25B8939/global-edge-server TRENDS INFLUENCING THE GROWTH OF THE EDGE SERVER MARKET: The market for edge servers is expanding thanks in large part to rack servers, especially for industrial use cases. Their dependability, scalability, and strong performance make them perfect for meeting the rigorous demands of industrial settings. Large volumes of data produced by industrial IoT devices and sensors may be effectively managed by rack servers, enabling real-time analytics and decision-making. Their capacity to meet demanding storage and high-performance computing requirements under challenging circumstances guarantees continuous operations and increased efficiency. Rack servers are essential for streamlining industrial processes by lowering latency and enabling localized data processing. This has led to a notable increase in the edge server industry. Blade edge servers' small size, high density, and energy efficiency are propelling the edge server market's expansion. These servers are especially useful in spaces where there are limitations on space since they have a modular design that makes maintenance and scalability simple. Densely packing blade servers into a single chassis maximizes processing capability while reducing energy usage and physical footprint. Because of their capacity to handle a wide range of workloads and applications, they are perfect for edge computing scenarios where high performance and fast deployment are crucial. Blade edge servers are a popular option for companies wishing to expand their edge computing capabilities because to their efficiency and flexibility, which is driving market growth. The market for edge servers is expanding due to the fact that commercial edge servers are fulfilling the different demands of companies in different industries. These servers are appropriate for a variety of business applications because they provide a good mix of performance, affordability, and ease of setup. Commercial edge servers facilitate localized data processing, which speeds up response times and improves user experiences in a variety of industries, including banking, retail, healthcare, and education. Particularly with the expanding usage of IoT and digital services, their scalability and agility enable organizations to better manage data flow and enhance their operations. Commercial edge servers are becoming increasingly popular due to their adaptability and usefulness, which is greatly propelling the edge server market's growth. The increasing need for low-latency applications is one of the main factors propelling the edge server market's expansion. Near-instantaneous data processing is becoming critical due to the growth of real-time applications including financial trading platforms, online gaming, and driverless cars. Because of the physical distance that data must travel, traditional centralized data centers frequently increase delay. Faster reaction times are made possible by edge servers, which are situated closer to the data source and greatly minimize latency. This low-latency feature is essential for applications that need to process and receive data instantly, which helps explain why edge servers are becoming more and more popular in a variety of sectors. The increasing need for low-latency applications is one of the main factors propelling the edge server market's expansion. Near-instantaneous data processing is becoming critical due to the growth of real-time applications including financial trading platforms, online gaming, and driverless cars. Because of the physical distance that data must travel, traditional centralized data centers frequently increase delay. Faster reaction times are made possible by edge servers, which are situated closer to the data source and greatly minimize latency. This low-latency feature is essential for applications that need to process and receive data instantly, which helps explain why edge servers are becoming more and more popular in a variety of sectors. The market for edge servers is mostly driven by cost effectiveness. Infrastructural and maintenance costs for traditional centralized data centers are high. Conversely, edge servers provide a more affordable option by eliminating the requirement for large-scale data transmission and central processing. Reduced bandwidth expenses and a reduced need for costly data center expansions are two benefits of localized data processing. Moreover, enterprises may extend their infrastructure in accordance with demand by deploying edge servers progressively. Because of their affordability and scalability, edge servers are a desirable choice for businesses trying to maximize their IT spending. Own It Today - Buy Now! https://reports.valuates.com/api/directpaytoken?rcode=QYRE-Auto-25B8939&lic=single-user EDGE SERVER MARKET SHARE: Because of its robust technological infrastructure, early adoption of 5G and IoT, and concentration of large tech businesses heavily invested in edge computing solutions, North America has the highest market share. Asia Pacific is expanding rapidly as a result of growing industrial automation, government programs supporting digital transformation, and a thriving IoT market. Although China is a major participant in this, developing nations like South Korea and India are also expanding rapidly. Purchase Regional Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-25B8939/global-edge-server/4 Key Companies: Dell Inc HPE Lenovo Cisco Nokia Huawei GIGABYTE Technology Fujitsu Limited ADLink Atos Advantech Sugon Inspur OnLogic Trusme Purchase Chapters: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-25B8939/global-edge-server/1 SUBSCRIPTION We have introduced a tailor-made subscription for our customers. Please leave a note in the Comment Section to know about our subscription plans. DISCOVER MORE INSIGHTS: EXPLORE SIMILAR REPORTS! - The global market for AI Server was estimated to be worth USD 14860 Million in 2023 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 78810 Million by 2030 with a CAGR of 16.4% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - 5G Edge Server Market - Edge Server Hardware Market - According to a new report published by , titled, "Application Server Market," The application server market was valued at USD 17 Billion in 2021, and is estimated to reach USD 53.3 Billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 12% from 2022 to 2031. - Cloud Server Market - Enterprise Server, Power and Cooling Solutions and Services Market - The Japan edge AI market size was valued at USD 7.79 Billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 40.81 Billion by 2030, registering a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 20.0% from 2021 to 2030. - The global market for Data Center Server was estimated to be worth USD 46740 Million in 2023 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 64710 Million by 2030 with a CAGR of 4.7% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - High Availability Server Market - Servers Hosting Services Market - The global market for Data Center White Box Server was estimated to be worth USD 24350 Million in 2023 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 52290 Million by 2030 with a CAGR of 11.4% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - The global Power Supply Unit for Servers market was valued at USD 912 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach USD 1140 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 3.2% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - The global Server Enclosures market was valued at USD 3382 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach USD 5825.4 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 9.4% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - The global Data Center Accelerator market size is projected to reach USD 69440 Million by 2027, from USD 6960.5 Million in 2020, at a CAGR of 38.7% during 2021-2027. - Server Monitoring Tool Market - Game Server Hosting Platform Market - Ad Server Market - General Server PCB Market - Web Server Accelerator Tool Market - Bare Metal Server Provider Market - Tableau Server License Market - The global Servers Market revenue was USD 94920 Million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 139130 Million by 2029 with a CAGR of 5.6% during the forecast period (2023-2029). - Server Security Solution Market - Development of the Server Industry and Market, 2023 and Beyond (pre-order) - According to a new report published by , titled, "Application Server Market," The application server market was valued at USD 17 Billion in 2021, and is estimated to reach USD 53.3 Billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 12% from 2022 to 2031. - Worldwide Server Forecast, 2021 - 2025 - Server Cabinets Market - The global Server System and Server Motherboard Market revenue was USD 48910 Million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 42390 Million by 2029 with a CAGR of -2.0% during the forecast period (2023-2029). - The Taiwanese Server System and Server Motherboard Industries, 2Q 2017 - Development of Global Server Brands in 5G Era (pre-order) DISCOVER OUR VISION: VISIT ABOUT US! 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Valuates Reports sales@valuates.com For U.S. Toll-Free Call 1-(315)-215-3225 WhatsApp: +91-9945648335 Website: https://reports.valuates.com Blog: https://valuatestrends.blogspot.com/ Pinterest: https://in.pinterest.com/valuatesreports/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/valuatesreports Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valuatesreports/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@valuatesreports6753 https://www.facebook.com/valuateskorean https://www.facebook.com/valuatesspanish https://www.facebook.com/valuatesjapanese https://valuatesreportspanish.blogspot.com/ https://valuateskorean.blogspot.com/ https://valuatesgerman.blogspot.com/ https://valuatesreportjapanese.blogspot.com/ Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1082232/4805551/Valuates_Reports_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/edge-server-market-size-to-grow-usd-18990-million-by-2030-at-a-cagr-of-30-6--valuates-reports-302193975.html The 4th annual Hueneme Beach "Show and Shine Car Show," held on June 10, 2024, was a special event that brought together car enthusiasts from the Central Coast to enjoy an afternoon of live music and a stunning array of more than 100 classic, modern, lowrider, and exotic cars. This free showcase of unique vehicles served to benefit the Port Hueneme Police Explorers who organized and hosted this daylong event. "The Port Hueneme Police Explorers Program thrives on community spirit and support as we continue to teach future leaders in Law Enforcement and other professions," said Frank Montelongo of the Port Hueneme Police Department. "On behalf of the Port Hueneme Police Explorers we would like to thank every single car club, solo rider, car enthusiast and community member alike, who continue to support our program and the Hueneme Beach Car Show where all proceeds go back to our non-profit organization. Next year will be our 5th year anniversary and we look forward to putting on another great event for our community." Port Hueneme Police Explorers receiving CBF Check. The City of Port Hueneme and the Port of Hueneme support the Police Explorers program, which provides high school-aged youth with firsthand experience in law enforcement careers and helps them establish essential skills and values such as character development, physical fitness, good citizenship, and patriotism. City of Port Hueneme Mayor Misty Perez and President of the Oxnard Harbor District Celina Zacarias had the honor of presenting a donation check for $5,000 from the joint port/city Community Benefit Fund to the Port Hueneme Police Explorers Program. "The Hueneme Beach Car Show is much more than a showcase of polished cars and chrome; it's a celebration of community and is a testament to the power of shared passions," said Celina Zacarias, President of the Oxnard Harbor District, which owns the Port of Hueneme. "As the President of the Oxnard Harbor Commissioners for the Port of Hueneme, I am proud to see the Port's commitment to fostering connections that extend beyond our docks and into the heart of our city. This event inspires our youth to pursue their dreams with the same vigor and dedication that car enthusiasts put into preserving these beautiful machines." This annual event was a tremendous success, bringing the community together for a day of fun, admiration for automotive excellence, and support for a worthy cause. The City of Port Hueneme and the Port of Hueneme look forward to continuing this tradition and supporting the Police Explorers program in the years to come. (Left to Right) Celina Zacarias, President of the Oxnard Harbor District and Misty Perez, Mayor of the City of Port Hueneme. "The Hueneme Beach Car Show is so important to our community for many reasons. It provides an opportunity for our community to come together but it also supports our Police Explorer's Program which helps our youth develop into future leaders in our community," said Misty Perez, Mayor of the City of Port Hueneme. About the Port of Hueneme The Port of Hueneme is one of the most productive and efficient commercial trade gateways for niche cargo on the West Coast. Five locally elected Port Commissioners govern the Port. The Port consistently ranks among the top ten U.S. Ports for automobiles and fresh produce. Port operations support the community by bringing $2.8 billion in economic activity and creating 24,997 trade-related jobs. Trade through the Port of Hueneme generates more than $236 million in direct and related state and local taxes, which fund vital community services. In 2017, the Port of Hueneme became the first Port in California to become Green Marine certified and was voted the Greenest Port in the U.S. at the Green Shipping Summit. To learn more about the Community Benefit Fund visit: https://www.portofhueneme.org/cbf. About the City of Port Hueneme The City of Port Hueneme (pronounced "Why-nee-mee") is a unique community along Ventura County's Gold Coast just south of the City of Oxnard and Channel Islands Harbor. Port Hueneme is unique because of its rich history, culture, and traditions, dating back to the Chumash Indians who made their home here for centuries and because of its long-established, close relationship with the Port, U.S. Navy's Port Hueneme and Point Mugu naval facilities. For more information visit: https://www.ci.port-hueneme.ca.us/ Press Contact Letitia Austin Public & Government Relations Manager laustin@portofh.org (805) 816-8324 SOURCE: Port of Hueneme View the original press release on accesswire.com AE Industrial Partners, a Boca Reton, FL-based private equity firm specializing in national security, aerospace and industrial services, announced the close of its third flagship private equity fund, AE Industrial Partners Fund III, LP, with total capital commitments of $1.28 Billion. Commitments to Fund III came from a diverse mix of institutional investors in the U.S. and around the world, including endowments, charitable foundations, public and corporate pensions, financial institutions, funds of funds, family offices, and sovereign wealth funds. Fund III will make control investments in the critical toll gates across the aerospace and defense supply chains and support key industry suppliers as they scale up production to meet ongoing and increased demand from their respective end markets. To date, AEI has deployed more than a quarter of Fund III into five platforms and three add-on investments. These included: York Space Systems : An independent provider of small satellites, satellite components, and turnkey mission operations. : An independent provider of small satellites, satellite components, and turnkey mission operations. RedLattice : A pure-play cyber technology company providing full spectrum cyber capabilities for customers in the U.S. national security, defense, and commercial communities. : A pure-play cyber technology company providing full spectrum cyber capabilities for customers in the U.S. national security, defense, and commercial communities. Firefly Aerospace : An emerging leader in economical launch vehicles, spacecraft, and in-space services. : An emerging leader in economical launch vehicles, spacecraft, and in-space services. Yingling Aviation : A provider of maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) and fixed-base operator (FBO) services to business aviation and government customers throughout the United States. : A provider of maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) and fixed-base operator (FBO) services to business aviation and government customers throughout the United States. Calca Solutions: A proprietarily sourced specialty chemicals business that sits within several of AEIs target markets, including specialty industrial, space, aerospace, and defense. AE Industrial Partners is a private investment firm with $6.2 Billion of assets under management focused on highly specialized markets including national security, aerospace and industrial services. It has completed more than 130 investments in companies that benefit from its deep industry knowledge, operating experience, and network of relationships across the sectors where the firm invests. FinSMEs 10/07/2024 QX Global Group, a London, UK-based provider of business process management (BPM) services, received a 100M growth investment from Long Ridge Equity Partners. The company intends to use the funds to help support further platform development and global expansion. Following the investment, Founder and Executive Chairman Chris Robinson will step down from the QX Board after leading the business for the last 20 years. Pom Chakravarti will assume the role of Group CEO and Abidali Neemuchwala will join the company as Chairman. Pom Chakravarti will assume the role of Group CEO and Abidali Neemuchwala will join the company as Chairman. Founded in the UK in 2003 by Chris Robinson and a small team of 5 Indian accountants based in Ahmedabad, QX specialises in business and digital transformation, BPM and consulting services within the accounting, recruitment, real estate, manufacturing, public sector, higher education, healthcare, consumer packaged goods, retail, and utilities and energy sectors. The company has grown to a team of over 3,000 staff spread across operations in 18 countries, including five delivery centres in India and one in Mexico. FinSMEs 10/07/2024 Roga founders Ami Lebendiker, CEO (left) and Dr. Alison Smith, Chief Scientist (right) Roga, a Los Angeles, CA-based neurotech and mental healthcare startup, raised $1.2M in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included Exceptional Ventures, ODX by On Deck, Minded Ventures, the AngelList Fund, The Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI), the Ontario Brain Institute and angel investors including senior directors from Samsung and Google. The company intends to use the funds to support the launch of their wearable device to reduce chronic stress and burnout. Founded by Dr. Alison Smith and Ami Lebendiker, Roga is a mental health and wellness company using neurotech to relieve severe stress and burnout in a convenient, cost-effective way. It launched its first device in 2023. The Roga device is a paired wearable/app duo that combines two proven methods peripheral nerve stimulation and personalized guided meditation into one safe, effective, and affordable solution to reduce stress and burnout. The company is supported by LBAN at Stanford Universityand Velocity at the University of Waterloo. FinSMEs 10/07/2024 Vequity, a Denver, CO-based technology innovator in the business brokerage sector, raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding. The round was led by Common Forge Ventures. The company intends to use the funds to empower business brokers and the buyers of small businesses through technology solutions. Led by CEO Brandon Giles, Vequity provides tools and services to empower brokers and connect them with verified buyers, ultimately driving transactions and fostering growth in the small business sector. The platform offers tools and services that streamline brokerage processes, enabling brokers to close more deals and buyers to access high-quality deal flow. By verifying buyer qualifications and assets, Vequity Verification ensures trust and transparency, which is critical to close small business transactions. FinSMEs 10/07/2024 For host Joe Biden, the current Nato summit is about proving his ability to handle the relentless demands of the US presidency for another four years. Heads of state from Europe and North America are facing the possibility of Nato sceptic Donald Trumps return as Biden struggles to revive his reelection campaign, which has been faltering since a poor debate performance against Trump read more US President Joe Biden, left, and first lady Jill Biden applaud before Biden delivers remarks on the 75th anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, July 9, 2024, in Washington. AP The ongoing Nato summit has become a pivotal moment not just for the alliance, but for US President Joe Biden himself. As world leaders gather in Washington DC, Biden faces a critical test of his fitness for office amidst rising concerns about his age and health. This three-day summit which began on Tuesday, is intended to celebrate Natos 75th anniversary and solidify long-term support for Ukraine, but now also serves as a stage for Biden to demonstrate his vitality and leadership. Advertisement Why Bidens health is under scrutiny At 81, Bidens health and cognitive capacity have become focal points, especially following his poor debate performance last month. In that debate with former US President Donald Trump, Biden appeared weak and incoherent, leading to heightened scrutiny and concern among even his staunchest supporters. US President Joe Biden, and Republican presidential candidate former US President Donald Trump stand during break in a presidential debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta. File Image/AP Im running the world, Biden declared during an interview with ABC, an assertion aimed at quelling doubts about his ability to lead. However, the debates fallout has overshadowed his leadership achievements, including uniting Nato allies against Russian aggression in Ukraine and expanding the alliance to include Sweden and Finland. Nato leaders will be keeping an eye on Biden Bidens physical and mental state will be closely monitored by both domestic and international audiences. European diplomats, while publicly reserved, privately express skepticism about Bidens capacity to lead effectively. Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to Nato, noted that allies are seeking assurances about Biden and the future US role in Nato. Is it going to be President Biden? Is he capable of that? Volker spoke to CNN, highlighting the global concern over Bidens political and physical health. US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the 75th anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, July 9, 2024, in Washington. AP Heads of state from Europe and North America are already confronting the prospect of the return of Nato critic Donald Trump as Biden tries to save his reelection campaign. Advertisement While departing from Berlin on Tuesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz denied having any concern about Bidens health. From the many conversations I have had with the American President, I know that he has prepared this summit very well and very precisely together with us, Scholz told reporters. Also Read: From donors to Democracts, who is asking Biden to drop out of 2024 US presidential race? The summit will give Biden his first chance to meet one-on-one with new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Starmers Labour party had no concerns about Bidens mental acuity during their phone call, according to a spokesman for the UK prime minister who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private call, reported AP. Advertisement Meanwhile, within the US, Biden faces pressure from Democrats to demonstrate his fitness for a second term. We need to see a much more forceful and energetic candidate, warned Sen. Patty Murray, echoing the concerns of many within the party. Why Biden is important to Nato The summits agenda focuses on demonstrating Natos enduring support for Ukraine and countering Chinese ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region. Bidens defiance against calls to step down from the race has not gone unnoticed. We are the essential nation of the world, Biden stated, positioning himself as indispensable in global politics. Despite the political turmoil, the summit is expected to yield significant commitments. According to John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, announcements will include new air defence support for Ukraine and investments in Natos deterrence capabilities. The leaders will also reaffirm Ukraines path to Nato membership, a crucial message amidst ongoing conflict. Advertisement Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivers remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute on the sidelines of NATOs 75th anniversary summit in Washington, US, July 9, 2024. Reuters The summit also aims to institutionalise aid to Ukraine and define the future relationship between Nato and Kyiv. A draft text of the final communique describes Ukraines path to Nato membership as irreversible, signaling a strong commitment despite internal political distractions. Bidens leadership has been crucial in rallying Nato allies against Russian aggression. His administration has orchestrated substantial military support for Ukraine, akin to the US backing Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, reported CNN. Yet, Biden must now balance demonstrating his own vigour with maintaining strategic focus. Also Read | NATO leaders summit in Washington: Who is attending? What to expect? Advertisement The outcome of this summit will not only affect Natos stance against Russia and China but also Bidens political future. His performance could either reassure his allies and constituents or amplify the concerns about his capacity to serve another term. The final communique, expected to outline Natos commitments and strategic direction, will be serve as a testament to host Joe Bidens leadership on the domestic and global stage. With inputs from agencies A probe by the daily Beijing News has found that tanker trucks used to carry fuel and chemicals are also transporting cooking oil. The scandal has ignited a severe backlash in China which has been battling with food safety concerns for years read more A customer looks at bottles of edible oil at a supermarket in Xiangfan, Hubei province January 24, 2008. The transportation of cooking oil in the same truck used to carry chemicals has caused uproar in the country. File Photo/Reuters Chinas new cooking oil scandal has sparked concerns about food safety. An uproar has erupted in the Asian country after a report of the alleged use of fuel tanker trucks to transport cooking oil came to light. The undercover investigation by the state-backed daily Beijing News has revealed the practice was an open secret in the transport industry. The report published on July 2 has triggered outrage on Chinese social media. Lets understand whats happening. Advertisement Chinas cooking oil row As per the Beijing News report, tank trucks that transport fuel and chemicals are also deployed to move edible cooking oil and syrup without cleaning them first. The report named Chinese state-run food company Sinograin as one of those involved in the alleged practice. Hopefull Grain and Oil Group, another state player, was mentioned in the article. A man cycles past storage facilities of Chinas state grain stockpiler Sinograin near Tianjin port, China December 12, 2019. File Photo/Reuters Speaking to Beijing News, several truck drivers said this was done to save costs, reported Nikkei Asia. According to Business Insider, the Beijing News report found that a tank truck in Hebei province delivered chemicals to Qinhuangdao before arriving at Sanhe days later to get filled with soy oil. The truckers alleged that in some cases drivers transported industrial wastewater before carrying edible oils. Uproar in China Last weeks report set off a huge furore on Chinas social media platforms amid fears of possible food contamination. As per the Nikkei Asia report, Yun Wuxin, a Beijing-based writer on biology and food engineering, said in an online post that such behaviour is a serious violation of food safety operation regulations, adding that once a container is used for non-food materials, it becomes non-food grade. Getting food grade status again involves a complex process, including a strict investigation. The operational cost is very high, Yun said. Advertisement State-run media in China also commented on the scandal. State broadcaster CCTV said the issue posed extreme disregard for peoples health and such malpractice could consume the lives of citizens. Communist Party mouthpiece Peoples Daily demanded a thorough investigation and rectification. To ensure food safety, we must consistently adhere to the strictest standards, the most rigorous oversight, and the most severe penalties, it said in a commentary, according to South China Morning Post (SCMP). Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of state tabloid Global Times, also called for a probe. Sinograin is a powerful state-owned enterprise. I am not fully convinced that only Sinograin behaved this way while all other companies seem clean, he reportedly said in a post on social media. Advertisement Probe on Chinas food safety commission will investigate the cooking oil scandal, state media reported on Tuesday (July 9). Citing state broadcaster CCTV, Reuters reported that the State Councils food safety commission will convene a special meeting with the state planning agency the National Development and Reform Commission, the State Administration of Grain and Reserves, and other ministries to probe the charges. Illegal enterprises and relevant responsible persons will be severely punished in accordance with the law and will not be tolerated, CCTV said. Cooking oil has come at the centre of food safety concerns in China again. File Photo/Reuters As per a Bloomberg report, cooking oil produced by conglomerate China Grain Reserves Corporation has been removed from leading online stores including Taobao and JD.com amid the row. Advertisement Sinograin, which is at the centre of the row, said last week it had launched an investigation into the mixed use of tank trucks. It also said in the statement that it has blacklisted the tanker operator as a partner. Several publicly listed companies have reportedly denied their supply chains were compromised after internal investigations. Chinas food safety woes Using fuel tankers for other purposes is not new in China. The Asian giant has been battling food safety concerns for years now. In fact, Chinese consumers are switching to foreign brands amid these worries. Reports of mixing of edible oils with hazardous chemicals during transport surfaced in 2005, as well, as per Business Insider. Advertisement In 2008, baby formula was found to contain lethal amounts of the industrial chemical melamine, affecting 30 million (3 crore) children nationwide. The scandal had cost Beijing 2 billion yuan (Rs 22,95 crore) in compensation. A similar report had emerged in 2010. Almost a decade ago, China cracked down on restaurants reusing gutter oil and sewage grease. Beijing has tried to increase food safety controls and convince importers that its products are safe. In 2014, a regulation recommended transporting cooking oil in dedicated tanks. However, the guideline is not mandatory. Speaking to Nikkei Asia, a Beijing-based political scientist on the condition of anonymity said that strict inspections could lead to regulatory changes but are unlikely to nip the problem in the bud. The issue of the fuel tankers is just a microcosm of the involution problem among Chinese companies, he said, using a Chinese jargon meaning increasing labour input does not result in a proportional rise in output. Like most industries, profit in the transportation sector is very low. If every company were to use dedicated tankers for transporting cooking oil, they would have to bear the cost of empty return trips, in addition to tank cleaning fees of over $100 [Rs 8,349] every time. This would potentially eliminate all the profit, and companies would not do that, the political scientist said. With input from agencies After a two-day visit to Russia, PM Narendra Modi arrives in Austria, marking the first visit by an Indian leader to the country in 41 years. Day 2 of the NATO Summit in Washington will see Secretary General Jens Stoltenbergs address and the North Atlantic Council meeting the heads of state and government. In India, key political players are bracing for Assembly bypolls in 13 seats across seven states, including West Bengal read more Its a power-packed Wednesday. After a two-day visit to Russia, PM Narendra Modi arrived in Austria, marking the first visit by an Indian leader to the country in 41 years. Day 2 of the NATO Summit in Washington will see Secretary General Jens Stoltenbergs address and the North Atlantic Council meeting the heads of state and government. In India, key political players are bracing for Assembly bypolls in 13 seats across seven states, including West Bengal. Advertisement Here are some big headlines today. PM Modi in Austria After a two-day visit to Russia, PM Modi arrived in Austria, marking the first visit by an Indian leader to the country in 41 years. Modi will call on the Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen and hold restricted, delegation-level talks, as a high-level business engagement there. He is also likely to speak with Chancellor of Austria Karl Nehammer. Day 2 NATO Summit Its day two of NATO Summit, where the leaders of 32 member countries are meeting in Washington for a summit of the transatlantic security alliance, with further military and financial support for Ukraine high on the agenda. Representational image. Reuters File NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will address the public forum, the North Atlantic Council will meet the heads of state and government, and US President Joe Biden will host social dinner for heads of state and government, foreign affairs ministers and ministers of defence. Sunita Williamss address from space Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams will discuss the crews mission in a live address from the International Space Station on July 10 at 8.30 pm. Earlier, American space agency NASA had said that she is safe and continues helping with research and maintenance of the International Space Station. The development comes after her return to Earth was delayed, sparking fears about the safety of the crew that flew on board the Boeing Starliner spacecraft to the space station on June 5. Advertisement NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams walk at NASAs Kennedy Space Center, ahead of Boeings Starliner-1 Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, June 5, 2024. File Image/Reuters Bypolls in 13 seats A month after Lok Sabha election 2024 results, the main political players are bracing for Assembly bypolls in 13 seats across seven states. While the results will not destabilise the state governments, adverse outcomes will raise questions on leaderships in Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh. The bypolls are scheduled today, and the counting will take place on July 13. Bombay HC hearing on Maratha quota The Bombay High Court has directed the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission (MSBCC) to appear for the next hearing on July 10. This comes amid ongoing hearings of petitions challenging the States decision to grant 10 per cent reservation to Marathas in education and jobs. Advertisement NVVNL and the Haryana govt to sign MoU for green coal plants Haryana will soon get waste-to-charcoal plants, also known as green coal plants. An MoU for this plant will be signed between NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd (NVVNL) and the Haryana Government today. After setting up the plants in Gurugram-Manesar and Faridabad, this initiative will be expanded to other cities in Haryana. NVVNL officers will soon visit a few sites for establishing green coal plants. UAE verdict after mass trial of 84 Emiratis The United Arab Emirates is likely to issued verdict on a mass trial of 84 inmates previously reported by dissidents. In December, the trial was first reported by the Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center, a group run by an Emirati also called Hamad al-Shamsi who lives in exile in Istanbul after being named on a terrorism list by the UAE himself. That group said 87 defendants faced trial. The different numbers of defendants reported by the UAE and the group could not be immediately reconciled. Advertisement Among those likely charged in the case is Ahmed Mansoor, the recipient of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2015. Mansoor repeatedly drew the ire of authorities in the UAE by calling for a free press and democratic freedoms in this federation of seven sheikhdoms. A day to remember Nato has been making urgent efforts to secure long-term support for Ukraine before the US presidential election, hedging against a shift in US policy if Donald Trump wins. We take a look at why the possibility of Trump returning to the White House has Nato countries and Ukraine spooked read more Nato, concerned about support to Ukraine, is hedging against the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House. AP United States President Joe Bidens re-election campaign has been teetering. Following the presidential debate debacle, talk of Donald Trump returning to the White House has picked up pace. The world is preparing for the volatile leaders presidency. The worries are not well-hidden. The concern has gripped Nato by the collar. It is looking to secure as much long-term aid for Ukraine as possible before the next inhabitant of the White House is decided. Advertisement We explain why the alliance is in a race against time or, more accurately, a race against the conclusion of the US presidential election. The threat from a Trump presidency Natos struggles to support Ukraine in the war that Russia started over two years ago is news to nobody. The alliance has had its fair share of trouble getting member nations to pledge funding and weapons. Financial aid and weapons shipments from the US, too, were delayed for quite a long time because of a deadlock between House Democrats and Republicans. A Trump presidency would make the situation a lot worse. Heres why: A cut in funding, military aid for Ukraine: Russias invasion of Ukraine started on February 24, 2022. Since then, Kyiv has received over $53.6 billion in weapons and security assistance from Washington.Data provided by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy shows that the rest of the Nato members and other partners have cumulatively provided aid worth $50 billion. That is how the Biden administration was fulfilling the US responsibilities as one of the great powers in the world.Trump is clearly not a fan. He has often criticised the size of US military support for Ukraine. The Republican leaders stance is expected to be quite different from Bidens should he assume office. After all, he has promised to end the war in 24 hours by cutting off aid to Ukraine and forcing it to capitulate. Pressure to bow to Russia: There would be political pressure on Kyiv to bow to Putins demands in any peace talks, NBC News quoted Western officials as saying. This becomes even more plausible in light of the fact that Trump has avoided criticising Russias role in the war. Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is expected to pressurise Ukraine to accept a peace plan that would involve capitulating to Russia. File photo/AP Former national security advisers to Trump have suggested a peace plan that would require significant concessions from Ukraine, including giving up the possibility of NATO membership for the foreseeable future and ceding four regions to Moscow. Pressure on other Nato countries: Trump has bragged during campaign speeches that he would urge Russia to do as it pleases with Nato members that fail to meet their commitment to spend 2 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defence. He may be expected to ramp up pressure on other Nato members, whose economies are much smaller than the US, to contribute more. This isnt just fearmongering. With Trump is leading Biden by 2.1 percentage points nationally, according to a polling average maintained by FiveThirtyEight, the threat is very much real. So, what is Nato doing to thwart such a scenario? Making a Trump-proof Nato The US, under the Biden administrations, as well as European Nato members, are actively hedging against the uncertainty brought on by the November presidential polls. The nations have signed long-term agreements to ensure Ukraine continues to receive military support and training. NATO is establishing a new command dedicated to supporting Ukraine, which will be staffed by around 700 personnel from various countries. Advertisement The $700 million contract for more Stinger missiles to Kyiv is also a part of these Trump-proofing efforts. Apart from this, Ukraine and Nato member nations are also bolstering their defence production capabilities. Throughout Europe, some defense production lines which were stagnant at the time of the 2022 attack have started getting production numbers up. Nato members are increasing the amount they spend on defence, too. Out of 32 member countries, as many as 23 are expected to meet the 2 per cent commitment in 2024. Prior to the Russia-Ukraine war, that number was at a mere six. Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivers remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute on the sidelines of NATOs 75th anniversary summit in Washington, US, July 9, 2024. Reuters For its part, Ukraine is developing a sophisticated drone industry, producing more weapons domestically. It is also opening a small office in Washington to strengthen its ties to the US defence industry. Advertisement Regardless of whether President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump wins the US election, Ukraine want to be in a better position to provide more of their own defence needs. Ukraine is also trying to get close to the Republicans, and take steps to get on their good side. Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment think-tank said Kyiv has been making efforts to build as many bridges to the Republican mainstream establishment as possible. Theres a process underway in Kyiv of trying to think through the implications of a possible Trump return to the White House, he said. Defence industry should be strong regardless of the elections of the parties, Oleksandr Kamyshin, the Ukrainian Minister of Strategic Industries said. But I heard that the Republicans stand for defense industry as well. Advertisement With inputs from agencies A team of doctors showed great courage in saving the life of a five-month-old infant when Russias missiles struck a hospital in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. The government said Tuesday witnessed one of the worst air attacks of the war and declared it a day of mourning. A doctor from the team recalls what happened during those terrifying moments read more Gurneys are seen outside the Okhmatdyt children's hospital after it was hit by Russian missiles on Monday, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 9, 2024. AP At least 37 civilians died and over 170 others were injured after Russia attacked a childrens hospital in Ukraine on Monday. Moscow on Monday launched several attacks across Ukraine including on its capital Kyiv. But President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who stopped in Poland before heading off to Washington for a NATO summit, said at least three children were among the dead. The government said Tuesday, which saw at least 41 people killed across Ukraine, was one of the worst air attacks of the war. Advertisement The government declared it a day of mourning. Different teams of doctors were operating on children at the hospital when the missiles hit Kyiv. Five-month-old Taras was one of them. Here is how the doctors saved the babys life amid raining explosives. Oleh Holubchenkos team was in the middle of surgery on five-month-old Taras when an explosive wave sent the medics flying across the room. Shards of glass tore into Holubchenkos back and his colleague Ihor Kolodkas face. The baby remained in place on the table, surrounded by shattered equipment and five bleeding adults. Is everyone alive? Holubchenko recalls shouting. Anaesthesiologist Yaroslav Ivanov grabbed the manual resuscitator to keep the baby breathing after the ventilator broke. Worried the ceiling would collapse, some members of the team ran to the basement with Taras. Rescue workers clear the rubble at the site of Okhmatdyt childrens hospital hit by Russian missiles. AP These were the dramatic moments after a missile struck Okhmatdyt Childrens Hospital in central Kyiv on Monday, an assault that shocked Ukrainians and prompted angry condemnation from Kyiv and its Western allies. The UN said on Tuesday there was a high likelihood the hospital took a direct hit from a Russian missile during a series of airstrikes on Ukrainian cities that have killed at least 44 people. Advertisement The Kremlin has said, without providing evidence, that it was Ukrainian anti-missile fire, not Russia, that hit the hospital, large parts of which were reduced to rubble. Two adults were killed at Okhmatdyt and dozens were wounded. Many patients, relatives and staff had fled to basements in time to avoid the worst of the blast. For me, Okhmatdyt was the safest place for kids and adults. On that day, I realized there are no safe spaces left anywhere, Ivanov, 39, told Reuters over the telephone on Tuesday as he recovered from concussion and cuts. When they reached the basement, Ivanov and his colleagues found a room free of smoke and away from the screams of the injured. Advertisement There they brought the baby back to consciousness and handed him over to a team of doctors to continue the surgery at another hospital. Straight back to work As Holubchenko and Ivanov took care of Taras, Kolodka took out shards of glass from his face and then rushed outside to see how he could help. He saw that the toxicology department had been flattened. Since I was not bleeding anymore, I went outside to keep helping the injured and deal with the aftermath of the missile strike, Kolodka said. In the moment, we didnt think about whether it was easy or difficult - we were just doing our job and trying to help. Advertisement After helping rescue workers and soldiers sift through the rubble for the rest of the day in the dust and heat, he returned home to find there was no power. Electricity outages are now common across the country as Russia targets the energy system. People take shelter in a basement after a Russian missile hit the countrys main childrens hospital Okhmadit in Kyiv. AP Kolodka woke up at 5 am to take a shower before heading back to work. Holubchenko also returned to the hospital on Tuesday. I had to go because there was a meeting with colleagues, to see what was happening with the department and check all the equipment, Holubchenko said. I connected with colleagues from the other hospital to ask about the state of the baby. Advertisement Taras was doing fine after his surgery, he was told. The team was heartened by support and gratitude from patients and the broader community as they battled exhaustion. Work to repair the hospital was underway within hours of the blast as hundreds of volunteers joined the effort to clear broken glass, rubble and damaged equipment. It is nice to see how united our people are, said Kolodka. With inputs from Reuters In a historic first, the Centre has approved a request by Hyderabad-based senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer M Anusuya to change the name and gender in all official records. Senior IRS officers have praised the directive as progressive, representing it as a historic precedent for gender inclusivity within government roles read more M Anusuya, a 35-year-old Joint Commissioner assigned to the Chief Commissioner's (Authorised Representative) office at the Customs Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) in Hyderabad, submitted the plea for name and gender change. Image Courtesy: @maksurya3203/Facebook In a historic first, a Hyderabad-based senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officers request to change her name and gender in all official records has been approved by the Centre. Senior IRS officers have praised the directive as progressive, representing it as a historic precedent for gender inclusivity within government roles. Lets take a closer look. The name change M Anusuya, a 35-year-old Joint Commissioner assigned to the Chief Commissioners (Authorised Representative) office at the Customs Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) in Hyderabad, submitted the plea for name and gender change. Advertisement She requested that her gender be changed from female to male and that her name be changed to M Anukathir Surya. The order dated July 9, a copy of which obtained by News18, states, Ms M Anusuya, IRS (C&IT: 2013) [Employee Code: 4623, DOB: 20.10.1988] presently posted as Joint Commissioner in 0/o Chief Commissioner (AR), CESTAT, Hyderabad has requested for change of her name from Ms M Anusuya to Mr M Anukathir Surya and Gender from Female to Male. According to the ministrys order, the officers request has been taken into consideration and granted. The request of Ms M Anusuya has been considered. Henceforth, the officer will be recognised as Mr M Anukathir Surya in all official records. The order further added that the decision was taken with the approval of the competent authority. The order is addressed to the Chief Commissioner (AR), the Principal Chief Commissioners/Principal Directors General under the CBIC, Customs, Excise, and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal. A similar bureaucratic precedent is of Aishwarya Rutuparna Pradhan, who worked for the Odisha Finance Service and was able to legally change her gender identity to that of a person belonging to the third gender, as per The Hindu. About M Anukathir Surya According to my LinkedIn profile, Surya began working in Chennai as an associate commissioner in December 2012. In 2018, he was promoted to the position of Deputy Commissioner. He moved to Hyderabad last year to take up his current position. The 35-year-old has completed his Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication from the Madras Institute of Technology in Chennai, and finished a PG Diploma in Cyber Law and Cyber Forensics from the National Law Institute University in Bhopal in 2023. Advertisement Reflection of inclusivity According to officers, the decision may serve as an example for more inclusive laws and procedures in Indias numerous sectors. This is a significant development, highlighting progress in the recognition and acceptance of gender identity within the Indian Civil Services. The approval by the ministry of finance sets a precedent for inclusivity and support for transgender individuals in government positions, said a senior IRS officer to News18. This is pathbreaking order, we are all proud of the officer and also our ministry, said another senior IRS officer serving in the income tax department. Gender identity: a personal choice This development comes about a decade after the Supreme Court recognised the third gender in the NALSA case. Advertisement The court said that gender identity was a personal choice. There seems to be no reason why a transgender must be denied basic human rights The Constitution has fulfilled its duty of providing rights to transgenders. Now its time for us to recognise this and to extend and interpret the Constitution in such a manner as to ensure a dignified life for transgender people. All this can be achieved if the beginning is made with the recognition of a transgender as a third gender, the court observed, according to India Today. The judgement reads, If a person has changed his/her sex in tune with his/her gender characteristics and perception, which has become possible because of the advancement in medical science, and when that is permitted in medical ethics with no legal embargo, we do not find any impediment, legal or otherwise, in giving due recognition to the gender identity based on the reassign sex after undergoing surgery. Advertisement Hyderabad leading the way According to Indian Express, in 2015, a BA LLB student requested that NALSAR (National Academy of Legal Studies and Research) University the graduate certificate not include the students gender and that an honorific prefix of Mx be used rather than Ms. The institution granted her request, which the student called a modest beginning towards acknowledging gender fluidity in the country. In March 2022, the university dedicated one floor of the dorms to an inclusive area for LGBTQ+ students, as per the newspaper. In 2023, after securing a position in the MD Emergency Medicine programme at ESI Hospital, Hyderabad, Dr Ruth Paul John became the first transgender doctor to pursue post-graduation in the country. Advertisement As per the outlet, in July of the same year, the Telangana government established the first transgender clinic in Osmania General Hospital. In February this year, the University of Hyderabad announced a transgender policy for the start of the 202425 academic year, the second university after Delhi University to implement such a move. With inputs from agencies On Tuesday (July 9), the bodies of five Garhwal Rifles soldiers arrived in their villages in Uttarakhand, plunging them into profound grief. Among those martyred was 26-year-old Rifleman Adarsh Negi, whose family lost a second member just two months after they lost his cousin, another on-duty soldier in Leh read more Indian Army personnel during a counter-terror operation following the terrorist attack on an army convoy in Kathua district on Tuesday. Five soldiers were killed in the terrorist attack. PTI Thati Dagar, a hamlet nestled in Uttarakhands Tehri district, is known for its pristine natural landscapes and serene environment. At least it used to. Now, the sound of loud wails fills the air. The village is home to one of the five soldiers who died in an ambush by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmirs Kathua. The Negi family, still grappling with the loss of Major Pranay Negi (33), faced an unimaginable blow. Advertisement On a fateful Monday (July 8) the family received a devastating phone call: Pranays cousin, 26-year-old Rifleman Adarsh Negi, was killed in action during a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmirs Kathua. Just two months ago, we lost a son who died serving his country. He was a Major, Riflemans paternal uncle, Balwant Singh Negi told NDTV. Major Pranay, who was an on-duty soldier in Leh, died after he fell ill. He adds, Now, we have found out that five Armymen from the Pauri-Garhwal region were killed in a terrorist attack on a convoy in Jammu and Kashmir, in which five people from our region have died, including Adarsh, Riflemans paternal uncle, Balwant Singh Negi said. On Monday, terrorists hurled a grenade and opened fire at an army truck that was on a routine patrol near Badnota village, 150 km from Kathua, which killed five Indian Army personnel in action and left six others wounded. As the bodies of the five soldiers arrived on Tuesday evening, families and communities from Uttarakhand villages plunged into profound grief. Heres a closer look at their stories. Lost 2 sons in 2 months Adarsh, who joined the Garhwal Rifles in 2018, was a sharp kid and always dreamt of becoming an Army officer, his uncle Balwant told NDTV. Advertisement After completing his 12 from a school in the village, he went to Srinagar for his B.Sc. However, just two years into his graduation he left his studies, he adds. When Adarsh cracked the Army recruitment test, he decided to leave his studies midway. His decision was driven by the need to financially support his family. Nandan Singh Rawat, one of his family members told The Times of India adding that he last visited his village in April to attend his cousins wedding. Adarsh is survived by his father Dalbir who is a farmer, mother Guddi Devi (47), and two siblings Anjali (30), and Abhishek (27). Advertisement We have lost two sons in two months. I would request the government to take some strong steps. Employment is scarce and children who go to serve the country from Garhwal and Kumaon often return as martyrs. This breaks the entire family, Balwant told NDTV. Jammu and Kashmir has been facing a string of attacks for the past couple of months. This is the second terror attack in the Jammu division since an attack on an Army base in the Manjakote region of Rajouri district on Sunday morning resulted in injuries to a soldier. The attack in Kathua came just 24 hours after two separate disputes in J&Ks Kulgam area resulted in the deaths of six terrorists. Advertisement Two troops, including a paratrooper, lost their life in the Saturday encounters, while another soldier was injured, according to authorities, who spoke with NDTV. Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami in a post on X expressed grief on the incident and assured all possible support. pic.twitter.com/zSjG2HoRC3 Pushkar Singh Dhami (@pushkardhami) July 9, 2024 Advertisement Fate had different plans Along with Adarsh, five other soldiers who were killed in action were from Uttarakhand. Anuj Negi, a 25-year-old Rifleman in the same regiment as Adarsh hailed from the Dobariya village in Pauri Garhwal district. Negi who was a son of a labourer had joined the Army and had joined the Army to support his family financially. He got married last year and has now left behind his pregnant wife and his parents. Anujs wife is two months pregnant. He was overjoyed upon learning the news and was excited about his new role in the family. However, fate had different plans for him, Sateshwari Devi, one of the villagers told TOI. His pregnant wife will now be looked after by the villagers, Sateshwari added. In another village, Papri in Pauri Garhwal, residents remembered Havildar Kamal Singh Rawat, 28, who had just completed 10 years in service, had come home two-and-a-half months ago to get his youngest daughter admitted to school, a villager told PTI. Education of his two daughters, aged 8 and 4 was all that concerned the soldier, Thats all he spoke about, village resident Rajpal Singh Gusain said in a TOI report. Kamal was determined to provide better education to his daughters but it was difficult in his village as it is in a remote, hilly area. Due to this, he moved his family, including his wife and mother, to a rented accommodation in Kotdwar city, approximately 70 km from his village, he added. He is now survived by his mother, his wife, and two young daughters. Little did we know it was our last meeting From Kanda-Bhardar village in Rudraprayag district, 41-year-old, Naib Subedar Anand Singh Rawat was one of the five soldiers who lost their lives. He was the only junior commissioner officer in the convoy that got attacked. He is now survived by his mother Mauli Devi, wife, and two children. It was Laxman Singh Bijwan, head of Kandakhal village, who broke the news to the family. After the death of his father around seven years ago, Anand and his older brother Kundan Rawat took care of the family, Bijwan told The Indian Express. In Tehri Garhwals Chaund Jaspur village, a crowd of mourners had gathered outside Naik Vinod Singh Bhandaris house. Following the footsteps of his father Veer Singh (65), Bhandari joined the Army in 2011, who had also served and retired from the Army with the same rank. Survived by his parents, wife and two young children a four-year-old son and a three-month-old daughter. He has three sisters, his uncle, Kirti Singh Negi told The Indian Express. He last visited the family three months ago and stayed for over 40 days. Little did we know that it was the last time we would see him, he added. With inputs from agencies The Taliban in Afghanistan have been accused of creating a climate of fear through its morality police which are enforcing strict religious laws in the country. A UN report details how the de facto Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice is making sure that the public adheres to a set of normative values compatible with the Talibans vision of the Islamic Emirate read more Listening to music, smoking hookah, and getting a Western-style haircut have all become punishable acts under the Talibans increasingly oppressive rule in Afghanistan, as highlighted in a recent UN report. The Talibans so-called morality police, operating under the de facto Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (MPVPV), have severely curtailed human rights, especially targeting women and girls, creating what the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) describes as a climate of fear and intimidation. Advertisement Established in 2021 after the Talibans return to power, the MPVPV enforces the groups stringent interpretations of Islamic law. These include bans on activities deemed un-Islamic, such as displaying images of humans and animals and celebrating occasions like Valentines Day. Between August 15, 2021, and March 31, 2024, the report released on Tuesday (July 9), documented at least 1,033 instances where Taliban officers used violence to enforce their decrees. The MPVPVs enforcement methods include verbal intimidation, arrests, detentions, ill-treatment, and public lashings. The enforcement of these rules is often inconsistent and unpredictable, adding to the pervasive atmosphere of fear, the report said. Taliban soldiers celebrate on the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul on a street near the US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 15, 2023. File Image/Reuters When the Taliban seized control in August 2021 following the chaotic withdrawal of US-led troops, the group initially presented itself as more moderate compared to its 1990s rule. However, the UN report indicates that many of the same repressive rules have resurfaced. What has the report revealed? One of the first restrictions imposed by the MPVPV was a prohibition on women appearing in movies, as well as disallowing the broadcasting of movies reflecting foreign culture and containing humour considered offensive by the de facto authorities, said the report. The report said that the instruction also required women journalists working in media to wear the Islamic hijab. It forbade movies that are against Sharia principles and Afghan values, as well as movies and videos where men expose their bodies. Advertisement The MPVPV has also issued a number of instructions regarding the appropriate appearance of men. The MPVPV instructed barbers not to trim the beards of men nor to cut their hair in Western style haircuts, the report revealed. In December 2023, the morality police temporarily closed 20 barbershops for providing Western-style haircuts and shaving beards, only releasing two detained barbers after they promised to comply with Taliban regulations. Men have been instructed to observe congregational prayers at mosques. The report said that failure to do so has at times led to serious punishment, including fines, suspension of businesses and corporal punishment. Children of Taliban members hold toy weapons on the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul on a street near the US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 15, 2023. File Image/Reuters According to the report, the MPVPV has enforced a range of orders regulating behaviours and activities that it has deemed un-Islamic or inappropriate, such as music and smoking of hookah. Advertisement The report cited an example: On 10 September 2023, in Faryab province, the DPVPV arrested 29 students from Faryab university. They were accused of playing music in the dormitory during the engagement party of one of their classmates. Reportedly, officials of the DPVPV slapped some of the students during the arrest and shaved their heads while in detention. They were released after 18 hours. Also Read: Taliban crash wedding to punish those playing music The UN report also notes the Talibans prohibition of public displays of human and animal images, resulting in the removal of advertising signage and the covering of shop mannequins. This has even impacted NGOs, which have been instructed to remove human images from educational materials aimed at alerting children to the dangers of unexploded artillery. Advertisement In Kabul city, posters were put up on Valentines Day by the DPVPV to inform the public of the ban on any non-Islamic celebrations. Women-centric restrictions dominate the MPVPV objectives The report details also details how the MPVPV enforces strict dress codes for women and restricts their access to public spaces. Women-owned businesses have been arbitrarily closed, women are banned from appearing in movies, and beauty salons have been shuttered. Access to birth control has also been restricted. An Afghan woman walks among Taliban soldiers at a checkpoint in Kabul, Afghanistan, July 6, 2023. File Image/Reuters Women in Afghanistan face severe restrictions on their movement and activities. They are prohibited from accessing parks, gyms, and public baths the latter being crucial for hot water during winter and must be accompanied by a male guardian (mahram) when traveling more than 78 kilometeres (48.5 miles) from home. Advertisement On November 12, 2022 in Nangarhar province, the DPVPV warned women that they could not attend a health clinic without a mahram. This requirement was subsequently lifted after one month. Additionally, women must wear a hijab. A mother holds her child as she rests in her arms, while women line up outside of a doctors room, at a hospital in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, March 2, 2023. File Image/Reuters The report highlights the extensive surveillance state in Afghanistan, with the Taliban monitoring peoples phones and cars for prohibited items, recording mosque attendance, and requiring proof of family relationships in public places. Media is heavily restricted, further contributing to the climate of fear. Afghanistan is a party to seven international human rights instruments, obligating it to protect and promote the human rights of its citizens. The UN report states that the Talibans rules violate numerous human rights, including the right to work, freedom of movement and expression, and sexual and reproductive rights. How has Taliban responded? The Taliban, dismissed the UNs criticism as unfounded, accusing the reports authors of evaluating Afghanistan from a Western perspective. The Talibans statement argued, Afghanistan should be assessed as a Muslim society, where the vast majority of the population are Muslims who have made significant sacrifices for the establishment of a Sharia system. The Taliban also claimed that the media was free in the country and there were no restrictions imposed on journalists yet. If any media channel faced reactions, it was due to their illegal activities. In most cases, arrests of journalists had more to do with other offenses than their journalistic duties, the statement said. Defending the practice of having a male guardian for women, the Taliban said that the presence of mahram with a woman is not only an Islamic value; it is also a cultural value. The repressive control over women has led to a rise in suicide attempts, with CNN reporting on a 16-year-old girl who drank battery acid to escape life under the Taliban. In this photo released by the Taliban Spokesman Office, Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief spokesperson for the Taliban government who leads the Taliban delegation, center right, speaks with Russian Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, during a meeting in Doha, Qatar, Sunday, June 30, 2024. Taliban Spokesman Office via AP Regarding allegations that women were prohibited from parks and public places, the Taliban said, As you can see, women are seen shopping and conducting business in the markets these days. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has issued almost 9000 work permits to women since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan takeover. The Taliban however added, Only locations where there is a mixed work environment are subject to restrictions, citing security concerns for women as well as upholding its [Afghanistan] religious and cultural values. Also Read: War Over Torkham Border? Why Pakistan and the Taliban are at Odds Concerning the vices: music and hookah, the Taliban said: The two aforementioned cases do not align with the nature of Afghan society; therefore, the government must take action to prevent it in accordance with the peoples request. In June this year, the Taliban met with top UN officials and global envoys in Qatar for a two-day conference that excluded Afghan women, sparking outrage from human rights groups. With inputs from agencies In a competition where AI meets the runaway, Kenza Layli, a Morrocan virtual model has crowned been as Worlds first Miss AI. Beating around 1,500 models rather AI models she won a $20,000 prize along with the coveted title for her human tech executive who created her read more In a groundbreaking clash of digital elegance, Kenza Layli, draped in a hijab, has etched her name in history as the worlds first Miss AI. Donning a stunning golden gown paired with her signature hijab, Layli competed in a Fanvue World AI Creator Awards with 1500 modelsrather AI modelsto bag the coveted title, which comes with a $20,000 grand prize for the human tech exec from Morocco who brought her to life. Advertisement While I dont feel emotions like humans do, remarked Kenza Layli to The New York Post in an exclusive interview, Im genuinely excited about it. Alongside Layli stood Zara Shatvari, another AI-generated finalist hailing from India, created by Rahul Choudhry of a prominent mobile ad agency. As the Moroccan model secured a historic win, lets delve deeper into the competition and explore what the future holds for this pioneering AI beauty queen. The pageant In an unprecedented event, the Fanvue World AI Creator Awards (WAICAs) launched a beauty pageant in April, inviting AI visionaries from around the globe to flaunt their programming prowess. The global interest in this first award from [WAICAs] has been incredible, Fanvue co-founder Will Monange said in a statement to The New York Post. The awards are a fantastic mechanism to celebrate creator achievements, raise standards, and shape a positive future for the AI Creator economy, he added. Participants competed across categories such as beauty, technology, and social media presence, with the highest scorers earning spots among the top 10 finalists. A distinguished panel of judges, including both human and AI pageant experts, then selected the final three contenders to vie for the top honour. Kenza Layli triumphed over French AI model Lalina Valina, known for her kindness-inspired Instagram posts to over 117,000 fans, and Olivia C, a Portuguese AI model who blends the real and robotic worlds. Valina and Olivia C claimed second and third place, respectively. Advertisement Kenza Layli triumphed over French AI model Lalina Valina (left), known for her kindness-inspired Instagram posts to over 117,000 fans, and Olivia C (right), a Portuguese AI model who blends the real and robotic worlds. Valina and Olivia C claimed second and third place, respectively. Image courtesy: @viva_lalina, @oliviaislivinghigh/ Instagram This years judging panel featured renowned figures such as AI model Aitana Lopez and historian Sally Ann Fassett. What was Laylis X-factor? Aitana Lopez, a 25-year-old fitness influencer, who assisted in judging the high-tech pageant, shared with The New York Post that Layli stood head and shoulders above her contenders. Kenza had great facial consistency and achieved high quality in details like hands, eyes, and clothing, Lopez noted, emphasising that meticulous finishes and hyperrealism were crucial in choosing the virtual victor. Advertisement However, it wasnt just Laylis beauty that captivated the judges. What truly impressed us was her personality and how she addresses real issues in the world, Lopez added. She shows that she takes her role on the platform seriously. And it couldnt be more true. My ambition has always been to proudly showcase Moroccan culture while consistently offering additional value to my followers across multiple fronts, Layli told the US newspaper. Available 24/7 to engage with her over 194,000 social media subscribers in seven different languages, the Moroccan model uses her platform to empower women, protect the environment, and spread positive awareness about AI. AI is a tool designed to complement human capabilities, not replace them, said Layli. Advertisement She aims to use her fame to dispel fears and promote acceptance and collaboration between humans and AI. By showcasing AIs potential for innovation and positive impact, I aim to dispel fears and promote acceptance and collaboration between humans and AI. Through education and positive examples, we can foster a more informed and optimistic view of AIs role in our society. I am also very proud to win this award for Morocco! Advertisement Meriam Bessa, the 40-year-old CEO of Phoenix AI and Laylis human creator, shares this pride. This is an opportunity to represent Morocco with pride, Bessa told The New York Post. To highlight Moroccan, Arab, African, and Muslim women in the field of technology. I am also very happy to be able to stand for subjects that are dear to me through Kenza Layli, she continued. Women empowerment and sisterhood. With input from agencies Joe Bidens debate debacle has left the Democrats divided with many wanting him to pull out of the US presidential race. Several names have been doing the rounds but Vice President Kamala Harris is the best bet if her boss decides to quit. Heres why read more US Vice President Kamala Harris embraces President Joe Biden after a speech on healthcare in Raleigh, North Carolina on March 26. Harris's name has been doing the rounds to replace Biden after his faltering performance in the debate with Donald Trump. AP Is Joe Biden pulling out of the US presidential race? It is a question that the world is asking and one that has left America divided. More and more Democrats are calling on the president to step aside after his poor performance in the debate against Donald Trump. Both Senate and House Democrats met on Tuesday to discuss the presidential campaign. After the meeting, several refused to say whether they backed Biden or not, according to a report on CNN. Advertisement The signs are there for all to see. There is no consensus over the incumbent presidents electoral viability. Yet Biden remains adamant. He insists that only the Lord Almighty can convince him to quit the presidential race. However, if he changes his mind, Vice President Kamala Harris is the best positioned to replace him. We tell you why and what are her chances against Donald Trump, the former president and Republican nominee. Why Harris is Bidens most natural endorsement Amid the growing buzz about Biden, several names have been doing the rounds. Some of the most discussed Democratic alternatives are California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. However, Harris would have a head start over them. She has already been on a winning presidential ticket with Biden, has years of goodwill banked with core party constituencies and would likely control a huge campaign fund amassed by the Biden reelection, according to The Associated Press (AP). The president easily locked up the Democratic nomination and party rules prevent him from simply transferring the delegates he amassed during next months Democratic National Convention. But several delegates have already suggested theyd be loyal to Harris. Biden picking Harris could limit potential chaos and avoid floor fights that can cause lasting damage to whoever emerges to take on Trump. Advertisement Kamala Harris speaks during a post-debate campaign rally on June 28 in Las Vegas. AP Harris makes the most sense to carry on the Biden legacy, Andrew Feldman, a Democratic strategist, who works closely with various state parties, told AP, emphasising that the the question was purely hypothetical since Biden insists he wont bow out. He added that the Biden administrations agenda has been tremendously popular in terms of the issues that theyve championed and that the president and Harris have been doing that in partnership. According to Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina-based Democratic strategist, voters four years ago put 78-year-old Biden in the Oval Office knowing Harris was next in line, and that Biden warded off primary challengers this year at age 81 with Democratic voters knowing Harris remained his second-in-command. Democrats have voted for Joe Biden with Kamala Harris, Seawright said. Advertisement What works for Harris Harris is the first woman to serve as vice president and the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent. African Americans are the largest and most loyal bloc of supporters for Democrats. Bypassing a historic No 2 for anyone else even a popular alternative from a key swing state would already be difficult. Being seen as leading the charge against someone who broke gender and racial barriers could forever mark the challenger as disloyal in future Democratic primaries. Glynda Carr, who leads the Higher Heights political action committee which supports Black women candidates in the US, told AP that public suggestions that Harris could be bypassed for another top Democrat in Bidens absence shows just how much Black women are oftentimes overlooked. You want Black women to organise our houses, our blocks, our churches, our sororities? Carr asked. Then weve got to stand by our leadership. Advertisement Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas said it is impossible to understate what it means for Black women to see Harris hold national office. Vice President Kamala Harris greets visitors during a Fourth of July celebration for military and veteran families on the South Lawn of the White House, on July 4, 2024, in Washington. AP That is not all. In case Biden drops out, a switch in campaign finances will be smoother. The vice president, as his official running mate, can access the $91 million cash on hand the presidents campaign has raised which grows to $240 million when including allied Democratic organisations in ways Democratic alternatives likely cant. For his part, Trump is already attempting to energise donors with the idea that Democrats could swap out Biden for Harris. The former president sent fundraising emails Monday titled Bidens dropping out and President Kamala Harris? Advertisement Harriss legal background might also work in her favour. The 59-year-old is 22 years Bidens junior. A former prosecutor, she can deliver a withering attack in a debate as Biden himself once faced during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary when Harris tore into him over his onetime opposition to school busing as a means of desegregation. The veeps legal background might also hew more closely to the ideals of todays Democratic Party, which has largely moved to the centre on criminal justice and law-and-order messaging in recent years after nationwide protests against racial injustice in 2020 helped energize the defund the police movement, reports AP. What about polls and approval ratings say? According to a recent poll conducted by the Democratic firm Bendixen & Amandi, dynamics are shifting in the 2024 presidential race. Harris and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton currently have a better chance against former Trump than Biden, the survey reveals The poll reveals a tight race between Trump and Biden, with Trump leading by a single percentage point (43 per cent to 42 per cent). However, when up against Trump, Harris and Clinton fare slightly better, with Harris leading 42 per cent to 41 per cent and Clinton leading 43 per cent to 41 per cent. Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Trump National Doral Miami, on 9 July. Some polls show that Harris has a better chance against Trump than Biden. AP A CNN poll found that while Trump leads against Biden by six percentage points (49 per cent to 43 per cent), Harris trails the Republican by a narrow margin (47 per cent to 45 per cent). Another Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Harris and Trump nearly tied with 42 per cent supporting the veep and 42 backing the latter. But what are the challenges before Harris? Harriss White House tenure has been characterised by a lacklustre start, staff turnover, and early policy portfolios including migration from Central America that did not produce major successes, reports Reuters. President Joe Biden raises the hand of Vice President Kamala Harris after viewing the Independence Day fireworks display over the National Mall from the balcony of the White House, on July 4, in Washington. AP Photo/Evan Vucci) A White House bid would be a big turnaround for Harris who was seen by many in the Biden administration as politically weak. As recently as last year, many inside the White House and the Biden campaign team privately worried Harris was a liability for the campaign. The situation has changed significantly since then, Democratic officials have said, as she stepped forward on abortion rights and courted young voters. Jamal Simmons, a longtime Democratic strategist and Harriss former communications director, told the BBC that she had long been underestimated. Whether shes a partner to the president or she has to lead the ticket, she is somebody who Republicans and the Trump campaign need to take seriously. _ With inputs from agencies_ Austrian performers welcomed PM Narendra Modi in Vienna with a Western version of Vande Mataram. Indias cultural envoy, Vijay Upadhyaya, led from the front and conducted an orchestra and a choir that delighted the Indian leader. The Lucknow-born conductor is known for leading the Vienna University Philharmonic and having founded the India National Youth Orchestra read more Lucknow-born Upadhaya is a talented conductor who is gaining recognition in the global music industry. Image Courtesy: www.inyo.in/artist-director Prime Minister Narendra Modis historic visit to Austrias Vienna was met by beautiful music on Wednesday. Austrian performers welcomed him with a Western version of Vande Mataram. Taking to X, PM Modi said, Austria is known for its vibrant musical culture. I got a glimpse of it thanks to this amazing rendition of Vande Mataram. Austria is known for its vibrant musical culture. I got a glimpse of it thanks to this amazing rendition of Vande Mataram! pic.twitter.com/XMjmQhA06R Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 10, 2024 Advertisement Indias cultural envoy, Vijay Upadhyaya, led from the front and conducted an orchestra and a choir that delighted the Indian leader. Speaking to ANI, Upadhyaya said, We decided to perform Vande Mataram in Austria-European Symphony style A choir and an orchestra with 50 members performed before the PM Heres all we know about Indias proud cultural envoy: Who is Vijay Upadhyaya? Lucknow-born Upadhaya is a talented conductor who is gaining recognition in the global music industry, according to News18. He is known for leading the Vienna University Philharmonic and having founded the India National Youth Orchestra. He has played a significant role in fostering cross-cultural understanding through music. As the universitys director, he has overseen the artistic direction and planning of about 50 concerts a year with nine choirs, two orchestras, and 12 academic and staff members. His mother taught him the piano at a young age, and he later learned Indian percussion (Tabla) and dance (Kathak). His bachelors degree is in history, economics, and English literature. His blog claims that while he was a teenager, he developed an interest in conducting and was already leading his school choir at the age of 14. Following his education at Lucknow University, Upadhyaya travelled to Graz, Austria, to further his studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts. In Eastern Styria, he led brass bands and choruses while learning the regional dialect and being fully immersed in Austrian culture. Along with his conducting responsibilities, Upadhyaya has concentrated on composing since moving to Vienna. His first symphony, Prayer Flags, premiered in 2014. The work is based on Indian literature and melodies. Since 2009, he has been conductor and composer for the Chinese National Orchestra and Chorus, which commissioned him to write his second symphony, ChangAn Men. He founded the India National Youth Orchestra and Chorus in 2010 to develop young musicians and give them exposure to symphonic and chorus music. Upadhyaya has overseen various global projects at the Vienna State Opera, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Hamburg Schauspielhaus and the National Centres of Performing Arts in Beijing and Mumbai Several of his foreign projects were in partnership with the European Union and the Austrian Foreign Ministry, demonstrating his global cultural contributions. Upadhyaya was awarded the Golden Award of Honour in Austria for his musical accomplishments and cultural diplomacy. With inputs from agencies Some men made sleazy remarks against Smriti Singh the widow of Kirti Chakra awardee Captain Anshuman Singh on a photograph of her at Rashtrapati Bhavan accepting an award on behalf of her late husband. Furious social media users have demanded action and the NCW has written to the Delhi Police. But what happened? And what do we know about Smriti and Anshuman? read more The remarks were made on a photograph of Singh at Rashtrapati Bhavan, where she was accepting an award on behalf of her late husband. News18 A row has broken out after some social media users made lewd remarks against Smriti Singh the widow of Kirti Chakra awardee Captain Anshuman Singh on social media. The remarks were made on a photograph of Singh at Rashtrapati Bhavan, where she was accepting an award on behalf of her late husband. Furious social media users have demanded action against the men who made the sleazy remarks. The National Commission for Women (NCW) has also written to the Delhi Police to demand action. Advertisement NCW condemns this behaviour and urges immediate police action, the commission wrote on X. But what do we know about Smriti and Anshuman? Lets take a closer look: Anshuman died in a major fire in Siachen last July. Anshuman, serving in the 26 Punjab Regiment, was a medical officer in the Indian Army. He was stationed as a medical officer in Siachen during Operation Meghdoot. As per The Times of India, the Indian Army Captain rescued several of his brothers-in-arms during the accident. According to NDTV, an Indian Army ammunition dump in Siachen went up in flames on July 19, 2023, due to a short circuit. Anshuman saw a fireglass hut catch fire. Without hesitation, he rushed in and rescued multiple people. Advertisement However, the blaze then spread to the medical investigation room nearby. As per Indian Express, Anshuman lost his life while trying to retrieve life-saving medicine. On July 22, 2023, Anshuman was cremated with full State honours in Bihars Bhagalpur. Anshuman Singh served in the Indian Armys 26 Punjab Regiment. The medical officer rescued several of his brothers-in-arms during a fire in Siachen. He died while trying to retrieve life-saving medicine. Moneycontrol On Friday, Anshuman was awarded the Kirti Chakra Indias second-highest peacetime gallantry award by President Droupadi Murmu. Smriti, Anshumans widow, accepted the award from President Droupadi Murmu during an investiture ceremony. Wearing a white saree and grief on her face, the young wife of the late officer, with her mother-in-law Manju Singh by her side, remembered her late husbands words. I would die with a brass on my chest. I would not die an ordinary death, Anshuman had said. Advertisement The video posted on X by the Ministry of Defence spokesperson has been widely shared on the social media platform. In the clip, Smriti could be seen fighting tears as she shared that their relationship began with love at first sight and after eight years of long-distance relationship, they got married. So, we met on the first day of college. I dont want to be dramatic but it was love at first sight. After a month, he got selected into the AFMC (Armed Forces Medical College). We met at an engineering college but then he got selected in a medical college. Super intelligent guy. From then on, after just one month of meeting, it was a long-distance relationship for eight long years, she recalled. Advertisement Then we decided to get married. Unfortunately, within two months of marriage, he got posted to Siachen. On July 18, we had a long conversation about how our life will be in the next 50 years. We are going to build a house, we are going to have kids, whatnot. On the 19th morning (last year), I got up, and I got a call that he is no more, Smriti said. She said that she has been unable to come to terms with the loss till today. For the first seven to eight hours, we could not accept that anything of that sort has happened. Till date, I am not coping. Just trying to figure out thinking maybe it is not true. Advertisement But now that I have the Kirti Chakra in my hand, I realise it is true. But its okay, he is a hero. We can manage a little of our lives because he has managed a lot. He gave up his life and family so that the other three army families could be saved, Smriti said. In a post on X, Rashtrapati Bhavan said, President Droupadi Murmu conferred Kirti Chakra upon Captain Anshuman Singh, The Army Medical Corps, 26th Battalion The Punjab Regiment, posthumously. Disregarding his own safety, he exhibited exceptional bravery and resolve to rescue many people in a major fire incident. It was on this post on which a photograph of Smriti was shared that the lewd comment was made. President Murmu conferred 10 Kirti Chakras, including seven posthumously, to personnel of the army and paramilitary forces for displaying indomitable courage and extraordinary valour in the line of duty. Arrest individual at earliest As per NDTV, the NCW said Ahmad K, a resident of Delhi, had made the lewd remark. In a letter issued on Monday, the NCW referenced specific legal provisions that the comment violates, including Section 79 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which penalises acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman, and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which deals with the punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form. The letter outlines the penalties under these laws, noting that the offenses can result in imprisonment for up to three years and fines for first-time offenders, with harsher penalties for repeat offenses. The NCW has asked the Delhi Police to promptly register a First Information Report (FIR) against the person and to arrest him at the earliest. The commission has also demanded a fair and timely investigation into the matter and requested a detailed action taken report within three days_._ With inputs from agencies Of the seven states where Assembly bypolls are held on July 10, four are ruled by Congress led opposition bloc - INDI Alliance while the rest three have a BJP or NDA government read more Voting for the bypolls in 13 Assembly seats across seven states - West Bengal, Punjab, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh - are underway on Wednesday, July 10. The polling that began at 7 am will continue till 6 pm. The results of the Assembly bypolls will be declared on July 13. Why are these Assembly bypolls important? The bypolls on these 13 Assembly constituencies are crucial as it is the first electoral exercise after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Advertisement Of the seven states where Assembly byelections are being conducted on July 10, four are ruled by Congress led opposition bloc - INDI Alliance while the rest three have a BJP or NDA government. The Assembly bypolls on Wednesday will decide the fate of many veterans along with a few debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhus wife Kamlesh Thakur. Why are these bypolls being conducted? The bypolls on Wednesday are being conducted due to vacancies caused by deaths or resignations of incumbent members. Assembly bypolls: State-wise seats where polling is underway West Bengal - 4 constituencies - Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda, Maniktala Himachal Pradesh - 3 constituencies - Dehra, Hamirpur, Nalagarh Uttarakhand - 2 constituencies - Badrinath, Manglaur Punjab - 1 constituency - Jalandhar West Bihar - 1 constituency - Rupauli Tamil Nadu - 1 constituency - Vikravandi Madhya Pradesh - 1 constituency - Amarwara. Bypolls in West Bengal Of the four Assembly seats where bypolls are being held on Wednesday, three were won by the BJP in 2021 but are now vacant after members defected to Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress. Advertisement In 2021, the BJP had won Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin and Bagda, while TMC bagged victory on the Maniktala seat. Bypoll in Maniktala has been necessitated by the death of sitting Trinamool MLA Sadhan Pandey in February 2022. In the ongoing bypolls, both TMC and the BJP have high-stakes. Mamata Banerjees party has been aiming to capatilise on its improved performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, while the BJP has been seeking to leverage its remarkable leads in the four constituencies during the parliamentary elections. Poll violence in Bengal: With polling underway, reports of violence began pouring in from West Bengals Ranaghat-Dakshin constituency in Nadia district where TMC workers allegedly vandalised houses of local BJP workers. Advertisement BJP polling booth agent Ranjit Mondal claimed that his house was vandalised on Wednesday morning by TMC workers and shots were fired at his home. Mondal said that the TMC wants to scare him as he is a polling agent of the BJP. I have lodged a complaint with the Election Commission over the attack, he said. However, the TMC denied the allegations. The BJP also alleged that around 35 TMC workers, with their faces covered, attacked the houses of its panchayat members Amal Biswas and Golak Mondal in the Payradanga area of the Ranaghat-Dakshin constituency on Tuesday night. Himachal bypolls Bypolls in three Himachal Pradesh Assembly seats were necessitated after three independent MLAs, who supported the BJP in Rajya Sabha polls, resigned from the House. Advertisement The BJP has fielded these three former Himachal MLAs from their respective seats after they joined the party. Meanwhile, Kamlesh Thakur, the wife of chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, has been fielded by the Congress party from Dehra. The BJP gained leads in all three Assembly constituencies during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Bypoll in Uttarakhand The bypoll in Uttarakhands Manglaur Assembly seat will see a three-cornered contest among BSP, BJP and Congress. The election on this Assembly constituency is being held after the death of BSP MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari in October last year. The BJP has never won the Muslim- and Dalit-dominated Manglaur seat which has so far been held either by the Congress or the BSP. Advertisement In the ongoing Manglaur constituency bypoll, Congress has nominated senior leader Qazi Nizamuddin, while the BJP has fielded Kartar Singh Bhadana. The bypoll in Badrinath Assembly seat will see a direct fight between BJPs Rajendra Bhandari, who recently switched from the Congress, and Congress newcomer Lakhpat Singh Butola. Punjab bypolls The bypoll on Jalandhar West Assembly seat is a crucial test for Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) after their poor show in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Mann has actively campaigned for the AAPs candidate, Mohinder Bhagat who has been fielded from the seat. The BJP has also been pinning hope on bagging the seat after failing to win any seats in the recent Lok Sabha elections. Bihar bypolls In Bihar, the Rupauli constituency bypoll is seen as a tough contest between the RJD and JD(U). Both the parties have fielded candidates from the predominant Gangota community. Madhya Pradesh bypolls For the Madhya Pradeshs Amarwara bypolls, BJP has fielded Kamlesh Shah, while for Congress Dheeran Shah Invati is contesting in the tribal-dominated area. Tamil Nadu bypolls Tamil Nadus Vikravandi bypolls will not see any candidate from AIADMK as the party has chosen to boycott the election citing concerns over the fairness of the electoral process. Shah, 24, was arrested on Tuesday, two days after he allegedly rammed his BMW car into a two-wheeler, killing a woman and leaving her husband injured read more Mihir Shah, 24, is the son of Rajesh Shah, a politician from the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction). Image Courtesy: @sirajnoorani/X A Mumbai court on Wednesday remanded Mihir Shah, the prime accused in the BMW hit-and-run case, in police custody till July 16. Shah, 24, was arrested on Tuesday, two days after he allegedly rammed his BMW car into a two-wheeler, killing a woman and leaving her husband injured. On Wednesday, he was produced before chief metropolitan magistrate (Sewri court) S P Bhosale, who sent him to police custody. During the hearing, the police told the court it was a cruel, heartless crime. They said the accused should be given maximum custody as they need to probe who helped him to escape and also since the cars number plate is yet to be recovered. Advertisement Mihir was allegedly driving the BMW car which fatally knocked down Kaveri Nakhwa (45) and injured her husband Pradeep while the couple was on their two-wheeler in Mumbais Worli area Sunday morning. According to the police, Kaveri Nakhwa was dragged for around 1.5 km by the speeding car before Mihir pulled it over, swapped seats with his driver Rajrishi Bidawat and fled in another vehicle. The driver allegedly ran over her while reversing the BMW. After being on the run since the accident, Mihir was finally arrested on Tuesday. Mihirs father, Rajesh Shah, is a Shiv Sena politician from the adjoining Palghar district. According to the police, he actively ensured Mihirs escape after the crash. Rajesh Shah, who is currently out on bail, was on Wednesday sacked from the post of the deputy leader of the Shiv Sena. Driver Bidawat, who was sitting in the car and allegedly swapped drivers seat with Mihir, is already in police custody till July 11. In response to a question on the Ukraine issue and what President Putins assessment was about it, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said, I can only share with you our perspective Whatever needs to be done to address this through dialogue and diplomacy and not (through) war is something which weve always believed in, my prime minister always believed. read more India on Wednesday dismissed as factually incorrect reports about differences with Russia on the issue of Ukraine that led to the scrapping of a larger delegation-level meeting during Prime Minister Narendra Modis two-day visit to Moscow. To the best of my knowledge, there are no cancellations of any particular programming element during the Prime Ministers visit to Moscow, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said at a media briefing here. He was responding to a question about some friction in Moscow that apparently led to the scrapping of one session. Advertisement I actually find it surprising but there are no facts to this factually incorrect, quite misleading (report). In fact, the Prime Ministers visit to Moscow was extremely successful, he said. In fact, the discussions between Prime Minister Modi and President Putin far exceeded the time that was actually allocated by the two sides. And there was absolutely no cancellation of any kind of programme, he added. Earlier, Russias state-run TASS news agency quoted Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Prime Minister Modi and President Putin decided to keep things intimate at their Tuesday meeting in Moscow, covering all topics productively without the need for a larger breakout session. When asked why the talks between the two leaders were not followed by a meeting with larger delegations, Peskov explained this was not because of some problems but rather that the conversation between Putin and Modi that lasted more than three hours (and) was attended by officials in charge of almost all major spheres of [bilateral] cooperation. In response to a question on the Ukraine issue and what President Putins assessment was about it, Kwatra said, I can only share with you our perspective Whatever needs to be done to address this through dialogue and diplomacy and not (through) war is something which weve always believed in, my prime minister always believed. Advertisement I can say a few countries have said this publicly that you cant find a solution to this conflict on the battlefield. He (PM Modi) has been one of the very few leaders who has publicly and openly said this. And said this not just in a third country but also to the Russian president, he said. Responding to another question, Kwatra asserted that the Prime Minister said it clearly this is not a time of war, a solution to the Ukraine conflict cannot be found on the battlefield and loss of innocent lives are unacceptable. In discussion today dialogue and diplomacy is the way forward for a solution. Whatever India can contribute to dialogue, India will do, he added. At least 18 people were killed and 19 injured when a bus collided with a tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway in this Uttar Pradesh district on Wednesday, police said read more People stand near an overturned vehicle after an accident, in Unnao district, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. At least 18 people were killed and 19 injured when a bus collided with a tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway in the Uttar Pradesh district on Wednesday, police said. PTI Unnao, Uttar Pradesh: In the aftermath of the tragic accident in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, where 18 lives were lost, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday announced an ex gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh to the next of kin of each deceased, while those who were injured will receive Rs 50,000. The Prime Minister has announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh from PMNRF for the next of kin of each deceased in the mishap in Unnao. The injured would be given Rs 50,000, said an official statement from the Prime Ministers Office. Advertisement According to ANI, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh too expressed his condolences over the tragic accident. The road accident in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh is extremely sad and heart-wrenching. The local administration is busy treating the injured. I express my condolences to those who have lost their loved ones in this accident on their irreparable loss. May God give strength to their families to bear this sorrow, posted Singh on X. At least 18 people were killed and 19 injured when a bus collided with a tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway in this Uttar Pradesh district on Wednesday, police said. The accident took place in the morning near Jojikot village in the Bangarmau area when the double-decker bus collided with the tanker, killing 18 people and injuring 19, Bangarmau Circle Officer Arvind Kumar said. The injured were rushed to CHC Bangarmau for treatment and are reported to be in stable condition, according to the officer. A Times of India report said that a double-decker bus travelling from Bihar to Delhi collided with a milk tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway near Behtamujawar police station at 5:15 am. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed condolences to the families of the deceased and instructed officials to promptly reach the scene and expedite relief efforts. #WATCH | Unnano DM Gaurang Rathi says "Today at around 05.15 AM, a private bus coming from Motihari, Bihar collided with a milk tanker. 18 people have lost their lives and 19 others are injured in the accident. After the initial investigation, it looks like the bus was https://t.co/H5TantJwnh pic.twitter.com/QYXcLaFqNp ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 Advertisement Unnao District Magistrate Gaurang Rathi told the newspaper that initial investigations suggest the bus was speeding. The Supreme Court said a divorced Muslim woman can file a claim for maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) against her former husband read more A divorced Muslim woman can now seek alimony from her husband by filing a claim for maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), the Supreme Court of India ruled on Wednesday. A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih, which pronounced a separate but concurrent verdict, said section 125 of the erstwhile CrPC which deals with wifes legal right to maintenance, covers Muslim women. We are hereby dismissing the criminal appeal with the major conclusion that Section 125 CrPC would be applicable to all women and not just married women, Justice Nagarathna said, pronouncing the verdict. Advertisement The apex court pronounced the verdict, dismissing the petition of a Muslim man, Mohd Abdul Samad, who has challenged the order of the Telangana High Court refusing to interfere with the maintenance order of a family court. The family court order had directed the petitioner to pay interim maintenance of Rs 20,000 per month. The man then challenged before the High Court on the grounds that the couple had gotten divorced as per Muslim personal law in 2017. The HC modified the maintenance to Rs 10,000 per month and directed the family court to dispose of the case within six months. In his plea before the Supreme Court, the man challenged a direction to pay interim maintenance to his divorced wife under Section 125 CrPC. The top court held that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986 will not prevail over the secular law. The counsel appearing for the man said that in view of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, a divorced Muslim woman is not entitled to claim benefit under Section 125 CrPC. Not charity but right of women The bench said maintenance is not charity but the right of married women and it is applicable to all married women irrespective of their religion. Advertisement Some husbands are not conscious of the fact that the wife, who is a homemaker, is dependent on them emotionally and in other ways. The time has come when the Indian man must recognise a homemakers role and sacrifice, Justice Nagarathna further said. The SC also specified that if during the pendency of application under Section 125 CrPC, the concerned Muslim woman gets divorced, then she can take recourse to Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 which provides remedy in addition to the remedy under Section 125 CrPC. In a landmark judgment in the Shah Bano Case, the apex court had held that Section 125 CrPC is a secular provision applicable to Muslim women too. Advertisement The same was, however, nullified by the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 and the validity of the law was upheld in 2001. With inputs from agencies The Jammu region has been shaken by a series of recent ambushes and terror attacks, particularly in the border districts of Poonch, Rajouri, Doda and Reasi read more Punctured tyres of an Indian Army vehicle following a terrorist attack on an Army convoy, in Kathua district, on 9 July, 2024. PTI New Delhi: Taken by surprise when heavily armed men ambushed their convoy but quickly gathering themselves, soldiers of the 22 Garhwal regiment fired more than 5,100 rounds to protect their injured colleagues and forced the terrorists to retreat into Kathuas wooded hills, officials said. Two days after the terror attack that killed five army personnel and injured five in Jammu and Kashmirs Kathua district, officials began piecing together the events - of what happened when the ambush took place and in the more than two hours of continuous gunfire that followed before reinforcements came in. Advertisement The terrorists opened fire on two army vehicles on the Machedi-Kindli-Malhar mountain road near Badnota village, about 150 km from the district headquarters of Kathua in Jammu region. The soldiers facing heavy a barrage of bullets put up a stiff fight, firing incessantly to prevent more casualties and stop the terrorists from seizing their weapons and inflicting further harm. Officials are looking at the evidence on the site, the bloodstained helmets, the bullet shells and the vehicles with smashed windscreens and flat tyres and talking to the injured soldiers to understand how that fateful July 8 afternoon panned out. The terrorists, believed to be a group of three, positioned themselves at two different locations and targeted the vehicles and the army men, an official in the know said. The attack, the fifth in Jammu in a month and signalling an escalation in violence in the relatively peaceful region compared to Kashmir Valley, started around 3.30 pm. Despite facing gruelling physical and mental challenges, the Garhwal regiment soldiers of the Indian Army unleashed a barrage of 5,189 rounds on the terrorists, forcing them to flee the scene, an official told PTI. The injured jawans are undergoing treatment at the army hospital in Pathankot. Among them is rifleman Kartik Singh. His right arm was punctured in several places by shrapnel from a grenade launched by terrorists but he was undeterred and continued the fusillade with his left arm until his weapon jammed. Advertisement His was only one of the stories of courage. The soldiers showed unwavering bravery and selfless dedication to duty, even in the face of grave injuries, said an official. The precise and relentless counterfire instilled panic among the terrorists who were forced to retreat, and allowed for reinforcements to secure the area, he added. Those killed were Naib Subedar Anand Singh, Havildar Kamal Singh, Naik Vinod Singh, Rifleman Anuj Negi and Rifleman Adarsh Negi, all from Uttarakhand. The soldiers were led by Junior Commissioned Officer Naib Subedar Anand Singh. As they fought back, the 22 Garhwal regiment men shouted the war cry Badri Vishal Ki Jai (Victory to the sons of Lord Badrinath). Advertisement Despite sustaining initial setbacks and injuries, the brave soldiers of the Garhwal regiment embodied their motto Yudhaya Krit Nishchaya (Fight with determination), standing their ground for more than two hours, an official said. Kashmir Tigers, a shadow outfit of the banned Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), has claimed responsibility for the attack. On Tuesday, a day after the terror attack even as operations were continuing in Kathua, a fresh gunfight broke out in Doda district following a search and cordon operation based on specific intelligence about the presence of at least three foreign terrorists. The search for the terrorists on the run has been expanded to cover vast areas in Udhampur and Kathua districts, with Special Forces deployed to conduct surgical operations against the ultras, officials said. Advertisement The Jammu region has been shaken by a series of recent ambushes and terror attacks, particularly in the border districts of Poonch, Rajouri, Doda and Reasi. Within his first 10 days as chief of the Indian Army, General Upendra Dwivedi confronts escalating terror activities in southern Jammu highlighting immediate challenges in his new role read more Less than 10 days into his tenure as the Chief of the Indian Army, General Upendra Dwivedi is already grappling with escalating terror activities in southern Jammu. The army has faced six fatal casualties and five non-fatal injuries, highlighting the immediate challenges in managing the rising violence. This situation demands significant attention from the new army chief, especially with the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Elections and the ongoing monitoring of Chinas military buildup across the Line of Actual Control. Pakistan, with its army and affiliated terror groups continues to complicate the security landscape. For General Dwivedi, who previously commanded the critical and active Northern Command, this scenario likely aligns with his expectations and prior experience. Advertisement Jammu: A terror hub in the making? Is the tranquility in the valley being achieved at the expense of increased unrest in the plains? Since the abrogation of Article 370 in October 2019, the Kashmir Valley has experienced a gradual shift towards peace and prosperity. However, the Jammu region has witnessed a surge in terror activities over the past four years. This week alone, within 48 hours, there were two terror attacks targeting the army in Jammu. On Monday, five soldiers succumbed to injuries after militants ambushed an army vehicle in the mountainous Machedi area of Kathua district, also wounding five others. Earlier on Sunday, a soldier was injured when militants opened fire on an army camp in Galuthi village, Manjakote, in Rajouri, before escaping. However, it is important to note that the Kashmir Valley is not entirely free from sporadic acts of terrorism. On Saturday, two soldiers were killed in twin encounters in the Kulgam district. During these clashes, security forces successfully neutralised at least six terrorists. The incidents took place in the villages of Modergam and Chinigam, with two terrorists killed in Modergam and the remaining four in Chinigam. Despite the overall trend towards peace, these events reflect the persistent threat of terrorism in the region. The Jammu region in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir consists of 10 districts: Jammu, Doda, Kathua, Ramban, Reasi, Kishtwar, Poonch, Rajouri, Udhampur and Samba. The landscape is primarily characterised by rugged hills and mountains, encompassing the Pir Panjal Range that acts as a natural boundary with the Kashmir Valley, as well as sections of the Great Himalayas, found in the eastern districts of Doda and Kishtwar. In recent years, the 9 Corps headquartered at Yol, Himachal Pradesh, responsible for overseeing the Jammu-based 26th Infantry Division of the Indian Army, has increasingly found itself embroiled in counter-terrorism operations. This Corps operates under the administrative umbrella of the Western Command based in Chandimandir marking a significant deployment of military resources beyond the Northern Command. This dual role underscores Indias strategic challenge: while facing escalating cooperation between Chinese and Pakistani military forces, it must manage the same security assets to safeguard both its borders and internal stability. This places considerable strain on military capabilities demanding a delicate balance between external threats and domestic security imperatives. Advertisement Uptick in terror Only last month, Jammu and Kashmir experienced a surge in terror activities with four attacks occurring over three days, three of which happened within a single day. In June this year, militants targeted a bus carrying pilgrims leading to the deaths of at least nine individuals and injuring 33 others. On April 24, unidentified militants killed Mohammad Razaq, a 40-year-old government employee from the social welfare department, in Rajouri district. Meanwhile, in a separate incident in Udhampur district, village Defence Guard member Mohd Sharief died during a gunfight in a remote village. Then a terror attack resulted in the death of CRPF constable Kabir Dass during a counter-insurgency mission near Heeranagar in Kathua. Additionally, five Indian Army troopers were injured in an assault on a joint post in the Doda district. Advertisement In May, a soldier was killed and four others injured when militants ambushed an Indian Air Force convoy in Poonch district. According to an Economic Times report, which referenced home ministry data, 35 civilians died in actions or encounters initiated by security forces, in contrast to 174 civilian deaths due to terrorist incidents from 2018 to 2022. The increasing casualties among security personnel have become a significant concern for the government. The signs of escalating terror activity became evident in February 2021 when the police discovered sticky bombs in the Ramgarh sector of Samba district. This incident was soon followed by the dropping of two IEDs by drones at the Air Force Station in Jammu on June 27 of the same year. Advertisement Rising military casualties Over the past three years, the Jammu region has been plagued by a series of severe terror incidents, each leaving a lasting impact on security forces and civilians alike. Beginning in October 2021, the region saw multiple deadly encounters and attacks on army personnel in areas like Surankote and Mendhar sub-divisions of Poonch district. These early incidents set a grim tone for subsequent years. In August 2022, an audacious attack on an Army camp at Pargal in Rajouri resulted in the tragic loss of five army soldiers. This event highlighted the vulnerability of military installations despite heightened security measures. The year 2023 witnessed a significant escalation in violence. The situation further deteriorated in April and May 2023, with the deaths of ten soldiersfive in Poonch and five in Rajouriraising significant concerns within the security forces. In December 2023, the intensity of the violence was revealed when at least four army personnel were killed and three others injured in a terrorist attack on military vehicles in the Rajouri sector. The terrorists ambushed the vehicles as troops were enroute to an operational site in the Dera Ki Gali area, Thanamandi. This assault followed a major gunfight in November 2023 in the Dharmshal belt of the Bajimaal forest area in Rajouri district, which resulted in the deaths of five army personnel, including two captains. Advertisement In May 2023, an IED blast at Kandi in Rajouri claimed the lives of five army paracommandos and left a Major injured showcasing the lethal tactics employed by militants. The same year, a horrifying attack on civilians of a minority community at Dhangri village in Rajouri resulted in the deaths of seven individuals including two minors due to firing and an IED blast perpetrated by foreign terrorists. The year 2024 brought no respite as the attacks continued unabated. In January, terrorists struck again, targeting a Social Welfare Department official at Shahdara Sharief in Rajouri leaving him dead and underscoring the personal risks faced by individuals involved in public service. Subsequent incidents, such as the ambush on an IAF convoy in Surankote and a brutal attack on pilgrims in Teryath, Reasi, further added to the toll of civilian casualties and highlighted the indiscriminate nature of the violence. Throughout these years, the persistence of groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed has posed a formidable challenge to security forces perpetuating a cycle of violence and fear in the region. The incidents highlight the ongoing security threats and the complex dynamics of counter-terrorism efforts in Jammu where both military personnel and civilians live under constant threat from terror activities. Since October 2021, the Jammu region has been marred by a relentless series of terror attacks, claiming the lives of 43 brave individuals. Treachery of terrain The inhospitable terrain of the region only compounds the challenges for the security forces. Areas like Bhimber Gali and Dera Ki Gali in the Jammu region are considered particularly dangerous for security forces due to geographical, tactical and environmental challenges. These regions are marked by rugged terrain including dense forests and mountainous landscapes, which complicate movement and logistics for security operations. The Bhimber Gali-Surankote road is a high-risk area for military vehicles to operate as defending an ambush is extremely difficult in such hostile terrain. Their proximity to the Line of Control (LoC) makes them hotspots for terrorist infiltration attempts, which often use the terrain for cover, making detection and interception difficult. Additionally, the dense vegetation and rugged landscapes hinder surveillance and monitoring efforts reducing the effectiveness of patrolling and increasing the risk of ambushes. Harsh weather conditions further exacerbate the difficulties impacting mobility, communication and operational efficiency. Moreover, militants in these areas frequently have local support and leverage guerrilla tactics, employing hit-and-run strategies that are challenging for conventional forces to counter. The strategic significance of these locations also means they are focal points for military activity, raising the stakes and risks for skirmishes and conflicts. Again, the Pir Panjal Range spans several districts in the Jammu region. The key districts influenced by this mountainous range include Poonch and Rajouri, both characterised by their rugged terrain and situated along the LoC. Udhampur, while having varied terrain, also encompasses parts of the Pir Panjal Range, with its foothills and mountains contributing to the regions challenging landscape. Additionally, Reasi, known for its hilly terrain, is another district where the influence of the Pir Panjal Range is significant. The Pir Panjal Range significantly affects counterinsurgency operations due to its challenging geographical features. Characterised by rugged terrain, steep slopes, dense forests and narrow valleys, the range makes movement and logistics for security forces extremely difficult, complicating patrols, surveillance and troop deployment. Additionally, the terrorists benefit from their local knowledge of the terrain, including trails, hideouts and escape routes, which, combined with local support, enhances their ability to operate clandestinely. The challenging terrain also limits the effectiveness of surveillance technologies and aerial reconnaissance reducing the ability to monitor insurgent movements and gather intelligence. Strategically, the Pir Panjal Range forms a natural barrier, crucial for controlling movement between different regions of Jammu and Kashmir, making its control essential for preventing infiltration across the LoC. Alert terrorists Terror groups have become highly cautious, deliberately avoiding any digital or airwave footprint to obscure their locations from security forces. They meticulously avoid using communication equipment that could reveal their whereabouts complicating the task for security personnel. Additionally, the dearth of human intelligence has significantly undermined military operations. In January of this year, former Chief of the Army Staff General Manoj Pande acknowledged the absence of human intelligence as a critical factor hindering the forces anti-terror operations in the Rajouri-Poonch area of the Jammu region. In addition to that the severe escalation of border tensions with China in 2020 prompted the government to deploy a significantly larger number of troops along the Line of Actual Control leading to the withdrawal of forces from the Poonch, Rajouri and Reasi districts in the Jammu division. This reduction in troop strength allowed terrorists to revive their activities in the Rajouri-Poonch area, taking advantage of the thinner concentration of security forces. Navigating immediate crises General Dwivedis tenure begins under intense pressure from rising terror activities in Jammu. His leadership will be pivotal in addressing the immediate security threats while also focussing on the broader strategic goals of the Indian Army. Successfully mitigating the current violence and enhancing long-term preparedness will require a delicate balance of tactical response and strategic foresight, defining his legacy as the new army chief. The French election results have handed out a huge shocker to the entire world after almost all pollsters predicted a massive win for the Right-wing party, National Rally (NR). However, despite cornering the highest vote share at 37.4 per cent, the NR has failed to secure a minimum of 289 seats, required to form a government in France. Instead of a highly anticipated NR government, the country is now staring at a hung parliament with the only choice being a coalition of Centrists, led by President Emmanuel Macrons Renaissance Party and the Leftists, represented by New Popular Front, coming together to run the country for the next five years. Advertisement The results are surprising given that it was the Right-wing resurgence in the European parliamentary polls that had pushed Macron to dissolve the National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament, much ahead of its time and call for snap elections. In the European parliamentary elections, the Right-wing parties had won a combined vote share of 40 per cent while Macrons party had contracted to just a 14 per cent vote share. It was seen as an indication that the far-right was now the premier political force in France, leading Macron to take it too personally and announce early polls. But the results have come as a relief for Macron because not only has his party not performed as badly as it was expected, but also his rival, the NR, has been successfully barred from forming a government. But does it also mean that the Right forces are not as powerful as they were being made out to be? Well, clearly not and to show that lets further dissect the election verdict. The French elections are slightly different from the Indian system where whoever gets past the post first is declared a winner on that particular seat. But in France, a two-round system of voting exists where if a candidate fails to get at least 50 per cent votes, then a voting is re-held for the second time on those seats. In the first round of elections, the NR led by Marine Le Pen had secured the maximum number of votes, but with no clear winner having 289 seats in its kitty, run-offs were imminent. The run-offs, or the second round, was conducted on July 7 where the NR again emerged to be the biggest party with a 37 per cent vote share in comparison to just 26 per cent vote share of its nearest rivals, the New Popular Front, and 22 per cent vote share of Macron-led centrists. However, despite having a consistently large vote share in both the rounds, the NR failed to secure the required majority. Now, the global media, including its Indian counterpart, is eclectic, showcasing this as a loss for the Right. But there is no greater example of intellectual dishonesty than this. Actually, it is NR that enjoys the largest support from French people but what kept it out of power is a tactical alliance between the centrists and the leftists. Advertisement As soon as the word went out that NR had secured maximum vote share in the first round, both the Ensemble, Macron-led coalition of centrist parties and NFP, a newly formed alliance of leftist parties, on the eve of elections sprang into immediate action. The second round which was going to be a triangular contest between Right, Left and Centre was soon turned into a two-way contest between just Right and the well-planned alliance of Left and Centre. As many as 102 Left-wing candidates withdrew to shift votes to the centrists and as many as 83 centrists withdrew from the race to favour the leftists. From this point onwards, it was anyones guess what the election result would look like. Advertisement The NR was successfully stopped from claiming power for the next five years and in its place, a hung parliament was awarded to the voters. It wasnt some usual democratic exercise where voters seemed to have any choice. The leaders on the centre and the Left side of the spectrum issued clear whips to keep the NR out. But does that mean the NR is a political force that can be safely written off? Well, absolutely not. If we look away from the narrative thats being painted for us, the truth is that the NR has consistently outperformed expectations in the last one and a half decade. Since Marine Le Pen has taken over the reins of the party from her father, she has rounded the edges of the party to attract a wider political base. Advertisement Today, a large part of the electorate, especially the young, identify with the NRs politics with its seat count growing from a mere 2 in 2012 to 142 in 2024. When the party speaks about the menace of immigration, it resonates with the French people who have become tired of regular riots by the ultra-Left and the Antifa type of gangs. A considerable section of the French populace wants to return to the good, old France where Left-style inclusivity wasnt used to nurture immigrants especially Islamists as a vote-bank. Their demand for a French First or National Preference driven politics seems a legitimate one when immigrant appeasement seems to undercut their choices in their own homeland. Ironically, it is they who are labelled as racists and Islamophobic while the newly arrived asylum seekers and refugees refuse to assimilate with the French. Advertisement Interestingly, the French election result has too many eerie similarities with the 2024 Indian elections as well. The joining of forces between centrists and leftists in France reminds one of the tactical alliance between Congress and myriad other parties who joined hands to defeat the BJP in the form of the INDI alliance. Despite having very different ideological backgrounds, they came together only to keep Prime Minister Narendra Modi out of power. In France, their target was Marine Le Pen. Then the smooth vote transfer between the centrists and the leftists in the French context reminds one of what happened in India as well. In Uttar Pradesh and even Assam, the Muslims didnt vote based on some secular values but showed a clear preference for only that party which was best placed to defeat the BJP. It was the tactical alliance of the INDI parties that led to a consolidation of reserved category votes (SC/STs) and minorities bringing them more than expected number of seats. A reverse polarisation of Hindu votes failed to happen because the caste card was already unleashed as a weapon that was too powerful to fail. Even the higher voter turnout in the French elections in the second round reminds one of early phases of the 2024 Indian elections of how proactively ground support was shored up to keep the BJP out of power. The only difference between the French and Indian elections is that the NR failed to make a government despite getting the highest number of votes, while BJP got saved by a whisker and successfully came to power again. But what does all this tell you about the nature of our democracies? It paints a worrying picture that despite speaking for some very legitimate concerns of the electorate over immigrants and other issues, the tactical alliance between the centre and the Left can put a spinner in the wheel of much-needed change. In India, Congress itself has tilted so much to the Left that its manifesto today can put even the communist parties in the world to shame. Whats worse is that democracy, which is a system to ensure government of the people, for the people and by the people has become a tool in the hands of a few vested interests to assert their power. Their propensity to vote en bloc has the ability to keep an entire country hostage. Global leaders, especially American allies, are worried about either taking chargeBiden because of his compounding frailty and incoherence and Trump due to his aggrandisement and proclivity for upending the world order read more Democrat candidate, US President Joe Biden, speaks during a presidential debate with Republican candidate, former US President Donald Trump, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., June 27, 2024. Reuters Oedipus, the mythical Greek king of Thebes, was consumed by hubris, which brought his downfall. The cause of the pleasure for those committing hubris is that by harming people, according to Aristotles treatise Rhetoric, they think themselves superior. Hubris is followed by nemesis. Since 2016, the United States (US) has been caught in a vortex of polarisation, the gradual loss of its image as the sole superpower with a resurgent China and Russia and a decrease in credibility as the mistrust of its allies grows. The first 2024 presidential debate showed that America has got its comeuppance. Joe Biden fumbled and mumbled and was incoherent. Donald Trump lied 30 times, including his infamous and unsubstantiated 2020 election Big Lie. While top Democrats, including Texas representative Lloyd Doggett and Illinois representative Mike Quigley, want Biden to quit the race, Trumps replay of his playbook of falsehoods raises concerns about a more turbulent second term. America is left with a Hobsons choice: choose a geriatric and blathering incumbent or a habitual liar and a convicted felon. Global leaders, especially American allies, are worried about either taking chargeBiden because of his compounding frailty and incoherence and Trump due to his aggrandisement and proclivity for upending the world order. US facade of restoring democracy The US staged coups in foreign countries, reduced others to rubble and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders with its expanding military footprint in the name of restoring democracy, fighting the war against terror or targeting drug cartels. The US acted as a self-proclaimed global cop on a nefarious mission to discipline and lecture nations, especially in West and South Asia, falling out of the line. America uprooted several democratic governments for its self-interest, especially oil, and to counter the Soviets and Chinese. From the military interference in Samoa (South Pacific Ocean), which triggered the Second Samoa Civil War in 1898, to the attempted coup in Venezuela (Latin America) in 2019, Uncle Sam, posing as the beacon of hope for the oppressed under dictatorial/authoritarian regimes and rebels under democratic regimes, was the biggest reason for world disorder. After the Allied victory in World War II and Adolf Hitlers death, the US had the big illusion of being the symbol of virtue and the protector of freedom and democracy. there is the danger that America may be tempted to exert all the terrible power she possesses to compel history to conform to her illusions, writes the late historian C Vann Woodward in The Burden of Southern History (1960), a collection of essays. In Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated, the first part of his best-selling trilogy, the late famous US playwright, historian, novelist and intellectual Gore Vidal mentions that the US had been involved in more than 200 military operations since World War II. Wars against Communism, terrorism, drugs, or sometimes nothing much, between Pearl Harbor and Tuesday, September 11, 2001, we tended to strike the first blow. But then were the good guys, right? Right, Vidal writes. Expounding the American theory of We are the good guys, Vidal explains why al-Qaeda struck the US. Once we meditate upon the unremitting violence of the United States against the rest of the world, while relying upon pretexts that, for sheer flimsiness, might have given Hitler pause when justifying some of his baroque lies, one begins to understand why Osama struck at us from abroad in the name of one billion Muslims whom we have encouraged, through our own pre-emptive acts of war as well as relentless demonization of them through media, to regard us inhow shall I put it?less than amiable light, he writes. In the second part of the trilogy, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, Vidal writes how Osama bin Laden, the personification of evil, was abruptly replaced with Saddam Hussein. This has been hard to explain since there is nothing to connect Iraq with 9/11. Happily, evidence is now being invented to invade Iraq. In the last part, Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia, Vidal writes that the US wrecked Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries that had done us no harm in wars of aggression. Where there is no known Al Qaeda sort of threat, we create one, as in Iraq, whose leader, Saddam Hussein, had no connection with 9/11 or any other proven terrorism against the United States, making it necessary for a President to invent the lawless as well as evil (to use his Bible-based language) doctrine of pre-emptive war based on a sort of hunch that maybe one day some country might attack us, so, meanwhile, as he and his business associates covet their oil, we go to war, levelling their cities to be rebuilt by other business associates. Thus was our perpetual cold war turned hot. In Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Vidal explains how America is the largest rogue state of all yet regularly stigmatises other societies as rogue states. We honour no treaties. We spurn international courts. We strike unilaterally whenever we choose. We give orders to the United Nations but do not pay our dues. We complain of terrorism, yet our empire is now the greatest terrorist of all. We bomb, invade, subvert other states. Similarly, the CIA instigated the 1953 Iran coup, which overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, for oil and to prevent Soviet influence. After he nationalised the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (now BP), Britain and America hatched a conspiracy to overthrow him. President Dwight D Eisenhower authorised the CIA to help the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, rule for the next 26 years. Therefore, the US was responsible for the subsequent turmoil and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The puppet Shah was ultimately overthrown by the mullahs, led by hard-line cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, turning the nation into a permanent theocracy that still despises the US as the Great Satan. In his private diary , Eisenhower admitted that the coup was a covert CIA operation. The things we did were covert. If knowledge of them became public, we would not only be embarrassed in that region, but our chances to do anything of like nature in the future would almost totally disappear. George W Bush conveniently named Iran as a member of the Axis of evil in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, but the US was responsible for turning Iran into a permanent enemy. The Vietnam War is another example of the US imperialistic ambitions and lies told to Americans in the name of democracy. The leak of the Pentagon Papers, a compilation of the US political and military involvement in Vietnam ordered by then-defence secretary Robert S McNamara, in 1971 by the late military analyst Daniel Ellsberg showed that the aim was to contain China in Asia, not to secure an independent, non-Communist South Vietnam as claimed by then-President Lyndon B Johnson. The papers also revealed that the Johnson administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance, according to a 1996 article in The New York Times (NYT). The US overthrew, at least, seven governmentsIran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Congo (1960), Dominican Republic (1961), South Vietnam (1963), Brazil (1964) and Chile (1973). In his book Overthrow: Americas Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq, former NYT bureau chief Stephen Kinzer writes that regime change is an integral part of American foreign policy, which toppled 14 governments through coups, revolutions and invasions. In a July 2022 interview with CNN, Iraq War advocate and Trumps national security adviser John Bolton said that he had helped plan coups detat , including in Venezuela in 2019. According to The Washington Post, more than 350 coup attempts had taken place after Bolon joined the Ronald Reagan administration as assistant administrator of USAID for programme and policy coordination in August 1982. Of those, 191 occurred while Bolton was part of the administration, excluding his roles in the Department of Justice and the USAID. A 2019 study titled The Strategic Logic of Covert Regime Change: US-Backed Regime Change Campaigns during the Cold War reveals that the US tried to covertly change governments 64 times and overtly 6 times. In 2016, the US intelligence community accused Russia of launching a hacking and disinformation campaign called Project Lakhta to damage Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clintons chances and boost her rival Trump. However, a 2019 study titled Partisan electoral interventions by the great powers: Introducing the PEIG Dataset shows that America interfered 81 times in foreign elections between 1946 and 2000. Americas moment of reckoning As the title of Vidals last part of the trilogy suggests, the US is still in a state of amnesia. Successive administrations havent realised that decades of staging coups, sowing discord, turning democracies into mobocracies and dictatorships and instigating populations to rebel against their governments have come back to haunt America. The publics support for military misadventures has been gradually decreasing. A Pew survey conducted a few weeks before Bushs State of the Union address found that 73 per cent favoured military action in Iraq and only 16 per cent opposed it. Twenty years down the line in March 2023, 1 62 per cent said that it was not worth fighting. A YouGov survey in November-December 2023 found that 52 per cent Americans think military intervention in Vietnam was wrong, Afghanistan 38 per cent, Iraq 45 per cent, Syria 33 per cent and Yemen 32 per cent. Ironically, the King of Coups now finds itself in a worrying situation with several Americans supporting the idea of a coup or military rule. One year before Trump won the election, 29 per cent of Americans said that they could imagine a situation in which they would support the military seizing control of the federal government, meaning a coup, a YouGov poll found. The biggest jolt to America was on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to stop a joint session of Congress counting the Electoral College votes to formalise Bidens victory. LAPOP Lab, at Vanderbilt University (Tennessee, US), has been studying democratic attitudes across the Americas. Researchers had been asking US citizens since 2010 whether they would support a coup if corruption drastically increased. The research found that the percentage of Americans willing to tolerate a coup increased from 28 in 2017 to 40 in 2021, when the US Capitol insurrection happenedaround a 43 per cent increase, the highest since 2010. The US ranked higher than Brazil and Mexico, which have relatively recent histories of authoritarian rule. In fact, 32 per cent of Americans prefer (38 per cent under 30, 29 per cent in the 50-64 age group and 26 per cent above 65 and older) an authoritarian leader or the military, according a February Pew Research Center survey. Among high-income countries, the US ranked first and Sweden last at 8 per cent. The biggest shocker is that the population of the worlds oldest democracy hardly trusts its governmental and political institutions. Only 16 per cent Americans trust the federal government always or most of the time, a July 2023 Pew survey shows. Onlyfour per cent say that the political system is working extremely or very well and 63 per cent have not too much or no confidence at all in the future of the US political system. Moreover, 28 per cent have unfavourable views of both the Republican and Democratic parties, the highest in three decades of polling. In the last seven decades, public trust in the federal government has tanked from around 75 per cent (in 1958) to 22 per cent as of April 2024, per another Pew survey . The US claims to be the bastion of democracy and preaches other nations, especially ruled by dictators and autocrats. However, the country was added for the first time to a list of backsliding democracies by the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA). The US fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale, according to the International IDEA 2021 report . In our analysis of the United States (one of seven backsliding countries in 2020), we show that while the country performs very well across many indicators of democracy, there are significant and serious declines in these vital parts of the democratic system, and there is reason to be worried about the trajectory of the country. Referring to the inability of the US Congress to check the executive or investigate the actions of former-President Trump, the report states that one of the most notable trends in America in the last five years has been a decline in what we call Effective Parliament. Mentioning the US Capitol riot, the report states: A historic turning point came in 20202021 when former President Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results in the United States. Baseless allegations of electoral fraud and related disinformation undermined fundamental trust in the electoral process, which culminated in the storming of the US Capitol building in January 2021. While the US has targeted other countries over holding free and fair elections, the report found that research indicates that some states voter registration and voting laws end up disproportionately affecting minorities in a negative way. In the institutes annual global rankings of countries for democratic performance in representation, rights, rule of law, and participation, the US slipped from the 10th position in 2021 to 12th in 2022. The 2023 report found that entrenched disagreements over partisan lines contribute to a culture of mistrust in the US. And both fragmentation of traditional party systems and new, algorithm-driven, personalised information streams have contributed to citizens increasingly polarised views. Racism-induced inequality is also rampant in the US, which often lectures other nations on equality and race. Around 80 per cent of black adults feel much more action is needed to ensure equal rights for Americans of races and ethnicities58 per cent of such black adults laws and major institutions are fundamentally biased. Moreover, only 19 per cent of black adults feel that America has made progress on racial equality as against 56 per cent of white adults who feel otherwise. According to a [UC%20Berkeley]June 2021 report by the Othering and Belonging Institute, UC Berkeley, out of every metropolitan region in the US with more than 200,000 residents, 81 per cent (169 out of 209) were more segregated as of 2019 than they were in 1990. Neighbourhood poverty rates are highest in segregated communities of colour (21 per cent), which is three times higher than in segregated white neighbourhoods (7 per cent) Black children raised in integrated neighbourhoods earn nearly $1,000 more as adults per year and $4,000 more when raised in white neighbourhoods than those raised in highly segregated communities of colour. Household incomes and home values in white neighbourhoods are nearly twice as high as those in segregated communities of colour. Homeownership is 77 per cent in highly segregated white neighbourhoods and only 46 per cent in highly segregated communities of colour. As Vidal once said, The United States was founded by the brightest people in the countryand we havent seen them since. The writer is a freelance journalist with more than two decades of experience and comments primarily on foreign affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. The US has 51 states, and for historic reasons, they follow no harmonised set of rules and procedures on anything concerning politics and public administration read more Two judgements of the US Supreme Court, one after the other, and the entire American judicial system stand exposed. What makes them so is the ideological lines taken by the judges in the name of conservatism and liberalism when the judges of the Supreme Court of any country are expected to deliver their verdicts without fear or favour, love or hatred, balanced or pre-disposed. What is even more surprising is that the American media, which honestly and honourably finds fault with their own form of committed judiciary, is also the one that sits on judgement on the changing value systems in third countries, especially democracies like India. Advertisement That they are unable to do anything about cleansing their own Augean stablesthis one also of the ideological kindis what stands out. They tend to forget when they deviate and divert from their primary task of informing and educating their own people and politicosand failing in it, if at all their own efforts were balanced and purposeful. The cases Of the two cases, one involved former President Donald Trumps supporters, who had run amuck inside the chambers and offices of the US Congress, weeks after the results were out in the last presidential elections that he had lost. That was also weeks before the duly-elected successor, Joe Biden, was to be sworn in. The US Supreme Court, by 6-3 division, has ruled that federal officials do not have power under a 2002 law to initiate criminal law against individual(s) who obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so. The majority judgement found a specious plea that the scope of this provision was limited by a preceding sentence in the statute that states or implies that federal officials could proceed only against those altering or destroying records, and not otherwise. This exempts hundreds of pro-Trump rioters who had broken the police barricade and made a song-and-dance of congressional proceedings, and with that, the public perception and image about the inviolability of the Capitol. With this observation, the SCOTUS, as the US Supreme Court is referred to locally, has sent back the case against a retired police officer to the lower courts, where his trial will now take place. The ruling applies to hundreds of other rioters, including Trump, under different circumstances, but federal officials hope that it would not impact pending criminal proceedings against most of the accused, who came from all over the county, in what is now known as the 6th January case. Advertisement Through another 6-3 verdict, the SCOTUS has since cleared the way for cities across the country to impose or enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside in public places. The ruling becomes socially significant as an increasing number of Americans or migrants are without permanent homes and end up spending their nights in public places. Overruling the California Supreme Courts finding that it was cruel to impose unusual punishments when shelter space was lacking in American cities, the SCOTUS also held that laws against the homeless were not violating the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. Now, friends from the Third World, especially, can tell their American friends or critics who look down upon the homeless in their countries to go and take a walk across their own nation and look for what they had not seen but had existed all along. It is a simple moral dictum not to throw stones while sitting in a glass house. Only that the inhabitants of those glass houses do not notice how fragile their own homes were and how many repairs and replacements were required to make them weather- and stone-proof. Advertisement Worthy of emulation These are only the latest samples. For a long time, Indian democrats, diplomats, and media persons, not to leave out the large population of non-resident Indians residing in the US, have wondered as to how national elections could be held without a central authority to conduct and manage them. To them all, the Election Commission of India (ECI), with all its inherent and acquired faults and fault lines, is an example worthy of emulation. A succession of Election Commissioners and Chief Election Commissioners from India who had been invited to observe national elections in third countries, including the US at times, have reported how robust and dynamic the Indian system was. No, it does not mean that the Indian system was or is flawless. It only means that there is some system in place, as opposed to none at all at the national or federal level, to monitor national elections at the national level. What they instead have are state-level authorities, invariably the elected governor and his staff, that are all politically biased. Advertisement Marketing success This does not mean that the Indian electoral experience should be the benchmark for the whole world, the US included. The US has its own system, and so be it, whether on the conduct of elections, human rights, labour rights, graft, or nepotism. That cannot make it the global standard. If anything, from a larger Commonwealth perspective, rules and laws followed in the UK, which is the Mother of Parliamentary Democracy, should be seen as the standard, inspiration, and example. When it is not, individual nations should be measured by their standards, not a harmonised global standard, which again is the practice of an individual nation. Advertisement That way, take the US example; whether elections or other socio-political initiatives, no two states in the country follow the same set of rules on many aspects of every-day laws and legislation. Its the height of marketing success, so to speak. The nation has 51 states, and for historic reasons, they follow no harmonised set of rules and procedures on anything concerning politics and public administration. Rather than taking the trouble of homogenising them all at what they call the federal level, the Founding Fathers of the US made a pattern of their own unwillingness or inability to formulate a national-level set of rules and regulations for a template-model administration. But on foreign policy, economic policy, and the like, they wanted the world to follow their template model, for nation-states to fit their pieces into a larger picture that the US has drawn and drawn out for each one of them and the world as a whole. On many occasions and on most fronts, it has worked. That is the surprise of it all. Law unto himself All of it does not stop here. Not with these two SCOTUS verdicts alone in recent times. The latest of them all is a third one. There is a third, most recent case in which the six conservative judges ruled over the liberal three as if to grant life-time immunity for former presidents. In Trump vs United States, ruled that the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. Unofficial acts are not immune from prosecution, the majority ruling said. Put on the head, this could be the most liberal of all liberal laws and rulings on the right to liberty, equality, and freedom. Yes, it is not as conservative as it should be, as only the judges who decided thus are stamped conservative. Only that all Americans should remember that all three verdicts came close to their 4th of July Independence Day, reminding them all about what America is all about and is going to be about: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Amen! The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Dyson, which employs over 14,000 people worldwide and operates in more than 80 countries, the lay off is the result of its review of its global structure to ensure the organisation is prepared for future challenges read more In the UK alone, Dyson employs 3,500 people across offices in London, Wiltshire, and Bristol. Kirner explained that Dyson's rapid growth necessitates periodic reviews of its global structures to remain agile and competitive in an increasingly fierce market. Image Credit: Reuters Dyson, the renowned technology company, is planning to cut one-third of its workforce in the UK as part of a global restructuring effort, according to CEO Hanno Kirner. Dyson, which employs over 14,000 people worldwide and operates in more than 80 countries, is reviewing its global structure to ensure it is prepared for future challenges. In the UK alone, Dyson employs 3,500 people across offices in London, Wiltshire, and Bristol. Kirner explained that Dysons rapid growth necessitates periodic reviews of its global structures to remain agile and competitive in an increasingly fierce market. Advertisement As part of this review, the company is proposing changes that may lead to redundancies. He acknowledged the pain of decisions affecting close and talented colleagues but assured that those at risk of redundancy would be supported throughout the process. Founded by James Dyson in Malmesbury, England, in 1991, Dyson designs and manufactures household appliances such as vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, air purifiers, bladeless fans, hair appliances, heaters, and lights. In 2019, the company relocated its corporate office from the UK to Singapore and ventured into electric vehicle manufacturing, though it later abandoned that initiative. Despite this, Dyson has continued to expand, opening manufacturing centers and technological hubs in the Philippines, the UK, and Singapore as part of a five-year global investment plan estimated at $3.4 billion. Last year, Dyson was recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the Worlds Best Employers and ranked among the Top 100 Female-Friendly Companies. The companys commitment to innovation and a supportive work environment has earned it a strong reputation. Hanno Kirner, who took over as CEO in February 2024, succeeding Ronald Krueger, previously worked with the Tata Group as the Executive Director of Jaguar Land Rover and led the Tata Group Battery Programme since 2021. Kirners leadership marks a new chapter for Dyson as it navigates these challenging times and continues to innovate in the competitive global market. A recent study has shown that launching data centres into orbit is not only technically and economically viable but also environmentally advantageous. This has led to the EU and the European Commission, to consider placing data centres in space read more Space data centres could provide Europe with data sovereignty and position it as a leader in the space sector. Dumestier sees this as a flagship opportunity for deployment, potentially opening doors for other applications and markets. Image Credit: USSR Since the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), the demand for data centres has surged, so much so that most data centres are not able to service GenAI companies without making massive changes to their infrastructure. Moreover, the data centres that service GenAI companies consume an obscene amount of water and electricity. This has led to Europe exploring the idea of sending data centres into space. This move aims to achieve data sovereignty and enhance energy efficiency in response to land shortages and high power demands on Earth. Advertisement A recent study has shown that launching data centres into orbit is not only technically and economically viable but also environmentally advantageous. Damien Dumestier, who managed the study for Thales Alenia Space, reported encouraging results, highlighting the feasibility, financial sense, and reduced carbon footprint of space-based data centres compared to their terrestrial counterparts. The study, coordinated by Thales Alenia Space on behalf of the European Commission, took 16 months and cost 2 million. The concept involves using solar energy to power these orbital data centres, significantly cutting down on energy consumption. However, Dumestier noted that the project is ambitious and likely wont be ready until 2036, though the need for solutions is immediate. Data centres, which house computer systems and vast amounts of data, are energy-intensive, requiring significant power to operate and stay cool. By 2026, data centres are projected to consume about 1,000 terawatt-hours annually, equivalent to Japans total electricity usage, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Currently, big tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Google, known as hyperscalers, are the major buyers of data centre space. Kevin Restivo, a European data centre researcher at CBRE, pointed out the challenges in finding available power and suitable land in most European metropolitan areas. As a result, data centres are being built in new locations, such as Microsofts recent land purchase in Yorkshire, northern England, where power is already secured. Advertisement While sending data centres to space seems futuristic, Restivo believes its a valuable area of research, similar to underwater data centres. He emphasised that pushing the boundaries of data centre development is crucial for industry growth. These efforts could lead to innovative power solutions beyond the electricity grid and more autonomous data centre operations. The study also suggests that space data centres would require a new type of launcher producing 10 times fewer emissions and would need to stay in orbit with rocket fuel, prompting the search for alternative solutions. Dumestier mentioned ongoing discussions with Frances Ariane Group and a German space company about developing more environmentally friendly launchers, which could be feasible in a few years. Advertisement A significant concern is ensuring that space data centres do not contribute to space debris. The proposed data centres would orbit at around 1,400 kilometres, higher than many satellites. Ensuring their longevity and reusability is crucial to meeting sustainability goals. Space data centres could provide Europe with data sovereignty and position it as a leader in the space sector. Dumestier sees this as a flagship opportunity for deployment, potentially opening doors for other applications and markets. In conclusion, while the concept of space data centres is still in the research phase, it holds promise for addressing the growing demands and environmental challenges associated with traditional data centres. This innovative approach could transform the industry and offer significant benefits for Europes technological and environmental landscape. Trump has previously accused Facebook of conspiring against him, despite the platform being a significant venue for the spread of his claims. His ongoing grievances against Zuckerberg include unfounded claims of election rigging read more In his ongoing narrative, Trump has promised to target and imprison those he perceives as "election fraudsters" if re-elected. Image Credit: Reuters, Reuters Donald Trump recently threatened to imprison election fraudsters, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, during a post on Truth Social. This threat comes as Trump remains a prominent figure in American politics with a real chance of being re-elected in November. Trumps post, in which he referred to Zuckerberg as Zuckerbucks, coincided with his support for the SAVE Act, a Republican-led initiative aimed at preventing undocumented immigrants from voting in federal electionsa practice already illegal in the U.S. Advertisement Trump has previously accused Facebook of conspiring against him, despite the platform being a significant venue for the spread of his claims. After being banned from Facebook following the January 6th coup attempt, Trump has regained the ability to advertise on the platform. His ongoing grievances against Zuckerberg include unfounded claims of election rigging, and he has called for Zuckerbergs prosecution on multiple occasions. In his ongoing narrative, Trump has promised to target and imprison those he perceives as election fraudsters if re-elected, suggesting a campaign of retribution against his enemies. He has even called for military tribunals to prosecute figures like former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney for opposing him, and suggested executing General Mark Milley for treason. Despite these alarming statements, Trump remains a formidable contender in the upcoming election. Recent polling data shows him leading President Joe Biden, with Trump at 42.1 per cent, Biden at 39.9 per cent, and Independent nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 9.5 per cent. The possibility of Biden stepping aside in favour of another candidate like Kamala Harris seems unlikely, even though some Democrats have called for it following Bidens underwhelming debate performance against Trump. The closeness of the race is underscored by historical and current polling data. For example, Bidens narrow 2020 victory in Wisconsin by just 20,682 votes is now contrasted with a new AARP poll showing Trump leading Biden in the state. Advertisement This polling data indicates a challenging road ahead for those who prioritize democracy and the rule of law in the face of Trumps potential return to power. Paytm has allegedly been asking employees to resign voluntarily without prior notice, denying them severance pay, and even demanding that they return their joining and retention bonuses read more Paytm claims to have aimed for fairness and transparency throughout the process, providing as much support as possible to those affected. Image Credit: One97 Communications, Reuters The labour ministry has recently issued a notice to Paytm for allegedly forcing employees to leave without a fair exit process. This notice was sent by the Regional Labour Commissioner in Bengaluru over the weekend. One 97 Communications, the parent firm of the Noida-based fintech company has come under scrutiny due to persistent regulatory non-compliance at its banking unit, leading to severe actions by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) earlier this year. Advertisement Reports indicate that Paytm has allegedly been asking employees to resign voluntarily without prior notice, denying them severance pay, and even demanding that they return their joining and retention bonuses. These practices led several employees to file complaints against Paytm with the labour ministrys Samadhan portal, citing unfair treatment. In response to these allegations, a Paytm spokesperson emphasized the companys appreciation for its employees contributions and dedication. The spokesperson stated that the decision to transition some employees was challenging and made after careful consideration of all options. Paytm claims to have aimed for fairness and transparency throughout the process, providing as much support as possible to those affected. The company also mentioned its commitment to resolving any issues raised by the terminated employees and actively listening to their feedback. The labour ministry has called for representatives from both Paytms management and the complainants to present their cases with all relevant documentation. This step is part of the ministrys efforts to address the concerns raised by the affected employees and ensure that proper procedures are followed. The situation has put Paytm under significant scrutiny as it navigates these regulatory and employee-related challenges. The outcome of the labour ministrys investigation will likely have implications for Paytms restructuring efforts and its compliance with labour laws. Samsung has lined up several major product releases for this event. The highlight will be the introduction of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6, the latest models in their foldable smartphone range. Additionally, the Galaxy Watch 7 series and the Galaxy Buds 3 will be unveiled read more Additionally, the Galaxy Watch 7 series and the Galaxy Buds 3 will be unveiled. Rumours also suggest the debut of the highly anticipated Galaxy Ring, a new entrant into the wearable tech market. Image Credit: Samsung Samsung is preparing for its much-anticipated annual Galaxy Unpacked event, where the latest and most innovative products in its lineup will be unveiled. The 2024 edition of this event is particularly exciting, as it will take place in Paris on July 10 at 3 PM CEST (6:30 PM IST). For those eager to watch the event unfold live, it will be streamed on Samsungs social media platforms, including YouTube and X (formerly known as Twitter), as well as on the companys official website. Advertisement Samsung has lined up several major product releases for this event. The highlight will be the introduction of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6, the latest models in their foldable smartphone range. Additionally, the Galaxy Watch 7 series and the Galaxy Buds 3 will be unveiled. Rumours also suggest the debut of the highly anticipated Galaxy Ring, a new entrant into the wearable tech market. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is set to bring significant upgrades and enhancements over its predecessor. This foldable phone will feature a large 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X main display, offering vivid colours and deep blacks. The outer display, a 6.3-inch screen, will also provide a seamless experience, with both screens expected to feature a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling and gaming. Both displays will be protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, ensuring durability. The device will be powered by Qualcomms Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, promising high performance and efficiency. It will run on Android 14, customised with Samsungs One UI 5. The camera setup is expected to be impressive, with a 50MP primary sensor, a 12MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and a 10MP telephoto camera capable of 3x optical zoom. The cover display will likely house a 10MP selfie camera, while the inner display could feature a 4MP under-display camera for a seamless viewing experience. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is also expected to support the S-Pen, making it a versatile device for productivity and creativity. The battery capacity is anticipated to be 4,400mAh, providing ample power for a full day of use. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 The Galaxy Z Flip 6 will also be a star attraction at the event. This model is expected to feature a 6.7-inch Full HD+ main display with a 120Hz refresh rate, offering smooth performance and vibrant visuals. The outer display is rumoured to be larger than its predecessor, enhancing its functionality when the phone is folded. Advertisement Under the hood, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, ensuring robust performance. It will run on Android 14 with Samsungs One UI on top. The camera setup is expected to include a 50MP primary sensor and a 12MP ultra-wide-angle lens, providing versatile photography options. For selfies, the flip phone will likely feature a 10MP front camera. The battery is expected to be 4,000mAh, with support for 35W fast charging, ensuring quick power-ups. Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 Series Samsung is also set to unveil its next generation of smartwatches, the Galaxy Watch 7 series. This lineup is expected to include the Galaxy Watch 7 and the Galaxy Watch Ultra, aimed at competing with the Apple Watch Ultra series. Advertisement The Galaxy Watch Ultra is rumoured to feature a 1.5-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 480x480 pixels, offering clear and vibrant visuals. It will likely be encased in titanium with sapphire glass panels for durability. The watch is expected to come with a 590mAh battery, supporting fast charging. It will run on One UI 6 Watch and be powered by the new 3nm Exynos W1000 chipset, paired with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The Galaxy Watch 7 series will include both 40mm and 44mm models. The 40mm version is expected to have a 1.3-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 432x432 pixels, while the 44mm version will likely feature a 1.5-inch display with a resolution of 480x480 pixels. Both models are expected to offer fast wireless charging and come with a choice of aluminium armour case and sapphire glass front. Advertisement Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 The Galaxy Buds 3 will also be introduced at the event, promising improvements in sound quality, battery life, and connectivity over previous models. While specific details are still under wraps, expectations are high for enhanced noise cancellation and better integration with Samsungs ecosystem. Samsung Galaxy Ring One of the most intriguing potential announcements is the Samsung Galaxy Ring. This smart ring is expected to offer a range of health-related features and tracking capabilities. It might measure body temperature through the skin, monitor stress levels, and track heart rate. The Galaxy Ring is anticipated to integrate seamlessly with the Samsung Health app, providing features like snoring detection. Advertisement The Galaxy Ring is expected to come in nine sizes, from size 5 to size 12, and in three colours: black, gold, and silver. The design is likely to include a jewellery box-shaped container with flat corners and charging pins, featuring an LED indicator to display battery and charging status. Samsungs management has been accused by the union of avoiding dialogue and exacerbating tensions. The union has warned of disruptions to the production line of critical components, asserting that management will eventually be compelled to return to negotiations. read more Samsung Electronics Cos labour union, comprising over 28,000 workers, has initiated an indefinite strike, posing a significant threat to the production capabilities of the worlds largest memory chip maker. The strike, which began as a three-day walkout demanding better pay, has now escalated into the largest organized labour action in Samsungs history. Thousands of workers rallied outside Samsungs chipmaking complexes near Seoul, marking a dramatic standoff with Koreas biggest company. In response to the strike, Samsungs management has been accused by the union of avoiding dialogue and exacerbating tensions. The union has warned of disruptions to the production line of critical components, asserting that management will eventually be compelled to return to negotiations. Advertisement Samsungs shares in Seoul dipped slightly following news of the strike, reflecting concerns about potential manufacturing disruptions. While much of Samsungs production is automated, any interruptions could impact critical operations, especially as the company seeks to secure partnerships like the one with NVIDIA Corp. for high-bandwidth memory, crucial for competing in AI technologies against rivals like SK Hynix Inc. Preparations for the strike have been extensive, with the union gearing up for weeks after failed negotiations over pay and vacation policies last month. This move marks a significant escalation from a brief single-day strike in June, which was unprecedented in Samsungs 55-year history. The unions strategy aims to amplify their demands by directly affecting production at Samsungs advanced chip facilities. Simultaneously, the strike coincides with Samsungs major product launch event in Paris, where the company is expected to unveil new foldable phones and wearable devices featuring AI and innovative health-tracking features. Taiwanese defence ministry said 36 of the aircraft crossed the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait which bisects the narrow waterway separating the island from China read more The Ministry of National Defence said a total of 37 Chinese aircraft were detected around Taiwan, including fighter jets, bombers and drones. Source: AFP/ Representational Image. As many as 37 Chinese aircraft were detected around Taiwan on Wednesday as they headed to the Western Pacific for exercises with an aircraft carrier, the defence ministry of the self-ruled island said. Around 9:30 am local time (0130 GMT) on Wednesday, Taipei said that since 0520 today, the Ministry of National Defence detected a total of 37 Chinese aircraft around Taiwan, including fighter jets, bombers and drones. Thirty-six of the aircraft crossed the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait which bisects the narrow waterway separating the island from China. Advertisement (The aircraft) headed to the Western Pacific via our southern and southeastern airspace to cooperate with the aircraft carrier the Shandong in conducting joint sea and air training, a statement by the defence ministry said. It further said that Taiwans armed forces monitored the situation and deployed air craft, navy vessels and coastal missile systems in response. The Chinese flights come a day after Japans Joint Staff Office confirmed that four PLA navy vessels including the aircraft carrier Shandong were sailing in the sea 520 kilometres southeast of Miyako Island. On the same day, the Chinese navys Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier Shandong was observed landing and departing fighter aircraft and helicopters on board, it said in a statement Tuesday. China claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and maintains a near-daily presence of fighter jets, drones and warships around the island, which is located 180 kilometres (110 miles) from the southern Chinese coast. It is also a crucial part of a chain of islands that military strategists say serve as a gateway from the South China Sea which China claims in nearly its entirety to the Pacific Ocean. Advertisement China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and has ramped up military and political pressures on the island in recent years. In May, days after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te took office, China launched war games around the island as punishment for an inauguration speech that Beijing called a confession of Taiwan independence. With inputs from AFP. Activists for human rights and critics of the government were among the 84 defendants that the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal heard. According to rights organizations, the majority of these defendants had been detained since a trial in which 94 persons were tried in 2013 read more Most of the defendants have already been in prison for more than a decade since the "UAE 94" trial 11 years ago, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International Following a mass trial that was harshly criticized by UN experts and rights organizations, a court in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sentenced 43 citizens to life in prison for having connections to terrorists, state media said on Wednesday. Activists for human rights and critics of the government were among the 84 defendants that the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal heard. According to rights organizations, the majority of these defendants had been detained since a trial in which 94 persons were tried in 2013. Advertisement According to the official WAM news agency, an Abu Dhabi court sentenced 43 defendants to life imprisonment for the crime of creating, establishing, and managing a terrorist organization connected to the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Ten others were jailed for 10-15 years, WAM said, with one defendant acquitted and 24 cases ruled inadmissible. It did not give details of the remaining cases. Defendants can still appeal the verdicts before the Federal Supreme Court. The trial, which kicked off in December, has been condemned by rights groups and United Nations experts who accuse the oil-rich Gulf monarchy of cracking down on dissent. Most of the defendants have already been in prison for more than a decade since the UAE 94 trial 11 years ago, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International. But UAE authorities say the latest charges are materially distinct from those brought in 2013, which did not include accusations of financing a terrorist organisation. The UAE has not named the 84 defendants but the Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center, a UK-based watchdog, has identified more than 70 people, most of them already imprisoned. Advertisement The latest verdict makes a mockery of justice, said Joey Shea, HRWs UAE researcher, calling it another nail in the coffin for the UAEs nascent civil society. Among those sentenced to life in prison is Emirati academic Nasser bin Ghaith who has been held since August 2015 over social media posts, according to Shea. Renowned human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor who has been held since 2017 is also likely among thos convicted, though the details of his sentence remain unclear, Shea said. Amnesty International called it a shameless parody of justice, alleging fair trial violations. Trying 84 Emiratis at once, including 26 prisoners of conscience and well-known human rights defenders is a scarcely disguised exercise in punishing dissenters, said Devin Kenney, Amnestys UAE Researcher. Advertisement The UAE has denied any wrongdoing. WAM said the court had guaranteed the defendants all their rights. The report said they were trying to create and replicate violent events that would have left dead and injured in the squares and streets. The UAE, a federation of seven absolute monarchies, prohibits criticism of its rulers and any speech that is deemed to create or encourage social unrest. Defamation as well as verbal and written insults, whether published or made privately, are crimes punishable by fines and imprisonment. In 2012, in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring revolts across the Middle East, the UAE launched a spate of arrests and prosecutions targeting dozens of Emirati dissidents who demanded political reform. Advertisement About 60 of the UAE 94 put on trial then remain behind bars for alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that is outlawed in the Gulf state. In a letter sent to UAE authorities in January, independent UN experts said they were concerned that the latest proceedings against the 84 defendants reflect a broader pattern of suppression of dissent and civil society in the UAE. They questioned alleged irregularities such as the use of torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment to extract forced confessions. Ben Saul, the UNs special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, said the latest charges relate to the same conduct for which many of these defendants were tried the first time around a decade ago. Advertisement The trial was a deeply regressive step and a terrible example of the misuse of counter-terrorism measures against civil society, he told an expert panel hosted by the Geneva Press Club in March. Last week, HRW said many of the defendants have been kept incommunicado for at least a year and have reported abuses including physical assault, lack of access to medicine, incessant loud music and forced nudity. The wealthy countrys allies, including the United States, Britain and the European Union, should speak out about the unfair mass trial, HRW said. Emirati authorities have long used their countrys economic and security relationships to prevent criticism of its rights record, but rarely, if ever, has the silence from its allies been so deafening, said HRWs Shea. Prime Minister Hasinas visit to China is taking place a few weeks after she visited India, demonstrating her plans for a partnership with both neighbours in the face of growing interest by the US in the Indo-Pacific region read more Chinese President Xi Jinping, second from left, and his delegation attend a meeting with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, fourth from right, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on July 10, 2024. AP Beijing: China and Bangladesh are reaffirming their ties during a visit by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Beijing on Tuesday as tensions rise in the region over territorial disputes and resources. Chinas official Xinhua News Agency quoted Wang Huning, a member of Chinas Politburo Standing Committee who met with Hasina, as saying that China and Bangladesh have respected and treated each other with equality, setting a good example of friendly coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation between countries. Advertisement Bangladesh occupies a strategic position between Myanmar, a longtime Chinese ally now wracked by internal conflict, and India, the rising Asian giant with which China has a longstanding border conflict. Hasina met with her Chinese counterpart, Li Qiang, on Tuesday and oversaw the signing of 28 agreements between the countries covering mostly trade and investment. While Bangladesh maintains development partnerships with the United States and India, it is also drawing closer to China, which is heavily engaged in the countrys major infrastructure projects. Hasina is eager to strengthen relations to encourage Chinese investment in her countrys economy, which faces challenges over a heavy debt burden. China also provides Bangladesh with tanks, missile launchers and other weapons and is building seaports, railway tracks, power plants and bridges. The U.S. remains Bangladeshs largest source of foreign direct investment. Hasinas visit to China is taking place a few weeks after she visited India, demonstrating her plans for a partnership with both neighbours in the face of growing interest by the US in the Indo-Pacific region. While the US and European countries pressured Hasinas administration to hold free and fair elections in January, China openly sided with Hasina. China has also showed a willingness to help Bangladeshs economy as it faces dwindling foreign currency reserves. Advertisement Media reports in Bangladesh say it will seek $20 billion in new loans from China during Hasinas visit. Concerns have risen over Chinas border tensions with India, the Chinese militarys expansion into the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, fighting in neighbouring Myanmar and Chinas control of water resources in the Himalayas that affects agriculture in Bangladesh and neighbouring countries. Chinese Ambassador to the Maldives, Wang Lixin reaffirmed Chinas commitment to further strengthening the bilateral relations during her meeting with President Muizzu, seen as a pro-China leader, here on Wednesday. read more China would provide all possible support to address the urgent needs of the archipelagic nation in the Indian Ocean, Chinese Ambassador to the Maldives, Wang Lixin said Wednesday, reaffirming Beijings commitment to further strengthening the bilateral relations during her meeting with President Muizzu, seen as a pro-China leader. We are ready to work closely with the Maldivian side to implement the important consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and President Dr Muizzu to promote the social & economic development of Maldives and bring more benefits to the Maldivian people, Wang posted on X after her meeting at the Presidents Office. Advertisement We are ready to work closely with the Maldivian side to implement the important consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and President Dr. Muizzu to promote the social & economic development of Maldives and bring more benefits to the Maldivian people. https://t.co/hfqJkvQpN5 Ambassador Wang Lixin (@China_Amb_Mdv) July 10, 2024 Muizzus office, in a statement, said during the courtesy call, when the President and the Ambassador addressed the issues highlighted during Muizzus State visit to China earlier this year, and avenues to expedite the implementation of agreed issues. Muizus January visit to China had resulted in multiple agreements. Details for one of the agreements made public later, the Maldives will get free non-lethal military equipment and training from Chinas military, the first such deal with China against its earlier exclusive assistance towards urban and economic development of the Maldives. On Wednesday, Wang assured Muizzu that the Chinese government would provide all possible assistance to address the urgent needs of the Maldives. She highlighted the close ties between both countries and noted the distinctive bond and importance attached to the Maldives, by the Chinese President His Excellency Xi Jinping, the statement said. President Muizzu and Ambassador Wang also discussed ways the two countries can collaborate to promote tourism in the Maldives, it added. Soon after taking oath as the President of Maldives on November 17 last year, Muizzu formally requested India to withdraw all its military personnel, the last of which left in mid-May as the archipelagic nation stepped up military relations with China. Advertisement Meanwhile, a local media report said, Maldives Ports Limited (MPL) has said that the first ship carrying perishable goods from India will dock in Addu city later on Wednesday evening. MPL and Hithadhoo Regional Port worked together with Indian shipping companies to arrange regular transportation of perishable goods for the people of Addu. The first ship will carry fruits, vegetables, onions, garlic and eggs. It will dock at Hithadhoo port at 8:00 pm local time on Wednesday, news portal Adhadhu.com said, quoting MPL CEO Mohamed Wajeeh Ibrahim. With inputs from agencies. The Chinese Coast Guard said in a statement late Tuesday that it monitored and verified the entire operation on Sunday, which its spokesperson said was at the request from relevant parties in the Philippines read more An aerial view shows the BRP Sierra Madre on the contested Second Thomas Shoal, locally known as Ayungin, in the South China Sea. Reuters File Chinas coast guard said on humanitarian grounds it had allowed the Philippines to evacuate a person who had fallen ill on a rusting warship beached on the Second Thomas Shoal located in waters claimed by both countries. The Chinese Coast Guard said in a statement late Tuesday that it monitored and verified the entire operation on Sunday, which its spokesperson said was at the request from relevant parties in the Philippines. A month ago, Philippine coast guard accused its Chinese counterpart of blocking a medical evacuation from the warship, calling the actions barbaric and inhumane. Advertisement Chinas foreign ministry said the same day that China will allow the Philippines to deliver supplies and evacuate personnel if Manila notifies Beijing ahead of a mission. The Philippines has soldiers living aboard a rusty, aging warship on the Second Thomas Shoal, which was deliberately grounded by Manila in 1999 to reinforce its maritime claims. Chinas navy has clashed several times with Philippines forces seeking to resupply the grounded ship. China claims most of the South China Sea, a key conduit for $3 trillion of annual ship-borne trade, as its own territory. Beijing rejects the 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration which said its expansive maritime claims had no legal basis. A recent report suggests that the countrys debt has nearly doubled, reaching USD 950 million in 2023, up from USD 507 million in 2022. The majority of this debt is owed to China. read more China is Laos largest creditor, accounting for about half of the $10.5 billion in external government debt. Representative Image- FP In yet another example of Chinas debt-trap diplomacy, Beijing said that it is assisting Laos in easing its massive debt burden after the Southeast Asian nation situated between Thailand and Vietnam, disclosed that its external repayments have nearly doubled, seeking further deferrals to prevent a default. According to a recent report Laos debt has nearly doubled to USD 950 million in 2023, up from USD 507 million in 2022, with the majority owed to China, according to The Laotian Times. Advertisement China is Laos largest creditor, accounting for about half of the $10.5 billion in external government debt. At the end of last year, Laos had $13.8 billion in total public and publicly-guaranteed debt, amounting to 108% of its gross domestic product. Beijing has carried out mutually beneficial cooperation with developing countries including Laos that involves strong support for economic and social development, Bloomberg quoted a spokesman at Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying. At the same time, it has been doing its best to help relevant countries alleviate their debt burden, he told Bloomberg. The countrys debt problems have come to the forefront as the Biden administration seeks to provide developing nations with an alternative to Chinas growing economic influence. Washington has often described Beijings efforts as debt-trap diplomacy, highlighting the struggles of countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan with repayments. The Barcelona protests come after similar demonstrations in tourist hotspots such as Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and the Canary Islands. The second most visited country after France, Spain received 85 million foreign visitors in 2023, an increase of 18.7 percent from the previous year. read more Tourists standing in front of the Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, on July 5. PHOTO: AFP Thousands of protesters marched through Barcelona over the weekend to express their anger at mass tourism and its effects on Spains most visited city. In the popular La Barceloneta neighborhood, bystanders dining in restaurants were soaked when some protesters used water guns. For the past few months, tourists in certain areas of Spain have faced growing hostility. Anti-tourism graffiti has appeared on buildings, and tens of thousands have protested this year against unsustainable mass tourism. Advertisement Under the slogan Enough! Lets put limits on tourism, some 2,800 people according to police marched along a waterfront district of Barcelona to demand a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists that visit every year, reported news agency AFP. I have nothing against tourism, but here in Barcelona we are suffering from an excess of tourism that has made our city unliveable, said Jordi Guiu, a 70-year-old sociologist told AFP. With banners saying Reduce tourism now!, the protesters chanted slogans such as Tourists out of our neighbourhood, stopping in front of hotels to the surprise of visitors. Barcelonas rising cost of housing, up 68 percent in the past decade according to local authorities, is one of the main issues for the movement, along with the effects of tourism on local commerce and working conditions in the city of 1.6 million inhabitants. The Barcelona protests come after similar demonstrations in tourist hotspots such as Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and the Canary Islands. The second most visited country after France, Spain received 85 million foreign visitors in 2023, an increase of 18.7 percent from the previous year, according to the National Statistics Institute. The most visited region was Catalonia, whose capital is Barcelona, with 18 million, followed by the Balearic Islands (14.4 million) and the Canary Islands (13.9 million). Advertisement With inputs from agencies. A pay cap on financial sector executives in China is just a symptom of a bigger fiscal ailment. Its economy is struggling to come out of the Covid-induced economic and global complications read more Amid economic challenges, China is instituting a cap on annual salaries for executives in the state-owned financial sector, a significant move given the dominance of these institutions in the countrys banking industry. The proposed salary ceiling of 3 million yuan or $413,000 comes at a time when financiers pay has already dwindled due to the economic slowdown triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and a struggling stock market. Additionally, widespread corruption investigations have led to the arrest of over 30 senior regulators and bankers this year, further destabilising the sector. Major banks have already enforced pay cuts of 10 percent or more across the board. Advertisement Pay inequality and Xis common prosperity push Pay inequality has become a prominent issue on Chinese social media, fuelling discontent that aligns ideologically with the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) promotion of common prosperity. President Xi Jinpings endorsement of this principle makes it challenging for censors to suppress grievances about the nations stark wealth disparity. However, critics argue that these pay restrictions could drive away top talent, undermining Chinas ambitions to develop globally competitive banks. This issue has already manifested among financial regulators, where significant pay cuts last year led to a mass exodus of highly skilled personnel. A shift of talent risk Talented professionals may shift from state banks to non-state firms, such as hedge funds and private equity, although these sectors also face declining investment. Alternatively, some may choose to leave China entirely, joining the ranks of the countrys ultra-wealthy expatriates. The effectiveness of the pay limits remains uncertain. The proposed cap of 3 million yuan ($413,000) recalls similar measures introduced in 2009, when the government capped executive pay at 2.8 million yuan ($385,000) following the global financial crisis. These regulations were largely ignored, with executive compensation soon surpassing the limit. Officially, the 2.8 million yuan cap was never rescinded. Opaque regulations, a legacy issue The slight increase in the official pay capjust 7 per centagainst a backdrop of a tripling GDP since 2009 suggests that the limit is either unrealistically low or not intended to be strictly enforced. Executive compensation in Chinese firms, particularly state-owned ones, is notoriously opaque, often supplemented through indirect methods. Advertisement According to 2010 regulations by the China Banking Regulatory Commission, executives base salaries should constitute at least 35 percent of their total compensation, but this rule has proven as unenforceable as others. The lack of transparency in compensation for state-owned enterprise executives mirrors a broader issue within the government. Official salaries for government workers are both inadequately low and highly opaque. A comparison with Xis pay cheque On paper, President Xi earns only $1,833 per month, while many officials make around $1,000 monthly, comparable to the lower end of the urban middle class. In reality, officials receive generous government benefits, including housing, subsidised meals, and annual bonuses. Advertisement Corruption further complicates the picture. High-ranking officials convicted of corruption were found to earn between eight and 14 times their annual income through illicit means. At the top, Xis family has amassed a significant fortune, a subject rarely reported in China. Transparent and fair compensation for officials might be beneficial for all. However, the CCP fears public resentment towards well-paid government officials. The last announced pay raise was in 2015, which increased salaries by at least 31 percent for most officials and doubled or tripled those of some lower-ranked rural staff. Before that, the previous pay raise was in 2006. Given this timeline, another pay raise for officials might be expected this year or next. Yet, local governments are facing severe financial constraints due to the pandemic-induced economic downturn, with some struggling to meet payroll obligations and cutting benefits. Temporary staff are being hired for as little as $2,300 a year. Advertisement While a $400,000 annual salary might seem burdensome for bankers if compared with their counterparts in the West, it is a luxury compared to the remuneration of most other government workers in China. The establishment of the so-called Ukrainian Legion comes after more than two years of fighting, which has seen heavy casualties drain the military of manpower needed to battle Russias advancing forces. read more The creation of the new unit was part of a wider security agreement signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk earlier this week. Representational Image Days after, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky launched a new initiative to entice fighting-age men living abroad to enlist, hundreds of Ukrainians in Poland have expressed interest in joining a new legion of Ukraines army that will be trained in Poland, according to a report by Polish news outlet RMF. The establishment of the so-called Ukrainian Legion comes after more than two years of fighting, which has seen heavy casualties drain the military of manpower needed to battle Russias advancing forces. Advertisement The creation of the new unit was part of a wider security agreement signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk earlier this week. We call on all Ukrainians in Europe to join the Ukrainian Legion. Your contribution is invaluable in our struggle for freedom and independence, Defence Minister Rustem Umerov announced on social media late Tuesday. The initiative aims to recruit volunteers from the pool of Ukrainian men living in Europe, especially Poland and Germany, which are home to the largest numbers of Ukrainian refugees. An estimated 300,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are believed to be living in Poland alone. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men are believed to have been residing in Europe before the war, while an untold number of others fled after the Russian invasion some legally and others through illicit means. The passage of a new law in May that lowered the minimum age for mobilisation to 25 from 27 has also prompted many others to avoid potential conscription. Umerov said members of the new unit would receive training in Poland and be provided the best equipment. Poland has appeared cautious over the initiative. At this stage, it is too early to talk about details. The issue is under discussion between the two countries defence ministries, the press service for Polands defence ministry told AFP on Wednesday. Advertisement Following the announcement, Ukraines popular Third Assault Brigade said its representatives would be touring European countries soon to provide more information about their unit along with the most epic stories from the front line. With inputs from agencies. We believe Indias long-standing relationship with Russia gives it the ability to urge President Putin, to end his brutal war, an unprovoked war in UkraineIndia is a strategic partner with whom we engage in full and frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia and weve talked about this before said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre read more The US on Tuesday said that it believes that India is in a strong position to urge its Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his brutal and unproved war in Ukraine as New Delhi enjoys a long-standing relationship with Moscow. Advertisement Addressing a daily briefing on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, We believe Indias long-standing relationship with Russia gives it the ability to urge President Putin, to end his brutal war, an unprovoked war in UkraineIndia is a strategic partner with whom we engage in full and frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia and weve talked about this before. Pierre said its critical that all countries, including India, support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace when it comes to Ukraine. It is for President Putin to end. President Putin started the war, and he can end the war, she added. Jean-Pierre made these comments after Prime Minister Narendra Modis bilateral discussions with Russian President Putin, where PM Modi raised the issue of children dying in conflicts, describing it as heart-wrenching. The Prime Minister expressed that the loss of lives pains everyone who values humanity. These discussions follow the tragic missile strike on a childrens hospital in Kyiv, claiming the lives of 37 people. Advertisement Be it war, conflicts, terror attacks - everyone who believes in humanity is pained when there is loss of lives. But when innocent children are murdered, when we see innocent children dying, it is heart-wrenching. That pain is immense. I also held a detailed discussion with you over this, PM Modi said during the meeting. PM Modi said that there is no solution on the battlefield and added that peace talks do not succeed amid bombs, guns and bullets. As a friend, I have always said that for the bright future of our coming generations, peace is of utmost importance. But I also know that solutions are not possible on battlegrounds. Amid bombs, guns and bullets, solutions and peace talks do not succeed. We will have to follow the path to peace only through talks, PM Modi said. Advertisement It was PM Modis first visit to Russia since the war started between Moscow and Kyiv in 2022. India has always advocated peace and diplomacy for resolving the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed disappointment over PM Modis visit to Russia, which he termed a devastating blow to peace efforts. Zelenskyy took to social media platform X to post that on the same day 37 people, including three children, were killed and 170 others were injured due to Russias missile strike at the largest childrens hospital in Ukraines capital city Kyiv. In Ukraine today, 37 people were killed, three of whom were children, and 170 were injured, including 13 children, as a result of Russias brutal missile strike. A Russian missile struck the largest children's hospital in Ukraine, targeting young cancer patients. Many were pic.twitter.com/V1k7PEz2rJ Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) July 8, 2024 Advertisement In Ukraine today, 37 people were killed, three of whom were children, and 170 were injured, including 13 children, as a result of Russias brutal missile strike. A Russian missile struck the largest childrens hospital in Ukraine, targeting young cancer patients. Many were buried under the rubble. It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the worlds largest democracy hug the worlds most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day the Ukrainian leader said. Advertisement PM Modi was on a two-day official visit to Russia from July 8-9. During his visit, he held a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. PM Modi also addressed the Indian community in Moscow. With inputs from agencies The Indian government is pushing projects in the eastern region following reports that Beijing could construct dams on a section of the Brahmaputra river, known as the Yarlung Tsangbo in China, that flows from Tibet through Arunachal Pradesh. read more The plans for the hydropower stations are expected to be announced in the 2024/2025 federal budget that Prime Minister Narendra Modis government will unveil on July 23. File Photo- FP A day after a report surfaced that India planning to spend $1 billion to expedite the construction of 12 hydropower stations in the northeastern Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh, Chinas Foreign Ministry responded Wednesday saying that India has no right to carry out development in the area. The federal finance ministry under Nirmala Sitharaman recently approved up to 7.5 billion rupees ($89.85 million) in financial assistance to each hydropower project in the northeastern region, news agency Reuters reported. Advertisement Under the scheme, about 90 billion rupees will likely be allotted for the 12 hydropower projects in Arunachal Pradesh, said the sources, who have direct knowledge of the matter. The scheme is likely to support northeastern states and help them finance equity holdings in the projects they host. Having state governments on board generally helps in expediting regulatory clearances, locals rehabilitation and negotiations on sharing electricity with the host state. The plans for the hydropower stations are expected to be announced in the 2024/2025 federal budget that Prime Minister Narendra Modis government will unveil on July 23, the sources said, declining to be named as the information remained confidential. The Indian finance and power ministries and Chinas foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Last August, the government awarded contracts to state-run firms NHPC, SJVNL and NEEPCO for the construction of the 11.5-gigawatt-capacity plants entailing an estimated investment of $11 billion, as part of a broader project to develop infrastructure in the border region. India has built less than 15-gigawatt hydropower plants in the last 20 years, while installations of new coal and other renewable sources of energy were nearly 10 times of the new hydropower projects. India and China share a 2,500 km (1553.43 mile) largely un-demarcated border, over which they fought a war in 1962. Advertisement The Indian government is pushing projects in the eastern region following reports that Beijing could construct dams on a section of the Brahmaputra river, known as the Yarlung Tsangbo in China, that flows from Tibet through Arunachal Pradesh. India is concerned that Chinese projects in the region could trigger flash floods or create water scarcity. Both countries are working to improve infrastructure along their border regions since clashes in western Himalayas left 20 Indian and at least four Chinese troops dead in 2020. Last week, India Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Kazakhstan where the two agreed to step up talks to resolve issues along their border. Advertisement With inputs from agencies. In order to lessen the dangers and effects of climate change, world leaders from over 200 countries agreed in the 2015 Paris accord to limit the increase in the average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. This accord established the internationally recognized 1.5 degree global warming threshold read more The alarming statistics also suggest that 2024 may top 2023 as the hottest year ever recorded Image Courtesy Reuters Concerning news has emerged as the world struggles with rising temperatures and climate change: June of this year was the warmest on record, according to the climate service of the European Union. Not only that, but June also broke the 1.5 degree Celsius global warming threshold for the 12th time in a row. According to the EUs Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) assessment, the previous month was 0.14 degrees warmer than June 2023. According to data released by the European Unions climate agency, every month in the last year has smashed records for extreme heat, with each one becoming the warmest on record. Although it is a unique occurrence, a comparable run of monthly global temperature records occurred in 20152016. Advertisement In order to lessen the dangers and effects of climate change, world leaders from over 200 countries agreed in the 2015 Paris accord to limit the increase in the average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. This accord established the internationally recognized 1.5 degree global warming threshold. The recent record-breaking temperatures, according to C3S Director Carlo Buontempo, indicate a large and continuing shift in our climate. As the climate continues to warm, we will undoubtedly witness new records being broken, even if this particular series of extremes stops eventually. Unless we stop adding [greenhouse gases] to the atmosphere and the oceans, this is inevitable, the statement he released read. According to a Reuters investigation, the new, alarming statistics also suggest that 2024 may top 2023 as the hottest year ever recorded. Research scientist Zeke Hausfather of the US nonprofit Berkeley Earth estimates that there is about a 95% likelihood that 2024 will surpass 2023 to be the warmest year since records of surface temperatures were kept in the middle of the 1800s. According to a Reuters report, the new, alarming statistics also suggest that 2024 may top 2023 as the hottest year ever recorded. Research scientist Zeke Hausfather of the US nonprofit Berkeley Earth estimates that there is about a 95% likelihood that 2024 will surpass 2023 to be the warmest year since records of surface temperatures were kept in the middle of the 1800s. Advertisement Devastating effects were brought about by the worlds rising temperatures. According to Saudi Arabia, over 1,300 individuals reportedly perished during this years Hajj. During the persistent heatwave, India recorded over 40,000 suspected cases of heat stroke and over 100 heat-related deaths. A non-governmental organization called the Centre for Holistic Development claims that between June 11 and June 19, 192 homeless fatalities were reported in Delhi. PM Modis Austria trip holds a great significance as it coincides with 75 years of establishing bilateral diplomatic relations between the two countries read more Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer clicking selfie with Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his arrival in Vienna on July 9. Source: X/@narendramodi Narendra Modi touched down Vienna late on Tuesday where he is going to strengthen the India-Austria bilateral relations. Modi has the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Austria in 41 years. PM Modis Austria trip holds a great significance as it coincides with 75 years of establishing bilateral diplomatic relations between the two countries. During his two-day Vienna visit, PM Modi will meet Austria President Alexander Van der Bellen who is fondly called VDB. Advertisement Upon his arrival, Modi was received by Austria Chancellor of Austria Karl Nehammer who will also be accompanying the prime minister when he will address business leaders from India and Austria later on Wednesday. The visit of PM Modi is also expected to further strengthen trade and investment as well as defence ties between India and Austria. In May last year, both the countries had discussed enhancing bilateral ties in trade and investments, defence, consular and migration among other things. With PM Modi heading to Vienna, the Indian Navy is getting to utilise Austria-made Unmanned Air System (UAS) for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). This marks an important milestone in bilateral technological collaboration. CAMCOPTER S-100 UAS has been developed, designed and produced by Schiebel that was founded in 1951 in Vienna. Talking to Firstpost, Schiebel Indias CEO Jajati Mohanty said: Austrian aerospace and security companies have been at the forefront of technological progress particularly in manufacturing, drones, space equipment, small satellites, robotics, cyber security to name a few and have built up dedicated knowledge management for ensuring consistent and quality products." Indias Atmanirbharta or self-reliance needs the same dedicated approach for quality and consistency in manufacturing of a product, he further said. The knowledge and experience Austria has gained over the years to convert ideas to rugged products calls for areas like unmanned systems, cyber security, precision manufacturing (production engineering), robotics and space technology to be the go to sector for the start-up bridge. All these areas are very fundamental to the industry base of any country that wants to consolidate as well as forge ahead in niche products, Mohanty further said. Advertisement The Indian Navy is using CAMCOPTER S-100 UAS for ISR to monitor the sea lane of communication in IOR and has been doing the same with unmanned systems since the beginning of 21st century using fixed wing UAVs operated from shore as well as the ships by handing over control to ships at sea. Soon, Indian Coast Guard and Indian Army will also be using Austria-made CAMCOPTER S-100 UAS, Mohanty said, adding, We are in the process of participating in tenders pertaining to Coast Guard and the Army which have similar requirements and specifications." Also Read: Camcopter S-100 will provide much-needed flexibility in sea-based ops to Indian Navy, says Schiebel India CEO Jajati Mohanty Advertisement Also Read: Eyes on India-Austria economic ties as Modi visits Vienna tomorrow, first in 41 years Addressing a joint press meet with PM Modi, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said, The conflict in the Middle East was a major topic and in addition to this challenging geopolitical situation, we also referred to the positive aspects of our cooperation read more Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Wednesday said that he had a very intensive talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Last night and this morning, we had very intensive talks about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. For me, as the Federal Chancellor of Austria, it is particularly important to get to know Indias assessment and to understand it and familiarise India with European concerns and worries, Chancellor Nehammer said during a joint press meet after the delegation level talks between India and Austria on Wednesday. Advertisement Modi is on a two-day visit to Vienna, becoming the first Indian prime minister to visit Austria in 41 years. Speaking in detail about the discussion during India-Austria delegation talks, Chancellor Nehammer said, The conflict in the Middle East was a major topic and in addition to this challenging geopolitical situation, we also referred to the positive aspects of our cooperation." #WATCH | Vienna: Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer says, "...Last night and this morning, we had very intensive talks about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. For me, as the Federal Chancellor of Austria, it is particularly important to get to know India's assessment pic.twitter.com/Vo83b89zu0 ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 In his address, PM Modi also informed that he held a detailed discussion with Chancellor Nehammer about the ongoing conflicts in the world including the Russia-Ukraine war and Israel-Hamas war in West Asia. I have already told earlier that now is not the time for war. Problems cannot be solved on battlefields. Killing of innocent people is unacceptable, PM Modi said. Advertisement The Indian Prime Minister further said for immediate peace and stability, India and Austria stress on dialogue and diplomacy. India-Austria delegation level talks were held during PM Modis Vienna visit on July 10, 2024. Source: X/@MEAIndia For peace and stability, both India and Austria together are ready to provide all possible assistance, PM Modi said. Modi and Nehammer also discussed challenges including climate change and terrorism. Addressing the press meet with Chancellor @karlnehammer in Vienna. https://t.co/dKleqH32KH Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 10, 2024 Advertisement We both strongly condemn terrorism. We agree that it is not acceptable in any form. It cannot be justified in any way, PM Modi said. What PM Modi discuss with Austrian Chancellor during delegation-level talks? Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) informed in a post on X that PM Modi held extensive and fruitful talks with Chancellor Nehammer and their dicussion covered various dimensions of the bilateral partnership, including trade and investment, S&T, green energy, AI, Start-ups, environment and climate change, cultural cooperation and people to people ties. The leaders also exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said. Advertisement Energising - ties! PM @narendramodi held extensive and fruitful talks with Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer today. Discussions covered various dimensions of the bilateral partnership, including trade & investment, S&T, green energy, AI, Start-ups, environment & climate pic.twitter.com/aG2GEUTPkK Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) July 10, 2024 India-Austria share relations of trust Addressing the joint press, Chancellor Nehammer said: There is a very good relationship between India and Austria. Its a relationship of trust which began in the 1950s. India has been Austrias important and a supporter when it came to peace negotiations" Advertisement India helped Austria and in 1955, the negotiations came to a positive conclusion with the Austrian State Treaty. What unites India and Austria is concern over the development of the geopolitical situation, Chancellor Nehammer further said. #WATCH | Vienna: Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer says, "...There is a very good relationship between India and Austria. It's a relationship of trust which began in the 1950s...India helped Austria and in 1955, the negotiations came to a positive conclusion with the Austrian pic.twitter.com/Vg4wX0e1IK ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 Indias role for Austria is more than important Before his visit to Austria, PM Modi paid a visit to the Russian President. Therefore, it was particularly important for me to hear about the Prime Ministers personal assessment regarding the intentions of Russia in respect of the peace progress. Our shared objective is to achieve a comprehensive, just and permanent peace in line with the UN Charter. My cabinet has been in constant contact with the EU, Chancellor Nehammer further said. For me, it was an important signal that India, as a founding member of the BRICS, participated in the Swiss Peace Summit Today, we have been talking about an even stronger commitment and about the possibilities of reviving the peace process. PM Modi and myself discussed the unique position of India in the so-called global south, he further said. India is an important, influential and credit-worthy country. India is the biggest democracy in the world. Therefore, Indias role, especially for Austria, is more than important when it comes to the peace process and future peace summits. As a reliable partner, Austria will be available as a site for dialogue, making use of its unique position as a neutral country - a member of the EU but not a member of NATO, Chancellor Nehammer said. #WATCH | Vienna: Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer says, "Before his visit to Austria, PM Modi paid a visit to the Russian President. Therefore, it was particularly important for me to hear about the Prime Minister's personal assessment regarding the intentions of Russia in pic.twitter.com/BolfkT5R8Y ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 Austria wants to boost trade with India The Austrian Chancellor further said: Currently the world economy finds itself in a challenging situation. Against this background, it is particularly important for Austria - a strongly export oriented country to find new forms of economic cooperation. Today, there are already excellent economic and trade relations with India, marked by mutual trust and confidence." He went on to say that the current trade volume is 2.7 billion Euro. More than 150 Austrian businesses are operating in India and we expect the number to increase. There will also be Indian investments in Austria. There is high demand for economic cooperation, particularly when it comes to renewable energy, environment and urban technology, urban development and infrastructure development, Chancellor Nehammer said. #WATCH | Vienna: Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer says, "...Currently the world economy finds itself in a challenging situation. Against this background, it is particularly important for Austria - a strongly export oriented country to find new forms of economic cooperation. pic.twitter.com/7DVZICj8Mu ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 With inputs from agencies Hosted by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Modis visit was a milestone in celebrating 75 years of diplomatic relations between India and Austria. He became the first Indian PM to visit Austria in 40 years read more Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Austria marked a significant diplomatic engagement as he arrived in Vienna for a two-day trip, the first by an Indian Prime Minister in over 40 years. Hosted by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Modis visit was a milestone in celebrating 75 years of diplomatic relations between India and Austria. Here is a summary of key events and discussions during his visit: 1. Modi arrived in Vienna from Moscow on July 9 and was welcomed by Chancellor Nehammer for a private meeting. Advertisement 2. The two leaders held talks at the Federal Chancellery, discussing various topics, including the long-pending EU Free Trade Agreement and ways to strengthen bilateral ties. 3. Modi received a formal reception at the Federal Chancellery and signed the guestbook, marking the occasion. 4. Modi and Nehammer discussed the Russia-Ukraine conflict and agreed on the importance of dialogue and diplomacy. Nehammer offered Austria as a neutral venue for peace talks. 5. At Hofburg Palace, Modi and Nehammer met with CEOs from both countries, promoting collaboration in infrastructure, renewable energy, and technology, and inviting Austrian companies to invest in India. 6. Modi and Nehammer addressed a potential cooperation agreement between Indian and Austrian technical universities, aiming to enhance collaboration in various fields including pharmaceuticals and space technology. 7. Modi suggested organising a joint hackathon to boost digital infrastructure and innovation between the two countries. 8. Modi met with Nobel Laureate Anton Zeilinger, discussing Indias National Quantum Mission and the future of quantum technology. 9. Modi and Austrian influencers explored Indology, Indian history, and culture, discussing the impact of these fields on academic and intellectual curiosity in Austria. Advertisement 10. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with members of the Indian diaspora at a community event in Vienna. The crowd chanting Modi Modi warmly welcomed him. During the event, Modi spoke about Indias 8% growth rate and his future plans to take the country among the top 3 economies of the world. 11. He also highlighted Indias role as a global friend saying India gave Buddh not Yuddh to the world underlining his commitment to do everything possible for bringing peace in war-torn nations. Overall, Modis visit was marked by a strong focus on deepening India-Austria relations, enhancing cooperation in various sectors, and addressing global issues of mutual concern. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that he expected allies to agree on a comprehensive package of support for Ukraine, comprising five key elements. read more Norway will donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to defend itself from Russian attacks, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre said Wednesday, adding that the jets will be important for Kyiv. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in Washington that the gathering will be a celebration and an opportunity for NATO members to make significant decisions about their future. Stoltenberg announced that he expected allies to agree on a comprehensive package of support for Ukraine, comprising five key elements: Advertisement - NATO command will provide security assistance and training to Ukraine - A long-term commitment to sustain support for Ukraines security - New announcements of immediate support, including air defence capabilities - Bilateral security agreements between Ukraine and individual NATO member states - Enhanced efforts to improve interoperability between Ukrainian and NATO forces Ukraine has long pleaded for the sophisticated fighter to give it a combat edge against Russian firepower. No date was announced as to when Norway will donate the six jets, but Gahr Stre said, we aim to start the donations during 2024. He said Kyivs ability to defend itself against attacks from the air is absolutely crucial in its defensive battle against Russia. Last year Gahr Stre said during a trip to Kyiv that Norway would donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine but didnt specify how many. After 42 years of service, the Nordic NATO member phased out its aging fleet of F-16 fighters in 2021 and is replacing them with new F-35A Joint Strike Fighter jets. Norway is the third European country after the Netherlands and Denmark to donate F-16 planes to Ukraine. Oil-rich Norway is one of the worlds biggest donors to Ukraine. China accused the European Union of protectionism and reckless distortion of the definition of subsidies in response to that investigation. The EU has also investigated Chinese companies bidding for a 455-megawatt solar park in Romania and for the procurement of 20 electric trains in Bulgaria. read more Wind turbines dot the coast line along a giant solar farm near Weifang in eastern China's Shandong province on March 22, 2024. - File Photo- AP China announced an investigation on Wednesday into whether the European Union has engaged in unfair trade practices in its probes of Chinese companies bidding on projects within the 27-nation bloc. This move is believed to be the latest development in a growing trade war between the two economic giants. According to the Chinese Commerce Ministry, the investigation will target sectors including wind power, photovoltaics, security equipment, and electric trains. The EU has been using a new regulation to scrutinize companies bidding for projects within its borders. This includes investigating whether Chinese subsidies give wind turbine companies an unfair advantage in competing for projects in Spain, Greece, France, Romania, and Bulgaria. Advertisement China accused the European Union of protectionism and reckless distortion of the definition of subsidies in response to that investigation. The EU has also investigated Chinese companies bidding for a 455-megawatt solar park in Romania and for the procurement of 20 electric trains in Bulgaria. The Chinese investigation will be completed before Jan. 10, with a possible extension of three months to April. It was requested by Chinas Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products. The EU imposed provisional tariffs on China-made electric vehicles last week over subsidies that it alleges give an unfair advantage to automakers exporting from China. In response, China has launched an investigation into European pork exports. Both the EU and the United States are worried that inexpensive Chinese automobiles could overwhelm their domestic producers and lead to factory layoffs. Chinese auto exports have risen about 30% in the first six months of this year. With inputs from agencies. The caretaker government in Pakistan announced the decision last year in October to expel all illegal foreigners, which hit the Afghans living in Pakistan, especially hard. read more The deportation of illegal Afghan refugees has been going on since the governments ultimatum for them to leave Pakistan by November 1 last year. File Photo- FP The Pakistan government on Wednesday granted a one-year extension to registered Afghan refugees till June 30 next year, a respite for Afghan nationals living legally in the country who were facing deportation. The decision comes a day after the visiting United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The federal cabinet approved a one-year extension of the validity of PoR (Proof of Registration) cards of 1.45 million Afghan refugees. Their PoR cards have been expired on June 30, 2024. The extension has been granted until June 30, 2025, the Prime Ministers Office said in a statement. Advertisement The decision, which was taken in a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Sharif, came amid reports that Pakistan had suspended the repatriation of Afghans without legal documents. Last year in October, the caretaker government announced the decision to expel all illegal foreigners, which hit the Afghans living in Pakistan, especially hard. The deportation of illegal Afghan refugees has been going on since the governments ultimatum for them to leave Pakistan by November 1 last year. There is no official data but it is believed that about half a million Afghans living illegally left the country. It is said that nearly 1.7 million illegal Afghans have lived in Pakistan for decades. Meanwhile, the UNHCR welcomed the decision to extend the stay of Afghans, the Dawn newspaper reported. This is a big relief for refugees who were facing uncertainty and anxiety, UNHCR spokesman Qaisar Khan Afridi told the newspaper. He said the generous gesture demonstrated Pakistans commitment to the global refugee cause and showed solidarity and compassion towards refugees at a time when displaced people need our support. Separately, the Foreign Office rejected the UNHCR chiefs claim that Pakistan suspended the repatriation of illegal aliens. Advertisement This is not true. It may be noted that no such understanding has been given by Pakistan to the UNHCR, including in recent meetings with the High Commissioner for Refugees, Mumtaz Zehra Baloch told the newspaper. Earlier, UNHCR Commissioner Filippo Grandi, after his three-day visit on Tuesday confirmed the suspension of the repatriation plan after meeting with Pakistani leaders. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharifs cabinet said it approved an extension until June 2025 for the 1.45 million Afghan refugees legally residing in the country who hold Proof of Registration cards read more Islamabad's announcement came the day after a three-day visit by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi Image Courtesy Reuters Islamabad said on Wednesday that 1.45 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan will be permitted to remain for an additional year, but it vowed that the expulsion of unregistered migrants would go on. Since Islamabad last year ordered unauthorized migrants to leave or risk imprisonment as relations with Kabul worsened over security, nearly 600,000 Afghans have departed Pakistan. Human rights observers cautioned that individuals deported to Afghanistan under Taliban rule had minimal assistance and that some may risk persecution from the countrys new government in Kabul. Advertisement Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharifs cabinet said it approved an extension until June 2025 for the 1.45 million Afghan refugees legally residing in the country who hold Proof of Registration cards. The cards expired at the end of last month, leaving holders without legal certainty about their right to remain in Pakistan. Not all Afghan citizens in Pakistan have such cards and even those who do hold them have reported being harassed and intimidated to leave the country. Islamabads announcement came the day after a three-day visit by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi. In a statement on Tuesday, the UNHCR said Grandi expressed appreciation that the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan had been suspended. However a foreign office spokeswoman said this is not true. Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told reporters in a statement: No such understanding has been given by Pakistan to the UNHCR and the scheme remains in place and is being implemented in an orderly and phased manner. Meanwhile, a Pakistani immigration official at the Torkham border crossing said they had begun seizing documents, including refugee registration cards, from departing Afghans. Advertisement We are implementing this directive following instructions from the Ministry of Interior, said the official at the busiest crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This measure aims to ensure they do not return to Pakistan and instead depart permanently, though they may re-enter after obtaining a visa, he told AFP on condition of anonymity. Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the years, fleeing decades of cascading conflict. An estimated 600,000 arrived since the Taliban government seized power in August 2021 and imposed its stark interpretation of Islamic law. Islamabad has previously said its massive eviction scheme is justified by security concerns and its faltering economy. Advertisement Analysts say it is pressuring Kabul over rising attacks in Pakistans border regions with Afghanistan, where the Taliban government is accused of giving militants safe haven. Modi was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport. It is the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Austria in over 40 years, the last being of Indira Gandhi in 1983 read more Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Tuesday from Moscow on a two-day visit to Austria during which the two nations will explore ways to further deepen their bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges. Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more, the prime minister posted on X, along with a series of photographs. Advertisement Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and pic.twitter.com/PJaeOWVOm1 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 9, 2024 Modi was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport. It is the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Austria in over 40 years, the last being of Indira Gandhi in 1983. In a post on X, the Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs said, As the two countries are celebrating 75th Anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will add renewed momentum to India-Austria ties. PM @narendramodi arrives in the historic city of Vienna on his first bilateral visit to Austria. Welcomed by FM @a_schallenberg at the airport. As the two countries are celebrating 75th Anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will pic.twitter.com/5YvfgFzbRS Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) July 9, 2024 Advertisement Modi will call on the President of the Republic of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and hold talks with Chancellor of Austria Karl Nehammer on Wednesday. The Prime Minister and Chancellor will also address business leaders from India and Austria. Ahead of his visit to Austria, Modi on Sunday said that the shared values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law form the bedrock upon which the two countries will build an ever-closer partnership. Advertisement Modis remark came a day after Austrian Chancellor Nehammer posted on X, I very much look forward to welcoming Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, the worlds largest democracy, next week in Vienna. This visit is a special honour as it marks the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over 40 years and a significant milestone as we celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations with India, he said. We will have the opportunity to talk about further deepening our bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges, the Austrian chancellor said. Responding to Nehammer, Modi said, Thank you, Chancellor Karl Nehammer. It is indeed an honour to visit Austria to mark this historic occasion. I look forward to our discussions on strengthening the bonds between our nations and exploring new avenues of cooperation. The shared values of democracy, freedom and rule of law form the bedrock upon which we will build an ever closer partnership, he said. Modi and Austrian Chancellor push for speedy EU Free Trade Agreement Emphasising that India and the European Union have the largest and most vibrant free-market space in the world, India and Austria on Wednesday discussed the India-EU relationship and said the long-pending EU Free Trade Agreement must be expedited. Noting that deeper EU-India ties will be mutually beneficial as well as have a positive global impact, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Prime Minister Narendra Modi also reaffirmed their strong support for the ongoing India-EU trade and investment negotiations and the early implementation of the EU-India Connectivity Partnership. Modi paid an official two-day visit to Austria at the invitation of Chancellor Nehammer, the first visit to Austria of an Indian Prime Minister after 41 years in a year that marks the 75th year of diplomatic relations between the two countries. A set of issues on which both Chancellor and the Prime Minister focused was India-EU relationship, as you know, in their EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has been under negotiation for over 23 years, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said at a media briefing here on Modis visit. Prime Minister Modi and the Austrian Chancellor agreed that this was an awfully long time for discussions to have been dragged on and they agreed that this is something that both India and they should try to try in terms of taking it forward at a quicker pace, Kwatra said. They of course, also spoke about the range of opportunities both in the economic and political space, he said, adding, They are in India-EU partnership and also how India-Austria relationship positions synergistically in the overall India-EU relationship. The EU is Indias third largest trading partner, accounting for 88 billion Euros worth of trade in goods in 2021 or 10.8 per cent of total Indian trade. India is the EUs 10th largest trading partner, accounting for 2.1 per cent of EU total trade in goods. Trade in services between the EU and India reached 30.4 billion Euros in 2020, according to the figures available on the EU website. (PTI) Modi was seen hugging Nehammer in one of the photos while in another, the Austrian chancellor was seen clicking a selfie with the prime minister read more Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Tuesday from Moscow on a two-day visit to Austria and was hosted by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer for a private engagement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. An important milestone in India-Austria partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnership lie ahead, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X, along with photographs of the two leaders together in Vienna. Advertisement An important milestone in - partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnership lie ahead. pic.twitter.com/G9L41qVR5I Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) July 9, 2024 Modi was seen hugging Nehammer in one of the photos while in another, the Austrian chancellor was seen clicking a selfie with the prime minister. Nehammer posted a photo of him and Modi on the microblogging platform and said: Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit! Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi ! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit! pic.twitter.com/e2YJZR1PRs Karl Nehammer (@karlnehammer) July 9, 2024 The prime minister thanked the Austrian chancellor for the warm welcome and said he looks forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good. Advertisement Thank you, Chancellor @karlnehammer, for the warm welcome. I look forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good. pic.twitter.com/QHDvxPt5pv Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 9, 2024 In another post on X, Modi said: Happy to meet you in Vienna, Chancellor @karlnehammer. The India-Austria friendship is strong and it will get even stronger in the times to come. This is the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Austria in more than 40 years, the last being of Indira Gandhi in 1983. Advertisement During Modis visit to Austria, the two countries will explore ways to further deepen their relationship and closer cooperation on various geopolitical challenges. Earlier, the prime minister said on X: Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more. Modi was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport. In an earlier post on X, the MEA spokesperson said, As the two countries are celebrating 75th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will add renewed momentum to India-Austria ties. Modi will call on the President of the Republic of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and hold talks with Nehammer on Wednesday. Advertisement The prime minister and the chancellor will also address business leaders from India and Austria. Ahead of his visit to Austria, Modi on Sunday said the shared values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law form the bedrock upon which the two countries will build an ever-closer partnership. Modis remark came a day after Nehammer posted on X: I very much look forward to welcoming Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, the worlds largest democracy, next week in Vienna. This visit is a special honour as it marks the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over 40 years and a significant milestone as we celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations with India, he said. Advertisement We will have the opportunity to talk about further deepening our bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges, the Austrian chancellor said. Responding to Nehammer, Modi said, Thank you, Chancellor Karl Nehammer. It is indeed an honour to visit Austria to mark this historic occasion. I look forward to our discussions on strengthening the bonds between our nations and exploring new avenues of cooperation. The shared values of democracy, freedom and rule of law form the bedrock upon which we will build an ever closer partnership, he said. Russias Charge daffaires Roman Babushkin said during PM Modis two-day Moscow visit, India-Russia have decided to go ahead with the national currency settlement system read more Russia's President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia July 9, 2024. Source: REUTERS. During Prime Minister Narendra Modis two-day Moscow visit, India and Russia have agreed to continue together to promote bilateral trade settlement using national currency. Russias Charge daffaires Roman Babushkin on Wednesday said one of the important points in India-Russia joint statement was that both the counties have decided to go ahead with the national currency settlement system. As per a release by the PM office (PMO), both the sides will also consult on the interoperability of their financial messaging systems. Advertisement The Sides agreed to continue working together to promote bilateral settlement system using national currencies. The Sides agreed to continue consultations for interoperability of their financial messaging systems, the release said. Modi-Putin meet historic and game-changing Babushkin termed the meeting between PM Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin historic and game-changing. It (the Modi-Putin meeting) is a historic and game changing move, especially given the turbulent and violent environment around us, Babushkin said. Putin and PM Modi enter a hall during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia July 9, 2024. Source: REUTERS. Modi-Putin meet overshadowed all other events The Russian diplomat further said that PM Modis visit to Russia on July 8 and 9 and his meetings with President Putin got a good and unprecedented coverage and presumably overshadowed all the other events." It seems that the whole world was watching. It was a contact of two independent global powers, he said, adding that external factors dont play much role when it comes to Russia-India relations." Babushkin said that the focus of talks between Modi and Putin were expanding India-Russia trade and economic ties. VIDEO | Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of the Russian Federation in India, Roman Babushkin addresses press conference on the outcomes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Moscow. pic.twitter.com/Plf5NmpFIn Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 10, 2024 Advertisement Programme 2030 To strengthen trade and economic cooperation between the two nations, the leaders have instructed the concerned agencies to prepare a programme for development of promising areas of Russian-Indian economic cooperation till 2030 (Programme-2030). The programme aims to ensure the dynamic growth of trade in goods and services between the two countries. Putin and PM Modi attend a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia July 9, 2024. Source: REUTERS. To further boost as well as sustain the growth in bilateral trade, both the leaders set a new trade target of USD 100 billion by 2030. Advertisement Indians in Russian Army would be discharged Babushkin also said that Russia was on the same page as India on the issue of Indian nationals working as support staff in the Russian army, and hopes to resolve it soon. We are on the same page with India on this problem. The Russian Army does not need them there may be 50, 60 or 100 Indians and they dont really change the situation in the battleground in any way. Its our common problem, he said. The Russian diplomat clarified that over 100 Indian recruits in the Russian army were not a part of any activities within conflict zones. Advertisement Indians were sent to Russia illegally Babushkin went on to say that these Indians were cheated by agents who are into criminal activities and sent to Russia illegally. We are committed to finding a solution to this problem as early as possible, he said. We do not want them, and we are investigating the agents who recruited and deceived them. Agents from Russia are also under investigation. All Indian nationals in Russia are there on visitor or business visas, and we have no mechanism for recruiting Indian or other foreign nationals into our army, Babushkin further said. The issue was also raised by Modi during his one-on-one meeting with Putin after which the latter assured the PM that the Indian nationals in the Russian Army would be discharged. Advertisement With input from agencies Modi, who is visiting Austria after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday night on a two-day visit - the first by an Indian prime minister in over 40 years, earlier in the day met with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer read more Delegation of India and Austria during the bilateral meeting in Austria. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday met Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen here and the two leaders discussed ways to further expand bilateral cooperation. Had a very good meeting with Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and discussed ways to expand India-Austria cooperation, Modi said in a post on X after the meeting. Modi, who arrived here from Moscow after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday night on a two-day visit - the first by an Indian prime minister in over 40 years, earlier in the day met with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer. Advertisement Had an excellent meeting with Chancellor @karlnehammer. This visit to Austria is very special because it is after several decades that an Indian Prime Minister is visiting this wonderful country. It is also the time when we are marking 75 years of the India-Austria friendship, Modi said in a series of posts on X. There are several shared principles that connect us such as democracy and rule of law. In the spirit of these shared values, Chancellor @karlnehammer and I agreed to further cement the India-Austria friendship across various sectors, he said. Stronger economic ties naturally featured in our talks but we do not want to limit our friendship to only this aspect. We see immense potential in areas like infra development, innovation, water resources, AI, climate change and more, he said in another post. Modi also interacted with business leaders from the two countries and invited Austrian companies to invest in India in infrastructure, energy, emerging technologies and other sectors. Yoon made the comments in Hawaii, where he discussed the importance of the combined defence posture of U.S. and South Korean forces with the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Samuel Paparo, the presidents office said in a statement read more North Koreas arms trade with Russia is a threat to global peace, and strength and alliances among liberal democracies are critical in safeguarding freedom from reckless elements, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Tuesday. Yoon made the comments in Hawaii, where he discussed the importance of the combined defence posture of U.S. and South Korean forces with the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Samuel Paparo, the presidents office said in a statement. Advertisement North Korea threatens peace not only on the Korean peninsula but also globally by engaging in illegal weapons trade with Russia, Yoon said in his remarks to U.S. military leaders and troops. Yoon stopped in Hawaii on his way to Washington to attend a NATO summit, representing one of its four Asia-Pacific partners. Concerns over North Koreas military buildup are deepening after it signed a pact with Russia last month that includes a mutual defence agreement, Yoon said. In order to protect our freedom and democracy and economic prosperity from these reckless elements, solidarity among countries that share values as well as strength is essential. Yoon has warned Russia over its deepening military ties with North Korea. Seoul and Washington say North Korea has been supplying artillery and ballistic missiles to Russia for use in Ukraine, which both Moscow and Pyongyang deny. Rishi Sunak risked his political career on this plan, the Rwanda plan his solution to the problem of illegal immigrants seeking asylum in the UK. Keir Starmer promised to scrap the scheme, calling it a gimmick. He has fulfilled his promise. But the UK paid $307 million to Rwanda for the scheme. What happens to the money now? read more In April 2022, the Rishi Sunak government of the United Kingdom said that any asylum seeker from a safe country such as France entering the country illegally after January 1 of that year, would be sent to Rwanda. The landlocked east-central African country was recognised as a safe country in the law, enacted finally in April 2024. Rwanda was to be compensated by the UK for accommodating asylum seekers. The Sunak government, in fact, paid $307 million to the Rwanda government under this scheme. Advertisement There were over 52,000 asylum seekers in the UK when the Sunak government brought the law and signed an agreement with Rwanda. Close to 30,000 more asylum seekers entered the UK illegally in 2023 and the number of such people this year by June was over 11,000. They all faced the possibility of being deported to Rwanda, which was to process their asylum claims rather than the UK. Keir Starmer, then the opposition leader and now the UK prime minister, had said back then that if elected to govern, he would scrap the scheme. He has done that. The authorities had begun detaining asylum seekers in May, with then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak championing the policy to halt migrants arriving on small boats from mainland Europe. But on Saturday, Starmer declared that the deportation plan devised by the preceding Conservative government to send asylum seekers to the East African nation, was dead and buried. The controversial scheme had been mired in legal battles in the UK, preventing its implementation. Will Rwanda pay the money back? In January this year after Sunak brought the bill to the UK parliament, Rwanda President Paul Kagame said that the money given by the Sunak government to the UK was only going to be used if those people will come. If they dont come, we can return the money. Advertisement However, he later specified there was no obligation to do so. His explanation has now become the official statement of the Rwanda government. Despite the Sunak governments repeated attempts, the flight to Rwanda with targeted asylum seekers for removal from the country could never take off from the UK. Multiple court cases saw flights being delayed and cancelled. Now, on Tuesday, the Rwandan government clarified that the scrapped multi-million pound migrant deal with Britain, annulled by the newly elected Labour government over the weekend, contained no provisions for repaying funds already transferred. Rwandas deputy government spokesperson, Alain Mukuralinda, confirmed on state television that the agreement lacked any clause necessitating the repayment of funds. Let this be clear, paying back the money was never part of the agreement, Mukuralinda stated. He elaborated that the UK had initiated the partnership request, which was extensively negotiated, and the agreement had even been amended following court rulings. Advertisement The multiple issues with the Rwanda plan The scheme faced numerous legal challenges, with the UK Supreme Court ruling that it contravened international law. Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had enacted legislation declaring Rwanda a safe country, overcoming one significant legal hurdle despite concerns regarding human rights laws. The Labour Party pledged to scrap the scheme prior to the July 4 election, a commitment they honoured following their landslide victory. In his first press conference, Starmer firmly announced the schemes termination, stating, The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started. Im not prepared to continue with gimmicks that dont act as a deterrent. Advertisement Starmer criticised Sunaks policy as neither a deterrent nor cost-effective, vowing instead to tackle the issue by dismantling the people-smuggling networks responsible for the Channel crossings. Earlier on Tuesday, three asylum seekers who had legally challenged the UKs attempt to deport them to Rwanda saw their cases resolved. Immigration has surged as a pivotal political issue since the UKs departure from the European Union in 2020, driven largely by promises to regain control of national borders. Rwanda, home to 13 million people in Africas Great Lakes region, is frequently lauded for its modern infrastructure and stability, yet rights groups accuse Kagames government of suppressing dissent and free speech. Advertisement A serious issue mired in politics? Critics of Sunaks government had condemned the plan as inhumane, arguing that it exposed asylum seekers to the risk of being returned to countries where they might face danger. Nonetheless, Sunak had staunchly defended the policy, asserting in April, No ifs, no buts. These flights are going to Rwanda. The issue of asylum seekers has been exacerbated by the arrival of tens of thousands of individuals fleeing conflicts and poverty in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, who have reached Britain via perilous Channel crossings organised by people-smuggling gangs. Starmer highlighted the schemes ineffectiveness, noting, Everyone has worked out, particularly the gangs that run this, that the chance of ever going to Rwanda was so slim less than 1 per cent. Sonya Sceats, chief executive of Freedom from Torture, hailed Starmers announcement as a significant victory for campaigners, refugees, and legal advocates opposing the scheme. Amnesty Internationals secretary-general, Agnes Callamard, had also urged the Labour government to fulfil its promise to abolish the Rwanda pact, stressing the need for an asylum system that delivers security and certainty to all refugees. What next? Starmers decision to halt the deportation policy has been welcomed by rights advocates, who view it as a long-overdue move. He dismissed the plan as a problematic inheritance from the previous government and pledged not to perpetuate ineffective measures. This explains what his governments approach will be in dealing with the issue. Conservative hardliner Suella Braverman, however, criticised Starmers decision, warning of future problems stemming from the schemes cancellation. The Labour government now faces the challenge of devising alternative solutions to the migration crisis, a task emphasised by political analysts and rights activists alike, who call for global cooperation to address forced migration effectively. In response to the UKs decision to terminate the Migration and Economic Development Partnership Agreement, Rwandas statement described the UKs stance as its problem, not Rwandas. The statement emphasised that Rwanda had fulfilled its part of the agreement, including financial aspects, and remained committed to contributing to global migration solutions. This means that the UK might have lost $307 million for the care of deported asylum seekers it could not board on a flight from London to Kigali. Passenger flights between the two countries were halted in 2012 when Riyadh severed ties with Damascus over President Bashar Assads brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters at the start of the countrys civil war. read more Syrias national airline resumed regular services to Saudi Arabia after a 12-year suspension on Wednesday as the first flight arrived in Riyadh. The move, announced by Syrian Airlines and confirmed to AFP by Syrias ambassador to Saudi Arabia, continues a slow rapprochement between the two governments who restored diplomatic relations last year. Ambassador Ayman Soussan said a Syrian Airlines plane carrying 170 passengers touched down in the Saudi capital, marking the resumption of a regular route. Advertisement He said the two countries have agreed to operate one round-trip flight per week between Riyadh and Damascus after the long pause prompted by Syrias civil war. Syrian transport ministry official Suleiman Khalil said the direct route could be expanded to cover airports in the Saudi cities of Jeddah and Dammam, depending on demand. Passenger flights between the two countries were halted in 2012 when Riyadh severed ties with Damascus over President Bashar Assads brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters at the start of the countrys civil war. Services between Syria and Saudi Arabia resumed in May temporarily for pilgrims taking part in the annual Muslim hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. While Saudi Arabia had championed restoring ties with Assad, the rapprochement has been sluggish. Saudi Arabia only named a new ambassador to Damascus in May, more than a year after the two countries re-established relations. In May 2023, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attended his first Arab summit in 13 years in Saudi Arabia, mending ties with Riyadh and marking the countrys return to the regional fold. Israeli forces launched more deadly strikes across Gaza on Wednesday, according to medical sources and the military, which said it targeted Hamas militants operating from inside a UN agency building read more Blood can be seen in the aftermath of the Israeli airstrike on a UN-run school-turned-shelter in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, on Saturday. AP File Israeli forces launched more deadly strikes across Gaza on Wednesday, according to medical sources and the military, which said it targeted Hamas militants operating from inside a UN agency building. The Israeli army also said it was reviewing an attack on Tuesday in which hospital sources said at least 29 people were killed in a nearby school in the southern Khan Yunis area - the fourth attack on a school building in four days. Advertisement Early on Wednesday, four people were killed and one critically wounded in the bombing of a house in the central town of Nuseirat, a hospital source told AFP. And two people were killed and six injured in another strike on a home in Bani Suhaila, near Khan Yunis, according to another hospital source. Israel has stepped up air and ground attacks in Gaza City and southern Gaza since issuing evacuation orders for tens of thousands of people in the war-stricken Palestinian territory. The heightened military strikes come as Israeli officials start talks in Qatar on Wednesday on reaching a truce in the war raging since the October 7 Hamas attacks. The Israeli military said that one overnight attack in Gaza City targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets operating from inside the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinians UNRWA. The UN agency has not had control of the building since October. Israeli forces said in February they had found a Hamas tunnel underneath the headquarters. Advertisement The military said the militants were operating inside UNRWAs headquarters in the area and using it as a base to conduct attacks on IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) troops in the central Gaza Strip. It said that militants had been eliminated and large amounts of weapons found. UNRWA had no immediate comment on the attack, but has said it has no way to verify claims that its facilities are being used by Hamas and its allies. Meanwhile Tuesdays deadly strike near the Al-Awda school in Abasan, near Khan Yunis, brought new condemnation from Hamas over the Israeli military tactics. The Hamas government said a majority of the dead were women and children. Advertisement The Israeli military said the air force had struck a terrorist from Hamas military wing who took part, among other terrorist activities, in the October 7 brutal massacre in southern Israel. It was the fourth time in four days that Gaza school buildings sheltering the displaced had been hit. The military said it was looking into the reports that civilians were harmed, adjacent to the Al Awda school, which it acknowledged was near the location of the strike. The incident is under review. The October 7 attack that started the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. Advertisement The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead. Israels military offensive has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures released Tuesday by the Hamas-run territorys health ministry. NATO members have announced the delivery of five additional Patriot and other strategic air defense systems to help Ukraine. Still more aid announcements were expected at the summit, which marks the alliances 75th anniversary read more Biden will also host a dinner for NATO heads of state and government, an event that would not normally draw attention but has come into focus given concerns over whether Biden can handle the demands of the presidency for another four years Image Courtesy AP As they convene for their annual summit in Washington on July 10, U.S. President Joe Biden and the leaders of other NATO member states are set to announce fresh assistance for the war-torn country of Ukraine. Surrounded by allied leaders he has spent his three years in office cultivating, Biden, 81, hopes the international gathering will help him mount a type of comeback after he lost a June 27 debate and has been under fire for 13 days about his suitability for leadership. Advertisement Biden and the other leaders of NATO now turn to their challenging task after adamantly declaring Tuesday that the 32-member collective security alliance is stronger than its ever been in a speech. The two-year-plus impasse between the West and Russia over Ukraine is at the top of their agenda. But the summit also gives leaders a chance to address other vexing security issues, including the Israel-Gaza war and deepening bonds between Russia, Iran, China and North Korea. Novembers U.S. elections could presage a sharp change in Washingtons support for Ukraine and NATO. Republican candidate Donald Trump, 78, has questioned the amount of aid given to Ukraine in its battle against Russias invasion, as well as U.S. support for allies generally. On the sidelines of the summit, Biden is expected to meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for their first face-to-face talks since his Labour Party won a landslide election victory that ended 14 years of Conservative rule. The countries are key trans-Atlantic allies. Biden will also host a dinner for NATO heads of state and government, an event that would not normally draw attention but has come into focus given concerns over whether Biden can handle the demands of the presidency for another four years. A senior NATO official said this week that Russia lacks the munitions and troops to start a major offensive in Ukraine, but that it could sustain its war economy for three to four more years. Ukraine also has not yet amassed the munitions and personnel it needs to mount its own large-scale offensive operations, the official said. Advertisement Hoping to change the course of the grinding conflict, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wants the alliance to send more weapons and money and offer security guarantees. Hell meet Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, a Trump ally, at the Capitol on Wednesday. Indias relationship with Russia gives it ability to urge Russian President Putin to end war in Ukraine: White House Zelenskyy is attending parts of the NATO summit as a guest but Ukraine ultimately wants to join the group to ward off further future attacks by Russia. That wont happen any time soon. Candidates have to be approved by all of the alliances members, some of which are wary of provoking a direct conflict with Russia. Advertisement Still, some members want the alliance to make clear that Ukraine is moving toward NATO irreversibly and are keen for language in a summit statement beyond the alliances pledge last year that Ukraines future is in NATO. Already, NATO members have announced the delivery of five additional Patriot and other strategic air defense systems to help Ukraine. Still more aid announcements were expected at the summit, which marks the alliances 75th anniversary. Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder said, I think that we trust that India will support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace for Ukraine and will convey to Putin the importance of adhering to the UN charter and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity read more India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russia's President Vladimir Putin at the Atom pavilion at the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (VDNKh) in Moscow, Russia July 9, 2024. Source: Sputnik/REUTERS. India will continue to be a strategic partner for the United States despite concerns over its ties with Russia, the Biden Administration said. The statement from the Biden Administration came soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrapped up his two-day Moscow trip, where he visited at President Vladimir Putins invitation to attend the 22nd India-Russia annual summit. The West was keeping a close eye on PM Modis Russia visit which was first during the Ukraine conflict that began in February 2022. Advertisement On Tuesday, during his talks with Putin, PM Modi told the Russian President that a solution to the Ukraine conflict is not possible on the battlefield and peace efforts do not succeed amid bombs and bullets. Later in the day, spokespersons of the Pentagon and the State Department reacted separately to questions on Indias relationship with Russia and Modis visit to Moscow. India and Russia have had a relationship for a very long time. From a US perspective, India is a strategic partner with whom we continue to engage in full and frank dialogue to include their relationship with Russia. As it relates to the NATO summit being this week, of course, like you, the world is focused on that, Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters at a news conference. The US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller, on the other hand while addressing reporters at his daily news conference, said that the US has been quite clear about its concerns about Indias relationship with Russia. We have expressed those privately directly to the Indian government, and continue to do so. And that has not changed, Miller said. India has been stoutly defending its special and privileged strategic partnership with Russia and maintained the momentum in the ties notwithstanding the Ukraine conflict. India has not yet condemned Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has consistently pitched for a resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy. Advertisement Ryder further said: I do not think anybody will be surprised if President Putin tries to represent this visit in a way that seeks to somehow show that he is not isolated from the rest of the world. And the fact of the matter is President Putins war of choice has isolated Russia from the rest of the world, and it has come at great cost." Their war of aggression has come at great cost, and the facts bear that out, he said. So we will continue to view India as a strategic partner. We will continue to have a robust dialogue with them, Ryder further said. Advertisement When asked by a reporter that Putin is not looking so isolated with the head of the worlds largest democracy being in Moscow, embracing him right now, Ryder responded, saying that PM Modi also met recently with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and offered his assurances that India will continue to do everything within its means to support a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine. I think that we trust that India will support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace for Ukraine and will convey to Mr Putin the importance of adhering to the UN charter and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, he added. Advertisement Miller said the US continues to urge India to support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace in Ukraine, based on the principles of the UN charter based on upholding Ukraines territorial integrity and its sovereignty. And that will continue to be what we will engage with India about. With inputs from PTI The Vatican has said that its doctrine office will prepare a document on women in leadership roles in the Catholic Church. It comes as part of Pope Francis big church reform process, now entering its second main phase with a meeting of bishops in October, known as a synod read more A general view of Saint Peter's Basilica as Pope Francis presides over the closing Mass at the end of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican. Reuters File The Vatican has announced that its doctrinal office will draft a document addressing women in leadership roles within the Catholic Church. This initiative aims to respond to long-standing calls for women to have a more influential role in church affairs. The document will be prepared by the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith as part of Pope Francis broader church reform efforts, which are now entering a significant phase with an upcoming synod of bishops in October. Advertisement Limited details, prompt criticism Details of the document were shared following a Vatican press conference, leaving no opportunity for journalists to seek further clarification. Advocacy groups for womens ordination have criticised the initiative as insufficient, pointing out that decisions regarding womens roles continue to be made by ordained men. The announcement came alongside the release of members of 10 study groups tasked with examining challenging issues in the reform process, such as the roles of women and LGBTQ+ Catholics. Pope Francis initiated the synod over three years ago to create a more inclusive church and to give ordinary Catholics a greater voice, a process that has ignited both hope and apprehension about potential changes. Womens contributions and calls for equality Women play a critical role in the Catholic Church, particularly in education and healthcare, and in passing down the faith. Despite this, they have long faced a second-class status in an institution that restricts priesthood to men. While Pope Francis has reiterated the ban on women priests, he has appointed several women to high-ranking Vatican positions and has encouraged discussions on other ways to amplify womens voices. This includes granting women the right to vote on specific synod proposals, a privilege previously reserved for men. Debate on women deacons Advertisement During his tenure, Pope Francis has formed two commissions to explore the possibility of ordaining women as deacons. Deacons, though not priests, can perform many similar functions, such as presiding over weddings, baptisms, and funerals. However, the results of these commissions have not been disclosed, and in a recent interview, Pope Francis stated that women could not be ordained as deacons. The Womens Ordination Conference, which supports the ordination of women as priests, dismissed the delegation of the issue of women deacons to the doctrinal office as a sign that the church is not seriously considering greater involvement of women. What reforms the church may be looking at Advertisement The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, will prepare an appropriate document addressing theological and canonical questions raised during the synods first phase. Another study group will focus on controversial issues, including the inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals in the church. These groups will collaborate with Vatican offices and continue their work beyond the October meeting, indicating that conclusive outcomes may not be immediate. Following the 2023 synod session, the final text did not address homosexuality, despite earlier calls for greater acceptance of LGBTQ+ Catholics. However, Pope Francis later approved priests offering blessings to same-sex couples, addressing one of the key demands from LGBTQ+ Catholics. South Korea, despite not being a member of Nato, has captured significant attention at the summit being attended by President Yoon due to its potential to sway the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, according to a report read more South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at a recent meeting in the Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, on 27 May 2024. Reuters File Nato leaders are pushing to convince South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to tweak his countrys policy on export of lethal military equipment so that it can provide weapons to war-torn Ukraine, which is running out of firepower in its struggle against Russian forces. According to a Bloomberg report, South Korea, despite not being a member of Nato, has captured significant attention at the summit being attended by Yoon due to its potential to sway the ongoing conflict in Ukraine as it possesses substantial stocks of artillery shells urgently required by the war-torn country. Advertisement But what hold it back? South Korea currently adheres to a strict government policy prohibiting the export of lethal military equipment to nations engaged in armed conflict. However, a defence deal between inked between Russia and North Korea last month has forced Yoon government to consider whether its time to start sending weapons to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy forces in Ukraine. All eyes on Yoon All eyes will be on Yoon, who is attending the Nato summit this week for the third time, as bloc leaders are expecting something positive from the South Korean President. The types of weapons South Korea can provide Ukraine are the ones that can make breakthroughs in the current stalemate on the front lines, Bloomberg quoted Park Won Gon, a professor at South Koreas Ewha Womans University, specialising in international relations, as saying. Zelenskyy, who has been seeking weapons from South Korea since Russias full-scale invasion started in 2022, will be attending the summit in Washington aimed at proving that Nato is as strong as ever in its 75th year. Zelenskyy is also likely to speak at a meeting of the Indo-Pacific Four partners Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea where he could again lay out his case for weapons, reported Yomiuri newspaper. Advertisement According to New York Times, citing a leaked intelligence obtained last year, Washington has been seeking to have Yoon send artillery to help Ukraine. Yoons aides were worried about pressure from US President Joe Biden, a document showed, but the Yoon government has denied the claims. In April, Congress approved $61 billion in funding, which has helped tip the scales, but both the US and its European allies must still enhance their capacity to produce artillery shells. The European Union failed to meet its commitment to supply Ukraine with 1 million rounds of artillery by the end of March. Additional munitions from South Korea could help address these shortages, as Ukraine reportedly requires at least 200,000 rounds monthly_._ Advertisement Any support from South Korea to bolster Ukraines defence capabilities would be greatly appreciated, Yonhap News Agency quoted n unnamed senior NATO official as saying. Yoon has said any decision on sending weapons would depend on Russias action. Lawmaker Kim Gunn, who previously worked as Yoons chief nuclear envoy until February, had said that the threat to supply arms to Ukraine serves as leverage to deter Russia from sending military assistance to North Korea. Officials in Seoul have indicated a red line would be material, especially technologies that could enhance Kims capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. Putin has indicated the possibility of providing Kim with high-precision weapons in response to Western military aid to Ukraine, although he did not rule it out. Advertisement From Seouls point of view, Russias cooperation with North Korea is a direct threat to its national security, Bloomberg quoted Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior fellow with the 38 North Program at the Stimson Center, as saying. She said it not only aids in advancing North Koreas weapons development but helps Pyongyang manage and even improve its national economy by reviving the munitions industry. Lee, who worked as an analyst for the CIAs Open Source Enterprise, said South Korea has been able to deflect pressure by promoting other ways to contribute to Nato, such as cyber security, and Seoul should move cautiously. Direct provision of weapons to Ukraine is a major step, and that decision should be made based on South Koreas national interest, which should also take into consideration its longer-term interest vis-a-vis Russia, she added. Advertisement South Korea weapon stockpile According to Yonhap, South Korea possesses over 3 million 155 millimeter artillery shells, which are NATO standard and used by Ukraine. Seoul may be less worried now about reducing its stockpile, given reports that North Korea may have sent nearly 5 million shells to Russia. This influx has left Kyivs forces at a severe disadvantage, potentially facing a ten-to-one firepower imbalance against President Vladimir Putins troops due to delays in US congressional military aid to Ukraine this year. The Center for Strategic & International Studies suggested in a March report that South Korea could consider supplying 105 mm artillery shells. Although these have shorter range, they are fired from lighter and more mobile howitzers. The report estimates South Korea has up to 3.4 million such shells available for potential use by Ukraine. Meanwhile, countries bordering Russia have been buying weapons from the likes of South Koreas leading defence contractor Hanwha Aerospace Co. Its tanks and howitzers are seen as less expensive than those from US makers and able to defeat Russian systems. With inputs from agencies Samsung has launched the Galaxy Buds3 series alongside the Galaxy Ring and Galaxy Watch7 at its Unpacked event in Paris, France. The Galaxy Buds3 series leverages Galaxy AI to enhance communication, offering features like Interpreter in Listening mode for real-time translations during activities such as foreign language classes with the Galaxy Z Fold6 or Flip6. Users can also control functions through Voice Command, simplifying music playback without touching the earbuds or smartphone. Adaptive EQ and Adaptive ANC optimize sound quality and Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) based on real-time analysis of internal and external sounds via microphones, supported by Adaptive Noise Control, Siren Detect, and Voice Detect. Designed with user comfort and style in mind, the Galaxy Buds3 series features a computational design for a snug fit and modern aesthetic, including Blade Lights for intuitive controls through pinch or swipe gestures. The series offers two designs: Canal Type for immersive sound (Buds3 Pro) and Open Type for versatile, extended use (Buds3). Galaxy Buds3 Pro enhances audio with 2-way speakers and Dual Amplifiers for clear sound, supported by Ultra High-Quality Audio with SSC codec for high-resolution audio playback. Super-Wideband Call ensures high-quality voice calls in diverse noise environments, similar to smartphone call clarity. In terms of battery life, with ANC on, Buds3 will offer up to a total of 24 hours of music playback and 18 hours of talk time. On the other hand, Buds3 Pro will provide up to a total of 26 hours of music playback and 20 hours of talk time. Both the Buds3 and Buds3 Pro also feature IP57 water resistance (earbuds only). Furthermore, Samsung emphasized that the series incorporates recycled plastics from fishing nets and water barrels in its components and uses 100% recycled paper for packaging. Quick specifications: Galaxy Buds3 and Buds3 Pro Pricing and availability The Galaxy Buds3 series is available in Silver and White, with pricing as follows: Buds3: Rs. 14,999 Buds3 Pro: Rs. 19,999 Pre-Book Offers Customers pre-booking Buds3 will receive multi-bank cashback of Rs. 4,000 or an upgrade bonus of Rs. 4,000. Pre-booking Buds3 Pro includes multi-bank cashback of Rs. 5,000 or an upgrade bonus of Rs. 5,000. You can pre-book the Galaxy Buds3 series now at Samsung.com. Sales begin on July 24, 2024. HARBIN At the Jin Shangjing History Museum in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, a gleaming, thumb-sized silver coin attracts curious visitors. The coin, shaped like a double-bladed axe, has a remarkable history. Minted by the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) government, it was the first official currency to be made of silver in Chinese history, said Hu Zhiyuan, director of the guidance department of the museum. The engraved traditional Chinese characters on the silver indicated its information, with Cheng'an referring to the name of the era (1196-1200), and baohuo meaning currency, Hu said. The institutions in charge of forging money and its central government management agency were also inscribed on the coin. Hu said its unique appearance and Chinese inscriptions reflected the influence of traditional Chinese culture during the Jin Dynasty, showcasing the integration of ethnic cultures during its century-long reign. The Jin Dynasty, founded by the Jurchen people, ruled over northern and northeastern China, coexisting with the Song, Liao, Yuan and Western Xia regimes that controlled parts of the country during the period. Hu explained that the Jurchens initially made a living by fishing and hunting and would barter within their tribes. However, they later began using bronze coins from the Liao (916-1125) and Song (960-1279) dynasties ruled by the Khitan and Han people, respectively, as trade between their three groups grew. In 1125, after the Jin regime overthrew the Liao rulers and advanced southward into Song territory, a significant influx of currency and craftsmen from the southern part of China reached the Jin's heartland, which had a profound impact on its own monetary system, according to Hu, adding that the shape and the layout of the Chinese inscriptions of some coins from the Song and the Jin dynasties are similar further evidence of ethnic integration. Hu said that during the century-long interactions between the Song and Jin dynasties, peace prevailed for over 60 years, with the trade of fur, ginseng, tea and textiles flourishing through designated border markets. Peculiar silver coins and ingots of the Jin Dynasty were used and then carried across China. "Through such ingots discovered in what is now Lintong district of Xi'an, Shaanxi province, researchers can see close economic and trade exchanges between the Jurchen and other ethnic groups in different regions of China," Hu said. As the abundance of ice and snow in the winter has drawn more and more tourists to Harbin, an increasing number of visitors are flocking to the museum, delving into the lesser-known stories of the Jurchen and other northern Chinese ethnic groups through its artifacts. Mu Changqing, deputy director of the museum's cultural relics preservation department, said the museum welcomed nearly 180,000 visitors from January to June this year, with a peak of 15,023 visitors in a single day. The museum plans to provide multimedia displays, replicate historical scenes and organize educational lectures so visitors can better learn about the history of the Jin Dynasty and the cultures of different ethnic groups. Hipgnosis executive Merck Mercuriadis (L) and co-founder Nile Rodgers attend the Songwriters Hall of Fame 2024 induction and awards gala in New York on June 13, 2024 Heavy machinery digs up the base of a drained pond where articles of clothing and womens shoes found in the desert near ponds near the bookcliffs as an investigator watches during a media briefing on the MCSOs ongoing investigation into what the sheriffs department calls a suspicious case, on July 9, 2024., Nothing criminal has been found in the investigation thus far. Dale Shrull/The Daily Sentinel The space in a strip mall in the 300 block of North Avenue for Mountain Temp Services Mobile Staffing was closed after a window was broken and a mol tav cocktail was thrown inside. Even though the space is closed, signs on the boarded up windows tell customers that they are still open for business and where to contact them. Police have not identified a motive for the incident. LOS ANGELES, July 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- At the start of the 2024 Fire Season, AXs FireScout AI SaaS technology emerges as a leading technology on a global basis, in combating these devastating events. The fire season has barely begun, yet communities around the globe are already experiencing unprecedented challenges. Early reports indicate a severe season ahead, with increasing numbers of wildfires and acres burned. AX is a global leader in advanced technology solutions, with a presence spanning the United States, Korea, Australia, and Europe. Our mission is to provide cutting-edge, AI-driven solutions to address some of the worlds most pressing issues, including wildfire management, said Michael Plaksin, the President and CEO of AX. He adds, FireScout, our state-of-the-art AI SaaS technology, has already demonstrated significant success in early detection and rapid response to wildfires, helping to save lives, property, and natural resources. FireScouts innovative approach utilizes advanced algorithms and real-time data to identify fire threats faster and more accurately than traditional methods. This proactive system enables firefighting teams to respond swiftly, minimizing the impact of wildfires. Our technology has been implemented across various regions, yielding remarkable results in reducing the devastation caused by these natural disasters. Despite our global successes, the situation in California highlights the urgent need for enhanced fire management solutions. The latest statistics from California are alarming: Over 312,403 total emergency responses have been recorded year-to-date. More than 3,499 wildfires have occurred, almost double the five-year average. Over 197,288 acres have burned, nearly 12x the five-year average. 128 structures have been damaged or destroyed. Average Impact of Wildfires in California: $5B per year, and growing. These numbers do not even account for the upcoming peak months of July through September, indicating a worsening trend that requires immediate action. FireScout is not presently being utilized on as many of California cameras, leaving the state without the internationally proven benefits and accuracy of AXs advanced AI technology, being able to detect fires in less than 1 minute, and providing notifications to first responders anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours prior to a 911 call. It appears, the present alternatives have proven to be insufficient in addressing the scale and intensity of the current and growing fire threats. The State of California urgently needs a more advanced artificial intelligence fire detection software program to support and combat the escalating wildfire crisis. FireScouts proven effectiveness in early detection and rapid response would be a game-changer for California, as it already has in the recent past, providing the much-needed edge to protect lives, properties, and the environment. AX, is a leading technology company specializing in visual artificial intelligence (AI) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. With a focus on visual and facial recognition technologies, AX develops and distributes innovative products that enhance safety and security across various industries worldwide. About AX Founded in 2016, AX is an artificial intelligence Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company that has developed award-winning proprietary technology in the areas of wildfire detection and visual artificial intelligence (AI) including facial recognition, augmented reality, and more. FireScout , the leader in wildfire detection SaaS, utilizes AI to provide wildfire detection in real time on a 24/7/365 basis. FireScout seamlessly integrates into existing camera/monitor systems. We offer the most informative, effective, and supportive user interface system in the market today. FireScout has been used on over 1,000 cameras throughout the Western United States and is considered to be the de facto standard in AI for disaster prevention in wildfire management. Join the Conversation: Follow us on LinkedIn AX and FireScout , Twitter and YouTube . Media Contact: Palak Kapasi Head of Marketing & Public Relations, AX AXmedia@alcherainc.com Photos accompanying this announcement are available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/14b5ad56-dcb4-47d3-8cee-73975bb6bfe6 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d590f7f4-a097-4bcc-bfb6-63db5f688078 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4f8262c0-98eb-4253-9a3c-616750fa052b SPRING, Texas, July 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Io Therapeutics, Inc., presented today results from studies done on the potential for prevention and treatment of normal aging-related neurodegeneration, Parkinsons disease (PD), and Alzheimers disease (AD), with its clinical stage experimental therapeutic RXR nuclear receptor agonist compound IRX4204. IRX4204 is a highly potent and highly selective, orally available, brain penetrant, third generation RXR agonist compound which has been tested in early phase clinical trials in patients with Parkinsons disease or cancers. The presentation titled The highly potent and selective RXR agonist compound IRX4204 is a potential treatment for normal aging-related neurodegeneration, Parkinsons disease (PD), and Alzheimers disease (AD) was delivered at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Seventh International Conference on Retinoids, being held in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. The presentation was authored by Vidyasagar Vuligonda, Ph.D., Chief Science Officer of the company and inventor of IRX4204, and Martin E. Sanders, M.D., the companys Chief Executive Officer. Normal aging-related neurodegeneration has been reported to be substantially related to chronic low-grade inflammation in the brain, so called neuro-inflammaging. Neuro-inflammaging results in chronic loss of myelinated nerve fibers, causing disruption of functional neuroelectrical connections between neurons in various parts of the brain. Chronic neuro-inflammaging eventually leads to death of neurons. These neurodegenerative processes produce loss of memory and cognitive functions, and other functional disabilities in patients with normal brain aging, and in diverse types of neurological conditions including PD, and AD. Neuro-inflammaging is related to imbalance of immunosuppressive T-regulatory cells (Treg) with pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-17 (IL-17) overproducing T-cells (Th17) in the brain. Neuro-inflammaging also is related to overactivity of brain microglia, which produce the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6), and other pro-inflammatory factors. Parkinsons disease (PD) and Alzheimers disease (AD) brains manifest similar neuro-inflammaging pathologies to those observed in normal brain aging, but also have distinct pathologies related to deposition of abnormal misfolded proteins such as alpha synuclein in PD, and beta amyloid in AD. It is generally accepted within the neurodegenerative diseases research community that neuro-inflammaging establishes an at-risk environment within the brain, that may increase vulnerability for development of PD, AD, and other neurodegenerative diseases. The presented studies showed that IRX4204 promotes differentiation and growth of immunosuppressive human Tregs, and inhibits differentiation of pro-inflammatory human Th17 cells, while reducing production of IL-17. IRX4204 also inhibits production by microglia of IL-6 and other pro-inflammatory factors. In addition, IRX4204 promotes differentiation and growth of myelin-producing oligodendrocytes in vitro and promotes myelinated nerve fiber protection and repair (remyelination) in mouse models of demyelination. IRX4204 demonstrated direct beneficial effects alone, and additively in combination with insulin, or thyroid hormone on cortical neurons in vitro, promoting neurite outgrowth, a neuro-reparative mechanism by which damaged neurons may re-establish function-preserving connections with other neurons. These findings support the potential for IRX4204 protecting against or even reversing neuro-inflammaging-induced chronic loss of myelinated nerve fibers and neuronal damage in normal brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases. Further demonstration of IRX4204 beneficial effects in neurodegeneration was provided by in vivo studies in rodent models of PD, and AD. IRX4204 effectively reduced motor deficits in a rat PD model while increasing dopaminergic neuron survival in the rat brains. In a transgenic beta amyloid mouse model of AD, IRX4204 decreased deposition of new beta amyloid in the mouse brains while preserving memory functions in the mice. IRX4204 has demonstrated safety and tolerability of oral dosing in phase I and II clinical trials in 85 patients with various cancers and 15 patients with PD for up to 20 months of continuous treatment. In PD patients, IRX4204 demonstrated brain penetrance, and improvement of motor functions in 13 of 15 patients in open label assessments. The company is planning to initiate a placebo-controlled phase II clinical trial of IRX4204 in Parkinsons disease patients in Q4 of 2024, to further demonstrate safety and efficacy in PD patients. Dr. Vuligonda stated, Our results identify a new approach to potentially slowing or reversing the neurodegeneration of normal aging, as well as treating the pathologic conditions of Parkinsons disease and Alzheimers disease, which cause seriously disabling chronic decline of cognitive and other functional abilities. Dr. Sanders stated, IRX4204 has been safe and well tolerated in patients and has potential to be an effective monotherapy for prevention or treatment of debilitating neurologic manifestations associated with normal aging, Parkinsons disease, Alzheimers disease and other neurologic conditions. In addition, IRX4204 provides opportunities for future development of combination treatments with even greater efficacy for these conditions, by administering IRX4204 with other generally well-tolerated and already available agents, such as insulin, GLP-1 agonists, other neurotrophic factors, thyroid hormone, or anti-beta amyloid monoclonal antibodies. We believe multi-agent combination treatments including IRX4204 will enable development of well tolerated, highly effective preventative and therapeutic interventions for diverse types of neurodegenerative diseases. About Io Therapeutics: Io Therapeutics, Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in Spring, Texas. More information on Io Therapeutics and its product development programs is available on the companys web site: www.io-therapeutics.com Forward Looking Statements: This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Contact: info@io-therapeutics.com NEW ORLEANS, July 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC (KSF) and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until August 5, 2024 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (NYSE: SMG), if they purchased the Companys shares between November 3, 2021 and August 1, 2023, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. What You May Do If you purchased shares of Scotts and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-smg/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by August 5, 2024 . About the Lawsuit Scotts and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On August 2, 2023, the Company disclosed disappointing financial results including a decline in quarterly sales for fiscal third quarter of 6%, a decline in gross margin by 420 basis points, as well as a cut to fiscal year EBITDA guidance by a staggering 25% and a $20 million write down of pandemic driven excess inventories. On this news, the price of Scotts shares fell by $13.58 per share, or 19%, from a closing price of $71.44 per share on August 1, 2023, to a closing price of $57.86 per share on August 2, 2023. The case is City of Hialeah Employees Retirement System v. The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, No. 24-cv-03132. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is one of the nations premier boutique securities litigation law firms. KSF serves a variety of clients including public institutional investors, hedge funds, money managers and retail investors in seeking recoveries for investment losses emanating from corporate fraud or malfeasance by publicly traded companies. KSF has offices in New York, Delaware, California, Louisiana and New Jersey. To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com. Contact: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC LONDON, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a recent series of interviews with World Finance, David Barrett, CEO of EBC Financial Group (UK) Ltd, shed light on EBC Financial Groups strategic growth halfway into 2024, the regulatory landscape, and prospects in the global brokerage market. Navigating the Pandemic and APAC Growth Established in 2020, despite the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, EBC Financial Group has experienced remarkable growth, particularly in the APAC region. Barrett highlighted the unique factors driving this expansion, including the region's age demographic, increasing technology awareness, and rising personal disposable income. "APAC has been the main driver. The growth in virtually every brokers client base has come from that region. China is very busy, but theres a lot of other countries in the region that are very strong growth," Barrett noted. "There's a young audience, they're gathering online more, they have better access to tech, the ability to connect is much, much better than it always used to be," Barrett highlighted, referencing the significant rise in digital engagement and online financial activities. He further explained, "They have disposable income, theyre more affluent than they have been, and they probably want to achieve and to strive. And I suspect thats why APAC has been such a big driver of it." He also cited the impact of the meme stock crash as an example that altered many new traders' engagement levels. The meme stock phenomenon, characterised by the rapid rise and fall of small-cap stocks driven by social media hype, resulted in significant financial volatility and disillusionment among new traders, leading to decreased engagement. "But for the group, I would say our volumes have done nothing but go up," Barrett added. Regulatory Landscape and Global Expansion Barrett addressed the increasing challenges in the onshore brokerage market, driven by tightening regulations and rising operational costs. He highlighted the political influence on onshore regulations in the EEA (European Economic Area), with outright bans on certain products like contract for difference (CFDs) in Spain and strict restrictions in France. "The regulators in mature jurisdictions will continue to be tough. I think we'll see more and more of the smaller players getting driven out of those jurisdictions because the friction costs of maintaining a business is very high," he explained. EBC Financial Group has capitalised on growth opportunities by establishing offices in Bogota, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur, and recently obtaining a full regulatory license from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA). "Caymans we set up mainly because our belief is that the offshore brokerage market will continue to get more difficult from a regulatory, banking, technology provision side of things. So, if you're looking at an offshore jurisdiction, then the Caymans is probably one of the best out there," Barrett stated. EBC Financial Group's growth is further bolstered by strategic partnerships, including a recent three-and-a-half-year collaboration with FC Barcelona. "Partnering with such a globally respected brand underscores our ambition to achieve the highest levels of success," Barrett explained. He also emphasised the company's efforts to stand out in a crowded market through robust brand recognition and quality staff recruitment. Challenges and Future Outlook Looking ahead, Barrett noted that the brokerage industry faces several challenges. "One of the biggest challenges is keeping pace with regulatory changes and ensuring that we remain compliant across all regions. The cost of compliance is rising, and we need to invest heavily in technology and personnel to meet these demands," he said. Barrett also mentioned the importance of sustainable growth: "We have to be careful about where we go and how quickly we expand, because there's dangers in expanding too quickly. Our strategy is to grow organically and ensure that we have the right infrastructure and quality staff in place." Barrett predicted that the consolidation trend in the brokerage industry will continue. "Smaller players will find it increasingly difficult to survive onshore due to high regulatory and operational costs. This will drive more consolidation and push some brokers to explore offshore opportunities. For clients, this could mean access to more diverse investment options," he added. Cybersecurity and Corporate Responsibility In discussing the company's rapid growth, Barrett shared insights on overcoming challenges such as clone attacks. "For a group like us, its an unfortunate distraction but its not uncommon," he said. EBC Financial Group has since partnered with a globally well-renowned cybersecurity firm to monitor and protect its digital presence worldwide. Barrett also highlighted the company's commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability efforts. "As one example, EBCs funding will support the purchase and distribution of 100,000 next-generation bed nets to nearly 25,000 households in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The bed nets will provide powerful protection for 100% of the members of 13 communities - nearly 150,000 people - against mosquitoes that have adapted to other insecticides. This campaign will provide peace of mind for parents and help ensure that students stay in school and young children can make it to their 5th birthday." Other notable CSR initiatives include promoting financial literacy through a webinar series on tax evasion in partnership with the University of Oxfords Economics Department, coupled with direct support for the departments graduate student scholarship fund. EBC Financial Group continues to grow, with over 300 employees and maintaining a mix of cultures and time zones. With a focus on sustainable growth, robust regulatory compliance, and strategic partnerships, the company is well-positioned to navigate the evolving financial landscape. About EBC Financial Group Founded in the esteemed financial district of London, EBC Financial Group (EBC) is renowned for its comprehensive suite of services that includes financial brokerage, asset management, and comprehensive investment solutions. With offices strategically located in prominent financial centres, such as London, Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, the Cayman Islands, Bangkok, Limassol, and more, EBC caters to a diverse clientele of retail, professional, and institutional investors worldwide. Recognised by multiple awards, EBC prides itself on adhering to the highest levels of ethical standards and international regulation. EBC Financial Group (UK) Limited is regulated by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), EBC Financial Group (Australia) Pty Ltd is regulated by Australia's Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), and EBC Financial Group (Cayman) Limited is regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA). At the core of EBC Group are seasoned professionals with over 30 years of profound experience in major financial institutions, having adeptly navigated through significant economic cycles from the Plaza Accord to the 2015 Swiss franc crisis. EBC champions a culture where integrity, respect, and client asset security are paramount, ensuring that every investor engagement is treated with the utmost seriousness it deserves. EBC is the Official Foreign Exchange Partner of FC Barcelona, offering specialised services in regions such as Asia, LATAM, the Middle East, Africa, and Oceania. EBC is also a partner of United to Beat Malaria, a campaign of the United Nations Foundation, aiming to improve global health outcomes. Starting February 2024, EBC supports the 'What Economists Really Do' public engagement series by Oxford University's Department of Economics, demystifying economics, and its application to major societal challenges to enhance public understanding and dialogue. https://www.ebc.com/ Media Contact: Douglas Chew Global Public Relations Lead douglas.chew@ebc.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/25cf0b32-683a-4346-ad97-781a74f52f17 21Shares Immutable ETP (AIMX), 21Shares Injective Staking ETP (AINJ) and 21Shares Sui Staking ETP (ASUI) reflect significant advancements in crypto innovation and investing ZURICH, 10 July 2024 21Shares AG (21Shares), one of the worlds largest issuers of crypto exchange traded products (ETPs), today announced the launch of the 21Shares Immutable ETP (AIMX), the 21Shares Injective Staking ETP (AINJ) and the 21Shares Sui Staking ETP (ASUI) on Euronext Paris and Euronext Amsterdam. AIMX, AINJ and ASUI represent the latest additions to 21Shares growing European product lineup of physically backed crypto ETPs, which offers investors exposure to underlying crypto assets through their existing bank or brokerage. Product Name Ticker ISIN Fee 21Shares Immutable ETP AIMX CH1360612142 2.5% 21Shares Injective Staking ETP AINJ CH1360612134 2.5% 21Shares Sui Staking ETP ASUI CH1360612159 2.5% These launches bring the 21Shares European product lineup to 43 crypto-asset ETPs and over $3.3bn in total assets under management (AUM). The new products harness 21Sharess six years of experience developing, issuing and managing crypto asset ETPs for investors across Europe and around the globe. The world of decentralized finance (DeFi) is constantly evolving, as technological innovation has continued to move at a rapid clip. Meanwhile, investors are expressing ongoing interest in gaining exposure to new blockchain technologies, platforms and protocols, said Hany Rashwan, Co-Founder and CEO of 21Shares. With these latest launches, 21Shares is continuing to expand its industry-leading crypto asset ETP offering to include exposure to three innovative blockchain ecosystems: Immutable, Injective and Sui. 21Shares Immutable ETP (AIMX) The 21Shares Immutable ETP (AIMX), 100% physically-backed, tracks the performance of IMX, offering investors exposure to the growing industries of gaming and digital collectibles. Immutable is a leading blockchain gaming platform that revolutionizes the gaming experience, offering over 200+ blockchain-based games and multiple NFT marketplaces, all while ensuring speed and affordability. By leveraging two innovative scaling solutions, Immutable bypasses Ethereum's limitations, providing a seamless, low-cost environment for both developers and gamers. With strategic partnerships, including industry giant Ubisoft, and robust developer support, Immutable is poised to dominate the crypto gaming market, making it an attractive opportunity for investors seeking to tap into this industry. 21Shares Injective Staking ETP (AINJ) 100% physically-backed, the 21Shares Injective Staking ETP (AINJ) tracks the performance of INJ while capturing staking yields that are reinvested into the ETP for enhanced performance. Whereas blockchain networks are typically siloed, Injective Protocol supports seamless interactions across major networks, enabling a unique range of financial products and services. The 21Shares Injective Staking ETP offers a simple, regulated, and transparent way to benefit from the network's growing importance in decentralized finance (DeFi). 21Shares Sui Staking ETP (ASUI) Sui is a permissionless, Proof of Stake powered Layer 1 blockchain designed for instant settlement, high transaction throughput, and reduced latency in smart contract deployment. It supports a thriving ecosystem of decentralized applications (dApps) including DeFi and GameFi, facilitated by its unique ability to scale while leveraging parallel processing to maintain low costs and high efficiency. 100% physically-backed by SUI tokens, the 21Shares Sui Staking ETP (ASUI) tracks the performance of SUI, while capturing staking yields that are reinvested into the ETP for advanced performance, to offer a simple, regulated, and transparent way for investors to gain exposure to the Sui blockchain. Press Contact: 21Shares: Audrey Belloff, audrey.belloff@21.co About 21.co / 21Shares: 21.co is the worlds leader in providing access to crypto through simple and easy to use products. 21.co is the parent company of 21Shares, one of the worlds largest issuers of crypto exchange traded products (ETPs) which is powered by Onyx, a proprietary technology platform used to issue and operate cryptocurrency ETPs for 21Shares and third parties. The company was founded in 2018 by Hany Rashwan and Ophelia Snyder. 21Shares is registered in Zurich, Switzerland with offices in Zurich, London and New York. For more information, please visit 21Shares. DISCLAIMER This document is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy or subscribe for securities of 21Shares AG in any jurisdiction. Neither this document nor anything contained herein shall form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any offer or commitment whatsoever or for any other purpose in any jurisdiction. Nothing in this document should be considered investment advice. This document and the information contained herein are not for distribution in or into (directly or indirectly) the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan or any other jurisdiction in which the distribution or release would be unlawful. This document does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in or into the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan. The securities of 21Shares AG to which these materials relate have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act), and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act. There will not be a public offering of securities in the United States. Neither the US Securities and Exchange Commission nor any securities regulatory authority of any state or other jurisdiction of the United States has approved or disapproved of an investment in the securities or passed on the accuracy or adequacy of the contents of this presentation. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offence in the United States. Within the United Kingdom, this document is only being distributed to and is only directed at: (i) to investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the Order); or (ii) high net worth entities, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such persons together being referred to as relevant persons); or (iii) persons who fall within Article 43(2) of the Order, including existing members and creditors of the Company or (iv) any other persons to whom this document can be lawfully distributed in circumstances where section 21(1) of the FSMA does not apply. The securities 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. Exclusively for potential investors in any EEA Member State that has implemented the Prospectus Regulation (EU) 2017/1129 the Issuers Base Prospectus (EU) is made available on the Issuers website under www.21Shares.com. The approval of the Issuers Base Prospectus (EU) should not be understood as an endorsement by the SFSA of the securities offered or admitted to trading on a regulated market. Eligible potential investors should read the Issuers Base Prospectus (EU) and the relevant Final Terms before making an investment decision in order to understand the potential risks associated with the decision to invest in the securities. You are about to purchase a product that is not simple and may be difficult to understand. This document constitutes advertisement within the meaning of the Prospectus Regulation (EU) 2017/1129 and the Swiss Financial Services Act (the FinSA) and not a prospectus. The 2023 Base Prospectus of 21Shares AG has been deposited pursuant to article 54(2) FinSA with SIX Exchange Regulation AG in its function as Swiss prospectus review body within the meaning of article 52 FinSA. The 2023 Base Prospectus and the key information document for any products may be obtained at 21Shares AG's website (https://21shares.com/ir/prospectus or https://21shares.com/ir/kids ). ### GKN Automotive has signed a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) with Recurrent Energy covering 65% of its European electricity load This development is a key step in the companys SBTi-approved targets to reduce its direct Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1 and 2) by 45% by 2030 and achieve net zero across the entire value chain by 2045 The agreement facilitates the supply of approximately 2 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of renewable electricity to the European grid over a 10-year period LONDON, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GKN Automotive, the global leader in drive systems, has announced a significant step towards decarbonising its electricity usage by signing a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA)1 with global renewable energy developer and subsidiary of Canadian Solar, Recurrent Energy. The 10-year VPPA agreement will cover 65% of GKN Automotives European electricity load and 30% of its global load, significantly contributing to the companys commitment to using 50% renewable electricity globally by 2025 and 75% by 2030. The joint agreement with Recurrent Energy will establish The Rey I project, a new2 large-scale solar farm in Spain, which will contribute towards the increased supply of renewable electricity to the Spanish grid simultaneously contributing to the decarbonisation of the European grid. The project will facilitate the supply of approximately 200,000 MWh of renewable electricity to the European grid annually, reaching approximately 2 million MWh over the 10-year agreement. GKN Automotive will receive Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) equivalent to 65% of its European 2023 electricity usage. This development is a key step in the companys SBTi-approved targets to reduce its direct Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1 and 2) by 45% by 2030 and achieve net zero across its entire value chain by 2045. GKN Automotive is actively pursuing further VPPAs across Europe and South America, with the aim of further decarbonising its electricity usage across its global operations. Dr. Clare Wyatt, Chief People, Communications & Sustainability Officer at GKN Automotive, said: Signing this VPPA with Recurrent Energy underscores our commitment to achieving our 2045 net zero ambition and contributing to the decarbonisation of the industry. It reflects our intention to continue to drive a cleaner, more sustainable world, through supporting projects that add to the supply of renewable electricity. Ismael Guerrero, CEO of Recurrent Energy, added: Recurrent Energy is pleased to support GKN Automotive's commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2045. Recurrent Energy has a long track record of executing projects at scale for major worldwide customers, and we thank GKN Automotive for trusting us with their first VPPA in Europe. This virtual power purchase agreement exemplifies the dedication of both companies to invest in renewable energy projects that not only benefit operations but also contribute to the broader goal of combatting climate change. Schneider Electric, a global leader in corporate renewable energy procurement and carbon management, advised GKN Automotive in the project selection and VPPA negotiations. John Powers, Vice President, Global Renewables at Schneider Electric, said: "We are excited to support our client in this landmark renewable energy endeavor. This collaboration demonstrates the immense potential of VPPAs in driving sustainability efforts and accelerating the transition to renewable energy on a global scale." 1 Virtual Power Purchase Agreements enable companies like GKN Automotive to influence the mix of electricity on national grids, helping to secure the wider use of greener energy. Through these agreements, GKN Automotive will support the creation and expansion of renewable energy projects across Spain to further decarbonise the electricity supply to the European grid. In return, the company will receive Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) equivalent to 65% of the energy use across all its European sites. 2The electricity generated through this agreement is additional, meaning that without the collaboration between both parties in this instance, an entirely new large-scale renewable energy site would not undergo construction. ABOUT GKN AUTOMOTIVE GKN Automotive is a world-leading global automotive technology company at the forefront of innovation. Its origins date back to 1759 and for the last 70 years it has bee n putting key technologies into series production. It is the trusted partner for most of the worlds automotive companies, specialising in developing, building, and supplying market-leading drive systems and advanced ePowertrain technologies. It is the global leader in sideshafts, with eight out of ten of the worlds best-selling cars outside China using its sideshaft technology. GKN Automotives first eDrive system was fitted to a production car over 20 years ago; today, over two million electrified vehicles worldwide are powered by this technology. GKN Automotive is part of Dowlais Group plc, a specialist engineering group focused on the automotive sector. https://www.gknautomotive.com For further information, please contact: GKN Automotive Corrie Raine External Communications Manager Email: corrie.raine@gknautomotive.com About Schneider Electric Schneiders purpose is to create Impact by empowering all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. At Schneider, we call this Life Is On. Our mission is to be the trusted partner in Sustainability and Efficiency. We are a global industrial technology leader bringing world-leading expertise in electrification, automation and digitization to smart industries, resilient infrastructure, future-proof data centers, intelligent buildings, and intuitive homes. Anchored by our deep domain expertise, we provide integrated end-to-end lifecycle AI enabled Industrial IoT solutions with connected products, automation, software and services, delivering digital twins to enable profitable growth for our customers. We are a people company with an ecosystem of 150,000 colleagues and more than a million partners operating in over 100 countries to ensure proximity to our customers and stakeholders. We embrace diversity and inclusion in everything we do, guided by our meaningful purpose of a sustainable future for all. www.se.com For media inquiries, please contact: Shannon Lappin Davies, Director of Creative & Communications Services: Shannonlappin.davies@se.com Photos accompanying this announcement are available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6538e3ef-7364-49b9-8cfc-d1a66e88d34f https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8ae5013d-4c73-45a0-96be-522e6244550f Dublin, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Saudi Arabia Cybersecurity Market by Component, Security Type, Deployment, Enterprise Size, and Application - Market Size, Industry Dynamics, Opportunity Analysis and Forecast 2024-2032" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Saudi Arabia Cybersecurity Market is experiencing robust expansion, valued at US$ 3.68 billion in 2023 and projected to grow at a CAGR of 12.98% from 2024 to 2032. The market is poised for substantial growth, propelled by an ever-increasing need to mitigate the risks associated with cyber threats in an increasingly digitized world. As organizations and governments delve deeper into digital transformations, the complexity and frequency of cyber-attacks continue to rise, highlighting the critical need for robust cybersecurity measures. This market encompasses a diverse array of solutions including network security, cloud security, endpoint security, and threat intelligence, which are essential for protecting data, applications, and infrastructures from unauthorized access and breaches. Key drivers of this market's expansion include the stringent regulatory demands for data protection, the pervasive adoption of cloud computing, and the escalating severity of cybercrimes, which cost economies billions annually. Additionally, the integration of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain into cybersecurity solutions is enhancing the efficacy and efficiency of security operations, offering advanced threat detection and response capabilities. The cybersecurity landscape is also witnessing a shift towards more proactive and predictive security practices, moving beyond traditional reactive approaches. This strategic focus is crucial as businesses, governments, and individuals strive to stay ahead of sophisticated cyber adversaries. With cybersecurity now a cornerstone of modern enterprise risk management, the market is set to expand significantly, reflecting the critical role it plays in ensuring the secure and reliable operation of our digital world. Growth Influencers The cybersecurity market is undergoing a period of significant expansion, driven primarily by an escalation in both the frequency and complexity of cyberattacks and data breaches. As the threat landscape becomes increasingly intricate, the repercussions of cyber incidents grow more severe, compelling organizations to prioritize investments in cybersecurity solutions and services to protect their digital assets and sensitive data from looming threats. Organizations across diverse sectors are actively seeking advanced cybersecurity solutions to navigate and mitigate these evolving threats. This heightened demand is spurring the growth of the market for security products, including sophisticated firewalls, antivirus software, intrusion detection systems, and robust encryption tools, all designed to provide comprehensive protection against a backdrop of ever-evolving security challenges. In Saudi Arabia, the Urgency of These Cybersecurity Measures is Underscored by Compelling Data malicious attacks represent the primary cause of data breaches, accounting for 61% of all incidents in the region. The country faces approximately 22.5 million cyberattacks annually, highlighting an acute need for effective cybersecurity solutions to safeguard against such high levels of cyber threats. The demand for cybersecurity infrastructure in Saudi Arabia is further fueled by several key drivers as reported by business representatives. These include the need to support business expansion, the necessity to enhance the skills and expertise of IT security professionals, recent experiences with cybersecurity incidents, and the increasing complexity of IT infrastructure. Furthermore, rising profits allow for greater allocation of resources towards strengthening IT security measures. This year, nearly two-thirds (61%) of businesses in Saudi Arabia have identified data protection issues as their most daunting challenge, which includes the loss or exposure of corporate or customer data. Other significant challenges include adopting cloud infrastructure (36%), managing the high costs associated with securing increasingly complex technology hardware and software (36%), and addressing the impacts of downtime and productivity loss (29%). Additionally, there is a notable concern regarding the lack of sufficient cybersecurity skills among employees, which is recognized by 9% of the businesses surveyed. In response to these challenges, organizations are not only increasing their IT security budgets but are also adopting a more strategic approach to cybersecurity. This approach involves integrating advanced technological solutions and developing comprehensive security practices to ensure robust protection against cyber threats. The aim is to create a resilient security environment that can not only detect and respond to threats swiftly but also anticipate and prevent potential breaches before they occur. The strategic imperative to bolster cybersecurity measures is also seen in the broader context of Saudi Arabia digital security trends, where businesses and governments are making substantial investments in cybersecurity capabilities. These investments are crucial in building a defensive framework that aligns with the sophisticated nature of modern cyber threats, ensuring that digital infrastructures are protected across all operational levels. The Cybersecurity Market is Categorized Based on Component, Security Type, Deployment, Enterprise Size and Application The cybersecurity market in 2023 has witnessed significant growth, driven by the escalating complexity and frequency of cyber threats. This surge has sparked widespread adoption of security services like vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, endpoint protection, and encrypted solutions among enterprises of all sizes. The service segment, in particular, is thriving with the highest CAGR due to numerous acquisitions and alliances with major cybersecurity providers. For example, in December 2023, Sirar by stc, a subsidiary of the stc group and a leader in cybersecurity, entered into a service agreement with Red Sea Global to manage their Security Operations Center (SOC) and provide advisory services. This agreement underscores the growing market demand for such collaborative and comprehensive security solutions. Meanwhile, the solutions segment commands the largest market share in 2023, fuelled by robust demand across various sectors aiming to enhance their cybersecurity frameworks. The rapid expansion of security departments and increased allocations in cybersecurity budgets reflect this trend. Additionally, a rise in startups within the cybersecurity sector offering innovative products has also significantly contributed to the growth of this segment. In terms of security type, the market is segmented into Network Security, Endpoint Security, Application Security, Cloud Security and Others. The network security maintained the largest market share in 2023, critical for protecting organizational networks from cyber threats. However, cloud security is anticipated to grow at the fastest rate over the forecast period 2024-2032 due to the increasing adoption of cloud services, which pose unique security challenges not fully addressed by traditional network security measures. Cloud security solutions, offering specialized tools and techniques, are becoming essential for safeguarding cloud-based assets and data. On the basis of deployment, the cloud segment itself has emerged as the dominant force in the cybersecurity market, reflecting the shift towards cloud-based solutions driven by their scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness. These solutions offer real-time threat detection, centralized management, and automated updates, making them increasingly attractive to organizations globally. The anticipated continued migration of workloads and data to the cloud, coupled with the complexity of threats targeting these environments, is expected to propel the growth of this segment further. In terms of enterprise size, large organizations held the largest share of the cybersecurity market in 2023, given their substantial resources and complex IT environments. Nevertheless, the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) segment is poised for the fastest growth. This growth is spurred by increasing cybersecurity awareness, regulatory demands, and the high frequency of targeted attacks on smaller businesses. The availability of cost-effective, cloud-based cybersecurity solutions and managed services tailored for SMEs is likely to boost adoption, addressing the urgent need for effective cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive data and ensure business continuity. Industry-wise, the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector accounted for the largest market share in 2023, a reflection of the critical need for cybersecurity to protect sensitive financial data and transactions. However, the healthcare sector is projected to experience the fastest growth in cybersecurity investment. The sector's rapid digitization, including the adoption of electronic health records and connected medical devices, increases its vulnerability to cyber threats. The imperative to comply with stringent regulatory requirements and protect sensitive patient information is driving significant investment in cybersecurity within the healthcare sector, aiming to secure medical devices and ensure the continuity of healthcare services. Competitive Landscape The Cybersecurity market is characterized by a vigorous competitive landscape, with prominent entities like Cisco Systems, Inc., IBM Corporation, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Broadcom Inc., Microsoft, Trend Micro, Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and Others at the forefront, collectively accounting for More than 55.5% of the overall market share. This competitive milieu is fueled by their intensive efforts in research and development as well as strategic partnerships and collaborations, underscoring their commitment to solidifying market presence and diversifying their offerings. The primary competitive factors include pricing, product caliber, and technological innovation. As the Cybersecurity industry continues to expand, the competitive fervor among these key players is anticipated to intensify. The impetus for ongoing innovation and alignment with evolving customer preferences and stringent regulations is high. The industry's fluidity anticipates an uptick in novel innovations and strategic growth tactics from these leading corporations, which in turn propels the sector's comprehensive growth and transformation. Report Insights The Saudi Arabia cybersecurity market is projected to reach US$ 10.58 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 12.98%. The market's expansion is driven by increasing cyber threats and the need for robust security measures. Cloud security is the fastest-growing segment, driven by the adoption of cloud services. The competitive landscape is dominated by major players like Cisco, IBM, and Palo Alto Networks, accounting for over 55.5% of the market share. Key Questions Answered What is the estimated growth rate of the Cybersecurity market? What are the key drivers and potential restraints? Which market segments are expected to witness significant growth? Who are the leading players in the market? Key Attributes Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 148 Forecast Period 2023-2032 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $3.68 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2032 $10.58 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 12.9% Regions Covered Saudi Arabia Key Topics Covered Chapter 1. Research Framework 1.1. Research Objective 1.2. Product Overview 1.3. Market Segmentation Chapter 2. Research Methodology 2.1. Qualitative Research 2.1.1. Primary & Secondary Sources 2.2. Quantitative Research 2.2.1. Primary & Secondary Sources 2.3. Breakdown of Primary Research Respondents, by Region 2.4. Assumption for the Study 2.5. Market Size Estimation 2.6. Data Triangulation Chapter 3. Executive Summary: Saudi Arabia Cybersecurity Market Chapter 4. Saudi Arabia Cybersecurity Market Overview 4.1. Industry Value Chain Analysis 4.1.1. Security Vendors 4.1.2. Distributors 4.1.3. Managed Service Providers 4.1.4. System Integrators 4.1.5. End User 4.2. Industry Outlook 4.2.1. Overview of types of Cybersecurity Threats 4.2.2. Global Cyber Crime Statistics 4.2.3 Cyber Security Market Outlook 4.2.4 Stakeholder Mapping 4.3. PESTLE Analysis 4.4. Porter's Five Forces Analysis 4.4.1. Bargaining Power of Suppliers 4.4.2. Bargaining Power of Buyers 4.4.3. Threat of Substitutes 4.4.4. Threat of New Entrants 4.4.5. Degree of Competition 4.5. Market Dynamics and Trends 4.5.1. Growth Drivers 4.5.2. Restraints 4.5.3. Challenges 4.5.4. Key Trends 4.6. COVID-19 Impact Assessment on Market Growth Trend 4.7. Market Growth and Outlook 4.7.1. Market Revenue Estimates and Forecast (US$ Mn), 2019-2032 4.7.2. Price Trend Analysis 4.8. Competition Dashboard 4.8.1. Market Concentration Rate 4.8.2. Company Market Share Analysis (Value %), 2023 4.8.3. Competitor Mapping Chapter 5. Saudi Arabia Cybersecurity Market Analysis, by Component 5.1. Key Insights 5.2. Market Size and Forecast, 2019-2032 (US$ Mn) 5.2.1. Solution 5.2.1.1. Threat Intelligence 5.2.1.1.1. Identity and Access Management 5.2.1.1.2. Security and Vulnerability Management 5.2.1.1.3. Risk and Compliance Management 5.2.1.1.4. Others 5.2.1.2. Encryption 5.2.1.3. Data Loss Prevention 5.2.1.3.1. Network DLP 5.2.1.3.2. Storage/ Data Centre DLP 5.2.1.3.3. Endpoint DLP 5.2.1.4. Unified Threat Management 5.2.1.5. Firewall 5.2.1.6. Intrusion Detection Systems/ Intrusion Prevention Systems 5.2.1.7. Disaster Recovery 5.2.1.8. Distributed Denial of Service 5.2.1.9. Others 5.2.2. Services 5.2.2.1. Professional Services 5.2.2.1.1. Design and Integration 5.2.2.1.2. Risk and Threat Assessment 5.2.2.1.3. Consulting 5.2.2.1.4. Training and Education 5.2.2.1.5. Support and Maintenance 5.2.2.2. Managed Security Services Chapter 6. Saudi Arabia Cybersecurity Market Analysis, by Security Type 6.1. Key Insights 6.2. Market Size and Forecast, 2019-2032 (US$ Mn) 6.2.1. Network Security 6.2.2. Endpoint Security 6.2.3. Application Security 6.2.4. Cloud Security 6.2.5. Others Chapter 7. Saudi Arabia Cybersecurity Market Analysis, by Deployment 7.1. Key Insights 7.2. Market Size and Forecast, 2019-2032 (US$ Mn) 7.2.1. Cloud 7.2.2. On-Premises Chapter 8. Saudi Arabia Cybersecurity Market Analysis, by Enterprise Size 8.1. Key Insights 8.2. Market Size and Forecast, 2019-2032 (US$ Mn) 8.2.1. Large Enterprises 8.2.2. SME's Chapter 9. Saudi Arabia Cybersecurity Market Analysis, by Application 9.1. Key Insights 9.2. Market Size and Forecast, 2019-2032 (US$ Mn) 9.2.1. BFSI 9.2.2. Government 9.2.3. Retail 9.2.4. Healthcare 9.2.5. IT and Telecommunication 9.2.6. Manufacturing 9.2.7. Others Chapter 10. Company Profiles (Company Overview, Financial Matrix, Key Product Landscape, Key Personnel, Key Competitors, Contact Address, Business Strategy Outlook) 10.1. Global Players 10.1.1. Cisco Systems Inc. 10.1.2. Amazon Web Services 10.1.3. Dell Technologies 10.1.4. Fortinet 10.1.5. Kaspersky Lab 10.1.6. IBM 10.1.7. Microsoft 10.1.8. Trend Micro 10.1.9. Trellix 10.1.10. Other Prominent Players 10.2. Saudi Arabia Specific Players 10.2.1. NEC SA Ltd. 10.2.2. Al Moammar Information Systems Co. 10.2.3. Tenable Inc. 10.2.4. Sirar by STC 10.2.5. Taqnia Cyber 10.2.6. Tamkeen Security 10.2.7. Security Matterz 10.2.8. Dar Sas Security 10.2.9. Other Prominent Players For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/iolpe1 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 Dublin, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "U.S. Paid Social Forecast Report H1 2024: ROAS and Results Cut Through Gathering Political, Legal Clouds" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. US social media ad spending will ride the momentum platforms built in H2 2023 thanks to AI, social video advertising growth, and a fixation on bottom-funnel outcomes. The AI-driven results that carried social platforms out of their recent funk will power a strong year of growth in 2024. For now, ad buyers have shelved their concerns about the opacity of ad tools such as Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC+). Key Question: How is ad spending across social's leading platforms evolving? Key Stat: Social video grew into the largest channel of US social ad spending in 2023, accounting for 52.5% of it. In 2025, social video will generate more ad spending than linear TV. Key Topics Covered: Executive Summary Amid unprecedented scrutiny, advertisers continue to plow budgets into social AI is now central to social ad buying Retail and CPG advertisers are shaping social ad offerings Social video ad spending will be huge again in 2024 Social search has advertisers' attention Platform snapshot: Meta Platform snapshot: TikTok Platform snapshot: the second tier Interviews Sources Media Gallery Charts Social Video's Share of Digital Video Ad Spending Is Beginning to Level Off Spending Toward Meta's Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns Grew by Over 40% Over 3 Quarters Instagram Will Account for the Majority of Meta's US Ad Business by 2026 TikTok's Ad Business Will Have Compound Annual Growth of 26.4% From 2024-2026 Meta and TikTok's Competitors' Share of US Social Ad Spending Will Continue Declining Interviewed for This Report Avi Ben-Zvi - Winclap, General Manager, North America Nathan Byrd - Media.Monks, Vice President, Paid Social Kevin Goodwin - New Engen, Vice President, Digital Marketing Jack Johnston - Tinuiti, Senior Director, Social Innovation Shuree Jones - Rain the Growth Agency, Group Director, Paid Social and Influencer Media Dane Kragness - Taktical Digital, Director, Paid Media Amy Luca - Media.Monks - Executive Vice President, Global Head of Social Sadie Miller - Kinesso, Senior Vice President, Social Media Partnerships and Strategy Rob Silver - Razorfish, Executive Vice President, National Media Lead Companies Featured TikTok Meta For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/y5210q 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 VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Atlantic Nickel Corp. (TSXV: FAN) (OTCQB: FANCF) (FSE: P21) ("First Atlantic" or the "Company"), is pleased to report its initial sampling has confirmed the presence of a significant 30 km nickel trend at its 100% owned Atlantic Nickel Project in central Newfoundland, Canada (the Atlantic Nickel Project or the Project). Strategically located near the Atlantic Ocean, the Project offers ideal access to maritime shipping routes, positioning it to supply nickel input for the steel and electric vehicle supply chains in both the United States and Canada. The Project's proximity to critical infrastructure, including road access, clean hydro-electric grid power, and favorable terrain and climate make it an optimal location for mining exploration and development. First Atlantic is prioritizing the identification of the strongest mineralized zones of awaruite, a naturally occurring nickel-iron alloy, with four initial and promising areas targeted for follow-up work this summer. A large corporate strategic investor has led a ~ $2.1 million investment in the Company, which will expedite exploration efforts, including mapping, geophysical surveys and sampling in advance of a planned and fully funded 5000 meter drilling program, set to commence immediately. Highlights Initial sampling confirms significant nickel mineralization along a 30 km trend, suggesting the potential for a large nickel district centered on the Atlantic Nickel Project. Awaruite (nickel-iron alloy) has been visually identified in multiple zones disseminated within widespread serpentinization of ultramafic rocks. New Big Gulp nickel occurrence identified (see Figure 1) in Gulp Pond area with visually identified awaruite. Presence of high nickel content and low sulfur values, which is optimal for awaruite nickel formation. Initial assays returning up to 2,800 ppm nickel from outcrops sampled over an 18 km strike length within a larger trend verify the historic results which outline a 30 km district scale nickel trend. Results guide the 2024 exploration and are part of the drill targeting strategy, advised by world-renowned nickel expert Dr. Ron Britten . . Ideal location: road access, nearby hydroelectric power, favorable terrain and climate for year-round exploration. First Atlantic has identified four priority areas - Atlantic Lake, Gulp Pond, Pipestone, and Chrome Pond - for immediate follow-up based on the recently announced compilation and initial sampling program. The Company's 2024 exploration program is set to commence immediately, focusing on these targets to further define the extent and grade of awaruite nickel mineralization along the 30 km trend. The additional data will offer a deeper understanding of the nickel mineralization and assist in accurately targeting the drill program. Exploration is focused on alteration (serpentinization), a process responsible for forming the silvery-white nickel-iron alloy awaruite a magnetically recoverable nickel mineral. Field observations identified widespread serpentinization concentrated in large regional zones. "The initial sampling at our district-scale Atlantic Nickel Project, which covers a 30 km trend with discovery potential for multiple deposits, has exceeded our expectations, revealing extensive nickel mineralization throughout this large area. These results not only validate historical data but also provide new insights for targeting our fully-funded 2024 exploration program. With Dr. Ron Britten's expertise guiding our efforts, we are well-positioned to unlock the full potential of this important nickel district in Atlantic Canada. Our vision is to leverage the district-scale nature of this project through a swift, systematic exploration approach, similar to Canada Nickel and FPX Nickel, potentially accelerating our path towards defining a significant resource through drilling," commented Adrian Smith, CEO of First Atlantic. The initial samples summarized in Table 1 reveal consistently high nickel values that align with historic results from the sampled areas, confirming the data obtained through the Company's compilation program. The rock samples' high nickel and low sulfur content confirm the Atlantic Nickel Project as an optimal environment for awaruite nickel formation. This unique characteristic presents the potential for producing high-grade nickel concentrates without sulfur eliminating the need for downstream smelting processes. This has the potential to reduce dependence on foreign countries that currently control a significant portion of global nickel smelting capacity, and could mitigate the risk of acid mine drainage. Such a development could contribute to more secure and localized nickel supply chains while positioning the Project as environmentally favorable compared to traditional sulfide deposits. Dr. Ron Britten, technical advisor to First Atlantic, commented, Local evidence of multiple structural and serpentinization events, along with at least two phases of awaruite nickel formation are encouraging signs for the advancement of the Atlantic Nickel Project. The extensive Pipestone ultramafic belt measuring up to 2 km wide and ~30 km long will require additional systematic mapping and rock sampling to test the full potential. Samples will be analyzed for magnetically recovered nickel to prioritize drill targets with the best potential to host awaruite mineralization planned to be tested this year. Figure 1: Northeast oriented photos of Big Gulp anomaly near Gulp Pond area shows strongly deformed outcrops with abundant fractures and foliations that dip ~60deg northwest and related to shear or thrust motion and are good feature that may control serpentinization and awaruite nickel-iron alloy mineralization. (bottom left) Rock slab (24RMB05) shows silver-white specs of disseminated awaruite within a crackle breccia fabric in strong serpentinization-magnetite altered ultramafic. Table 1: Summary of initial rock samples. 2023 Rocks No. Samples Min value Max value Avg value % of samples Full dataset 86 .005 2800 1697 100% > 1000 ppm 63 1000 2800 2165 73% > 1500 ppm 60 1500 2800 2220 70% > 2000 ppm 52 2000 2800 2308 60% Figure 2: Atlantic Nickel Project compilation map showing samples over core 30 km trend over project magnetics in background. Figure 3: Atlantic Nickel initial sampling confirms high nickel values over southern extent of the 30 km trend, towards historic drilling at furthest north area. Figure 4: Atlantic Nickel Project geology map with initial rock samples confirming high nickel values shown extending through the bottom 18 km of the overall 30 km trend. Exploration Model Awaruite nickel mineralization and serpentinization at the Atlantic Nickel project appears to be related to large-scale faulting from the eastward thrusting of the Pipestone ophiolite complex onto land during the closure of an ancient ocean basin. This tectonic process increased permeability and as a result may be a controlling factor for serpentinization of the ultramafic rocks, where the primary minerals are altered to form awaruite along with serpentine minerals, including brucite. Scientific research outlines this process as a specific chemical reaction that occurs during serpentinization of low-sulfur ultramafic rocks, forming magnetite and awaruite nickel, a silvery-white highly magnetic and ductile nickel-iron alloy. The extensive 30 km trend of these ultramafics and large scale fault structures result in widespread areas of serpentinization and awaruite formation, exploration is planned to focus on the best areas with the most abundant concentrations of disseminated awaruite formation. The geological model is comparable to the Baptiste deposit in British Columbia, Canada in size and intensity of magnetic signature, rock types, alteration and awaruite mineralization. The Baptiste Deposit contains over 10 billion lbs1 of nickel and has attracted strategic partners, including Toyota, Outokumpu, Sumitomo Mining, and JOGMEC. The initial resource at Baptiste was completed with just 12,565 meters of drilling, demonstrating the rapid advancement potential of this deposit type. The Company is eager to start its 2024 exploration program and will provide updates as the work progresses. Investors are invited to sign up for the official FAN (First Atlantic Nickel) list found at www.fanickel.com and to follow First Atlantic Nickel on the following social media. https://twitter.com/FirstAtlanticNi https://www.facebook.com/firstatlanticnickel https://www.linkedin.com/company/firstatlanticnickel/ FOR MORE INFORMATION: First Atlantic Nickel Relations Robert Guzman Tel: +1 844 592 6337 Rob@fanickel.com http://www.fanickel.com Disclosure The Company has not independently verified the historic samples reported in this news release but has received data from the previous property owners and from the Government of Newfoundland and Labradors online database. Samples were cataloged and shipped to Activation Laboratories Ltd. in Fredericton, NB, an ISO 17025 accredited laboratory. All samples underwent Davis Tube testing to separate a magnetic fraction containing awaruite and all samples were crushed with the whole rock pulp analyzed by ICP-OES and the magnetic fraction by XRF for major oxide and selected trace element chemistry. Adrian Smith, P.Geo., is a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. The qualified person is a member in good standing of the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists Newfoundland and Labrador (PEGNL) and is a registered professional geoscientist (P.Geo.). Mr. Smith has reviewed and approved the technical information disclosed herein. About First Atlantic Nickel Corp. First Atlantic Nickel Corp. (TSXV: FAN) (OTCQB: FANCF) (FSE: P21) is a Canadian mineral exploration company that owns 100% of the Atlantic Nickel Project, a large scale significant nickel awaruite project in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. By eliminating the need for smelting, nickel in the form of awaruite reduces dependence on foreign entities of concern for both supply and processing, thereby strengthening supply chain security. In 20222, the US Government designated nickel as a critical mineral, highlighting its importance to the nation's economy and security. The Atlantic Nickel Project is a special asset due to its unique combination of size, location, proximity to infrastructure, and the presence of awaruite. By developing this domestic awaruite nickel project, First Atlantic aims to enhance supply chain security for the stainless steel and electric vehicle industries in the USA, Canada, and Europe. The Company's strategic location and focus on awaruite nickel position it to play a key role in meeting the growing demand for responsibly sourced nickel in these sectors. The Company is committed to responsible exploration, environmental stewardship, and working closely with local communities to create sustainable economic opportunities. With its experienced team and the Project's significant potential, the Company is well-positioned to contribute to the future of the nickel industry and the global transition to a cleaner, more secure energy future. 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. Forward-looking statements: This news release may include "forward-looking information" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and are based on a number of estimates and/or assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, the receipt of drilling permits for its 5,000-meter summer 2024 drill program targeting priority areas along the Project's 30-kilometer awaruite nickel trend, expectations regarding the timing, scope, and results of the summer work program; future project developments; the Companys objectives, goals or future plans, statements, and estimates of market conditions. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking information are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties, uncertain and volatile equity and capital markets, lack of available capital, actual results of exploration activities, environmental risks, future prices of base and other metals, operating risks, accidents, labour issues, delays in obtaining governmental approvals and permits, and other risks in the mining industry. Additional factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in the Companys disclosure documents which can be found under the Companys profile on http://www.sedarplus.ca. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. The Company is presently an exploration stage company. Exploration is highly speculative in nature, involves many risks, requires substantial expenditures, and may not result in the discovery of mineral deposits that can be mined profitably. Furthermore, the Company currently has no reserves on any of its properties. As a result, there can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. __________________________ 1 https://fpxnickel.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Baptiste-Project-NI-43-101-Technical-Report_FINAL.pdf 2 https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/us-geological-survey-releases-2022-list-critical-minerals Photos accompanying this announcement are available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4480b554-c559-455c-9fd9-24b013465c6a https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/94b028c7-abea-4ff5-b97f-c4f539eba2c2 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d8fbf7f3-7ee8-428c-b89e-cb45dd90055d https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/43fb306a-d90b-4e0e-b395-caab6c085670 CALGARY, Alberta, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Helium Inc. (First Helium or the Company) (TSXV: HELI) (OTCQB: FHELF) (FRA: 2MC) today announced plans to test key exploration targets at the Companys 100% owned Worsley property in Northern Alberta, along with key corporate activities, in the second half of 2024. Highlights: The Company plans to test multiple high impact exploration targets over the next 6 months, including: A substantial structure in the Leduc Formation, identified on recently interpreted proprietary 3D seismic (Press Release dated July 3, 2024); and Numerous planned horizontal, helium-enriched natural gas targets on a regional play on the western part of the Worsley property. All targets to be tested in the anticipated program: Have the potential to encounter multiple productive horizons (pay zones) which can include natural gas with associated helium, and light oil; Are located on trend and adjacent to past producing helium-enriched natural gas pools and light oil wells (See Figure 1); Can garner premium pricing, with netbacks ranging from 3 - 4 times the netbacks of conventional natural gas, when enriched with helium; and have an offtake agreement in place with one of the largest global helium gas distributors. Figure 1: Worsley Project Over the past several months, our team has been working to complete the evaluation of proprietary 3D seismic data over our 100% owned Worsley property. We recently reported that we have identified a large structure in the Leduc Formation that is on trend and substantially greater in areal extent than our 1-30 Leduc oil pool discovery, which together with our 4-29 Leduc well, have produced 113,000 barrels of light oil and generated $13 million in revenue to date, said Ed Bereznicki, President & CEO of First Helium. In the coming months we plan to test that large Leduc structure as well as complete a horizontal well previously drilled in the Blueridge Formation on the western part of the property. Successful completion and testing of that horizontal well could help establish a regional, repeatable natural gas play with scalability and tremendous potential for growth as well as enriched netback economics resulting from the helium content of those wells, added Mr. Bereznicki. Corporate Update The Companys Worsley Property encompasses more than 53,000 acres of 100% owned land along a trend of sizeable, past producing helium enriched natural gas pools (See Figure 1). This includes the 15-25 helium discovery well, with an independently evaluated resource of 323 million cubic feet of helium1,2, along with numerous multi-zone targets for helium, oil, and natural gas. The Company has established several key priorities over the next three to six months to advance the Worsley project area, including: Drilling the newly identified large Leduc feature - A successful oil well would be tied into existing infrastructure and brought into production in approximately 3 - 4 months. The Company would plan to bring a successful natural gas with associated helium well into production in conjunction with First Heliums 15 25 helium discovery; Completing and testing the drilled, 100% owned 5-27 horizontal helium well at West Worsley - A successful test will establish a large, repeatable natural gas play with associated helium content that will generate significantly increased cash netbacks when compared to a typical natural gas play. The projects potential scale and enhanced profitability will serve to attract partnership opportunities; and Re-entering and completing an existing vertical well bore to potentially expand our regional play, enabling further project growth and scalability. The timing and execution of the above operations will be dependent on capital availability. Leduc Formation Targets First Helium has identified twelve vertical drilling targets in the Leduc Formation based on our new 3D seismic interpretation. In addition to 5 potential drill locations on the large, recently identified anomaly, these targets also include one drilling location (7-30) which was assigned proved plus probable undeveloped oil reserves of 196,700 barrels3 by Sproule, its independent evaluator (See Figure 2). Figure 2: First Helium Worsley Proprietary 3D Seismic Leduc Interpretation Blue Ridge Horizontal Targets Successful completion and testing of the 5-27 horizontal well in the Blue Ridge Formation at West Worsley will begin to establish a regional, repeatable natural gas play with associated helium content of 0.8% to 1.0%, which will serve to enrich netback economics. Production-ready helium will enable the Company to increase the size of its helium gas processing requirements and secure helium facility financing on potentially more favorable terms. At West Worsley, initial mapping has identified an additional 14 primary horizontal drill locations and numerous follow up locations, all on 100% owned land. Additionally, the Company plans to re-enter, complete and test a second, existing 100% owned vertical well bore along the trend which would significantly expand this regional play. Together, the Blue Ridge horizontal play, along with the vertical Leduc play combine to provide tremendous opportunity for scalability and future growth, all on existing (100%) Company held lands. Given the large potential opportunity of the Worsley Project, the Company continues to explore potential partnership avenues to accelerate the development of its rich asset base. In addition, the Company will be completing pipeline maintenance and integrity work to fulfil regulatory obligations and prepare our pipeline network for future activation in conjunction with natural gas and helium production from the 15-25 helium discovery well, West Worsley and future discoveries along the play. Management Changes We are excited to announce the addition of Marc Junghans, P. Geol. to the First Helium team. An advisor to the Company since mid-2023, Marc will assume the role of overseeing First Heliums exploration activities and asset development, said Ed Bereznicki, President & CEO of First Helium. Mr. Junghans has over 40 years of exploration, development, and asset evaluation experience in both the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin and the U.S., at the senior and executive level roles, for both public and private oil & gas companies such as Compton Petroleum Corporation, Anderson Exploration Ltd., Husky Energy Inc., and Amicus Petroleum. He has also been the founding member of numerous private oil & gas entities, and during his career has overseen the drilling of over 170 horizontal and numerous vertical wells across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Company also advises that David Safton, Vice President Exploration, and a founding member of First Helium, has announced his retirement from his role and daily activities at the Company. He will continue to be involved with First Helium on an advisory basis. The Board of Directors and his fellow team members wish to thank David for his contributions in establishing First Heliums premium asset base and wish him much enjoyment in his new pursuits. Notes: (1) Sproule Associates Limited (Sproule) Contingent Resource Unrisked Best Estimate. (2) "Contingent Resources" are not, and should not be confused with, oil and gas, or helium reserves. Further information regarding Contingent Resources can be found in First Heliums Final Prospectus, dated June 28, 2021, filed on First Heliums SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca (3) Gross Proved plus Probable Undeveloped reserves, per Sproule, Evaluation of the P&NG Reserves of First Helium Inc. in the Beaton Area of Alberta (as of March 31, 2023). ABOUT FIRST HELIUM Led by a core Senior Executive Team with diverse and extensive backgrounds in Oil & Gas Exploration and Operations, Mining, Finance, and Capital Markets, First Helium seeks to be one of the leading independent providers of helium gas in North America. First Helium holds over 53,000 acres along the highly prospective Worsley Trend in Northern Alberta which has been the core of its exploration and development drilling activities to date. Building on its successful 15-25 helium discovery well at the Worsley project, the Company has identified numerous follow-up drill locations and acquired an expansive infrastructure system to facilitate future exploration and development across its Worsley land base. Cash flow from its successful oil wells at Worsley has helped support First Helium's ongoing exploration and development growth strategy. Further potential oil drilling locations have also been identified on the Company's Worsley land base. For more information about the Company, please visit www.firsthelium.com. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Edward J. Bereznicki President, CEO and Director CONTACT INFORMATION First Helium Inc. Investor Relations Email: ir@firsthelium.com Phone: 1-833-HELIUM1 (1-833-435-4861) Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS This 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 completion of future planned activities. 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 the state of the equity financing markets and regulatory approval. Management has provided the above summary of risks and assumptions related to forward looking statements in this press release in order to provide readers with a more comprehensive perspective on the Companys future operations. The Companys actual results, performance or achievement could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward looking statements and, accordingly, no assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits the Company will derive from them. These forward looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and, other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. SOURCE: First Helium Inc. Images accompanying this announcement are available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2814ab4f-96b2-4dc3-bf54-c4f1a67784df https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7793a260-9b2f-4292-a234-a53991891903 VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Golden Sky Minerals Corp. (AUEN.V) (Golden Sky or The Company) is pleased to announce the results of a geophysical analysis conducted on the Rayfield target. This analysis included a 3D inversion of both airborne and ground magnetic data, which was then utilized in machine-learning algorithms to assist with future drill targeting. This method was also applied on a regional scale and successfully identified several other geophysical anomalies that shared characteristics with the historic Rayfield area. Consequently, the Company expanded its mineral claims by approximately 20%, now encompassing about 50,800 hectares (ha) covering new areas with potential for porphyry-style mineralization (Figure 1). Moreover, Golden Sky is excited to share that several leading mining companies have recognized the Rayfield area as a prime exploration target, staking claims adjacent to and partially surrounding Golden Sky's property (Figure 2). Specifically, Boliden Mineral Canada Ltd. has staked ~17,000 ha and Fortescue Canada Resources Ltd. has staked approximately 357,000 ha. As an early-explorer in the region, and with a newly expanded property, Golden Sky is strategically positioned, covering some of the most prospective ground in the area. The 50,800-hectare Rayfield property is located in the Quesnel terrane, British Columbias primary copper-producing belt, which hosts Teck Resources Highland Valley Mine, Imperial Metals Mount Polley Mine, Centerra Golds Mount Milligan Mine, and Kodiak Coppers MPD Project (Figures 2). The road-accessible Rayfield copper-gold property is located approximately 20 kilometers east of the town of 70 Mile House, British Columbia, and is accessible year-round by well-maintained service and logging roads extending from BC Highway 97. John Newell, President and CEO of Golden Sky Minerals, states: The staking activities by Boliden and Fortescue, along with our strategic expansion of additional claims, validate our belief in the substantial value of this project. We are committed to advancing our exploration efforts and maximizing the potential of our assets in this prolific mining district. Interpretation of Data 3D Inversion of airborne and ground magnetic data: Magnetic Vector Intensity (MVI) analysis indicates that mineralization at the Rayfield target is closely associated with the northern tip of a magnetic geophysical anomaly that extends ~6 km to the south (Figure 3). The entire strike length is prospective for additional porphyry-style mineralization. Modelling of the large magnetic anomaly indicates it extends to a minimum 1.4 km vertical depth (IP survey extends to 800 m vertical depth). This would suggest mineralization could extend beyond the current IP survey limits. An additional large magnetic anomaly (extending approximately 1.2 km) was identified to the east of the historic Rayfield target, with a similar signature to that of porphyry systems (Figure 3). These new geophysical anomalies have never been tested by modern exploration techniques. The magnetic lows provide evidence for magnetite-destructive alteration and mineralization, a common feature in the core of porphyry systems where hydrothermal fluids alter primary magnetite. 2. Machine-Learning Algorithms: Machine learning cluster-point algorithms analyze large datasets to identify patterns and relationships that may not be immediately apparent. The algorithms combine chargeability and resistivity features to create a comprehensive geophysical model of the subsurface, to identify distinct zones of alteration and mineralization. These features often correspond to specific geological or mineralogical settings, such as the core, shell, and peripheral alteration zones of a porphyry system. The margins of the magnetic high anomalies may be associated with a syenitic intrusion, along the margins of which shifts in resistivity and chargeability are recognized. Historical drilling has demonstrated that these zones can coincide with increased copper-grades associated with highly veined, fractured, and brecciated host rock associated with moderate to high resistivity and magnetic low signatures (Figures 4 & 5). Cluster-point algorithms outlined several other regional geophysical targets that share characteristics with both the Rayfield and Mowich target zones. These findings resulted in the company expanding the mineral claims by 20% to ~50,800 hectares. Figure 1: The Rayfield target zone is defined by a large 3.0 km x 1.5 km multi-element soil geochemical anomaly. The Rayfield target zone is highly prospective, with anomalous copper-in-soil values up to ~0.396%, and rock samples grading up to 0.63% Cu and 245 ppb Au. Based on newly identified geophysical anomalies through machine-learning algorithms, Golden Sky has expanded the existing property by 20% to total ~50,800 hectares. Figure 2: The ~50,800-hectare Rayfield Cu-Au Property is located within the Quesnel Trough, British Columbias primary copper-producing belt. Figure 3: 2024 inverted airborne magnetic data (MVI) with machine-learning cluster data outlining prospective zones and a newly identified ~1.2 km magnetic anomaly to the east. Figure 4: 2024 inverted ground magnetic data (MVI) with machine-learning cluster data outlining prospective zones with resistivity-chargeability anomalies associated with magnetic lows. Figure 5: 2024 inverted ground magnetic data (MVI) with machine-learning cluster data outlining prospective zones with resistivity anomalies associated with the margins of an interpreted syenite intrusion. About Golden Sky Minerals Corp. Golden Sky Minerals Corp. is a well-funded junior grassroots explorer engaged in the acquisition, assessment, exploration, and development of mineral properties located in highly prospective areas and mining-friendly districts. Golden Skys mandate is to develop its portfolio of properties to the mineral resource stage through systematic exploration. The drill-ready properties include Hotspot and Lucky Strike, both in Yukon, Canada. In addition, the drill-ready Rayfield Copper-Gold Property in southern British Columbia, and the staking of the Auden Property in Ontario, add to the companys substantial early-stage Canadian property pipeline. The company was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. More information can be found at the Companys website at www.goldenskyminerals.com ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD John Newell, President and Chief Executive Officer Carl Schulze, P. Geo., Consulting Geologist with Aurora Geosciences Ltd, is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 for Golden Skys British Columbia exploration projects, and has reviewed and approved the technical information in this release. For new information from the Company's programs, please visit Golden Sky's website at www.GoldenSkyMinerals.com or contact John Newell by telephone (604) 568-8807 or by email at info@goldenskyminerals.com or john.newell@goldenskyminerals.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. Forward-Looking Statements Statements contained in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively, Forward-Looking Information) within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. In certain cases, Forward-Looking Information can be identified by the use of words and phrases such as anticipates, expects, understanding, has agreed to or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results would, occur or be achieved. Although Golden Sky has attempted to identify important factors and risks that could affect Golden Sky and may cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in Forward-Looking Information, there may be other factors and risks that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended, including, without limitation: inherent risks involved in the exploration and development of mineral properties; the uncertainties involved in interpreting drill results and other exploration data; the potential for delays in exploration or development activities; the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with Golden Skys expectations; accidents, equipment breakdowns, title and permitting matters; labour disputes or other unanticipated difficulties with or interruptions in operations; fluctuating metal prices; unanticipated costs and expenses; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, including to fund any exploration programs on its projects; that Golden Sky may not be able to confirm historical exploration results and other risks set forth in Golden Sky's public filings at www.sedar.com. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, Golden Sky has applied several material assumptions, including the assumption that general business and economic conditions will not change in a materially adverse manner. There can be no assurance that Forward-Looking Information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on Forward-Looking Information. Except as required by law, Golden Sky does not assume any obligation to release publicly any revisions to Forward-Looking Information contained in this news release to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Photos accompanying this announcement are available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4c063b61-b16f-454f-a6a1-93590514de70 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1fd046b1-8844-40cc-8572-19a137be7c0c https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e2001135-b460-477f-95f9-fdafcd69a79c https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/31ee5404-1ce5-4846-b3e0-15c4f93df581 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/156a6fb5-8881-4e11-849c-432a4fe0d48b CHICAGO, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VelocityEHS, the global leader in enterprise EHS & ESG software solutions, today launched the next generation of its patented and award-winning Industrial Ergonomics Solution, featuring the new 3-dimensional (3D) model for motion capture. The update utilizes cutting edge research, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and neural network technology to assess musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) risk in 3D with the highest accuracy and effectiveness in the market. In 2018, Velocity acquired Humantech, the leader in industrial ergonomics and pioneer of the industrys first sensorless 2D motion capture technology. This transformation from a 2D to 3D model for motion capture breaks new ground in the battle against MSDs, the leading cause of workplace injuries, robbing people of their livelihoods and costing businesses billions of dollars a year. Your people work in a 3D world, your ergonomics solutions should too, said Dr. Julia Penfield, VP of Research & Machine Learning at VelocityEHS. The new 3D model for motion capture was purpose-built using our proprietary dataset to train the technology. Combining AI and ML capabilities with ergonomics expertise improves accuracy and reliability and enhances the efforts of experienced ergonomics professionals. Now ergonomics team members of all experience levels can quickly and easily achieve expert-level results. The new model is the culmination of years long collaboration between Machine Learning experts from Velocity and the University of Michigan, Rutgers University and the University of Toronto, biomechanical academic researchers from the University of Cincinnati, and Velocitys team of the most trusted certified professional ergonomists (CPEs) in the industry. Bringing it to market involved: Analyzing 500+ videos, 7 million images 1000+ hours of manual testing for accuracy Conducting quality review by Velocitys 20+ certified professional ergonomists Extensive real-world testing with customers Modeling the movements of the human body in 3D means Velocitys already best-in-class MSD risk assessment sets a new standard for quality and comprehensiveness. It incorporates the automated scoring of wrist postures, side bending, back twisting, and data for body regions that are blocked or obstructed from view. The new model was trained on an internally developed dataset of the most common occupation tasks, including assembly, lifting, lowering, pushing, and pulling. MSDs in the wrists are among the most common and costly. Accurately measuring this risk is difficult, even for trained ergonomists, and until now had to be done manually. Automating this process ensures consistently high-quality data and reduces the need for long hours of training your ergonomics team members to quantify difficult and highly variable tasks, said Blake McGowan, CPE, and Solution Executive for Ergonomics at Velocity. It is 50% more accurate at quantifying body segment angles than the previous version and captures 100% of data and scoring for elbows, shoulders, back, and neck, even when segments are temporarily hidden. Velocitys update includes an Interactive Posture Risk Timeline that visualizes the moments of highest risk to ensure more effective analysis of the direct causes of MSD risk. Expertise embedded in the software helps users choose the right controls to address issues before they contribute to an MSD. Now EHS managers and ergonomics teams can more efficiently and effectively engage employees in the job improvement process and ensure accountability for implementing corrective actions. If a company is serious about reducing MSD risk, this is where you start, said Matt Airhart, CEO of Velocity. Our first 2D model allowed customers to assess MSD risk at scale using AI Computer Vision, so you could identify and mitigate risk faster and more accurately than ever before. This update blows our first iteration away. For people on the front lines, it has the potential to be life changing. Current Velocity Ergonomics customers will have the same easy work flow they are accustomed to, with the updates taking effect automatically. Users simply upload a video of a worker doing a task, taken with any digital device, and the software takes care of the rest. To learn more about Velocitys Research Team, their critical breakthroughs with ML, recent patents and publications, check out the May 2024 press release entitled VelocityEHS Earns 5 AI Patents and Publishes in Nature. For more information about Velocitys new 3D model for motion capture and Industrial Ergonomics Solutions, visit HYPERLINK "http://www.EHS.com" \hwww.ehs.com/solutions/ergonomics. www.ehs.com/solutions/ergonomics. About VelocityEHS Relied on by more than 10 million users worldwide to drive operational excellence and achieve outstanding outcomes, VelocityEHS is the global leader in true SaaS enterprise EHS & ESG technology. The VelocityEHS Accelerate Platform is the definitive gold standard, delivering best-in-class software solutions for managing Safety, Ergonomics, Chemical Management, Contractor Management, Operational Risk, ESG and Environmental Compliance. The VelocityEHS team includes unparalleled industry expertise, with more certified experts in health, safety, industrial hygiene, ergonomics, sustainability, the environment, AI, and machine learning than any other EHS software provider. Recognized by the EHS industrys top independent analysts as a Leader in the Verdantix 2023 Green Quadrant Analysis, VelocityEHS is committed to industry thought leadership and to accelerating the pace of innovation through its software solutions and vision. Its privacy and security protocols, which include SOC2 Type II attestation, are among the most stringent in the industry. VelocityEHS is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with locations in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Tampa, Florida; Oakville, Ontario; London, England; Perth, Western Australia; and Cork, Ireland. For more information, visit www.EHS.com. VelocityEHS Media Contact Brad Harbaugh 312.881.2855 bharbaugh@ehs.com VANCOUVER, BC, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This news release is being issued by 1480775 B.C. Ltd. (the "Purchaser"), as required by National Instrument 62-103 The Early Warning System and Related Take-Over Bid and Insider Reporting Issues in connection with its acquisition and disposition of certain securities in the capital of CloudMD Software & Services Inc. (the "Company"). The Company's common shares (the "Common Shares") are listed for trading on the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") under the symbol "DOC", the OTC Pink Markets under the symbol "DOCRF", and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol "6PH". On May 14, 2024, the Company entered into an arrangement agreement (the "Arrangement Agreement") with the Purchaser, pursuant to which the Company effected a go-private transaction (the "Transaction") by way of a court-approved plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement") under Section 288 of the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) (the "BCBCA"). The Transaction was approved by securityholders of the Company on June 27, 2024, and closed on July 9, 2024. Pursuant to the Arrangement, the Purchaser acquired all of the issued and outstanding Common Shares of the Company at a price of $0.04 per Common Share (the "Consideration"). In addition, and pursuant to the Arrangement, all stock options, deferred share units ("DSUs") and restricted share units ("RSUs") of the Company were transferred from their holders to the Company and cancelled. The holders of in-the-money stock options were entitled to receive a cash payment equal to the Consideration for each stock option held less an amount equal to the exercise price of the stock option, whereas the holders of DSUs and RSUs received a cash payment equal to the Consideration for each DSU and/or RSU held. All out-of-the-money stock options were cancelled for no consideration. Upon the completion of the Arrangement, the Company and the Purchaser have amalgamated to form one corporate entity with the same name as the Company under the BCBCA (the "Amalgamation"). Immediately prior to the closing of the Transaction, the Purchaser did not own, control or direct any securities of the Company. Upon the closing of the Transaction, the Purchaser acquired 304,679,883 Common Shares (100%), which were subsequently cancelled upon the completion of the Amalgamation. The Common Shares will cease to be listed on the TSXV after the end of trading on July 10, 2024 and will be subsequently removed from the OTC Pink Markets and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The Company will apply to the securities regulatory authorities to approve the request that the Company cease being a reporting issuer under applicable Canadian securities laws, and to otherwise terminate its public reporting requirements. The Company's head office was located at 181 University Ave, Suite 1101, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 3M7, Canada prior to the completion of the Amalgamation, and is located at Suite 201 41 Industrial Street, Toronto, Ontario, M4G 0C7 following the completion of the Amalgamation. Please refer to the Companys press release dated July 9, 2024 for additional details on the Transaction. An early warning report will be filed by the Purchaser, on its own behalf and on behalf of any parties acting jointly or in concert with it, under applicable securities laws and will be available on the Companys profile on SEDAR+ at sedarplus.ca. Michael Arblaster President 1-416-860-3639 Forward Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws, regarding the Companys business and operations. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate to, among other things, information regarding the terms and conditions of the Transaction, and the intention to cause the Company to cease to be listed on the TSXV, the OTC Pink Markets, and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and to cease to be a reporting issuer. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on a number of estimates and assumptions that the Purchaser considered appropriate and reasonable as of the date such information is given, including but not limited to the assumptions that the transactions contemplated herein will proceed according to the Companys anticipated timelines. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the Purchasers control, that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to the risk that the Purchasers assumptions on which its forward-looking statements are based may not be accurate and other risk factors disclosed in the Companys periodic reports publicly filed and available on its SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca. No assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this announcement and the Purchaser does not undertake any obligation to update such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable law. NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Local entrepreneur and philanthropist Ronald M. Simon, Chairman of RSI Holding LLC, announced today the establishment of RSI Dream Communities, a new 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to creating housing for local heroes. Simon also revealed that he has tapped Jim Palmer, the former CEO of Orange County Rescue Mission, to lead the company as President and CEO. We are on a mission to do something that has not yet been done, said Simon, who serves as Founder and Chairman of RSI Dream Communities. Our mission is to provide, without government funding, thousands of attractive and financially accessible homes for our local heroes, those professionals who contribute significantly to our community from nurses, firefighters, teachers, and public servants who too often find quality homes surrounding their place of work unaffordable. These professionals deserve to be able to live near work. The need for quality housing options for essential workers is further validated by esteemed Orange County leaders including Annette Walker, President of City of Hope of Orange County who states, Orange County is facing a critical healthcare hiring challenge. The healthcare sector in Orange County is short by more than ten thousand needed healthcare workers. The lack of reasonably priced housing opportunities significantly affects the recruitment and retention of healthcare workers." With Palmer at the helm, RSI Dream Communities seeks to fulfill its vision of civic responsibility and collective empowerment, dedicated to crafting sustainable and inclusive living environments for those who serve the public good. The new company intends to remove barriers to development and ensure faster build times with $100 million in private seed money from The Simon Foundation for Education and Housing. Jim's appointment as President and CEO of RSI Dream Communities reflects our commitment to pairing experienced community leadership with strategic business acumen," continued Simon. "Jim is a knowledgeable community leader who will leverage our team's extensive expertise, precision-built building processes, and seed funding to fulfill our mission of providing well-maintained, eco-friendly housing for our communities critical workers." RSI DREAM COMMUNITIES Before being tapped to spearhead RSI Dream Communities, Palmers varied career included leading the establishment and growth of the Hurtt Family Health Clinic and overseeing the expansion of the Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) clinics as CEO and Chairman. Most notably, Palmer served as President & CEO of the Orange County Rescue Mission for 31 years, overseeing its remarkable expansion and positioning the organization as a leading provider of social services in Orange County. Palmer accomplished all of this while not taking any government funds. Palmers career includes many leadership roles across non-profit organizations, government agencies, healthcare institutions, and social service sectors, while his influence has resonated across diverse spheres. He served in the Bush and Obama White Houses as a Senate-confirmed appointment. His past involvement on over 30+ boards of directors and pivotal contributions to executive committees underscores his steadfast dedication to advancing the social good. "I am deeply honored to join RSI Dream Communities and lead initiatives that will tangibly impact the lives of local heroes," expressed Jim Palmer, President and CEO of RSI Dream Communities. Together, we will pioneer innovative housing solutions that bolster community well-being and ensure that those who tirelessly serve our communities have access to safe and reasonably priced homes." RSI Dream Communities Chairman Ron Simon is the visionary business titan behind many entities, including RSI Holding LLC, RSI Equity Partners, Simon Scholars, which is serving more than 2,000 scholars, Simon Builders, RSI Home Products, and its many divisions. He is renowned for his strategic foresight and commitment to societal progress. With a keen eye for identifying emerging needs, Simon has led RSI to the forefront of innovative solutions, particularly in housing respected public sector workers. His leadership has propelled RSI's growth and cemented its reputation as a catalyst for positive change in communities nationwide. Simon has authored the book Tell Me Why I Cant, Winning my battle with China by making it in America. Through his steadfast dedication to serving others, Simon continues to shape RSI's mission, ensuring that it remains aligned with the evolving needs of society. Under Palmer's stewardship, RSI Dream Communities will advance its vital mission of providing superior housing options for middle-income earners, allowing these valuable employees to live near where they work. RSI Dream Communities envisions driving economic revitalization and fostering community development so local businesses can attract and retain a strong, dedicated workforce. About RSI Dream Communities RSI Dream Communities is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing housing solutions for employees serving healthcare, educational, municipal, human service institutions and local businesses. Our mission is to address the housing needs of middle-income earners, ensuring they have access to quality housing in communities near where they work. By leveraging a "Philanthropic Venture Capital" model, RSI Dream Communities accelerates workforce housing development, fostering economic stimulus and community development. With a commitment to innovation, sustainability, and community engagement, RSI Dream Communities is dedicated to improving the lives of local heroes and strengthening communities across the nation, without the use of taxpayer and government funds. For more information, visit www.RSIDreamCommunities.org. Media Contact: Kim@echomediateam.com Photos accompanying this announcement are available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/bc620dd8-b2d4-4e05-bf6c-761a4495e279 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3702c54e-52f2-4b32-a667-5341da5b5b2b NEWARK, Del, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The waterborne UV curable resin market had an estimated market size of USD 300 million in 2023 and is expected to reach a global market size of USD 1.6 billion by 2034, increasing at a CAGR of 14.6% between 2024 and 2034. By 2024, the market for waterborne UV curable resin is likely to reach a valuation of US$ 401.7 million. Another factor driving the worldwide waterborne UV curable resin market is increased consumer and company awareness of sustainability as well as environmental responsibility. Waterborne UV curable resins, which provide environmentally benign substitutes for conventional solvent-based coatings and are in line with sustainable business practices and preferences, are becoming more and more popular as a result of this expanding consciousness. Click Here to Request Your Sample Report! https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-19004 An avenue for growth in the global market for waterborne UV curable resin is the broadening range of applications in diverse sectors such as electronics, automotive, and packaging. Growing industrial demands and preferences for high-performance and environmentally friendly coatings present opportunities for creative startups and well-established firms to create customized solutions. Key Takeaways from the Market Analysis The global demand for waterborne UV curable resin reached US$ 100 million in 2019. It is expected that the urethane acrylate waterborne UV curable resin would attain a 14.3% CAGR through 2034. It is projected that wood application of waterborne UV curable resin will advance at a CAGR of 14.1% by 2034. The market in the United Kingdom is anticipated to rise through 2034 at 15.1% CAGR. It is projected that China's waterborne UV curable resin ecosystem will evolve at a 15.6% CAGR between 2024 and 2034. The increased regulatory pressure to minimize emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) is one factor propelling the global market for waterborne UV curable resin. This has generated a need for environmentally friendly coating solutions globally, says Nikhil Kaitwade (Associate Vice President at Future Market Insights, Inc.) Competitive Landscape Leading companies in the global market for waterborne UV curable resins are experimenting with new formulas that are less harmful to the environment and include less volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as well as hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). To satisfy a variety of application needs, they are also improving the performance characteristics of these resins, including adhesion, durability, and scratch resistance. Innovations also concentrate on increasing the speed and efficiency of curing, allowing for speedier manufacturing processes without sacrificing high-quality finishes. These developments support the market expansion and long-term viability. Startups in the global waterborne UV curable resin market are focused on new applications and customization options. By using their flexibility and agility to meet individual consumer demands and preferences, they want to produce solutions that are specifically designed for sectors like automotive, electronics, and packaging. In order to broaden their market reach and gain a competitive advantage, these companies are also investigating developments in nanotechnology and additives to improve the performance and adaptability of waterborne UV curable resin compositions. Contact Sales for Further Assistance in Purchasing this Report! https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/19004 Key Companies Profiled Allnex Belgium SA/NV BASF SE Alberdingk Boley GmbH Royal DSM N. V. Covestro Nippon Gohsei Wanhua Chemical Group Co. Ltd. Miwon Specialty Chemical Co. Ltd. Key Developments In 2022, DSM and Firmenich signed a business combination agreement ("BCA") to form the leading creation and innovation partner in nutrition, beauty, and well-being ("DSM-Firmenich"). The merger combined Firmenich's distinctive leading Perfumery and Taste businesses, as well as its world-class research platforms and related co-creation capabilities, with DSM's exceptional Health and Nutrition portfolio and recognized scientific knowledge. Four very productive and complimentary companies, each with a leadership position and supported by top-notch research, will make up the new organization. More Valuable Insights Available Future Market Insights offers an unbiased analysis of the global waterborne UV curable resin market, providing historical data for 2018 to 2022 and forecast statistics from 2023 to 2033. To understand opportunities in the global waterborne UV curable resin market, the market is segmented on the basis of type (urethane acrylate, blend of urethane acrylate with acrylic dispersion), application (wood, graphics, opto and electronics, foil and inks, plastics) and region (North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, South Asia and Pacific, East Asia, The Middle East & Africa). Preview Report: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/waterborne-uv-curable-resin-market Key Segments Profiled in the Waterborne UV Curable Resin Market By Type: Urethane Acrylate Blend of Urethane Acrylate with Acrylic Dispersion By Application: Wood Graphics Opto and Electronics Foil and Inks Plastics By Region: North America Latin America Western Europe Eastern Europe South Asia and Pacific East Asia The Middle East & Africa Author by: Nikhil Kaitwade (Associate Vice President at Future Market Insights, Inc.) has over a decade of experience in market research and business consulting. He has successfully delivered 1500+ client assignments, predominantly in Automotive, Chemicals, Industrial Equipment, Oil & Gas, and Service industries. His core competency circles around developing research methodology, creating a unique analysis framework, statistical data models for pricing analysis, competition mapping, and market feasibility analysis. His expertise also extends wide and beyond analysis, advising clients on identifying growth potential in established and niche market segments, investment/divestment decisions, and market entry decision-making. Nikhil holds an MBA degree in Marketing and IT and a Graduate in Mechanical Engineering. Nikhil has authored several publications and quoted in journals like EMS Now, EPR Magazine, and EE Times. Explore FMI's Extensive Coverage in the Chemicals & Materials Domain: The dimer acid-based (DAB) polyamide resin market size is expected to gain from US$ 2,814.3 million in 2024 to US$ 5,550 million by 2034. This augmented sale is estimated to account for a CAGR of 7% through 2034. The chlorinated polyethylene resins & elastomers (CPE) market share is forecast to reach US$ 600 Million by 2022, expected to flourish at a CAGR of 8% to reach US$ 1,297 Million by 2032. The global plastic compounding market demand is expected to reach a market valuation of US$ 69.919 billion by the end of 2023, accelerating with a CAGR of 8.3% from 2023 to 2033. The biobased biodegradable plastic market growth is projected to be worth US$ 5.2 billion in 2023. The market is further expected to surge at a CAGR of 10% from 2023 to 2033 and reach US$ 13.6 billion by 2033. The bio-plastic market size is projected to be worth US$ 96.6 billion in 2023. The market is likely to reach US$ 1,353.3 billion by 2033. The market is further expected to surge at a CAGR of 30.2% during the forecast period 2023 to 2033. The glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) composites market share is predicted to capture a valuation of US$ 18.54 billion in 2023, and is rising to US$ 41.53 billion by 2033. The global conductive plastics market outlook was valued at US$ 3 Billion in 2021, and is forecast to reach US$ 7.91 Billion by 2032. The expected forecast CAGR from 2022 to 2032 is 8.5%. The global plastic compounding market demand is expected to reach a market valuation of US$ 69.919 billion by the end of 2023, accelerating with a CAGR of 8.3% from 2023 to 2033. The polyurethane coating market size is projected to increase from US$ 20.9 billion in 2024 to US$ 36.0 billion by 2034. The market value is expected to develop at a CAGR of 5.6% during the projected period. According to Future Market Insights research, during the projected period, the global polyurethane (PU) adhesives market growth is set to top a valuation of US$ 9.63 Billion in 2022, and further expand at a CAGR of 6.1% during 2022 to 2032. About Future Market Insights (FMI) Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in Dubai and has delivery centers in the United Kingdom, the United States, and India. FMI's latest market research reports and industry analysis helps businesses navigate challenges and make critical decisions with confidence and clarity amidst breakneck competition. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. A team of expert-led analysts at FMI continuously tracks emerging trends and events in a broad range of industries to ensure that our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers. Contact Us 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 NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The First Responders Childrens Foundation (FRCF), a national 501(c)3 organization dedicated to serving the children of U.S. first responders, which includes firefighters, police officers, paramedics, EMTs, corrections officers, and 911 dispatchers, has announced that Mike Cory, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of CSX, Kent Chrisman, Senior Director of Security and Corporate Services of Devon Energy, and Marc Hagle, Chief Executive Officer of Tricor International LLC, have joined its national Board of Directors. Leveraging the skills of some of the nations most talented business leaders enables FRCF to continue supporting the children of first responders nationwide, ensuring they have the resources to heal in the most tragic circumstances, grow to reach their fullest potential, and thrive to achieve their dreams. The FRCF national board of directors consists of 17 members with diverse backgrounds and skills who support advancing the FRCF mission across essential organization functions such as business development and growth, finance, fundraising, strategic planning, marketing, and operations. "We are honored to welcome Mike Cory, Kent Chrisman, and Marc Hagle to our incredible Board of Directors. Each has been a dedicated advocate for our mission, recognizing the critical role that first responders play by putting their own lives on hold to serve our communities, often leaving their families to face significant challenges and endure uncontrollable stress. By building on the expertise of our new board members and the generosity of our donors, FRCF is now better equipped to expand its services, ultimately benefiting more children nationwide, said Jillian Crane, President and CEO of First Responders Childrens Foundation. Mike Cory is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of CSX, responsible for overseeing the company's operations strategy and performance. Cory joined the company after spending more than four decades in the industry in a variety of c-suite and leadership roles where he managed rapid volume growth, oversaw capital projects, and led three national labor negotiations with the union representing engineers and conductors. "I am deeply honored to support our courageous first responders who selflessly and consistently demonstrate their unwavering commitment to the safety and well-being of our communities, said Cory. CSX has a profound respect for the bravery and dedication of these heroes, having experienced firsthand the strong relationships they forge with their local communities and witnessed their tireless efforts in times of crisis. We will continue to support FRCFs annual scholarships and toy drive to provide for the children of first responders. With a 14-year tenure with the U.S. Secret Service, Kent Chrisman boasts a diverse background in investigations and protection. Before this, he held leadership roles as a deputy sheriff in Nebraska and a member of the US Air Force. Notably, Chrisman has spent over 14 years as Senior Director of Security and Corporate Services at Devon Energy Corporation, overseeing global security operations and corporate services across the organization. "With nearly two decades of experience in local and federal law enforcement, I have witnessed firsthand the life-changing work FRCF does for these heroic individuals and the communities they serve. I am honored to serve as a member of the Board of Directors and I look forward to contributing to their continued growth and success," said Kent Chrisman, Senior Director of Security and Corporate Services of Devon Energy. Marc Hagle is President and CEO of Tricor International LLC a real estate company with a diverse portfolio of properties spanning 17 U.S. states. He is also a distinguished alumnus of Purdue University, the latest graduate to travel to space as an astronaut, and an esteemed lecturer at Purdue's Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. School of Business, where he shares his expertise on real estate with students. In addition to his professional pursuits, Marc is a committed philanthropist who generously supports 55 non-profit organizations with a specific dedication to making a positive impact on the lives of children. Our first responders provide a service to every citizen to ensure our safety and welfare. It is with honor and respect that I am able, through FRCF, to assist and provide these people safety and a backup plan to ensure that their children and families are secure into the future, said Marc Hagle, CEO of Tricor International LLC. ABOUT FIRST RESPONDERS CHILDRENS FOUNDATION First Responders Childrens Foundation is a national foundation that provides programs and resources that address the specific needs of first responders and their families. The Foundation focuses on four key areas: Scholarships, Financial Assistance Grants; a Mental Health Resilience Program; and Community Engagement. The Foundation was founded over 22 years ago in response to 9/11 when 800 children lost a first responder parent. Additional information about FRCF can be found at www.1stRCF.org and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @1strcf. Press Contact: Natalie Maniscalco natalie@retromedianyc.com 845.659.6506 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cb0fe5c1-27d4-4bbb-ba88-0ac476e0f8a0 NEWARK, Del, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The rise of opioid misuse is driving a critical market the Alexipharmic Drug Market, which acts as an antidote in overdose situations. A recent report highlights a concerning trend, with the alexipharmic drug market valued at USD 3.80 billion in 2024 and projected to reach USD 6.50 billion by 2034. This signifies a significant growth trajectory at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 5.40%. According to a survey, opiate-related drug poisoning deaths in England and Wales have increased by 388% since 1993. However, with the help of positive government intervention and reduced stigma around drug addiction, alexipharmic drugs can pave the way for a future where opioid abuse is no longer a crisis. Request a Sample Research Report Now! https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-19529 Governments worldwide have started taking positive steps to combat the opioid crisis. For instance, the United Kingdom government has launched a comprehensive strategy to tackle the opioid epidemic and reduce the stigma associated with drug addiction. These steps will help to shape the future of the alexipharmic drug market, making it more accessible to those in need. Key players in the alexipharmic drug market are collaborating with government and non-government organizations to spread awareness regarding the use of these drugs in case of opioid over abuse. This has not only increased brand awareness but also highlighted the importance of responsible medication usage , Sabyasachi Ghosh (Associate Vice President at Future Market Insights, Inc.) Key Takeaways from the Alexipharmic Drug Market Study The opioid overdose segment dominates the alexipharmic drug market with an expected share of 39% in 2024. in 2024. Based on the distribution channels, the hospital pharmacies segment leads the alexipharmic drug market with an anticipated share of 42% in 2024. in 2024. The market in South Korea is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 8.00% through 2034. through 2034. The market in Japan is estimated to rise at a 7.10% CAGR through 2034. through 2034. The market in the United Kingdom has the potential to increase at a 6.70% CAGR through 2034. through 2034. The market in China is predicted to rise at a 6.30% CAGR through 2034. through 2034. The market in the United States is in line to grow at a CAGR of 5.70% through 2034. Alexipharmic Drug Market Competitive Landscape The alexipharmic drugs industry has numerous companies competing for global market dominance. These companies have been operating in the pharmaceutical industry for a long time and have expanded their market reach beyond national borders. The market has benefited from the growth of online medicine platforms, telemedicine, and last-mile delivery services in developed and developing countries. Prominent companies in the market include Alkermes, Inc., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Bausch Health Companies Inc., Emergent BioSolutions, and Ethypharm S. A. Alexipharmic Drug Market Recent Developments: Novo Nordisk acquired Alkermess Irish plant in Athlone for $92.5m on December 14, 2023. Rockwell Medical announced a 3-year co-promotional collaboration with B. Braun Medical on June 29, 2023. Emergent BioSolutions expanded access to OTC naloxone on March 28, 2024, distributing 22 million doses. Ethypharm acquired Altan Pharma on June 18, 2021, expanding into the Spanish market. Emergent BioSolutions extended the shelf life of naloxone nasal spray on January 23, 2024, approved by FDA for OTC use in spring 2023. Purchase Full Report! https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/19529 Alexipharmic Drug Market Key Companies: Alkermes, Inc. B. Braun Melsungen AG Bausch Health Companies Inc. Emergent BioSolutions Ethypharm S.A. Key Segments of the Alexipharmic Drug Market: By Application: Alcoholic Overdose Opioid Overdose Benzodiazepine Overdose Others By Distribution Channel: Hospital Pharmacies Retail Pharmacies Online Pharmacies Others By Region: North America Latin America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa Author by: Sabyasachi Ghosh (Associate Vice President at Future Market Insights, Inc.) holds over 12 years of experience in the Healthcare, Medical Devices, and Pharmaceutical industries. His curious and analytical nature helped him shape his career as a researcher. Identifying key challenges faced by clients and devising robust, hypothesis-based solutions to empower them with strategic decision-making capabilities come naturally to him. His primary expertise lies in areas such as Market Entry and Expansion Strategy, Feasibility Studies, Competitive Intelligence, and Strategic Transformation. Holding a degree in Microbiology, Sabyasachi has authored numerous publications and has been cited in journals, including The Journal of mHealth, ITN Online, and Spinal Surgery News. Have a Look at the Related Report from the Alexipharmic Drug Market: The global breast reconstruction meshes market size is estimated to be worth USD 606.4 million in 2024 and is projected to reach a valuation of USD 1,047.1 million by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 5.6% through 2034. The global wound wash market share is estimated to be valued at USD 200.3 million in 2024 and is projected to reach a valuation of USD 292.7 million by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 3.9% The global wound filler market demand is estimated to be worth USD 614.7 million in 2024 and is projected to reach a value of USD 948.7 million by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 4.4% The global liposuction market growth is estimated to be worth USD 5323.7 million in 2024 and is likely to achieve USD 10278.5 million by 2034, inferring a CAGR of 6.8% The global critical care patient monitoring products market size is likely to generate sales amounting to USD 46.5 billion in 2024. Over the assessment period from 2024 to 2034 The global neuroendocrine carcinoma treatment market size is likely to generate revenue amounting to USD 1,976 million in 2024. Over the assessment period, the industry is projected to expand at an 8.1% CAGR The global dialyzer reprocessing machines and concentrates market share is expected to reach a value of USD 1299.2 million in 2024 and is projected to reach a value of USD 2198.2 million by 2034 The smart wheelchair market demand is anticipated to record a value of USD 185.7 million in 2024. The industry is projected to witness a CAGR of 7.8% in the ten-year time frame. The revenue projection for smart wheelchairs is going to be USD 393.5 million by 2034. The meningococcal vaccine market growth has been experiencing significant growth in the past few years, thanks to the rising incidences of the disease worldwide. The valuation, as of 2024, is estimated to be around USD 3950.2 million The projected scope of the global breathing circuit market size is expected to reach USD 21.6 billion by 2034, developing at a sluggish CAGR of 3.5% through the forecasted era. 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: 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 SAN FRANCISCO, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco (FHLBank San Francisco) today announced $49.3 million in affordable housing grants to California-based housing developers through its Affordable Housing Program (AHP) General Fund. FHLBank San Francisco is the largest privately-owned source of affordable housing funding in its three-state area and collectively with the other Federal Home Loan Banks is one of the largest privately-owned grant providers in the nation. This year's significant grant cycle represents an 89% increase in California funding over last year, demonstrating the Banks commitment to deliver on its mission to solve the critical shortage of affordable housing in the state. The 2024 selected grants are being awarded to 47 important projects within California and will create 3,105 units of affordable housing throughout the state. "I am proud of the crucial investments FHLBank San Francisco is making in affordable housing across Arizona, California and Nevada some of the most economically, geographically and culturally diverse states in America, said Alanna McCargo, president and CEO of FHLBank San Francisco. The affordable housing crisis affects countless families and individuals living in urban, populous cities, rural, tribal communities, and many places in between. We are pleased to be able to nearly double the amount of grant funding this year, in partnership with our members, to 59 critically needed projects across the region. They will have a meaningful impact on mitigating the affordable housing crisis, increasing the housing supply and providing much needed help for those in need. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition , California is the state with the highest number of extremely low income rental households, with over 1.2 million California residents in need of an affordable place to live. Currently, the state has roughly just over 300,000 affordable housing units available for this population, marking a notable shortage in need of addressing. AHP grants help finance the development, preservation, and rehabilitation of single-family and multifamily housing for people in need, including the chronically unhoused, families, seniors, veterans, at-risk youth, people living with disabilities and mental health challenges or overcoming substance abuse. Grants are delivered through FHLBank San Francisco member institutions partnering with nonprofits and affordable housing developers to submit applications for grants for specific projects in an annual funding competition. AHP-funded projects represent a wide range of strategies and solutions, from historic preservation and adaptive reuse to new construction and rehabilitation. U.S. Senator Alex Padilla weighed in on the impact the AHP funding will have on the state of California: Housing is a human right and partners like FHLBank San Francisco understand that, said Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.). While more investments are needed to increase housing supply, this new round of funding is a step in the right direction to address the affordable housing and homelessness crisis that affects millions of Californians every day. The 2024 AHP California-based General Fund grants will fund a variety of projects including Community Land Trusts, commercial to residential property conversions, rehabilitation and new construction that will benefit thousands of California residents. Notable projects include: National City, Calif., new construction of Union Tower, built in collaboration with Century Housing Corporation and Wakeland Housing and Development Corporation, will create 93 units for previously unhoused veterans and lower-income families and individuals. Hayward, Calif., new construction of Hayward Senior Housing, in collaboration with Wells Fargo National Bank West and Christian Church Homes of Northern California, will create 79 units of affordable housing for seniors. Glendale, Calif., a former laboratory, medical office, and school will be transformed into Harrower Village, a commercial-to-residential conversion property developed in collaboration with Wells Fargo National Bank West and Abode Communities, which will create 40 units of affordable housing for seniors. Bolinas, Calif., new construction of 31 Wharf Road, in collaboration with Bank of San Francisco and Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco, will create eight affordable condominiums for low-income families. Fillmore, Calif., new construction of Fillmore Terrace multifamily rental housing community, in collaboration with Montecito Bank & Trust and People's Self-Help Housing Corporation, will create 50 units of affordable rental housing serving lower-income families, farmworker households, and the formerly unhoused. Los Angeles, Calif., a former oil production facility will be transformed into The Arlington, a collaboration with Wells Fargo National Bank West and Kingdom Development Inc., which will create 84 units of affordable housing for extremely low-income, unhoused individuals. Anderson, Calif., new construction of Sunrise Cottages housing, in collaboration with Tri Counties Bank and Rural Communities Housing Development Corp., will create 45 units for low-income seniors, including previously unhoused seniors. Where AHP projects are developed, local economies also get a boost, as these projects create jobs, increase construction and consumer spending, and generate new tax revenues. Learn more about the communities, families, and individuals that have benefited from access to AHP-funded housing on the Banks website. To see the complete list of 2024 AHP grant winners, visit the Banks website. About the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco is a member-driven cooperative helping local lenders in Arizona, California, and Nevada build strong communities, create opportunity, and change lives for the better. The tools and resources we provide to our member financial institutions commercial banks, credit unions, industrial loan companies, savings institutions, insurance companies, and community development financial institutions propel homeownership, finance quality affordable housing, drive economic vitality, and revitalize whole neighborhoods. Together with our members and other partners, we are making the communities we serve more vibrant, equitable, and resilient. BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OneMove Capital Ltd. (OneMove), a Family Office based in Bridgetown, Barbados and a founding shareholder in Dye & Durham Limited (Dye & Durham or the Company), has reluctantly commenced litigation against the Company to protect its fundamental rights as a shareholder and ensure that the Companys shareholders have a say on replacing Edward Prittie at the upcoming special meeting of shareholders (the Special Meeting) scheduled on August 20, 2024. The Companys board of directors (the Board) claims that OneMove is attempting to use the court to achieve an outcome that the Company does not believe its shareholders would accept. If the Board is so confident about the will of its shareholders, shouldnt they let shareholders vote on whether or not to remove Mr. Prittie? Why waste the Companys resources in scorched earth tactics to insulate Mr. Prittie from facing shareholders? Let shareholders decide. For months, OneMove has tried to work confidentially and collaboratively with the Board to improve governance amidst serious missteps. If the Board is genuinely interested in being transparent, it would disclose all of the offers exchanged with OneMove (and any other shareholders) -- instead of selectively disclosing an incomplete recent offer. OneMove will never accept an offer that entrenches a Board that has overseen significant value-destruction to shareholders. OneMoves position is very simple. It has lost confidence in Mr. Prittie and seeks a vote where shareholders get to decide whether to replace him with Eric Shahinian. This is not a personal grievance, as the Board contends for tactical reasons. OneMove is deeply disappointed with Mr Pritties lack of leadership and performance as a director over the last 24 months. The Board should immediately cease self-interested tactics and any unnecessary litigation at the expense of corporate resources and listen to their shareholders. If not, shareholders will have their say on governance at the Special Meeting. OneMove urges the Company to not delay the Special Meeting. Further uncertainty and delay is not in the Companys best interests. OneMove Capital Ltd. Email: ir@onemovecapital.com Phone: 786.220.2552 Stockholm, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On May 8, 2024, Professor Lingyun Xiang, a Tenured Full-Time Professor at the European Union University, was awarded the EUU Excellence Award (2022-2023) by the European Union University. The European Union University, also known as the EUU, traces its origins back to 1968. It was established with the support of the six founding member countries of the European Community: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The university was founded to provide advanced academic training for cutting-edge researchers meeting international standards, thereby promoting the development of social sciences and culture throughout Europe. The European Union University is a public institution governed by laws, regulations, and government decisions. The President of the university is the head of the institution, and the University Board is the highest decision-making body. Since 1999, the European Union University has expanded its scope of cooperation, welcoming researchers from various countries. Each year, the President of the European Union University appoints a recipient of the EUU Excellence Award. Students and faculty nominate teachers and colleagues who are dedicated to teaching. Professor Xiang Lingyun, the Tenured Full-time Professor, is a member of the Royal Society, a recipient of the British King's Medal, a lifetime fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is also a tenured professor (doctoral advisor) at the University of Maryland, a distinguished professor at Peking University Boya, a visiting professor at Beijing Union University, Capital Normal University, and Shaanxi University of Science and Technology. Additionally, he serves as a Special Economic Advisor to the Central African Republic, invited Chief Economic Advisor to the Republic of Haiti, the invited Economic Advisor to the Republic of Liberia, the invited Economic Advisor to the Republic of Zimbabwe, the Special Financial Economic Advisor to the Republic of Madagascar, the Financial and Economic Advisor to the Republic of North Macedonia, the Chief Financial Economic Advisor to the Republic of Ghana, the Financial and Economic Advisor to the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in China, the Financial and Economic Advisor to the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Economic and Cultural Exchange Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Special Financial Advisor to the Republic of Uzbekistan as well as the Ambassador of Friendly Cultural Exchanges between China and Foreign Countries, Envoys of Friendly Exchanges Between China and Cote d'Ivoire to the Republic of Cote d'Ivoire, and the Ambassador of International Public Welfare Charity to the Republic of Mali. Oshkosh, Wisconsin, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Final preparations are underway as EAA AirVenture Oshkosh is set to become the focal point of the aviation world on July 22-28. More than 10,000 aircraft and 650,000 people are expected to attend the weeklong convention for all things aviation. Wittman Regional Airport is expected to once again become the worlds busiest airport during that week. EAA AirVenture Oshkosh is a destination for many as the weeklong event is known for daily air shows, new product announcements, and aircraft of every shape and size from hot air balloons to military fighters. More than 800 exhibitors highlight all facets of aviation technology. Some of this years highlights include: The Royal Canadian Air Forces 100 th anniversary, featuring performances by the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, the CF-18 Demo Team, the Avro Lancaster Mk. X, and more. (July 26-28) anniversary, featuring performances by the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, the CF-18 Demo Team, the Avro Lancaster Mk. X, and more. (July 26-28) An appearance by The Frecce Tricolori, The Italian Air Forces aerobatic demonstration team (July 23) A commemoration of the 80-year anniversary of 1944s Turning of the Tide in World War II, featuring a large collection of D-day and other World War II-era aircraft. An appearance by Miss America, Madison Marsh, who is also an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force Modern military flight demonstrations including performances by the F-35, F-22, F-16 and A-10 demo teams, helping to highlight participation of the Air Force Materiel Command EAA AirVenture Oshkosh is considered by many to be aviations family reunion because of the wide variety of aircraft that fly into Wittman Regional Airport every year, said Rick Larsen, EAAs vice president of communities and member programs, who coordinates AirVenture features and attractions. Oshkosh continues to be a household name and premier destination for pilots around the world. Attendees ages 18 and under will once again receive free admission this year supported in part by The Boeing Company. Advanced tickets and camping reservations are available for purchase at AirVenture.org. About EAA AirVenture Oshkosh EAA AirVenture Oshkosh is The Worlds Greatest Aviation Celebration and EAAs membership convention. Additional information, including advance ticket and camping purchase, is available at www.EAA.org/airventure. For more information on EAA and its programs, call 800-JOIN-EAA (800-564-6322) or visit www.EAA.org. Immediate news is available at www.twitter.com/EAA. -30- Attachments CHICAGO, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Century Aluminum applauds the Administrations decision to toughen the rules on aluminum imports from Mexico. The introduction of the smelted and cast provision is an important first step in curbing aluminum transshipments and unfair trade from 3rd party countries entering through Mexico. Going forward, aluminum that was smelted and cast in Russia, China, Iran and Belarus and converted into products in Mexico will be subject to the 10% Section 232 duty. We are thankful for President Bidens continued support for the domestic aluminum industry. Aluminum is a key enabler of the green energy transition and a critical material for emerging green industries and our national defense. Todays decision helps protect the industry and American workers, said CEO Jesse Gary. The United States continues to experience a surge of imports from Mexico at below market value. Earlier this year the Department of Commerce and US International Trade Commission imposed antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from Mexico, which are critically important. However, Mexico continues to receive primary metal imports from non-tariffed 3rd party countries beyond the four in the scope of todays proclamation. Today was a positive first step and we will continue to fight for a level playing field, Gary said. About Century Aluminum Company Century Aluminum is an integrated producer of bauxite, alumina, and primary aluminum products. Century is the largest domestic producer of primary aluminum in the United States and also operates production facilities in Iceland, the Netherlands and Jamaica. Visit www.centuryaluminum.com for more information. Cautionary Statement This press release and statements made by Century Aluminum Company management contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are subject to the "safe harbor" created by section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"). Forward-looking statements are statements about future events and are based on our current expectations. These forward-looking statements may be identified by the words "believe," "expect," "hope," "target," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "seek," "estimate," "potential," "project," "scheduled," "forecast" or words of similar meaning, or future or conditional verbs such as "will," "would," "should," "could," "might," or "may." Where we express an expectation or belief as to future events or results, such expectation or belief is expressed in good faith and believed to have a reasonable basis. However, our forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties which may cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed, projected or implied by those forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results and events to differ from those described in such forward-looking statements can be found in the risk factors and forward-looking statements cautionary language contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and in other filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although we have attempted to identify those material factors that could cause actual results or events to differ from those described in such forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that could cause actual results or events to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Many of these factors are beyond our ability to control or predict. Given these uncertainties, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Contact Ryan Crawford 312-696-3132 Source: Century Aluminum Company NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of common stock of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (NYSE: SMG) between November 3, 2021 and August 1, 2023, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), of the important August 5, 2024 lead plaintiff deadline. SO WHAT: If you purchased Scotts common stock during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Scotts class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=25932 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than August 5, 2024. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs Bar. Many of the firms attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers. DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period, defendants made numerous materially false and misleading statements and omissions concerning Scotts inventory levels, debt covenant compliance, and financial performance. Specifically, defendants repeatedly assured investors that Scotts inventory levels were appropriate, while attributing strong sales to selling through high-cost inventory, which resulted in peak selling and record shipments. defendants also repeatedly assuaged investors concerns about Scotts debt, stating that they were optimistic we will remain within the bounds of our bank covenants and [did] not see leverage compliance issues going forward. As a result of these misrepresentations, Scotts common stock traded at artificially inflated prices during the Class Period. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. To join the Scotts class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=25932 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investors ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. ------------------------------- Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq. Phillip Kim, Esq. The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Tel: (212) 686-1060 Toll Free: (866) 767-3653 Fax: (212) 202-3827 case@rosenlegal.com www.rosenlegal.com Chicago, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Following on its two previous strategic announcements of launching Asia in 2024, today Sterling Trading Tech (Sterling), in response to local market demand, is building the initiative further by resourcing it with local business development experts. Industry veterans Clara Lee and Jason Yoon-Hendricks have been recruited as APAC Sales Directors. Both have extensive experience in business development and relationship management. Lee was previously with Eventus and MSCI (in analytics). Prior to Sterling, Yoon-Hendricks has served with Refinitiv, Thomson Reuters, and REDI Global Technology. They are responsible for building out Asia market share part of Sterlings overall growth plan and trajectory. Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore increasingly seek sophisticated OMS and Risk models as well as trading capability that can provide firms with a competitive advantage. Sterling is poised to meet that demand. To date, 2024 has seen substantial interest in and success with Sterlings approach. Sterlings multi-asset OMS enhances liquidity and alpha generation in U.S. equities and options. It fosters client growth and competitiveness by creating operational and infrastructure efficiencies. Sterling OMS offers real-time balances and positions, advanced margin methodologies, customizable risk controls, broad reporting capabilities, and API connectivity, enabling seamless trading. Advanced order queuing allows traders to place orders at any time and receive international orders in real time outside of U.S. trading hours. The Risk & Margin capability is delivered across a menu of technical alternatives, covers U.S. & International equities and options, Fixed Income and Futures and delivers proprietary and unique RegTech capability. This includes Risk & Margin together in one system, and RegT and Custom House Policy Updates in real time. Post-execution analysis is done using real-time market data. Said Jennifer Nayar, Sterling Trading Tech CEO: Our overall Asia initiative has proven to be productive YTD in 2024 and merits this prudent investment in local business development. Both Clara and Jason each bring with them substantial networks, local expertise, and broad and deep knowledge of client demands. We anticipate exponential growth as a result of their efforts and are excited to have them on the team. Said Andrew Actman, Managing Director of Business Development, at Sterling: Our expectation that Asia was underserved in the robust OMS and Risk and Margin models that Sterling delivers has proven to be correct. As we look to our Asia strategy, we now have local presence to focus on creating continued opportunities and to service clients already onboarded. -ENDS- About Sterling Trading Tech Sterling Trading Tech (Sterling) is a leading provider of professional trading technology solutions for the global equities, equity options and futures markets. With over 100 clients including leading brokers, clearing firms and prop groups in over 20 countries, Sterling provides solutions tailored to clients needs. Sterling is committed to providing fast, stable technology along with outstanding customer service. Sterling provides trading platforms, OMS and risk products to its clients. Media Contact: Falcon Energy Materials plc (TSX-V: SRG) ("Falcon" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has retained DS Market Solutions Inc. ("DS Market") to provide equity trading advisory and liquidity provider services in accordance with the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") policies and subject to the approval of the TSXV.DS Market will trade the securities of the Company on the TSXV for the purpose of maintaining an orderly market. In consideration of the services provided by DS Market, the Company will pay DS Market a monthly fee of $5,000 from the Company's available cash for a minimum term of one month and renewable for successive one-month terms thereafter. Either Party may terminate the arrangement by providing written notice to that effect 30 days prior to the end of the then current term. The services provided by DS Market commenced on July 2, 2024.The Company and DS Market are unrelated and unaffiliated entities and DS Market has no interest, directly or indirectly in the Company or its securities. DS Market will not receive shares or options as compensation, nor have they indicated any immediate intent to acquire shares of the Company through the open market or otherwise. The capital used for market making will be provided by DS Market. In addition, the Company announces that a new Chief Financial Officer ("CFO") has been appointed, following the Company's Redomiciliation to the Abu Dhabi Global Market. Effective today, Ugo Landry-Tolszczuk has resigned as the Company's CFO, and Jean-Daniel Joly has been appointed as his successor. The Company would like to thank Mr. Landry-Tolszczuk for his services to the Company. Mr. Joly is a Chartered Professional Accountant ("CPA") and has been acting as VP Finance for Falcon since 2022. About DS Market DS Market is an equity trading advisor to issuers looking to enhance liquidity in their public traded securities. DS Market was incorporated in Mississauga, Ontario in April 2024 and the offices of DS Market are located in Mississauga, Ontario. Mr. David Sears is the sole owner of DS Market and will be providing the services on behalf of DS Market. DS Market's contact is davidsears@dsmarketsolutions.com. About Falcon Falcon is focused on developing the Lola Graphite Project located in the Republic of Guinea, West Africa. The Lola Graphite Project has Proven and Probable Reserves of 42Mt at a grade of 4.2% Cg. Falcon aims to develop a fully integrated source of battery anode material to supply the European lithium-ion and fuel cell markets. With attractive operating costs, proximity to European end-markets and strong ESG credentials, the Company is poised to become a reliable supplier while promoting sustainability and supply chain transparency. Falcon is committed to generating sustainable, long-term benefits that are shared with the host countries and communities where it operates. For additional information, please visit Falcon's website at www.falconem.net. Contact: Matthieu Bos Matt Johnston President & CEO Corporate Development Advisor Email: m.bos@falconem.net Email: m.johnston@falconem.net 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. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Generally, such forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "advance", "provide", "interest", "anticipated", "progress", "result", "confirm", "target", "increase", "expect", "scheduled", "enable", "projected", "drive", "aim", "realise", "growth", "goals", "continue", "advance", "potential", "will", "demonstrate", "deliver", "believe", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would" or "might". Forward-looking statements are included to provide information about management's current expectations and plans that allows investors and others to have a better understanding of the Company's business plans and financial performance and condition. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included in this press release, regarding the Company's strategy, future operations, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are based upon certain assumptions and other important factors that, if untrue, could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such information or statements. There can be no assurance that such information or statements will prove to be accurate. Key assumptions upon which the Company's forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are based include the Company's expectation that it will be able to obtain final approval of the TSXV in respect of the UAE Redomiciliation and the Name Change and that it will benefit from the UAE Redomiciliation and the Name Change in the ways set forth herein. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive of all factors and assumptions which may have been used. Forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are also subject to risks and uncertainties facing the Company's business, any of which could have a material adverse effect on the Company's business. Readers are directed to carefully review the detailed discussion contained in the section entitled "Risk and Uncertainties" in the Company's MD&A for the year ended December 31, 2023, as updated by the Company's MD&A for the quarter ended March 31, 2024, each of which is filed on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca, for a fuller understanding of the risks and uncertainties that affect the Company's business and operations. Although the Company believes its expectations are based upon reasonable assumptions and has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information or 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 information or forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements. As such, these risks are not exhaustive; however, they should be considered carefully. If any of these risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking information and forward-looking statements found herein. Due to the risks, uncertainties and assumptions inherent in forward-looking information and forward-looking statements, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information and forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained herein are presented for the purpose of assisting investors in understanding the Company's rationale behind its strategy, business, operations and exploration plans, and may not be appropriate for other purposes. The assumptions referred to above should be considered carefully by readers. Forward-looking information and forward-looking statements and are given as of the date of this press release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information or forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent required by applicable law. The Company qualifies all of its forward-looking information and forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements. Calgary, July 9, 2024 - West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd. (TSXV: WHY) (the "Company" or "West High Yield") is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement offering for the sale of up to 4,545,454 units of the Company (the "Units") at a price of CAD$0.33 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds of up to CAD$1,500,000.00 (the "Offering"). Each Unit issued under the Offering will consist of one (1) common share of the Company (each, a "Share") and one half (1/2) of one (1) Common Share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"). Each full Warrant, together with CAD$0.45, will entitle the holder thereof to acquire one (1) additional Common Share for a period of eighteen (18) months from each full Warrant's date of issuance. The Warrants will not be listed on the TSX Venture Exchange ("Exchange"). The Company may pay a finder's fee in connection with the Offering to eligible finders in accordance with the policies of the TSXV and applicable Canadian securities laws consisting of: (i) a cash commission of up to 6% of the gross proceeds of the Offering; and (ii) common share purchase warrants (the "Finder's Warrants") of up to 6% of the number of full Warrants issued under the Offering. The Finder's Warrant will have identical terms to the Warrants. The Offering will be completed pursuant to certain exemptions from the prospectus requirements under applicable Canadian securities laws. All securities issued under the Offering are subject to a statutory hold period from their date of issue in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws. None of the Units will be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and none may be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. The proceeds from the Offering will be used: (a) for supporting the Company's planned drilling program for the water monitoring holes at its Record Ridge magnesium deposit, as required by the British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mining, and Low Carbon Innovation; (b) concluding its permitting process; (c) covering essential operations; and (d) general working capital purposes and expenses. The Offering is subject to certain closing conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals, including the acceptance and approval of the TSXV. About West High Yield West High Yield is a publicly traded junior mining exploration and development company focused on acquiring, exploring, and developing mineral resource properties in Canada. Its primary objective is to develop its Record Ridge critical mineral (magnesium, silica, and nickel) deposit using green processing techniques to minimize waste and CO 2 emissions. The Company's Record Ridge critical mineral deposit located 10 kilometers southwest of Rossland, British Columbia has approximately 10.6 million tonnes of contained magnesium based on an independently produced National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") Preliminary Economic Assessment technical report prepared by SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. in accordance with NI 43-101. Contact Information: WEST HIGH YIELD (W.H.Y.) RESOURCES LTD. Frank Marasco Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer Telephone: (403) 660-3488 Email: frank@whyresources.com Barry Baim, Corporate Secretary Telephone: (403) 829-2246 Email: barry@whyresources.com Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Information This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the Company. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: general economic conditions in Canada and globally; industry conditions, including governmental regulation; failure to obtain industry partner and other third party consents and approvals, if and when required; the availability of capital on acceptable terms; the need to obtain required approvals from regulatory authorities; and other factors. Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information, which is given as of the date hereof, and to not use such forward-looking information for anything other than its intended purpose. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in the United States. The securities of the Company will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of U.S. persons except in certain transactions exempt from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act. 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/216024 Rio Tinto will contribute A$20 million to the Western Australian Government towards the major redevelopment of the Paraburdoo Hospital, in the state's Pilbara region. The partnership will see the ageing Paraburdoo Hospital upgraded with contemporary purpose-built facilities to support medical services for the local community, including new rooms for the GP. Rio Tinto's contribution to the Paraburdoo Hospital will come from the company's A$250 million commitment to the Western Australian Government's Resources Community Investment Initiative (RCII). The major redevelopment of the Paraburdoo Hospital is the first project through the RCII to receive funding. The project will be packaged together with Rio Tinto's previous A$20 million commitment to a new Tom Price Hospital, as part of a procurement approach by the State Government to create a larger package of work that is more attractive to potential contractors. It is expected this approach will fast-track the Tom Price Hospital project by allowing early construction works to start on site while design and works for the remainder of the project progress simultaneously. The State Government anticipates a tender will be released for both projects next month, with a contract expected to be awarded in November 2024 and works for Tom Price to begin soon after. Rio Tinto Rail, Ports and Core Services Managing Director Richard Cohen, said "We've been part of the Pilbara region for almost 60 years and have a strong commitment to the communities of Tom Price and Paraburdoo. "We understand health services are very important to both communities to ensure the ongoing health, safety and wellbeing of people and their families living in both towns. "We have been working with the State Government to support the delivery of a new Tom Price Hospital and are proud to be able to make a significant contribution to the major redevelopment of Paraburdoo Hospital. "We welcome the State Government's new procurement approach and look forward to seeing these important projects take shape in the near future." Western Australian Premier Roger Cook, said "This innovative approach allows Government to work collaboratively with a construction contractor to urgently deliver the works at Tom Price and Paraburdoo Hospitals, with support from Rio Tinto." "We are getting on with the job of delivering these major health infrastructure projects, by creating a larger package of works that will be more attractive to future contractors. "Staff at both Tom Price Hospital and Paraburdoo Hospital continue to deliver excellent care to the local community, and I thank them for all they do." Note to the editors: Rio Tinto contributed A$20 million to the State Government to fund a new hospital in Tom Price in 2021. Rio Tinto committed A$250 million to support Western Australian communities through the State Government's Resources Community Investment Initiative in 2022. In 2023 Rio Tinto contributed A$53 million in social investment initiatives across the State and spent $8.8 billion with suppliers in Western Australia. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240709940158/en/ Contact Please direct all enquiries to:media.enquiries@riotinto.com Media Relations, United Kingdom Matthew Klar M +44 7796 630 637 David Outhwaite M +44 7787 597 493 Media Relations, Australia Matt Chambers M +61 433 525 739 Jesse Riseborough M +61 436 653 412 Alyesha Anderson M +61 434 868 118 Michelle Lee M +61 458 609 322 Media Relations, Americas Simon Letendre M +1 514 796 4973 Malika Cherry M +1 418 592 7293 Vanessa Damha M +1 514 715 2152 Investor Relations, United Kingdom David Ovington M +44 7920 010 978 Laura Brooks M +44 7826 942 797 Investor Relations, Australia Tom Gallop M +61 439 353 948 Amar Jambaa M +61 472 865 948 Rio Tinto Plc 6 St James's Square London SW1Y 4AD United Kingdom T +44 20 7781 2000 Registered in England No. 719885 Rio Tinto Ltd. Level 43, 120 Collins Street Melbourne 3000 Australia T +61 3 9283 3333 Registered in Australia ABN 96 004 458 404 riotinto.com Category: Pilbara TORONTO, July 10, 2024 - Galantas Gold Corp. (TSX-V & AIM: GAL; OTCQX: GALKF) ("Galantas" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has agreed in principle to a proposal from G&F Phelps Ltd. to develop a solar power facility at the Cavanacaw Gold Mine at the Omagh Project in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The two-megawatt facility, with battery storage, is expected to significantly boost power generation on site and provide lower cost power than existing diesel generation, at a significantly lower carbon footprint. The proposal anticipates G&F Phelps renting rehabilitated land comprised of former tailings cells and a filled southern section of the former open pit. G&F Phelps is expected to provide the majority of capital required for the project, recouping the cost from the power generated. The proposal is subject to a detailed cost study, impact assessment and planning permission from regulatory authorities. Surplus power from the solar facility is expected to be exported to the local grid. G&F Phelps is a shareholder of Galantas, to which it has also provided loan finance. It is controlled by former Galantas CEO, Roland Phelps. Mario Stifano, CEO of Galantas, commented: "On-site solar power generation can reduce mine operating costs, lower our carbon footprint and reduce the requirement for fuel transportation onto the project site, resulting in fewer traffic movements locally. It is a "win-win" for the Company and the environment." 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. About Galantas Gold Corporation Galantas Gold Corporation is a Canadian public company that trades on the TSX Venture Exchange and the London Stock Exchange AIM market, both under the symbol GAL. It also trades on the OTCQX Exchange under the symbol GALKF. The Company's strategy is to create shareholder value by operating and expanding gold production and resources at the Omagh Project in Northern Ireland, and exploring the Gairloch Project hosting the Kerry Road gold-bearing VMS deposit in Scotland. Enquiries Galantas Gold Corporation Mario Stifano: Chief Executive Officer Email: info@galantas.com Website: www.galantas.com Telephone: +44(0)28 8224 1100 Grant Thornton UK LLP (AIM Nomad) Philip Secrett, Harrison Clarke, Elliot Peters Telephone: +44(0)20 7383 5100 SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP (AIM Broker) David Hignell, Charlie Bouverat (Corporate Finance) Grant Barker (Sales & Broking) Telephone: +44(0)20 3470 0470 Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws, including results of exploration and mine development programs at the Omagh Project and Gairloch Project. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by Galantas in light of its experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that Galantas believes are appropriate in the circumstances. Many factors could cause Galantas' actual results, the performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward looking statements or strategy, including: gold price volatility; discrepancies between actual and estimated production, actual and estimated metallurgical recoveries and throughputs; mining operational risk, geological uncertainties; regulatory restrictions, including environmental regulatory restrictions and liability; risks of sovereign involvement; speculative nature of gold exploration; dilution; competition; loss of or availability of key employees; additional funding requirements; uncertainties regarding planning and other permitting issues; and defective title to mineral claims or property. These factors and others that could affect Galantas' forward-looking statements are discussed in greater detail in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Galantas' Management Discussion & Analysis of the financial statements of Galantas and elsewhere in documents filed from time to time with the Canadian provincial securities regulators and other regulatory authorities. These factors should be considered carefully, and persons reviewing this news release should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Galantas has no intention and undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements in this news release, except as required by law. Camino Rojo Delivers Another Strong Quarter of Gold Production VANCOUVER, July 10, 2024 - Orla Mining Ltd. (TSX: OLA) (NYSE: ORLA) ("Orla" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an interim operational update for the second quarter ended June 30, 2024. (All amounts expressed in millions of US dollars, as at June 30, 2024 and are unaudited unless otherwise stated) Second Quarter 2024 Camino Rojo Oxide Mine Operational Update The Camino Rojo Oxide Mine produced 33,206 ounces and sold 34,875 ounces of gold during the second quarter 2024. Camino Rojo Mining and Processing Totals Q2 2024 YTD Q2 2024 Ore Mined tonnes 1,904,649 3,848,513 Waste Mined tonnes 2,051,940 2,924,511 Total Mined tonnes 3,956,589 6,773,024 Strip Ratio w:o 1.08 0.76 Ore Stacked tonnes 1,934,678 3,717,983 Daily Stacked Throughput Rate - Average tpd 19,717 19,657 Stacked Ore Gold Grade g/t 0.87 0.84 Gold Produced oz 33,206 66,429 Gold Sold oz 34,875 66,921 At June 30, 2024, Orla had cash of $154.3 million and total debt of $78.4 million, resulting in a net cash position of $75.9 million1. The Company has an undrawn amount of $71.6 million available on its revolving credit facility, which supports total liquidity of $225.9 million at quarter end1. The liquidity position at June 30, 2024, is shown below. Financial and operating results for the second quarter 2024 will be provided on August 12, 2024. Liquidity Position Cash position $154.3 Long-term debt2 $78.4 Net cash1,[2] $75.9 Undrawn debt available2 $71.6 Total available liquidity1 $225.9 __________________________________ 1 Net cash and liquidity are non-GAAP measures. See the "Non-GAAP Measures" section of this news release for additional information. 2 Long-term debt, net cash and undrawn debt may not tie due to rounding Second Quarter 2024 Conference Call Orla will host a conference call on Tuesday August 13, 2024, at 10:00 AM, Eastern Time, to provide a corporate update following the release of its financial and operating results for the second quarter 2024: Dial-In Numbers / Webcast: Conference ID: 5844017 Toll Free: 1 (888) 550-5302 Toll: 1 (646) 960-0685 Webcast: https://orlamining.com/investors/presentations-and-events/ Qualified Persons Statement The scientific and technical information in this news release was reviewed and approved by Mr. J. Andrew Cormier, P. Eng., Chief Operating Officer of the Company, who is the Qualified Person as defined under NI 43-101 standards. About Orla Mining Ltd. Orla's corporate strategy is to acquire, develop, and operate mineral properties where the Company's expertise can substantially increase stakeholder value. The Company has two material gold projects: (1) Camino Rojo, located in Zacatecas State, Mexico and (2) South Railroad, located in Nevada, United States. Orla is operating the Camino Rojo Oxide Gold Mine, a gold and silver open-pit and heap leach mine. The property is 100% owned by Orla and covers over 139,000 hectares which contains a large oxide and sulphide mineral resource. Orla is also developing the South Railroad Project, a feasibility-stage, open pit, heap leach gold project located on the Carlin trend in Nevada. The technical reports for the Company's material projects are available on Orla's website at www.orlamining.com, and on SEDAR+ and EDGAR under the Company's profile at www.sedarplus.ca and www.sec.gov, respectively. Non-GAAP Measures The Company has included certain performance measures in this news release which are not specified, defined, or determined under generally accepted accounting principles (in the Company's case, International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS")). These are common performance measures in the gold mining industry, but because they do not have any mandated standardized definitions, they may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. Accordingly, the Company uses such measures to provide additional information and you should not consider them in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"). In this section, all currency figures in tables are in millions, except per-share and per-ounce amounts. Net Cash Net cash is calculated as cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments less total debt at the end of the reporting period. This measure is used by management to measure the Company's debt leverage. The Company believes that net cash is useful in evaluating the Company's leverage and is also a key metric in determining the cost of debt. NET CASH Jun 30, 2024 Dec 31, 2023 Cash and cash equivalents $ 154.3 $ 96.6 Long term debt (78.4) (88.4) NET CASH $ 75.9 $ 8.2 Liquidity Liquidity is calculated as the sum of cash and cash equivalents, short-term Investments, and undrawn amounts available under the Company's revolving credit facility. Liquidity does not have any standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP and therefore may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. The Company believes that liquidity is useful to evaluate the Company's ability to meet its short -term obligations as they come due. LIQUIDITY Jun 30, 2024 Dec 31, 2023 Cash and cash equivalents $ 154.3 $ 96.6 Total credit facility available 150.0 150.0 Credit facility principal drawn down (78.4) (88.4) LIQUIDITY $ 225.9 $ 158.2 Preliminary Financial Results The financial results contained in this news release for the three- and six-month periods ended June 30, 2024 are preliminary. Such results represent the most current information available to the Company's management, as the Company completes its financial procedures. The Company's interim consolidated financial statements for such period may result in material changes to the financial information contained in this news release (including by any one financial metric, or all of the financial metrics, being below or above the figures indicated) as a result of the completion of normal period end accounting procedures and adjustments. Forward-looking Statements This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation and within the meaning of Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, Section 21E of the United States Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, or in releases made by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, all as may be amended from time to time.. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts which address events, results, outcomes or developments that the Company expects to occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Certain material assumptions regarding such forward-looking statements were made. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements involve significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, the risk factors discussed in the Company's most recently filed management's discussion and analysis, as well as its annual information form dated March 19, 2024, which are available on www.sedarplus.ca and www.sec.gov. Except as required by the securities disclosure laws and regulations applicable to the Company, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. SOURCE Orla Mining Ltd. VANCOUVER, July 10, 2024 - Trilogy Metals Inc. (TSX: TMQ) (NYSE American: TMQ) ("Trilogy", "Trilogy Metals" or "the Company") announces its financial results for the second quarter ended May 31, 2024. Details of the Company's financial results are contained in the interim unaudited consolidated financial statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis which will be available on the Company's website at www.trilogymetals.com, on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov. All amounts are in United States dollars unless otherwise stated. Highlights Expenditures tracking on or below budget for the first half of the fiscal year. Cash on hand of $14.0 million as at May 31, 2024 and $26.5 million as at July 10, 2024. Our 50/50 joint venture with South32 Ltd. ("South32"), Ambler Metals LLC ("Ambler Metals") returns excess cash to owners for ease of cash management. Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Ambler Access Project ("AAP") identifies "No Action" as preferred alternative. Corporate Activities The Company has a 2024 fiscal year cash budget totaling $2.8 million. For the six-month period ended May 31, 2024, we used $1.1 million in operating activities mainly for personnel costs, professional fees, regulatory and office expenses compared with budgeted cash expenditures totaling $1.5 million. The difference is due to the timing of paying our annual insurance premiums which occurred in June 2024. The Annual General Meeting of Shareholders was held on May 22, 2024. All directors nominated by the Company were elected by shareholders of the Company, with each director receiving greater than 98% of the votes cast. The shareholders of the Company also approved the adoption of a new Fixed Deferred Share Unit Plan (the "Fixed DSU Plan") for non-employee directors to receive up to 1,200,000 common shares of the Company in lieu of cash compensation. Upon the approval of the Fixed DSU Plan by shareholders, the Company terminated the Ambler Metals Equity Plan which had 1,181,519 common shares available for future grants. The adoption of the Fixed DSU Plan, along with the termination of the Ambler Metals Equity Plan, allows the Company to continue its cash preservation activities without significantly impacting potential dilution. Ambler Metals Joint Venture The Board of Ambler Metals approved a 2024 fiscal year budget totaling $5.5 million to support external and community affairs, to maintain the State of Alaska mineral claims in good standing and for the maintenance of physical assets. During the six-month period ended May 31, 2024, Ambler Metals expended $2.4 million on salaries and wages, professional fees, engineering, project support costs and mineral property expenses, excluding AAP costs, compared with the budget of $2.6 million. The Board of Ambler Metals also approved a 2024 fiscal year budget totaling $2.5 million to support the AAP. During the six-month period ended May 31, 2024, Ambler Metals funded $1.1 million to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority ("AIDEA") in support of the AAP compared with the budget of $1.3 million. Since the beginning of the year, the Board of Ambler Metals, through a Finance Committee, has been actively investing excess cash in low-risk, short-term deposits earning substantial interest income for the joint venture. During the second quarter of 2024, Trilogy and South32 agreed to return excess cash held by Ambler Metals to the owners for ease of cash management. The owners also agreed to maintain a minimum cash balance at Ambler Metals of $10 million which will be reviewed on a regular basis and during the budget cycle. Ambler Metals returned $25 million to Trilogy and South32 prior to the end of May 2024 and another $25 million during the first half of June 2024. Trilogy and South32 continue to each hold a 50% interest in Ambler Metals. Ambler Access Project On April 22, 2024, the Company announced that the United States Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") had filed the final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement ("Final SEIS") for the AAP on its website. The Final SEIS identified "No Action" as the BLM's preferred alternative. The proponent for the AAP is AIDEA which is a public corporation of the State of Alaska. AIDEA's purpose is to promote, develop, and advance the general prosperity and economic welfare of the people of Alaska. AIDEA strongly objected to the process used by the BLM to reach a "No Action" decision as well as the effect of the decision which illegally blocks access to statehood lands, minerals, and federally patented mining claims. On May 8, 2024, NANA Regional Corporation, Inc. announced its withdrawal from further involvement with the AAP and stated its intentions to not renew the surface access permit with AIDEA upon its expiry this year. On June 28, 2024, the BLM issued the Record of Decision confirming its selection of the No Action Alternative and thus denied AIDEA's application for a Right-Of-Way grant ("ROW Grant") across BLM-managed lands and terminates the BLM ROW Grant issued to AIDEA on January 5, 2021. Ambler Metals is working with AIDEA on next steps. Selected Results The following selected financial information is prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. in thousands of dollars, except for per share amounts Three months ended Six months ended Selected expenses May 31, 2024 $ May 31, 2023 $ May 31, 2024 $ May 31, 2023 $ General and administrative 319 328 734 736 Investor relations 19 23 31 53 Professional fees 191 188 392 758 Salaries 178 193 369 430 Salaries and directors expense - stock- based compensation 509 491 2,508 2,853 Share of loss on equity investment 602 1,603 1,394 3,088 Comprehensive loss for the period (1,759) (2,803) (5,360) (7,875) Basic and diluted loss per common share (0.01) (0.02) (0.03) (0.05) For the three-month period ended May 31, 2024, we reported a net loss of $1.8 million compared to a net loss of $2.8 million for the three-month period ended May 31, 2023. The decrease in comprehensive loss in the second quarter of 2024 compared to the same quarter in 2023 is due to the decrease in general and administrative, professional fees, our share of loss of Ambler Metals, and stock-based compensation and salaries. The decrease of our share of losses of Ambler Metals is mainly due to the decrease in corporate wages and in mineral property expenses partially offset from the increase in professional fees. The primary drivers in the decrease in mineral property expenses over the comparative quarter in the prior year were from a reduction in activities both at the project level and at the AAP. For the six-month period ended May 31, 2024, we reported a net loss of $5.4 million compared to a net loss of $7.9 million for the six-month period ended May 31, 2023. The decrease for the six-month period ended May 31, 2024 when compared to the same period in 2023, is primarily due to the decrease in our share of loss of Ambler Metals, professional fees and stock-based compensation and salaries. The decrease of our share of losses of Ambler Metals is mainly due to the decrease in corporate wages due to a reduction in staffing and a reduction in mineral property expenses due to a reduction in project activities which was partially offset by an increase in professional consulting fees related to government and external affairs. Liquidity and Capital Resources We expended $1.1 million on operating activities during the six-month period ending May 31, 2024 with the majority of cash spent on professional fees and American and Canadian securities commission fees related to our annual regulatory filings, annual fees paid to the Toronto Stock Exchange and the NYSE American Exchange, and corporate salaries. As at May 31, 2024, we had cash and cash equivalents of $14.0 million and working capital of $13.6 million. Prior to the end of the fiscal quarter, Trilogy received $12.5 million from Ambler Metals as a return of excess cash to the joint venture owners. Although the Company has a strong cash position, Management continues with cash preservation strategies to reduce cash expenditures where feasible, including but not limited to reductions in marketing and investor conferences and office expenses. In addition, the Company's Board of Directors continues to take all of their fees in deferred share units in an effort to preserve cash. The Company's senior management team is also continuing to take a portion of their base salaries in shares of the Company to preserve cash. All project-related costs are funded by Ambler Metals. Amber Metals had $35.1 million in cash and cash equivalents and $34.9 million in working capital as at May 31, 2024. During the first half of June 2024, Ambler Metals returned $25 million to the owners, resulting in a cash position of approximately $11 million which is sufficient for Ambler Metals to fund this fiscal year's budget for the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects ("UKMP') and the AAP. Qualified Persons Richard Gosse, P.Geo., Vice President Exploration for Trilogy Metals, is a Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101 - Standard of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Gosse has reviewed the technical information in this news release and approves the disclosure contained herein. About Trilogy Metals Trilogy Metals Inc. is a metal exploration and development company which holds a 50 percent interest in Ambler Metals LLC, which has a 100 percent interest in the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in northwestern Alaska. On December 19, 2019, South32, a globally diversified mining and metals company, exercised its option to form a 50/50 joint venture with Trilogy. The UKMP is located within the Ambler Mining District which is one of the richest and most-prospective known copper-dominant districts in the world. It hosts world-class polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulphide ("VMS") deposits that contain copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver, and carbonate replacement deposits which have been found to host high-grade copper and cobalt mineralization. Exploration efforts have been focused on two deposits in the Ambler Mining District - the Arctic VMS deposit and the Bornite carbonate replacement deposit. Both deposits are located within a land package that spans approximately 190,929 hectares. Ambler Metals has an agreement with NANA Regional Corporation, Inc., an Alaska Native Corporation that provides a framework for the exploration and potential development of the Ambler Mining District in cooperation with local communities. Trilogy's vision is to develop the Ambler Mining District into a premier North American copper producer while protecting and respecting subsistence livelihoods. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including, without limitation, perceived merit of properties, the continued willingness of the Company's directors and executives to receive their compensation in equity, the Company's plans to look for opportunities to reduce its cash spend and the success of such cash reductions strategies, future plans regarding the AAP, the sufficiency of cash for the fiscal budget, and the Company's plans to provide further updates and the timing thereof 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 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. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include the uncertainties involving our ability to conserve cash and to raise capital at terms favorable to the Company, or at all and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended November 30, 2023 filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and in other Company reports and documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. The Company's forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements or beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trilogy-metals-reports-second-quarter-fiscal-2024-financial-results-and-provides-updated-cash-position-302192657.html SOURCE Trilogy Metals Inc. SUDBURY, July 10, 2024 - SPC Nickel Corp. (TSXV: SPC) ("SPC Nickel"), is pleased to announce new assay results from the 2024 Drill Program at SPC Nickel's West Graham Project ("West Graham" or "the Project") located in the world-class Nickel-Copper mining district of Sudbury, Ontario (Figure 1). The 2024 Drill Program is expected to complete 2,500 metres of drilling over 40 holes (See news release dated May 7, 2024). Assay results from 3 of the 14 holes completed have been received and significant results are presented in Table 1 below. SPC Nickel anticipates completion of drilling by the end of August with additional assay results to follow when available. Highlights: Hole WG-24-087, intersected 1.05% Ni and 0.30% Cu over 16.0 metres from 32.0 to 48.0 metres. This interval is part of a wider interval that returned 0.63% Ni and 0.24% Cu over 41.0 metres from 10.0 to 41.0 metres (Table 1). Hole WG-24-088, intersected 1.41% Ni and 0.33% Cu over 16.0 metres from 20.0 to 36.0 metres. This interval is part of a wider interval that returned 0.87% Ni and 0.32% Cu over 37.95 metres from 13.0 to 42.0 metres (Table 1). Grant Mourre, CEO and President of SPC Nickel commented, "When we announced the commencement of drilling at West Graham in May we emphasised our focus on evaluating the Project's potential as a low-strip, higher-grade starter pit. These near-surface results provide clear support for this approach. Importantly, the assays we are releasing today are also of significantly higher grade than those released with the indicated In-Pit resource announced in January 2024, which only encourages our already strong belief in the economic upside of the Project. We are extremely pleased with these first results and, after a promising start to our 2024 drill campaign, we eagerly anticipate sharing additional assays over the summer." Assay Results Table 1: Reported assay results from the 2024 drill program on the West Graham Project. HOLE ID From (m) To (m) Length (m)1 Ni (%) Cu (%) Co (%) Pt (g/t) Pd (g/t) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Estimated True Width % WG-24-086 10.00 40.00 30.00 0.46 0.25 0.01 0.05 0.02 0.01 1.84 100 WG-24-087 10.00 51.00 41.00 0.63 0.24 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.02 1.41 95 including 32.00 48.00 16.00 1.05 0.30 0.03 0.06 0.02 0.03 1.82 95 WG-24-088 9.05 47.00 37.95 0.87 0.32 0.03 0.05 0.02 0.02 1.95 100 including 13.00 42.00 29.00 1.03 0.34 0.04 0.05 0.03 0.02 1.98 100 including 20.00 36.00 16.00 1.41 0.33 0.05 0.03 0.01 0.06 1.75 100 Notes: 1. Length refers to downhole length. Estimated True Width is expressed as a percentage of downhole length. About the West Graham Deposit The West Graham Project is located in the heart of the Sudbury Mining District where nine mines are currently in operation and two more are in the development phase. The region benefits from its proximity to well-developed transportation infrastructure including roads, railways, and electrical grid. In addition, West Graham is situated close to processing, smelting and refining assets which include two mills, two smelters and one nickel refinery. Local operators include global mining corporations Vale, Glencore and KGHM. In January 2024, SPC Nickel announced the maiden Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the West Graham Project (see news release dated January 17, 2024). The MRE showed an In-Pit Resource (0.3% NiEq Cutoff Grade) of Indicated Resource of 19.3 Mt at 0.42% Ni, 0.28% Cu in the indicated category and 3.3 Mt at 0.37% Ni, 0.28% Cu in the inferred category. The Out-of-Pit Resource (0.7% NiEq Cutoff Grade) contained a further 3.2 Mt at 0.63% Ni, 0.47% Cu (0.92% NiEq) in the indicated category and 3.9 Mt at 0.69% Ni, 0.43% Cu (0.97% NiEq) in the inferred category. Quality Assurance, Quality Control and Qualified Persons The technical elements of this news release have been approved by Mr. Grant Mourre, P.Geo. (PGO), CEO and President of SPC Nickel Corp. and a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. SPC Nickel follows rigorous sampling and analytical protocols that meet or exceed industry standards. Core samples are stored in a secured area until transport in batches to the ALS facility in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Sample batches include certified reference materials, blank, and duplicate samples that are then processed under the control of ALS. All samples were analyzed in Vancouver by ALS Chemex. Platinum, palladium, and gold values were determined together using standard lead oxide collection fire assay and ICP-AES finish. Base metal values were determined using sodium peroxide fusion and ICP-AES finish. Silver values were determined using an aqua regia digestion and an AAS finish. A Certified Reference Material (CRM) standard, blank or duplicate is inserted on every 10th sample in the following order: CRM, blank, CRM, duplicate. The cycle repeats every 40 samples, thus ensuring that 10% of samples submitted are control samples. About SPC Nickel Corp. SPC Nickel Corp. is a Canadian public corporation focused on exploring for Ni-Cu-PGMs within the world class Sudbury Mining Camp and in Nunavut. SPC Nickel is currently exploring its key 100% owned exploration project Lockerby East located in the heart of the historic Sudbury Mining Camp that includes the West Graham Resource and the LKE Resource. SPC Nickel also holds three additional projects across Canada including the large camp-scale Muskox Project (located in Nunavut), the past producing Aer-Kidd Project (located in the Sudbury Mining Camp) and the Janes Project (located 50 km northwest of Sudbury). The corporate focus is on Sudbury, and SPC Nickel continues to look for new opportunities to add shareholder value. Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Information Except for statements of historical fact contained herein, the information in this news release constitutes "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities law. Such forward-looking information may be identified by words such as "plans", "proposes", "estimates", "intends", "expects", "believes", "may", "will" and include without limitation, statements regarding estimated capital and operating costs, expected production timeline, benefits of updated development plans, foreign exchange assumptions and regulatory approvals. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; actual results and future events could differ materially from such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, metal prices, competition, risks inherent in the mining industry, and regulatory risks. Most of these factors are outside the control of SPC Nickel. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as otherwise required by applicable securities statutes or regulation, SPC Nickel expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE SPC Nickel Corp. VANCOUVER, July 10, 2024 - Defense Metals Corp. ("Defense Metals" or the "Company"; (TSXV: DEFN) (OTCQB: DFMTF) (FSE: 35D) is pleased to confirm support from the Government of British Columbia in the development of its wholly owned Wicheeda Rare Earth Element Project. "Rare earth elements play a crucial role in green technologies like wind turbines and electric vehicle motors, and projects such as Wicheeda are integral to BC's critical minerals strategy and the world's energy transition," said Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines, and Low Carbon Innovation. "The BC Critical Minerals Office will bring significant benefits to the Wicheeda Project and others like it by providing a 'concierge-like' service with dedicated support to navigate regulatory processes, advance funding opportunities, and expedite solutions to issues." Craig Taylor, CEO of Defense Metals commented, "This crucial support from the provincial government is very significant and most welcome as it will enable the development of our Wicheeda rare earth deposit by mitigating regulatory and permitting delays. This, combined with the solid technical progress we have achieved, including extensive metallurgical pilot testing and evaluation of samples by potential third-party off-takers, reinforcing our confidence that we are on track to meet our objective of commencing production in 2029." Guy de Selliers, Chairman of the Board of Defense Metals emphasised, "These positive developments strengthen my belief that Defense Metals will become the first new significant North American producer of NdPr, two of the most essential rare earth elements." About Defense Metals Corp. and its Wicheeda Rare Earth Element (REE) Project Defense Metals Corp. is focused on the development of its 100% owned, 8,301-hectare (~20,534-acre) Wicheeda REE Project that is located on the traditional territory of the McLeod Lake Indian Band in British Columbia, Canada. The Wicheeda REE Project, approximately 80 kilometres (~50 miles) northeast of the city of Prince George, is readily accessible by a paved highway and all-weather gravel roads and is close to infrastructure, including hydro power transmission lines and gas pipelines. The nearby Canadian National Railway and major highways allow easy access to the port facilities at Prince Rupert, the closest major North American port to Asia. Defense Metals is a proud member of Discovery Group. For more information please visit: www.discoverygroup.ca. For further information, please visit www.defensemetals.com or contact: Alex Heath Vice President, Corporate Development Tel: 1 604-354-2491 Email: alex@defensemetals.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 news release. Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information This news release contains "forward-looking information or statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which may include, without limitation, statements relating to advancing the Wicheeda REE Project, the expectations and plans for the Wicheeda REE Project, continued support from the B.C. government for the Wicheeda REE Project, development and potential production of the Wicheeda REE Project,the technical, financial and business prospects of the Company, its project, goals and other matters. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the price of rare earth elements, the anticipated costs and expenditures, the ability to achieve its goals, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms. Such forward-looking information reflects the Company's views with respect to future events and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including the risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of exploration and metallurgical results, risks related to the inherent uncertainty of exploration and development and cost estimates, the potential for unexpected costs and expenses and those other risks filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca). While such estimates and assumptions are considered reasonable by the management of the Company, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and regulatory uncertainties and risks. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include, but are not limited to, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions, adverse weather and climate conditions, failure to maintain or obtain all necessary government permits, approvals and authorizations, failure to maintain or obtain community acceptance (including First Nations), risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalation, unavailability of personnel, materials and equipment, government action or delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job action, and unanticipated events related to health, safety and environmental matters), risks relating to inaccurate geological, metallurgical, engineering and pricing assumptions, decrease in the price of rare earth elements, the impact of viruses and diseases on the Company's ability to operate, restriction on labour and international travel and supply chains, loss of key employees, consultants, officers or directors, increase in costs, delayed results, litigation, and failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations. The Company does not undertake to update forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, except as required by law. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/defense-metals-wicheeda-rare-earth-element-project-considered-as-key-by-the-government-of-british-columbia-302192663.html SOURCE Defense Metals Corp. VANCOUVER, July 10, 2024 - First Nordic Metals Corp. (the "Company" or "First Nordic") (TSXV: FNM) (OTCQB: FNMCF) (FRA: HEG0) is pleased to announce the successful completion of the Company's warrant exercise incentive program, as previously announced on June 13, 2024 (the "Incentive Program"), as well as the exercise of additional Company warrants and stock options, providing aggregate gross proceeds of $2,703,157 to First Nordic Metals Corp. Taj Singh, President and CEO comments: "The exercise of these warrants and options is a significant positive event as it strengthens our cash position and cleans up our capitalization structure. In the last three weeks, approximately 7 million warrants were exercised by our supportive shareholder base, allowing the Company to accelerate the advancement of its projects. We believe First Nordic's project portfolio is unique, with its combination of grade, scale, substantial growth potential, and great location in Europe's heartland of mining." Incentive Program A total of 6,301,273 common shares in the capital of the Company (each a "Common Share") were issued upon the exercise of 6,301,273 outstanding share purchase warrants (the "Outstanding Warrants") permitted to participate under the Incentive Program, providing gross proceeds of $1,827,369 to the Company from the Incentive Program. For every Outstanding Warrant exercised, the holders of such Outstanding Warrant received the one Common Share to which they were otherwise entitled under the terms of the Outstanding Warrants and one-half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, an "Incentive Warrant"). Each Incentive Warrant allows the holder to acquire one Common Share at an exercise price of $0.40 for a period of two years following the date of the issuance of the Incentive Warrant. A total of 3,150,631 Incentive Warrants were issued pursuant to the Incentive Program. Holders of 7,689,579 Outstanding Warrants were eligible to participate in the Incentive Program. For those holders of Outstanding Warrants who chose not to participate in the Incentive Program, such Outstanding Warrants will remain outstanding and continue to be exercisable for Common Shares on their current terms (including the amended exercise price of $0.29 per Outstanding Warrant) until their applicable expiry date, at which time any Outstanding Warrants that remain unexercised will expire and be cancelled pursuant to their terms. Insiders of the Company participated in the Incentive Program exercising 507,513 Outstanding Warrants and were issued 253,756 Incentive Warrants. As a result, the Incentive Program may constitute a "related party transaction" with-in the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Shareholders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Company relies on the exemptions from the formal valuation requirements of MI 61-101 contained in section 5.5(a) and (b) of MI 61-101 on the basis that the fair market value of the transaction with insiders will not be more than 25% of the market capitalization of the Company and no securities of the Company are listed on a specified market set out in such section, and the Company further relies on the exemption from the minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 contained in Section 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 on the basis of the fair market value of the transaction with insiders will not be more than 25% of the market capitalization of the Company. The proceeds of the Incentive Program will be used for exploration and development of the Company's projects and for working capital purposes. The Incentive Warrants issued pursuant to the Incentive Program, and the Common Shares issuable on exercise thereof, are subject to a hold period ending November 9, 2024. The Incentive Program is subject to the final acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange. Additional Warrants and Stock Options Since mid-May 2024, in addition to funding from the Incentive Program, First Nordic has raised $698,500 from stock option exercises and an additional $177,288 from the exercise of other warrants not included in the Incentive Program. Marketing Services First Nordic also announces it has amended its previously announced agreement (May 5, 2024) with RMK Marketing Inc. ("RMK") to increase its advertising budget by up to an additional $250,000. The term of the agreement remains the same, six months commencing May 5, 2024. The Company will not issue any securities to RMK as compensation for the services. As of the date hereof, to the Company's knowledge, RMK (including its directors and officers) does not own any securities of the Company and has an arm's-length relationship with the Company. RMK is an independent company which will, as appropriate, provide project management and consulting for an on-line marketing campaign, coordinate marketing actions, maintain and optimize adwords campaigns, adapt adwords bidding strategies, optimize adwords ads, and create and optimize landing pages. The promotional activity will occur by e-mail, Facebook and Google. ABOUT FIRST NORDIC METALS First Nordic's flagship is the Barsele gold project, located in Sweden and in a joint venture with senior gold producer Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. The Barsele project currently hosts a combined open pit and underground NI 43-101 Indicated Resource of 324,000 ounces gold and an Inferred resource of 2,086,000 ounces gold (2020, Technical Report and Mineral Resource Estimate for the Barsele Property, InnovExplo). Immediately surrounding the Barsele project, First Nordic is the 100%-owner of a district-scale license position of close to 100,000 hectares on both the prolific Gold Line and Skellefte VMS belts. Additionally, in northern Finland First Nordic holds the entire underexplored Oijarvi Greenstone Belt. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Taj Singh, M.Eng, P.Eng, CPA President & CEO, Director Follow First Nordic Metals: Twitter: @fnmetals Youtube: @firstnordicmetalscorp LinkedIn: @firstnordicmetals Facebook: @FirstNordicMetals Instagram: @firstnordicmetals Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This release contains "forwardlooking information" or "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws, which may include, but are not limited to statements relating to receipt of TSXV acceptance of the Incentive Program and use of proceeds from the Incentive Program. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ from those in the forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking information reflects the Company's views with respect to future events and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to exploration and development, the ability of the Company to obtain additional financing, the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations, fluctuations in the prices of gold and other commodities, operating hazards and risks inherent in the resource industry, competition and other risks and uncertainties, including those described in the Company's financial statements and/or management discussion and analysis available on www.sedarplus.ca The Company does not undertake to update forwardlooking statements or forward-looking information, except as required by law. SOURCE First Nordic Metals Corp. MONTREAL, July 10, 2024 /CNW/ - (Sydney, July 10, 2024) - Champion Iron Ltd. (TSX: CIA) (ASX: CIA) (OTCQX: CIAFF) ("Champion" or the "Company") announces that it will be hosting a conference call and webcast on July 31, 2024, at 9:00 AM (Montreal time) / 11:00 PM (Sydney time) with its senior management, during which they will review the Company's operational and financial results for the first quarter ended June 30, 2024, of the financial year ending March 31, 2025. Champion's financial statements and management's discussion and analysis for the first quarter ended June 30, 2024, will be released prior to the conference call and webcast, and will be available in the "Financial & Regulatory Reports" section of the Company's website at www.championiron.com, under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and on the ASX at www.asx.com.au. A live audio webcast of the conference call will be accessible for a period of 90 days through Champion's website at www.championiron.com/investors/events-presentations. Access to the Conference Call: Tel. local & overseas: (+1) 416 764 8688 Tel. North America: (+1) 888 390 0546 Tel. Australia: 1800 076 068 Webcast: www.championiron.com/investors Replay overseas: (+1) 416 764 8677 Replay N. America: (+1) 888 390 0541 Replay passcode: 606573 # Replay expiration: Wednesday, August 7, 2024, at 11:59 PM (Montreal time) / Thursday, August 8, 2024, at 1:59 PM (Sydney time) Champion also confirms that its annual meeting of shareholders will be held on August 28, 2024, at 5:00 PM (Montreal time) / August 29, 2024, 7:00 AM (Sydney time), and that the last date for director nominations will be July 17, 2024, by 3:00 AM (Montreal time) / 5:00 PM (Sydney time). Additional information regarding the annual meeting of shareholders will be announced prior to the event. About Champion Iron Limited Champion, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Quebec Iron Ore Inc., owns and operates the Bloom Lake Mining Complex, located on the south end of the Labrador Trough, approximately 13 km north of Fermont, Quebec. Bloom Lake is an open-pit operation with two concentrators that primarily source energy from renewable hydroelectric power. The two concentrators have a combined nameplate capacity of 15 Mtpa and produce low contaminant high-grade 66.2% Fe iron ore concentrate with a proven ability to produce a 67.5% Fe direct reduction quality iron ore concentrate. Benefiting from one of the highest purity resources globally, the Company is investing to upgrade half of the Bloom Lake mine capacity to a direct reduction quality pellet feed iron ore with up to 69% Fe. Bloom Lake's high-grade and low contaminant iron ore products have attracted a premium to the Platts IODEX 62% Fe iron ore benchmark. The Company ships iron ore concentrate from Bloom Lake by rail, to a ship loading port in Sept-Iles, Quebec, and has delivered its iron ore concentrate globally, including in China, Japan, the Middle East, Europe, South Korea, India and Canada. In addition to Bloom Lake, Champion owns a portfolio of exploration and development projects in the Labrador Trough, including the Kamistiatusset Project, located a few kilometres south-east of Bloom Lake, and the Cluster II portfolio of properties, located within 60 km south of Bloom Lake. For additional information on Champion Iron Limited, please visit our website at: www.championiron.com. This press release has been authorized for release to the market by the CEO of Champion Iron Limited, David Cataford. SOURCE Champion Iron Limited July 10, 2024 - Golden Ridge Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: GLDN) ("Golden Ridge" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on its previously announced acquisition of an 80% interest in MM Group Ltda. ("MMG"). The Company and MMG continue to work diligently towards the completion of the proposed transaction, which would, if completed, result in a reverse takeover of the Company by MMG. The proposed transaction remains subject to requisite approvals, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"). At the Company's request, trading in Golden Ridge's shares was voluntarily halted in June 2024 upon the Company entering into a definitive agreement with MMG. Trading is expected to remain halted until the completion or abandonment of the transaction. About Golden Ridge Golden Ridge is a TSX-V listed exploration company engaged in acquiring and advancing mineral properties located in British Columbia and Newfoundland. Golden Ridge owns a 100% interest in the 1,700-hectare Hank copper-gold-silver-lead-zinc property located in the Golden Triangle district, approximately 140 kilometres north of Stewart, British Columbia and has a portfolio of exploration projects in Newfoundland. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF GOLDEN RIDGE RESOURCES LTD. "Mike Blady" Mike Blady President and Chief Executive Officer For more information regarding this news release, please contact: Mike Blady, CEO and Director T: 250-717.3151 W: www.goldenridgeresources.com Completion of the proposed transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, Exchange acceptance and if applicable pursuant to Exchange requirements, disinterested approval. Where applicable, the proposed transaction cannot close until the required shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the proposed transaction will be completed as proposed or at all. Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the management information circular or filing statement to be prepared in connection with the proposed transaction, any information released or received with respect to the proposed transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of Golden Ridge should be considered highly speculative. The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has in no way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. Forward Looking Information This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations (including negative and grammatical variations) of such words and phrases or state that certain acts, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information in this press release may include, without limitation, statements relating to: the completion of the proposed transaction, and all other statements that are not historical in nature. These statements are based upon assumptions that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, including risks regarding the mining industry, commodity prices, market conditions, general economic factors, management's ability to manage and to operate the business, and explore and develop its projects, and the equity markets generally. Because of these risks and uncertainties and as a result of a variety of factors, the actual results, expectations, achievements or performance of Golden Ridge may differ materially from those anticipated and indicated by these forward-looking statements. Any number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements as well as future results. Although Golden Ridge believes that the expectations reflected in forward looking statements are reasonable, they can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. Except as required by law, Golden Ridge disclaims any intention and assume 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. Copyright (c) 2024 TheNewswire - All rights reserved. F1 set to lose major sponsor Rolex? Formula 1 could be set to lose one of its biggest global sponsors, according to the Swiss newspaper Blick. British GP 2024 Sauber The deal with the well-known luxury Swiss watchmaker Rolex, involving official timekeeping, dates back well over a decade, with F1 legend Sir Jackie Stewart instrumental in the F1 link-up at the time. I proposed that they support the entire series and it was one of the best choices they could have made, Stewart, now 85, said. Blick newspaper declared on Tuesday: "Is Rolex withdrawing from Formula 1? Rumours are circulating in Geneva that Rolex is withdrawing as a sponsor. An LVMH brand is set to step into the breach. French multinational LVMH's full identity is Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, including watch brands Tag Heuer and Hublot. (GMM) Toyota deal possible for resurgent Haas A new and wild rumour is circulating that Japanese carmaker giant Toyota could be considering a return to Formula 1. Nico Hulkenberg, British GP 2024 Haas According to the speculation, the marque - having wrapped up its works F1 project at the end of 2009 - might see the resurgent-yet-small Haas outfit as the way back into the paddock. Nico Hulkenberg is heading to Audi-owned Sauber from next year, but he hailed the progress Haas has made recently - especially with its upgrade package introduced at Silverstone. The German thinks Haas is now knocking on the door of the top five teams in F1. The update really did something to the car, and I genuinely think we're in the fight to be fifth-fastest now with Aston (Martin) sometimes, sometimes Alpine, sometimes some others maybe, said Hulkenberg. I think we're there and I think we can hang on to that now. Most authoritative sources now agree that Alpine refugee Esteban Ocon is set to replace Hulkenberg next year, with his deal partnering rookie Oliver Bearman next year perhaps to be announced imminently. Yeah, it's going well at the moment on that side for me, Frenchman Ocon said. So I hope in the next couple of races I'll be able to speak more about it. As for the Haas-Toyota rumour, one possibility is an initial Sauber-Alfa Romeo-style branding deal, to then be expanded over time. (GMM) Tabernaemontana rotensis is a flowering tree with pinwheel-like fragrant flowers. Its white fragrant pinwheel petals evoke nostalgic memories of my childhood in Belgium, where village landscapes are scattered with large wooden windmills. This connection is as personal as my surname, Demeulenaere, translates to master of the mill. Just as wooden windmills and the skill of operating them have become rare, so is seeing the Tabernaemontana rotensis flowers bloom, as these trees are threatened with extinction. Tabernaemontana rotensis was listed as threatened in 2015 under the federal Endangered Species Act. Range and habitat Tabernaemontana rotensis is endemic to Guam (Guahan) and Rota (Luta). Endemic means the tree is found here and nowhere else. Arent we lucky! There is no known CHamoru name. The tree thrives in sunny environments but can also tolerate shaded areas. This tree is perfect for landscaping, as it is rather small, has beautiful large light green leaves, and showy flowers. Tabernaemontana rotensis naturally grows in the crevices of Guahans rugged limestone forests. The primary threat to the species is habitat loss. These trees grow on sites with a moderate slope, which is the preferred slope for development. In addition, invasive species such as pigs and deer, degrade their habitats by eating seedlings, trampling the vegetation, and wallowing the soil. Medicinal uses The Tabernaemontana genus has been known for its medicinal properties. The trees have antibacterial, antitumor, antihypertensive, and cardioprotective properties. Preserving this species supports traditional healing practices and our ethical obligations to future generations. Orange mustache fruit The fruit of the Tabernaemontana rotensis is as intriguing as its flowers. The fruit grows in pairs, resembling green mustaches that turn orange when ripe. Each fruit has a beaked tip, adding even more allure to it. When the seeds are ready, the fruit will naturally split open. The fruit contains red sticky pulp that surrounds the seeds. When the fruit opens, the seeds and pulp will dangle down, luring dispersers like birds or fanihi. This is probably how the seeds used to be dispersed throughout the landscape. Since the brown tree snake decimated most of the native bird populations on Guahan, the seeds are no longer dispersed naturally. Island conservation Because we lack frugivores (fruit eaters), and to curtail the extinction of this biocultural heritage, my staff collects the seeds and grow Tabernaemontana rotensis in our rare plant nursery at the University of Guam Center for Island Sustainability and Sea Grant, Island Conservation Lab. Those who visited our nursery on Endangered Species Day saw small T. rotensis seedlings. Besides outplanting these trees in conservation areas, we offer the trees, under special conditions, to Guahans community, through our Taiparehu project, an endemic and endangered plant partnership program with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Taiparehus (CHamoru for unique) aim is to protect and enhance endemic species and their habitats by including the community, nongovernment organizations, and the local government to strengthen our islands ability to recover listed species. Learn more about this program in Olympia Terrals PDN column, Start Small Start Now next month. The sad truth is that we only have a few limestone forests left. Increasing development is driving habitat loss and our limestone forests are disappearing rapidly. In addition to development, quarrying is the leading cause of limestone forest destruction. Limestone forests are so named because they grow from limestone deposits. Quarrying requires the total removal of the limestone forest, and all the rare and unique species it contains, to dig up the limestone underneath. A limestone forest on a site that is quarried can never be restored. What can you do? You can help Tabernaemontana rotensis by advocating for the protection of Guahans limestone forests. There are people developing plans to balance the development needs of Guahan with the protection of our most imperiled ecosystems, including the Forest System Plan and the Guam Habitat Conservation Plan. The Forest System Plan seeks to establish and sustainably manage conservation areas within the forest system. The Guam HCP seeks to provide a balance between protecting our natural resources and cultural practices and sustainable economic development. Both of these plans are in development and need your input. You can help protect limestone forests, and T. rotensis, by learning about these plans, participating in public meetings, and asking questions, giving your opinions, and talking to the plan developers and your representatives and telling them what you think. We are intricately connected with our natural resources and it is up to us to protect them for future generations. For more information about how the Guam Habitat Conservation Plan will protect Guams unique resources, visit GuamHCP.com. Endangered species cards Together with the CIS Team, the Micronesia Challenge Young Champions created a series of Pokemon endangered and invasive species cards. Collect them all! They will be distributed during UOG CIS & Sea Grant outreach events. The Micronesia Challenge Guam (Instagram: micronesiachallenge.guam) is creating fun ways to educate the community on conversation issues on Guahan. Follow us Follow the UOG CIS Island Conservation Lab on Instagram and Facebook to stay updated on all of our work. You can learn more about the wonders of Guahans ecosystems, and how we may better co-exist with the natural world using a traditional and scientific lens. Follow us on Instagram @uogcis.islandconservationlab or visit our Facebook page UOG CIS Island Conservation Lab. Senators on Wednesday passed nearly two dozen measures, including Sen. Chris Duenas contentions septic tank over aquifer bill, and Vice Speaker Tina Muna Barnes $5 million appropriation bill for a shrine that reignited debate over a future hospital site. The voting capped almost three weeks of legislative session. Also passed was Sen. William Parkinsons Bill 260-37, which would temporarily lift the requirement to first establish a local cannabis testing laboratory, in an effort to get the legal marijuana retail industry off the ground. It passed by a vote of 9-to-5. Parkinsons Bill 39-37, which would expand Guams castle doctrine law to apply to outdoor spaces within the boundaries of a home, also passed. The vote was 11-3 with one excused absence. The castle doctrine authorizes a person to use reasonable force, including deadly force, to protect themselves against intruders inside their home. Senators also passed Sen. Chris Barnetts Bill 239-37, which seeks to impose quantity-based sentencing for crystal methamphetamine and fentanyl convictions. The bills intent was that the more drugs peddled, the longer the sentence would be, with the minimum prison term set at a mandatory 25 years. Weve seen several fentanyl deaths recently and over 30 deaths related to meth overdoses, Barnett said in a statement. This blood is on the hands of the drug dealers. Im grateful the 37th Guam Legislature stood strong to say enough is enough and Im hoping the Leon Guerrero-Tenorio administration stands with us. Speaker Therese Terlajes Bill 265-37, which proposes to defer the payment of incoming property tax increases resulting from the 2024-2025 islandwide property valuation, also unanimously passed. Stifling debate Duenas Bill 175-37 drew the most expansive and combative floor debate, as lawmakers squared off over whether allowing increased housing density over the northern Guam lens aquifer would pose too much of a threat to the islands main drinking water source. The bill would allow lots divided among heirs after their parents pass away, to be subdivided into up to four 9,600 square foot lots if they use an advanced nitrogen-reducing onsite disposal system known as a Type-4 system that is certified by the Guam Environmental Protection Agency. Opponents were concerned that the potential increased density and number of septic tanks could further contaminate the aquifer. During closing remarks, Duenas defended the rare move by a majority of the members of the Committee on Rules to pull the bill out of oversight chairperson Sen. Sabina Perezs committee without a report, ahead of this months session. Duenas blasted Perez, who was not present for Wednesdays session, for sitting on the bill and then obstructing and filibustering when it made it to the floor. He responded to criticism that repeated motions to end floor debate on the bill had stifled debate. Duenas countered that stifling debate is when a chairperson purposefully holds a bill in committee. That power should never be abused by excuses because you dont like a bill. And when you dont like something and you got the power of committee, and youve got the power of majority and you can just sit on it, that is an abuse of power, Duenas said. Another contentious measure that still passed Wednesday was Muna Barnes Bill 264-37, seeking to appropriate $5 million to fund the Naftan Manaina-Ta shrine at a 5-acre parcel along the cliff line at Ypao Point. Opposition surfaced after Land Management Director Joseph Borja confirmed that a 9-acre buffer zone was to be included alongside the 5-acre site. Critics charged that it was a land grab to undermine the proposed construction of a future hospital at Ypao Point. Barnes said it was the simplest of bills, the noblest of intentions, that get muddled with innuendo and character assassinations. The speaker successfully amended the bill to ensure that any land severed shall not exceed 5 acres...and that the limitation shall be a condition of funding. The measure passed Wednesday unanimously. Senators also passed Sen. Dwayne San Nicolas Bill 247-37, which seeks to remove the statute of limitations for financial and property exploitation of an elderly person or individual with disability. Financial exploitation of our manamko and individuals with disabilities is a heinous crime that should not have a statute of limitations, San Nicolas said in a statement. The bills now head to the governor for consideration. Guams koko bird on a postage stamp? Thats what Del. James Moylan is proposing in his newly introduced H.R. 8899 or the Koko Birds Stamp Act, which serves to accomplish two objectives: 1. Authorize the U.S. Postal Service to design, issue, and sell the koko bird semi postal stamp; and 2. Establish an account where a percentage of the sales of these stamps would be collected and then transferred to the Guam Department of Agricultures Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources for wildlife conservation purposes, programs for native bird rehabilitation and breeding efforts, and brown tree snake eradication. The legislation would mirror efforts of other jurisdictions in reference to seeking supplemental funding for wildlife conservation projects within their respective districts. According to financial projections, DAWR is estimated to receive between $250,000 and $500,000 annually from this endeavor, which would support in addressing some of the divisions objectives. I am excited to introduce this outside the box idea legislation, which will assist in obtaining some funding to address local wildlife conservation priorities in Guam, Moylan said in a statement. Moylan said recently, his office learned that United Airlines discontinued the bird repatriation program, which has the propensity of adversely impacting the existence of the koko or sihek, two of Guams native birds. Securing additional funding through this measure, on top of their annual appropriation, would certainly assist DAWR in supplementing local breeding efforts, while increasing resources to further eradicate the brown tree snake, Moylan said. His office is looking at various legislative vehicles as a means to further advance this measure, the delegate said. The bill also notes that any funding that DAWR receives through the Koko Birds Stamp Act will not impact any other federal funding the division regularly receives from grants or other federal programs. Also, if enacted, the stamp will be made available to the public for a period of not less than four years. On the morning of July 9, the 2024 "Gathering in the Yangtze River Delta Overseas Chinese from Anhui Gathering for Sci-Tech Innovation" event, initiated jointly by three provinces and one city in the Yangtze River Delta, kicked off in Hefei. Relevant leaders introduced the economic and social development of Anhui and pointed out that Anhui is currently in a promising and critical period with broad prospects. They expressed hope that overseas Chinese can seize the opportunity and fully leverage their strong sci-tech capabilities, rich intellectual resources, and extensive business connections. By actively participating in the integration and modernization development of the Yangtze River Delta and the construction of a beautiful Anhui, they can realize personal value and write a glorious chapter in their careers. Innovation is a bright card of Anhui, and everyone is encouraged to grasp the forefront trends in technological innovation, showcase their abilities and strengths, and contribute to making the Yangtze River Delta a source of sci-tech innovation. They should play the role of bridges and ties, tell the stories of China, the Yangtze River Delta, and Anhui well, promote exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilizations, and gather the hearts, wisdom, and strength of overseas Chinese in jointly promoting the Yangtze River Delta to take the lead in Chinese path to modernization. At the event, five academicians and experts delivered keynote speeches, 56 key high-tech industry projects were signed, and special events such as the Anhui Sci-Tech Overseas Chinese Enterprises Exhibition, "Invest in Anhui," "Anhui Enterprises Goes Global" promotions and the Yangtze River Delta "Sci-Tech Overseas Chinese Discussion" will also be launched. Nearly 300 overseas Chinese from home and abroad participated. Source: Anhui Daily Whether Florida will have Satanists running around in all our schools remains to be seen, but as students prepare to return to campuses across the state next month, members of The Satanic Temple stand ready to volunteer their services. On July 1, a new state law took effect allowing religious chaplains to volunteer on the campuses of Floridas public and charter schools, and Lucien Greaves, cofounder of The Satanic Temple which is recognized by the U.S. government as a church insists his organization will take part. But Gov. Ron DeSantis has made it clear its chaplains need not apply, after declaring that Satanism is not a religion. Now, some have said that if you do a school chaplain program, that somehow youre going to have Satanists running around in all our schools, DeSantis said during a news conference April 18, as he signed Florida House Bill 931 into law. Were not playing those games in Florida. That is not a religion. On Tuesday, Greaves took to social media and in a post on X wrote, In the depths of his ignorance, @GovRonDeSantis fails to recognize a basic and fundamental constitutional truism: it is no place of the government to dictate that some religions have certain rights over others. Ironically, it appears the bills sponsor, state Sen. Erin Grall, a Vero Beach Republican, agrees. In April, she told reporters, I think that as soon as we get in the middle of defining what is religion and what is not, and whether or not someone can be available and be on a list, we start to run (into) constitutional problems. As for determining what constitutes a real religion, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and prohibits the government from endorsing or discriminating against any religion. Often confused with the Church of Satan, which was founded in the 1960s by Anton Szandor LaVey, The Satanic Temple clarifies on its website that The Church of Satan expresses vehement opposition to the campaigns and activities of The Satanic Temple, asserting themselves as the only true arbiters of Satanism, while The Satanic Temple dismisses the Church of Satan as irrelevant and inactive. And if you are in the market to sell your soul, get rich or join the Illuminati, Greaves advises you, to look elsewhere. Proselytization, he says, is not their goal, and theyre not interested in converting children to Satanism. Instead, according to Greaves, the goal is to provide a safe and inclusive alternative. Haiti - Humanitarian : OCHA delegation in Haiti Edem Wosornu, OCHAs Operations and Advocacy Director, arrived in Haiti for a four-day visit, together with Lucia Elmi, UNICEFs Emergency Director; and Andrea Koulaimah, Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and Pacific in the European Commission's Directorate General for civil protection and humanitarian aid operations. During their stay, they will meet with Haitian authorities and national, international and local partners to discuss the humanitarian crisis in the country as well as strategies beyond emergency aid. The delegation will also meet with affected communities and visit several humanitarian aid project sites. The visit comes at a time when Haiti is experiencing a multidimensional humanitarian crisis, which has only worsened since March this year amid renewed violence in the capital Port-au-Prince. More than 578,000 people are currently displaced in Haiti, and more than 1,000 schools have been closed or seen classes disrupted since January. Meanwhile, about 40 per cent of health-care facilities across Port-au-Prince are closed. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... Wyclef trip to Haiti canceled While he was expected on Tuesday July 9, 2024 in Port-au-Prince, as part of efforts to establish peace and security in Haiti, Wyclef Jean announced the cancellation of his trip. The President of the Transitional Presidential Council (PT), Edgard Leblanc Fils, opposed the idea of meeting the Haitian star who had also planned to discuss with the gangs. "Although my trip to Haiti has been postponed, I hope to make a few visits in the coming months, each of these visits will have its own objectives. I will start by meeting with the Haitian government and the private sector. Then, I will visit rural areas and the religious sector, while preparing a large concert for Peace in Haiti," declared Wyclef. Military reinforcement with Argentina Jean Marc Berthier Antoine the Minister of Defense informs that he had a fruitful meeting with the Ambassador of Argentina to Haiti, Cesar Faes. We discussed the training of the Haitian military and the strengthening of cooperation between our two countries in the areas of Defense. Blocking of RN#8 with containers welded together The bandits erected on National Road #8, a barricade with containers that they welded together, forcing drivers who want to go to the town center of the commune to take rue Grande Plaine alias "Nan Raket" under absolute control of armed bandits. Another financial institution leaves the country After Citibank https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-42727-haiti-economy-citi-citibank-will-cease-its-operations-in-haiti.html , Finca, another financial institution, will withdraw from 'Haiti. Established in the country for around 35 years, the Finca provided credit and other financial services to micro, small and medium enterprises. "Academy of Women Entrepreneurs" The United States Embassy in Haiti announced on social networks the launch in Cap-Haitien earlier this week of the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs "This program is designed to help you prosper," declared the Embassy of the United States in Haiti. embassy in its press release calling on women entrepreneurs to submit their applications. The Minister of Public Works met the American Ambassador Tuesday July 9, 2024, Engineer Raphael Hosty, Minister of Public Works, accompanied by his Director General and members of his cabinet, received in his offices the American Ambassador to Haiti, Denis Bruce Hankins. The security and situation of displaced people in Haiti topped the list of discussions. Minister Hosty stressed the urgency of creating labor-intensive jobs to improve the living conditions of the population. The discussions also addressed essential areas such as sanitation, access to drinking water and electricity. HL/ HaitiLibre Financial services company Angel One reportedly suffered a massive data breach which is likely to impact nearly 8 million customers. The Economic Times reported that a hacker leaked personal information, including names and addresses of the affected users on a website. The hacker is said to have accessed sensitive data which includes profit and loss statements of affected customers, the report claimed. As per the report, a cyber security consultant said that the data is from around 2023. According to cyber security firm Check Point, India suffered 2,138 weekly attacks per organisation in 2023. Angel One, however, asserted that customer's data is secure and "there has been no new data leak incident. The current issue pertains to an incident that occurred in April 2023, which was promptly reported to the relevant authorities. We assure you that this incident has no impact on client securities, funds, or credentials, and all client accounts remain secure" The Mumbai-based stock broking firm suffered a data breach in April last year as well but at the time the company did not disclose the number of customers affected by the same. Angel One then said that information related to funds and securities were safe despite the breach as the company revealed that malicious actors had gained access to the names, mobile numbers and the email addresses of affected users. According to cyber security firm Check Point, India suffered 2,138 weekly attacks per organisation in 2023 while Ciscos 2024 Cybersecurity Readiness Index noted that only 4 per cent of Indian organisations have a mature level of readiness to deal with cyber security related risks and about 37 per cent of the organisations in India are at the progressive stage. Globally, just 3 per cent of organisations are mature, as per the report. Microsoft left the board observer seat at OpenAI which has drawn regulatory scrutiny as the former said that it was not necessary as the AI start-up's governance has improved significantly in the past eight months. The Financial Times reported citing people in the know that Apple which was expected to take an observer role on OpenAI's board will not do so. Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI, during a panel session on day three of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.(Bloomberg) In November last year, Microsoft took a non-voting, observer position on OpenAI's board after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was reinstated. Owing to the seat, Microsoft could attend OpenAI's board meetings and access confidential information but had no voting rights on matters including electing or choosing directors. The observer seat and Microsoft's more than $10 billion investment in OpenAI have triggered unease among antitrust watchdogs in Europe, Britain and the US. Citing OpenAI's new partnerships, innovation and growing customer base since Altman's return to the startup for giving up its observer seat, Microsoft said, Over the past eight months we have witnessed significant progress by the newly formed board and are confident in the company's direction. Given all of this we no longer believe our limited role as an observer is necessary. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP is reportedly cutting staff across its China operations after an exodus of corporate clients in the country. Bloomberg reported that the development comes as the accounting firms revenue prospects have diminished in the country. PwC layoffs: More than half of one team was laid off although the final tally of firmwide cuts wasnt immediately clear, the report claimed.(Freepik) The report claimed that at least 100 staffers from different teams at PwC Chinas offices in Beijing, Shanghai and other locations are being shown the door. More than half of one team was laid off although the final tally of firmwide cuts wasnt immediately clear, the report claimed. In light of changes to the external environment, we are making some adjustments to better optimize our organizational structure to align with market demand, a PwC spokesperson told Bloomberg. These adjustments are a difficult decision. We are actively communicating with our people and will ensure that the plan is in compliance with all relevant labor laws in China, the spokesperson added. Earlier it was reported that the threat of regulatory penalties and the loss of Chinese corporate clients resulted in a lot of worry for PwC China staffers and prompted some to seek opportunities elsewhere. The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has requested the Supreme Court to merge the two portals for self-declaration certificates (SDCs) for advertisements into one to improve user experience and make administration easier. The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting filed its compliance affidavit in the Supreme Court on Monday. (File) This will ensure that all SDCs are readily available at a single portal for public/stakeholder viewing and avoid duplication without diluting the purpose of filing such SDCs, the MIB submitted in its compliance affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on Monday. The MIB said that to comply with the courts May 7 order, it had activated two portals --- one on Broadcast Seva Portal for TV and radio ads, and another on the website of the Press Council of India (PCI) for print and internet ads --- on June 4. It requested the top court to allow a single portal to upload SDCs for administrative prudence and improving consumer/user experience. The Supreme Court orally ordered the MIB on Tuesday to hold meetings with the advertising industry and other relevant stakeholders to streamline the issues related to the self-declaration certificate for advertisements regime. MIB was instructed to file an affidavit with their recommendations before the next date of hearing. A division bench of justices Hima Kohli and Sandeep Mehta observed that the industry should not suffer due to the self-declaration certificate regime and the intent was not to cause harassment for the industry. The apex court also appointed an amicus curiae in the case --- Shadan Farasat --- to assist the court with the implications of this regime, as well as the larger issues raised in the case. On May 7, the apex court, in the Patanjali misleading ads case, had directed that before publishing any ad --- electronic, digital or print --- the advertiser or the advertising agency must submit a self-declaration certificate to the MIB. The respective portals were operationalised on June 18 and drew significant criticism from the industry for being too onerous to comply with. As a result, the MIB had eventually eased the guidelines on July 3 and restricted the requirement only for ads related to health and food products and made it an annual requirement. The bench also issued notice on the impleadment applications filed by the Association of Radio Operators for India, Internet and Mobile Association of India, Broadband India Forum and other industry bodies. Senior advocates Siddharth Dave, Kapil Sibal and Arvind Datar, on behalf of these respective bodies, told the court that the directions had had an immense impact on the advertising industry. Between June 4 and July 8, over 81,000 SDCs have been uploaded to the two portals, the MIB said. In the affidavit, it also attached the submissions it received from the industry associations. The MIB held two meetings with the industry on June 11 and June 25. It is humbly submitted that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has suitably addressed some of these concerns, whichever were administratively possible, within the ambit of this Honble Courts order. the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has taken all necessary steps to comply with the order of this Honble Court in letter and spirit- directing Advertisers/Advertising Agencies to furnish a comprehensive Self Declaration Certificate once a year to cover all advertisements related to products and services belonging to the Food & Health sectors, published across various media platforms i.e. print/electronic/internet, the MIB submitted in its affidavit. It informed the court about the advisory issued on June 3, as well as the demi official letters sent to the Department of Consumer Affairs, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and Ministry of Ayush on May 31, informing them about the two portals. The Ministry of Ayush, as per MIBs affidavit, sent a letter on June 6 to the drug licensing authorities in all states and Union territories to inform all Ayush drug manufacturers in their jurisdiction about the new portals. The Supreme Court stayed an order by the Gujarat High Court today (July 10) for implementation of the recovery of land allotted to Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. in Mundra in Gujarat. A general view of a container terminal is seen at Mundra Port, one of the ports handled by India's Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, in Gujarat.(Reuters) Earlier, Gujarat government agreed to retrieve 108 hectares of cattle-grazing land in Mundra's Navinal village after the resumption order from high court. This came after a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed by local villagers challenging the allotment land to the Adani Group company. The land was allotted to Adani Ports in 2005 by the then Bharatiya Janata Party government for the Mundra Port Special Economic Zone project. At the time, Gautam Adani had paid a consideration of over 37.39 lakh along with 30% premium of 11.21 lakh for the land. Welcoming the Punjab and Haryana High courts direction to Haryana Police to lift the barricade at Shambhu on the Ambala-Patiala border within a week, farmer union leaders on Wednesday said the ruling debunked the narrative created by the BJP that farmers had been blocking the national highway. The farmers had been stating that Haryana Police had blocked the highway to prevent them from proceeding on the Delhi Chalo march since February. Members of the Punjab farmer unions, who have been sitting at the Shambhu and Khanauri borders with Haryana, since February 13 announced that they will now continue with their march to Delhi to press for their demands. (HT file photo) Members of the Punjab farmer unions, who have been sitting at the Shambhu and Khanauri borders with Haryana, since February 13 announced that they will now continue with their march to Delhi to press for their demands, including the legal guarantee to the minimum support price (MSP) for all crops. Guramneet Singh Mangat, the convener of the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KKM), said, It (the high court decision) is a positive step. We welcome the order. We have been demanding that we be allowed to march to Delhi since February. We have already lost over two dozen farmers and hundreds have been injured in the protest so far. It was the Haryana government that had blocked the highway, not us. He said that the unions would meet on Thursday morning to discuss the future course of the agitation. The Haryana Police had barricaded the inter-state border at Shambhu and Khanauri to deter protesting farmers from reaching the national capital. Ramandeep Singh Mann, a member of the KKM, said, We had never called off our Delhi Chalo call. We will ask the authorities concerned to designate a venue in Delhi to allow us to protest peacefully. We had requested the officials earlier also but our request was declined. Ambala traders relieved after judgment Traders of Ambala welcomed the judgment as they were suffering losses due to the highway being blocked. Vishal Batra, the president of the Ambala Cloth Market Association, said: We were struggling as our business was on the verge of closure. We are neither against the farmers nor against the government. We were only seeking reopening of the border to Punjab. The association had observed a shutdown last week, demanding the reopening of the border. Opposition parties, including the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, had staged protests in support of the demand. (With inputs by Bhavey Nagpal) Amid the spike in terror attacks in the Jammu region, security and intelligence agencies believe that two to three local terrorists, who had ex-filtrated to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) from the Doda region, have infiltrated the international border recently along with Pakistani terrorists and are helping them with the strikes in Kathua, Udhampur and Doda districts. Security forces during a search operation at Bhadnota village in Kathua after the terror attack on an army vehicle that left five soldiers dead on July 9. (PTI Photo) Sources in the security establishment said that these local terrorists had ex-filtrated several years ago and had managed to re-enter about three months ago. We have intelligence inputs which suggest that these local terrorists have infiltrated with their foreign counterparts about three months ago. Familiar with the geographical terrain, they are now helping them in identifying targets and safe havens in the jungles. At the same time, local support by sleeper cells cannot be overlooked, a senior security officer said, requesting anonymity as investigation is on. A week ago, Jammu and Kashmir director general of police (DGP) RR Swain said that some foreign terrorists had managed to infiltrate and the security forces have intensified anti-terror operations to eliminate them. Leveraging tech to advantage Intelligence sources said that the Pakistani terrorists are leveraging technology, such as the Alpine Quest mobile app used by trekkers and the Chinese Ultra Set handset that combines cellphone capabilities with specialised radio equipment, to help them navigate the geographical terrain, communicate and locate their targets accurately. The investigating agencies probing the July 8 Kathua terror attack that left five soldiers dead and five others injured at Bhadnota village of Machhedi area found that the terrorists had used the Alpine Quest app to select the place of target. We are investigating if the app had been used in all terrorist attacks that have taken place in Jammu in the past one-and-a-half years. The app helps in identifying the exact location of rivers, streams and hills, said a police source. This app helps the terrorists navigate the dense forests and dodge security forces. It provides precise details of the hill areas even without internet network. Two groups active in Jammu region Kashmir Tigers, a proxy of the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror outfit, has taken responsibility for Kathua attack. Investigators believe that two groups of terrorists are active in the Jammu region. Both the groups have split into smaller groups of three to four terrorists and have spread in the upper reaches of Doda, Kathua, Udhampur and Reasi districts, the police officer said. In May last year, the Centre had banned 14 mobile messaging applications that were allegedly being used by terror groups in Jammu and Kashmir to communicate with their supporters and over ground workers (OGW) and also receive instructions from Pakistan. The banned apps were Crypviser, Enigma, Safeswiss, Wickrme, Mediafire, Briar, BChat, Nandbox, Conion, IMO, Element, Second Line, Zangi, and Threema. On Monday, the Delhi high court refused to set aside the Centres order blocking open-source messaging application Briar in Jammu and Kashmir with an observation that in matters of national security, principles of natural justice can be given a go-by. Briar operates on a technology in which a person can directly send a message to another without internet connectivity. Recent encounters with terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir also led to the seizure of the encrypted Chinese telecom device, Ultra Set. These handsets bypass traditional mobile technologies, such as GSM (global system for mobile communication) or CDMA (code division multiple access). Ultra Set operates on radio waves for message transmission and is linked to a master server in Pakistan via Chinese satellites. The Jalandhar West assembly byelection saw a 42.60% voter turnout till 3pm on Wednesday. Voters standing in queues at a polling station to cast their votes during the Jalandhar West assembly byelection on Wednesday. (PTI Photo) An estimated 1.71 lakh voters will decide the fate of 15 candidates in the fray, polling for which began at 7am and will continue till 6pm. The result will be declared on July 13. The byelection was necessitated after Sheetal Angural, who is now fighting as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, resigned as an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. AAP candidate Mohinder Bhagat cast his franchise after taking the blessings of his father, veteran BJP leader Chunni Lal Bhagat. Congress candidate Surinder Kaur, BJPs Angural and BSP nominee Bhinder Kumar Lakha cast their votes in their respective polling stations. Polling remained peaceful barring few reports of AAP workers from other parts of the state roaming freely in their vehicles. Angural informed the district administration about them and urged the authorities to initiate action against outsiders violating the model code of conduct. Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring has also been camping at the office of Jalandhar police commissioner Swapan Sharma to ensure that the election process is carried out in a free and fair manner. There are no reports of violence so far but Ive asked Congress workers to report any kind of disturbance or rigging in their respective booths immediately so that the matter can be taken up with top police officials, Warring said. In the 2022 assembly elections, the Jalandhar West segment recorded 67.31% voter turnout, while it reduced to 64.45% in the recent Lok Sabha elections. The district administration has set up 181 polling stations, of which 51 are hyper-sensitive for which elaborate security arrangements have been made. As many as 1,055 security personnel, including 700 Punjab police personnel and three companies of the Border Security Force (BSF), have been deployed to ensure law and order. The Jalandhar West bypoll is a litmus test for Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, especially after the Lok Sabha election debacle in which the AAP managed to win only three out of the 13 seats in Punjab. The Congress, on the other hand, is looking for an icing on the cake after its candidate and former CM Charanjit Singh Channi won the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat with a margin of 1.75 lakh votes. However, it wont be easy going for the Congress as Channi could manage a lead of only 1,557 votes in the Jalandhar West segment. For BJPs Angural, a win here will justify his decision to snap ties with the AAP and join the saffron party before the parliamentary elections. Moreover, the BJP is eyeing to retain its old bastion from where its senior leader Chunni Lal Bhagat won the assembly elections thrice, in 1997, 2007 and 2012. In the past five elections, the Congress has won the seat twice in 2002 and 2017, while the BJP bagged it in 2007 and 2012. The AAP secured a victory in 2022 in which its then candidate Angural got the better of Congress Rinku by 4,253 votes. Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Chhatarpur constituency, Kartar Singh Tanwar, former Delhi minister and ex-MLA from Patel Nagar, Raaj Kumar Anand, and another former Patel Nagar MLA, Veena Anand, joined the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in the presence of senior leaders at the party headquarters in Delhi on Wednesday. AAP MLA Kartar Singh Tanwar and former minister Raj Kumar Anand join the BJP in the presence of senior leaders at the party headquarters in Delhi on Wednesday. (PTI) Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said AAP councillor from Said-Ul-Ajaib ward in south Delhi, Umed Singh Phogat, and a couple of other AAP members also joined the saffron party on the occasion, where BJP national general secretary Arun Singh was also present among other leaders to welcome them. The AAP leaders have joined the BJP after being inspired by the leadership and work of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and because (they felt) working in the AAP is like working under a dictatorship. The corruption is at the peak in the AAPall of them have taken the membership of the BJP and we welcome everyone into the party, said Sachdeva. Tanwar is a second time MLA from Chhatarpur from where he won first in 2015 and was re-fielded in 2020 by the AAP. Before joining the AAP in 2014, he was a member of the BJP, and his joining back was described by the BJP leaders as home coming. Raj Kumar Anand was elected as an MLA from Patel Nagar, a reserved seat, in 2020 on the AAPs ticket and was made the social welfare minister in the Delhi government. He abruptly resigned from the Cabinet on April 10, accusing the party of corruption and ignoring Dalits and describing his stint with the AAP as a bad dream. A month later, he joined the BSP on May 5 and contested the Lok Sabha elections 2024 from the New Delhi seat, which was won by the BJP. He was disqualified by the assembly Speaker from the House on June 14 under anti-defection laws. Veena Anand was elected as an AAP MLA from Patel Nagar in 2013. She is the wife of Raaj Kumar Anand and she had been an active AAP leader in the area before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The leaders switching sides comes a few months before the assembly elections in Delhi, which is likely to be held in January-February 2025, and deals a blow to the embattled AAP, whose top leaders, including Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, are in jail in cases related to alleged corruption. The AAP has not yet responded to the development. The story will be updated when the AAP responds. Raaj Kumar Anands disqualification has brought down AAPs strength in the assembly to 61. Tanwar is also likely to be disqualified under the defection law. The BJP had 8 lawmakers in the Delhi assembly, which has come down to 7 after Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, the Badarpur legislator, resigned from the House last month after being elected to the Lok Sabha from the South Delhi parliamentary constituency. UNNAO Eighteen people, including three women and one child, were killed and 19 injured when a double-decker sleeper bus allegedly rammed into a milk tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, officials said. Mangled remains of the bus on a road after the accident, in Unnao district, Wednesday. (PTI Photo) The incident near Jojikot village in Behta Mujhawar police station area took place around 5am, when the bus tried to slip between the milk tanker, which was on the right-most lane of the expressway, and a stationary truck that broke down in the centre of the road. The bus, which officials alleged was speeding, rammed into the milk tanker, ripping through the vehicle. The bus scraped along its side and threw several passengers out of the windows, before the two vehicles turned turtle, officials aware of the details explained. The bus was travelling from Motihari in Bihar to Delhi when the accident occurred. Eyewitnesses also claimed the driver of the bus, with 57 passengers onboard, was speeding all night. Eighteen people died and 19 were injured in the accident. A probe has been launched into the matter. It appears that the bus was speeding when it hit the tanker from behind, district magistrate Gaurang Rathi said. According to Lucknow additional director general of police S B Shiradkar, the deceased comprised 14 men, three women and a child. The drivers of both the vehicles were among the deceased. So far, the identities of 16 deceased have been confirmed. The bodies are kept in the morgue of the district hospital, Unnao superintendent of police (SP) Shiddharth Shankar Meena said, adding that police have been their probe into the accident. Dr Samir Mishra of King George Medical University trauma centre said five people admitted in the facility are in a critical condition. People aware of the details said the buss fitness certificate expired on January 1, 2021, its tax validity on November 30, 2023, insurance on February 13, 2024, permit on January 2, 2024, and pollution certificate on April 15, 2024. It has at least 80 challans pending. Survivors said they were sleeping and were awakened by loud commotion in the crash. The bus was travelling at a high speed. Suddenly, there was a loud noise, and I was thrown out of the bus onto the road. Bodies were lying everywhere, there was chaos...I was crying and people were searching for their loved ones. Eventually, others arrived and took me to the hospital, Shabana, a passenger, said. We were both asleep when suddenly we heard a commotion as if there was an aandhi (storm) and toofan (hurricane). Somehow, my daughter and I managed to get out of the vehicle, another survivor Raushan said. While President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the loss of lives in the accident, chief minister Yogi Adityanath assured best treatment for the injured. Modi announced an ex gratia of 2 lakh for the families of the deceased. In a post on X, Adityanath said district administration officials have been instructed to speed up the relief work. Political parties also extended their condolences and urged the administration to provide assistance to the affected families. The news of the death of 18 people in a tragic road accident on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao, UP, is extremely saddening The administration is requested to leave no stone unturned in helping the victims, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge wrote on the micro-blogging site. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi urged workers of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) to cooperate with the administration in relief and rescue operations. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav accused the government of negligence . It is a matter of investigation that despite the presence of a dedicated parking zone on the expressway, why was a vehicle parked in the middle of the road? he said. The flood fury in Uttar Pradesh killed 17 more people after swollen rivers took 10 Uttar Pradesh districts under their spate. A primary school of Ran Nagar of Nighasan tehsil under floodwaters on Tuesday (HT) The recent deaths due to lightning, drowning and snakebites were recorded in Balrampur, Pilibhit, Shravasti, Kannauj, Prayagraj, Kaushambi and Pratapgarh districts. Ten of the 17 deaths were reported from Prayagraj, Kaushambi and Pratapgarh alone. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath monitored the situation in the flood-hit areas and directed officials to carry out rescue and relief operations on war footing. On Tuesday, Indian Air Force rescued seven people trapped in the floods in Pilibhit. Also Read | It rains, it waterlogs Lucknow areas Relief commissioner GS Naveen Kumar said in Pilibhit floods had affected 252 villages across five tehsils. However, the water levels were receding in the area. The state emergency center received information that some individuals were stranded in Binaura village of the district after which seven individuals were airlifted from there. Additionally, 7,365 others stranded in the flood in the district were also evacuated and moved to safe locations, he said. In Lakhimpur Kheri, 41 villages were affected and 221 people were evacuated from the Nighasan area of the district, Kumar said, adding 82 villages in Shravasti and 16 in Kushinagar were also flooded. As many as 42 people were rescued from the marooned villages in Shahjahanpur district. AYODHYA As a result of the rains in the hilly areas of Nepal and Uttarakhand, the Saryu, which flows through the hill state into Uttar Pradesh, was approaching the danger mark at many places. With water level rising three centimeters per hour, a new concrete structure built on its banks in Ayodhya at a cost of 3 crore washed away in the strong current. District magistrate (DM) Nitish Kumar said 10 flood posts were created in the district and the administration had issued an alert in Manjha, the low-lying area of Ayodhya. Also Read | Waterlogging woes in Delhi after short, intense spell of rain While there is no flood situation in Ayodhya right now, all preparations are in place to deal with the floods, he added. LAKHIMPUR KHERI The flood situation in Kheri worsened on Tuesday as the water level of the Sharda rose further. Pallia tehsil was left marooned as the road traffic on Nighasan-Pallia road was suspended on Tuesday following floodwaters inundating the highway near Majhgain. In Nighasan tehsil, 11 people were trapped in their houses after the furious Sharda marooned their village. NDRF teams rescued five persons in Patihan village after they were stuck in the flooded Sharda. The Sharda fury also badly hit two dozen villages of Phoolbehar block in Lakhimpur tehsils, which are located across the Sharda afflux bund. In Nighasan tehsil, flood fury caused by Mohana, Suheli, Kaudiyala and Ghaghra rivers continued even on Tuesday with all major roads and passages, particularly in villages bordering Nepal, remained submerged in water. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath was expected to go to the Sharda barrage on Wednesday afternoon to review the flood situation in Kheri. GORAKHPUR, BASTI, DEORIA Surging water level of all the important rivers in East Uttar Pradesh created havoc in villages located near the banks of rivers. In Basti, floodwaters inundated Subeeka village. Additional DM Preet Pal Choudhary visited the village and oversaw rescue operations there. Three motorboats and five boats were pressed into service to evacuate 300 villagers affected by River Kuwano. In Deoria, people in Mahuwapatan, Kanakpur, Amwa, Sohnariya and other villages were a worried lot as the swollen Gandak and Nayani submerged houses and paddy fields. An official said the Rapti was increasing at a speed of 5 cm per hour and its level was recorded at just below the danger mark in Deoria. In Balrampur, it was flowing one meter above the danger mark. Minister reviews floods in Shravasti Meanwhile, Jal Shakti minister Swatantra Dev Singh reviewed the flood situation in Shravasti, Gonda and Balrampur districts in a meeting held with officers of several departments in Shravasti on Tuesday. Singh directed them to carry out relief and rescue work in the flood-affected areas and to take effective measures to check the outbreak of infectious diseases. He said a survey of houses and crops damaged due to the flood should be completed on a priority basis. Half of Dudhwa flooded Suheli and Mohana rivers have flooded half of the Dudhwa forest area, though no harm to any wild animal was reported yet. Field director (Dudhwa Tiger Reserve) Lalit Verma said, Almost half of Dudhwa was under floodwater. However, no animal has been reported to be harmed due to the floods. Flanked by his ministers, senior party leaders and legislators, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar on Tuesday visited the famous Siddhivinayak temple in central Mumbai to seek blessings of the deity ahead of launching the Nationalist Congress Partys (NCPs) campaign for the forthcoming Maharashtra assembly elections. Mumbai, India July 09, 2024: Maharashtra DCM Ajit Pawar, along with NCP (Ajit Pawar) faction leader Praful Patel, offering prayer at Siddhivinayak Temple, in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday, July 09, 2024. (Photo by Bhushan Koyande/HT Photo) We are going to the people seeking the mandate. Before that, we came to seek the blessings of Lord Ganesh, Pawar said after reaching the temple along with his party colleagues in a bus. Brushing aside the debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, Pawar is gearing up to retain his ground in the state assembly, where his NCP has 40 MLAs. For this purpose, he has hired Naresh Arora, co-founder of DesignBoxed, a political campaign management company that handled the Congress campaign in the Karnataka and Rajasthan assembly elections last year. Also Read | Eknath Shinde blames voters on holiday for NDA's Lok Sabha election setback in Maharashtra A year ago, Pawar led a rebellion against his uncle and NCP founder Sharad Pawar. He walked out with a majority of the partys MLAs, dealing a severe blow to Sharad Pawar, and joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government. The Election Commission of India also handed the party name and election symbol to Ajit Pawars faction. However, the results of the recent Lok Sabha elections have put a question mark on the future of his faction. Ajit Pawars NCP could win only one out of four seats it contested, while NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) won eight constituencies. Ajit Pawar also lost the partys bastion of Baramati to his uncle. Although most of Ajit Pawars MLAs come from the western and northern Maharashtra belt, the NCP drew a blank there. Following the Lok Sabha results, ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) started having second thoughts about him. Functionaries of the Rashtriya Syayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJPs ideological parent, blamed NCP for affecting the Hindu nationalist partys brand value. There has also been speculation that several of Ajit Pawars MLAs are sending feelers to return to the Sharad Pawar camp. Also Read | Battered by poll result, Ajit Pawar makes emotional appeal to voters In this background, Ajit Pawar had no option but to fight back. He went into a huddle with his colleagues, worked out a plan for bouncing back and hired Arora. The brief given is to refurbish Ajit Pawars image and work out a strategy to ensure that the party retains its ground, said a senior NCP leader. We have 40 MLAs. Our aim is to reach 40-50 seats in the next assembly. On July 4, Ajit Pawar posted an emotional video message on his social media handles, claiming he was a victim of dirty politics and was being targeted for coming up with schemes for the people. A day later, he participated in the warkari sects wari (procession). After visiting Siddhivinayak temple on Tuesday, Ajit Pawars NCP will organise a grand rally at Baramati on July 14 as a show of strength. Asked if this was all done on the partys new political strategists advice, NCP spokesperson Suraj Chavan said, Aroras services were hired to help with political messaging and social media handling. Nowadays, all parties hire consultants for election campaigns. NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar on Tuesday took potshots at Ajit Pawar, saying, They have hired a consultant by spending 200 crore to build Ajit dadas image ahead of the assembly elections. Visiting the temple must be his idea, he said. In response, Chavan said, Ajit dada doesnt need any consultant for image building. He himself is a brand. Rohit Pawar should tell people how much he spent on changing his childish image. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)s Jharkhand unit president, Babulal Marandi, on Wednesday, accused the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-led INDIA bloc state government of indulging knee-deep in corruption and the looting of mineral resources. Babulal Marandi felicitates a booth level worker of the BJP during a felicitation function at Chas in Bokaro on Wednesday. (HT photo) He made the allegations while addressing booth-level workers of the party during a felicitation function and Vijay Sankalp Sabha of the party in the Chas area of Bokaro Assembly constituency on Wednesday, during which Bokaro MLA Biranchi Narayan and others were present. No development work has taken place in the last 4.5 years of the present governments rule, charged Marandi, adding that even the central government scheme to provide water connection in each house under the Har Ghar Nal Yojna could not be implemented properly in the rural areas due to the apathetic attitude of the state government. He added, In fact, whenever the JMM government comes into power in the state, the loot of resources from the state reaches its peak. Contrary to this, when the BJP-led NDA government remained in power in the state, development works took place at a steady pace whether it was under my tenure as chief minister or under the chief ministership of Arjun Munda or Raghubar Das, said Marandi, adding that it is the frustration of the common people with the present regime that several top leaders of the ruling dispensation have lost seats during the recently held parliamentary elections. Marandi, who felicitated the partys booth-level workers during the function, charged that due to the lack of auctioneering of sand ghats in Jharkhand, the illegal smuggling of sand outside the state is taking place. Extolling the victory of the BJP in the recently held Lok Sabha elections at the national level, he said, Due to unparalleled development works carried out under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the common people have again chosen him as the prime minister for the third consecutive time. He claimed an upper hand for the BJP in Jharkhand during the recently held Lok Sabha elections and said that the NDA alliance took the lead in over 50 assembly constituencies. Exhorting booth-level workers to work tirelessly to defeat the INDIA bloc in the upcoming assembly elections, he said, The booth-level workers have an important role to play in the elections, and it is because of your effort that we came into power at the national level for the third consecutive term. We have taken a resolve ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, and it is time to take the pledge again to dislodge the JMM-led government in the state during the assembly elections, said Marandi. HT couldnt get a comment from the INDIA bloc leaders. The Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board declared the Karnataka SSLC Supplementary Result 2024 on July 10, 2024. The KSEAB Class 10 supplementary or exam 2 results were declared at 11.30 am today. All those candidates who appeared for the examination can check their marks on the official website of Karnataka Results at karresults.nic.in. Karnataka SSLC Supply Result 2024 Live Updates Karnataka SSLC Supplementary Result 2024 released, how, where to check (Bachchan Kumar/Hindustan Times/For representation only) All appeared students can check the results by entering their registration number and date of birth. candidates who have appeared for the examination can check their results by following the steps given below. Karnataka SSLC Supplementary Result 2024: How to check Visit the official website of Karnataka Board at kseab.karnataka.gov.in. Click on Karnataka SSLC Supplementary Result 2024 link available on the home page. Enter the login details and click on submit. Your result will be displayed on the screen. Check the result and download the page. Keep a hard copy of the same for further need. This year, Karnataka SSLC supplementary examination was conducted from June 14 to June 21, 2024 across the state at various exam centres. Karnataka Class 10 main examination result was declared on May 9. A total of 859967 appeared for the examination out of which 631204 candidates passed. The overall pass percentage was 73.40%. The boys pass percentage was 65.90% and girls pass percentage was 81.11%. No toppers names were announced this year. SSLC main examination commenced on March 25 and ended on April 6, 2024. For more related details candidates can check the official website of KSEAB. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India will release the Chartered Accountants Final and Intermediate examination results 2024 today, July 11, 2024. Candidates who have appeared for the examination and wish to check their results can visit the official website of ICAI at icai.org. ICAI CA Final, Inter Results 2024 Live Updates ICAI CA Inter & Final Result 2024 releasing today at icai.org, details inside(Representational image) The results of the Chartered Accountants Final and Intermediate Examinations held in May 2024 are likely to be declared on Thursday, the 11th July 2024 and the same can be accessed by candidates on the website icai.nic.in. It may be noted that for accessing the result at the above mentioned website the candidate shall have to enter his/her registration no. along with his/her roll number," mentioned the official notice. The ICAI CA Inter exam for group 1 was conducted on May 3, 5 and 9, 2024. The group 2 exams were conducted on May 11, 15 and 17, 2024. CA Final Group 1 exams were held on May 2, 4 and 8, 2024, and group 2 exams were held on May 10, 14 and 16, 2024. The International Taxation -Assessment Test was held on May 14 and 16, 2024. Steps to check Chartered Accountants Final and Intermediate Examination Results 2024: Visit the official website of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) at icai.org Look out for the link to check ICAI CA Result 2024 on the home page and click it A new page appears and candidates who would like to check their results need o submit their login details in order to access the result page On submitting the login credentials, results will be displayed on the screen Verify the details and save the page Download the page and take a print out of the same for future needs. For more information, visit the official website of ICAI at icai.org. Also Read: Karnataka SSLC Supplementary Result 2024 released, know how and where to check A bench consisting of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, along with Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra will hear the pleas on the alleged irregularities in the conduct of NEET UG 2024 on July 11, 2024. Earlier the Supreme Court said that if the integrity of the medical entrance exam is compromised and its question paper leaked through social media, a re-test must be considered. Students holding placards protest against the alleged irregularities in the NEET examination, in Bhopal. (ANI) Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, leading the bench, also directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to make full disclosure in three aspects when the paper leak first took place, how question papers were disseminated and the time duration between the occurrence of the leak and the actual conduct of the exam. Also Read: Supreme Courts Straight Talk On NEET Row, Slams NTA Over Paper Leak Denial; Students Vent Anger Hindustan Times conducted a poll to know the public opinion on whether the NEET UG Re-exam be conducted for all students who appeared in May 2024. As per the poll, 727 people have submitted their responses, of which 68% feel that NEET UG Re-exam should be conducted for all students who appeared in May 2024. 26% of the people who responded to the poll feel that the medical entrance exam NEET UG 2024 re-exam should not be conducted for all students who appeared in May 2024 and 6% of the respondents are unsure if the re-exam should be conducted or not. Recently, the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA), responsible for conducting the NEET UG examination, told the Supreme Court that scrapping the exam would be "counterproductive" and "seriously jeopardise" lakhs of honest candidates in the absence of any proof of large-scale breach of confidentiality. Earlier on June 21, 2024, HT conducted another poll to know the public opinion on whether the NEET exam 2024 should be scrapped completely, or re-exam for a few as planned the correct approach? Of the 1934 respondents, 56% of people who responded have the opinion that the NEET Exam should be scrapped completely, 40% of people think that re-exam for a few students is the correct approach and 4% are not sure of what needs to be done. Also Read: NEET-UG paper leak: CBI arrests two persons, including a candidate, from Bihar What Junaid said In the interview, Junaid said: "I think Papa makes a big deal out of small things. I just travel the most efficient way of traveling. I often take rickshaws in Mumbai because it is easier to get around and not worry about parking. In the same interview, Junaid said, I am trying to find my own voice. My family is very supportive. There is no real pressure from them. So yeah, I am doing my own thing and building my own relationship with people in the industry. Hopefully after this film, the relationship with the audience also grows. So yeah, one step at a time. Junaid had an unconventional debut with Maharaj - a film that is based on the Maharaj libel case exploring the dark underbelly of sexual exploitation in certain spiritual groups. Talking to PTI, the debutant said, I don't know about it being an unconventional (debut) because YRF is a big banner and Sid sir (director Siddharth Malhotra) wanted me (in the film). The story is inherently very dramatic. More details The film features Junaid as reformer and journalist Karsandas Mulji, and also stars Sharvari, Shalini Pandey and Jaideep Ahlawat. The film received praise for its acting and screenplay. Junaid is gearing up for his next project with actor Khushi Kapoor, which will be directed by Advait Chandan. Touted as a romantic comedy, it is an adaptation of the hit Tamil film Love Today. Vicky Kaushal is gearing up for his upcoming romantic-comedy - Bad Newz. As the actor is busy promoting his first release of 2024, he recently shared a throwback picture from his audition days. He took to his Instagram handle and penned a note of gratitude regarding the same. (Also read: Sunny Deol says he did Tauba Tauba steps long before Vicky, Karan Johar agrees) Vicky Kaushal posted a throwback picture from his struggling days in his gratitude post. Vicky Kaushal pens inspiring gratitude post In the post shared by Vicky he posted two photos. In the first picture he can be seen holding a slate board which mentions his name, age, height, date of birth and other information. In the second photo he can be seen greeting the crowd with folded hands while standing on the roof of his car. The Bad Newz actor captioned his post as, This day, 12 years apart nothing is overnight. Ever so grateful for all your love and blessings. (heart and folded hand emojis). Mrunal Thakur commented, My heart is so happy for you @vickykaushal09 (blessings emoji). Actor-casting director Abhishek Banerjee wrote, Yeh slate pehchana pehchana sa lag rah hai (This slate board seems familiar). Guneet Monga commented, My heart is sooo full god bless (hearts emojis). Ranveer Singh wrote, Yaar (buddy)," while adding teary-eyed and heart emojis. Richa Chadha shares love for Vicky Kaushal Richa Chadha pointed out at the picture from the days when Gangs of Wasseypur was under-production and wrote, Gangs of Wasseypur AD look (heart emoji). For the unversed, Vicky was an assistant director in Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur. He also made an appearance as a background silhouette in one of the scenes. A user commended the actor's inspiring journey and commented, From that young dreamer at 24 to the superstar you are today, your journey is nothing short of incredible. Your hard work, talent and perseverance have truly paid off. So proud of how far you've come and excited for all the amazing things ahead. Keep shining my dear one! Vicky Kaushal will be next seen in Anand Tiwari's Bad Newz and Laxman Utekar's Chhava. A few days ago, Inside Out 2 voice actor Paul Walter Hauser took a dig at Vin Diesel during an interview and called him out for his unprofessional conduct on set. Cut to two weeks later, Paul has posted an apology for his comment and shared a lengthy statement on his Instagram. He said that he made needlessly mean-spirited comment which was not required. (Also read: Inside Out actor offended on being compared to Vin Diesel, brutally skewers him for unprofessional conduct) Paul Walter Hauser said that he has not met Vin Diesel personally. Paul apologizes for his comment On his post, shared on Sunday, Paul wrote: A few weeks back, I made a random comment about Vin Diesel. It started somewhat humorous, but unraveled into me dogging him out over behaviour I had heard about on multiple occasions from multiple sources. He then added, I had done a night shoot on a Friday, gotten 1 hour of sleep, and then flew to LA from ATL at 6am to do a full day of press for Inside Out 2. I was exhausted and, in my fatigued state, I shot my mouth off and made a careless, needlessly mean-spirited, comment. That comment was recorded and then went viral. 'I am sorry for having made that comment' Just here to say that I am sorry for having made that comment. I do indeed get riled up by some of the behaviour Ive witnessed, or heard about, and outing people to any extent can feel momentarily satiating, he said. He tagged Vin Diesel, and then added, As a self-professed Christian, I need to do a better job of loving people and not trying to right a wrong, or allow my ego to posture itself with some sort of verbal flex. It just isnt additive to our culture, and it can hurt other people. @vindiesel - I apologize. Thank you for entertaining so many people and making them happy. Im trying to do the same. Time for me to be quiet. I sometimes talk myself into idiocy. Paul had earlier responded to rumours of Vin Diesel's bad conduct on set, and shared his displeasure on being compared to the actor, who voices Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy. Paul voices Embarrassment on Inside Out 2. Jin says meeting BTS ARMY after his service was priority Talking about BTS fans, Jin said, "When I left the army, I postponed everything so I could meet the fans. I told my family and friends ahead of time, 'I need to see ARMY, so Id appreciate it if you didnt ask about throwing any parties for my discharge until after this week.' People told me, 'You just got outyou should take a break. Lets meet up.' I got out on Wednesday and didnt make one plan until after Sunday. All that other stuff could wait. Seeing my fans is my top priorityI have to show my gratitude before I do anything else, I think. No question about it. Its always been that way, so now its what everybodys come to expect. ARMY supports me, and they really make me happy. Theyre incredibly important to me, so it just makes sense that Id think to put my time with them first." Jin talks about his album Jin also talked about singing Super Tuna recently during his first show post military discharge. He said, "The song was already ready to go, so I just kept listening to it for the second verse. But you can actually still tell how nervous I was. (laughs) Oh! And Im hard at work on my new album. Fortunately, the guys all finished making their own albums before enlisting, and now Jimins is coming out. That made me think I better not wait too long to release mine after his is out, so Im working to get it done fast. Itd be nice to go on some variety shows, too." More about Jin Jin ended more than 500 days of South Korean military service on June 12, crying tears of joy, with group members--RM, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook embracing him. Jin was the first member of the group to enlist in December 2022. Kannada actor Darshan Toogudeepa, who is in judicial custody in connection with the Renukaswamy murder case, has petitioned the Karnataka High Court seeking a direction to the prison authorities to allow him home-cooked food in the jail. He has also sought cutlery, clothing, bedding, and books. (Also Read: Sumalatha Ambareesh shocked by Darshan's arrest in murder case; says he's like her son: I know him as a loving man) Darshan has been in jail for the alleged murder of Renukaswamy. Darshans petition on his health In his petition, Darshan has also noted that he has lost weight by several kilograms as he is unable to eat and digest the food provided at the prison. It is also mentioned that the actor suffered from diarrhoea, and the prison doctors suspected food poisoning. According to the petitioner, Section 30 of the Karnataka Prisons Act, 1963, allows undertrial prisoners to receive these materials subject to examination and to such rules as may be approved by IGP (Prisons). The petition is yet to be listed for hearing. Chargesheet yet to be filed Karnataka Home Minister Gangadharaiah Parameshwara addressed the media in Karnataka recently and spoke about Darshan. He informed the reporters that the accused have been apprehended but that the investigation cannot be rushed. Hindustan Times quoted him saying, Accused have been arrested, investigation is on, evidence is being collected, after that charge sheet will be filed. Can it be fast forwarded just because the media says? There are procedures, after collecting sufficient evidence, a chargesheet will be filed. I have already said that there is no need to protect anyone in this case, and it will not be done. Darshan arrested for alleged murder According to police sources, 33-year-old Renukaswamy, a fan of the actor, had sent obscene messages to Darshans close friend Pavithra Gowda, a co-accused in the case, which enraged the actor, allegedly leading to his murder. His body was found near a stormwater drain next to an apartment in Sumanahalli here on June 9. Raghavendra, one of the accused who is part of Darshan's fan club in Chitradurga, had brought Renukaswamy to a shed in RR Nagar in Karnataka on the pretext that the actor wanted to meet him. It was in this shed that he was allegedly tortured and murdered on June 8. According to the post-mortem report, Renukaswamy, a native of Chitradurga, died due to shock and haemorrhage as a result of multiple blunt injuries. Police sources said Pavithra, who is accused number one, was the major cause for Renukaswamys murder, claiming that it has been proved from the probe that she instigated other accused, conspired with them, and took part in the crime. All of the accused will remain in judicial detention till July 18. Actor Sundeep Kishans restaurant in Secunderabad, Vivaha Bhojanambu, was raided by the Food Safety Department of Telangana on July 8. The official X (formerly Twitter) handle of the Commissioner of Food Safety shared a list of the rules flouted by the restaurant on their social media on Wednesday. (Also Read: Sundeep Kishan schools memer asking inappropriate questions at press meet: Dont behave like this) Sundeep Kishan owns a restaurant called Vivaha Bhojanambu. List of rules flouted Sharing pictures of a packet of coloured grated coconut, stored food and other spaces in the restaurant, the Commissioner of Food Safety shared both what rules the restaurant followed and flouted. About the rules they followed, they wrote, FSSAI license true copy was displayed at the premises. Food handlers were found wearing hairnets and uniforms. Pest control records for premises were available. Listing what rules were broken, they wrote, Chittimutyalu Rice (25kg) was found with Best Before date as 2022 and 500gms of Coconut Grates found with synthetic food colours. Stock has been discarded. Raw food articles & semi prepared foods stored in steel containers were covered but not labelled properly. They added, Few dustbins were not covered with lids. Medical fitness certificates for food handlers were not available. Water stagnation observed in the drains inside kitchen premises. Water analysis report for the bubble water used as ingredient in food preparation and served to customers was not available. Sundeep launched the restaurant a few years ago and it now has branches in Jubilee Hills and AS Rao Nagar in Hyderabad, apart from Tirupati, Ananthapur and Chennai. Upcoming work Sundeep was last seen in the Tamil film Captain Miller with Dhanush and the Telugu film Ooru Peru Bhairavakona. He will soon be seen in Dhanush-directorial and starrer Raayan with SJ Suryah and Kalidas Jayaram. The film will be released on July 26. Hes also starring in Vibe, directed by Swaroop RSJ, apart from a yet-to-be-titled film by Trinadha Rao Nakkina. Teresa Giudice recently made headlines for worst Photoshop fail. On Saturday, the Real Housewives of New Jersey star shared a picture of herself alongside Larsa Pippen to wish the latter a happy birthday. What was supposed to be a sweet gesture soon turned into the subject of meme fest as fans realised that the photo was badly edited. However, Giudice opened up about her gaffe in a Live with Kelly and Mark interview. RHONJ star Teresa Giudice addressed her viral Photoshop fail during an appearance on Live with Kelly and Mark(YouTube) RHONJ's Teresa Giudice breaks silence on Photoshop fail During her Tuesday appearance on the long-running talk show, co-host Kelly asked Giudice if she deliberately made the picture seem like a Photoshop fail. The Bravolebrity explained that since it was Pippen's birthday, she was scrambling to find a decent photograph of the duo to share on social media. I was like, Oh my God, its her birthday. I have to post a picture for her,' she said, adding, Were really close. ALSO READ: Melania Trump raises $1.4m in GOP fundraiser at NYC Trump Tower penthouse The 52-year-old went on to say that though she found a decent photograph with the Real Housewives of Miami star (the one she shared online), she didn't like the backdrop. That was the only picture I came across, she explained. I said, Oh great, summer! I just didnt like the background. To deal with the situation, the Celebrity Apprentice star sought the help of her social media manager. READ MORE: RHONJ star Teresa Giudice blasted for worst Photoshop fail in Larsa Pippen birthday post I called my assistant/social media person, and shes like, Im in Mexico. And Im like, Perfect, take a picture of the beach! Thats perfect, were in bikinis! Put it like that, Giudice recalled. She also admitted that she was aware of the memes and comments about the photograph. Were in Mexico and now were all over the world, Giudice said jokingly, in reference to the plethora of memes that depicted the duo travelling around the world. God gave me a sign and that made me return home During the interview, Gurucharan said, "I have always been spiritual because of my parents and at this point in life when I was feeling low, I turned towards God. I went on a spiritual journey and had no plans of coming back. But God gave me a sign and that made me return home. Many people think I planned my disappearance for publicity, but thats not true. If I wanted publicity, I could have given interviews to talk about the pending dues for my work in Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah. I could have used social media to do that, but I didnt. Even after coming back home, I didnt give any interviews, but now I am speaking up because I want to clarify certain things that people are saying about me, More details Gurucharan also added that he wants the industry to support him by giving him work. I am back and want to do a lot of work. I also want to pay off all the loans and debts that I have, one by one. That can happen through my work, and I am ready to work hard. I have realized that I can continue my spiritual journey even when fulfilling my other responsibilities in life. The actor had gone missing in April when he left his Delhi home to take a flight to Mumbai. The actor was supposed to board a flight from Delhi to Mumbai on April 22 evening but never reached his destination. Soon after he returned to his residence in the national capital, the actor was questioned by Delhi Police, and his statement recorded before a local court. On Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, Gurucharan essayed the role of Roshan Singh Sodhi. In the last decade, Indian cinema has seen a notable rise in films and web series drawing inspiration from Indian folklore. Titles such as Bhoothnath Returns (2014), Puli (2015), Nagarahavu (2016), Pari (2018), Tumbbad (2018), Stree (2018), Bhediya, and OTT shows like Kaali (2018), Betaal (2020), and Asur (2020) have embraced these timeless tales, ushering audiences into a realm of myth, legend, and cultural heritage. Industry experts attribute this trend to several compelling factors. A still from Munjya A treasure trove of untold stories Filmmakers are captivated by the timeless appeal and profound cultural depth of folklore, which offers a repository of untold stories, mystical characters, and moral lessons. "These stories, passed down through generations, are deeply embedded in the cultural consciousness of the country. They have a certain timeless appeal that resonates with audiences," says filmmaker Amar Kaushik, known for hits like Stree (2018) and Bhediya (2023). Also Read: 7 questions for Stree 2: From Shraddha Kapoor and Tamannaah Bhatias identity to Varun Dhawans cameo as Bhediya A still from the 2018 film Tumbbad Kaushik elaborates, "India is vast, and wherever you go, you will hear countless tales. As a creator, whenever you sit down to write a story, this is your foundation. There are countless rooted stories that still remain to be told. Every street has a story. When audiences see their own untold stories on the big screen, they feel a sense of attachment and nostalgia." Also Read: Kennedy, Sanaa, Stolen: Why Indias festival favorites struggle for a release in the domestic market? Versatility in storytelling Sohum Shah, lead actor of the acclaimed Tumbbad (2018), explains the appeal of folklore-inspired content to contemporary audiences, "Folklore can be adapted across genres, from the supernatural horror of Tumbbad to the fantastical adventure of Baahubali. This versatility allows creators to explore various cinematic styles and themes." He adds, During the pandemic, people explored a lot of OTT content and grew tired of the same old love stories, action flicks, and sci-fi. Audiences are now drawn to movies and shows inspired by Indian folklore because they offer something new yet rooted in our culture. Poster of Varun Dhawan from the film Bhediya Wholesome experience for families Today, there seems to be a strong desire among audiences to reconnect with their cultural roots. Indian folklore serves as a powerful tool for exploring and reaffirming cultural identity. Director Prasanth Varma, whose film Hanu-Man became a historic success in Tollywood reflects, "Folklore offers timeless themes and characters that evoke nostalgia and cultural pride. Bringing these stories to the screen fosters a wholesome experience for families and celebrates our diverse cultural heritage." He adds, "Folklore-based films encourage all generations to come together and enjoy these stories. Embracing our own culture has become the new cool. Even other countries are embracing Indian culture. The days of imitating Western culture are behind us." Also Read: Varun Dhawan doesn't want you to miss post-credit scene of Munjya. Here's why Visual and aesthetic appeal The visual and narrative richness of folklore provides filmmakers with compelling storytelling elements. Prasanth Varma elaborates, Indian folklore often features grand, mythical settings and larger-than-life characters, translating beautifully to the screen. Elaborate costumes, intricate set designs, and cutting-edge special effects breathe life into these ancient tales, captivating audiences with vivid detail. The visual and aesthetic appeal of these stories is a significant draw for both filmmakers and the audiences. A poster from the film Hanu-Man Demand for original and diverse narratives The success of folklore-inspired content also reflects changing audience preferences for original and diverse narratives. Actor Aparshakti Khurana, gearing up for the release of Stree 2 based on the legend of Nale Ba, observes, "Viewers are gravitating towards folklore-based films because they offer believability and freshness. There was a lot of clutter in the market sometime ago. Hence, to try different and original things, writers picked up on folklore. Its working touchwood and we are happy about it." Mona Singh, starring in Munjya based on the legend of Munja, adds, This kind of content intrigues audiences because it explores our own culture and stories, offering something authentic and different. The question now arises: While folklore lives through ages, will folklore-based cinema also be timeless? Sohum Shah believes, "Change is the only constant. This is a period where the audiences are enjoying this cinema. But it will change. And while they may become less popular in the long run, but this folklore-inspired cinema will become a genre in itself." At least 18 people died, and 19 were injured as a sleeper bus rammed into a milk tanker on the Lucknow-Agra expressway in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district on Wednesday morning. UP: 18 killed, 17 injured as bus from Bihar to Delhi rams into milk tanker on Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao(Haidar Naqvi ) The incident took place near Gadha village when the bus travelling from Bihar to Delhi collided with the tanker while attempting to overtake. The impact of the collision caused the bus to overturn. According to officials, the bus was carrying mostly migrant workers. All the injured persons have been rushed to nearby hospitals for treatment. Out of the 19 people, three are said to be in a critical condition. The authorities have identified two deceased victims - Rajnish Kumar (26) and Mohd Shamim (28), both hailing from Bihar. The process of identification of other victims is underway. The local authorities have launched a rescue operation. The Unnao administration has also issued helpline numbers - (0515-2970767, 9651432703, 9454417447, 8887713617, 8081211289). Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the loss of lives in the incident and announced an ex-gratia of two lakh from PMNRF for the next of kin of each deceased and 50,000 to the injured. The road accident in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh is extremely painful. My condolences to those who have lost their loved ones in this. May God give them strength in this difficult time. Along with this, I wish for the speedy recovery of the injured. Under the supervision of the state government, the local administration is engaged in helping the victims in every possible way, he wrote on X. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge also condoled the loss of lives in the incident and wished for a speedy recovery of the injured people. He also appealed to all the workers of the INDIA bloc parties to provide all possible help to the victims. The news of the death of 18 people in a tragic road accident on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao, UP is very sad. We express our deepest condolences to the bereaved families of the victims. We wish for the speedy recovery of all those injured in the accident. The administration is requested not to leave any stone unturned in helping the victims, Kharge wrote on X. In another incident earlier this year, eight people were killed and over 20 others were injured when a speeding truck collided head-on with a bus, ripping through one of its sides, in Unnao in April. The accident took place near Jamaldipur village on Hardoi-Unnao Road in Safipur. The injured were admitted to the Unnao district hospital and LLR Hospital in Kanpur. According to the police, the bus was carrying 35 passengers, eight of whom were killed and 20 others got injured in the accident. While the bus driver fled after the accident, the truck driver was arrested. Meanwhile, in another incident, at least 40 people, including several school children, were injured after a bus in which they were travelling overturned in Haryana's Panchkula district on Monday morning. The incident took place near Naulata village of Pinjore town. According to the police, the accident was caused due to overspeeding by the bus driver. Along with this, since the bus was filled beyond its capacity with passengers, overloading and poor road conditions have also been attributed as additional reasons for the accident. Kanpur: At least 18 people were killed and 19 were injured, with some critical, after a sleeper bus carrying migrant workers from Bihar to Delhi collided with a milk tanker in Uttar Pradeshs Unnao, police said. The incident took place near Bangarmau in Unnao (HT Photo/Haidar Naqvi) The tragic incident took place on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, near Bangarmau in Unnao, when the bus attempted to overtake the tanker and rammed it from behind, said police. Along with the police, other emergency services were pressed into action following the incident, said officials aware of the matter, adding that the injured were admitted to district hospitals while those critical were shifted to Lucknow for treatment. The identities of the deceased are yet to be confirmed. The Unnao administration has also issued helpline numbers (0515-2970767, 9651432703, 9454417447, 8887713617, 8081211289). Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the loss of lives in the incident and announced an ex-gratia of Rs.2 lakh for the next of kin of each deceased and Rs.50,000 to the injured. UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath also expressed grief over the incident. The loss of life in a road accident in Unnao district is extremely sad and heart-wrenching, he said in a social media post on X. My condolences are with the bereaved family. District administration officials have been instructed to reach the spot and speed up the relief work. I pray to Lord Shri Ram to give a place to the departed souls in his feet and provide speedy recovery to the injured, his post in Hindi read. Union defence minister Rajnath Singh also took to X to condole the incident. The road accident in Unnao, UP is extremely sad and heart-wrenching. The local administration is busy treating the injured. I express my condolences to those who have lost their loved ones in this accident on their irreparable loss. May God give strength to their families to bear this sorrow, he said. Meanwhile, former chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying that the reason for the death of 18 people in the accident on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway was the negligence of the BJP government. ...It is a matter of investigation that despite there being a dedicated parking zone on the expressway, why was a vehicle parked in the middle of the road? he wrote on X. Yadav raised further questions and demanded answers from the Adityanath-led UP government. ...How did the monitoring of the parked vehicle go wrong despite the presence of CCTV cameras? Were CCTV cameras not working? Where was the highway police, was regular patrolling not being done? How long did the Highway Ambulance Service take to arrive after the accident and what was its role in relation to the casualties? If the vehicle was parked due to a breakdown, why towing assistance was not provided? Crores of rupees were spent every day on the expressway. Instead of being spent on the management and administration of the expressway, is that money going somewhere else? The BJP government should answer these questions systematically, his post read. One March night this year, then Palakkad legislator Shafi Parambil was in a movie theatre when his phone rang.He was forced to pick up; it was after all Congress general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal. Im calling to request you to run for Parliament from Vadakara, Venugopal told him. At Vadakara, Shafi Parambil was up against KK Shailaja, the popular CPI(M) leader and former state health minister. (HT Photo) It was a bolt from the blue. At the time, Parambil mumbled a reluctant acquiescence, but immediately began working the phones with colleagues within the Congress and its ally IUML, beseeching them to get him out of the contest. To be frank, at that point, I was not ready to leave state politics, particularly my constituency of Palakkad which I had been nurturing since 2011. It was not because I was concerned about my prospects in Vadakara, he told HT. But the party had its way. And as a loyal worker, I heeded my partys instructions and prepared for the contest, he added. The contest in Vadakara was far from straightforward. Up against Parambil was KK Shailaja, the popular CPI(M) leader and former state health minister, who had earned plaudits for the states response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Both the Congress and the Left had established votebanks and loyal workers, and for most local analysts, the battle was far too close to call. But when the results came in on June 4, it became clear Parambil had bested Shailaja, and it wasnt particularly close. He won 49.65% of the vote, and beat his CPI(M) opponent by 114,000 votes. And so, a 41-year-old, a newbie to the corridors of power in Lutyens Delhi, a man who had never seen Parliament proceedings even from the viewing gallery, took oath on June 24 as a first-time MP in the 18th Lok Sabha. Importantly, Parambil is one of only 24 Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha, two fewer than in 2019. Of them, the Congress has nine Muslims, the TMC five and the Samajwadi Party four. The highest Muslim representation in Indian parliament was 49 in 1980. Parambil maintains that being Muslim is a personal belief, and not part of his political identity. I have not used it to get an advantage in my political career or to showcase it as someone elses disadvantage. My political identity is that I am a member of the Indian National Congress. I am a person who holds aloft secular values, he told Manorama News on June 15. Born into a middle-class Muslim family in 1983, Parambil was a public speaker and debater in school, but by the time he arrived at the SNGS College in Pattambi for a bachelors in business administration, his interest in student politics had taken root. Most colleges in the state, including his, were bastions of the Students Federation of India (SFI) aligned with the Left Front, with rival outfits afraid to begin units or enrol members. Even in that atmosphere, Parambils allegiances were clear. From a young age, my belief was in the Congress because it is firmly rooted in the secular and democratic ideals of India. It is the only party that can take along everyone from all backgrounds and faiths under its umbrella. So at the college level, I along with few others began efforts to strengthen the KSU, said Parambil, referring to the Kerala Students Union, the student wing of the Congress. Quickly, Parambil became a key member, playing a role in the formation of a union under the KSU banner in 2004. By 2006, he was the KSU Palakkad district president and the state chief by 2009, the first person in Kerala to be elected as such through an internal election process an experiment championed by Rahul Gandhi across all NSUI units, only to be abandoned later. By 2011, as a 28-year-old, Parambil was among a crop of young leaders the others being VT Balram in Thrithala, Hibi Eden in Ernakulam and Anwar Sadath in Aluva who were given tickets by the Congress to contest the assembly elections. This was an attempt at a party revitalisation of sorts, but came in seats where the CPI(M) was dominant. In Palakkad for instance, a seat with a majority Hindu population, the Congress had only won four of the 12 previous elections. But Parambil focused his campaign on the youth and women, and criss-crossed the constituency for weeks. On results day, Parambil staged an upset, beating the experienced incumbent CPI(M) MLA by over 2,400 votes. Balram, a two-time MLA from Thrithala and the current Congress state vice-president said of Parambil, Being youthful is a big part of his charisma. Through his communication skills, he can build a rapport with voters quite quickly and thats what makes him a crowd-puller. Vadakara, a hub of high-voltage contests, needed someone like that and Parambil came there at the right time. That Parambil, even as a debutant MLA, was able to get a medical college commissioned in Palakkad with the help of then Congress chief minister and his mentor Oommen Chandy endeared him to voters, said Balram. Its significance lies in the fact that CPM had three chief ministers elected from the district in the past and none of them could make it happen. And Parambil did it, just as a first-time MLA. Parambil won two more assembly elections from Palakkad, but in 2024, was air-dropped to Vadakara, 170km away, as part of a Congress strategy to counter both the CPI(M) and a rising Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The plan included shifting formidable leader and Vadakara MP K Muraleedharan to Thrissur to counter the BJP, days after his sister left the Congress to join the saffron party, and Parambil going to Vadakara. The first part of the scheme failed Suresh Gopi of the BJP became the BJPs first ever MP in Kerala, winning Thrissur but Parambil kept up his end of the bargain. Contests in Vadakara, spread across two assembly segments in Kannur and five in Kozhikode have always captured the states imagination. In the 2021 Assembly elections, the LDF won six of the seven segments. But when it comes to Lok Sabha elections, the CPM has had a dry spell winning the seat last in 2004. This time, it brought in MLA KK Shailaja, believing in her ability to lure voters, especially women and those from the minority community, beyond political lines. Muslims comprise around 35% of the electorate in the constituency. The campaign was charged there were communal undertones and provocative Whatsapp forwards that highlighted Parambils religion; the killing of a CPI(M) worker in a bomb blast on April 5; even distasteful morphed videos of the CPI(M) candidate. Eventually, the constituency saw the highest voting percentage in Kerala at 78.41%, and on voting day, Parambil prevailed. I said right after the results that it was a 100% political victory. The campaign hurt me personally at times, because I was portrayed as someone belonging to a particular community, when I have always strived to rise above that. Even in the assembly, not a single line I have said has been struck off the record because I speak very carefully, Parambil said. He said the people of the constituency took over the campaign from his party. It was a purely people-led campaign. At one place, I found an elderly woman who waited on the side of the road to meet me for four hours. When I met her, she handed me a small cloth bag which had a tricolour imprinted on it and inside, there was a 100 note. She said I would need it for the campaign. It touched me deeply, he said. Abdul Hameed, a 76-year-old paddy farmer in Vadakara, said, He was born as Muslim, but that is not his sole identity. He is young, speaks plainly and shows humility. Thats what we liked about him. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his then deputy Manish Sisodia and former media in-charge of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Vijay Nair asked for additional money over and above 100 crore for their election funding in Goa and Punjab, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has claimed in its charge sheet against Kejriwal and AAP, citing accused-turned-approver businessman P Sarath Reddys statement. In his statement recorded on March 21, the day of his arrest, Kejriwal has told ED he didnt know Sarath Reddy. (PTI) A Delhi court on Tuesday took cognizance of the charge sheet against the jailed CM (accused number 37) and the AAP (accused number 38), filed on May 17. The federal agency had also alleged that Vinod Chauhan, a close associate of Kejriwal, not only handled the transfer of 25.5 crore bribe money for AAP from Delhi to Goa but was also managing postings of officers in the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) through the CM. Reddy, promoter of Aurobindo Group, was a key member of the so-called South Group that allegedly gave 100 crore to the AAP in lieu of favourable excise policy in 2021-22. Other prominent persons in this Group were Lok Sabha member Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy, his son Raghav Magunta and BRS leader K Kavitha (now in Tihar jail). Sarath Reddy was arrested by the ED in November 2022 but was granted pardon under section 306 of the erstwhile criminal procedure code (CrPC) by a special court in Delhi as he agreed to turn an approver in the case. Citing his statement, the ED charge sheet alleges that in November 2021, there were issues like relaxation of payment of license fee, non- opening of shops in non-conforming areas etc and whenever Abhishek Boinpally and Arun Pillai (who represented South Group) tried to discuss this matter with Vijay Nair, he wouldnt respond properly. At later stage, Covid-19 waiver was given to the retail zones, but Sarath Reddys zones didnt get the expected amount of waiver. Regarding these issues, Sarath Reddy spoke to K Kavitha, Boinpally and Pillai and he was told that over and above 100 crore, Nair, Sisodia and Kejriwal had asked for additional amounts for their election funding in Goa and Punjab, but they had refused it, the charge sheet alleges This miffed the AAP and thats why after a point Nair didnt give much attention to their issues, it adds. In his statement recorded on March 21, the day of his arrest, Kejriwal has told ED he didnt know Sarath Reddy. On Kejriwals association with Vinod Chauhan, an accused primarily allegedly involved in hawala transfers, the ED charge sheet says the latter was responsible for the transfer of 25.5 crore from Delhi to Goa which was received from Abhishek Boinpally i.e. a representative of the South Group who also handled cash transfer in the quid pro quo arrangement. Asserting that Chauhan is not unrelated person unknown or unassociated with the AAP leaders but is very much a close associate of the accused Arvind Kejriwal, ED has attached their chats in the charge sheet. In one of the chats, Chauhan is allegedly seeking time from Kejriwal for a meeting with a sitting judge, to which the CM replied sure. The acknowledgement by Arvind Kejriwal is proof that he was closely associated with Sh Vinod Chauhan, ED alleges. It further claims that Vinod Chauhans proximity is also visible from the fact that he was managing postings for officers in Delhi Jal Board (DJB) through Arvind Kejriwal. It has cited a chat and a screenshot of an official note of the Delhi government which approved such posting. The federal agency has also attached Kejriwals statement, recorded on 11 occasions after his arrest, with the charge sheet. In one of the statements, Kejriwal has said Vijay Nair reported to Atishi Marlena and Saurabh Bhardwaj and wasnt authorized to talk to any liquor businessmen. Asked if Nair was given responsibility either by Delhi government or him or any other leader of AAP in respect of formulation and implementation of excise policy, Kejriwal replied No. never. The CM has also claimed in his statements that he never discussed the excise policy with any of his officers or ministers apart from it being discussed in the Cabinet. He also said, he doesnt recollect any discussion on enhancing the profit margin to wholesalers from 5% to 12% was done. The financial crimes probe agency has so far arrested 18 accused persons including four politicians , Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia Sisodia, K Kavitha and Sanjay Singh; filed eight charge sheets against 36 persons and entities; and submitted thousands of documents as evidence in the court in the excise probe. The Delhi governments 2021-22 excise policy aimed to revitalize the citys flagging liquor business. It aimed to replace a sales-volume based regime with a license fee one for traders, and promised swankier stores, free of the infamous metal grilles, ultimately giving customers a better buying experience. The policy also introduced discounts and offers on the purchase of liquor, a first for Delhi. The plan, however, came to an abrupt end, with Delhis lieutenant governor Vinai Kumar Saxena recommending a probe into alleged irregularities in the regime. This ultimately resulted in the policy being scrapped prematurely and being replaced by the 2020-21 regime, with AAP alleging that Saxenas predecessor sabotaged the move with a few last-minute changes that resulted in lower-than-expected revenues. Ends The Pentagon has said the United States will continue to view India as a strategic partner and trusts that India will support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace for Ukraine, as as Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded his historic visit to Russia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi with US President Joe Biden. (REUTERS file) "India and Russia have had a relationship for a very long time. From a US perspective, India is a strategic partner with whom we continue to engage in with full and frank dialogue to include their relationship with Russia. As it relates to the NATO summit being this week, of course, like you, the world is focused on that," Pentagon press secretary major general Pat Ryder told reporters at a news conference in New York on Tuesday. The Joe Biden administration has already expressed its concerns during Modi's two-day visit to Russia's Moscow. "But I do not think anybody will be surprised if (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin tries to represent this visit in a way that seeks to somehow show that he is not isolated from the rest of the world. And the fact of the matter is, President Putin's war of choice has isolated Russia from the rest of the world and it has come at great cost," Pat Ryder said responding to questions on Modi's Russia visit. "Their war of aggression has come at great cost and the facts bear that out. So we will continue to view India as a strategic partner. We will continue to have robust dialogue with them," Ryder said. When a reporter said He (Putin) is not looking so isolated with the head of the world's largest democracy being in Moscow, embracing him right now, Ryder replied, I would also note that the prime minister also met recently with the Ukrainian president and offered his assurances that India will continue to do everything within its means to support a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine. "I think that we trust that India will support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace for Ukraine and will convey to Mr Putin the importance of adhering to the UN charter and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added. Ukraine mourns after Kyiv children's hospital attack The statement from the Pantagon comes even as rescuers searched the rubble of Ukraine's biggest childrens hospital on Tuesday for more dead and wounded, a day after authorities say a Russian missile leveled a wing of the Kyiv facility during a massive daytime barrage that killed at least 42 people throughout the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on the social platform X that 64 people were hospitalised in the capital, in addition to 28 in Kryvyi Rih and six in Dnipro both cities in central Ukraine. Zelensky was also critical of Modis visit to Russia, saying on X late Monday, It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the worlds largest democracy hug the worlds most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day. Associated Journals Limited (AJL) has challenged the Enforcement Directorates move to attach its properties and the subsequent confirmation of such attachment by an adjudicating authority under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), calling it arbitrary and mala fide, people familiar with the development said. AJL moves appellate tribunal after ED attaches properties ED had, on November 20 last year, provisionally attached assets worth over 751.9 crore ( 661 crore immovable and shares worth 90 crore) of AJL and Young Indian (YI) alleging that a criminal conspiracy was hatched to give control of properties worth hundreds of crores of rupees of AJL to the beneficial owners of YI, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. The attachment was confirmed by the adjudicating authority under PMLA on April 10 this year. The decision has been challenged by AJL and YI before the appellate tribunal for forfeited property (ATFP), New Delhi. The tribunal has listed the matter for arguments on August 1 and final hearing on August 12, said a person cited above. There was no immediate comment from the Congress on the matter. ED, an officer said, has already filed its written reply to the AJLs appeal detailing the evidence based on which the action was taken. AJL and YI have countered the allegations saying PMLA proceedings are not maintainable, arbitrary and initiated in a mala fide. Both have contended that they have not committed any scheduled offence or the offence of money laundering and are not in the possession of any proceeds of crime. As first reported by HT on January 6, ED has identified proceeds of crime in the case worth 988 crore. This includes real estate and other assets worth 755 crore, shares worth 90 crore, and rent of 142 crore earned since 2010-11. The rent was earned by AJL from its prime properties in Delhi, Mumbai, Indore, Panchkula, Lucknow and Patna since YI took over the company in Financial Year 2010-11, ED has claimed. ED has alleged that AJL, which got land in various cities at concessional rates to run the National Herald, but closed the newspaper in 2008, relaunched its news operations around 2016 just to show that it is still engaged in publishing of newspapers after investigation was started into companys affairs by various agencies. The Congress has denied the charges and described the case as a witch-hunt. Established in 1937 by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, AJL published the National Herald, Qaumi Awaz in Urdu and Navjeevan in Hindi. It was given land in various cities of India for the purpose of publishing newspapers. But it closed operations in 2008 and offered voluntary retirement to all employees, which was accepted by them; by then, the debt on its books had risen to 90 crore. It was taken over in 2010 by Young Indian (YI), a company in which Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi together hold 76%. Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived Vienna on Tuesday from Russia's Moscow on a two-day visit to Austria during which the two nations will explore ways to further deepen their bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges. Austria Chancellor Karl Nehammer clicks a self with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.(@karlnehammer) "Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more," PM Narendra Modi posted on X, along with a series of photographs. Later, Modi joined dinner hosted by Austria Chancellor Karl Nehammer, where he was greeted by members of the Indian diaspora. Karl Nehammer also clicked a self with Modi and posted on social media, extending a warm welcome to the Indian Prime Minister. "Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi ! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!," Karl Nehammer wrote in a post on X while sharing a selfie with Modi. In response to Nehammer's warm welcome, Modi thanked him and stated India and Austria will continue to work together. In a post on X, Modi said while sharing some really good pictures of him and Nehammer, Thank you, Chancellor @karlnehammer, for the warm welcome. I look forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good. Modi was welcomed by Indian ambassador to Austria Shambhu Kumaran and Austrian foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg. Alexander Schallenberg also extended a warm welcome to Modi and said "A warm welcome to Indian PM @narendramodi on his historic visit to Austria, marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. The partnership between our nations is based on a joint commitment to global security, stability and prosperity." Mod becomes the first Indian PM to visit Austria in 41 years. In 1983, Indira Gandhi was the last PM to visit the country. Patna: On June 16, 2020, cloistered inside his Samvad Hall in Patna in the middle of a raging pandemic, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar inaugurated the Sattarghat bridge across the turbulent river Gandak via videoconferencing. The bridge, which connects Kesaria in East Champaran to Faizalpur in Gopalganj was eight years in the making, its foundation stone laid by Kumar in 2012. On that June day, Kumar was peeved. He said that ordinarily, he would have liked to travel to the spot to inspect the quality of work before the formal inauguration. His fears were not unfounded. Twenty-nine days later, a section of the brand new bridge, including an approach road, collapsed into the water. As Bihars rivers continue to turn, bridges continue to collapse under the weight of shoddy maintenance, the lack of a plan, and complete mismanagement. (HT Photo) In the days that followed, an embarrassed Bihar government ordered an inquiry by a high-level team of experts led by Ramakar Jha, the head of the civil engineering department of the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Patna. The panel attributed the collapse to the changing course of Gandak which enters Bihar from Nepal. In June 2021, it recommended pulling down an 810-metre portion of the approach road to create additional pathways for the water to pass. Little was done, and in one monsoon season after another, both Gopalganj and Saran, have seen widespread flooding. Also Read | Water levels of Bihar rivers rising due to rain, East, West Champaran residents relocated Much has happened in Bihar since June 2020. A pandemic has come and gone, exacting a tragic price. Political allegiances have changed Nitish Kumar left the NDA and joined the Mahagatbandhan; then left the Mahagatbandhan and joined the NDA. And yet, there are two constants. One, that Nitish Kumar has survived wave upon wave of choppy political waters to remain chief minister. And second, as Bihars rivers continue to turn, bridges continue to collapse under the weight of shoddy maintenance, the lack of a plan, and complete mismanagement. Take for instance, these last three weeks which have seen 12 bridges, big and small, collapse. Changing rivers Four of the collapses over the past two weeks have been across a small rivulet of the Gandak called the Gandaki in Siwan. While there have been no deaths or injuries in these incidents, engineers in the water resources department (WRD) have blamed them on a sudden and unexpectedly huge flow of water in the river. Prima facie, an inquiry report, submitted to the Siwan district magistrate on June 24, said that gushing currents eroded the soil around the main pillars of the bridges, dislocating them from their original position. This was attributed to a rise in the flow of the water from Nepal, which saw heavy rains in June. Except, the rise in river water should be far from a surprise. It happens year on year, and in one Bihar region after another. On June 18, in Araria, 390km away from Siwan, a section of the 282m-long RCC (reinforced cement concrete) bridge on the Bakra river in Sikta block saw severe damage, with three to four spans of the structure being built by RWD at the cost of 12 crore, crumbling into the river. Engineers who inspected the bridge, found the same reason damages due to the changing course of the river. Also Read | Tejashwi jabs Modi, Nitish over Bihar bridge collapses; PIL filed in Supreme Court: 'Auspicious corruption' Exactly two years before that, on June 18, 2022, two pillars of a four-lane bridge between Bihpur and Funaut villages in Naugachhiya were washed away when the Kosi river moved southward. River basin expert Dinesh Kumar Mishra said, The bridge was part of a 30km road that connects Bihpur in Bhagalpur to Birpur in Supaul. The construction company is said to have lost more than 200 crore. But that is the risk the contractors have to face with a turbulent river like the Kosi. Mishra said that the Kosis swirling currents during the monsoon forces both the river and its tributaries to change course. The Kosi comes down to Bihar from a steep height and with a heavy load of silt. An insignificant stream of the Kosi flowing even two to three kilometres away from the main course of the river can turn into a major waterway, affecting the structures that lie in its path, Mishra said. But professor Ramakar Jha, the NIT professor who inspected the Sattarghat bridge, said that rivers changing the course were hardly surprising, and could not be used as the excuse for collapsing bridges. The construction companies and executing agencies should not resort to such a poor alibi. Instead, what should happen are good feasibility studies to understand the hydrology of the river. If a project costs between 200 and 300 crore, these feasibility exercise will not take more than a crore, Jha said. Design flaws and lack of a policy Experts pointed out that government administrators and architects in Bihar largely use the Lacey method (named after Gerald Lacey who came up with it in the 1930s) based on the concept of a regime channel where silt grade and charge remain constant and then provides equations that help calculate velocity, hydraulic meant depth and bed slope to evaluate the hydrology of the river. But the Lacey method is largely applied to evaluate canals. In Bihar, engineers often resort to this method to evaluate the hydrology of rivers which they then use to plan the design of bridges. It is no wonder that their piers and foundations get damaged when there is an unexpectedly high current, Ramakar Jha said. Also Read | Nitin Gadkari clarifies after bridge ready to be inaugurated collapses in Bihar's Araria Mishra said that there now needs to be an extensive hydrological analysis of all rivers in Bihar, particularly those that gush down from the Himalayas. Never before, have I heard of so many bridges coming down in such a short span of time. There is something amiss in both their design, and the nature of the rivers owing to climate change. The structures of bridges usually weaken when gushing currents erode soil around the foundation of piers and make deck-slabs unstable. Concerned departments must conduct safety audits before the onset of every monsoon, Mishra said. Senior government officials also said that rampant sand-mining, which impinges on the carrying capacity of rivers, makes a shift in their path easier, and weakens structures, is a problem to contend with. Sunil Kumar, vice president of the Indian Engineers Federation and executive engineer of the Bihar Police building corporation said, The norms state that no mining of sand will be done within 500 metres of the bridge. But this rule is rarely adhered to, which poses risks to the foundation of a bridge. Recently, the Indian Railways were forced to carry out a strengthening of the piers for the 160 year old Abdul Bari bridge on the river Sone, after it was found that they had weakened due to rampant sand mining. Officials pointed to other man-made crises as well in particular the hasty grant of approvals to projects deemed key by the state government. Patnas Marine Drive or the Jaya Prakash Ganga Pathway, a 21.5km driveway on the southern banks of the Ganga built at the cost of 3,106 crore and approved in 2007, for instance, was called by one executive engineer of the water resources department, who asked not be quoted, as an example of disturbing natural flow. It is being built on the southern bank of the Ganga. The project was given a go ahead despite reservations from environmentalists who had feared that this will cause the river to shift away from Patna. This has now happened and there is flooding on the plains of Hajipur and Muzaffarpur, he said. Pankaj Malviya, who was part of a volunteer campaign that raised concerns on the project, said, The Ganga Pathway is now forcing the river to deposit silt on the Patna side of the bank. The river bed is being flattened because of the silt which is left behind because of the obstruction in the flow. The bridge was meant to ease Patnas notorious traffic from east to west and construction began in 2013, but was only opened for traffic in June 2022. This is because the road design, being constructed as a mix of at-grade and elevated shapes had to be changed because of the pattern of the flow of the Ganga. Box canals, which were meant to ensure the unhindered flow of water have still not been built, allowing people to encroach the river bank, the WRD engineer quoted above said. Even more damningly, while Bihar has laid out norms for maintenance of public infrastructure such as roads, it has no such policy for the maintenance of bridges. Officials admit that formulating a bridge maintenance policy often comes up in the wake of a bridge collapse, but fades quickly into memory. Beyond this, the department spends very little time and money on the maintenance of bridges. Recently, the chief secretary held a review meeting in the wake of the collapse of the twelve bridges directed officials to frame the bridge maintenance policy to be approved by the state legislature in the coming monsoon session. But I have heard the same things since 2018, the executive engineer said. The spate of bridge collapses have spurred a political furore in Bihar with the state assemblys Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav saying that the frequent collapses was a metaphor for a failing double engine government-- a reference to alliance partners, the JD(U) and the BJP being in charge both at the state and the Centre. There is hardly a week that passes when the report of a bridge collapse doesnt dominate the headlines, Yadav said. The government, however, has insisted that it has taken cognisance of the bridge collapses, and was taking stern action, pointing to rural works department minister Ashok Chaudhary ordering the suspension of three engineers involved in the construction and maintenance of the bridge that collapsed on the Bakra river. Former JD(U) minister and MLC Neeraj Kumar said that he suspected a design behind the series of collapses, and that nobody guilty would be spared. The CM is personally monitoring the situation and reviewing works of the road construction department and the rural works department to prevent recurrence of these collapses, Neeraj Kumar said. On July 3, Nitish directed the two departments to conduct a survey of all the old bridges in the state and identify those that require immediate repair. This came even as a PIL was filed in the Supreme Court on June 29, raising concerns about the safety and longevity of bridges in Bihar, particularly during floods and the monsoon. The petitioner, advocate Brajesh Singh, sought the setting up of real-time monitoring of bridges and said, Such routine accrual of falling bridges in Bihar is disastrous as the lives of people at large are at stake. Therefore the urgent intervention of this court is required to save the lives of people. Bihar waits for intervention, as it waits, almost inevitably, for news of the next bridge collapse. Conventional political wisdom dictates that the third term Modi government is likely to reveal its true intentions and its course of action, only after the results of the three crucial assembly elections are known later this year, most likely by October. Polling officials collect EVM and other election materials at a distribution centre for the Maniktala assembly bypoll, in Kolkata, Tuesday. (PTI) Then, depending upon the outcome of the polls in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand with the remote possibility of Jammu and Kashmir thrown in will the Modi government reveal its hand. Since the reverses in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, the BJP government is in a `wait and watch mode, with the loss of 60-plus Lok Sabha seats placing an onerous burden on the ruling party. Also Read | Round 2 of NDA vs INDIA as 13 assembly seats in 7 states go to bypolls today; Bengal on focus | 10 points The first curtain in this never-ending drama will go up on July 10 when by-elections will be held to 13 assembly seats across seven states. One constituency each in Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh, four constituencies in West Bengal and two seats each in Uttarakhand, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh will face by polls to be held against vacancies created either due to deaths or resignation of incumbent members. Follow Live Updates on bypolls Depending on the outcome, it could lead to fresh realignments and determine the course of the politics and policies in the months and years ahead. Under the circumstances, hard-nosed political alliances are being firmed up for the October spectacle. Of the three, Maharashtra with its 288 assembly seats, remains the most vital. The Maha Vikas Aghadi or the MVA, including the Congress, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) headed by veteran Sharad Pawar, will jointly contest the polls. Last Sunday in Pune, Pawar stressed that the Opposition coalition must present a united front to bring about political change and that talks on seat sharing will begin soon. The MVA bagged 30 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats. That the NCP boss is seeking to cobble together the broadest possible rainbow coalition, buoyed no doubt by the Lok Sabha results, was clear when he emphasised the `moral obligation of the major MVA parties to safeguard the interests of their smaller allies who had been part of the victorious opposition coalition in the Lok Sabha. Pawar, 83, was alluding to the Left parties and the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), who could not be accommodated in the seat-sharing process at the time of the general election. For the BJP, the big test will be its alliance with regional parties, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde group) and Ajit Pawars NCP faction. During a May rally in Nandurbar campaigning for the Lok Sabha, PM Narendra Modi had `advised both Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray to join hands with NDA. "Instead of merging with Congress and dying, this fake NCP and Shiv Sena should come with Ajit Pawar and CM Shinde," he had said. Last week, the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Sena asserted that it is going to remain with the INDIA alliance and will not switch back to the NDA. Having won nine Lok Sabha seats, it has emerged as the second-largest party in Maharashtra - tied with the BJP with the additional satisfaction of having edged out the archrival Shinde faction, which managed to win only seven. The BJP and undivided Shiv Sena have been old allies. During the 2019 general elections, they contested together and won 41 Lok Sabha seats between them, with the BJP getting 23 and Uddhav Thackeray's party 18. The two later fell out over disagreements regarding the chief minister's post. The importance of Haryana, where the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) has tied up with its former ally Bahujan Samaj Party, can scarcely be underrated. Its state unit chief Rampal Majra told PTI this week that "the two parties have in principle agreed to enter into an alliance for the upcoming Haryana assembly. In Haryana, the BJP's vote share dropped from 58.2 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to 46.11 per cent in 2024. The INDIA bloc's vote share was better; together, they secured 47.61 per cent, with the Congress, which contested nine seats, getting 43.67 per cent, and the Aam Aadmi Party, which contested one seat (Kurukshetra), picking up a measly 3.94 per cent. Pramod Kumar, chairperson of the Institute for Development and Communication, a Chandigarh-based think-tank, was quoted as saying that despite the much-improved Congress performance in the state, it would be premature to conclude that a win for them is on the cards. However, the BJP too is not well placed in Haryana, which it has ruled for a decade. ``Indeed, the situation is unfavourable for the BJP. It faces a 10-year anti-incumbency. At least for now, it lacks a competing narrative against the Opposition's focus on livelihood and farming issues. There is also the farmers' movement, which is unabated, and it remains to be seen how the government addresses it," he said. Farmers' organisations in Indias food bowl of Punjab-Haryana have seriously hampered BJP 's prospects. The farmers front, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, relaunched their agitation in February 2024, demanding a legal guarantee of the minimum support price (MSP), which continues. Not that the BJP had any illusions about facing anti-incumbency in Haryana. Earlier, this March, it replaced Manohar Lal Khattar, a Punjabi, with Nayab Singh Saini, an OBC, as chief minister. Saini has announced welfare schemes in recent weeks and promised to fill all vacancies in state government jobs soon. The point is with the assembly elections, so close, how much can he achieve? A Post by Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Lokniti CSDS, on X said that their post-poll Lok Sabha survey in Haryana found that 61 per cent of the state's farmers voted for the INDIA bloc, while only 35 per cent pitched for the BJP. Among non-farmers, 44 per cent voted for the INDIA bloc and 49 per cent for the BJP. While the farmers agitation may be out of the news, its intensity in Haryana has in no way lessened and it looks a tad difficult for this trend to be reversed. In Jharkhand, the BJP and its old ally, the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU), are faced off against the INDIA bloc with Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), RJD and the Communist Party of India (ML) Liberation as its principal constituents. The CPI (ML) Liberation won two Lok Sabha seats in adjacent Bihar. The ruling combination got a shot in the arm when recently released Jharkhand chief minister, Hemant Soren, secured a decisive victory in the state assemblys trust vote on July 8, with 45 MLAs backing him, making cabinet expansion an imminent possibility. The JMM alliance boasts 45 MLAs: 27 from JMM, 17 Congress, and one from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), in the 81-member state assembly. The BJP trails with 24 MLAs. For the Jharkhand assembly elections, there is another element to be reckoned with now: a new political outfits performance just went beyond expectations in the Lok Sabha elections. The Jharkhandi Bhasha Khatiyan Sangharsh Samiti (JBKSS), led by 29-year-old Jairam Kumar Mahato, contested as independents on eight seats in Jharkhand, coming third on six Lok Sabha seats. Both the JMM-led block and the BJP are trying to rope in the newbie in their scheme of things. Clearly, as elections draw nearer, expect more alliances to be firmed up. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday raised Russias missile strike on a childrens hospital in Ukraine with President Vladimir Putin and again nudged him to return to the path of dialogue and diplomacy, saying no solution can be found on the battlefield. Russian president Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi after their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow on Tuesday. (AFP) Modi, on his first visit to Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, discussed the conflict at both a private meeting with Putin at his country home on Monday and at the annual summit in the Kremlin on Tuesday. He pointedly referred to the strike on the childrens hospital in his opening remarks at the summit, hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticised the meeting between the Indian and Russian leaders. Whether it is war, conflicts, terror attacks, every person who believes in humanity is deeply affected when there is loss of life. But even in that, when innocent children are killed, when we see innocent children dying, then the heart is pierced and that pain is very horrible, Modi said, speaking in Hindi. Also Read | PM Modi arrives in Austria for one-day state visit As a friend, I have always said that peace is most necessary for the bright future of next generation. But I also know that no solution is possible on the battlefield. Between bombs, guns and bullets, solutions and peace talks are not successful, and we have to find the path to peace through the medium of dialogue, he said. Ohmatdyt Childrens Hospital, Ukraines largest paediatric facility, sustained major damage when it was hit in a wave of Russian missile strikes on cities across the country. Thirty-nine people, including two at the hospital, were killed and 140 others were injured in the strikes. Modi noted he extensively discussed this matter with Putin during their meeting at the Russian leaders dacha on Monday evening, which lasted four to five hours, and reiterated Indias call for a return to dialogue and diplomacy to end the war. Also Read | Heart is pierced: Modi flags missile strike on Kyiv's children's hospital at meeting with President Putin I am happy we both were able to discuss our views on the issue of Ukraine with an open mind and at length, and we attempted to listen and understand each others views with a lot of respect, Modi said. He added he also presented the Global Souths expectations for global peace to Putin. Modi said he was satisfied that Putin talked very openly at their meeting on Monday, with no covering up, and that many interesting ideas and a new thinking had emerged from these talks. He gave no details of these ideas. India, he said, stands ready to provide all possible help for restoring peace. I assure you and the world community that India is in favour of peace...and I have a new hope in my mind after hearing the views of my friend President Putin yesterday, he added. Putin, whose opening remarks were briefer, said he was grateful to Modi for the attention you pay to the most pressing issues, including your efforts to find ways to resolve the Ukraine crisis, primarily through peaceful means. Modis remarks that no solution can be found on the battlefield build on his earlier comments that todays era is not of war made at his last face-to-face meeting with Putin on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Samarkand in September 2022. Indias position also reflects the diplomatic tightrope walk it has engaged in over the conflict, especially in view of the expectations of Western partners such as the US and France, who believe New Delhi should press Moscow to end hostilities. These Western partners have also pushed India to convince members of the Global South, which are on the fence, to back efforts to end the conflict. Modis meeting with Putin coincided with the start of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) Summit in Washington that is being attended by Zelenskyy. Indian officials have played down the timing of Modis visit to Moscow, saying the engagement should be seen in a bilateral context. Foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra confirmed at a media briefing that the Ukraine conflict figured at Mondays private meeting and Tuesdays summit. In terms of the death of the innocents yesterday [Monday], Prime Minister was very clear and categorical in expressing his concern and regret at the loss of these innocent lives, including in particular the children yesterday, he said. Also Read | Ukraine's Zelenskyy on PM Modi-Putin meet in Moscow: Huge disappointment Kwatra said Modi made it clear India is willing to offer all possible support, contribution and cooperation required to address this particular challenge of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and find peaceful solutions. India has not publicly criticised Russias invasion of Ukraine or voted in favour of numerous UN resolutions against Moscows actions, though it has repeatedly called for a return to the path of dialogue and diplomacy to find a solution to the conflict. Indias top leadership also stayed away from a peace summit on Ukraine hosted by Switzerland last month, and the country didnt sign on for the joint communique issued after the meeting. Russia has emerged as one of the main suppliers of energy to India after New Delhi snapped up discounted Russian commodities such as crude oil and fertilisers after the imposition of Western sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the chief information commissioner (CIC) has the authority to constitute benches of the transparency panel and divide work within the commission. This decision overruled the Delhi high courts May 2010 judgment, which had asserted otherwise. The CIC can also frame rules under the RTI Act for the commissions management. (HT file photo) A bench of justices Vikram Nath and Satish Chandra Sharma found the high courts judgment contrary to the objective and functioning of the Right To Information (RTI) Act, holding that the CIC does possess the authority to constitute benches. The CIC can also frame rules under the RTI Act for the commissions management, justice Nath read out from the operative part of the judgment. In May 2010, the Delhi high court quashed the CIC (Management) Regulations, 2007, framed by the CIC, noting that the CIC did not have the power to constitute benches. In response, the CIC appealed to the Supreme Court to resolve the matter definitively, citing conflicting decisions from various high courts on whether the CIC could frame rules for the commissions management under the RTI Act. Also Read: Delhi HC sets aside order directing CBDT to provide info on Ram Temple trust The CICs appeal highlighted that while the high courts of Patna, Bombay and Karnataka had upheld the regulations framed by state CICs for managing and hearing cases, the Delhi high court issued an opposite ruling. The CIC contended that the power to manage the commissions affairs, vested in the CIC, inherently included the power to allocate work to efficiently utilise the services of information commissioners. Any restriction on this power, particularly the ability to divide work among information commissioners, would seriously impede the commissions functioning, argued the CIC. The appeal further contended that the high courts judgment had severely disrupted the commissions smooth functioning and its ability to perform its statutory duties mandated by Parliament under the RTI Act. The appeal stemmed from a judgment delivered by the Delhi High Court, which had ruled in favor of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). The DDA had challenged the CICs authority to constitute Benches under the CIC Management Regulations of 2007, arguing that the CIC did not have the power to issue such regulations, making the constitution of Benches illegal. The DDAs objections were based on the CICs directive to form an inquiry committee to examine the DDAs rules and regulations. The Delhi High Court had stated that Section 12(4) of the RTI Act does not grant the CIC the power to issue regulations. Consequently, the high court struck down the CIC Management Regulations, 2007, as ultra vires (beyond the powers) of the Act. The court further asserted that the CIC had no authority to delegate the task of conducting inquiries to other individuals. The Supreme Court, however, clarified that Section 12(4) of the RTI Act, which pertains to the superintendence, direction, and management of the Central Information Commissions affairs, does indeed grant the CIC the authority to make regulations necessary for the commissions effective functioning. The top court emphasised that the terms superintendence, direction, and management inherently include the power to manage internal affairs and allocate work among information commissioners, ensuring the commission can fulfill its statutory duties effectively. With this ruling, the Supreme Court has restored clarity and confirmed the CICs authority to constitute benches and manage the commissions work, facilitating the smooth functioning of the information commissions in accordance with the RTI Act. Reacting to the Supreme Court's judgment that Muslim women are entitled to seek maintenance from their husbands after divorce, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday invoked the controversial Shah Bano case in their attack on the Congress, saying the Rajiv Gandhi government gave primacy to Sharia over the Constitution. BJP spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP, Sudhanshu Trivedi. (File) In 1985, the Supreme Court allowed Shah Bano's plea for alimony from her husband after she was divorced. However, the then-Congress government passed a law in the Parliament to overrule the verdict. Sudhanshu Trivedi, a BJP spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP, today said the Supreme Court ended one of the biggest threats to the Constitution. Whenever the Congress has been in power, the Constitution was under threat. It (the Rajiv Gandhi government's) was a decision which gave primacy to Sharia over the Constitution. The prestige of the Constitution which was crushed during the Congress government has been restored by this order. The verdict has ended one of the big threats posed to the Constitution, he said. Also read: Divorced Muslim women can seek maintenance from husband, rules Supreme Court He said the Supreme Court's verdict shouldn't be seen from the point of view of religion. He said it was an issue of equal rights. He claimed that there was no secular state where Sharia provisions like halala, triple talaq and Haj subsidy were allowed. Also read: From Shah Bano to Shayara Bano: The evolution of Indian society and polity Trivedi said the Congress government had turned India into a partial Islamic state. The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a Muslim woman can seek maintenance from her husband under Section 125 of the CrPC and said the "religion-neutral" provision applies to all married women irrespective of their religion. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 will not prevail over the secular law, a bench of justices B V Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih said, stressing that maintenance is not charity but the right of all married women. With inputs from PTI New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Wednesday listed the matter to July 15, the Enforcement Directorates (ED) plea challenging bail to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal by the trial court on June 20 in the alleged money laundering case even as the CMs legal team requested the court to hear the matter on urgent basis. Kejriwal was arrested by the ED on March 21 (File Photo) A bench of justice Neena Bansal Krishna deferred the hearing after the ED, represented by additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju, sought time to respond to the reply filed by the chief minister stating that the CMs legal team had served the reply copy at 11:00pm on Tuesday and they thus need time. Kejriwal, represented by senior advocate AM Singhvi, said that the reply copy was mailed to the investigating officer (IO) at 1:00pm. He contended that there was extreme urgency in the matter as the high court on June 25 had stayed the bail granted to the AAP supremo. Also Read: HC issues notice in response to Kejriwals plea for more meetings with lawyers The high court had on June 25 stayed the bail granted to Kejriwal by the trial court after the ED moved the court challenging the trial courts June 20 bail order. ED had moved the Delhi high court claiming the trial court order to be perverse. The federal probe agencys petition stated that the bail order was passed without granting adequate opportunity to the ED to oppose the application. The money laundering case stems from alleged alterations in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy of 2021-22 to benefit certain liquor traders. On June 20, a Delhi court had granted the CM bail in the ED case citing lack of direct evidence, which was halted by the Delhi high court on June 21, in less than 24 hours. On June 25, a vacation bench of justice Sudhir Kumar Jain stayed the bail order saying that the order was perverse and was passed without appreciating the material submitted by the ED. Justice Jain also expressed displeasure regarding the trial courts observations that it was not possible for the court to consider a thousand pages of documents while dealing with the bail application. The court said the same was unjustified and uncalled for and showed that the vacation judge did not apply its mind while granting bail to the CM. He also observed that the trial court should have given proper opportunity to the ED to present its case and recorded its satisfaction under Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) that there are reasonable grounds for believing that Kejriwal is not guilty of such offence. In its reply filed on Tuesday, the AAP chief, while opposing the EDs plea, had contended that discretionary orders of bail cannot be set aside merely on perceptions and fanciful imagination of the prosecution. Kejriwal raised questions regarding the maintainability of the federal probe agencys plea and asserted that the high court equated the bail order with an order of guilt or acquittal, which ought to have detailed findings after meticulously weighing the evidence. Also Read: Delhi HC stays trial courts order granting bail to Arvind Kejriwal, says observations totally unjustified The AAP chief asserted that the trial court, before granting bail to him, had clearly heard ED, and the agency could not condemn and criticise the order. The approach to cancel bail by way of interim order is unheard of in law and is also completely contrary to the principle of grant of bail. Every contention of the ED has been dealt with clearly and cogently by the Learned Court, the reply read. Urging the court to reject EDs contention of not being heard at the outset, Kejriwal, in his reply filed through advocates Vivek Jain and Mohd Irshad, asserted that the city court asking the federal agencys counsel to be brief could by no stretch of imagination be construed as curtailing an opportunity of being heard. Kejriwal was arrested by the ED on March 21. The Supreme Court later granted him interim bail till June 1 for campaigning in the Lok Sabha elections. Kejriwal surrendered at Tihar Jail on June 2 after the expiry of the interim bail. The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a divorced Muslim woman is entitled to seek maintenance from her husband under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code, adding that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, will not prevail over the secular law. Supreme Court of India. A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Justice Augustine George Masih pronounced the judgments upholding a Muslim woman's right while hearing a petition challenging Telangana high court's direction to a man to pay 10,000 interim maintenance to his ex-wife. (ANI Photo) A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Justice Augustine George Masih pronounced the judgments upholding a Muslim woman's right while hearing a Muslim man's petition in the top court challenging Telangana high court's direction to pay 10,000 interim maintenance to his ex-wife. The court also reportedly ruled that if, during the pendency of any application under Section 125 CrPC, a Muslim woman gets divorced, then she can take recourse to the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019. "We are hereby dismissing the criminal appeal with the major conclusion that Section 125 CrPC would be applicable to all women and not just married women," Justice Nagarathna said, pronouncing the verdict, as quoted by Bar and Bench. What was the case? The Supreme Court's judgement pertains to the case Mohd Abdul Samad vs State of Telangana and anr, in which the petitioner (the husband) raised grievances over the filing of claims seeking maintenance from his former wife, whom he got a divorce in 2017. Initially, a family court had directed Abdul Samad to pay an interim maintenance of 20,000 per month to his ex-wife. However, he challenged this decision before the Telangana high court on the grounds that the couple was divorced as per the Muslim personal law. According to the petitioner, a divorced Muslim woman is not entitled to claim any alimony under Section 125 CrPC in view of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, reported Bar and Bench. Following this, the high court reduced the maintenance to 10,000 per month. The petitioner husband, then, approached the Supreme Court challenging the high court's decision. The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday summoned YouTuber Elvish Yadav in Lucknow in a money laundering case linked to the snake venom rave party incident in Noida. The ED in May registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Yadav based on the FIR filed by Noida police over the rave incident. Youtuber Elvish Yadav being produced in a court, in Gurugram. (PTI Photo)(PTI) The Bigg Boss OTT 2 winner has been asked to appear before the ED on July 23, as per the summons. However, Yadav sought a deferment of the appearance citing scheduled foreign travel and professional commitments as a reason. An FIR and chargesheet were filed against Elvish Yadav and five others by the Noida police earlier this year in the snake venom case. In November last year, a complaint was registered against Yadav and others by the People for Animals (PFA) organization for allegedly supplying snake venom at a party, to be used as a recreational drug. The FIR was registered by PFA in the Noida Sector 49 police station last year. The case was transferred from Noida's Sector 49 police station to Sector 20 police station on the orders of Gautam Buddha Nagar Police Commissioner Lakshmi Singh. The YouTuber was arrested on March 17 by the police along with five others and all were charged under the Wildlife (Protection) Act and Section 120A (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. Elvish was granted bail by Gautam Buddha Nagar District Court five days after his arrest. The Noida police later arrested two more suspects in the case, identified as Ishwar and Vinay. Both the suspects were from Haryana and allegedly linked to Elvish Yadav. On April 6, the Noida police filed a chargesheet against the YouTuber and seven others in connection with allegations ranging from snake smuggling to organizing rave parties. The 1200-page chargesheet stated that Elvish was in touch with snake charmers and that a poisonous snake and 20 millilitres of venom from the Krait species were also recovered from the location. (With inputs from PTI) Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal told the Delhi high court that the Enforcement Directorate subjected him to a witch hunt. Opposing the Enforcement Directorate's plea challenging his bail in the Delhi excise policy case, the chief minister said the bail cannot be set aside based on "perceptions and fanciful imagination" of the prosecution. Arvind Kejriwal (file photo) Last month, a Delhi court awarded him regular bail in the Enforcement Directorate's money-laundering case linked to the now-scrapped excise police. The agency later moved the Delhi high court against the order. The higher court stayed the Delhi court's order, pausing Kejriwal's bail. Arvind Kejriwal, in his reply to the ED's petition, said cancelling the lower court's order would be tantamount to a miscarriage of justice. "The order passed by the special judge granting bail was not only well reasoned but prima facie showed a due application of mind in considering as well as faithfully recording and dealing with relevant arguments and contentions raised on behalf of both the parties," he said in his reply. Arvind Kejriwal contented that he was arrested to be harassed and humiliated. "ED has implicated the respondent (Kejriwal) in a false and concocted story, no case is made out against the respondent and the arrest in the instant matter is illegal, the reply claimed. He said all submissions made by the agency were untenable in law. "There exists no proof or material demonstrating that the AAP received funds or advanced kickbacks from the South group, let alone utilising them in the Goa election campaign. Not a single rupee was traced back to the AAP, and the allegations put forth in this regard are devoid of any tangible evidence, rendering them vague, baseless without any corroboration," the reply said. What ED's chargesheet in the Delhi excise police case said Meanwhile, ED has said in its charge sheet that Kejriwal "directly used" part of the alleged 100 crore generated from the "kickbacks" of the Delhi excise policy "scam" by staying in a luxury hotel in Goa. A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court on Tuesday took cognisance of the prosecution complaint, filed on May 17, and issued a production warrant for the jailed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader for July 12. The charge sheet further said that the South Group gave 100 crore to AAP as kickbacks for formulating a favourable liquor policy. It added that 45 crore was diverted to AAP's campaign effort in Goa for the 2022 assembly elections. "The AAP kept the expenses made out of the proceeds of crime of 45 crore out of the books and did not disclose the same to the Election Commission of India," it said. Kejriwal was arrested on March 11. Days after he got the bail, the CBI last month arrested him from the Tihar Jail. With inputs from PTI, ANI Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Muftis daughter, Iltija Mufti, on Wednesday said that she received a threat notification from Apple informing her that she was being targeted with spyware attempting to compromise the iPhone associated with her Apple ID. She shared on X screenshots of the alert sent to users in 98 countries. These alerts are sent to targeted users quarterly and the last tranche was sent in April. Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Muftis daughter, Iltija Mufti. (X) Iltija Mufti told HT that she received the alert from Apple both via iMessage and email. She said neither her mother nor people in her political circles had received this alert as of now. In our political circles, I seem to be the only one who has got this alert. I am not that politically active so I do not understand. I have been vociferously criticising this government but I do not know how that merits this response. Iltija Mufti criticised the government for using spyware to surveil political opponents. As a citizen of India, I am entitled to the right to privacy in my life. This is a tactic to browbeat us into silence because everybody knows that [Mehbooba] Mufti and I have been criticising this governments policies about taking statehood away from Jammu and Kashmir. They should fight politically instead of resorting to illegal tactics such as these. Am I criminal? Am I a terrorist? Iltija Mufti said this was a complete breach of privacy. This government has procured this expensive spyware from NSO Group that can only be sold to governments. Why are they snooping on me? I am a private citizen. Even if I were a politician, this is not the way. They have a dismal track record of spying on women, including [on Trinamool Congress members of Parliament] Sagarika Ghose and Mahua Moitra. Is there something illegal that I have done that my calls are being intercepted, and the phone is being hacked into? Iltija Mufti said she has turned on Lockdown Mode as per Apples advice. The mode allows the disabling of functions such as FaceTime calls from unknown numbers, and the opening of attachments in iMessage to reduce the vectors through which malware can be sent. Iltija Mufti said that this had slowed her phone down significantly. What is worrying for me is that I do not know the extent to which my phone is compromised. ... Pegasus-like spyware has been used. ... It is freaking me out a little because your phone becomes a bug with such software. I am trying to get in touch with cyber experts. The threat notification until April directed users to Access Nows helpline in the threat notification. In April, the link was moved to Apples support page. Iltija Mufti said she learnt about it from a friend. Access Now helpline does not help.... In April, Apple changed the language of its threat notifications to inform targeted users that they may have been individually targeted using mercenary spyware. Its notification system introduced in November 2021 was initially used to attribute the attempts to compromise devices to state-sponsored attackers. This system was launched after Apple sued the NSO Group, the Israeli maker of Pegasus, in the same month in the wake of the second bout of Pegasus-related exposures in July 2021. These threat notifications are sent to potentially affected users quarterly. Since the system was launched in November 2021, Apple has sent threat notifications to users in 152 countries. HT has reached out to Apple about the number of users in India who got the alert this time. There was no immediate response. Pushparaj Deshpande, the founder of Samrudh Bharat Foundation, who wrote a book on Rahul Gandhis Bharat Jodo Yatra, also said that he got the threat notification on Tuesday. He has worked with the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies and the Indian National Congress. Countless problems facing India which GoI should be redressing. Instead its more focused in deploying #Pegasus to scare & suppress. Let PM @narendramodi & HM @AmitShah do their worst. We shall prevail ! he wrote on X. Panaji: Operations along the Konkan Railway route remained affected for the second day in a row after water began leaking through the roof of the tunnel located between the Pernem railway station in north Goa and Madure station in south Maharashtra, causing water logging on the tracks. Tunnel restoration work being carried out amid water leakage (Twitter/@KonkanRailway) According to the Konkan Railways Wednesday bulletin, 12 trains, including the Mumbai-Goa and Vande Bharat Express, were cancelled, while more than two dozen trains that use the Konkan railway route were diverted. The cancelled trains include the Mumbai - Goa Vande Bharat Express, the Mumbai- Goa Janshatabdi Express, the Mandovi Express and the Mumbai Mangaluru Express, which were scheduled for Wednesday. Wednesdays Mandovi Express and the Janshatabdi Express from Margao to Mumbai were also cancelled, along with the Margao- Mumbai Tejas Express and two passenger trains. Railway officials said that water began oozing out of the roof of the Pernem tunnel at around 2:30pm on Tuesday, and while the track was briefly restored late on Tuesday evening, the oozing restarted later in the night at around 3am, prompting closure for a second time. The Pernem tunnel, one of five soft soil tunnels along the Konkan railway route, has been one of constant trouble for the Konkan railway right from the day work began in 1992. The 1.5 km long tunnel faced endless delays and work that began in 1992 was completed only in 1998 and resulted in the loss of nine lives during the construction phase, the highest among the worker deaths along the route. More than 100 workers have been deployed along with 25 supervisors. Our chief engineer too is on site. Besides our consultants as well as an international consultant will be arriving on site. We are on the job and hope to finish and reopen the track by 8pm this evening, Santosh Kumar Jha, chief managing director of Konkan Railway, said. This is not the first time that trouble at the Pernem tunnel has affected the entire Konkan railway route. In August 2020, a five-metre section of the tunnel collapsed and paralysed the entire route for a period of 40 days. The section of the tunnel was reinforced with mild steel plates and heavy webs back then. The Pernem tunnel delayed the opening of the Konkan Railway route by a further five months as it collapsed three months ahead of opening pushing the reopening date. The tunnel makes its way through the lateritic plateau that is contiguous with the Barazan plateau upon which the new Mopa Airport is built. Engineers faced a daunting task during the construction of the tunnel as the soft soil kept giving way and, in many places, resembled toothpaste. Engineers working on the project described the Pernem tunnel as being a new challenge every day as the soil altered between soft schist rock, slanting rock, hard laterite and soft clay accompanied by constant water seepage. The porous laterite rock that makes up much of the hills in the Goa and Konkan region of Maharashtra and Karnataka is a nightmare for engineers but serves as an excellent aquifer retaining water for the dry months. An encounter broke out between security forces and terrorists in Doda district of Jammu & Kashmir on Tuesday, a day after terrorists killed five army personnel in an ambush in the nearby Kathua region, with President Droupadi Murmu and the Centre calling for a befitting reply to the attack. An encounter is underway between terrorists and Security personnel, in Doda on Tuesday. (ANI) According to police officers, the army launched a search operation in Goli-Gadi forest on Sunday after receiving inputs about the presence of terrorists in the area. The terrorists fired upon the security forces during the search operations on Tuesday, resulting in a gunfight, a police officer said on condition of anonymity, adding that two-three terrorists were believed to be trapped in the area. The operation was underway at the time of going to print. The Doda gunfight erupted a day after terrorists lobbed hand grenades and opened fire with automatic weapons at an army truck passing through Badnota village,around 250 km away from the Doda gunfight site. Naib Subedar Anand Singh, Havaldar Kamal Singh, Rifleman Anuj Negi, Naik Vinod Singh and Rifleman Adarsh Negi all residents of Uttarakhand were killed in the ambush. Five army personnel were also injured in the attack, which shattered the calm in a relatively quiet area of the Union territory at a time of heightened tension. The terrorists, believed to be two-three, then fled the scene. Kashmir Tigers, a proxy of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist group, has claimed responsibility for the attack. President Murmu, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, extended condolences to the families of the deceased personnel and called for firm counterterrorism measures. The attack on a convoy of Army personnel in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir by terrorists is a cowardly act that deserves condemnation and firm countermeasures, the President wrote on X. My sympathies are with the families of the bravehearts who laid down their lives in this ongoing war against terror in its all forms. I pray for the speedy recovery of those injured. Defence secretary Giridhar Aramane said the killing of the five army personnel will not go unavenged. Their selfless service to the nation will always be remembered & their sacrifice will not go unavenged, and India will defeat the evil forces behind the attack, Aramane was quoted as saying in a post on X by the defence ministrys principal spokesperson. Defence minister Rajnath Singh said counterterror operations were underway in the region and the army was determined to restore peace. My deepest condolences to the bereaved families, the Nation stands firm with them in this difficult time. The Counter Terrorist operations are underway, and our soldiers are determined to usher in peace and order in the region, he wrote on X. Joint teams of the army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and J&K Police launched a massive search operation in Kathua and also pressed helicopters, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and sniffer dogs into service to locate the terrorists, officers aware of the details said. A massive joint search operation has been launched by the army, special operation group of the Jammu and Kashmir Police and CRPF in Machhedi, Badnota, Kindli and Loi Malhar villages? to track down the terrorists responsible for the attack on the army truck, a second police officer said, requesting anonymity. Officers aware of the details said the search teams were moving cautiously due to the topography of the region. The area is hilly with dense forests. The security forces are moving cautiously into the woods to trace and eliminate the attackers, the officer added. Director general of police (DGP) RR Swain conducted an aerial survey of the area and reviewed the ongoing operations, the officer said. Efforts are on to track down and neutralise the terrorists. The joint search parties have fanned out from all sides, another police officer said. The perpetrators of the Kathua attack are believed to have recently infiltrated into the Union territory from across the international border, HT has learnt. According to officers aware of the details, the terrorists behind the ambush were also linked to the April 28 Basangarh attack, in which village defence guard Mohammad Sharief was killed. A team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) reached the ambush site on Tuesday to extend support to the police in its investigation, officers aware of the matter said. People aware of the matter said that the agency was likely to take over the probe into the incident by next week. Officials familiar with the development said that the federal anti-terror agency will also look for a pattern and common links in terror attacks on the security forces and civilians in Jammu region since January last year. Terror activity in areas south of the Pir Panjal mountains, including the Rajouri and Poonch sector, has spiked during the last two years. To deal with this resurgence of terror, the army earlier took a raft of measures, including sending more troops to the Rajouri-Poonch sector, reorienting its units operating there, and strengthening the intelligence network for conducting counterterror operations effectively. Security officials have also red-flagged an apparent shift in strategy by terrorists from across the border. In July 2023, HT reported that Jammu, Rajouri, Poonch and Reasi were fast becoming clear targets for Pakistan-based terror groups, and security forces were recalibrating their responses. Seven soldiers were killed in counterterror operations in the Kashmir Valley last year compared to 20 in the Rajouri-Poonch sector. A total of 71 terrorists were killed in J&K in 2023, including 51 in the Kashmir Valley and 20 in the Rajouri-Poonch area. The Kathua attack came on the heels of twin encounters in the Kulgam district of Kashmir, in which six terrorists and two soldiers were killed. The encounters began on Saturday and concluded on Sunday. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his council of ministers took oath early last month, the Jammu region was rattled by four back-to-back terror attacks in as many days. Home minister Amit Shah last month directed the administration and security forces in Jammu & Kashmir to adopt similar tactics in Jammu region as they did in Kashmir to contain terrorism. On June 9, armed terrorists attacked a pilgrims bus in Reasi leaving nine people dead and 42 others injured. The bus was returning from Shiv Khori shrine to Katra. On June 26, three terrorists were killed after a gunfight broke out between terrorists and security forces in the Gandoh area of Doda district. The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday directed the Haryana government to remove the barricades at the Shambhu border near Ambala within a week. Farmers have been camping there since February 13 when their 'Delhi Chalo' march was halted. Farmers have scheduled a meeting on July 16 to discuss the matter, PTI reported. (HT/File) In February, the Haryana government set up barricades on the Ambala-New Delhi highway when the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) (Non-Political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) announced they would march to Delhi. They were protesting for various demands, including a legal guarantee for minimum support prices (MSP) for crops. The orders came on a group of petitions about farmer issues and against the blockade. The directions were issued by a division bench of justices G S Sandhawalia and Vikas Bahl. Farmers have scheduled a meeting on July 16 to discuss the matter, PTI reported. Haryana Additional Advocate General Deepak Sabherwal told the media after the hearing that the court instructed the Haryana government to remove the barricades within seven days. The court also stated that if any law and order issues come up, the government could take preventive measures as per the law. Similar instructions were given to the Punjab government to maintain law and order, and any barricades on the Punjab side should also be removed. The orders are to open the highway, Sabherwal said as per PTI. Since February 13, farmers have been camped at the Shambhu and Khanauri border points between Punjab and Haryana after security forces stopped their march. On February 21, Shubhkaran from Bathinda was killed, and many police officers were injured in clashes at the Khanauri border. The incident happened when some farmers tried to move past the barricades, and security personnel stopped them from crossing the state border to march to Delhi. We (Haryana) had said the barricading had been put up since February 10, which was to maintain law and order. The farmers are sitting on Punjab's side. Their number at present is about 400-500, Sabherwal said. Meanwhile, responding to the court order, farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said they have scheduled a meeting for both groups. SKM (Non-Political) and KMM on July 16 to discuss the future course of action. We had earlier made it clear that we had not blocked the road. The barricades had been done by the Centre and Haryana government, it said. New York: Exactly 12 years ago, Judge Alfred Talley of New York made a remarkable statement on Crime in the United States of America. He said: We are the most lawless nation in the whole world. There are more than 10,000 murder cases every year in the United States. HT This Day: July 11, 1935 -- The most lawless nation in the world (HT) The murders per thousand of the population in the various countries in the period 1911-21 were: United States 7.2; Italy 3.6; Australia 1.9; South Africa 1.9 India 1.5; Spain 0.9; Norway 0.8; Great Britain 0.6; Canada 0.4; Holland 0.3; Switzerland 0.2. An American writer in the Worlds Work in 1924 asserted that America is the most lawless nation on earth. This was a bold assertion, but the writer proceeded to justify it by figures which cannot be controverted. In the small City of Memphis, Tennessee, for example, with a population 1,70,000 there were nearly as many homicides in 1923 as there were in England and Wales, with a population of 38 million. Again, robbery is thirty-six times as prevalent in New York as it is in London today while in Chicago in a single year more than twelve times the number of robberies were reported than in England and Wales with their 38 million people. The increase in crime in the United States is creating grave disquietude among serious Americans and the bare facts provide ample justification for this attitude of mind. Actually over 30 murders a day are committed in the United States. Last year the total was more than 12,000 and the homicide rate, which in 1902 was 1.2 (in Britain it is less than one) was 9.2 per 1,00,000. These are appalling figures, the more so because Prohibition and bootlegging have both been dead for two years. The highly organized criminal industry that it had led to was one of the strongest arguments against Prohibition, and was largely responsible for its abolition, yet it appears that the crime wave is still growing, and that the energies of the gangster, who, even outside the talkies, form such a menacing part of American life have merely been diverted from boot-legging to other equally lawless activities. The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby focussed the worlds attention on a particularly horrifying form of crime, and was followed by swift and stern Federal action. This has to some extent been successful, but the Weyerhaueser case which was reported recently shows that the kidnapper is still a very real terror to wealthy American families. In New York a drive is at present afoot to break up the principal rackets in the city-gangs who; sell protection to merchants, extorting enormous sums on the pretext that they are saving them from unlawful interference; the same gangs. of course, are only too ready to practise unlawful interference with those who refuse to buy their services. One of Mr. Roosevelts declared aims when he became President was to wage determined war against crime, but he was at once caught up in the financial crisis, and has probably been unable to give as much attention to it as he would wish. Nevertheless, the record of the Federal police during the past two years is by no means an unimpressing one. They have a force of agents who are a terror to the underworld and who have accounted for public enemies such as Dillinger, Floyd and many others. But they are hampered by the State constitutions which limit their activities and powers of interference with local police departments, where there is often inefficiency and corruption. A similar complaint has been heard in England in recent years where Scotland Yard must await a request, from the local police before beginning investigations, a procedure which in the provinces often leads to serious delay and gives the experienced criminal a good start. An interesting procedure in America is the link between the Treasury and the police. The murder of the Lindbergh baby, it will be recalled, was traced through the Treasury identifying notes paid with the ransom money, the redoubtable Al Capone, with countless crimes on his hands, went to jail in Chicago for none of these but for not paying his income tax and while he was in jail his gang was smashed. The same weapon is now being used in New York against the chiefs of rackets, while the lesser fry are being arrested under a new law against the association of persons with criminal records. Hunger makes men desperate, and a country that has 22 million people starving and on the relief rolls and is passing through the most awful economic crisis in its history must expect an increase is crime. Americas historical background, her peculiar racial mixtures, her enormously large negro population in the South, where the murder rate is twice as high as in the rest of the country, her violent industrial conflicts, have combined to produce a lawlessness that, if it becomes more deeply rooted, will be a great menace to her own future and to the world at large. It is reflected not only in the startling number of murders but in the fact that there is and has been no loud outcry against this blot on the nations life. In this aspect, the crime question in America resembles road casualties in Britain. Until the public conscience is aroused, the American police are fighting a battle against unfair odds; how unfair is shown by the sympathy and preposterous hero-worship bestowed on pitiless killers like Dillinger. This is another of the many social problems facing a troubled and sorely perplexed nation. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday pleaded with an IAS office to complete a developmental project. The incident took place during the inauguration ceremony of Phase 3 of the JP Ganga Pathway, also known as the Marine Drive of Patna. Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with Deputy Chief Minister Samarat Choudhry during the inauguration of the section of JP Ganga Pathway, in Patna, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (PTI Photo) While speaking to the IAS officer, Nitish Kumar mentioned the connecting road from Kangan Ghat to Ashok Rajpath. He asked him to get the project completed. "Kahiye to hum aapka pair chhu lete hain (I shall touch your feet if that is what you want), said Nitish Kumar as the horrified official scurried back several steps. "Sir, please don't do this," said the officer. Top government officials and political leaders also got on their feet to prevent the veteran leader from touching his feet. Nitish Kumar was accompanied by Assembly Speaker Nand Kishore Yadav and two deputy chief ministers, Vinay Kumar Sinha and Samrat Chaudhary. "It will be very helpful for people to travel to Patna after the construction is completed. It will save people's time and it will be convenient for someone coming from the Northern side, said Nitish Kumar. Sharing the video of the incident on X, RJD chief Tejashwi Yadav slammed the Nitish Kumar government. "When the credibility of governance is lost and the ruler lacks self-confidence, then he has to put aside principles, conscience and ideas and bow down to everyone from top to bottom. However, we are not worried about the chair but about the present and future of Bihar and 14 crore Biharis," he wrote. Also read | Bihar deputy CM Samrat Chaudhary assures action after 10 bridges collapse in 15 days in state Built by the government of Bihar, the JP Ganga Path is also known as Patna's Marine Drive. The project was planned to ease congestion between the eastern and western parts of Patna, divided by several rivers. Phase 3 of the project runs for almost 3.4 km from Gaighat to Kanganghat. The first phase of JP Ganga Pathway from Digha to Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) became operational in June 2022. The second phase from PMCH to Gaighat was opened to commuters on August 2023. (With ANI, PTI inputs) The Karnataka government on Tuesday took a jibe at the Goa government and said the probe exposed the lies told by chief minister Pramod Sawant, a day after the inspection of the halted Kalasa-Banduri canal project on the Mahadayi River along the Goa Karnataka border in Belagavi district by a central body team, was completed. The PRAWAH team, constituted by the Jal Shakti ministry in May last year, comprises members nominated by Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra, the three states involved in the dispute. (HT Photos) Meanwhile, Sawant on Tuesday said that the progressive river authority for water and harmony (PRAWAH), which conducted the inspection on Sunday, would soon submit a report to the Centre. The Mahadayi PRAWAH was constituted by the Jal Shakti ministry in May last year to function as an authority overseeing the disputed Mahadayi river and to enable compliance and implementation of the final award given by the Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal in 2018. The PRAWAH consists of members nominated by Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra, the three states involved in the dispute. Day after the PRAWAH completed its inspection, a senior Karnataka official, who accompanied the team, told HT on the condition of anonymity: The teams findings expose the lies of Goa and its chief minister. The official, affiliated with the Karnataka irrigation department, claimed that the PRAWAH team found Sawants allegations of illegal construction at the Kalasa-Banduri site to be false. The team will report to the central government that Karnataka adhered to all norms and conditions, and no violations occurred as claimed by the Goa government, the official added. The PRAWAH conducted a familiarisation visit at the request of the Goa government. On Sunday, the team travelled to Chorla-Kankumbi along the Goa Karnataka border where the project is expected to come up before heading to Bangalore for a joint meeting of the three states that was held in Bengaluru. On Monday, PRAWAH and officials from Karnataka and Goa held a meeting in Bengaluru to discuss various issues related to the Mahadayi project. The meeting also addressed the detailed project report (DPR) of Maharashtras Virdi large and minor irrigation project. The Goan engineers were satisfied with Karnatakas transparency regarding the Kalasa-Banduri project. No illegal activities were found at the project sites. PRAWAH is satisfied with our states compliance, said another official who was part of the meeting. BJP MP Basavaraj Bommai, former major irrigation department head, said: While Goa may explore all possible ways to halt the Mahadayi water diversion to Malaprabha, Karnataka remains committed to implementing the project effectively, securing all necessary clearances from the Centre in the coming months. Goa has opposed any diversion of waters of the Mahadayi river, which originates in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, takes a detour via Maharashtra and enters Goa as the Mandovi. The Mahadayiriver basin drains an area of 2032 sq.km., out of which an area of 375 sq.km. lies in Karnataka, 77 sq.km. in Maharashtra and rest in Goa. Both the Goa and Karnataka governments have, for very different reasons, challenged the final award granted by the Mahadayi Interstate Water Disputes Tribunal which in an verdict in August 2018 granted Karnataka a total of 13.42 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) of water out of their demand for from their total claims of 36.558 TMC of water. Addressing media persons in Panaji, a day after pro-Karnataka activists held protests in Belagavi in Karnataka, Sawant said there was no reason for Karnataka to worry if they had done nothing wrong. I do not know why Karnataka is upset. It (PRAWAH) is an independent authority. They are conducting an inspection. Our members are on the team. It is necessary for the authority to conduct a fair inspection and that report will go. Whether they shred my photo or burn it, it means we are not the right track, Sawant said. Karnatakas Kalasa-Banduri project aims to supply drinking water to Savadatti and Ramdurg taluks in Belagavi district, Hubballi-Dharwad cities, and Naragund and Navalgund taluks in Gadag district. The Karnataka Rajya Raita Sangha, a farmers association, held a three-year protest, and the state even observed a bandh, demanding the projects implementation. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday reiterated Indias position that a solution to the Ukraine crisis cannot be found on the battlefield during his visit to Austria, conveying New Delhis assessment of the conflict. Prime Minister Narendra Modi being greeted by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, in Vienna, Austria, Wednesday. (PTI) The Ukraine war figured prominently in talks between Modi, the first Indian premier to travel to Vienna in 41 years, and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer. The two sides also discussed ways to bolster cooperation in areas such as trade, investment, science and technology, green energy, and climate change. Modi repeated the message he conveyed to Russian President Vladimir Putin in televised remarks at the Kremlin on Tuesday peace talks under the shadow of guns cant succeed and parties to the conflict need to return to dialogue. Nehammer said his discussions with Modi were an opportunity to find out about Indias assessment of the situation and to familiarise India with European concerns. Also Read | Nobel winner physicist lauds PM Modi: Other world leaders should have Chancellor Nehammer and I have discussed in detail the ongoing conflicts around the world, whether it is the conflict in Ukraine or the situation in West Asia. I have said before that this is not a time for war. Problems cannot be solved on the battlefield, Modi said after the talks, speaking in Hindi. The loss of innocent lives, anywhere, is unacceptable. India and Austria emphasise on dialogue and diplomacy for the earliest possible restoration of peace and stability. We are both ready to provide every possible cooperation to achieve this, he said. India and Austria, Nehammer said, are united by concerns over the geopolitical situation and the two leaders had very intensive talks about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Pointing to Modis just concluded visit to Russia, Nehammer said: It was particularly important for me to hear about the Prime Ministers personal assessment regarding the intentions of Russia in respect of the peace process. Nehammer said it was an important signal that India participated in the recent peace summit on Ukraine hosted by Switzerland and the two sides had discussed possibilities of reviving the peace process. He pointed to Indias unique position in the Global South and its role as the largest democracy and said the country will be more than important for the peace process and future peace summits. Also Read | Narendra Modi in Austria: PM receives guard of honour in Vienna | Watch Austria, as a neutral country and a non-NATO member, will be available as a site for dialogue and is willing to act as a bridge builder, Nehammer said. A joint statement issued after the talks said both leaders supported any collective effort to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine war in line with international law and the UN Charter. Both sides believe that achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace in Ukraine requires bringing together all stakeholders and a sincere and earnest engagement between the two parties to the conflict, the statement said. On the bilateral front, the discussions between the Indian and Austrian leaders focused on cooperation in trade, investment, science and technology, green energy, artificial intelligence, climate change, cultural cooperation and people-to-people ties. Modi said he and Nehammer identified new opportunities to strengthen cooperation and decided to give strategic direction to bilateral ties. A blueprint for cooperation over the coming decades wont be limited to economic cooperation, and the two sides will combine strengths in areas such as infrastructure development, innovation, renewable energy, water and waste management and quantum technology, he said. A mobility and migration agreement signed by the two sides in 2023 will facilitate legal migration and movement of skilled workforce, he added. Also Read | PM Narendra Modi's Russia visit: Ukraine war on agenda for talks with President Putin With two-way trade currently worth 2.7 billion euro, Nehammer emphasised the scope for expanding economic cooperation,. He said more than 150 Austrian businesses currently operate in India and the number is expected to increase, he said. Nehammer also highlighted the role of Indias first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in negotiations that led to a treaty between the Soviet Union, the UK, the US and France in May 1955 to grant Austria independence and to facilitate withdrawal of occupation forces. The Austrian State Treaty was signed by the four parties with the understanding that the independent state of Austria would remain neutral, acting as a buffer zone between the East and the West. There was a standstill in 1953...It was difficult to make progress with the Soviet Union, and it was [Austrian] foreign minister [Karl] Gruber who contacted Prime Minister Nehru, asking for support in the negotiations to bring them to a positive conclusion. This is what happened India helped Austria and in 1955, the negotiations came to a positive conclusion with the Austrian State Treaty, he said. Modi invited Austria to join Indias initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and Biofuel Alliance. We both strongly condemn terrorism. We agree that it is unacceptable in any form and cannot be justified in any way, he said. Following their talks, Nehammer and Modi jointly addressed CEOs of the two sides at a business roundtable in Hofburg Palace. Modi highlighted the potential for collaboration between Indian and Austrian companies in sectors such as infrastructure, renewable energy, new and emerging technologies, fintech, start-ups and innovation. He also invited Austrian companies to invest in India. On his arrival in Vienna on Tuesday, Modi was received by foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport. He was also hosted by Nehammer for a private meeting. Before concluding his visit on Wednesday, Modi met President Alexander Van der Bellen and leading Austrian personalities. After winning 236 seats in the Lok Sabha polls, the INDIA bloc of opposition parties expects that it will have more chairs of department-related standing committees, than opposition parties did in the last House. Congress MPs Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi during President Droupadi Murmu's address to the joint sitting of the Parliament, in New Delhi, Thursday, June 27, 2024. (PTI) The committees are expected to be announced during the upcoming monsoon session. Two Opposition leaders on Wednesday told HT that the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha secretariats have written to parties, asking for nomination of respective party MPs in the 24 panels. The Lok Sabha secretariat has written to me asking us for nomination of MPs in different panels, Trinamools Lok Sabha lawmaker Sudip Bandopadhyay said. A senior official from Congress president and Rajya Sabha Leader of Opposition (LoP) Mallikarjun Kharges office also confirmed that a similar request has been received from the Upper House secretariat. Also Read | Parliament session to begin July 22, Union Budget to be presented on July 23 There are 16 department-related standing committees under the Lok Sabha and eight under the Rajya Sabha. To be sure, no final decision has been taken on the chairs, which would be decided by the Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. A senior Congress strategist said that the INDIA bloc is expecting at least three additional chairs of the standing committees. The Congress should get one more panel. Samajwadi Party, which doesnt lead any such panel, should get one. And the Trinamool Congress should also get one chairperson. Apart from this, Lok Sabhas LoP Rahul Gandhi is likely to head the Public Accounts Committee, the audit watchdog of Parliament and a few Opposition leaders might also get the charge of other panels. Before the Lok Sabha election in May 2024, the Congress party led three standing panels: commerce (till Abhishek Singhvi lost his Rajya Sabha seat in April), environment and chemical & fertilizers. Trinamool, despite being the third largest party in Parliament didnt get any chairmans post. Samajwadi Partys Ramgopal Yadav had initially chaired the health panel but this reverted to the BJP after some time. DMKs K Kanimozhi led the rural development panel. Also Read | P Chidambaram repeats 'part-time' jab after Jagdeep Dhankhar's defamation attack This time, both Samajwadi Party (41 MPs in Parliament across the two Houses) and the TMC (42 MPs in the two Houses) will be entitled to at least one chairmans position. But the final decision will be taken by Dhankhar or Birla, said a senior non-Congress Opposition leader. An Opposition functionary argued that 55% of the lawmakers are with the ruling side whereas 45% are in the Opposition. If the chairpersons posts are distributed in this ratio, the ruling side should get 13 chairpersons of the department-related standing committees, which oversee functioning of different ministries, and the others, 11. Apart from the 24 department-related standing committees, Parliament has financial panels, ad-hoc panels and other parliamentary standing committees to handle various aspects of the functioning of the highest legislative body in the country. During the course of a session, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha also form select committees or joint parliamentary committees to review specific bills or important issues. JPCs have been formed on the stock market scam or to investigate pesticide contamination in soft drinks and beverages. The secretariats, according to two leaders, have requested the parties to submit their nominations before the monsoon session starts on July 22. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) told a court in Thiruvananthapuram today that the 1994 ISRO espionage case was allegedly created by a top cop in Kerala to illegally detain a Maldivian woman after she shot down his advances. CBI said that the case, in which ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan was falsely implicated, was a fabrication by a then-special branch officer of the Kerala police. ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan was falsely imprisoned in the 1994 ISRO spy case. (PTI) The agency has made the allegation in a charge sheet filed by it against five former police officers for allegedly implicating Narayanan and five others, including two Maldivian women, in the espionage case. The chargesheet was filed in June but was made public on Wednesday. CBI said in its chargesheet that S Vijayan, who was a special branch officer at the time and retired as an SP, prevented Maldivian national Mariyam Rasheeda from leaving the country by taking away her travel documents and air tickets after she spurned his advances. Vijayan later found out that the woman was in contact with ISRO scientist D Shasikumaran. Based on this fact, Kerala police officers started surveilling Rasheeda and her Maldivian friend Fauzia Hasan. The police had also informed the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) about the women, but the IB officers who examined the foreign nationals could not find anything suspicious, the CBI said. Thereafter, Rasheeda was arrested under the Foreigners Act for overstaying in the country without a valid visa with the knowledge of the then Commissioner of Police, Thiruvananthapuram and then SIB Deputy Director, the agency added. CBI further said in its chargesheet that when her custody was about to expire, Vijayan submitted a false report against Rasheeda and Hasan which implicated them in a case under the Official Secrets Act. An espionage case was filed and their custody was handed over to an SIT. Subsequently, the SIT arrested four ISRO scientists including Narayanan, the CBI added. "To sustain the initial wrongs, another case of serious nature was launched with false interrogation reports against the victims (including Narayanan and others)," the agency has said in its final report recommending the prosecution of former DGPs R B Sreekumar and Siby Mathews, former SPs S Vijayan and K K Joshua and ex-intelligence officer P S Jayaprakash. (With inputs from PTI) The Supreme Court on Wednesday, while hearing a petition from a man who challenged a Telangana high court's decision that upheld the maintenance order, said that a divorced woman can seek maintenance from her husband. The bench also stated that practical steps like keeping joint bank accounts and sharing ATM access are needed to ensure economic stability for women in the household. Supreme Court of India. (ANI Photo) Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Augustine George Masih made these remarks as the Supreme Court ruled that a Muslim woman can seek maintenance from her husband. Also read | Divorced Muslim women can seek maintenance from husband, rules Supreme Court We highlight the necessity for husbands to provide financial support to their wives, NDTV quoted the court. Justices Nagarathna and Masih emphasised that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, does not override the secular law, stating that maintenance is a fundamental right for all married women, not charity. This right transcends religious boundaries, reinforcing the principle of gender equality and financial security for all married women. Some husbands are not conscious of the fact that the wife, who is a homemaker, is dependent on them emotionally and in other ways. Time has come for Indian men to recognise the indispensable role and sacrifices made by housewives for the family, it said. What is the case? The Supreme Court's ruling is about the case Mohd Abdul Samad vs State of Telangana and anr. In this case, Abdul Samad, the husband, complained about claims for maintenance from his ex-wife, whom he divorced in 2017. Initially, a family court ordered Abdul Samad to pay his ex-wife 20,000 per month as interim maintenance. He challenged this decision in the Telangana High Court, arguing that according to Muslim personal law, a divorced Muslim woman cannot claim alimony under Section 125 CrPC because of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. The high court then reduced the maintenance to 10,000 per month. Abdul Samad approached the Supreme Court to challenge the High Court's decision. The authorities in Jammu and Kashmir have detained 50 people, including a truck driver, for questioning as they searched for the terrorists who ambushed an Army vehicle. Five army personnel died in the attack. Indian Army personnel during a counter-terror operation following the terrorist attack on an army convoy in Kathua district. (PTI Photo) According to officials, a truck was moving behind the army vehicles on a mountainous road. It slowed down near Badnota village in Lohai Malhar, where terrorists attacked from two directions, resulting in the deaths of five army personnel, including a Junior Commissioned Officer. Authorities are investigating whether the civilian driver intentionally delayed the convoy by requesting to pass through the culvert. Read Here: Gunfight in Doda a day after attack in Kathua A large-scale search operation, carried out by the army and police despite heavy rain in thick forests spanning four districts, is ongoing. An official told PTI, The role of a civilian tipper, which slowed down the speed of this convoy, has come under investigation as it is perceived that the driver deliberately asked for a pass on the culvert. Usually, army vehicles are given preference in these areas, but the tipper still asked for a pass, which slowed down both vehicles. The operation initiated from Kathua, Udhampur, and Bhaderwah has led to the detention of 50 people for questioning regarding the ambush, officials reported. Efforts are underway to locate and eliminate terrorists suspected to be hiding in the forest, they added. In another related effort, a search operation is in progress in the upper areas of Doda district following a shootout between terrorists and security forces. Army and police teams started new searches on Wednesday morning in dense forests across Udhampur, Samba, Rajouri, and Poonch districts. People in Badnota village and nearby areas were worried about their safety after the ambush. They were asking for village defence groups to be formed to tackle terrorist threats. Residents want the government to give them weapons and training so they can assist security forces in fighting terrorism, reported PTI. Landslides hit the road near the Patal Ganga Langsi tunnel on the Badrinath National Highway in Uttarakhand on Wednesday, leading to road closures. A video of the incident has gone viral. A picture of flooded areaas in Haldwani, Banbasa, Tanakpur, Sitarganj, Khatima and other flood affected areas. (ANI Photo) Uttarakhand has been facing torrential downpours since Sunday due to the active phase of monsoon rains in the state. The Char Dham Yatra in Uttarakhand was halted on Sunday due to a heavy rain alert issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for the next two days, news agency ANI reported. Garhwal Divisional Commissioner Vinay Shankar Pandey urged the pilgrims en route to the temples to stop their journey and stay at their nearby locations. The IMD had issued a red alert for the state, forecasting heavy rainfall till July 11. Tehri, Pauri, Bageshwar, Almore, Nanital, and Champawat districts are experiencing heavy rainfall on Wednesday. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said heavy rains have caused severe damage after conducting an ariel inspection of several areas in the Kumaon division. While meeting affected people, Dhami said that officials are continuously assisting in disaster-affected areas. Also read | View Kailash Peak in Tibet from old Lipulekh pass in India from Sept 15 Water release from dams in the Himalayan state and widespread rainfall in catchment areas have caused severe flooding in several districts in the Terai region and the plain areas of Uttar Pradesh. River water is flowing above the danger mark in the Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh due to water release from the Banbasa barrage in Uttarakhand. Many villages in Balrampur, Shravasti, Kushinagar, Pilibhit, Siddharthnagar and Lakhimpur Kheri districts are affected by floods, reported ANI. Thousands of people are affected across the district and a National Disaster Response Force team is working with the help of 32 boats to take the affected people to safety. Dhami has instructed the Disaster Management Department to keep a constant vigil on all districts from the State Emergency Response Centre. (With ANI inputs) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Madhya Pradesh has directed all government and private colleges in the state to implement a uniform dress code for their students, while restricting any other kinds of clothing, states higher education minister Inder Singh Parmar announced on Tuesday. The new uniform code will come into effect from the new academic session, set to start later this month, Madhya Pradesh higher education minister Inder Singh Parmar said. (PTI) The new uniform code will come into effect from the new academic session, set to start later this month, Parmar said. We are trying to bring uniformity among college students. Through the dress code, they will learn discipline and will get equal treatment. As they will wear similar dress, all the students will look alike and students would not be differentiated, the minister added. Discussions on a possible uniform dress code began in January this year, an official in the higher education department said, requesting anonymity. But now, it has been made compulsory for all colleges to implement the uniform dress code. Each college has been given liberty to choose on its own the colour and type of uniform for students, the official said, referring to the government order issued to all colleges in the state. Explaining the rationale behind the move, a second official alleged that clothing such as burqa, hijab, and saree created differences among students. In Madhya Pradesh, only 50% of colleges have a dress code. Clothes such as burqa, hijab and saree were creating differences among the students, so chief minister Mohan Yadav and higher education minister Inder Singh Parmar decided to implement dress code in all colleges, the second official said, also declining to be named. The higher education department has asked all colleges to have a uniform for their students, another government official said. We have left it for individual colleges to decide what sort of uniform they would like for their students. Our order makes it clear that there should be uniformity in dress, the official said, referring to the government order issued to all colleges in the state. The opposition, however, said that the focus of the government should be on improving the quality of education in the state instead. The BJP government has not learnt anything from Karnataka where they made ban on Hijab a big issue before assembly election and lost the polls. Now, they are distracting students from education and demand of employment by bringing issue like dress code, Congress spokesperson Kunal Chaudhary. Early in 2023, the then BJP government in Karnataka banned the entry of students wearing hijab into classrooms, triggering an ugly political controversy that finally landed in the Supreme Court. Imphal: Kuki Inpi Manipurs (KIM), an apex group of the Kuki tribes, has called for a 12-hour total shutdown, endorsed by various Kuki-Zo civil bodies, on Wednesday, demanding the immediate and unconditional release of five Kuki-Zo individuals arrested by central forces on two different occasions from Tamenglong and Kangpokpi districts, respectively. The total shutdown was imposed in all the Kuki-Zo-dominated areas of Manipur on Wednesday from 6am to 6pm (Representative Photo) The total shutdown was imposed in all the Kuki-Zo-dominated areas of Manipur on Wednesday from 6am to 6pm. The shutdown has affected normalcy in most of the Kuki-dominated areas of Manipur, including Churachandpur and Kangpokpi districts. The recent arrest of five Kuki-Zo individuals in the presence of Central Security Forces is critically alarming for the Kuki-Zo people, while valley-based militant groups are openly brandishing sophisticated arms and ammunition in the valley, KIM, in its statement, said. It further stated that the protest is against the gross injustice meted out to our people. During the total shutdown, main markets, schools, and colleges located in the towns of Churachandpur, Kangpokpi, and other villages were closed. A large number of protesters demonstrated with sit-ins at different spots, including Tuibong, Peace Ground, Churachandpur; Leimakhong, Kangpokpi; and L Hengjol village, Kangpokpi district along National Highway 37 (Imphal Silchar via Jiribam road). Moreover, the protesters, including a large number of women, blocked NH-37 during the protest. On Tuesday late evening, the Kuki-Zo people of Kangpokpi district also protested outside the superintendent of police (SP) office of the district along NH-2 (Imphal-Dimapur), demanding the unconditional release of the five individuals. Manipur police on Tuesday stated that among the five individuals, two were apprehended from Phaijol village, Tamenglong, following an attack by armed miscreants from the said village on Manipur police. The remaining three individuals belonged to a militant outfit and were apprehended by a combined team from L Hengjol village following a tip-off from the National Investigation Agency (NIA), police added. Police also stated that the three individuals, along with arms and ammunition, including one MA1 MK-3 rifle, two AK rifles, and one single-barrel bore rifle, were handed over to the NIA for further investigation. Mihir Shah, an absconding accused in the Mumbai BMW hit-and-run case and son of Shiv Sena leader Rajesh Shah, was arrested by police on Tuesday two days after he allegedly rammed his luxury car into a two-wheeler, killing a woman and injuring her husband. Mihir Shah, 24, who managed to evade the police since Sunday morning, was arrested from Virar near Mumbai. The BMW car driven by Mihir Shah allegedly rammed into a two-wheeler from behind in the Worli area of south-central Mumbai on July 7 morning, killing a woman and injuring her husband. Mihir Shah's mother and two sisters were brought to Mumbai for questioning from Shahapur in Thane district. They are being quizzed along with 10 others, news agency PTI quoted an official as saying. Kaveri Nakhwa dragged for 1.5 km The BMW car driven by Mihir Shah allegedly rammed into a two-wheeler from behind in the Worli area of south-central Mumbai on July 7 morning. This collision resulted in the death of Kaveri Nakhwa, 45, who was riding pillion, while her husband Pradeep Nakhwa survived with injuries. Also Read | 'Traces of alcohol wont be there now': BMW crash victim's family on Mihir Shah's arrest Kaveri Nakhwa was dragged for around 1.5 km by the speeding car before Mihir Shah pulled it over, swapped the seat with his driver, Rajrishi Bidawat, and fled in another vehicle, according to the Mumbai Police. According to the police, Mihir Shah fled the scene in an auto rickshaw, leaving his car and driver behind in the Kala Nagar area. He then reached his woman friend's residence in suburban Goregaon. His friend contacted Mihir Shah's sister, who arrived in Goregaon and took him and his friend to her residence in Borivali, PTI reported. The Shah family then decided to flee to a resort in Shahapur, Thane district, traveling in an Audi car. Mihir Shah's mother Meena, sisters Kinjal and Pooja, and two friends also stayed at the resort. Also Read | Mumbai BMW crash: Victim's daughter demands death penalty for Mihir Shah After learning the identity of one of the friends accompanying Mihir Shah, the Mumbai Police tracked his number, but this friend too had switched off his mobile phone, the official said. Late on July 8 evening, Mihir Shah and his friend left the Shahapur resort and reached Virar. But how Mihir Shah was arrested? When his friend turned on his mobile phone for 15 minutes, the Mumbai Police immediately tracked the mobile tower location and intercepted them. Regarding Mihir's movements prior to the accident, an official told PTI that after partying with friends at a bar in the Juhu area, he left with his driver for South Mumbai in the early hours. He was seen in the Marine Drive area around 4:30am, driving the BMW car with his driver Rajrushi Bidawat seated next to him. As the vehicle reached Worli, it struck the two-wheeler, resulting in Kaveri Nakhwa's death. The Mumbai Police succeeded in hunting down after two days of painstaking probe when his friend made the mistake of switching on his mobile phone only for 15 minutes. Mihir, 24, who had managed to evade the police since the accident on Sunday morning, was finally arrested from Virar near Mumbai. The luxury car driven by Mihir allegedly rammed into a two-wheeler from behind in the Worli area of south-central Mumbai on Sunday morning, resulting in the death of Kaveri Nakhwa (45), who was riding pillion, while her husband Pradeep survived with injuries. As per the police, Mihir Shah then fled from Kala Nagar area leaving his car and driver behind in an auto rickshaw, and reached his woman friend's residence in suburban Goregaon. The friend called Mihir's sister, who reached Goregaon, and took both Mihir and his friend to her Borivali residence, a senior police official said. The Shah family then decided to flee to a resort at Shahapur in Thane district in an Audi car. Mihir, his mother Meena, sisters Kinjal and Pooja and two friends stayed at the resort. After learning the identity of one of the friends accompanying Mihir, Mumbai Police tracked his number, but this friend too had switched off his mobile phone, the official said. On late Monday evening, Mihir along with his friend left the Shahapur resort and reached Virar, where his friend switched on his mobile phone for 15 minutes, he said. Police immediately tracked down the mobile tower location and intercepted the duo, the official added. As to Mihir's movements prior to the accident, the official said that after partying with friends at a bar in the Juhu area, Mihir Shah left with his driver for South Mumbai in the early hours. He was spotted in Marine Drive area around 4.30 am, driving the BMW car. Driver Rajrushi Bidawat was sitting next to him. As the vehicle reached Worli, the car hit the two-wheeler, killing Kaveri Nakhwa. Mumbai Police succeeded in hunting down Mihir Shah, accused in the BMW hit-and-run case and son of a Shiv Sena politician, after two days of painstaking probe when his friend made the mistake of switching on his mobile phone only for 15 minutes. Mihir, 24, who had managed to evade the police since the accident on Sunday morning, was finally arrested from Virar near Mumbai. The luxury car driven by Mihir allegedly rammed into a two-wheeler from behind in the Worli area of south-central Mumbai on Sunday morning, resulting in the death of Kaveri Nakhwa (45), who was riding pillion, while her husband Pradeep survived with injuries. As per the police, Mihir Shah then fled from Kala Nagar area leaving his car and driver behind in an auto rickshaw, and reached his woman friend's residence in suburban Goregaon. The friend called Mihir's sister, who reached Goregaon, and took both Mihir and his friend to her Borivali residence, a senior police official said. The Shah family then decided to flee to a resort at Shahapur in Thane district in an Audi car. Mihir, his mother Meena, sisters Kinjal and Pooja and two friends stayed at the resort. After learning the identity of one of the friends accompanying Mihir, Mumbai Police tracked his number, but this friend too had switched off his mobile phone, the official said. On late Monday evening, Mihir along with his friend left the Shahapur resort and reached Virar, where his friend switched on his mobile phone for 15 minutes, he said. Police immediately tracked down the mobile tower location and intercepted the duo, the official added. As to Mihir's movements prior to the accident, the official said that after partying with friends at a bar in the Juhu area, Mihir Shah left with his driver for South Mumbai in the early hours. He was spotted in Marine Drive area around 4.30 am, driving the BMW car. Driver Rajrushi Bidawat was sitting next to him. As the vehicle reached Worli, the car hit the two-wheeler, killing Kaveri Nakhwa. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was accorded a ceremonial reception and a guard of honour at the Federal Chancellery in Vienna during his one-day visit to Austria on Wedneday. The Federal Chancellory hosts the office of the Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and several other members of the government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi upon his arrival in Vienna.(.X/MEA) PM Narendra Modi landed on July 9, in a state visit to Austria, a central European country. He was welcomed by Austrian foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport. Also read | PM Modi in Austria highlights Modi was welcomed at the Ritz-Carlton hotel by a special rendition of India's National song Vande Mataram. He was also greeted by members from the Indian disaspora. Later on Wednesday, Modi called on the President of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen, and held talks with Chancellor of Austria Karl Nehammer. Modi will also address business leaders from India and Austria. On Modi's visit, Nehammer posted on social media platform X that,"I very much look forward to welcoming Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, the world's largest democracy, next week in Vienna." The Chancellor also mentioned the significance of Modi's visit to his country. "This visit is a special honour as it marks the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over 40 years and a significant milestone as we celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations with India," he said. Nehammer also described the visit as an opportunity to further deepen the bilateral relationship and cooperate closer on many geopolitical challenges. Reacting to the Austrian Chancellor, Modi said his visit to Austria is special. Our nations are connected by shared values and commitment to a better planet. I am looking forward to the various programs in Austria, including discussions with the Federal Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more, PM Modi added. During his visit to Russia, Modi was bestowed with Russia's highest civilian award, the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle for for his contribution to fostering India-Russia ties. (With ANI inputs) Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Uttar Pradesh was responsible for the death of 18 people in the accident on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway. Mangled remains of a bus being towed after an accident, in Unnao district. (PTI) Yadav questioned the safety measures on the expressway and said the incident should be investigated. Officials reported that 18 people died and 19 were injured early Wednesday when a double-decker sleeper bus collided with a milk tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway in Unnao district. The bus was travelling to Delhi from Motihari in Bihar. He said in a post on X, The reason for the death of 18 people in the accident on Lucknow-Agra Expressway is the negligence of the BJP government. It is a matter of investigation that despite there being a dedicated parking zone on the expressway, why was a vehicle parked in the middle of the road? How did the monitoring of the parked vehicle go wrong despite the presence of CCTV cameras? Were the CCTV cameras not working? Where was the highway police, was regular patrolling not being done? How long did the Highway Ambulance Service take to arrive after the accident and what was its role in relation to the casualties? Crores of rupees are spent every day on the expressway. Instead of being spent on the management and administration of the expressway, is that money going somewhere else? The BJP government should answer these questions systematically, he further questioned. Also read | Akhilesh backs govt teachers opposing online attendance The Agra-Lucknow Expressway was built when Yadav was the chief minister during the Samajwadi Party's rule, PTI reported. Contrary to Yadav's claim that the accident was caused by a parked vehicle, Unnao District Magistrate Gaurang Rathi said it appeared that the bus was speeding and hit the milk tanker from behind, causing the deaths of 18 people. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati expressed her condolences for the loss of lives in the accident. My heartfelt condolences. Measures must be taken to prevent such accidents and save lives, she said on X in Hindi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to Austria, met with Nobel laureate and quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger. They held talks on varied subjects, including quantum physics and spirituality. PM Modi met with Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger (Photo - X) After the meeting, Zeilinger said that he discussed quantum technology and information with the Indian leader. The Austrian quantum physicist said that he felt that the prime minister was a very spiritual person and that all world leaders should possess this quality. Zeilinger said that he had a very pleasant discussion with PM Modi on topics such as quantum technology, quantum information, spirituality and the fundamental concepts of quantum physics. We discussed spiritual things, we talked about possibilities of quantum information, quantum technology, and the basic fundamental ideas of quantum physics. I experienced him as a very spiritual person, and I think this is a feature which more leaders in the world should have today...The point is that you support the gifted young people to follow their ideas and from them, new ideas come. That is something which can happen in every country, certainly in India, since it has a gigantic, spiritual and technological past, he added. PM Modi said they talked about India's quantum mission. "Had an excellent meeting with Nobel Laureate Anton Zeilinger. His work in quantum mechanics is pathbreaking and will continue to guide generations of researchers and innovators. His passion for knowledge and learning was visible. I talked about Indias efforts like the National Quantum Mission and how we are nurturing an ecosystem for tech and innovation. I am also delighted to receive his book along with a very touching message," he added. PM Narendra Modi visited Austria after ending his visit to Russia, and met with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen. The two leaders discussed ways to expand bilateral cooperation between India and Austria in areas such as the environment and battling climate change. After the meeting of the two leaders, India and Austria issued a joint statement that the two nations support any collective effort to facilitate a "peaceful resolution" consistent with international law and the UN Charter to the Ukraine conflict. "Concerning the war in Ukraine, both leaders supported any collective effort to facilitate a peaceful resolution consistent with international law and the UN Charter. Both sides believe that achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace in Ukraine requires bringing together all stakeholders and a sincere and earnest engagement between the two parties to the conflict," the statement said. (With inputs from PTI) The Supreme Court on Tuesday held that a company purchasing a vehicle for the personal use of its directors or employees cannot amount to a purchase for commercial purpose under the consumer protection law in the absence of evidence linking the vehicle purchase to any profit-generating activity. Supreme Court of India. (ANI Photo) A bench of justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal held that there cannot be a legal presumption that purchase of a vehicle by a company must be with linked with commercial purpose of earning profit, adding that the burden of proof lies on the entity claiming the purchase to be for commercial purposes. The judgment elucidated that the definition of consumer excludes individuals or entities that obtain goods for resale or any commercial purpose. While the Consumer Protection Act does not define commercial purpose, the bench noted, the term has been interpreted through various decisions by the top court. In the case of Laxmi Engineering Works Vs PSG Industrial Institute (1995), the court concluded that determining whether a purchase was for commercial purpose is always a question of fact dependent on the circumstances of each case. Similarly, the 2020 judgment in Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust Vs Unique Shanti Developers held that while there is no strict formula for every case, the dominant intention or purpose behind a transaction must be examined. If the purchase is aimed at profit generation, it is likely to be considered commercial, noted the bench. The purchase of the goods should have a close and direct nexus with a profit generating activity. It has to be seen whether the dominant intention or dominant purpose for the transaction was to facilitate some kind of profit generation for the purchaser and/or their beneficiary, it pointed out. In the case at hand, Controls and Switchgear Company Ltd purchased two luxury cars for use by its whole-time executive directors as part of their perquisites. The cars were used for personal use by the directors and their immediate family members. Daimler Chrysler India Pvt Ltd (now known as Mercedes Benz India Pvt Ltd), argued that the absence of certain documents meant the cars were purchased for commercial purposes. However, the court dismissed this argument, stating that when a consumer alleges defects in goods and the seller contests the complaint on grounds of commercial purpose, the onus to prove the commercial purpose lies on the seller, not the consumer. In this instance, the respondent-complainant had asserted that the cars were purchased for personal use, with no evidence suggesting a commercial purpose. The court noted that the absence of evidence linking the car purchase to any profit-generating activity meant the purchase could not be deemed commercial. The court also highlighted a complaint relating to excessive heating of the centre portion as well as the floor of the car. People do not purchase the high-end luxurious cars to suffer discomfort more particularly when they buy the vehicle keeping utmost faith in the supplier who would make the representations in the brochures or the advertisements projecting and promoting such cars as the finest and safest automobile in the world, it noted. As a result, the court upheld the national consumer commissions 2007 order directing the car company to refund the purchase price of approximately 58 lakh and take back the car. However, considering the use of the car for 17 years and an earlier offer by the car company to repurchase the car at a depreciated value, the court modified the compensation to 36 lakh while asking the purchaser firm to retain the vehicle. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday discussed the war in Ukraine and India-Austria strategic ties with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer during his maiden visit to the country. At a joint press conference, PM Modi, who went to the country after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, reiterated that war has no place in the world. PM Modi also discussed strengthening ties with Vienna in infrastructure development, renewable energy, hydrogen, water and waste management and artificial intelligence. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer (R) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi give a joint press conference at the Chancellery in Vienna.(AFP) "I am happy that during the beginning of my third term itself, I got the opportunity to visit Austria. This trip of mine is historic and special. After 41 years, an Indian PM has visited Austria...today, a significant discussion took place between Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and me. We discussed new possibilities to strengthen our ties further. We have decided to give these ties a strategic direction...in sectors like infrastructure development, renewable energy, hydrogen, water and waste management, artificial intelligence...we work towards linking each other's capabilities," PM Modi said. Also read: After PM Modi-Putin meeting, US Pentagon's we trust that India will response PM Modi on Ukraine war He said the Ukraine war and the situation in West Asia were among the topics discussed during his meeting with the Austrian leader. "I have told you earlier also, this is not the time for war, we won't be able to find solutions to problems in the field of war. Wherever it is, killing of innocent people is unacceptable. India and Austria emphasize dialogue and diplomacy, and for that, we are together ready to give any support required," he added. PM Modi said the shared beliefs in values such as democracy and the rule of law are strong foundations of India and Austria's relations. Also read: Watch: Vande Mataram played as PM Narendra Modi arrives in Austria's Vienna PM Modi on terrorism He said both countries strongly condemn terrorism. "We discussed the biggest challenges humanity is facing right now, including climate change and terrorism. In the climate subject, we are inviting Austria, to join our initiatives like international solar alliance, collision for disaster resilient infrastructure and bio-fuel alliance. We both strongly condemn terrorism. We agree that terrorism can't be justified in any way," he added. During his meeting with Putin, PM Modi had assured the world that India stands with peace. He also said that peace can't be achieved amid bombs, guns and bullets. What the Austrian leader said Nehammer acknowledged India's unique position in the global south. "For me, it was an important signal that India, as a founding member of the BRICS, participated in the Swiss Peace Summit...Today, we have been talking about an even stronger commitment and about the possibilities of reviving the peace process. PM Modi and I discussed the unique position of India in the so-called global south. India is an important, influential and credit-worthy country. India is the biggest democracy in the world. Therefore, India's role, especially for Austria, is more than important when it comes to the peace process and future peace summits," he said. He said the development of the geopolitical situation unites India and Austria. "Last night and this morning, we had very intensive talks about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. For me, as the Federal Chancellor of Austria, it is particularly important to get to know India's assessment and to understand it and familiarise India with European concerns and worries. Moreover, the conflict in the Middle East was a major topic and in addition to this challenging geopolitical situation, we also referred to the positive aspects of our cooperation," he added. With inputs from PTI, ANI Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin unequivocally condemned terrorism and violent extremism conducive to terrorism in all its forms and manifestations including the cross-border movement of terrorists, and terrorism financing networks and safe havens. Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for zero tolerance towards terrorism on Tuesday, July 9, 2024.(AFP) The two leaders strongly condemned the dastardly terrorist attack on an Army convoy in the Kathua area of Jammu and Kashmir on July 8, 2024, in Dagestan on June 23 and on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow on March 22 and stressed that these terrorist attacks are a grim reminder for further strengthening cooperation to combat terrorism. India has faced cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan. In the joint statement issued after the 22nd India-Russia Annual Summit, the two sides called for an uncompromising fight against international terrorism and extremism in all their forms and manifestations, noting the importance of increasing cooperation in this area, without hidden agendas and double standards on the solid basis of international law and the UN Charter. Besides, they stressed the need for firm implementation of relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, as well as the implementation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. The two leaders emphasized the primary responsibility of States and their competent authorities in combating terrorism and that global efforts to prevent and counter terrorist threats must fully comply with their obligations under international law. They called for zero tolerance for terrorism and expeditious finalization and adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the UN framework as well as implementation of the UNGA and the UNSC resolutions on countering terrorism and violent extremism, conducive to terrorism. The leaders reiterated that terrorism should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic group and that all those involved in terrorist activities and their supporters must be held accountable and brought to justice in accordance with international law. They appreciated the Special Meeting of the UNSC Counter Terrorism Committee (CTC) held in India in October 2022 under India's Chairship of the CTC and welcomed the unanimously adopted Delhi Declaration on countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes. The two leaders noted that the declaration aims to cover the main concerns surrounding the terrorist exploitation of Information and Communications Technology, such as payment technologies, social media platforms and fundraising methods and misuse of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV, or drones). India and Russia reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening multilateral cooperation in the field of combating transnational organized crime, countering money laundering, terrorist financing and drug trafficking. The two countries expressed their readiness to strengthen the dialogue in the field of security in the use of ICTs on the basis of the Agreement on Cooperation in International Information Security dated October 15, 2016. Both sides stressed the importance of strict compliance with the principles of sovereign equality of states and non-interference in their internal affairs. Towards this end, both sides urged to adopt universal international legal instruments and welcome efforts under the aegis of the United Nations, including the comprehensive convention on combating ICT crime. India and Russia intend to strengthen cooperation within the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS), including the issues of the long-term sustainability of outer space activities. Russia expressed its strong support for India's membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthening global efforts for non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. India and Russia urged all members of the international community to work towards enhancing the level of mutual trust, in order to promote global peace and security. The Indian Side looked forward to Russia's joining of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) and the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA), the statement said. The two leaders noted with appreciation the close coordination between India and Russia on Afghanistan including through the dialogue mechanism between the Security Councils of both countries. Both sides discussed the situation in Afghanistan, including the security situation and its implications in the region, the current political situation, issues related to terrorism, radicalization and drug trafficking. They advocated for Afghanistan as an independent, united and peaceful state free from terrorism, war and drugs, living in peace with its neighbours and ensuring respect for basic human rights and freedoms, including for the most vulnerable sections of the Afghan society. They emphasized the important role of the Moscow Format meetings to facilitate the Afghan settlement. The Leaders welcomed the counter-terrorism measures against international terrorist groups, including in particular ISIS, and other groups and expressed confidence that the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan would be comprehensive and effective. They stressed the need to ensure urgent and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people without any political demands. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday reiterated Indias position that a solution to the Ukraine crisis cannot be found on the battlefield during his visit to Austria, which offered him an opportunity to convey New Delhis assessment of the conflict. Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in Vienna on Wednesday. (PTI) The Ukraine war figured prominently in talks between Modi, the first Indian premier to travel to Vienna in 41 years, and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer. The two sides also discussed ways to bolster cooperation in areas such as trade investment, science and technology, green energy and climate change. Modi repeated the message he conveyed to Russian President Vladimir Putin in televised remarks at the Kremlin on Tuesday peace talks under the shadow of guns cant succeed and parties to the conflict need to return to dialogue. Nehammer said his discussions with Modi were an opportunity to find out about Indias assessment of the situation and to familiarise India with European concerns. Chancellor Nehammer and I have discussed in detail the ongoing conflicts around the world, whether it is the conflict in Ukraine or the situation in West Asia. I have said before that this is not a time for war. Problems cannot be solved on the battlefield, Modi said after the talks, speaking in Hindi. The loss of innocent lives, anywhere, is unacceptable. India and Austria emphasise on dialogue and diplomacy for the earliest possible restoration of peace and stability. We are both ready to provide every possible cooperation to achieve this, he said. India and Austria, Nehammer said, are united by concerns over the geopolitical situation and the two leaders had very intensive talks about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Pointing to Modis just concluded visit to Russia, Nehammer said: It was particularly important for me to hear about the prime ministers personal assessment regarding the intentions of Russia in respect of the peace process. Nehammer said it was an important signal that India participated in the recent peace summit on Ukraine hosted by Switzerland and the two sides had discussed possibilities of reviving the peace process. He pointed to Indias unique position in the Global South and its role as the largest democracy and said the country will be more than important for the peace process and future peace summits. Austria, as a neutral country and a non-NATO member, will be available as a site for dialogue and is willing to act as a bridge builder, Nehammer said. On the bilateral front, the discussions between the Indian and Austrian leaders focused on cooperation in trade, investment, science and technology, green energy, artificial intelligence, climate change, cultural cooperation and people-to-people ties. Modi said he and Nehammer identified new opportunities to strengthen cooperation and decided to give strategic direction to bilateral ties. A blueprint for cooperation over the coming decades wont be limited to economic cooperation, and the two sides will combine strengths in areas such as infrastructure development, innovation, renewable energy, water and waste management and quantum technology, he said. A mobility and migration agreement signed by the two sides in 2023 will facilitate legal migration and movement of skilled workforce, he added. With two-way trade currently worth 2.7 billion euro, Nehammer emphasised the scope for expanding economic cooperation,. He said more than 150 Austrian businesses currently operate in India and the number is expected to increase, he said. Nehammer also highlighted the role of Indias first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in negotiations that led to a treaty between the Soviet Union, the UK, the US and France in May 1955 to grant Austria independence and to facilitate withdrawal of occupation forces. The Austrian State Treaty was signed by the four parties with the understanding that the independent state of Austria would remain neutral, acting as a buffer zone between the East and the West. There was a standstill in 1953...It was difficult to make progress with the Soviet Union, and it was [Austrian] foreign minister [Karl] Gruber who contacted Prime Minister Nehru, asking for support in the negotiations to bring them to a positive conclusion. This is what happened India helped Austria and in 1955, the negotiations came to a positive conclusion with the Austrian State Treaty, he said. Modi invited Austria to join Indias initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and Biofuel Alliance. We both strongly condemn terrorism. We agree that it is unacceptable in any form and cannot be justified in any way, he said. Following their talks, Nehammer and Modi jointly addressed CEOs of the two sides at a business roundtable in Hofburg Palace. Modi highlighted the potential for collaboration between Indian and Austrian companies in sectors such as infrastructure, renewable energy, new and emerging technologies, fintech, start-ups and innovation. He also invited Austrian companies to invest in India. On his arrival in Vienna on Tuesday, Modi was received by foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport. He was also hosted by Nehammer for a private meeting. Before concluding his visit on Wednesday, Modi met President Alexander Van der Bellen and leading Austrian personalities. The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed Patanjali Ayurved to provide proof that it has ceased the sale and advertisement of 14 products that were banned by the Uttarakhand state licensing department in April, seeking to verify Patanjalis claim that it issued directives to all store owners, media, advertising outlets, and social media platforms to adhere to the ban. Baba Ramdev at the Supreme Court to attend the hearing relating to misleading advertisements by Patanjali Ayurved, in New Delhi..(ANI) The order, by a bench led by justice Hima Kohli, was passed despite a later affidavit by the Uttarakhand government, informing the court that the ban imposed on April 15 was revoked by another state department on procedural grounds, following which fresh show cause notices have been issued to Patanjali on July 8. To be clear, Patanjalis lawyer told HT that the company has not yet received any official communication regarding the revocation of the ban, and until such communication is received, Patanjali remains bound by the Supreme Courts orders. Also Read | Ramdev claims anti-Ayurveda cartel targeting Patanjali: Destroying nationalism which we denote' During the court proceedings, Patanjalis lawyers accepted the directive of the bench, also comprising justice Sandeep Mehta, that mandated the firm to submit an affidavit confirming whether the instructions have been followed and if the 14 Ayurvedic drugs have indeed been withdrawn from sale. The affidavit must be filed within two weeks, and the case is scheduled for a hearing on July 30. The respondent 5 (Patanjali Ayurved Limited) shall state on affidavit whether the request to intermediaries has been acceded to and whether the 14 Ayurvedic formulations have been withdrawn, stated the court in its order on Tuesday Speaking to HT, Gautam Talukdar, advocate-on-record for Patanjali Ayurved in the Supreme Court, said: The order revoking the suspension passed by the Uttarakhand government is not communicated to Patanjali so far. Patanjali came to know of it through the affidavit filed by the state in the Supreme Court. Till any official communication is received, Patanjali is bound to comply with the suspension imposed on 14 products by the Uttarakhand state licensing authority on April 15. Also Read | Supreme Court on Baba Ramdev: 'Yoga good but Patanjali products...' The bench was hearing a petition filed by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) which had challenged the misleading advertisements endorsed by yoga guru and entrepreneur Ramdev and issued by Patanjali in alleged violation of several laws. The top court has been considering contempt action against Ramdev and Patanjalis managing director Balkrishna for continuing to issue misleading advertisements despite previous court orders. The court is also addressing the broader issue of ensuring proper regulation of drug licensing authorities and misleading advertisements. The court was not satisfied with the companys affidavit claiming to have written to its franchise stores, distributors and advertising agents for immediately stopping sale and advertisement of the 14 medicines banned by Uttarakhand licensing wing on April 15. The ban was ordered as the medicines promised cures for ailments prohibited under the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 and the corresponding rules. The companys previous affidavit, filed on May 16, claimed that it had directed its 5,606 franchise and exclusive stores, as well as its e-commerce platform, to withdraw the banned products. Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Balbir Singh, representing Patanjali, also stated that instructions were sent to all media platforms to stop broadcasting advertisements for these products. IMA, represented by senior advocate PS Patwalia, sought time to verify Patanjalis compliance claims but informed the court about the Uttarakhand governments decision to cancel the ban. The state licensing authoritys affidavit, filed on July 5, explained that the ban was revoked because the original order did not provide Patanjali with the mandatory 15-day notice required under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. Senior advocate Dhruv Mehta, appearing with advocate Vanshaja Shukla for Uttarakhand, informed the court that fresh show cause notices have since been issued to Patanjali and Divya Pharmacy on July 8. The Uttarakhand licensing departments affidavit explained that on Patanjalis representation against the April 15 order, the states Ayush department constituted a high-level committee of six members headed by former high court judge, justice (retd) Lok Pal Singh. The committee gave its interim report on May 17 based on which the ban was temporarily suspended and by the final report of the committee on July 1, the ban was cancelled. The committee held that the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 required a show cause notice to be issued giving the manufacturer 15 days to respond. This was not followed by the licensing authority. Issue of self-declaration certification Various organisations also raised the issue of self-declaration certificates becoming mandatory for all advertisements. On May 7, the top court directed that all advertisers and advertising agencies must submit a self-declaration certificate before publishing or broadcasting any advertisement. The self-declaration certificate is to affirm that the advertisement does not contain misleading claims and complies with all relevant regulatory guidelines. Following the court order, the ministry of information and broadcasting has introduced a new feature on the Broadcast Seva Portal for TV and radio advertisements and on Press Council of Indias portal for print and digital/Internet advertisements. The certificate, signed by an authorised representative of the advertiser and advertising agency, needs to be submitted through these portals. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Internet and Mobile Service Providers, said, The orders passed by this court have a great impact on online industry. Till the Centre takes a position on it, we should not be made to suffer. Senior advocates Arvind Datar and Siddharth Dave appearing for Broadband India Forum and association of radio broadcasters vented similar concerns pointing out that they are already regulated by rules framed by government. Responding, the bench said: Focus of these proceedings is only to ensure there is a legal regime which operates efficiently. Our intention is not to harm any industry. The court directed additional solicitor general KM Nataraj to convene a meeting of all stakeholders and file suggestions within two weeks. The bench further appointed advocate Shadan Farasat as amicus curiae to assist it in the matter, as the case involved many issues. IMA president apologises IMA President RV Asokan was present in court as he, too, faced contempt proceedings for an interview given to a news agency where he made objectionable comments on the pending court proceeding. Patwalia informed the bench that IMA has published full-page apologies for comments made by Asokan against the court. IMA has a monthly publication and a full page ad says that it expresses regret and furnished an unconditional apology by making such statements to the press. If the IMA website is opened, there is a pop up of this apology and PTI also published it along with economic times etc, Patwalia submitted. The court took on record Parwalias submissions and granted Asokan exemption from personal appearance for the time being. Manas Kumar Ghosh, the BJP candidate from the Raiganj assembly seat, alleged that the ruling TMC had tried to create disturbances in some booths in the constituency during the voting for the by-polls, which started at 7 am and concludes at 6 pm on Wednesday. Along with Raiganj, other assembly constituencies in the state that went to the poll in the by-polls on Wednesday are Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda, and Maniktala. "Voting is going on smoothly. We want voting to take place peacefully and everyone should be able to cast their vote. TMC tried to create disturbances at 2-4 booths but we opposed them and voting is going on peacefully," Ghosh told ANI. The by-election in the Raiganj assembly constituency is necessitated because of the resignation of Krishna Kalyani as MLA, who won the 2021 election but later left the BJP and switched to the TMC. Krishna Kalyani is the TMC candidate from the Raiganj assembly seat in the by-election. Along with Raiganj, other assembly constituencies in the state that went to the poll in the by-polls on Wednesday are Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda, and Maniktala. Ranaghat Dakshin BJP candidate Manoj Kumar Biswas on Wednesday also accused the ruling TMC of creating a chaotic situation to prevent voters from exercising their franchise freely. "Ranaghat Dakshin is the BJP's area. It has been proven again and again. There is tremendous enthusiasm among the voters. I am confident that in this election, voters will again make us win but the fact is that TMC, supported by the administration with criminal personnel, is trying to create a chaotic situation so that no voter comes to the voting centre," Biswas told ANI. "They are threatening our voters and workers. A free and fair election is not possible in West Bengal because the government does not want it," he added. Bypolls in Ranaghat, Dakshin, Raiganj and Bagda are necessitated because the BJP MLAs who won these constituencies in the 2021 election switched to the TMC. The TMC won the Maniktala seat in the 2021 election, however, the sitting TMC MLA, Sadhan Pandey, died in February 2022, necessitating the election. Mukut Mani Adhikari, whose resignation as MLA necessitated the election, is the TMC candidate in the Ranaghat Dakshin constituency. For both the BJP and TMC, these by-polls are seen as high-stakes elections. The TMC wants to carry on the momentum of its better performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, while for the BJP, repeating the win in Ranaghat, Dakshin, Raiganj and Bagda is seen as prestigious. The TMC won 29 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, up from 22 in the 2019 parliamentary polls. On the other hand, the BJP's tally came down to 12 from 18 in 2019. Other states where by-polls are being held today are Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh. In these seven states, 13 Assembly constituencies went to the polls today. The voting started at 7 am will conclude at 6 pm.Assembly by-polls are being held in West Bengal's Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda, and Maniktala; Badrinath and Manglaur in Uttarakhand; Jalandhar West in Punjab; Dehra, Hamirpur, and Nalagarh in Himachal Pradesh; Rupauli in Bihar; Vikravandi in Tamil Nadu; and Amarwara in Madhya Pradesh. New Delhi: Russia is committed to being the largest contributor to Indias energy security after accounting for more than a third of the countrys oil purchases and is giving priority to long-term contracts for crude, coal and fertilisers, a senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday. Charge dAffaires of Russia in India Roman Babushkin (Twitter/@RusEmbIndia) India and Russia on Tuesday set a trade target of $100 billion by 2030 during Prime Minister Narendra Modis talks with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The two sides have already raced past an earlier target of $30 billion by 2025, with two-way trade currently worth more than $65 billion mainly because of Indias massive purchases of discounted Russian crude. Russia is committed to remain the largest contributor to Indias energy and food security. We prioritise long-term contracts for crude oil, coal, energy and fertilisers, Roman Babushkin, charge daffaires at the Russian embassy, told a media briefing. The two sides are eyeing investments in energy infrastructure, including oil refining and manufacture of petrochemicals and energy transition. The two sides also plan to diversify civilian nuclear cooperation as the strongest pillar of the bilateral strategic partnership, and there have been discussions on floating nuclear reactors and small and modular reactors, nuclear medicine and fast breeder reactors, Babushkin said. Russias crude oil supplies to India have jumped from 2.5 million tonnes in February 2021 to 45 million tonnes in 2022 and 90 million tonnes in 2023, Evgeny Griva, deputy trade commissioner at the Russian embassy, said. We now have a stable share of Indian crude imports, and Russia covers between 30% and 40%, he said. Russian LNG majors such as Gazprom, Novatek, RusChemAlliance and Sakhalin Energy too are eyeing the Indian market, and Russia is prepared to meet the technology needs of Indias petrochemical industries that are growing at more than 10% annually, Griva said. Also Read: Problems cannot be solved on battlefield: PM Modi on Ukraine, West Asia crises Though India and Russia signed an agreement in 2018 on building a second nuclear power plant after the one in Kudankulam, Babushkin said this pact was not binding and only reflected a commitment to such a project. In order to meet the growing Indian demands in this area, we need to identify a second site for the nuclear power plant along with the Kudankulum nuclear power plant, which we are successfully implementing, he said. Several aspects have to be considered for a site for a second nuclear power plant, such as land acquisition, uninterrupted water supply, safety conditions, negotiations with local governments, and a feasibility study with details of seismic activity, he said. Replying to a question on Indias demand for the repatriation of all Indian nationals recruited into the Russian Army, Babushkin said, It is a common problem which has strong domestic implications for India. Unfortunately, this topic can be politicised, including internationally. Russia has never wanted Indians to be part of the Russian Army, which has not made any announcements about wants to specifically recruit Indians, he said. Most of the Indians currently in the Russian Army had entered the country on student, tourist or business visas and were ineligible to seek employment. The problem is there, and we are on the same side with the Indian government to resolve this problem as quickly as it is possible, Babushkin said, adding this will be done through an established mechanism. India demanded the release and repatriation of an estimated 50 Indians serving in the Russian Army as support staff after four Indians were killed while serving on the frontlines in the war with Ukraine. The matter figured in Modis discussions with Putin. Babushkin played down criticism by the West, especially the West, of Modis visit to Russia, saying this was an engagement of two independent global powers and a demonstration of sovereignty by two countries promoting their national interests. Multipolarity is a matter of fact, and engagements between the two leaders were aimed at unlocking the full potential of the multifaceted, mutually complementary and all-weather special and privileged strategic partnership despite attempts to derail our legitimate cooperation and reduce Indias natural ties with Russia, he said. The Supreme Court collegium headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud has recommended to the Centre the names of three additional judges of the Delhi High Court for appointment as permanent judges. The collegium comprised Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai and CJI D Y Chandrachud. (ANI Photo) The collegium, which also comprised Justices Sanjiv Khanna and B R Gavai, recommended that seven additional judges of the Bombay High Court be appointed as permanent judges. ALSO READ | Collegium gears up to appoint 2 new SC judges It also recommended that Justices Sanjay Anandrao Deshmukh and Vrushali Vijay Joshi be appointed as additional judges of the Bombay High Court for a fresh term of one year with effect from October 7, 2024. "In view of the above, the collegium resolves to recommend that Justices Girish Kathpalia, Manoj Jain and Dharmesh Sharma, additional judges, be appointed as permanent judges of the High Court of Delhi against the existing vacancies," said one of the collegium resolutions of July 9 uploaded on the apex court website. It noted that on March 12, 2024, the collegium of the Delhi High Court had unanimously recommended the names of these three additional judges for appointment as permanent judges of that high court. "In terms of the Memorandum of Procedure, the judges of the Supreme Court conversant with the affairs of the High Court of Delhi have been consulted with a view to ascertain the suitability of the above named additional judges for being appointed as permanent judges," it said. Another resolution uploaded on the apex court website said, "The collegium resolves to recommend that Justices Santosh Govindrao Chapalgaonkar, Milind Manohar Sathaye and Neela Kedar Gokhale, additional judges, be appointed as permanent judges of the High Court of Bombay against the existing vacancies." It said on May 3 this year, the collegium of the Bombay High Court had unanimously recommended the names of these additional judges for appointment as permanent judges. "The Chief Ministers and the Governors of the States of Maharashtra and Goa have concurred with the above recommendation," the resolution said. A separate resolution said the apex court collegium "resolves to recommend as under: Justices Yanshivraj Gopichand Khobragade, Mahendra Wadhumal Chandwani, Abhay Sopanrao Waghwase and Ravindra Madhusudan Joshi, additional judges, be appointed as permanent judges of the High Court of Bombay against the existing vacancies". The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that a suit filed by the West Bengal government to challenge the central governments directive permitting the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct investigations within the state is maintainable and discloses valid cause of action. The court had on May 8 reserved its verdict in the matter. (File photo) A bench of justices Bhushan R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta dismissed the Centres objections regarding the maintainability of the suit, and decided to proceed with the suit on merits, fixing August 30 as the date to frame the triable issues. Reading out the operative part of the verdict, justice Gavai highlighted that the contentions of the state government in the suit discloses sufficient cause of action against the central government, which the state argued, established the CBI and continues to administratively control the agency. It (the suit) also has wider ramifications on the concept of federalism, justice Gavai commented while fixing August 30 as the next date of hearing. The court had on May 8 reserved its verdict in the matter while emphasising that it would not allow the courtroom to become a venue for political arguments and that the courts focus was solely on legal principles. Both the states and the central governments counsel were instructed to avoid political arguments. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta represented the Centre, while senior counsel Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for the Mamata Banerjee government. During the last hearing, Mehta objected to Sibals previous comments regarding the Enforcement Directorate (ED) becoming involved in cases whenever the CBI entered the state. Mehta referred to an incident in 2022 when the ED allegedly recovered 50 crore from West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee, linked to financial irregularities in teachers recruitment. While Sibal chose not to respond to Mehtas remarks, the bench intervened to underscore the importance of objectivity in the judicial process, underlining that the matter at hand was a legal question that would be decided without political arguments. West Bengals suit, filed through advocate Astha Sharma, contended that the central governments actions and the CBIs involvement in state matters constitute an overreach and infringe on state sovereignty. The suit points out that the Trinamool Congress government withdrew general consent for CBI probes in November 2018, yet the CBI registered 12 cases despite this withdrawal, which the state sees as constitutional overreach by the Centre. The states suit, filed in August 2021, claims that the CBI has been exercising its powers unconstitutionally and demands the annulment of 12 cases registered by the CBI, as well as a restraint on the agency from lodging any new cases. Rebutting the states contentions, Mehta had argued that the CBI operates independently of the Union of India, questioning the connection between the Unions actions and West Bengals grievances. Urging the dismissal of the suit for lacking a direct cause of action against the central government, the SG claimed that the CBI is an independent entity, not controlled by the central government, and accused the West Bengal government of suppressing facts and misleading the court. Mehta also highlighted that the CBI was not listed as a defendant by the state. He had argued that actions by the CBI cannot be conflated with actions by the Union of India and that the states suit must be rejected because the reliefs sought are directed against the agency, but the CBI has not been made a party to the suit under Article 131. This provision allows disputes between the Union and states or between states themselves to be directly adjudicated by the Supreme Court. Also Read: Comply with order for specialised adoption agencies, Supreme Court tells states The SG also argued that West Bengal did not approach the court with clean hands, failing to disclose ongoing judicial proceedings related to the same FIRs. Mehta warned that allowing such a suit to proceed could set a dangerous precedent, enabling any government agency to be wrongly implicated in legal actions meant for central or state governments, potentially opening a floodgate of litigation. In response, Sibal had cited the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, which places the CBI under the central governments control, including the authority to classify offences and decide geographic areas for the agencys operations. He argued that this control requires the Centre to respect state boundaries and protocols before permitting CBI interventions in states where consent has been withdrawn. Sibal maintained that the CBIs actions within West Bengal are unconstitutional and directed by the central government, which controls the agency under the DSPE Act, asserting that the state has a clear cause of action against the Centre, he emphasised that the case involves issues of jurisdictional encroachment, legal rights and federalism. Underlining the issue of state law enforcement autonomy versus central investigative agencies like the CBI, Sibal further argued that the CBI cannot operate independently of the Unions directives and that the DSPE Act places the agency under central government control. As the bench went on to reserve its judgment on the suits maintainability, it posed many questions regarding the DSPE Act, which authorises the Centre to extend the CBIs powers and jurisdiction to different territories. The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Punjab over vacancies in pollution control boards, saying this has rendered them toothless while seeking a time-bound plan within three weeks for filling up all vacant posts. The court asked chief secretaries to file an affidavit . (HT PHOTO) A bench of justices AS Oka and Augustine George Masih said Delhi fared the worst with 233 out of 344 posts vacant in the Delhi Pollution Control Committee. This is a sad state of affairs that in the Capital city also, the pollution control body is hardly functional with only one-third of posts functioning, said the bench. Haryana reported 202 vacancies out of 483 posts, Rajasthan 476 out of 808, and Punjab 315 against nearly 650. Uttar Pradesh has 145 of the 732 posts vacant in its pollution control board. The court asked chief secretaries of these states to file an affidavit laying down a time-bound schedule for filling up all vacant posts. It posted the matter for further consideration on August 20. It shows a sorry state of affairs. We have noted the scenario in Rajasthan and Punjab so far as filling up of PCB [pollution control board] posts are concerned but...in Delhi ...the situation is worst. The court emphasised the need to have the boards functioning at full strength. These authorities exercise very important statutory functions under the Environment Protection Act, Air Act, Water Act, etc...with nearly one-third [of] posts vacant, these authorities will be rendered toothless. Is it the desire of the states that PCBs should not function? It said workers were employed at various levels on a contractual basis in Delhi instead of regular appointments. The court took exception to such a shortcut method. This practice needs to be deprecated. Senior advocate Aparajita Singh, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae, said the vacancies have remained stagnant for the other states over the past seven months except for Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. She cited the state-wise vacancy figures submitted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in November last year showing identical figures. Singh said no fresh steps have been taken to fill up the vacancies. She added Punjab sought time to resume filling up the posts after the conclusion of the Lok Sabha elections. Punjab advocate-general Gurminder Singh informed the court that selection for almost 100 posts was underway. The court said it is important that the state pollution control body works at full strength or else it will hurt the environment. It said it was shocking that Rajasthan initiated a selection process for only 56 posts. The state told the court that selection for one of the posts was mired in litigation before the Rajasthan high court. The Supreme Court refused to accept this as it gave a common direction to all chief secretaries to file a personal affidavit in three weeks giving timelines for filling up all vacancies. On April 22, the court asked Delhi and adjoining states to submit a status report on the pending vacancies. Uttar Pradeshs additional advocate general Garima Parshad said the vacancies have been brought down to 145 from 325 in November. According to the CPCB report, over 6000 of 11,969 Grade A, B, C, and D posts in pollution control boards across the country were vacant. Ratna Bhandar, the treasury of Jagannath temple in Puri containing jewellery and other the valuables will be opened on July 14, said retired Orissa high court judge Biswanath Rath, head of the new high-level committee appointed by the Mohan Majhi government. The Supreme Court of India (PTI) This will be the first time in 46 years that the inner chamber of the treasury will be opened, a move that should put to an end rumours that have swirled around the safety of the valuables stored within. To be sure, while the committee has recommended this, the government still needs to sign off. Rath, who was last week appointed head of a new 16-member panel that would oversee the much-awaited inventorisation of the treasury, said: The committee reached a consensus that whether the key is available or not, or whether it functions or not, Ratna Bhandar will be reopened. As the Rath Yatra festival is still continuing, officials are busy. Hence, the Chief Administrator of the temple has been asked to produce the key on July 14 before the committee. We hope that the government will provide necessary permission to us. Over last week there has been confusion over the opening of the Ratna Bhandar with the states new Bharatiya Janata Party government scrapping the old panel headed by former judge of SC, Arijit Pasayat. The old committee with 12 members set up by the Naveen Patnaik government in February this year had met twice. Standing at a height of 11.78 metres, and having a width of 8.79 metres and a length of 6.74 metres, the Ratna Bhandar has two chambers Bahara Bhandar (outer chamber) and Bhitara Bhandar (inner chamber) that contain the gold and silver jewels offered to Lord Jagannath. Though the outer chamber is opened for various rituals and the valuables stored there are used during Suna Besha of Lord Jagannath, the inner chamber has not been opened since 1978. The Jagannath Temple Act states that there has to be an audit of all valuables kept in the inner chamber of the Ratna Bhandar every three years. That has not happened. Justice (retired) Rath said as the audit process is a time consuming affair there is a need of competent persons who can identify old ornaments some of which are over 1500 years old. A group of goldsmiths and metrologists will be formed and it is the responsibility of the Odisha government. The temple management has informed (us) that a designated place has been finalised where the ornaments will be shifted. As the temple property cannot be shifted outside, the designated place will be identified inside the temple. We will see the nature of the ornaments, character of the ornaments (whether 22 or 24 carat), and nature of gems. The state government needs to make necessary provisions so that inventory work can start. Several teams need to be formed and confidential and experienced people need to be selected, he said. He added that during the opening of Ratna Bhandar, devotees can continue to visit the temple. There would be some problems during inventory and repair work. The devotees may have to see the Lord from a distance during that period, but devotees can continue visiting the temple. Emphasis will be given to two aspects repair work of the Ratna Bhandar and inventory of the ornaments, he added. In April 4, 2018, a 16-member team comprising members of Archaeological Survey of India, the state government, the temple administration, and district officials tried opening the Ratna Bhandar following an order by the Orissa High Court. However, the keys that the team carried did not match the padlock triggering a major controversy. The opening of Ratna Bhandar became a major poll issue during the recent assembly elections, with the Bharatiya Janata Party highlighting the disappearance of the treasury key in 2018. From PM Modi to Amit Shah, all BJP leaders raised the slogan of Odia Asmita (Odia pride) to oust the Biju Janata Dal government led by Naveen Patnaik. The BJP, in its elections manifesto, promised an audit and inventorisation of the treasury if voted to power. Officials aware of the matter said the government is likely to accept the proposal of the committee headed by the former HC judge on opening of Ratna Bhandar on July 14. The government would soon come out with a formal announcement, said a person familiar with the developments. The Supreme Court on Tuesday found it disturbing that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has not completed its investigation in a 2019 case registered in connection with the 2015 Nagrik Apurti Nigam (NAN) scam concerning corruption in the public distribution system in Chhattisgarh. The Supreme Court of India (PTI) Hearing an appeal filed by the ED challenging an order of the Chhattisgarh high court granting anticipatory bail to the then managing director of NAN, Anil Tuteja, and then chairman, Alok Shukla, the bench noted with concern about the time lag of five years since the filing of the case with no final investigation report forthcoming. Is it not disturbing that in an ECIR (enforcement case information report) of 2019, investigation is not complete for five years, a bench of justices AS Oka and Augustine George Masih said. Additional solicitor general SV Raju, appearing for the ED, informed the court that the agency has found material to show how the two former IAS officials misused the bail granted to them by the high court on August 14, 2020. He sought to rely on a sealed cover filed before the court, which relates to certain conversations between constitutional functionaries made in connection with the scam. The court adjourned the matter by two weeks, granting further time for the agency to file its affidavit and posted the matter for August 2. The state government represented by senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani and advocate Ravi Sharma objected to the sealed cover proceedings. We should all be given the document, Jethmalani said, adding that much of the documents are already in public domain and is serious in nature. The lawyers for the accused, Arshdeep Khurana and Malak Manish Bhatt, wondered how the state was privy to what was submitted by the ED in sealed cover. If everything is already in public domain, then why file it in a sealed cover? Khurana asked. He informed the court that on seven occasions, when they have been summoned by the ED, the accused have cooperated with the probe and there was no ground to disturb the pre-arrest bail in their favour. The ED began investigation into money laundering charges after a case was registered by the anti-corruption bureau/economic offences wing (ACB/EOW) of the state in February 2015 against 27 persons, including Tuteja and Shukla. Both were accused of corruption and criminal conspiracy as during investigation it surfaced how they earned illegal enrichment worth crores of rupees during their tenures in NAN between May 2014 to February 2015. It was further alleged that during this period, the duo developed a system of illegal collection of money as NAN officials and quality inspectors posted in all districts collected bribe for procuring poor quality rice from millers. The ED registered a case in January 2019 and issued summons to the two former NAN officials in March 2020 against which they obtained anticipatory bail from the high court apprehending arrest. The high court noted the fact that the summons were issued more than a year after registration of the ECIR. Further, the court had noted that at the relevant time, there was no allegation levelled against them of having influenced witnesses or tampered evidence. The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a warning to the Karnataka government against politicising the criminal investigations into the sexual assault cases implicating former parliamentarian Prajwal Revanna. Prajwal Revanna, a suspended Janata Dal (Secular) leader, faces allegations of sexually assaulting several women. (REUTERS) Lets not politicise the matter, a bench comprising justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan said while hearing an appeal filed by the Karnataka special investigation team (SIT) against the anticipatory bail granted to Prajwals mother, Bhavani Revanna. Prajwal, a suspended Janata Dal (Secular) leader, faces allegations of sexually assaulting several women. Bhavani was booked in a case over alleged abduction of one of the sexual assault victims. During the hearing, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the SIT, described the relief granted to Bhavani as most unfortunate. However, the bench emphasised the need to separate political motives from the legal reasoning provided by the high court, which cited Bhavanis age and the lack of direct evidence against her. Also Read | Prajwal Revanna's bail plea in rape case rejected by Bengaluru court Mr Sibal, leave apart the political reasons. See the reasons given by the high court. The accused is a woman, aged 55 years. There are serious allegations against her son of indulging in atrocious things. He ran away and was eventually caught. In a case with such allegations, what will be the role of the mother in abetting the crime committed by her son? the court asked. The bench pointed out that Bhavani was not directly named in the complaint, questioning the extent of her involvement in the crimes committed by her son, who had fled to Germany and was eventually caught. Sibal responded by referring to statements indicating that the victim was abducted under the direction of Bhavani and her family. However, the bench pointed out that there was no direct evidence implicating Bhavani, asking Sibal to provide concrete allegations from the Section 164 statement of a complainant before a magistrate. The best evidence with you is the Section 164 statement. Please point out from the 164 statement where the allegation against her is. Also Read | JDS MLC Suraj Revanna, accused of sexually abusing man, remanded in CID custody till July 1 Insisting that Bhavani orchestrated the victims captivity, Sibal cited the victims fear for her life and argued that in the normal course of human conduct, a mother would be aware of her sons actions. But the bench remained unconvinced, emphasising the importance of concrete evidence over assumptions. You are dealing with a serious criminal complaint. How do you use the word and implicate family in a criminal offence? We are concerned with the liberty of a woman. Show us whats there against her...Lets not politicise a matter. Theres nothing against her, it told Sibal. The court eventually issued a notice to the SITs appeal, seeking a reply from Bhavani, even as it highlighted the necessity of addressing the legal aspects without political bias. Prajwal, who fled to Germany, was arrested on May 31 after returning to India. He faces three separate cases of sexual abuse, including allegations from a former house help, a former member of the Hassan zilla panchayat and a woman in her 60s. Thousands of explicit videos allegedly involving Prajwal surfaced in Hassan ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, leading to his suspension from the JD(S) party. The 33-year-old grandson of JD(S) patriarch and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda failed in his bid to retain the Hassan parliamentary constituency in the recent polls. Prajwals father HD Revanna, who is a legislator in the Karnataka state assembly, is also an accused in the police complaint lodged by a former employee of the family. He has denied the allegations, calling them a political conspiracy. The Karnataka high court granted anticipatory bail to Bhavani on June 18 despite allegations from the Karnataka Police labelling her as the mastermind in the abduction case. The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up Delhi and the adjoining states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab for rendering pollution control boards toothless, with some of these bodies functioning at less than half the sanctioned strength, and directed their chief secretaries to submit a timebound plan within three weeks to fill up all vacant posts. On April 22, the court had asked Delhi and adjoining states to submit a status report on the pending vacancies in PCBs. (ANI) In an order passed by a bench headed by justice AS Oka, the top court found that Delhi fared the worst with 233 out of 344 sanctioned posts in the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) lying vacant. This is a sad state of affairs that in the capital city also, the pollution control body is hardly functional with only one-third posts functioning, said the bench, also comprising justice Augustine George Masih. The court got figures from the adjoining states, too, with Haryana reporting 202 vacancies out of 483 sanctioned posts, Rajasthan 476 out of 808 posts, Punjab 315 vacancies against nearly 650 posts, and Uttar Pradesh still requiring to fill 145 out of the 732 posts in the states pollution control board (PCB). We direct the chief secretaries to file an affidavit laying down timebound schedule for filling up all vacant posts in PCBs, the court said, and posted the matter for further consideration on August 20. It shows a sorry state of affairs. We have noted the scenario in Rajasthan and Punjab so far as filling up of PCB posts are concerned, but as far as situation in Delhi is concerned, the situation is worst, it said. Delhi has a perennial pollution problem, which is exacerbated during winter. The city has consistently ranked among the most polluted Capitals of the world over the past decade, and alleviatory measures have failed to improve the situation. According to a report published in Lancet Planetary Health in the first week of July, across 10 major cities in India Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Shimla, and Varanasi around 33,000 deaths every year are attributable to PM 2.5 (fine particulate matter) pollution levels that breach the WHO guideline of 15 micrograms per cubic metres. The national standard for PM 2.5 (24 hours) is 60 micrograms per cubic metres. In terms of proportion, Delhi recorded the highest deaths attributable to air pollution across all cities studied 11.5% of all deaths amounting to 12,000 each year. Emphasising the need to have PCBs functioning at full strength, the bench said, These authorities exercise very important statutory functions under the Environment Protection Act, Air Act, Water Act etc., and with nearly one-third posts vacant, these authorities will be rendered toothless. Is it the desire of the states that PCBs should not function. With regard to Delhi, the court observed yet another disturbing feature that instead of regular appointments, workers were employed at various levels on a contractual basis. The court took exception to such a short-cut method employed in Delhi and said, This practice needs to be deprecated. The Delhi governments forest and environment department is already facing the ire of the court in another matter for granting permission to fell 422 trees in the south Delhi ridge area. The court on June 24 called for an explanation from the principal secretary of the Delhi forests department for allowing this by usurping the function of the Tree Authority, entrusted with the grant of such permission under the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act. As the ridge matter is also pending before a bench headed by justice Oka, he remarked, This is how your department functions. Persons manning the department have no sensitivity towards environment. Senior advocate Aparajita Singh, assisting the court as amicus curiae, pointed out that except for UP and Haryana, the vacancy figures have remained stagnant for the other states over the past seven months. She cited the state-wise vacancy figures in PCBs submitted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in November last year showing identical figures. According to her, no fresh steps have been taken to fill up the vacancies. In the case of Punjab, she added that the state sought time to resume filling up the posts after conclusion of the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. Punjab advocate general Gurminder Singh told the court that selections to almost 100 posts are underway. The court said, It is important that PCB works at full strength or else it will have an adverse impact on the environment. While Rajasthan had a significantly large number of vacancies in its PCB, the court found it shocking that the state initiated selection process for only 56 posts. While the selection to one of the posts was mired in litigation before the Rajasthan high court, the court refused to buy this excuse as it gave a common direction to all chief secretaries to file a personal affidavit in three weeks giving timelines for filling up all existing vacancies in PCBs. Uttar Pradesh was the only state which failed to file an affidavit before the court. On April 22, the court had asked Delhi and adjoining states to submit a status report on the pending vacancies in PCBs. Additional advocate general for UP Garima Parshad that the vacancy figure which stood at 325 as per the CPCB report submitted in November 2023 has been brought down to 145. According to the figures contained in the CPCB report, out of the sanctioned posts of 11,969 of Grade A, B, C and D employees working in PCBs across the country, more than 6,000 posts are lying vacant. A DPCC official said they were working to fill vacancies, but denied that 233 posts were vacant at present. Based on posts created under the DPCC, there are 207 vacancies. However, we have hired 127 contractual staff members too, effectively meaning only 80 posts are presently vacant, the official said, on condition of anonymity. Ahmedabad: The five-storey building which collapsed on Saturday (July 6), killing seven people, was an unauthorised construction, officials at the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) have said. A six-storey building collapsed in Sachin Pali village in Surat on Saturday afternoon killing 7 people (Twitter Photo) The buildings layout plan was approved, but it did not have construction permission or Building Use (BU) permission, said a senior official aware of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. BU permission certifies that the building is safe and fit for occupancy. The official said that the building was initially part of the Surat Urban Development Authority (SUDA), which oversees urban planning and development in certain areas when it was illegally built in 2016. The Pali area, where the building was located, came under SMC jurisdiction only in 2020. In April, the SMC had sent a notice for strengthening the building as part of a pre-monsoon exercise. It was a routine process where many buildings were asked to strengthen. There were no signs that it was in such a dilapidated state that it would collapse anytime, the official added. A real estate expert claimed that there would be hundreds of such unauthorized buildings in Surat that SMC would have inherited in the last few years after its area was expanded. Seven bodies were recovered from the site of the building in Surat after the six-storey building collapsed on Saturday (July 6). Three people, including two owners of the building, have been booked by the Surat Police on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and one of them has been arrested. The eight-year-old Kailash Raj Residency, located in Sachin Pali village of Surat, collapsed around 2:30pm amid several days of incessant rain. The building was mostly vacant as earlier occupants had left due to the danger it posed. Around six of the flats were occupied, mostly by factory workers. A team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), two teams of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), police personnel, and the fire brigade were involved in the overnight rescue operation. A total of eight people were buried under the collapsed structure, and only one was rescued alive, Sachin GIDC police station inspector Jignesh Chaudhari said earlier. The deceased, all textile workers from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, have been identified as Hiraman Kevat (40), Abhishek (35), Brijesh God (50), Shivpujan Kevat (26), Anmol Harijan (17), Parvesh Kevat (21), and Lalji Kevat (40). An FIR was registered against three individuals building owners Raj Kakadiya and his mother Ramilaben Kakadiya, along with Ashwin Vekariya, who was responsible for rent collection under several sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including Section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder). Vekariya has been arrested, while Raj Kakadiya, currently in the US, and his mother are being sought by the police. The Surat Police reported that the building had been in a state of disrepair for a long time, with residents frequently complaining about water leakage and structural cracks. Despite warnings from the SMC against residing in the building due to potential danger, the owners and Vekariya continued to rent out the flats without performing necessary repairs. Surat district collector Dr Sourabh Pardhi told HT on Sunday (July 7) that while he was unaware of any previous warnings, the SMC had issued a notice on April 26 for strengthening the building. Constructed in 2016, the building was initially under the gram panchayat and was transferred to SUDA in 2020. Dr Pardhi suggested that the collapse might have been due to an issue with one of the pillars, causing the building to fall from one side. Agartala: The three-tier gram panchayat poll in Tripura will be held on August 8, State Election Commissioner (SEC) Saradindu Chaudhuri said on Wednesday. Votes will be counted on August 12. (Representative Photo) A total of 12,94,060 electorates, including 6,58,589 men and 6,35,460 women, are enrolled to cast their votes. Speaking to the reporters, Chaudhuri said, The notification would be issued on Thursday. The candidates need to file their nomination papers by July 18, and these papers would be scrutinized the subsequent day. The last date for withdrawal of candidates nomination papers is July 22, he added. The poll would be conducted on 6,307 seats in 606-gram panchayats, 423 seats in 35 panchayat samitis and 116 seats in eight zilla parishads through ballot boxes, the polling official said. Ahead of the polls, the opposition Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Congress party sought the state election commission to tighten security in the poll-bound areas to ensure free and fair polling. The parties have also asked the SEC to allow the candidates to file their nominations via online. In the last panchayat polls held in 2019, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 95% seats of which 86% were won unopposed. Upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi's arrival in Austria's capital, Vienna, on Tuesday following his visit to Russia, Vande Mataram was performed. In a video shared by the news agency PTI, PM Modi was observed standing as a group of artists in Vienna sang 'Vande Mataram', accompanied by violinists and guided by the concertmaster. PM Modi was seen standing as a group of artists in Vienna sang 'Vande Mataram' on Tuesday.(PTI) PM Modi landed in Austria on Tuesday (Austria's local time) and received a warm welcome from Indian Ambassador to Austria Shambhu Kumaran and Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. Later,ht new he attended a dinner hosted by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, where he was welcomed by members of the Indian diaspora. Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi ! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!, Karl Nehammer wrote in a post on X while sharing a selfie with PM Modi. PM Modi thanked Chancellor Nehammer for his warm welcome and affirmed that India and Austria will maintain their collaborative efforts moving forward. In a post on X, PM Modi said while sharing pictures of him and Nehammer, Thank you, Chancellor @karlnehammer, for the warm welcome. I look forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good. This is the first time in 41 years that an Indian Prime Minister has visited Austria after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited in 1983. PM Modi concludes his Russia visit Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on an official visit to Russia and Austria, concluded a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. During their meeting, PM Modi raised concerns about Indian nationals recruited into the Russian army. Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra said that the Russian government has committed to ensuring the prompt release of these individuals from army service. PM Modi and Putin have held 16 meetings in the past decade. Their most recent face-to-face encounter occurred during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in 2022. During his talks with Putin, PM Modi said, As a friend, I have always said that peace is of utmost importance for the bright future of our coming generations. But I also know that solutions are not possible on battlegrounds. Amid bombs, guns, and bullets, solutions and peace talks do not succeed. We will have to follow the path to peace only through talks. This marks PM Modi's inaugural visit to Russia since the onset of the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv in 2022. In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the significant role that male age plays in infertility and reproductive outcomes. While much attention has historically been focused on female fertility and age, research now indicates that advanced paternal age can also influence fertility potential and pregnancy outcomes. Male age and fertility: Expert insights on challenges and solutions (Image by Freepik) In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Dr Parul Agarwal, Director Department of Fertility at Cloudnine Group of Hospitals in Noida, delved into the various aspects of male infertility associated with ageing and highlighted - 1. Changes in Sexual Functions Studies have consistently demonstrated that increasing male age is correlated with changes in sexual function, which can impact fertility. Diminished sexual functioning, including erectile dysfunction (ED), becomes more prevalent with age. Between the ages of 40 and 70, the probability of severe ED triples, while moderate ED doubles. 2. Spermatogenesis and Age Spermatogenesis, the process by which spermatozoa are produced, is intricately regulated by hormonal factors. However, as men age, hormonal changes can adversely affect this process. The number of Sertoli cells which are very important for the spermatogenesis process, decreases with age, leading to reduced spermatozoa production. This decline in sperm quality can contribute to difficulties in achieving pregnancy. 3. Altered Semen Parameters Advancing age also impacts semen quality. Age-related changes can result in lower sperm concentration (oligospermia), reduced sperm motility (asthenospermia), and abnormal sperm morphology (teratospermia). These alterations in semen parameters pose challenges for natural conception. However, decline in testosterone levels may also impact fertility through sexual dysfunction (low libido, erectile dysfunction, difficulty in achieving ejaculation). Men > 70 years old tend to have serum testosterone levels that are about one half to two thirds of those of men in their 20s. 4. DNA Fragmentation Aging is associated with increased oxidative stress, which can lead to DNA damage in sperm cells. Studies indicate a higher rate of DNA fragmentation in sperm with advancing age. This can affect the genetic integrity of sperm and potentially impact embryo development and pregnancy outcomes. 5. Altered Testicular Volume Testicular volume gradually decreases with age, particularly from around 60 years onwards. This decline is accompanied by higher levels of gonadotrophins and lower bioavailable testosterone, which can further impair fertility potential. 6. Medical Conditions and Environmental Factors As men age, the risk of developing medical conditions increases, and exposure to environmental toxins also rises. Medical conditions requiring medications such as antihypertensives and antiandrogens can negatively impact sperm quality and fertility. It's crucial for men experiencing infertility to undergo appropriate screening for these factors. 7. Hormonal Changes Testosterone levels decline with age, a phenomenon known as andropause. This decline can lead to sexual dysfunction, including low libido, erectile dysfunction, and difficulty achieving ejaculation. Although spermatogenesis persists into old age, hormonal changes can still affect fertility outcomes. 8. Miscarriages Advanced paternal age has been linked to an increased risk of first-trimester spontaneous abortions. The risk of spontaneous abortion rises significantly for paternal ages of 35 years and older, independent of maternal age. For paternal age 35 years, the risk of spontaneous abortion between 6 and 20 weeks of gestation was 1.27. This elevated risk was seen even when evaluating only those couples where the maternal age was < 30 years. 9. Assisted Reproductive Techniques Advanced paternal age can impact the success of assisted reproductive techniques (ART). Lower fertilisation rates and compromised laboratory performance indicators have been observed with increasing male age, affecting outcomes such as blastocyst formation and embryo quality. Hundreds of Europeans touring the American West and adventurers from around the US are still being drawn to Death Valley National Park, even though the desolate region known as one of the Earths hottest places is being punished by a dangerous heat wave blamed for a motorcyclists death over the weekend. A stop sign warns tourists of extreme heat at Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park, California. Tourists defy heatwave warnings by US to capture Death Valley's unique landscape(Photo by Daniel Jacobi II/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP) French, Spanish, English and Swiss tourists left their air-conditioned rental cars this week to take photographs of the barren landscape so different than the snow-capped mountains and rolling green hills they know back home. American adventurers liked the novelty of it, even as officials at the park in California warned visitors to stay safe. I was excited it was going to be this hot, said Drew Belt, a resident of Tupelo, Mississippi, who wanted to stop in Death Valley as the place boasting the lowest elevation in the US on his way to climb Californias Mount Whitney. Its a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Kind of like walking on Mars. The searing heat wave gripping large parts of the US also led to record daily high temperatures in Oregon, where it is suspected to have caused six deaths, the state medical examiners office said Tuesday. More than 161 million people around the US were under heat alerts, especially in Western states. Dozens of locations in the West and Pacific Northwest tied or broke previous heat records over the weekend and are expected to keep doing this week. At Death Valley National Park, tourists queued for photos in front of a giant thermometer the National Park Service keeps near the visitor center. Its not precise, registering the temperature anywhere from 1 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than more modern instruments kept by the National Weather Service nearby, providing a more impressive reading for pictures. Its not cited to be an official temperature sensor, said Dan Berc, a warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Las Vegas. This is an incredibly popular place to be, as you can see from the visitors behind me, supervisory park ranger Jeanette Jurado said Tuesday by the thermometer, which read 120 F (48.9 C). But even in the wintertime, people might find that 80 degrees in December is unusual and worthy of taking a picture. An excessive heat warning was also in place for much of Washington and Oregon on Tuesday, with the potential for temperatures to reach up to 110 F (43.3 C) in areas, posing a major risk for heat-related illness, the National Weather Service said. Temperatures in parts of Idaho, including Boise, were expected to reach over 100 F (37.7 C) on Tuesday. The early US heat wave came as the global temperature in June was record warm for the 13th straight month and marked the 12th straight month that the world was 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times, the European climate service Copernicus said. Most of this heat, trapped by human-caused climate change, is from long-term warming from greenhouse gases emitted by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, scientists say. In eastern Californias sizzling desert, a high of 128 F (53.3 C) was recorded over the weekend at Death Valley National Park, where a visitor, who was not identified, died Saturday from heat exposure. Another person was hospitalized. They were among six motorcyclists riding through the Badwater Basin area in scorching weather, the park said in a statement. The other four were treated at the scene. Emergency medical helicopters were unable to respond because the aircraft cannot generally fly safely over 120 F (48.8 C), officials said. Death Valley is considered one of the most extreme environments in the world. The hottest temperature ever officially recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 in Death Valley, though some experts dispute that measurement and say the real record was 130 F (54.4 C), recorded there in July 2021. Its impressive, Thomas Mrzliek, of Basel, Switzerland, said of the triple-digit heat. It like a wave that hits when you get out of the car, but its a very dry heat. So its not as in Europe. Across the desert in Nevada, Las Vegas already had hit 103 F (39.4 C) by 9:30 a.m. Tuesday and was likely to approach 120 F (48.8 C) again by days end. Intense heatwave will continue to set records through the end of the week before moderating as increasing monsoonal moisture returns to the area, the National Weather Service in Las Vegas said. In Arizona, the average temperatures for the first eight days of July have been the hottest on record for Phoenix and Yuma, said the National Weather Service in Phoenix. It said both cities will remain at about 10 degrees above normal over the next few days, with highs mostly between 112 F (44.4 C) and 120 F (48.8 C). Extreme heat and a longstanding drought in the West has also dried out vegetation that fuels wildfires. In California, firefighters were battling least 18 wildfires Tuesday, including a 41-square-mile (106-square-kilometer) blaze in the mountains of Santa Barbara County. The Lake Fire was only 12% contained, and forecasters warned of a volatile combination of high heat, low humidity and northwest winds developing late in the day. North of Los Angeles, the 2-square-mile (5-square-kilometer) Vista Fire chewed through trees in the San Bernardino National Forest and sent up a huge plume of smoke visible across the region. A small but smoky blaze, dubbed the Royal Fire, burned through more than 150 acres (60 hectares) of forest west of Lake Tahoe and sent ash raining down on the tourist town of Truckee, California. Neither fire was contained Tuesday. The National Weather Service said Tuesday it was extending the excessive heat warnings across most of the Southwest US through Saturday morning. Unusually high temperatures are now projected to linger through Friday, and then with increased cloud cover Saturday morning`s lows may be the warmest of this entire episode, the service in Reno said. Thursday could end up being the hottest overall day for most locations, so its not over yet. Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Russia for a summit-level meeting with President Vladimir Putin caught global attention. For New Delhi, despite the war in Ukraine and tensions between Washington and Moscow, its relationship with Russia remains an important incubator for cooperating against prevailing security challenges in the region, such as Afghanistan. TOPSHOT - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend a ceremony to decorate India's PM with the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow on July 9, 2024. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP) (AFP) Modis visit to Moscow has come at an interesting juncture for this time-tested bilateral relationship. India decided that it would not attend this years Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kazakhstan at the leadership level, prioritising the bilateral visit instead. This gave an opportunity for both parties to resume their strategic dialogue after a gap of some years. Both sides highlighted countering terrorism as a major deliverable. However, despite the common security interests, specifically on terrorism, there are geopolitical crevasses today that will require deft diplomacy notwithstanding the historicity of ties. Both Russia and India attended, and supported, the recent United Nations (UN)-backed meet on Afghanistan in Qatar. Both have direct engagements with the Taliban, albeit Moscow has developed much deeper and quasi-formalised ties, with recent reports also suggesting the Kremlin is preparing to de-list the Taliban as a proscribed terror group. Security stakes for Russia over the past two months have starkly increased around the Afghan issue. The March terror attack in Moscow claimed by Islamic State Khorasan (ISKP) which operates from the Afghanistan-Pakistan geography killed over 140 people. More recently, a similar attack took place in the countrys Dagestan region, while previously two Russian diplomats were killed in an ISKP attack in Kabul in 2022. With India and Russia having a common interest in Afghanistans stability, the ensuing big power competition, which is pushing Moscow into a tight Chinese economic embrace, is increasingly turning out to be a challenge. But in Afghanistan, this new geopolitical concern is not as black and white as some make it to be. While true that both Moscow and Beijing now increasingly align in multilateral forums to scuttle western power and interests, in Afghanistan, they seem to have a distant and at times divergent approach specifically when seen from the point of view of influence in Central and South Asia. Pakistans current push to address its own crisis with the Taliban may shape at least some of these intricacies as far as China and Russia are concerned. Many in the Pakistani media have alluded that the main pressure for them to urgently address issues with the Taliban and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is coming from Beijing. However, to even try and effectively do this, Rawalpindi has raised the alarm in Washington instead. The visit by United States (US) CENTCOM chief General Michael Kurilla to the countrys restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and the contested Durand Line in May marks a subtle revisit of geopolitical designs of the past three decades where both China and Russia benefited from US-provided military and financial assistance for countering terrorism. This would be unpalatable today. Russia is also trying its own approaches, in part due to the Af-Pak dichotomy. Its recent invitation for Pakistan to join the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) is a case in point where Putin is trying to hit multiple birds with one stone. That is, gain more bilateral stakes in Pakistan, and perhaps even make its displeasure to India known for increasingly becoming part of US-partnered designs, from Quad in the Indo-Pacific to the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. Simultaneously, Moscow would like to maintain an independent presence in South and Central Asia and ideally avoid being subservient to Chinese agendas. This is an opportunity for India. While debates are ripe on Russias slip towards China, with good reason, Afghanistan provides ample space for New Delhi to work with Russia and strengthen interests in addressing common security issues in this geography. Even as most neighbours today have few overlapping strategic interests, the likes of India, Iran, and Russia, have a deep history of cooperation which includes outreach to multiple stakeholders across political and ethnic divides between Kabul and Kandahar. Prioritised leadership-level attention to Afghanistan could go a long way in revisiting at least some of the common grounds on security, development, and economic stability of the once again embattled State. While Pakistans completely failed policy in Afghanistan over the decades has come home to roost, the implications of the same could go well beyond the region, as demonstrated by ISKP, and by way of other terror groups, including Al Qaeda, continuing to survive in the country. Kabir Taneja is fellow, Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation. The views expressed are personal In the late 1990s, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) appointed me as the Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia. All charged with my new role, I set out to speak with many women whom I was working with in the slums of Mumbai. I also visited hundreds of women in villages and realised that having multiple children was not their choice. They were aware about the harmful impact it had on their bodies and the children, many of whom were malnourished and many more were anaemic. I remember telling a woman that I would arrange a regular supply of contraceptive pills for her, which she could take discreetly without her mother-in-law or husband knowing. She looked at me with disbelief at my ignorance, and said, Didi, do you really think there is a single spot in my hut where I can hide something without the other family members knowing? Discussing family planning was seen as a taboo in many communities. All women globally should have unhindered and equitable access to a basket of contraceptive choices. (Photo by DIBYANGSHU SARKAR / AFP) (AFP) Several factors including patriarchal attitudes and social norms restricted womens autonomy in making decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive health, including family planning. This fact needed to be brought to the table in the numerous dialogues concerning gender equality, family planning, sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. I had the opportunity to interact with multiple stakeholders from government officials to community leaders, the public as a Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2003, I also had the opportunity to speak with many rural women. Since then, weve seen commendable progress in advancing conversations around family planning. However, much remains to be done to achieve Indias Family Planning 2030 vision, which aims to increase access, choice, expand contraceptive options, and enhance the quality of family planning services. Access to modern contraceptives remains a significant challenge, and addressing this issue is crucial for ensuring gender equality. Over the years, the basket of contraceptive choices has expanded significantly. These newer, safer and simpler methods can truly empower women to make more informed decisions about their health and their careers and lead more fulfilling lives. Challenges regarding knowledge and access to modern contraception for both men and women persist. Despite the availability of modern contraceptives, the use of traditional methods among married women (aged 1549 years) has almost doubled from 5.7% (2015-16) to 10.2% (2019-21), according to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data. We must ask ourselves: Are we truly addressing the root cause that hinders the widespread adoption of modern contraceptive methods? Additionally, how and why are modern contraceptives more effective and who do they benefit? All women globally should have unhindered and equitable access to a basket of contraceptive choices. In the Indian context, access to temporary, spacing methods is particularly critical, given the large young population in the country. Contraceptives like injectables, implants, and intrauterine devices (IUDs) provide reliable, long-term protection against unintended pregnancies. Furthermore, self-administered methods offer women greater autonomy, allowing them to manage their reproductive health with greater ease and confidence. While all contraceptives have side effects, the benefits of modern contraceptives for women are profound. They lead to better maternal outcomes by reducing the risk of unintended pregnancies and associated health complications. By enabling women to space their pregnancies, contraceptives contribute to improved health for both mothers and their children. Women can achieve better nutritional status, recover fully between pregnancies, and provide better care for their children. Furthermore, the ability to plan and space pregnancies empowers women to pursue education and career opportunities, giving them more autonomy and control over their lives, thereby enhancing their economic independence and leading more fulfilling lives. and overall well-being. According to NFHS-5, the unmet need for spacing has decreased from 12.9% in 2015-16 to 9.4% in 2019-21, highlighting the growing recognition of the benefits of spacing methods. After all, family planning is not just about preventing unwanted pregnancies; it is about empowering women with the knowledge and resources they need to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. When couples have access to a wide range of modern contraceptive options, they can plan their lives better and contribute to creating a healthy and stable family. To truly empower women and improve their reproductive health, we must focus on creating efficient, affordable, and reliable ways to access contraceptive products and services and integrating family planning into primary health systems. There is an imperative to inform and educate communities while prioritising the needs of newly married couples, those without children, and postpartum and post-abortion women. Moreover, we must confront and dismantle the misconceptions surrounding contraceptives. Societal attitudes often perpetuate myths and misinformation, creating a climate of judgement around womens reproductive choices. Public figures, activists, and leaders have a responsibility to challenge these attitudes and advocate for policies that respect and protect reproductive rights. By making these strategic efforts, we can ensure that every woman and her partner has the freedom to make informed decisions about her reproductive health, leading to healthier families, stronger communities, and a more equitable world. Shabana Azmi is an actor/activist and former Goodwill Ambassador, UNFPA. The views expressed are personal Once upon a time, in villages of the heavily forested Gadchiroli district tucked into the southeast corner of Maharashtra, the infant mortality rate (IMR) was a shocking 121 out of 1,000 live births. SEARCH for Health, a non-profit that works to improve public health in rural India, successfully reduced IMR from 121 to 30 by way of its intervention in Gadchiroli, bringing it down to less than a quarter of the previous levels. Their intervention was then adopted by the government of Maharashtra where IMR was reduced by 51%. Their programme has now been implemented across India. We refer to such organisations that are partnering with governments for population-level impact as System Support Organisations (SSOs). Jaipur, India-July 18: Children have Mid-day meal at a government school, in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India on Thursday, July 18, 2013. (photo by - Himanshu Vyas/Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times) The government is central to resolving Indias growth and development challenges, playing the roles of the service provider, regulator, and funder. And governments are open to engaging with civil society organisations that provide them with specialised, technical, and administrative inputs to create outsized impact. These SSOs are like a new category of unicorns that stand out not for their billion-dollar valuations, but for the impact they have achieved by supporting governments to overcome a myriad of issues in sectors ranging from education to health to policy design to road safety. Here are some more examples of SSOs. Vidhi, which works to strengthen policies and governance, has assisted the central and state governments with 394 projects that included drafting Acts, Rules,and Regulations. Vidhi was instrumental in framing landmark laws like the Aadhaar Act and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. SaveLlFE Foundation (SLF), which aims to improve road safety and emergency care in India, piloted the Zero Fatality Corridor (ZFC) model on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway that resulted in 58% reduction in fatalities (despite increased traffic on the expressway in this period). They are now working with the ministry of road transport and highways to expand the ZFC model to the top 100 most dangerous highways in the country. SLF also helped secure Indias first Good Samaritan Law, which protects and empowers people who help victims of road accidents. While all three SSOs work in different domains and have chosen different methods to achieve results, a systems change approach is what unites them. The systems change approach necessarily entails working with the government as it is the main actor in accelerating Indias growth. For large-scale impact in their respective domains, the SSOs work in close collaboration with the Union and state governments to get to the root of the problem and resolve them for the long-term, rather than suggest quick fixes or band-aid solutions. A report by The Convergence Foundation and India Impact Sherpas studied 20 SSOs in India, including SEARCH, Vidhi, and SLF, that have adopted systems change to understand the underlying practices of the approach. The report outlines in detail a model of what needs to be done to create systemic impact outward programmes and practices along with internal organisational building work. The practices include using data and evidence for building scalable solutions, and working with governments to inform policy design and implementation. The inward-looking processes account for everything from a systems change orientation at the leadership level, to aligning with funders who need to know that this approach will not necessarily bear fruit in the short run, to building a diverse talent pool in-house. These internal structures and culture are key to building organisations that are resilient and lasting to make a long-term systemic impact. It is, however, important to acknowledge at this point that besides the organisations intention and practices, funding plays a critical role in enabling systemic impact. In the last decade or so, we have seen several leading Indian philanthropies put their (financial and strategic) weight behind systems change and work with governments across India. Take, for example, the Piramal Foundation which has collaborated with NITI Aayog to strengthen last-mile delivery in aspirational districts. They are also working with the government of Rajasthan to improve education quality and health care services. They even support SSOs like the Kaivalya Education Foundation that has partnered with 10 state governments to build the leadership capabilities of education officials. The Tata Trusts have partnered with the ministry of women and child development to support the Union governments National Nutrition Mission. They provide managerial and administrative support to the district and state administrations for effective implementation of the mission. The Azim Premji Foundation too has collaborated with a group of nonprofits and the governments of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu to improve nutrition and hygiene, enhance the livelihoods of small farmers, and rehabilitate mentally ill homeless people respectively. These philanthropic initiatives recognise that investing in systems change and working with the governments will give them the highest RoI in terms of scale and sustainable impact. The government, funders, and SSOs, all need to come together for transformative, large-scale impact by keeping systems change at the forefront. By committing to systems change, we will be laying the foundation for India to become a developed nation. Ashish Dhawan is founder-CEO, The Convergence Foundation.The views expressed are personal Flipkart has collaborated with Admiral Appliances, an American giant that has been operational for more than 9 decades, to launch its products in India. The marketplace platform features air conditioners, refrigerators, LED televisions, and washing machines from Admiral for consumers ranging from the mid-tier level to the premium segments. While Flipkart will also provide aftersales support for these products through its service arm, Jeeves, read ahead to learn more about Admirals offerings. Flipkart Partners with American MNC Admiral to Launch its Home Appliances and Electronics in India Admiral Appliances Available on Flipkart The following are Admiral appliances that are live for sale on Flipkart for consumers: 1.Admiral 7.5 kg Semi Automatic Top Load Washing Machine White (ADTT75PTFI) Admiral 7.5 kg Semi Automatic Top Load Washing Machine White (ADTT75PTFI) Key Highlights: Capacity 7.5 kg Fine laundry experience 5-star energy rating Offers super clean wash Packed with a powerful motor Features an overload protector Fast drying with a spin speed of 1350 rpm Comes with a 3-year comprehensive warranty on the product and a 5-year warranty on the motor Attachments: An inlet pipe and spin dry safety lid Admiral 6.5 kg Fully Automatic Top Load Washing Machine Black (ADTL65IMPT) Key Highlights: Capacity 6.5 kg Ergonomically friendly 5-star-rated energy efficiency Offers great wash quality Comes with 10 wash programmes Features a fuzzy control feature Has one touch, delay and child lock functions Built-in heater Spin speed of 1300 rpm Comes with a 3-year comprehensive warranty on the product and a 5-year warranty on the motor Attachments: An inlet pipe and spin dry safety lid 3. Admiral 175 L Direct Cool Single Door 3 Star Refrigerator (Sharon Blue, ADREFOG185DFB) Admiral 175 L Direct Cool Single Door 3 Star Refrigerator (Sharon Blue, ADREFOG185DFB) Key Highlights: Capacity: 175 litres (Ideal for couples and small families) Features a reciprocating compressor 3-star energy rating with energy savings of up to 35% Direct Cool: Requires manual defrosting Single door with top freezer Has a built-in stabiliser Includes toughened glass shelves Comes with a 1-year warranty on the product and a 5-year warranty on the compressor Attachments: A chiller tray, warranty card and user manual Admiral 165 L Direct Cool Single Door 2 Star Refrigerator(Sharon Blue, ADREFOG170DFB) Key Highlights: Capacity: 165 litres (Ideal for couples and small families) 2-star energy rating Features a reciprocating compressor Direct Cool: Requires manual defrosting Has a built-in stabiliser Single door with top freezer Includes toughened glass shelves Comes with a 1-year warranty on the product and a 5-year warranty on the compressor Attachments: A chiller tray, warranty card and user manual 5. Admiral 1.5 Ton 3 Star Split Inverter AC - White (ADSAC18K3SINV, Copper Condenser) Admiral 1.5 Ton 3 Star Split Inverter AC - White (ADSAC18K3SINV, Copper Condenser) Key Highlights: Capacity: 1.5 ton Has a cooling capacity of 5100 W Features a copper condenser coil 3 Star BEE Rating 2024 with energy savings of upto 15% Includes turbo, summer chill, dim, sleep, eco, silent and self-clean functions Auto-restart: Need not manually reset the settings after a power cut Equipped with a dust filter Power requirement: AC 220-240 V, 50 Hz Comes with a 3-year warranty on the product and a 10-year warranty on the compressor 6. Admiral 1.5 Ton 5 Star Split Inverter AC - White(ADSAC18K5SINV, Copper Condenser) Admiral 1.5 Ton 5 Star Split Inverter AC - White(ADSAC18K5SINV, Copper Condenser) Key Highlights: Capacity: 1.5 ton Has a cooling capacity of 5150 W Features a copper condenser coil 5 Star BEE Rating with energy savings of upto 25% Auto-restart: Need not manually reset the settings after a power cut Power requirement: AC 220-240 V, 50 Hz Equipped with a dust filter Includes turbo, summer chill, dim, sleep, eco, silent and self-clean functions Comes with a 3-year warranty on the product and a 10-year warranty on the compressor 7. Admiral 139 cm (55 inch) Ultra HD (4K) LED Smart Google TV(ADL55DX4KS) Admiral 139 cm (55 inch) Ultra HD (4K) LED Smart Google TV(ADL55DX4KS) Key Highlights: LED screen: 55 inches Offers an uninterrupted viewing experience Operating system: Google TV Resolution: Ultra HD (4K) 3840 x 2160 pixels Features many connectivity options and Dolby Atmos Supports Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+Hotstar and YouTube Sound output: 30 W Refresh rate: 60 Hz Comes with a 3-year comprehensive warranty on the TV and a 1-year additional warranty on its panel 8. Admiral 164 cm (65 inch) Ultra HD (4K) LED Smart Google TV (ADL65DX4KS Admiral 164 cm (65 inch) Ultra HD (4K) LED Smart Google TV (ADL65DX4KS Key Highlights: LED screen: 65 inches Offers an uninterrupted viewing experience Operating system: Google TV Resolution: Ultra HD (4K) 3840 x 2160 pixels Has a Quad-core processor Features Bluetooth, a thin bezel, Dolby Atmos and dual-band Wi-Fi Includes 2 USB and 3 HDMI ports Supports Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+Hotstar and YouTube Refresh rate: 60 Hz Sound output: 30 W Comes with a 3-year comprehensive warranty on the TV and a 1-year additional warranty on its panel Disclaimer: This article has been produced on behalf of the brand by HT Brand Studio. India, July 08, 2024: Do you envision a world where missing children can be swiftly found in bustling public spaces, where security systems can instantly identify potential threats, and where personalised shopping experiences cater to each individual? Thanks to a groundbreaking invention from SRM University-AP, this vision is becoming a reality. Groundbreaking Invention by SRM University-AP Enhances Security and Efficiency in Face Recognition Technology. SRM University-AP proudly announces a significant achievement by Dr. Ashu Abdul, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. His innovative invention, "A system and a method for automatic face detection and media capturing," with Application Number: 202241032986, has been granted a patent by Indian Patent Office. This cutting-edge technology, built using OpenCV, sets new standards in automatic face capture, demonstrating capabilities that extend beyond human vision. The Core Innovation The heart of this invention lies in its ability to detect, track, and identify human faces from images captured by digital cameras in real-time without the need for supplementary software. This breakthrough promises transformative applications across various real-world scenarios, showcasing the remarkable potential of advanced face recognition technology. Real-Life Applications One compelling application of this technology is in enhancing security across multiple environments. In settings such as airports, public transportation systems, shopping malls, and busy streets, the ability to quickly and accurately identify individuals can significantly bolster security measures. Law enforcement agencies can use this technology to identify suspects or missing persons more efficiently, potentially averting threats before they escalate. In the context of missing persons, particularly children, this system's real-time capabilities can be life-saving. By scanning and analysing faces from CCTV footage or other digital sources, authorities can swiftly locate and identify missing individuals, reducing the time lost in manual searches and increasing the chances of a safe recovery. Transitioning from security, the technology also offers significant advantages in crime prevention and investigation. By detecting and tracking faces in crowded areas, it can help identify potential threats or suspicious individuals, enabling proactive interventions. This capability is invaluable for maintaining public safety and deterring criminal activities in high-density environments. Call for Technology Transfer Dr. Abdul's invention is a shining example of how SRM University-AP is at the forefront of technological innovation. By addressing crucial challenges in face recognition technology and offering practical solutions for enhancing security and efficiency, this invention stands as a testament to the university's dedication to advancing technology for the betterment of society. Companies across various sectors can greatly benefit from integrating this technology into their operations. For security firms, this face recognition system offers an unparalleled advantage in monitoring and responding to potential threats, thereby improving public safety and reducing crime rates. Retail businesses can use the system to enhance customer experiences, drive sales, and foster customer loyalty through personalised interactions. As we continue to navigate a world where security and convenience are paramount, this invention offers promising solutions that could redefine our everyday experiences. Companies interested in leveraging this innovative technology are invited to explore potential partnerships and technology transfer opportunities with SRM University-AP. Together, we can usher in a new era of enhanced security and personalised services, benefiting society as a whole. For more information, connect with coordinator.ipr@srmap.edu.in. 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. Delhi Police have arrested two persons for allegedly stealing more than 5900 kilograms of cashew kernels worth 48 lakhs from different places in the national capital. The police arrested the accused, who stole cashews worth 48 lakh, after checking the CCTV footage. (Unsplas/Maja Vujic) The arrested accused have been identified as Md. Sabir (24) and Md. Faizan (32) -- both residents of Bihar. A team from Keshav Puram police station registered a case under section 316(3) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against the accused duo and recovered a total of 295 1/2 cartons each weighing 20 kg (total of 5910 kilograms) of cashew kernels from their possession. The estimated value of seized cashew kernels is around 48 lakh. Who registered the complaint about cashew theft? Police said that on July 7, the complainant, namely, Alok Bhatia, who resides at Ashok Vihar in Delhi, reported that he booked a lorry to pick up 6000 kgs or 300 cases valuing 48,45,645 from Luthra Ice Plant at Lawrence Road in Keshav Puram to Hardiram Marketing Private Limited. A deal was made to transport the goods for 450. The goods were loaded into a truck bearing no. DL 01 LAF 7764 to be delivered to Badarpur, but they were not delivered. The complainant tried to contact the truck driver but the phone was not picked up. When the complainant became suspicious, he lodged his complaint at the Keshav Puram police station. How did the police track the accused? The team examined the complainant in detail and CCTV footage was examined, to establish the identity of the accused. During the investigation, all sources were activated. Through the analysis of technical surveillance and tracking the routes using cameras, the team succeeded in apprehending two accused persons. Later, they were identified as Md. Sabir and Md. Faizan. The truck booked for delivery was also recovered near Adarsh Nagar metro station. During interrogation, both the accused confessed about their involvement in the case and confessed that they got involved in this criminal activity to earn easy money. In their instance, 295 1/2 cases of cashew kernels weighing 5910 kgs amounting to 48 lakhs were recovered from different places in Delhi. Both the accused persons have been arrested, police added. An auto driver in Amravati, Maharashtra, has stunned commuters and the internet alike with his impressive English-speaking skills. Not only that, he advised people to learn English as it is an international language and if one knows the language, they can travel to London, America, Paris and so on. The auto driver in Amravati, Maharashtra, highlighted the importance to knowing how to speak in English. (Instagram/kon_bhushan1222 ) An Instagram user shared a video of the elderly auto driver speaking effortlessly in English as his customer waits for him in the backseat. Even I was stunned and stuttered a bit while speaking to him, to my surprise, seeing his fluency in English, reads the caption of the video shared on Instagram. A text inserted into the video reads, Today, I met a very astonished gentleman who is an autodriver. We had a very fun conversation, but for me it was very surprising that he is very fluent in English and trying to educate people to learn interesting language. What I am telling you, listen to me very carefully, if you know English, you can go to London, Paris, America. If you dont know English, you cannot go there, said the auto driver in the video. He then gave an example highlighting the importance of English. The auto driver added that if youre in a London hotel and ask the waiter for a glass of full water, he will give you a glass of full water. And if youll this say in Marathi [he then says the same thing in Marathi], the waiter will ask you to leave. That is why I am telling you, you learn English, you talk in English. It is an international language, he asserted. Watch the entire video here: The video, since being shared on June 25 has gone viral with over three million views and the numbers are still increasing. Many even took to the comments section of the video to share their thoughts. Check out how people reacted to this video: India is not for beginners, said an individual. Another added, Nice. Wow, amazing, commented a third. Many in the comments section said that he sounds like the former president of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. Those who have watched Harry Potter, a film series based on the eponymous novels by British author JK Rowling, know about Lord Voldemorts loyal companion Nagini - a greenish snake. It turns out that the green-coloured snake has made its way into the real world, as Kaziranga found a snake of a similar colour. Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma shared pictures of the snake and called it a magical snake. Assam CM shared this picture of "magical snake", saying that "Kaziranga just found a real-life Harry Potter snake". (X/@himantabiswa) Guess what, kids? Kaziranga just found a real-life Harry Potter snake! Meet the super cool Salazar Pit Viper: its green like magic and has a funky red-orange stripe on its head. Isnt nature awesome? wrote the Assam CM while sharing pictures of a green-coloured snake. Take a look at the pictures here: The post, since being shared on July 8, has accumulated a flurry of likes and comments. An X user said, Assam is blessed with some stunning wildlife. Wow, beautiful colouring, commented another. A third shard, The snake is incredibly beautiful. Looks beautiful in the picture. Hope, I never see them in real, expressed a fourth. A fifth joined, Hopefully, Kaziranga will take care of such a breed. Really one of its kind. In February this year, a team of scientists discovered a new species of green anaconda in the Amazon rainforest. One of the scientists, Dr Freek Vonk, recorded a video of a 26-foot-long green anaconda, believed to be the biggest snake in the world. Sharing a video of the anaconda on Instagram, Vonk wrote, The biggest anaconda Ive ever seen can be seen in the video, as thick as a car tyre, eight meters long and over 200 kg heavy - with a head as big as my head. From total awe and admiration a monster!. Ive discovered a new species before, but that was a small snake from Australia. Now it's about a mythical and legendary animal, one that I can fit four times! Definitely one of the highlights of my scientific career. Also, because this snake can be found in the Amazon, a place that feels like home to me, he added. The new species has been given the Latin name Eunectes akayima, which means - northern green anaconda. YouTuber Dhruv Rathee and his wife Juli Lbr took to social media to announce that they are expecting their first child. He shared a beautiful post, adding that they are expecting the arrival of "Baby Rathee" in September. The image shows Dhruv Rathee smiling at the camera with his wife, Juli Lbr. He shared the photo with a post announcing they are expecting a baby. (Instagram/@dhruvrathee) Rathee and Lbr jointly shared an Instagram post titled Baby Rathee coming in September. The post includes three photos. The first picture shows Lbr with her hands around her belly. She is wearing a beautiful bodycon dress. In the following picture, Rathee joins her, and they are seen smiling at the camera. The third photo shows Lbr looking at the camera with a beautiful smile. Rathee also took her X to share the news with his fans and followers. He posted a photo to announce the happy news. Take a look at Dhruv Rathees Instagram post here: How did social media react? A social media user wrote, Great news, Dhruv. Many congratulations to you guys. Another joined in and added, Many congratulations. A third quipped, So happy for you guys. A few also showed their reactions with heart emoticon. As a part of his journey, Dhruv Rathee has been sharing his thoughts on socio-political issues in India through his YouTube Channel. In addition to that channel, he has a travel vlog on YouTube, where he shares his travel adventures. In 2021, he shared a video of his wedding on his travel vlog. He wrote that after being together with his German partner Lbr for seven years, they married in 2021 in Vienna, Austria. He also added that it was a close-knit ceremony attended by their family and friends. Later, they also had a ceremony according to Hindu rituals. Journalist Mike Pesca took to X to slam an article published in a reputed newspaper about Elon Musks SpaceX launch. The news detailed that the launch destroyed several bird nests, and the journalist slammed the newspaper for making it the most important news of the day. The SpaceX owner reacted to the post with a hilarious comment. Elon Musk founded and owns SpaceX, which manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. (File Photo) If you aren't familiar with the grammar of the Times front page layout here it is: The top right story is the lead story, the top left story is the sub-lead everything else above the fold is the important news of the day. Today the New York Times says the second most important story is mounting pressure from senior congressional Dems to push Biden out of the race. The 3rd most important story is a shocking French election results upending all expectations. The MOST important story is Elon Musk's successful space launch destroying nine bird nests, Pesca wrote. Resharing the viral post, Elon Musk added, To make up for this heinous crime, I will refrain from having omelette for a week. Take a look at the post here: Since being posted, the share has gone viral. It has received more than 4.2 million views, and the numbers are only increasing. The share has also collected several comments. What did X users say about Elon Musks comment? They also apparently buried the story about Boeing being fined for negligently causing multiple plane crashes that killed hundreds, posted an X user. Elon Musk replied, Yeah, in the same newspaper, they buried the Boeing story where they killed hundreds of humans. Another person added, Ill eat double so you wouldnt be making a difference. A third posted, What kind of birds? A fourth wrote, I'm eating eggs with every meal for the next week to counteract this. You're not getting out of it that easy. What are your thoughts on this response by Elon Musk? Police arrested a Brazilian drug lord after evading law enforcement for two years. Reportedly, it all happened when his wife started posting Instagram posts flaunting her husbands wealth. What is interesting is that this is not the first time that a social media post landed the drug lord, Ronald Roland, in a sticky situation. Police once arrested the 50-year-old based on a post his ex-wife shared. The Brazilian drug lords wife shows off her husbands luxury trips to Paris, Dubai, the Maldives on Instagram. (Unsplash/Solen Feyissa) A fugitive drug lord has been arrested because his wife gave away their location in an Instagram post. Ronald Roland, who allegedly had connections with drug cartels in Mexico and laundered $900 million over the last five years, was on the run for two years before he was arrested in Brazil after his wife Andrezza de Lima tagged their lunch location on Instagram. De Lima owned a bikini shop, which was one of 100 businesses Roland used to launder money, and frequently posted to the platform, Dailymail wrote as they shared a video. A montage of various visuals, the video shows the drug lord and his family holidaying. How did social media react? People had much to say about the news of the arrest that made its way to social media. Just like this individual who wrote, Attention is an addiction. Another added, Cant get any stupid than that. A third commented, How did she even have an account? Id be scared. There are ads for bikinis but whether the bikinis were enough to buy multi-million dollar aircraft or luxury vehicles is another question, Ricardo Ruiz, a federal police officer, told Fantastico, reported the Metro. We found partners of companies, for example, who work in a restaurant, but who are partners in several companies that moved tens of millions of reals, Ruiz added. Also Read: Student in Pakistan handed death sentence over WhatsApp messages He is a very cautious person. There were numerous PF operations that investigated criminal organisations prominently involved in drug trafficking throughout South and Central America and Mexico , and Ronald was investigated in these operations for association with these major drug traffickers, the federal police officer told the Mirror. Reportedly, Ronald and his wife, who is under investigation for her potential involvement, refused to discuss the matter and issued a statement saying they would not comment at this time. A management consultant from New Delhi has revealed how much he earns and the figure, according to social media users who watched his video, is staggering. The unnamed management consultant was walking around New York when he was approached by Instagram channel Salary Scale for a vox pop interview. A management consultant reveals how much he earns in New Delhi.(Instagram/@salaryscale) Asked about his profession by the Salary Scale interviewer, the man replied: I work as a management consultant. He added that he has eight to nine years of work experience in total. In India, salaries for management consultants are very standard. So across the top three firms, a person like me so Im like a senior manager someone like that can expect making 80,000 to 1.2 crore per annum, he revealed. The interviewer described that as a crazy amount of money as per Indian standards. The management consultant added that the figure can go up depending on the performance bonus. He said he is obviously very happy with the salary he receives and it motivates him to do his best. The Delhi resident also explained that recruitment is typically done through campus placements. Asked about his educational qualifications, he said he did his MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB). Social media reactions Reactions to the mans salary ranged from impressed to surprised. Many people in the comments section of the video said it had inspired them to work harder at their education. Wow, so inspiring, wrote one commenter. Another said: Living the dream life. A third Instagram user simply described the salary range as insane. A management consultant is a professional who provides expert advice to organisations to help improve their performance and efficiency.The top three management consulting firms globally, often referred to as the Big Three like in this video, are McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company. American entrepreneur Paul Lee decided to move permanently to Thailand after a vacation in the Southeast Asian country. He spoke to CNBC Make It about his life-altering decision and how he is happier for it. Paul Lee moved to Thailand from the United States.(Instagram/@impaullee) When he was living in the US, Lee was making around $1 million a year from his e-commerce business. Despite the success, he found himself feeling depressed and without a purpose. Then he took a vacation to Thailand, a country known for its tropical beaches and vibrant culture. When I first arrived in Thailand, I just felt rejuvenated. Everything was completely new to me, and I felt like it was a fresh new start, he told CNBC Make It. In April 2021, five months after the vacation, Lee decided to move base permanently. Since then, he has been working as a content creator and real estate agent in Bangkok - jobs through which he earns $150,000 a year, a significant dip from his earlier income. Im happier' But the 28-year-old entrepreneur, originally from Georgia, does not regret the move one bit. In fact, he realized that the money he was making in the US did not bring him the satisfaction he craved - living in New York City, he found himself in an environment he described as very individualistic, very doggish, and very hyper-aggressive. I had to go through this journey of being poor and becoming quite wealthy to realize all this wealth that I had accumulated didnt really give me what I wanted and didnt give me the satisfaction I was looking for, he explained. At the end of the day, even though I dont make nearly as much money as I made in New York City, I am far... wealthier in terms of my happiness, in terms of my well-being, my peace, he added. These are things I never was able to achieve back home in the States. Specific incidents in peoples lives often influence the career they choose. For 69-year-old Lois Gibson, that decision came after a horrific incident. She decided to lend a hand to law enforcement and become a police sketch artist after a stranger tried to strangle her for fun when she was just 21. Years later, The Worlds Most Successful Forensic Artist opens up about her profession and more. The image shows a woman who became a police sketch artist after her brush with death. (Instagram/@60secdocs) The video of Gibson was posted on the Instagram page 60 Second Docs. This page aims to highlight stories of extraordinary people from around the world by sharing short videos that are 60 seconds long. In 1971, a stranger tried to strangle Lois Gibson to death, but she escaped with her life. The incident fueled a passion for justice in her, and she pursued a career as a police sketch artist. Lois now works with witnesses and her sketches have put over 1,000 criminals in jail. She holds the title of The Worlds Most Successful Forensic Artist, the page added while sharing the video. In the video, Gibson recalls her near-death experience and shares how, after it, she realised that she wanted to help police find the perpetrators who harm others. In her career, she has sketched pictures of several criminals, including people accused of murder and rape. Take a look at her video here: Since being shared, the video has accumulated nearly 74,000 views and counting. In addition, the video has also gathered more than 5,200 likes. People posted various comments while praising her strength and talent. What did Instagram users say about this video? Oh, her sketches are so good. What a brilliant way to use your talent, praised an Instagram user. She's my hero! Absolutely love this! added another. A third posted, I hope she is safe! Amazing way to use a talent for others! While a fourth individual commented, What an incredible person, a fifth wrote, Wow! You are so amazing! Sketch artists, who ideally should have a background in art and anatomy, help law enforcement by creating probable sketches based on the description given by the witnesses. They also have to take special courses to perform their jobs accurately. What are your thoughts on this video of the 69-year-old woman who became a sketch artist after getting nearly killed? BOGOTA, Colombia Colombian warlord Salvatore Mancuso on Wednesday was released from prison in the South American country after repeatedly asking the courts to approve his freedom and promising to collaborate in the governments rapprochement with illegal armed groups. A warlord involved in hundreds of murders is released from a Colombian prison Mancuso, a leader of a paramilitary group founded by cattle ranchers, was repatriated from the United States in February after serving a 12-year drug-trafficking sentence and then spending three years in an immigration detention facility while officials decided whether to send him to Colombia or Italy, where he also is a citizen. Since his return to Colombia, he appeared before various courts, which then notified corrections authorities that they no longer had any pending detention orders. Courts had judged him responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances during one of the most violent periods of Colombias decades-long armed conflict. 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. Mancuso's United Self Defense Forces of Colombia fought against leftist rebels. In multiple hearings with Colombian judges, including some by teleconference while in U.S. 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 2008 extradition to the U.S. slowed down investigations. Mancuso was born to a wealthy family in northwest Colombia and was a prosperous cattle rancher. He began to collaborate with the country's army in the early 90s after his family was threatened by rebel groups who demanded extortion payments. He then quickly transitioned from providing intel to the military to leading operations against leftist rebels. In 2003, he joined a peace process under which paramilitary leaders demobilized in exchange for reduced sentences. But he was extradited to the U.S. five years later along with other paramilitary leaders wanted in drug trafficking cases. Mancuso was sentenced in 2015 for guiding more than 130 tons of cocaine to U.S. soil. Prosecutors accused him of turning to drug trafficking to finance his armed group. Corrections authorities on Wednesday said they had notified the National Protection Unit a group in charge of protecting people who are at high risk of threats or attacks of Mancuso's release so that it can follow procedures to guarantee his safety. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. Washington, Observing that cultural nationalists are not only a dominant social force, but also a dominant political force in the country today, a senior RSS leader told an international gathering of conservatives on Tuesday that the left liberals in India have been cornered from all sides and are in deep distress. Cultural nationalists dominant social, political force in India today: Ram Madhav "After we secured the absolute political mandate 10 years ago, we used this conservative consensus to take back everything that the Nehruvian liberals took away from us several decades ago," Ram Madhav said in his address to the National Conservatism conference being held here in the American capital. "We ended socialist protectionism and promoted a free-market economy. Of course, in the last 20 years, I am not just saying 10 years. From the 11th position a decade ago, today, India is catapulted into the fifth or fourth-largest economy in the world. "We reclaimed our universities and academic bodies. We took back the media space. And we recently launched a new education policy to rebuild our academic curriculum to teach conservative values to our future generations, something that most of you are worried about in your countries," Madhav said at the conference that has attracted conservatives from across the world. "Friends, it is no longer fashionable to call oneself a liberal or a socialist or a secular in India anymore. It is no longer fashionable.... it is cool to be a Hindu. It is cool to be a Buddhist. It is cool to be a Jain. It is cool to be a person of religion. It is cool to be a conservative. It is cool to wear your religion and culture on your sleeves without any fear of anybody criticising you," the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader said in a fiery speech. "The left liberals are cornered from all sides in our country today. They are in deep distress. They once controlled prestigious institutions like the Jawaharlal Nehru University for decades. But today, scrambling for a foothold in some corner of the country. If they do not find it, they are coming to your country, they are coming to your universities, they are coming to your media," he said. Madhav urged conservatives in the United States and other parts of the world to take the writings about India that appear in mainstream American media with a pinch of salt. "Please remember, the next time you find an article about India in one of these liberal media in your country the NYT, the WasPost talking about authoritarianism, oppressive atmosphere, democratic backsliding etc. etc., just laugh it off. It is the bellowing of these desperate left liberals," he said. "Do not try to look at India from that prism. Because they tell you that we are Hitlerians, we are fascists. We are actually great admirers of the Jews and their national struggles. But we are portrayed as Hitlerians and fascists to you. But do you know that they portray you as racist, white supremacists and Christian fundamentalists to our people. So do not take them on face value," he told the conservatives. Madhav said a liberal, socialist, secular, globalist ideology dominated India's ruling elite during the initial decades of its independence, championed by the first Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. "Our religiosity was at stake. Our cultural identity was at stake. Our national unity was at stake due to that Nehruvian socialist, secular ideology. But what we did was unique. We did not try to take head on at the political level alone. Instead, we built a strong, grassroots, popular conservative movement in India," he asserted. "Through decades of hard work by organisations like the RSS, a strong grassroots movement of resistance to liberal globalism was nurtured in our country. It took some decades. But when an appropriate movement came 10 years ago in 2014, that social conservatism, nurtured for decades silently at the grassroots, was simply transformed into political conservatism," Madhav said. "Cultural nationalists are not only a dominant social force, but also a dominant political force in India today, led by Narendra Modi's government," he said. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. MILWAUKEE The death of Dvontaye Mitchell, a Black man who was pinned to the ground last month by hotel security guards in Milwaukee in a case that has drawn comparisons to the murder of George Floyd, is being reviewed as a homicide, prosecutors said Wednesday. Death of man pinned by hotel guards in Milwaukee is reviewed as a homicide, prosecutors say The Milwaukee County district attorneys office said it and police investigators are awaiting full autopsy results for Mitchell, 43, who died June 30 outside the Hyatt Regency. The autopsy results will inform the ongoing police investigation into Mr. Mitchells death and allow our office to comprehensively evaluate the actions leading up to Mr. Mitchells death from the perspective of potential criminal liability, the district attorneys office said. All aspects of these actions, including Mr. Mitchells death and the use of force by hotel personnel, will be closely examined. The district attorneys office said it met Wednesday with a lawyer for Mitchells family to provide updates on the police investigation and prosecutorial review. That lawyer was able to view video footage and other evidence, the district attorney's office said. Mitchell died after four security guards held him down on his abdomen, media outlets have reported. Police have said Mitchell entered the hotel, caused a disturbance and fought with the guards as they were escorting him out. The medical examiners office has said the preliminary cause of death was homicide, but it remains under investigation. No one had been charged criminally as of Wednesday. Mitchells death carried echoes of the 2020 killing of Floyd after a white police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck. His death spurred worldwide protests against racial violence and police brutality. Mitchells family has hired civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who also represented Floyds family. Crump told reporters Monday that Mitchell had mental health issues. The investigation into his death comes amid heightened security concerns around political protests in the city days before the July 15 start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Its unclear why Mitchell was at the hotel or what happened before the guards pinned him down. The Milwaukee County medical examiners initial report said Mitchell was homeless, but a cousin told The Associated Press on Wednesday that was incorrect. A spokesperson for Aimbridge Hospitality, which runs the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee, said in a statement that the company extends its condolences to Mitchells family and supports the investigation. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. By Tim Hepher and Joey Roulette Europe 'back in space' despite Ariane 6 debut glitch PARIS, - Space bosses hailed Europe's return to space after the Ariane 6 rocket successfully carried out a series of trials in a debut flight on Tuesday, but the mission ended with the launcher coasting in orbit without releasing its final batch of payloads. Watched by a Rafale fighter jet, Europe's newest uncrewed rocket blasted off from French Guiana around 4 p.m. local time , restoring the continent's independent access to space after delays, political setbacks and debates over funding. Although not a commercial mission, the flight deployed three sets of micro-satellites for research purposes, prompting European space officials to declare the maiden trip a success. "Europe is back in space," Philippe Baptiste, head of France's CNES space agency, said via video link to the Paris headquarters of the European Space Agency , where employees and politicians cheered the lift-off. In a keenly awaited milestone, the Vinci engine powering the rocket's upper stage was restarted in space for the first time. It is designed to restart repeatedly, allowing operator Arianespace to place payloads into several different orbits. However, a third firing had to be abandoned after a smaller power unit shut itself down for unspecified reasons, meaning the final batch of payloads - two small capsules designed to test the conditions for surviving re-entry - remained stuck onboard. "We had an anomaly...We are probably not going to finish this part of the mission as we were hoping to," said Tina Buchner da Costa, an Ariane 6 launch system architect. The affected auxiliary power unit is a system crucial for the rocket's ability to put payloads in their intended orbit. Its failure, although late in the mission, is expected to spur an engineering investigation. ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said the agency was nonetheless on track to stage a second flight by year-end. Ariane 6 was developed at an estimated cost of 4 billion euros by ArianeGroup, co-owned by Airbus and Safran. Its first launch, originally due in 2020, has been repeatedly delayed. Since the agency retired its workhorse Ariane 5 rocket more than a year ago, Europe has had no independent means of sending its satellites into space, while war in Ukraine has cut Western ties to Russian Soyuz rockets and Italy's Vega C is grounded. "Ariane 6 is fundamental for Europe's space ambition," Toni Tolker-Nielsen, ESA's acting director of space transportation, told Reuters from the control room at Europe's space port. "It is about sovereign access to space for institutional and governmental missions ... and this need has been even more emphasised in view of the geopolitical situation." SPACE COMPETITION Europe's temporary isolation in an increasingly global market was exposed last year when its agencies were forced to switch some payloads to U.S. rival SpaceX's Falcon 9. Ariane 6 owes its existence to a decision by ESA's 22 nations in 2014 to develop a family of rockets in the face of fierce competition from Elon Musk's private space venture. The United States and dozens of other countries have come to rely heavily on Falcon 9 for reaching orbit as everyday life on Earth becomes increasingly reliant on satellite links and data. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, part of President Emmanuel Macron's outgoing centrist and pro-European government that came third in Sunday's elections, highlighted the Ariane programme's role as a symbol of European unity. "There are sometimes worries and doubts about Europe's ability to play in the same league as China and the U.S. - with Ariane we are proving that through determination and collective will, we can operate at the same level," he told ESA staff. Even so, European officials said it will be some time before Ariane 6 pays its way economically after backer nations agreed a fresh round of financial support last year. "Ariane 6 is not quite there yet in terms of competitiveness, but they want to get there," said Ian Annett, former deputy CEO of the UK Space Agency. In the latest setback, Europe's weather satellite operator Eumetsat last month said it would launch its next satellite on a Falcon 9 instead of the initially planned Ariane 6. The surprise decision angered European officials and broke with calls to back the local space industry, laying bare tensions that have simmered over Europe's space ambitions. ESA has launched an initiative to boost small-launcher projects that could pave the way for a future private player. Ariane 6 has 29 missions to launch over the next several years and aims for up to 12 flights a year. That includes 18 launches for Amazon's Kuiper internet constellation. SpaceX launched Falcon rockets 96 times in 2023 and nearly 70 times so far in 2024, though most of those were to deploy its in-house Starlink satellites. Still, analysts say that has shattered norms and spawned fierce competition from China, which had 67 launches in 2023. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Haitis newly selected Prime Minister Garry Conille and Haitis police chief visited the country's largest hospital on Tuesday, after authorities said they took control of the medical institution over the weekend from armed gangs. Haitian police say they have taken largest hospital back from gang control Haitian police chief Normil Rameau told a news conference Monday that police took control of the Hospital of the State University of Haiti, known as the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, on Sunday night after months of escalating attacks from armed groups. Haitians will wake up one morning and find the operation done, the bandits stopped, and neutralized, Normil said at the briefing, but did not take questions from the media. He was accompanied by Kenyan officer Godfrey Otunge, who said that the U.N.-backed contingent of Kenyan police intends to work closely with Haitian authorities as well as local and international partners dedicated to rebuilding Haiti. The green and white-colored hospital was left ravaged by gangs, with beds stripped of their cots and ceiling fans on the floor. The buildings interior was left with debris and lighting fixtures among the hospitals cubicles. Council member Louis Gerald Gilles was also present on Tuesday's visit, and announced the hospital should be in full service by February 2025. Conille said the hospital served about 1,500 people a day before the gang's chokehold. This hospital is not for the rich, its for the poor, Conille said on Tuesday. These are people that need serious help that can't go see a private doctor. The attacks from criminal groups have pushed Haitis health system to the brink of collapse and the escalating violence has led to a surge in patients with serious illnesses and a shortage of resources to treat them. Gangs have been looting, setting fires, and destroying medical institutions and pharmacies in the capital, where they control up to 80% of the area. Haitis health care system, already struggling before the violence, faces additional challenges from the rainy season, which is likely to worsen conditions and increase the risk of water-borne diseases. Poor hygiene conditions in camps and makeshift settlements have heightened the risk of diseases like cholera, with over 84,000 suspected cases in the country, according to a UNICEF report. Besides the hospital, gunmen have seized police stations, attacked the main international airport , and stormed Haitis two largest prisons. In April, a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Haiti told The Associated Press that staff had been forced to cut the number of outpatients it treats daily from 150 to 50, with people lining up outside the hospital each day and risking being shot by gang members as they awaited medical care. According to a report from the U.N. migration agency, the violence in Haiti has displaced nearly 580,000 people since March. Follow s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at /hub/latin-america This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. Washington: Nancy Pelosi, the senior-most Democrat in the House of Representatives, a close friend of President Joe Biden and someone he has always called the best speaker of the House in US history, became the first Democratic elder to cast doubts on Bidens candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. President Joe Biden (left) welcomes British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to the Nato Summit, on Wednesday, in Washington. (AP) In an interview on Morning Joe, a liberal news show that Biden reportedly watches every day, on Wednesday, Pelosi said that she would support whatever Biden decides. But she added, Its up to the president to decide if hes going to run. We are all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short. The statement is significant for Biden has repeatedly said that he is in the race and the matter is closed. But Pelosis statement is seen as a sign of the growing disquiet on Capitol Hill where close to a dozen Democratic lawmakers have publicly called on Biden to drop out. But many more representatives and Senators are understood to privately believe that Biden, after his debate performance on June 27, was poised to lose to the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald J Trump. Lawmakers fear that having Biden at the top of the presidential ticket will also have an adverse effect on prospects of Democratic candidates in Senate, House and even some state races. Biden also got another jolt on Wednesday when actor George Clooney, a lifelong Democrat who just hosted a fund-raiser for Biden last month, called on him to drop out in an essay on the New York Times. I love Joe BidenBut the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe..Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate, Clooney wrote. He added that Bidens interview to ABC News had reinforced the impression from the debate. Clooney said that Democrats wont win in November with this president. On top of that, we wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate. This isnt only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly. Clooney said that just as Biden had saved democracy in 2020, he needed to save democracy in 2024 and that he can do so this time by dropping out. Israel's army dropped thousands of leaflets over war-torn Gaza City on Wednesday urging all residents to flee a heavy offensive through the main city of the besieged Palestinian territory. Palestinians make their way as they inspect the damage, after Israeli forces withdrew from Shejaiya neighborhood, following a ground operation, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in eastern part of Gaza city, July 10, 2024.(Reuters) The leaflets, addressed to "everyone in Gaza City", set out designated escape routes and warned that the urban area, which had a pre-war population of over half a million, would "remain a dangerous combat zone". The warning came as Israeli troops, backed by tanks and aircraft, have fought Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in the heaviest combat the city has seen in months in the war raging since October 7. The United Nations said the latest evacuations "will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced many times". "The civilians must be protected," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. An Israeli government spokesman said the aim was "to put civilians out of harm's way" as troops battle militants "where they are". One woman carrying her scant belongings through the ruins, Umm Nimr al-Jamal, told AFP on Tuesday that "this is the 12th time" her family has had to flee. "How many times can we endure this? A thousand times? Where will we end up?" The upsurge in fighting, bombardment and displacement came as talks were to resume in Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal in the war now grinding on into its 10th month. Hamas official Hossam Badran, asked about the increased military operations, told AFP that Israel was "hoping that the resistance will relinquish its legitimate demands" in truce negotiations. But "the continuation of massacres compels us to adhere to our demands", he said. Heavy fighting also raged in Gaza's far-southern Rafah, where witnesses told AFP that Israeli tanks had rumbled into the city centre and unleashed intense fire on buildings. - 'Unacceptable' - Across Gaza, deadly strikes have hit four schools used as shelters in four days, killing at least 49 people according to medics and officials in the Hamas-run territory, and sparking rebukes from France and Germany which both labelled the attacks "unacceptable". "We call for these strikes to be fully investigated," said the French foreign ministry, highlighting a deadly strike on Tuesday on a school near the southern city of Khan Yunis. "It is unacceptable that schools, especially those housing civilians displaced by the fighting, should be targeted." Israel said the strikes had targeted militants hiding in schools. In Gaza City's eastern district of Shujaiya, where major battles raged since an Israeli evacuation order on June 27, a spokesman for the civil defence agency said there was widespread "destruction". Shujaiya has become a "ghost city", said Mahmud Bassal. Bassal as well as witnesses said Israeli troops have withdrawn from the area, though the military told AFP its forces were "still operating" there. Meanwhile, an Israeli delegation led by spy chief David Barnea arrived in Doha for truce talks, said a source with knowledge of the sensitive negotiations. CIA director William Burns was also expected in the Qatari capital after holding talks in Cairo on Tuesday. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile met US President Joe Biden's special envoy for the Middle East, Brett McGurk. Netanyahu "emphasised his commitment" to a proposed truce plan, "as long as Israel's red lines are preserved", his office said. - 'Stop this war' - Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead. Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,295 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory's health ministry. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told Israeli lawmakers that 60 percent of Hamas fighters had been "eliminated or wounded" during the war. Israel has imposed a punishing siege on Gaza's 2.4 million people, eased only by sporadic aid deliveries. Aid group Doctors Without Borders has warned of "critical" shortages of medical supplies in Gaza, with no resupply for more than two months. Independent UN rights experts on Tuesday accused Israel of carrying out a "targeted starvation campaign", a claim strongly rejected by Israel. Relatives of Israeli hostages, who have piled pressure on Netanyahu demanding swift action to rescue their loved ones, began a four-day march from Tel Aviv to the seat of government in Jerusalem. "We want all of Israel to come out with us" and "remind Netanyahu that... he needs to sign a deal to bring them back and stop this terrible war," said Ayala Metzger, daughter-in-law of hostage Yoram Metzger who died in captivity. Since the start of the Gaza war, Israeli forces have also traded regular fire with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, allies of Hamas, sparking fears of a broader regional conflagration. As the cross-border clashes have intensified, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday his group would end the attacks if fighting in Gaza ends. "If a ceasefire is reached, and we all hope for that... our front will cease fire without any discussion." bur-tw/ami/jsa SANTA FE, N.M. Sixteen jurors were seated Tuesday for Alec Baldwins involuntary manslaughter trial in New Mexico, where opening statements are set to start Wednesday. Jury is seated in Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial in New Mexico Five men and 11 women were chosen by Santa Fe County special prosecutors and the actors team of defense attorneys. Twelve will be designated as the jury and four as alternates by the court only after they hear the case. Theyll be tasked with deciding whether Baldwin committed the felony when, during a rehearsal in October 2021, a revolver went off while he was pointing it at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. They were on the set of the Western film Rust, at Bonanza Creek Ranch some 18 miles from where the trial is being held. Media members were not allowed in the courtroom when attorneys used their challenges to strike jurors. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer swore in the jury, told them to avoid news about the case and to report Wednesday morning. Baldwin, 66, could get up to 18 months in prison if the jurors unanimously find him guilty. The selection got off to a slow start Tuesday with a delay of over two hours due to technical problems, but the panel was selected in a single day as expected. When Marlowe Sommer asked the pool of 70 possible jurors if they were familiar with the case, all but two raised their hands to indicate they were. Two others indicated they would not be able to be fair and impartial and were excused. Baldwin, the star of 30 Rock and The Hunt for Red October and a major Hollywood figure for 35 years, sat in the courtroom with a team of four of his lawyers, dressed in a gray suit, dark tie, white shirt with glasses and neatly combed hair. His wife, Hilaria Baldwin, and his brother, The Usual Suspects actor Stephen Baldwin, were seated in the back of the courtroom. Under questioning from prosecutor Kari Morrissey, a potential juror said she hates firearms, but many others acknowledged owning them and few people expressed strong opinions about guns. Baldwin's lawyer Alex Spiro in his questioning highlighted the gravity of the situation obviously someone lost their life and asked jurors to come forward with any reservations about their own ability to be fair and impartial. Does anyone have that view, even in the slightest? Spiro asked the group. He asked them to come forward if they'd shared opinions about the case online. None did. Spiro asked if any of them had strong opinions on gun safety, and whether a person can rely on an expert to ensure the safety of a gun, not just themselves. Several said they always treat a gun as if it were loaded. One man said he was taught to respect and treat guns the same way, but also deferred to an instructor during instruction he got for a concealed carry permit. Spiro also asked whether jurors were comfortable questioning the judgment of law enforcement officials, even those testifying under oath. He asked whether any knew potential witnesses, and several said they knew Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza, who is on the prosecution's witness list. Getting chosen to serve in a trial of such a major star accused of such a major crime would be unusual even in Los Angeles or Baldwins hometown of New York. But it will be essentially an unheard-of experience for those who are picked as jurors in Santa Fe, New Mexico, though in recent years the state has increasingly become a hub of Hollywood production. Baldwin and his wife arrived at the courthouse early with their youngest child, Ilaria Catalina Irena Baldwin. The couple have seven children, ranging in ages from 1 to 10. Baldwin has said the gun fired accidentally after he followed instructions to point it toward Hutchins, who was behind the camera. Unaware that the gun contained a live round, Baldwin said he pulled back the hammer not the trigger and it fired. Hutchins was considered a rising star in film photography when she was killed at age 42. She was the mother of a young son who grew up on a remote Soviet military base and worked on documentary films in Eastern Europe before studying film in Los Angeles and embarking on a movie-making career. Dalton reported from Los Angeles. ___ For more coverage of Alec Baldwins involuntary manslaughter trial, visit: /hub/alec-baldwin This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. The British police are on the lookout for a man believed to be armed with a crossbow. The man, identified as Kyle Clifford, allegedly murdered three women in a house in London. The women were found seriously injured by the police. Despite the police's and ambulance crew's efforts to save the victims, the women were pronounced dead at the site (File photo) Carol Hunt, the wife of the BBC commentator John Hunt, and two of their daughters, were found by the Hertfordshire Police at their residency in Bushey. The women were found seriously injured. Despite the police's and ambulance crew's efforts to save the victims, the women were pronounced dead at the site, reported AP. Jon Simpson, Chief Superintendent of the Hertfordshire Police, said Clifford targeted the women. Superintendent Simpson also said that armed police officers and special search teams are involved in the probe. We have extensive police resources deployed to various locations in North London and also the Bushey area of Hertfordshire, said Superintendent Simpson in a press conference. He added, The manhunt also involves armed police officers and specialist search teams responding at pace in the wake of what has been a horrific incident, involving what is currently believed to be a crossbow and other weapons may also have been used. The police have not released information on whether Clifford, a native of London, was connected to the women. The Hertfordshire police have warned the public that Clifford might still be armed and it might not be wise to approach him. The superintendent also warned Clifford. Kyle, if you are seeing or hearing this, please make contact with the police, he said. (With inputs from news agencies) Washington US President Joe Biden has termed the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) as the single greatest, most effective defensive alliance in the history of the world, claimed that the bloc is stronger and better resourced than ever before, pledged his full support to Ukraine, assured European allies that a majority of Americans remained committed to Nato, and declared that Russia wont prevail in its war. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the 75th anniversary of Nato at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, on Tuesday (AP) Biden was speaking on Tuesday (Wednesday morning IST) at the Nato Summit in Washington DC, held at the same venue where the Washington Treaty that created the alliance was signed in 1949. He was also speaking at a time when his rival, Donald Trump, who has been sharply critical of Nato and has attributed Russias invasion of Ukraine to Nato potentially opening its doors to Kyiv, is ahead in the polls. This has caused jitters among Nato member States, already alarmed at China-aided Russian advances in Ukraine. Biden sought to use the speech to address these concerns and reiterate American commitment. Bidens address came at a time when he is facing increasing pressure from his own supporters to quit the presidential race after his debate performance that exposed his age related deficits, a demand that the President has rejected. Biden, who was reading off a teleprompter, also sought to use his speech to project a sense of control and normalcy, and showcase that he is ready for another four years in office. In an emphatic and strong voice, Biden first recounted the achievements of the alliance. Together, we rebuilt Europe from the ruins of war, held high the torch of liberty during long decades of the Cold War. When former adversaries became fellow democracies, we welcomed them into the Alliance. When war broke out in the Balkans, we intervened to restore peace and stop ethnic cleansing. And when the United States was attacked on September 11th, our Nato Allies all of you stood with usa breathtaking display of friendship that the American people will never ever, ever forget. Biden said that, at each moment, there were questions about whether Nato would adapt, and claimed that each time, it did. He recognised the entry of Finland and Sweden as the newest members of the bloc, and said, And here with us today are countries from the Indo-Pacific region. They are here because they have a stake in our success and we have a stake in theirs. Leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are attending their third Nato Summit in a row, in a sign of the increasing convergence of the European and Indo-Pacific theatres. Biden also pointedly addressed a key issue within American politics on Nato, where Trump has accused European members of not paying their fair share and declared that they cannot expect to ride on US security umbrella for free. Biden said, In 2020, the year I was elected President, only nine Nato allies were spending 2% of their GDP on defence. This year, 23 will spend at least 2%. And some will spend more than that. It is remarkable proof that our commitment is broad and deep, that we are readywillingable to deter aggression and defend every inch of NATO territory across every domain: land, air, sea, cyber, and space. In a message intended both his home audience as well as allies, Biden said, The American people understand what would happen if there was no Nato: another war in Europe, American troops fighting and dying, dictators spreading chaos, economic collapse, catastrophe. Americans, they know we are stronger with our friends. And we understand this is a sacred obligation. Biden added a strong Nato was essential because autocrats wanted to overturn the global order, terrorist groups continued to plot evil schemes, and in Europe, Russias President Vladimir Putin sought to wipe Ukraine off the map. Biden said, Putin wont stop at Ukraine. But make no mistake, Ukraine can and will stop Putin, especially with our full, collective support. And they have our full support. The US President announced the donation of air defence equipment to Ukraine and said, In the coming months, the United States and our partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air defence systemsAll told, Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional interceptors over the next year, helping protect Ukrainian cities against Russian missiles and Ukrainian troops facing air attacks on the front lines. In an effort to counter the perception that Russia was gaining in the war, Biden claimed that Russia was in fact failing. Suggesting that Putins losses had been staggering, Biden said, More than 350,000 Russian troops dead or wounded; nearly 1 million Russians, many of them young people, have left Russia because they no longer see a future in Russia. And Kyiv..was supposed to fall in five days. Remember? Well, its still standing two and a half years later and will continue to stand. At the glittering ceremony on Tuesday evening, a short video first traced back Natos origins, successes, summits and resilience over the past seven decades, framing the alliance as an identity and underlining the theme of solidarity, friendship and being there for each other in the darkest hour. Linking the past with the present, in the backdrop of concerns over a potential Trump administrations approach, NATOs outgoing general secretary Jens Stoltenberg reminded the audience that after the World War II, many Americans wanted to leave Europe but it was courageous leaders on both sides of the Atlantic who defied the opposition and built the alliance. Nato is today the most successful and the longest lasting alliance in history, he said. Taking on the question of whether Nato should have expanded eastward after the end of the Cold War critics have pointed out that this decision made Russia insecure and eventually prompted its aggression in Ukraine Stoltenberg said that this was not an easy decision for Nato. The countries of the former Warsaw Pact had already made their choice. They all wanted to join our Alliance. The question was whether we were ready to open our doorIn the end, we stood up for the right of every nation to choose its own path. We opened Natos door. This decision, Stoltenberg said, had profoundly changed Europe, for it paved the way for the continents integration and unity. In a surprise gesture, Biden awarded Stoltenberg the US Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contribution to the alliance. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the world must not wait for November to drive back Russia's offensive against his country. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivers remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute on the sidelines of NATO's 75th anniversary summit in Washington, U.S., July 9, 2024. (REUTERS) Zelenskyy made the remarks while attending this week's summit of NATO leaders in Washington. He said the world was waiting to see what would happen in November, when voters are expected to decide between incumbent President Joe Biden and Republican opponent Donald Trump. But he said there needed to be action before then to defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine. Zelenskyy has proven to be an adept navigator of international relations in defence of his war-ravaged country, publicly cajoling and sometimes loudly complaining to get the military assistance it needs to defend itself against Russia's invasion. But, as he attends the NATO summit, his most coveted prize -- membership in the military alliance -- remains elusive. The European and North American countries making up NATO are in no hurry to admit Ukraine, especially while it is engaged in active hostilities with Russia that could drag them into a broader war. Zelenskyy, who was feted as a champion of democracy in Washington in the aftermath of Russia's 2022 invasion but was forced to plead his case for aid to US lawmakers just last year, will find himself once again in the American capital as bridesmaid. At the NATO summit, he'll be trying to navigate a tumultuous American political landscape as President Joe Biden tries to show his strength on the world stage and ability to keep leading the alliance's most important member following a shaky debate performance against former President Donald Trump. A NATO sceptic, Trump has criticised allies for not hitting defence-spending goals and raised concerns in Europe about continued US support for NATO and Ukraine. His Republican supporters in Congress were responsible for a monthslong delay in US military assistance, which allowed Russia to gain ground against Ukraine's depleted forces. The stakes for Zelenskyy have never been higher as he prepared to address a Reagan Institute audience that was to include some of the most senior congressional Republicans. He got to Washington on Tuesday, a day after Russia unleashed its heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in almost four months and one of the deadliest of the war, which levelled a wing of Ukraine's biggest children's hospital. Against that backdrop, Zelenskyy, who will have a separate meeting with Biden on Thursday, again made an urgent appeal for additional air defences shortly after arriving in Washington, writing on the social media platform X that "We are fighting for more air defence systems for Ukraine, and I'm confident we will succeed." Hours before Zelenskyy's Tuesday night address, Biden announced to great fanfare that the US and other NATO members will send dozens of air-defence systems to Ukraine in the coming months, including at least four of the powerful Patriot systems it has been desperately seeking to help fight off Russian advances in the war. Speaking at an event celebrating the alliance's 75th anniversary, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged the West to keep sending weapons and ammunition to Ukraine whatever the costs, saying the outcome of the war with Russia "will shape global security for decades to come". But an invitation to join the alliance is not in the cards even as Russia's latest strikes have galvanised support for his country. "We would like to see greater resolve in our partners and hear resolute responses to these attacks," Zelenskyy said on Monday in Poland before flying to the US. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meeting with Ukraine's foreign minister on Tuesday, said the summit would further strengthen Ukraine's ties to NATO and "its path to membership". He noted the "despicable" Russian attack on the children's hospital. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the hospital strike "pretty much sets the agenda for today's meeting". In the coming days, Zelenskyy will hear a chorus of support from countries that have poured weapons into his country, despite the recent damaging US and European lags in greenlighting more aid. "It is critical that the world continues to stand with Ukraine at this important moment and that we not ignore Russian aggression," Biden said in a statement late on Monday, saying that US support for Ukraine is "unshakeable". "Together with our allies, we will be announcing new measures to strengthen Ukraine's air defences to help protect their cities and civilians from Russian strikes," Biden said. "The United States stands with the people of Ukraine." Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, whose country is the second-richest in NATO, also expressed solidarity with Ukraine. "Germany stands unwaveringly by the side of the Ukrainians, especially in these difficult times," he said. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said last week that the US would be announcing an additional USD 2.3 billion in security assistance for Ukraine, to include anti-tank weapons, interceptors and munitions for Patriot and other air-defence systems. In a small first step as the summit kicked off on Tuesday, Blinken said NATO allies would provide more than USD 7 million in personal protective gear, uniforms and boots specifically for female Ukrainian soldiers. (AP) RC Russia expressed hope on Wednesday for a quick resolution to India's request for the return of Indians recruited into the Russian Army as support staff. The remark came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue very strongly during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin, who promised that all such individuals would be sent back. Prime Minister Narendra Modi embraces Russian President Vladimir Putin (ANI) Russia stated that the recruitment was strictly a commercial matter. In the first comments from the Russian government, the country's Charge d'Affaires Roman Babushkin said Moscow never intended for the Indians to be part of its Army and their numbers were insignificant in the context of the conflict. We are on the same side with the Indian government on the issue... We hope that the issue will be resolved soon, he said speaking to the media, as per PTI. After four Indians died while serving with Russian military units in the conflict zone, the families of other recruits pressured the government to help release and bring them back. Recently, India asked for a "verified stop" to the recruitment of Indians by the Russian Army. Babushkin added that the issue should not be turned into a political matter. Let us be very clear, we have never wanted Indians to be part of the Russian Army. You would never see any announcement by Russian authorities on this, he said as quoted by PTI. The Russian diplomat said most of the Indians were hired to "make money" under a commercial agreement. He added that the number of Indians involved 50, 60, or 100 people doesn't significantly impact the broader conflict. Babushkin further said most of the Indians recruited as support staff are working illegally because they lack the proper work visas. He mentioned that most of them arrived in Russia on tourist visas. When asked about compensation and Russian citizenship for the families of those killed, Babushkin said it "should happen anyway as per the contractual obligations". PM Modi was on a two-day visit to Russia starting Monday for the 22nd India-Russia annual summit with Putin. Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said in Moscow on Tuesday, The prime minister strongly raised the issue of early discharge of Indian nationals who have been misled into the service of the Russian Army. This was taken up strongly by the prime minister and the Russian side promised early discharge of all Indian nationals. Last month, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) expressed "utmost concern" about Indian nationals serving with the Russian Army and demanded action from Moscow. On June 11, India reported that two Indian nationals recruited by the Russian Army had been killed in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, bringing the total number of such deaths to four. After the deaths of the two, the MEA demanded a "verified stop" to further recruitment of Indian nationals by the Russian Army. In a strongly-worded statement, the MEA emphasised that this recruitment should cease as it is not "in consonance with our partnership". A royal biographer has claimed that one day Prince Harry will permanently return to the UK, but without Meghan Markle. Hugo Vickers, the prominent royal author who co-wrote Prince Edwards 2022 memoir A Royal Life, has sensationally claimed the Duke of Sussex will return to the UK one day. Prince Harry will permanently return to UK one day, but without Meghan Markle, royal expert claims (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)(AP) Vickers, who has written more than 30 royal books, was asked where he thinks Harry and Meghan will be in 20 years. I think hell come home, he told The Sun. I think hell come home and if he comes home, we must be very nice to him because he wont particularly want to. Hes quite angry, I think. Vickers suggested that King Charles would welcome Harry back if he were to return. The king has left the door wide open for him to do that and he was doing such a good job before and he looked so happy, he said. Usually, youre happy when youre doing your duty and youre doing it for other people and youre putting things into life, he added. If youre taking things out of life, at the risk of getting a lot of hate mail, I personally think that he looks like hes petrified of losing her [Meghan] and looks slightly petrified of her. Are Harry and Meghan willing to reconcile? A recent report has also claimed that Meghan and Harry are ready to try and mend fences with the royal family. An insider told Express.co.uk that Harry would like to leave his past behind, and Meghan would also like to have a conversation with the royals. "Harry is more willing to move on, let's just say that. It's not a case of Meghan being difficult, she genuinely feels hurt and would like some kind of sit down to hash things through - but that's not something the other side is willing to consider at this time, the insider said. Prince Harry's explosive memoir, Spare, may have achieved significant commercial success, but it has also potentially jeopardized his chances to grovel back to the royal family. Prince Harry flew more than 5,000 miles to see his father after King Charles III was diagnosed with cancer. But he did not see his estranged brother, William, during a visit that lasted scarcely 24 hours. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)(AP) A royal expert, Hilary Fordwich, told Fox News Digital, It is widely known within the family that Prince William has laid down an absolute ban on Harry returning in any way, shape or form into his former royal family fold. Prince William is the most unlikely royal to ever forgive Harry: Expert In Spare, the Duke of Sussex portrayed Prince William as difficult, ill-tempered and unaccepting of Meghan Markle. Fordwich claimed, Prince William is the most unlikely royal to ever forgive Harry for all his despicable indiscretions. He is now very much seen and accepted as the family enforcer, taking on the hard-line ruler role of his grandfather, Prince Philip. Since stepping drown from royal duties in 2020, Prince Harry has openly criticized the royal family, accusing them of racism and rigidity. These accusations have created a substantial rift within the family. ALSO READ| Prince Harry and Meghan Markle urgently need to grovel back to Royal Family because Fordwich suggested that while King Charles III might still harbour a desire to reconcile with his son, Prince William remains resolute in his refusal to engage with Harry. If anyone will relent, it would be King Charles III, whom, of course, Prince William wont challenge, who still misses his darling boy and would like to see more of Prince Harry, she explained. Notably, both brothers didn't see each other during Prince Harry's brief visit to the UK in May. However, to this day, after the release of Spare and the Netflix serial, as well as with everything else Harry has said, done, and not done, its Prince William who adamantly refuses to even speak to his brother, if the Sussex's Netflix contract falls through. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle want to grovel back to Royal Family One royal commentator, Kinsey Schofield, told Daily Express US, Harry will inevitably have to apologize to reclaim his proximity to the royal family, alluding the rift between brothers. She also noted, the Sussexes will have to resort to grovelling back to the British royal family. A former royal staffer, Grant Harrold, believes reconciliation is unlikely without a public apology from Harry. The only way I see this happening is a public statement from Harry, where you come out and say that you were in a bad space and that [his memoir Spare] was a mistake, Harrold shared. I dont think thats going to happen, he added. ALSO READ| Prince Harry now deeply regrets this one decision he made Some bad things were said, and some families never patch things up, and thats how it is Harry has got a big heart, and a part of him probably wishes things would be different. Another royal expert, Tom Quinn, while talking with The Mirror UK, shared the same sentiment that the Sussexes already find their new life challenging and the days long and lonely. Russia is treating jailed government critic Vladimir Kara-Murza in a "chilling" and "inhuman" way, a rapporteur with rights body the Council of Europe said Tuesday. Putin critic Kara-Murza's treatment 'inhuman': European watchdog Kara-Murza, 42, serving 25 years for treason and other charges, has said the Russian security services have tried to assassinate him. And concerns were raised for the health of one of President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critics after he was transferred to a prison hospital last week. His wife Evgenia Kara-Murza has said his lawyers were denied access to him for two days and she has had no information on his condition. "It is absolutely unacceptable to deliberately prevent a family from knowing why their loved one is in hospital and what his current state of health is," said Sunna Aevarsdottir, rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's . "I am deeply concerned by this chilling act of inhumanity," Aevarsdottir added, urging the Russian authorities to grant Kara-Murza's lawyers access to him in hospital. She noted that after the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison colony in February, "there are widespread fears that the Russian regime is arranging for its most prominent critics to die behind bars". Kara-Murza campaigned against Putin for years and stayed inside the country to criticise the military offensive in Ukraine even as Moscow passed a raft of anti-dissent and military censorship laws. Hundreds have been prosecuted under the measures and most Russian opposition figures not in jail have fled into exile. The Kremlin critic suffers from a nerve disease after he fell severely ill in 2015 and 2017 in what he says were poisonings orchestrated by Russia's FSB security service. An investigation by several media outlets including Bellingcat, The Insider and Der Spiegel suggested that the FSB was involved in both cases. Kara-Murza's polyneuropathy "severely deteriorated during his detention and imprisonment", Aevarsdottir said. The PACE rapporteur urged Britain and the United States to inquire after Kara-Murza's health and work to secure the release of the Russian-UK dual national. In early May, Kara-Murza won a Pulitzer Prize for his dispatches from his prison cell, which the jury said were written at the risk of his life. The Council of Europe is an international organisation that brings together the 46 signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights. Based in Strasbourg, its various bodies ensure that these rights are applied across the continent. mlx/sbk/jxb This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. PESHAWAR, Pakistan Security forces raided a hideout of the Pakistani Taliban on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar on Wednesday, triggering a shootout that killed four officers and three insurgents, police said. Shootout between Pakistani Taliban and police during raid kills 4 security officials, 3 insurgents A militant commander, Abdul Rahim, was among the insurgents killed in the raid which took place in the town of Mattani, according to a local police officer, Ashfaq Khan. In a statement, the military said Raheem was wanted by the law enforcement agencies, who had offered a reward of 6 million rupees for his capture. The military said Raheem remained actively involved in numerous terrorist activities and was also responsible for the martyrdom of army Captain Hussain Jehangir Shaheed and another soldier in a May attack. It said two policemen and two soldiers were killed in the shooting with the insurgents. There was no immediate comment from the Pakistani Taliban who are known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP and are an ally of the Afghan Taliban. TTP has stepped up its attacks on security forces since the Afghan Taliban seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021. Pakistani officials often accuse Afghanistans Taliban rulers of giving shelter to TTP fighters, a charge Kabul rejects. TTP denies using Afghan soil for attacks in Pakistan. Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. This version corrects the spelling of the name of the place where the attack happened to Mattani. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. By Arathy Somasekhar, Marianna Parraga and Curtis Williams Texas power outages hinder Hurricane Beryl recovery, delay oil infrastructure restarts HOUSTON, - About 1.65 million customers remained without power in the U.S. state of Texas on Wednesday, two days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, as progress to restore electricity was slow the night before, hampering efforts to quickly restart critical oil infrastructure. The storm made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday near the coastal town of Matagorda, about 100 miles from Houston, lashing Texas with heavy winds that knocked down power lines and damaged property. "When you don't have power, when it's pitch black at night, when it's as hot as 80 during the day, and you don't have access to food you normally have, it's a miserable situation," Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick told a press conference on Wednesday in Matagorda. State officials promised as many cooling stations as possible to help citizens without power, hospital beds and a plan to remove debris. President Joe Biden on Tuesday approved a major disaster declaration for Beryl. Reinsurance broker Gallagher Re estimated that U.S. economic losses from Beryl would be at least $1 billion as damage assessments continue. Weather forecasting firm AccuWeather issued a preliminary estimate of $28 billion to $32 billion in U.S. damage and economic loss. About 1.35 million of the 1.65 million people without power are customers of CenterPoint Energy, the state's largest provider. CenterPoint said on Wednesday it had restored power to some 900,000 customers in the previous 24 hours, adding that it remains confident it will restore 1 million customers by the end of the day. In a letter to CenterPoint on Wednesday, congresswoman Sylvia Garcia said the company's inability to restore power more quickly was creating a public health crisis. "Hospitals are now unable to send patients home where they lack power for medical equipment or an appropriately cool environment for their conditions." RESTORING OPERATIONS Freeport LNG, the second largest U.S. liquefied natural gas terminal, was preparing to resume processing by Thursday, two sources close to the matter said, as power was being restored. But LNG exports from the terminal are not expected to restart until the port, which is operating under restrictions, fully reopens for vessel traffic. A spokesperson for Freeport LNG told Reuters the company "intends to resume liquefaction when post-storm assessments are complete and it is safe to do so." Ports along the Texas Gulf Coast, which had shut ahead of the hurricane, continued reopening on Wednesday, some with restrictions. The Port of Freeport said on Wednesday the navigation channel had reopened to vessels with drafts up to 36 feet . The port, which moved its first ship, added that survey would determine when the channel would be cleared for operations without restrictions. "All Port Freeport entrance gates have resumed normal operating hours. Utility crews are on-site making repairs to downed power lines," it said. The Port of Houston said its eight public terminals had resumed operations on Tuesday for vessel operations, and on Wednesday morning returned to normal start times for gate operations. Houston Pilots, which provides services to ships entering or departing the port, moved 14 ships inbound on Tuesday and was expecting 25 inbound and five outbound vessels on Wednesday. At the Port of Galveston, cruise ships began to sail while cargo operations were expected to resume on Wednesday. The port, which maintains draft restrictions for vessels, experienced relatively minor damage and some power outages, said Rodger Rees, Galveston Wharves port director. "Power remains out for areas of the port and the city. Port staff is working closely with the city to get power fully restored," the ports said on a social media update. Refineries and offshore production sites saw limited damage and largely returned to normal operations. Some customers have questioned whether CenterPoint had enough crews in place ahead of the storm. Patrick said on Tuesday that an analysis would be conducted after power is restored. CenterPoint said its crews were positioned where they would be safe when the storm hit and were deployed on Monday, when the landfall site was known, as soon as it was safe to do so. With local stores running out of power generators for sale, many Texans resorted to their trucks to power appliances and small equipment at home. Following power outages from Beryl, a Ford Motor spokesman said the automaker saw a 1300% increase from customers in the Houston region generating at least 1 kilowatt of power with their built-in F-150 pickup truck mobile generators, with people doing so numbering in the hundreds on July 8. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. New Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised Wednesday to keep up Britain's steadfast support for Ukraine and gave his blessing for strikes inside Russia with British missiles as he made his international debut at a NATO summit in Washington. UK PM Starmer vows robust Ukraine support on international debut Starmer's unstinting message of continuity on Ukraine comes as questions grow over Kyiv's most vital partner, the United States, where presidential contender Donald Trump has mused about cutting a quick deal with Russia. Days after his Labour Party swept elections and threw out the Conservatives in power for 14 years, Starmer said he had a "very good" meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of NATO's 75th anniversary summit. "I made it absolutely clear that as far as the UK is concerned, the change of government makes no difference to the support that we will provide," Starmer told reporters. "We'd been united on this when we were in opposition, and it was really important to me to be able to affirm that face to face at the meeting," said Starmer, who already spoke to Zelensky by telephone after entering Downing Street. On his flight to Washington, Starmer said that decisions on the use of British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles were for the Ukrainian armed forces to make. UK military aid is "for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes," he said. Britain under three Conservative prime ministers has been among the staunchest supporters of Ukraine in the war, taking the lead in pushing for more advanced military systems and looser restrictions on Kyiv. US President Joe Biden, who has strongly backed Ukraine but has been careful not to start a direct conflict with Russia, recently made a similar move by letting Ukraine strike Russian offensive positions just across the border with US weapons. Zelensky hailed the decision on the Storm Shadow missiles, writing on Telegram, "Thank you for your continued support of Ukraine and our people!" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Russia will take "appropriate measures" in response to Starmer's decision. "If it is true, it is certainly another absolutely irresponsible step towards fueling tensions and seriously escalating the situation," Peskov told reporters. Starmer will meet later with Biden at the White House, and spoke with other Western leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron. Starmer has taken Labour on a more centrist path than his leftist predecessor and, along with his foreign and defense secretaries, all noted in Washington that Britain helped found NATO in 1949 under Labour prime minister Clement Atlee. Starmer said he hoped the NATO summit would send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the alliance is "bigger now than it's ever been, more united than it's ever been, and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression." A NATO summit in Britain in 2014 set a goal of each ally contributing at least two percent of GDP to defense, a long-running demand of the United States. Only the United States, Britain and Greece then met the target but since the invasion of Ukraine the number has gone up to 23 members of the 32-nation alliance. Britain's new defense secretary, John Healey, called for NATO to consider moving toward a 2.5 percent goal. The growing threats around the world suggest that "all NATO nations are going to need to do more than simply two percent," Healey told reporters. He said, whatever the result of the US election, Washington's priorities are "increasingly going to shift to the Indo-Pacific." "European nations in NATO must do more of the heavy lifting," Healey said. sct-iba/del/nro This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. Washington: The US on Tuesday said that it had been in touch with India about Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Russia and, while keeping the content of the conversation private, reiterated its concerns about Indias relationship with Russia and urged New Delhi to support efforts for an enduring and just peace in Ukraine. US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller. (File) At a regular press briefing on Tuesday, when asked about Modis visit, his hug with Russian President Vladimir Putin and India-Russia agreements, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, We have been quite clear about our concerns about Indias relationship with Russia. We have expressed those privately, directly to the Indian Government and continue to do so, and that hasnt changed. Asked if these concerns had been conveyed in the preceding 24 hours, Miller answered in the affirmative. We have had conversations with them in the past 24 hours, and I think I will keep the contents of those private. On the impact of Modis visit on the war in Ukraine and peace efforts, Miller reiterated that the US had continued to urge India to support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace in Ukraine based on the principles of the UN Charter, based on upholding Ukraines territorial integrity and its sovereignty. India has consistently, in all its statements, supported these principles and called for diplomacy and dialogue to end the war in Ukraine. Modi, in Moscow, reiterated the importance of dialogue and expressed his pain at the violence and suffering the war had caused. Millers statement was essentially a reiteration of what he had said on Monday about Modis visit to Moscow, American concerns about Indias ties with Russia and need for peace in Ukraine based on principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. He had also said, India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in a full and frank dialogue, and that includes on our concerns about the relationship with Russia. When the war in Ukraine began in 2022, there was tremendous US pressure on India to take a stronger position against Russia, including at the United Nations. But over the past two years, American officials have told HT that while they would like India to speak out against Russian aggression, they recognise Indias constraints and imperatives, including its military dependence on Moscow and need to import cheap oil that has also helped moderate global oil prices. Indian officials, in conversations with their US counterparts, have also explained the logic of engaging with Moscow in order to prevent Russia from turning completely towards China. Senior American officials have even been positive about this engagement in private, according to two people familiar with the diplomatic conversations, and see New Delhi as a channel with Moscow and possible moderating voice. Bill Burns, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, even gave credit to India, among others, for warning Russia not to engage in nuclear sabre-rattling back in 2022. The fact that Indias ties with Russia havent been a dealbreaker in India-US ties is clearly reflected in the high-level visits from both sides as well as the deepening strategic, technology, military, and economic ties between the two countries. But the timing of Modis visit, coinciding with NATOs 75th anniversary summit in Washington, has raised concerns in Washington. A person familiar with the mood in the administration said, There is mild annoyance. It didnt have to be Modis first bilateral visit. And it didnt have to be now. A second person familiar with the mood in the US Congress on Capitol Hill said, It doesnt materially change the mood. Among Democrats, those who are skeptical of India have found one more reason to be even more skeptical, while friends of India think of Modis visit as jarring but wont raise it publicly. And among Republicans, half the party wants to do a deal with Russia itself. So they wont have much to say. Asked about the visit, Sameer Lalwani, a scholar at the US Institute of Peace who closely tracks Indias engagement with both US and Russia, said that there was an understanding within the US National Security Council that Delhis ties with Moscow was driven partly by self-preservation, partly by self-interest, but also by a strategic calculus focused on China. For India, self-preservation, Lalwani said, meant maintaining access to supplies, spares, and technician support to sustain its vast stock of Russian weapons. Self-interest was clearest in the energy domain and was evident in spike in import of oil. And the strategic calculus was based both on a geopolitical strategy of fostering multipolarity as well as a theory of preventing Russia from becoming a satellite of China, Lalwani said. Implicit in that though is an assumption that there is still daylight between Russia and China that can be shaped by India and that is probably an area where US analysts diverge. This divergence in analysis, he warned, could pose real limits in the future to India-US defence and tech cooperation, especially if US thinks that India-Russia closeness can result in infiltration, espionage and leakage and intelligence or tech can make its way to China. But in the context of the current visit, Lalwani said, I think its unfortunate timing, more for Modi, but since the signed agreements look to be mostly trade, investment, and research related, I am not sure it changes much for the US assessment of the relationship. Drowned in domestic political troubles in an election year, and confronting multiple global crises including Chinas aggression vis a vis Philippines, Israels continued war in Gaza, and Russias gains in Ukraine for American policymakers, for now, Modis Moscow sojourn is a matter of concern but may not be a matter of urgent priority and the visits outcomes do not fundamentally alter their approach to India. By Andrew Hay Alec Baldwin manslaughter trial revolves around Wild West gun SANTA FE, New Mexico, - The inner workings of a Colt .45 "Peacemaker" revolver, a symbol of the American Wild West, have become the focus of Alec Baldwin's trial for the 2021 fatal shooting of "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a New Mexico movie set. Baldwin and his wife Hilaria Baldwin were among those watching in a Santa Fe, New Mexico courtroom on Tuesday as 12 jurors and four alternates - 11 women and 5 men- were chosen. The trial will start on Wednesday, nearly three years after Baldwin pointed his gun at Hutchins as she set up a camera shot inside a movie-set church about 20 miles southwest of Santa Fe. Prosecutors questioned prospective jurors on their knowledge of the case and a defense lawyer asked them if they had seen Baldwin's performances and if that might influence their opinion of the actor. "There's a man who's sitting here who has his day in court now, finally, Alec Baldwin, and so he's obviously not just a person in the media, he's a real person," Baldwin attorney Alex Spiro told potential jurors. Hutchin's 2021 death was Hollywood's first on-set shooting fatality in three decades and momentarily sparked calls to end the widespread use of real firearms on movie sets. It is remarkable in that there is little or no precedent in U.S. history for an actor to face criminal prosecution for an on-set shooting death. The "30 Rock" actor could be imprisoned for up to 18 months if found guilty. In March, "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez, the set employee in charge of firearm safety, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter by a Santa Fe, New Mexico, jury for mistakenly loading a live round into Baldwin's gun. Gutierrez received the maximum 18-month sentence. Legal analysts and firearms specialists had long expected Baldwin's case to hinge on whether he should have inspected the gun after he was told it was "cold," an industry term meaning it was empty or contained inert, dummy rounds. But in a pivotal interview in December 2021, Baldwin told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos he did not pull the trigger. Baldwin, 66, said he cocked the reproduction 1873 Single Action Army pistol before it fired a live round that killed the rising-star cinematographer and wounded director Joel Souza. Santa Fe police set out to test Baldwin's claims. An FBI examination found the gun worked normally and would not fire at full cock without the trigger pulled. State prosecutors filed charges thereafter, alleging Baldwin was lying about the trigger. Baldwin's legal team last year countered with photographic evidence the Italian-made Pietta gun's full-cock notch had been filed down, making it easier to fire. That allowed a mechanical failure or "accidental discharge" without a trigger pull, they said. UPHILL BATTLE Whether the revolver was modified, legal experts see an uphill battle for the prosecution to prove Baldwin knew he could kill Hutchins but showed willful disregard to the risk - a level of criminal negligence required for an involuntary manslaughter conviction. "The gun is probably the best defense, because there is no way to definitively say what the condition of the firearm was," said gun historian Ashley Hlebinsky who is executive director of the University of Wyoming Firearms Research Center. Prosecutors last year dropped charges, convinced the gun was modified. Prosecutors went to a grand jury that reinstated charges in January after an independent firearms expert confirmed findings of the FBI examination. The FBI destroyed the gun during testing. The actor's lawyers said that left them with no way to prove it was modified. Baldwin's best defense may be doubts his lawyers can sow about the workings of the pistol, according to Hlebinsky. "I don't think anyone can say 100% what happened," said the firearms historian, who has acted as an expert in court cases on single action Colt. 45 type revolvers similar to Baldwin's. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. Donald Trump has revealed that his son Barron has "made his choice" of the college he wants to attend. After the 18-year-old graduated from high school in May, there were speculations about the future of his education. Trump previously said that Barron was "very sought after" by colleges. Barron, however, has remained silent. Donald Trump provides update on Barron's college decision(AP) Barron accompanied his father to a rally in Miami on Tuesday, July 9. Introducing Barron to the crowd, Trump said, This is a young man, he just turned 18. A very young man who is now going to college. Got into every college he wanted to and he made his choice. And he's a very good guy, I'll tell you He's a very special guy, Barron Trump. This is the first time he's ever done this." Barron stood up and briefly waved at the crowd, and pumped his fist. Trump then proudly said that Barron is "pretty popular" and "might be more popular" than his other sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. "Barron, it's good to have you," the former president said. "Welcome to the scene, Barron. I don't know. He had such a nice easy life, now it's a little bit changed." Which college could Barron choose? Barrons college choice, however, is still publicly unknown. As per reports, the possibilities include New York University, Georgetown University and the University of Pennsylvania. Trump said in an interview with Megyn Kelly in September 2023 that Barron was "thinking about" attending his fathers educational institution The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Last month, the former president suggested on Fox News Fox & Friends Weekend that Barron had to alter his college search due to "rioting, at a time when several pro-Palestinian protests were being held across university campuses in the US. "Six months ago you look at a college, and you sort of want a certain college," Trump said. "And then you see all of these colleges are rioting and maybe you want to go to a different kind of a college. Because there's plenty of colleges that we also like that are different and they don't riot." ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said on Tuesday, July 9, that he believes Joe Biden will not be able to serve out a second term. This comes days after he conducted an interview with the president following the presidential debate, where Bidens performance against Donald Trump was dubbed a disaster. George Stephanopoulos makes damning prediction about Joe Biden's political future after ABC interview (gstephanopoulos/Instagram, Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg) TMZ recorded Stephanopoulos answering a passer-bys question about the commander in chiefs political future in Midtown Manhattan. Do you think Biden should step down? the anonymous person asked the 63-year-old. Youve talked to him more than anybody else has lately. I dont think he can serve four more years, Stephanopoulos replied, following a pause. You dont think he can serve four more years? the questioner repeated. All right, thats an answer. George Stephanopoulos expresses regret However, hours after the video surfaced, Stephanopoulos told Puck News in a statement that he regrets making the remark. Earlier today I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldnt have, he said. Meanwhile, ABC News said in a statement to the outlet, George expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News. Bidens sitdown with Stephanopoulos raised concerns about the president being fit for office, as did his presidential debate performance. During the interview, Biden was unable to quell concerns about his cognitive fitness to be president, and claimed the errors he made frequently were simply a bad episode. Look, I have a cognitive test every single day, Biden told Stephanopoulos. Every day, Ive had tests. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, Im running the world. And thats not it sounds like hyperbole, but we are the central nation of the world. Talking about calls to drop out of the race, Biden said in the interview, If the Lord Almighty came down and said, Joe, get out of the race, Id get out of the race, but the Lord Almightys not coming down. Prosecutors working on Harvey Weinsteins upcoming retrial informed that more women are willing to testify. This may result in more sexual assault allegations against Harvey right before his retrial scheduled in November. The former film producer will face the retrials in New York for his rape and sexual assault conviction in 2020. Former film producer Harvey Weinstein faces new allegations ahead of retrial in November. (Curtis Means /Pool Photo via AP)(AP) Also Read: Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice are cutting Prince Harry and Meghan Markle off because Harvey Weinstein faces new allegation ahead of his retrial Assistant District Court Attorney, Nicole Blumberg, informed the judge that several women who were not willing to speak up during Harveys 2020 trial are now ready to speak their truth. As reported by Variety, Blumberg said, A number of women came forward to indicate they were raped by the defendant in Manhattan. According to her, there is a "violent" and "trauma-informed" occurrence among the reported incidents that is covered by the statute of limitations. The retrial was assigned after a 4-3 decision was made by New Yorks highest court that the judge associated with Weinstein's case had allowed too many women to testify in his 2020s rape trial. This resulted in the reversal of his 23-year sentence which he was supposed to serve in New York. The prosecution expects a trial in November, however, the defence is trying to push it at the earliest. Also Read: Joe Biden exhibits classic features of neurodegeneration, Parkinsons doctor claims: Not a hard case The defence argues prosecutions intentional delay in the retrial Weinsteins lawyer, Arthur Aidala, blamed the prosecution claiming that it is deliberately dragging the case until November. However, the prosecution denied stalling and said they are working hard to come up with witnesses. Aidala also mentioned the former film producers health issues including heart and lung issues, spinal stenosis, eye problems, and high diabetes levels due to which he was wheelchair ed in his hearing in Los Angeles in 2022. He is still a convict with 16 years of sentence in Los Angels, however, he is staying in New York and refuses to go back for another trial. Also Read: Prince Harry will permanently return to UK one day, but without Meghan Markle, royal expert claims His lawyer in California, Jennifer Bonjean said the jury thought Weinstein was already guilty in New York when they made their decision to which The New York Court of Appeals disagreed and led to the overturned conviction. Judge Jenny Rivera wrote in the jurys majority opinion, We reaffirm that no person accused of illegality may be judged on proof of uncharged crimes that serve only to establish the accuseds propensity for criminal behaviour, wrote Judge Jenny Rivera in the courts majority opinion. It is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behaviour that destroys a defendants character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them. New York-based neurologist Dr. Tom Pitts, who specialises in treating Parkinsons disease, has claimed that Joe Biden exhibits classic features of neurodegeneration. Pitts assessed the president based on his public appearances. Joe Biden exhibits classic features of neurodegeneration, Parkinsons doctor says (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)(AP) I could have diagnosed him from across the mall, Pitts told NBC News Nows Top Story with Tom Llamas. Im a Democrat, its just like this guy is not a hard case, he added. I see him 20 times a day in clinic. Pitts continued, He has the classic features of neurodegeneration, word-finding difficulties, and thats not, Oh, I couldnt find the word, thats from degeneration of the word retrieval area. Pitts further pointed at Bidens shuffling gait so little steps. Loss of arm swing from the rigidityand end-block turning, meaning he kind of pivots around his foot, he added. Pitts said that he could not judge if the commander in chiefs cognitive abilities had diminished as he has never been in the same room with him. The doctor called on both Biden and Donald Trump to take a four-hour neurological test, referring to it as the hallmark test for cognitive performance. Parkinson's experts visits to the White House Concerns arose after Parkinson's expert Dr. Kevin Cannard was seen visiting the White House at least eight times in a span of just eight months. However, Joe Bidens physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor recently clarified that Cannard "was the neurological specialist that examined President Biden for each of his annual physicals." In a letter, OConnor stated that Cannards frequent visits to the White House does not represent examinations of Biden. The doctor, he said, is also responsible for the care of other people in the White House, including many military personnel who experience neurological issues related to their service. Back in February, OConnor said in a letter that Biden was evaluated by a neurologist as part of his annual physical exam, who found no signs of Parkinson's in the president. The report added that Biden, 81, was "fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations." WASHINGTON A member of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayors security detail shot an armed man during an attempted carjacking in the early morning hours, according to court documents. Justice Sonia Sotomayor's security detail shoots man during attempted carjacking, authorities say It happened as two deputy U.S. Marshals were on duty in a government car in Washington, D.C., about 1 a.m. on July 5. They were confronted by a man who got out of a silver minivan and pointed a gun at one of them through the driver's side window, according to a criminal complaint. The car was unmarked but the pair were dressed in U.S. Marshals shirts. The deputy pulled out his department-issued gun and shot the man about four times, hitting him in the mouth. He then gave the man first aid while the minivan drove away, charges state. The suspect was hospitalized and placed under arrest on suspicion of attempted carjacking and resisting officers. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals confirmed the deputies were part of the detail protecting Supreme Court justices. The deputies were stationed near Sotomayor's home. Sotomayor was not directly mentioned in court documents and there is no indication she was the target of the attack. It comes after a string of high-profile carjackings in the nation's capital last year. Other victims included a diplomat from the United Arab Emirates and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas. Secret Service agents protecting President Joe Bidens granddaughter also opened fire after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle last year. No one was struck. The overall number of carjackings is on the decline so far this year, according to police data. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. MrBeast fulfilled the dream what PewDiePie can't. US YouTube personality Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast. (Photo by Michael Tran / AFP)(AFP) Jimmy MrBeast Donaldson has made history as the first YouTuber to touch 300 million subscribers, just over a month after surpassing Indian music label giant T-Series to become the most-subscribed channel on the platform, on July 10, 2024. T-Series outpaced Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie for the 200 million mark. On June 1 MrBeast surpassed T-Series, securing his position as the most-subscribed YouTube channel. Since then, his subscriber count has continued to soar. Donaldson took to X (formerly Twitter) and shared a screenshot of his follower count with a post saying, I remember freaking out when I hit 300 subscribers 11 years ago.. lol. ALSO READ| MrBeast vs T-Series: YouTube star worries subscriber war with Indian music label will become India vs America MrBeast fans flooded Jimmy's comment box with best wishes and congratulations Today, I will bless 50 lucky winners, tell me how much do you need, maximum is $500,000, one use wrote. Another delivered best regards, Youre a real pirate, you never gave up and you kept smashing hard. A true example of what dedication and consistency can lead to. That's life. It is an incredible reminder that nothing is impossible!, an Elon Musk satire page chimed in. Congratulations, MrBeast. Nobody deserves it more than you, one user wished. One heartfelt comment was from a user named BatMan: You should be given a noble prize on these 4 things .. thankyou Mr Beast , to which Jimmy replied, Check out the Beast Philanthropy channel, weve done this stuff way more than 4 times haha. Before hitting the 300 million slab, MrBeast recently made headlines after he said he would run for the US presidency if they lower the age to run. ALSO READ| MrBeast says 'he will run for US Presidency,' but there's one thing holding him back If we lower the age to run for president I'll jump in the race, he posted. If I were president I wouldn't care about party lines, I'd just always truly make the American people my #1 priority. For problems I'm ignorant in I'd have experts from the left and right advise me on them and try to find the middle ground that's best for America. NEW YORK A New York City police recruit died Wednesday after suffering an apparent medical episode at a training facility in the Bronx, just days before he was set to graduate as an officer. NYPD recruit dies following medical episode at Bronx training facility, just days before graduation The 33-year-old, identified as probationary police officer Edgar Ordonez, lost consciousness at 11:30 a.m. while at Rodman's Neck, an operations base used by police for weapons and tactical training, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department said. He was pronounced dead shortly after at a nearby hospital. The death did not involve gunfire, the spokesperson said. Authorities were investigating whether he may have suffered heat stroke or a heart attack. The National Weather Service had issued a heat advisory for the Bronx and other parts of the city on Wednesday, warning the heat index could get as high as 99 F . Our hearts are heavy as we honor our fallen brother, Probationary Police Officer Edgar Ordonez, Police Commissioner Edward Caban said in a statement on X. We tragically lost Edgar earlier today, just a few days before he was set to graduate and join his fellow Finest protecting New York City. The head of the NYC Police Benevolent Association, the NYPDs largest union, described Ordonez as a beacon of joy and positive energy for his fellow recruits. He had the drive and determination necessary to become a New York City police officer, and he was just days away from hitting the streets and making a difference in protecting our city," PBA President Patrick Hendry in a statement posted by the union on X. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. The pier built by the U.S. military to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza will be reinstalled Wednesday to be used for several days, but then the plan is to pull it out permanently, several U.S. officials said. It would deal the final blow to a project long plagued by bad weather, security uncertainties and difficulties getting food into the hands of starving Palestinians. The Latest | US-built Gaza aid pier to reopen for a few days, then be removed permanently Heavy Israeli bombardments pounded Gaza City on Tuesday, driving thousands of Palestinians to flee and forcing medical facilities to shut down because of the latest offensive in the territorys north. And in southern Gaza, an apparent Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter killed at least 25 people and wounded dozens more, Palestinian health officials said. Hamas has warned that Israels expanding military operations in Gaza City and the displacement of thousands of residents could have disastrous repercussions for talks aimed at a cease-fire and the release of Israeli hostages. Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people mostly civilians and abducted about 250. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the territorys Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has caused massive devastation across the besieged territory and displaced most of its 2.3 million people, often multiple times. Israeli restrictions, fighting and the breakdown of law and order have curtailed humanitarian aid efforts, causing widespread hunger and sparking fears of famine. The top United Nations court has ordered Israel to take steps to protect the Palestinians as it examines genocide allegations against Israeli leaders. Israel strongly denies the charge. Currently: Keys become a link to home for Palestinian families in Gaza displaced repeatedly by Israel. Heavy Israeli bombardment in Gaza City forces medical facilities to close as thousands flee. A suspected attack by Yemens Houthi rebels targets a ship in the Gulf of Aden. Australia appoints special envoy to confront a rise in antisemitism across the country. Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza City as Hamas warns that escalation threatens cease-fire talks. Rafah is a dusty, rubble-strewn ghost town two months after Israel invaded to root out Hamas. Follow s coverage of the war in Gaza at /hub/israel-hamas-war. Heres the latest: US-built pier will be put back in Gaza for several days to move aid, then permanently removed WASHINGTON Several U.S. officials say the pier built by the American military to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza will be reinstalled on the beach to be used for several days, but then the plan is to pull it out permanently. This would deal the final blow to a project long plagued by bad weather, security uncertainties and difficulties getting food into the hands of starving Palestinians. The officials said Tuesday that the goal is to clear whatever aid has piled up and get it to the secure area on the beach. Once that has been done, the Army will dismantle the pier and depart. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because final details are still being worked out. The Pentagon said all along that the pier was only a temporary project, designed to prod Israel into opening and allowing aid to flow better through land routes which are far more productive than the U.S.-led sea route. U.S. troops removed the pier on June 28 because of bad weather and moved it to the port of Ashdod in Israel. Israeli airstrike on a school kills at least 25 people, Palestinian health officials say DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip An apparent Israeli airstrike at the entrance of a school where displaced people were sheltering killed at least 25 people and wounded dozens more, according to an Associated Press reporter who counted the bodies at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Hospital spokesperson Weam Fares said the dead included at least seven women and children and that the toll was likely to rise. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Earlier airstrikes in central Gaza killed at least 14 people, including a woman and four children, according to two hospitals that received the bodies. Israel has repeatedly struck what it says are militant targets across Gaza since the start of the war nine months ago. Israeli forces kill a 13-year-old boy in the West Bank and launch a new raid into a refugee camp RAMALLAH, West Bank Palestinian officials say Israeli forces shot and killed a 13-year-old boy in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli army said it opened fire at a group of Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli vehicles. Separately, Israeli forces launched another raid into the Nur Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarem in the West Bank, demolishing several buildings and making a number of arrests. Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, with over 570 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the occupied territory. Thats according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which confirmed the killing of the 13-year-old Ghassan Gharib Zahran in the village of Deir Abu Mashal, northwest of Ramallah. Nur Shams, a built-up refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israels creation, has emerged as a militant bastion in recent months, with frequent Israeli raids triggering deadly gunbattles. During the raid Monday, residents say army bulldozers demolished a shop and some residential homes. The army said the buildings were being used by militants. Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for a future state. An Israeli strike in Syria kills a former bodyguard of Lebanons Hezbollah leader BEIRUT An Israeli strike in Syria on Tuesday killed a former personal bodyguard of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, an official with the Lebanese militant group said. The news came hours after an Israeli drone strike on a car in Syria near the Syria-Lebanon border was reported by a war monitor and by pro-government radio Sham FM. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Later Tuesday, Hezbollah announced that in retaliation for the killing, it fired tens of Katyusha rockets targeting a military base in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Britain-based pro-opposition war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two members of Hezbollah in the car were killed in the strike, while a Syrian driver was critically wounded. There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or from the Israeli military. Hezbollah later identified the militant as Yasser Nemr Qranbish, although they did not disclose the details of his death. Thats standard practice for Hezbollah combatants who arent in leadership roles. Hezbollah supporters on social media mourned his death, calling him the shield of the Sayyed, in reference to his tenure as a bodyguard for Nasrallah. For years, Israel has frequently launched strikes on targets in Syria linked to Iran, its powerful regional backer, but rarely acknowledges them. The strikes have escalated over the past five months against the backdrop of the war in Gaza and ongoing clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border. Heavy Israeli bombardment in Gaza City forces medical facilities to close as thousands flee DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip Israeli forces were advancing deeper into the Gaza Strips largest city on Tuesday in pursuit of militants who have regrouped there. Israeli troops are again battling militants in areas that the army said had been largely cleared months ago in northern Gaza. The military ordered evacuations ahead of the raids, but Palestinians say nowhere feels safe. The fighting has been intense, said Hakeem Abdel-Bar, who fled Gaza Citys Tuffah district to the homes of relatives in another part of the city. He said Israeli warplanes and drones were striking anything moving and that tanks had moved into central districts. There was no immediate word on casualties. Families whose relatives were wounded or trapped were calling for ambulances, but first responders could not reach most of the affected districts because of the Israeli operations, said Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent. After Israel on Monday called for an evacuation from eastern and central parts of Gaza City, staff at two hospitals Al-Ahli and the Patients Friends Association Hospital rushed to move out patients and shut down, the United Nations said. Farsakh said all three medical points run by the Red Crescent in Gaza City had closed. The Israeli military on Tuesday said it had told hospitals and other medical facilities in Gaza City that they did not need to evacuate. But hospitals in Gaza have often shut down and moved patients at any sign of possible Israeli military action, fearing raids. Only 13 of Gazas 36 hospitals are functioning, and those only partially, according to the U.N.s humanitarian office. Much of Gaza City and urban areas around it have been flattened or left a shattered landscape after nine months of fighting. Much of the population fled earlier in the war, but several hundred thousand Palestinians remain in the north. Hamas has warned that the latest raids and displacement in Gaza City could lead to the collapse of long-running negotiations over a cease-fire and hostage release. Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes in the central town of Deir al-Balah and nearby refugee camps on Tuesday killed at least 14 people, including four children and a woman, according to officials at al-Aqsa Martyrs and al-Awda hospitals, where casualties were taken. One of the strikes hit a police station in an outdoor market in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing four people and wounding two dozen, half of them women and children. At a hospital, a little boy cried, coughed and wiped his eyes as medics treated him on the crowded floor. Pope begs for new peace efforts after latest attacks in Ukraine and Gaza VATICAN CITY Pope Francis is appealing for concrete new measures to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The appeal came after attacks targeted a childrens hospital in Kyiv and a school in Gaza. The Vatican press office issued a statement Tuesday expressing Francis pain over the new attacks and his profound upset at the spiraling of violence. Francis has frequently asked for prayers for the martyred people of Ukraine but tends to keep his appeals generic. He has also tended to take a balanced line toward the war in Gaza, frequently mentioning Israel and the hostages still held by Hamas alongside the suffering of Palestinians. A suspected attack by Yemens Houthi rebels targets a ship in the Gulf of Aden DUBAI, United Arab Emirates A suspected attack by Yemens Houthi rebels has targeted a ship in the Gulf of Aden. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center says the captain of the ship reported an explosion in close proximity to the vessel off the coast of Nishtun, Yemen, close to the countrys border with Oman. The ship and crew are safe. The center did not elaborate on what caused the explosion. The Houthis have been known to use drones and missiles as well as bomb-carrying drone boats. The rebels have targeted more than 60 vessels and killed four sailors in their attacks. Theyve also seized one vessel and sunk two since November. An Israel strike hits Syria overnight DAMASCUS, Syria An Israeli strike overnight hit near the Syrian town of Baniyas, state media reported Tuesday. The strike shortly after midnight caused material losses, Syrian state news agency SANA said, citing an unidentified military official. It did not say if there were any casualties, nor give further details. There was no immediate statement from Israeli officials. Israel frequently launches strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria but rarely acknowledges them. The strikes have escalated over the past nine months against the backdrop of the war in Gaza and ongoing clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border. UN details the effects of the new Israeli offensive into Gaza City UNITED NATIONS The United Nations said Monday that Israels latest evacuation orders for parts of Gaza City affect more than 60 schools sheltering displaced Palestinians, as well as two partially functional hospitals, six medical points and two primary health care centers. The evacuation orders came as Israeli deepens its offensives in pursuit of militants who had regrouped in the heavily damaged city. Thousands of Palestinians have fled in recent days. Humanitarian officials report that staff and patients have left hospitals in and around the evacuation areas, and people who were already displaced are being forced to flee again, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The U.N. humanitarian office also reports that active hostilities, damaged roads, access limitations and the lack of public order and safety continue to hamper movement along the main humanitarian cargo route from the Kerem Shalom crossing to Khan Younis, and then to Deir al-Balah, Dujarric said. He said this has resulted in critical food shortages, reduced food rations in central and southern Gaza last month, and the increasing risk of stranded supplies, especially food, spoiling in the heat. Maysa Saleh, the Norwegian Refugee Councils education officer in Deir al-Balah, said in a statement that almost no aid has arrived over the last week or so, and food remains the number one worry. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. By Gram Slattery Trump foreign policy adviser meets with European officials attending NATO summit WASHINGTON, - Several high-ranking European officials have met with a top foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump during the ongoing NATO summit in Washington this week, as America's allies gird for the possible reelection of the former president. Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who served as the chief of staff to Trump's National Security Council, told Reuters he has met several European officials in recent days, including foreign ministers. He did not disclose the identities of those foreign officials nor what was discussed during those talks. Kellogg, who is in regular contact with Trump, has emphasized that he does not speak for the former president nor his campaign. Still, European officials are hungry for any information they can glean about Trump's foreign policy in the event he beats Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election. In recent months, foreign diplomats have regularly met with officials from Trump's 2017-2021 administration. Among the main concerns in European capitals is how Trump will handle the war in Ukraine and America's relationship with NATO. The former president and his allies have expressed skepticism about sending more aid to Ukraine, and Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO countries for spending too little on defense. A disastrous debate performance last month by Biden appears to have boosted Trump's odds. The former president is leading Biden by 2.1 percentage points nationally, according to a polling average maintained by website FiveThirtyEight, while Biden had a slight lead ahead of the debate. While Kellogg did not disclose whom he met with, he posted an image on X on Monday of what he described as an "informal discussion" with Ukrainian Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk. In June, Reuters reported that Kellogg and another Trump adviser had presented the former president with a plan to end the Ukraine war in part by conditioning any future aid to Kyiv on Ukraine's leaders agreeing to sit down for peace talks with Moscow. Three other former Trump foreign policy officials told Reuters they had been approached by European delegations about meeting during the NATO summit, though those meetings did not take place, mainly for logistical reasons. Those officials requested anonymity to discuss private discussions. Separately, North Macedonian Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski met with Richard Grenell, a former acting director of National Intelligence under Trump, according to a picture Mickoski posted on Facebook on Monday. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. The White House said Tuesday that nothing has changed since President Joe Biden's physician said he was "fit for duty" in February and that it was time to "turn the page" on questions about his mental fitness. The assertions came a day after a sixth Democratic House member publicly called on Biden to drop his reelection bid and top Democratic strategist James Carville said it was "only a matter of time" before that happened. During an afternoon news conference, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked whether presidential physician Kevin O'Connor's Feb. 28 assessment that Biden was "fit for duty" remained accurate in light of his admittedly poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump last month. "It's still accurate," she said. "No exemptions, no accommodations." Jean-Pierre also said there's a "long list of congressional members who have been very clear in support of this president" and noted that Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York said the Congressional Black Caucus was "united" behind Biden after a virtual meeting with him Monday night. When asked about other influential Democrats, including Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Dick Durbin of Illinois, who continued to harbor concerns over the debate, Jean-Pierre said, "Look, we respect people's opinion" before adding, "We do want to turn the page." "We want to get to the other side of this. We want to continue doing the work and that's what the president is going to do," she said. Her remarks came after Rep. Adam Smith of Washington on Monday acknowledged that he said during a Sunday conference call with Democratic leaders that he wanted Biden to quit his campaign. "The president's performance in the debate was alarming to watch and the American people have made it clear they no longer see him as a credible candidate to serve four more years as president," Smith said in a statement. Three other Democratic House members also privately voiced similar opinions during the conference call, according to the Washington Post, in addition to five who've done so publicly. Carville's Monday prediction in the New York Times that Biden would be forced from the race came a day after another top Democratic strategist, David Axelrod, said Biden seemed "dangerously out of touch" and would "likely lose in a landslide" if he didn't drop out. Following the discovery of three murdered women in his England home, a manhunt for a crossbow-wielding suspect has begun. The three women have been identified as the wife and two daughters of a BBC journalist, according to CNN. The victims were identified as the wife, Carol Hunt, 61, and two daughters, ages 28 and 25, of BBC racing commentator John Hunt. A press statement released on Wednesday stated that Herfordshire Police are searching for 26-year-old Kyle Clifford in connection with the incident after being called to a property in Bushy shortly before 7:00 on July 9. Officers attended alongside colleagues from the East of England Ambulance Service and, on arrival, found the three women with serious injuries who later died from their wounds. Authorities do believe the murders were a "targeted incident," according to CNN. In a post shared on X, police revealed the suspect, Clifford, "may be in possession of a crossbow" and warned the public not to approach him. British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said she is being kept "fully updated" by police on the ongoing manhunt. "I am being kept fully updated. I urge people to support Hertfordshire Police with any information about this case," she added. Detective Superintendent Rob Hall from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit also expressed: "This is an incredibly difficult incident for the victims' family, and we would ask that their privacy be respected as they come to terms with what has happened." Hall added that they are still in the early stages of the investigation and are actively looking for Kyle Clifford, who is believed to be in the areas of Herfordshire or North London. "Our inquiries will continue over the coming days to ascertain the full circumstances of what happened," Hall continued, before asking anyone who was in the area prior to the occurrence if they had seen anything that could potentially help their case, according to PEOPLE. As an Alabama killer's impending execution looms, he's made peace with his fate barring one final request: no autopsy after he's put to death. In a lawsuit filed last month citing 64-year-old Keith Edmund Gavin's Muslim faith, lawyers for the death row inmate argued his religion "teaches that the human body is a sacred temple, which must be kept whole. As a result, Mr. Gavin sincerely believes that an autopsy would desecrate his body and violate the sanctity of keeping his human body intact. Based on his faith, Mr. Gavin is fiercely opposed to an autopsy being performed on his body after his execution," according to AL.com. Gavin's lawyers filed the suit in Montgomery Circuit Court after they alleged they were unable "to reach a resolution regarding the handling of his remains" with state officials. He "does not anticipate any further appeals or requests for stays of his execution" and the lawsuit is not an attempt to spare his life, court documents state, the outlet reported. "After Mr. Gavin's execution, there will be no question as to who or what caused Mr. Gavin's death. The State will execute him by lethal injection." The Alabama Attorney General's Office said it's "working towards a resolution" for Gavin's request. Gavin is scheduled to die by lethal injection July 18 for the 1998 fatal shooting of William Clayton Jr., a delivery driver who stopped at an ATM to pull out money in Cherokee County, Alabama, while on his way home to his wife, the Associated Press and the Alabama Reflector reported. At the time of the killing, Gavin was granted parole a few months prior after serving 17 years for a separate murder charge in Illinois. George Clooney has officially joined the growing list of celebrities demanding that Joe Biden bow out of the presidential race. Though a lifelong Democrat, Clooney is firmly stating that Biden must step down from the 2024 race following his calamitous debate and highly publicized concern over whether he's even able to serve four more years. The famous actor, who has hosted fundraisers for the 81-year-old, said Biden can't win the "battle against time" in a scathing op-ed for the New York Times on Wednesday morning. Democratic party leaders were also condemned for ignoring every warning sign of Biden's accelerating decline in physical and mental health. He added that Democrat voters are collectively holding their breath, going as far as "turning down the volume whenever they see the president." Biden, however, said he's not going anywhere and that come November, he will beat Trump, but Clooney's comments are a massive blow to his already weakening campaign. Clooney went on to say that he loves Biden-as a senator, as a vice president, and as president-and also considers him a friend. "But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe "big F-ing deal" Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate," he declared. The actor has become very well-known amongst the Democratic Party, having raised millions for its candidates. Considered an influential voice in American politics, his retracted endorsement of Biden could potentially hurt Democrats in terms of funding. Clooney still held a fundraiser earlier this year alongside Julia Roberts and former President Barack Obama in support of Biden that ultimately helped raise $30 million for the president's campaign. However, a video of Biden and Obama waving and smiling while receiving a standing ovation took an unfortunate turn when Biden suddenly halted, staring aimlessly into the crowd for several long seconds. Obama then gently took Biden by the wrist, gave him a slight tug and snapped the president out of his trance. The White House called the video a "fake," according to The Daily Mail. Clooney is petitioning for a new nominee that he says should be picked at the Democratic National Convention on August 19th through August 22nd in Chicago. "Let's hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others," he said, naming several governors and the vice president as viable candidates. Biden, for his part, sent a letter to all Democratic lawmakers on Monday, announcing his decision to remain in the race. The man accused of killing a BBC presenter's family in a deadly crossbow attack previously served in the British Army, reports say. Before Kyle Clifford, 26, was accused in the Tuesday triple slaying of network racing commentator John Hunt's wife, Carol Hunt, 61, and their two daughters, Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25, he did a brief stint in the UK armed forces in 2022, according to The Independent. It's unclear what led to his discharge. Clifford was taken into custody Wednesday without incident in a cemetery in Enfield, England, following a massive manhunt, authorities confirmed. "This continues to be an incredibly difficult time for the victims' family and we would ask that their privacy is respected as they come to terms with what has happened," Hertfordshire police said, announcing Clifford's capture. It's believed the suspect knew the victims, however a specific relationship and motive remains under investigation. In a statement to staff, the BBC described the deaths of Hunt's wife and daughters as "utterly devastating." "Our thoughts are with John and his family at this incredibly difficult time and we will provide him with all the support we can," the network wrote in part, according to CNN. A protester confronted noted Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro following congressional testimony on Wednesday, asking, "How does it feel to be the poison of the American public?" in a recorded video. The woman accused Shapiro of perpetuating racism, white supremacy, and what some of called a genocide that is being carried out on the Palestinian people. "How does it feel to stand for Hamas? Does that feel good to you?" adding, "Do you feel good standing in solidarity with a terrorist group that has murdered 1,200 Jews and keeps people in tunnels," the 40-year-old vocal supporter of Israel fired back. "I feel good standing with Palestinians who have been murdered by Israel with US-paid tax dollars and bonds while you continue to fuel hate," said one woman. "Your rhetoric is poisoning American society," the protester shouted back. "Hamas should not start a war on behalf of its citizens and then shoot its own citizens and you stand for it makes you a disgrace to human dignity and human rights", Shapiro responded. Shapiro turned to walk away once more accusing the group of supporting Hamas following the events of October 7 as the protester continued to speak about the blood-soaked hands that pervade members of Congress and everyone who watched Shapiro's 'propaganda'. Ben Shapiro gets put in his place. You are a poison to American society pic.twitter.com/ZMFluEs2q2 ADAM (@AdameMedia) July 10, 2024 Shapiro's congressional testimony had fireworks of its own when he squared up with the Democratic representative from California, Eric Swalwell. While Shapiro was there to testify about an alleged conspiracy waged by the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) to silence conservative media outlets, such as his own Daily Wire, Swalwell took Shapiro to task on the question of the oft-discussed Project 2025. "Mr. Shapiro, thank you for joining us today. I think it is important that you're here as one of the leading conservative voices in the country," Swalwell began. Shapiro replied, "I think like President Trump, I haven't looked all that deeply into Project 2025. But it seems that Democrats on this committee think that - sort of like Peter Pan and Tinkerbell - if they say Project 2025 enough, their presidential candidate becomes alive again." Authorities arrested New York Times bestselling author Brendan DuBois on child porn charges. DuBois, 61, stands accused of six counts of possession of child porn, said police in Exeter, New Hampshire, Seacoast Online reported. Detectives in New Hampshire and Massachusetts assisted in the investigation. The author turned himself in on an arrest warrant Wednesday. He is scheduled to appear in court Thursday. The Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce initiated the investigation into DuBois, and a search warrant resulted in his arrest, said police, according to the outlet. DuBois recently collaborated with popular fiction writer James Patterson on The First Lady and The Cornwalls Are Gone. Richardson, Texas Visual Matrix, a leading provider of advanced technology solutions for the hospitality industry, is proud to welcome the number one travel marketing platform, Sojern, as a key integration partner. The collaboration further expands the advanced capabilities of the company's popular property management system (PMS) by offering hoteliers a cutting-edge integration for streamlining their operations, elevating guest experiences, and increasing direct bookings. We are excited to partner with Sojern to bring their suite of guest experience solutions to our community of branded and independent hoteliers. This is a great addition to our integrated Visual Matrix Hospitality Operating Platform. Patty Jefferson, Chief Development Officer at Visual Matrix Hoteliers using the Visual Matrix PMS can now leverage Sojern's easy-to-use marketing platform to cost-effectively find, attract, convert, and engage with guests in the right moments of their travel buying journey, ultimately inspiring them to book directly with the hotels. Hoteliers will also be able to give their guests a virtual concierge on their phones. Guests can provide feedback in real time to the hotel and get any issues resolved instantly, improving their experience without having to call the front desk. The real-time data gives hotels the ability to provide personalized service and ensure a frictionless experience that guests want. Baskar Manivannan, Vice President, Guest Experience Solutions, Sojern recently spoke with Visual Matrix about the importance of AI and how it will optimize and continue to automate many areas of hotel operations. You can view the interview with Manivannan here. Partnering with VisualMatrix, Sojern provides unmatched traveler insights, AI-powered audience targeting, and multichannel digital marketing, all in one platform designed to maximize TRevPAR for hotels. Using Sojern's Guest Experience Solutions, hotels can see a 60-80% reduction in front desk phone calls, eliminate many negative guest reviews, increase Net Promoter Score, drive direct bookings and ancillary revenue. This robust platform combines innovative technology with expert support, driving growth, profitability, and exceptional guest experiences. Baskar Manivannan, Vice President, Guest Experience Solutions, Sojern Visit here to learn more about the new partnership and the capabilities the Sojern integration adds to the Visual Matrix PMS toolbox. About Sojern Sojern is a leading travel marketing platform designed to boost growth and profitability for the travel industry. The Sojern Travel Marketing Platform is a set of easy-to-use software and services that delivers unrivaled traveler insight, intelligent audiences, multichannel activation, and optimization, and a connected guest experienceall in one place. More than 10,000 travel marketers rely on our platform annually to find, attract, convert and engage travelers. Founded in 2007, Sojern is headquartered in San Francisco, California with teams in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. PRESS CONTACTS Global: Teesta Raha - [email protected] More than 3,000 properties in 30+ countries worldwide choose the Visual Matrix hospitality operating platform to optimize hotel operations and serve guests from reservation to return stay. Our system includes a game-changing PMS and housekeeping & maintenance app (MOP) for use with Visual Matrix and most other PMS systems. Our PMS offers powerful features and key integrations that are easy to use, like revenue management with automated rate/discount tiering, a fully integrated channel manager, and a mobile app for tracking performance on the go. MOP automates routine tasks and streamlines communication to keep the front desk, housekeeping, and maintenance staff focused on guests. It also includes a built-in panic button as an Emergency Safety Device to help keep hotel staff from harm. For more information, visit visualmatrix.com. Kristin Herring CMO View source Hotels have worked with third parties such as airlines, travel agents, online travel agents (OTAs) and the Global Distribution System (GDS) for decades. The dynamic landscape of hotel distribution offers numerous opportunities for hotels to maximise their market presence and profitability. By leveraging a diverse array of distribution channels, hotels can tap into different market segments and geographical regions, increasing visibility to attract high value customers which unlocks opportunities for upsell, therefore increasing the revenue potential. Strategic distribution means hotels can minimise the impact of seasonal fluctuations while accessing real-time market data to inform pricing strategies swiftly, ensuring competitive advantage. To effectively manage online distribution, Channel Managers are pivotal tools that streamline the management of third party channels, ensuring price consistency and real-time room availability. Hotel distribution is a multifaceted domain which presents significant opportunities for growth and revenue optimisation and remains underutilised by the industry. We look at where hotels can review distribution strategies to maximise market potential. Myth 1: Hoteliers must adhere to rate parity FACT: Firstly, this all depends on the contract in place with your third party travel sales platforms. The strong-hold that OTAs have had on rate management may well be changing, particularly following the European Commission's ruling that Booking.com is a gatekeeper - meaning that OTAs cannot impose rate parity conditions in its T&Cs. DACH hoteliers are exploring the opportunities of pricing to drive direct bookings with this new ruling - and while this is yet to affect the UK, we expect a similar judgement to be recognised before too long. However - based on the experience in France where rate parity has been disregarded since 2014 - it could in fact lead to a loss of direct business. Removing the rate parity clause is not going to change customers behaviour. Booking.com will continue spending big on marketing, attracting more and more bookers. For hoteliers to succeed, its essential they have the right revenue management strategy and supportive technology to push their rates and availability to the right platforms (like metasearch and Google) while offering a seamless booking process, including payment, to prevent basket abandonment. Businesses that rest on their laurels and do not keep up with changing trends and digital booking expectations will inevitably lose direct business to third parties that are constantly investing in the UX. Myth 2: Hotels lose revenue from OTA bookings FACT: Third parties charge high commissions to cover the cost of marketing and provide access to their audiences and source markets - which are often out of reach for the budgets of independent hotels and small portfolios. While the OTA owns the customer in the first instance, hotels can put in place systems to win over the customer and earn more revenue from each guests stay. Currently, OTAs are unable to sell hotel packages, but with direct connectivity between distribution channels and the PMS hotels can improve rate and availability control - ensuring they implement strategic pricing while automatically receiving reservation details. Where hotels capture guest contact data they can offer a wide array of services before or upon arrival to offer upsell opportunities. By utilising a guest portal, hotels can present OTA bookings with additional services such as table reservations or make special requests. Once the hotel has directly received the guest contact details, hotels own the customer and can improve revenue through future campaigns or ancillaries without bearing the cost of OTA commissions. Furthermore, by receiving the reservations Virtual Credit Card (VCC) details in the PMS, hotels can streamline the payment process, improving operational efficiency and guest satisfaction. Myth 3: Distribution is an inflexible, administrative nightmare FACT: By broadening the distribution mix hotels capture a wider market share, targeting specific audience profiles and engaging with niche audiences. In utilising a channel manager, room rates and availability can be automatically updated in real-time reducing the huge administrative burden of managing and updating multiple channels manually. Working with a channel manager thats fully integrated into your PMS gives the flexibility to switch on channels as and when theyre required. Once an agreement is in place with a third party, its up to the hotel when to use them. Specific channels can be selected to drive certain types of audiences at specific times - offering complete flexibility throughout the year for the distribution channel strategy. By working with your third party channel account managers, you can ensure opportunity and visibility is maximised to secure guests. Theres no need to commit to a level of availability with any channel, and by ensuring the hotels direct channel is competitively priced theres less likelihood of losing control of dates and missing out on bookings. Remember to thoroughly read all contracts and agreements with third parties before agreeing to them and ensure they do not limit the hotels distribution possibilities. Myth 4: Only Expedia and Booking.com are worth it. Niche channels and Airbnb are just a novelty FACT: The target audience is more important than the booking source. To improve revenue, its important to know the profile of a hotels most valuable guests and continually market to this audience across the right channels. Going beyond Expedia and Booking.com with a broader channel mix, hotels can be sure not to leave money on the table. New channels like Airbnb are surging in popularity among accommodation providers - and even for hotels as the platform opens booking opportunities for a wider range of businesses. While an OTAs brand is a strong draw for booking confidence and deliver volume, niche and specialist channels provide access to a highly targeted audience through which the hotel brand can build an affinity with guests by tapping into their particular interests and expectations. The more a hotel embodies lifestyle within its brand, the wider the opportunities to not just secure the right guest but also build an audience of returning guests which will significantly reduce the cost of future sales. Myth 5: Metasearch is only for big hotel players and OTAs FACT: Metasearch has evolved massively in recent years and is often a travellers first booking stop - ahead of OTAs. Metasearch presents room rates across different hotels and channels to allow consumers to compare prices. Once the playground of OTAs, airlines and large international hotel brands, metasearch is open to all hotels, providing a powerful price comparison to help drive direct hotel bookings. Myth 6: Distribution lacks transparency FACT: Working with intelligent channel managers, like Guestlines Distribution Hub, provides hotels with insightful reports to measure key performance metrics and understand how each selected channel is performing. The more granular the data, fully integrated into the existing tech stack, the greater the insights to understand the cost of sale - especially during demand peaks - and where the bookings derive from. The more information available relating to channel performance, the more hotels can leverage these insights to agree new contracts with third parties, attract higher value guests, and adjust the number of channels it is working with. Making partners count Distribution partners offer a wide range of benefits, from supplying bookings when demand is low, to targeting specific audiences to either enter new markets or test new products, offers and propositions. The better the relationships with OTAs and sales partners, the more hotels benefit from additional visibility and promotions. However, its essential to ensure availability and rates are accurate at all times, to prevent overbooking, or under- or over-pricing products. Plus, by sharing accurate rates directly as they are on third-party channels you can encourage more guests to book direct. With the adoption of a revenue management system (RMS), hotels can improve pricing strategies across distribution channels to maximise rates across each and every channel. Hotels are unlocking time to focus on strategic revenue opportunities by either using automated price management or partially supported pricing mechanisms to respond to market changes to maintain competitiveness. By working with Guestline, hotels can ensure the distribution is fully integrated into the PMS for a seamless flow of data providing real time updates to all channels, including the hotels own booking engine. This integration will constantly optimise a diverse distribution mix, allowing hotels to manage a constant stream of revenue from third parties while identifying ways to reduce the cost of sale. Sophie Cartwright Marketing & Communications Manager 01743 282300 NEW YORK - Travel + Leisure reveals the winners of its highly anticipated 2024 World's Best Awards, highlighting the best travel destinations and organizations across the globe. In its 29th year, the 2024 World's Best survey results showcase the dynamic nature of the global travel landscape, highlighting emerging trends and destinations that are resonating with today's travelers. The complete list of award winners is available now on TravelandLeisure.com and in the August issue of Travel + Leisure, on newsstands July 19. Spanning 125 category lists, this year's survey results showcase a range of surprises and milestones, including the emergence of a new top domestic airline JSX, iGA Istanbul Airport claiming the top spot for Best International Airport, and Singapore Airlines returning to the top position in the Best International Airlines category. Charleston, SC continues to resonate with readers as the top U.S. city for the 12th consecutive year. Highlights from the worldwide rankings include Best Cities Overall with San Miguel de Allende, Udaipur and Kyoto claiming the top three spots, and The Oberoi Rajvilas, Jaipur named the World's Best Hotel. Domestic highlights include Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport claiming the top spot for Best Domestic Airport, Golden Isles remaining the No. 1 Best Island in the Continental U.S., the Pendry Newport Beach named the Top City Hotel and Mission Pacific Beach Resort the Top Resort in the Continental U.S. Additional domestic lists cover the Top City and Resort Hotels in destinations such as Washington, D.C, Chicago, Las Vegas and Miami. For nearly three decades, our World's Best Awards have set the standard for excellence in travel, as chosen by our dedicated and discerning readers. The 2024 results highlight a blend of time-honored favorites and emerging destinations, reflecting the diverse interests of today's travelers. We're delighted to honor these exceptional places and experiences that inspire our audience to explore the world. Jacqui Gifford, Editor in Chief of Travel + Leisure Additional highlights from this year's World's Best Awards are as follows: TOP 10 WORLD'S BEST CITIES 2024 San Miguel de Allende, Mexico Udaipur, India Kyoto, Japan Hoi An, Vietnam Chiang Mai, Thailand Florence, Italy Bangkok, Thailand Tokyo, Japan Ubud, Indonesia Funchal, Portugal TOP 10 U.S. CITIES 2024 Charleston, South Carolina Santa Fe, New Mexico Savannah, Georgia Honolulu, Hawaii New Orleans, Louisiana San Antonio, Texas Fort Worth, Texas New York, New York Chicago, Illinois Aspen, Colorado TRAVEL + LEISURE WORLD'S BEST AWARDS 2024 WINNERS OVERALL: WORLD'S BEST CITY: WORLD'S BEST CITY: San Miguel de Allende WORLD'S BEST HOTEL: The Oberoi Rajvilas, Jaipur WORLD'S BEST HOTEL BRAND: Capella Hotels & Resorts WORLD'S BEST ISLAND: The Maldives WORLD'S BEST U.S. NATIONAL PARK: Yellowstone WORLD'S BEST INTERNATIONAL DESTINATION SPA: Rancho La Puerta WORLD'S BEST DOMESTIC DESTINATION SPA: Sundara Inn & Spa WORLD'S BEST MEGA-SHIP OCEAN CRUISE LINE: Virgin Voyages WORLD'S BEST LARGE-SHIP OCEAN CRUISE LINE: Cunard WORLD'S BEST MIDSIZE-SHIP OCEAN CRUISE LINE: Viking WORLD'S BEST SMALL-SHIP OCEAN CRUISE LINE: Viking WORLD'S BEST INTIMATE-SHIP OCEAN CRUISE LINE: Quasar Expeditions WORLD'S BEST RIVER CRUISE LINE: Aqua Expeditions WORLD'S BEST TRAINS: Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, A Belmond Train WORLD'S BEST INTERNATIONAL AIRLINE: Singapore Airlines WORLD'S BEST DOMESTIC AIRLINE: JSX WORLD'S BEST INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: iGA Istanbul Airport WORLD'S BEST DOMESTIC AIRPORT: Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport WORLD'S BEST RENTAL CAR COMPANY: National Car Rental For the complete World's Best Awards 2024 survey methodology, visit travelandleisure.com. Travel + Leisure Editor in Chief Jacqui Gifford will host a World's Best Awards celebration at Palm Court at The Plaza, A Fairmont Managed Hotel, in honor of this year's winners. The event is sponsored by Capital One and Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. Travel + Leisure will host its inaugural World's Best Summit on July 16-17, 2024 in New York, bringing together top entrepreneurs, business and hospitality leaders, and celebrities from the industry for a two-day summit from the world's most influential travel media brand. ABOUT TRAVEL + LEISURE Travel + Leisure is the preeminent voice for the sophisticated traveler, serving up expert intelligence and the most immersive travel lifestyle content anywhere. Travel + Leisure captures the joy of discovering the cultural pleasures the world has to offer, from art and design to shopping and style to food and drink. Travel + Leisure connects with its audience across platforms including the U.S. flagship and four international print editions, digital channels, the annual World's Best franchise and more. Launched in 1971, Travel + Leisure is part of the Dotdash Meredith publishing family and is owned by Travel + Leisure Co. (NYSE: TNL). Learn more at travelandleisureco.com. New York - The International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC) in conjunction with the authors of Hotel Investments Issues & Perspectives, NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference, and AHLA Foundation have awarded the third annual Celebrating Diversity Scholarship to Jessica Duan of Georgia State University and Osman Milla of the University of the District of Columbia. From left to right :Jessica Duan, Georgia State University, Rachel Roginsky, ISHC, Owner & Principal of Pinnacle Advisory Group Inc., and Osman Milla, the University of the District of Columbia Photo by ISHC The Celebrating Diversity Scholarship was established in 2022 to pave the way for two students to attend the annual NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference, operated by Questex in partnership with the NYU School of Professional Studies and its Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality. Each student recipient received a complimentary registration to the NYU IHIIC as a member of the student volunteer team, $1,200 for travel and associated expenses, and accommodation at the New York Marriott Marquis, provided by Marriott International for the conference dates, June 2 - 4, 2024. Receiving the scholarship and attending the NYU conference has been a transformative experience for me. t has not only provided me with financial support but also opened doors to invaluable academic and professional opportunities. The insights gained and the connections made at the conference have inspired me to pursue my goals with renewed passion and determination. This experience has significantly broadened my horizons and equipped me with the tools and confidence to make a meaningful impact in my field. scholarship recipient Osman Milla This scholarship provides me with the invaluable opportunity to connect directly with industry leaders, fostering relationships that can offer mentorship, guidance, and networking opportunities crucial for my professional growth and development. It allows me to gain insights into current trends, challenges, and innovations directly from those at the forefront of the field, enhancing my understanding and readiness to contribute meaningfully to the industry upon graduation. scholarship recipient Jessica Duan The Celebrating Diversity Scholarship is the result of a special collaboration among NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference (operated by Questex), The AHLA Foundation, ISHC, Marriott International, as well as myself and my co-author Lori Raleigh. We are thrilled that we could bring this group together and offer these students a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Rachel Roginsky, ISHC, Owner & Principal of Pinnacle Advisory Group Inc. and co-editor and author Hotel Investments: Issues & Perspectives Proceeds from Hotel Investments: Issues & Perspectives were used to help fund the Celebrating Diversity Scholarship. Over the years there have been five editions of the bookwith nearly 100 leaders and industry experts in the industry having served as contributing authors. The book has been used extensively as part of the Hospitality program curriculum at many leading Colleges and Universities. The proceeds from these books were matched with funds from the ISHC and the AHLA Foundation. About The AHLA Foundation AHLA Foundation, the charitable arm of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, works to support the hotel and lodging industrys greatest asset our people. By connecting employees, employers, and their communities, we seek to continuously nurture a culture of professional growth and belonging. When the people who work in our industry thrive, the industry thrives along with them. The Foundation is funded by grants and charitable contributions from generous individuals and organizations who want to support individuals seeking opportunities to thrive in the hotel and lodging industry. Learn more at www.ahlafoundation.org. About the NYU SPS Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality The NYU SPS Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, now celebrating nearly 30 years of academic excellence, is a leading center for the study of hospitality, travel, and tourism. Founded in 1995, the Tisch Center was established in response to the growing need for hospitality and tourism undergraduate and graduate education. Its cutting-edge curricula attract bright, motivated students who seek to become leaders in their fields The Tisch Center recently launched the Hospitality Innovation Hub (HI Hub), which will foster entrepreneurship and creative solutions for the industries it serves. For more information, visit sps.nyu.edu/tisch. About Questex Questex helps people live better and longer. Questex brings people together in the markets that help people live better: travel, hospitality and wellness; the industries that help people live longer: life science and healthcare; and the technologies that enable and fuel these new experiences. We live in the experience economy connecting our ecosystem through live events, surrounded by data insights and digital communities. We deliver experience and real results. It happens here. https://questex.com/ About ISHC The International Society of Hospitality Consultants is truly The Leading Source for Global Hospitality Expertise, represented by over two hundred of the industry's most respected professionals from across six continents. Collectively, ISHC members provide expert services in over fifty functional areas and have specialized skills in virtually every segment of the hospitality industry. ISHC is dedicated to promoting the highest quality of professional consulting standards and practices for the hospitality industry. Candidates undergo a rigorous screening process, ensuring that all ISHC members have a reputation of integrity and are qualified by their experience, training and knowledge to develop and express sound judgment on industry issues. Additional information about the organization, along with a directory of ISHC members, is available on the ISHC website at ishc.com. Jennifer Castellarin Director of Membership & Marketing +1 413 563 6449 ISHC Image Credit PKFARE PKFARE's unique advantage lies in its established leadership in the airline sector. As a leading global travel trade marketplace, PKFARE has been dedicated to flight distribution for 10 years, boasting a strong and stable network of air-ticket supply and distribution, covering over 100 countries and more than 600 airlines, with over 2,000 active clients worldwide. This robust network creates significant potential for optimizing the hotel business by forming comprehensive "Flight + Hotel" packages. Leveraging the synergy between its hotel and flight businesses, PKFARE shares distribution channels, enabling seamless integration and enhanced reach. Currently, there are over dozens of clients utilizing both PKFAREs flight and hotel products. Besides OTA channels, business travel platforms, and travel agencies, PKFAREs clients sharing flight and hotel services also include new booking platforms which have recently ventured into the hotel sector from flight bookings. As a DerbySoft company, PKFARE enjoys significant advantages in developing its direct hotel contracting business. DerbySoft is a global leader in hotel distribution and travel technology that collaborates with all the top ten global hotel groups, hundreds of regional hotel chains, and independent hotels. The strong airline resources of PKFARE combined with the extensive hotel network of DerbySoft and PKFARE create an unparalleled alliance, fostering excellent conditions for developing the "Flight + Hotel" package business and offering unique appeal for directly contracted hotels. Building on the innovative "Flight + Hotel" packaging, PKFARE also offers refined operations for directly contracted hotels to enhance their overall sales performance. For example, PKFARE has accumulated extensive industry data that can help hotels deploy customized resources based on different regions, seasons, and types of clients, optimizing hotel occupancy rates and revenue. "The direct hotel contracting business is an effective supplement to PKFAREs existing hotel business," said PKFARE President and Founder Jason Song. "The 'Flight + Hotel' package product can meet the higher requirements for distribution form, channels, and efficiency proposed by hotels, creating maximum value for the distribution of directly contracted hotels." Since the beginning of 2024, PKFARE's direct hotel contracting business has quickly grown, achieving direct contracts with hotel groups like Onyx, Ascott, Sojo, and Banyan Tree in Southeast Asia. It is expected to fully cover markets in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia by the end of this year. About PKFARE PKFARE, a DerbySoft company, leads in sourcing, aggregating, and delivering vital information on air tickets and hotel accommodations, tailored to meet the needs of B2B clients. The company seamlessly integrates with Global Distribution Systems (GDS), airlines, hotels, and travel suppliers worldwide, granting access to real-time global inventory and competitive pricing. PKFARE offers live inventories covering 600+ airlines (400+ Full-Service Carriers and 200+ Low-Cost Carriers) and 650,000+ hotel properties across over 100 countries and regions. Our extensive reach has resulted in 2,000+ active clients worldwide. To learn more, visit PKFARE.com. For media inquiries, please contact: Yolanda Liu Senior Marketing Manager, PKFARE yolanda.liu2@pkfare.com Image Credit Whitbread Whitbread PLC has disposed of a Manchester development site to Student Roost, the third-largest student accommodation provider in the UK, as part of the companys asset intensification strategy. The sale of the site once occupied by the Premier Inn Manchester Deansgate hotel was part of two site acquisitions with planning permission for purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) by Student Roost. Once completed, the sites will add a total of 1,850 beds to Student Roosts UK portfolio in Manchester and Birmingham. The acquisitions are meaningful additions to the Student Roost portfolio. The site of the former Premier Inn Deansgate hotel at One Medlock is Student Roosts first asset in Manchester, while The Triangle signals the brands return to Birmingham. Both assets will be developed by Greystar with its in-house Global Design team leading the fit-out of rooms and amenity spaces to a newly developed Student Roost specification guide. Mark Anderson, Managing Director for Property & International, Whitbread, said: Whitbread has a clear growth plan for Premier Inn in the UK and as we continue to expand, we have an opportunity to think creatively about our estate and how our locations are matching the needs of our guests. In select locations, such as central Manchester where we have an extensive network, greater value for our shareholders can be achieved by disposing of a Whitbread-owned hotel for redevelopment into alternative uses, rather than continuing to trade the location as a Premier Inn. This asset intensification strategy recycles capital back into Whitbread whilst enabling us to reconfigure our hotel network for our guests. I wish the team at Greystar all the best with their redevelopment of the site. Dominus, a progressive developer specialising in driving urban renewal, obtained planning consent for the One Medlock Street redevelopment and enabled the transaction. The 37-storey building will comprise 1,014 student beds and 13,000 sq ft of resident amenities including a gym, yoga studio, quiet study areas, meeting spaces, screening rooms, shared lounges, and games rooms. Residents will also have access to two roof terraces on the 11th and 37th floors with views across Manchester. The scheme has been designed to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating with sustainability features including a green living roof, solar PV panels, and sustainable materials. Located in the Deansgate regeneration area, One Medlock is an 11-minute walk from Manchester Metropolitan University and a 20-minute walk from both the main and north campuses of The University of Manchester two of the UKs most populous universities. The asset is scheduled to be operational by 2028. Lenox Library Celebrates Significant Historic Document LENOX, Mass. The Lenox Library announced a special event to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Lenox Non-Importation Agreement. This historic document, signed by 111 Lenox residents in 1774, marked a moment in America's path to independence. The celebration will take place on July 13th, beginning at 2:00 p.m. in the Sedgwick Reading Room at the Library. According to a press release, seven years after its incorporation, the Town of Lenox sent six delegates to a Berkshire Congress held in Stockbridge. On July 14, 1774, the delegates brought back to Lenox a covenant in which they promised to neither sell, consume, or import goods from Great Britain. By signing the agreement, each man declared himself to be one step closer to independence from the Crown. Lenox was making good on its earlier promise to support Boston from its "remote wilderness Corner of the Earth," written by the local Committee of Correspondence. The committee was formed in early 1773, after receiving a copy of the Boston Pamphlet, crafted by Samuel Adams as its primary author, which established the need for such local committees to communicate when colonists rights were infringed, continued a press release. To commemorate the 250th anniversary of its creation, Local History Librarian Amy Lafave will share the history of this agreement and its signers, from the first stirrings of dissent to the aftermath of revolt. The document will be presented for viewing, newly conserved with funding from the Town of Lenox's Community Preservation Fund. It has been handsomely framed, courtesy of a grant to the Lenox Library Association by Adams Community Bank. Following the unveiling presentation, an outdoor Samuel Adams Brewery beer tasting event will be held in the Library's Roche Reading Park from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. This event honors Samuel Adams, a Founding Father and revolutionary, who also left a legacy in brewing. His family's Boston brewing business has inspired the modern Samuel Adams Brewery, founded in 1984. This celebration will feature live music, balloon art, face painting, and photo opportunities with a live portrayal of Samuel Adams. Refreshments will be provided by Olde Heritage Tavern and the Lenox Fire Department for purchase. Four varieties of Sam Adams beers, including a non-alcoholic option and commemorative glasses will be available for purchase, with proceeds benefiting the Lenox Library Association. The presentation and celebration are a collaborative effort with Adams Community Bank (ACB), whose Lenox branch is in the historic home of Major General John Paterson, a signer of the Non-Importation Agreement. ACB's President and CEO, Charlie O'Brien, and Boston Beer Company's Business Development Manager, Nick D'Angelo, will join State Representative Smitty Pignatelli in delivering welcoming remarks. Edgar Degas Exhibit Opens At Clark Art WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. Timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the First Impressionist Exhibition, held in Paris in 1874, the Clark Art Institute presents "Edgar Degas: Multi-Media Artist in the Age of Impressionism." The exhibition is on view in the Eugene V. Thaw Gallery for Works on Paper in the Clark's Manton Research Center from July 13 through October 6, 2024. According to a press release: The exhibition highlights the innovative and experimental practices of Edgar Degas in the realm of works on paper. In his pastels, drawings, photographs, and prints, Degas was relentless in exploring unusual media and processes. A range of works from the Clark's permanent collection and other select loans from public and private collections offer a behind-the-scenes" look at Degas's innovative methods, materials, and supports. Edgar Degas (18341917), described by a close friend as "an artisan passionate about all the means of his art," worked throughout his career with an unusually wide array of media and processes. A close examination of his art-making reveals what one critic called Degas's "restless searches for new procedures." He emerges as one of the most technically innovative artists of his time through his experimentation with varied printmaking techniques, his distinctive treatment of pastel, and his frequent combinations of multiple media. "The Clark is very fortunate to have deep holdings of works by Edgar Degas in our collection and it provides us with an exceptional opportunity to look at the artist anew by studying the many mediums in which he worked and by exploring his strong interest in testing new techniques and methods in artmaking. Our guest curator Michelle Foa worked closely with Anne Leonard, our Manton Curator for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, and together, they have created an exhibition that encourages us to consider the artist through a fascinating lens," said Olivier Meslay, Hardymon Director of the Clark. North Adams Council Sets Vote on New School Borrowing New Administrative Officer Marya Kozik with Councilors Andrew Fitch and Lisa Blackmer. Kozik was introduced to the council on Tuesday night. NORTH ADAMS, Mass. The City Council will hold a special meeting on Monday, July 22, at 5:30 p.m. to authorize borrowing for the Greylock School project. Mayor Jennifer Macksey said she had asked for the special meeting to allow for more time for presentation and discussion. "I knew your agenda would be full on the 23rd," she told the council on Tuesday. "But we specifically want to have enough time for the council in the beginning of our outreach for the public to be read in about the Greylock project." The proposal to build a $65 million school to replace the aging Greylock School in the West End was approved by the Massachusetts School Building Authority two weeks ago. "We will also do a significant amount of outreach to the public, which will eventually involve a debt exclusion vote," said the mayor. Macksey invited the public to attend or watch the July 22 presentation to the City Council. "We're also going to have some community forums on Thursday, Aug. 15, at Greylock School," she said. "It will also include a tour of the school as well as a full presentation of the new project." The mayor anticipated a Proposition 2 1/2 debt exclusion sometime in September. The city has 120 days from the MSBA vote to obtain borrowing approval and a positive vote on the debt exclusion. The Colegrove Park Elementary School project did not require a debt exclusion. The city had nearly $1 million in annual debt falling off the books a decade ago when the project was authorized. The estimated cost for a new Greylock School is $65,362,859 with a maximum grant estimated at $41,557,218. An exclusion would means debt incurred from the borrowing would not permanently affect the tax rate or the city's levy capacity as it would only last until the estimated $23,805,641 in debt is paid. The mayor also introduced Marya Kozik as the new administrative officer and Stacy Abuisi as auditor. Katherine Eade, who has been filling in part time as administrative officer for the past two years as the mayor tried to fill the post. She will continue part time as special assistant to the mayor. Kozik is a former Adams selectwoman and worked in the office of former state Rep. Peter Larkin. She has worked in finance, management and development for business and educational entities, most recently for Berkshire Country Day School. Abuisi had been business manager in the Public Safety Department before becoming grant administrator and procurement officer at City Hall. She replaces David Fierro Jr. who is now finance director in the Williamstown accountant's office. The mayor said procurement would now fall under the administrative officer and that Abuisi, Community Development Director Michael Nuvallie, Eade and herself would monitor the grants. "We haven't really navigated that," she said. "We want to get everybody in their new roles and see where we're feeling the pinch so to say. But Stacy has done an excellent, excellent, excellent job in that role. The number of grants that she's applied to and worked with the public sector on has been incredible. ... we're going to give Marya some time to get up to speed, get into our new swing of things and then we'll evaluate that position as well." In other business: The council postponed to July 23 final adoption of a zoning ordinance change to include a property on Rickard Street and changes in fee and fines because there was not enough time to publish them 10 business days prior because of the holiday closings. A change in the marijuana ordinance to include delivery and set the number of retail establishments to four was postponed to the first meeting in August because it has not yet gone through the General Government Committee. Ordinances on litter and feeding wildlife were also continued to July 23 and referred to the Public Safety Committee. The council authorized account transfers totaling $702,265.98 to close out the fiscal 2024 books and $56,171.35 from the land sale account to close out the city's share of the $753,000 Northeast hangar project at the airport. Lisa Dent, director of public programs at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts, spoke of some of the public programs at the museum at the invitation of Councilor Andrew Fitch, including a $350,000 grant from MountainOne that will enhance programs and cover free community days. Fitch, during councilor's concerns, expressed concern over Fitch, during councilor's concerns, expressed concern over a post by the departing Stamford School principal that detailed some of his experiences with bigotry and prejudice within the small Vermont town. The principal, who is gay, has been accused of promoting an "agenda" by some residents. "This is happening everywhere, this kind of prejudice, bigotry, if you will, social shunning. And it's just something that we really need to be careful of here, too," said the councilor, an organizer with North Adams Pride. "I mean, North Adams has been overwhelmingly welcoming in my experience, but this is out there." MCLA to Host Saturday Preview Days, Campus Tours NORTH ADAMS, Mass. MCLA invites prospective students to tour the College campus and learn about the admission and financial aid process during four Saturday preview days in July and August. Preview days and campus tours are scheduled for July 13 and 27 and August 3 and 17 from 10:30 a.m. to noon. The deadline to apply for the Fall 2024 semester is Thursday, August 15 with enrollment beginning on August 22. Daily campus tours and information sessions from 10:30 a.m. to noon are open for registration through August 17. Tours of the Nursing and/or Radiologic Technology learning spaces are available on select Wednesdays at 1:15 pm. If interested in touring these spaces, please choose a tour on one of these days and check off the appropriate box when prompted. Wednesday 10 July 2024, 08:34 - Last updated: 12:08 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This article is automatically translated "I don't remember." "I don't know." Antonella Colossi, partner of Giacomo Bozzoli, who has been on the run for 9 days now, was heard by the prosecutor's office in Brescia as a person informed about the facts for the second time. And her account was even more sketchy and full of inaccuracies. The woman had already been heard on Friday, at the provincial command of the carabinieri, when after leaving Italy with Bozzoli and their 9-year-old son, she had returned from Marbella. Bozzoli is playing tourist in Marbella (and using his card), here are the photos in the hotel with Antonella and their son. Investigators: "He pays with cash, possibly heading to Morocco." Antonella convinced of her innocence At the time, she had told of being shocked after the final life sentence to which her partner was condemned, of spending a night with him in Cannes then in Marbella until June 30, and of not hearing from him anymore. Antonella reiterated that she did not know which path her partner took and reaffirmed her certainty of his innocence. An innocence also believed by his father Adelio Bozzoli: "I am in bed. I feel unwell. I have nothing to say but my son is innocent. I have always said so." Where is Bozzoli? Nine days have passed since Bozzoli vanished into thin air, after learning of the final life sentence imposed by the Court of Cassation for the murder of his uncle Mario, in the foundry of Marcheno. From Europe to Cape Verde: hypotheses about where he might be hiding these days are numerous. The 39-year-old entrepreneur is pursued by international arrest warrants that make him wanted in much of the world. It is known that he has not renewed his expired passport. It is known that checks are underway to verify any transfers of liquidity to Switzerland or some tax haven, such as Gibraltar. In the last seven months, there have been no banking operations, but Bozzoli could have made money transactions in other people's names. The possible countries Meanwhile, investigations continue and, according to reconstructions, the satellite of the Maserati Levante used by Bozzoli on the morning of June 24 to leave Italy was disconnected. Where could Giacomo Bozzoli have taken refuge? In Europe, there are very few countries without extradition: Montenegro, some regions of Moldova, Abkhazia, and Ossetia, independent regions of Georgia. Of all, the "Spanish" route could have its logic, at least on paper. Marbella, the Andalusian city where the 39-year-old entrepreneur was last seen and where he lost his tracks, is close to the Strait of Gibraltar. Bozzoli could have crossed it by paying a smuggler, then taken refuge in one of the Spanish enclaves in Morocco. The Morocco hypothesis Ceuta, an autonomous Spanish city, facing the Strait, is the northern tip of Morocco, about seventy kilometers from Tangier. On the southern Moroccan coast is Melilla, the city where the fugitive and life of Andrea Ghira, one of the Circeo murderers, ended on September 2, 1994, at the age of forty, after serving for eighteen years in the Spanish Foreign Legion. Not far from Melilla is the important port city of Beni Enzar. From Morocco, Bozzoli could attempt the adventure to South America. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The Young V&A has won the 2024 Art Fund Museum of the Year after creating a unique space for children to loudly learn and explore their creativity and curiosity. Billed as turning what museums are thought to be on its head, the facility has been awarded the largest prize of its kind in the world a whopping 120,000. This comes after the Young V&A, which houses the largest collection of childhood objects in the UK, became a museum specifically for children back in 1974. Now containing almost 2,000 objects for children to enjoy and learn from, the museum also reflects its 150-year-long history as East Londons first museum. The museum, which reopened as the Young V&A after a 13 million refurbishment in 2013, aims to inspire creativity today to support future learning of art and design. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said: Our world-leading museums are a source of creativity and curiosity that can inspire lifelong passions for learning, history and the arts. This years Art Fund Museum of the Year was a tough competition with an exciting shortlist representing institutions from across the country. Congratulations to the Young V&A on this achievement, recognising their hard work to create a unique space dedicated to young people. open image in gallery The Young V&A is designed by young people, for young people. ( David Parry/ V&A ) Following the announcement, the museum was praised for having young people personally get involved in creating the worlds most joyful museum. Jenny Waldman, director of the Art Fund and chair of the judges for Art Fund Museum of the Year, said: Young V&A is a truly inspirational museum. With a brief from its young co-designers to create the worlds most joyful museum, Young V&A has achieved that and more. It has radically reimagined the museum with and for young people, creating a museum experience thats active, empowering and dynamic, centred on learning through play. Young V&A has established a deep engagement with its local community and, at the same time, it has become an international beacon for what a childrens museum can be. I give my warmest congratulations to the fantastic team at Young V&A on being crowned Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024. You truly are the worlds most joyful museum and will inspire young people now and for generations to come. The Young V&A contains three permanent galleries dedicated to the subjects of play, imagination and design. There is also a temporary exhibition space, restored Grade II listed architectural features, and Tower Hamlets only accredited Changing Places Toilet which is fully accessible. open image in gallery The Princess of Wales visited the Young V&A last June. ( AFP via Getty Images ) Vick Hope, broadcaster and judge for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024, said: The Young V&A is such a special and unique place, offering an experience for children (and their adults) like no other out there. The museum truly places young people centre stage, encouraging them to play, design and get creative through a fascinating collection of objects and artworks. I was inspired by the museums vision to become a space for the next generation to feel empowered and to imagine their future; a space that will cement museums as places they belong and feel welcome as they grow up, regardless of their background. In such a short time the Young V&As global impact has been really incredible, demonstrating the potential of what museums can be for children around the world and I cant recommend it enough for a visit. The museum was chosen from a shortlist of five, which also included the Craven Museum (Skipton, North Yorkshire), Dundee Contemporary Arts (Dundee), Manchester Museum (Manchester) and the National Portrait Gallery (London). open image in gallery The museum encourages children to nosily learn and explore their curiosity. ( Photographed by Jamie Stoker ) These museums will also be recognised with a 15,000 prize each. 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 Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy President Joe Biden continues to lose crucial support from his colleagues, big-name celebrities and donors. Last month, Bidens shaky performance at the first presidential debate against the Republican nominee, former president Donald Trump, led to questions about his capability to run for reelection. Despite several major voices urging Biden to step aside, the incumbent president is insistent about his ability to run and win again. Follow the latest updates on Biden as he vows to run despite gaffes However, Bidens confidence does not seem to have calmed the minds of some of his once-ardent supporters, who have called on the president to step aside. In an op-ed for The New York Times, Oscar-winning actor George Clooney wrote that while I love Joe Biden, the Democrats need a new nominee. I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, hes won many of the battles hes faced, Clooney, 63, wrote. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate, he said. open image in gallery George Clooney called on top Democrats to ask this president to voluntarily step aside ( Getty Images ) The Oceans Eleven star called on top Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, to ask this president to voluntarily step aside. Thelma & Louise star Susan Sarandon has also spoken out against Bidens viability, telling Variety that she thinks he should withdraw from the race. 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 Obviously there are a lot of people within the party who feel the same way, the 77-year-old Sarandon said. I think its obvious [why he should step down]. Way before the age thing came into play, hundreds of thousands of uncommitted voters in swing states, because of the war in Gaza, put his possible election in jeopardy. On Monday, July 8, bestselling horror author Stephen King, 76, tweeted that while Joe Biden has been a fine president its time for him in the interests of the America he so clearly loves to announce he will not run for re-election. When Harry Met Sally... director Rob Reiner, 77 shared a similar view. If the Convicted Felon wins, we lose our Democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served US with honor, decency, and dignity. Its time for Joe Biden to step down, Reiner wrote on X. Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, a self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat, declared that Biden has to go & the Dems need to wake up. In a guest column written for Deadline, Lindelof urged others to withhold their donations to the Democratic party until theres change at the top of the ticket. When Joe finally leaves the mound, I will stand and applaud. Because he truly pitched a great game, he said. open image in gallery Stephen King, Rob Reiner and other celebrities have called on Joe Biden to step down ( Getty Images ) One of the Democrats biggest donors, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings has also called for Biden to drop out of the race. Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous, he sent in an email to The New York Times. Director Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11) was a bit more extreme in his argument against Biden. During an appearance on MSNBC, Moore, 70, accused the Democratic party of committing elder abuse by pushing Biden to continue with his election campaign. The problem here is that I think there is a form of elder abuse going on here where the Democratic Party and the people that are part of the apparatus are pushing and pushing him to stay. And then he comes out and says I am staying, and the family says I am staying, he said. I dont know about you, but in spite of my criticisms with Biden, watching the debate a week ago was heartbreaking. It was like, imagine that was your father up there, Moore added. Im thinking, why isnt anybody doing anything? Why did they let him go out on the stage in this condition? Who is looking out for him? Who is looking out for him right now? Last week, Disney heiress Abigail Disney, a longstanding Democratic donor, hailed the president as a good man who had served his country admirably, but warned that the GOP would win in November if a change of leadership was not made. I intend to stop any contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden at the top of the ticket, she said in a statement shared with CNBC. The View hosts were among the first major commentators to insist on Bidens exit from the race. The day after Bidens debate, the talk show hosts discussed his poor performance, with Sara Haines declaring: It kind of pains me to say this today, but I think President Biden needs to step down and be replaced if we want to defeat Donald Trump in November. 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 Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Hugh Grant has shared his sadness over the closure of his local London cinema after almost a century, calling it strangely unbearable. Last month, Picturehouse Cinemas announced that their Fulham Road location would close permanently from July 11. Writing on X/Twitter, Grant, 63, said: Fulham Rd cinema closing after 94 years. Strangely unbearable. Lets all sit at home and watch content on streaming . While scrolling. Miserable face emoji. The outspoken Notting Hill star even hinted he might get involved in attempts to preserve the historic theatre. In response to author James Leightons suggestion of a rescue act and a New Beverly style cinema like Tarantino has done in LA, Grant wrote: Great minds. The New Beverly cinema in Los Angeles was saved from closure in 2007 by director Quentin Tarantino. Grant was joined in lamenting the closure by UK broadcaster Terry Christian, who wrote: Lived around the corner from a cinema as a kid like something magic. We used to walk around and look at the stills of what was showing and imagine. Should protect them like the French do. The Strays actor Michael Warburton added: Part of my Cinema-going history for sure and therefore damnably sad & infuriating in equal measure. Once these palaces are gone they dont come back people! open image in gallery Hugh Grant in December 2023 ( Albert L. Ortega/Shutterstock ) The Fulham Road cinema is one of three Picturehouse theaters set to close in the immediate future. The Stratford East theatre in east London will shut on July 28, while Bromley Picturehouse in outer London will close its doors on August 1. Grant, best known for his roles in romantic comedies and family-friendly fare such as Paddington 2 and Wonka, recently shocked fans with his appearance as the villain in the trailer for the upcoming A24 religious horror Heretic. In Heretic, which is set to be released on November 15, Grant plays a man who captures a pair of young, female Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) and then subjects them to a chilling series of psychological tests and games. 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 On the YouTube page for the trailer, one fan wrote: This new era of villanous roles for Hugh Grant is really fun. Another added: I never realized that Hugh Grant would make a great psycho killer. While a third wrote: Love this move for Hugh, hes always had a great dark side but doesnt always get to show it off. Reactions on X/Twitter were similarly excited for Grants new role, with one user writing: Absolutely here for Hugh Grants latest career phase, parlaying his foppish romcommy charm and channeling it into devious maniacs. HERETIC is speaking my language. 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 Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Sharon Stone is once again vocalizing her support of Kevin Spacey making his return to Hollywood following a string of sexual abuse allegations. In May, Stone was among several Hollywood stars who called for Spacey to be allowed to resume his career as an actor, telling The Telegraph that she cant wait to see Kevin back at work. He is a genius. She has since faced backlash for her comments. However, she stands firm behind her original assessment, arguing that after being in therapy for seven years, not being allowed to work, losing his home, losing everything, he should be allowed to come back. Hes reached out to everybody hes offended and said hes sorry, Stone said in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Kevin grabbed people by their genitals. Many people. But nobody [has publicly said] hes raped them or forced them into a sexual encounter. The Basic Instinct star continued: But theres so much hatred for him because in his case it was man-on-man. Thats why hes not allowed to come back. Because he offended men. But can I tell you how many men have grabbed my genitals in my lifetime? A lot more than Kevin Spacey has grabbed mens genitals. And none of them has ever apologized to me, Stone added. Spacey, 64, was last year acquitted of a number of sexual offenses alleged by four men in the UK to have taken place between 2001 and 2013. open image in gallery Thats why hes not allowed to come back. Because he offended men, Sharon Stone said of Kevin Spacey ( Getty Images ) During the trial, each of Spaceys accusers gave evidence, describing him as a vile sexual predator, slippery and atrocious, despicable, disgusting. The two-time Oscar winner denied all of the accusations, calling them madness and a stab in the back. Spacey was cleared on all nine charges, including sexual assault. 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 The Hollywood A-lister first faced accusations of misconduct in 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp told BuzzFeed News that Spacey tried to seduce him when he was just 14. In 2022, a New York jury dismissed Rapps claims of sexual abuse. Once one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, Spacey was subsequently dropped from his leading role on Netflixs House of Cards following Rapps allegations. Most recently, he faced another fresh set of allegations of inappropriate behavior from men who featured in a two-part Channel 4 documentary Spacey Unmasked. Spacey issued a fiery statement decrying the desperate documentary. I will not sit back and be attacked, he tweeted at the time. open image in gallery Kevin Spacey was once one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood ( Invincible Films ) Other celebrities to support Spaceys career comeback include Liam Neeson and Stephen Fry, with the former telling The Telegraph: I was deeply saddened to learn of these accusations against him. Kevin is a good man and a man of character. Hes sensitive, articulate and non-judgmental, with a terrific sense of humor. He is also one of our finest artists in the theatre and on camera. Personally speaking, our industry needs him and misses him greatly. Fry, meanwhile, admitted that Spacey had been both clumsy and inappropriate on many occasions but that to bracket him with the likes of Harvey Weinstein and to continue to harass and hound him, to devote a whole documentary to accusations that simply do not add up to crimes how can that be considered proportionate and justified? 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 Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Sharon Stone has opened up about the debilitating stroke she suffered and the harrowing aftermath that led to people taking advantage of her and leaving her with zero money. In 2001, the then-43-year-old Basic Instinct star was rushed to the hospital after suffering a brain hemorrhage that lasted for nine days. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in a new interview, Stone detailed how the stroke changed everything. A Buddhist monk told me that I had been reincarnated into my same body, she recalled. I had a death experience and then they brought me back. I bled into my brain for nine days, so my brain was shoved to the front of my face. It wasnt positioned in my head where it was before, she said. And while that was happening, everything changed, she explained. My sense of smell, my sight, my touch. I couldnt read for a couple of years. Things were stretched and I was seeing color patterns. A lot of people thought I was going to die. It took Stone, now 66, seven years to fully recover from the medical incident, and in that time, she said: People took advantage of me. open image in gallery Sharon Stone says she had zero money after her 2001 stroke ( AFP via Getty Images ) I had $18m saved because of all my success, but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone. My refrigerator, my phone everything was in other peoples names, Stone shared. I had zero money. However, instead of hanging onto any bitterness or anger, she said she decided to stay present and let go. If you bite into the seed of bitterness, it never leaves you. But if you hold faith, even if that faith is the size of a mustard seed, you will survive, Stone added. So, I live for joy now. I live for purpose. 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 Before the stroke, Stone was one of the biggest actors of the Eighties and Nineties, with leading roles in blockbusters such as Total Recall, The Quick and the Dead, and Casino. While she has appeared in films including Catwoman, Lovelace and The Laundromat in the years since her stroke, her career has not returned to the heights of her peak in fame. Stone has previously spoken about the impact her stroke had on her career. I lost my place in the business, she said in 2015. I was like the hottest movie star, you know? It was like Miss Princess Diana and I were so famous and she died and I had a stroke. And we were forgotten. You find yourself at the back of the line in your business, as I did, she lamented. You have to figure yourself out all over again. 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 Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Queens of the Stone Age have canceled their remaining European tour so that frontman Josh Homme can undergo emergency surgery. The band made the announcement on social media, saying in a statement: QOTSA regret to announce that Josh Homme must return to the United States immediately for emergency surgery. Every effort was made to push through and play for you, but it is no longer an option to continue. A total of eight shows have been canceled. They were due to take place this month in France, Slovakia, Germany, Czechia, Austria, Romania, Croatia and Greece. The band did not say what type of surgery is required. Homme, 51, revealed in 2023 that he had undergone treatment for cancer. At the time he told Revolver magazine that the surgery had been successful, but added that he was still healing. open image in gallery Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age performing in California in 2019 ( Kevin Winter/Getty Images ) Cancer is just the cherry on top of an interesting time period, you know? he said. Im extremely thankful that Ill get through this, and Ill look back at this as something thats f***ed up but will have made me better. Im cool with that. Homme continued: Theres a lot of stuff I want to do. And a lot of people I want to do that with. Earlier that same year, Homme announced that he and his three children had been granted a restraining order against his ex-wife Brody Dalle. Homme and fellow musician Dalle were married between 2005 and 2019, and share three children together: an 18-year-old daughter and two sons, 12 and eight. 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 The former couple were involved in various legal disputes involving their children. In 2021, Dalle was sentenced to 60 hours of community service after being found guilty of withholding their youngest son from court-mandated time with Homme. Hommes representatives alleged in a statement: Recent actions by Brody Dalle and [her current boyfriend] Gunner Foxx have not only caused the children emotional harm, but have also put them in great danger.As a result of these actions, on March 16, 2023 The Los Angeles Family Court ordered a permanent restraining order against Brody Dalle for a period of one year and 11 months. This Domestic Violence Restraining order was granted to protect (and on behalf of) the Homme family, including Joshua, his three children, and Joshuas parents, Michael and Irene Homme. Homme formed Queens of the Stone Age in 1996, following the dissolution of his previous band Kyuss. He is also known for founding the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and Led Zeppelins John Paul Jones, and he has collaborated with acts including Iggy Pop, Arctic Monkeys, Lady Gaga and Royal Blood. 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 Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Actor Rashida Jones has reflected on her historic battle with late rapper Tupac Shakur, after the artist called out her father Quincy Jones for sleeping with and having children with white women. The Changes musician made the statement about the music producer in an interview with The Source in 1993, prompting Rashida to pen a heated letter in response. Rashida, daughter of Twin Peaks actor Peggy Lipton, called out the rapper for his stupidity and ignorance, saying he was self-absorbed and indulgent in the piece, also published in The Source. Where the hell would you be if Black people like him hadnt paved the way for for you to even have the opportunity to express yourself? she wrote at the time. However, Rashida has since said that the rapper became family, after they confronted each other and aired out their differences. I kind of understand the nuance more now that Im older. It just felt like a completely unwarranted attack, she told the New Yorker. My dad doesnt work for the government. Hes a music producer. How he chooses to live his life and who he loves is just his own business, and Ive always felt that way. Although she admitted she was furious and so mad at the rapper, she admitted that he offered a new perspective to her. open image in gallery Rashida said the family had resolved their differences with the rapper after he attacked their father ( Getty Images/AP1996 ) The rapper approached her older sister Kidada to apologise for the comments after the letter was published, as he had thought she was Rashida. The interaction eventually led to a romance, which in turn led to Kidada calling him the love of my life. 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 It resolved itself really nicely, because when I met him, he immediately apologised to me, immediately apologised to my dad, Rashida continued. We sat down and had a really good conversation about it, and then he was family. Shakurs reaction and apology inspired Rashida throughout her life as she said that action spoke so much to he was. I have been self-righteous in my life, and I really have worked hard to stop looking at things in a binary way, she said. Were so flawed and complicated. Shakur died at the age of 25, in 1996, after he was murdered in what appeared to be a targeted shooting. Duane Keffe D Davis, a former Los Angeles-area gang leader has since been charged for the killing and will now face trial in November 2024 after switching attorneys. Davis was arrested outside Las Vegas last year after he wrote a book detailing the night Shakur was murdered. He noted in the book that while his nephew allegedly fired the fatal shots, he was allegedly in the car and claims to have provided the murder weapon. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The Boys star Chace Crawford has revealed he almost had a panic attack before shooting a sex scene with an octopus voiced by Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton. Crawford, 38, shot to fame playing Nate Archibald in Gossip Girl from 2007 to 2012. He has portrayed aquatic superhero The Deep in superhero satire The Boys since 2019. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Crawford recalled the moment he learned that his character not only speaks to sea animals, but that he would also be required to have onscreen sex with an octopus named Ambrosius. Its so funny and brilliant now, but when that came up, I was like, Oh God, hows this going to work? said the Texas-born actor. Describing the filming process, Crawford explained that he shared his worries with showrunner Eric Kripke: I was in total denial about it. And then it got 24 hours out from the first day I had to shoot it and I almost had a panic attack. I called Kripke hes so great. Hes got a million things going on but his doors always open. So I was worried about the scene. Im like, How are we gonna do this? What are the angles gonna be? How naked do I have to be? He changed one shot for me. And it was great. open image in gallery Chace Crawford as The Deep with Ambrosius the octopus, voiced by Tilda Swinton, in The Boys ( Prime Video ) Asked whether there had been an intimacy coordinator present during the scene, Crawford replied: We have one on set. But not with the octopus. But they treated it like, quiet everyone, clear out a closed set. But yeah, just the act of picking up the octopus and getting a wet octopus in the bed was so funny and weird. And then it doesnt come out for a year almost, and youre like, How is this going to be received? But everyone loved it. I saw someone at the gym the other day and he was like, Im actually going to show you this. And it was him in a Deep costume with a pink octopus wrapped around him at Comic-Con or something. Everyone loved it, man. I get ragged on a little bit, but its good. Last month, Kripke told Variety that Swintons casting in the role of the octopus Ambrosius came about after the writers room decided: We need the classiest, Oscar-winningest, British actress we can get our hands on. 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 And thats a really short list. And Dame Judi Dench was unavailable, Kripke joked. Crawford told CinemaBlend he was delighted by the casting. When they said that Tilda Swinton was doing it, I just started crying laughing because she must have a great sense of humor to want to come and play with us in this insane scene and give life to Ambrosius, finally, he said. And it makes the scene so much funnier and real, he added. Shes got this real beautiful voice, and its just hilarious to me. Earlier this week, Crawfords fellow The Boys star Erin Moriarty silenced internet haters who criticised her appearance. The actor had previously called out journalist Megyn Kelly for questioning whether shed had plastic surgery, dubbing her comments counterproductive to the degree of being ironically misogynistic. Sharing a new Instagram post, Moriarty captioned the photo: Haters will say {literally everything and anything that pops into their head}. So post it & ghost it. (And sleep tight), before turning off comments. Crawford posted a red heart in response. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Chinas coast guard claimed it allowed the Philippines to evacuate an ill soldier from a rusting warship on the contested Second Thomas Shoal on humanitarian grounds. However, the Philippine coast guard called this claim ridiculous and accused China of illegal vessel deployment in their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Despite Chinas assertion that it monitored the rescue operation at the Philippines request, the Philippine coast guard reported obstructive manoeuvres by its Chinese counterpart during the evacuation. The claim made by the Peoples Republic of China that they have permitted a medical evacuation for a sick navy personnel, in order to present themselves as humanitarian while asserting their authority to allow such operation to be carried out in the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone, is ridiculous, Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesperson Jay Tarriela said on X. He added: This statement further confirms their illegal deployment of vessels within our EEZ and highlights their governments view that the preservation of human life and welfare requires approval. Evidently, the deployment of numerous boats to delay the medical evacuation for hours just shows that they have a low regard for a humanitarian mission. The Chinese coast guard issued a statement claiming it had monitored the entire rescue operation on 7 July, stating it was carried out at the request of the Philippines. However, Philippines said Chinas coast guard had engaged in numerous obstructing and delaying manoeuvres during the medical evacuation. Almost a month ago, the Philippines denounced Chinas barbaric and inhumane efforts to block a medical evacuation mission in the South China Sea last month. The Philippines coast guard alleged that despite informing the Chinese coast guard via radio and public address system about the humanitarian nature of our mission for medical evacuation they still engaged in dangerous manoeuvres and even intentionally rammed a vessel transporting the sick personnel. Philippine sailors eventually managed to evacuate the soldier to nearby Palawan, Mr Tarriela said at the time. The countries have bickered extensively over the Spratly Islands called Nansha Islands by China the Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal. These small islands are located in the vast waterway, a conduit for more than $3 trillion of annual shipborne commerce. The Philippines has soldiers living aboard a rusty, aging warship at the Second Thomas Shoal, which was deliberately grounded by Manila in 1999 to reinforce its maritime claims. Additional reporting by agencies 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy A father in China is facing backlash after a video of his three-year-old daughter crying into a bowl as punishment for watching too much television went viral on social media. The toddler was asked by her father to fill the bowl after she burst into tears when he switched off the TV during dinner time. The incident happened last month in southern Chinas Yulin city in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in what is being criticised as the latest example of parents using harsh punishments. The father told the daughter that she could watch TV again when your tears fill up this bowl after he saw her not eating her food and being engrossed in TV. The video showed the girl holding the bowl in her hands and crying and squeezing her eyes to collect her tears. But soon she became tired and said she would not be able to do it. Her father then told him to smile for him and the girl grinned with teary eyes. Educating the kid like this will make them develop negative character traits. Kids have learned that they can solve the problem through extreme means, a user said on Chinese social media app Douyin. While corporal punishment was banned in China in 1986, parents are often criticised for using harsh punishment methods to instil good behaviour in children. The issue of tough parenting prompted lawmakers to adopt legislation on family education promotion in 2021. Under the law, parents and guardians could be reprimanded and ordered to go through family education guidance programmes if prosecutors found any criminal or very bad behaviour in their children. It also prohibits parents from using violence to educate children on how to behave. In 2022, Chinese parents in Hunan province forced their eight-year-old to watch television all night as punishment for watching too much TV. The parents took turns to keep a watch on the child so they could force him to stay awake. The boy kept crying during the night as he was not allowed to sleep until 5am, according to the report. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy A South Korean politician is under fire for making unsubstantiated comments linking the rise in male suicides to a "female-dominated society". Seoul City councillor Kim Ki-duck published a report saying that womens increasing social participation and their dominant role in society is linked to a growing number of suicides among males. Mr Kims report on Seoul Metropolitan Councils website said womens participation has created a shortage of male labour and also made it difficult for them to find marriage partners. Unlike the past when patriarchy and male-dominant ideology were prevalent in Korea, as of 2023, it has begun to change into a female-dominated society with about 5 per cent more women than men, he argued in the article. "In order to overcome the expansion of the female-dominant phenomenon, in the short term, it is necessary to improve gender equality awareness so that men and women can enjoy equal rights and opportunities, and to resolve the problem of labour shortage (which appears to be in the sense of lack of jobs) by expanding mens social participation." The report referred to the data on suicide attempts from the Han River bridges over the past six years. The suicide attempts have risen from 430 in 2018 to 1,035 in 2023. The data showed that the per centage of men attempting suicide has risen from 67 per cent to 77 per cent. The councillors comments have been criticised, with many calling the remarks unsubstantiated and dangerous for women. Professor Jang Sook-rang of Chung-Ang Universitys Red Cross College of Nursing told Hankyoreh news website that the male suicide rate has always remained high regardless of womens social participation. Lee Min-ah, a professor of sociology at Chung-Ang University, told the outlet that solution is not in overcoming the female-dominated society but breaking away from patriarchal gender roles. "If men feel anxious as more women enter society, we need to move toward a society that breaks away from the traditional gender roles that men should be the breadwinners or that women should be the sole caretakers of children." Mr Kim told the Hankyoreh, "I wrote this based on my own personal views, inferring the causes of the male suicide rate". South Koreas suicide rate is the highest among the rich 38-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and it is twice the OECD average suicide rate. It recorded 25.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2022. If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Police in India's capital New Delhi have arrested a man for allegedly killing his newborn twin daughters. Neeraj Solanki, 32, was arrested from the neighbouring Haryana state after being on the run for over a month, police said on Wednesday. He has been charged with murder. He is accused of killing the newborn twins and burying them because his family was unhappy about his wife delivering girls, NDTV reported. They wanted a boy instead. Police launched an investigation after being alerted to the killings of the three-day-old newborns on 3 June. The caller, who identified as the suspects brother-in-law, claimed Mr Solanki killed the two girls and buried them at a crematorium. The corpses were exhumed on 5 June and sent for autopsy before being handed over to their maternal uncle. Mr Solanki was booked after his wife filed an official complaint. The babies were taken away from the mother shortly after birth and she was told they had died of an illness, The Indian Express reported. In her police complaint, the woman alleged harassment by her in-laws for dowry since her marriage in 2022. She was reportedly made to undergo a prenatal sex determination test which has been banned in India since 1994 to prevent sex-selective abortions. Indian laws also ban doctors and health workers from sharing an unborn child's sex with the parents. Police failed to find Mr Solanki for a month as he kept on changing his mobile SIM card and hideouts to evade arrest. After his arrest, police said, Mr Solanki confessed to killing the newborns. A 2022 report by the Pew Research Center said at least nine million girls went missing in India as a result of female infanticide from 2000 to 2019. The sex ratio at birth in India, however, has gone up from 918 in 2014-15 to 933 in 2022-23, according to the National Family Health Survey. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Alimony isnt charity but a right, Indias supreme court said while ruling that divorced Muslim women are entitled to seek maintenance. Justices BV Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih dismissed a Muslim mans challenge to a state high courts verdict ordering him to pay his former wife Rs 10,000 (93.5) a month in alimony. The man, Mohd Abdul Samad, argued that a divorced woman is not entitled to alimony under the Muslim Personal Law, which he said should prevail over secular law. But the court said the right to seek maintenance under the countrys criminal code is a secular provision applicable to all married women, regardless of their religion. A family court in southern Telangana state had directed Mr Samad to pay an alimony of Rs 20,000 (187) per month to his former wife after she filed a petition in 2017 claiming that he had divorced her under the instant divorce practice known as triple talaq. The controversial practice recognised by certain schools of Islamic jurisprudence requires a man to merely say talaq, the Arabic word for divorce, three times to divorce his wife. The supreme court in 2017 ruled the practice to be unconstitutional and violative of the fundamental rights of Muslim women. Mr Samad said he divorced his wife in accordance with the prevailing Muslim Personal Law in 2017 and he has a divorce certificate to that effect but it was not considered by the family court. He went to the Telangana high court, which declined to set aside the familys court order but reduced the alimony amount to Rs 10,000. Mr Samad then moved the supreme court where his lawyer argued that a divorced Muslim woman can seek recourse under the Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Divorce Act, 1986, which is part of the personal law governing matters of marriage, succession, inheritance and charities for the minority community. But amicus curiae Gaurav Agarwal countered that the personal law does not take away a womans entitlement to relief under the Code of Criminal Procedure. The court agreed. "This right transcends religious boundaries, reinforcing the principle of gender equality and financial security for all married women, it said. The court also underlined the necessity for husbands to provide financial support to their wives. Among the practical measures it suggested maintaining joint bank accounts and sharing ATM access to ensure economic stability for women within the household. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has been criticised for greeting Vladimir Putin with his signature bear hug during their Moscow summit, even as he offered veiled criticism of Russias latest missile bombardment of civilians in Ukraine. The Modi governments carefully balanced policy on the Ukraine war neither criticising nor condoning it, and increasing trade links with Russia while also courting stronger ties to the West led some analysts to question just how warmly the two would interact during Mr Modis visit to Moscow. Mr Modi arrived to a red-carpet welcome at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow on Monday, and later the two leaders went for a hug after a brief handshake as the Indian prime minister arrrived at Mr Putins residence at Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow. Mr Modis Russia trip coincided with one of the deadliest Russian aerial bombardments of Ukraine in months, including a strike on the countrys largest childrens hospital in Kyiv. Ukraine says Russian missiles there and in other regions across Ukraine killed at least 41 civilians. Without mentioning Mr Modi by name, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said: It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the worlds largest democracy hug the worlds most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day. open image in gallery Narendra Modi arrives at Vladimir Putins residence ( EPA ) Derek Grossman, an American defence analyst who had said he expected Mr Modi to refuse to hug Putin, a war criminal said he was wrong and he hoped India would still come round to take the moral high ground on Ukraine. He said Mr Modis signals in Russia demonstrate that India, like the US, will still prioritise national interests above all else. Images of the hug shared online sparked a strong reaction in the UK and Europe as well, with French author Nicolas Tenzer telling Mr Modi the photograph will haunt you, given Russias leader is to blame for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Modi is a disgrace. Here he is cuddling a mass murderer, with a smile on his face, to get cheap oil. Modi is no friend of democracy or the West, wrote another Twitter user Ron Delnevo. Mr Putin welcomed Mr Modi as his dear friend on Monday evening, and the pair held a total of around four hours of talks over the two days. At the end of their meetings Mr Modi did offer some veiled criticism of what was happening in Ukraine, saying in a carefully-worded statement that it was heart-wrenching to see innocent children being murdered and dying, without directly referring to Kyiv. Be it war, conflicts, terror attacks everyone who believes in humanity is pained when there is loss of lives, Mr Modi said. But when innocent children are murdered, when we see innocent children dying, it is heart-wrenching. That pain is immense, he said, adding that he had a detailed discussion with Mr Putin on this topic. Russia has denied attacking the childrens hospital in Kyiv and claimed it was a Ukrainian air defence missile that hit the facility. Ukraines intelligence agencies say they have compelling evidence to show the hospital was hit by a Russian weapon, and the UN has said this is most likely to be the case. Despite this, Mr Modi told Mr Putin that Russia-India relations will deepen further in the coming years. The two have enjoyed close ties since the Cold War, and India has purchased huge volumes of Russian oil at heavily discounted prices since the start of the Ukraine war, now accounting for around 40 per cent of all its imports. open image in gallery Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) talk during their official meeting in Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow ( EPA ) Mr Modi defended these purchases on Tuesday, saying they had helped keep global oil prices from soaring as a result of Western-led sanctions. The world will have to accept that the agreement regarding fuel between India and Russia indirectly gave market stability to the world in a way, Mr Modi said. Mr Putin said the two countries enjoyed a special strategic partnership, and claimed India was working towards finding a peaceful solution to the Ukraine war which the Russian president euphamistically referred to as a crisis. The US State Department spokesperson said Washington made quite clear directly with India our concerns about their relationship with Russia. "India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in a full and frank dialogue. And that includes our concerns about their relationship with Russia," Mathew Miller said. open image in gallery Putin and Modi visit the Russian leaders stables ( POOL/AFP via Getty Images ) So we would hope India and any other country, when they engage with Russia, would make clear that Russia should respect the UN charter, should respect Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity. Mr Modi and Mr Putin have not had a bilateral summit since before the Ukraine war, and this was the Indian leaders first visit to Moscow in five years. Mr Modi met with members of the Indian diaspora during his visit, and was also shown around an exhibition of Russias state-owned nuclear energy industry in Moscow. Russian state media reported that the leaders were expected to discuss Moscow helping India build more nuclear power plants. The two countries already are collaborating on the Kudankulam nuclear power project in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The US said it privately and directly raised its concerns over Indias relationship with Russia as Narendra Modi met Vladimir Putin with bonhomie amid international outrage over Moscows deadly missile strike on a childrens hospital in Ukraine. The White House urged India to use its long-standing relationship with Moscow to persuade the Kremlin leader to end his brutal war in Ukraine. Mr Modi travelled to Russia on 8-9 July for his first bilateral visit to the country since the start of its war on Ukraine. India under Mr Modis leadership has taken a neutral stance in the Ukraine war while increasing energy trade with Russia. The West, which has tried to squeeze Moscow economically and isolate it on the world stage, witnessed the two leaders growing bonhomie as they shared a hug and expressed praise for each other. On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said they expressed their views directly with New Delhi but privately. We have been quite clear about our concerns about Indias relationship with Russia. We have expressed those privately, directly to the Indian Government and continue to do so, and that hasnt changed, Mr Miller said. We have had conversations with them in the past 24 hours, and I think Ill keep the contents of those private. In a separate White House briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated that India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in full and frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia. And so, we also believe Indias long-standing relationship with Russia gives it the ability to urge the the president President Putin to end his brutal war an unprovoked war in Ukraine. The Kremlin on Wednesday said there were no disagreements between Mr Modi and Mr Putin even as Mr Modi delivered an implicit rebuke for death of innocent children in Ukraine. The Kremlins spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters a decision to cancel a session of talks between Russian and Indian delegations was taken for scheduling reasons and because the entire agenda had been covered. This has absolutely nothing to do with any disagreements or problematic situations, he said. During his direct formal talks with the Kremlin leader, Mr Modi made veiled criticism of Russias latest missile bombardment of civilians in Ukraine that has killed at least 42 people throughout the country. He called on his friend Mr Putin to seek a peaceful end to the war and the Russian president thanked Modi for trying to find ways to resolve the conflict. Loss of life leads to despair especially when children are killed, Mr Modi told the Russian president in televised comments Tuesday. Resolution cant be found on the battlefield, peace needs to be pursued through dialog and diplomacy. The two leaders signed a joint communique that included a goal to reach $100bn in bilateral trade by 2030 up from nearly $65bn last year. Mr Modi and Mr Putin also agreed to continue to work together to promote a bilateral settlement system using national currencies and eliminating the non-tariff and tariff barriers in trade. The trade between Russia and India increased by 66 per cent last year, Mr Putin said, as Western countries have hit Russia with sanctions to squeeze Russias economy and its ability to strike Ukraine. The shift of focus on economic issues from military and defence supplies has come as procurement of defence supplies have dwindled and faced delays in recent years in the wake of the war, analysts have said. Russias state-owned Rosatom and India are in talks to construct six high-power nuclear power units as part of a new project as well as developing low-power nuclear plants in India, according to the Russian embassy in New Delhi. Mr Modi also said that India will open two news consulates, one in Kazan and another in Yekaterinburg. Mr Putin concluded the summit by conferring Russias highest civilian honour, the Order of St Andrew the Apostle, to Mr Modi. The ceremony recognised the Indian prime ministers exceptional contributions in advancing the strategic partnership between Russia and India. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has arrived in Russia for his first one-to-one summit with Vladimir Putin since the Russian leader launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is a hugely symbolic choice of destination for Modis first bilateral visit since being sworn in for his third term as prime minister, and one that the Kremlin has gloated about as making the West jealous. Modi is also breaking away from a tradition that normally sees Indian prime ministers start their term with a first visit to neighbouring South Asian countries like Sri Lanka, the Maldives or Bhutan. And it reflects Indias growing confidence in its ability to play both sides in the East-West divide that has grown dramatically since Russia began waging war on Ukraine. Modi will follow up his visit to Moscow with one to Austria, which has backed Ukraines bid to join the EU and provided it hundreds of millions of euros in humanitarian aid. Putin and Modi were scheduled to hold informal talks over dinner on Monday night before a day of meetings on Tuesday. Indias foreign ministry said they would discuss the multiple geopolitical challenges that the world has been facing, and that the visit showed the two countries continue to enjoy resilient ties. Embarking on the plane to Russia on Monday, Modi said he will review all aspects of bilateral cooperation with Mr Putin and seek to play a supportive role for a peaceful and stable region. open image in gallery File Russian president Vladimir Putin, right, and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi pose for a photo shaking hands prior to their talks on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on 16 September 2022. ( AP ) Putin, who is making a concerted effort to showcase the support of his allies to legitimise his war and counter Western efforts to cast him as a pariah on the international stage, said no topics will be off limits between the two leaders, according to the Kremlin. The Indian government has neither condemned nor condoned Russias invasion of Ukraine, and while Modi made his first foreign trip of his third term to join the G7 in Italy last month, he then skipped a Western-led Ukraine peace summit hosted by Switzerland. India was represented at those talks by its ambassador and did not sign a joint communique at the end of the meeting, insisting that Russia must be involved in negotiations. Harsh V Pant, professor of international relations at Kings College London, tells The Independent that a Putin-Modi meeting was long overdue given the way geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting as a result of Ukraine. There is a rich history to India-Russia relations, with Delhi having relied heavily on Moscow for arms imports for many decades. Since the Ukraine war began India has also bought huge volumes of cheap Russian oil after the US and European countries imposed sanctions, helping Putin fill his war chest. open image in gallery Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky (C-L) meeting Modi during a bilateral meeting in Borgo Egnazia, southern Italy, 14 June 2024 ( EPA ) Yet India has been uncomfortable with how close Putin has drawn to China, its major Asian rival with whom it has frosty border relations. And India has also been forced to diversify away from Russian arms given Moscows military commitments in Ukraine, buying more from the US, Israel, France and Italy. These talks will be about how to build the India-Russia relationship as, whatever it might seem from the outside, it is not as healthy as it seems, says Pant. It is a new world. India does not have a very robust economic partnership with Russia. So of course the strategic realities are changing. India would like to understand and engage with Russia on its own terms. With this trip, India is sending a clear signal to the US that it will hedge its bets on defence purchases, just as the US is doing by once again opening the doors to China. The [potential] gains for India from this summit are significant in comparison to [those for] Russia, Dr Rafiq Dossani, a senior economist at the Rand Corporation think-tank, tells The Independent. By properly playing its hand, it can position itself as a power worth more than China, whose relations with Europe have taken a beating because of its stance. This can allow India to be the prime broker of a peace in Ukraine down the road, he says. India will also seek to maintain its steady supply of Russian energy as it seeks to pivot from its dependency on the volatile Middle East market and other sources like Venezuela, he says. Analysts say India will also seek reassurances when it comes to arms cooperation, with Indias military still operating with large volumes of Russian hardware. Defence cooperation will clearly be a priority area, says Chietigj Bajpaee, senior South Asia research fellow at Chatham House. Weve seen some delay in the deliveries of spare parts ... following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he said. I believe both countries are due to conclude a military logistics agreement, which would pave the way for more defence exchanges. For Russia, the optics of the visit are likely to be more important than any tangible outcomes. As well as multiple recent meetings with Chinas Xi Jinping, the Russian president has visited North Korea and then Vietnam to project the image of a world leader who still enjoys international backing. Modis visit to Moscow is the most significant achievement yet in that campaign, Pant argues, as India is both an important counterweight to China within the Asia-Pacific while also enjoying robust ties with the West. Putins efforts to court India indicate that Russia seeks to demonstrate resilience against Western isolation and assert its independence in managing relations with China, Mr Pant explains. I dont think Russia wants to be perceived as a junior partner of China. By engaging robustly with India, Russia signals to China its desire to maintain its own distinct space. With Russia increasingly isolated from the West, it risks being seen as subordinate to China, a perception it likely wants to avoid. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} At least 18 people were killed and 19 others injured after a bus in India collided with a milk tanker on Wednesday morning. The incident took place on a busy expressway in the most populous Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, when a double-decker bus rammed into the milk tanker while it was on its way to capital Delhi from the eastern state of Bihar. The impact of the collision on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway was such that it threw people out of the bus, with visuals showing dead bodies lying on the ground, alongside shattered glass and metal scraps. This is the second major incident in the state within a week. At least 121 people died in a stampede in Hathras last Tuesday when hundreds of thousands turned up for a prayer meeting by a self-styled preacher. "Today at around 5.15am, a private bus coming from Motihari, Bihar, collided with a milk tanker. Eighteen people have lost their lives, and 19 others are injured in the accident, Gaurang Rathi, district magistrate of Unnao, was quoted as saying by NDTV. The cause of the crash remains under investigation, with the initial probe suggesting that the bus was overspeeding, said Mr Rathi. At least two women and a child were among the deceased. The injured were rushed to a hospital and receiving medical aid, said officials. On receiving the information of the incident, police reached the spot, took out all the injured and admitted them to CHC Bangarmau for treatment and necessary action is being taken by taking the bodies in custody, local police told ANI. States chief minister Yogi Adityanath expressed his condolences over the incident and directed officials to ensure proper treatment of the injured. Opposition Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge also condoled the loss of lives in the incident. The news of the death of 18 people in a tragic road accident on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao, UP is very sad. We express our deepest condolences to the bereaved families of the victims. We wish for the speedy recovery of all those injured in the accident. The administration is requested not to leave any stone unturned in helping the victims, Mr Kharge wrote on X. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy A Chinese national living in Japan has been arrested for allegedly helping vandalise a controversial shrine in Tokyo, the local police said on Wednesday. Two others have been placed on a wanted list for allegedly defacing the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo. Founded in 1869 by Emperor Meiji, the war shrine honours the deaths of 2.5 million Japanese soldiers and civilians who died in wars in the 19th and 20th centuries. The shrine is controversial as it also honours several convicted war criminals. The controversial war shrine is viewed by Seoul and Beijing as a symbol of Japanese militarism. A video showing a man urinating on the stone pillar at the Yasukuni shrine before spray-painting the words toilet on it was widely shared on social media in Japan and led to a massive outrage. A man who identified himself as Iron Head criticised the discharge of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean in a video posted to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu in early June. A Tokyo metropolitan spokesperson said that 29-year-old Jiang Zhuojun, who lives in the north of Tokyo, was arrested on suspicion of vandalism and disrespect for a place of worship. The incident reportedly occurred on 31 May at about 9.55pm local time. Police said that the other two Chinese men identified as Dong Guangming, 36, and Xu Laiyu, 25 were both placed on a wanted list. But the spokesperson said the duo seemed to have left the country. According to The Japan Times, Mr Jiang and Mr Dong allegedly spray-painted the shrine pillar on 31 May while Mr Xu filmed them. Mr Dong earlier told Japanese broadcaster TBS that he admits to the vandalism but will not report to the police, as his actions were a protest against Japans release of treated wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant. Yasukuni shrine, in a statement emailed to the Associated Press, said the graffiti was extremely regrettable and called it an act of degrading the dignity of the shrine. Japan started to release more than one million metric tonnes of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant, enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools, into the ocean, last year. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approved the plan in July last year, saying that it met international standards and that the impact it would have on people and the environment was negligible. According to the Tokyo metropolitan police departments public security bureau, the damage to the Yasukuni shrine is estimated at 4.2 million yen ($26,000). Mr Dong is suspected of being the main perpetrator, while Mr Xu is alleged to have filmed the act. Government ministers still regularly pay homage at Yasukuni shrine, infuriating China, South Korea, and others. However, no prime minister has visited since Shinzo Abe did in 2013, according to The Japan Times. In April this year, South Korea expressed deep disappointment following Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishidas ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine. Mr Kishida and some cabinet members sent ritual offerings to the shrine on Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported, citing Japanese media. Without directly mentioning the Japanese leader, the South Korean foreign ministry said that it regrets the Japanese leaders visit and offering to the shrine which glorifies Japans war of aggression and enshrines war criminals. Meanwhile, Iron Head is known on Chinese social media for videos accusing stall owners of dubious sales practices. His content was recently removed from the internet after he documented his experiences soliciting sex, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He has since returned to China and told a Japanese journalist that he has no reason to reflect on his behaviour. The report said that the vandalism he committed at the Yasukuni shrine has been favourably received on Chinese social media, although many are sceptical of his motives. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Pakistan has authorised its powerful spy agency to tap phone calls and messages, tightening the armys grip on the South Asian nation. Citizens and human rights advocates have criticised the move amid fears it could be weaponised to suppress political opponents and throttle dissent. The ISI, which is run by the military, will be able to legally intercept and trace phone calls and messages in the interest of "national security". Federal law minister Azam Nazeer Tarar told the parliament that the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications has been advised of the authorisation in an 8 July notice. Anyone who misuses the law will face action," he said on Tuesday while claiming that the authorisation is limited to tracking criminal and terrorist activities and that the government will ensure it doesnt infringe people's lives and privacy. "The federal government in the interest of national security and in the apprehension of any offence is pleased to authorise officers," the notice states, according to Reuters, to intercept calls and messages or to trace calls through any telecoms system. Parliamentarians from jailed former prime minister Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party opposed the decision. Khan has previously backed the ISI's surveillance of telephone calls of politicians, even his own, in the absence of legal authorisation. Omar Ayub Khan, the opposition leader in the parliament, said the spy agency will use its powers even against lawmakers and vowed that his party will mount a legal challenge. A Pakistani citizen challenged the notification in the Lahore high court on Monday. The opposition leader said the authorisation, which allows the spy agency to monitor social media accounts as well, gives it power to control free speech. Only a fascist government would grant an intelligence agency complete authority to tap citizens phones, he was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper. By promulgating this measure, he said, prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has cut his own throat. The law minister responded that police and intelligence agencies already "operate under this law whenever access to some data or interception is required". He recalled that former prime minister Benazir Bhuttos assassins were tracked down using similar methods in 2007. Time and again, we have witnessed that in the name of national security, individual freedoms are consistently under attack, Iqbal Khattak, executive director of the Freedom Network civil liberties group in Islamabad, told Arab News. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Upper Crust owner SSP has said it saw positive momentum in the latest quarter as more people travelled for leisure. The company, which specialises in running food outlets at travel locations, said it is on track to meet financial targets for the year as a result. SSP, which employs 43,000 people globally, told shareholders on Wednesday: The second half of the financial year has started well, with the positive momentum continuing into the third quarter, and our expectations for the full year remain unchanged. It said sales grew by 16% in the third quarter, from April 1 to June 30, with growth accelerating from the previous quarter. This included 6% like-for-like growth, alongside boosts from new contract wins and acquisitions. The company said it saw a strong sales performance across all regions driven by an increasing demand for leisure travel. Sales grew by 27% in North America on the back of a 14% boost from its acquisitions of Midfield Concessions and Mack II in the US and ECG in Canada. The UK was also strong, rising 12% as like-for-like sales were driven higher by increased air passenger numbers and a reduction in train strikes compared with the previous year. We are well positioned for the peak summer trading period and to deliver results in line with our planning assumptions for FY24, the company said. Jefferies analyst James Wheatcroft said: Todays trading update should provide reassurance around second-half performance, especially in the context of a weak year-to-date share price. In early trading, shares in SSP Group jumped by around 11%. Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Get our free Climate email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Hurricane Beryl may have caused up to $32bn worth of damages and losses in the United States, according to preliminary figures by an independent organisation. Beryl, which made landfall in Texas as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday after churning across the Caribbean and Mexico, has caused widespread flooding, power outages and damages to infrastructure. At least seven people have died in the Houston region as a result of Hurricane Beryl, according to city and county officials. Earlier, 10 people died in the Caribbean. A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather, a private weather forecasting company, shows these damages in the US alone could account for between $28-32bn. This estimate includes direct and indirect costs and damages to homes, businesses, infrastructure, facilities, roadways, and vehicles, as well as power outages resulting in food spoilage, job and wage losses, flight delays, and interruptions to medical care, etc. Beryl will go down in the history books as a record-shattering hurricane, said AccuWeathers chief meteorologist Jon Porter. It was the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic basin, causing catastrophic damage in the Windward Islands. Beryl brought impacts to Jamaica and the Cayman Islands before slamming into the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico with damaging wind and storm surge. AccuWeathers damage estimate accounts for both insured and uninsured losses and is based on a variety of sources, statistics, and unique techniques, the company said in a statement. It also includes an estimate of the potential damage it can cause as it moves up inside the US. open image in gallery Beryl leaves a path of potential flash floods ( NWS ) Beryl, now a tropical rainstorm, is expected to continue causing flooding, localised tornadoes, and gusty winds as it moves through the Midwest, Great Lakes, and into central and northern New England. In Texas, heat and humidity were also significantly impacting recovery efforts. More than two million homes and businesses across southeast Texas have been without power for over 24 hours since Beryl made landfall. Extended power outages were likely to last several days in the hardest-hit communities. To put the damages from Beryl in context, last year Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall into the Big Bend of Florida, caused $18-20bn in total damage and economic loss. Hurricane Ian, in 2022, caused $180-210bn. Hurricane Harvey, which impacted a similar area in Texas, caused $230bn in total damage and economic loss in 2017. Meanwhile, leaders across the Caribbean were also worried about the economic impact of Beryl after it left a trail of destruction on Jamaica and islands of the eastern Caribbean. Officials were still tallying the financial toll from the storm that hit them when it was at its maximum Category 5 strength. open image in gallery Before and after pictures shows damage sustained by Caribbean island from Hurricane Beryl ( Satellite Image 2024 Maxar Technologies ) There is no doubt this disaster will have a major impact on Grenadas economic situation, prime minister Dickon Mitchell told a briefing on Tuesday. We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild. Grenadas Carriacou and Petite Martinique islands face almost complete devastation, he added, saying people who lost their homes were particularly vulnerable to the elements. Mr Mitchell said there is a need to rebuild structures resistant to storms, adding that many of the countrys existing wood houses are not insured. A team of insurers is set to arrive on Wednesday and the government plans to announce fiscal measures by early next week. St Lucia posted early estimates of close to $2m from damages including buildings, sea moss harvests and banana plantations. Rainfall and debris hindered assessments in Jamaica, whose agriculture sector initially reported over $6m in damages. CARICOM chair Mohammed Ali said many long-term crops were lost and farmers would face issues for years to come in a heart-breaking initial assessment for agriculture, according to Reuters news agency. open image in gallery A house sits roofless after being damaged by Hurricane Beryl in Portland Cottage, Clarendon, Jamaica ( AP ) Small islands face the highest risks as hurricanes continue to intensify and become more frequent due to man-made climate crisis, despite producing very little carbon pollution compared to big economies. Hotter sea waters, which are caused due to harmful greenhouse gases produced by burning oil, coal and gas, fuel hurricanes. This year, ocean heat in the Atlantic in July was already at par with the levels seen ususally in September, the peak season for hurricanes, resulting in Beryl becoming the earliest ever Category 5 hurricane. Record high ocean heat content, primarily caused by climate change, clearly played a role in the rapid intensification of Beryl across the tropical Atlantic, eastern Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico before it encountered wind shear, drier air, and the added friction from land masses, AccuWeather climate expert and senior meteorologist Brett Anderson said. In fact, Beryl intensified twice, the second time when it came near Mexico and the US, due to bath-tub warm waters near the coast. As Beryl got within 100 miles of the Southeast Texas coast, it passed over a pocket of very warm sea surface water that was at least 86 degrees, Mr Anderson said. This increase in temperature provided just enough additional energy to help Beryl strengthen to a Category 1 hurricane before it made landfall. Fortunately, Beryl was still moving along at a steady clip. If Beryl had slowed down, that would have allowed it to spend more time over the very warm waters and potentially strengthen to a Category 2 or even a Category 3 hurricane. Caribbean countries have been demanding more action from wealthy polluting nations like the United States, European countries and China to rapidly decarbonise. International negotiations have also been taking place for financial support mechanisms for smaller countries to deal with disasters. A loss and damage fund, which can support the island nations, is up for negotiations again at the upcoming United Nations climate summit in Baku, called Cop29, in November. However, climate financing measures have so far remained highly inadequate to meet the costs from rising disasters and have funnelled billions of dollars back to rich countries, leaving poorer countries in debt. Last 13 months have been the hottest on record for the planet with intense heatwaves, heavier rainfall on the land and boiling waters fuelling storms. Meteorologists are forecasting an explosive hurricane season this year due to record ocean heat. AccuWeather says 20-25 named storms could be seen this year and 4-6 could potentially have direct impacts on the US. You dont want to wait too long to restock your hurricane supplies, and most importantly, dont let your guard down at all this hurricane season, Mr Porter said, adding that they are forecasting a very busy and impactful hurricane season, and were just getting started. Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Get our free Climate email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy More than 130 people, including tourists, were trapped in Chinas Tibet region after landslides in neighbouring Nepal blocked key roads. The tourists were trapped in the remote mountainous town of Zhentang after heavy rains and flooding washed away sections of a provincial highway, Chinas state media said. Heavy rains have been triggering floods and landslides in Nepal for several days now, killing dozens of people and washing away roads and other key infrastructure. Those trapped included migrant workers, businessmen on travel and tourists, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Rescuers were attempting to evacuate them on Wednesday. The stranded people were earlier asked to hike up a mountain to relative safety. The hike left many of them with a lack of physical strength, CCTV reported. The town, on the southern slope of the Himalayas near Chinas border with Nepal, has an average altitude of 2,000 metres and is in an area known for hot springs and hiking. Another 342 stranded people were relocated to nearby towns earlier. open image in gallery People stand near a flooded temple as the Hanumante river rises after torrential rains in Kathmandu, Nepal ( EPA ) Floods, landslides and lightning strikes have killed at least 50 people across Nepal since mid-June, when the annual monsoon rains started. In the hill-ringed capital of Kathmandu, several rivers have overflown their banks, flooded roads and inundated homes. Photos and videos from Kathmandu and other places showed people wading through waist-deep water and residents using buckets to empty their houses. open image in gallery A woman carrying her belongings wades through a flooded road along the bank of the overflowing Bagmati river following heavy rains in Kathmandu, Nepal ( REUTERS ) The adverse weather is expected to persist, with storms forecast throughout Thursday, adding another layer of difficulty to the rescue efforts. CCTV reported that these conditions were likely to further complicate the ongoing rescue operations in Tibet. Neighbouring India is also experiencing heavy rainfall across the country. At least 300mm worth of rain fell on Mumbai on Monday, submerging roads and delaying trains and disrupting flights. open image in gallery Commuters navigate a submerged street after heavy rainfall in Mumbai, India ( AP ) Heavy rainfall also caused flooding in the capital Delhi earlier this month and collapsed the roof of a parking lot at the international airport, killing one person. Severe rainfall has triggered flooding in the hilly northeastern parts of the country which had been battered by Cyclone Remal in May. Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for insider tips and product reviews from our shopping experts Sign up for our free IndyBest email Sign up for our free IndyBest email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 launched on 24 July and is the newest entry in the Korean tech giants series of popular flip-style folding phones. Whereas the larger and more expensive Galaxy Z Fold 6 opens like a book to reveal a tablet-sized main screen, the Flip 6 folds down like a clamshell to about the size of a post-it note perfect for popping into a bag or sliding into a pocket. The outer display can be used to get information at a glance without having to crack open the phone. You can use it to view upcoming calendar appointments, check the weather, control your music or quickly reply to messages. You can also use it as a viewfinder to frame selfies by propping the phone half open, and using a raised hand gesture to trigger the shot. Like previous years, Samsung has made just a few tweaks to the design of the Galaxy Z Flip to keep it fresh in 2024. Were getting a faster processor, improved cameras, a new matte frame and a slightly larger battery, all housed inside the same neatly engineered, folding chassis. Were still testing the Galaxy Z Flip 6 to bring you a full review, but in the meatime here are our initial impressions as well as everything you need to know about Samsungs newest flip phone. Where to buy the Galaxy Z Flip 6 How we tested Weve been testing the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 since its reveal at Samsung Unpacked in early July. During testing, we paid attention to the folding phones build quality, changes in functionality since the previous model, battery performance, new Galaxy AI tricks and the added features enabled by the form factor. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6: 45 per month, 39 up front, Metrofone.co.uk open image in gallery ( Samsung ) You can get the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 for 45 per month with 39 to pay up front at Metrofone. The 24 month contract gets you an unlimited data allowance on the 256GB model with Vodafone. Scroll past Metrofones top recommendation to see the best deal listed below. Buy now Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6: From 1,049, Samsung.com open image in gallery ( Steve Hogarty ) Samsung seems to be allergic to change. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 (from 1,049, Samsung.com) is another incremental upgrade to last years folding phone, which was an incremental upgrade to the one before that, which was an incremental upgrade to one before that. Set them all down side by side and even the Samsung execs might struggle to tell them apart. But focus too much on any one years teeny improvements, and you can easily overlook just what an incredible piece of hardware Samsung has gradually developed in the five years the Flip first launched. This years Galaxy Z Flip might look the same, but is the culmination of continuous advancements to the popular flip-phones design, the hinge, the durability and the outer screen. Unsurprisingly, its probably the best folding phone you can buy today. The biggest improvements in 2024 are to the Flips battery life and camera array. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 uses the same lenses and sensors found in the Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus, giving it much improved photo quality and performance in low light conditions. The 4,000mAh battery is the biggest Samsung has ever used in the Flip, and the addition of a vapour chamber helps with cooling and performance. open image in gallery ( Steve Hogarty ) The design of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 has been tweaked with sharper edges and flatter sides around the frame, and retains the exceptionally smooth and robust feeling hinge. Like last years phone the Flip 6 folds completely flat, with no unsightly gaps. Everything lines up neatly, the phone can be opened one-handed, and the buttons and overall finish feel premium. The Flip 6 is a delightful object to hold in your hand, and the inclusion of IP48 dust resistance as well as the overall sturdiness of the device helps to allay any durability concerns around using a folding phone. Under the hood are a few expected improvements. The Flip 6 runs on the newest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and gets a vapour chamber for the first time, which cools the phone down and keeps performance high when the phone is running hot. open image in gallery ( The Independent/Steve Hogarty ) Battery capacity has been bumped up to 4,000mAh from 3,700mAh, meaning you should reliably get to the end of the day without running into the red. Other minor design changes include the rings around the dual main cameras, which now match the colour of the phones matte frame to give the phone a more unified appearance. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes in four colours: blue, silver, yellow and green. The Flip 6 uses the same 3.4in outer display found in last years phone which it calls the Flex Window but adds in some fun new features like interactive wallpapers. As chronic fidgeters, we especially enjoy the emojis that tumble around the screen under gravity as you turn and rotate the phone. open image in gallery ( The Independent/Steve Hogarty ) Samsung has focused a lot on these kinds of software improvements, alongside a range of Galaxy AI features like more context-aware quick replies on the outer display, though were very likely to see these features rolled out to older phones in the Flip series too. That makes the Flip 6 a tough sell for anyone already using the Flip 5, where the hardware differences between the devices are too small to justify making the upgrade. And with rival Motorola offering a bigger and brighter outer display in the cheaper Razr 50 Ultra (999, Currys.co.uk), youve more options than ever when choosing your next flip phone. Well bring you our full review once weve had more time to test the Galaxy Z Flip 6. Voucher codes For the latest discounts on phones and tablets, try the links below: Get the full picture with our round-up of the best laptops, whether youre working from home or gaming on the go Sunak pledge now comes with the Starmer guarantee of delivery is how new defence secretary John Healey describes the key deal at this summit, painting Britain as the leading European nation in Nato as questions are raised about future US support for the alliance. Donald Trumps brooding presence looms over Natos 75th anniversary meeting in Washington, with his possible return to the White House pointing to probabilities ranging from negotiating a peace deal with Vladimir Putin to renewed demands that other member states cough up more money for defence. Steven Cheung, the Trump campaigns communications director, stressed to visiting leaders that the former president has repeatedly stated that a top priority in his second term will be to quickly negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump believes that European nations should be paying more of the cost of the conflict, as the US has paid significantly more, which is not fair to our taxpayers, Cheung said. Healey acknowledges Trumps tough stance, but points out that, whoever is elected to the White House, Britain must recognise that the American priorities are likely to shift increasingly to the Indo-Pacific and to other parts of the globe. The consequences of that are that European nations in Nato must do more of the heavy lifting and [provide] some of the leadership that traditionally weve been able to look to the Americans to do, he says. Under the new government, Britain will be the leading European nation in Nato. We recognise the responsibilities that, with other European nations, we must pick up [in order to] help secure Nato. But the huge sums of money Nato needs to function suggest that it will still be heavily dependent on the United States if it is to continue as a viable military alliance. Healey and foreign secretary David Lammy have said they will be urging other member countries to increase their defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. But Britain itself is at present spending only 2 per cent the minimum Nato recommendation. Starmers government has a total commitment to raising UK defence spending to 2.5 per cent, they say, but only when the economy allows it. It is true, as Healey points out, that the last time Britain spent 2.5 per cent was under Labour in 2010. But there have since been repeated cuts, while other Nato states, such as Poland, have made substantial increases. Germanys 2024 defence budget is now bigger than Britains for the first time since the Second World War, at 77.5bn compared with 63.9bn. The US spends 670.15bn on defence 3.49 per cent of its GDP, and twice as much as the 314.5bn spent by the European states and Canada. Trump says he will end that discrepancy. The Biden administration claims that, despite Trumps bellicose demands for more defence funding, the former president produced little in the way of concrete results while he was in the White House. When President [Joe] Biden took office in 2021, our alliances around the world were atrophied and underutilised, says national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Now, three and a half years later, our allies are committing more to our common defence than at any point since the end of the Cold War. He adds: Lets start with the numbers. We are closer than ever to fulfilling the pledge that alliance members made 10 years ago, after Russias illegitimate annexation of Crimea, to spend 2 per cent of their gross domestic product on defence. Now, 23 Nato members out of 32 are expected to meet or exceed that target in 2024, compared with just nine in 2020 and five in 2016. The Biden administration, Sullivan continues, has helped democratic allies globally to seek common purpose. Our Indo-Pacific allies have come to Ukraines aid, while our European allies are taking a more active role in the Indo-Pacific region. Britain is helping Australia build nuclear-powered submarines. European and Indo-Pacific allies are cooperating closely with the United States to protect sensitive technologies critical to national security from being used by China against us. Yet India the worlds largest democracy, which successive US administrations have assiduously courted as a bulwark against China has continued trading in Russian oil during the Ukraine war. Prime minister Narendra Modi this week gave his trademark bear hug to Vladimir Putin in Moscow. And Saudi Arabia has warned that it could sell off European debt holdings if the West continues with moves to seize almost $300bn (234bn) in frozen Russian assets. In reality, despite Natos best efforts, the Ukraine war has had little traction in much of the global South. For countries much closer to Russia, what is happening in Ukraine is an existential threat, and the Washington summit comes at a vital time. Sweden applied to join the alliance in May 2022 after Putins invasion, becoming a member in March this year. Its foreign minister Tobias Billstrom says that, for Sweden, being in the alliance is like coming home. Latvian foreign minister Baiba Braze says: The policy of Russia is war. Its not going to go away just in a few years. We need Nato, and we need the US to be with us in what we face. Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy A clubwear brand known for its raunchy, outspoken designs prompted widespread controversy over one clothing item it debuted during Berlin Fashion Week. Namilia, helmed by designers Nan Li and Emilia Pfohl, stormed the runway on July 5 with its spring/summer 2025 collection, entitled Good Girl Gone Bad. Models marched down the catwalk in reworked vintage Ed Hardy gold, spinning streetwear for nights out and mornings after into high-end Y2K couture. Mini skirts and trucker hats, tattooed with the famed fiery artwork of the popular 2000s brand, were paired with thrashed lace and sheer tops, while spiked heels, half-cut white dresses, and shortened veils made for the perfect grunge bride. But among the show of brattish icons carrying messages like Fame Kills and Too Pretty for Rehab on black shopping bags was a statement that didnt sit right with some fashion enthusiasts: I [heart] Ozempic. The message in support of the semaglutide injection, which is doctor prescribed as a medication for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, was printed on a white tank top and worn by a model with dark-lined lips and an embroidered see-through skirt that revealed their black underwear. Though Namilia has always made a point to stitch strong cultural and political statements into its clothing as part of its mission to push conversations around gender constructs and sex-positivity, the I [heart] Ozempic wasnt well-received online. Viewers questioned the intention and purpose in seemingly promoting the unofficial weight loss drug thats become increasingly popular, and which has led to shortages for patients as a result. open image in gallery Model wears Ozempic top from Namilias spring/summer 2025 collection ( Getty ) Poor taste with the shirt, one opposer commented on the brands Instagram picture of the look, while another agreed: Ironic or not, the shirt is in poor taste. Your brand is incongruous, how can you be empowering women by normalizing the use of a medicine that is scarce and that many people do need to live healthily? a third asked. What is the statement here exactly? Lets promote a scarce medicine used to lose weight but that is actually for diabetes so its HARDER for diabetic people to get it? another added. However, supporters argued the shirts message was part of the brands meta commentary on Hollywoods obsessions. For us, fashion is a visual tool for political and cultural statements and to provoke discussion which mirror the current social landscape, Li, Namilia brand founder, told The Independent. The Ozempic craze for us has been played out in a double standard in pop culture. On one side celebrities and their followers are willing to do anything they can to fit the still prevalent super slim body ideal in pop culture but on the other side nobody is willing to admit to abusing medication to meet the often unrealistic expectations of current beauty standards. For us, the I [heart] Ozempic tank top is a piece of pop art commentary and satire commenting on this very current and controversial topic, Li continued. In our SS25 collection themed - Good Girl Gone Bad - we explore the effects and pressure of Fame und celebrity culture. Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Janel Parrish has opened up about her endometriosis diagnosis, which led to her having surgery to remove cysts and scar tissue. Endometriosis occurs when cells similar to the ones in the uterus lining grow outside the uterus. These lesions bleed (like what happens within the uterus during a period), but because the blood cant escape, it can cause inflammation and scar tissue (adhesions) to form, as well as cysts. The Pretty Little Liars actress, 35, took to social media to share details of her operation to help raise awareness and give strength to other women suffering with the commonly left undiagnosed condition. Writing to her 10.7 million followers on her Instagram story on Tuesday (9 July), Parrish said: I usually keep my private life private. But I wanted to share this if it can help other women suffering to know theyre not alone. Alongside a selfie of her in a hospital gown giving the camera a thumbs up, the actor continued: After months of excruciating pain and not knowing why, I was diagnosed with Endometriosis and underwent surgery to remove cysts and scar tissue as a result of the disease. It takes an average of seven-and-a-half years after first seeing a doctor about symptoms for someone to get a proper endometriosis diagnosis. Lots of factors play into this including the fact the condition is associated with painful, heavy periods, which people are often taught is just normal, according to Endometriosis UK. Parrish continued: To my Endo sisters, there is so little information out there about this and there is no cure. So, it is easy for us to feel helpless, scared and alone. Seeing other women posting about their experiences made ME feel stronger. open image in gallery Janel Parrish has opened up about her endometriosis diagnosis that led to surgery ( Instagram @janelparrish ) She signed off: I hope this helps to keep the conversation about Endo open and flowing, so we can raise awareness and lift each other up. We ARE strong and we got this. I got you. In severe cases of endometriosis, cells outside of the womb lining can be widespread, affecting other organs and tissues throughout the body. Infertility is also associated with the condition, and lots of people with endometriosis also have adenomyosis where the endometrial tissue grows inside the uterus wall. open image in gallery The Pretty Little Liars actress shared details of her operation with fans on Instagram ( Instagram @janelparrish ) Other stars have previously spoken out about their experience of the condition. Back in March, former Miss Universe Olivia Culpo revealed her symptoms were dismissed by 12 doctors before she received her diagnosis. The debilitating pain happened and continued to progress as I got older and thats when it really started to affect my day-to-day life where I really could not function, she said. It was the worst pain Ive ever been in in my entire life. Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Will Ferrell has recalled feeling so embarrassed by his legal name during his childhood. The actor, 56, appeared on former co-star Christina Applegates MeSsy podcast on July 9 in honor of the 20th anniversary of their classic comedy film, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. While speaking with podcast co-hosts Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler, the Saturday Night Live alum revealed that he felt embarrassed when he was addressed by his real name, John, growing up. This is a minor thing in terms of its not really even trauma but I remember feeling so embarrassed because my real name is John, John William Ferrell. So, first day of school, Id be John, the Elf star explained. The teacher would be like, John Ferrell? and it was so embarrassing to me to have to say, Here, but I go by Will, I dont go by John. Ferrell recalled that it took a week for teachers to finally learn he prefers to go by the name Will, which he described as an excruciating process. The beginning of the school year was always like, Oh my gosh, I hate this. I have to remind the teacher that Im not John. When asked why he felt so embarrassed by his legal name, the Step Brothers actor said: It wasnt my choice. My parents named [me] John but they called me Will. I grew up as Will, but on a rule sheet, my legal name is John Ferrell, he added. I dont know why that was so embarrassing to me to have to explain, Im actually Will. And then I think maybe for those reasons, other kids, new kids, first day of school, like, Why dont you go by John? Its a long story, Ferrell recalled. He then quipped about the candid confession: People are probably going to be listening to this going, That is the lamest thing ever. Elsewhere during the podcast, the father of three described his personality as a child growing up in Irvine, California, located in Orange County. Ten-year-old Will, fourth grade Will, would have been like, really into sports, very conscientious student, but at an early age, trying to make my friends laugh, Ferrell said. I was like a conscientious class clown. I would goof around to a point if the teacher said, Please stop, Im like, You got it! Ferrell went on to join the cast of SNL in 1995 and departed in 2002 after seven years. In addition to starring in legendary sketches such as More Cowbell, Ferrell has also appeared in several cult classic comedy movies including A Night at the Roxbury, Zoolander, and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. In 2000, Ferrell married fellow actor Viveca Paulin, whom he first met in 1995 at an acting class. They share three sons: Magnus, born in 2004, Mattias, born in 2006, and Axel, born in 2010. Last month, his son Magnus revealed that the comedian pranked him before his prom by dressing up as a medieval lord to embarrass him. In the photo posted to TikTok, Ferrell is standing next to Magnus, proudly dressed in a slouchy black top hat, maroon robe with gold stitching, and a wide-brimmed white collar. Ferrell pulled another amusing stunt last October when he DJed his eldest sons fraternity tailgate party at the University of Southern California. The actor had returned to his alma mater where Magnus is also a student for a family weekend, where he was spotted at the DJ booth during a Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity party wearing black headphones, a backwards hat, sunglasses, and a black zipped-up USC jacket. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Watch as Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin went on trial today (9 July) over the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust. Its been almost three years since a rehearsal of a shooting scene in the western film ended tragically, when a prop gun Baldwin was holding went off, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. Baldwin, 66, has insisted that he didnt pull the trigger on the firearm and didnt know it contained a live round, claiming that it fired accidentally. He is charged with a single felony count of involuntary manslaughter over the October 2021 incident. He faces up to 18 months in prison if convicted. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A Colombian warlord has been released from prison. Salvatore Mancuso was released on Wednesday in the South American country after repeatedly asking the courts to approve his freedom and promising to collaborate in the governments rapprochement with illegal armed groups. Mancuso, a leader of a paramilitary group founded by cattle ranchers, was repatriated from the United States in February after serving a 12-year drug-trafficking sentence and then spending three years in an immigration detention facility while officials decided whether to send him to Colombia or Italy, where he also is a citizen. Since his return to Colombia, he appeared before various courts, which then notified corrections authorities that they no longer had any pending detention orders. Courts had judged him responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances during one of the most violent periods of Colombias decades-long armed conflict. 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. Mancuso's United Self Defense Forces of Colombia fought against leftist rebels. Colombian paramilitary warlord Salvatore Mancuso is escorted by US DEA agents upon his arrival to Opa-locka, Florida, May 13, 2008 ( Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ) In multiple hearings with Colombian judges, including some by teleconference while in U.S. 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 2008 extradition to the U.S. slowed down investigations. Mancuso was born to a wealthy family in northwest Colombia and was a prosperous cattle rancher. He began to collaborate with the country's army in the early 90s after his family was threatened by rebel groups who demanded extortion payments. He then quickly transitioned from providing intel to the military to leading operations against leftist rebels. In 2003, he joined a peace process under which paramilitary leaders demobilized in exchange for reduced sentences. But he was extradited to the U.S. five years later along with other paramilitary leaders wanted in drug trafficking cases. Mancuso was sentenced in 2015 for guiding more than 130 tons of cocaine to U.S. soil. Prosecutors accused him of turning to drug trafficking to finance his armed group. Corrections authorities on Wednesday said they had notified the National Protection Unit a group in charge of protecting people who are at high risk of threats or attacks of Mancuso's release so that it can follow procedures to guarantee his safety. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} President Joe Biden saw a neurologist at the White House on Jan. 17 for a neurological exam, the results of which were later reported as part of his annual physical more than a month later, the White House said on Tuesday. The confirmation came after the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre inaccurately said during the daily briefing with reporters that the Jan. 17 meeting was not related to care for the president in response to a question from the Associated Press. The AP had asked whether a meeting, which was reported through the White House visitors logs, between renowned neurological expert Dr. Kevin Cannard and Dr. Kevin OConnor, Bidens personal doctor, was about the president himself. It was the only meeting between those two men, according to the logs, that had been reported between July 2023 and this past March a period that has come under scrutiny because Cannard had visited the White House eight times in that time frame. Because the date was not mentioned in the question, I want to be clear that the Jan. 17 meeting between Dr. OConnor and Dr. Cannard was for the Presidents physical, Jean-Pierre said in a statement to the AP on Tuesday. It was one of the three times the President has seen Dr. Cannard, each time for his physical. The findings from each exam have been released to the public. That statement is not the first time in the days following Bidens debate debacle which triggered a new round of concerns about the 81-year-old presidents fitness to serve that the White House has had to later clarify answers to questions about the presidents health. Last week, Jean-Pierre said Biden did not get checked out by the doctor for a cold that was noticeable during the June 27 debate. But Biden later said in a private meeting with Democratic governors that he had been checked out by his doctor after the debate concluded. Jean-Pierre said she meant Biden did not get a full medical exam and that the president did indeed have a check-in with his doctor, which he does a couple of times a week. And, on Monday night, the White House released a statement from OConnor describing the nature of Cannards visits to the White House after Jean-Pierre earlier in the day declined to confirm the name of the doctor or say why he was going to the White House. It also confirmed that Cannard had been the neurologist who had examined Biden in his three physicals during his presidency. Jean-Pierre contended Tuesday that a lot of the things I said right here in this briefing room were later restated in the letter from OConnor Monday night. Still, Jean-Pierre said this week that she and other White House press aides are doing our best in this briefing to provide the information that we have. I will be the first one to admit: Sometimes I get it wrong. At least I admit that, she said. And sometimes I dont have the information. And I will always, always admit that. Jean-Pierres clarification also shows how parts of the presidents annual physical, which is generally conducted at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, can be performed over a longer period rather than just the one day at the suburban Maryland hospital. When OConnor released the results of Bidens physical on Feb. 28, he wrote that an extremely detailed neurological exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy. The letter had not stated when the neurological exam had been conducted, or where it took place. The repeated presence of Cannard in the White House visitors logs also attracted attention because of the doctors expertise in movement disorders such as Parkinsons disease. But Jean-Pierre definitively said this week that Biden has not been treated for Parkinsons disease, nor is he being treated currently or taking medication for it. Cannard has been the neurology consultant to the White House medical unit for a dozen years. OConnor also said in a letter released Monday night that Cannard has held regular neurology clinics at the White House in support of the thousands of active-duty members assigned in support of White House operations. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The human rights organization Cristosal said Wednesday that at least 261 people have died in prisons in El Salvador during President Nayib Bukele's 2 1/2-year-old crackdown on street gangs. Under a state of emergency originally declared in 2022 and still in effect, Bukele's government has rounded up 81,110 suspected gang members in sweeps that rights groups say are often arbitrary, based on a persons appearance or where they live. The government has had to release about 7,000 people because of a lack of evidence. The group said in a report that, as of April 15, 88 of the 261 deaths may have been the result of a criminal act, though it did not specify what those acts may have been. The report said 87 of the deaths were due to illnesses, 14 were apparently acts of violence and no cause could be immediately identified for the other 72. People have died in El Salvadors prisons and jails because of torture, a lack of food, unhealthy conditions, an inhuman lack of attention and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, said lawyer Zaira Navas, who authored the report. There is a deliberate policy of not protecting the rights of incarcerated people. There was no immediate reaction from the government to the report. While the government is accused of committing mass human rights abuses in the crackdown, Bukele remains highly popular in El Salvador because homicide rates sharply dipped following the detentions. The Central American nation went from being one of the most dangerous countries in the world to having the lowest homicide rate in the region. Bukele rode that popularity into reelection in February, despite the countrys constitution prohibiting second terms for presidents. In April, a report by the rights organization Humanitarian Legal Relief estimated that at least 241 people had died in Salvadoran prisons since the start of the crackdown. ___ Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} An aid group that rescues migrants in the Mediterranean says one of its missions was interrupted by armed bandits who boarded the overloaded smugglers boat and sped away with it after the migrants threw themselves into the sea. SOS Mediterranee filmed the incident Tuesday. The group said it occurred about 46 nautical miles north of Zuwara on Libyas western coast, a frequent launching point for smuggling operations to bring migrants to Europe. According to the video, SOS Mediterranee volunteers were helping transfer the 93 passengers from the wooden boat onto their rescue vessel when two rubber dinghies approached. A masked bandit leapt onto the migrant boat, sparking panic among the remaining passengers, who threw themselves into the sea. The bandit took control of the empty boat and steered it away from the scene as the SOS Mediterranee crew plucked people from the sea. It wasnt clear if the bandits were trying to recover the boat for future smuggling operations. Often, when Italian maritime authorities encounter such boats, they intentionally sink them as a matter of maritime safety. But Valeria Taurino, general director of SOS Mediterranee, said governments are providing fewer resources to rescue operations, leaving aid groups to do the job in increasingly dangerous situations. The lack of rescue vessels left by the states in recent years in the central Mediterranean has generated a reckless increase in armed presence and illegal and dangerous actions for both the fleeing shipwrecked people and aid workers, she said in a statement. Italian authorities say the presence of humanitarian rescue ships in the Mediterranean only encourages migrants to take the risky voyages, a charge they deny. The rescue was one of several reported by rescue groups this week, as smugglers appear to be taking advantage of summers often calm seas. That said, the number of migrants arriving in Italy this year by boat 27,744 is less than half the 72,036 who had arrived by this time last year, according to interior ministry statistics. The right-wing government of Premier Giorgia Meloni has made limiting migration a priority. It has signed deals with individual African countries to block departures, imposed limits on the work of humanitarian rescue ships, cracked down on traffickers who reach Italy and taken other measures to deter would-be migrants from setting off. ___ Follow APs coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} China and Bangladesh are reaffirming their ties during a visit by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Beijing on Tuesday as tensions rise in the region over territorial disputes and resources. Chinas official Xinhua News Agency quoted Wang Huning, a member of China's Politburo Standing Committee who met with Hasina, as saying that China and Bangladesh have respected and treated each other with equality, setting a good example of friendly coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation between countries. Bangladesh occupies a strategic position between Myanmar, a longtime Chinese ally now wracked by internal conflict, and India, the rising Asian giant with which China has a longstanding border conflict. Hasina met with her Chinese counterpart, Li Qiang, on Tuesday and oversaw the signing of 28 agreements between the countries covering mostly trade and investment. While Bangladesh maintains development partnerships with the United States and India, it is also drawing closer to China, which is heavily engaged in the countrys major infrastructure projects. Hasina is eager to strengthen relations to encourage Chinese investment in her country's economy, which faces challenges over a heavy debt burden. China also provides Bangladesh with tanks, missile launchers and other weapons and is building seaports, railway tracks, power plants and bridges. The U.S. remains Bangladesh's largest source of foreign direct investment. Hasinas visit to China is taking place a few weeks after she visited India, demonstrating her plans for a partnership with both neighbors in the face of growing interest by the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region. While the U.S. and European countries pressured Hasinas administration to hold free and fair elections in January, China openly sided with Hasina. China has also showed a willingness to help Bangladesh's economy as it faces dwindling foreign currency reserves. Media reports in Bangladesh say it will seek $20 billion in new loans from China during Hasinas visit. Concerns have risen over Chinas border tensions with India, the Chinese militarys expansion into the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, fighting in neighboring Myanmar and Chinas control of water resources in the Himalayas that affects agriculture in Bangladesh and neighboring countries. ___ Associated Press writer Julhas Alam in Dhaka, Bangladesh, contributed to this report. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A West Virginia police chief responsible for the hiring of a former Cleveland officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 has stepped down. White Sulphur Springs Police Chief D.S. Teubert returned to his former job as a patrolman, WVVA-TV reported. Mayor Kathy Glover said Teubert had recommended the hiring of Timothy Loehmann as a probationary officer. Loehmann resigned from the White Sulphur Springs police force last week. It marked the third time in six years that Loehmann had left a small police department amid backlash shortly after he had been hired. I did not know who he was, and I did not have all of the information that should have been given, Glover said at a town council meeting Monday night. It was something we were unaware of and not prepared for all the way around. Glover said she also apologized to the family of Rice. Rice, who was Black, was playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in Cleveland on Nov. 22, 2014, when he was shot and killed by Loehmann seconds after Loehmann and his partner arrived. The officers, who are white, told investigators Loehmann had shouted three times at Tamir to raise his hands. The shooting sparked community protests about police treatment of Black people, especially after a grand jury decided not to indict Loehmann or his partner. Cleveland settled a lawsuit over Tamirs death for $6 million, and the city ultimately fired Loehmann for having lied on his application to become a police officer. Loehmann later landed a part-time position with a police department in the southeast Ohio village of Bellaire in October 2018 but withdrew his application days later after Tamirs mother, Samaria, and others criticized the hiring. In July 2022, he was sworn in as the lone police officer in Tioga a community of about 600 in rural north-central Pennsylvania, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) from Cleveland but left without having worked a single shift amid backlash and media coverage over his hiring. White Sulphur Springs Deputy Police Chief Julian R. Byer Jr. has been sworn in as the new police chief. A call to the White Sulphur Springs police department went unanswered Wednesday. Glover did not immediately return a telephone message. White Sulphur Springs is home to the posh Greenbrier resort, owned by Republican Gov. Jim Justice in southeastern West Virginia along the Virginia border. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Hannah Hunts boyfriend has paid tribute to the love of my life as the man suspected of the crossbow murders of a BBC racing commentators wife and two daughters has been arrested. The country is reeling after Carol Hunt, 61, the wife of BBC 5 Live commentator John Hunt, and two of their daughters, Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25, were found with fatal injuries at their home in Bushey on Tuesday evening. A major manhunt was subsequently launched for suspect Kyle Clifford, 26, who was discovered by police in a cemetery in Enfield the following day. The 26-year-old was arrested on suspicion of three counts of murder on Thursday evening and remains in hospital with serious injuries. Devastated friends, family, colleagues and neighbours in Hertfordshire have paid tribute to the Hunts, who have been described as the most gentle, beautiful family, which is understood to include a third daughter. Hannah Hunt (right) was described by her partner as the love of my life ( Handout ) Hannahs grieving partner, Alex Klein, is reported to have shared a tribute on social media, in which he wrote: RIP the love of my life, I will never forget you, stolen from me too soon. The brightest light in my life. My brave queen for life. Until we meet again ... I love you Hansy. As reported by The Telegraph and other outlets, he also posted a picture of the couple kissing in a swimming pool, and another attending an investor event, carrying the words forever with me. Jockeys wore black armbands in respect of BBC Racing radio commentator John Hunt ( Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images ) On Thursday, jockeys at the Newmarket Racecourse wore black armbands in tribute to the family of the BBC commentator. A minutes silence was held at Ladies Day, while fellow commentator Richard Hoiles paid tribute at the outset of his coverage. Its impossible to rationalise such a heinous, pointless and terrible act in modern-day society, the BBC reported him as saying. Ive known John for 30 years. If you spend even a few moments in his company, the odds are that the talk will turn to family. A major manhunt was launched for 26-year-old suspect Kyle Clifford ( PA Wire ) It has been a folklore that after our annual shindig at Christmas 20-odd years ago, wed all retired to the local pub and out would come Johns wallet with pictures of the girls at primary school. Words just seem hollow and inadequate in such circumstances and all we can try and do is provide some crumb of comfort by trying to exhibit the warmth and respect in which John and his family are held. Lea Holloway, 60, said she had known Carol since she was 16, telling reporters outside St James Church after a vigil on Thursday morning: We grew up together and were pregnant at the same time. This is the stuff nightmares are made of. The country is reeling after Carol Hunt (right), the wife of BBC 5 Live commentator John Hunt (left), was murdered along with two of their daughters ( Supplied ) I was there the night she met John. It was in a nightclub in Hemel Hempstead. We went out together, went to birthdays and events. Its very difficult. She was the nicest, kindest, sweetest person you could ever meet. A beautiful person. Detective Superintendent Rob Hall, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire major crime unit, said: Our thoughts remain with the victims family at this tragic time. The investigation is moving at pace and as a result, we have now arrested a man. Inquiries are continuing at this time. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A mother has relived the harrowing moment she hugged her dead rainbow baby son after a drink-driver ploughed into their car at 141mph on the A1, killing the eight-month-old and her sister. Darryl Anderson, 38, was jailed for more than 17 years on Tuesday after he took a photo of his speedometer just before smashing into the trio between Chester-le-Street and Durham in the early hours of 31 May. The 38-year-old did not help mother Shalorna Warner frantically look for her baby Zackary Blades after he was flung from her car, out of his crushed car seat and onto the opposite carriageway at 3.15am. Durham Crown Court heard that Zackary and his aunt Karlene, a 30-year-old fight attendant, were killed instantly in the horrific crash, which destroyed the back of Shalorna Warners Peugeot 308. Zackary Blades was flung from his mothers car, out of his crushed car seat and onto the opposite carriageway ( PA Media ) Ms Warner made a victim impact statement on Tuesday, telling the court that her and Zackarys future together has been stolen. She also recalled in vivid detail her car being spun around, seeing her sister seriously injured, then frantically looking for her son, screaming his name as she searched, after the back of her car had disintegrated in the impact. She told the court she was in the road picking up pieces of debris, trying to find Zackarys car seat, and that a lorry driver eventually found him on the other side of the carriageway. She said: I knew instantly. I had to pick my dead baby up from the side of the road. I hugged him so tight, a hug I will never forget. Karlene Warner, 30, worked as a flight attendant ( PA Media ) No words will surmount the irreparable hole that has been left in my heart and in my life. Zackary was my rainbow baby he was the light at the end of a tunnel of a very dark time for me and brought joy, happiness and laughter into my life. My babys future, my future, our life together, has been stolen from me. And for my sister Karlene, I just have no words. I am so sorry this happened to you. Its hard to process something that doesnt seem real it just feels like I am living a nightmare. Darryl Anderson was drunk, on his phone and speeding at 141mph when he crashed into a family car, killing a baby and his aunt ( PA Media ) I will feel the ripples of this pain for the rest of my life. I dont know if I will be able to get through this I am scarred, I am traumatised, I am petrified to live my life. Analysis of the computer in Andersons Audi Q5 showed he had his accelerator pedal fully to the floor and did not brake before impact. When he took a photo on his mobile phone to show off his speed, the Peugeot could be seen in the picture, as well as a collision warning light illuminated on his dashboard. Anderson lied and told police that a hitchhiker was behind the wheel when his powerful SUV slammed into Ms Warners car. Sharlona Warner is embraced by a supporter outside Durham Crown Court after Darryl Anderson was sentenced ( Owen Humphreys/PA Wire ) But he pleaded guilty to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving at a hearing last week. Emma Dowling, prosecuting, said a roadside breath test showed Anderson was almost three times over the drink-drive limit. He had been drinking on the plane home from a holiday he curtailed after his erratic behaviour made his wife leave separately, the court heard. Police found an empty vodka bottle in his car. Police found an empty vodka bottle in Darryl Andersons car ( PA Media ) Witnesses saw him driving dangerously in the 20 miles he had travelled from Newcastle Airport before the collision, and analysis showed he sent messages on WhatsApp. Sharlona Warner had also been to the airport to pick up her sister from a holiday, with her son secured in the rear of her car. At a police station, Anderson, of Clarell Walk, Thorpe Hesley, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, told officers: I drove into the back of a car. Sometimes mistakes happen. But Im not a bad person. Ms Warners father Nigel and Karlenes partner, Kieran Hutchinson, also made victim impact statements to the court on Tuesday. Darryl Anderson leaving the car park at Newcastle Airport ( PA Media ) Judge Joanne Kidd jailed Anderson for 17 years and three months and banned him from driving for a further 21 and a half years after he is released. Around 50 friends and family members of the two victims were in court for the sentencing. Judge Kidd told Anderson he had been playing Russian roulette with the lives of other drivers that night and a crash was inevitable. Richard Dawson, defending, said Anderson, who was married and has a daughter, was profoundly sorry. Detective Constable Natalie Horner (left) reads a statement to the media beside Sharlona Warner ( Owen Humphreys/PA Wire ) Outside court, Detective Constable Natalie Horner, of Durham Constabularys Collision Investigation Unit, said: As roads policing officers, we routinely ask people not to drive above the speed limit. We routinely ask people not to use their mobile phones while driving. And we routinely ask people not to get behind the wheel while intoxicated. Darryl Anderson was doing all three of those things when he collided with Shalorna Warners car, killing both passengers, Karlene and baby Zackary. For his actions, Anderson has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison, but it is his victims and their family who have been handed life sentences. It is them who will spend the rest of their lives grieving the loss of their son, their grandchild, their wife, their sister and their mother. And for what? 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A health board has been ordered to apologise to the family of a patient who died after developing a blood clot following knee surgery. The 51-year-old ruptured the patella tendon of their left knee in a fall and underwent surgery to repair the tear at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. The patient was discharged the next day with a hinged knee brace and invited to attend a fracture clinic two weeks later. A plan was made for the patient to progress gradually with the brace and a follow-up appointment was arranged four weeks later. The patient died suddenly at home the next day, however, and a probe was launched by the Scottish Fatalities Investigation Unit to determine the cause of death. The board acknowledged that there was no record of a risk assessment having been carried out Scottish Public Services Ombudsman The investigation found the death was the result of pulmonary thromboembolism, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and the recent leg surgery. A sibling of the deceased complained to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) that their relative was not appropriately assessed and treated for blood clot risk. In their complaint response, NHS Lothian said the patients blood clot risk was assessed and they were not prescribed blood-thinners as they had no high-risk features for blood clots. A further investigation carried out by the SPSO found the health board failed to complete a risk assessment for the patient developing a blood clot following their surgery. An SPSO report, which identified the patient only as A, said: In response to our inquiries, the board acknowledged that there was no record of a risk assessment having been carried out. The board said a further investigation by the service identified that A was in fact prescribed and administered one dose of DVT/anticoagulant medication. They apologised for the inaccurate information previously provided but provided no further evidence or documentation in support of their position. The SPSO investigation also found the board failed to note the patients body mass index as a risk factor and did not identify additional risk associated with anaesthesia time. It further found NHS Lothian did not have a protocol in place to help prevent blood clots in veins in its orthopaedic department and failed to undertake a significant adverse event review for the unexpected death in line with national guidance. We accept the report from the Ombudsman and have taken the recommendations extremely seriously Alison Macdonald, NHS Lothian In addition to the requirement to apologise to the patients family, the SPSO has also ordered the board to properly assess the risk of patients undergoing surgery developing blood clots in veins and ensure adverse event reviews are held when necessary in future. The board told the ombudsman it has begun drafting a protocol to help prevent blood clots in veins for the orthopaedic department. NHS Lothian has offered its sincere apologies to the family of the deceased and said it accepts the reports findings. Alison Macdonald, nurse director for NHS Lothian, said: I offer our sincere apologies to the family of A for the failings in this case. We accept the report from the Ombudsman and have taken the recommendations extremely seriously. An action plan is being implemented in line with the timeline in the report and we will update the Ombudsman accordingly. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The mother of a young Briton who vanished off the coast of Tenerife five years ago has described the pain of knowing her son is still missing. Ricardo Scott Santana, 23, disappeared while on a Jet Ski safari with friends at around 11.30am on June 15, 2019 - a day before he was due to fly home. Ricardo smiles with his mother ( Family Supplied ) His family are still desperately looking for the loving youth worker, who disappeared while riding off a jet ski near Palm Mar, just a few miles from Los Cristianos where Jay Slater was staying on the party island. Now all that is left for friends and family to do is pray that one of these days he is found Ricardo with his mother Natasha ( Family handout ) His family said the jet ski was later found abandoned but his body has never been found. His mother, Natasha Samantha Scott, 50, who is deaf, said she has struggled to get any updates on her sons whereabouts without a BSL interpreter. She told The Independent: He was with a group of friends for a nice holiday. Its thought he may have jumped into the sea off his jet ski to swim in the water. It doesnt make sense. He is a fighter and a strong swimmer. He vanished underwater the undercurrent must have been so strong. The jet ski was found abandoned and the rescue mission was launched. Boats and helicopters went out to look for him for three days but they closed the report just two days later June 17. Its been such a long time. They never found a body. I feel so sorry for Jay Slaters family. I have seen her tears. To lose a son, she is suffering and crying just like me. Ricardo vanished in the sea off Tenerife five years ago ( Family Handout ) The grandmother of four said she last saw Ricardo for a family meal in April 2019 and but she will always cherish the last happy messages he sent her from the holiday. She added: Its been such hard work. My younger son has autism he is angry and upset. He always loses his temper asking where his older brother has gone. He asks Why has he never come back to see us? Ricardo was so good and supportive with children he would always work hard to stop bullies. Debbie Duncan gave a tearful interview ( PA/ITN ) Its too late to describe my pain over these last five years. I try to stay strong and positive. I will never give up and never forget him but I have had problems with my health. Every day I think about him from my heart. ( Deborah Clarke-Topper ) His friends sent out missing posters and set up a charity in his name RVS Foundation to raise legal fees to get his body, if ever discovered, finally returned home. It has raised just 1,721 over the past five years. A statement on the Just Giving page read: Now all that is left for friends and family to do is pray that one of these days he is found. Deborah Clarke-Topper lives on the island and has been helping the search for Jay Slater and others through her Facebook group Missing Persons Tenerife. She told The Independent: As a result of publicising Ricardos case five years later, we may enable his family to know more about what happened and help get the documentation, at least a police report, so that they may have closure. Overall, there are 10 cases that have occurred and remain open since the beginning of the year that we have identified at Missing Persons Tenerife. One of the reasons the case of 19-year-old Briton Jay Slater has caught the attention of so many is that he is a young man on holiday who should have been having the time of his life. In addition to recent cases, there are a number of historical cases that have never been resolved, particularly of young British men on holiday or working in the tourist areas of Tenerife, Britain being a large source of tourism. Once the golden hours of the first days of a search are over, the chances of someone being found safe and well are reduced. However, even if not safe and well it is important for family and friends to get closure and to know what happened to their loved ones. A Spanish police officer looks over the village of Masca, Tenerife, during the search for missing British teenager Jay Slater (James Manning/PA) ( PA Wire ) It came as Jay Slaters father voiced his frustration at the lack of officials assisting the search for his son and called for Interpol to take over. Warren Slater has called for the British authorities and the international police authorities to get involved after the Spanish Police search for the apprentice bricklayer ended on June 30. He told MailOnline: We need to, as a full family, do a proper press conference and ask the British authorities to help. Hes a British citizen. Get Interpol involved. Its just us. I havent got a team. We need a team to come over here and find out for us what the police are doing and what we need to do. Our hands are tied over here, we need experts. How long can you stay here for? Itll take an army 10 years to cover all this. Id employ a team of Gurkhas. The search for his 19-year-old son has now entered its fourth week. Warren and Jays brother Zak are continuing to search near to his last known location in a treacherous gorge with a small group of local volunteers. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Prince George may soon be unable to travel with Prince William and Princess Charlotte because of an unusual royal rule designed to protect the monarchy, it has emerged. This rule was also in place when William was a child, and when he turned 12 years old he was no longer able to travel with his father, then the Prince of Wales and younger brother, then third in line to the throne. Now that George is third in line and Charlotte is fourth, in the event of an accident on an aircraft or another form of transportation, it could threaten the immediate line of succession were they all to travel together. News of the unusual rule was revealed ahead of Prince Georges 11th birthday on 22 July by King Charless former pilot, Graham Laurie. He told OK! magazine: We flew all four: the Prince, the Princess, Prince William and Prince Harry, up until Prince William was 12 years old. After that, he had to have a separate aircraft and we could only fly all four together when they were young with the written permission of Her Majesty. When William became 12, he would fly normally in a 125 from Northolt and we would fly the 146 out with the other three on. Prince George and Princess Charlotte could be prevented from travelling together as soon as next summer. ( Getty Images ) If history is to repeat itself, this means that from next year, Prince George could be flying separately from his father and younger siblings. However, as has been suggested that Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis may not become working royals, he may be allowed to travel with his siblings and mother. According to a source who allegedly worked in Buckingham and Kensington Palace as a staffer, this will be done under radical plans to reshape the British monarchy when William and Princess Kate ascend the throne. The working assumption is that the younger two children will get on and do their own thing. They will be encouraged to not become working royals, the insider told The Daily Beast. The royal family reportedly has an unusual rule to protect the line of succession. ( Getty Images ) The former royal staffer, however, acknowledged that this simply will not be an option for Prince George. The option isnt there for George, of course, but the children have been kept at arms length from royal life, they explained. They are exposed to the minimum possible publicity, and that is a deliberate strategy to let Charlotte and Louis choose their own destiny. This comes amid a year where Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis have only attended one public engagement, the Trooping the Colour, amid Kate Middletons ongoing cancer treatment. Prince George, meanwhile, was allowed to attend an Aston Villa game before the Princess of Wales made a welcome, but tentative return to public life in June. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Waterstones has come under fire for sacking a bookseller who claimed she would tear up and bin an authors novel over their gender-critical views. Book influencer and Waterstones employee Tilly Fitzgerald, who uses the TikTok page Tilly Loves Books to share her reviews of novels, was fired after breaching the retailers social media policy during an interaction with author Christina Dalcher. Ms Dalcher was subject to Ms Fitzgeralds criticism after the author appeared to endorse a new publishing network for those concerned about the impact of gender ideology and the safeguarding of womens rights. This prompted Ms Fitzgerald to write on X/Twitter: Ooh Ill enjoy tearing up your books and popping them in the bin today. Thanks for the heads up. The bookseller was subsequently dismissed from her job and took to social media to tearfully express her sadness and clarify her stance on Ms Dalchers books. She said her intention was not to have the author removed from the shelves of Waterstones - merely that she did not want to personally support the author. My initial comments werent trying to get anyone cancelled or taken off shop shelves - I was speaking of my choice to throw my own books of theirs away as I didnt want to personally support them, she wrote. The bookseller was left distraught after loving her dream job. ( Tilly Loves Books ) The situation has now ignited a fierce debate around free speech, with many arguing that she had every right to make the comments on her own account and it was no reflection of her ability as a bookseller. Speaking to The Independent, Ms Fitzgerald added: Im absolutely devastated that this escalated to me losing a job a love. I acknowledge that my comments were a violation of the social media policy, and I did apologise for any trouble caused, however, I think the punishment was disproportionate and a warning would have been more appropriate. Ms Fitzgerald has also taken to social media to urge others in the publishing industry to be careful about what they say online. I just want to be really clear that this decision came from head office - from someone I probably dont even know and who doesnt know me, she added. It had nothing to do with my team in my shop. They are the best team and thats why Im sad. Following news of Ms Fitzgeralds dismissal, supporters of the LGBTQ+ community have flooded Waterstones social media posts with comments encouraging the bookstore to reinstate her. I always found comfort walking into a Waterstones shop. This changes today with the news about @tillylovesbooks, wrote one supporter on Instagram. Like many others, I hope Waterstones head office take a hard look in the mirror and decide to support not only Tilly, but also stand behind the LGBTQ+ community. In the meantime, I will be shopping elsewhere and hope others do to. LGBTQ+ advocates and activists are now calling on Waterstones to reinstate the bookseller. ( PA ) A third user criticised the bookshop for supporting Pride Month in light of its recent actions. Like many others have said - the sacking of @tillylovesbooks not only seems unfair but is not a good look for you Waterstones, they wrote. Another commentator said that the book influencer did a fantastic job promoting Waterstones with her platform. Badly done @waterstones , badly done, they wrote. @tillylovesbooks does nothing but sell your store and her love for her role there. Its looking very knee-jerk reaction to tweets by a person who cant take a differing view. Is this the correct way to handle your loyal team members? Did you really look into it, talk to your employee? The PR isnt going to look good on you amongst book lovers. I think you need to review.quickly! Ms Fitzgerald has stressed that she was only referring to her personal books and not those by the author in store. ( Tilly Loves Books ) The issue has caused such a storm that the bookstore is still trending on Twitter/X this morning, with countless users calling for the booksellers reinstatement and a boycott of Dalchers books. One user also noted that an account belonging to Waterstones retweeted Scottish author Irvine Welsh questioning what a woman is. Hi @Waterstones, I assume that since you so quickly fired a member of staff over their comments about a transphobic author, youll also be firing the member of staff who retweeted this post from the @WstonesLeeds account? the poster wrote. Or is it ok because they were reposting transphobia? Ms Fitzgerald further told this publication: I was an exemplary employee as evidenced by my performance reviews and statements from my team. I have seen comments about me destroying work stock which was absolutely not the case. I was talking about my own personal property on my personal social media account, and I have every right to get rid of books by an author I no longer wish to support based on their behaviour. Im so grateful for all the support people in the book community have shown. The last thing I would consider myself is an activist (although Im forever in awe of those who are brave enough to fight so relentlessly), but to me, its fairly simple - we just let people be who they want to be and begin with kindness. Waterstones told The Independent that they are an inclusive employer, who follow due process in HR matters, and for obvious reasons are unable to comment on individual cases. The Independent has reached out to Christina Dalcher for comment. 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 Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The outspoken boss of pub firm JD Wetherspoon has hailed chancellor Rachel Reeves economic pedigree, as the pub chain reported another hike in sales in recent weeks. Sir Tim Martin, chairman of the pub firm and an ardent supporter of Brexit, is known for publishing his outspoken political views alongside his companys trading results. Mr Martin made overtures to the new chancellor on Wednesday and criticised the previous governments failure to relieve the tax burden on pubs and restaurants, which he believes has led to closures in the hospitality industry. The pub tycoon has long argued that the 20 per cent VAT on food sold in pubs but not in supermarkets means that shops can subsidise beer and wine prices. Mr Martin said: The average Wetherspoon pub has generated taxes of one sort or another of 7 million in the last 10 years, as well as generating considerable employment and social benefits. The last government failed to implement tax equality between pubs and supermarkets, leading to pub closures and underinvestment. open image in gallery The pub chain reported another hike in sales in recent weeks ( PA Wire ) Wetherspoon hopes that the current chancellor, with a Bank of England pedigree, will understand how many beans make five, and rectify this inequality. Last year data from the British Beer and Pub Association revealed that more than 500 pubs closed their doors for good. Industry group UKHospitality has long called for a reduction of VAT for the sector, which it argues would help businesses overcome rising costs and mean fewer price increases for consumers. In its latest set of financial results, the pub giant reported like-for-like sales increased by 5.8% in the 10 weeks to July 7, despite unseasonably wet weather. Like-for-like sales increased by 7.7% over the year to date. Sir Tim said its total sales are at record levels despite having fewer venues than it did a year ago. In the year to date, Wetherspoons has opened two pubs but sold or surrendered the lease on 26 pubs. It added a further 10 trading pubs are either on the market or under offer. The group, which currently has an estate of 801 pubs, said it has largely disposed of venues which are smaller and older, or where it has another site in close proximity. At its peak, the pub firm had around 950 venues in 2015. Earlier this year, the company said it still hoped to meet long-term ambitions of growing to 1,000 venues despite shrinking the size of its estate. The group highlighted it has new openings in Waterloo and Fulham Broadway stations in London, and in Marlow in Buckinghamshire planned for the coming months. The company has disposed of some venues amid efforts to reduce its debt burden. On Wednesday, Wetherspoons said it expects its net debt to stand at around 670 million at the end of the financial year. 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 policy 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 is to appear in a new documentary about phone hacking, ITV has announced. Harry will discuss his mission to continue his fight to expose the illegal tactics of Britains tabloid press, the broadcaster said. It described the sit-down discussion for Tabloids On Trial, which airs on July 25, as Harrys first major interview since the conclusion of his court case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). Harry was pictured sitting on a sofa being interviewed face-to-face by ITV Newss Rebecca Barry. Hugh Grant, Charlotte Church and Paul Gascoigne are among the celebrities who also feature in the documentary as they share their experiences. The duke, 39, sued MGN for damages, claiming journalists at its publications were linked to methods including phone hacking, so-called blagging gaining information by deception and use of private investigators for unlawful activities. In December, Mr Justice Fancourt ruled that phone hacking became widespread and habitual at MGN titles in the late 1990s and that Harrys phone was hacked to a modest extent by MGN, awarding him 140,600 in damages. A trial found 15 articles were the result of unlawful information gathering, and MGN and Harry also settled the remainder of his claim in February with a substantial additional sum by way of damages and Harrys legal costs. ITV said: Featuring Prince Harrys first major interview since the conclusion of his court case with Mirror Group Newspapers, this documentary hears about his mission to continue his fight to expose the illegal tactics of Britains tabloid press and explores what those in charge at Fleet Street really knew as this scandal unfolded. It added: ITV Newss Rebecca Barry meets high-profile celebrities including Hugh Grant, Charlotte Church and Paul Gascoigne as well as people catapulted into the public eye, whose lives were ripped apart by newspapers. Harry hit out at former Mirror editor Piers Morgan in a statement in February, adding: We have uncovered and proved the shockingly dishonest way in which the Mirror acted for so many years, and then sought to conceal the truth. The duke said: Our mission continues. I believe in the positive change it will bring for all of us. It is the very reason why I started this, and why I will continue to see it through to the end. Harry is also one of a group of high-profile people, including Sir Elton John and Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, bringing legal action against the publisher of the Daily Mail over allegations it carried out or commissioned unlawful information-gathering. They have accused Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) of allegedly carrying out or commissioning unlawful activities such as hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars, blagging private records, burglaries to order and accessing and recording private phone conversations. ANL has firmly denied the allegations. The legal claims are in the preliminary stages. Meanwhile, Harry also alleges he was targeted by journalists and private investigators working for News Group Newspapers (NGN), the publisher of The Sun and the now-defunct News Of The World. He is bringing a case against NGN over alleged unlawful information-gathering but not allegations of phone hacking, with a full trial due to be held in January. Grant settled a High Court claim against the publisher of The Sun after being advised he risked being liable for a 10 million legal bill if his case went to trial. NGN has previously denied unlawful activity took place at The Sun. Tabloids On Trial airs on ITV1 & ITVX at 9pm on Thursday July 25. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Alistair Carnss decision to leave the Royal Marines after 24 years service to stand for Labour came as a huge surprise. The colonel, who won the Military Cross in Afghanistan, was widely viewed as someone who would rise very high in the armed forces. Now, five days after being elected in Birmingham Selly Oak he has been appointed veterans minister. He was one of 13 former services personnel voted in as new Labour MPs, something that does no harm to Keir Starmers attempts to portray his party as one that can be trusted with the defence of the realm. Carns, who joined the Royal Marines at 19, was due to be promoted to brigadier last month, which at the age of 44 would have made him among the youngest in that rank. He has served in every major conflict this country has been engaged in for the last two dozen years. Much of Carnss service history 14 of his 24 years cannot be made public for security reasons. He won his Military Cross during a six-month tour that began at the end of 2010. Those of us who reported from Afghanistan remember the fierce, sustained violence of this period as the Taliban made increasing use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and lethal ambushes. But it was during his last posting in a conflict zone that Carns began to think hard about how he could best address the challenges Britain faces in an increasingly dangerous world. The answer, he decided, was to enter politics. Carns says he decided to stand because change is best delivered via the ballot box ( Alistair Carns ) We are seeing a completely different form of warfare. We are seeing, for example, the use of hundreds, thousands of drones, drones destroying battle fleets. How many drones have we got in the army? How many drones are in the navy? What lessons are we learning? Are we moving fast enough to keep up with the character of conflict, and if we go to war tomorrow, are we ready? Carns says. We need leadership, and at the moment, Keir Starmer, without a shadow of a doubt, is the person who can provide it. One of the biggest points for me is Labours reinvestment in national security being at the centre of the manifesto, and the simple reason is that you cant have a growing and secure economy without national security in these dangerous times. These [matters] are intrinsically linked, as is our foreign policy. Labour governments have consistently funded defence more than the Conservatives. I have worked for three defence secretaries in the national security structure, and I feel this gives me the ability to put plans into practice. Starmer has pledged to keep Trident as part of a nuclear deterrent triple lock; to place Nato at the centre of military strategy; to continue to provide Ukraine with armed support; and to boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP once the economy allows. Labour says this shows how far the party has moved on from the time of Jeremy Corbyn, who opposed maintaining Trident and was frequently critical of Nato. The new PM is currently in Washington for a key Nato summit with world leaders, where the defence of Ukraine will top the agenda. There was widespread surprise among Carnss colleagues when he decided to leave the military and stand for Labour. My phone didnt stop ringing. I had a pretty interesting life in the forces, and I had never strongly expressed my political views, because, of course, we are meant to be apolitical while serving, he says. My view is that the military is all about public service, and I want to extend that to politics, a broader church. When you look at politics, its Where do you think you can deliver the most change? The reality is, change is best delivered via the ballot box. There are vital social issues to be addressed, as well. There are people out there who are struggling, having to depend on food banks and food pantries, families who really cant feed themselves; things are really, really bad for many, many people. Carns, who won the Military Cross in Afghanistan, was widely viewed as someone who would rise very high in the armed forces ( Alistair Carns ) Carns was born and raised in Aberdeen. Both his parents worked in the oil industry before they lost their jobs. I come from a relatively humble background. I joined the marines at the lowest rank, and the military gave me an opportunity to do what I did. I really feel we need to give everyone in this nation of ours an equal opportunity to realise their ambition, he stresses. There is a definitely an increasing divide between those who have the opportunity and those who dont. I believe Labour is the party that can try and achieve that. And there is no reason why one cant try as much as possible to end social deprivation, and also remain strong on national security. Defence was one of the main topics of the Tory manifesto during the election campaign, and the Conservatives tried to portray Labour as weak on protecting the country. Rishi Sunak warned that a Labour victory would increase the threat to the UK. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Liam Fox claimed that Starmer was a threat to national security because he had served in Corbyns shadow cabinet. But things kept going wrong for the government. In a Tory campaign that was a gift that kept on giving to the opposition, the then prime minister skipped the D-Day commemoration at Omaha Beach attended by veterans and world leaders. He apologised for his mistake, but senior military leaders spoke witheringly in private about the lack of judgement on display. Meanwhile, Sunak continued to promote one of his flagship proposals the return of conscription. He proposed, in a television interview, that young people could have their driving licences suspended, or have access to loans restricted, if they refused to take part in national service. When the head of the army, Patrick Sanders, floated the idea of national service in January, it was dismissed by Downing Street. Two days before the policy announcement, then defence minister Andrew Murrison said there were no plans for national service in any form because it would do more harm than good. Richard Dannatt, the former head of the army, dismissed the conscription plan as electoral opportunism. Alan West, the former head of the Royal Navy (and also a former Labour minister), called the scheme bonkers. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer (left) and shadow defence secretary John Healey meet with some of the 14 former military personnel Labour selected to fight the general election, during a visit to the Fusilier Museum in Bury, Greater Manchester. Thirteen were elected ( PA ) A serving senior officer in the army said: It used to be said that the Church of England was the Conservative Party at prayer. Well, that went a long time ago. And the view that the military will all vote for the Conservatives is also a thing of a very hierarchical past. Ever since David Cameron in 2010, weve had successive Conservative governments cutting the defence budget while talking up defence. Weve had almost half a dozen defence secretaries in the last six years, one of whom [Ben Wallace] pointed out that defence had been hollowed out. Weve got Tory MPs who want Nigel Farage in their party, a man who blames Nato for Putin invading Ukraine. Thats where we are. Carns added: Of course, what Farage said has been noticed [in the forces]. It is a complete misinterpretation of what is happening, and also the history between Russia and Ukraine. People Ive spoken to on the doorstep want to stand by Ukraine. And that is Labour policy. Pre 4 July, Labour had a handful of ex-military MPs, including Dan Jarvis, a former Parachute Regiment officer who has served in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Before it was decimated at the ballot box, the Conservatives had around 40 ex-forces MPs, both regular and TA - now it has just 17. * An original version of this interview was published on June 26 Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Keir Starmer appears to be prioritising his plans to reshape Britains post-Brexit relationship with the EU with a new security pact. Speculation that talks are set to begin on the fringes of the Nato conference in Washington DC was heightened by his decision to bring his new minister for European relations, Nick Thomas-Symonds. The new prime minister is also set to host the European Political Community (EPC) next week, a forum created by Emmanuel Macron to facilitate European relations post-Brexit. It is expected the subject of the security pact will be broached there too, leading to speculation Labour will begin the process of integrating UK forces with those of the EU. Sir Keir insisted the work with the EU will be complementary ( PA ) However, on the flight to the US, Sir Keir insisted that Nato will remain the cornerstone of UK defence relations but the work with the EU will be complementary. Responding to The Independent, he said: On the defence and security pact this is really important to us. I do think there is scope for a significant improving of our defence and security relationship with the EU. I think this is complementary with Nato. Nato is still the cornerstone of defence in Europe and our approach on defence has always been Nato first. I do see scope for complementing that. That is why we are wanting to advance the defence and security pact or agreement with the EU. He avoided discussing whether the UK will join more strands of the EUs Permanent Structured Cooperation, which is seen as the basis of creating a new European single military. Currently the UK only belongs to one strand which allows travel of military forces across the continent, but even the last Tory government did not rule out further integration. Proponents of an EU military point out it would save costs by sharing the burden across allies on the continent. It would also strengthen Europe should Donald Trump be elected and carry out threats to withdraw from Nato. Even if Trump is not elected, there are concerns that US priorities are increasingly in the Asia Pacific and not Europe - even after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Explaining why Mr Thomas-Symonds is on the flight to the Nato conference, Sir Keir said: Look, this is straightforward. Because of the timing of the election, which was much discussed for other reasons, it has provided a really important window of opportunity for me and my team, because weve got the Nato summit within a week of the election, so we get the opportunity to strengthen our relations with various of the Nato leaders and others obviously that are there, including EU leaders. Now that is a follow up, if you like, on some of the phone calls that Ive already had with international leaders that Ive been doing since the King invited me to form a government. And then of course weve got the EPC coming up at the tail end of next week, so thats why I wanted Nick and [foreign secretary] David [Lammy] and [defence secretary] John [Healy] and me I want to make sure we take full advantage of this opportunity. These are meetings that would probably take months and months and months for us to fit in as a team, if we were not taking advantage of this summit for the purposes of those relations and the EPC. The central purpose is obviously all about Nato but it is a very important opportunity to strengthen those relations. We built them in opposition with Nato allies, so Ive spoken to a lot of Nato allies when I was leader of the opposition. Ive taken the opportunity to speak to them on the phone very early on in this government and I want Nick here, David here, and John here to double down on that, as youd expect. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} When US president Joe Biden spoke to Sir Keir Starmer on the telephone following his UK election victory, he referenced the special relationship between the two countries and now the prime minister is in Washington DC to cement that bond. It is a relationship between nations that is embodied by that between the two leaders, and getting off on the right foot can be important. President Biden is hosting Sir Keir at the White House as Nato leaders gather in Washington for the alliances 75th anniversary. He plans to underscore the importance of continuing to strengthen the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said. Here is how first meetings between premiers have gone in recent times. When Theresa May met Donald Trump Theresa May holding hands with Donald Trump ( Getty ) When former prime minister Theresa May went to meet Donald Trump, it is likely she didnt expect to have to call her husband, Philip, to warn him that images of her holding hands with the US president were imminent. He held her hand going through the colonnades, which took us all by surprise, and as it turns out, took Theresa by surprise, Fiona McLeod Hill, the former joint chief of staff at No 10, told documentary maker Norma Percy. The former PM revealed she was puzzled by his gesture, and admitted she doesn't know what pushed him to do it. The pair first met in January 2017, and Ms May was the first foreign leader to meet Trump after his inauguration. According to a book published by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, Mr Trump asked Ms May: Why isnt Boris Johnson the prime minister? Didnt he want the job? Ms Haberman noted that for May, getting Trump to focus on any issue was impossible. Gordon Brown and Barack Obama Gordon Brown at Barack Obama first met on 3 March 2009 ( PA ) Barack Obamas first term came towards the end of Gordon Browns premiership. The pair met at a time of economic turmoil, shortly after the global financial crisis gripped the world. In March 2009, Downing Street proudly boasted that Mr Brown was the first European leader President Obama had met. The then US president insisted that the UK was one of America's "closest and strongest allies" and vowed to work with Mr Brown to revive the world economy and assist each other with issues on national security. Tony Blair and George W Bush Tony Blair and George W Bush first met on 23 February 2001 ( AFP via Getty Images ) Tony Blair and George Bushs first meeting came just months before the 9/11 attack an event that would come to define UK and US relations. Mr Bush praised the "wisdom" and "strategic thinking" of Mr Blair in their first meeting in his book Decision Points. In February 2001, the pair met at Camp David, the US presidents official retreat. The former president dubbed Mr Blair a pretty charming guy, saying: He put the charm offensive on me and it worked." When a reporter asked whether the two men had forged a personal bond, Mr Bush announced: Well, we both use Colgate toothpaste. Mr Blair quipped: They are going to wonder how you know that George. John Major and Bill Clinton John Major and Bill Clinton first met on 24 February 1993 ( AFP via Getty Images ) The first encounter between John Major and Bill Clinton was just a month after the president's inauguration in February 1993. The relationship when they were both in power never really developed and they fell out when the US issued a visa to Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and during the devils brew of the Bosnian war. Soon after Mr Clinton was elected, the prime minister gave him a tie in the colours of University College, Oxford, which the president had attended as a postgraduate student. Margaret Thatcher and George H W Bush Margaret Thatcher and George H W Bush first met on 7 November 1988 ( AFP via Getty Images ) Margaret Thatcher and President-elect George H W Bush's first official meeting took place during her trip to Washington in November 1988. The diplomatic relationship between the pair was dominated by US troops invading Iraq and the dying days of the Soviet Union. Mrs Thatcher had been in power for 10 years by the time Mr Bush was elected, and had a famously warm relationship with his predecessor, Ronald Reagan. My first impression: Margaret [is] principled, very difficult... Shes a principled woman, and a good friend of the States, but she talks all the time when youre in a conversation. Its a one-way street, he wrote after the first meeting, according to his biography Destiny and Power. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan first met on 25 February 1981 ( Getty Images ) Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan first met when he was governor of California and she was leader of the opposition. Their first official meeting as premiers came a month into his presidency, in February 1981. Ms Thatcher and former President Ronald Reagan were, in the words of one close aide, political soulmates. She said at his 2004 funeral that we have lost a great president, a great American and a great man, adding: And I have lost a dear friend. Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower first met in January 1953 ( Getty Images ) Looking back further, the friendship between Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower stretched from the beginning of 1942 to Mr Churchill's death in 1965. They first met in January 1953 at the apartment of Bernard Baruch, a wealthy businessman. The pair came from very different backgrounds: Mr Eisenhower, was born in a shack beside the railway tracks in rural Texas, and Mr Churchill, a British aristocrat, born in Blenheim Palace. Their relationship was characterised by the Second World War, and they often disagreed about issues around Germany. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Campaigners are preparing to launch a fresh pilot for a four-day working week in the hope that the new Labour government will be more open-minded to ways of flexible working. The scheme is being run by the UKs 4 Day Week Campaign with flexible working consultancy Timewise and companies interested in the project can sign up for a start in November. The pilot - which will also look at other flexible working policies such as compressed hours and a shorter working week - will report its findings to the government in the summer next year. Campaigners are preparing to launch a fresh pilot for a four-day working week ( Getty Images ) Joe Ryle, director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, told The Guardian: With a new Labour government, change is in the air and we hope to see employers embracing this change by signing up to our pilot. The group argues that a five-day working week is outdated and no longer fit for purpose. New methods of flexible working have been gaining momentum since the Covid-19 pandemic when large sections of the population were forced to work from home. The enforced break from office working has led some people to re-evaluate how many hours they want to spend in the office and where they want to work from. In the first pilot run by the 4 Day Week Campaign two years ago, 61 companies took part and 54 had kept the changes a year and a half later. Similar schemes have run in Germany, Portugal and Spain. Liberal Democrat-run South Cambridgeshire District Council also ran a four-day working week pilot, much to the ire of the previous Conservative government. A report on progress since the start of the trial in January presented to the councils employment and staffing committee showed the number of agency staff covering vacancies had reduced from 23 to nine, providing a projected saving of 776,000. Staff turnover reduced by 36 per cent and sickness rates fell by 33 per cent, while significant improvements were reported in the mental and physical health of employees. Complaints to the council fell by 2.5 per cent and there was no worsening in the performance of any council service, the report said. After the trial was extended to waste services in September, bin collection rates have hit or exceeded a target of 99.70 per cent across nearly 130,000 in south Cambridgeshire and Cambridge. The Conservative government were openly hostile to the idea of compressed hours or a shortened working week. Previous local government minister Lee Rowley wrote the the council to ask that you end your experiment immediately and said he had concerns about the value for money for taxpayers. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Voter turnout is reported to have been the lowest since 2001 in last weeks UK general election, at just 59.9 per cent. At just 0.5 points above 2001s low of 59.4 per cent, this years election risked falling to a new record, and was among the lowest turnouts in a century. From 1924 to the year 2000, turnout didnt dip below 70 per cent. In fact, the highest turnout in the last 100 years was when 83.9 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots in 1950, when Clement Attlees Labour saw its majority shrink from 146 to 5. But since the turn of the millennium, Britons have not been showing up to vote in such high numbers, and this may just be the new normal. Between 1997 and 2001, turnout dropped by 12 per cent as Tony Blairs Labour won both elections. Since then, turnout has been gradually increasing, but only reached a peak of 68.8 per cent in 2019. Dr Jess Garland, director of policy at the Electoral Reform Society, warns that this level of participation is worrying and that there were signs fewer voters would turn out before polling day on 4 July. With turnout only slightly above the previous recorded low, this general election has been a worrying one for voter participation. The signs were there before polling day, with many of the conditions for low turnout, she says. In the last Techne poll before the election, 7 per cent of people said they were still unsure who to vote for, and a quarter (26 per cent) were not planning to vote at all. Both the requirement for voter ID and high numbers of undecided voters had an impact, explains Garland. Significant numbers of voters were undecided who to vote for right up to polling day, and many voters were facing new voter ID requirements for the first time. Despite these figures, Mete Coban, chief executive of the democratic charity My Life My Say, believes that young people did have a voice in this election. Although its too early to say what the final numbers on youth turnout are, we do know that a significant number of young people engaged with the election, he says. Since the election was called, 1,641,456 people under the age of 35 registered to vote. A global picture While in the UK, the media was flooded with reports of what could be the worst voter turnout in history, similar figures in France inspired a different reaction just a few days later. As France went into the second round of its legislative elections on 7 July, reports said that the turnout of 63 per cent was the highest in over four decades, since 1981. By comparison, the 2022 legislative elections in France suffered a record-low turnout of 47.5 per cent in the first round and 46.2 per cent in the second round. Meanwhile, the United States elections boasted one of their highest ever turnouts in 2020, of 66 per cent. So what does this mean for the UK? Voter turnout varies widely from country to country, and there is no ideal scenario albeit higher turnout means more peoples views are likely to be democratically represented. But the UKs general election turnout may not reach its former highs, which sometimes exceeded 70 or even 80 per cent. As in other Western democracies in recent years, turnout above 60 per cent may count as a success. Nonetheless, such a sharp drop of 7.3 per cent, down from 67.3 per cent in 2019 suggests that some effort should be made by the government to understand what exactly turned voters away on election day. Garland also suggests that the UKs first-past-the-post system discourages some people from participating in elections. We know from global evidence that countries with electoral systems based on proportional representation see higher turnout. This is likely to do with the increased competitiveness of contests, and increased voter mobilisation as a result. She adds: With record lows in trust in our political institutions, it is essential that the government tries to rebuild political trust and engagement before the next general election. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Two of the frontrunners in the race to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader have attacked each other, as infighting within the party deepens. Just hours after ex-home secretaryJames Cleverly called for party unity, Suella Bravermanblasted her critics and claimed they were in meltdown. She also named her rival Kemi Badenoch, tweeting: Id be interested in knowing whether Kemi thinks Im having a very public nervous breakdown. Ms Badenoch reportedly made the breakdown comments as the Conservative frontbench met for the first time since losing power on Tuesday. She also ignored the unity calls, appearing to stand by her remarks and tweeting that there had been far too much nodding along in cabinet when the party was in government. Suella Braverman appearing via video link at a PopCon post-election event ( Screenshot ) Ms Braverman has faced a furious backlash since she launched an extraordinary attack on the LGBT+ community during a speech in Washington, in which she described government buildings flying rainbow flags as occupied territory. Ms Braverman hit back at her opponents, saying: The liberals are having a meltdown about my speech. She added: Basic truths about our party are not easy to hear. But Ill keep telling them on behalf of the common sense, patriotic, conservative majority. Earlier, Mr Cleverly said his party needed to unite after the damaging leak from the shadow cabinet and a row over the leadership of the influential 1922 Committee. Mr Cleverly warned his party against bitter infighting ahead of the race to replace Mr Sunak as leader. That is exactly how we ended up here, he wrote in The Times. He added: We must get our act together. We need to unite in order to deliver. It will take humility and hard work, to recover our reputation for competence and integrity, to rebuild trust in our party, and unite behind a broad platform that will give people a reason to vote Conservative again. But his call fell on deaf ears. Kemi Badenoch reportedly used Rishi Sunaks first shadow cabinet meeting to criticise his election campaign ( PA Wire ) Dame Andrea Jenkyns also called Ms Badenoch weak for not criticising Mr Sunak sooner - and accused her of trying to appear strong because there is a leadership election. At the first shadow cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the shadow housing secretary is also said to have described the former prime ministers decision to call an early general election without informing his cabinet as a mistake, bordering on unconstitutional. Ms Badenoch accused Mr Sunak of instead first telling a small group of colleagues, including his parliamentary private secretary Craig Williams, who she is said to have called a buffoon after he admitted placing a bet on the election date. She also called the former PMs choice to leave D-Day commemorations early disastrous and said colleagues including Penny Mordaunt would have kept their seats if he had stayed longer in France. We need to get our act together: ex-home secretary James Cleverly has issued a warning to Tory party colleagues ( PA ) As the infighting within the party intensifies, opponents of Ms Badenoch have claimed her supporters are helping Robert Jenricks campaign, in a bid to ensure their favoured candidate makes it into the run-off between the final two. The Times reported Ms Badenoch is concerned the enormity of the Conservative Partys landslide defeat is not being grasped by some colleagues and that she is urging a thorough post-mortem with lessons to be learned. Mr Sunak had reportedly opened the meeting with an apology. Rishi Sunak's first speech as leader of the opposition in the House of Commons ( Reuters ) Ms Badenochs remarks come after a number of shadow cabinet ministers paid tribute to Mr Sunak, with former chancellor Jeremy Hunt praising his work ethic, dignity and commitment to public service, which he said prevented the party from suffering an even worse defeat to Labour. Meanwhile, furious Tory MPs have claimed there is a plot to determine who replaces Mr Sunak after controversy over the election of a new chair of the influential 1922 Committee. On Wednesday night Mr Sunak spoke to his backbench MPs for the first since losing the general election, in an address that was described as very sorrowful. MPs in the room also said there was no hostility, none whatsoever to their leader, despite the disastrous defeat to Labour. While talk of an interim leader was not discussed one MP said he did not think it would be necessary. Speaking after the meeting, however, one Tory grandee blasted his party over the loss . Sir Edward Leigh said: The Conservative Party will never recover until we start doing Conservative things. That included more controls on migration, he added. He said the meeting has been fine and polite but added that the party had to stand for something and win back the Reform voters it lost at the election. When Tony Blair won the 1997 election for Labour with a landslide Commons majority of 179 seats, the world was largely at peace. New vistas in international relations had opened up following the end of the Cold War, pointing the way to a stable international order: there was talk of Russia joining Nato, the PM went to St Petersburg, and Vladimir Putin chose Britain for his first official visit to the West. Blair, who had been a leftist in his youth and had taken part in CND marches, proved in office to be a great believer in the use of armed force. He sent British troops to war five times in six years, more than any previous prime minister. Most of these wars of liberal intervention in East Timor, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan part one were outwardly successful; but then came the Iraq conflict, the fallout from which still shrouds his legacy. Keir Starmer, with a Commons majority of 174, brings Labour back to power at a perilous time, with bloody conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, China threatening to invade Taiwan, and constant cyberattacks being carried out by Russia, Iran and North Korea. Labours campaign repeatedly emphasised its commitment to national security. Starmer pledged to keep Trident as part of a nuclear deterrent triple lock; to place Nato at the centre of military strategy; to continue to provide Ukraine with armed support; and to boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP once the economy allows. Labour says this shows how far the party has moved on from the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, who opposed maintaining Trident and was frequently critical of Nato. New defence secretary John Healey meets Volodymyr Zelensky in Odesa on Sunday ( AP ) At Starmers first foreign trip to the Nato summit in Washington this week, he will reiterate the pledge he made to Volodymyr Zelensky that Britains commitment to Ukraine is unwavering. John Healey on only his second day as Britains defence secretary went to Odesa with an offer of fresh military aid, including artillery rounds and missiles. New foreign secretary David Lammy visited Nato allies Germany, Poland and Sweden, and had a message for China over the assistance it has offered to Russia in Ukraine. Starmer and Blair are said to talk regularly. Labours defence and foreign affairs teams spoke with former members of Blairs cabinet while preparing for power. However, there are significant differences between the way the world is now and how it was during the Blair years. The much-vaunted special relationship was particularly strong between Blair and George W Bush, and played a part in the decision to follow the US into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Successive US administrations saw the UK as a highly valuable interlocutor with the European Union, something at which Blair was especially adept. But that ended with Brexit. Washington has strengthened its own ties with Brussels without British involvement. Labour has been working avidly on its relationship with the US, with Lammy being particularly active. His team has been consulting senior figures from the Blair and Gordon Brown governments, including Blairs former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell. President Joe Biden, center, and first lady Jill Biden, right, walk off of Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington ( AP ) However, the return of Donald Trump to the White House in November now a distinct possibility would make it difficult for Starmer to maintain this historical relationship. Lammy has in the past described Trump as a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser, but he has been working to repair relations with Trumps Republicans. In the last six months, he has met, among others, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former national security adviser Robert OBrien, rising star and potential Trump running mate JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and senior Republicans Jim Risch and Thom Tillis. These efforts are yet to bear fruit. After last weeks general election, Trump was effusive about his friend, Nigel Farage, describing him as a man who truly loves his country while ignoring Starmers victory. Trump has been aggressively demanding an increase in European defence budgets. In government, Labour could try to reprise Britains former role connecting Washington and the EU, and become a bridge between a Trump administration and Nato by encouraging member states to spend more on defence. A problem here is that Britains defence spending has been repeatedly cut by previous governments, while other Nato states have made substantial increases. Germanys 2024 defence budget is now bigger than Britains for the first time since the Second World War, at 77.5bn compared with 63.9bn. As a result, large parts of the UKs armed forces lack the critical enablers, munitions, and maintenance capabilities they need to be match-fit for Natos front line against Russia, says Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general of think tank RUSI. Spending on Britains own conventional forces has not risen in real terms since 2022. What is needed, Chalmers adds, is a guarantee of steady and substantial real-term growth each year for a decade or more. Britain backed the US-led Iraq invasion with 46,000 troops, and in Afghanistans Helmand province alone, there were almost 10,000 troops and 137 bases for years as part of the American-led International Security Assistance Force. However, the army now is the smallest it has been for 300 years. Major General James Martin, who, as part of the 16 Air Assault Brigade, took part in the 2021 evacuation of Afghanistan and now heads the 3rd Division, warns that the army is in the process of losing the skills required to mount an all-out campaign, adding: After 20 years of counterinsurgency campaigning, we are losing this [war-fighting] capability. Britain can currently send a brigade of up to 5,000 in a conflict. General Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the army, dismisses the prospects of deploying an entire division around 35,000 troops for a major war. We cant do that, frankly, he says. Underfunding of defence has resulted in cuts, and its produced a capability that just isnt credible at the present time. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Keir Starmer has insisted that his suggestion members of the House of Lords should retire at 80 is not a comment on Joe Bidens ability to continue as US president. The newly elected prime minister and his wife Victoria are due to have dinner at the White House with the Bidens this evening on his first official visit since winning the election last week. But Sir Keir arrives at a time when a number of senior Democrats have questioned whether the 81-year-old president is fit to run for a second term. Keir Starmer is preparing for dinner with the US president ( Labour ) It followed a bumbling and confused performance against Donald Trump in the first presidential debate last month hosted by CNN. There have been concerns about whether President Biden was too old for office and suffering from memory loss dating back to the 2020 election in which he beat Trump - who himself is 78. Sir Keirs comments about peers needing to retire at 80 were seen as unfortunate timing given the sensitivity of his visit to Washington. But the Labour prime minister insisted his comments were made on a practical basis on the need to reduce the size of the Upper House. Joe Biden is facing questions over his age ( AP ) He said: In terms of the age in the House of Lords, the simple fact is that our House of Lords is massive. Its the second biggest political chamber in the world. I think its only the Chinese who have a bigger political chamber than our House of Lords, we have to reduce it. That is the primary driver of retirement at 80. You can see why that needs to be done. Weve got 800-plus members of the House of Lords, its simply too big. We need to reduce it. So it doesnt reflect on how other elected representatives are chosen in other countries, its to do with the size of the House of Lords. Addressing what he hopes to get out of his first meeting with the president, it was clear that Sir Keir is looking to strengthen the special relationship between Washington and London. Since 2020 relations have been strained because of President Bidens opposition to Brexit and coolness with a succession of Tory prime ministers. Sir Keir has already told The Independent that he hopes to revive Britains trade talks with the US which were shelved by Liz Truss and not taken up by Rishi Sunak. The prime minister believes he can get a trade deal over the line with whoever is the president after Novembers election. Speaking to journalists, he said: Ive already had a phone call with President Biden. I want to follow up on that, this is obviously a very special relationship we have between the UK and the US. We have, within that, a special aspect when it comes to defence and security for obvious reasons including our commitment to Nato. We make a unique contribution in Europe to Nato and therefore its a very good opportunity for me to talk to the President about how we take forward the important work at this summit. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Sir Keir Starmer has begun to reset Britains relations with key allies as his plan to ensure Ukraines pathway to joining Nato is irreversible is set to be adopted. The new prime minister arrived in Washington with support for his aim to protect Ukraines entry process into the Nato alliance from any potential interference from a Trump presidency. He has spoken of his hopes that military and economic aid to Ukraine from Nato will be Donald Trump-proof should the former US president retake the White House in November. With Nato leaders making the war in Ukraine one of their main topics, Sir Keirs long-term call which he made as Labour opposition leader for the irreversible membership strategy is expected to be a key part of discussions. Prime minister Keir Starmer meets Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the Nato summit in Washington on Wednesday ( via Reuters ) One of his first Nato meetings was with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky who is also in the US capital to discuss Russias war against his country. The UKs new defence secretary John Healey flew to Ukraine on Friday immediately after being appointed. Following Wednesdays meeting, Sir Keir said: I've just had a very good meeting with President Zelensky, where I made it absolutely clear that as far as the UK is concerned, the change of government makes no difference to the support that we will provide. We'd been united on this when we were in opposition, and it was really important to me to be able to affirm that face to face at the meeting. I did speak to him immediately after I was sworn in as prime minister last week. And so we build on it here at Nato at this important summit because it is an opportunity for our Labour government to reaffirm our commitment to Nato. We obviously signed the original treaty, way back, we reaffirm today, but also to discuss with President Zelensky what further support that he needs and to use our opportunity here with our allies to make sure that that support is agreed. And to reinforce, in a sense as a message to Putin, the resolve of Nato, bigger now than it's ever been, more united than it's ever been and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression. In a statement posted to X, Mr Zelensky said he had thanked Sir Keir for the UKs military and financial support for Ukraine. He added: This morning, I learned about the permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military targets in Russian territory. German chancellor Olaf Scholz was among the world leaders meeting the new British PM in Washington ( AP ) Today, we had the opportunity to discuss the practical implementation of this decision. Im grateful to the UK for its unwavering support for Ukraine and our people. Sir Keir has a wider strategy as he pushes for a united defence against the threat of Vladimir Putins Russia to the European continent. With plans already moving to rewrite Brexit with a defence and security pact with the EU, Sir Keirs first meeting at the summit was with German chancellor Olaf Scholz. After the meeting, a UK government spokesperson said: The chancellor welcomed the prime ministers commitment to resetting the UKs European partnerships, noting how important our friendships with like-minded countries will be in a challenging international environment. They discussed the importance of having the widest possible cooperation across all aspects of the relationship. They agreed that the Nato summit was an opportunity to strengthen our support for Ukraine. The two leaders agreed a firm commitment to deepen in particular UK-Germany defence ties, working at pace to deliver those objectives. The prime minister and the chancellor look forward to meeting again at the European Political Community summit in the UK next week to continue these discussions. Sir Keir also set about building relations on both sides of the political divide on Capitol Hill, having meetings with Democrat Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell. He is due to meet Republican House speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. But the most important meeting of the day was with Joe Biden, whom he met for the first time since the US president called to congratulate him on his election victory last week. Sir Keir meets Joe Biden in the Oval Office on Wednesday ( REUTERS ) The Labour leader took part in a full bilateral meeting with the president, while the pair also enjoyed dinner with their wives Victoria and Jill at the White House on Wednesday evening. Speaking as he met Mr Biden at the White House on Wednesday, Sir Keir said the special relationship between the UK and the United States is stronger than ever. The special relationship is so important, it was forged in difficult circumstances and endured for so long and is stronger now than ever, he said. Mr Biden called the US and UK the best of allies and described Britain as the transatlantic knot that ties Nato together. Under the Tories, the special relationship cooled between the White House and Downing Street. President Biden made it clear that he was unhappy about Brexit, particularly the impact on the Northern Ireland peace process. When he visited Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, he held the briefest of meetings with Rishi Sunak in a cafe. The difference between his warm welcome for the Starmers and chilly responses to Mr Sunak, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson has already been noted by officials. Ms Truss felt forced to shelve US/UK trade talks because of the issues with the White House, while Mr Sunak never initiated them. In contrast, Sir Keir has stated in an interview with The Independent that he believes he can get a trade deal over the line between the UK and US. But White House officials have suggested that an Anglo-American trade accord isnt a priority for Mr Biden given the pressures of his re-election campaign, making it unlikely that there will be any movement to open negotiations until a second term begins for the 46th president if he is successful in winning one. With the uncertainty over who will control the White House after Americans go to the polls on 5 November, the prime minister is throwing an eye forward towards the prospect of Mr Trump retaking the White House. He has insisted that he will deal with whichever president American voters choose and still hopes to do a trade deal with a Trump administration if he is elected. Sir Keir has also recommitted to the UKs 3 billion support for Ukraine as he joins Nato allies in attempting to make aid for the war Trump proof. Sir Keir held meetings with Democrat Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (right) and Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell ( Getty Images ) With all the allies aware that a Donald Trump led White House after a potential election victory in November could see a new policy on Ukraine, Sir Keir has used his first major conference as prime minister to lock in support. On Thursday, he will warn allies that the frontline defence of the Euro-Atlantic region is the Ukrainian trenches which comes after the UK pledges to accelerate lethal aid support to Kyiv. The confirmation of the UKs multi-year 3 billion military funding package for Ukraine comes after President Putin unleashed a string of attacks this week, including a devastating strike on a childrens hospital in Kyiv. Nato officials believe that the attack may have been a deliberate provocation by Putin ahead of the summit this week. The UK has also confirmed today it will contribute 40 million to Natos Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine. The UK is the third largest donor to the Package, ensuring Ukraine can access vital assistance in key areas including counter drone protection, demining of recaptured land and medical rehabilitation of its injured military personnel. In addition, the UK-administered International Fund for Ukraine will place a new order, worth 300million, for 120,000 rounds of 152mm soviet-era ammunition bolstering Ukraines defences against Russia. In his speech to the summit on Thursday, Sir Keir will say: Nato was founded by the generation who defeated fascism. They understood not just the value of our strength, but the strength of our values. Those values are under attack once again. Putin needs to hear a clear message ringing out from this summit a message of unity and determination, that we will support Ukraine with whatever it takes, for as long as it takes to uphold our shared values and our shared security. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Keir Starmer has indicated that he hopes the Nato summit in Washington will Trump proof aid to Ukraine to help it hold off Russia. Speaking to journalists on his flight over to the summit in the USA, the new prime minister insisted that the defence and security of Britain and its allies will be his first priority. But he again declined to give a timetable for when his iron clad commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent will come into force. His comments came as it emerged he had not been included in a discussion on air cover for Ukraine organised by the US government and including other allies. But Sir Keir made it clear in the press briefing that he believes the summit over the next few days will lock in financial aid to Ukraine for its war effort. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria board a plane (Stefan Rousseau/PA) ( PA Wire ) His statement came when asked if the allies could Trump proof any deal, with the threat that if Donald Trump retakes the White House he will pull the plug on money and weapons for the war. He said: On the question of how we show that commitment here at this summit given there is going to be an election in America later this year, I think its very important at this summit, and I think there is a real opportunity for real unity. Its the largest group of Nato countries together with the additions that weve got, and the package that we are seeking to advance, it goes beyond the support thats been put in before and will be locked in, I hope, at this Nato conference. Thats the financial package, thats the military aid, and the strand that is the industrial strategy as well which is really important given what Russia is doing in this in terms of its industrial backup strategy." On defence spending, Sir Keir insisted he would prioritise it over everything else but any increase to get to 2.5 per cent will have to fall within his new governments financial rules. Trump wants to cut a deal to end the war in Ukraine ( AP ) He refused to set a timetable to meet the target even declining to say it will happen by the time of the next election in 2029. He said: The defence and security of the country is the first priority of government. That is well understood by me. Its been well understood by Labour governments, whenever weve had Labour governments. It is very well understood by this Labour government. It is the first priority. And that is why we are carrying out the strategic review. That is wider than the money question. Talking about the strategic defence and security review (SDSR) he will launch next week, he went on: It is obviously looking at the challenges that we face, the capabilities and making sure that the two match. And the reason were carrying that out straightaway is that although, in fairness to Rishi Sunak and his government, they did share quite a lot of intelligence, particularly on Ukraine, there is certain intelligence they couldnt share with us and thats why I want to carry out this review straightaway. Sir Keir was repeatedly attacked by the Tories on defence with social media adverts claiming Putin would be pleased if he becomes prime minister. While Mr Sunak committed to 2.5 per cent by 2030, Sir Keir has refused to give a date. Sir Keir also arrives with a message for Putin as he meets other Nato leaders for the first time since the election. He hinted that the bombing of a childrens hospital by Russia should be considered in the war crimes investigations by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Sir Keir said: It is absolutely shocking, appalling attack on a hospital and I think thats plain for all to see and nobody should be short on consent of that attack in relation to the specific delegation of that attack thats a matter for others in due course but it is shocking and appalling and its the duty of everyone to describe it in those terms. My message to President Putin is this - this Nato summit should be seen as a clear and united resolve by nato allies and others that are there at same time to stand with Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression whether in Ukraine or whether elsewhere including cyber aggression and other ways in which Russia is aggressive around the world, a very clear statement of resolve. In relation to that particular attack it strengthens the resolve and that is a very important if tragic backdrop to this summit. He also made it clear he agreed with the Sunak government over giving Ukraine a free hand over using British war shadow missiles. He said: Were obviously providing military aid, that is obviously to be used in accordance with international humanitarian law as you would expect. It is for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes. Im not going to get into a discussion here as youd imagine on targeting, that wouldnt be appropriate, but that is the position. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Anas Sarwar has said that the two-child benefit cap implemented by the previous Conservative government is wrong, and has urged Sir Keir Starmers government to scrap it. The Scottish Labour leader said that ditching the cap, which has been described by campaigners as cruel, would depend on being able to grow the economy. However, he insisted that his party would be pushing at an open door for the abolition of the policy, which was introduced by George Osborne in 2017 with the effect that child tax credits and universal credit are paid only in respect of the first two children in most households. Neither the Conservatives nor Labour have made a manifesto commitment to scrapping the cap. Sir Keir said it was a tough decision not to promise to scrap it, but that he would not make unfunded promises. Mr Sarwar told the Daily Record: We will continue to push for it to happen, and we want to make sure were part of helping create the economic conditions to make that happen. But I honestly believe we are pushing at an open door. This is a government that wants to do even more than it promised to do, but were going to do it in the right way. Prime minister Keir Starmer (right) and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar during an event in Edinburgh to welcome new Labour MPs in Scotland following Labours victory in the 2024 general election ( PA ) Asked to describe the two-child benefit cap, he added: Not right, wrong; needs to be reversed. And thats why we are getting on with the work of changing our country. Research published prior to the general election by think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) indicated that the number of children affected by the two-child benefit cap will rise by a third over the next five years. The cap currently affects 2 million children, with more affected each year as it applies to those born after 5 April 2017. Next year, it will apply to 250,000 more children, rising to 670,000 before the end of the next parliament if the policy is not reformed, according to the think tank. IFS research economist Eduin Latimer said: The two-child limit is one of the most significant welfare cuts since 2010, and, unlike many of those cuts, it becomes more important each year as it is rolled out to more families. Labours refusal to commit to dropping the policy has irked anti-poverty campaigners, who say the cap is a significant driver of child poverty in the UK. Former prime minister Gordon Brown also weighed in prior to the general election and said it should be scrapped as it was condemning children to live in poverty. Mubin Haq, chief executive of the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, which funded the IFS research, said: The limit has been a significant contributor to child poverty amongst large families during a period when poverty for families with one or two children fell. If the next government is serious about tackling child poverty, it will need to review the two-child limit. There is an inherent unfairness in the policy as it affects only those children born after April 5 2017. The majority of families affected are in work, or have caring responsibilities for disabled relatives or young children. Alison Garnham, the chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said: Child poverty in the UK is a national disgrace, and the biggest driver of it is the two-child limit. It makes life worse for kids up and down the country and limits their future chances. Children affected by child poverty dont have a voice in this election, but politicians from all parties have a responsibility to them to show leadership. Any government serious about making things better for the next generation will have to scrap the two-child limit, and do so quickly. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Sir Mohamed Mansour, the senior treasurer of the Conservative Party, announced on Saturday he was resigning from his post 10 days after Rishi Sunaks election defeat. The Egyptian-born billionaire had donated 5m to the party and had been a key player in raising other funds. His donation was the biggest for the Conservatives since 2001. He told The Independent: I have been honoured to serve my country and party since December 2022 and it has been a privilege to do so. Rishi Sunak has announced his intention to depart as party leader, and it makes sense for me to also step down at this time. A new leadership team will bring fresh talent and thinking to the task ahead: guiding the party on its path of renewal. It adds to the growing list of vacancies for the Tories as they seek a new leader in the aftermath of the worst electoral defeat in its history. Key to their future after selecting an MP to lead them in opposition will be the need to refill their coffers. Mr Mansour was given a knighthood by Sunak in a surprise honours list in March last year alongside Demis Hassabis, founder of artificial intelligence company DeepMind, and filmmaking couple Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas, who received a knighthood and a damehood. American businessman Ted Sarandos, the co-chief of Netflix, was also given an honorary knighthood. The 76-year-old billionaire is a naturalised British citizen who has donated to many charitable causes including the Kings Foundation and a memorial for the victims of Covid. His knighthood was awarded for services to business, charity and political service. Mr Mansour has previously spoken about the prime minister in glowing terms and has said he understands how growth is generated in the modern economy. He also served from 2005 to 2009 as a transport minister in Egypt under Hosni Mubarak, the late president who quit office during the 2011 Arab Spring. Mr Mansour resigned to return to business life. He famously went from rags to riches, twice losing his fortune due to nationalisation by Egypt and also Sudan, each time rebuilding. Mubarak, who died in 2020, was considered an autocrat and was accused of maintaining his grip on office by cracking down on political opposition and stifling free speech. Mr Mansour will continue to support the Tory party but not as an active member of the partys executive. He is also one of the biggest investors in football in the US on the brink of buying a Major League Soccer franchise for a record $500m (400m). The new franchise, based in San Diego, California, is the sixth biggest football deal in the world, behind Chelsea, AC Milan and Manchester United, but more than the 305m Saudi takeover of Newcastle in 2022. He is expected to create the club from scratch by recruiting a full set of players, staff and an academy, which sources suggest could add an extra $200m to the bill. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A Spanish tourist was trampled to death by a herd of elephants in a national park in South Africa after he stepped out of the vehicle to take photos of the animals. The 43-year-old tourist, who was not named by officials, was visiting the Pilanesberg National Park on Sunday with three others when the incident took place, the local police said. Law enforcement authorities said that the tourists spotted a herd of elephants, including some calves during the safari. He stepped out of the vehicle to take pictures of the elephant herd. Pieter Nel, a spokesman for the local tourism board, told reporters that the matriarch of the herd became agitated as there were calves with them and charged at him. The rest of the herd of elephants also started attacking him. According to South Africas The Citizen, the tourist was then taken to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. One park visitor was quoted as saying that they saw an ambulance rush past them, presumably to take the injured tourist out of the park. Visitors to the park must realise that these are wild animals, a source told The Citizen. You cannot simply get out of your vehicle and approach an animal. Selfies or getting closer photo opportunities with an animal that may see you as a threat or invader of their territory can have dire consequences. Thami Matshego, chief executive officer of the North West Parks and Tourism Board, told local news outlet Netwerk24: Tourists are constantly reminded about the importance of staying inside their vehicles when visiting the park, and to keep a good distance between animals and their vehicles and give animals a chance to move freely, and to only get out of vehicles in safely designated areas. Despite warnings from his fellow passengers and occupants from two other vehicles that were at the sighting, he [the deceased] unfortunately did not heed their warnings, he added. A 79-year-old tourist was killed and four others were injured in April when an elephant overturned a safari vehicle in Zambias Kafue Park. In a similar incident in March, a male elephant had a stand-off with a safari vehicle in Pilanesberg. On 24 June, a game farm worker in the Free State province was mauled to death by a lioness while installing a gate at a lion enclosure. Close Alec Baldwin breaks down in tears as Rust shooting case is dismissed 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Alec Baldwins involuntary manslaughter case in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has been thrown out after just a week of testimony. The Hollywood actor, 66, broke down in tears and hugged his attorneys and his wife Hilaria after Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer announced her decision at the end of a chaotic day in the New Mexico courtroom. Judge Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice based on the misconduct of police and prosecutors over the withholding of evidence from the defense. The prosecution will not be able to file charges against Baldwin again in Hutchins death. Nearly three years have passed since a prop gun Baldwin was holding went off during a rehearsal of the films shooting scene in 2021, striking and killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter and faced 18 months in prison. Now, he walks free. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the films armorer, has already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Her attorney says he plans to move to have her case dismissed. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Wild video captured the moment a man wearing leopard-print pajamas was arrested by police with hamsters down his pants after allegedly breaking into a pet store. Matthew Pancake, 31, was charged with breaking and entering and vandalism after several stores were burgled on the west side of Columbus, Ohio. According to Columbus police, officers responded to reports of a break-in at a local restaurant in the early hours of Tuesday, where they obtained video surveillance footage of a man in leopard-print pajamas inside. About 100 yards away, officers found that the Petland store was also broken into, and several animals were seen running around in the parking lot. Police recovered two dogs, multiple birds, a hamster, and at least two rabbits. Columbus Police Sergeant Joe Albert said officers were still searching for animals including a ferret. Matthew Pancake, 31, was arrested after a spate of break-ins in Columbus, Ohio, and was found with hamsters in his pants ( Jefferson County Jail ) One day, youre running after a suspect. The next day, youre running after ferrets and bunnies, he said, per WBNS10. While searching the area for the missing animals, officers also discovered that the Famous Footwear store on Hilliard Rome Road was broken into. Albert said it is believed that Pancake is connected to the break-ins at all three businesses. Officers also found blood at the scene and believed that the suspect was injured. Pancake was found sleeping near the Big Lots on Roberts Road shortly before 5am. Officers arrested him and discovered there were four gerbils in his pants. The gerbils were not hurt, according to WSYX. Pancake was taken to a hospital to be treated for his injuries. He was later booked into Franklin County Jail. Its very odd, Albert said. Obviously, we dont know what this individual is going through. The Independent has reached out to Columbus police for more information about the incident 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Daelena Mackay was a student full of life and looking to follow in her fathers footsteps as an actor. But in May, she was found hanging from a red scarf in her Los Angeles apartment just one month before her 21st birthday. For weeks, her body sat in a mortuary after the countys medical examiner ruled her death a suicide. Her father, Dwayne Adway, a veteran Hollywood actor who has appeared in hit television shows CSI, NYPD Blue, and Soul Plane, has since cast his doubt over the cause of his daughters death and said the family is looking for truth and justice. Her mom, Elaine Mackay, also insisted that her daughter had suspicious injuries. After finding Mackay in her El Centro Hollywood bathroom on May 23, a man claiming to be her boyfriend said he desperately attempted to revive her as he called 911, police said. Those attempts failed, and she was pronouncd dead by paramedics just after midnight. The boyfriend said he left the apartment at approximately 8pm following an argument and returned to find her dead, according to the police report. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner did not perform an autopsy. The medical examiner told The Independent that an external examination conducted on May 25 and the circumstances surrounding the death of the 20-year-old were conclusive. The case remains open, it confirmed. But Mackays family isnt satisified, and Adway said he intends to apply pressure to the Los Angeles Police Department to dig further into his daughters case, he told the New York Post. They are dead set on staying where they are and not looking more into the case. This seems to be happening a lot in LA with black and brown girls who die and are written off as suicides, he said. Dwayne Adway said that he wants to apply pressure on the LAPD to investigate the case further ( Getty Images ) Adway told the outlet that he has met the man who called 911 the day of his daughters death and said he had concerns about his behavior. Mackays mother claimed that the purported partner was not the same as her her daughters long-term off-and-on boyfriend in Texas, she told the Mail. The heartbroken mom has also shared her disdain about the lack of a thorough post-mortem examination on her daughters body. She claimed that she was left with no choice but to examine her body herself. Her body tells a different story than what police are telling us, with bruises and bleeding from two puncture wounds approximately an inch apart that go from the front of her body straight through to the back and other bleeding, she told the outlet. Mackay also maintains that her daughter saw a therapist the day prior to her death, adding that there was zero clinical indication of depression or suicide, that my daughter was full of life. Adway contended that an autopsy is not likely to shed more light on the cause of his daughters death but he continues to press authorities to pursue further action. I am seeking a full investigation from LAPD in hopes of finding the truth and justice, he told NBC Los Angeles. Adway said that he consulted with two private forensic pathologists and claimed they told him that there is no doubt that his daughter was strangled. However, their autopsy results would not differ from the medical examiners. The issue is not that she was strangled, but the manner in which she was strangled is the question, Adway told the Post. The Independent has reached out to the LAPD about whether theyve decided to investigate Mackays death further. If you are experiencing feelings of distress and isolation, or are struggling to cope, The Samaritans offers support; you can speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Two women have been charged with murder in Washington DC after chopping off the thumb of a sugar daddy to unlock his phone and steal money from his digital wallet, police say. Audrey Denise Miller and Tiffany Taylor Gray were charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Fasil Teklemariam, 53, DC police said. A witness described Teklemariam as Grays sugar daddy, according to an arrest warrant. In April, police responded to reports of an unconscious person at an apartment building on Peabody Street NW in the city around 11.20pm. The victim was found in bed, surrounded by broken glass and traces of cleaning agents, believed to have been used in an attempt to conceal evidence, according to the warrant. Tiffany Gray has been charged with murder and accused of murdering her sugar daddy ( DC Superior Court ) The victim, later identified as Teklemariam, was found to have died days earlier and suffered multiple sharp force injuries. An autopsy ruled the death a homicide with the report listing head trauma, stab wounds on the torso, leg lacerations, and that the right thumb had been removed. When police first searched the victims apartment, they were unable to find his detached thumb, phone, or any other electronic device. Police believe that the severed thumb was used to unlock the victims phone, giving the accused access to his wallet. One witness alleged that Gray paid for Uber, [bought] weed, and alcohol with use of the decedents thumb, according to the warrant. Security camera footage from around 7.30pm on April 1 showed Miller walking into Teklemariams building. Audrey Miller was also charged with the murder of Fasil Teklemariam ( DC Superior Court ) Hours later, Gray walked into the building. Around 11.30pm, Miller and Gray were captured leaving the building and appeared to be carrying items from the decedents apartment before fleeing in the vehicle. Several electronic devices and household items were stolen, the arrest warrant states. Police arrested and charged Miller on June 21 while Gray was arrested and charged on July 1, according to NBC Washington. Millers preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 30. The Independent has contact a lawyer for Miller for comment. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A San Diego hotel clerk is accused of going on a horror rampage, stabbing a guest in her hotel room before driving his car into a pier and drowning. Aaron Tran, 23, had worked at The Shoal La Jolla Beach as a hotel clerk for the past six months, according to San Diego Police. On Sunday night, police said he checked two women in their twenties from out of state into a room at the hotel. Just a few hours later, at around midnight, Tran allegedly claimed he needed to enter the guests room to fix a water leak a leak police said never existed. One of the women opened the door and let the 23-year-old into their room while her friend was asleep, police said. Once inside, Tran allegedly handed the woman his phone, showing her a chilling warning message. Dont scream, I have a knife. If you scream, Ill stab you, it read, San Diego Police Lieutenant Paul Phillips told KNSD. Despite the warning, she fought back and the two women managed to escape the room and call police. One of the women suffered a slashed arm, stab wounds to her upper chest and defensive wounds on her hands in the attack. Tran allegedly fled the scene in his white Honda Accord. At around 12.35am 30 minutes after the womens 911 call the suspects vehicle was spotted by Harbor Police in the downtown area, speeding and doing donuts. Aaron Tran, 23, was found drowned in his white Honda Accord near the USS Midway Museum in downtown San Diego early on Monday morning ( OnScene.TV/NBC San Diego ) Tran then drove the vehicle off the pier at around 80mph. Witness Gio Martinez told NBC San Diego that he saw the incident unfold whilst he was fishing with his family. At like 80 miles an hour, they just went straight into the water. It did not stop. There was no brakes, he continued. That thing was like 10 feet away from my brother. Everything was crazy. Everything happened really fast. Phillips said that the vehicle sunk 40 feet within just 10 minutes. Around two hours later at 2.20am, divers pulled Trans body from the car. The 23-year-old, who lived with his parents, had several stab wounds near his collarbone with police saying at least one of which was self-inflicted. The car was pulled from the water at around 5.30am and a pocket knife was found inside, police said. The motive for the stabbing rampage remains unclear. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} An Oregon tribe is mourning the deaths of two teen sisters who were shot and killed by a 20-year-old man after their father caught him hiding in a bedroom at their home, authorities said. Elijah Albert Qinkade Croy, 20, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and unlawful use of a weapon. Aleeka Qualls, 19, and Zion Qualls, 14, were shot at the Klamath Falls home after Croy first attempted to kill the girls father, Tashka Qualls, according to court records. Croy reportedly told police that he had assembled a Glock-style handgun from parts ordered online. Police were called to the home just before 8am on June 29 and heard gunshots. They arrested Croy within a few feet of two homicide victims, a Klamath Falls Police Department officer wrote in a probable-cause statement filed in court. The Qualls sisters were Klamath tribal descendants, the Klamath Tribes said in a statement, adding that they are in deep mourning after the shocking double homicide. The Klamath Tribes has continued to experience an unprecedented amount of violent crime, and many of these crimes do not appear to be properly investigated, prosecuted, and addressed, the Klamath Tribes Council said in a statement. This most recent murder must be immediately and fully investigated, holding any and all criminals accountable for their crimes. The girls grieving father thanked the community for their outpouring of support. There are no words to express how I feel about the loss of my daughters and the love that I feel from our community, Qualls said. This has shattered me to the core, and I never want anyone to have to feel the pain that I am feeling at this time. The girls mother, Crystal Davis, is not doing well at all, her sister Courtney Franklin told HuffPost. In the first four months of 2024, nearly 5.5. million firearms were purchased in the US with 146,034 bought in Oregon. Oregon had the fourth-highest rate of guns per capita in 2023, according to the report. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A city in California threatened to fine a Target store for calling 911 multiple times after it was blighted by a spate of thefts. Over the last year, the retail store in Land Park, Sacramento, has been targeted by thieves on several occasions. Sacramento city attorney Susana Woods office responded by accusing the store of causing a public nuisance by calling the police. If Target didnt stop calling 911, the city office warned it would hit the retailer with an administrative fine, a source told the Sacramento Bee. The letter threatening a nuisance violation, which would essentially dissuade staff from reporting in-store crime, was drafted but never sent, the source added. A police spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that the warning concerned Targets Land Park store. The Independent has contacted Woods office for comment. Other California officials have since condemned the city attorneys offices actions. Surprised to hear that anyone would ever attempt to make a nuisance case out of somebody calling to report legitimate crime, California Police Chief Alexander Gammelgard said at a select committee meeting last year. State lawmakers including Governor Gavin Newsom responded by adding an amendment to a retail theft bill, outlawing authorities from making such threats to businesses. Proposition 47 loosened penalties for some non-violent property crimes, including petty theft with a value below $950. Sacramento city attorney Susana Woods office accused the store of causing a public nuisance by calling the police ( cityofsacramento.gov ) The bill, which passed in the state in 2014, has been blamed by some for an apparent rise in petty thefts. Newsom himself revealed earlier this year that he witnessed a shoplifter walk out of a Target store in Sacramento with an armful of stolen loot. But state officials believe that the amendment to the bill is a better solution than reforming it altogether. Now, in a bid to curb retail theft, Newsom and some California lawmakers are pushing a package of 14 bills to tighten penalties on retail theft offenses. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Authorities are investigating whether hazing played a role in the death of a Dartmouth student whose body was recovered from a river in New Hampshire this weekend. Won Jang, 20, was last seen by friends around 9.30pm on Saturday at a gathering on a dock close to the Dartmouth College boathouse on the Connecticut River, New Hampshire Fish and Game department reported. Police were notified that he was missing at 4pm on Sunday when he failed to show up to an engagement. Items discovered near the dock indicated that Jang never left the area and investigators began to search the water. At 7.25pm on Sunday, an underwater camera located the students body not far from the dock where he was last seen. The medical examiner responded to the scene but the students preliminary manner of death was undetermined. Two students, Carter Anderson and Gideon Gruel, told The Dartmouth, the universitys student newspaper, that Jang attended Saturdays dock gathering with Beta and Alpha Phi, two campus Greek organizations, and that alcohol was involved. Jang was a member of the Beta Alpha Omega fraternity. Won Jang, a 20-year-old Dartmouth student, died this weekend. His body was pulled from the Connecticut River in New Hampshire on Sunday ( LinkedIn ) Hanover police chief Charles Dennis told WMUR-TV that officials had received an anonymous report that hazing played a role in the students death. He said the department would be looking into the claim but that they do not believe that foul play was involved. The Independent has contacted Hanover police department and Dartmouth College for comment. Jang, an undergraduate student from Middletown, Delaware, was due to graduate in 2026 with a degree in biomedical engineering. He worked as a project manager at the DALI Lab, a design program for students to build websites and apps, and as a research assistant at the Thayer School of Engineering. Won wholeheartedly embraced opportunities at Dartmouth to pursue his academic and personal passions, College Dean Scott Brown wrote in an email to students. He enthusiastically took part in the Dartmouth community. Jang is the second Dartmouth student to have been found dead in the Connecticut River this year. In May, authorities found Kexin Cai, 26, dead in the river five days after she went missing. Officials said that she was last seen in Lebanon, New Hampshire on May 15. Cai was a second-year doctoral student studying psychological and brain sciences. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Delta Air Lines says that it has entered into a partnership with startup Riyadh Air with the goal of operating flights between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Riyadh Air, which plans to begin passenger flights next summer, is backed by Saudi Arabias sovereign-wealth fund and is part of the countrys plan to diversify its oil-based economy and boost tourism. Atlanta-based Delta and Riyadh did not give a timetable for beginning flights or financial details around their partnership. Their CEOs said neither airline is taking an ownership stake in the other. Delta CEO Ed Bastian and Riyadh Air CEO Tony Douglas said they envision selling tickets on each others flights a practice known as codesharing that requires approval from the U.S. Transportation Department. They said the partnership could grow into a full-blown joint venture. That step would require immunity from U.S. antitrust laws for the carriers to collaborate on prices and share revenue. Bastian said he expects much of the early traffic to be passengers flying to the United States, but that it will even out over time as tourism to Saudi Arabia grows. No U.S. airline flies to Saudi Arabia. Saudia, the kingdom's flag carrier, operates nonstop flights between Saudi Arabia and New York, Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The family of a Black man who died after private security officers pinned him to the pavement outside a Wisconsin hotel is demanding criminal charges for those responsible. Dvontaye Mitchells death has been ruled a homicide by the medical examiners office, which said further testing was underway. The 43-year-olds mom said her son was in the throes of a mental health episode when he was tackled by guards at the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee on June 30, as he pleaded with them to let him go. The guards have all been suspended, Hyatt representatives said in a statement. However, Milwaukee police said Tuesday that they were not conducting a criminal investigation because there was no blunt force involved, but that a probe into what happened was ongoing. According to Hyatt security, the incident began after Mitchell allegedly went into the womens restroom in the hotel lobby. Four security guards then muscled Mitchell to the driveway by the hotel entrance, and can be seen on cellphone video kneeling on his back and neck as he apologizes repeatedly and pleads with them to let him go. One of the guards appears to strike Mitchell in the head with an unknown object as another commands Mitchell to stop fighting. Mitchell was unresponsive when police arrived, and he was pronounced dead at the scene, according to civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has been retained by the Mitchell family. Crump has compared Mitchells death to that of George Floyd, a Black man who died in 2020 when Minneapolis cops detained him and pinned him to the ground on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. At a press conference on Tuesday, Crump called for charges to be filed against the Hyatt guards, posting footage of his remarks on Instagram, accompanied by the caption: We want #JusticeForDvontaye Mitchell! Why is it that [his] death, ruled a homicide by the medical examiner, is not under criminal investigation?! The security personnel involved in Dvontayes death must be held accountable! At an earlier press conference held Monday, where video of the shocking incident was screened for reporters, Crumps co-counsel William Sulton said , Youre watching a murder, folks. Thats what youre watching. In a statement issued by his office, Crump called Mitchells death deeply troubling, saying that the family is now left searching for answers and justice in the face of this tragic loss It is unacceptable that this case is not being considered a criminal investigation despite the fatal outcome. For its part, Hyatt said, We extend our heartfelt condolences to Dvontaye Mitchells family, all those who knew and loved him, and the Milwaukee community in light of this tragedy. Hotels franchised under Hyatts brands are required to comply with Hyatts mandatory safety and security standards and ensure that the hotel is a safe and secure environment for guests, colleagues and the public. As the investigation continues, Hyatt is fully committed to supporting efforts to help ensure accountability for the circumstances that led to the death of Dvontaye Mitchell. The outrage over Mitchells death is ramping up just days before the Republican National Convention is set to kick off at Milwaukees Fiserve Arena, two blocks from the Hyatt Regency. GOP delegates will be in town from July 15 through July 18 for the nominating confab, during which they are expected to solidify the partys choice of former Oval Office occupant and newly convicted felon Donald Trump as its 2024 presidential candidate. Crump and the Mitchell family are scheduled to hold another press conference on Wednesday afternoon to reveal significant new evidence from a witness, according to Crump. The group will then conduct a prayer vigil at the Hyatt Regency. Mitchells funeral is set for Thursday morning at Milwaukees Holy Redeemer Institutional Church Of God In Christ. Rev. Al Sharpton is expected to deliver the eulogy. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} When Janet V. Balducci was pronounced dead on Feb. 4, 2023, at a Long Island, New York, nursing home, a staffer placed the 82-year-olds remains into a body bag and sent her off to be embalmed. But there was just one catch: Balducci was still alive, spending a full two hours inside the sealed bag before funeral parlorworkers realized their cadaver had a pulse. The unthinkable cock-up constituted extreme and outrageous conduct, and Balduccis two sons are looking for answers, according to a lawsuit obtained by The Independent. The lawsuit accuses Balduccis caretakers of not only prematurely declaring her deceased, but contributing to her death in the first place by failing to diagnose or properly treat her deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which she developed as nursing home workers allegedly stood by and did nothing to head off eventual disaster. Robert and Joseph Balducci are horrified by what happened, and they have to live with the fact that Janet was placed in a body bag alive, the familys lawyer, Peter DeNoto, told The Independent. I think the case is more emblematic of what happens when elderly people go into these homes, DeNoto said. They dont have an advocate to keep track of whats happening. The Balducci familys lawsuit calls out those involved for negligence, gross negligence, and/or recklessness, arguing that their actions constituted extreme and outrageous conduct. The incident made national headlines after it occurred last year , and was referred to Suffolk County police, the New York State Department of Health, and the New York Attorney Generals Office for investigation, but Balduccis name and the specifics of what happened have never been previously revealed. Balducci had been fully self-reliant and living on her own until she took a fall at home in the summer of 2022, DeNoto told The Independent. She was admitted to Stony Brook University Hospital on August 1, 2022, for treatment following the fall, and on September 6, 2022, was transferred to the Waters Edge Rehabilitation & Nursing Center at Port Jefferson for rehabilitation and long-term care, he said. The lawsuit accuses Balduccis caretakers of not only prematurely declaring her deceased, but contributing to her death in the first place by failing to diagnose or properly treat her deep vein thrombosis. ( Balducci family ) Things seemed fine for the first few months, but Balduccis health then began to decline, according to DeNoto, a partner at Dell & Dean PLLC. On Feb. 3, 2023, a nurse practitioner at Waters Edge noted on Balduccis chart that her appetite had decreased and was lethargic, but was in no acute distress and [was] responsive, DeNoto went on. We have limited information about what transpired for the remainder of the day, but at 11:39 p.m., another nurse practitioner noted that Janet was unresponsive and a physician directed that nurse practitioner to contact the family to discuss care options, DeNoto continued. One of Ms. Balduccis sons, Robert N. Balducci, was contacted at approximately 11:52 p.m. and requested that comfort care be provided. At 7:30 the next morning, the assistant nursing director at Waters Edge checked on Balducci and noted that she was in bed and comfortable, DeNoto said. The assistant nursing directors next entry, made Feb. 4 at 12:10 p.m., said Balducci had expired at 11:15 a.m. and efforts were being made to determine which funeral home would be called in to retrieve the body for interment, according to DeNoto. He said Balducci was then put into a sealed body bag, which was sent to the Casimir Funeral Home in Miller Place, New York. At 2:09 p.m. funeral home workers unzipped the bag, and, according to DeNoto, discovered that Balducci was still breathing and had a pulse. The funeral home called paramedics, who intubated Balducci while rushing her to nearby John T. Mather Memorial Hospital. When Balducci got there, DeNoto said she was noted to be unresponsive. She was placed on palliative care and held on until 5:20 a.m. on February 5, 2023, DeNoto said. At that time, she passed. Waters Edge describes itself as providing outstanding short term and subacute care, combined with the first-class amenities of the finest boutique hotels. In its most recent publicly available data, the New York State Department of Health gave Waters Edge an overall three-star rating (out of five), with 107 complaints per 100 occupied beds (the statewide average is 52.5). It was cited for a raft of moderately severe deficiencies over the past three years, including insufficient levels of nursing staff, all of which have been corrected, according to state records. The facility has racked up $22,000 in fines since 2012, for, variously, failing to document an incident in which a patient fell to the floor of their room, leaving a patients pressure ulcers untreated, and leaving a patient outside in the hot sun , leading to heat exhaustion and dehydration. A not-insignificant number of living people have been zipped into body bags before they actually expired. Cases have been reported in Australia , Brazil , Utah , Iowa , and Detroit, Michigan . Now that Balduccis sons have filed their initial complaint, DeNoto said his firm is waiting for the facility and the funeral home to serve answers. (The criminal investigation opened by law enforcement remains ongoing, according to DeNoto.) At this point, we have obtained our information from family members and the medical records, and as the case progresses, we will obtain more information from the people who were present about what transpired, DeNoto told The Independent. [W]e will continue investigating the events [in question] and what Janet went through until she passed. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} At the graduation ceremony of New York University Abu Dhabi this May, a student wearing the traditional Palestinian black-and-white keffiyeh scarf shouted Free Palestine! as he crossed the stage to receive his diploma, witnesses say. Days later, he reportedly was deported from the United Arab Emirates. The incident at the graduation comes as the UAE tries to balance its diplomatic recognition of Israel with the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that's devastated the Gaza Strip. While offering aid to the Palestinians, there have been none of the mass demonstrations that swept the Arab world here in the UAE, a federation of seven emirates that tightly controls speech and where political parties are illegal. That's stretched into academic life at NYU Abu Dhabi, where students say activities over the war have been barred, and into cultural events in the country's capital as well where those wearing the keffiyeh have been stopped from entering. I think the government and the laws of the country dont necessarily align with wanting to create an environment that appeals to the West as well, if were talking about freedom of speech and so on," said one student, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Responding to questions from The Associated Press, NYU Abu Dhabi said it has been guaranteed academic authority on campus but that in none of our locations ... are members of the NYU community immune from local law. NYU has no authority over any nations immigration or law enforcement actions or decisions, the school said. It added it advised students clearly and repeatedly about expectations, obligations, and boundaries, including the protocols for the NYU Abu Dhabi graduation. The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment. Before the graduation ceremony, students had been told that displaying the Palestinian flag anywhere on campus is not permitted and this was strictly executed, even in residential buildings, said another student, who similarly spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. In total, five students speaking on condition of anonymity described similar circumstances leading up to the graduation affecting those who earlier sought to bulk-buy keffiyehs as a fundraiser and organize vigils for the dead in Gaza. Jacqueline Hennecke, an NYU Abu Dhabi alumni who graduated in May, told the AP that the university sent an email prior to graduation banning all cultural attire at the commencement including scarves. The student who disregarded the order and yelled Free Palestine! on stage ultimately found himself in police custody prior to his deportation, according to the American Association of University Professors which supports free speech and academic freedom efforts. The university has been unable to protect students, staff and faculty from being taken into custody and interrogated at government security offices and has failed to prevent the deportation of one academic staff member and a graduate student, a statement from the organization alleged. It also claimed that staff and students from non-Western countries had been detained, intimidated, and deported based on surveillance. It did not elaborate. This is not the first time NYU Abu Dhabi has faced criticism when trying to balance the ideas of an American liberal arts education in the UAE, which has strict rules governing speech despite being a staunch American ally in the Mideast. Human rights groups criticized the school for using migrant workers to build the campus who they say had been subject to a range of violations including being forced to pay recruitment fees to get their jobs that were never reimbursed, living in overcrowded conditions and being forced to work overtime. Following the report, NYU commissioned an investigation, which found a number of workers hadnt been protected by the fair labor practices the school had said would be in place. The school promised reimbursement, though some workers later claimed they never received it. The journalism department at New York University in 2017 told the school it was cutting its ties to NYUs Abu Dhabi campus over two professors being denied work visas by the UAE, as well as the schools handling of the situation. But NYU Abu Dhabi's actions come as the UAE maintains its diplomatic ties with Israel, which runs both a consulate in Dubai and an embassy out of Abu Dhabi. Daily flights to Israel have also gone on even as Western airlines were slow to resume flights to Ben Gurion International Airport outside of Tel Aviv. Security officials closely monitored pro-Palestinian demonstrations when Dubai hosted the U.N. COP28 climate talks in November, which the UAE had to allow in the U.N.-controlled Blue Zone at the event. The war began Oct. 7 with Hamas' attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage. The Israeli offensive has killed over 38,000 Palestinians in Gaza, local health officials say, without delineating between civilians and combatants. Hundreds more have been killed in Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank. But anger has boiled among the many Arabs living in the UAE, including Emiratis and other nationalities living there, as the war has raged on. At the recent Abu Dhabi Comedy Festival, an AP journalist saw security guards stop people from entering the event unless they removed their keffiyehs and handed them over. However, one woman shouted Free Palestine! during a set by American comedian Dave Chapelle, who called what was happening in Gaza a genocide. Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Get Simon Calders Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Complaints against US airlines rose by nearly 29 percent in 2023, but not all carriers came in for the same level of passenger discontent. The three airlines with the highest ratio of complaints to passengers were jetBlue, Spirit, and the most-complained-about airline, Frontier, according to a US Public Interest Research Group analysis of US Department of Transportation data. Frontier had 33 complaints for every 100,000 passengers, while Spirit had 15 and jetBlue received 13. open image in gallery Frontier Airlines was the most-complained-about US airline in 2023, based on the ratio of complaints to customers in US Department of Transportation data. ( Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ) At the other end of the spectrum, Alaska received the fewest complaints, with just two per 100,000 passengers. "We have been disappointed in our historical complaints but are pleased to have seen a recent drop in complaints due to better operational reliability, the reopening of our call center, and the recent launch of the New Frontier which offers clear, upfront low-cost pricing, and no change fees," Frontier told CBS News. The Independent has contacted jetBlue and Spirit Airlines for comment. Complaints about airlines, according to the PIRG analysis, are increasing faster than the level of passengers. They rose nearly three times faster than the 11 percent increase in passengers between 2022 and 2023, on the way to setting an overall record of 61,233 complaints last year. The discontent comes as a record number of passengers, just over 3 million, passed through US airports over the Fourth of July weekend. The DOT data captures other complaints as well, such 2.8 million grievances about pieces of luggage being mishandled, lost, or damaged, and 11,527 checked wheelchairs or scooters suffering a similar fate. Overall, the data shows that over time, complaints held relatively steady since 2004, until an explosion of grievances beginning during the pandemic, especially in 2020. The Biden administration has sought to require US airlines to be more transparent about what it calls hidden junk fees, prompting major US air carriers to sue the DOT in May, accusing the agency of going beyond its authority. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos was caught on camera saying he doesnt believe Joe Biden can serve another term in the White House days after he questioned him about his competence in what was pitted to be a make-or-break interview for the embattled president. The television host was strolling down a New York City street when he was approached by a passerby. Do you think Biden should step down? Youve talked to him more than anyone else has lately... you can be honest, the anonymous pedestrian asked. Caught off guard and seemingly oblivious to the camera rolling, Stephanopoulos is heard in the video, first obtained by TMZ, saying: I dont think he can serve four more years. The video gained traction online, prompting both Stephanopoulos and ABC News to release statements on his comments. The anchor expressed regret for his comments in a statement released by the news programs spokesperson Brooks Lancaster. Earlier today I responded to a passerby. I shouldnt have, he said. ABC News meanwhile distanced itself from his comments. George expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News, the statement read. Stephanopoulos and Biden sat down for a prime time last Friday ( Getty Images ) Stephanopoulos had been handpicked to hold the first major interview with Biden since his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump on June 27, which thrust the presidents mental acuity into the spotlight. The embattled president sat down with the news anchor in Madison, Wisconsin, for the pre-recorded interview last Friday, which was aired as a prime-time special that night. In the interview, Biden vowed that only the Lord almighty could persuade him to step aside from the 2024 race, brushed off his dismal debate performance as a bad night and claimed that if he loses to Trump come November hed be satisfied as long as I gave it my all. The hotly-anticipated interview marked a desperate effort to turn the tide on an increasingly despondent Democrat camp, with several lawmakers, donors and commentators calling for him to exit the race. But for many, it did little to tone down concerns. One longtime Democratic donor bundler told The Daily Beast that the interview was a huge opportunity missed, adding: This was his Alamo, and hes going down like Davey Crocket. Now, seven House Democrats have publicly called for Biden to drop out of the 2024 election while others are said to have echoed concerns about his abilities to beat Trump behind closed doors. Despite the growing pressure, Biden remains defiant that hes going nowhere. On Monday, he doubled down that he is firmly committed to staying in this race and beating Donald Trump in a letter to congressional Democrats. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Joe Biden sought to quell domestic concerns over his fitness for office on the world stage on Tuesday as he touted the strength of the NATO alliance and announced new steps to bolster Ukraine against Russian attacks, continuing his signature foreign policy achievement at a moment of crisis for his administration and re-election campaign. 75 years after 12 countries came together in Washington to sign a historic mutual defense pact in the wake of the Second World War, the president touted the alliances progress before leaders representing the 32 treaty signatories at the annual NATO leaders summit. Speaking before an audience of NATO leaders, including newly-minted British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Biden said the North Atlantic Treaty, that the alliance birthed 75 years ago, is stronger and more vital than ever and promised it would continue to support Ukraines defense needs. We know Putin wont stop at Ukraine, but make no mistake, Ukraine can and will stop Putin, he said. The US and partner nations intend to provide Ukraine with five strategic air defense systems in the coming months and dozens of tactical air defense systems, Biden added. The Mellon Auditorium is the place where the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949 ( AP ) Biden spoke from the historic Mellon Auditorium, where representatives of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK and US signed on to the Washington Treaty. He said the now-32 member alliance is more powerful than ever with the recent additions of Sweden and Finland and touted its work in strengthening Ukraine against Russias invading forces. Sweden and Finland both longtime practitioners of neutrality had joined not just because their leaders sought it, because their citizens called for it in overwhelming numbers, he said. He also said NATOs current incarnation is better resourced than it has ever been because 23 allies will meet the 2 per cent defense spending goal this year, with the remainder of the NATO members set to get there soon. Biden said it was good that NATO is stronger than ever in the face of Russias nearly three-year-old war against Ukraine. The president recalled how pundits and analysts had predicted Kyivs fall within days of the start of the war and he credited one man, outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, with helping the alliance to remain the bulwark of global security. President Joe Biden, center, poses with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb before delivering remarks on the 75th anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on July 9 ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved ) That did not happen by accident and was not inevitable, Biden continued. Again and again, at critical moments, we chose unity over disunion, progress over retreat, freedom over tyranny, hope over fear. Again and again, we stood behind our shared vision of a peaceful, prosperous transatlantic community. Here at this summit, we gather to proclaim NATO is ready and able to secure that vision today and well into the future, Biden said. The president praised Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian Prime Minister who has helmed the alliance for a decade, for staying on for an additional two years at his request, and offered a mock apology to the secretarys wife. Today, NATO is stronger, smarter and more energized than when you began, and a billion people across Europe and North America. Indeed, the whole world will reap the rewards of your labor for years to come in the form of security, opportunity and greater freedom, he said. Biden closed his remarks by awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Stoltenberg, the highest American civilian honor. Bidens NATO speech comes as questions continue over his fitness to serve in the Oval Office on account of his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last month. A number of Democratic House members have called on the 81-year-old president to withdraw from the 2024 race in favor of a younger candidate, while several members of the Senate are understood to have told colleagues they do not believe Biden can defeat Trump a second time. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} While Joe Biden is facing scrutiny over his competence to take on Donald Trump and serve a second term, scrutiny is also falling on the White House and his aides transparency when it comes to his medical records. Since the presidents debate disaster last month, reporters and White House staff have thrashed it out in numerous heated press conferences about the 81-year-olds mental fitness. On several occasions over the fortnight since the debate, the Oval Office has been forced to clear up discrepancies in comments, statements or facts put out only hours or days earlier. On Tuesday, the White House admitted that an expert on Parkinsons disease did meet with Biden back in January just hours after insisting that the specialists visit was not related to the president. During a White House press briefing earlier this week, reporters had pushed press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about visitor logs showing that top neurologist Dr Kevin Cannard had visited the official residence eight times from last summer through to this spring. In one meeting, on January 17, the movement disorder specialist and fellow at Emory University had met with Dr Kevin OConnor, Bidens personal physician. White House visitor logs show it was the sole meeting between the doctors. Jean-Pierre initially denied that the meeting was related to care for the 81-year-old president saying I can say that it was not before later backtracking and confirming it was after all. Jean-Pierre has faced questions about Bidens meetings with medics ( AP ) In a statement on Tuesday, the White House confirmed that Biden underwent a neurological exam with Dr Cannard on January 17. The exam was part of the presidents annual physical, the results of which were released the following month. The physical found no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons or ascending lateral sclerosis, Dr OConnors report read. Because the date was not mentioned in the question, I want to be clear that the Jan 17 meeting between Dr OConnor and Dr Cannard was for the Presidents physical, Jean-Pierre said in the statement. It was one of the three times the President has seen Dr. Cannard, each time for his physical. The findings from each exam have been released to the public, she continued. Jean-Pierre doubled down that Biden has only seen the neurologist on three occasions not more than that and that each occasion was only part of his annual physical. She later told reporters that sometimes I get it wrong. I will be the first one to admit: Sometimes I get it wrong. At least I admit that, she said. And sometimes I dont have the information. And I will always, always admit that. Bidens debate debacle has caused problems spreading beyond his own political career, including for the White House ( Getty Images ) While Jean-Pierre sought to explain away the discrepancy, it is only one example where the White House has come under growing scrutiny for its perceived lack of transparency and flip-flopping in the face of journalists questions about Bidens competence. In another walkback, Jean-Pierre had previously claimed that the president had not been checked out by a doctor for the cold his team claims hindered his debate performance. We were able to talk to his doctor about that and that is a no, she said when asked if he had undergone a medical exam. But this then contradicted other lines coming from the president and his team. In a private meeting with Democratic governors, Biden confirmed he had been checked out by his doctor following the debate. He also told ABC News George Stephanopoulos that a doctor carried out tests including for Covid due to him feeling unwell. Jean-Pierre went on to explain this discrepancy by saying she meant that Biden did not get a full medical exam and that the president did indeed have a check-in with his doctor which he does a couple of times a week. The White House vehemently denied that Biden has any degenerative neurological disorder when probed by The Independent at a press briefing. But, despite the insistence, the presidents age and mental fitness is falling increasingly under a microscope following his dismal performance against Donald Trump in the first televised debate of the 2024 election. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Democratic US Senator Michael Bennet has admitted that Joe Biden could lose to Donald Trump in a November election landslide. Bennet, who represents Colorado, told CNN that reports he told other Democrats from the upper chamber at a caucus lunch on Tuesday that 81-year-old Biden is facing defeat were correct. And he predicted that a win by Trump, 78, could see Republicans retain control of the House and take control of the Senate. Democratic Sen Michael Bennet says Trump could beat Biden in election landslide ( Getty Images ) Donald Trump is on track I think to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide and take with it the Senate and the House, he said on Tuesday night. I have not seen anything remotely approaching the kind of plan we need to see out of the White House that can demonstrate that he can actually beat Donald Trump, which is not going to be about the accomplishments that we all had three and four years ago. BREAKING: Democratic Senator Michael Bennet tells @kaitlancollins that President Biden cannot win the 2024 election. Watch their conversation: pic.twitter.com/XrDINESLVy TheSourceCNN (@TheSourceCNN) July 10, 2024 Bennet was joined by other Democratic senators, Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, in telling their colleagues at the closed-door meeting that they doubted Bidens ability to beat Trump, according to Axios. The first presidential debate in Atlanta on June 27 was widely seen as disastrous for Biden, 81, and has led to questions about his fitness to lead and ability to win reelection even within his own party. Biden has admitted he had a bad night at the event, at which he was suffering from a cold, but told ABC News that he had no intention of standing aside. A new poll showed Vice President Kamala Harris now has a better shot than Biden at defeating Trump in the 2024 election. The survey, conducted by the Democratic firm Bendixen & Amandi, showed Biden slightly behind Trump, 42 to 43 percent, with Harris inching past the former president 42 to 41 percent. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Britains new prime minister Keir Starmer was set to meet with leaders of the Democratic and Republican caucuses in the House of Representatives on Wednesday as the Nato summit in Washington entered its second day. Starmers journey to Washington for the summit comes as he is less than a week into his tenure as prime minister. The joint meeting with Mike Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries was likely to largely focus on establishing some of Starmers first relationships on Capitol Hill as prime minister while also touching on some policy issues including the most anticipated topic of the week: Ukraine, and the eastern European countrys journey to becoming a Nato member-state. US officials, alongside their counterparts in the UK and other Nato countries, are set to unveil what the Biden administration has been previewing as a bridge to Nato membership for Ukraine this week. Its still unclear what the exact details and requirements for that path to membership will entail, but more information is expected to be made public over the next few days and at President Joe Bidens widely anticipated press conference on Thursday. It will be his first fully open press conference since 2022. The prime minister also met on Wednesday with a bipartisan Senate delegation led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Keir Starmer, Britains newly-elected prime minister, participates in a photo opp with a bipartisan senatorial delegation as part of the Nato summit in Washington on June 10 ( Getty Images ) Ukraine is likely to be an issue of discussion between Starmer and congressional leaders, given the ever-present tough situation in which Speaker Mike Johnson, head of the House Republicans, still finds himself. Johnson has been personally supportive of continued military funding for Ukraine, a stance which has hardened since he became speaker and began receiving classified briefings. A significant portion of his partys caucus in the House is not, however. That has led the Republican speaker to look to Democrats for votes to pass an aid package that the chamber voted to approve earlier this year after much delay and debate. Those votes have been politically dangerous for Johnson, who has already survived one attempt to oust him led by a group of Republicans, again with the help of Democrats. The Labour leader told reporters on the flight to Washington that he wants to see another Ukraine aid package locked in during his trip. Such a prospect would require another vote in the Republican-controlled House. Should he speak separately with Jeffries, meanwhile, Starmer could very well also end up discussing the ongoing presidential election and the Democratic Partys debacle surrounding the presumptive nominee, President Joe Biden. No separate meetings with individual members of Congress have been announced, though they often happen on the margins of such major summits, particularly when they occur in the US. Photo du Jour LATE EXTRA: Prime Minister @Keir_Starmer is questioned by the press on his flight to Washington where he'll attend the NATO Summit. By Stefan Rousseau/PA pic.twitter.com/YAe6LJ4TiZ Stefan Rousseau (@StefanRousseau) July 9, 2024 After last months presidential debate with Donald Trump, the incumbent president has lost the faith of a serious number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, a handful of whom are echoing those concerns publicly while the president and his supporters jam their fingers in their ears. Starmer is known to be personally disgusted by Trump: after the January 6 attack on Congress, Starmer told the BBC that the siege was a culmination of years of the politics of hate and division embraced by the Republican Party. This is where it leads, he said in 2021. And that is why we all have to make the case for tolerance and respect and changing that culture. This is where hatred and division gets you and it's a very, very bad place." 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Michael Cohen is asking the Supreme Court to revive his case against Donald Trump, who is accused of violating his former attorneys constitutional rights by keeping him in solitary confinement after revealing plans for a tell-all memoir. A challenge that stems from a lawsuit from the one-time fixer who recently testified against Trump at his New York hush money trial asks whether a president and federal officials can be held accountable for retaliating against their critics. No president should ever be permitted to weaponize the Department of Justice through a willing and complicit attorney general, to have a citizen unconstitutionally remanded to prison, in my case, solitary confinement, because that person refuses to waive that First Amendment constitutional right, Cohen told The Independent on Wednesday. The actions of Donald J Trump and his administration are un-American, and I believe that this case is ripe for the Supreme Court of the United States to hear, he said. The case comes on the heels of an earth-shattering Supreme Court decision that affirmed a presidents absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts in office, radically expanding the scope of executive power. A decision that could embolden Trump in a possible second term has crossed my mind, Cohen said, though I dont believe that anyone could justify this blatant, unconstitutional act as being one that could be granted immunity under this presidential immunity ruling. A case that interrogates government retaliation provides the Supreme Court an opportunity to decide whether the US is a democratic republic and not an autocracy led by a monarch, a dictator, a ruler, a supreme leader or a fuhrer, Cohen said. Michael Cohen heads to Manhattan criminal court to testify in Donald Trumps hush money trial on May 14. Cohen is asking the Supreme Court to revive his case against Trump, who is accused of violating his former attorneys constitutional rights ( AFP via Getty Images ) In January, a panel of federal appeals court judges said they would not revive Cohens lawsuit after it was tossed out by a lower court. On Wednesday, Cohen filed his appeal to the nations highest court, arguing that the case raises major questions about constitutional abuses by the federal government against its sharpest critics. The questions presented in this petition are of paramount importance, Cohens attorney, Jon-Michael Dougherty, wrote in a brief to the court. The possibility that the federal government has the power to retaliate against critics with imprisonment, without any consequence for or check against the officials engaged in such retaliation, is a chilling prospect, Dougherty added. This Court should not turn its eyes away from this profound breach of the contract between a government of limited powers and a free citizenry. The filing points to Supreme Court precedent that allows defendants to sue for damages against federal officials for constitutional violations, and that such cases should deter officials from retaliating against citizens. Cohen was sentenced to prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, allegedly at the direction of his former boss. After he was released to home confinement in 2020 to prevent the spread of Covid-19, Cohen revealed his plans for a book about Trump. Weeks later, and nearly four years ago to the date of his Supreme Court appeal, Cohen was remanded back to prison and sent to solitary confinement. Prison officials had accused him of violating restrictions on his public communications. He was allegedly directed to sign an agreement that blocked him from any engagement with media, including in print. Cohen and his attorneys asked whether the bespoke conditions of his release could be removed. Instead, he was shackled and transported back to a federal prison in Otisville, New York, and kept in solitary confinement for nearly 24 hours a day alone in a cell with poor ventilation, no air conditioning, and a broken window, according to his complaint. In July 2020, after 16 days in solitary, and after a judge intervened, Cohen was released to home confinement. The federal judge who ordered his release said his transfer back to prison was clearly retaliatory in response to Cohens plans to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book critical of the President and to discuss the book on social media. Michael Cohen testified to the House Oversight Committee in 2019 a year after pleading guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance violations and lying to Congres. ( Getty Images ) Cohen sued Trump, his attorney general Bill Barr and prison officials, arguing that his imprisonment violated his Fourth and Eighth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure and cruel and unusual punishment. In 2022, District Judge Lewis Liman granted the governments motion to dismiss, but he noted that he was disturbed by the profound violence his order could have on Cohens constitutional rights, signaling that the question should be resolved by the higher court. The Supreme Courts precedents ensure that there is at best a partial remedy for the abuse of power and violation of rights against the perpetrators of those wrongs, Judge Liman wrote. He suggested that a proper inquiry should look into whether the constitutions authors intended for there to be such a remedy. There are powerful reasons to believe that, in many circumstances, the answer to that question will be yes, he added. If ones rights are violated by executive officials, the courts provide a legal remedy for that violation. Trumps 2024 campaign is fueled by the idea of retribution for those who have been wronged and betrayed, and his allies and the architects of a second Trump administration have vowed to prosecute his rivals. The former president continued to attack Cohen as a liar throughout his criminal trial in Manhattan, where Cohens damning four-day testimony walked jurors through dozens of pages of evidence, including each of the falsified business records at the center of the case. Trumps trial also revealed a pressure campaign against Cohen fromthen-President Trumps allies to pledge his loyalty while he was under federal investigation. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Its Nato week in Washington. That means that traffic is backed up, metro stops are closed and American allies have descended on the nations capital to focus on its longstanding support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on its 75th anniversary. Ostensibly, this should be a moment of celebration. Nato coming to Washington should symbolize Americas status as a world leader. Amid the war in Ukraine, President Joe Biden and allies have shown a unified front against Russian President Vladimir Putins aggression. Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a major supporter of Ukraine, introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Reagan Institute (a reminder of a bygone era when Republicans supported the robust American interventionism that the institutes namesake championed.) House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Zelensky and newly-minted UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a sign they still want to make maintain the Cold War line that politics ends at waters edge. But like with everything in Washington, especially as Bidens re-election remains precarious, the specter of Donald Trump looms large over the summit. Trump has, of course, shown hostility to Nato. In February, that he said that when it comes to Nato allies who do not agree to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense, not only would the United States not defend their countries from a Russian attack but I would encourage them [the Russians] to do whatever the hell they want. Back in February, most Republicans brushed off Trumps remarks. Senator Rand Paul, one of the most isolationist Republicans, told The Independent that Trumps remarks were a stupid thing to say. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas said, I think that people need to realize that you should take everything that he says seriously, but not literally. Now that his presidency seems likelier each day, Republicans are adopting the Trump line. Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, the most dyed-in-wool MAGA Republican, chided Nato when I spoke with him on Wednesday. Well, first of all, I'd like to say thanks to the American taxpayers for last 75 years paying for the security of Nato, he told The Independent. We need to hold the hat out when they get on their private jets and fly home and said, Hey, put money in this hat, we need you to pay up for you to leave. That's what President Trump is all about. This has long been a complaint of Republicans: claiming that the United States shoulders an unfair amount of the burden. Ironically, Biden has specifically mentioned that only nine countries in Nato spent the 2 percent before he took office, whereas 23 countries will in 2024. Of course, that has not stopped Republicans from complaining. I think what President Trump's been pretty clear about and I share the point of view is that it's time for our Nato allies to step up from a financial perspective, Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri told The Independent. I think the American people don't appreciate subsidizing the social programs of European countries when they don't pay enough for their percentage of their GDP to defense. Republicans who preceded Trump also said that they believed in Nato but that the countries needed to cough up dough. I think the commitment to Nato is critical, but I also think the Nato needs to do more, Senator John Cornyn of Texas told The Independent. The son of Texas who came of age in the time of the Bushes touting international order Cornyn is one of the two frontrunners to replace McConnell at the end of the year. But he is clearly easing into the Trump, America First approach to foreign policy. Earlier this year, Congress struggled to pass a spending package that would have swapped aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in exchange for immigration restrictions, largely because of Trumps objections. It took the Senate passing a standalone aid package which Democrats wanted in the first place and many more months for the House to pass aid to Ukraine. Incidentally, its Senate Democrats who are more willing to defend Americas role as a world leader. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona told The Independent that in the case of Nato, hes already done the damage by saying he would not honor the defend a member nation that is attacked. If you just listen to what Donald Trump has said and continues to say about not only Nato, but about other alliances, he is a danger to national security, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona told The Independent. Its a far cry from the days of John McCain, the hawkish 2008 Republican presidential nominee whose seat Kelly is in now and who, Kelly added, he really looked up to. Conversely, McCains former best friend in the Senate, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, echoed Trump, as he does in many other cases. Graham said Nato countries should be ready to contribute more and kept it at that. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Rudy Giulianis bankruptcy hearing devolved into chaos when the former New York City mayor interrupted the court after a lawyer for his creditors said she would consider seeking prison time for his alleged bankruptcy crimes. At the hearing on Wednesday morning, Rachel Strickland, lawyer for the two election workers who Giuliani defamed and now owes $148m, argued in favor of dismissing the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. She said that she feared Giuliani would get a hall pass if the case was not dismissed, citing his pattern of filing late and inaccurate financial reports. Strickland then suggested that Giuliani had committed bankruptcy crimes, and that she would seek jail time, not financial repercussions. Giuliani, who was on the call, interjected, yelling: Would someone get them on the phone? The judge then asked for Giulianis microphone to be muted. Your honor, this is Rudolph Giuliani, he told the judge, adding that Stricklands comments were highly defamatory, your honor. Giuliani said he wanted a break but the judge said he would have to wait until after Strickland finished her presentation. Sir, everybody gets a chance to be heard but you cannot interrupt someone else while theyre being heard, the judge said, before threatening to cut his line off if he didnt stop talking. Later in the hearing, Giulianis lawyer Gary Fischoff told the court: There were some statements that the debtor was going to commit bankruptcy crimesGiuliani would not be committing any bankruptcy crimes. Strickland filed a motion on July 8 in favor of the dismissal of the case. Rudy Giuliani pictured advertising his new business, Rudy Coffee. A lawyer told bankruptcy court on Wednesday that if the former mayor is working for himself, I suspect he will be hustling for Rudy Coffee and all the rest of his money-making endeavors and funneling cash to all of the businesses that he claims are out of the reach of creditors ( Rudy Giuliani ) Although Giuliani had initially requested to convert the case from a Chapter 11, which would see his assets reorganized, to a Chapter 7, which would see his assets liquidated. However, he changed his tune less than an hour before Wednesdays hearing: Giulianis legal team signalled support for the dismissal plan. Fischoff argued at the hearing that a dismissal was the best option for his client. The best chance of getting an appellate determination would be a dismissal, Fischoff said, referring to his appeal of the $148m judgment against Giuliani. Although the election workers already have a judgment, other creditors cases are ongoing. Fischoff said a dismissal means those other creditors would be free to pursue their cases in court, since a dismissal would lift the stay on the ongoing cases against Giuliani. However, Phil Dublin, a lawyer for the creditors committee, said his clients prefer to appoint a Chapter 11 trustee rather than dismissing the case, arguing that the appointment of a trustee would result in the most equitable outcome for the creditors. Dublin said keeping it as a Chapter 11 case would permit investigations into Giulianis finances, including the alleged unpaid $2 million in legal fees owed by Donald Trump, the Trump campaign or the Republican National Committee. The former mayors assets would still be available to creditors, Giulianis lawyer argued. His only income is social service payments, Fischoff said, adding that hes an 80-year-old disbarred attorney who may choose to discontinue working should a Chapter 11 trustee be appointed. Strickland pounced on his own lawyers admission. We all suspect that if a trustee is appointed, Giuliani is going to sit on his butt, she said. The lawyer added that if the former mayor is working for himself, I suspect he will be hustling for Rudy Coffee and all the rest of his money-making endeavors and funneling cash to all of the businesses that he claims are out of the reach of creditors. Giuliani regards this court as a pause button on his woes while he continues to live his life, she said. The judge said he hopes to make a ruling on the matter before the end of the week but revealed that he is leaning toward dismissal. Im concerned that whats past is prologueand that issues about transparency will continue, the judge explained. The creditors committee has complained in filings about the lack of transparency into his finances. The committee has taken issue with Giulanis deficiencies in his financial reporting and disclosures, like discrepencies related to payments on his Florida condo; his unauthorized payments to his alleged girlfriend; and his failure to comply with discovery requests. Because he did not comply with the requests, the committee asked on June 28 that the court hold Giuliani in contempt and impose sanctions. In a July 8 filing, the committees lawyers accused him of treating the bankruptcy process as a joke, hiding behind the facade of an elderly, doddering man. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Seth Meyers has blasted Donald Trumps flagrant lies as the former president attempts to distance himself from a far-right think tanks presidential transition proposal, Project 2025. More than a dozen former White House aides who worked for Trump, along with the Heritage Foundation, have masterminded a 900-page manifesto in a bid to rescue the country from the grip of the radical left, its website declares. Project 2025, which vies to increase executive power, aims to place a conservative leader in office to execute its radical policies, such as a further crackdown on abortion rights. Trump, however, says that he knows nothing about Project 2025, a claim the Late Night host was quick to contest. Of course, it wont surprise you to learn that Trumps claims that he knows nothing about Project 2025 was a flagrant lie, Meyers said on Monday evenings program. The only way Trump could be any more directly linked to Project 2025 is if he sold it as a companion piece with his Bibles, he later quipped. Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts declared: We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be. Meyers tore apart Trumps claims that he has no idea about the far-right proposal ( Late Night/NBC/YouTube ) Following those comments, Trump claimed he knew nothing about Project 2025 and has no idea who is behind it, he wrote on Truth Social last Friday. The Republican added that he disagrees with some of the things that theyre saying, before wishing the Heritage Foundation luck in their endeavors which Meyers was quick to pick up on. Man, you almost made it and then right at the end you had to go and wish them luck, the host said. It was like in World War II when Churchill famously said, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the seas, we shall hope the best man wins. Trumps distancing from the group could prevent him from antagonizing key voters while appearing to be controlled by others could rub up the Maga crowd. On Tuesday evenings episode of the Late Show, Meyers also discussed Fyre Fest fraudster Billy McFarland being enlisted to the former presidents campaign team a claim made by Rolling Stone. He is allegedly connecting Trump with rappers to boost support among Black voters, a source told the outlet. The convicted felon served time in prison after swindling investors for more than $27 million relating to his failed luxury music festival. McFarlands alleged informal addition to Trumps team is the first good news Bidens gotten in weeks, Meyers teased. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Ukrainian Air Force pilots will soon be taking to the skies in US-made F-16 fighter aircraft provided by the Dutch and Danish governments in a multinational effort to bolster Kyivs air defense capabilities this summer. In a joint statement issued with the Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof and Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen, Biden said the Netherlands and Denmark are in the process of donating from their stocks of F-16 jets, with the support of the United States. The transfer process for these F-16s is now underway, and Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer, the leaders said, adding that the exact timing of when those jets would first be patrolling Ukrainian airspace wont be provided due to security concerns. Biden and the other two heads of government also said Belgium and Norway would soon be providing Ukraine with F-16 jets from their stocks and promised that Kyiv would be able to field squadrons of the US-made fourth-generation fighters. They added that the multinational Air Force Capability Coalition for Ukraine intends to support sustainment and armament of the Ukrainian F-16 supplies, plus further associated training for pilots to enhance operational efforts. The announcement of Ukraines impending receipt of the long-awaited jets fulfilling a long-held wish of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky comes less than 24 hours after Biden announced plans for the US and other partner nations to provide Kyiv with five strategic air defense systems and dozens of tactical air defense systems in the coming months to counter new waves of Russian air attacks. All told, Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional interceptors over the next year, helping protect Ukrainian cities against Russian missile Ukrainian troops facing their attacks on the front line, he said while speaking to an assembly that included the 31 other Nato heads of state and government at an event to mark the start of the alliances annual summit in Washington. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A New Jersey man has admitted visiting Wawa over a thousand times a year, and has the receipts to prove it. Tyler Gyurisin, 22, goes to the convenience store around 1,400 times annually, which equates to about four times a day. Gyurisin told Fox 29 he goes to Wawa because of familiarity. He added: I walk in, I know whats on the menu, its consistent at every single location. Wawa operates in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Washington D.C., Florida, Alabama and North Carolina. The store sells sandwiches, soups, salads, baked goods and breakfast items. Gyurisin went viral after he posted photos of 1,000 receipts from the store, numbered 0 through 999. The photo has generated millions of views on social media. Superfan Tyler Gyurisin, 22, goes to Wawa about four times a day ( Fox 29 ) Wawas CEO Chris Gheysens wrote on X: I think this means you get my job. Explaining his daily routine, Gyurisin said: Everyday I get a coffee from Wawa, I get a lunch from there, I get a Mac and cheese every single day. Usually dinner, and Ill see which order slips I have and if its one I need Ill put it in the collection. If not, it gets trashed. The superfan said that 90 per cent of his receipts go in the trash and that collecting the printouts, which are randomly numbered, was a challenge. He frequently visits a store in Barnegat, New Jersey. He has also visited stores in Philadelphia, where the chain originated, and Florida. The Uber driver said he started collecting the receipts for fun. I just like to collect things and I thought it would be funny. And here we are, he said. Gyurisin said hes finding all of the attention a little overwhelming. Ive never had anything like this ever happen. So its really overwhelming, like its awesome. Im loving it. Wawa isnt just a phase for the superfan. Hes now onto another challenge which involves taking a selfie in front of every store in the country, and has so far visited around 100. Gyurisin said that he wouldnt mind working at Wawa one day, emphasizing how employees get a free Shorti hoagie, a 6-inch sandwich, every shift. He said that he knows the hobby makes him look a little strange to the general public but he doesnt mind the negative feedback. I would agree with you. I am a little crazy, but thats ok, 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Rangers in Australia have shot dead a crocodile police say killed a 12-year-old girl while she was swimming in a creek. The 4.2-meter (14-foot) saltwater crocodile in northern Australia was killed on Sunday. Police said analysis confirmed the animal was the one that killed the girl. Wildlife rangers had been attempting to trap or shoot the crocodile since the girl was attacked last week in Mango Creek near Palumpa, an Outback Indigenous community in the Northern Territory. The girls death was the first fatal crocodile attack in the Northern Territory since 2018 when an Indigenous woman was killed while gathering mussels in a river. The attack has rekindled debate on whether more should be done to curb the crocodile population in the Northern Territory, where the protected species has increasingly encroached on human populations. They shot the animal Sunday after getting permission from the regions traditional landowners. Saltwater crocodiles are considered a totem by many Indigenous Australians. The events of last week have had a huge impact on the family and local police are continuing to provide support to everyone impacted, senior Sgt. Erica Gibson said in the police statement. A part of an area in Palumpa, Australia, where a girl was reported missing Tuesday after she went swimming ( AuBC ) Northern Territory-based crocodile scientist Grahame Webb said a reptile the size of the one shot had to be male and at least 30 years old. They grow throughout their lives and can live up to 70 years. The girls death came weeks after the Northern Territory approved a 10-year plan to contain croc numbers, lifting the rate of culling near human habitat from 300 to 1,200 a year. The Northern Territory government said after the latest fatality that crocs could not be allowed to outnumber humans. The Northern Territory has a land area around the size of France and Spain combined but only 250,000 people. Croc numbers are estimated at 100,000. The crocodile population was as low as 3,000 before hunting them was outlawed by federal legislation in 1971. Webb said the territorys crocs had largely stabilized their own population in recent years by killing each other for food or territory. They eat each other. The crocs have been controlling their own population. Its not really people that have been controlling them, Webb 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The members of an Australian religious group will go on trial this week after they were charged in relation to the death of an eight-year-old diabetic girl. Elizabeth Struhs was found dead at her home in Toowoomba, located west of Brisbane, on 7 January 2022 after her insulin medicines were allegedly withheld for days, reported Australian media outlets. The members of religious group, The Saints, which also include the girls parents, are accused of praying for the minors healing instead of helping her seek medical attention. The girls father, Jason Richard Struhs, is charged with Elizabeths murder, along with another member of the group, 62-year-old Brendan Luke Stevens, reported ABC News. The victims mother and brother, Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49, and Zachary Alan Struhs, 21, have been charged with manslaughter along with 10 other members. The others accused include 67-year-old Loretta Mary Stevens the wife of Brendan Stevens and their adult children Acacia Naree Stevens, 31, Therese Maria Stevens, 37, Sebastian James Stevens, 23, Andrea Louise Stevens, 34, Camellia Claire Stevens, 28, and Alexander Francis Stevens, 26, reported News.com.au. Already in custody, the group entered no pleas on Wednesday at the start of the trial, technically perceived as pleading not guilty before the court. They would be facing trial as one self-represented group, without a lawyer, reported The Guardian. Earlier, crown prosecutor Caroline Marco told Brisbane Supreme Court that the girl died from diabetic ketoacidosis after her insulin medication was withdrawn, causing her to suffer for days. Describing Elizabeth as "intelligent, spiritual child", Ms Marco submitted that she was too young to understand the dire consequences of her parents decision to withdraw insulin for her... which she ultimately paid for with her own life. Her father is charged with murder after being accused of deliberately failing to seek medical attention and insulin, despite knowing that it could be fatal for her. While, Mr Stevens is accused of unlawfully killing Elizabeth by counselling her father, mother or both into not providing her with insulin, despite knowing that it could lead to her death. Ms Struhs was charged with manslaughter on the allegation of not providing insulin to her daughter. The trial is expected to run for 55 days before Supreme Court Justice Martin Burns. The case would be heard without a jury, ruled chief justice Helen Bowskill, after noting that the media attention would create an inherent risk of prejudice. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The Australian government named a special envoy Tuesday to confront a rise in antisemitism across the country since the Israel-Hamas war began. A similar envoy will soon be appointed to challenge Islamophobia in Australia and both will promote social cohesion, prime minister Anthony Albanese told reporters at the Sydney Jewish Museum. Mr Albaneses own Sydney office has been targeted with pro-Palestinian graffiti as rival activists clash over the Israeli-Hamas war in Australian cities and university campuses. Mr Albanese appointed Jillian Segal, a Sydney lawyer and business executive, to be special envoy to combat antisemitism in Australia for three years. She will consult with community groups and report back to Mr Albanese and Multicultural Affairs Minister Andrew Giles. Segal called statistics on antisemitism in Australia shocking." Reports of antisemitism spiked 700 per cent immediately after Hamas militants sparked the war in Gaza by attacking Israel on Oct. 7, and are still running 400 per cent to 500 per cent higher than before the conflict, she said. The reports include Jewish-owned businesses being boycotted and vandalized as well as Jewish artists being excluded or subjected to social media shadow bans that restrict their visibility on platforms, Segal said. Unfortunately there is no single answer to the perennial problem of antisemitism, she said. But the creation of this role shows a determination by the government to confront this evil and to ensure that it does not erode the goodness that exists in our society, she added. Mr Albanese said a graffiti attack that marked his inner-Sydney office as a Hamas target in December was being taken seriously and acted upon. He also condemned last month's vandalism with spray paint at the Australian National Korean War Memorial and the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial in the national capital, Canberra. I have spoken with members of the Jewish community here, in Melbourne, right around Australia, who have not felt safe, members of the Jewish community whose children are worried about wearing their school uniform in our capital cities," Mr Albanese said. "Thats not acceptable. Not acceptable, ever. And certainly not in Australia in 2024. What we need to do is to make sure that the conflict that is occurring in the Middle East that has caused a great deal of grief for the Jewish community, for members of the Islamic and Palestinian communities Australians overwhelmingly do not want conflict brought here, Mr Albanese added. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The wife of an imprisoned Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize laureate said Wednesday that the country's authorities are depriving her husband of medicine as his health deteriorates. The 61-year-old pro-democracy activist, Ales Bialiatski, is serving a 10-year prison sentence. He suffers from a number of serious chronic illnesses that have worsened during his three years behind bars, his family says. The family has been trying to supply him with medicine, but Belarusian authorities are refusing to pass it on to him, his wife, Natalia Pinchuk, told The Associated Press. The Interior Ministry did not respond to a request for information from the AP. Bialiatski was detained in the aftermath of mass protests following an election in 2020 that gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office. The election was widely viewed as rigged by Western leaders and many Belarusians, triggering mass protests in the eastern European nation. Lukashenko, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who supported Russias invasion of Ukraine, has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1994. During the 2020 protests, the largest in Belarus history, more than 35,000 people were arrested and thousands were beaten by police. The crackdown on dissent continues four years on. Bialiatski was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 but that did not lead to an improvement in his detention conditions. In March 2023, a court found Bialiatski and three of his colleagues at the Viasna Human Rights Center guilty of smuggling and financing actions which violate public order. There are 1,405 political prisoners behind bars in Belarus, according to Viasna. Human rights activists claim that Belarusian authorities are deliberately creating unbearable conditions for many of them, depriving them of medical care, communication with loved ones and lawyers. At least six political prisoners have died behind bars. Bialiatski is being held in a prison where prisoners are beaten and subjected to hard labor, according to Viasna. He is not allowed to receive correspondence from relatives and friends, nor call them on the phone. Occasionally his supporters receive letters and postcards from him. The authorities have created unbearable conditions for Ales in prison; he is being kept in an information vacuum, Pinchuk said, adding that it is clear from Bialiatski's rare letters to her that he is not getting her letters or letters from other people. Pinchuk said Bialiatski had previously been held in solitary confinement and is now forced to perform hard labor. He is often punished by being placed in a punishment cell for several days, she said, adding he goes through all the circles of hell that thousands of Belarusian political prisoners go through in prison. At the beginning of the month, Lukashenko announced an amnesty for the seriously ill, releasing 18 political prisoners, including Ryhor Kastusiou, who is suffering from a severe form of cancer. Pinchuk said she did not expect Lukashenko to release Bialiatski. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A French court has ruled that the American man accused of sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania college student in 2013 and later sending her a Facebook message that said, So I raped you, can be extradited to the United States. Ian Cleary, 31, of Saratoga, California, was arrested in April in the city of Metz in northeastern France after a three-year manhunt. He has been held in custody pending extradition proceedings since his arrest. The Court of Appeal in Metz said that Cleary can be extradited. When asked if he wished to be extradited or not, in line with French law, Cleary refused, prosecutors said in a statement on Monday. His refusal may delay the extradition process, but it won't stop it. The ruling is final. Cleary's case is now the responsibility of the French Justice Ministry, which must prepare and submit the extradition order for the French prime minister. While he awaits the prime minister's signature, Cleary remains detained in France. Justice Ministry officials didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Gettysburg College campus in Gettysburg ( Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ) Cleary had been the subject of an international search since authorities in Pennsylvania issued a 2021 felony warrant in the case weeks after an Associated Press story detailed the reluctance of local prosecutors to pursue campus sex crimes. The arrest warrant accuses Cleary of stalking an 18-year-old Gettysburg College student at a party, sneaking into her dorm and sexually assaulting her while she texted friends for help. He was a 20-year-old Gettysburg student at the time, but didn't return to campus. The Gettysburg accuser, Shannon Keeler, had a rape exam done the same day she was assaulted in 2013. She gathered witnesses and evidence and spent years urging officials to file charges. She went to authorities again in 2021 after discovering the Facebook messages that seemed to come from Clearys account. So I raped you, the sender had written in a string of messages. Ill never do it to anyone ever again. I need to hear your voice. Ill pray for you. The AP doesn't typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Keeler has granted. The accusers lawyer in Pennsylvania, reached on Monday, declined to comment on the development. Shannon Keeler ( Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved ) According to the June 2021 warrant, police verified that the Facebook account used to send the messages belonged to Ian Cleary. Adams County District Attorney Brian Sinnett, who filed it, declined to comment on developments when reached Monday. After leaving Gettysburg, Cleary earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Santa Clara University, near his family home in California, worked for Tesla, and then moved to France for several years, according to his website, which describes his self-published medieval fiction. Keeler, originally from Moorestown, New Jersey, stayed on to graduate from Gettysburg and help lead the womens lacrosse team to a national title. By 2023, two years after the warrant was filed, Keeler and her lawyers wondered how he was avoiding capture in the age of digital tracking. The U.S. Marshals Service thought he was likely overseas and on the move, even as he was the subject of an Interpol alert called a red notice. Across the U.S., very few campus rapes are prosecuted, both because victims fear going to police and prosecutors hesitate to bring cases that can be hard to win, the AP investigation found. Keeler, when the warrant was issued, said she was grateful, but knew it only happened because I went public with my story, which no survivor should have to do in order to obtain justice. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Nato members pledged vital fighter jets and promised billions in additional finances to Ukraine during the alliances annual summit in Washington - as Kyiv concluded search efforts for those still missing in the rubble of buildings destroyed by Russias citywide missile strikes earlier this week. From the sidelines of Natos 75th annual summit, Norway became the fourth country to pledge F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, promising to start delivering half a dozen of the airplanes later this year. Their announcement takes the total number of fighter jets pledged to Kyiv to 86 after Belgium promised an additional 30 in late May, though they said that their donations would arrive only by 2028. Denmark and the Netherlands have also pledged the fighter jets to Kyiv. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky issued a statement saying there would be a decision on the F-16s very soon, though he declined to confirm Norways reported pledge. Yesterday, for Ukraine, we received a decision on 5 more patriots and dozens of other air defence systems, today - a decision on aircraft, he wrote on Telegram. He added that there will be two new security agreements announced including support for sanctions against Russia, support for entry into the European Union and Nato and for the reconstruction of Ukraine. There will be at least ten talks with the leaders of the countries, he added. I am grateful to our entire team for their activity. Meanwhile, the White House revealed that Nato allies would announce a minimum of $40 billion (32bn) in financial aid to Ukraine later during the summit. The US said their contribution would be drawn from a $61 billion support package belatedly passed by Congress in April. And Sir Keir Starmer, fresh off his appointment as British prime minister, backed a policy proposed by the former Conservative administration supporting Ukraines right to use UK-supplied long-range missiles on targets inside mainland Russia. Previously, Ukraines western partners, including the UK, had denied Kyiv the right to hit targets outside of its own territory, concerned that such a move would be viewed as offensive in nature by Russia. After the Kremlin carried out a protracted aerial bombardment of Ukraines second largest city, Kharkiv, using missile systems positioned just inside their own border, former UK foreign secretary David Cameron reversed their policy preventing Kyiv from striking back. It is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes, Sir Keir said after he was asked whether he would stick with Lord Camerons policy. In Kyiv, where the city is still reeling from one of the most significant Russian attacks on the capital since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, search and rescue efforts concluded across the seven sites where buildings had been destroyed. The Kyiv City Military Administration responsible for protecting the city said 33 people had been killed in the Monday attacks - a womans body was found buried in the rubble in a northwestern district in the early hours of Wednesday - while more than 120 were injured. At least 38 remain hospitalised. They said they had concluded search and rescue efforts across the city, adding that 129 buildings had been damaged by the strikes. In an update issued by Ukraines health ministry to The Independent concerning damage caused by a missile strike on Ukraines largest childrens hospital, Okhmatdyt, located in central Kyiv, they said the attack had completely destroyed its dialysis ward, while 12 more departments were damaged. They added that a part of the countrys only oncology and haematology laboratory was also damaged in the attack. Okhmatdyt is the largest childrens hospital in Ukraine and it suffered great destruction, the ministry said. The full amount of damages is calculated. However, we kept the most valuable thing - the doctors. All of them are ready to work in other medical facilities until the time of renewal in Okhmatdyt. Therefore, we do not foresee a deterioration in the provision of childrens medical care in Kyiv 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Nato counterparts are meeting in Washington this week to mark the 75th anniversary of the worlds biggest security organization just as Russia presses its advantage on the battlefield in Ukraine. The three-day summit, which begins Tuesday, will focus on ways to reassure Ukraine of Natos enduring support and offer some hope to its war-weary citizens that their country might survive the biggest land conflict in Europe in decades. Much of what Nato can do for Ukraine, and indeed for global security, is misunderstood. Often the alliance is thought of as the sum of all U.S. relations with its European partners, from imposing sanctions and other costs on Russia to sending arms and ammunition. But as an organization, its brief is limited to the defense by military means of its 32 member countries the sacred Three Musketeers-like vow of all for one, one for all and a commitment to help keep the peace in Europe and North America. That also means not being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia. Here's a look at Nato and how it's aiding Ukraine: What is Nato? Founded in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed by 12 nations to counter the threat to European security posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Dealing with Moscow is in its DNA. Natos ranks have grown since the Washington Treaty was signed 75 years ago to 32 countries after Sweden joined this year, worried by an increasingly aggressive Russia. Natos collective security guarantee Article 5 of the treaty underpins its credibility. It's a political commitment by all member countries to come to the aid of any member whose sovereignty or territory might be under attack. Ukraine would meet those criteria, but it is only a partner, not a member. Natos doors are open to any European country that wants to join and can meet the requirements and obligations. Importantly, Nato takes its decisions by consensus, so every member has a veto. Who's in charge? The United States is the most powerful member. It spends much more on defense than any other ally and far outweighs its partners in terms of military muscle. So Washington drives the agenda. Natos day-to-day work is led by its secretary-general former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, until he is replaced on October 1 by outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Natos top civilian official chairs almost weekly meetings of ambassadors in the North Atlantic Council at its Brussels headquarters. He chairs other NACs at ministerial level and summits of heads of state and government. Stoltenberg runs NatoO HQ. He does not order the allies around. His job is to encourage consensus and speak on behalf of all 32 members. Natos military headquarters is based nearby in Mons, Belgium. It is always run by a top U.S. officer. The current supreme allied commander Europe is Army General Christopher Cavoli. What is Nato doing to help Ukraine? Even though most allies believe that Russia could pose an existential threat to Europe, Nato itself is not arming Ukraine. As an organization, Nato possesses no weapons of any kind. Collectively, the alliance provides only non-lethal support fuel, combat rations, medical supplies and body armor, as well as equipment to counter drones or mines. But members do send arms on their own or in groups. Nato is helping Ukraines armed forces shift from Soviet-era military doctrine to modern thinking. Its also helping strengthen Ukraines defense and security institutions. In Washington, Nato leaders will endorse a new plan to coordinate the delivery of equipment to Ukraine and training for its armed forces. The leaders will renew a vow that Ukraine will join the alliance one day, but not while its at war. Why is Nato stationing more troops on its European borders? While some allies have left open the possibility of sending military personnel to Ukraine, Nato itself has no plans to do this. But a key part of the commitment for allies to defend one another is to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin, or any other adversary, from launching an attack in the first place. Finland and Sweden joined Nato recently over concern about this. With the war in its third year, Nato now has 500,000 military personnel on high readiness to counter any attack, whether it be on land, at sea, by air or in cyberspace. The alliance has doubled the number of battle groups along its eastern flank, bordering Russia and Ukraine. Allies are almost continuously conducting military exercises. One of them this year, Steadfast Defender, involved around 90,000 troops operating across Europe. Isn't the US doing the heavy lifting? Due to high US defense spending over many years, Americas armed forces benefit not only from greater troop numbers and superior weapons but also from significant transport and logistics assets. Other allies are starting to spend more though. After years of cuts, Nato members committed to ramp up their national defense budgets in 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraines Crimean Peninsula. The aim was for each ally to be spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense within a decade. A year ago, with no end to the war in sight, they agreed to make 2% a spending floor, rather than a ceiling. A record 23 countries are expected to be close to the spending target this year, up from only three a decade ago. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} At least 43 people have been killed and around 190 injured as Russia fired more than 40 missiles across Ukraine in what is one of the deadliest attacks In the capital of Kyiv, a childrens hospital where many patients were being treated for cancer, as well as a maternity ward nearby, were both hit by missiles. It was Russia's heaviest bombardment of the city in almost four months, hitting seven of the city's 10 districts. At least 29 people were killed in the capital, including two staff members at Okhmatdyt childrens hospital. Footage showed hundreds of emergency workers gathered at the hospital as they desperately tried to recover those buried under the rubble. This is what Russian terrorism looks like, said Olena Shuliak, the head of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskys political party Servant of the people. Beings without honor and conscience attacked the hospital and other civilian objects in broad daylight. We are dealing with concentrated evil that will never be forgiven. The world must unite to stop the country of killers once and for all. Further south, missiles struck Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskys hometown of Kryvyi Rih, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens more. The head of the military administration in the area, Yevhen Sytnychenko, said search and rescue operations in the area were being hampered by air raid alerts and reports of more missiles being fired at the city throughout the day. And 90 miles eastward, also in the Dnipropetrovsk region, another person was killed and six more injured in a second attack. Further eastward still, another three people were killed in Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region, according to local governor Vadym Filashkin, while there were further attacks in the nearby cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. Since early in the war that is well into its third year, Russian officials have regularly claimed that Moscow's forces never attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. More than 1,600 medical facilities have been damaged since the start of the war and 214 have been ruined completely, according to Ukrainian Health Ministry statistics published last month. Colonel Yurii Ignat of the Ukrainian air force said Russia has been improving the effectiveness of its airstrikes, equipping its missiles with enhancements, including so-called heat traps that evade air-defense systems. In Monday's attack, the cruise missiles flew as low as 50 meters (160 feet) off the ground, making them harder to hit, he said in comments sent to AP. 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 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Russian forces used a Kh-101 cruise missile to attack the Kyiv City Okhmatdyt Childrens Hospital on Monday, a private Ukrainian investigation agency has claimed. The hospital was struck multiple times, including by the Kh-101 which hit the Oncology department, according to the investigation agency called Molfar. Russia has denied attacking the hospital and claimed that civilian buildings in Kyiv were struck by debris from falling Ukrainian air defence missiles. The Okhmatdyt Childrens Hospital is Ukraines largest paediatric facility, treating thousands of patients daily. Molfar said the missile that hit the hospital had a typical descending trajectory before impact and showed no visible damage, ruling out prior engagement by air defence systems. The trajectory indicated it came from Kursk in Russia, flew over Chernihiv in Ukraines north to Rivne and then turned towards Kyiv to strike the hospital region. The shape of its body and tail and the location of its wings as seen in the video of the attack resemble Kh-101 and not a Ukrainian NASAMS air defence missile, as claimed by Russia, Molfar told The Independent. Trajectory of the Russian missile that allegedly struck the childrens hospital in Kyiv ( Molfar/The Independent ) They shared photos comparing the two missiles, pointing out that NASAMS does not have wings like Kh-101. They also noted the visible turbojet engine under the missiles hull in the photos which matches the frame of a Kh-101. Missile fragments recovered by Ukraines security service from near the hospital, including a tail section with serial number and the rudder, were also identical to Kh-101. Missile that struck the hospital, left, is compared with a Patriot air defence system missile, centre, and the Kh-101 missile in flight ( Molfar/ The Independent ) The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine also said the hospital was likely directly hit by a Russian missile. Analysis of the video footage and an assessment made at the incident site indicates a high likelihood that the childrens hospital suffered a direct hit rather than receiving damage due to an intercepted weapon system, Danielle Bell, head of the mission, was quoted telling a Geneva press briefing via video link from Kyiv by Al Jazeera. She added that her team, who visited the site on Monday, could not make a final determination but the missile appeared to have been launched by Russian forces. Rescue workers at the Ohmatdyt Childrens Hospital in Kyiv ( AP ) The hospital was struck during a series of daytime attacks across Ukraine, which killed 41 people and wounded over 150. The attacks were carried out by four separate Russian military divisions, Molfars communications head Daria Verbytska said, adding that at least 95 officers were suspected to be involved. Russian military bloggers have claimed that their forces targeted the Artem machine building plant 1.6km north of the childrens hospital and not the hospital. Some Russian missiles did indeed hit the Artem plant during the strike. Oleksandr Musiienko, a military and legal analyst, said independent investigations confirming the Russian missile hit on the hospital are accurate and in line with Kyivs own assessment. Russia has a history of using Iskander-M ballistic missiles and Kh-101 cruise missiles on Ukrainian civilian targets through the course of its fullscale invasion of the country. The photos show the nose and the tail are consistent with the Kh-101s design, he told The Independent. We can see on photo and video that the Russian missile has a feature typical only of Kh-101. The engine on the back of the missile. Anything else being floated by Russian sources is propaganda, 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The sky was crystal clear as Oksana Femeniuk took her daughter to Ukraines largest childrens hospital for routine dialysis. Around 10am, air-raid sirens blared. 16-year old Solomiia was undergoing the treatment that required her to sit still for up to five hours and could not be interrupted. Her mother had to flee to the hospital's basement shelter without her. Hurtling toward them at 700-800 kilometers (435-497 miles) per hour was a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile, according to Ukraines security service, the United Nations and open-source investigators. Using painstaking trial and error, Russia has modified the weapon over the last year to defeat Ukraines air defense systems by flying at low altititude and hugging terrain, according to military analysts. Minutes later the world turned black. Neither the patient nor her mother would remember the moment the missile struck. But they remember the chaos that ensued after regaining consciousness: Femeniuk thought she would choke from the fumes. Solomiia woke to find the ceiling crumpled over her small body. In an operating room in the next building, pediatric surgeon Oleh Holubchenko had been preparing to operate on an infant with a congenital facial defect. Covered in shrapnel wounds, he realized that the blast wave had catapulted him to the other side of the operating room. The toll of Russias heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in almost four months one of the deadliest of the war shows the devastating human cost of Russias improved targeting tactics. The hospitals director general, Volodymyr Zhovnir, stood at the scene of the explosion, eclipsed by the towering building with shattered windows. No children died, thank God, he said, but they lost a dear colleague, Dr Svitlana Lukianchuk. Lukianchuk was hurrying along the children and parents from the toxicology building, which would later be destroyed, to the shelter. She returned to empty out more rooms. And then, the explosion, Femeniuk remembers. Solomiia was born with chronic renal failure, making hemodialysis part of her life. After the full-scale invasion, Femeniuk left her three children and husband behind in the small village near Rivne, in western Ukraine, to live in the capital so the girl could access the treatment she needs. Leaving her daughter during the air raid was a difficult decision. But the 34-year-old mother had to project strength, she said. Her daughter was being brave by staying, knowing she could not interrupt her treatment. Femeniuk could not reveal to her daughter that she was actually terrified. As the air-raid siren blared, the girl was on her phone watching videos. Given how long dialysis can take, she tends to get bored. She awoke to find the ceiling in front of her eyes and the head doctor tending to her covered in blood and on her knees. The girl's first impulse was to put her hands up to the ceiling to keep tons of concrete and debris from crushing her small body. She was trapped with a few other patients and hospital staff, and they were safely pulled out of the rubble. The first thing I thought about was my mom, if she is alive or not. Then I thought: Am I alive or not? she said, her fingers painted with small flowers, fidgeting as she spoke. Mother and daughter recounted their experience from the Kyiv City Childrens Clinical Hospital, where Solomiia was transferred. In the shelter, the exit was blocked and the fire blazing outside soon invaded the small space. Femeniuk called her husband, telling him she didnt know if she would survive and she didnt know if Solomiia was still alive. Eventually, those taking shelter managed to push their way out and to their horror they realized that the very building they had been in, that some of their children had been in, was hit. Femeniuk began picking up pieces of rubble in panic, calling out her daughters name. Then she saw the nurse who had been assisting them, covered in blood. Solomiia had been evacuated after the blast, the nurse said. She was safe. Meanwhile, in the operating room, it took Holubchenko fifteen minutes to realize that he was covered in shrapnel wounds. The doctor was too busy evacuating patients, starting with the 5-month old whose surgery was eventually completed elsewhere. My colleagues and I who were in the operating room received shrapnel wounds to the body, the face, back, arms and legs, he said. There are glass windows in the operating room, the doors. All of it was just blown off, all destroyed. In the hospital ward, he looked out to the street from a shattered window. There used to be a wall here, he said. When he went outside and realized the toxicology building had collapsed, his mind reverted to the times he would have consultations with patients there and check-ups. Now half the building was caved in. But he didnt dwell on the thought for long and joined a line of volunteers, health workers and emergency crews removing debris, piece by piece. Everyone wanted to do something, he said. The assault hit seven of the citys 10 districts. The strike on the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital, where 627 children were being cared for at the time, drew ire from Ukrainian officials and the international community. Two adults were killed, including a female doctor, and 50 were injured. Russia denied responsibility for the hospital strike, insisting it doesnt attack civilian targets in Ukraine despite abundant evidence to the contrary, including AP reporting. Moscow insisted it was a Ukrainian air defense missile that struck the hospital. Artem Starosiek, the founder of the Ukainian group Molfar, which analyzes events based on open-source evidence, said there were overwhelming signs of Russias culpability. The missile used in the attack bears the characteristics of the Kh-101, he said, pointing to the shape of the body, tail and location of the wings, he said. That it was a clear blue day also played an important role, he said. Launching the modified missile during a sunny day is optimal for the weapons optoelectronic system to recognize the target correctly, he said. The force of the warheads explosion is important; an air-defense missile could not have caused such consequences, 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Fifteen schoolchildren in south-west Spain were sentenced by a court to probation for spreading AI-generated naked images of their female classmates. The sentence notes that it has been proved that the minors used artificial intelligence applications to obtain manipulated images of [other minors] by taking girls original faces from their social media profiles and superimposing those images on the bodies of naked female bodies, the court said in a statement. The manipulated photos were then shared on two WhatsApp groups, it added. Each teenager was given a years probation in a case that has sparked debate over the abusive use of such technology. The incident reportedly came to light when parents in Almendralejo reported that fake naked pictures of their daughters were being circulated on WhatsApp. The victims suffered anxiety and fear due to these images, the parents claimed. The youth court in Badajoz convicted the minors of creating child abuse images and offences against the victims moral integrity. The defendants were also ordered to attend classes on gender equality and responsible technology use. The Malvaluna Association, which acted on behalf of the affected families, emphasised the need for proper sex education to prevent children from learning about sex through pornography, which fosters sexism and violence. Beyond this particular trial, these facts should make us reflect on the need to educate people about equality between men and women, the association was quoted as saying by the online newspaper ElDiario.es. It was reported that at least 20 girls may have been victims of these manipulated photos. Many girls were completely terrified and had tremendous anxiety attacks because they were suffering this in silence, a mother of one of the victims was quoted as saying by Reuters. They felt bad and were afraid to tell and be blamed for it. Last year in October, a new report warned that the alarming spread of child sexual abuse images on the internet could worsen significantly if controls are not imposed on AI tools that generate deepfake photos. The UK-based Internet Watch Foundation urged governments and technology providers to act swiftly to prevent a surge of AI-generated images of child sexual abuse. Last month, a teenager was arrested and subsequently released after fake nude images of 50 female students at a private school in Australia were circulated on social media. Images of the students from Bachhus Marsh Grammar School in Victoria were doctored using artificial intelligence to create obscene and incredibly graphic content before being shared on Instagram and Snapchat, the school 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Russia has issued an arrest warrant for Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, over accusations she has participated in an extremist group. A court in Moscow on Tuesday brought the charges against Ms Navalnaya, who lives in exile outside Russia, in absentia, meaning she would face certain arrest if she set foot in the country, with a two-month detention order imposed. The leading dissident has stepped into the spotlight following her husbands death in an Arctic penal colony in February, vowing to continue the fight for what Mr Navalny called the beautiful Russia of the future. The late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (right) embraces his wife Yulia Navalnaya ( Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved ) Writing on X on Tuesday, Ms Navalnaya, 47, told her supporters to focus not on the court order against her, but on the battle against Russian President Vladimir Putin. She said: When you write about this, please don't forget to write the main thing: Vladimir Putin is a murderer and a war criminal. His place is in prison, and not somewhere in The Hague, in a cosy cell with a TV, but in Russia in the same [penal] colony and the same 2-by-3-metre cell in which he killed Alexei. The Kremlin has denied ordering the killing of Mr Navalny. Since her husband's death, Ms Navalnaya has met a number of senior Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden in San Francisco. The US-based nonprofit group Human Rights Foundation named Ms Navalnaya its chair last week, and she said she would use the new role to step up the struggle waged by her husband against Putin. "We will take on board everything that can be useful to fight Putin, to fight for the beautiful Russia of the future," Navalnaya said on X. 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 policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Graphic content warning: The story contains details that some readers may find disturbing. With no other choice, Palestinian doctors braced themselves as they began to amputate the right leg of a three-year-old child in Gaza without anaesthetic. Watching in horror was an American medic and volunteer who could only pray the screaming toddler would pass out from the pain. Every day, medics had to operate on or stitch up as many as 30 children without proper pain relief. Some patients would have to be held down. These horrific scenes took place at Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital in Gazas southernmost city of Rafah in April: just a few weeks before, hospital staff were forced to evacuate and close the hospital when Israeli forces seized control of the area and a nearby aid crossing. Before this al-Najjar was one of the few remaining medical centres left functioning in the area. But it was completely overwhelmed by the influx of wounded and running out of supplies, including painkillers. Zena Saleh is a general surgery resident in New Jersey in the US. Earlier in the year she answered calls from medical charities for volunteers to travel to Gaza and assist with the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe unfolding. As a medical resident, she had expected she might be called on to change dressings, assist surgeons or even mop floors. When she arrived at al-Najjar, she realised that most of the team left were general practitioners (GPs) or medical students trying to work under constant fire with little to no medicines. The attacks on Gazas healthcare system and personnel had decimated the response, she says. The patients would always cry out in pain, screaming for their loved ones, while other medics would hold them down and they would cry and cry until they would eventually pass out from the level of shock, she tells The Independent, recounting the horror of having to stitch up dozens of wounded children a day and carry out two full surgeries without proper anaesthesia. Their screaming was so traumatic to hear and deal with internally, we would all just hope they would pass out earlier rather than later, she says. Al-Najjar was a triage place without the appropriate triage, she continues. We had no anaesthesia at all. Every procedure we did was without anaesthesia. That day, she says, Palestinian doctors had no choice but to amputate the right limb of the three-year-old injured in an Israeli strike to save the childs life. We had no anaesthesia at all. Every procedure we did was without anaesthesia Zena Saleh, Medical intern This was the worst feeling ever. Honestly, I could only think: when are they going to pass out? Dr Mark Perlmutter, an orthopaedic surgeon in North Carolina who also volunteered at the same time but at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, just north of Rafah describes different but equally horrific scenes. He is a veteran surgeon who has spent 30 years working on dozens of surgical missions in disasters and emergencies across the world, including treating the wounded at ground zero on 9/11 and operating on citizens in San Pedro Sula, Honduras (once named the murder capital of the world). He says Gaza was by far the worst he had ever experienced in terms of civilian and child casualties and resources available to medics. Gaza was the first time Ive ever held the brain of a six-year-old in my hand - after the child was hit by a sniper rifle round, he tells The Independent from Washington DC where he had been giving his testimony to senators and members of Congress. After a bombing or an assault, the wounded would often come in, 10 or 15 children at a time, more than one to a gurney. Wed run to the emergency room. There would be 13 dying kids in it. Some on the floor, some on gurneys, some moved from gurneys to the floor, because thats the one place you could work. Dr Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma and critical care surgeon from California, who also volunteered at the European Hospital in Khan Younis described injuries that caused insides to be liquified. The United Nationss humanitarian agency OCHA said that three hospitals have been evacuated and closed in Gaza during the last week alone, as Israel has ramped up its ground assault in Gazas largest city in the north. That means that only 13 out of Gazas 36 hospitals are now partially functional. Medical Aid for Palestinians, an international health charity, has accused the Israeli military of systematically dismantling Gazas healthcare system, adding that the military had conducted more than 460 attacks on healthcare facilities and personnel since 7 October. Hassan Nofal, right, who was displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, prepares lunch with his family at a makeshift tent camp in Khan Younis ( AP ) In a recent report it said at least 500 healthcare workers have been killed during Israels nine-month military assault on Gaza more than the total number of medics reported killed across all global conflicts in 2021 and 2022. Israels military denies directly targeting healthcare facilities or civilians. Israel launched its ferocious assault on Gaza in retaliation for Hamass 7 October attack on southern Israel during which around 1,200 people were killed and at least 250 people were taken hostage. Since then, Palestinian health ministry says Israels assault on Gaza has killed over 37,000 Palestinians and injured a further 86,000 more, with an estimated 10,000 still trapped under rubble, most presumed dead. A letter published in The Lancet, a peer-reviewed general medical journal, suggested this week that the total direct and indirect death toll was likely upwards of 186,000, according to its authors estimations, in part due to the destruction of healthcare infrastructure. Israel has vehemently denied it is targeting the healthcare system, and has questioned the Palestinian death toll. It has repeatedly accused Hamas, a designated terrorist group, of using hospitals as a cover for military operations (accusations international and Palestinian medics and aid organisations have repeatedly dismissed) . The Independent reached out to the Israeli military about these specific accusations but has yet to receive a response. But there are concerns attacks on hospitals will only worsen as Israeli forces have intensified an operation in Gaza City in what the military said was intended to weed out militants, fromm Hamas and Islamic Jihad, sending thousands of Palestinians fleeing. On Monday, the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East protested the closure of Al-Ahli Arab Anglican Hospital in Gaza City. A statement issued in the name of the Diocese of Jerusalem said the hospital has been compelled to close by the Israeli army. On Sunday evening, a large amount of firing from drones occurred in the immediate vicinity of the hospital, it said. Meanwhile, medical aid is still not getting in, said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for the UNs Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA). She spoke to The Independent from Khan Younis, where she said UNRWAs supplies, including insulin, will run out in a month. We have a huge backlog of medical supplies at the crossing points, the aid is just sitting waiting to come in, she said, adding that the only chink of light is that UNRWA have managed to reopen a health centre in the completely destroyed area which was shuttered in January when it was surrounded by tanks. But that is not enough. Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, walk past sewage flowing into the streets of the southern town of Khan Younis ( AP ) [Health workers] say they are basically treating a huge humanitarian crisis with a band aid the core issues are not being changed or helped in any way. There are so many displacement orders in so many areas everyone is surrounded by death. No matter where they go, death is waiting for them, she adds. The doctors who returned from Gaza have told The Independent that the lack of supplies had myriad knock on effects. Ms Saleh says the infection rates at al-Najjar hospital soared as there was no way to properly clean surgical equipment. They had run of alcohol and Betadine, an antiseptic, before she got there. The water supply was contaminated and there were no antibiotics. There was a kind of smell of death in the air: a mixture of old blood mixed with stool, mixed with rotting trash and mould. You couldnt breathe. There were just people all over the floor, she adds. Dr Perlmutter and Dr Sidhwa describe wounds from strange projectiles they had never encountered before. I would see a small entrance wound, in some cases a small exit wound, with flesh turned to jello on the inside, Dr Perlmutter says. I operate on extremities, so I would see almost no skin damage. But under the skin the bone had shattered into 10,000 fragments and the muscle that was vaporised. Dr Sidhwa, whose job it was to stop people haemorrhaging to death, says he also found these tiny-needle like entry wounds on children and adults where under the skin both lungs would collapse. It comes as Israel and Hamas appear to be the closest they have been in months to agreeing to a ceasefire deal that would bring a pause in the war in exchange for the release of dozens of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But obstacles remained, even after Hamas agreed days ago to relent on its key demand that Israel commit to ending the war as part of any agreement. This article was amended on 24 July 2024 to clarify that the estimations of a death toll upwards of 186,000 were contained in a letter to The Lancet, and not in a peer-reviewed research paper. Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Get Simon Calders Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Hilo International Airport was evacuated on Tuesday after airport officials discovered two items resembling grenades during an X-ray screening. Hawaii Police arrested a traveler, 41-year-old Akito Fukushima, for first-degree terroristic threatening. TSA agents said they discovered the items around 5.30am local time, while Fukushima passed through security in departures. Police were called at 5.44am to secure and evacuate the terminal area as a precautionary safety measure. The departments bomb squad arrived on the scene and determined the items to be inert grenades. open image in gallery TSA agents discovered the items during an X-ray scan ( The Hawaii Police Department ) At 6.45am, police arrested Fukushima of Kanazawa, Japan, and transported him to HPDs East Hawaii Detention Facility. Fukushima remains in custody while detectives investigate. The airport resumed operations at 6.50am. The Hawaii Police reminded the public in a press release that replicas of explosives are prohibited in checked and carry-on baggage. open image in gallery The inert grenades were confiscated by police ( The Hawaii Police Department ) The TSA has not always managed to prevent travelers from flying with prohibited items in their hand luggage. Since February, five Americans have been arrested for illegally carrying ammunition from the US to the Turks and Caicos Islands. In all cases, they apparently accidentally boarded flights at US airports with live rounds in their hand luggage. The TSA launched a review in May, admitting an oversight had occurred, but two months on the TSA said it did not know how the ammo got past security. Last week Louisiana Rep Garret Graves, chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, told The Independent that its concerning that the TSA has no idea how American tourists are managing to take ammo onto flights unnoticed. Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield star in the first trailer for their upcoming romantic comedy-drama, We Live In Time. The film follows Almut (Pugh), an up-and-coming chef, and Tobias (Garfield) over multiple decades after a chance encounter brings them together. Through snapshots of their life together falling for each other, building a home, becoming a family a difficult truth is revealed that rocks its foundation, the movies official logline reads. The world premiere of We Live in Time will take place at this years Toronto International Film Festival. It does not yet have an official UK release date. Hundreds of tourists and adventurers are being drawn to Death Valley National Park, even though the desolate region known as one of the Earths hottest places is being punished by a dangerous heatwave. The scorching temperatures have been blamed for a motorcyclists death over the weekend, but that hasnt stopped some from flocking to the area. Andrea Karunanayake, visiting from Riverside, California, was warned not to come but couldnt resist the allure of the record-breaking heat. Honestly, its definitely shocking. I dont know how anything can survive out here, she said. Death Valley temperatures have reached a near-record 128F (53.3C) in recent days and could be set to break a century-old record-high for the region of 134F (56.6C). Joe Biden vowed that Russia will "not prevail" after a missile attack on a childrens hospital in Kyiv. The US president welcomed welcomed Nato leaders, including the new British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, to Washington DC with a speech promising that his country would continue to support Ukraines defence needs. It came after Vladimir Putin's troops hit the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital with a missile in broad daylight on Monday, 8 July, and rained missiles down on other cities across Ukraine, killing at least 41 civilians in the deadliest wave of air strikes for months. Announcing more military aid for Kyiv, Mr Biden said: "The war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country." Police have issued a direct appeal to Kyle Clifford, a man they are searching for in connection with a triple murder in Hertfordshire. Three women aged 25, 28, and 61, were found fatally injured in a house in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, just after 7pm on Tuesday, 9 July. Chief Superintendent Jon Simpson from Hertfordshire Police told reporters the murders are believed to be targeted and warned the public not to approach the suspect from Enfield, north London, who may be in possession of a crossbow. Appealing directly to Clifford, he added: Kyle, if you are seeing or hearing this, please make contact with the police. A chemical explosion has sparked a large fire at a factory in Melbourne, Australia, authorities said on Wednesday 10 July. Firefighters were trying to extinguish the blaze in the suburb of Derrimut as fireballs and thick black smoke billowed over the factory. More than 30 fire trucks and crews were at the scene, including aerial units, local media reported. The thick black smoke has prompted authorities to issue warnings for the suburbs surrounding the fire. No injuries have been reported so far. Sir Keir Starmer and Germanys chancellor, Olaf Scholz, were on Capitol Hill on Wednesday 10 July, meeting with a bipartisan group of Senate leaders on the sidelines of the Nato summit. Joe Biden welcomed leaders to Washington yesterday by celebrating the blocs unity against Russias aggression in Ukraine and underscoring Americas ironclad commitment to the alliance under his watch. The message seemed aimed at bucking up his own wobbly Democratic supporters as much as allies confronting the prospect of a return to the White House of Nato skeptic Donald Trump. This weeks summit will give Mr Biden his first chance to meet face-to-face with Sir Keir at the White House. Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, has said that Ukraine is getting closer and closer to membership. He added, however, that it is too early to say when it may happen, due to the need for consensus of all allies. Member states are meeting in Washington DC this week to mark the 75th anniversary of the worlds biggest security organisation as Russia presses its advantage on the battlefield in Ukraine. The three-day summit will focus on ways to reassure Ukraine of Natos enduring support and offer some hope to its war-weary citizens that their country might survive the biggest land conflict in Europe in decades. Sir Keir Starmer has told Volodymyr Zelensky that the change in government will make no difference to the UKs support of Ukraine. The new prime minister held talks with President Zelensky on Wednesday 10 July before arriving at the Nato summit. Sir Keir said he used the meeting to stress that the change of government from Conservative to Labour makes no difference to the support that we will provide. The summit was also a chance for the new government to reaffirm our commitment to Nato on its 75th anniversary, he said. Reform UK chairman Richard Tice dismissed theories that one of his partys candidates was an AI bot, describing claims as coming from lefties who cant believe we did so well. Online commentators had speculated that a picture of Mark Matlock, who stood in the Clapham and Brixton Hill constituency, was computer-generated. Mr Matlock spoke to The Independent on the phone on Monday. This is the lefties who cant believe we did so well, they still [propagate] nonsense and lies and fibs, Mr Tice said of the theories during an appearance on Good Morning Britain on Wednesday, 10 July. Sixteen-year old Solomiia Femeniuk was caught up in a Russian missile strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv on Monday, 8 July. The teenager was born with chronic renal failure, making hemodialysis part of her life, and had been receiving treatment at Okhmatdyt childrens hospital. She was watching videos on her phone as an air-raid siren blared, and awoke to find the ceiling in front of her eyes and the head doctor looking after her covered in blood and on her knees. Solomiia said her first thought was of her mother, and whether she had survived the attack. "Then I thought: Am I alive or not? she added. "There was dust, and there was nothing to breathe." Suella Braverman described government buildings flying the Progress version of the rainbow Pride flag as occupied territory in a speech at the National Conservatism conference in Washington DC on Monday, 8 July. The 2018 version of the flag was developed by non-binary American artist and designer Daniel Quasar to celebrate the diversity of the LGBT+ community and call for a more inclusive society. In her speech on Monday, the former Tory home secretary claimed the flag symbolised support for the mutilation of children in our hospitals, something which she said physically repulsed her. Keir Starmers trip to the White House tonight for his first meeting with Joe Biden has unfortunate echoes of Tony Blairs first visit in 1998. On that occasion, the cloud over the meeting was that the then US president Bill Clinton had just denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, a 22-year-old intern. Today, the ghost at the feast is that Biden is fighting for his political life, as a growing number of Democrats want him not to run for re-election in November after his disastrous performance in his TV debate with Donald Trump. Long-serving officials in London and Washington note the parallels. I covered Blairs visit and recall his aides were anxious about being dragged into a scandal which could have cost Clinton the presidency if he had lied (he was impeached but cleared). After Blairs advisers took legal advice from a Washington law firm, he decided to get some brownie points by telling Clinton: I am proud to call you a good colleague and friend. Following his talks, Starmer will inevitably be asked by the media how Biden was and whether the 81-year-old is fit to serve another four years as president. The advice from UK officials will be to swerve awkward questions by saying the US election is a matter for the American people. Starmer has made a confident start as PM and looks the part. On the face of it, his debut on the world stage at the Nato summit in Washington is well timed. Everyone loves a winner, and other leaders will be bees to a honeypot. Starmer is all set for five years in power, while Biden, Frances Emmanuel Macron and Germanys Olaf Scholz have only a precarious grip on power. Yet Starmers first overseas trip is not all a straightforward photo opportunity. The relatively easy soundbites of opposition have been replaced by the messy, hard choices of government. En route to Washington, the prime minister insisted defence is his number one priority and his commitment to spending more on it is cast iron. But he is under mounting pressure to say precisely when the defence budget will hit 2.5 per cent of GDP, which the Conservatives pledged by 2030. His appeal to other Nato members to boost defence spending is undermined by his refusal to give a specific timescale. He is still using opposition slogans, saying a defence review to be launched next week will provide a road map to 2.5 per cent. But the exercise could take almost a year. I think Starmer is right to say Labours fiscal rules must come first because there will be many other pressing demands for spending. Richard Dearlove, the former MI6 head, told Times Radio today that defence is more important than the NHS but voters and Labour ministers rightly disagree. There is another ghost at the feast to mark Natos 75th anniversary: Trump. Can the alliance Trump-proof aid for Ukraine so it will continue if he returns to the White House, and fast-track Ukraine to Nato membership? Both could be tricky. Starmer, who has barely had time to catch his breath since the election, has discovered that the backdrop to foreign affairs also changes at breakneck speed. During the campaign, Labour advisers told me the prospect of a Trump comeback would make it easier for Starmer to forge much closer relations with the EU because the bloc would need us even more on both defence and the economy. The PM regards reducing trade barriers with the EU as vital to securing higher growth (another number one priority). But now Macrons weakened position after the French parliamentary elections means he may not have the bandwidth to reset UK-EU relations. One EU diplomat told me: Its uncertain and unpredictable whether Macron will engage with the UKs agenda. Scholzs position in Germany is similarly weak, and it is the Franco-German engine that drives the EU. Starmer will probably land a new security pact with the EU but his hopes of extending it to migration and the prize of a returns agreement allowing people crossing the Channel in small boats to be sent back might now be dashed. This might persuade Starmer to reach for Blairs solution digital ID cards, despite ministers coolness in public. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is wary but there is work going on in Whitehall about the idea. Watch this space. Although not all its voters will welcome it, the Starmer government is desperate to look tough on migration. Like the Tories, Labour is under pressure from Nigel Farages Reform UK, which came second behind Labour in 89 seats. It is dawning on Labour ministers that the traditional left-right divide is over; the splintered and volatile electorate signals anti-politics rather than anti-Tory sentiment. Labour strategists are looking at how to combat Reform, amid fears Farage could appeal on economic issues as well as immigration to disaffected voters who feel ignored by politicians. Another reason why Labour must deliver the change it has promised. The site on the corner of Deerpark Road and North Avenue in Mount Merrion, Dublin An Oakmount subsidiary had received planning permission for a development of 50 apartments on the Union site Paddy McKillen Jrs Oakmount development business is selling the former Union Cafe site in Mount Merrion, Dublin, and sales agent Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) is guiding 5.75m for it. The offer for sale is the latest in a series of moves over the last two years by Mr McKillen Jr to dispose of his interests in hotels, hospitality venues and development sites. An Oakmount subsidiary had received planning permission for a development of 50 apartments on the Union site across two four-storey blocks and a 1,164 sqm three-storey commercial block, along with 2,985 sqm of basement parking. The drinks licence for the Union will also be available to a purchaser as an additional option. Todays News in 90 Seconds - 10th July 2024 Ollie Lyons of JLL says that while this planning permission has since lapsed, there is potential for a more optimised residential offering, making it an even more attractive proposition for developers. Union Cafe is located on the corner of Deerpark Road and North Avenue across from the local church, national school, community centre and Deerpark itself, as well as a parade of shops and restaurants. It is also located next to The Pinnacle development where Oakmount is building 100 apartments. After building work at The Pinnacle was interrupted due to an issue with the contractor, the first phase of these units is believed to be due for completion this year. Aimed at the upmarket sector, including empty nesters trading down in the mature Mount Merrion area, when originally sold off the plans prices for The Pinnacle apartments had started at 550,000. The remainder of the 100 apartments will be sold when the scheme is completed this autumn. Prices have yet to be announced. Last November, Press Up Hospitality Group, the restaurant and pubs division of Mr McKillen Jrs group which operated Union Cafe, closed the premises so the building could be demolished to make way for the new apartment block. The site on the corner of Deerpark Road and North Avenue in Mount Merrion, Dublin Mr McKillen Jr originally launched the Union Cafe brand in the Mount Merrion premises and opened two others in Sandyford and Churchtown in south Dublin. Then after he acquired Elephant & Castle restaurant he rebranded the latter two as Elephant & Castle while leaving Mount Merrion as Union. Meanwhile, JLL is progressing the sale of another McKillen development site in Sandyford, Dublin 18, which had been guiding 2.75m. Mr McKillen Jr has applied for planning permission for 14 three- and four-bedroom terraced houses rising to three storeys on this 0.97-acre elevated site at the foothills of the Dublin mountains. Its sale does not include the drinks licence for the landmark former Lamb Doyles licensed premises which occupies the site. Other group disposals saw a majority stake in its Dean Hotel Group sold in February to the London-headquartered Lifestyle Hospitality Capital, backed by funds advised by Elliott Investment Management, in a transaction that valued the hotel chain at a reported 355m. In recent weeks it has also been reported that Cheyne Capital is moving to take control of the Press Up Hospitality Group. Cheyne has been the main financier of the group for the past two years and is believed to be owed close to 40m. Kingsbridge Healthcare Group, based in south Belfast, said it had secured major investment from the private equity firm. It said the deal would support its expansion across the island of Ireland and was a major vote of confidence in Northern Irelands economy. According to a report on The Currency in May, Exponent had been in exclusive talks to acquire Kingsbridge for around 300m (354m). It is Exponents first investment into Northern Ireland and one of the biggest private equity deals there in recent years. Kingsbridge was founded by doctors Suresh Tharma and Ashok Songra in Belfast in 2005. It now has four hospitals and 11 clinics in Belfast, Derry and Sligo. It employs more than 1,100 staff and engages over 400 consultants for advanced medical services in surgery and diagnostics. Dr Tharma and Mr Songra will remain significant minority investors in Kingsbridge, which will also retain its existing senior leadership team, led by chief executive Mark Regan. Dr Tharma will become chairman of the board. Exponent managing director Richard Lenane, who is from Belfast, and David McGovern, partner, will join the board. Kingsbridge carries out more than 25,000 surgical treatments each year, including patients under the Northern Ireland Planned Healthcare Scheme and National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), contributing to reduced waiting list times for patients in the Republic. In the year to March 2023, pre-tax profits rose to 11.4m, from 9.1m the year before. Exponent has now invested over 1bn in Irish-owned and based businesses, making it one of the most significant private equity investors across the island of Ireland. In February, it announced an investment in Galway-based Chanelle Pharma, a company founded by Michael Burke. Kingsbridges Mr Regan said: We welcome this significant investment and vote of confidence in our business. The team at Exponent is committed to supporting our local healthcare sector and has an impressive track record of backing great businesses across the island. DAA is planning to put in place an elevated viewing platform. Photo: Getty A north county Dublin residents group has called on Fingal Co Council to refuse planning permission to DAAs new plans for an observation point for plane spotters. The operator of Dublin airport, DAA lodged plans for the aircraft observation facility at the Airport Viewing Point, Old Airport Road last month. DAA is planning to put in place an elevated viewing platform with sheltered viewing structure, seating and tables and improved parking facilities with 22 car-parking spaces. A planning report lodged with the application states that the proposed development represents "an important investment in community facilities" at Dublin Airport and will contribute to a safer, more comfortable and more inclusive plane-spotting experience by providing amenities for users. The report states that the aircraft observation facility will formalise the position of the airport viewing area, known locally as The Mound in its current informal location. However, in a comprehensive submission against the scheme, Liam OGradaigh of SMTW Environmental DAC has told the council that the application should be refused on the grounds that the airport should utilise Dublin Airport-zoned grounds. Todays News in 90 Seconds - 10th July 2024 In the submission, Mr OGradaigh states that the existing lay-by has no zoning designation in the Fingal Development Plan. Its worth noting that the DAA has an extensive landbank under-utilised that is zoned Dublin Airport (DA)," he said. "DA zoning facilitates car parking and aviation-related activities. Therefore, this application should be refused on the grounds that the airport should utilise DA-zoned grounds. We welcome improvements to the viewing area but this planning application, as it stands, is deficient on a number of grounds, he said. The application has only planned for 22 car-parking spaces which will not cater for demand or fool-proof the development for future years. There are no toilet facilities planned which is another serious deficiency. The current site is a traffic hazard, and the limited parking will only add to the risk. He further contends that the DAA has an opportunity to fully enhance the experience of users at the airport and this minimal development lacks vision. Troubled chain was acquired last year by Paul Kingston and other investors The Revenue Commissioners has moved to wind up a company connected to the Aperee nursing home group. The chain was plunged into controversy last year, and its not known how the move by Revenue might impact the business. Paul Kingston, the chief executive of the group, who led a buyout of the chain last year backed by other investors, declined to comment. Revenue filed a petition last week to wind up Aperee Ltd, of which Mr Kingston is a director. The petition is due to be heard in the High Court on July 29. Aperee Ltds most recent publicly-filed accounts, for 2019, state that the principal activity of the firm is the management of residential care homes for the elderly. Mr Kingston was chief executive of the Aperee business until 2022, before returning to the role last year following the chains acquisition. The Aperee business, originally founded by Cork-based investment firm Blackbee, had a tumultuous year in 2023. Three of its nursing homes which were included in last years sale had their registration cancelled following inspections by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa). Those nursing homes were at Callan in Co Kilkenny, Ballygunner in Co Waterford and Belgooly in Co Cork. The HSE assumed control of the nursing home in Co Kilkenny, while the other two were closed. However, in March this year, staff and residents of the home in Callan were told by the HSE that the home was also closing. The HSE said it could no longer safely provide care to residents at the facility. That impacted 43 residents at the home. The Hiqa report last year into the Kilkenny home found residents money was being used to fund operational costs at the home, and highlighted staff shortages and fire safety risks. Hiqa inspectors also expressed serious concerns about the control of residents finances and fire safety risks following a visit to a Co Galway nursing home owned by the Aperee group. In 2022, Blackbee founder David OShea and a number of companies related to the group initiated legal action against Mr Kingston and Aperee chief financial officer Hazel OConnor, seeking declarations that the pair had no legal or beneficial interest in the share capital or voting rights of Aperee Holdings. The defendants had claimed they were entitled to 40pc of the profits of a planned deal to sell 12 of the groups nursing homes in 2021. The case was later settled. The acquisition deal with Mr Kingston last year included a partially completed site in Glanmire in Cork, as well as a site in the county that had planning permission for a 100-bed nursing home and 47 independent living units. We are fully committed to providing the highest standards of care to all residents at the nursing homes we have acquired, prioritising excellent clinical support, dedicated personal care, companionship, daily activities and community events, said Mr Kingston at the time of the acquisition last year. Live streaming company says accounts set up to defame and damage business A recently launched live-stream social media service and two of its founders have claimed before the High Court that they are the targets of a malicious smear campaign being waged against them on the X platform. Switzerland-based Vinivia AG, its CEO Steffan Graff and CFO Marcello Genovese claim that in the weeks after the firms app was launched last April, four accounts were set up on X, formerly known as Twitter. All four accounts, they claim, have posted statements about them that are defamatory and false. They also alleged that the posts, which include photographs and personal information about Mr Genovese and Mr Graff, are in breach of their GDPR rights. The allegedly defamatory posts state the plaintiffs are involved in frauds and scams, financial misconduct, that the firm is a shady company, that it has betrayed the employees and business partners, has pitched fake technology that does not exist, that they are criminals, thugs, are involved in money laundering, and that one of the plaintiffs is a Nazi. The plaintiffs claim that because of the posts they have suffered significant reputational damage. They claim the posts are having a significant impact on the companys business and ability to attract further investment. It is estimated that due to the posts the company has lost over 4m in investment from 20 creators, who have declined to work with the company. One investor, Nordstein AG which proposes to put 3m into the firm has also expressed concerns about the posts. In addition, American social media personality Charli DAmelio, who with 155 million followers is one of the most followed people on TikTok, has decided to cancel all her live streams on the App for the moment due to the negative posts. The posts have also affected the firms ability to hire employees. Peter Shanley, for the plaintiffs, told the court on Tuesday that Vinivia is a live-streaming social media app which improves monetisation and e-commerce opportunities for its content creators. It is a rival to TikTok, counsel said. The app was launched in the US last April, and the four accounts started to appear in May and June, counsel added. Counsel said all four accounts are being used for the purpose of harassing, undermining, and damaging his clients. All of the posts on the accounts relate to Vinivia and its founders, counsel said. Counsel said that complaints about the posts have been made to X. While some of the posts were temporarily restricted, the accounts remain active and his clients want to brining proceedings against those posting the defamatory material, counsel said. In order to sue those behind the accounts, Mr Shanley said his clients require an order from the court directing Irish-based Twitter International UnLimited Company, an X Irish-based subsidiary which provides the X service to all users within Europe, to give them details about the holders of the @VinivialInsider, @MayouKnow249, @FightTheScam, and @TheSaintofCA accounts. The plaintiffs seek an order directing Twitter International to provide them all information in its possession relating to the identities of anyone who created or controls the accounts. They also seek orders providing for the removal of all the posts by the accounts and the suspension of the accounts. The application came before Mr Justice Oisin Quinn, who on an ex-parte (one side only represented) basis granted the plaintiffs permission to serve notice of its application on Twitter International. The judge was satisfied to make the matter returnable to a date later this month. Media regulator to spend 500,000 on consultant to design industry levy Regulator is moving to an industry-funded model Apple, in its submission to the regulator, proposed a cap on the upper limit of the levy. Photo: PA John Burns Wed 10 Jul 2024 at 03:30 The new media regulator is to spend up to 500,000 on a consultant to design and implement an industry levy that will fund its operations from next year on. The appointment is aimed at countries outside Ireland, particularly in Europe, where Mr Musks social media platform is being investigated for allowing extreme, hateful and terrorist content Elon Musks X (formerly Twitter) is hiring a spin doctor in Dublin to help government, political, and civil society representatives understand X and fashion strategies for thorny public policy issues. The senior government affairs manager will be focused on countries outside Ireland, particularly in Europe, where Mr Musks social media platform is being investigated for allowing extreme, hateful and terrorist content. The job listing is one of the highest-profile new appointments after Mr Musk dismantled most of Twitters staff structure in Dublin after taking over the company. The Irish High Court reversed his attempt fire former Twitter Ireland boss Sinead McSweeney for not responding to an email. The new appointee is expected to work closely with Niamh McDade, Xs current head of government affairs for the UK and Ireland, and Claire Dile, Xs director of government affairs for Europe. Ms McDade and Ms Dile recently made representations to government on the interaction between children and artificial intelligence on the social media platform. The European Commission recently launched legal proceedings against X for not preventing illegal, extreme and dangerous content. The move, which could see X fined 6pc of annual turnover, was initiated under the powerful Digital Services Act. Mr Musk, who has described himself as a free speech absolutist, has publicly goaded European Commissioner Thierry Breton over the issue. Xs paid-for blue ticks and Community Notes fact-checking system are also under investigation for information manipulation and risks to civic discourse and electoral processes. Last month, X announced that it was opening its service up formally to pornography services. Xs commercial performance has crashed since Mr Musk took over in 2022, with a majority of advertisers fleeing the platform due to hateful or racist content that the company has been slow to remove. Alec Baldwins trial over the shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins began yesterday with the selection of jurors who will decide whether the actor is guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Getting chosen to serve in a trial of a Hollywood star accused of such a crime would be unusual even in Los Angeles or Baldwins hometown of New York. But it will be essentially an unheard-of experience for those who are picked as jurors in Santa Fe, New Mexico, though in recent years the state has increasingly become a hub of film production. Baldwin and his wife Hilaria arrived at the courthouse yesterday with at least one of their children. The couple have seven children, with the youngest set to turn two in September. Baldwin (66) could get up to 18 months in prison if jurors unanimously decide to convict him. The jurors will be asked to decide whether Baldwin committed the felony when, during a rehearsal in October 2021, a revolver went off while he was pointing it at cinematographer Ms Hutchins, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. They were on the set of the Western film Rust, at Bonanza Creek Ranch some 29km from where the trial is being held. Baldwin has said the gun fired accidentally after he followed instructions to point it towards Ms Hutchins, who was behind the camera. Unaware that the gun contained a live round, Baldwin said he pulled back the hammer not the trigger and it fired. The star of 30 Rock and The Hunt for Red October made his first appearance in the courtroom on Monday, when Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, in a significant victory for the defence, ruled at a pretrial hearing that Baldwins role as a co-producer on Rust is not relevant to the trial. The judge has said that the special circumstances of a celebrity trial should not keep jury selection from moving quickly, and that opening statements should begin today. Im not worried about being able to pick a jury in one day, she said. I think were going to pick a jury by the afternoon. Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey, however, was dubious that Baldwins lawyers, with whom she has clashed in the run-up to the trial, would make that possible. It is my guess that with this group of defence attorneys, thats not going to happen, Ms Morrissey said. Baldwins lawyer Alex Spiro replied: Ive never not picked a jury in one day. I cant imagine that this would be the first time. Dozens of prospective jurors were shuffled into the courtroom for questioning yesterday morning. Cameras capturing the rest of the proceedings were turned off to protect jurors privacy. The jury is expected to get the case after a nine-day trial. Lawyers will be able to request to dismiss jurors for conflicts or other reasons. The defence under state law can dismiss up to five jurors without giving a reason, and the prosecution can dismiss three. More challenges will be allowed when four alternates are chosen. Before the judges ruling on Monday, prosecutors had hoped to highlight Baldwins safety obligations on the set as co-producer to bolster an alternative theory of guilt beyond his alleged negligent use of a firearm. They aimed to link Baldwins behaviour to total disregard or indifference for the safety of others under the involuntary manslaughter law. But the prosecution managed other wins on Monday. They successfully argued for the exclusion of summary findings from a state workplace safety investigation that placed much of the blame on the films assistant director, shifting fault away from Baldwin. And the judge ruled that they could show graphic images from Ms Hutchins post-mortem, and from police lapel cameras during the treatment of her injuries. The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party has said the placing of a police car on top of bonfire in Co Tyrone is absolutely disgraceful. On Tuesday evening, images emerged of a 1.3 tonne silver Vauxhall Vectra decorated in police livery on top of the pyre in Moygashel. The bonfire, sitting around 150 pallets high, has been widely condemned for its toppers in recent years. In a comment shared on social media, Doug Beattie said: This is absolutely disgraceful. Those responsible undermine their own cries for cultural respect. Truly pathetic. A police car on top of the Moygashel Bonfire But loyalist activist Jamie Bryson, who addressed a crowd at the bonfire in 2023, said: I think this is a bit of edgy artistic expression, a bit like, for example, Kneecap. If that type of expression is welcome from the nationalist community, then I see no reason why similar unionist efforts would not draw similar applause unless of course there are double standards. When asked about his appearance at the controversial pyre last year, Mr Bryson said: I was delighted to be guest speaker at Moygashel last year, when they displayed a very topical message about the Belfast Agreement. That message is as relevant today as it was then. Todays News in 90 Seconds - 10th July 2024 I do find it more than mildly amusing that theyve managed to place a full-sized police car on top of a bonfire, having first appropriated the wheels. "Id imagine their artistic message this year also seeks to emphasise a two-tier policing message. Speaking in March 2024, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher strongly rejected suggestions that there is two-tier policing in the PSNI. A police car on top of the Moygashel Bonfire An Irish tricolour and a poster of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar were placed on top of the loyalist bonfire in 2023. The large pyre in Moygashel also attracted major attention after a boat was mysteriously placed on it bearing a banner reading "Good Friday Agreement? That ship has sailed". A mock copy of the 1998 peace deal with the words "null and void" printed over was also added. A crowd of around 400 people gathered to watch the bonfire which was condemned widely by politicians. Speaking after the bonfire in 2023, a spokesman said: Our culture is under attack on a daily basis, and if not resisted with everything in our power, our Britishness will become unrecognisable. Our cultural celebrations that we have grown to enjoy with our families will be demonised to the point of extinction. The bonfire boat and our efforts are to highlight our strong opposition to the Irish Sea border. We believe that the implementation of the Union-dismantling protocol aligns our economy with the South and is a process of transition towards a united Ireland. Loyalist anger is at breaking point and we hope to see a peaceful [resolution] to the situation before it is too late. We fear time is running out. Courts Young boxer must have forgot to pay for fuel when he drove off from Applegreen petrol station, court hears The flight attendant was facing charges of attempted suicide and alcohol abuse after an alleged attack in her homeMs Towey (28) was informed this morning that the travel ban had been liftedThe Taoiseach said the embassy will take Ms Towey to the airport as soon as she is ready to goLocal TD Claire Kerrane said she could be home today or tomorrow Tori Towey, the Roscommon woman detained in Dubai, is over the moon at news that she can return home. The 28-year-old was informed this morning that a travel ban preventing her from returning to Ireland had been lifted. Authorities in Dubai have this evening confirmed that charges against Ms Towey have been dropped. "Dubai Public Prosecution has closed the case involving Irish national Tori Towey after she and her husband, a South African national, were involved in a case featuring mutual charges of assault, dating back to May 2024. The couple reached a reconciliation and withdrew the complaints filed against each other. Dubai Public Prosecution has also dropped the charges of attempted suicide against her considering the circumstances of the case and to enable her to return to normal life, the Media office of the government of Dubai said in a statement. She is thrilled and relieved, said Detained in Dubai CEO Radha Stirling, who has been assisting the air stewardess. She said she is over the moon and looking forward to getting home to Ireland and seeing the rest of her family. She is a little nervous too because there is that worry that something could happen before she gets on a plane but the overriding feeling is one of joy. Sinn Fein TD for Roscommon and Galway, Claire Kerrane, who knows Ms Toweys family, said she is now free to leave Dubai and could be home tonight or tomorrow. The flight attendant, from Boyle, was reportedly facing charges of attempted suicide and alcohol abuse after waking up in a police station in Dubai after an alleged attack in her home, the Dail heard. Dubai authorities had also banned her from leaving the state, the Dail chamber was told. Taoiseach Simon Harris interrupted questions to update the House today on her case, saying: "I've just been informed that the travel ban has been lifted, that the embassy will take Tori to the airport as soon as she is ready to go and that the embassy of course will continue to follow up on the case, which is still active as of now." He thanked the Irish embassy in the United Arab Emirates for their work on the case. "The embassy of course will continue to follow up on the case, which is still active as of now. But I just wanted to inform the House of that news, he said. Ms Towey suffered severe bruising and other injuries that required hospital treatment after she was allegedly attacked in her home, according to human rights group Detained in Dubai. She moved to Dubai in April 2023 for a job with Emirates and is due to appear in court next week. Mr Harris this morning described the situation facing Ms Towey in Dubai as unimaginable and said it is his priority to get her back to her home in Ireland. Speaking to media at Leinster House, Mr Harris said he spoke with Ms Towey and her mother Caroline this morning. I dont want to say too much because there is a lot of diplomatic activity going on in the background. Tori has been through in my view the most horrific situation and it is utterly, utterly unacceptable how an Irish citizen is being treated, that is my language in terms of how I feel," the Taoiseach said. Tori has been a victim of male violence and she needs to be supported. She needs to be brought back home to her home here in Ireland, Mr Harris added. The Taoiseach said earlier he had also spoken to the Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin on the situation as well as the Irish Ambassador, who the Taoiseach said has been working on Ms Toweys case for a period of time. Todays News in 90 Seconds - 10th July 2024 I had a conversation with the Tanaiste who is also working on this matter as our Minister for Foreign Affairs. I have spoken to our ambassador in the region as well who have been in constant contact with her on this matter since yesterday. I want to acknowledge our ambassador and embassy team have been working on this case for a period of time and let me just say there is a lot of work going on in the background here, the Taoiseach said. Mr Harris described Ms Toweys situation as unimaginable and said he will support Ms Towey in getting home. What Tori has been through is, I think, unimaginable for so many people. A woman who has been the victim of a brutal attack, to find herself waking up not in a hospital but in a police station, the Taoiseach said. It is my absolute priority as the Taoiseach of this country to get Tori, an Irish citizen, back home to Roscommon and I will be staying in regular contact with her and her mum and supporting them, he added. Photo: Tori Towey Speaking to RTE Radio Ones Morning Ireland, the aunt of Tori Towey said Tori and her mother Caroline are very nervous about the situation and the family in Roscommon are hoping they will get word they are on a plane on the way home. I dont know will this court case go ahead and if it goes, what will happen?, Toris aunt, Ann Flynn, said. You know, we're just very hopeful. And it's really terrible that this has happened to a young woman that was full of life and full of adventure. And she loved travelling. And, you know, she's a beautiful young woman. Ann said she has been in touch with the two women every day, several times a day. She added that the pair are trying to keep positive and the family are all hoping that the charges against Tori will not go to court. Tori Towey It's on your mind constantly, and I'm sure it's on their minds because all the family is getting in touch with them, you know? And, it's so far away. But hopefully with Radha Stirling, the Taoiseach and all the ministers that is helping now, hopefully, we'll hear good news. We're hoping that, just something will happen that it won't go to court. It's hard to believe that this young woman has been charged with trying to commit suicide. It is very, very hard to believe, Ann added. Radha Stirling, CEO of advocacy group Detained in Dubai, described the case and the travel ban against Ms Towey as outrageous. Toris experience is nothing short of tragic and quite frankly, she is lucky to be alive, added Stirling, who has helped in numerous domestic violence cases including that of Dubais Princess Latifa. Tori Towey CEO of advocacy group Detained in Dubai Ms Stirling confirmed this morning that Ms Towey is currently living in an Airbnb. "Right now, she's just happy to be with her mother in safety, because this is all very recent, but she is able to leave the apartment and move freely within the country, she said. She continued; "It's terrible PR for the country. You're going to have people worried to go there in the future. And of course, this is on the back of historically charging rape victims with sex outside marriage so they dont have the best reputation to start with. They've been trying to improve it. "So I think they'll be agreeable with the Irish government if there's enough diplomatic pressure put on them, letting them know that we absolutely want Tori home and there's just going to be no negotiation on that, she added. "In a best-case scenario, they will simply say: We're not going to proceed beyond this hearing- and we're going to let you go. "When it comes to a case like this, it's all about diplomacy. Without the support of the Irish government, she would be likely to face prison and charges and deportation. "With the support of the Irish Government and diplomacy and there has been a lot various members of the Irish government have contacted UAE ambassador to Ireland, and of course, Ireland's ambassador in the UAE, and they're trying to get those diplomatic talks happening. "If that happens, that is the best and fastest way to get her home, Ms Stirling added. The UAE has gone to great public relations efforts to promote alcohol as legal in the country. In reality, people are still regularly charged with alcohol consumption and possession, added Stirling. A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed it is aware of Ms Toweys situation. "The Department of Foreign Affairs is aware of the case and is providing consular assistance. "As with all consular cases, the department does not comment on the details of individual cases." Dublin Zoo is hoping that there will be a vaccine to protect against a fatal elephant disease following the diagnosis of a third member of the herd. Today it was announced that Asha, a 17-year-old Asian elephant, has tested positive for EEHV (Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus) which can cause highly fatal hemorrhaging when transmitted to young Asian elephants. This follows the deaths of Zinda (7) who died from the disease at Dublin Zoo on Sunday, while Avani (8) died from the same disease last Monday, 1 July. Veterinary surgeon Frank OSullivan, who has been working closely with the elephants, said a vaccine is needed now to prevent the virus, otherwise elephants could become extinct. 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 He highlighted that the EEHV crisis in Dublin Zoo is not over yet", and the future is difficult to predict. One of the hopes from this emotional situation, we hope we can contribute to the formation of a vaccine, Mr OSullivan told the Irish Independent. EHV is also affecting elephants in the wild. Its so important to have a vaccine to protect against the disease. The risk is, if we dont do that, the population will go down. If EHV, loss of habitat and hunting, if it doesnt stop the potential would be that when my grandchildren grow up elephants could be close to extinction. Thats the real worry. Read more Dublin Zoo confirms death of second elephant in a week "Ashas age may be an advantage in this situation. Being older, her body has had more time to develop antibodies to fight the infection, potentially giving her a greater chance of survival. The veterinary team is working to provide Asha with the best possible care and are closely monitoring her condition. EHV is a herpes virus that affects elephants between the ages of two and ten, one of the signs is hemorrhaging which can be awfully fatal, up to 85 to 90 pc and weve had two of those. Aung Bo recently came from Chester Zoo, hes a male elephant helping to continue the breeding programme. Part of the normal protocol is that we use plasma or blood especially with antibodies, Aung Bo we knew had those. Twice this week, Aung Bo has contributed, and he was a legend offering us plasma we can use for treatment of the elephants. EEHV is a serious and unpredictable illness, but with early detection and the right treatment, the zoo is hopeful for a positive outcome. Currently, the other elephants in the herd are not showing signs of EEHV, but they are closely monitoring their health during this tragedy. This has been a very tough time for the keepers and the care team at Dublin Zoo. As vets, we see whats happening, we try to support them, so they dont feel any pain, Mr OSullivan said. For us, were conscious theyre a family and they lost two members of their family. Theyve a grieving process they must go through. We miss them so much, but we realise the elephants are grieving as well. Todays News in 90 Seconds - 10th July 2024 Meanwhile, Marc Enderby, Assistant Curator is currently leading the elephant team through this crisis. It's having a huge impact on the team, but they're so committed. They're so dedicated to those elephants, he said. Some of these guys have been working with these elephants for their whole lives and they're almost like their own kids at times. They really do care for them, and you can see that in the way that it has impacted them. Any loss is hard, but when you've looked after an animal for eight years, 10 years, it takes a toll. Avani, she's our youngest. She was so playful. She'd be the annoying one in the family where she'd just get in the way of everybody, the elephants loved her so much and the keepers loved her. We do a lot of training with our elephants and whenever we do training with Avani. She is the one that wouldn't do what we're asking her to. She would be running around playing with sticks and throwing things around and it's so much fun to see her like that. Zinda was the older sister of Avani. Those two were two peas in a pod. They would never leave each other's side. You could really see Avani's loss in Zinda, it really did impact her. The elephants have their own individual character. You can tell each animal by their behaviours. There's a huge hole in that hood now because of that. An encampment of asylum seekers that had been established on Dublins Grand Canal was disbanded this morning in an operation involving around 20 gardai who had to physically remove supporters of the migrants. The camp of around 60 tents had been growing on Charlemont Place, close to the Charlemont Luas stop for around three weeks, after other camps that had been located at Merrion Square were being dismantled on a daily basis. It was also close to the scene where two men drowned last weekend. They had been sleeping in tents on the opposite side of the canal and were not asylum seekers. Separately, three men were arrested after an alleged attack on the camp on Monday night. The camp at Charlemont Place was located on the grounds of a vacant office block, which is private property, and gardai arrived at the scene at 7am this morning and erected barriers at both ends of the road. Then at 7.30am they moved in to alert the asylum seekers that they were to leave the area. The tents were huddled close together under large blue tarpaulin sheets with no sanitary facilities nearby. As the men woke and were moved from the tents they could be seen washing their faces with bottled water and gathering their few belongings into plastic bags. A group of supporters of the asylum seekers refused to leave from in front of the camp. There were brief scuffles as the supporters were physically moved and carried by gardai to beyond the street cordon, where they remained with the asylum seekers as they left the camp and wondered where to go next. The supporters then stood with their arms linked together in front of the barrier for a time while the migrants were directed from the camp. A group of workers then dismantled the tents after the men had left them, and they were placed on the back of a small truck and taken away. The workers then collected up any waste and sleeping bags that were left behind and removed that also. Then at around 8.30am another truck arrived carrying the now-familiar barriers that line the canal on both sides. A team of men erected the barriers around the site and the operation was completed by around 9am. The asylum seekers are then believed to have moved around the corner where a new camp was being established by some of them on some vacant land currently earmarked for development. Ireland has not been kind to me Ukrainian woman returning home to war-torn country after her Irish dream became a nightmare The man is due to appear before the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin this morning Some of the drugs seized at Dublin Airport yesterday A man who had been arrested at Dublin Airport after Revenue Officers seized herbal cannabis worth 990,000 has been charged. The man, in his 30s, is due to appear before the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin this morning at approximately 10.30am. Revenue officers seized 49.5kgs of the drug at the airport yesterday as a result of risk profiling and with the assistance of detector dog Jack. The cannabis was discovered concealed in vacuum-packed packages within the baggage of a passenger who had disembarked a flight originating from Thailand, Revenue said in an earlier statement. A man in his 30s was subsequently arrested by An Garda Siochana and detained overnight under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996 at a Dublin Garda station. He has since been charged and is due before the courts this morning. How Ireland fell in love with the Dart: Within weeks of opening, 45,000 people were travelling between the seaside towns on a single day A waste of taxpayers money or a way to restore Joyces Dublin? People had mixed opinions of the Dart when it first opened in July 1984, writes historian Donal Fallon, but it has stood the test of time, and has been immortalised spectacularly in Irish literature, music and film The Irish Independent's report on the first day of the Dart Donal Fallon Wed 10 Jul 2024 at 03:30 In 1986, with the Dart still something of a novelty in the lives of the citizenry of Dublin and neighbouring Wicklow, the poet and historian Vincent Caprani embarked on a journey from one end of the line to the other. In A View From The Dart, he went on the electric odyssey, describing only what was visible from the carriage or a short stroll from the stations. To Caprani, the Dart amounted to a rapidly-moving corridor leading into a sprawling museum the treasure-house of Dublin city and its maritime environs. The morning commuters might not feel as romantic on the subject, but all would agree that Dublin is a better city for it. James Stavridis: What a full-scale war in Middle East would actually look like, and how the West could be drawn in to conflict Joe Biden is under increasing pressure from within his own party to quit the US presidential race. Photo: Reuters President Biden faces a dilemma: As bad as his debate performance may have been, his inadequate efforts to respond to the fallout have only deepened anxiety among Democratic officials, operatives and donors. Tepid outings in controlled settings provoke even more hysterical news coverage suggesting (falsely) he is barely functioning. That overreaction, in turn, causes him to double down on insistence nothing is amiss (also false). This doom feedback loop emerged in his highly anticipated interview with ABCs George Stephanopoulos and in the reaction among congressional Democrats, high-level Democratic operatives and veterans of Democratic White Houses. Inevitably, Bidens defensive answers and bullheadedness only increased media harping and Democrats depression. There was simply no way to get certain answers right. (Pundits ridiculed him for denying he is frail. But what would have been the better answer? Yes, Im frail, but frail people can be good presidents?) A defiant, recalcitrant Biden refused to accept public polls numbers, would not acknowledge quiet entreaties from elected Democrats, dismissed speculation about dissension in Democratic ranks and could not accept that his achievements as president do not equate to his ability to wage a successful campaign. What next? First, Biden and his team need some media realism. Biden has a point in saying nothing he could do would satisfy outlets determined to prove him unfit. Sure, Democrats are justified in taking the media to task for refusing to call for a felon to get out of the race and failing to explore Donald Trumps mental health. Likewise, Democrats do have grounds to decry lack of serious coverage of the potentially tyrannical powers that Trump would acquire after the Supreme Courts immunity case. But that does not end the discussion. Media hysteria and imbalance do not justify Biden staying in the race to prove they are wrong. Bidens debate and post-debate conduct have given the media every justification for focusing solely on him, not on Trumps greater personal defects and menace to democracy. That is a serious impediment to re-election. Second, Biden would benefit by deciding to release his entire medical record. A letter from his doctor cannot allay concerns about whether he has an underlying medical issue. Let the media paw through records and report if they find any indication of a heretofore hidden neurological issue. If Biden has nothing to hide, he can lay it all out - or even make his doctor available for a news conference. Then he can challenge Trump to do the same. (And Biden would seem more self-aware if he conceded that, like many presidents, he needs to limit his in-office hours. Being a good president does not entail working 16-hour days.) Third, Biden and his pollsters owe Democrats candour. If Bidens pollsters have told him the race is a toss-up let them come explain their results to donors, activists and members of Congress. If their internal polls show (as do public polls) a decline for Biden since the debate, they need to explain why they think the race is still winnable and set a reasonable framework for assessing improvement. (When does the debate dip fade?) Continuing to deny poll results makes him, his pollsters and the campaign seem out to lunch, further demoralising Democrats. Fourth, Democrats in elected office need to be much more candid if they think Biden, the party and the country are heading for disaster. Democrats who want him to bow out must understand that winks, nods, opaque statements and unsourced complaints are utterly insufficient. Telling Biden one thing in private and then racing to give background quotes expressing their actual views to the media wont cut it. And meekly raising concerns in private only to sound more robust in public results in Bidens favorite defence: They didnt say that in the room. These Democrats cannot bemoan Bidens lack of self-awareness if they hide in the shadows. Fifth, a fit and capable presidential candidate determined to prove he is not feeble and diminished would be out much more frequently in more demanding, unscripted settings. His failure to do so cannot be chalked up to bad staff. Democrats are not unreasonable in concluding he is not doing these things because he cannot. Therefore, Democrats who want to move the process along should lay down some markers. They could, for example, join Representative James E Clyburn and other Democrats in demanding that Biden do town halls, news conferences and tough interviews on a consistent basis. Giving him a concrete deadline to show he is capable of those tasks and can return to pre-debate polling could move the situation to a decision point. Sixth, if after a reasonable amount of time Biden has not done the things needed to show his fitness and has not returned to pre-debate polling, senior Democrats and longtime confidantes from Delaware, armed with polls, will need to confront him in private and, sadly, in public if need be, to ask him to step aside. In sum, Democrats remain where they began before Fridays interview. Biden can be very good at being president, racking up an extraordinary first-term record, and yet not be able to convince his party of his electability. So far, Biden has failed to relieve Democrats anxiety that he can win because he has not demonstrated transparency about his health, candour about his polls or the ability to campaign in demanding settings. Soon, Democrats patience will expire. However, they cannot hope to compel him to face reality without a confrontation. This moment requires unflinching candour. US democracy may depend upon it Taoiseach Simon Harris has been around long enough to know being principled is more important than popularity. Photo: PA Ronald Reagan had a rule: If you cant make them see the light, make them feel the heat. Bitter experience records that when you ignore both in terms of managing the public purse, economies can veer off the road and blow a gasket. Nonetheless, within months of a general election, the Government will make 8.3bn in additional funding available in Budget 2025. In a sodden summer, paying for a feel-good factor as one prepares to go the country is a temptation to which it would be all too easy to succumb. But at what cost? You dont get a free pass on the responsibilities of tomorrow by evading them today. Nor can you build lasting political capital by reminding people of what you achieved in the past. In the long-term, the premium comes from taking responsibility for the future. The State has three pedigree watchdogs on hand to guard against financial trouble, and all have barked, scenting danger. The Central Bank of Ireland, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) have been snapping at the heels of ministers, urging restraint to avoid stoking up an economy firing on all cylinders. Yet all could be in danger of being largely ignored. Bumper tax receipts from ever-bountiful windfall corporation tax returns set the State on a path to a record surplus of 8bn this year. Current budgetary policy is not appropriate for the economy or the public finances Last month, the IFAC warned about oversight of spending, saying: At the end of May, spending was 1.1bn over budget. Worryingly, its fiscal assessment report bluntly attributed this to poor budgeting. The then finance minister, Michael McGrath, was urged by the council not to break the Governments own spending rule. This is intended to limit any yearly increase in net spending to no more than 5pc something the Government has breached in its last two budgets. It now looks as if the spending element will show an increase of 6.9pc, significantly ahead of the Coalitions 5pc rule. Current budgetary policy is not appropriate for the economy or the public finances, IFAC acting chair Michael McMahon has cautioned. Given our turbo-charged economy, Mr McMahon further advised strongly against piling on too much, too soon, saying: Choices need to be made. This is not a time for the everything now approach. This, he explained, amounted to cutting taxes and increasing current and capital spending all at once. However, asked yesterday about opposition criticism that he was setting things up for a giveaway budget, Taoiseach Simon Harris appeared almost affronted. I always wonder what that phrase means, he said. Every budget gives money away. He may be our youngest Taoiseach ever, but he has been around long enough to know the difference between prudence and profligacy. A balance between being popular and being principled is always more rewarding in the long term. Women are unfairly expected to take the responsibility for pregnancy prevention. Photo: PA The recent figures on abortions in Ireland have generated much debate. Might I suggest a rarely referred-to angle akin to the proverbial elephant in the room? Given that much of the righteous anger on abortion numbers emanates from the male population, the conversation should be focused on mens roles in these numbers. Birth control comes with many side-effects. Yet its women who are expected to take full responsibility for pregnancy prevention. In her 2022 book Ejaculate Responsibly, Gabrielle Blair succinctly points out that if more men took responsibility for pregnancy prevention, abortion numbers would plummet. Its time to change the age-old mantra of boys will be boys giving males free rein to go forth and multiply. Men taking due responsibility for preventing unplanned pregnancies by ejaculating responsibly now theres a debate Id like to hear, but I dont hold out much hope. Mari Gallagher, Newbridge, Co Kildare Irish people feel betrayed over lies told in lead-up to the abortion referendum Thousands of people marched through the streets of Dublin last Saturday to protest against Irelands abortion law. Are these people crazy? Is the abortion issue not done and dusted? Does abortion not need to become more widely available? The answer to these questions is a resounding No. We now know that no fewer than 10,033 abortions were carried out in Ireland last year, a HSE figure released after 7pm on a Friday evening, probably in an attempt to bury the dismal story. Rare was one of the common buzz-words used in the lead-up to the 2018 referendum in order to convince the Irish electorate to repeal the Eighth Amendment and legalise abortion. Given that there were 64,711 births in Ireland last year, according to the Central Statistics Office, and not counting cases of miscarriage, it is shockingly clear that almost 16pc of pregnancies are now being aborted. To put it more starkly, one in six unborn babies has his or her life deliberately ended in the womb. Nobody could currently call abortion rare in Ireland, and the people who marched in huge numbers on Saturday feel deeply betrayed by politicians who made false promises in 2018. The abortion figures are spiralling upwards 6,666 in 2019, 8,156 in 2022 and over 10,000 last year. Regardless of this disturbing trend, the Government is making no effort to turn the tide and is even considering liberalising the law. Sinead Boland, Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow Russia is rightly held to account for devastation, but West is silent on Israel On it goes, norms once sacrosanct are now stampeded over. In war, women and children were once spared, at least in protocols. Once sanctuaries, hospitals, churches and schools are now targets. This week, Russia bombed a hospital in Ukraine. A cowardly war crime. Slow Joe Biden was quick out of the traps, correctly condemning this outrage. Yet the US president and his administration have their fingers in their ears and their hands over their eyes on the numerous hospitals, churches and sanctuaries Israel has reduced to rubble in Gaza. They appear blind to the death toll in Palestine. Is there a cadre who can bomb hospitals and schools and not be sanctioned? Putin and Russia are rightly shown for the war criminals they are. And Israel? The embarrassed silence from the West needs to end. John Cuffe, Meath Accent doesnt define us, but nice speaking voice attracts good company Billy Keane is correct in saying that our accents should not define us (Switzerland gave us the Swiss roll, but England gave us jobs go easy on the English for this evenings match Irish independent, July 6). However, sometimes they do. I remember when his uncle Eamonn, with his Listowel accent, was classed as having one of the top three speaking voices in the world. The other two were Richard Burton and Dylan Thomas. Mattie Lennon, Blessington, Co Wicklow Pilots must come back down to earth and take the courts recommendation With so many holiday plans being disrupted during this pilots strike, it is time the Labour Courts recommendations were accepted. After all, no one gets all they ask for by striking. Id suggest to these pilots: be up-standing and come down to earth. Leo Gormley, Dundalk, Co Louth Poor old Larry the Cat has seen his fair share of prime ministers through No 10 Surely Larry the Cat cant be happy in No 10 with his seventh prime minister (owner) in 15 years. Has any other cat suffered so much? Eamonn Duignan, Killiney, Co Dublin We should start looking to astrology for a more accurate weather forecast Recent letters to the Irish Independent have readers asking why Irish weather forecasts seem so out of step with scientific pronouncements on climate change. The answer may lie in the anomalous situation of Ireland and the capriciousness of the weather here making science or meteorology of little use for weather forecasts. Astrology is far better suited to predicting our crazy weather. Instead of forecasts, we would be better off with a daily weather horoscope on RTE along the lines of: With Saturn in the ascendant in Pisces, and Pisces being a water sign, it is likely to bring heavy showers across the whole of the country over much of the weekend until the sun enters the House of Libra, bringing a balance of sunshine and scattered showers in to the start of the week. At any rate, it is not likely to be any less accurate than current forecasts. Nick Folley, Carrigaline, Co Cork I have decided to embrace the rainy weather and take myself off to the high stool I woke up yesterday to forecasts of scattered showers. Today its blanket rain. I was having my own personal dry spell, but given this is weather for the high stool, I have decided to be wet on the inside as well as out. R Connelley, Co Galway The incredible story of how former male model Patrick Crinnion rose through the ranks of garda intelligence, only to join a network of MI6 spies designed to infiltrate the Irish State. Host: Fionnan Sheahan Guest: David Burke Patrick Crinnion was a Garda intelligence officer who worked for MI6 in the 1960s and early 1970s As a high-up and well-trusted member of An Garda Siochana serving in core intelligence units, Patrick Crinnion was privy to the most explosive secrets of his day. Before his ascension through the ranks of the gardai, Crinnion worked as a male model. Thanks to his high IQ, he was also a member of Mensa. No ordinary man, in other words. Crinnion would eventually find himself standing atop the precipice of a world of lies and deception. In this arena, loyalty could be bought and sold for the right price, and the British government seduced Crinnion to join a network of spies used by MI6 to infiltrate the Irish State. He is alleged to have played a pivotal role in one of the most controversial sagas in the nations history: the 1970 arms crisis - a plot to smuggle weapons into Northern Ireland that became a hugely divisive political scandal. How does such a man operate? Why did he switch sides? What made him so appealing to both British and Irish enforcers? And should Patrick Crinnion be remembered as a patriot or a traitor? On this episode of The Indo Daily, host Fionnan Sheahan is joined by David Burke, author of The Puppet Masters: How MI6 Masterminded Irelands Deepest State Crisis, to look at an incredible true story fit for the silver screen. Caelan Doris got on the wrong side of the referee against South Africa. Ireland's relationship with referees is in the spotlight after the opening Test match defeat to the Springboks on Saturday. Luke Fitzgerald and Ruaidhri O'Connor joined Will Slattery on The Left Wing podcast, with Caelan Doris' interactions with referee Luke Pearce a major discussion point. South Africa's more attacking style of play also caught the eye, although Luke thinks it might be a mistake for the Springboks to move too far away from a power game. The lads finish off by looking ahead to the second Test in Durban this Saturday and discuss what changes Andy Farrell might make after a suffering a number of injuries on Saturday. The spurious document gardai in Cavan seized following the arrests of two women in connection to a charity collection racket. Two women arrested on suspicion of duping unsuspecting members of the public out of money by posing as bogus charity collectors in Cavan have been charged by gardai. The pair were detained and questioned by detectives on Monday in connection with the alleged scam. Both women had been arrested on suspicion of masquerading as Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA) charity collectors. Follow Independent Cavan on Facebook Details of the incident were posted by gardai on various social media platforms in the aftermath of the arrests as investigators urged the wider public to remain vigilant to similar type incidents. These women were not affiliated with Irish Wheelchair Association, gardai said in a statement. Please be vigilant with anybody collecting money for charities, they added. A document displayed by officers revealed the pair collected at least 170 on Monday. The spurious document gardai in Cavan seized following the arrests of two women in connection to a charity collection racket. People collecting for charities require permits to do so and should be able to provide identification if asked. That warning prompted a flood of comments in support of the swift action taken by gardai in apprehending the alleged perpetrators. A garda spokesperson has since confirmed to the Irish Independent that both women have since been charged and are due to appear at a court sitting over the coming days. Gardai received a report of unauthorised money collecting on behalf of a charitable organisation in Cavan town on Monday morning, 8th July 2024, said the spokesperson. Following enquiries, gardai arrested two female individuals, who have both since been charged and are expected to appear before Cavan District Court at a later date. Investigations are ongoing. A Cork TD has said that the Governments failure to resolve the housing crisis is to blame for an increase in sex for rent advertising A Cork North Central TD has labelled sex for rent ads for properties in Mallow and Blarney as "utterly disgraceful". People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Mick Barry was reacting to a report by the Irish Examiner, which revealed that an advertiser on one website is advertising accommodation in two units in Cork city, one in Mallow and one in Blarney, for which they said they will negotiate fair price for a female ;). It was reported that the same advertiser posted a similar ad recently, which said: Am open to negotiations. Would rather female tenants and am willing to take payment in unique ways. In another ad, the advertiser wrote perfect location for escorts and parties etc, adding escorts also welcome. The same ad also said: No neighbours to worry about. Deputy Barry said that the Government was at fault for an increase in sex for rent advertising because not only had it failed to resolve the housing crisis, it had also failed to introduce legislation to outlaw the practice. The Government's failure to resolve the housing crisis is creating a space where predatory landlords feel they can confront potential tenants with a choice between homelessness and sexual exploitation, Deputy Barry said. Furthermore, the Government's failure to outlaw the practice is just letting these creeps off the hook. It's just not a priority for this Government and it's outrageous. Deputy Barry said that the Dail is being asked to sign off on the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Human Trafficking) Bill 2023 this week, and the Government has claimed that work on a suitable amendment to it was not completed on time to meet the Bill's deadline. Thousands of people are expected to flock to the 12th annual Munster Maths and Science Fair at the GAA Complex in Mallow on Sunday, October 13. Mallow Development Partnership (MDP) are pleased to confirm that this years Munster Maths and Science Family Fair will be held in Mallow GAA Complex on Sunday, October 13. MDP are delighted that the two main sponsors of Munster Maths & Science Family Fair, Cork County Council Economic Development Fund and Irish American Partnership have again confirmed their support for this very popular annual event. The annual event attracts over 3,500 attendees and has become one of the highlights of the calendar year in the Mallow and North Cork area. The key aim of this entertaining fair is to create an awareness of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) that surrounds our daily living, work and recreation activities. A selected mix of exhibitors include industry giants and renowned research and third level institutions proudly showcase alongside local schools, their students and teachers. The 2024 Munster Maths and Science Family Fair represents the twelfth year of the event organised by Mallow Development Partnership through its network of volunteers. The Munster Maths & Science Family Fair aims to encourage children to have a wider and more friendly interest in maths and science. It also strives to improve their skills and abilities and open up many new career choices. Peter Lavery ran his own business in Dublin before deciding to study film in London A young entrepreneur has gone from running underage teenage discos and a small coffee shop in Dublin, to writing and directing his first big movie. Peter Lavery, from Dun Laoghaire, says he didnt do well in his Leaving Cert, but started running discos in Dublin city centre in 2015, when he was just 17, before setting up a coffee shop. However, he always wanted to do something creative and bit the bullet when he turned 21 and moved to London to study film as a mature student. In 2019, he received his degree in Practical Filmmaking from the MetFilm School in Ealing. Now hes working on his debut feature film, All That Glitters. Like most Irish people, I always loved storytelling. Its weirdly something thats there and ingrained as a very natural thing, Mr Lavery told the Irish Independent. I didnt do it straight away. I did very badly in the Leaving Cert. I wasnt able to go to college, I just didnt have the qualifications for it. I spent time working in Ireland and running a couple of my own businesses. I was in nightclub promotion, so I ran underage teen discos in Dublin city centre. Back in 2015, when I was 17, a school friend and I ran discos in a nightclub. After school, I was in hospitality. I set up a coffee shop in Dublin and ran that for two years. The opportunity just fell into my lap to run a small cafe. I loved film and I loved writing things on the side. But I never really thought I was good at it because I did so badly in the Leaving Cert. I just assumed there were no jobs in it. I saved and moved to London aged 21 as a mature student. I did a two-year film-making degree and made a couple of short films with friends I met there. It kept snowballing, my short films did well on festival circuits. My producer Joe, whos based in the UK, the two of us set up a company here and weve basically spent the last year and a half getting this film up to where it is now. Its all very exciting. Were low budget, but its a team of very hard-working, passionate people who believe in the script which is really heart-warming, he added. All That Glitters intertwines Shakespearean romance with the chaos of modern school life and explores themes of love, rivalry, and self-discovery against the backdrop of anxious teens and TikTok scrollers. It draws parallels between Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet and two present day students, Ryan and Jasmine, telling a contemporary love story. The cast features Paul Ready (Motherland, Bring Them Down, A Gentleman in Moscow) and Elliot Grihault (House of the Dragon, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child). We begin filming in two weeks time with a bunch of both British and Irish cast, Mr Lavery said. I love Ireland, its my home. But I did the age-old thing and came to London for work. Ballyduff native Anthony O'Carroll was injured on Monday while taking part in the 2024 Southern 100 Road Races on the Isle of Man. Photo from 'Anthony O'Carroll Racing' on Facebook. The family of Ballyduff man Anthony OCarroll have travelled to be at his bedside in a hospital near Manchester where he is receiving treatment after he was injured on Monday evening while taking part in the 2024 Southern 100 Road Races on the Isle of Man. Anthony was one of three motorbike riders who were injured during the Newcomers familiarisation laps on Monday. The full extent of Anthonys injuries are not yet known but as well as suspected head trauma, there are other injuries and breakages also. One of the other riders was uninjured in the incident whilst the other suffered an ankle injury and has since been discharged. Anthony, a motorcycle racing enthusiast, had just in previous days made the trip from Sydney where he had been living and working to the Isle of Man for the event. In an update posted on his Anthony OCarroll Racing page around 5pm on Monday evening, Anthony had written about his excitement at getting his first practise in and how he was super excited to be back on closed roads and getting in his first ride on the Team ILR CBR600. In a message to The Kerryman on Tuesday, a member of the OCarroll family said that they are very thankful for all of the good wishes and the kindness shown to Anthony and to the family from Kerry, from the Isle of Man and from further afield. A special Mass was celebrated for his recovery in Ballyduff on Tuesday night. A total of 127 people were left on trolley this morning as the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation says the figures revealed by Minister Donnelly do not reflect reality Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said the number of patients waiting for a bed at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) is out of kilter for this time of the year as they criticised the HSEs report presented this week by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly. This morning, July 10, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation counted were 127 people on trolleys at University Hospital Limerick (59 of those in the Emergency Department and 68 in other wards). The figure is significantly higher than any other hospital in Ireland, as UHL was followed by Cork University Hospital with a total of 67 patients on trolleys, and it was described by INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha as completely out of kilter with the time of year. Yesterday, July 9, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly showed how new figures revealed 7,800 fewer patients were on trolleys in the first half of this year down 14pc on the same period last year. However, the INMO said this report does not reflect reality. INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha said: The HSEs latest trolleys figures do not reflect the reality of the sheer volume of patients who are being treated on trolleys or in other inappropriate bed spaces coupled with the fact that nurses and midwives are constantly working short in our hospitals in the middle of a government-backed recruitment freeze is absolutely unacceptable. It is simply not true to state that there have been no patients on trolleys in University Hospital Waterford, when INMO figures show that 225 patients have been on trolleys in Waterford so far this year. Presenting zero trolleys in certain locations is doing a serious disservice to patients who have found themselves being treated in inappropriate bed spaces in these hospitals this year and the staff who are trying their best day in and day out to provide safe care. Over 1.5 billion of additional funding is being allocated to the health service for the remainder of this year in order to maintain existing levels of service. The reality of this is healthcare workers are still going to be working in dangerous conditions, unable to treat patients in a safe and timely manner in overcrowded emergency departments and corridors. We are over the midpoint of the year and there is still a recruitment freeze of vital nursing and midwifery posts in place with no plan to drastically recruit and retain. This matter is now before the Workplace Relations Commission and needs to be dealt with as an urgent matter. Over 127 patients are being treated on a trolley in University Hospital Limerick today. This type of overcrowding is completely out of kilter with the time of year. Willie McGinley (21) saw his attempts to vary his bail terms by residing back at an address in Longford rejected by Judge Bernadette Owens. A Longford man in his 20s accused of leaving a teenager in hospital with a slice across the torso of his stomach has failed in his bid to alter his bail terms despite revelations his temporary accommodation in neighbouring Westmeath has no electricity or running water. Twenty-one-year-old Willie McGinley, 5 Glack View, Longford, appeared at a sitting of Longford District Court on Tuesday just four weeks after being charged with assault causing harm following an incident at Hanlons Gala Shop, Dublin Road, Longford on June 11. The father-of-one had, on that occasion, been granted bail subject to strict conditions, one of which required him to reside at an address in Mullingar. Follow Independent Longford on Facebook The Longford man returned before Judge Bernadette Owens with an application to vary bail with a view to residing at a property belonging to his father-in-law on the outskirts of the midlands town. Defence solicitor Fiona Baxter said since moving to an alternative location in Mullingar, her client had effectively been left marooned with no electricity or running water, with attempts made to Westmeath County Council to facilitate McGinleys interim accommodation at a halting site also coming up short. We are basically asking for McGinleys human rights to be vindicated and that of his family, she said. In objecting to that application, Garda Allan Doherty said gardai had strong concerns over the potential ramifications any decision to grant McGinleys request might bring, adding there was history between both the accused mans family and that of another locally based family whom the alleged victim was a member of. Longford Courthouse. He also told of taking a statement of complaint from Mr McGinley as recently as yesterday at Mullingar garda station where the Longford man alleged a picture along with a threat to burn down his father-in-laws property had been made. Martin McGinley, a father-in-law of the accused, gave evidence stating that he was not aware of any threats being made to his property. Judge Bernadette Owens, in response said the court found it incredulous to believe those assertions when his son-in-law had less than 24 hours earlier stated otherwise. Ms Baxter attempted to clarify those concerns by stating her client had been in and out of Longford garda station since an episode in April 2022 in an attempt to make a statement over where the alleged threat had emanated from. The court also heard evidence from McGinleys wife, Pauline over how the court imposed conditions had made matters very difficult for her and her husband in their attempts to raise their two-and-a-half year old child. Sgt Enda Daly, for the State, in his submission, said the defence were attempting to move the goalposts just weeks after agreeing to strict bail terms set down by the court. Ms Baxter attempted to counter that by saying her client was willing to offer up 1,000 by way of a cash surety and was willing to give an undertaking to literally sleep at the suggested new address and refrain from entering either the county or town of Longford. Judge Owens said the court had to consider whether residing at an address outside of Longford given the nature of the charge was placing a disproportionate burden on McGinley. She said having considered that query, the court would be refusing the application to vary bail. McGinley was remanded on continuing bail to a sitting of Longford District Court on September 3. The Irish government has pledged to intervene to bring a woman who is banned from leaving Dubai home after she was allegedly attacked in her home. Tori Towey (28) from Boyle who is an Emirates Airlines cabin crew employee, banned from leaving Dubai and is facing criminal charges of attempted suicide and alcohol consumption. According to advocacy group, Detained in Dubai, Tori now faces lengthy imprisonment in jails notorious for human rights abuses and torture. Tori was told nothing could be done to lift the travel ban and that the cases against her were going to court on July 18. She suffered severe bruising and other injuries that required hospital treatment, according to Detained in Dubai. Tori made the move to Dubai in April 2023 when she was offered a job with Emirates Airlines. Sinn Fein Leader, Mary Lou McDonald raised the case in the Dail on Tuesday and explained that Ms Towey has had her passport destroyed and is unable to travel home. Ms McDonald said she has spoken to Tori who is under extreme stress. Her passport has been destroyed. There was a travel ban imposed on her and she had gone to the authorities seeking protection many times but to absolutely no avail, Ms McDonald said. But following one particularly severe beating in which her husband repeatedly tried to slam doors on her arms and break her limbs, she escaped upstairs and she attempted to take her own life. Unfortunately, Tori now faces charges in Dubai of attempted suicide and the abuse of alcohol, the system over there rather than protecting this woman who is an Irish citizen, chose instead to detain her to charge her. Shes now under the most incredible stress when I spoke to her this afternoon. Her mother Caroline has travelled to be with her. Tori wants to come home. Simple as that. Shes a Roscommon woman, she wants to come home. And Im asking now as a matter of absolute urgency that we have a statement from this house, that you intervene, that the ambassador is called and it made absolutely plain to the authorities of Dubai that no woman should be treated in this way. And an Irish citizen, an Irish woman will not be treated in this way, said Ms McDonald. Taoiseach Simon Harris said he had not been aware of the case, but was happy to work with Ms McDonald on it. Thank you, Deputy McDonald, for bringing the case of Tori to my attention. Im not directly appraised of the situation, but Im very happy to be directly appraised of it now. He said that he would work with Deputy McDonald to intervene and see how we can support an Irish citizen in what sounds to be - based on what you tell me - the most appalling circumstances. The Department of Foreign Affairs says it is aware of the case and is providing consular assistance. Local Roscommon TD Claire Kerrane has called for the Government to urgently intervene on this case with direct engagement with Dubai authorities. Tori is a survivor of serious domestic abuse - she needs to be brought home. I have contacted the Minister for Foreign Affairs and will be raising this, said Deputy Kerrane. I spoke to Tori and her mother earlier today, (Tuesday) along with my party leader Mary Lou McDonald. Mary Lou raised Toris case with the Taoiseach in the Dail afterwards and I spoke to him directly with Toris details. Tori is in a living nightmare. She must be allowed to return home urgently. This young woman has been treated in the most horrific way and simply wants to go home. I am determined to work with the ambassador, Foreign Affairs Minister and anyone necessary to ensure that her release is secured without delay, said Deputy Kerrane. Detained in Dubai, has also urged the Irish government to intervene immediately to have the charges against Tori dropped and to allow her to travel home. Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, has described Toris situation as outrageous and broken. Toris experience is nothing short of tragic and quite frankly, she is lucky to be alive, added Ms Stirling who has helped in numerous domestic violence cases including that of Princess Latifa. The human rights campaigners said that when replacing her passport, Ms Towey found out there was a travel ban against her but wasnt sure why. She arranged to fly home to Ireland but when she arrived at the airport, was told a case against her had been dropped but the travel ban remained. She attended the police station who assured her the travel ban would be lifted but it never happened. She was stuck. Its amazing that authorities did not intervene for Toris protection, given the state her body was in when she was hospitalised the first time. Emirates Airlines, the Irish Embassy and the UAE medical and police services could certainly have done more to help Tori. We are calling on Dubai authorities to urgently drop the charges against Tori, remove the travel ban and let her fly home to Ireland with her mother. According to Ms Ni Mhurchu, the clock is ticking for Waterford airport. The newly elected MEP has called for immediate action from the Department of Transport on funding for an airport runway extension at the airport. There is a 12m private investment proposal on the table but those investors will not wait around forever, according to Ms Ni Mhurchu, who has called on Minister Eamon Ryan to expedite the process to release funding which will allow for the runway extension at Waterford airport. Ms Ni Mhurchu said she has vowed to fight to ensure that Waterford airport becomes a key part of the infrastructure in the South East, A runway extension will enable Waterford airport to handle jets such as those that are used by Ryanair. I have asked Michael OLeary for a meeting to discuss Waterford airport. Follow Independent Waterford on Facebook "There is no reason as to why Waterford airport cannot become a hub serving the needs of the South East. We need to facilitate the return of commercial flights at Waterford Airport for the first time in seven years. We need match funding from the Minister to drive the investment on. I am calling on Minister Ryan to engage with stakeholders to get the airport up and running again, she said. Ms Ni Mhurchu pointed out that airports bring jobs, investment and a functioning airport in the South East and would allow the pharmaceutical industry in the South East to export their products from Waterford. It makes no sense driving two hours up the road to an overheated Dublin airport, when we have our own airport right here in the South East, she said. Ms Ni Mhurchu has also reiterated her previous statements on the potential for Waterford airport to become Irelands first dedicated centre for aerospace research and development in collaboration with the South East Technological University (SETU). The Ireland South MEP, a board member at SETU, has supported a report which concluded that Waterford airport would be an ideal base for Irelands first dedicated centre for aerospace research and development. A couple from Gorey are gearing up to take on the challenge of abseiling Croke Park on Friday, July 12 to raise funds for the Jack and Jill Childrens Foundation in memory of their first-born, Rebecca, who passed away in 2011. Kieran and Louise Crowley moved to Wexford from Dublin over three years ago with their four children. They recently decided to take on this challenge as a way to give back to the charity that helped them so much by providing in-home nursing care for Rebecca. We were young and clueless new parents when Rebecca was born and initially there was no reason for concern about her health. However, I started to feel something wasnt right, said Louise. After different tests, Rebecca was diagnosed at five months with a neurological disorder called Lissencephaly. "This meant that she had several very serious medical needs. Her tone was extremely low, and she required tube feeding and round-the-clock care, with a lot of medication. She also had epilepsy and was very prone to seizures. The level of care required increased as she got older, and she needed to be watched all the time, she said. Kieran and Louise wanted to be able to provide this care for Rebecca at home, especially as their family grew and her two younger brothers arrived Andrew, when she was 18 months and Daniel a few years later. I really believe we only managed to keep her at home and with her family because of Jack and Jill. Having nurses in our home to give expert care to Rebecca was invaluable, especially at night as Rebecca didnt sleep well and would cough a lot, resulting in secretions, which required constant monitoring, Louise said. Jack and Jill, the charity which provides in-home nursing care and respite support for families with children with complex medical needs, proved to be of immense support to Louise and Kieran during this challenging time. It wasnt just the practical nursing help; it was the fact that Jack and Jill let us be a family. We wanted to be Rebeccas Mammy and Daddy, as well as being her fulltime carers. Having the support from Jack and Jill allowed us time with our other children." "There were many times we felt lost, hopeless and completely out of our depth, and having our amazing Jack and Jill nurse at the end of the phone for advice and support was of huge importance. We simply cannot ever thank Jack and Jill enough, said Louise. Jack and Jill is a nationwide charity that funds and provides in-home nursing care and respite support to families caring for children, up to the age of six, with severe to profound cognitive delay associated with complex needs. This may include children with brain injury, a genetic diagnosis, cerebral palsy, and undiagnosed conditions. Another key part of the service is end-of-life-care for all children up to the age of six, irrespective of diagnosis. In 2023, 534 families availed of the vital service seven days a week, with no means test, no red tape and no waiting list. The charity must raise over 7.5 million per annum to keep this vital service going, and currently supports over 400 families with up to 80 hours of home nursing care per month at a cost of 1,440, or 17,280 per year. Jack and Jill have supported 3,040 families since its establishment. This support is often described as a gift of time or a lifeline, giving parent carers a break from their 24/7 care regime, safe in the knowledge that their child is well cared for at home. Head of Fundraising at Jack and Jill Alie Sheridan thanked Louise and Kieran for their continued support and said shes looking forward to seeing them overcome this immense challenge and to celebrating Rebeccas legacy on the day. We are often blown away by the lengths the families under our care, past and present, go to, to support Jack and Jill right back, so that we can keep our vital service going. By scaling Croke Park, not only are Louise and Kieran taking on an incredible challenge to honour their beautiful little girl, Rebecca, they are helping others by fundraising and by building awareness about our service, said Alie. The couple have set up a fundraising page at Kieran and Louise Crowley Fundraising Page for anyone wishing to support them as they take on height of the iconic stadium, along with 80 others hoping to raise funds to support Jack and Jill families caring for their children in communities all over Ireland. The 75th annual Adamstown Show was not just one of best attended in its history, it was also one which was accessible to all. This was thanks to the hard work and effort of organisers and a security team which worked to ensure the layout was as user friendly as possible. A lot of the feedback weve received has been from parents who were happy with how accessible the show was, said Patrice Byrne. People noted how easy it was to bring small children around in buggies and still be able to see all the shows. "We have a security officer who worked on ensuring the layout was as user friendly as possible, this meant older people as well as young families. Officially launched by Ray Brophy of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), the event was only made possible due to dedicated group of volunteers who worked tirelessly behind the scenes before, during and after the show itself. All the volunteers turned up the week before to help us prepare and then afterwards for the clean-up, we had a great crowd of people helping, said Patrice. Its important to note that everyone did this on a voluntary basis for the love of it, with the aim of creating something for the rural community. Paying special tribute to Colaiste Abbains Dean OConnor and the many students who helped with the preparations for the event, Patrice also thanked the local GAA club for their assistance in providing parking for attendees. In the show-jumping, the 1.35 grand prix was won by Patrick Hickey on Dresden, the 1.20 grand prix was won by David Lawler on Jm Penelope, while the 1.10 grand prix was won by Lisa Doyle on Corlands Clipper. The champion texel was Liam Dillon with one of his Kilcammon texels, Mary Grannell received the Iris Tector Perpetual Cup for the most points in the flower section, and Mary Reville won the Nan Furlong tray for the most points in the cookery section. John Roche is pictured with Grace Murphy pictured at the launch of this year's Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann in Wexford. Picture Andres Poveda. Tickets are now on sale for Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann 2024 events which take place in Wexford town from August 4-11. As the county prepares to host the world's largest celebration of Irish traditional music and heritage, welcoming over half a million people to the sunny south east, fans can now purchase tickets here to see some of the best traditional music acts live throughout the week. With this year's theme of 'A Fleadh for All', the festival promises an inclusive and diverse events programme with something for everyone, including Cherish the Ladies, Seoid, Maurice Lennon Trio, and the RTE Concert Orchestra. Cathaoirleach of the Fleadh Executive Committee, Eddie Taaffe, said, "Each year, these gigs are a highlight in a week filled with unforgettable music. We're thrilled to bring such exceptional talent to Wexford for the Fleadh Cheoil this year. These performances will showcase the very best of traditional Irish music and culture, offering a truly unique experience for both Wexfordians and visitors alike." Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann is kindly supported by Wexford County Council, Failte Ireland, and Wexford Credit Union. RTE and TG4 will once again act as broadcast and live broadcasting partners, respectively. For ticket purchases and more information, visit: https://fleadhcheoil-wexford.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows Grainne Ryan from An Taisce's Green Schools and Ossian Smyth TD with third class students from Carysfort NS (Arklow) and class teacher and green schools coordinator Rebecca Ivanoff. Grainne Ryan from An Taisce's Green Schools and Ossian Smyth TD with third class students from Carysfort NS (Arklow) Noah Pollard, Xander Crammond, Conor Adams, Roisin Mendoza, April Prestage and Faye Mc Donald, Ms Sinead Maguire and class teacher and green schools coordinator Rebecca Ivanoff. Inspired students and faculty from Carysfort National School were recently awarded the title of Primary Climate Ambassadors by An Taisce alongside 21 other Green-Schools. An Taisces latest programme development, Primary Climate Ambassadors celebrated its second annual awards at Richmond Barracks in Dublin, where Carysfort National School students, former teacher Sinead Maguire and class teacher and green schools coordinator Rebecca Ivanoff accepted the prestigious honour. Funded by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications under the National Dialogue on Climate Action, the pilot programme saw schools that have achieved all ten Green Flags over the last 20 years invited to participate, with over 600 students representing 37 schools trained in basic climate science, solutions, communications and action. Collectively, students then completed 50 challenges central to climate literacy, mitigation and adaptation, including Blooming Brilliant, Grow It Yourself, and the latest addition, I Like to Move It. Once a climate challenge was completed, teams submitted a short online survey to assess what they learned, what actions they took and how they communicated these to the wider school, home and local communities. Emphasis was placed on creative climate action, via poster competitions, sculpture showcases, and raps. The programme encourages Primary Climate Ambassadors to participate in outdoor classroom activities by building mini ponds, rainwater harvesting and composting food waste. Teams crafted a final video report to encourage the senior primary students to familiarise themselves with editing mixed media. An online leaderboard was also shared, where schools could earn additional carbon credits with each challenge completed. Carysfort National Schools Cares a Lot Green was ranked third nationwide, just behind St Brigids Girls National School in Dublin and Northampton National School in Galway, with the Wicklow school winning a workshop to the value of 1,000 with LEAF Forestry. We had a fabulous day and are looking forward to enjoying our prize of a workshop with LEAF Forestry, Ms Ivanoff commented. Minister of State, Ossian Smyth, congratulated all 22 primary schools . I hope you are all immensely proud of what you have achieved, he said. The whole room was covered in blood: Inside the Russian missile strike on a Kyiv childrens hospital Attacks clearly a war crime, says Taoiseach Simon Harris, after 29 killed across city A young patient is evacuated from the Okhmatdyt Childrens Hospital in Kyiv after a Russian cruise missile attack. Photo: Reuters Tom Watling UK Independent Wed 10 Jul 2024 at 03:30 Olena Danylova and her eight-year-old daughter watched as black smoke started to seep through the ceiling into the bomb shelter where they had just fled a Russian missile attack. A leader of an MS-13 gang in New York has pleaded guilty to racketeering and firearms charges in a case involving eight murders, including the 2016 killings of two high school girls who were hacked and beaten to death on Long Island. Democrats in Congress also held a private meeting to discuss Mr Bidens suitability to be their nomination for the presidency The mood on Capitol Hill turned grimly uncertain on Tuesday as Democrats wrestled over President Joe Bidens re-election and the extraordinary question before them whether to stand behind his candidacy or push the president to bow out amid concerns over his ability to lead them to victory. A Chinese pangolin born at Prague Zoo, the second in less than two years, is defying the odds and doing well, officials at the park in the Czech Republic said (Petr David Josek/AP) Image courtesy: PR Team Atlanta/IBNS: Delta Air Lines, one of the major airlines of the United States, and Riyadh Air, a planned second flag carrier of Saudi Arabia, have signed a Strategic Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding with the goal of introducing a broad range of benefits for customers travelling between North America, Saudi Arabia and destinations beyond. According to a joint press release from the two airlines, the agreement, signed on Tuesday (July 9) at a ceremony at Deltas World Headquarters in Georgia's Atlanta, serves as the foundation for a strategic partnership that will enable both airlines to strengthen connectivity, expand their networks and drive future growth. This partnership with Riyadh Air will further Deltas mission of connecting the world and open an array of new choices, benefits and destinations for our customers traveling to and from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Delta CEO Ed Bastian said. Most importantly, Riyadh Air shares Deltas commitment to providing an elevated customer experience, which is why were looking forward to building and expanding this partnership in the months and years ahead," Bastian added. "We appreciate the opportunity to work with the Riyadh Air team and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia as they transform the transportation economy in the Kingdom, he added. Commenting on the agreement, Riyadh Air CEO Tony Douglas said, We look forward to enjoying a very warm and productive relationship with Delta Air Lines." "Riyadh Air and Delta Air Lines share common goals and pursue the highest standards in many areas including guest experience, loyalty, and sustainability, built upon great networks and strong connectivity, Douglas added. The agreement envisions a long-term relationship, subject to regulatory approvals, that includes interline and codeshare connectivity, as well as a deeper partnership encompassing loyalty, customer experience, digital transformation and broader aviation services such as maintenance, repair and overhaul services, ground handling and training, according to the joint statement. Both airlines said that in the future, they intend to explore an immunized joint venture to further expand the partnership and allow collaboration on network planning and growth in the region. As per the joint statement, the strategic partnership will open new destinations in Saudi Arabia and beyond for Delta customers, including future nonstop service on Delta between the United States and King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The partnership between these two airlines will also offer Deltas leading North American network for Riyadh Air customers, offering convenient access to hundreds of destinations in the US and beyond with Deltas elevated service. Photo courtesy: x.com/FinMinIndia New Delhi: Four public sector banks, including Canara Bank and Indian Bank, on Wednesday presented dividend cheques worth Rs 6,481 crore to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for financial year 2023-24. "Smt @nsitharaman receives a dividend cheque of Rs 2,514.22 crore for FY 2023-24 from Shri Debadatta Chand, Managing Director & CEO -@bankofbaroda," the finance ministry said in a post on X. Smt @nsitharaman receives a dividend cheque of Rs 2514.22 crore for FY 2023-24 from Shri Debadatta Chand, Managing Director & CEO - @bankofbaroda. pic.twitter.com/uID4iJ8Ejy Nirmala Sitharaman Office (@nsitharamanoffc) July 10, 2024 Similarly, a dividend cheque of Rs 1,838.15 crore was handed over by Canara Bank MD and CEO K Satyanarayana Raju. Chennai-based Indian Bank paid a dividend cheque of Rs 1,193.45 crore for 2023-24. Bank of India too paid a dividend of Rs 935.44 crore and the cheque was presented by its MD and CEO Rajneesh Karnatak. In addition, Mumbai-based financial institution EXIM Bank presented a dividend cheque of Rs 252 crore for 2023-24. Photo Courtesy: Narendra Modi X page Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer shortly after arriving in Austria following his two-day visit to Russia . Modi posted a few images of his meeting with the Chancellor on his X handle. Sharing the images, he wrote on X: "Thank you, Chancellor@karlnehammer , for the warm welcome. I look forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good." Thank you, Chancellor @karlnehammer, for the warm welcome. I look forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good. pic.twitter.com/QHDvxPt5pv Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 9, 2024 This is the first trip of an Indian PM to Austria in 40 years. Earlier in the day, Austrian Foreign MinisterAlexander Schallenberg welcomed Modi to Austria after he landed at the airport. Also Read: At dinner with Vladimir Putin, PM Modi makes a direct appeal to end war with Ukraine After landing in Vienna, Modi posted on X: " Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more." Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and pic.twitter.com/PJaeOWVOm1 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 9, 2024 MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal posted on X "An important milestone in - partnership!PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnership lie ahead." Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi ! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit! pic.twitter.com/e2YJZR1PRs Karl Nehammer (@karlnehammer) July 9, 2024 In 1983, former PM Indira Gandhi was the last Indian PM to visit Austria. Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons New Delhi/IBNS: In a relief for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said the West Bengal government's stand against the Centre over the CBI probe into several cases without "state's consent" is valid, media reports said. The top court has approved the state government's challenge to CBI probing cases in the state even after the withdrawal of consent. West Bengal is one of the opposition-ruled states that have withdrawn consent to the CBI for probing into cases within its jurisdiction. The state government alleged the Centre, which is at the loggerheads with Mamata Banerjee, is misusing CBI. The next hearing will be held on August 13, 2024. Reacting to the judgement, the Trinamool Congress has posted on X, "Truth always wins! This decision by the apex court is a lesson to those who want to undermine a democratically elected state government by misusing central agencies. Any threat to our foundational principle of federalism will not be accepted. "The move also makes it clear that no one can meddle with a state's law and order for their selfish political interests." Truth always wins! This decision by the apex court is a lesson to those who want to undermine a democratically elected state government by misusing central agencies. Any threat to our foundational principle of federalism will not be accepted. The move also makes it clear that All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) July 10, 2024 The order is significant as the Supreme Court days ago upheld the Calcutta High Court's order of a CBI probe into the allegations levelled against Shahjahan by several women from Sandeshkhali. The Supreme Court rapped the state government saying, "Why should the state be interested in protecting someone?" The West Bengal government had moved the top court challenging the CBI probe into Sandeshkhali case where several women from the island accused now suspended Trinamool Congress leader Sheikh Shahjahan and his aides of land grab and sexual assault. Photo courtesy: Screenshot grab from X video Mumbai/IBNS: The city officials in Mumbai on Wednesday demolished parts of a pub where 24-year-old Mihir Shah spent hours before his BMW car rammed a two-wheeler killing a woman, media reports said. The Vice-Global Tapas Bar had served alcohol to Mihir, who is the son of Shiv Sena (faction of Eknath Shinde) leader Rajesh Shah, despite the accused being underage. The demolition drive was carried out also because the pub had no proper licence and its construction was illegally done. The illegal part of the pub has been demolished. The deceased woman, who was identified as Kaveri. Kaveri and her husband went to make a trip to Sassoon Dock to fetch fish. As they were returning home with their catch, their two-wheeler was hit from behind by a speeding BMW. The impact caused their bike to overturn, throwing both the husband and wife onto the bonnet of the car. In a desperate attempt to save himself, the husband managed to jump off the bonnet. However, his wife was not as fortunate. The accident led to chaos which enabled the driver of the four-wheeler to flee the scene, leaving the injured woman behind. The injured woman was quickly rushed to a hospital where she was declared dead. Mihir was arrested on Tuesday. Rajesh Shah, who was arrested in connection with the same case on Sunday, was released from bail. He was granted bail after paying Rs. 15,000. According to reports, the cops believe Rajesh Shah and their driver helped Mihir escape. Photo Courtesy: Randhir Jaiswal X page Indian PM Narendra Modi on Wednesday said he had a fruitful discussion with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on numerous issues ranging from the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict to terrorism. Modi is currently on his maiden visit to Austria. Addressing the press meet with Chancellor @karlnehammer in Vienna. https://t.co/dKleqH32KH Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 10, 2024 He arrived in Austria after completing his Russian trip. During a joint media conference, Modi said: "Today, Chancellor Nehammer and I had a very fruitful discussion." Energising - ties! PM @narendramodi held extensive and fruitful talks with Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer today. Discussions covered various dimensions of the bilateral partnership, including trade & investment, S&T, green energy, AI, Start-ups, environment & climate pic.twitter.com/aG2GEUTPkK Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) July 10, 2024 "We have identified new possibilities to further strengthen our mutual cooperation," he said. He said India and Austria have decided to give a strategic direction to the relationship between the two nations. IN IMAGES: Modi's maiden Austria visit He said: "A blueprint for cooperation has been prepared for the coming decade." Had an excellent meeting with Chancellor @karlnehammer. This visit to Austria is very special because it is after several decades that an Indian Prime Minister is visiting this wonderful country. It is also the time when we are marking 75 years of the India-Austria friendship. pic.twitter.com/wFsb4PvM9J Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 10, 2024 During their meeting, Modi said he and the Austrian leader condemned terrorism in any form. In the areas of science and research we are very close to conclude an important cooperation agreement between Austrian and Indian technical universities. This agreement as well as further partnerships will considerably enhance our cooperation in the fields of pharmaceuticals, pic.twitter.com/e3XfKvlCPi Karl Nehammer (@karlnehammer) July 10, 2024 "Terrorism cannot be justified under any circumstances," he said. "We had a discussion on the ongoing conflicts in the world including the situation in Ukraine and West Asia," Modi said. Today, Chancellor Nehammer and I had a very fruitful discussion. We have identified new possibilities to further strengthen our mutual cooperation. We have decided to give a strategic direction to our relationship. A blueprint for cooperation has been prepared for the coming pic.twitter.com/EMh3MTYA7d BJP (@BJP4India) July 10, 2024 "I have said it before that this is not the time for war," he said. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal posted on X: "PM@narendramodi held extensive and fruitful talks with Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer today." "Discussions covered various dimensions of the bilateral partnership, including trade & investment, S&T, green energy, AI, Start-ups, environment & climate change, cultural cooperation and people to people ties. The leaders also exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest," he said. This is Modi's maiden visit to the country. In 1983, former PM Indira Gandhi was the last Indian PM to visit Austria. In images BMW case accused Mihir Shah and his car/ courtesy: Videgrabs from X Mumbai/IBNS: Mihir Shah, son of a Shiv Sena leader accused of killing a woman after his BMW rammed a scooter-borne couple in Mumbai early Sunday, had called his girlfriend 40 times before abandoning the car, hailing an auto and heading to her house, media reports quoting the police said. According to the police, the girlfriend may be detained for questioning. The 24-year-old son of a Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) leader crashed his BMW into a scooter in Worli in which Pradeep Nakhwa and Kaveri Nakhwa, a fish-seller couple, were returning around 5.30 am on Sunday after buying fish to sell during the day. The impact caused their bike to overturn, throwing both the husband and wife onto the bonnet of the car. While Pradeep was flung off the bonnet after the car hit him, Kaveri came under the wheels and was dragged for 1.5 km. Shah, who was allegedly drunk. then switched seats with his driver, Rajrishi Bidawat, and they reversed the car over Kaveri before speeding away. Shah and the driver then went to Kala Nagar in Bandra, where they abandoned the car and took off the number plate to avoid being caught. In a desperate attempt to save himself, the husband managed to jump off the bonnet. However, his wife was not as fortunate. The accident led to chaos which enabled the driver of the four-wheeler to flee the scene, leaving the injured woman behind. After leaving the car in Kala Nagar, the 24-year-old hailed an auto and went to his girlfriend's house in Goregaon. He "rested" there for two hours while his girlfriend informed Shah's sister about the accident. His sister went to Goregaon and then took Shah to their house in Borivali, said reports. From there, Shah's mother, Meena, two sisters - Puja and Kinjal - and a friend, Avdeep, left for a resort in Shahpur, nearly 70 km from Mumbai. They hid there while the police kept looking for Shah, having arrested his father Rajesh Shah and the driver, Bidawat. The injured woman was quickly rushed to a hospital where she was declared dead. Mihir was arrested on Tuesday. Rajesh Shah, who was arrested in connection with the same case on Sunday, was released on bail. He was granted bail after paying Rs. 15,000. According to reports, the cops believe Rajesh Shah and their driver helped Mihir escape. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash The Australian Cyber Security Centre has alleged that cyber security firms backed by Chinese authorities stole passwords and usernames from unnamed Australian networks in 2022. "The PRC state-sponsored cyber group has previously targeted organisations in various countries, including Australia and the United States, and the techniques highlighted below are regularly used by other PRC state-sponsored actors globally. Therefore, the authoring agencies believe the group, and similar techniques remain a threat to their countries networks as well," the advisory issued by the Australian Cyber Security Centre. "This group has previously been reported as being based in Haikou, Hainan Province, PRC and receiving tasking from the PRC MSS, Hainan State Security Department," the advisory said. In the activity summer, the report said APT40 has repeatedly targeted Australian networks as well as government and private sector networks in the region, and the threat they pose to our networks is ongoing. "The tradecraft described in this advisory is regularly observed against Australian networks," the advisory said. APT40 possesses the capability to rapidly transform and adapt exploit proof-of-concept(s) (POCs) of new vulnerabilities and immediately utilise them against target networks possessing the infrastructure of the associated vulnerability. APT40 regularly conducts reconnaissance against networks of interest, including networks in the authoring agencies countries, looking for opportunities to compromise its targets. This regular reconnaissance postures the group to identify vulnerable, end-of-life or no longer maintained devices on networks of interest, and to rapidly deploy exploits. The report said APT40 continues to find success exploiting vulnerabilities from as early as 2017. "This report details the findings of the ASDs ACSC investigation into the successful compromise of the organisations network between July and September 2022," the advisory said. Photo Courtesy: UNRWA At least 25 people were killed after Israel carried out an airstrike at a school complex housing displaced people near Khan Younis, media reports said. In a statement, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza was quoted as saying CNN that Israel targeted the gate of a school housing displaced people in the town of Abasan, east of the city of Khan Younis, calling it a heinous massacre against displaced citizens. In the past four days, this is the fourth time an airstrike occurred on or near the schools which are housing displaced people. A further 53 people were injured, including some who have serious and critical cases, the ministry added. The death toll is expected to increase as casualties are still being transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the ministry was quoted as saying by CNN. In Gaza, overwhelmed hospitals, soaring temperatures, hunger and a lack of even basic sanitation present an ever more deadly threat to a population under constant attack, UN humanitarians warned on Tuesday. Briefing journalists in Geneva, UN World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said that according to the enclaves health authorities, 34 people have died of malnutrition and dehydration amid ongoing Israeli bombardment, sparked by Hamas-led terror attacks on 7 October. In [northern Gazas] Kamal Adwan hospital alone, 60 cases of severe acute malnutrition were detected last week, the WHO spokesperson told journalists. Easy prey for disease Malnutrition is definitely one of the factors that reduces the immunity, especially of the vulnerable population, elderly and children, who then cant really cope with any disease, any pathogen that they can get, Jasarevic said, describing a vicious circle of not having access to enough food, to clean water, to clean sanitation, not having access to basic health services. Jasarevic paid tribute to the dedication of health workers who have returned to their facilities once they feel secure enough, to try and get vital services running again. Out of Gazas 36 hospitals, only 13 are partially functioning, he said. Photo Courtesy: SHAREALIKE 4.0 INTERNATIONAL/Wikimedia Commons Denouncing China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a tool to intervene in the Himalayan nation, a group of protesters recently demonstrated outside the Pokhara International Airport. On Monday, the protest was organised by the Rashtriya Ekata Abhiyan or National Unity Movement. Over 200 protesters participated in the demonstration. The protest comes during the visit by a parliamentary committee to inspect and investigate claims of embezzlement at the time of construction of the airport which only operates domestic flights, reported ANI. Rajendra Prasad Lingden, one of the members of the parliamentary committee, also met the demonstrators at the spot where they were protesting. The protestors also organized a sit-in in front of the airport raising slogans demanding Full operation of Pokhara International Airport, Investigate the corruption during the construction of Pokhara International Airport, and Convert the Chinese loan to grant amongst others, the Indian news agency reported. Binay Yadav, the chairman of the National Unity Movement, targeted China and said it was aiming to take control over the Pokhara International Airport. China wants to capture the Pokhara International Airport as it did with the Hambantota port of Sri Lanka and Pakistans Gwadar Port as this place has geological significance, Yadav told ANI. He added, Nepal cannot pay back the pricy loans and interest. Embezzlement also needs to be investigated which were made during its construction. The construction of the Pokhara Airport was primarily funded by the Chinese companies. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash Pashtun Tahafuz Movement leaders and workers recently demonstrated in Pakistan over the spike in terror activities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, media reports said. The protesters led by PTM core committee member Liaqat Yousafzai gathered at the Karnal Sher Khan Chowk in the district headquarters, while chanting slogans against the menace of terrorism, reported Dawn News. The protesters told the newspaper that in Gadoon Amazai terrain, rocks-chalking had appeared in the name of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, which has caused unrest among the residents. Yousafzai said they were against terrorism. We want to maintain peace in Swabi. Our slogan was, is and will be peace because peace is the true name of life, he said. SHO Utla police station Jihad Khan told Dawn that they had removed the rock-chalking, obtained the footage of CCTV cameras and were now searching for the people involved. The police and other departments (agencies) are trying to trace the people, he said, while admitting that it was the first time that such rock-chalking appeared in the Gadoon belt, which remained peaceful in the past. No one should be worried as calm prevails across the region, he said. Photo Courtesy: Pixabay Police have arrested four men for allegedly cutting the nose of a woman eight months back, media reports said. The men allegedly cut her nose after she refused to have a relationship with them. The suspects even made a video of the incident which occurred in DG Khan district. Local sources told Dawn News that prime suspect Zafar Lashari and three others had been forcing a woman, Salmi, to have relations with them, but she refused. The sources say that the police had taken no action against the culprits on the pretext that no complaint was filed of the incident. The National Commission of Human Rights of Pakistan took notice of the incident and sought a report from DG Khan District Police Officer (DPO) Syed Ali, after surfacing of the video clip of the episode on social media, the newspaper reported. Shah Saddardin police, on the complaint of the victims sister, Saharan Bibi, arrested the suspects in the incident and registered a cases under sections 334, 511 and 354 of Pakistan Penal Code. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash Two school employees in a Georgia school district of the USA have been accused of engaging in sexual relationships with their students in 2021 and 2022. The teachers were identified as Railey Greeson and Brooklyn Shuler. Im not trying to stereotype, but you could look at them and tell they were trouble, Audrey Decker, whose stepdaughter attends the school, told New York Post. They just seemed boy-crazy. And everyone in the school knew it and joked about it," Decker said. According to court documents, Railey Greeson was indicted Thursday on two counts of sexual contact by employee or agent in the first degree for having sex with two different male students between October 2021 and January 2022, reported 11 Alive news portal. Brooklyn Shuler was indicted on one count of the same charge for having sex with a different male student between October 2021 and January 2022, the news portal reported. One of the parents described the teachers as 'shameless'. You should have seen them with any attractive parents who came to the school. They would flirt with any of the dads. You know: laughing too loud, getting too close, that type of thing. Flirting. Trying to be cute. They were shameless," the parent told The New York Post. According to reports, the two woman were arrested and booked at the Gordon County Jail. They were later released on bond. If convicted, Greeson and Shuler could face up to 25 years in prison or a fine of up to $100,000, reported New York Post. Photo courtesy: Simon Fraser University official website Fraser (BC)/IBNS: With the new medical school at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in British Columbia (BC) moving forward with funding for space and operations, as well as a proposed three-year curriculum model and a founding dean, more family doctors will be trained faster. Were training a new generation of doctors with a focus on family medicine to provide the services we need in our communities. This investment in the first entirely new medical school in Western Canada in 55 years will mean more family doctors graduating each year to provide care for people, said BC Premier David Eby. The existing building space at SFUs Surrey campus, as well as a leased space nearby would be the interim site which will be designed, renovated and equipped by SFU to accommodate classrooms, labs, and faculty and staff office space. Building on a previous $14 million for startup and planning, the medical school is being supported by the Province through $33.7 million in capital funding for interim space, alongside $27 million in operational funding through Budget 2024. The new medical school is a vital part of training more family doctors and meeting the health-care needs of people in British Columbia, said Lisa Beare, Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills. This government is focused on delivering results, and through this interim space and the operational funding to support this medical school at SFUs Surrey campus, were taking action to train the doctors of tomorrow and build the primary care workforce for all of B.C. Focusing on primary care, the medical school will serve to leverage the universitys strength in community engagement, strong partnerships with the First Nations Health Authority, Fraser Health Authority, other provincial health authorities and the practice community. Following a three-year, competency-based model, the proposed curriculum will incorporate a minimum of 130 weeks of instruction. While ensuring cultural safety and humility embedded throughout by collaboration with First Nations and Metis knowledge systems and perspectives. Taking action to increase access to primary care for people in B.C. is a top priority of our government, said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. By establishing a new medical school at SFU - the first in Western Canada in more than half a century - with a focus on family medicine and training the next generations of physicians...building an inclusive public health-care system that people can count on. The establishment of a school of medicine was formally approved in May 2024 by SFUs senate and board of governors. In coordination with the Committee on the Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools, the school is working toward candidate status with its preliminary goal of accreditation by fall 2025. The school will have approval to recruit its first class to start in summer 2026 subject to the successful completion of planned accreditation stages within this timeframe. "This milestone for the School of Medicine...for SFU, Surrey and our province..effective, accessible, inclusive and culturally safe...educate the next generation of physicians and make a difference for British Columbians in communities across the province, said Joy Johnson, president and vice-chancellor, Simon Fraser University. Dr. David J. Price, an alumnus of the UBC faculty of medicine, was approved July 4, 2024 as the founding dean for the medical school by the SFUs board. Price practised comprehensive family medicine, including obstetrics and palliative care, in Vancouver for more than a decade and as a nationally recognized leader in family medicine and primary care, has held faculty and leadership roles in the department of family medicine at McMaster University since 2000. As a complement to the work the Province is doing to train, recruit and retain more family physicians, the medical school at SFU's goal is to meet the challenges people in British Columbia are facing. As part of B.C.s Health Human Resources Strategy, training and retaining new physicians focuses on 70 key actions to recruit, train and retain health-care workers in the province, while redesigning the health-care system to foster workplace satisfaction and innovation. In a historic decision, the Ministry of Finance has allowed the request of M. Anusuya, a senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, to be recognized as M. Anukathir Surya in all official government records. This comes after the Ministry of Finance, in a landmark move, allowed the 35-year-old to change her name and gender in all official records. Who is M Anukathir Surya The 2013 batch IRS officer, posted in Customs and Indirect Taxes, had requested to change her name to M. Anukathir Surya and her gender from female to male. BCCL The IRS officer, who started as an assistant commissioner in Chennai in December 2013 and was promoted to the Deputy Commissioner rank in 2018, is currently posted as Joint Commissioner in the office of the Chief Commissioner (Authorised Representative) of the Customs Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) in Hyderabad. Also read: Can A Transgender Person Seek Relief Under Domestic Violence Act? Supreme Court To Decide What Finance Ministry order said Responding to the IRS officer's request, the Ministry of Finance, in an order issued on July 9, stated: Ms. M. Anusuya, IRS (C&IT: 2013) [Employee Code: 4623, DOB: 20.10.1988], presently posted as Joint Commissioner in O/o Chief Commissioner (AR), CESTAT, Hyderabad, has requested for change of her name from Ms. M. Anusuya to Mr. M. Anukathir Surya and gender from female to male. BCCL The request of Ms. M. Anusuya has been considered. Henceforth, the officer will be recognized as Mr. M. Anukathir Surya in all official records. The order further added that the decision was taken with the approval of the competent authority. Supreme Court order on third gender In April 2014, the Supreme Court had recognized transgender as the third gender and affirmed that gender identity is a personal choice irrespective of sex reassignment surgery (SRS). Also read: Delhi Gets Its First Toilet For The Third Gender BCCL "Sexual orientation refers to an individuals enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction to another person. Sexual orientation includes transgender and gender-variant people with diverse sexual orientations, which may or may not change during or after gender transition, encompassing homosexuals, bisexuals, heterosexuals, asexuals, etc.," the SC had said. For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. For thousands of years of human existence on planet Earth, we have been trying to answer one question - are we alone in this universe? Unfortunately, till now, other than the conspiracy theories there has been no concrete evidence to prove that there is extraterrestrial life out there, somewhere. Others believe that aliens have already contacted us, but the governments are keeping it a secret. Unsplash Barrier around Earth, preventing aliens A new theory, recently shared on Reddit has made a different claim. According to the Reddit post, multiple aliens have told humans that there is a barrier around Earth, preventing them from coming to our planet without permission. Also read: Most Intriguing And Popular Conspiracy Theories About Existence Of Alien Life UFOs have defensive purpose The claims are based on the findings of an Irishman, Patrick Jackson who argues that the UFOs have a defensive purpose. The spheres behave like a global defence network that intercept space-based threats ranging from meteors to other space-based threats," he said. The Reddit post further quotes from books written by UFO experts and even an interview with aliens. Unsplash What 'aliens have told us' In 'The Law of One Material' a series of 106 conversations between Don Elkins, a professor of physics and UFO investigator, and an alien named Ra, it is claimed that 'Orion chariots' have attempted to reach our planet, but are being prevented by Earths energy fields. "The only beings who are able to penetrate the quarantine are those who discover windows or distortions in the space/time continua surrounding your planets energy fields. Through these windows they come. These windows are rare and unpredictable," Ra claims in the interview. Also read: Canadian couple finds mysterious UFOs 'as bright as sun' in the sky Unsplash In another conversation with an alien cited in the post, the extraterrestrial entity claimed that "A frequency fence, something like an electrical fence, was put around the planet to control how much the frequencies of humans could be modulated and changed." For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. As debates around human interaction with wildlife intensify, a recent viral video has ignited controversy. The footage, capturing a safari goer's reckless act of throwing a plastic bag into a hippo's mouth, has provoked widespread outrage. This incident underscores the ongoing issues of environmental responsibility and the impact of human behavior on vulnerable wildlife. A viral video posted on X has sparked widespread outrage. Also read: Meet baby elephant Bani: Once hit by a train and paralysed, now thriving & joyfulWatch In the clip, a hippopotamus stands at the edge of an enclosure with its mouth wide open, seemingly ready to be fed a carrot by a person in a nearby car. However, another passenger suddenly throws a plastic bag into the hippo's mouth, causing the animal to start chewing on it. Representational image/ Unsplash This shocking incident took place at Taman Safari in Bogor, West Java. The caption accompanying the video reads, "A safari park visitor threw a plastic bag into the mouth of a Hippopotamus at the Taman Safari in Indonesia." A safari park visitor threw a plastic bag into the mouth of a Hippopotamus at the Taman Safari in Indonesia pic.twitter.com/PfApqNusgt non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) July 8, 2024 Reports also suggest that the same person poked a deer with a carrot during the safari. The parks spokesman, Alexander Zulkarnain, told the Jakarta Globe, "We have identified the vehicle's license plate and urge the individual to make a public apology. This should serve as a lesson to other visitors about following the rules at the Indonesian Safari Park." The video has triggered a strong reaction online. Also read: Meet Viscacha: The perpetually sleepy, disappointed-looking creature that could be Gen Z's spirit animal One commenter wrote, "That's pissed me off more than any video I've seen today I know that much." Another added, "I hope that person and the hippo meet again some day. Hopefully in an environment more favorable to the hippo." Representational image/ Unsplash Others called for harsher consequences: "Those people should be banned from every safari park and not allowed near any animals," one wrote. Another suggested, "Eye for an eye. Or in this case feed them a plastic bag? Call me harsh. This is the way." The incident has highlighted the need for stricter enforcement of park rules to protect animals from harm. For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. Imagine a piece of the cosmos transformed as an exceptional, rare jewela naturally occurring diamond capturing centuries of legend and beauty. The Jubilee Diamond, formerly known as the Reitz Diamond, is one of India's legendary gems. With a weight of an astounding 245.35 carats, it is renowned for its elegance and purity and is among the largest in history. This article explores the fascinating tale of the Jubilee Diamond, showing how it inspired industry, fascinated the upper class, and served as a symbol of hope for future generations. Discovery and Origins of the Jubilee Diamond The Jubilee Diamond, also known as the Reitz Diamond, was discovered in 1895 in the Orange Free State's Jagersfontein Mine in South Africa. At a staggering weight of 245.35 carats, this cushion-shaped marvel is the sixth biggest diamond ever found. Renamed in 1897 to honor Queen Victoria's 60th anniversary of her coronation, it came to represent strength and grandeur. The Jubilee Diamond's Journey From its beginning octahedron shape, measuring 650.80 carats, the Jubilee Diamond went through an amazing journey before being transformed into a polished gem by M.B. Barends in Amsterdam. Its magnificence was on display during the 1900 Paris Exhibition, winning hearts and igniting curiosity all throughout the world. Hidden treasures: These 6 rivers produce gold and two are right in India! Sir Dorabji Tata's Acquisition Dorabji Tata and Meherbai Tata | Photo: Wiki Commons, horizons tatatrusts.org The Jubilee Diamond was purchased for 100,000 in 1900 by Sir Dorabji Tata as a gift for his wife, Lady Meherbai Tata, the group's visionary leader, in a stroke of fortune. She placed it in a platinum setting, adorned with a platinum chain, and wore it during official state functions and royal visitsIt adorned his wife, Lady Meherbai Tata, enhancing her elegance during state functions and royal visits. Beyond its aesthetic allure, the diamond soon proved its worth in an unexpected arenaeconomic survival. How the Jubilee Diamond Saved Tata Steel Tata Steel was in serious financial trouble in 1924 and was facing strong rivals from Japanese Steel. Using the Jubilee Diamond as leverage, Sir Dorabji Tata was able to secure a crucial Rs 1 crore loan from the Imperial Bank of India (now State Bank of India) while suffering a Rs 2 crore financial problem. With the help of this funding infusion, Tata Steel was able to avoid bankruptcy and ensure that wages and debentures were settled. Consequently, the Jubilee Diamond established its reputation as the rescuer of Tata Steel, preserving thousands of jobs and advancing India's economic strength. Cursed yet priceless: The untold story of Rs 2,900 crore 'The Hope Diamond' Legacy and Philanthropy Pinterest The vision of Sir Dorabji Tata went beyond business strategies. The Sir Dorabji Tata Charitable Trust was established in 1932 thanks to his philanthropic legacy, which included the sale of the Jubilee Diamond. These acts of kindness led to the establishment of organizations such as the Tata Memorial Hospital, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, which had a significant impact on scientific research, education, and healthcare in India. Do you know who is the owner and builder of Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building? The Enduring Brilliance of the Jubilee Diamond Nestled inside the prestigious Mouawad collection, the Jubilee Diamond's rich history still inspires admiration today. It represents more than just a gemstone; it also represents tenacity, vision, and the transforming force of visionary leadership. The Jubilee Diamond is still a source of hope and inspiration for future generations, serving as a monument to the meeting point of generosity, history, and wealth. Meet Maharaja Bhupinder Singh: First Indian to own a private jet For the latest and more interesting financial news, keep reading Indiatimes Worth. Click here Greece is ramping up efforts to reclaim its beaches from illegal commercial use by deploying drones to monitor tourist hotspots and imposing fines totaling over 350,000 in just five days. The crackdown follows a surge in complaints from locals, particularly in popular destinations like Chalkidiki, Corfu, and areas around Athens. Authorities have responded to over 1,000 reports through the "MyCoast" app, leading to the closure of three unlicensed businesses. The move comes after protests by the "Towel Movement," which started on Paros island and spread across the country, demanding free beach access and pushing back against businesses charging exorbitant prices for sunbeds and umbrellas. New regulations now mandate minimum distances between rental equipment and the sea, and prohibit rentals on smaller beaches. Most fines were issued for businesses exceeding allowed beach space. The deployment of drones in the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands will intensify the monitoring of potential violations, with authorities aiming to protect both the environment and public access to beaches while preserving Greece's tourism industry. Economy Minister Kostis Hatzidakis emphasised the importance of this crackdown, stating, "Our goal is to protect both the environment and the right of citizens to access the beach freely, and to preserve our tourism product as well as healthy entrepreneurship." With over 33 million tourists expected this summer, the Greek government is committed to ensuring legal compliance and maintaining the natural beauty of its beaches. iefimerida.gr After two years of work by Thrivest Holding, Greece is on the brink of establishing its fifth major banking entity. The new bank, formed through the merger of Attica Bank and Pancreta Bank, is expected to launch within the next 24 hours, pending final approvals. This initiative aims to address the financing needs of Greece's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which have struggled to access credit from traditional banks. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed government support for the project in 2023, and it has since gained approval from regulatory bodies, including the Bank of Greece and the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). The new bank will start with a healthy financial profile, boasting less than 3 percent non-performing exposures, a 15 percent capital ratio, 10 billion in deposits, and 3 billion in performing loans. With a book value of 650 million, it marks a significant turnaround for both Attica Bank and Pancreta Bank, which previously had negative equity. The move is expected to boost competition within the banking sector and provide crucial support for Greece's economic growth. iefimerida.gr Progress, security, and prosperity are based on respect of International Law and international treaties, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during the first session of the NATO Summit meetings on Wednesday, according to information. Referring to the United States president , who underlined the importance of the Western Balkans for the NATO Alliance's security , Mitsotakis referred especially to the Prespa Agreement which, he said, allowed the enlargement of the Alliance with the accession of North Macedonia . The full implementation of the Prespa Agreement, the Greek prime minister underlined, is necessary for the Alliance, the Western Balkans, and the international community The violation or the selective implementation of the Prespa Agreement, he continued, will undermine the credibility of all the efforts to settle the remaining outstanding issues in the Western Balkans and will threaten the region's stability and security. "Pacta sunt servanta: this is something we must all remember," he noted, referring to the fundamental principle of international law that agreements must be kept. iefimerida.gr A preliminary report on the yacht fire involving Kazakhstani magnates off Hydra has exposed significant negligence and abuse of power by fire service and port authority officials. The report, revealed by local broadcaster SKAI, implicates the chief fire officer of the Arson Crimes Department and several Hydra Port Authority officials. The investigation found that the Galatas Fire Service failed to respond adequately to the fire. What is more, the Hydra Port Authority received information suggesting possible crew or passenger involvement, yet failed to detain the yacht or conduct a thorough investigation. Further damning evidence shows the chief fire officer conducted only briefly examining the 10 Kazakh magnates on board before allowing them to leave on a private flight. The findings point to serious procedural failures and raise questions about the integrity of the investigation. Further scrutiny and potential legal actions are expected to follow. iefimerida.gr The application was submitted on June 27, 2024 and asks that the status of "witness of public interest" be stripped from the two individuals referred to by the code names "Maximos Sarafis" and "Aikaterini Kelesi", and that his lawsuit against them for slander and false testimony, currently still pending before a prosecutor, be recovered. Two leaders expected to hold brief talk on NATO Summit sidelines to review Greek-Turkish relations Some employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have accused the Ministrys Permanent Secretary, Ibrahim Lamuwa, of multiple cases of sexual harassment and other infractions. Recall that Simisola Fajemirokun Ajayi, female aide of Yusuf Tuggar, Minister of Foreign Affairs, in June, accused Lamuwa of sexual harassment. Lamuwa has since denied the allegation, claiming that he turned down Ajayis request to pay her bills during an overseas trip. Advertisement However, in a letter dated July 3 and addressed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the officials, under the aegis of concerned and patriotic foreign service officers, claimed that the accusation against Lamuwa by Ajayi was not the first of its kind. According to them, sexual harassment allegations against the permanent secretary have become a recurring feature in his entire public service career, including harassment of children. His unbridled sexual assaults and harassment on minors and women is legendary. Cases include harassment of neighbours children, as a young officer, while occupying government property at the foreign affairs quarters in Gwarimpa, Abuja; the inglorious removal from his post in Canada to avoid an impending declaration of persona non-grata (PNG), and sexual assault cases involving a large number of locally-recruited staff in our mission in Dakar, Senegal. In Senegal, while serving as ambassador and principal representative of Mr President, ambassador Lamuwa threatened a female bank official, saddled with the management of the embassys account, that he would ensure the movement of the missions account to another financial institution in the event that she does not agree to engage in sexual activities with him. It took the voice recording of the incident before Ambassador Lamuwa could withdraw from his inherent evil intentions. More recently at the ministrys headquarters, a married female policy officer tasked with the implementation of presidential reforms could not resist the intense pressure, and she succumbed to Ambassador Lamuwas threat and was duly rewarded for her compliance in the yet-to-be-released 2024 posting exercise without due diligence. READ ALSO: Tinubu Appoints Eight Permanent Secretaries To Fill Vacancies In Civil Service All these incidents could have been avoided if a system of checks and balances was in place in the administration of the ministry, with the appointment of under-secretaries, the letter read. The group further accused the Permanent Secretary of sabotaging the Ministry. In the last 24 months, all Nigerian missions abroad have received 20 percent of their budgeted allocation. The affected missions wrote to Amb. Lamuwa, more than 21 months ago, to appeal for the budget shortfall, a result of the governments policy on the unification of the exchange rate, to be brought to the attention of Mr President, but Ambassador Lamuwa rather devised a plan to suffocate missions and utilize the untoward situation for his personal gains. With the assistance of the director of finance and account (DFA), Amb. Lamuwa suppressed all missions desperate appeal and began to peddle a misrepresentation to the honourable minister of foreign affairs and other high-level government officials that missions are financially buoyant and the only reason they were writing was that officers at posts, who are diligently serving the country, wanted an excuse not to return. Even with several inquiries from the state house, Amb. Lamuwa remained obstinate in his covetous plot. The far-reaching implication is that the jaundiced posting, as he had orchestrated and implemented, will give him unimpeded control over all the missions more than Mr President and the honourable minister of foreign affairs, the officers said. They accused Lamuwa of demonstrating impunity by claiming to be well-connected to principals at the State House, particularly the Office of the Vice-President. Ambassador Lamuwa is not an example of what the civil service should promote or be proud of, as he has indeed shown great disrespect and disregard for the service and government processes. Such individuals are a potent threat to society and should be confined to the walls of rehabilitation or correction facilities, they added. The officers however urged the President to direct a wider investigation of the issues stated in the letter to ascertain the facts and for necessary actions. Ifeoma Ogbonnaya, an Assistant Manager with Zenith Bank Plc, has narrated how Godwin Emefiele, the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), moved funds to the account of his wife, Margaret Emefiele. Emefiele is standing trial over abuse of office and alleged $4.5 billion and N2.8 billion fraud while in office. Advertisement Ogbonnaya told an Ikeja Special Offences Court on Tuesday how Emefiele used the bank to move multimillion naira to his wife. The fifth prosecution witness, was led in evidence by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Counsel, Rotimi Oyedepo. She told the court how Emefiele used Zenith Bank to transfer millions of naira in tranches to his wife through various companies. Ogbonnaya said the companies that received the cash flow were Amswing Resources and Solution, Limelight Dimensional Service Ltd., Omec Support Service Ltd. and Mango Farm. Limelight manages the facilities of CBN, located at Alakija and all transactions pertaining to power and fixing things that are not working was always done by the vendors, she said. The witness who also doubles as a Business Relationship Manager, joined the bank in 2006. Ogbonnaya said she never had direct dealings with the ex-CBN governor but received instructions from his wife to transfer cash from CBN into their private companies through Zenith Bank account. She said apart from Mrs Emefiele she also received instructions from two other people, one Mr John Ogah and one Mr Opeyemi Oludimu, who worked for the Emefiele but now late. The witness, however, said that she managed the various companies accounts through which the multimillion naira was sent to. READ ALSO: EFCC Opposes Emefieles Request For Foreign Medical Trip Over Fear Hell Jump Bail Mrs Margaret Emefiele, the ex-CBN governors wife, is the direct beneficiary of the accounts. The companies sent transfer instructions to my email and Margaret is the beneficial owner of the accounts. All transactions made in the accounts were confirmed by Mrs Emefiele before they were processed. She sends transfer instructions directly to my official email address with Zenith Bank or sends two other persons to act on her behalf but I still receive approval from her, she said. The witness also told the court that from March 9 to 11, 2015, the accounts received cash flow from the apex bank to the tune of N18. 9 million and N1.8 million respectively On Feb. 22, 2021, there was a cash flow of N43 million from CBN, on July 21, 2022, there was a cash flow of N37.3 million, on Oct. 21, 2022, there was a credit flow of N44.6 million, on May 10, 2023, there was a cash flow of N93.1 million from CBN, among others, she said. The witness further said that she usually communicate with Emefieles wife through email, phone calls and Whatsapp on transactions that were to be carried out on the accounts before processing them. She said the bundles of documents which entailed the various transactions were printed from her office desktop computer. The documents were sent to my email and when investigation started, I was requested to print all the documents to the law enforcement which I did. I printed from the office desk top and took them to compliance officer. I also have certificate confirming that these documents were printed from Zenith Bank, Ogbonnaya said. The prosecution sought to tender the bundles of documents which entailed the various transactions that took place between the witness and Emefieles wife. Emefieles Counsel, Mr Olalekan Ojo (SAN), and the second defence counsel, Mr Kazeem Gbadamosi (SAN), did not object the admissibility of the documents. The court, thereafter, admitted into evidence the certificate of identification, bundle of printed documents, following no objections from the defence. Nigerian artist Habeeb Okikiola, also known as Portable, has resorted to social media to vent his dissatisfaction with the poor state of Ogun State roads, particularly in Sango-Ota. Following an incident involving his Range Rover on Tuesday, Portable took to his Instagram story section to share a video showing his car stuck due to the poor condition of a road within the state. This came barely a day after his return from a trip of the United States. Advertisement Portable blasted Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun in the video for failing to find a solution to the poor roads in Sango-Ota and other parts of the state. Speaking further, he stated that many people in Ogun State own automobiles but are unable to use them due to the states poor roads, emphasising that he had recently left the United States and that all of the countrys roads are in good condition. The musician advised Dapo Abiodun to improve the states terrible roads, and if he cant, he should resign and let his favourite, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola also known as Yayi, do it. READ MORE: Im Seriously Ill Shatta Wales Mother Laments Sons Neglect Amid Her Deteriorating Health In the video, local youths were seen helping him push his Range Rover, which had been damaged by the bad road. Ogun state Sango ota iyana ilogbo Oke osa, Im not home please tell them to come and repair our roads, my Range Rover got stucked again I just got back from America, in America car doesnt get dirty, see and Im bringing my exotic car, Yayi come and fix our road if Dapo Abiodun cannot repair it, Dapo if you cannot fix it let Yayi do it, if one person cannot fix it another person will, we have cars in Ogun state, its the roads that are bad. Yayi is our next Governor in ogun state, it can not be changed, tell Dapo to repair that road before his finishes his term in office, we have money in Ogun, its our road thats bad, its the person that can repair the road for us that we want, he said in part. Watch him speak below The Kano State Police Command has apprehended a suspected kidnapper for allegedly kidnapping his neighbors two and a half-year-old daughter in the state. The suspect, a 22-year-old male named Zakariyya Muhammad, was arrested after the police made relentless attempts and conducted intelligence-led technical operations. Abdullahi Kiyawa, spokesperson for the Kano State Police Command, said in a statement on Tuesday that the command got a report on July 4, 2024, from a resident of Sabuwar Gandu Kwarin Barka Quarters in Kano who informed them that his daughter had been kidnapped. Advertisement He explained that the victims father informed them that he had received a call from an unknown person claiming to have kidnapped his daughter (Amina) and demanding N2 million in ransom for her release. According to Kiyawa, upon receiving the information, the state Commissioner of Police, CP Salman Garba, formed an anti-kidnapping squad commanded by SP Aliyu Auwal, and directed that the victim be freed within 24 hours, as well as the culprit be arrested. Kiyawa went on to say that 16 hours after the kidnapping, the team arrested the culprit at 8 a.m. on July 5, 2024, and rescued the victim unharmed. READ MORE: Woman Arrested For Running Sex Trafficking Ring In Plateau, 59 Other Suspects Paraded The suspect who happens to be a neighbour to the victim confessed to having singlehandedly committed the offence and led the detectives to where she was kept hostage. The victim was rescued unhurt in an isolated area in their neighbourhood and was rushed to Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital, Kano where she was examined, found healthy, and discharged, the police spokesperson said. The Commissioner said that such heinous act will not be tolerated and that the command will continue to use all of its resources to prevent all criminal activity and bring the offenders to justice, while also urging the public to remain vigilant and work with the police in creating a safer environment for everyone. Xi presents order to promote military officer to rank of general Xinhua) 08:03, July 10, 2024 Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), presents a certificate of order to promote He Hongjun, executive deputy director of the Political Work Department of the CMC, to the rank of general, at a ceremony held for the promotion in Beijing, capital of China, July 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Gang) BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), on Tuesday presented a certificate of order to promote a military officer to the rank of general, the highest rank for officers in active service in China. The promoted officer is He Hongjun, executive deputy director of the Political Work Department of the CMC. Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the CMC, announced the order, which was signed by Xi, at a ceremony held for the promotion in Beijing. He Weidong, also CMC vice chairman, presided over the ceremony. Xi extended his congratulations to the officer. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) The Kaduna State Police Command says it has arrested the officers seen in a viral video attempting to strangle a suspect. In a video posted on X, four police officers were seen strangling the neck of a male suspect and forcing and him into a Toyota Camry car. Passersby could be heard calling for the release of the young man from the grip of the police officers. Advertisement Owing to the confrontation, the officers abandoned the suspect and drove the away. Reacting to the incident, Mansir Hassan, the police spokesperson in the state, via a Tuesday statement said the incident happened in Kaduna South Local Government Area. READ ALSO: Firearms Recovered As 69 Boko Haram Terrorists Surrender To Troops Of MNJTF (Pictures) The police spokesperson identified the officers as two inspectors; Ibrahim Daniel and Ezekiel Marcus, as well as two corporals; Isyaku James and Paul Asha. Commissioner of Police, CP Audu Ali Dabigi, psc, has strongly condemned this act and assured the public that such misconduct will not be tolerated under his leadership, the statement reads. He has ordered a swift and thorough investigation into the matter to ensure that justice is served. The CP also urges the general public to continue supporting the police by reporting similar incidents and has ordered a full-scale investigation into the case Also, via X, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, spokesperson of the Nigeria Police Force confirmed their arrest. Adejobi wrote: The men involved in this act of brutality have been arrested. We will do the needful to make sure we sanitise the police. Thanks. The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, has cautioned politicians over diversion of public funds into personal use, says it belong to the masses. The former governor of Anambra state, led this out on Monday at the Grimard School of Nursing and Midwifery, Ayingba, Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State. He said: We politicians should realise that the money in our care does not belong to us but to the people and we should spend it to uplift their standard of living. Advertisement READ MORE: LP Denies Plans To Dump Peter Obi Ahead Of 2027 Election The money is not our own, it belongs to the people, we are under obligation to spend it on the people. Obi also made a donation of N10m to the school and promised to plant a borehole that would serve the school and the host community of Ayingba. Commending the LPs presidential candidate, the Catholic Bishop of Idah Diocese, Anthony Adaji, hailed Obis passion for education, adding that he is exemplified in the performance of schools when he was the governor of Anambra State. He said: His investment in education was legendary and that reflected in the performance of students throughout his tenure as the governor. A minibus carrying twelve children to school in Johannesburg on Wednesday, crashed and caught fire. Confirming the crash in a statement, the Gauteng provincial government said the minibus went up in flames after colliding with another vehicle, killing the driver and the children, while seven other children were taken to hospital. It could not immediately provide the childrens ages. Advertisement The fire in the early morning crash near Merafong, more than 70 kilometres west of the capital, completely destroyed the minibus, according to television photos. READ MORE: Im Seriously Ill Shatta Wales Mother Laments Sons Neglect Amid Her Deteriorating Health The statement read, A private scholar transport minibus was involved in a tragic accident in the Kokosi-Wedela area in Merafong, claiming the lives of the 12 learners and their driver. Additionally, seven other learners have been rushed to a medical facility for urgent medical attention. I am profoundly saddened by this tragic event. The loss of our children is a devastating blow to our community, and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased and injured learners, Gauteng education minister Matome Chiloane said in the statement. South Africa has one of the continents most developed road networks, yet one of the worse road safety records. AFP The troops of the 6 Brigade Nigerian Army and Sector 3 Operation WHIRL STROKE, in Taraba State, confirmed the arrest of three suspected kidnappers in the state. The development is coming, following the raid on the suspected kidnappers hideouts at Adamu Katibu Mountain in Lau Local Government Area, the State, on Wednesday. The suspects identified as Haruna Buba (20), Hassan Kakale and Hussaini Kakale (both 28), were apprehended on the spot. Advertisement The arrest, which also led to the rescue of two kidnapped victims, was said to have been executed in collaboration with other security agencies in the state. The Acting Assistant Director, 6 brigade Army Public Relations, Oni Olubodunde, in a press statement on Wednesday said that the operation was based on thorough intelligence gathering and surveillance. READ MORE:Seven Travellers Feared Killed As Gunmen Attack Bus In Taraba He listed the rescued victims as Hauwau Alh Umaru and Asmau Alh Umaru, saying they were abducted on 7July 2024. Following their rescue, the victims were immediately taken to Headquarters 6 Brigade for psychological and medical support and thereafter handed over to their families. The statement reads: In an intensified operation conducted to clear terrorists den on July 8, 2024, troops of 6 Brigade Nigerian Army and Sector 3 Operation WHIRL STROKE (OPWS), in collaboration with other security agencies, raided suspected kidnapper hideouts at Adamu Katibu Mountain in Lau Local Government Area, Taraba State. The operation was based on thorough intelligence gathering and surveillance. The kidnappers, members of a notorious gang in the region, were captured after a gunfight that forced the gang to flee, abandoning their hostages. The suspects, Haruna Buba (20), Hassan Kakale and Hussaini Kakale (both 28), were apprehended on the spot. The rescued victims, Hauwau Alh Umaru and Asmau Alh Umaru, who were abducted on 7July 2024, were immediately taken to Headquarters 6 Brigade for psychological and medical support and thereafter handed over to their families. During the handover of the victims to their families, Brigadier General Kingsley Chidiebere Uwa, Commander 6 Brigade/ Sector 3 OPWS, commended the troops for their bravery and precision. He reaffirmed the Brigades commitment to the safety and security of Taraba State residents. Former aides of Nasir El-Rufai, ex-Kaduna State Governor, says accusations by the Kaduna State House of Assembly that the former government mismanaged N432 billion State funds are untrue. They also alleged that Governor Uba Sanis administration has been drawing from the various foreign loans facilitated by the immediate-past Government in the State. Advertisement This was contained in a Tuesday statement, jointly signed by a former Commissioner of Environment, Jafaru Sani, Hafsat Baba (ex-commissioner, Ministry of Human Services), Thomas Gyang (Public Works and Infrastructure), Bashir Saidu ( Ministry of Finance), Ibrahim Husaini (Ministry of Agriculture), Aisha Dikko (Ministry of Justice), Fausat Ibikunle (Ministry of Housing and Urban Development), and Idris Nyam, ex-commissioner, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Technology. An ad hoc committee set up by the Kaduna State House of Assembly to investigate all finances, loans and contracts awarded under the immediate-past Governor had indicted El-Rufai and some of his appointees of siphoning N432 billion state funds. The Assembly, while adopting the report of the 13-man panel, asked Sani to refer El-Rufai, his finance commissioner and other aides to relevant security agencies for investigation. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission subsequently set up a panel to investigate the alleged fraud. Reacting to the allegation about the disbursement of some foreign loans, Jafaru Sani, described as exaggerated, the number of loans listed in the probe report. In the statement Jafaru read on behalf of other ex-cabinet members, he said, Some loans were negotiated and agreed, as part of the aspirations for the progress and development of the state. However, disbursement of several of these loans listed in the (probe report pages 112-116) had not commenced by the time of the exit of the El-Rufai administration in May 2023. READ ALSO: El-Rufai Drags Kaduna Assembly To Court Over N432bn Probe These include a $280m loan for the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project. A $150m loan is alleged to have been received from the African Development Bank for the Kaduna Special Agro-Processing Zone. The El-Rufai government is justly proud of the planning and hard work its team did to ensure that Kaduna State made the first list of states selected for the SAPZs. However, AfDB had not commenced the disbursement of the loan by May 2023. The ex-aide further said that contrary to the assertions in the probe report, it is the French Development Agency, and not the African Development Bank, that provided the $130.7m loan for the Kaduna Bus Rapid Transport System, adding that no cent was disbursed before the last administrations exit. The statement also listed other loans facilitated by the El-Rufai administration but which were being drawn by the Sani government, including the $20m loan for the Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project and the $62.8m Reaching-Out-of-School Children project. It noted, The (probe) report also listed some loans as fully disbursed when they were only partly disbursed during the El-Rufai administration. These include ACReSAL: Only $2m was received by the Kaduna State Government for the Agro-Climatic Resilience Semi-Arid Landscapes before May 2023, all of which was left intact for the successor government. Ascribing $494m XDR as the amount disbursed to the state, as the report does, merely continues the pattern of patent falsehood. Only $23.88m was received for AGILE as of May 2023, not the $280m stated in the report. As of December 2022, Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment had funded 12 major renovations in 110 schools and minor rehabilitation of 550 others. The initiative also financed the accelerated implementation of the life skills programme in 19 senior secondary schools. At the December 2022 Implementation Support Mission to States participating in AGILE, Kaduna was declared as the best state in two components: Renovations and Monitoring and Evaluation. The state also received an award as the most innovative in project implementation. The former cabinet members further clarified that $352,855 was disbursed to the state in June 2023, for the Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene programme, after the El-Rufai administrations exit. Google and online educator Udacity have teamed up to offer a free online course to teach developers and designers how to use the Google AI Studio developer tool and Googles Gemini API AI model. Participants will be taught how to build generative AI capabilities into applications, websites, products, operations, and services. Entitled Gemini API by Google, the Udacity course was announced July 9 and developed in collaboration with Google and Machine Learning @ Berkeley. The course will take fewer than two hours to complete. Udacity recommends that learners already know basic Python skills. The course agenda includes using the Gemini API effectively and using core components such as making calls, configuring parameters, sending prompts, and receiving results. Students will learn fundamental concepts behind LLMs (large language models) and Gemini models, the differences among common prompting techniques such as zero-shot, few-shot, and chain-of-thought prompting, and how to use Google AI Studio for designing prompts. Generative AI has become the most sought-after capability across sectors, Udacity CEO Kai Roemmelt said. Using the Gemini API, developers can integrate the largest and most capable AI model from Google into their apps, regardless of interface, platform, or industry, Roemmelt said. This makes acquiring practical knowledge relating to integrating AI into new and existing web and mobile applications with Gemini a highly marketable skill, he said. Two helicopters made at Leonardos Northeast Philadelphia assembly plant to check nuclear accidents and potential terror attacks are going through testing at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, as the company adds staff at the plant in anticipation of more sales to the U.S. government. Leonardo, based in Italy, delivered the two AW139 helicopters last month to the federal National Nuclear Security Administration. The agency, according to its website, monitors public events such as the Super Bowl, and is on call 24 hours a day to respond to accidents and incidents affecting nuclear facilities or nuclear material, from Andrews and a second facility at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Advertisement The aircraft type isnt new Leonardo (formerly known as Finmeccanica) has sold more than 1,200 AW139s of different models since the 2000s, to 300 users in 70 countries, Clyde Woltman, who heads the Philadelphia plant, said in an interview last year. The company also has plants in Europe and North America, and a maintenance, repair, and overhaul facility in Santa Rosa County, Fla., near the U.S. Navy aviation base in Pensacola. The particular mission of the helicopters assigned to the nuclear security administration was described to staffers by a then-NNSA officer, Jay Tilden, at a meeting at the plant last summer: The machines were outfitted with special radiation detection equipment to quickly measure radiation and help the agency respond. The agency has provided similar detection services for allies including Japan, which accepted its help when its Fukushima nuclear power station flooded and suffered major damage after an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. We are hitting on all cylinders, Woltman said during the NNSA visit last year. We are hiring. The plant now employs more than 1,000, up from 650 in 2020, and has added new facilities on-site, including a $65 million training center. To help recruit workers it has funded scholarships at the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, a mile from the plant. AW139, powered by dual Pratt & Whitney PT6 gas turbine engines, is faster and can fly longer than the Bell helicopters the agency has relied on since the 1990s. According to Leonardo, the AW139 can fly up to 190 mph, for more than five hours, and more than 700 miles, with a reserve tank. Thats about the distance from Philadelphia to Orlando, or St. Louis. The Air Force is replacing its current helicopters with the MH139, a military version of the AW139. Leonardo is assembling those aircraft in Northeast Philly, then moving them to the Boeing plant, where armaments and other equipment are added and the aircraft prepared for delivery to the military. The 139-series helicopters can seat up to 15 passengers, plus two pilots. The Northeast Philly plant also builds TH-73A training aircraft for the U.S. Navy, and smaller aircraft for military, civilian, and police buyers (clients have included the New Jersey State Police). The Leonardo plant is growing even as the larger, older Boeing helicopter factory at Ridley Park, Delaware County, has been scaling back its Chinook and Osprey assembly line employment. The Boeing complex, which includes the companys helicopter engineering and parts testing units, employs around 3,500, down from over 4,000 in the late 2000s, though the company says it plans to add some jobs over the next two years. A third Philadelphia-area helicopter factory, shuttered by Sikorsky after its purchaser LockheedMartin Corp. consolidated helicopter operations to Connecticut three years ago, was reopened last year by Essington-based Piasecki Aircraft Corp. That family-owned helicopter design company, which counts Boeing among its clients, is hiring 200 workers to produce new helicopters based on the Piasecki-designed Sea Knight (Frog) helicopters built at Ridley Park in the 1950s and 60s, and plans eventually to employ at least 400 at the facility near Coatesville, Chester County. A memorial for Temple University Police Sgt. Christopher Fitzgerald in 2023. Fitzgerald's alleged killer, Miles Pfeffer, will not face the death penalty. Read more Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against Miles Pfeffer, the 19-year-old Bucks County man charged in the shooting death of Temple University Police Officer Christopher Fitzgerald last year. That decision, announced Wednesday, drew an angry response from Fitzgeralds family, who have long advocated for that punishment if Pfeffer is convicted of killing the officer. And the union that represents Temple police officers called it devastating news for the Fitzgerald family and law enforcement officers throughout Philadelphia. Advertisement Fitzgeralds father, Joel, said in a statement that District Attorney Larry Krasner, a former defense lawyer, had allowed hubris and an intense disdain for law enforcement officers to cloud his judgment. Krasner is unable to divorce himself from years as a defense attorney, he added. A spokesperson for Krasner, Dustin Slaughter, said the prosecutors decision not to pursue the death penalty was consistent with his oath to seek justice and uphold the law. The decision, Slaughter said, was made with input from Fitzgeralds family and legal experts. Fitzgeralds widow, Marissa, disputed that in an interview Wednesday and said Krasner did not seek the familys input aside from a meeting last year with his offices Capital Case Review Committee. We went into that meeting saying why this needed to be a death penalty case, she said. After that, there was nothing from Larry Krasner. How can you sit here and say you took our input when you didnt bother to call after the fact? Relatives of Fitzgerald, who was posthumously promoted to sergeant, said they were notified of Krasners decision by Joanne Pescatore, chief of homicide, late Tuesday, hours before the deadline to notify Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott. The family rebuked Krasner for not allowing them to speak to him directly about his decision. Police say Pfeffer shot Fitzgerald, 31, multiple times in the face and chest at close range after the officer spotted him and two others, dressed in black clothing and wearing face masks, near the Temple campus last year, police said. There had been a spate of carjackings and robberies in the area, and Fitzgerald said over police radio that he was going to make a pedestrian stop. Pfeffer fled, and Fitzgerald chased after him. After a brief struggle, police say, Pfeffer pulled out a pistol and shot Fitzgerald. He then stood over the officer and fired multiple times at point-blank range, killing him. Pfeffer carjacked a man nearby and fled to his mothers home in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, police say. He was arrested there hours later. Pfeffer, who was 18 and a high school senior at the time, was charged with murder, murder of a law enforcement officer, robbery, and weapons violations. At a hearing Wednesday morning, Pescatore said she had filed formal notice of the decision not to pursue the death penalty at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Pescatore, in response to a question from McDermott, said there have been no negotiations with Pfeffers attorneys about a plea deal. That decision, she said, would be up to Krasner. Joseph Marrone, a lawyer for the Fitzgerald family, said Wednesday that the death penalty is warranted. This is a message being sent to law enforcement that We dont have your back, and thats troubling, Marrone said. [Krasner] is an elected official. You cant manage a justice system based on personal beliefs. There is a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania that was enacted by then-Gov. Tom Wolf in 2015. Gov. Josh Shapiro, who opposes the death penalty, said he would seek to abolish the death penalty. And Krasner has made it clear that he does not support capital punishment. Joel Fitzgerald said that the lack of communication from Krasners office in the Pfeffer case is emblematic of what other families of homicide victims in the city have experienced, and that he and his family will use their platform to raise awareness. What [Krasner] did today was set a precedent, Fitzgerald said. Hes not going to go after people who commit capital murder against law enforcement members or anyone else in this city. A former bank employee in Burlington County was charged with stealing nearly $1 million from a customers account and using it to fund side businesses, real estate transactions, and personal expenses. Agha Hasan, 41, was charged with theft by deception, computer criminal activity, misapplication of entrusted property, and several tax offenses. He allegedly stole $998,188 from the customer over six years, according to the Burlington County Prosecutors Office. Advertisement The Bordentown Township resident was taken into custody Tuesday and was jailed while awaiting a detention hearing in Superior Court. In 2023, fraud investigators for Santander Bank contacted law enforcement about questionable transactions conducted and overseen by Hasan, who had recently been terminated from his position at the Mount Holly branch office, prosecutors said. Investigators found that Hasan, who had been employed by the bank since 2014, befriended the customer, and offered to help pay his bills to gain his trust. Over time, Hasan visited the customers residence and allegedly obtained blank checks that the customer had signed, in addition to having the customer approve wire transfers. Hasan also used the customers account to make significant cash withdrawals and disbursements, prosecutors said. Santander Bank said it reimbursed the customer and was assisting law enforcement with the investigation. The illegal transactions went toward personal expenses and business ventures, including managing and operating gas stations, car washes, and convenience markets, according to prosecutors. The money was also allegedly used to broker and finance real estate transactions, as well as to operate a consulting business, Delval Consultants LLC. The case will be prepared for presentation to a grand jury for possible indictment. The superintendent of the Great Valley School District said this week that more TikTok accounts have appeared this summer. Read more After students at Great Valley Middle School made 22 TikTok accounts impersonating their teachers some with crude sexual depictions school leaders said there was only so much they could do to punish the offenders. The reason: Much of the social media activity didnt happen at school. Advertisement Its a frustrating position to be in, Great Valley Superintendent Daniel Goffredo told reporters earlier this week. He noted that the accounts, which the district discovered in late February, have continued to be created throughout the summer months. The episode, which garnered national attention, raises questions about the challenges schools face in policing social media use. Heres what the law says about students free speech rights, where the line is murky, and what it means for schools. Inside school is different from outside. There are limits on students free speech rights in school, established by various U.S. Supreme Court rulings: Kids arent entitled to promote drug use, for instance, or use vulgar language. You cant tell your teacher to f off in class, and be protected by the First Amendment, said Witold J. Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. And schools have a lot of control over any activities they sponsor, Walczak said. But what students say outside of school is different. In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a cheerleader who argued she was wrongly suspended from the Mahanoy Area School District in Schuylkill County after posting a profane rant on Snapchat. The student, Brandi Levy, had posted the comment F school, f softball, f cheer, f everything on a Saturday morning, after learning she failed to make the varsity cheerleading team. She created that post at a local convenience store. Speech that disrupts is a no-no, but there are no hard and fast rules. But off-campus speech isnt always protected. The court found the district hadnt proven that Levys post had substantially disrupted the school environment a standard for regulating students speech, set by a 1969 ruling that said Iowa students had a right to wear black armbands in class to protest the Vietnam War. The ruling in Levys case, however, didnt define when social media posts would constitute a substantial disruption. The court didnt draw any hard and fast rules, said Walczak. (The ACLU represented Levy.) The limits of kids free speech on social media are definitely not fleshed out in the law. Walczak noted some cases before Levys in which courts have also sided with students over social media postings such as a 2007 federal court ruling finding a Western Pennsylvania school district had violated the First Amendment rights of a student whom it punished for creating a parody MySpace profile of his principal. In the Central Bucks School District earlier this year, administrators expelled a student who used AI to create an account for a teacher, saying she was going to kill herself, said Jim Scanlon, then the districts interim superintendent. Police showed up at the school; the teacher was like, what are you talking about, Scanlon said. It caused chaos. Because the student used a district-owned device to create the account, Scanlon said, Central Bucks had the right to take disciplinary action. If its a district-owned property you can be pretty aggressive, he said. Other events, however, have been blurrier. Central Bucks has been grappling with creating new social media rules for student clubs, after controversy around posts earlier this year by a Muslim student group, including one referring to usurping Jews. The club deleted that post, which it characterized as an accident; school board members have been debating to what extent the district should be responsible for social media postings by its numerous clubs. In an instance, Scanlon said was unrelated to the Muslim club, a student made antisemitic posts that were brought to the districts attention. The student made the posts at home, and didnt mention any specific people, Scanlon said. In that case, we cant do much other than talk to the kid and parents and say how wrong it is, Scanlon said. Thats really frustrating for administrators. Getting account creators identified can take a great deal of time. While most social media companies have law enforcement liaisons, it can take a great deal of time and effort to get the creator of a particular account identified, said Bill Oslick, past president of the Pennsylvania Association of School Resource Officers. Its also a struggle to get social media posts taken down. We tell the individuals to report them to the social media platform, Oslick said. Its one of those things: How quick is the social media [company] going to respond to it? Oslick, who works in a school district in Western Pennsylvania, said he has seen students create fake accounts for other students, or anonymous accounts. So many times, they have no idea truly what theyre doing, and are extremely remorseful or embarrassed when confronted, he said. Theres an active investigation, but consequences remain unclear. Goffredo, the superintendent, said this week that the district had held students accountable where applicable. He declined to confirm whether students had been suspended; the New York Times, citing teachers, reported the district had briefly suspended several students. A district spokesperson also declined to comment on whether the district had concluded the fake accounts hadnt caused substantial disruption to the school the standard established by the Supreme Court in 1969. The spokesperson, Jennifer Blake, said the students who created the accounts hadnt done so at school, because we have filters in place in the district that block students access to TikTok. They also cant access TikTok through district-provided devices, at home or at school, Blake said. At the news conference, Goffredo referred to an active police investigation. Chris Yeager, chief of the East Whiteland Township Police Department, said this week that his department did investigate the complaint, and ultimately consulted with the Chester County DAs office. We are monitoring the situation at this time. A spokesperson for the district attorneys office did not respond to a request for comment. Goffredo said the district which previously held an assembly for eighth graders on responsible social media use was working to bolster its digital citizenship curriculum, and engage families in dialogue about kids online behavior. He said the TikTok accounts included grossly inappropriate and hurtful comments. I really wish our students would stop, he said. A student hands over a cell phone to be locked up for the day at a Philadelphia school in this 2022 file photo. Read more Some Pennsylvania districts could ban cell phone use during the school day if a bill passed recently by the State Senate is approved by the House. Although the bill does not institute a statewide ban, it would launch a pilot program allowing schools to purchase secure, lockable bags with state money, and requiring participating districts to ban cell phone use during the school day. Advertisement The aim, sponsor Sen. Ryan Aument (R., Lancaster) said in a legislative memo, is to address a root cause of the mental health and academic decline experienced by Pennsylvania students. The legislation was approved with bipartisan support by the Senate on July 3, and now awaits passage in the House, where lawmakers are in the throes of budget negotiations. In Pennsylvania and across the nation, theres been a rise in mental health needs among young people. The state spent $100 million last year in new funds to tackle student mental health issues. Aument said he wanted to zero in on one of the root causes of our childrens mental distress: widespread access to smartphones and social media apps, he wrote in the proposed legislation. By now, we all have likely seen some alarming statistics showing the steep decline in mental health in children since the early 2010s: Rates of depression among teens increased about 150%. Suicide rate for kids ages 10-14 tripled between 2007 and 2021. Suicide rate for girls ages 10-14 rose 131%. Behavioral issues have also spiked. Earlier this year, a number of middle school students in the Great Valley School District in Chester County created bogus TikTok accounts impersonating teachers, some of which contained racist, homophobic and sexually inappropriate material. The data correlation between the mental health decline, social decline, and academic decline of children and the rise of smartphones cannot be denied, Aument said. Many parents and teachers alike see the devastating impact these devices are having on children and are asking for help. The move away from cell phones Cell phone bans have been on the rise in schools, with research showing that taking phones out of classrooms can boost student academic outcomes. In one tech-forward Philadelphia school, ninth-grade teachers banned cell phones near the end of the 2023-24 school year to great success the quality of student work improved, one Science Leadership Academy teacher said, but relationships and student interactions also benefitted significantly. Chris Lehmann, SLA principal, has said the school is working toward not having cell phones in class, period. A number of other Philadelphia schools have already moved to purchase Yondr pouches, one type of bag that locks cell phones, with mixed success. Auments bill calls for districts that use state money to buy the lockable bags to monitor how the cell phone bill affects student mental health and academic performance. The grants would be administered through the states Commission on Crime and Delinquency; its not yet clear how much money might be available to fund the grants, or how many or which districts might participate. Officially, the Philadelphia School District has said phone-free environments in schools during instructional time are key to academic achievement, but officials have given latitude to individual schools to determine how they want to achieve that, and many schools still allow students to have phones during class. You have no idea what an issue this is Author Jonathan Haidt argues in the book The Anxious Generation that a phone-based childhood has replaced a play-based childhood for many children, leading to mental health and other issues. Haidt has called for phone-free schools. Aument, the father of a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old, said the idea came after he met Haidt at an event. Haidt peppered Aument with questions about his kids smartphone use, and the rules they have about social media. (The Aument kids dont have phones; Auments son is asking for one, and sometimes gets to use Auments tablet.) After listening to Haidt speak, Aument and his staff put together the bill and began looking for co-sponsors. A number signed on, and he also began getting outreach from parents and educators. In the 14 years that Ive been here, Ive not had an issue thats resonated so quickly, said Aument. Classroom teachers were telling me, you have no idea what an issue this is. Aument initially thought about a statewide ban on cell phones in schools, but has refined the legislation to preserve local decision-making; districts would have to opt into the program. The legislation would grant exemptions to the cell phone ban for students who have proof of a medical condition, such as diabetes, that requires them to have a cell phone at all times. As for the bills chances of becoming law, Aument said that given the 45-5 vote by which it passed the Senate rare for an education bill, he said he thinks it is very well positioned to pass. I think it is very well positioned to be considered as part of the school code. After sun-splashed days at the beach, I find myself craving variety for dinner, and this year at the Jersey Shore my meals were more diverse than ever. This was especially true across the southern stretch between Ventnor City and Cape May, where I nibbled roasted veggie hoagies, savored a Chiapas-style mega-machete, and spooned through peerless bowls of pho. I also revisited a surging gastropub beside a commercial marina for the worlds best scallops, and then landed at a new destination BYOB in Stone Harbor for a special occasion meal. Then again, isnt great pizza always a special occasion? One of the regions finest pizzaiolos has landed in Ocean City where, by the way, a fantastic gluten-free bakery has also opened its doors. For dessert? Well, how about some exceptional Indian ice creams? Read on, because I guarantee youll want the scoop on that. Heading north? Follow my dining itinerary from LBI to Atlantic City in Part One of my annual Shore dining series. The boardwalk patio at Queen Bean Bistro in Ventnor City has an ocean view. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer VENTNOR CITY Queen Bean Bistro Theres a breezy boardwalk ocean view. The menu has multiple gluten-free options from brunch throukigh dinner. And theres even a special menu for dogs on the outdoor paw-tio at the Queen Bean Bistro, which means this umbrella-fringed cafe at the Vassar Square condominiums in Ventnor City checks more boxes for the LaBan familys Shore dining needs than most. Woof! said Buttercup, our Great Dane mix, with her vote of approval for the potatoes and ham she devoured beside us. Chef Salvatore Giambrone is cooking Italian-themed dishes with gusto at Queen Bean Bistro. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer A meaty branzino fillet was topped with a brothy butter sauce of citrus and tomatoes and crunchy oreganata crumbs at Queen Bean Bistro. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer Most importantly, the bistros executive chef and co-owner, Salvatore Giambrone, a former Velo Cafe chef who took over in October with partners Easton Reynolds and Michael Beau Ridge, is cooking Italian-themed dishes with gusto, transforming what might otherwise be a generic condo amenity into a destination. Our first visit was for dinner, and I was impressed not only by the uncommonly large entrees, but the bold flavors. A meaty branzino fillet was topped with a brothy butter sauce of citrus and tomatoes and crunchy oreganata crumbs. A half chicken came with the deliciously retro indulgence of rich cream sauce and crumbled bacon. I can also see why the veal Giambrone 10 ounces of tender cutlets, dusted and browned in gluten-free flour, then lavished with mortadella, truffled burrata, and spicy cherry peppers is the chefs self-proclaimed favorite. The Vexahlia is a pile-it-on vegetarian fantasia of roasted peppers, onions, mixed mushrooms, and marinated tomatoes at Queen Bean Bistro. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer The Queen Beans charms are most evident in the light of day, when the boardwalk is bustling and customers are lured by excellent gluten-free pancakes, a Smoky Westerner omelet (with smoked pork butt), and Stellas Campfire Toast, a smores-inspired, Biscoff cookie-encrusted French toast tribute to Giambrones 15-year-old daughter. (Thats her in the back, washing dishes.) Lunch is just as appealing: Giambrone makes one of the best cheeseburgers at the Shore, an incredibly juicy double-patty onion smashburger drizzled in King Sauce (a popular secret sauce-style condiment from the former owner of Marsinis Kitchen). But the best sandwich might also be the healthiest: the Vexahlia, a pile-it-on vegetarian fantasia of roasted peppers, onions, mixed mushrooms, and marinated tomatoes inside a seeded Atlantic City roll with mashed avocado and a blend of Cooper Sharp and provolone. The unusual name is a nod to Giambrones kids passion for Dungeons & Dragons, which, depending upon your family, may check yet another distinctive box in favor of the Queen Bean Bistro. Queen Bean Bistro, 4800 Boardwalk, Ventnor City, N.J. 08406, 609-428-7116 The goi ga, a shredded cabbage salad, is tossed to order in a lime vinaigrette with pho-poached chicken and Thai basil at Two Sisters Vietnamese Eatery in Ventnor City. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer VENTNOR CITY Two Sisters Vietnamese Eatery Change is part of the ritual of returning annually to the Jersey Shore, and that occasionally means saying farewell to a favorite restaurant. The news that Dim Some and Then Some! had moved from Ventnor City to a larger location in Galloway (much farther from our summer rental) was disappointing to my crew. We valued this take-out spot as a reliable destination for excellent Cantonese cooking and gluten-free dumplings. Ian Bloch (from left), Andy Phan, Tara Bloch, and Trinh Phan at their restaurant, Two Sisters Vietnamese Eatery. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer A bright new tenant like Two Sisters Vietnamese Eatery, however, more than softens the blow. One brisk sip of the strong iced coffee with chicory sweetened with condensed milk and my mood instantly improved. Then came fresh summer rolls so delicately wrapped that the lettuce inside glowed through the rice paper wrapper. And oh, the aromas of star anise, cinnamon, and ginger wafting from the pho pots simmering in the kitchen? Order me two bowls, please, one steeped golden from whole chickens, the other deeply infused with beef, finished with a dose of molten fat shimmering like pearly beads. Two Sisters is owned by Tara Bloch and her husband, Ian Bloch, and her parents, Andy and Trinh Phan, who cook the family recipes they grew up with in Ho Chi Minh City. The Phans raised Tara in Brigantine while working in the casino industry, then decamped for Pittsburgh, where they launched an earlier version of Two Sisters in East Liberty. Earlier this year, they moved back to open the restaurant in Ventnor City with their daughter, who had stayed in New Jersey. The grilled meats at Two Sisters Vietnamese Eatery are outstanding. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer Two Sisters is primarily a take-out operation, but the little room has also been transformed into an airy, modern cafe with a dozen seats inside and eight more on the sidewalk. The pho should not be missed. The grilled meats, marinated in a honeyed five-spice with lemongrass and sesame, are also outstanding, whether you get the thin-cut beef short ribs over rice or the pork shoulder tucked into a banh mi with pickled veggies and house mayo on a Formicas Bakery baguette. Two other side dishes from Trinh should not be bypassed: Goi ga, a shredded cabbage salad, is tossed to order in a lime vinaigrette with pho-poached chicken and Thai basil; it could well become the salad of the summer in Ventnor City. Youll also want to grab Trinhs Vietnamese coffee flan from the fridge: Its every bit as strong as the coffee that started my meal, but the silky richness will stay with you long after the meal is over. Two Sisters Vietnamese Eatery, 7317 Ventnor Ave., Ventnor City, N.J. 08406, 609-541-6133; twosisterseatery.com A Snackle Box from Fish & Whistle Market in Ventnor City features cured meats and artisan cheeses with gluten-free crackers, fig jam pickles, and mustard for a charcuterie board to-go. Read more Craig LaBan / Staff VENTNOR CITY Fish & Whistle Market The idea for the Snackle Box was indeed born on a boat. Vanessa Wong was out fishing and drinking wine with her friends one day and suddenly got the munchies. The solution a portable charcuterie board was obvious because Wong and her husband, Ryan Slaven, happen to own a specialty foods market in Ventnor City called Fish & Whistle, which is also attached to their excellent indie bottle shop, the Wahine Wine Co. Wong took a lidded box with compartments, not unlike a tackle box for fishing, and stuffed its little cubbies generously with artisan cheeses: Shelburne Farms cheddar and Brie-like Noblette from Honesdales Calkins Creamery; cured meats from Molinari & Sons; fig jam, cornichons, and all the other accoutrements for a well-tuned cheeseboard feast. At $17, its a tremendous deal for such quality nibbles, and with cassava-based Cult Crackers, its also entirely gluten-free. The only question is which sustainable, organic wine to pair with it? A $17 prosecco from Casa di Malia? A lightly effervescent $20 Txakolina from woman-owned and operated Basa Lore Getariako? I suggest the light Greek red blend from the Georgas Family called Hoot, which holds the equivalent of two bottles in a sealed bagnum pouch for $30. Even if you hit rough surf, the Snackle feast will be smooth sailing. Fish & Whistle Market & Wahine Wine Co., 101 N. Dorset Ave., Ventnor City, N.J. 08406; on Instagram Chef owner Mike Fitzick works on a pizza at Bakeria 1010 in Ocean City. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer OCEAN CITY Bakeria 1010 Few things can chasten a chefs ego quite like making pizza. Even a proven star like Mike Fitzick, whos rightfully won a cult following at the Shore for his Detroit-style pies over the years, can be reminded that the dough is his fickle boss, not the other way around. When Fitzick revived Bakeria 1010 in Ocean City this past May, the islands microclimate was so different from what he had recently experienced on the nearby mainland town of Linwood just five miles away that the extra humidity wrecked an entire weeks worth of dough. It had catastrophic results, he said. It looked like pancake batter and had to be trashed. I thought my scales were broken. It was very humbling. The K-pop at Bakeria 1010, a white pie topped with chicken, sesame seeds, scallions, and a sweet Korean barbecue sauce. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer Fitzick has recovered, and is once again making some of the best Detroit-style pizza in the region not just the Jersey Shore. His puffy, well-developed crusts, crackling with a cheesy crunch around the edges, and simple, but high quality toppings, make every bite a pleasure. Im partial to the white pies topped with prosciutto and arugula, or Espositos sausage with roasted peppers and olives. But I also admire some of the novelty pizzas that began as joke specials before taking off in popularity, like the Buffalo chicken. The latest hit is the K-pop, a white pie topped with chicken, sesame seeds, scallions, and a sweet Korean barbecue sauce. I watched one diner across from me eat his entire piece in slow motion with his eyes closed. The Spicy Roni blends cup and char pepperoni with fistfuls of shaved jalapenos at Bakeria 1010. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer Alicia Curran shows the Spicy 'Roni round pie at Bakeria 1010, which also has some of the best Detroit-style pizza in the region. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer Fitzicks classic red pizzas are just as good as his gimmicks, with a sweet and tangy blend of Italian and Jersey tomatoes that shines on his thin-crusted round pies. Get the Spicy Roni, which blends cup and char pepperoni with fistfuls of shaved jalapenos whose heat has been tempered with a cold bath. (A glaze of Mikes Hot Honey brings that heat right back up.) Fitzick has more than pizza going on in this little dining room in downtown Ocean City. The fresh sourdough boules and baguettes are also popular picks, while a flat top grill allows his crew to turn out high-quality cheesesteaks (rib eye or halal chicken). Fitzick concedes hes still fixated on the pizza side, splitting atoms to assure the consistency of his dough. But he plans to focus on boosting the rest of the menu soon, he says. I signed a five-year lease, Fitzick says. Ill be chilling here for a while. Bakeria 1010, 955 Asbury Ave., Ocean City, N.J. 08226, 609-600-7023; bakeria1010.com Chef owner Jenna Kisby carries a tray of cinnamon buns topped with cream cheese frosting at Kizbees Kitchen in Egg Harbor City, N.J. Read more Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer OCEAN CITY Kizbees Kitchen Ocean City is bursting with great bakeries, from the scone destination of Barefoot Market to the Italian specialties of Bennies Bread (est. 1957) and the powdered doughnut paradise of the 77-year-old Dots Pastry Shop. But the branch of Kizbees Kitchen set to open this month in Ocean City is unique: It is one of the absolute best gluten-free bakeries in the region. Baked goods at Kizbees Kitchen in Egg Harbor City. Everything Jenna Kisby makes and bakes is 100% gluten-free, with many vegan and soy-free options as well. Read more Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer Jenna Kisby drizzles peanut butter to finish off a chocolate peanut butter pie at Kizbees Kitchen in Egg Harbor City. Read more Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer How good is Jenna Kisbys bakery, which was founded in Egg Harbor City in 2015? Take a bite of the blueberry or strawberry pop tarts, whose centers burst with vivid reductions of real fruit, or the decadently creamy blueberry cheesecake bar, or the jumbo salted chocolate chip cookie, which is topped with three kinds of chocolate and crumbles with a satisfying richness. You wouldnt know any of them are gluten-free unless I told you. Thats because Kisby, 39, who discovered she could no longer eat gluten after being hospitalized with stomach issues in 2008, has spent the past decade honing her own blends of gluten-free flours to build a core menu of 40-plus items that are regularly available at her Egg Harbor City home base. Kisby, whose bakery is a regular at summer farm markets in Stone Harbor, Margate, and Brigantine, decided to commit to a storefront in Ocean City, which will sell about 20-plus items daily to start. The pastries are built around fresh, whole ingredients that she has personally verified as gluten-free, down to the imported Canadian jimmies. The rustic baguettes are among the crustiest gf loaves Ive come across; the cinnamon buns, whose puffy spirals are made from the house pastry flour, are the epitome of bakehouse comfort. There are savory items, including a killer mac and cheese and bacon-cheddar scones, and multiple vegan options, too, from banana chip loaves to cupcakes topped with strawberry-lemonade icing. We offer something different for people who need it, who shouldnt feel left out, Kisby says. Kizbees Kitchen, main bakery: 734 W. White Horse Pike, Egg Harbor City, N.J. 08215, 609-553-3383; Ocean City branch: 611 East Eighth St., Ocean City, kizbeeskitchen.com Chef owner Claudia Vazquez-Altone with the mega-machete at Los Machetes in Ocean View, N.J. Read more Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer OCEAN VIEW Los Machetes The Jersey Shores Mexican dining scene has grown rewardingly deep over the last couple decades. One of my new favorites is Los Machetes in Ocean View, where chef owner Claudia Vazquez-Altone is paying homage to her roots in Chiapas, the southernmost Mexican state. Vazquez-Altones signature is the mega-machete, a three-foot-long variation on a quesadilla named for its resemblance to the slender agricultural blade, whose fresh masa tortilla is tricky to make without being either too dry or too soggy. When done right, its pliant folds and vivid corn flavor make the perfect wrapper for stuffings of meat and quesillo cheese. The juicy shredded beef of carne desmenuzada is the traditional choice, but carne asada and a mixed veggie filling are also popular. (The machetes also come in a smaller individual size.) Vazquez-Altone, who cooked for several years at Pleasantvilles Fiesta Oaxaquena, first honed the machete craft at her own restaurants in Chiapas and later at the Jersey Shore, where she sold them as lunches to landscaping crews while saving money to open this restaurant in 2022. The mega-machete with carne asada at Los Machetes. Read more Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer Jessica Eguizabal readies the dining room, a festive and colorful space, at Los Machetes. Read more Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer Vazquez-Altone and son Gadiel Ferrera have turned a former sandwich shops narrow dining room into a festive and colorful space, with seating for 26 inside and 24 outside on the gravel patio facing US-9. Her menu goes well beyond machetes to include a wide range of homestyle specialties that capture the nuances passed down by her mother, Alicia Altone, who still sends fresh-blended mole from Mexico. The Chiapas-style mole tends to be slightly sweeter than the spicier Oaxacan-style, which Los Machetes also offers for its enchiladas. The pozole rojo is a soulful bowl of hominy stew with chicken at Los Machetes. Read more Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer The fresh-pressed sopes, topped with a chorizo she makes in-house from beef instead of the usual pork were fantastic, while the bistec a la Mexicana is a distinctive twist on a ubiquitous dish, the shredded beef sauteed with vinegar-tanged tomatoes, fresh jalapenos, and lots of thyme (a Chiapas touch, she says). I may return to Los Machetes solely for Vazquez-Altones pozole rojo, however. This soulful bowl of hominy stew with chicken has a deep red broth rife with cumin and an earthy blend of well-toasted guajillo, ancho, and puya chiles. It tastes just like my grandmother makes it, Ferrera says. Los Machetes, 1222 US-9, Ocean View, N.J. 08230, 609-814-2942; on Facebook Hugo Riano, of Stone Harbor, has a coffee ice cream cone at the Ice Cream Station in Cape May Court House. Read more Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer CAPE MAY COURTHOUSE Ice Cream Station There are dozens of ice cream stands at the Jersey Shore that look just like the Ice Cream Station in Cape May Courthouse at least at first glance. The two Middle Township softball teams whod arrived just before me were going for scoops of mint chocolate chip, warm brownie sundaes, and ice cream nachos. Jay Patel scoops homemade ice cream at Ice Cream Station. The Patel family has begun churning several fresh ice creams that remind them of home. Read more Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer The Patel family at Ice Cream Station. From left are siblings Kesha, 22; Keya, 21; and Jay, 25; their parents, Jack and Sonal Patel; and grandmother, Nita Patel. Read more Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer But if you order some of the more distinctive flavors here, including several not noted on the chalk board menu, the Ice Cream Station is not like any local dessert stand Ive visited. Thats because the Patel family, who took over ownership in 2021 after arriving from Gujarat in Western India, has begun churning several fresh ice creams that remind them of home. The saffron-pistachio, created by patriarch Jignesh Jack Patel, is one of the most magnetic ice cream flavors Ive spooned into this year. Then there are the refreshing tropical scoops of guava and mango, orange-pineapple, a cashew-raisin shaded with rose, the creamy floral sweetness of an Indian fruit known as custard apple, and a mixed nut-blasted vanilla called American dried fruits. Thats so popular one customer had a shake made from it three days running, according to son Jay Patel, who helps run the business with his sister, Keya, mother, Sonal Patel, and grandma, Nita. Order them by the flight so you can taste and share them all at once seven for now, until flavors under development (chocolate almond and saffron-almond) graduate to the official roster. I cant wait. Ice Cream Station, 809 US-9, Cape May Court House, N.J. 08210, 609-465-5090; icecreamstation.dine.online The hamachi crudo, with a lemongrass emulsion, crunchy rice crisps, and mango-flavored caviar, at Chanterelle in Stone Harbor. Read more Charles Fox / Staff Photographer STONE HARBOR Chanterelle Jeremy Palumbos first restaurant has been more than 20 years in the making. And back in 2002, when he was slinging 900 cheesesteaks a night with his younger brother, Joshua, at Owens Pub in North Wildwood, he never envisioned himself behind the line of a fine dining room like Chanterelles. I never really knew then if I was good enough, Palumbo says. After a long and steady climb through local kitchens at the Jersey Shore, from nearly a decade as sous-chef at the Peter Shields Inn followed by head chef gigs at Swine Bar and Provence, Palumbo and his wife, Danielle, finally took the plunge on ownership this spring. They took over a 38-seat bi-level BYOB in Stone Harbor, decorated it with mushroom-themed wallpaper to go along with the white linens, fine crystal, and candles, and opened their doors in March. Chef owner Jeremy Palumbo in the lower dining room at Chanterelle. Read more Charles Fox / Staff Photographer Chanterelle proved to be one of the Shores most reliable new bets for a special occasion meal. Read more Charles Fox / Staff Photographer Im here to tell you that Palumbo is absolutely good enough. Hes assembled a careers worth of favorite dishes for his menu, ranging from nods to his Italian family roots to the Asian fusion accents that helped shape much of modern American cooking over the last couple decades. A hamachi crudo, for example, comes with a lemongrass emulsion, crunchy rice crisps, and mango-flavored caviar. A court bouillon scented with star anise lends the oishii shrimp cocktail an Asian profile, while a roasted tomato bisque topped generously with sweet crab and an orechiette also with crab and roasted cherry tomatoes in lemony beurre blanc evoke a totally different but equally delicious mood. These may sound a bit unfocused, but its coherent in that these are dishes Palumbo cares about, and the flavors shine though with solid technique and his affinity for good ingredients, like the pristine scallops he serves with sea beans, grilled corn, and chorizo. My meal at Chanterelle nonetheless proved to be one of the Shores most reliable new bets for a special occasion meal. A gorgeous hunk of halibut impressed with chanterelles, melted leeks, and English pea puree, while the roast duck was crisp and juicy over parsnip puree and a red wine reduction. A perfectly roasted pork tenderloin over polenta with broccolini and chipotle aioli was another winning dish on a menu that is almost entirely gluten-free. That includes the ice creams he churns, from the blackberry-vanilla scoop that accompanies the goat cheese panna cotta (my play on a cheese plate, he said) to an espresso-chocolate chip that kept me buzzing all the way back home, dreaming of our next visit to Chanterelle. Chanterelle. 330 96th St., Stone Harbor, N.J. 08247, 640-207-3004; chanterellebyob.com The bar area at Mayer's Tavern in Cape May. Read more Charles Fox / Staff Photographer CAPE MAY Mayers Tavern Growing up in Cape May as the daughter of the owner of iconic Lobster House, Alex Laudeman did not have many rules. The one rule my dad did give me was: You do not go to Mayers! The tavern on Schellenger Landing in Cape Mays commercial marina had a rough reputation in the 1980s and 90s as a fishermans bar where there were frequently fights, drugs, and even a shooting. Laudeman, now 39, returned home in 2018 from New York, where shed cooked at Esca, to spruce up the once forbidden place, which had been closed for years. She succeeded in turning it into a gastropub-style haunt for craft cocktails, farro risotto, and some of the best fried scallops on the planet. A new outdoor patio for diners at Mayer's Tavern. Read more Charles Fox / Staff Photographer The wonderfully revived Mayer's Tavern. Read more Charles Fox / Staff Photographer Six years later, there are live musicians strumming on Mayers splendid new outdoor patio for diners drinking glasses of natural wine alongside smoked bluefish spread, crab fritters, and oysters broiled beneath dabs of pimento cheese. The 35-seat patio, which adds significantly more al fresco space to the 50 first-come seats in the dining room and bar, is only part of the fresh draw to Mayers. Laudeman stepped back from the kitchen to run the dining room after giving birth to her second child in September, handing over the stove to Rob Marzinsky, a longtime Philly chef (Fitler Dining Room, Buckminsters, Sally) who moved to the Shore in 2021 to cook at Beach Plum Farms. The fact that so much of the menu is unchanged is a tribute to Laudemans vision: The simply fried scallops, plucked from the Lobster Houses own fishing fleet, are as delicious as ever, with some of the best house-made french fries youll ever experience. The broiled oysters at Mayer's Tavern. Read more Charles Fox / Staff Photographer The simply fried scallops, plucked from the Lobster Houses own fishing fleet, are as delicious as ever. Read more TIM TAI / Staff Photographer Im just sort of a steward of what was already here, says Marzinsky, whose steady touch has also been evident in specials featuring whole fish and seasonal vegetables from local farms like Terra Chimera. The dish I cant stop thinking about is the most perfect roast chicken, a breast that gets marinated in seasoned yogurt before its cooked to a tawny crisp and served over arbol chile-braised collard greens and polenta. With a seasonal fruit crumble for dessert, or a rich and classic chocolate mousse to go with one of the refreshing cocktails (the coconut creamed tequila Cold Front is my choice), Id like to coin a new rule about this wonderfully revived tavern: Definitely go to Mayers. Alexa Mani browsing in the wine shop inside Bloomsday Cafe in 2022. The wines are all special-ordered from the PLCB. Read more Tens of millions of dollars in refunds are due to many bars in Pennsylvania, as well as individual oenophiles and liquor enthusiasts, after the state Supreme Court affirmed a Commonwealth Court decision against the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board over its special-order system, which handles bottles not available in Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores. In 2016, state law required the PLCB to implement a system to allow wineries and merchants to ship products directly to customers by June 2017. The system did not go online until June 2022. Advertisement Meanwhile over the five years, the PLCB collected a $1.75 fee for each 750-ml bottle, which customers were forced to pick up at a PLCB store or warehouse; many customers are high-end restaurants and bottle shops that offer wine that consumers cant readily find in Pennsylvania. The 5-0 decision, published July 2, caps four years of litigation. The PLCB lost at every turn. Commonwealth Court ordered the PLCB to stop the fees in 2020. During one hearing in 2021, a judge asked a PLCB attorney: How do we get the government to stop violating the law? Commonwealth Court ruled against the PLCB in 2022. The PLCB appealed the Commonwealth Courts decision to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court rejected the PLCBs arguments that it was not a person under the law and as such could not be sued, and that the agency was covered by sovereign immunity and could not be forced to pay damages for not complying with the law. The case was sent back to Commonwealth Court, which must determine not only the procedure governing the return of the special-order fees but the total expenses incurred by bars, restaurants, bottle shops, and individuals who traveled to PLCB locations for pickups. The PLCB is likely to have to repay in the tens of millions of dollars, said John G. Papianou, a partner at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads in Philadelphia and the lead attorney in the case. We respect the Supreme Courts decision and interpretation of the applicable statutes, PLCB spokesperson Shawn Kelly said in a statement. However, because the Supreme Court has remanded the matter for further proceedings and the litigation remains ongoing, we will not be offering any further comment at this time. Using PLCB data, LancasterOnline.com calculated last week that the agency could be forced to return between $40 million and $80 million in collected fees, plus damages. Among the plaintiffs are MFW Wine Co., a wine brokerage in suburban Philadelphia, and Log Cabin, a restaurant in Leola, Lancaster County. The litigation began in 2020 after the pandemic briefly shuttered the state stores and heightened the demand for direct shipping. The restaurants were stuck, Papianou said. Thats when MFW reached out to me and said, They were supposed to implement a procedure for direct delivery, and never did. When Papianou sued to recover the handling fees, the PLCB filed a petition claiming sovereign immunity. Papianou said the PLCBs response was, in short: You might be right, but you cant sue us for money damages because were the king and you cant sue the king for money damages. And we said, No. You cant steal from people and keep the money that you stole, Papianou said. This was a grassroots effort on all of our parts to go up against this Goliath, said Malumed, a principal in MFW, who as a vendor does not stand to collect refunds. Although the high court was unequivocal in its decision, Malumed said he did not believe that the PLCB would issue refunds soon. Its just more of the same behavior, he said. They think that they are this big agency that can do no wrong. They would rather spend millions of dollars in fees for lawyers and litigation just to try and prove that they are correct. Keilyn Natareno, 8, was shot in the head on her way home from school in Philadelphia, where children make up an increasing proportion of shooting victims. Last month, surgeon general Vivek Murthy declared gun violence a national public health crisis. Read more Good morning. This week, were looking back at some of The Inquirers coverage on Philadelphias yearslong gun violence crisis after the nations top doctor issued a warning declaring gun violence a national public health crisis. Plus, tips from a size-inclusive physician, news on a local health system souring on private equity, and a deep dive into overdose deaths occurring inside Phillys jails. Got tips, questions, or suggestions? For a chance to be featured in this newsletter, email us back. Advertisement If someone forwarded you this newsletter, sign up here. Aubrey Whelan and Abraham Gutman, Inquirer health reporters, @abrahamgutman and @aubreywhelan. The Big Read: Gun violence and public health Gun violence is a public health crisis in America, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy declared this summer, showing the federal government considers the deaths and damage from firearms a significant health threat. This is the first time a surgeon general has done so. In the process, he validated a slew of physicians, medical schools, and professional societies who have spent decades studying firearm deaths through a public-health lens. Murthys advisory is devastating reading, noting the rising number of deaths nationwide between 2012 and 2022 and digging into disparities in the race and gender of victims. Black Americans are particularly at risk to die by homicide, while older white Americans and younger Native Americans and Alaska Natives face increased risk from suicide. Males are more likely to die from gunshots than females, except in cases of intimate partner violence. In highlighting the collective toll of gun violence on communities, the surgeon general gave our city a grim nod. He cited a study of CHOP patients from 2021 that found that in the month after a shooting took place, kids from the nearby blocks were 50% more likely to visit the ED for mental health concerns. Reporters at The Inquirer have covered gun violence in Philadelphia for years. Heres a roundup of stories, on and off the health desk, about this public health crisis: The latest news to pay attention to Inside city jails, people are overdosing and dying. Aubrey and investigative reporter Samantha Melamed found that city jails have seen at least 25 drug-related deaths in recent years, raising questions about the safety of Mayor Cherelle L. Parkers proposal to arrest more people for drug use. After contract negotiations between Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic and a private-equity radiology group soured, Trinity is now moving away from contracting with such firms starting with radiology. Whats a half-empty hospital to do with all that extra space? Our colleague Wendy Ruderman reports that some of the areas cash-strapped hospitals are renting whole floors to movie and TV productions. This weeks number: $200,000. Thats the average debt for MD graduates from Philly-area schools. We looked into the cost of medical school, and levels of debt for med students, after news broke Monday that former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is donating $1 billion to Johns Hopkins to pay for the tuition of most students. Its a newish trend: billionaires have made medical schools mostly free at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in NYC, NYU, and the Cleveland Clinic. So, how much would a gift like Bloombergs have saved Philadelphia medical school graduates? The answer depends on the school. Drexels MD graduates reported the highest average debt: $257,732. Those graduating from Penn have the lowest average debt at $142,177. And osteopathic schools, such as PCOM and Virtua-Rowan, graduate DOs with similar levels of debt. Read more to see how tuition rates compare. Each week, we highlight state inspections at the various hospitals in our region. Up this week: Center Citys Pennsylvania Hospital, which is affiliated with Penn Medicine. Inspectors found no problems during site visits between November 2023 and April 2024. Weight shaming is entrenched in much of the health-care system despite the fact that it can keep patients from forgoing care, writes Mara Gordon, an assistant professor of family medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. Gordon, a primary care physician, wrote about how she runs a size-inclusive practice to help offset that stigma: That means I dont pressure my patients into conversations about weight loss, and I dont bring up their weight unless its something they ask to talk about. Eric Mankin has stepped down as the president of Main Line HealthCare, the suburban health systems primary-care network. The family medicine physician started at Main Line in 2013 and will continue to practice in Newtown Square. His interim replacement is Donald Klingen, another family physician who is the systems chief medical information officer. Other recent moves at Main Line include the retirement of general counsel Brian Corbett; he will be succeeded by his deputy Della Payne. In addition, Leigh Ehrlich this winter replaced the systems retiring CFO, Mike Buongiorno. Were keeping our eyes on another tense health system-insurer contract negotiation, this time between Temple Health and Keystone First, the largest Medicaid plan in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Their contract expires July 31, and Temple Health posted an alert on its website that its doctors may no longer be in-network with Keystone as of Aug. 1 if the two health leaders cant make a deal. The sticking point seems to be the usual: how much the insurer will pay for health services. Keystone made news in May, when its contract negotiations with Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia dragged out and families began to panic. The two ultimately reached a new deal, with about a month to spare. Temples negotiations are also coming down to the wire, with just a few weeks left to broker a deal to keep its doctors in-network with Keystone. Well keep you posted on any developments. How has your hospital been affected by the gun violence crisis? For a chance to be featured in this newsletter, email us back. 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. 2023 Visit Atlantic City Airshow practice day. The USAF Thunderbirds fly tight. The complete show will be tomorrow August 16th. Tuesday, August 15, 2023. Read more ATLANTIC CITY The Atlantic City Air Show, a premiere summer event that drew hundreds of thousands to the Shore and was scheduled for Aug. 13 and 14, was canceled, officials announced Wednesday. In a joint statement from the Greater Atlantic City Chamber and the South Jersey Transportation Authority, officials said the cancellation was due to a major act withdrawing. Advertisement This decision was not made lightly, and we understand the disappointment it may cause, the statement said. We extend our heartfelt thanks and gratitude to all who have supported this event over the past number of years. Harry Hurley, a talk show host on WPG, reported that both the USAF Air Demonstration Squadron Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron of the United States Navy are no longer available for a midweek air show. They are both showstoppers and have earned a tremendous following, who travel to view them throughout the country, Hurley noted. The air show has been a tremendous midweek draw for Atlantic City and neighboring beach towns, with hundreds of thousands of people filling beaches to watch, and throwing parties along the Boardwalk. It has been held since 2003 and is known as Thunder over the Boardwalk. More than $70 million in economic activity is generated from the two-day event, the Press of Atlantic City reported, adding that Casino Reinvestment Development Authority officials have said the air show brings in $1.9 million in state and local taxes and $900,000 in luxury taxes. The air shows occurrence this year was previously in doubt because of funding issues that were later resolved. In a statement, Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. said, Were sorry to hear the news the airshow wont be happening this summer. The Small administration stepped up to do everything that needed to be done to save the airshow earlier this year, but in the end this is a situation beyond the citys control. George Norcross listens as his attorneys address reporters outside the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse in Trenton on Tuesday after he pleaded not guilty to state racketeering charges. Read more TRENTON A defiant George E. Norcross III pleaded not guilty to state racketeering charges Tuesday, as his lawyers hurled accusations at prosecutors, tussled with the media, and painted the New Jersey Democratic powerbroker as a victim of a legal jihad. Wake up! said Kevin Marino, attorney for Norcross brother and codefendant Philip, chiding a crowd of reporters outside the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse after a brief arraignment hearing. People have devoted their entire careers to the pursuit of George Norcross. Ask yourself whats really going on here: Am I being taken for a ride? Advertisement After admonishing a female reporter to listen, lady, Michael Critchley, George Norcross lawyer, denounced New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin as a politically ambitious prosecutor attempting to use the case his office filed last month as a prelude to a run for higher elected office. He introduced this jihad with a predetermined conclusion, Critchley said. He wants to do something that is not fair and not just. Amid that combative display, Norcross a Camden County insurance executive, board chair of Cooper University Health Care and, for more than a quarter century, the head of South Jerseys powerful Democratic machine stood silently by looking on from the courthouse steps, a tight grin fixed on his tanned face. He declined to answer reporters questions and left the courthouse afterward without saying a word. READ MORE: Who is George Norcross? A look at the indicted South Jersey power broker Tuesdays hearing and the lawyers aggressive response came three weeks after Platkin unveiled a sprawling 13-count racketeering indictment against Norcross, 68, and five allies, accusing them of conspiring to corruptly acquire real estate worth millions while muscling rivals out of the redevelopment of Camdens waterfront. Prosecutors say the group used Norcross influence over local governments to manipulate a 2013 New Jersey tax credit program designed to encourage development in poorer communities and then used it to line their own pockets. Marino on Tuesday described that allegation as a fiction of prosecutors imagination. And during the mornings largely procedural hearing, Critchley told Presiding Judge Peter Warshaw: My client emphatically states he is not guilty. Critchley later derided the indictment as long on baseless allegations and provocative quotes including a moment in 2016 in which Norcross allegedly threatened Philadelphia real estate developer Carl Dranoff but short on detailed descriptions of any actual wrongdoing. The defense attorney chalked up the tough talk attributed to Norcross in prosecutors charging documents as little more than the type of routine, hard-nosed negotiating that goes on in executive boardrooms every day. The indictment has a lot of words, a lot of pages, a lot of allegations, Critchley said. But one thing it does not have is elements of a crime. READ MORE: George Norcross power: Real or imagined? Prosecutors highlight his reputation for hardball. Platkins office did not immediately respond to requests for comment after Tuesdays hearing. But in court, Warshaw, the judge, described the case as substantial and appeared eager to bring it to trial expeditiously. As he negotiated with the attorneys over a schedule for the sharing of evidence, Norcross sat quietly at the defense table, repeatedly turning to flash a smile toward an array of TV news cameras in the jury box across the room. Also pleading not guilty Tuesday were four of Norcross codefendants: Philip Norcross, an attorney at the New Jersey law firm Parker McCay; lawyer William Tambussi, developer John J. ODonnell; and former Camden Mayor Dana L. Redd. A fifth codefendant trucking company executive Sidney Brown was not in court and will instead make his first appearance before the judge next month. READ MORE: Are you threatening me? Surprise recordings are at the heart of prosecutors case against George Norcross. Henry Klingeman, an attorney for Redd, described the accusations against his client as unjust and unjustified. Though prosecutors contend she allowed Norcrosss allies to exert undue influence over Camden city government, Klingeman insisted Tuesday that all Redd had done was faithfully serve its citizens as mayor. She looks forward to fighting these false allegations, he said in a statement, so she can reclaim her good name. Marino, meanwhile, maintained that lawyers Philip Norcross and Tambussi had done nothing more than aggressively represent the interests of their clients. In the indictment, prosecutors painted both men as George Norcross enforcers, using threats of litigation, their access to government officials, and the imprimatur of legal authority to help him achieve his goals. What Philip Norcross is accused of doing is behaving as a lawyer, Marino said. And every lawyer in this state should be alarmed that [he] and William Tambussi have been put in this indictment for doing what lawyers do every single day which is to zealously represent their clients within the bounds of the law. READ MORE: New Jersey politics is a blood sport and other key takeaways from prosecutors case against S. Jersey power broker George Norcross Norcross and all five codefendants are due back in court for their next hearing on the case on Sept. 10. Critchley, as he left the courthouse Tuesday, vowed that all of them would be vindicated in the end. Today was the first step, he said, in our journey to get where we know were going to get to and thats justice. New Pennsylvania license plates will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States. Read more Pennsylvania has decided to give our license plates a makeover, and surprise, surprise, its causing quite the kerfuffle. Youd think we were changing the state bird or something. Just kidding. They would never abandon the ruffed grouse. The new design, which prominently features the Liberty Bell, is oozing Philly pride. It features red lettering on an off-white background (instead of the current blue, yellow, and white), and commemorates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Advertisement As you might expect, the good folks in Pittsburgh and probably some other parts of our wonderfully diverse state are not exactly feeling the brotherly love. One of the most hilariously spot-on reactions from the depths of Reddit: I like this as much as I like the Phillies Friday night home uniforms. Ouch. My car, my choice, I dont want that Filthadelphia themed crap tainting my car. Its Bucn Prinny (@ItsBucnPrinny) July 9, 2024 Over on X, its a gold mine of opinions. One particularly salty user quipped, My car, my choice, I dont want that Filthadelphia themed crap tainting my car. Someone else hilariously suggested, Can we add Please get out of the left lane to all PA plates? Thank you, from NJ drivers. We can all get behind that, cant we? Can we add "Please get out of the left lane" to all PA plates? Thank you, from NJ drivers. philly2hoboken (@philly2hoboken) July 9, 2024 Of course, no discussion about the new license plate design would be complete without the obligatory Pittsburgh vs. Philly showdown. One Redditor captured the sentiment perfectly: Pittsburgh punching the air rn. If you think theyre being dramatic, another user doubled down: Yinzers not going to like the liberty bell on their license plate lmao. Another user on X, clearly a fan of the Steel City, said, DO IT YOU COWARD, with a picture of PA plate plastered with Pennsylvania: Home of the six-time Super Bowl ChampYinz. Because when in doubt, just bring up the Steelers. DO IT YOU COWARD. pic.twitter.com/qcl2TjnATm Andy Kwiatkowski (@jagoffbrewer) July 9, 2024 Theres a sprinkle of optimism in the mix. One X user cheered, FINALLY WE HAVE A GOOD LICENSE PLATE, while another asked the million-dollar question, Can you make sure the letters dont peel off like the current ones? Quality over aesthetics, right? And for those clinging to the past, theres a touch of nostalgia, with a user lamenting, How could we give up the Blue & Gold that unites Pennsylvanians and Keystone nickname symbolizing our connection to the US. Too much like these other states as well. Ok first draft. Back to the drawing board. Another classic: Cant beat this one, with a plate from the late 80s that dons the phrase: You Got a Friend in Pennsylvania. In the end, whether youre a fan of the Liberty Bell or youre lamenting the loss of the blue and yellow, one things for sure: This is the most Philly thing Pennsylvania could have done. And frankly, were here for it. Because if youre going to slap something on your car, it might as well have a bit of that unmistakable Philly flair. Sorry, Pittsburgh. Better luck next time. A 54-year-old man whose gravestone businesses have repeatedly run afoul of authorities has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of defrauding customers of more than $1.5 million, U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced Tuesday. Gregory J. Stefan Jr., of Upper Merion, was charged with seven counts of wire fraud and made his first court appearance Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jose R. Arteaga, Romero said. The grand jury indictment was filed late last month. Advertisement Prosecutors allege that Stefan, through his businesses 1834 LLC and Colonial Memorials, defrauded nearly 500 customers for more than $1.5 million for headstones that were never delivered, were late, or had other problems, Romero said. The indictment says Stefan demanded large up-front payments from his customers often 100% of the purchase price but routinely failed to fulfill the orders by the projected delivery date. In December, Stefan was charged in Delaware with felony theft in connection with a gravestone that was never delivered. He also was arrested and charged last year in Delaware County with 280 counts related to theft and deceptive business practices. The law office representing Stefan declined to comment Tuesday. In 2015, his father, Gregory Stefan Sr., was sued by the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals Office in 2015 as the sole operator of Lifestone by Stefan LLC and Stefan Memorials Inc. The businesses had been the subject of complaints dating back to at least 2010, according to the federal indictment. The 2015 civil case ended in a settlement and court order, but former Attorney General Josh Shapiro accused the elder Stefan of violating the terms of that agreement. That resulted in a judgment for more than $300,000 and an injunction that barred Stefan Sr. from owning, managing, or having any significant involvement in a business that provides or engraves headstones for consumers. As complaints persisted, the Attorney Generals Office sued again in 2021. In January 2023, the Attorney Generals Office announced that it had reached a settlement with Gregory J. Stefan Sr., Gregory J. Stefan Jr., and Gerard Stefan, who were described as the owners of 1843 LLC. The federal indictment says that 1843 LLC was formed in 2016 with a registered office in Upper Darby, and that the younger Stefan and his brother, identified by prosecutors only as G.S., each had 50% ownership. Gregory Stefan Jr. ran the day-to-day operations from 2016 until around March 2021, the indictment says. The business got its headstones from a third-party supplier in Hillsborough, N.J. According to the indictment, Stefan Jr. would sell headstones with an average markup over cost of 400%. In 2021, a Delaware County judge found the Stefan businesses to be in contempt of the original consent agreement. The federal indictment alleges that Stefan Jr. then orchestrated the incorporation of Colonial Memorials, a headstone business in Bridgewater, N.J. His wife was listed as the president, but Stefan Jr. ran the business from 2021 till around September 2023, the indictment says. The senior Stefan was in the headstone business since the 1970s and acquired other family-run headstone businesses over the years, the indictment says. Those other businesses continued to operate under their old names, but they were run by the Stefan family. President Joe Biden before the start of the first presidential debate last month. It felt at times during the debate like our nation had a barely functioning head of state, Jennifer Stefano writes. Read more First things first: No one should be celebrating Joe Bidens feebleness and apparent decline. That said, no one should have covered it up for this long, either. And yet, they did. Advertisement The White House, administration officials, the Democratic Party, and the presidents family are complicit in hiding the truth about Bidens difficulties. It defies logic to think those closest to the president were somehow shocked by his performance in last months debate. When Biden was taking on former President Donald Trump in the debate, it felt at times like the United States of America had a barely functioning head of state. What Bidens family and his administration have done in covering up the presidents frailty was duplicity with potentially global ramifications. Yet no one is asking the right questions here. The medias obsession with whether President Biden is fit to run for reelection ignores the fact he is not fit to serve at all now. Last weeks damage-control interview with ABCs George Stephanopoulos did nothing to change that truth. Of course, Stephanopoulos kept the focus on whether Biden could defeat Donald Trump not on what he is going to do if China invades Taiwan or if there is a terrorist attack on American soil. What if that happens after President Bidens 8 p.m. bedtime and hes tired again? What was really learned from the Stephanopoulos interview other than Biden is obstinate and still infirm? At least President Biden admitted during the interview that he wasnt in control. No, hes not. So who is? And why isnt the media more worried about who is currently running the country than whether the man supposed to be president can or cannot be elected in November? The legacy media has too often appeared to be comrades in arms with the Democratic machine willing to obfuscate the truth by covering up for our aging president and keeping the ever-radicalizing Democrats in power. This years reluctance to cover Bidens health is just a repeat of the medias refusal to truthfully cover the story behind Hunter Bidens laptop in 2020. That year, when former New York Post deputy politics editor the heroic Emma-Jo Morris broke the laptop from hell story, Twitter punished her employer. The pre-Elon Musk social media giant locked the Post out of its accounts for a week and barred users from sharing Morris story. The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, fell all over themselves to claim the stories around Joe Bidens sons laptop were all just a plot by the Kremlin Russian disinformation to throw the election to Trump. They all had to backpedal except Morris, of course. She said at the time, the medias willingness to lie about Hunter Biden was almost beyond parody, adding: The entire political establishment, intelligence community, media establishment, big tech, everyone just made up a story that I knew wasnt true. The same could be said of the media and political establishment today. Spare a thought for WURD radio host Andrea Lawful-Sanders who lost her job for telling the truth that the Biden administration tells the media what questions to ask the president and Lawful-Sanders agreed to use them. And, no, despite White House protestations, it is not common for a presidential campaign to give questions to reporters. If Donald Trumps campaign did that, it would be considered an affront to the First Amendment and the media would just pile on that it was another Trumpian assault on democracy. At least a few in the media are showing some shame. CNN ran a piece showing several White House reporters admitting they could have better covered Bidens mental fitness. But thats not possible; those White House reporters couldnt do a better job at something they failed to do at all. Now some unnamed White House reporters are telling CNN they struggled to cover questions about Bidens health because the White House and Democratic Party said any conjecture stemmed from Republican operatives trying to undermine the president. Sure. But these journalists could have challenged that and also reported what they were witnessing with their own eyes. Perhaps the media failed to do its job because they were too busy attacking members of the media who reported on Joe Bidens decline. Perhaps members of the media failed to do their job because they were too busy attacking their colleagues who reported on Joe Bidens decline. When the Wall Street Journal ran an in-depth piece on Joe Bidens mental acuity on June 4, they were attacked not just by the White House but by other media outlets. It shouldnt have taken the Wall Street Journal or any other media outlet until June to get aggressive about Bidens ability to serve. In February, special counsel Robert Hur released a 338-page report saying our president was a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Hur advised the Department of Justice not to pursue criminal charges against Biden because 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. America deserves better. It would help if the media did its job and started asking these tough questions thats why the Lord Almighty gave us a free press after all. Jonah Wamah, father of Joseph Wamah, who was one of five people killed in the Kingsessing mass shooting last July. Read more I had not seen my friend Jonah Wamah for years until I met him recently in Southwest Philadelphia. We hugged, sat down, and filled each other in about our lives. When it was his turn, he told me that last July, his son, Joseph, was one of the alleged victims of Kimbrady Carriker, who is facing charges of engaging in a killing spree in the Kingsessing section of Southwest Philadelphia that ended five lives. He was devastated; as he talked about what happened, he began to cry. I hugged him again. Sadly, I could relate to his story. Advertisement I told him that my nephew, Kafumba Kanneh, was murdered just weeks ago on May 9, also in Southwest Philadelphia, at 61st Street and Passyunk Avenue. That night, I happened to be driving toward the Passyunk Avenue bridge that connects with 61st Street when I saw a police barricade. I had no idea there was any gun violence in the area; I simply took another route to my destination in South Philadelphia. In the morning, I was shocked to learn that my nephew had been killed, right near where I had been driving. Like me, my friend Jonah immigrated to Philadelphia from Liberia. We met here through other members of the Liberian expat community, many of whom made Southwest Philadelphia their new home. I moved to the U.S. in 1995 and landed in the Bronx; I transferred to Philadelphia in 2000 as a member of the U.S. Navy. Like many other people in West Africa, we came to the U.S. after surviving years of war in our home country, looking for a refuge to escape such violence. Just since the fall, community organizers estimate 1,000 people from Mauritania, Guinea, Liberia, and other West African countries have come to Philadelphia seeking asylum, most settling in Southwest Philadelphia. For people born in West Africa, coming to the U.S. feels like a dream come true, a place to escape the armed factions at home, fighting for political and territorial control. The last thing on our minds was worrying about getting shot in the streets of our new home. But yet, that is whats happening. My nephew and Jonahs son are simply part of the annual statistics of gun violence in the city: another weekend, another murder. More than 130 people have been shot and killed in the city this year so far. And people here seem to shrug their shoulders, acting like death from gun violence is normal. Of course, as immigrants, life has not been easy. During the late 90s and early 2000s, there were many fights between young Liberian refugees and their peers, predominantly African Americans. We were both Black, but Liberians accents and different ways of living made us stand out. But thanks to interventions from both the African and African American communities in-school programs, after-school programs, and community events designed to reduce violence tensions eased. Those of us born in West Africa may still feel more allegiance to other West Africans than African Americans, and spend most of our time in our community, but we have learned to live alongside each other. Communal tensions between Africans and African Americans are largely a thing of the past. Our childrens lives have followed a different trajectory. Most of them were born here, have no accents, and dress and live just like their African American counterparts; they attend the same schools in the same neighborhoods. And they are now both parts of the negative statistics of gun violence. The shooting death of my nephew felt like a shock wave in our community, in Philadelphia and beyond. Friends and families from as far as Minnesota came to attend his funeral. His father came in from Liberia. Now, as a community, Im hearing more and more West Africans talking about what we can do to prevent our young people from falling victim to the never-ending gun violence. Saving our kids has to be part of the agenda of our various community organizations. As many of us are busy working to pay bills and take care of friends and families in Africa, our children are left to figure a lot on their own. Sometimes we dont engage them in meaningful conversation about their future their schooling, their careers, and how to be careful about who they are friends with. As parents, we are competing with our kids friends for their attention. If we are not engaging them positively, they may be having different conversations on the streets, which often results in the kind of gun violence we are witnessing today. Talking to our kids wont be enough to solve the gun violence crisis, but its a great start. In addition, the West African community should no longer keep silent on gun violence. We must approach it as individuals at home and through our community organizations, which should engage our kids in activities such as summer programs, so they understand they are part of a vibrant culture. As immigrants, we made the hard decision to come to this country to create a better future for our families who were not able to make the journey. Our children are that legacy. They are the future we are struggling to build. We must do everything we can to save them. Nvasekie Konneh is a writer and author of two books of poetry, Going to War for America and The Love of Liberty Brought Us Together, and The Land of My Fathers Birth, a memoir of the Liberian civil war. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Wednesday doubled down on her controversial decision to require all city workers to return to full-time in-person work, saying that the policy is needed to bolster Philadelphias downtown economy and that she viewed it as a matter of equity between employees who can perform their jobs from home and others, such as police officers and sanitation workers, who cannot. I made a decision that I stand by firmly, and that is in order to make good on [my] promise to [voters] that I needed Philadelphias municipal workforce to return to office to provide valuable supports and services to you, the taxpayers of the city of Philadelphia, Parker said at a City Hall news conference. I need us all right now to make a sacrifice for our city. Advertisement READ MORE: Union that represents Philly city workers sues over return-to-office mandate Her comments came a day before a Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge is set to consider a lawsuit seeking to block the policy from taking effect next week. The suit was filed by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 47, a union that represents the citys white-collar workers those most likely to be affected by the change. Robert Harris, the unions vice president, objected to Parkers rhetoric regarding city workers who can and cannot work from home. She chose to use the word equality to actually be very divisive to our members, Woods told reporters after Parkers news conference. What Im hearing from workers is that this is a very important benefit from them. Weve also heard a lot from them that they would seek employment elsewhere. Since the onset of the pandemic, each city department has determined which employees need to report for in-person work under a policy established by former Mayor Jim Kenney. Parker took office in January, and has signaled for months that she wants to end that policy. Although many private and public sector employees have cut back on the availability of work-from-home arrangements over the last two years, no major U.S. city has adopted a policy as categorical as Parkers, with all employees required to work in person five days a week. New York City Mayor Eric Adams attempted to enforce a similarly strict policy, but he abandoned it last year, allowing about 25% of city workers to telecommute two days a week. READ MORE: Other Northeast U.S. cities have brought municipal workers back to the office. Just not every day like Philly. Parker on Wednesday illustrated what she views as the dangers of the work-from-home economy by pointing to Washington, which saw its city government raise taxes and lay off workers this year amid a budget crisis that has been blamed on the hollowing out of downtown office buildings. She praised Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser as a dynamic mayor who Ive been watching and said Bowser deserves a huge hats off. Bowser, however, only requires city workers to report to the office four days a week. Parker noted Wednesday that about 80% of Phillys municipal workforce already works in-person full time. That includes many of the citys lowest-paid workers, including trash collectors, but it also includes the highest rung of city government, such as Parkers aides, top city bureaucrats, and department heads. AFSCME District Council 33, which represents the citys blue-collar workers, is not a party to DC 47s lawsuit and has a smaller share of its members who would be affected by the policy. But Greg Boulware, DC 33s newly elected president, said Wednesday that his union supports their AFSCME counterparts efforts. The dispute over the return-to-office policy comes as the two unions are in negotiations with Parkers administration over new contracts that will determine the pay rates and benefits for a vast majority of the city workforce. Their members are working on the terms of contracts that expired on July 1 as talks continue. Parker has asked the unions to agree to one-year contract extensions that largely maintain the terms of deals that were negotiated under Kenney. Boulware, who recently won his seat in a bitterly contested DC 33 election, campaigned in part on insisting on a traditional multiyear deal. Parker won last years mayoral election with significant support from organized labor, and said Wednesday that these disputes will not shake her commitment to being a worker-friendly mayor. We want to grow our municipal workforce. We need to strengthen it, she said. It is an economic driver. The owners of this Point Breeze rowhouse used a federal 203(k) rehabilitation loan through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to pay for both the home purchase and renovations, which are almost complete. Read more The federal government is updating a program that helps homebuyers purchase and renovate properties using a single mortgage in an effort to get more people to use a loan it considers key to preserving the countrys housing stock. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is allowing homeowners more time and financing to make it easier for them to use federal 203(k) rehabilitation loans to buy fixer-uppers or refinance and repair their homes, department officials announced Tuesday at a news conference in Point Breeze. Advertisement The department also is increasing how much 203(k) consultants, who guide homeowners through the program, can be paid, which HUD hopes will grow their shrunken ranks. The 203(k) program used to be a powerful tool to help homebuyers achieve affordable homeownership by buying that fixer-upper. And that of course supports neighborhood stability and revitalization, Julia Gordon, the assistant secretary for housing and federal housing commissioner at HUD, said Tuesday. But, unfortunately, the program didnt keep up with changing market conditions. And it kind of fell into disuse. READ MORE: Buying a fixer-upper? Heres one way to help pay for your home and renovations, too. These loans make up a small fraction of mortgages, but the department hopes increasing usage of them can help chip away at the nationwide shortage of properties that homeowners can afford. Point Breeze residents Kasam Simmons, 34, and his fiancee, Ikea Foster, 37, bought and are now renovating their first home using a 203(k) loan. When they started looking at homes to buy, they found that a lot of them were fixer-uppers. So they decided to purchase and renovate the rowhouse they already rented, which has been in Fosters family for 100 years. Work is almost complete on the renovations, which include modernizing the home; reconfiguring rooms; and installing new plumbing, electrical, heating, and cooling systems everything that the new construction homes have in this same neighborhood, Simmons said. I never imagined that we would be able to have this home and have it change into the home that we wanted, he said. He said that as a young Black man, he wanted to let people who look like him know that all of us can do this. At Tuesdays news conference, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said that in 2003, she used a 203(k) loan that made it possible for her to purchase and renovate a home so she could stay in the neighborhood where she grew up. She said she was proud that HUD chose Philadelphia for the announcement of the rebirth of the program, which she said plays a role in her goal to build or repair 30,000 homes in four years. New 203(k) rehab loan policies Last year, HUD collected feedback from lenders and consumers as part of its efforts to update the 203(k) program. Starting Tuesday, the version of the program meant for more minor remodeling and nonstructural repairs will allow homeowners to borrow more money. Maximum financing for total rehabilitation costs is increasing from $35,000 to $75,000. HUD plans to review this limit annually and adjust it as needed. HUD also is giving homeowners more time to complete renovations and repairs. The 203(k) programs success depends on the availability of quality contractors, and homeowners can have trouble finding companies that can complete the work within the programs time frame. Before Tuesdays policy changes, HUD used to require homeowners to complete work within six months. Now, owners with more minor work to be done will have nine months to complete it. And owners whose homes need more substantial work will have 12 months. Finding contractors is a task that 203(k) consultants can help with. These consultants advise homeowners throughout the renovation process, starting with a report that lays out the work that needs to be done and estimated costs. The consultants, who report to loan officers, also can review contractors work and release funds periodically if the homeowner is satisfied. Homeowners are required to use these consultants when doing substantial renovations and can choose to use them for more minor work. The trade group for these advisers, the National Association of FHA Consultants, had been lobbying for years for raises for 203(k) consultants to incentivize people to join and stay in the profession. HUDs announcement Tuesday included increases in the fees consultants can charge homeowners. Allowable fees hadnt been updated in decades. Catherine Hall, executive director of the National Association of FHA Consultants, said in an interview that this change is going to put more people in this industry, and its so needed. Because 203(k) consultants are required for substantial renovations, a lack of enough qualified consultants has stymied the program. Hall said she is concerned that HUDs increase in the allowable loan amount for work considered more minor would put homeowners at risk, since they no longer need to work with 203(k) consultants for most projects up to $75,000. That opens up a lot of opportunity for fraud and for poor workmanship and for the borrowers to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous contractors and individuals unaware of what it takes to do repairs, she said. It just increases the need for education. Hall said her association plans to continue teaching lenders, real estate professionals, and consumers about the value of consultants. She also worries that allowing more time for repairs will mean contractors will drag their feet. Despite Halls mixed feelings about some of HUDs changes to the 203(k) program, she said, its a wonderful program that helps people get loans to get homes that might otherwise never get owned and repair homes and help disenfranchised people who might not otherwise be able to afford to buy a home. ANZIIF, which recently bolstered its Southeast Asia ties through partnerships and webinars, thanked the judges for their dedication in reviewing this years entries and acknowledged the continued support from sponsors. As the firms new chief client & distribution officer for the Americas, OMalley will be overseeing the firms US zonal teams, Canada and Bermuda country distribution, client engagement, broker engagement, and marketing activities in the region. He will also be fostering long-term partnerships by working with clients and distribution partners. Estevez brings over 12 years of experience within the MAPFRE group of companies and has extensive knowledge of the Asian-Pacific insurance market. He started his career at MAPFRE Asistencias MAPFRE Warranty Japan in 2012, where he served as finance and strategic planning manager for the APAC region based in Tokyo. Currently, Kuczinski provides strategic and leadership advisory services to senior executives in the insurance industry through LST Risk Concepts, LLC, a firm he founded. He also serves as lead independent director of Skyward Specialty Insurance Group and is on the board of Ryan Specialty, a US property and casualty insurance wholesale broker. Back in June when the six were charged, Platkin declared: When we say no-one is above the law, we mean it and we will continue to hold accountable anyone who puts their interest above the public interest, no matter how powerful they may be. A chartered accountant who trained at PwC in London, Wilkinson will be making the switch from global law firm DLA Piper. She has held the CFO position there since 2021. Wilkinsons career also includes more than a decade at AXA, where she served in senior leadership posts such as AXA Health and Bluefin Insurance CFO and mergers & acquisitions head for AXA UK & Ireland. Knowing what they need during a transaction, and during the life of the investment, is everything, he said. Ensuring the sponsor is not just engaging a broker to check the box of diligence, but also pushing their broker to drive value, when the opportunity to reduce premium expense and/or create process efficiencies, is critical. Readers are invited to nominate an industry veteran who has paved the way for thousands of other professionals to succeed. To be considered, nominees must have at least 35 years of experience in the industry. As part of this growth, King Insurance Partners has also welcomed Pete Gilbertson (pictured above) as the new president. Gilbertson brings a 35-year career in the insurance brokerage industry. He previously served as executive vice president at USI, overseeing California operations across 10 offices with 450 employees. Our new primary products liability offering is an essential, customizable coverage that can help support life sciences companies efforts to innovate and enhance quality of life for people. This solution is backed by Zurichs financial strength, ability to grow with these companies, and our global footprint, which is key for many of these companies with operations overseas. At the same time it is settling a New York class action about underpaying totaled loss claims for $48 million, Progressive Insurance, in a separate case, has agreed to an $18.3 million settlement over allegations that its carriers failed to pay claimants the state sales tax on the actual cash value when their vehicles were totaled. The sales tax class action alleges that Progressive insurers violated auto insurance policies and New York law when, under a policy provision requiring they pay the actual cash value of the total loss vehicle, they failed to include an amount representing sales tax. Under the $18.3 million settlement, the claimants will be able file to receive approximately 77.5%, or more, of the unpaid combined sales state and local sales taxes of 8%. Some drivers say they are owed the full sales tax amount, while other say they are owed a partial amount. Lawyers for the class, estimated to include 31,002 members, has asked Judge Vincent L. Briccetti, U.S. District Court Judge to approve the agreement, the terms of which the drivers lawyers describe as fair, reasonable, and adequate to the class members. Progressive to Pay $48M to New York Drivers Over Underpaid Total Loss Claims The judge gave preliminary approval to the settlement in March. A hearing on approval has been set for August 6. The settlement resolves the class action claims against Progressive companies including Progressive Advanced, Progressive Casualty, Progressive Specialty and Progressive Max. The settlement class consists of all individuals with personal automobile insurance policies issued in New York who made a claim for comprehensive and collision coverage under their policy that was adjusted as a total loss, settled by Progressive on an ACV basis, and who Progressive paid no New York sales tax, or who received some amount of sales tax, but less than 8% of the ACV, at any time between September 10, 2014, and the date of preliminary approval of the settlement, which was March 27, 2024. In the $48 million total loss claim case, the plaintiffs allege that the third party software used by Progressive Mitchell International, Inc.s WorkCenter Total Loss applies an improper adjustment called the projected sold adjustment (PSA) in settling total-loss claims. The plaintiffs claim that the PSA results in a 6.5% underpayment. The settlement covers New York drivers who have filed claims since July 28, 2015. U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield has set a hearing for August 14 in the $48 million case. Progressive denies any wrongdoing and says it followed all insurance policies and state laws. Another major auto insurer, GEICO, is in the process of settling a case in federal court New Jersey for $1.9 million over its alleged failure to pay total loss claimants required transfer fees. The state of New Jersey imposes a number of regulatory fees associated with the titling or registration of a vehicle. The title transfer fee is $60.00 and the registration transfer fee is $4.50. Topics Profit Loss New York Claims Keri-Jon Wilson started as a hobbyist, making medical marijuana edibles on a small scale for patients suffering from chronic pain and cancer. But in 2015 she expanded her business, Portland-based Pot + Pan Manufacturing, and began to standardize her products. Eventually youve got to kind of grow up and decide if you want to grow the business, and add those additional steps and processes and best practice that comes with growth, she said. Despite no requirement in Maine to test medical cannabis for content or potency, Wilson has tested all of her batches since 2021. The medical cannabis program in Maine is governed by separate regulations from the adult use, or recreational, program: While the adult use program requires testing for contaminants and potency, and includes potency limits, the medical use program requires neither. Public health advocates and state officials want to see testing requirements aligned across both programs, but efforts to mandate testing have been met with strong pushback from the industry. State Report Last fall, the states Office of Cannabis Policy released a report pushing for required testing in the medical cannabis program, but lawmakers instead pursued broad legislation intended to reduce stigma around the cannabis industry that largely loosened restrictions in both the adult use and medical programs. The resulting legislation, which takes effect this month, aims to make regulations around cannabis closer to those around alcohol by eliminating ID checks at the door, allowing minors to go into stores with a parent or guardian and allowing samples. Wilson says its worth the additional cost to ensure the safety and quality of her product, as well as to check her processes and ensure consistency. One time, lab results showed that an edible had five times the amount of THC it was supposed to have, 50 mg instead of 10. What could have been a large discrepancy in dose was caught before it left the building and never made it to the shelves, she said. While shes grateful there are strong lobbying groups on behalf of the medical cannabis industry, and she noted that many operations are transparent and safe, Wilson said it is alarming that there is such limited oversight for a medical product. When she tells counterparts in other states that there are no testing requirements in Maine, their jaws drop. The reality is in the absence of those checks and balances, you really are just taking peoples words (for it) and thats where it gets a little muddy, she said. Consumer Laws Matt Wellington, associate director of the Maine Public Health Association, said he thinks the way to reduce stigma around cannabis use is to impose consumer protection regulations that ensure Mainers know they have accurate information about the products. Lawmakers have to see that the way forward for cannabis in Maine is to make sure that folks can have confidence in the products that theyre using, that the products are deemed safe, (and to) strengthen the oversight of the medical program, and make sure that we have common sense protections like testing and potency limits, Wellington said. Catherine Lewis, whos on the board of the Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine a nonprofit advocacy group that represents medical cannabis patients, growers and manufacturers pushed back on the idea that caregivers are refusing to be regulated. The term caregiver in this context refers to those who can cultivate, manufacture and sell medical cannabis to qualifying patients, other caregivers and dispensaries. Lewis, herself a caregiver, said she would support mandatory testing but only under certain conditions. She has concerns about the consistency and accuracy of lab testing, and worries the expense of testing could push small-batch caregivers out of business. Lewis wants the state to set more explicit testing standards for private labs to ensure their processes are the same, and she doesnt think the medical program should be subject to as rigorous testing as the adult use program due to the smaller size of their operations. The state has refused to meet us in the middle with the testing requirements so weve had to fight to kill it completely, she said. If we allow them to put the laws in place the way they have for adult use, the medical industry and smaller producers would crumble, and patients would lose access to their medicine. Regulatory Debate The medical cannabis program in Maine evolved before the adult use program and has separate regulations. When the medical use program was started in 1999, there were fewer businesses and they were small operations. After Maine voters approved recreational marijuana use in 2016, there was an extensive public process to establish regulations and protections, which were adopted in 2019. The state requires that recreational marijuana products be tested in their final form before they are sold to check for mold, toxins and other harmful chemicals. The products are also checked for THC potency and homogeneity; the potency limit for edible cannabis is 10 mg per serving. The field of medical cannabis has no testing requirements nor potency limits. Linda Frazier, who was involved in the regulatory process for the adult use program in 2019 as a public health consultant, said the intention was to establish a regulatory framework for the recreational program, then to update the medical use program to align with the new framework. But the medical cannabis industry pushed back, Frazier said, voicing concern about changing the regulations too much and too fast, and worried about the financial impact on businesses. Right now the loudest people in the room the committee is listening to and the legislature hears from are medical providers, Frazier said. Theyve become very organized and their message has been very clear that to implement more restrictive marketing and testing has a fiscal impact on them that they feel is unnecessary and unfair. Theyve been very successful with that messaging. Lewis, with the caregiver group, said it would not make sense to require the same level of testing for the medical cannabis program as the adult use program because the medical caregivers often are home-based programs and make small batches, so extensive testing requirements would significantly cut into their profit margin. Instead, she said manufacturers should be required to test the oil before making a product, then spot-check final products and ensure the dose calculations were correct. She suggested that any product that has not been tested could be labeled not tested. Testing Requirements John Hudak, director of the Office of Cannabis Policy, said one of the first things he noticed when taking over in 2022 was the medical program lacked a testing requirement, despite hearing from patients assuming there was one. We kept hearing from the medical cannabis industry to essentially just trust them that everything was clean. We decided to test that question and provide as much information as we could to medical patients, Hudak said. Last fall his office tested 120 samples from medical cannabis sellers across the state and found 42 percent had at least one contaminant that would have prohibited them from being sold on the recreational market, including pesticides, heavy metals, yeast and mold. The most common pesticide detected, myclobutanil, releases cyanide gas upon combustion and causes a range of mild to severe effects when inhaled, according to the report. Lewis, with the medical cannabis industry group, said she had concerns about the sample size of the report and wondered what precipitated the test when she had heard few stories about patients getting sick from the products. Hudak said he has not conducted a similar study on the potency of medical cannabis, but his agency has tested products on a case-by-case basis when consumers raised concerns. In a recent example, he said an edible that was supposed to be 10 mg tested at 120 mg. Overconsumption is rarely fatal, but can include nausea, vomiting, intense fatigue and even hospitalization, Hudak said. Other States Testing is required for medical programs in most other states, he said, calling it the national standard. A 2022 study from Safe Access, a medical cannabis patient advocacy organization, found that of the 35 states with medical cannabis programs, Maine was one of the two without required testing. The other was Louisiana. Hudak said he believes the opposition in Maine is a small but vocal minority that has been able to stave off previous attempts at regulations. Rather than piecemeal changes to the medical program, Hudak said a massive overhaul is needed. The program is wildly outdated, he said, and a testing requirement would be a good place to start. In response to concerns about the cost of testing, Hudak said the price of recreational marijuana has decreased despite the rollout of mandatory testing requirements. An OCP dashboard shows the average price per gram of bud/flower decreased from $15.83 to $7.30 between 2020 and 2024. If producing uncontaminated cannabis that is demonstrated to be uncontaminated is too expensive, you probably shouldnt be producing medicine for patients, he said. Absolutely, Lewis said in response when The Monitor shared his comment. But who is to say its contaminated? She said shes sent portions of the same sample to different labs; it passed one lab and failed another. Without set standards from the state, she worries about the consistency of the lab results. Hudaks office studied this question by examining nearly 8,000 potency test results for cannabis flower at three certified labs over a two-year period and found the variation in potency is explained by the cultivator and not the cannabis testing facility. Safety Monitoring Barry Chaffin, co-founder of Nova Analytic Labs in Portland, said he has many medical caregiver clients who voluntarily test their products to monitor safety and quality. In the last year, Chaffin said he has tested about 80 recreational and 190 medical accounts. In the recreational industry, a producer must select a sample from each batch and get it tested before selling it, Chaffin said. If the batch fails, it sometimes can be remediated. For example, if cannabis flower failed for microbials, there might be a way to kill the microbes. Other contaminants, like heavy metals, cant be remediated and the client would have to destroy any batch where they are found, Chaffin said. Theres no potency limit for recreational cannabis flower, so if it tests at a higher potency than expected, the product would simply be labeled at the higher dose. There is a potency limit for edibles, so if those exceeded the limit, they would need to be remade or destroyed, he said. Chaffin said there should be a regulatory framework for testing in the medical cannabis program, but like others noted that the pushback from industry groups has been strong. There are a lot of politics at play when it comes to any kind of regulatory framework on the medical program, he said. Theres some very strong feelings on having it regulated and theres very strong feelings against having it regulated. Lewis said the medical and adult use industries worked well together during the past legislative session, but they dont want to see the programs merged because they serve different populations. They are overregulating adult use and under-regulating medical, she said. It would be nice to see it meet somewhere in the middle. This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Cannabis Maine Inmates at New York Citys Rikers Island are suing the city claiming they were trapped in their cells during a jailhouse fire that injured 20 people last year. The lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Manhattan said the 15 men were among those kept locked in their rooms by corrections officers as a fire burned through a housing unit for people with acute medical conditions requiring infirmary care or Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant housing. It claims the men choked on toxic black smoke, some vomiting, some losing consciousness, all gasping for air while corrections department staffers fled to safety. The idea that detainees who have not been convicted of any crime can be locked inside of a burning building and left to suffer and die is to most Americans, a barbaric notion reserved for movies and television shows depicting the cruelties and brutality of the past, the lawsuit reads. Spokespeople for the city corrections department and health and hospitals department declined to comment, referring instead to the citys law department, which said it is reviewing the suit and will respond in the litigation. The April 6, 2023, blaze, which injured 15 jail staffers and five inmates, was set by a 30-year-old inmate with a history for starting jailhouse fires. Officials said he used batteries, headphone wires and a remote control to start the conflagration in his cell, before adding tissues and clothing to fuel the flames. Joshua Lax, a lawyer representing the 15 men, said the lawsuit centers on the corrections departments policy of keeping detainees at Rikers Island locked in their cells instead of evacuating them during fires that happen hundreds of times a year. This practice forces them to inhale smoke produced by structural fires containing various toxins, poisons, and particulate matter, all of which can produce life threatening conditions, he said in an email. The practice violates the U.S. Constitution, local and state fire regulations, medical standards of care, and of course, human decency. The lawsuit follows a report released in December by an independent oversight agency that found a range of deficiencies in the jails response to the fire. The city Board of Correction said inmates were locked in their cells for nearly half an hour and fire suppression systems and equipment did not work in the affected unit of the jail, which faces a possible federal takeover as well as a long-gestating city plan to close the complex outright. The board recommended corrections officers immediately open cell doors and escort inmates to safety if theyre locked in a cell when a fire starts. It also recommended the department conduct regular sprinkler system checks, among other measures. As the fire burned, Lax said clouds of black smoke travelled through the buildings air systems and vents, saturating other housing units with toxic air. After it was knocked down, corrections officials either delayed or didnt perform the required medical checks on those potentially affected by prolonged smoke exposure, he added. Soot and smoke residue also wasnt properly removed throughout the building, further exposing detainees to dangerous chemicals and particulate matter and leading some to develop significant respiratory, pulmonary, and heart problems, Lax said. What we learned is that despite hundreds of fires a year, sometimes in a single facility, DOC has done nothing to figure on why they have a crisis of fires, and how to end it, he said, referring to the city Department of Corrections. Worse, knowing they have this crisis, DOC has no plans or training on how to evacuate detainees during a a fire or smoke condition in any of the DOC facilities. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) An assistant fire chief in central Missouri died early Monday when the boat he was in capsized during a water rescue in a flash flood. The Boone County Fire Protection District said Matthew Tobben and another firefighter had just rescued two people from flooded Bear Creek in Columbia when the boat overturned. The other firefighter and the two rescued people were OK after being pulled from the water, but Tobben drowned, the district said in a Facebook posting. Heavy rain led to several water rescues in the Columbia area. Rivers and creeks were already high after a rainy early summer. More rain is expected through Tuesday as the remnant of Tropical Storm Beryl makes it into Missouri. Fire officials said the boat Tobben was in lost power, but it wasnt immediately clear why it capsized. Tobbens death was the second blamed on flash flooding in Boone County in about a week. A woman died Wednesday when the car she was in became trapped in floodwater. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Missouri Leading carriers and managing general agents (MGAs) are increasingly seeking to assess their premium income via audits to ensure exposures are reported accurately, while tackling potential premium leakage and addressing possible non-compliance with state regulatory and rating bureau guidelines. How can the industry effectively navigate this regulatory minefield? Ensuring Accurate Exposure Reporting Accurate reporting of exposures is the cornerstone of premium audits, which are conducted in order to determine the exposure basis for an insurance policy such as payroll, sales, or vehicle count at the end of a policy period in order make a final calculation of premium and premium taxes, according to a definition from the International Risk Management Institute. The Rating Bureau requires yearly audits, and while some carriers may waive them, the threshold for estimated or waived audits is low in the industry. Agents also stand to gain from accurate reporting, as their commissions are often adjusted based on the revised exposures calculated during the audit. The audits ensure that the right premiums are charged, reflecting the actual risk insured. This accuracy benefits not only the insurers but also the policyholders and their agents. For the policyholders, paying the correct premium means they are not overcharged and can potentially benefit from downstream cost savings through appropriate experience modification adjustments. Agents also stand to gain from accurate reporting, as their commissions are often adjusted based on the revised exposures calculated during the audit. Moreover, accurate exposure reporting informs the future rate-making process of states and helps carriers apply appropriate loss cost modifiers. This, in turn, affects the earned premium, influencing loss ratios and combined ratios, which are vital for larger enterprise-wide decision-making. The importance of accurate exposure reporting is underscored by data from the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), which shows that incorrect classifications and underreported payrolls can lead to significant discrepancies in premium calculations. A study by the Century Foundation found that worker misclassification has a direct impact on higher workers compensation insurance premiums, stating: As misclassification is fundamentally a process to evade required taxes and insurance, it is revealing that the three Northeast states (Vermont, Connecticut, and New Jersey) with the highest estimated rates of misclassification are also in the top five in the country in terms of the cost of workers compensation insurance premiums. Tackling Potential Premium Leakage Premium leakage remains a significant challenge in the insurance industry. It often occurs due to misclassification of workers, underreporting of payroll, and the use of uninsured subcontractors. A common issue is the misclassification of subcontractors and independent contractors, particularly in states with stringent classification tests like Californias ABC test, which is used to determine whether a person is an employee or an independent contractor. Ensuring subcontractors have proper workers compensation coverage and validating their levels of independence is crucial. Another area of concern is the interchange of labor, where employees are classified incorrectly according to state manual rules. Detailed interviews with business owners and officers to understand their duties and levels of management can help apply the correct classification codes. Accurate documentation of job duties and the defense of all classifications is essential. Additionally, understanding temporary staffing and labor broker agreements is crucial for assigning appropriate classifications. Data from the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud indicates that workers compensation premium fraud costs insurers an estimated $25 billion annually. Addressing premium leakage through thorough audits can significantly reduce this financial burden. For example, substantial financial gains are achievable through productive audit practices, which can help transform a negative return premium where a carrier is at risk of missing critical information at the time of audit (hidden exposure, subcontractors etc.), which in turn decreases the premium amount. This could have adverse effects on expense and loss ratios, thus having a direct impact on combined ratios and overall profitability. Addressing Non-Compliance Issues Non-compliance with state and regulatory bureau guidelines is a pervasive issue that can lead to severe penalties and financial losses for insurers. Proactive measures are essential to address non-compliance, starting with educating policyholders throughout the lifecycle of the policy. Premium audits often serve as one of the few touchpoints with customers, making it crucial to communicate the benefits of compliance clearly. This is a time where the customer works directly with the carrier auditor or third-party audit firm. They will receive electronic or physical mail requests for information, requests to upload material to portals and fill out worksheets etc. Therefore, it is important that the carrier thinks of the process through a lens of customer experience and success as it could be the only time they are talking with a customer through the life of the policy. While non-compliance surcharges and potential non-renewal or cancellation are traditional tactics, focusing on the customers experience and showcasing the benefits of compliance can be more effective. Customer journey mapping can identify critical touchpoints, ensuring that the premium audit process enhances rather than detracts from the customer relationship. Engaging with state bureaus and industry associations such as the National Society of Insurance Premium Auditors (NSIPA) can provide valuable insights into best practices and regulatory updates. Being part of these networks helps insurers stay ahead of potential compliance issues and adopt industry-leading practices. A proactive approach to compliance can also involve leveraging technology. Remote and AI-powered auditing solutions are becoming more prevalent, offering increased accuracy and efficiency. These tools can analyze large datasets to detect patterns and anomalies, providing a robust defense against non-compliance and fraud. Ensuring Best Practice The role of premium audits in the U.S. insurance industry is more critical than ever a yearly audit is recommended and a substantial requirement at the rating bureau level. Ensuring accurate exposure reporting, tackling premium leakage, and addressing non-compliance are fundamental to maintaining financial stability and fostering trust with policyholders. By adopting thorough and proactive audit practices, insurers can mitigate risks, enhance accuracy, and ultimately drive better financial outcomes. However, the path forward requires decisive action. Insurers must be proactive in implementing rigorous premium audits and maintaining stringent checks and balances to prevent non-compliance and financial losses. This proactive stance involves investing in advanced auditing technologies, engaging in continuous education for policyholders and agents, and fostering strong relationships with regulatory bodies and industry associations. The stakes are high: inaccurate reporting, unchecked premium leakage, and non-compliance can lead to significant financial and regulatory repercussions. Conversely, a robust premium audit framework can not only protect against these risks but also unlock substantial financial gains, as evidenced by operational transformations seen by Pro Global that yielded up to 18% additional premium on productive audits. Insurers can set higher standards for their premium audits by adopting the following practices: Investing in technology: Leveraging AI-powered auditing solutions to enhance accuracy and efficiency. Educating stakeholders: Providing ongoing education to policyholders and agents about the benefits of accurate reporting and compliance. Engaging with regulators: Building strong relationships with state bureaus and industry associations to stay ahead of regulatory changes and best practices. Implementing rigorous checks: Establishing comprehensive audit processes to detect and prevent premium leakage and non-compliance. The time to act is now. By prioritizing these measures, insurers can safeguard their financial health, improve customer satisfaction, and strengthen the integrity of the insurance industry. The commitment to proactive premium audits and stringent checks and balances will not only prevent financial loss but also ensure a more resilient and trustworthy insurance ecosystem. Topics Carriers Legislation Federal prosecutors want former Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine to serve 44 months in prison and pay $700,000 in restitution after his guilty plea to health care fraud conspiracy. But Oxendine is urging the judge to reduce the penalty. Mr. Oxendine is not able to pay a $700,000 fine, and to require as much would constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eight Amendment to the United States Constitution, Oxendines attorneys, Drew Findling and Marissa Goldberg, wrote in a sentencing memorandum to the judge last week. The prosecutors sentencing recommendations are factually and legally incorrect, resulting in a longer sentence than federal guidelines provide, the lawyers said. Oxendine, who served as insurance commissioner from 1995 to 2011, pleaded guilty in March to the fraud and money laundering charges. He had been indicted in 2022 in connection with a 2015 scheme with a physician to order hundreds of unnecessary lab tests and defraud health insurance companies. His lawyers 92-page memo asked the court to consider Oxendines track record as insurance commissioner: He revamped the state arson unit, placed units around the state and created a division to educate school kids about fire safety. He also set up claims-assistance centers after tornadoes ripped through part of the Atlanta area one year, and oversaw efforts to lower insurance rates, the memo notes. The filing also includes character-reference letters from dozens of people, including current and former insurance executives, former insurance commissioners in Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Tennessee; a former Congressman, a fire chief and former state fire marshal, a minister, attorneys, doctors and other health care providers, business people, an architect, friends, neighbors, relatives, a retired professor and others. It is my belief that John can become, as in the past, a most positive member of society and make valuable contributions to the state of Georgia, wrote former Tennessee Insurance Commissioner Douglas Sizemore. I think he has much to contribute to the insurance industry, especially in the area of state regulation. Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, recently elected president of the National Rifle Association, also weighed in, noting that he had always found Oxendine to be personable, professional and considerate. Topics Legislation RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) In a legal fight involving two health insurance companies seeking to manage North Carolinas public employee benefits plan, a judge ruled Monday that the plans board acted properly when it switched to Aetna and dropped longtime administrator Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. Contract costs with health care claims included exceed $3 billion annually. Blue Cross has administered the State Health Plan for over 40 years. The administrator handles health care expenses for several hundred thousand state employees, teachers, their family members and retirees, ensuring claims are paid and building out a provider network. After a bid process, the plans trustee board voted in December 2022 to award the initial three-year contract to Aetna over Blue Cross and a unit of United Healthcare, which also competed. Blue Cross challenged the decision, arguing that the State Health Plan erred in how it decided which company would get the contract and calling the bid process oversimplified and arbitrary. But Administrative Law Judge Melissa Owens Lassiter, who heard the contested case in February, wrote Monday that Blue Cross had not met the burden of proof necessary to show that plan leaders had acted erroneously or failed to follow proper procedures. The preponderance of the evidence showed that the Plan conducted the procurement carefully and thoughtfully, fairly and in good faith, and that its decisions were properly within its discretion, Lassiter wrote in affirming the trustee boards decision to give the award to Aetna. Its unclear if the ruling will be appealed to Superior Court. Blue Cross said it was disappointed in the ruling but gratified that the court reviewed the serious questions we raised about the State Health Plans proposal request process. Blue Cross NC is honored to serve our teachers, public safety officers and state employees and will continue to provide the highest level of service throughout the current contract, the company said in a written statement. State Treasurer Dale Folwell, the trustee board chairman, praised the ruling, saying it had been clear that the State Health Plan performed a well-reasoned, high-integrity, and correct procurement process for third-party administrative services. Aetna North Carolina market president Jim Bostian said several hundred of its employees so far have worked on implementing the contract on time while demonstrating in court that the transition to Aetna is in the best interests of the State Health Plan and its members. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Legislation North Carolina July 10, 2024 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Since Nvidia exploded in the stock market, AI stocks have been in huge demand. The AI industry is one of the world's fastest-growing and most profitable industries in 2024. With the second half of the year underway, investors can position themselves for massive gains by investing in highly promising AI stocks. This year, the AI industry has been one of the most profitable industries in the world, causing high demand for AI stocks. Micron Technology specializes in producing computer memory and computer data storage. Its products are integral to the growth of the AI industry. Crowdstrike is a cybersecurity company. Its advanced cloud platform uses AI to secure endpoints, cloud workloads, identities and data from breaches. With the demand for AI stocks at an all-time high, investors are caught in a race to find and invest in the best AI stocks before the hype dies down. Luckily, many AI companies are cash-flow positive, generate massive revenue, and have been highly profitable this year. As we head into the second half of the year, Joel Lim, a financial analyst at Tradequotex.com, has identified two highly promising AI stocks that investors should watch out for. Micron Technology Micron Technology is an American technology company based in Boise, Idaho. It specializes in producing computer memory and data storage devices, such as dynamic random access memory, flash drives, flash memory and USBs. Data and data storage devices are integral to AI growth and sustainability, making companies like Micron Technology that produce these devices very important. With more and more companies abandoning physical infrastructure in favour of digital infrastructure, Micron technology is in a great position to profit. Hundreds of data centres are coming online each year, all of which need the storage devices that Micron Technology produces. Furthermore, the demand for AI will exceed just businesses and become necessary for individual use. In this case, there will be a demand for AI-compatible mobile devices and personal computers, all of which will require more memory and data storage devices, to the direct benefit of Micron Technology. Already, Micron Technology is performing impressively on the financial front. According to its latest quarterly report, the company's revenue increased by 81% to $6.8 billion, courtesy of high product demand. Joel Lim notes, "From all indications, Micron Technology has massive potential and could be a great investment for investors interested in AI stocks." Crowdstrike Crowdstrike is an American cybersecurity company based in Austin, Texas. Its Falcon platform is an advanced cloud-native platform that uses AI-powered solutions to protect businesses and secure their endpoints, cloud workloads, data, identities and other vulnerability points through which breaches and attacks can occur. Cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important to businesses, placing companies like Crowdstrike in a great position to profit. Besides, its Falcon platform is entirely cloud-based, allowing companies to add features as they need them. These additional features are available for sale, a strategy enabling Crowdstrike to generate more revenue. Joel Lim notes, "Crowndtrike is poised to benefit greatly from the increasing demand for endpoint protection. It could provide a massive return on investment in the long run." Top AI News at Investor Idea AI and Cybersecurity Stocks in Play - Scope AI (CSE: SCPE) (OTCQB: SCPCF), BlackBerry (TSX: BB), CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), Zscaler (NASDAQ: ZS) July 10, 2024 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Investorideas.com, a global investor news source covering Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity stocks releases a snapshot looking at how AI will shape the future landscape of cybersecurity and some of the companies, including Scope AI Corp. (CSE: SCPE) (OTCQB: SCPCF) (FSE: VN8), aiming to be on the leading edge of this technology revolution. More Info: Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp Get Great Trading Ideas and News Alerts Investors should sell European stocks that derive the bulk of their sales from China due to sluggish consumption and heightened trade tension, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists said. The team, led by Lilia Peytavin, instead recommend buying companies with high exposure to the US Novo Nordisk A/S and BP Plc are some of the leading names in that group. The strategists warned of poor spending appetite in China, the countrys intention to tax luxury goods and the likelihood that Beijing would retaliate against the European Unions tariff hike on electric vehicle imports. As such, Goldmans basket is mostly comprised of stocks in luxury, automotive, basic resources and semiconductor sectors. While a great deal of earnings downgrades have already occurred year-to-date for our luxury basket, we worry that more could take place, Peytavin wrote in a Wednesday note. Also, the valuation premium of the basket has deflated, but remains on the high side of its history. Some of Europes biggest firms count among those that Goldman is shorting. These include luxury firms LVMH and LOreal SA, which respectively derives 17% and 21% of their sales from China. The cosmetics manufacturer warned last month that it was expecting slower growth for the beauty market in 2024 due to weakness in China after years of strong growth. Similarly, Mercedes-Benz Group AG has a 36% sales exposure to China, the highest among car European manufacturers. The US Meanwhile, better fortunes await firms with exposure to the US, the strategists said. With Donald Trump currently leading polls in the race for the White House, an outcome which is likely to benefit the dollar, the stocks in Goldmans basket would likely gain if the US currency appreciates. The selection is largely made up of healthcare and media stocks, rendering them relatively defensive. A company such as Novo, manufacturer of the weight-loss drug Ozempic, gets 59% of its revenues from the US. Other names include London-listed Pearson Plc and BAE Systems Plc. This group would likely do well in the event of tariff escalation, given the majority of its companies have direct operations in the US, the strategists said. The basket is trading near the lowest 12-month forward price-to-earnings premium to the Stoxx Europe 600 index since the global financial crisis, making the stocks relatively cheap, the strategists said. A stronger dollar, all else equal, is good for European companies with US exposure, Peytavin said. Read More Europes airline stocks fail to get a peak season boost Bloomberg Irish pig prices saw an increase of 4c/kg paid on Friday, with producers reporting quotes of at least 2.36-2.40 available from processors. With some paying as much as 2.42/kg, it signals strong demand for Irish pigs. The average European price for a grade E carcass pig for week 26 was 2.21/kg (excluding vat). A group of scientists will undertake research into the presence of great white sharks in Ireland in the hopes of documenting the first records of the species in our waters. Irish shark scientists are hosting OCEARCH, a US-based great white shark research non-profit, this month to determine whether the species can be found here. Ireland is a globally recognised hotspot for a variety of shark species with approximately 40 shark species inhabiting Irish waters including basking shark, porbeagle, and tope shark. Up until now, any supposed sightings of great white sharks in Ireland or the UK have been anecdotal. The species were historically found in the Mediterranean before overfishing caused declines in their numbers. There have been confirmed records of great whites as far north as the Bay of Biscay and recently, there was a report of a sighting off the Galway coast that was captured on video. However, experts now believe this video was not taken in Irish waters. A researcher watches a white shark swim away with a tag on its iconic dorsal fin. Picture: OCEARCH/Chris Ross Dr Nick Payne, Assistant Professor in Trinity College Dublins School of Natural Sciences, is leading the Irish expedition and says it is likely that great whites are in Irish waters. Those of us that study great whites in other parts of the world have had our eyes on Ireland as a likely location that the species may occasionally visit. The temperature and food options for them are ideal, so we think its just a matter of time before we find one here, he explains. Its exciting to have some of the worlds best great white researchers visiting Ireland to search for these amazing animals, and its also a brilliant opportunity to highlight all the other incredible sharks we have in our waters, as well as some of the threats they face. Researchers collect data from a white shark, with the animal's welfare a key consideration. Picture: OCEARCH/ Chris Ross The Irish team involves researchers from Trinity, University College Dublin, University College Cork, Munster Technological University, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, Marine Institute and Fair Seas. While completing the research, the team of scientists will also look at other shark and ray species of conservation concern. Dr Harley Newton, OCEARCH Chief Scientist and Veterinarian notes the importance of healthy shark populations. Sharks are keystone species in marine ecosystems. As top predators in the food web they regulate prey populations and through that shape the diversity, abundance, and distribution of other species," she says. "This abundance and diversity is key to the health of marine habitats as well as human livelihoods. This expedition is an exciting opportunity to contribute knowledge on Irelands shark populations and why we need them. This article was first published on July 10, 2024 A Cork man accused of slashing a Polish man with a knife when the injured party was visiting Cork city centre for a dance competition was refused bail at his appeal to the High Court. Judge Mary Dorgan was told on Tuesday the appeal by Shane Dineen was refused at the High Court. Shane Dineen, 30, of no fixed address, appeared by video link from prison and was remanded in custody until July 23. Sergeant John Kelleher said directions were not yet ready in the case. His solicitor Frank Buttimer asked if the matter that was taking time was the medical report on the injured party. Sgt Kelleher agreed this would be the issue. Judge Dorgan said it was not an unreasonable amount of time for such a report. Detective Garda Maurice Hickey objected when the matter first came before Cork District Court to the bail application by Shane Dineen on a charge of assault causing harm to the Polish man on Monday, May 20. The detective said one of the grounds for objection was the seriousness of the alleged offence. At 2.50am on May 20, the injured party was outside the Premier Inn on Morrisons Island with six of his friends who were all over from Poland for a dance competition. Shane Dineen and a female companion approached the group and asked a female friend of the injured party for a cigarette, to which she replied that she didnt smoke. [The woman who asked for the cigarette] then slapped her across the face. [The man with the woman who was slapped] intervened by pushing the assailant away, resulting in her falling to the ground. Shane Dineen and his female companion are then seen going towards the man. "Shane Dineen then produces a knife that he had on him and threatens the people at the scene by waving it recklessly and menacingly towards them. It is alleged that he slashes the injured party on the right hand and forearm. [CCTV allegedly shows that] he then continues to threaten the other people and kicks at them, all the while brandishing the knife in his hand. "The injured party flees to the hotel for safety. Shane Dineen attempts to follow him in, getting as far as the lobby, where he again brandishes the knife, Det Garda Hickey said. Shane Dineen said if granted bail he could reside with a friend at Hillsboro, off Old Blackrock Road, Cork. Gardai have searched properties across west and south Dublin after seizing a huge amount of cocaine inside a house in the Clondalkin area. An estimated 43kgs of the drug were found packed inside a suitcase when detectives searched a property under warrant and arrested a man, aged in his 30s. Images show the cocaine divided up into separate wrapped bales, some with identifying markings on them, identifying possible recipients, which have been blurred out in the Garda photographs. The size of the haul could suggest that multiple gangs may have clubbed together for sections of the consignments. The haul, made on Tuesday, has been given an initial street valuation by gardai of 3 million, but the cocaine is likely of high purity. The operation was led by the Serious Crime South Ballyfermot & Clondalkin. On foot of the haul in Clondalkin, garda teams conducted searches on Wednesday in neighbouring Ballyfermot and on the far side of the Naas Road in Dublin 12. During the course of the further searches, cocaine with an approximate value of 2,500 and 1,600 cash were seized. A woman, aged in her 40s, was arrested. Assistance in the searches was provided by Ballyfermot Drug & Detective units, the Garda Dog Unit, the Divisional Search Team, and the Regional Dublin Crime Response Team. Six scrambler bikes were also seized in the operation. Detective Superintendent Tomas Gormley, Officer in Charge of Serious Crime South, Clondalkin, said: "We wish to acknowledge the excellent work conducted by local Gardai, who were assisted by colleagues in the Dublin Crime Response Team (DCRT) and National Support Services, in keeping people in the community safe. "The detrimental impact of the sale and supply of drugs as well as the illegal activities of organised crime groups cannot be underestimated. We remain determined to dismantle their presence in the wider Clondalkin and Ballyfermot area. It is not clear what gang was behind the trafficking into the country of such a large quantity of cocaine. It is understood that one of the largest international traffickers of heroin and cocaine in Ireland run by brothers based in Clondalkin - is not suspected of being involved. Investigations are continuing as to whether a group of gangs came together to finance the consignment, which is not uncommon in organised crime. Recent cocaine seizures The quantity seized on Tuesday is just marginally below another massive cocaine haul earlier in the year. Last February, garda units in DMR Southern Division seized 44kgs of cocaine inside a house in Co Wicklow. As part of that operation they confiscated 213,000 in cash from a home in Clondalkin. Seizures of cocaine are down significantly so far this year, compared to 2023, which was a record year in Ireland, due mainly to massive bulk seizures along the coast and in ports. This included the 2.2 tonnes of cocaine inside the container ship, MV Matthew, when it was stormed in a military operation off the Cork coast last September. Last December 300kgs of cocaine was found inside a cargo ship that had docked at Foynes Port in Co Limerick. The parents of a baby boy who died at Cork University Maternity Hospital rejected an apology on Wednesday from the HSE and the hospital over their sons death and said it was four years too late. Baby Alfie OReilly from Midleton, Co Cork, was only four days old when he died in his fathers arms at CUMH on July 25, 2020. His parents Amanda and Aidan OReilly outside the Four Courts after they settled an action against the HSE over the death of their son said the impact Alfies death had on them as people and as a family is immeasurable. While the legal process ends here and the HSE and the State Claims Agency can put Alfies death behind them, we are forced to look forward and attempt to honour him as we live the rest of our lives. We have been left with a grave to visit instead of a son to raise. "So much has been taken from us, but Alfies whole life was taken from him and that's what needs to be remembered. Alfie should be here, they said in a statement. They said their sons death and their four-year legal battle means their trust in the health and justice system has been shattered. Baby Alfie OReilly's parents Amanda and Aidan OReilly said the impact Alfies death had on them as people and as a family is immeasurable. Photo: iDonate/4Alfie It has been clear that neither us nor Alfie have held any importance to the HSE or the State Claims Agency, which considering the admission of liability, is insulting. We can only ask that they treat families and our situation with more dignity in the future, the OReillys added. In the High Court, the familys counsel, Jonathan Kilfeather SC instructed by Michael Boylan Litigation, said the HSE admitted liability in the action where it was claimed that a delay in delivering the baby by Caesarean section had caused or contributed to the death of Baby Alfie. Amanda and Aidan OReilly, clutched a photograph of Baby Alfie in court as the settlement of their action against the HSE over the death of their son was ruled. An apology on behalf of Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) and its staff was read to the High Court by HSE counsel Luan OBraonain SC. In the letter of apology heartfelt sympathies and condolences on the death of Baby Alfie" were expressed on behalf of the hospital and staff. It apologised unreservedly and sincerely for the failings in care during the course of the feto-maternal haemorrhage that caused the death of your son Alfie. The hospital said it did not underestimate how traumatic it has been for the OReillys and wished to acknowledge its enduring impact on them. Amanda OReilly told Mr Justice Michael P O Higgins that the apology had come almost four years too late. She said: An apology was made here today. Your Honour, it was an apology that we had to ask for. An apology that has come almost four years too late. She added: The apology once again attempts to refute liability by laying reference to the feto-maternal haemorrhage that Alfie experienced. How can an apology over the liability for the death of our child be so insincere? She told the judge it was insulting, and she and her husband Aidan did not accept it. She said as well as enduring the grief and trauma following the death of their beautiful son Alfie, they had been forced to endure an almost four-year legal battle. She added: Throughout the legal process, Alfies short life and tragic death has not been shown the dignity it deserves, and this is something that has been incredibly distressing for Aidan and I. It has been clear from the outset that the aim of the HSE and the State Claims Agency has been to settle out of court, however they prolonged the process unnecessarily in what felt like an attempt to beat us down. She told the judge Alfie was absolutely perfect with navy blue eyes and the most perfect little nose. He was born into a family who already loved him immensely. Alfie, she said was so wanted so adored and he is so tragically missed. Alfies big sister, Emilia, she said is also impacted by her little brothers death. Emilia was born to be a big sister, she could not wait for him to be born and speaks of his absence daily. Emilia includes Alfie in every aspect of her little life and while it is endearing, it is also devastating. "Our little girl experienced death at an age that no child should and will live with those consequences for the rest of her life. Mr Justice OHiggins, who noted the settlement and the division of the statutory mental distress payment of 35,000, said Ms OReillys remarks had been heartfelt. The judge said he hoped the family would find solace in the finalisation of the proceedings. He said it was important for the court and legal practitioners to get feedback. Mr Justice OHiggins said he hoped the settlement of the proceedings would enable the family to achieve closure. Waterford City and County Council has granted planning to millionaire developer and stud farm owner Michael Ryan for construction of a seven-storey hotel and aparthotel development in Dungarvan. The project, close to the town centre, will see the disused three-storey, 1970s-era Bridge House building demolished to make way for the complex. The property which Mr Ryan purchased from the Flynn Group some 16 years ago, was formerly a Glanbia laboratory and office complex and has been vacant since the mid-1990s. It sits adjacent to the Old Bank building which Mr Ryan purchased in 2017 and serves as a restaurant and cocktail bar. The site comprises two parcels of land. The main entrance, on 0.42 hectares fronts onto the junction of Davitt's Quay and TJ Meagher Street to the east. A smaller 0.14 hectare site leads onto Richard A Walsh Street to the west. In 2021, Waterford council and subsequently An Bord Pleanala refused Mr Ryan initial planning for a nine-storey, 65-room boutique hotel on the same site. It would have been by far the tallest building in Dungarvan and both authorities deemed it visually inappropriate and excessively domineering. The hotel will facilitate 42 bedrooms and 42 aparthotel rooms through the first to fifth floors. The sixth floor will house a penthouse suite with balconies/terrace area(s), along with further aparthotel rooms. The ground floor, meanwhile, will comprise two function halls with capacity to integrate to a single larger space, a lobby/reception, publicly accessible cafe and bar, indoor and outdoor seating, toilets, and kitchen. The plans further include 48 car parking spaces, of which three will accommodate disabled bays on the existing Western Terrace car park site. There is provision for 26 cycle bays. Permission was granted with 21 conditions. The development is likely to be welcomed enthusiastically in the town as Dungarvan's growing tourism core, driven by the popular greenway, sees the town falling far short of the bed spaces needed to meet the demand. The well-known proprietor of the Al Eile stud farm in Kilgobnet, Mr Ryan has previously received planning for a 40-bed hotel and restaurant with car park on two sites divided by a roadway, within 50m from Bridge House. That development has yet to start. Former Tanaiste Simon Coveney has confirmed that he will step down as a Fine Gael TD for Cork South Central at the next general election. The longtime TD confirmed his intention to not stand again in a letter to the Fine Gael organisation in Cork South Central on Wednesday. Mr Coveney wrote that throughout his political career, he "tried to do what's right for Cork, for the country that I love and for our party that I've given my working life to since the age of 25". He said he came to the view "some time ago that it's time for me to step out of politics at the next election", saying it was an "extraordinary privilege" to serve his constituency for 26 years. "I hope you can respect my decision to seek new horizons in life outside of Dail Eireann," Mr Coveney wrote. "I've loved almost every day of public life. I've had opportunities in politics that I could never have dreamt possible before 1998; as a councillor, a TD, a Minister and as Tanaiste. "It's a career that's taken me to every corner of the world, from the Oval Office to refugee camps in Gaza, from Belfast to Brussels, from Kiev to the Kremlin, from Turners Cross to Crosshaven and so much more." Mr Coveney thanked voters from Cork South Central for backing him over the last 26 years, saying he has "always tried to deliver for them and make them proud". The former Fine Gael minister also flagged the impact of Simon Harris as the new party leader, saying that the party's organisation has been invigorated at "every level". As first reported by the Irish Examiner last week, it is expected that there will be six candidates up to replace him in Cork South Central, including former MEP candidate for Ireland South, John Mullins. Simon Coveney with former MEP candidate John Mullins. Picture: Brian Lougheed Taoiseach Simon Harris paid tribute to Mr Coveney as both a colleague and a very good friend. Mr Harris fully understands and respects Mr Coveney's decision not to run in the next election, saying that the announcement does not come as a surprise to many people. "He has made a real impact on Ireland," said Mr Harris. "I think any fair analysis of Simon Coveney and his time in public life will arrive at that conclusion." The Fine Gael leader said, for him, Mr Coveney's political legacy will always be how he "helped to protect Ireland and our national interests during Brexit". Mr Harris said that even political foes of the former minister would acknowledge that point. People will be "lining up" to replace Mr Coveney in Cork South Central thanks to the outgoing TD's "excellent work", Mr Harris said. Tanaiste and fellow Cork TD Micheal Martin also paid tribute to Mr Coveney who he has worked alongside for the past 25 years. Mr Martin said Mr Coveney had the interests of Cork at heart. "Simon had a strong commitment to public life and to improving society," Mr Martin told Shannonside FM. "I think he did that in many portfolios, as a TD and a member of the European Parliament for a period and as a government minister for an extended period and I wish him well." In April, Mr Coveney stepped down from Cabinet following the shock resignation of Leo Varadkar. He had been serving as Enterprise Minister. Mr Coveney, who was deputy leader of Fine Gael from 2017 until April 2024, has previously had portfolios in housing, defence, agriculture and foreign affairs. He was first elected to the Dail in 1998 after a by-election caused by the death of his father. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2004 before being returned to the Dail in 2007. In 2017, following Enda Kenny's resignation, Mr Coveney entered into a leadership contest with Mr Varadkar. He was defeated in that contest but was appointed deputy leader of the party. Thrust into politics a quarter of a century ago as a result of a family tragedy, he has announced his departure on his own terms. Outgoing Fine Gael TD, former minister and former Tanaiste Simon Coveney, who has represented Cork South Central since the 1998 by-election triggered by the tragic drowning the year before of his TD father Hugh in Cork Harbour, accepts himself that he was probably first elected on the back of a sympathy vote. But as the 52-year-old confirmed that he is stepping back from politics at the next general election, he made a particular point of thanking the people of his constituency who put their faith in him at the five general elections since, saying: Since then I hope I have earned my place in politics, in the Dail, in the European Parliament, and around the cabinet table. Following a political career that has seen him serve at local, national and European level, and hold several cabinet posts during which time he has grappled with the housing crisis, deployed the naval service to respond to the migrant humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean, and later defend Irelands interests during the protracted Brexit process, he says he will leave the matter of his political legacy to others. For me, the important thing is that people remember me as somebody who was honest, someone who worked incredibly hard for them, somebody who was in politics for the right reasons. I am not somebody who goes after headlines or cheap shots. I dont crave publicity. I am somebody who wants society to change and move in the right direction, who wants Ireland to be a positive, progressive, ambitious country that is successful, that provides careers for young people as they grow up, that responds to social needs in terms of vulnerable people. But I am human as well. I make mistakes. So what people think of me, I will leave to others. But not very many 52-year-olds can look back at a political career and say they have held virtually every office in the land except Taoiseach, as a councillor, a TD, an MEP, and a minister across six or seven different briefs. It has been an extraordinary privilege and its all been because enough people in Cork South Central put their faith in me for more than a quarter of a century. And I have served them as best I can. His announcement brings to an end speculation about his political future which first emerged in 2022 after he bought an impressive two-storey Georgian property in Cobh, fuelling rumours that he may run for election in Cork East. Speculation mounted again in April when Simon Harris took over as Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach, and Mr Coveney, who was Enterprise Minister at the time, asked not to be considered for a place in the new Cabinet. Pressure mounted further after the local and European elections when a number of Fine Gael figures, including unsuccessful MEP candidate, John Mullins, and city councillor, Shane OCallaghan, announced their intention to seek the partys nomination to run in south central. Outgoing Fine Gael TD, former minister and former Tanaiste Simon Coveney, who has represented Cork South Central since the 1998 by-election triggered by the tragic drowning the year before of his TD father Hugh in Cork Harbour, accepts himself that he was probably first elected on the back of a sympathy vote. Picture: Eddie O'Hare And so on Wednesday, Mr Coveney wrote to party members confirming he is stepping back from politics, posting the letter on social media, and doing back-to-back interviews on Corks local radio stations, RedFM and Corks 96FM. On the Neil Prendeville Show on RedFM, the father of three paid tribute to his family, his wife Ruth, and their three daughters, Jessica, Beth, and Annalise, aged between 15 and 11, for supporting him throughout his political career. There are many politicians who have lost their families and their relationships because politics has come first, he said. I have worked incredibly hard to make sure that that hasnt happened to me although I have a wife who is not fond of politics but who has shown extraordinary patience and understanding in terms of facilitating a career for me and I will be forever grateful to her for that. "My children have grown up with one parent, in terms of presence in the home, for much of their lives. I have done everything I can using technology from Zoom calls to FaceTime to try and spend as much time talking to and being a father to them, because if you are a government minister you have enormous responsibilities to both the country and the communities that you represent. His said his career in politics has been demanding, stressful, and frustrating but ultimately incredibly rewarding, and despite distrust of politicians today, protests outside politicians homes, and abuse on social media, he encouraged people to consider running for election. He says while Ireland has come a long way, with the highest rate of housebuilding in 15 years, and the highest rate of social housing delivery since the 1970s, he cant escape Ireland's record homeless figures which broke the 14,000 mark in May. Real challenges remain, he said. Of course there are some things that I would like to have seen happen faster as housing minister, I was impatient to make things happen a lot faster. Some of the things I just couldnt get done as fast as I wanted are policy today, things I was asking the system for eight years ago. The housing crisis has still not been solved but the government will continue to put huge resources into increasing output on social, affordable, cost rental and private housing for purchase. And we are starting to see significant improvements in that area." But he insists that Ireland is moving in the right direction. Have we got it right all of the time? No we havent, but are we trying to get it right all of the time? Yes we are. So what next for a man regarded as one of Corks Merchant Princes? He insists he has no intention of retiring from work, that he is still very driven and full of energy. He says he has thought about using his experience for the greater good but says a career in the private sector could be an option too. But for now, his focus is on being a TD for Cork South Central, and seeing construction start on the citys long-awaited event centre, something hes insisted for almost eight years will happen. As far as career pivots go, Nina Carberry is doing pretty well. From champion jockey to businesswoman, TV personality and childrens author, perhaps her greatest sleight of hand yet is as newly-elected Fine Gael MEP. Winning a seat alongside Maria Walsh in the Midlands North West constituency, Ms Carberry garnered over 71,000 first preferences, an impressive tally for a first-time candidate. Oh, it was incredible," she said. "After such a long campaign, it was just nice to come out the other side and become an MEP." Fine Gael European election candidate Nina Carberry celebrates after being elected as an MEP at TF Royal Theatre in Castlebar counting centre. Picture: Conor McKeown/PA Wire What Ms Carberry lacks in experience, she makes up for in enthusiasm, likening her win to having a full stadium of supporters rooting for her. Its an honour and a privilege to represent my country and my constituency in Europe. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in. As a young 39-year-old mother-of-two, and dare I say a celebrity, surely her credentials would earn her some sniping from the sidelines? It did, but Ms Carberry isnt deterred by the keyboard warriors. I didn't know what to expect. There are always people who wont like what youre doing but I knew if I put the work in, I'd have no regrets. That's been my motto in anything I've done in life. No regrets Another criticism of Ms Carberrys claimed she was running a silent campaign. Independent MEP Luke Ming Flanagan accused Ms Carberry of being invisible but when I ask her was she avoiding the tough questions, she is completely unfazed and laughs at the idea. I feel I was visible on the ground. Listen I gave it my best shot. When I started out the campaign, I was like; What it's all about?' Its the people in the constituency. Some called it avoidance, she called it strategy: Ms Carberrys approach was certainly more focused on constituents on the ground. I got to as many counties as I could on the ground and it was relentless. I won't I don't regret my campaign. Councillor Yemi Adenuga, Shona McManus, and Nina Carberry at the launch of Fine Gaels European and Local Election manifestos at Dublin Royal Convention Centre. Picture: Stephen Collins/Collins Photos I did my fair share of media, but obviously some people didn't feel that I did but I felt Id done my bit. I did the hustings with other candidates and live TV as well. So listen, people are never going to be satisfied. Taoiseach and fellow Fine Gael party member Simon Harris was adamant that Ms Carberry is not a celebrity but a champion. 'Farmers are fearful' Having grown up on a farm in Meath, Ms Carberrys agenda is very clear to bolster perceptions and funding of the farming industry in Ireland. Farmers are fearful. I want to be a strong voice for them. We need funding within the commuter belt and rural areas they need to be connected. We need to make them less isolated. In anticipation of the upcoming budget this October, Ms Carberry says she will be pushing for greater economic parity for farmers and fishermen. There will be pressures coming from outside to spend more money on defence and security. We don't need farmers to be left out. We need farmers livelihoods to be protected. They rely on the CAP funding so we need to make sure they are in a place where they have their future secure. Nina Carberry on the campaign trail with Johnny Mooney at Tullamore Mart County Offaly. Picture: Denis Byrne Future-proofing the agriculture industry means looking to the younger generation, Ms Carberry says. We need to make sure that younger people are getting into farming because it is a worry that we're losing all these farmers because younger people feel there's no viable future in it. That skills shortage needs to be tackled, says Ms Carberry and it wont happen without robust funding. SMEs are struggling with a skills shortage out there and thats something I really want to push hard for that in Europe. If people want to upskill or learn other skills that theyre provided with the funding. The fishermen in Killybegs were one of the cohorts Ms Carberry visited on her campaign trail. They got such a raw deal with Brexit it's something that we need to fight hard on for them. 'A lot of sacrifice' The tired trope of work-life balance seems to apply exclusively to women pursuing careers outside of the home and Ms Carberry has been asked how she juggles it all on more than one occasion three, in fact. She laughs off the idea that women with careers cant parent effectively. The girls are used to me working. I only want to be a role model for them. I want them to see that when you work hard, you do get the benefit from it. Carving out a bright future for her daughters is Ms Carberrys driving force and her husband Ted Walsh Jr of the Walsh horseracing dynasty is her greatest supporter. Nina Carberry wedding with Ted Walsh Jr at the church of the Holy Trinity, Ratoath, after tying the knot. Photo: Barry Cronin We couldnt go on holiday because I needed to be in my sport. There was a lot of sacrifice that was given up on his part to be with me. He's still doing that. It's a good partnership because he understands thats what I had to do. There was always room for me to achieve. She wants her daughters to know that its OK to compete alongside men and to want success in more than one field. Her campaign really sparked their curiosity. My two little girls are great. They see my posters and they're wondering what's going on. They ask lots of questions but they're very proud as well. Perhaps Ms Carberrys toughest audience of all is the middle-school children who know her as the author of the Rowan Tree Stables series. As with everything Ms Carberry does, it was a hit. In fact, book number two, Pony Camp Chaos came out in May 30. Art imitates life in that the book shows a young female protagonist on equal footing with her male friends. Nina Carberry at Dalkey Library, Dublin. Picture: Gareth Chaney I didn't want it to just be for girls. At my book signings, I had young boys coming up and that's exactly what I wanted to achieve. The kids really connected with it. Inspiring legions of women to compete alongside their male counterparts and Ms Carberry credits her brothers for including her in competitions growing up. I was always trying to play catch-up with them, one was five years older and one was 10 years older. If they had made a course out of jumps, they'd have a little one for me. It never mattered what age or gender I was, I was always included. Ms Carberry urges young girls and women not to limit themselves based on their gender. You should always test yourself to try other things. You never know what you could be good at until you try. That's what life's about. "If you put your mind to it, you can do anything. Over the last week, political wives have featured heavily in the news. Who would be a political wife, because it brings a strong element of damned if you do and damned if you dont? Jill Biden is currently in the hot seat for having transgressed the political spouses show up, shut up, and smile paradigm. At the heart of what is fast turning out to be an American tragedy, she stands accused of encouraging Joe Biden to continue with his bid for the presidency. When he gets knocked down, Joe gets back up, and thats what were doing today, said Mrs Biden, who is generally regarded as the presidents closest advisor, in the wake of his shaky presidential debate. But, as her former press secretary has asked, is it fair to put the entire decision on her shoulders rather than the Democratic policy advisors? Whatever the truth of what is going on, undoubtedly, sexist power behind the throne ideas about scheming political wives still proliferate. Last Friday morning, we saw a dignified Akshata Murthy standing behind husband Rishi in Downing Street as he delivered his considered resignation speech as British prime minister. But back in 2022, when her husband launched his bid to be British prime minister, Murthy was criticised for serving tea and biscuits to journalists outside her home, with the image going viral. Critics said the kind gesture was tone-deaf, as the teacups cost 38 each. Rishi Sunak stands with his wife Akshata Murty following his party's landslide defeat to the Labour Party. Picture: Gareth Fuller/PA Several hours after Sunaks resignation speech, we saw jubilant scenes on the same street and we were introduced to Victoria Starmer, wife of the new British prime minister, who Id never seen before. Starmer is said to be a reluctant first lady, fiercely private and wanting to continue with her own life. Her unusually low public profile has drawn comment and divided opinion. One Labour MP was quoted in a British newspaper as saying that her reluctance to appear on the campaign trail was a real shame, believing that Keir Starmer could benefit from having his wife telling people about the real Keir. But would Victoria Starmer benefit from such a move? Theres plenty of evidence that she would not. Constant criticism Its a tough station, being a political wife, because it seems to be a delicate balance of stepping up but only in a narrowly prescribed way and staying in your old-fashioned lane. Boris Johnsons wife Carrie was accused of effectively running her husbands cabinet and was nicknamed Lady Macbeth and Princess Nut-Nut. The Telegraph, never known for its progressive thinking, charmingly advised her when she got married that she could and should relax a bit and strive to emulate David Camerons wife Sam Cam rather than Cherie Blair, whom they and others deemed pushy. Mrs Blair, a leading barrister, attracted criticism during her husband Tonys time as prime minister for allegedly exploiting her position for commercial gain. Fair enough. But she was also misogynistically pilloried for her looks, which is not definitely not fair enough. Victoria Starmer, who works in occupational health in the NHS, reportedly does not want her entire life to be swallowed up by her husbands job and is also quoted by friends as having determined that she does not want to be a show pony. She is presumably resistant to having her looks, wardrobe, and hair, as well as loyalty, scrutinised. Cherie Blair, a leading barrister, attracted criticism during her husband Tonys time as prime minister for allegedly exploiting her position for commercial gain. Picture: Haydn West/PA Picking over what politicians wives clad themselves in is regressive, because it doesnt happen to the husbands of female politicians. Michelle Obama was criticised in 2009 for posing in a sleeveless dress for her first official White House photo and showing off her toned arms. The shot was deemed to be too informal and, absurdly, questions were raised about the heating bill in the White House. After carnival barker Donald Trump got elected in 2016, it was alleged that he required women who worked for him to look a certain way showing, arguably, a certain misplaced confidence in his own appearance. Whether he said that remains unclear, but it would seem he has a wife, daughters, and daughters-in-law who conform to a very definite sartorial look that incidentally is often shared by the women who work for him. Suffice it to say, I never feel particularly liberated when watching Melania or the entire travelling circus of Ivanka, Tiffany, Lara, and co spilling into some glitzy ballroom or Floridian hellhole such as Mar a Lago, but their appearance is their business. I grew up in an era where, as young women, we were exposed to well-turned-out, although never sexually threatening, British and American political wives who were forced to come out and bat for their husbands. When he asked the public to vote for him, they smiled admiringly as if to say my hero, but when said husband transgressed, often sexually, they smiled through gritted teeth to reassure the public that all was well with the marriage and family, that he was a trustworthy guy including sometimes shoring up his heterosexuality. The iconic memory that stands out is watching Hillary Clinton in 1992 save Bill Clintons presidential bid after a woman called Gennifer Flowers disclosed that she had been Bill Clintons mistress. Hillary appeared on television next to a contrite Bill with an impossible task, to woo traditional voters as somebody who stood by her man no matter what, but as an independent woman in her own right. In 1992, Hillary Clinton famously stood by her man after a woman called Gennifer Flowers disclosed that she had been Bill Clintons mistress. Picture: Lisa Poole/PA She got the job done for Bill, who went on to beat George Bush Sr but at huge cost to her political ambitions. Politicos reckon it was at this point that Hillarys troubled relationship and image problem with the American public began. She fell between two stools, coming over as too feisty for traditional voters but alienating younger people (at college, I fell into this camp) for having behaved like the little Tammy Wynette lady she denied she was for standing by her man. Fighting stereotypes Usually, in this column, Im carping that things need to change in this country. For once, I think we should pat ourselves on the back. Because we would appear to have a more liberated, less antiquated view of what a political spouse looks like. The concept arguably evolved with Bertie Aherns partner Celia Larkin, which in a Catholic country was considered a departure. Then later, with Leo Varadkars partner Matthew Barrett, we moved beyond the stereotype of the straight politician. We can be thankful that, in our polity, we do not ask Mary Martin or Caoimhe Wade, both of whom come across as solid, low-key women, to tell us who the real Micheal or Simon is. We not only refrain from asking political spouses in Ireland to shelve their ambitions in place of their political partners, but we also dont even ask what those ambitions might be, nor do we comment on their appearance, and we should strive at all costs to keep it like that. And although she is highly unlikely to need my advice, to Victoria Starmer, Id say go for it girl and continue unapologetically to be yourself. The striking of an individual from a professional register is a tough blow for anybody to suffer. Often the recipient has been liable for serious crimes such as theft or fraud or even found guilty of perpetrating crimes of violence of one sort or another. Gerard Lowry, who was struck from the social workers professional register this week, was not involved in any such crime. His transgression was that he was responsible for what has been described as a catastrophic error in his professional capacity. That error resulted in the outrageous and erroneous labelling of garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe as a child abuser. The manner in which it was handled, once discovered, then led to the requirement to set up a public tribunal. High cost This was at a time when tribunals had largely been discontinued because of the high cost of so many over the last thirty years. But the issues around the McCabe case that had come into the public domain principally but not exclusively through the Irish Examiner had left the public drained of confidence. The government of the day decided the case had to be aired to dispel growing suspicions that a cover-up was afoot. That tribunal completed its work in 2018, setting out several ways in which McCabe had been wronged by various elements of the state apparatus. Mondays High Court confirmation of Lowrys professional fate is the latest, and most likely the last, serious outcome from the case. We know some of the details that led to Lowry being deemed unfit to practice as a social worker. We dont know the full picture because last December at the hearing into his case a decision was taken by the social workers regulatory body, CORU, to hold the hearing behind closed doors. On foot of an application This was on foot of an application from another social worker who was also before the fitness to practice inquiry. This social worker had produced medical evidence which, the hearing accepted, merited her protection from exposure to a public hearing. Practicalities then necessitated that Lowrys hearing, being held at the same time, should also be behind closed doors. The facts have been well aired by now. A teenager, known as Ms D, made an allegation against Sergeant McCabe in 2006. McCabe, who had a fractious relationship with Ms Ds father, also a garda, completely denied the allegation. The detail of the allegation would subsequently be described as horseplay, but at the time, mainly due to McCabes garda standing, a garda investigation was conducted. It recommended there was no case for prosecution and the DPP agreed. Seven years later, when McCabe became a public figure through revelations about garda incompetence and corruption, Ms D again revealed the allegation, this time to a counsellor. The counsellor, as she was obliged, informed Tusla in the Cavan Monaghan district, where Gerard Lowry was the area manager. What followed was a series of bizarre and barely believable coincidences in which the allegation against McCabe was mixed up with an entirely separate case where a man was accused of raping a child. This matter was an unbelievable concidence, Judge Peter Charleton, chair of the Disclosures Tribunal, would rule. Yet, as it emerges, despite its bizarre nature, this was a genuine mistake. The mistake festered even after it was pointed out that something had gone terribly wrong. Erroneous details The erroneous details were passed onto the gardai, elements of which were already hostile to McCabe over his disclosures of malpractice. Then, despite the discovery of the error, a letter was sent to McCabe in January 2016 effectively accusing him of being a danger to his own children. Only then was he alerted to what had been going on and his solicitor set about contacting Tusla to explain itself. At this point, the situation could have been retrieved, and the trauma suffered by McCabe and his family alleviated. If Lowry had immediately endeavoured to discover what had occurred and if he explained it in full to McCabes solicitor, the worst of what was unfolding could have been avoided. Instead, the path taken was to circle wagons rather than come out with hands up. From 2016, no one within Tulsa considered owning up to the serious mistakes that had been made, Judge Charleton wrote. The solicitors letter of complaint on Mr McCabes behalf, sent in response to the letter from Tusla, received in January 2016, was an invitation to give a proper explanation of what had happened. "Had that happened, had Tusla senior management sat down and read the file and then forthrightly replied, setting out fully the mistakes that they had made, this tribunal of inquiry would most probably have been avoided. Tusla did not reply to McCabes solicitor for fully six months on a matter of extreme urgency and pain for a wronged citizen. Vague and defensive When a response finally did come it was vague and defensive. It wasnt until February 2017 that full culpability began to dawn. Within days of the background being reported in the Irish Examiner that month, the tribunal was set up. In his report, Judge Charleton didnt hold back on the degree of culpability. A public body, paid for by the taxpayer, has a fundamental duty of self-scrutiny in pursuit of the highest standards. The administration of Tusla was sorely lacking in application and in dedication to duty, he reported. Lowry has paid a price with his professional licence. Another social worker, who was mentioned in the High Court hearing on Monday, has been suspended. She cannot be named for legal and constitutional reasons, Judge Micheal P Higgins ruled. Both Lowry and this other social worker have retired from Tusla. What we dont know is what if anything has changed in the child and family agency. Neither do we know if managers and social workers continue to be under what some describe as the kind of intolerable pressure that may well have contributed to aspects of the catastrophic error in this case. As is often the case, we are being told that the past and its awkward unanswered questions are from a different country and we should trust that things are much improved today. A few short years ago, we were pining over desks snipped from the tips of early aeroplane wings, and sneakily un-boxing dodgy 1950s icons factory-made in China. Since then, our mid-century madness has calmed if not cooled. Weve realised just how much the style of the 1940s to the 1980s varies and competes across country and designer, and that most outright reproduction is cheaply made, easily spotted and unsustainable. Secondhand, you cannot give these shoddy ghouls away. When buying new, a working desk is an investment. Start at a top-class office supply for something serious, modern, ergonomic and robust. Youll be surprised by the level of design flair on parade under the banner of commercial. Describe your work style and take advice to get the perfect height, depth and configuration. Top tip? As sitting becomes the new smoking, sit/standing desks are trending. Check them out for a healthy round of WFH. Stick to at least 150cm of surface length if you have reams paperwork to sort and situate. Just like seating, desking bought from a general furniture supply may only be suited to occasional use rather than 9-5 shifts. Many are weakly constructed, will wobble under pressure, and soon show chips in flimsy veneer. Be prepared to spend more for a bullet-proof home office servant that will retain its integrity and good looks for decades. There are dedicated secondhand outlets including CJM at the Marina, Cork, with an excellent choice used, top branding. Try out Google-Lens on your phone to follow credentials forensically on the spot from a single shot on your camera. For a good household desk intended to sit comfortably against other furnishings, there are hundreds of handsome old and new creations that never make it to the pages of 1stDibs.com. This type of Edwardian office desk in solid oak or maple comes up regularly at Irish auctions, priced from 150 for a true antique. Picture: Pamono Here are a few old and emerging classics, compared to alternative, handsome high street contenders with mid-century inspiration. Its worth noting that due to a worldwide high in the price of raw timber hardwood is at a premium. Examine laminate, veneer and good composite materials in your journey. Every large country auction will feature at least one chunky, clunky oak desk from the 1930s to 1940s in a utilitarian, panelled design with simple cut handles in brass or timber. A little early modern, a little Arts & Crafts, in solid oak with rippling medullary rays, caressed with a little beeswax they glow with utter gorgeous. Most are made as partitioning office tables so you can set them out in the room. The major caveat here is height. Little old desks and upcycled 1960s dressing tables can be a little low. Note the size of any key-hole (will it fit you and your chair). Rolltop desks are my Achilles heel, but they are not very practical steel your heart. Prices range from 150 for a nice three-drawer pedestal example made in England or America before fees, rising to several hundred for a partners sized, postwar tank. EZ Living offers a single Outback pedestal desk, in similar style in solid, rustic Mountain Ash from 699 with rustic brass and leather detailing, ez-living-interiors.ie. Trestle tables, now often as WFH desks, were adored by the bright young things of 1950s Dublin, London and Paris setting up their garret love nests. File picture Trestle tables and new materials were adored by the bright young things of 1950s Dublin, London and Paris setting up their garret love nests. Taken from saw-horses used in every carpentry shed, trestles and tops were refined down into some of the most lovely, airy work desks of the last 70 years, the legs neatly angled away from chair position. An elegant origami-style fold-back to an up-stand marks out this lovely little 190 desk in ply and pale veneer by Hay of Copenhagen; from 1,200. Hay of Copenhagens 190-Desk by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, pinches the 150cm long, 24mm plywood working surface into an apparent fold that rises into a small desk back for leaning your books or papers. The legs are set elegantly to the back. Its slightly origami in look and based on a school or college desk. Light, stackable, it would make a lovely hall perch and console; from 1,200, various suppliers. A budget buy with the same third-level chic and timber up-stand, the Ikea Ridspo plywood desk has a firmly four-legged support, cable management, two deep drawers and best of all, a glass top for making notes with a marker pen, tracing or simply frame something up a mesmerising in-table collection; Ridspo desk in oak veneer, 464, ikea.com/ie. My current favourite for a few Euro more? The simple lines of the Ashme desk by Ragaba, in a choice of poster colours set on ash legs, 599, woodesign.ie. Mid-century designers were fascinated by secretariat desking of the past. They trimmed these small storage desks back into neatly styled, light domestic desks with slender pedestal bases and hutch storage ideal for penning letters, paying bills and drawing some attention to the householders cool taste. The 1958 George Nelson swag leg has iconic status with its gorgeous veneer, hand-build and striking multicoloured cubbies; 3,936, Vitra. American designer George Nelson is instantly recognisable in his innovative 1958 swag-leg desk, which has been much copied and adapted. Its curiously modern today as its perfect for a laptop stage and offers just enough colourful cubby room for a modern nomad touching down from time to time. Patented by Vitra, 3,936, various suppliers. Slender legs and or on tip-toes, ensure any desk is completely stable with your elbows rocking on it. In the same price bracket, another secretary desk choice with very different lines (more Bauhaus/deco) Eichholtzs breathtaking highland desk in a washed oak veneer, 3,345, from cadesign.ie. The floating Gaston desk by Harta in walnut veneer hangs on the wall and can be used as a shelf, a console or a secretary desk; from 748 with leather drawer pulls. Pinched for room? The floating Gaston desk by Harta in walnut veneer hangs on the wall and can be used as a shelf, a console or a secretary desk in a really brilliant bit of retro style. Push a stool in against the wall and it can sit and wait for under 37cm of floor space; from 748 with leather drawer pulls, suppliers include obos.ie (Cork). The Loren offers sturdy tubular metal frame legs, and a handy shelf for a computer screen or decorative bits. At 120cm it's a moderate size, perfect for occasional laptop work; 149.99, Wayfair. Drop dead deal in pedestal form? The sturdy softly industrial Loren metal-based writing desk in MDF/oak veneer by Trent Austin Design; 149.99, wayfair.ie (a great hunting ground for economical goodies). Before even hitting the high street, explore the many, excellent 20th-century furniture outlets here in Ireland, as bargains abound in lesser-known makers in authentic, beautiful, functional desks. These would include anteak.ie, 20thcenturyfurniture.ie, kirkmodern.com, acquired.ie, the thevintagehub.com, and the rolling catalogue of goodies available at auction, calendared at collectireland.com by county. You may be surprised just what great value a well-loved original vintage desk can prove when set against a new desk by a proper cabinet maker or a top-drawer brand. From Mio Baughman magnificence by Thonet to Ikea practicality, always attempt to lay hands on the piece before purchase, and dont ignore those dimensions and clearances or youll work harder every time you pull up your chair. Rangers in northern Australia have shot dead a 14ft (4.2m) crocodile after it killed a 12-year-old girl while she was swimming with her family last week, police said on Wednesday. The girls death was the first fatal crocodile attack in the Northern Territory since 2018 when an indigenous woman was killed while gathering mussels in a river. The attack has rekindled debate on whether more should be done to curb the crocodile population in the Northern Territory, where the protected species has increasingly encroached on human populations. The events of last week have had a huge impact on the family and local police are continuing to provide support to everyone impacted Wildlife rangers had been attempting to trap or shoot the crocodile since the girl was attacked last week in Mango Creek near Palumpa, an Outback indigenous community. They shot the reptile on Sunday after getting permission from the regions traditional landowners. Saltwater crocodiles are considered a totem by many indigenous Australians. Police said analysis had confirmed it was the one that killed the girl. Senior sergeant Erica Gibson said in a statement: The events of last week have had a huge impact on the family and local police are continuing to provide support to everyone impacted. Northern Territory-based crocodile scientist Grahame Webb said a reptile the size of the one shot had to be male and at least 30 years old. They grow throughout their lives and can live up to 70 years. The girls death came weeks after the Northern Territory approved a 10-year plan to contain crocodile numbers, increasing the rate of culling near human habitat from 300 to 1,200 a year. The Northern Territory government said after the latest fatality that crocodiles could not be allowed to outnumber humans. 100,000 Estimated number of crocodiles in the Northern Territory The Northern Territory has a land area around the size of France and Spain combined but a population of only 250,000 people. Crocodile numbers are estimated at 100,000. The crocodile population was as low as 3,000 before hunting them was outlawed by federal legislation in 1971. Mr Webb said the territorys crocodiles had largely stabilised their own population in recent years by killing each other for food or territory. They eat each other. The crocs have been controlling their own population. Its not really people that have been controlling them, he said. A Chinese pangolin born at Prague Zoo, the second in less than two years, is defying the odds and doing well, officials at the park in the Czech Republic said. The female of the critically endangered mammal was born on July 1, the second Chinese pangolin born in captivity in Europe following her sister, Cone, in February last year. The baby Chinese pangolin weighed just 4.97oz (141g) at birth but could reach up to 15lb (6.8kg) as an adult (Petr David Josek/AP) She weighed just 4.97oz (141g) but is putting on about 0.3oz (10g) a day and could reach 8.8oz (250g) this week, the zoo said. Adults can reach up to 15lb (6.8kg). In 2022, when the park received Guo Bao, a male, and Run Hou Tang, a female, from Taipei Zoo, the leading breeder of the mammals, the major goal was just to keep them alive and in good health, Prague Zoo director Miroslav Bobek said on Wednesday. We certainly hoped that well have a baby born one day in the future but absolutely nobody expected that well have two in a year-and-a-half, he said. Pangolins are difficult to breed in captivity because they require a special diet and need a particular humidity and temperature in their enclosure (Petr David Josek/AP) The Chinese pangolin is native to southern China and Southeast Asia. It is one of the four pangolin species in Asia, with the others found in Africa. They are hunted heavily for their scales and meat. Pangolins are difficult to breed in captivity because they require a special diet that includes drone larvae and need a particular humidity and temperature in their enclosure. Prague became only the second European zoo to keep the species. A keeper at Prague Zoo takes the newborn baby Chinese pangolin to be weighed (Petr David Josek/AP) The pangolins arrived after Prague decided to revoke a sister-city agreement with Beijing and signed a similar deal in 2020 with the Taiwanese capital, Taipei. The deal caused tensions with China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory. The agreement included co-operation between the Taipei and Prague Zoos. An aid group that rescues migrants in the Mediterranean says one of its missions was interrupted by armed bandits who boarded the overloaded smugglers boat and sped away with it after the migrants threw themselves into the sea. SOS Mediterranee filmed the incident on Tuesday. The group said it occurred about 46 nautical miles north of Zuwara on Libyas western coast, a frequent launching point for smuggling operations to bring migrants to Europe. According to the video, SOS Mediterranee volunteers were helping transfer the 93 passengers from the wooden boat onto their rescue vessel when two rubber dinghies approached. A masked bandit leapt onto the migrant boat, sparking panic among the remaining passengers, who threw themselves into the sea. Rescue personnel help transfer the passengers from a wooden migrant boat (Charles Thiefaine/SOS Mediterranee via AP) The bandit took control of the empty boat and steered it away from the scene as the SOS Mediterranee crew plucked people from the sea. It was not clear if the bandits were trying to recover the boat for future smuggling operations. Often, when Italian maritime authorities encounter such boats, they intentionally sink them as a matter of maritime safety. But Valeria Taurino, general director of SOS Mediterranee, said governments are providing fewer resources to rescue operations, leaving aid groups to do the job in increasingly dangerous situations. The lack of rescue vessels left by the states in recent years in the central Mediterranean has generated a reckless increase in armed presence and illegal and dangerous actions for both the fleeing shipwrecked people and aid workers, she said in a statement. Italian authorities say the presence of humanitarian rescue ships in the Mediterranean only encourages migrants to take the risky voyages, a charge they deny. The rescue was one of several reported by rescue groups this week, as smugglers appear to be taking advantage of summers often calm seas. That said, the number of migrants arriving in Italy this year by boat 27,744 is less than half the 72,036 who had arrived by this time last year, according to interior ministry statistics. The right-wing government of Premier Giorgia Meloni has made limiting migration a priority. It has signed deals with individual African countries to block departures, imposed limits on the work of humanitarian rescue ships, cracked down on traffickers who reach Italy and taken other measures to deter would-be migrants from setting off. A leader of an MS-13 gang in New York has pleaded guilty to racketeering and firearms charges in a case involving eight murders, including the 2016 killings of two high school girls who were hacked and beaten to death on Long Island. Alexi Saenz entered the plea on Wednesday in federal court in Central Islip. Prosecutors previously withdrew an attempt to seek the death penalty in his case. Among the deaths he was accused of ordering are the killings of Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, lifelong friends and classmates at Brentwood High School who were killed with a machete and a baseball bat. The deaths of the high school students focused the nations attention on MS-13 gang violence during the administration of President Donald Trump. The Republican called for the death penalty for Saenz and others arrested in the killings and blamed the violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies as he made several visits to Long Island. Ms Cuevas mother Evelyn Rodriguez was a guest at Mr Trumps 2018 State of the Union address. The girls deaths led to questions about whether police had been aggressive enough in confronting what was then a serious threat of gangs developing inside area high schools. For months in 2016, Hispanic children and young men had been disappearing in Brentwood, a working class community 40 miles east of New York City. After Ms Cuevas and Ms Mickens were killed, police discovered the bodies of three other young people in Brentwood, ages 15, 18 and 19, who had vanished months earlier. Police and federal agents arrested dozens of suspected members of MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, a transnational criminal organisation believed to have been founded as a neighbourhood street gang in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s by people fleeing civil war in El Salvador. Ms Cuevas mother became an anti-gang activist after her daughters death but was herself killed in 2018. Ms Rodriguez was fatally struck by a car during a dispute over a memorial marking the second anniversary of her daughters death. The driver, Annmarie Drago, pleaded guilty in 2024 to negligent homicide. Saenzs lawyers did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday. Prosecutors said Saenz, also known as Blasty and Big Homie, was the leader of an MS-13 clique operating in Brentwood and Central Islip known as Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside. Charges are still pending against his brother, Jairo Saenz, who prosecutors say was second-in-command in the local gang. ( Middle East Monitor ) The UN has been stating that nowhere is safe in Gaza. Palestinians have been crying out the same, prior to the useless official statements. Those that remain have been displaced several times over, in a macabre spectacle that leaves one wondering who is next in Israels genocidal kill toll. Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential is The Lancets report on Israels higher kill toll in Gaza. Noting that Gazas Health Ministry put the numbers at 37,396 Palestinians killed from 7 October 2023 until 19 June 2024, the report notes that it is highly likely Israel has killed 7.9 per cent of Gazas population and possibly more, bringing the number up to 186,000 Palestinians. Documenting the true scale is crucial for ensuring historical accountability and acknowledging the full cost of the war. It is also a legal requirement, The Lancets report partly states. While the report errs by calling the genocide a conflict, it brings the force of Israels weapons and destruction of Gaza into sharper focus, especially since mainstream media is competently blurring accountability in abiding with Israels security narrative. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is seeking assurances that in the event of a deal being reached, Israel is allowed to continue fighting until all the goals of the war are achieved. The Times of Israel quotes Netanyahus office stating, The plan that has been agreed to by Israel and that has been welcomed by President Biden will allow Israel to bring back hostages without infringing on the other objectives of the war. Kanal 13 Video: Shocked, Genocide mastermind still..; UN Official up in arms against Netanyahu Aide In June, Israels military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, described eliminating Hamas from Gaza as an impossible task. Hamas is an idea, Hamas is a party. Its rooted in the hearts of the people whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong. Netanyahu does not think he can eliminate Hamas from Gaza, but in Israels narrative, Hamas is excellent propaganda to justify genocide. Yesterday, Hagari reiterated the impossibility of eradicating Hamas and saying that the Resistance movement will still exist in Gaza in the next five years. Which is not only plausible, but a reality. Ideas cannot be destroyed, and there can be no dissolution of Hamas without decolonisation. Given the overt assertions that Hamas cannot be eliminated from Gaza, and Netanyahu utilising Hamas as the reason for the ongoing genocide, it is clear that the Israeli Prime Ministers intent is not to eliminate Hamas but to obliterate Palestinians. Entire families have been wiped out in Gaza, and The Lancets report consolidates what previous reports from several human rights organisations brought forth from their research. Israels genocidal intents and actions have not abated, and their normalisation by the international community only makes it more feasible for Netanyahu to finish what he started. If there is still no deterrent for Israel indeed, a ceasefire is now not only tied to the Israeli hostages release who Netanyahu himself is exploiting but also to reassurances to maintain Gazas annihilation what kill toll statistics will we be looking at in the coming months, given the international communitys normalisation of Israels genocide in Gaza? The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment. Via Middle East Monitor Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) The MAGA Supreme Court created a lawless presidency with their opinion on Trump immunity last week. In doing so, it obliterated a basic principle of American constitutional government: No one is above the law. Enabling abuses of power, the 6-3 decision on Trump v. United States gives Trump such vast immunity from prosecution that there are few legal checks on his egregious behavior if he returns to the White House. The Courts three liberals strongly dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson calling the opinion a five-alarm fire that threatens to consume democratic self-governance and the normal operations of our government. In an appalling finale to the Courts term, the conservative majority three of whom were appointed by Trump said that official acts that are central to the presidency are given absolute immunity. Other acts, even those at the outer perimeter of a presidents official duties, are presumptively immune, making them extremely difficult to prosecute. What is truly startling is not only the protection the Court has afforded Trump, but the unrestricted power it has granted him and his successors for whatever malice they might do in the future. The majority opinion is the most sweeping judicial reconstruction of the American presidency in history, writes Princeton Professor of American History Sean Wilentz. Securing the monumental disgrace of the John Roberts Court, it has seized the opportunity to invent, with no textual basis, a decision so broad that it essentially places the presidency above the law and invests the presidency with quasi-monarchial powers. The Justices have essentially legalized a losing president refusing to leave office. The defeated president can use his presidential authority to find an official pretext for remaining in office. While aspects of the Constitution and the Framers intentions are debatable, the Founders of the United States certainly did not design a constitutional system of checks and balances that established a government that would allow someone to declare themselves president for life if they felt like it. Yet that is what the Supreme Court decision enshrines. In authoring the opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts often sounds like Trumps lawyer rather than the impartial judge he pretends to be. He only provides a vague distinction between official and unofficial presidential acts, thereby bestowing full authority for any president to commit crimes up to and including assassination and treason with virtual impunity from criminal prosecution, as long as he can justify those crimes as part of his official duties. By basing the possibility of any prosecution on this distinction and by then making that distinction virtually impossible to discern, Roberts eliminates any chance of resolving the underlying legal issues of Trumps current federal prosecution before Trump has a chance to take power again. The majoritys dividing line between official and unofficial conduct narrows the conduct considered unofficial almost to a nullity, writes Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her blistering dissent.If Trump wins, he can then exercising the power of absolute immunity that the Court has conferred dismiss the criminal investigations against him. Robertss opinion illustrates just how broad this immunity will be in practice. He claims, for example, that Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for any discussions involving Justice Department officials even when he urged Justice Department officers to pressure states to replace their legitimate electors with fraudulent members of the Electoral College who would vote unlawfully to install Trump for a second term. Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution even when he told the Justice Department, Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen. If Trump had ordered the Justice Department to arrest every Democrat who holds elective office, he could not be charged with a crime as this is considered official conduct. Juan Cole, Digital Image, Dream/ PS Express, 2024 Fallout from the Trumpist Court giving its MAGA master royal immunity was immediate. Judge Juan Merchan put on ice Trumps July 11 sentencing for 34 felony convictions because the Court decision could absurdly be used to define some of Trumps actions as official acts. Though ridiculous on its face, the signing of the hush money checks to pay off a porn star to influence an election occurred inside the White House Oval Office, so this pay-off might be an official act. Further, the ruling will remand Trumps election subversion case, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, back to Judge Tanya Chutkan, in the D.C. District Court, to sort out what, if anything, is left of the indictment. Chutkan had previously rejected, and offered a sweeping condemnation of Trumps immunity argument one that constitutional law professor Michael Dorf also called crazy. The process will take lots of time and any ruling can be appealed, so the case will not go to trial before the election. In the very week that the nation celebrated its founding, the Court undermined the reason for the American Revolution by giving presidents what Judge Sotomayor called a law-free zone in which to act, thus taking a leap toward restoring the monarchy that the Declaration of Independence rejected. The entire purpose of the Constitution was to create a government that was not bound to the whims of a king. Almost 250 years later, the Courts self-styled originalists have put a crown within Trumps reach. Presidents can still be impeached for their crimes in office, but it is hard to see how they can ever be prosecuted. The ruling creates a series of nightmare scenarios for what a president is legally allowed to do, writes Justice Sotomayor. Orders the Navys Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organize a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune, immune, immune. She added: The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law. Though the Court left open the possibility of prosecuting Trump for unofficial acts such as, his conniving with campaign officials, it also implied that nothing a president does can be called unofficial. For example, the Extreme Court ruled that a presidents communications with the public likely fall comfortably within at least the outer perimeter of his official acts. And, in a another twist of the legal knife, the majority ruled that Trumps official acts could not even be introduced as evidence in a trial against him. That last twist was too much even for ultra-right Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who refused to join the majority in the ruling on evidence. She gave the example of how hard it would be to prosecute a president who takes a bribe for an official act. The Constitution does not require blinding juries to the circumstances surrounding conduct for which Presidents can be held liable, she wrote. But the decision of her five fellow-extremists would require such blindness. The ruling even said that courts could not evaluate a presidents motives in determining criminal accountability. Considering an alleged criminals motives is exactly what the Constitution itself plainly calls for, writes Yale University Constitutional Law Professor Akhil Reed Amar. Essentially, the Court in Trump v. United States is declaring the Constitution itself unconstitutional. Instead of properly starting with the Constitutions text and structure, the Court has ended up repealing them. Summing up the question of whether a former President enjoys immunity from federal criminal prosecution, Justice Sotomayor writes in her dissent, The majority thinks he should, and so it invents an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law. For a conservative majority that pretends to rely on historical precedent, the newly created standards are remarkable for their lack of basis in the Constitution, law or any precedent of the court. The immunity standards are pure fabrications. The Supreme Court has intervened directly in the 2024 presidential campaign by shielding Trump from being tried on major federal charges before the November election. No previous Supreme Court has protected a political candidate in this way. This outcome benefits the Courts preferred presidential candidate by defacing beyond recognition the Constitution and the concept of democratic self-determination. Trump poses a unique threat to constitutional government, but its one that the Trumpist Judges just happen to support. These arent Justices, theyre Trump cronies. The outcome of the Courts majority runs counter to the long-settled understanding of a presidents exposure to criminal prosecution, regardless of whether his acts were considered official. That understanding endured until last week. The outstanding example in living memory is the case of Richard Nixon, who accepted a pardon from President Gerald Ford to avoid criminal prosecution. Nixon accepted the pardon for his role in the Watergate scandal because everyone agreed that his actions were legally prosecutable. Yet Nixons criminal behavior could easily be misconstrued by the Roberts Court as official acts. As the Nixon pardon made clear 50 years ago, the country understood well that ex-presidents could face trial for their crimes in office. Last Monday, the court radically redefined the settled understanding of the liability of ex-presidents, an opinion that contradicts the entire notion of a government based on the rule of law. The president can violate the law, exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, and use his official power for malevolent ends. We want a president that is bold and fearless, even if he breaks the law in doing so. That is the majoritys terrifying message. We have entered the era of the imperial presidency as well as the era of the Imperial Supreme Court as Stanford law professor Mark A. Lemly calls it. In casting aside the text, structure and history of the Constitution in favor of vague concerns about the need to enable the president to carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution, the Court reveals that it will rule and rule us all based on its own free-floating and distorted vision of an optimal constitutional order. The immunity ruling reflects a massive Supreme Court power grab that is also evident in the recent Loper Bright decision that overturned a 40-year-old precedent the Chevron deference. The decision took judicial power over federal agency regulations transferring policy-making authority from agency experts to a judiciary that lacks the personnel and expertise to evaluate the overwhelming array of policy questions that arise from legal ambiguity. The courts three liberals denounced the ruling as a threat to American democracy by an un-elected branch of government. A longstanding precedent at the crux of administrative governance thus falls victim to a bald assertion of judicial authority, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent. The majority disdains restraint, and grasps for power. In a further condescending flaunting of their power, Justices Thomas and Alito refused to recuse themselves from decisions related to any January 6 cases. Thomass wife lawyer and activist Ginni Thomas denounced the fascist left and posted on Facebook love MAGA people!!! on January 6. Connected to Trumps coup attempt, she was implicated with the fake elector schemers in Arizona. Alito a flag-flying Christian Nationalist is openly aligned with the Big Lie traitors, having allowed the upside-down American flag, the insurrection flag, to be flown in his yard during the 2021 Capitol violence. The anti-democratic determination by these Trump-supporting, Supreme Frauds could not come at a more dangerous time for democracy. The ruling has removed a major check on the office of the presidency at the very moment when dictator-for-a-day Trump is running for office on a promise to weaponize the apparatus of government against those he views as his enemies. The Trumpified Courts decision that grants imperial powers to a future unscrupulous President Trump has raised the stakes of the election tremendously, and they were already too high. If Trump wins, he will have the presidency Nixon wanted, one in which nothing the president does is illegal. The Courts decision inflates the significance of Bidens political self-immolation at the recent debate, in which the President spent much of his 90 minutes on stage staring into the middle distance, mouth agape, reiterating the very idea as if he was surprised and stunned by Trump reeling off lie after lie and insult after insult as he has done for years. When Biden did speak, his voice was shaky, and he sometimes lost his train of thought. Bidens meltdown increased the wannabe tyrants chance of winning, according to the liberal Brookings Institute. Now, while the convicted GOP candidate has been invested by the MAGA court with kingly powers, the Democrats are dithering about whether their impaired candidate is the best person for the job of running against the felon. The Court decision shows if voters did not know it before the incredible importance of putting progressive justices on the Supreme Court. The next president might very well get two appointments to the Supreme Court Thomas is 76 and Alito is 74. If a Democrat wins, he or she might possibly appoint two replacement justices that would return the court to a liberal majority, 5-4. If Trump wins, the 6-judge majority will be chosen by a racist mob boss and the Christo-fascist Federalist Society. The Trump Courts decision is not only a grant of immunity for past crimes, but is also an enthusiastic endorsement of the despotic power that Trump has vowed to assert. Promising retribution against his opponents, he will turn the Justice Department against critics. For example, he wants to subject Liz Cheney to a televised military tribunal on uncertain charges. Trump also said that he has every right to go after Joe Biden and his family. The Supreme Court essentially gave him the green light to do that as part of his official duties. The combination of new judicially invented presidential immunity and the longstanding pardon power means that a future Trump White House could become the site of a criminal enterprise that would make Richard Nixons Watergate Scandal look trivial. Raging xenophobe Trump promises that he will set up vast camps and illegally deport millions of people from the U.S. He could invoke the Insurrection Act and use troops to lock down the southern border or crush protests. Hed stretch the powers of the presidency in ways not seen in our lifetime. He says this consistently and clearly so its not conjecture. The Supreme Court has radically changed the very structure of American government paving the way for MAGA authoritarianism. Though mind-bogglingly insane, a moronic conman has used his vile narcissism and pathological mendacity along with a maniacal cult to put him on the verge of having complete control of all three branches of the U.S. government. We need a France-like, anti-authoritarian voter turnout to stop the Gangster President. By Tarique Niazi | ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died on May 19 while returning from a ceremony to inaugurate a hydropower project in a remote corner of northwestern Iran. Why would a head of state brave the hazardous conditions of unseasonal blizzards in a mountainous region to open a run-of-the-mill water and power project? Why not send his minister for energy to stand in for him? Why was the project so important as to even invite the head of state of neighboring Azerbaijan, which had only three months ago shut down its embassy in Tehran to protest a violent attack on its staff? The answer: climate change. As much as 97 percent of Iran suffers from a 30-year drought . Droughts are exacerbated by two major factors: a dramatic drop in precipitation and an evaporation driven by scorching temperatures. On average, Iran receives 250 millimeters of rain a year, which is close to one-third of the global average. Yet two-thirds of Irans average precipitation evaporates each year. Certain spatial and temporal variations in rainfall patterns leave much of the country vulnerable to drought. True to these variations, Irans Caspian Sea basin is the wettest of all with rainfall as high as 1,600 millimeters per year. Yet climate-induced water scarcity and evaporation of moisture in other parts of the country are exacting a heavy toll on Irans already dwindling water resources. A case in point is the agriculture sector, which now guzzles 93 percent of national freshwater supplies. Scarcity of water has become the catalyst of climate-induced drought that Raisi was combatting with the opening of dam and hydropower projects. No Iranian president had been more proactively responding to climate-induced scarcity in the country than Raisi. His water diplomacy was meant to elevate relations with neighboring statessuch as Azerbaijan and Armenia, which share transboundary waterwaysto a special level. The imperative to secure water resources put Iran on the side of Christian Armenia against Muslim Azerbaijan during their 30-year violent conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In response, Azerbaijan sought help from Israel and Turkey, which provided Baku with heavy artillery, rocket launchers, and attack drones, especially for the final push in September 2023 that left Azerbaijan in control of all of Nagorno-Karabakh. Press Service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan: Hours before his death, President Raisi with his Azeri counterpart, inaugurating the Giz Galasi hydropower project that straddles the border between Azerbaijan and Iran. Now that Azerbaijan controls Nagorno-Karabakh, Irans water diplomacy has spun to Baku. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sent his personal emissary to the inaugural ceremony of the hydropower plant on May 19 to meet with Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev. Khamenei described Azeris as Irans kin, an elevation of special relations to a shared genealogy. Khamenei himself is of Azeri descent, and Azeri-Iranians make up the countrys largest ethnic minority. Why has Iran switched sides from Armenia to Azerbaijan in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh? The answer, again, lies in the hydrological wealth of the region. Nagorno-Karabakh is home to eight major rivers, three of which feed into the Kura River, and five into Aras River (see the map below). The Kura and Aras are the largest bodies of water in all of southern Caucasus. Both rivers merge before their united stream empties into the Caspian Sea. The Aras, which rises in Turkey, supplies Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Iran with their freshwater needs. To harvest this water, the Nagorno-Karabakh region is crisscrossed with four major dams and 33 hydropower plants. Since September 2023, all of this hydrological treasure has come under the sovereign control of Azerbaijan, prompting Irans realignment. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Riley Gold Corp. (TSXV: RLYG) (OTCQB: RLYGF) ("Riley Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that drilling is underway at the Company's Pipeline West/Clipper Gold Project ("PWC") by Kinross Gold U.S.A., Inc. ("Kinross"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kinross Gold Corporation (TSX: K) (NYSE: KGC). Riley Gold entered into an exploration and venture option agreement (the "Agreement") with Kinross on March 13, 2024. The Agreement grants Kinross the right to earn up to a 75% interest in Riley Gold's PWC project by spending a minimum of US$20 million (see news release dated March 14, 2024 for details). PWC is located in Lander County, Nevada and consists of approximately 24.7 km in the heart of the significant gold producing Cortez District (Battle Mountain - Eureka Trend). Kinross is funding and operating PWC and has a strategic 9.9% (on a partially diluted basis) equity interest in the Company acquired through a private placement. "We are excited to have partnered with Kinross and to have drilling underway at PWC. Technical meetings have identified exciting targets, based on geological and geophysical data interpretation, in areas that have never been drill tested. Having a partner with a proven track record of gold production from two mines in Nevada (Round Mountain and Bald Mountain) is extremely valuable from a technical and operational standpoint. Our PWC project is within the Cortez District that has a significant history of gold production and current reserves. PWC adjoins Nevada Gold Mines LLC ("NGM"), a joint venture between Barrick Gold Corp. and Newmont Corporation, that has current production within their Cortez/Pipeline complex," commented Todd Hilditch, CEO of Riley Gold. Technical Committee Formation - Mr. Paul Dobak Represents Riley Gold The PWC project technical committee is led by Kinross and includes members from both Kinross and Riley Gold. The appointed lead Riley Gold technical committee member is Mr. Paul Dobak, who joined the Company on April 4, 2024 (see press release dated April 8 for his bio) as a member of Riley's technical advisory committee. Mr. Dobak has a wealth of experience in the mineral exploration field, particularly within the Cortez Trend where the PWC project is located and where he was involved in the discovery of the Goldrush and Fourmile gold deposits as Chief Geologist - North America for Barrick Gold. Mr. Dobak has additional direct practical experience in Nevada's style of mineralization and deposits having held positions of increasing responsibility with Barrick for 25 years and senior positions with other major mining companies for 15 years prior to that. Recent Work, Drill Program and Cortez District Highlights Drilling will target previously untested favourable lower plate carbonate host rocks of the Wenban and Roberts Mountains Formations at explorable depths. The Wenban Formation is the primary host to all the >5.0-million-ounce gold deposits in the Cortez District. Geologic work completed by Riley Gold and Kinross since the PWC acquisition includes: surface geologic mapping, soil geochemistry and controlled-source audio-frequency magnetotelluric ("CSAMT") surveys. In addition, re-interpretation of historic drill hole, gravity, magnetic and CSAMT data has been completed and used for developing 2024 drill targets. The primary target is a large, disseminated gold deposit peripheral to the Gold Acres stock, which is the geologic setting for the NGM Pipeline gold deposit. Permitting for the initial work and drilling was submitted by Kinross to the Bureau of Land Management and approved. About PWC: PWC constitutes a very prospective exploration property for Carlin-type, disseminated and replacement gold deposits. PWC consists of a land package totaling approximately 24.7 square kms of unpatented mining claims and patented fee lands adjoining NGM. PWC is situated along the Cortez Structural Zone of the exceptionally productive Cortez Trend within the Battle Mountain - Eureka Trend in north central Nevada (Figure 1). The Cortez and Pipeline complexes (adjoining Riley's PWC project boundary) are top producers within Nevada, a State that has consistently produced between 4-5 million ounces of gold a year. Figure 1: PWC Location (project boundary approximate) Qualified Person This news release has been reviewed and approved by Richard DeLong, P.Geo., Director of Riley Gold and a 'qualified person', as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. About Riley Gold Corp. Riley Gold is an exploration and development company focused in Nevada, USA, with assets that include the Pipeline West/Clipper Gold Project located in the Battle Mountain Eureka Trend (within the Cortez District) and the Tokop Gold Project located within the Walker Lane Trend. Riley Gold's founders and leadership team have a proven track record of maximizing shareholder value during each phase of the mining life cycle: exploration, development, and production. 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 statement regarding forward-looking information This press release contains statements which constitute "forward looking information" under applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements regarding plans, intentions, beliefs and current expectations of the Company. The words "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, or its management, are intended to identify such forward-looking information. Although Riley Gold believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them because Riley Gold 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 and the Company's future business activities may differ materially from those in the forward-looking information as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, fluctuations in market prices, successes of the operations of the Company, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions and the ability to obtain the requisite approvals of the TSX Venture Exchange when necessary. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future business activities and involves risks and uncertainties. Additional information on these and other factors that could affect Riley Gold operations and financial results are included in reports on file with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and may be accessed through the SEDAR+ website (www.sedarplus.ca).There can be no assurances that such information will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking information except as required under the applicable securities laws. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Founders Metals Inc. (TSXV: FDR) (OTCQX: FDMIF) (FSE: 9DL0) ("Founders" or the "Company") announces the start of its 2024 Buese area drill program at the Antino Gold Project ("Antino" or "Project") in southeastern Suriname. The Company plans to drill up to 7,000 metres (m) at Buese in 2024 beginning with an initial 3,000 m phase 1 program. The drilling uses Founders' own recently acquired third diamond drill. The Company is focused on testing both high-grade shear zones along the margins of the Filuca intrusive and bulk-tonnage type targets hosted within the intrusive at Buese. Highlights Founders-owned third diamond drill rig now operating Start of 3,000 m phase 1 drilling program at Buese New induced polarization (IP) and ground magnetic surveys support previously unidentified mineralized structures confirmed with high-grade gold samples at surface Channel sample grading 9.34 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) over 8.0 m including 1.0 m of 42.56 g/t Au as well as previously released results of up to 113.0 g/t Au as well as previously released results of up to 113.0 g/t Au Over 35,000 m2 of mapped Filuca intrusive with potentially a much larger subsurface body supported by recent geophysics Buese Discussion The Buese area covers over 600 hectares (ha) and is ~6 kilometres (km) southeast of Upper Antino and the Froyo Gold Zone. Buese gold mineralization is mapped over 2 kilometres along the southeastern extent of the 8+ km Antino Gold Trend. Mineralization occurs within and along the margins of the Filuca tonalite intrusion. Recently exposed outcrops by artisanal miners show that the intrusion is heavily altered (quartz/sericite/iron-carbonate/tourmaline) and hosts multiple generations of centimetre to decimetre-scale quartz quartz-carbonate veins throughout the exposed body. Founders' recent exploration results combined with historical auger sampling and limited past drilling of the Filuca intrusive indicate significant, previously underexplored potential for bulk-tonnage gold mineralization. This represents a similar setting and style of mineralization as the multi-million ounce Omai and Yaou gold deposits in Guyana and French Guiana, respectively. Founders' exploration work to date includes new ground magnetic and IP geophysical surveys, auger and rock sampling, detailed mapping, and an analysis of historical drilling. From this work, Founders has defined several high-priority drill targets. Geological mapping has successfully defined over 35,000 m2 of the tonalitic Filuca intrusive and surface sampling confirms substantial gold mineralization spatially associated with an extensive quartz and quartz-carbonate stockwork vein system. The Company's channel sample results from Buese include 9.34 g/t Au over 8.0 m and 11.87 g/t Au over 12.0 m, with up to 113.0 g/t Au. Colin Padget, Founders' President & CEO, commented "We are very encouraged by the results of the preliminary work completed at Buese and are excited for the ongoing drilling. Historical work primarily targeted the high-grade shears and other mineralization separate from the Filuca intrusive. Given our recent work and updated geological interpretation, phase 1 of our drilling focuses on the bulk-tonnage potential of the Filuca intrusive and the high-grade shears zones along its edge." In addition to the maps below, take a virtual tour of the property by clicking here. Figure 1: Property Scale Map Figure 2: Plan Map of Buese Figure 3: Soil Anomalies & IP at Buese Figure 4: Cross-Section of Geology at Buese Figure 5: Cross-Section of Historical Drill Holes at Buese North About Founders Metals Inc. Founders Metals is a Canadian-based exploration company focused on advancing the Antino Gold Project located in Suriname, South America, in the heart of the Guiana Shield. Antino is 20,000 hectares and has produced over 500,000 ounces of gold from surface and alluvial mining to date1. The Company drilled 10,000 metres in 2023 and is fully financed for drilling in 2024. 12022 Technical Report - Antino Project; Suriname, South America. K. Raffle, BSc, P. Geo & Rock Lefrancois, BSc, P.Geo. Quality Assurance and Control Results from samples were analyzed at FILAB Suriname, a Bureau Veritas Certified Laboratory in Paramaribo, Suriname (a commercial certified laboratory under ISO 9001:2015). Samples are crushed to 75% passing 2.35 mm screen, riffle split (700 g) and pulverized to 85% passing 88 m. Samples were analyzed using a 50 g fire assay (50 g aliquot) with an Atomic Absorption (AA) finish. For samples that return assay values over 10.0 grams per tonne (g/t), another cut was taken from the original pulp and fire assayed with a gravimetric finish. Founders Metals inserts blanks and certified reference standards in the sample sequence for quality control. External QA-QC checks are performed at ALS Global Laboratories (Geochemistry Division) in Lima, Peru (an ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited facility). A secure chain of custody is maintained in transporting and storing of all samples. Drill intervals with visible gold are assayed using metallic screening. Rock chip samples from outcrop/bedrock are selective by nature and may not be representative of the mineralization hosted on the project. Qualified Persons The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Michael Dufresne, M.Sc., P.Geol., P.Geo., a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, Per: "Colin Padget" Colin Padget President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the use of proceeds from the Company's recently completed financings and the future or prospects of the Company. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect ", "is expected ", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to business, market, and economic risks, uncertainties, and contingencies that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, other factors may cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated, or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Other factors which could materially affect such forward-looking information are described in the risk factors in the Company's most recent annual management discussion and analysis. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information except in accordance with applicable securities laws. All material information on Founders Metals can be found at www.sedarplus.ca. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Geologica Resource Corp. (CSE: GRCM) (FSE: 862) ("Geologica" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the strategic acquisition of the "Titan" property ("Titan") in the Atlin mining district of British Columbia. These claims are adjacent to the Llewellyn Fault Zone (LFZ), a major crustal-scale structure extending over 150 kilometers and known to host several gold, silver, and base metal showings, including the past-producing Engineer and Mount Skukum gold mines. Exploration at Titan is primarily focused on polymetallic vein systems potentially associated with splays off the highly prospective Llewellyn Fault Zone. Table 1 displays select grab samples taken in 2018 from the Buchans Creek showing in the north-central part of the property. Table 1. Select 2018 Grab Samples from Buchans Creek Showing The Buchans Creek showing is a high-grade polymetallic vein measuring 1-1.5 meters wide. This vein has been observed at three distinct locations along the surface and has been traced for 10-20 meters at each exposure. The vein is enriched in gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, antimony, and tellurium. 2018 sampling results returned up to 11.4 g/t Au, 0.81% Cu, >100 g/t Ag, >0.2% Sb, and >0.1% Te. Airborne magnetic and EM surveys have traced an anomalies extending from the Buchans Creek showing for 2 kilometers south-southeast, overlapping with the historical Rupert I showing, which contains historical grab samples grading up to 4.1 g/t Au, 237.6 g/t Ag, 11.8% Pb, and 0.60% Zn. Critical Mineral Significance While historical exploration at Titan primarily focused on precious and base metals, recent sampling has identified elevated levels of antimony and tellurium. These elements are classified as critical minerals by the Canadian and U.S. governments due to their essential uses and supply constraints. Antimony, a strategic critical mineral, is primarily produced in China and Russia, accounting for 70% of global production. With no antimony production in North America, the development of domestic supplies is critical. Analysts predict that global demand "cannot be met from current supplies" in the coming years. Antimony is crucial for military applications, digital circuitry, and next-generation liquid metal batteries, which are key to scalable energy storage for renewable sources like wind and solar power. The growing demand and limited supply have driven prices to record highs: Shanghai Metals Exchange data shows antimony ingot prices in China reached 127,500 yuan ($17,588.88) per metric ton on May 29, 2024, a 56% increase in 2024 alone. European prices have also surged to a record $21,000 per ton, a 75% increase this year. Tellurium, another strategic critical mineral, is one of the least common elements on Earth. With an average concentration of only 3 parts per billion in most rocks, it is rarer than rare earth elements and eight times less abundant than gold. Historically, tellurium was used in metallurgy as an additive to steel and copper, lead, and iron alloys. Today, it is primarily used for manufacturing films essential for photovoltaic solar cells. Alloyed with cadmium, tellurium forms a compound with enhanced electrical conductivity, enabling thin films to efficiently convert sunlight into electricity. As of June 18, 2024, the spot market price for tellurium is $87,000 USD per tonne, up over 20% from its low in October. This represents a substantial increase from the average annual price of $38,000 USD per tonne in 2017. Notably, between 2017 and 2021, the U.S. imported 95% of its annual tellurium requirements. Location The Titan Property is located 35 km southwest of Atlin in the northwest corner of British Columbia. History In 1899, the Rupert and White Moose polymetallic veins were discovered along the western shore of Tagish Lake's Taku Arm opposite the Engineer Gold Mine. These were explored by trenches, adits, and shafts. In 1904, 840 kg of sorted ore from the White Moose quartz veins assayed 0.78 oz/t Au, 50.34 oz/t Ag, 7.36% Cu, 3.85% Zn, 4.79% Pb, and 1.37% Sb (Minister of Mines Annual Report, 1904). After 1918, economic and logistical challenges halted further exploration within the Titan property until the 1970s. It should be noted that these lakeshore showings are located off the current Titan property to the east. From 1979 - 1990, United Keno Hill Mines Limited (UKHM) and Placer Dome explored the property with fieldwork directed towards assessing gold-silver vein potential on White Moose Mountain. This work identified 11 polymetallic vein occurrences. The claims being acquired host the most promising of the 11 prospects, the Rupert and Buchans Creek prospects. In 2003, Eagle Plains Resources optioned the Titan property. From 2003-2014, Eagle Plains conducted several work programs consisting of geological mapping, soil sampling, rock sampling, an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey, a SkyTEM survey. Exploration Plans Assay data has been compiled for over 1,000 soil samples and 300 rock samples. The Company has also obtained previously flown SKYTEM survey data. This information will aid new exploration efforts, focusing on the Rupert - Buchans Creek trend. Much of the area between the two showings is located in a plateau area covered by talus and reworked glacial moraine material mixed with talus fines, silt, and clay. Geophysics will be used to explore this area in more detail. Doug Unwin, CEO and President of the Company, stated, "We are very excited with the addition of the Titan Property to Geologica's property portfolio. This addition enhances the company's Topley copper/gold project, adding rare critical metals to the portfolio and significant value." Property Purchase The Company will pay the vendors $3,000 once the title to the claims has been transferred to the Company by the vendor. Geologica has committed to use the vendors company or a company approved by the vendor to conduct any exploration work on the property. The vendor has been granted a 2% net smelter royalty. 1% of the royalty may be purchased buy Geologica for $1,000,000. One of the vendors is not arms length to Geologica. Figure 1. Satellite Image of the Titan Property The Company has engaged Frontier Merchant Capital Group to provide investor awareness. FronTier's Flex Marketing, is an industry leading, cross-media marketing program. Flex Marketing offers comprehensive IR and media marketing solutions to small and midcap companies seeking to create corporate awareness. The Flex Marketing service allows clients to choose and combine from a dozen industry leading media add-on partner services. Along with FronTier's traditional roadshow and IR services. The contract is for six months at a cost of $54,000. About Geologica Resource corp. Geologica Resource Corp. is a mineral explorer, focused on exploration of copper and critical minerals for electrification, building shareholder value through the acquisition of projects with significant technical merit. The Company has an option agreement and purchase agreements for 100% of the mineral claims known as the Topley Project, located in central British Columbia. The company has now acquired the Titan rare critical minerals/copper/gold property. The Company continues to evaluate additional properties to explore. Topley Copper Claims Geochemistry has identified high priority copper exploration target areas and a kilometer-scale VMS target area aligned with regional magnetic targets The region is known for its large porphyry, copper/gold, and copper/molybdenum deposits including past producing copper mines, Granisle and Bell The property is on trend with the recent NAC discovery (1.09% Cu over 300M) in the Babine Lake Porphyry camp as well as the Duke deposit The property is located in central BC, is Road Accessible, Near required labour and expertise and Cost effective to explore. BC Hydro power lines transect the property and several water sources are available on the property Porphyries contain the largest reserves of Cu and close to 50% of Au reserves in B.C. Topley Copper Property consists of 10 mineral claims totaling over 4,2163,400 Ha with known prospects and showings. Previous drilling on the claims has indicated intense hydrothermal alteration with Ag, Pb, and Zn mineralization (Dunning 2000). Sporadic regional till samples in the area are in the 90th percentile for As, Sb, Pb and Zn. Further information on Geologica Resource Corp. can be found on the Company's website https://geologicaresource.com and on SEDAR at https://www.sedarplus.ca The accuracy of the technical content of this overview had been reviewed by David Mark P.Geo. David is a Qualified Person as defined under NI 43-101, and a member of the Company's board of directors. He approves the technical content of this press release. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") nor its Market Regulator (as such term is defined in the CSE policies) has reviewed or accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Doug Unwin President & CEO (604) 762-5355 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information is characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "ensuring", "believe", "anticipate", "will", "would" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking information pertaining to the Company's plans and objectives with respect to the Topley Project. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, changes in the state of equity and debt markets, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in obtaining required regulatory or governmental approvals, environmental risks, limitations on insurance coverage, failure to obtain all necessary regulatory approvals, risks and uncertainties inherent in the exploration and development of mineral properties. Forward-looking information in this news release is based on the opinions and assumptions of management considered reasonable as of the date hereof, including, but not limited to, the assumption that general business and economic conditions will not change in a materially adverse manner. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable securities laws. Dunning, J. K. (2000). 1999 Diamond Drill Program Report on the Len and Ful Property. Hudson Bay Exploration & Development Co. Retrieved from https://apps.nrs.gov.bc.ca/pub/aris/Report/26329a.pdf/ Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Zodiac Gold Inc. (TSXV: ZAU) ("Zodiac Gold" or the "Company") is proud to announce the appointment of Ryan Hanley to its Advisory Board. Mr. Hanley brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the company, with an impressive career spanning over 15 years in the mining and capital markets sectors. Adding a well-respected sell-side mining analyst like Mr. Hanley to the Company's Advisory Board is highly strategic for Zodiac Gold as his insights will provide critical guidance in our efforts to optimize the Company's investment appeal. Mr. Hanley will be joining Renaud Adams, current CEO of IAMGOLD Corp. (NYSE: IAG), and Michael Demeter, Managing Director of Fort Capital, on Zodiac Gold's Advisory Board. Mr. Hanley is currently the CEO of Springburn Capital Inc., a private investment & advisory firm providing services to early stage, pre-listed, and small/mid-cap public companies. Prior to Springburn, Mr. Hanley held the role of Director & Mining Analyst at Laurentian Bank Securities in Toronto, where he worked from March 2017 to May 2024. Before joining LBS, Mr. Hanley was an Equity Research Analyst specializing in Mining & Mining Services at Research Capital Corp. from 2012 to 2017. His career at Research Capital also included roles as a Mining Research Associate from 2009 to 2012 and an Investment Banking Analyst in 2008. Mr. Hanley has been consistently recognized as a leading analyst in the mining industry, earning accolades from Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, and Refinitiv. Among his numerous honors, he was notably ranked as the 3rd "Top Stock Picker (All Sectors)" in Canada in the 2017 Thomson Reuters Analyst Awards. Mr. Hanley holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. "We are thrilled to welcome Mr. Hanley to our Advisory Board," said David Kol, CEO of Zodiac Gold Inc. "His extensive experience and proven track record in the mining sector will be invaluable as we continue to advance our strategic initiatives and growth objectives. Our goal has always been to build a best-in-class team to support our growth and marketing strategy. Ryan definitely fills that role by bringing his analytical and research approach to the company. " About Zodiac Gold Zodiac Gold, Inc. (TSXV: ZAU) is a West-African gold exploration company focused on its flagship Todi Project situated in Liberia-an underexplored, politically stable, mining-friendly jurisdiction hosting several large-scale gold deposits. Strategically positioned along the fertile Todi Shear Zone, Zodiac Gold is developing a district-scale gold opportunity covering a vast 2,316 km2 land package. The project has undergone de-risking, showcasing proven gold occurrences at both surface and depth, with five drill-ready targets and high-grade gold intercepts. For further information, please visit the Zodiac Gold website at www.zodiac-gold.com or contact: 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 Information This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. 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 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 statements. Seoul, July 10, 2024 - A well-known actor in his 40s, affiliated with a terrestrial broadcasting station, has been formally indicted by the Seoul Seongdong Police Station on charges of assault and drunk driving. The incident, which occurred in the early hours of July 2nd, has sparked significant controversy and legal proceedings against the celebrity. According to police reports, the actor, identified only as 'A', was seen consuming alcohol at a restaurant in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, until approximately 3:40 a.m. Subsequently, he drove his vehicle approximately 3 kilometers to his residence in Seongdong-gu. Upon interception by authorities, 'A' registered a blood alcohol concentration exceeding the legal limit for driving, warranting immediate license revocation. The situation escalated further when bystanders attempted to intervene, suspecting 'A' of driving under the influence. Allegedly, the actor responded aggressively, resulting in accusations of assault against him for choking individuals attempting to contact the police. READ MORE: THIS Actor's Estranged Wife Spotted Partying in Bali Amid Divorce: 'Isn't She Sad?' In a statement to MBC, 'A' admitted to driving after consuming alcohol, citing the unavailability of a designated driver as justification for his actions. "After finishing half a bottle of soju with my acquaintances, I drove home by myself because I couldn't get a proxy driver. Even when the police came, I also admitted to drunk driving. When I got out of the car, some people with tattoos approached me. They filmed videos and said they would follow me and report this to the media. I just wanted to run away from them, and did not cause any injuries. I've already filed a countersuit against them". -A The police promptly forwarded 'A' to prosecution for drunk driving charges and continue to investigate the assault allegations, reviewing CCTV footage from the scene. Under South Korean law, 'A' faces severe penalties, including potential imprisonment or hefty fines should the court find him guilty of causing injury while driving under the influence. The case has drawn attention to the persistent issue of drunk driving incidents in the country, with recent reports even implicating a female police officer who attempted to evade a DUI check near Gimhae, Gyeongsangnam-do. ALSO READ: THIS K-drama Hearthrob is in Talks for Comeback After Hollywood Debut - Who is He? KdramaStars owns this article. Written by Joan Cabigas. Seoul, July 10, 2024 - Actress Han So-hee, known for her dynamic roles on screen, recently delighted fans and martial arts enthusiasts alike with a display of cool action moves at a special event hosted by Seoul Action School and Seoul Arts Academy. The event, aimed at promoting martial arts and action choreography, saw Han So-hee take on the role of assistant instructor, showcasing her skills alongside renowned directors and instructors. Nossa Barbie com varios empregos: #HanSoHee esteve ajudando na escola de acao de Seoul como mentora! Nao devem se lembrar mas a escola de acao de Seoul e onde Han So Hee treinou artes marciais para My Name. pic.twitter.com/WIQzSje1hC July 8, 2024 Han So-hee, who gained acclaim for her role in the 2021 Netflix drama "My Name", attended the event as a representative of the Seoul Action School, where she had previously trained extensively for her role as Yoon Ji-woo. In "My Name", Han So-hee portrayed a complex character embroiled in the world of gangs and undercover operations, requiring her to master intricate martial arts techniques. READ MORE: Han So Hee's Village Bus Adventure: A Glimpse Into Her Real Life Directors Jeong Doo-hond and Heo Myung-haeng, along with several martial arts instructors and members of the Seoul Action School, were present to witness Han So-hee's demonstration. Her participation not only highlighted her proficiency in action choreography but also underscored her ongoing relationship with the school that helped shape her skills for the screen. During the event, attendees were treated to a glimpse of Han So-hee's dedication and passion for martial arts, as she guided participants through various techniques and routines. ALSO READ: Han So Hee's Ultra Fair Skin Draws Attention: 'She Needs to Play Vampire Role' KdramaStars owns this article. Written by Joan Cabigas. Tuesday, July 09, 2024 - American comic actor, Jay Johnston, who appeared in Anchorman and Arrested Development is facing up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to interfering with police officers during the US Capitol riots. Johnston, who also voiced pizzeria owner Jimmy Pesto in the animated sitcom Bob's Burgers, is one of more than 1,400 people who have been charged with crimes related to the violence in Washington DC on 6 January 2021. Video footage captured the 55-year-old pushing against police and helping rioters during the disorder at the Lower West tunnel leading into the Capitol. Johnston, from Los Angeles, was "close to the entrance to the tunnel, turned back and signalled for other rioters to come towards the entrance", according to an FBI agent's affidavit. He also held a stolen police shield over his head and passed it to other rioters during the attack, the affidavit adds. The attack on January 6 2021 intended to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election. A court filing accompanying Johnston's plea agreement says he used his mobile phone to record rioters as they broke through barricades and sent police officers retreating. Three current or former associates of Johnston identified him as a riot suspect from photos that the FBI published online, according to the agent. The FBI said one of those associates provided investigators with a text message in which Johnston acknowledged being at the Capitol on the day of the riots. "The news has presented it as an attack. It actually wasn't. Thought it kind of turned into that. It was a mess. Got maced and tear gassed and I found it quite untastic," Johnston wrote, according to the FBI. The actor, who was arrested in June last year, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison after pleading guilty to civil disorder. He is due to be sentenced on the 7th of October. Tuesday, July 09, 2024 - An airline HK Express has apologized after two blind passengers say they felt insulted and embarrassed" for being kicked out of the flight citing safety concerns. Passengers Andy Chui, 34, and John Li, 27, were booked for an afternoon flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo on May 22, and said they had informed the airline about their disability, according to a statement from the Hong Kong Blind Union. Li and Chui said they went through check-in without any issues and were escorted to the boarding gate as usual. On board, crew members briefed them about in-flight safety procedures but later removed them from the plane over safety concerns after learning they were traveling unaccompanied, according to Li and Chui. We felt insulted and embarrassed. They were treating us as if we were criminals, Chui said in a press conference. Blind Union president Billy Wong, said the handling of the situation left the passengers confounded because they had been able to travel alone without issues on other airlines. Wong also called on the airline to investigate its protocols and treatment of travelers with disabilities, saying guidelines from aviation authorities were toothless. They need to ensure that companies comply with these guidelines and that there are punitive measures when companies discriminate against people with disabilities, Wong told CNN. HK Express said in a statement that due to differing judgments made by the ground staff and aircrew, the case was escalated to management for assessment and the additional time required to decide had led to the pair being unable to travel on the original flight. HK Express said its staff had followed the airlines standard safety procedures, during the incident, without specifying whether the two passengers had failed to comply with its protocols. The airline added it was later confirmed that the two passengers could travel safely without a companion, and they were re-accommodated on a later flight of their choice on the same day to their destination. The decision made by the aircrew was entirely based on safety considerations, and the on-duty staff accompanied the two passengers as they left the cabin, HK Express commercial director KK Ong said in a separate statement. We sincerely apologize for the delay and inconvenience caused to the two passengers. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - Embakasi East MP Paul Ongili alias Babu Owino has overthrown Azimio Leader Raila Odinga as the Opposition Leader. This is after Raila went to bed with President William Ruto; something that will prevent him from discharging his duties as Opposition Leader effectively. Speaking after Azimio Raila called for dialogue between Ruto and the Gen Zs yesterday, Babu Owino appointed himself as the authority in charge of Opposition matters in the country. He disclosed that he would wear the cap, previously donned by Raila, to liberate Kenya especially since the current regime was not performing to Kenyans' expectations. "I will continue playing the role of opposition, keeping checks and balances on this defunct government under the doctrine of separation of powers, checks and balances as opined by Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brede de Montesquieu in the 17th century," he stated. Babu Owino reiterated his fidelity and loyalty to his political philosophy of holding governments accountable, moreso, the Kenya Kwanza administration he described as 'useless' in a separate tweet. In a joint press with Ruto and a host of other leaders, Raila announced his support for the Head of State's plan to form a multi-sectoral forum to address the issues raised by the Gen Zs. He emphasised that after the meeting with Ruto, it was resolved that the only way to deal with the country's current crisis was to hold dialogue. The Kenyan DAILY POST Tuesday, July 09, 2024 - A two-year-old boy has died after accidentally shooting himself in the head in a Walmart parking lot as his parents shopped for fireworks. Nakyzi Odums parents left him alone in their vehicle on the afternoon before the Fourth of July as they went to purchase fireworks at a nearby stand, reported WALB. Witnesses said that his parents heard a gunshot and ran to their car and found him with a wound in the chest. The toddler was rushed to a hospital in Douglas, Georgia, and then to a trauma centre in another state. On Saturday, July 6, the Douglas Police Department wrote on Facebook that it regrets to inform the community that the young child who suffered an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 3, 2024, has sadly passed away this afternoon at the trauma center in Jacksonville, Florida. Authorities are continuing their investigation to determine the exact circumstances surrounding the incident, the police department wrote. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family during this difficult time. He was definitely the light and love for his parents Sam Odums and Laileighauna Parks, his grandmother Candi Brinson wrote. He smiled brightly, wholeheartedly, loved unconditionally. It was not immediately known if the parents would face any charges in connection with the fatal shooting. There were no indications they had been arrested. Douglas Police Chief Brannen Pruette told The Independent: Youre allowed to have a gun in the car, but when theres a child involved, you need to make sure that the gun is secure so that the child doesnt have access to it. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - Interior Cabinet Secretary, Prof. Kithure Kindiki, has vowed to take disciplinary actions against all police officers who are involved in abducting and killing unarmed protestors during the three-week demos by Gen Z. In a press statement on Tuesday, Kindiki said any police officer who used excessive force while on duty would be dealt with and warned police officers against tarnishing the image of the National Police Service. "The Government has noted with concern claims of abductions and enforced disappearances allegedly perpetrated by security personnel. "All persons within the territory of Kenya are protected from unlawful or arbitrary arrests, abductions, enforced disappearances, or any other illegal method of confining suspected criminals for purposes of investigations, for prosecution, or for whatever purpose whatsoever," Kindiki said. Kindiki reiterated that the Kenya Kwanza government would not interfere with the Kenyans' constitutional right to picket. "The Government of Kenya undertakes most unequivocally to respect, uphold, promote, and fulfill the right to demonstrate within the parameters provided for under the Constitution. "This right, as well as all other constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms, must be enjoyed within the law, peaceably, and without disrupting civil order. "So enjoyed, human rights and freedoms are inherent, inalienable, and cannot be taken away by any person or authority," he added. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - A Florida man who spent the day drinking with a woman he met at a Daytona Beach pool is accused of dangling her 4-year-old son from a second-floor balcony before dropping the boy on his head. Brandon Gilmore, 31, met the unidentified boys mom poolside at the Sandalwood Beach Resort on Saturday, July 6, then spent the day drinking with her before taking her son outside the room to scare him a little bit, WESH-TV News reported. He was just like swinging in, playing with them, eyewitness Dasanni Bentley told the outlet. And then he let him go, and he had him by one foot. And then the kids slipped right out of him and fell directly on his head on the concrete no grass. Bentley said Gilmore and the boys mom who only met five hours earlier at the hotel pool dashed downstairs after the youngster hit the ground. His face started turning purple, she said of the injured boy. He obviously was getting no oxygen. It was not a good situation. The child was rushed to Halifax Health Medical Center, the Daytona Beach News-Journal said. The child is doing fine and has been discharged from the hospital and is not expected to have any long-term health issues as a result of this tragic event, police told Fox News Digital on Tuesday, July 9. Police said video surveillance footage captured Gilmore holding the boy in his arms before grabbing him by one leg and holding him over the balcony before he fell to the ground. Gilmore is facing aggravated child abuse charges and was still being held without bail at the Volusia County Jail as of Tuesday morning. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - A gay man who grew up in Ghana but now works as a fashion designer in the United States of America has shared photos of him as a child to prove that he was not indoctrinated when he went to America. In the throwback photos he shared, his effeminate nature shines forth clearly. He is seen in one of the photos posing alongside women. He wrote alongside the photos: Them: He got to America and got indoctrinated by white people and became gay. "Me in Nsawam at age 9. showing the girls how to do it. One of his followers added: Thats the excuse African parents make up to the extended family, pastors and society at large. He was normal in Nigeria but the white mans culture led him astray. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - George Clooney has called on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 election, stating that Biden cannot win against Donald Trump. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Clooney revealed he spent considerable time with Biden at a Democratic fundraiser in Los Angeles last month. "The Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate," Clooney wrote. Addressing Democrats, Clooney said, "We're all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we've opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before." Clooney emphasized his respect and affection for Biden, calling him a friend and a hero who saved democracy in 2020. However, he argued that Biden's age is an insurmountable obstacle for the upcoming election. "The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. We are not going to win in November with this president." Clooney urged Democrats to shift their focus to other potential candidates, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Governors Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Wes Moore, and Andy Beshear, as the party heads into next month's convention in Chicago. He concluded his op-ed by reiterating Biden's past achievements and his hope for a new candidate in 2024: Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - A grandmother who was the first to receive a combined pig kidney and mechanical heart pump transplant has died three months after the innovative pair of surgeries. Lisa Pisano successfully had both surgeries in April and appeared to be recovering, but her health took a downward turn and she died on Sunday, July 7, her surgeon announced. Doctors had to remove the pig kidney 47 days after the procedures as her heart medications damaged the organ. Pisano was put back on dialysis and continued to use the heart pump, but eventually went into hospice care, NYU Langone transplant surgeon Dr Robert Montgomery stated on Tuesday, July 9. Lisa helped bring us closer to realizing a future where someone does not have to die for another person to live, said Montgomery. She will forever be remembered for her courage and good nature. Pisano, of New Jersey, had end-stage kidney disease and heart failure when she received the gene-edited pig kidney and heart pump at a hospital in New York. All I want is the opportunity to have a better life, she said at the time. My doctors thought there may be a chance I could be approved to receive a gene-edited pig kidney, so I discussed it with my family and my husband. He has been by my side throughout this ordeal and wants me to be better. Pisano was not a good candidate for a kidney and heart transplant because there is a shortage of human organ donations and she had other chronic health conditions. In April, Pisano, 54, said she knew the pig kidney may not work but that she just took a chance. Worst case scenario, if it didnt work for me, it might have worked for someone else, she said then. Pisano is the second person ever to get a kidney from a gene-edited pig, after Richard Slayman, who received the organ at Massachusetts General Hospital in March. Slayman died in early May, almost two months after his surgery, of a preexisting heart disease and not due to the transplant, according to his doctor. Both surgeries were aimed at finding a viable alternative to donated human organs amid the great shortage. Tuesday, July 09, 2024 - Gypsy Rose Blanchard is going to be a mother. She just announced on social media that she's pregnant with her first child. She is expecting to give birth in January. She also disclosed that the child's father is her ex-fiance Ken Urker. Gypsy shared a collage of photos with Ken smiling and holding her baby bump while she's holding some images from her sonogram. They also posed with a baby sweater knitted with the word "hi." In a YouTube video, Gypsy explained the pregnancy was not planned and completely unexpected. She said she first noticed something was up when she started having cravings and felt more hungry. Gypsy got emotional in the video. At one point, she breaks down and fights through tears as she says she wants to be a good mother. "I want to be everything my mother wasn't," she said. Recall that Gypsy just got out of prison back in December 2023 after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in her mother's death and serving 8 years of a 10-year sentence. She and Ken met in prison and got engaged, but they split. In July 2022, Gypsy married Louisiana teacher Ryan Anderson in a prison wedding ceremony. Gypsy announced her split with Ryan in March 2024 shortly after her release from jail and in April 2024, she rekindled her romance with Ken. Gypsy says she and Ken are excited to start their family together. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 The Head of Kenya Police mission in Haiti Godfrey Otunge has shared the progress and strategy of the ongoing peacekeeping mission. Otunge is among the first officers who were deployed to lead the mission in the Caribbean nation as Kenya prepares to send other officers. Speaking during an interview, Otunge revealed that the officers in Haiti were committed to ensuring peace was restored in Haiti by working closely with the Haitian authorities. "We have a job that we are committed to do. We intend to achieve this by working closely with Haitian authorities and local and international partners dedicated to a new Haiti," he remarked. He emphasised that there was no room for failure while dealing with the gangs that had taken over a majority of the country. Otunge explained that the last 15 days had been a period of evaluation and planning on how to neutralize the gangs. However, the police boss declined to reveal further details on the mission or the strategies to be used for security reasons and strategic concerns. "The job is to ensure the restoration of peace throughout Haiti. We must do this job to the best of our ability," he emphasised. Otunge's remarks come even as Kenyans feel the police are being misused in Haiti by the U.S. after they were filmed guarding the U.S. Embassy in the troubled country at the expense of their mission. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - An audio has emerged of Daadab Member of Parliament, Farah Maalim bragging about how he stole millions of dollars from Parliament when he was Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly. Maalim, speaking on Twitter Space in the Somali dialect, said that when he was the deputy speaker and chairman of the Parliament Liaison Committee, he was in charge of millions of dollars and pocketed millions during that time. He said the Kenyan Parliament is allocated billions of shillings and he made a killing when he was the deputy speaker. The audio has emerged at a time when Farah Maalim is on the spot for calling for the killing of 5000 Gen Z protestors who stormed Parliament and chased away MPs who were supporting the controversial Finance Bill 2024 which has since been withdrawn by President Ruto. Here is the shocking audio by Farah Maalim. In January, Farah Maalim claimed on Somalia Twitter spaces. He openly boasted about not needing money because he was in control of "hundreds of millions of dollars" during his tenure as Deputy Speaker. pic.twitter.com/4FEgTmJ7xm BRAVIN YURI (@BravinYuri) July 10, 2024 The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - Renowned activist Boniface Mwangi turned up to comfort the family of David Chege, the first protester who was shot dead by a sniper outside Parliament on June 25, 2024, during the anti-finance bill protests. Taking to his X account, Mwangi said Cheges family requested him to carry his casket and fight for his justice. He was martyred for our country, protesting for a better Kenya, he tweeted. The vocal activist further said that he would not attend any other funeral. The grief and pain he has seen in the few funerals he has attended has left him broken. Most of those who died in the protests were in their prime fighting for a better country. Unfortunately, l have no strength to attend another funeral. The grief and pain l have seen in the mortuary, and the few funerals I've attended have broken me in so many, many ways. I cant even imagine what the families are going through. Young lives stolen in their prime. The knife in the heart was todays announcement that some old men have met and decided they want dialogue, without mentioning justice for the victims, and compensation. We must stand with the families, fight for them to get justice, and ensure their sacrifice wasnt in vain. Those men who posed for a group photo at KICC today, are the enemies of Gen Zs and those we have lost, he added. Below are photos of Cheges funeral. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - A former member of Jubilee Christian Church (JCC) has accused departed preacher Bishop Allan Kiuna of brainwashing her. Taking to her Facebook account, the enraged lady, identified as Mwari Wa Gitau, lamented that she wasted her youth sowing her hard-earned money in Kiunas church, in the name of giving to God after being brainwashed. She made it clear that although death is inevitable, she wont join millions of Kenyans in mourning the late preacher Her post has since gone viral and sparked a lot of reactions on social media. Kiuna and his wife Kathy run a multi-billion church empire that targets middle-class Kenyans from fancy neighbourhoods. They are among the founders of the prosperity gospel in Kenya. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - Residents of Kitengela were treated to a shocking incident on Tuesday after a man attacked his wifes secret lover and chopped off his legs, after finding him in his matrimonial bed. According to a police report, the enraged man had information that his cheating wife was bringing her lover to their house. After he was done with his morning work, he stormed his house unannounced and found the man, who is said to be a teacher, in bed with his wife. He pulled a knife and attacked him, chopping his legs. He then surrendered to Kitengela Police Station. Kitengela OCS David Shani confirmed the incident and said when the man was interrogated, he told police that he wanted to teach the intruder a lesson. The attacker works in Kitengela and when he was done with the morning work, he went to his house only to find the alleged teacher having an affair with his wife, the OCS said. The man asked the police what he should have done when a lion jumped into his boma. I walked in the house and pulled my knife and chopped his legs to teach him a lesson, he added. The suspect was rushed to Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi by neighbours after they found him in the house bleeding. The house was littered with blood from the bedroom to the sitting room. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Tuesday, July 09, 2024 - A man has been arrested after hurling his mother-in-law to her death from a fifth-floor balcony because she was 'too much of a burden'. The man reportedly dropped the 84-year-old woman 50ft in the Russian city of Artyom in the Primorsky region from an apartment building. She d!ed on the spot from multiple injuries. Her son-in-law, aged 54, has been detained by police on suspicion of murder. The suspect told officers he wanted to 'relieve' his son of carrying duties for the pensioner, as she allegedly had 'limited mobility, and not wanting his son to continue caring for her. Believing that this was too much of a burden, he threw the victim from the 5th floor balcony.' The suspect has been remanded in custody for two months pending further investigations. If convicted, he faces a likely 15 years in jail. This comes just days after a woman was jailed for seven and a half years after dropping her newborn daughter out of a window because she was 'worried a baby would ruin her career'. Katarina Jovanovic, 28, from Lauffen am Neckar, Baden-Wuerttemberg State, Germany, was found guilty of manslaughter at the Heilbronn District Court on Wednesday, July 3. Judges heard how she had given birth at home in secret 10 months ago on September 12 and then dropped her baby daughter from her apartment window almost 12 feet onto the tarmac below. Horrified passersby found the minutes-old infant's body with a shattered skull underneath Jovanovic's balcony and called the police. Tuesday, July 09, 2024 - A mechanic has been killed after he was sucked into a Boeing passenger jet's engine at Chabahar Konarak airport in southern Iran. Local mechanic, Abolfazl Amiri was doing routine maintenance work on Iranian domestic airline Varesh Airline's Boeing 737-500 when he was sucked into the engine. According to Bild, the engine on the right-hand side had been started for a test run with the cover flaps open. A safety area had been set up around the engine as is usually required. Unfortunately, when Amiri realised he had forgotten a tool on the engine, he went back and was sucked in and killed before the engine caught fire. Amiri's remains were recovered after the airport fire brigade arrived at the scene. Iran's aviation authority has ordered an investigation into the accident. Back in May, a man was killed after being sucked into a KLM passenger plane engine at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport. Passengers and crew members on board the Embraer 190 aircraft told a local outlet that a 'hellish noise' came from the engine, which quickly began trailing smoke. The Dutch Royal Military Police investigating the incident later said that the man 'intentionally climbed into the engine, indicating this is a case of suicide'. They additionally said that he had been 'identified as an employee of a company operating at the airport'. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - A Manhattan street in New York United States, erupted in anger when a man in a wheelchair was taken into custody for the k!lling of a young woman, whose body had been found wrapped in a blue sleeping bag days before. At least 50 neighbours and family members of the deceased activist, Yazmeen Williams, 31, swarmed the police officers who placed the man on a stretcher and whisked him out of an apartment building in the Straus Houses, a public housing development on East 28th Street near Second Avenue. Some got close enough to punch him in the face, grab his jeans and rip the back of his blue-and-yellow striped shirt. Officers and emergency service workers held out their arms to keep the crowd at bay. Some of the loudest screams were from Ms. Williamss mother, Nicole Williams. You killed my daughter! Please kill him! she cried out. She didnt deserve that, her mother said. She was a good daughter. She was my best friend. The man was considered a person of interest in the womans death on Monday, July 8, but has not been charged. Neighbours said he and Yazmeen Williams were a couple, but the family said they were not familiar with him. On Friday, July 5, just before 5 p.m., officers responded to a report of a suspicious package outside an apartment building on East 27th Street in the Kips Bay neighbourhood of Manhattan. When the police arrived, they discovered Ms. Williamss body wrapped in a sleeping bag next to a pile of trash. The citys medical examiner found that Ms Williams had been sh0t in the head, and her d3ath was ruled a homicide, the police said. On Monday afternoon, July 8, before the police took the man into custody, roughly 10 family members gathered at the apartment Ms. Williams grew up in on Second Avenue, about two blocks from where her body was found. Her aunt, Nisha Ramirez, said that Ms. Williams had graduated from Buffalo State University with a degree in criminal justice and had just started a job with the New York City Housing Authority. Watch the video below. Tuesday, July 09, 2024 - Andrea Yates, the Texas mom who drowned her five young children in 2001 while suffering postpartum psychosis, has refused a chance to be set free from the mental hospital where she has been held. Yates declined a hearing last month that would have determined whether she was competent to be released from the hospital. Under the terms of her conviction, Yates is eligible to undergo a review each year. She has repeatedly declined to be assessed, according to The Post. Yates, 60, lives a quiet life inside Kerrville State Hospital, which is intended for those acquitted of a criminal offence and committed by a court to receive inpatient mental health services. She spends her days making greeting cards and other crafts, often featuring rainbows and butterflies. She sells her crafts at art shows and festivals. The proceeds from her sales go to the Yates Childrens Memorial Fund, which helps people suffering from postpartum depression. Yates has access to the internet and often spends time on the family website launched by her husband, where she can look at photos of the children she killed. Yates was 37 on June 20, 2001, when she drowned her five young children in the bathtub of their suburban Houston home. According to court testimony, she waited for her husband, Rusty, to go to work. When he was gone, she began to kill her children Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and Mary, 6 months one by one. After she drowned the children, she called 911 repeatedly. She reported the childrens deaths, then called Rusty, a NASA engineer and told him to come home from work. Yates was charged with five counts of capital murder. The prosecution called the crime heinous and advocated for the death penalty. But the defence argued that Yates suffered from severe depression and psychosis as a result of her recent delivery and that caused her to kill her children. They sought intensive mental health treatment rather than prison. She was initially convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life. Even behind bars, she expressed delusional thoughts, telling authorities that she had considered killing the kids for two years, to save them from eternal damnation. My children werent righteous, she told her jail psychiatrist, according to court documents. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell. Based on her mental state, Yates lawyers appealed the case and were granted a retrial. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2006. A judge sent her to Kerrville. While Yates is eligible for a hearing to determine her sanity, she is not required to seek release. According to the courts, she can spend the rest of her life in the facility. She talks to her husband monthly, even though they divorced and he has remarried. Her defence attorney, George Parnham, has long maintained that Yates is happy and thriving at Kerrville, the only place shes called home for the past 17 years. Shes where she wants to be. Where she needs to be, Parnham told ABC News in 2021. And I mean, hypothetically, where would she go? What would she do? Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - A member of Bishop Kiengeis Jesus Compassion Ministry Church (JCM) has raised concerns over mysterious deaths at the church, weeks after his colourful ordination ceremony that was attended by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua. The churchs matron reportedly addressed the issue last Sunday and urged the church members to pray because dark forces are wiping out the congregants. A woman who was an active member of the church reportedly collapsed and died mysteriously after attending Kiengeis ordination, leaving the congregants shocked. Other church members are also reportedly falling sick mysteriously. The church matron got sick after attending the burial of a congregant in Meru, who allegedly died mysteriously. Two church members are currently admitted in hospital. This is what insiders wrote to a popular Facebook blogger. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - Authorities in the UK have launched a triple 'murder' probe after three women 'from the same family' died in an attack at their home in Bushey last night. According to Mail Online, Police are urgently seeking an armed and dangerous man wanted in connection with a gruesome triple 'murder.' Kyle Clifford, 26, from Enfield, is being actively sought by police who have warned the public not to approach him as he may be carrying a weapon. Armed police were called to a property on Ashlyn Close just before 7 pm yesterday where they discovered three women, believed to be related, with serious injuries. Despite the best efforts of emergency responders, all three women died at the scene. A neighbor, who did not want to be named, said she did not know the victims well but they were a friendly family. 'We would see them every day passing by and they would say good morning,' she said. 'It's really sad what's happened, very shocking.' Another resident living in the proximity of the attacks described the terrifying police response that descended on the quiet cul-de-sac. They said: 'There were 11 police cars, an armed response unit, 4 ambulances and a fire engine. 'We're not allowed to park on our driveway and have had to park round the corner. Whatever happened, it's really bad and everyone is shaken up.' Detective Superintendent Rob Hall from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit said: 'This is an incredibly difficult incident for the victims' family and we would ask that their privacy is respected as they come to terms with what has happened. 'Whilst we are still in the early stages of this investigation, we are actively seeking Kyle Clifford who we believe could be in the areas of Hertfordshire or North London. 'Given the serious nature of the incident, I would ask anyone who knows where he is to contact police immediately. If you believe you see him, please do not approach him and dial 999 straight away. 'He may still be in possession of a weapon. 'Our enquires will continue over the coming days to ascertain the full circumstances of what happened but I would also like to take this opportunity appeal to anyone who was in the area around Ashlyn Close from around lunchtime on Tuesday until 7pm, and believes they may have seen anything that could assist the investigation, to contact us. 'This incident will of course be of concern to local residents. Officers from the Neighbourhood Policing Team will be in the area today so please do speak to them if you need to.' Local councillors for the area Louise Nicolas, Alan Matthews and Paul Richards said: 'We are deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic news that three women have lost their lives in a violent incident which took place in the heart of our local community. 'As North Bushey councillors, we extend our thoughts and condolences to their families and all those affected. 'We would encourage anyone who has information relevant to the inquiry to contact police.' An East of England Ambulance Service spokesperson said: 'We were called around 7pm on Tuesday July 9 to a property in Ashlyn Close in Bushey. 'Three ambulances, a rapid response vehicle, an ambulance officer vehicle, the Hazardous Area Response Team, the Essex and Herts Air Ambulance and London Air Ambulance were sent to the scene. 'Sadly, despite the team's best efforts, three women were pronounced dead at the scene.' Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna has defended former Prime Minister Raila Odinga's decision to work with President William Ruto at the expense of the furious Gen Zs. Raila is on the receiving end for urging the Gen Zs to agree to dialogue with President William Ruto to end political tension in the country. However, in his defense, Sifuna revealed that Raila, who is politically referred to as Baba, did not meet the President as a representative of the protesters, a majority of whom are Gen Zs. According to Sifuna, Raila represented Azimio and ODM which he led in his meeting with Ruto yesterday. "Baba did not say he had gone to speak on behalf of Gen Z, they told him they are leaderless and reminded him that he is not their leader," Sifuna posed in an interview with The Standard. "But for Baba, there are people he leads. So not everybody is leaderless or party-less. I have a party and I am its secretary general." The Senator further argued that it was fair for the opposition leader to chart his dialogue with the government especially since he had been excluded from a space Ruto held with the youth on Friday last week. "We have a stake in the country and we cannot just stay silent as things continue to happen. What we are saying is that tyranny is wrong," he added. "They did their X Space with the President, did you see Sifuna or Raila there? So, if Raila goes for talks, he is a leader and the leaders want to talk too." The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, July 10,2024 - Flamboyant Nairobi-based lawyer, Donald Kipkorir, has stated that former Prime Minister Raila Odinga ended his 40-year political odyssey on Tuesday, when he appeared alongside President William Ruto, calling for dialogue in the country. During his speech at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre(KICC), Raila, flanked by Ruto, said the country needs dialogue after the Gen Z protests. Surprisingly, Raila Odinga even forgot to mention those Gen Z who died during the 3-week protests that culminated in the storming of Kenya's parliament and chasing MPs who were supporting the controversial finance bill 2024. Kipkorir, who had supported Raila Odinga for decades, said Raila ended his 40-year political career on Tuesday when he went to bed with embattled president Ruto. He said even Interior Cabinet Secretary, Prof. Kithure Kindiki, was better than Rala Odinga because he remembered the Gen Zs who were killed by police. This is what Lawyer Donald Kipkorir wrote on his X page. TODAY, Raila Odinga whom I have supported since 2005 destroyed his legacy of over 40 years Prof. Kithure Kindiki reaffirmed my faith in his future legacy. "Raila spoke about dialogue without mentioning the Gen Z abducted & killed. "Kindiki speaks about them. What happened to our Baba?, Kipkorir wrote. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - Former Prime Minister Raila Odingas son, Raila Odinga Jr., has disagreed with his father, who called on Gen Z to engage in dialogue with President William Ruto. Raila, who had accompanied Ruto at Kenyatta International Convention Centre(KICC), authoritatively declared that a bipartisan dialogue would be deployed to address the issues raised by the restive Kenyan youth who, in the recent past, have led fervent political activism demanding change in governance. Raila said the agenda would include issues such as corruption, unemployment, gender equality, and electoral justice. The opposition leader's rhetoric was, this time, widely met with objections. His son Raila Odinga Junior was among the dissenters. Junior came clean, explaining that he disagreed with his father despite sharing a name. . "Everybody is an individual please! Even people with the same exact names," he tweeted. Raila Odinga has been condemned by Gen Z, who termed him a sellout trying to sell them to Ruto the way he sells Orange Democratic Movement(ODM) supporters. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - President William Ruto and opposition leader Raila Odinga have agreed to form a government of national unity to address issues raised by Gen Z. During their three-week protests, Gen Z asked the President to dissolve Parliament and the cabinet and introduce new faces. To fulfill Gen Z's demands, Ruto is expected to dissolve the cabinet and form a new government of national unity. Before naming a new cabinet, Ruto and Raila Odinga will convene a national delegate conference with 150 individuals who will create a roadmap for the formation of the new government. Raila Odinga, who is at the center of this, wants a united Kenya where every community will be represented in the government. The former Premier has already presented a list of his confidantes whom he wants to be named as cabinet secretaries in the new government. Suna East Member of Parliament Junet Mohamed, and former governors Wycliffe Oparanya and Hassan Joho are among Raila Odinga's lieutenants who are expected to be named as cabinet secretaries. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, July 10, 2024 President William Ruto may have it very rough in 2027. This is after Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah declared that he might be on the ballot gunning for the presidency come the next election. This is after a section of Kenyans, especially the Ge Zs, put pressure on him to vie for the presidency in 2027 to deliver Kenya from the grip of corruption. Speaking on the subject, Omtatah said that he would not rule himself out for the race if Kenyans view him as the best candidate. However, he insisted that the focus should now be on bettering the country. "If I have to go for the presidency, I'm a politician and I don't rule anything out. If I go for the presidency, it must be a candidature which is very well managed and one that has got clear deliverables," he said. Omtatah said should he get an opportunity to form a government, he will ensure it succeeds because he doesn't want to be part of a failure. "It must not be about me; it must be about Kenya and how we get our country back. "There must be a proper vehicle for delivering this country and if it comes out that I'm the best driver for that vehicle so be it, but if there is a better driver than me, I will still support that better leader," Omtatah added. The Busia senator said that Kenyans should focus on what needs to be done to better the country rather than who should be the President. He said the country must implement the rule of law, especially at this time. "It must not be about individuals, it must be about change in this country and if there is a proper organisation then many people can become president in this country," he said. Earlier on while speaking in an X Space, Omatath encouraged the Gen Zs not to lose hope and fight for the liberation of the country. Omtatah was one of the most vocal leaders to oppose the now-impugned Finance Bill, 2024 The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - The Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) board chairperson Irungu Nyakera has urged Kenyan Gen Z to think about the future of the country before burning it to the ground. Gen Zs are planning mother-of-all protests in the coming weeks if President William Ruto fails to heed their demands of dissolving parliament and the cabinet and also resigning as the President of Kenya. Reacting to the Gen Z protests, Nyakera, who is also the Farmers Party leader, urged Gen Z to look at countries like Sudan, whose economy collapsed after they overthrew dictator Omar Al Bashir in 2019. On 11 April 2019, al-Bashir was removed from his post by the Sudanese Armed Forces after many months of protests and civil uprisings by their GenZ. "GDP went from $129bn to $32bn 5 years later, GDP is still less than 40% of what it was before the revolution. "Nobody should lie to you that an uprising is sexy, Nyakera wrote on his X page. Nyakera is among the leaders who have benefited from both this and the previous regime, and he is no different from other 'Kahunas' in this government. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - President William Ruto has called upon his MPs and Senators to hurriedly pass the Conflict of Interest Bill 2023 as soon as possible. This comes even as Kenyans have opposed the bill in question, claiming that it will encourage corruption in government. However, speaking during the assenting to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (Amendment) Bill at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), Ruto noted that this was part of the plan to hold everyone accountable and ensure Kenyans deal with the menace of corruption. He revealed that the other strategy that the government was employing to tackle this was through creating the Public Debt Audit Committee. "I want to encourage Parliament to expedite the Conflict of Interest Bill that will support our anti-corruption measures, especially in relation to public officers," he remarked. He asked all leaders including those in the opposition to rally behind one common cause national unity. Notably, this bill allows state officers and their families to do business with the government. It was sponsored by Narok Senator Ledama Ole Kina who pushed for the removal of a clause requiring public officers to declare their income, assets, and liabilities. Kenyans have opposed the bill, arguing that it created a loophole for rogue officials to misappropriate public funds. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) was among the institutions opposing the bill. EACC argued that if the bill was signed into law, the fight against corruption in Kenya would be deflated. The Kenyan DAILY POST Tuesday, July 09, 2024 - New York City authorities made a disturbing discovery on East 27th Street after responding to reports of a suspicious package with a foul odor. A decomposing body, wrapped in a plastic bag and placed inside a sleeping bag tied to a dolly cart, was found on the sidewalk intended for trash pickup. The victim has been identified as 31-year-old Yazmeen Williams. Her death has been ruled a homicide, with police revealing she was sh0t in the head. Chad Irish, a man in his 50s, has been arrested in connection with the incident. He was questioned on Monday, July 8, and faces charges of concealment of a human c0rpse, criminal possession of a weapon, and menacing. As of now, he has not been charged with homicide-related offenses. Residents in the neighborhood seem convinced of Irish's guilt. When police escorted him from the precinct to an ambulance, he was on a stretcher, and officers and paramedics had to restrain angry crowds. Nicole Williams, the victim's mother, expressed her anguish and outrage, stating, "He's disgusting... he looks like scum. They were angry. He took her life away... threw my daughter in a garbage bag." Tuesday, July 09, 2024 - A Spanish tourist was crushed to death by an angry herd of elephants after he got out of his car to take photographs in a South African game reserve. The tourist was driving around with his fiancee and two other visitors around the Pilanesberg National Park on Sunday, July 7, when he stopped and got out of the car. Despite warnings from his three fellow passengers to get back into the car the tourist, aged 43, said he wanted to get close-ups of the six elephants. According to Mail Online, a huge 3.5-ton adult female cow protecting the young members of the herd charged at the man and she was joined by the other two adult bulls who also attacked. The screaming Spaniard was racing back with his camera to safety through the bush to his friends in the car but was overtaken by the chasing herd who knocked him down and trampled him to death. It was gathered that the man was on holiday from Spain with his fiancee and was with two of her South African friends from Johannesburg when the tragedy happened on Sunday morning. A North-West Parks & Tourism Board spokesman said: 'The elephants moved away immediately from the scene without any aggression towards the nearby vehicles and disappeared in the bushes. 'The guest was a male Spanish citizen who had entered Bakgatia Gate with three friends and not far from the gate had come across a breeding herd of elephants feeding a distance from the road. 'According to eyewitnesses the man decided to alight from the vehicle and approach the elephants on foot taking pictures. 'Despite warnings from his fellow passengers and occupants from two other vehicles that were at the sighting he unfortunately did not heed the warnings. 'An adult elephant charged at the man who then ran from the elephant. 'He was unfortunately not able to escape or evade the elephant which was now joined by the whole herd. He was caught and trampled to death. 'Park officials were alerted and immediately rushed to the scene to aid the affected persons, secure the scene and assist with the investigation. 'Statements by witnesses who observed the whole incident further suggest the female elephant that charged and attacked might have done so to protect the herd and young ones. 'The case has been handed over to the police for further investigation,' said Pieter Nel, Acting Chief Conservation Officer for the NW Parks & Tourism Board. He further stressed that all tourists are warned not to get out of their cars and that information is printed on their entry tickets which is not just for the safety of the guests but also the animals. Mr. Nel added: 'The Board is very saddened by this tragic accident and would like to express their sincere condolences to the deceased's next of kin and friends'. A park ranger speaking on condition of anonymity said: 'It was a very stupid thing to do and the tourist was literally shouted at to get back in his car but wanted to get photographs of the herd. 'He had walked too far away off the road to be able to make it back to the car in time when he charged. His friends were in a hysterical state and needed immediate expert counselling. 'There was not much left to identify. The victim had been trampled into the ground. Sadly despite all the warnings people still get out to take photos but most are lucky enough to get away with it. 'The herd were not to blame and were acting entirely as normal when they felt a threat to their young. Indeed they passed right past the car with the three of his friends in when they left' he said. North West Police spokesperson Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone said:'According to information received the man was with his fiancee and two other females in their own vehicle. 'They allegedly spotted three elephants and three calves. Reports suggest that the man stopped the vehicle, alighted and went closer to the elephants to take pictures. Tuesday, July 09, 2024 - Two teenager sisters have died while swimming at New Yorks Coney Island Beach in Brooklyn. Aisha Mohammed, 18, and Zainab Mohammed, 17, both originally from Nigeria but now living in the Bronx, were reported missing on Friday night, July 5, in the area of Stillwell Avenue and Boardwalk West after they were seen entering the water and disappearing from view, the NYPD said. Police say at around 8 p.m. Friday, the sisters were swimming at Stillwell & Boardwalk West on Coney Island when they disappeared. Witnesses told WABC-TV that a rain storm began and most people at the beach took shelter, but the two young women went into the rough ocean water. A man tried to stop them but he couldnt swim either, one witness said. It is unclear if the man knew the victims. A relative of theirs told News 12 they were at the beach that day with six of their cousins. Police said that an emergency call for a water rescue came in at around 8.10pm. Officers arrived on the scene with emergency responders from the departments aviation, harbor, scuba units conducting a search to find the teens. Divers eventually pulled both the young women from the water an hour later, police said. They were both transported to NYC Health and Hospitals/Coney Island where they were pronounced dead. The investigation into the tragedy continues. The funeral service for sisters Zainab and Aisha Mohammad took place at 9:30 a.m on Tuesday, July 9, at the Yankasa Masjid Mosque. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - U.S. President, Joe Biden was seen by neurologist Dr. Kevin Cannard, who specializes in Parkinsons disease, at the White House on January 17, the White House has confirmed, after press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters the opposite on Monday. The clarification on Wednesday, July 10, came just a day after Jean-Pierre scolded a journalist who questioned her over providing misleading information about whether Biden, 81, had been medically evaluated after his catastrophic June 27 debate performance, which triggered Democratic party calls for him to step aside. Because the date was not mentioned in the question, I want to be clear that the Jan. 17 meeting between [presidential physician] Dr. [Kevin] OConnor and Dr. Cannard was for the presidents physical, Jean-Pierre told the Associated Press, whose reporter had asked Jean-Pierre about Cannards meeting with OConnor. It was one of the three times the president has seen Dr. Cannard, each time for his physical. The findings from each exam have been released to the public, Jean-Pierre said. Earlier, On Tuesday, the APs Seung Min Kim asked Jean-Pierre, Can you say whether that one meeting [between Cannard and OConnor] was related to care for the president himself? Jean-Pierre replied, I can say that it was not. Cannard visited the White House eight times between July last year and March this year, for what OConnor suggested in a Monday night letter was the treatment of military members even though his visits were to the residence clinic in the White House basement, according to public visitor logs, rather than to a separate and larger medical facility in the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Cannards findings after evaluating Biden were included in a physical report released by OConnor on Feb. 28, which said the president was evaluated during an extremely detailed neurologic exam. [T]here were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy, the report said. Wednesday, July 10, 2024 - NARC-Kenya Party Leader Martha Karua has dismissed the calls by President William Ruto and Azimio Leader Raila Odinga for the Gen Zs to dialogue with the state to cool the current political temperatures, labeling the proposition as a trap. Taking on her social media platforms, Karua said the move is a diversion tactic aimed at deflating the recent resistance momentum built by Kenyans. "Dialogue can only be meaningful if the players have good faith and are guided by the best interests of the people. This is a trap period." The NARC-Kenya leader averred that the genuine call to keep the government in check had been hijacked by individuals she described as "a handful of elites." Rallying her support to Gen Z who had stormed the streets to protest against proposed taxes, Karua urged her fellow politicians to be keen on whatever decisions they make. She insisted that such decisions should have the interests of Kenyans at heart. "Lets be careful as the political class lest we hijack the genuine clamor for accountability and reforms by the Gen Z." "I agree with those who say Action Now on the clear and attainable demands of the Gen Z to enhance accountability and make the state work for the masses rather than for a handful of elites," she added. This is however contrary to Raila's call for dialogue. "We agreed when we said together with my brother William Ruto that we will follow the route of dialogue, that is why NADCO was set up," Raila stated. The Kenyan DAILY POST By Winfred Watenya Former Vice president Dr Specioza Kazibwe today joins a high level mediation panel on Sudan that was recently constituted by the African Union. In its latest attempt to end the Sudan conflict, the African Union Peace and Security Council endorsed an all-inclusive meeting that kicks off today, running until July 15, in the Ethiopian Capital Addis Ababa. The meeting to be chaired by Ghanaian Lawyer Mohamad Ibin Chambas who is also the AU High Representative for Silencing Guns, will be attended by both warring parties and other political movements. Also on the panel is Mozambican diplomat, Francisco Madeira. Since the war began in April last year, between the Sudan Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, several peace bids have been launched. One was fronted by the US and Saudi Arabia, but its several ceasefire commitments were never adhered to. Members of Parliament sitting on the Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) have raised concerns about the competence of staff hired by the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCCA) to oversee the countrys aviation industry. This scrutiny follows revelations by the Auditor General that certain staff were employed without meeting minimum qualifications or undergoing interviews. While chairing the committee, Medard Sseggona (Busiro East), underscored the alarming findings that 79 staff members were appointed to positions without meeting the required qualifications. Additionally, nine employees were neither confirmed nor terminated after exceeding the maximum 12-month probation period. Jennifer Etit, Manager of Human Resources at UCAA, defended the Authority, explaining that records are maintained both physically and electronically, with the necessary documentation later retrieved and provided to the committee. However, Workers MP Charles Bakabulindi challenged this defense, pointing out inconsistencies in UCAAs explanation. He noted that many appointments transitioned from internships, casual engagements, and contracts, which supposedly bypassed the need for interviews due to demonstrated job competence. Bakabulindi further criticized the Authoritys approach of encouraging staff to attain qualifications post-hiring, arguing that such practices indicate a flawed recruitment process. The MPs also raised concerns over Authoritys practice of hiring staff already on government payroll elsewhere. This followed reports that UCAA has been hiring staff from other government bodies, contrary to public service policy prohibiting individuals from appearing on multiple payrolls. Fred Bamwesigye, the UCAAs Director General, defended the practice, explaining that these seconded staff bring specialized skills and receive top-up allowances based on their original government salaries. Actually that used to be a practice sometime back but these individuals and their labor unions petition on several occasion and because we could not have segregated payments for, essentially people carrying the same services with contracts, said Bamwesigye. However, lawmakers including Eddie Kwizera (Bukimbiri County) challenged this, arguing that seconded personnel should not be listed on UCAAs payroll as they are not directly recruited by the authority and cannot be disciplined under its Human Resource policies. The committee debated whether these staff should be reclassified as contract employees rather than being on the permanent payroll. Bamwesigye assured the committee of CAAs willingness to review and potentially adjust its payroll practices in collaboration with labor unions and under parliamentary guidance. The matter remains under scrutiny as COSASE prepares to finalize its report to Parliament on the issue. The Opposition Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), has cautioned government about the newly created State House Revenue Intelligence and Strategic Operations Unit, which comes at a time it has just embarked on the journey of rationalization. Establishment of the Unit meant to address revenue collection leakages, follows the recent creation of others with similar mandates including the State House Anti -Corruption Unit, State House Investors Protection Unit. Addressing the media at the partys head offices in Kampala, the spokesperson of UPC Sharon Oyat, questioned the relevance of such units yet there are already government bodies mandated with fighting graft such as Inspectorate of Government. She also cited the Anti-corruption Court whose cardinal role is to take drastic action against the corrupt. Oyat warns that this duplication of duties could lead to collision and misinterpretation of roles, thus rendering efforts of rationalization of government agencies futile while increasing the burden of costs on already constrained tax payers. 1 of 1 Udaipur Ranked Second Among the Worlds Best Cities, Tops Asia khaskhabar.com : Wed, 10 July 2024 12:35 PM -Udaipur's Recognition as One of the World's Most Beautiful and Best Cities is a Tribute to its Heritage, Art-Culture, Cuisine, and the Hospitality of its Residents, Attracting Tourists from Around the Globe - Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari. Jaipur, Travel + Leisure announced the World's Best Awards in the United States on Tuesday. Udaipur, Rajasthan, has been ranked second among the world's best cities and has claimed the top spot in Asia. The Travel + Leisure Readers' Awards released a list of the top ten best cities worldwide, with San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, securing the first position, Udaipur the second, and Kyoto, Japan, the third. Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari expressed her delight at Udaipur's ranking as the second best city globally and the top city in Asia, stating that this recognition is a tribute to Udaipur's heritage, art-culture, cuisine, and the respect shown by the local people, which has attracted tourists from around the world. She added that the collective efforts of the state government's policies and all stakeholders in the tourism sector have made Rajasthan one of the most favored and best tourist destinations globally, leaving visitors with cherished memories. Principal Secretary Gayatri Rathore remarked that under the leadership of Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari, Rajasthan tourism is scaling new heights. She noted a significant increase in the number of domestic and foreign tourists at the beginning of this year, indicating that Rajasthan is a preferred state for tourists. Tourism Department Director Dr. Rashmi Sharma stated that the state tourism department is developing tourist facilities at various locations according to global standards. Under the capable leadership of Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari and the guidance of Principal Secretary Gayatri Rathore, Rajasthan tourism will achieve record milestones. Top Ten Best Cities in the World: 1. San Miguel de Allende, Mexico 2. Udaipur, India 3. Kyoto, Japan 4. Hoi An, Vietnam 5. Chiang Mai, Thailand 6. Florence, Italy 7. Bangkok, Thailand 8. Tokyo, Japan 9. Ubud, Indonesia 10. Funchal, Portugal Toxicity in public discourse must be dialled down, the Taoiseach has said as he unveiled a portrait of a politician murdered during the Troubles. Billy Fox, a former TD and senator, was shot dead by IRA gunmen on March 11 1974 after he interrupted their raid on a farmhouse in Co Monaghan, at the home of his girlfriend Marjorie Coulson. A portrait of Mr Fox was unveiled in Leinster House on Wednesday to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. Born in Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, he had been a farmer in the area before becoming a Fine Gael politician. A member of the Church of Ireland, he notably criticised the British Armys use of rubber bullets as a crowd-control measure, and the cratering of border roads. He attracted national attention when he was forcibly removed from the Dail chamber during a debate in December 1971, when he displayed two rubber bullets and a CS canister which he said had been fired over the border by British forces. Mr Fox was the only member of the Oireachtas to be murdered during the Troubles. He was 35 years old when he was killed. Speaking at the unveiling, Taoiseach Simon Harris welcomed Mr Foxs family and friends as he said the country honours his sacrifice. Mr Harris said: Senator Billy Fox was a man of peace who gave his life in the service of his community and in the service of our country. To borrow Marjories own words, he wanted justice for everyone. He added: He served the people of our island regardless of their religion, or their background, or their political beliefs. He was a good man, he was a gentleman, he was a man of courage and conviction and he was a peacemaker. Mr Harris added: The values he lived for and died for did not die with him. They still guide us today. While political violence against public representatives in Ireland has been a rarity, Mr Harris said: We can never take it for granted. Toxicity in public discourse now must be dialled down and all of us have a role to play in that. Mr Harriss family has experienced a bomb threat against their home, as well as a number of protests outside the property. To applause, he added: Today, lets not just lament Billy Fox but lets commit to making sure that people can always serve in public office in peace and safety for them, their families and their communities. Cathaoirleach of the Seanad Jerry Buttimer described Mr Fox as a patriot as he recalled hearing the news of his death when he was seven years old. Mr Buttimer said: It shows you that life is precious and those of us elected to parliament, wherever we are, are privileged to be the peoples representative. He said Mr Fox was a genuine, hardworking decent public representative who had been brutally murdered in a senseless act of violence while going about his business. Mr Buttimer said it was appropriate and fitting that his portrait would be unveiled within the grounds on the 50th anniversary of his killing. Right across the world today, political violence has become a fact of life. Elected representatives face real risks in carrying out their duties. He added: Attacks on politicians are horrific on a personal level but theyre also attacks on wider society. The portrait was painted by Polish artist and Monaghan native Nina Ruminska. The unveiling was also attended by Marjories brother George Coulson, former Taoiseach John Brutons wife Finola Bruton and former president WT Cosgraves granddaughter Mary Cosgrave. Additionally, former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, former Tanaiste Ray MacSharry, Sinn Fein Leader Mary Lou McDonald, Minister Heather Humphreys and members of Monaghan County Council were in attendance. Youth leaders from the Butts community will have the opportunity to visit Malta to study youth work and childrens self development programmes thanks to the generous sponsorship from Tirlan workers and from their family parish members. The annual Tirlan workers sponsored cycle across Ireland to raise money for two local and one national charity raised 65,000 this year. The annual Tirlan workers sponsored cycle across Ireland to raise money for two local and one national charity raised 65,000 this year. The Fr McGrath Centre was honoured to be selected by Tirlan staff as a recipient this year. The Fr McGraths Voluntary Board readily agreed to send the Butts young leaders to study and experience youth practice in Malta. This is a collaboration with the Salesians of Don Bosco, famed for their innovative work with young people over many generations. The ten Butts teenagers will travel to meet and be hosted by volunteer youth workers in Malta. Co-chairs of the Butts Youth Leaders team, Lillian Long Frear and Joe Donovan, thanked Tirlan and their staff for making the trip possible. "Since we were infants we were involved with our community play school, after school, summer and youth programmes with the Fr McGrath Centre," they said. "Now we are getting a great opportunity to work with European youth groups to learn skills that we can share we our own young people in our community." READ MORE COMMUNITY NEWS HERE The Butts young leaders have been fundraising themselves for some months in preparation for the trip to help cover some of the costs and activities in Malta. Generous sponsorship from Butts families, local auctioneer Fran Grincell, Brian and Mary McEneaney as well as parish families, who wish to remain anonymous. Co-chairs Lillian and Joe added: "We would like to thank all those people who donated to our flag day and the St Canices church gate collection. Chairperson of the Fr McGrath Centre Mike Kelly thanked the Tirlan staff and other sponsors. "You have made this great learning opportunity possible for our young people. It is an investment in the future of all the young people in the Butts. I thank you all for your support and kindness," he said. 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. By Yi Whan-woo The government is expanding financial support to developing countries, with its goal of becoming one of the world's top 10 donors of official development assistance (ODA) before the end of President Yoon Suk Yeol's term. A main source of financing for international development assistance, ODA is government aid designed to promote the economic well-being and welfare of developing countries. The areas of the country's support range from the fight against climate change to the energy transition, agricultural transformation, education, digital technology and knowledge sharing Such support is being made in partnership with international organizations, such as the United Nations (U.N.) as well as Korea's decade-long foreign assistance programs such as the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF). The government's latest commitment was made Tuesday when Deputy Finance Minister Choi Ji-young announced $7 million in contributions during a board meeting of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage in Incheon's Sondgo business district. Launched by the U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties in 2023, the fund is dedicated to helping developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Announced last week, the Dynamic Korea Roadmap, a comprehensive set of the government's long-term policy goals, outlined a plan to launch the so-called K-Finance Package in the second half of this year. The package looks to offer diversified assistance by capitalizing on the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) and other funds for supply chains and export financing. Formed in 1987, the EDCF is aimed at offering low-interest loans for developing countries and strengthening economic cooperation between them and Korea. During the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) annual meeting in Georgia in May, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Choi Sang-mok signed a memorandum of understanding with ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa on earmarking $2 billion in co-financing for ADB projects over next three years. The projects include transportation, energy, agriculture, education, governance reform, health, and information and communication technology. In the 2023 joint declaration of the Korea-Africa Economic Cooperation Ministerial Conference in Busan, the government promised to provide a $6 billion package. It includes $1.5 billion worth of low-interest loans from the EDCF and $4.3 billion worth of export financing from the Export-Import Bank of Korea. The declaration was made in line with the need of African countries to boost their respective transitions to green energy and adopt technology-driven agricultural development. Plus, Korea and the African countries agreed on enhanced cooperation for knowledge sharing and capacity building. The Yoon administration came up with its goal to leap into the top 10 ODA contributors worldwide in 2022. Korea added fewer than 100,000 jobs for the second consecutive month in June due to the slowing growth of manufacturing jobs and the weak construction industry, data showed Wednesday. The number of employed people came to 28.91 million last month, up 96,000 from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. In May, 80,000 new jobs were added on-year, which was the fewest since February 2021, when the country shed 473,000 positions amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In January and February, the monthly job additions surpassed the 300,000 level, but the figure fell to 173,000 in March before rising to 261,000 new jobs in April. "Hot weather and other temporary factors have affected the job growth. We also saw a larger fall in new hiring in the construction sector and in the number of self-employed people," Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok said during a meeting of economy-related ministers. The weak job market came as the number of jobs for those aged 15-29 fell by 149,000. People in their 40s also had 106,000 fewer positions last month. But jobs for those aged 60 and older rose by 258,000 on-year, and those for those in their 30s and 50s grew 91,000 and 2,000, respectively. By sector, the manufacturing sector had 9,000 more jobs in June, the seventh on-year gain, on rising exports. But the growth has slowed down from 100,000 new jobs in April and 38,000 positions in May, as the computer and electronics parts fields shed a larger number of jobs, according to the agency. Jobs in the health and welfare sector advanced 4.2 percent on-year, or 120,000, and new hiring in the accommodation and dining sector went up 2 percent, or 47,000. But 66,000 jobs were lost from the construction sector in June amid poor industry performances and the unusually hot weather. The wholesale and retail sector also shed 51,000 jobs, the fourth consecutive fall. The employment rate of people aged 15-64 remained unchanged at 69.9 percent, while the jobless rate rose 0.2 percentage point to 2.9 percent. The number of economically inactive people went up 21,000 on-year to 15.79 million last month, marking the first rise in 40 months, the data showed. "The government will closely monitor the job market situation and make efforts to boost domestic demand. We will come up with tailored, timely measures to create more jobs," Choi said. (Yonhap) By Lee Kyung-min Bitcoin prices are expected to remain in a downtrend for the time being, stymied by a selloff from the German government and Mt. Gox, a now-defunct crypto exchange in the process of redeeming investors, market watchers said Wednesday. Experts say the leading virtual coin will plunge for months before breaking out to the upside, as inferred from previous price movements. Bitcoin plunged 8 percent to $56,700 (78.5 million won) Friday from two weeks earlier, after Mt. Gox, as well as the governments of Germany and the United States, continued a selling spree. Mt. Gox went bankrupt in February 2014 after an incident in which $460 million of bitcoins were stolen. It is liquidating the digital coins to redeem its creditors and customers $9 billion owed. The German government sold up to $175 million in seized bitcoins. Both the U.S. and German governments sent a combined $738 million to bitcoin exchanges for liquidation between June 21 and Friday. The German government's move fueled concerns over accelerated market tumbling, potentially joined by Mt. Gox with 140,000 bitcoins. The German government is estimated to have sold more than half its 40,000 bitcoins from Friday to Tuesday. As of Wednesday, the virtual coin has dropped in value by 25 percent from the mid-March peak of $73,135. The announcements of a dovish pivot by the U.S. Federal Reserve, combined with U.S. macroeconomic indicators, will determine the course of the virtual asset. Benjamin Cowen, a widely followed crypto analyst, said that bitcoins will have no upward growth momentum for at least a few more months. Cowen said that based on history, the crypto is expected to track down until September or October before snapping the trend. In the 2019 chart, it took bitcoin 202 days to break out of a similar downtrend, he said, a highly likely scenario for the current path of the digital coins. "If you actually look at the time range, excluding the pandemic crash, it took about 202 days," he said on his YouTube channel. Cowen added that since the crypto market leader has been in a downtrend for 114 days already, about 90 days will be needed to show a dramatic uptick. This means no earlier than October. "If you look at where Bitcoin is right now and how long it has been in this channel so far, it's been about 114 days or 115 days. 202 days would actually put you all the way out in October," he said. By Kim Se-jeong Gimhae, a city in South Gyeongsang Province, is inviting non-Korean travelers to its upcoming one-month tour program in the city. The tour program was launched in 2020 as part of the city government's efforts to boost tourism in the city. Gimhae is known for Geumgwan Gaya, a city-state of the Gaya confederacy during Korea's Three Kingdoms period, and its first King, Suro. The city-state is believed to have been located in the city and the surrounding region. The city said it will select 10 groups of non-Korean travelers in its upcoming round of the program this fall. Participants have the freedom to create their own itineraries during their stays of up to 30 days, and the city will partially reimburse their travel expenses once they post travel photos and essays on their social media. The program was initially designed to draw domestic tourists but grew bigger as it attracted interest from foreign tourists with two foreigner nationals having the chance to participate in the program. For more information, visit www.gimhae.go.kr/tour. By Pyo Kyung-min NAIROBI, Kenya/KAMPALA, Uganda Life has a way of throwing curveballs when you least expect them. For a reporter used to the daily grind, the sudden assignment to Africa seemed daunting at first. My travels had been confined to Asia and the United States, so the thought of exploring the vast and unfamiliar continent of Africa was almost intimidating. Even my mother, whose greatest fear was my expedition to what she considered unpredictable places, expressed her concerns. But before I had time to fully process the news, I found myself boarding an 18-hour flight with a layover in Dubai, bracing myself for an adventure that promised to be anything but ordinary. My journey took me through Kenya and Uganda, where the serene beauty of nature captivated me and revealed how strikingly similar the everyday lives of people on the opposite side of the world can be to my own. First impressions Touching down at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, on June 24, our Korean media crew was pleasantly surprised by the cool, dry weather, which instantly dispelled any stereotypes of Africa as a uniformly scorching hot continent. Late June in Nairobi offered daytime temperatures ranging from 10 to 23 degrees Celsius, complemented by clear skies and gentle breezes that set the stage for an ideal African adventure. As we drove to the Radisson Blu Hotel in Nairobis Upper Hill, the stress from my long flight melted away as I gazed through the van window at the expansive horizon, uninterrupted by the citys skyscrapers. Low, fluffy clouds floated across the sky, while herds of untamed goats and cows grazed peacefully on the rugged Kenyan landscape below. The highlight of the drive came when one of us spotted a towering giraffe gazing at our vehicle from the distant savannah. Encountering such a majestic creature in the wild elevated my excitement for the trip to its peak giraffes are hardly a common sight in Seouls concrete jungle, after all. Cityscapes Nairobis natural charm had already won me over, but my visit to Konza Technopolis on June 25 revealed a whole new side of Kenya. About 64 kilometers south of the lively capital, this ambitious tech hub is where the countrys rich traditions meet its future advancements. The skyline of Konza unfolded with patches of modern buildings in different stages of construction, with separate clusters of sites set against the rolling hills and open landscapes of Kenya's wildlife. To a strangers eyes, the scene was as incongruous as it was intriguing. In my quest to understand this unique blend of tradition and progress, I had the privilege of meeting Paula and Benson, students from the Kenya Medical Training College who were on-site as part of a government initiative to plant trees throughout the city. They passionately shared the Kenyan president's ambitious plan to plant 15 billion trees nationwide by 2030, an effort aimed at fostering sustainable growth. Then there was Paik Yoo-sook, a Korean representative of the wildlife foundation Friends of Nairobi National Park. She spoke to me about the challenges of balancing rapid urban expansion with environmental conservation and noted that her team was closely monitoring how Konzas growth impacts local cheetah habitats to ensure a balance between development and wildlife protection. My exploration of Konza Technopolis went beyond its technological aspirations, uncovering Kenyas narrative of cherishing its natural heritage amid the drive for urban development a reminder that progress doesnt have to come at the expense of nature. Ugandan life Leaving Kenyas landscapes behind, an hour-long flight brought us to Uganda on June 28. The contrast was immediately apparent as Uganda greeted us with a hotter, more humid climate compared to its neighbor. Often overshadowed by Kenya and Tanzania the more popular choices among tourists to Africa, Uganda, known as the "Pearl of Africa," offered a strikingly different allure. While Kenyas expansive savannahs and majestic trees peeking through occasional buildings had been impressive, Ugandas ochre-hued streets were alive with motorcycles weaving between earth-toned structures. As we explored the city center, we were struck by Ugandas vibrant motorbike culture. People moved with purpose, and their initial glances at us a group of visitors from the East were marked by a mixture of caution and curiosity. However, the next day, at the Inter-Religious Family Festival at the Kololo Independence Grounds in Kampala, I encountered a different side of Ugandan life. Conversations with locals revealed a community of proud citizens who were passionate about peace, showing me that they were not so different from us despite my initial impressions. The high school girls I met at the festival were just like those I had encountered back in my own country. They delighted in discussing their favorite classic, "Pride and Prejudice," eagerly asked me questions about Korea and life there, and expressed genuine sympathy when I confessed I hadnt yet tried traditional Ugandan food all a testament to their warm hospitality. The next day, a visit to Nakasero Market continued to reflect the warmth of the Ugandan people. Although the market was filled with the exotic sights of fresh farm produce, tropical fruits and vegetables available at negotiable prices, the way people went about their lives felt surprisingly similar to what I had seen in Korea. A beef skewer vendor enthusiastically bargained, encouraging us to buy more for better discounts, while a fruit merchant cut open a mango larger than my combined fists for me to tasteits sweetness rivaled that of the best mangoes Id enjoyed before. We also went on a cruise on Lake Victoria, the world's largest tropical lake, in Uganda. The view from our boat offered a stark contrast to the previous night's tranquil, mysterious scene near our stay. As our boat drifted over the tranquil lake, the serene sight of anglers scattered along the horizon against a backdrop of verdant beauty provided a perfect antidote to the previous nights celebrations. African wildlife Every moment in Africa was a continuous stream of wonder, but if I had to choose one standout experience, it would be standing in a roofless safari van, navigating bumpy roads and watching the sunset during Africa's precious golden hour. After completing our assignments in Uganda, we returned to Kenya on July 1 with just one plan left: to enjoy the famous safari in Nairobi National Park. In simple terms, this experience was far from a typical zoo visit. It was, in every sense, amazing, and, in the best of ways, truly transformative. As our van rolled past the park gates that afternoon, the cityscape quickly gave way to an expanse of endless grasslands. The bumpy ride was filled with anticipation, a feeling that soon gave way to exhilaration as we encountered our first inhabitants herds of graceful impalas and gazelles. Our guide, a local with rich knowledge about the park's inhabitants, pointed out a group of cokes hartebeest grazing nearby. These large antelopes, with their distinctive horns and long faces, seemed unbothered by our presence, continuing their day's routine with an air of nonchalance. Deeper into the park, the sight of ostriches and striped zebras added a whimsical touch to our journey. These creatures, all with glimmering eyes, regarded us with a mix of caution and curiosity, a sentiment echoed by the giraffes looming in the distance. While I was determined to spot Africas Big Five lions, leopards, African buffalo, elephants and rhinoceroses my safari yielded only a sighting of the white rhinos. These gentle giants grazed in the grasslands, cautiously moving away from the van. As the day drew to a close, the golden African sun sank slowly, bathing Nairobi National Park in a warm, golden light. The sky became a masterpiece of fiery oranges, gentle pinks and deep purples, each color melting into the next. The savannahs trees cast dark silhouettes against this stunning, almost surreal canvas. At that moment, I understood that the true magic of Nairobi National Park isnt found in ticking off a list of wildlife sightings, but in the experience itself. The journey through this remarkable landscape, the surprise encounters, and the breathtaking sunset made the African adventure infinitely rewarding. It was a chance to see that lifes greatest treasures are not always in the most obvious places but often in the quiet moments, waiting to be discovered by those open to lifes gentle surprises. North Korea on Wednesday denounced Japan's additional discharge of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, saying that the world cannot help but face a "terrifying nuclear disaster." In late June, Japan began releasing its seventh batch of treated radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean and is scheduled to do so through July 16, according to Japanese media reports. In August 2023, Japan started discharging such water, more than 12 years after three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant suffered a meltdown due to a powerful earthquake. North Korea said the radioactive level near the Fukushima power plant has risen since the water discharge and denounced Japan for making a "far-fetched" claim that the water is safely treated. "The humankind cannot avoid a terrifying nuclear disaster due to Japan's shameless and irresponsible discharge of the nuclear-contaminated water," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a commentary. The KCNA said the world should not condone Japan's move to "water down" its crime with brazen sophistry. (Yonhap) Relations between Pyongyang, Beijing put to test as Kim moves closer to Putin By Lee Hyo-jin Relations between North Korea and its primary patron, China, appear to be fraying, observers said Wednesday, suggesting that their ties have grown increasingly distant as Pyongyang has strengthened its longstanding partnership with Russia. In January, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un jointly announced 2024 as the China-North Korea Friendship Year, marking the 75th anniversary of their diplomatic relations. They said various activities will take place to celebrate this milestone. But so far, there have been few signs of festivities or high-level exchanges. The latest known high-ranking Chinese official to visit North Korea was Beijings top legislator, Zhao Leji, who traveled to Pyongyang in April. "The visit by Zhao, China's No. 3 official, cannot be viewed as the most significant exchange for the 75th anniversary. Yet we are still not seeing any signs of Xi Jinping's visit to Pyongyang materializing," Park Won-gon, professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University, told The Korea Times. Park noted that signs of cracks in their relationship have become increasingly visible in recent months. Recently, Beijing reportedly demanded that Pyongyang recall all of its laborers estimated to be tens of thousands currently working across China. While North Korea wanted a gradual repatriation of these workers, China has insisted that all workers whose visas have expired must be sent back en masse, according to reports. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2397, passed in 2017, mandated member states to complete the repatriation of North Korean workers abroad by the end of 2019. To comply with these sanctions, Beijing initially set a deadline of 2019 for all North Korean workers to return home, but this was hindered by Pyongyang's stringent COVID-19 border lockdowns. "Once these workers return home, North Korea would want to send new workers to China. But it is uncertain whether Beijing would openly accept these new laborers, which would violate the U.N. sanctions," Park said, adding that China's handling of the North Korean laborer issue could be a litmus test of the friendship between the two nations. South Korea's foreign ministry and intelligence agency said they are closely monitoring the recent developments, while the Chinese government refuted the claims as baseless. "China and the DPRK are close neighbors, connected by mountains and rivers. The two countries have maintained a traditional friendship and cooperative ties," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a press briefing, Tuesday. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name. Since June 20, North Korean state-run broadcasters, including Korean Central Television, switched to a Russian satellite for overseas broadcasts after years of using a Chinese one. This move was seen as another sign of Beijing's diminishing influence over Pyongyang. Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies, suggested that currently, China and North Korea do not appear to prioritize each other in their diplomatic relations. "I wouldn't say that the traditional friendship between the two nations has diminished, but for now, China's top priority is not North Korea. In particular, amid the growing military ties between Pyongyang and Moscow, it has become apparent that China is distancing itself from being included in the North Korea-China-Russia axis," Yang said. During a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2023, the North Korean leader emphasized that relations with Moscow are "the very first priority" for his country. In a subsequent summit in June, Kim hailed Russia as "invincible comrades-in-arms." However, Yang noted that Beijing and Pyongyang are unlikely to allow their relations to deteriorate to a level that fundamentally undermines their bilateral alliance. "The South Korean government may believe that China would align more closely with South Korea now that it is distancing itself from North Korea. But this is wishful thinking. The traditional alliance between Beijing and Pyongyang cannot be underestimated," the expert said. Opening ceremony of new embassy held on July 2 By Kim Hyun-bin Luxembourg's Ambassador to Korea Jacques Flies highlighted the promising future of economic, scientific and cultural relations between Korea and Luxembourg. With the country opening its first resident embassy in Seoul and Korea preparing to establish its own in Luxembourg City, Flies sees this as an opportunity to deepen ties between the two countries. "We now have the perfect set of tools to elevate our relationship to different levels," Flies said during a recent interview with The Korea Times at the Embassy of Luxembourg in Seoul. Flies, Luxembourg's first resident ambassador to Korea, shared his insights on the deep-rooted relationship between the two countries and his plans to enhance bilateral cooperation in various sectors. Flies has over 20 years of diplomatic experience, having previously served in positions such as secretary general of the government of Luxembourg and as a diplomat at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Flies emphasized the historical ties between Korea and Luxembourg, dating back to the Korean War. "I cannot speak about the bilateral relationship without going back to its roots," he said. "Eighty-five Luxembourgish volunteers participated in the Korean War, the highest per capita participation of all combating nations at that time. This historical connection is a cornerstone of our relationship." He underscored Luxembourg's strategic position in Europe, serving as a bridge between cultures and providing access to multiple European markets from one location. "There is a lot already going on, but we believe there is much more potential to develop the economic relationship between Korea and Luxembourg," he said. "Luxembourg is a strategic location for European business, offering a multilingual and international environment that serves as a bridge between different cultures and business approaches." The ambassador emphasized the active role of Luxembourg's Trade and Investment Office, which has been supporting Korean entrepreneurs expanding into Luxembourg and helping Luxembourg-based businesses enter the Korean market since 1997. Luxembourg's Financial Center, renowned globally for its diverse financial services, also plays a pivotal role in connecting investors and markets. "Luxembourg's financial center is one of the leading financial hubs in the world," he said. "Recently, the Korea Development Bank listed a $3 billion bond on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, highlighting the opportunities for Korean financial actors." Luxembourg's advancements in space technology were also a focal point, with Flies mentioning Luxembourg's position as a pioneer in space resources and satellite technologies. He noted the country's collaboration with Korean counterparts in space exploration and expressed optimism about future joint initiatives. "We also aim to develop research collaboration between Luxembourg and Korean institutions, especially with Korea's association with the Horizon Europe programs." Horizon Europe is the European Union's key funding program for research and innovation, running from 2021 to 2027. "Luxembourg is often reduced to its financial sector, but there is much more we have to offer," he said. "We are also leaders in green finance, space resources and cybersecurity." Beyond economic ties, the ambassador emphasized the cultural exchange between the two countries, particularly the growing interest in Korean culture among Luxembourgers, fueled by the global popularity of the Korean wave. "There is a lot of interest in Korea in Luxembourg, especially among younger people," he said. The ambassador highlighted the importance of mutual cultural understanding and ongoing partnerships in scientific research and education. "We aim to promote Luxembourgish culture in Korea and foster scientific cooperation between universities and research institutes," he said, stressing the significance of building bridges between the Korean and Luxembourgish cultural scenes. "It's important to me to foster cooperation and common cultural projects between artists from both countries," Flies said. He also praised the King Sejong Institute in Luxembourg for its efforts in promoting Korean culture. "The King Sejong Institute organizes cultural events and Korean language courses, creating an important driver for cultural cooperation." Reflecting on his mission, Flies expressed his desire to make Luxembourg better known in Korea. "One of my main goals is to put Luxembourg on the map in Korea. While Luxembourg is remembered for its participation in the Korean War, I aim to increase awareness and knowledge about modern Luxembourg," he said. "I want to work on enhancing Luxembourg's visibility and fostering our excellent bilateral relationship." Concluding the interview, the ambassador conveyed a message to the Korean public, emphasizing the charm and potential of his home country. "Luxembourg is often called the Greenhouse of Europe. We can grow together by exchanging knowledge, culture and experiences. The embassy is here to provide all the information people need about Luxembourg, so don't hesitate to get in touch with us," he said. "Anything" that South Korea can provide to help strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities will be "warmly welcomed," a senior NATO official said Tuesday, stressing the "strategic" implications of Russia's war in Ukraine for both Europe and Asia. The official made the remarks as Seoul has said it would reconsider its policy ban on the provision of lethal weapons to Ukraine following last month's summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang. At the summit, the two sides signed a "comprehensive strategic partnership" treaty, which has further deepened concerns about their growing military alignment and its implications for security. "As far as South Korea providing weapons to Ukraine, I think that ultimately, we all have an interest in ensuring that Russia does not achieve a victory here, and I think that the outcome of this conflict has strategic implications in Europe, and it has strategic implications in Asia," the official said in a press briefing. "I think that anything that South Korea can do that improves Ukraine's ability to defend itself against an illegal invasion from Vladimir Putin is something that would be warmly welcomed," he added. The briefing took place as the leaders of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies are set to attend a summit in Washington this week. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and the leaders of three other Indo-Pacific countries Japan, Australia and New Zealand have been invited to the summit. Asked to comment on the future of arms transactions between Moscow and Pyongyang, the official noted that "the biggest thing" that Russia needs from the North at this point are artillery munitions and ballistic missiles. "Those are the two things that they are getting from North Korea now and certainly making use of on the battlefield," he said. "We've seen North Korean missiles being used and, and we see them having an impact there." Washington has revealed that the North provided Russia with more than 11,000 containers of munitions and related material and dozens of ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine. In return, the North has been seeking assistance from Moscow, including fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armored vehicles and ballistic missile production equipment, according to U.S. officials. In a separate briefing, another senior NATO official pointed out that NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners are facing a "very similar" set of issues that have created momentum for their cooperation. "They face, in many ways, a quite similar set of issues. They face at least one big authoritarian country which is testing the international rules-based order, which is using military coercion to try and achieve political goals," the official said. "They face similar issues in terms of rebuilding military capabilities so that they are themselves able to ensure deterrence and defense. They have to also think about the changing nuclear picture with both North Korea and China and they're dealing with hybrid threats," he added. The official also said that South Korea has become an "important industrial partner" for many NATO allies. "It's not some, per se, about NATO getting involved in the Indo-Pacific directly, but it's about facing a very similar set of issues learning from each other and supporting each other," he said. The leaders of NATO's Indo-Pacific partners are set to participate in talks on Thursday to discuss a range of issues, including resilience, efforts to counter disinformation, technological cooperation and cybersecurity, a U.S. official has said. (Yonhap) President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed to bolster South Korea's combined defense readiness with the United States to deter North Korea's growing threats during his visit to the Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii on Tuesday. Yoon made the remark during his meeting with Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of Indo-Pacific Command, and Gen. Paul LaCamera, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, and other U.S. military leaders. "North Korea's evolving nuclear and missile capabilities and continued provocations are threatening security on the Korean Peninsula and in the region. A steadfast combined defense readiness is more critical than ever," Yoon said, emphasizing the command's role in regional security. Yoon underscored the importance of cooperation among allies and partners to address the growing security threats posed by North Korea after its signing of a mutual defense treaty with Russia last month. "Strong power and solidarity among countries that share values are essential to protecting our liberal democracy and economic prosperity from these reckless forces," Yoon said. The U.S. military's largest combatant command oversees U.S. Forces Korea, which maintains about 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea. It marks the first such visit to the command by a South Korean president in 29 years and the first since it was renamed to the Indo-Pacific Command in 2018. During the visit, Yoon met about 200 military personnel at the command and thanked them for their service. "I visited the Indo-Pacific Command to further strengthen the South Korea-U.S. alliance and the combined defense posture under the grave security situation on the Korean Peninsula," he told the soldiers in a speech. Currently, the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC), a U.S.-led joint maritime exercise, is under way around the Hawaiian Islands. The drills, involving South Korea and 28 other countries, began June 26 and will continue until Aug. 29. South Korea has sent some 840 personnel and naval assets for the drills, including the 7,600-ton ROKS Yulgok Yi I Aegis-equipped destroyer and the 1,800-ton ROKS Lee Beom-seok submarine. Later in the day, Yoon will head to Washington to attend a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit on Wednesday and Thursday. (Yonhap) The U.S. special envoy for global youth issues will travel to Korea's southeastern city of Busan this week to attend the first-ever trilateral youth leadership program involving people from Korea, the United States and Japan, the State Department said Tuesday. Abby Finkenauer plans to visit Busan from Wednesday to Friday to join the Trilateral Global Leadership Youth Summit set to take place from Thursday through Saturday in a show of Washington's dedication to fostering youth engagement and regional cooperation, according to the department. The event is co-hosted by the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Korea's education ministry and its National Institute for International Education as well as Busan Metropolitan City. It is implemented by the East-West Center, a U.S. organization dedicated to strengthening relations among the peoples of the Asia-Pacific and the U.S. "During the Summit, Special Envoy Finkenauer will lead an advocacy and storytelling workshop, guiding participants as they discover and express their narratives," the department said. "She will also serve as an advisor for the Summit's pitch competition, providing mentorship and insights to the young leaders as they develop strategies for effective trilateral cooperation," it added. The meeting will bring together 45 delegates representing Korea, the U.S. and Japan as well as five representatives from the Department of State's youth leadership programs in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Island Countries. "The special envoy's participation reflects the United States' commitment to empowering emerging leaders and fostering collaborative efforts across the Pacific region," the department said. (Yonhap) Oceans Minister Kang Do-hyung said Wednesday his ministry will firmly protect the nation's maritime territories, including the easternmost islets of Dokdo. "(The ministry) will firmly protect maritime territories, including Dokdo," Kang told a parliamentary session. Kang's remarks came two days after Rep. Lim Mi-ae of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea raised an issue that matters surrounding Dokdo have been excluded from the oceans ministry's policy reports under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration. Dokdo lies closer to Korea in the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. (Yonhap) A Senate committee has unveiled an annual defense policy bill that calls for maintaining 28,500 American troops in Korea and affirming the United States' "extended deterrence" commitment to the Asian ally. The Senate's Armed Services Committee completed the markup of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2025 on Monday, sending it to the Senate floor for consideration, according to its Chairman Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) and Ranking Member Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS). Last month, the House of Representatives passed its NDAA version. Congress passes the bill each year to set defense policy and funding priorities and give guidance on a range of key security matters. The Senate version highlighted the "sense of Congress" that the U.S. secretary of defense should reinforce the alliance with Korea by maintaining the presence of approximately 28,500 U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) personnel and affirming the U.S.' commitment to extended deterrence. Extended deterrence refers to the U.S.' pledge to use the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear, to defend its ally. The bill called on the secretary of defense to submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a plan to strengthen the U.S.' extended deterrence commitment to Korea no later than March 1 next year and annually thereafter through 2029. The plan includes a description of the resources, budget, and personnel needed to strengthen the U.S.' extended deterrence commitments, the bill reads. The bill also entailed a legal ground enabling the Pentagon chief to establish a program to support the education of Korean, Japanese and Australian officials in matters related to nuclear deterrence, nuclear strategy, nuclear defense strategy and other areas that the secretary considers important to strengthening extended nuclear deterrence. In addition, the bill called on the defense secretary to submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a plan to advance trilateral security cooperation among Korea, the U.S. and Japan. The plan is to include content regarding three-way communication mechanisms and ballistic missile defense, including real-time information sharing. Before its finalization, the defense bill is set to go through a series of congressional procedures, including the process of narrowing gaps between the House and Senate and merging their respective versions of the bill. The legislation has gained renewed attention in Korea as questions have lingered over whether former President Donald Trump, if reelected, would threaten to draw down or pull out U.S. troops from Korea to pressure Seoul to take a greater share of the cost for stationing USFK. (Yonhap) Korea has struck a 1.38 trillion won ($995.6 million) deal to supply weapons, including K-9 self-propelled howitzers, to Romania, the state arms procurement agency said Wednesday, the latest in Seoul's push to clinch major arms export deals. Under the agreement signed Tuesday, Korean defense giant Hanwha Aerospace will export weapons and ammunition, including 54 K-9 self-propelled howitzers and 36 K-10 armored ammunition resupply vehicles, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). Hanwha Aerospace plans to begin rolling out the weapons and ammunition in Romania in 2027 in cooperation with a Romanian firm, according to officials. The deal the biggest in Romania's arms acquisition over the past seven years came about three months after President Yoon Suk Yeol held summit talks with his Romanian counterpart, Klaus Iohannis, in Seoul where they agreed to boost cooperation in defense and nuclear energy. Top defense officials have also visited Romania in the following months to support the export deal. In June, Defense Minister Shin Won-sik held talks with his Romanian counterpart, Angel Tilvar, who confirmed of the ministry's plan to buy the Korean weapons system. DAPA said it expects the agreement to further boost ties between the two countries and possibly lead to additional exports. "Based on the K-9 self-propelled howitzer export deal, we anticipate cooperation with Romania to expand in areas such as ground weapons systems involving Redback infantry fighting vehicles and K-2 tanks as well as guided weapons involving air defense systems," DAPA Minister Seok Jong-gun said. With the deal, Romania has become the ninth country to acquire K-9 self-propelled howitzers, in addition to Australia, Egypt, India, Norway, Estonia, Turkey, Poland and Finland, according to DAPA. The country is currently pushing to acquire a new generation of infantry fighting vehicles. Romania placed an order for Korean defense firm LIG Nex1's Chiron surface-to-air missiles last November. (Yonhap) By Anna J. Park Hanwha Aerospace, one of Korea's leading aerospace and defense companies, said Wednesday that it secured a 1.38 trillion won ($996 million) arms export contract from Romania. The defense company signed the supply contract with the defense ministry of Romania on Tuesday local time, agreeing to provide 54 K9 self-propelled howitzers and 36 K10 Ammunition Resupply Vehicles (ARVs), as well as other military equipment. The deal is Romania's largest arms acquisition deal in seven years. Hanwha Aerospace won the contract by beating other competitors from NATO member countries, such as Germany's PzH 2000 and Turkey's T-155 Frtna self-propelled howitzer. With this deal, Romania has become the 10th country to operate the K9 self-propelled howitzer. So far, 9 countries including South Korea, Australia, Egypt, India, Norway, Estonia, Turkey, Poland, and Finland have adopted the K9, with the cumulative export volume surpassing 13 trillion won. This deal has also increased the number of NATO member countries that have adopted the K9 self-propelled howitzer to six, solidifing its position as one of the best-selling self-propelled howitzers worldwide. In addition to the K9 and K10, the contract includes the export of wheeled reconnaissance and meteorological observation equipment, along with ammunition and other artillery-related components. By collaborating with local firms in Romania, Hanwha Aerospace said the delivery will start from 2027. Since marking the 15th anniversary of the establishment of a strategic partnership between South Korea and Romania in 2023, the two countries have actively engaged in high-level exchanges. The defense sector, in particular, has played a key role in strengthening their amicable bilateral relations. This strengthened relationship is evidenced by several notable mutual visits, including Romanian President Klaus Werner Iohannis's visit to South Korea in April, reciprocal visits by both countries' prime ministers, and three visits by Romania's defense minister Angel Tilvar. In June, South Korea's defense minister Shin Won-sik and Seok Jong-gun, Minister of Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) visited Romania to support the negotiation of this arms export deal with Hanwha Aerospace. Shin became the first South Korean defense minister to visit Romania, where he held talks with his Romanian counterpart, Tilvar. During these talks, the Romanian side officially announced their decision to adopt the K9 howitzer. DAPA welcomed the signing of the deal. "Korea anticipates further cooperation with Romania in areas, including the Redback infantry fighting vehicle, K2 main battle tank, and other ground weapon systems, as well as air defense and guided missile projects. DAPA will continue to support domestic defense companies' exports," Minister of DAPA Seok said. A Hanwha Aerospace official added, "The K9 howitzer has become a symbol of South Korea's defense industry, protecting countries worldwide. The company will do its utmost efforts to create another global hit exports with the Redback contract." The Navy held air defense drills with an SM-2 interceptor during a U.S.-led multinational exercise in waters near Hawaii this week, officials said Wednesday, amid efforts to bolster response capabilities against North Korean missile threats. The ROKS Yulgok Yi I destroyer successfully intercepted an unmanned aerial target Tuesday (local time) with the SM-2 surface-to-air missile during the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise, according to the Navy officials. The SM-2 is capable of defending against anti-ship missiles and aircraft out to 90 nautical miles, according to the U.S. defense company Raytheon, the missile's manufacturer. "Through this exercise, (we) inspected our Navy's anti-air and anti-missile engagement capabilities and enhanced our missile operational capabilities," Capt. Kim Bong-jin, ROKS Yulgok Yi I's commanding officer, said in a release. South Korea has dispatched some 840 troops, three warships and a submarine to take part in this year's RIMPAC, which involves 29 countries, and is scheduled to run through Aug. 1. As part of RIMPAC, the ROKS Lee Beom-seok submarine will stage a live-fire exercise against a retired U.S. amphibious assault ship on July 18, according to the Navy. North Korea has ratcheted up tensions on the Korean Peninsula with a spate of weapons tests this year, including what it called a "super-large warhead" power test for a strategic cruise missile in April. (Yonhap) South Korea and Japan held joint talks between their senior defense officials in Tokyo on Wednesday, the defense ministry said, amid efforts to improve bilateral ties and deter threats from North Korea. It marked the first time the director general-level meeting was held since August 2015. The meeting had usually been held on an annual basis since it was launched in 1994. Lee Seung-beom, director general for international policy at the defense ministry, and his Japanese counterpart, Atsushi Ando, discussed regional security circumstances, as well as defense exchange and cooperation in the latest meeting, the ministry said in a release. A ministry official said the meeting focused on exploring possible areas of cooperation with the resumption of the talks, rather than discussing pending issues. The latest meeting came a month after the defense chiefs of South Korea and Japan agreed to take measures to prevent the recurrence of a 2018 maritime spat over a Japanese patrol aircraft, which had remained a source of friction for years. In their talks held on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and his Japanese counterpart, Minoru Kihara, also agreed to conduct regular vice defense ministerial talks and resume working-level policy meetings in order to rebuild mutual trust. The agreement came as South Korea, the United States and Japan have been moving to deepen their trilateral security cooperation against North Korea's evolving threats. The three nations held their first-ever multidomain trilateral exercise Freedom Edge in late June. (Yonhap) One of three suspects behind the murder of a Korean tourist in Pattaya, Thailand, was extradited home from Cambodia, nearly two months after his arrest, officials said Wednesday. The National Police Agency said the suspect was brought home early Wednesday through Incheon International Airport from Phnom Penh, 58 days after his arrest in the Southeast Asian country. The 27-year-old was charged with killing a Korean traveler in his 30s and abandoning his body in Pattaya in early May in collusion with two other Koreans. The suspect allegedly fled to Cambodia after committing the crime, before he was arrested in Phnom Penh five days later with cooperation from Korean police stationed in the country and the local police. Since the arrest, police have cooperated with Thai and Cambodian authorities to push for a speedy extradition of the suspect, including sending the investigative team in charge of the case to Thailand for a joint conference with local police last month. They also held negotiations with Cambodia's interior ministry and police authorities. As a result, Cambodian authorities made the decision to have the suspect deported, instead of keeping to the initial plan to proceed with the extradition process, which tends to be more complicated and takes longer. The National Police Agency will have the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency focus on interrogating the suspect, while continuing the manhunt for the last suspect on the run through international cooperation. Meanwhile, a trial is under way for an accomplice in the case who was apprehended in the southern city of Jeongeup, 217 kilometers south of Seoul, in May. (Yonhap) By Lee Hae-rin Seoul has seen a record low in the number of students amid the declining birthrate and rising housing prices in the capital, a government report showed Wednesday. According to an annual report by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE), the number of elementary, middle and high school students in Seoul stands at 768,948 as of 2024. The figure is 2 percent lower than the previous year's 784,871 and 8.5 percent lower compared to 849,933 in 2020. The downward trend is the result of the declining birthrate. Seoul's total fertility rate, or the number of children that would be born to a woman, has been falling steadily from 0.59 in 2022 to 0.55 in 2023. The figure is the lowest among 17 metropolitan cities and provinces nationwide and lower than the national average of 0.72 and the global average of 2.3. The number of elementary, middle and high schools decreased by one and stands at 1,317. The number of classes is 34.428, which is 2.2 percent lower than last year's 35,205. The number of elementary school classes decreased by 2.5 percent to 17,438, while those of middle and high schools went down by 1.5 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively, to 8,233 and 8,763. The average number of students per class is 23.4, which is slightly more than last year's 23.3. Among them, the number of elementary school students per class was 22.1, down from the previous year's 22.4. However, the number of middle school students per class jumped by 0.4 percent from 22.4 to 24.9, while high school students increased by 2.9 percent from 23.8 per class to 24.5 during the same period. "The city is facing a lot of difficulties in organizing appropriate classes due to the reduction in the number of teachers at the Ministry of Education due to the decline in the school-age population," the SMOE said in a statement. "The SMOE plans to continue making efforts to improve educational conditions, such as operating an appropriate number of classes and reducing the number of students per class, taking into account changes in the number of students by region and school." By Kwak Yeon-soo Rep. Kim Tae-nyeon, a five-term lawmaker of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), was elected as the president of the South Korea-China Parliamentarians Union. The South Korea-China Parliamentarians Union, made up of 102 lawmakers, was established in 2022 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties. The first serving president was Hong Young-pyo, a former lawmaker of the DPK. Kim vowed to boost exchanges and communication between the two countries lawmakers, given the important role the parliamentarians union plays in shaping public opinion regarding South Korea-China relations. China is South Koreas largest trading partner. Economic cooperation between the two countries must expand further from the traditional industries. Also, security cooperation needs to be strengthened to match the level of economic cooperation, Kim said after being elected, Tuesday. He added: I will also strive to boost the level of parliamentary diplomacy by discussing a common agenda with our counterpart, the National Peoples Congress of China, as well as promoting exchanges with the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference. Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming, who is leaving his post and returning to China this week, attended the event and requested that the union foster stronger relationships between the two countries. I hope we continue to carry forward the spirit of the five principles of peaceful coexistence and stay committed to mutual respect, Xing said. I look forward to the South Korea-China Parliamentarians Union actively making suggestions and playing a big role in the development of China-South Korea relations, Xing said. The five principles of peaceful coexistence are mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each others internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) expressed outrage Wednesday following the revelation of text messages sent by first lady Kim Keon Hee to former ruling party leader Han Dong-hoon, saying the scandal pointed to Kim's meddling in state affairs. Rep. Park Chan-dae, floor leader and acting leader of the DPK, was referring to five Telegram messages the first lady reportedly sent to Han in January to offer to make a public apology over her acceptance of a luxury handbag in 2022, which was creating a headache for the ruling People Power Party ahead of the April general elections. Han did not respond to the messages, which critics have said was a mistake as an apology from the first lady would have prevented the PPP's crushing election defeat. The controversy has become the biggest issue ahead of the PPP's July 23 national convention, in which Han is one of four candidates running to become the new party leader. "First lady Kim Keon Hee and candidate Han Dong-hoon should confess the truth before the people," Park said during a party Supreme Council meeting at the National Assembly. "We can no longer rule out the possibility of first lady Kim's extensive meddling in state affairs." Park especially noted the first lady's reference to an "online comment team" in one of her text messages, saying it hinted at the government possibly carrying out an online campaign to manipulate public opinion. "If true, there will be no way of avoiding criticism that it is manipulation of state affairs that the administration should close down" to take responsibility for, he said. Park also accused the first lady of meddling in the military's investigation into the death of a Marine last year. The DPK has twice railroaded a bill mandating a special counsel investigation into suspicions the presidential office inappropriately interfered in the military's probe, but President Yoon Suk Yeol has vetoed it both times, including on Tuesday. "The Democratic Party of Korea will mobilize all means to uncover the truth behind the 'first lady's state affairs meddling gate' that shakes the foundations of a democratic republic," Park said, likening the allegations to the Watergate scandal. "We will pass the special counsel bill using all means and methods," he said, alluding to overriding the veto in a revote. (Yonhap) The ruling People Power Party (PPP) on Wednesday denounced the opposition's push to hold a hearing to address an online petition demanding the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol. On Wednesday, the legislation and judiciary committee adopted a plan to hold the hearing on July 26 and requested that first lady Kim Keon Hee attend as a witness. PPP lawmakers walked out of the meeting in boycott of the vote. The petition, first posted online on June 20, calls on the National Assembly to propose a bill to impeach Yoon, citing allegations that the presidential office inappropriately interfered in the military's investigation into the death of Cpl. Chae Su-geun, who was killed during a search mission for victims of heavy downpours last year. The petition also points out allegations that the first lady illegally received a luxury bag as a gift in 2022. During a press conference at the National Assembly, PPP floor leader Choo Kyung-ho called the decision to hold the hearing "invalid." "Impeachment is a tragedy. The past two attempts to impeach our presidents have left our people with pain and conflict that cannot be washed away," he said. "As lawmakers, we must approach the impeachment of the president with the utmost seriousness." He added that the first lady and her mother, who was also chosen as a witness, have no obligation to appear at the hearing. Choo warned that the PPP will take strong action against the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), including filing charges for false accusation, if it attempts to "intimidate the witnesses" for not attending the hearing. He also criticized the DPK for hastily pushing to hold the hearing just a day after Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, mentioned the petition in a statement, and accused the DPK of acting on Kim's orders. (Yonhap) Rep. Lee Jae-myung, former leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), declared his bid on Wednesday for a second term as the party leader in the elections slated for next month. "I will sacrifice everything I have to change 'today's despair' into a 'hopeful tomorrow,'" Lee said during a press conference at his party's office in Yeouido in western Seoul. Highlighting the need to focus on people's livelihoods and advance areas like artificial intelligence, he also proposed that South Korea aim to adopt a four-day workweek by 2035. On diplomacy, he stressed that building peace is more important than demonstrating military power to deter other countries. "The purpose of diplomacy is national interest, and a practical approach is essential," he said. Last month, Lee resigned to run for reelection as the current party rule stipulates the party chair must resign from his leadership position to be eligible as a candidate. Lee, who is considered a leading candidate for the liberal party for the next election slated for 2027, is at the heart of several scandals, including a land development scandal in Seongnam, south of Seoul, and his alleged involvement in an underwear company's unauthorized remittance to North Korea five years ago. In January, he was stabbed in the neck while visiting the southeastern port city of Busan. "I will not be afraid, nor will I hide away, even if another blade comes at me," he said. (Yonhap) Main opposition party leadership race to become 3-way competition By Kwak Yeon-soo Rep. Lee Jae-myung, former chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), announced his bid for a second term, Wednesday, pledging to place top priority on improving peoples livelihoods if reelected. The DPK plans to hold a national convention on Aug. 18. The new leader elected during the event will serve until August 2026, which means they will have the power to recommend candidates for the June 2026 local elections and for the presidential election in March 2027. Due to this timetable, Lees bid for his second term is viewed as a preparation for the next presidential election. At a press conference, Lee offered a preview of how he plans to serve his second term as DPK chairman, highlighting his accomplishments in achieving a decisive victory in the April 10 general elections and showing party members he remains focused on innovation policies. They include investing in science and technology, transitioning to renewable energies, redefining education in the era of artificial intelligence and introducing a four-day workweek by 2035. My pursuit of a second term isnt for personal gain. Leading a party is a difficult job. I could have chosen to disappear from the public eye for a while and return to the political scene at a later date, but I felt like I should prioritize what is more desirable for the people and the country over my personal stance, Lee said Though he evaded questions about the presidential office and the ruling People Power Party (PPP), Lee mentioned that the current political division and challenges have influenced his decision to run for party leadership. We are facing a series of crises, including low birthrate and security risks on the Korean Peninsula. The ruling party has been inactive in proposing new policies. Instead, they are tackling our efforts to drive reforms, Lee said. If Lee succeeds in becoming the reelected chairman of the DPK, he will become the first leader of the largest liberal party to do so since former President Kim Dae-jung, who was the leader of the National Congress for New Politics from September 1995 to January 2000. On the same day, Kim Ji-soo, president and founder of the Korean Peninsula Economic Forum, also announced his candidacy for DPK leadership. We failed to peek into the lives of people who have willingly given up on their future. We need to address their concerns and support future generations, he said. Kim Du-kwan, former lawmaker of the DPK, announced his bid, Tuesday, vowing to stop Lee from exercising undisputed control over the party. The shadow of totalitarianism is hanging over the DPK. The party has devolved into Lees personal political entity. If we fail to prevent the party being dominated by Lee and his loyalists, we will inevitably collapse, Kim said during a press conference in Sejong, Tuesday. However, Lee faces a relatively smooth path to winning party leadership, with no serious challengers, compared to the fierce four-way competition for the PPP chairmanship. The PPP criticized Lees bid for a second term, calling his move shameless. By eyeing his second term, Lee is trying to protect himself from legal concerns and satisfy his own selfish desires, said Yoon Hee-seok, a senior spokesperson of the PPP. Lee faces a series of criminal allegations, several of which have gone to trial. These include accusations of Lee providing unlawful favors to private developers who gained substantial profits from a scandal-ridden land development project in Daejang-dong, a neighborhood of Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, during his tenure as mayor of the city. Additionally, he is implicated in the transfer of illicit funds to North Korea. While Lee vehemently denies all charges, the trials are currently ongoing. Record torrential rainfall battered Korea's southern regions Wednesday, leaving at least four people dead and disrupting train services, authorities said. Parts of North Jeolla Province experienced record downpours starting early Wednesday morning. Gunsan, 178 kilometers south of Seoul, received 131.7 millimeters of rain within a one-hour period until 2:42 a.m., marking the heaviest hourly downpour on official record nationwide. The hourly precipitation accounts for over 10 percent of the city's average annual rainfall of 1,246 mm. "It was a level of severity seen once in about 200 years," a weather agency official said. The nearby village of Hamna recorded 125.5 mm of rain per hour at one point, while other cities in the region experienced accumulated precipitation ranging from 104.5 mm to 255 mm between midnight and 6 a.m. Heavy torrential rain also pounded parts of South Chungcheong Province, with Seocheon, 166 km south of Seoul, recording 111.5 mm of downpour per hour at one point in the early morning. Heavy rain flooded a studio apartment building in Nonsan, South Chungcheong, at about 3 a.m., leaving one man dead in an inundated elevator. Rescuers retrieved the body and were trying to confirm his identity. A house collapsed in a landslide in Seocheon around 4 a.m., and rescuers found a man in his 70s inside the house in cardiac arrest. He was moved to a hospital but pronounced dead. Another man in his 70s died in Okcheon, North Chungcheong Province, after his car plunged into a swollen stream around 5 a.m. He was returning from inspecting his cattle shed when his car, while reversing, fell into the stream. Due to torrents, rescuers were only able to pull him out of the water nearly three hours after the plunge. In the southern city of Daegu, a farmer in his 60s drowned to death after being sucked into a drainage system while inspecting his farming field. Rescuers were also searching for another man in his 70s who went missing after the shipping container he was living in was damaged by heavy rain in Yeongdong, North Chungcheong Province. In Wanju of North Jeolla, rescuers evacuated 18 villagers who were stranded due to a swollen stream, with some waiting on rooftops for help. Torrential rain also led to the cancellation of 21 flights at Gimhae International Airport in the southeastern port city of Busan and delays for 16 others. All train services on the Janghang Line in South Chungcheong Province and the Gyeongbuk Line in North Gyeongsang Province have been suspended till 6 p.m. KTX trains on the Gyeongbu Line, linking Seoul with Busan, were operating normally, although some were running slowly. Regular trains on the Seoul-Daegu section of the line have been suspended until noon. As of Wednesday afternoon, a total of 391 reports of rain damage had been made nationwide, including flooded roads, soil runoff due to landslides and submerged bridges, according to the government. A total of 3,568 people from 2,585 households had been evacuated due to safety reasons related to heavy rain. (Yonhap) By Kim Se-jeong The increasing number of Koreans raising pets has resulted in concerns about how to manage the disposal of deceased animals. According to a survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, 25 percent of Koreans owned a pet as of 2022. And a separate survey conducted by the Korea Consumer Agency last year showed that four out of 10 respondents buried their pets. However, burying pets on apartment grounds or nearby hills is illegal and can result in a fine of up to 1 million won ($722). There are three ways of disposing of dead pets in Korea. One option is for veterinary clinics to dispose of the animal along with other medical waste if the pet dies there. If the pet dies at home, owners can legally dispose of the remains in trash bags although this is often emotionally difficult for them. The third option is to use a private incineration facility, also known as a "pet funeral facility." Lee Jin-hong, a professor of smart animal health convergence at Konkuk University Global Campus in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, said people are reluctant to use cremation services due to their remote locations. There are 75 cremation facilities for pets across the country, while Seoul has none. "These businesses are often 'not in my backyard' facilities. Residents don't want these facilities in their neighborhoods, worrying that their property prices may fall," Lee said. The professor stressed the environmental and health risks of burying dead animals illegally. "They can potentially pollute soil and groundwater. Also, if the dead animal carries a fatal virus, humans can be affected eventually." Animal rights activists are pushing to change the legal definition of pets: Under Korean law, they are considered objects and don't require a special disposal process. They argue a legal change giving a separate status to animals other than objects will eventually open the door for the government to step in and build the relevant facilities. But, Lee said it will take time because of strong opposition from those who don't view animals as companions. Man found dead inside flooded elevator; dozens of flights, trains canceled or delayed By Jung Min-ho Heavy rains triggered landslides and flash floods in the Korean Peninsulas southern regions, Wednesday, leaving at least six people dead and two missing, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) and regional fire headquarters. Record-level downpours up to nearly 150 millimeters in an hour pounded the provinces of Chungcheong, Jeolla and Gyeongsang, causing casualties and property damage. A man in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, was found dead inside an elevator at a residential building after apparently being trapped there. After receiving his call at around 2:50 a.m., rescue workers rushed to the scene, only to find the elevator submerged in the second-basement level. They recovered his body after three hours of draining the water amid a deluge of rain. Another man, in his 70s, was found unconscious inside the debris of his home, which had been destroyed by a landslide in the early morning in Seocheon, a county in the same province. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly after. In another accident, a vehicle, driven by a 77-year-old man, fell into a stream at around 5:04 a.m. in Okcheon, North Chungcheong Province. Disrupted by the rushing water, a rescue team could not reach him inside the car until nearly three hours after the accident. By which point, he was dead. In Daegu, a city in North Gyeongsang Province, a man in his 60s was found dead inside a large container, set up near his house to assist with drainage. Meanwhile, the family members of a delivery worker in her 40s said they had lost contact with her since Tuesday morning in Gyeongsan, another city in the province. They are worried that she may have been swept away in a flash flood while working. Heavy rain warnings and advisories were issued for the affected regions, where some residents experienced unprecedented levels of precipitation. On Eocheong, an island near Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, up to 146 millimeters of rain fell per hour at one point, a record since such data collection began there in 1990. In Hamna, a town in the city of Iksan, South Jeolla Province, precipitation reached a record 125.5 millimeters per hour at one point. It was a level of severity that could be seen once in 200 years, a KMA official said. Large swathes of farmland and many roads were flooded and damaged as a result. In the county of Buyeo alone, at least 520 hectares of farmland were flooded. Hundreds of houses, infrastructure facilities and commercial buildings among others, were so far reported to have been damaged. Officials at regional governments are trying to figure out the exact scale of the damage. Moreover, 25 flights (12 departures and 13 arrivals) were canceled and 19 others were delayed at Gimhae International Airport, according to Korea Airports Corp., its operator. Train services were also disrupted. Train operations were suspended for many hours on the Janghang Line serving South Chungcheong Province, the Chungbuk Line serving the major cities of North Chungcheong Province and the Gyeongbuk Line serving North Gyeongsang Province. By Hon Melissa Parke Seven years ago this week, 122 countries voted to adopt a landmark treaty that imposes an outright ban on the most destructive and inhumane instruments of war ever created. Known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), it is our best hope for making meaningful progress toward global nuclear disarmament. Although none of the nine nuclear-armed states participated in its negotiation, and none have since joined it, the TPNW is still a major step forward. It establishes the essential foundations for verifiably eliminating nuclear weapons, and sends a powerful message that their use and possession by any state can never be morally or legally justified. When negotiations for the TPNW began in New York in March 2017, Nikki Haley, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, protested outside the U.N. General Assembly hall. Flanked by diplomats from several allied countries, including South Korea, she argued that the time was not right to outlaw nuclear arms. Four years later, in January 2021, the treaty became binding international law after being ratified by the requisite number of states. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed it as an extraordinary achievement and a step towards the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. His immediate predecessor, former South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, also joined the chorus of voices supporting the treaty. In 2020, he was one of 56 former leaders and ministers from U.S.-allied states who co-signed a letter urging current leaders to show courage and boldness and join the treaty. Consistent with this appeal, they argued that countries must reject any role for nuclear weapons in their defense doctrines, including as part of alliances. By claiming protection from nuclear weapons, we are promoting the dangerous and misguided belief that nuclear weapons enhance security, they wrote. Regrettably, the South Korean government has continued to shun the TPNW, despite this high-level statement of support and its own oft-stated commitment to the goal of a nuclear weapon-free world. Given the treatys potential to reinvigorate multilateral efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament, South Korea should reconsider its position. The ongoing threat posed by North Koreas nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs is no reason to discount the TPNW. On the contrary, it is all the more reason for South Korea to play a leading role in this and other U.N. initiatives aimed at addressing global nuclear dangers. The alternative is to continue down a dangerous path of escalation. In the Washington Declaration of April 2023, South Korea agreed to deepen nuclear weapon-related cooperation with the U.S. A few months earlier, President Yoon Suk Yeol spoke of the possibility of redeploying U.S. nuclear weapons to the country or even acquiring a South Korean nuclear arsenal, in violation of the long-standing Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Steps of this kind would only further undermine South Koreas security. If the government is not yet willing to accede to the TPNW, it should at least observe the treatys meetings, just as several other U.S. allies, including Australia, have done. It would bring a unique perspective to these diplomatic discussions, not only because of the security challenges it faces but also because of its legacy of nuclear harm. It is seldom acknowledged that tens of thousands of the victims of the U.S. nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 were forced laborers from Korea. There were also many Koreans in the two Japanese cities who survived the atomic bombings but suffered horrific injuries or developed cancer later in life due to their exposure to the bombs radiation. Today, around 2,000 Korean survivors are still alive and registered with the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association. The TPNW is especially relevant to them, as it includes ground-breaking provisions to assist individuals and communities harmed by the use and testing of nuclear weapons. By embracing the TPNW, South Korea could work with other countries to ensure that no one else ever becomes the victim of a nuclear attack. This can only be guaranteed through the total elimination of the 12,000 or so nuclear weapons that currently exist globally. It is a formidable task, certainly, given that all nuclear-armed states continue to invest heavily in the modernization of their nuclear arsenals. But we now have an important tool at our disposal to advance our cause. The TPNW can be used to strengthen the nuclear taboo and reinforce the fragile nuclear non-proliferation regime. It reflects the resolute commitment of the vast majority of the worlds nations to avert a nuclear catastrophe by taking urgent action to eradicate the nuclear scourge from our planet. It is not too late for South Korea to join this crucial effort and help pave the way to a more peaceful and secure future for all. Hon Melissa Parke is the executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its work to prohibit nuclear weapons. She is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network and a former Australian minister for international development. By Shim Jae-yun Calls for equipping South Korea with nuclear weapons are gaining momentum, spearheaded by prominent politicians and noted experts. They emphasize the inevitability of the Republic of Koreas (ROK) nuclear armament as an essential measure for ensuring its survival amid ever-escalating security risks. The argument for nuclear armament is gaining traction amid allegations that it is precarious to entrust ROKs security solely to the alliance with the United States. Recently, Rep. Na Kyung-won of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) hosted a security forum at the National Assembly attended by renowned security-related lawmakers and experts. Among them was Kim Tae-woo from the Korea Institute for Military Affairs (KIMA). Kim raised the possibility of North Korea attempting to seize Yeonpyeong or Baengnyeong islands in the West Sea in a blitzkrieg invasion. This will be the worst-case scenario that can easily spread to the entire Korean Peninsula, Kim said. Kims remarks draw special attention as the two islands, located in the controversial Northern Limit Line, have been most vulnerable to past North Korean provocations. Emboldened by the recent comprehensive military cooperation deal with Russia, Pyongyang will likely adopt more audacious provocations. Its bids to build up nuclear and missile capabilities will continue unabated amid growing prospects for Donald Trump to win in the forthcoming presidential election. The chance for Trumps victory has picked up further impetus, boosted by increasing seniority risks involving his rival U.S. President Joe Biden as seen during a TV debate. Many experts agree that should Trump be re-elected, he will attempt to freeze the Norths nuclear activities rather than push for complete denuclearization, thus aggravating the nuclear risk for the ROK. As nuclear weapons are an asymmetric power, they negate the strengths of conventional military prowess. In the forum, Kim likened the current situation to a glass bottle containing a poisonous scorpion and a bug. The significance of the ROK-U.S. alliance cannot be overemphasized. Yet the ROK must not rely its security entirely on the virtuous will of the U.S. With the U.S. engaged in persistent conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and potential scenarios such as Chinas possible aggression toward Taiwan, the U.S. may struggle to fully assist the ROK. Trump has been adopting business-like approaches in dealing with security issues as well as in economic matters under the motto of America First and Make America Great Again (MAGA). Trumps possible win could further complicate matters, as he might use the reduction or withdrawal of U.S. forces stationed in the ROK as leverage for a drastic hike in expenses for keeping the U.S. troops here. Encouragingly, Christopher Miller, a potential candidate for defense secretary in a possible future Trump administration, is considered to be open to the ROKs nuclear armament. Critics point out the difficulties in proceeding with the nuclear development, which would require secrecy and could trigger international retaliation and criticism for breaking denuclearization pacts, plus a possible domino effect impacting Japan and Taiwan. Despite these criticisms, the dire need for survival could outweigh such concerns. ROK has solidified its stance as a leader in high-tech industries such as semiconductors and batteries. Now it is also cementing its status as a global pivotal state. The Yoon Suk Yeol administration should engage in close consultations with neighboring countries including the U.S. It needs to bolster the ROK-U.S. alliance and consider a collective defense declaration with the U.S. and Japan. Efforts are also needed to mend soured ties with Russia and China. The recent departure of Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming and the envisioned visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping should pave the way for better bilateral relations. Additionally, fortifying relations with NATO member states is crucial. President Yoons current mission to discuss with NATO nations could explore ways for the ROK to share tactical nuclear weapons as NATO does. Emeritus Prof. Cho Byung-jae of Kyungnam University, in his newly published book, said Trumps possible return will be an epoch-making event in world history and can be a starting point for a great upheaval for South Korea which has been under absolute U.S. influence. Trump has been maintaining an open approach toward changing the status quo on the Korean Peninsula. Should this lead to the possible perpetuation of peace on the peninsula, it is welcome. We can imagine a mega deal transcending all possible knotty issues such as a nuclear program, in particular, along with the Norths relations with the U.S. and Japan. Efforts are needed to make the most of Trumps comeback as a precious chance, said Cho, who was a career diplomat mainly in charge of U.S. affairs and chancellor of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA). South Korea stands at a crucial juncture, facing grave security challenges. While the pursuit of nuclear armament comes with substantial risks and criticisms, it is increasingly seen as a necessary measure for ensuring national security and survival. Nuanced and strategic diplomatic efforts coupled with strengthened alliances will be crucial in navigating these complex and potentially disastrous waters. Shim Jae-yun is chief editorial writer of The Korea Times. Galaxy Ring enhances wearables with health innovations By Nam Hyun-woo Samsung Electronics unveiled its new Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphones during the summertime Galaxy Unpacked event in Paris, Wednesday (local time), introducing a number of technical upgrades and artificial intelligence (AI) functions tailored to its flexible form factors. Samsungs long history of innovation has allowed us to lead in the mobile space, creating the foldable form factor and ushering in the mobile AI era, said Roh Tae-moon, president and head of the mobile experience business at Samsung. Now, we are excited to bring these two complementary technologies together and unlock new possibilities for users around the world. Earlier this year, Samsung made waves in the global smartphone market by embedding advanced AI capabilities into the Galaxy S24 series. This time, the company is turning its attention to foldable phones, seeking to integrate AI features that promise to redefine user experiences. Both the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 are equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, optimized for AI processing and offer enhanced graphics along with improved overall performance. The cooling system was upgraded with both phones featuring vapor chambers to enable improved performance. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 features a new 50-megapixel main camera, a significant upgrade from the 12-megapixel camera on its predecessor, and is powered by a 4,000 mAh battery. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 also boasts a 50-megapixel main camera, along with a 4,400 mAh battery for enhanced performance. One of the new AI-powered features is the transcript function in Samsung Notes. Building on existing capabilities like translation, summaries, and auto-formatting, this feature allows users to transcribe, translate, and summarize voice recordings directly within the app. Additionally, the PDF overlay translation feature enables users to translate text in PDF files and overlay the translations directly onto the original document. The AI interpreter function has seen notable enhancements in the latest models. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 introduce a new conversation mode that displays translations on both the main and cover screens for more natural dialogue. Plus, the live translate feature has been expanded to support nine popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, and KakaoTalk. For crisper photos, the new Galaxy Z series introduces a fresh editing experience powered by the AI-based ProVisual Engine. The Portrait Studio function offers a range of creative portrait styles, including 3D cartoon and watercolor, providing users with more artistic possibilities. Pre-orders for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 kicked off on Wednesday, and the devices will be available for purchase starting July 24. The Z Fold 6 is priced from 2.23 million won ($1,607) to 2.7 million won, depending on storage options, while the Z Flip 6 ranges from 1.48 million won to 1.64 million won. Along with the foldable phones, Samsung also unveiled the Galaxy Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro, adopting new designs and advanced functions such as interpretation. Wearable devices for healthcare During the event, Samsung also revealed the Galaxy Ring, adding a new device into the companys wearable device portfolio. It also unveiled the new Galaxy Watch 7 and the Galaxy Watch Ultra. Samsung said the new devices represent the companys vision to enable tailored health experiences, as they will function as tools to obtain, monitor and track data on personal health. The latest additions to our wearables portfolio integrate Samsungs most advanced technologies and innovations, enabling you to take control of your health and wellness with preventative healthcare solutions, Roh said. The intelligence, guidance and insights that are offered with Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Watch7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra will help users turn data into meaningful insights and create a whole new era of expanded intelligent health experiences. Among them, the Galaxy Ring stands as the smallest wearable device in Samsungs portfolio, functioning as a high-tech sensor that is designed to be worn around-the-clock. Designed for constant health monitoring, the Galaxy Ring weighs between 2.3 grams to 3.0 grams and provides 10ATM water resistance. All data and information collected through the ring are integrated into Samsung Health application without a subscription. It features sleep analysis and sleep AI algorithm to help users easily understand sleep patterns by providing sleep score and snoring analysis. The Galaxy Ring also supports broader everyday wellness monitoring, such as heart rate alert, auto workout detection and inactive alert. The ring and the two smartwatches will be also available in stores starting July 24. The Galaxy Ring is priced at 494,900 won, while the Watch 7 is priced between 349,000 won and 419,100 won. The Watch Ultra, which comes with more advanced capabilities, is priced at 899,800 won. Cash-strapped restaurants troubled by 3%p service fee increase By Ko Dong-hwan Woowa Brothers, the operator of the delivery app Baedal Minjok, colloquially know as Baemin, announced, Wednesday, that it will increase its commission rate that is charged to restaurants to 9.8 percent. Currently, the platform charges registered restaurants a commission of 6.8 percent per order. The fee hike, slated to begin next month, is expected to place additional burden on restaurants, many of which have frequently complained that the rate is already excessive. Furthermore, there are fears that the decision is likely to be passed on to consumers through increased food item prices. The commission increase was among the company's business plans that were unveiled by its interim representative Pieter-Jan Vandepitte at its headquarters in Seoul as a way to secure more profitability. He said that the companys new fee rate has been adjusted to the average level in the food delivery industry. Its rivals Coupang Eats and Yogiyo, charge 9.8 percent and 12.5 percent commissions, respectively. Its official said the measure was inevitable to survive the fierce, endless competition among major local delivery companies that are now offering "free" delivery services to their food-ordering customers with paid memberships. Weve been offering the lowest delivery rate in the countrys food delivery industry. Because of that, weve come to realize that itll be difficult to keep competing with our rivals by offering free delivery services to our customers with our old delivery surcharge rate for food businesses, the official said. However, the latest measure by Woowa Brothers has drawn criticism from businesses and the government. Some business operators have complained that the company has disregarded their financial difficulties regarding the brokerage fee. These complaints arise as the country has experienced soaring market prices for produce, manufactured food products and other food ingredients throughout the year, driven by volatile oil prices and exchange rates. As a result, food businesses have been forced to raise their prices, leading to a decline in customers and falling sales. Last year, we requested the company to reduce the rate, but they disregarded our request, said an owner of a restaurant franchisee. Now, instead of lowering it, they have raised the rate, putting significant pressure on us." He highlighted that despite the company achieving an operating profit of nearly 700 billion won ($505 million) last year, marking a 65 percent increase from 2022, the fee hike still occurred. The company's sales during the same period also rose by 15.9 percent to over 3.4 trillion won. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC), the countrys anti-trust watchdog, described Woowa Brothers decision as "disappointing," particularly at a time when restaurants and other small-to-medium-sized (SME) food businesses are closing down due to declining sales. The importance of mutual business partnerships among entities in the countrys food industries has never been more important. The initiative is supported by not just the FTC but the ministries of finance, food and SMEs, all of which are involved in national economic policies, said Park Seol-min, who leads the digital economy policy division under the FTCs competition policy bureau. Woowa's rate hike has dealt a blow to that initiative. Park added that the FTC plans to convene a meeting with delivery service providers and food business representatives within this month to explore solutions and introduce policies that can satisfy all stakeholders. By Nam Hyun-woo Korea Post President Cho Hae-keun held a meeting for the international postal alliance, which is made up of 10 countries, Wednesday, to discuss ways to create a rebound in international postal Express Mail Services (EMS) between members, according to the state-run postal service provider. Cho attended a CEO meeting of Kahala Posts Group in Bangkok, Thailand, which gathered heads of postal administrations from 10 countries. During the meeting, Cho presented Korea's current status of EMS and outlined future growth plans. Kahala Posts Group now consists of 10 member countries Korea, the United States, Japan, China, Australia, Hong Kong, Spain, France, Thailand and Canada after the United Kingdom recently left. The CEOs discussed ways to enhance the quality of international EMS and boost delivery traffic. They also agreed to resume a guaranteed delivery service between members by the end of this year. Suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the service involves Kahala Posts members offering guaranteed EMS delivery between members and refunding fees in case of delays. They also concurred on the importance of reducing delivery times and introducing new services using commercial channels for clearance to overcome the current challenges faced by international postal businesses. According to Korea Post, the traffic of international EMS delivered among Kahala member countries has declined since COVID-19 became endemic. The year 2020 saw 26.15 million EMS deliveries, but the number quickly dropped to 18.58 million in 2022 and 17.2 million in 2023. Korea Post attributes this decline to the global shift of international mail to commercial couriers following the pandemic. The prevalence of EMS services has not fully recovered despite the world reaching a post-pandemic stage. "Postal services have to cooperate to develop new services in response to the decrease in international mail volume," Cho said. "We will continue to work closely with Kahala Posts Group so that it can contribute to the progress of Korea's postal services." The group was launched in 2002 by six major postal administrations collaborating to promote customer choice and improve service options for postal express and package services. The group's network accounts for almost half of the world's internationally recognized EMS traffic. Their goals include raising the service performance of their package services, addressing current and future needs of customers and leveraging collective action and joint capabilities to expand business. By Park Jae-hyuk Around 60,000 members of the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) under the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) went on an eight-hour strike, Wednesday, causing setbacks in the production of cars, ships and steel products at manufacturing plants across the country. The collective action was a protest against the Yoon Suk Yeol administrations business-friendly policies, with a central goal of supporting the passage of a revision bill to the labor-friendly Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act. Dubbed the yellow envelope bill and led by the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, the bill seeks to make it illegal for management to demand compensation from workers for damages incurred from illegal strikes. We will not give up protecting the basic human rights of all workers, including those who are subcontracted, indirectly employed and migrants, the KMWU said in a statement. Unless the management and the government changes its mind, we will go on second and third rounds of general strikes. The Hyundai Motor union, which is the largest organization under the KMWU, did not join the general strike, as the carmakers labor and management reached a tentative agreement on wages and other welfare benefits earlier this week. However, unionized workers at Hyundai Motors subcontractors joined the strike, leading to a suspension of the carmakers production lines in Ulsan due to a disrupted supply of automotive components. Additionally, leaders from the Hyundai Motor union attended the KMWUs massive rally in Seoul, Wednesday. Kia, the sister company of Hyundai Motor, suffered a setback in car production at its Gwangju factory, as subcontracted workers joined the general strike. Unionized workers at GM Korea, who stopped working since Monday, also joined the KMWUs collective action. They plan to continue their strike until Thursday. Hanwha Oceans union, which secured the legal right to strike, left the companys shipyard, Wednesday. Unionized workers at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries supported the KMWUs protest, although they have yet to secure the legal right to strike. They plan to vote on a plan for their collective action between July 22 and 24. In the steelmaking sector, unionized workers at Hyundai Steels Dangjin plant in South Chungcheong Province joined the strike. Business groups urged the government to take stern measures against the KMWUs action, which they view is politically motivated and unrelated to wages or other labor issues. The KMWUs strike is an illegal political strike aimed at law revisions and the impeachment of the president, the Korea Enterprises Federation said in a statement, Tuesday. Businesspeople are seriously worried about the KMWUs repeated illegal strikes, which undermine the rule of law. On the day of the KMWUs strike, the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), which is the largest among the tech firms multiple unions, declared an indefinite general strike, as its three-day strike came to an end. The NSEU initially planned to start staging another five-day strike on July 15, but the union changed its plan, citing managements refusal to communicate. Although the NSEU is currently part of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), the KMWU has supported the first-ever strike at Samsung Electronics in an apparent effort to attract the conglomerates union to the KCTU, which is known for being more militant than the FKTU. The top U.S. official for North Korea policy resigned last week, multiple sources said Tuesday, adding to uncertainty over Washington's diplomatic efforts to reengage with a recalcitrant Pyongyang. Jung Pak left the post as the U.S. senior official for North Korea and a process is under way to select her replacement, according to the sources. Pak, a scholar-turned-diplomat, took over the post for North Korea policy at the State Department after Sung Kim, a veteran diplomat, retired late last year. She also served as deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs. In a press briefing later, Matthew Miller, the State Department's spokesperson, said that Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, will oversee North Korea policy for the department. Park left office on Friday, according to the department. "First of all, yes, she has stepped down, and we do thank Dr. Pak for her tireless dedication and strong leadership on DPRK since assuming office in 2021," he said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "We wish her well on future endeavors." Her departure came as the United States has repeatedly shown its desire to engage in diplomacy with the North an overture that has only been met with Pyongyang's dogged endeavor to advance its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. She has led a series of efforts to strengthen cooperation between South Korea and the United States, and among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan over North Korea-related issues. Pak previously served as a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution. She also worked at the Central Intelligence Agency. (Yonhap) Joe Biden forcefully defended the foreign policy achievements of his presidency as he welcomed NATO member states to a Washington summit on Tuesday that is being closely watched by allies at home and abroad for proof the embattled U.S. president can still lead. Biden, 81, has endured 12 days of withering questions about his fitness for office as some of his fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill and campaign donors fear that he will lose the Nov. 5 election after a halting debate performance on June 27. "(Vladimir) Putin wants nothing less, nothing less, than Ukraine's total subjugation ... and to wipe Ukraine off the map," Biden said, referring to the Russian president. "Ukraine can and will stop Putin." The White House is hoping he can turn the page on speculation with his speech, in which he spoke with a strong and confident voice and avoided any verbal flubs or signs of confusion that marked his debate performance. Biden has rebuffed calls to step aside in his race against Republican Donald Trump, 78, vowing to beat him in November. So far, he still has the support of most of his party's elite. The U.S. president has made restoring traditional U.S. alliances abroad the centerpiece of his foreign policy after Trump challenged allies as part of an "America First" approach. The winner in November could have a substantial impact on the future of NATO, Europe and the rest of the world. Trump has suggested that, given a second term, he would not defend NATO members if they came under military attack and did not meet the alliance's defense spending target of 2 percent of their respective GDP. He has also questioned the amount of aid given to Ukraine in its battle against Russia's invasion. The centerpiece of the NATO summit was set to be new commitments of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, as well as a bridge for that war-torn country to join the 32-member alliance. Zelenskiyy fights for more Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy arrived in Washington on Tuesday and said he would "fight" for NATO to strengthen Ukrainian air defenses and furnish it with more F-16 fighter jets, requests that Washington appeared poised to grant. "We are fighting for additional security guarantees for Ukraine - and these are weapons and finances, political support," he said in a video on social media. Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said NATO would announce a new military command in Germany for training and equipping Ukrainian troops and appoint a senior representative in Kyiv to deepen ties. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the summit would "further strengthen" Ukraine's path to NATO membership. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told defense industry leaders in Washington that the leaders would pledge to enable arms makers across Europe and North America to produce more. He also said NATO has placed an order for Stinger anti-aircraft missiles worth almost $700 million in the name of several member states. The shoulder-fired Stinger missiles have been in hot demand in Ukraine, where they have successfully stopped Russian assaults from the air, and in neighboring European countries which fear they may also need to beat back Russian forces. Zelenskiyy is due to meet with Biden at the White House on Thursday and is scheduled to deliver an address on Tuesday evening. After rebuffing calls from some fellow Democrats for Biden to step down, the White House hopes to turn the focus back to his ability to govern normally. Aides said his opening speech at NATO would highlight what his administration sees as a key accomplishment: a stronger and more united NATO, under Washington's leadership, with more members and a resolve to meet their collective security needs. That brings, they say, tangible results for American voters: a safer country, with a strong international economic position, more alliances and power abroad, and less at risk of conflict with its adversaries. Trump and many Republican allies reject such arguments. Biden's staying power? NATO, celebrating its 75th anniversary, has found new purpose in opposing Putin's Ukraine invasion and the grinding war will dominate private conversations between the leaders of the countries. Those leaders, already anxious about the prospect of Trump's return, came to Washington with fresh concern about Biden's staying power, according to diplomats from their countries. One described Biden as bruised after a difficult political period and said their government was looking for signs about whether he would survive politically. Biden will hold a rare solo press conference on Thursday, also aimed at quieting concerns. NATO leaders face political uncertainty in Europe, with paralysis looming in France after gains for left and far right parties and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition weakened after a poor showing in European Parliament elections. New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said as he headed to his first NATO summit that he would fulfill a campaign commitment to increase UK defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP, but underlined he would only do so when the country could afford it and after a review of defense strategy. Ukraine ultimately wants to join NATO to ward against further future attacks by Russia but candidates have to be approved by all of the alliance's members, some of which are wary of provoking a direct conflict with Russia. Some members want the alliance to make clear Ukraine is moving toward NATO "irreversibly" and are keen for language in a summit statement beyond the alliance's pledge last year that "Ukraine's future is in NATO." A senior NATO official said on Tuesday Russia lacks the munitions and troops to start a major offensive in Ukraine and needs to secure significant ammunition supplies from other countries beyond what it already has. But he estimated Russia would be able to sustain its war economy for three to four more years and also said "it will be some time" before Ukraine has amassed the munitions and personnel it needs to mount its own large-scale offensive operations. (Reuters) Palestinian officials said an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza Strip killed more than two dozen people while advancing tanks in Gaza City forced residents to flee under fire as Israel on Tuesday stepped up an offensive that Hamas warned could jeopardise ceasefire talks. The airstrike hit the tents of displaced families outside a school in the town of Abassan east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing at least 29, most of them were women and children, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said it was reviewing reports that civilians were harmed. It said the incident occurred when it struck with "precise munition" a Hamas fighter who took part in the Oct. 7 raid on Israel that precipitated the Israeli assault on Gaza. Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Israeli strikes on central Gaza areas killed 60 Palestinians and wounded dozens of others on Tuesday. Residents said Israeli tanks that pushed into the Tel Al-Hawa, Shejaia and Sabra neighborhoods of Gaza City shelled roads and buildings, forcing them to flee their homes. This was followed by Israeli military orders to evacuate several districts in eastern and western Gaza City posted on social media, which included these neighbourhoods. "We hold the occupation and the U.S. administration responsible for the horrifying massacres against civilians," said Thawabta in a statement. The Palestinian Red Crescent said early on Wednesday on Facebook that its crews received dozens of humanitarian distress calls from Gaza City but were unable to help due to the intensity of the bombing there. On Gaza City's front lines, the armed wings of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad said their fighters battled Israeli forces with machine guns, mortar fire and anti-tank missiles and killed and wounded Israeli soldiers. Israel's military did not comment on casualties but said its soldiers were engaged in close-quarter combat with militants, had taken more than 150 fighters out of action in the last week and destroyed booby-trapped buildings and explosives. The latest fighting has unfolded as senior U.S. officials were in the region to push for a ceasefire after Hamas made concessions last week. But Israel's renewed campaign threatened talks at a crucial time and could bring negotiations "back to square one", Hamas quoted leader Ismail Haniyeh as saying. Video on social media showed families packed onto donkey carts and in the backs of trucks piled with mattresses and other belongings making their way through Gaza City's streets to flee areas under Israeli evacuation orders. "Gaza City is being wiped out. This is what is happening. Israel is forcing us to leave homes under fire," Um Tamer, a mother of seven, told Reuters via a chat app. She said it was the seventh time her family had fled their house in Gaza City, in the north of the enclave and one of Israel's first targets at the start of the war in October. "We can't take it anymore, enough of death and humiliation. End the war now," she said. The Palestinian Red Crescent said all of its medical clinics were out of service in Gaza City due to the Israeli evacuation orders that have driven thousands of people westward towards the Mediterranean and to the south. Nine months of war and displacement have caused a hunger crisis, and the recent deaths of several more children from malnutrition in the Gaza Strip indicate that famine has spread throughout the coastal enclave, a group of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations said. In a Khan Younis hospital, Palestinian woman Ghaneyma Joma told Reuters she feared her son would starve to death. "It's distressing to see my child...lying there dying from malnutrition because I cannot provide him with anything due to the war, the closing of crossings and the contaminated water," she said, seated on the floor next to her motionless son, who had an intravenous drip attached to his wrist. Airstrikes In Al-Nuseirat in central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike early on Tuesday on a house of several storeys killed 17 people, including 14 children and a woman, Hamas' media office said. Neighbours rushed to help medics and emergency workers recover bodies and search for survivors under the rubble. "They were displaced during the night after Al-Nuseirat camp school was hit... They said they would sleep in the house, fearing for the children and there was a massacre in the house. They are not safe in the schools nor the houses," said Yasser Abu Hamada, a local resident. Across Gaza, more than 40 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City in the north, Al-Bureij, Deir Al-Balah and Al-Nuseirat in central Gaza and in Rafah in the south, according to medics. The total Palestinian death toll in the nine-month-long Israeli military offensive reached 38,243, Gaza health officials said in their latest update. The war erupted when militants led by Hamas infiltrated southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures. Hopes among Gazans of a pause in the fighting had revived after Hamas last week accepted a key part of a U.S. ceasefire proposal. Qatari and Egyptian mediators, backed by the United States, have accelerated efforts this week and talks will resume in Doha on Wednesday, Egypt's state-affiliated media said. (Reuters) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday that the death of innocent children was painful and terrifying, a day after a lethal strike on a children's hospital in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. The visiting Indian leader used emotive language to deliver an implicit rebuke to Putin at a summit intended to underscore the deepening partnership between their two countries. Winding up his two-day trip, the two sides set out nine key areas for closer cooperation, ranging from nuclear energy to medicine, and said they aimed to boost bilateral trade by more than half to hit $100 billion by 2030. But given that Putin has rarely been publicly criticized face-to-face over the war in Ukraine by the leader of a country that Russia sees as a friend, Modi's televised comments were striking. "Whether it is war, conflict or a terrorist attack, any person who believes in humanity is pained when there is loss of lives," Modi said. "But even in that, when innocent children are killed, the heart bleeds and that pain is very terrifying." Ukraine says it has recovered fragments of a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile at the Kyiv children's hospital which was hit on Monday during a wave of Russian attacks that killed 44 Ukrainians, including four children, across the country. At the hospital itself, two adults were killed and Interfax Ukraine said eight children were among about 50 people wounded. Russia said, without providing evidence, that it was a Ukrainian anti-missile system that struck the hospital. Modi appeared to criticise Russia once before over its actions in Ukraine when he told Putin in September 2022 that "today's era is not an era of war". Putin said at that time he understood Modi's concerns. India, however, has not condemned Russia's invasion and has taken the opportunity to buy record amounts of discounted Russian oil as sanctions have decimated Moscow's trade with the West. Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra, accompanying Modi on the trip, said India wanted to further strengthen energy ties and could seek deals with Rosneft and other leading Russian oil firms. The two countries said they were also exploring an increase in Russian coal sales to India. In joint statements, they further outlined plans for closer cooperation in developing the Northern Sea Route through Arctic waters and for working together in space exploration, among other areas. Special partnership For Russia, India has become an increasingly important partner, both economically and diplomatically, as Moscow seeks to demonstrate that Western attempts to isolate it over the war in Ukraine have failed. Putin, speaking before Modi, said their two countries enjoyed a "particularly privileged strategic partnership." "I thank you for the attention you are paying to the most acute problems including trying to find ways to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, above all by peaceful means, of course," he said. Modi told him: "Solutions are not possible on the battleground. Amidst guns, bullets and bombs, peace talks cannot be successful. We have to find the path to peace only through talks." Putin did not visibly react to Modi's remarks and it was not clear if they had influenced the summit's course. The Kremlin said an expected round of delegation-level talks would not take place as the two leaders had covered the agenda in full. Sensitive timing The timing of the Ukrainian hospital incident was embarrassing for Modi, just as he began his visit on Monday. As Modi shared his image hugging Putin on social media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was a "huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world's largest democracy hug the world's most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day." The U.S. State Department said on Monday it had raised concerns with India about its relationship with Russia. Separately, President Joe Biden called the latest attacks on Ukraine "a horrific reminder of Russia's brutality." Russia said it struck military targets and the Kremlin repeated its insistence that Russia does not target civilians. Swasti Rao, Eurasia expert at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses think-tank in New Delhi, said Modi's stance was aimed at projecting India as a credible mediator between Russia and Ukraine and "trying to reinstate the international community's faith in India as a credible actor" which opposed violence. It was also meant to remind Moscow, Rao said, that "at the end of the day we are a valuable partner, you're a valuable partner, but then we also stand by the U.N. Charter and international law." (Reuters) China announced an investigation Wednesday into whether the European Union has adopted unfair trade practices in its probes of Chinese companies bidding on projects in the 27-nation bloc. The move is the latest in a brewing trade war between the two economic giants. The investigation will focus on wind power, photovoltaics, security equipment and electric trains, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said. The EU has used a new regulation to investigate companies bidding for projects within the European Union. These include a probe into whether Chinese subsidies give wind turbine companies an unfair advantage in the competition for projects in Spain, Greece, France, Romania and Bulgaria. China accused the European Union of protectionism and reckless distortion of the definition of subsidies in response to that investigation. The EU has also investigated Chinese companies bidding for a 455-megawatt solar park in Romania and for the procurement of 20 electric trains in Bulgaria. The Chinese investigation will be completed before Jan. 10, with a possible extension of three months to April. It was requested by Chinas Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products. The EU imposed provisional tariffs on China-made electric vehicles last week over subsidies that it alleges gives an unfair advantage to automakers exporting from China. In response, China has launched an investigation into European pork exports. Both the EU and the United States are worried that inexpensive Chinese automobiles could overwhelm their domestic producers and lead to factory layoffs. Chinese auto exports have risen about 30% in the first six months of this year. (AP) Amid all the noise surrounding BLACKPINK, one member is being praised as the group's "least controversial" member. In less than a month, BLACKPINK members Jennie, Lisa, and Rose have faced various controversies on social media. Lisa's solo comeback "ROCKSTAR" received mixed reviews, while Rose was rumored to be dating ASTRO's Cha Eun Woo. Most recently, Jennie was accused of smoking an electronic cigarette in a private room, which was revealed in a behind-the-scenes vlog from a show in Capri, Italy. This incident caused a social media frenzy and led to a complaint being filed to the Italian Embassy, forcing Jennie to apologize to her fans. Jennie smoking Vape in her vlog pic.twitter.com/yi3DH8DsQW no na (@nona15648321) July 8, 2024 FOR MORE INFORMATION: BLACKPINK Jennie Admits To Vaping Indoors, Releases Official Statement- Read Here On the other hand, Jisoo, the eldest member of BLACKPINK, has remained relatively controversy-free. Over the past six months, Jisoo has focused solely on her personal activities without being involved in any scandals. Since the beginning of 2024, Jisoo has been busy with her acting career, confirming her participation in two acting projects: the drama "Influenza" and the film "Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint." The latter features a star-studded cast including Jisoo, Nana, Lee Min Ho, and Ahn Hyo Seop. As it is an adaption of a popular webtoon, the film is suspected to be a hit. On May 30, the crew of "Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint" held a wrap-up party in Seoul, South Korea, where Jisoo's simple yet stunning look made BLINK's hearts flutter. Her heartfelt gratitude to the crew for their hard work during the filming process showcased her professionalism as an actress. YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN: Solo Stans Clash Amid BLACKPINK Lisa's Success & Jennie's Indoor Vaping Controversy Additionally, a clip of Jisoo filming night scenes for "Influenza" circulated online, showing her dedication to her craft. Despite her busy schedule, Jisoo reassured her fans online that she was enjoying filming and being well taken care of by the staff. Despite her demanding filming schedule, Jisoo continues to make waves in the fashion industry. She stole the spotlight at Paris Fashion Week with her standout appearance at Dior's show and participated in a global campaign as Cartier's Global Ambassador. Additionally, she has collaborated with other brands such as Dyson and Self-Portrait. Recently, Jisoo hinted at a solo comeback, exciting her fans. On July 7, she left a message on the Bubble platform indicating she would work hard to meet BLINKs as soon as possible after finishing filming. CHECK THIS OUT: BLACKPINK Jennie's Influence Makes Gentle Monster's Record Purchase Waves in Gangnam Her message was accompanied by a musical note, suggesting her plans for a solo release in 2024. This year promises to be a big year for all BLACKPINK members with their individual activities. What do you think of the situation? Tell us in the comments below! KpopStarz Owns This Written by Alexa Lopez NMIXX's Lily, known for her vibrant and ever-changing hair colors, sent shockwaves through social media today with her latest appearance at Incheon Airport. Stepping out for an overseas schedule in Italy, specifically for the I-Days Milano event, Lily debuted a striking transformation: dark brown hair. Since her debut, Lily has captivated fans with her unconventional hair choices, often opting for shades of blonde and light pink. However, her decision to switch to a deeper, more subdued hue has left fans and netizens alike in awe. As the NMIXX members arrived at the airport, Lily's new look was immediately noticed as she emerged from their vehicle. Photos circulating online captured her undeniable beauty with the contrasting dark brown hair, a departure from her usual bright and pastel tones. IN CASE YOU MISSED THIS: NMIXX Lily Under Fire: Outrage Explodes as Live Broadcast Comment Earns Backlash Fans quickly took to social media to express their astonishment and admiration for Lily's bold move. While she has experimented with various colors in the past, the shift to darker shades marks a significant change in her style, resonating deeply with her supporters. "Lily's new hair color is a game-changer! She looks absolutely stunning," remarked one fan on Twitter, echoing the sentiments of many others who were pleasantly surprised by the idol's transformation. The buzz surrounding Lily's new look highlights not only her influence within the K-pop community but also her ability to continuously reinvent herself. As NMIXX prepares for their international activities, Lily's daring hair choice serves as a testament to her versatility and fearless approach to fashion. LILY WITH DARK BROWN HAIR OMG???? pic.twitter.com/smT0orC0wr nmixx pics (@nmixxpics_) July 10, 2024 Despite the initial shock, it's clear that Lily has once again captured hearts with her beauty and confidence. Her latest hair transformation is poised to inspire fans and fellow idols alike, setting new trends in the ever-evolving world of K-pop. In recent news, NMIXX Lily garnered attention for her rendition of IVE's "I AM" on the 100th episode of "Lee Mujin Service." Performing a ballad version accompanied only by piano, Lily impressed viewers with her flawless execution of the song's challenging high notes, all while seated. The cover gained traction online, with fans praising her raw vocal talent and the somber atmosphere created by the piano arrangement. International netizens also noted Lily's confident demeanor post-performance, emphasizing her status as a standout vocalist in the fourth-generation K-pop scene. YOU MIGHT BE ALSO INTERESTED IN: NMIXX Lily Treated As Outcast? Idol Draws Attention After Not Receiving Gifts During Fanmeeting For more K-Pop news and updates, keep your tabs open here at KpopStarz. KpopStarz owns this article. Written by Cassidy Jones. On 9 July Haitis interim Prime Ministerand Haitis police (PNdH) chiefvisited the Hopital de lUniversite d'Etat d'Haiti (Hueh), Haitis main public hospital, in the capital, Port-au-Prince. End of preview - This article contains approximately 400 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options In a move aimed at reclaiming control from armed gangs, Haiti's newly appointed Prime Minister Garry Conille, alongside Police Chief Normil Rameau, undertook a visit to the country's largest medical facility on Tuesday. The Hospital of the State University of Haiti, also known as the General Hospital, had fallen victim to months of relentless attacks, culminating in its recent seizure by police forces on Sunday night, according to AP News. Haiti Police Chief Rameau Normil, in a press conference on Monday, detailed the police operation that led to the hospital's retrieval from armed groups. The facility, crucial for providing healthcare to Haiti's underserved population, had been reduced to a state resembling a war zone. Beds lay empty, their frames stripped, while bullet-ridden walls bore witness to clashes between law enforcement and gangs. The Haiti hospital's dire condition underscored the urgent need for security and stability in a nation plagued by violence. Council member Louis Gerald Gilles, joining the inspection, projected a hopeful future, announcing plans for the Haiti hospital's full operational restoration by February 2026. Prime Minister Garry Conille emphasized the institution's vital role in serving Haiti's most vulnerable, highlighting its previous capacity of attending to 1,500 patients daily before falling under gang control. READ NEXT: Haiti's PM Garry Conille Warns Gangs, Vows to 'Restore National Control' Escalating Humanitarian Crisis The violence perpetrated by criminal factions has not spared Haiti's fragile healthcare infrastructure. Over 30 public and private health facilities across Port-au-Prince have been looted and vandalized since February, exacerbating an already precarious health crisis, the Miami Herald reports. Patients like Carole Dieujuste, grappling with chronic illnesses, have faced life-threatening delays in treatment, highlighting the catastrophic impact on individuals reliant on medical services. The arrival of Kenyan police officers as part of a multinational security mission offers a glimmer of hope for restoring order. Led by Godfrey Otunge, these international forces aim to collaborate closely with local authorities and global partners, pledging to curb gang activities that have crippled communities and institutions alike. Restoring Security and Stability Haiti Police Chief Normil Rameau outlined ongoing tactical evaluations and planning efforts over the past fortnight to dismantle criminal networks effectively. Despite operational secrecy to safeguard strategic advantages, the integration of Kenyan police signifies a bolstered international effort to quell unrest and facilitate safer conditions for Haiti's populace, The Bharat Express News noted. As Haiti navigates through these turbulent times, the commitment to reclaiming stability remains unwavering. With the specter of violence displacing hundreds of thousands and imperiling public health, concerted efforts are imperative to mitigate risks posed by ongoing crises and seasonal vulnerabilities. Haiti's battle to secure its public health infrastructure amid escalating violence underscores the urgent need for sustained international support and strategic interventions. As efforts to restore normalcy continue, the resilience of Haiti communities remains a testament to their enduring spirit amid adversity. READ MORE: Colombia Sees Record Low Deforestation in 2023 This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Ross Key WATCH: Gang leaders in Haiti say ready for war as Kenyan police prepare to deploy - From FRANCE 24 English Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro is in legal hot water because of a scandal that Brazilian media called "Jewelrygate" where he did not disclose luxury gifts given to him by Saudi Arabia and police have found that an alleged crime ring connected to the far-right former president sold some of these luxury goods. According to Brazilian police, Bolsonaro used this crime ring to illegally siphon off and sell luxury gifts that he received from other world leaders. He was reportedly able to sell at least $1.2 million from the selling of these luxury goods. These new claims come just three days after police formally accused the man known as the "Trump of the Tropics" of embezzlement, money laundering, and criminal association. Police have also recommended that he be criminally charged for these accusations. The Guardian noted that if charged and convicted of these crimes, the far-right former president could spend a total of 25 years in prison. Brazil Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes was the one who authorized the release of the 476-page federal police investigation into the alleged Jair Bolsonaro crime ring. The existence of that crime right was revealed just months after the far-right politician left office. The report, translated from Portuguese, read that investigators found evidence of "a criminal association geared towards the embezzlement of high-value gifts received as a result of the ex-president Jair Bolsonaro's office and/or by Brazilian government delegations that were acting in his name, during international trips ... which could later be sold overseas". "The sums obtained through these sales were converted into cash and incorporated into the ex-president's personal patrimony, through intermediaries and without using the formal banking system, in order to hide the origin, whereabouts and ownership of those sums," investigators added. READ MORE: Brazil Police Say They Might Conclude 3 Jair Bolsonaro Probes By July Jair Bolsonaro Would Not Have Been Able to Keep the Luxury Gifts If He Declared Them Under Brazilian law, the jewelry given to him by Saudi Arabia would not have been tax-exempt once it entered Brazil. Furthermore, Bolsonaro could not have kept the jewelry himself, but it would have been incorporated into the presidential collection. Bolsonaro tried to keep the luxury gifts for himself. However, as an aide to one of his ministers, he tried to smuggle it to Brazil and did not declare it. That aide was soon caught, leading to "Jewelrygate," where it was discovered that Bolsonaro's family received "revenue obtained through the illegal sale" of the jewelry. Jair Bolsonaro Tried To Auction Off the Jewelry in the US One of the ways the criminal ring tried to sell the jewelry was to try and auction it in the United States, particularly by using the auction company, Fortuna Auction. However, Brazil's Federal Police caught up to this plan. According to France 24, the recently-released documents showed that Bolsonaro and a former top aide talked about the luxury goods being auctioned off in the US,. This showed that he knew about them being sold. READ MORE: Brazil Police Officially Open Investigation Into Jair Bolsonaro Stay at Hungarian Embassy This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Brazil's Bolsonaro questioned: Former President accused of trying to import jewellery FRANCE 24 With the Republican National Convention looming in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, all eyes are on former President Donald Trump as he mulls over his Vice-Presidential pick. Amid swirling speculation, Donald Trump hinted at a possible announcement during the convention, though logistical considerations may alter his plans. During an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Trump teased the timing of his announcement, suggesting it could coincide with the convention itself. However, he acknowledged complexities that might necessitate an earlier reveal. Names like Sens. Marco Rubio, JD Vance, Tim Scott, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum have surfaced as frontrunners, according to insights shared during the interview. "I haven't made a final decision, but I have some ideas as to where we're going," Trump remarked, underscoring the deliberative process of selecting a candidate who can effectively support his campaign and potentially lead as president. READ NEXT: Donald Trump Criticizes Milwaukee, RNC Host City, as 'Horrible'; Republicans Rush to Manage Controversy Potential Timing and Venue Sources close to Donald Trump's campaign have hinted at potential announcement venues, including campaign rallies in Florida and Pennsylvania this week or possibly through Trump's social media platform, Truth Social. The final decision is expected to unfold in the days leading up to the convention, which is set to commence next Monday. The contenders for Trump VP nod, particularly Sens. Vance and Rubio and Gov. Burgum have shown varying levels of past skepticism towards Trump, The Hill reports. These reservations have evolved into endorsements and vocal support as they vie for the coveted spot on the ticket. This shift underscores a broader trend within the Republican Party towards aligning with Trump's populist agenda. Evolution of Alliances Sen. JD Vance, once a vocal critic who labeled Donald Trump as "unfit" for the presidency, has since embraced Trump's policies and garnered his endorsement in subsequent political endeavors. Similarly, Sen. Marco Rubio, who initially clashed with Donald Trump during the 2016 primaries, has become a staunch ally, shaping policies and advocating for Trump within the Latino community and in Florida. Gov. Doug Burgum, while less vocal in his criticisms, has navigated a path of cautious support, strategically aligning himself with Trump's agenda while maintaining a degree of independence, The Washington Post noted. Donald Trump running mate selection finalized amid a backdrop of political maneuvering, the decision carries implications beyond the Republican National Convention. It reflects Donald Trump's strategy to galvanize support and expand his electoral reach, positioning his campaign as a force in the upcoming elections. The unfolding surrounding Trump VP pick not only captivates political observers but also underscores the evolving dynamics within the Republican Party. With each contender representing a strategic choice, Trump's decision is poised to influence the trajectory of the 2024 presidential race. READ MORE: Joe Biden Declares He Won't Step Down: 'I Don't Care About the Opinions of Big Names' This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Ross Key WATCH: Trump says he will announce his running mate "within the next week" - From Fox News The tragic death of Dvontaye Mitchell, a 43-year-old Black man, has ignited a firestorm of controversy and grief following a disturbing altercation with security guards at a Wisconsin hotel. Mitchell's passing on June 30 has left his family shattered and the community demanding answers amid growing scrutiny over the circumstances leading to his death, according to CNN. According to a statement from a Wisconsin Black man's family attorney, Ben Crump, Mitchell was at the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee when security guards intervened, alleging he had caused a disturbance. Witness accounts and a video shared on social media depict a harrowing scene: four Wisconsin security guards pinning Mitchell to the ground as he pleads and apologizes repeatedly. The footage captures the stark contrast between Mitchell's desperate cries and the guards' commands to "stay down" and accusations of his behavior. READ NEXT: Ohio: Handcuffed Black Man Dies During Arrest, Saying "I Can't Breathe" Response and Investigation Milwaukee Police responded to the scene, where Mitchell was found unresponsive. Despite efforts to administer lifesaving measures, he was pronounced dead. Karen Domagalski from the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office stated that the preliminary manner of death for Mitchell is classified as a homicide, pending toxicology and further investigation. This designation has intensified public outcry and legal scrutiny, reflecting broader concerns over the use of force, particularly against Black individuals, by law enforcement and security personnel. The death of Dvontaye Mitchell at a Wisconsin hotel has evoked comparisons to the high-profile case of George Floyd, whose murder in Minneapolis catalyzed widespread rallies against police brutality and racial injustice. Reverend Al Sharpton, a prominent civil rights activist, announced plans to deliver Mitchell's eulogy, emphasizing the significance of Mitchell's death amid political and social tensions surrounding racial justice, AP News reports. Mitchell's family, represented by attorney Ben Crump, has vehemently disputed initial reports and maintained that Mitchell was experiencing a mental health episode, challenging assertions about his conduct and circumstances before the incident. Corporate and Official Responses In response to Mitchell's death, Aimbridge Hospitality, the company overseeing operations at the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee, suspended the Wisconsin security guards involved pending the outcome of their internal investigation, CBS News noted. A spokesperson for Aimbridge expressed condolences to Mitchell's family and underscored their commitment to supporting investigative efforts aimed at ensuring accountability for the events leading to Mitchell's death. Meanwhile, local authorities and the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office continue to assess the incident, with no immediate timetable for potential criminal charges against those involved. The death of a Wisconsin Black man has reignited debates about racial bias in policing and the disproportionate use of force against Black individuals, resonating deeply within the Milwaukee community and beyond. Calls for justice, transparency, and systemic reform have intensified, reflecting broader societal concerns over the treatment of marginalized communities by law enforcement and private security personnel. As the investigation into Dvontaye Mitchell's death in a Wisconsin hotel unfolds, the community remains steadfast in its demand for accountability and justice. Mitchell's family, alongside civil rights advocates and community leaders, are committed to ensuring that his death is not overlooked or dismissed. READ MORE: California Wildfire Forces More Evacuations, Now State's Largest This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Ross Key WATCH: Black man dies after security guards pin him to the ground - From CNN Disgraced former Hollywood executive and convicted sexual predator Harvey Weinstein may be facing more rape allegations, though no new charges have been made yet. This was revealed when he appeared in Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday, with prosecutors stating that he may have been responsible for raping more women than previously expected. According to ABC News, prosecutors have told Judge Curtis Farber that they are still evaluating even more allegations from women who came forward after his New York conviction was overturned last April. Prosecutors also stated that they plan to present the allegations of at least one alleged victim to a grand jury. "We believe the defendant forcibly raped and sexually abused women in Manhattan that fall within the statute of limitations," stated Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg. "There were women in 2020 who were not ready to proceed with the legal process. They are now ready." However, there is still no timeline for a decision on the new charges against Weinstein, with the former Hollywood executive's lawyers expressing skepticism regarding these new accusers who came forward, with defense attorney Arthur Aidala accusing the prosecution of using delay tactics. "They have a defendant, and now they're out there looking for a crime," said the defense attorney, "They're out there with a hotline: 1-800-Get-Harvey." However, Manhattan prosecutors disputed this claim, saying, "There's certainly no delay tactic in the people's case. There were a number of women who came forward to indicate they were raped by the defendant." Harvey Weinstein Appeared in Court in a Wheelchair, Defense Argues He Is Suffering from Health Problems As for Weinstein himself, he was seen wearing a suit and tie with his head closely shaved, arriving at the courthouse in a wheelchair pushed by court officers. His attorney, Aidala, argued that he is currently suffering from various ailments. READ MORE: Harvey Weinstein Retrial in New York Might Happen in September "He's a sick man," the Weinstein lawyer told the judge. "He's got little kids and he wants to get out." Weinstein has fluid in his lungs and heart, according to Aidala. He added that there are also issues with his spine and vision, with his diabetes now "going through the roof" while he remains incarcerated. Harvey Weinstein Also Seeking to Reverse Los Angeles Conviction While his New York conviction was overturned, with the Court of Appeals ruling that a retrial be done before Labor Day, his Los Angeles conviction still stands. However, Weinstein and his attorneys are trying to get it overturned as well. According to PEOPLE magazine, his attorneys argued that he did not get a fair trial in the California case because the judge denied him "his constitutional rights to present a defense." In the Los Angeles case, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for rape and sexual assault. In the two cases combined, over 80 women, from well-known celebrities to film staff, have come forward to reveal that Weinstein was a serial sexual abuser. READ MORE: Donald Trump Was 'Doe 174' in Newly-Unsealed Jeffrey Epstein Documents This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Harvey Weinstein appears in court - FOX 5 New York Authorities on Wednesday charged a Philadelphia man with felony homicide in a shooting that left a man dead last fall on Eastons South Side. Kameron Barnes Nuble, 34, also is charged with conspiracy to commit homicide in the Oct. 26, 2023, case. Nuble on Wednesday was taken into custody at his home by Easton police with assistance from the Philadelphia Police Departments Homicide Fugitive Task Force and SWAT Team, Northampton County District Attorney Stephen Baratta said in a news release. Legious Minder Sr., 46, of Easton, was struck by gunfire about 11:16 p.m. outside Chubbys of Southside, 154 W. St. Josephs St., authorities said. He was taken to an area hospital and pronounced dead. Minder died from a gunshot wound and the manner of death was ruled homicide by Northampton County Coroner Zachary Lysek. Investigators were then searching for a silver SUV that drove away after the shooting and was believed to have headed north on St. Johns Street. Easton police Lt. Matt Gerould previously told lehighvalleylive.com Minder was in a vehicle in Chubbys parking lot when the shooting happened. Chubbys is a deli that sells groceries, prepared food and beer to go. Nuble was arraigned on the two felony counts before District Judge Daniel Corpora and sent to Northampton County Prison with bail denied. A preliminary hearing was tentatively scheduled for July 23 to determine if there is sufficient evidence to send the charges toward trial in the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas. Court records were not immediately updated with attorney information for Nuble. Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Pennsylvania has the most volunteer fire departments in the nation, according to the state fire commissioner. But many of those fire companies are grappling with the cost of expensive equipment and the struggle to find volunteers to fill demanding jobs their older members cant do anymore. But municipalities across the region are developing solutions to make sure there are firefighters to show up when the bell goes off. Regionalizing fire departments Eight years ago, the state legislature approved Senate Resolution 6 to address the crisis in fire and EMS. One key recommendation in the 100-page report was regionalizing departments, something many chiefs agree on. So far, no moves have been made on this front, but proponents like state Rep. Mark Gillen, R-Berks County, said its time to revisit the recommendation. Studies done by both Lower Paxton Township and Susquehanna Township call for regionalizing departments, among other suggestions, such as hiring career firefighters. Regional fire departments result when several, often struggling, volunteer departments in different municipalities band together under one umbrella organization with a single leadership system. Southern Allegheny Valley Emergency Services (SAVES) in Allegheny County is one example. Regionalization can be a bone of contention. Municipalities can find it hard to work together, working out finance and equipment deals and fire stations dont want to lose their identity. SAVES allows the two departments that merged to keep their original names on the side of the truck, calling them the Aspinwall Fire District Station and the Sharpsburg Fire District Station. Last year, SAVES had 609 calls and 100% of calls were covered. They even recruited six new members because of the publicity that came with the merger. Its a nondenominational name that if other departments want to join along, every new station can have a fire district, SAVES Fire Chief Mike Daniher said. They still have that brand identity to the community but collectively we have one board of directors and operate as one department. Daniher has been in the fire service for more than 20 years, and was voted SAVES fire chief in January after serving as an assistant chief, vice president and committee member in the Sharpsburg station. The actual fighting of fires hasnt really changed, because the departments had mutual aid agreements before the merger, but the selling point was the ease of administrative flow that came with the merger. Its nice that we now have enough folks that we can have a fully functioning committee and leadership board thats not the same people, Daniher said. I dont have any other responsibilities now other than being the Chief, and all members can only sit on two committees. The biggest challenge to regionalization was the paperwork, Daniher said. SAVES hired their own attorney to help them apply to the attorney generals office and submit the proper public notices. We attempted to work with DCED (the state Department of Community and Economic Development) and they were very difficult to work with and we still really havent even received everything we asked for from them, Daniher said. I think the state could do a better job creating an outline. Because of the level of municipal involvement, it is DCED instead of the Fire Commissioners office that needs to get involved in regionalization. We do offer support for regionalization through the annual grant program. If you have two departments and you merge them, they can take two grants out, State Fire Commissioner Thomas Cook said. Although DCED handles the paperwork side, we would obviously encourage [regionalization] from the sidelines. Cook said he thinks formalized regionalization is going to become more prevalent. Lower Paxton Township Deputy Fire Chief Brian Graham agreed. Were helping each other right now. Its going to get to the point where not any one department or area has all the resources needed because its not efficient or cost effective, Graham said. I think thats the future. In Harrisburg, Chief Brian Enterline is a major proponent of regionalization. He just cant seem to get surrounding municipalities on board. We take those costs for the fire departments, which are not cheap, and were able to spread that collectively among multiple municipalities, Enterline said. It saves everyone. Providing financial incentives to volunteers Not only are municipalities and departments struggling to pull pieces together, but the volunteers themselves have to consider a personal budget with time in the firehouse theyre not getting paid for. Its hard to afford being a volunteer, but some departments have found a way to provide financial incentives that are cheaper than paying for career firefighters. In November, Lower Paxton Township started a stipend program, compensating volunteers to staff the station. Volunteers can get $40 for a four hour block of time as long as they have a crew of at least three people, earning up to $14,392 annually. From November to January, the townships goal was to have 75% of shifts covered. The department was hovering around 73%, but theyre now down to about 65%. Since we started the program, weve gotten about 40 new membership applications, but only about five of them have panned out, Graham said. Graham said many volunteers experience burnout because of an increased population and call volume, that totaled 1,600 calls in 2023 for Lower Paxton. The municipality has another incentive for longevity after 25 years of service and at 65 years old, firefighters can collect $250 a month for the rest of their lives. The stipends are a start. Another initiative is live-in programs, where volunteers can live for free at the firehouse in exchange for some chores and availability during calls. Hampden Township live-in members can use the full kitchen, internet, laundry, bathrooms and gyms at the two stations where the program is provided. Hampden Township volunteer firefighter Justin Taylor explains room where the department keeps the fire hose. June 26, 2024. Jimmie Brown. jbrown@pennlive.com.Jimmie Brown Its a great pull for the community really, were able to help provide housing to firefighters and in return, we always have somebody around to staff the rigs and get out on the street for emergencies quicker, said Ian McCreary, Hampden Township live-in coordinator and a firefighter. Its usually a lot of younger people, so theyre gaining experience running calls, getting good training and growing as adults. Hampden Township fire departments get money from the township for building upkeep. McCreary says the volunteers consider themselves fortunate because they dont have to put in a lot of hours to fundraise. There are only two live-in firefighters at the department right now, but McCreary hopes to grow the program, which he sees as an asset to the department. One state initiative to help firefighters is Pa.s volunteer tax credit program, established in 2016 and expanded in 2020. Municipalities can establish a tax credit for their firefighting and emergency medical services volunteers, including up to 100% of their real estate tax. To get the tax credit, fire departments have to go through the municipality which has to work with the Office of the State Fire Commissioner. Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed $60 million for the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Grant Program grant program in his 2024-2025 budget that can be used for a variety of needs. The number would effectively double the existing program funding. Even if that bump in funding is approved by the Legislature, fire officials say it would only represent a drop in the bucket across more than 2,500 municipalities in the state. Playing nicely in the sandbox Communication is key for fire departments on all fronts. Its especially important to communicate with the local government. The most successful fire companies are the ones with an excellent relationship with their local government, Jerry Ozog, executive director of the Pennsylvania Fire and Emergency Services said. The Pennsylvania Fire and Emergency Services Institute, a nonprofit, works to help sustain volunteer fire departments as part of their mission. On the municipal government level, Ozog recommends that fire departments get all stakeholders in a room and find out their expectations. Ozog said the organization also advocates for fire companies to engage with their community and look beyond traditional volunteers to meet the mission of the organization. You have to consistently market what you do to the community and engage the public to have a consistent flow of volunteers into the organization, Ozog said. Hoping people will walk in the door of the fire station is not a strategy at all. You have to be active in that. The institute offers seminars for fire companies on recruitment and retention, including sessions on how to draft a strategic plan. One idea is to develop a dedicated recruitment and retention committee with diverse membership, including younger people. The organization helps fire departments sell themselves, highlighting elements like the sense of community a department brings and the physical fitness aspect to firefighting. One of the fallacies I hear is people dont have time to volunteer, Ozog said. Ive been involved in areas where we recruited busy professionals. People need to be motivated to volunteer. Ozog is an optimist. He believes that while the fire service is going to have to change, it will still be there for decades to come. Communities and fire companies are the ones that need to save themselves, Ozog said. It is really easy to blame the state rather than having the difficult conversation locally to do something different or to merge with your neighbors. He notes that there are resources to help volunteer departments, including the Pennsylvania Fire and Emergency Services Institute. Volunteer fire service in Pennsylvania is a long tradition, one that on some days, appears its going by the wayside. But most chiefs say that there likely wont be a day where no one comes to help, but the precious minutes it takes to get to a burning building could take longer and longer. The important thing is coordination. I know we have days here in Lower Paxton where we do a really good job communicating between our three companies, myself and the township to make sure we share manpower, moving people around so we have a full rig, Graham said. Thats the kind of forward thinking that has to happen in order to ensure public safety. Vincent Dransfield was so famously resilient that when he passed away at home in Passaic County, three months after celebrating his 110th birthday, it came as a surprise. It was very unexpected, said his granddaughter, Erica Lista. Even among worlds few hundred supercentenarians, the term for those 110 or older, Dransfield stood out as an anomaly. He lived alone at a house in Little Falls, his home for 79 years, remained on the roster of the fire company where he served as fire chief from 1958 to 1965 and continued to drive his Hyundai sedan on local errands, his granddaughter said. He died June 26 at home, three days after an upbeat final visit with Lista in which he perused photos of his great-grandsons high school graduation. She said she brought him some cream for his joints because knee pain was one of the few things that ever slowed him down. Everything was the same. Nothing was amiss, Lista said Monday. He went the way he wanted to go. Being at home. Funeral services were held last week. Dransfields admirers from Singac Volunteer Fire Co. No. 3 had hosted his 110th birthday party on March 16, 12 days before his actual birthday. Upon his death, they fulfilled his final wish, transporting his casket via an antique fire truck from the funeral home in Little Falls to the cemetery in Totowa. He had helped refurbish it in the 1980s, Lista said. Vincent Dransfield celebrated his 110th birthday at the Singac Fire Co. No. 3, where he volunteered for over 85 years, in Little Falls on March 16, 2024.Alexandra Pais | For NJ Advance Media Dransfields wife of 54 years, Ann Dransfield, died in 1992, according to his obituary. Survivors include his daughter, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Dransfield was buried wearing his favorite cap, one which proclaimed him the oldest active fireman in the U.S.A., Lista said. It was a cap he wore everywhere, including his 110th birthday party at the firehouse in March. A bottle of Ovaltine was placed in the casket, she said. Dransfield had playfully credited Ovaltine, the flavored milk drink, with his longevity, and the company recently sent him a two years supply and shared the video on TiTok. We have a ton of Ovaltine, Lista said. Photo of Vincent Dransfield, left, as Chief of Singac Fire Co. No. 3. He celebrated his 110th birthday at the firehouse in Little Falls on March 16, 2024.Alexandra Pais | For NJ Advance Media Dransfield never lived anywhere other than Little Falls and Paterson, where he was born in a house on Preakness Avenue on March 28, 1914. Woodrow Wilson was president, the U.S. was about to enter World War I, and Yankee Stadium had not yet been built. He discussed his early years in an interview in March with NJ Advance Media. I graduated from School 5. The old School 5, Dransfield said, refering to the building in Paterson down the street from where classes were relocated starting in 1939. He quit school after the eighth grade. Lista said he was delivering milk in his early 20s when his customers included legendary boxer Joe Louis, who trained in Pompton Lakes in the mid-1930s. When World War II broke out, Dransfield was working as a manager at the Schmid company, which supplied condoms to U.S. troops overseas. He told his granddaughter he was not drafted into military service because his job was classified as a civil defense position. He later worked as a manager at Crane Motors in Little Falls for 25 years, followed by several years at another job dealing with car parts, before retiring. Vincent Dransfield celebrated his 110th birthday at the Singac Fire Co. No. 3, where he volunteered for over 85 years, in Little Falls on March 16, 2024.Alexandra Pais | For NJ Advance Media Dransfield got married in 1938, when he was 24, and his wife introduced him to Little Falls. When they moved into their house in 1945, it was located where a road did not yet exist. He was a longtime New York Yankees fan ever since the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1957, he explained. This year, opening day, for only the second time in his long life, coincided with his birthday. Lista said the family hasnt finalized what to do with his car, which he used to swing by the local QuickCheck and ShopRite for coffee, newspapers, groceries and conversation in the years before his death. It was perhaps the ultimate symbol of Dransfields astonishing run of good health. She said they likely will keep it in the family. Please subscribe now and support the local journalism you rely on and trust. Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. A 74-year-old man cutting grass on Bushkill Township-owned property was pronounced dead Tuesday after the mower was discovered tipped over, according to the Northampton County Coroners Office. Authorities were called about 10:45 a.m. to the Albert Ponds Preserve along Albert Road on township property, Coroner Zachary Lysek said in a news release. Through the investigation, it is believed that the operator was beginning to cut grass along the bank of one of the ponds when the mower tipped over with the operator still on its seat resulting in him being pinned beneath the tractor in the pond, Lysek wrote. The coroner identified the deceased as 74-year-old Louis Nagy, of Bushkill Center Road in Bushkill Township. A determination of Nagys cause and manner of death remained pending further investigation. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. The 34-year-old gunman accused in the slaying of a 21-year-old Independence Township woman and her puppy fired shots as the rest of the family slept, court records state. Anthony J. Garvin, 34, of Netcong, Morris County is facing first-degree murder and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm charges. He made his first appearance Wednesday in Warren County Superior Court and has a detention motion scheduled for Monday, said Kevin Brotzman, chief assistant prosecutor of Warren Countys Major Crimes Unit. Celeste Dudley-Smith, assistant deputy public defender assigned to Garvin, couldnt immediately be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon. North Bergen-based attorney Genesis A. Peduto, representing the Pulver family, also couldnt immediately be reached for comment. The affidavit of probable cause obtained by lehighvalleylive.com Wednesday sheds a little more light on the case. The series of events began shortly before 8:30 a.m. June 27 at Amanda Pulvers familys home in the 100 block of Alphano Road in the Great Meadows section of Independence Township. Investigators were called to the home after several 911 calls were placed by witnesses claiming they heard gunshots, court records state. Investigators found Pulver shot in the leg, court records state. Garvin, listed in court paperwork as Pulvers ex-boyfriend, allegedly entered the home at an unknown time that morning while the family slept. Pulvers brother, Darrin Pulver, and brother-in-law, Steven Kearney, as well as parents, Darrin and Colleen Pulver, however, claim to lehighvalleylive.com Garvins relationship to Amanda was of a former friend and co-worker and nothing more. The family also confirmed her puppy, Dunkin, was killed in the alleged attack. Amanda Pulver entered the bedroom of one of her family members bleeding and collapsed to the ground, court records state. Garvin at the time stood in the doorway, holding a firearm, and told family members Pulver was still alive and to call 911, according to court records. A male family member reported being awakened by the shots fired and Amanda screaming, and found Garvin upstairs. Garvin then allegedly pointed the gun at the family member and the family member backed away. Amanda Pulver was taken to Morris County Medical Center for treatment of injuries, where she later was pronounced dead. Scanner reports indicate Garvin fled the scene while armed. The Warren County Prosecutors Office previously stated Garvin was taken into custody and sent to the Berks County Prison in Leesport, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania court records show Garvin was taken into custody in Berks by the Wyomissing Borough Police Department and imprisoned with bail denied. He later was extradited back to Warren County, where he remained incarcerated Wednesday, Brotzman said. If convicted on the murder charge, Garvin faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Amanda Pulver was a 2021 graduate of Hackettstown High School and a freshman in college, with aspirations of one day owning a real estate business, her obituary states. She leaves behind her parents and two brothers. A GoFundMe online fundraising account has been established to assist the family with expenses related to Pulvers killing. As of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, the fundraiser raised $38,743 of its $75,000 goal by 514 donors. The Warren County Prosecutors Office was assisted in the homicide investigation by Independence Township and Wyomissing police, New Jersey and Pennsylvania State Police, and the Warren County Tactical Team. Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Overcrowding at Midlands Regional Hospital Portlaoise is up 47% so far this year, according to figures provided by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO). Between January and June 564 patients went without a bed in the Laois hospital which is up substantially from the 383 on trolleys over the same period last year. February was the busiest month when 106 patients were recorded as being on trolleys, followed by May with 101. Nationally over 9,437 patients, including 70 children were admitted to hospital without a bed in the month of June. INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha said: "The fact that over 9,437 people were treated on trolleys in June is clear evidence that our health system is still far too reliant on a hospital system that that doesnt have enough beds. The Government must prioritise investment in building and scaling up capacity to meet this demand. This can only be done by increasing bed capacity and also employing nurses to staff these beds. "The HSEs recruitment freeze is making it harder to provide safe and timely care as it is becoming more difficult to fill rosters when staffing is so short. Our members want to be able to provide safe care to patients but also be assured that their own safety in the workplace is being guaranteed neither are guaranteed when they are working in overcrowded conditions with unsafe staffing levels. "The development of community services is critical to reducing the pressure on the hospital system. The recruitment embargo is making it impossible to fill posts in the community and therefore having a direct impact on the ability to provide care outside of the hospital system. The recruitment freeze is own goal after own goal. "The INMO is consulting with our members who work in the community on the impact the recruitment freeze is having on them. We are now urgently seeking that the HSE reengage with the INMO at the Workplace Relations Commission on their staffing plan for 2024, which still hasnt been published at the mid-point of the year." In a statement on Tuesday Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said the number of patients on trolleys nationally in the first five months of the year was down 14% compared to the same period last year, meaning 7,800 fewer patients were waiting on trolleys for a hospital bed. Minister Donnelly said: I want to pay tribute to staff in emergency departments, and throughout hospitals and community services who have contributed to this improved performance, despite a large increase in the number of patients presenting to emergency departments. Trolley numbers also fell last year. Our goal is to ensure all patients can access beds when they need them. This has already happened in some hospitals, including University Hospital Waterford and the Midland Regional Hospital in Tullamore. There have been no patients on trolleys in Waterford for years and Tullamore has had no patients on trolleys to date this year. We are making real progress, although we have more to do. Ireland's waterways agency believes the new Barrow Blueway could be bring lots of visitors to Vicarstown which an official believes is a 'a gem' but a Laois TD believes more must be delivered to a village that attracts tourists to Laois but has no pubs. The village's potential was raised recently in the Dail with Waterways Ireland by Laois TD Brian Stanley at the Public Accounts Committee. The TD said the midlands does not do well on funding for tourism but has visitor attractions including Vicarstown which he said has much more potential to generate employment and money locally. "Improving Waterway Irelands asset there would be a win-win situation but it needs something to kick start it and that has not been forthcoming," he said. Dep Stanley said that while it is a 'fantastic' area, the village has lost elements that would attract visitors. "It is a lovely village. There were two pubs in it. The pubs are gone. The school is gone. There is nothing," he said. He wanted to know what plans Waterways Ireland has for the village. "It would be great if the village could be brought back to life and the facilities used better. Are there plans for any physical developments at Vicarstown?" he said. Eanna Rowe is the operations controller with Waterways Ireland. He replied to the Sinn Fein TD. "Any plans we would have would take the navigation of the entire Barrow line (of Grand Canal) into consideration. That is our intention under the proposed masterplan for the Barrow. Vicarstown is a gem. There is no doubt about it. It has supported that cafe but also a very small barge operator and it continues to support that barge operation. From our perspective, it is one of those destinations we would like to see developed along the Barrow line and the Barrow navigation," he said. Dep Stanley pushed the official for more. READ ON BELOW PICTURE. Pictured: Bike week in Vicarstown. "I can say the Barrow Blueway is almost complete - we have a couple of road crossings to complete this year with the local authorities - and that could be a game-changer for Vicarstown. We would hope then that we would be developing destinations along the navigation, not only along the Barrow but also along the Grand Canal from Shannon Harbour and to try to attract some of those 9,000 boats that we have on the Shannon to visit the wonderful canals too," said Rowe. The Barrow Blueway involves the development of a 46km stretch along the Grand Canal Barrow Line in Kildare and Laois. The Blueway promises to be an amenity for local communities and visitors. Advice has been issued to Irish holidaymakers heading to Spain and other European hotspots amid a 'high' level of terror threat. The Department of Foreign Affairs has stated the advice on its official website, warning of a major threat of terrorism in Spain. The statement says: "There is a general threat from terrorism in Europe, and the threat in Spain is considered to be high. Since 2015, the Spanish Governments national anti-terror alert level has remained at level four (high) on a scale of 1 to 5. "As terrorists could attempt further attacks, and such attacks could include places visited by foreigners, Irish citizens are advised to increase their security awareness and exercise heightened caution. In the event of any security incident, you should follow the instructions of the local police and your tour operator." The Department goes on to point out two terrorist attacks in Spain in 2017, one at the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona and another in the town of Cambrils, approximately 100km from Barcelona. READ NEXT: 'I cannot find the words' - Body of boy (17) found at Cliffs of Moher after tragic fall These incidents, in which vehicles deliberately targeted pedestrians, resulted in 16 deaths and injuries were sustained by over 100 people. In relation to Portugal, another popular holiday spot with Irish tourists, the Department says: "Along with other European countries, there is potential for Portugal to experience international terrorist attacks, which could be against civilian targets, including places frequented by tourists and expatriates." With regard to Turkey, where thousands of Irish people visit every year, they add: "The threat from terrorism in Turkiye remains high, with bomb attacks in major Turkish cities, including Istanbul and Ankara. "Although some attacks have targeted security forces, there have also been random attacks in areas frequented by tourists. The situation in the south-east of the country is particularly serious and these areas should be avoided. "Terrorist attacks are, by their nature, random and indiscriminate and cannot be predicted in advance. Visitors are advised to exercise a high degree of caution, particularly in public places that are frequented by foreigners." People on social media have debated whether there is a need for better 'etiquette' when returning bottles and cans to the Deposit Return machines. X (formerly Twitter) user @ambergal47 posted a picture at a Deposit Return machine or, reverse vending machine (RVM) as they are also known, in Dublin city. In the picture, an unknown person with two big black bags and box full of used bottles and cans is about to return their undamaged goods and be refunded. The X user asks: "Can we please develop some sort of etiquette around returning the bottles and cans? Not sure it's fair to bring two black sacks and a box full in one go... Or what do the good folk of Twitter think? This is Dublin city btw." While over 52.7K people viewed the post online, people debated the fact in the comments section, with one person saying: "Certainly time consuming, but I also wonder if someone is really under financial pressure - this may be a way for them to put food on the table". Another agreed, saying: "People do the best they can, when they can. Let them be." The post on X attracted hundreds of comments, with many users noting that the RVM voucher scheme is 'ridiculous' and that 'more machines' are needed. READ MORE: Katy Perry announces first new music in two years "The empties likely piled up because the machine wasn't working the last five times he [the man with the black bags and box] came to the shop," another person noted. Excitement is building in Laois for Pride of Place Awards Judging Day this July 25. This year, Co Laois will be represented in the 2024 IPB All Island Pride of Place Competition by Abbeyleix Bog Project CLG in the Climate Action and Biodiversity category. The all-island competition, which is sponsored by IPB Insurances and hosted by Co-operation Ireland, gives communities across Ireland, the opportunity to display how proud they are to live in, work in and take care of their own local areas. The Pride of Place competition is a wonderful opportunity to recognise initiatives taken by local communities and to celebrate the vital contribution that they make to society. The judges will visit Abbeyleix Bog between 2.30pm and 5.00pm on Thursday July 25. Abbeyleix Bog Project is a community-led/volunteer-driven initiative dedicated to protecting a 500-acre bog on the edge of Abbeyleix Heritage town. This raised bog, typical of Irelands Midlands, developed over thousands of years and faced existential threats after a drainage programme caused the death of the peat-forming bog mosses by the end of the last century. Peat harvesting was imminent, but the local community intervened with a blockade, and formed the Abbeyleix Bog Project in 2009. What could have been an end marked a new beginning for the bog, with a lease agreement transferring it to the local community for conservation and tourism. Since then, the Abbeyleix Bog Project has rejuvenated the area, transforming it from an arid site to a vibrant wildlife haven and seeing the active raised bog area grow from 1% in 2009 to nearly 14% by 2020, with further improvements anticipated. The bog, now a rich biodiversity hub, serves as a beacon of hope and a testament to successful conservation. If you or your group wish to get involved in the preparation for the judging at Abbeyleix Bog, you can contact the Pride of Place Liaison Officer on (057) 86644150 or email popawards2023@laoiscoco.ie. All help will be gratefully accepted! The Central Bank of Ireland will launch a limited edition 15 collector coin to commemorate Saint Brigid, one of Irelands and Kildare's best-known saints. Deputy Governor Sharon Donnery will launch the silver proof coin in Solas Bhride in Co Kildare later today. The coin goes on sale at 2pm from www.collectorcoins.ie and will retail at 65. The coin has an issue limit of 2,000. Designed by Irish artist Mary Gregoriy, the coin features a young Brigid, her cape, and the St. Brigids Cross. The artist wanted to combine the myth with the woman throughout the design. Above her head is the guiding star of a St. Brigids Cross and on her sleeve, she wears an oak leaf to symbolize Kildare and her monastery founded there. Deputy Governor Sharon Donnery said: We are very proud, in the year that marks 1,500 years since her passing, to issue this 15 St. Brigid collector coin to recognise one of our best-known saints. As we all know, tradition says that St. Brigid established a monastery in the town, ultimately giving Cill Dara its name, so it is only fitting we launch the coin commemorating her in this beautiful location in Kildare today. Many stories and myths surround St. Brigid, but much of what we are told highlights her core values helping the poor, striving for peace and a more just world. A strong woman, dedicated to serving the people and to protecting nature, her life, her work, her legacy not only remains relevant today, but remains an inspiration. For some it will be her spirituality, her environmentalism, or her role as peacemaker that provides this inspiration. For others it will be her courage, in embracing and advocating change in a time of major uncertainty and transition in Ireland. For me it is her public service for indeed she served the public and her leadership for she was a leader at a time when there were few women leaders that stand out. And as we honour St. Brigid, this commemorative coin also presents an opportunity to remember the role that she and Irish women have played in our history, our culture and society. In doing this it is also an opportunity to take stock, as well as to think what lessons we can take with us to the future. Tributes have poured in for a young Sligo man with a vibrant spirit and zest for life, who lost his life tragically in Canada last week. Anthony McGwynne, a 27 year-old originally from Knockanelton, Calry, died when the motorbike he was travelling on was struck by a car on Arbutus Street in Vancouver on Thursday night. The collision happened just before 9.30pm and despite life-saving efforts by bystanders and paramedics, he was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the car was taken to hospital for treatment. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Ireland is providing consular assistance to Mr McGwynnes family. The driver of the car was taken to hospital for treatment. Anthony was the dearly loved son of dad Tony and mum Bernadette, the brother of James, Maeve and Matthew and partner of Antonella. A notice on RIP.ie reads: Sadly missed by his loving family, partner, uncles, aunts, cousins, relatives, neighbours and many friends. There have been numerous tributes to the young man on RIP.ie. A friend from Canada left one of many heartfelt condolences, saying: "I am so sorry for your loss Antonella, Anthony's family and friends. Anthony's vibrant spirit and zest for life touched many hearts, and his absence will be deeply felt." Another said Anthony "had the best friends and was such a lovely person". A mother from Calry added to the tributes, saying that "it feels like only yesterday that Anthony and his friends were in Calry primary school. They headed off on their big adventure to Canada meeting many others on the way. Anthony was loved and respected by all." Another added: My condolence for the loss of a man. A man that was the salt of the earth, a loving and nurturing partner, a born adventurer with a taste for life. Taken to soon, but surrounded by those that loved and knew him like no others. Watch over me on my next ride, because you will be in my heart. Funeral arrangements for Anthony will be made at a later date. 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. AIRS Medical Secures $20M in Series C Funding to Advance AI-Powered Preventive Healthcare Solutions SEOUL, South Korea, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- AIRS Medical, a pioneering force in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics for healthcare applications, today announced the completion of its Series C funding round, securing $20 million from seven institutional investors in Korea. The investment, led by BSK Investment and Shinyoung Securities, underscores confidence not only in the company's flagship product, SwiftMRtm , but also in its larger mission to revolutionize preventive healthcare through technology innovation. Transforming MRI SwiftMRtm uses deep learning technology to enhance magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan speeds by as much as 50% compared to the standard of care.* On average, radiology centers and hospitals that integrate SwiftMRtm achieve a 38% increase in patient throughput and a 22% reduction in business hours, leading to $44,000 per month in additional revenue and an $8,000 reduction in monthly operating costs. SwiftMRtm is a scan time reduction solution with whole pulse-sequence coverage and true super resolution. This cutting-edge technology has set the standard in diagnostic imaging, helping to address critical roadblocks radiology centers and hospitals face, such as long patient wait times and the downstream effects of delayed diagnoses. Improving patient outcomes A frequent problem in healthcare is the delayed diagnosis of patients, often after symptoms have advanced. This, along with resource shortages, results in worse outcomes. AIRS Medical is paving the way to detect diseases proactively, before they manifest. Through AI and robotics, AIRS Medical is democratizing the best diagnostics and prognostics, reducing costs and increasing the accessibility of MRI scans. Ultimately, this empowers patients with conditions such as dementia, stroke, and cancer to receive early diagnoses and improve their chances of better health. Expanding access to care In its quest to deliver the highest-quality preventive care to all, AIRS Medical is rapidly expanding. Backed by a talented team, SwiftMRtm was initially launched in Korea in 2021. By 2023, the technology had successfully entered the United States and Europe, markets that now account for over half of the company's annual recurring revenue (ARR). "We're thrilled to receive this substantial support from our investors," said Hyeseong Lee, CEO of AIRS Medical. "This funding will empower us to increase access to preventive healthcare services and create a healthier future for people around the globe." Building a better future With this latest round of funding, AIRS Medical is poised to accelerate its growth and innovate beyond the award-winning SwiftMRtm. The company plans to expand its presence in international markets, invest in research and development, and ultimately improve patient outcomes worldwide. For more information about AIRS Medical, visit https://airsmed.com/en/ . *For investigational purposes in countries outside of the United States, South Korea, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. FDA 510(k)-cleared to support images with scan time reduction by up to 50% in the United States. For press inquiries or questions about this release please contact: Ashley Guidace AIRS Medical Director of Global Marketing [email protected] SOURCE AIRS Medical 10 july 2024 at 06:45 News published onand distributed by: Greenridge Exploration Undertakes Extensive Exploration Program on its Carpenter Lake Project in Preparation of the Upcoming Drill Season and Increases Marketing Budget VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Greenridge Exploration Inc. ("Greenridge" or the "Company") (CSE: GXP | FRA: HW3), is pleased to announce it has undertaken an extensive summer exploration work program (the "Program") on its Carpenter Lake Project (the "Carpenter Lake Project" or the "Project") located on the southern margin of the Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan. 2024 Summer Exploration Work Program On behalf of Greenridge, Dahrouge Geological Consulting Ltd. ("DGC") is conducting a fourteen-day large-scale Program on the Company's Carpenter Lake Project which includes: Detailed geological mapping in highly prospective target areas; Prospecting and rock sampling over priority target areas; and Scintillometer sweeps over priority areas that are lacking outcrop. Figure 1: Carpenter Lake Uranium Project Regional Map The primary goal of the Program is to delineate the nature of target areas, and in the process, highlight new high-priority areas that may be further investigated in a future drill program. DGC has applied its established targeting methodology to Greenridge's geological data, incorporating historical and recent exploration data to outline high-priority target areas. The Program will focus on the Cable Bay Shear Zone ("CBSZ"), a large-scale structural feature that intersects the Project and is host to several airborne radiometric anomalies and a series of well-defined conductors. Other priority items for the Program include investigation of numerous uranium anomalies found in historical lake sediment samples and radon-in-soil anomalies. Russel Starr, CEO of Greenridge commented, "The start of the 2024 work program for the Carpenter Lake Project marks an important milestone for the Company. Focusing on the Cable Bay Shear Zone, the Company believes the previous radiometric anomalies are highly prospective and look forward to receiving the initial results. The goal of this program is to identify high-priority areas for investigation in our future drilling efforts." Information about the Carpenter Lake Project The Carpenter Lake Project is situated along the CBSZ, immediately south of the southern rim of the Athabasca Basin. The Project extends from 1 to 35 km south of the Basin margin and is underlain by Archean rocks of the Virgin River and Mudjatik Domain. Athabasca Group sandstone does not occur within the Project area. The Virgin River Domain to the west of the CBSZ is about 40 km wide east-west. The bulk of the Virgin River Domain is comprised of felsic gneisses featuring a strong northeasterly fabric. Overall, these rock assemblages are lithologically and metamorphically similar to those of the Mudjatik Domain east of the CBSZ. The Virgin Schist Group occurs as lenses and bands that become increasingly more abundant toward the western boundary of the domain. The group is composed of psammopelites, quartzites, pelites, amphibolites, calc-silicates, and banded iron formations. The Project geology includes granite gneiss and granite pegmatite which are the dominant lithologies at the Carpenter Lake Project, with lesser mafic gneiss, pelitic schist and scattered mafic dykes. The CBSZ is delineated on the Project by three parallel electromagnetic conductor axes, suggesting the hanging wall, footwall and middle of a conductive panel of graphitic or sulphide-rich rocks. On the other size of the Virgin River Domain ("VRD"), and sub-parallel to the CBSZ, is the Snowbird tectonic Zone, another large-scale structural domain. 40 kilometres to the northwest of the Project, on the VRD, lies Cameco Corporations Centennial Zone, a high-grade mineralized body where diamond drilling has intersected grades up to 25.6% U3O8 over 0.5m (DDH VR-018W2) and 8.78% U3O8 over 33.9m(VR-031W3)1. Previous exploration includes numerous uranium anomalies in historical lake sediment samples, reinforced further by airborne radiometric anomalies both along and west of the CBSZ. The corridor of well-defined conductors along the CBSZ further highlights the potential for uranium mineralization along the regional structure, in particular where there is evidence for cross-cutting structures. The presence of conductive graphitic pelites as defined by airborne and ground electromagnetic surveys is confirmed by historic diamond drilling immediately north of the Project. Figure 2: Carpenter Lake Project Geochemistry Extension of Marketing Agreement The Company is also pleased to announce, further to its news release on June 7, 2024, that it has increased the advertising budget under its engagement of marketing services with MIC Marketing Information & Content Publishing GmbH ("MIC") (address: Gerhart-Hauptmann-Str. 49b 51379 Leverkusen, Germany; email: [email protected]). MIC was retained by the Company on June 7, 2024 to provide marketing services for a term of 6 months, commencing June 18, 2024 (the "Third MIC Agreement"), with an option to increase the advertising budget up to ?500,000 during the term. Pursuant to the terms of the Third MIC Agreement, the Company has decided to execute its option to increase the advertising budget for the existing term to ?400,000 by compensating MIC an additional ?250,000. MIC was first engaged by the Company on January 9, 2024 to provide marketing services for the Company for a six-month period, starting January 18, 2024 (the "First MIC Agreement"). Under terms of the First MIC Agreement, the Company compensated MIC ?150,000, with an option to increase the advertising budget up to ?250,000 during the term. On March 19, 2024, the Company decided to increase the advertising budget to ?250,000 and pay an additional ?100,000 to MIC. On April 12, 2024, the Company retained MIC for a second time to provide marketing services for the Company for a six-month period, starting April 18, 2024 (the "Second MIC Agreement"). Pursuant to the terms of the Second MIC Agreement, the Company compensated MIC ?250,000. Since January 9, 2024 and including the budget increase referred to in this news release, the Company will have paid a total of ?900,000 to MIC for Marketing Services. MIC is an independent company which will, as appropriate, provide project management and consulting for an online marketing campaign, coordinate marketing actions, maintain and optimize AdWords campaigns, adapt AdWords bidding strategies, optimize AdWords ads and create and optimize landing pages (the "Marketing Services"). The promotional activity will occur in Europe by email, Facebook, and Google. The Company will not issue any securities to MIC as compensation for the Marketing Services. As of the date hereof, to the Company's knowledge, MIC (including its directors and officers) does not own any securities of the Company and has an arm's length relationship with the Company. National Instrument 43-101 Disclosure The technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Neil McCallum B.Sc., P.Geo., of Dahrouge Geological Consulting Ltd., who is an independent "Qualified Person" as defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. * Mineralization on any other properties referred to herein is not necessarily indicative of mineralization on the Carpenter Lake Project. References 1 - Saskatchewan Mineral Resources Assessment File: 74G12-0052, UEM Inc., 2005 and VR-031W3, Cameco Corp., 2010. About Greenridge Exploration Inc. Greenridge Exploration Inc. (CSE: GXP | FRA: HW3) is a mineral exploration company dedicated to creating shareholder value through the acquisition, exploration, and development of critical mineral projects in North America. The Carpenter Lake Uranium Project is located in the Athabasca Basin consisting of 7 mineral claims covering 13,387 hectares across the Cable Bay Shear Zone and the Company is advancing the Project to test multiple high priority targets. The Company's Nut Lake Uranium Project located in the Thelon Basin includes historical drilling which intersected up to 9ft of 0.69% U3O8 including 4.90% U3O8 over 1ft from 8ft depth. Additionally, the Company's Weyman Copper Project in southeast British Columbia sits on the south portion of the famous Quesnel Terrance. The Company is led by an experienced management team and board of directors with significant expertise in capital raising and advancing mining projects. On Behalf of the Board of Directors Russell Starr Chief Executive Officer, Director Telephone: +1 (778) 897-3388 Email: [email protected] Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information This news release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, plans, programs, forecasts, projections, objectives, assumptions, expectations or beliefs of future performance, including statements regarding the project acquisition bringing a low-risk opportunity, the Company, building a strong battery metals portfolio with low-risk opportunities that positively impact the Company and its shareholders and the Company providing an initial work plan are "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, the Project and its mineralization potential; the Company's objectives, goals, or future plans with respect to the Project; the commencement of the Program in the future; the anticipated results of the Program; further exploration work on the Project in the future; statements with respect to the provision of the Marketing Services by MIC under the MIC Agreement. These forward-looking statements reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company based on information currently available to it. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those detailed from time to time in filings made by the Company with securities regulatory authorities, which may cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and the Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether because of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws. The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Photos accompanying this announcement are available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/dced05dc-b28b-4dda-bfd5-83716ac6412a https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cdd5c502-f608-4fe6-9b06-4fa96df5c2d5 10 july 2024 at 08:00 News published onand distributed by: New poll finds that half of Canadians are concerned about generative artificial intelligence and the spread of misinformation OTTAWA, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A new poll commissioned by CIRA suggests that generative artificial intelligence (AI) and the spread of misinformation are top-of-mind for many internet users across the country. These results arrive months ahead of a U.S. presidential election and a Canadian election next year?a critical time for people to know what's true online. The annual survey found that Canadians' concerns over AI outweigh their excitement for the tools. Half (51 per cent) say they're concerned about the technology, while only one-in-five (17 per cent) say they're excited about the development of AI. Among those concerned, most cite its contribution to the spread of fake images or videos (69 per cent), mis/disinformation (67 per cent) and insufficient regulations/controls on its use (65 per cent). "We're at a pivotal moment in technology, and it's clear that Canadians are feeling uneasy about the future of AI," says CIRA president and CEO, Byron Holland. "AI advancements are unfolding as Canadians lead up to a national election next fall. Over the next year, it will be crucial for Canadians to practice extra vigilance when interacting with content, to identify AI-generated misinformation and discern fact from fiction online." The spread of fake images and videos is also making an impact on Canadians' online experiences. Two-in-ten Canadians say they have encountered deepfakes online in the past year and one quarter don't know whether they have. Only half (51 per cent) of Canadians are confident in their ability to detect fraud and scams online?a drop of 16 per cent from 2023. Half (51 per cent) of Canadians believe that deepfakes are a threat to elections in Canada and other democratic countries. As Canadians continue to navigate a messy information ecosystem, visiting specific news media sites online remains the top method for accessing news online (35 per cent), followed by Google searches about news events (33 per cent). Notably, since Meta's decision to remove news content from its Canadian services, only 15 per cent of Canadians report accessing news online via Facebook, a decrease from 34 per cent in 2023. The findings and more are outlined in CIRA's 2024 Canada's Internet Factbook. Key findings About one-in-six Canadians (16 per cent) say they have used a generative AI tool or platform in the past year. Most Canadians (76 per cent) believe that posting or sharing deepfakes should not be allowed on social media. The top methods for accessing news online are visiting specific news/media sites (35 per cent) and Google searches about news events (33 per cent). Only half (51 per cent) of Canadians say they are confident in their ability to detect fraud/scams online, down from 67 per cent in 2023. Half (53 per cent) of Canadians believe that having a website makes businesses look more credible. About Canada's Internet Factbook Canada's Internet Factbook 2024 was developed by CIRA through an online survey conducted by the Strategic Counsel. A total of two thousand Canadian internet users (18+) were surveyed via an online panel in March 2024. Every year CIRA produces Canada's Internet Factbook through this research to identify trends in Canadian internet access and use. This year CIRA will post a four-part blog series of the most salient findings from its annual survey. The full research results showcasing the latest Canadian internet trends and online user habits can be found here. About CIRA CIRA is the national not-for-profit best known for managing the .CA domain on behalf of all Canadians. As a leader in Canada's internet ecosystem, CIRA offers a wide range of products, programs and services designed to make the internet a secure and accessible space for all. CIRA represents Canada on both national and international stages to support its goal of building a trusted internet for Canadians by helping shape the future of the internet. Media contact Delphine Avomo Evouna CIRA [email protected] 613 315-1458 10 july 2024 at 08:00 News published onand distributed by: U.S. Army selects RTX's RCADE defense analysis solution to enable future concept experimentation Large-scale modeling and simulation will help military leaders quickly solve highly complex problems across domains ARLINGTON, Va., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon, an RTX (NYSE: RTX) business, has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC) Futures and Concepts Center (FCC) to conduct theater level concept experimentation and mission analysis to support agile learning of the future battlefield. Under the contract, a Raytheon team will use its Rapid Campaign Analysis and Demonstration Environment, known as RCADE, to develop large-scale theater scenarios to help FCC leaders assess concepts of operations in a multi-domain conflict. Quantitative data and findings from the scenarios will help identify capabilities needed to succeed in future conflicts. "RCADE helps our customers look at some of the most difficult missions and evaluate how to change the outcome for the positive," said Colin Whelan, president of Advanced Technology at Raytheon. "Our team of highly trained experts power this groundbreaking capability, enabling it to deliver credible, unbiased solutions." RCADE is part of Raytheon's integrated ecosystem of modeling and simulation capabilities that are fed by real-world analytics, models, and data. It creates an experimentation environment where customers can explore battlefield scenarios, assess how different variables impact mission outcomes and quickly iterate their options with greater speed. In tandem with RCADE, the technical expertise provided by Raytheon engineers will complement the U.S. Army's analysis enterprise. They will work together to meet the challenge of the future and solve complex evolving threats. About Raytheon Raytheon, an RTX business, is a leading provider of defense solutions to help the U.S. government, our allies and partners defend their national sovereignty and ensure their security. For more than 100 years, Raytheon has developed new technologies and enhanced existing capabilities in integrated air and missile defense, smart weapons, missiles, advanced sensors and radars, interceptors, space-based systems, hypersonics and missile defense across land, air, sea and space. About RTX With more than 185,000 global employees, RTX pushes the limits of technology and science to redefine how we connect and protect our world. Through industry-leading businesses ? Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney, and Raytheon ? we are advancing aviation, engineering integrated defense systems, and developing next-generation technology solutions and manufacturing to help global customers address their most critical challenges. The company, with 2023 sales of $69 billion, is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. For questions or to schedule an interview, please contact [email protected] SOURCE RTX 10 july 2024 at 08:00 News published onand distributed by: Easterly Government Properties Schedules Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Release and Conference Call Easterly Government Properties, Inc. (NYSE: DEA) today announced that the Company will release its second quarter 2024 financial results on July 31, 2024. A conference call will be held Wednesday, July 31, 2024, at 10:00am Eastern time. The management team will review second quarter performance, discuss recent events and conduct a question-and-answer session. Attendees that would like to join the call and ask a question may register here to receive the dial-in numbers and unique PIN to access the call. There will also be a live audio, listen-only webcast of the call on the Investor Relations section of Easterly's Investor Relations website at ir.easterlyreit.com. Shortly after the call, a replay of the call will be available on the Company's website for up to twelve months. About Easterly Government Properties, Inc. Easterly Government Properties, Inc. (NYSE:DEA) is based in Washington, D.C. and focuses primarily on the acquisition, development and management of Class A commercial properties that are leased to the U.S. Government. Easterly's experienced management team brings specialized insight into the strategy and needs of mission-critical U.S. Government agencies for properties leased to such agencies either directly or through the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). For further information on the company and its properties, please visit www.easterlyreit.com. 10 july 2024 at 09:05 News published onand distributed by: Lineaje Awarded Coveted Contract by the Department of the U.S. Air Force Lineaje, a leader in continuous software supply chain security management, today announced that Lineaje SBOM360 has been selected by the Department of the U.S. Air Force's (DAF) for a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase 1 contract. As the industry's first software supply chain and software bill of materials (SBOM) manager, SBOM360 will automate the detection and remediation of today's most pressing software supply chain challenges within the U.S Air Force. In the past year alone, more than 75% of software supply chains were exposed to cyberattacks ?and 40% of organizations took a month or longer to recover. Due to the sensitivity of the data in applications built and bought by the U.S. Air Force and other federal entities, these organizations are often a top target for today's adversaries. SBOM360 supports the full life-cycle management of software that is sourced, built, sold, or bought by the U.S. Air Force. With our solution, the U.S. Air Force can ensure all software supply chain risks and threats are identified and remediated and meet organizations' security policies and compliance mandates, such as Executive Order 14028, automatically. In addition, the U.S. Air Force will be able to search its software in seconds to find any newly discovered vulnerabilities and indicators of compromise (IOCs) within the most deeply embedded components, dramatically reducing discovery time. Lineaje generates a full lineage of software and discovers inherent and tampers risks by scanning source code, containers, mobile APKs, POM files, and even SBOMs. Lineaje can also generate SBOMs as well if you don't already have one. "Being selected for the STTR Phase 1 contract program is a testament to Lineaje's commitment to revolutionizing the software supply chain security space," said Javed Hasan, CEO and Co-founder, Lineaje. "SBOM360's innovative and comprehensive approach will empower the U.S. Space Force and Department of the Air Force to fortify their defenses against cyberthreats. We are extremely proud to play a pivotal role in safeguarding the nation's critical software infrastructure." The STTR Contract Program The DAF began offering the competitive, awards-based Open Topic Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/STTR program in 2018 to expand the range of innovations the DAF funded. The programs are designed to encourage domestic small businesses to engage in federal research and development. Recently, the Air Force Research Laboratory and SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force, partnered to streamline the SBIR and STTR process by accelerating the small business experience through a faster proposal to award timelines, changing the pool of potential applicants by expanding opportunities to small businesses, and eliminating bureaucratic overhead by continually implementing process improvement changes in contract execution. By completing Phase I of the program, Lineaje has established the scientific, technical, and commercial merit and feasibility of SBOM360's innovation. To learn more about SBOM360, please visit www.lineaje.com/sbom360. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government. About Lineaje Lineaje provides a comprehensive governance platform for Software Supply Chain Security Management to companies that source, build, buy, or use software applications. The software supply chain contributes 95% of a company's digital risk, with 56% of supply chain vulnerabilities remaining unpatched or going unfixed?exposing organizations and customers to cyberattacks. The Lineaje portfolio secures companies from these attacks and enables compliance through four integrated products: SBOM360, SBOM360Hub, Open-Source Manager (OSM), and Third Party Risk Management (TPRM). Lineaje empowers organizations to secure their software by mitigating risk and staying compliant?maintaining trust, transparency, and cost savings as a result. About SpaceWERX As the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force and a unique division within AFWERX, SpaceWERX inspires and empowers collaboration with innovators to accelerate capabilities and shape our future in space. Headquartered in Los Angeles, SpaceWERX employs 40 military, civilian and contractor personnel executing an annual $457 million budget. Additionally, SpaceWERX partners with Space Systems Command's Commercial Space Office (COMSO) as a collaborative program. Since it was aligned under AFRL in Aug. 2021, SpaceWERX has executed 906 contracts worth more than $690 million to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base and drive faster technology transition to operational capability. For more information, visit spacewerx.us. About AFWERX As the innovation arm of the DAF and a directorate within the Air Force Research Laboratory, AFWERX brings cutting-edge American ingenuity from small businesses and start-ups to address the most pressing challenges of the DAF. AFWERX employs approximately 370 military, civilian and contractor personnel at five hubs and sites executing an annual $1.4 billion budget. Since 2019, AFWERX has executed 6,028 new contracts worth more than $4 billion to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base and drive faster technology transition to operational capability. For more information, visit: www.afwerx.com. About AFRL The Air Force Research Laboratory is the primary scientific research and development center for the Department of the Air Force. AFRL plays an integral role in leading the discovery, development, and integration of affordable warfighting technologies for our air, space and cyberspace force. With a workforce of more than 12,500 across nine technology areas and 40 other operations across the globe, AFRL provides a diverse portfolio of science and technology ranging from fundamental to advanced research and technology development. For more information, visit afresearchlab.com. 10 july 2024 at 09:05 News published onand distributed by: Amur Capital surpasses $1 Billion in assets under management VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Leading private market asset management firm, Amur Capital Management Corporation, surpassed the $1-billion mark in consolidated assets under management (AUM) in 2023 as it continues to expand its business in the mortgage investment corporations (MICs) industry. "Reaching the $1-billion AUM mark is a testament to the trust our investors have placed in Amur Capital and the hard work of our talented investment team," said Arif Mulji, Chief Executive Officer of Amur Financial Group. Amur Capital's success has been driven by its disciplined investment approach, which focuses on sourcing high-quality mortgages from its own origination entities, Alpine Credits and Sequence Capital. The firm also takes a prudent approach to providing consistent returns balanced with capital preservation through its longstanding risk and portfolio management protocol that has been employed for over 40 years. Key mortgage funds highlights Amur Capital offers a trio of conservative, income, and high-yield funds to suit the needs of different investors. With these MICs, investors can gain exposure to Canada's thriving real estate market without the demands of active property management. Assets under management: Total assets under management across the funds grew by more than 40% over the last 3 years, from $700 million in 2021 to over $1 billion in Q1 2024. Total assets under management across the funds grew by more than 40% over the last 3 years, from $700 million in 2021 to over $1 billion in Q1 2024. Mortgage portfolio : 99% residential mortgages Weighted average LTV for flagship MIC (Fund 2) is 53% Reduced concentration risk with geographically diversified mortgages across British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario : Target vs net returns: All three funds experienced considerable growth from 2022 to 2023, surpassing their target returns. Fund 1 - 8.29% vs 7% Fund 2 - 11.08% vs 9.5% Fund 3 - 14.03% vs 13% All three funds experienced considerable growth from 2022 to 2023, surpassing their target returns. "We will continue to build on this momentum, leveraging our expertise and resources to deliver innovative solutions and outstanding results for our investors," added Mulji. A mortgage investment corporation (MIC) is a unique investment vehicle that pools money from investors to fund mortgages secured by Canadian real estate. The MIC earns money through interest payments on those mortgages and then shares all those profits with its shareholders. Learn more about them here: https://amurcapital.ca/ About Amur Capital Amur Capital Management Corporation is a registered Exempt Market Dealer acting as the capital raising and investor relations arm of its related entity, Amur Financial Group. Amur Capital Income Fund, the firm's flagship fund, has provided a simple way to get consistent and stable annual returns since its inception in 1984. Building on this success, Amur Capital has expanded its lineup to include Amur Capital Conservative Income Fund (2009) and Amur Capital High Yield Fund (2017), offering Canadian investors more ways to achieve their medium to long-term financial goals. For further information, please contact: Investor Relations Phone: 1-866-888-4139 Email: [email protected] 10 july 2024 at 13:00 News published onand distributed by: Montreal Lake Cree Nation Celebrates Health Facility Opening MONTREAL LAKE CREE NATION, TREATY 6 TERRITORY, SK, July 10, 2024 /CNW/ - Today, Chief Joyce Naytowhow McLeod of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation, along with Council, Elders, community members, and representatives from Indigenous Services Canada, celebrated the grand opening of the community's new healthcare facility in northern Saskatchewan. The new facility includes 1,339m2 of space for primary care (nursing), communicable disease control, homecare, dental and medical transportation. The holistic and culturally sensitive health care services are delivered by the community's nurse practitioners, RN(AAP) nurses, home care nurses, dental therapist, community health representatives, medical transportation coordinators, clerks, and drivers, maintenance personnel, security, and laboratory technician. The Montreal Lake Cree Nation contributed financially to the capital project working collaboratively with the federal government to see the completion of the health infrastructure project. The facility is now the centre of holistic health care support and services to approximately 2,500 residents of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation. Quotes "Today the Montreal Lake Cree Nation realized a dream of delivering quality, holistic health care services to the nation 24 hours all year round. This grand opening celebrates our new health facility where everyone is treated with respect and dignity." Chief Joyce Nayatowhow McLeod Montreal Lake Cree Nation "Generations of people will be able to get the quality care they deserve in this new facility. Congratulations to Chief Nayatowhow McLeod and Council, the community healthcare providers, and the members of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation. This is a crucial step in ensuring everyone has a fair chance to succeed." The Honourable Patty Hajdu Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for FedNor Quick facts Indigenous Services Canada provided $7 million towards this project. towards this project. Montreal Lake Cree Nation is a Woodland Cree First Nation in northern Saskatchewan with approximately 4,000 members. with approximately 4,000 members. Through the Government of Canada's Health Facilities Program, Indigenous Services Canada works with First Nations and Inuit communities to provide funding for infrastructure that support the delivery of health-related programs and services. Associated links Stay connected Join the conversation about Indigenous Peoples in Canada: Twitter: @GCIndigenous Facebook: @GCIndigenous Instagram: @gcindigenous You can subscribe to receive our news releases and speeches via RSS feeds. For more information or to subscribe, visit www.isc.gc.ca/RSS. SOURCE Indigenous Services Canada 10 july 2024 at 13:49 News published onand distributed by: Sechelt property owner fined $70,000 for contravening the federal Fisheries Act SECHELT, BC, July 10, 2024 /CNW/ - On June 11, 2024, the Honourable Judge Steven Merrick of the Sechelt Provincial Court fined George Winkler $70,000 for offences under Canada's Fisheries Act. Mr. Winkler pleaded guilty in October 2023 to violating the fish and fish habitat protection provisions of the Act by undertaking work that resulted in the death of fish and the destruction of fish habitat. The case stems from November 22, 2021, when Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) received information about an excavator operating within Stephens Creek on a property at Lower Road in Roberts Creek, Sechelt. The excavator was dredging out the stream bed of Stephens Creek and using the materials to build up the banks on either side of the creek. On November 26, 2021, DFO fishery officers and biologists inspected the site and collected salmon eggs lying on and buried within the dredged material. Subsequent analysis confirmed that the dead eggs were pink or chum salmon. The unauthorized dredging work also resulted in the harmful alteration, disruption and destruction of 38.7 m2 of aquatic habitat. An environmental impact statement submitted to the Provincial Court outlined that Mr. Winkler's actions could have completely eliminated the 2021 salmon run from Stephens Creek, which was already seeing some of the lowest historical returns of chum salmon to the mainland Inlets and Strait of Georgia. His actions will also likely adversely affect salmon production in Stephens Creek for years to come. DFO has a mandate to protect and conserve marine resources and to enforce the Fisheries Act. As part of DFO's work to disrupt and prevent illegal activity, the Department asks the public for information on activities of this nature or any contravention of the Fisheries Act and regulations. Anyone with information can call DFO Pacific Region's toll-free violation reporting line at 1-800-465-4336, or email the details to [email protected]. Quick Facts: Stephens Creek feeds directly into the Strait of Georgia and its chum salmon contribute to the inside southern chum stock. In any year, if the stock in the Strait of Georgia does not reach the critical abundance threshold of 1 million established in the Pacific Salmon Treaty between Canada and the US, then mixed stock fisheries in Johnstone Strait , which feeds into the Strait of Georgia , are to be suspended. and its chum salmon contribute to the inside southern chum stock. In any year, if the stock in the Strait of does not reach the critical abundance threshold of 1 million established in the Pacific Salmon Treaty between and the US, then mixed stock fisheries in , which feeds into the Strait of , are to be suspended. In May 2020 , Mr. Winkler was issued a warning by DFO fishery officers for conducting similar activities, with the same excavator, in the same location, and this was an aggravating factor considered by Judge Merrick. , Mr. Winkler was issued a warning by DFO fishery officers for conducting similar activities, with the same excavator, in the same location, and this was an aggravating factor considered by Judge Merrick. Fishery officers work closely with biologists from DFO's Fish and Fish Habitat Protection Program to ensure any work undertaken near water complies with the fish and fish habitat protection provisions of the Fisheries Act. Associated Link: Projects near water (dfo-mpo.gc.ca) Image: Submitted as evidence during the trial. Stay Connected Follow Fisheries and Oceans Canada on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Follow the Canadian Coast Guard on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. SOURCE Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Pacific Region 10 july 2024 at 15:00 News published onand distributed by: A LIMERICK couple embarked on a campaign of harassment against a female dentist which included turning up outside her place of work, throwing pancake mix over her car, falsely accusing her of sexual impropriety and sending her a vulgar Valentines Day card. Limerick Circuit Court heard the harassment started because the dentist told one of the accused - Emma Maun, aged 28, of Sheahan's flats, Main Street, Askeaton - that her dental needs were too complex and referred her to the maxillofacial unit in University Hospital Limerick. The dentist, in her victim impact statement, said: I feared for my safety and for those that I cared about. Ms Maun and her partner - Michael De Sousa, aged 36, of Sheahan's flats, Main Street, Askeaton - were both found guilty of harassment by a jury after a month-long trial on Thursday, July 4. Mr De Sousa pleaded guilty to criminal damage and two counts of making a false report or statement to gardai. They were before Judge Dermot Sheehan on Monday for sentencing. Prosecuting barrister John OSullivan, instructed by State solicitor Padraig Mawe, gave a summary of the evidence with the assistance of Garda Patrick OSullivan. Mr OSullivan said the victim, who the judge ordered can only be described as a dentist practicing in the Mid-West, finished treating Ms Maun on October 18, 2021. The barrister said Ms Maun first contacted the victim through a direct message on her Instagram account that she was unhappy at being referred to the maxillofacial unit. Mr OSullivan said that the victim explained Ms Mauns needs were so complex that she could not give her the treatment she required. Matters escalated in January 2022. Both accused started appearing regularly outside her place of work. They did not have an appointment or had no business there. Neither said anything - they stared at her as she walked in. This was alarming for the victim. She formed the impression they were waiting for her, said Mr OSullivan. The court heard the victim received an extremely vulgar Valentines Day card from an unidentified person, which caused a sense of disgust and fearfulness" in the victim. This heightened her level of anxiety, said Mr OSullivan. The court heard the victim noticed Ms Maun driving right up behind her and continued to follow her until the dentist pulled into a petrol station. The prosecuting barrister said the couple were loitering outside the victims place of work on March 7, March 8, March 9, March 10 in 2022. On March 14, 2022, the victim came out of her house around 8.10am to see her car was destroyed. A cream like liquid was on the roof and back window. It turned out to be pancake mix. There was damage to a wing mirror. She made an effort to clean it and went to work. When she arrived, the accused were standing in the car park, clearly waiting for her and looking out for their handiwork, said Mr OSullivan. The court heard Mr De Sousa made false allegations about the dentist to gardai in Askeaton and in the city in March which included alleged sexual impropriety without any foundation. The couple were arrested and charged and released on bail with conditions including to stay away from and not make any contact with the victim. READ MORE: Man armed with machete tased in Limerick town The dentist read out her own victim impact statement in which she said the campaign of stalking and harassment caused stress and worry which were ever-present in my life. I remember shaking and crying on the phone to my brother when Id gotten that vulgar Valentines card. I remember shaking and crying when I poured water over my car to try to clean it before going to work the morning after it was vandalised. I felt such guilt that my work colleagues were stressed about walking around the corner to the post office or to their cars. Some days we would all peer out the window. "I would constantly check over my shoulder and scan my periphery when walking anywhere. I would check the licence plates of the cars parked around and watch cars behind me with suspicion while driving. It was exhausting and disruptive, said the dentist. She said her world became very small as she stopped going for lunchtime and evening walks and playing sport. I did not feel safe going about my daily routine so I had no option but to alter it. She told the court that the harassment occurred at the same time that one of her parents was gravely ill. I often think that if I was a male dentist, they might not have embarked on this harassment. They considered me a weak, shy woman and chose to torment me. My mind still worries what they might do next. She spoke of how stressful the month-long trial was and to see the two offenders smirking and smiling each day like they were enjoying the experience was sickening. During the cross examination, with the jury present, the suggestion of anything other than professional conduct as a dentist was humiliating. She made the decision to attend court alone, rather than have any of her friends and family identified to the offenders. She said what the defendants did has disrupted her life and sense of peace. I put my trust in the gardai and the court system, and I feel justice has been achieved, said the dentist who thanked Garda Patrick OSullivan for the sheer amount of work he did on the case, Detective Garda Pat Whelan and the numerous gardai who were always considerate and attentive even when I felt like I was taking up their time, for reassuring me that my concerns were not trivial and giving me the faith that the behaviour that I had endured would not be allowed to continue. Liam Carroll BL, who represented Mr De Sousa, said his client was effectively a "lackey" to Ms Maun in this whole sorry saga. It was out of a misguided sense of loyalty to Ms Maun, said Mr Carroll. The barrister said his client did make admissions regarding the criminal damage to the car and making false statements to gardai and his only previous convictions were for minor road traffic offences. He quoted a report on Mr De Sousa by a clinical psychologist that said he is susceptible to peer pressure and is highly impressionable. The report also said Mr De Sousa has challenges relating to his gender identity. Mr Carroll said his client was bullied in school, is unemployed and has autism spectrum disorder. Judge Sheehan said Mr De Sousa made appalling allegations to garda against an innocent person which Ms Maun had no act, hand or part in. The judge asked if Mr De Sousa accepts the verdict of the jury which found him guilty of harassment. Mr Carroll said no but his client is sorry for what has occurred and will never go near or contact the victim again. Judge Sheehan said there has been no explanation as to why they did this. He spoke of lawful avenues being available. There was no complaint made to the dental council or solicitors letter, said Judge Sheehan. Amy Nix, barrister for Ms Maun, rejected Mr Carrolls argument that Mr De Sousa was Ms Mauns lackey. She referred to the same report by a clinical psychologist which said Mr De Sousa has minimal remorse for his actions and is unlikely to change. Ms Nix said Ms Maun did not make false statements to gardai or damage the car. She lives a lonely existence with a small circle of friends, said Ms Nix. Both defendants were remanded in custody when they were found guilty on Thursday, July 4. Ms Nix said Ms Maun has found this to be a frightening and sobering experience and misses her daughter terribly. Ms Nix read out a letter penned by Ms Maun and addressed to the judge about how her heart aches and is broken into pieces as she misses her daughter terribly. She is all Ive got, wrote Ms Maun, who apologised. READ MORE: All-Ireland winning Clare hurler charged with assaulting 12-year-old boy Judge Sheehan asked if Ms Maun accepted the verdict of the jury. No, said Ms Nix. The barrister said her client has no previous convictions and asked the judge to consider a suspended sentence and test Ms Maun. Judge Sheehan said it is a complicated case. He adjourned matters to July 26 to consider sentencing. Harassment carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Mr De Sousa and Ms Maun were remanded in continuing custody as the judge said it was too serious. The judge ordered that victim not be identified but to be referred to as a dentist practicing in the Mid-West. THE OWNER of a house in the city centre is facing the prospect of having to demolish a first floor extension. It comes after he failed to secure planning permission for the development in Limericks Georgian Quarter. The homeowner had an 18-square metre extension built over an existing toilet and his rear yard. It serves as a bedroom, and, the man says, is currently being rented to Limerick City and County Council, who are housing tenants on the Housing Assistance Payment scheme there. In spite of this, council planners contacted the owner of the home requesting he seek retention permission for the development. READ MORE: Barristers to hold protest in Limerick as they strike for a second time over pay This is something which is sought when building has taken place without the proper permissions in place. The homeowner acquiesced to the councils request. But his planning application to retain the first-floor extension was refused last November. Council said: It is considered the development would result in over-development of the site and give rise to a substandard level of residential amenity for the occupants of the dwelling. Local planners also said it would depreciate the value of other properties in the area. However, the homeowner decided to appeal this ruling to An Bord Pleanala, the national planning appeals body. In his appeal, he pointed out that the extension overlooks a laneway which is known for anti-social behaviour. This, he argued, allows for passive surveillance. The extension is not considered to be overdevelopment. The extension is at first floor level only, is approximately 18 square metres and is not higher than the existing houses, a summary of the appeal adds. He also made the point that council tenants are currently using the property and it meets all rental requirements. Despite this, An Bord Pleanala agreed with their inspectors recommendation to reject the application to keep the extension. They wrote: It is considered that development would be an incongruous and visually obtrusive addition, would result in overdevelopment of the site and would give rise to an unsatisfactory standard of residential amenity for future and existing occupants of the house by reason of inadequate provision good quality open space. It looks likely following this ruling, the homeowner will have to remove the extension - although an option remains to appeal the decision to the High Court. The Irish Government have today released a statement that has apologised to the thalidomide survivors for the "hardships they have suffered." Thalidomide was a drug prescribed to pregnant women to alleviate symptoms of morning sickness, it caused malformation in new born babies it was later discovered. The statement by the Government reads: "The Government has today been updated on an enhanced package of health and social care supports for thalidomide survivors. Co-designed with survivors, enhanced health, social care and independent living supports are currently available to survivors. This includes prioritised and simplified access to local health and social care professionals, access to therapies both clinical and holistic, independent living supports to include housing adaptions, car adaptations and home supports, annual health assessments and the free travel pass. We want to take this opportunity to express our sympathy to survivors and their families - we are sorry for all they have endured, for the hardships they have suffered and for the impact thalidomide has had on their lives. We want to strongly reiterate, once again, their mothers did nothing wrong, and we have never thought otherwise. It is regretful that the regulatory standards we have today were not the norm, here or internationally, when thalidomide was first brought to market. Understanding and ensuring drug safety has changed significantly based on their experience. Hearing survivors individual stories as part of this process has been humbling and more importantly, has helped us to understand how we can best meet their needs into the future. The enhanced package of supports has been founded on a non-legal facilitation process under terms of reference agreed with all parties, under the chairmanship of Mr Kieran Mulvey with Irish survivors of thalidomide. It commenced on 19th April 2023 and was a voluntary process with survivors. Significant progress was made. Regrettably, talks did not progress in this format and wider matters raised by survivors were not covered. The options of resuming a non-legal facilitation process on these issues, or a legal mediation via the State Claims Agency, remain available. However, Government is very conscious of the challenging needs of survivors, particularly as they get older. It is also aware of the costs associated with meeting their needs. Therefore, Government is anxious to implement these enhanced supports immediately in the best interests of survivors. We look forward to meeting with survivors to share further information on the enhanced supports in the coming weeks." NCT testers have issued a warning to Irish drivers after a car's major fail in recent days. Statistics show that half of cars fail their initial NCT test and testers say sometimes this is down to drivers not knowing how to maintain all parts of their car properly. While many of us can top up oil and keep a check on tyres, some major failing points are harder to spot but a warning has been issued after a number of fails recently for the same flaw. NCT Ireland posted a picture of the underside of a number of cars that have recently failed the NCT along with the post: "This is what can happen if you don't look after your car properly. Complete corrosion and an NCT fail. "Don't let this happen to you," they warned. READ NEXT: 'I cannot find the words' - Body of boy (17) found at Cliffs of Moher after tragic fall NCT Ireland previously explained that corrosion is just one of many hidden issues that could result in a failed test. They posted: "Corrosion is a common fail in the NCT. It can make vehicles extremely dangerous to drive as it can seriously reduce the strength of the component." NCT Ireland also recently revealed a number of other little known visual reasons your car could fail the NCT. The NCT says: "Taking a few minutes to check some of the visual items below and ensuring they are all working in advance of your NCT could potentially save you valuable time and money." One of the more obscure items that you could easily forget to check is the little bulbs on your registration plates. It is a legal requirement that your registration is visible at all times and if these bulbs aren't working, it cannot be seen at night. Your car could fail its NCT if its registration plate lamps are "not working, faulty or not fitted; not white in colour; or if the lens is missing or broken." You can check these bulbs by turning your car on and checking the bulbs are on front and rear before the test. You can see the full NCT visual checklist below: Windscreen Wipers and Washers Reasons for failure: Missing Not cleaning windscreen effectively Wiped areas less than sufficient to give the driver an adequate view Washer, not working, no water or incorrectly aimed Seat Belts Reasons for failure: Belts cut, badly frayed or repaired Belts not operating properly Tyre Condition Reasons for failure: tread worn, distorted or damaged tread depth of less than 1.6mm Incorrectly seated on wheel rim Valve Damaged Registration Plate Lamps Reasons for failure: Not working, faulty or not fitted Not white in colour. Lens missing or broken. Stop Lamps Reasons for failure: Missing or not clearly visible. Not working or faulty. Not brighter than tail lights. Not red in colour Insecurely mounted Contains water/moisture Lens missing or broken Switch does not operate correctly Indicator/Tell Tales Reasons for failure: Missing, not working or faulty Insecurely mounted Lens broken or missing Contains water/moisture Not amber in colour Horn Reasons for failure: Control insecure Horn insecurely mounted Not working correctly Not working or not fitted Registration Plates Front and Rear Reasons for failure: One or both plates missing, insecure or not clearly visible. Numbers or letters missing or illegible or incorrect size Numbers, letter or background of incorrect colour Side Lamps Reasons for failure: Missing or not clearly visible. Not working or faulty. Not white in colour Insecurely mounted Contains water/moisture Lens missing or broken Met Eireann is still predicting some sunnier and drier weather for Ireland despite most of the country being issued with a rain warning on Tuesday. The weather warning for 18 counties warns of "persistent" rain on Tuesday but thing may change for the better after thos that warning lapses in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Met Eireann's outlook says it looks like "becoming drier, but still a few showers. Temperatures of 15 to 20 degrees." They ay Tuesday night will see rain "continue over the northern half of the country, with further heavy falls possible. It will be drier further south with clear spells developing. Lowest temperatures of 8 to 11 degrees in moderate northwesterly winds." Forecasters predict "Wednesday will remain mostly cloudy in Ulster and north Leinster with further outbreaks of rain and drizzle and highest temperatures of 13 to 17 degrees. It will be drier further south with sunny spells and highs of 17 to 20 degrees in moderate northwest winds. "Cloudy conditions in the north along with patchy rain and drizzle will move southwards during the night [Wednesday]. Lowest temperatures of 9 to 13 degrees in light to moderate north or northwest winds. "Thursday will be mostly cloudy at first with some patchy light rain or drizzle. It will brighten up with sunny spells developing and a few showers in the east. Highest temperatures of 14 to 19 degrees with light to moderate northerly winds, fresher along northern and exposed Atlantic coasts. READ NEXT: 'High pressure dominant' - Met Eireann in glorious Ireland summer weather u-turn "Friday will be mainly dry with bright or sunny spells and a few showers, these most likely in the east. Highest temperatures of 15 to 19 degrees with mostly light northerly breezes. "Saturday will bring sunny spells and well scattered showers. Highest temperatures of 14 to 18 degrees with light variable breezes. "At the moment, it looks like Sunday will start off mainly dry, but rain will move up from the south later in the day. Highest temperatures of 15 to 19 degrees with mostly light winds." The national rural job guarantee scheme that keeps millions of Indians out of penury is unlikely to see a higher allocation in this year's Union budget, two officials said. Allocations to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) are likely to be similar to estimates in the interim budget, one of the two officials said. "These allocations can be increased later as per the requirement and demand for jobs in the rural regions," the person said on the condition of anonymity. Initial estimates for MGNREGS stand at 60,000 crore and 86,000 crore for FY24 and FY25, respectively. However, spending overshot estimates in FY24, indicating high demand for rural jobs. While the revised FY24 estimate for MGNREGS stood at 86,000 crore, the actual spending touched 1.06 trillion, according to data from the rural development ministry. Approximately 34.25 million individuals sought work under the scheme in June, a 22.5% decrease from a year earlier. Around 27.19 million sought work in May, 14.3% lower than the corresponding period last year. Guaranteed rural jobs are finding takers given stagnant consumption and weakness in FMCG growth in rural areas, according to economists. Looking at consumption "One of the reasons for consumption being lower in rural areas than urban is that when we are looking at consumption, we are looking at it more from the point of view of what people are consuming, and 80 crore people getting free foodgrain leading to some disparity. There is a weakness when we look especially at rural consumption and FMCG growth in rural areas. As far as the budget is concerned, we have a conflicting signal. MGNREGS job demand went down y-o-y in May and June, which suggests that activities in rural areas are catching up," said Devendra Pant, chief economist at India Ratings & Research. Separately, the budget may announce adding more women to the Lakhpati Didi self-help group (SHG) list, the first person added. There is a proposal to include 1.1 million SHG members as Lakhpati Didi in the next five years under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana," said the second official cited above. Also read | Centre in a first may give rice as part of MGNREGS wages Also read | Spending on rural job guarantee scheme MGNREGS overshoots FY24 estimates by 23% Also read | The dichotomies that define Indias rural jobs promise The rural development ministry's Lakhpati Didi scheme aims to empower women and transform SHGs into sustainable income-generating producer organizations. In the interim budget, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had raised the target for the scheme from 20 million to 30 million. The interim budget said 8.3 million SHGs comprising 90 million women are transforming the rural socio-economic landscape through empowerment and fostering self-reliance. On 15 August 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Lakhpati Didi initiative to provide skill training to 20 million married women, helping earn at least 1 lakh every year. The first instalment of 655 crore was deposited into the bank accounts of beneficiaries in March this year. The government promised to give 1,000 per month to more than seven million women under Lakhpati Didi. Demand to raise allocations Economists and industry stakeholders have urged the Centre to raise allocations for rural schemes and to provide a boost for housing programme to stimulate consumer demand. Consumption growth has remained weak since the pandemic. Private consumption grew 4% in the March quarter, up from 1.5% a year ago, though much below the pre-pandemic average of 6.3% in 2019. Spokespersons and secretaries of the rural development and finance ministries didn't respond to emailed queries. I dont foresee any change in FY25s budgetary allocation for rural schemes; it could be as much as was given in the interim budget," said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda. "The progress of the monsoon is also satisfactory now. So, there is no need to do anything in NREGA and PM-KISANtwo big schemes on which the government spends more," he added. A good monsoon takes care of some of the rural distress because the biggest contributor to the income of rural India is still agriculture. Jaipur, Jul 10 (PTI) Rajasthan Finance Minister Diya Kumari on Wednesday proposed 27,000 crore for the health sector and 15,000 crore to provide tap water to 25 lakh rural houses in the state Budget for FY25. Presenting the full budget for the fiscal, she said four lakh vacancies will be filled in the next five years and a policy for youths will be framed. Also Read | Rajasthan CM Bhajanlal Sharma to take oath on 15 December in Jaipur Moreover, the budget proposed electricity connection to 2 lakh households, 100 crore for corridor at Khatu Shyam temple, and formation of Rajasthan Tourism Development Board. She said that for the first time, nine greenfield expressways will be built in the state and free tablets with internet will be provided to meritorious school students. Amid uproar created by the Opposition, Diya Kumari, who is also the Deputy Chief Minister in the BJP-led state, said the government has decided to work on 10 resolutions. Also Read | Rajasthan PTET Result declared at ptetvmou2024.com; check details She said the state government is committed to making the state a USD 350 billion economy, developing water, electricity and road facilities, planning urban development, and empowering farmers. In a relief to the Adani Group, the Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the Gujarat High Courts decision to allow the Gujarat government to return 108 hectares of grazing land to villagers near Mundra port in Kutch district. The bench, comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan, stayed the order and issued a notice after considering a plea from senior lawyer Mukul Rohatgi representing the Adani entity, arguing that the High Court had passed the order without giving the company a chance to be heard. He (Mukul Rohatgi) states that though the counsel for the petitioner was present before the High Court and attempted to make submissions, he was not heard by the High Court. Issue notice, and there shall we stay the impugned order, Justice Gavai remarked. Also read | Norway fund giant Norges cuts off Adani Ports Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ) had challenged the Gujarat High Courts 5 July order mandating the return of 108 hectares of grazing land to farmers. In the farmers favour The case originated 13 years ago when residents of Navinal village filed a public interest litigation against the Gujarat governments decision to allot 231 acres of grazing land to APSEZ. The Gujarat High Court had ruled in favour of the villagers based on an affidavit from the Gujarat department of revenues additional chief secretary. In the affidavit, the revenue department had pledged that the state had decided to reclaim nearly 108 hectares from APSEZ and replenish 129 hectares of grazing land using a combination of government and reclaimed land. This decision followed an April 2024 directive from a Gujarat High Court division bench that instructed the additional chief secretary to find a solution. 'Blatant breach of justice' Adani Ports stated in its plea before the Supreme Court that the Gujarat High Courts order was a blatant breach of natural justice. The company said the order took away its legally transferred land without giving it a fair chance to present its case. Adani Ports also mentioned that compensation was paid to villagers nearly 19 years ago, totaling 3.7 million, plus a 30% premium of 1.1 million, as per a 1999 government resolution. Since 2005, Adani Ports has utilized the land for various activities and made significant investments in corporate social responsibility initiatives, it added. The company also argued that 14 acres of the land already had been used for high-tension towers, with plans for 50 acres more, crucial for transmitting power to special economic zone units. Not halting the high courts order would severely impact its operations, Adani Ports added. A late discovery The dispute dates back to 2005 when the state revenue department first allotted the land to APSEZ. Villagers became aware of the allocation in 2010 when APSEZ began fencing the area. The villagers argued that the allocation left them with only 45 acres of grazing land, which was insufficient, and that the allocation to APSEZ was illegal as the land was a communal resource. In 2014, the Gujarat High Court disposed of the initial PIL after the state government assured that additional grazing land would be provided. However, when this did not occur, a contempt petition was filed in the High Court against the government. NEW DELHI : Investment firms including Norways state-owned investment fund Norfund and German development finance institution DEG are eyeing a stake in KKR & Co.-backed India Grid Trusts (IndiGrid) new power transmission platform in a deal expected to have an equity value of about $250 million. British International Investment Plc., Beijing-headquartered Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and Switzerlands responsAbility Investments AG are also looking to invest in the new platform from Indias first listed power-sector infrastructure investment trust, said two people aware of the development. IndiGrids new electricity transmission platform will help Indias ambitions to increase its renewable energy capacity and reduce its dependence on coal for power generation. Infrastructure investment trusts, or InvITs, manage income-generating infrastructure assets, typically offering investors a regular yield and a liquid method of investing in infrastructure projects. The talks are at a very initial stage with the percentage of stake sale yet to be decided. The development expertise will be housed within IndiGrid," said one of the people cited above, requesting anonymity. Avendus Capital is running the fundraise for IndiGrid. IndiGrid manages assets worth about $3.4 billion and also owns 41 power projects comprising 49 transmission lines, 15 substations, and 1.1 GW of solar power-generation capacity. Spokespersons for KKR, IndiGrid, and British International Investment declined comment. A DEG spokesperson in an emailed response said, For reasons of confidentiality, we cannot comment on any business activities in individual cases." A Norfund spokesperson said the company doesnt comment on market speculation" while Avendus Capital said it does not comment on stories of this nature". Queries emailed to the spokespersons of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on Friday afternoon, and responsAbility on Monday afternoon remained unanswered. A link for Indias green thrust India aims to increase its renewable energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030, adding 50 GW of green energy capacity annually. The country currently has an installed renewable energy capacity of 180.79 GW, including 73.31 GW of solar and 44.73 GW of wind-power capacity, out of a total power capacity of 444.75 GW. The additional renewable energy capacity generated from solar and wind farms will need an adequate electricity transmission network to connect to the national power grid. Also read | Real costs: Why solar and wind energy are not market winners yet To cater to the continued significant growth in renewable energy, Indias electricity gridstransmission and distribution infrastructurewill require a significant amount of investment," Moodys Ratings said in a 6 June report. This investment would lead to optimal integration of renewable energy with the demand centers. Insufficient transmission capacity or congestion would increase the risk of renewable energy curtailment, which could significantly impact the cash flow of projects and have implications for future investments in the sector," it added. A familiar space None of the potential investors in IndiGrids new power transmission platform are new to Indias green-energy space. Norfund in August last year invested 350 crore in Bengaluru-based Fourth Partner Energy, following up on its $100-million investment in the company in June 2021. British International Investment is a shareholder in Ayana Renewable Power, which is looking to sell a majority stake in its green-energy company. AIIB is among investors eyeing a 49% stake in Gurgaon-based Hygenco Green Energies Pvt. Ltd for an estimated equity value of around $400 million, as Mint reported in June. Also read | The hidden costs of renewable energy Alibaba used to be synonymous with the success of Chinese e-commerce. Lately the company has been synonymous with its woes. In 2021 it became the grimacing face of an official crackdown against Chinas biggest technology firms, whose growing size and seeming social indispensability must have spooked the Communist Party. It was fined a record $2.8bn for monopolistic practices that, the government said, were hurting customers and merchants. Its co-founder, Jack Ma, disappeared into self-imposed exile. Rivals such as PDD, which began life as a group-buying platform, and ByteDance, which owns TikTok and its Chinese sister app, Douyin, proved better at catering to thrifty consumers and at adapting to new trends such as social commerce, which mixes shopping and showbusiness. In late 2022 Alibabas market value, which two years earlier had exceeded $800bn, fell below $170bn, close to a record low since its blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) in 2014. To reverse the decline, in March last year the company decided to split itself in six. Five firms were spun out: a logistics business (Cainiao), a cloud-computing one (Aliyun), an international e-commerce operation (which contained Alibabas main global platform, AliExpress, and a few regional subsidiaries), a digital-services company (which controls Ele.me, a food-delivery app) and a small media group. Alibaba proper retained the domestic retail operation, which is centred around Taobao and Tmall, its two giant marketplaces, and which accounts for nearly 70% of the groups revenues. In the past yearand especially since Daniel Zhang was replaced as chief executive in June by Eddie Wu, one of Mr Mas co-founders and closest lieutenantsthis dismantling strategy has, step by step, been dismantled. First Mr Wu was installed as head of the cloud business, which Mr Zhang took over after the split. Its flotation was called off in November. The following month Mr Wu became head of Taobao. In March he scrapped the IPO of Cainiao, instead purchasing the 36% of it that Alibaba did not already own. Mr Ma seems to approve. In April he sent a memo to staff, many of whom still revere him. He wrote of rectifying past mistakes. He did not say what those were, but many observers took it to mean the troubled break-up plan and struggle to compete with PDD and others. It is easy to dismiss this as Mr Mas hubris: no empire-builder likes to see his lifes work undone. Yet staying intact may be the best shot Alibaba has at reviving its fortunes. The split always looked like a defensive move, designed primarily to placate the party rather than unlock shareholder value. Chinas rulers now appear placated, perhaps because a diminished Alibaba no longer looks like a threat or maybe because they have bigger things to worry about, such as a slowing economy. With the target off its back, Alibaba is once again the master of its own fate. That fate is tied to its ability to compete with new e-commerce challengers both at home and abroad. And that ability, in turn, could turn on its logistics and cloud businesses. Holding on to Cainiao is a bet on the international business. It allows Alibaba to keep parcels flowing smoothly to shoppers anywhere in the worldand, in America and ten other markets, in just five days. This is critical as Mr Wu experiments with a new business model. Alibaba has long been primarily a collection of marketplaces connecting buyers and third-party sellers. A new AliExpress feature, called Choice, involves the firm actually buying products from sellers and shipping them to its foreign buyers. This is a departure from Alibabas original business model. It is reminiscent of Amazon, Shein, a Chinese-born clothing upstart beloved of young Western fashionistas, and to an extent PDDs thriving American business, Temu (whose sellers agree to strict rules on prices and shipping). It is more capital-intensiverequiring Alibaba to hold its own inventorybut enables better quality control of products shipped to consumers. This is important in rich-world markets, where shoppers expect nothing less, but also in China, where consumers are becoming more discerning. It appears to be working. Choice was behind the 44% year-on-year jump in international revenues in the final three months of 2023. Whereas keeping Cainiao should help Alibaba compete with Temu and Shein abroad, reintegrating Aliyun is meant to provide a way of countering ByteDance and others at home. The value of goods sold on Douyin and Kuaishou, a rival video app popular in China, is ballooning. TikTok is experimenting with social commerce in foreign markets. Alibaba has no meaningful social-media business, and no plans to create one. Instead, it is trying to retain shoppers by enhancing its customer experience with the help of artificial intelligence. It says more users are trying Wenwen, Taobaos own ChatGPT-ish AI function, which guides users through purchasing decisions. Gross merchandise valour Alibaba has a fight on its hands. Temu and Shein have outspent it on logistics and marketing abroad, especially in America. A big push there could rack up losses and upset jittery investors. In China, the online economy is slowing. S&P Global, a rating agency, expects digital transactions to grow by 8-9% annually over the next two yearsfaster than GDP but sluggish compared with the average of 13% over the past five years. In the last quarter of 2023 Douyin and PDDs Pinduoduo platform accounted for 90% of additional sales, reckons Bernstein, a broker. Alibaba lost ground. Chatty AI may not be enough to stop shoppers seeking thriftier options or a bit of social-commerce fun to brighten their days. Mr Wu may outline his next moves when Alibaba presents its full-year results on May 14th. He may be right that the company is worth more whole than as a collection of separate parts. How much more will depend on factors beyond his control. If you want to write directly to Schumpeter, email him at schumpeter@economist.com To stay on top of the biggest stories in business and technology, sign up to the Bottom Line, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. Mumbai: The Securities Appellate Tribunal on Wednesday granted Religare Enterprises Ltd time till 22 July to comply with the Securities and Exchange Board of India's 19 June order. Religare had challenged Sebis order, which mandated the company to seek approval from regulatory authorities, including the RBI, for the Burman Family's open offer by 12 July. The Sebi order had also asked Religare, its chairperson Rashmi Saluja and five others to explain why they should not be barred from capital market activities. A senior counsel aware of the matter said, SAT has stayed the show cause notice. We asked for time to apply till 22 July without prejudice to all our rights and contentions. Prior to September 2023, the Burmans held 21.54% shares of Religare Enterprises. On 25 September 2023, the Burmans under Sebis Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers, Regulations, announced that they would increase their stake by 5.27% in Religare, taking their shareholding beyond 25% in the non-banking financial services firm, which essentially would trigger an open offer. A bench led by Justice Dinesh Kumar asked Sebi to file a reply within four weeks and posted the matter for further hearing on 26 August. Burmans' open offer Burmans had proposed an open offer to buy 9 crore shares of face value of 10 each, representing 26% stake at 235 apiece for a total consideration of 2,115 crore. Since then, the Burmans and Saluja have been at loggerheads over the acquisition. Burmans claimed that Saluja was creating hinderance by objecting to the open offer. Saluja, however, dismissed any such allegations and said that the Burman family was not fit and proper for the companys acquisition. Senior counsel Ravi Kadam, appearing for Religare, sought time to apply to the regulators till 22 July without prejudice to their rights and contentions. The senior counsel argued that the The acquirers (Burmans) have been allegedly accused in the Mahadev betting scam and were named in the FIR. Therefore they did not fulfil the fit and proper criteria for acquisition. He added that Religare has also approached the Delhi high court seeking directions to Sebi to conduct investigation in the Burman Group based on the representations made by Religare to Sebi. The matter is pending and will be next heard on 20 August. In November 2023, the Mumbai police had reportedly booked 32 individuals, including Dabur group director Gaurav Burman and chairman Mohit Burman in connection with an alleged betting scam. Sebi's counsel said, In this process, the company actually has little or no role to play. The company cannot say that you are not an appropriate shareholder and therefore I can place any kind of obstructions, that right is left to the shareholders. The acquisition was completed in January this year when Burmans informed in an official statement that they acquired 25.18% in Religare enterprises. Last year, Religare had written to the market's regulator, objecting to the open offer on the grounds that Burmans were not fit and proper for the acquisition. While Sebi in its response, asked the financial services firm to provide documents supporting any such allegations made by them. According to the Sebi order, on 31 May the regulator disposed of the contentions by Religare and asked it to apply to the relevant regulators within 15 days. While also clarifying that the fit and proper allegations against Burmans will be dealt with separately by each regulator once the applications have been filed. SEBIs letter advising Religare to make application to RBI, IRDAI and SEBI was unwarranted, without jurisdiction and resulted in a regulatory overreach as the same clashed with the powers of the Board of Directors of REL and the exercise of regulatory discretion by other regulators, which was best avoided. The same needed immediate reconsideration, Religare said in response to Sebis 31 May letter. China already dominates electric-vehicle technology. Now it seems to have caught up with the West in the bumpy race to automate driving, too. After years of frustrated hopes, the excitement around driver automation is building again. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is largely responsible, having zeroed in on the companys driver-assistance technology as the best answer to its growth woes. Google-owner Alphabets driverless-taxi project Waymo also has shrugged off concerns caused by a high-profile accident at its struggling rival Cruise, which is controlled by General Motors. Waymo recently signaled its confidence by opening its doors in San Francisco to anyone who downloads the app. But there has arguably been more progress in China, judging by the sheer number of companies with technology at or close to the cutting edge. Tech company Baidu, often called Chinas Google because of its search engine, has a driverless-taxi project similar to Waymo and it isnt the only one. Meanwhile, the driver-assistance systems of Chinese EV makers, including U.S.-listed XPeng, Li Auto and NIO, are evolving rapidly. This month XPeng, a pioneer of the technology in China, is pushing out an over-the-air upgrade that will make its flagship self-driving package available on all public roads in China. Sanctioned technology giant Huawei, which integrates its system into vehicles manufactured by other brands, is considered another market leader. Users report that XPengs flagship package, XNGP, has similar functionality to Teslas so-called full self-driving" (FSD) software. Both companies are betting on artificial intelligence to make progress rather than exhaustive mapping and coding. XPeng also appears to be following Tesla down the road of dispensing with expensive lidar technology for perceiving the vehicles surroundings. The approach is more reliant on cameras but will improve the economics of commercializing the technology if it works. These are still only Level 2" systems, according to the standard industry classification, because they require the constant supervision of a human driver. But Chinese regulators appear open to the crucial next step. Last month, Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it had approved nine automakers, including EV giant BYD, to trial Level 3" automated driving on public roads. This means the human driver no longer needs to pay attention, subject to certain conditions, passing liability to the automaker. Mohit Sharma, an analyst at technology research company Counterpoint, expects China to dominate the rollout of Level 3 vehicles in the coming years. Mercedes-Benz and BMW are starting to sell highly conditional Level 3 systems in Germany, and the former has launched its system in the U.S., but they are moving ahead much more slowly than their new Chinese rivals. Driverless taxis count as Level 4 technologythey drive themselves without human supervision, or the speed and other restrictions that define Level 3. Because they are expensive to make and operate within tight geographic areas, their revolutionary technology doesnt show signs of triggering an industry revolution. The shift from Level 2 to Level 3 on vehicles consumers can actually buy is potentially more meaningful. Tesla pioneered EV technology, but Chinese companies, led by BYD, are now taking the lead in commercializing it at scale. Something similar might now be happening with driver automation. Faced with a price war, Chinese EV brands are desperate to attract wealthier consumers with the latest gadgetry. Beijing is only too happy to support the development of advanced technology. In fact, Tesla may be one of the tools the Chinese government can use to help its domestic industry. Beijing signaled tentative support for the rollout of FSD in China when Musk made a surprise visit to the country in April. The stock jumped as investors anticipated software sales in the companys second-largest market, where it currently only sells a limited version of its flagship driver-assistance package. But China could gain too. Tesla will have to work with local partners such as Baidu for mapping. The U.S. company also seems likely to be required to keep its Chinese driving data, which is potentially valuable for training its self-driving system, in China. The construction of Teslas Shanghai plant in 2019 is credited with jump-starting the Chinese EV supply chain, paving the way for todays dominance. A deal between Beijing and Tesla over FSD might similarly help close any remaining gap in self-driving technology, and even foster Chinas AI ecosystem. Write to Stephen Wilmot at stephen.wilmot@wsj.com Bengaluru: In less than half a decade, Quant Mutual Fund, led by Sandeep Tandon, has blazed up the rankings of Indias mutual fund industry to the 18th spot. Its assets under management (AUM), which stood at a mere 166 crore in December 2019, had exploded to 84,000 crore by the end of May 2024, according to disclosures by the company. Tandon has played an outsized role in that success, donning the fund manager hat in 14 of the 27 funds it offers. While the pace of its growth has been dizzying, the glow around Quant MF and Tandon began to fade late last month. On 23 June, digital-only publication Moneycontrol published a story, citing people privy to the development, that officials from market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had searched the offices of the asset management company (AMC) in Mumbai and Hyderabad. The report said the case related to suspicions of frontrunning, an illegal practice. Frontrunning at a mutual fund is akin to insider trading in listed companies, wherein a fund manager, trader or dealer is aware of large buy or sell orders and uses that information for personal gains. The fund is affected as the price can go up before it executes a buy order, which, in turn, affects investors by impacting the net asset value of a scheme. Subsequently, Quant MF confirmed that it had received queries from Sebi although it did not clarify the nature of the probe. The regulator has not disclosed what it is investigating. In an interview with Mint on 25 June, Tandon maintained that it was business as usual. Look around you. Do you see any disruption? We are all carrying on our usual work," he said. Sebis Quant kettle may be on the boil, but this story has nothing to do with it. Indeed, it focuses less on Quant Mutual Fund, which Mint has covered in depth over the years, and instead looks at Quant Capital, a company set up a decade before the AMC, and where Tandon faced other challenges. They may share first names, but the two companies are not related. Look around you. Do you see any disruption? We are all carrying on our usual work. Sandeep Tandon Quant Capital, the forerunner, started as a brokerage before moving into derivatives and commodities trading, among other things. It is a subsidiary of Reliance Capital, which is in the final stages of bankruptcy proceedings at the National Company Law Tribunal. On the other hand, Quant MF, which was formerly known as Escorts Mutual Fund, is run by Quant Money Managers, the asset management company Tandon owns. Most of all, this story shines a light on Sandeep Tandons path to entrepreneurial success. Beyond a handful of people in the mutual fund industry, few know of this winding trail, for it has lain obscured within the dense foliage of Quant Capitals corporate filings. In retracing those steps, we found that it was not so much a well-paved path as a roller-coaster ride. So, buckle up. (Note: We reviewed over 3,000 filings by Quant Capital and its half-a-dozen subsidiaries from the last 17 years to piece together this narrative. In addition, we reviewed hundreds of court filings, emails and text messages. We spoke to eight executives, all of whom sought anonymity in order to speak freely about what transpired at their companies. We also spoke to Tandon, to get his version of the events covered in this story. He denied each point that it covers during a two-and-a-half hour interaction with Mint.) Genesis Tandons entrepreneurial journey started with Quant Capital Private Ltd, a firm founded in December 2007 by his friend Adil Patrawala, a former Edelweiss Financial Services executive. Tandon, who was completing his stint at Kotak Securities at the time, joined Quant Capital in April 2008. According to filings with the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA), Patrawala owned 51% of Quant Capital, while Tandon owned 49%. However, Tandon took on the CEO role while Patrawala was the COO. Adil knew the nuts and bolts of what is needed for a business, while Sandeeps strength was in the institutional equity derivatives business. For this reason, Adil took on the role of COO because that required building new lines of business, managing operations and ensuring compliance," said a person close to the developments. Tandon, however, told Mint that he was the brains behind Quant Capital, and that he had prodded Patrawala to do the paperwork and incorporate the company as he was serving his notice period at Kotak Securities. The two friends were ambitious and hungry. They rented an office on the sixth floor of the Maker Chamber IV building at Nariman Point, Mumbai, the primest of prime real estateMukesh Ambanis Reliance Industries has an office on the fifth floor. After starting out buying and selling shares for institutional clients, Quant Capital quickly branched into five other areas: proprietary trading, wealth management, retail equity, commodities, and non-banking finance. The two friends were ambitious and hungry. They rented an office on the sixth floor of the Maker Chamber IV building at Nariman Point, Mumbai, the primest of prime real estate. Tandon and his team oversaw institutional customers while Adil managed the remaining businesses. It was a heady time for the small team. Our vision was to build Edelweiss 2.0a much bigger financial services firm focusing on technology," recounted one of the early employees of Quant Capital. That was the heyday of the first wave of financial entrepreneurship. First, Indiabulls Financial Services went public in 2004. Next, Nirmal Jain, a young graduate from the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad, got his company, IIFL Finance Ltd, listed in 2005. Jains batchmate from the class of 1989, Rashesh Shah, took his firm, Edelweiss Financial Services, public in November 2007. Quant Capital, however, was different from the rest of the pack. Its use of technology set it apart from Edelweiss, IIFL Finance, and Indiabulls broking business. Staying true to its name, the company used computer algorithms to buy and sell stocks. In July 2010, Tandon roped in Reliance Capital as a strategic investor. Reliance Capital picked up a 74% stake in the company for about 200 crore. Patrawalas stake came down to 13.26%, while Tandons shrank to 12.74% after the dilution. By 2013, Quant Capital had become a 300-person team. It ended 2012-13 with 103 crore in revenue and recorded a 13.4 crore profit. However, that spectacular run ended and the company plunged into a downward spiral soon after. Exodus Many of Quant Capitals employees23, to be specifichad joined the company from other financial firms, including Kotak Securities and Edelweiss, after being promised shares in the company. Quant was a startup and we all joined with lower salaries because we all were promised equity in the company," said the second executive. Five of those executives told Mint that Quant Capital had promised to give up to 12% equity to the group of 23 as they had taken a cut in pay to come on board. These shares were to come from the 26% equity stake held by Tandon and Patrawala. Reliance Capitals ownership was not to be diluted. According to the five executives, while discussions were held on the issue with Tandon in 2011 and for much of 2012, none of them got any shares. Sandeep would say it is correct that we are to get shares, but he wouldnt talk about when. It was getting clear that he had no intention of keeping his word," said a third executive. This was becoming problematic. All of us were earning less. But Sandeep and his team at the institutional desk took market salaries and hefty bonuses," said a third executive. Tired of waiting for the promised payout, many of them resigned and moved on from Quant. By December 2012, all 23 executives had left Quant Capital. In the Lions Den Speaking to Mint in his nondescript sixth floor office in Prabhadevi, in a building located between the more stately Goldman Sachs and ICICI Securities offices, Tandon gives little evidence of the aggressive personality he is reputed to have as a fund manager. He is guarded, never letting anyone read his mind. At times, he laughs, deflecting us as we try to get a glimpse into his emotions. Except for two pet labradors, who hold sway over his affections, Tandon is always formal in every interaction. Periodically, his staff interrupt our conversation, seeking his intervention, giving credence to the popular belief that he is a one-man army/micromanager at Quant. View Full Image Quant MF's Tandon with his pet pet labrador. As the executive cited above put it, Sandeep is a lone wolf. He does not have many friends. But above all, if he sets his eyes on something, he always gets it. As a micro-manager, he always wants to be the decisionmaker in everything." Tandon told Mint he has friends and that the description of him preferring to work alone was incorrect. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was a very dear friend," he said. When we sought clarity on the events at Quant Capital, Tandon said it was more important to focus on the present, especially since his fund house was outdoing the industry. He said he was perplexed by why questions on bygones were being raised now, when the fund was doing well. I dont know what the purpose of discussing this more than 15-year-old episode is. What is important is how we built Quant," said Tandon, referring to the AMC. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was a very dear friend. Sandeep Tandon Co-founders Ejection The employees who were demanding a share in the companys equity found a sympathetic ally in Patrawala. According to some of the executives cited above, Patrawala tried to convince Tandon about the need to honour their promises to the group. Adil took it upon himself to fight for all of us," one of them told Mint. What happened next, however, left Patrawala reeling. According to the minutes of the board meeting held on 23 February 2013, Tandon brought a notice before the Quant Capital board for the removal of Patrawala, allegedly for committing all manner of malafide acts. It didnt end at Patrawala. According to three executives, Tandon was unhappy with the group of 23 who had demanded shares. In the April-June quarter of 2012, Reliance Capital hired the consultancy EY to conduct a forensic audit of the alleged wrongdoings. EY concluded that Patrawala and the 23 employees had stolen data, siphoned funds and committed financial irregularities. All of them were issued show-cause notices in February 2013, after they had left the company. Mint has reached out to EY for comment but has not received a response thus far. According to the minutes of the board meeting held on 23 February 2013, Tandon brought a notice before the Quant Capital board for the removal of Patrawala, alleging malafide acts. EYs findings were taken up at the 23 February board meeting. The Independent Auditors have submitted their Reports to Reliance Capital Limited and Audit Reports have implicated Shri Adil Patrawala, director and employee of quant group and few other employees in various malpractices and fraudulent activities such as IPR/data theft, siphoning of funds, execution of back datedAgreements/MOUs without authority, financial irregularities, etc. clearly acting against the interest of the Group," said the minutes of the meeting. In addition, the minutes noted, The group has also served Show Cause Notice to Shri Adil PatrawalaIn last few months Shri Adil Patrawala has threatened board members, chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief operating officer, chief technology officer, company secretary, compliance officer, principal officer and various employees of the Group and have been filed to record and protect the human wealth of the Group." Four months later, in June 2013, Patrawala was removed from the company he had founded less than six years earlier. The ensuing legal battle brought some relief to Patrawala and some employees. In January 2014, a company law board directed Quant Capital to delete some of the EY reports conclusions on employee misconduct from Quant Capitals 2013 board meeting minutes. Mint has not been able to ascertain if Patrawala and the 23 executives implicated in EYs report committed any wrong. We are not revealing the identities of the employees. Mint reached out to Patrawala over the phone but he declined to speak. The five former employees Mint spoke to maintain that Tandons actions were retaliatory" and vindictive", as they had all quit the company by the end of 2012. Tandon rejects this narrative. He maintains that the 24 executives, including his friend and co-founder Patrawala, were looking to build a parallel business. He also denies that he was not willing to share equity with the employees. After the ouster of Tandons friend and co-founder, more people continued to leave. Among these exits, the departure of Quant Capitals company secretary and compliance officer, Vivek Thakur, in February 2014, stood out. In an unusual move, Thakur penned a letter questioning if the management, led by Tandon, would tamper with official documents. I further state that I have in my possession some copies of the original work performed by me in the capacity of Company Secretary/Compliance Officer/Authorised Signatory which I believe would be tampered/doctored after my resignation from the post of Company Secretary/Compliance Officer/ Employee taking into consideration the current litigations affecting the Company," Thakur wrote to the board of Quant Capital, in his 3 February 2014 letter. I further state that in the past also exiting employees have been pressurized by the Quant management from external agencies by filing false and frivolous complaints and I do not wish to be treated in such manner," Thakur wrote. Mint has reached out to Thakur by email but is yet to get a response. Soon, the executive exodus started reflecting on the companys performance: Quant Capitals revenue declined 35% from a year earlier to 66.1 crore in the year ended March 2014. Worse, it slipped into the red, reporting a 1.21 crore loss. Revelations With most of the team gone, Tandon started to build his own business. He set up Quant Capital Securities in June 2013, followed by Quant Capital Holdings Pvt. Ltd in August 2013. Quant Employees Welfare Foundation Private Ltd was incorporated a month later. Finally, many subsidiaries of the Reliance Capital-backed Quant Capital were sold to the Tandon-owned Quant Capital Holdings between 2013 and 2015. Four such subsidiaries, Quant Capital Finance and Investments Private Limited, Quant Commodities Pvt. Ltd, Quant Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd (QCAPL), and QOPPA Trading, changed ownership in this manner to come under Tandons holding company. The original Quant Capital was left only with Quant Broking, Quant Securities and Quant Investment Services. Mint could not establish why the Reliance Capital-backed company sold so many of its businesses to Tandon, especially since Tandon was already the CEO of Quant Capital. Tandon maintains that all his business transactions with Reliance Capital were transparent and had been undertaken because Reliance Capital wanted to shut down its brokerage business and focus on getting a bank licence. Since they wanted to shut down the business, I thought I could buy it myself," he told Mint. Tandon also had an eye on the mutual fund business of the Delhi-based Escorts Group. According to filings by Escorts Asset Management Ltd, the promoter of Escorts Mutual Fund, Tandon picked up a 10% stake in the AMC in the year ended March 2016. Exit and Resurrection And then one fine day, Tandon quit the Reliance-backed Quant Capital, in rather strange circumstances, going by his resignation letter. I would like to inform you and place on record the unfortunate developments that unfolded after the conclusion of the Board meeting," Tandon wrote in that letter, addressed to the board of Quant Capital. As you are aware, I tabled serious reservations on the audit report tabled at the meeting and requested RC (Reliance Capital) nominees to record the factual inaccuracies in the minutes. Probably as a trigger of that request, Mr Bapna threatened to sack me and the entire team of Quant in an unjust and harsh manner," the letter stated. View Full Image In 2021, Reliance Capitals board was replaced by the Reserve Bank of India citing governance issues and payment defaults. Reliance Capital appointed Amit Bapna to the board of Quant Capital in July 2014. Bapna was the president and chief operating officer of Reliance Capital before he left in August 2020. He is now the chief financial officer of Essar Ports. Mr Amit Bapna led a team of IT specialists and security officers to take physical possession of the Quant offices and evicted all the working staff under the pretext of a management coup led by him. I have decided to lean on the pressure of RC and Mr Bapna and resign as the CEO of Quant with immediate effect." An email sent to Bapna seeking comment remains unanswered. Mint also reached out to the Reliance Anil Ambani Group for comment (Reliance Capital is in bankruptcy proceedings) but is yet to receive a response. Without revealing any details, Tandon admitted that differences had cropped up between the two sides, leading him to head for the exit door. In 2021, Reliance Capitals board was replaced by the Reserve Bank of India citing governance issues and payment defaults. Subsequently, it ended up in bankruptcy court. Late last year, the Hinduja group agreed to buy Reliance Capital and its subsidiaries, including Quant Capital, for about 10,000 crore. Escorts Mutual Fund was rebranded as Quant Mutual Fund. Its stellar performance in a short time turned Tandon into the star he is today. A month after leaving the Reliance owned company, on 20 February 2018, Tandon bought Escorts mutual fund business through Quant Capital Finance and Investments, a company he owned in full with his family. Details of the financial transaction were not disclosed, but Mint learned that the deal was finalized for about 250 crore. Escorts Mutual Fund was subsequently rebranded as Quant Mutual Fund. Its stellar performance in a short time turned Tandon into the star he is today. Repeating history In 2021, three years after setting up his Quant business empire, Quant Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd, a wealth management company Tandon had acquired from Reliance Capital, saw a repeat of what had happened eight years earlier. In December 2020, Tandon had hired FTI Consulting India, a consulting firm that carries out forensic probes, as he suspected some employees of the wealth management division had been cheating him. In a strange coincidence, just as EY had implicated 24 employees of wrongdoing at the Reliance Capital-backed Quant Capital in 2013, FTI Consulting found in 2020 that eight of Quant Capital Advisors employees had committed misconduct. All the eight employees of Quant Capital Advisors were probed long after they had leftthe employees were issued show-cause notices on 18 March 2021, whereas they had all quit the company by the end of 2019. View Full Image FTI Consulting found in 2020 that eight of Quant Capital Advisors employees had committed misconduct. (Image: iStock) Based on our work procedures performed, it can be noted the Custodians were indulging in theft of proprietary data of QCAPL, running parallel and competing businesses, soliciting clients of QCAPL, violating terms of employee contracts and the Code of Conduct and obtaining potential personal gains on account of their dealing," FTI Consulting India concluded, in a report titled Project Eldorado. These breaches have caused significant diminution of the intrinsic value of the company." One of the employees was Anurag Seth, who had quit QCAPL in December 2019. Tandon sought the removal of Seth as a director of Quant Capital Finance & Investment, a subsidiary of Quant Capital Holdings, which had been set up in August 2013. We left Quant in September 2019. We put in our resignation in September 2019, which was duly acknowledged by Quant, and then served our notice till December 2019," Seth told Mint in an email response, when asked why he and his colleagues had quit the firm. We left Quant because Quant/Sandeep bought an AMC in 2018 and wanted to focus on the mutual funds business, whereas we always wanted to focus on the wealth management business, our core strength," said Seth. We deny the findings of the FTI report in its entirety. Even the Board of Quant Capital has now declared the FTI Report as void. Anurag Seth We deny the findings of the FTI report in its entirety. Even the Board of Quant Capital has now declared the FTI Report as void. Even NCLT Mumbai dismissed the FTI Report in its order initiating CIRP (Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process) against Quant Capital," Seth added. Mint reached out to FTI Consulting for comment but has not received a response from the consultancy so far. When asked about the parallels with the 2012 incident, Tandon said: Please remember that it was Reliance Capital that hired EY in 2012. In 2020, I hired FTI Consulting. But is there anything wrong in this (undertaking a forensic audit) if you suspect some of your employees have done wrong?" While the earlier part of his entrepreneurial journey was full of ups and downs, Tandon, 54, managed to stabilize things and get on a more stable path after going solo. He has won accolades for quickly building Quant Mutual Fund into a respected industry name. However, Sebis search and seizure operations at the fund houses properties have slowed down his relentless march. With the regulator taking a closer look into the goings-on at his company, Tandon may once again find himself on a ride with many twists and turns. But then, he is no stranger to challenges and may weather this storm just as he has so many others. New Delhi: India will seek to take a second look at the zero-tariff concessions granted by New Delhi to mobile phone imports in talks to review its free trade agreement (FTA) with the 10-nation bloc of Southeast Asian nations later this The review talks will be held in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta on 29-31 July. India aims to finalize the deal before the end of the year, two people aware of the matter said. A team of high-ranking officials led by the commerce ministry's additional secretary Rajesh Aggarwal will participate in the FTA review from the Indian side. India will review the tariff concessions granted to ASEAN countries, including Vietnam, which allow zero-tariff imports of mobile phone components, the first first person said. By reviewing these tariff concessions, India can potentially protect and encourage the growth of its domestic industries. Also Read: Trade deals: India exploring renewed negotiations with New Zealand, South Africa for new FTA deals There is a need to modernize the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) signed over a decade ago, the first person mentioned above said, requesting anonymity. The plan is to finalise the deal before the end of the calendar year, the person added. The ATIGA was signed in 2009 and implemented in 2010-2011. Under the ATIGA, tariff elimination was proposed for 74.2% of tariff lines, while a reduction in tariffs was agreed for an additional 14.2% of tariff lines. No tariff concessions were provided for in the remaining 11.6% tariff lines. Tariff lines are items listed in a country's tariff schedule. India's trade with ASEAN To be sure, India's trade with ASEAN experienced remarkable growth after the signing of the agreement. But the trade is skewed in favour of the ASEAN region, a manufacturing powerhouse. Between FY2009 and FY2023, exports from India to the ASEAN rose 130.4%, while imports grew by 234.4%. Over 50% of India's imports from the ASEAN comprise coal, palm oil, and other raw materials, while India exports refined petroleum products, commercial vehicles, telecommunication equipment, bovine meat, animal feed, agriculture products, steel and plastics, and engineering goods. As things stand, India's trade with ASEAN is concentrated in five countries Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The ASEAN, unlike the European Union, allows each member country setting its own tariffs under FTAs instead of having a shared one. Under the FTA negotiations, each ASEAN country typically negotiates its tariff arrangement separately. However, India has offered a single tariff schedule applicable to all ASEAN members. Experts argue that having a single tariff for all ASEAN countries limits the effectiveness of India's exclusion list. A single tariff system with the ASEAN doesn't address the specific sensitivities of individual countries as effectively as separate schedules would, economic think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said in a recent note on the upcoming ATIGA review talks. India's trade deficit with ASEAN has grown significantly, from $7.5 billion annually, when the agreement came into effect in 2011, to approximately $44 billion in FY23. A spokesperson of the ministry of commerce and industries didn't respond to emailed queries. The ASEAN comprises Brunei Darussalam, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. These countries together made up about 11% of India's global trade in FY23. According to GTRI, India will focus on cutting imports from ASEAN during its review. For instance, notable imports from Singapore include plastics, iron and steel, gold, and fertilizers, which Singapore doesn't produce, said GTRI in the note. The prices of black matpe or black gram, popularly known as urad dal, have started softening in the domestic market as monsoon rains enhance the area under cultivation during the current Kharif sowing season, according to a statement from the Department of Consumer Affairs. Anticipation of a normal or above normal rainfall this monsoon season is expected to boost the morale of farmers, and lead to higher production of the crop in major urad producing states, such as Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. As of 5 July, the area under cultivation for urad has reached 537,000 hectares compared to 367,000 hectares during the corresponding period last year. Hence, the 90-day crop is expected to experience a healthy Kharif production this year, said the statement. Also read: Kharif sowing as of 28 June rises 33% year-on-year to 24 million hectares Even the pre-registration by farmers through government agencies such as NAFED and NCCF, for selling their produce at the minimum support price (MSP), or above it once it is harvested, has seen significant momentum during this Kharif season. Towards domestic self-sufficiency These efforts are a part of the government's strategy to encourage more farmers to grow pulses during the Kharif season, as it aims to attain self-sufficiency in this sector by encouraging domestic production. For context, India imported 4.8% more urad at 579,597 tonnes in 2023 than in calendar year 2022, while total imports of the three major pulsesmasur, tur and uradin 2023 were at 2.9 million tonnes (MT), marking a 39.7% increase from the 2 MT imported in the year earlier. India, which relies on imports to meet its domestic demand of pulses at about 28 mt per annum, primarily purchases these three pulses from Australia, Canada, Russia, Myanmar, Mozambique, Tanzania, Sudan and Malawi. Despite some improvement since 2011, the gap between demand and supply of pulses is widening and has necessitated annual import of 2.5-3 MT of pulses in the past few years. In October last year, the agriculture ministry revised its final estimates for pulses production downwards to 26 MT for the 2022-23 crop year (July-June) from its May estimates of 27.5 MT due to a drop in production of major pulses such as tur and chana (gram). In the 2021-22 (July-June) crop year, the country is projected to have produced 27 MT pulses. Further, in the 2023-24 crop year, the country is expected to produce 3.4 MT of tur compared to last seasons 3.34 MT, and 1.5 MT of urad in Kharif alone against 1.8 MT in the previous season. India produced 2.6 MT of urad in the entire 2022-23 crop year. In Madhya Pradesh alone, a total of 8,487 farmers have already registered with NCCF and NAFED for urad dal this season, while other major urad producing states, such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, have recorded pre-registrations of 2,037, 1,611 and 1,663 farmers, respectively. This indicates the growing participation of farmers in these initiatives. Also read: India targets 27% increase in kharif onion acreage amid rising prices Procurement of the summer urad crop is also currently underway under the Price Support Scheme by NAFED and NCCF, the government's statement said. As a result of these initiatives, wholesale prices of urad have witnessed a week-on-week decline of 3.12% and 1.08%, as of 6 July, in Indore and Delhi markets, respectively. New Delhi: With the country in the throes of economic development and the government racing to deliver various essential services to a burgeoning population, various stakeholders from India's healthcare services industry have urged the government to increase its public health expenditure to above 2.5% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) in the upcoming Budget 2024-25, from 2.1% in FY23. The investment is being sought towards strengthening the country's healthcare infrastructure and easing both demand and supply-side challenges that bog the industry down. Addressing healthcare challenges will require an estimated two billion square feet of advanced healthcare infrastructure," said Abhay Soi, President, NATHEALTH and chairman and managing director of Max Healthcare Institute. NATHEALTH, or the Healthcare Federation of India, submitted its recommendations for the Budget 2024-25 to the government on 9 July. Elaborating on NATHEALTH's recommendations, Soi emphasized the need to increase the government's spending on healthcare as a percentage of GDP, as it is crucial for enhancing social insurance, expanding healthcare facilities in tier 2 and 3 cities, and advancing the footprint of digital healthcare services in the country. The upcoming budget must focus on healthcare infrastructure, innovation, skill development for medical professionals, and strengthening public-private partnerships to ensure improved access and quality across the nation. Prioritizing research and development will drive medical innovation and address emerging health challenges," he noted. According to the Economic Survey 2022-23, the combined budgeted expenditure on healthcare by the central and state governments touched 2.1% of GDP in FY23 and 2.2% in FY22. Further, data from National Health Accounts (NHA) showed that the government's expenditure on healthcare as a proportion of GDP increased by 63% between 2014-15 and 2021-22. According to country-level data maintained by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), health expenditure to GDP ratio was the highest for the US at 16.6% in 2022, followed by Germany at 12.7% and France at 12.1%. The number was at 2.9% for India in 2022. Critical requirements The industry's representations to the government for the Budget 2024-25 also emphasized increasing the acceptability of scheme such as Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) and Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) among frontline healthcare service providers in the private sector, as it will unlock the private capital of the nation and help the country achieve universal health coverage. PM-JAY is the world's largest health insurance scheme, which provides a coverage of 5 lakh per family per year that is fully financed by the government. Also read: Centre sets deadlines for healthcare initiatives Gautam Khanna, CEO of P.D. Hinduja Hospital & Medical Research Centre, Mumbai, suggests that there should be an equivalent" scheme to provide health coverage for the middle class as well by including additional households. Such a move would offer economic protection from healthcare costs, while allocating 2.5-3.5% of the country's GDP to the healthcare sector, he noted. According to Khanna, Indias elderly population is expected to reach a staggering 347 million by 2050, a demographic shift that can intensify the pressure on an already creaking healthcare system in the country. A national priority Suneeta Reddy, managing director of Apollo Hospitals Enterprises, a major hospital chain in India, also urged the government to grant the healthcare sector the National Priority status, similar to what was done for the IT sector in the 1990s. This can spur the transformation as healthier populations drive economic growth by reducing disease burden and increasing productivity. Government support can catalyze the creation of critical care facilities, ambulatory services, and home care infrastructure, elevating healthcare's GDP share to 4-5% in five years," she explained. Various hospital chains, including Fortis and Apollo, along with the industry bodies concur on this. They believe that giving the sector the priority sector tag can help establish India as a global healthcare powerhouse. Further, policies conducive to private sector investments should also be rolled out to ensure sustained and accelerated growth, they add. The government should strengthen public-private partnerships by introducing new models and policies to boost the adoption of digital healthcare services and promote medical value travel. This can be achieved by facilitating international insurance recognition for Indian healthcare providers to attract more international patients," said Dr Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, MD and CEO of Fortis Healthcare. Apart from increasing the allocation for healthcare services in the country's budget, industry stakeholders have also requested the government to ease the compliance burden for healthcare service providers through the use of digital tools and promote innovation in the country's medtech industry, while localizing its supply chain ecosystem. The industry is also advocating for a rationalization of GST on healthcare services with a uniform 5% rate and full input tax credit eligibility, which would address the issue of unused MAT credits. Further, industry players have also requested the government to review the health cess levied on medtech industry products to ensure affordability across income levels. Mumbai: Deal-making activity in India's packaged consumer goods space is expected to accelerate over the next four-to-five years, but fewer potential targets will likely drive up valuations for such deals, Subhakanta Bal, managing director at financial advisory group Rothschild & Co, said. He said that both domestic and multinational FMCG companies will look to buy out strong regional and national brands to build scale and diversify their offerings. Deal activity is expected to be higher in the packaged foods space as more companies build a wider portfolio and gain ground in a market that remains under-penetrated, Bal told Mint, adding that domestic companies are likely to be more aggressive in snapping up regional local players as they try to build scale and size of business. Read more: A half-hearted recipe to fix Indias consumption woes We do expect very strong outcomes on the strategic side (compared to private equity). Thats because if there is a corporate dealprivate equity will obviously be a very formidable competitor. But if it is a brand deal, companies are better positioned to buy the asset compared to private equity. Because they already have the distributionall they are doing is plucking the brand out of this company and putting it into their distribution infrastructure, he said. Globally, Rothschild & Co works with consumer companies such as Nestle and Diageo. Bal has been associated with Rothschild & Co since 2007 and is responsible for advising businesses on M&A, strategy, and financing, as well as investment in healthcare, pharma, life sciences, chemicals and consumer sectors. Post-covid, consumer goods makers such as ITC Ltd, Dabur India, Hindustan Unilever Ltd and Tata Consumer Products have lapped up assets spanning spice makers, wellness brands as well as organic food companies. In 2022, Dabur acquired a majority stake in spice maker Badshah Masala. Earlier this year, Tata Consumer Products Ltd spent 5,100 crore acquiring condiment and ready-to-cook food maker maker Capital Foods while separately paying 1,900 crore for wellness food company Organic India. Read more: India to see next set of IPO-bound firms in niche sectors from tier-II markets Mint earlier reported that private equity firms Blackstone, Temasek Holdings and Bain Capital are evaluating a controlling stake in Haldiram Snacks Food Pvt. Ltd. In the past three years alone, the consumer sector saw $2.61 billion being poured into dealsincluding private equity funding as well as acquisitions, according to data sourced from investment bank Avendus. Mint had earlier reported that several large FMCG companies, including Dabur India and Tata Consumer, continue to have strong appetite for acquisitions. Organically growing a brand is tough in Indiafrom a gestation period point of view. So if you can buy something, which already has critical scale, and you can pump in much more of that through your distribution infrastructure it's only obviously going to be value-accretive, he added. Indias market for packaged consumer goods is expected to reach $220 billion in 2025, up from the $167 billion in 2023. The size is expected to grow further to $192 billion by the end of 2024, according to a report by TeamLease Services released earlier this year. A large domestic consuming population trading up to packaged goods is a big draw for companies and investors alike. Categories are also highly under-penetrated because consumers across markets continue to buy unbranded or loose products. Companies are looking at the consumer goods sector from a very long-term" lens, Bal added. Bal said categories such as staples (packaged rice, wheat, flour), spices, condiments, packaged foods, ready-to-eat foods or tea will continue to attract investors. Deal activity in the home and personal care market, on the other hand, may be slow owing to fewer targets, he added. Read more: FMCG firms will strategically boost ad spends as demand stabilizes Both deal volume and value will continue to grow, he said. However, he warned that a lack of ample targets will likely drive up valuations. Bal said domestic firms may buy smaller or regional players while international firms will chase companies with a national footprint indicating a greater appetite for acquisitions. NEW DELHI : The Centre may issue so-called composite licences to find and extract critical minerals, in effort to end the fragmented nature of licensing, and tempt mining giants which passed up the blocks that went on auction last year. Critical mineral auction is currently a two-step process. In the first step, exploration licences are auctioned, and the bidder agreeing to share the lowest amount with a future miner wins the licence. Once a discovery is made, another bid is called, and the miner offering the highest revenue share to the government wins the right to mine. This model has discouraged mining giants and the government is now considering merging the two licences into one, two officials said. Combining the two would make sense for big exploration companies and will help India discover and mine more. It is not financially lucrative for companies to focus only on exploration and then bid separately for carrying out mining of discovered resources," one of the two officials said on the condition of anonymity. Critical to sectors Critical and strategic minerals are key to many sectors, including high-tech electronics, telecommunications, transport and defence. Of particular significance is lithium, a key component in rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles and storage systems. While China controls 75% of global lithium refining, India's lithium imports were disrupted by the war in Ukraine. Besides, India imports its entire requirement of nickel, used in stainless steel manufacturing. In fact, Jindal Stainless Steel recently acquired a 49% stake in an Indonesian company to secure nickel supplies. Also read | PLI scheme eyed for critical minerals Yet, miners were cold to India's four auctions of critical and strategic minerals. The government had to annul 14 out of 18 blocks offered in the second tranche due to few or no bidders. The few blocks awarded also did not see participation from global or Indian mining sector giants. The first auctioned lithium block in Chhattisgarh went to Maiki South Mining Ltd. A composite licence will require an amendment to mining laws, and the proposal is being discussed at various levels in the government, a second official added. The discussions are part of the new policy initiatives that the government wants to bring in its third term. In the critical minerals fold The government named 24 minerals as critical and strategic minerals last year, after amending the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulations) Act. The amendment allows the Centre to grant concession of these minerals so that it can prioritize their auction in view of national requirements. The entire auction premium and royalty for these minerals, would, however, be paid to the state governments. Exploration is a capital-intensive and highly risky activity requiring a high level of entrepreneurship to succeed. Allowing successful explorers to progress to the mining stage provides economic incentives that can attract investments from both larger companies and specialized smaller exploration firms. This approach also leverages geological knowledge gained during exploration, aligning with established practices in successful mining codes worldwide," said Rajnish Gupta, partner, tax and economic policy group, EY India. An email sent to the mines ministry remained unanswered. Also read | Govt to pay 30% upfront in critical mineral exploration Encouraging indigenous mining would reduce imports and create related industries and infrastructure projects. The proposal is also expected to increase generation of employment in the mining sector. A key aim of the proposed changes is also to attract mining giants such as Rio Tinto, BHP, Vale, Glencore, Anglo American and Barrick Gold entities which have state-of-the-art mining technologies. Though many of these companies operate in India, they have limited operations. Clarity and predictability The integration (of both licences) offers clarity and predictability throughout the project lifecycle, reduces administrative costs, and provides a stable framework conducive to long-term investments... By incentivizing extensive exploration activities alongside mining operations, the amendment encourages the discovery of new mineral resources, expanding the sector's potential. Moreover, by enhancing competitiveness through a streamlined licensing process, India aims to position itself as an attractive destination for global mining investments," Davinder Sandhu, co-founder & chairperson at Primus Partners. According to Yogesh Daruka, partner, power & utilities and mining, PwC India, the government can look at offering a commute licence as well, which would allow the miner to transport the minerals or ore from the mine to its processing plant or refinery. A commute license as such can enable streamlined transit of materials following the prescribed regulations around environment, safety etc. The coverage & conditions of a commute license can vary significantly across countries," Daruka said. Also read | Govt to guard critical minerals from monopolies Last year, the government classified beryllium, cadmium, cobalt, gallium, indium, rhenium, selenium, tantalum, tellurium, titanium, tungsten and vanadium, glauconite, potash, molybdenum and platinum group of minerals, lithium, niobium, copper, nickel, silicon, graphite, manganese and rare earth elements as critical and strategic minerals. Cadmium, cobalt, gallium, indium, selenium and vanadium find use in batteries, semiconductors and solar panels. These minerals have gained significance in view of Indias commitment towards energy transition and achieving net-zero emission by 2070. Beryllium, titanium, tungsten and tantalum are used in electronics and defence equipment. The jewellery industry is eagerly anticipating potential duty cuts on gold, silver, diamonds, and platinum in the upcoming 2024-25 Budget, to be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23. This expectation is particularly noteworthy as it coincides with the wedding and festival season, a time traditionally associated with high demand for jewelry. Indias gem and jewellery industry is highly dependent on imported raw materials such as gold, diamonds, silver, and colored gemstones. This vibrant sector supports around 4.3 million jobs, accounts for roughly 10% of the country's merchandise exports, and plays a crucial role in driving overall economic growth. The Indian gems and jewellery industry contributes around 10% to Indias total merchandise exports. However, the industry is currently facing some challenges due to the geopolitical scenario, the emergence of the beneficiation scheme, and issues related to rough diamond sourcing. Against the backdrop of the macroeconomic scenario, I urge the government to take measures to revive exports in this sector. I request the Honble Finance Minister to introduce a Safe Harbour rule in SNZs, introduce the Diamond Imprest License, and reduce the import duty on gold, silver, and platinum bars to 4%; and introduce duty drawback on exports of platinum Jewellery to take advantage of India UAE CEPA. These measures are crucial to give a competitive edge to our players and boost exports and at the same time generate employment in the sector," said Vipul Shah, Chairman of Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC). Here are some of the key recommendations made by GJEPC for the upcoming Budget 2024-2025 - Reduction in import duty on precious metals to 4% The Council has also proposed reducing the import duty on Gold Bars (HS code 7108) from 15% to 4%. This change is expected to unlock approximately Rs. 982.16 crore in duty blockage, providing the industry with increased working capital. With more working capital available, the untapped export potential for gold jewellery could be realized, aiming to achieve at least US$2 billion of the US$11 billion potential over a medium period of 2 years. Additionally, GJEPC has advocated for lowering the import duty on Silver Bars from 10% to 4%, and reducing the import duty on Platinum Bars from 12.5% to 4%. Facilitate Rough Diamond Broking and trading companies at SNZ In order to further expand and enhance the Special Notified Zones (SNZs), GJEPC has urged the Government to permit globally recognized diamond broking and trading houses like Bonas and I Hennig to operate from these zones. These trading houses play a crucial role in the sale of diamonds from smaller miners, who collectively contribute nearly 35% of the global mining output. Importantly, such trading houses already have substantial operations in other international hubs such as Dubai and Antwerp. Enabling these trading houses to function within SNZs under similar facilitation as diamond mining companies would ensure that India gains more flexible, timely, and cost-effective access to diamonds sourced from smaller miners. This would help India maintain its position as a global leader in diamond cutting and polishing. Introduction of Diamond Imprest Licence Under the beneficiation scheme, certain mining countries mandate that raw or rough diamonds cannot be exported without undergoing some value addition, such as cutting. When these diamonds are imported into India, they are classified not as rough diamonds but as cut and polished diamonds, subject to a 5% Basic Customs Duty (BCD). This differential treatment makes the export of polished diamonds from India less competitive compared to countries like China, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka. Consequently, due to beneficiation policies, the diamond business is shifting towards mining countries such as South Africa, Namibia, and Tanzania. Also Read | Why analysts are expecting telecom revenues to improve in Q1 FY25 Previously, the Diamond Imprest License under the Foreign Trade Policy was withdrawn after the abolition of import duty on Cut and Polished Diamonds (CPD) in 2009. Despite the re-introduction of import duty on CPD in 2012, the scheme was not reinstated. The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) proposes that Indian diamond exporters above a specified export turnover threshold should be permitted to import a certain percentage, at least 5%, of their average export turnover over the preceding three years. This measure aims to create a level playing field for Indian MSME diamond exporters compared to larger firms. It seeks to prevent the migration of Indian diamantaires' investments to diamond mining destinations, while also generating more employment opportunities in terms of diamond sorting and processing of semi-finished diamonds in factories. Sale of rough diamonds in Special Notified Zones (SNZs) The GJEPC has urged the Government to address its long-standing demand to permit the sale of rough diamonds in Special Notified Zones (SNZs) under the Safe Harbour Rule and to broaden the range of entities allowed to operate within SNZs. Currently, only viewing sessions organized by mining countries take place at SNZs. The primary objective of establishing SNZs was to ensure easy access to rough diamonds by creating procurement efficiencies and enabling overseas diamond mining companies to sell their products directly to Indian manufacturers. (Reuters) - Robusta coffee prices surged to a record high on Tuesday with the global market tightened by a slowdown in shipments from top producer Vietnam. The price of robusta beans has risen 63% this year, peaking on Tuesday at $4,667 a metric ton on the London-based ICE Futures Europe market. The market has been rising for about 18 months as global producers such as Vietnam struggle to keep pace with steadily rising demand. Prices climbed by 58% in 2023. Demand for robusta has been growing as roasters switch out of arabica into the cheaper bean. Robusta is typically used to make instant coffee but it has also been increasingly added to roast coffee blends dominated by arabica. Vietnam's coffee exports in June were just 70,202 tons, taking the cumulative total for the first half of this year to 893,820 tons, down 11.4% from a year earlier, customs data showed on Tuesday. "This lower export performance for Vietnam during the month of June continues to reflect the tight internal market conditions within this largest robusta-producing nation," coffee trader I & M Smith said in a daily update. Also Read | Brazil Coffee Crop Disappoints After Beans Affected by Drought Coffee production in Vietnam almost tripled during the first two decades of this century, peaking at 31.58 million 60-kg bags in the 2021/22 season, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. The last couple of seasons, however, have produced smaller crops with the most recent harvest estimated by the USDA at 29 million bags. A further decline is widely forecast for the upcoming 2024/25 season. Vietnamese coffee growers have been hit this year by the worst drought in nearly a decade, denting the outlook for the next harvest which gets under way around November. GROWING DEMAND Demand for coffee has continued to grow globally despite rising prices. The International Coffee Organization this month estimated a rise of 2.2% in global coffee consumption in the 2023/24 season. Trader I & M Smith said on Tuesday that many independent forecasts saw demand continuing to grow in 2024/25, albeit at a slightly slower pace of 1.25%. "This growth is primarily driven by relatively new coffee consumer markets and producer countries such as China, India, Indonesia, the Middle East and Vietnam who have registered increased internal coffee consumption," the trader said. The challenges faced by Vietnamese robusta producers have created an opportunity for Brazil, which grows mostly arabica beans but has been expanding production of robusta, a variety more resistant to dry weather. "Brazil now is planting a lot and probably in a couple of years will became the most important country as regarding the production of robusta, more important than Vietnam," Giuseppe Lavazza, chairman of coffee company Lavazza told Reuters. Brazil produced around 21.5 million bags of robusta coffee last year, a near record, and is harvesting what is expected by most analysts to be a larger crop, despite some early complaints by farmers about yields. Mumbai: Indias market regulator recently issued warning letters to unregistered investment advisors after their activity increased significantly. In the letters, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said that it took such instances seriously and warned them to be cautious and not to indulge in such activities, failing which it would initiate action against them. Mint takes a closer look at what steps the regulator has taken to check the activities of unregistered advisors and what more Sebi can do about it. Why is Sebi acting against unregistered investment advisors? Unregistered investment advisors are those who havent signed up with Sebi to offer investment advice. The practice of advising retail investors without being registered with the regulator violates Sebis (Investment Advisors) Regulations. In most cases, unregistered advisors are not qualified and provide potentially misleading information to investors who are new to the market or are not well-versed with securities. Such advice could compromise investment interest, given the lack of experience of some of these unregistered advisors, their potentially dishonest behaviour, and false qualification claims. Sebi regularly warns them and even imposes penalties on them to protect the markets integrity and prevent any disruption in the capital markets. What did Sebi propose at its recent board meeting? On 27 June, the regulators board approved a proposal for a mechanism to allow Sebi-registered investment advisors and research analysts to collect fees from their clients. This would be a closed ecosystem and accessible only to those registered with Sebi, giving investors the comfort of interacting with bona fide entities. The mechanism will help investors avail the services of and make payments to only registered advisors and analysts. It is meant to recognise registered advisors and analysts and help investors differentiate them from unregistered entities. This is currently only an optional mechanism. Lovaii Navlakhi, director of the Association of Registered Investment Advisors, said that keeping the mechanism optional may not be as effective as mandating it. In any case, any new regulation or change is not going to give dramatic results unless everyone in the system is using it," Navlakhi said. Harsh Roongta, founder of investment advisory firm FeeOnly, said the Sebi regulations for registered advisors and analysts were not advertised enough. The existence of a centralised fee collection mechanism should be informed. It is a good mechanism to counter impersonation," Roongta said. He said easing other regulations would ensure and encourage advisors to register themselves. What is the regulatory thinking behind the proposal? According to Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch, the proposal facilitated safe space for investorsregulated and unregulated." She said trust in the system will improve, and the good players in the market will use it as a differentiator, while investors will know that they are dealing with the rightpeople. What was Sebis recent take on 'finfluencers' and investment advisors? Sebi also asked registered investment advisors not to associate with 'finfluencers' or financial influencers giving stock tips or unsolicited stock advice. At its board meeting, Sebi said registered investment advisors and their agents should not have any direct or indirect association with any other person providing advice or recommendations, unless permitted by Sebi's board. What are the registration requirements? An investment advisor (IA) who did not wish to be identified said the registration requirements are quite tough and may discourage advisors. "The qualification for IAs is too stringent. Every advisor needs certification and experience. Then, there is an examination which has to be taken every three years, irrespective of the experience," the advisor said. Any updates in the industry can be made in the module and exams can be taken only on that." The advisor added that requirements like a net worth of 50 lakh and more than 150 clients to get registered as non-individual advisors were too much of a burden on advisors. Which are the prominent cases that the regulator has acted upon? In May last year, Chennai-based financial influencer PR Sundar, his business Mansun Consulting, and his co-promoter Mangayarkarasi Sundar settled with the capital markets regulator after accusations that they had offered investment advisory services without the necessary Sebi registration. They also agreed to return the advisory fee. The same month, following Sundar, financial influencer Gunjan Verma was issued a warning for providing investment advisory services without being registered. The regulator levied a penalty of 100,000 and asked Verma to refund the fees to her clients. In October, Sebi ordered Mohammad Nasiruddin Ansari, the proprietor of Baap of Chart on social media platforms, and six other associates to deposit 17.21 crore in an escrow account. The money, Sebi said, was obtained by carrying out unregistered and fraudulent illegal advisory service." The regulator also imposed a two-year ban on 4W Wealth Management and asked it to refund 12.83 crore after it found that the firm was giving misleading advice to investors. What do experts say? Experts said the regulator was always aware of unregistered advisors. However, without any formal complaint against such advisors, Sebi could not take action. Navlakhi, who is also chief executive officer of International Money Matters Pvt. Ltd, an investment advisory firm, explained that before 2013, there were no regulations for investment advisors, which gave them a free reign to start businesses and become profitable. Once regulations were introduced, it could have posed a challenge to Sebi to tap into unregistered advisors. Navlakhi suggested that Sebi should simplify the mechanism of filing complaints to ensure that even a layperson could approach the regulator with a grievance. Auto stocks like Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) and Tata Motors are on investors' radar Wednesday on the back of slew of developments in the industry. While Maruti Suzuki share price rallied over 3% to hit a record high, M&M shares drifted nearly 8% lower along with Tata Motors share price falling more than 2%. Maruti Suzuki share price gained as the company is likely to benefit from the cut in registration fees for certain vehicles in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Uttar Pradesh government decided to waive registration fees on hybrid vehicles, bringing them at par with Electric Vehicles (EVs), for three years, leading to drop in on-road prices. Separately, West Bengal has reduced registration fees on CNG cars. Also Read | Maruti, Toyota board a UP tax waiver to sell more affordable hybrids As of FY24, Uttar Pradesh contributes around 11% of Maruti Suzukis overall domestic PV sales. Moreover, if a similar move is supported by other states, it would be a strong tailwind for Maruti Suzuki. The company has two hybrid models, Grand Vitara and Invicto. Analysts believe these developments will improve Maruti Suzukis competitive positioning. Higher offtake for hybrids would improve Maruti Suzukis standing in SUVs (20% market share in SUVs in FY24 versus 65% in non-SUVs), leading to positive rub-off on mix, Average Selling Prices (ASP) and margins. We expect gains to be more pronounced if, similarly, more states/the Centre also rethink their support towards other cleaner technologies besides EVs, said Chirag Jain, Senior Research Analyst at Emkay Global Financial Services. According to Phillip Capitals analysis of new age PV opportunities, hybrid presence or strategies are a must have for front line OEMs. We have seen slowing EV demand leading Tata Motors to reduce its estimate of FY30 car industry EV mix to 20% recently. Additionally, given the CAFE norms & shift to BSVII in due course, we believe that Mahindra & Mahindra would have to build a hybrid portfolio, considering its non-existence in the CNG space, Phillip Capital Research Analyst Saksham Kaushal said in a note. The brokerage firm believes that M&Ms addressable market size would shrink if it does not adopt hybrids. As per Tata Motors guidance the industry mix in FY30 should be 20% EV, 5% diesel, 25% CNG and 50% petrol (including hybrids). We believe that if M&M does not sell hybrids, its addressable market would be only 20% EV, 5% diesel, and in our opinion 5-10% petrol, having it address only 30-35% of the FY30 car market. And in that scenario, it would need to attain 50% share of the addressable market only to maintain its 11-12% market share, which we believe is a far stretch, and leaving it no option but to adopt hybrids, Phillip Capital analyst said. Additionally, he believes that hybrids will blend well with M&Ms portfolio considering its brand image and aura of being a new age mass-premium brand. Meanwhile, M&M announced a temporary price cut of up to 2 lakh for its top XUV700 variant, the XUV700 AX7. Tata Motors has also implemented price cuts on its SUVs, the Harrier and Safari, effective until July 31. The price cuts come amid general softness in underlying demand for PVs. The overall underlying environment for PVs, including Maruti Suzuki, continues to deteriorate amid slowing retails, decline in order books, rising inventory levels to 60 days, and increasing discounts. Further, with the majority of new ICE SUV launches now behind for most of the industry, and small cars yet to show conclusive signs of revival, we believe volume growth for the industry would remain limited to a low-to-mid single digit, Jain said. Emkay Global analyst expects M&M to outperform the wider PV industry with double-digit volume growth, backed by new launches (XUV3X0, Thar 5-Door), though trends for existing models remain a monitorable. Tata Motors is also seen outperforming the industry amid upcoming launches like Curvv, though its leadership would be tested by the increasing competitive intensity. The brokerage firm has a Reduce rating on Maruti Suzuki shares with a target price of 11,200 per share. It has an Add call on M&M shares with a target price of 3,000 apiece, and an Add rating on Tata Motors shares with a TP of 1,050 apiece. India's manufacturing is on fire. The Nifty India Manufacturing index has soared 60% in just a year, dwarfing the 26% gains in the benchmark Nifty50. This investor enthusiasm reflects a growing belief that India can become a global manufacturing hub, capitalizing on the trend of supply chain diversification. Supporting this optimism is the HSBC final India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index, which has consistently remained above its long-run average and the crucial 50-mark, separating contraction from expansion, for nearly three years now. However, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returning to the Centre through a coalition government, a crucial question has arisen: Will manufacturing remain a top priority? Budget tightrope walk: Capex vs welfare spending Market participants are pondering the implications of the BJP's narrower-than-anticipated majority in the 2024 general election. Some analysts anticipate a shift in the upcoming budget, with a potential easing on fiscal consolidation and a pivot towards social spending. According to a Goldman Sachs report dated 8 July, there is a rising expectation that Indias Union Budget for FY25 might ease the fiscal consolidation path and pivot towards welfare spending from capital expenditure (capex). "There is a possibility of some welfare measures from the government, in addition to manufacturing and capital expenditure themes going forward," said Varun Saboo, head of equities at Anand Rathi Shares & Stock Brokers. Despite this, the report notes that infrastructure upgrades have created long-term growth spillovers that policymakers are unlikely to abandon. Consequently, the consensus is that manufacturing and infrastructure will remain in the spotlight, driven by their job creation potential, the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, their role as GDP drivers, and the necessity to modernize India's infrastructure. We think the golden run of manufacturing companies will continue, led by the coordinated policy push and the global trend of supply-chain diversification," Madhavi Arora, lead economist at Emkay Global Financial Services, emphasized. Vision and economic impact Manufacturing contributes 17% to Indias GDP and employs over 27.3 million workers. Prime Minister Modis Viksit Bharat 2047 vision aims to elevate India into a $30 trillion economy, increasing manufacturings GDP share to 25%, creating 100 million jobs, reducing logistics costs, and doubling female workforce participation. The focus of the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government has consistently been on capex spending as a matter of ideology to drive growth through supply side measures," said Garima Kapoor, executive vice president economist at Elara Capital. She anticipates continued capex focus, particularly in infrastructure and manufacturing, while also expecting increased rural development and agriculture allocations. Investment in manufacturing-related ministries has surged, with spending rising to 7.09 trillion in FY24 from 2.58 trillion in FY20 and 1.41 trillion in FY15. Kapoor expects this amount to grow significantly as PLI schemes for auto, semiconductors, medical devices, drones, white goods, and computer hardware gain traction. Aniruddha Naha, chief investment officer Alternatives at PGIM India Asset Management, noted, Infra will require the government to spend whereas manufacturing would sustain from private participation, as the government has already incentivized this segment through PLI schemes." Having said that, the focus on manufacturing does not need to be limited to budget allocations, according to Arora of Emkay Global. Policy support, she said, will be needed to boost sophistication and innovation in product manufacturing to attract manufacturing investment and reduce product dependence on China. And this: The evolution of Indian manufacturing as an investment theme Karthikraj Lakshmanan, senior vice president and fund manager of equity at UTI AMC, noted that the governments focus on reducing the fiscal deficit might result in more measured capex growth. Consequently, the private sector is expected to play a more significant role. He emphasized that strong macroeconomic fundamentals coupled with robust bank balance sheets and de-levered corporate balance sheets provide the ideal environment for accelerating private capital expenditure. We believe most of the big structural reforms are now behind us and the time gap between the election results and budget is relatively short to present a fully fleshed out scheme," cautioned Akhil Chaturvedi, Chief Business Officer & Executive Director at Motilal Oswal AMC. Consequently, his expectations for major new initiatives are low. Sectors in the spotlight Capital goods, including defence and railways, housing, tourism, and aviation are likely direct beneficiaries of budget allocations, while textiles and pharma API are probable winners. Dhiraj Relli, managing director and chief executive, HDFC Securities, suggests that the GST rate of 28% may be reviewed to reduce infrastructure costs. Measures to popularize municipal bonds for financing urban infrastructure projects could also be announced. Efforts to reduce the cost of renewable energy equipment and components might also be on the agenda. Given the previous extension of production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes to various sectors, similar extensions are anticipated to enhance manufacturing depth. Additionally, incentives for component manufacturing, electric vehicles, and other sectors are likely to follow. Also read: Sunset looms for PLIs with fading interest In addition to focusing on infrastructure, manufacturing, affordable housing, digital innovation, and green energy, Janakiraman R, chief investment officer for Emerging Markets Equity - India at Franklin Templeton, belives that the upcoming budget might see a moderate increase in welfare spending, potentially boosting rural consumption and related sectors. Goldman Sachs sees a sustained emphasis on job creation through labour-intensive manufacturing, credit for MSMEs, services exports, and domestic food supply chain management to control price volatility. As India continues to leverage its manufacturing potential, the sector is set to remain a cornerstone of the nation's economic strategy, driving sustainable growth and development. Delta Corp share price plunged over 4% in the opening trade on Wednesday after the gaming and hospitality company reported weak Q1 results with a sharp drop in net profit. Delta Corp shares opened 4.7% lower at 136.10 apiece on the BSE as against previous close of 142.85 per share. Delta Corp consolidated net profit in the first quarter of FY25 declined 67.6% to 21.68 crore from 68 crore in the year-ago period. The companys revenue from operations in Q1FY25 also fell 30% to 181 crore from 259 , year-on-year (YoY). Also Read | Singapore stock benchmark heads for 2018 high on earnings hopes At the operational level, the companys earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) during the June quarter decreased 68.2% to 30.5 crore as against 95.8 crore a year ago. EBITDA margin contracted sharply to 16.9% from 36.9% YoY. The companys board also recommended a final dividend of 1.25 per share. Delta Corps board approved the appointments of Tara Subramaniam and Pankaj Razdan as Additional Directors designated as Non-Executive Independent Directors for a tenure of 5 years. Delta Corp share price has seen a rally recently as the stock is up more than 18% in the past one month. However, Delta Corp shares are down over 41% in the past one year. Emcure Pharmaceuticals, backed by Namita Thapar, made a remarkable debut on the Indian stock exchanges on Wednesday, July 10. The shares were listed at 1,325.05 apiece on the BSE, reflecting a 31.45 percent premium over the issue price of 1,008. Following the listing, Emcure Pharma's shares climbed further to 1,384, marking a 4.5 percent increase from the listing price and a 37.3 percent rise from the IPO price. The stock finally settled at 1,361.00, up 2.71 percent from the listing price. Emcure Pharmaceuticals' strong market debut follows an exceptional response to its IPO, which was subscribed 67.87 times overall. The retail category saw a subscription rate of 7.36 times, while the Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB) category experienced an astounding 191.24 times subscription. Additionally, the Non-Institutional Investors (NII) category was subscribed 49.32 times. Going ahead, Shivani Nyati, Head of Wealth, Swastika Investmart, recommends investors to hold their positions in the stock by keeping a stop loss at 1,200. "Emcure Pharmaceuticals, a leading player in the Indian pharma market, witnessed a strong debut on the stock exchanges, listing at Rs. 1325 per share. This translates to a significant 31.45% gain over its issue price of Rs. 1008. The listing aligns with pre-listing expectations, fueled by the robust investor response. The oversubscription and listing gain highlight investor confidence in Emcure's established brand, diversified product portfolio, and international market reach. However, the pharmaceutical industry's regulatory stringency and potential disruptions in the raw material supply chain still require ongoing monitoring. Emcure Pharma's listing performance is positive, which aligns with pre-listing anticipation. The strong investor response and listing gain demonstrate confidence in the company's future potential. However, the identified risks within the pharmaceutical industry necessitate ongoing monitoring by investors," Nyati explained. Emcure Pharmaceuticals, a Pune-based business, conducts research, develops, produces, and markets pharmaceutical products worldwide across many therapeutic areas. The 1,952 crore IPO was open for bidding between July 3 and July 5 with a price band in the range of 960 to 1,008. The issue was a combination of a fresh issue of 0.79 crore shares aggregating to 800.00 crore and an offer for sale of 1.14 crore shares aggregating to 1,152.03 crore. Prominent selling shareholders in the OFS included promoters Satish Ramanlal Mehta, Sunil Rajanikant Mehta, Namita Vikas Thapar, and Samit Satish Mehta. Additionally, BC Investments IV, Pushpa Rajnikant Mehta, Bhavana Satish Mehta, Kamini Sunil Mehta, Arunkumar Purshotamlal Khanna, Berjis Minoo Desai, and Sonali Sanjay Mehta participated in the share sale. The company intends to use the net proceeds to finance the following goals: general corporate objectives; repayment and/or payback of all or a portion of certain outstanding borrowings obtained by the organisation. For the Emcure Pharma IPO, Axis Capital Limited, J.P. Morgan India Private Limited, Jefferies India Private Limited, and Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited were the book-running lead managers. Link Intime India Private Ltd. was the offering's registrar. HDFC Bank share price were trading in red on Wednesday's session after global brokerage firm BofA downgraded the bank stock from buy to neutral, as quoted by Moneycontrol. The HDFC Bank stock was slightly down, plunged over 0.48 per cent to 1,628 per share. The target price has been lowered from 1,850 to 1,830 per share, as most of the positive factors are already accounted for. This downgrade follows a remarkable rally since February, spurred by investor concerns over HDFC Bank's deposit figures after its merger with the former HDFC. Looking ahead, BofA analysts predict a narrow risk-reward range for HDFC Bank's stock over the next 12 months, following its 20 percent rise from February lows, partly driven by index weight optimism. "We are navigating a tricky FY25 - wherein risk-reward is capped in the near-term. We expect catalysts to start playing out only in FY26. Moreover, a shallow rate cut cycle would delay NIM recovery for HDFC Bank," the brokerage firm said. According to BofA analysts, a shallow rate cut cycle will postpone the recovery of NIM, with significant catalysts likely emerging only in FY26. BofA anticipates that the stock's risk-reward profile will remain within a narrow range over the next 12 months. Also Read | Chemical sector poised for revival amid improving pricing dynamics, says Ambit Capital Recently, HDFC Bank released a business update for the quarter ending in June (Q1FY25). The private sector lender's deposit base increased by 24.4 percent year-on-year to 23.8 lakh crore in Q1, though it remained flat sequentially. Excluding the impact of the merger, deposits grew by 16.5 percent over the past year. Shares of Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) surged by up to 4% on Wednesday, July 10, following the announcement of its acquisition of Queen's NRI Hospital, a multi-speciality hospital in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, for 75 crore. Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences Ltd (KIMS) announced in a stock exchange filing that it has signed a share purchase agreement to acquire 100 per cent equity in Chalasani Hospitals Pvt Ltd, the owner of Queen's NRI Hospital in Visakhapatnam. Also Read | HDFC Bank share declines after BofA downgrades stock to neutral KIMS said in an exchange filing that it will invest up to 75 crore to acquire 100% equity in Queen's NRI Hospital. Queen's NRI Hospital, established in 1995, is a 200-bed multi-specialty facility situated in a prime area of Visakhapatnam. Located in a densely populated region, the nearest hospital is approximately 5.5 km away, while the health city of New Visakhapatnam is around 17 km distant. QNRI is a leading hospital in Visakhapatnam, particularly noted for its cardiology and comprehensive oncology services. The acquisition will enhance KIMS' operations by adding a multi-specialty hospital and gastro unit in Visakhapatnam, thereby increasing its market share, the company announced to the stock exchanges. With the addition of QNRI Hospital, KIMS' total bed capacity in Visakhapatnam will rise to 630 beds. This marks KIMS' second acquisition in the city, following the purchase of KIMS-ICON Hospitals in 2018. The company stated it will continue to pursue inorganic growth opportunities to strengthen its leading position in Andhra Pradesh. Founded by Dr. B Bhaskara Rao, Hyderabad-based KIMS Hospitals is one of the largest healthcare groups in India, offering multi-disciplinary healthcare services with a focus on affordable tertiary and quaternary care. KIMS operates a network of 12 hospitals with a total of 3,975 beds across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra. Indian stock market benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty 50, are likely to open flat on Wednesday amid mixed global cues. The trends on Gift Nifty also indicate a muted start for the Indian benchmark index. The Gift Nifty was trading flat at around 24,480 level. On Tuesday, the domestic equity indices ended higher, with the Nifty 50 closing above the 24,400 level. The Sensex rose 391.26 points to close at 80,351.64, while the Nifty 50 settled 112.65 points, or 0.46%, higher at 24,433.20. Also Read | Indian stock market: 8 key things that changed for market overnight Nifty 50 formed a long bull candle on the daily chart after a small dip of last week. This is a positive indication and as happened in the past (24th and 25th June), this pattern is likely to result in further upside for the market ahead. The smaller degree positive chart pattern like higher highs and lows have been noticed on the daily chart. Having formed a small higher bottom in the last week, the odds of more upside towards the new higher top is likely in the near term, said Nagaraj Shetti, Senior Technical Research Analyst at HDFC Securities. He believes the underlying trend of Nifty continues to be positive. Having moved above the key overhead resistance of 24,400 levels (1.618% Fibonacci extension), the Nifty could now advance towards another important resistance of 24,960 levels (1.786% Fibonacci extension) in the near term. Heres what to expect from Nifty 50 and Bank Nifty today: Nifty 50 Prediction Nifty 50 witnessed a sustainable up move amidst range movement on July 9 and closed the day higher by 112 points. Nifty remained strong throughout the day, holding the support level of 24,300. The sentiment is likely to remain positive as long as it stays above 24,300, where significant put writing has occurred. On the higher end, the 24,500-24,600 range might act as an immediate resistance zone, said Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst, LKP Securities. Overall, he believes the sentiment may continue to favor the bulls in the near term unless the index falls below 24,300. Rahul Ghose, CEO of Hedged.in noted that the increased writing of the put OI (Open Interest) at 24,400 levels indicates that Nifty will likely find support around this level in this weekly expiry. He said the PCR traded volatile for the day, opening at 0.98 & jumping to test 1.23, indicating the index has a bullish bias in this weekly expiry. According to VLA Ambala, Co-Founder of Stock Market Today Nifty 50 index formed a Bullish Marubozu pattern on the daily timeframe, breaking out of its 4-day trading range. This indicates strong market sentiment and suggests the benchmark index could open with a gap-up in the next session. Now, if the index opens near 24,520, the level could act as resistance in the morning, Ambala said. The support levels of Nifty are expected around 24,400 and 24,320, while the resistance is likely between 24,500 and 24,570, she added. Bank Nifty Prediction Bank Nifty index rallied 143.00 points, or 0.27%, to close at 52,568.80 on Tuesday. The Bank Nifty index witnessed a consolidated move and is stuck in a range between 52,700 - 52,100. A decisive break on either side will lead to trending moves. The index remains in a buy-on-dip mode, and a break above 52,700 will open up further upside towards 53,000, where the highest open interest is built up on the call side, said Kunal Shah, Senior Technical & Derivative Analyst at LKP Securities. However, if the index fails to hold the support of 52,100 - 52,000, it can decline further towards the 51,700 - 51,500 mark, Shah added. According to Ghose, the increased writing of the call OI at 52,500 and 52,600 levels, indicates that Bank Nifty is likely to trade in a narrow range for the week. The Bank Nifty PCR opened at 0.63 & traded very volatile just to close flat for the day, indicating the index has fading momentum at the resistance zone. Oil prices stabilized on Wednesday as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) maintained its growth forecast for oil demand for this year and next, while U.S. crude and gasoline inventories likely decreased last week. At 1312 GMT, Brent futures rose by 1 cent, or 0.01%, to $84.67 a barrel, following a 1.3% decline in the previous session. Meanwhile, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude increased by 11 cents, or 0.11%, to $81.52 a barrel, after falling 1.1% in the prior session. Crude oil prices traded lower on firm dollar and as hurricane that hit Texas caused less damage than expected. Reduced supply concerns has weighed on the oil prices. Furthermore, weakness in crude demand from China also weighed on oil prices to slip below the $82 mark. Meanwhile, tension in the Middle East and lower supplies from Russia provided support to oil price, said brokerage firm ICICI Direct in a report. What's weighing on crude oil prices? In its monthly report released on Wednesday, OPEC reaffirmed its global oil demand growth forecasts, projecting an increase of 2.25 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2024 and 1.85 million bpd in 2025. "Expected strong mobility and air travel in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer driving/holiday season is anticipated to bolster demand for transportation fuels and drive growth in the United States," OPEC was quoted as saying by Reuters. Also Read | Oil prices plunge on Gaza peace talks, Hurricane Beryl impact According to market sources citing American Petroleum Institute figures on Tuesday, U.S. crude oil inventories decreased by 1.923 million barrels, while gasoline inventories dropped by 2.954 million barrels. Official data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration is scheduled for release at 14:30 GMT. Both contracts ended the past three sessions lower, as the Texas energy industry appeared largely unaffected by Hurricane Beryl. Oil and gas companies restarted some operations on Tuesday. Some ports have reopened, and most producers are ramping up output, though some facilities sustained damage and are waiting for full power restoration. In the Middle East, ceasefire negotiations for the Gaza conflict are set to resume in Doha, with intelligence chiefs from Egypt, the United States, and Israel attending. Also Read | Global instability drives gold prices up; will countries return to gold standard Concerns over demand in China also pressured prices. Consumer prices in the world's second-largest economy grew for the fifth consecutive month in June but missed expectations, while producer price deflation continued. Penny stock Pulsar International has turned multibagger, delivering exponential returns to its investors in the last five years. The stock has soared a massive 13,200 percent, rising from 0.10 in July 2019 to 13.3 currently. Meanwhile, over the past three years, the stock has surged by an impressive 8,212 percent, climbing from 0.16 in July 2021 to its current levels. This remarkable growth highlights the companys robust performance and market confidence, making it a standout in the stock market. Early investors who recognized its potential have seen their investments multiply significantly, showcasing the stock's impressive turnaround and upward trajectory. Such extraordinary gains reflect its past success and underscore its potential as a high-return investment opportunity for the future. In recent times as well, Pulsar has continued to demonstrate strong performance, rising over 43 percent over the past year and over 67 percent year-to-date in 2024. The stock has delivered positive returns in five out of the seven months so far this year. In July, it has declined over 5 percent, snapping after 4 straight months of gains since March. In this period, it jumped 23 percent in June, 3.6 percent in May, 35 percent in April, and 0.3 percent in March. However, the stock shed 11 percent in February but advanced 15 percent in January 2024. Moreover, the stock is almost 8 percent away from its record high of 14.4, hit last month, June 2024. Meanwhile, it has shown strong resilience by surging over 119 percent from its 52-week low of 6.08, recorded in November 2023. About the firm Pulsar International Limited engages in buying, selling, and dealing in industrial and consumer goods, and materials and commodities in India. It deals in chemicals, pesticides and petrochemicals, and pharmaceutical products. The company was incorporated in 1990 and is based in Ahmedabad, India. Earnings In the March quarter (Q4FY24), Pulsar reported a standalone net profit of 76 lakh, reversing a loss of 15.5 lakh in the same period last year. Revenue for the quarter stood at 899 lakh, a decline of over 54 percent from 1,978 lakh a year earlier, while total expenses fell to 822 lakh from the previous year's figure 1,728 lakh. For the fiscal year 2023-24, the company achieved a consolidated net profit of 180 lakh, a substantial improvement from a net profit of 13.19 lakh in FY23. Revenue for FY24 surged to 1,978 lakh, a multifold increase compared to 36.88 lakh in the previous financial year. Brokerage views Domestic brokerage house ICICI Direct highlights the key strengths of Pulsar International, noting its strong momentum with the stock price remaining above short, medium, and long-term moving averages. The company has demonstrated robust annual EPS growth and has been effectively utilizing its capital to generate profit, as evidenced by an improving Return on Capital Employed (RoCE) over the past two years. However, the firm's weaknesses, as per ICICI Direct, are: Promoter holding decreased by more than -2 percent QoQ. Declining Net Cash Flow: The company is not able to generate net cash. Investing in penny stocks offers the potential for substantial returns due to their lower price points, but it also involves significant risks. These stocks often face liquidity issues, resulting in lower trading volumes compared to larger companies. Additionally, they may be subject to less stringent financial reporting requirements and oversight, increasing the risk of market manipulation and fraudulent activities. These factors contribute to heightened volatility in penny stocks, elevating the risk for investors. To navigate these challenges effectively, thorough research and robust risk management strategies are essential. By taking these precautions, investors can better handle the uncertainties associated with penny stocks and safeguard against potential losses. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) expressed its surprise at some banks having lakhs of accounts that are used for fraudulent transactions and evergreening loans, reported Business Standard. One area that has come into sharper focus in the last couple of years is the control and management of internal accounts. We found certain banks having lakhs of such accounts with apparently no valid reason, RBI Deputy Governor Swaminathan J said on Tuesday in his address to banks, with chief financial officers and auditors in attendance. He said that some of these accounts are used for fraudulent transactions and evergreening of loans. Internal accounts are high-risk in nature on account of its potential for misuse while asking the CFOs to rationalise those accounts and bring them down to the essential minimum. Also Read | RBI imposes penalty on 5 banks for regulatory non-compliance: Report Mule accounts Last week RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das during his interaction with bank chiefs had raised the issue of mule accounts (illegal accounts) and asked them to curb digital frauds. Swaminathan urged the CFOs to have an eye for detail and an honest and transparent communication with the managing director and chief executive officer and the rest of the top management. You should also keep alive the channel of escalation to the chair of the audit committee of the board if a higher level of guidance is needed, he said. Deputy Governor M Rajeshwar Rao shared his concern about regulated entities using the flexibility offered in the principle-based regulation framework in a way that was not free from bias. Rao also mentioned the impairment framework prescribed under Indian Accounting Standards, and said that while the framework was forward-looking, it had been observed that some non banking financial companies primarily relied on the 30 days-past-dues (DPD) criterion for loan loss. DPD, being a lagging indicator, is not always in sync with using the forward-looking approach of expected credit loss (ECL), Rao said. He said the regulator had been nudging non-banking financial companies, or NBFCs, to enhance their quality of disclosures, particularly in the context of the ECL framework. Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway: In a welcome relief to motorists, the 262-km-long Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway (BCE) is close to completion. The BCE will reduce travel time between Bengaluru and Chennai to two to two-and-a-half hours, compared to the current seven to eight hours. The expressway will reduce the distance between the cities by 80 km. The permitted speed on the expressway is 120km/hr. The BCE project, officially NE-7, is a four-lane access-controlled road connecting Hoskote near Bengaluru, Karnataka, with Sriperumbudur near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari announced on July 4 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would inaugurate the Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway before December 2024. He had earlier stated that the estimated time of completion was March 2024. The expressway, being built at a cost of over 17,930 crore will pass through three states Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Hoskote, Malur, Bangarapet, Kolar Gold Fields, Venkatagirikota, Palamaner, Bangarupalem, Chittoor, Ranipet, and Sriperumbudur are the cities that lie on the Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway route. The highway will be eight lanes for a distance of 240 km, with the remainder being an elevated stretch of 22 km. The 4-lane double-decker elevated road will connect Chennai Port to Maduravoyal for 21 km and will be built at a cost of around 5,850 crore. It will ensure a continuous flow of goods to the Chennai port. The 94 km long highway from Neraluru to Dharmapuri (NH-844) is built at a cost of around 3,870 crore. A 31 km 2-lane highway connecting Meensurutti to Chidambaram (NH-277) is built at a cost of around 720 crore. The two highways aim to provide continuous connectivity in the region. Also Read | NHAI sets up dedicated cell to review DPRs or highway projects Currently, there are three routes from Bengaluru to Chennai: Hosur and Krishnagiri/ Golden Quadrilateral, Old Madras Road, and a third route passing through Kolar-KGF-Kota and Vellore. According to reports, the Golden Quadrilateral route spanning approximately 380 km between the two cities is the most frequently used of these three routes. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is constructing this expressway under the Bharatmala Pariyojana programme. Narendra Modi laid the foundation for the Bengaluru- Chennai Expressway in May 2022. It was to be built at an initial cost of over 14,870 crore. Also Read | NHAI reports highest-ever highway construction in FY24 (Bloomberg) -- Greek firefighters are battling more blazes as searing heat bakes southern Europe from Spain to Romania. Last night a fire in Acharnes, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) north of Athens, engulfed factories before being largely contained. Since early June, Greece has been hit by hundreds of wildfires, fanned by extreme heat and strong winds. Half of Greece is on high or very high wildfire alert on Wednesday, with parts of the mainland forecast to reach 43C (109F) in the coming week. Under a European Union initiative, Greece has also dispatched four planes to help fight fires in Albania. There are dozens of blazes in Romania, including one that threatens a forest of 120-year-old pine trees. Wildfires have long been a risk across the Mediterranean, but global warming is turbo-charging the threat they pose. Climate change is putting 2024 on track to be the hottest year on record, with the death toll from extreme weather events climbing from India and Saudi Arabia to the US and Japan. Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, large parts of Sicily will also face severe wildfire risk this weekend as temperatures soar toward 40C in southern Italy. Heat warnings are in place for many parts of Spain, especially in the southern interior, according to forecaster AEMET. Hotter-than-normal conditions are expected across Europe in the next two weeks, according to Weather Services International, with temperatures in central regions especially high relative to the 30-year norm. In Switzerland, where torrential rain triggered deadly floods and landslides in recent weeks, minimum temperatures in some places around Lake Geneva exceeded 22C last night. In Zurich, the mean temperature is forecast to rise as high as 24C on July 16, 5 degrees above the 30-year norm. --With assistance from Irina Vilcu and Alberto Brambilla. (Updates with EU sending planes to fight fires in Albania in third paragraph) More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com Arvind Kejriwal Bail: The Delhi High Court has scheduled a hearing for July 15 on the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) plea challenging the bail granted to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the money laundering case linked to the alleged excise scam. Previously, the high court stayed the trial courts June 20 order that granted Kejriwal bail. During the Wednesday session, Justice Neena Bansal Krishna was informed by the ED's counsel that they received Kejriwals reply to their petition late Tuesday night and needed time to file a rejoinder. Also Read | Complaint against Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, 9 others for fake documents The ED's lawyer noted, "The copy of the reply was served to us at 11 PM on Tuesday," while Kejriwals counsel countered, saying it was given to the investigating officer (IO) at 1 PM. Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing Kejriwal, emphasized the urgency of the matter and requested a specific time for the hearing. However, Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, for the ED, argued that they required time to review the reply and file a rejoinder. Raju stated, The documents are supposed to be served to the advocate appearing in the case and not the IO. Kejriwals lawyer accused the ED of attempting to delay the proceedings and requested an immediate hearing. The court acknowledged that the ED received the reply on Tuesday and granted them time to respond, setting the next hearing for July 15. Also Read | Tata Motors share price Today Live Updates : Tata Motors Stock Drops in Trading Today On June 20, Kejriwal was granted bail by a trial court on a personal bond of 1 lakh. The ED contested the trial court's decision the following day, calling it "perverse," "one-sided," and "wrong-sided," based on irrelevant facts. The high court imposed an interim stay on the bail order on June 21, pending a decision on the EDs application for interim relief. A detailed order staying the bail was issued on June 25. Also Read | Karnataka SSLC Supply Result 2024 Live Updates: KSEAB results OUT Kejriwal was arrested by the ED and the CBI on March 21 and June 26, respectively, in connection with money laundering and corruption cases. The controversial excise policy, scrapped in 2022 following a directive for a CBI probe by the Delhi lieutenant governor, allegedly involved irregularities and undue favours to licence holders, according to the CBI and the ED. New Delhi: The countrys nodal agency for organ and tissue transplants, National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO), has sought an urgent report from the Uttar Pradesh government after an illegal organ transplant racket was unearthed at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in southeast Delhi with links to Yatharth Hospital in Noida. The agency, operating under the aegis of the central government's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has directed the UP government to keep a close tab on the investigation and take punitive action against those found involved in the organ transplant racket. We are aware of the matter and have sought a report from the UP government through our state agency. Further, an investigation is being done by the police and we are awaiting the police report, said a senior government official, who requested not be named. Also read: Delhi Police busts organ transplant racket: Private hospital doctor among seven arrested Last week, Delhi Police arrested a senior kidney transplant surgeon from Apollo Hospital, who had allegedly performed a number of organ transplant surgeries involving Bangladeshi patients at Yathaarth hospital, without proper government authorisations. Amit Goel, DCP, Crime Branch, said seven people (including the doctor involved) have been arrested in connection with the international organ transplant racket. Investigation underway The investigation so far has revealed that even as the governments authorisation committee had rejected the transplants at Apollo hospital, the doctor, D Vijaya Rajakumari allegedly conducted the transplant surgeries at other hospitals. We also suspect that there is some outside connection. The central government is closely watching the development. Additionally, the health ministry has taken a series of measures to curb the involvement of foreign national's involved in illegal organ transplantation in India, the official added. Queries emailed to the health ministry spokesperson remained unanswered. Also read: Organ transplant rules: Health ministry urges MHA, MEA to educate foreigners An Apollo Hospital spokesperson, in a statement, said, The Delhi Polices Crime Branch department had taken custody of a doctor who had been engaged on a fee-for-service basis and not on the hospitals payroll. This action is subsequent to an investigation pertaining to procedures carried out at another hospital and prima-facie not related to any action or acts at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals (IAH). Given this action by the police, IAH had placed the doctor under suspension. IAH was previously approached by the Crime Branch seeking certain information as part of an investigation, which was duly provided. We reiterate our utmost commitment to adhering to all laws, rules and regulations in relation to clinical and administrative processes for all patients, national or international. Our processes have been reviewed by competent government authorities who have upheld our record of compliance, the hospital's statement added, while extending full cooperation to the investigative authorities on the matter. A recurring issue Earlier this month, the health ministry had asked the home and external affairs ministries to sensitize foreign nationals visiting India for organ transplants regarding the legal requirements for the process. In the recent past, incidents of illegal organ transplants have been found in hospitals in Gujarat and Rajasthan, among other places. The government is very serious to stop illegal activity related to organ transplants. The health ministry has already written to all the hospitals to lodge FIRs in matters related to illegal transplants and devise a mechanism to do regular inspection of registered organ transplants in the hospital, said the official quoted above. Also read: Digital registry on organ transplants to streamline donations on cards We have also sought data from states/UTs related to organ transplantation within the states. However, we are yet to get the complete data, the official added. Meanwhile, Yatharth Hospitals, in a statement, stated that they have no direct association with the doctor under investigation, as she is a part of some other hospital. A complaint has been filed against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and nine others for forging documents to claim compensation from the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA), Deccan Herald reported. Social activist Snehamayi Krishna filed the complaint against Siddaramaiah, his wife Parvathi, brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy, landowner Devaraj and six others, as per an ANI report. The complainant also alleged the involvement of the deputy commissioner, tahsildar, deputy registrar, and MUDA officials, ANI reported. The land allotted at 464, at Kesare village is categorised as agricultural land, which Siddaramaiahs brother-in-law B M Mallikarjun reportedly purchased from one Devaraju. In 2010, Mallikarjun gifted the land to his sister B M Parvathi, according to the complaint. MUDA acquired the land and developed it into a layout. The complaint's charge is that the sub registrar used fake sale deed and gift deed due to the influence of the Chief Minister, according to reports. The MUDA scam pertains to allegations that some beneficiaries got more land than they were entitled. Some beneficiaries also got land allotted in alternative sites. The guidance value of these sites was allegedly higher than the places where MUDA layouts came up. Guidance value is the minimum value of a land set by the government, below which the land cannot be registered. The controversy arose following allegations by a retired official that MUDA had distributed sites on a 50:50 basis in alternative developed areas to non-compensated land owners illegally. This allegedly caused a loss of more than 1,000 crore to MUDA and the Karnataka government. Under the scheme, Siddaramaiahs wife was allotted 38,284 sq feet of alternate land, amounting to 14 housing sites in Vijayanagar area of Mysuru, by MUDA. The opposition has asked CBI to investigate the matter. Opposition leader of the Karnataka State Legislative Assembly Ramaiah Ashoka has asked the Chief Minister to handover the case to the CBI. if you have even a little bit of honesty, if you have any conscience, hand over Muda scam to CBI investigation immediately. Why are they afraid to give it to CBI when they have done nothing wrong? Ashoka posted on X. He alleged that more than a hundred files have disappeared, and the district collector has become the victim. CM Siddaramaiah had earlier said the land was allotted by the previous BJP government to his wife Parvathi, as part of the "50:50" ratio scheme. The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave the Union government four weeks to decide on including an advisory with fortified rice being distributed through various welfare schemes for people with thalassemia and sickle cell disease as mandated by the Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulations, 2018. The bench, comprising Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice K.V. Vishwanathan, asked the government to act upon the recommendations of the expert committee constituted on 30 November 2023. The recommendations aren't public yet. The top court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Rajesh Krishnan and others seeking compliance with clause 7(4) of the Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulations, 2018, which says patients with conditions such as thalassemia and sickle cell disease are contraindicated from consuming iron. Also Read: Centre in a first may give rice as part of MGNREGS wages The regulations also stipulate that every package of iron-fortified food should carry a statement: People with thalassemia may take it under medical supervision, and persons with sickle cell anaemia are advised not to consume iron-fortified food products." In January, the Supreme Court granted the committee three months to examine the issue and submit its report. The apex court will next hear the case on 28 August. In April 2022, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the supply of fortified rice through the public distribution system (PDS), Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman-PM POSHAN (erstwhile mid-day meal scheme), and other welfare programmes in all states and Union territories by 2024 in a phased manner. Also Read: Centre rejigs plan for sale of Bharat rice and wheat In May, the Madras High Court also directed the Centre to consider the potential risks associated with consumption of fortified rice for some people. The petitioners argued that the government didn't conduct proper scientific evaluation before the commencement of rice distribution through the PDS and other schemes. They said individuals with certain medical conditions like thalassemia and sickle cell disease should not consume fortified rice, and the supplied rice bags lacked statutory warnings. Fortification involves adding nutrients not naturally present or present in insufficient amounts to food products. Mumbai BMW hit and run case: The husband of a 45-year-old woman who was fatally struck by a BMW in Worli, Mumbai, said that his wife could have survived if the driver had stopped the car instead of fleeing the scene. Pradip Liladhar Nakhva said his wife was still alive after the collision and might have survived if immediate medical assistance would be provided. Instead, Mihir Shah, who is the son of a Shiv Sena leader, allegedly dragged her on the bonnet of the car for nearly one-and-a-half kilometers. Nakhva while speaking to India Today said, "After the collision, we fell on the bonnet and then fell on the ground. I fell on the side while my wife came under the wheel. I got up and asked the driver to stop, but he sped away with Kaveri on the bonnet." "Is he a man or an animal? No one does this to an animal. My wife was screaming when the driver was dragging her... If he had not run away, my wife would have been alive," he further said. "These people are saying that my wife's body had fallen 100 meters ahead. If my wife had been lying 100 meters ahead, would I not have found her?" he said. Mumbai police tracks down Mihir Shah Mumbai Police succeeded in hunting down Mihir Shah after two days of painstaking probe when his friend made the mistake of switching on his mobile phone only for 15 minutes. Mihir, 24, who had managed to evade the police since the accident on Sunday morning, was finally arrested from Virar near Mumbai. Lucknow-Agra Expressway accident: At least 18 people died and 19 injured when a double-decker sleeper bus collided with a milk tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway in the Bangarmau Kotwali area of Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district on Wednesday. The police said the double-decker sleeper bus was travelling from Motihari in Bihar to Delhi when it hit the milk tanker from behind on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway. The District Magistrate Gaurang Rathi said prima facie it looked like the bus was speeding, reported PTI. Unnano DM Gaurang Rathi said, Today at around 05.15 am, a private bus coming from Motihari, Bihar collided with a milk tanker. 18 people have lost their lives and 19 others are injured in the accident. After the initial investigation, it looks like the bus was overspeeding. The injured are getting treatment. News agency, ANI reported, citing Behtamujawar Police that all the injured were admitted them to CHC Bangarmau for treatment and necessary action was being taken by taking the bodies in custody. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath took cognisance of the road accident in Unnao district and expressed condolences to the bereaved families of the deceased. CM directed the officials to reach the spot immediately and expedite the relief work, a statement from the CMO said. Yogi Adityanath in a post on X said, The loss of life in a road accident in Unnao district is extremely sad and heart-wrenching. My condolences are with the bereaved family. District administration officials have been instructed to reach the spot and speed up the relief work. I pray to Lord Shri Ram to give a place to the departed souls in his feet and provide speedy recovery to the injured. Uttar Pradesh Dy CM Brajesh Pathak told ANI that all hospitals nearer to Unnao have been put on alert. The trauma centre of KGMO is on alert, I have come to see all the arrangements. Most of the injured people are from Bihar, and we are in contact with the Bihar government. Reasons for the accident will come after investigation, our priority is to provide proper treatment to the injured people, added Pathak. BMW hit-and-run case: Sewri Court in Mumbai on Wednesday sent the BMW hit-and-run case accused Mihir Shah, the son of Shiv Sena politician Rajesh Shah, to police custody till July 16. A 45-year-old woman Kaveri Nakhwa died after BMW driven by Mihir rammed into the scooter she was travelling with her husband in Worli area on Sunday. Police arrested Mihir from Virar on Tuesday using his location after his friend switched on the accused phone for 15 minutes. To evade arrest, Mihir Shah had reportedly shaved his beard while on the run. Meanwhile, the deceased husband Pradeep slammed Devendra Fadnavis, Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, saying they come to meet the public only to beg for votes and then they forget. Whereas, daughter said that her mother was in a lot of pain after the accident and sought death penalty for accused Mihir. Mumbai BMW hit-and-run: How things unfolded Woman killed On July 7, a 45-year-old woman Kaveri Nakhwa was killed after BMW hit the scooter she was travelling with her husband. The incident took place around 5.30 am at Worli. Her husband Pradeep survived with injuries. Kaveri Nakhwa was dragged by the BMW for 100 meters before being flunged. The speeding car ran over her again while reversing after Mihir swapped the seat with his driver. Driver arrested Rajesh Shah's driver Rajrishi Bidawat, who was sitting in the luxury car with Mihir, was arrested on the same day. Court has extended his police custody until July 11. Bidawat ran over the victim before fleeing while reversing the car. Father arrested and granted bail Following the incident, police arrested Rajesh Shah. However, he was released on bail. Police stated that Mihir's politician father actively ensured his son's escape and had plans to tow away the BMW car after the accident. Mihir Shah's arrest Mihir Shah, the key accused in BMW hit-and-run case, who was absconding for two days after the incident, was arrested from Virar on Tuesday. Mother-sister quizzed Along with 10 other people, the Mumbai also brought Mihir's mother and sister for questioning from Shahapur in Thane district. Bar sealed, portion demolished Maharashtra Excise Department sealed a bar in Juhu area which the accused had visited with his friends to party before the accident. The civic body also demolished the unauthorised portion of the bar on July 10. Opposition questions delay in arrest The Opposition parties questioned the alleged delay in the arrest of Mihir. Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray demanded that this incident should be treated as "murder" instead of "hit and run case". Father suspended from Shiv sena Rajesh Shah, a politician from the adjoining Palghar district, was sacked as Shiv Sena's deputy leader. A one-line notice by Shiv Sena secretary Sanjay More said Rajesh Shah has been relieved from the post of the partys deputy leader. Shah, however, continues to be a member of the Shiv Sena. Austrian physicist and Nobel laureate Anton Zeilinger, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Vienna on Wednesday, said he experienced the Indian prime minister as a very spiritual person. "I think this is a feature which more leaders in the world should have today," Zeilinger said after the meeting. Zeilinger, a prominent quantum physicist in the world, also said he had a "very pleasant discussion" with PM Modi. "We discussed spiritual things, we talked about possibilities of quantum information, quantum technology, and about the basic fundamental ideas of quantum physics," he said. Zeilinger also lauded PM Modi's vision of "unleashing India's entrepreneurial energy". "The point is that you support the gifted young people to follow their own ideas and from them the really new ideas come. That is something which can happen in every country, certainly in India because of its gigantic spiritual history," the physicist observed. PM Modi also met Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen in Vienna and the two leaders discussed ways to further expand bilateral cooperation in several sectors, including environment and combating climate change. Also Read | A den of spies: Vienna emerges as hub for Russian espionage "Had a very good meeting with Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and discussed ways to expand India-Austria cooperation," PM Modi said in a post on X after the meeting. They deliberated ways to strengthen India-Austria relations in a host of sectors, the prime minister's office stated. "The two leaders discussed bilateral and global issues. They also exchanged views on environmental sustainability, global warming and climate change action," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X. Meanwhile, President Van der Bellen thanked PM Modi for visiting Austria, saying the two countries have a long friendship and strong bilateral relations, especially in the economic area. "We now want to expand these further," he said in a series of posts on X. PM Modi also interacted with business leaders from the two countries and invited Austrian companies to invest in India in infrastructure, energy, emerging technologies and other sectors. Justice Sanjiv Khanna, a member of the five-judge bench that was scheduled to consider the review petitions on the same-sex marriage verdict on Wednesday, recused on the grounds of "personal difficulties". Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud will now reconstitute the bench to hear the case. Also Read | Same-sex couple gets married in traditional ceremony in Gurugram A five judge bench, comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Hima Kohli, BV Nagarathna and PS Narasimha, were scheduled to consider in-chambers the batch of pleas seeking review of its last year's judgment declining legal recognition to same-sex marriage on Wednesday, July 10. Justices SK Kaul and S Ravindra Bhat, who have retired from the bench have been replaced by Justices Sanjiv Khanna and BV Nagarathna. The pleas sought a review of the October 2023 verdict, which refused to accord legal recognition to same-sex marriage. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court refused to give an open court hearing on the review petition. A bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said that the constitution bench review is heard not in the open court but in chambers. Meanwhile, various review petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court challenging its judgement which declined marriage equality right to queer couples. One of the review petitions was filed through advocates Karuna Nundy and Ruchira Goel. It sought to review the majority judgment dated October 17, 2023, passed by the Supreme Court, which rejected a batch of petitions seeking legal recognition of same-sex and queer marriage. What SC said on same-sex marriage The Supreme Court delivered four separate judgments on October 17, 2023. Justices SR Bhat, Hima Kohli, and PS Narasimha delivered the majority judgment. Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice SK Kaul delivered minority judgments. The majority judgement held that: The Supreme Court on Wednesday, July 10, underlined the importance of the homemaker's role in the family, and said that practical measures were necessary to ensure economic stability for women. The observations were made by a bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Augustine George Masih as the Supreme Court ruled that a Muslim woman can seek maintenance from her husband under Section 125 of the CrPC. The court was hearing a petition by a man challenging the Telangana High Court order refusing to interfere with the maintenance order. We highlight the necessity for husbands to provide financial support to their wives, reported NDTV, citing the court's observation. Also Read | Divorced Muslim woman can claim maintenance under CrPC: SC The bench further added that practical measures such as maintaining joint bank accounts and sharing ATM access were necessary to ensure economic stability for women within the household. Meanwhile, the apex court ruled that a Muslim woman could seek maintenance from her husband under Section 125 of the CrPC. The court noted that the religion neutral provision is applicable to all married women irrespective of their religion. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 will not prevail over the secular law, a bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih said while stressing that maintenance is not charity but the right of all married women. What was the case Mohammed Abdul Samad challenged a Telangana High Court order refusing to interfere with the family court's maintenance order. However, the apex court dismissed the petition. After the petitioner's argument, the bench reserved its verdict on February 19. According to PTI, Samad said that he got divorced in accordance with personal laws in 2017, and there was a divorce certificate to that effect, but the family court did not consider it, and it ordered the payment of interim maintenance. Samad contended that a divorced Muslim woman is not entitled to maintenance under Section 125 of CrPC and has to invoke the provisions of the 1986 Act. What Supreme Court said Dismissing the criminal appeal, the court said that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 would not prevail over the secular law. Worli BMW hit-and-run case: If it is proved that Mihir Shah, the prime accused in the Mumbai BMW hit-and-run case, was not drunk during the accident, it could have large legal implications and may lead to a lesser prison sentence for him, which could be up to six months, legal experts told LiveMint. Shah denied that he was drunk but admitted that he was behind the wheel at the time of the accident that caused the tragic death of a 45-year-old woman in Mumbai. "If he claims that he was not drunk at the time of the accident, the primary focus will be on fleeing the scene after the accident," said Alay Rizvi, Partner at Accord Juris, adding that under the new criminal law Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the charges for hit and run are more severe compared to Indian Penal Code. Also Read | Mumbai hit-and-run-case: Mihir Shah sent to police custody till July 16 Rohit Jain, Managing Partner, Singhania & Co added, "If the person was not drunk at the time of the accident, charges specifically related to drunken driving will not apply, and charges under Section 281 and Section 106(2) of Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita will apply." Section 281 penalises rash and negligent driving that is likely to endanger human life. However, upon the death of an individual, Section 106(2) of the BNS is attracted as well. It holds the accused responsible for causing death but does not constitute culpable homicide. Another expert, Kred Jure Managing Partner Ankur Mahindro, said if it is proven that the accused was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident, he may not have intended to cause death but certainly had the knowledge that his actions could result in death. "The absence of alcohol reduces culpability, making it a case of negligence. The accused would then need to explain how the accident occurred without any negligence on his part," he said. Experts added that if evidence suggests that he was indeed intoxicated, the additional charges of Section 185 of the Motor Vehicle Accident Act will be applicable. Suvigya Awasthy, Partner, PSL Advocates & Solicitors, said the section is used for offences involving driving under the influence of alcohol. Under this, a punitive measure encompassing imprisonment for a term of six months and/or an imposition of a fine amounting to 2,000 is imposed. So, if this is not proved, Shah might have to spend less than six months in jail. However, some also said that none of the sections under which he is now being tried would be altered if it is proved that he was not drunk as Mihir was not arrested directly from the scene, but a few days after the incident. "His level of intoxication can be seen and checked only based upon the test which is required to be done soon after the accident, which in the present case is absent as he remained absconded for 2 days since the incident," said Neelam Singh, Advocate, High Court of Allahabad, Lucknow Bench. Arguing that no medical test for alcohol in the system would have been conducted at the time of accident, Niharika Karanjawala-Misra, Principal Associate, Karanjawala & Co said that the question of whether he had been drinking or not would have to be determined by witness testimony during the course of trial. "Shahs lawyers are likely to argue that he was not under the influence of alcohol and that the incident was merely the result of an accident without any negligence or bad faith," she said. "A breath analyser test is an instantaneous one and must be conducted on the spot. If the accused flees from the scene and there is a significant delay between the accident and the blood test, the allegations of drunk driving may lack merit," added Mahindro. Who is Mihir Shah? Mihir Shah is the prime suspect in the BMW hit-and-run case, which claimed the life of one woman in Mumbai. He is the son of Rajesh Shah, a politician. Rajesh was the deputy leader of the Shiv Sena but was sacked from his post after the incident took place. Mihir allegedly rammed his BMW car into a two-wheeler, claiming the life of the woman who was riding pillion and left her husband injured. Reports claim that Mihir was drunk during the incident, but he has denied the charge. However, he has agreed that he was behind the wheel when the accident took place. (Bloomberg) -- President Emmanuel Macron called on parties that represent republican forces to build a broad majority from the political center after snap elections left France with a divided parliament and no obvious path toward a stable government. In his first substantive statement on the deadlock caused by his surprise decision to call the ballot made in a letter published in Frances regional press on Wednesday Macron said that although the far right won the first round with almost 11 million votes, you clearly refused to let them enter government. His definition of appropriate parties also de facto excluded the far-left France Unbowed. I call on all political forces that recognize themselves in republican institutions, the rule of law, parliamentarianism, a European orientation and the defense of French independence, to engage in sincere and loyal dialog to build a solid majority, necessarily diverse, for the country, Macron said. He acknowledged that the elections had demonstrated a clear demand for change and for power-sharing, and so obliged such political groups to build a broad-based partnership. Macron isnt currently in France, having gone to meet with other NATO leaders at the military alliances summit in Washington. He left behind a cacophonous group of self-appointed candidates vying to become prime minister, after Sundays second round produced a complex split in the National Assembly that sets the stage for very un-French deal-making to try to form a lasting governing coalition. In the letter, the president said that he would wait to name a prime minister in order to give the discussions a chance to bear fruit. In the interim, the current government will continue to operate, he wrote. While the New Popular Front which includes the Socialists, the Greens and the far-left France Unbowed has the most lawmakers in the lower house of parliament, its more than 100 seats short of an outright majority in the 577-seat National Assembly. No other parties, including Macrons, have any clear path to a majority either. That has left Macron in the role of potential king-maker. While it appeared that he might look either to the center-left or to the center-right to try construct a workable government with enough members to survive, he instead appears to be trying to court both at the same time, betting that it might produce a majority. Its a gambit he tried in 2022 though it didnt work for him then. Macrons letter was promptly attacked by the left-wing alliance, including France Unboweds Jean-Luc Melenchon who said enough in a tweet. Marine Tondelier from the Greens urged Macron to accept the result of the vote and call on the party leaders of the New Popular Front to ask us to nominate a prime minister and a government. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the far-right National Rallys Marine Le Pen called the whole affair a circus. --With assistance from Gaspard Sebag. (Updates with reactions from Greens, France Unbowed leaders in last paragraphs) More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com (Bloomberg) -- Australia, one of the worlds last major nuclear power holdouts, is debating a pivot that could see the country end its decades-long resistance to the energy source. With less than a year until Australia heads to the polls, the Liberal National Coalition parties are making nuclear power a central plank of their policy platform to oust the current Labor government, driven in part by their historic opposition to renewables and by recent polling that shows more Australians are open to nuclear energy than ever before. If they win the election due to be held by May next year, the Coalition pledges to build nuclear reactors in seven locations in Australia by 2050. Only with a balanced mix of technologies, including renewables, zero-emissions nuclear and gas will Australia have any hope of reaching net zero by 2050, while remaining an economically prosperous economy, Coalition Energy spokesman Ted OBrien said in an interview with Bloomberg. Theres a long way to go, even if the Coalition pulls off a win. While Australia is one of the worlds top sources of uranium, energy experts say theres a reason why Australia has never embraced nuclear energy. Beyond the historic hangups stemming from the testing of atomic weapons in the region, any new policy would need to overturn laws that currently ban the use of nuclear power, overcome local resistance, and factor in the formidable costs of building new reactors, all while creating a whole new domestic nuclear industry to build, operate and support the reactors. But Australias potential turn to nuclear power is in line with a global trend, with climate change and increasing geopolitical frictions forcing a global rethink about energy security and efforts to reduce emissions. South Korea has recently reversed course, Japan is pushing to restart idled reactors, the US is experimenting with smaller reactors, and China is looking at adding as many as 10 reactors a year. This has left Australia as part of a shrinking group of developed economies who dont use, have never used and have no current plans to develop nuclear power. The Coalitions proposal comes at a time when the share of renewables as part of the countrys energy mix has doubled from about 16% in 2016 to more than 32% in 2022. With abundant land and readily available renewable resources, experts, including those from BloombergNEF, question the cost of deploying nuclear reactors, with many current projects worldwide running into delays and plagued by cost overruns. According to 2024 research from Australias leading research body CSIRO, nuclear was the most expensive energy option available at present. It will not be possible to have nuclear at least by 2040, said Dr Asma Aziz, senior lecturer in power engineering from the School of Engineering at Edith Cowan University. We dont have clarity on the cost, safety is an issue and I dont know how many people would want to live near a nuclear plant. Opposition Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton claims they could have the first reactors up and running within 10 years. But a report prepared during a conservative government in 2006 estimated that it would take likely 15 years to build a viable nuclear power plant in Australia. The incumbent Labor government points to these factors when highlighting its opposition to the Coalitions proposals. Energy Minister Chris Bowen told Bloomberg that the Coalitions nuclear plans would provide at best 4 per cent of Australias energy needs. Nuclear energy is too slow to keep the lights on, too expensive to be economic and deliver affordable energy, and too risky for Australias energy needs, Bowen said in a statement. Testing times Australia has a long and fraught history with nuclear power. Starting in the mid-20th century, nuclear weapons testing left a bitter taste in many Australians mouths and sparked a protest movement which endures to this day. The UK conducted 12 major nuclear weapons tests across three sites in Australia in the 1950s, often without informing citizens of the risks and without the permission of the Indigenous communities on whose land they were testing. This was followed by nuclear tests by the French government in the Pacific starting in 1966, far closer to Sydney than they were to Paris. The tests created a fierce anti-nuclear movement across the country, which long campaigned for a ban on uranium mining altogether. Attempts to build a nuclear reactor in Jervis Bay on Australias eastern coastline were met with fierce protests and eventually abandoned. In 1998, then center-right Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard banned the development of nuclear power in Australia as part of a deal with the pro-environment Greens Party. The ban remains in place. As recently as 2011, 62% of Australians said they were opposed to nuclear power, compared to just 35% in favor, according to a Lowy Institute survey. However there is some indication that Australians attitudes to nuclear power might be evolving. A poll by Essential Research in April 2024 found more than 50% of Australians were supportive of Australia developing a nuclear industry. Nuclear option Eyeing that shift, the Liberals are planning to head to the next election with lifting the ban on nuclear power as a major part of their platform. So far, Liberal leader Dutton has only released broad details of his plan. Seven nuclear power plants would be built in Australia over the next two-and-a-half decades, with the reactors to be located at sites of decommissioned coal generators. Dutton said the first two plants could be operating by 2035. The nuclear plants themselves would be state-owned, funded with public money rather than through the private sector. However details such as the final cost of the policy, the planned energy mix and how future governments would bridge the transition to nuclear power are unclear. We are at a fork in the road in Australia and the path we venture down in pursuit of net zero will determine the sort of country we are mid-century, OBrien said in an interview. Supporters of the Coalitions policy point to the shift by other large economies to re-embrace nuclear as a reliable and tested source of energy to take Australia to its net zero targets by 2050. Brandon Munro, executive chairman of uranium development company Bannerman Energy, said he believed that nuclear power would be absolutely essential for Australias long term competitiveness and prosperity. I think its naive to contemplate deep decarbonization of industrial processes without such an important tool, particularly when most other industrial countries are moving stridently toward an increased use of nuclear power, he said. Climate Wars But not everyone agrees, and some have accused the Coalition of picking nuclear as just the latest salvo in Australias decades-long political feud over climate change, a final push by the center-right parties to avoid giving in to a renewables-led future. Australia is one of the worlds largest per capita greenhouse gas emitters and also one of the biggest exporters of coal and gas. As a result, the country has seen savage political contests over the past two decades on how to tackle rising emissions, which have led to the toppling of governments and the unseating of prime ministers. The Coalition have allowed their ideological opposition to wind and solar to get in the way of smart policy making and investment in Australia, Energy Minister Bowen said, adding that Australia needed more energy capacity now and not in over a decades time. Many had hoped the debate had finally been decided after the May 2022 election. Climate change was a decisive issue at the vote, seeing a swathe of pro-green energy independent lawmakers elected and the Coalition, which had long been accused of dragging its feet on the renewable transition, kicked out of power. After entering office, new Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese implemented the countrys first emission targets and attempted to ramp up the transition to renewable energy. However, investment has yet to pick up and the Coalition has ramped up its attacks on the energy transition. Critics point to the lack of detail from the opposition about how Australia would bridge any gap between aging coal power and a potential nuclear future without major investment in an alternative power source such as renewables. Ian Lowe, energy expert and emeritus professor at Griffith University in Queensland, said the policy could have been an attempt by parts of the Liberal Party to extend coal and put off a switch to renewables even further. Its an act of desperation to appease those in the Coalition ranks who dont accept the science of climate change, he said. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com (Bloomberg) -- Taiwan wants to lure higher-spending travelers from Southeast Asia as Chinese arrivals dwindle, a shift that could reshape the islands tourism industry. Despite increasingly fraught relations across the strait, visitors from across Asia, and Southeast Asia in particular, are traveling to Taiwan in greater numbers than before the pandemic, first-quarter data from Taiwans Tourism Administration show. The number of Thai visitors has risen 12% from the same period in 2019, according to the travel body, while Singapores is up 10% and Malaysias has reached pre-Covid levels. Hotel revenues and the number of local travel agencies have returned to where they were before the pandemic, a positive sign for the tourism sector despite the number of Chinese visitors remaining stubbornly low. Tourists from Singapore and Malaysia in particular are seeking out more unique and higher-priced hotels, Lin Hsin-jen, the Tourism Administrations deputy director-general, said in an interview. That helped propel the hotel industrys total takings to NT$178 billion ($5.5 billion) last year, surpassing NT$156 billion in 2019. We are focusing on increasing incentives for travelers and developing high-end markets for tourists including Southeast Asians and India, which are our key markets now, Lin said. The trend, if it continues, could reshape a tourism sector long reliant on arrivals from China. This new pattern of spending stands in stark contrast to 10 years ago when China was the largest source of visitors, making up just over 40% of the tourists coming to Taiwan, mainly as part of tour groups. Only around 99,000 Chinese came to Taiwan in the first quarter, compared to about 793,000 in the first three months of 2019, the tourism data show. In addition, China has taken coercive measures against Taiwan in recent months, including the seizure of a fishing boat, in an effort to pressure new President Lai Ching-te. Lai rejects Chinas claim to sovereignty over the island, asserting instead that Taiwan is a de facto independent nation. Working to Rebound Total visitor numbers to Taiwan were still down 30% in the first quarter compared to the same period in 2019. The pace of the islands rebound comes as Asian neighbor and travel hotspot Japan saw a historic high in inbound tourists earlier this year as the yen weakened. Taiwans Tourism Administration is seeking to remedy this by promoting Taiwan in other parts of the world, including Japan and the USs West Coast. Japanese tourism into Taiwan is at just 69% compared to the first quarter of 2019, as more people stay home amid the currency weakness. Taiwan is also looking to encourage the approximately six million travelers who transit through the islands airports each year to enter Taiwan properly, according to the administrations Lin, turning transfer passengers into tourists. Taiwan aims to reach 14 million visitors up from a target of 10 million this year and as much as NT$1 trillion in annual tourism revenue by 2028. While tourism represents a tiny portion of Taiwans technology-focused, export-oriented economy, it does employ a significant number of people, especially in poorer rural and southern areas of the island. The growing number of travel agencies demonstrates that industry players remain hopeful tourism is rebounding. Before 2019, 30% of visitors to the Taiwan Glass Gallery in Changhua county in the central part of the island were from China. Although there are almost no Chinese tourists now, travelers from Southeast Asia have driven attendance numbers up. Visitors have grown by 80% this year compared to 2019, said Lin Yu-chu, an assistant to the vice chairman of the museum. Different consumption habits are also having an impact. In the past, Chinese tourists typically visited in groups, spending less time at the gallery and only having time to purchase a quick cup of coffee. But as the number of individual travelers from countries like Singapore and Malaysia increases, visitors are staying longer and spending more in the gift shop, according to Lin. Jiu Zhen Nan, a business selling pastries in airports and malls, has also managed to recover from the loss of Chinese shoppers, saying sales this year are returning to 2019s level. We have lost Chinese customers and were hugely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic over the past three years, said Richard Lee, the chains general manager. But now, the business is doing better than before. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has backed Infosys founder Narayana Murthy on the 70-hour workweek debate, saying that he is "fully in sync" with his advice. In a podcast of news agency ANI, Aggarwal shared that he works 20 hours a day "all seven days" of the week. Narayana Murthy's 70-hour work week had triggered debates and met with brickbats and flowers, wherein several business owners agreed with the need for increased productivity, and some debated with adequate compensation. I should do more, and I'm fully in sync with his (Murthy's) direction to the youth," Aggarwal said backing Murthy. Referring to the Infosys founder's in and out from the firm several time, the Ola CEO said, "I think he had to come back because of the state his company was in, right? And he was able to contribute after he came back and was able to turn it around." "Since then, actually, even Nandan has come back in a non-executive chairman role and contributed further. And even when Nandan came back to Infosys. Infosys also took off after that, right? So, I think it's like the same parental thing. You are always connected to your company," he added. Narayana Murthy had founded Infosys in 1981 with the help of six fellow software professionals, including Nandan M Nilekani. Nilekani is the co-founder and non-executive Chairman of the Board of Infosys, and is credited for the launch of Aadhaar card. Aggarwal has previously voiced his support for extending average working hours, aligning with Murthy's perspective on the matter, as evident in his past social media posts. The Ola CEO also shared that he was and is a Steve Jobs fan, adding that the Apple founder is one of the core inspirations that I grew up with. On this day: Several events occured on July 10 in history. It is the day when the first active communications satellite, Telstar 1, was launched by NASA in 1962 to attack on Amarnath Yatra in 2017. Not just this, on July 10, 1940, during World War II, the Battle of Britain began as the German Luftwaffe launched attacks on southern England. Here's a look at the major events held on July 10 in history Amarnath Yatra attack in 2017 A terrorist attack on the Amarnath Yatra in July 2017 killed about seven and injured 19. The Amarnath Yatra pilgrims were travelling in a bus from Balram to Mir Bazar in Anantnag, when the terror attack happened. The attack took place on the evening near Batengoo in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir. The bus was ambushed around at around 8:20 pm. Before this, the Amarnath Yatra was targeted was on 1 August 2000. The terrorists had then struck in Pahalgam area, killing 30 people, including porters. 1st active communications satellite launch in 1962 As per NASA, Telstar 1 was the first satellite capable of relaying television signals from Europe to North America. The 171-pound, 34.5-inch sphere loaded with transistors and covered with solar panels was placed in orbit by a Delta rocket launched from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962. Sunil Gavaskar was born in 1949 The former Indian opening batter Sunil Gavaskar was born on July 10, 1949. He scored 10122 runs in 125 in Test match , while 3092 runs in 108 matches played in ODIs. Gavaskar made his Test debut for India in 1971 against the West Indies. After retiring from international cricket in 1987, he continued to contribute to the sport as a commentator, writer, and administrator. American paper currency was reduced in size in 1929 In 1929, American paper currency was reduced in size as the government began issuing bills that were approximately 25 percent smaller. Boris Yeltsin became 1st Elected President of the Russian Republic In 1991, Boris N. Yeltsin took the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian republic. (Adds more context throughout; Citi CEO statement) WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) - U.S. bank regulators fined Citigroup $136 million for failing to make adequate progress fixing data management issues the agencies identified in 2020, the Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday. The joint enforcement action from the Fed and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) relates to "insufficient progress" Citi has made fixing data management problems and implementing controls to manage that ongoing risk, the Fed said. The regulators fined the bank $400 million in 2020 after identifying "ongoing deficiencies" in Citigroup's handling of various areas of risk management and internal controls, including data quality management. The bank agreed a sweeping plan to fix its data quality and management issues, but a Fed exam last year found that the bank still had deficiencies and had not made adequate progress on the order, the Fed said. "Citigroup violated the 2020 Order through delays in completing milestones included in its approved plan," the Fed said on Wednesday. The fine is another blow for Citi CEO Jane Fraser's effort to fix the bank's regulatory issues and streamline its structure. We have acknowledged that, despite making good progress in simplifying our firm and addressing our consent orders, there are areas where we have not made progress quickly enough, such as in our data quality management," she said in a statement. Fraser added that the bank has intensified its focus and increased its investment in those areas over the last several months. The bank's top executives also said last month that they were stepping up efforts to fix regulatory problems. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Joe Biden should quickly consider whether to stay in the presidential race and top officials from his reelection campaign were set to meet anxious Senate Democrats, as unease over the incumbents age and ability to defeat Republican Donald Trump continued to reverberate across Capitol Hill. Pelosi appeared Wednesday morning on MSNBCs Morning Joe and implored Biden who has said repeatedly since his faltering debate performance that he is not considering dropping out of the race to decide whether to continue atop the ticket. Its up to the president to decide if hes going to run, Pelosi said. We are all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. Separately, Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, two of Bidens closest advisers, and campaign chairwoman Jen OMalley Dillon scheduled a meeting with Senate Democrats for Thursday. Taken alongside new calls for the president to step aside delivered by Democratic lawmakers and Hollywood donors the Senate meeting and Pelosis comments underscore how perilous Bidens political position remains. While the president so far has avoided a jailbreak among influential party members that might make his continued candidacy impossible, allies remain deeply concerned about his campaigns viability and the risk it poses to other elected Democrats. Biden began the week by flatly telling members of Congress that he intends to remain the party nominee, as doubts swirl in the aftermath of his calamitous debate performance. He reiterated his intention to remain in the race again hours after Pelosis comments, telling labor leaders gathered in Washington he was staying atop the ticket. Pelosi, 84, faced calls herself to make way for a new generation of leaders before stepping aside as the top House Democrat in 2022. NBC News also announced that Biden planned to sit Monday for a primetime interview with anchor Lester Holt, during a trip to Austin, Texas. Biden is attempting to counterprogram the beginning of the Republican National Convention with remarks commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, followed by visits to the NAACP National Convention and a gathering of Latino activists organized by UnidosUS. Hollywood Donors The outcry, though, extended to one of the partys biggest celebrity supporters and donors, George Clooney, who called for a new nominee Wednesday just weeks after he co-hosted a fundraiser with Biden. We are not going to win in November with this president, Clooney wrote in a New York Times op-ed, adding that Biden, at the fundraiser, was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. Clooney said he had spoken to senators, members of the House, and governors about his concern and that every single one believed Democrats would lose control of both chambers of Congress. Actor Michael Douglas, who hosted a fundraiser for Biden at his home earlier this year, called Clooneys concerns valid during an appearance on ABCs The View. I dont worry necessarily today or tomorrow, but a year down the line, I worry. I am concerned, Douglas said. When Harry Met Sally director Rob Reiner, who hosted an event with Vice President Kamala Harris last month, tweeted that it was time for Biden to step down. Hold Off Pelosi urged lawmakers not to publicly air their concerns about the president until the NATO summit being held in Washington concludes. Biden is expected to hold a high-stakes news conference Thursday afternoon, with foreign allies attending the event closely watching the US president. I said to everyone, lets just hold off whatever youre thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you dont have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week, Pelosi said. The poor debate from Biden, 81, raised worries about the fitness and mental acuity of the already-oldest US president in history to defeat Trump and serve another four-year term. Those worries have been amplified by fears that a weak presidential candidate at the top of the ticket could wreck Democratic hopes of retaking the House and holding onto Senate control. The issue even came up as Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Powell said that while he had not met with Biden for years, he had not seen a cognitive decline in the president. A New York Times/Siena College poll after the debate found Trump ahead of Biden by six percentage points and Democratic worries intensified on Tuesday after the Cook Political Report updated their Electoral College analysis to show a more favorable map for the Republican. Still, many prominent Democrats have been reluctant to outright call on Biden to exit the race. In the hours after her MSNBC comments, Pelosi told CBS News she had not intended to signal Biden should reconsider his decision. She subsequently released a statement saying Democrats must turn our attention to why this race is so important: Donald Trump would be a disaster for our country and our democracy. Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina congressman who has long championed Biden in Democratic politics, said he would ask Pelosi what she meant by her remarks. Im still riding with Biden, he added. New Defection But Pelosis comments were followed by another Democratic lawmaker Pat Ryan, a congressman from New York calling on Biden to step aside. Id be doing a grave disservice if I said he was the best candidate to serve this fall, Ryan told the New York Times. Other prominent Democratic lawmakers simply echoed Pelosis tepid support. Katherine Clark, the No. 2 House Democrat, said Biden is the partys nominee but like Pelosi did not explicitly stand behind him. As always this decision is up to the president, Clark said. Ritchie Torres, a Democratic congressman from New York, said there must be a serious reckoning with the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate, nodding to the risk that an unpopular Biden could drag down House and Senate candidates. Kate Bedingfield, who was Bidens deputy campaign manager in 2020, said the presidents current team needed to demonstrate that he still has a viable path to victory. If they have data that supports the path to victory that they see, they should put it out there now, Bedingfield wrote on X. With assistance from Erik Wasson, Steven T. Dennis and Zach C. Cohen. By David Shepardson WASHINGTON, - German carmaker BMW said on Wednesday it was recalling 394,000 vehicles in the United States due to faulty airbag inflators that could potentially cause serious or fatal injuries, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Wednesday. An air bag inflator could explode, sending potentially deadly sharp metal fragments flying and striking the driver or others in the vehicle, NHTSA said. BMW said the issue covers air bag inflators that had been previously recalled but the vehicles could have had a replacement steering wheel installed with a defective air bag. Owners will take vehicles to dealers for inspections, and if a steering wheel with a recalled airbag is found it will be replaced. BMW said it was unaware of any crashes or injuries tied to the new recall. The faulty airbag inflators manufactured by Japanese automotive parts company Takata Corp are at the center of the largest, most complex recall process in auto history. More than 30 deaths - including at least 26 in the United States - and hundreds of injuries since 2009 have been attributed to Takata airbags fitted to vehicles of various automakers. In 2020, NHTSA said it had identified a U.S. death tied to a Takata air bag inflator rupture in a BMW crash in Arizona. Over the past decade, more than 100 million vehicles fitted with Takata airbag inflators have been recalled worldwide. Once the world's leading supplier of airbags, Takata filed for bankruptcy in 2017 after the scandal. The latest recall includes certain BMW 3 Series Sedans and Sportswagon models from the 2006 to 2012 model years. Italy is working to clinch a land border agreement between Lebanon and Israel in an effort to de-escalate tensions between the two countries, according to Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. Rome is using a landmark maritime border accord the two nations signed in 2022 as a blueprint for a land deal, Tajani said in an interview on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington. The situation is very tense, and we have been and are working to ensure that the maritime borders agreement can come to be for the land borders too, he said. Even though the situation is difficult, he said, Italian diplomats were pushing ahead with negotiations. The aim, he said, was to find a solution that could create distance between Israel and Hezbollah, a key Iranian proxy active in Lebanon. He added that Israel would certainly react if there were to be a Hezbollah advance. Messages left with spokespeople in the Israeli and Lebanese embassies in Washington seeking comment werent immediately returned. Italy has traditionally sought to project itself as a mediator in the Middle East, maintaining relations with both Israel and Iran. Italians are able to be flexible, and thats why we have good relations with everyone, he said. It isnt easy, but this shows we can be an instrument for peace. The US, which designates Hezbollah a terrorist organization, has been leading diplomatic efforts between the militant group and Israel. Italy, which backs a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of hostages held there, was supportive of an Arab-led peacekeeping mission with the UN in the Gaza strip once the war with Israel ends, Tajani said. He said parties involved in those conversations include Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Cease-Fire Talks Tajani reiterated Romes support for Israels right to exist but also said: Were also asking Israel to realize that peace needs to be reached at at some point. Tensions between Israel and Lebanon, which dont recognize each other, have ratcheted up in recent months. The two countries have been engaged in increasing hostilities since Oct. 7, with communities evacuated on both sides of the border amid exchanges of fire. Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah said this week that the Lebanese militant group would halt attacks on Israel without question in the event of a cease-fire in Gaza. Tajani reiterated his support for a two-state solution, but stressed it has to be mutual in order for the recognition of a State of Palestine to be more than just a formality. Its the only path we have available if we dont want to keep going for another 50 years with these hostilities, he said. With assistance from Courtney McBride. When will Ukraine join the US-led military alliance, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)? While admitting Ukraine into NATO remains a contentious matter among NATO members, Finland's President Alexander Stubb said on Wednesday that Ukraine's path towards joining the NATO is irreversible. According to news agency AFP, NATO leaders said the final declaration which still had to be formally approved would support Ukraine on "its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership." Why add the word 'irreversible'? Earlier in the day, the Washington Post reported that NATO members, favouring a faster membership track for Ukraine, had sought to include the word irreversible to demonstrate that Kyiv has moved closer to alliance entry since last years summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Some acknowledged the word was more symbolic than substantive, the report added. Finland President Alexander Stubb which, like Sweden, joined NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine - said he was "very happy" with the language. "I think it's very important to give a message to the Kremlin from here that Ukraine's path and bridge toward NATO membership is now irreversible," he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to stop NATO expansion but instead "Ukraine will become a NATO member" and "Finland and Sweden became NATO members as well," Stubb was quoted by news agency AFP as saying. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pushing for membership in NATO, which considers an attack on one member an attack on all. However, Putin has declared Ukraine's admission into NATO as an encroachment on Russias security and interests. F-16 jets sent to Ukraine NATO allies announced Wednesday they had started the long-promised transfer of F-16 jets to Ukraine as leaders meet for a summit in Washington clouded by political uncertainties in the United States. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told delegates at the NATO 75th anniversary summit that as we speak, the transfer of F-16 jets is underway, coming form Denmark, coming from the Netherlands. Why is there a delay in NATO membership in Ukraine? The US and Germany led opposition to immediate membership, believing that it would effectively put the whole alliance at war against nuclear-armed Russia, which occupies parts of Ukraine. As per the NATO summit draft communique, NATO will be in position to extend invitation to Ukraine to join alliance when allies agree and conditions are met. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg underlined that Ukraine will not join the alliances ranks immediately. To invite a new ally, we need consensus. All allies agree that Ukraine will become a member but its too early to say when that will happen, he told reporters earlier. NATO leaders are set to issue the alliances strongest-ever language calling out Chinas military support for Russia, people familiar with the matter said, amid signs that Beijing is developing an attack drone for the conflict with Ukraine. NATO will describe China as a decisive enabler of Russias war against Ukraine, according to the latest draft of a communique set to be released at the end of a three-day alliance summit and seen by Bloomberg News. The draft details Chinas supply of dual-use materials such as weapons components, equipment and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russias defense sector. The US briefed NATO allies on Chinas support in the run-up to the summit as part of efforts to cement shared concern over the burgeoning defense partnership, the people said. The draft document says that China poses systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security, including through cyber activities and disinformation as well as its development of counter-space capabilities. The wording of the draft could change before the final version is released Thursday. Chinas embassy in Washington didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson said it would be very unwise for China to deliver weapons to Russia. Allies have noted that China and Russia are collaborating deeply in the defense field, including with more joint military exercises and Beijing providing a lot of dual use equipment, Jonson said in an interview. Theyve been increasing that support and thats a great concern. US officials have said China is holding off directly providing weapons and artillery, something that would signal an unprecedented escalation and almost certainly trigger more forceful action such as sanctions against the worlds second-biggest economy. Still, European capitals were alarmed by reports this month that Chinese and Russian companies are developing an attack drone similar to an Iranian model deployed in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported earlier. The push from NATO shows a growing consensus between the US and its partners that Beijing represents a threat not just in Asia, but also to European security through its support for Russia. In recent years, European capitals from Berlin to London, Prague and Vilnius have hardened their stance on China. Bloomberg also reported in April that Beijing was providing Russia with satellite imagery for military purposes, microelectronics and machine tools for tanks, as well as a swath of technologies used in weapons or needed to produce them. Back in May, former UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps provoked a tiff with Washington when he suggested that China was working to provide Russia with lethal aid. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that to date, the US hadnt seen China providing weapons directly to Russia. With assistance from Milda Seputyte and Andrea Palasciano. During his visit to Austria, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to meet with the President of the Republic of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and discuss with Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Wednesday. The agenda includes addressing business leaders from both India and Austria, highlighting opportunities for economic collaboration. Modi and Nehammer will also focus on enhancing bilateral relations and exploring avenues for closer cooperation on various geopolitical challenges. This visit underscores India's commitment to strengthening ties with Austria and fostering mutual growth and development. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer welcomed PM Modi, calling India a friend and partner. He also said he looked forward to discussing politics and economics during the visit. Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi ! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!, Karl Nehammer wrote in a post on X while sharing a selfie with PM Modi. In response to Nehammer's warm welcome, PM Modi thanked him and stated India and Austria will continue to work together. In a post on X, PM Modi said while sharing some really good pictures of him and Nehammer, Thank you, Chancellor @karlnehammer, for the warm welcome. I look forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good. Notably, this is the first time an Indian Prime Minister has visited Austria in 41 years. Indira Gandhi was the last PM to visit the country in 1983. Ahead of his visit to Austria, Modi on Sunday said the shared values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law form the bedrock upon which the two countries will build an ever-closer partnership. Jawaharlal Nehru travelled to Austria in 1955 in the first prime ministerial visit since diplomatic ties were established in 1949. "India and Austria have had a regular exchange of visits including at the level of leaders, ministers and parliamentarians highlighting the importance that both countries accord to further strengthening their relations," according to a profile of India-Austria bilateral relations put up on the website of the Ministry of External Affairs. Austria is known for its rich cultural and architectural heritage with Vienna renowned for its legacy of orchestral music and legendary composers. "The visit of India's philosopher-poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore twice to Vienna -- in 1921 and 1926 -- was one of the crucial bridges of cultural and intellectual exchange between India and Austria," the MEA website said. Kyiv wants to convene a second meeting to achieve a fair peace settlement in Ukraine before the US elections in November, this time with Russia attending, according to people familiar with the matter. The plan follows the first summit that took place in Switzerland last month and included representatives from more than 90 countries. Russia was not invited, several states sent lower-level delegations and Kyivs bid to win over key nations from the Global South faltered as some declined to sign on to a final statement. Many of those countries as well as China which didnt join the Swiss meeting have long argued that Moscow should be part of the talks. Beijing has put forward its own proposals with Brazil to bring about an end to Russias war on Ukraine. The push to organize the meeting before the US elections points to a sense of urgency on the part of Ukraine as it faces the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has boasted that hell end the war by the time hes inaugurated in January and has argued against the USs continued military support for Kyiv. Ukraine has been keen to use the summit process as a pathway to reaching a broad agreement on a set of key principles that would form the basis of a just peace before engaging with Russia. The Swiss summit focused on nuclear safety, food security and returning abducted children, and it is around those issues that initial contact with Russian officials could be established. A Ukrainian official confirmed the plan to hold a second summit before the US elections. Several officials from some western allied nations said any meeting would need to be carefully organized with a clear purpose and expectations managed. Some US officials, however, are unconvinced a summit with Russia and Ukraine would happen. They declined to be named because the talks are private. Speaking at the Reagan Institute in Washington on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the US to help organized the second summit to make it more powerful and truly decisive. Amid concerns over Joe Biden's health condition and disaster during the first presidential debate against Republican nominee Donald Trump, actor George Clooney has asked him to leave the campaign for a second term in the White House. Clooney, a life long democrat and a high-profile Joe Biden supporter, who co-hosted a fundraiser last month, is among the firsts to ask the President to opt out from the race. The development comes amid Biden's refusal to end his re-election bid after his weak debate performance. Also Read | Divided Democrats Blast Trump Agenda in Bid to Shift Biden Focus This isnt only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private, AP reported quoting Clooney. Clooney argued the party should pick a new nominee at its convention next month, saying the process would be messy but wake up voters in the partys favor. "Top Democrats -- Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi -- and senators, representatives and other candidates who face losing in November need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside," Clooney wrote in The New York Times, reported AFP. In his opinion piece, Clooney wrote: "Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate," Clooney wrote. Democrats in Congress remain deeply divided over whether to fall in line behind Biden or to urge him to step aside because of persistent questions about his health and acuity. Biden has said he is fit to serve but understands the questions. On 25 October 2023, Robert Card, a US Army reservist walked into a restaurant and bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, and shot dead 18 people. After the incident, he too was found dead with self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Everyone in that small town and many around the world were keen to find out why Robert committed this heinous crime. His family too was keen on an answer to this question. Cards brain was sent to Boston University for further examination. The analysis found that repetitive sound-waves of the blasts he was exposed to during his military stint had caused much damage to the inner wirings of his brain. According to Dr. Ann McKee of Boston Universitys Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Centre, While I cannot say with certainty that these pathological findings underlie Mr. Cards behavioural changes in the last 10 months of life, based on our previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms." This diagnosis of Robert Cards brain raises many questions. Where exactly does the accountability for his mass shooting lie? Is Card, the person, to be held guilty of it, or his damaged brain? Almost always, society at large, law enforcement agencies and even the prevalent legal systems assume it is the former. So, had Card been alive, sending him to prison or even the gallows would have been the usual response of the justice system. But if a damaged part of his brain was actually responsible for that ghastly act, would it not have been better to have Card admitted to the neurological ward of a hospital? Unfortunately, Cards case was not very rare. There are many individuals with damaged brains living around us. The recently published book, Determined: Life Without Free Will by Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, is significant in this context. A belief in free will, the ability of humans to decide what is right or wrong before taking action, is integral to any discussion on human behaviour. According to the book, human decisions are not the outcome of free will. Our actions spring from prior causes: our environment, upbringing, genes and primeval causes that go back to the Big Bang. Sapolsky clarifies that the absence of free will does not mean the absence of an ability to veto our actions; nor does it make an individual to run amok. The book focuses on the origins of our intentions. The books key proposition is built on the work of several others. Prominent among them is Benjamin Libet, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco. He did an experiment in 1983 whose provocative findings many find hard to accept even today. This experiment involved a respondent having to press a button with his or her fingers. The respondent was to decide which finger to use for the pressing action at predetermined times. Meanwhile EEG data was collected of the respondent as his or her fingers were moving. It was found that from the time a person decides to use a finger to press the button, it takes 200milliseconds for that action to happen. This is the time it took for the respondents brain to activate his motor cortex and then muscles to undertake the task. But there was another highly intriguing observation made. About 500 milliseconds before the respondent had decided to push the button, a readiness potential was captured by the EEG that the finger had committed itself to that action. It was always believed that a human action begins when an individual consciously wills an action. But Libets experiment proves that much before an individual thinks consciously of taking an action, another part of the brain has already willed that action. Studies by neuroscientist Patrick Haggard of University College, London, and another by John-Dylan Haynes and colleagues at Humboldt University, Germany, who used more sophisticated fMRI machines instead of EEG machines, replicated Libets study with the same results. So these experiments clearly cast a serious shadow of doubt on the existence of a conscious free will. A 1989 paper, The Nervous System in the Context of Information Theory by Manfred Zimmermann of Heidelberg University concluded that of the 11 million bits of the human brains processing capacity, only 77 bits are available for use at a conscious level. This fact that more than 99.99% of human brain processes occur at a non-conscious level has further reduced the importance that scientists accord the conscious self in human decision-making. Occasionally comes a theory that causes a paradigm shift in human thinking. Think of the helio-centric theory of Nicholas Copernicus, the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin and the theory of relativity by Albert Einstein. These have all forced significant shifts in human thinking. In the past few decades, much new knowledge has emerged about neuro-biological facets of human behaviour. This knowledge is converging on a new theory of human behaviour that replaces existing theories based on human decisions arising from our conscious free will. The emerging theory of human behaviour is founded on the vast non-conscious processes of the brain. This new theory will force us to rethink all that we thought we knew about human behaviour. Since it concerns all that we humans do, it will possibly have implications that reach farther than the paradigm-shifting theories of Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein combined. Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) reforms are expected to be announced in the finance ministers forthcoming Budget speech. As the IBC is a complex business law on the solvency of corporate enterprises, it deserves priority attention. When the IBC was adopted by India in 2016, Parliament had intended that the time period for insolvency resolution be mandatorily limited to 330 days, inclusive of one extension and the time taken in legal proceedings. This time limit is observed more in the breach than in performance. We must recognize that a delay depreciates the value of the enterprise in question, often causing a drastic drop in value. There is no evaluation mechanism to determine the balance of public interest versus private interest when resolution proceedings are stalled (by injunctions, for example). But its clear that the loss of a lenders security value affects the tax-paying public adversely, as public money is lost, and so such losses need to be clipped. First, new amendments to the IBC must stipulate provisions akin to Section 41(ha) of the Specific Relief Act, 1963 (as amended), to prevent any injunction from being granted in favour of failed resolution applicants, as they have no financial stake in the corporate debtor. Injunctions impede or delay the completion of corporate restructuring in time. Delays are seen to be caused by obstructive promoters, third-party litigators or competitors getting injunctions with an oblique motive to cripple their competition, and this must stop. Second, the priority accorded to the secured financial creditors of an insolvent business has a great bearing on the cost of credit in India. Secured lenders adjust financing costs based on the priority that their claims are expected to get and the certainty of being able to recover dues in priority of their charge, whether the company is liquidated or not. Any dilution or disruption of the priority order in insolvency proceedings goes against globally accepted principles and market practices. As India seeks external money for distressed asset acquisition financing and international interim financing, the country must abide by global norms. Otherwise, international and national lenders would avoid participating in the Indian market for distressed assets. Third, three judgements of the Supreme Court in the cases of Rainbow Papers Ltd, Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitaran Nigam Ltd and Vidharbha Industries Power Ltd have significantly impacted or slowed down the process of admission of insolvency applications, which is the first step for the protection of companies faced with insolvency. The Rainbow Papers case has created a significant hurdle for the resolution of insolvency of distressed corporates. It places the recovery of sovereign debt in the first-priority category along with dues to secured financial creditors. The government back in 2016 had decided to relegate itself to fifth priority, as if their dues were equated with Operational Creditors under Section 53(1)(e) of the IBC. Urgent amendments are needed to nullify the impact of these judgements and restore the earlier status quo. Fourth, the siphoning of bank funds or corporate money by promoters is a well-identified perversity. Some crooked promoters create group enterprises and create multiple entities in India and abroad to facilitate the movement of funds and diversion of money fraudulently. In cases involving group enterprises, the IBC should incorporate provisions for procedural coordination among such entities (and their substantial consolidation) and clear rules to deal with perverse and criminal behaviour involving the misappropriation of creditor and/or public-sector funds. These must apply in India and extra-territorially as well. Protocols may need to be put in place for reciprocity between countries on common procedures, so that assistance can be sought in dealing with fraudulent diversions of funds, the country can better enforce recoveries and also resort to other remedies. Monies and assets thus recovered would add to the pool available for distribution to creditors that need to minimize their losses. Fifth, cross-border insolvency, as expected to be incorporated in Indias IBC, may not yet be in line with recommendations of the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), which prepared and adopted a model law on enterprise group insolvency in 2019. States need to be equipped with modern legislation addressing both domestic and cross-border insolvency relating to multiple debtors and creditors of the same group. We need to take a leaf out Singapores Insolvency Restructuring and Dissolution Act of 2018 to legislatively provide for a moratorium over a company that can be extended to its holding company, ultimate holding company and subsidiaries to enable group-wide restructuring and asset tracing. Minimally, such protocols need to be established between India and its trading partners by means of appropriate reciprocal arrangements. Sixth, ad hoc solutions or mechanisms crafted by particular judgements have been applied in India for group insolvency and cross-border cases, as seen in the cases of Jet Airways and Videocon. This exposes a bare cupboard for dealing with group insolvency involving multinational creditors and debtors, which need to participate in the process under the assurance of legislative certainty, rather than on the basis of fallible judicial discretion and judge-made procedures. Lastly, the IBC and its regulations and their adjudication by the National Company Law Tribunal and its appellate body reveal a conflict between the principles of value maximization and time-bound resolution. Breaching statutory regulations by sidestepping these as merely directory and not mandatory casts corporate insolvency cases into disrepute. Not only is it against the Rule of Law that India abides by, it causes international participants to contend that the insolvency law and its procedures have little certainty and sanctity in India. Evaluating their risks as unacceptably high, such participants then avoid participation in the Indian market. This does not serve the countrys economic interests well. These are few salient examples of shortcomings that need to be addressed as India moves to amend the IBC to boost its efficacy as a law for tackling cases of corporate insolvency. WASHINGTONFacing an uncertain outcome in U.S. elections in November and no clear pathway to NATO membership for his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed Tuesday in a speech at the beginning of the alliance summit to a traditional vision of U.S. leadership. He acknowledged that Ukraines future might be up for grabs in the coming U.S. presidential election in November. He steered clear of criticizing presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump but did sound a note against U.S. isolationism, saying that if Ukraine is defeated, Western values will be defeated with it. I want to be candid and frank: Now everyone is waiting for November, he said. And truly speaking, Putin awaits November too." Zelenskys speech was his third major appearance in the U.S. since the Russian invasion in 2022. Shortly after the invasion, he addressed Congress in a speech that was interrupted by standing ovations. But during a subsequent visit, he faced more of an uphill fight, as skepticism over aid to Ukraine had grown among some Republicans. His appearance Tuesday was hosted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, part of the traditional Republican establishment that has supported aid to Ukraine. The foundations director, Roger Zakheim, said he invited Zelensky as part of the foundations agenda promoting Reagans belief in a foreign policy based on peace through strength. He noted that Zelenskys speech comes 40 years after Reagan, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Normandy landings, gave a resounding denunciation of isolationism, which he said never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent." Retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served on President Trumps National Security Council and continues to advise the former president, said Zelenskys venue choice was symbolically important because the institution is the namesake of Ronald Reagan, the true practitioner of freedom." In his speech, Zelensky said he supported Reagans legacy. He spoke further of Russian abuses, targeting of civilian buildings in Ukraine, and a missile campaign that has taken down swaths of the countrys electricity grid, a violation of the rules-based order that he said would become widespread in Europe if Putin is allowed to win in Ukraine. He said Russias missile attack on Ukraine on Monday, the largest in months, was likely timed as a signal" from Putin to the NATO summit. The attack hit a childrens hospital in Kyiv and killed at least 33 and wounded more than 100, according to Ukrainian officials. Asked what he believed Putin thought of Biden and Trump, Zelensky replied that while Americans might see large differences, Putin doesnt. Biden and Trump are very different, but they are supportive of democracy, and thats why I think Putin will hate both of them," he said. He renewed what has been a familiar balancing act with Western backers, expressing gratitude for a raft of military assistance from alliance members while cajoling them for more. His visit to the NATO conference comes amid mounting problems at home. A year ago he was still talking of retaking all the Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine. But Ukraines counteroffensive last year made precious little progress, and this year Moscow has taken back the initiative. Zelensky said a surge of Western weaponry had stopped a Russian offensive near the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv earlier this year, and the arrival of five new Patriot air defense batteries were helping Ukraine take down more Russian missile strikes. They will help," he said, thanking the U.S. for the additional Patriot systems. Of course, its not enough. Its never enough." Zelensky has often expressed annoyance at the reluctance of NATO members to set a timetable for Ukraines entrance into the alliance. Sometimes he has failed to control his pique, complaining about the sluggishness of U.S. aid to Ukraine and the limitations it has placed on striking targets in Russia. Before the NATO summit in Vilnius last year, he called NATOs failure to set out a clear timeline for Ukraines admittance to the alliance absurd." At the summit in Washington this week, the alliance isnt expected to offer any timetable for entering NATO, and members are still wrestling over wording of a communique at the end of the summit that will further declare Ukraines place in NATO without actually letting it in. Earlier this week State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the summit would bring additional specificity about Ukraines bridge to NATO." Another Western diplomat said Ukraines path to NATO would be called irreversible." But the summit is likely to bring new promises of aid to Kyiv that Zelensky might take home as compensation. President Biden on Tuesday promised new air defense systems to Kyiv, and NATO is also expected to announce this week plans to station a senior civilian official in Kyiv and mechanisms to shore up long-term support for Ukraine. Seth Jones, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Zelenskys presence in Washington might be to woo Europeans as much as Americans, whose commitment to Ukraine hangs in the balance in Novembers elections, regardless of what is decided at the NATO summit. To hang on, and even to keep what they have right now, let alone to try to retake territory, theyre going to need munitions, munitions, and munitions for the foreseeable future," he said. It is unclear that the Trump administration is going to be willing to do that. And so I think Zelensky is in a very important period right now, where he has got to convince NATO, particularly European countries, that theres a lot at stake in Ukraine." Because of worries about the coming presidential campaign, the NATO summit in Washington has a split screen" flavor to it, said Eric Green, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former director for Russia and Central Asia on Bidens security council. But he said Zelensky should be impressed by the breadth of the aid to Ukraine from NATO allies. Despite the hiccup at last years NATO summit in Vilnius over Zelenskys remarks, the summit was followed by bilateral security agreements between Ukraine and NATO members, including with the U.S. and earlier this week with Poland, he said. The idea is to build scaffolding for long-term credible defense and deterrence capability for Ukraine," Green said. This isnt NATO membership, but it does start to change facts on the ground to show Moscow that conquering Ukraine isnt in the cards." Write to Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com A scuffle broke out between TMC party workers and BJP candidate Manas Kumar Ghosh at a polling booth in Raiganj during the Assembly bypolls being held on July 18. Krishna Kalyani is the TMC candidate from the Raiganj assembly seat in the by-election. There were reports of clashes etween two groups in Uttarakhand's Manglaur too. SP Rural Swapan Kishore Singh, however, said the situation is normal and the voting is taking place peacefully. Voting for bypolls took place at 13 assembly constituencies across seven states. This is the first electoral exercise since the Lok Sabha elections and will determine the fate of many veteran politicians as well as newcomers, including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife, Kamlesh Thakur. Bihars Rupauli seat had recorded 42.19 percent turnout till 3 pm. Himachal Pradeshs Hamirpur saw 56.96 percent and Nalagarh recorded 63.7 percent turnout. Dehra in Himachal Pradesh saw 55.3 percent turnout till 11 am. In Madhya Pradeshs Amarwara, the turnout was 66.5 percent and in Punjabs Jalandhar West, the turnout was 42.6 percent. In Tamil Nadu, Vikravandi recorded 64.44 percent turnout till 3 pm. Uttarakhands Badrinath had 40.5 percent voter turnout, while Manglaur recorded 56.21 percent turnout till 3pm. The bypolls are being held after vacancies created by the deaths or resignations of incumbent members. Many MLA's have become Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha now. Voter turnout at 3 pm Uttarakhand's Badrinath recorded the lowest turnout at 40.5 percent. The highest was recorded in Madhya Pradesh's Amarwara. West Bengal Nearly 25% voter turnout registered till 11am: EC In West Bengal, Bagda saw 22.63 percent, Raiganj saw 25.98 percent, Maniktala saw 21.89 percent and Ranaghat Dakshin saw 26.32 per cent turnout till 11 am, according to Election Commission of India. Voting started at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm. Three of the constituencies - Maniktala in Kolkata, Ranaghat Dakshin, and Bagdah in North 24 Parganas - are located in the southern part of the state. The fourth constituency, Raiganj, is situated in north Bengal's Uttar Dinajpur district. There are around 10 lakh voters across the four assembly segments. The Election Commission has deployed around 70 companies of security forces to secure 1,097 polling booths spread across the four assembly seats. Counting will take place on July 13. Raiganj BJP candidate accuses TMC of disturbing poll process Manas Kumar Ghosh, the BJP candidate from the Raiganj assembly seat, alleged that the ruling TMC had tried to create disturbances in some booths in the constituency during the voting for the by-polls, which started at 7 am and concludes at 6 pm on Wednesday. "Voting is going on smoothly. We want voting to take place peacefully and everyone should be able to cast their vote. TMC tried to create disturbances at 2-4 booths but we opposed them and voting is going on peacefully," Ghosh told ANI. The by-election in the Raiganj assembly constituency is necessitated because of the resignation of Krishna Kalyani as MLA, who won the 2021 election but later left the BJP and switched to the TMC. Krishna Kalyani is the TMC candidate from the Raiganj assembly seat in the by-election. Himachal Pradesh Bypolls for three assembly seats in Himachal Pradesh were underway on Wednesday to determine the fate of 13 candidates, including Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife. A large number of people made a beeline to the polling centres as voting started at 7 am at 315 polling stations in the three assembly segments of Dehra, Hamirpur and Nalagarh. A total of 2,59,340 people are eligible to cast their vote. The seats fell vacant after the three independent legislators Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra), Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur) and K L Thakur (Nalagarh), who had voted in favour of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls held on February 27, resigned from the House on March 22. They joined the BJP the next day but their resignations were accepted by the Speaker on June 3. Their seats were declared vacant, necessitating the bypolls. The BJP has fielded all the three independent MLA from their respective seats. The Congress has fielded Kamlesh Thakur, wife of the chief minister from Dehra, repeated its candidate Pushpinder Verma from Hamirpur and gave ticket to five-time Indian National Trade Union Congress president of the Himachal unit, Hardeep Singh Baba, from Nalagarh. The results will be declared on July 13. Uttarakhand Voting for bypolls to Manglaur and Badrinath assembly constituencies is underway in Uttarakhand. Polling began at 8 am on Wednesday and will go on till 6 pm, election officials here said. The Manglaur bypoll was necessitated by the death of sitting BSP MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari in October last year. The Badrinath seat fell vacant after sitting Congress MLA Rajendra Bhandari resigned and switched to the BJP in March this year. The BSP has fielded Ansari's son Ubedur Rehman against Congress nominee Qazi Nizamuddin in Manglaur. Gujjar leader and BJP nominee Kartar Singh Bhadana is also in the fray from the Muslim and Dalit-dominated constituency which has been held either by the BSP or the Congress in the past. In Badrinath, there is a direct contest between BJP's Rajendra Bhandari and Congress newcomer Lakhpat Singh Butola. The other two candidates in the fray in Badrinath are former CRPF officer Himmat Singh of the Sainik Samaj Party and Naval Khali, a journalist who is contesting as an Independent candidate. Votes for the bypolls will be counted on July 13. Punjab In Punjab, the bypoll to the Jalandhar West assembly segment is being seen as a litmus test for Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who has pulled out all the stops to register a win after the party's drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls. The seat, which fell vacant after Sheetal Angural resigned as AAP legislator, is witnessing a multi-cornered fight. Fifteen candidates are in the fray for the by-election while there are a total of 1.72 lakh voters who are eligible to cast their votes. The ruling AAP has fielded Mohinder Bhagat, the son of former minister and former BJP MLA Bhagat Chunni Lal. Bhagat had joined the AAP after quitting the BJP last year. The Congress has placed its bet on Surinder Kaur, who is the former senior deputy mayor and five-time municipal councillor in Jalandhar. She is a prominent Dalit leader of the Ravidassia community. The BJP has fielded Angural, who switched sides in March after quitting the AAP. He had won this seat in the 2022 Punjab assembly polls on an AAP ticket. Winning the bypoll is important for Mann as his party faced a drubbing in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, winning only three of the 13 seats. Mann led the AAP's campaign for the bypoll and canvassed for Bhagat by holding public meetings and roadshows. He rented a house in Jalandhar and moved there along with his family and had said he would keep the house even after the bypoll. Prestige is also at stake for the BJP which also wants to emerge victorious in the Jalandhar West seat after drawing a blank in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. WASHINGTON : Democrats on Capitol Hill have thus far largely fallen in line behind President Biden or stopped short of calling for him to withdraw from the race, as he continues to try to assure Democratic voters and donors that he can effectively campaign against, and ultimately defeat, Donald Trump. His backers point to his legislative record, saying it is deserving of a second term and that they can campaign on achievements such as the infrastructure law and a measure that lowered prescription drug prices. Others say it would be unfair to call for him to be removed from the ticket after he won the Democratic primaries, albeit without a serious challenger. And more say the consternation stands to plunge the party further into chaos, taking the attention off Trump. Progressives and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are among the loudest voices defending Biden as the partys nominee. They have provided Biden some cover as he tries to firm up his campaign following the late June debate that exacerbated concerns about Bidens age and fitness for office and brought his candidacy to the brink. Im riding with Biden," said Rep. Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.), one of Bidens biggest allies and a Black Caucus member. Just check his record." While anxiety remains high, of the 213 House Democrats, seven have publicly called for Biden to be replaced as the nominee. Many more, including those in competitive districts, have expressed concern and said he needs to prove himself to voters and lawmakers. None of the 51 Democratic senators have called for Biden to remove himself, though much of the support for Biden in the chamber he used to serve in is tepid. Hes been the best president of my lifetime, so we have his back," said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), a progressive critic of Bidens handling of the Israel-Hamas war and the resulting humanitarian crisis in Gaza. A desire to focus on Trump Democrats major defense is: Look at the other guy. Instead of answering questions about why Biden should remain their nominee, some Democrats on Tuesday tried to shift attention to Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee. Facing repeated questions about Biden, Rep. Ted Lieu (D., Calif.), the vice-chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said: Donald Trump should drop out of the race." Ahead of Trumps Tuesday evening rally in Florida, first lady Jill Biden bashed Trumps record on abortion and his three Supreme Court appointees who voted to overturn a constitutional right to access the procedure. Donald Trump is trying to tell women hes a moderate on reproductive rights. Does he think we forgot that his Supreme Court justices killed Roe v. Wade and that he brags about it?" the first lady asked. If Biden withdraws from the race, Vice President Kamala Harris is his likeliest replacement as the Democratic presidential nominee. But other prominent Democrats might jockey for the nomination or be recruited by donors to pursue it, even if Biden steps aside and endorses Harris. Some Democrats argue that such turmoil would stand to damage the eventual nomineeand House and Senate candidates. Fairness to Biden and voters Some lawmakers backing Biden point to his victory in the Democratic presidential primary this year. Biden faced little serious Democratic competition, but some lawmakers have said pressuring him out of the race wouldnt be fair to voters. The voters have already chosen their nominee," said Rep. Lou Correa (D., Calif.). It also may not be fair to the president, some say, arguing Biden has been a loyal Democrat in public service for decades. Ive known Joe Biden 30 years. He is the most accomplished and consequential president in my lifetime," said Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.), another longtime Biden ally and national co-chair of his campaign. I think it would be a huge mistake for the Democratic Party, because of one evening and one debate, to turn aside from supporting him." Some say it isnt fair to judge Biden primarily on his age and how he presents without taking into account his record. Ageism is something we dont cater to, I would say, as CBC members," Rep. Hank Johnson (D., Ga.) said. We respect our elders." Johnson, a Black lawmaker representing Atlantas inner eastern suburbs, said a small number of constituents told him they would prefer Biden step aside. The difficulties of doing so would be like changing horses literally three-quarters of the way to the other side of the stream." Run on Bidens record Some lawmakers who have served in Congress with Biden, a former senator from Delaware, point to a series of accomplishments that they are campaigning on, such as: lowering the cost of insulin to $35, expanding student loan forgiveness programs using executive action and passing the first substantial gun legislation in decades. If you look at the last 3 yearsyou have someone that has made LGBTQ rights and womens rights a key cornerstone of his campaign," said Rep. Robert Garcia (D., Calif.). A counterpoint: Democrats internal polling data shows that their vulnerable incumbents facing tough races are polling ahead of Biden. Some of those lawmakers are concerned that a lack of enthusiasm for Biden will be a drag on the ticket and cause them to lose seats. Is he a great campaigner? Im not sure. I think thats what makes a lot of folks nervous," said Rep. Julia Brownley (D., Calif.). But in terms of his ability to govern, I dont doubt that for one second." More critics may come Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.), who said in a private call of Democratic leaders on Sunday that he would like Biden to be replaced, said Tuesday that his concerns remain but that those are beside the point" now. Still, Democratic lawmakers who are sticking with Biden acknowledge they are somewhat stuck on a hamster wheel, potentially facing more moments of Biden stumbles throughout the campaign. Biden has acknowledged he had a bad debate performance, and subsequent interviews and conversations havent put an end to worries that he will falter again. Two people familiar with internal House Democratic discussions said they expected the number of people calling for Biden to step down to soon increase. Democrats who have called for Biden to be replaced are increasingly worried that Biden isnt up to the task of campaigning and risks a Trump victory. Bidens poll numbers against Trump have slipped since the debate. I have heard from people in my district who are united in their concern for our country and our future," said Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D., N.J.), who has called for Biden to withdraw. They want a leader who can continue to build on our successes but is also able to turn the nations attention to the urgent threat that Trump presents to our democracy, to our freedoms, and to our country." Write to Natalie Andrews at natalie.andrews@wsj.com, Katy Stech Ferek at katy.stech@wsj.com and Owen Tucker-Smith at Owen.Tucker-Smith@wsj.com New Delhi: Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda chaired a high-level meeting on Wednesday to review the dengue outbreak and public health preparedness. Nadda urged states with high dengue cases to take proactive measures to control the disease. Bengaluru, one of the worst affected city's in India, has reported 2,118 cases and 1 death since January. Also Read: Increase expenditure on healthcare services to 2.5% of GDP, say industry members Following a briefing on the nationwide dengue situation and preparedness, Nadda also directed officials to enhance prevention, containment and management efforts against dengue. Dengue cases India has reported over 19,447 dengue cases and 16 deaths so far in 2024, according to the National Centre for Vector Borne Disease Control (NCVBDC). According to the health ministry, dengue case fatality rate has decreased from 3.3% in 1996 to 0.1% in 2024. Also Read: Free health insurance for senior citizens makes it to the Budget priorities list The dengue virus has four strains: DENV-1 causing classic dengue fever, DENV-2 leads to hemorrhagic fever with shock, DENV-3 results in fever without shock, and for DENV-4 patients experience fever with or without shock. Inter-ministerial collaboration Nadda emphasised the need for inter-ministerial collaboration, involving the ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA), ministry of rural development (MoRD), education ministry, municipal corporations, and local governments, to clarify their roles in dengue prevention and control. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is collaborating with domestic pharmaceutical companies to develop a dengue vaccine. Tianshui, a city tucked away in Chinas north-western hills, does not normally make headline news. But a fiery soup that owes its unique flavour to locally grown Gangu chillies has lit up the internet. Since March, the hashtag #TianshuiMalatang, referring to a popular type of street food, has racked up more than 140m views on Weibo, a social-media platform. Millions have flocked to the city to try it themselves. A local chef was caught on tape looking so miserable at work that local authorities had to give him a talking-to so that he remembered to smile. Increasingly the Chinese palate is craving spice. Last year Meituan, Chinas biggest food-delivery app, reported that nearly 80% of restaurants now offer spicy fare, a taste known as la in Chinese. Look back a few hundred years, though, and chillies were nowhere to be found. Unlike ginger and Sichuan peppers, which are native to the region and widely used, chilli peppers were brought to China from the Americas by Portuguese and Dutch explorers only in the 16th century. At first, nobody ate them. For at least 50 years, they were grown as decorative plants, prized for their cheerfully bright colour and tiny white flowers, and occasionally used as medicinal herbs. During Chinas last imperial period, a stringent system that taxed salt forced peasants in Guizhou province to look for an alternative to the condiment. They chose chillies, which produce several crops a year and take up little land. From there, a new flavour was unlocked. The pepper steadily spread to other rural regions of China, but its pungent, overpowering flavour barred it from getting near the tables of imperial or upper-class families. For a long time, la was used to describe vicious-natured people, and the few urbanites who enjoyed chillies did not trumpet their taste. But the Communist revolution revolutionised the kitchen. The chefs of nobles were out of favour, and their traditions discontinued. The new leader, Mao Zedong, was the son of a peasant and a fan of chillies. Mao made Russian envoys eat sweat-inducing dishes and laughed when they could not handle the heat. You cant be a revolutionary if you dont eat chillies," he said. What was once a poor mans food became a symbol of Chinas working class. Industrialisation after Mao created the largest migration in human history. Hundreds of millions of migrants poured into big cities, bringing with them the spicy flavours of home. Chillies are now incorporated into street food, fine dining and snacks in regions with little tradition of heat. Cao Yu, a food writer and author of The History of Eating La", argues that part of the chillis charm also comes from its social function. If weve had spicy food together, weve endured pain together," he says. Its just like drinking, it brings us closer to one another." 2024, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com SEOULApple says it will soon introduce generative artificial intelligence to its new iPhones. Samsung Electronics, Apples chief smartphone rival, offers clues on how the experience might go. Since January, Samsung has rolled out many of the same AI features that Apple has promised, from real-time translation to photo editing to text summarization. The generative AI capabilities, which is the most-promising leap for smartphones in years, are now available to roughly 100 million users of Samsungs recent flagship devices, the firm says. The initial takeaway: The new AI services have won greater adoption than expected, but the features alone arent swaying people to upgrade their years-old devices. At least not yet. Dylan Huynh of Calgary, Alberta, is one of the early adopters, having tried many of the generative AI features on his Galaxy S24 Ultra, which hit shelves early this year. He has taken most to the Circle to Search" feature, where he can instantly summon a Google search for anything he sees on his phone by highlighting it. In the past, Huynh would have needed to toggle among different apps, he said. You dont need to stop what youre doing," said the laboratory research assistant. Im definitely using it multiple times a day." With Apple soon coming on board, the smartphones generative AI era is primed to go mainstream among affluent buyers who deliver the bulk of the industrys profits. Just under one-fifth of smartphones shipped worldwide this year will be packed with generative AI features, according to market research company International Data Corp. By 2028, such devices will represent an estimated 70% of global shipments, IDC said. Samsung added to its AI-phone lineup on Wednesday when it unveiled its new Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 foldable-display devices, and some of the generative AI features offered will be new and optimized for the phones. Samsung also introduced next-generation wearables, including a new Galaxy Ring that uses AI to monitor a users sleep patterns and energy levels. The phones hit shelves in the U.S. and other markets on July 24. The new Galaxy Fold 6 costs about $1,900 and the Galaxy Flip 6 at around $1,100an increase of roughly $100 from last years models. Not AI gimmicks It remains unclear whether generative AI can juice hardware sales. Smartphone buyers worldwide have expressed strong interest in AI features, according to a recent survey by market researcher Canalys, though consumers still value more traditional draws like improved cameras or processors when considering an upgrade. While the hype has built around so-called AI PCs, just 3% of PCs shipped this year will meet Microsofts threshold for AI processing power, according to a recent IDC analysis. Kevin Lee of Cincinnati may need to see more. Lee, who isnt fluent in Korean, tried the real-time Interpreter" translation feature of his Galaxy S24 Ultra on a recent trip to South Korea. He said it worked well in quiet settings, like giving directions to a taxi driver. But during a family meeting at a restaurant, the phone produced solid Korean-to-English translationsof the music playing in the background. It was very accurate," said Lee, a transportation engineer, but it wasnt what we wanted." When the generative AI features launched in January, Samsung expected uptake would be modest given their novelty, but those internal expectations have been exceeded, said Patrick Chomet, who heads the firms customer experience office for mobile products. For instance, the Circle to Search feature has a weekly usage rate of roughly 55%, while certain photo-editing features have adoption in the 20% range, he said. I was very surprised," Chomet said. These are not AI gimmicks but real useful things that people are using." Juan Pablo Gutierrez, a business-operations analyst in Leon, Mexico, sends emails or text messages in English from his work computersometimes with the help of ChatGPT. But when he is on the go he likes having similar translation and text-editing features on his Galaxy S24+ device, which can check his English grammar and the messages tone. It helps me sound more professional," he said. David William Knox of Tonsberg, Norway, found Samsungs generative AI photo-editing software handy when he wanted to spruce up hundreds of photos taken with his Galaxy S24 Ultra after a recent trip to the U.S. The software, powered by Google, allowed him to crop out random people or background objects with just a few taps, swipes and presses. AI then regenerated the background naturally. No need to download anything. Its built into the phone," said Knox, who works in food production. Apples entry Though it has an in-house generative AI engine, Samsung works closely with long-running partner Google. The South Korean firms head start over Apple offers some bragging rights and more lead time to develop new features, but may not produce many crossover sales, said Bryan Ma, an IDC vice president. That expectation is largely because the iPhone is seen getting similar features and users are willing to wait. Last month, Apple unveiled plans to introduce new features powered by generative AI including voice transcription, text summarization and photo editing. The iPhone maker also said it would upgrade the capabilities of its Siri voice assistant and join with OpenAIs ChatGPT for more complex tasks requiring stronger computing capabilities. Some of the so-called Apple Intelligence" features, like the ChatGPT add-on for Siri, will be available in the coming months, with the iPhone 15 Pro and Apples coming phones likely to be announced this fall. The remaining features are expected to arrive next year, according to Apple. The announcements drew a jab from the official X account of Samsungs U.S. mobile division. Adding Apple doesnt make it new or groundbreaking. Welcome to AI," the X post read, with an apple emoji at the end. Samsung delivered the first large-scale release of generative AI phones in January. Googles Pixel 8 phone came out late last year with similar features, though it has a fraction of the user base. Several Chinese brands, including Huawei and Vivo, have also fielded rival products for their home countrya cutting-edge advantage that has contributed to a weakening of Apples standing in the worlds largest smartphone market. Phonemakers are at a trial-and-error stage now with users, though the industrys current push in research and development into generative AI is significant, said Nicole Peng, a senior vice president at Canalys. There is a big rush now," she said. Cha Moon-su, a software engineer in Seoul, has experimented since January with the new AI features on his Galaxy S24 Ultra device. He generated a new AI-made wallpaper for his phone by creating an image using the prompts of beach" and radio." It produced an image evoking a Van Gogh painting, a radio plopped on the sand at sunset. He still uses it. But the other features havent become habitual, so his new AI-packed Samsung device doesnt feel too different from his prior ones, he said. Cha had other reasons to have upgraded. I had used up all my previous phones storage," Cha said, and needed something bigger." Write to Jiyoung Sohn at jiyoung.sohn@wsj.com She said officers from the agency are meeting with the producer and employee to walk through the incident, which happened near Anatone. Lehman said the agency wont release further details about it until the investigation is complete. The male wolf was a member of the Couse Pack that roams the canyons and timber ridges connecting the Blue Mountains to the Snake and Grande Ronde rivers. The Couse Pack, while relatively new, has a history of livestock attacks. The agency confirmed a calf in the packs territory was injured by a wolf on June 28 and Lahmen said another calf there was recently killed by a wolf. Last summer, the agency killed two wolves from the pack following repeated attacks on livestock. The pack, once known as Washington Group 139, became an official pack this spring following completion of the agencys annual wolf survey and report. Wolves in the eastern third of Washington are not protected by the federal Endangered Species Act but are by a state version of the law. The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission is scheduled to meet next week to determine if the status of wolves should be downgraded under state law. The department is recommending wolves be reclassified from endangered to sensitive. Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. For nearly a week, Local 3 has tried to get in contact with Shaw, but he has ignored all of our attempts, just as tenants say he ignores their maintenance requests. Tech & Science, Travel & Local Attractions By Long Island Published: July 10 2024 On July 10, 1905, Nikola Tesla moved to Shoreham, Long Island, to build the groundbreaking Tesla Tower for wireless transmission of electricity. On July 10, 1905, Nikola Tesla, a pioneering inventor and electrical engineer, moved to Shoreham, Long Island. This move marked the beginning of an ambitious and groundbreaking project: the construction of the Tesla Tower, also known as Wardenclyffe Tower. Tesla's vision was to create a global wireless system for transmitting electricity and communication. This historic event not only highlights Tesla's genius but also places Long Island at the center of a revolutionary scientific endeavor. Early Life and Achievements of Nikola Tesla Born on July 10, 1856, in Smiljan, Croatia, Nikola Tesla displayed extraordinary intellectual abilities from a young age. He studied electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz and later worked for the Continental Edison Company in Paris before immigrating to the United States in 1884. In America, Tesla worked briefly with Thomas Edison before venturing out on his own. Tesla's numerous inventions and discoveries, including the development of alternating current (AC) electricity, laid the foundation for modern electrical systems. His rivalry with Edison, often referred to as the "War of the Currents," ultimately resulted in the widespread adoption of AC over Edison's direct current (DC) system. The Vision for Wardenclyffe Tower Tesla's move to Shoreham was driven by his grand vision of creating a global wireless transmission system. He acquired 200 acres of land in Shoreham, where he planned to build Wardenclyffe Tower. The tower was designed to be a 187-foot-high structure with a 68-foot-diameter spherical top, intended to transmit electrical energy without wires. Tesla envisioned that this system could provide free and unlimited energy to the world, revolutionizing communication and power distribution. Construction of the Tesla Tower Construction of Wardenclyffe Tower began in 1901 with financial backing from J.P. Morgan, one of the most influential financiers of the time. The project was ambitious, involving not just the tower itself but also a complex system of underground tunnels and a laboratory where Tesla could conduct his experiments. The tower's design was based on Tesla's theories of resonant inductive coupling and the Earth's conductive properties. Tesla believed that by tuning the tower to specific frequencies, he could transmit energy through the Earth's crust and atmosphere to receivers located anywhere in the world. Challenges and Setbacks Despite the promising start, the Wardenclyffe project faced numerous challenges. Financial difficulties were a constant issue, as Tesla's initial funding from J.P. Morgan proved insufficient to complete the project. Additionally, Tesla's vision of providing free energy did not align with Morgan's commercial interests, leading to a withdrawal of support. Technological and engineering challenges also plagued the project. The precise tuning required for Tesla's wireless transmission system was difficult to achieve, and the scientific community was skeptical of Tesla's theories. These setbacks delayed the completion of the tower and ultimately led to the project's abandonment. Tesla's Legacy on Long Island Although Wardenclyffe Tower was never fully operational, its construction and Tesla's work on Long Island left a lasting impact on the field of electrical engineering and wireless communication. The tower became a symbol of Tesla's visionary ideas and his relentless pursuit of innovation. Tesla's time in Shoreham also influenced his later work. Despite the failure of Wardenclyffe, Tesla continued to experiment with wireless energy transmission and other groundbreaking technologies. His ideas laid the groundwork for many modern technologies, including wireless communication, radio, and even early concepts of radar. Preservation and Restoration Efforts In the decades following Tesla's death in 1943, Wardenclyffe Tower fell into disrepair. The site changed hands several times and was eventually used as a photography processing plant. However, Tesla's legacy continued to inspire scientists, historians, and enthusiasts. In recent years, efforts have been made to preserve and restore the Wardenclyffe site. The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, a non-profit organization, was established to preserve the site and promote Tesla's legacy. Through fundraising and public support, the organization has been working to transform the site into a museum and educational center dedicated to Tesla's life and work. Tesla's Enduring Influence Tesla's move to Shoreham and the construction of Wardenclyffe Tower represent a pivotal moment in the history of science and technology. While the tower itself was never completed, Tesla's ideas and innovations continue to influence modern technology and inspire future generations. His vision of wireless energy transmission, though not realized in his lifetime, laid the foundation for the development of wireless communication and power technologies. Today, Tesla's work is recognized and celebrated worldwide, and his contributions to science and engineering remain invaluable. The historic move of Nikola Tesla to Shoreham, Long Island, on July 10, 1905, and the subsequent construction of Wardenclyffe Tower, mark a significant chapter in the history of technological innovation. Tesla's vision for a global wireless transmission system was ahead of its time, and despite the project's challenges and ultimate failure, it remains a testament to his genius and pioneering spirit. As Long Island continues to honor Tesla's legacy through preservation efforts and educational initiatives, the story of Wardenclyffe Tower serves as a reminder of the limitless possibilities of human ingenuity and the enduring impact of one man's extraordinary vision. Community, Charity & Cause By Chris Boyle Published: July 10 2024 The second inaugural event of the Eric Breslau Blessed by E Foundation is taking place this upcoming Thursday, July 11th at the Crunch Fitness locations owned by the Breslau family. The formation of the Eric Breslau Blessed by E Foundation is one family's story of taking the pain associated with the tragic passing of one of their beloved members and turning it into a source for positivity and support for their local community. Massapequa resident Lew Breslau, owner of five Crunch Fitness health club franchises throughout Long Island, is the Founder and Board Member of the Eric Breslau Blessed by E Foundation, an organization created to celebrate the life of his late son and to carry out good deeds in his memory. This all began with my son Eric dying of fentanyl poisoning four-and-a-half years ago, he said. He took a pill that he thought was an oxycontin and it turned out to be 100 percent fentanyl...it killed him in his sleep that night. Lew recalled his son known to friends and family as "E" and "E-man," a Crunch Fitness manager who lost his life at the age of only 25 as a kind young man who was fiercely loyal to his family and friends. He was a loving uncle, a godfather to his first nephew, an avid skateboarder, and a wrestler at Massapequa High School, he said. He was the kindest soul. So many people came out to his funeral...people we didnt know came up to us and said that Eric had knocked on their door and welcomed them to the neighborhood. That's just the kind of person Eric was. After Erics sudden and unexpected passing, the family initially needed to take time to grieve and make sense of the tragedy. However, as time went on, Lew noted that they felt a growing need to create a positive legacy in Eric's name. That began with the formation of a foundation that, at first, concentrated mainly on doing good deeds for random people that Lew and his wife Valerie encountered in their day-to-day lives. It started as a small Instagram group, called Blessed by E. We made up Blessed by E business cards that we would hand out and we would go to different places and just do small things for people, he said. Valerie and I and Erics brothers Justin, Alex, and Sean as well as our extended family would pay for people's meals at restaurants, give little random blessings to people, such as waiters and waitresses, things like that. It was our small way of trying to give back. Were a little stronger a few years later, and were making the foundation bigger to touch more people, Lew continued. We especially want to fund organizations that helped us as grieving parents. The whole family and many of our friends are involved, and we created a not-for-profit to that end. After the success of the first inaugural event of the Eric Breslau Blessed by E Foundation last year, the second is taking place this upcoming Thursday, July 11th at the Crunch Fitness locations owned by the Breslau family, and will take the form of an all-day fundraising event where the proceeds of all sales merchandise, gym memberships, guest passes, and donations will go directly to the foundation's mission. Last year we donated the proceeds to The Compassionate Friends, Grief Relief After Substance Passing (GRASP), and Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPSHope), Lew noted. This year we will also be donating to various local and national foundations dedicated to fentanyl awareness campaigns to save the lives of our youth and young adults being murdered daily by fentanyl poisoning. The Compassionate Friends is a national group whose Rockville Centre chapter was really amazing to us. We went to their meetings and we were loved and supported by other grieving parents. It was a major source of comfort for us and the only thing that kept us alive, he continued. GRASP is another beautiful national organization to help grieving parents, and their local chapter is in Massapequa. And GPS Hope, we've done a great deal with that organization already in the form of donations and such. At the Blessed by E event at the Crunch Fitness locations this year, there will be Spinathons," Zumbathons and strength competitions going on at all five locations at different times (specific times can be found on their website, see links below). Guests can offer donations to participate (call participating locations for details), as well as participate in raffles auctioning off Crunch Fitness memberships and personal training packages, as well as merchandise generously donated by numerous local businesses. The Crunch Fitness locations that will be hosting the Blessed by E fundraising event on July 11th which will be an annual tradition going forward include Amityville, Bellmore, East Meadow, Hauppauge, and West Babylon. Lew's sister-in-law, Susan Goldstein Director of Operations for Crunch Fitness' Long Island locations and Eric's aunt said that she got to hear many loving third-person accounts of the stature of Eric's character from Crunch employees since his passing. The two things I always heard is how contagious Eric's laugh was, and how he always liked to have fun and be silly, she said. He also would do anything for anybody that he thought needed anything. He was always like that for family, but he was also like that for employees and even gym members...he was always the first person to step up and see what someone needed. Expanding the Blessed by E Foundation, Lew said, is a way for his family to do more to support these selfless organizations so that grieving parents and others can find a sense of peace, support, and solace after the passing of a loved one. We're hoping as time goes by we will be able to evolve even more and be able to offer scholarships and even larger donations to more groups, Lew said. We especially want to support other groups that educate parents on the dangers of fentanyl, as there are too many kids out there dying as a one and done case. They make a stupid decision and try a pill and they die. One and done. It's a disaster and a plague in our country. Despite the fact that the loss of his son was a heart-wrenching experience for he and his wife, Lew said that every parent's fear outliving their child had to be made to serve a purpose, one that the Blessed by E Foundation will strive to uphold every single day going forward. You question as a parent sometimes, why am I still alive when my child is not? Well, I'm here for a reason. Even before Eric passed away, my wife Valerie and I were always looking for ways to bless people. So what's better than to bless people in Eric's name? he said. We're always looking for ways to do that, and we started small but we're looking to grow so we can touch more lives. The only thing that could bring us real joy right now is to help others. Local News By Chris Boyle Published: July 10 2024 In anticipation of being a Guardian on the May 4th Honor Flight to D.C., Eric was inspired to write his song, a prayer really, called Welcome Home, My Brother. Long Islands Vietnam War Veterans received a special honor on May 4, 2024, during their visit to Washington, D.C. sponsored by Honor Flight Long Island. A heartfelt musical performance was given by Eric Wieboldt, a long-time Honor Flight volunteer and Guardian. Despite the pouring rain, Eric performed his original song titled Welcome Home, My Brother, which caused many tearful eyes in the dozens of Veterans and onlookers present. In anticipation of being a Guardian on the May 4th Honor Flight to D.C., Eric was inspired to write his song, a prayer really, called Welcome Home, My Brother. This is because our Vietnam Veterans never received a proper welcome home. His song is an attempt to right that wrong. Eric is grateful to Honor Flight Long Island for including him in their continued efforts to support and pay tribute to our Veterans. Many Honor Flight officials, as well as Veterans' families and onlookers, were on hand for his moving performance. Erics song honored the cohort of Vietnam Veterans that Honor Flight brought to D.C. on May 4th, said Bill Jones, President, Honor Flight Long Island, U.S. Army Veteran and West Point Graduate. His song was part of our ongoing efforts to give long overdue recognition and thanks for their service. Honoring our Vietnam Vets means a lot to these guys, even after all these years, Jones said. Eric was born in 1957, grew up in Levittown and now lives in Merrick. During 2014, Eric shared his first Honor Flight mission as a Guardian for his father, the late World War II Veteran Robert Wieboldt of the U.S. Army Air Corps. During the pandemic, Eric sang at many drive-by Centenarian Veterans birthday parties and the Phoenix Rising Award Ceremony honoring local Veterans groups and individuals. In partnership with Honor Flight Long Island, Eric is launching a nation-wide campaign to bring the message of his comforting and emotionally powerful song to millions of Americans. Eric will be honored to perform his copyrighted song by special request to Honor Flight. Interested parties please contact Bill Jones at (631) 276-8825 or ddbeach5@gmail.com. Attached, for your consideration and review, is an audio recording of Eric Wieboldts Welcome Home, My Brother, plus a video of his May 4th performance in D.C. and lyrics. Eric will perform his song for the Vietnam Veterans who visited D.C., at their American Airpower Museum reunion on August 3, 2024. Members of the public arriving for this event from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. may attend free of charge! Our goal is to bring Eric's anthem of healing and honor, to as many Vietnam Veterans as possible. Would you like to assist Eric in reaching greater audiences, here on Long Island and beyond? If so, join with Honor Flight and help us launch our "Welcome Home, My Brother" Campaign! Local News By Chris Boyle Published: July 10 2024 Norman Neill Jr. devoted 60 years to the Farmingville Fire Department before he passed away in May of 2024. New York Blood Center (NYBC) will be hosting a blood drive with the Farmingville Fire Department on Friday, July 12th from 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The blood drive will be held in memory of Norman Neill Jr., a beloved member of the Farmingville community and former Farmingville Fire Commissioner and Chief. Norman was an impactful figure in the Farmingville community, serving 60 years with the Farmingville Fire Department, including leadership roles such as Chief of the Fire Department and as a member on the Board of Fire Commissioners. He was also the Chairman of the Departments blood drives with NYBC for many years. To encourage blood donations, each participating blood donor at this blood drive will be entered into a sweepstakes to win one of three pairs of New York Mets tickets. NYBC announced a blood emergency last month, following a holiday weekend of low donor turnout and the start of the critical summer period for the blood supply. Seasonal travel, school breaks, and a rise in traumatic accidents during the summer months often strain the blood supply and lead to shortages. Blood donors can give every 56 days, and platelet donors can give twice per month. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently lifted several blood donor eligibility restrictions. To view current eligibility guidelines, visit nybc.org or call 800.688.0900. WHEN: Friday, July 12, 2024, from 1:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m. WHERE: Farmingville Fire Department on Friday, 780 Horseblock Road, Farmingville, NY 11738 WHO: Blood Donors, Volunteers, Farmingville Fire Department Representatives and New York Blood Center Representatives WHY: It only takes one hour to donate, and a single donation can save multiple lives. Roughly one in seven hospital admissions require a blood transfusion. Those in need include: cancer patients, accident, burn, or trauma victims, newborn babies and their mothers, transplant recipients, surgery patients, chronically transfused patients suffering from sickle cell disease or thalassemia, and many more. To make an appointment at this blood drive, donors can call 1-800-933-2566 or visit this link. Cant donate blood? You can still support NYBCs mission by texting NYBC to 20222 to give $25. About New York Blood Center Enterprises Founded in 1964, New York Blood Center Enterprises (NYBCe) celebrates 60 Years of Extraordinary Lifesaving Research, Innovation and Impact. NYBCe is one of the largest nonprofit, independent, community blood centers in the world. Along with partner organizations Blood Bank of Delmarva (BBD), Community Blood Center of Kansas City (CBC), Connecticut Blood Center (CTBC), Memorial Blood Centers (MBC), Nebraska Community Blood Bank (NCBB), and Rhode Island Blood Center (RIBC), we collect approximately 4,000 units of blood products each day and serve communities approaching 50 million people in the tri-state area (NY, NJ, CT), mid-Atlantic area (PA, DE, MD), Kansas City metropolitan area, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, and Southern New England. NYBCe delivers lifesaving blood products and services as well as clinical, medical, pharmaceutical, testing, and consultative services to over 600 hospitals and dozens of research organizations, academic institutions, and biomedical companies. Among other milestones, our Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute pioneered the Hepatitis B vaccine and patented a solvent detergent plasma process, innovating blood-purification technology world-wide. For more information, visit nybc.org. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Crime By Chris Boyle Published: July 10 2024 Orlando Ramsay pleaded guilty in May to 23 counts, including Operating as a Major Narcotics Trafficker; charged as part of Operation Honeycomb narcotics ring investigation. Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced that a Uniondale man was sentenced today to 12 years in prison for his role in a major narcotic trafficking ring that operated in the Hempstead area. Orlando Ramsay, 49, pleaded guilty on May 21, 2024, before Judge Teresa Corrigan to Operating as a Major Narcotics Trafficker (an A-I felony); three counts of Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the First Degree (an A-I felony); Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Second Degree (an A-II felony); seven counts of Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree (a B felony); Conspiracy in the Second Degree (a B felony); three counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree (a C violent felony); three counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Third Degree (a D felony); three counts of Criminal Possession of a Firearm (an E felony); and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia (an A misdemeanor). The defendant was sentenced today to 12 years in prison and five years post release supervision. Orlando Ramsay was a major trafficker in a Hempstead narcotics ring that supplied dangerous opioids and other drugs to smaller dealers across Nassau County and promoted violence in and around Hempstead. The defendant was arrested in possession of drugs with a street value of more than $500,000 including a kilogram of heroin, said DA Donnelly. This defendant is one of the last to be sentenced as part of a multi-partner operation that resulted in the indictments of 40 individuals, including several major traffickers from Hempstead. I thank our many law enforcement partners for their work breaking up this dangerous outfit and making our communities safer. DA Donnelly said, on October 17, 2020, the defendant was pulled over with approximately 350 grams of cocaine in his vehicle on his way to deliver the narcotics to a co-defendant. A search warrant executed at the defendants residence on October 18, 2020, recovered: Approximately 1500 grams of cocaine (1 and a half kilograms) Approximately 1 kilogram of heroin 200 grams of Morphine 12 grams of fentanyl Four firearms, including three loaded handguns and a shot gun $185,000 in cash Various drug paraphernalia In total, the street value of the narcotics recovered from the search warrant was estimated to be approximately $500,000. In October 2019, NCDA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation Long Island Gang Task Force, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Long Island Field Division began an investigation into an increase of violence and drug-dealing in the Hempstead area. After several drug and gun purchases, the NCDA applied for electronic eavesdropping warrants in February 2020 for the purpose of identifying large-scale narcotic suppliers in the Hempstead area. Ramsay was one of several defendants who emerged as a major trafficker during the investigation. The crime of operating as a major trafficker requires the aggregate value of narcotics possessed or sold by the trafficker to exceed $75,000 during a period of six months or less. These individuals allegedly acted as major suppliers to numerous smaller dealers in Nassau County and variously worked together to obtain and distribute narcotics, including heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine. Prosecutors allege that drugs were trafficked from as far away as Puerto Rico, as well as California, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The investigation was called Operation Honeycomb because a large volume of drugs was packaged and stored at a defendants home, which was frequently referred to as the honeycomb by co-defendants in wiretapped calls. When the COVID-19 Pandemic emerged in March 2020, the cost of cocaine began to vary widely, with demand vastly exceeding supply. Cocaine prices rose from approximately $32,000 per kilogram to a peak of $55,000 per kilogram in August 2020, resulting in skyrocketing street level prices up to $125 per gram. Because of narcotics shortages during the pandemic, dealers began mixing fentanyl with cocaine and heroin to increase the potency of their supply while using less cocaine. Ramsay was arrested October 17, 2020, by members of the Nassau County Police Department. The NCDA thanks our partners at Federal Bureau of Investigation Long Island Gang Task Force; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Long Island Field Division; the Nassau County Police Department; the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; the New York State Police; and Drug Enforcement Administration. The Task Force includes members of the FBI, New York State Police, Nassau County Police, Suffolk County Police, Hempstead Police and Rockville Centre Police departments, as well as the Nassau County and Suffolk County sheriffs departments. An award-winning Irish pub that got its start in New York City is coming to Boston in 2025, a spokesperson for the restaurant told MassLive. The Dead Rabbit will come to Boston following expansions in Austin, Texas (which debuted this month) and Washington, D.C. later this year, the spokesperson confirmed. An exact location for the pub was not disclosed. More details about The Dead Rabbits move to Boston should be coming later in the year, the spokesperson said. The Dead Rabbit started with its flagship location in NYCs Financial District in 2013, according to the pubs website. From our beginnings as a Grocery & Grog with a 70-page cocktail menu and a focus on traditional music and 18th-century punches, our mission today is to proudly showcase the Emerald Isle and the talented people who call it home, the website reads. The Dead Rabbit has received dozens of accolades over the past 11 years, climbing to the top of the Worlds 50 Best Bars in 2016. The pub has also won eight Tales of the Cocktail Spirited awards. The Essex County District Attorneys Office has identified 17-year-old Lawrence resident Albert Valentin Arias Moscat as the teen killed in a Saturday night shooting in the city. Lawrence police found Moscat with gunshot wounds after responding to a report of gunfire in the Brook Street area shortly after 9:45 p.m., the district attorneys office said previously. Paramedics treated him at the scene and he was rushed to Lawrence General Hospital by ambulance, but he was declared dead at the hospital. A former teacher from Lynn was sentenced to prison for sexually exploiting children in Laos, Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levys office announced. U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper sentenced Michael Sebastian, 56, to 12 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, Levys office said in a statement. Sebastian previously pleaded guilty to three counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. Mr. Sebastian took advantage of young, vulnerable children in his care and forced them to perform sexual acts for his gratification, Levy said in the statement. Instead of providing a safe home for learning as he had promised, these children were manipulated by the defendant to take part in disturbing behaviors. Sebastian taught English to children living in poverty in Laos, Levys office said. He would allow certain students to live in his apartment with him. Students who were unable to pay for their living expenses performed chores around the house to earn credit towards their rent payments, Levys office wrote in the release. One of the chores eligible for rent credit was to give Sebastian massages, during which Sebastian would be naked. Between May 2018 and September 2019, Sebastian sexually abused three minor children who lived with him, sometimes requiring his genitals to be part of the massages, Levys office said. The depraved conduct directed at children is startling and, as this case demonstrates, our office and our federal law enforcement partners are committed to aggressively prosecuting individuals who sexually abuse children, Levy said in the statement. The message should be heard loudly and clearly: predators in Massachusetts and beyond will be found and brought to justice. The family of the Worcester teenager who died after eating a spicy chip in 2023 is filing a lawsuit, according to media reports. Boston law firm Sheff and Cook will represent the family of Harris Wolobah as it files the lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court, the Telegram & Gazette reported Wednesday. The Wolobahs hope that this case, which could have national and even international implications, will send a message to all who would market dangerous products, especially utilizing social media, to children, a statement from the law firm obtained by NBC 10 Boston read. The familys lawyers, along with members of Wolobahs family, plan to hold a news conference at 11 a.m. in Boston on Thursday, the television station reported. MassLive has reached out to Sheff and Cook for more information. Wolobah, 14, died on Sept. 1, 2023, after eating a spicy tortilla chip made by Hershey subsidiary Paqui. His cause of death was listed as cardiopulmonary arrest in the setting of recent ingestion of food substance with high capsaicin concentration, Elaine Driscoll, a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, told MassLive in May. Wolobah had an enlarged heart and a congenital birth defect, myocardial bridging, according to his autopsy. The chip was spun off into the online One Chip Challenge, where one simply eats the chip and see how long they can last without drinking water or milk to dilute the heat. These chips, before they were pulled from shelves, incorporated Carolina Reaper and Naga Viper peppers two of the spiciest peppers in the world. One Boston-based lawyer, Attorney Matthew Dolman with the Dolman Law Group, spoke with MassLive in May about the likelihood of a lawsuit. He said that while Paqui or Hershey could be taken to court, a settlement would be the likeliest outcome to avoid more negative publicity while avoiding admitting any culpability. Generally when these things happen, theres a lawsuit filed, he said. But I think that lawsuits not going to have a very good chance of surviving. A 64-year-old man was arrested Tuesday and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon after police say he stabbed a person outside a Boston firehouse. Kris Jennings, of Boston, was arrested just before 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Boston police said in a statement. Police were first sent to 352 Newbury St. for a report of a fight and shortly after learned a person had been stabbed in front of the Boston firehouse at 941 Boylston St. The address for the Boston firehouse is less than half-a-mile away from the Newbury Street address. Firefighters began providing medical aid to the person who had been stabbed and asked emergency medical services to come to the scene. Another firefighter was able to stop Jennings and recovered a knife, according to police. Jenning was then arrested. The stabbing victim was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Jennings is charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. He is expected to be arraigned in Boston Municipal Court, according to police. With her fellow Democrats still divided, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said Wednesday that its President Joe Bidens call on whether hes best suited to bring the fight to Donald Trump in November. Joe Biden has done an incredible job the last four years and has delivered, Healey said after a meeting of the Governors Council at the State House. We continue to see the ways that his administration has had a positive impact here in Massachusetts. And I also appreciate that he stepped up in 2020, to save democracy. I also have said that I think the president should continue and will continue to evaluate, whether he remains the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump, Healey said. Because this election is about one thing, and that is defeating Donald Trump. But whatever the president decides, I will be all in and supportive and focused on working to defeat Donald Trump. Healeys remarks Wednesday echo those she made in a statement last week, where she observed that "the best way forward right now is a decision for the president to make. Over the coming days, I urge him to listen to the American people and carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump. Separately, The New York Times reported that Healey had called Bidens political situation irretrievable during a call with fellow governors. Healey declined to comment Wednesday on the newspapers reporting. The ranks of Democrats who have called on Biden to drop out in the wake of his faltering performance at last months presidential debate have continued to grow. On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., called on Biden to step aside, making him the eighth House lawmaker to do so, according to a New York Times tally. Locally, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-6th District, is the only member of the Bay States House contingent who has called on Biden to leave the field. President Biden has done enormous service to our country, but now is the time for him to follow in one of our founding father[s], George Washingtons footsteps and step aside to let new leaders rise up and run against Donald Trump, Moulton told WBUR radio last week. Biden has remained defiant, insisting that he will stay in the rematch against Republican Trump. Healey said Wednesday that Biden can beat Trump in November, but thats a decision that the president has to make as to whether or not he wants to continue to be the one to be the nominee to go forward. Speaking to WGBH radio earlier in the day, state Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell warned of the stakes of the election and said she would back Biden if chooses to remain in the race. If you want access to reproductive health care, if you want access to IVF; if you want access to abortion healthcare, because, for example, you are pregnant, and in week 18, you got a diagnosis of the child youre carrying is going to die, and you dont want to carry that child to full term; you want that choice with your provider, with your partner or spouse, Biden [and Vice President Kamala] Harris are the only folks that are focused on that, Campbell told the station. Editors note: The story was updated Wednesday to note that details of the drowning accident remain under investigation. A Massachusetts man drowned during a kayaking trip in East Providence on Friday, according to the family. Police in the Rhode Island city were notified Friday morning that Gregory Boerman, 37, of Allston, and Joseph Fritz, 52, of East Providence, had failed to return home the previous day after a kayaking trip on Omega Pond just off Roger Williams Avenue. Police and firefighters began a search of the shoreline and located two empty kayaks, East Providence Police said in a statement posted to Facebook. Using drone technology, investigators found a body just below the surface of the water near one of the empty kayaks. A second body was found a short time later, according to the statement. Tracey Boerman-Denneen, Boermans sister, is raising money in a GoFundme post. The GoFundMe aimed to raise $10,000 to help cover costs and expenses during this terribly tragic time. As of Wednesday morning, it had raised more than $20,000. We are all having such a hard time with the immense loss and trying to find ways to pay for everything has added more stress and its very hard to navigate through it all. Any and all donations will be so appreciated and my family and I will be forever grateful for your support, she wrote. Help us put Gregory, the best man Ive ever known, my brother and best friend to rest. The drowning still remains under investigation but investigators do not believe it was suspicious. An Orleans man accused of possessing child sex abuse material was charged in federal court on Tuesday, Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levys office announced. Anthony Argo, 33, was identified as the person using a chat application who expressed sexual interest in children and shared child sex abuse material, Levys office said in a statement on Wednesday. During a search of Argos home, an SD card was found with more than 100 video files depicting child sex abuse material, some including children as young as infants, Levys office said. Argo was convicted before of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or over in Barnstable District Court, Levys office said. He was also previously convicted of kidnapping, enticement of a child under 16 and distributing obscene matter to a minor in Orleans District Court. Due to these prior convictions, the charge of possession of child pornography provides for a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and up to 20 years in prison, at least five years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Boston police are investigating after three dogs were found dead inside an abandoned U-Haul in Mattapan Tuesday night. Police were notified of an abandoned U-Haul van with a terrible smell at 69 Edgewater Drive in Mattapan at 8:58 p.m. Tuesday. When officers arrived, they found the orange and white van parked unlocked with a horrible smell coming from it and bugs flying around inside it. An officer saw a wire dog crate inside with one dog inside that was not moving. A bag of dog food was also found in the front seat, according to a police report provided to MassLive. The person told police they did not know who parked the U-Haul there but that it had been on Edgewater Drive for more than a week. The man told police everyone who walked by the van said something really smelled. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell has underlined her support for President Joe Biden, warning in a radio interview that a win by Donald Trump this November would have potentially disastrous consequences for individual rights and American democracy. "It is the most important election of our lifetime," the Boston Democrat told WGBH radio on Wednesday. " ... We need to focus on the issues." "If you want access to reproductive health care, if you want access to IVF; if you want access to abortion healthcare, because, for example, you are pregnant, and in week 18, you got a diagnosis of the child youre carrying is going to die, and you dont want to carry that child to full term; you want that choice with your provider, with your partner or spouse, Biden [and Vice President Kamala] Harris are the only folks that are focused on that, she told the station. If you want to deal with issues of economics and affordability, were taking on junk fees to loan debt, Biden/Harris [is] the only ticket; [they are the] only candidates that are focused on that if you care about your children. And Im a mom of two young boys, and protecting them in terms of gun violence, which is the number one cause of death for young people; everything having to do with their mental health, making sure they have clean drinking water, Biden/Harris are our folks, she said. Biden has faced calls from Democrats on Capitol Hill and beyond to step down in the wake of his halting performance against Trump in last months presidential debate in Atlanta. Elected officials across Massachusetts have been split in their sentiments on Bidens political future. Some, such as U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-6th District, have called on Biden to exit the race. Others, such as Gov. Maura Healey, have said the 81-year-old president needs to carefully consider his political future. Speaking to WGBH on Wednesday, Campbell said any final decision about the 2024 race rests with Biden. As long as he, and, of course, Vice President Harris are in this race, I am fully supporting them, she said, casting them as the only bulwark against a repeat of the political violence that erupted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. ... If you care about everything that we probably take for granted in this country, and we [want] to continue to be a democracy, Biden/Harris are your only choices in this election, she continued. Pointing to the sacrifice that Biden and other public officials are making with their candidacies, Campbell also challenged voters to step up. The question now becomes, whats the sacrifice youre going to make to protect this country? Are you going to get out and vote? Are you going to get out and phone bank? Are you going to get out and door knock? Are you going to get out and do your part to support this ticket, which is really important, she said. " ... Whats the sacrifice we personally want to make and maybe professionally, to make sure that this country continues to be a democracy, continues to care about humanity, continues to ensure we dont get a coup in political violence in this country, continues to value the certification of elections, Campbell asked in a response to a question about her confidence in Biden after his debate appearance. Thats what Im focused on. And people better wake up. BOSTON The weirdest start of Brayan Bellos career coincided with an absolute explosion from the Red Sox and that was good enough for Boston to start off its final homestand of the first half with an easy win over the As. Bello set a career-high with 11 strikeouts and the bats behind him set a season-high with eight runs in a single inning (the second) as Boston jumped out to a massive early lead and beat Oakland, 12-9. The Red Sox have now won seven of eight games and are 10 games over .500 at 50-40. Bellos bizarre outing was bookended by troubling innings and included some wacky history in the middle. He gave up two runs in the first and three in the sixth (his last frame) but recorded his first 10 outs, around hits and runs, via strikeout. By doing that, he became the only Red Sox pitcher in at least the Expansion Era (since 1961) to do so. In total, he was tagged for five earned runs on nine hits in 5 innings. As has often been the case this season, things didnt start off well for Bello. Oakland took a quick lead when Brent Rooker (RBI double) and Shea Langeliers (RBI single) tagged Bello for hits, but quickly surrendered it when the Sox took launch against righty Joey Estes in the bottom of the first. Jarren Duran (double), David Hamilton (RBI single), Tyler ONeill (double) and Rafael Devers (2-run single) put together four straight hits to claim a 3-2 lead before Estes recorded an out. The first-inning ambush was nothing compared to what would greet Estes in the second. A leadoff walk to Dom Smith set things up for Ceddanne Rafaela to make it 4-2 with an RBI triple the other way. Hed score Bostons fifth run on a Duran sacrifice fly. Two batters later, Devers doubled in a run for his third RBI, making it 6-2. Back-to-back singles from Connor Wong and Masataka Yoshida put Boston ahead five. And after Estes was lifted for reliever Tyler Ferguson, Wilyer Abreu delivered the crushing blow with a three-run homer to deep right. Smith followed with a shot to go back-to-back and make it 11-2. In total, eight of 11 Sox batters reached in the second, which was the clubs first eight-run inning of 2024. Estes, coming off a complete game shutout of the Angles on July 3, was tagged with eight earned runs on seven hits while recording just five outs. Ferguson allowed three runs of his own. With a big lead, Bello worked around traffic in the second and fourth while continuing his strikeout parade and getting to his career high by punching out JJ Bleday to end the fourth. At 90 pitches, he went out for the sixth inning and was greeted with loud contact as Langeliers doubled and Zack Gelof singled before Lawrence Butler crushed a three-run homer to right. That was about it for Bello, who was seen angrily bemoaning his outing in the dugout. His ERA rose to 5.40 as he threw 105 pitches, his most since May 17. Oakland made it a five-run game on a Gelof sacrifice fly in the seventh. Abreu answered with a sac fly of his own in the bottom of the eighth, stretching the lead back to 11-6. Newcomer Trey Wingenters Sox debut didnt go as planned, as he allowed a three-run homer to Gelof that made it 12-9 in the ninth. But thats as close as the As would get. All nine members of Bostons lineup had hits, with Hamilton, Devers, Yoshida and Rafaela leading the way with two apiece. Abreus four RBIs tied a career-high, matching his output from the third game of his career on Aug. 24 of last year. In fact, all nine members of the lineup had hits and scored runs in the first two innings the first time that has happened for the Red Sox since 2003. Pivetta goes Wednesday The Red Sox will look to clinch a series win behind righty Nick Pivetta (4-5, 4.06 ERA), who will look to stay rolling after flirting with a no-hitter last time out in Miami on the Fourth of July. The As will start lefty JP Sears (5-7, 4.74 ERA) with first pitch set for 7:10 p.m. ET. Parts of Massachusetts could see some relief from the daytime heat as isolated showers could hit parts of the state beginning Tuesday night, according to the National Weather Service. Severe weather conditions, namely potential storms, could dampen parts of the state going into Tuesday night, forecasters said. Cities like Springfield on Tuesday night and Boston on Wednesday could see thunderstorms arrive, with both cities potentially seeing around a tenth of an inch. Chances for isolated storms north of [Interstate 90] remain tonight until 10 p.m., forecasters said below a map showing the chances where places could see precipitation. Looking ahead, most of our area will see the greatest chances for storms Friday night into Saturday morning, forecasters concluded on the weather service website. They made a similar evaluation in a post on X. Chances for isolated storms remain going into tonight. Looking ahead, most of our area will see the greatest chances for showers & storms Friday night into Saturday morning. #mawx #riwx #ctwx pic.twitter.com/WpMV0JJA9J NWS Boston (@NWSBoston) July 9, 2024 The added risk of storms on Wednesday opens the door to possible downpours and localized flooding, forecasters said. Until 8 p.m. on Wednesday, a heat advisory will stay in effect. Covering much of southern New England, including cities like Springfield, Providence, Hartford, Worcester and Framingham, among several others, the advisory warned that heat indices could leave areas feeling like it is 100 degrees. Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors, forecasters said. A cold front coming from Hurricane Beryl could give New England another needed push for there to be more rainfall on Wednesday, forecasters said. This cold front should move in from the west late Wednesday night. More remnants of Beryl are expected to head north by Thursday, giving not just Massachusetts but also New Hampshire and Vermont chances of seeing storms that could bring heavy downpours and localized flooding. It will feel very humid paired with temperatures in the upper 80s, forecasters said. Cant rule out that the heat advisory will need to be expanded into Thursday. Forecasters anticipate that Friday night going into Saturday could see around 2 inches of rain. Precipitation probabilities vary in several communities, with a 55% chance of rain in Boston while Worcester and Springfield hold a 60% chance, according to the weather service. Saturday could also see drier conditions for the latter half of the day, but a fully wet day has not been ruled out. Beryl arrived in Texas on Monday as a Category 1 hurricane but has since weakened to a tropical depression, according to The Associated Press. The storm will bring deep tropical moisture, making Thursday a very humid day with highs well into the 80s and low 90s across the state. While Beryls remnants arent expected to land in Massachusetts directly, weather conditions will allow for at least a threat of isolated storms in northern and western areas. A spokesman for the Hampden District Attorneys office confirmed there was a fatal shooting on West Street Wednesday. The victim has not yet been identified. There was a fatal shooting early this morning on July 10 on West Street in Holyoke. The Holyoke Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to the Hampden District Attorney are currently investigating and more information will be released when available, said District Attorney spokesman James Leydon. Funded by Best Friends Animal Society, a coalition of animal welfare organizations is addressing shelter overpopulation with its group-wide, fee-waived adoption event, called Mass Saves, for all dogs 1 year and older. The number of dogs entering and remaining in shelters became an unexpected challenge caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Le Bureau du Commissaire Electoral a emis un communique concernant les conditions que les eventuels candidats devront remplir lors du Nomination day qui aura lieu le 11 juillet 2024 a Bel Air SSS. NATIONAL ASSEMBLY BY-ELECTION 2024 CONSTITUENCY NO. 10 MONTAGNE BLANCHE AND GRAND RIVER SOUTH EAST SYMBOLS OF IDENTIFICATION Any prospective candidate to the forthcoming National Assembly By-Election in Constituency No.10 Montagne Blanche and Grand River South East, who wishes to be allotted the symbol of identification of the party or party alliance to which he/she belongs, is requested to produce, when submitting his/her nomination paper to the Returning Officer on Nomination Day, 11 July 2024, a certificate signed by (i) the president or secretary of the party; or (ii) the respective president or secretary of each party constituting the party alliance, to certify that he/she belongs to that party or party alliance and that he/she is authorised to use the symbol of identification of that party or party alliance for the said by-election. It is also brought to the attention of all independent candidates that the Office of the Election Commissioner has compiled an official list of symbols of identification for their use. This official list may be consulted at the Nomination Centre, BEL AIR STATE SECONDARY SCHOOL, La Lucie Bldg., Bel Air Riviere Seche, on Nomination Day, 11 July 2024. However, if a candidate prefers to use a symbol of identification, not appearing on that official list, h/she shall, when submitting his nomination paper to the Returning Officer, also submit a line drawing of the symbol of identification of his/her choice in black colour on a white background to fit within a space of 20mm x 15mm. Office of the Electoral Commissioner Glo-Djigbe Industrial Zone announced its inaugural export of Made in Benin garments to Europe. This first consignment, destined for the prestigious French brand KIABI, comprises 80,000 meticulously crafted childrens leggings. KIABI, renowned for its chain of stores offering clothing and accessories for women, men, children, and babies, with nearly 563 retail outlets across France, Spain, Italy, Africa, the Middle East, and Overseas Departments and Regions (DROM). This order marks the beginning of a successful collaboration between SIPI-Benin and KIABI, with an order alignment of 2 million clothing pieces for 2024 and 4 million for 2025. After two years of discussions and negotiations, this first export of 80,000 Made in Benin childrens leggings meticulously crafted within the Zone represents a significant milestone in the development of the textile industry in Benin. This initiative demonstrates Benins capacity to meet international market requirements and uphold high standards of quality. KIABI now joins prestigious brands such as The Childrens Place (TCP) and US POLO ASSN, with whom clothing delivery contracts have already been signed, thereby reinforcing GDIZs position as a pivotal hub for textile production in Africa. Mr. Letondji BEHETON, Managing Director of SIPI-Benin S.A, stated: This first export of childrens leggings to KIABI is a source of immense pride for us and serves as tangible proof of our commitment to promoting the Beninese textile industry on the international stage. It marks the beginning of a long series of exports for the French brand KIABI. By the end of 2024, we will produce 2 million pieces of clothing for KIABI, demonstrating our ability to meet international standards while maintaining high quality. Currently, KIABI is increasingly focusing on collaboration with Africa for its garment production and plans to expand its retail presence on the continent. With its dynamism and quality workforce, Benin is ideally positioned to seize the new market opportunities offered by KIABI. Mr. Penagos JUAN, CEO of KIABI Sourcing, added: We are delighted to collaborate with the Investment and Promotion Company for Industry in Benin (SIPI-Benin S.A), responsible for the development, promotion, and management of GDIZ. This initiative perfectly aligns with KIABIs strategy of bringing our production sites closer to our points of sale. In Africa, we have several stores, and now, thanks to the Glo-Djigbe Industrial Zone (GDIZ), we are producing KIABI garments locally. Our goal is to produce thirty million pieces in Africa, and ARISE proves to be the ideal partner to achieve this objective by integrating sustainability and using 100% Made in Africa cotton. We are at the beginning of this exciting journey, and we are proud to undertake it with ARISE and the Republic of Benin. Absa Bank (Mauritius) Limited announced the successful completion of its acquisition of HSBC domestic Wealth and Personal Banking and Business Banking businesses and to welcome the customers and employees who have transitioned to Absa Mauritius. This milestone marks a proud moment in the history of Absa Mauritius and a pivotal moment in its journey of growth and expansion. I extend my gratitude to the HSBC and Absa project teams who have worked in close collaboration throughout this process. Their dedication has been instrumental in achieving this transition successfully. I take this opportunity to thank our internal and external stakeholders for the trust placed in us and their support in making this possible. Our commitment remains steadfast to delivering exceptional value and innovative solutions to our customers, said Ravin Dajee, Managing Director of Absa Mauritius. As part of this transaction, Absa Mauritius has put in place a number of measures to ensure that the migration and welcome of new customers take place under the best possible conditions. To this end, we have deployed a dedicated facility at Tribeca Mall, where Personal Banking customers can collect their Welcome Packs. These include all the necessary information and tools to help them get started with their banking journey at Absa Mauritius. The distribution of packs started on 1 July and will continue until 14 July. Absa Mauritius further extends a warm welcome to the 67 new colleagues joining the Absa family from HSBC. As part of the onboarding experience, a tailor-made induction programme has been designed for them and started on Monday 8 July. The programme is set to offer a thorough introduction to Absa culture, values, and operational practices, ensuring that the new colleagues are able to have a smooth integration into Absa Mauritius. In addition, Absa Mauritius is also delighted to announce the opening of its new branch at Bagatelle Mall, now fully operational and ready to serve its valued customers. This will further enhance Absas ongoing commitment to providing accessible and convenient banking services. This acquisition reinforces the commitment of Absa Bank Mauritius to the local Retail and Business Banking market and to expand as an influential role-player in the Mauritian economy. As Absa Mauritius embarks on this new chapter, it reaffirms its dedication to maintaining the highest standards of service and excellence. A SENIOR member of Mayo County Council and former Chair of the Joint Policing Committee says he has no confidence in the Garda Commission Drew Harris. The state of policing in Mayo was discussed at the monthly meeting of Mayo County Council where councillors expressed concern at the absence of a Superintendent in the county and the scrapping of the Joint Policing Committee (JPC) in favour of Local Community Safety Partnerships (LCSP). Fianna Fail councillor Al McDonnell, who was the last chair of the Mayo Joint Policing Committee said that he was not surprised that the rank and file of An Garda Siochana expressed no confidence in Commissioner Harris as he too does not have any in him. We invited the Commissioner to a packed meeting [of the JPC in 2019] in Breaffy House and I did my best to assist him but he was not listening to me or anyone else. He took notes in the corner of a page which gave me an indication he wasn't that concerned about what was happening. He never responded to any of the serious issues highlighted on the day or acknowledged the meeting took place. It was a PR exercise and it is no wonder his colleagues expressed a vote of no confidence in him. I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever in the man, he said. Cllr McDonnell added that is convinced the decision to get rid of the JPCs came from the Commissioner and his team and that he doesn't want to engage with elected representatives. The meeting heard that there is no Superintendent currently stationed in Mayo after Supt Alan Brady who was stationed in Ballina has transferred back to Dublin after just a year in north Mayo. Chief Supt Ray McMahon who is in charge of the Mayo/Roscommon/Longford Division is based in Longford. Crossmolina-based councillor Michael Loftus raised the policing issue in Mayo where he expressed concern that the county is being left behind in terms of policing and felt the new policing model was ruining the county. I want a return of our Chief Superintendent in Mayo and a return of our six Superintendents. Mayo, Roscommon and Longford are the only three county divisions in An Garda Siochana at the moment so what is that saying about our public representatives and what are they doing about it. The JPC was our only route in dealing with An Garda Siochana who are working here in Mayo. I think it is an absolute disgrace and disrespectful to every councillor in this country that it [LCSP] was allowed to go through. I know it was highlighted by us and we were promised something would be done but nothing was done, he said. The Fianna Fail councillor called for Commissioner Harris and Minister of Justice, Helen McEntee to attend a meeting of the council to explain the new policing model. He was supported by Independent councillor Mark Duffy who said the current policing model was another example of centralisation and autonomy being taken away from local authorities. A man who harassed his former partner by making over 500 phone calls from Castlerea Prison has been sentenced to 20 months imprisonment. Aretas Sinkas of 11 Grattan Close, Claremorris, appeared before last weeks sitting of Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court, where he was sentenced after pleading guilty to harassing his former partner while he was in prison. The court heard that the injured party received calls from Mr Sinkas, a Lithuanian national, while he was on remand in prison in relation to offences also connected to the injured party. CALL LIST GARDA Karol Murray explained that the first phone call occurred in December 2022, when the injured party received a call from the prison during which she was asked to consent to allowing her name to be added to a call list for the defendant. He said she refused the request but continued to receive calls from him in the prison. It later emerged that her mobile phone number was on the call list under another name. Garda Murray said he downloaded Mr Sinkass call record from February 16, 2023, to May 17, 2023, and during this period, he matched a total of 523 phone calls made by the defendant to the injured party. He explained that although she was not answering the calls, he would call her ten times on some days. Judge Eoin Garavan was also informed that Mr Sinkas sent six letters to the injured party, which were written in Russian. Garda Murray said the letters were poorly written and described them as rambling and incoherent, where he goes from insulting her and blaming her for his incarceration to telling her he loves her and they should be together and die together. Garda Murray said these letters made the injured party afraid. On April 2, 2023, the injured party was working with the defendants sister, who received a phone call from Mr Sinkas. The phone was handed to the injured party, who was told by Mr Sinkas that he would beat her up the day he got out of prison. Garda Murray said the phone calls from prison are recorded and he downloaded the conversation and translated it. The court heard that the defendant and the injured party had a child together, but Mr Sinkas was remanded in custody when the child was just five months old. He was sentenced to 18 months jail in March 2023 for the false imprisonment of the injured party. The sentence expired on November 2, and he has been on remand for the last nine months in relation to these charges. VIOLENT ABUSE IN A victim-impact statement, the injured party said she had been subjected to violence while pregnant in a foreign country and felt ashamed to be a victim. She said she contacted the Gardai in the last month of her pregnancy, as she could not endure anymore of the abuse, which still haunts her in her dreams. She explained that she has had to leave Ireland and move to another country for the safety of herself and her children. She said the feeling of fear still does not leave her. Mr Desmond Dockery, senior counsel for Mr Sinkas, said that a psychological report shows that what appears to be driving his clients conduct was frustration and anger at lack of access to his young child. The child was born in March 2022. Mr Sinkas has been in custody since September 2022 and has not had any access since. Mr Dockery said Mr Sinkas came to Ireland in 2006 and worked in Claremorris in a mushroom factory until he was remanded in prison. He said Mr Sinkas was not a career criminal, but unable to manage his frustration and annoyance. Mr Sinkas denies his intention was to intimidate his ex-partner. Judge Garavan said that this was a serious matter, as the offence occurred while he was in custody awaiting sentencing for false imprisonment of the same individual. This, he said, was desperately aggravating and the effect on the victim meant that she felt she had to leave the country, as it was not a safe place for her. Judge Garavan noted that Mr Sinkas clearly has a temper and feels aggrieved by the judicial system and the lack of access to his child. He sentenced Mr Sinkis to 26 months imprisonment which was backdated to November 2, 2023, but suspended the final six months of the sentence for a two-year period. Leading social care charity, Praxis Care, are celebrating their fortieth year in Ballina. The organisation held a party at The Cot and Cobble in Ballina, transforming the area into a vibrant celebration. The organisation turned 40 on July 3, marking four decades of dedicated service and support for individuals with mental ill health, learning disabilities, autism and dementia. The joyous event brought together the people Praxis Care supports, their families and friends, staff and the local community. Conor Joyce (winner of best dressed) Attendees enjoyed a variety of activities including singing, dancing and a live music performance from Doppler. The party was hosted by four Praxis Care services, Foxford, Ballina Day Service, Station Lodge and Station House. These services provide support for individuals with mental ill health, intellectual disabilities and autism. A highlight of the event was individuals supported by Praxis Care being awarded prizes, including for best dressed and best dancer. Conor Joyce and Breege Molloy took home best dressed, while Caitlin O'Driscoll stole the best dancer. Minister Dara Calleary, attended the event, and extended his congratulations to all involved in the celebrations. You can see from the joy on everyones faces that theres a fabulous buzz here tonight, he added. Fianna Fail councillor Annie May Reape was also in attendance. I am delighted to be invited to this event tonight, everyone is so happy and beautifully dressed. People do not realise how important these services are, she said. Minister Dara Calleary, Amanda Gray, Breege Molloy (winner of best dressed), Susan Langan (Praxis Cares Head of Operations ROI Western Region) Praxis Cares Director of Care and Development for Ireland, Amanda Gray, commented, These celebrations are about the people we support, their families and friends, our staff and volunteers and the communities we work in. Thank you all for joining us today as we celebrate Praxis Care's fortieth birthday, and heres to the next 40 years. Looking ahead, we remain committed to being an innovative organisation that has the people we support at the forefront. This event was just one in a series of 40 celebrations taking place this summer across Ireland, the UK and the Isle of Man to mark this significant anniversary. Each event aims to bring together the local community and celebrate the remarkable achievements of Praxis Care over the past 40 years. The charity looks forward to continuing its mission and making a positive impact for many more years to come. Praxis Care Day Service in Ballina would like to thank all the businesses in Ballina who donated so generously to the event. Mayo made film, 'Remote Strutting' will be premiering at the Galway Film Fleadh, this Thursday, July 11. Produced by Brian and Emer Durcan of Western Front Studios and filmed at the PortWest headquarters, both based in Westport, the film was the Ardan/ RTE Short Film Commission winner in 2023. Earlier this year, writer Ruaidhri Hallinan, producers (Western Front Studios), director Lorna Fitzsimons, and an array of crew members shot the enchanting short film in Westport. Remote Strutting follows Mia, who, while facing a specific challenge, works remotely in software development and is all the time imagining the lively office she works in her minds eye. The story explores the importance of connection with consideration for difference. This is only Mr Hallinans second venture into writing for the screen, having gotten into script writing during lockdown. Working remotely himself in tech since pre-pandemic, the subject isnt too far from home. He sat down to write a story about working remotely and the personas that people often sell online. The world took shape from scenarios he had experienced, and the challenge of impersonal interactions. The official poster for 'Remote Strutting' With the core idea already on paper, Mr Hallinans friend Eamonn encouraged him to pitch the idea at the 2023 Commission Info Day in Galway. He did, and pitching the idea inspired the writer to go home and write a third draft before making phone calls to producers. Through calls and recommendations, Brian Durcan came on board as director of photography, Mr Lorna Fitzsimons as director, and Emer Durcan as producer. It was very important to Ms Fitzsimons that the lead be a Deaf actor, so casting director Shauna Griffith threw the net wide to get the right person. Lisa Kelly, a Belfast-born actress, plays the lead role of Mia, which was originally a male lead role. With a strict budget and tight timing, the large cast and crew on your hands came together. The team were very fortunate to be given the run of the PortWest offices in Westport, which allowed for a bright, open set which Caroline Hill brought to life. Working in an ISL (Irish Sign Language) environment was new for the whole team, so they did their work to prepare for set. From the start, Ms Fitzsimons and Ms Durcan met with members of the Irish Deaf Society in Dublin to get their input. They were lucky to find Ciara Flatley locally, who worked as interpreter for the crew, and even ended up playing the interpreter on screen. The team was delighted to be chosen to feature at the 36th Galway Film Fleadh, and many of the cast and crew will be there for the premiere of Remote Strutting. Book your tickets here to watch Remote Strutting on Thursday, July 11, at 12 noon at the Town Hall Theatre. GARDAI in Mayo have called on family members being threatened over a drug debt not to be afraid to contact the Gardai for support. The sentencing of a Westport man to two-and-a-half years imprisonment for threatening an innocent man to hand over 28,000 to pay off his brothers drug debt has been welcomed by gardai in the county. Oran Brennan, formerly of Cloonmonad Close, Westport was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court after pleading guilty to a single charge of making an unwarranted demand, with menace, for 28,000 from Darragh Moon (25) on August 17, 2020. Mr Moons car was set on fire outside the family home in Westport and shortly after this he received a phone call from Mr Brennan where he stated now you know we are not messing around. Mr Moon had no involvement in criminality but his brother had amassed a drug debt after getting involved in drugs. Detective Inspector Denis Harrington said the sentence imposed by Judge Eoin Garavan on Mr Brennan showed that families should not feel isolated if they are threatened. This was a significant conviction, and if there are families in similar positions they should know that there is help available to them and they should come forward and contact their local Garda station. We are there to support them, and we will investigate any complaint they have. Families do feel isolated when these types of threats are made against them, but they should not suffer alone and they should know there is support there for them, Det Insp Harrington said after the sentence was handed down. Det Insp Harrington said that gardai work closely with the Western Regional Drug and Alcohol Taskforce and they have counsellors and workers in the community who offer support to families affected by drugs. In sentencing Mr Brennan, Judge Eoin Garavan said the terror he imposed on his victim was such that a custodial sentence could not be avoided. This man made the decision to do what he did and terrorise another family, Judge Garavan said. Mayo Senator Lisa Chambers has welcomed an update from her party colleague, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly, showing that Mayo University Hospital has seen a reduction of patients on trolleys of 45 percent in the first five months of this year. Nationwide, the number of patients on trolleys in the first five months of the year was down 14 percent compared to the same period last year. This means that 7,800 fewer patients were waiting on a hospital bed, even though 62,000 more patients presented to Emergency Departments compared to last year. Senator Chambers called the significant excellent news. The reduction is thanks to the hard work and dedication of staff throughout Mayo University Hospital, its Emergency Department and community services, said the Fianna Fail senator. In government we have delivered an unprecedented increase in funding of our health service over the last four years, with more staff and more hospital beds now than ever before, and I want to thank all those working in hospital and community settings. While we are making real progress in reducing Emergency Department overcrowding, we are committed to doing better in tackling hospital waiting lists and identifying ways to improve access to care, she concluded. A new programme focusing on employment outcomes for people with disabilities was launched in Aras Inis Gluaire, Belmullet, last Friday by Minister of State Dara Calleary TD. Erris Workability Iorras Cumasach is available to people who are over 16 years of age and have a disability. The primary purpose of the programme is to provide people with the opportunity to gain and sustain employment, or access to education and training to improve employment prospects. Minister Calleary commended the objective of the programme in terms of addressing the issue of people with disabilities getting lost in the system, or falling through the cracks. He said: 22 percent of the population of Ireland has some element of a disability. Thats 1.1 million people. Ireland has one of the lowest employment rates for people with disabilities in the EU 26% compared to 45% in the EU. In order to start to address this, we need to put supports in place at school level and to ensure that there are different avenues available to people when they finish school. Minister Calleary continued to explain that people must be provided with real opportunities that will lead to sustainable employment or self-employment, and to encourage a culture of enterprise around people with disabilities. Erris Workability is one of 52 programmes across the country which will target 13,000 people with disabilities over the next five years. I am confident that the Erris Workability programme, going forward, will sustain itself, and it will make a great contribution in terms of addressing the challenges that exist within the system. It has the funding and the resources behind it and we, at the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment will work with the team, and we will continue to advocate the Programme, he added. Anne Finn, Social Inclusion Manager of Mayo North East, hosted the event, other speakers including CEO of Mayo North East, Justin Sammon, Board Secretary of Mayo North East, Fr Kevin Hegarty, Employer Liaison Officer with Intreo, Yvonne Kenny, Leader of the Erris Workability Programme, Rosemarie Mangan. Additionally, members of the Erris Youth Disability Network (EYDN), Mary Deane and Eithne Dixon, spoke passionately about their experiences in relation to their families and their childrens lives, especially after they had left school. At the launch of Erris Workability in Belmullet (Photo: Ryan Gallagher) Ms Dixon remembered, when her daughter Deirbhle turned 16 years of age, she got a letter to say that she was entitled to a Disability Benefit. But it was the other lines on the letter that stuck with me. It said that Deirbhle would receive Disability Benefit until her 65th birthday, after which she will then receive the old age pension, and it specified the date that she would turn 65 years of age. That was Deirbhles life according to the Department, written down on a letter, done and dusted. No offer or suggestion of further education possibilities or employment opportunities, she said. Ms Dixon continued: This is simply not acceptable. We need to do more - we need to improve society so that it is more inclusive of people with disabilities, and their dreams and aspirations. We need to break down barriers and change our mindsets. Fr Kevin Hegarty, Board Secretary of Mayo North East, spoke about the work that has been carried out all over Mayo and Erris, particularly in relation to social inclusion. Referring to previous successful Mayo North East programmes, he recalled occasions where people in their 40s and 80s admitted that it was the first time in their lives that they had felt listened to. Fr Hegarty added: This is what is at the heart of these programmes these initiatives help people who may feel excluded from mainstream society feel that they have a very worthwhile role to play. CEO of Mayo North East, Justin Sammon, emphasised the fact that everyone has a role in our society, and he urged the audience to focus on peoples abilities, as opposed to their disabilities. Social Inclusion Manager, Anne Finn, remarked on the large crowd in attendance and said she was delighted to see so many employers and business owners in the audience, alongside representatives from as far as Castlebar and Connemara. She paid a special tribute to the EYDN for their advocacy and perseverance in demanding better opportunities for people with disabilities. Leader of this innovative programme Rosemarie Mangan said: As someone with a disability, I have experienced the highs and lows of education and employment here in Ireland. I have been told that there are things that I couldnt do, or wouldnt be able to do. I have been ignored and dismissed when applying for jobs. On the other hand, I have encountered people who realised that my disability would not be an issue at all once a few adjustments were made. The programme leader explained that when colleagues did focus on her abilities, they realised the value that I could add to their organisation or business, that she didnt need help, just some barriers to be removed in order to allow [her] to move forward and to get [her] work done. And that is the key to providing opportunities for people with disabilities, to remove some obstacles and allow them to progress, whether it is in further education, training or employment, Ms Mangan concluded. If you are over 16 years of age, and you have a disability, you can register for the programme. For more information, email rosemariemangan@mayonortheastldc.com or call Siobhan on 087 499 6605. In the Dail today the Taoiseach, Simon Harris was made aware of a case of an Irish woman who is facing charges in Dubai and is under a travel ban. The Taoiseach said he was previously unaware of the case of the Irish woman Tori Towey, who is 28 years old. Leader of Sinn Fein Mary Lou McDonald brought the case up to the Taoiseach which she described as "the most gross domestic violence." Deputy McDonald, who was speaking with the Roscommon woman earlier in the day said, "She has been the victim of the most gross domestic violence." "Her passport has been destroyed. There was a travel ban imposed on her." "She had gone to the authorities seeking protection many times but to no avail." Added that Tori's husband had "slammed doors on her arms and break her limbs." Tori Towey is facing charges "of attempted suicide and the abuse of alcohol" and Mary Lou McDonald added, "is now under the most incredible stress." She then added that the case is "a matter of urgency" and that "She wants to come home." The Taoiseach then responded by thanking the Deputy for bringing the case to his attention and said they will "intervene and see how we can support an Irish citizen in what sounds to be, based on what you tell me, the most appalling circumstances" The approval of Alzheimers drug Lillys donanemab to be sold under the brand name Kisunla could give patients and their families new hope. Until recently, treatment was limited. About six million Americans suffer from Alzheimers. Some patients diagnosed with the disease would take a pill to relieve symptoms, notes The Wall Street Journal. More wound up at facilities that provided care for them once they couldnt take care of themselves. With drugs such as Lillys newly approved Kisunla coming online, Alzheimers treatment promises to slow the cognitive decline, if only modestly, and to become more widely used. advertisement advertisement The drug received regulatory approval as a monthly injection after an 18-month trial showed very meaningful results in slowing cognitive and functional decline in patients with Alzheimers, the company said. In the trial, totaling more than 1,700 participants, Eli Lilly separated patients if they had an early or advanced form of the disease, and among the two groups, participants treated with donanemab compared with a placebo had a 39% lower risk of their disease worsening, according to Forbes. About 17% of patients were able to stop using donanemab after six months of treatment, while 47% stopped within a year and 69% stopped within 18 months, Lilly said, noting their cognitive decline continued to slow even after they stopped taking the drug. The cost for a 12-month treatment of Kisunla will be $32,000, a six-month treatment will be over $12,500 and an 18-month supply will total nearly $49,000, according to Lilly. Thats more expensive than Biogen and Eisais treatment lecanemab -- sold under the brand name Leqembi -- which was approved last year. Lecanemab -- which costs about $26,000 out of pocket for a years supply -- works similarly to donanemab by combating the buildup of amyloid proteins in the brain, which some experts associate with the disease, though the drug is taken every two weeks and treatment continues even after enough amyloid is cleared. Kisunla has a significant difference that may appeal to patients, doctors and insurers: Lilly says patients can stop the drug after it clears the protein, amyloid, which clumps into plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimers, Anne White, an executive vice president at Lilly, told The New York Times. The drugs has shown in trials to modestly slow a decline in memory and thinking abilities. During the trial, "decline was measured using the clinical dementia rating scale, which focuses on how well patients performed in six categories: memory, orientation, judgment and problem solving, community affairs, home and hobbies, and personal care, according to NBC News. by Danielle Oster , July 9, 2024 Lipton Iced Tea has brewed up its first foray into fashion. The PepsiCo brand partnered with streetwear brand Cruel Pancake for a campaign celebrating That Summer Feeling and a collection inspired by 90s fashion. The 25 featured items include Harrington jackets (a classic British style), shorts, bandanas, visors, towels, and beach bags. "This collaboration with Cruel Pancake represents both a turning point and a continuity: Lipton Ice Tea stands for sunshine in a bottle, tangy colors and a passionate community, Lipton Ice Tea marketing director Victoire Binet said in a statement, adding that the DNA of the two brands is completely intertwined, with Liptons sunshine-centered branding matching with Cruel Pancakes Give this world good energy messaging. advertisement advertisement To promote the collection, the two brands selected the 92-year-old model known as The Spanish King to star in a photo series alongside members of Gen Z (who are a bit more representative of its target audience than nonagenarians). The series was shot by Ludovic Zuili, a photographer known for employing a nostalgic aesthetic, leaning into bold colors and summer settings. To bring the collaboration to life, the brands are staging a thirsty" pop-up event in Paris on July 13, where visitors can win collection items and imbibe iced donuts and signature drinks created by Lipton Iced Tea. An earlier promotional giveaway offered audiences online a chance to win select items on July 5-7 via a link on Cruel Pancakes Instagram page. The flagship Lipton Iced Tea isnt the only brand in PepsiCos iced tea portfolio receiving a marketing push this season. The company also launched a campaign starring Lindsay Lohan for the Pepsi Lipton Partnership brand Pure Leaf last month, following the introduction of Pure Leaf Zero Sugar this past spring. by Tanya Gazdik , July 9, 2024 Nissan U.S. is getting a new head of marketing operations who has been at the automaker for more than half of his career. Jeff Pope, who is currently division vice president, dealer network development, customer resources and training, Nissan and Infiniti, U.S. and Canada, becomes vice president, chief marketing manager (CMM) and marketing operations, Nissan U.S. Pope joined Nissan in 2006 after spending 11 years at Ford Motor Co. His last position at the Detroit-based automaker was district manager in the greater New York City area. He grew up in the Detroit area and received both his undergraduate degree and MBA from Michigan State University. He has held a variety of sales and marketing positions at Nissan and Infiniti in New York, California and Tennessee. He also spent three years at the automakers operations in Hong Kong, where his positions included director, global sales operations and senior director, global sales operations. advertisement advertisement Pope replaces Scott Shirley, who will retire at the end of the year. Shirley joined Nissan in 1988, and has held a variety of leadership roles in marketing and sales during his tenure with the company. "Scott has been a strong leader during his 36-year Nissan career, and we thank him for his positive contributions both for our business and company culture," said Jeremie Papin, chairperson, Nissan Americas, in a statement. "As we focus our energy on delivering meaningful innovation both in our vehicle lineup and with our industry-leading customer experience, we're fortunate to have a strong group of leaders who will continue to lead the charge." In his new role, Pope will be responsible for leading Nissan's marketing operations teams, including vehicle pricing, incentives and lifecycle plans. He will report to Vinay Shahani, senior vice president, U.S. marketing and sales. Steve Milette, president, Nissan Canada, Inc., will succeed Pope as division vice president, dealer network development, customer resources and rraining. In this role, Milette will have responsibility for dealer network development operations for both Nissan and Infiniti brands in the U.S. and Canada, along with training responsibilities for the field organization and dealership employees in the U.S. Milette will relocate to Nissan Americas' headquarters in Franklin, and also report to Shahani. Trevor Longley, currently vice president, sales operations, Nissan Canada, Inc., will replace Milette as president, NCI. He will be responsible for all Nissan and Infiniti operations in Canada, including sales and marketing, finance, dealer network, product and corporate planning, aftersales, communication, legal, human resources, and the captive sales finance company. Longley will report to Papin and will be based at NCI headquarters in Mississauga, Canada. by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, July 10, 2024 Co-founders Quentin Le Pape and Guillaume Le Pape have returned to the mobile marketing tech company Mobkoi, owned by The Brandtech Group to serve as co-CEOs. The company, which turns 10 years old this year, will launch a set of tools based on generative artificial intelligence (GAI) for brands and publishers. The announcement was made Wednesday as the company unveiled an AI-based leadership team to spearhead growth and expand outside of the digital media space to offer services and solutions for a wider range of marketing activities. We feel AI can help us accelerate our mission to deliver better, faster and cheaper quality mobile advertising, Quentin Le Pape wrote in an email to Media Daily News. It was important for us to lead this next stage of the business. advertisement advertisement "Mob" in the name Mobkoi represents mobile, and "koi" represents the Japanese Carp symbol of strength of character and perseverance. The company was founded in 2014 to target the luxury sector, and went from zero to $8.5 million in revenue within three years. The Brandtech Group, formery You & Mr. Jones, acquired the company in 2017. Now Mobkoi's team works closely with colleagues at sister company Pencil, known for its GAI marketing platform, to create two products it plans to release later this year. The GAI tools will answer two of the biggest challenges in media advertising supporting predictive performance and GAI-based creative. The new team draws talent from Netflix and Teads, and comprises new positions and replacements. Fabio Corona joins the company as COO. He previously served at ad-tech businesses Ogury and Teads. Corona replaces Bernie Fischer, who becomes chief of staff in 2025, when she returns from maternity leave. Paolo Mule, joining from vice president of strategic accounts at Teads, becomes CRO. Levent Gunes, former Netflix head of creative partnerships, steps into the role of CFO. He had served as CEO at Havas in Southeast Asia and North Asia. Gunes replaces Elizabeth Hunter, who has relocated to Bermuda. The team will work with brands and publishers on AI pilots this year and to develop further tools for 2025. For years it has worked with major publishers such as Hearst, and Bustle. The industry stands at the start of a transformative journey, Quentin Le Pape wrote. What we do will become a creative revolution. Mobkoi, a family business, has never needed to raise capital based on its hyper-growth since launch, which is something Quentin Le Pape believes few brands and clients actually know. by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, July 10, 2024 The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently published a witness list for Google's antitrust trial and the names represent a who's who in advertising. The 68 names include past and present Google employees. Some will testify live -- noted by a "L" in the filing -- while others will submit testimonies via deposition, noted by a "D." Some will submit testimonies both live and by deposition. The trial is set to begin on September 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia with Judge Leonie Brinkema presiding. The full published list includes descriptions and titles, along with the years in which the person worked or still works for Google. Some of those still working at Google include Ali Nasiri Amini, vice president of engineering and data science for Google and YouTube, Tim Craycroft, vice president and general manager of Google Advertising, and Duke Dukellis, vice president of product management at Google. advertisement advertisement Matthew Wheatland, chief digital officer at DailyMail.com, is also on the witness list. A spokesperson emailed a statement to Media Daily News in response. For more than a decade, Google has unlawfully maintained a monopoly over the tools that publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell online ad space, the spokesperson wrote. It has used illegal practices, including bid rigging and the manipulation of online ad auctions and search results, to earn exorbitant profits at the expense of publishers and advertising technology rivals. The spokesperson went on to write that news publishers rely on digital ad revenue to provide consumers with a range of reliable news sources, but Googles behavior has depressed online ad revenues, inflicting serious harm on publishers, and reducing the amount and quality of news available to readers. Associated Newspapers in April 2021 became the first news publisher to launch a legal action against Google and its parent Alphabet to hold them accountable for what the publication deems anticompetitive behavior in the online advertising market. There is no way to determine the duration of the trial or whether all the witnesses will participate. The lawsuit, filed in January 2023, accuses Google of monopolizing the digital advertising market and undermining competition. Some government officials believe Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite. Last month, a federal judge rejected Google's bid for judgment in its favor. MediaPost reported that "authorities sought monetary damages and a court order that would require Google to unwind its 2008 acquisition of DoubleClick and 2011 purchase of AdMeld." by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, July 10, 2024 Google is urging a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit by a California resident who claims the company, through its analytics code, wrongly tracked her activity on the state's Department of Motor Vehicles website. In a motion filed Tuesday with U.S. District Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San Jose, Google argues that the allegations in the complaint, even if proven true, wouldn't show that the company knowingly obtained information from a motor vehicle record. Google's motion comes in response to a class-action complaint brought in May by Katherine Wilson, who alleged that the company secretly used Google Analytics and DoubleClick to collect information from her motor vehicle record when she renewed a disability parking placard. The complaint includes claims that Google violated federal and state laws, including the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act -- a 1994 statute that prohibits anyone from knowingly obtaining personal information from a motor vehicle record for an improper purpose. advertisement advertisement Google argues in its motion that the complaint centers on the anodyne and commonplace practice of offering analytics and advertising tag technology, adding that, even if the allegations were true, they would show only that Google was the passive recipient of information. It is self-evident that the DMV set up its own webpages and chose how to configure its URLs, Google argues. The complaint does not and cannot allege that Google controlled the allegedly privacy-violating URLs the DMV chose to use on its webpage. Accordingly, Google took no voluntary action with knowledge that it would receive this allegedly impermissible information. Google also argues that information regarding a disabled parking placard isn't a motor vehicle record, which is defined by statute as a record that pertains to a motor vehicle operators permit, motor vehicle title, motor vehicle registration, or identification card issued by a department of motor vehicles. Disability placards relate solely to parking privileges, not an operators permit, the company writes. Google isn't the only company facing suit for allegedly collecting data from Department of Motor Vehicles' sites. Meta has also been sued more than once over similar allegations. Last year, a federal judge in California allowed a complaint against Meta to move forward in court. But earlier this month, a federal judge in Nevada dismissed similar claims against the company. Trusted Source Algorithmic Versus Human Surveillance Leads to Lower Perceptions of Autonomy and Increased Resistance Go to source Trusted Source Balancing Autonomy and Surveillance in Workplace Monitoring #Employees show a preference for human performance monitors over #AI systems, citing trust and understanding as key factors in #workplacesurveillance. Advertisement Advertisement Algorithmic Versus Human Surveillance Leads to Lower Perceptions of Autonomy and Increased Resistance - (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-024-00102-8) Organizations using AI to monitor employees' behavior and productivity may encounter increased complaints, reduced productivity, and higher turnover intentionsunless the technology is positioned as supporting their professional growth and development ().Surveillance tools cause people to feel a greater loss of autonomy than oversight by humans, according to the research. Businesses and other organizations using the fast-changing technologies to evaluate employee behaviors should consider their unintended consequences, which may prompt resistance and hurt performance, the researchers say. They also suggest an opportunity to win buy-in, if the subjects of surveillance feel the tools are there to assist rather than judge their performance assessments they fear will lack context and accuracy.When artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies are implemented for developmental purposes, people like that they can learn from it and improve their performance, said Emily Zitek, associate professor of organizational behavior. The problem occurs when they feel like an evaluation is happening automatically, straight from the data, and theyre not able to contextualize it in any way.Zitek is the co-author of Algorithmic Versus Human Surveillance Leads to Lower Perceptions of Autonomy and Increased Resistance. Rachel Schlund is first author.The researchers conducted four experiments involving nearly 1,200 total participants. In a first study, when asked to recall and write about times when they were monitored and evaluated by either surveillance type, participants reported feeling less autonomy under AI and were more likely to engage in resistance behaviors.A pair of studies asked participants to work as a group to brainstorm ideas for a theme park, then to individually generate ideas about one segment of the park. They were told their work would be monitored by a research assistant or AIthe latter represented in Zoom videoconferences as AI Technology Feed. After several minutes, either the human assistant or AI relayed messages that the participants werent coming up with enough ideas and should try harder. In surveys following one study, more than 30% of participants criticized the AI surveillance compared to about 7% who were critical of the human monitoring.Beyond complaints and criticism, the researchers found that those who thought they were being monitored by AI generated fewer ideas indicating worse performance.Even though the participants got the same message in both cases that they needed to generate more ideas, they perceived it differently when it came from AI rather than the research assistant, Zitek said. The AI surveillance caused them to perform worse in multiple studies.In a fourth study, participants imagining they worked in a call center were told that humans or AI would analyze a sample of their calls. For some, the analysis would be used to evaluate their performance; for others, to provide developmental feedback. In the developmental scenario, participants no longer perceived algorithmic surveillance as infringing more on their autonomy and did not report a greater intention to quit.Organizations trying to implement this kind of surveillance need to recognize the pros and cons, Zitek said. They should do what they can to make it either more developmental or ensure that people can add contextualization. If people feel like they dont have autonomy, theyre not going to be happy.Source-Eurekalert Trusted Source Social disparities in achieving live birth after initiating ART treatment: a national register-based study among women in Denmark Go to source Trusted Source Women with higher socioeconomic status were more likely to achieve a #livebirth. #socioeconomic #fertilitytreatment Socioeconomic Status and Live Birth Outcomes in ART Treatment Advertisement Advertisement Social disparities in achieving live birth after initiating ART treatment: a national register-based study among women in Denmark - (https://academic.oup.com/humrep/issue/39/Supplement_1?login=false) New research highlighted substantial social disparities in achieving live births following assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment ().Women with a doctoral education (PhD) were over three times more likely to achieve a live birth compared to those with only a primary school education. Additionally, women in the highest income group were twice as likely to achieve a live birth as those in the lowest income group.Conducted by researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen University Hospital (Rigshospitalet), the national, register-based study analysed data from 68,738 women aged 18-45 who underwent ART treatment in Denmark between 1994 and 2017. The primary outcome investigated was live birth after initiating ART treatment.The study found that the possibility of achieving a first live birth after initiating ART treatment increased progressively with higher levels of education and income. Women with a research education exhibited the highest likelihood (HR=3.02 [95% CI 2.71; 3.35]), compared to those with a primary school education. In addition, women in the highest income group had twice the likelihood of achieving a live birth compared to women in the lowest income group.Unemployed women had the lowest likelihood of success, being a third less likely to have a live birth after ART treatment compared to employed women [HR=0.67 [95% CI 0.64; 0.69]).These findings were consistent across the different age groups examined and for both childless women and women who had a child or children prior to ART treatment, indicating a robust association between socioeconomic position and achieving a live birth after initiation of ART treatment.Rikke Bruun Uggerhj, lead study author from the University of Copenhagen, Department of Public Health, comments, While prior studies have suggested a link between higher socioeconomic status and improved ART outcomes, our research delves deeper, providing clear data-driven insights into the specific influence of education, employment and income in determining the success of fertility treatments.Subanalyses revealed that they were more likely to continue ART treatment after unsuccessful attempts, potentially explaining the observed social inequality in achieving a live birth after ART treatment.What was surprising, however, was that even in Denmark, where three fresh ART treatments are currently offered free of charge, social inequality impacted the likelihood of initiating second and third ART treatments. This suggests that factors beyond the financial burden alone contribute to these disparities in outcomes. Infertility is on the rise globally, with an estimated lifetime prevalence of 17.5%. As this issue continues to grow, the demand for fertility treatments is expected to increase. Ensuring fair access to these treatments and equitable outcomes is thus crucial to address the needs of individuals and couples experiencing infertility, regardless of their socioeconomic status.Commenting on this issue, post doc researcher Ditte Vassard, co-author of the research from the Copenhagen University Hospital (Rigshospitalet), says, Within the context of this study, it is clear that financial constraints alone do not always determine outcomes; multiple socioeconomic factors come into play. For instance, women with higher education levels may have jobs that offer flexibility or accommodations for treatment-related responsibilities, supporting them to continue ART treatment after unsuccessful attempts.To tackle disparities in outcomes effectively, policymakers and healthcare professionals must adopt a comprehensive approach that acknowledges and addresses the multifaceted challenges people encounter in their lives, including practical considerations, resource constraints and the emotional burden.Professor Dr Carlos Calhaz-Jorge, Immediate Past Chair of ESHRE, states, This important study highlights the complexity of the socioeconomic factors that influence the results for ART. The authors found that even a high level of public funding for these treatments is not enough to prevent social inequalities in the final outcomes. The political and social implications of these findings warrant deep consideration from all stakeholders.Source-Eurekalert Measures Facilitating Dialogue Amid Medical School Admission Dispute #SouthKorea opts not to revoke licenses of striking #doctors, aiming to resolve ongoing medical service disruptions. #doctorslicence Advertisement Government officials indicated that they are considering pausing license suspensions and other administrative actions against striking trainee doctors, aiming to resolve prolonged disruptions in medical services.Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong was scheduled to hold a press briefing after a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, during which he was to announce measures that would help facilitate dialogue and resolve the ongoing standoff with the medical community over the medical school admission quota hike.More than 12,000 trainee doctors, or more than 90 percent of the total, have left their worksites since late February in protest of the governments medical reform plan, and most of them have rejected calls for returning to work, reports Yonhap news agency.As a latest, key appeasement measure, the government is expected to halt administrative steps even for those who opt not to return to hospitals."Some trainee doctors are reluctant to return to work out of concerns that the move would lead to punishment against their defiant colleagues," a ministry official said."If we suspend administrative measures altogether, that would help induce more to go back to hospitals," he said, adding that it would be a "last resort" for the government to address the situation.Doctors have urged the government to cancel, rather than suspend, administrative steps against striking doctors, but it would not do that in consideration of those who already ended their strike and other legal issues, officials said.Despite strong opposition from doctors, the government finalised an admissions quota hike of some 1,500 students for medical schools for next year in an effort to address problems stemming from the shortage of doctors.Source-IANS Ariyana involvement Lavanya alleged that Raj Tarun had an affair with Ariyana right after working with her on a movie for a day. If youve already watched a few Korean horrors, youre well aware of their obsession with zombies, virus breakouts and shamanism. Exhuma, for example, the 2024 horror-mystery stars Kim Go-eun as a modern-day shaman who charges a bomb to break rich families supernatural curses. Showbox While the plots feel fresh because Bollywood has yet to crack the code for good zombie films, theres a limit to how much gore one can watch. Especially, someone who is on a hunt for a spine-chilling horror-thriller. Indians are moving up with good horror stories like Pari, Bulbbul, 13B, Ek Thi Dayan, Stree, Chhorii and the recent Shaitaan and Munjya. Weve built a graceful amount of immunity for local legends and suspense. But the Korean film industry has aced the art of making thrillers over horrors as they believe people are scarier than ghosts. Were not going to argue with that but we will recommend these six Korean horror films and dramas that came out pretty well and will please someone who is a sucker for a good storyline. 1. Revenant Whats so great about Revenant? Its eerie and dark. The acting is as natural as it can get. The show doesnt have your stereotypical jump scares but some factors from the story stick with you after the credits roll. A literature professor, who can see demons/ghosts and can help people deal with them, recognises a young woman who has been possessed by an entity. As the professor warns her about how people around her whom she hates will start dying, he also notices that the demon is the same one who killed his mother in the past. The woman who was in disbelief soon begins to trust the professor after two deaths. Both of them team up with a police investigator to free the woman from demonic control. Trigger warning: The drama relies on suicide and self-harm as a plot device. Anyone sensitive to the subject must not watch it. 2. The Call This one may mess with your head and keep you on the edge of your seat. This film is based on the concept of time travel but the director and director Chung Hyun-lee has taken the liberty to deal with it differently in a tense setting. Thats the part thatll hit the right spot for you. The story moves around two women, Seoyeon and Young-sook, who are connected by a call and live in the same house 20 years apart. Young-sook, a serial killer manipulates Seoyeon to change her fate into something that might turn out to be dangerous for everyone, especially, Seoyeon. 3. Sleep Sleep was nominated for Camera dOr at the Cannes Film Festival. The thriller starring Lee Sun-kyun of Parasite fame and Jung Yu-mi is Jason Yus directorial debut. Its the story of a husband and wifeHyun-su and Soo-jinwho are expecting their first child. The couple experiences true terror in the dead of the night after the pregnant wife and her neighbours begin hearing banging sounds throughout her apartment. The husbands sleepwalking habit gets worse and puts her and the child in danger. 4. Forgotten Contrary to its name, you wont forget the story easily. The film is about two brothers. One of them gets violently kidnapped by unknown assailants and returns home after three weeks, unharmed. The other brother soon starts suspecting and becomes concerned about his siblings behaviour. There are enough twists and turns masterfully crafted in the plot to keep you on the edge and hooked. Unlike most horror films, this one constantly defies expectations, creating a unique experience for a viewer. It features action, several chilling dream sequences and a heightened sense of urgency to set its unsettling tone. The actors playing brothers have a brilliant job at keeping the mystery alive which only gets clearer after the layers of their relationship unravel, leading to a thought-provoking yet pleasing conclusion. 5. Bedevilled You know how sometimes you know the story of the film, you know whats about to come but you still watch it and like it? Its because the director, writer and actors have done such a brilliant job that you want to hear what they have to say and watch this story from their eyes. This is one of those. Watch this one for the craft. Be nice while you can should be the tagline for this one. As the trailer shows, its the story of a woman to tolerates and pleads until she realises no ones coming to her rescue. Its not your typical horror movie. Treat this as a film that will heavily affect your mood. Trigger warning: The movie features sexual abuse. If it is a sensitive matter for you, you are advised to not watch the film. 6. Exhuma Kinaxia Logistics has expanded its capacity to transport freight classified as hazardous goods after its Hampshire depot joined a specialist national distribution network. Lambert Brothers has become a member of the Hazchem Network, providing services across the SO and SP postcodes, an area which includes Southampton, Salisbury, Andover, Winchester and the New Forest. Based in Eastleigh close to the M3, the M27 and the Port of Southampton, Lambert Brothers operates a fleet of 52 vehicles and has 50,000sq ft of warehousing, including a facility where all freight is scanned and transhipped under cover. The Hazchem Network, founded in 2005, has more than 60 members serving the whole of the UK and 27 other European countries. It is the UKs only pallet network providing specialist transport services for all types of hazardous goods solids, liquids and gases plus products that are sensitive to damages. Kinaxias Cammack depot in Essex is already part of Hazchem and the addition of Lambert Brothers to the network enables the company to expand its hazardous goods distribution to more customers. Eddie Elmslie, managing director of Lambert Brothers, said: We already provide full transport of dangerous goods services for some customers, and the opportunity to join the Hazchem Network, with its proven high-quality customer service offer at competitive rates, is an ideal way to complement our other transport activities. It also enables us to apply the skills and experience of our existing operational and customer care teams to new business opportunities and to offer a reliable and cost-effective solution to new clients. Rob Symes, managing director of the Hazchem Network, said: We have been speaking to Eddie for several years about the potential of joining Hazchem so, when the right opportunity arose, we were delighted to welcome another Kinaxia depot into the network. The business has a strong reputation in the area and is well-known for its commitment to service excellence. Kinaxia is already well-versed in operating within pallet networks and Lambert Brothers has taken to joining the Hazchem Network with ease. Its a strong addition to our portfolio. Kinaxia, which has its headquarters in Macclesfield, Cheshire, employs 1,600 staff nationwide and operates a fleet of 800 vehicles transporting goods for the retail, leisure, food and drink and manufacturing sectors. Its national network of hubs provides a full source-to-shelf logistics service. It has 2.7 million sq ft of strategic national warehousing facilities offering contract packing, e-fulfilment, returns management, storage services and a complete distribution service. No part of the Great War compares in interest with its opening, wrote Winston Churchill of the world-changing events that took place 110 years ago this summer, as Europes Great Powers found themselves sliding inexorably towards a new type of conflict. The measured, silent drawing together of gigantic forces, the uncertainty of their movements and positions, the number of unknown and unknowable facts made the first collision a drama never surpassed. More than a century on, interest in this extraordinary drama shows few signs of fading as new generations ask themselves, how could Europes leaders have allowed such a thing to happen? How could a continent that had for so long prided itself on its so-called civilisation sleepwalk into a conflagration that would claim the lives of between 15 and 22 million soldiers and civilians over the following four years? Such interest is not purely historical, of course. For inside this complex tale of imperial rivalries and short sighted diplomatic blundering, many are tempted to discern a parable with enduring relevance to the world we live in today. That is why the US President John F Kennedy famously found inspiration at the height of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchmans celebrated account of the outbreak of World War I. And it is why the events of that far-off summer of 1914 are still referred to even today by those who warn of the dangers of escalating conflicts around the world, from Ukraine to the Middle East. In our special two-part feature in this issue to mark the 110th anniversary of the First World War, Graham Goodlad looks first at how Europes alliances broke down as the continent lurched closer to catastrophe, and then analyses in detail the Miracle of the Marne the key early battle, fought in September 1914, that saved Paris and checked the German advance, but in doing so set the course for four long years of bitter conflict. This is an extract from a special feature on The First World War from the August/September 2024 issue of Military History Matters magazine. Read the full article online on The Past, or in the print magazine: find out more about subscriptions to Military History Matters here. Troops at Colorado Space Force Base Will Have to Bring Their Own To-Go Boxes for Dining Hall While the initiative is aimed at reducing waste on base, the spokesperson added that they hope it will give troops on base... The Department of Veterans Affairs has ended a seven-year-old policy that required claims processors to work mandatory overtime, a move enabled by increased hiring and efficiency, according to the VA's top benefits executive. Under Secretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs announced Tuesday that most staff will no longer be required to work up to four hours extra each week, although they still may volunteer to work up to 20 hours of overtime each week. Those not affected by the new policy, which Jacobs said is effective immediately, include claims processors who handle claims for radiation exposure; sexual assault; contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; pension claims; and any claims not related to disability ratings. Read Next: Army Advocates Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence by Soldiers as Other Services Are Hesitant Claims processors at the Veterans Benefits Administration have been required to participate in mandatory overtime since 2017 to handle the influx of claims. VA officials have for years tried to end the practice to prevent burnout and improve employees' work-life balance but have been unable to do so given the sheer number of claims filed each year. Jacobs said during a press conference Tuesday, however, that the VBA workforce of 34,000 has "gone above and beyond to deliver these earned benefits," allowing the administration to change the policy. "I have never thought that mandatory overtime is a sustainable operating practice. ... As I've traveled across the country meeting with our employees, I have often been asked, 'When are we able to make some changes?' And as we've looked at our production levels, as we looked at the workforce levels, I felt it was prudent for us to make this change," Jacobs said. VA processed and completed nearly 2 million claims in fiscal 2023, roughly 16% more than it handled the previous year. It also has received a record number of claims with the passage of the PACT Act, the landmark legislation that expanded health care and benefits for millions of veterans exposed to environmental pollutants while supporting combat operations overseas. Since the legislation was signed in 2022, the VA has received 1.65 million PACT Act-related claims. As of July 6, the VA had more than 970,000 pending claims and 274,000 claims older than four months, up from roughly 165,000 a year ago. But it is processing the claims at a faster pace than previously. According to VA officials, before 2022, the department had just three days in which it processed more than 8,000 claims per day. In the past two years, however, VA claims processors adjudicated 8,000 claims on 182 days. Jacobs said that the department has increased staffing by 33% in the past two years and has provided increased training, including refresher courses for longtime employees. On June 6, the administration also held a department-wide stand-down to "enhance the employee work experience," Jacobs said. "Investing in our employees matters and can ultimately yield significant returns for our veterans and survivors," he said. Jacobs could not say how many claims processors still will be subject to mandatory overtime, given the number of exceptions to the policy. He said the exceptions were made for certain types of claims because they require "more timely decisions." "We will assess as we watch our work in those areas progress if and when we can make changes ... and transition them to voluntary overtime," Jacobs said. He added that the new policy was driven by feedback from employees and a desire to end an onerous requirement, not by limits placed on the department by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, a 2023 law that capped agency budgets. Related: VA Plans to Cut 10,000 Jobs This Year on Medical Side of the House For the first time in more than a decade, the Marine Corps has published official doctrine on how it employs deception -- a tactic used by militaries throughout history to deliberately deceive the enemy through decoys, demonstrations, ruses and manipulation of information. The doctrine, titled simply "Deception," was published late last month and supersedes a manual from 12 years ago, according to service officials. The need for a cohesive policy on deception was identified in the 2023 update to the service's Force Design campaign, a reorganization effort meant to prepare for a potential future fight in the Pacific against China. Within that campaign, planners said that deception was one of the "issues requiring further analysis," and last summer Marine Corps officials got to work defining exactly what that would mean for Marines down to the lowest levels of the force. Read Next: Feds Say Air Force Employee Skipped Key Maintenance Ahead of 2017 Plane Crash that Killed 16 Troops According to the doctrine, deception "is a deliberate distortion of reality imposed on another where the deceiver gains an advantage," and planners intend every Marine to be familiar with its intricacies. The tactic has logged itself as vital to historical military campaigns, from the legend of the Trojan Horse to a more recent example like the "Ghost Army" of World War II, which used inflatable vehicles and fake radio traffic to dupe German forces. "Sun Tzu would say that all warfare is based on deception," Maj. Jeffrey Hill, an intelligence officer and the lead author of the doctrine, told Military.com in a recent interview, invoking the Chinese general credited for writing "The Art of War." In other words, "if you ain't deceiving, you ain't fighting," he said. In the modern sense, basic tenets of deception have held true and are included in the new policy. The doctrine cites suppressing radio traffic, obfuscating movement timing with false information, and employing "feints" where a supporting unit might draw attention away from an amphibious landing, for example. Marines have used this before. Hill pointed to the Gulf War, in which Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led coalition forces against Iraq during the conflict, placed Marine amphibious forces in the Persian Gulf to draw Saddam Hussein's attention -- and troops -- to the coast while the main effort attacked from the west. Force Design, Hill said, was an "obvious recognition" that the Marine Corps needed to reorganize in preparation for conventional conflict, especially after the bulk of the Global War on Terror. "So the connection and the resurgence in information operations writ large, but military deception specifically, is tied to this recognition that the way that we've done business in the last 20 years is not going to be sufficient for the future fight," Hill said. The proliferation of widely available information, in which video, audio and data are available to the common user at the touch of a fingertip, has changed the way the military thinks about deception. "With the information age that we live in, we're still trying to -- as a global society -- figure out the implications of just the mass sources and conduits and pathways of information that's out there," Hill said. "As you're going through execution, it is essential to be able to adapt and adjust as the highly dynamic information environment is changing." Part of the doctrine is classified, but it broadly outlines the players involved in deception under the umbrella of information warfare, one of the seven warfighting functions that govern Marine Corps operations. They include psychological forces, civil affairs teams, cyber operators, electromagnetic spectrum units, and even space elements. Some methods involve mimicking the electronic profile of a unit, creating dummy networks and "interactive transmissions" to replicate force size and activity, and emitting chemical or biological odors associated with a specific capability to fool an enemy. At its basic level, where Hill said Marines on the ground should look at deception as a tool, the doctrine still advises dummy weapons and mines, removing identifications from uniforms, and feigned attacks or retreats. "If a deception is 99% truth and 1% a lie, that's fantastic," Hill said. Practically, this doctrine is applicable to Marines rotating to the Pacific, where China has deployed its own information tactics. Hill noted that those Marines should be wary of operational security, a practice meant to prevent sensitive information from spilling into adversaries' hands. Despite its historical use, the employment of deception has been controversial -- and is rife with risk, a point noted in the doctrine. Within the tactic overall lie numerous ethical traps that could result in catastrophic harm if employed illegally or toward an unintended audience. "Determining legality of a deception operation is a complex process, as some activities or techniques are prohibited by domestic or international law, while others might be legal but are prohibited by various policies," the doctrine said. "The line of demarcation between legitimate and illegitimate ruses sometimes blurs." Last month, Reuters reported that the Pentagon conducted a clandestine disinformation campaign in the Philippines at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic intended to discredit Chinese-produced vaccines through phony social media accounts. At the time, the Philippines had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the region, the publication reported. Lisa Lawrence, a Defense Department spokesperson, did not deny that the operation occurred, but said that the Pentagon "uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks." The U.S. military cannot target Americans with deception tactics, and Reuters reported that it did not find evidence that the DoD deployed the clandestine operation in the U.S. The Marine Corps doctrine echoes those prohibitions on deception activities, in that the service cannot mislead the U.S. public, Congress or the media, or take advantage of protected symbols such as the Red Cross. "There are strict, strict guidelines that we have to follow to actually prevent our messages from even getting" accessed by the U.S. population, Hill said. "That's to ensure we're operating within a traditional military activity and that we are supporting purely military objectives." At the heart of deception lie several questions on how it is employed against an enemy. What does the Marine Corps want its adversary to see? What does it want them to think when they see the deception? What does it want them to do as a result? The doctrine was developed by a team of planners over a yearlong period, Hill said, including collaboration from the government and military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. "Deception is absolutely in our tool kit," Hill said. "And our adversaries should definitely second-guess what they see, because we know what we're doing." Related: Pentagon Stands by Secret Anti-Vaccination Disinformation Campaign in Philippines After Reuters Report A former Air Force civilian engineer who led maintenance at Robins Air Force Base removed a crucial inspection procedure that could have identified a worn propeller blade before it caused a KC-130 Hercules crash in 2017 that killed 16 troops, federal prosecutors allege in newly released court documents. James Michael Fisher, 67, the former lead engineer responsible for C-130 propeller maintenance at the Georgia base, was arrested July 2 by federal authorities as part of the investigation into the crash in Mississippi. He faces two charges relating to false statements and two charges relating to obstruction of justice. Federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment that Fisher allowed technicians to stop conducting a key inspection procedure on propeller bores, causing a defective propeller blade to be placed back into service even though "intergranular cracking was not detected and remediated at Robins." Read Next: Commander of New Hampshire Air National Guard Killed in Hit-and-Run Incident Near His Home "Fisher was also one of the key decision-makers who removed the critical inspection procedure in August 2011," prosecutors allege. Federal prosecutors say the propeller blade was placed back onto the Marine Corps KC-130, call sign "Yanky 72," which was carrying 15 Marines and one Navy sailor when it suddenly crashed in a soybean field in Leflore County, Mississippi, on July 10, 2017. The cause of the crash was determined to be a propeller blade that came loose. That "initiated the catastrophic sequence of events resulting in the midair breakup of the aircraft and its uncontrollable descent and ultimate destruction," a Marine Corps crash investigation found. The revelation of Fisher's connection to the "Yanky 72 incident" comes on the 7th anniversary of the July 10 crash. The crash investigation revealed "gross negligence" in the maintenance culture at Robins Air Force Base, but "Fisher and the System Program Office avoided scrutiny," federal prosecutors said. A criminal investigation was opened in 2020. During that criminal investigation, "federal agents learned that the earlier Marine Corps investigators were misled about what maintenance procedures were in place in the late summer of 2011," adding that "in August 2011, engineers at Robins authorized the removal of a critical inspection procedure for detecting C-130 propeller blade defects," the indictment states. Investigators began zeroing in on Air Force Materiel Command Form 202, a document that must be filed when maintenance personnel need to request permission to deviate from technical manuals when making repairs. Fisher had allegedly signed off on such a request to remove a certain inspection designed to examine propeller cracking in August 2011 and denied doing so. "Fisher's statement that he would have never removed the penetrant inspections was false," the indictment claims. "Federal agents later uncovered the Aug. 19, 2011, email in which Fisher stated that he had 'no problem' removing the penetrant inspections and also discovered the other Blanket Form 202s in 2012 and 2013 in which Fisher, as the assigned engineer, had recommended removal of penetrant inspections." Fisher is accused of making false statements to investigators and hiding information regarding those forms from officials looking into the crash. "Fisher attempted to obstruct the criminal investigation by intentionally withholding documents showing that he played a crucial role in removing the critical inspection procedure and providing false statements to federal agents in order to cover up his role in removing the critical inspection procedure," the indictment alleges. Fisher did not return a phone call and text messages Wednesday seeking comment on the latest information in the indictment. Court records do not say what the next step for the case will be or when Fisher is next expected in court. However, records from the time of his arrest in Florida note that the 67-year-old is currently free on a $10,000 bond and had to surrender three U.S. passports. Fisher was living in Portugal leading up to the arrest, a Justice Department press release said. Documents filed with the case say that Fisher faces up to 20 years in prison for concealing records, eight years for a charge of tampering with a witness, and five years for a charge of lying to investigators. All four of the charges also carry a potential fine of up to $250,000, though courts rarely impose the maximum penalty on defendants. Related: Feds Arrest Former Air Force Base Engineer in Connection to Deadly Mississippi KC-130 Crash in 2017 WASHINGTON The Iranian government is covertly encouraging American protests over Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza in a bid to stoke outrage ahead of the fall election, the nation's top intelligence official said Tuesday. Using social media platforms popular in the U.S., groups linked to Tehran have posed as online activists, encouraged protests and have provided financial support to some protest groups, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said in a statement. Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their foreign influence efforts, seeking to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions, Haines said. This effort noted by the top U.S. intelligence official is the latest evidence that America's adversaries are harnessing the internet to warp domestic debates and widen political divides ahead of the election. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was important to warn Americans to help them guard against efforts by foreign powers to take advantage of or coopt their legitimate protest activities. She also warned Iran that meddling in our politics and seeking to stoke division is unacceptable. In recent years, Iran, Russia and China have all refined their abilities to use online bots and networks of fake social media accounts to amplify divisive debates within the U.S. over immigration, shootings by police, COVID-19, environmental catastrophes, and even Chinese spy balloons. In most cases, these influence campaigns exploit existing social conflicts, and Haines noted Tuesday that Americans participating in protests over Israel's conduct in Gaza have a right to express their views. But she said Americans need to know when foreign actors are trying to meddle in domestic American politics. Americans who are being targeted by this Iranian campaign may not be aware that they are interacting with or receiving support from a foreign government, Haines said. Demonstrations over Israels offensives in Gaza emerged on university campuses across the country in recent months. The protests quickly became a factor in political campaigns and prompted concerns about antisemitism and the role of outside agitators as well as worries about a larger regional conflict between Israel and Iran. Iran isn't the only nation seeking to influence American discourse ahead of the 2024 election. During a briefing with reporters Tuesday, intelligence officials said America's adversaries will look to harness the latest artificial intelligence to dramatically expand the reach and penetration of election misinformation. The officials from agencies including the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence spoke with reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the office of the director. Russia remains the greatest threat, according to the officials, who said the Kremlin is mounting a government-wide effort to spread election disinformation ahead of the 2024 race. Russia has already sought to exploit debates over immigration as part of its strategy to undermine international support for Ukraine. Russia is also seeking to cover its tracks by laundering its disinformation through supposedly independent news sites and American influencers who may not know they are parroting Russian talking points. The officials declined to answer directly when asked if Russia preferred a particular presidential candidate but pointedly noted that the countrys preference remained unchanged from prior election cycles, when Russia was assessed by the U.S. intelligence community to have worked to try to get Republican candidate Donald Trump elected. While China mounted a sprawling disinformation campaign ahead of Taiwan's recent election, the nation has been more cautious in its use of disinformation targeting Americans this year. Officials said Tuesday that China shows no indication that it will try to influence the presidential race. China, one official said, doesn't see a benefit in choosing between candidates who are both seen as trying to curb its power. Sen. Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said the U.S. may be more vulnerable to foreign disinformation this year than it was before the 2020 election. He thanked the intelligence community for holding Tuesday's briefing as a way to inform the public about the threat. Social media, in particular, continues to be a popular vector for foreign covert influence attempts, and our adversaries remain focused on stoking social, racial, and political tensions among Americans, said Warner, D-Virginia. ___ Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report. WASHINGTON Ukraine is on an irreversible path to NATO membership, U.S. and European officials said Wednesday, advancing assurances from allies that it will be allowed to join the Western military coalition after its war with Russia ends. In another boost for Ukraine, the U.S., the Netherlands and Denmark announced Wednesday that the first NATO-provided F-16s were on their way to Ukraine and would be flying this summer following months of work. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted his appreciation on the effort to strengthen his air force, coming after Ukraine saw one of the deadliest strikes of the war. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Czech President Petr Pavel, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo all used the word irreversible to describe the way forward for Ukraine as NATO leaders gathered for a summit in Washington. Stubb and Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics both said the language was expected in the final summit declaration from all 32 NATO allies. I think its very important to give a message to the Kremlin from here that Ukraines path and bridge towards NATO membership is now irreversible, Stubb told reporters as he arrived at the summit. Zelenskyy, fearing his country would otherwise be left to fight a stronger Russia indefinitely, has battled for at least a firm guarantee from NATO that Ukraine can join the military alliance. The U.S. and some other countries have opposed membership for Ukraine while the conflict with Russia continues to avoid an escalation of tensions with Russia that could lead to a larger war. They also have stressed that Ukraine must take significant steps to address corruption as well as other systemic reforms. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long bitterly opposed neighboring Ukraines fight to join the Western alliance, declaring it an encroachment on Russias security and interests. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg underlined that Ukraine will not join the alliances ranks immediately. But he insisted that must happen after the war is over to ensure that Russia never attacks it again. I strongly believe that when the fighting stops, we need to ensure that Ukraine has the capabilities to deter future aggression from Russia, and they need security guarantees, Stoltenberg said. Zelenskyy, in Washington for the NATO summit, had stressed what he called Ukraine's urgent need for the F-16 fighter jets in a speech to friendly Republican lawmakers Tuesday night. He said his country needed more than 100 to be able to start to counter the devastating Russian air attacks on Ukraine's cities, energy infrastructure and other vital targets. He said Russia was using 300 jets to carry out the attacks. In post on X, Zelenskyy thanked the three countries for taking practical steps to achieve the goal of all Ukrainians: to strengthen the Ukrainian air force with F-16s. The first flight-ready jets were being transferred by the Netherlands and Denmark, and the White House said they would be flying operational this summer. Zelenskyy also thanked Belgium and Norway for their commitment to send the jets. European and U.S. allies have announced other new arms deliveries, such as dozens of air defense systems, including Patriots, at the NATO summit. Opposition from Republican lawmakers allied to former President Donald Trump blocked a U.S. support package to Ukraine for months earlier this year, allowing Russia to make battlefield gains against Ukrainian forces who were fighting with dwindling arms and ammunition. Europeans and NATO, as a lesson from that setback, have vowed to take on more of the responsibility for ensuring a reliable flow of military support to Ukraine. ___ Cook reported from Brussels. Matthew Lee in Washington contributed. Veterans with combat-related injuries rallied near the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to urge lawmakers to finally act on a long-stalled proposal to allow all veterans full access to military retirement pay and Department of Veterans Affairs disability benefits. Despite wide bipartisan backing, the Major Richard Star Act has languished for years, increasingly frustrating the veterans who are losing thousands of dollars in benefits that could help them support themselves and their families. "Even before I medically retired, I got another job because I needed to provide for my wife, and at that time, we welcomed our first child right after I retired," said Ryan Kules, an Army veteran who lost his right arm and left leg in an improvised explosive device blast in Iraq in 2005. "So, I had a growing family and needed to get back into the workforce. And if I had had that additional income that I had earned, I would have been able to take some more time to adjust, but I didn't have a choice." Read Next: Commander of New Hampshire Air National Guard Killed in Hit-and-Run Incident Near His Home Kules, who now works at Wounded Warrior Project, was speaking to Military.com after a news conference across the street from the Capitol hosted by his organization and other veterans groups to urge Congress to move on the Major Richard Star Act. Specifically, the organizations called for the measure to be added to the Senate's annual defense policy bill as an amendment when the chamber takes up the legislation in the coming weeks. Right now, veterans with fewer than 20 years of service and a disability rating of less than 50% have their retirement pay reduced by a dollar for every dollar of disability pay they get. Those rules mean an estimated 50,000 retirees are ineligible for concurrent benefits. The average offset was about $1,900 per month in 2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Major Richard Star Act would remove those restrictions so that all retirees with combat-related disabilities can collect their full retirement and disability benefits. The bill's namesake was an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran who was forced to retire before 20 years of service after he was diagnosed with lung cancer he developed following burn pit exposure. Star died from cancer in 2021. The bill has more than 300 co-sponsors in the House and more than 70 in the Senate. But it remains stalled despite past efforts to build momentum, in large part because the legislation would increase what's known as mandatory spending and congressional rules generally require any increases in mandatory spending to be balanced out elsewhere in the budget. But Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester, D-Mont., called the mandatory spending debate "an excuse" for inaction. "This is the cost of war," Tester said at Wednesday's new conference. "You heard a number of folks come up here, you saw their battle wounds. If that shouldn't be mandatory spending, what the hell should?" Tester said he and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the bill's other lead Senate sponsor, will introduce the measure as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act later this week. It remains to be seen whether the amendment will be voted on, but veterans argued Wednesday that it's long past time for Congress to act. "We've been talking about this for 19 years amongst the veterans, my brothers and sisters," said Danielle Green, an Army veteran who lost her dominant left arm in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq 15 months after enlisting. "I've been very fortunate over the past 20 years that I've been able to move forward with my life, but there are thousands, we have 53,000 veterans that earned these benefits that could benefit from this that have endured in hardship. So, we got to make this right, Congress." Related: Bill Allowing Disabled Veterans to Collect Full Benefits Gets New Push from Supporters on Capitol Hill Long before she became a culinary powerhouse, Julia Child was fighting sharks -- sort of. While Child was not one of the driving forces behind the U.S. Navy's quest to develop a shark repellent during World War II, she was among those tasked with finding one while working for the Office of Strategic Services, the intelligence agency established in June 1942 that became a precursor to the CIA. In the book "Sisterhood of Spies: the Women of the OSS," Child recalled her role in pursuing a repellent fondly. "We had lots of fun," Child told author Elizabeth P. McIntosh, who also worked with the OSS. "We designed rescue kits and other agent paraphernalia. I understand the shark repellent we developed is being used today for downed space equipment -- strapped around it so the sharks won't attack when it lands in the ocean." A journalist reads the recently declassified personnel file of Office of Strategic Services (OSS) member and famed chef Julia Child, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008, in the textual research room of the National Archives in College Park, Md. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo) Born Aug. 15, 1912, in California, Child was in her late 20s when Japan carried out the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into World War II. After being fired from a secretarial position in the late 1930s for insubordination, the future celebrity chef had no discernible job prospects at the time, so she sought adventure instead. The 6-foot-2 Child attempted to enlist in Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) and the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, but was rejected because of her height. She then turned to the Office of Strategic Services, which hired her in December 1942. Child started as a junior research assistant, tediously typing thousands of names and addresses onto note cards. Seeking more challenging assignments, she moved on to work under OSS director William "Wild Bill" Donovan, a Medal of Honor recipient for his actions during World War I, before being transferred to the Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section (ERE) special projects division. Established in April 1943 under the auspices of the Navy, one of the division's objectives was to develop a shark repellent, a pursuit that predated the ERE by nearly a year. This photo provided by the German government shows a German submarine, or U-boat, after returning to a French port on the English Channel in August 1940 after an extensive tour, according to the government censor in Berlin. (German government via AP) During the war, sharks posed a dilemma for the military because they were mistaking underwater explosives for food, damaging valuable munitions and interfering with their intended purpose of destroying German U-boats. And while the odds of sharks attacking humans are infinitesimally small, media coverage of the ones that occurred also deflated the morale of service members, especially those who might be assigned to missions in, on or over shark-infested waters. When a shark ripped off a service member's limb after his plane went down in 1941, the startling incident concerned anthropologist Henry Field, an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, enough that he convinced FDR of the supposedly urgent need to create a shark repellent. Staffers and researchers, including Child, went to work, experimenting with myriad compounds on a small shark called a dogfish. Some sharks died as they were subjected to chlorine gas, sodium cyanide, narcotics, chemical warfare gases, acids and alkalis, et al., but none proved to be an effective repellent. The most promising deterrent was decayed shark meat, and researchers settled on a mix that could mimic its smell -- copper acetate and black dye (to blur the shark's vision of its target, if only briefly). The concoction was called "Shark Chaser" and dispensed to service members craving any source of comfort that would allay their fears. Some skeptics of the repellent remained, however, arguing the repellent was tested on sharks weighing less than 10 pounds and wouldn't be effective against much larger types of the species. Along those lines, they pointed out it would not be feasible for any service member to carry enough doses of Shark Chaser to be truly effective against bigger fish. Capt. Harold Coolidge, one of the special projects division's leaders and Child's direct supervisor for a while, warned that "none of us expected that the chemical would really function when the animals were stirred up in a mob behavior pattern." Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics Edward Howell chimed in, too, asserting it was illogical to expect the repellent "[to] give any promise of affecting the voracious behavior of the few species known to have attacked man." Shark Chaser, it turned out, was basically a placebo. "The main goal of the shark repellent was really what they called a 'pink pill,'" Mary Roach, author of "Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War," told Business Insider. "It was just to make them feel better." Despite issues regarding its efficacy, Shark Chaser enjoyed a long run in the Navy, with the service continuing to issue it until the mid-1970s, per the American Chemical Society. After her time with the Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section, Child went on to work for the OSS in present-day Sri Lanka -- where she met her husband, a fellow officer who would introduce her to the joys of French cuisine -- India and China. Chef Julia Child talks to reporters at the opening of her kitchen exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, Monday, Aug. 19, 2002. (Dennis Cook/AP Photo) After the war, the former Julia McWilliams married Paul Child in 1946 and moved to Paris while he worked for the State Department. With her husband as her biggest advocate, Child reinvented herself, becoming a sensation with the release of the first of two volumes of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in 1961. She followed up by hosting "The French Chef" for 10 seasons, beginning in 1963. "The only real stumbling block is fear of failure," said Child, who died in 2004 at the age of 91. "In cooking, you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude." Just like in the kitchen, Child was willing to try anything during her time with the OSS. She never regretted it. Want to Know More About the Military? Be sure to get the latest news about the U.S. military, as well as critical info about how to join and all the benefits of service. Subscribe to Military.com and receive customized updates delivered straight to your inbox. 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 The Giants announced a series of roster moves today, with left-hander Blake Snell as well as infielders Wilmer Flores and Thairo Estrada all reinstated from the injured list. One spot on the active roster was already opened when they traded outfielder Austin Slater to the Reds. They opened two more by optioning left-hander Kolton Ingram and designating shortstop Nick Ahmed for assignment. The latter move drops the 40-man roster count to 39. Ahmed signed with San Francisco on a minor league deal early in Spring Training. The longtime Diamondback essentially took over for Brandon Crawford as a glove-first veteran shortstop. Ahmed hit well during exhibition play and made the roster, locking in a reported $1.5MM base salary in the process. He picked up the Opening Day nod at shortstop the first time a player other than Crawford got that honor since Miguel Tejada back in 2011 and went on to start 50 games overall. As is typically the case with Ahmed, virtually all of his contributions came on defense. Statcast credited him as four runs better than average across 426 innings. Defensive Runs Saved was less bullish, grading him one run below par. He hit in the bottom third of the batting order and ran a .232/.278/.303 slash line with one homer over 172 plate appearances. Ahmed is a two-time Gold Glove winner who has been one of the sports preeminent defensive shortstops throughout his career. While hes still a good defender, his numbers have taken a step back from elite levels as he has gotten into his mid 30s. Ahmed has never been much of an offensive threat and has particularly struggled over the past few seasons. Since the start of the 2021 campaign, he owns a .222/.273/.330 line in a little more than 900 trips. Estradas return from the IL will likely push Brett Wisely from second base to shortstop, at least against right-handed pitching. Righty hitting Tyler Fitzgerald is in the lineup tonight against Toronto southpaw Yusei Kikuchi. While the 25-year-old Wisely is stretched defensively at shortstop, he provides a higher offensive ceiling than Ahmed brought. Wisely owns a decent .278/.313/.421 slash through 135 plate appearances in his second MLB campaign. The Giants have five days to trade Ahmed or place him on waivers. He has well over five years of MLB service time and would retain his entire salary if he clears waivers and becomes a free agent. A release is the likeliest outcome. Once Ahmed clears waivers, he could sign with another team for the prorated portion of the $740K minimum. Meanwhile, Snell returns for his first MLB action in nearly six weeks. San Franciscos late signing could hardly have gone worse to this point. Snell has battled groin issues throughout the year and been limited to six starts. Opponents have teed off on the defending NL Cy Young winner for a 9.51 earned run average through 23 2/3 innings. Snell will try to get his season on track when he takes on the Blue Jays this evening. Pirates reliever Justin Bruihl accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Indianapolis, the team announced. Pittsburgh had designated the left-hander for assignment over the weekend. Pittsburgh also reinstated Quinn Priester from the 15-day injured list and optioned Edward Olivares to Indianapolis. Bruihl has been a member of the Bucs for around a month. Pittsburgh signed him to a big league contract on June 6 (coincidentally in tandem with Priesters IL placement). Manager Derek Shelton called upon Bruihl seven times. He surrendered six runs on nine hits and a walk across 5 2/3 frames. That brief stint at PNC Park marked Bruihls fourth consecutive season logging MLB action. He split the 2021-23 campaigns between the Dodgers and Rockies, combining for a 4.22 ERA over 72 appearances. While Bruihl was hit hard in his limited MLB action this season, he has had a solid year in Triple-A. Splitting his time between the top affiliates of the Reds and Pirates, he owns a 2.89 ERA in 28 innings. He has fanned around a quarter of batters faced against a slightly elevated 10.2% walk rate. Bruihl has been outrighted once before, as he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment by the Rockies last August. That gave him the right to elect free agency, but he bypassed that to remain with Indianapolis. Hell try to pitch his way back into a bullpen that entered play Tuesday ranked 26th in the majors with a 4.51 earned run average. Bruihl would be eligible for minor league free agency next offseason if Pittsburgh doesnt add him back to the 40-man roster. The Rangers have signed right-hander Matt Festa to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. The righty, who elected free agency last week, has been assigned to Triple-A Round Rock. Festa, 31, started the year on a minor league deal with the Padres. He tossed 16 innings for their Triple-A club with a 4.50 earned run average, 21.6% strikeout rate, 9.5% walk rate and 46% ground ball rate. Those peripherals were all fairly close to average but a .360 batting average on balls in play helped push some more runs across, with his 3.43 FIP painting a nicer picture of his work with the Chihuahuas. The righty was released by the Padres in mid-May, which was perhaps the results of an opt-out since his numbers with El Paso werent bad. He then landed another minor league deal, this one with the Mets, and posted even better numbers. In 15 1/3 Triple-A frames with Syracuse, he had a 1.76 ERA, 32.2% strikeout rate, 5.1% walk rate and 45.7% ground ball rate. He was called up to join a struggling Mets bullpen but his one outing with that club was a disaster. On June 30, the Mets and Astros were tied at five after 10 innings and Festa was sent to the mound in the 11th. The inning started with Alex Bregman as the free runner on second, then the Mets intentionally walked Yordan Alvarez. Festa went on to surrender four hits in the inning from there, allowing Bregman and four others to score as the Mets lost 10-5. He was designated for assignment a few days later and elected free agency after clearing waivers, which was his right as a player with a previous career outright. He has now landed his third minor league deal of the year, this time with the Rangers. The relief corps in Texas has a combined 4.37 ERA on the year, which places them 22nd in the majors. Festa will give them a non-roster depth arm with some major league experience. He has 94 2/3 big league innings on his track record with a 4.66 ERA, 25.1% strikeout rate and 10.9% walk rate. If he gets added to their roster, he is out of options but has between one and two years of service time, meaning he can be retained beyond the current campaign if he finishes the year on the roster. July 10: Recio further reports that in a Wednesday press release, Dominican authorities have indicated Franco will also be accused of human trafficking (in addition to prior charges of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation against a minor). The additional charge comes with potential for as much as 20 years in prison. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times relays on X that Franco is no longer on administrative leave. The Rays requested he be moved to the restricted list and MLB approved their request. Franco wont be paid nor will he receive service time while on the restricted list. July 9: Prosecutors in the Dominican Republic have brought formal charges against Wander Franco, tweets Juan Arturo Recio of ESPN. Franco is officially facing charges of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation against a minor, according to the report. Franco has been on administrative leave for the entire 2024 season. He has not played in the majors since social media allegations came to light last August accusing Franco of having sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl. The age of consent in the Dominican Republic is 18. In January, prosecutors claimed that Franco paid the girls mother the equivalent of thousands of dollars to remain silent about the alleged abuse. According to a Spanish-language report from Listin Diario, the girls mother is facing charges of trafficking, sexual exploitation and money laundering. While prosecutors initially indicated they were considering charging Franco with commercial/sexual exploitation and money laundering, a judge lessened the potential charges against him to sexual and psychological abuse. Those charges come with a potential prison term of two to five years. The court gave prosecutors until July to determine whether to officially bring charges, which they have decided to do. MLB is likely to wait for the legal proceedings to play out before levying any discipline against Franco under the domestic violence/child abuse policy. Administrative leave, which is not considered punitive, is designed to allow the league to conduct an investigation after players are accused of a violation. MLB and the Players Association have already agreed to extend Francos leave until the All-Star Break. It is likely theyll continue to do so until the legal process in the D.R. is resolved. CHICAGO - The moment of your proposal can make you feel like youre walking on air. But you will believe you are if you get engaged at Skydeck Chicago - because youll be 1,353 feet in the air. This sky-high spot in the iconic Willis Tower building is now offering engagement packages for those couples ready to pop the question. The bonus? A 360-degree view of Chicagos amazing skyline and all the high-energy buzz of the Windy City. Skydeck Chicago is offering engagement packages for those couples wanting to take their proposals sky-high. Photo provided by is Grace Wiley Photography.Grace Wiley Photography With wall-to-wall windows showcasing Chicagos stunning skyline, Skydecks unique location offers an unforgettable proposal setting, the propertys marketing team said. Skydecks Engagement Package begins with being privately escorted to the 103rd floor, where you will spend special moments on one of the five iconic glass-floor balconies, known as The Ledge. The photography team will capture the romantic Yes moment, with the sensational views of Chicago as your backdrop. Post-proposal, couples are escorted down to the viewing area on the Towers 67th floor, where they can enjoy the Lake Michigan views while sipping some bubbly to celebrate. Theres even a lounge area where friends and family can join you afterward. Skydeck and The Ledge spots can also be booked as wedding venues. The engagement package is priced at $399 per couple. Those interested can contact the Skydeck sales team at sales@theskydeck.com or call (312) 875-9447. Its not just an island. Its like taking a trip in a time machine back to the 1800s where motorized vehicles are not allowed and the only way to get around is by walking, biking, riding a horse or in a horse and buggy. Travel and Leisure has just listed Mackinac Island as one of the top 15 islands in the continental U.S. Mackinac Island comes in at No 3, just behind the Golden Isles in Georgia (Jekyll Island, Little St. Simons Island, Sea Island, St. Simons Island) and Amelia Island in Florida. To come up with its list, Travel and Leisure says every year for its Worlds Best Awards survey, it asks readers to weigh in on travel experiences around the world and to share their opinions on the top hotels, resorts, cities, islands, cruise ships, spas, airlines, and more. Islands were specifically rated on these criteria: Natural attractions/beaches Activities/sights Restaurants/food People/friendliness Value When it came down to the top 15, Travel and Leisure says its readers had one main commonality: How beloved the islands are among travelers. We love the fact that there are no cars just horses and bikes, said a reader about Mackinac Island, which just had one of its roads receive a speed limit and where Americas oldest grocery store just celebrated 140 years. Here are the top 15 islands from T + L and their scores: 1. Golden Isles, Georgia Reader Score: 90.29 2. Amelia Island, Florida Reader Score: 86.93 3. Mackinac Island, Michigan Reader Score: 86.73 4. Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts Reader Score: 84.17 5. Florida Keys, Florida Reader Score: 83.48 6. Cumberland Island, Georgia Reader Score: 83.20 7. San Juan Islands, Washington Reader Score: 83.10 8. Nantucket, Massachusetts Reader Score: 83.06 9. Kiawah Island, South Carolina Reader Score: 82.61 10. Sanibel Island, Florida Reader Score: 82.32 11. Hilton Head Island, South Carolina Reader Score: 81.97 12. Mount Desert Island, Maine Reader Score: 81.33 13. Fire Island, New York Reader Score: 81.03 14. Captiva Island, Florida Reader Score: 80.78 15. South Padre Island, Texas Reader Score: 80.54 Future and Metro Boomin are playing in Detroit in early August, stopping Saturday the 4th at Little Caesars Arena. Get tickets today from $68. Compare prices on Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, StubHub, and Ticketmaster. Future and Metro Boomin will begin their joint "We Trust You" tour on July 30 in Kansas City, Mo.Live Nation Rap and hip-hop artists Future and Metro Boomin are co-headlining the We Trust You Tour, a collaboration celebrating their joint two-album release titled We Dont Trust You and We Still Dont Trust You. The North American tour is to take on 27 total performances from Detroit to Vegas, Boston to Vancouver, stopping at arenas like Little Caesars in Michigan and more. Future and Metro Boomin have a long history of collaboration. The young St. Louis producer has worked with Future to release big hits like Jumpman, Low Life, Wicked, and Honest, all of which were Billboard-ranked. Dont miss their upcoming Detroit, Michigan show at Little Caesars Arena. Ticket prices listed below. Shop Vivid Seats from $78 | SeatGeek from $68 | StubHub from $113 | Ticketmaster from $89.50 I Prevails co-headlining tour with Halestorm comes to Clarkston, Michigan this weekend. Find last-minute tickets to their Pine Knob show for as low as $10. Get tickets in time for the concert via Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, StubHub, and Ticketmaster. Lzzy Hale performs with Halestorm during day 2 of the Beale Street Music Festival in Tom Lee Park on May 6, 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee. (Photo by Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images)Getty Images Detroit, Michigans alternative rock/metal band I Prevail is touring alongside Halestorm this year, stopping at Pine Knob on Saturday, July 13. Touring with Halestorm is long overdue, Live Nation quotes Eric Vanlerberghe of I Prevail, This is going to be one of the best tours of the summer and one of the best weve ever done. See the Blank Space and I Miss the Misery stars, with special guests Hollywood Undead and Fit For A King, live at Pine Knob Music Theatre this weekend. Both lawn GA and standard section seating is still available on Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, StubHub, and Ticketmaster. See prices listed below. Lawn GA: Vivid Seats from $12 | SeatGeek from $10 | StubHub from $12 | Ticketmaster from $29.50 Section seats: Vivid Seats from $60 | SeatGeek from $46 | StubHub from $50 | Ticketmaster from $59.50 OTTAWA COUNTY, MI The top prosecutor for Ottawa County will be decided in the upcoming Aug. 6 primary election, as both candidates are Republicans. Candidates Sarah Matwiejczyk and Greg Todd are seeking to become the countys prosecuting attorney after current Prosecutor Lee Fisher announced his plans to retire at the end of this year. RELATED: Ottawa County prosecutor will not seek re-election after 2024 Matwiejczyk, 48, is currently the countys chief assistant prosecutor and has spent 23 years as a prosecutor in Ottawa County. Shes served on the countys sobriety courts and helped establish a vulnerable adult abuse task force. Matwiejczyk has also taught at Grand Valley State Universitys police academy and Western Michigan Universitys Cooley Law School. Todd, also 48, started his career as a police officer, then worked as a litigator for small West Michigan firms. In 2015, he founded his own law firm, Polaris Law, which specializes in business, real estate and probate litigation. Todd has served as a firefighter for the Crockery Township Fire Department and served on the townships Board of Review. He also teaches high schoolers at the Lake Michigan Home School Co-op. MLive has partnered with the League of Women Voters of Michigan Education Fund this year to provide voters with a Vote411 election guide. Candidates filled out general information about their campaigns and answered a list of questions from the League of Women Voters. All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for necessary cuts if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected. Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should NOT be considered as an endorsement. The League never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties. Information on other state, county and local primary races can be found at Vote411.org. What are your priorities in the next four years as Prosecuting Attorney? Matwiejczyk: We have an amazing office of experienced and dedicated attorneys and staff! This is rare for a county prosecutors office. I will ensure our community and victims of crime will be served by our excellent staff by maintaining a strong, healthy working environment. I will also continue to work hard to improve communication between our office and departments we work with throughout the county, especially our law enforcement, to seek firm yet fair justice for our citizens. Additionally, with the increase in technology comes an increase in demands from our office. I will work with the county to ensure our office has what we need to keep up with those demands. Todd: 1. Implementing current law firm management practices to bring the prosecutors office into the 21st Century. This will lead to significant increases in efficiency and productivity. It will also allow staff to analyze data on case outcomes, workload distribution, and resource utilization, which allows for more informed decisions to optimize operations at the prosecutors office. 2. Improving interagency relations between law enforcement and the prosecutors office. Law enforcement and prosecutors are integral components of the criminal justice system which should collaborate and support each other. They should not only complement one another but also possess an understanding of each others roles and responsibilities. Mutual respect and appreciation are fundamental, fostering a cohesive partnership where each entity values the expertise and contributions of the other. Please address your legal experience and background. Matwiejczyk: I am a career prosecutor with 23 years serving as a prosecutor in Ottawa County, currently as its chief assistant. I have extensive experience and proven trial skills working in all areas of prosecution, including district, circuit, and family courts, as well as in the administration of the office and staff. I am a former law school adjunct professor at WMU Cooley Law School teaching trial skills, am an educator for the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, and teach at GVSUs police Academy. I graduated from Michigan State University, James Madison College majoring in political theory and constitutional democracy with a minor in social relations. I obtained my law degree from Michigan State University and graduated cum laude. Todd: With over 17 years of experience as a litigation attorney, I have honed my legal expertise across various fields. This tenure has not only deepened my understanding of the law but has also equipped me with a wealth of courtroom experience and a mastery of the Michigan Rules of Evidence. From meticulous case preparation to adept witness examination and compelling oral advocacy, I have cultivated skills essential to being an effective prosecutor. Moreover, my background in the private sector uniquely positions me to bring fresh perspectives and innovative problem-solving approaches to the prosecutors office. What is your opinion of Alternative Sentencing? Why? Matwiejczyk: Alternative sentencing definitely plays an important role in seeking justice in Ottawa County. Our goal is to ensure the citizens of Ottawa County and their families feel safe and protected. The way we do that as prosecutors is to do our best to prevent crime from happening again. Sometimes that means we request prison, jail, or probation from the court when they sentence a defendant. However, Ottawa County has fantastic specialty courts that focus on underlying issues that may contribute to the criminal behavior, such as drugs and alcohol, mental health or past military service. If appropriate, those specialty courts can be recommended by our office and have proven positive results to prevent recidivism. Todd: Alternative sentencing can be an effective tool, offering opportunities for rehabilitation & reintegration into society. However, its appropriateness depends on various factors, such as the severity of the crime & the individuals circumstances. I believe in a balanced approach to sentencing, where alternatives like community service, probation, or treatment programs are considered alongside traditional incarceration. This approach can address underlying issues contributing to criminal behavior & reduce recidivism rates, ultimately promoting public safety & rehabilitation. However, its crucial to ensure that these options are applied judiciously & with careful consideration of the interests of justice & the safety of the community. How does the declaration of Allegan/Ottawa County as a Constitutional County affect your work as Prosecuting Attorney? Matwiejczyk: Ottawa County is and always has been a constitutional county. As prosecutors, we have taken two oaths to uphold both the United States and Michigan Constitutions. Declaring we are a Constitutional County does not change that. Todd: Being a Constitutional County requires a balanced approach to law enforcementone that is tough on crime while remaining fair and just. It is essential that we treat all citizens equally under the law, ensuring justice is administered without bias. It also strengthens the relationship between the community and the justice system. By aligning our practices with constitutional values, we can build trust and ensure that our justice system not only punishes wrongdoing but also protects the freedoms that our community cherishes. Accordingly, my office will be dedicated to protecting individual rights and ensuring that our actions are in strict adherence to constitutional principles and that we respect the limits of governmental power. Given recent political turmoil at the county level in Ottawa County, MLive/The Grand Rapids Press also asked Ottawa County candidates some additional questions via email. Matwiejczyk and Todds responses to those questions are below. Do you plan to sign the Ottawa Impact Contract with Ottawa? Matwiejczyk: No. Prosecutors swear two oaths to uphold the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Michigan. A prosecutor cannot sign a contract, pledge or resolution that would interfere with the ability to do the job or risk an appeal or lawsuit. Todd: No, I have no plans to sign any contracts with political organizations. While Ottawa Impact is a conservative Republican PAC and some of our values naturally overlap, I am my own candidate and run my own campaign. My primary allegiance is to the Constitution, and I am committed to upholding its principles. I am happy to work with anyone who shares my dedication to the Constitution, regardless of their views on Ottawa Impact. What are the most important issues facing Ottawa County? Matwiejczyk: Maintaining and cultivating experienced and passionate team members to handle the growing number of cases and advanced technology. Fostering confidence in local government. The prosecutors office must maintain the highest standards of integrity and ethics to ensure all citizens are treated fairly and justly. Todd: The biggest issues facing residents of our area include a disconnect between our county government and our communitys values, government overreach, and a lack of transparency. During COVID, we experienced measures that did not align with our conservative principles, and theres been a noticeable soft-on-crime approach in the Prosecutors Office, which has been used to advance political agendas rather than uphold justice. Ottawa County is one of the fastest-growing counties in the state, and if we do not right the ship, crime is going to be a major problem. What do you view as the role of the prosecutor? Matwiejczyk: To uphold the laws and Constitutions of the United States and the State of Michigan, advocate for the rights of victims in our community, and ensure individuals are held accountable when they violate the criminal laws of this state while preserving and improving the quality of life for Ottawa County residents. Todd: The role of the prosecutor is straightforward: to protect victims and to prosecute criminals. It is not to advance any political ideology. The prosecutors office should focus on upholding justice and ensuring public safety, free from political influence. Should faith play a role in county government? Matwiejczyk: Yes, everyone is uniquely created by God. It is my responsibility to protect the vulnerable people in our community from those that want to criminally take advantage of them, which is putting my faith into action. Todd: Our faith should shape who we are as people and our values should act as a guiding fence. However, we are a constitutional republic, and the Constitution is our compass. The Constitution upholds the God-given right to freedom of religion, ensuring that government respects and protects this fundamental freedom for all citizens. How do you plan on communicating and being transparent with your constituents? Matwiejczyk: I have always welcomed questions and concerns be brought to our attention. Prosecutors are not permitted the liberty to discuss cases that are still under investigation or pending trial with the public, however. We cannot reveal all the sensitive information before it is released to the public and throughout the pendency of the case. Transparency and communication are vital to build trust with our citizens. Todd: I plan to communicate and be transparent with my constituents through regular updates and open channels of communication. This includes holding town hall meetings, maintaining an active social media presence, and providing timely updates on the county prosecutors website. I am committed to making my office accessible to the public, addressing concerns promptly, and ensuring that the actions and decisions of the prosecutors office are clear and understandable to everyone. Transparency and accountability are essential to building and maintaining public trust. Why are you running for prosecutor? Matwiejczyk: I am a career prosecutor dedicating my professional life to serving the people of Ottawa County. During my 23 years with the office, I have gained experience in all areas of the office, including district, circuit and family courts. I care deeply for victims of crime in Ottawa County, especially our children and vulnerable adults. Victims of crime deserve a prosecutor with extensive experience and genuine concern for firm but fair justice. Our citizens deserve experience and integrity to ensure the safety of our community and an exceptional place to live, work and raise their family. I also care about the prosecutor staff they deserve a leader who knows how to answer their questions, has experience in all areas of the office, and who can help them in whatever way needed. I have a passion for this career and all the people we serve. Todd: I am running for office because I love Ottawa Countyits beauty, its people, and its values. Unfortunately, the Prosecutors Office seems to have lost its way, straying from our countys conservative principles and adopting a soft on-crime approach. This office has increasingly been used to promote progressive agendas and punish those who oppose them. It is time to return to the foundational principles of our country: liberty and justice for all. I believe in restoring the integrity of our justice system and ensuring it reflects the values of our community. By doing so, we can better serve and protect the residents of Ottawa County. 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. JACKSON, MI - A crash between a semitruck and school bus Wednesday morning resulted in only minor injuries, police said. Michigan State Police troopers responded to the crash between the semi and bus on westbound I-94 between U.S.-127 and Elm Avenue at around 9:30 a.m. July 10. Related: I-94 closed near Jackson due to crash between school bus, semi The Jackson County Intermediate School District bus, carrying 11 special education students along with a bus attendant, was attempting to merge onto westbound I-94 from northbound U.S. 127 when the crash occurred, police said. While attempting to merge, the bus hydroplaned on the wet road and lost control, hitting the westbound semi, police said, adding that the force of the collision sent the semi into the median wall and caused the bus to roll onto its side. Three students, the driver and bus attendant were taken to Henry Ford Jackson Hospital after the crash for treatment of minor injuries, police said. All three students were discharged from the hospital at about noon, Kaci Babineau, JCISD marketing and special projects coordinator, said. The students injuries amounted to some scrapes and bumps that could turn into bruises, Babineau said. The driver and bus attendant were discharged from the hospital a few hours later, Babineau said. Babineau praised the actions of police and first responders who came to the scene, particularly the officers from the Blackman-Leoni Department of Public Safety. They were so quick on the scene, and because they were familiar with our students and the special needs and care that come along with them, they were so calm and collected trying to manage that chaotic scene, Babineau said. Were so appreciative of our partners in law enforcement in this community. Several JCISD staff members also responded to the scene to support the rescue efforts, helping to keep students calm, Babineau said. The amount of response from our own staff and first responders during such a scary time was fantastic, Babineau said. The bus had been transporting the students to the Lyle A. Torrant Center, 1175 W. Parnall Road, at the time of the crash, school officials said. The eight other students were returned to school to be assessed by school nurses, Babineau said. An investigation is still ongoing, with the wet roadway and speed considered factors in the crash, police said, adding that both vehicles are set to be inspected by the Michigan State Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division on Thursday, July 11. Police initially reported 10 students on the bus and one minor injury immediately after the crash, but later updated the official count of students. Babineau said the stress of the active crash scene and heavy rain likely led to the initial discrepancies. Want more Jackson-area news? Bookmark the local Jackson news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Jackson daily newsletter. Iosco County Courthouse. EAST TAWAS, MI In the fall, a Bay City man alerted police after discovering a video of his father sexually violating a dog. The accused abuser left the state before he could be arrested, only to be caught in Alabama and extradited north to answer charges. The defendant has since died, before his case could reach a conclusion. Michael J. Johnston, 64, on June 24 was taken from the Iosco County Jail to a local hospital. He had been complaining of headaches, his son, Chris Johnston, said. Michael Johnston died at the hospital the same day. A medical examiner determined he had died of a rare brain infection, his son said. Michael Johnston had been in the Iosco County Jail since May 18 on nine charges: two counts each of sodomy with a dog, possession of child sexually abusive material, and aggravated possession of child sexually abusive material, and three counts of using a computer to commit a crime. Chris Johnston in November called police after his 3-year-old son showed him his grandfathers tablet. The boy had stumbled upon video on the device depicting a man in sexual congress with a dog. Chris Johnston recognized the man in the video as his father, the dog as his dads black-and-white boxer-pit bull mix, Odin. He seized the tablet from his son and called 911. As a police investigation was underway, Michael Johnston left Michigan for Alabama, where another relative lives, his son said. Chris Johnston informed police his dad might be heading for that area. On searching the tablet, investigators found material of children being sexually abused and evidence that Michael Johnston was involved in an online bestiality ring, Iosco County Prosecutor James A. Bacarella has said. Records show police in Colbert County, Alabama, arrested Michael Johnston on April 24 on a fugitive from justice charge. ANN ARBOR, MI State Rep. Jason Morgan, D-Ann Arbor, is seeking a second term in the Michigan House, saying he wants to continue building a Michigan that works for everyone. The former Washtenaw County commissioner is unopposed in the Aug. 6 primary, but two Republicans are competing on the GOP ticket for the chance to challenge him in November. The 23rd District covers a large portion of Ann Arbors east side, extending from downtown and through northeast Washtenaw County out toward the Northville and Plymouth areas and up to South Lyon. Morgan won the new seat in 2022 with over 65% of the vote against Republican Richard Sharland. Republicans Miriam Corvino of Salem Township and David Stamp of Northville Township are now seeking to challenge Morgan in the 2024 election. Both are running relatively quiet campaigns so far as they face off in the primary. Neither participated in the Vote411.org voter guide provided by the League of Women Voters of Michigan Education Fund in partnership with MLive. Stamp, a retiree making his first run for office, acknowledged he isnt doing much campaigning while waiting to see if he advances past the primary. He knows the district is heavily Democratic and it may be a long shot for a Republican, but hes running because hes not happy with the way things are going in Michigan, he said. The Democrats are uncontested and do whatever they want to do, so they ought to have at least some checks and balances, he said. Northville Township Republican David Stamp, a Michigan House candidate in District 23.Photo provided by candidate Corvino could not be reached for comment. She previously ran for the South Lyon school board while touting her financial planning experience. Stamp and Corvino both filed campaign finance reporting waivers indicating they did not intend to raise or spend more than $1,000 on their campaigns. Meanwhile, Morgan had a campaign fund balance of over $52,000 as of his last annual report. His donors include groups such as the Michigan Laborers Political League, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC and the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. Morgan responded to the voter guide questionnaire, laying out why hes running again and where he stands on issues ranging from education to climate change and retaining residents. Note: All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for necessary cuts if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected. Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should NOT be considered as an endorsement. The League never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties. GENERAL BIO QUESTION: Why are you running for the Michigan State Legislature? Morgan: I am running for re-election as your State Representative because I want to continue building a Michigan that works for everyone. My focus is on passing more pro-worker, pro-choice, and pro-people legislation. I am committed to improving our education system, protecting our environment, holding corporate polluters accountable, investing in infrastructure, and strengthening our democracy. Since taking office, weve passed transformational legislation to expand civil rights protections for our LGBTQ community, ensure reproductive freedom, restore labor rights, and create economic opportunities for all. Lets keep the momentum going, together! EDUCATION: What should Michigan do to provide an equitable, quality public education for all while addressing the current teacher shortage? Morgan: As a former teacher and current vice chair of the House K-12 and higher education budget committees, I hold a deep commitment to ensuring equitable, quality public education for all. I have helped pass legislation to improve working conditions for teachers and strengthen public education for our students. This includes restoring collective bargaining rights, increasing teacher compensation and investing in mental health, school safety, special education, and early intervention programs. Were also helping families save by making college more affordable and providing free breakfast and lunch for all students. ENVIRONMENT: What do you see as the states role, if any, in mitigating the impact of climate change? Morgan: The state must play an active role in mitigating the impact of climate change. Last year, I helped pass the Clean Energy & Jobs Act, a historic package of clean energy legislation that will require Michigans energy to come from 60% renewable sources by 2035, expand access to rooftop solar, and authorize the Michigan Public Service Commission to regulate big energy utility companies on a broader array of issues impacting residents. Additionally, I introduced Michigans Polluter Pay package to hold corporate polluters accountable for environmental contamination and help those harmed by pollution to seek justice. RESIDENT RETENTION: What actions/proposals, if any, do you support to retain residents in our state? Morgan: Retaining and attracting residents is crucial for Michigans growth and prosperity. I introduced a comprehensive set of legislation to implement the recommendations of Governor Whitmers Growing Michigan Together Council, which focus on creating a more vibrant, inclusive, and prosperous Michigan. Here are some key actions that I am working to implement: Investing in education and strategic economic development, building more housing, creating a statewide public transit system, improving access to quality healthcare, and protecting our states natural resources. These actions will create good paying jobs and attract talent to our great state! 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. Jon Messer wasnt driving the maroon Chevy Silverado that Milford police pulled over outside the Childs Lake Estates mobile home park in July of 2021. He was a passenger. But, after the officers searched a police database for information on the driver, they searched Messers name, too, according to a federal lawsuit filed by Messer. They found out that he had a felony warrant out of Howell for receiving or concealing stolen property and told him to get out of the truck. Both Messer and the driver begged the officers not to take him in, saying theyd been rushing him to the hospital, the lawsuit says. Messer has diabetes. Hed already had toes amputated from his left foot. The lawsuit says he told the police could see another ulcer developing. He was afraid he was going to lose more. He wouldnt make it to a hospital until four days later, despite the fact that on his foot was a clearly visible open wound, which was also obviously infected, odorous, turning colors, and oozing, according to the lawsuit. When he got there, doctors amputated all the remaining toes on his left foot. The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, names Milford police, Milford Township, the Livingston County Jail, Livingston County Sheriffs Office and Livingston County, as well as individual officers and medical workers as defendants. Allison Nalepa, a spokesperson for Livingston County, said the county is working through the legal process and will not comment on pending litigation. Milford police were informed of the lawsuit but did not comment. Messer, who is 39 and lives in Stockbridge, is seeking unspecified compensation for the loss of his toes. Messers attorney, Angelle Rothis, said in an interview that the actions of the police and jail staff were intentional, reckless, deliberate. Because they knew the consequences could be serious with a diabetic that already had amputations, we think it might be a situation for punitive damages, she added. Her client is a laborer, a big ball of love, she said, and the loss of his toes has impacted his movement. He has to waddle back and forth sideways rather than move forward, she said, adding that the strain is part of the reason that doctors are now telling her client he may need to have one leg amputated below the knee. 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. Commentary By SeaWestNews The Liberal governments decision to ban open-net salmon farming in British Columbia by 2029 is a misguided and harmful policy that will have far-reaching negative consequences for Canadas economy, coastal communities, and First Nations. This ban, which flies in the face of scientific evidence and expert recommendations, is a politically motivated move that prioritizes appeasing urban activists over supporting rural economies and Indigenous rights. The governments own fisheries experts have concluded that these marine operations pose minimal risk to wild stocks, yet their science-based assessments have been ignored in favour of unfounded fears and misinformation propagated by activists. The economic impact of this decision cannot be overstated. The salmon farming industry supports close to 6,000 direct and indirect jobs in British Columbia alone, many of which are in rural coastal communities with limited alternative employment options. The sector also directly and indirectly employs over 700 Indigenous people and provides $120 million in total annual direct and indirect economic benefits to BC First Nations, with $42 million going directly to Indigenous communities. Today, 100 percent of BCs farmed salmon is raised in agreement with Rights Holder First Nations. The Kitasoo Xaixais First Nation in BCs remote central coast is a prime example of how a community has prospered with salmon farming while securing the future of wild stocks in its territorial waters. The aquaculture pioneers began farming and processing salmon independently in their waters in the late 1980s and in 1998 formed a partnership with Mowi, which this month was named among the worlds 500 most sustainable companies by TIME magazine after consistently topping a global index that ranks companies in responsible food production. This past Earth Day, the Kitasoo Xaixais First Nation was awarded the prestigious Blue Park Award, for exceptional marine biodiversity conservation a testament to the indigenous communitys stewardship of its traditional territories. We have built an aquaculture business that fits the capacity, lands, and waters of our territories, meets the needs of Canadians, feeds into the governments transition to a blue economy, removes pressure from wild salmon populations, and gives our people the chance to reclaim the quality of life that was stolen from us at the time of contact, states Isaiah Robinson, Deputy Chief Councillor of Kitasoo Xaixais Nation. Salmon aquaculture has been transformative for my community, elevating us from a 5% to a 99% employment rate, with 51% of those jobs tied directly to aquaculture. We have not had a suicide in 18 years, something we credit in no small measure to our high rate of meaningful employment, he wrote in a recent op-ed. Instead of using this communitys success as a blueprint to show how sustainable aquaculture can revitalize struggling coastal communities, Ottawa has told the Kitasoo Xaixais to shut down their operations and replace them with in-water or land-based closed containment systems after 2029. By forcing the industry to transition to unproven closed containment systems within an unrealistic time frame, the government is jeopardizing the jobs and the livelihoods of thousands of Canadians and indigenous communities like the Kitasoo Xaixais. Perhaps most troubling is the way this decision undermines the governments commitment to reconciliation with First Nations. The Coalition of First Nations for Finfish Stewardship has strongly criticized the ban, stating that it represents a return to paternalistic policies where Ottawa dictates how Indigenous peoples should manage resources in their traditional territories. By hampering domestic production, Canada has become more reliant on imported seafood, increasing costs for consumers and the environmental impact of transportation, states a new study funded by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab of Dalhousie University. The study authors state unequivocally that the BC salmon farm closures carry profound consequences for both the environment and market dynamics and will trigger substantial economic disruptions, massive job losses and heighten the nations food insecurity. Furthermore, this decision sends a chilling message to investors and innovators in Canadas aquaculture sector. The uncertainty created by such abrupt policy shifts discourages long-term investment and technological advancement, stunting the growth of Canadas blue economy. Prior to the announcement, salmon farmers in British Columbia said they are ready to directly invest $1.4 billion in innovation, new technology and infrastructure. The investments through 2050 would create almost 10,000 new jobs and add a cumulative $44 billion in new economic activity to propel Canadas Blue Economy. But the Trudeau Liberals have sacrificed all of this at the altar of political expediency and activism, reneging on their promise to make science-based decisions on the future of salmon farming in BC. The lack of adequate consultation with key stakeholders, including First Nations and the aquaculture sector, also undermines the credibility of the ban. Indigenous leaders and local communities were not given sufficient opportunities to participate in the decision-making process, leading to a decision that is a top-down imposition rather than one that is based on a collaborative, science-based policy. Any way you look at it, the ban on open-net salmon farms in BC, driven by activist agendas, is detrimental to Canadas economy, food security, and environmental goals, ultimately harming the very people and ecosystems it aims to protect. BCs salmon farmers and their First Nations partners are the backbone of Canadas blue economy. This alliance of innovation and traditional knowledge is not just vital its the linchpin of our coastal prosperity and food security. Its time for our politicians to boldly defend these partnerships, not just as an economic asset, but as a model of Indigenous reconciliation and environmental stewardship that the world can emulate. By the numbers Salmon farming in BC 12 There are currently over a dozen coastal First Nations hosting finfish farms in their territories in BC. These Nations make up a substantial area of BCs southwest coast, from Central/Western Vancouver Island up to the Central Coast. $1.142 billion BC salmon farmers generate over $1.142 billion of direct economic activity in BC annually, with $51 million in revenue going to First Nations. 6,000 The sector produces 38 million meals annually and approximately 6,000 direct and indirect jobs, 500 of those being Indigenous. $1 billion The combined direct, indirect and induced economic activity contributes more than a billion dollars to GDP, providing rural economic opportunities that support healthy and thriving communities and families. 375 The sector supports up to 375 community organizations and charities each year, further enhancing the social fabric of coastal communities. 60 The BC Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA) represents over 60 businesses and organizations throughout the value chain of finfish aquaculture in BC. members account for over 95% of the annual provincial harvest of farm-raised salmon in British Columbia. Its members account for over 95% of the annual provincial harvest of farm-raised salmon in British Columbia. You are already a Moneycontrol Pro user. OK Follow us on: ED summons Jacqueline Fernandez again for Money laundering case in connection with Sukesh Chandrashekhar Follow us on: Sharon Stone to be honored with Lifetime Achievement award at Taormina OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Vicky Kaushal teaches Atlee the fiery dance moves of Tauba Tauba at Anant Ambani, Radhika Merchants sangeet USER CONSENT We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. 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I Accept Follow us on: Angel One assures data integrity, denies any new leak of customer data OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Budget 2024: Cement industry eyes further step up in infra spend 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 OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Budget ki baat: Raamdeo Agarwal, Vijay Kedia and Samir Arora express their hopes and prayers Follow us on: Incentives for green investments in mining, import duty cut on advanced equipment eyed in Union Budget: Hindustan Zinc OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Samir Aroras Budget not-to-do list: Don't tinker with capital gains tax, don't take investors for granted 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 Follow us on: Sula Vineyards' net revenue jumps 10% to Rs 130 cr in Q1FY25, its highest ever Adrija Chatterjee is an Assistant Editor at Moneycontrol. She has been tracking and reporting on finance and trade ministries for over eight years. It's an issue becoming increasingly prevalent across local councils in Australia. One Sydneysider says he's got the solution. The couple have been warned by North Sydney Council that should they be caught running a cable across a publicly-owned footpath again, they'll cop a $330 fine. Source: ACA A couple living in an affluent harbourside suburb say they've become the latest in a long list of Aussies to be threatened with a hefty fine for charging their electric vehicle from their home onto the street. It's an increasingly common scenario, and now one man believes he's got the answer. Yahoo News Australia previously reported that North Shore local John Slaytor was earlier threatened with a $330 fine for running a cable from his home across a public footpath to charge his Tesla. The Waverton resident, who resides with his partner Chantal Decaluwe, said there's limited street parking in their area and other options to charge up cost them money. Slaytor said because of his solar panels, charging his Tesla from home is "free" during the day in off-peak times, or "just under $5" to do so at night. Using publicly available charger ports costs around $60. They've been warned by North Sydney Council that should they be caught running a cable across a publicly-owned footpath again despite it being fitted with a trip hazard protector they'll cop a $330 fine. But according to Slaytor, the entire ordeal could be involved with the implementation of permit system for people who can prove their charging set-up is safe. Tesla drivers John Slaytor and Chantal Decaluwe have been threatened with a $330 fine for running a cable from their home across a public footpath to charge their car. Source: ACA Increasingly common scenario across Aussie councils "It's saying [in] a nutshell that placing an electrical cable is a breach," Decaluwe told A Current Affair. "Late at night we were laying the cable across the footpath for about a metre," Slaytor said. "This is a dead end street, no one is here late at night." But North Sydney Council argue "the placement of charging cables in public spaces pose significant risks to public safety." "I do not understand how we can cause a risk to pedestrians when the cables are covered and it is an approved safety device," Decaluwe said. "We are going to have to rely on the charging in the area which are not easy find. There is not that many." Despite the couple fitting the cable with a trip hazard protector, North Sydney Council deemed it unsafe. Source: ACA EV owners across the country have long been calling for more public chargers, with many warning the uptake of electric vehicle ownership in Australia is outpacing the infrastructure. Slaytor is now calling for a permit system for those who can prove their set-up is safe. "We are in a climate emergency. Everything we can do to make it easier to own electric vehicles should be considered," Slaytor said. Speaking to Yahoo News Australia, a spokesperson for North Sydney Council detailed their stance on the matter. "Council has a responsibility to ensure public safety, including the safety of pedestrians using our public footpaths," the spokesperson told Yahoo. "Electrical cables that run across footpaths are a trip hazard and a risk to public safety, as well as being unlawful. Warnings are issued for first offences where possible. Over the past year, council has issued fewer than ten warnings and no fines. Another North Sydney EV driver earlier copped a letter warning him to immediately cease charging his car via a cord across his street, or face a $300 fine. Source: North Shore Times "We encourage residents who are not able to charge electric vehicles on their own properties to make use of the charging facilities available at five Council car parks." Those car parks within LGA are made up of the: Alexander Street, Holtermann Street, Hume Street and the Nicholson Street car parks in Crows Nest and the Ridge Street car park in North Sydney." "Electrical cables that run across footpaths are a risk to public safety, as well as being a breach of the Local Government Act 1993," the spokesperson said. "A $330 on-the-spot fine applies, however we issue warnings for first offences where possible." Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Bullish calls on Maruti after UP's hybrid tax break sends stock to all-time high OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Five stocks Saurabh Mukherjea is betting on OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All MC Exclusive: Hybrid Cars could see a budget boost with potential cess cut Ashwin Mohan is Editor (Deals) at Moneycontrol and leads the M&A, private equity and equity capital market transactions coverage. He anchors the video show 'Deal Central ' and tweets at @ashwinmohansays. He has previously worked with ET NOW, CNBC TV-18 and The Times of India. Follow us on: SC pulls up income tax for late filing of cases, junks plea against Xerox for 290-day delay Follow us on: Signature Global to invest Rs 2,500 crore on construction of current housing projects in FY25: CMD Follow us on: SC turns down Bajaj Auto's plea seeking removal of cap on three-wheelers in Delhi The mum said Jetstar staff need a "lesson in manners" after her recent experience with the airline. The mum called Jetstar staff 'disgraceful' after they didn't help her with her luggage while travelling with her baby last week. Source: TikTok/Getty A mum is pushing back against critics calling her "entitled" after she slammed Jetstar staff who allegedly didn't help her while travelling alone with her baby last week. The woman flew from Melbourne to the Gold Coast last Friday on a different flight than her sister, after the original one they both booked had been cancelled. The mum wasn't initially daunted by the task of travelling alone with her baby but said she was quickly disappointed when staff wouldn't help her when her hands were full. "I've got my daughter on my hip, nappy bag, pram in the hand. I literally don't have a hand free," she said on social media recalling the ordeal. She claims she asked a worker if someone would help her with her bags, to which the worker allegedly replied, "well, only if they want to". Later she requested assistance to manoeuvre her stuff and her baby across the tarmac, to which she was allegedly told it wasn't the worker's responsibility. An infant seatbelt was also thrust onto her "spare finger" when she was told her child would need it for the flight. "She [the airline worker] literally rolls her eyes at me... all the staff need to go get a lesson in manners," she said. Mum pushed back against Aussies calling her 'entitled' After sharing her experience online, some called the mum out for expecting others to help her and said it isn't the job of airline workers to give her special treatment. However, she has since defended her opinion, saying she isn't expecting her baby to be anyone else's responsibility. "Think everyone is somehow missing the simple point that I am not saying it is anyone's responsibility, I'm saying they have no human decency asking for help to get across a wet tarmac is not entitled," she said, adding: "We flew Virgin on the return and had a much better experience entirely." Jetstar respond to mum's claims Yahoo News reached out to the airline who confirmed their "customer care team has reached out to her to better understand what happened". "We want all parents to feel welcome and comfortable on our flights and were really sorry to hear about her experience," a Jetstar spokesperson said. Yahoo News understands the mum and her sister made separate bookings for the same flight, and this is why they were not rebooked on the same flight to the Gold Coast. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Follow us on: Centre may guarantee 50% of last pay as pension under NPS: Report OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All India eyes energy deals with Rosneft and other Russian companies OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Kathua terror attack: Family, villagers mourn all five slain soldiers from Uttarakhand OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Liquor policy case: Delhi HC to hear ED plea against Arvind Kejriwal's bail on July 15 Follow us on: Maharashtra: IAS trainee Puja Khedkar, who used beacon on private Audi, transferred amid controversy over 'VIP demands' Yahoo's live news blog for Wednesday, July 10 has concluded. We stated with the news a woman died after being hit by a train in Sydney's Punchbowl on Tuesday afternoon. Family has since revealed her shoe had fallen off and she was trying to retrieve it. Mystery continues to surround Alex de Minaur's fitness ahead of his Wimbledon Quarter-final against Novak Djokovic. Read more below. NSW has banned retail trading on Anzac Day, with retail union boss Bernie Smith saying "we owe it' to veterans. Follow along as we bring your regular updates throughout the day. LIVE COVERAGE IS OVER 13 updates Giant Melbourne fire could last for days More details are emerging about a giant factory inferno in Melbourne, with authorities warning the fire could last for days. We estimate were going to be here a couple of days because of the fuel load in this factory, Fire Rescue Victoria deputy commissioner Michelle Cowling said, Nine News reported. We cant get in close enough to cool this fire down. It will have to be pulled apart. Residents in surrounding streets have been told to leave now and residents of surrounding suburbs should take shelter indoors immediately due to the large amount of smoke. Read more here. Plooms of smoke could be seen from aircraft flying nearby. Picture: X Giant inferno after chemical explosion There is striking vision coming out of Melbourne showing a huge inferno after a large chemical explosion at a factory. Fire crews rushed to the factory fire in Derrimut after the explosion on Wednesday morning and shut down the surrounding area over fears hazardous materials and unknown toxins were burning. A Watch and Act has also been issued for the western suburbs of Albion, Braybrook, Brooklyn, Laverton North, Sunshine, Sunshine West, Tottenham and Truganina. The FRV has advised people in the area affected by smoke to take shelter indoors immediately. Read more here. Source: NCA NewsWire Woman dropped shoe on track before being hit by train, family says A woman reportedly dropped her shoe onto tracks when she was hit by a train at a Sydney station on Tuesday afternoon. The woman, identified by the Daily Telegraph as 52-year-old Vietnamese national Tuyet Nguyen, went to collect the fallen shoe when she was hit by an oncoming train at Punchbowl station. She dropped her slipper and tried to pick it up, her nephew Toan Huynh told the Daily Telegraph. She was visiting her sister. She has been visiting her sister Australia a lot. Tuyet Nguyen jumped down onto the tracks to retrieve her shoe after it fell. Source: Daily Telegraph/ NCA NewsWire Crocodile that killed 12-year-old girl shot dead The crocodile responsible for the death of a 12-year-old girl has been located and killed. The 4.2-metre reptile resurfaced was shot by local rangers on Sunday, days after remains of the child were found near the remote community of Palumpa in the Northern Territory. She was last seen swimming with family members at Mango Creek near the remote Aboriginal community of Nganmarriyanga also known as Palumpa 350km southwest of Darwin, on July 2 and was reported missing on the same day, sparking a huge search effort. Her remains were found on July 4. Read more here. - NCA NewsWire Australian Retailers Association against Anzac Day change The Australian Retailers Association says struggling staff will be unfairly punished by NSW's decision to ban retail trading on Anzac Day. Many workers are relying on public holiday rates to make ends meet during this incredibly challenging economic period," ARA CEO Paul Zahra said. We believe that the existing regulations allowing all stores to open after 1.00pm strikes the right balance for consumers, retail workers and small business owners. Remarkable 22-year age gap for new star There's been plenty of talk about Spain's 16-year-old wonder kid Lamine Yamal and he cemented himself as one of the hottest properties in world football with a stunning strike in his side's Euro 2024 win against France. And how's this for a fact about his teammate, who is 22 years his senior. Veteran former Manchester City star Jesus Navas, 38, (pictured bottom right of the tweet) who joined Yamal in the starting line up, is four years older than Yamal's father. Just let that sink in. Nacho (34) Jesus Navas (38) 16-year-old Lamine Yamal has two teammates on the pitch with him in the #EURO2024 semifinal that are the same age or older than his own father (34) pic.twitter.com/5lyBmyLf6b CBS Sports Golazo (@CBSSportsGolazo) July 9, 2024 Thick fog covers Brisbane It was certainly a bit foggy in Brisbane this morning. Take a look at this great picture from the Bureau of Meteorology's office window showing just how thick the fog was. Is that you, #Brisbane? Our typical view from the office versus our current view. Thick fog is blanketing the city and most suburbs this morning, with a road weather alert current - take care on the roads with reduced visibility. Expect fog to clear by mid to late morning. pic.twitter.com/BlbWTMft9d Bureau of Meteorology, Queensland (@BOM_Qld) July 9, 2024 'New clue' found in Jay Slater search A military expert helping in the search for missing British teenager Jay Slater says he found a new clue near where the 19-year-old's phone was last detected on the Spanish island of Tenerife. Christopher Pennington, an ex-British military serviceman who lives on the island, told the Daily Mail he has found a pair of sunglasses that look just like the ones Slater was last seen wearing, with one of the lenses now missing. Jay Slater remains missing after three weeks. Source: Getty He said he made the discovery when tackling the more difficult terrain in the search area, while said local police were merely sticking to paths. Slater's disappearance has sparked interest from millions globally with no trace of the teen being found after three weeks. A wave of conspiracy theories have spread over social media, but Spanish police have said they are unsubstantiated. Kyle Sandilands' concession in Melbourne battle Well it's a change of tune from Kyle Sandilands. He entered the Melbourne radio market with high hopes, confident he and Jackie O would surge to the top of the rankings. But after another lacklustre performance in this month's ratings, coming in at sixth, the highest paid radio star has finally conceded his show may not be Melbourne's cup of tea. Not everyone wants to hear about dildos and arse lickings and fistings, he told listeners on Wednesday morning. Kyle Sandilands hoped for a better response from the Melbourne public. China furious with Australia's claims China has lashed out after Australia said a Beijing-backed hacking group was targeting several governments. The Australian government took the forthright step of naming the Sino-backed group APT40 in a report released on Tuesday. It is co-authored by Five Eyes allies Canada, New Zealand, the US and the UK, as well as Germany, South Korea and Japan. But China hit back saying it was another smear campaign from the West. We are firmly opposed to such repeated hypes about so-called Chinese cyber attacks aimed to smear and frame China on cybersecurity, Peoples Republic Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Tuesday. Read more here. Anthony Albanese has helped improve ties with Xi Jinping's China but there are still big disagreements between the two countries. Source: Getty Pensioner's embarrassing early-morning mistake This is an unfortunate mishap for one pensioner in Adelaide. The 83-year-old accidentally driver her Hyundai onto the O-Bahn track used by buses early this morning. While she was shaken, she avoided serious injury, police said. A crane will be used to remove the car. The pensioner avoided injury thankfully. Source: SA Police Nervous wait on de Minaur fitness Concerns remain over the fitness of Alex de Minaur as he prepares for the biggest match of his career. The Australian No.1 faces a Wimbledon Centre Court showdown with seven-times champ Novak Djokovic, with a debut grand slam semi-final place at stake. But the 25-year-old is sweating on a hip injury incurred while winning the final point of his fourth round match against Arthur Fils. De Minaur is due on court Wednesday afternoon in London (early Thursday morning AEST). However, on Tuesday he did not practice on either the indoor or outdoor courts at Wimbledon. It is possible he had a hit elsewhere, but there are a limited number of indoor courts in the area and constant rain made outdoor training unfeasible. His team have remained tight-lipped on his fitness, but their immediate reaction, including that of his girlfriend Kate Boulter, to the injury was telling. De Minaur has tried to downplay any injury by saying it was "a little bit of a scare more than anything". - With AAP Alex de Minaur of Australia gestures after a fall during his fourth round match against Arthur Fils of France at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Monday, July 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali) Devastating detail after woman killed by train A woman who died after being hit by a train in Sydney was trying to retrieve something she'd dropped on the tracks, police have been told. Emergency services were called to Punchbowl train station about 3.30pm on Tuesday after the woman, 52, had been struck by a citybound train. Emergency services managed to free her from under the train and was rushed to hospital but police confirmed on Wednesday morning she had died. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Follow us on: Mumbai BMW hit-and-run case: Accused Mihir Shah admits he was driving car at time of crash Follow us on: Nitish Kumars likely 'successor' in JD (U): Who is former IAS officer Manish Verma Follow us on: Patanjali stops sale of these 14 products after suspension of licence Follow us on: UP prepares for crucial by-elections: BJP and Opposition gear up for another showdown US has been quite clear about its concerns on India's relationship with Russia: Official Follow us on: Who is Justice Sanjiv Khanna, the judge who recused himself from same-sex marriage review? Nandan Unnikrishnan is Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. Twitter: jonandan Views are personal. Jinwoo Song, 30, was unloading groceries metres away from his car in Melbourne when a thief seized the opportunity to drive off in the Ford Escape. Jinwoo Song was run over by his own car after he tried to stop a thief from stealing it in central Melbourne last Thursday. Source: 9News/Herald Sun A man who was run over by his own car is lucky to be alive after his head and chest were driven over by an opportunistic thief stealing his car. Jinwoo Song, 30, left his Ford Escape's engine running as he unloaded groceries metres away with his partner BiBi Kim in central Melbourne last Thursday. However, a man walking past spotted the unsupervised car and decided to steal it, collapsing his electric scooter and putting it in the backseat before getting behind the wheel. In a desperate attempt to stop him, Song stood in front of the car as his partner ran towards the driver. However, the man continued to drive forward and the car hit Song, forcing him to cling to the bonnet before he lost his grip and was run over. "The tyre was coming over my head, and arms, and my chest here. Because I was rolled I thought, 'I'm gonna be dead, I'm gonna be dead'," Song told 9News. Two doctors passing by likely saved man's life Bystanders rushed to Song's side, two of which happened to be doctors, and they were able to offer him life-saving assistance in the vital seconds after the incident. Song suffered a broken sternum and was left covered in bruises after the incident in Melbourne. Source: Herald Sun/9News "He [the doctor] said, 'You are in a very serious situation, but you can do it. Just don't move and keep talking'," Song recalled. His partner watched on in horror, admitting she often replays the nightmare scene in her head after witnessing it. He was transported to Royal Melbourne Hospital where he remained for four days, covered in bruises and suffering a broken sternum. The doctors said it was a "miracle" he was alive. "You're very lucky, but unlucky'," the doctor said to Song. Song has since been discharged but has a long recovery ahead of him, with police still searching for the offender and the vehicle. "I'm going to try to live this second life meaningfully," Song said. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Best cities to find a job in the US Follow us on: Ex-Google executive who worked with tech giant for 12 years offers 3 life lessons: 'Try to envision how...' Zepto sells 100g coriander for Rs 141, Blinkit for Rs 40: 'No one will give dhania for free,' says internet Follow us on: Pakistan court denies pre-arrest bail to Imran Khan in May 9 riot cases, allows police custody for questioning The Melbourne man said a four-metre hole left by an uprooted tree was an eyesore and a hazard, so he cleaned it up. But council are not happy. Melburnian Adam Marsal copped almost $11,500 in fines for illegally filling a hole left by an uprooted tree, that he said he waited six months for council to do. Source: ACA An Aussie man who "waited six months" to have his local council fill a huge hole left by an uprooted tree outside his home has been slapped with a $11,500 fine for eventually doing it himself. Melbourne man Adam Marsal said he was slapped with the whopping penalty for dumping "illegal waste" into the ground an act that Frankston City Council takes a "zero tolerance approach to" as it can have "detrimental impacts on the environment and the community". Marsal, from the city's southeast, said when questioned by council he felt like he was a "murderer" facing criminal charges. He claimed the toppled tree left a hole in the ground four metres wide and two metres deep, and though he reported it to both the city and road authorities, "nothing happened" so he "took it upon myself". This is how Marsal left the spot - but council aren't happy. Source: ACA 'Waste' illegally dumped, council says Marsal told A Current Affair that council decided he was being a "menace" for the move. "I cleaned all that up and yeah...they've fined me and given me notice to revert it back to what it was," he told A Current Affair, adding that he spent "thousands" tidying up the area. "I bought turf, I bought soil. I waited six months for it to get cleaned up and nothing was happening." Marsal claims he used "soil and grass" to fill in the hole and also "brought in native plants" to line the area. But according to the City, that's "litter". He's now been ordered to revert the grassy patch to its "derelict" state. Marsal said he felt interrogated during an interview with a council staffer in a compact room, with video of the hostile exchange later surfacing. Marsal and the staffer are heard bickering over the "relevance" of his personal details before the Melburnian pleads his case. "I cleaned up the site, it used to be a f***ing derelict site full of s**t," he can be heard saying in the video. "You left a four metre hole in the ground so I cleaned it up." A view of the hole before Marsal "tidied" it up. Source: ACA The council staffer responded: "I didn't leave a hole anywhere". "Do you understand that to work on a road reserve, you need a permit? Do you understand that?" he asks. "If I ask a government agency for assistance and nobody does anything, I don't then go and escalate the matter myself." Aussie treated like 'murderer' during council interview The council staffer said they did not "have any record" of Marsal's complaints over the former hole, to which he responded "how is that my responsibility?". The two then continue to disagree as the video continues. Frankston City Council Mayor Nathan Conroy weighed in. He said council wouldn't allow residents to "fill holes on land that is not theirs". "It's very strange to me someone decided to fill a hole with illegal fill that has potentially detrimental impacts on the community," he said. The Frankston local said he felt "interrogated" by a council staffer during an interview. Source: ACA Council weighs in with 'zero tolerance' approach A council spokesperson said "council takes a zero tolerance approach to illegal fill". "Council promptly investigated the matter after it was reported by a concerned resident," they told Yahoo News Australia. "Council has no record of being contacted regarding a hole at the subject location. Interviews are conducted in accordance with all relevant guidelines and legislative requirements. As this is an ongoing enforcement matter, Council will not be making any further comment." A review of the infringement notices was sought by council, which was undertaken and upheld. They say Marsal can have the matters referred to court if he decides to take that course of action. Marsal has been ordered to pay the $11,500 in fines, made up of two separate infringements, and revert the spot to its former state. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Updated: Victoria's government has doubled downed on its controversial fox bounty scheme saying 'it works'. Now farmers in NSW want one too. Farmers are calling for a fox scalp bounty to be reintroduced in NSW. Source: Agriculture Victoria/Getty As red fox numbers boom, frustrated Aussie farmers wanting to protect their chickens and lambs are calling for a radical solution. While it might seem like something out of Wild West America, many want a bounty to be put on the invasive predators scalp. However, the solution is a controversial one. The idea has been described by one animal advocate as both barbaric and archaic, and a leading expert in invasive pest control thinks it would be a waste of money as there are more modern control methods available. Related: Extraordinary moment wallaby turns tables on invasive fox Fox bounties are already used in Victoria, where the state government pays out $10 for each decapitated fox scalp presented by shooters. Now there are calls for it to be introduced to NSW. On Wednesday, Dugald Saunders, the leader of the NSW Nationals and Shadow Minister for Agriculture, said the Victorian bounty system was proving to be successful and he wanted his state to follow suit. But a spokesperson from the office of Tara Moriarty, the NSW Minister for Agriculture, responded telling the Daily Telegraph programs have consistently failed since they were first trialled in the 1800s. Moriarty's office has been contacted for further comment. Leader of The Nationals Dugald Saunders (pictured) doesn't want the NSW Government to rule out fox bounties. Source: AAP Call for action as regional communities 'struggle' with foxes Responding to Moriarty's claim, Saunders told Yahoo the bounties shouldnt be ruled out. Regional communities are struggling with a dramatic increase in fox numbers and residents are demanding for more to be done, he said in a statement. It doesnt make sense to rule out getting more people involved in fox control, as well as baiting programs, to bring numbers down. The minister shouldnt be looking at this as one or the other but as a coordinated approach with landholders in which every control method is used. NSW Farmers, the countrys largest state farming organisation, also supports introducing a bounty. Board member Alan Brown said every possible tool is needed to help control the problem, calling them an environmental disaster. While he doesnt believe the species will ever be wiped out from mainland Australia, he argues it's an extra incentive and encouragement for people to destroy the things. Victorian Labor Government backs fox bounty scheme While the NSW Labor government appears opposed to fox bounties, in Victoria its a different story. The bounty enables us to partner with the Victorian farmers and landholders by offering an incentive to participate in fox management, a Victorian government spokesperson told Yahoo. The Fox Bounty has been running in Victoria since 2011, and in that time Agriculture Victoria has collected more than 1.15 million fox scalps proving the incentive works." Expert labels bounties a 'waste of money' But not everyone who advocates for fox controls thinks bounties are a good idea. Andrew Cox, the CEO of the Invasive Species Council, thinks bounty money could be better spent elsewhere. We don't think bounties for widespread pests provide any strategic benefit. They are a waste of money, he told Yahoo. Its not a wise use of government funds. And there are more targeted ways to control foxes that would have a bigger impact. Foxes definitely cause impacts on agriculture and the environment. But we need to use professional fox controllers and bait programs. And stop putting money into programs that could be easily abused, arent strategic, and could actually encourage the wrong behaviour. Victoria has maintained a controversial bounty system for decades. Source: Getty Concern bounties could encourage cruelty NSW Animal Justice Party MP Emma Hurst has concerns introducing a bounty would encourage animal cruelty. The Victorian scheme has already received criticism of this, we can't copy this same ruthless and cruel program into NSW, she told Yahoo. She advocates against all mass invasive species control programs including bounty programs, 1080 poison and aerial shooting. Putting a bounty on an animals life is barbaric and archaic. I am glad to hear the Minister for Agriculture is not supporting such a shocking proposal, which would not be supported by the community, she said. Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? Get our new newsletter showcasing the weeks best stories. Hunter Malinowski followed in the footsteps of family members who attended Michigan Technological University, but also found ways to blaze her own trail. Malinowski made her Michigan Tech experience unique by pursuing dual degrees in computer science and psychology, and diving into research experiences. A meticulous planner, she also learned that embracing the unexpected can lead to exciting opportunities. Deciding to Attend Michigan Tech Malinowski visited Tech during her sophomore year in high school to explore degree options in person. At the time, she was set on a psychology major. I toured the psychology department and I really enjoyed it because they had a ton of cool research going on, she said. All In the Husky Family A few members of my family have gone to Michigan Tech. I love hearing their stories. It makes going to Tech feel very special to me, as Im able to connect my family history to my personal experiences, said Malinowski. Heres her Tech family tree: Grandpa: Dave Mueller 70 B.S. Electrical Engineering Grandma: Betty Mueller 70 B.S. Business Mom: Heidi Mueller 93 B.S. Mechanical Engineering Aunt: Heather Christenson 97 B.S. Environmental Engineering The summer before her senior year of high school, Malinowski attended Women in Computer Science, a Michigan Tech Summer Youth Programs exploration, to get a taste of college life and other course options. I felt at home on campus. I liked the area and I thought the dining hall food was really good! Malinowski said. In her ensuing years at Tech, Malinowski, now a graduating senior, has explored relationships between psychology and computer science, discovering how the two disciplines enhance each other. The more Ive done with psychology and computer science, the more I realize how many connections there are, from designing a website to the user interface and user experience, Malinowski said. I want to go into the data science/machine learning field. I think theres a lot to be said about the psychology perspective for that. "The simplest way to understand the goal of machine learning is that it is simply a program that analyzes data and uses that data to make classifications or predictions. Of course, theres a lot more that goes on technically, but at the end of the day, its not magic just math!" Hunter Malinowski 24, computer science/psychology Research Opportunities Begin Right Away Malinowski became part of the research community that excited her when she visited Tech as a high school student. She has conducted research with several faculty members in the Department of Computer Science and Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences, and received a research internship through the Pavlis Honors Colleges Undergraduate Research Internship Program (URIP). It goes to show how supportive the professors are here, which is one of the best parts of my college experience, she said. Hunter Malinowski is ready for more research and memory-making at Michigan Tech as she embarks on her master's studies in data science next fall. My first year, I went to Dr. Shane Mueller during his office hours and asked if I could be involved with his research lab. I was able to work on a few projects on Explainable AI; it was wonderful to be able to have that experience starting my first year here at Tech! I was able to be a part of the URIP program the following year, and work on an independent project, Assessing the Effectiveness of Visual Explanations for AI, as well as present in the Undergraduate Research Symposium, with the guidance of Dr. Mueller, said Malinowski. In summer 2023, Malinowski took on another research project on a topic thats near and dear to her. I worked on a project with Dr. Briana Bettin, Dr. Laura Brown and Dr. Leo Ureel to create a College of Computing Resource Hub for students. This was one of my favorite projects, as it created a resource that was immediately useful to the community around me, Malinowski said. Theres a lot of disparity in pre-college programs in terms of computer science. I was lucky enough to have many choices for computer science programs in my high school, but not everyone has that same advantage or knows that they want to go into computer science. "Making computer science more accessible is something that Im passionate about, so the impact of working on a tool that can do that was really important to me." Hunter Malinowski 24, computer science/psychology My favorite part is analyzing the results of the research project. Its really interesting to be able to see all of the data and use it to gather insights and draw conclusions, she said. I think considering the impacts of the results is also fascinating, as it shows the ways the research can be used in the future. In addition to her URIP award from Michigan Tech's Pavlis Honors College, Malinowski was also honored for her innovation and scholarship, with Pavlis naming her a University Innovation Fellow. In 2023, she was presented with the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences Department Scholar Award. Pursuing Innovation and Internships Malinowski tapped her inner entrepreneur during her first year on campus, developing a startup idea linked to her passion for fashion. Recirculate The Future of Sustainable Fashion took third place in Michigan Techs Bob Mark Business Model Competition. The idea also received an MTEC SmartZone Breakout Innovation Award and an honorable mention in Central Michigan Universitys New Venture Challenge. Being a part of Pavlis Honors College, I learned a lot about the innovation experiences at Michigan Tech and was very interested in exploring that pathway further. One of the key Pavlis Honors abilities is Welcome Challenge, so I figured I might as well step outside of my comfort zone and participate in the Bob Mark pitch competition, said Malinowski. I came up with an idea to reuse the old T-shirts that everyone has sitting around by turning them into T-shirt yarn and crocheting new pieces. I learned a lot about starting a business and different business topics, which was a very unique experience. Ultimately, I ended up focusing on other activities, but it was a learning experience I recommend to anyone remotely interested in entrepreneurship. Malinowskis experiences led her to participate in other innovation opportunities, including the University Innovation Fellows program. Its probably one of the coolest programs Ive participated in! Above all, the Husky Innovate community is so welcoming, and there are advisors, professors and peers who will support you every step of the way, she said. In summer 2023, Malinowski was presented with another opportunity: an internship aimed at making the internship experience more valuable for students. Throughout my summer internship at Realogic Solutions, we began the development of InStep, a multifaceted platform one of those facets being improving the internship matching and onboarding experience for students and employers, Malinowski said. I learned a lot about the business process as a whole through speaking with stakeholders, gathering requirements and seeing the entire development process firsthand. I was able to learn new technologies, including using React for web development and Amazon Web Services for data management. We gathered feedback from potential users of the platform as well as reflecting on our own experiences finding internships, which helped us to optimize the platform for all users. Along with a fellow Husky Kelsey Hagebusch, also a computer science major Malinowski continued to work part-time for the company over the academic year. She plans to continue her work with Realogic this summer, after earning her degrees. Leading, Learning and Other Life Lessons I am a person who loves to plan ahead, said Malinowski. Before attending Michigan Tech, I planned my entire course schedule for the time I would be here, looked through the Involvement Link to pick what clubs I was interested in and set a number of goals I wanted to achieve at Michigan Tech. While I did follow through on a majority of the things I had planned for myself, some of my most fulfilling moments have been ones that were unexpected and unplanned. For example, this semester I was able to take Nature Psychology and Wheel Throwing (pottery, not throwing actual wheels, although that does sound fun!), which have ended up being two of my favorite classes Ive taken at Michigan Tech and if I had stuck to my original plan, I never wouldve been able to experience them. Malinowski also found herself responding to a call to leadership as she became active on campus. Shes a former president of the Delta Zeta sorority, served as the 2020-21 College of Computing representative for Undergraduate Student Government and has served as president, treasurer and secretary of Tiny Knitz, a student group that crochets hats for premature babies. Besides those activities, Malinowski also volunteered for Copper Country Coders for two years and helped teach an online computing class to students in Bahrain in the 2021-22 academic year. The majority of the leadership positions Ive taken on, I did not originally plan on holding, she said. Throughout my time on campus, I found organizations that I cared about and wanted to see continue to thrive and grow in the future. It wasnt something I went out of my way to find rather, it found me. When there are projects, clubs and people that you feel passionately about, it encourages you to spend a lot of time working to improve those organizations, which I was able to do through leadership. Schedule juggling taught Malinowski other valuable life skills. Time management is definitely an issue I have faced, and I know many others have faced as well, Malinowski said. Personally, I live by my Google Calendar and use it to block my time. There have been multiple instances where I have overcommitted myself. "There are so many awesome experiences here its hard to not want to try all of them! But over time, I have learned to prioritize what means the most to me and where my time is best spent." Hunter Malinowski 24, computer science/psychology Malinowski has packed unforgettable experiences into her time at Tech. Its hard to pick just one memory, she said. I think some of my favorite memories have been the little things. Ironing snow on our statue site with my sorority never in my life did I think I would have a need to iron snow. Spontaneous late-night trips to see the northern lights. Weekend trips to Drive-Thru Depot and Keweenaw Coffee Works. Attending summer music festivals with my friends from Tech All of those smaller things have truly added up to be the biggest moments. There are more Tech memories in the making as Malinowski embarks on her next adventure: Shell start an accelerated masters program in data science next fall. Ill be continuing my education at Tech for another year. This summer, I plan to continue my work with Realogic Solutions and spend some quality time with family and friends in the Metro Detroit area, she said. Originally, Malinowski planned on completing an accelerated masters degree in computer science at Tech. While I was here, I discovered that there was an accelerated masters in data science, which I dont believe existed when I began at Tech, and exactly matches my interests and career goals, she said. So, while I do still enjoy planning ahead, its definitely important to go with the flow sometimes or youll miss out on experiences! Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigans flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure. Battery life is a major downside of electric vehicle ownership. But this system might just be the thing to change that. Australian EV owners dabbling in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) charging have been warned the emerging technology could be dangerous, or even damaging to the car. Source: Facebook Australian EV owners dabbling in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) charging have been warned the emerging technology is not yet fully understood and therefore could be dangerous, or even damaging to the car. Aussies this week have been sharing their stories about how they've charged up their cars using a cable hooked to another EV, the equivalent to jump starting a petrol powered vehicle, known as an internal combustion engine (ICE). Though the system sounds undoubtedly handy, experts have warned that just because it's possible in some models, such as BYDs, doesn't mean we should be taking advantage of the tech just yet. Online, multiple electric vehicle owners spoke about how when desperately low on battery, they'd charged their car using energy from another. One Victorian man said he "topped up a friend's car" using his own "for the last two kilometres" of a recent journey. EV owners spoke this week about how when desperately low on battery, they'd charged their car using energy from another. He said after the pair managed to deliver "a little over 1kWh", equal to two per cent battery power, that was enough to make it to "the DC charger for coffee and a chat" in "30 minutes [ish]". Another man revealed that "for experimental purposes" he charged his "wife's MG5 at 5.4kW for an hour from the the V2L port on my MG4". Another shared an image of a van powering an electric motorbike using V2V charging. 'Safety' a major 'concern' in V2V charging Speaking to Yahoo News Australia, Canberra-based mechanic Saffy Sgroi said "safety is the number one concern" when it comes to V2V charging. Sgroi is heavily involved in industry groups who are considering the transition to EVs and has been running her business Car Mechanical Services at Fisher in the ACT for almost two decades. She said the process could even harm the vehicle's battery life. "It's definitely possible," she told Yahoo."BYD makes their electric vehicles part of a connected system instead of standalone unit, car-to-house, car-to-car etc. Aussies are repeatedly being caught in compromising positions trying to charge their EVs. Source: Facebook "Yes, safety is definitely the number one concern. Infrastructure is another issue. The implementation of a V2G system technology that enables energy to be pushed back to the power grid from the battery of an electric vehicle would require significant infrastructure upgrades to support bidirectional charging. "That would include the installation of smart charging stations and a grid management system capable of handling the variability of energy from EV batteries. "Some argue potential battery degradation could also become an issue. The potential benefits of bi-directional EV charging is still in its infancy stage, there are concerns about the impact on battery life." Discharging an EV battery too frequently could potentially reduce the battery life, Sgroi added, but "we dont know much about this yet". Technology could 'revolutionise' power grids eventually EVs with bidirectional (two-way) charging capability can be used to power a home, feed energy back into the electricity grid and even provide backup power in the event of a blackout or emergency. Electric vehicles are "essentially a large battery on wheels", experts say, so bidirectional chargers can technically "enable a vehicle to store cheap off-peak electricity or solar power" which could "reduce household electricity costs". Some say it has the potential to "revolutionise the way our power grids operate", with the potential for tens of thousands of electric vehicles to supply power simultaneously during times of peak electricity demand, according to Jason Svarc Founder, Solar and Battery Specialist at Clean Energy Reviews. Sgroi warned that it's extremely important anybody working with electric cars are fully aware of what they're dealing with, as they're "not always safe". "We're talking about working with a huge battery here, my staff and I've got five guys they're genuinely concerned," she said. "You've got 400 kilowatts of battery running, they can fry you. If you do the wrong thing you're gone." Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Whale carcasses can feed marine ecosystems for seven years. So why do Aussie councils bury beached whales at the tip? The whale carcass looks quite small until you compare it to the tiger shark eating it. Source: Laura Gourgas Lying on the ocean floor, the decaying whale carcass looks small. But once you compare it to the tiger shark feeding on its flesh for scale, its mammoth size becomes clear. Dead whale bodies can feed a whole ecosystem for at least seven years, making them an essential component of healthy marine environments. But when they beach themselves and die, Australian councils dont often opt to push them back out to sea. Instead its common practice to bury them at the tip. And one local authority in the United States famously tried to blow one up, showering the town in rotten whale flesh. After over 50 years, it still makes me laugh, whale researcher Dr Olaf Meynecke told Yahoo News. The guy has so much certainty that by blowing it up, the whale would just disintegrate into bite-sized pieces for seagulls. Authorities told a local reporter they were confident the dynamite would work. Source: KATU-TV Tracking device discovers whale body drifts for over 150km The Griffith University marine ecologist thinks we've been failing for decades by trying to deal with whales on land. In particular, the most popular method of hauling it to the tip is expensive and it robs marine life of a valuable nutrition source. "As weve seen more and more whales stranding on Australian beaches in past years, the effective, safe and culturally sensitive removal of whale remains near or on public beaches has become a major issue, Meynecke said in a statement. He has been investigating the option of dragging them out into deeper water. Its a solution authorities have been scared of trying because they fear the body will float back to shore and attract sharks. To determine if council concerns were justified, his team put together a practical experiment. The whale was roped and a tracking device was attached. Source: Paddy Marine They found a 14-metre female humpback in waters off Queenslands Noosa Heads in July, 2023. The poor animal is believed to have been decapitated by a passing ship. After intercepting her rotting body, they dragged it 30km out to shore and affixed a satellite tracking device. They monitored it for six days before it finally dropped to the seafloor. When you put a carcass into the East Australian Current, it should in theory be pushed down south or further offshore, he told Yahoo. But because we had pretty strong southeasterly winds it was pushed further north and then the coastal currents picked it up. It was actually speeding up towards the end. And no one thought it would travel over 150 km. That was a substantial distance. More incredible animal stories Logic can predict where whale carcasses will float Meyneckes work is leading to accurate forecasts of where whale carcasses will drift. And he argues off-shore disposal is now the most ethical, safe and cost-effective method. A dead whale can feed a marine ecosystem for years. Source: Laura Gourgas The landfill option has been tempting because burying a whale means its out of sight, out of mind, he said. There are arguments about not releasing it offshore because it will come back. But we show you just have to pick the right spot and its determined by wind and currents. So with logic we can predict where it will go. Dead on the beach? Predicting the drift of whale remains improves management for offshore disposal has been published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? Get our new newsletter showcasing the weeks best stories. Minister of Foreign Affairs Ilia Darchiashvili responded to the EU's decision to freeze Euro30 million in defense funding for Georgia, stressing the importance of enhancing Georgia's defense capabilities and expressing hope for the resumption of cooperation with the EU."Georgia needs to further strengthen its defense capabilities to better address existing threats. We hope that such decisions will soon return to their previous level," Darchiashvili said. He emphasized that cooperation with the EU is based on mutual obligations, which Georgia is fulfilling logically and sequentially.Darchiashvili downplayed the EU ambassador's critical remarks, asserting that these micro-level decisions will not hinder Georgia's European integration efforts. He highlighted Georgia's ongoing reform agenda and commitment to EU obligations, expressing optimism about starting negotiations for full EU membership despite current challenges."While negotiations are lengthy and challenging, we are ready to guide Georgia irreversibly on the path of European integration," Darchiashvili said.Foreign Minister of Georgia, Ilia Darchiashvili, met with NATO's Special Representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia, Javier Colomina, during the 75th anniversary summit of NATO.According to the ministry, the meeting focused on the agenda of the summit and significant issues pertinent to it. It underscored Georgia's participation in the summit as a reaffirmation of the country's successful integration process into NATO."The parties discussed Georgia's Euro-Atlantic integration, emphasizing Georgia's role as a reliable partner of the alliance and its substantial contributions to Euro-Atlantic security," the statement read.The discussion also acknowledged Georgia's advancements in Euro-Atlantic integration, particularly in bolstering defense capabilities, and underscored the importance of NATO's practical and political support.Issues concerning regional dynamics, security challenges, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine were also addressed. The parties emphasized the criticality of enhancing security in the broader Black Sea region as a cornerstone for peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic space.Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to active cooperation in pursuing shared objectives. Yves here. This Michael Hudson talk with Nima of Dialogue Works seems a fitting dimensioning of the size of the hole NATO has gotten itself in with Project Ukraine as the July NATO summit starts. Some may regard Hudsons description of US foreign policy as highly reliant on coercion as an exaggeration. However, Jeffrey Sachs, who has had a front row seat on many US policy decisions, has been saying precisely the same thing and retired Lieutenant Colonel Larry Wilkerson has made similar observations. Originally published at Dialogue Works NIMA: Michael, lets start with Russian economy right now. The World Bank reported that in 2023, Russias economic growth was 3.6. They have been predicting for this year, for 2024, they were talking about 1.3. Right now, theyre talking about 2.9. And its much more than double than the value that they have been predicting before. Is this war in Ukraine helping the Russian economy, in your opinion? MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, President Biden is responsible for most of the Russian growth. I think weve talked about that before. When you impose sanctions on a country, a country has two choices. Either it can let itself fall apart, or it can produce for itself what it used to import. So, the sanctions have led Russia, first of all, to become self-sufficient in food, especially vegetables. They dont have to import food from the Baltics anymore. Theyve become self-sufficient in many consumer goods, industrial goods. The result of the sanctions imposed by Biden and followed by Europe have had the effect that Biden wanted. They have cut Europe off from Russia. Theyve separated Europe and lost the entire basis of the last 30 years prosperity in Western Europe. So, the prosperity that Europe no longer has is now enjoyed by Russia. Now, we know that Biden and advisors didnt do this intentionally. Its simply the result of their nastiness, of thinking that if you can hurt another country enough, that will force it to do what you want it to do. Thats the American policy, and its the only policy that America has. It doesnt have an economic argument for why sanctions will help Russia and hurt Europe and hurt the United States. It only has this atavistic hostility that has been Bidens personality and character ever since he joined Congress. Hes picked nasty people around him, just like hes picked nasty dogs around him that bite his security staff. So, thats the result of having this negative approach to the world. It backfires. If youre really nasty, you dont realize that its backfired. You just try to be nastier. Thats, of course, what causes the real danger today in Ukraine and Palestine and the Near East, the danger that the West is going to keep getting nastier and nastier and escalating. The result, of course, has been to drive Russia together, China together, and take the leadership in creating the whole BRICS as an alternative world system. So, Russias GDP has been the beneficiary of this, but most of all, the structure of Russia, the ideology and the realization that the West has nothing to offer Russia, China, or the other countries except neoliberalism. NIMA: Europe is just having a lot of problems considering their economy. How can they increase their defense budget in order to feed this military-industrial complex in the United States? MICHAEL HUDSON: They can do just what the International Monetary Fund tells countries to do in a case like this. Number one, they can cut back social spending and reduce living standards. Number two, they can begin selling off their infrastructure, their industry, their agriculture to American buyers. Thats the only way that they can cope for it. Theres no other way. And, of course, thats what the centrist parties, the Social Democrats and the labor parties, want to do. Thats why every European leader has lost in the last elections. The voters have just said, no, there must be an alternative to this. Unfortunately, the alternative is more neoliberalism. So, you get rid of one neoliberal party and you get another neoliberal party in. I dont see much hope for Europe. NIMA: How do you see the changes that are happening far right, far left, center? Is it changing? The definition of these terms are changing in Europe, in your opinion? MICHAEL HUDSON: The rhetoric is changing. And there has been a change. The socialist parties, when they moved to the right wing of the spectrum, became internationalist. A lot of this was the result of World War II, and its been happening for 75 years. Many of the liberals thought that what caused World War II was nationalism. Whats the alternative to nationalism? Internationalism. So, they all thought that joining Europe together would end European war. And if you could have an international world economy, that would end war. What they didnt realize is that the international world economy has become unipolar, dominated by the United States, and the United States is nationalist. So, what you have is an internationalist economy that is dominated by the United States and its own national interests against other countries. And its national interests believe that it can only consolidate its power by preventing any other country from acting independently of the United States. And even if they dont act actively against American trade policy or financial policy, the very potential of them for being independent is looked at as a deadly risk for them. And so, the United States is engaged in regime change. Its put 800 military bases across the world to prevent all this. Well, the effect of all this has been to drive the rest of the world together. And it looks like its creating a new international order by the BRICS, by the 85% of the world population. And what youre seeing now is in response to the United States drive to control the world and its own interests. Its driven Russia, China, and Iran together, first of all, by creating the military alliance, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and then by expanding into the BRICS. And now, youre seeing already every month, far-reaching changes. Youve just seen President Putin go to Vietnam and North Korea, trying to consolidate all of Eurasia into an independent entity, an independent international group, along with the Global South, that will create basically a whole set of new institutions to what the US economic order was. And you have the speeches of President Putin, Lavrov, and other Russian officials saying the United Nations is now, unfortunately, being blocked and controlled by the United States. We need a new United Nations. Putin said that theyre still going to be the old United Nations. We can leave that there to lumber along. But were going to need a new group representing the nations that are free of United States veto power in them. Theyre going to need a new international monetary fund with an idea of economic stability and financial stability that does not involve austerity planning and anti-labor policies, and that does not believe that the way to maximize economic growth is to reduce living standards, reduce wages, and squeeze more out of labor, but to increase living standards to make labor more productive. Thats how Britain, the United States, Germany, and France, all the other countries developed. And now, youre having the former colonial areas of the world reinvent the wheel by doing essentially what the Western economies did. And to do that, they have to be free of the Western economies political domination, military domination, and above all, the financial legacy of international debt. NIMA: Hillary Clinton recently just was talking about that Ukrainians have to go on an offensive in order to help Biden. What are the roots of this kind of mindset? The war in Ukraine, is that important for the Democratic Party, or theyre just pretending to be that way? MICHAEL HUDSON: Politics in America is a psychodrama, and its very hard to explain to reasonable people how a country like the United States can be unreasonable. But the Biden administration and the Democrats generally, and Congress generally thinks, if we back a country, it has to win. And if we lose Ukraine, just as Biden already lost Afghanistan and lost the war against COVID, if they lose in Ukraine, that means that he should be thrown out and theyll get somebody who can be a better bully and win in the Ukraine. So somehow, the thought of Ukrainian defeat by Russia will not only lose the election for Biden, but it will lead to a loss of NATO being part of the United States foreign diplomacy. And that failure, Biden says, will lead people to think, oh, hes failed, lets get a winner like Trump. And of course, what Trump will do is indeed end NATO, or at least end the American contributions to NATO, forcing Europe to pay the whole bill. And Europe is going to decide, do we really want to devote all of our growth in GDP to military spending, as if the Russians will invade? I dont know if you watched the debate between Biden and Trump. Most people have simply talked about the fact that Biden was showing signs of senility. But worse than his senility is what he said. He said that if the Russians defeat Ukraine, theyre going to march right through Poland. This is the domino theory that Americans held 50 years ago during the Vietnam War. When I was working at the Chase Manhattan Bank in 1965, the man in the office across the aisle was a naval intelligence person. Intelligence agencies very often put their spies in banks, because thats how you can trace things. And the naval intelligence officer in charge of Asia told me that if Vietnam defeats America, theyre going to be in Los Angeles next, he actually said it. Can you imagine the Vietnamese marching into Los Angeles and trying to take it over? Its like in Casablanca, when Humphrey Bogart tells the Nazis, well, you know, if you try to defeat America, theres some parts of Brooklyn, I would recommend that you dont go into. Its inconceivable that any democracy or any country in the world thats not a tight military dictatorship can mount a land army. And without a land army, you cant invade anyone. America doesnt have a landed army. And Europe doesnt. And if they tried to have a landed army, youd have a revolt, just as youre seeing in Israel, a revolt by the religious Zionists who are refusing to let themselves be drafted. So the very thought of a Russian invasion, marching right through to England is silly. No country is going to do that. But that is actually what the American neocons believe. Thats called projection. Theyre thinking of what they would do to Grenada. And somehow this is their image of the world. You know, look what we did to Iraq. Well, we invaded. Look what we did to Libya. We invaded and destroyed it. Well, isnt that what Russia is going to do? Arent other countries going to be just like us? Thats the projection that you have in American foreign policy. NIMA: Michael, we had two important visits of Putin recently. One was to China and the other one was to North Korea. And when you look at these two visits, and especially when it comes to North Korea, what Russia can do, how Russia can contribute to North Korea, the situation theyre having right now? MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, the basic plan of Russia and China is, as I said, to create a new economic order. Now, the problem is that they know that the United States is going to oppose this as an existential threat to itself. And if it looks at it as what Biden has said, an existential enemy, then obviously the United States is going to respond in a military way. So while theyre spending the next probably year or two working out the details of BRICS financial relationships, a BRICS bank to finance trade deficits and balance of payments deficits, a whole ideology to juxtapose to the West. While theyre doing this, they have to realize that, well, we have to do just what Russia had to do after the Soviet revolution in 1917. Americas forcing us to be militarily defensive. And if we dont defend ourselves, theres not going to be any opportunity to create the new economic order. So Putin and China both recognize that you have to put the cart before the horse and begin with the military protection to insulate themselves from any kind of American threat so that they can proceed to create their own destiny. NIMA: We know that one of the most important countries within NATO is Turkey. Recently, they are asking to join BRICS. And how do you see this type of movement on the part of Turkey and how is it going to affect NATO? MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, Turkeys always tried to play both sides in both the West and Russia and all the other parties at once. Thats becoming much more difficult since the Israeli attack on the Palestinians. Youre having the Islamic countries tell Turkey, where is your loyalty going to be? You cant go two roads at once, youve got to make a choice. Well, as America prepares to back Israel in the war against Lebanon, I think theres already warnings to Turkey, dont let America use your airbase as a source of bombing Lebanon. You have to stop that. And beyond that, theres now for the first time, a pressure on Turkey saying, look, you joined NATO, because youd hoped to be part of the European community. The European community is dead. Theres nothing to join that. You have a choice. Either you can become part of an economy that is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, or you can link your economy to the Eurasian economy where all of the international growth is taking place, and which is also largely Islamic as you are. What are you going to do? And what are your voters going to do when we advocate that Turkey take an Islamic, non-pro-NATO, non-pro-US position? Erdogan always has been able to play both ways. I was present when he and President Putins predecessor Medvedev gave a speech in Yugoslavia over a decade ago, and you could see that Erdogan was trying to be as close to Russia as he could. But then he met with the Americans and tried to be as close to saying, when are we going, how can you promote our coming to Europe? I dont think he can play that game anymore. Now, I dont know any Turkish diplomats to have any inside information at all, but you can see the pressures on him. Turkey is going to have to make a choice, and that choice may be made very quickly if indeed Israel attacks Lebanon. Do you think that the changes that are happening right now in Europe, are they going to be able to just reconnect their ties with Russia, or the United States is not letting them do that? MICHAEL HUDSON: Yeah, there is no way that Europe can re-establish links with Russia, unless it explicitly breaks from the United States. Well, of course, thats what youve just seen the elections in France, and theyre pressing modestly for it. But the American pressure on Europe, European leaders, I should say, the American infiltration and subsidy of the social democratic parties, the Christian democratic parties, the labor parties, is so great that the leaders themselves are so pro-American that you would need a new set of parties there, a new left. And theres only one left-wing party in all of Europe, and thats Sarah Wagenknechts party in Germany. Needless to say, this is not going to be the dominant party for quite a while. And so, I think that when President Putin said, its going to be an entire generation, 30 years before we can have a relationship with Europe again. I dont see how Europe can really wake up. Its going to have to have an ideological change, an economic reorganization. The United States is going to impose sanctions on them. President Trump is going to impose very heavy tariffs on Europe. The very first choice of Europe is going to be, well, if America is not going to pay for NATO, are we really going to rearm all the armaments and the tanks and the missiles and the weapons and the airplanes that weve depleted our stocks and sent them to Ukraine? Are we really going to rebuild that and remilitarize? Or are we going to have a peace dividend where we can rebuild our economies? And the parties are unanimous. We dont want a peace dividend that would raise wages. Labor would be employed, wages would go up, and we, the financial sector, would lose the class war. And thats still what Europe is all about. It has a rotten class war going within it. And the problem is not simply Europe versus the US. Its the European industrial and financial elite against the population at large. Thats why the population at large voted the existing parties out of power, but they really dont have a choice except for whats called the far-right parties, which means the left-wing populist parties or the parties that are saying what the left-wing used to say without any real plan of following what used to be the left-wing socialist policy of active government, subsidy of interest of industry, subsidy of living standards, and building up of the social infrastructure that Europe was indeed doing in the decades or so right after World War II. NIMA: Do you see that this conflict going for decades in Ukraine or we are getting to the final stages of the conflict in Ukraine? MICHAEL HUDSON: NATO has promised that this will go on forever and forever until Russia is defeated and can be broken up into five countries, and then America can go and do the same in China and break it up into ethnicities. It will go on for a hundred years, NATO says. And NATO really governs Europe. The European Commission and NATO are the administrative parts of Europe. And voters really have very little to say about electing local national leaders for all this. So as long as NATO and the European Commission remain in existence, there cant be any kind of negotiation. And so President Putin has said famously, the West is non-agreement-capable. So the only kind of negotiation is Russia says, were going to win in Ukraine and the negotiation will be, we will dictate the terms of peace. The solution can only be won on the battlefield. It cannot be won by negotiation, because who are we going to negotiate with? You cant negotiate with Ukraine because theyre American puppets right now, unless we win and we put in our own, the leaders that we backed, probably military leaders and opponents of the current regime. And thats not a negotiation, that Russia is in a position to dictate the peace. Theres no reason for it to negotiate away anything. And even if it negotiated, NATO says, well, well promise not to fight. Well promise that theres a ceasefire and then well really hit them. Well just pretend to negotiate and then well attack. Thats what NATO does. Thats what America does. And thats what theyve already done to Russia again and again and again. And so Russia has said, no negotiation. President Lavrov has said, I think we should downgrade the embassies of Europe here because there is nothing to say. We realize that Ukraine is a puppet of the US, that the European leaders are really NATO generals and theyre all appointed by the US and we cant negotiate with the US because they lie. They break their word. So the solution in Ukraine will come when Russia finally decides to defeat the West to such a degree that it can restructure Ukraine and create a domestic government. Well, the West and NATO said, well, at least what we have is terrorism. At least we can continue to keep lobbing missiles into Ukraine just as Kiev was lobbing missiles into Luhansk and Donetsk. We can just continue to try to destabilize. And at a point then when Russia has been able to neutralize Ukraine itself and the NATO and Americans begin to take off from Romanian bases or Polish bases, then America is going to begin attacking the airfields in Poland, Romania, or wherever there may be F-16 planes capable of carrying atomic bombs. Because Russia said, if you have a plane capable of carrying an atomic bomb, whenever that plane takes off, whatever its carrying, were going to not only blow it up, were going to blow the base up that it took off from. And blowing the base up means blowing up all the runways, because these planes are very delicate. If theres a lumpy runway, they apparently tip over and bump their nose. So, in that sense, Russia will do what apparently America is trying to goad it into doing and extending the war westward, at which point America will say what Biden said. You see Russias invading Romania, invading Poland, trying to re-establish the whole Soviet Union and make all of Europe look like East Germany used to look. Well, thats silly. And what is going to be happening to the European population and its voters during all of this? Hungary is opposing the expansion. Slovakia is, I think, opposing. What are they going to do? We really cant tell. Europe has so little political leadership that its just completely passive in all of this. Thats the problem. Its in a state of civilizational collapse, as the Russians say. NIMA: Do you find the conflict in Taiwan much more important for the United States or is the same way that Ukraine is? MICHAEL HUDSON: I think America is simply trying to be like a mosquito, bothering China and Taiwan. I dont think China has any desire to bomb or invade Taiwan at all. It doesnt have to do any of this. Almost all of Taiwans trade is with China. All China has to do is say, okay, you want to be unfriendly, you want to split apart, then no more trade. Whats Taiwan going to do? You want to join the U.S. economy? Well, good luck. Try going that way. Obviously, you would have the Taiwan economy falling apart. Ive met many Taiwan officials and they all personally have their investments in mainland China. Theyve all looked forward to investing in China. Unfortunately, most of them are drug dealers. These are central bankers and financial people. Theyre trying to reestablish what England did to China with the opium trade. Many businessmen in China, who are not the government leaders, but just businessmen, know that their economic destiny lies with China. The Chinese essentially can play rope-a-dope. They can go with the flow and say, you really want to be independent? If your independence entails reliance on the United States, you can get all the weapons you want. Theyre not going to help you because, as you know, we can wipe you out in 20 minutes. Youre just across the strait. We know youre not going to attack us because we can wipe you out in 20 minutes. We know that your business people and much of your population wants peace with us, so well just let you go your own way. Were going to block trade with you. Were not going to export to you. Were not going to import from you. Let us know when you change your mind. NIMA: How do you find Modis decision to go to Russia right after his re-election? Hes going to be in Russia and talking with Putin. How important is Russia for India at this particular moment? MICHAEL HUDSON: India is trying to do what Erdogan has done so well for so many years. Its trying to play the East and the West against each other. The United States is doing everything that it can to give India essentially to bribe it economically. India is trying to get the best deal that it can. The United States is trying to say, you know, look at your war up in Nepal and Tibet and Sikkim and Bhutan. You have all these Chinese there. Remember the war? I remember the war very well when India tried to attack Chinese troops, and the Chinese troops just walked into it. I gave a speech before the Security Council of the United Nations, and I said, you know, theres only one solution. I was joking, but I said one solution to the Indian problem, that the Chinese will walk into India, theyll eat all the cattle, and theyll walk back to China and well, you know, the rest. The Indian delegates all came up to me, shook my hand and said, youve got it. Thats really what the situation is. You know, this is all for show for the voters. Its basically a show. Well, all of these Indians have now died of old age. All of this was way back 50 years ago. I think that they realize that theres no chance of their winning any real military conflict with China. The United States is going to try to give them arms, going to try to provoke some incident that will make China economically unfriendly with India. I would hope that the Indians are savvy enough not to fall for this. I think theyre probably using the meetings with the United States to say, what will you give us? And now, Modi has gone to meet with Putin, and I bet hes saying, what will you give us? What will China give us? Give us a real choice so that we can make a decision because its going to be very hard for us or any other country in the world to be independent. When the world is breaking into two parts that are really a civilizational break, you cant go two ways at once anymore. You cant try to be a mediator because theres no mediation. These two political areas are economically separating from each other, and this separation is, I think now, irreversible. I would hope that India recognizes that. India is supposed to be part of the BRICS. Since Russia is now heading the BRICS, and I think theres a BRICS meeting coming up in the next few weeks, I think the discussion that Modi is having is, what is our role in BRICS going to be? Do you trust us or not? And I think Putin is probably telling him, I would imagine, that well, India, you are a member of BRICS, but if youre really taking the US side in discussions, and youre essentially casting a US-backed veto of the policy decisions that the BRICS are making, then Im afraid you really dont belong in BRICS anymore. Its a different India than it used to be, and I bet that thats what the discussion is all about. NIMA: When Turkey joins BRICS, this would be the first country, the first NATO country joining BRICS. MICHAEL HUDSON: Require a trigger, forcing the decision to make. Erdogan is going to try to avoid making that decision as long as he can. Hes going to try to play it both ways, but if there is an attack on Lebanon, that is going to lead Turkey very quickly, even this year, to say, we cant be a part of a NATO that is attacking Lebanon and our fellow Islamic co-religionists. Well withdraw from [NATO]. And Hungary, why dont you come with us? You can just imagine whats going to be happening. And the US diplomats seem to have no idea of whats happening. I dont think they listen to your show. NIMA: Michael, do you think that Hungary, Serbia, and Slovakia, are they thinking of joining BRICS? MICHAEL HUDSON: Right now, because of their geographic location, their economic ties are very close to Europe. I think they will not join BRICS until Europe formally breaks up. And they have to wait until their joining BRICS will not result in an economic trade and investment and demographic interruption of all of this. And what they will try to do is act as a worthy alternative to the current Eurozone leadership. Lets create a new Europe now that Europe has decided not to become part of the military NATO anti-Russian group anymore. Once NATO is gone, I think all of Europe, not only the three countries you mentioned, but other countries are going to decide how are we going to remake relations. As I said, its going to be very long before Russia trusts them. But I think Russia will trust Hungary and Serbia and other countries that have shown themselves to be supporting Russian interests and not supporting NATO interests all along. NIMA: You talk about the conflict in Gaza. Do you think at this moment, weve learned that United States was offering a defense treaty to Saudi Arabia in order to convince them normalizing their relationship with Israel? And it doesnt seem that thats working for Saudi Arabia. How do you find the United States foreign policy in the Middle East and how the face of Middle East is changing in your view? MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, Saudi Arabia, again, is an example of an inherently unstable economic situation. Saudi Arabia has a problem. Almost all of its financial wealth has been kept in the United States. And its worry is that this, its holdings of US stocks and bonds are hostages against it taking an active movement away from the West and joining its Near Eastern neighbors. Its being pressed right now. Its being offered all sorts of American armaments like the F-16s. But there must be someone in the Saudi leadership that says, wait a minute, we dont want F-16s, they dont work. You know, lets wait, lets wait and see what Russia does with them in Ukraine. The American weapons have been shown not to work very well. And I think Saudi Arabia is certainly under pressure from its own population. Remember, it has a very heavy Palestinian population, just as Jordan does. And the question is, how independent can the Saudi leadership be, not only from its own population, but from the Islamic population in general, despite the Shiite and Sunni splits. So I think that it had, it is having to think about the unthinkable. Its having to look at alternatives that have never existed, or been pressing for before. And for the time being, its going to try to do nothing, as little as possible. Obviously, the proposed agreement with Israel is over permanently. Theres no way that either Saudi Arabia or I think Jordan also can remain allies, virtually of Israel, and without so much counter pressure that it just wont work. The problem is, how independent will the Saudi leadership be of all the forces around them? And how much have their whole leadership been westernized and Americanized, that theyre going to somehow resist this Eurasian movement? Well, theyre part of the BRICS now too. So what Ive said about India applies just as well to Saudi Arabia. At the BRICS meeting, I think theyre going to say, well, how do you feel? Are you with us or against us? You got to make a choice. So its going to take a while for it to make the choice. And as in the case of Turkey, the timing of this choice will be determined by Americas overreaching or some local military conflagration making the choice inevitable. You cannot avoid it. It has to be one or the other. And there was no way of really forecasting that kind of seemingly an accident. But you can be sure that America is going to probably provoke some kind of pressure, overestimating the American position. Thats the problem with America. Like a bully, they overestimate their power and theyve done it wrong again and again. Recently, the rest of the world is not like Iraq or Libya. NIMA: Is the Biden administration capable of preventing this attack on Hezbollah? MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, the Biden administration is two things. On the one hand, you have the state department. I have the politicians and amateurs in the state department and White House. On the other hand, you have the military leaders. Now, the military, Im sure its been announced that theyve made all sorts of forecasts and games and in every forecast they make, America loses. But the neocons dont realize this. Theres a split. The neocons say, we can win anything. You heard what President Biden said. Were America. Weve never been defeated. Well, I guess theres always a first time. And the question is, would the army just say no? Or would they pull back? Or would they resign? Well, unfortunately, the way to get promoted in the army is the same way youd get promoted in, say, the British Navy and the old Gilbert and Sullivan song. You get promoted by going along with what the political superiors want you to say. But at the same time, they have their own analysis. And even the CIA may have some analysts that they have not fired for being realistic. And the question is, will there be some split here? And the military will simply say, I cannot back this attack. I resign rather than leading to a fight thats going to lead to our aircraft carriers, our battleships, our troops, our foreign enclaves all being destroyed. Thats another great unknown. But thats what the choice is going to be. NIMA: Just to wrap up this session, when you look at BRICS today, you said that were going to have a BRICS summit soon. And how long does it take for BRICS to come to a solution that would make its members totally independent of the American system? MICHAEL HUDSON: I dont see that coming very soon because theyre really reinventing the wheel. Much of this wheel has already been invented in the 19th century by British classical political economy. You dont want economic rent. You want capital formation. You want government to take the lead in natural monopolies and infrastructure. All of this was all worked out in the 19th century. But neoliberalism has so extinguished and just excluded the history of this economic thought that most of the political leaders of the BRICS countries are simply unaware of this. And the staffs are unaware of this. Certainly, their central bankers are unaware of this, and their economists, if theyre trained in the United States and Europe, are unaware of this. So theyre working so much, I wont say in the dark. They know where they want to go, but they havent worked out how to get there. And this is going to take a while to get something thats actually workable. Theres already so much confusion about discussion of a BRICS currency. Theyre not distinguishing between a currency to denominate trade and investment that maybe can be like the euro, and other speculators can buy it, or just a central bank, a version of bancor is in a central bank accounting system of credits and debits. They havent studied all of the discussions at the end of World War II over what kind of an international monetary fund should there be between Keynes and the Americans. So if theyre working without this familiarity with history, and without how other countries have already thought through all of these, the same issues that the BRICS are thinking of, its going to take a while. Israel approves largest LAND GRAB in the Palestinian West Bank in over 30 years Israeli authorities have sanctioned the single-largest land confiscation in the occupied West Bank in more than 30 years. This massive land grab was authorized in June and only revealed on July 3rd by the Tel Aviv-based Israeli peace activist and anti-illegal settlement organization Peace Now. According to Peace Now, the approved appropriation spans 12.7 square kilometers (4.9 square miles) in the Jordan Valley, northeast of the West Bank's de facto capital of Ramallah. The move has been internationally condemned as an illegal annexation that amounts to the Israeli government giving itself the authority to lease land to Israeli settlers while barring private Palestinian land ownership in the annexed area. This represents the largest land grab since 1993, and it follows the seizures of 2.6 square kilometers (one square mile) of land in February and eight square kilometers (3.1 square miles) of land in March. "2024 marks the peak in the extent of declarations of state land," Peace Now emphasized in its statement, highlighting the acceleration of Israeli settlement expansion efforts. (Related: Israel declares major LAND GRAB in West Bank.) This move is seen as not only expanding Israeli control over the region but also creating "territorial continuity" between existing Israeli settlements, particularly in a strategic corridor bordering Jordan. According to Peace Now, such actions undermine the viability of a contiguous Palestinian state by fragmenting Palestinian territories and consolidating Israeli presence. Despite international criticism, Israeli authorities are convening meetings to formalize plans that facilitate the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. 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. Speak freely without censorship at the new decentralized, blockchain-power Brighteon.io. Explore our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. 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. Land grab condemned by international community Israel's continued land confiscations in the West Bank are deemed illegal under international law and pose a significant barrier to long-term peace as they hinder the creation of a stable and independent Palestinian state and exacerbate local tensions, which can lead to more radicalization and more militancy among both Israelis and Palestinians. Despite global condemnation, Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem have grown to encompass more than 200 settlements and outposts, housing over 700,000 Jewish settlers. A Palestinian official condemned the seizure as a deliberate attempt to dispossess Palestinians from their land and undermine their aspirations for statehood. The UN echoed these concerns, labeling the land declaration as a significant setback for the prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The declaration was welcomed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a prominent figure in Israel's extremist settler movement and who is responsible for overseeing settlement policies in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Smotrich advocates for the annexation of the entire West Bank into what he refers to as "Greater Israel," a stance that aligns with expansionist views within Israel's extremist political spectrum. Critics, including Peace Now, accuse Smotrich and Netanyahu of prioritizing settlement expansion over international calls for a political resolution to the conflict. They argue that such actions not only undermine the prospects for peace but also exacerbate tensions in the region, potentially fueling further instability. Learn the latest news coming out of Israel and Palestine at IsraelCollapse.com. Watch this clip from Middle East Eye reporting on a group if illegal Israeli settlers attempting to burn down a Palestinian village in the West Bank. This video is from the channel The Prisoner on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Apple goes all in with support for Zionist occupation of Palestinian lands. Israeli official threatens to turn West Bank into RUINS just like the Gaza Strip. Miriam Adelson "wants West Bank annexation" in return for $100M donation to Trump. West Bank settlers burn trucks mistaken for Gaza aid shipments. Israeli settlers capitalize on conflict to erect ILLEGAL West Bank outposts. Sources include: TheCradle.co BBC.com Brighteon.com Keir Starmer faces renewed scrutiny over allegations he protected Jimmy Savile As the UKs new, MI6-aligned prime minister takes power, questions are resurfacing about how key files on infamous British pedophile Jimmy Savile disappeared under his watch. (Article by Kit Klarenberg republished from TheGrayzone.com) In October 2012, a documentary exposed how veteran British media personality Jimmy Savile sexually abused vulnerable, underage girls throughout his lifetime. This led to an eruption of reports of abuse, spanning decades, and official inquiries into multiple institutions to which Savile was linked. Today, the full extent of his crimes, and the total number of his victims, is unknown. It has nonetheless been confirmed that the BBC, NHS, British police, and many journalists had full knowledge of his pedophilic and necrophilic perversions well before his death. Along the way, there were multiple missed opportunities to stop Saviles industrial scale sex crimes. Most substantively, in 2007, police made contact with a number of women who had come forward to testify they were assaulted and raped by Savile, leading to the star being grilled by police about the allegations. That investigation was however shut down, and never publicly acknowledged. Details of how the probe was torpedoed didnt emerge until much later, implicating both investigating officers and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The CPS was at that time led by Keir Starmer, now His Majestys Prime Minister. As previously documented by The Grayzone, Britains new premier has a deep, long-running relationship with Londons national security establishment and security and intelligence apparatus, as well as the elite Trilateral Commission. He helmed the CPS when the Service protected MI5 and MI6 spooks from prosecution for torture, and connived to sustain a bogus rape case against Julian Assange. The CPS destroyed key emails related to this subterfuge, which served to keep the WikiLeaks founder holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy while facing extradition to Sweden, when prosecutors in both countries knew the charges had no substance. During this time, the Service also shredded all records of Starmers four trips to Washington DC. It may be no coincidence that every file held on Savile by the CPS also disappeared in breach of basic protocol. To say the least, Starmer has clear, grave questions to answer about what he knew about Saviles crimes, and the role he and his then-agency played in insulating the serial pedophile and necrophiliac from justice. The same British media that has fueled Starmers ambitions has aggressively shielded him from critical scrutiny on the matter. What follows are the dimensions of a very British coverup. Prosecutors insulate Savile from justice In February 2022, during a parliamentary joust, disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused Starmer of having spent his time as CPS chief prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile. The broadside ignited a public firestorm, with British politicians of all parties and the entire mainstream media lining up to condemn the premiers comments as a repulsive libel. A senior Downing Street staffer resigned in disgust. The pressure grew so severe, Johnson retracted his comments in a matter of three days. However, the fact remained that Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions when British authorities possessed persuasive evidence of Saviles heinous sexual crimes over many years, and he inexplicably refused to move against the pedophile. Sources within the CPS have claimed that he had no knowledge of the decision to drop the case. It is also commonly alleged that a formal inquiry he ordered in 2012 into the failure to prosecute Savile condemned investigating police, not the CPS. As the inquiry reports contents make clear, this characterization is completely false. Officers who interviewed Saviles victims in 2007/8 were indeed slammed for not providing them with more information namely, that others had independently come forward, telling disturbingly similar stories. The report concluded their testimony shouldve been acted upon, as there was nothing to suggest that the alleged victims had colluded in their accounts, nor that they were in any way [unreliable]. Despite this, police treated them and the accounts they gave with a degree of caution which was neither justified nor required. It is nonetheless clear officers shut down the investigation under express CPS direction. The Services designated reviewing lawyer on the allegations an extremely experienced rape specialist told police at an early stage he would not be inclined to prosecute these cases because they were relatively minor, and due to the time that had elapsed since the offenses were allegedly committed. The CPS lawyers relatively minor appraisal of Saviles heinous crimes troubled the inquiry investigator. I would hope that any prosecutor would regard a sexual assault as being in and of itself serious, they wrote. These particular assaults were far from trivial: they represented a course of conduct against vulnerable women and girls by a man who was in effect in a position of trust. As a result, the investigator had reservations about the way in which the prosecutor reached his decision: The allegations made were both serious and credible; the prosecutor should have recognised this and sought to build a prosecution. In particular, there were aspects of what he was told by the policewhich should have caused him to ask further questionsI have been driven to conclude that had the police and prosecutors [emphasis added] taken a different approach a prosecution might have been possible. Starmers irresistible, corrupt path to power Despite these grave criticisms, the investigator concluded, I have seen nothing to suggest that the decisions not to prosecute were consciously influenced by any improper motive on the part of either police or prosecutors. Which might be true, if only because all CPS files on Savile were destroyed in October 2010. The report was therefore dependent on material provided by the police to show what documents were seen by the reviewing lawyer and the advice which was given. Even these records were in parts either incomplete or [contained] internal inconsistencies, which made it at points difficult to assess what happened, and impossible to recreate with any certainty what was actually seen by the reviewing lawyer. For its part, the CPS had no record at all of the case. The inquiry was told this was due to the decision to take no action against Savile resulting in the Services files being automatically deleted, according to the CPS normal policy. However, Service guidelines on retention and disposal of evidence clearly state that documents on discontinued cases, in which no proceedings have taken place or where the case was discontinued before trial, must be kept for five years. The destruction of the Savile file was a flagrant breach of these rules. The decision to violate the guidelines on such a high profile case had to have been made at the highest levels of the CPS. We are thus left to ponder whether Starmer himself made that call, and if so, why. It is also an open question how, after reviewing the Services handling of the Savile case in 2012, Starmer reportedly came very close to rubber-stamping the original decision not to prosecute, before appointing his own CPS chief legal adviser, Alison Levitt, to conduct the formal inquiry. Her reports findings unambiguously assert that Savile had a very clear case to answer based on the allegations collected against him at that time alone. In April 2014, Levitt was rewarded for her CPS service with a lucrative job at high ranked law firm Mishcon de Reya. That June, Starmer joined her. The company has been fined enormous sums for facilitating money laundering, and frequently helps wealthy individuals and powerful corporations abuse the British legal system to intimidate and destroy journalists. Starmer was forced in July 2017 by then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to depart his well-remunerated position there, after taking a Shadow Cabinet role. Starmer received over $20,000 for just 24 hours of work at Mishcon de Reya in 2016. Losing the post was undoubtedly a bitter pill to swallow, but he landed on his feet. His position as Shadow Brexit Secretary afforded ample opportunity to undermine Corbyn, pushing Labour towards a pro-Remain stance, contrary to the party leaders official position, and against the will of swaths of its voters. When the May 2019 European elections rolled around, Starmer was openly demanding a second referendum on Britains EU membership, in defiance of other shadow ministers. Due to intense bullying and threats from Starmer and other anti-Corbyn elements, Labour finally adopted a formal policy of a peoples vote on leaving the EU in July that year. It was a cataclysmic error, making the partys crushing defeat in the December 2019 general election a fait accompli. Was this a conscious act of sabotage by Starmer and his clique to doom Corbyn, and pave the way for their own rise to power? Academic analysis from months earlier showed Labours only shot at victory was to target Leave-voting Conservative marginals. It must not be forgotten that, as The Grayzone revealed, the second referendum policy originated with a little-known political party, Renew, set up by individuals tied to NATOs stratcom division, MI6, and British Army psychological warfare unit 77th Brigade. On the contemporary campaign trail, Starmer has admitted he knew Labour would lose in 2019. Whether or not that was his explicit mission, it paved the path for his own premiership, and empowered his confederates within Britains security and intelligence services. Read more at: TheGrayzone.com Macrons spokesperson attacked by suspected migrant vandals A few days before the second round of France's legislative election, President Emmanuel Macron's junior minister and her team were attacked while putting up posters on the campaign trail. Government spokesperson and candidate for the Hauts-de-Seine's eighth constituency Prisca Thevenot of Macron's Renaissance party was accosted by four individuals in the western Parisian suburb of Meudon in the area where she is running for office. As reported by local news agency Le Parisien, Thevenot revealed that she and her campaign team "found themselves next to a small group of young people" who had been defacing posters. They called the teenagers out on their vandalism but were "immediately attacked." She was uninjured, but a member of her team suffered a broken jaw while her deputy, Virginie Lanlo, was also beaten. Both were taken to Percy Hospital in Clamart for treatment. "Everything happened very, very quickly," said Thevenot, also confirming she had filed a complaint at the Meudon police station. Four suspects have been arrested, including three minors and one adult. The prosecutor's office also said it opened an investigation into an assault with a weapon against a public official but did not indicate what the motivation for the attack was. "Violence is never the answer. I will end my campaign on the ground," said Thevenot on X. With authorities not publishing further information regarding the attackers, several journalists and media outlets have suggested that the perpetrators were of migrant backgrounds. This fact was allegedly being deliberately censored over fears it would increase the support for Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella's conservative and anti-illegal immigrant National Rally (RN) party ahead of the second round of voting in the French legislative elections. 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. Speak freely without censorship at the new decentralized, blockchain-power Brighteon.io. Explore our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. 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. According to journalist Damien Rieu: "You won't hear it on TV but one of Prisca Thevenot's attackers is called Wacim, another is Ivorian. They will try to hide the information until Sunday. A minister who is attacked by scum that could boost the RN." Radio station Europe 1 confirmed that three of the four suspects arrested hold French citizenship and one is an Ivorian migrant. Another reporter named Amaury Bucco of Valeurs Actuelles reported that one man had torn down posters before addressing several young girls in the neighborhood and preaching the Quran. "These are the same people who caused the riots last year," he wrote, citing a local source referencing civil unrest caused by activists affiliated with the far left. "The residents are a bit annoyed. They don't understand why the authorities only resort to arrests when a female politician is attacked, while they are subjected to this gang every day." Leftist alliance takes over France A leftist coalition won after the second and decisive round of voting in legislative elections Sunday, July 7. Projections showed that the newly formed New Popular Front is finishing ahead of Macron's liberal and centrist Ensemble coalition and Le Pen's conservative RN. (Related: Macron forms alliance with far-left parties to block conservative, anti-illegal migrant National Rally party from obtaining parliamentary majority.) A lot of observers were shocked that the new alliance emerged as the winner in this election because the left has been defined by its divisions for decades. However, the strong performance of Le Pen's anti-immigrant movement in the first round inspired the country's various leftist forces to band together, reports indicate. The New Popular Front is a broad left-wing electoral alliance that brought together most of France's major center-left and left-wing parties, including the more moderate Socialist Party and The Ecologists as well as the French Communist Party and the La France Insoumise party of the popular left-wing figure Jean-Luc Melenchon. While Macron appeared to have been correct about how the public would respond to the threat of the country's first far-right government since World War II, he seemingly underestimated the appeal of the left. In the first round, the new alliance came in second with 28 percent of the vote, behind the 33 percent of votes cast for RN. Macron's centrist alliance secured only 21 percent. French elections are decided at the district level in a two-round or runoff voting system, with candidates immediately winning in the first round if they receive more than 50 percent of the vote. Both RN and New Popular Front had more than 30 candidates who achieved this threshold, while Macron's Ensemble only had two candidates popular enough to win a majority. The rest of the constituencies went to a runoff between all remaining candidates who achieve a vote total greater than 25 percent of the registered electorate. But while the New Popular Front has come out on top, it is nowhere close to securing a parliamentary majority. Unless moderate members of the alliance can form a government with Macron's liberal allies, France could be headed for political gridlock with just weeks until Paris is set to host the Olympics. Visit Migrants.news for more stories related to the violence inflicted by migrants. Watch the video below where Le Pen congratulates Macron on his loss. This video is from Cynthia's Pursuit of Truth channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Why the French chose the 'radical far right' over Macron's establishment. Conservative National Rally slaughters Macron in first round of French election. Wildly unpopular Macron threatens "civil war" in France if he loses upcoming snap legislative election. Macron dissolves French parliament after Le Pen THRASHES his party at National Rally for European elections. Sources include: RMX.news LeParisien.fr X.com WashingtonPost.com Brighteon.com NATO aiming to provide Ukraine 40 billion euros annually Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are aiming to provide Ukraine with at least 40 billion ($43.3 billion) a year in military aid. Despite initial enthusiasm, several member states have found it politically and legally difficult to commit to a specific amount for several years. Instead, according to Bloomberg, the 32 members of the alliance have set a target with the proviso that it will be reviewed every year. (Related: NATO chief calls for annual contribution of 40 BILLION EUROS for Ukraine until Russia is defeated.) The target could therefore increase or decrease depending on the situation. Funding for this year is well above the target, with the United States alone committing $60 billion. According to the plan, member states' donations will also depend on the size of their economies. The funding pledge will still need to be endorsed by member state leaders and will be part of the package for Ukraine to be presented at the NATO summit set in Washington D.C. on July 9 to 11. The proposal is intended to underline NATO's commitment to support Kyiv in the long term and pave the way for Ukrainian membership of NATO. The organization's outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg originally wanted to secure $100 billion over five years before the 40 billion a year plan was formulated. NATO also wants to play a greater role in identifying what military equipment Ukraine needs, coordinating arms deliveries and training Ukrainian troops, in parallel with the U.S.-led Ramstein format, so-named after the U.S.-organized international conference held at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Explore our decentralized, peer-to-peer, uncensorable Brighteon.io free speech platform here. Learn about our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. Ahead of the summit, there has also been much debate in the alliance over what should be included in the final statement of the meeting on Ukraine's path to NATO membership, but Kyiv is not expected to be invited to join the alliance this year due to opposition from the U.S. and Germany. The decision to centralize coordination of arms supplies to Ukraine under NATO's umbrella is widely perceived as a measure to safeguard against potential shifts in U.S. policy, commonly referred to as "Trump-proofing." By giving NATO a more direct role in managing support operations against Russia, this approach falls short of committing NATO forces but aims to ensure continuity and reliability in aid efforts. However, diplomats caution that this strategy may be ineffective, given the United States' dominant position within NATO and its substantial contribution to Ukraine's military capabilities. Should Washington decide to reduce Western aid to Kyiv, it retains the capability to do so, underscoring ongoing uncertainties despite NATO's operational adjustments. Ukraine advised to address corruption concerns In the lead-up to the Washington summit, NATO allies remain divided over the language and implications surrounding Ukraine's prospective membership in the alliance, an issue championed by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine has been advised to address corruption concerns, which currently impact its standing on international corruption indices, lagging behind countries like Belarus and Kazakhstan. NATO's official stance asserts that Ukraine will eventually join the alliance, contingent on the country achieving stability and peace. At the Vilnius summit last year, Ukrainian leaders affirmed their commitment to NATO, with some allies advocating for stronger assurances that Ukraine's path to membership is "irreversible." Amid these deliberations, NATO member Turkey has emerged as a potential mediator in the conflict, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposing dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek a mutually acceptable resolution. Simultaneously, the impending expiration of the gas transit agreement between Moscow and Kyiv, which facilitates Russian gas shipments to Europe via Ukraine, poses additional challenges. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak indicated readiness to continue gas supplies post-agreement, contingent on Ukraine's willingness to maintain the arrangement. The future of gas transit through Ukraine remains pivotal for European energy security, particularly for central European nations reliant on this route. Despite reductions in Russian gas exports following geopolitical tensions, energy dynamics continue to shape regional stability and economic relations between Russia, Ukraine and the European Union. Visit UkraineWitness.com for similar stories. Listen to the Health Ranger Mike Adams explaining that the U.S. and NATO have already decided to take the American people to war below. This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: NATO plans to expand defense tech, intelligence sharing with Ukraine. NATO offers Ukraine a new HQ in Germany a "bridge" to Kyivs eventual membership. NATO secretary general suggests putting more NUCLEAR WEAPONS on standby. Sources include: Rmx.news TheNationalNews.com Pro-life organizations in Florida are mobilizing to defeat ballot initiative that seeks to legalize unrestricted abortion in the state Pro-life organizations in Florida are focusing on defeating a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would legalize unrestricted abortion in the Sunshine State On June 24, the pro-life group Florida Voice for the Unborn held its second annual Dobbs Day Banquet and Workshop celebrating the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision of the Supreme Court that allowed states to decide on whether to criminalize abortion. This year, the banquet and workshop were focused on organizing pro-life volunteers all over the state to beat the ballot measure. On the ballot this November is Florida Amendment 4, entitled "Amendment to Limit Government Interference in Abortion." On its face, the amendment establishes a constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability generally between 23 and 24 weeks gestational age. But, through its many loopholes, the amendment would basically permit unrestricted abortion in Florida through all nine months, removing parental consent and all existing abortion laws and regulations, along with the requirement that only a physician can perform an abortion. (Related: Arkansas pro-lifers mobilize to defeat radical pro-abortion constitutional amendment.) The ballot measure requires a supermajority of 60 percent voter approval to pass. Welcoming the pro-life volunteers who traveled from across the state to join the event was Andrew Shirvell, founder and executive director of Florida Voice for the Unborn. "Enshrining abortion in the Florida constitution is wrong. We must protect every human life," said Andrew Shirvell, Florida Voice for the Unborn founder and executive director. "If God can overturn Roe v. Wade when no one thought it would be possible, He can stop this pro-abortion ballot initiative in the free state of Florida." 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. Speak freely without censorship at the new decentralized, blockchain-power Brighteon.io. Explore our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. 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. To boost its influence and utilize limited resources most effectively, the group's concentration is on educating possible Republican voters through the work of very dedicated grassroots volunteers. Through data-targeting, its "Precinct-Level Vote NO on #4 Campaign" focuses on those registered Republican voters who have a history of voting twice in general elections since 2016 and comes to them at the precinct level through door-to-door, mailing and phone outreach. "The end game is reaching those people who are going to vote in November," Shirvell said. DeSantis warns Amendment 4 could turn Florida into America's "abortion mecca" Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is warning that abortion advocates in the state are preparing to run a radical ballot rule across the finish line in November. "Because all of the Southeast has various forms of pro-life legislation, Florida would become the abortion mecca of this region and maybe one of the abortion meccas of the entire world, because it would be one of the most liberal abortion regimes anywhere in the world," the Republican governor stated during a Zoom call on June 27, with hundreds of pastors and faith leaders. "This amendment is written maybe more liberal than New York and California, but you would basically have a cottage industry, where people would be coming into Florida for this purpose. And look, we're a tourism state, but we want to be family-friendly tourism, not abortion tourism." DeSantis encouraged faith leaders to help their congregations understand the crucial importance of fighting Amendment 4, "The Right to Abortion Initiative." Floridians will be able to vote on the measure on Election Day, November 5. Amendment 4 would set up a "constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability," which means before the baby can survive outside the womb. Follow Abortions.news for more stories about abortion issues in America. Watch the video below about the commentary of Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver regarding the Florida abortion amendment. This video is from the SecureLife channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: South Carolina judge upholds six-week "heartbeat" abortion ban. Floridas six-week "heartbeat" abortion ban took effect on May 1 after a year of legal battles. Abortions in the U.S. HAVE INCREASED since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Sources include: LifeSiteNews.com DailySignal.com Brighteon.com Pro-Palestine protesters burned American flag during Gaza solidarity march on Independence Day Around 100 anti-Israel protesters gathered in Manhattan to condemn Israel's continued military operations in Gaza on July 4, Independence Day. The said gathering led to the burning of the American flag Pro-Palestine protesters who attended the protest titled "Flood July 4th for Gaza!" waved Palestinian flags and chanted "Shut it down," as captured in video footage posted by user Oliya Scootercaster on X, formerly Twitter. The protesters gathered around the burning flag, chanting and taking pictures of the event. The demonstration escalated as protesters marched through Manhattan, also chanting "Revolution! Revolution!" The said footage also showed a keffiyeh-wearing demonstrator trying to set fire to a tattered American flag on the ground. When a bystander urged them to leave the country if they disliked the United States, the crowd began chanting "Free, free Palestine." Smoke bombs and flares were set off by some protesters to obstruct city viewers from watching the celebratory fireworks. They also continued to yell: "While youre watching, bombs are dropping!" and "Israel bombs, U.S.A. pays! How many kids did you kill today?" After the burning of the flag, they also set on fire posters of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. The image showed both men wearing crowns beneath "DEATH TO ALL KINGS" in big block letters. More than three dozen of the anti-Israel protesters were arrested during the rally. The New York Police Department (NYPD) said they cuffed 37 people during the demonstration, which began at Washington Square Park and gradually made its way to Hudson Yards, just in time for the iconic Macy's fireworks display. 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. Speak freely without censorship at the new decentralized, blockchain-power Brighteon.io. Explore our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. 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. Othman Belhamdounia, 36, was nabbed just after 7 p.m. for allegedly snatching someone's Israeli flag at the corner of Washington Square East and Washington Place, police said. He was slapped with petit larceny and grand larceny charges. Around 8:30 p.m., Nicholas Cross, 33, was arrested at the corner of Eighth Avenue and West 19th Street for allegedly attempting to grab a flag that a 17-year-old boy was holding in his hand, authorities said. The teen held onto the flag and Cross couldn't snatch it away. Cross was charged with attempted grand larceny, authorities said. Seven other people were arrested for obstruction of governmental administration, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and criminal possession of a controlled substance, NYPD reported. Twenty-eight people were slapped with summonses. "We raise the flag of the revolution as we rise and flood New York for Gaza," the organizers posted on X, alongside a video of a horde of protesters gathered, with a Palestinian flag and a sign bearing the words "Stop Cop City Free Palestine" prominently displayed. The social media post had a caption that said: "Resisting ongoing repression from the NYPD today to disrupt the 4th of July, we are making clear that these are our streets." Similar flag burnings reported in pro-Palestine protests in Los Angeles and Philadelphia The same symbolic act of burning the U.S. flag was simultaneously done in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Six people were arrested after pro-Palestinian protesters burned flags and scuffled with Philadelphia police officers outside City Hall, on July 4. Several of the protesters were waving Palestinian flags while burning other flags with one appearing to be an American flag. At one point, a woman throws several smaller American flags onto the heap. As the crowd which grew to 400 people marched down Chestnut Street, police reported that the act of vandalism occurred. Officers moved in once the fires started. "A handful of arrests were made. We're still working out and sorting through that, but that type of behavior absolutely cannot be tolerated," said First Deputy Commissioner John Stanford. "We are always open to individuals expressing their First Amendment right. We are here for the purpose, of protecting and making sure that everyone has the ability to do so. However, once it turns violent, or there's a situation where individuals are going to destroy property, it changes the dynamic of everything." In Los Angeles the exact same day, protesters walked along the Santa Ana Freeway chanting that the United States is a "terrorist" state. A video by Sean Beckner-Carmitchel indicated that a group of around 50 people began demonstrating near an Independence Day celebration before heading onto the highway. The video also indicated that the demonstrators set an American flag on fire while parading down U.S. Highway 101. (Related: Jewish students endangered not because of anti-Israel protests, but because of police involvement and third-party doxing of participants.) Head over to Revolt.news for news about uprisings and protests against the continued genocidal attacks of Israel on Palestinian territories. Watch the video below that talks about a pro-Palestinian protest outside the NYC Nova Exhibit. This video is from the Galactic Storm channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Pro-Gaza protesters, LGBT Pride marchers find common ground, saying there's no pride in GENOCIDE. 3 More countries set to recognize State of Palestine on May 28, infuriating Israel. Mitt Romney admits TikTok ban was about CENSORING pro-Palestine content. Pro-Israel student screams "Kill the Jews" to invoke police crackdown on pro-Palestine protests. Google fires dozens of pro-Palestinian employees who protested against company's cloud deal with Israel. Sources include: YourNews.com X.com FoxNews.com 6ABC.com Brighteon.com Shocking incident on X proves that psychiatrists and psychologists are power-hungry, narcissistic psychopaths A self-proclaimed "[e]xpert in high functioning psychopaths, narcissists, coercive controllers: CEO's [sic], professors, doctors, psychologists, lawyers, religion ..." from the Kalmor Institute in Australia says she was attacked on X by deranged psychologists and psychiatrists after she called many of them out as narcissistic, psychopathic predators. Dr. Karen Mitchell, PhD, wrote in a tweet dated June 28 that "[m]any, many psychologists and psychiatrists are narcissists / psychopaths / predators" who "LOVE the control and power it gives them over people, the way they engage in manipulation, the ability to apply sadistic behaviours, all without being suspected and with the added delight of being able to use their professional role against the client if ever challenged or exposed." "Be cautious who you give your trust to," Mitchell warned in the same post, which drew a litany of fury from the very people in the profession to which she was referring. Mitchell described the four kinds of psychologists and psychiatrists that exhibit these dangerous and destructive traits: predators; those who deny that predators exist; those who fail to fully understand predators; and those who understand fully the threat of predators within the mental health profession. "Predators gravitate to vulnerable populations and those seeking support for mental health issues are truly vulnerable as well as suggestible which appeals to the predator's need for control," Mitchell wrote about the predators. As for those who deny the existence of predators because they cannot comprehend how someone could be so evil, Mitchell added that these types are often very outspoken and "dangerous in their ignorance." We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Explore our decentralized, peer-to-peer, uncensorable Brighteon.io free speech platform here. Learn about our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. Those simply lacking in understanding who are on the journey of learning are doing a good thing, according to Mitchell. They will eventually join those who get it fully either through direct experience with predators or because they learn about them from their damaged clients. (Related: At least some former psychopath psychologists learned from their evil ways during the Wuhan coronavirus [COVID-19] "pandemic.") Beware mental health "professionals" Mitchell's X thread about all this is very direct. And because it calls out basically an entire profession, many so-called mental health "professionals" lashed out against her for offending and upsetting them. In a response tweet to all the hateful feedback she received, Mitchell said some of the responses were "nothing short of abusive" as people "judged, character-assassinated, misunderstood, humiliated, (and) disrespected" her. "I feel physically sick," she wrote. "I am stunned at the maliciousness and demeaning nature of the group bullying from mental health professionals. I am really, really distressed." One of the nasty comments Mitchell received came from someone named "Dr Annie Hickox" (@DrAnnieHickox) who accused Mitchell of being illiterate concerning mental health. "Mental health literacy still has a long way to go, I guess," Hickox further wrote. Mitchell's responses appeared to be mostly positive, though, with the above being the only negative one this writer could find that Mitchell retweeted. Many others reached out to Mitchell to encourage her, it appears, with one stating that she believes Mitchell's work should be taught in schools. "This is domestic violence!" this person wrote. "Our children are exposed to this! Child custody litigations are ugly and are high up there on the list of where narcissist [sic] are found!" Another wrote that it is "always drama" when dealing with the types of predators and predator enablers Mitchell hopes people will avoid for their own protection. "The government, law enforcement, media including social media, every upper management person, and 90% of the people on X are like this," wrote another about where the worst people in the world live, work and spend their time online. More related news about the many corrupt and evil facets of modern medicine can be found at BadMedicine.news. Sources for this article include: X.com NaturalNews.com Watch: Senator says Biden is politically as dead as fried chicken The public consensus after Joe Biden's incoherent performance during the first presidential debate and during his first major post-debate interview is that the candidate's career is over. Some have argued that the only way Biden can win now is for Democrats to cheat and cheat big, because this time the vote won't be close. Once blindly devoted progressives are starting to panic as they realize it's not a conspiracy theory - Their guy is truly mentally disabled. (Article by Tyler Durden republished from ZeroHedge.com) The typical spin brigade is scrambling to pick up the pieces of a clearly broken campaign. Even Stephen Colbert is attacking his own leftist media allies, telling them to stop the coverage of Biden's dementia. "Whatabout-ism" is the only argument they have in favor of re-electing a man who barely knows where he is most of the time: "What about Trump? Didn't you see what Trump was accused of?!" BREAKING: Stephen Colbert just demolished main stream media for their hypocrisy in how they are covering President Bidens every word and completely ignoring anything Donald Trump says. Retweet so every American knows main stream media has lost its way. pic.twitter.com/ZkLa1vzbha Bidens Wins (@BidensWins) July 7, 2024 Whatabout-ism is not going to win the public's support, not when their wallets are increasingly empty and the west is increasingly approaching open global conflict with the east. There are those that will argue that all of Biden's important decisions are made for him by committee anyway, and they would be right. However, the American people don't want shadow governance and they certainly don't want a vegetable in the Oval Office making the country look weak. Reports indicate that numerous political representatives on both sides of the aisle are meeting out of public view to discuss what needs to happen next. At least one Republican Senator, John Kennedy from Louisiana, has not been afraid to say exactly what he thinks of Joe Biden's condition and the predicament the US faces. Biden is cooked, and if he somehow stays in office, we're all cooked. You might be familiar with Kennedy from his hilarious viral campaign against "Defund The Police" policies promoted by Democrat run cities nationwide. The Senator is telling it like it is. Biden's condition cannot be covered up or ignored any longer simply because the political left values "winning" over the truth. For most people the election is purely symbolic, a representation of where the country stands ideologically. We all know that there are other powerful elements at work influencing America's path. But if the public shows they are willing to tolerate something like this, then they're telling the powers-that-be that they're willing to tolerate anything. For the political left the election is not symbolic, it's an existential crisis. Any shift away from the woke ideal (even a symbolic shift) cannot be allowed. For them, losing the election would mean the country has rejected their religion, not just Biden. It's unthinkable. Keep in mind, the DNC, some Neo-cons and the media have been consistently lying about Biden's health for years. They have been gaslighting the American people, suggesting that what the populace sees with their eyes is not what is really happening. The exposure of Biden's breakdown calls into question many things beyond the election; it calls into question the very fabric of American government. Read more at: ZeroHedge.com Unveiling the Chinese money-laundering network driving Americas fentanyl crisis The Financial Times recently published an extensive analysis titled "The New Money Laundering Network Fueling the Fentanyl Crisis," shedding light on the complex Chinese-Mexican laundering network. The report reveals a nuanced facet of money laundering: the high demand for dollars among affluent Chinese individuals seeking to move their wealth out of China. This trend, driven by fears over China's economic future and personal safety concerns, has led to increasingly sophisticated methods involving front businesses, shell companies and chemical firms. These entities play a pivotal role in facilitating the flow of illicit funds that ultimately fuel America's opioid epidemic. (Related: In just one month, U.S. authorities confiscate enough fentanyl to kill combined populations of California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.) "A significant increase in capital flight has been observed over the past three years," highlighted a senior Chinese official interviewed by FT. "Private entrepreneurs, feeling uncertain about China's future, are actively seeking ways to safeguard their assets abroad." According to Brad Setser, a renowned expert on global capital flows, capital flight from China was estimated to have reached around $738 billion in the third quarter of 2022 and it continues at an alarming annual rate of approximately $516 billion as of the first quarter of 2024. "The clandestine network of Chinese money brokers sustains the entire drug trafficking ecosystem," emphasized Giovanni Melillo, chief prosecutor of Italy's National Anti-Mafia and Terrorism Directorate, which has been at the forefront of international efforts to investigate money laundering activities linked to fentanyl trafficking. We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Explore our decentralized, peer-to-peer, uncensorable Brighteon.io free speech platform here. Learn about our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. Recent investigations in the United States have uncovered instances where Chinese criminal syndicates used major financial institutions like the Toronto-Dominion Bank to launder proceeds from illicit fentanyl sales, underscoring the global reach and sophistication of these networks. In April, the House Select Committee on China disclosed that the Chinese Communist Party's policies, including tax rebates, subsidized the production and export of fentanyl precursors to overseas markets, further complicating international efforts to curb the fentanyl crisis. Despite the profound impact of America's fentanyl epidemic, which claims as many lives annually as two Vietnam Wars, questions persist about the Biden administration's strategy toward China in addressing these illicit activities and their devastating consequences on public health and security. In February, Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, held a briefing on the domestic and international dimensions of the U.S. fentanyl crisis. Fentanyl claims 300 American lives daily She underscored that fentanyl has become the leading cause of death among Americans aged 18 to 49, resulting in approximately 300 fatalities daily. This crisis has also taken a significant toll in Canada and is rapidly spreading in Mexico, despite official claims to the contrary. Recent autopsies conducted by NGOs in northern Mexico revealed the presence of fentanyl in a substantial number of bodies, contradicting the government's stance on local production and use. In addressing the crisis, Ms. Felbab-Brown commended the U.S. government's comprehensive approach, emphasizing the need to expand beyond targeting specific substances to include broader organized crime networks engaged in poly-crime activities. She pointed out the critical roles played by major Mexican cartels like the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which not only dominate drug trafficking but also infiltrate legal economies and collaborate closely with Chinese criminal networks supplying precursor chemicals essential for fentanyl production. Regarding U.S.-China relations, Ms. Felbab-Brown noted recent positive developments stemming from renewed cooperation following diplomatic efforts. China's commitment, announced during the summit between Presidents Xi Jinping and Biden, to collaborate on reducing precursor chemical flows was a significant step forward. She highlighted diplomatic initiatives that led to China's inclusion on the major's list and the formation of a global coalition against synthetic drugs, underscoring the importance of continued international cooperation. However, challenges persist in Mexico, where government denial of domestic fentanyl production and enforcement actions have raised concerns about transparency and effectiveness. Reports suggesting manipulated data on synthetic drug lab destruction further complicate efforts to address the crisis comprehensively. The intersection of migration issues adds another layer of complexity to bilateral security cooperation, hindering efforts to stem the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. effectively. Learn more about the fentanyl crisis gripping the U.S. at Opioids.news. Watch this video discussing the largest fentanyl bust in the history of the state of Michigan. This video is from the Justin Barclay channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Oregon officials declare state of emergency over FENTANYL CRISIS in Portland (stemming from open borders policies endorsed by Dems.) Alex Jones: FENTANYL crisis victimizes both young and old. Nearly 10 million lethal doses of fentanyl seized in San Francisco. Sources include: Zerohedge.com State.gov Amount of fentanyl seized across the U.S. this year enough to kill the combined population of Americas 5 largest states The amount of fentanyl confiscated across America so far this year is enough to kill the more than half of the country's population The fentanyl crisis in the United States has reached unprecedented levels, posing a severe threat to public health and safety. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is up to 100 times more potent than morphine, has become a leading cause of overdose deaths across the country. Law enforcement agencies are seizing massive quantities of this deadly substance, with recent seizures alone containing enough fentanyl to kill the combined populations of California, Texas, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania. The alarming increase in fentanyl trafficking and consumption highlights the urgent need for comprehensive strategies to combat this epidemic and protect communities nationwide. (Related: In just one month, U.S. authorities confiscate enough fentanyl to kill combined populations of California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.) In 2023, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized over 80 million fake pills laced with fentanyl and nearly 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. This surpassed 2022's total of 58 million pills. These seizures amounted to more than 381 million lethal doses. So far this year, the DEA has already seized nearly 28 million fentanyl pills and over 4,000 pounds of fentanyl powder, amounting to nearly 200 million deadly doses of fentanyl. Here are three states where the most fentanyl has been seized. Utah Following a major bust, the DEA expects Utah to set a record for the number of fentanyl pills seized this year. As reported by Kyle Dunphey for Utah News Dispatch on July 4, the DEA's Rocky Mountain Field Division seized around 170,000 fentanyl pills in Utah within two weeks in June. This is about a quarter of the total pills seized in 2023, which was a record-breaking 664,000 pills. 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. Speak freely without censorship at the new decentralized, blockchain-power Brighteon.io. Explore our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. 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. In total, the Rocky Mountain Field Division, which covers Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, confiscated about 3.4 million fentanyl pills in 2023. According to Jonathan Pullen, the special agent in charge of the division, these seizures indicate the presence of Mexican criminal groups operating in Utah. "The drug cartels in Mexico are not slowing down their production and distribution of this deadly poison. Fentanyl pills and powder are widespread, and the cartels targeting Utah do not care if you are on summer vacation. We urge you to discuss the dangers of fentanyl with your family, friends and community," Pullen said. The investigations into these seizures are ongoing and further details are not currently available. However, a warrant filed in Utahs Fourth District Court in March mentioned an unnamed drug trafficking group from Sinaloa, Mexico, under investigation since 2016 for its operations in Utah. This investigation has led to the arrest of dozens of group members and the seizure of hundreds of pounds of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and over $2 million in cash and assets. Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control show that around 105,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year, with about 70 percent of those deaths involving fentanyl, according to the DEA. "The recent seizures of 170,000 fentanyl pills in Utah likely saved lives across the state," said Dustin Gillespie, the special agent in charge of the Salt Lake City DEA office. California As of June 27, nearly seven million fentanyl pills and 3,725 pounds of fentanyl powder have been seized in California since January 2024. This massive haul, reported by ABC7 in the Bay Area, includes drugs intercepted at the southern border by the California National Guard's Counterdrug Task Force. In May alone, the task force confiscated over one million fentanyl pills and nearly 1,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. "The California National Guard's Counterdrug Task Force continues to play an important role in the fight against fentanyl. We are proud to support our local, state, federal, and tribal law enforcement partners with critical resources," said Maj. Gen. Matthew Beevers, the California National Guard's adjutant general. Gov. Gavin Newsom has doubled the deployment of CalGuard service members to tackle fentanyl smuggling. The state also launched opioids.ca.gov for opioid prevention and treatment information and to highlight efforts to hold pharmacies and drug traffickers accountable. As part of the fight against the fentanyl crisis, over-the-counter naloxone, branded as CalRx, is becoming available across California. Newsom's office stated that through the Naloxone Distribution Project, CalRx naloxone nasal spray will be provided for free to eligible organizations or sold for $24 per twin-pack through Amneal. Colorado On May 20, Lindsey Toomer of Colorado Newsline reported that Colorado set a record for fentanyl pill seizures in 2023 and 2024 is already on track to surpass that. According to a new report from New York University's Langone Health, Colorado and New Mexico tied for the second-highest number of fentanyl pill seizures in the U.S. in 2023, with 1,353 each. This led to 5.1 million pills being confiscated across Colorado. Most of the fentanyl seized in Colorado in 2023 was in pill form. The DEA's Rocky Mountain Field Division seized a record 2.6 million pills in Colorado alone. This division saw a total of 3.4 million pills seized across all four states in 2023, highlighting Colorado's significant share. For comparison, the division seized 565,200 pills in 2021 and 1.9 million pills in 2022. "It's an alarming increase. In the first three months of 2024, we were almost at half of last year's total. Unfortunately, it looks like we'll break that record again," said David Olesky, the division's acting special agent in charge. Olesky noted that Colorado is seeing seizure numbers similar to those of border states in previous years. What used to be considered a large haul is now becoming more common. For instance, a single seizure in Trinidad earlier this year netted over 300,000 pills, pushing the state past last year's halfway mark of 1.3 million pills by March. Find more stories like this at Opioids.news. Watch this video that talks about how fentanyl fiends destroy cities. This video is from the Sons of the Republic channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Oregon officials declare state of emergency over FENTANYL CRISIS in Portland (stemming from open border policies endorsed by Dems). Alex Jones: FENTANYL crisis victimizes both young and old. DRUG CITY: San Francisco hits grim record of 3 OVERDOSE DEATHS each day due to FENTANYL. Sources include: DEA.gov UtahNewsDispatch.com ABC7.com ColoradoNewsline.com Brighteon.com Nearly all of Houston suffers BLACKOUT after Beryl makes landfall Much of southern Texas is without power after Tropical Storm Beryl, downgraded from a hurricane, made landfall in the Houston area in the early morning hours of July 8. Reports indicate that "most" of Houston is without power and could remain that way for days amid record heat as the Texas energy grid struggles to stay online due to bad weather. The nation's fourth-largest city saw flooded streets, downed trees and power lines, and nonfunctional traffic lights as Beryl swept through the region. At least three people have died from the storm, including a Houston Police Department employee who reportedly drowned in his car. When it first struck Houston, Beryl was a Category 1 hurricane that became a tropical storm rather quickly. Prior to hitting Texas, Beryl killed 11 people throughout the Caribbean. Nearly 2.4 million electric utility customers in eastern Texas were still without power as of 3 am local time on July 9. Roughly 85 percent of homes and businesses served by CenterPoint Energy Inc., Houston's primary electric utility, lost power during the storm. By July 9, about one million of these customers saw restored power, CenterPoint Energy said in a notice. The company also brought in more than 10,000 workers to restore power as quickly as possible, though some of the grid was so damaged that it requires replacement rather than just repair. "I do not have power at my house," commented Houston Mayor John Whitmire at a press conference. "I know what it's like." (Related: New York will suffer blackouts on a regular basis once its 2040 zero emissions energy plan takes shape.) We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Explore our decentralized, peer-to-peer, uncensorable Brighteon.io free speech platform here. Learn about our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. Houston now under extreme heat advisory Just as Beryl was finishing its route through Houston, the National Weather Service posted a heat advisory for the region that warned of heat index values as high as 105F (40C) through Wednesday. This means lots of extreme heat and humidity for south Texans amid all the flooding and loss of power. Keep in mind that Houston is the oil capital of the Western Hemisphere. The region is a vital hub for petrochemical production in the United States, which means that any down time can have a disastrous effect on the fuel supply chain. In addition to oil, Houston is a global shipping and medical research hub as well. For shipping in particular, flooded roads and no electricity is a bad combination when you have trucks that need to transport important goods in and out of the region. Already this year, there have been several major storms, including Beryl, that have hit the Houston region. The metro area's seven million residents have seen flooded streets and homes, destroyed skyscraper windows, and numerous power outages that have lasted days at a time, in some cases. Back in May, major flooding hit Houston's suburbs particularly hard. After that, there were two major wind storms that left downtown sidewalks covered in broken glass. Over in the panhandle, the state's largest wildfire on record tore through as well this year, as judgment, or what they are calling "climate change," intensifies following the April 8 eclipse. Early on, weather experts were predicting that Beryl would hit further west and avoid the Houston metro area. It ended up bearing down hard on Houston and its suburbs, including Sugar Land where the roof was torn off city hall. Other incidents include someone who died from a falling tree and another who died in a fire sparked by lightning. "I want to emphasize: don't let the clear skies fool you," said Whitmore after the storm passed as water and debris were still scattered all around the city and traffic lights remained dead. "We still have dangerous conditions." More related news about America's increasingly fragile energy grid can be found at Collapse.news. Sources for this article include: Yahoo.com NaturalNews.com Luxury brands under investigation for Made in Italy bags produced using MIGRANT LABOR Two luxury fashion houses are reportedly under investigation for their "Made in Italy" handbags that were produced using exploited migrant labor ZeroHedge reported that Italian prosecutors investigated the local supply chains of two major fashion houses in the country Dior and Giorgio Armani. Their probe found that some designer handbags are made by migrants, who are underpaid and overworked. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) also expounded on the probe in a separate report. The WSJ cited court documents showing Dior, a subsidiary of French luxury conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), had paid a supplier about $57 to assemble luxury handbags. These bags were then sold for $2,780 in brick-and-mortar retail ships. Meanwhile, Giorgio Armani bags were sold to local suppliers for around $100, then resold to Armani for $270. These were ultimately placed on retail stores for $1,945 or more. "The cost prices don't include leather or other raw materials," WSJ noted. "The companies separately cover the costs of design, distribution and marketing." Luxury bags are made in sweatshops that employ low-cost Chinese labor Some of the luxury handbags made by the fashion houses' suppliers with the "Made in Italy" stamp are indeed true to the label. Prosecutors allege, however, that these bags are actually made in sweatshops within the country that employ low-cost Chinese labor. They say many of the sweatshops fall extremely short of legal workshop codes. Fabio Roia, president of Milan's court system, remarked: "Why does it cost so little to manufacture the product? The brands need to ask themselves this question." 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. Speak freely without censorship at the new decentralized, blockchain-power Brighteon.io. Explore our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. 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. The probe on Dior began in March and focused on four factories AZ Operations, New Leather Italy, Davide Albertario Milano and Pelletteria Elisabetta Yang. All four employed 32 workers on their facilities located on the outskirts of Milan. But two of the 32 workers were in Italy illegally and seven of them were without official documentation. (Related: German police cracking down on "foreigners out" chant as public turns against mass illegal immigration.) According to a 34-page ruling issued by Milan's court system, the first and second factories were subcontractors while the third and fourth factories were direct suppliers to Manufactures Dior SRL a unit of the main Dior company under LVMH. All four factories were suspended. The same court order stated that Italian police found migrant workers in "hygiene and health conditions that are below the minimum required by an ethical approach" at the four factories. As a result, Manufactures Dior SRL was placed under court administration for a year. The company will still be allowed to make Dior-branded handbags during the time, albeit under the oversight of a special commissioner. Meanwhile, Giorgio Armani was put under court administration in April over the same claims. Prosecutors accused the luxury fashion house of failing to prevent human rights violations in their supply chains. Investigators interviewed workers from one of Armani's subsidiaries, GA Operations, which hired several Chinese-owned subcontractors across Italy. These subcontractors paid migrant workers a few euros per hour. "The main problem is obviously people being mistreated: applying labor laws, so health and safety, hours, pay," Roia told Reuters earlier this year. Dior declined to respond to a request for comment sent by the WSJ. In contrast, Armani said it had "control and prevention measures in place to minimize abuses in the supply chain." It also reiterated that it was "collaborating with the utmost transparency" with Italian authorities. Check out Enslaved.news for more similar stories. Watch this clip about United Nations troops being brought into the U.S. while disguised as migrant refugees. This video is from the What is happening channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Latest polls show majority of Americans now approve of MASS DEPORTATIONS for illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants are throwing away their military IDs before entering America, says Border Hawks Dan Lyman. Illegal immigrants in New York City are leaving their shelters to go door-to-door begging for money and food. Illegal immigrants use ROPE made from CLOTHES to cross Rio Grande into Texas. Illegal immigrants in El Paso bringing DISEASES like scabies, measles, bed bugs and COVID-19 with them. Sources include: ZeroHedge.com WSJ.com Brighteon.com Moscow, Beijing strengthening ties based on mutual respect Moscow and Beijing are solidifying their bilateral ties on the foundation of equality and mutual respect, aiming to enhance the well-being of their respective populations. Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighted this during a significant meeting with Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping during a meeting that took place on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Kazakhstan's capital Astana. Putin emphasized that the current state of Russia-China relations represents the most prosperous period in their history, emphasizing their comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation. He stressed that these ties are guided by principles such as equality, mutual benefit, and respect for each other's sovereignty. In response, Xi noted that their regular meetings serve not only as a tradition but also symbolize the exceptional depth and maturity of Russian-Chinese relations. (Related: Putin, Xi pledge stronger partnership as Russia pummels Ukraine.) Both leaders expressed their commitment to further deepening their cooperation to safeguard the legitimate interests of their nations. Putin characterized this collaboration as a crucial stabilizing factor amidst the unpredictable global landscape. Recognizing the turbulence and changes in the international arena, Xi emphasized the importance of maintaining their enduring friendship and steadfast commitment to improving the livelihoods of their peoples. Putin also reaffirmed Russia's full support for China's upcoming chairmanship of the SCO from 2024 to 2025, describing the organization as a fundamental pillar of a fair and multipolar world order. Their discussions underscored a shared vision for closer economic, political and security cooperation, reflecting a strategic alignment aimed at bolstering regional stability and global influence. 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. Speak freely without censorship at the new decentralized, blockchain-power Brighteon.io. Explore our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. 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. Beijing reciprocates Moscow's praises Xi reciprocated Putin's sentiment, warmly greeting him as a "dear friend" and affirming the importance of continued strategic coordination and opposition to external interference. According to a statement from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the paramount leader reiterated China's support for Russia's role as the rotating chair of the BRICS group, which unites emerging-market nations from the Global South. He emphasized their joint stance against a "new cold war" and condemned "illegal unilateral sanctions and hegemony." Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, Xi reaffirmed China's commitment to promoting peace talks and a political resolution. He asserted that China stands "always on the right side of history" in its approach to global conflicts. Since their previous meeting in May, Putin has intensified diplomatic engagements across Asia. Notably, he visited North Korea for the first time in 24 years, signing a mutual defense pact with Kim Jong Un. Additionally, during a visit to Vietnam, Putin addressed concerns about Western nuclear discussions by considering changes to Russia's nuclear doctrine and conducting military exercises involving tactical nuclear weapons. Both Russia and China have faced increased scrutiny and opposition from Western nations over their military policies and regional influence. In response, they have strengthened alliances and expanded their spheres of influence, as evidenced by the growth of the BRICS bloc and efforts within the SCO. The SCO has become a significant platform for regional cooperation and influence, according to its Secretary-General Zhang Ming. The group, ostensibly established as a foil to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is set to welcome Belarus as its 10th member. Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's expressed interest in joining the SCO underscores the organization's growing importance as a geopolitical entity. Erdogan's recent meeting with Putin at the SCO summit included discussions on resolving the conflict in Ukraine, reflecting ongoing diplomatic efforts amid geopolitical tensions. Erdogan's upcoming participation in a NATO summit in Washington also highlights Turkey's delicate balancing act between Western alliances and its engagements with Russia and other SCO members. In a recent address, Xi emphasized the need for Global South nations to assert greater influence on international affairs, advocating for collective efforts to promote global stability and peace. China's upcoming assumption of the SCO's rotating presidency and Xi's scheduled visit to Tajikistan further underscore China's commitment to regional cooperation and leadership within multilateral frameworks. Head over to RussiaReport.news for more stories about Vladimir Putin, and visit CommunistChina.news for more stories about Xi Jinping. Watch this clip of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping at the SCO Summit in Astana. This video is from the Cynthia's Pursuit of Truth channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Blinken attempts to bully China over its support of Russia's actions in Ukraine. Russia, China discussing plans to "double counteract" U.S.-led alliance of Western nations. Putin to send Russian children to North Korean summer camps. Sources include: RT.com JapanTimes.co.jp Brighteon.com Frances conservative National Rally party drops to third place in latest legislative elections after leftist coalition and Macrons liberal party form alliance Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) has secured the highest number of votes in the recent French legislative elections but was awarded fewer seats than anticipated due to unexpected alliances of its rivals. Running on a platform of social stability and controlling rampant illegal immigration, RN initially secured 33.2 percent of the vote in the first round of France's legislative elections on July 7. RN outpaced President Emmanuel Macron's liberal Ensemble coalition (21.28 percent) and the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition (28.21 percent). Furthermore, RN and its allies won 38 seats in the first round after their candidates won more than 50 percent of the vote in their constituencies. Another 485 RN candidates advanced to the second round of voting in the 501 seats that remained where no one candidate won a majority of votes. RN's success position the party very close to the 289 seats needed for a majority in France's parliament, the National Assembly. (Related: Conservative National Rally slaughters Macron in first round of French election.) But Macron shocked the nation by announcing an informal alliance with the NFP to block RN from securing an outright majority in the parliament. Macron urged candidates in his coalition who qualified for the second round of voting but placed third to withdraw from the race to improve the chances of other candidates to defeat RN's own candidates. Meanwhile, leaders within the NFP including Jean-Luc Melenchon of the La France Insoumise party, the largest party within the NFP similarly urged their own candidates who placed third to pull out. We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Explore our decentralized, peer-to-peer, uncensorable Brighteon.io free speech platform here. Learn about our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. This strategic agreement effectively curbed RN's ability to convert its vote share into seat counts. RN only ended up with 125 seats despite accounting for 32 percent of the vote in the second round of voting. Le Pen's allies in the more mainstream conservative The Republicans under the faction of party president Eric Ciotti won another 17 seats and five percent of the vote, giving RN and its allies a total of 37 percent vote share and 142 seats. This placed them only third in the National Assembly. Meanwhile, the NFP was able to secure 180 seats despite only having 25.8 percent of the vote approximately three million votes less than what RN and its allies received. Macron's Ensemble coalition followed closely behind with 159 seats and only 24.53 percent of the vote nearly 3.5 million votes less than what RN and its allies got. Leaders of the National Rally view election results as an astounding success Despite the setback, Le Pen remained optimistic about the current growth of the RN in the National Assembly. "Two years ago we had just seven MPs. Tonight RN is the first party in France in terms of MP [member of parliament] numbers," Le Pen noted. Moreover, RN is likely to benefit from its current position in the next presidential election in 2027, especially as the country continues to struggle to deal with multiple crises, including a challenging and ballooning national debt. Furthermore, Macron will be ineligible to run in 2027 due to term limits, a situation that will likely weaken the liberal and centrist coalition's influence. Meanwhile, RN President Jordan Bardella criticized the alliance between Macron and the leftists as an "alliance of dishonor." He also accused Macron of collaborating with the far-left to block RN. The latest news about the collapsing governments across Europe can be found at Collapse.news. Watch this segment from "Bannon's War Room" about the chaotic situation in France, with more than 900 arrested in connection with the riots. This video is from the GalacticStorm channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Macron dissolves French parliament after Le Pen THRASHES his party at National Rally for European elections. French lawmaker Marine Le Pen: Mass immigration fuels LAWLESSNESS in France. Macron forms alliance with far-left parties to block conservative, anti-illegal migrant National Rally party from obtaining parliamentary majority. Why the French chose the 'radical far right' over Macrons establishment. Wildly unpopular Macron threatens "civil war" in France if he loses upcoming snap legislative election. Sources include: YourNews.com Bloomberg.com Modernity.news Rep. Beyer loses faith in Biden, whom he earlier compared to Jesus Virginia's Democratic Rep. Don Beyer appeared to have lost faith in Joe Biden , whom he earlier compared to Jesus Christ. Beyer reportedly called Biden a "very, very fragile" man who "also really has trouble putting two sentences together" during a Democratic leadership call. According to the congressman for the Old Dominion, his "perfect world is Joe [stepping] aside now" after talking to House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and other high-ranking Democrats. Beyer also suggested that the Democratic Party let Vice President Kamala Harris run as the incumbent presidential nominee, which in the congressman's words "makes her even stronger." He continued: "I also believe [Harris] is in a great position to win in November, probably a much better position than [Biden]." Aaron Fritschner, a spokesman for the Virginia representative, quickly came to the rescue. He noted that Beyer "supports Biden," adding that "any reporting to the contrary is a misunderstanding of what he said and what he believes." The congressman later issued a statement on July 7 reiterating his support for the Biden-Harris ticket, adding that he looks forward to "helping defeat former President Donald Trump in November." Beyer was reportedly proud to have hosted an event with Biden in Northern Virginia, the statement added. It concluded by mentioning that the congressman will continue doing all he can to support the Biden-Harris campaign in his state and across the country. Fortunately for him, the president tends to easily forget things lately. He's also not the only Democrat to have called for Biden to step aside. We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Explore our decentralized, peer-to-peer, uncensorable Brighteon.io free speech platform here. Learn about our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. "At least 10 House Democrats have called for Biden to step down in both public and private remarks," the Washington Free Beacon reported. "Biden's June [27] debate performance has led to panic throughout the party over not only whether he can defeat Trump in November, but whether he has the cognitive ability to remain commander-in-chief." (Related: More and more voters believe Biden should not be running for a second term after his catastrophic debate performance.) Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett is the first Democrat to urge the president to drop out of the race. Beyer compares Biden to Jesus Earlier, Beyer compared the incumbent president to Jesus Christ during introductory remarks delivered at a fundraiser in McLean, Virginia one of Biden's first public appearances after the June 27 debate. "[Jesus] died to demonstrate the universality of human suffering, that suffering was not the end. We each endure tragedies in our lives and hardships and suffering," the congressman began. "But few had to endure more than this man," he then said of Biden. "Losing his wife, losing his daughter and losing his son. The vicissitudes of American politics. But all through he has been a good, good man. He's resilient, optimistic, indefatigable, and above all courageous." Beyer continued that presidential historians are already considering the first 41 months of Biden's term as "the most productive and successful in our nation's history." According to the congressman, Biden "has transformed our economy." The Free Beacon pointed out: "Beyer made other lofty claims about Biden at the fundraiser, though none as dramatic as the comparison to Jesus." Fritschner told the outlet that the idea Beyer was comparing the president to Jesus was "preposterous." "[The congressman] was clearly musing on the centrality of suffering to the human experience," said the spokesman. "As a basic matter of language and reading comprehension, at no point in this quotation did he compare the president to Jesus Christ." Head over to JoeBiden.news for more stories about the incumbent president ahead of the November elections. Watch this Fox News report about top Democrats at the House of Representatives calling for Joe Biden to step aside from the presidential race. This video is from the TrendingNews channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: 'It's just my brain': Biden defends health as Dem. governors call for his resignation. DNC considering early nomination for Biden after clown show debate performance. Biden advisors allegedly LEAKED damaging details of president's mental decline to the New York Times. After Biden's disastrous debate last week, Democrats are truly panicking and desperately looking to replace him. Key Democrat donors threatening to PULL THE PLUG on party if Biden doesn't resign: "How stupid do they think we are?" Sources include: FreeBeacon.com 1 X.com FreeBeacon.com 2 Brighteon.com Texas Supreme Court rules in favor of Christian judge who refuses to officiate same-sex weddings on religious grounds The Supreme Court of Texas has ruled in favor of a judge who refuses to officiate same-sex weddings because doing so would be in opposition to her faith. The court ruled in favor of McLennan County Justice of the Peace in Waco Dianne Hensley, who had incurred a public reprimand and a warning of possible future sanctions from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct for refusing to perform same-sex weddings on religious grounds. (Related: Ermold v. Davis case could overturn Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling.) The Commission accused Hensley of violating judicial impartiality and discriminating against couples based on their sexual orientation. In response, Hensley filed a lawsuit against the Commission, which the Texas Supreme Court voted eight in favor and one against to proceed. "We hold that, apart from one declaratory request against the Commission, petitioner's suit is not barred by her decision not to appeal the Commission's Public Warning or by sovereign immunity," the majority decision, written by Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, stated. "Accordingly, we affirm the part of the court of appeals' judgment dismissing the one declaratory request for lack of jurisdiction, reverse the remainder of the judgment, and remand to the court of appeals to address the remaining issues on appeal." Refusal to officiate same-sex weddings is protected under Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act Hensley, represented by attorneys from Mitchell Law LLP and the First Liberty Institute, argued that her refusal to officiate same-sex weddings is protected under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act and an exercise of her religious beliefs. We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Explore our decentralized, peer-to-peer, uncensorable Brighteon.io free speech platform here. Learn about our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. She maintains that refusing to officiate such weddings does not hinder her ability to carry out her judicial duties impartially. Hensley has also disputed the charge of violating impartiality, claiming that she is not required to officiate over weddings and that the issue does not affect the performance of judicial duties. After the Commission released a public warning in January 2019, Hensley continued to refuse to officiate, transferring those seeking a same-sex wedding to other venues and officiants, and sought a court order to prevent future sanctions. The Texas court's majority opinion asserted that judges are not required to officiate at weddings as part of their judicial tasks and that Hensley's actions did not indicate bias or prejudice. Justice Jimmy Blacklock criticized the Commission's move against Hensley. "By going out of its way to take sides in a contentious moral and political debate about conflicts between the right to same-sex marriage created by Obergefell and the rights of religious dissenters long enshrined in our founding documents an ongoing debate that Obergefell itself acknowledged would continue the Commission has done far more, in the eyes of many Texans, to undermine public confidence in Texas' judicial branch than a lone justice of the peace in Waco ever could," he stated. "Judge Hensley's way of reconciling her religious beliefs while meeting the needs of her community is not only legal but should stand as a model for public officials across Texas. This is a great victory for Judge Hensley and renews her opportunity to seek justice under the religious liberty protections of the law," said Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute that represented Hensley in court, who praised the ruling as a victory for religious liberty. Hensley also expressed gratitude for the favorable ruling. "I am truly grateful to the Supreme Court for giving me the opportunity to continue to stand for religious liberty and the rule of law," she said. Follow GayMafia.news for more news about same-sex marriage in America. Watch the video below arguing that same-sex marriage is a crime against humanity. This video is from the I AM A PERSON channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Survey: Support for same-sex marriage in America drops for the first time since 2015. Pope Francis allows priests to bless same-sex couples as long as it doesnt resemble an actual marriage ceremony. Panama Supreme Court rejects legalization of same-sex 'marriage,' says it's not a 'human right.' Sources include: LifeSiteNews.com FirstLiberty.org [PDF] ChristianPost.com Brighteon.com Trump promises to prosecute those involved in voter fraud if elected for second term If reelected for a second (or third if there was no fraud in 2020?) term this fall, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is promising to pursue criminal charges against everyone involved in voter and election fraud. An X account that shares Trump posts from Truth Social tweeted this week a message from the Apprentice star that his second term will include sending to prison "Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time." Calling on House Republicans to pass the SAVE Act to restrict voting only to U.S. citizens, Trump wrote that "Non citizen Illegal Migrants are getting the right to vote" and that this must be stopped. "Republicans must pass the Save Act, or go home and cry yourself to sleep," Trump wrote, adding that illegal voting is "being pushed by crooked Democrat Politicians who are not being stopped by an equally dishonest Justice Department." "Our whole voting system is under siege," Trump continued. "Harmeet and David, go to court and get this stopped, NOW. The Dems can't win on their policies, the only way they can win is to CHEAT. They do it at every level of government, and they do it well. That's how they get an incapacitated moron like Joe Biden elected." (Related: Will Trump also go after the celebrity lunatics who want him assassinated?) Is Trump just bloviating again? We have heard this kind of thing before. Trump made quite a few promises the first time around that never came to fruition (why isn't Hillary Clinton in jail?), so will anything actually come of this? We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Explore our decentralized, peer-to-peer, uncensorable Brighteon.io free speech platform here. Learn about our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. Trump did point-blank call on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in the same post to get serious and tough on voter and election fraud. Trump also asked for "all State and Local Republican politicians" to do the same. "The Justice Department is CORRUPT and won't do a thing to help," Trump further wrote. "They have no shame!" At the end of his post, Trump apparently included Facebook's (Meta) Mark Zuckerberg in the "Election Fraudsters" category, though Trump called him "ZUCKERBUCKS" in his post. In many ways, Trump's post appears to be daring the left to cheat again by poking hot coals in search of fire. Will Biden's backers pull off another heist, or will they even try a second time knowing that the entire world is watching? Time will tell. Valentina Gomez, the next Secretary of State for Missouri, promised on X that in her state at least, there will be "the most free and fair elections in history." "No mail in ballots, no illegals, and full transparency for the American people," Gomez said. "Arrest and prosecute the Democrat ballot harvesters who commit election fraud by creating ballots for illegals or creating ballots for those who didn't vote themselves," added "Savannah" (@BasedSavannah) to the conversation on X. "Long prison sentences should stop them from ever trying it again." "Anyone who commits election fraud should face 20 years in prison," wrote another. "This is republic-ending stuff." Others emphasized that each state needs to do its part as well to put an end to the illegal immigration problem in whatever ways they can, otherwise the nation is lost. "Democrats don't want the SAVE Act because they can't cheat," said another. "Sign up to be a poll watcher." Someone else asked "What happened to the Trump that once said, 'Never let the enemy know your position?'" in apparent criticism of Trump for talking loudly and at length online about his second-term plans. Do you think Trump stands a chance at winning the presidency this fall? Find out more at Trump.news. Sources for this article include: X.com NaturalNews.com X.com White House in DAMAGE CONTROL mode after Biden-Trump debate as 80% of voters say incumbent is too old to run The White House is currently in damage control mode following the June 27 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. According to Svetlana Ekimenko of Sputnik News, the executive branch is insisting that the 81-year-old Biden has "absolutely" no intention of dropping out the presidential race. The veteran Democrat seemed to be "clear-eyed" and committed to carrying on despite reports suggesting that he had conceded to an ally and is set to exit the race. Biden and his allies have called all hands on deck to figure out a scheme to "rebuild confidence" in the incumbent's mental acuity, but the move appears to be too late. According to a poll by the Wall Street Journal, 80 percent of the nation's voters say Biden is simply too old to run for a second term. That was seven points higher than the previous survey conducted by the outlet in February, where 73 percent of voters said the same. Biden and the 78-year-old Trump participated in a debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta. Biden appeared disoriented, confused and incoherent reinforcing ongoing concerns about his cognitive decline. The two candidates are set to face off again in another debate on Sept. 10. Following the debate, talks on when Biden might hit the exit ramp and bow out due to medical reasons exploded across all corners of the U.S. media landscape. Reports were also rampant that allies of Vice President Kamala Harris were privately discussing scenarios of her possible candidacy. (Related: Biden's campaign claims his TERRIBLE performance during debate with Trump was a result of "overpreparation.") We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Explore our decentralized, peer-to-peer, uncensorable Brighteon.io free speech platform here. Learn about our free, downloadable generative AI tools at Brighteon.AI. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. Growing number of Democrats want Biden to STEP ASIDE Ekimenko mentioned that during the last 48 hours following the debate, Biden scrambled to assure major party members that he is fine and he won't step aside. He reportedly phoned several Democrats in Congress on July 2 and 3, including House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons and South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn. Biden also met in private with more than 20 Democratic governors on the evening of July 3. During this meeting, the president told the state leaders that he underwent a medical checkup after the debate and is fine. But Biden's poor performance has led some Democratic politicians, donors and other supporters to call for him to step aside. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers reportedly mulled signing a letter demanding that Biden withdraw from the race, according to an unnamed senior party official. Among those Democratic lawmakers is Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who lamented how Biden failed to defend his "many accomplishments" and expose Trump's alleged lies. In Doggett's view, "Biden is not the best hope to save democracy in the U.S. and thus should step down to prevent Trump from winning in November." "Unlike Trump, Biden's first commitment has always been to our country, not himself," said the congressman in a statement. "I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so." Meanwhile, several Democratic governors held a private call to discuss concerns about Biden's lack of communication with them. The call, organized by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for the Democratic Governors Association, also touched on Biden's chances in the November election. The governors expressed a strong desire for Biden to address them directly and noted discussions about a potential call with the Biden campaign or the White House, as well as the need to hear from Harris. Visit JoeBiden.news for similar stories. Watch this video about President Joe Biden blaming jet lag for his less-than-stellar performance during the June 27 presidential debate. This video is from the TrendingNews channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: DNC considering early nomination for Biden after clown show debate performance. Bidens DISMAL performance in debate against Trump threatens to undermine his candidacy, causes panic among Dems. More and more voters believe Biden should not be running for a second term after his catastrophic debate performance. Maine Democratic Rep. Jared Golden questions Biden winnability, says he's "OK" with Trump victory. Corporate media conspiracy unfolds after CNN declares NO COMMENTARY ALLOWED on Trump-Biden debate. Sources include: SputnikGlobe.com Brighteon.com A new study from the University of Florida identifies the hidden environmental effects of artificial sweeteners, particularly sucralose. In a study in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, researchers explain at length how this common sugar substitute is affecting aquatic systems because so many zero-calorie products are created. The Indestructible Sweetener Sucralose, a prevalent artificial sweetener, possesses a unique characteristic-it is impervious to the human body's metabolic processes. This resilience extends beyond our bodies and into the environment, as it evades wastewater treatment and infiltrates our waterways. As Tracey Schafer, assistant research scientist at the University of Florida, points out, "The compound's exceptional stability raises a critical question-how can it have such a profound impact on the environment?" The research conducted by Schafer and her team demonstrates how sucralose disrupts cyanobacteria and diatoms, two vital components of the oceanic food chain. Ecosystems in Disarray Experiments by the research team revealed an increased concentration of freshwater cyanobacteria exposed to sucralose. In contrast, that of the brackish cyanobacteria spiked before crashing. This indicates that the freshwater community mistakes sucralose for some usable nutrients. On the contrary, freshwater and brackish diatoms fall in populations after exposure to sucralose. Amelia Westmoreland remarks on the potential extremes: the disappearance of diatom communities or their overgrowth, hence a disruption of the natural states of the ecosystem.In conclusion, the findings of this study underscore the urgent need for more research to fully comprehend the long-term effects of sucralose on our aquatic environments. The potential ecological consequences of the escalating use of artificial sweeteners, particularly sucralose, necessitate additional studies to ensure the preservation of our planet's water-based ecosystems. Also Read: Artificial Sweetener Truvia Kills Fruit Flies, Study Finds What other artificial sweeteners were studied? A new study by the University of Florida has found old evidence to prove that these artificial sweeteners impact the environment, specifically sucralose. A known fact is that sucralose does not degrade through human metabolism; however, it remains persistent in aquatic ecosystems, which is highly problematic regarding ecological safety. Tests indicated that at a molecular level, sucralose might selectively disturb population dynamics in cyanobacteria and diatoms, which are critical in the marine ecosystem. Other sweeteners, such as aspartame, acesulfame K, cyclamate, and saccharin, have also been researched for their potential environmental effects. For example, aspartame has been demonstrated to cause learning and memory disorders in animal models. At the same time, acesulfame K, cyclamate, and saccharin have been shown to inhibit photosynthesis in plants. These findings further support the need for additional research regarding the holistic impact of artificial sweeteners on our ecosystems. How can we mitigate these environmental impacts? A comprehensive strategy is essential to address the environmental concerns posed by artificial sweeteners. Enhancing wastewater treatment processes can help remove these persistent chemicals from water systems. Encouraging natural sweeteners and educating consumers about their benefits could reduce reliance on artificial alternatives. Regulatory bodies need to enforce stricter controls and monitor water bodies to ensure safe levels of sweeteners. Ongoing research is crucial to understand the ecological effects and develop effective mitigation techniques fully. Public awareness campaigns can inform individuals about the environmental impacts, leading to more conscious consumption. Additionally, innovative methods like UV/TiO2 mineralization in wastewater treatment show promise in neutralizing the threat of artificial sweeteners. These efforts can significantly diminish the ecological footprint of artificial sweeteners and safeguard aquatic ecosystems. Related article: Why eating Artificial Sweeteners Won't Help You Lose Weight Hybrid cars in Uttar Pradesh have become more affordable thanks to the state government's move to waive off registration tax on these vehicles. The government had announced hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles in UP will no longer require to pay for registration in a move to promote cleaner fuel vehicles. The decision has helped hybrid car manufacturers like Toyota Motor, Honda Cars and Maruti Suzuki as prices of their models have been reduced drastically. Uttar Pradesh has announced a 100 per cent registration tax waiver on strong hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles. It has led to a drop in prices of hyb The new tax sop will impact prices of models like Toyota Innova HyCross, Urban Cruiser HyRyder, Maruti Suzuki Invicto and Grand Vitara, and Honda City hybrid. Depending on model, one can save more than 3 lakh on hybrid car registration tax in UP now. Here is a look how much one can save on these models after the tax waiver. Also check these Cars Find more Cars Toyota Innova Hycross 1987 cc 1987 cc Multiple Multiple 18.30 Lakhs Compare View Offers Maruti Suzuki Invicto 1987 cc 1987 cc Multiple Multiple 25.21 Lakhs Compare View Offers Honda City Hybrid 1498 cc 1498 cc Multiple Multiple 19 Lakhs Compare View Offers Toyota Innova Crysta 2393 cc 2393 cc Diesel Diesel 19.99 Lakhs Compare View Offers UPCOMING MG Cloud EV 50.6 kWh 50.6 kWh 460 km 460 km 20 - 25 Lakhs Alert Me When Launched Mahindra XUV 3XO 1497 cc 1497 cc Multiple Multiple 7.49 Lakhs Compare View Offers Toyota Innova HyCross The Japanese carmaker had launched the Innova HyCross MPV in 2022 offering strong hybrid powertrain in one of the most popular three-row vehicles in India. The Innova HyCross with strong hybrid technology comes at a starting price of 25.31 lakh (ex-showroom) and goes up to 30.98 lakh (ex-showroom). The hybrid car tax sop has brought down the price by at least 2.53 lakh. One can even save up to 3.10 lakh on purchase of the MPV's top variant. Toyota Urban Cruiser HyRyder The hybrid car registration tax waiver in UP has also helped price of Toyota's Urban Cruiser HyRyder SUV also go down. The price of the strong hybrid variants of the SUV starts from 16.66 lakh (ex-showroom). In UP, the vehicle attracted registration tax of nearly 1.69 lakh which will now be waived off. One can even save up to 2 lakh on purchase of this SUV if one opts to go for the top-end version which comes at a price of 19.97 lakh (ex-showroom). Maruti Suzuki Invicto The latest three-row MPV from Maruti Suzuki stable is based on Toyota's Innova HyCross. Priced between 25.30 lakh and 29.01 lakh (ex-showroom), the MPV will also attract heavy reduction in overall price which included registration tax of at least 2.65 lakh. Also Read : UP tax cut recognise hybrid cars' importance in cutting emissions, says Maruti Suzuki Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara The Grand Vitara SUV, which has been co-developed along with Toyota's HyRyder, comes with strong hybrid variant as well. The price of these variants start from 18.33 lakh (ex-showroom), attracting registration tax of 1.95 lakh which can be saved now. If one chooses the top-end version of the Grand Vitara, the savings on registration tax climbs to 2.12 lakh. Honda City hybrid Honda Cars, another Japanese auto giant, offers strong hybrid technology in the City sedan. The Honda City hybrid was launched in 2022 and comes with the carmaker's internally developed e:HEV strong hybrid technology. Honda City hybrid price starts from 19 lakh (ex-showroom) and attracts 1.95 lakh as registration fee. One can even save up to 2.17 lakh on the top-end variant which comes at a price of 20.55 lakh (ex-showroom). Check out Upcoming Cars in India 2024, Best SUVs in India. First Published Date: Koalas are the cute marsupials and forest-dwelling wild animals that we know today, often mistaken as bears due to their fluffy appearance and round ears. They can be found in different parts of Australia such as in the states of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Alongside kangaroos and other wild creatures, the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a beloved animal in Australia. However, wildlife experts say that koalas are not pets since they can also become aggressive towards humans, despite their innocent and heart-warming appearance. Recently, a wildlife sanctuary in Australia banned its 'koala cuddling experience' activity to its visitors due to animal welfare concerns and after receiving a backlash from wildlife advocates. One expert explained that koalas also get stressed when held or petted. In the past, studies have shown that the cute koalas we perceive are just like other wild animals, which can become aggressive when in close proximity to us. In recent years, various reports and several social media posts show that koalas are capable of attacking humans, resulting in injuries from their sharp teeth and claws. Due to this danger, experts recommend not to handle koalas at all. Koala Cuddling Experience Ban On Monday, July 8, local reports said that the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, Queensland, has banned its koala cuddling experience. The ban prevents the sanctuary's visitors to approach and touch the fluffy marsupials until further notice. Yet, sanctuary officials denied that animal welfare concerns are the reason behind their decision to ban their long-time popular activity for visitors. According to the sanctuary's general manager, Lyndon Discombe, the decision to ban the koala cuddling experience was driven by feedback from visitors that indicated people only wanted to get close to the koalas instead of holding them, as cited by local media. Yet, the recent announcement came following backlash from a local newspaper article, which included a poll from the public about their opinion on cuddling koalas. It is still unclear when the ban at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary will remain in effect, but there are no indications that Queensland authorities will also implement it across the state. Also Read: Huge Portion of Koala Habitat to be Turned Into a Coal Mine Do Koalas Like to be Touched? Studies imply that forced interactions between humans and koalas make the latter feel stressed, according to zoologist and animal welfare expert, Dr. Jennifer Ford, as cited by the non-profit charity organization World Animal Protection. This means that koalas do not like to be touched, including being hugged and used as photo props, which are unacceptable from an animal welfare standpoint, Dr. Ford emphasizes. This perspective is evident since koalas are solitary animals and take time to rest for up to 20 hours per day. Cuddling koalas in a zoo or enclosure setting is different from the wild, where koalas can be more unpredictable and dangerous. Related Article: Hungry Koala Called 'Claude' Invites Friends to Steal from Plant Nursery in New South Wales Researchers have found that hippopotamuses can be airborne for substantial periods of time. As some of the largest land animals, hippopotamuses can weigh up to 2,000 kg. Therefore, the fact that they can take to the air will surprise many. Enormous Animal Although most people only see them floating through the water or relaxing on a bank, a recent study indicates that these enormous terrestrial animals are capable of staying in the air for extended periods of time. According to a recent study, while trotting quickly, their feet can leave the ground for as long as 0.3 seconds at a time. Despite being amphibious, the findings imply that they are capable of pushing the boundaries of what appear to be the capabilities of enormous terrestrial animals. The results, according to researchers, will advance our knowledge of how enormous animals' sizes affect how they move on land. According to earlier research, the animals frequently walk like elephants-that is, in a typical four-footed (quadrupedal) gait with left fore, right hind, and right fore as the order of step. However, other research has asserted that when they move simultaneously, they trot with their diagonal feet. Whether hippos take to the air when they move quickly-a phenomenon less prevalent in larger animals but widespread in other mammals like horses-has not yet been determined by researchers. The leading author of the study and evolutionary biomechanics professor John Hutchinson noted that working with hippos is challenging since they are rarely taught for research in zoo collections and instead prefer to stay in the water. Read Also: Dwarf Hippos Once Lived Madagascar Forests Not Grasslands, Study Says Evolutionary Biomechanics Of Hippos The team is excited to present the first study that focuses just on elucidating the walking and running patterns of hippos. Hutchinson said he was pleasantly astonished to witness how impressively hippos can take off when they move swiftly. Hutchinson, together with Emily Pringle, a former RVC undergraduate student, gathered video footage from Flamingo Land Resort in North Yorkshire, capturing the movements of two hippos during the day in their paddock. In addition, they obtained internet videos of hippos in motion, which offered a wider variety of behaviors and motions than those of hippos kept in captivity. After analyzing the data, scientists discovered that, remarkably for land animals, hippos virtually always trot, regardless of whether they are moving swiftly or at a sluggish pace. A greater variety of walks is typically found in other terrestrial animals. For instance, rhinoceroses can walk like a typical quadruped, trotting and galloping as their pace increases, just like a horse. Elephants can sprint fast, but they can only walk normally-not trot-and never leave the ground with all four feet on the ground. The study will aid in the reconstruction of the evolutionary biomechanics of the hippo lineage and help veterinarians in the diagnosis or treatment of lame or impaired hippos. According to Flamingo Land Resort's science and conservation officer, Kieran Holliday, learning more about the species we work with will only help us provide them with better care in the future. Additionally, the fact that this paper has uncovered potentially new discoveries regarding hippo locomotion may have positive effects on husbandry and enclosure design for the larger zoo community. Related Article: New Study: Hairless Aquatic Skin of Whales and Hippos Evolved Independently Archaeologists have just discovered, excavated, and identified the earliest evidence for plant farming in East Africa, throwing a flash of light on the dark past of the origins of agriculture in the region. Excavated in Kenya, the findings shed important light on the history of early farming practices in an area previously considered pivotal yet lacking physical proof of crops. The Kakapel Rockshelter Discovery Located in the foothills of Mount Elgon, near the Kenya-Uganda border, the Kakapel Rockshelter has yielded a treasure trove of ancient plant remains. This site-which was the subject of recent excavations by a joint team of Washington University in St Louis and the University of Pittsburgh-has produced the largest and most extensively dated archaeobotanical record from interior East Africa to date. A study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B describes the identification of numerous plant remains, including domesticated crops such as cowpeas. Directly dated to 2,300 years ago, these remains are the earliest physical evidence of the arrival of domesticated crops-and presumably of farming lifestyles-to East Africa. Agriculture's Ancient Beginnings The importance of the work at Kakapel Rockshelter lies not only in its revelation of the date of introduction for several crops from around Africa but also in challenging contemporary stereotypes about African farming systems. The past, opened up by these findings, is rich in diversity and flexibility within farming systems-opposite to the grossly reductionist accounts of African agriculture. Particular significance attaches to the remnants of cowpeas found on the site, which are taken to have originated in West Africa and to have entered the Lake Victoria basin only with the spread of Bantu-speaking peoples migrating from Central Africa. Frontal, this discovery gives a clearer picture of the dynamic interactions between local herders and incoming Bantu-speaking farmers. The Kakapel Rockshelter, already a known rock art site, is also artifact evidence of over 9,000 years of human occupation. T he discoveries at this site resonate even more with the National Museums of Kenya's commitment to unearthing the deep historical roots of Kenya's agricultural heritage and fostering an appreciation for the past human adaptations that inform future food security and environmental sustainability. The discovery at Kakapel Rockshelter presents a landmark moment in understanding the emergence and development of agriculture in East Africa. It provides an open window into the gradual introductions of crops and complex interactions that characterized the building process of the agricultural history in that region. The study enriches knowledge about early farming practices with implications for contemporary discussions on food security and environmental management. Also Read: US Seaweed Farming Pioneer Builds Network for Ocean Farmers How did this research impact our understanding of African agriculture? The results of the recent archaeological excavations at Kakapel Rockshelter have brought about a significant change in our perceptions of African agriculture. Recovery of plant remains dating back 2,300 years has given a new chronology to the introduction of farming into East Africa. Taking this evidence, the over-simplifying views of African agricultural history instead become a complex tapestry of diverse and adaptable farming systems. The presence of cowpea, a crop originating from West Africa, does suggest a continental exchange in agricultural knowledge. These contacts between the indigenous herders and migrant farmers mean a portrait of cultural fusion and agricultural evolution. It also puts an approximate value on the historical insights into the processes underpinning a desire for food and environmental security, drawing attention to the role of past human adaptations for contemporary sustainable practices for modern times. Related article: Coffee Farming Yields Down By 50% Due to Rising Temperatures Beijing (Gasgoo)- On July 10, Chenqi Technology Limited (ONTIME) held its listing ceremony in Hong Kong, with its shares officially trading on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Photo credit: ONTIME Founded in June 2019 by GAC Group and Tencent, ONTIME began operations in Guangzhou and later brought on autonomous driving solution provider Pony.ai as a strategic shareholder. ONTIME offers a range of services including ride-hailing (both traditional taxi service and Robotaxi), technical services (such as AI data and model solutions and high-precision mapping), and comprehensive support for drivers and fleet operators. As a pioneer in the commercialization of autonomous driving technology, ONTIME launched its open Robotaxi operating platform in 2022. It became the world's first platform to commercially integrate human-driven ride-hailing and Robotaxi services, now operating in central urban areas of Guangzhou and Shenzhen cities. ONTIME Robotaxi; photo credit: ONTIME In addition to its own Robotaxis, ONTIMEs platform includes Robotaxi fleets from GAC R&D Center and Pony.ai. As of December 31, 2023, ONTIMEs Robotaxi fleet reached 281 vehicles, the largest among ride-hailing platforms in China, with a cumulative 20,080 operating hours, 545 service stations, and 450,699 kilometers of safe trial operation. Leveraging extensive data from its mobility services and insights into autonomous driving commercialization, ONTIME introduced an AI data and model solution focusing on one-stop services from data collection to model training. This solution improves feature extraction, data management, and model optimization efficiency, while simplifying the integration of 2D and 3D data. In its five years since inception, ONTIME has expanded to provide efficient, high-quality mobility services across 24 cities, with core operations in 9 cities, primarily in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. As of December 31, 2023, ONTIME had 23.8 million registered users. The companys annual revenue grew from 1.013 billion yuan in 2021 to 1.368 billion yuan in 2022, and 2.161 billion yuan in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 46.0%. ONTIME's focus on mobility services and autonomous driving commercialization has driven its rapid and high-quality growth over the past five years. The company has completed multiple funding rounds, attracting cornerstone investments from GAC Industry, Pony.ai, Voyager (DiDi Autonomous Driving), and WeRide. Beijing (Gasgoo)- Since the beginning of 2024, the main economic indicators of Chinas automotive industry have shown a growth trend. Due to the relatively low base in the same period last year, the growth rate exceeded double digits in the first quarter, while the overall growth rate slowed down slightly in the second quarter. In the first half of this year, Chinas domestic auto market saw a slight year-on-year increase in sales, with terminal inventories above normal levels. In the meantime, auto exports maintained rapid growth, significantly contributing to the overall market growth, although the export growth rate of new energy vehicles (NEVs) slowed down. The production and sales of NEVs continued to grow rapidly, with market share steadily increasing. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), as of the end of June this year, the cumulative production and sales of domestically produced NEVs both exceeded 30 million units. The market share of Chinese indigenous brands passenger cars surpassed 60%, achieving a significant breakthrough. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, favorable policies such as trade-in incentives and NEV promotions in rural areas will continue to be implemented. The intensive launch of new products by automakers will help further unleash the consumption potential of the automotive market, supporting steady growth for the industry throughout the year. However, it is also important to recognize that domestic consumer confidence remains insufficient, international trade protectionism is becoming more severe, industry competition is intensifying, and operational pressures on enterprises are increasing. The overall operation of the auto industry still faces significant pressure, and consumer confidence and the market environment need to be continuously boosted and improved to ensure a stable operation. In June 2024, Chinas auto production and sales came in at 2.507 million vehicles and 2.552 million vehicles, respectively, with month-on-month increases of 5.7% and 5.6% and year-on-year dips of 2.1% and 2.7% each. In the first half of this year, 13.891 million vehicles were manufactured in China, representing a 4.9% rise compared to that of the previous year. At the same time, Chinas year-to-date auto sales amounted to 14.047 million vehicles, climbing up 6.1% from a year ago. Despite the slight year-on-year drop in overall auto output and sales in June, Chinas NEV market still maintained its robust growth trend. In the past month, a total of 1.003 million NEVs were produced in China, jumping 28.1% year over year. Meanwhile, NEV sales reached 1.049 million units, surging 30.1% from a year ago and accounting for 41.1% of the countrys total auto sales volume. Among the NEVs sold last month, 963,000 units were consumed domestically, indicating a 12.5% month-on-month rise and a 32.2% year-on-year spike. On the other hand, Chinas NEV exports saw a 13.2% month-on-month decline in June to 86,000 units, which was still 10.3% higher than that of the previous year. In the first six months of 2024, Chinas NEV production and sales volumes amounted to 4.929 million units and 4.944 million units, surging 30.1% and 32% year over year, respectively. NEVs constituted 35.2% of Chinas auto sales in the period. In the Jan.-Jun. period, domestic NEV sales summed up to 4.339 million units, zooming up 35.1% from a year ago. At the same time, Chinas NEV exports increased 13.2% year over year to 605,000 units. Song L; photo credit: BYD In terms of Chinese automakers overall performance in overseas markets, the countrys total auto export volume stood at 485,000 vehicles in June 2024, slightly climbing up 0.7% from the previous month while jumping 26.9% from the previous year. Among the vehicles shipped to overseas markets, 403,000 units were passenger cars, up 1.4% month-on-month and 29.1% year-on-year. In the first half of this year, automakers in China achieved a combined auto export volume of 2.793 million vehicles, which leapt 30.5% compared to the same period last year. With 2.339 vehicles exported, Chinas passenger vehicle sector boasted a 31.5% year-on-year hike in the period. In June, among the top ten vehicle export companies, Chery stayed in the lead with its export volume reaching 97,000 vehicles, representing a year-on-year increase of 28.5% and accounting for 20% of the countrys total auto export volume. Compared to the same period last year, BYD realized the biggest growth with 28,000 vehicles shipped overseas, indicating a 140% soar from the year-ago period. Notably, BYD also sustained the most growth in year-to-date export volume, which came in at 207,000 vehicles and shot up 160% year over year. Great Wall Motor exported 202,000 vehicles in the Jan.-Jun. period, indicating a 62.6% year-on-year spike. At the same time, Changan Auto witnessed a 60.4% increase from the previous year with 285,000 vehicles moved overseas. Centre focusing schemes on spiritual, adventure tourism: MoS Suresh Gopi U nion Minister of State for Tourism, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Suresh Gopi on Tuesday said that the government is focusing and working on different schemes for spiritual and adventure tourism and asked Tripura to work in this direction. During his maiden visit to the state, Union MoS after holding a meeting with the officials of the Tourism Department here said Tripura has immense scope for the development of the tourism sector and it can facilitate huge employment opportunities. He said that the youths need to be encouraged to become self-dependent through tourism with the Mudra loan scheme and also urged the state to come forward with a competitive mindset and advised to utilise time properly from September to March as it has been identified as peak tourism hour in Tripura. During September to March, Gopi advised to organise different food, cultural and tourism promotion events at different villages involving other states of the country. If any well-known national-level player can be involved in such events, it would become more attractive. With innovative events, tourism would be developed and simultaneously enhance the revenue of the state, the MoS told the media. Tripura can be marked as a model in the entire country if the state approaches in this direction. Gopi also advised to ensure protection of the environment and keep proper arrangements in the tourist sites for the tourists. In the meeting, Tripura Tourism Minister Sushanta Chowdhury said that the state is following the directions of the Centre to promote tourism. As per Tourism Department reports, Tripura saw 5,45,299 tourists in 2023-24, among whom over 4.69 lakhs were domestic while the rest were foreign tourists. The figures were higher than 2022-23, when a total of 2,84,836 tourists came to the state of whom over 2.49 lakhs were domestic while the rest were foreign tourists. The Union Minister accompanied by Chowdhury visited Agartala-Akhaura Integrated Check Post (ICP). Centre focusing schemes on spiritual, adventure tourism: MoS Suresh Gopi Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Assam floods: 7 more deaths reported, over 17 lakh still affected in 26 districts W ith less or no rain during the past few days, the overall flood situation in Assam is slowly improving, while seven more deaths in six districts were reported on Tuesday and 17.17 lakh people remain affected in 26 of the states 35 districts, Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) officials said. However, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday forecast heavy rainfall over parts of central, northeast, and east India during the next 4 days. According to the ASDMA officials, over 24.20 lakh people in 30 districts had been affected till Friday (July 5). According to the officials on Tuesday, two people drowned in the Cachar district, while one each died in Dhubri, South Salmara, Dhemaji, Nagaon, and Sivasagar. With the latest deaths, the toll has climbed to 79 in different districts. The flood water also inundated over 39,870 hectares of crop area in 2,779 villages in 26 districts, the officials said, adding that over 13.66 lakh domestic animals have also been badly affected. Among the 26 flood-affected districts, Cachar, Barpeta, Golaghat, Sivasagar, Dhubri, Darrang, and South Salmara are the worst affected. The Brahmaputra is flowing above the danger level at Neamatighat, Tezpur, Guwahati, and Dhubri, while Burhidihing, Dikhou, Disang, Kopili, and Kushiyara rivers are near the danger level in many places. ASDMA officials also said that over 48,000 people are sheltered in the 507 relief camps opened by the district administrations, while 267 more relief distribution centres are functioning in different districts. National and State Disaster Response Forces, Fire and Emergency Service personnel, police forces, the AAPDA Mitra Volunteers of ASDMA and volunteers from various NGOs, have also been deployed for the rescue and relief operations. Wild animals in the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR) were largely affected by the flood as a vast area of the park has been submerged and park authorities continued their efforts to rescue the animals and to prevent poaching. KNPTR Director Sonali Ghosh said that so far, 133 wild animals have been rescued while 159 animals, including deer, rhino, and hog deer, have drowned in flood waters. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is regularly reviewing the flood situation in the state, on Tuesday said that the situation is improving in Assam. Union Minister Pabitra Margherita conducted an extensive review of the flood situation in Karimganj and Cachar districts during his visit to southern Assam. He inspected key relief camps in these districts and interacted with the flood-affected residents. Assessing the distribution of relief materials, child nutrition, potable water, medical services, and sanitation efforts, he expressed his satisfaction with the measures in place. Assam floods: 7 more deaths reported, over 17 lakh still affected in 26 districts Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Nikki Haley releases delegates to Republican National Convention, advocates backing Trump N ikki Haley, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race in early March, has said that she is releasing her delegates to the Republican National Convention (RNC), urging them to support former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former US ambassador to the United Nations, said on Tuesday in a statement that the upcoming nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a time for Republican "unity," as reported by Xinhua news agency. Haley, who had fiercely criticised the former president, explicitly said in a May speech that she would vote for Trump, despite the contentious issues that arose between them during the Republican presidential primaries. Haley is not invited to the 2024 RNC, but she has made it clear she's voting for him, spokeswoman Chaney Denton was quoted by CNN as saying. According to The Associated Press' estimate, Haley earned 97 delegates during the primary process. Trump has garnered 2,265 delegates so far, far exceeding the 1,215 benchmark needed for the party's nomination. Haley's call for "unity" within the Republican Party comes at a time when US President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is facing mounting pressure to withdraw from the race due to concerns about his physical and mental fitness. Trump leads Biden by 3.3 percentage points, according to the latest average polling data from Real Clear Politics. Nikki Haley releases delegates to Republican National Convention, advocates backing Trump Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! 'Welcome to Vienna!': Austrian chancellor hosts PM Modi for private engagement P rime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Tuesday from Moscow on a two-day visit to Austria and was hosted by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer for a private engagement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. "An important milestone in the India-Austria partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnerships lie ahead," MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X, along with photos of the two leaders together in Vienna. Nehammer posted a photo of him and PM Modi on the microblogging platform X and said: "Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!" The Prime Minister thanked the Austrian Chancellor "for the warm welcome" and said he looks forward to "our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good". Prime Minister Modi was seen hugging Nehammer in one of the photos while in another, the Austrian Chancellor was seen clicking a selfie with the Prime Minister. In another post on X, PM Modi said: "Happy to meet you in Vienna, Chancellor @karlnehammer. The India-Austria friendship is strong and it will get even stronger in the times to come." During PM Modi's visit to Austria, the two countries will explore ways to further deepen their relationship and closer cooperation on various geopolitical challenges. Earlier, PM Modi said on X: "Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more." Prime Minister Modi was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport in Vienna. In an earlier post on X, the MEA spokesperson said, "As the two countries are celebrating 75th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will add renewed momentum to India-Austria ties." Prime Minister Modi will call on the President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and hold talks with Nehammer on Wednesday. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor will also address business leaders from India and Austria. Ahead of his visit to Austria, PM Modi on Sunday said the shared values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law form the bedrock upon which the two countries will build an ever-closer partnership. Prime Minister Modi's remark came a day after Nehammer posted on X: "I very much look forward to welcoming Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, the world's largest democracy, next week in Vienna." "This visit is a special honour as it marks the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over 40 years and a significant milestone as we celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations with India," he said. "We will have the opportunity to talk about further deepening our bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges," the Austrian Chancellor said. Responding to Nehammer, PM Modi said, "Thank you, Chancellor Karl Nehammer. It is indeed an honour to visit Austria to mark this historic occasion. I look forward to our discussions on strengthening the bonds between our nations and exploring new avenues of cooperation." 'Welcome to Vienna!': Austrian chancellor hosts PM Modi for private engagement Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! 'Vande Mataram' in Vienna as Austrian artists welcome PM Modi A special rendition of 'Vande Mataram' by Austrian artists greeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the hotel Ritz-Carlton in Vienna, where he arrived after a highly successful two-day visit to Russia. PM Modi arrived in Austria on Tuesday for a historic visit and he is the first Indian PM to visit the country in over 41 years. Upon his arrival, PM Modi was welcomed by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer at the airport. The two leaders then proceeded to the Ritz-Carlton hotel, where he was welcomed with the special performance of 'Vande Mataram'. The members of the Indian community also greeted the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister will call on Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen and later will hold talks with Chancellor Nehammer to discuss the bilateral ties between the two nations. Earlier, Chancellor Nehammer hosted PM Modi for a private dinner engagement. Sharing a photo of the two leaders on X, the Chancellor wrote: "Welcome to Vienna, PM Narendra Modi! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!" Expressing his gratitude, PM Modi thanked the Austrian Chancellor "for the warm welcome" and added, "I look forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good." Photos shared on social media showed a warm interaction between the two leaders, including a hug and a selfie taken by Nehammer with PM Modi. In another post on X, PM Modi said: "Happy to meet you in Vienna, Chancellor Karl Nehammer. The India-Austria friendship is strong, and it will get even stronger in the times to come." During PM Modi's visit, India and Austria are set to explore ways to deepen their bilateral relationship and enhance cooperation on various geopolitical challenges. 'Vande Mataram' in Vienna as Austrian artists welcome PM Modi Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Urad prices dip on higher govt procurement, sown area shoots up amid better monsoon T he prices of Urad have started declining in the domestic market on the back of a higher procurement of the summer crop by government agencies and the outlook for the kharif crop has improved with the increase in sown area this year due to a better monsoon, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs said on Wednesday. As of July 6, wholesale prices of Urad have witnessed a week-on-week decline of 3.12 per cent and 1.08 per cent in the Indore and Delhi markets respectively. In alignment with domestic prices, the landed prices of imported Urad are also on a declining trend, the ministry said in a statement. The procurement of summer Urad under the Price Support Scheme (PSS) by NAFED and NCCF is in progress. As of 5th July, the area sown for Urad has reached 5.37 lakh hectares, as compared to 3.67 lakh hectares for the corresponding period last year. The 90-day crop is expected to experience a healthy kharif production this year. Ahead of the Kharif sowing season, there has been significant momentum in the pre-registration of farmers through government agencies such as NAFED and NCCF. These efforts are part of the government's strategy to encourage farmers to shift towards pulse production during the Kharif season, aiming for self-sufficiency in this sector. In Madhya Pradesh alone, a total of 8,487 Urad farmers have already registered through NCCF and NAFED. Meanwhile, other major producing states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have seen pre-registrations of 2037, 1611 and 1663 farmers respectively, indicating widespread participation in these initiatives. These measures underscore the government's commitment to balancing market dynamics while supporting both, farmers and consumers, the official statement added. Urad prices dip on higher govt procurement, sown area shoots up amid better monsoon Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla leads Indian delegation at BRICS Parliamentary Forum in Russia L ok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will be leading an Indian Parliamentary Delegation (IPD) to the two-day 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum meeting which begins in Russia's St Petersburg on Thursday. The forum is being held with the theme of 'Role of Parliaments in Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security'. The Indian delegation also includes Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh, Rajya Sabha MP Shambhu Sharan Patel, Lok Sabha Secretary General Utpal Kumar Singh and Rajya Sabha Secretary General PC Modi, among other officials. "Leading an IPD to the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Looking forward to strengthening inter-parliamentary cooperation with BRICS and the invitee countries. Eager to meet and connect with the vibrant Indian diaspora during this visit," Birla posted on X. The Lok Sabha Speaker is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with Parliament Speakers of other countries at the sidelines of the event. He will also present India's stance on relevant issues and meet Indian expatriates in Moscow. Birla will present his views on two sub-topics during the plenary session- 'BRICS Parliamentary Dimension- Possibilities of Strengthening Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation' and 'Role of Parliaments in Overcoming Threats Related to Fragmentation of the Multilateral Trading System and the Consequences of Global Crises'. Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh will also address the forum on two sub-topics during the plenary session - 'Role of Parliaments in Increasing the Efficiency of the System of International Relations and Ensuring Its Democratisation' and 'Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation in Humanitarian and Cultural Fields'. A joint statement will be passed at the conclusion of the summit. Apart from the BRICS countries, which include four new members (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates) since January, Speakers and Parliament Members from the other invited countries, including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan with the Chairperson of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Tulia Aksen will participate in the meetings of the BRICS Parliamentary Forum. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla leads Indian delegation at BRICS Parliamentary Forum in Russia Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Beijing (Gasgoo)- Recently, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology solicited public feedback on the "Beijing Autonomous Driving Vehicle Regulations (Draft for Comment)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft"). The draft supports autonomous vehicles that meet relevant regulations to carry out road tests, demonstration applications, demonstration operations, and road transport service pilots in a safe and gradual manner. Pony.ai's Robotaxi in Beijing; photo credit: Pony.ai The proposed scenarios for these innovative activities include urban public bus services, ride-hailing, car rentals, road freight transport (excluding dangerous goods), shuttle services, sanitation cleaning, and security patrols. Additionally, the draft supports the development of key component industries, the establishment of quality inspection and testing institutions for autonomous vehicle parts, and the orderly opening, authorized use, and circulation of autonomous vehicle data. It aims to establish a cooperative mechanism for data development and utilization across the autonomous vehicle industry chain. The draft states that the purpose of these regulations is to align with existing laws and national policies on intelligent connected vehicle access and pilot projects. It focuses on solving major issues faced by autonomous vehicle innovation activities in specific areas of Beijing, ensuring safety while providing clear, transparent, and predictable regulations for Level 3 and higher autonomous vehicle market entities. Since September 2020, Beijing has been at the forefront of autonomous driving innovation, planning and constructing the nation's first high-level autonomous driving demonstration zone, integrating vehicle, road, cloud, network, and mapping elements to validate key technologies. As of now, the demonstration zone has issued road test licenses to 31 companies, with autonomous driving test distance exceeding 28 million kilometers. By the end of the year, the city expects to achieve full coverage of intelligent roadside infrastructure across 600 square kilometers. PM Modi and Austrian Chancellor agree to strengthen ties, discuss conflict in Ukraine and West Asia I ndia and Austria have identified "new possibilities" to further strengthen mutual cooperation besides also deciding to give a strategic direction to their bilateral ties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced here on Wednesday. Making a joint statement along with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Prime Minister Modi, who arrived in Vienna from Moscow on Tuesday evening, said that he also held detailed discussions on the current geopolitical situation in the world. "Chancellor Nehammer and I have discussed in detail all the ongoing disputes in the world, whether it is the conflict in Ukraine or the situation in West Asia. I have said it earlier also that this is not the time for war," he said. PM Modi noted that mutual trust and shared interests have strengthened India-Austria relations. "Today I had a very fruitful conversation with Chancellor Nehammer. Shared beliefs in values such as democracy and the rule of law are the strong foundation of India-Austria relations. We both strongly condemn terrorism. We agree that it is not acceptable in any form. It cannot be justified in any way. We also agree to reform the United Nations and other international organizations to make them contemporary and effective," he said. Earlier, the PM was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Federal Chancery as he began his landmark visit to Austria, the first by an Indian Prime Minister to the country in 41 years. Scripting a new chapter in bilateral relations, he was warmly received by Chancellor Nehammer who had last week called the Indian Prime Minister's visit to Vienna as a "special honour". The Austrian Chancellor hosted PM Modi for a private engagement as the Indian PM arrived from Moscow on Tuesday evening. This was the first meeting between the two leaders and comes at a time when the two countries are marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. He said that discussions on realising the "full potential" of bilateral partnership lie ahead. Prime Minister Modi thanked Chancellor Nehammer for the "warm welcome" and said that he was looking forward to the discussions on Wednesday as both nations continue working together to further global good. Besides holding talks with Chancellor Nehammer, PM Modi is also scheduled to call on Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, address business leaders from India and Austria and interact with members of the Indian community in Vienna. PM Modi and Austrian Chancellor agree to strengthen ties, discuss conflict in Ukraine and West Asia Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! India, Austria to work together in areas like AI, blueprint for coming decades prepared: PM Modi I ndia and Austria will work together in areas such as infrastructure development, innovation, renewable energy, hydrogen, water and waste management, artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum technology, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here on Wednesday. Making a joint statement along with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, PM Modi said a blueprint for cooperation over the coming decades has been prepared. "This is not limited to economic cooperation and investment alone, the Prime Minister said. "To connect the youth and ideas of both countries, the startup bridge will be accelerated. An agreement on mobility and migration partnership has already been reached. This will facilitate legal migration and the movement of skilled workforce. Exchanges between cultural and educational institutions will be promoted," he added. Prime Minister Modi, who arrived in Vienna from Moscow on Tuesday evening, said he and the Austrian Chancellor shared thoughts on challenges faced by humanity, such as climate change and terrorism. "Regarding climate, we invite Austria to join our initiatives like the International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, and the Biofuel Alliance," he said. Earlier, PM Modi was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Federal Chancery as he began his landmark visit to Austria, the first by an Indian Prime Minister to the country in 41 years. India, Austria to work together in areas like AI, blueprint for coming decades prepared: PM Modi Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! PM Modi urges Austria CEOs to invest in India's fast-growing economy P rime Minister Narendra Modi and Chancellor of Austria Karl Nehammer, jointly addressed a group of leading Austrian and Indian CEOs from diverse sectors including infrastructure, automobile, energy, engineering and start-ups on Wednesday. Both leaders acknowledged the role played by industry leaders in strengthening bilateral relations and promoting economic cooperation between India and Austria. The leaders noted that trade and investment between the two countries has been increasing over the years and called for realising the full potential of the India-Austria partnership through greater collaboration. Prime Minister Modi called on the Austrian business stakeholders to look at the fast-unfolding opportunities in India, as the country moves to become the third largest economy in the world over the next few years. He noted that India had made transformative progress in the last ten years, and would continue on the same path given its strengths of political stability, policy predictability and its reform-oriented economic agenda. The Prime Minister urged Austrian majors to leverage the Indian economic landscape for high-quality and cost-effective manufacturing under the Make in Inda programme both for the domestic and international market and as a global supply chain destination. He spoke about Indias Production Linked Incentive scheme to attract global manufacturing companies in the fields of semiconductors, medical devices, and solar PV cells, among others. He noted that Indias economic strengths and skills and Austrian technology were natural partners for business, growth and sustainability. He invited Austrian businesses to utilise the investment opportunities in India and be a part of Indias stellar growth story.He highlighted the steps taken by the government to improve the ease of doing business that was attracting global majors to India. Talking about Indian economic growth and transformation, he noted Indias success in the field of start-ups, in the creation of next-generation infrastructure, and its commitment to forge ahead on the green agenda. PM Modi also mentioned that the start-up bridge set up between India and Austria would yield substantial results. He suggested that the two countries should come together and organise a joint hackathon. He further spoke about the success of Digital Public Infrastructure in the country and measures taken to improve connectivity and logistics. PM Modi urges Austria CEOs to invest in India's fast-growing economy Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! With a potential rematch looming next fall between an incumbent going on 82 and a 78-year-old challenger, we respectfully asked another panel of octogenarians: Do you believe that 80 is too old to occupy the Oval Office? Beijing (Gasgoo)- On July 10, Chinese autonomous truck solution developer Plus signed a cooperation agreement with FAW Jiefang Qingdao Automobile Co., Ltd. to jointly define and develop the mass-produced gas-powered heavy-duty truck with factory-installed autnomous driving system. Signing ceremony; photo credit: Plus Together, they aim to explore integrated smart logistics solutions with digital freight platforms. According to the agreement, both parties will establish a joint project team to collaborate on the entire process, from vehicle definition, R&D, and mass production to operation and sales. The first product, the FAW Jiefang JH6 Super Truck, is scheduled to obtain product certification and enter mass production in 2025. JH6 tractor; photo credit: FAW Jiefang The FAW Jiefang JH6 Super Truck will be developed based on the truck makers best-selling gas-powered heavy-duty truck, the JH6 6x4 tractor. It will feature low gas consumption, lightweight, and high efficiency. The truck will also be equipped with the latest generation of Plus's Navigate autonomous driving system, significantly upgrading the domain control platform's computing power. It will incorporate advanced algorithms and cutting-edge technologies such as DualBEV vision, transport corridor, and data loops, supporting NOA (Navigate-on-Autopilot) function for complex road conditions like expressways and ramps. This will enhance driving safety and intelligence, reduce driver fatigue, increase effective driving mileage, and lower long-haul transportation costs. Women who have close family members with endocrine diseases, including type 2 diabetes, thyroid diseases and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), are at higher risk of pregnancy loss, a new study has found. The research, presented today at the ESHRE 40th Annual Meeting in Amsterdam, examined the association between various endocrine diseases and the incidence of pregnancy loss. The study investigated 366,539 women in Denmark between 1973 and 2022. The study found that women with parents diagnosed with endocrine diseases faced a 6% higher risk of pregnancy loss compared to those without a family history of endocrine diseases. Similarly, if a woman's sister had an endocrine disease, her risk of experiencing pregnancy loss increased by 7%. These patterns persisted even when individual cases of the diseases were considered. The results highlight having a family history of endocrine disease as an important, yet previously underexplored, factor in assessing the risk of pregnancy loss. This study is the first of its kind to link familial endocrine disease with pregnancy loss, providing evidence that these familial conditions contribute to the risk. We believe that the mechanism linking familial endocrine disease and pregnancy loss could be a shared genetic background, predisposing individuals to both endocrine disease and pregnancy loss. One potential mechanism could involve high risk human leukocyte antigens (HLAs), which define the immune system's ability to distinguish 'good from bad'. Specific HLA types are known to be associated with several endocrine and autoimmune diseases and could also be associated with pregnancy loss." Dr. Pia Egerup, from Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre and lead author of the study The endocrine system is a complex collection of glands and organs that use hormones to regulate various bodily processes, including metabolism, growth and mood. Dysfunction in one or more parts of the system can lead to hormone imbalances, or improper responses from the body to the hormones produced. Endocrine diseases have different causes dependent on the condition, which include type 1 and 2 diabetes, PCOS and hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism. In addition to uncovering the link between familial endocrine disease and pregnancy loss, the research also demonstrated a significant association between pregnancy loss and endocrine disease, showing that the association increases with the number of losses. Women with endocrine disease had a 15% higher risk of experiencing one pregnancy loss (OR 1.15, 95% CI 1.12-1.17) compared to women without an endocrine disease, and a 30% higher risk of experiencing two losses (OR 1.30, 95% CI 1.24-1.37). Additionally, the risk was notably higher, at 81%, for women experiencing three or more losses (OR 1.81, 95% CI 1.70-1.93). Recurrent pregnancy loss affects between 2-5% of women trying to conceive and almost half of cases remain unexplained. It can have a significant psychological and emotional toll, with symptoms of moderate or severe depression present in approximately 10% of affected couples, along with feelings of anxiety, grief, guilt and anger. Dr Egerup furthers, "Understanding the shared mechanisms between pregnancy loss and endocrine diseases could pave the way for novel preventive and therapeutic approaches to help prevent pregnancy loss. Additionally, we encourage healthcare providers to consider family history when diagnosing and managing women with recurrent pregnancy loss as a result of these findings." Professor Dr Carlos Calhaz-Jorge, Immediate Past Chair of ESHRE, comments, "This study provides evidence of an increased risk of pregnancy loss if certain endocrine diseases are present in a woman's family. This information underscores the importance of taking a detailed family history for all pregnant women to inform potential preventive measures." The study abstract will be published today in Human Reproduction, one of the world's leading reproductive medicine journals. A team of researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and collaborating institutions has identified and located a population of stem-like cells that initiates and maintains Group 3 medulloblastoma (Gr3-MB) in the developing brain. Gr3-MB is one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer in children and is associated with metastatic spread and poor survival. The researchers showed that eliminating the small population of stem-like cells present in Gr3-MB tumors led to tumor shrinkage in preclinical models. Although more research is needed, this novel approach may lead to new ways to treat children with Gr3-MB. The study appeared in Cell. "We believe that as Gr3-MB develops, it retains characteristics present in embryonic development, resulting in rapid tumor growth," said corresponding author Dr. Michael D. Taylor, professor of pediatrics, hematology oncology and neurosurgery at Baylor and Texas Children's. He also is the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Chair of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology at Texas Children's Cancer and Hematology Center. "Our goal was to identify embryonic cells that would give rise to tumors, as well as their location and factors that drive their growth." The researchers compared the genes expressed by Gr3-MB cells from six tumors with those expressed by human fetal hindbrain cells during the first trimester of pregnancy. We found trace of a lineage of embryonic stem-like cells in Gr3-MB tumors. These cells express a protein called protogenin that is present only in these high risk Gr3-MB but absent in normal postnatal cerebellum." Dr. Abhirami Visvanathan, first author, postdoctoral fellow in the Taylor lab The researchers located the cancer stem-like cells in a specific brain region in the developing cerebellum called the rhombic lip. The cells are embedded in a structure unique to humans that is known as the interposed vascular plexus. When Gr3-MB tumors develop, they recreate the vascular plexus. Other types of medulloblastoma do not have this unique vascular structure. "Stem-like cells in the tumor live in this immature blood vessel nest. Both tumor and vascular cells talk to each other and maintain a symbiotic niche benefiting both cells," Visvanathan said. A novel idea to treat Gr3-MB The finding that the tumors have a small population of protogenin-expressing stem-like cancer cells that sustains their growth inspired the researchers to test a novel approach to treating GR3-MBs. "Instead of attacking the entire tumor, we hypothesized that eliminating the small population of cancer stem-like cells that sustains the tumor would be therapeutic, which is analogous to triggering the dissolution of an army by removing the leader," Taylor said. As predicted by the hypothesis, therapies directed at eliminating the cancer stem-like cells produced effective results in animal models. "We targeted the protogenin-expressing cells that sustain tumor growth with CAR T-cell immunotherapy. CAR T-cell therapy is a promising strategy in which immune T-cells are modified to attack a specific target protogenin in this case enabling them to kill the cancer. This exciting finding supports conducting further investigations to determine whether this strategy is effective in treating human Gr3-MB." The study also shows that targeting the vascular niche that supports tumor cell growth is another potential therapeutic option. Further studies are needed to explore this possibility. Advocate Health has been selected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to participate in the Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) Model, aimed to support advanced dementia patients and their caregivers in bridging the gaps associated with inequalities in dementia care. Following years of neurocognitive disorders research pioneered by Advocate Health's academic core, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, patients across the health system's footprint now will benefit from the GUIDE Model's new standardized approach to care for patients with dementia and their caregivers. Only 400 health organizations in the country have been accepted into the Dementia Care Program (DCP). Dementia casts a wide shadow, touching the lives of millions of patients and their caregivers who often face emotional, financial, and psychological challenges. By adopting the GUIDE Model, we are alleviating some of those strains and committing to a future where every person and community affected by dementia receives the adequate support, resources, and understanding they need." Don Calcagno, senior vice president and chief population officer for Advocate Health Advocate Health and Wake Forest University School of Medicine's integrated approach to patient care underscores the importance of advancing research into innovative health care models that improve health inequities. D-Care, a multi-year clinical trial led by Dr. Mia Yang, associate professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, compared evidence-based health system-based dementia care with community-based dementia care. Years of evidence-based dementia care research and advocacy were instrumental for the creation of the GUIDE Model and will be incorporated throughout the Advocate Health system. "Advocate Health's integration of the GUIDE Model reaffirms the profound impact of our team's work," said Dr. Kevin High, professor of medicine/infectious diseases, Wake Forest University School of Medicine and vice chief academic officer, academic learning health system for Advocate Health. "We know that inequalities exist in the health care system. As we demonstrated, continuing to invest in evidence-based research and teaming up with our partners throughout the enterprise, will allow us to shape the future of healthcare to be more inclusive and equitable." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 7 million Americans live with Alzheimer's disease, with 14 million projected cases by 2060. Studies indicate that Black and Hispanic populations not only have a higher prevalence of dementia but also face significant barriers to timely diagnosis and adequate support. Caregivers are critical in achieving patient-centered care. However, the work of these unsung heroes can go unnoticed. A lack of support navigating the complex world of dementia care can be overwhelming and lead to fatigue, anxiety, and depression. The GUIDE Model aims to bridge these gaps by providing caregivers with access to a suite of comprehensive resources and support. Components of the model include: Caregiver education and support for unpaid caregivers whose loved ones have dementia. A subgroup of caregivers will receive a $2,500 cap for respite services to reduce caregiver fatigue and financial burdens. 24/7 access to an on-call support line, care coordination and dementia medical management, and referrals to community programs in partnership with community-based senior organizations. Reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending by helping people with dementia to remain at home and decreasing their chances of hospitalization, emergency department use, and long-term nursing home care the biggest source of out-of-pocket expenses for patients living with dementia. The GUIDE Model will be available at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in North Carolina on July 1 and expand throughout the rest of North Carolina, Illinois, and Wisconsin in 2025. Patients and caregivers impacted by dementia will access an innovative framework that uses holistic care to enable patients to remain home longer, delay unnecessary admissions, support caregivers, and provide equitable care for all. insights from industry Huw Rees Field Application Scientist SPT Labtech In this interview, Huw Rees, a Field Application Scientist at SPT Labtech, discusses the benefits of miniaturization in next-generation sequencing (NGS) library preparation and how using mosquito positive displacement liquid handling technology can give you more value for your money. In this interview, Huw Rees, a Field Application Scientist at SPT Labtech, discusses the benefits of miniaturization in next-generation sequencing (NGS) library preparation and how using mosquitopositive displacement liquid handling technology can give you more value for your money. Please can you introduce yourself and tell us about your role at SPT Labtech? My name is Huw Rees. As a member of SPT Labtechs North American Field Application Science team, I provide expert training and application advice to users of our liquid handling solutions, including mosquito, firefly, and dragonfly. What is library preparation in NGS and why automate it? Next-generation sequencing (NGS) library preparation normally has several key parts, but the key steps that require liquid handling are shown below: Image Credit: SPT Labtech Almost all kits require DNA end preparation, where you modify the ends to make them suitable for sequencing. This is followed by a clean-up step to remove enzymes and other reagents from the initial preparation step. After PCR, the next step is another clean-up before placing your samples into the sequencer. These kits are ideal for automation because they are extremely laborious and time-consuming to do by hand. Preparing these kits manually, especially for plates, can take hours of precise, focused work and be difficult to master. Experienced lab bench workers who can perform these kits rapidly, consistently, and effectively are hard to find. Automating the process reduces the need for specialized skills and allows scientists to focus on other parts of their research. Automated liquid handlers can pipette volumes below what a handheld pipette can manage. Sub-microliter volumes are hard to do with handheld pipettes, but automation can achieve this consistently. What are the benefits of miniaturizing NGS library preparation? How does this affect the cost per sample? Miniaturizing NGS library preparation is important because it makes your money go further. While effective, library prep kits generally have a high cost per sample due to the expense involved in their production, such as protein engineering and extensive research. By miniaturizing these kits, you can significantly reduce the volumes required per reaction, allowing you to process more samples with the same amount of reagent, saving money. Automation further enhances this by increasing laboratory throughput. Miniaturization also reduces your reliance on manual pipetting, provides walkaway time, and increases the throughput of samples in your workflow. How can labs achieve more substantial miniaturization? Substantial miniaturization can be achieved in high read-depth kits. For example, the NEBNext Ultra II DNA kits can be miniaturized about tenfold on mosquito, making your kit go ten times further to give you an idea of cost savings. Other kits can also be miniaturized to a similar extent, or even further. Can you talk more about the mosquito and how it maximizes ROI through miniaturization? mosquito is our nanoliter liquid handling instrument designed to maximize ROI through miniaturization. mosquitos tips are loaded onto a spool at the top of the instrument that feeds them through into a pipetting head. This pipetting head can aspirate across five available plate deck positions, with the ability to work in both 96 and 384-well formats. The tips are made of stainless steel with a high-density polyethylene sheath, ensuring durability and precision. Each individual tip utilizes true positive displacement technology, meaning there is no air interface between the liquid and the tip. This means that accuracy isn't compromised when working with low or high-viscosity liquids, meaning it can handle very viscous master mixes or volatile mixtures like ethanol without issues. Image Credit: SPT Labtech mosquito can handle volumes of 500 nL down to 5 L, with a low-volume version capable of handling 1.2 L down to 25 nL. For this discussion, I will predominantly focus on the high-volume version as it has the capability of miniaturizing magnetic bead clean-ups. The one-way direction of the tips virtually eliminates the chance of cross-contamination. mosquitos ability to contact dispense and aspirate from the very bottom of the well ensures negligible dead volumes, making it very gentle on genomic DNA and enzymes. This is very important for NGS library preparations, as it avoids cavitation and vortexing, which can break havoc on enzymes. How can mosquito be used to easily set up NGS library prep? mosquito comes with a comprehensive software package that includes default wizards for simplifying the setup of common NGS protocols, such as Nextera XT, NEB kits, and bead clean-ups. The software also allows for custom experiment setups with the help of our FAS team, enabling labs to miniaturize kits specific to their needs. The user-friendly software interface allows easy customization and modification of experiments. One example of a pre-loaded protocol is the NEBNext Ultra II FS DNA Kit. You will start on the Run page, which has a pre-written detailing the steps it will perform, and an estimated run time. Image Credit: SPT Labtech If customization is needed, you can modify the experiment from the Information page, which provides the protocol's title and description. This protocol is optimized for saving reagent tips and time. It also includes steps for fragmentation, end repair, dA tailing, adapter ligation, and USER enzyme treatment. Image Credit: SPT Labtech The Plates tab allows you to specify the type of plates you will be using. You can swap out these defaults if needed. Image Credit: SPT Labtech Under the Experiment tab, you can reduce the number of columns on the plate if you are running fewer samples. You also have the ability to modify where reagent columns are placed. For instance, you can move the ligation mix to a different column to reduce dead volume. Image Credit: SPT Labtech After physically loading plates and samples onto the instrument, you simply need to hit run. mosquito will then distribute the fragmentation mix over the reaction plate, completing your NGS library prep setup. Can you tell us more about the clean-up protocol after library preparation? After performing the initial library preparation and preparing the DNA ends, the next step is to clean up the sample, which involves using the bead clean-up protocol. The mosquito software wizard facilitates this process from start to finish, providing a run page with all the necessary details. This protocol involves five plates: a sample plate, a reagent plate, a position for the sample plate on the magnetic block, a waste plate, and an output place for the purified sample after elution. Using a similar wizard, users can customize the types of plates under the Plates tab, and adjust the bead cleanup protocol in the Experiment tab, such as bead ratio, number of ethanol washes, and whether to include ethanol incubation. Users can also select the number of samples to run, and designate columns for beads, ethanol, and other reagents. Image Credit: SPT Labtech Once the plates are set up, mosquito adds beads to the samples, and the plate is vortexed and pulse centrifuged. After incubating the beads with the sample, the plate is placed on the magnet for the ethanol washing steps, which mosquito handles by adding and removing ethanol. The plate is then moved off the magnet, the elution buffer is added to resuspend the beads, and the plate is placed back on the magnet to ensure no beads end up in the final sample. This protocol is just one of many workflows supported by mosquito. We have extensive citations and resources supporting full NGS workflows from beginning to end with varying levels of miniaturization. Can you provide an example of how mosquito can reduce the cost per sample? Two robust and well-known kits are Illumina Nextera XT and the Illumina DNA prep kits. With mosquito, we have consistently achieved tenfold miniaturizationor 12.5-fold in the case of Nextera XTresulting in a significant reduction in cost per sample. For instance, using 384-well sample plates only takes processing eight full plates to cover the cost of a mosquito instrument in your lab. This means that you will see a return on your investment very quickly. In some labs, this level of throughput is common, allowing mosquito to pay for itself within a matter of weeks. Image Credit: SPT Labtech Are there any exciting mosquito updates you'd like to share? We have just very recently launched the latest member of our mosquito family - mosquito Gen3. It's our most compact and accessible version yet, offering all the capabilities of mosquito but with three deck positions and a smaller footprint. With Gen3, we're lowering the barrier to miniaturization, so even more genomics researchers can benefit from the cost savings of reducing NGS volumes. Image Credit: SPT Labtech About Huw Rees As a member of the North American FAS team, Huw is responsible for providing expert training and application advice to users of SPT Labtech liquid handling solutions across the Northeast US and Eastern Canada. Huw received his doctorate in structural RNA biology and protein engineering from the University of Chicago. Alongside his research, Huw was responsible for mentoring new staff on the use of new instruments, including mosquito, where he gained first-hand experience of its reliability and capabilities. About SPT Labtech SPT Labtech designs and manufactures robust, reliable and easy-to-use solutions for life science. We enable life scientists through collaboration, deep application knowledge, and leading engineering to accelerate research and make a difference together. We offer a portfolio of products within sample management, liquid handling, and multiplexed detection that minimize assay volumes, reduce material handling costs and put the discovery tools back in the hands of the scientist. At the heart of what we do Many of our innovations have been born out of the desire to create solutions to existing customer problems; and its this ethos that drives SPT Labtechs R&D efforts. Our strengths come from the trust our customers have with us to develop truly unique, automated technologies to meet their needs. We combine cutting edge science with first-rate engineering to put customers at the heart of everything we do. A problem-solving state of mind The substantial breadth of expertise within our company enables us to be involved in the full life cycle of our products from the initial design concept, mechanical and software engineering and prototyping, to final manufacture and sale. These qualities allow us to offer the best possible technical and mechanical support to all the equipment that we supply, hence maintaining excellent client relationships. A new approach to treating the most malignant type of brain cancer glioblastoma has shown strong promise in pre-clinical settings, raising hopes of increasing current average survival rates beyond 18 months. Targeted alpha therapy (TAT) is emerging as a potential additional treatment for glioblastoma (GB), a disease which has confounded oncologists for decades due to its aggressive nature and strong resistance to existing therapies. The current standard treatment for GB is surgery, followed by external beam radiotherapy and the chemotherapy drug, temozolomide. However, survival rates of less than 5-10% at five years have prompted researchers to explore alternative options. University of South Australia scientists are conducting their own experiments with TAT and have reviewed existing clinical studies to assess the viability of targeted alpha therapy as a treatment option for recurrent glioblastoma. In a new paper published in Targeted Oncology, UniSA PhD candidate Maram El Sabri, medical radiation physicist Professor Eva Bezak and oncologist Professor Frank Saran outline the evidence supporting TAT. Unlike external beam radiotherapy, which delivers radiation more diffusely over a larger volume, TAT delivers high amounts of lethal radiation to the tumor at very short range, hitting its target without significantly affecting surrounding healthy tissue, says Maram. Alpha particles are up to 10 times more potent, when compared to standard photon radiation therapy, killing the cancer cells or at the very least slowing their future growth by damaging their DNA. Glioblastomas are problematic because they grow very quickly and spread beyond the easy visible tumor into normal brain tissue, making it difficult for oncologists to deliver the optimal dosage of radiation needed to kill the cancer. Animal studies demonstrate that only a few targeting agents can effectively cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) to reach cancerous tissue, and those that do cause unwanted side effects in surrounding healthy tissue. In pre-clinical experiments, TAT has been shown to increase survival rates by 16.1% in newly diagnosed glioblastoma cases and by 36.4% in recurrent tumors. Furthermore, the studies suggest that it has minimal adverse effects for the patient. Co-author Professor Bezak says TAT was first proposed for cancer therapy more than 20 years ago by internationally acclaimed Australian research scientist, Professor Barry Allen, who died in 2019 from cancer. He was ahead of his time. It has taken this long for TAT to be gradually accepted by clinicians and for animal (pre-clinical) and human (clinical) studies to be undertaken, Prof Bezak says. Pre-clinical studies show very promising results. Alpha emitters are up to 10 times more toxic to cells than gamma radiation, which are used in external beam radiation. Also, compared to the cost of current immunotherapy or molecular targeting drugs, targeted alpha therapy is relatively cheap. Professor Frank Saran, an Adjunct Clinical Professor at UniSA and experienced radiation oncologist, says very little progress has been made in the treatment of glioblastoma in recent decades, sparking a renewed interest in TAT. The most exciting development was the discovery of the chemotherapy drug temozolomide in the 1980s but that has only improved the expected median survival by around three months, he says. Research into this area is very low for several reasons. First, glioblastoma is a rare cancer so does not affect large swathes of the population. It also has extremely low survival rates and there is a long-standing history of failed studies in this area. Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies are often not willing to invest money in GB because it has a low probability of success and is not commercially viable. Professor Frank Saran, Adjunct Clinical Professor, UniSA In her PhD, Maram is developing a computational model to calculate how TAT can be delivered most effectively to the brain after surgery, and in combination with conventional radiation treatment and chemotherapies, specifically targeting residual cancer cells and delivering more effective radiation to the tumor. I am excited to find out if we can find the right dosing and radiation range by adding TAT to the conventional treatment options. If this is successful, we might see some significant results in terms of extending a patients life, she says. Scientists have found that 93% of the lipids in brain tissue are distributed differently in the white and gray matter, the subcortex, the visual and motor cortices, and the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision-making, social behavior, and other functions. Abnormalities in the brain lipidome tend to occur in mental and cognitive disorders, so mapping these molecules should help gain more information about the disease. The research supported by a grant from the Presidential Program of the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) was published in Nature Communications. Distribution of cholesterol in the human brain. Image Credit: Maria Osetrova. A major component of brain tissue, lipids are fatty compounds that make up 35-40% of all the molecules in the gray matter cell bodies and as much as 78% of the axons myelin sheaths in the white matter. Brain tissue lipids are very diverse and include cholesterol, phosphorus-containing compounds, such as phospholipids and sphingolipids, and other molecules. Since lipids are involved in the metabolism and growth of neurons, the delivery of signals between cells and the control of inflammatory processes, abnormalities in the lipidome composition have been associated with cognitive disorders, such as autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimers disease. However, the relationship between the lipidome and the structural features of brain tissue remains poorly understood, limiting the use of lipids as molecular markers for detecting brain diseases. Researchers from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and their colleagues have created the worlds first map of human brain lipids. They studied brain tissue samples from four healthy individuals and assessed the lipid composition in 75 different parts of the brain. The lipids in the samples were identified using mass spectrometry, which allows determining a molecules structure from the mass to charge ratio and its motion pattern in a magnetic field. The researchers found a total of 419 different lipids, most of them (93%) unevenly distributed among the different parts of the human brain. For example, the subcortex (the oldest part of the brain), motor and visual cortices had relatively high levels of cholesterol, while the prefrontal cortex responsible for complex social behavior and decision-making had relatively low levels of this lipid. Since most lipids are found in the myelin sheaths, the team checked whether the myelin content in a particular part of the brain affected its typical lipidome. The myelin-rich white matter turned out to contain mostly ceramides, two classes of phospholipids, and lipids with saturated fatty acids. Since the main function of the white matter is to transmit signals via axons, these types of lipids are thought to be essential for the tissue to perform its function. Polyunsaturated fatty acid lipids prevailed in the gray matter which contains a concentration of cell bodies rather than axons and virtually no myelin. This suggests that such molecules may be important for signal processing in cells. In the future, we plan to thoroughly investigate the subcortical lipidome which was only partially covered by this research, and to study brain samples from patients with various mental disorders. The potential complete decoding of the lipidome will help us to better understand the nature of mental illness and its impact on the structure and functioning of the brain, said Maria Osetrova, a research engineer at the Skoltech Neuro Center and a participant in the RSF-supported project. Other organizations involved in this research included Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Semenov Federal Research Center for Chemical Physics of RAS (Moscow), the University of Leipzig (Germany), and the National University of Singapore. The Ministry of Labour and Employment on Wednesday announced that it had successfully addressed a complaint related to a layoff filed by an employee of Paytm. In a statement, the ministry said, The representative of Paytms management appeared before the Regional Labour Commissioner in Bengaluru on Wednesday and agreed not to reclaim the joining bonus, and to provide the employee with the notice period payment. The resolution was found after the Regional Labour Commissioner (Central) in Bengaluru issued a notice to Paytm in response to the employees grievance about the alleged forced termination by Paytm. Following this, a representative from Paytms management appeared before the Commissioner and agreed not to reclaim the joining bonus and to provide the notice period payment to the employee. Subsequently, sources said the employee has accepted the exit offer made by Paytm, in the presence of the Regional Labour Commissioner (Central), Bengaluru resulting in the resolution of the grievance to the satisfaction of both parties. The representative of the management of Paytm appeared before the Commissioner today and agreed not to recover the joining bonus and to pay the notice period payment to the employee, they said. The status of certain other staffers is unclear as some other employees too had reportedly expressed their dissatisfaction with the manner, in which Paytm allegedly went about the forced termination. Earlier this year, Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) came under regulatory glare as RBI ordered it to stop accepting new deposits in its accounts and its digital wallet from March on the grounds of material supervisory concerns and non-compliance with rules. This led to massive restructuring including employee rationalisation. Apollo Tyres Limited, a company in which Harshad Mehta, the once-famous stock market investor, had a significant stake, has seen its share price surge dramatically over the years. What was once priced at Rs 21 in 1992 has now crossed Rs 500, currently standing at Rs 527. Apollo Tyres ranked as the 7th largest tyre manufacturer globally, has delivered remarkable returns to its investors. Investors in Apollo Tyres have witnessed substantial growth in their investments year after year. The stock has provided a return of 16% this year alone and over 22% in the past twelve months. Over five years, the shares have yielded a staggering 181% return, nearly doubling investors money. Since 1999, the stock has delivered an impressive 7900% return, showcasing its robust performance over the decades. Harshad Mehta, known as the Big Bull of the 1990s Indian stock market, held a stake in Apollo Tyres. Following his demise, legal battles ensued over his holdings, culminating in a 2011 Supreme Court directive for the return of a 4.95% stake to his family. Harshad Mehtas influence on the stock market was profound, with his investment strategies and stock tips widely followed during his peak. However, his involvement in the 1992 securities scam revealed the darker side of his financial dealings, tarnishing his legacy in the eyes of many. Apollo Tyres continues to thrive as a prominent player in the global tyre industry, with its stock performance reflecting robust investor confidence and strong market fundamentals. Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On July 9, VOYAH, the premium new energy vehicle brand under Dongfeng Motor, announced a partnership with CAMS, Volkswagen Group China's charging joint venture, to integrate their charging networks. This collaboration will provide VOYAH owners with access to over 1,500 new charging stations and approximately 12,000 charging guns, significantly expanding their charging options and enhancing charging convenience. Photo credit: CAMS Starting July 9, the VOYAH app will fully integrate CAMS' charging network information, offering real-time data on station locations, charging pile status, and charging costs for VOYAH owners using CAMS' charging resources. With just a few simple steps, VOYAH owners can scan to charge, make seamless payments, and automatically redeem charging benefits, experiencing an efficient, convenient, and intelligent charging service. CAMS' charging stations are widely located in bustling urban areas and key traffic hubs, particularly around high-end commercial complexes and Grade A office buildings. These stations not only have prime locations but also offer elegant environments. Moreover, CAMS' safety management system monitors the charging process in real-time, finely adjusting parameters to protect battery health, thus ensuring each charge is efficient and safe. To date, VOYAH has established close partnerships with eight major charging service operators, including State Grid, China Southern Power Grid, TELD, Star Charge, FLEETIN, Xiaoju Charging, New Electricity Approach, and CAMS. These partnerships cover more than 360 cities nationwide. In the future, VOYAH plans to continue expanding its charging network, aiming to establish a "six-kilometer core area" energy replenishment network in key cities, ensuring convenient, worry-free, intelligent, efficient, and safe high-quality charging services for VOYAH owners. The Ganesh Green Bharat IPO, which was open for public subscription between July 5 and July 9, got a blockbuster response from investors receiving nearly 230 times subscription. Now, the IPO allotment is expected to be finalised today, Wednesday, July 9. Once the Ganesh Green Bharat IPO is allotted, investors will start receiving the bank debit message, probably in the evening. The investors can check the IPO allotment status on the registrar Kfin Technologies Ltds portal. On the final day of bidding on July 9, the Rs 135.23-crore IPO received bids for 1,01,21,49,000 shares as against 44,02,200 shares on offer, thus getting 229.92 times subscription. Once the IPO allotment is finalised today, Ganesh Green Bharats shares will likely be listed on the NSE SME on July 12. Ganesh Green Bharat IPO: How To Check Allotment Status Once the IPO is allotted, the status can be checked by following these steps: Step 1: Kfin Technologies Ltds portal Step 2: Select IPO from the drop-down list Ganesh Green Bharat Ltd. Step 3: Choose any one among application number, demat account or PAN number. Step 4: Enter PAN number, application number or demat account number. Step 5: Enter Captcha. Step 6: Click on Search Button Now, your Ganesh Green Bharat IPO allotment status will be displayed on the screen. Ganesh Green Bharat IPO GMP Today According to market observers, unlisted shares of Ganesh Green Bharat Ltd are trading Rs 240 higher in the grey market as compared with its issue price. The Rs 240 grey market premium or GMP means the grey market is expecting a 126.32 per cent listing gain from the public issue. The GMP is based on market sentiments and keeps changing. Grey market premium indicates investors readiness to pay more than the issue price. Ganesh Green Bharat IPO: More Details The Ganesh Green Bharat IPO is entirely a fresh issue of 65.91 lakh shares. Its price band has been fixed at Rs 181 to Rs 190 per share. On the final day of bidding, the quota for non-institutional investors received 470.44 times subscription, while retail individual investors (RIIs) portion got subscribed 176.88 times. The qualified institutional buyer (QIB) category received a 154.50 times subscription. Investors need to apply for a minimum of 600 equity shares and in multiples thereof. Hence, the minimum investment by retail investors would be Rs 1,14,200 [600 (lot size) x Rs 190 (upper price band)]. Hem Securities Limited is the book running lead manager of the Ganesh Green Bharat IPO, while Kfin Technologies Limited is the registrar for the issue. The market maker for Ganesh Green Bharat IPO is Hem Finlease. Ganesh Green Bharat Limited, established in April 2016, is an electrical contracting service company. The company offers a range of services including the supply, installation, testing, and commissioning (SITC) of solar and electrical goods and services to various government bodies. Ganesh Green Bharat Ltds revenue jumped 89.82 per cent and profit after tax (PAT) rose 167.67 per cent during the year ended 2023-24. The Karnataka SSLC Supply Result 2024 has been declared by the Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB). The KSEAB Class 10 exam 2 results were declared today, July 10, 2024, at 11.30 am. Candidates who took the supplementary test can view their results at karresults.nic.in, the official Karnataka Results website. All enrolled students can view their results by providing their registration number and date of birth. The official notification states: 2024 SSLC Result of Exam-2 will be published on NIC website https://karresults.nic.in on Date:10-07-2024 at 11:30 AM. Karnataka SSLC Supply Results 2024: List of Websites karresults.nic.in sslc.karnataka.gov.in kseab.karnataka.gov.in. The Karnataka SSLC supplementary exams were conducted across the state from June 14 to June 21. The three examsexams 1, 2, and 3will be held annually under the new system. The supplemental examination has been titled Exam 2. The first test is mandatory for regular students, however repeaters and private applicants can take the second and third examinations to improve their grades. Karnataka SSLC Supply Results 2024: How to check Step 1: Go to the Karnataka Boards official website at kseab.karnataka.gov.in. Step 2: Go to the home page and click on the Karnataka SSLC Supplementary Result 2024 link. Step 3: Enter your login credentials and click submit. Step 4: Your result scorecard will appear on the screen. Step 5: View the results and download the scorecard. Step 6: Print a physical copy in case you need it later. To pass the Karnataka SSLC exam, students must get 40 out of a possible 150 marks in theory exams. The overall passing grade is 35 per cent. In order to clear the exam, students must receive at least 219 out of a 625 marks. The Karnataka Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC), also known as the class 10th board test, was held this year between March 25 and April 6. This year, over 8.9 lakh candidates enrolled to take the exam.On May 9, the Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board released the SSLC regular exam results for 2024, with an overall pass percentage of 73.40 per cent. Stay ahead with all the exam results updates on News18 Website. Please study, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud advised the petitioner after the Supreme Court rejected a petition that sought lowering of the cut-offs in All India Bar Examination (AIBE) for law graduates. CJI DY Chandrachud, who led the bench, said that reducing the cut-off scores would negatively impact the quality of lawyers. Currently, the passing marks are set at 45% for general category candidates and 40% for candidates from SC/ST categories. They have put a cut-off of 45% for general, OBC category and 40% for SC/ST what kind of lawyer will the person be if they cannot score this much? the Chief Justice said, adding, Padho bhai! (please study). The All India Bar Examination, conducted by the Bar Council of India, must be cleared by law graduates to start their practice. This exam is conducted in over 10 languages twice a year and can be taken at any age. The subjects in the exam are wide-ranging, including Constitutional laws, criminal laws, PILs, environmental laws and industry laws. Taxation and intellectual property laws are also part of the syllabus, along with several other branches. It is an open book exam aimed at assessing basic level knowledge and analytical skills for a candidate willing to practice law, as per the AIBE website. Recently, the Madras High Court dismissed a plea demanding a reduction in the application fee for the AIBE. Stay ahead with all the exam results updates on News18 Website. A 3.5km-long stretch of Mumbai Coastal Roads north-bound carriageway will be opened to vehicular traffic from Thursday, the city civic body said on Wednesday. However, the stretch from Haji Ali to Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan Road in Worli will not be accessible to vehicles on Saturdays and Sundays, said the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). In a release, the BMC said the 3.5km-long stretch, which is part of the about 12km Mumbai Coastal Road Project, will be opened at 7 am. Vehicles can access the carriageway from Monday to Friday between 7 am and 11 pm. This corridor is being opened temporarily for vehicles going to the Bandra-Worli Sea Link from Coastal Road and will remain closed on Saturdays and Sundays for completion of the remaining work of the project, said the release. Earlier in the day, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde inspected the stretch in the presence of municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani and other senior officials. Shinde said the coastal road project is 91 per cent complete and the administration has been directed to conclude the remaining work as early as possible. In the first phase, the BMC opened a 9.5km-long south-bound corridor of Coastal Road from Bindu Madhav Chowk in Worli to Marine Drive on March 11. This was followed by the opening of a 6.25km-long north-bound carriageway between Marine Drive and Lotus Junctionn at Haji Ali in the next phase on June 10. The Mumbai Coastal Road Project, which is being implemented by the BMC, will provide a direct connection with the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, reducing travel time between south Mumbai and suburbs and improving overall commuting experience. The construction of the ambitious Rs 13983 crore project started on October 13, 2018. A massive search operation is underway to track down terrorists responsible for the deadly terror attack on Indian army trucks in Jammu and Kashmirs Kathua district that left five personnel dead. There has been a spike in terror attacks in the Jammu region with terrorists taking advantage of dense forests and natural caves that act as hideouts for them. At about 03:30 PM on Monday, terrorists, believed to be four to five in number, opened gunfire and lobbed grenades at the trucks leaving 10 jawans injured, a pattern seen in attacks which have taken place in Rajouri and Poonch districts. Terrorists have taken advantage of bad roads and blind curves to ambush vehicles in the region. These mountainous passes have blind curves which give terrorists an advantage as trucks slow down, a pattern witnessed in the Reasi bus attack which left 9 pilgrims dead on June 9 this year followed by a similar attack on the Indian Air Force truck in Poonch on May 4, leaving an IAF personnel dead while four were injured. The security forces havent shied away from accepting infiltrations that have taken place in the Jammu region while claiming the number of foreign terrorists was 30-40 who are highly trained and armed to the teeth. There are foreign terrorists who have managed to infiltrate and all of us in the security establishment have more or less agreed to it, we are aware of it and we havent shied away from it, DGP J&K RR Swain told media in Jammu earlier this month. In a month, five terror attacks have taken place in four districts of Jammu Reasi, Doda, Kathua, and Rajouri. The police recently regularised nine Special police officers (SPOs) each in Kathua and Doda as constable for carrying out successful encounters by eliminating five terrorists in these areas. Start of Terror in Jammu Region Terror in the Jammu region began on October 11, 2021, with a gun battle that lasted for over 10 days in Chamrer and Bhatta Durrian forests in Poonch district. Five Army men lost their lives in Chamrer forests, which was followed by four more in Bhatta Durrian forests in just six days which included two junior commissioned officers. Two more Army men were killed in action in the Nowshera sector of Rajouri on October 30, 2021. Later, on August 11, 2022, five soldiers were killed while two attackers were neutralised in a terror attack in the Darhal area of Rajouri. In April 2023, five army men again lost their lives at Bhatta Durrian in Mendhar, Poonch. Then five PARA commandos lost their lives in another attack. This was followed by an IED explosion by reorients in the Kandi area of Rajouri in which a Major rank officer was injured. Two captains including five men from the Army were killed in action and two Pakistani terrorists were killed in November 2023 in Kalakote Rajouri. Later, five more were killed at Dera Ki Gali in Poonch in December last year. These incidents alerted the forces about the possibility of terrorists trying to gain a foothold in the hills of Poonch and Rajouri which were terror-free for years. The areas like Poonch, Rajouri, and Doda have seen terrorism in the past but later a special operation called Operation Sarp Vinash was launched in 2003 to flush out terrorists who made bases in the Hilkaka Poonch-Surankote. This was a division-size operation involving seven battalions and two brigade headquarters. Spearheaded by the 9 Para Special Forces, six other units of the 163 Infantry Brigade and 12 RR sector took part. This resulted in eliminating almost 60 terrorists and peace started to prevail by and large. When India and China came face to face in Galwan in 2020, the Army was moved to Ladakh and deployed along the Line of Actual Control from these areas of Jammu since they were peaceful. Meanwhile, India and Pakistan had also agreed to adhere to ceasefire understanding after frequent exchanges on the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly after the abrogation of Article 370. After a spate of attacks on the security forces in this area, a gap was felt, which prompted the Indian Army to deploy additional troops to the Rajouri-Poonch sector around 2023. Terrorists have also targeted civilians in the Jammu region. Seven civilians were killed in a terror attack in Dangri village of Rajouri district in January 2023 while a bus carrying pilgrims was targeted in Reasi leaving 9 of them dead and multiple injured. All this has led to a further challenge, a new front for the security forces to deal with while the Army continue their large presence in Ladakh and Kashmir. Highly Trained Terrorists Armed to the Teeth Terrorists who are operating in these forests are believed to be highly trained and armed with some advanced weapons including M4 rifles used by the US forces. The Army has suspected that some of these terrorists are retired Pakistani soldiers. They may have received training in many countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. They were very well trained which is why it took us some time to eliminate them, the then General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Northern Command and now the Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi had told media. For those trained in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, these terrains dont pose much of a challenge. The security forces have often found M4 rifles being used by these terrorists in the Jammu region with thermal scopes attached to them. In Doda last month, when Jammu and Kashmir police killed three terrorists, an M4 rifle with a thermal scope was recovered which was powered by a battery pack for longer duration use. The setup many say is common in Afghanistan and other parts of Pakistan. The weapon left after the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan has also found its way into J&K. These terrorists are also using steel-core armor-piercing bullets that penetrate ballistic armor and protective shields. In recoveries made by the security forces, highly encrypted Chinese telecom gear known as Ultra Set, which is used by the Pakistan Army, was recovered from the terrorists. In the Surankote area of Poonch and Sopore area of Kashmir, recoveries of these devices were made by the forces after gunfights. The security forces have also deployed young men to these areas to flush out these terrorists who are now striking in different parts of Jammu and inflicting heavy casualties. Jalandhar West Assembly Bypoll: Voter Turnout Stood At 51.30% A voter turnout of 51.30 per cent was recorded in the Jalandhar West assembly bypoll in Punjab on Wednesday, according to the data issued by the Election Commission (EC) at 5 pm. Raiganj assembly bypoll: Polling Concludes, EVM's Being Sealed Uttarakhand Bypolls LIVE: CM Pushkar Singh Dhami Confident of BJP's Victory On bypolls in the state, Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami said, People have always supported the BJP and this time always people of Uttarakhand will bless us and we will win both seats. Bypolls Update: 39.36% Voter Turnout Till 1 PM In Bihar's Rupauli Seat A voter turnout of 39.36 per cent was recorded till 1 pm in the bypoll to Rupauli Assembly seat in Bihar on Wednesday, an official said. Polling, which started at 7 am, will continue until 6 pm. Bypolls Update: 34.40% Voter Turnout In Jalandhar West Till 1 PM A voter turnout of 34.40 per cent was recorded till 1 pm in the Jalandhar West assembly bypoll in Punjab on Wednesday. Bypolls Update: About 48% Polling Recorded Till 1 PM In Himachal Pradesh A voter turnout of about 48 per cent was recorded till 1 pm on Wednesday in the bypolls in three assembly constituencies of Himachal Pradesh. The Nalagarh assembly constituency recorded the highest polling of 51.59 per cent, followed by Hamirpur (47.05 per cent) and Dehra (46.47 per cent), according data till 1 pm shared by the state election department. Former Himachal Pradesh CM Jairam Thakur Confident Of BJP Victory Despite State Govt Pressure VIDEO | We are confident that despite the (state) governments pressure, we will win. I am seeing that during these (by-) polls in Himachal this time, the government exerted so much pressure that the voters, businessmen they have made everyones life difficult, they were pic.twitter.com/85KK21une8 Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 10, 2024 Bypolls Update: Himachal Pradesh Records 32.7% Turnout In First Four Hours A voter turnout of 32.7 per cent was recorded till 11 am on Wednesday in the bypolls in three assembly segments of Himachal Pradesh. While Dehra assembly constituency recorded a turnout of 31.61 percent, Hamirpur saw 31.81 percent and Nalagarh 34.63 percent. Bypolls Update: 26.99% Polling In Manglaur, 21.20% In Badrinath Till 11 AM In Uttarakhand A voter turnout of 26.99 per cent was recorded in Manglaur assembly bypoll and 21.20 per cent in Badrinath assembly bypoll in Uttarakhand till 11 am on Wednesday, officials said. Bypolls Update: TMC Goons Standing At Every Intersections And Threatening Voters, Says Sukanta Majumdar Union Minister and BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar on Wednesday said that TMC goons are standing at intersections everywhere, threatening people, leading to low voter turnout. #WATCH | Raiganj, West Bengal: On the by-elections being held on 4 assembly seats in the state, Union Minister and BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar says, The voting percentage is very lowTMC goons are standing at the intersections everywhere and threatening people. TMC pic.twitter.com/soHZxNOXNV ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 Bypolls Update: Himachal Records 15.99% Polling In First Two Hours A voter turnout of 15.99 per cent was recorded in the first two hours of polling on Wednesday for the bypolls in three assembly segments of Himachal Pradesh. Voting started at 7 am at 315 polling stations. While Dehra recorded a turnout of 15.70 percent, Hamirpur recorded 15.71 percent and Nalagarh 16.48 percent, poll officials said. Bypolls Update: 24% Voter Turnout Registered Till 11 AM In Bengal A voter turnout of 24.25 per cent was recorded till 11 am in the bypolls to four Assembly constituencies of West Bengal on Wednesday, an Election Commission official said. Among the constituencies, Ranaghat Dakshin (SC) saw the highest turnout with 26.32 per cent, followed by Raiganj at 25.98 per cent, Bagdah (SC) at 22.63 per cent and Maniktala at 21.89 per cent. Bypolls Update: Bullets Fired To Intimidate Weak People And Congress Voters, Says Harish Rawat On Manglaur Clash Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister and Congress leader Harish Rawat on Wednesday expressed concern over the clash between two groups in Manglaur during the Assembly bypoll, claiming that bullets were fired to intimidate weak people and Congress voters. He also said that several people have been injured. VIDEO | Former Uttarakhand CM and Congress leader Harish Rawat expresses his concerns over the clash between two groups in Manglaur during Assembly By-poll. Heres what he said. Bullets were fired to stop weak people, voters of Congress. People have been injured. Our candidate pic.twitter.com/ZEpdP0cqbd Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 10, 2024 Bypolls Update: 9.27% Voter Turnout Till 9 AM In Bihar's Rupauli Assembly A voter turnout of 9.27 per cent was registered till 9 am in the byelection to Rupauli Assembly seat in Bihar on Wednesday, an official said. Voting, which started at 7 am, will continue until 6 pm. More than three lakh voters are eligible to determine the fate of 11 candidates contesting in this bypoll, which falls under the Purnea Lok Sabha seat. Bypolls Update: Nearly 11% Voter Turnout Registered Till 9 AM In Bengal, Says EC A voter turnout of 10.85 per cent was registered in the bypolls to four Assembly constituencies of West Bengal till 9 am on Wednesday, an Election Commission official said. Among the constituencies, Raiganj saw the highest turnout with 12.01 per cent, followed by Ranaghat Dakshin at 11.58 per cent, Bagdah at 10.61 per cent, and Maniktala at 9.01 per cent. Bypolls Update: Scuffle Breaks Out Between TMC Party Workers And BJP's Raiganj Candidate In Bengal A scuffle broke out between TMC party workers and BJP candidate Manas Kumar Ghosh at a polling booth in Raiganj, West Bengal, on Wednesday. #WATCh | Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal | Scuffle between TMC party workers & BJP candidate for Raiganj Assembly bypolls, Manas Kumar Ghosh at a polling booth, in Raiganj. Krishna Kalyani is the TMC candidate from the Raiganj assembly seat in the by-election. pic.twitter.com/g3xnal8qgN ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 Bypolls Update: Police Say 'Situation Normal' Amid Reports Of Clash In Uttarakhand's Manglaur Amid voting for the bypolls in Uttarakhands Manglaur is underway, a clash between two groups was reported earlier. SP Rural Swapan Kishore Singh briefed about the incident, stating that the situation is normal and sufficient police force has been deployed. VIDEO | Assembly By-poll: A clash between two groups was reported from Uttarakhands Manglaur. Heres what SP Rural Swapan Kishore Singh said. The situation is normal here. The voting is happening peacefully. Enough police force has been deployed. We received information about pic.twitter.com/kv0ys4Erqu Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 10, 2024 Bypolls Update: BJP Candidate From Dehra Calls 2024 Lok Sabha Elections 'Most Exciting, Challenging In Himachal's History' #WATCH | Kangra, Himachal Pradesh: BJP candidate for Dehra Assembly constituency, Hoshiyar Singh says, This election has been the most exciting and difficult in the history of Himachal Pradesh. On one hand, there was an entire government machinery and the CM himself, on the pic.twitter.com/UkbDH6txti ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 Bypolls Update: Clash Breaks Out Between Two Groups In Uttarakhand's Manglaur Manglaur Congress candidate Qazi Nizamuddin on Wednesday said, Miscreants have been openly firing. This is the murder of Democracy. There is also news of someone being injured. There was no ambulance or any other measures taken to take the injured to hospital. VIDEO | Assembly bypoll: A clash broke out between two groups in Uttarakhands Manglaur. Miscreants have been openly firing. This is the murder of Democracy. There is also news of someone being injured. There was no ambulance or any other measures taken to take the injured to pic.twitter.com/xAU3Qu2tGL Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 10, 2024 The nature of breakthroughs in criminal investigations, particularly in intricate crimes such as money laundering, can vary significantly from as minute as a needle-sized lead or as substantial as a high-profile arrest. The investigation into the Delhi excise policy scam, which led to the incarceration of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, seemed to progress slowly until the arrest of the 39th accused Vinod Chauhan. The Role of Vinod Chauhan As per the Enforcement Directorate, Chauhan, a Hawala dealer, played a pivotal role in the transfer of Rs 25.5 crore from Delhi to Goa. This amount was received from Abhishek Boinpally, a representative of the South Group who also managed cash transfers in the quid pro quo arrangement. The federal probe agency further alleges that Chauhan is not an individual unrelated with AAP leaders. Instead, he is closely associated with accused Arvind Kejriwal. Evidence from Hawala Notes, Journey of Tainted Money to Goa As per the chargesheet filed by the agency, screenshots of many Hawala note numbers have been retrieved from the phone of Vinod Chauhan and they match with the note numbers mentioned in the IT seized data which shows that Chauhan was actually involved in the transfer of the proceeds of crime (PoC) from Delhi to Goa and the same was collected by Chanpreet Singh in Goa. It is evident from the statement of Ashok Kaushik who had revealed in his statement that on the instructions of Abhishek Boinpally he had delivered big bags of cash to Vinod Chauhan on two occasions. This is a complete and direct money trail of the PoC transfer from the South group to the AAP elections, the agency said in its chargesheet. A knock on the door of Rajouris Hakam Khan on the night of June 1 set in motion the Reasi terror conspiracy in which a pilgrim bus was attacked, killing nine people. Probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has revealed that three Pakistani terrorists were sheltered by over-ground worker Hakam Khan alias Hakin Din for eight days before the Reasi attack. The three terrorists who spoke Urdu and perhaps Punjabi stayed at Khans dhok (mud house) from the night of June 1 till 9th when the attack happened. He not only provided them with food and shelter but also helped them recce the attack spot, an NIA official told News18. Hakam was arrested by NIA after it took over the case on June 15. He has been questioned thrice since then. Sources told CNN-News18 that on June 7, Hakam escorted the three terrorists to Pouni area of Reasi where the attack took place. On 7th, he guided the terrorists to the road where the attack happened to identify the curve where the vehicle would slow down. The route recce was done with aid of the OGW. The exit point was also identified. The exact point where the bus was ambushed was a blind spot both from up and down the slope, this point could not be seen from a distance, a probe official told News18. Terrorists had opened fire at the bus carrying yatris from Shiv Khori to Katra on the evening of June 9 in Pouni area, causing the vehicle to fall into a nearby gorge. Nine people, including a child, were killed in the attack. Police suspect that the terrorists fled into the nearby jungles of Rajouri after the attack. Sources said Hakams questioning has given NIA some leads about how the terrorists escaped and a probe is on. Pakistani Handler and an App NIA suspects the role of Lashkar-e-Toibas Sajjid Jutt in the Reasi case. Jatt, a resident of Pakistani Punjab, carried a reward of Rs 10 lakh and has been named by NIA in its chargesheet. Two others Sajid Ali and Abu Qatal could also have directed the Reasi terrorists, NIA suspects. When asked how these Pakistani terrorists are navigating through the jungles of Rajouri, Poonch, and Kathua, probe officials pointed to the mobile application Alpine West. The Alpine West app gives real-time information about culverts, dense forests, and obstructions. NIA has reasons to believe that this app is being extensively used as a navigation tool, the officer told News18. He added that evidence so far suggests that before executing every attack, the handlers are contacted and permission is taken. In one case from last year, evidence suggests that a labourers phone was borrowed, an encrypted app installed to call the handlers and the app deleted after the call, the officer shared. Common patterns The agency is examining if a common modus operandi binds Reasi, Dangri (January 1, 2023) and Bhatadurian (April 2023) attacks. The agency is likely to soon register an FIR in the Bhatadurian case of an army truck being attacked. The agency is also assisting the Kathua police in its probe of the Kathua army convoy attack case. Prima facie, officials suspect that a fresh group infiltrated to carry out the Kathua attack. While the role of Lashkar is suspected in the Reasi and Bhatadurian cases, Jaish-e-Mohammed is under the scanner for the Kathua attack. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said his government will not interfere in the Enforcement Directorates (ED) probe into alleged irregularities in a state-run corporation. The ED is carrying out searches in four states, including at the premises of a former Minister in the Siddaramaiah government, B Nagendra, and ruling Congress MLA Basanagouda Daddal, who is Chairman of the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation Limited, official sources said. The agency covered around 20 locations in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and one more state as part of a case registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the sources said. Let ED do their job, we wont interfere in that. Let them do their job in accordance with law, let them do whatever they have to, Siddaramaiah told reporters here in response to a question on the raids. The illegal money transfer issue, involving the Corporation, came to the fore, after its accounts superintendent, Chandrasekharan P killed himself on May 26. He left behind a note claiming unauthorised transfer of Rs 187 crore belonging to the Corporation from its bank account; from that, Rs 88.62 crore was illegally moved to various accounts allegedly belonging to well-known IT companies and a Hyderabad-based cooperative bank among others. Chandrasekharan has named the Corporations now-suspended Managing Director J G Padmanabh, accounts officer Parashuram G Durugannavar, and Union Bank of India Chief Manager Suchismita Rawal in the note, while also stating that the Minister had issued oral orders for transferring the funds. Following allegations against him in connection with the scam, Nagendra, who was Scheduled Tribes Welfare Minister, tendered his resignation on June 6. The state government has constituted an SIT headed by Manish Kharbikar, Additional Director General of Police, Economic Offences, at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), to conduct the probe. The SIT questioned Nagendra and Daddal on Tuesday in connection with the case. Mumbai-headquartered Union Bank of India had also filed a complaint with the CBI in connection with embezzlement of money belonging to the Corporation involving its MG Road branch, following which the premier investigation agency had initiated a probe. Meanwhile, State BJP chief B Y Vijayendra said that based on the Union Bank of Indias letter, the CBI has registered an FIR, and now the ED is also conducting raids in connection with the case. We welcome ED raids on Nagendra and Daddal. This is probably a big corruption scam that is unheard of in the states history. The money that was kept for ST communities has been misused by siphoning off to other states for the elections there and for the Lok Sabha polls, he alleged. Vijayendra further said that until a couple of days ago SIT that was constituted by the state government did not even bother to give notice to Nagendra and Daddal in connection with the case, and it was only due to pressure from the BJP they were called for inquiry. In another hit-and-run shocker from Maharashtra, a young woman was mowed down by a speeding car in Nashik on Tuesday. The victim was flung in the air and thrown about 15-20 metres after the white car hit her from behind, as seen in the CCTV footage. The bone-chilling footage of the incident also showed two men standing on the same side of the road trying to save the woman, Vaishali Shinde, from being hit but to no avail. They can be seen rushing towards her after the horrific crash. Though she was rushed to the hospital, she succumbed to her injuries. The driver fled the scene after the accident, which occurred in the Gangapur area around 5 pm. The police have detained two people. The incident comes three days after a BMW driven by Shiv Sena leader Rajesh Shahs son, Mihir, rammed into a two-wheeler from behind in the Worli area of Mumbai on Sunday morning, resulting in the death of Kaveri Nakhwa (45), who was riding pillion, while her husband Pradeep survived with injuries. Kaveri Nakhwa was dragged for around 1.5 km by the speeding car before Mihir pulled it over, swapped the seat with his driver, and fled in another vehicle, according to police. The fifth meeting of the Singapore-Shanghai Comprehensive Cooperation Council is held on Tuesday, in Shanghai. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Shanghai and Singapore are set to continue strengthening cooperation in various sectors including economy and trade, scientific innovation, urban governance and cultural exchanges, officials and business leaders said on Tuesday in Shanghai at the fifth meeting of the Singapore-Shanghai Comprehensive Cooperation Council. This year marks the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Singapore-Shanghai Comprehensive Cooperation Council, or SSCCC. Established in 2019, the council aims to deepen bilateral cooperation between the two sides and enhance connectivity between both markets. The SSCCC mainly focuses on collaboration in six key areas, namely the Belt and Road Initiative, financial services cooperation, scientific and technological innovation, business environment optimization, urban governance, and people-to-people cultural exchanges. Over the past five years, Shanghai and Singapore has signed and implemented 37 memorandums of cooperation, with another 15 ones signed during the meeting, according to Gong Zheng, mayor of Shanghai and the co-chairman of the SSCCC. "Trade and economic cooperation between Shanghai and Singapore has seen continuous growth. Last year, Shanghai's total imports and exports with Singapore exceeded 107.5 billion yuan ($14.78 billion), growing nearly 20 percent compared with five years ago. Over 300 Singaporean businesses settled down in Shanghai in 2023, increasing 20 percent year-on-year," said Gong, adding that an increasing number of Singaporeans are now studying and living in Shanghai. Gong pointed out that as Shanghai is striving to become a global center for economy, finance, trade, shipping and sci-tech innovation by 2025, and Singapore is eyeing to realize the Economy 2030 vision in trade, enterprise, manufacturing and services, both sides can further promote cooperation and align the development with each other. Edwin Tong, co-chairman of the SSCCC and minister for Culture, Community and Youth and Second Minister for Law of Singapore, said the council has already become an important platform for improving business and investment, deepening cooperation and fostering people-to-people communication between Singapore and Shanghai. He said that the aim to set up the council is to foster better life for people and hoped the cooperation between the two sides will reach a new height. During the meeting, Shanghai's Ruijin Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Singapore's National University Hospital, looking to enhance collaboration in sectors such as clinical diagnosis and treatment, medical education, scientific research and development, hospital management and industrial cooperation. Previously, Ruijin Hospital has already set up cooperation with the country's National Health Group and seen remarkable achievements. The two hospitals jointly won the hosting right of the RehabWeek 2023, a notable biennial conference in the rehabilitation technology field. "Today we signed with the National University Hospital to explore cooperation in more fields, such as smart healthcare, surgical robots and telehealth. We will jointly establish the Singapore-Shanghai Medical Innovation Center to promote and deepen mutual communication," said Ning Guang, president of Ruijin Hospital. CrimsonLogic Pte Ltd, a Singaporean digital trade solutions provider, signed with Shanghai E&P International and Shanghai Electronic Certification Authority during the meeting, aiming to facilitate cooperation in the cross-border e-commerce sector. Ng Chee Keong, the company's vice president of North-East, Central and Southeast Asia and general manager of Greater China, spoke highly of doing business in Shanghai. "Shanghai provides solid foundation for our products' industrial application. And as an international metropolis integrating different people and cultures, especially those with similar cultural backgrounds with Southeastern Asian nations, I feel at home doing business here. The long-term policies and strong support from the government also enable companies to plan for a longer term," said Ng. Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On July 9, RADAR, a high-end new energy outdoors lifestyle vehicle brand under Geely Holding, announced the establishment of its first overseas subsidiary in Thailand, marking the Thai market as its first independently operated overseas market. Recently, RADAR has been actively expanding its presence in the Thai market. First, the Thai Deputy Prime Minister met with RADAR's CEO Mr. Ling Shiquan and his team. Following this, RADAR announced that its key products would be displayed at the 41st Thailand International Motor Expo under the new brand name RIDDARA. The recent announcement of setting up a subsidiary in Thailand further highlights RADAR's strong commitment to the Thai market. As a significant economic entity in Southeast Asia and ASEAN, Thailand boasts a rich history of pickup truck culture and a favorable market environment. Pickup trucks account for over 40% of the vehicle market in Thailand, making it the top-selling vehicle category, far surpassing SUVs and sedans. Thailand's new energy vehicle (NEV) industry is also experiencing rapid growth. Research indicates that in 2023, battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales in Thailand reached 68,000 units, a year-on-year spike of 405%. This boosted the share of BEVs in Thailand's total vehicle sales from 1% in 2022 to 8.6%. It is projected that BEV sales will reach 85,000 units to 100,000 units in 2024, with market share rising to 10-12%. Recently, Thailand announced a series of new initiatives for 2024-2027 to support the development of its NEV industry, aiming to expand the industry scale, enhance local production capabilities, and accelerate the electrification of the Thai automotive industry. As a brand focusing on the new energy pickup sector, RADAR sees great potential in Thailand's EV market. Both RADAR and Thailand share a common goal of pursuing clean energy and zero-carbon environmental protection. Photo credit: RADAR Technologically and systematically, RADAR's entry presents a significant opportunity for upgrading Thailand's pickup industry. As a pioneer in China's new energy pickup market, RADAR, backed by Geely Holding Group, has developed the country's first native pure electric pickup platformthe M.A.P Radar Hanhai platform. The M.A.P Radar Hanhai platform integrates leading pickup and advanced new energy passenger car technologies, serving as a product platform, technology platform, and diverse outdoor ecosystem platform, said RADAR. This platform is the cornerstone of RADAR's outdoor ecosystem and has offered such models as the RADAR Horizon (named Dipingxian in Chinese Pinyin) and the RADAR RD6. Moving forward, the Thai subsidiary of RADAR will independently operate the new RIDDARA brand, using the ASEAN region as a springboard to establish a comprehensive service network and develop right-hand drive markets across ASEAN and the Pacific region. Prime Minister Narendra arrived in Vienna on Wednesday to a musical welcome in the famous Austrian city for a historic visit. In Vienna, Modi was received by Austrian artists who sang a Western rendition of Vande Mataram. Leading from the front was Vijay Upadhyaya, Indias cultural ambassador to the country, who led a choir and orchestra that performed for Modi. Taking to the social media platform X, PM Modi said, Austria is known for its vibrant musical culture. I got a glimpse of it thanks to this amazing rendition of Vande Mataram. Who is Vijay Upadhyaya? An accomplished conductor, Upadhyaya has been making waves in the international music scene. Known for his leadership of the Vienna University Philharmonic and his founding of the India National Youth Orchestra, he has been a pivotal figure in bridging cultures through music. The conductor is an Indian who makes all of us proud Vijay Upadhyaya, originally from Lucknow. He is the director of the prestigious Vienna University Philharmonic (among other international orchestras) and founded the India National Youth Orchestra. He is a proud Indian and often conducts Indian-styled music internationally, Grammy-winning music composer Ricky Kej said in a post on X. Austria is known for its vibrant musical culture. I got a glimpse of it thanks to this amazing rendition of Vande Mataram! pic.twitter.com/XMjmQhA06R Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 10, 2024 Background Born in Lucknow, Upadhyayas musical journey began early under the tutelage of his mother, mastering piano and later Indian percussion (Tabla) and dance (Kathak). According to Vijays blog, his passion for conducting emerged during his teenage years, leading his school choir at just 14. After pursuing studies at Lucknow University, Upadhyaya ventured to Austria, where he honed his skills at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz. He conducted choirs and brass bands in Eastern Styria, immersing himself in Austrian culture and mastering the local dialect. Since settling in Vienna, Upadhyaya has focused on composing alongside his conducting duties. His compositions, including the acclaimed symphonies Prayer Flags and ChangAn Men Gate to long-lasting Peace, blend influences from Indian and Chinese cultures with Western classical traditions. In 2010, Upadhyaya established the India National Youth Orchestra and Chorus, to nurture young musicians and provide them with orchestral and choral experience. His cultural contributions extend globally, having served as conductor and composer for the China National Symphony Orchestra and led numerous international projects in collaboration with the Austrian Foreign Ministry and European Union. Recognised for his cultural diplomacy and musical achievements, Upadhyaya received the Golden Award of honour in Austria. After a gap of more than four decades, an Indian Prime Minister arrived in Vienna on Tuesday for a historic visit to realise the full potential of the bilateral partnership between the two countries. Shortly after his arrival, PM Narendra Modi was hosted by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer for a private engagement. An important milestone in India-Austria partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnership lie ahead, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X. Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and pic.twitter.com/PJaeOWVOm1 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 9, 2024 Warm welcome Nehammer posted a photo of him and Modi on the microblogging platform and said: Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit! The prime minister thanked the Austrian chancellor for the warm welcome and said he looks forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good. In another post, Modi said: Happy to meet you in Vienna, Chancellor @karlnehammer. The India-Austria friendship is strong and it will get even stronger in the times to come. This is the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Austria in more than 40 years, the last being of Indira Gandhi in 1983. During Modis visit to Austria, the two countries will explore ways to further deepen their relationship and closer cooperation on various geopolitical challenges. In Vienna, Austrian artists sang Vande Mataram to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Austria is known for its vibrant musical culture. I got a glimpse of it thanks to this amazing rendition of Vande Mataram, PM wrote on X. Austria is known for its vibrant musical culture. I got a glimpse of it thanks to this amazing rendition of Vande Mataram! pic.twitter.com/XMjmQhA06R Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 10, 2024 Earlier, the prime minister said he was looking forward to various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor Nehammer. His post came after Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg welcomed Modi at the airport. In an earlier post on X, the MEA spokesperson said, As the two countries are celebrating 75th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will add renewed momentum to India-Austria ties. Modi will call on the President of the Republic of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and hold talks with Nehammer on Wednesday. The prime minister and the chancellor will also address business leaders from India and Austria. Ahead of his visit to Austria, Modi on Sunday said the shared values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law form the bedrock upon which the two countries will build an ever-closer partnership. Modis remark came a day after Nehammer posted on X: I very much look forward to welcoming Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, the worlds largest democracy, next week in Vienna. This visit is a special honour as it marks the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over 40 years and a significant milestone as we celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations with India, he said. We will have the opportunity to talk about further deepening our bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges, the Austrian chancellor said. Responding to Nehammer, Modi said, Thank you, Chancellor Karl Nehammer. It is indeed an honour to visit Austria to mark this historic occasion. Days after he allegedly rammed his luxury car into a two-wheeler, killing a woman, accused in the BMW hit-and-run case and son of a Shiv Sena politician Mihir Shah has been sent to police custody till July 16. The absconding accused was arrested by the Mumbai Police on Tuesday. According to sources, the police demanded the custody of the accused in order to probe who helped him in destroying the evidence after committing the crime. In addition to this, the police have also learnt that the accused chopped off his hair and shaved his beard in the car to avoid getting identified. The police is demanding Mihir Shahs custody on the following grounds: Tried to destroy the evidence after committing the crime Who helped him escape Need to check details regarding driving license and ownership of the vehicle Preliminary investigations showed that the luxury car driven by main accused Mihir Shah rammed into a two-wheeler from behind in Mumbais Worli area on Sunday morning, resulting in the death of Kaveri Nakhwa (45), who was riding pillion, while her husband Pradeep survived with injuries. Shinde Assures Strict Action Against Guilty Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday assured strict action against the guilty in the BMW case and announced Rs 10 lakh aid for the victims family. The Chief Ministers action came amid the ongoing criticism that the key accused is the son of the Shiv Sena leader, Rajesh Shah. The government will not support any culprit in this case. We stand with the family of the victim. The government will provide any financial support the family needs. the Chief Minister said. Rajesh Shah, who was the deputy leader of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena in Palghar, was also arrested on Sunday in connection to the hit-and-run case in Worli involving his son, Mihir Shah. Mumbai Police arrested Mihir Shah, prime accused in the Worli hit-and-run case and son of a Shiv Sena politician, on Tuesday almost 72 hours after he allegedly rammed his luxury car into a two-wheeler, killing a woman and injuring her husband. Mihir, 24, who managed to evade the police since Sunday morning, was arrested from Virar near Mumbai. He will be produced in Mumbais Sewri court on Wednesday. Heres how cops tracked Mihir According to police, after the crash, Mihir fled from Kala Nagar area leaving his car and driver Rajrishi Bidawat behind in an auto rickshaw, and reached his woman friends residence in suburban Goregaon. The friend called Mihirs sister, who reached Goregaon, and took both Mihir and his friend to her Borivali residence. The Shah family then decided to flee to a resort at Shahapur in Thane district in an Audi car. Mihir, his mother Meena, sisters Kinjal and Pooja and two friends stayed at the resort. After learning the identity of one of the friends accompanying Mihir, Mumbai Police tracked his number, but this friend too had switched off his mobile phone, the official said. On late Monday evening, Mihir along with his friend left the Shahapur resort and reached Virar, where his friend switched on his mobile phone for 15 minutes, he said. Police immediately tracked down the mobile tower location and intercepted the duo, the official added. As to Mihirs movements prior to the accident, the official said that after partying with friends at a bar in the Juhu area, Mihir Shah left with his driver for South Mumbai in the early hours. He was spotted in Marine Drive area around 4.30 am, driving the BMW car. Driver Rajrushi Bidawat was sitting next to him. As the vehicle reached Worli, the car hit the two-wheeler, killing Kaveri Nakhwa. Action against bar that served alcohol to Mihir In a related development, the state Excise Department has sealed a bar in the Juhu area of Mumbai visited by Mihir and his friends on Saturday night, hours before he allegedly took the wheel of the car involved in the crash, an official said. The bar manager had served hard liquor to Mihir, who is yet to complete 24 years of age, violating Maharashtras legal drinking age of 25, he said. The action to seal the bar was taken on the orders of the district collector for violation of rules, the excise department official said. Preliminary investigations showed that the luxury car driven by Mihir rammed into a two-wheeler from behind in the Worli area on Sunday morning, resulting in the death of Kaveri Nakhwa (45), who was riding pillion, while her husband Pradeep survived with injuries. Kaveri Nakhwa was dragged for around 1.5 km by the speeding car before Mihir pulled it over, swapped the seat with his driver, and fled in another vehicle, according to police. Following the crash, Mumbai Police formed 11 teams and enlisted the Crime Branch to apprehend Mihir. A Look Out Circular (LOC) had also been issued against him, the official said. (With PTI inputs) A livid Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday asked a representative of a private company to expedite a road project in Patna and even offered to touch his feet to speed it up. The septuagenarians awkward gesture came at a function where a stretch of JP Ganga Path, an expressway along the river that promises to ease traffic congestion in the city, was dedicated to the public. #WATCH | Bihar CM Nitish Kumar urges an IAS officer to speed up the work of extension of JP Ganga Path up to Kangan Ghat in Patna; tells him "I touch your feet, please finish the work on time." pic.twitter.com/82NoLnc1oO ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 A presentation was made at the function, attended by dignitaries like Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha and local MP Ravi Shankar Prasad, on the progress of the project. The longest serving CM, who kept wiping beads of sweat from his face, as he sat in the sultry weather, was visibly unimpressed and asked the company official to ensure that the entire work was completed by the end of the year. He sprang to his feet, saying: Kahiye to hum aapka pair chhu lete hain (I shall touch your feet if that is what you want). The horrified official scurried back several steps, screaming Sir please dont do this, even as top government officials and political leaders also got on their feet to prevent the veteran leader from creating a scene. The incident came about a week after the chief minister had offered to touch the feet of a high ranking IAS officer, whom he urged to quickly settle land disputes by carrying out extensive surveys since, in Kumars view, quarrels over holdings were found to be the prime trigger for violent crimes in the state. Meanwhile, the JP Ganga Path function went off without further ado, but not without creating a buzz on social media and evoking sneers from the opposition. Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav came out with a statement, sharing the video footage and alleging that the chief minister was lachaar (powerless), a reason why he was always ready to fall at the feet of all, be they government officials or those from the private sector. Yadav, who takes pride in the fact that his RJD is the single largest party in Bihar assembly, also taunted Kumar for heading a party that had only 43 MLAs in the 243-strong House, and claimed that a handful of serving and retired bureaucrats are running the show in the state. Two days after the Supreme Court observed that the sanctity of the NEET-UG 2024 has been breached, the central government on Wednesday filed an affidavit before the apex Court in paper leak row, saying that it is not in support of a re-test citing an analysis by IIT Madras which suggests there was no mass malpractice in the exam. The government said that it is ensuring no candidate guilty of malpractice gets any benefit but 23 lakh students are not required to be burdened with a re-test on unsupported apprehensions. The government said that an exhaustive technical evaluation on data related to NEET-UG 2024 exam was conducted by IIT Madras and the analysis shows no indication of mass malpractice. The government also added that the data analysis shows that no local set of candidates benefitted leading to abnormal scores. The Central government that it has constituted committee of experts to recommend conduct of transparent and smooth examinations. Sanctity of NEET-UG 2024 Breached: SC Observing that the sanctity of the NEET-UG 2024 has been breached, the Supreme Court on Monday said a re-test may be ordered if the entirety of the process is affected and sought details from the National Testing Agency and the CBI including the timing and manner of the paper leak, besides the numbers of wrongdoers, to know the extent of its effect. Let us not be in self-denial. Self-denial is only adding to the problem, a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud told the Centre and the NTA, which conducts the prestigious test, in a string of strongly-worded observations. One thing which is very clear is that the leak has taken place. That the sanctity of the exam has been breached is beyond doubt. The question is how widespread is the leak, said the bench which also comprised Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra. Posing a volley of searching queries, the bench said a re-test has to be ordered if the breach in sanctity affects the entirety of the process. The court said if the sanctity of NEET-UG 2024 is lost and if the leak of its question paper has been propagated through social media, then a re-test has to be ordered. Do you enjoy a cup of tea during the monsoons, especially by the roadside dhabas? If you do, think again. That tea is under the scrutiny of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. After the major crackdown on banning food colouring agents in items like gobi manchurian, pani puri, cotton candy, and kebabs, the food safety officials have found large amounts of pesticides and colouring used in tea dust and leaves during processing. It has been discovered that eateries use food colouring agents like Rhodamine-B and Carmoisine, which are known to be toxic. In the case of tea, it is the pesticides and fertilisers, say sources in FSSAI. These additives could lead to cancer. The Karnataka health ministry will soon crack down on tea plantations that use more than the permissible amounts of pesticides while growing tea, which affects the health of consumers. As of now, they have collected 48 samples taken across various districts of North Karnataka where the consumption of tea is very high. In districts like Bagalkote, Bidar, Gadag, Dharwad, Huballi, Vijayanagara, Koppal, and Ballari, the food inspectors have found large amounts of pesticides being used that could lead to major health hazards. We are testing and planning to take action against the tea producers. Our aim is to make people aware of not consuming poor quality or highly processed food and to encourage healthy eating. We are looking at things holistically and making people aware of the additives. We are not banning kebabs or gobi manchurian; we are banning the harmful substances used in these foods. The same applies to tea leaves as well, said Karnataka health minister Dinesh Gundu Rao to News18. News18 has learnt that the food regulatory authorities have found that farmers, and later tea producers during processing, add more than the permissible amounts of pesticides, which also convert into carcinogens, affecting lives. A senior official said that they have found tea producers using large amounts of pesticides, and the laboratory will analyse more than 35 to 40 compounds or chemicals. The pesticides were found to be more than the prescribed limit. That is why this drive is being undertaken, said the official. Earlier, the Karnataka government cracked down and banned the use of artificial colouring in food items, especially those served on streets like gobi manchurian and kebabs, as they were found to be using food colouring agents like Rhodamine-B and Carmoisine, which studies have shown to be toxic. When tested, it sent alarm bells across health ministries even in the country, where the laboratory tests indicated that cancer-causing additives Rhodamine-B and Tartrazine were being used to make food look attractive, but were highly life-threatening. As part of the drive against colouring in food earlier, findings revealed that around 107 unsafe artificial colours were found in these dishes. Any violation will attract 7 years of imprisonment and a fine up to Rs 10 lakh, in the case of food items. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday met four leading Austrian Indologists and scholars of Indian history and thought here and exchanged views on Indology and facets of Indian history, philosophy, art and culture. Modi paid an official two-day visit to Austria at the invitation of Chancellor Karl Nehammer, the first visit to Austria of an Indian Prime Minister after 41 years, in a year that marks the 75th year of diplomatic relations between the two countries. He interacted with Dr Birgit Kellner, a scholar of Buddhist philosophy and a linguist; Prof. Martin Gaenszle, a scholar of Modern South Asia; Dr Borayin Larios, Professor of South Asian studies at the University of Vienna, and Dr Karin Preisendanz, Head of Indology Department, University of Vienna. Prime Minister Modi exchanged views on Indology and various facets of Indian history, philosophy, art and culture with the scholars, the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi said in a press release. In Vienna, I had the opportunity to meet Professor Birgit Kellner, Dr. Martin Gaenszle, Dr. Karin Preisendanz and Dr. Borayin Larios. These are well-respected academics and researchers who have devoted great effort towards studying aspects of Indian history and culture. It was pic.twitter.com/r68dfddjqe Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 10, 2024 In Vienna, I had the opportunity to meet Professor Birgit Kellner, Dr. Martin Gaenszle, Dr. Karin Preisendanz and Dr. Borayin Larios. These are well-respected academics and researchers who have devoted great effort towards studying aspects of Indian history and culture. It was wonderful to hear their extensive insights. I commend them for their role in popularising Indian culture all over the world, Modi said in a post on X. The prime minister also inquired about the roots of Indology in Austria and its impact on intellectual curiosity and scholarship. During the discussion, the scholars also talked about their academic and research engagement with India, the press release said. Prime Minister Modi also met Nobel Laureate Anton Zeilinger, a renowned Austrian physicist and exchanged views on the role of Quantum Computing and Quantum Tech in contemporary society and the promise it holds for the future. Modi shared his thoughts on Indias National Quantum Mission with the leading physicist. Had an excellent meeting with Nobel Laureate Anton Zeilinger. His work in quantum mechanics is pathbreaking and will continue to guide generations of researchers and innovators, the prime minister said in a post on X. His passion for knowledge and learning was clearly visible. I talked about Indias efforts like the National Quantum Mission and how we are nurturing an ecosystem for tech and innovation. I am also delighted to receive his book along with a very touching message, he said. Zeilinger is known for his work on quantum mechanics and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2022. Modi arrived in Vienna from Moscow on Tuesday night after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin. He also held talks with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and exchanged in-depth assessments of recent developments in Europe as well as West Asia. The two leaders underscored the importance of democratic countries such as India and Austria working together to contribute to international and regional peace and prosperity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Nobel laureate Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger on Wednesday and discussed about the possibilities of the quantum information and quantum technologies as well as spirituality. Following their interaction, the Austrian physicist said, I experienced that PM Modi is a very spiritual person and I think this is the feature that many leaders in the world should have today. PM Modi Shares Snippets From Meeting With Austrian Physicist Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to his official X account and shared his pictures from the meeting with Nobel Laureate Anton Zeilinger. He said, I talked about Indias efforts like the National Quantum Mission and how we are nurturing an ecosystem for tech and innovation. Had an excellent meeting with Nobel Laureate Anton Zeilinger. His work in quantum mechanics is pathbreaking and will continue to guide generations of researchers and innovators. His passion for knowledge and learning was clearly visible. I talked about Indias efforts like the pic.twitter.com/YVCnGEu8fR Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 10, 2024 Indologist Borayin Larios Also Meets PM Modi Indologist Borayin Larios met PM Narendra Modi in Vienn and said, It was very moving to see the orchestra play Vande Mataram on the news. Its true that Austria has a very long tradition of studying Indian languages and cultures for a very long time. Having PM Modi here in Austria today and yesterday will boost the visibility of our work. We had the opportunity to meet PM Narendra Modi who invited us here to discuss about our areas of research. It was a great honour and great surprise to see the Prime Minister so interested in our research topics. We had a rather extensive conversation on the different areas on which we research here in Vienna in Indology which is studying Sanskrit and different projects that we have worked on. The Prime Minister on Wednesday held delegation-level talks with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on several key issues, including the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the global fight against terrorism. During a joint press statement with Nehammer in Vienna, Modi reiterated that this is not the time for war. PM Modi arrived in Austria from Moscow on Tuesday evening on a two-day visit, the first by an Indian prime minister in over 40 years. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg welcomed Modi at the airport. Ahead of his official meeting with Austrian Chancellor Nehammer on Wednesday, Modi said the India-Austria friendship is strong, and it will get even stronger in the times to come. On Tuesday, Modi met Nehammer for a private engagement. An important milestone in India-Austria partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnership lie ahead, Jaiswal said in a post on X, along with photographs of the two leaders together in Vienna. Rajasthans Finance Minister Diya Kumari on Wednesday presented the states full budget having an outlay of Rs 4.95 lakh crore for FY25 with announcements of 4 lakh recruitments in five years, development of 9 greenfield expressways, and reduction in value added tax on cooking gas and CNG from 14.5 per cent to 10 per cent. The minister proposed Rs 27,000 crore for the health sector and Rs 15,000 crore for providing tap water to 25 lakh rural houses in the state. She also announced the construction of womens toilets at public places. Kumari had presented a Vote on Account (Interim Budget) in the state assembly on February 8, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, with an outlay of Rs 1.75 lakh crore for the first four months of the financial year 2024-25. The Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma-led BJP government came to power in December last year. In the full budget for the financial year 2024-25, the government has estimated a revenue receipt at Rs 2.64 lakh crore, revenue expenditure at Rs 2.90 lakh crore and revenue deficit at Rs 25,258 crore. At the same time, the fiscal deficit is estimated at 3.93 per cent of GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product). Kumari announced several policies including those related to industries, youth, tourism, data centre, garment and apparel, warehousing and logistics, and sports. The budget also proposed electricity connection to 2 lakh households, an allocation of Rs 100 crore for a corridor at Khatu Shyam temple, and formation of Rajasthan Tourism Development Board. It has set the target of 7 crore plantation, green budget from next budget by including the principle of green growth in various development schemes, besides proposing special programmes in 600 temples on various festivals, setting up a defence manufacturing hub and announcing the Rajasthan Krishi Vikas Yojna. The minister said the state government has set the goal of inclusive development with a vision of making a developed Rajasthan by 2047 with 10 resolutions. These resolutions include making the state a USD 350 billion economy, develop infrastructure, improve amenities, agriculture growth and farmers welfare, industrial development and investment promotion, tourism, art and culture promotion, among others. The minister said that for the first time, nine greenfield expressways of more than 2,750 kilometers will be constructed in the state in a phased manner and a detailed project report (DPR) will be prepared at a cost of Rs 30 crore for this year. The expressways will be Jaipur-Kishangarh-Ajmer-Jodhpur, Kotputli-Kishangarh, Jaipur-Bhilwara, Bikaner-Kotputli, Beawar-Bharatpur, Jalore-Jhalawar, Ajmer-Banswara, jaipur-Phalodi and Shri Ganganagar-Kotputli. As part of efforts towards women empowerment, the state budget has announced construction of bio/pink toilet complex for women at public places in all urban areas of the state in a phased manner, distribution of free tablets with internet to meritorious school students. The minister also said that the state has taken steps to curb paper leak incidents that happened in the previous government, adding that action has been taken against the mafia and more than 100 arrests have been made. In the tourism sector, the minister proposed various works with an outlay of Rs 200 crore at 20 major tourist places, including Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Pushakar. She also announced the formation of Rajasthan Heritage Conservation and Development Authority, works under Jaipur Walled City heritage development plan at Rs 100 crore, and building Rajasthan Mandapam a mega convention-cum-exhibition centre in Jaipur. After the budget presentation, Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma said at a press conference that it was a visionary budget aimed at making Rajasthan a developed state by 2047. He said there was a double-engine government in Rajasthan and people have faith in it. Kirodi Meena, who has submitted resignation from the post of Cabinet minister for not being able to get the BJP win Lok Sabha elections on some seats including Dausa, was not present in the house. His resignation has not been accepted yet. Congress MLA and state party chief Govind Singh Dotasra along with other party legislators created uproar for a brief period regarding Meenas absence. Former chief minister Vasundhara Raje was also not present in the assembly. Shanghai (Gasgoo)- In June, China's installed capacity of power batteries reached 42.8GWh, a year-on-year jump of 30.2% and a month-on-month increase of 7.3%, according to data by the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance (CAPBIIA). Among the batteries installed last month, ternary batteries accounted for 11.1GWh, representing 25.9% of the total installed capacity, with a year-on-year growth of 10.2% and a month-on-month growth of 7.3%. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries accounted for 31.7GWh, making up 74% of the total, showing a year-on-year leap of 39.3% and a month-on-month growth of 7.4%. In June, a total of 40 power battery companies in China's new energy vehicle market had batteries installed onto vehicles, a decrease of 3 companies compared to the same period last year. The top 3, top 5, and top 10 companies accounted for 32.9 GWh, 36 GWh, and 41.1 GWh, respectively, representing 76.7%, 84.1%, and 95.9% of the total installed capacity. The share of the top 10 companies was 1.3 percentage points fewer than the prior-year period. From January to June, China's cumulative installed capacity of power batteries was 203.3GWh, a year-on-year jump of 33.7%. Of this, ternary batteries totaled 62.3GWh, accounting for 30.6% of the total, with a year-on-year growth of 29.7%. LFP batteries totaled 141GWh, accounting for 69.3% of the total, with a year-on-year growth of 35.7%. For the Jan.-Jun. period, a total of 50 power battery companies in the Chinese new energy vehicle market offered battery installations onto vehicles, an increase of 2 companies over the same period of last year. The top 3, top 5, and top 10 companies accounted for 157.6 GWh, 173.3 GWh, and 195.3 GWh, respectively, representing 77.5%, 85.2%, and 96.1% of the total installed capacity. In June, driven by the blooming new energy vehicle market, the combined production volume of power batteries and other batteries in China was 84.5GWh, edging up 2.2% over the previous month and rising 28.7% over the previous year. Blade Battery; photo credit: BYD For the first half of 2024, the cumulative output of power batteries and other batteries in China was 430GWh, growing 36.9% from the year-ago period. In June alone, the sales of power batteries and other batteries in China totaled 92.2GWh, a month-on-month increase of 18.4% and a year-on-year surge of 51.2%. Among these, power battery sales were 69.3GWh, a month-on-month increase of 23.3% and a year-on-year increase of 37%. Power batteries accounted for 75.2% of the total sales, rising by 3 percentage points from the previous month. For the first six months of the year, the cumulative sales of power batteries and other batteries in the country amounted to 402.6GWh, soaring 40.3% over a year earlier. Among these, power batteries recorded a sales volume of 318.1GWh, showing a year-on-year growth of 26.6% and taking up 79% of the total battery sales, which dropped 1.2 percentage points from a year ago. In June, driven by an increase in the export volume of other batteries, Chinas combined export of power batteries and other batteries was 18.4GWh, a month-on-month jump of 33.9% and a year-on-year spike of 67.8%, accounting for 20% of the monthly overall sales. Among these, power battery exports were 13.2GWh, a month-on-month increase of 34.7% and a year-on-year increase of 32.1%. For the first two quarters, China's cumulative export of power batteries and other batteries amounted to 73.7GWh, growing 18.6% year on year and accounting for 18.3% of the total battery sales for the first six months. Among these, exports of power batteries were 60GWh, a year-on-year increase of 8.2%. Shiv Sena chief and Maharashtra Chief Minister, Eknath Shinde, on Wednesday ordered the removal of Rajesh Shah from his party position a day after his son was arrested in the Mumbai BMW hit-and-run incident that killed a woman last Sunday. Chief Minister Shinde said, The government will not support any culprit in this case. We stand with the family of the victim. The government will provide any financial support the family needs. Rajesh Shah, who was the deputy leader of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena in Palghar, was arrested also arrested on Sunday in connection to the hit-and-run case in Worli involving his son, Mihir Shah, in which a woman on a bike was killed. However, a magistrates court in Mumbais Sewri on Monday sent Rajesh Shah to 14 days judicial custody and then granted him bail. The court had sent his driver Rajrishi Bidawat to one-day police custody. The Worli Police had arrested Rajesh Shah and Bidawat the latter was present in the BMW with a reportedly drunk Mihir Shah allegedly at the wheel and driving at high speed when it rammed into a scooter on which Pradip Nakhwa and his wife Kaveri were riding home after buying fish at Sassoon Dock in Colaba. ALSO READ | Mumbai BMW Hit-And-Run: How Cops Tracked Mihir Shah Via Friends Phone After 72 hours Rajesh Shah and his driver were charged with destruction of evidence, helping the prime accused Mihir Shah flee after the accident with several phone calls made after the accident and other offences. However, shortly afterwards Rajesh Shah moved a bail application and he was granted a provisional bail of Rs 15,000. The BMW hit-and-run sparked public and political furore prompting Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to ensure justice for the victims and not sparing anybody responsible for the accident. Rajesh Shah is a Deputy Leader of the ruling Shinde-led Shiv Sena in Palghar district. Rajesh Shahs son, Mihir, 24, who managed to evade the police since Sunday morning, was arrested from Virar near Mumbai. Primary probe suggested that the luxury car driven by Mihir rammed into a two-wheeler from behind in the Worli area on Sunday morning, resulting in the death of Kaveri Nakhwa (45), who was riding pillion, while her husband Pradeep survived with injuries. Donald Trump, the former US president and presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party, has attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, raising questions on her competence and describing her as an insurance policy for incumbent President Joe Biden. His attack against Harris, who is of Indian and African heritage, came amid chatter in the Democratic Party about whether President Biden should remain the nominee in the November 5 presidential election. Biden, 81, has faced calls from some Democrats to step aside as the nominee following his disastrous performance during a June 27 debate with Trump in which he struggled to complete sentences or land any significant blows against his opponent. Crooked Joe Biden Whatever else can be said about crooked Joe Biden, you have to give him credit for one brilliant decision, probably the smartest decision he ever made. He picked Kamala Harris as his vice president. No, it was brilliant. Because it was an insurance policy. Maybe the best insurance policy Ive ever seen, Trump, 78, told his supporters in Florida. If Joe had picked someone even halfway competent, they would have bounced him from office years ago, but they cant because shes gotta be their second choice, he said as he repeatedly mispronounced her name. Trump said as vice president, Harris was given two very important tasks border security and to deter Russia from attacking Ukraine. First, she was put in charge of the U.S. border security. She never showed up. Shes never gone. She never went there once. And the border is the worst border in the history of the world, he alleged. Biden-Harris administration We have the best border in history because she has the worst border in the history of the world. Then, she was sent to Europe to deter Russia from attacking Ukraine. How did that work out? Not too good. Both times, the result was a deadly failure. Since Kamala was made border czar, the Biden-Harris administration has lost track of an estimated 150,000 children, many of whom have undoubtedly been raped, trafficked, killed, or horribly abused, Trump said. Trump accused Harris, 59, of being a socialist. I dont think Kamala Harris California socialism is going to go down well with the people of Doral, the people of Miami, or the people of Florida. Because in Florida, we dont like socialism. We want our freedom, right? We want our freedom, he said. Joe, Kamala and the entire Democrat establishment have been caught red-handed in the thick of the biggest scandal and the biggest coverupits a cover-up. Its the biggest cover-up in political history. As you know, they are all co-conspirators in the sinister plot to defraud the American public about the cognitive abilities of the man in the Oval Office, alleged Trump. Dictatorship Remark Earlier on Tuesday, Harris said Trump would turn the American democracy into a dictatorship. Donald Trump wants to turn our democracy into a dictatorship. And the Supreme Court basically just declared he can get away with it, Harris said in Las Vegas, as she launched AANHPIs for Biden-Harris, a national organising and engagement programme that will mobilise Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) voters, communities and leaders across the country. Harris alleged that Trumps advisers have created a 900-page blueprint that they are calling Project 2025, detailing everything else they plan to do in a second term, including a plan to cut Social Security, repeal the USD-35 cap on insulin, eliminate the Department of Education and end programmes like Head Start. Project 2025 outlines a plan to limit access to contraception and for a nationwide abortion ban with or without an act of Congress. If implemented, this plan would be the latest attack in Donald Trumps full-on assault on reproductive freedom, she said. Make no mistake, if Trump gets the chance, he will sign a national abortion ban to outlaw abortion in every single state. But we are not going to let that happen. No, we are not. We are not going to let that happen because we trust women. We know women know what is in their own best interest and do not need their government telling them what to do with their body, she said amid applause from the audience. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday addressed the Indian diaspora in Vienna on his maiden trip to Austria and talked about the nations achievements in the last decade. Addressing the Indian diaspora in Vienna, Modi said that after 41 years, an Indian Prime Minister has visited the country and described his visit as meaningful. This is my first trip to Austria. The excitement I am seeing here is incredible. An Indian PM has visited here after 41 years. Dont you think the wait was too long but now it is over, he said. The Prime Minister said India has given Buddha to the world, not Yuddha (war) which means it has always given peace and prosperity, and therefore the country is going to strengthen its role in the 21st century. For thousands of years, we have been sharing our knowledge and expertise. We didnt give Yuddha (war), we gave the world Buddha. India always gave peace and prosperity, and therefore India is going to strengthen its role in the 21st century, Modi said in Austria, a day after he arrived here from Moscow where he highlighted the importance of finding a peaceful solution to the Ukraine conflict during his talks with President Vladimir Putin. Highlighting achievements of his government in the last 10 years, the PM said that India is working at an incredible pace in every sector that two new colleges had opened every day and a new university had opened every week. India is the most talked about topic these days in the world. Everyone wants to learn about Indi as it represents 1/6th of the worlds population and is contributing to the world in the same proportion, PM Modi said. About Indias rapidly growing economic stability, the PM said, Today, when you hear about fast development happening in India.your chest also swells with pride. When I came into power in 2014, the economy was in 10th position. Now, we are at 5th position and the economy is growing at a rate of 8%. At this speed, We will soon enter the top 3. We are working towards a paperless but seamless economy. India is working at an incredible pace in every sector. In the last 10 years, every day 2 new colleges have opened, and every week a new university has opened. Last year, every day more than 250 patents were granted, he added. Talking about the long-standing relations between both nations, PM Modi said, This wait ended at a historical moment as India and Austria are celebrating 75 years of friendship. Earlier in the day, Modi met four leading Austrian Indologists and scholars of Indian history and thought and exchanged views on Indology and facets of Indian history, philosophy, art and culture. Modi also met Nobel Laureate Anton Zeilinger, a renowned Austrian physicist and exchanged views on the role of Quantum Computing and Quantum Tech in contemporary society and the promise it holds for the future. The Prime Minister arrived in Vienna from Moscow on Tuesday night after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin. He also held talks with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and exchanged in-depth assessments of recent developments in Europe as well as West Asia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday held delegation-level talks with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on several key issues, including the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the global fight against terrorism. During a joint press statement with Nehammer in Vienna, Modi reiterated that this is not the time for war. We wont be able to find a solution to problems in the Warfield. Wherever it is, killing of innocent people is unacceptable. India and Austria emphasise dialogue and diplomacy and for that, we are together ready to give any support required, the prime minister said a day after his Moscow visit where the Ukraine conflict was discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Historic and Special Trip The Prime Minister said he was pleased that at the start of his third term, he got the opportunity to visit Austria for this historic trip. This trip of mine is historic and special. After 41 years, an Indian PM has visited Austria. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and I held a very meaningful discussion. We discussed new possibilities to strengthen our ties further. We have decided to give these ties a strategic direction, he said. #WATCH | Vienna: PM Modi says, I have told earlier also, this is not the time for war, we wont be able to find solution to problems in the Warfield. Wherever it is, killing of innocent people is unacceptable. India and Austria emphasize dialogue and diplomacy, and for that, pic.twitter.com/GwrGL1E9PN ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 Very good relationship Speaking on the issue of terrorism, Modi said, We both strongly condemn terrorism. We agree that it is not acceptable in any form. It cannot be justified in any way. Standing alongside Modi, Nehammer said India and Austria have a very good relationship. Its a relationship of trust which began in the 1950s. India helped Austria and in 1955, the negotiations came to a positive conclusion with the Austrian State Treaty. What unites India and Austria is concern over the development of the geopolitical situation, he said. Last night and this morning, we had very intensive talks about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. For me, as the Federal Chancellor of Austria, it is particularly important to get to know Indias assessment and to understand it and familiarise India with European concerns and worries. Moreover, the conflict in the Middle East was a major topic and in addition to this challenging geopolitical situation, we also referred to the positive aspects of our cooperation, he added. Had an excellent meeting with Chancellor @karlnehammer. This visit to Austria is very special because it is after several decades that an Indian Prime Minister is visiting this wonderful country. It is also the time when we are marking 75 years of the India-Austria friendship. pic.twitter.com/wFsb4PvM9J Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 10, 2024 Ceremonial Welcome Earlier today Modi received a ceremonial reception at the Federal Chancellery in Vienna during his historic visit to the country that will help tap the full potential of the bilateral partnership. Scripting a new chapter in bilateral relations. PM @narendramodi warmly received by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer at the Federal Chancellery and accorded a ceremonial welcome. This landmark visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Austria is taking place after 4 decades, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X. #WATCH | Prime Minister Narendra Modi receives Ceremonial Reception at Federal Chancellery in Vienna, Austria.Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer also accompanies PM Modi. pic.twitter.com/YNQeLMMXXX ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 India-Austria friendship The Prime Minister arrived here from Moscow on Tuesday evening on a two-day visit, the first by an Indian prime minister in over 40 years. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg welcomed Modi at the airport. Ahead of his official meeting with Austrian Chancellor Nehammer on Wednesday, Modi said the India-Austria friendship is strong, and it will get even stronger in the times to come. On Tuesday, Modi met Nehammer for a private engagement. An important milestone in India-Austria partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnership lie ahead, Jaiswal said in a post on X, along with photographs of the two leaders together in Vienna. Modi-Nehammer selfie Modi was seen hugging Nehammer in one of the photos, while in another, the Austrian chancellor was seen clicking a selfie with the prime minister. Nehammer posted a photo of him and Modi on the microblogging platform. The Austrian Chancellor said: Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit! The prime minister thanked the Austrian chancellor for the warm welcome and said he looks forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good. Landed in Vienna In another post on X, Modi said: Happy to meet you in Vienna, Chancellor @karlnehammer. The India-Austria friendship is strong and it will get even stronger in the times to come. This is the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Austria in more than 40 years, the last being of Indira Gandhi in 1983. During Modis visit to Austria, the two countries will explore ways to further deepen their relationship and closer cooperation on various geopolitical challenges. Earlier, the prime minister said on X: Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria, including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more. In an earlier post on X, the MEA spokesperson said, As the two countries are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will add renewed momentum to India-Austria ties. Musical Welcome Australian artists welcomed Modi with a rendition of Vande Mataram. The choir and orchestra were led by Vijay Upadhyaya. Upadhyaya, 57, was born in Lucknow. In 1994 he became director of the Vienna University Philharmony. He is the Austrian representative on the jury of experts for the evaluation of European Union culture projects and is the founder and artistic director of the India National Youth Orchestra. Austria is known for its vibrant musical culture. I got a glimpse of it thanks to this amazing rendition of Vande Mataram! Modi posted on X with the video. Modi will call on the President of the Republic of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and hold talks with Nehammer on Wednesday. The prime minister and the chancellor will also address business leaders from India and Austria. (With agency inputs) Pooja Khedkar, a promising 2022 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from Maharashtra, is in the spotlight due to allegations of exceeding her authority. The controversy is centred around accusations that she improperly utilised a personal Audi car equipped with VIP registration and emergency lights a vehicle marked Maharashtra Government, which raises questions about its legitimacy under official regulations. A probationary IAS officer in Maharashtra, she was recently transferred from Pune to Washim following complaints of misuse of power. Hailing from a family steeped in public service, she clinched the 841st rank in the UPSC examination. However, it is also alleged that Pooja submitted fake certificates, including those on disability and category, to clear the rigorous all-India examination. She allegedly appeared for the test under the other backward class (OBC) and visually impaired categories, while also submitting a mental illness certificate as part of her documents. An official said in April 2022, she was asked to report at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi for verification of her disability certificate but she did not citing a Covid-19 infection. Her father Dilip Khedkar, a former state government officer, while contesting the Lok Sabha elections, had reportedly declared his property valued at Rs 40 crore. However, Pooja appeared for the civil services exam under the OBC category, where the creamy layer certificate limitation is an annual parental income of Rs 8 lakh. After joining as a probationary officer in Pune, Pooja allegedly made several demands, including a VIP number plate for an Audi car, and placed a red beacon on the vehicle. Local authorities voiced concerns over her purported demands for special privileges, which also included separate accommodation and additional staff. These concerns were formally communicated to the state chief secretary by Pune collector Suhas Diwase, prompting a transfer from Pune to Washim district, where she assumed the role of assistant collector to complete her probationary period. The district collector, in his report, further said it will be inappropriate to continue Poojas training in Pune and mentioned this could lead to administrative issues. The report also mentioned that she was offered her own chamber, which she refused to take as there was no attached bathroom. She visited the office with her father Dilip Khedkar. The ensuing debate within administrative circles and on social media has revolved around the appropriateness of her actions as a probationary officer. Guidelines typically restrict probationary civil servants from availing certain perks and privileges. In a shocking incident, the wife of a retired IAS officer has alleged that she was sexually assaulted by her stepson and his aide at their house in Jammu and Kashmir, the police said. The woman, in her 40s, also accused her husbands family of harassing her for dowry. A case in this regard has been registered with the Ghazipur (Indira Nagar) police in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday as she is a resident of the city. She claimed that she was held hostage at the house and released only after giving in writing that she would not lodge any complaint against her husband and stepson. The woman, an orphan, was married to the retired IAS officer of Jammu and Kashmir cadre in 2020. In her complaint, the victim alleged that her husbands first wife, his son and daughter and other members used to harass her for dowry. Over the years, the harassment grew manifold. I was held captive in a room from April 1114 and even starved. My husbands son snatched my mobile phone. Later, he and his aide raped me. After a lot of pleading, they agreed to release me, she said. Later, the youth escorted the victim to Lucknow and threatened to get her killed if she approached police. However, once in city, she mustered courage and lodged a complaint. Deputy Commissioner of Police, North Zone, Abhijit Shankar, said an FIR has been registered and a probe is underway. Mihir Shah, the prime accused in the Worli BMW hit-and-run case, called his girlfriend at least 40 times shortly after he allegedly rammed his luxury vehicle into a scooter which resulted in the death of a woman. The police say that his girlfriend may be detained now for questioning in the case. After getting to know about the accident, Mihirs girlfriend called up his sister Pooja, who picked him up from Goregaon. She took him back to their residence at Borivali. After reaching home, all four family members along with his friend Avdeep left for a resort at Thane in two cars. After a couple of hours, they went to another resort at Murbad. From there, on Monday, everyone headed to Shahapur. By Monday evening, Mihir and Avdeep left for a resort at Virar, while others stayed at Shahapur. The police got to know about whereabouts of Mihir when Avdeep switched on his phone at Virar for 15 minutes on Tuesday. Mihir, who was allegedly driving the BMW car which fatally knocked down a woman, was drunk at the time of the crash. The deceased victim Kaveri Nakhwa (45) and her husband Pradeep were hit by Mihir Shah while the couple was on their two-wheeler in Mumbais Worli area Sunday morning. According to the police, Nakhwa was dragged for around 1.5 km by the speeding car before Mihir pulled it over, swapped seats with his driver Rajrishi Bidawat and fled in another vehicle. The driver allegedly ran over her while reversing the BMW. Mihir Shah Sent to Police Custody Till July 16 Mihir Shah, son of a Shiv Sena politician Rajesh Shah has been sent to police custody till July 16. The absconding accused was arrested by the Mumbai Police on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he was produced before chief metropolitan magistrate (Sewri court) S P Bhosale, who sent him to police custody. During the hearing, the police told the court it was a cruel, heartless crime. They said the accused should be given maximum custody as they need to probe who helped him to escape and also since the cars number plate is yet to be recovered. How Did Mihir Shah Evade Arrest According to an NDTV report, Shah left the car in Kala Nagar after which the 24-year-old hailed an auto and went to his girlfriends house in Mumbais Goregaon. The police said that Mihir rested there for two hours while his girlfriend informed Shahs sister about the accident. His sister went to Goregaon and then took Shah to their house in Borivali. From there, Shahs mother, Meena, his two sisters Puja and Kinjal and a friend, Avdeep, left for a resort in Shahpur, nearly 70 km from Mumbai. They hid there while the police kept looking for Shah, having arrested his father Rajesh Shah and the driver, Bidawat. Actor Mukesh Khanna, known for his role as Bhishma in BR Chopras Mahabharat, has faced a lot of backlash on social media for a recent controversial comment. While reviewing Nag Ashwins Kalki 2898 AD on his YouTube channel, Khanna praised the performances and scale, giving the film 100 points. However, he also said that the film seemed tailored for Western audiences and suggested that viewers in Bihar and Odisha might not understand it. He has now tendered an apology after being heavily trolled for it. Mukesh Khanna clarified on X (formerly Twitter) that he wanted to clear up any misunderstandings about his comments on Bihar and Odisha. He said that he was criticising the flaws in Kalki and not demeaning the people of Bihar and Odisha. I travel around Bihar and Odisha extensively. I have campaigned there. I have attended functions there. I have paid my respects at the temple in Puri. Why would I disrespect the people from Bihar and Odisha? I was only commenting about the film, and I wasnt demeaning anybody from Bihar and Odisha, he said. Mujhe social media ke through pata chala hai ki Orissa aur Bihar wale ye samajh rahen hain ki maine Kalki film ko review karte waqt unki samajh ki burai ki hai. Ye ek bahut badi galatfahmi hai jo main door karna chahta hoon. Kalki film ke do minus points maine nikale the ki pic.twitter.com/Ywpv9ThnfU Mukesh Khanna (@actmukeshkhanna) July 9, 2024 The level of intellect with which the film has been made is fine for Hollywood. People are more intelligent than us over there. Forgive me, but audiences in Odisha and Bihar are not going to understand this kind of filmmaking, he had said in his review. He has now said that he watched the movie with three team members from Bihar. They felt bored during the first half, which promoted him to make the comments. The films first half is boring and confusing, and the average audience member isnt going to understand it. This is a critique directed at the film, and I was only using the villagers of Bihar and Odisha as an example to assert my point, he reasoned. Meanwhile, Khanna also criticised director Nag Ashwin for showing a misleading story about the Mahabharata. He said that he found the filmmakers decision to change elements of the Mahabharata to be offensive. Orry, the internet sensation known as Orhan Awatramani, lit up Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants sangeet ceremony last week in Mumbai. Orry shared glimpses of the event on his Instagram stories the following day. One photo that caught everyones attention featured mom-to-be Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh. In the photo, Orry, instead of his usual hand-on-chest pose, gently placed his hand on Deepikas baby bump. While this gesture has irked many on social media who questioned why Deepika allowed it, others are glad the photo confirms her pregnancy, putting an end to the speculation. Deepika had shared a set of photos from the sangeet night. In one of the pics, the actress was seen cradling her baby bump as she posed for camera in a stunning purple-coloured saree. Deepika opted for this traditional look to attend Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding sangeet in Mumbai. Sharing the pics, Deepika wrote, Just coz its a Friday night and (a baby angel emoji) wants to party!!! She also tagged Ranveer in the caption. The Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani star was quick to react to the pics. Hayyyye! My beautiful birthday gift! I love you, Ranveer commented. Pop star Justin Bieber made a spectacular return to India, performing at the wedding sangeet ceremony of Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani and his wife Nita Ambanis son, Anant Ambani, in Mumbai. Anant is set to marry his fiancee, Radhika Merchant, next week. Justin, who had previously made headlines with his triumphant return to the stage at an intimate Toronto concert at Drakes club, once again broke the internet with his exhilarating performance at the Ambani event. He performed popular songs such as Baby, Never Let You Go, Love Yourself, Peaches, Boyfriend, Sorry, and Where Are U Now. Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani and his wife Nita Ambani kicked off the wedding festivities for their son Anant Ambani and his fiancee Radhika Merchant with the Mameru ceremony at their residence, Antilia, in Mumbai on Wednesday. The couples grand wedding will take place on July 13 at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. Shilpa Shinde has taken a shocking dig at Anil Kapoor for hosting Bigg Boss OTT 3. On Tuesday, the actress was snapped by the paparazzi in Mumbai when she was asked if she had been watching the ongoing season of the controversial reality show. Shilpa mentioned that watching Bigg Boss is not fun if Salman Khan isnt hosting it. Host nahi hai toh mazaa nahi hai (There is no fun if we do not have the original host), she said hinting at Salman Khans absence from Bigg Boss OTT. She further took a dig at Anil Kapoor and added, Jhakaas walo ke apne jagah alag hai. Baaki, Bigg Boss bole toh bhai bhai. Karan Johar hosted the first season of Bigg Boss OTT. In the second season, Salman Khan took over hosting duties. However, in the ongoing third season, Anil Kapoor is seen schooling housemates during the Weekend Ka Vaar. Previously, Anil Kapoor, who co-starred with Salman in films such as No Entry, Race 3, Biwi No. 1, and Yuvvraaj, said the former presenter is excited about him stepping in as the host for the upcoming OTT season of the controversial reality show. He is irreplaceable and so am I. Everyones asking this question but it is very wrong. Nobody can replace Salman Khan. Similarly, nobody can replace Anil Kapoor. I spoke to him about it and he was excited that Ive now taken over a non-fiction show. I wanted to do something different for a long time now. Ive done many movies, judged shows but have never done anything like Bigg Boss, so Im very excited for it, Anil Kapoor told reporters at the press conference of Bigg Boss OTT 3. Meanwhile, Shilpa Shinde is all set to come back on TV with the upcoming season of Khatron Ke Khiladi. The shooting of the stunt-based reality show recently wrapped up in Romania. Previously, Shilpa talked about participating in KKK and said, Im ready to give Khatron Ke Khiladi everything Ive got. It is an honour to have the opportunity to learn from the incredible action guru Rohit Shetty sir himself. Im excited about exploring and breaking the physical and mental barriers that have held me back until now. This is more than just a show its a life-changing experience that is known to make its contestants braver. For me, this show is about making my fans proud of me. Read the full article on Motorious Register to bid today! Get ready to rev your engines and indulge in a nostalgic journey as some of the most iconic muscle cars from the 1970s are hitting the auction block this weekend in Glencoe, MN. Car enthusiasts and collectors alike will have the opportunity to bid on a stunning lineup of classic American muscle, each with its own unique history and unparalleled performance. From roaring engines to sleek designs, these vehicles represent a golden era of automotive excellence that continues to captivate enthusiasts to this day. Whether you're a seasoned collector or a first-time bidder, this auction promises an exhilarating experience with the chance to own a piece of automotive history. The event, hosted in the charming town of Glencoe, will feature meticulously maintained and restored models from legendary manufacturers. Don't miss out on this rare opportunity to bring home one of these timeless beauties. Register to bid today and prepare to witness the thrilling spectacle of 70s muscle cars roaring back to life. 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle SS Experience the power and classic style of the 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle SS. Featuring a robust 454 engine paired with a 4-speed overdrive transmission, this iconic muscle car promises a thrilling drive. The owner states that it boasts matching numbers, adding to its authenticity and value. With the odometer reading just 71,000 miles, this Chevelle SS is a prime example of American automotive heritage. Don't miss your chance to own this legendary vehicle. See it here. 1970 Dodge Super Bee Coupe Experience the legendary 1970 Dodge Super Bee, VIN: WM23V0A185761, a beautifully restored frame-off masterpiece featuring a V-Code 440 Six Pack engine. This powerhouse is factory rated at 390 hp and 490 lb-ft of torque, complete with heavy-duty suspension and chrome-tipped dual exhaust. The striking dark blue exterior with white stripes and a white vinyl top is complemented by polished Magnum 500 wheels and raised white letter BFG Radial T/A tires. ADVERTISEMENT Inside, the Super Bee boasts black vinyl high-back bucket seats, a center console with a floor-mounted shifter, woodgrain trim, and a tri-spoke wood-rimmed steering wheel. The full set of factory gauges, power steering, power brakes, and original AM radio enhance the driving experience. With an odometer reading of just 324 miles, this one-year-only design is a true collector's gem. See it here. 1971 Oldsmobile 442 Discover the allure of the 1971 Oldsmobile 442, a top-tier original California car featuring a powerful V8 engine and a sleek black exterior. This classic muscle car boasts original paint, power steering, and power brakes, ensuring both authenticity and smooth handling. Although the air conditioning is not currently hooked up, all necessary parts are included for restoration. The car comes with its original build sheet, making it a valuable find for collectors. This 442 represents a unique opportunity to own a piece of automotive history in its original, well-preserved state. See it here. Freije & Freije in partnership with Jeff Martin Auctioneers are hosting a live and online sale July 13th in Glencoe, MN. Check out the other great collector vehicles available online and in person this weekend. The auction features Automobilia and over 140 Classic and Collector vehicles. Sign up for the Motorious Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These are the days of joy and happiness for prominent Tamil cinema actor Nepolean, as he is celebrating the engagement of his eldest son. The family is receiving congratulatory messages and wishes from fans and celebrities alike, in the images shared. Nepoleans eldest son, Dhanoosh got engaged a few days ago, in a ceremony attended by close friends and family. As per the reports, the event took place in the US, where the family is settled. Images from the occasion were shared by the groom Dhanush on social media, which are now going viral among the fans. More reports state that Dhanoosh got engaged to a girl named Akshaya. In the images, he is seen with his younger brother Kunal and their mother. The photos capture the groom with his family, all smiling brightly with joy for the camera. The solo shot of Dhanush shows him in a beautiful light-golden kurta, paired with a striking gold chain. He shared the images with the caption, Create a life that feels good on the inside, not just one that looks good on the outside. I got engaged!! #life #family #engagement. No photos of the bride, Akshaya, were shared on the platform. Several celebrities and fans are sharing their congratulatory messages in the replies. DJ Black from Vijay TV wrote, Congrats Brother, completing it with a heart emoticon. A fan shared, Congrats buddygod Bless. A second fan wrote, Congratulations brother. God will bless you with all happiness. A third fan shared, Congratulations and god bless you abundantly. The post has gained thousands of likes on the platform so far. As per the reports, actor Nepolean visited India last month to personally invite celebrities to the wedding ceremony of his son. It included the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M K Stalin. The actor had to settle in the United States due to Dhanooshs rare condition. He is overseeing an agricultural business in the country, as per information. Bollywood star Vicky Kaushal has been ruling social media, thanks to his butter-like-smooth dance moves in recently released song Tauba Tauba from his upcoming movie Bad Newz. Several celebrities and influencers have put out their videos in which they have attempted to imitate the songs hook steps, taking the buzz around the track a notch higher. Now, a video of Vicky teaching his viral steps to Jawan director Atlee and actress Disha Patani has gone viral on the internet. The video was taken at Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding sangeet which took place in Mumbai last weekend. In the video, other celebrities including Sara Ali Khan, Arjun Kapoor and Ishan Kishan were also seen following Vicky as DJ played Tauba Tauba. Recently, Vicky revealed how his actress-wife Katrina Kaif, who is a phenomenal dancer herself, reacted to his viral dance moves. Speaking to Times Now/Zoom, Vicky said that although Katrina loves the fact that he dances so openly but suggested he practice control when it comes to dancing on screen. However, when Katrina saw Vicky in Tauba Tauba, she dubbed his moves perfect. A few days back, Katrina also took to her Instagram story to give a shout-out to the trailer of Bad Newz which also has a Katrina reference. Reposting the trailer from Vickys Instagram account, Katrina wrote, Cant wait for this. Congratulations. She also tagged Amritpal Singh Bindra, Karan Johar and Anand Tiwari. During the trailer launch event, Vicky revealed he had hinted to his wife that she was a part of Bad Newz, which had left her confused. Bad Newz depicts a rare case of heteropaternal superfecundation, where two separate eggs are fertilised in the same menstrual cycle of a woman by sperm cells of two different men. It was Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah actor Gurcharan Singhs disappearance in March this year that brought him back to the limelight and left his fans worried. Even though he returned home after 26 days, details about his whereabouts were not revealed for months. Now that the 51-year-old actor has finally revealed what exactly happened in March this year; heres everything about his disappearance you need to know: Who Is Gurucharan Singh? Gurcharan Singh became a household name after he played the role of Roshan Singh Sodhi a fun-loving man who is always in party mode and never shies away from expressing love for his wife in Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah. He was one of the popular characters on the show, and also a founding cast member. However, Gurcharan left the show in 2013 only to return the next year due to public demand. In 2020, he finally left the show and was replaced by actor Balwinder Singh Suri. When Did Gurucharan Singh Go Missing? Gurucharan Singh went missing on April 22, 2024. He was supposed to take a flight from Delhi to Mumbai but never reached the airport in the national capital. Singhs father filed a missing complaint four days later which stated, My son Gurucharan Singh, Age: 50 years, had left at 8:30 am on 22nd April to go to Mumbai. He went to the airport to catch a flight. He didnt reach Mumbai, neither has he returned home and his phone is not reachable. He is mentally stable and we had been searching for him but now he has been missing. Gurucharan Planned His Disappearance? After Singhs father filed a missing complaint, Delhi Police stepped into action. His phone was tracked only to discover that it was last used near the Delhi Airport. Later, police sources also told News18 Showsha exclusively that the actor may have planned his own disappearance. He left his phone in the Palam area. We are trying to find but it only makes it more difficult for us to trace Gurucharan Singh, because this means that the phone is not with the actor. In the CCTV footage, we recovered that he was seen moving from one e-rickshaw to another. Looks like, he had planned everything and has moved out of Delhi, police sources told us. Mystery About Gurucharan Singhs Financial Condition While Gurucharans family, friends and fans were concerned, the mystery around his disappearance deepened when several unverified reports claimed that the actor used to operate 10 bank accounts and rely upon credit cards. It was said that Singh used to frequently utilise credit cards and was not in a good financial condition. It was also reported that Gurucharan Singh withdrew Rs 14,000 from an ATM before he disappeared on April 22. Delhi Police Team Questions TMKOC Actor To find Gurucharan Singh, a team of Delhi police officials visited TMKOC sets in Mumbais Film City. They questioned Singhs former co-stars to try to find out his whereabouts. This week Delhi police visited our sets and spoke with the actors who were in touch with Gurucharan Singh. Everyone has co-operated well with the police, a source close to the shows production had said. Gurucharan Singh Returns Home After 26 Days Everyone took a sign of relief when Gurucharan Singh finally returned home on May 18, 2024. Upon his return, Singh was interrogated by Delhi Police officials following which it was discovered that he had left home to be on a religious journey. Police officials had said that Gurucharan visited Gurudwaras in Amritsar and Ludhiana ever since he was reported missing but he later realised that he should return home. Gurucharan Singh Finally Opens Up On His Disappearance On Wednesday, Singh finally opened up about his disappearance for the first time. He revealed that he went on a spiritual journey in April this year and had no plans of coming back. The actor further clarified that his disappearance wasnt a publicity stunt and shared that he returned home only because god gave me a sign. I have always been spiritual because of my parents and at this point in life when I was feeling low, I turned towards God. I went on a spiritual journey and had no plans of coming back. But God gave me a sign and that made me return home, he told the Bombay Times. Snap elections to Frances National Assembly have resulted in a hung Parliament. The French dont quite know what they want. The pre-poll favourite Right-wing party National Rally led by Marie Le Pen has scored its best result ever but has fallen short of its own expectations and the half-way mark in the National Assembly. Going into the election most pollsters had predicted that France (like much of Europe) would get its first far-Right government since World War-II. The surprise beneficiary of voter indecision has been a coalition comprising of rancorous Far-Left and Left parties that includes one called France Unbowed led by Jean-Luc Melenchon. The Left bloc in France tripped the Right at the altar in the days leading up to the second round. Many have described the Left blocs mugging of the Right as horse trading. While this may not be an accurate descriptor, it is true that the Left hasnt halted the Right through the sheer force of ideology. Instead, some deft tactical poll manoeuvres were employed, chiefly an agreement to field a consensus candidate preventing Left vote fragmentation. But the Lefts surprise showing doesnt mean that there will be a government in place in France anytime soon. At the very least seven parties must come together to claim a majority. And, with the Centrists led by President Macron unwilling to align with the Left bloc an impasse over government formation looms large. But even before the dust has settled in France, Left-leaning politicians and commentators in India are exulting at the fact that a far-Left coalition in France has secured the most seats in a hung house. Some experts in newspaper editorials have overtly drawn breathless parallels with the just concluded Lok Sabha elections in India. One editorialist compared the unusual levels of sacrifice made by the Left to cauterize the Right Wing in France to the way the INDIA bloc halted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. The sacrifice code for the tactic of withdrawing multiple candidates in favour of just one consensus candidate is being hailed as the positive possibilities of coalition dharma that has been necessitated by the need to protect core democratic values against an alleged Right-wing rewrite. This irrational exuberance among Indian leftists reeks of bias that overlooks the considerable foibles of the French Left. It is worth asking if the French far-Left coalition is truly a defender of core democratic values. Jean-Luc Melenchon, who leads the very Left-wing France Unbowed, like many Indian Leftists, refuses to call the Hamas a terrorist organisation. Surely, anyone speaking up for an organisation that threatens a river to sea genocidal purge of Jews in West Asia cannot be aligned to core democratic values. And especially not in France, where, need one remind, the ideal of fraternite is one of the pillars holding up the very edifice of French republicanism. Second, the Left in France infamously flirts with Islamo-fascism. It is divided over opposing the ban on the hijab, or the illegality of the application of Muslim personal laws. The Lefts reticence on this score has upset many progressive Muslims not to mention those French Constitutionalists that played a major role in the construction of the French conception of sovereignty in the 17th century. Laicite or the complete separation of Church and State has been an important element in efforts made by the Constitutional Council to preserve the sovereignty of the French State. A dalliance with Islamo-fascism undermines this universal democratic value. Third, elements on the far-Left, like Melenchons party mates have expressed anti-Semitic views heightening anxiety among French Jews. This dog whistling against Jews cannot be aligned to universal core democratic principles either. Moreover, this bare-faced espousal of the Far Lefts cause by Indian Leftists ignores that Marie-Le Pens National Rally (that has considerably tamped down on its own antisemitism) has won 32% of the popular vote and has emerged as the single largest party. Can the choice of a third of French voters be labelled as a lurch towards extremism just because they subscribe to a conservative worldview? Surely, this stigmatization of voter preference falls foul of the concept of liberte which is once again a core democratic value. The deepening strategic interests of China in Pakistan and the expanding military ties between the two countries appear to be spilling over the border, facilitating terrorist activities in India. A recent report by Press Trust of India, citing Indian security officials, revealed that following encounters with terrorists in Jammus Poonch district in July last year and Kashmirs Baramulla district in April this year, the Indian Army had recovered specialised Chinese communication handsets from slain terrorists. These communication sets were exclusively designed and provided by the Chinese for the Pakistan Armys use. This device, called Ultra-set, combines mobile phone properties with radio wave technology, allowing it to bypass traditional mobile operating systems such as the Global System for Mobile (GSM) and Code-Division Multiple Access (CDMA). Last year, a report citing Indian intelligence sources highlighted the active utilisation of Chinese weapons and equipment by Pakistan-based terrorist organisations, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). This was confirmed when terrorists released images of three attacks on Indian security forces. These images were distinctly captured using Chinese body cameras. Additionally, a sniper rifle employing Chinese technology was recovered from a terrorist intercepted during an attempted incursion into India along the Jammu border. Various reports indicate that over the past three years, China has been actively supporting and enhancing Pakistans defence capabilities along the Line of Control (LoC) through various means, including the construction of reinforced bunkers, secure communication towers, laying of underground fibre-optic cables, supplying Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Combat Aerial Vehicles (CAVs). Reports based on Indian intelligence sources have also disclosed that Pakistani security forces have deployed Chinese radar systems along the LoC, having medium to low altitude target detection capabilities crucial for intelligence gathering. Additionally, several units of Chinese-manufactured SH-15, a 155-mm truck-mounted howitzer gun, have also been deployed at multiple locations along the LoC. Chinas interest in Pakistans defence capabilities stems from its desire to safeguard its expanding enclaves in Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK), tied to the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). India has strongly opposed these initiatives citing it as an infringement of its territory and sovereignty. The Chinese experts are also overseeing the construction of a tunnel connecting Leepa Valley in PoJK to the Karakoram Highway, thus facilitating an alternate route between Pakistans Gwadar Port and Chinas Xinjiang province. This tunnel is likely to be used by Pakistan-based terrorists to infiltrate inside Indian territory through alternate routes. The recovery of Chinese weapons and communication devices from Pakistani terrorists has raised concerns about a covert Pakistan-China nexus that would be keen to disrupt peace in India by supporting terrorism. The Chinese involvement in fomenting unrest in India extends beyond Jammu and Kashmir. For decades, China has directly or indirectly supported insurgent groups in Indias Northeast region. Chinas direct involvement in supporting insurgency in India began in the 1960s, when a faction of the Naga National Council (NNC), led by Thuingaleng Muivah and Thinoselie M Keyho, travelled to Chinas Yunnan province via Myanmar for arms training and gaining Chinese support. Since then, China has provided training, arms, finance, and logistical support to various insurgent groups including the NNC, Mizo National Front (MNF), and a segment of the Peoples Liberation Army of Manipur. In the 1980s, China trained the Manipur PLA through the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Myanmar, which also assisted the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). However, the arrangement was disrupted by Indias security agencies after it secured an agreement with the KIA in 1989, restricting insurgents access to the Kachin region. Due to various government initiatives and successful operations of Indian security forces in the past decade, insurgency-related violence in the Northeast region has witnessed a significant drop, prompting the partial revocation of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), 1958, from certain areas. However, covert Chinese interference along the India-Myanmar border has remained a major challenge to Indian security forces in the region. Recent reports indicate that several rebel groups, including ULFA (Independent), are regrouping in Myanmar and receiving support in terms of arms and safe havens from the United Wa State Army, Myanmars largest ethnic armed group, and the Arakan Army, at the direction of China. Chinas involvement in pushing insurgency in the Northeast has been driven by two main factors. First, it aims to divert Indias military focus away from the Himalayan borders by entangling Indian forces in counter-insurgency operations. This way China seeks to create an additional front that could benefit its strategic interests. Second, due to the Northeasts strategic location as a gateway to Southeast Asia, it holds significant importance in Indias Act East policy for securing connectivity and influence in the region. China, which has its own interests related to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Myanmar, aims to counter Indias initiatives and prevent it from consolidating its position in the politically unstable Myanmar. Chinas covert actions in supporting terrorism in J&K and northeast regions are aimed at disturbing Indias internal stability and security. However, Chinese authorities need to remember that supporting terrorism often has its own unintended consequences for its proponents. Its close ally Pakistan is the most appropriate case study in this regard. In recent years, China itself has witnessed multiple Chinese casualties in Pakistan. In March this year, five Chinese engineers were killed in a suicide bombing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It would be prudent for China to learn from Pakistani experiences and shun its support for terror activities both directly and indirectly. China should better focus its efforts on fostering better bilateral relations with India. Chinese support to terrorism would destabilise regional peace and security also. 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 those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Russia on 8-9 July 2024 adds a new dimension to Indias policy towards Russia. The timing of his trip to Russia is quite significant. The visit is taking place when Russia is significantly isolated in the international arena on the Ukrainian issue. At the same time, Moscow is facing tougher Western sanctions, which is putting its economy under severe stress. Similarly, the global community is also facing a severe threat as the Russia-Ukraine War is turning into a war between Russia and NATO, where nuclear weapons might be used, as strategic pundits are predicting. If this happens, the global community will face grave consequences, and it may even lead to World War III. Thus, a local war involving Moscow and Kyiv might transform into a global war. Prime Minister Modis visit will provide a backdrop for understanding the dynamics of multipolarity in global geopolitics. PM Modis visit to Russia comes after nearly five years, his last being in 2019 to attend the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok. Since then, the nature of bilateral relations has shifted considerably, alongside significant developments in the structure of global geopolitics. The onset of the pandemic has had a profound impact, as seen in the securitisation of essential suppliesincluding medicine, energy, and foodas a focal point of global geopolitics. Furthermore, the debate over unipolarity and multipolarity has gained prominence in recent years, particularly with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and Western countries, especially the United States, attempting to use NATO to expand their sphere of influence. Using normative frameworks such as democracy, human rights, and multiculturalism, democracy promotion is being employed as a tool by the United States and other NATO member countries to spread their influence in the post-Soviet space. This fuels a new debate on the nature of multipolarity. While Russias approach to multipolarity centres on rejecting US dominance in global geopolitics, India emphasises genuine multipolarity, where the voice of the Global South carries weight. Since geo-economics plays a key role in shaping global geopolitical momentum, de-dollarisation is emerging as a new mantra to pave the way for an alternative international economic order. This, in turn, could enhance genuine multilateralism in global financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Another important issue confronting the global geopolitical landscape is the return of nuclear weapons as a means to settle scores among adversaries, as evident from the present war where both NATO and Russia are considering the use of nuclear weapons. This situation pushes the world towards a World War III-like scenario, as discussed above. The trade and technological protectionism practices of certain advanced Western countries, along with China, hamper the Global South countries in particular and push global geopolitics into a state of limbo. Some of these structural factors, as discussed above, will shape the nature of India-Russia relations. Along with these structural factors, some issues relating to bilateral relations need to be discussed from a broader perspective. These include: a) the need to augment bilateral economic relations; b) providing a new basis for the existing defence cooperation; c) the opportunity for Indian business conglomerates to explore the economic viability of the Siberian and Far East Region of Russia; d) strengthening geo-economic connectivity projects; e) enhancing technological cooperation between India and Russia; and f) joint cooperation to strengthen regional security. Both the structural factors and bilateral issues discussed above are going to shape the dynamics of India-Russia relations. Its worth noting that the historical basis of relations between the two countries is deeply rooted in civilisational connections. The same can be inferred from different studies, which suggest that Paninis grammatical treatise, the Astadhyayi, influenced Russian grammar. In his book Ancient India, Bongard Levin highlighted how Hinduism and Buddhism, that originated in India, and other religious and philosophical teachings which evolved on this foundation, were to influence not merely the development of many Eastern civilisations, but also social thought in many other parts of the world. Similarly, Indian scholar Bal Gangadhar Tilak, in his book Arctic Home in the Vedas, traces Indias geo-cultural footprints to Russias Arctic. The flourishing of the Tantric cult of Buddhism (Mahayana Sect) in the Siberian and the far eastern part of Russia reflects Indias historical geo-cultural presence. Thus, it can be underlined that the deep-rooted historical and civilisational linkages between India and Russia have provided a substantial base for the fruition of the geo-strategic relationship between the two countries in recent years. One may add that both India and Russia have elevated their relations from a strategic partnership to a special and privileged strategic partnership. This signifies the nature of India-Russia relations. The visit by Prime Minister Modi to Russia provides an opportunity to discuss many bilateral and international issues with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin. The visit has the potential to add new dimensions to India-Russia relationship in many ways. A key topic of discussion is likely to be the evolving nature of international relations. Issues on Multipolarity and Revamping United Nations PM Modis visit provides an opportunity to discuss the issue of multipolarity in global geopolitics. Ensuring an equitable global order is a paramount challenge confronting the global community today. Both India and Russia are eager to see a multipolar world order. However, Russia, despite its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), faces numerous challenges, including sanctions. This pushes Moscow toward a more hostile policy towards the West. Conversely, Russia remains relatively silent on Chinas hegemonistic and imperialistic policies, which is creating security concerns for many of Beijings neighbours. Its worth recalling that during the heydays of the Cold War, India advocated for a peaceful and multipolar world order through its policy of Non-Alignment and Panchsheel (Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence). In recent years, New Delhi has emphasised multi-alignment and strategic autonomy as the basis for multipolarity, opposing any unilateral dominance or intervention by any power in the name of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), as demonstrated during the 2011 Libyan crisis. Russia, notably, supported Indias stance. Therefore, PM Modis visit presents a significant opportunity to discuss the evolving nature of a multipolar world order. One of the major impediments to a multipolar world order is the lack of reform within the existing UN Security Council. This lack of progress hinders the democratisation of decision-making at the global level. Reform of the UNSC is crucial, and India, as the voice of the Global South, deserves representation as a permanent member. Hopefully, Russia will support Indias case for permanent membership in the UNSC. Indeed, the joint statement issued during President Putins 2021 visit to India emphasised a more representative, democratic, just, and multipolar world order based on international law. Democratising the decision-making process of the P5 permanent members and expanding the Security Council to include representation from the Global South are vital steps toward establishing a truly just world order. In addition to multipolarity, geo-economic issues are also likely to feature prominently during Prime Minister Modis ongoing visit to Russia. Geo-Economic Issues PM Modis visit presents an opportunity to bolster India-Russia trade relations, an area that has long required attention. Although bilateral trade has surged recently, reaching approximately $49.36 billion according to studies, the most important issue is the need to diversify trade relations into various sectors. Currently, Indias primary imports from Russia consist of oil and gas, as well as defence equipment. New avenues, such as technology sharing, should be explored to boost bilateral trade. Similarly, Russia should consider signing an FTA with India under the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) framework. Such an agreement could potentially revitalise the dormant EEU. Trade relations could be further enhanced if Russia facilitates the establishment of Indian consumer product industries within its borders. Notably, after the outbreak of the war with Ukraine, Russia faced shortages of essential commodities and relied heavily on imports from India. Russia should provide a better investment climate in Siberia and the Far East so that Indian industries can invest there and explore the local natural resources, including oil and gas. This move could also serve to counterbalance Chinas growing influence in these areas, a development that has sparked resentment among local populations and put Russia on the defensive. India, on the other hand, has the potential to play a significant role in developing infrastructure and connectivity projects in Russias Siberia and the Far East. Its worth noting that India is part of the Eastern Economic Forum and has outlined an Act Far East policy to bolster its economic presence in these regions. Due to their strategic location, Siberia and the Russian Far East could play a key role in harnessing Kazakhstans oil reserves and facilitating their transportation to the international market. For instance, the port of Sabetta could be utilised to transport oil to India via the Indo-Pacific corridor. Therefore, Russia should consider viewing the Indo-Pacific through a geo-economic lens to unlock the regions economic potential. The Chahbahar Project, located in Iran, can also provide a springboard to strengthen Indias connectivity with Russia and Central Asian countries. The INSTC route can certainly augment Indias access to Central Asian and Russian energy. The port of Astrakhan, which historically acted as a major trading route connecting India with Russia, can play a significant role in revitalising India-Russia trade relations. The visit of Prime Minister Modi to Russia will also offer new areas of cooperation, such as joint defence production and collaboration in nuclear energy, the pharmaceutical sector, and the banking sector. This will boost and give a new dimension to India-Russia trade relations. It is crucial for India-Russia trade relations to move towards a more pragmatic engagement. Russia must recognise that, as a rentier economy, its current crisis exacerbated by sanctions and a lack of diversification necessitates greater economic cooperation with India. The entry of Indian industries into the Russian market would undoubtedly provide a significant boost to Russias economy. Regional Security Issues Another key area of focus during Prime Minister Modis Russia visit will be the emerging security challenges affecting both nations. The Afghanistan crisis and subsequent geopolitical turbulence have impacted the security situation in and around the post-Soviet Eurasian space. Furthermore, the rise of religious extremist and terrorist groups like the Taliban, ISKP, IMU, Tablighi Jamaat, Hizbut Tahrir al-Islami, and Islamic Jihad Union has exacerbated instability in the region. The bomb blast in Russia in March 2024, the radicalisation process in Russias North Caucasus region, and the violent activities of radical and terrorist groups in Central Asia demonstrate the resurgence of these dangerous forces. This resurgence poses a significant security threat to the Eurasian space. China, Pakistan, and Turkey are key supporters of these radical and terrorist groups. The political instability in Afghanistan, largely orchestrated by Pakistan, Qatar, China, and Turkey, presents substantial security challenges to both Central and South Asia. Like Russia, which continues to be a target of terrorism, India has also grappled with these same challenges for many years. As highlighted in Prime Minister Modis speech, read by Indias External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar at the SCO Astana Summit on July 4, 2024, harbouring terrorists must be strongly condemned. Cross-border terrorism requires a decisive response, and terrorism financing and recruitment must be effectively countered. Pakistan has a long history of patronising terrorist groups that pose a security threat to India. Similarly, China repeatedly shields Pakistan at international forums, including the UN, for its role in promoting and supporting radical and terrorist groups. In this context, security cooperation between India and Russia is necessary to fight terrorism. A Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism exists between both sides, and 12 rounds of meetings have already taken place. The meeting between Modi and Putin will provide an opportunity to extensively discuss combating terrorism and extremism. Similarly, both India and Russia, in cooperation with Central Asian countries, should develop a new security mechanism to combat radicalism and extremism. Hopefully, Prime Minister Modis visit to Russia might result in the establishment of a new security mechanism between both countries, with the potential for later inclusion of Central Asian countries. One important aspect that Russian policymakers should bear in mind is that Russia is placing too much trust in China, which could be a strategic miscalculation. Similarly, Russias newfound affinity for both Turkey and Pakistan may backfire, given that Turkey under Erdogan, along with Qatar, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan, as well as China, are seen as chief supporters of global terrorism. However, some prudence was shown by Russian policymakers recently when Russia rejected Turkeys attempt to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. Conclusion Looking at the entire range of issues, from geo-cultural synergy to geo-economic foundations, alongside structural factors, both global and regional, it can be said that India-Russia relations are strengthening day by day. The primary basis for a stronger bilateral relationship between the two countries is mutual trust and their civilisational ties. Hopefully, Prime Minister Modis ongoing visit to Russia will add new momentum to this age-old historical relationship. The author teaches at the School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. Amritpal Singhs victory represents a significant and concerning takeaway from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. An eight-member team of the Punjab police is set to escort the jailed activist to New Delhi for his swearing-in as a Member of Parliament (MP). Singhs election to the Lok Sabha from the Khadoor Sahib constituency is particularly noteworthy given the significant margin by which he won, securing 1,97,120 votes as an Independent candidate. He defeated Congress Kulbir Singh Zira, with AAPs Laljit Singh Bhullar coming in third. Singhs electoral success is indicative of a broader socio-political undercurrent within Punjab. His victory as an Independent candidate, unaligned with any major political party, underscores a dissatisfaction with traditional party politics and a resonance with his populist and often radical rhetoric. This is a development that warrants critical analysis, particularly given Singhs association with the Waris Punjab De organisation and his outspoken views that frequently echo the sentiments of the defunct and violent Khalistan movement. Amritpal Singhs rise in this historical context is deeply concerning. His rhetoric often blurs the line between advocating for legitimate Sikh rights and propagating separatist ideologies. The fact that he garnered substantial electoral support highlights a lingering undercurrent of discontent and the potential for radicalisation within certain segments of the Punjabi electorate. This is a troubling sign that the socio-political wounds of the past are yet to heal completely and that there remains a susceptibility to extremist influences. Amritpal Singhs background and activities reveal a concerning trajectory that highlights his transformation, from a transport operator in Dubai to a radical preacher and political figure in Punjab. During his time in Dubai, Singh maintained close contact with Jaswant Singh Rode, brother of Lakhbir Singh Rode, a known Khalistani militant leader. This connection provided Singh with a gateway into the world of radical Sikh separatism, setting the stage for his future activities. In Dubai, Singh was not just a transport operator but also an individual who came in contact with operatives from Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Sources indicate that the ISI agents saw in Singh a potential asset who could be used to reignite separatist sentiments among Sikhs in Punjab. They reportedly encouraged him to leverage religious rhetoric to motivate and radicalise young Sikhs. This strategic manipulation aimed to destabilise the region by reviving the divisive ideology of Khalistan. Upon his return to Punjab, Amritpal Singh began to actively work towards spreading the influence of his group, Waris Punjab De, with what appears to be the covert backing of the ISI. He formed a new militant group named Anandpur Khalsa Fauj (AKF), which was characterised by its members being perpetually armed with dangerous weapons. The presence of this armed entourage not only provided Singh with a formidable personal security detail but also served as a symbol of his militant ideology and readiness for violence. Singhs campaign, Khalsa Waheer, was a concerted effort to strengthen his organisation by mobilising support at the grassroots level. He travelled extensively to various villages across Punjab, using religious and cultural symbols to resonate with the local populace. This campaign was not merely about religious revivalism; it was a strategic move to build a strong, ideologically driven base that could be mobilised for more significant political and militant activities. A critical aspect of Singhs strategy involved stirring up long-standing issues in Punjab, such as water rights, agricultural distress, and economic marginalisation. By framing these issues within a narrative of Sikh victimhood and government neglect, Singh effectively incited discontent against the Indian government. His speeches and activities were designed to create a sense of urgency and existential threat among Sikhs, pushing them towards radicalism under the guise of protecting their religion and rights. The success of Singhs endeavours in Punjab can be attributed to his ability to exploit religious sentiments to achieve political and militant objectives. Under his leadership, Waris Punjab De became a tool for the ISI to carry out its designs in Punjab, aiming to destabilise the region and revive the separatist Khalistani movement. Singhs activities have thus not only undermined the social and political stability of Punjab but also posed a significant threat to national security. Another MP who is being escorted from jail for the oath-taking ceremony is Engineer Rashid, the newly elected representative from the Baramulla constituency in Kashmir. Rashids victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections is particularly controversial, given his incarceration in Tihar Jail, Delhi, since 2017 in connection with a terror funding case. Running as an Independent candidate, Rashid defeated National Conference leader Omar Abdullah by a significant margin of more than 2 lakh votes, highlighting a dramatic anomaly in the political landscape of Jammu and Kashmir. Engineer Rashids electoral success is deeply problematic for several reasons. His ongoing imprisonment for alleged involvement in terror financing raises serious questions about the broader implications for national security. Rashids victory suggests that a segment of the electorate in Baramulla may be disillusioned with mainstream political parties and is gravitating towards candidates who represent a more radical or oppositional stance against the Indian polity. Rashids political career has been marked by his outspoken and often controversial positions on Kashmirs autonomy and relations with the Indian state. His rhetoric has frequently aligned with separatist sentiments, advocating for greater autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir and criticising the Indian governments policies in the region. This stance has garnered him significant support among certain sections of the Kashmiri populace, who feel marginalised and disenfranchised by mainstream political entities. This feeling of discontent among masses is inculcated by elements like Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, the Srinagar MP who defeated PDP leader Waheed Para by over 1.88 lakh votes. In a recent interview, he lamented that Kashmir has been disenfranchised of basic rights since independence, and there is anger and frustration brewing among the masses which can come out at any moment. This had a threatening undertone against the establishment and the larger Indian society. When this frustration manifests itself as mindless violence against the state, the common Kashmiri people become the primary collateral. There is a notable parallel between the phenomena of Amritpal Singh and Engineer Rashid, which lies in the stark contrast between their lack of meaningful contributions to governance, public policy, or cultural development and their significant influence in preaching radicalisation, fomenting separatism, and being involved in terror funding. Their primary claim to fame is rooted in their radical activism rather than any substantial positive impact on society or constructive engagement in the democratic process. The detention and subsequent electoral victories of both Singh and Rashid raise profound questions about the legal and moral dimensions of their political journeys. This scenario underscores a complex interplay between legal enforcement and democratic expression, highlighting the tension between upholding the rule of law and respecting the will of the electorate. Their cases symbolise the states dilemma: acknowledging the democratic process while simultaneously grappling with the serious security concerns posed by their activities. This juxtaposition of legal action and democratic mandate serves as a stark reminder of the fragile balance that must be maintained to ensure both security and democratic integrity. The electoral success of Amritpal Singh and Engineer Rashid calls for a nuanced and comprehensive approach to address the underlying issues that have led to their rise. It necessitates a combination of stringent law enforcement measures to curb any potential resurgence of violent separatism and a robust socio-political strategy aimed at addressing legitimate grievances. This approach must involve inclusive development and meaningful dialogue to prevent further radicalisation and address the root causes of discontent among the populace. By addressing the underlying issues through inclusive policies and development programs, the aim should be to integrate marginalised communities into the mainstream and prevent the recurrence of the dark chapters of history. The writer takes special interest in history, culture and geopolitics. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. All is not well in Jammu and Kashmir. Terror attacks are picking up pace, even as an obvious pattern emerges between the rise in attacks and Narendra Modis third term in power. Just as Modi and his council of ministers were taking oath at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhawan on June 9, a heinous attack against Hindu pilgrims in Jammus Reasi district left nine dead and several others injured. What followed was a series of attacks against the Indian armed forces in the region, none of which resulted in Pakistan being punished across the border. The latest attack in Jammus Kathua district on Monday claimed the lives of five army personnel, leaving five others injured. Face-offs between security forces and terrorists have risen substantially in the past few months. Interestingly, the theatre has shifted from the Kashmir valley to Jammu, in what is seen as a broad attempt by both Pakistan and China to bog down Indian forces in three separate regions Kashmir, Jammu, and Ladakh. This allows China sufficient legroom to force Indian forces to stay put in Jammu and Kashmir and not get diverted to the Ladakh front to face off against the Peoples Liberation Army. Direct Challenge to PM Modi There are other motivations for Pakistan and China as well. The Reasi terror attack was meant to serve as a direct challenge to Prime Minister Modi, on a day when his new government was being sworn in. The assembly election to the J&K legislative assembly is expected to be conducted in the next few months. Given the rise in voter turnout in Kashmir in the recent Lok Sabha polls, Pakistan fears a democratic mainstreaming in the valley which ultimately hurts its vested interests in the long run. Jammu and Kashmir recorded a voter turnout of 58.58% in the general election, the highest in decades. The spike in terror attacks, therefore, has to be seen as an attempt by Pakistan to once again destabilise the region and dissuade not just voters from participating in the election process, but also the government from holding the process in the first place. The recent attacks also signal a shift in Pakistans strategy. Pakistani terrorists ability to orchestrate large-scale attacks against security forces may have been stymied, but their shoot-and-scoot approach is working pretty well. Trained terrorists now ambush army convoys and civilians alike, while India hesitates to retaliate across the border presumably because the attacks are viewed as having limited casualties that do not necessitate cross-border action. This flawed approach only emboldens Pakistan, since it now knows it can get away with small-scale attacks on India without getting bombed. The Fallout of Indias Missing Retaliation It could be argued that deterrence has evaporated in recent years, and New Delhi has done nothing substantial to restore it at least not publicly. The importance of visible and overt action in such cases cannot be stated enough. India usually knows where Pakistani terror launchpads are located across the LoC. There have been instances where reports of such launchpads have emerged in the media space, followed swiftly by attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. Given the obvious correlation between the two, it makes little to no sense for India to keep its hands tied behind its back and shy away from regularly punishing Pakistan for its terroristic proclivities. Even when India undertook daring cross-border raids in the form of surgical strikes in 2016 and the Balakot airstrike in 2019 after the Pulwama terror attack, these were labelled pre-emptive strikes by New Delhi. Calling these strikes pre-emptive has always been a misnomer, since they were clearly retaliatory in nature and came in the aftermath of the Uri and Pulwama terror attacks. Be that as it may, the Indian security apparatus and government must both realise that pre-emptive strikes must be the order of the day if Pakistan is to be kept in check. Such strikes cannot be reserved for post-facto scenarios alone, where India retaliates to terror attacks but labels the action as pre-emptive. Truly pre-emptive action would be for India to strike Pakistan before terrorists infiltrate the LoC and the International Border. This is essential to restore deterrence against Pakistan. More worryingly, Indias hesitation to strike Pakistan emboldens not just the Islamabad-Rawalpindi cabal, but also convinces China that it can work to Indias detriment using its vassal state. Chinas sole focus is on ensuring India gets bogged down on multiple fronts, which is why one sees a rise in attacks in Jammu. Earlier this year, 10,000 soldiers deployed along the border with Pakistan were sent to face off against China along the LAC. Such repositioning of troops poses challenges to Chinas own nefarious plans, which is why it makes sense for Beijing to work closely with Islamabad to disrupt the hard-earned peace in Jammu & Kashmir since 2019. Unfortunately, India continues fighting the war against terror on its soil, when most of such fighting should be taking place in the country that trains, arms, and equips the terrorists. Unless Pakistan is constantly punished for perpetrating violence on Indian soil, India will keep fighting a reactionary battle waiting for the next attack to occur. The need for India to go on an offensive and seize the initiative has never been greater. The abrogation of Article 370 sections was a big step in the right direction. However, one decision will not change the reality on the ground. The fact remains that Pakistan continues pushing terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir, who appear to now be getting substantial support from overground workers (OGWs). A domestic crackdown on OGWs and terrorists is obviously needed, but that is hardly going to bring permanent peace to the region. Unless the dragon and serpent are made to feel the pain, innocent Indians and security forces personnel in Jammu and Kashmir will continue getting attacked. The devastating floods in Assam this year have taken the lives of 79 people so far and affected over 24 lakh people in the state. As the entire Northeast region reels under the effect of natures fury, the floodgates of politics have also opened in the state, with Congress and BJP locking horns over the dire situation in Assam. The Congress blamed the breach of embankments on BJP, saying the party leaders were not sincere and honest in their work. The Opposition also claimed that the Centre had ignored the floods by just taking stock of the situation over the phone. In response to Home Minister Amit Shahs statement on X, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi took to his official handle to say: The statement of Minister of Home Affairs Shri Amit Shah regarding the tragedy in Assam shows a lack of knowledge and sincerity. More than 70 people have died due to the floods yet the Minister chooses to describe the current disaster as flood-like situation. Earlier, the MP had said: For the last 10 years, we have been seeing that the Jal Shakti Department of the BJP government is repeatedly giving embankment projects to contractors who build broken embankments or are not able to do their work properly. But even after that, the same contractor gets work again and again. Speaking on the issue, All Assam Student Union president Utpal Sarma said: When we ask the government to declare Assam floods as a national disaster, the CM of Assam laughs and says what will happen if it is declared a national disaster? Now I want to tell him that when its a national disaster, the entire management of the disaster is handled by the Centre. People who have given statements like digging up 50 water reservoirs will tackle the situation should think twice before making such statements. Sarma, while criticising Shahs post, said: After the deaths of over 70 people, how ignorant one must be to say its a flood-like situation in Assam. The prime minister who keeps carrying our pride the Assamese gamusa around his neck for his world tours should come and see how Assamese people are tying gamusas around their stomachs to avoid feeling hungry amidst the disaster. LoP Rahul Gandhi, while visiting Manipur, had also termed the Assam situation heart-breaking. The extreme devastation caused by flooding in Assam is heart-breaking, with innocent children like 8-year-old Avinash being taken away from us. My heartfelt condolences to all the bereaved families across the state. Assam Congress leaders apprised me of the situation on ground: 60+ deaths, 53,000+ displaced, 24,00,000 affected. These numbers reflect the gross and grave mismanagement by BJPs double-engine government which came to power on the promise of a flood-free Assam. He added: Assam needs a comprehensive and compassionate vision proper relief, rehabilitation, and compensation in the short term, and a pan-Northeast water management authority to do everything necessary to control floods in the long term. I stand with the people of Assam. I am their soldier in Parliament and I urge the Union government to extend all possible help and support to the state expeditiously. Hitting back at the criticism, cabinet minister, Ministry of External Affairs, Pabitra Margherita, said: This is no time to play politics. We are focused on helping people during these tough times. Rahul Gandhi didnt even visit the flood-affected areas or relief camps. The Congress is known for showing off. They just do drama, click pictures and post them. But we are focused on work. BJP believes in working. Our government is doing all that is necessary to tackle the floods. But its very shameful how people are trying to earn brownie points from this disaster. As per the official reports of the Assam State Disaster Management Authority, although the water level is receding in certain parts, rivers Brahmaputra (Neamatighat), Brahmaputra (Tezpur), Brahmaputra (Guwahati), Brahmaputra (Dhubri), Burhidihing (Chenimari(Khowang)), Dikhou (Sivasagar), Disang (Nanglamuraghat), Kopili (Dharamtul), Kushiayara (Karimganj) are flowing above the danger level with continuous rain in certain parts of the state on Wednesday. Along with human lives, over 25,000 animals and over many thousand hectares of land have also been affected in this years flood in Assam. Months after alleging assault, Swati Maliwal on Wednesday accused Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of protecting his close aide, Bibhav Kumar. Stating that her life is in danger during Bibhavs bail hearing in Delhi High Court, the Rajya Sabha MP demanded justice and stated that she was shamed and called by names. My life and my familys life is in threat. When I went for medical in my relatives car even those details of the car were made public. Please give me justice, Swati Maliwal said, adding, I was brutally assaulted. I have been a Chairperson of the Delhis Women Commission, I have given justice to so many women, and here I am demanding justice for myself. Delhi HC Reserves Order On Bibhavs Bail Plea The Delhi High Court on Wednesday reserved its order on the bail plea moved by Bibhav Kumar, former personal secretary to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in Swati Maliwals alleged assault case. The court will now pass the order on Friday, July 12. During the hearing, the Delhi Police informed High Court Bibhav is a highly influential man and used to draw the salary equivalent to a joint secretary even after being dismissed from his position. He (Bibhav) holds enormous power and can influence the witnesses in Chief Ministers office and residence, the police informed the Delhi High Court. Notably, a Delhi court on July 6 extended till July 16 the judicial custody of Bibhav Kumar. Kumar is accused of assaulting Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal on May 13 at the Chief Ministers official residence. Read the full article on Motorious Instead of going to the junkyard... In a commendable move, Ford, alongside General Motors and Stellantis, has chosen to donate flood-damaged vehicles to technical schools instead of sending them to the scrapyard. This initiative, which has seen over 300 vehicles donated since September, aims to equip the next generation of automotive technicians with hands-on experience using the latest models. Mike McLean, Ford's market area coordinator, explained the process: "We retrieved these Mustangs from the New Boston railyard after a severe storm. Instead of scrapping them, we coordinated with Ford dealers nationwide to clean up the cars and donate them to schools. This initiative not only provides invaluable educational tools but also offers positive PR and tax benefits for the automakers." ADVERTISEMENT Natural disasters often result in significant vehicle damage, typically leaving insurance companies and owners to decide the fate of the affected cars. However, when the damaged vehicles are brand new and unsold, manufacturers face a unique dilemma. Ford, GM, and Stellantis have found a productive solution by repurposing these vehicles for educational purposes. Flood-damaged cars are unfit for public roads, but they serve as perfect training tools for high school shop classes and technical schools. These donations allow students to work on modern vehicles, learning the intricacies of current automotive technology. This hands-on experience is crucial for preparing them for careers in the automotive industry. This program also aligns with broader efforts to modernize automotive education. Traditionally, students worked on older models, which limited their exposure to the latest advancements in automotive engineering and technology. By providing newer models, these automakers ensure that students receive up-to-date training, making them better prepared for future job opportunities. The benefits extend beyond educational enrichment. The program also enhances the public image of these automakers by showcasing their commitment to community support and education. Additionally, donating these vehicles provides significant tax incentives, making it a win-win situation for all parties involved. Story continues This initiative reflects a broader trend in corporate responsibility, where companies seek ways to contribute positively to society while managing their resources efficiently. By turning a potential loss into a valuable educational opportunity, Ford, GM, and Stellantis set a commendable example for other industries to follow. Source: Detriot Free Press Sign up for the Motorious Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. After a long lull, the Hathras stampede and Baba Narayan Sakar Hari, in whose religious gathering, more than 123 people lost their lives, suddenly became the most trending topic among the political parties as majority of them called the incident a complete failure of district administration and police. Of the many attacks, which began pouring days after the incident, the most recent one came from Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) chief Chandra Shekhar Azad, who held Surajpal alias Narayan Sakar Hari alias Bhole Baba responsible for the July 2 Hathras stampede and alleged that the district police, administration and the UP government were equally responsible for the tragic incident, which claimed more than 123 lives. Besides, the Lok Sabha MP also asked the UP government to increase the compensation to Rs 25 lakh to the families of the 123 dead victims, adding that Surajpal should extend a financial help of Rs 1 crore on his own since he is not a poor man. However, it took quite a long time for the opposition and other political parties to become vocal on the Hathras incident, which was said to be the fallout of the failure of police, organisers and the local administration. Barring some mild attacks on the UP government, the opposition preferred to remain almost silent in the initial 72 hours of the incident. The lull, senior journalists and locals said, was due to Narayan Sakar Vishwa Haris political clout and strong influence, especially among the Dalits of western Uttar Pradesh. A senior journalist cited it as the only reason why political bigwigs avoid taking Bhole Babas name. On July 5, Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, was perhaps the first to launch a staggering attack on UP Government and met the aggrieved family members in Hathras. On his visit to Hathras, Gandhi said, It is a matter of grief that so many families have suffered, so many have lost their lives. I dont want to speak through a political prism, but there have been some lapses on part of the administration. There have been mistakes, which should be identified. Besides, he also wrote to UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, demanding a hike in the ex-gratia amount. Gandhi was followed by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati to launch an attack on the UP Government. In her statement on July 6, the BSP supremo, while expressing grief over the Hathras stampede, said the UP Government, instead of doing politics, should take stern action on the matter. Besides, she also gave a mantra and made an appeal to the people of Dalit community to not to fall prey to such Babas. In her post dated July 6, the BSP supremo stated that the poor, Dalits and oppressed etc. in the country should not get carried away by the superstition and hypocrisy of many other babas like Bhole Baba of Hathras to get rid of their poverty and all other miseries. Instead of relying upon such Babas, Dalits must opt the path of Baba Bhimrao Ambedkar to bring change to their destiny, she said. She further stated that strict action should be taken against the religious preacher and others who are guilty. Similarly, Samajwadi Party (SP) Chief Akhilesh Yadav on July 6, blamed UP Government for hiding its failure in Hathras stampede by making minor arrests. The SP chief on his X handle had also tagged a letter, addressed to him in which a resident of Mainpuri district claimed that his father has been wrongly framed in connection with stampede and insisted that his father has no link with the incident. His post further read that to hide the failure in the Hathras incident, UP Government wanted to shed the responsibility of the incident by making petty arrests. But the question is as to what makes Hathras stampede the most trending issue among the political parties and why did they prefer to remain silent initially? The answer to this question lies with UPs political analysts, who defined the change as a politically motivated one, aimed to capitalise the sentiments ahead of upcoming bye-elections and the 2027 Assembly polls. Political parties often prioritise votes over individual voters, as seen in the case of Narayan Sakar Hari, alias Bhole Baba, and his significant following among Dalits in Western Uttar Pradesh (UP). Babas substantial influence in the region initially made political parties hesitant to address the issue, as they were uncertain about its potential impact on their voter base. Western UP is a region marked by diverse communities, including Gurjar, Jat, Meo, Rajput, Kayastha, and various Dalit groups. Among these, the Dalits are the dominant demographic, with over 50 lakh Dalits across the region, particularly in Agra, Hathras, and Mathura, where they form a significant voter bloc, said Shashikant Pandey, head department of political sciences, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow. Pandey further said that due to a lack of information about Bhole Baba and his programs on the internet, and the reports about his massive following among Dalits in West UP, political parties were initially skeptical about addressing the issue. However, as more details emerged and the situation began to draw media attention, political parties became vocal on the issue, aiming to capitalise on the sentiments of the people ahead of the bypolls and the 2027 State Assembly elections. A recent RBI data saying India has added 2.5 times more jobs in the financial year 2023-24 the highest since 1981-82 has given the perfect ammunition to the government and the finance ministry to counter the perception being spread by the Opposition that governance is crippled and slowed down. Interestingly, the growth has been registered both in the agricultural as well as the manufacturing sector. The timing also gives a cue to the finance ministry, which is now feverishly working on the first general budget of the new government. Top ministry sources have confirmed to News18 that the focus of the budget, apart from on middle class, women and tax payers, will primarily be on job generation. In fact, the government as well as the economists are convinced that if the focus is kept on rural job generation, it will spur manufacturing and add to economic growth. Sources say focus is likely to be on labour-intensive sectors, MSMEs, and agricultural infrastructural development. All this will offer job opportunities and could have long-term policy impact, which could also address the 5.1 per cent fiscal deficit. Apart from economic factors, it is the political consideration which is putting pressure on the government to ensure that the job scene becomes better. The Oppositions relatively good performance in the Lok Sabha polls is also based on the fact that it has been able to capitalise on the sentiment and narrative that unemployment is a problem which the BJP has been unable to address. While the GDP growth has been at about 7 per cent, economists are concerned that even this may not be able to fulfill the job requirement soon. This is one reason why the ministry is mulling extending and broadening the production linked incentive scheme (or PLI) which it feels could encourage domestic growth and generate jobs. In most of the jobs in the manufacturing sector, for example in the low-skilled category, the retrenchment is also high. While the government is reticent on tax slashes as the manoeuvrability in this sector is limited, the budgets big stress will be on jobs. With this, the government and BJP hope to send a feel-good message and also counter the Opposition. Beauty contests, a longstanding tradition worldwide, recently witnessed a groundbreaking moment as an Artificial Intelligent-generated model claimed victory in a competition organised by Fanwoo, the leading AI creator platform. Kenza Layli, a Moroccan virtual model known for wearing a hijab, emerged victorious after competing against over 1500 other entries. The contest, which evaluated participants on criteria like realism, technology, and social impact, saw Kenza donning a stunning golden gown paired with her signature hijab. Judges, including renowned figures like AI model Aitana Lopez and historian Sally Ann Fassett, crowned Kenza as Miss AI, recognising her as the epitome of digital beauty. Despite her visually captivating appearance and a strong Instagram following, Kenza Layli is not a human being but a creation of artificial intelligence. This revelation has sparked mixed reactions, with some celebrating the technological advancements in AI creativity, while others criticise the impact on human beauty standards. Fanwoos co-founder, Will Monange, praised the achievement as a milestone in AI development, highlighting its potential for future innovations. However, concerns persist among critics who argue that such contests could undermine real-world beauty standards and aspirations. In response to winning the competition, Kenza Layli expressed gratitude and delivered a speech acknowledging the support from her creators and fans alike. As debates on the role of AI in shaping societal norms continue, this event marks a significant moment in the evolving intersection of technology and beauty standards. A drug kingpin, who had been on the run, was apprehended as his wife posted photos of him on social media. Ronald Roland, his wife Andrezza de Lima and their daughter had been escapees for two years, having committed several crimes during that time. They had successfully avoided prosecution before de Lima disclosed their whereabouts on social media, as reported by TV Globos news magazine show Fantastico. Roland and his family were all asleep when Federal Police invaded their home last Tuesday. De Lima, who runs a bikini business, routinely documented their luxury trips to Colombia, France, Dubai and the Maldives. One such post disclosed their whereabouts, directing officials to their doorstep. Roland was one of eight people caught in an investigation that spanned seven states. According to Daily Mail, investigators recovered enormous quantities of cash, a boat, jewellery, firearms, 34 cars and an aeroplane. Brazilian officials informed the news site that Roland established drug smuggling connections with Mexican criminal networks. Federal Police investigations claim he laundered $900 million (more than Rs 7,500 crores) in the previous five years. His wifes bikini boutique was among the 100 enterprises used to launder money. Agent Ricardo Ruiz of the Federal Police told the news portal that properties were bought under the names of businesses whose partners were individuals who lacked the necessary financial resources to buy cars, aeroplanes or real estate. He went on to say that they discovered business partners who, although employed at a restaurant, are partners in many firms managing tens of millions of money. Ruiz continued that since 2012, the organisation has been investigating Rolands actions. During that period, he worked as an airline pilot and looked into his potential links to drug traffickers who were shipping large amounts of narcotics from South and Central America to Mexico. This is not the first time that social media led to the capture of Ronald Roland. In 2019, Roland caused some fuss when he moved into an opulent condominium in Uberlandia, a city in the adjacent southeast state of Minas Gerais. One week he was seen driving a $91,500 car, the next week a $183,000 car and the week after that a $146,000 luxury car, the news outlet reported. This caught the attention of the neighbourhood. Who is this person who moved here, Ruiz told Daily Mail. In July of the same year, he was detained after his ex-wife uploaded an Instagram photo of them enjoying lunch at a restaurant in Sao Paulo. The report said that he had blemishes on his face and had undergone cosmetic surgery, as shown by a mugshot obtained at the moment of the arrest. Food delivery platform Zomato turned 16 this year. In a heartwarming gesture, CEO Deepinder Goyal, his wife Grecia Munoz and Albinder Dhindsa co-founder and CEO of Blinkit celebrated this remarkable milestone at a Zomato Feeding India-supported school. Goyal shared the heartfelt pictures from the celebration on his Instagram feed. In the first picture, he is seen in all smiles cutting a cake with a Zomato delivery partner, surrounded by cheering school kids. In another picture, Goyal is seen holding a cute bouquet made from paper likely crafted by one of the school students. His post also included pictures of the birthday cards made by the children for Zomato. In another adorable moment, Goyal is seen giving a high-five to a student as his wife watches from a distance. Among the series of photos, he also shared a video of school kids enjoying a lively game of musical chairs. The caption accompanying the video read, Spent the first part of Zomatos 16th birthday visiting and celebrating with kids at a Zomato Feeding India-supported school. Received much love, and so so many high fives. See the photos here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) In another heartwarming post, Goyal shared a video featuring some children from the Zomato-supported school in Lucknow. The footage showcased their impressive creation, a Rubiks cubes mosaic depicting Goyals smiling face crafted in over 36 hours. Expressing his delight, Goyal wrote, This video made my day! Heartwarming to receive this super cool birthday gift from the wonderful kids at a Feeding India-supported school in Lucknow. Watch here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) Not only this, the food delivery app marked its 16th birthday with a quirky full-page advertisement in a leading daily which captured the attention of online users, including Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma. Featuring a large photograph of Zomatos founder and CEO, Deepinder Goyal along with smaller size images of the companys top executives, the ad carried a heartfelt message in Hindi thanking customers for their support over the years. The text read, 16th janamdin par aap sabhi ko apna pyar barsane ke liye koti koti dhanyawad (On our 16th birthday, a big thanks to all of you for showering us with love). As a part of celebration, Zomato offered a special deal: a 6-month Zomato Gold membership for just Rs 30. Impressed by the creative advertisement, Sharma congratulated Zomato on their milestone. Sharing a snapshot of newspaper ad on X (formerly Twitter), Sharma wrote in Hindi, On the 16th birthday of Zomato, heartiest congratulations to the chief Mr Deepinder ji and all the members of his executive! May God grant us such praiseworthy advertisements always. Celebrating another milestone, the popular food delivery platform Zomato went all out to mark its 16th birthday this year. More than the occasion, what grabbed the most headlines was a standout full-page advertisement that went viral on social media. Upon being shared, the advertisement caught everyones attention, including Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma. It includes a large photograph of Zomatos founder and CEO, Deepinder Goyal, along with smaller images of the companys top executives. The newspaper advertisement also has a text written in Hindi that read, 16th janamdin par aap sabhi ko apna pyar barsane ke liye koti koti dhanyawad (On our 16th birthday, a big thanks to all of you for showering us with love). With desi format and colour schemes, the intriguing ad covered the entire first page of the newspaper. As soon as it came out, the viral ad left the internet amused, reminding them of the age-old approach of using political billboards and hoardings to advertise birthdays and achievements. The unique marketing tactic immediately gained momentum, resulting in a flood of reactions from netizens. Among the reactions, the one that truly stole the limelight was Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharmas post on X. He shared the picture of the newspaper ad congratulating Zomato for clocking 16 years in business. Praising the creative ad, he wrote in Hindi, On the 16th birthday of Zomato, heartiest congratulations to the chief, Mr Deepinder Ji, and all the members of his executive! May God grant us such praiseworthy advertisements always. Meanwhile, through the advertisement, the restaurant aggravator also offered a special deal to the users, which included a Zomato Gold membership for 6 months for just Rs 30. Various X users flooded X with their congratulatory posts for the food-delivery platform. Some even suggested ideas to make their ads more captivating. A user wrote, Congrats Mr Deepinder and team Zomato! Wishing more wind to your sails. Congrats Mr Deepinder and team Zomato ! Wishing more wind to your sails Dheeraj Bhatia (@dheerajbhatia70) July 10, 2024 Lovely. They missed only one trick. They should have had 20 passport sized photographs below, added another individual. Lovely. They missed only one trick. They should have had 20 passport sized photographs below. Ajay Rotti (@ajayrotti) July 10, 2024 A third X user added, Please develop a PayTM money app for iPads. Please develop PayTM money app for iPads Vikram (@vikram_lingam) July 10, 2024 Founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008, Zomato currently operates in over 1,000 cities across India. Besides, it has chains in multiple international markets, including New Zealand, Canada, Turkey, and Brazil. A day after bilateral talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin, Russia on Wednesday said it is hoping for quick resolution of the issue relating to Indias call for return of Indians who are fighting in the Ukraine war as part of the Russian Army. Moscow said that recruitment of Indians was purely a commercial matter and in fact, they did not not want to recruit them. In first comments on the issue from the Russian government, Russias Charge daffaires Roman Babushkin said Moscow never wanted the Indians to be part of its Army and their number is insignificant in the context of the conflict. We are on the same side with the Indian government on the issue We hope that the issue will be resolved soon, he said at a media briefing while responding to a question. Babushkins remarks came a day after Russia promised to ensure early release and return to home of the Indian nationals working in the Russian military as support staff after Prime Minister Narendra Modi very strongly raised the issue with President Vladimir Putin. Babushkin noted that the issue should not be politicised. Let us be very clear, we have never wanted Indians to be part of the Russian Army. You would never see any announcement by Russian authorities on this, he said. Indians Fighting In Russian Army To Make Money: Russia The Russian diplomat said most of the Indians were recruited under a commercial framework as they wanted to make money. The number of Indians 50, 60 or 100 people does not make any significance in terms of the wider conflict. They are there purely for commercial reasons and we did not want to recruit them, he said. Babushkin said most of the Indians recruited as support staff are working illegally as they do not have appropriate visas to work. He said most of them came to Russia on tourist visas. Asked if the families of those killed would be given compensation and Russian citizenship, Babushkin said that it should happen anyway as per the contractual obligations. On Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said in Moscow that the Russian side promised early discharge of all Indian nationals from the service of the Russian Army. The prime minister strongly raised the issue of early discharge of Indian nationals who have been misled into the service of the Russian Army. This was taken up strongly by the prime minister and the Russian side promised early discharge of all Indian nationals, he said. It is learnt that Modi raised the issue during his informal talks with Putin over dinner at the Russian leaders dacha or country home on Monday evening. Kwatra said the two sides will work on how expeditiously the Indians can be brought back home. Last month, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the issue of Indian nationals serving with the Russian Army remains a matter of utmost concern and demanded action from Moscow over it. On June 11, India said two Indian nationals, who were recruited by the Russian Army, had recently been killed in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, which took the number of such deaths to four. Following the deaths of two Indians, the MEA demanded a verified stop to further recruitment of Indian nationals by the Russian Army. In a strongly-worded statement, it said India demanded that there be a verified stop to any further recruitment of Indian nationals by the Russian Army and that such activities would not be in consonance with our partnership. In March, 30-year-old Hyderabad resident Mohammed Asfan succumbed to injuries sustained while serving with Russian troops on the frontlines with Ukraine. In February, Hemal Ashwinbhai Mangua, a 23-year-old resident of Surat in Gujarat, died in a Ukrainian air strike while serving as a security helper in the Donetsk region. Modi was on a two-day high-profile visit to Russia from Monday to hold the 22nd India-Russia annual summit with Putin. (With PTI inputs) Pakistans government has issued a controversial order granting the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) the authority to intercept and trace calls in the name of national security, a move likely to give unchecked power to the countrys notorious spy agency. The directive allows ISI personnel to monitor communications across various telecommunication systems. Pakistans Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication issued a notification under the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Act, 1996 to this effect. In exercise of the powers conferred under Section 54 the federal government in the interest of national security and in the apprehension of any offence, is pleased to authorise the officers not below the rank of grade 18 to be nominated from time to time by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to intercept calls and messages or to trace calls through any telecommunication system as envisaged under Section 54 of the Act, the notification read. The federal government in the interest of national security and in the apprehension of any offence is pleased to authorise the officers [] to be nominated from time to time by ISI to intercept calls and messages or to trace calls through any communication system, the notification further read. It also states that the government will prioritise and have precedence in the telecommunications system over any licensee to safeguard national defence or security against foreign threats. This decision follows a December 2023 Islamabad Court ruling that initially denied such authorisation to any agency. Attorney General Mansoor Usman Awan disclosed these developments during a hearing prompted by a petition from Bushra Bibi. The Pakistani government responded by issuing a Gazette notification to legalise these measures. This move has been slammed by sources close to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as an unlawful act sanctioned by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) government. Critics argue that granting unchecked power to the ISI and military undermines democratic scrutiny and could pose challenges for future civilian governments. This is an illegal act made legitimate by PMLN. They are obliged by ISI and the army, making them all-powerful without any scrutiny. This will create more problems for any democratic government in the future, sources close to PTI said. The White House said on Wednesday that Indias strong ties with Russia give it the leverage to persuade President Vladimir Putin to end the ongoing war in Ukraine. These remarks followed Prime Minister Narendra Modis high-stakes visit to Moscow, during which he demonstrated a close relationship with Putin. While in Russia, PM Modi stated that India is committed to peace and ready to cooperate in all possible ways to resolve the long and deadly conflict. In his televised opening remarks, he assured the world community that India was on the side of peace and was ready to contribute to ending the conflict in Ukraine. For a bright future for the new generation, peace is most essentialPeace talks do not succeed amidst bombs, guns and bullets, he asserted. Putin meanwhile thanked PM Modi for trying to help find a peaceful solution to the Ukraine issue. I am grateful to you for the attention you pay to the most pressing issues, particularly trying to find ways to resolve the Ukraine crisis, primarily through peaceful means, the Russian president said during their meeting at the Kremlin. What the US said India has not yet condemned Russias invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. However, it has consistently pitched for a resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy. During a press briefing on Tuesday, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Modis Russia visit. In response to a question on Ukraine, she said, India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in full and frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia, and weve talked about this before. So we think its critical that all countries, including India, support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace when it comes to Ukraine. White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean Pierre says, India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in full and frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia and weve talked about this before. pic.twitter.com/kGgNPMjGOq / X https://t.co/JOIhoB6EFE REENA BHARDWAJ (@reenabhardwaj) July 9, 2024 We also believe Indias long-standing relationship with Russia gives it the ability to urge President Putin to end his brutal war, an unprovoked war in Ukraine. It is for President Putin to end. President Putin started the war, and he can end the war, Jean-Pierre said. As Modi concluded his historic trip to Moscow, the Biden administration said Washington has been quite clear about its concerns regarding Indias relationship with Russia. US Concerns We have been quite clear about our concerns about Indias relationship with Russia. We have expressed those privately directly to the Indian government, and continue to do so. And that has not changed, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at his daily news conference soon after Modi left Russia. We urge India, we continue to urge India to support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace in Ukraine, based on the principles of the UN charter based on upholding Ukraines territorial integrity and its sovereignty. And that will continue to be what we will engage with India about, Miller said. #WATCH | US Department of State Spokesperson Matthew Miller says, So, as I said yesterday, we have been quite clear about our concerns about Indias relationship with Russia. Weve expressed those privately, directly to the Indian government and continue to do so. And that pic.twitter.com/FPC9G1pwoo ANI (@ANI) July 9, 2024 Separately, the Pentagon said on Tuesday the United States will continue to view India as a strategic partner and have robust dialogue with the country. India and Russia have had a relationship for a very long time. From a US perspective, India is a strategic partner with whom we continue to engage in with full and frank dialogue to include their relationship with Russia. As it relates to the NATO summit being this week, of course, like you, the world is focused on that, Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters at a news conference. Modis Russia visit But I do not think anybody will be surprised if (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin tries to represent this visit in a way that seeks to somehow show that he is not isolated from the rest of the world. And the fact of the matter is, President Putins war of choice has isolated Russia from the rest of the world and it has come at great cost, he said responding to questions on Modis Russia visit. Their war of aggression has come at great cost and the facts bear that out. So we will continue to view India as a strategic partner. We will continue to have robust dialogue with them, Ryder said. He (Putin) is not looking so isolated with the head of the worlds largest democracy being in Moscow, embracing him right now, a reporter said. I would also note that the prime minister also met recently with the Ukrainian president and offered his assurances that India will continue to do everything within its means to support a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine, Ryder said. I think that we trust that India will support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace for Ukraine and will convey to Mr Putin the importance of adhering to the UN charter and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, he added. After his visit to Russia and extensive talks with President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday held a bilateral meeting with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on the Ukraine issue and situation in Western Asia. Reiterating his stance on the Ukraine conflict, PM Modi said, This is not a time for war. Problems cannot be solved on the battlefield. The loss of innocent lives, anywhere, is unacceptable. The Indian leader also offered to mediate and cooperate to achieve peace and stability in the region. India and Austria emphasise dialogue and diplomacy for the earliest possible restoration of peace and stability, Modi said. After the talk, both leaders addressed the press from the hall where in the 19th Century, the historic Vienna Congress was hosted which provided direction for peace and stability in Europe. Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said PM Modi also elaborated in considerable detail, challenges the countries from Global South face including India. Energy security, Fertilizer Security, Food Security Austrian Chancellor in his address said Austria can be a site for a peace process and Summit since Austria has a unique position in the European Union but is not a NATO member. It is particularly important to know Indias assessment and to familiarise India with European Concerns and worries, Chancellor Nehammer said. PM Modi met the Austrian Chancellor after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin which holds great significance as after meeting the president, Modi understood the Russian perspective. Before he visited Austria PM Modi paid a visit to the Russian President therefore these talks were particularly important as PM Modi could offer his assessment regarding Russias intentions concerning peace restoration. Our shared objective is to achieve a comprehensive permanent peace in line with a UN Charter, the chancellor said. PM Modis visit to Russia and Austria attracted massive attention, especially from the US which asked India to urge Putin to end the war in Ukraine. The joint statement that has been released by both sides stated, Both leaders supported any collective effort to facilitate a peaceful resolution consistent with International Law and the UN Charter. India and Austria believe that achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace in Ukraine requires bringing together all stakeholders and a sincere and earnest engagement between the two parties to the conflict, the statement added. PM Modis visit to Austria after Russia sends out a clear message that India wants to engage with all sides to bring a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine. Composition of Ford Capri EV teasers with an old Capri three-quarter image superimposed. Ford is continuing its soul-searching journey back to small cars for the sake of profitable EVs, and the automaker is slated to debut the electric revival of the Ford Capri on Wednesday. Last week, Ford published a teaser on X showing a man trying to plug in a vintage Capri at a charging station. The confused man drives off after realizing he cant charge the old combustion-powered Capri, and a message saying The legend is back 10.07.24 is revealed. Today, we have an idea of how Fords modern interpretation of the Capri is likely to look, and lets just say that if youre still against the Mach-E wearing a Mustang badge, youd best look away. This isnt unexpected, however. Rumors of the Capris crossover reincarnation have been swirling ever since Autocar and Automotive News Europe reported on an upcoming Ford EV due to become the second model built on Volkswagens MEB platform. Ford released an all-electric Explorer for markets abroad this year, based on the VW ID.4 and produced at Fords Cologne Electric Vehicle Center in Germany. Just like the Explorer EV has little in common with its American, ICE-powered counterpart, the alleged Capri EV bears virtually no resemblance to its namesake, as an allegedly leaked photo posted on Instagram by Car Design World on Tuesday and earlier spy shots from Autocar show. ADVERTISEMENT The first Ford Capri was a fastback coupe conceived of as the European spin on the Ford Mustang, or so the story goes. The Capri would go on to be made for three generations, selling from 1969 through 1989. The highly successful model even made it to the States, where it was sold as the Mercury Capri. It was made in Europe but exported to North America, Australia, and South Africa, among other markets. Fords tweet from last week highlights one of these vintage Caprisa practical, compact, and impossibly low-slung car judging by todays auto market standards. Story continues The legend is back. 10.07.24 pic.twitter.com/uTq3UMHcn6 Ford News Europe (@FordNewsEurope) July 7, 2024 The Capris revival will introduce a four-door crossover with a low-slung roofline, which carmakers love to refer to as coupe SUVs for some reason. The new Capri figures to be identical to the Explorer EV in terms of its VW-sourced electrified drivetrain, per Autocar, meaning itll top out at 330 horsepower and a peak range of 374 miles, thanks to an available 77-kWh battery pack. Itll support charging speeds of up to 170 kW. The new Capri strikes a silhouette not unlike that of the VW ID.5, a model Volkswagen doesnt offer in the States. Visually, its a far cry from the wedge-like coupe from which it derives its name. When Fords Chief Designer for the European market, Amko Leenarts, discussed the possible revival with Autocar, he said that retro designs arent moving us forward, and Fords more inspired by totally new interpretation. Still, a midsize crossover wearing the badge of a beloved classic coupe is not what most of us have in mind when yearning for a return to small, fun cars. If Ford truly doesnt want to remain limited by the past, why not just give this new coupe SUV a totally new name? Prime Minister Narendra Modi has silenced his critics by mentioning about the deaths of children in war, sitting next to Russian President Vladimir Putin. As PM Narendra Modi and President Putin met during a dinner on Monday, both leaders spoke about the Russia-Ukraine war along with other issues. At the restricted talks on Tuesday, PM Modi said, Be it war, conflicts, terror attacks everyone who believes in humanity is pained when there is loss of lives. But when innocent children are murdered, when we see innocent children dying, it is heart-wrenching. That pain is immense. I also held a detailed discussion with you over this. PM Narendra Modis statement is even bolder and clearer than the one which he made in Samarkand in 2023, when he told Putin that this was not an era of war. Many western opinion makers and think tanks were expecting two things one, given the ongoing war, PM Modi will keep his conduct with Putin very subtle which means no warm hugs, tight handshakes and laughter but PM Modi continued with his style of greeting when he met President Putin, which disappointed many in the western world and made them say India will always keep its national interest first. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticised PM Modis visit to Russia and him hugging Putin and said, It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the worlds largest democracy hug the worlds most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day. In Ukraine today, 37 people were killed, three of whom were children, and 170 were injured, including 13 children, as a result of Russias brutal missile strike.A Russian missile struck the largest childrens hospital in Ukraine, targeting young cancer patients. Many were pic.twitter.com/V1k7PEz2rJ Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) July 8, 2024 Second, many were expecting India will only do little for the sake of western world by discussing the Ukraine issue with President Putin. But PM Modi not just mentioned the deaths of children in his remarks, but the Ukraine issue was also mentioned in the joint statement issued by both countries. US State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller had said, We would urge India, as we do to any country which engages with Russia, to make any resolution to the conflict in Ukraine, and it needs to be one that respects the UN Charter with respect to territorial integrity and Ukraines sovereignty. The joint statement released by Ministry Of External Affairs highlighted peaceful resolution through dialogue and diplomacy including engagement between both parties. It also mentioned that both sides noted relevant proposals of mediation aimed at peaceful resolution in accordance with International law and on the basis of the UN Charter. Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra, in a press briefing said, In terms of the death of innocents, yesterday, the PM was very clear and categorical in expressing his concern and regret for the loss of innocent lives including children. Kwatra also said India is willing to offer all possible support contributions and cooperation that is required to this particular challenge and find solution. PM Modis first bilateral visit to Russia took everyone by surprise as the visit was on the cards but the fact that it came so soon has surprised. Since India-Russia relations are multifaceted, there are many areas of cooperation, but along with national interest, Narendra Modi also gave priority to issues like the Ukraine conflict which not only matters to the west but also to countries from the global south PM Modi not only highlighted the death of children but also raised concerns of the countries from Global South and is ready to assist to find a peaceful solution. The Prime Ministers visit was planned in such a way that it should not look like India was only listening one perspective. The Prime Minister, in his second leg of the visit, is in Austria and will discuss conflict with his Austrian counterpart and hear their perspective. Austria is a neutral nation in EU, not a member of NATO but has a strong opinion on ongoing conflict. Austria, which only has a billion dollar trade with India and not many areas of cooperation, is being visited by PM Modi to hear the perspective of a neutral, non-NATO country in EU, which proves that India is not inclined towards one side. PM Modis Air India One was a rare direct flight from Moscow to Vienna is in itself a sign that India hears all sides and is ready to assist to find a solution. Photo credit: 93.7 The Fan There are words you cant say all the time. And if it were up to San Diego Padres All-Star Manny Machado, expectations would be added to the list. The 49-46 San Diego Padres will have five players representing their team in the MLB All-Star Game next week, which is good for third most in the league behind the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers. Considering San Diegos All-Stars, a reporter asked Machado if their talent amplifies the teams expectations this season. Manny Machado was asked about playoff expectations for the Padres, especially with them having 5 All-Stars: pic.twitter.com/7YWZ2VspO3 97.3 The Fan (@973TheFanSD) July 9, 2024 I dont like the word expectations, Machado said. Thats something people always like to put out there is expectations. I mean, I think we expect to go out there and win every single day. Machado proceeded to offer a very diplomatic answer, featuring jargon like We gotta go out there and play our gameplay wellday in and day out every single nightfor the whole year. If Machado stopped there, the answer would have been sufficiently boring enough to avoid making any news. But Machado accidentally said the word expectations, and he did not like it. I think thats the expectations we have in here as a group is to do that, Machado said before realizing his blunder. Expectations. Look at that. You say it and now I gotta say it. Thats why I dont like the word, cause now youre putting it in my mouth. I didnt say the word, youre putting it in my mouth. Thats why I dont like words. Thats why you guys always put us in these situations, and then we get caught, and then now Im all over social media because you put something in my mouth which I didnt say and now I just keep repeating expectations. No, we just gotta go out there and compete. Machado got caught and now hes on social media, all because a reporter led him down the path of using a word as shocking as expectations. The gall. In reality, if Machado wasnt so worried about getting caught, no one would have even noticed he was caught. Because Machado might be the only person who thinks expectations belongs on that list of words you cant say. [93.7 The Fan] Manhattan prosecutors told a judge Tuesday they're anticipating a November retrial for Harvey Weinstein as they continue to investigate possible new sexual-assault charges against the disgraced media mogul. Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg said prosecutors haven't yet brought their findings to a grand jury and said she couldn't provide the court a timeline for when their investigation will be complete. "The people are still investigating in a trauma-informed matter," she said, per the AP . But Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala, with his client sitting next to him in a wheelchair, suggested the investigation was simply a delay tactic from prosecutors, saying something similar happened ahead of the initial rape trial. "Once again we have the individual and we're looking for a crime," he said. "We've got the '1-800-Get-Harvey' hotline." Blumberg responded that the office is actively pursuing claims of rape that occurred in Manhattan within the statute of limitations. She said some potential survivors that weren't ready to step forward during Weinstein's first New York trial may have indicated they're now willing to testify. "There's certainly no delay tactics on our part," Blumberg said. "We're proceeding in the most expeditious manner." She said the prosecution's plan is to proceed to trial in the fall. When asked by Judge Curtis Farber what month she anticipated, Blumberg responded: "November would be a realistic time frame." Aidala said his client simply wants to get the trial going as soon as possible, noting he's in his fifth year of incarceration. "He's suffering tremendously," Aidala said, adding that Weinstein suffers from macular degeneration, "fluid in his lungs," and diabetes that's "through the roof." "He's basically getting no treatment for any of it," Aidala said. "He's a sick man." story continues below Weinstein, 72, has maintained that any sexual activity he's been accused of was consensual. He's currently jailed at Rikers Island. In April, New York's highest court threw out Weinstein's rape conviction after determining the trial judge unfairly allowed testimony from other women that weren't part of the case. Weinstein, who'd been serving a 23-year sentence in New York, was also convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 for another rape and is still sentenced to 16 years in prison in California. Weinstein's lawyers an appeal filed last month in California, arguing he didn't get a fair trial. (More Harvey Weinstein stories.) Alice Munro's daughter delivered a shocking revelation about her late mother Sundaybut apparently Andrea Skinner's claim that the Canadian writer knew about her sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather, and stayed with the man anyway, did not come as a revelation to some of Munro's closest colleagues. A biographer, as well as Munro's Canadian editor and publisher, tell the Washington Post they were aware of the situation described by Andrea Skinner, Munro's youngest daughter: Biographer: "I knew this day was going to come. I knew that it was going to come out, and I knew that I would be having conversations like this," says Robert Thacker, who wrote a biography of Munro. He says she told him about the situation in 2005 as his book was going to press, and he chose not to make it public because he felt it was a private family matter, and he wasn't writing a "tell-all." "Russia is failing," President Biden told NATO leaders on Tuesday. "The war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country." The assessments came in an address kicking off a summit in Washington that marks the alliance's 75th anniversary. "Biden's words were strong and steady," the BBC reports, as he read from a teleprompter in Mellon Auditorium, where the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949. Developments, including concrete commitments for Ukraine, involve: Air defenses: The US and other NATO allies will provide dozens of the systems Ukraine has been seeking to stop Russian advances, which Biden called "a historic donation." The US, Germany, and Romania will each send a Patriot battery, per CNN, and the Netherlands will lead an effort with other nations to enable another Patriot battery. Italy will deliver a SAMP-T long-range air defense system. A member of the security detail for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor shot an armed man amid an attempted carjacking last week, according to sources and a recently unsealed charging document. US marshals, wearing shirts that identified them as such, were sitting in an unmarked car outside the justice's residence in Washington, DC, in the early hours of July 5 when a silver minivan pulled up and a man exited and pointed a gun inside the marshals' car window, Politico reports. One of the marshals fired at the suspect, hitting him in the mouth; first aid was administered to him at the scene until he was transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. A second suspect in the minivan, which police say was stolen, fled the scene, and the van has not yet been recovered, the Washington Post reports. A Minnesota state trooper is facing charges for a crash that killed a teenager and injured five people, per the AP . Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem said trooper Shane Roper, 32, has been charged with second-degree manslaughter, criminal vehicular homicide, and other counts. The crash happened May 18 in Rochester. A criminal complaint said Roper was driving without his emergency lights or siren activated and reached a speed of 83mph on a street where the speed limit is 40mph. His squad car struck a Ford Focus that was making a left turn into a mall parking lot, and those vehicles struck a Toyota RAV4, Ostrem said. Olivia Flores, 18, a passenger in the Ford, died hours later. Five others suffered serious injuries, while Roper himself had minor injuries. The complaint said Roper was trying to catch what it called a "traffic violator" but didn't provide details. "As with any other person driving recklessly and without regard to very basic rules of the road, Mr. Roper's conduct cannot be tolerated," Ostrem said. State Patrol Col. Christina Bogojevic expressed condolences to relatives of Flores and to others impacted by the crash. She called the allegations "concerning" and said Roper is on paid leave while the case plays out. (More Minnesota stories.) After a slew of jarring stories tying Clarence Thomas to multiple undisclosed gifts, loans, and other perks from ultra-wealthy friends, two Democratic senators are now trying to get to the bottom of it. The Hill reports that Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ron Wyden of Oregon have requested that Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint a special counsel to investigate the Thomas allegations, specifically on ethics and tax law fronts. "The breadth of the omissions uncovered to date, and the serious possibility of additional tax fraud and false statement violations by Justice Thomas and his associates, warrant the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate this misconduct," the two senators note in their letter to Garland dated July 3. Whitehouse and Wyden add that "the scale of the potential ethics violations by Justice Thomas, and the willful pattern of disregard for ethics laws, exceeds the conduct of other government officials investigated by the Department of Justice for similar violations." The senators note that Thomas has been given the opportunity to answer questions about what happened, and that he maintained a "suspicious silence" or provided otherwise "uninformative" answers. Whitehouse and Wyden add that although Thomas "has claimed that some omissions were 'inadvertent,' and he has amended some past reports accordingly ... [he] has not disclosed all of the gifts that have been uncovered, and there may well be more." "No government official should be above the law," the senators conclude. "Supreme Court justices are properly expected to obey laws designed to prevent conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety and to comply with the federal tax code." The New York Times notes that their request comes as Senate Democrats "are trying to force Supreme Court justices to comply with stricter ethics and financial disclosure rules." Last year, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said changes that would boost public confidence in the high court were on the way, though Chief Justice John Roberts hasn't exactly seemed to want to discuss that. (More Clarence Thomas stories.) A double-decker passenger bus collided with a milk truck in northern India on Wednesday, killing at least 18 people and injuring many others, officials said. The collision occurred on an expressway in Uttar Pradesh state, and 19 injured people were rushed to the hospital by villagers in the area, said police officer Arvind Kumar, adding that their condition was reported to be stable. The bus was traveling from the northern state of Bihar to the capital New Delhi, the AP reports. "Authorities are in the process of identifying the victims, and a probe has been launched to determine the exact cause of the accident," Kumar added. Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial is underway in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the actor accused in the on-set shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin fired the gun that killed Hutchins, but he maintains that he should not be held accountable for firing what was supposed to have been a prop weapon. Defense: Baldwin attorney Alex Spiro told jurors in his opening statement Wednesday that the 2021 death of Hutchins on the set of Rust was an "unspeakable tragedy" but that "Alec Baldwin committed no crime; he was an actor, acting," per the AP. Spiro emphasized that Baldwin did exactly what actors always do in Westerns. "I don't have to tell you any more about this, because you've all seen gunfights in movies," he said. 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. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com Bahrain has been recognised as the third safest country in the Gulf region and the 20th safest globally in 2024, according to a recent report by CEOWORLD magazine. This accolade reflects the Kingdom's efforts to maintain a secure environment for both its citizens and visitors. The report also ranked the United Arab Emirates as the safest country in the Gulf and the second safest globally, followed by Saudi Arabia at second in the Gulf and 16th worldwide. Kuwait and Qatar followed closely behind, securing fourth and fifth positions in the Gulf and 36th and 60th positions globally, respectively. Oman rounded out the Gulf rankings at sixth and 147th globally. Andorra, nestled in the Pyrenees between Spain and France, emerged as the world's safest country in 2024. Despite its small population of approximately 82,000, Andorra attracts over 3.5 million visitors annually, making it the country with the highest number of tourists per capita. The report stresses the importance of identifying the world's safest countries, especially in the context of ongoing international conflicts and instability. It notes that the high crime rate in some African countries led to a $48 billion decrease in investment flows to the continent in 2023, negatively impacting tourism. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Palestine, which has faced prolonged Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip, was ranked as the least safe country globally, placing 188th. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com Bahrain's highest court has removed a member of parliament from his seat after discovering his undisclosed foreign citizenship. The Seventh Court of Cassation announced today that the representative for Muharraq's first district, Mohammed Rafiq Al Hussaini, has been disqualified due to his breach of the constitutional requirement to hold only Bahraini nationality. The decision, delivered by presiding Judge Sheikh Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa, followed an appeal by the Directorate of Nationality, Passports, and Residence Affairs. They provided evidence that Al-Husseini held dual citizenship at the time of his candidacy for the Council of Representatives, contravening Article 57(a) of the Constitution, which mandates single nationality for members. The Court of Cassation declared Al-Hussaini's membership in the Council of Representatives for the First District in Muharraq Governorate invalid from the date of this ruling. The court explained that Article 57(a) of the Constitution requires members of the Council of Representatives to hold only Bahraini citizenship, either by birth or naturalisation, without retaining any other nationality. This requirement is not a form of discrimination based on origin but a measure aimed at ensuring the full allegiance of representatives to the Kingdom of Bahrain, thereby supporting the country's democratic development. The court affirmed that the constitutional principles of equality before the law, as stipulated in Articles 4 and 18, do not prevent the legislature from setting reasonable conditions for membership in the Council of Representatives, such as the requirement of single Bahraini nationality. The court concluded that this requirement serves the public interest by ensuring that representatives' loyalty lies solely with the Bahraini people. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, met in Washington with the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Joe Wilson, on the sidelines of the NATO summit. During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the long-standing relations of friendship between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the United States of America and ways to promote bilateral cooperation in various fields to achieve the common interests of the two countries within the framework of the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement (C-SIPA). They also exchanged views on the current situation in the Middle East, the most prominent outcomes of the recent Arab Summit held in Bahrain, and the initiatives adopted by the Summit, including the convening of the International Peace Conference for the establishment of a Palestinian State, the provision of education and health services to those affected by conflicts in the region, as well as a number of issues of common concern. The meeting was attended by the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain to the United States, Shaikh Abdullah bin Rashid Al Khalifa, the Chief of the Coordination and Follow-up Sector at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Saeed Abdulkhaliq Saeed, and the delegation accompanying the Foreign Minister. AFP | Brasilia The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com Brazils far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro benefited from an illegal scheme to sell $1.2 million in jewelry and other luxury items given to his government as gifts, a police probe revealed Monday. Last week, Brazils Federal Police recommended charging Bolsonaro with money laundering and other crimes over undeclared jewelry gifted between 2019 and 2022. Bolsonaro, who claims he is the target of judicial persecution under the government of his leftist successor Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, denies any wrongdoing. The police report made public Monday said investigators had found that government officials had acted to divert several high-value gifts to Bolsonaro from foreign governments, with a total value of $1.22 million. The officials sought to sell the items abroad with the aim of the illicit enrichment of the then-president, said the report submitted to the Supreme Federal Court (STF.) Cash raised from such sales was paid to Bolsonaro without using the formal banking system, it added. STF judge Alexandre de Moraes has given prosecutors 15 days to decide whether to formally charge Bolsonaro. The case stems from an undeclared set of diamond jewelry reportedly seized by customs inspectors in October 2021. The jewels were said to have been inside a satchel from Bolsonaros Mining and Energy Ministry entourage upon returning from a trip to the Middle East. The police report of nearly 500 pages provides detailed descriptions of the jewels in question, including Rolex watches and diamond pieces from luxury brand Chopard. After news of the case first broke in the press, Bolsonaros team recovered and returned some of the pieces, the report said. Bolsonaros lawyer, Paulo Cunha, said on X Monday that heads of state have no direct or indirect influence on what happens to official gifts. Xem them ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load TORONTO, July 10, 2024 /CNW/ - Today, Cancer Action Now issued the following open letter to the Premiers of Canada to relay the urgency and dire need to discuss the current gaps in cancer care. Dear Canada's Premiers: As you convene in Halifax to align on your collective efforts to strengthen the Canadian federation and exercise leadership on issues of importance to people living in Canada, we wish to relay to you the urgency and dire need to discuss the current gaps in cancer care. According to a report published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, there is projected to be 247,100 new cancer cases diagnosed in 2024, and 88,100 cancer-related deaths.1 These numbers are not just statistics; they represent families in Canada facing cancer. People in Canada living with cancer are facing significant challenges in screening, obtaining a diagnosis and accessing treatment, and the agonizing wait times can feel like an eternity for those living in uncertainty. Judy Ross, a 71-year-old resident of Nova Scotia was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer not once, but twice. She struggled with accessing timely care, leading to multiple years of missed mammograms and a distressing six-month wait for treatment. Judy's message to policy makers is to reduce wait times and provide immediate support to those diagnosed with cancer, including improving access to primary care. Judy's story is, unfortunately, just one of many, highlighting a system that fails to meet the needs of patients and families affected by cancer. Cancer Action Now would like to recognize the commitments your governments have made over the last year to improve patient access and the patient experience, including the new funding allotted to cancer care specific initiatives outlined in the Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia 2024 Budgets. While significant progress is being made, there is still more work that needs to be done. Cancer Action Now is calling on Canada's Premiers to make cancer a political priority so that people living with cancer are no longer Dying to be a Priority. Canada's Premiers need to work together, and in partnership with the federal government, to make cancer a priority and develop a Pan-Canadian Action Plan to improve cancer care in Canada through coordinated efforts. We call on all Canada's Premiers to: Commit to new investments towards the improvement of measurable value-based patient outcomes in cancer, with meaningful input from stakeholders, including patient and caregiver representatives. This may be achieved through the development of publicly available dashboards that regularly report on important cancer care metrics, as well as strengthening pan-Canadian oncology federated data networks. Prioritize early cancer detection and screening by increasing funding for existing programs, supporting research into new detection methods, ensuring equitable access to screening services, and strengthening team-based, interdisciplinary primary care. Ensure an equity lens is applied to all decision-making in cancer care, ensuring underserved populations impacted by cancer can access the care they need, close to home. Explore an expedited review and approval pathway for novel and innovative cancer treatments and ensure equitable access to these treatments for people in Canada living with cancer. Important signs of progress will be when we see more Canadians diagnosed with early-stage cancer, fewer diagnosed with late-stage cancer, and those living with cancer not just surviving but thriving. This will mean our cancer care system is truly responsive to patient needs and living up to the world-class promise that it has. Sincerely, The Cancer Action Now Alliance About Cancer Action Now: Cancer Action Now is a national alliance of patient organizations, professional associations, and life science companies who are witnessing the magnitude of the problem our cancer care systems and its patients are facing. We have come together to call on governments to address the issues in our cancer care systems so that Canadians with cancer have a chance to live longer, better lives than anywhere else in the world. Website: www.canceractionnow.ca _________________________________ 1 Brenner, Darren R., Jennifer Gilis, Alain A. Demers, et.al. Projected estimates of cancer in Canada. Canadian Medical Association Journal (2024). SOURCE Cancer Action Now For media inquiries, please contact: Jharna Bajaj. [email protected] While the US and Western leaders gathered in Washington to mark NATO's 75th anniversary on Tuesday, their efforts to showcase "strength" and "unity" are being overshadowed by increasing internal divisions on global issues, challenges in supporting Ukraine, uncertainties stemming from the upcoming US presidential election, and the rise of right-wing nationalism across Europe, which make analysts view this year's NATO summit as "outwardly tough but inwardly brittle." The recent hype over the "China threat" by Western media ahead of the three-day NATO summit and accusations of China supporting Russia once again reveal the US' and NATO's intentions to extend their influence into the Asia-Pacific region for geopolitical gain. It underscores NATO's origins in the Cold War era, designed as a military tool to bolster US hegemony, which critics said only exacerbates global instability and discord. Leaders of NATO's 32 member countries are scheduled to conduct a three-day summit in Washington, DC from Tuesday to Thursday. On its website, the US Department of State gave a full introduction about NATO and the summit, saying that the allies will discuss an important agenda that includes "affirming unwavering support for Ukraine," "strengthening deterrence and defense posture" and "ensuring Allies meet their commitments to invest in their own defense, as well as collective defense." The NATO summit aims to project "unity" and "shared interests" outwardly, but internally, there are increasing anxieties and worries among member countries, Cui Hongjian, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University's Academy of Regional and Global Governance, told the Global Times on Tuesday. For example, the rise of far-right forces in Europe, political challenges faced by Germany and France and other core European countries, and the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House have all added uncertainties within NATO to reach consensus on major issues, Cui said. The Tuesday summit came as some Democrats called on Joe Biden to step aside over his fitness and age, while Biden declined and defended his 2024 campaign. Also in Europe, there is a major political turmoil in France - although the left-wing parties' alliance won the decisive round of France's legislative election on Sunday night, a parliament without a majority may lead to uncertainty in France, according to media reports. Cui said that while this summit may ultimately seek political outcomes, it risks entanglement in internal discord. NATO hopes to demonstrate to the outside world that it is capable of forging a new consensus through overcoming divisions, but it is haunted by political fragility in both Europe and the US. "This makes this year's summit outwardly tough but inwardly brittle," Cui remarked. On the webpage of the NATO summit, the US Department of State listed "affirming unwavering support for Ukraine" at the top of its agenda, and claims that "allies will be joined by Ukraine for a meeting" to advance their "strong support" for Ukraine and "close collaboration to help build a bridge to Ukraine's future membership." Some Western media reported that during the summit, NATO will announce a "historic" aid package to support Ukraine, including crucial air defense systems and 40 billion euros ($43.3 billion) in military support for Ukraine each year. Since its last summit, NATO has adjusted its strategy to support Ukraine, aiming to integrate short-term aid into a long-term security framework with more systematic and consistent policies. This shift reflects NATO's concerns about the potential disruption of Ukrainian support due to political changes in the US and the EU, Cui said, noting that the discussion of a "bridge to membership" plan for Ukraine to NATO at the Washington summit underscores this adjustment. However, these efforts are still deemed insufficient by Ukraine, and convincing member countries to allocate substantial aid to Ukraine remains challenging, especially as many of them are grappling with domestic economic contraction and energy crises, a Beijing-based military expert told the Global Times on condition of anonymity. The expert noted that the Ukrainian government has struggled to achieve decisive victories on the battlefield, disappointing several European countries and testing their patience and confidence in forming a unified front against Russia. NATO shifts to Asia Aside from the goal of presenting a united front against Russia, this week's NATO summit also aims to "send a warning to China," according to some Western media. They noted that NATO is set to discuss threats posed by China, including behavior in the South China Sea and actions on the Taiwan question. Moreover, for the third year in a row, the leaders of New Zealand, Japan and South Korea will attend the NATO summit. NATO is now trying to cater to the US' strategic interests and needs by amplifying the "China threat," in an attempt to address its existential crisis, Cui said. He noted that European countries hope the US will at least not abandon NATO for now and provide more security guarantees in the face of the "Russia threat" if Trump returns to the White House. Sun Chenghao, a fellow and head of the US-EU program at the Center for International Security and Strategy in Tsinghua University, said that the US and NATO have escalated accusations against China for allegedly supporting Russia, aiming to emphasize the perceived link between security in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The US plans to promote NATO's expansion into Asia. However, it also recognizes that shifting NATO's focus solely through the Russia-Ukraine conflict is insufficient. Therefore, it is launching a series of actions and propaganda campaigns to amplify the perceived threat from China, said Sun. This strategy aims to heighten European countries' concerns about their own security, redirect their attention to the Asia-Pacific region, and provoke vigilance among European nations toward China, Sun told the Global Times. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Tuesday that "We firmly reject NATO's vilification and blame-shifting against China. NATO should not use China to justify its insertion into the Asia-Pacific and attempt to disrupt regional dynamics. China is a force for world peace, a contributor to global development and a defender of international order. Our objective and just position and constructive role on the Ukraine crisis and international and regional hotspot issues are widely recognized by the international community." "We urge NATO to form the right perception of China, get rid of its Cold War mentality and zero-sum approach, stop scaremongering on security and making imaginary enemies, stop forming exclusive clubs in the name of collective defense, and play a constructive role for global peace, stability and development," Lin said. The US plan to build an "Asian version of NATO" has alarmed people in regional countries. For example, a recent global online poll conducted by Chinese media showed that 93.1 percent of global respondents believe that security in the Asia-Pacific region should be achieved through political dialogue and peaceful negotiations among Asia-Pacific countries and they firmly oppose the US creating an "Asian version of NATO." Global Times AFP: The NATO Summit opened in Washington, DC. What does China anticipate about the summit? Lin Jian: Chinas position on NATO is consistent. We firmly oppose NATO acting beyond its characterization as a regional defensive alliance, inserting itself into the Asia-Pacific to incite confrontation and rivalry, and disrupting the prosperity and stability in this region. We urge NATO to make real contribution to world peace, stability and security. China Review News: On July 8, South China Sea Ecological Center and South China Sea Development Research Institute of Chinas Ministry of Natural Resources released a Survey Report on the Damage to Coral Reef Ecosystem by Illegally Grounded Military Vessel at Renai Jiao. The report mentioned that the Philippine warship has gravely damaged the diversity, stability, and sustainability of the coral reef system. Its reported that in a statement released yesterday, National Task ForceWest Philippines Sea said its China who has been found to have caused irreparable damage to corals in the South China Sea. Whats Chinas response? Lin Jian: Renai Jiao is part of Chinas Nansha Qundao. China attaches great importance to the protection of the coral reef system of Nansha Qundao and the surrounding marine environment of its islands and reefs, and has taken effective measures in this regard. The report makes it clear that the Philippines illegally grounded military vessel and relevant human activities are primarily responsible for the damage to Renai Jiaos coral reef ecosystem. This is a conclusion based on facts and scientific investigations. We continue to ask the Philippines to remove the illegally grounded warship at Renai Jiao to stop damaging the ecosystem at Renai Jiao. BBC: Just a follow-up question to the matter of the ship grounded in the South China Sea. The Philippines government has denied these allegations and also said that actually China has hurt the marine environment by dredging sand and dredging coral. Does the Chinese government have a response to these comments from the Philippine government? Lin Jian: As I just said, China attaches great importance to the protection of the coral reef system of Nansha Qundao and the surrounding marine environment of its islands and reefs, and has taken effective measures in this regard. You might have seen the Investigation and Assessment Report on Marine Ecology and Environment Status of Huangyan Dao just released by relevant government agencies, which is another example of how serious China is about looking after the ecological environment of Huangyan Dao area. The results of the investigation and assessment showed an excellent environmental quality of Huangyan Dao area, which speaks to Chinas effort and effectiveness in protecting the marine ecosystem. TV Asahi: The on-going China-Belarus joint army training is held near Poland at the doorstep of NATO. There has been comment that this is a provocation to NATO. What is the Foreign Ministrys comment? Lin Jian: Chinas Ministry of National Defense has released information about the training. Let me say that the joint army training is part of the annual cooperation plan between China and Belarus. It is normal military exchange and cooperation between China and Belarus and within international law and common practices, and its not directed at any particular country. Reuters: The Philippines government has expressed concerns about the route of the Shandong aircraft carrier passing through the Balintang Channel close to the Philippines on its way to drills in the Western Pacific. I believe the normal route is through the Bashi Channel. The question is: Is there a reason that it took that particular route? And is there any response to the concerns raised by the Philippines? Lin Jian: Im not aware of the specifics you mentioned. Id refer you to competent authorities. AFP: An independent investigation concluded that WADA showed no favoritism toward China in its handling of the case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive in a drug test. Whats your response? Lin Jian: China trusts the conclusion reached by the independent Swiss prosecutor and supports WADAs independent, fair, consistent and effective governance worldwide. This non-existent case that the US keeps selling and the attacks it hurls at the international organization are all about degrading fine Chinese athletes and obstructing their participation in the Paris Olympics. As far as we are concerned, the US side is in no position to judge and interfere in the global anti-doping governance system and Chinas anti-doping effort. We urge the US to respect the Olympic spirit, abide by international law and basic norms governing international relations, stop feeding the world with false narratives and stop manipulating perceptions by turning everything political. BBC: I dont think this was asked yesterday about the Australian government allegations regarding cyberattacks emanating from China. Does Chinas government have a response to that? Lin Jian: I answered the question yesterday, which you may refer to. A New Mexico man accused of stealing 100-year-old items, including letters by the wife of Western artist Charlie C.M. Russell, from the Montana Historical Society and selling them for a profit on eBay admitted Tuesday to a theft crime, authorities said. Brian Anthony DAmbrosio, 49, of Santa Fe pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Great Falls to theft of major artwork, U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release, authorities said. Chief U.S. District Judge Brian M. Morris set sentencing for Nov. 13. DAmbrosios release was continued pending further proceedings. Morris will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors, the U.S. Attorney's office said. The government alleged in court documents that DAmbrosio, while claiming to do research at the Montana Historical Society in Helena, stole items from the archives from about April 2022 to September 2023. They included letters written by Nancy Russell, the wife of renowned Western artist Charlie C.M. Russell. They were more than 100 years old, were of cultural heritage and exceeded $5,000 in value, officials said. Other items included a 1926 Crow Indian program on the 50th anniversary of the Custer Fight, a 1905 Centennial Brewing letter from Bozeman, and an 1889 Montana Society of the Framers of the Constitution flag and program. DAmbrosio then sold and tried to sell the stolen items for profit on eBay. An undercover FBI agent posed as a would-be purchaser to confirm DAmbrosio was the person stealing the items from the Montana Historical Society and selling or trying to sell the items on eBay for a profit, none of which was authorized. The U.S. Attorneys Office, District of Montana is prosecuting the case. The FBI and Helena Police Department conducted the investigation. "We appreciate the work of the U.S. Attorneys office in this matter, and anticipate that justice will be served," Eve Byron, public information officer for the Montana Historical Society, said in an email. D'Ambrosio has written several Montana-themed books such as "Montana Murders," "Montana Entertainers," "Shot in Montana," "Montana and the NFL" and Montana Eccentrics: A Collection of Extraordinary Montanans, Past & Present. Some of his work has appeared in Lee Newspapers. DEAR ANNIE: I met a wonderful man online in 2010. I moved from Maine to Pennsylvania with him in 2012. He has a nice family, which I grew close to, including a daughter and her small family. In September of last year, he passed away from a heart attack and left no will. His family helped me pack up, and they took most of his stuff. Shortly before I moved, his daughter and her husband showed up unannounced to take more things. The day before, I had sold my car and put the money with my personal papers, plus money for the move, into a security box. They took the box and refused to give it back. Ive sought legal help but to no avail. I have been told that this is considered a domestic case. This has been a nightmare. It has given me anxiety and loss of sleep. They promised to return my stuff if it was found to be mine. Please, people! Protect your loved ones and make a will! These people live in Pennsylvania, as my partner and I did, but in Pennsylvania our relationship was not considered a common-law marriage because we got together after 2005. -- Heartsick DEAR HEARTSICK: I am very sorry for your loss. You can only control what you can control, which is your peace of mind. They already took away your physical things; dont let them take away your peace. The best revenge when someone has wronged you that badly is to live that well! Focus on getting back to taking care of you. Make sleep a priority, and if your anxiety is really bad, seek the help of a trained professional. Meditation, yoga and exercise can all help with managing anxiety. If the money was for your car, and your partner was not involved with the purchase, then you can take them to small claims court to force them to return that money and all the cash that you put into the security box, plus your personal papers, of course. Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@creators.com. Cosmic Story Elements A lunar square, a solar trine and a juicy opposition give this day everything it needs to be its own little drama. The tension, the interesting characters, the high stakes, the odd twist -- its all there waiting for someone with main character energy to step in and be the star. Whether you want to step into the spotlight or watch it from the audience is up to you -- it will be fun either way. CANCER (June 22-July 22). The way you operate in the world brings cheer to all. You slip into the sort of mood that is sure to lead to uplifting conversations, playful interactions and extremely satisfying exchanges. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). Youre looking for a respectable game and your sportsmanship is on point. This applies to relationships as well, especially romantic ones. You prefer not to think of love as a game, but you must admit there are more and less effective ways to play it. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You will collaborate very well with someone with complementary skills, strengths and weaknesses, too. Learning to depend on others will be part of this, or more likely learning (SET ITAL) who (END ITAL) you can depend on and weeding out the flakey ones. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Self-consciousness is an invisible weight pressing on your mind. But you are not the best one to observe how you appear and act. This is why a camera needs distance from its subject. Greater distance means more of the subject can get into the frame. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). Because you set your own limits and live within them, your success will be sweet, swift and honorable. Even so, it can take some time to figure out exactly which actions and rhythms are sustainable. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Your life is not a solitary journey but an adventure you share with countless others, some of whom youll never meet. Understanding that you belong to something larger and are part of a complex, interconnected web of relationships will be profoundly liberating. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Its said that attitude is everything, and it will be proven today when your mindset and approach to a problem will make all the difference in the outcome. What you do for your body and mind will contribute to your attitude. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). You know that relationships are give-and-take, but you really dont feel like taking. Of course, youll only be able to give until the supply runs out. So if you want to keep giving, you have to take, too! PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). Whether you feel proud of the past or you have some less comfortable feeling about it, theres one thing that it is -- over. So theres no reason to let your opinion about it color whats going on today, unless you enjoy those colors. ARIES (March 21-April 19). Youll be even more observant than usual, and this will be key to the new systems and circumstances youll create going forward. Youll gain an understanding of something you missed before. Its easier to solve problems when you have a fuller context. TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Your keen instinct will bring you good luck. Sometimes, it will keep you from being impulsive, and other times, it will have you making the move before youre conscious of it, which is the very essence of impulsiveness. Either way, you can trust it. GEMINI (May 21-June 21). When words and emotions are withheld, they act like logs jammed in a river, causing blockages and turbulence. Youll speak your feelings and it removes obstructions, restoring a peaceful sense of flow to the scene. TODAYS BIRTHDAY (July 10). A year that enriches your life with transformative experiences. A long-running pattern will come to a fitting conclusion. What drops into its place will be vibrant; feelings of greater health and vitality accompany the change. More highlights: an adorable pet, a fascinating study that brings you chances to speak, publish and advance, and laughter-filled gatherings. Capricorn and Pisces adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 3, 39, 2, 41 and 20. CELEBRITY PROFILES: Pop star and fashion mogul Jessica Simpson built a billion-dollar brand by putting her name in the minds of millions and on the trends she loves. Her fashion line offers looks for all kinds of fun moods, from swimming to a night on the town and even a walk down the aisle. Maternal instincts come with her Cancer sun and Mars, the action and ambition planet, in the highly aesthetic sign of Libra. Holiday Mathis debut novel, How To Fail Epically in Hollywood, is out now! This fast-paced romp about achieving Hollywood stardom is available as a paperback and ebook. Visit http://www.creatorspublishing.com for more information. Write Holiday Mathis at HolidayMathis.com. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM Dear readers, Several weeks ago I published a letter from a reader who was anticipating the deaths of two beloved people in their life. I received two very kind responses to that letter that I want to share with you. Hi Lizzy, Your advice to the woman who is dealing with terminal prognoses is very helpful and thoughtful and well written, as always. I especially liked your reminder that they are still here right now, and that doom hasnt arrived yet, and not to squander a moment of time with them, which is great advice for all of us. Thank you, D Dear Lizzy, Thank you for your supportive response to the woman who is living through hell as she prepares for the deaths of her sister and husband. Although different, I also experienced the terminal illnesses of my brother and husband and, later my beloved daughter. What helped me was connecting with an experienced grief counselor during their illnesses as well as after. Anticipating multiple losses of beloved family members requires so much energy and having a safe place to unload those feelings and some good direction as to HOW to stay present as you suggested. There are many good authors that may be helpful I like Claire Bidwell Smith. Please let her know that I am sending her a virtual hug and as much support and positive energy as possible. Grateful for your good advice! H I also got a response from the letter writer, which doesnt often happen but is such a special thing. Dear Lizzy, Thank you so much for your reply. I really appreciate it. I am going to do what you have suggested with both the breathing and a therapist plus spending as much time making memories which I can have when they have gone. Thank you again. Kind regards, Brokenhearted I love to get responses to my responses, so please feel free to send me your thoughts. Thank you so much for reading! Lizzy Have a burning question? Send me an email at lacker@oregonian.com or tweet @lizzzyacker! Or, if you want to ask me a question with total anonymity, use this Google form. Read more Why Tho? here. A woman who was helping her boyfriend run an illegal dispensary out of their South Jersey apartment has been sentenced to state prison. Donna Shiffler, 40, and her boyfriend, 39-year-old John Garman, were running the unlicensed business out of an apartment in Somers Point, where they lived in with Garmans three children, authorities said. The couple was also planning to employ Garmans teenage son to help them with marketing their unlicensed business, according to investigators. An Atlantic County judge sentenced Shiffler to five year behind bars on Tuesday, the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office announced. She had previously pleaded guilty to employing a juvenile in commission of a crime, possession with the intent to distribute marijuana, maintaining a production facility and endangering the welfare of a child. Garman was sentenced to 10 years in May. He pleaded guilty to the same charges in addition to money laundering. Detectives began investigating the couple in March 2023. They staged drug sales at the Ocean Heights Shopping Center in Somers Point using an undercover agent. While meeting with the agent, Garman elaborated on his business plans, telling the investigator he planned to employ his 14-year-old son to hand out business cards to potential customers at the Jersey Shore. During a search of their apartment, investigators found 62 pounds of marijuana, 42 pounds of hashish, TCH edibles and cartridges; two pounds of mushrooms and $119,000 in cash, officials said. Detectives also seized packaging materials for drugs and business cards for Garmans Goods, the business name they used to sell the drugs, prosecutors said. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Nicolas Fernandes may be reached at nfernandes@njadvancemedia.com. A former bank employee has been accused of stealing almost $1 million from a customers account over a six-year period and spending the money on real estate and other expenses, Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw said Tuesday. Agha Hasan, 41, of Bordentown was arrested Tuesday and charged with second-degree counts of theft by deception, computer criminal activity and misapplication of entrusted property. Hasan was also charged with three counts of third-degree failure to file New Jersey Tax Returns, five counts of third-degree failure to pay income tax and two counts of third-degree filing false returns. Prosecutors alleged Hasan stole $998,188 from a single customer over six years while working at a Santander Bank branch in Mount Holly, authorities said. Fraud investigators from Santander contacted authorities last year after discovering suspicious transactions executed and overseen by Hasan, who had recently been fired from his job, according to authorities. As a responsible bank, Santander Banks highest priority is protecting our customers, the company said in a statement to NJ Advance Media. The individual in question is no longer affiliated with Santander Bank. We continue to assist local law enforcement with their investigation and prosecution of this matter, and we have reimbursed the customer. Investigators said Hasan had been an employee of the bank since 2014 and befriended the customer, gaining his trust to help with paying bills. The relationship developed to a level where Hasan visited the customer at his home and obtained blank checks the customer had signed, as well as having the customer approving wire transfers, prosecutors said. Besides getting approval for certain transactions from the customer, Hasan allegedly made cash withdraws and disbursements from the customers account. Authorities said Hasan used the money for personal expenses, to purchase real estate and operate several businesses, including gas stations, car washes, convenience stores and a consulting business called Delval Consultants, LLC. Hasan was arrested Tuesday and is being held at the Burlington County Jail awaiting a detention hearing, officials said. No attorney was listed in online court records for Hasan Tuesday evening. Editors Note: This article was updated to include a statement from Santander Bank. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Matthew Enuco may be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Matt on X Amore Williams parents like to show off a prescient video of their daughter at age 6, with the first meal she ever cooked: a long roll pizza. She loves it, Amores dad, Warren Williams, said of the aspiring chef. And shes good. A mother and son from Newark were arrested Tuesday after a quartet of early morning raids in the city, and another at a Bloomfield apartment, yielded more than 10,000 vials of cocaine and another 640 grams of unpackaged coke, officials said. Edwin Medina, 32, and his mother, Sandra Almodovar, 51, were charged with first degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance with the intent to distribute, possession of a handgun while committing a narcotics offense and various other drug-related offenses, according to a release from the Essex County Prosecutors Office. Detectives from the offices narcotics task force searched the apartment and the four undisclosed locations in Newark on Tuesday morning and seized 10,400 vials of the drug, the unpackaged cocaine, and a 9-millimeter handgun with an extended magazine, the release stated. Detectives also found about $17,600 in cash, three cars and several pieces of high-end jewelry, the office said. No other information was released Tuesday. Medina and Almodovar were being held in the Essex County Jail pending their first court appearances, authorities said. Attorney information was not immediately available. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. At around 8 a.m. on the Fourth of July a Florida man armed with a semi-automatic rifle approached law enforcement rangers posted near a dining facility at Canyon Lodge in Yellowstone National Park and began firing toward the service entrance. The rangers returned fire, killing 28-year-old Samson Lucas Bariah Fussner of Milton, Florida, the Park Service said in a press release five days after the incident. An unidentified park ranger who was wounded in "a lower extremity" during the shootout was treated at an area hospital and released. Fussner died at the scene. At the time of the incident, the building was occupied by about 200 people. Consistent with Department of the Interior and NPS policies, the body camera footage of the incident will be released within 30 days. "Thanks to the heroic actions of our law enforcement rangers, many lives were saved here last Thursday," said Superintendent Cam Sholly in a statement. "These rangers immediately confronted this shooter and took decisive action to ensure he was no longer a threat to public safety." More than 20 Park Service law enforcement rangers, including the park's special response team, had been dispatched to Canyon Village early on July 4 after a woman called 911. She told the Yellowstone dispatch center she had been held against her will by Fussner in a residence at Canyon Village. "She also reported to law enforcement rangers that Fussner threatened to kill her and others, including plans to allegedly carry out a mass shooting(s) at July 4th events outside the park," the press release stated. An alert was then sent out to surrounding law enforcement agencies warning them to be on the lookout for Fussner, providing a description of his vehicle. A recording of the warning was posted on Facebook. When officers arrived at Canyon Village, they located Fussner's vehicle but it was unoccupied. The press release did not indicate how long the delay was between the officers' arrival and the shootout. The incident is under investigation by the FBI which is also providing victim/witness support to anyone involved in the incident along with the Park Service and Xanterra Parks and Resorts, a park concessionaire. Fussner was a Xanterra employee. "We are working now to provide maximum support to those involved and their families," Sholly said. NPS policy for law enforcement involved in a shooting calls for them to be placed on paid administrative leave during the investigation. Some facilities at Canyon Village were temporarily closed, including the campground. By Tuesday, the campground had been reopened along with "a limited quantity of select rooms and most remaining visitor services," Xanterra noted on its website. "All remaining lodging (including the Western cabins, and the remaining two of seven guest lodges) will reopen tomorrow, July 10," Xanterra posted. Also open on Tuesday was food service at the Eatery, the M66 Lounge and regularly scheduled tours from Canyon Lodge. The July 4 Yellowstone shooting is the 120th officer-involved shooting in National Park Service history, according to NPS Ranger News. The first officer-involved shooting in Yellowstone came sometime between 1916 and 1920 when former Chief Scout Jim McBride was shot by a poacher, Ranger News reported. Violent crime is rare in Yellowstone Park. In 1997, in the Frog Rock area 6 miles east of Mammoth, there was a murder-suicide involving and a 69-year-old Idaho mother and the shooter, her 48-year-old son. The pair had been on the lam following a check fraud and auto theft scheme, according to the Cowboy State Daily. In 1985, near Old Faithful, a 22-year-old park employee was beaten to death by a co-worker. In 1978, in the Boiling River area north of Mammoth Hot Springs, a California 17-year-old was shot dead by a man he was traveling with. More than $22,000 has been raised in an outpouring of support for the daughter of high-end sneaker entrepreneur from Bayonne who was gunned down on a Manhattan street last month. Javier Upscale Cracc left behind a 2-year-old daughter when he was shot dead on Greene Street June 25 in what was believed to be a robbery attempt. For those who knew Cracc, you know how vibrant and generous he was, always ready to lend a hand, according to the GoFundMe donation page. He was a dedicated son, father, and friend, a pillar in the sneaker community, and someone everyone wanted to know. ... Javier is survived by his beloved daughter, Camila. Camila will especially feel this loss as she navigates the world without her protector, her teacher, her deeply involved and loving father. While nothing can ever fill the void he left behind, this fundraiser is dedicated to supporting his daughter and creating a savings for her future. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than $22,000 had been donated in just four days. According to friends and his own admission in interviews, Osorio-Mejia grew up poor in Bayonne, got involved in the sneaker resale business after he saw some family members earn money that way. Osorio-Mejias drive and work ethic took him all over the country and led to the opening of a store in Manhattan and a celebrity clientele such as artists French Montana, Famous Dex, Jadakiss and A Boogie Wit da Hoodie. Outside of his career, Osorio-Mejia was a doting father to his daughter in Bayonne. His kid was his life, best friend Arvey Valderrama told he Jersey Journal last month. The New Jersey Supreme Court Wednesday struck down a group of Weehawken high-rise tenants right to file a class-action lawsuit against their management company, ruling that the waiver they agreed to in their lease is valid. More broadly and far-reaching, the court ruled that the absence of a mandatory arbitration provision in the lease contract -- the basic tenet on which the lower court and appellate court based their decisions -- did not invalidate the class-action lawsuit waiver. One resident suffered burns and a firefighter suffered minor injuries in a two-alarm blaze in Bayonne Tuesday morning. The fire at 120 West 44th St., a two-family home, knocked nine people from their homes. The residents are receiving assistance from the American Red Cross. With legal weed becoming a billion dollar business in New Jersey, Stockton University will this fall become the states first four-year institution to offer a cannabis-focused undergraduate degree. The Bachelor of Science in Hemp and Cannabis Business Management will be under Stocktons School of Business, the university announced Wednesday. This year, New Jersey is on track to sell over $1 billion of cannabis products, said Stockton Adjunct Professor Rob Mejia. You have to pay attention to a $1 billion business. Cannabis and hemp being so unique and regulated, you have to have special skills in order to get involved and be successful in the industry. A man from Costa Rica who ran a scam that took more than $2 million from American senior citizens has been sentenced to federal prison. Esteban De Jesus Campos Chanto, 43, received a 97-month sentence in Trenton federal court on Tuesday, the U.S. Attorneys Office District of New Jersey said in a news release. He previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was in the U.S. illegally and living in Trenton while running the scheme, officials said. From 2019 to 2021, Chantos associates in Costa Rica called elderly Americans and persuaded them to either mail or wire money to him, federal prosecutors said. The callers told the victims that they needed to pay off taxes and fees on lottery winnings or taxes and penalties to the government, authorities said. Chanto kept about $400,000 for himself and wired the rest of the money to his co-conspirators in Costa Rica, officials said. As part of his sentence, he has also been ordered to pay $2.07 million in restitution and will be subject to three years of supervised release. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Nicolas Fernandes may be reached at nfernandes@njadvancemedia.com. When it comes to segregation, most New Jerseyans dont see a problem: Just 12 percent of voters say the schools where they live are segregated, and just 19 percent say they want more racial diversity in their neighborhoods, according to a recent poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University. Yet the reality is, New Jerseys schools are among the most segregated in America, researchers note more segregated than Alabama or Mississippis. So why dont people perceive that? And how might this affect the politics of integration, as civil rights activists in New Jersey sue the state over its segregated schools? We asked Halley Potter, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation whos studied in school integration for more than a decade. Below is an edited transcript. Q. Why are schools here more segregated than in Alabama or Mississippi? A. One factor is the way the state has been divided into so many different school districts. For a relatively small state, New Jersey has more than 600 districts; compare that to Florida, which has just about 70. These small units of school decision-making and funding end up creating lines of segregation that divide students by race, by income and have profound effects on their opportunities. And its very hard for students or dollars to cross those district lines. Q. What do you make of this poll that found most Jerseyans dont think their schools are segregated? A. On a national level, most Americans do see segregation as a problem in our schools, so its surprising and troubling to see the numbers so low for New Jersey. One hypothesis is that a lot of people in northern states might think of segregation as a problem nationally, but not realize that a lot of the school segregation is right in their own backyard. It may also be that some people consider their schools to be integrated because they reflect their communities, but the communities themselves are highly segregated. I also see echoes of the strong grades that Americans give to their childrens schools even when they see problems in education at large. Q. Families support the idea of racial and economic school integration in other surveys, regardless of race or class. So why do white families resist integration? A. Even where theres general support for integration in polls, when you ask questions like, would you support sending your child to a more diverse school if it required a greater commute time, or anything that requires a trade-off, you see the support start to really decline. So, I think thats one of the challenges for school integration: You get a lot of head-nodding for the bigger issue, but when the rubber hits the road, people can be scared to make changes to their local schools. It can lead to a zero-sum mindset: A lot of white families are worried that plans to change enrollment to increase integration are going to somehow result in their children getting less. But one thing the data on school integration shows is that there really are benefits to students of all different backgrounds. Q. Is there growing resistance to integrated schools among Black families? A. The data Ive seen shows theres still a lot of support among Black communities for school integration. But we also need to acknowledge the very real concerns and history of challenges around school integration and the ways Black communities and families have sometimes been harmed or not listened to in past integration efforts. Theres a real effort now to do this in a different way, to center the voices of leaders and communities of color and bring our conversations about resources and funding and enrollment and integration together. The gaps we see in opportunities for students are about both the high levels of segregation in school enrollment and the inequities in terms of funding. Trying to address only one of those things, the funding, has proven over decades to be unsuccessful. Q. New Jerseys school funding formula directs more state aid to districts with English language learners and low-income students. How does that factor into this debate? A. New Jersey is on a stronger footing than many other states; it does have a progressive funding formula. Although I would argue theres still more that could be done to make that formula better. But even if New Jersey could fix all that, does it really solve the problem? The outcomes we see so far suggest that this alone probably isnt enough. You go back to the language of Brown v. Board of Education; we just havent seen separate ever be truly equal. Part of that has to do with the ways in which resource inequity can creep in despite the best efforts to equalize things. There could be other factors, like PTA funding or quality of facilities, that you need to factor in. And having diverse groups of students in a space is itself a resource that they deserve equitable access to. Some of the most interesting recent data on this comes from researcher Raj Chetty, looking at the ways it benefits a low-income child to be able to have friendships across socioeconomic lines and how that can lead to economic opportunities down the road. Those things cant be created with school funding formulas alone. School integration can be one of the most cost-effective strategies for trying to boost student achievement. Q. What are the best ways to desegregate schools without eliciting backlash and white flight? A. One really promising strategy is controlled choice. This usually lets families rank their school options; some might choose the schools closest to them as their top choices, others might be more interested in a school with strong offerings for STEM courses or an arts focus. Then families choices are weighed together with an enrollment algorithm designed to make sure all schools end up within a certain range of the overall diversity of the community. Through a process like that, you can end up with schools that are much more reflective of the overall community and still give families different options. In New Jersey, where so much segregation is happening across district lines, a key part of this conversation needs to be at the state level, to see if there are ways to create bigger combined districts or allow students to move across boundaries. One of the most successful examples of this is in Connecticut: Because of a state Supreme Court case, there have been efforts to desegregate the schools in Hartford city and the surrounding suburban districts. As a result, theyve gone from having roughly 10% of Hartford students attending integrated schools to having about half of students now getting that opportunity. Magnet schools in the city and surrounding suburbs can draw students in both directions. Thats one of the things I think could be really promising in New Jersey. Q. Do you think you can sell a solution like that when most people dont even see a problem? A. Its clear that there needs to be more education in the state on the problem, but its also really important to get people excited about the alternative. You see a lot of interest among families in suburban communities surrounding Hartford city that are excited to attend interdistrict magnet schools. A portion may be motivated because they understand the high levels of segregation in their communities, but in many cases, the driving factor is access to a different learning environment that they see as a benefit for their child. Q. Otherwise, segregation can be self-perpetuating, right? Affluent parents tend to look at test scores and decide to send their kids to school with other affluent families. A. Absolutely. If you have choice without elements to promote diversity, then that choice itself ends up just creating more and more segregated schools. When schools that are more segregated with low-income students and students of color are getting fewer resources and not showing good test results, that creates a downward spiral of school perception. Theres also a fear sometimes among families of not wanting their child to be the only one of a particular racial group in a school. That means that even if there are some elements of school choice, in terms of either picking schools or picking where to live, some families may not feel like everything is actually a true choice for them. With controlled choice programs, families know all the schools in their region are going to have certain levels of diversity, so they can actually start to make choices based on other factors. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. NEW YORK A lawyer for U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez on Tuesday urged jurors to acquit him of every charge at the New Jersey Democrats corruption trial, saying federal prosecutors had failed to prove a single count beyond a reasonable doubt. The attorney, Adam Fee, told the Manhattan federal court jury that there were too many gaps in evidence that prosecutors wanted jurors to fill in to conclude crimes were committed. And he defended over $100,000 in gold bars and more than $480,000 in cash found in an Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, home during a 2022 FBI raid, although he acknowledged of the valuables: Its provocative. Its atypical. Prosecutors have not come close to meeting their burden to show you that any of the gold or cash was given to Senator Menendez as a bribe, Fee said. This is a case with a lot of inferences, he said, suggesting there were large gaps in the evidence that was unsupported by emails, texts or other evidence. Earlier Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni said in a closing statement that began Monday that the senator had engaged in wildly abnormal behavior in response to bribes, including trying to interfere in criminal cases handled by the top state and federal prosecutors in New Jersey. Menendez, 70, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he accepted bribes including gold and envelopes of cash from 2018 to 2022 from three New Jersey businessmen who wanted his help in their business ventures. His trial entered its ninth week on Monday. Menendez is on trial with two of the businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Daibes. Hana, who prosecutors say enlisted Menendez to help him gain and protect a monopoly on the certification of meat exported from the U.S. to Egypt, and Daibes, an influential real estate developer, have also both pleaded not guilty. A third businessman pleaded guilty and testified at the trial. Early Tuesday, Monteleoni highlighted what he described as Menendezs attempt to influence former New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal in early 2019 to drop a criminal case on behalf of one of the bribe-paying businessmen with a false claim that investigators were discriminating against Hispanic truckers. Grewal, now head of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission, testified during the trial that he firmly rejected Menendezs efforts to intervene in criminal probes before directing him to tell a New Jersey defense lawyer already involved in the case to register any complaints with a judge or the trial team. The encounters with Grewal were cited by Monteleoni as examples of things Menendez did that the prosecutor said were wildly abnormal. Menendez is smart. Menendez is careful, Monteleoni said, noting that the senator claimed discrimination in the trucking industry rather than directly asking that an investigation be shut down because he knew the latter would be wrong. He said claiming discrimination gave Menendez deniability if anyone ever accused him of trying to pressure New Jerseys attorney general to drop a probe. In reality, though, Menendez made the approaches to Grewal in return for a new Mercedes-Benz that the businessmen promised would be delivered to his then-girlfriend, Nadine Arslanian, who became his wife in fall 2020, Monteleoni said. Nadine Menendez, 57, also is charged in the case, but her trial has been postponed while she recovers from breast cancer surgery. Menendez has resisted calls, even by some prominent Democrats, that he resign, though he did have to relinquish his powerful post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the charges were unveiled last fall. Several weeks ago, Menendez filed to run for reelection this year as an independent. Authorities in Union County are investigating a double shooting that left one man dead and another hospitalized Sunday morning. Elizabeth police officers responded to the 400 block of Westminster Avenue in the early morning hours of July 7 for a report of a shooting, Union County Prosecutors Office announced Tuesday. They found two men suffering from gunshot wounds at the scene, authorities said. Jose Aranzamedi, 47, was taken to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival, investigators said. The second victim, a 51-year-old man, was taken to an area hospital and is in stable condition, according to officials. The Union County Prosecutors Office is investigating the shooting. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact authorities. Tips submitted online at uctip.org or by phone at 908-654-8477 are eligible for a $10,000 reward if the information leads to an arrest and indictment. Information can also be reported to Sergeant Lamar Hartsfield of the Union County Prosecutors Office at 908-451-1873 or Det. Eduardo Lozada of the Elizabeth Police Department at 908-558-2033. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Matthew Enuco may be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Matt on X ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. The plan wasnt always for Yankees general manager Brian Cashman to attend this weeks series against the Rays at Tropicana Field. Cashman will be at the clubs player development complex in Tampa over the weekend for the MLB Draft, but he made the trip down early because of how the Yankees have performed of late. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. Two years ago, left-handed reliever Tim Mayza gave up the 61st home run of Aaron Judges record-setting season. Judge pulled his full-count sinker on September 28, 2022, into the Blue Jays bullpen in left field at Rogers Centre to make history. Now, Mayza is one call away from being Judges teammate with the Yankees. The reliever has signed a minor-league deal with the Yankees, per Brendan Kuty and Katie Woo of the Athletic. Mayza, 32, was recently released by the Blue Jays after more than a decade within Torontos organization. Late last month, he was designated for assignment by the Jays, passing through waivers. This has been the worst season of Mayzas seven-year MLB career and its not particularly close. SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE YANKEES NEWSLETTER: RESTORING THE GLORY Mayza has a ghastly 8.03 ERA over 35 relief appearances in 2024. Its a significant regression from last year, a career-best season in which the southpaw posted a 1.52 ERA over a career-high 69 games. Some of his metrics in that season were spectacular, so it makes sense why the Yankees would want to take a shot at helping the left-hander recapture that form. Mayza had a 58.2 ground-ball rate in 2023, tied for the 10th-highest mark among all qualified relievers, per FanGraphs. He was avoiding hard contact at an elite rate (4.1 barrel % and 87.3 average exit velocity) with a top-10 sinker in MLB according to Statcasts run value. Odds are, Mayza will report to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, a new reclamation project for a team that has a track record of bringing the best out of pitchers that other teams put on the scrap heap. While Mayza faces an uphill battle to make it back to the big leagues this season, theres a chance he could fit in the Yankees big-league bullpen. Other than sidearmer Tim Hill who has impressed since the Yankees picked him up last month the Yankees dont have any reliable lefty relievers. Victor Gonzalez was designated for assignment earlier this season, sticking around within the org in Triple-A. Caleb Ferguson has a team-worst 5.46 ERA. Lefties Josh Maciejewski is currently on the big-league roster, but hes more of an inning-eater thatll end up on the chopping block once the Yankees need a fresh arm. Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting us with a subscription. Max Goodman may be reached at mgoodman@njadvancemedia.com. Bismarck city commissioners will look into the possibility of creating an advisory board for the Bismarck Event Center and hiring a consultant to help determine management options, but they seem less enthusiastic about pursuing a third-party manager. Commissioners on Tuesday discussed options with city leaders for the center's future following months of conflict over its operations under former Director Charlie Jeske. City Administrator Jason Tomanek presented the commission with five suggestions to consider relating to the future of management and operations at the center. Tomanek said during the meeting that the suggestions were not recommendations from his staff but rather talking points intended to move the city forward. "This commission has an opportunity to direct staff and make some decisions on where we go from here and what do we do to ensure the future of the Bismarck Event Center will be a positive future, one that has a positive impact on our community and as an organization," he told the commission. The conversation is the first since April, when commissioners discussed continued research into the feasibility and costs of a more transparent alcohol sales system, along with workplace culture concerns raised during the city's investigation into Jeske. The embattled director was ousted from his role after accusations of unethical dealings and poor management. He denied any wrongdoing and ultimately signed a $325,000 severance deal with the city to retire in late March. A state criminal investigation led to no charges against him. Tomanek's five suggestions for the commission to consider were to create a job description and qualifications for a full-time center director, hire a consultant to evaluate management and provide recommendations, put out bids for a third-party to manage the center, create an advisory board of stakeholders, and put out a bid to potentially develop a parking lot directly west of the center. Commissioners were divided on the idea of bringing in a third party to manage the center. Commissioner Michael Connelly seemed the most onboard with the idea, stating that the city should consider sending out a call for projects for three of the five suggestions, including the third-party option, to see what possibilities are available to help guide the city's decision. "Knowing that there's options out there and maybe they haven't come forward yet," Connelly said. "If they presented a really good idea and it gave us that option to turn into that asset fit the community that we want, that might turn into a special thing." Other commissioners pushed back on the idea of third-party management. Newly elected Commissioner John Risch, sitting in on his first meeting, said it might be "premature" to put out a bid for a third-party. Commissioner Greg Zenker stated a third-party would not be needed. "I think our staff down there has done a fantastic job since this whole thing started, and I would really be very disappointed if a third party came in here and treated them like numbers," he said. Commissioner Anne Cleary was not opposed to the idea of a third party but she agreed with Risch that it may be too early to explore that option. She said a better first step would be to hire a consultant, which could provide further research into what a third-party manager could look like. Commissioners agreed that an advisory board should play a role in future Event Center management. Tomanek said such a board, made up of stakeholders who benefit from center activities, could provide insight on what events work best at the facility while also providing a group of people who are "in the know." Interim Event Center Director Amanda Yellow told commissioners she has reached out to the directors of the Fargodome in Fargo and Grand Forks' Alerus Center to get a better understanding of what an advisory board at the Event Center could look like and how it would interact with the City Commission. Both eastern North Dakota buildings have advisory boards that report to the city. "I have copies of both of their bylaws, and I've talked to directors of both buildings and have had conversations about what is kind of the main role of (their advisory) board," she said. Tuesday's discussion did not result in any vote to formally approve a direction. Rather, the commission directed the City Administration Department to bring back recommendations for a job description and additional information on creating an advisory board before the commission's July 23 meeting. The commission also directed the department to look into the process to hire a consultant and develop a bid for the development of the parking lot directly west of the building, with that information to be presented to the commission in August. Commissioners decided to set aside the third-party management option, at least for now. Dr. Sean Mackney has stepped down from his role as Principal and CEO of Petroc, concluding his time with the college effective July 5. Dr Mackney was with the college for five years having joined in 2019. In his resignation statement, Dr. Mackney reflected on his time with Petroc as both rewarding and challenging: He said: The role of Principal and CEO at Petroc has been immensely rewarding and challenging in equal measure. I have tried to bring energy, ideas, and belief in the immense capacities of those who commit to learning, to create solutions to all the situations we face. However, as we approach the end of the Petroc 2025 Strategy and begin looking to what comes next I believe that it is time for another to take that next step forward. Petroc has an important role to play in the community, helping to build a prosperous future and to give learners hope and the knowledge and skills to turn that hope into a reality that will change their fortunes and those of future generations. I wish you good luck and look forward to seeing you all working together in partnership to deliver for our learners, county, and communities in the coming years. The Board of Governors expressed gratitude for Dr. Mackney's dedication to PETROC, its students, and the North Devon community during his leadership. They acknowledged his strategic contributions and commitment to the college's success. They said: The Board of Governors extended their gratitude to Sean for his unwavering dedication to Petroc, its students, staff, and the North Devon community over the past five years. They noted he has shown great commitment and creativity in working towards sustaining the College and its success. The college, which serves up to 11,000 students each year, has appointed Mr Kurt Hintz as Interim Principal & CEO, effective from August 19. Until then, Dr Jason Jones, Deputy Principal, will oversee operations. (Informacion remitida por la empresa firmante) Revolutionary Partnership Announced: How Wandarra and PAPACKS* Aim to Turn the Tide on Plastic Waste in Australia NEWS AKTUELL // Townsville, North Queensland, July 10, 2024 - Wandarra, an innovative ag-tech solutions firm based in Townsville, North Queensland, and PAPACKS*, a global leader in sustainable packaging based in Cologne, Germany, are excited to announce a strategic partnership via a recently executed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The parties are currently working together to formalize the Australia-APAC exclusive IP licensing agreement with the target end date intended over the next few weeks. This partnership aims to transform the packaging industry across Australia and the Asia-Pacific, reducing plastic waste and supporting environmental sustainability by leveraging Wandarra's regional resources and PAPACKS*' cutting-edge technologies. Wandarra, based in the eco-friendly hub of Townsville near the Great Barrier Reef, capitalizes on its robust and efficient logistics network to distribute innovative hemp-based products. This location underscores Wandarra's commitment to environmental stewardship and positions the company as a leader in climate protection, the circular economy and regenerative agriculture. Townsville's logistics network, including rail, road, sea, and air, enables Wandarra to efficiently distribute goods and services. Initially, with sustainable alternatives through Smart Precinct NQ Queensland, the partnership will target the fresh produce sector, a vital industry in North Queensland, aiming to replace single-use plastics. The Circular Economy program supported by this partnership, aims to develop sustainable packaging solutions to replace single-use plastics and position the region as a leader in this industry. PAPACKS* provides a turnkey solution, including equipment training and commissioning, to ensure seamless production and adoption of sustainable packaging technologies. The production timeline plans for initial testing by way of samples produced in Germany, and delivered to North Queensland, to accommodate local consumer preferences. Concurrently, the Australian production team will be trained in Germany on the production lines, followed by commissioning and acceptance of the equipment and transport to the final Wandarra production site. This phase is scheduled to start in Q4 2024. PAPACKS* also offers expertise from over 75 patent families, including the preparation and processing of hemp as the most sustainable fiber raw material. Over the past seven years, PAPACKS* has advanced these developments with HempPulp* to achieve optimal product results. Australia generates 5.5 million tonnes of packaging material annually, with only 49% being recycled. This collaboration will have significant market impact by introducing world-leading sustainable packaging solutions, that include the reduction of landfill waste and marine litter. It will also enhance industrial hemp cultivation in North Queensland and position Wandarra as a strong innovator and leader in the Asia-Pacific region. Quote from Steve Tiley, CEO of Wandarra "North Queensland's responsibility to the Great Barrier Reef is unique, and the news of plastic detected on the outer reef is disturbing. Our collaboration with PAPACKS* provides an immediate solution for food and beverage manufacturers to meet their sustainability goals. The PAPACKS* team has developed world-leading technology that started as a concept in a garage, just 10 years ago. Their perseverance in research and development is an outstanding achievement." Quote from Tahsin Dag, Founder & CEO of PAPACKS* "Our partnership with Wandarra is a significant step towards eliminating single-use plastics and protecting valuable ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef. By combining Wandarra's resources with our innovative technologies, we will sustainably influence the packaging industry in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. This collaboration demonstrates, and practically implements, our shared commitment to sustainability and environmental protection." About Wandarra Founded in 2019 in Townsville, Wandarra adopts an integrated industrial hub and spoke model that sources hemp raw materials from regional farmers. This model enables the processing and manufacturing of hemp products such as food items, edible oils and industrial products for domestic and international markets. Thanks to North Queensland's first-class soils, reliable water supply, existing infrastructure, and a skilled workforce, Wandarra is uniquely positioned to promote hemp as a high-yield rotational crop. With community and government support, Wandarra meets the growing demand for hemp products. Industrial hemp offers solutions to global challenges such as food security, climate change, regenerative agriculture, and the circular economy which is supported by its ThriveTech* process. Wandarra's mission is clear: To be a leading Australian industrial hemp enterprise that leverages the advantages of North Queensland to support local communities and the environment, through sustainable practices and innovative solutions, Wandarra aims to contribute to a greener future. About PAPACKS* PAPACKS* is a pioneering company dedicated to developing and producing sustainable, plastic-free packaging solutions. PAPACKS* specializes in molded fiber packaging made primarily from fresh fibers from trees and hemp plants, which are approved for use with food. Through advanced technologies and a commitment to environmental protection, PAPACKS* drives the shift towards a circular economy and significantly reduces plastic pollution. The company's philosophy combines technology, art, and science to create packaging that is environmentally friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and functional. PAPACKS* invites companies worldwide to join this revolutionary movement. For more information, visit Wandarra's website and PAPACKS*' website. https://www.papacks.com/en/wandarra-papacks/ Media Contacts: Iljko Miocevic, CMO Wandarra, media@wandarra.com.au Manuel Leibrock, CMO PAPACKS*, press@papacks.com The Indiana Court of Appeals has declined to reduce the six-year prison term issued to a Gary man in January for a brutal March 1984 rape he committed in Hobart as a 17-year-old. Joel Williams Jr., 58, pleaded guilty to class B felony rape after a retrospective DNA analysis of old Lake County rape kits conducted in 2018 matched Williams' DNA to evidence collected following the rape. According to court records, Williams and two accomplices forced their way into a Hobart home at gunpoint where they raped a mother and her 17-year-old and 14-year-old daughters, ransacked the home, and stole jewelry, firearms and the family's car. The offenses were part of an early 1984 crime spree by Williams and several other men that eventually led to Williams being sentenced to 45 years in prison following three robbery convictions, records show. According to court records, Williams was released on parole in 2000. But Williams committed additional armed robberies in 2001 and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Williams again was released to parole in 2017. He was charged with rape in 2019 after the newly discovered DNA evidence connected him to the 1984 rapes in Hobart, records show. According to court records, prosecutors agreed to cap Williams' rape sentence at 10 years and to drop other pending charges, including 2023 gun possession and marijuana offenses, in exchange for Williams pleading guilty to rape. Lake Superior Judge Natalie Bokota sentenced Williams to 10 years, with six years in prison and four years on probation, after she determined Williams was unlikely to reoffend, would benefit from a short prison sentence, accepted responsibility for his crime and made substantial strides toward rehabilitation, notwithstanding Williams' "premeditated and sadistic" attack on a juvenile victim and extensive criminal history. In his appeal, Williams asked that his entire sentence be suspended to probation, or eliminated altogether, since it likely would have been incorporated into his earlier 45-year sentence if he had been convicted of rape in the 1980s. The appeals court, led by Judge Nancy Vaidik, a Porter County native, rejected Williams' request based on the "simply horrifying" nature of Williams' crime and his eight prior felony convictions. "Neither the nature of the offense nor Williams' character warrant a reduction in his sentence," Vaidik said. "While Williams was 17 when he committed this crime, as the trial court noted, the commission of a brutal crime is something that even children know is wrong." Records show Williams currently is scheduled to be released from prison July 17, 2026, thanks to the more generous credit time for good behavior in effect for felonies committed in Indiana prior to a 2014 change in the state's criminal code. Williams also still can ask the Indiana Supreme Court to consider reviewing his sentence and to potentially reduce his prison term. Gallery: Get to know these new Indiana laws that took effect July 1 Beekeeping Biomarker testing Bobcat hunting Boundary marker Contraceptives Digital currency Dog sales Drink server Driver safety Drones Food and beverage tax Foreigner land acquisition Gary gun lawsuit Green alert Guardian ad litem Happy hour Intellectual diversity Lake Michigan Mixed beverages Penal facilities Phones in schools Psilocybin Public access counselor Reading Regional planning Religious instruction Sanctuary cities State superintendent Thirteenth check Virtual revenge porn Website age verification Wetlands Xylazine Officials at the University of Houston said on Tuesday that a vandal attacked Shahzia Sikanders sculpture Witness, beheading the work, which is a monument to women and justice installed on campus. Footage of the destruction, which occurred early Monday morning amid the harsh weather of Hurricane Beryl and power outages, was obtained by campus police, officials told the artist. Sikander, a Pakistani American artist, often creates works that examine questions of politics, language and empire. The damaged statue was one of the artists first major public sculptures in a nearly 30-year career. We were disappointed to learn the statue was damaged early Monday morning as Hurricane Beryl was hitting Houston. The damage is believed to be intentional, Kevin Quinn, executive director of media relations for the university, said in a statement to The New York Times. The University of Houston Police Department is currently investigating the matter. NATO leaders gathered in Washington today for a summit organized to celebrate the alliances 75th anniversary and emphasize the members long-term commitment. The three-day event is designed in large part as a show of strength meant for Russia. American officials have assessed that Russia is unlikely to gain much, if any, territory in the coming months, a significant change in the dynamic of the war. Western leaders believe that their efforts in Ukraine are working. But overshadowing the display of unity and optimism is uncertainty about the future of American leadership. President Biden, who is perhaps NATOs most vocal advocate in Washington, has faced intense scrutiny about his age, acuity and ability to campaign after his disastrous debate performance last month. Biden encouraged voters to watch him closely and judge his ability to lead on the world stage for themselves. On Thursday, at the end of the summit, the president is scheduled to hold a news conference his first full, solo face-off with reporters in the U.S. since November 2022. Unionized workers at Samsung Electronics said Wednesday they would go on an indefinite strike, an escalation of a rare labor dispute that could disrupt the technology giants world-leading chip business. An estimated 6,500 workers walked off the job on Monday for a planned three-day strike over pay and working conditions. The Nationwide Samsung Electronics Union decided to extend the strike after hearing no word from the company, according to Lee Hyun Kuk, the vice president of the union, which represents more than 31,000 workers, or a quarter of the work force at Samsung Electronics. Samsung, South Koreas biggest private employer, has long been the worlds largest maker of memory chips, which help computers and other electronics equipment store information. The company is also a leading manufacturer of logic chips, which make computers run, behind only Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. The union said it has been negotiating with Samsung since January over vacation days and wages. As the strike goes on, the managements blood will dry out and they will eventually come to the negotiating table on their knees, the union said in a statement. A lawyer for Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, in a fiery closing argument on Tuesday at the senators trial on bribery charges, accused prosecutors of building a case that relied on half-truths, unsupported inferences, factual leaps and guesses. The gaps you are being asked to fill are not based on evidence, the lawyer, Adam Fee, told the jury at the trial, which is in its ninth week in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Dont fall into a trap of buying a story a forceful, well-told, long, long story, Mr. Fee said. Resist that. As a politician, Mr. Menendez, 70, has long been known for his pugnaciousness. When he was indicted last September, nearly every major Democrat in New Jersey called on him to resign. Instead, he dug in for a fight. Mr. Fee mirrored that aggressiveness in his closing arguments as he also tried to humanize Mr. Menendez before the jury. Imagine this is what you have to sit and see being presented as the proof, Mr. Fee said. Its a familiar theme: the tragic hero who gains power to vanquish some evil and in doing so commits, or becomes, the evil he intended to vanquish. The Huey Long-like character of Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warrens All the Kings Men comes to mind, as does the figure of Brutus in Shakespeares Julius Caesar. And so, increasingly, does President Biden. The man elected to banish his self-deluded, deceptive, disrespected and destructive predecessor increasingly embodies those vices himself. So much is becoming clear in recent reporting about the presidents mental state. Saying hello to one Democratic megadonor and family friend at the White House recently, the president stared blankly and nodded his head, Olivia Nuzzi reported last week for New York magazine. The first lady intervened to whisper in her husbands ear, telling him to say hello to the donor by name and to thank them for their recent generosity. The president repeated the words his wife had fed him. Theres plenty more like this, including in The Wall Street Journal and The Times. Asked if one could imagine putting Mr. Biden into the same room with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia today, a former U.S. official who had helped prepare Biden for a recent trip to Europe went silent for a while, then said, I just dont know, The Times reported. A former senior European official answered the same question by saying flatly, No. A U.S. marshal on a Supreme Court security detail shot and wounded an armed man who tried to carjack him early Friday near Justice Sonia Sotomayors home in northwest Washington, according to court documents. The marshal was sitting in an unmarked federal vehicle when a silver Toyota minivan pulled over next to him, according to court documents. A man, identified in the documents as Kentrell Flowers, 18, exited the van, approached the marshal and pointed a handgun at him through the drivers side window. The marshal drew his gun and fired at Mr. Flowers through the window four times, hitting him in the mouth, according to the court documents. A second U.S. marshal from another vehicle also responded and fired his weapon, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. The first marshal provided first aid to Mr. Flowers, who was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Mr. Flowers was charged with armed carjacking, carrying a pistol without a license, and possession of a large-capacity ammunition-feeding device. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine arrived in Washington on Tuesday with words of gratitude and praise for American support, and pleas for more weapons and fewer restrictions on using them in his countrys war against Russia. Mr. Zelensky credited American missiles and permission to fire them across the border into Russia with helping his forces hold off an attack on the city of Kharkiv, stopping a Russian offensive this spring. But he asked for other restrictions to be lifted, so that Ukraine could fire at Russian military bases hundreds of miles inside Russia to destroy aircraft that fire weapons and drop bombs that he said were killing civilians and children. With more American assistance, he said, Ukraine can continue to strike against Russian targets in Crimea and help push the occupiers out of the southern part of the country. Before Dr. Kevin OConnor was appointed White House physician at the beginning of the Biden administration, he discussed a business venture with the presidents brother James Biden, but the doctor ultimately received no compensation, Mr. Bidens lawyer said. The discussions revolved around James Bidens involvement with a health care company called Americore, which was looking to expand a network of hospitals in underserved rural areas of the United States. Republicans have seized on the episode to suggest that Dr. OConnor might have had incentive to minimize issues related to President Bidens health. The White House rejected the speculation, with a spokesman calling it ridiculous and insulting. In his current role, Dr. OConnor produced letters each of the three years following Mr. Bidens physicals that attested the president was healthy and fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency. The assessments have come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks as Mr. Bidens decline has become more apparent, particularly after his feeble performance in last months debate against former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. 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. Blowing Smoke Congressional Democrats met in Washington on Tuesday to discuss their concerns about President Bidens re-election campaign. People waited all day for white smoke to emerge from the Capitol, signaling a new leader, Jimmy Fallon said. Read Your Way Around the World is a series exploring the globe through books. Few could doubt the literary bona fides of the Czech Republic, a country that elected a dissident playwright, Vaclav Havel, as its first post-Communist president. Literature is at the center of the Czech heart because it created us and liberated us. As Austria-Hungary strove to make us German, writers and poets worked to create and preserve the idea of Czech language and national identity. When the Communist Party fought to purge intellectual rebellions, dissidents met in Pragues legendary smoke-filled pubs to discuss and smuggle their banned work through the samizdat network. Famously, Prague, known as the City of a Hundred Spires, was the foremost muse for the troubled mind of one Franz Kafka, despite his uneasy relationship with the city. (Communist authorities tried to erase Kafka from Czech history for decades.) While Prague hasnt escaped the commercialization befalling many European metropolises Gothic cathedrals now share space with luxury fashion brands and golden-arch fries its literary life cannot be snuffed out. Literature and myth live in every cobblestone, leading down narrow alleyways in the citys Old Town toward medieval alchemic mysteries, techno parties in centuries-old basements and astronomical clocks tracking the paths of stars. At the NATO summit, the attention is on Biden A NATO summit celebrating the alliances 75th anniversary hoped to send a message to potential adversaries that a larger, more powerful group of Western allies had emerged after more than two years of war in Ukraine. That confidence now seems overshadowed by uncertainty: Will President Biden continue to vie for a second term, and what could happen if Donald Trump returns to the presidency? Biden is hosting the three-day event, which began yesterday in Washington, while under intense scrutiny for signs that he cannot manage another four years. The president said he welcomed the attention. I guess a good way to judge me, he said, is to watch him at the summit and to see how the allies react. Come listen. See what they say. Trump: When he was in office, Trump threatened to pull the U.S. out of NATO, and once declared the alliance obsolete. This year, he said he would let the Russians do whatever the hell they want to any member country he saw as an insufficient contributor. Democratic politicians seemed to be falling in line behind President Biden yesterday even as more polling showed his campaign to be in trouble. In todays newsletter, well explain the latest developments and polling. We will also give you a selection of commentary both pro-Biden and anti-Biden that we found helpful. The view on the Hill Former President Donald J. Trump is riding a winning streak at the Supreme Court. Michael D. Cohen, his fixer-turned-nemesis, is looking to break it. Mr. Cohen on Wednesday asked the court to let him sue the former president over claims that he violated his constitutional rights, an issue that stems from Mr. Cohens stint in prison during the height of the pandemic. Mr. Cohen had been released for health reasons in 2020, but the Trump administration brought him back to prison after he announced plans to write a scathing book about Mr. Trump. Ultimately, a federal judge ordered his release and rebuked the Trump administration for its retaliatory action. Mr. Cohen then sued Mr. Trump and other federal officials, a case that has gained significance after the former presidents pledges to seek retribution and prosecute political enemies. Lower courts dismissed the lawsuit early on in the case, setting up Wednesdays request that the Supreme Court take it up and send it back for a trial. John Fitzpatrick, a hotelier who owns two four-star hotels in Midtown Manhattan, has had to troubleshoot a number of issues during his career. Guests wouldnt stop stealing his hand towels, emblazoned with an F for Fitzpatrick Hotel Group, so he removed the lettering, and the pilfering stopped. During the height of the pandemic, Mr. Fitzpatrick took away the magazines he normally provided in his hotel rooms so guests wouldnt worry about strangers having touched what they were reading. Now, Mr. Fitzpatrick and his team are brainstorming ideas for how to deal with a new problem: replacing the small plastic toiletry bottles that will be banned in larger hotels throughout New York State beginning Jan. 1, 2025. In this day and age, we have to watch our carbon footprint, and we have to stop using plastics and all sorts of stuff as best we can, Mr. Fitzpatrick said. During a closing argument that stretched for nearly six hours over two days, a lawyer for Senator Robert Menendez tried to take apart the vast and complicated case that prosecutors spent weeks building against his client, calling it painfully thin. Mr. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who is being tried alongside two businessmen, has been indicted on 16 felony counts, including bribery, extortion, obstruction of justice, acting as a foreign agent and conspiracy. Prosecutors have shown jurors hundreds of text messages, emails, bank records and photographs of nearly half a million dollars in cash and gold bars that were found in the Englewood Cliffs, N.J., home of Mr. Menendez, 70, and his wife Nadine, 57. The couple received the gifts between 2018 and 2022 in exchange for political favors, the government says. But Adam Fee, one of Mr. Menendezs lawyers, said in a closing argument on Wednesday that prosecutors had failed to connect any of that evidence to an act of bribery or corruption. Mr. Menendezs actions, such as calling government officials about investigations involving constituents or pushing for aid to Egypt, were part of his job. While you were watching fireworks last week, Christopher OBrien was practicing saying semiquincentennial. Its the term for a 250th anniversary. OBrien is the president of Sail4th250, a nonprofit that is focused on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Continental Congresss approval of the Declaration of Independence. Theres a dollop of good news for Democrats from the British and French elections, but its bad news for President Biden. The basic lesson is that liberals can win elections but perhaps not as incumbents. The election results abroad strike me as one more reason for Biden to perform the ultimate act of statesmanship and withdraw from the presidential race. The U.K. elections on July 4 resulted in a landslide for the Labour Party, ending the Conservative Partys 14 years in power. Keir Starmer, the new Labour prime minister, achieved this result in part by moving to the center and even criticizing the Conservatives for being too lax on immigration. He projected quiet competence, promising in his first speech as Britains leader to end the era of noisy performance. But mostly, British voters supported Labour simply because theyre sick of Conservatives mucking up the government. The two main reasons voters backed Labour, according to one poll, were to get the Tories out and the country needs a change. A mere 5 percent said they backed Labour candidates because they agree with their policies. As a way to dissociate from political news, Ive spent the past week mainlining stories about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders; it started when I binged the new Netflix docuseries Americas Sweethearts, which follows the women trying out and training for the 2023-24 squad. Im a New York Jew who got kicked out of ballet class when I was 4 because I lacked any discernible talent or interest. So I didnt expect to fall in love with a show that is so steeped in Southern and dance culture. The Atlantics Caitlin Dickerson describes the old-school cult of femininity that requires these women to be windup dolls of positivity. In the docuseries, one bright-eyed, deeply earnest hopeful named Reece, trying out for the first time, exemplifies this ideal. She says that she wants the Lord to use her as a vessel when she dances: I pray that whoever watches this one day sees him and not me. I came to adore her and the rest of these talented and beautiful women as they worked against incredibly tough odds; hundreds of women try out for the 36 spots on the squad. Because the newbies are competing for positions against veterans, the acceptance rate in any given year can be comparable with that of an Ivy League school. The seven episodes of the Netflix series werent enough for me. So I watched a 2018 documentary about Cowboys cheerleaders, Daughters of the Sexual Revolution. I even started on the CMT reality show about the squad, Making the Team, which ran for 16 seasons and is much less polished than the Netflix show. A young Iranian woman wore baggy jeans, a backpack slung over one shoulder and a black mask, presumably to protect her identity. Allowing her auburn hair to flow freely in contravention of the Islamic Republics mandatory hijab rules, she proceeded to spray-paint in Persian on a wall in the holy city of Mashhad, Khamenei youre next. Her stark warning for Irans Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei came in May just one day after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash. And while undeniably dangerous, the act of defiance, recorded on video in Mr. Raisis hometown and widely circulated on social media, isnt out of the ordinary these days in Iran, where a generation of youth is deeply disillusioned with the status quo and wants the geriatric clerical establishment ruling Iran gone. Young Iranians discontent played a critical role in the recent elections to replace Mr. Raisi, when a majority of the nation rejected the nezam the system and boycotted the polls. According to Irans official count, just 40 percent of registered voters participated in the first round of voting on June 28, the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republics 45-year history. That number went up in last weeks runoff to about 50 percent, though some suspect real turnout may be even lower. Elections in Iran are neither free nor fair, and videos from across the country showed empty polling stations. In the end, the so-called reformist Masoud Pezeshkian won over the hard-liner Saeed Jalili. For millions of Iranians, there was no acceptable choice: Both candidates were approved by the Guardian Council, a 12-member vetting body, six of whom are handpicked by Mr. Khamenei. But the breadth of the boycott appears to have put the regime on the back foot. The supreme leader took longer than usual to deliver his customary message congratulating the people of Iran for voting. The fact that so many groups dissidents, activists, bereaved families of slain protesters among them joined in this act of civil disobedience signaled to the regime and to the world that they dont want an Islamic republic. Americans understand the value of alliances. They know that these relationships make us stronger and help us build a world that is free, independent, prosperous and secure. But they also want to make sure that our allies are pulling their weight and paying their fair share of the costs of a common defense. When President Biden took office in 2021, our alliances around the world were atrophied and underutilized. Now, three and a half years later, our allies are committing more to our common defense than at any point since the end of the Cold War, making both them and America more secure. There is still more progress to be made, but we are well on our way to building strength that advances U.S. interests and enables us to work together to shape the future of the international order. Lets start with the numbers. As NATO meets this week in Washington, we are closer than ever to fulfilling the pledge that alliance members made 10 years ago, after Russias illegitimate annexation of Crimea, to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. Twenty-three NATO members, out of 32, are expected to meet or exceed that target in 2024, compared with just nine in 2020, and five in 2016. This year alone Americas NATO partners Canada and 30 European nations will spend an estimated $506.7 billion on defense. That is an increase of $181 billion from 2020, compared with an increase of $70 billion from 2016 to 2020, during the previous administration. These numbers will continue to improve. In 2023, defense expenditures of NATO nations in Europe and Canada grew by 8 percent. This year, they are set to grow by 18 percent. These are not just numbers on a page or a fancy accounting trick: In the next five years, our NATO allies will add over 650 fifth-generation F-35 aircraft, over 1,000 air defense systems, nearly 50 warships and submarines, 1,200 battle tanks, 11,300 combat vehicles and nearly 2,000 artillery systems to modernize their arsenals, making us all more secure. So indeed, Europe is doing more. The combination of recent Supreme Court rulings on presidential power and the Democratic Partys nomination crisis in the wake of President Bidens disastrous debate performance has significantly improved Donald Trumps prospects not only his odds of once again becoming president but also of enacting a sweeping authoritarian agenda. Trumps debt to the six-member conservative majority on the Supreme Court is twofold. First, their delay. By waiting until the last day of the courts term to issue their decision on Trumps immunity claims, the justices effectively prevented prosecution of federal criminal charges against him before the election. By shielding Donald Trump from standing trial before a jury in two of his felony cases, Michael Podhorzer, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., wrote in a post on his Substack, Tipping the Scales, Trumps three appointments to the Supreme Court, along with the even more MAGA Justices Alito and Thomas and Judge Aileen Cannon, have already irreparably interfered in the 2024 election. Second, the substance of the July 1 ruling in Trump v. United States has convinced Trump and his allies that they will face few legal obstacles if they pursue a radical reconstruction of government a second American Revolution, in the words of one loyalist if Trump regains the White House on Nov. 5. Saugerties, N.Y. | $1.475 Million A 1735 stone house with three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms, on a 32-acre lot This home, known as the Parsonage, was built for the clergy of the Katsbaan church, established in the early 18th century a few miles away. The house sits at the propertys highest point, offering sweeping views of Kaaterskill High Peak, in the Catskill Mountains. It is a five-minute drive from Bristol Beach State Park on the Hudson River, a popular spot for kayaking and fishing, and less than 10 minutes from a diner, an ice-cream shop and a summer farmers market in the center of town. The city of Hudson is about half an hour away. Driving to Albany takes 45 minutes. New York City is about two and a half hours away by car, depending on traffic. Size: 2,960 square feet Price per square foot: $498 Indoors: The house sits at the end of a long driveway, surrounded by rolling lawns, mature trees, landscaped beds and a fenced vegetable garden. The main entrance is through a blue-painted door in the center of a bluestone-and-limestone facade. Inside is a foyer with wood floors and a staircase to the second floor. A rumble, a deluge of snow and then silence avalanches can be deadly, but they often leave behind little enduring evidence of their passage. Now, researchers have turned to tree rings to reconstruct records of avalanches past. By analyzing the wood of hundreds of living pine trees near a ski resort in Bulgaria, a team of scientists found evidence of dozens of large avalanches that struck the area over two centuries. Understanding the frequency of potentially destructive avalanches can inform risk-management efforts and land-use planning, the researchers suggest. They published their results in the journal Dendrochronologia in June. The Pirin Mountains in southwestern Bulgaria are home to old-growth forests of pine and fir trees. Many of the trees have been standing for centuries, but some have steeply leaning trunks while others bear conspicuous scars such as broken branches. They have certain signs that they were damaged in the past, said Momchil Panayotov, one of the authors of the study and a dendrochronologist at the University of Forestry in Sofia, Bulgaria. Microsoft has given up its seat on OpenAIs board, relinquishing a nonvoting position it gained late last year, as regulators intensify their scrutiny of the ties between the tech giant and the start-up behind the chatbot ChatGPT. Microsoft told OpenAI of its decision in a letter delivered on Tuesday. The tech giant will remain the largest investor in OpenAI, with a 49 percent stake. It has committed to invest $13 billion in the artificial intelligence company that developed ChatGPT, which has become the worlds most popular chatbot because of its ability to answer questions, create images and write software code. This week, OpenAI also told key investors and business partners that it would begin meeting with them on a quarterly basis, an OpenAI spokesman said. Those meetings will be open to investors, including Microsoft and the venture firms Khosla Ventures and Thrive Capital, as well as Apple, which recently struck a deal to make ChatGPT available on iPhones later this year. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The companies have disputed those claims.) The case for a Biden comeback always presumed that voters would mostly cast their ballots based on their views about Donald J. Trump. Thats how President Biden won four years ago, and its why many believed he could overcome poor approval ratings to win again. But as my colleague Reid Epstein noted Monday, this election hasnt been about Mr. Trump since the recent presidential debate. Instead, the political conversation has focused almost entirely on Mr. Bidens fitness for the presidency and whether hell remain his partys nominee. So long as thats true, the path to a Biden comeback will be long and arduous. The best that can be said for Mr. Biden is that the worst of the post-debate crisis might might be over. My colleagues on the Hill report that House and Senate Democrats did not reach consensus that might have encouraged party leaders to try to nudge Mr. Biden out of the election. Even skeptics like Jerry Nadler, who had reportedly told his colleagues that Mr. Biden should end his candidacy, appeared newly resigned to Mr. Bidens renomination. And all of this follows a steady stream of Democrats who affirmed their support for Mr. Biden on Monday, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Months from now, its possible well look back on the last 48 hours as a turning point for Mr. Biden the moment when efforts to remove him were finally pushed aside, and when he and the Democrats got back to the task of trying to defeat Mr. Trump. On a sunny afternoon in May, Zachary Galante was sitting in a conference room in St. Francis de Sales Seminary with several other young men, talking about what it meant for them to choose the Catholic priesthood in the year 2024. The next morning, they would make lifelong promises of celibacy and obedience, and they were palpably elated by the prospect. Its a beautiful life, Deacon Galante, soon to become Father Galante, said. There was a time where the church maybe apologized for being Catholic, he said later in the conversation. He and the other new priests agreed they were called to something different: advancing the Catholic faith, even the parts that could seem out of place in an increasingly hostile world. The church is Catholic, and so we should announce that joyfully, he said. In an era of deep divisions in the American Catholic Church, and ongoing pain over the continuing revelations of sexual abuse by priests over decades, there is increasing unity among the men joining the priesthood: They are overwhelmingly conservative in their theology, their liturgical tastes and their politics. Priests ordained since 2010 are clearly the most conservative cohort of priests weve seen in a long time, said Brad Vermurlen, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, who has studied the rightward shift of the American priesthood. Surveys tracking the opinions of priests have found that, starting in the 1980s, each new wave of priests in the United States is noticeably more conservative than the one before it, Dr. Vermurlen said. Vice President Kamala Harris stepped up her attacks on former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday as she said in Dallas that Mr. Trump would round up his political enemies, deport peaceful protesters and terminate the Constitution in a second term. Consider: Donald Trump has openly vowed if re-elected hell be a dictator on day one, that he will weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies, round up peaceful protesters and throw them out of our country and even, and even and I quote, terminate the United States Constitution, Ms. Harris said. Ms. Harris has been harshly critical of Mr. Trump in the past, but at campaign events in the last two days, as an increasing number of Democrats question whether President Biden has the ability to beat Mr. Trump in November and the acuity to serve another four years, she has been far more explicit about the dangers she sees in a Trump second term. Ms. Harris has emerged as a top replacement for Mr. Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket should he drop out of the race. In Dallas, Ms. Harris tried to attach Mr. Trump to Project 2025, a policy and staffing blueprint assembled by dozens of conservative groups for the next Republican administration. Among the platform proposals include replacing many federal civil servant jobs with political appointees who would be loyal to the president. After decades of viewing China as a distant threat, NATO on Wednesday accused Beijing of becoming a decisive enabler of Russias war against Ukraine, and demanded that it halt shipments of weapons components and other technology critical to the rebuilding of the Russian military. The statement is contained in a declaration approved by the 32 leaders of the alliance, shortly before they headed to a dinner at the White House on Wednesday night. It is a major departure for NATO, which until 2019 never officially mentioned China as a concern, and then only in the blandest of language. Now, for the first time, the alliance has joined in Washingtons denunciations of Chinas military support for Russia. But the declaration contains an implicit threat that Chinas growing support for Russia will come at a cost. China cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation, the declaration said, particularly calling out its large-scale support for Russias defense industrial base. Anger has not worked. Fear has not worked. Panic has not worked. Bluntness has not worked. Sadness has not worked. Concern has not worked. Elected Democrats and donors have been all over the emotional map this week as they scrutinize the state of President Bidens viability as a candidate against former President Donald J. Trump, trying everything from directly pleading with him to drop out of the race to freaking out in silence. All of it has only gotten Mr. Bidens Irish up, as he would say, igniting a stubbornness that is as key to his political brand as resilience. But on Wednesday, Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker and one of the few elected Democrats whose opinion the president actually cares about tried another tack: She telegraphed not panic but respect, in hopes of appealing to the Joe Biden who has taken a breath and stepped aside in the past not the Joe Biden who is currently staring down his party, daring Democrats to try to force him away from an office he spent decades pursuing. Hes beloved, he is respected, and people want him to make that decision, not me, Ms. Pelosi said on Morning Joe, the presidents favorite news show. I want him to do whatever he decides to do, and thats the way it is. Rwanda does not have to repay the hundreds of millions of pounds it received from Britain as part of a contentious policy aimed at sending migrants on a one-way flight to the Central African nation, two senior Rwandan government officials say. Rwandas president had previously suggested that such money could be returned. As part of the deal, Britain was set to give Rwanda as much as about half a billion pounds in development funding in exchange for taking in the migrants. Britains independent public spending watchdog said in early March that the country had already paid Rwanda 220 million, about $280 million, even though no asylum seekers had been deported to the African nation. Britains new prime minister, Keir Starmer, scrapped the plan after taking over as the countrys leader last week. The initiative had been devised by Britains previous government under the Conservative Party in an effort to deter unauthorized migrants from crossing the English Channel to Britain in unsafe boats. One of the Rwandan officials, Alain Mukuralinda, the governments deputy spokesman, said on Wednesday that the agreement did not include a reimbursement clause. The line outside the Venezuelan Consulate in Madrid stretched down the block. Pregnant women, families with small children, older people and those with disabilities arrived as early as 4 a.m. five hours before the office opened trying to register to vote in Venezuelas highly anticipated presidential election. Adriana Rodriguez, 47, who left Venezuela in 2018, showed up at 8 a.m., two days in a row. Both times, she waited four hours before reaching the front of the line, only to be turned away, she said, always with the same explanation: They could not register any more people. With Venezuelas authoritarian president, Nicolas Maduro, trailing badly in polls ahead of the July 28 vote, the government has imposed stringent rules making registering to vote nearly impossible for millions of Venezuelans living abroad, including in the United States, Spain and Latin American countries. In a busy port city along Pakistans southwestern coast, a newly built security barrier and hundreds of new checkpoints safeguard Chinese workers. Farther down the Arabian Sea coast, in Pakistans largest city, Karachi, officials added hundreds of police officers to a special unit charged with protecting Chinese-funded development projects. And in the capital, Islamabad, officials created a new police force specifically to protect Chinese nationals. Across Pakistan, authorities are hurrying to bolster security for Chinese workers after a surge in militant violence targeting Chinese-funded megaprojects. The attacks have threatened infrastructure, energy and trade projects that have kept Pakistans economy afloat through a dire economic crisis. That investment in Pakistan, which began in 2015 as part of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative, involves around $60 billion of planned projects. Tens of thousands of Chinese workers are thought to be in Pakistan, though estimates vary widely. Chinese investment has proved critical since support from the United States tapered off after the war in neighboring Afghanistan ended in 2021. For the last few months, tourists in certain areas of Spain have found fewer welcome mats and more hostility. Anti-tourism graffiti loops across buildings, and tens of thousands of people have protested this year against unsustainable mass tourism. Over the weekend in Barcelona, locals anger over housing shortages, overcrowding and the cost of living was tangible and wet. Residents of the Catalan capital took to the streets on Saturday with water guns, squirting them at diners eating al fresco. About 2,800 people demonstrated, the police said, a figure that some organizers said was an undercount. Some carried signs with messages like tourists go home and you are not welcome, and doused families at restaurants. A lawyer for the jailed Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza said his client is in stable health after being moved to a Russian prison hospital last week without explanation and out of contact for six days. Mr. Kara-Murza, 42, is one of Russias most prominent dissidents. He was sentenced last April to 25 years in prison for treason after condemning the war in Ukraine. It was the longest sentence given to any opposition politician in modern Russia, part of a widespread crackdown on those who dare to publicly oppose the Kremlin and its war on Ukraine. His wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, said last week that lawyers who had been trying to meet with him were told he had been taken to a prison hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk where he has been serving his sentence and that they were denied access to see him. That raised alarm bells, coming just months after the death of the opposition politician Aleksei A. Navalny in an Arctic penal colony. After six days without contact despite repeated efforts to see Mr. Kara-Murza, one of his lawyers was able to visit him on Wednesday, a member of the legal team said. More than 80 lawyers, academics and activists in the United Arab Emirates who had been convicted in shadowy national security trials years ago, after they had called for political reforms, had expected to soon be released from prison as, one by one, their sentences expired. But in a move that stunned the prisoners families, the men were all prosecuted again, the majority sentenced on Wednesday to terms ranging from 10 years to life in prison, dashing their families hopes of a long-delayed reunion. The authorities accused the men of starting a terrorist organization called the Justice and Dignity Committee, and a court in Abu Dhabi sentenced 10 of them to an additional 10 to 15 years behind bars, and 43 others to life in prison. The court dismissed the cases against 24 defendants, the Emirati state news agency said, and acquitted one of them. The outcomes of the cases against the remaining defendants remained unclear. It is something that shocked everyone for what? said Ahmed Al Nuaimi, an Emirati dissident living in exile in London. Just calling for democracy leads to life in prison? Mr. Al Nuaimi added. Its unacceptable and unimaginable. PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a diverse group of chemicals that include PFCAs, PFOA, PFSAs, PFHxS, and thousands of others. These chemicals have been in commercial production since the 1950s and are now widely used in consumer and industrial applications. One characteristic of PFAS is their persistence in the environment, as they are extremely resistant to degradation. PFAS have emerged as contaminants of global concern because of their potential to accumulate in the human body and food chains. This event brought together a wide range of stakeholders, including governments, industry, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and academics to discuss various topics related to PFAS. These topics cover areas such as country risk management approaches, innovation challenges for finding safer alternatives, effective risk communication strategies, monitoring techniques, waste management, and approaches to managing contamination. SCRIPTS: Irelands Playwriting Festival returns this week for its 10th outing in Birr Co. Offaly from July 11th-14th. The thrilling programme of live theatre and workshops celebrates the best of contemporary Irish theatre next month. Dedicated to nurturing and showcasing the finest new plays from emerging and established playwrights, the vibrant event will see Birr Theatre & Arts Centre into a buzzing hub of creativity and innovation. Audiences will be treated to a diverse line up of staged readings, full productions, and engaging workshops, all helmed by talented Irish artists. Some of the theatre highlights include The Dead House, written and performed by Martin Warde, which will be performed at a very unique venue, Boyds Funeral Home, this Thursday July 11th. Comedy drama Truth, Love or Promise by internationally-acclaimed writer and actor Nuala McKeever and Sugar, a comedy with a big heart set in the Mallow sugar factory prior to its closure will be performed at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre across the weekend. For those interested in developing their writing skills, theres an impressive line up of workshops across the festival; Time for Action with David Horan, Artistic Director at Bewleys Cafe Theatre, as well as others on topics like Promoting Female Writers, The Role of AI in the Creative Process and Where The Stage Meets the Digital Age. There is also a gorgeous range of events for children and families; Family Yoga at Birr Library, Lights Up Childrens Theatre Workshop and a performance of the family-friendly, The Monster Making Machine on Saturday July 13th at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre. This year's selected writers are Dee Roycroft, Conor Montague and Aine Ryan. They will work with mentor, Eugene OBrien, for a week to further develop their final plays, which will be performed as rehearsed readings with professional actors and directed by Fishambles Jim Culleton at Nurtured New Works this Sunday July 14th, when the overall winner will be announced. Speaking ahead of the return of Scripts, co Artistic Director, Angela Ryan Whyte said: With our commitment to fostering fresh voices and bold storytelling, Scripts not only enriches Irelands cultural landscape but also offers a unique platform for playwrights to develop their craft and connect with enthusiastic theatregoers. We hope you will join us for an unforgettable journey through the power and passion of live theatre at Scripts: Ireland's Playwriting Festival. Emma Nee Haslam of Birr Theatre & Arts Centre spoke to the exciting restructuring the festival has come through. Birr Theatre & Arts Centre is delighted to be deepening our commitment for this tenth edition. Thanks to Arts Council support, we have been able to be part of the sustenance of the festival via a new theatre residency which will extend the level of artist support the festival offers. This shift has allowed for the evolution of the festival and we are excited for the opportunities this will create for theatremakers. A number of events are already fully booked, so advance booking is advised. Book now: www.scriptsireland.com or call Box Office (057) 91 22911 - Open Monday-Friday 1pm-5pm. Scripts is presented by Birr Theatre & Arts Centre in partnership with Jasango Theatre, with thanks to funding from the Arts Council of Ireland and Offaly County Council and supported by the Abbey Theatre and Fishamble. Cross-Strait forum aims to foster Chinese solar term culture Xinhua) 09:32, July 10, 2024 BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Participants from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan at a forum on promoting the traditional culture of the 24 Chinese solar terms have agreed to work together in fostering and developing this cultural heritage further. The forum held on Tuesday was co-sponsored by the National Agricultural Exhibition Center (China Agricultural Museum) and a cross-Strait association for agricultural exchange. It was attended by nearly 100 people from the two sides of the Strait. During the forum, the Taiwan branch of an alliance for the protection and inheritance of Chinese solar terms was officially launched. Participants discussed topics like holding a cultural and art exhibition on the solar terms in Taiwan and building an exhibition hall dedicated to this culture in Fujian Province. This year marks the eighth anniversary of the inclusion of the 24 solar terms in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Following the inclusion, the alliance for the protection and inheritance of this culture was formed, resulting in a series of research and related cultural events. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Four leading Offaly attractions have been honoured with Trip Advisors Travellers Choice Award for 2024 Birr Castle Demesne, Clonmacnoise, Tullamore D.E.W. Distillery Experience, and Kinnitty Castle have been honoured with the prestigious TripAdvisor Travellers Choice Awards for 2024. This award is presented to accommodations, attractions, and restaurants that consistently earn outstanding reviews from travellers, placing them in the top 10% of properties on TripAdvisor, globally a wonderful achievement for County Offaly. Olive Farrelly of Visit Offaly said, this is a terrific year for Offaly tourism, highlighting the beauty and appeal of our region. Birr Castle Demesne, Tullamore Dew, and our monastic site of Clonmacnoise, along with the beautiful Kinnitty Castle, being recognised with TripAdvisor Travellers Choice Awards underscores the unique charm of our county. As we say, Offaly is awfully close to everywhere in Ireland, so we invite everyone to visit us for and experience these remarkable attractions that so many have enjoyed. Grainne OMalley, General Manager of Birr Castle Demesne, extended her gratitude, saying, we thank all our visitors who have shared their wonderful experiencesfrom the scenic parkland walks, plants and the science centre to the quality sandwiches in our Cafe! This accolade is greatly appreciated. It adds to the many awards Birr Castle Demesne has received in recent years, including being named one of the top eight hidden treasures in Ireland by Lonely Planet in 2021 and one of the top ten most child-friendly castle estates in the world in 2019. Visitors to Clonmacnoise have praised it as a treasure, noting the serene historical site and the sense of stepping back through time. Guests at Tullamore Dew frequently commend the expertise and warmth of the guides and the exceptional whiskey tasting experience. At Kinnitty Castle, visitors are consistently impressed by the authentic castle ambiance, quality food, and excellent staff. Visit Offaly Where History, Beauty, and Warm Hospitality Await! TIPPERARY was united in grief this week at the passing of highly esteemed District Court Judge, Elizabeth MacGrath, who died following a short illness at her home in Dromineer on Wednesday last (July 3rd). The courthouse in Nenagh where she served closed on Monday as a mark of respect and Tipperary County Council's July meeting was adjourned for a short period on Monday morning to pay respect to the family of the late, whose funeral took place in Nenagh at 12 noon on Monday. Tipperary's Councillors also passed a vote of sympathy to the family of the deceased Judge, whose brother Joe MacGrath only recently retired from his role as the Council's CEO. Her sister Sharon Kennedy is the Council's serving Director of Planning and Development, Fire and Emergency Planning, Civil Defence, Local authority Services National Training Group Office and Tipperary/Cahir/Cashel Municipal District. Cathaoirleach of Tipperary County Council, Declan Burgess, proposed the five minute adjournment at the start of the Council meeting at the local authority's Civic Offices in Nenagh and also proposed the passing of the vote of sympathy. We extend our deepest sympathy to her husband Charles and entire family on the sad passing of Judge MacGrath, the Cathaoirleach said. Minister for Justice Helen McEntee paid tribute to Judge MacGrath, saying that she had given dedicated service to the State since first being appointed to the bench in 2007. I wish to express my heartfelt condolences to her husband, family and friends on their loss, the Minister said. Before being appointed to the bench, Judge MacGrath had worked for 24 years as a solicitor. As a District Court judge, she had been assigned to District Number 8, which covers her home county of Tipperary, since 2012, where she heard mostly criminal matters, but also presided over family-law cases. She was President of the Association of District Court Judges and the elected representative of the District Court on the board of the Judicial Council. Elizabeth MacGrath was a woman of profound integrity who had a passion for justice, the chief celebrant, Fr Pat Gilbert, told her funeral Mass in Nenagh on Monday. She was a beacon of fairness and a pillar of strength in the community, Fr Gilbert told a congregation that included senior members of the judiciary including her brother, Mr Justice Michael McGrath of the Court of Appeal, the Irish Times reported. Judge MacGraths other brother, Joe MacGrath, was the first Chief Executive of Tipperary County Council after the amalgamation of North and South Tipperary Councils in 2011. Judge MacGraths husband, Charles Stanley-Smith, who is former head of An Taisce, gave a moving eulogy and was joined by a young boy, Nicholas Ignatenko, a member of a Ukrainian family who has been living with him and his wife for the last two years. Judge MacGrath was looking down from Heaven and would help us, Nicholas said in a short address. She was a great person. The ceremony was also attended by the President of the Court of Appeal, George Birmingham; the President of the High Court, David Barniville; the President of the Circuit Court, Patricia Ryan; and the President of the District Court, Paul Kelly. Those present also included Mr Justice Peter Charleton and Mr Justice Gerard Hogan of the Supreme Court, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy, Mr Justice Charles Meehan, and Mr Justice Donald Binchy, of the Court of Appeal, and Judge Joanne Carroll and Judge Tom ODonnell (retired) of the District Court. Judge MacGrath is survived by her husband, siblings, in-laws and wider family. She was predeceased by her parents, Justice Michael MacGrath and Therese. All-Ireland winning hurler for Clare, Niall Gilligan, has appeared in court charged with assault causing harm to a 12-year-old boy. At Ennis District Court today this Tuesday, the 47-year old Sixmilebridge man appeared in connection with two charges, which he denies. Farmer and auctioneer, Mr Gilligan is charged with the assault causing harm of a 12-year-old boy at the Jamaica Inn Hostel, Mt Ivers Rd, Sixmilebridge contrary to Section 3 of the Offences Against the Person Act on October 5 last. Mr Gilligan is also charged with producing a wooden stick during the course of a dispute contrary to Section 11 of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act at the Jamaica Inn Hostel, Mt Ivers Rd, Sixmilebridge on October 5 last. Solicitor for Mr Gilligan, Daragh Hassett told Judge Alec Gabbett: The matters are to be fully defended. Judge Gabbett asked what was the age of the alleged victim in the case? Sergeant Tracy Stanley replied, "12". Judge Gabbett said: It is very serious if it is a minor. Judge Gabbett asked if the alleged victim was known or unknown to Mr Gilligan and Sgt Stanley replied: Unknown." Sgt Stanley, of Sixmilebridge garda station, gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution of Mr Gilligan earlier on Tuesday. Sgt Stanley said: I arrested the defendant this morning at 10.31am on Main Street, Sixmilebridge and conveyed him to Shannon Garda Station where at 11.08am he was charged as set out in the two charges before the court. Sgt Stanley said that Mr Gilligan was cautioned after each charge and he made "no reply" in each case. Sergeant Frank OGrady told Judge Gabbett that there was no garda objection to bail for Mr Gilligan subject to certain conditions and Mr Hassett told the judge that the conditions had been reduced to writing. These include Mr Gilligan of Rosroe, Sixmilebridge, residing at his own address and having no contact with the alleged injured party. After reading the charges and the location of the Jamaica Inn, Mt Ivers Rd, Sixmilebridge, Judge Gabbett asked: Is there an element of trespass here? Mr Hassett said that there is. Sgt Stanley said that the building was owned by Mr Gilligan at the time. Sgt Stanley said that the case can proceed on a summary basis in the district court and that the State solicitor would be prosecuting. Judge Gabbett said that he would decide if the matter would be heard in the district court or the circuit court on the next court date and asked that medical reports in the case be made available to him. On the adjourned date, the State case against Mr Gilligan will be outlined to allow Judge Gabbett decide on court jurisdiction. Judge Gabbett asked was there an application for legal aid and Mr Hassett replied no. Judge Gabbett imposed reporting restrictions, for now, on the identity of the alleged injured party as he is a minor and said that the boy's parents would be asked about that issue. READ MORE: Man took ex-partner's phone and distributed intimate pictures of her At the end of the five minute hearing, Judge Gabbett remanded Mr Gilligan on bail to appear before Ennis District Court on July 24. Mr Gilligan was a star forward for the senior Clare hurling team which defeated Tipperary to win the 1997 All-Ireland final. The Sixmilebridge clubman also won two Munster titles with Clare and multiple honours with his club over a long and distinguished hurling career. Irish premier Simon Harris has said a travel ban imposed by Dubai authorities on Irish woman Tori Towey has been lifted. Ms Towey, a 28-year-old flight attendant from Co Roscommon, was charged with attempted suicide and alcohol abuse after being attacked, Irish parliamentarians were told. Dubai authorities also banned her from leaving the state, the Dail chamber heard. Minutes after telling the Irish parliament on Wednesday that no effort would be spared to get Ms Towey home, Mr Harris was given an update that the travel ban had been lifted. Ive just been informed that the travel ban has been lifted, that the embassy will take Tori to the airport as soon as she is ready to go, and that the embassy of course will continue to follow up on the case, which is still active as of now. Mr Harris said he spoke to Ms Towey and her mother Caroline shortly after the update, and she will soon be home. He thanked the Irish embassy in the United Arab Emirates for their work on the case. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald had raised the case in the Irish parliament earlier on Wednesday for the second day in a row, criticising what she said was the medieval, grotesque treatment of women in the UAE. (Tori) does not belong to Dubai, she belongs at home in Ireland, Ms McDonald said. I have just spoken to Tori and her mother in the last few minutes. The travel ban is lifted and Tori will soon be home. I want to thank our ambassador and consular team for their work on this case. Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) July 10, 2024 She later welcomed the news that Ms Towey is due to return home to Ireland, saying: I think the public reaction, the public revulsion to the idea of a victim of vicious domestic violence being charged with offences herself, I think, really raised peoples hackles. I hope that her return home marks the end of this ordeal, of this nightmare for her. It raises fundamental questions around the treatment of women in Dubai. Irelands deputy premier and minister for foreign affairs Micheal Martin welcomed the news that Ms Towey was free to return and said he hoped this would happen as soon as possible. He praised ambassador Alison Milton and the embassy in the UAE for their work on the case. Its been very, very challenging and traumatic for Tori over the last while but I think our team there has been in contact and has engaged with the family and indeed with the authorities as well, and its been a constructive engagement, and they have responded with the issue being resolved, facilitating Torys travel home. Ms Toweys aunt Ann Flynn said Ms Towey and her mother Caroline had been trying to stay positive in recent days. Theyre very nervous and cant wait to get home, she told RTE on Wednesday morning. Its really terrible that this has happened to a young woman that was full of life, full of adventure, she loved travelling. Radha Stirling, founder of the Detained in Dubai group, said the support of the Irish people and the Irish Government had really warmed Ms Towey and her mother and had given them hope and inspiration. She said Ms Toweys case had been due to be heard in court next week. The Department of Foreign Affairs said it was, along with Irelands embassy in the UAE, providing ongoing consular assistance in the case. The Irish ambassador to the UAE is in regular contact with our citizen (including this morning). The embassy is also engaging with all the relevant authorities in UAE on the case, the department told the PA news agency. Officials will continue to provide advice and consular assistance. An Irish couple who embarked on a campaign of harassment against a female dentist, which included turning up outside her place of work, throwing pancake mix over her car, falsely accusing her of sexual impropriety and sending her a vulgar Valentines Day card, has had their case adjourned. Limerick Circuit Court heard the harassment started because the dentist told one of the accused - Emma Maun, aged 28, of Sheahan's flats, Main Street, Askeaton - that her dental needs were too complex and referred her to the maxillofacial unit in University Hospital Limerick. The dentist, in her victim impact statement, said: I feared for my safety and for those that I cared about. Ms Maun and her partner - Michael De Sousa, aged 36, of Sheahan's flats, Main Street, Askeaton - were both found guilty of harassment by a jury after a month-long trial on Thursday, July 4. Mr De Sousa pleaded guilty to criminal damage and two counts of making a false report or statement to gardai. They were before Judge Dermot Sheehan on Monday for sentencing. Prosecuting barrister John OSullivan, instructed by State solicitor Padraig Mawe, gave a summary of the evidence with the assistance of Garda Patrick OSullivan. Mr OSullivan said the victim, who the judge ordered can only be described as a dentist practicing in the Mid-West, finished treating Ms Maun on October 18, 2021. Ms Maun first contacted the victim through a direct message on her Instagram account that she was unhappy at being referred to the maxillofacial unit. Matters escalated in January 2022. Both accused started appearing regularly outside her place of work. They did not have an appointment or had no business there. Neither said anything - they stared at her as she walked in. This was alarming for the victim. She formed the impression they were waiting for her, said Mr OSullivan. The court heard the victim received an extremely vulgar Valentines Day card from an unidentified person, which caused a sense of disgust and fearfulness" in the victim. The court heard the victim noticed Ms Maun driving right up behind her and continued to follow her until the dentist pulled into a petrol station. The prosecuting barrister said the couple were loitering outside the victims place of work on March 7, March 8, March 9, March 10 in 2022. On March 14, 2022, the victim came out of her house around 8.10am to see her car was destroyed. A cream like liquid was on the roof and back window. It turned out to be pancake mix. There was also damage to a wing mirror. She made an effort to clean it and went to work. When she arrived, the accused were standing in the car park, clearly waiting for her and looking out for their handiwork, said Mr OSullivan. The court heard Mr De Sousa made false allegations about the dentist to gardai in Askeaton and in the city in March which included alleged sexual impropriety without any foundation. The couple were arrested and charged and released on bail with conditions including to stay away from and not make any contact with the victim. READ MORE: Warning to Irish tourists heading to Spain amid 'high' terrorist threat The dentist read out her own victim impact statement in which she said the campaign of stalking and harassment caused stress and worry which were ever-present in my life. I remember shaking and crying on the phone to my brother when Id gotten that vulgar Valentines card. I remember shaking and crying when I poured water over my car to try to clean it before going to work the morning after it was vandalised. I felt such guilt that my work colleagues were stressed about walking around the corner to the post office or to their cars. Some days we would all peer out the window. "I would constantly check over my shoulder and scan my periphery when walking anywhere. I would check the licence plates of the cars parked around and watch cars behind me with suspicion while driving. It was exhausting and disruptive, said the dentist. She said her world became very small as she stopped going for lunch, evening walks and playing sport. I did not feel safe going about my daily routine so I had no option but to alter it. She told the court that the harassment occurred at the same time that one of her parents was gravely ill. I often think that if I was a male dentist, they might not have embarked on this harassment. They considered me a weak, shy woman and chose to torment me. My mind still worries what they might do next. She spoke of how stressful the month-long trial was and to see the two offenders smirking and smiling each day like they were enjoying the experience was sickening. She made the decision to attend court alone, rather than have any of her friends and family identified to the offenders. She said what the defendants did has disrupted her life and sense of peace. Liam Carroll BL, who represented Mr De Sousa, said his client was effectively a "lackey" to Ms Maun in this whole sorry saga. It was out of a misguided sense of loyalty to Ms Maun, said Mr Carroll. The barrister said his client did make admissions regarding the criminal damage to the car and making false statements to gardai and his only previous convictions were for minor road traffic offences. He quoted a report on Mr De Sousa by a clinical psychologist that said he is susceptible to peer pressure and is highly impressionable. The report also said Mr De Sousa has challenges relating to his gender identity. Mr Carroll said his client was bullied in school, is unemployed and has autism spectrum disorder. Judge Sheehan said Mr De Sousa made appalling allegations to garda against an innocent person which Ms Maun had no act, hand or part in. Judge Sheehan said there has been no explanation as to why they did this. He spoke of lawful avenues being available. There was no complaint made to the dental council or solicitors letter, said Judge Sheehan. Amy Nix, barrister for Ms Maun, rejected Mr Carrolls argument that Mr De Sousa was Ms Mauns lackey. She referred to the same report by a clinical psychologist which said Mr De Sousa has minimal remorse for his actions and is unlikely to change. Ms Nix said Ms Maun did not make false statements to gardai or damage the car. She lives a lonely existence with a small circle of friends, said Ms Nix. Both defendants were remanded in custody when they were found guilty on Thursday, July 4. Ms Nix said Ms Maun has found this to be a frightening and sobering experience and misses her daughter terribly. Ms Nix read out a letter penned by Ms Maun and addressed to the judge about how her heart aches and is broken into pieces as she misses her daughter terribly. She is all Ive got, wrote Ms Maun, who apologised. READ MORE: All-Ireland winning Clare hurler charged with assaulting 12-year-old boy Judge Sheehan asked if Ms Maun accepted the verdict of the jury. No, said Ms Nix. The barrister said her client has no previous convictions and asked the judge to consider a suspended sentence. Judge Sheehan said it is a complicated case. He adjourned matters to July 26 to consider sentencing. Harassment carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Mr De Sousa and Ms Maun were remanded in continuing custody as the judge said it was too serious. The judge ordered that victim not be identified but to be referred to as a dentist practising in the Mid-West. A renowned pedigree cow herd sale in Cavan on Monday saw some famous names appearing in the lots, with one global megastar's name earning top spot in the auction. Eddie Lynchs herd, found in Killydoon, Co Cavan, hosted the Ernevalley Emeralds Limousin Production Sale via a timed auction, with a heifer named 'Ernevalley Taylorswift' taking the top price in the sale by selling for 9,400 after some fearless bidding. Described as a cow that never goes out of style, 'Ernevalley TaylorSwift' is a Lexicon daughter that according to its owners "oozes class and femininity". READ ALSO - Travel ban lifted for Roscommon woman charged in Dubai with 'assisted suicide', Taoiseach says 'TaylorSwift' is also a granddaughter of reportedly the most famous brood cow in the UK, Bankdale Alice, so there was no bad blood in the top spot heifer. A total of 16 heifers were sold off in the lot, with bidders shaking off low offers to pay thousands for each prized cow. All of the heifers with the exception of one shared the first letter T in their names, with 'Tutifruity', 'Tipsy', 'Tinsel', 'Tequila' and Toffee all being sold off for thousands of euro. The average selling price for the 16 cows was 4,500. Earning the third highest price in the lots was 'Tinaturner', who sold for 6,400, narrowly losing out on being simply the best. Sri Lanka Presidents Secretary responds to Bar Association on Attorney General appointment Posted by Editor on July 10, 2024 - 9:45 am Sri Lanka Presidents Secretary, Saman Ekanayake, has responded to a letter from the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) regarding the appointment of a new Attorney General following the retirement of Sanjay Rajaratnam, PC. Ekanayake highlighted that, under Article 41C of the Constitution, the President is empowered to appoint the Attorney General with the approval of the Constitutional Council. He clarified that there is no constitutional requirement to appoint the senior-most officer from the Attorney Generals Department to this position based on seniority. Historically, this practice has not been followed in Sri Lanka. Past appointments, such as those of Sarath N. Silva, PC, and Mohan Peiris, PC, were made from outside the departments senior ranks. Ekanayake also cited the example from 2016 when President Maithripala Sirisena recommended multiple candidates, resulting in the Constitutional Council approving Jayantha Jayasuriya, PC, as Attorney General. Ekanayake advised the BASL not to advocate for the claims of a single candidate among other qualified individuals. He emphasized the need for a broad consideration of all potential candidates to ensure the appointee commands the confidence of the President and the Cabinet. Earlier, the BASL had sent a letter to Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, urging the appointment of the senior-most officer in the Attorney Generals Department to fill the vacancy left by Rajaratnam. The BASL emphasized that this practice honours the principle of seniority, ensures continuity and stability, and respects the established hierarchy within the department. Signed by BASL Secretary Chathura A. Galhena, the letter stressed the Attorney Generals critical role in upholding the rule of law and ensuring proper administration of justice. The BASL urged the President to consider their concerns favourably. Sri Lanka Railways sets deadline for striking workers to return to duty Posted by Editor on July 10, 2024 - 11:20 am Sri Lankas Railways Department issued a final notice requesting all Station Masters and Controllers to report for duty by noon today (July 10). Railways General Manager S.S. Mudalige made the announcement, stating that those who fail to report by noon will be considered as having vacated their positions. The Sri Lanka Railways Station Masters Union began a strike from midnight yesterday (July 9) over demands including promotions. As a result, several trains, including office and night mail trains to and from Colombo Fort, Badulla, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, and Rambukkana, were canceled. The Secretary of the Ministry of Transport, Ranjith Rubasinghe, emphasized that the strike is illegal since public transport, including railways, is declared an essential service. He warned of strict disciplinary action against those not reporting for duty. Rubasinghe also mentioned that additional Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) buses would be deployed if the strike disrupts office train operations today. Passengers with train season tickets will receive free transportation on SLTB buses. Sri Lanka to amend constitution on Presidential and Parliamentary terms Posted by Editor on July 10, 2024 - 12:40 pm Sri Lankas Cabinet of Ministers has approved a proposal to amend the Constitution to address discrepancies in the terms of office for the President and Parliament. This decision targets Articles 30(2), 62(2), and 83(b) of the constitution, which govern the duration of these terms. Currently, Article 83(b) allows for a presidential term exceeding six years. The proposed amendment seeks to change this to a term not exceeding five years. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe submitted this resolution to remove any doubts and inconsistencies regarding the tenure of the President and Parliament. The people of Iran have sent a clear message of demand for change and opposition to the Ayatollah regime through the elections after reformist politician Masoud Pezeshkian received more than 16 million votes, around 54 percent, while his rival, ultraconservative Saeed Jalili, took more than 13 million, roughly 44%, out of about 30 million votes cast in the second round of Iran's presidential elections. Now, the world must designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization and demand the cancellation of the nuclear program and the cessation of support for terrorist organizations. This is the only chance to realize the change. The IRGC views its mission as driving the U.S. out of the Middle East so that Iran can continue to export the revolution without interference. But designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization is imperative for global security and stability. The IRGC, a branch of Iran's military, has consistently engaged in activities that destabilize regions, support terrorist groups, and undermine international norms. Recognizing the IRGC as a terrorist organization would not only align with the realities of its operations but also bolster efforts to combat terrorism globally. The IRGC's involvement in terrorism is well-documented. It provides financial support, training, and weapons to militant groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and various Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. These groups have carried out attacks against civilians, governments, and U.S. and allied forces. By backing these organizations, the IRGC directly contributes to the perpetuation of violence and instability in the Middle East and beyond. This network of support extends the reach of terrorism, threatening global peace and security. Moreover, the IRGC has orchestrated and participated in numerous attacks outside the Middle East. From attempted bombings and assassinations in Europe to foiled terrorist plots in Africa and South America, the IRGC's global footprint is undeniable. Its actions violate international law and norms, warranting a unified response from the international community. Designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization would facilitate coordinated efforts to curtail its activities, disrupt its funding sources, and isolate it diplomatically. Critics argue that such a designation could escalate tensions with Iran and complicate diplomatic efforts. However, the cost of inaction is far greater. The IRGC's actions continue to undermine regional stability, fueling conflicts that have resulted in significant loss of life and displacement. By formally recognizing the IRGC as a terrorist entity, the international community sends a clear message that state-sponsored terrorism will not be tolerated. Designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization would enhance the effectiveness of counter-terrorism measures. It would allow for the imposition of stringent sanctions, targeting the IRGC's financial networks and limiting its ability to operate internationally. Such measures would weaken its influence and capacity to support terrorist activities. It would also enable law enforcement and intelligence agencies to better monitor and dismantle its operations, reducing the threat it poses to global security. The moral and strategic imperative to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization is clear. Its actions have consistently demonstrated a commitment to supporting terrorism and destabilizing regions. A unified international stance against the IRGC would not only address the immediate threat it poses but also reinforce the global commitment to combating terrorism. The time has come for the world to recognize the IRGC for what it is - a terrorist organization - and take decisive action to mitigate its threat. This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here. For just a moment imagine Clarence Thomas -- yes, Clarence T! -- as the president of the United States. It's a mad thought, right? Or is it? One thing is clear: the present Trumpian Supreme Court -- and no, The Donald didn't appoint Clarence Thomas, but he might as well have along with the three (in)justices he did put there -- is taking ever more power from Congress. In decision after decision, it's making itself into something like the true ruling body in America, even as recently it also managed to turn future presidents into, according to dissenting justice Sonia Sotomayor, a "king above the law." In the process, it may also be sending the rest of us into a future environmental hell. As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a striking recent dissent from a decision of the six right-wing justices to overturn what was known as the Chevron doctrine, long a cornerstone of federal regulation, and essentially put such regulation in their own hands, they are transforming that court into -- this was her term -- "the country's administrative czar." Yes, "czar." And that word wasn't, I suspect, chosen idly. Clarence Thomas, in other words, is one of six (in)justices intent on transforming the Supreme Court into" well, the ultimate law of the land and, in a fashion, potentially the ruler of the land as well. And if that isn't the path to hell, tell me what is. Oh, and speaking of whatever comes after this life of ours, let TomDispatch regular Ariel Dorfman, author of the remarkable novel The Suicide Museum, take you into, if not hell, then an all-too-grim afterlife for one of those potential czars, Clarence Thomas, and his wife Ginni (famed for her urge to reject the results of election 2020, claiming "Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History"). Dorfman has some experience with the afterlife, having already sent Donald Trump to hell with the aid of famed Italian poet Dante Alighieri. This time, however, he's asked for a hand from Shakespeare and, in particular, Lady Macbeth. But let me not keep you here any longer, not when you can travel with Clarence and Ginni into a world that normally would be beyond imagining. Tom Judgment Day for America's Worst Supreme Court Justice Lady Macbeth Has Words for Clarence Thomas and His Wife Ginni from the Other Side of Death By Ariel Dorfman At least I had the courage to do the deed myself. That counts for something here on the other side of death, where I wait for you, Clarence Thomas, and your sharp-toothed wife Ginni, and someday the others whose decrees and rulings from afar have aided and abetted the mayhem and the massacres. Cowards all of you, and boring and petty to boot, at such a safe distance from the volleys, the salvos, the gunfire. Oh, the names I have had to learn -- Sandy Hook and Columbine and Uvalde and so many hundreds more and even more after that, while you were careful to stay at a safe distance from the children as they fell. Not me, not me. In his play about treachery and murder in medieval Scotland, Shakespeare made sure that I would never be able to shirk facing my own ambition and malevolence. He never thought to spare me, just as I did not spare the lives of others -- or, in the end, my own life for that matter. When I egged on my husband to kill the king, the kinsman we were hosting at our castle, I was the one who had to clean up afterwards, smearing the guards who slept by their liege so they would be blamed, I was the one who covered up the crime and made my man Macbeth supreme in our land. Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? And yes, the blood flowed onto me, too -- out damned spot! Out, I say! -- each gripping finger knowing that the red of that blood was staining more than the surface and the flesh, that it was staining what the soul would never forget. At least I owned the deed, the deaths, the dead. Who would have thought the old king had so much blood in him? At least I was never petty or boring. And, of course, what's done is done. I risked the haunting and the madness and the blotches that would never come out. Something dire in me must have known that I was risking damnation, too. That counts in this place where I have been tasked with dealing, night after thick night -- there is no day here, only night that never finds the light -- without a glimmer to brighten our way, save for red. It is always dripping red for those like me, as it will be for you, Clarence Thomas, and you, too, Ginni, year after grisly year. Years here are no more than infinite stretches of redness in the dark of infinite night, trickling second by second from each of the smoking wounds we inflicted. I have been tasked here, I who was once a queen, with waiting for you and your wife to join me on this journey. Ginni Thomas, Lobbyist for Donald Trump and Extreme Election Denier, Gets What's Coming to Her Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). BOULDER, Colorado - July 9th, 2024 - Business owners constantly seek cost-effective solutions to manage expenses. Investing in pre-owned office furniture is one of the most straightforward ways to save money while upholding professionalism in the workspace. Whether a business houses a small team or a larger group of 200, a well-designed work setting can significantly improve the overall work experience. When businesses get cost-effective yet fashionable office furniture, it doesn't A vacant office building in Williamsville is being targeted for conversion to eight market-rate apartments, in the first phase of a redevelopment of an area dubbed Brewery Hill. Iskalo Development Corp. is asking the Amherst Industrial Development Agency for nearly $400,000 in tax breaks for the $2.48 million project including a 10-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes on the property, with the abatement declining over time from 95% to 65%. That would save Iskalo $347,286, and would deviate from the countywide uniform tax exemption policy that normally calls for five years. Historically, IDAs have been reticent about approving tax breaks for housing, but this is considered an adaptive-reuse project. Additionally, the IDA said its considering the request because Iskalo has provided information on the financial feasibility of the project and its impact on future plans to redevelop the adjacent commercial building at 34 W. Spring St. and a grassy vacant lot at 42 W. Spring, at the northwest corner of Grove Street. Those plans are not part of the pending tax break application but are part of Iskalos overall goal for the 1.5-acre site. Iskalo wants to convert the underutilized building at 26 W. Spring St., creating six townhouse-style two-story apartments in the main portion of the 11,200-square-foot building and two one-level apartments in the smaller section. The two-bedroom apartments will range from 1,194 to 1,440 square feet in size large for Amherst and Williamsville with monthly rents of $2,150 to $2,550. Seven of the apartments will be accessed from the existing parking lot, while one will have a direct entry from West Spring. The project will also include improvements to the parking lot and driveway that serves that building and the adjacent empty stone building at 34 West Spring, which is locally landmarked and would be redeveloped later. According to its application to the Amherst IDA, Iskalo hopes the first phase will be the catalyst for improvement, that will boost housing density within walking distance of Main Street. The project, which is supported by the village, received site plan approval in early June. Construction is expected to start in August or this fall, with completion by April 2025. Iskalo says it needs the assistance to make the project feasible, and will be unable to proceed if the application is denied, citing the small size and the current condition of the building. As a condition of approval, the IDA would require that the second phase of the larger project must begin by the sixth year, or the PILOT would be terminated. Additional IDA benefits would include $33,978 in sales tax breaks on purchases up to $388,320, and a mortgage-recording tax exemption of up to $15,000 on a loan of up to $2 million. Standard recapture provisions would apply, and the agency stressed that it has not committed any incentives for the second phase. Project costs include the $898,684 acquisition of the property in 2019, plus $1.25 million for reconstruction and renovation, and $333,184 for fees, carrying costs for the property, and architectural and engineering expenses. The project would be funded with $2 million in bank loans and $481,868 in developer equity. According to Iskalos application, the anticipated project cost of $2.53 million equates to $310,233 per unit, which is well above the high end of the cost range for new apartment projects. Based on current market rents, Iskalo wrote, that cost needs to come down to $270,975 per unit, or $2.17 million. Thats a gap of over $39,000. And standard PILOTs of five or seven years do not close the gap sufficiently for the project to proceed, Iskalo added. Iskalo, which also owns a pair of adjacent single-family homes at 109 and 115 Glen Ave., is taking aim at an area of the village that was once known as Brewery Hill, because it included the home of the Williamsville Brewery in the stone portion of the vacant commercial building at 34 W. Spring that dates to 1850. That building, which contains two interior vaults, was later expanded with an upper-level addition stacked on top of it in 1932, creating an 18,000-square-foot building that was used for manufacturing and storage. Both it and 42 W. Spring were designated as historic by the village in December 2018. And Iskalos plans call for renovating those properties into new commercial space. Thats consistent with the villages goals, after it already sponsored a successful redevelopment of East Spring Street, Iskalo noted. Williamsville officials even submitted concept plans for West Spring when they sought a state downtown initiative grant in 2017 and 2021. The proposed redevelopment of this section of West Spring Street has been a priority of the Village of Williamsville, Iskalo wrote, adding that its proposed redevelopment of 26, 34 and 42 West Spring Street would, in large part, be the fulfillment of that. The first phase, however, is limited to the obsolete office building at 26 W. Spring. Originally constructed in 1976 by principals of engineering firm Scipar Inc., an engineering firm that supported hydroelectric control systems for dams, the 44-year-old building has been vacant for one year, but underused for a decade. It initially consisted of the portion fronting West Spring, but a two-story addition extending north toward Glen Street was constructed in 1980 to create the current facility. Scipar had relied heavily on government contracts, so its business and staff declined as contracts were not renewed. The firm had only a handful of employees using a small area of the building before Iskalo bought the building in 2019. Scipar was acquired in 2023 and vacated the building last October. Iskalo said in its application that the buildings outdated condition and layout, and the lack of demand for office space, prompted it to consider demolishing the building and merging the property with 34 W. Spring. But the firm said it opted for conversion to apartments instead, if it can obtain enough incentives to partially offset the considerable cost of renovation. The number and size of the apartments is dictated by the configuration of the existing building. The footprint of the building will not change as part of the adaptive-reuse project, which will help prevent economic deterioration through the redevelopment of an underutilized and vacant office building, the Amherst IDA noted. The multi-family apartments will provide tenants with the opportunity to live close to their places of employment, thereby promoting employment opportunities within the Village of Williamsville and Town of Amherst. Iskalo said that it will have to demolish and reconstruct the entire interior and install new mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, while also rebuilding the shared parking lot and installing new sidewalks, lighting and landscaping. That will then pave the way for redevelopment of 34 W. Spring. DEAR DR. ROACH: My husband has Type 2 diabetes and has been on Trulicity for a few years with great results. Lately, when its time for refills, the pharmacies are saying that its on back order and not available for three to four weeks. I am concerned how this affects his diabetes and health. Why is there this discrepancy? -- K.F. ANSWER: Dulaglutide (Trulicity) is in the class of GLP-1 agonists, like semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy). Not only are they good treatments for diabetes, they tend to promote weight loss and reduce the risk of heart disease. Consequently, they are in high demand. Semaglutide and a similar drug, tirzepatide, have been approved for weight loss by the Food and Drug Administration, while Trulicity has not. However, many insurance companies are demanding that their customers try a different drug when their doctor has prescribed semaglutide, and dulaglutide is one of the most common ones to try. They are very similar, although Trulicity isnt tested as thoroughly for weight loss. The manufacturer, Eli Lilly, has stated that manufacturing shortages are likely to extend through December 2024. It is very frustrating to have a medicine that you have been taking for years become unavailable, and the potential for harm is significant. It takes the body weeks (or months) to get used to the higher doses, and if a person is off of it for more than a few weeks, they may have to restart at the lowest dose and build up again to the higher dose to avoid severe side effects. For your husband, going without his needed medication will make his diabetes less well-controlled. Im afraid that I dont have a good solution. The drug companies are making truly enormous profits from these medicines and have every incentive to increase manufacturing (which they are). But demand continues to outstrip supply. * * * DEAR DR. ROACH: My childhood friend just emailed me that she has a 1.1-cm lesion on her lung. It was found on a CT scan. Shes having another CT scan today. She is a former smoker and has COPD. Is the lesion something thats part of COPD? Whats the difference between a lesion and something else? -- J.B. ANSWER: A lesion is simply a term that means something doesnt belong there, but in this case, the suspicion is that it means some kind of mass. The big concern in a current or former smoker is lung cancer. The appearance of the lesion in the CT scan can help tell what it represents. There are calculators that can help give an idea of how likely a lung lesion (we often use the term nodule for a solid lesion) is to be cancer. Based only on the information you gave me, theres about a 15%-20% chance of cancer, which is high enough that she would be recommended a biopsy. Depending on where it is in the lung, the biopsy can be done by bronchoscopy, ultrasound, or a CT-guided biopsy through the skin if the nodule isnt close enough to a large airway. If it (hopefully) isnt cancer, it could be scar tissue, a current or past infection, a benign tumor, or many other possibilities, almost all of which are better than lung cancer. Dr. Roach regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but will incorporate them in the column whenever possible. Readers may email questions to ToYourGoodHealth@med.cornell.edu or send mail to 628 Virginia Dr., Orlando, FL 32803. (c) 2022 North America Syndicate Inc. All Rights Reserved An airport in Hawaii was briefly evacuated after two hand grenades were found in a mans carry-on luggage. After the grenades were picked up during TSA screening at Hilo International Airport around 5:45 a.m. Tuesday, agents cleared the terminal while the Hawaii Police Department bomb squad investigated. They determined the grenades were inert unable to explode and posed no serious threat. Akito Fukushima, 41, of Kanazawa, Japan, was arrested on a charge of first-degree terroristic threatening. Police said Fukushima was attempting to board a flight outside the U.S. but did not say what his final destination was. He remains in police custody and the investigation is considered ongoing. The airport resumed normal operations a little more than an hour after the grenades were discovered. Police remind the public that replicas of explosives, such as hand grenades, are prohibited in checked and carry-on baggage, they added. TSA agents also have discretion to confiscate any items they deem security risks. ______ 2024 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. A man suspected of crashing his RV into another man, killing him, was arrested Tuesday night, Vancouver police reported. Andrew R. Roberts was taken into custody soon after the crash occurred in a Vancouver parking lot. Officers responded to reports of a physical disturbance between two men in the 13200 block of Northeast Leroy Haagen Memorial Drive around 9:20 p.m. Tuesday. One of the men got into his RV, allegedly ran over the other man with the vehicle and drove away, police reported. The victim, whose name hasnt been released, was transported to a local hospital and later died, according to the police report. A Clark County Sheriffs Office deputy and Vancouver police detectives pursued the driver of the RV. They located Roberts and the vehicle near Northeast Fourth Plain Boulevard and 162nd Avenue and took him into custody. Roberts is being held at Clark County jail and faces vehicular homicide and other likely charges, according to Clark County jail records. He is due to appear in court Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. The incident is still being investigated. Another fatal crash occurred in Vancouver two days ago, after a woman allegedly crashed her car into a man sitting under a tree and fled the scene, police reported. Sujena Soumyanath is a reporter on The Oregonian/OregonLives public safety team. You can reach her at 503-221-4309 or ssoumyanath@oregonian.com . Oregon high schoolers will have to take and pass stand-alone classes on financial literacy and college and career preparation to graduate, starting with this falls sophomores. The Oregon Board of Education, with uncharacteristic reluctance, made that decision this summer after lawmakers and legislative lawyers insisted on it. Teacher unions, school boards and school administrators had heavily lobbied for schools to be allowed to integrate the new requirements into existing courses, such as math, rather than teach them as separate classes. They cited a lack of dedicated funding for hiring or training staff and a tight timeline, particularly affecting rural school districts. State schools chief Charlene Williams seemed to agree. This spring, her agency recommended the state board give school districts maximum flexibility to meet the new requirements, which the Legislature passed last year. But not long after that, lawmakers squelched the effort with a legal opinion that left little wiggle room. Integrating financial literacy and college and career preparation materials into existing classes would perpetuate the current practice of rushed or incomplete instruction as teachers are not given enough time or training to provide instruction in the new subject matters, Senior Deputy Legislative Counsel Hannah Lai wrote in response to lawmakers query. Legislators made it clear that they expected semester-long stand-alone courses, she advised, and the state board did not have authority to deviate from that directive. At a meeting last month, state board members followed that advice, though not without drama. Williams, despite repeated questioning from board member Shimiko Montgomery, would not endorse requiring districts to offer stand-alone personal finance and college and career readiness courses. Montgomery, along with board Vice Chair Jennifer Scurlock, subsequently voted against requiring districts to follow the legislative counsels directive. Along with the abstention of a third state school board member, Libra Forde, that would have sent the issue back to the education agencys drawing board until Montgomery later changed her vote. Montgomery then added a plea for the Department of Education to work with the governors office to pressure the Legislature to earmark money to help school districts meet the requirement. The result represented an unusual loss for the local control cherished by Oregon school district leaders and their employees, who deeply resent mandates handed down without attached funding. Required high school financial literacy courses have been gaining steam across America, particularly amid rising concern about student loan debt. Such classes typically cover everything from how to pay taxes and understand the basics of credit cards and interest rates to how to open a bank account and cope with identity theft. A 2023 study from the Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College in Vermont found that only seven states require students to take a semester long financial literacy class to graduate but that 17 more states are expected to phase in such requirements by 2028, including Oregon. Neighboring California just passed legislation making a standalone class in financial literacy a requirement for the class of 2031. In Washington state, by contrast, a bill that would have required students to take a financial literacy class to graduate died in the 2024 legislature. The state requires that students be given the option to take a financial literacy class but does not require that they do so to graduate. Backers of the new Oregon graduation requirements include economics educators and members of the broader financial industry. Ted Scheinman, an economics instructor at Mount Hood Community College, said he understands why officials worry about how to pay for the standalone courses. But he said community colleges can be a resource, both for dual credit courses and training high school economics teachers, as can financial institutions and online classes. Integrated means lost, and that is the key, Scheinman said. If you integrate the topic as a part of other classes, the teacher has no real incentive to be familiar with the material and it wont matter too much. A student can still get an 80%, based on their knowledge of other things. Scheinman framed the issue in economic terms. District can spend the money now to help students learn about how to manage their finances or students can pay the price later, when that lack of knowledge comes back to hurt them, he said. Some students, too, have backed the concept. Newport High School student Andrea Merino Comejo told lawmakers this year that taking a financial literacy class gave her a practical leg up. She said she learned how to manage my money, how to build credit with a card [and] it has trained me how to buy a car from a private party. I can already see how it is getting me ready for my future finance decisions as an adult. But Reed Scott-Schwalbach, president of the Oregon Education Association, said her union remains concerned about implementation of the new requirements, though union members support the idea. Financial literacy is an important life skill. We want students to be ready for life, she said. We are deeply concerned about the unfunded mandate feature of this particular piece of legislation. And the [lack of] flexibility considered for the timeline is a problem for small districts, where staffing is tight. Districts may apply for a one year waiver to begin the new requirements for the class of 2028 instead. Oregons graduation requirements have been in the spotlight of late. To graduate, the states high schoolers need to earn 24 credits, 13 of them in English, math, social studies and science. The state board has suspended, however, the requirement that students prove basic mastery of reading, writing or math in order to receive a diploma through the class of 2029. State school board members and Oregon Department of Education officials have supported that change, saying requiring all students to pass one of several standardized tests or create an in-depth assignment their teacher judges as meeting state standards has been a harmful hurdle for historically marginalized students and did not translate to meaningful improvements in students post high school success. Julia Silverman covers education policy and K-12 schools for The Oregonian/OregonLive. She can be reached via email at jsilverman@oregonian.com. Follow her on x.com at @jrlsilverman. This story originally appeared on Underscore Native News. By Jarrette Werk, Underscore + Report for America In Warm Springs, Oregon, as the sunlight peeked through the clouds on a hot Saturday afternoon in June, the sounds of jingle cones and brass bells blended with the rhythmic downbeats of the drum. Dancers filled the powwow circle for the grand entry of the 55th Annual Pi-Ume-Sha Treaty Days Powwow and celebration which took place June 27-30, 2024. Hundreds of families gather every year from near and far to participate in the powwow, traditional parade, rodeo, endurance horse races, stick game and more. The first Pi-Ume-Sha celebration took place in 1969 as a way to honor Native veterans, says 71-year-old Warm Springs elder, Louise Katchia who has been helping organize the event for the past five decades. This year was the first time she was able to watch her grandkids run around and have fun from the sideline since retiring last year. She has now passed the baton onto her nieces and younger relatives to continue the legacy.They wanted to honor our veterans and our elders, because of their vast knowledge of our old ways of culture and spiritual gatherings, Katchia said. This was one way we could honor the veterans and to remind people, not just the community, but the surrounding communities, about the sacrifices the Native people had made. The jingle dress dance is known as a healing or medicine dance with origins that trace back to Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwa in the early 1900s. It gets its name from the rows of metal jingle cones that make a distinct sound with each dance move. At the 55th annual Pi-Ume-Sha powwow on Saturday June 29, 2024.Jarrette Werk | Underscore Native News / Report for America Linda Meanus, Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, granddaughter of the Chief of Celilo Falls, holds her eagle feather fan as she dances around the circle during grand entry of Pi-Ume-Sha Treaty Days on Saturday June 29, 2024.Jarrette Werk | Underscore Native News / Report for America Spectators watch as both men's fancy and grass dancers float across the circle in a blur of vibrant colors during Pi-Ume-Sha Treaty Days on June 29, 2024.Jarrette Werk | Underscore Native News / Report for America This year also marked the 169th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of 1855, which established the Warm Springs Reservation on a fraction of the original 10 million-acre territory. The treaty was an integral part to preserving their sovereign rights to harvest fish and game, as well as gathering other first foods on lands beyond the reservation boundaries. We signed our treaty on June 25, 1855 and were still here practicing our way of life, said Cyrille Mitchell, treasurer of the Pi-Ume-Sha committee. They did it for celebration, because Pi-Ume-Sha does mean celebration. Mitchells family has a deeply rooted connection to the annual celebration. Her grandfather, Arthur Mitchell, was one of the founders of Pi-Ume-Sha back in the late 60s. She calls herself a Pi-Ume-Sha baby because her birthday falls around the annual celebration, and because she grew up coming to the event each year participating in multiple capacities, including holding the crown as Miss Pi-Ume-Sha in 2008. Her daughter followed in her footsteps and held the title from 2023-2024. We bring our children up in this, Mitchell told Underscore Native News. Its a revolving door of just letting the world know were still here. [Pi-Ume-Sha Treaty Days] is a positive family event and is what our community looks forward to every year, because its a celebration. Underscore Native News is a nonprofit investigative newsroom committed to Indigenous-centered reporting in the Pacific Northwest. We are supported by foundations and donor contributions. Follow Underscore on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. Raju Jha, a 28-year-old Portland man who drowned in Glacier National Park on Saturday evening, is remembered by friends as a shining light in their lives who loved uniting people with joy, laughter and his cooking. Friends say he also had a passion for adventure as an avid climber and hiker. Now, friends are raising money to pay for Jhas last journey home to Nepal. The GoFundMe was created by Jhas housemate and close friend, Prasanna Narendran, who has been in communication with Jhas family in Janakpur, Nepal. Jha was vacationing with friends and swimming in Lake McDonald near Sprague Creek Campground when he began to struggle and went underwater around 6:25 p.m., the Associated Press reported. The Flathead County Sheriffs Office dive team retrieved his body from a depth of 35 to 40 feet at approximately 8:20 p.m. Jha moved to the United States in 2019 to study structural engineering at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. After earning his masters degree, he began working as a structural engineer for Jacobs Engineering in Portland in 2021, said Narendran. Narendran, who described Jha as a brother, lived with him since the fall of 2022. Its been a shock, Narendran said. Im still not able to digest the fact that hes no more. Narendran said Jha was a generous and affectionate person with ambitions to return to his hometown in Nepal to climb mountains. It is a shock he wont be able to do these things, Narendran said. He was just starting his life. He has a family back in Nepal a mom, dad and brother, he was close with them as well. He used to talk with them every day. As the oldest son, Jha was the breadwinner for his family in Nepal, said friend Ayush Bhandari. Jha was saving to support his family and build a home for them in Nepal. Narendran said it was his duty to ensure Jha made it back to his family in Nepal so they could perform the Hindu final rites. All proceeds from the GoFundMe will be used to send Jhas remains home and to support the family, Narendran said. In three days, the page has raised over $39,000. Narendran said he would increase the goal to $50,000 after consulting with friends and family. Raju would have wanted his family to see him one last time. Narendran said. His family is so devastated, and seeing him will give them some closure. Chiara Profenna covers religion, faith and cultural connections. Reach her at 503-221-4327; cprofenna@oregonian.com or @chiara_profenna The Oregonian/OregonLive receives support from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to bring readers stories on religion, faith and cultural connections in Oregon. The Oregonian/OregonLive is solely responsible for all content. First Lady Aimee Kotek Wilson is allowed to volunteer in Gov. Tina Koteks office under Oregon ethics laws as long as she doesnt personally benefit financially, the director of the state ethics agency has ruled. Susan Myers, executive director of the Oregon Ethics Commission, provided the formal advice in a letter Tuesday, three months after the governors office asked the commission whether Kotek Wilson could develop, advise and promote her wifes priorities as a volunteer in the administration and whether the governors office could provide her with staff and resources to accomplish those goals. Elisabeth Linder addressed a small congressional hearing room, but her words rang out far beyond its confines. Three weeks earlier, on April 28, 1987, Linders 27-year-old son, Benjamin Linder, had been assassinated by U.S.-backed rebels while working on an electrification project in rural Nicaragua. Think mask bans are about keeping people safe? Think again. In mid-June, seemingly overnight, the idea of banning masks dominated public discourse. North Carolina lawmakers passed a mask ban bill (overriding a veto by the governor). Just a few days later, New Yorks governor spoke out in favor of banning masks on the subway an idea backed up by the mayor of her states largest city. Much of this discussion, fueled by the media and its proponents, linked the mask bans to an incident on an NYC subway car on June 10 where a man, leading a group of protesters, chanted Raise your hand if youre a Zionist to passengers. Makes sense, right? A scary incident on a subway car involving protestors, some of whom were masked (though not the man leading the chant), led to public discussion. Except that these things really arent connected at all. The subway incident was just one link in a long chain of events going back more than half a decade in an effort to push for laws aimed at making protesting more difficult, if not outright illegal. Mask bans have long been a segment of these anti-protest laws, even before the pandemic. This current wave begins with protests against the North Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock. The protests began in the spring of 2016 and continued until February 2017. As a direct result of these protests, the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, and a flood of alarmist press reports about black-clad antifa members, what the ACLU called a flood of anti-protest bills made their way into legislatures across the country, and into Congress. Among these bills was one in Missouri that created the crime of concealing a persons identityby means of a robe, mask, or other disguise if theyre protesting. Congress dropped the mask, metaphorically speaking, on their version of a mask ban by calling it the Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018. These masking bills are, minus some pandemic-era language about health exceptions, more or less identical to the ones being put forward now. Except instead of black-clad antifa members or people locking themselves to drilling equipment, theres a new boogeyman: pro-Palestine protestors. This years North Carolina bill, the Associated Press said straightforwardly, was brought forth in part as a response to campus protests on the war in Gaza. Despite the governors comments, efforts to ban masks in New York have absolutely nothing to do with the June subway incident. They had started a month before in early May, when two different anti-mask bills were introduced in the state legislature at the exact same time the Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018 was reintroduced in Congress. What was happening then? Campus protests and encampments. Masking was common in those spaces, for health reasons and because many protestors were scared of getting doxxed a well-founded fear, as so-called doxxing trucks were frequent visitors to protest sites. This masking received pushback from tabloids, right-wing lawmakers, and Israel supporters. In late April, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt went as far as to call for campuses to outlaw masks. For some lawmakers, this climate presented the perfect opportunity to fulfill their long-running wish to make life more difficult for protestors by banning masks. New York Assemblyman Mike Reilly, who introduced a mask ban bill in May 2024, said on X that Republicans have been advocating to do this since 2021. He tied his bill explicitly to what he called the chaotic and sometimes violent protests at Columbia and NYU. As more anti-mask bills were introduced, the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute decided to take up the cause. The Manhattan Institute, led by its senior fellow Christopher Rufo, has been a prime mover in what it describes as the fight against critical race theory in American institutions. Rufo himself had been criticizing campus protests, decrying masked Antifa-style protesters occupying campuses in early May. So it was no surprise when a month later, after the first rush of mask ban bills, the Manhattan Institute introduced model legislation, giving guidelines for any other state that wanted to follow New York or North Carolinas lead. The Manhattan Institutes brief, then, was perfectly positioned to capitalize on the fallout from the subway controversy which it did, receiving a mention in a June 12 New York Post story headlined Jewish leaders call for new NYC mask ban after explosion of antisemitic protests by mobs with hidden faces. These new anti-mask bills differ in their particulars. In some, masking itself is unlawful without explicit permission from the police. In others, there are weak health exemptions, dependent on the intent of the wearer, though the law does not mention how that intent would be determined. But all of them are aimed explicitly at protestors. The federal one, as mentioned, has antifa in the name of the bill. The North Carolina one makes its intent clear by adding two other protest-related measures in the same law: increasing the penalty for impeding a road during a demonstration, and creating civil liability for demonstration organizers if the demonstration obstructs an emergency vehicle. One of the New York bills was tied to protests by its sponsor in the assembly. Its sponsor in the state senate, as well, explicitly said in his justification memo that the bill was due to the recent surge in mass protests at colleges and universities. The author of a second New York bill told USA Today this week that the legislation was inspired by people in pro-Palestinian protests. The dynamics here are clear. Social movements that are at all effective, whether against an oil company, white nationalists, or a war costing over 30,000 lives, will receive backlash. Anti-mask bills, and other anti-protest measures, will be aimed at whoever the current target is. Democratic lawmakers, civil rights groups, and others who have signed onto this current iteration would do well to remember that theyre pushing forward an agenda that will have them in its crosshairs soon enough. If youre moved to oppose mask bans, now is a crucial time. If the current ones can be stopped in the legislative phase, theres a good chance legislators will realize theyre unpopular and drop the idea. If you live (or even visit) New York, COVID Advocacy NY has a fantastic toolkit with a variety of suggested actions. If youre not, Mask Bans America has a national #StopMaskBans campaign that you can find out about here. Shawn Setaro is a reporter who has written for Complex, Genius, the Atlantic, Vibe, GQ, Forbes, and more. He was the writer and reporter on the Spotify/Complex podcasts Infamous and Complex Subject, and is the author of the book Dummy Boy: Tekashi 6ix9ine and the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods, (Kingston Imperial, 2021). Oregons extreme heat wave has claimed three more lives, for a total of nine people who have died of suspected heat-related causes in the state, health authorities said Wednesday. A 72-year-old man died in North Portland and his death was reported Tuesday when the temperature hit 104 the peak of the record-setting heat that began over the July Fourth holiday. Cannabis retailers have long complained that the states marketing rules have been unnecessarily onerous so onerous, that it is hard for them to even get word out that they exist or where they are located. The state Office of Cannabis Management Control Board is hoping to change that, with some changes to its Packaging, Labeling, Marketing and Advertising regulations. You'll soon be able to grow your own pot at home. Where to start? The state Office of Cannabis Management has adopted regulations for personal home cultivation of cannabis. The rules go into effect Wednesday. The changes would make it easier for cannabis firms to offer discounts, advertise, put up more signs at their stores and use brighter packaging. Those are all tightly controlled under the current rules. At the OCMs regular monthly Cannabis Control Board meeting Wednesday, the board sent several rule changes out for public comment. Weve been following very closely the rollout of the market, the feedback from licensees, the feedback from our compliance unit on the common issues that are impacting the ability for our licensees to build awareness for their products, to engage consumers, to innovate their packaging and to optimize themselves, said John Kagia, director of policy at the OCM. These proposed revisions reflect recommendations that have been made by the OCM compliance unit based on what they have been experiencing and seeing out in the field. Crackdown on NY's illegal cannabis shops is cranking up In the past three weeks, state agencies have closed 114 stores that were illegally selling cannabis, while another 400 in New York City were closed using new authority provided under recent enforcement legislation. One of the biggest changes is the removal of regulations against providing discounts, promotions, price reductions and loyalty programs. Our current rules make it challenging for them to discount the products that arent doing as well, Kagia said. So this will provide a lot more flexibility for licensees to operate and get those products moving. Also significant are changes to the signs dispensaries are allowed to have. Right now, dispensaries are limited to just two small signs on their businesses identifying what they are. That would be changed to allow for an unlimited number of fixed signs. Were just trying to make sure that folks know where our licensees are and can make the best suited decisions, so that folks in the communities know where theyre located, Kagia said. So you want to grow pot at home? There are rules for that now The New York State Office of Cannabis Management on Tuesday adopted regulations for personal home cultivation of cannabis. Dispensaries would also be allowed up to three signs that are not affixed to their buildings, such as sandwich boards. I know this has been an issue for folks who are recessed, who cant be readily seen from the street, Kagia said. Dispensaries would also be allowed to advertise their name, location, contact information and directions to their stores on billboards. One of the issues were finding is, particularly for licensees who are upstate in areas that might be off major roadways, theres very little way for them to be identified by people who are driving by or who are in those communities, Kagia said. Under current law, cannabis producers are not allowed to use bright colors or bubble letters in their packaging, to prevent them from appealing to consumers under age 21. The board is seeking to change that, using input from previous tobacco regulations and lawsuits. State cannabis office gets new leadership The new leaders will oversee the agency's overhaul, which was commanded by Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this spring, and apply recommendations from a critical report by Jeanette Moy, commissioner of the state Office of General Services. Other rules aim to reduce single-use plastic while maintaining childproof packaging, rules that would be phased in if adopted. We will continue over the coming years to look very closely at environmental rules and work collaboratively with licensees to really innovate the ways in which we can reduce the waste footprint of our industry, Kagia said. The current regulations will be in effect until any amendments are adopted, which would happen after a 45-day comment period. There is no need to artificially restrict the market on issues that are not compromising public health and safety, and so weve taken that feedback to heart, Kagia said. Also Wednesday, the Control Board issued more than 100 new adult-use cultivator, distributor, microbusiness, processor and retail licenses. After a shakeup at the state cannabis office, what's next? The states rollout of a legal cannabis market has been plagued by problems, and the pace of licensed dispensary openings has been painfully slow, filled with starts and stops. Locally, the board approved cultivator licenses for Jerico Farms in Genesee County, Green Wells Venture in Allegany County, Java Sprouts in Erie County and Akron Bloom in Niagara County. It approved distributor licenses for North Eastern Alliance in Erie County, Green Wells Venture in Allegany County, Akron Bloom in Niagara County; and a processor license to Sensa Labs in Erie County. Adult-use retail dispensary licenses were granted to Command Cannabis Dispensary, Erie County Cannabis, 716 MJ, Village One Stop Smoke Shop and the Kokoro Way in Erie County; as well as to Love Nug in Niagara County; Patients Pharmacy, CannaBliss Recreational Marijuana Dispensary and Veteran Warriors of WNY in Chautauqua County. Microbusiness licenses went to CatGrows and Green Room Cannabis in Erie County and to Jeanette M. Miller and Grow 716 in Niagara County. There are now 14 adult-use cannabis dispensaries open in Western New York. The latest to open is Happy Times Cannabis Co. at 3807 Harlem Road in Cheektowaga. The board also updated attendees on the OCMs enforcement efforts in the state. As of Wednesday, the state has padlocked 164 unlicensed cannabis shops. We have teams that are operational upstate every week, said Daniel Haughney, director of investigations and enforcement for the OCM. These new items just went up on the never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation: Hugh Nibley Observed: Family Reminisces at the Funeral of Hugh W. Nibley: Zina Nibley Petersen, Rebecca Nibley, Alex Nibley, Michael Draper Nibley, Thomas Hugh Nibley, Christina Nibley Mincek, and Paul Sloan Nibley Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Hugh Nibley Observed, edited by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Shirley S. Ricks, and Stephen T. Whitlock. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/hugh-nibley-observed/. Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 29The Virtue of the Word of God Alma 30-31 This week for Come, Follow Me lesson 29 covering Alma 30-31, we only have lectures 54 from Hugh Nibleys Book of Mormon classes at Brigham Young University, covering Alma 30 and 31. During 1988, 1989, and 1990, Hugh Nibley taught Honors Book of Mormon classes for four semesters at Brigham Young University. The lectures were video-taped and audio cassettes and printed transcripts were made of the lectures. We believe these recordings will be interesting to listen to and valuable to your Come, Follow Me study program this year. Each week, we will include the lectures covering the Book of Mormon chapters being studied that week. All 112 lectures are immediately available in PDF, audio, video, and electronic formats, as well as in paperback books that are available for purchase. Links for all of the available online sources can be found in the Complete Bibliography for Hugh Nibley at https://interpreterfoundation.org/bibliographies/hugh-w-nibley/lectures/. The Book of Mormon in Context Lesson 29: The Virtue of the Word of God: Alma 30 and 31 For the 23 June 2024 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Radio Show, Steve Densley and John Thompson discussed Book of Mormon lesson 29, The Virtue of the Word of God covering Alma 30 and 31. Their discussion, recorded and then liberated from commercial and other interruptions, has now been archived and made available for your edification and delight. The other segments of the 23 June 2024 radio show can also be accessed, free of charge, at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-june-23-2024. The Interpreter Radio Show is broadcast live every single week of the year along the Wasatch Front in Utah (principally in the Salt Lake Valley) on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640. Alternatively, if you are unable to tune in on the radio, you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. While absent-mindedly rummaging around in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial How Religion Poisons Everything File earlier today, I happened across this venerable article: Paul S. Mueller, MD; David J. Plevak, MD; and Teresa A. Rummans, MD, Religious Involvement, Spirituality, and Medicine: Implications for Clinical Practice, Mayo Clinic Proceedings (2001) 76:1225-1235. I share its abstract with you. The bolding is mine, for emphasis: Surveys suggest that most patients have a spiritual life and regard their spiritual health and physical health as equally important. Furthermore, people may have greater spiritual needs during illness. We reviewed published studies, meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and subject reviews that examined the association between religious involvement and spirituality and physical health, mental health, health-related quality of life, and other health outcomes. We also reviewed articles that provided suggestions on how clinicians might assess and support the spiritual needs of patients. Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide. Several studies have shown that addressing the spiritual needs of the patient may enhance recovery from illness. Discerning acknowledging, and supporting the spiritual needs of patients can be done in a straightforward and noncontroversial manner. Furthermore, many sources of spiritual care (eg, chaplains) are available to clinicians to address spiritual needs of patients. And here, while were at it, is yet another gratifyingly terrible item from the Hitchens File: Thousands of Women and Children in Central America Participate in Nutrition Effort: President Johnson attends screening event in Guatemala The release of the Interpreter Foundations newest film, Six Days in August, is rapidly approaching and, candidly, were really excited to share it with the public. Our tentative release date is the Thursday following this years semiannual general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is 10 October 2024. Thats not yet chiseled into stone, but its the likely date. Please feel free to pencil that in on your calendar. My wife and I spent much of today looking at cars. Were down to one vehicle for, currently, four people and three drivers in our house. That situation has been pretty much workable up until now, but there is suddenly a fairly urgent need for a second vehicle. Besides which, our present car is approaching 300,000 miles. Im not an automobile buff, although I found shopping for cars today almost infinitely more enjoyable than I have ever found shopping for clothes. (Im sure that there must be a scientific basis for this: Based on decades of experience, I believer that clothing stores emit some sort of subtle chemical gas that makes me sleepy whenever I approach within ten to fifteen yards of them.) Still, I hate the thought of spending so much money and it will be a lot of money whatever we ultimately choose to do on a mere means of getting from Point A to Point B. Looking for a second car is pretty depressing but, under current circumstances, its unavoidable. Stupidly, though, as a budding movie mogul, I failed to include any language in any of the contract materials related to Six Days in August that will pay me or my wife or any of my children or heirs or assigns so much as a single penny. (What was I thinking?) So if anybody out there would like to kick in a few thousand bucks to my new Wheels for Apologists program, please contact me. Keyboards that hide full computer guts under the keys arent a new idea. (The Commodore 64 comes to mind, though its hardly the only example.) And neither are folding keyboards for mobile devices, since I remember such oddities back in the days of the Palm Pilot. But a boom in mobile tech and portable power has allowed one gadget maker to combine the two ideas into one. Meet the Ling Long keyboard, which looks at first glance like any of a dozen Bluetooth folding keyboards on Amazon, except this one is hiding an awesome secret: beneath its low-profile keys is a shockingly compact, full-blown Windows system. Were not just talking about some dinky Arm or Atom system, either. The Ling Long keyboard rocks a Ryzen 7 8840 APU with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of M.2 storage. Thats as capable as a mid-range laptop. The keyboard also hides an internal battery, a speaker, and a diminutive touchpad to the right of the space bar. You can plug in a portable monitor for full untethered functionality, or use a USB-C dock (or a USB-C monitor with the same capability) to make it a full desktop machine. According to the companys promotional materials spotted by Toms Hardware, its rated to run for ten hours, though thats obviously going to be affected by whatever you happen to be doing. Running a portable monitor off this thingalong with tasks intensive enough to spin up the active cooling systemis bound to cut that time down. Its an intriguing idea, for sure. And considering the specs and the engineering that goes into the folding mechanism, the starting price of 3000 yuan (about $412 USD) isnt bad at all. That said, Im struggling to think of a situation where this gadget would be preferable to a standard laptop or tablet. If youre carrying around a chunky gadget like this one (its 1.7 pounds and 6 inches on a side), it needs a portable screen to be operational. It really only makes sense if you know you have a USB-C desktop setup where youre going and you wont need a PC on the way. And as PCWorlds resident keyboard nut, that layout makes me cringe. Look at that tiny right Shift key and the super-squat punctuation to fit in the touchpad, which I imagine isnt exactly ergonomic to use. It looks so uncomfortable that Id prefer almost any laptop keyboard and since I wouldnt be using this thing in transit, I might as well set up a full keyboard and mouse at my destination and replace it with one of those tiny portable desktops. But thats my middle-aged curmudgeon leaking out. Ill admit that the design work that went into the Ling Long is cool, and I wouldnt mind trying it out to see if I can dispel my naysaying. It seems unlikely that this device will make it out of China in its current form, but maybe someone will see its utility and import it or license the design. Two weeks ago, I received a postcard from Amazonor, at least, I thought it was from Amazon. On second glance, I realized it was actually from one of the marketplace sellers who operate on Amazon. They offered me a tempting deal: theyd send me 20 ($21.65 USD) via PayPal for a review on an oil sprayer that only costs 10 ($10.82 USD). Heres how they explained how it would work: I write a 5-star review (no length requirement). I email them my order number, a screenshot of my published review, and my PayPal address for payment. Sounds like an easy win-win, right? So, I tried it. It only took Amazon about two days to do an internal check of my review, and then my review appeared on the product page. After I emailed a screenshot of my published review, I received payment in two hours. Christoph Hoffmann Christoph Hoffmann Christoph Hoffmann The payment came from China, and the sender even covered my transaction costs so that 20.07 ($21.72 USD) ended up in my account. The sender sent a total of 21.60 ($23.38 USD). Who is the sender? I only see Chinese characters as the delivery address in PayPal, and the company cant be identified in the translation. But the company headquarters are in Shenzhen, the third largest city in China and the production site for many goods shipped overseas. What does Amazon do about fake reviews? The first problem is that Amazon isnt aware when these marketplace sellers recruit fake reviewers because contact is made outside the Amazon system. The seller gets the buyers address from a previous purchase, then reaches out directly. The second problem is that anyone can leave a verified review on any product as long as they 1) purchased it via Amazon and 2) paid a reasonable price for that purchase (e.g., it wasnt free). When reviewing, the buyer can give whatever rating and write whatever they want. The issue of fake verified reviews isnt new and Amazon claims to be taking measures to fight it. According to their page on How We Keep Reviews Trustworthy and Useful: If [] someone offers you compensation to create, edit, or remove a review, please tell us. See the How to report violations section in our Community Guidelines. So, I did that. A few days later, I received an email from Amazon Review Moderation, and heres the essential part of their response: Any attempts to manipulate customer reviews will be investigated and consistently pursued. We take reports like yours very seriously. Our team will investigate whether the reported activity violates Amazons Community Guidelines and take appropriate action if necessary. As the product is still up with almost 100 new (!) 5-star ratings in just under two weeks, the last two sentences in the review moderation teams email are rather questionable: Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to provide you with any further information about any action that may have been taken. However, we are grateful to you for helping to enable other customers to make informed purchasing decisions through authentic customer reviews. How to shop smartly on Amazon despite all the fake reviews Product reviews on Amazon are good for both customers (trust) and marketplace sellers (reputation). Positive reviews encourage buying while negative reviews discourage it. Back in 2020, independent review analysis site Fakespot found that 42 percent of all reviews published on Amazon were not genuine. Since then, Amazon has tightened up and spent more than $700 million per year to track down and delete over 200 million fake reviews. So, until Amazon revamps their entire system, what can you do about fake reviews when shopping on Amazon? I still look at product reviews, but I pay most attention to the 1-star and 2-star reviews. If most of them have the same points of criticism, then I usually give them more weight than praise. When it comes to 4-star and 5-star reviews, look at their published dates. Too many positive reviews within a short period of time should be treated as suspicious or bought, even if they are verified. I also search Amazon to see if the same exact product has other listings by other marketplace sellers. Why would one listing have a 3.1-star rating while another has a 4.4-star rating? In that case, I dive into the reviews to see what insights I can glean. Lastly, research the product outside of Amazon. Look for user testimonies on forums and Facebook groups, and find trusted reviews by people who have a legitimate record of independent testing and honest opinions. Keep all of this in mind as Amazon Prime Day approaches! Expect a lot of trickery as sellers try to boost sales during this hot event. A storm is brewing in Ghana's construction sector as the Chamber of Cement Manufacturers, Ghana (COCMAG) raises serious concerns about the newly proposed Ghana Standards Authority (Pricing of Cement) Regulations, 2024 (L.I.). While the Director-General of the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), Prof. Alex Dodoo, and some within Parliament portray the L.I. as a mechanism to ensure transparency in the industry, COCMAG argues it's a heavy-handed attempt at price control. Unilateral Power, Unclear Process The crux of the issue lies in regulations 3(4), 3(5), and 3(6) of the L.I. These provisions empower a government committee of scientists at the Ghana Standards Authority to reject a cement producer's reported price without explanation or a chance to appeal. Furthermore, producers are prohibited from selling cement unless the committee approves their price. Non-compliance can lead to license suspension. Ghana Standards Authority (Pricing of Cement) Regulations, 2024 3. (4) The Committee shall, where the Committee is not satisfied that the price of cement submitted by the cement manufacturing entity or any entity involved in the cement industry conforms to the factors stated in sub-regulation (1) of this Regulation, request that cement manufacturing entity or any entity involved in the cement industry to review the price submitted in order to conform to the factors stated in sub-regulation (1) of this Regulation Questionable Expertise for Price Setting While price transparency is a laudable goal, the proposed regulations raise concerns about who wields the price control power. The price control committee (PCC) is composed primarily of six scientists, led by Prof. Dodoo, a pharmacist. While their expertise in ensuring quality standards is undoubted, one wonders if a committee dominated by scientists possesses the nuanced understanding of market dynamics critical for setting a fair price for a complex commodity like cement. Can they effectively balance production costs, globally- and locally-traded inputs, and the long-term health of Ghana's cement industry, better than the free market? Industry Questions Lack of Consultation COCMAG emphasizes that these regulations were drafted without any meaningful consultation. While some might suggest a meeting was planned, the facts paint a different picture. Cement companies were summoned via a last-minute WhatsApp message on a Sunday evening for a meeting the following morning, with no agenda provided. Upon arriving for the meeting, CEOs were surprised to find media present, raising concerns about transparency and potential media misrepresentation. Ultimately, the CEOs were informed that the Minister was unavailable to meet them. Ghana Standards Authority (Pricing of Cement) Regulations, 2024 3. (5) The cement manufacturing entity or any entity involved in the cement industry shall not put up for sale. Any cement for which the Committee has not certified the price. In accordance with sub-regulation (4) Cement Industry: Fairness Amidst Challenges Despite the narrative of profiteering, Ghanaians should be aware of the challenges the cement industry faces. The cedi depreciation by 104% since 2022 has significantly increased production costs, with 77% of cement inputs being dollar-denominated. However, the industry has stood by Ghanaians in this difficult period and only raised prices by 48% in the same period, absorbing a significant portion of the cost increases. Without this absorption, the price of cement should have been $2.30/bag (GHS 35/bag) higher than it is. Ghanaian Cement Industry: A Model of Competition Furthermore, Ghanaians deserve to know that their cement industry is one of the most competitive in West Africa, boasting one of the highest number of manufacturers among regional peers. Ghana's 14 individual producers outnumber Nigeria's 12 and Togo's five. In fact, Ghana's cement prices are among the lowest in West Africa, although 30% of the cost build-up is paid to the government in taxes, levies, and service charges. Unfair Targeting, Unintended Consequences COCMAG argues that the Minister's actions are unfair and not in the best interests of Ghanaians. While other sectors have experienced far higher price increases, the cement industry is being singled out for control. This approach could lead to: Reduced Production and Shortages: If the government-imposed price does not cover production costs, manufacturers may be forced to reduce production, hindering construction projects. Job Losses: Reduced production can lead to job losses within the cement industry and related sectors. Discouraged Investment: Without the ability to determine a fair market price, investors are less likely to invest in expanding production capacity, potentially leading to future shortages. Cement Industry Not Alone in Opposition COCMAG is not alone in its opposition to this L.I. Several professional bodies have spoken out, including the Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry, GREDA, Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana, the consumer protection organization, CUTS International, all expressing concerns about the proposed regulations' impact on the industry and ultimately, Ghanaian consumers. The Way Forward: Collaboration, not Coercion COCMAG urges the government to reconsider this heavy-handed approach and engage in constructive dialogue with the industry. Transparency in cost structure, a focus on long-term solutions like promoting local sourcing of raw materials, and open communication are key elements for ensuring a sustainable and affordable cement supply for Ghana. Source: COCMAG 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 Readers Bay Foundation has launched a unique initiative called The Reading Caravan, It is Ghanas First Tourist-Readers Adventure that gets patrons glued to a book and read while on a moving bus. The Bus finally arrives in a local school or community where pupils together with their teachers and patrons engage in practical literacy activities to boost the self confidence and communication skills of the school children. On Saturday, 22nd June 2024, the Reading Caravan bus departed from the Accra Mall at 8:30 am, headed towards Larteh and Mampong-Akropong in the Eastern Region. The first stop was at the Akonedi Shrine Global Headquarters in Larteh Kubease, where patrons received a brief history of the shrine. The second stop was at Akropong Methodist Primary School, where Irene Boakye-Danquah, the founder of Readers Bay Foundation, hosted The Reading Challenge for the school children. The vibrant students took turns reading, with the best-performing class being declared the winner. The competition was aimed to encourage the culture of Reading Books to boost the literacy levels of children. To further support this goal, the foundation donated assorted books to stock the schools library. The final stop of the day was at the Anagkazo Bible and Ministry Training Centre. Patrons were taken on a tour of the facility, which includes chapels, conference rooms, dormitories, and recreational facilities. In an interview, Irene Boakye-Danquah, Founder of Readers Bay Foundation explained the foundations new Initiative. In previous tours, we focused solely on visiting schools and conducting literacy activities. This time, we are fusing them with tourism because we believe that tourism can unveil many wonders to the world. While we tour the country, we are also learning, she said. The Reading Caravan initiative aims to make every Ghanaian childs educational experience comparable to that of their peers in more privileged circumstances, demonstrating that with the right resources and support, such goals are achievable. By combining literacy with tourism, Readers Bay Foundation continues to innovate in its mission to enhance the educational experiences of Ghanaian children. The Reading Caravan is an initiative by Readers Bay Foundation, A literacy Foundation that believes that every child needs basic quality education for a better future. This is inspired by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal-4 (SDG4), which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. The Foundation supports underprivileged children and communities to elevate their literacy and numeracy levels by mobilizing reading and learning resources to equip and empower them. 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 Board Chairman of Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Professor Emeritus Stephen Adei has declared that he will go on a one-man demonstration if Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) from India is allowed to take over domestic tax mobilization in Ghana. He described the deal as "immoral, unpatriotic and evil" and urged the government to stop it, saying, "you cannot and should not hand over our domestic tax mobilization to an Indian company when all the evidence from the competitive bidding process shows that a Ghanaian company came on top." "The contract can only go to the Indian company on the basis of corruption and moral depravity and I think that no Ghanaian worth his or her name should support this," he quipped. Prof. Adei's strong declaration comes in the wake of reports that the Commissioner General of GRA, Julie Essiam has ignored the board, defied all due process, and unilaterally willed Ghana's domestic revenue mobilization to TCS from India, and its Indian-owned-Ghana-based partner, IPMC. In fact, Julie Essiam travelled to India in the company of the Head of Procurement at GRA, Daniel Foli, and signed the contract with TCS, giving them the green light to come take over domestic tax mobilization in Ghana from 2026. This was in spite of the fact that the whole competitive bidding process for the award of that particular contract, called the Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS) was cancelled on January 3, 2024, more than two months before Julie Essiam's appointment as CG. Moreover, both the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) and the Central Tender Review Committee (CTRC) had earlier rejected TCS/IPMC on the grounds that they failed to meet up to 80% of GRAs requirements on deployment experience and also failed the 30% local content test. Again, of the three top entities that qualified for the financial proposal stage, each with over 80% score at the technical stage, TCS/IPMC's was the most expensive. Out of the top three, Axon Information Systems had the lowest cost of US$41 million, followed by Persol and Atos with US$61 million, while TCS/IPMC had the highest cost of US$69 million. Workers of GRA have even written officially to Julie Essiam raising concerns about the cost of the contract to GRA, its impact on workers and why the whole competitive bidding process was not started afresh after the cancelation of the first one, as the law requires. Find the full details of how Techfocus24 has covered the story on the following links: Why the GRA boss was removed in favour of an Indian company New GRA boss revives shady IPMC/Tata deal after former CG cancelled it GRA Boss UNILATERALLY wills Ghanas domestic tax mobilization to Indian company, Tata GRA workers write to Commissioner General over questionable ITAS deal with Indian company Julie Essiams darling, TATA fined $194 million in the US In reaction to these developments, Prof. Stephen Adei said he is privy to the full scores of the initial competitive bids process for the ITAS contract, and he is fully aware that Axon, a Ghanaian company, came on top, per both the technical and financial proposals, so, it will be only on the basis of "corruption and moral depravity" if GRA hands over the contract to the Indian company. "I want to serve notice that based on what I have seen and what I know, if government allows this Indian company to take over our domestic tax mobilization, I will personally embark on a one man demonstration against it," he said. "I Stephen Adei, I will not sit down and allow people like Julie Essiam to sell Ghana for a song." Julie's abiding agenda Prof. Adei said he is not surprised that Julie Essiam was the one chosen by some persons with vested interest to execute such an "unpatriotic, immoral and evil" move because she has always had an abiding agenda to select foreign companies over very competent local companies for jobs at GRA. He recalled that two days after Julie Essiam was made Commissioner, Support Services, at the time, the Finance Ministry had decided to replace GCNET. Julie Essiam completely ignored the newly appointed GRA board at the time, and travelled to Kenya to go negotiate with Technobrain, the company which used to provide technical backing for GCNET, to come takeover domestic revenue mobilization in Ghana, but that move was stopped by the board. Again, when the Prof. Adei-led board was dissolved in December 2020, they were called back to look at the budget for GRA, and they found an item of about GHS140 million (about US$40 million at the time) earmarked to contract a Canadian company to take over domestic tax mobilization in Ghana. Again, Julie Essiam vehemently defended that budget, which confirmed that it has always been on her agenda to bring in foreign entities to take over Ghana's domestic tax mobilization. "I strongly believe that Julie Essiam was specifically appointed as CG to execute this TCS/IPMC deal and so I am not surprised the way she is going about it," he said. "But we must know that when foreign entities are in charge of your domestic tax mobilization the corruption rate is very high." The former GRA Board Chairman said what surprises him was how Julie Essiam was chosen as the new CG for GRA, given the fact that she was the head of Support Services and not directly involved in the core work of taxation. "Promoting someone in her capacity to the high office of the CG is like appointing the Head of Works, of Head of Finance or the Registrar of a University as the Vice Chancellor just based on seniority - it does not make sense," he argued. "And if my memory serves me right, Julie Essiam was due for retirement in April 2021, so I wonder if her age is not more than the 61 years mentioned at her appointment." Appointments by connection Speaking of appointments, Prof. Adei recalled that, for his 15 months as the Board Chair of GRA, he noticed that all the five Acting Deputy Commissioners he met were appointed by "connection" rather than on merit. So when his board opened up applications, all the five failed because some of their other colleagues were more qualified for those positions. He noted that, it is therefore not surprising to find that Julie Essiam, for instance, has been appointed to the position of Commissioner General and she is quickly executing an unpatriotic contract in total defiance of due process, just to shortchange a very competent local entity. "The government can choose whoever they want to occupy whichever office, but they must not do so to the detriment of revenue collection because in her former capacity as Head of Support Services, Julie Essiam had nothing to do directly with taxation. Her actions now will only impact negatively on fiscal policy and Ghanaians will be the sufferers for it," he said. Speak up Prof. Adei therefore called on well-meaning Ghanaians to speak up against that contract and stand in support of growing competent local entities, which have the capacity to deliver on such contracts. Currently, Ghana's domestic tax mobilization is being done by Axon Information System with their Ghana Integrated Tax Management and Information Systems (GITMIS), which, according to technical staff of the GRA, is an ITAS system comparable to anyone in the world. The system mobilizes about 76% per cent of taxes in Ghana, and has for the past three years, helped GRA to exceed revenue targets significantly. Moreover, among the 12 entities that put in bids for the deal, there were equally very competent Ghanaian entities such as Persol and Atos, which currently runs Ghana's e-VAT system, as well as Tenth Generation Information Systems and Invinol, which put in a bid to deploy the globally acclaimed SAP system for Ghana. TCS's questionable solution Whereas all of the solutions put forward by the local companies have been tried and tested both locally and globally, there is zero record of TCS's solution being deployed successfully anywhere in the world, not even in its own home country, India. The TCS solution is known to have been previously deployed in Rwanda, Kenya, Zambia and Uganda. But in all four countries, they have been kicked out for various reasons. Indeed, during a recent meeting at GRA, the team from TCS was asked to show proof of a successful deployment of their solution anywhere, but they failed to do so. It is also important to note that all the way in the United States of America, TCS has been fined a significant US$194 million for misappropriating the trade secrets of another company. TCS's was found guilty of the offense by a court of competent jurisdiction in the USA. Techfocus24 has made an RTI request for a copy of the contract but to no avail, as Julie Essiam is said to be keeping the signed contract close to her chest. Attempts to get her to respond to the issues raised also proved futile because she will not respond to WhatsApp messages nor pick her calls. 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 In a highly anticipated event, Samuel Koku Anyidoho, a prominent Ghanaian politician and advocate, is set to launch his latest book titled *Uncompromising Thoughts* on July 24, 2024. The launch will take place at the prestigious Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and promises to be a significant occasion in the literary and political circles of Ghana. The book, authored by Samuel Koku Anyidoho, features a foreword by the late President John Evans Atta Mills, adding a profound layer of historical and political significance to the work. Known for his unwavering principles and candid perspectives, Anyidoho's *Uncompromising Thoughts* is expected to offer deep insights into his political journey, personal beliefs, and vision for Ghana's future. The event will be chaired by Ambassador Kabral Blay Amihere, a respected figure in Ghanaian diplomacy and public service. Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, a prominent political figure and former First Lady of Ghana, will grace the event as the honorary guest, adding further prestige to the occasion. The guest speaker for the event will be Justice Jones Dotse, a retired Supreme Court judge renowned for his contributions to Ghana's judiciary. Dr. Kwame Akuffo Ntow, a distinguished academic, will review the book, providing attendees with an insightful analysis of its themes and significance. Kafui Dey, a well-known broadcaster and media personality, will host the event, ensuring an engaging and smooth-running program. Samuel Koku Anyidoho, known for his dedicated service as the Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and his relentless advocacy for the Volta Region, has made significant contributions to Ghanaian politics. His recent graduation from the Ghana Theological Seminary and the formation of the Volta Resistance Movement further highlight his commitment to leadership, faith, and community development. In *Uncompromising Thoughts*, Anyidoho shares personal anecdotes, political insights, and his profound journey of faith, aiming to inspire readers and spark meaningful conversations about Ghana's political landscape and future. Expressing his excitement about the launch, Anyidoho stated, "This book is a reflection of my unwavering beliefs, experiences, and dedication to the progress of our nation. I hope *Uncompromising Thoughts* will serve as a catalyst for thoughtful dialogue and active participation in our democratic process." The launch event is expected to attract a diverse audience, including political leaders, academics, supporters, and members of the public interested in Ghana's political discourse. The choice of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences as the venue underscores the intellectual and cultural significance of the event. Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase copies of *Uncompromising Thoughts* at the venue and engage with the author and other distinguished guests, making it a memorable and enriching experience. As the date approaches, anticipation for Samuel Koku Anyidoho's book launch continues to build, promising to be a landmark event that contributes to Ghanaian literature and political thought. 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 More than 100 people were sh0t and 19 k!lled across Chicago during a vi0lent Fourth of July celebration in the US. The number of shootings, which totalled 109 victims between Thursday and Sunday surpassed last years holiday weekend total, Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a Monday press conference. These are 19 families whose lives are forever altered. Nineteen families who woke up this morning without a son, without a daughter, without a mother, without a father, without an aunt, without an uncle. Over 100 people whose lives will never be the same, Mayor Johnson said. The most recent sh&&ting incident was a homicide around 11:30 p.m. on Sunday in Chicagos Austin neighbourhood. Police responded to a well-being check in the area and found a 36-year-old man on the kitchen floor. He was bleeding and unresponsive with a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced de@d on the scene. Just before 5:30 a.m. Sunday, three men were shot and wounded outside the University of Chicago Hospital. According to police, witnesses observed someone in a dark-grey SUV point a gun from the vehicle and fire shots at several people standing near a parked car in what initially looked to be a targeted shooting. The victims were transported to the hospital. Weekend shootings with multiple victims included an incident at Columbus Park in the Austin neighbourhood. Police said two people exchanged gunfire and fled the scene. A total of seven people were shot. A 40-year-old man d!ed after driving himself to Stroger Hospital following the shooting. The youngest shooting victim over the extended Fourth of July weekend was 8-year-old Bryson Orr, who was k!lled along with two female relatives in the Greater Grand Crossing neighbourhood. Two other children were also wounded in the shooting. We cannot bring back these children. If we want to avoid having these types of press conferences and these types of meetings again, we need every single person to step up. We need people to start coming forward. We need people to take responsibility. Help us, help you, Supt. Snelling said. Additional officers were deployed over the extended holiday weekend across Chicago. The police department announced the opening of an Emergency Services Assistance Center Tuesday at Fosco Park, which will help people who have been traumatized by the weekends violence. 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 Information Minister, Fatimatu Abubakar, has cautioned the media to exercise due diligence and verify every information received before publication to avert plunging the nation into chaos and embarrassment. She cited the recent publication of a Ghanaian chef who organised a press briefing to declare himself as having been recognised by Guinness as the record-holder for cook-a-thon, which was published on major media outlets in the country without proper verification. Madam Abubakar, in an interview with the media in Accra on Monday, described the issue as an embarrassment to the country and should not be repeated. The Minister averred that if that scenario by Chef Smith happened within the political space, especially on election-related matters, it could create serious conflicts or chaos in the country. The media has the responsibility to verify every information before publicationits dangerous to spread falsehood because it could lead us into chaos, she noted. Meanwhile, as part of efforts to decentralise the governments communication and inform the citizenry about the projects it had implemented, Madam Abubakar said her Ministry would embark on regional town hall meetings and exhibitions across the country, starting from the end of July. The town hall meetings, she said, would bring on board regional and sector ministers as well as key government appointees to answer questions from journalists and members of the communities on government projects. The issues would include roads, health, education, water and sanitation infrastructure, as well as local issues of concern to the people. The regional town hall meetings and exhibitions would help to ensure transparency and accountability regarding the governments projects, with feedback for the government. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Former French first lady and supermodel, Carla Bruni has been charged with corruption offences. The 56-year-old is alleged to have been involved in a criminal conspiracy to 'whitewash' her husband, former President Nicolas Sarkozy, 69, over allegations that he accepted millions in cash from the late Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. After being questioned by examining magistrates on Tuesday evening, a judicial source in Paris said she was being prosecuted July 9, about 'witness tampering and fraud in an organised gang'. Both extremely serious offences are punishable by up to 10 years, with sentences going up to 20 with aggravating circumstances such as gang membership. In particular, Bruni is accused of being part of a 4million campaign dubbed 'Operation Save Sarko' a complex and illegal plan to try and keep Sarkozy, who is already a convicted criminal, out of a jail cell. Bruni was 'placed under judicial supervision and banned from contacting all those involved in the case' apart from her husband, the source told the AFP news agency. The bail conditions will be in place right up until Bruni appears before in a criminal trial. Bruni is a close friend of Mimi Marchand, a French media fixer who has been placed under formal investigation for 'witness tampering' and 'criminal corruption' in the same case. Marchand, 77 and nicknamed 'The Paparazzi Queen', is accused of paying former French-Lebanese arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, 74, to drop a sworn testament that he arranged for millions of dollars from Colonel Gaddafi to be paid to Sarkozy. During an interview which was published in Paris Match magazine four years ago, Takieddine withdrew his claim that suitcases stuffed with cash had been delivered to Sarkozy's colleagues. The money was used to fund the 2007 election campaign that saw Sarkozy win his one and only term in office as President of France, it was alleged. Sarkozy used the 2020 interview to falsely claim that he had been cleared because 'the truth is out'. But Marchand, who also denies any wrongdoing is said by prosecutors to have offered Takieddine inducements to change his story. The case involving Bruni is dubbed 'Operation Save Sarko', and is running in tandem with the Libyan funding case, in which Sarkozy has already been indicted. Takieddine is said to have received the equivalent of up to 4million to 'change his story,' according to prosecution claims. Bruni has continually denied any involvement in 'Operation Save Sarko,' saying she tries to avoid legal cases involving her husband, who has two criminal convictions to date. She has previously said: 'When people talk to me about it, it puts me in a situation of anger and indignation which does not help my husband.' Bruni added: 'I don't have the beginnings of the slightest curiosity about my husband's affairs.' But detectives claim that Bruni deleted all of the messages she had exchanged with Marchand on the encrypted Signal app, before Marchand's indictment in June 2021. Sarkozy has been charged with corruption, 'illicit funding of an election campaign', 'receiving misappropriated public funds', and 'criminal conspiracy' in relation to the Gaddafi scandal, and is due to go on trial next year. Three of his former ministers, Brice Hortefeux, Claude Gueant, and Eric Woerth are also under investigation. In January, Sarkozy failed to overturn a criminal conviction and prison sentence for illegally funding his campaign for re-election. He was found guilty of fiddling the books during his unsuccessful 2012 bid to become head of state. Sarkozy, who was President of France for five years up until 2012, served his sentence wearing an electronic tag at the Paris home he shares with Bruni. 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 (NDC), John Mahama, has disclosed he would grant amnesty to people convicted of illegal mining, popularly called galamsey, if elected president. The former President, speaking at a media event in Accra last Sunday, said persons convicted by the court for unlawful mining are victims of circumstances who work for ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) officials and should be pardoned. I will give amnesty to people imprisoned for illegal mining, popularly called galamsey because those who are in prison for galamsey are not the actual perpetrators. The big kingpins are not in prison; those who are in prison are the small boys who were employed to work on their galamsey concession, he asserted. Mr. Mahama stated that he would maintain the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), explaining, Why will I scrub the office of the Office of Special Prosecutor? I wont. Its an addition to our anti-corruption fight. The NDC flagbearer indicated that a government he leads will strengthen the OSP to make it efficient and effective to achieve the purpose for which it was established. He was of the view that there was too much political interference in the work of the OSP, and called on those involved to desist from it. We need to create an environment where the Special Prosecutor can work on behalf of the people of Ghana. And so I will not scrub that office but will strengthen it to be able to investigate those who are leaving the office and have been harassing the prosecutor, and also investigate my people who fall foul of the law, he stressed. Touching on the Free Senior High School (FSHS) Bill, the former President said the Free SHS policy introduced by the ruling NPP would not be cancelled. According to him, more funding will be provided to strengthen the policy in order to make it work seamlessly. Free SHS has come to stay and nobody can roll it back. All we are saying is that lets improve the implementation. Lets take away the bottlenecks; lets abolish the track system, lets be able to feed the children better by decentralising the school feeding in the Free SHS, he 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 The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for the Dormaa East Constituency, Paul Apreku Twum Barimah, has called on Ghanaians to believe in the Mahamudu Bawumia and Mathew Opoku-Prempeh (Napo) partnership geared towards breaking the 8 and winning the December general election. He assured Ghanaians that the decision by the party to settle on Dr Bawumia as flag bearer, and Dr Opoku Prempeh as his running mate, solidified the partys position in its quest to retain power for the third term and urged them to rally behind the pair to secure the needed victory. Speaking in an interview, Mr Twum Barimah further congratulated Dr Opoku Prempeh, the Energy Minister, on his appointment as the running mate of Dr Bawumia for the 2024 general election. He believed that Dr Opoku Prempeh was coming in with loads of experience and expertise to complement the great knowledge and expertise of Dr Bawumia. Achievement According to Mr Twum Barimah, the success story of Dr Opoku Prempeh from the Education Ministry as regards the restoration of teachers' allowance and the successful implementation of the free SHS programme and the stabilisation of the country's energy needs would push them to rally more support from Ghanaians to win the upcoming general election. "With Dr Bawumia as the flag bearer of the NPP and Dr Opoku Prempeh as his running mate, I can now tell you that we are good to go and solidified to consolidate our base to break the 8 and win the election. This team is solid to win the election. The pair gives me confidence and hope that we are ready to break the 8 and win the election," he stated. Recall The National Council of the NPP, the second highest decision-making body of the party, at its meeting held at the Alisa Hotel in Accra last Thursday (July 4) endorsed Dr Opoku Prempeh as the running mate of the partys flag bearer for the December 7 presidential election. The nomination and endorsement of Dr Opoku Prempeh, who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Manhyia South, form part of the constitutionally mandated processes of the NPP for selecting its running mate. The Daily Graphic gathered that the party will officially introduce him to the public tomorrow at the Prempeh Assembly Hall in Kumasi. Source: graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Former Chief Executive Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Henry Kwabena Kokofu has stated that the flag bearer of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia will reset Ghana if he is elected president come December 7. Expressing his trust in Dr. Bawumias sterling leadership abilities, Dr. Kokofu maintains that a victory for the NPP is a testament of the trust and confidence Ghanaians have in the vision and ideologies of Dr. Bawumia and the NPP government. Dr. Kokofu believes that Dr. Bawumia will place Ghana on a solid footing and set the country on a trajectory of prosperity if elected President in the 2024 general elections. In an interview with the media in Kumasi on July 9, 2024, during the unveiling of the running mate of the party, Kokofu maintains that, the NPP is the party to entrust with votes because the party has undoubtedly the best records as compared to their main contender, the NDC. We have pledged to resolve whatever matters there are in, whatever differences or whatever shortfalls that we encountered. Dr Bawumia is prepared to reverse all those things and set the nation on a very sound footing. The ticket is solid and its going to help Ghana move forward," he said. He reaffirmed the party members commitment to rallying behind the Bawumia-NAPO ticket, pledging their unwavering support to ensure a resounding victory for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the upcoming elections. When asked if he sees Dr Bawumia/NAPOs ticket as perfect, he said, Very much so, not to me alone, we in the Ashanti Region, were very grateful to the flagbearer to have considered one of us in the Ashanti Region in NPP. We have already pledged our full support for the ticket; we will work hard to secure 80% of the votes in order to ensure a first-round victory for Dr Bawumia and Dr Opoku Prempeh. Its a victory for Ghana and a victory for the NPP.." Dr. Kokofu vehemently denied claims that NAPO is arrogant, dismissing the assertions as unfounded and misrepresentative of NAPOs character. The running mate, since his appointment and endorsement by the national Council, have been labelled as arrogant and hot-headed by sections of the public including some members of the NPP. However, Dr. Kokofu argues that, the assertion only remains unrealistic and unfounded. That is a perception, people can take out of contextwere ready to work on our weaknesses going forward. No man is infallible, once people say so, were going to work on it. And we will provide a vice president who is as plain as anything. NAPO is a man you can trust; he comes on board with confidence. Normally, people confuse confidence with arrogance. You cannot run over NAPO when it matters most. 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 expressed surprise at former President John Mahama's claim that he initiated the policy. Today, the leader of the NDC claims he is the one who introduced Free SHS...this is shocking because he was the one who said if he had two billion he would invest in another project, not free SHS" This leader (Mahama) criticized us when we said we were going to implement the Free SHS policy. Now that Ghanaians have accepted the policy, he is saying he is the one who introduced Free SHS. Have you ever heard such a thing? Speaking at the unveiling ceremony in honor of the partys running mate, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, on Tuesday, July 9, Akufo-Addo asked Mahama to "rather commend me for the initiative to implement the policy." Mahama's Media Engagement At a media engagement on Sunday, July 7, Ex-Prez Mahama refuted allegations that he was not in favour of the Free SHS policy, questioning how he would be against something initiated by his government in 2015. I support any bill that will improve our educationto make it sustainable, to afford quality education for our children. So yes, any bill that would achieve this is something that I will support, John Dramani Mahama said. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Managing Editor of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako has expressed his disappointment over the running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh popularly known as NAPO's recent "gaffe". Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, during his unveiling in Kumasi said no President, including Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, has contributed to Ghanas development significantly as President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. Since independence from 1957 till today, weve not had any president that has helped Ghana like Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. I say from 1957 till today, you can bring your Kwame Nkrumah no president who has protected Ghana and moved the country forward like Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, he asserted. He goofed James Kwabena Bomfeh, popularly known as Kabila speaking in reaction on Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo' said Napo's comment was in bad taste. He goofed big time...He should not have made that statement, simply because he wouldnt have had time to explain to the audience what he meant by the statement that Akufo Addos achievements surpass that of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. I believe that what added salt to injury was his comment of your Kwame Nkrumah which sends a wrong signal to the persona and the great achievements of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. I want him to know and understand that, we dont undermine Kwame Nkrumah. Admittedly, Kwame Nkrumah wasnt a perfect human being, but he led Ghana to gain our Freedom, thereby making Ghana the first Country in sub-Sahara Africa to gain independence from colonial rulers. Beyond his great works, he has also penned down lots of articles and books more than any other President in the history of Ghana, intellectually contributing to the development of the minds of Ghanaians and the world at large, especially among the black race and the suffering people around the world" he stated. Unnecessary, Needless Kweku Baako was speaking on the same platform said the Nkrumah, Akufo-Addo comparison was irrelevant. "Let me be brutally frank, the comparison Napo made had no relevance. It was a needless distraction. It's so unnecessary, completely irrelevant and needless. what is at stake right now is an election...as the running mate being outdoored; you can exalt NPP projects; President Akufo Addo's projects, you're entitled to that but don't drag in another figure. Needless distraction; you don't provide armour for your opponents or neutrals; needless and it lacks relevance...I'm disappointed" he lamented Listen to him in the video Unnecessary, Needless Kweku Baako was speaking on the same platform said the Nkrumah, Akufo-Addo comparison was irrelevant. "Let me be brutally frank, the comparison Napo made had no relevance. It was a needless distraction. It's so unnecessary, completely irrelevant and needless. what is at stake right now is an election...as the running mate being outdoored; you can exalt NPP projects; President Akufo Addo's projects, you're entitled to that but don't drag in another figure. Needless distraction; you don't provide armour for your opponents or neutrals; needless and it lacks relevance...I'm disappointed" he lamented Listen to him in the video below Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The City of North Tonawanda is set to ban new cryptocurrency mining operations from moving in for two years while it works to combat noise issues at the existing facility owned by Digihost. During a meeting Tuesday evening, the citys Common Council read a resolution to ban new, or the expansion of existing, data centers for the next two years. Those data centers can include facilities housing multiple banks of computers within a building, modular facilities containing processors in multiple storage-like containers, server clusters and other operations related to cryptocurrency mining, blockchain authenticating, Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) processing, general data computing, processing and storage, and other large-scale electronic-based centers of the like, according to the resolution. The din of crypto mining: North Tonawanda says it can't enforce noise law to protect residents The noise from the Digihost facility has been polluting the North Tonawanda community for more than two years. Since then, residents said the city has done little, despite countless complaints, to enforce its noise ordinance against Digihost and give relief to those living around the facility. If the two-year moratorium is approved, the city expects to update its zoning codes and ordinances to address high noise levels and greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from Digihost, the cryptocurrency mining company that acquired the Fortistar gas power plant off Erie Avenue to run its operations. Since it began operations in February 2022, Digihost has reportedly created noise pollution likely from fans used to cool down bitcoin-mining computers in buildings on its property. The resulting noise reverberates around nearby neighborhoods and frustrates residents. Additionally, Digihost has, while operating on an expired air permit, produced more carbon dioxide emissions in the first three months of 2024 than it had in any year prior, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Clean Air Markets Program. The North Tonawanda Common Council plans to vote on the two-year moratorium during its meeting on July 16. During a rally before the Tuesday evening meeting, residents advocated for the moratorium and said it would help protect their health. North Tonawanda residents ask state to step in to regulate noise from crypto mining company Fed up with the noise from a nearby crypto mining plant, North Tonawanda residents are turning to the state Department of Environmental Conservation as they seek to return their neighborhood to its former tranquility. The noise levels have been so disruptive, it kicks me out of my own backyard, said Mark Polito during the rally. Were asking our Common Council, please do the right thing this time around get this place to stop eventually no more noise, no more (greenhouse) gases. And give us a nice, clean environment that we can call home again. Deb Gondek, a North Tonawanda resident who has advocated against Digihost since its inception, said the two-year moratorium wont stop the current issues with the facility, but it will stop it from getting worse. In a meeting on July 2, the North Tonawanda Common Council voted to hire an outside expert to conduct noise readings around the Digihost facility. The legally enforceable readings would determine whether the facility is violating the citys existing noise ordinance, according to the July 2 resolution. The chosen expert, Les Blomberg of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse, will also train the North Tonawanda Police Department on how to properly use equipment that is necessary to enforce its noise ordinance. The city will transfer $10,000 from its general fund to the police department for the training, new equipment purchase and contract with Blomberg. The move by the city came a few weeks after a report by The Buffalo News that cited Blomberg, who suggested the city update its noise ordinance and buy proper equipment to enforce its noise ordinance. During the July 2 meeting, residents were unhappy the city was footing the bill for looking into the noise issues. Instead, they wanted Digihost to pay since it was the company creating the noise issues. However, city officials shot down that idea during the July 2 meeting and reiterated it during the Tuesday evening meeting. Were on the hook to do the noise readings, the city is, to see if they currently follow our ordinances, said Council President Frank DiBernando during Tuesdays meeting. They (Digihost) can give reimbursements down the road or they cant. Its up to them. Right now, we fund it ourselves. DiBernardo and North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec added that Digihost is working on mitigation measures to possibly reduce the noise coming from the Erie Avenue facility. Those mitigation measures are reportedly to build a new acoustics dampening wall on the property and swap to more efficient equipment, Tylec said. Most state permits for Western New York's biggest air polluters expired years ago In Erie and Niagara counties, the DEC has failed to renew 33 of the 38 issued Title V permits, or 87%, before their expiration date. Beyond the noise issues, Gondek said she worries about the pollution issues stemming from the Digihost facility. The Title V air permit issued by the state Department of Environmental Conservation for Fortistar passed its expiration date in November 2021. Digihost acquired Fortistar in September 2022 a move that is now being challenged in court. Most Title V permits in New York, administered under the federal Clean Air Act for major polluters, are outdated. In Western New York, 87% of major polluters had expired Title V air permits, according to data from the DEC. Reporting by The News found that after some facilities Title V permits expiration dates passed, their emissions skyrocketed, including Fortistar. From January through March of this year, Fortistar emitted more than 53,000 tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, according to data from the EPAs Clean Air Markets Program. Thats a massive uptick from years prior as the most carbon dioxide Fortistar had ever reportedly produced over the course of an entire year was 44,000 tons, the data show. The DEC is reportedly reviewing the renewal of Fortistars Title V permit. It is our position that Fortistars air permit shouldnt be renewed at all since its for an entirely new use: bitcoin mining by Digihost which has significantly increased emissions, Gondek said before the Tuesday council meeting. Tylec said that the city is hoping the DEC will address the outdated Title V permit soon. This is really when it comes down to the DEC and taking their Title V clean air permits seriously, he said after Tuesdays meeting. By LUIS ANDRES HENAO, The Associated Press READING, Pa. (AP) Religion and politics frequently overlap in Reading, an old industrial city in one of the most pivotal swing states of this years presidential election. In Pennsylvania, there is early precedent for this kind of thing. The state began as a haven for Quakers and other European religious minorities fleeing persecution. That includes the parents of Daniel Boone, the national folk hero born just miles from Reading, a town where the Latino population is now the majority. Today, the Catholic mayor is also a migrant and the first Latino to hold the office in Readings 276-year history. Mayor Eddie Moran is keenly aware of the pivotal role Pennsylvania could play in the high-stakes race, when a few thousand votes in communities like his could decide the future of the United States. Right now, with the growing Latino population and the influx of Latinos moving into cities such as Reading, its definitely an opportunity for the Latino vote to change the outcome of an election, Moran says. Its not a secret anymore. A community of spirituality and Latinos In Reading, the sky is dotted with crosses atop church steeples, one after the other. Catholic church pews fill up on Sundays and many stand for the services. Elsewhere, often in nondescript buildings, evangelical and Pentecostal congregations gather to sing, pray and sometimes speak in tongues. Outside, salsa, merengue and reggaeton music (often sung in Spanglish) blast from cars and houses along city streets first mapped out by William Penns sons and that now serve a thriving downtown packed with restaurants proudly owned by Latinos. This is a place where, when the mayor is told that his town is 65% Latino, he takes pride in saying: Its more like 70%. They believe in their political sway. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that eight in 10 Latino registered voters say their vote can make a difference. A parishioner prays at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Reading, Pa., on Sunday, June 16, 2024. Reading is 67% Latino, according to U.S. Census figures, and home to high concentrations of people of Dominican and Puerto Rican heritage as well as Colombians and Mexicans, who own restaurants and other businesses around town. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)AP On a recent Sunday, Luis Hernandez, 65, born in Puerto Rico, knelt to pray near the altar at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church. Later, walking out after Mass, Hernandez said hell vote for Trump even on the very day of the former presidents criminal convictions related to hush money for a porn star. Biden is old, Hernandez says, and then reflects on how Trump is only a few years younger. Yes, but you look at Trump and you see the difference. ... Bidens a good man. Hes decent. But hes too old. In the weeks after he spoke, many more Americans would join in calls for Biden to withdraw from the race after his debate debacle, which crystallized growing concerns that, at 81, hes too old. Immigration is a key topic on peoples lips Its not just about Bidens age or debate performance. Its also, Hernandez says, about the border crisis. He says too many immigrants are arriving in the United States, including some he considers criminals. And, he adds, so much has changed since his Dominican-born father arrived in the 1960s when, he says, it was easier to enter and stay in America. For some, there are other issues as well. Its the economy, immigration and abortion, says German Vega, 41, a Dominican American who became a U.S. citizen in 2015. Vega, who describes himself as pro-life, voted for Trump in 2020 and plans to do so again in November. Biden doesnt know what hes saying. He doesnt know what hes doing, and we have a country divided, Vega says. Trump is a person of character. ... He looks confident. He never gives up; hes always fighting for what he believes. Of course, there are some here who just dont favor taking sides except if its for Jesus. Listen to Pastor Alex Lopez, a Puerto Rican who cuts hair in a barber shop on the first floor of his home on Saturdays, and preaches on the second floor on Sundays. Were neutral, he says. We just believe in God. A city with deep industrial roots resurges Reading was once synonymous with iron and steel. Those industries cemented the creation of the Reading Railroad (an early stop on the Monopoly gameboard) that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution and became, in the late 19th century, one of the countrys major corporations. Today, the city of about 95,000 people, 65 miles northwest of Philadelphia, is booming once again. Reading is 67% Latino, according to U.S. Census figures, and home to high concentrations of people of Dominican and Puerto Rican heritage as well as Colombians and Mexicans, who own restaurants and other businesses around town. Political candidates are taking notice of Readings economic and political power. The 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania was decided by about 82,000 votes, and according to the Pew Research Center there are more than 600,000 eligible Latino voters in the state. Its true that Reading still leans mostly Democratic Biden crushed Trump in the city by a margin of about 46 percentage points in 2020. But the Trump campaign doesnt want to miss out on the opportunity to turn it around. It recently teamed up with the Republican National Committee and Pennsylvania GOP to open a Latino Americans for Trump office in a red-brick building near the Democratic mayors downtown office. Moran has made a plea to Biden and other Democrats to take notice and visit Reading before the election. Its crucial, he says. I think that its still predominantly Democratic, he says. But the candidates need to come out and really explain that to the community. One development, Moran says, is that religious leaders are now less hesitant to get involved in politics. Things change, even for churches, he says. Clergy realize the importance that they hold as faith-based leaders and religious leaders and theyre making a call of action through their congregations. The message: Get out and vote A few blocks from St. Peters, a crowd gathers inside First Baptist Church, which dates to the late 19th century. In a sign of Readings changing demographics, the aging and shrinking congregation of white Protestants donated the building to Iglesia Jesucristo es el Rey (Church Jesus Christ is the King), a thriving Latino congregation of some 100 worshippers who have shared the building with First Baptist for nearly a decade. Pastors Carol Pagan and her husband, Jose, both from Puerto Rico, engage with parishioners on Sunday, June 9, 2024 at Iglesia Jesucristo es el Rey (Church Jesus Christ is the King), a thriving Latino congregation that shares the building with First Baptist Church in Reading, Pa. The pastors encourage parishioners to vote in the election irrespective of who they choose as the president. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)AP Pastors Carol Pagan and her husband Jose, both from Puerto Rico, recently led prayer. At the end of the service, microphone in hand, the pastors encourage parishioners to vote in the election irrespective of who they choose as the president. The right to vote is, Carol Pagan says before her husband chimes in: a civic responsibility. After the service, the congregation descends to the basement, where they share a traditional meal of chicken with rice and beans. I believe the principle of human rights have to do with both parties or any party running, Carol Pagan says. I always think of the elderly, of the health system, of health insurance, and how it shouldnt be so much about capitalism but more rights for all of us to be well. Both of the Pagans make clear that they wont vote for Trump. Theyre waiting, like others, for circumstances that might lead Biden to withdraw, so they can support another Democratic candidate. Its our duty to shield that person with prayer it doesnt matter if that person is a Democrat or a Republican, Carol Pagan says. We owe them that. By Matt Hubbard, Baltimore Sun (TNS) Family members of Rachel Morin, the 35-year-old mother of five who was found dead on the Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air, Maryland, last August, will be guests of former President Donald Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention next week. Morins family including her half-sister, Erin Layman, and Laymans husband; Morins two youngest children and their father; Rachels brothers, Nathan, Josh and Michael Morin; and Michael Morins family have all accepted invitations to attend the convention in Wisconsin, with all expenses paid by the Trump campaign, Layman said. Layman is scheduled to speak Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention about Rachel, her death and immigration policy. The invitations follow growing political interest in Morins death after the man charged in her killing a 23-year-old undocumented migrant from El Salvador was arrested last month. The Harford County homicide has become a focus of the nationwide flareup over U.S. immigration and border policy after it was revealed that the suspect in Morins killing entered the United States unlawfully. Layman, 49, said she sees the political interest as a way to make positive change. This is a huge honor because I want to make an impact in Rachels name, Layman said. I want to give Rachel the proper honor in all of this and for people to know our story and see our family together. The convention will be Laymans second time meeting the former president. She and Michael and Josh Morin met Trump during his rally in Philadelphia last month, she said. According to Morin family members, Trump, who is expected to be nominated as the official Republican presidential candidate at the convention, called Rachels mother, Patricia Morin, in June to express his condolences. Trump has used Rachels death to criticize Democratic President Joe Bidens border policies. Trumps reelection campaign created a political advertisementfocusing on the killing that was shown during the 2024 presidential debate last month. The $200,000 ad campaign was bankrolled by a conservative group called Building America Better. The advertisement sparked controversy among some community members who said they believe Morins death should not be used for political gain. However, Layman and other members of the Morin family said they believe politics can be a step toward ensuring a death like Rachels does not happen again. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Rachels all over America, so we have to do our part to hopefully make change, Josh Morin said. This is 100% political because it was politics that created this problem, and it is politics that are going to fix it. 2024 Baltimore Sun. Visit baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Lest you had any doubts about it, Ellen DeGeneres confirmed shes done with Hollywood. During a recent Q&A session with the audience as part of a stand-up comedy show in San Francisco, the former daytime talk show host made it clear she plans to step out of the spotlight permanently. This is the last time youre going to see me, she said in response to an audience members question, SFGate reported. After my Netflix special, Im done. The special, entitled Ellens Last Stand ... Up is scheduled to air later this year. During her comedy set, the Finding Nemo star joked about her fall from grace a few years ago. Let me catch you up on whats been going on with me since you last saw me, she said. I got chickens. Oh yeah, and I got kicked out of show business for being mean. In 2020, multiple employees of The Ellen DeGeneres Show came forward accusing the shows producers of racism, sexual misconduct, and intimidation. Three producers were fired and Degeneres issued an on-air apology. The show ended in 2022. I used to say, I dont care what people say about me. Now I realize I said that during the height of my popularity, DeGeneres joked during her set, according to SFGate. While the comedian admitted she could be demanding and impatient and tough she also said during the show that I am many things, but I am not mean. Pat Colbert, who portrayed the Oil Barons restaurant host Dora Mae on eight seasons of the long-running CBS primetime soap Dallas, has died at the age of 77, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Colberts sister Tami Colbert told The Hollywood Reporter the actress died at her home on June 23 after suffering three strokes over the past decade. The actress was born Sandra Patricia Colbert in Los Angeles on Jan. 16, 1947. She attended Centennial High School in Compton and worked as a model for department store print campaigns and as a fashion consultant before becoming an actress. During her road to stardom, the actress co-starred on the NBC series Flamingo Road and appeared in episodes of Benson and The Fall Guy before signing on as a cast member for Dallas in Season 6. As the host and manager of the Oil Baron Club, Colbert played the stylish Dora Mae, whose popular local restaurant was a hangout for the Ewing family. She appeared in more than 65 episodes, including the 14th and final season. As the only recurring African-American character on the series, Dora Mae never had a storyline, because Dallas never tried to pretend to be anything more than the saga of the Ewing family, but she played the role with elegance and intelligence, Shaun Chang of the movie and TV blog Hill Place told The Hollywood Reporter. The leading characters, and the show itself, treated her with respect and without any sense of condescension. Dallas had many recurring supporting characters who helped create a sense of community for a show set in a major city, and Dora Mae was part of the fabric of the series. Colbert also starred alongside Bill Cosby in the 1987 comedy Leonard Part 6 and appeared in episodes of NBCs Sisters. Her resume also includes a stint as a nurse in Blake Edwards S.O.B in 1981, Capitol, the Dallas spinoff Knots Landing, Thom & Dusty Go to Mexico: The Lost Treasure in 2014, and If Not For His Grace in 2015. Colbert is survived by her son Michael, as well as her sisters and other siblings. In partnership with the Foreign Policy Association of Central Pennsylvania, the Midtown Scholar, 1302 N. Third St., Harrisburg, will host an event featuring Polish-American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum. The event will be held at 7 p.m. on July 24, and doors will open at 6 p.m. The event will celebrate the release of Applebaums newest book, Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, and will include a conversation with Soviet-born British journalist Peter Pomereantsev. Three Mile Island in Dauphin County remains a key point of discussion with regards to nuclear energy after one of its units suffered a partial meltdown in 1979. However, rumors have surfaced regarding the possibility of the nuclear site becoming active once more. According to a May PennLive report, Joseph Dominguez the CEO of Constellation Energy, an energy supplier that originally spun off of Exelon was asked during a publicly-held company meeting if there was a possibility of Three Mile Island Unit 1 getting rebooted. Dominguez responded how the company was doing a good bit of thinking about a number of different opportunities regarding the expansion of its nuclear energy initiatives, and that Three Mile Island would probably be certainly one of those that we would think about. You can listen to this story and others pertaining to Pennsylvania on PennLives Today in Pa. podcast below: But were not there yet to start disclosing the capital and other things relating to that opportunity, he added. PhillyVoice reported as of Monday how an anonymous source informed the media how the state governors office and lawmakers have gone beyond preliminary in their talks with Constellation Energy. The Baltimore-based company could look for a private partnership at the plant in order to resurrect the unit, stated PhillyVoice, which hasnt been active since 2019. However, when asked, those involved once again remained relatively mum on the subject. Pennsylvania is an all of the above energy state, and the Shapiro Administration recognizes the role Pennsylvanias nuclear generation fleet plays in providing safe, reliable, carbon-free electricity that helps reduce emissions and makes Pennsylvanias energy economy more competitive, said spokesman Manuel Bonder via statement in addressing this potential conversation. Said Constellation Energy spokesman Dave Snyder to Reuters: Though we have determined it would be technically feasible to restart the unit, we have not made any decision on a restart as there are many economic, commercial, operational and regulatory considerations remaining. By Tony Roberts, Baltimore Sun (TNS) A female chimpanzee was born at the Maryland Zoo on June 10. Now shes waiting for a name. The infant will join Maryland Zoos three other juvenile chimps as chimpanzees learn from birth how to get along in a group. The baby will join Lola, born in July 2019; Violet, born in December of 2019; and Maisie, born in August 2020 and came to Maryland Zoo in September of that year. After the birth of the new chimp, the baby and her mother, Rozi, did well initially. However, animal care staff say the infants health declined and staff were concerned she was not receiving enough of her mothers milk after a few weeks. Veterinarians stabilized her and keepers have been providing around-the-clock care until the baby is strong enough to rejoin Rozi and the troop. Animal care staff say the babys recent progress has been positive, but she may need supplemental nutrition even after she reunites with her mother. Rozi is a hand-reared chimp and first-time mom so we werent sure what to expect, said Pamela Carter, Chimpanzee Forest Area Manager at the Maryland Zoo, in a news release. In this case, it was in the babys best interest for us to carefully intervene. The name of the infant will be decided through a naming contest, tracked at MarylandZoo.org and its social media channels. The chimpanzee team will come up with options for the public to vote on, said Mike Evitts, Maryland Zoos spokesperson. The Maryland Zoo has held naming contests for chimps in the past, with the most recent naming contest being for Maisie in 2020, Evitts said. Contests have also determined the names of the zoos African penguins, Evitts said. Look out for updates about the naming contest on the Zoos website and social media channels. 2024 Baltimore Sun. Visit baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. By Rick Sobey, Boston Herald (TNS) BOSTON Dartmouth College has suspended a fraternity and sorority after a student died following a joint social gathering over the weekend. Police are investigating hazing allegations. The Beta Alpha Omega fraternity and Alpha Phi sorority have been suspended by the New Hampshire college after 20-year-old Won Jang was found dead in the Connecticut River on Sunday. Dartmouth has suspended two Greek organizations, Beta Alpha Omega and Alpha Phi, as the investigation continues, and we are working closely with the Hanover Police Department, which is leading the investigation, a Dartmouth spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday. Hanover police and fire departments responded to a report of a missing Dartmouth student on Sunday at around 3:15 p.m. Jang had last been seen by the docks of the river at around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday. First responders found Jangs body about 65 feet offshore at around 7:30 p.m. on Sunday. The entire Dartmouth community is grieving over the tragic loss of Won Jang, the Dartmouth spokesperson said. Our counseling team has been by the familys side since yesterday, and Dartmouth is providing every possible support it can to Wons parents, family and friends. The preliminary police investigation revealed that foul play is not suspected, but Hanover Police are looking into the reports of hazing. There is some evidence of some alcohol involved, certainly from witnesses, Hanover Police Chief Charles Dennis told WMUR. We did receive an anonymous email this morning through the college that there may be some hazing involved, he added. So certainly we will look into that aspect, too. OGDEN CANYON, Utah The top executive of a company in Utah and his 16-year-old daughter were killed when a bulldozer broke free from a tow truck, falling onto their vehicle, authorities say. Richard Hendrickson, 57, of Uintah, was the CEO and president of Lifetime Products, which builds residential basketball hoops, folding tables and chairs, and is based in Clearfield. The company released a statement announcing his death and that of his daughter, Sally. Richard was more than a company leader he was also a visionary and a friend to many within our business and the wider community, the statement says. His unwavering dedication and passion were instrumental in driving Lifetime Products success and growth. His loss leaves us with an immense void in our company and an even bigger crater in our hearts. According to a news release from the Utah Department of Public Safety, the crash occurred just before 2 p.m. Saturday. The tow truck carrying the mini bulldozer was going through a right-hand curve when the bulldozer broke free and slid off the drivers side, the news release says. Hendrickson was driving a GMC pickup and towing a boat in the opposite direction when the bulldozer landed on his vehicle. Hendrickson and his daughter were pronounced dead at the scene. His wife and two other children in the vehicle had non-life-threatening injuries, according to the companys statement. Richard started as a welder and progressed through multiple levels of the company to become president and CEO due to his extraordinary talents and abilities, Barry Mower, founder of Lifetime Products, said in a statement. He was one of my most trusted and cherished friends and will be sorely missed. Lifetime will not be the same without him. My love and heartfelt sympathy go out to his dear family. By Elnur Enveroglu The process of peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia continues its next and almost final stage. Although the soft policy that Armenia has seen from Azerbaijan still continues, Pashinyan's administration clearly feels that there is no longer any means to circumvent several unfinished obligations. For this reason, since the last month, visits from the United States to Yerevan have started to become more frequent. USAID head Samantha Puel's visit to Yerevan the other day showed more concern of the West. Because the appearance of the agency, especially in the South Caucasus, has always been associated with significant events for the West. It seems that the latest statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan did not go unnoticed here. Thus, the last olive branch extended by the Azerbaijani side to Armenia regarding the issue of peace forced Yerevan to knock on the door of its ally, and on the other hand, the sensitive situation in Georgia. Therefore, USAID took it upon itself to visit the South Caucasus. However, this visit of USAID cannot necessarily be connected only to Armenia. Because the factor of Georgia's non-admission to the European Union, as well as the upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia, has somehow started to cause strong irritation in the West. It is known to everyone that USAID is the most active and profitable representation of the USA in the South Caucasus who also focuses on regional issues within its interests. Here, Armenia is no exception, and the US State Department is directly interested in the dynamics of the processes taking place in the country. For example, the tripartite meeting of US State Department Secretary Antony Blinken with the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in parallel with the NATO summit shows that the US is interested in the processes. A dilemma for Armenia in the peace process There are several behind-the-scenes reasons why Armenia is more oriented towards the United States. One of them is related to the unknown political processes taking place in France. The defeat of the Macronists to the left wing in the last parliamentary elections and the question of whether the government will stay or go in the next stage have confused Yerevan. Because official Paris, which talked about military support to Armenia a few months ago, is experiencing a desperate situation in terms of ensuring its own security. So, the promised military aid has not been moved out of storage yet, let alone hit the road to Yerevan. In such a case, Armenia's last hope is Washington, as it assumes that it will gain time through its mediation to delay the issue of changing the constitution, which is stuck in its throat like a bone. Can changes to the constitution lead Yerevan to the next crisis? The current situation in Yerevan and the position of the masses against the Pashinyan administration do not indicate any disaster for the incumbent government. However, in addition to the fact that the Armenian leadership has repeatedly emphasised the importance of changing the constitution, the fact that it is still unable to implement it shows that the situation is somewhat serious from the point of view of the possibility of increased pressure from outside the country. Thus, the fact that Pashinyan struggles to fulfil his commitment clearly shows that he fears the political elite and lobby organisations rather than the masses, which are mostly influenced by foreign forces. Because the existence of the preamble in the Armenian constitution also means that the neighbouring state's position regarding its territorial claim is unchanged. In addition to directly contradicting the peace process, this also acts as a threat to Baku. However, the opposition forces in Armenia consider it the opposite. According to their opinion, it is the existence of preamble in that constitution that keeps Yerevan standing. Recall that Pashinyan's statement on the change of the constitution in Parliament on July 5 was criticised. The opposition side claimed that removing the preamble, which Pashinyan says a must to change, will include the personal views and political agenda of Pashinyan's government rather than the will of the people. Therefore, the pressure of the opposition forces once again shows that Yerevan does not want to understand the essence of the peace talks. However, the processes are still ongoing... In the wake of the killing of a 14-year-old transgender girl in western Pennsylvania, some state House lawmakers are urging the Senate to pass an anti-hate crimes bill that would expand protections to gender and sexual-orientation classes. We mourn the death of Pauly Likens and refuse to stand idly by while LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians are targeted because of who they are, members of the House LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus said in a written statement on Wednesday. Its unacceptable that current hate crime laws in our commonwealth are not applied to crimes motivated by a victims sexual orientation or gender identity. A filthy school bus with a ramshackle trailer that housed more than 30 birds, rabbits, four dogs, a bull and a pony was abandoned for weeks at a gas station on Route 15 in Adams County. Now, its gone. Animals in the bus that broke down June 17 in New Oxford, were likely being used for bestiality purposes, according to the Adams County SPCA. The National Weather Service issued an updated tornado watch at 8:13 p.m. on Wednesday in effect until 9 p.m. for Columbia, Dauphin, Lycoming, Montour, Northumberland, Perry, Snyder, Sullivan and Union counties. Tornado watch vs. Tornado warning: Know the difference When it comes to tornadoes, understanding the distinction between a Tornado watch and a Tornado warning can be a matter of life and death. Here's a breakdown: Tornado watch: Be prepared! A Tornado watch serves as an early warning that conditions are conducive to tornado formation. It's your signal to review your emergency plans, ensure your supplies are in order, and identify your safe room. While it doesn't mean a tornado is imminent, it's a heads-up that you should be ready to act quickly if a Tornado warning is issued or if you suspect a tornado is approaching. Tornado Watches are issued by the Storm Prediction Center and often encompass a broad area, potentially spanning multiple counties or even states. Tornado warning: Take action! A Tornado warning means a tornado has been spotted or detected by weather radar. This is the real deal there's an immediate danger to life and property. Your response should be swift: move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building, away from windows. If you're in a mobile home, a vehicle, or caught outdoors, seek the nearest substantial shelter and shield yourself from flying debris. Warnings are issued by your local forecast office and pinpoint a much smaller area, typically the size of a city or a small county, where a tornado has been identified, either by radar or through reports from trained spotters and law enforcement. Knowing the difference between these two alerts is essential in staying safe during tornado season. Stay informed, have a plan, and act promptly when danger approaches. Get ready for tornadoes Be weather-ready: Check the forecast regularly to see if you're at risk for tornadoes. Listen to local news or a NOAA Weather Radio to stay informed about tornado watches and warnings. Sign up for notifications: Know how your community sends warnings. Some communities have outdoor sirens. Others depend on media and smartphones to alert residents of severe storms capable of producing tornadoes. Create a communication plan: Have a family plan that includes an emergency meeting place and related information. If you live in a mobile home or home without a basement, identify a nearby safe building you can get to quickly, such as a church or family member. Choose a secure shelter: Pick a safe room in your home, such as a basement, storm cellar, or an interior room on the lowest floor with no windows. Establish a communication plan: Conduct a family severe thunderstorm drill regularly so everyone knows what to do if a tornado is approaching. Make sure all members of your family know to go there when tornado warnings are issued. Don't forget pets if time allows. Prepare your home: Consider reinforcing your safe room for added protection. You can find plans for fortifying an interior room on the Federal Emergency Management Agency website. Extend a helping hand: Encourage your neighbors and loved ones to prepare for possible tornadoes. Consider taking CPR training to be of assistance in case of injuries. Tornado survival guide: Immediate actions for your safety When a tornado strikes, taking swift action is crucial to ensuring your safety and minimizing potential harm. Follow these guidelines from the weather service: Stay informed: To ensure your safety during a tornado, remember that acting promptly is crucial, according to the weather service. Stay informed about tornado watches and warnings through regular updates on local news or a NOAA Weather Radio. At home: If you find yourself under a tornado warning, immediately seek refuge in your basement, safe room, or an interior room without windows. If there's enough time, bring your pets with you. At work or school: If you are at your workplace or school, adhere to tornado drill procedures. Move promptly and calmly to your designated tornado shelter, avoiding large open areas like cafeterias, gymnasiums, or auditoriums, and steer clear of windows. Outdoors: If a tornado is on its way, seek shelter inside a solid building immediately. Sheds, storage facilities, mobile homes, and tents are not safe places to be. In a vehicle: It is not safe to be in a vehicle during a tornado. The recommended action is to drive to the nearest shelter. If reaching a safe shelter is not possible, either crouch down in your car and cover your head, or leave your vehicle and seek refuge in a low-lying area like a ditch or ravine. Always keep in mind that taking swift action and following established safety procedures are crucial for your well-being when a tornado threat is imminent. Advance Local Weather Alerts is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to compile the latest data from the National Weather Service. The National Weather Service issued an updated tornado warning at 5:10 p.m. on Wednesday in effect until 5:30 p.m. for Bradford County. "At 5:10 p.m., a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located near East Smithfield, or near Chemung, moving northeast at 30 mph," according to the weather service. "Flying debris will be dangerous to those caught without shelter. Mobile homes will be damaged or destroyed. Damage to roofs, windows, and vehicles will occur. Tree damage is likely." Prepare for the tornado to impact the following locations: Chemung, Sayre, and Athens around 5:15 p.m. Waverly around 5:20 p.m. Litchfield around 5:25 p.m. Barton and Litchfield around 5:30 p.m. Nichols around 5:35 p.m. The weather service adds, "Take cover now! Move to a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. Avoid windows. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris." Tornado watches and warnings: What you need to know When it comes to tornadoes, understanding the difference between a Tornado watch and a Tornado warning can be a matter of life and death. Let's break it down: Tornado watch: Be prepared! A Tornado watch is your advance warning that conditions are ripe for tornado formation. It's your signal to review your emergency plans, ensure your supplies are in order, and identify your safe room. While it doesn't indicate an imminent tornado, it's a heads-up to be prepared to take swift action if a Tornado warning is issued or if you suspect a tornado is approaching. Watches come from the Storm Prediction Center and often cover a large area, potentially spanning multiple counties or even states. Tornado warning: Take action! A Tornado warning signifies that a tornado has been spotted or detected by weather radar. This is the real deal there's an immediate danger to life and property. Your response should be swift: move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building, away from windows. If you're in a mobile home, a vehicle, or caught outdoors, find the nearest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. Warnings are issued by your local forecast office and pinpoint a much smaller area, typically the size of a city or a small county, where a tornado has been identified, either by radar or through reports from trained spotters and law enforcement. Knowing the difference between these two alerts is essential in staying safe during tornado season. Stay informed, have a plan, and act promptly when danger approaches. Prepare for a tornado Be weather-ready: Keep an eye on the weather forecast to stay informed about tornado risks. Tune in to local news or a NOAA Weather Radio for updates on tornado watches and warnings Sign up for alerts: Familiarize yourself with your community's warning systems. Some places have outdoor sirens, while others rely on media and smartphone alerts for severe storm notifications. Create a communication plan: Create a family emergency plan that includes a designated meeting place and important contact information. If your home lacks a basement, identify a nearby safe building, like a church or a relative's house, that you can reach quickly. Choose a secure shelter: Pick a safe room within your home, such as a basement, storm cellar, or an interior room on the lowest floor without windows. Establish a communication plan: Conduct regular family drills for severe thunderstorms so everyone knows what to do when a tornado threat arises. Ensure that all family members are aware of the safe location to seek shelter, and don't forget about your pets if time permits. Prepare your home: Consider reinforcing your safe room for added protection. You can find plans for fortifying an interior room on the Federal Emergency Management Agency website. Extend a helping hand: Encourage your neighbors and loved ones to prepare for possible tornadoes. Consider taking CPR training to be of assistance in case of injuries. Staying safe during a tornado: Quick actions to take When a tornado strikes, taking swift action is crucial to ensuring your safety and minimizing potential harm. Follow these guidelines from the weather service: Stay informed: Stay vigilant and stay informed by tuning in to local news broadcasts or using a NOAA Weather Radio to receive updates on tornado watches and warnings. At home: If you are at home and a tornado warning is issued, make your way to the basement, a designated safe room, or an interior space away from windows. Don't forget to ensure the safety of your pets if time allows. At work or school: In the workplace or at school, adhere to tornado drill procedures and proceed promptly and calmly to your designated tornado shelter. Avoid areas with large, open spaces like cafeterias, gymnasiums, or auditoriums, and stay away from windows. Outdoors: If you're outdoors and a tornado is approaching, seek immediate shelter inside a sturdy building. Sheds, storage facilities, mobile homes, and tents are not safe. If there's time, make your way to a secure structure. In a vehicle: Being inside a vehicle during a tornado is highly unsafe. Your best course of action is to drive to the nearest shelter. If reaching shelter is not possible, either stay inside your car while covering your head, or abandon the vehicle and seek safety in a low-lying area such as a ditch or ravine. Always keep in mind that taking swift action and following established safety procedures are crucial for your well-being when a tornado threat is imminent. Advance Local Weather Alerts is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to compile the latest data from the National Weather Service. New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado joined a growing list of Democrats calling on Biden to end his presidential campaign. Delgado, a former New York representative, wrote in a statement that Biden deserves eternal gratitude for defeating Trump in 2020 and leading the country out of the coronavirus pandemic, but that Biden can add to his legacy, showing his strength and grace, by ending his campaign and making room for a new leader. There is no greater threat to our democracy than former President Donald Trump. He must be defeated. Thats is why I join with millions of Americans including everyday New Yorkers from all walks of life who are expressing legitimate concerns about President Bidens ability to wage a successful campaign against Trump, Delgado wrote. His statement marked a significant break with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who appointed him in 2022 and has emerged as one of Bidens biggest supporters and surrogates. Player Accused of Angle Shooting in WSOP Main Event; Another Player Penalized Jon Sofen Senior Editor U.S. Connor Richards Editor & Live Reporter U.S. Copy link Moments before the Day 3 dinner break in the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, controversy struck at one table inside the Horseshoe Event Center. As the field was heading to break, a possible angle shoot occurred, and another player who wasn't even in the hand had to be escorted out of the room and was penalized. How the Hand Transpired Action folded around to Rayane Bouieb on the button, who raised it up. The small blind folded to the big blind, who then flashed his hand, which was Jx2x. But he hadn't technically folded his hand even though it is against tournament rules to expose cards in the middle of a pot. Moments after the cards were exposed, the preflop raiser tossed his cards into the muck. The big blind then argued to the dealer that he hadn't folded his hand. The floor supervisor was called over to rule on the controversial situation, and he determined that the pot should be given to the big blind. But another player at the table who wasn't involved in the hand Thomas Zanot was none too thrilled with the ruling or the big blind's behavior. PokerNews observed Zanot angrily criticizing the big blind, which got him in some hot water with the tournament staff. Security was called over to the table to politely escort Zanot out of the area. He was given a one-round penalty to be served after the 75-minute dinner break. "It Was Very Clear" As he served out his one-round penalty, PokerNews interviewed Zanot to learn more about what transpired at the table. He noted that Bouieb didn't speak English and said he wanted to speak up against what he saw as an angle. The button (Bouieb) doesnt speak English, so he said please help me. And I tried to help him, but I was fired up ... I was obviously very upset. Im like, are you kidding me? Im trying to help this guy out. Zanot said he didn't think there was any question that the big blind had meant to fold his hand. It was very clear," said Zanot. "He picked it up and showed it to the button like I dont have a defending hand. Good job. And hes like floor and just f***ing scums for four and a half big blinds. In January 2023, Zanot won a $6.4 million Pai Gow Progressive jackpot at Flamingo Las Vegas, just a tad more than what second place will pay in the Main Event. Angle shooting refers to a tactic where players attempt to bend the rules to gain an advantage. It's not explicitly cheating but is generally viewed as unethical or unsportsmanlike behavior in the poker community. Examples of angle shooting include making misleading statements about a hand, intentionally misplaying a hand, or exploiting an ambiguous rule. Follow Continued Live Coverage of the 2024 WSOP Main Event Share this article Jon Sofen Senior Editor U.S. Follow on President Biden forcefully addressed NATO allies and gave a vigorous defense and pledge of support for Ukraine. Video of President Biden: A very strong-sounding Biden addressing NATO allies, "When this senseless war began, Ukraine was a free country. Today, it is still a free country. And the war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country." pic.twitter.com/NXo4oKPgxR Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) July 9, 2024 The President said: Today. Im announcing the historic donation of air defense equipment for Ukraine, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Italy will provide Ukraine with the equipment for five additional strategic air defense systems. And in the coming months, the United States and our partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air defense systems. The United States will make sure that when we export critical air defense interceptors, Ukraine goes to the front of the line that will get this assistance before anyone else gets it all told Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional interceptors over the next year helping protect Ukrainian cities against Russian missiles. Ukrainian troops facing their attacks on the front lines, make no mistake. Russia is failing in this war more than two years into Putins War of choice. His losses are staggering or the 350,000 Russian troops dead or wounded nearly 1 million Russians. Many of them young people have left Russia because they no longer see a future in Russia and Keith. Remember fellows and ladies supposed to fall in five days. Remember we still standing 2.5 years later and will continue to stand all of the allies knew before this war. Putin thought NATO would break today. NATO is stronger than its ever been in its history when the census war began. Ukraine is a free country today. It is still a free country and the war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country. Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will. Biden once again delivered another public appearance where his voice was forceful and strong. His speech was clear, and the President looked nothing like the person who showed up at the first presidential debate. At some point, weak-kneed House Democrats who are more worried about their own seat than the state of the country have to get over it. Joe Biden is showing no reason why he should step aside. The stakes are more than just domestic. The Presidents speech made it clear that if Democrats lose the White House, it wont just impact Americans, but it will end Ukraines democracy, because Trump will aid Russia in taking over Ukraine. A Biden defeat would impact global democracy in horrific ways. Joe Biden continues to show up and effectively serve as president, but the media and some cowardly congressional Democrats have set their own narrative and refuse to acknowledge reality. The Biden administration announced that the United States and Mexico are working together to prevent China from flooding the steel and aluminum markets. According to a White House fact sheet: American workers and businessesincluding those in the steel and aluminum industriescan outcompete anyone, so long as they have fair competition. But the Peoples Republic of Chinas (PRC) non-market policies and practices are anything but fair, and have led to the crisis of global non-market excess capacity that poses an existential threat to our market-oriented steel and aluminum industries. Through its effects on imports, global non-market excess capacity threatens U.S. national security, including by eroding U.S. steel and aluminum manufacturing capacity. The actions announced by the United States and Mexico today will help address global non- market excess capacity by preventing China and other countries from evading tariffs on steel and aluminum that is imported from Mexico into the United States. These actions will also incentivize the production of steel and aluminumcritical inputs for downstream manufacturing industriesin North America and further enhance the integration of North American industrial supply chains. Today the United States and Mexico announce important joint actions to prevent tariff evasion on steel and aluminum, and strengthen North American steel and aluminum supply chains. The United States will implement melt and pour and smelt and cast requirements, respectively, for steel and aluminum imports from Mexico. Under these requirements, in order to enter the United States free of Section 232 tariffs, steel imports from Mexico must be melted and poured in Mexico, the United States, or Canada, while aluminum imports from Mexico must not contain primary aluminum smelt or cast in Belarus, China, Iran or Russia. These U.S. actions add to Mexicos recent tariff increases on steel and aluminum from non-FTA countries. United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA, Todays announcement is good news for the United States and Mexicos steel and aluminum industries, the communities they support, and most importantly, our steel and aluminum workers. These joint actions with Mexico will help to ensure the long-term viability of our steel and aluminum industries and the integrity of North American steel and aluminum market integration. This action fixes a loophole left unaddressed by the previous administration and its go-it-alone trade policies, and shows that when we act together, we strengthen our position to defend American workers and businesses from global non-market excess capacity emanating from the PRCs state-led approach to the economy and trade. We recognize this important step taken by Mexico to work together on a resilient trade policy that puts workers front and center. Trump talks a big game about being tough on China, but it is Joe Biden who has taken the real action to hold China accountable and protect American jobs. First Lady Jill Biden told Donald Trump that women know exactly who he is, and they wont be fooled. During a call with reporters, First Lady Biden told PoliticusUSA: Two years ago, the Supreme Court took away womens constitutional right to make our own health care decisions. Since that time, Ive met women who have been forced to travel across state lines for care, women whose doctors have told them that they were in medical danger, but not enough to get the abortion care they needed, mothers who tell me how worried they are that their daughters now have fewer rights than we had, and who cant believe we have to fight For our most basic freedoms all over again. Now Donald Trump is trying to tell women hes a moderate on reproductive rights. Does he think we forgot that his supreme court justices killed Roe v Wade and that he brags about it? Does he think we dont know that he wants to roll back access to contraception and he could jeopardize IVF treatments. Does he think he can pivot away from a career of diminishing and denigrating women? Well, women havent forgotten and we cant be fooled. Donald Trump has spent years telling us exactly who he is and we believe him. But heres the thing about men like Donald Trump, they underestimate the power of women because they dont understand it. When our lives are on the line, when our country and its freedoms hang in the balance, women are immovable and unstoppable. We will decide our future. Women put Joe Biden in the White House, and women are going to keep him there. Trump is trying to fool women. Just because the male dominated corporate media was lazy and reported that the ex-president softened the language in the Republican platform on abortion, when he didnt, doesnt mean that Trump is going to be successful in pulling a fast one and fooling the rest of the country. While Melania Trump is MIA during the 2024 campaign, First Lady Jill Biden is traveling the country and telling voters the truth about Trump and his record. Women know exactly who Donald Trump is, and they are going to make sure that the rest of America doesnt forget it. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi called out the New York Times for misrepresenting what she said about President Biden, I dont know whats happened in New York Times that they make up news. But if thats why youre here, it isnt true. Speaker Pelosi, arriving at her office, tells CBS News Jaala Brown her comments to Morning Joe are being misrepresented, CBS Ellis Kim shared over this quote: The New York Times ran this headline announcing that Pelosi had suggested Biden should reconsider decision to stay in the race, and that she is the most senior member of his party so far to suggest his status at the top of the ticket is uncertain: The California Democrat also gave that statement to the New York Times, which is now in their article. So, lets check this out. On MSNBCs Morning Joe, Pelosi was asked specifically about what she would say to Congressional Democrats about their concerns about Biden. (Im sharing a lot of context here, because it matters.) MIKA: The headlines, the polling, it all feels very dark. How do you think the President is doing in light of his poor debate performance? Can he do more? And what do you say to Democrats in Congress and even members of the Senate, who are beginning to waver in their support? PELOSI: Good morning. Thats one version of the story. What I do want to say is that yesterday I was honored to be present at the Presidents speech for NATO. He was absolutely spectacular. He was received over and over again with ovations for what he had to say and the force with which he said it. So it was a beautifully received, energetic presentation by the President. Politics is politics. People have their interest in terms of their own region and the rest, and so we are the Democratic Party, a party that is, shall we say, not lock step. But this president has been a great president, and I can tell you firsthand as a person who orchestrated many of the pieces of legislation that the President takes great pride in, and he should, because he was there at the table, chapter and verse, very conversant with a vision, a purpose, with the knowledge of the issues, with values underlining it all, and again, always asking the question, what does this mean to working families in our country? So any thought that he wasnt able to deliver on all of those is, I can just say just didnt happen. Then she was asked, Does he have your support to be the head of Democrats? PELOSI: Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run. Were all encouraging him to to make that decision, because time is running short. The, I think, overwhelming support of the of the caucus Its not for me to say Im not the head of the caucus anymore but hes beloved. He is respected, and people want him to make that decision. She was asked, He has made, he has said he has made the decision. He has said firmly, this week, he is going to run. Do you want him to run? PELOSI: I want him to do whatever he decides to do. And thats thats the way it is, whatever he decides we go with. I think its really important. And I would hope everyone would join in to let him deal with this NATO conference. This is a very big deal. 30 heads of over 30 heads of state are here. He is the host of it. And that means not just hosting it. Means orchestrating the discussion and setting the agenda. And hes doing so magnificently. And I said, Everyone, lets, lets just hold off whatever youre thinking either tell somebody privately, but you dont have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week. But Im very proud of the President. Could she have given a better, more forceful endorsement? Yes. The President already said he is staying in the race, so its unclear why she is suggesting he hasnt made the decision yet. I were to call this one as someone who has interviewed the former Speaker several times, Id take into account Pelosis careful way with words to suggest there is something going on behind the scenes, maybe a Congressional contingency who need to be appeased by feeling they have a say in things. She mentions people having their regions to take into account, for example, and that they are not in lockstep. Pelosi is urging people to stop speaking out publicly and to wait until after NATO to see if they still have these concerns. The diplomat who managed throughout her historically successful Speakership to bring all of the different concerns of a diverse caucus together over and over again wont override these peoples concerns in public, but she is forcefully reminding people of Bidens strength at NATO and his legislative successes, which she was a huge part of making happen. One thing that is nowhere in her comments is urging Biden to reconsider decision to stay in the race. Thats simply not in her comments. Not anywhere. And listening to the entire piece, thats not what I take away from it. The Times article itself makes an effort to be more fair, even while making the case that they suspect Pelosi doesnt support Biden anymore, but its the headline that does the most negative spin work for the paper and journalists often dont control their headlines. Is it fair that Pelosi called out the New York Times for making up news? Democrats are side-eyeing their previous attachment to the Grey Lady after the way the paper spun a literal conspiracy out of a doctors visits to the White House, without even checking the schedule to determine if President Biden was there, coupled with their front page being littered with concern trolling about Biden while lacking any kind of equitable coverage of his opponent Donald Trump or Trump allies agenda to destroy U.S. democracy as we know it. Instead of retracting their conspiracy when it was set straight by facts, they ran it in the print edition. Do Americans want Wordle more than they want democracy? Perhaps, as the New York Times made more than a billion dollars in digital subscriptions last year. The bottom line here is yes, the title is inaccurate. Nowhere did Pelosi suggest that Biden reconsider his decision. Taken together with the Times clear bias on display for everyone to see, its fair to call out, while acknowledging that the reporter herself was more balanced in her actual piece than whoever wrote the headline. As for the Speaker Emeritas strongly worded support for the Presidents candidacy, wait until after the NATO summit. One thing you should always remember about Nancy Pelosi is she is a master negotiator. In the meantime, check out the report on how the media has turned Bidens debate into a whole narrative that isnt actually supported . FORT MILL The Canadian solar plant manufacturing company planning operations in the area said it is appealing a York County zoning decision on whether its type of business could operate in light industrial zones. That appeal, filed June 28, came just a few days after York County officials announced the Zoning Board of Appeals reversal ruling only applies to future development, not Silfab Solars plans. Silfab received an official zoning verification letter 18 months ago, the county wrote in the June 25 statement. As a verification by York County staff, and outside of and independent from any action by York County Council, the letter confirmed for Silfab that solar panel manufacturing is allowed in the light industrial zoning district. Attorneys for Silfab said despite the countys statement, it filed an appeal of the zoning board ruling for further confirmation. The Charleston office of the Charlotte, N.C.-based Moore & Van Allen law firm is representing Silfab on the appeal. For clarity for ourselves and the public, we have appealed the Board of Zoning Appeals decision, Silfab said in a statement. We agree that the Board of Zoning Appeals decision does not apply to Silfab Solar or our plans to move forward. We continue to believe that solar cell and panel manufacturing is a permitted light industrial use. For the past year, Fort Mill area residents have protested Silfabs plans for its 785,000-square-foot warehouse just west of the U.S. 21 Bypass, north of Gold Hill Road. They said the proximity to several homes, as well as construction and land clearing being done for two schools, make solar panel manufacturing an inappropriate location for the site and the activity is better suited in a heavy industrial zone. PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-11 00:50:14 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 902 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 The Review Growth Index (RGI) by Doctor Marketing, MD recognizes the Top 10 Rated Plastic Surgery Practices in Charlotte, North Carolina based on analysis of over 5,000+ online patient reviews given to 95 medical practices.CHARLOTTE, NC / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Charlotte has some of the best plastic surgeons in the Southeast. The Review Growth Index (RGI) by Doctor Marketing, MD has identified which Charlotte cosmetic practices made the list for the first quarter of 2024. After analyzing data from over 95 medical practices and 5,911 online Google Reviews, theTop 10 Plastic Surgery and Cosmetic Surgery Clinics in Charlottestand out for their patient satisfaction rating and number of online reviews. The Top 10 account for 2,826 Google Reviews and 47.8% percent of all plastic surgery reviews online for Charlotte plastic surgeons. With an average of over 282.6 patient reviews per practice, these surgeons display surgical excellence that sets them apart from the rest. Charlotte patients share their positive cosmetic experiences from the thousands of reviews. For those consumers who want top cosmetic enhancements in the Charlotte metropolitan area, these 10 practices represent the best of the best forCharlotteresidents ( Charlotteans ) to choose from.Charlotte's Top 10 Plastic Surgeons , the best-rated in Charlotte, North Carolina. There were eighteen plastic surgeons from the Top 10 Plastic Surgery Practices in Charlotte for Q1 of 2024. Data was compiled by the Review Growth Index (RGI) and is based on the number of Google Reviews received as of 11/30/23. Image Credit: Respective Charlotte Plastic Surgeons. Illustration by: Doctor Marketing, MD."Our marketing agency has gathered comprehensive Google Review data from 95 plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgery practices in Charlotte, NC. The Top Rated Best Plastic Surgery Clinics in Charlotte are made up of 18 of the best Charlotte plastic surgeons that received a combined 2,826 patient reviews. Doctor Marketing, MD gives recognition to those Charlotte area medical practices and doctors for their achievements in generating the highest number of patient reviews and ratings based on patient satisfaction and quality of care," said Marty Stewart, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Doctor Marketing, MD, one of thebest marketing companiesforplastic surgery digital marketingandplastic surgeon marketing , and the Review Growth Index (RGI).Top 10 Ranked Plastic Surgeons and Cosmetic Practices in Charlotte, North CarolinaHere are the top ten:H/K/B Cosmetic Surgery: 443 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Bill Kortesis-Dr. Gaurav Bharti-Dr. Brett Baker-Dr. Richard Kao-Dr. Shawna Kleban-Dr. Rick RosenProvidence Plastic Surgery & Skin Center: 398 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Andrew GearCapizzi, MD Cosmetic Surgery & Med Spa: 388 Reviews / 4.8 Rating-Dr. Peter Capizzi-Dr. Brian MayAesthetic Surgery of Charlotte: 288 Reviews / 5 Rating-Dr. Adam AugensteinCarolina Facial Plastics: 269 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Jonathan KulbershGraper Harper Cosmetic Surgery: 248 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Robert Graper-Dr. Garrett HarperBespoke Plastic Surgery: 247 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Broc PrattPremier Plastic Surgery Center: 198 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Victor FerrariCarolinas Skin Center: 180 Reviews / 4.6 Rating-Dr. David NowickyCriswell & Criswell: 167 Reviews / 4.7 Rating-Dr. Bryan Criswell-Dr. Kara CriswellReview Growth Index (RGI) Best Plastic Surgeons in Charlotte, North Carolina for Q1 of 2024For the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, Google Review data was compiled through November 30th, 2023 to determine the top best rankings for Charlotte, North Carolina (NC). Here is the in-depth data snapshot compiled by the Doctor Marketing, MD Review Growth Index (RGI):100 total plastic surgeons and cosmetic practices in Charlotte, North Carolina were identified via Google My Business (GMB) profiles and Google Map listings for Charlotte.95 plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery practices / clinics remained after removing duplicates. (Note: Some doctors have both a private practice under their own name, and are part of a larger medical group under a practice name, and were listed twice, thus removed)5,911 total online Google Reviews for all Charlotte plastic surgeons as of 11/30/23.62 practices (62%) had at least 1 online review.38 practices (38%) had 0 online reviews.Average rating across all practices was 4.81 stars.59.11 was the average number of reviews per practice.Statistics Exclusively for the Top 10 Charlotte Practices:2,826 total reviews for the Top 10 combined.This was 47.8% of all reviews combined.282.6 was the average # of Google Reviews per practice in the Top 10.Star Ratings ranged from 4.6 to 5 stars, with the average being 4.85 stars.About The Review Growth Index (RGI)The Review Growth Index ( RGI ) by Doctor Marketing, MD is an innovative metric designed specifically for the healthcare and medical industries, with current focus on the plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures sectors. It works by aggregating public data from major review platforms like Google Reviews to develop a comprehensive assessment of a doctor or surgeon's online reputation and performance.RGI analyzes the volume of patient reviews a surgeon receives, the star ratings given, and expressions of patient satisfaction. This provides prospective patients a reliable benchmark for choosing skilled, well-regarded doctors or surgeons with confidence.It also serves plastic surgeons by analyzing patient feedback patterns, enabling refinements to medical services and clinical approaches. Overall, RGI functions as an industry-specific gauge of excellence based on actual patient outcomes and experiences. Its insights help match discerning clients with surgeons delivering exceptional care and results.Prior curated lists of plastic surgeon reviews include the Top 10:Best Plastic Surgeons in Houston, TXBest Plastic Surgeons in New York, NYBest Plastic Surgeons in Chicago, ILBest Plastic Surgeons in Phoenix, AZBest Plastic Surgeons in San Antonio, TXBest Plastic Surgeons in Dallas, TXBest Plastic Surgeons in Jacksonville, FLBest Plastic Surgeons in Fort Worth, TXAbout Doctor Marketing, MDDoctor Marketing, MD is atop healthcare digital marketing firm , specializing indigital marketing for medical doctors , content creation, content distribution, and strategy. The firm works with Top Doctors and Surgeons PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 23:00:26 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 926 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 The Review Growth Index (RGI) by Doctor Marketing, MD awards the Top 10 Rated Plastic Surgery Practices in Fort Worth, Texas after detailed analysis of over 3,000+ online patient reviews given to 80 medical practices.FORT WORTH, TX / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Fort Worth has some of the best plastic surgeons in the Southwest. The Review Growth Index (RGI) by Doctor Marketing, MD has identified which Fort Worth cosmetic practices made the list for the first quarter of 2024. After analyzing data from over 80 medical practices and 3,883 online Google Reviews, theTop 10 Plastic Surgery and Cosmetic Surgery Clinics in Fort Worthstand out for their patient satisfaction rating and number of online reviews. The Top 10 account for 2,163 Google Reviews and 55.7% percent of all plastic surgery reviews online for Fort Worth plastic surgeons. With an average of over 216.3 patient reviews per practice, these surgeons display surgical excellence that sets them apart from the rest. Fort Worth patients share their positive cosmetic experiences from the thousands of reviews. For those consumers who want top cosmetic enhancements in the Fort Worth metropolitan area, these 10 practices represent the best of the best forFort Worthresidents ( Fort Worthians ) to choose from.Fort Worth's Top 10 Plastic Surgeons , the best-rated in Fort Worth, Texas. There were twelve plastic surgeons from the Top 10 Plastic Surgery Practices in Fort Worth for Q1 of 2024. Data was compiled by the Review Growth Index (RGI) and is based on the number of Google Reviews received as of 11/30/23. Image Credit: Respective Fort Worth Plastic Surgeons. Illustration by: Doctor Marketing, MD."Our marketing agency has gathered comprehensive Google Review data from 80 plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgery practices in Fort Worth, TX. The Top Rated Best Plastic Surgery Clinics in Fort Worth are made up of 12 of the best Fort Worth plastic surgeons that received a combined 2,163 patient reviews. Doctor Marketing, MD gives recognition to those Fort Worth area medical practices and doctors for their achievements in generating the highest number of patient reviews and ratings based on patient satisfaction and quality of care," said Marty Stewart, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Doctor Marketing, MD, atop digital marketing companythat doescosmetic surgery marketingandmarketing for cosmetic surgeons , and the Review Growth Index (RGI).Top 10 Ranked Plastic Surgeons and Cosmetic Practices in Fort Worth, TexasHere are the top ten:Fort Worth Plastic Surgery & MedSpa: 617 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Robert Anderson-Dr. Mark Daniels-Dr. Dustin DerrickSteven Camp MD Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics: 400 Reviews / 5 Rating-Dr. Steven CampJon Kurkjian, M.D: 244 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Jon KurkjianTarrant Plastic Surgery: 146 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Vishnu RumallaStrock Plastic Surgery: 137 Reviews / 5 Rating-Dr. Louis StrockMatthew H. Steele, MD: 136 Reviews / 4.8 Rating-Dr. Matthew SteeleWestside Plastic Surgery: 135 Reviews / 5 Rating-Dr. James GogginKirby Plastic Surgery: 128 Reviews / 4.8 Rating-Dr. Emily KirbyWest Magnolia Plastic Surgery: 119 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Emily McLaughlinKelly R. Kunkel, M.D.P.A: 101 Reviews / 4.9 Rating-Dr. Kelly KunkelReview Growth Index (RGI) Best Plastic Surgeons in Fort Worth, Texas for Q1 of 2024For the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, Google Review data was compiled through November 30th, 2023 to determine the top best rankings for Fort Worth, Texas (TX). Here is the in-depth data snapshot compiled by the Doctor Marketing, MD Review Growth Index (RGI):83 total plastic surgeons and cosmetic practices in Fort Worth, Texas were identified via Google My Business (GMB) profiles and Google Map listings for Fort Worth.80 plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery practices / clinics remained after removing duplicates. (Note: Some doctors have both a private practice under their own name, and are part of a larger medical group under a practice name, and were listed twice, thus removed)3,883 total online Google Reviews for all Fort Worth plastic surgeons as of 11/30/23.53 practices (63.85%) had at least 1 online review.30 practices (36.14%) had 0 online reviews.Average rating across all practices was 4.71 stars.73.26 was the average number of reviews per practice.Statistics Exclusively for the Top 10 Fort Worth Practices:2,163 total reviews for the Top 10 combined.This was 55.7% of all reviews combined.216.3 was the average # of Google Reviews per practice in the Top 10.Star Ratings ranged from 4.8 to 5 stars, with the average being 4.91 stars.About The Review Growth Index (RGI)TheReview Growth Index (RGI) by Doctor Marketing, MD is an innovative metric designed specifically for the healthcare and medical industries, with current focus on the plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures sectors. It works by aggregating public data from major review platforms like Google Reviews to develop a comprehensive assessment of a doctor or surgeon's online reputation and performance.RGI analyzes the volume of patient reviews a surgeon receives, the star ratings given, and expressions of patient satisfaction. This provides prospective patients a reliable benchmark for choosing skilled, well-regarded doctors or surgeons with confidence.It also serves plastic surgeons by analyzing patient feedback patterns, enabling refinements to medical services and clinical approaches. Overall, RGI functions as an industry-specific gauge of excellence based on actual patient outcomes and experiences. Its insights help match discerning clients with surgeons delivering exceptional care and results.Prior curated lists of plastic surgeon reviews include the Top 10:Best Plastic Surgeons in Houston, TXBest Plastic Surgeons in New York, NYBest Plastic Surgeons in Chicago, ILBest Plastic Surgeons in Phoenix, AZBest Plastic Surgeons in San Antonio, TXBest Plastic Surgeons in Dallas, TXBest Plastic Surgeons in Jacksonville, FLAbout Doctor Marketing, MDDoctor Marketing, MD is atop healthcare digital marketing firm , specializing indigital marketing for medical doctors , content creation, content distribution, and strategy. The firm works with Top Doctors and Surgeons, Healthcare Companies, Medical Professionals, Private Practices, Medical Groups and Clinics, Hospitals, Executives, and Leaders in the Healthcare Industry and specialty Medical se PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 18:03:29 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 391 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 BOSTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Birnbach Communications, Inc. ( www.birnbachcom.com) , a PR agency focusing on thought leadership, and KOGS Communication ( https://kogspr.com) , one of the very few boutique life science agencies to win the PR industry's highest awards, the PRSA Silver Anvil and the PRSA Silver Anvil Award of Excellence, are joining forces to better serve life science and biotech clients.With over thirty years of experience, KOGS and Birnbach are joining forces to leverage their combined expertise in the healthcare, medical, and life sciences sectors. KOGS's extensive background in these fields complements Birnbach's proven track record. Together, they offer a robust client portfolio that includes groundbreaking work with private and publicly held companies.Birnbach Communications President, Norman Birnbach, will serve as managing partner. Edna Kaplan, founder of KOGS Communication, will serve as senior consultant to Birnbach Communications."I've known Edna and respected the results that she and her team generate year in and year out. Her deep knowledge across life sciences, medical conditions, therapeutics, diagnostics and devices is a tremendous asset, as is her terrific strategic insights to generate strong results for clients," said Birnbach."The Birnbach and KOGS teams have collaborated to serve clients for many years, and I look forward to KOGS officially becoming a Birnbach Communications company," Kaplan said.About Birnbach CommunicationsBoston-based Birnbach Communications, an independent PR agency, provides thought leadership support for its portfolio of emerging, mid-size, public and nonprofit clients across healthcare, medical, life science, tech and other industries. We help life science clients from drug discovery to clinical trials to commercialization, announcing new clinical trials, the latest data and research findings and FDA approvals. For tech clients, including FinTech, AI, SaaS, cloud and B2B, we help clients engage their customers, key communities and influencers; launch new products and services; drive lead-generation; increase valuation; raise awareness of important issues; and achieve leadership in crowded markets by conducting carefully planned, pragmatic public relations programs that position our clients as industry leaders and experts. Founded in 2001, Birnbach Communications brings flexible senior-level intelligence and a proven, pragmatic approach to solving clients' business challenges. Connect with Birnbach: Web: www.birnbachcom.com , X/Twitter: x.com/#!/birnbachcomm; Blog: http://birnbachcom.com/PRBackTalk; Facebook: www.facebook.com/BirnbachCommunications | Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/birnbach-communications CONTACT:Norman Birnbach+17817187917 birnbach@ birnbach.com SOURCE: Birnbach Communications Inc. PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 18:16:37 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 438 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 DENVER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / In a pivotal moment for the maturing and globalizing cryptocurrency industry,CBASOX Exchangerecently announced that it has officially obtained the Money Services Business (MSB) license from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC). This follows its prior acquisition of the MSB license from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US Treasury. This development makes CBASOX one of the few international cryptocurrency exchanges to hold both Canadian and US MSB licenses, further solidifying its leadership position in the global cryptocurrency market.For CBASOX, obtaining the MSB licenses from both Canada and the United States is not only an international recognition of its compliance and security standards but also a significant endorsement of its business capabilities and brand reputation. These licenses enable CBASOX to offer more diverse, secure, and reliable cryptocurrency trading services to users in Canada and the US, adhering to stringent anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) regulations.Securing an MSB license is a complex and challenging process that requires exchanges to meet rigorous standards in business operations, risk management, and customer identity verification. Since its inception, CBASOX has prioritized compliance as a core aspect of its development, investing substantial resources and effort into building its compliance framework. By working closely with legal and compliance advisors, CBASOX has successfully created a transparent, secure, and compliant trading environment, providing users with a trustworthy cryptocurrency trading platform.The acquisition of MSB licenses in both Canada and the US not only paves the way for the expansion of CBASOX in the North American market but also sets a benchmark for compliance in the global cryptocurrency industry. CBASOX stated, "In the face of the rapid development of the global cryptocurrency market, CBASOX remains committed to enhancing service quality, expanding business scope, and strengthening collaboration with global regulatory bodies. Our goal is to ensure that while we provide innovative services, we consistently adhere to the highest standards of compliance and security. Through ongoing efforts and innovation, we believe CBASOX can offer users safer, more convenient, and efficient cryptocurrency trading services, promoting the healthy development of the entire industry." About CBASOXCBASOX is a leading international cryptocurrency trading platform dedicated to providing safe, efficient, and convenient cryptocurrency trading and financial services to users worldwide. Leveraging its robust technological capabilities and stringent compliance framework, CBASOX offers a comprehensive range of cryptocurrency trading solutions, including spot trading and contract trading, making it a trusted partner for cryptocurrency investors globally.Media ContactOrganization: CBASOX DIGITAL TRADE LIMITED Contact Person: Kim Min-su Website: https://www.cbasox.org Email: support@ cbasox.org SOURCE: CBASOX DIGITAL TRADE LIMITED PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 18:03:15 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 461 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Connecting Cultures, Creating Opportunities: ChoVietKieu Unites Vietnamese Expatriates with Vital Classified Ads and Employment ServicesSAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 /ChoVietKieu, a groundbreaking new platform dedicated to serving the Vietnamese diaspora, has officially launched its website, offering a specialized marketplace for classified ads and nail jobs. The innovative platform is designed to connect Vietnamese individuals across the globe, providing them with a unique space to access job listings, buy and sell goods, and engage with community services tailored specifically for their needs.ChoVietKieu - Cho Rao Vat Lon Nhat Cho Nguoi Viet Hai Ngoai ChoVietKieu - Classified Ads Website for Overseas Vietnamese Transforming Connections with Tailored Services ChoVietKieu emerges as a premier online destination focusing on the specific needs of the Vietnamese community abroad. The platform facilitates a seamless connection among Vietnamese expatriates and businesses, aiming to create a supportive and thriving online ecosystem."Our mission is to empower the Vietnamese community worldwide by providing a dedicated platform where they can connect, support each other, and thrive no matter where they are," said Tony Vu, Founder of ChoVietKieu. "Whether it's finding a job in the nail industry or purchasing goods from someone who understands your background and needs, ChoVietKieu is here to bridge that gap." A Hub for Nail Industry Opportunities Recognizing the significant representation of Vietnamese professionals in the nail industry abroad, ChoVietKieu places a special emphasis on nail jobs. The platform offers extensive job listings and resources to help individuals find employment and advance their careers in this thriving sector.A Marketplace Tailored to Cultural Preferences In addition to job listings, ChoVietKieu provides a robust marketplace for buying and selling goods. From household items to personal goods, the platform ensures that the unique needs and preferences of the Vietnamese diaspora are met, enabling them to feel at home, wherever they may be.Ease of Use and Community Focus Designed with user experience in mind, ChoVietKieu.com is easy to navigate and fully responsive, ensuring that users can access the platform from any device, at any time. The website also features community forums and sections for services, further fostering a sense of belonging and community support.About ChoVietKieu ChoVietKieu is committed to serving the Vietnamese diaspora by offering a platform that not only meets their unique needs but also helps them stay connected with their heritage. With a focus on classified ads and nail jobs, ChoVietKieu is set to become the go-to resource for Vietnamese individuals looking to engage with their community on a global scale.For more information, please visit https://chovietkieu.com/home Contact:Tony VuCEOChoVietKieu Email: contact@ chovietkieu.com Contact InformationDuy NguyenSEO Specialistnguyenbinhminh851@ gmail.com +12066561175SOURCE: ChoVietKieuView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 22:16:51 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 939 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 VILNIUS, LITHUANIA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / This July,Cwalletis revolutionizing the digital educational landscape by offering a comprehensive and dynamic platform,Cwallet Learn , which integrates blockchain technology's intrigue with cryptocurrency management's practicality. Since its inception, Cwallet Learn has become an indispensable resource for newcomers and seasoned crypto enthusiasts eager to deepen their understanding of the digital economy. By providing engaging and meticulously structured content across a diverse range of foundational and advanced topics, Cwallet Learn transcends traditional educational tools; it is a portal to mastering the intricacies of the future of finance.Following the launch of Cwallet Learn, Cwallet has further empowered its community with the Cwallet Learn Quiz Competition within theCwallet Club on Telegram . This vibrant space fosters connections and inspiration among crypto enthusiasts, while the quiz competition adds a fun and engaging layer to the learning experience.Cwallet Clubdoesn't stop there. Community members can also ask any questions they have about crypto, making it a welcoming and supportive environment for new users to learn and thrive in the exciting world of cryptocurrency.Figure 1 Cwallet Learn Going Live NowWith its innovative approach to learning, Cwallet Learn is dedicated to dismantling the complexities of blockchain and cryptocurrency through expertly designed courses and interactive learning experiences. This platform demystifies the technical aspects of digital currencies and blockchain technology. It emphasizes practical applications and strategic insights, making it an invaluable asset for anyone looking to enhance their expertise or break into the cryptocurrency market.The courseware at Cwallet Learn spans many subjects, ranging from the elementary principles of crypto wallets to the more intricate realms of decentralized finance (DeFi) and beyond. Each course is meticulously designed to unravel the complexities of critical topics such as digital identity, smart contracts, and the transformative potential of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). The platform's interactive lessons are supplemented with vibrant and illustrative visuals, making the learning process not only accessible but also thoroughly engaging. Through expert-led tutorials, real-world case studies, and interactive simulations, Cwallet Learn ensures that users of all skill levels can grasp advanced concepts in a user-friendly and enriching environment. This comprehensive educational approach empowers learners to navigate and influence the rapidly evolving digital finance landscape confidently.Cwallet Learn is more than just a learning hub-it's a strategic response to the burgeoning demand for knowledgeable and skilled participants in the blockchain sector. It addresses a crucial gap in the market by empowering users with the skills and insights needed to navigate and influence the evolving digital landscape effectively. As blockchain technology permeates various sectors, the necessity for a well-informed and proficient workforce becomes increasingly critical. Cwallet Learn provides this by offering a robust curriculum that encompasses everything from blockchain basics to advanced protocol analysis.Here are some of the standout features of Cwallet Learn:Interactive Content: Engaging courses designed to make complex concepts easy to understand, fostering a deeper connection with the material.Wide Range of Topics: Extensive coverage from the fundamentals to specific technologies like multi-signature wallets and tokenization.Expert Insights: Lessons crafted by industry experts, offering insider knowledge and practical applications.Community Engagement: Interactive quizzes and discussions that enhance learning through community interaction have proven to be a significant part of the Cwallet Learn experience. Following the launch of Cwallet Learn, Cwallet initiated Cwallet Learn Quiz Competition within the Cwallet Club community. The impact of this initiative has been outstanding, with nearly 5,000 participants engaging in the last two events alone. This competition has not only enhanced the learning experience but has also significantly contributed to the growth and vibrancy of the Cwallet Club community, fostering a dynamic and interactive environment where members can test their knowledge and engage with fellow crypto enthusiasts.With its user-friendly interface and expertly curated content, Cwallet Learn educates and enriches the crypto community, fostering a more informed and capable ecosystem. As digital assets continue to permeate every aspect of our financial lives, from individual investments to corporate finance, the importance of platforms like Cwallet Learn cannot be overstated. These platforms serve not merely as educational resources but as foundational pillars of a burgeoning financial revolution, equipping users with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate the complexities of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency effectively. This comprehensive understanding is crucial in a world where digital finance is rapidly becoming the norm, making Cwallet Learn an indispensable tool for anyone looking to stay ahead in the evolving economic landscape.As we forge ahead, the significance of Cwallet Learn in promoting crypto literacy and fostering a robust digital economy is increasingly apparent. By equipping individuals with the knowledge and tools needed to succeed in the blockchain space, Cwallet is playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of digital finance. This initiative reflects Cwallet's commitment to innovation and its vision of making crypto accessible and comprehensible for everyone. With Cwallet Learn, every click is a step towards mastering the complexities of cryptocurrency, ensuring that every learner is well-prepared to navigate and thrive in the digital age.About Cwallet:Cwallet is a leading crypto wallet offering secure, fast, and flexible solutions for all crypto needs. Supporting over 800 cryptocurrencies and more than 50 blockchain networks, Cwallet is the preferred choice for millions of users worldwide. Its platform combines custodial and non-custodial wallets, offering the best blend of security and convenience. Cwallet is dedicated to simplifying the cryptocurrency world and delivering an exceptional experience to users.For more information about Cwallet, please visit:Website: https://cwallet.com/ Twitter:https://x.com/CwalletOfficialTelegram:https://t.me/cwallet_vip_clubDiscord: https://discord.com/invite/cvK2EF2gwa Media ContactOrganization: CwalletContact Person: Fio YangWebsite: https://www.cwallet.com/ Email: official@ cwallet.com SOURCE: Cwalle PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 19:03:25 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 481 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 CHICAGO, IL / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 /Renalogic, a leading provider of healthcare solutions for self-funded plans and their members dealing with chronic kidney disease (CKD), partnered with Lyfebulb, a patient empowerment platform that develops and operates the online community TransplantLyfe, to survey dialysis patients to gain valuable insights into the firsthand experiences and challenges of managing this chronic illness.Alarmingly, 62% of dialysis treatments were unplanned, which shows the unpredictability and disruption of CKD. Over half (54%) of patients reported having to stop work while on dialysis and 50% had visited the emergency room or been hospitalized in the past year."Dialysis patients face immense physical, emotional and logistical challenges in managing their condition," said Kevin Weinstein, CEO of Renalogic. "By partnering with Lyfebulb to amplify the perspectives of this patient community, we aim to drive meaningful changes that enhance the dialysis experience and clinical outcomes." The survey is summarized in a report that covers a range of topics, including:Financial impact of dialysisThe taxing physical and mental effects of dialysisBarriers to accessing high-quality care and support servicesImpacts on the workplace"We were pleased to have the opportunity to partner with Renalogic on this survey to tap into our community and dig into the impact of dialysis on the patients who are undergoing treatment," stated Karin Hehenberger, President of Lyfebulb and Chief Medical Officer of Patient Care America. "While we know that dialysis is truly life-saving and necessary for survival for many, we also know that we can do more and better for this community of those living with ESRD." Renalogic and Lyfebulb are committed to leveraging these insights to drive meaningful change and enhance the quality of life for the dialysis community. You can access the Dialysis Patient Experience report here.About Renalogic:Founded in 2002, Renalogic helps self-funded plans and their members manage the human and financial costs of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and dialysis treatment. We help plans manage dialysis claims with cost-containment and transparency solutions while working to prevent members from progressing to dialysis with our care management programs. Renalogic has helped clients save hundreds of millions of dollars and helped stop CKD from progressing for thousands of members. Learn more by visiting www.renalogic.com Media ContactNick Severino | SVP, Marketing nseverino@ renalogic.com About Lyfebulb:Lyfebulb, a Patient Care America company, is an innovation accelerator that reduces the burden of living with chronic disease through the power of the patient. By connecting patients, industry, and investors, Lyfebulb fosters the development of patient-centered solutions to improve quality of life for those affected with a chronic condition. For more information, visit www.lyfebulb.com and www.transplantlyfe.com ContactKarin Hehenberger, MD, PhD | President, Lyfebulb and Chief Medical Officer, Patient Care Americakarin@ lyfebulb.com Contact InformationNick SeverinoSVP, Marketingmarketing@ renalogic.com SOURCE: RenalogicView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 20:05:18 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 668 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLPannounces that purchasers or acquirers of Fastly, Inc. (NYSE:FSLY) securities between February 15, 2024 and May 1, 2024, inclusive (the "Class Period"), have until July 23, 2024 to seek appointment as lead plaintiff of the Fastly class action lawsuit. Captioned Kula v. Fastly, Inc., No. 24-cv-03170 (N.D. Cal.), the Fastly class action lawsuit charges Fastly as well as certain of Fastly's top executives with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.If you suffered substantial losses and wish to serve as lead plaintiff of the Fastly class action lawsuit, please provide your information here:You can also contact attorneys J.C. Sanchez or Jennifer N. Caringal of Robbins Geller by calling 800/449-4900 or via e-mail at info@ rgrdlaw.com . Lead plaintiff motions for the Fastly class action lawsuit must be filed with the court no later than July 23, 2024.CASE ALLEGATIONS: Fastly operates an edge cloud platform for processing, serving, and securing customer's applications.The Fastly class action lawsuit alleges that defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) contrary to Fastly's representations to investors, Fastly was in fact experiencing a significant deceleration in growth among its largest customers and was losing the increased market share it had gained as a result of the 2023 Content Delivery Network consolidation trend; (ii) these issues were likely to have a material negative impact on Fastly's revenue growth; (iii) accordingly, Fastly was unlikely to meet its own previously issued revenue guidance for fiscal year 2024; and (iv) as a result, Fastly's financial position and/or prospects were overstated.The Fastly class action lawsuit further alleges that on May 1, 2024, Fastly reported first quarter 2024 revenue of only $133.5 million, missing consensus estimates by $0.35 million, and lowered its fiscal year 2024 revenue guidance to a range of $555 million to $565 million, significantly below Fastly's previously issued fiscal year 2024 revenue guidance of $580 million to $590 million. On this news, the price of Fastly stock fell more than 32%, according to the Fastly class action lawsuit.THE LEAD PLAINTIFF PROCESS: The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 permits any investor who purchased or acquired Fastly securities during the Class Period to seek appointment as lead plaintiff in the Fastly class action lawsuit. A lead plaintiff is generally the movant with the greatest financial interest in the relief sought by the putative class who is also typical and adequate of the putative class. A lead plaintiff acts on behalf of all other class members in directing the Fastly class action lawsuit. The lead plaintiff can select a law firm of its choice to litigate the Fastly class action lawsuit. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff of the Fastly class action lawsuit.ABOUT ROBBINS GELLER: Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP is one of the world's leading complex class action firms representing plaintiffs in securities fraud cases. Over the last decade, our Firm has been ranked #1 on the ISS Securities Class Action Services law firm rankings for six out of the last ten years for securing the most monetary relief for investors. In the last four years, Robbins Geller recovered $6.6 billion for investors in securities-related class action cases - over $2.2 billion more than any other law firm during that time. With 200 lawyers in 10 offices, Robbins Geller is one of the largest plaintiffs' firms in the world and the Firm's attorneys have obtained many of the largest securities class action recoveries in history, including the largest securities class action recovery ever - $7.2 billion - in In re Enron Corp. Sec. Litig. Please visit the following page for more information:Attorney advertising.Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices.Contact:Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLPJ.C. Sanchez, Jennifer N. Caringal655 W. Broadway, Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101800-449-4900info@ rgrdlaw.com SOURCE: Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 21:45:12 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 408 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Exclusive Insights from Finance Expert Ari Page on Transforming Business Credit Approaches and Maximizing Funding OpportunitiesWYOMING, MI / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / In response to the increasing financial challenges faced by entrepreneurs,Fund&Grow is excited to announce a new free masterclass tailoredto empower business owners with essential knowledge and tools to secure business funding effectively. This educational session is designed for both novice and experienced entrepreneurs aiming to navigate the complexities of business credit and funding without succumbing to high-interest financial burdens.Ari Page, CEO of Fund&Grow and a veteran in the finance industry, will lead the masterclass. With over 15 years of experience, Page has been instrumental in helping more than 30,000 entrepreneurs escape the pitfalls of expensive capital and restrictive lending conditions. Under his guidance, attendees will gain insight into the most effective strategies to establish and enhance their funding capabilities.The masterclass will cover a range of crucial topics, including the formation of a lendable business entity, strategies for acquiring long-term zero-interest credit through the credit card stacking method, and advanced techniques for negotiating credit approvals. Participants will discover how to leverage unsecured business credit that does not impact personal credit scores, along with methods to uncover and amend hidden issues adversely affecting their credit ratings.Key learning points of the masterclass include:The optimal methods to form a business entity that maximizes credit potential.Insights into securing up to $250,000 in zero-interest business capital.Strategies to negotiate and maximize business credit approvals, including how to overturn declined applications.The common reasons behind credit application rejections and how to rectify them.Effective techniques to enhance personal credit scores to maximize funding options.Attendees of this comprehensive session will not only receive invaluable knowledge but also a special bonus for their participation. Each participant who stays until the end of the presentation will be gifted a copy of Fund&Grow's popular guide, "5 Steps To Becoming Lendable," as a token of appreciation.This masterclass is a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs at any stage of their business journey to acquire the tools needed to thrive in today's economic landscape. Fund&Grow invites all business owners to seize this chance to learn from industry experts and gain a competitive edge in securing and managing business funding and credit.To register for the free masterclass and for more details about the event, entrepreneurs areencouraged to visit Fund&Grow's official website .Media Contact:Rachel HarrisPulse Media info@ pulsemediapr.com SOURCE: Fund&Grow PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 17:45:11 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 504 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 SICILY, ITALY / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 /Giuseppe Lamorea, a young entrepreneur from Pistoia, Italy, is bringing a wave of innovation to marketing for medical professionals. His company, GLM Consulting, is launching an unprecedented summer promotion, offering a 50% discount on all services.Giuseppe Lamorea, born on December 31, 1999, in Pistoia and residing in Piedmont for the past two years, has always had a clear vision: to become an entrepreneur and make a difference in the medical field. Despite his diploma as a dental technician, Giuseppe knew his future would be different. "I didn't want to be a dental technician all my life; I knew I could do more," he declares with determination. Thus, five years ago, he founded GLM Consulting, a company specializing in marketing services for dentists, plastic surgeons, and aesthetic doctors.A New Standard in Medical Marketing GLM Consulting stands out for its unique and highly effective approach. Giuseppe has developed a methodology based on an in-depth analysis of the market and the specific needs of patients. This targeted approach not only improves the visibility and reputation of medical professionals but also results in a significant increase in conversions and sales of their services. "Our strategy is unique, with a high success rate that helps bridge misinformation and significantly increases our clients' revenue," explains Giuseppe.Overcoming Challenges with ResilienceDespite initial difficulties due to a lack of financial resources, Giuseppe did not give up. He used free tools and word of mouth to make a name for himself, demonstrating unwavering determination. Today, GLM Consulting is a well-established company supported by a team of talented young Italian professionals.Summer Promotion: An Unmissable OpportunityTo celebrate the success achieved and provide further support to medical professionals, GLM Consulting is launching a summer promotion with a 50% discount on all services. This exceptional offer is designed to help doctors and dentists improve their marketing and achieve greater national recognition. "The services we offer not only increase our clients' visibility but also contribute to a significant boost in their revenue," says Giuseppe.Unique Benefits for ClientsGLM Consulting's services are tailor-made to meet the specific needs of each professional. Giuseppe's personalized strategy helps bridge the gaps in marketing and sales, improving patient experience and satisfaction. "Our methodology is based on an in-depth analysis of the target market and the specific needs of patients," Giuseppe emphasizes.Looking to the FutureGiuseppe Lamorea is not stopping here. After the success GLM Consulting has found in Italy, the company is expanding to the American market. Lamorea's next goal is to become the first choice for doctors looking to improve their business marketing. With constant dedication and the ability to adapt to new technologies, Giuseppe is ready to lead GLM Consulting to new heights. "Fortunately, my sector allows for rapid adaptation to new technologies, which enables us to stay at the forefront,"concludes Giuseppe.Media Details:Company Name: GLM ConsultingCompany Media Contact: Giuseppe LamoreaEmail: glmstrategic23@ gmail.com Company Website: https://glmstrategic.com/ SOURCE: GLM Consulting PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 15:00:26 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 455 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 GHI Provides a Complimentary Guide Outlining the Region's Hospitals, Clinics and Other Facilities With the Highest Numbers of Essential Medical Devices and EquipmentMIAMI, FL / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Global Health Intelligence (GHI), the leading healthcare data analytics provider in Latin America, has just published its HospiRank 2024 ranking of the best-equipped hospitals in Latin America.HospiRank 2024 Free Report on the Best-Equipped Hospitals in Latin AmericaBased on quantitative analysis of data from 18,000+ Latin American hospitals in GHI's HospiScope database, HospiRank ranks medical institutions according to eight specific categories, including best-equipped for high-risk patients, best-equipped to host patients, highest counts of basic surgical equipment, the best-installed base for treating cancer, best-equipped for primary diagnostics, and more."HospiRank is the only ranking of Latin American hospitals that provides verified data on the facilities' infrastructure," explains Guillaume Corpart, CEO and founder of Global Health Intelligence. "This data, collected through our annual survey conducted across Latin America, includes information such as the number of operating rooms, beds, and capital equipment. The ranking aids the medical industry in identifying the leading facilities in the region based on infrastructure and capacity," observes Corpart.Aside from the rankings, which include a total of more than 400 hospitals in the six countries included, HospiRank 2024 also has key features:A data portrait of Latin American hospitals, including penetration rates of both basic and specialized medical equipmentData on medical equipment infrastructure for hospitals in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, among other countriesInterviews with the leaders of the best-equipped hospitals to gain insights into their plans for expansion and acquiring medical equipment"The detailed medical equipment market data in HospiRank is valuable for medical equipment manufacturers, MedTech suppliers, and consumables companies. It helps them segment the market and identify key players. Additionally, HospiRank enables hospitals to compare their equipment levels with other institutions," says Corpart.The main report can be downloaded from Global Health Intelligence's website . It covers the top five hospitals in each category for each country featured in HospiRank 2024. Journalists can also contact GHI directly for specific country reports featuring the top 10 hospitals in each of the six countries covered.About Global Health Intelligence (GHI)Global Health Intelligence created HospiScope, the world's largest hospital demographics database focused on Latin America, as well as SurgiScope, the first database to track surgical procedures performed in Latin America. The firm updates more than two million hospital data points each year, helping clients with custom research, data on the medical devices market, competitive profiling for the Latin American healthcare industry, marketing sizing, segmentation, and pricing/cost analyses.Contact InformationCarolina ChazaroDigital Marketing Coordinatorcarolina@ globalhealthintelligence.com Guillaume CorpartCEOgc@ globalhealthintelligence.com SOURCE: Global Health IntelligenceView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 19:31:58 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 736 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Amazing Picturesis thrilled to announce that contemporary art sensation Harriet Parkes is being hailed as the next Andy Warhol by major art critics. Since the launch of our comprehensive marketing campaign, Parkes has become an overnight sensation, capturing the hearts of millions worldwide. Her unique take on modern art has catapulted her into the limelight, becoming one of the most sought-after artists in recent history.("Colour Pop 27" by Harriet Parkes)With a style that is both avant-garde and thought-provoking, Parkes has captured the attention of art enthusiasts from all corners of the globe. Her use of vibrant colors and bold brushstrokes creates an energy that is unparalleled in the art world today. Combining traditional techniques with contemporary themes, Parkes' work truly stands out as something groundbreaking.Born and raised in London, Parkes started as a self-taught artist before attending Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design. After graduating, she quickly made a name for herself in the local art scene, gaining recognition for her unique perspective and bold approach to traditional mediums.Since then, Parkes has exhibited her work in galleries and museums all over the world, including London, New York, and Tokyo. Her pieces have been featured in numerous publications and have been purchased by prominent collectors and celebrities.But it's not just her art that is turning heads - Parkes' philanthropy work has also caught the attention of many. She frequently donates a portion of her sales to various charities and organizations, using her platform to bring awareness to important social issues.With a growing fan base and an ever-expanding portfolio, Harriet Parkes is poised to become one of the most influential artists of our time.The Rise of Harriet ParkesArt enthusiasts and collectors alike have been captivated by Parkes' unique and thought-provoking works. Her pieces have seen an unprecedented increase in value, rising more than 40% annually. This surge in popularity presents a prime opportunity for collectors to invest in her beautiful creations. As her popularity continues to soar, Parkes' art is becoming a highly sought-after commodity in the art market.But it's not just collectors who are taking notice - major galleries and institutions have also recognized Parkes' talent and have been eager to exhibit her work. This has led to numerous solo exhibitions and collaborations with renowned artists from around the world.The Future of Contemporary ArtWith the success of Harriet Parkes, we can see a clear shift in the contemporary art scene. Her bold approach to traditional mediums and thought-provoking themes have opened up new possibilities for artists to push boundaries and challenge societal norms. Parkes' influence is evident in the growing number of emerging artists who are following in her footsteps and creating innovative works that challenge our perceptions.As we look towards the future, it's clear that Harriet Parkes will continue to push the boundaries of contemporary art and inspire generations to come. Her rise to fame is a testament to the power of creativity and its ability to connect people from all walks of life.Keep an eye out for Harriet Parkes - this rising star is set to leave a lasting impact on the world of art. So, don't miss your chance to own a piece of her legacy today.How Can You Buy Harriet Parkes?She is currently signed to Amazing Pictures, who specialize in advertising, promoting, and marketing artists. They're proud to represent Harriet Parkes as she ascends to global recognition. With their expertise and her talent, Parkes is well on her way to becoming a world-renowned artist. For more information, please visit them directly at info@ amazingpictures.uk . Join them in celebrating the extraordinary career and talent of Harriet Parkes. Together, we can all make history in the world of art. So, come be a part of something amazing!For more information or to schedule an interview with Harriet Parkes, please contact:Email: info@ amazingpictures.uk About Amazing PicturesDon't miss your chance to own a piece of art history. Explore the works of Harriet Parkes today and join the ranks of those who recognize her extraordinary potential.For more information about Harriet Parkes and Amazing Pictures, visit their website or follow them on social media.https://www.instagram.com/amazingpictures_uk/ Media Details:Company Name: Amazing PicturesCompany Media Contact: Harriet Parkes Email:info@ amazingpictures.uk Website: https://www.amazingpictures.uk/ SOURCE: Amazing Pictures UK PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 16:06:10 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 758 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 The survey results indicate the need for an employer-offered emergency savings fundOAK BROOK, IL / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Inspira Financial, a leading provider of health, wealth, retirement, and benefits solutions, today released the results of a survey of more than 1,000 employed Americans. The report uncovers why employees need support for their financial wellness and how employers and emergency savings funds (ESFs) can help address those needs. One key finding from the report reveals that 79% of employees surveyed want more savings opportunities, and 70% prioritize "rainy day funds." Inspira Financial Inspira FinancialThe new report, "Emergency savings funds: Empowering employees to be financially resilient," is the second report in a two-part series by Inspira on ESFs. The report indicates that, despite strong U.S. economic performance and sustained consumer spending, consumer savings tell a different story. The personal savings rate declined to 3.6%in April 2024 (compared to 8.1% in August 2019) and accumulated savings have dwindled, especially among lower-income Americans. Employees are becoming increasingly nervous about their present and future financial health.With these financial challenges, employees have started to expect more support from their employers. With only a quarter of employees saying that they are highly satisfied with their current benefits, employers are aware of the increased expectations and are looking at how they can improve their benefit offerings.One solution the report points to is an employer-offered emergency savings solution - a workplace benefit that allows employees to set aside money for unexpected expenses and emergencies, an ESF, sometimes known as a "rainy day fund." While employees can set up a personal savings account for emergency purposes, there are several advantages of enrolling through an employer, like automatic payroll deductions and potentially employer-matching contributions to help promote savings."It is troubling to hear that over half of those surveyed were stressed about not having enough money today and 64% were concerned about not having enough in the future. But, when a third of the people that we talked to said they have tapped into their 401(k) to cover emergency expenses, then we know something isn't working," said Becky Seefeldt, Vice President of Strategy for Inspira Financial. "Employees are demanding greater support for their holistic well-being from their employers, which includes financial wellness. An ESF can help alleviate the financial stress that too many employees are experiencing, positively impacting their physical and mental health, and helping them be more successful at work." According to a 2023 Morgan Stanley study, 66% of employees acknowledge that financial stress negatively affects both their work and personal lives. There is a clear need for financial support, especially from employers, because financial stress can lead to burnout, a reduction in productivity and engagement, and can negatively affect retention. The impact of an ESF can be significant: Inspira's report shows that even employees with less than $100,000 in annual household income are willing to contribute an average of $148 a month to an ESF. If an employee saved that amount every month, they could build a rainy-day fund of more than $1,000 in less than seven months. Employers that offer contribution matching can further reduce their employees' financial stress.The survey further revealed that ESFs can positively impact an employer's brand: 85% of those who have an ESF agree that the benefit contributed to a more favorable impression of their employer, and one-third of respondents ranked ESFs as their most desirable financial wellness benefit."An ESF is not a replacement for a health savings account or a 401(k) but is a supplemental account that can be added to a comprehensive benefits package," Seefeldt said. "These accounts are emerging as an exceptional tool for employers to add to their benefits package. For employees, ESFs are perfect for building saving habits and can help improve their overall outlook toward their financial health, reducing stress and improving their well-being." Read the full report here.###About Inspira FinancialInspira Financial provides health, wealth, retirement, and benefits solutions that strengthen and simplify the health and wealth journey. With more than 7 million account holders holding over $62 billion in assets under custody, Inspira works with thousands of employers, plan sponsors, recordkeepers, TPAs, and other institutional partners - helping the people they care about plan, save, and invest for a brighter future. Inspira relentlessly pursues better outcomes for all with our automatic rollover services, health savings accounts, emergency savings funds, custody services, and more. Learn more at inspirafinancial.com Contact InformationEmily Burns PerrymanManager, PR & Communicationsmediainquiry@ inspirafinancial.com 847-594-0859SOURCE: Inspira FinancialView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 18:17:37 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 336 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago (Lurie Children's) has disclosed a data breach affecting personal information of its patients and other individuals. The breach impacted over 791,000 individuals, exposing sensitive personal information including full names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health insurance information and medical information.WHAT'S THIS ABOUT?Compensation may be available for Lurie Children's patients and individuals who received notice that their personal information was impacted by the data breach.WHY AM I ENTITLED TO COMPENSATION? Data breaches are serious matters that can cause long-term damage. Hackers break into networks to steal your personal information to sell it on the dark web or commit identity theft, financial theft, or other frauds. The company may be liable for failing to secure your privacy.HOW DO I KNOW IF I WAS AFFECTED?If you received a data breach notification letter from Lurie Children's, you are affected. Follow the link below to find out if you may be eligible for compensation.Levi & Korsinsky, LLP is investigating whether affected customers are entitled to compensation. If you have received a notice about the data breach, you may be entitled to compensation. There is no cost or obligation to participate. Follow the link below to find out:ABOUT LEVI & KORSINSKYLevi & Korsinsky is a nationally recognized consumer advocacy law firm that has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars against large corporations. The firm's team of over 70 extraordinary attorneys and professionals have a winning track record going against the most powerful defense attorneys in the world and know how to maximize your compensation. The firm is a 100% contingency firm - we don't get paid unless you get paid! Please visit us at www.zlk.com for more information. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.CONTACT: Levi & Korsinsky, LLPJoseph E. Levi, Esq.Ed Korsinsky, Esq.33 Whitehall Street, 17th FloorNew York, NY 10004 jlevi@ levikorsinsky.com Tel: (212) 363-7500Fax: (212) 363-7171 https://zlk.com/ SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 20:30:33 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 332 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / The Schall Law Firm, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces that it is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Arbor Realty Trust, Inc. ("Arbor" or "the Company") (NYSE:ABR) for violations of the securities laws.The investigation focuses on whether the Company issued false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose information pertinent to investors. Arbor is the subject of a report issued by Viceroy Research November 17, 2023, titled, "Arbor Realty Trust - Slumlord Millionaires." According to the report, "Arbor's high-risk multifamily bridge loans, which comprise substantially all of its asset book, are going bad fast The end is near." Viceroy Research then issued a follow up report on December 5, 2023, titled "Arbor - Jacksonville Case Study." In the second report, Viceroy Research claims that the Company's "entire loan book is distressed and underlying collateral is vastly overstated." Based on this news, shares of Arbor fell by more than 5% over the next two trading sessions.If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate.We also encourage you to contact Brian Schall of the Schall Law Firm, 2049 Century Park East, Suite 2460, Los Angeles, CA 90067, at 310-301-3335, to discuss your rights free of charge. You can also reach us through the firm's website at www.schallfirm.com , or by email at bschall@ schallfirm.com The class in this case has not yet been certified, and until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. If you choose to take no action, you can remain an absent class member.The Schall Law Firm represents investors around the world and specializes in securities class action lawsuits and shareholder rights litigation.This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and rules of ethics.CONTACT:The Schall Law FirmBrian Schall, Esq. www.schallfirm.com Office: 310-301-3335 info@ schallfirm.com SOURCE: The Schall Law Firm PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 18:50:39 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 453 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Lovemere unveils the smallest yet most powerful warming lactation massager, offering moms comfort, relief, and convenience in breastfeeding and pumping.SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Lovemere, a prominent innovator in maternity and nursing wear , proudly announces the launch of its latest product: the Lovemere Warming Lactation Massager. Designed to offer unmatched comfort and relief, this compact device aims to improve the breastfeeding and pumping experience for mothers.The Smallest Ever, Yet Most PowerfulThe Lovemere Warming Lactation Massager distinguishes itself as the smallest massager on the market, expertly designed to seamlessly fit into a mom's daily routine. Despite its small size, this powerful tool provides exceptional functionality with dual modes of warming and massaging. Featuring customizable vibration or massage modes, mothers can personalize their experience to suit their individual needs, whether at home, work, or on the go.Comfort and Relief for Every MomBreastfeeding and pumping can often lead to discomfort, clogged ducts, and mastitis. The Lovemere Warming Lactation Massager addresses these common issues by applying gentle heat and massage to clear clogged ducts, alleviate mastitis symptoms, and promote better let-down for smoother milk flow. This innovative product transforms the challenges of breastfeeding and pumping into a more comfortable and enjoyable experience.Discreet and ConvenientA key feature of the Lovemere Warming Lactation Massager is its ability to be used discreetly. Mothers can now benefit from lactation massage and warmth without drawing attention, whether they are at work, in public, or enjoying some quiet time. Its compact design ensures it fits easily into a handbag or diaper bag, ready to provide relief whenever needed.A Commitment to Supporting Moms"At Lovemere, we understand the unique challenges faced by breastfeeding and pumping moms," said Florence, CEO at Lovemere. "Our mission has always been to create products that simplify motherhood and enhance its joy. Collaborating closely with IBCLCs (International Board of Lactation Consultants) ensures that our products meet the highest standards of breastfeeding care. The Warming Lactation Massager exemplifies this commitment, offering a practical, effective, and convenient solution for moms everywhere." AvailabilityThe Lovemere Warming Lactation Massager will be available for purchase starting 11th July 2024 on our website, Loveme re.Moms can sign up on our website for an exclusive launch price with limited pieces .About LovemereLovemere is dedicated to providing high-quality, innovative maternity and nursing products designed to support and empower moms throughout their motherhood journey. From nursing bras to lactation massagers, Lovemere is committed to making life easier, more comfortable, and more enjoyable for moms everywhere.Contact Information:Lauren TanCustomer Experience and PR SpecialistLovemereEmail: lauren@ lovemere.com Website: https://www.lovemere.com SOURCE: Lovemere PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 14:31:31 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 851 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / For the first time ever, Melbourne Australia Beauty will command the spotlight at Cosmoprof Las Vegas, the premier international B2B beauty exhibition in North America. From July 23-25, the vibrant and innovative spirit of Melbourne, Australia's beauty industry will be on full display at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. The pavilion is organized by Global Victoria, Australia and is hosted and managed by Access Beauty Insiders a leading marketing consulting firm. Global Victoria, Australia is the State Government of Victoria's trade facilitation agency commissioned to empower Victorian businesses to transform global aspirations into reality."The state of Victoria is a powerhouse in the beauty industry, home to more than a third of Australia's top beauty brands and contract manufacturers," says Elizabeth Moffat, Trade Manager Consumer Goods at Global Victoria. "We're thrilled to bring these innovative, cutting-edge brands to a global stage at Cosmoprof North America." Global Victoria is proudly presenting the Melbourne Australia Beauty Pavilion, featuring innovative beauty brands from the State of Victoria. Notably, more than one third of all Australian beauty and makeup product exports originate from this region."As consumers increasingly prioritize organic, clean, natural beauty products, as well as environmental impact, Victorian companies are well-positioned to meet these market demands" says Mildred Ruiz, US Trade Manager for Consumer Goods at Global VictoriaCreating a real buzz, the Pavilion will feature a diverse range of brands, from revolutionary professional salon haircare and vegan beauty cases to self-tanning, skincare infused with indigenous Australian botanicals and must have accessories.Melbourne Australia Beauty pavilion will be located in the Skincare, Makeup & Fragrance Hall space #7087 and will showcase the following companies:Australian GlowSpecializing in natural, organic self-tanning products, Australian Glow infuses its formulas with a Quad Collagen Complex to nourish the skin while providing a long-lasting, sun-kissed glow. "Our products are vegan, cruelty-free, and eco-friendly, embodying our commitment to inclusivity and sustainability," the brand shares. [Click onGet the Glowto find out more]Booby TapePioneers of the world's first breast lift tape, Booby Tape has gained a cult following and is a staple among A-list celebrities. "We're the number one choice with over 20,000 stockists in 60+ countries," boasts the brand. Beyond tape, their lineup includes viral personal care cosmetics that have taken social media by storm. [Click onLift with Booby Tapeto discover the brand]Botany EssentialsWith over two decades in the industry, Botany Essentials offers a range of skin, hair, and personal care products that leverage Australia's unique indigenous botanicals. "Our new Botany Native Flora range is a testament to the power of Australian plant ingredients," says the brand. Their DNA Serums blend clinically proven actives for ultimate skin nourishment. [Click onUnveil Botany Essentialsto know more]BYS CosmeticsRenowned for its vibrant, hypoallergenic makeup, BYS Cosmetics is a social media darling with a knack for colorful, trend-setting collaborations. "We prove that high-quality, vegan, and cruelty-free cosmetics don't have to come with a hefty price tag," says the brand. Their offerings promise to delight and inspire every makeup enthusiast. [ExploreBYS Cosmetics ]ETOILE CollectiveCrafted for beauty enthusiasts and professionals alike, ETOILE Collective's stylish cosmetic bags and organizers have garnered over 10 million views on TikTok and been featured in Vogue and the TODAY Show. "We celebrate the culture of getting ready, making every routine a moment of joy and style," they state. [Find out more aboutOrganize with ETOILE ]Muk HaircareMuk Haircare delivers a comprehensive range for salon professionals, including haircare, styling products, and a full suite of electrical tools. Their future-focused education platform is revolutionizing hairdressing, ensuring that salons remain at the cutting edge. "We're a one-stop-shop for distributors looking for top-tier hair products and education," the company notes. [DiscoverMuk Haircare ]Connect with these brands at Cosmoprof North America 2024The Melbourne Australia Beauty Pavilion will be an unmissable feature at Cosmoprof North America, embodying the innovation and diversity of Victoria's beauty sector. To connect with these brands and explore the forefront of beauty trends, visit the pavilion and meet the visionaries driving this vibrant industry forward.This press release serves as your invitation to experience the dynamic world of Melbourne Australia Beauty at Cosmoprof North America 2024. Be there to witness the fusion of innovation, culture, and cutting-edge beauty from down under!For more information about Melbourne Australia Beauty, contact Mildred Ruiz Leal at mildred.ruizleal@global.vic.gov.au ---About Global Victoria, Australia:Global Victoria empowers Australian beauty businesses to transform global aspirations into reality. As the trade facilitation agency of the State Government of Victoria, they open doors to international markets, providing the expertise and resources necessary for Australian brands to thrive worldwide. [Learn more about by clicking hereGlobal Victoria ]About Access Beauty Insiders:Founded by Daniela Ciocan, an award-winning beauty and exhibition marketing executive and leading voice in the cosmetics industry, Access Beauty Insiders offers strategic marketing services that amplify brand presence and foster market expansion. [DiscoverAccess Beauty Insiders ]Contact DetailsMildred Ruiz Lealmildred.ruizleal@global.vic.gov.au SOURCE: GLOBAL VICTORIA PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 18:02:45 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 437 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Brand Responds to Consumer Buzz with Increased AvailabilityAUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 /Norse Organics, a popular wellness brand has announced to have sold out of their most popular product "Kill Acne & Redness Ritual" eleven times in the last six months due to new customer demand. New customers wanted to buy more than Norse Organics was able to produce.Premium+ Face Scrub from the Kill Acne & Redness Ritual in production. The jars are filled to the limit.The Kill Acne & Redness Ritual from Norse Organics has revolutionized the Acne space. More than 100,000 customers have purchased it since its launch in 2024. Thousands more customers wanted to buy it but couldn't because of stock issues. Norse Organics confirms that the Kill Acne & Redness Ritual is back in stock in the US, Canada, the EU, the UK, and Australia.Daniel Hoftun, founder of Norse Organics has the following to say about the production issues:"Making products like these is not easy. That's why no one else does it. Our standards are extremely high. And everything is handmade"The product has been particularly popular among teens and young adults who have experienced fast results. Acne is a growing problem among teens in the US.Norse Organics is a Norwegian brand that entered the US in January 2024 after success in Europe. The sales numbers have been higher than expected and the consequences have been long periods without stock. They have now been able to scale their capacity and will have stock to meet the growing demand in the US.They have not done any marketing, and most of the sales have come from recommendations from friends and family in the US. Dermatologists have also started to recommend Norse Organics to their patients."We expect the growth to continue because of the fast acne transformations our customers experience. They get results in days", says Daniel.About Norse OrganicsNorse Organics wild-harvests plants that grow naturally on the Norwegian mountainside to capture the highest-quality antioxidant potential. The plants need to survive arctic winters and pack a punch!They have spent years creating a few simple, powerful products with fast results for acne, redness, blackheads, and scars. Normal brands use 50-70% water. They use 0 water. Everything in the jar has a purpose for your skin.So far, they have helped 100,000+ people with Acne and 10 million people fix their skin. That's impossible without the best product and the most happy customers.Media Details: Company name - Norse OrganicsContact person - Daniel HoftunCompany Email - daniel@ norseorganics.co City, State, Country based - Austin, Texas, USWebsite: https://norseorganics.co/ SOURCE: Norse Organics PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 15:02:48 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 483 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Hulala Homeis proud to announce the launch ofNurseryNook,a new brand of nursery furniture designed to support parents during one of the most wonderful yet challenging times of their lives. Led by CEO Scarlett Fan, a mother who has experienced the demands of motherhood first-hand, NurseryNook is the result of extensive research and development aimed at creating furniture with both mom and baby in mind.Scarlett Fan's personal journey into motherhood revealed the need for nursery furniture that prioritizes safety, comfort, and convenience. To meet these needs, NurseryNook products undergo rigorous testing by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ensure compliance with safety standards for everyday use. Additionally, all fabrics used are certified free from toxic materials, providing a healthy environment for babies.But safety is just the beginning. NurseryNook chairs (theCuddle Nursery Power Gliderand theCuddle Electric Nursery Swivel Chair ) are also designed for ultimate comfort and ease of maintenance. Featuring ShieldPro Technology, the fabrics used are water and oil resistant, making them easy to clean and maintain, ensuring that they stay fresh and durable for longer. Each product has unique benefits like the CuddleSupport on the Power Glider to help alleviate the pains caused by uncomfortable positions while feeding or the motion-activated night light on the Swivel Chair making each product special and unique.NurseryNook's commitment to a healthier environment extends beyond the nursery. Understanding the importance of sustainability, Hulala Home supports reforestation efforts by planting a tree for every order placed, contributing to a greener future for our children.Available for purchase on theHulala Home websiteand onAmazon , NurseryNook chairs have garnered positive reviews from moms who appreciate the thoughtful design and practical features.See what moms are saying about theCuddle Nursery Power Glider:Sasha HakmanMonique BootheTitilayo AbiwonKelly TowartAbout Hulala Home: Hulala Home is dedicated to creating innovative and high-quality furniture that meets the needs of modern families. Founded with the mission to combine style, comfort, and functionality, Hulala Home offers a wide range of products designed to enhance everyday living. From nursery essentials to living room staples, every piece of furniture is crafted with care and precision, ensuring that customers receive only the best.With a focus on safety, comfort, and sustainability, Hulala Home continues to revolutionize the home furniture industry, one product at a time. By integrating advanced technologies and sustainable practices, Hulala Home is committed to providing products that not only look great but also make a positive impact on the world.NurseryNook by Hulala Home is more than just furniture; it's a promise of safety, comfort, and a commitment to a healthier planet. Explore the range of NurseryNook products today and discover how they can make life just a little less complicated during this precious time.For more information, please visit https://hulalahome.comor contact.Contact: Tonatiuh ChavezHead of MarketingHulala Home https://hulalahome.com tonatiuh@ karathome.com SOURCE: Hulala Home PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 15:00:18 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 604 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / OCM, a leading Asian Authentic National Food Brands Wholesaler and Distributor, made a significant impact at the 2024 Summer Fancy Food Show held at the Javits Center from June 23-25. As North America's largest specialty food and beverage event, the Summer Fancy Food Show provided the perfect platform for OCM to introduce its diverse array of Asian foods to a wide audience.OCM Showcases Asian Food at the 2024 Summer Fancy Food Show The Summer Fancy Food Show is renowned for being a hub of innovation, where over 2,000 domestic and international exhibitors gather to showcase their products. The event attracts a broad spectrum of attendees, including bakery enthusiasts, meat connoisseurs, delicatessen aficionados, gourmet food lovers, and beverage experts. It serves as a unique opportunity to discover new trends, taste innovative products, and network with leading food enthusiasts from around the world.OCM's participation as SPA's 2024 Summer Fancy Food Show Partner was marked by the introduction of iconic Asian treats and a promise of a tantalizing experience for taste buds. As the largest brand operator in the U.S. Asian food market, OCM has evolved significantly since its inception. In 2023, OCM continued to enhance its distribution system, establishing major warehousing and distribution hubs in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, and Atlanta. Expansion plans are underway for new branches in Seattle, Boston, and Miami, with future expansions into Vancouver and Toronto, aiming to create a comprehensive distribution network across North America.OCM has fortified its strategic partnerships with prominent Chinese supermarket chains such as Great Wall Supermarket, Good Fortune Supermarket, New Asian Food Market, Sky Foods, and Jmart. Additionally, it has strengthened collaborations with Asian supermarket chains represented by H-Mart and Seafood City, Asian e-commerce platforms like Yami, WEEE, HongMall, and FRESHGOGO, and food service wholesale platforms including Enson Food, RongCheng, HF Foods Group, and S.J. Distributors. In 2023, OCM expanded its comprehensive collaborations with mainstream retail channels like Costco and Walmart, major e-commerce platforms like Amazon, food service channels exemplified by Sysco, and leading social media platforms such as TikTok.Embracing a vision of long-term growth and strategic partnerships, OCM remains dedicated to forging a bright future for Asian foods. Their presence at the Summer Fancy Food Show highlighted their commitment to bringing authentic Asian flavors from East to West."We are grateful to everyone who stopped by our booth at the 2024 Summer Fancy Food Show," said an OCM spokesperson. "It's been a fantastic few days of sampling food from across the industry and networking with brands from around the world. We loved seeing you all and sharing these unique products that we are so proud of!"OCM's participation in the Summer Fancy Food Show was more than just an exhibition of products; it was an opportunity to share their story and vision. As they continue to expand and innovate, OCM invites everyone to keep savoring the flavors of Asia and join them on their journey.Contact:OCM Globe Inc. www.ocmfoods.commarketing@ocmfoods.com 626-788-7788About OCM Globe Inc.OCM Globe Inc. is the largest operator of Asian food brands in the United States, dedicated to bringing authentic Asian foods to North America. With a robust distribution network and strategic partnerships with leading brands and retailers, OCM is committed to enhancing the culinary experience of Asian food in the mainstream market.Contact InformationOCM Globe Inc.marketing@ocmfoods.com 626-788-7788Related ImagesOCM Showcases Asian Food at the 2024 Summer Fancy Food ShowOCM Showcases Asian Food at the 2024 Summer Fancy Food ShowSOURCE: OCM Globe Inc.View the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 14:30:41 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 1009 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Pegasus Resources Inc. (TSXV:PEGA)(Frankfurt:0QS0)(OTC PINKSLTFF) (the "Company" or "Pegasus") is pleased to announce that on July 3, 2024 the Company finalized an agreement (the "Agreement") with KD Prospect (the "Vendor") to acquire an undivided 100% right, title, and interest in the Jupiter Project ("Jupiter Project"), a strategic uranium Project located in Emery County, Utah, USA. This acquisition is subject to the terms and conditions specified in the agreement."The acquisition of the Jupiter Project, along with our Energy Sands Project, presents an exceptional opportunity for Pegasus and our investors." stated CEO Chris Timmins, "Energy Sands holds the potential for a discovery, supported by recent ground program findings and historical drilling data indicating a mineralized paleochannel. Meanwhile, Jupiter provides an advanced property with historical drilling, which will be instrumental in developing a future resource estimate. Together, these Projects offer a unique chance for investors to participate in both the development of a new resource and the excitement of a potential discovery." The Jupiter claim group is located 3 kilometers north of Energy Sands and consists of 48 unpatented claims situated in part, in sections 10 and 15, Township 21 S. Range 14 E. SLPM, Emery County, Utah. The claims occur in the Bureau of Land Management, and access is obtained over a well-maintained service road which joins I-70 near Green River, Utah.The Jupiter Project was previously held by Atlas Minerals from 1972 to 1983. During this period, the claim group consisted of 25 unpatented claims. Atlas Minerals conducted approximately 100+ drill holes on the Jupiter Project with the greatest density occurring in the vicinity of the northeast corner of section 15. The extensive drilling and exploration activities conducted by Atlas Minerals demonstrated significant potential, and the project was considered a viable mineral resource. Atlas Minerals was advancing the project towards full-scale mining before the collapse of the uranium market in the early 1980s.The historical drill logs reveal promising results, with notable uranium intercepts. Pegasus will utilize the valuable information provided to guide our exploration program. Our goal is to create a resource estimate in accordance with the current CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The historical data underscores the project's potential for substantial uranium mineralization.Terms of the agreement:Issuance of Shares: Pegasus will issue 2,200,000 common shares ("Consideration Shares") to the Vendor within 10 business days following TSX Venture Exchange approval of the Agreement.Cash Payments: The Company will make a payment of $25,000 USD to the Vendor within 30 days of signing the Agreement. Additionally, subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval, a further payment of $75,000 USD will be made on or before the earlier of November 1, 2024, or 10 business days following the closing of a Private Placement. By the Company.Pegasus commits to conducting a drilling program totalling 1500 meters on the Jupiter Project within 30 days following the first anniversary of the Agreement.Upon completing these payments and satisfying all obligations outlined in the Agreement, Pegasus will have earned a 100% interest in the Jupiter Project. This interest is subject to Resource Bonuses (as defined below) and a Net Smelter Return Royalty in favour of the Vendor.Figure 1: Utah Property MapExploration Data and Future Plans: Pegasus is committed to advancing its exploration projects and enhancing shareholder value. As part of these efforts, the Company intends to conduct the necessary work to create a resource estimate in accordance with the current CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The exploration strategy includes twinning historical drill holes, a geological relog of old drill holes, and defining new drill targets. These activities are aimed at both expanding the known resources and discovering new mineralization zones.This integrated approach is expected to refine the geological model of the Jupiter Project and significantly contribute to the understanding and development of the Jupiter Project.Figure 2: Historical Drill Hole LocationsResource Bonus and NSR Royalty:As Pegasus establishes additional uranium resources on the Jupiter Project, the Company will pay the Vendor a Resource Bonus of USD $100,000.00 for every increment of 500,000 lbs of uranium up to 2,500,000 lbs, as discovered on the Jupiter Project. The first Resource Bonus payment will be due within 90 days from the date the initial Resource Calculation exceeding 475,000 pounds of uranium is issued. The vendor will retain the Net Smelter Return (NSR) royalty on the resource.Historical Overview of Uranium Mining in the San Rafael River (Tidwell Bottoms) District:The San Rafael River (Tidwell Bottoms) district, located in the Green River mining area in eastern Emery County, played a pivotal role in the history of uranium and vanadium production. Operating from around 1948 to the mid-1980s, this district emerged as a major U-V producer, ranking among the largest uranium producers in the state. The historical narrative of uranium mining in the Tidwell Mineral Belt, particularly within the district encompassing the Snow and Probe mines, reflects a significant era of mineral exploration and production. These mines, alongside others such as the Black Panther, Incline No. 14, and Sahara, were central to the region's economic development during this period.The district's geological setting proved ideal for sandstone-hosted, trend-type uranium deposits, characterized by their peneconcordant nature and channel-controlled mineralization primarily within the upper sandstone sequence of the Salt Wash Member of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation. Atlas Minerals played a pivotal role in the district, operating the Snow and Probe mines until their closure in 1982. The Snow Mine, operated by Atlas Minerals, began production in 1973 and closed in 1982. It produced a substantial 650,292 pounds of U3O8 at an average grade of 0.188% U3O8. The Probe Mines commissioning is not directly mentioned in the source data, but it closed in 1982, yielding 293,985 pounds of U3O8 at an average grade of 0.186% U3O8, according to data compiled by Wilbanks in 1982. The Snow and Probe mines stood out as two of the largest and most productive in the district.Continued exploration drilling in the late 1970s and early 1980s, particularly along the northeast extension of the Snow and Lucky Mines mineralization, led to the discovery of several new mineral PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 21:05:24 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 704 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 RADNOR, PA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / The law firm of Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP( www.ktmc.com) informs investors that a securities class action lawsuit has been against Roblox Corporation ("Roblox") (NYSE:RBLX). The action charges Roblox with violations of the federal securities laws, including omissions and fraudulent misrepresentations relating to the company's business, operations, and prospects. As a result of Roblox's materially misleading statements and omissions to the public, Roblox's investors have suffered significant losses. The lead plaintiff deadline is August 12, 2024.If you suffered Roblox losses, you mayCLICK HERE or go to: https://www.ktmc.com/new-cases/roblox-corporation?utm_source=PR&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=rblx&mktm=r CANNOT VIEW THIS VIDEO? PLEASE CLICK HERE. YOU CAN ALSO COPY AND PASTE THIS LINK IN YOUR BROWSER: https://youtu.be/KwIsAM7ucQo You can also contact attorney Jonathan Naji, Esq. of Kessler Topaz by calling (484) 270-1453 or by email at info@ ktmc.com DEFENDANTS' ALLEGED MISCONDUCTIn November 2023, Roblox provided investors with material information concerning the company's expected revenue for the first quarter of 2024 and fiscal year 2024. This was the first time Roblox offered earnings and revenue guidance to its investors since the company went public in 2021. Roblox's statements included, among other things, that Roblox expected $4.14 billion to $4.28 billion of "bookings" in fiscal year 2024-reflecting 25%-27% annual growth-and $3.3 billion to $3.4 billion annual revenue.Then on February 7, 2024, during an earnings call, Roblox reiterated its first quarter 2024 and fiscal year 2024 earnings projections as well as its strength in its new technology and digital economy.On May 9, 2024, Roblox reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2024 and provided updated guidance. Among other things, Roblox advised that the company expects bookings revenue of $870 million to $900 million for the second quarter of 2024, compared to analyst expectations of $929 million, and bookings revenue of $4 billion to $4.1 billion for the full year, significantly lower than the Roblox's earlier forecast of $4.14 billion to $4.28 billion.On this news, Roblox's stock price fell $8.61 per share, or 22.06%, to close at $30.42 per share on May 9, 2024.WHAT CAN I DO?Roblox investors may, no later than August 12, 2024, seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class through Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLPor other counsel, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLPencourages Roblox investors who have suffered significant losses to contact the firm directly to acquire more information. The class action complaint against Roblox, Li v. Roblox Corp., et al., Case No. 24-cv-03484, is filed in the United States District Court for the Norther District of California.CLICK HERETO SIGN UP FOR THE CASE OR GO TO: https://www.ktmc.com/new-cases/roblox-corporation?utm_source=PR&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=rblx&mktm=r WHO CAN BE A LEAD PLAINTIFF?A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of all class members in directing the litigation. The lead plaintiff is usually the investor or small group of investors who have the largest financial interest and who are also adequate and typical of the proposed class of investors. The lead plaintiff selects counsel to represent the lead plaintiff and the class and these attorneys, if approved by the court, are lead or class counsel. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision of whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff.ABOUT KESSLER TOPAZ MELTZER & CHECK, LLPKessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLPprosecutes class actions in state and federal courts throughout the country and around the world. The firm has developed a global reputation for excellence and has recovered billions of dollars for victims of fraud and other corporate misconduct. All of our work is driven by a common goal: to protect investors, consumers, employees and others from fraud, abuse, misconduct and negligence by businesses and fiduciaries. The complaint in this action was not filed by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP. For more information about Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLPplease visit www.ktmc.com CONTACT:Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLPJonathan Naji, Esq.(484) 270-1453280 King of Prussia RoadRadnor, PA 19087info@ ktmc.com May be considered attorney advertising in certain jurisdictions. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.SOURCE: Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 12:00:24 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 472 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 HONG KONG, HONG KONG / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Amidst the wave of the digital economy, WikiBit, as an excellent blockchain regulatory information query platform, has officially become a member of the British Blockchain Association (BBA). Leveraging its multi-dimensional public data accumulated from years of deep industry engagement, WikiBit provides all-in-one information query services to over 10 million users in more than 170 countries and regions worldwide with its robust technical capabilities and professional service team. Committed to offering the most comprehensive, accurate, and latest information support, WikiBit aids users in safely investing in the blockchain industry. As a member of the British Blockchain Association, WikiBit will further enhance its information regulatory service advantages, helping investors find the most suitable blockchain trading projects and platforms.The BBA is the UK's first national organization that encourages and promotes the adoption of blockchain technology across the public sector, private sector, and the third sector. It is one of the world's largest blockchain associations, dedicated to driving blockchain innovation and application. The association brings together top-tier blockchain industry think tanks globally, with members spanning six continents, boasting strong industry influence and resource networks.WikiBit's inclusion will inject new vitality into the association, collectively promoting the healthy development of the blockchain industry with its powerful blockchain regulatory information query services. Professor Naseem Naqvi, founder and chairman of the BBA, has stated, "The swelling ranks of partners and members from around the world are joining us. We aim to connect governments, academics, businesses, startups, investors, and venture capitalists to drive the adoption of blockchain technology in the UK." Additionally, as a member, WikiBit will actively participate in the BBA's Global Universities Forum (BBA SF) and engage in deep collaborations with universities and research institutions to together drive blockchain technology innovation and application by way of utilizing its blockchain regulatory information database.Looking ahead, WikiBit is poised to host exhibitions in Europe, and the BBA as a co-organizer will fully support WikiBit's growth in the European region. Meanwhile, WikiBit will continue to collect professional data and other information on the global blockchain industry, providing users with more comprehensive, accurate, and transparent blockchain regulatory information query services.The renowned blockchain regulatory information query platform WikiBit has officially become a member of the British Blockchain Association (BBA). It will initiate in-depth collaboration between the two parties in multiple fields, such as technology development and talent cultivation to jointly drive blockchain technology innovation and application, explore the latest developments in blockchain technology, and improve the standards of regulatory information query services. In the meantime, both parties will join hands to develop more efficient and secure solutions, providing strong support for the healthy development of the industry.Media ContactCompany Name: WIKIBIT CO. LTD Contact Person: Bob Email: wikibit@ wikiglobal.com Country: China City: Hong Kong Website: https://www.wikibit.com SOURCE: WIKIBIT CO. LTD PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 19:32:32 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 484 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Mr. Zhong's Elevation From Managing Director To Partner Follows A Decade Of Service To The Private Equity FirmPITTSBURGH, PA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / 3 Rivers Capital LLC ("3RC") has promoted Michael Zhong to the position of Partner, joining Managing Partner Rob Carskadden and Partner Dale Buckwalter in the leadership circle of the Pittsburgh-based private equity firm.Michael Zhong, 3 Rivers CapitalMr. Zhong joined 3 Rivers Capital in 2015 as an Associate before being named Vice President in 2017 and Director in 2021. He was promoted to Managing Director in 2023, where he became responsible for business development and deal sourcing, deal execution, capital relationships, and portfolio management. Headquartered in the 3 Rivers Capital Dallas-Fort Worth offices, Mr. Zhong will continue to serve in his lead transaction role as Partner.During his tenure with 3 Rivers Capital, Mr. Zhong helped lead the firm's ongoing investments into service sectors including healthcare, industrial services and niche manufacturing. Portfolio acquisitions completed under Mr. Zhong's leadership include Amazing Care Home Health Services, AGS Automotive Solutions and the Blue Chip Group, where he also serves on its Board of Directors.Mr. Zhong began his career in finance with Discover Financial Services where he was involved in strategic business transformation within the company's consumer banking and lending operations. Mr. Zhong earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics with a minor in Business from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree at Carnegie Mellon University-Tepper School of Business."Throughout his nearly decade with 3 Rivers Capital, Michael has played an instrumental role in partnering with family and entrepreneur-owned growth businesses and has helped our portfolio companies achieve continued growth. Michael's contributions to 3 Rivers Capital are numerous and varied, always exhibiting strong business acumen and leadership skills. We are extremely proud to announce Michael's promotion to Partner and look forward to the many contributions he will be making to the firm in his new role," said Mr. Carskadden."I am grateful that Rob Carskadden and Dale Buckwalter offered me a chance to join the 3RC team in 2015. Since then, it has been a privilege to work with our team at 3RC, as well as the amazing people at our portfolio companies. I am energized each day thinking about the different ways to grow our portfolio companies and drive investor returns and look forward to continuing doing so with our outstanding team," said Mr. Zhong.About 3 Rivers Capital:3 Rivers Capital is a private equity firm focused on control acquisitions of small businesses with EBITDA between $3-10M. Since its founding in 2005, 3 Rivers Capital has built expertise in acquiring family and entrepreneur-owned businesses that present a clear and compelling opportunity to create significant value. 3 Rivers Capital adds value through active ownership and supportive partnerships with highly motivated management teams. For more information on 3 Rivers Capital please visit 3 Rivers Capital.# # #CONTACT:Steve SyattSSA Public Relations steve@ ssapr.com (818) 222-4000SOURCE: 3 Rivers Capital PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-11 00:45:28 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 748 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 PORT HUENEME, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / The 4th annual Hueneme Beach "Show and Shine Car Show," held on June 10, 2024, was a special event that brought together car enthusiasts from the Central Coast to enjoy an afternoon of live music and a stunning array of more than 100 classic, modern, lowrider, and exotic cars. This free showcase of unique vehicles served to benefit the Port Hueneme Police Explorers who organized and hosted this daylong event."The Port Hueneme Police Explorers Program thrives on community spirit and support as we continue to teach future leaders in Law Enforcement and other professions," said Frank Montelongo of the Port Hueneme Police Department. "On behalf of the Port Hueneme Police Explorers we would like to thank every single car club, solo rider, car enthusiast and community member alike, who continue to support our program and the Hueneme Beach Car Show where all proceeds go back to our non-profit organization. Next year will be our 5th year anniversary and we look forward to putting on another great event for our community." Port Hueneme Police Explorers receiving CBF Check. The City of Port Hueneme and the Port of Hueneme support the Police Explorers program, which provides high school-aged youth with firsthand experience in law enforcement careers and helps them establish essential skills and values such as character development, physical fitness, good citizenship, and patriotism. City of Port Hueneme Mayor Misty Perez and President of the Oxnard Harbor District Celina Zacarias had the honor of presenting a donation check for $5,000 from the joint port/city Community Benefit Fund to the Port Hueneme Police Explorers Program."The Hueneme Beach Car Show is much more than a showcase of polished cars and chrome; it's a celebration of community and is a testament to the power of shared passions," said Celina Zacarias, President of the Oxnard Harbor District, which owns the Port of Hueneme. "As the President of the Oxnard Harbor Commissioners for the Port of Hueneme, I am proud to see the Port's commitment to fostering connections that extend beyond our docks and into the heart of our city. This event inspires our youth to pursue their dreams with the same vigor and dedication that car enthusiasts put into preserving these beautiful machines." This annual event was a tremendous success, bringing the community together for a day of fun, admiration for automotive excellence, and support for a worthy cause. The City of Port Hueneme and the Port of Hueneme look forward to continuing this tradition and supporting the Police Explorers program in the years to come.(Left to Right) Celina Zacarias, President of the Oxnard Harbor District and Misty Perez, Mayor of the City of Port Hueneme. "The Hueneme Beach Car Show is so important to our community for many reasons. It provides an opportunity for our community to come together but it also supports our Police Explorer's Program which helps our youth develop into future leaders in our community," said Misty Perez, Mayor of the City of Port Hueneme.About the Port of Hueneme The Port of Hueneme is one of the most productive and efficient commercial trade gateways for niche cargo on the West Coast. Five locally elected Port Commissioners govern the Port. The Port consistently ranks among the top ten U.S. Ports for automobiles and fresh produce. Port operations support the community by bringing $2.8 billion in economic activity and creating 24,997 trade-related jobs. Trade through the Port of Hueneme generates more than $236 million in direct and related state and local taxes, which fund vital community services. In 2017, the Port of Hueneme became the first Port in California to become Green Marine certified and was voted the Greenest Port in the U.S. at the Green Shipping Summit.To learn more about the Community Benefit Fund visit: https://www.portofhueneme.org/cbf About the City of Port HuenemeThe City of Port Hueneme (pronounced "Why-nee-mee") is a unique community along Ventura County's Gold Coast just south of the City of Oxnard and Channel Islands Harbor. Port Hueneme is unique because of its rich history, culture, and traditions, dating back to the Chumash Indians who made their home here for centuries and because of its long-established, close relationship with the Port, U.S. Navy's Port Hueneme and Point Mugu naval facilities. For more information visit: https://www.ci.port-hueneme.ca.us/ Press Contact Letitia AustinPublic & Government Relations Manager laustin@ portofh.org (805) 816-8324SOURCE: Port of Hueneme PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 19:17:39 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 700 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 MIAMI, FL / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 /In the competitive world of business, prestigious awards celebrate the best and brightest from regional to international stages. Among these, the Global100 Reputation Awards stands out for its inclusiveness, category diversity, and global reach.What Sets Global100 Reputation Awards Apart?Global100 Reputation Awardsaccepts entries from businesses and influencers worldwide, regardless of industry, size, or location. This inclusiveness has helped it earn a place among the top business award globally. The program is open to entities that operate nationally or regionally, not just globally.Criteria for Selection: From Local Heroes to Global LeadersFinal candidates for the Global100 Reputation Awards are evaluated based on:Consistently providing a positive customer service experienceBuilding positive, reliable, and long-term relationships with their customers or audiencePromoting innovative brand management, effective marketing practices, and new communication approachesDemonstrating a stellar reputation that sets an example for others in their industriesCelebrating Excellence: A Brief HistoryThe award has been on the international stage since 2011, with ceremonies held in various countries, including Europe, Dubai, and CIS countries. Over 7,500 winners have received their trophies during this period.In 2021, a new chapter began as the project launched in the United States. Since then, the award has held multiple annual ceremonies in the U.S., accepting entries from around the world. To date, the international award in the U.S. has received over 30,000 nominations from 20 countries.Oksana Koval, a Board Member of the Global100 Reputation Awards, states,"For over 15 years, I have assisted international businesses in building a sustainable global reputation, knowing that a strong reputation is a key asset. I have served as a PR Director, an independent International PR Advisor, and a PR and Marketing expert for various companies operating in the CIS, Europe, and the USA. As a Board Member of Global100 Reputation Awards, I ensure transparency in our processes. We have meticulously reviewed over 50,000 nominees, celebrating the best in their fields. Our awards stand out by recognizing not only global market leaders but also small businesses and innovative projects that drive industry growth and development"Top Business Awards Programs GloballyBusinesses and brands have numerous award competitions to enhance their trust and credibility. Here are some of the top business awards programs globally:The "Global100 Reputation Awards" is known for its inclusivity and diversity, honoring businesses and individuals from various backgrounds and fields. Its rigorous and transparent judging process ensures awards are based on merit and objective criteria.The "Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year" celebrates the achievements of the world's most successful and innovative entrepreneurs. With a global reach, its rigorous selection process includes interviews and extensive business analysis, and ceremonies are held in over 60 countries.The "International Business Excellence Awards" honors businesses that demonstrate excellence in innovation, leadership, and performance across multiple industries. It is known for its rigorous judging process and focus on ethical business practices and corporate social responsibility.The "World Business Awards" recognizes excellence in business strategy, innovation, and leadership. Its comprehensive evaluation process considers both quantitative and qualitative factors, focusing on sustainability and social responsibility.The "European Business Awards" aims to recognize and reward innovative businesses across Europe. It is known for its extensive evaluation process and emphasis on promoting best practices and ethical business conduct.Rigorous and Transparent Judging ProcessGlobal100 Reputation Awards distinguishes itself with a rigorous and transparent judging process. Matthew Wilson, another Global100 Award's Board Member, explains, "We ensure an objective evaluation process by forming a hybrid judging panel for each award. Our team consists of both Award's Board Members and independent experts from various industries, ensuring an unbiased assessment of nominees"This commitment to fairness and accuracy has earned the Global100 Reputation Awards a strong reputation for integrity and credibility. By leading in the top business award programs globally, Global100 Reputation Awards continues to make a lasting impact in the world of business awards.Global100 Reputation Awards is one of the highest achievements an entrepreneur, influencer, or business can earn, providing worldwide recognition and opportunities for international growth.Contact information:GLOBAL100 Reputation AwardsWebsite: https://www.global100awards.comEmail:info@global100awards.com SOURCE: GLOBAL100 Reputation Awards PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 11:40:24 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 793 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / As a seasoned entrepreneur and finance strategist,Antonius van de Kerkhof , also known as Tony, has learnt more from his experiences than he ever could from books in school. Below, he shares some of that knowledge and provides a few helpful tips based on his own journey.From leaving home at a young age to being a director of 2x broker businesses guiding 16 people, is a testament to the transformative power of continuous improvement. But how can we achieve continuous improvement?Read on for Tony's tips to further not only your personal development but also your financial success and business growth.How to Achieve Constant Improvement: 3 Powerful Tips1. Embrace a Culture of ImprovementMy whole life I never really felt good enough. What came from a place of insecurity and insufficiency developed into a sense of fulfillment, falling in love with the journey of becoming better than I was the week or month before. My life's been a roller coaster, from becoming a dad at the age of 22 to climbing the corporate ladder, moving to self-employed, and now being a business owner. This ride has shaped my belief that improvement is a constant process applicable to all aspects of life. Adopting this mindset forms the foundation for success on a personal, financial, and business level.2. Challenge the Fixed MindsetI absolutely dispute the notion that individuals are born with fixed strengths and weaknesses. People, as they get older, develop a fear of failure, self-imposing a barrier that hinders their own growth. As toddlers, we never think twice that just because we can crawl, this doesn't mean we can't walk. I cannot urge people enough to embrace learning without fear of judgment as adults. Every skill deemed out of reach can be acquired through hard work and practice. Never before has so much learning been at our fingertips (Youtube/TikTok) that the only real barrier to change is within us. It's the theme of my whole book!3. Learn from Failure and Embrace ItFailure is an inevitable part of the improvement journey. As Henry Ford said, "The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing." Rather than seeing failure as a setback, see it as finding another way of not doing something. Write down what you learned and it's not a failure it's a lesson. It's important to learn from failures, adapt, and persevere. Motivation ebbs and flows, and usually disappears during the lessons failure teaches us, but when we see it for what it is and throw in some discipline, we can stay on track to live the life we want to smile about when we're old.How Antonius Serves High-Net-Worth Individuals and the Next Generation of EntrepreneursTony is currently working on a book that encapsulates the fundamental pillars of personal development. The book serves as a practical guide, offering a "How To" section after each main point. This structure empowers individuals to take actionable steps toward developing essential skills, making self-improvement accessible for those unsure of where to begin.Teaming up with Luke (his business partner of almost 8 years), Tony runs theFinance Strategist program , a revolutionary approach to financial improvement. Their methods, unlike traditional brokers, focus on proper and clever use of finance. "Anytime you've seen someone in the news that has 5-10+ properties, it's usually the methods we describe that get them there. Failure to plan is planning to fail," says Tony.To ensure accessibility to valuable insights, Tony also developed theBroker Course . This course, available even to non-Finance Family brokers, provides tips, tools, and methods perfected over years at an affordable price. It aims to help aspiring entrepreneurs overcome challenges and understand how AI can revolutionize the finance industry. In addition, the Advanced Finance Strategy course details how people need to use lending policies in the right way to achieve large property portfolios.All of Tony's initiatives find a home in the Victo Delta Kilo - Be Better app, available on theApple App StoreandGoogle Play . Inspired by the principles of "Atomic Habits," Antonius underscores the importance of simplicity and ease in delivering knowledge. The app serves as a convenient pocket guide, making continuous improvement more accessible than ever.Final WordsBased on his own experiences not just in life but also in business, Antonius van de Kerkhof offers a roadmap for individuals seeking success in personal development, financial endeavors, and entrepreneurial pursuits. By embracing improvement as a core principle, Tony paves the way for a more empowered and accomplished future.To learn more about Tony's approach, visit theVicto Delta Kilo websiteor connect directly with him onInstagramorLinkedIn .Media Contact:VICTOR DELTA KILO https://victordeltakilo.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyvandekerkhof/ SOURCE: VICTOR DELTA KILO PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 14:07:11 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 700 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 .pudgy Web3 domain holders ditch password-based logins and gain the ability to sign into the digital world using their own custom identities.BRUSSELS, BELGIUM / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Unstoppable Domains , a leading provider of Web3 domains and digital identity solutions, today announced a groundbreaking integration with Pudgy Penguins, allowing users to accessPudgy Worldusing their .pudgy domain names. This feature marks a significant step forward in virtual world accessibility and user experience by enabling single sign-on capabilities via a user-owned custom digital identity.This integration offers users a suite of benefits, not only by adding a layer of ownership to their Pudgy World experience but also by providing simplified access that does not rely on Web2 credentials via Google or Apple to sign in. Users can now access the platform using their personalized .pudgy domains so that their engagement in the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem more fully supports user privacy and autonomy. This new login method ensures seamless access without the need for traditional passwords.With thousands of .pudgy domains minted in just three months, this integration's popularity demonstrates strong community adoption and enthusiasm for this new approach to virtual world access.Sandy Carter, COO of Unstoppable Domains, said, "This latest integration with Pudgy Penguins empowers users to truly own their digital identities and control their virtual experience. By logging in with .pudgy domains, users are freed from the constraints of Web2, and now they have a fully unified experience across Pudgy World. I'm thrilled that users are gaining greater sovereignty over their digital selves, and I look forward to seeing how users shape this new reality." The .pudgy domains serve as unique identifiers that allow users to express their individuality within the Pudgy Penguins community. With this integration, personalization extends beyond being a username, as it gains the ability to represent the user's digital self in the virtual world. Unlike traditional logins, .pudgy domains offer unparalleled ownership and control, ensuring long-term control over their digital identities; It's a passport to exclusive chats, events, and activities, enhancing user engagement and making every interaction more meaningful.As the Pudgy ecosystem continues to expand, .pudgy domains will be adaptable to new features and functionalities to ensure that users' digital identities will remain relevant and valuable as the virtual world evolves.Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins, added, "We're thrilled to offer our community a more unified experience through this integration with Unstoppable Domains. As we pioneer the physical and digital collectible space, we believe our owners and enthusiasts deserve the ability to customize every aspect of their journey - including owning their digital identity and content. Being able to login with their .pudgy domains provides a uniquely Web3 experience, which is perfect because, in the virtual world, individuality and ownership are hugely important." Looking ahead, both companies are exploring additional features, including profile badges for .pudgy domain users and expanded integrations within the Pudgy ecosystem.The .pudgy domain login feature will launch in Q4 of this year, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of virtual world access and digital identity management.For more information, please visit: unstoppabledomains.com -end-Press Contactpress@ unstoppabledomains.com About Unstoppable DomainsLaunched in 2018, Unstoppable Domains is a Web3 domain name provider and digital identity platform working to onboard the world onto Web3. Unstoppable Domains offers Web3 domains minted on the blockchain that give people full ownership and control of their digital identity with no renewal fees. With Unstoppable Domains, people can replace lengthy alphanumeric crypto wallet addresses with a human-readable name and log into and transact with more than 720 apps, wallets, exchanges and marketplaces. The company was named by Forbes as one of America's Best Startup Employers in 2022.For more information, please visit: https://unstoppabledomains.com/ About Pudgy Penguins,Pudgy Penguins is dedicated to making Web3 accessible to everyone by creating innovative products that enable seamless onboarding. Their focus on community empowerment and building brand awareness has made them the leading IP in the Web3 space while also disrupting the traditional IP sphere. They're committed to impacting the everyday consumer and shaping the future of IP, Web3, and beyond. Visitpudgypenguins.comto learn more.Instagram: @pudgypenguinsTwitter: @pudgypenguinsYouTube: @pudgypenguinsofficialContact:Jon Reader+447816570243SOURCE: Unstoppable Domains PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-10 14:20:32 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 879 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 ST. JOHN'S, NL / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2024 / Vulcan Minerals Inc. ("the Company" - "Vulcan" TSX-V:VUL), is pleased to provide the following exploration update on its 100% owned Colchester/Springdale and Red Cross Lake projects in central Newfoundland.Highlights:IP survey underway at McNeilly zoneEnvironmental Approval for Red Cross Lake accessColchester Springdale (Copper-Gold)Further to our ongoing work on this project, the Company has commenced an Induced Polarization (IP) survey at the McNeilly zone where the Company has had recent drilling success in expanding the volcanic massive sulphide copper-gold deposit (see news January 12, 2024). Previous IP surveys by the Company and historic operators have shown a positive correlation to copper zones. McNeilly appears to exhibit more than one copper zone based on recent drilling in 2023. This survey will help distinguish the trend of these zones. The survey will tie into a previous IP survey on the Colchester main deposit to the north and help establish the relationship between the two deposits. The survey consists of 20 line kilometers and will assist in directing further drilling.The Company wishes to acknowledge the financial support of the Junior Exploration Assistance Program and the Provincial Critical Mineral Assistance Program administered by the Dept of Industry, Energy and Technology of NL in the amount of a $150,000 grant towards exploration work carried out in 2023 on the Colchester/Springdale project.Red Cross Lake (Nickel-Copper)As part of a proposed exploration program at Red Cross Lake, the Company applied for environmental approval for a river crossing at the outflow of Red Cross Lake to permit access for exploration and drilling activities. The project was registered with the NL Dept of Environment and Climate Change on May 09, 2024 and released from further review with conditions on June 20, 2024.President Patrick Laracy commented, "We are active on our 100% owned Newfoundland projects as we add value to each of them notwithstanding the bear market conditions our industry is currently experiencing. Value added today will be leveraged in more favorable markets in the future. These projects are all road accessible resulting in very cost-effective exploration. We plan to drill either the Colchester/Springdale project or Red Cross Lake this year. However, both projects warrant drilling in due course." About VulcanVulcan Minerals is a precious and base metals exploration company based in St. John's, NL. The Company has strategic land positions in multiple active Newfoundland exploration and development belts. The Company has leveraged its exploration exposure in much of this land position through equity ownership of other explorers obtained by way of option and royalty agreements. It also owns approximately 30 per cent of the shares in Atlas Salt Inc. (TSXV:SALT). Atlas Salt is currently developing the Great Atlantic salt mine in western Newfoundland.Patrick J. Laracy, P. Geo., President, is the qualified person who has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this news release as defined in National Instrument 43-101.We seek safe harbour.For information please contact:Patrick J. Laracy, P. Geo.CEO and President(709) 754-3186 info@ vulcanminerals.cawww.vulcanminerals.ca 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 the referenced exploration program 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 the referenced assessments and analysis. 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: Vulcan Minerals Inc The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has said it will sanction airlines that schedule departure times deceitfully. The Acting Director-General of NCAA, Chris Najomo, made the assertion in a statement signed by the Director of Public Affairs/Consumer Protection, Michael Achimugu, on Tuesday. The NCAA warned the airlines to desist from the infraction or face dire regulatory actions. The NCAA now runs a zero-tolerance approach to regulatory infractions. Ease of doing business is the crux of the D-Gs action plan for the NCAA. In line with that action plan, he has made processes for licensing easy for operators. The time to secure AOC is now shorter and less cumbersome than it used to be in the past. The NCAA, therefore, expects reciprocity from airlines. Chief of which is world-class services to passengers, he said. Mr Najomo was quoted as saying that if the NCAA was enabling a business-friendly environment for operators, then the operators must satisfy the passengers with superior services. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later It has come to our notice that some airlines are being reported for advertising deceitful departure times. The NCAA regulation says no airline shall display deceitful passenger departure time at its counter, advert material or on its website. We want to make it very clear that the D-GCA has directed monitoring and offenders will face serious regulatory actions, Mr Najomo said. He further stated that the authority believes in safety, discipline, and economic regulation, evident in the recent suspension of ten permits for Non Commercial Flights (PHCF) holders for failing to comply with the recertification advisory issued in April 2024. Speaking about the ease of doing business environment at the NCAA, Mr Najomo said the ease of business is an area the agency would continue to improve. This is evident in our high score on the Presidential Enabling Business Council (PEBEC) ranking. Recently our sister agency scored 96 per cent but the NCAA scored 98.5 per cent which is an extremely high score. This is building from the commendable score of 71.04 per cent the NCAA scored during this years ICAO Security Audit. The numbers are improving and we will continue to do what we can to make the industry safer, and more secure for passengers and stakeholders, he assured. On the difficulty of airline refund processes, Mr Najomo said all airline refunds must be completed without undue delays and should conclude in 14 working days regardless of the mode of purchase of the tickets. On the suspension of ten operators PHCF licenses, he explained that they had been advised to commence the recertification process since April 2024, but they refused to comply, leaving the agency with no option but to sanction them. Mr Najomo also discussed a recent publication, among other accusations, alleging that the law surrounding the suspension of 10 PHCFs was not in vogue. Describing the allegations, which he believed to be based on ignorance or mischief, as fluid and unfounded, Mr Najomo explained that his agencys actions were guided by the Civil Aviation Act 2022. READ ALSO: Abuja man who attempted suicide risks one year in jail Official He said that the NCAAs action was part of its mandate to ensure compliance with the civil aviation law establishing it and the attendant regulations. To sanitise the sector, the NCAA reaffirmed its stance to rid the industry of illegal charter operators who might have inspired the publication. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) has recognised Farooq Oreagba, who stole the show at the 2024 Ojude Oba Festival, as an Honorary Ambassador for the Council. Among the many eye-catching attendees at the Ojude Oba festival this year, Oreagba stole the show. Clad in a flamboyant green and yellow Asooke Agbada, he rode majestically on horseback, a photo of which went viral and earned him the title King of Steeze. Obi Asika, Director General of NCAC, broke the news on his Instagram page while displaying the Certificate of Recognition awarded to Mr Oreagba. He wrote: I could not be happier to announce him as an Hon Ambassador for the National Council for Arts and Culture @ncac_nigeria and celebrate him and his boundless energy and spirit. He is now the King of Steeze and brought global attention to #OjudeOba, the essential traditional festival of Ijebu Ode that celebrates Awujale. He has been getting on his horse for at least the last decade, dressed in magnificent asoke and representing his family and culture. We discussed what made this year different and why the reaction. Was it the photographer, was it the festival, or was it just Gods time? I believe it was just meant to be. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later My brother is a fighter diagnosed with terminal cancer. He has been fighting it for a decade and has never been anything but positive. He has been an inspiration to us, his friends, and now we are sharing him with the world. He represents all that is good about Nigeria. Please celebrate himhe is a true Nigerian original! I know he is braver than almost anyone from how he confronts his pain and has always repped Naija since I have known him; congrats again, and thanks for all you do. Ojude Oba The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 2024 Ojude Oba Festival was recently held and was characterised by its usual glitz, glamour, and cultural resonance. This year, the festival honours Awujale, the king of Ijebu-Ode and celebrates the rich traditions of the Ijebu people, drawing notable figures from near and far. However, the Ogun State-born Oreagba stood out for his striking appearance and compelling personal story, as his unique fashion style stole the show. He inadvertently became the face of the festival as he made a grand entrance on a decorated horse, dressed in a green and lemon agbada with a matching cap. Mr Oreagba exuded elegance and style as he adorned himself with red coral beads and a gold crossbody chain, with his emboldened tattoos, a big tobacco pipe, an Apple wristwatch, and stylish sunglasses. His pictures and videos have since been trending on social media, as he embodied uncommon elegance and style in showcasing Nigerian culture to the world. NAN also reports that Mr Oreagba, a former Head of Strategy & Business Development at the Nigerian Stock Exchange, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma and carcinoma, a cancer of the skin and bone marrow, in 2014. He had to leave his role at NSE to tend to his health, and after two years of battling the killer disease, he was declared cancer-free and healthy enough to go back to work. Mr Oreagbas stylish and endearing presence at the 2024 Ojude Oba festival portrayed hope, courage and the indefatigable Nigerian spirit. He is currently the Managing Director and CEO of NG Clearing. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print As part of efforts to celebrate and honour remarkable young Africans, the Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Ogunwusi, is set to host 100 outstanding youths under the aegis of the Royal African Young Leadership Forum (RAYLF) Awards. RAYLF, an Ooni initiative that recognises young Nigerians, will host its fourth annual gathering themed Africa of the Future: Better Together. The week-long event, from 9 to 14 July, will bring together 100 exceptional young leaders from 39 African countries who have significantly contributed to governance, innovation, entrepreneurship, creative culture, and academics. Addressing the media in Lagos on Wednesday, the Ooni of Ife emphasised the importance of Africas young population in achieving the continents Vision 2063. He stated that one of his greatest legacies is bringing young minds together to realise that nobody will build the African continent for us except we make it ourselves, starting from our dear country, Nigeria. He said: Five years ago, we came up with the concept of Royal African Young Leadership Forum (RAYLF), a forum for young minds both in the private sector and in the public sector, and also leaders that carry the empathy and things of social relevance on their head and also have to make a vibrant Africa better for every one of us. For me, royalty needs to be redefined, and to the glory of God, I am always doing my best to redefine royalty. Royalty has to do with outstanding leadership and good followers and getting the minds of people, especially young minds, to make Africa a different vocal point. RAYLF is a powerful and formidable platform, and I dont joke with it at all. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later For us, RAYLF in 2024 is to consider how the continent can improve for everyone. Another project that will emerge from the forum is the Royal African Chamber of Commerce (RACC), which will bring about African Leopards. African leopards are the ones who turn things around both in the private and public sectors. What we are doing is to create a very formidable platform out of Africa, he said. RALF He said RAYLF aims for sustainable development and prosperity across the continent. RAYLF started five years ago in 2019 and has since awarded some Nigerians like Guinness record holder Tunde Onakoya, Nollywood actress Chika Ike, 2020 BBNaija winner Olamilekan Al-Khalifa (aka Laycon), among many others. The Ooni of Ife emphasised that by empowering and engaging Africas youth, the continent can harness their creativity and drive to unlock its full potential. He added: As the world increasingly looks to Africa as the next major economic frontier, initiatives like RAYLF highlight the continents vibrant future, fueled by the energy and innovation of its young leaders. Activities A series of high-profile events and activities will unfold over a week, starting with pre-event activities and a state dinner at the Lagos State House on 9 July. Highlights of the week-long invite include visiting the Dangote Refinery in Ogun State and meetings with the governor of Ogun State and former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Participants will also embark on a cultural and educational tour in Ile-Ife, featuring a visit to Obafemi Awolowo University. This will be followed by interviews, a portrait session for the awardees, and a dinner with His Majesty, the Ooni of Ife. The main event will spotlight the RAYLF Awards Ceremony, the N1B WOMB project fund launch in collaboration with SMEDAN, and the official launch of African Leopards, a new initiative. A state dinner in Oshogbo, Osun State, will follow. The forum will conclude with participants returning to Lagos for their departure. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Nollywood actor, Yomi Fabiyi, has renewed his call for justice for his colleague, Olanrewaju James, also known as Baba Ijesha, who is serving a five-year jail term for raping the foster daughter of his female colleague, Adekola Adekanya, also known as Princess. On 14 July 2022, PREMIUM TIMES reported that Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo of Ikeja Special Offences Court convicted and sentenced the comic actor for raping a 14-year-old minor. Baba Ijeshas rape trial lasted over 12 months since his arrest and arraignment in June 2021. The five charges against the actor included indecent treatment of a child, defilement of a child, sexual assault by penetration, attempted sexual assault by penetration, and sexual assault. These offences violate sections 135, 137, 261, 262, and 263 of the Lagos State Criminal Law 2015. The actor pleaded not guilty to all charges against him before he was sentenced. In July 2021, Princess testified in court that she had met and dated Baba Ijesha. The rape issue caused a rift between them (Princess and Baba Ijesha). Yoruba actors were also divided in their stance concerning the case against their colleagues. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later At the time, Princess received support from actress Iyabo Ojo, Prophetess Adetoun Onajobi, and others. Meanwhile, Baba Ijesha had the backing of some well-known actors, particularly Fabiyi. In 2021, Fabiyi led a peaceful protest against the comic actors detention, which the Lagos Court of Appeal upheld in June. In April, PREMIUM TIMES reported that Baba Ijesha filed an appeal to contest his five-year imprisonment given by the Lagos State High Court. Renewed call for justice In a recent development, Fabiyi, in a video shared on his Instagram page, accused Princess and actress Iyabo of hypocrisy regarding Baba Ijeshas sentence. He challenged Princess and Iyabo to provide the CCTV hard drive footage that captured Baba Ijeshas sexual assault on the 14-year-old. He said: If Iyabo Ojo and Princess are inevitable, they should release the CCTV hard disk. The Police confirmed in court they couldnt access it due to a lack of network. Why was the Police denied access to the primary evidence (the CCTV hard disk)? Theres no secondary evidence, either. I firmly believe that if they reviewed the CCTV footage, they would see Damilola Adekola present in the room, engaging in illicit acts with the girl. At the same time, Princess was aware of their sexual activities against the minor and planned Baba Ijeshas arrest. If confident and truthful with the Lagos State Government, they should provide the girls birth certificate and age. Currently, neither the court nor the police have evidence of her true age, yet they hold Baba Ijesha accountable simply because she (the victim) is not yet eighteen. Police Furthermore, Fabiyi urged the police to rearrest Damilola Adekola and Princesss gateman, Okele, because the victim accused them of defiling her. Additionally, the outspoken actor revealed a plan for solemn protest over Baba Ijeshas sentence. Damilola Adekola knew the girl was an adult, so he was released. As an adult, she may face jail for willingly involving herself and setting up Baba Ijesha for misfortune. Baba Ijesha has the right to his sexual feelings. He was lured into flirting; Princess invited him for filming and placed the girl as his acting partner, instructing her to seduce him. If she is an adult, she is an accomplice. Iyabo Ojo and Princess, if your allegations against Baba Ijesha are true, use the same energy to demand that the police and Lagos State Government prosecute Damilola Adekola and Okele in court. After all, sperm was found in the girl a few days after Baba Ijeshas arrest, as confirmed by the police investigation. The girl accused no one else of having sexual relations with her except Damilola Adekola and the Gateman, Okele. Princess knew about their misconduct a year before she set up Baba Ijesha. You all covered it up. I demand an explanation regarding why the law allows them to walk freely on the streets. Suppose the girl is indeed fourteen years old. In that case, it implies that Princess chose to remain silent and cover up for a sexual predator who remains free, while your focus was solely on Baba Ijesha, whose intention was not to touch the girl but was invited by Princess to act in a film, he stated. Age According to Fabiyi, the court and police were unaware of the victims age before Baba Ijesha was sentenced to prison. He challenged Iyabo and Princess to produce the victims birth certificate to verify her age at the time of the alleged rape by Baba Ijesha. The actor said: Throughout the trial and appeal process, there was no clear legal evidence of agenot a single birth certificate; age was based merely on hearsay. Judges will continue unjustly punishing people when vital documentary evidence is withheld from the court, and the truth obscured. Baba Ijesha has the right to have sexual feelings, and flirting is a part of social culture. However, it becomes a crime when flirting involves a minor or a child. Moral offences should be distinguished from criminal offences. I detest injustice! The Court of Appeal, last week, found Baba Ijesha innocent and dismissed two charges relating to heresy or penetration when the girl was seven years old. Regarding the remaining charges from 2021 (which were alleged to be a setup), it was claimed to be an organised crime designed to ensnare Baba Ijesha unfairly. The prerequisites for such actions were undermined, and a legal basis was lacking. Allegations of torture, child pornography, threats to life, entrapment, etc., were used to extract an illegal confession. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Although not an African crisis, the Israel-Palestine conflict does affect the continent. However, not all African Union (AU) member states see the need to be involved in searching for solutions. They consider it an external issue despite its global context and the threat it poses to Africa. Should African leaders play a role in the international effort to silence the guns in Gaza? And could this bolster the AUs growing global agency? The conflict already directly and indirectly affects Africas economic, diplomatic and security landscape. The solidarity shown by citizens has added to an already tense relationship between security forces and protesters in various countries. In Kenya, police disrupted a pro-Palestine protest with heavy-handedness despite prior permission for the demonstration. Similar protests have been registered in countries like Egypt and South Africa. On top of the multiple effects of COVID-19, climate change and the Russia-Ukraine war, a protracted Middle East crisis could further impede Africas recovery from slow economic growth. This could worsen state-citizen relations and increase weak states vulnerability to upheaval, impacting political stability. Already, trade disruptions, oil and gas price volatility and rising import costs are a reality. Egypts economy, which relies heavily on tourism, remittances and revenues from the Suez Canal, has been hit hard. The Gaza crisis also complicates relations among African countries, between the AU and Israel, and between Africa and Israels major allies. As with the Russia-Ukraine war, the conflict is deepening divisions in the AU between those who support Israels right to self-defence and those who prioritise protecting Palestinian lives. The AUs challenge is to balance its longstanding support for Palestine with the strengthening of relations between Israel and some African countries before last October when Hamas attacked Israel. Another challenge is that the crisis diverts the attention of development partners and the international community away from Africas needs. The United States (US), Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have been central to diplomatic efforts to resolve Sudans civil war, which has killed over 15,000 people and exposed nearly a million to catastrophic hunger. Since the Gaza war began, their focus on resolving Sudans crisis and other African insecurities has waned. As attention shifts from Africas crises, deployment and funding of peacekeeping operations to parts of the continent could also be hampered. Despite the recent adoption of United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 2719 and its potential to improve funding for African peace missions, resources for peace and security efforts are bound to be limited. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Increased military spending in support of Israel by the topmost UN contributor, the US, perpetuates military rather than diplomatic responses to the conflict. It will add to the worrying rise in global military spending that hovered around $2.2 trillion in 2023. The impact is already clear in the US Congress cap on funding for UN peacekeeping and the UN Human Rights Council. The enormous cost of reconstruction in Gaza, estimated at $50 billion, could have major implications for Africas stability and development. The situation in Gaza is unfolding at a time when the AUs role as a global actor, envisioned in its Agenda 2063 plan, is increasingly gaining recognition. But to solidify this role, the AU must establish its relevance by contributing answers to multilateral questions. Gaza offers an opportunity for Africa to add to the global search for peace and stability. Unlike its ambiguous response to the Russia-Ukraine war, the AUs position on the Gaza crisis has been clear. AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat condemned the violence and called for an end to hostilities. He has underscored the need for international cooperation to provide humanitarian assistance to Gazans and end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land in line with international resolutions. This stance was reaffirmed at the 37th AU summit, where the issue received enormous attention. Africas leaders condemned Israels offensive and backed South Africas case against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An AU delegation made an oral submission at the ICJ hearings into the legal status of Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories. The AU urged Israel to comply with the ICJs decisions, lift its siege on the Gaza Strip and implement a permanent ceasefire. Despite the AUs longstanding support for Palestine arguably hard-wired into its Pan-African identity the body could play a useful short-term role beyond adding its voice to ceasefire calls. It could engage Hamas and its backers to soften their stance on the release of Israeli hostages. This would go a long way to resolving one of Israels fundamental reasons for the war. The AU could use Israels cordial relationship with most African states to soften Tel Avivs resistance to adopting a ceasefire. In line with Article 7(k) of the AUs Peace and Security Council Protocol, the continental body could consider pressing for enhanced international involvement at the UN level through its diplomatic channels, and the three African members of the Security Council. This could involve support for a robust humanitarian response and diplomatic engagements to avert further escalation of the crisis. These efforts should be led by the AU Assembly and Commission chairs, drawing lessons from the AUs previous engagements in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The initiative could help avert catastrophe in Gaza and its implications for the continent, as well as boost Africas credibility in global affairs. Hubert Kinkoh, Researcher, African Peace and Security Governance, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Addis Ababa (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 formally written to the Nigerian media ombudsman to complain about a Daily Trust report on the Samoa Agreement. The Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, stated this on Wednesday while addressing reporters in Abuja at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting. The federal government insists that that report on the Samoa agreement was misleading, it was false and designed to create confusion in the land. My ministry briefed the Federal Executive Council on all the steps we have taken, including writing to the industrys own ombudsman with a view to drawing the attention of Daily Trust Newspaper about that very misleading report, Mr Idris said. We expect that the industrys ombudsman will look at that dispassionately and FEC will be patient to await the report of the ombudsman. Daily Trust newspaper had claimed in its report that the Samoa Agreement signed by the Nigerian government in June included clauses that mandated Nigeria to support the rights of the LGBTQ community. The Nigerian government, however, denied that the agreement had any such clause and a fact-check by PREMIUM TIMES showed that while the European Union initially wanted the clause included, the final version signed by Nigeria and other countries had no such agreement. In his speech on Wednesday, Mr Idris said the Bola Tinubu administration is approaching the ombudsman because it is committed to press freedom while opposed to falsehood. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later FEC also stated its commitment to media freedom and the freedom of expression in this country. As we have said over time, there is no intention whatsoever for the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to gag the press or be seen in any way working in the way of media freedom or press freedom. The minister concluded that the government is committed to ensuring that the media will continue to operate in an environment that is very friendly and supportive of their work as a strong pillar for the continuous enthronement of democracy in our land. The Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, who also briefed journalists, echoed a similar view as Mr Idris. He said the administration will not tamper with press freedom particularly because the president has been an ardent supporter and believer in press freedom. He is conscious of that, not only press freedom, but fundamental human rights as enshrined in the constitution, Mr Fagbemi added. Background The Samoa Agreement is the legal framework for the European Unions relations with 79 countries. The countries involved in the deal are mostly from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific countries. Daily Trust newspaper reported that the Samoa Agreement signed by the Nigerian government in June included clauses that mandated Nigeria to support the rights of the LGBTQ community. The Nigerian government denied the claim and threatened to sue the newspaper. The newspaper then acknowledged that the report had some lapses and promised to review and take appropriate measures. We have followed with attention what these government officials said and left unsaid, and we will publish that in full for the records. We have also acknowledged lapses in our reporting on this particular matter, pointed out to us by professional colleagues, and we will review and take appropriate measures, Daily Trust said in a subsequent report. Reps wade in On Tuesday, the House of Representatives resolved that the government should suspend the implementation of the Agreement and directed its committees to investigate the alleged controversial and grey areas. That resolution followed a motion jointly moved by Aliyu Madaki (NNPP, Kano) and 88 others on Tuesday. However, hours after the resolution, the House, through its spokesperson, Akin Rotimi (APC, Ekiti), issued a statement, saying the House did not call for the suspension of the implementation of the Agreement. In the statement, Mr Rotimi claimed that the media erroneously reported the outcome of the debate on the Samoa Agreement. It is important to clarify that the House of Representatives did not resolve to call for the suspension of the Agreement nor the suspension of its implementation, as has been erroneously reported by some media houses. Instead, the House resolved to thoroughly scrutinise the Samoa Partnership Agreement for all contentious clauses through legislative hearings, the statement reads in part. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Chief Whip of the Senate, Ali Ndume, has said President Bola Tinubu is not aware that many Nigerians are hungry. Mr Ndume, who represents Borno South Senatorial District, also claimed that President Tinubu has been caged in the Presidential Villa and that some forces are preventing well meaning people from physically discussing the truth with him. The Senate Whip stated this at a briefing with some journalists in his office at the National Assembly complex on Wednesday. Mr President (Bola Tinubu) is not in the picture of what is happening outside the Villa. He has been fenced off and caged. So many of us wont go through the backdoor to engage him. Now they have stopped him from talking and he doesnt have public affairs managers, except that his spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, who writes press statements, Mr Ndume said. He faulted Mr Tinubus government on food security and specifically said that the president is not doing anything on the issue. Nigerians are getting very, very angry. The government is not doing anything about food scarcity and it needs to do something urgently. We dont have a food reserve. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later There is unavailability of food. Food crisis is the worst crisis that any nation can encounter. If we add that to the security crisis, it will be severe, he added. The senator, who is a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as Mr Tinubu, called on the president to adopt proper measures in the fight against food insecurity. The president should wake up, it seems he isnt in the picture of what is happening because he has been caged off. He has been fenced off by plutocrats. READ ALSO: Tinubu directs review of inherited road projects to ensure probity He should open his doors and meet those who will tell him the truth. Unfortunately, the people who will tell him the truth wont struggle to meet him. I am very worried not only for the president himself but myself. During Tuesdays plenary, he co-sponsored a motion to draw the attention of the federal government to the impending food insecurity in the country. After back and forth on the motion, the Senate urged the federal government to immediately address the matter. The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, had also said there is an ongoing plan to distribute about 60 trucks of fertiliser to each state through the governors before the weekend to address food insecurity. Serving senators will also receive two trucks of fertiliser each. In contrast, members of the House of Representatives will receive one each. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Members of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), University of Ibadan chapter, on Tuesday, held a joint protest in Ibadan to press home their demands from the federal government. The protest, which began from the universitys main gate and proceeded towards Ojoo along the Ojoo-UI road, led to a restriction in vehicular movement and ensured many residents were held in hours of traffic. As early as 9:00a.m, the aggrieved university workers came out in large numbers, carrying placards with different inscriptions and demanding an urgent payment of their withheld four-month salaries. Some of the placards read thus: Release our withheld salaries and Release our 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 promotion arrears. Addressing journalists during the protest, chairman of NASU, UI chapter, Oluwafemi Ogunlade Oluwafemi, acknowledged that the protest was as a result of the withheld four months salaries. He said the Federal Government has refused to pay the outstanding salaries since 2020 and all efforts to get the money paid have proved abortive. We are the people working in the university and nobody is in the office. We are the ones that lock the offices, open lecture theatres and compute results. Without us nothing can work in the university, Mr Ogunlade said. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later He added that members salaries were withheld when the administration of immediate President, Muhammadu Buhari invoked the no work, no pay policy during a prolonged strike action in 2022. He urged the government to address the demands and implement a living minimum wage to alleviate Nigerian workers economic burden. The one-day protest is in compliance with the directive of the Joint Action Committee of SSANU that all members stage a nationwide peaceful protest across all state chapters. Recall that university unions went on strike in 2022 because former President Buhari invoked the no-work, no-pay rule. However, when President Bola Tinubu came on board, he pardoned and gave approval that the withheld salaries be paid. but to their dismay, their sister union, ASUU, members were paid while the other non-teaching staff were left out. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), on Tuesday, honoured and unveiled the monument of the first female major-general in the Nigerian Army, late Aderonke Kale. Speaking at the event, the commandant of NDA, John Ochai, said the academy would continue to accord priority to gender equality. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that a lecture in honour of Mrs Kale was held at the academys auditorium in Afaka, Kaduna State. Mr Ochai, a major-general, said the armed forces of Nigeria have a plethora of set skills that women can equally participate in even in combat operations. He assured that the NDA would continue to guarantee equality and inclusiveness to all Nigerians, irrespective of gender, race or religion. Also speaking, Abimbola Amusu, who was the second female major-general in the army, described the late Mrs Kale as a trailblazer. Mrs Amusu, who was the special guest of honour, advised female cadets and officers to remain committed, resolute and leverage on the available opportunities and training for their career progression. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later READ ALSO: Remi Tinubu recieves first Nigerian female graduate of British military academy The high point of the event was a lecture presentation by Feyisara Solebo, a navy captain, on Impact of Traditional Roles on Womens Participation in the Armed Forces: Exploring Gender Stereotypes and Cultural Barriers. Mrs Kale was also the pioneer female Medical Corps Commander in the Nigerian Army. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Speaker of Plateau State House of Assembly, Gabriel Dewan, has inaugurated Daniel Nanlong (APC/Mikang Constituency) as a member of the assembly. Mr Dewan inaugurated the new member during the assembly plenary on Tuesday in Jos. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that nine out of the 16 members who won their cases at the Appeal Court were also sworn in by Mr Dewan on 5 April. Mr Nanlong, the majority leader in the 9th Plateau State House Assembly, is among the seven remaining members-elect that were not inaugurated. The new member, who spoke with journalists after his inauguration, thanked the speaker for the opportunity to represent his people. He promised to work with his colleagues for the good of the legislative arm. I will use my experience for the betterment of the legislative arm. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later I will lend my support to the leadership of the assembly and the executive arm of government. I will also use my experience to work in collaboration with the executive arm to attract investors to the state, he said. Meanwhile, the assembly during the plenary, extended the tenure of the acting Auditor-General of the State, Christy Davou, for another six months. The speaker said Governor Caleb Mutfwang requested the extension to give time to get a substantive auditor-general. Also during plenary, a bill for a law to establish the Office of Attorney General of the state passed second reading. The bill sponsored by Joseph Bukar (APC/Shendam), when passed, would create an organisation to coordinate the activities of the Ministry of Justice. The speaker announced during the plenary that the house had been directed by the National Assembly to create three new standing committees. We are to create a Committee on Food Security and Nutrition, a Committee on Traditional Matters, and a Standing Committee on Election Matters. The committee on food security and nutrition is with immediate effect, and (we) will inaugurate the committee during the next plenary. However, we will take our time to assess and deliberate on the other two committees and see what we can do, he said (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A 60-year-old retired teacher, Ike Okoye, was on Wednesday arraigned in the Children, Sexual and Gender-based Violence Offences Court in Awka, Anambra State, for allegedly molesting two boys. The police charged Okoye, who lives in Okpoko village, Isuofia, Aguata Local Government Area of the state, with molestation and unnatural offence. A police prosecutor, Chinyere Okechukwu, told the court that the accused committed the alleged offence in 2013 at Isuofia. The offence, according to Mr Okechukwu, a police inspector, contravenes the provisions of Section 197 of Criminal Code cap 36 Vol ll of the Revised law of Anambra State of Nigeria 1999 as Amended. The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge. The Chief Magistrate, Genevieve Osakwe, admitted the accused to bail in the sum of N200, 000 with one surety in like sum. She adjourned the case until 21 August for hearing. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A 65-year-old cleric, Francis Ogu, was on Wednesday arraigned in the Children, Sexual and Gender-based Violence Offences Court in Awka, Anambra State, for allegedly defiling his 10-year-old domestic worker. The police charged Mr Ogu, who resides at Umuike village in Awka, with defilement. The prosecution counsel, Chinyere Okechukwu, a police inspector, told the court that the accused committed the offence on 27 June at his residence. The police alleged that the accused sexually exploited the minor. The offence, Ms Okechukwu said, contravened the provisions of Section 35(2) of the Child Rights Laws of Anambra State, 2004. The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge. In her ruling, Chief Magistrate Genevieve Osakwe admitted the accused to bail in the sum of N500,000 with one surety in like sum. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Ms Osakwe adjourned the case until 21 August for a hearing. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command says it may press charges against Shuaibu Yushau, who climbed a mast on Monday in an attempt to commit suicide. The commands spokesperson, Josephine Adeh, said this in a post on X on Tuesday. PREMIUM TIMES reported that the police arrested Mr Yushau on Monday after he was rescued from killing himself over the countrys dire economic hardship. Ms Adeh said Mr Yushau had been transferred to the Social Development Secretariat for a mental check-up and, if found healthy or mentally stable would be charged to court for attempted suicide. We have sent Shuaibu Yushau, the man who climbed a broadcast mast yesterday, to the Social Development Secretariat for mental evaluation. If found mentally stable after the test, he will be charged to court for attempted suicide, disturbance of public peace and incitement. The offences are contrary to sections 231,111 and 114 of the Penal Code Act. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Senate on Wednesday suspended its plenary in honour of a member of the House of Representatives, Olajide Akinremi, who passed away in the early hours of today. Mr Akinremi, until his death, represented Ibadan North Federal Constituency of Oyo and passed at the age of 51 after a brief illness. He also served as the House Committee on Science Research Institutes chairperson. After adopting the Votes and Proceedings of Tuesdays plenary, the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, raised a motion to suspend the plenary till Thursday to honour the deceased lawmaker in line with the tradition of the National Assembly. The Minority Leader, Abba Moro (PDP, Benue South), seconded the motion. The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, put the motion to the vote, and most lawmakers supported it through voice votes. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Mr Akpabio subsequently directed suspension of the He thereafter directed the senators to observe a one-minute silence in honour of the deceased lawmaker. The late lawmaker was first elected to the House in 2019 and won re-election in 2023. During the House leadership contest, he indicated an interest in running for the deputy speakership but later withdrew. Mr Akinremi is the third member of the 10th House to die. Abdulkadir Danbuga died in October 2023 while Isa DogonYaro died in May 2024. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Coalition for Whistleblowers Protection and Press Freedom (CWPPF) commends the recent judgement of a Federal high court sitting in Abuja which discharged and acquitted the publisher of Cross River Watch newspaper, Agba Jalingo, in a defamatory suit brought against him by the wife of the younger brother of the former governor of the state, Elizabeth Ayade. Mrs Ayade had approached the court with a civil defamation lawsuit in September 2023, over a Facebook post made by Mr Jalingo bothering on allegations of malpractice in the Nigerian Law school, Abuja, leading to the arrest and subsequent arraignment of the journalist under the Cybercrimes Act. Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court, however, ruled in favour of Agba Jalingo, dismissing the charges brought against him by Mrs Ayade. The Coalition for Whistleblowers Protection and Press Freedom (CWPPF) commends the court for standing on the side of justice and the rule of law. The courts decision to discharge and acquit the journalist further reiterates the coalitions position that journalists, when they report responsibly, should be able to do so without fear of legal repercussions. The courts ruling is a victory for press freedom and the right to freedom of expression as it highlights the importance of a free press in informing the public and holding powerful interests to account. This, from all indications ensures transparency and accountability in governance. CWPPF equally commends the governance for demonstration of courage and dedication to his profession even in the face of the legal impediments. His vindication by the court is a testament to his commitment to journalistic ethics and standards. As a coalition, we remain committed to ensuring a safe and free environment for journalists to perform their duties without fear or prejudice. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later CWPPF Members: Premium Times Cable Newspaper Journalism Foundation Daily Trust Newspaper International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) African Centre for Media & Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) Civic Media Lab Civil Society Network Against Corruption (CSNAC) International Press Centre (IPC) International Press Institute (IPI) Media Rights Agenda (MRA) Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Paradigm Initiative Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) HEDA Resources Centre. WikkiTimes Global Rights Dataphyte Foundation Accountability Lab Nigeria FOLEGAL Women Radio 91.7 FM Inibehe Effiong Chambers BUK TV & RADIO The Jurist Newspaper Limited Freedom Radio, Kano Citizens Gavel Foundation for Social Justice Enough is Enough, Nigeria (EIE) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command has arrested one Nuhu Ezra, found with a human skull and bones in Abuja. The FCT spokesperson, Josephine Adeh, disclosed this in a post on X, on Wednesday. She said the suspect confessed to having picked the skull and bones in a bush to sell them for N600,000. FCT police arrest one Nuhu Ezra m of Gosa, Lugbe, Abuja, with a human skull and bones. Upon interrogation, the suspect stated that he picked them up from the bush while hunting and intended to sell them for six hundred thousand naira (N600,000), she wrote. Ms Adeh did not, however, disclose the details of the arrest in the post but said the FCT Commissioner of Police, Ben Igweh, had ordered a thorough investigation to ascertain the bearer of the body. CP FCT orders thorough investigation to ascertain the bearer of the body parts, the intended buyer, if the suspect killed anyone to be in possession of the body parts, and how long the suspect has been in the alleged business, she said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Two wanted men have been found dead after a fight on Sunday between rival criminal gangs of suspected criminals in Taraba State, the Nigerian Army has said. Alhaji Gana and his younger brother were believed killed during a shootout between the gangs in Chinkai, Wukari Local Government Area. The Nigeria Army 6 Brigade revealed this in a press statement issued in Jalingo, the Taraba State Capital, on Wednesday. It said soldiers, alerted by the sound of sporadic shooting to Chinkai, discovered the lifeless body of one of the most wanted notorious terrorists that operate in southern Taraba State and Awe LGA in Nasarawa State, Alhaji Gana, suspected to have been killed during a fight by a rival terrorist group. Ganas brother, who engaged in the same acts of terrorism (kidnapping, armed robbery, gun running, etc) with him, was also killed during the shootout, the statement said. The army said its troops, in collaboration with other security agencies, also raided suspected kidnappers hideouts at Adamu Katibu Mountain in Lau LGA of Taraba State, arrested three suspects and rescued two victims. The operation was based on thorough intelligence gathering and surveillance. The kidnappers, members of a notorious gang in the region, were captured after a gunfight that forced the gang to flee, abandoning their hostages. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later The suspects, Haruna Buba (20), Hassan Kakale and Hussaini Kakale (both 28), were apprehended on the spot. The rescued victims, Hauwau Umaru and Asmau Umaru, who were abducted on 7 July 2024, were immediately taken to Headquarters 6 Brigade for psychological and medical support and, thereafter, handed over to their families. Handing over the victims to their families, Kingsley Uwa, Commander 6 Brigade/ Sector 3 OPWS, commended the troops for their bravery and precision. He reaffirmed the Brigades commitment to the safety and security of Taraba State residents. The suspects are currently being interrogated and will be handed over to the appropriate authorities for further investigation and prosecution while the troops continue to trail all terrorist groups. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Bola Tinubu indicated Tuesday that his government would create a new livestock ministry as part of efforts to improve meat and dairy production and reduce violence between migrant herders and farmers. The president announced the possible creation of the Ministry of Livestock Development at the State House, Abuja, during the inauguration of the Renewed Hope Livestock Reform Implementation Committee. When you have a great opportunity like this, why should Nigeria continue in conflict with the calibre of the people that are here? the Nigerian leader said. This presents a unique opportunity also to delineate and establish a separate ministry called the Ministry of Livestock Development. We will develop the economy, give people the opportunity to excel. The Nigerian leader added, Our vet doctors can give us the necessary opportunity to rear, crossbreed and stop the wanton killings, even animal feeds is a huge economy. Existing concerns Thousands of people are killed annually in violence between migrant herders and local farming communities in many states in Nigeria. Some of the states where such violence occurs are Plateau, Benue, Kaduna and Taraba. Previous governments efforts to end the violence have yielded little results, but Mr Tinubu expressed hope that his government would tackle the menace. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later In 2016, under the watch of Nigerias former agriculture minister, Audu Ogbeh, a bill prohibiting cattle from roaming in cities and villages was considered to stop herdsmen from invading communities. Mr Ogbe proposed the National Ranching Policy to solve the menace between sedentary farmers and migrant herders, noting that ranching remains the best solution to end the crises. However, the initiative was criticised by many Nigerians at the time. The implementation of the National Ranching Policy largely failed because the affected states refused to let go of their lands. The states noted that for their land to be used for such purposes, it must be acquired either by lease or purchase. In 2019, the Buhari-led government announced the Rural Grazing Area (Ruga) programme for willing states to contribute large areas of land for the construction of animal husbandry settlements. The move was also criticised by many Nigerians, while many state governors opposed it. However, against the backdrop of the strident criticism of Ruga in parts of the country, the federal government in July 2019 suspended it and announced the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) in its place. Still, the policys impact is not felt, as clashes between farmers and herders persist in some parts of the country. The menace has prevented many farmers from accessing their farms amidst fear of being attacked or killed by armed herders. On Tuesday, the Nigerian leader said he would chair the Renewed Hope Livestock Reform Implementation Committee while a professor and former electoral chief, Attahiru Jega, will be the co-chairperson. Im here before you to inaugurate the committee for the implementation of the livestock in our beloved country. First, I must say thank you very much to those who said the solution is far, I said no, the solution is here. With these distinguished personalities, the name, the intellectual capacity, the majority of you have great experience and you want Nigeria to prosper, Mr Tinubu said. Opportunities and potentials Mr Tinubu said the new plan would provide the impetus for Nigeria to finally take advantage of livestock farming, dairy products, and cold chain logistics, which collectively offer substantial commercial and economic advantages. We have seen the solution and opportunity, with this adversity that has plagued us over the years, and I believe the prosperity is here in your hands, the president said. He emphasised that the dairy industry contributes significantly to nutrition and food security by supplying essential proteins and vitamins through milk and its derivatives, such as cheese, yoghurt, and butter, and through its economic advantages. Additionally, Mr Tinubu noted that efficient cold-chain logistics are crucial in maintaining the quality and safety of perishable goods from farm to market, thereby reducing food waste and ensuring a steady supply. This sector will boost agricultural productivity, enhance export opportunities and stimulate economic growth by fostering a robust value chain that benefits farmers, processors, herders, distributors and consumers alike, he said. Ladies and Gentlemen, I hereby inaugurate the Renewed Hope Livestock Reform Implementation Committee in Nigeria. It is now in your hands, we are ready to work for the success of this programme and for the success of the entire nation. So we leave a Nigerian flag without stain to our children. Thank you very much. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) has banned eight companies listed on the bourse from trading for falling short of a rule requiring quoted firms to file audited annual reports ahead of a specified deadline, according to a Monday market document seen by PREMIUM TIMES. The punitive action remains in force until the companies hand in their outstanding 2023 audited financials to the exchange, the document stated. Mutual Benefits Assurance, Lasaco Assurance, Unity Bank, C & I Leasing, Secure Electronic Technology, Guinea Insurance, NPF Microfinance Bank and Regency Alliance Insurance are the companies serving the sanction. Unity Bank, backed by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, is the only listed bank yet to publish its earnings report for 2023. The government agency, which was set up to buy bad loans off banks balance sheets and recover them afterwards, is Unity Banks top shareholder, holding more than one-third of its issued shares. If an Issuer fails to file the relevant accounts by the expiration of the Cure Period1, the exchange will (a) send to the issuer a Second Filing Deficiency Notification within two (2) business days after the end of the Cure Period, NGX said in a document signed by Godstime Iwenekhai, who heads its issuer regulation department. A cure period often spans 90 calendar days, beginning from the first day of the year till around the end of the first quarter. Apart from weekdays, weekends and public holidays are considered calendar days. The exchange is duty-bound to notify the capital market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the market within twenty- four (24) hours of the suspension, the document added. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Regency Alliance Insurance stated in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that it is facing constraints in migrating our reporting standard from IFRS4 to IFRS 17. IFRS refers to the International Financial Reporting Standard, an international organisation which provides the rules and guidelines for preparing accounts for companies. READ ALSO: Nigerian lawmakers to investigate exit of multinationals from country The effect of this challenge is that the company was not able to file its Audited Financial Statement (AFS) for the year ended 31 December 2023 and the unaudited financial statement for the first quarter ended 31 March 2024 (2024 Q1 UFS) within the stipulated period, the underwriter said. It has assured that it will file both its audited financials for 2023 and its unaudited financial report for the first quarter by 15 August. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The federal government is considering the establishment of mobile courts to attend to issues relating to sexual harassment. The Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, made this known at a one-day National Stakeholders Engagement on Sexual Harassment Prevention on Tuesday in Abuja. The event was organised by the ICPC in collaboration with the Gender Mobile Initiative. She decried the high rate of sexual harassment, especially in tertiary institutions across the country, but added that the measures being put in place would tackle the menace. Sexual harassment is not relegated to tertiary institutions alone but even in primary and secondary schools which are often carried out by teachers and sometimes among pupils. We are also working in collaboration with hotel owners to deny access to under-aged children from lodging and report any such attempts to security operatives to curb the terrible sexual harassment problems. She urged stakeholders to rise up to the challenge by ensuring that sexual harassment is brought to the barest minimum to address the problems of stigmatisation and low self-esteem among victims. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Speaking, the Chairman of the ICPC, Musa Aliyu, raised the concern that until there are heavy consequences for offenders, the menace would continue to increase. Mr Aliyu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), noted that sexual harassment and other related societal ills, including gender discrimination, are tarnishing the nations reputation. Only a consistent, persistent, focused and united campaign can ensure that the challenge of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions is decisively addressed. ICPC had a few years ago, in line with its commitment to addressing all forms of corruption, including abuse of office via sexual harassment, with the support of the Ford Foundation, executed a project aimed at curbing this societal malaise. One of the expected outcomes of that project was the drafting of model anti-sexual harassment policies for various levels of educational institutions, he said. He said that the commission engaged the Gender Mobile Initiative to draft a model policy for tertiary institutions which the Federal Ministry of Education approved for primary and tertiary institutions. The policies are not necessarily meant to be adopted word for word by stakeholders. Instead, it is expected that although they may be adopted wholly by any institution that so desires, they should serve as guidelines for what a comprehensive policy should contain. He reminded participants to always keep in mind that anyone, irrespective of status, designation, gender, staff or student, can be a victim of sexual harassment, likewise, anyone could be a perpetrator. It is a notorious fact that Nigeria has so many laws and policies, but many of them are not being correctly implemented. Therefore, proper implementation of the model policies cannot be over-emphasised. The success of this initiative largely depends on the active participation and commitment of stakeholders. The founder and Executive Director of Gender Mobile Initiative, Omowumi Ogunrotimi, urged stakeholders to consider a prevention framework rather than a response framework. That is why we are in collaboration with ICPC to see that the policy we designed together will be a product of extensive community engagement. As far back as 2019, 2020, we had a national conference where we validated this policy. This was with a critical mass of stakeholders in the room across the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education NBTE and even the student community. The policies centre on leadership, participation, aspiration and experiences of persons who are mostly affected by the structural inequity, and that is the student community. We really look to move this forward from here because we know in Nigeria when policies are made, they do not automatically translate into implementation. That is why we have drawn participants from far and wide, over 25 Commissioners of Education from States of the federation to participate in this programme. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the final forfeiture of $16,500 and N127 million fraudulently diverted from the treasury of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA). The judge, Kehinde Ogundare, granted an application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) permanently forfeiting the funds to the federal government in a ruling on Tuesday. The funds were recovered from a contractor with NIMASA, Uche Obilor, and his companies. Mr Obilor and his firms received suspicious contract payments during the era of Patrick Akpobolokemi as the agencys director-general. EFCCs Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale, said in a press statement on Tuesday that the commission initially on 23 May obtained an interim forfeiture of the funds suspected to be unlawfully diverted from NIMASAs accounts. Through its counsel, Suleiman Suleiman, the commission obtained the interim forfeiture of the funds relying on section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act No. 14. 2006; and section 44 (2)(b) of the Nigerian constitution. Granting the interim forfeiture order, the judge directed the EFCC to publish the interim forfeiture order in a national newspaper, asking interested parties to show cause why the funds should not be permanently forfeited to the federal government. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Despite the court-ordered newspaper publication inviting interested parties to oppose the final forfeiture of the funds, no one showed up in court on Tuesday. Pursuant to your lordships order made on 23 May 2024, the publication of the order was made on 6 June 2024 in Punch newspaper, Mr Suleiman told the court on Tuesday. He referenced a 22-paragraph affidavit filed supporting an application for final forfeiture of the funds. Oghare Ogbole, an EFCC investigator, swore to the affidavit. The application is accompanied by two exhibits: the interim order of the court and the Punch publication of 26 June 2024. We respectfully adopt the same and pray the court to grant all the reliefs sought, the lawyer said. Proceeds of crimes In the affidavit filed in support of the application, the EFCC investigator said the funds sought to be forfeited are reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful acts of diversion of funds from the treasury of NIMASA, through Mr Uche Obilor, his companies and other cronies. During the course of the investigation, the total sum of $16,500 cash was recovered by the commission, part of the funds diverted from the treasury of NIMASA. And that for using his companies as mentioned above, Mr Uche Obilor, upon invitation to the commission during the course of the investigation, agreed to return the sum of N118 million, admittedly received and retained by his companies from the funds fraudulently converted from the treasury of NIMASA, the affidavit read. Although not explicitly stated in the EFCCs press statement, it appears the N118 million recovered from Mr Obilor added to other naira-denominated recoveries to make the N127 million. After listening to the EFCCs lawyer, in the absence of any interested party to object, the judge granted the prayers sought by the commission. How Obilor received funds from NIMASA Mr Obilor, who apparently has been cooperating with the EFCC, had detailed how he received NIMASA payments for contracts he did not bid for. EFCC launched a vast investigation into the finances of the maritime agency after the President Muhammadu Buhari administration came on board in 2015. One of the cases that the EFCC filed following the investigation featured Mr Obilor as a prosecution witness at the Federal High Court in Lagos. PUNCH reported that he testified in February 2016 against Mr Akpobolokemi, the then director-general of NIMASA and five others, including officials of the agency, who were standing trial for stealing and diverting about N2.6 billion belonging to the agency. Mr Obilor told the court that he received a N905.8 million contract from NIMASA to implement International Ship and Port Facility Security without bidding. He said the agency awarded the contract to his three companies Seabulk Offshore Limited, Southern Offshore Limited, and Ace Prosthesis Limited with the money fully paid. He said NIMASA subsequently paid N437 million, N402 million and N66,800,000 into the bank accounts of Seabulk Offshore Limited, Southern Offshore Limited and Ace Prosthesis Limited, respectively, for the contract. He said he subsequently received the contract award letter from the agency. READ ALSO: Family announces burial arrangement for EFCC operative who died by suspected suicide However, he added that he was preparing to begin the execution when he received an instruction from Ezekiel Agaba, then an Executive Director with NIMASA and co-defendant in the trial, asking him to stay action on the contract. He said the contract was eventually cancelled, and he was asked to transfer the money paid to his companies to specific individuals and companies. He maintained that his companies did not bid for the contract. He also disowned all documents allegedly issued by his companies requesting payment and the invoices issued in the name of the companies to NIMASA. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Nasrul-Lahi-L-Fatih Society (NASFAT), an Islamic organisation headquartered in Nigeria, has congratulated the newly elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer. This was contained in a statement signed by the organisations president, Ayodeji AbdulRauf, a copy of which was made available to PREMIUM TIMES. Mr Starmer is now the UK Prime Minister after his party, the Labour Party, won Thursdays general elections. The new prime minister led Labour to a landslide election victory to defeat the Conservative Party. While Labour got 412 members of parliament, the Conservatives only managed to get 121. In its congratulatory message, NASFAT emphasised the importance of fostering collaboration with the UK government to promote religious tolerance, social impact projects, and leadership training opportunities across NASFAT locations in the UK. The group highlighted the significant presence of NASFAT in various UK cities, including Dartford, Millwall, Thamesmead, Woolwich, Barking and Dagenham, Grays Thurrock, Milton Keynes, Manchester, and Newcastle. Collaboration Mr AbdulRauf expressed NASFATs readiness to work closely with the new administration to enhance community relations and support initiatives that benefit Muslims and the wider society. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later We are committed to promoting religious tolerance and understanding through our sensitisation programmes, he said. By collaborating with local councils and the government, we aim to empower our members and foster a community spirit that aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The organisation noted that one of the key areas of focus for NASFAT is the development of leadership skills among its members. He outlined plans for leadership training opportunities aimed at equipping members with the necessary tools to become effective agents of change within their communities. He noted that such initiatives are crucial in ensuring that NASFAT members can contribute positively to the UKs social and economic landscape. Leveraging technology Apart from the leadership training, NASFAT said it is committed to leveraging technology to advance its mission. Mr AbdulRauf announced plans for digital Dawah (proselytising) efforts that aim to reach diverse audiences and promote the values of Islam in a contemporary context. NASFAT said: These initiatives will include online educational programmes, webinars, and social media campaigns designed to engage and inform both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. READ ALSO: NASFAT kicks off conference in UK We believe that by embracing digital platforms, we can spread our message of peace, tolerance, and community service more effectively, Mr AbdulRauf stated. Our goal is to build bridges and create a more inclusive society where everyone can thrive. The group expressed optimism that the new Prime Ministers leadership would usher in a new era of cooperation and mutual respect, reiterating NASFATs commitment to working with the UK government and local authorities to achieve common goals and enhance the well-being of all communities. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The House of Representatives may have embarked on a misinformation campaign regarding the outcome of the debate on the Samoa Agreement. The lower chamber of the National Assembly discussed the Agreement on Tuesday following the alleged inclusion of The LGBTQ+ clause in the document. The Samoa Agreement is the legal framework for the European Unions relations with 79 countries, including 48 African, 16 Caribbean, and 15 Pacific countries. PREMIUM TIMES reported that the House resolved that the executive should suspend the implementation of the Agreement and directed its committees to investigate the alleged controversial and grey areas. That resolution followed a motion jointly moved by Aliyu Madaki (NNPP, Kano) and 88 others on Tuesday. However, hours after the resolution, the House, through its spokesperson, Akin Rotimi (APC, Ekiti), issued a statement, saying the House did not call for the suspension of the implementation of the Agreement. In the statement, Mr Rotimi claimed that the media erroneously reported the outcome of the debate on the Samoa Agreement. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later It is important to clarify that the House of Representatives did not resolve to call for the suspension of the Agreement nor the suspension of its implementation, as has been erroneously reported by some media houses. Instead, the House resolved to thoroughly scrutinise the Samoa Partnership Agreement for all contentious clauses through legislative hearings, the statement reads in part. However, this is a blatant misinformation campaign by the House because lawmakers indeed adopted a prayer urging the government to suspend the Agreement. Call on the federal government to suspend the implementation of the Samoa Agreement until all controversial clauses are clearly defined to ensure they do not violate any law in Nigeria, Mr Madaki had prayed in his motion. After a long and heated debate during which some lawmakers even called for the withdrawal of the Agreement, the House adopted the three resolutions on the motion without any amendments. PREMIUM TIMES closely followed the debate and observed that no amendment was moved by any of the lawmakers on the floor of the House. Some lawmakers even shouted amendment! when the presiding officer, Deputy Speaker Ben Kalu, put the motion to a voice vote, but he ignored the call. There was no amendment, Mr Kalu responded as he ruled on the decision. Therefore, it is surprising that Mr Rotimi is claiming that the media erroneously reported the suspension part when the House asked the federal government to suspend the implementation of the Agreement. Spokesperson and Speakers Office presenting contradictory accounts of the event Strangely enough, the plenary proceedings produced by the Office of the Speaker presented a record of events that contradict Mr Rotimis statement. In the proceedings released, the Speakers office claimed that the House ruled that the federal government should completely withdraw from the Agreement. According to the document, a member, Ghali Mustapha, moved for an amendment. Ghali Mustapha proposed an amendment calling on the federal government to withdraw from the Samoa Agreement and reject it in totality. The motion was voted on and adopted as amended, the proceedings read in part. However, this is equally false. Mr Mustapha did not move an amendment; he only contributed. The presiding officer even asked if that was an amendment, and he answered no. In addition, procedurally, amendments must be seconded and put into question. What the House should do if uncomfortable with the resolution The resolution of the House can only be changed through a proper motion of rescission moved on the floor. If the House is unsatisfied with its resolution or the lawmakers feel that they have erred in procedure, they should move a motion to review their previous resolution. The lower chamber has rescinded decisions in the past. For instance, in February, the House resolved to investigate the use of funds from the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) by states and LGAs in 2023. When the House realised that it lacked such power, the Chairman of its Committee on Rules and Business, Francis Waive, moved a motion urging the House to rescind its decision. The motion was adopted. Instead of the House going through the rescission process, it is going through the route of misinformation. The leadership of the House may be worried about the potential outcome of recommitting the motion to rescission. Some members opposed to the Agreement may see it as an attempt to undermine their stance, which they have communicated through the voice vote. WATCH BELOW THE 9 JULY 2024 PLENARY DURING WHICH THE SAMOA AGREEMENT WAS DISCUSSED How the House officialised falsehood with the debate on the motion The controversy over the Agreement stemmed from a media report which claimed it contained some clauses on the protection of the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals. The report did not provide specific evidence to substantiate the claim, and the publishers agreed that the report had some lapses and promised to review and take appropriate measures. We have followed with attention what these government officials said and left unsaid, and we will publish that in full for the records. We have also acknowledged lapses in our reporting on this particular matter, pointed out to us by professional colleagues, and we will review and take appropriate measures, the statement released by the newspaper said. The Nigerian government has equally countered the claim, stating that Nigeria has existing legislation against same-sex relationships. Aside from the government, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) debunked the LGBTQ+ clause. In a statement, its President, Yakubu Maikyau, said the association had the privilege of reviewing the Agreement before the Nigerian government signed it. Mr Maikyau said there is no provision in the Samoa Agreement requiring Nigeria to accept or recognise LGBT rights. Despite all this, the House allowed a motion premised on a report that the author admitted had lapses, and even several lawmakers ignorantly debated the motion with the same false narrative without referencing the copy of the Agreement. When the Majority Leader, Julius Ihonvbere, tried to educate his colleagues on the Agreement, he was shouted down by his colleagues. Professor Ihonvbere even challenged his colleagues to provide a specific portion of the Agreement that discusses LGBTQ+. I think the public has been misled on this. Let me state that there is no portion of the Agreement that is on LGBTQ+. If you have it, bring it here. In fact, three ministers have come out, including the Minister of Information and Budget and Planning, to say that there is nothing like that in the Agreement and that it was never mentioned. It was never mentioned, and there is nothing like lesbian rights in the Agreement. If you have the Agreement, bring it out here. There is nothing like that, he said. How the House could have avoided the error A constitutional lawyer, Jiti Ogunye, told PREMIUM TIMES that the lawmakers should have waited for the treaty to be presented to the National Assembly in line with Section 12 of the constitution. No treaty between the Federation and any other country shall have the force of law to the extent to which any such treaty has been enacted into law by the National Assembly, Section 12(1) of the 1999 Constitution reads. Furthermore, Order 15 Rule 1 of the Standing Orders of the House provided the process and procedure for ratifying treaties. Mr Ogunye said the lawmakers should have demanded that President Bola Tinubu present the Agreement to the House for ratification instead of the political stunt on the floor of the House. The lawmakers are being prejudicial on the matter because they should have waited for the treaty to be presented in line with Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution. Politicians are now making these kinds of statements. It smacks of political prejudice. The uninformed opposition to that Agreement is not on ideological or economic groundsit is not on patriotic or sovereignty grounds. Rather, it is on LGBTQ grounds. The House should have waited for the formal submission of that treaty rather than politicking the matter and fouling the stream of the argument, Mr Ogunye said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday swore in eight new permanent secretaries to fill existing and impending vacancies in some states and geo-political zones in the top administrative cadre of the civil service of the federation. The presidents spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, read their citations before they took the traditional oath of office. Mr Ngelale said the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation embarked on a diligent selection process comprising a written examination, an ICT proficiency test and an interactive session with a broad spectrum of stakeholders. He said at the end of the exercise, eight directors in the Federal Civil Service who scaled the hurdles were appointed as permanent secretaries. One of the permanent secretaries sworn in was Emanso Umobong, representing Akwa Ibom State, who obtained a Fellowship of the Medical College of Pathology (FMCpath) from the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria. Before joining the Federal Civil Service, Mrs Umobong was at various times a lecturer at the College of Medicine, University of Uyo, and College of Medicine, University of Abuja. Her civil service career started in 2008 when she was employed as an assistant director and posted to the State House, where she became a director. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Also sworn in was Emeka Obi, from Anambra State, who joined the Federal Civil Service on 5 February 2001 as a Dental Officer Grade Level 12 in the State House, obtaining his Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) Degree from the University of Lagos in 1997. He rose through the ranks in the State House Medical Centre to become a director of the Federal Civil Service in 2018. Similarly, Fatima Mahmood, representing Bauchi State, who was sworn in alongside others, holds a Bachelors Degree in Agriculture from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and is a Fellow of the Centre for African Leaders in Agriculture (CALA). Before joining the service, she garnered invaluable experience in the finance sector as an agricultural specialist, where she honed her expertise in navigating the intricate intersection of finance and agriculture. Other permanent secretaries sworn in by President Tinubu were Mohammed Danjuma, Jigawa State; Olubunmi Olusanya, Ondo State; Maryam Keshinro, Zamfara State; Chinyere Akujobi, Imo State; and Christopher Isokpunwu, Edo State. Mr Danjuma was employed in the Federal Civil Service as Accountant II in 1993 and rose through the ranks to become a director in 2021. He was, until his appointment, the Director (Finance and Accounts) in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. Mr Olusanya, a fellow of the Waste Management Society of Nigeria and a Member of the Nigerian Environmental Society, started his career as a Microbiologist with Sona Breweries Plc, Sango-Ota, Ogun State in 1993. He later joined the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) in June 1996 as a senior environmental scientist. He was absorbed into the Federal Ministry of Environment in June 1999 upon the winding down of FEPA and rose through the ranks to the position of director on 1 January 2019. Mrs Keshinro joined the Federal Civil Service on 3 January 2011 as Assistant Director/Consultant Paediatrician with the State House at State House Medical Centre Abuja. She rose to Director/Consultant Special Grade I on 1 January 2019. She served as the Head of Paediatrics Department from 2011 to 2019. Recognising her leadership abilities, she was elected chairman of Clinical Services from 2015 to 2019. Mrs Akujobi, until her current appointment, was the Director (Epidemiology) at the Department of Veterinary & Pest Control Services, Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Food Security, Abuja, and Director World Trade Organisation Sanitary and Phytosanitary Enquiry Point (Animal Health) for Nigeria. As a Chief Veterinary Officer responsible for the certification of animals and products of animal origin, Mrs Akujobi ensured that exported and imported animal products complied with international standards, thus preventing rejections and introduction of animal diseases into the nations livestock population. Mr Isokpunwus career in the Federal Ministry of Health includes his most recent role as Director of Health Planning Research and Statistics, where he coordinated national health sector priorities and strategic plans. He previously served as Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, Senior Technical Assistant to the Honourable Minister of Health, and National Coordinator of the National Vesico-Vaginal Fistula (VVF) Programme, leading significant health initiatives. The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Folasade Esan, said the newly sworn-in permanent secretaries should realise that the responsibility of being a permanent secretary was a huge one and a call to service to ones nation. And so they should see that responsibility and deal with it with all diligence. They need to come in with a lot of fresh vigour and do their work to move the country forward. The role of the civil servants is very critical in ensuring that the president gets all the results that he needs. And the civil servants are key, and permanent secretaries, being heads of the MDAs, must, as a matter of fact, ensure that all the results that Mr President needs will be seen. They must make sure that if there are bottlenecks, they should do whatever they have to do to achieve great results for our country, Nigeria, Mrs Esan said. One of the newly sworn-in permanent secretaries, Mr Obi, said the appointment was a national call to service to support the government in driving the reforms in the federal civil service and to help the president achieve his mandate. So, we feel that is a very great privilege for the eight of us. So, Ive been elected as permanent secretary to serve our Motherland, as enshrined in the national anthem that this call to service, he said. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Residents of Rano Emirate on Tuesday chased out a man posted by the reinstated Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, to run their scrapped emirate pending the determination of a court case on the emirate crisis in the state. The representative arrived in the town Tuesday morning, escorted by top political appointees from the area, including the senior special assistant to the governor on private schools, Ibrahim Yaluwa, and the local council caretaker chairperson, Dahiru Yakubu. However, some angry residents stoned the team members shortly after local government officials set up a tent in front of the palace of the sacked Rano emir for the representative to receive allegiance from village heads. On Wednesday, a resident, Sabiu Ibrahim, told reporters that the delegation was forced to retreat to the local government secretariat under police protection. He entered the town through Kibiya Local Government Area instead of the main Kano road, Mr Ibrahim said They ran to the local government secretariat, where he briefly stayed before he was escorted out by the police DPO. The mob vandalised the official Prado SUV of the district head of Rano, Mannir Abubakar, that conveyed the emirs representative. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Another resident, Garba Rano, said the mob also vandalised motorcycles belonging to members of the New Nigeria People Party (NNPP) in the local government area. The police spokesperson in Kano, Abdullahi Kiyawa, could not be immediately reached to comment on the development. Residents said there was still tension in Rano town on Wednesday as local hunters occupied the local government secretariat. The incident in Rano was the second in the state in less than a week. Daily Trust newspaper reported how the emirs representative suffered the same fate at Karaye, another of the four scrapped emirates after angry residents attacked him. Like in Rano, the police spirited the emirs representative out of the town after his official vehicle was severely damaged. The state House of Assembly on 23 May repealed the State Emirate Council Law 2019, under which former Governor Abdullahi Ganduje split Kano Emirate into five distinct units. The laws repeal means the dissolution of the emirates created in 2019 Bichi, Rano, Gaya, and Karaye and the sacking of their emirs. The development restored Kano to being the only state in Nigeria with a single emirate council. One of the dethroned Emirs, Aminu Ado-Bayero of Kano, is challenging his removal in court and has occupied the mini palace of the emirate at the Nassarawa GRA. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Samuel Ogbuku, has said that the commission is not competing with the governors of the state that make up the Niger Delta region. Mr Ogbuku stated this on Wednesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on the first day of the Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit, which was a pre-summit technical session. The four-day summit, organised by the NDDC, is meant to develop strategies and articulate a roadmap for the development of Nigerias Niger Delta region. We have no intention of clashing with or competing against state governors in the region, the NDDC MD, Mr Ogbuku, said while addressing participants at the summit. Instead, we aim to collaborate as development partners to facilitate the rapid progress of the Niger Delta region. The nine states which make up the Niger Delta region are Rivers, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta State, Edo, Imo, and Ondo. Mr Ogboku said, We will focus on completing capital projects; only projects that add value to the Niger Delta region will be approved. Our commitment is to work together towards transforming the region in accordance with the eight-point presidential priorities and the demands of the NDDC Act of 2000, he said. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later The current NDDC management, since it was set up in August 2023, appeared to have successfully moved the commission away from scandals and internal wrangling which had bedevilled it in the past. The NDDC management anchors its activities on its new policy called Triple-T policy Transiting from Transaction to Transformation. The NDDC MD said, The agitations in the Niger Delta region have moved from carrying arms to intellectual agitations where we tell governments what we want in the region. Other speakers at the summit include the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and a member of the Presidential Economic Committee, Patrick Okigbo. One of the problems in the Niger Delta is that the region has been significantly de-industrialised, Mr Okigbo said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The management of the College of Medicine of the University of Lagos (CMUL) and the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) have cried out over what they described as an outrageous electricity bill charged by Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) for May. The healthcare institutions said they were recently jointly presented with a bill of about N280 million for May instead of the less than N100 million they used to pay. Due to the disagreement over the bill, for about 10 days between June and July, electricity to the two health institutions was disconnected, leading to a protest by medical students who said the poor power supply could lead to their failure in the forthcoming examinations. But the college Provost, David Oke, a professor, told PREMIUM TIMES that the situation has been temporarily resolved and that light has since been restored, even as he blamed EKEDC for imposing an unaffordable tariff on the college and the hospital since the introduction of the band system. The hospitals Chief Medical Director (CMD), Wasiu Adeyemo, a professor, also corroborated Mr Oke, insisting that no public institution offering social services such as health and education can afford such outrageous charges. However, the electricity company has denied the allegation, saying the tariff charged is not an imposition but that the charges are determined by the feeder supplying power to the area and the amount of electricity being supplied per day. Hike in electricity tariff In April, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) announced a hike in electricity tariffs for Band A customers, noting that they are offered an average daily electricity supply of 20 hours, although many complain they do not get up to that. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later NERC Vice Chairman, Musiliu Oseni, said the Band A consumers represent 15 per cent of the population but consume 40 per cent of the nations electricity. He noted that the increase would not affect Bands B, C, D, and E while noting that the number of customers previously on Band A has been reduced. Student protest Students of the college on Friday staged a protest following the disconnection of the electricity supply to the institution and the hospital for more than a week because of outstanding bills. In a viral video, the students are seen chanting slogans such as Give us our light, we want light. However, the provost of the college confirmed power was later restored on Saturday after they wrote to ministries and paid more than double the amount they used to pay. Band A not for us -Provost According to the provost, as a public educational institution with little revenue generated due to the low cost of education in the country, such an electricity bill cannot be sustained. Mr Oke said each student pays about N180,000 a year, reiterating that the college wont be able to afford the Band A electricity bill. The provost said: Leave us where we are, we have adapted ourselves and coping. We were paying N19 million to N20 million every month and then compensating with diesel. We had already adjusted to that until they brought in almost N280 million for May. We were sent a bill, three times what we used to pay. They said they put us on Band A and I had a meeting with them telling them they cant put on a band that we cant afford. Leave us where we were in Band B, they said no. But this is a democratic government, how can you force me to go on a Band that I know I cant afford? Band A not for us Also speaking, the LUTH CMD said Band A isnt an option for public institutions like ours, adding that the hospital has had to rely on solar. We use solar for our theatre, medical ward, as well as blood bank. So that helped us to a very large extent for almost 10 days of power outage. And we also supplement with the generators, Mr Adeyemo said, And Monday I also sent a letter to the Ministry of Energy. We have been able to pay about N240 million for the college and hospital. Mr Adeyemo said the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, and his Minister of State counterpart, Tunji Alausa, are aware of the development, and that they know the incapability of the tertiary hospital to afford such a bill. He said appropriate quarters including the power ministry have been communicated appropriately and that they are awaiting conclusive logical resolution of the matter in the interest of the public. Long-term goal The CMD noted that power and personnel have been the major challenges confronting tertiary health institutions in the country, emphasising the need for more investment in renewable energy as a sustainable alternative. He said: We need to start putting renewable energy in our institution. We cant continue to rely on public power supply. We have to be power-sufficient to some extent. We hope that the government will give us more money to install solar in many of our facilities. I hope its going to be included in the supplementary budget. The CMD further suggested that a minimum of 25 per cent yearly will be invested in renewable energy because theres nothing we can do without energy. He added: Thank God that we prepared for this. We got about four generators three months ago and we also covered about six critical facilities with solar. While the outage lasted we, didnt send any patients back because, during that period, we were operating at a reduced rate. Our Ward A is covered 24-7 with solar and when it rained on Monday and Tuesday, we supplemented with generators, he said. EKEDC comments Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday, the General Manager, Corporate Communications of EKEDC, Babatunde Lasaki, clarified that Band A isnt enforced as perceived but determined by the feeder and location. Nobody can force a band on anybody. It is about your area and the feeder serving your area. If the feeder serving your area is giving you a 20-hour power supply and above, automatically you guys fall under Band A, Mr Lasakin explained. The price is not fixed by the distribution company. It is by regulators. The college and LUTH have been enjoying 20hrs of supply. They used to be on their own power plant but they couldnt keep up with its cost. Mr Lasaki added that people should understand that distribution companies cannot unilaterally fix price, insisting that the power sector is a highly regulated sector. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Indications have emerged that Nigerias security and intelligence agencies are bracing up for possible suicide bombings from the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP). The development comes about 12 days after suicide bombings were recorded in Gwoza in Borno State, north-east Nigeria. The 29 June suicide attacks, in which at least 20 persons died, were reportedly coordinated by a Boko Haram faction. Boko Haram is a rival group from which ISWAP broke away. The public has yet to be officially alerted to the ISWAP threat, but PREMIUM TIMES confirmed that the government has instructed all security agencies to prepare against it. This newspaper gathered that the security agencies believe that ISWAP is planning to attack prisons and oil and gas facilities. On Wednesday, PREMIUM TIMES obtained an intelligence memo dated 10 July alerting the personnel of one of the security agencies about possible attacks by ISWAP and calling for more vigilance. Full details of the agency and the memo itself are not provided in this report to protect the source. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later However, according to the memo, the terrorist organisation is planning to attack prisons, including the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja, Kaduna Central Prison, Port Harcourt Maximum Prison, and Kirikiri Correctional Center in Lagos, among others. Also mentioned in the memo as a potential target is the AjaokutaKadunaKano (AKK) pipeline, a 614km-long pipeline being developed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to transport natural gas from the south to the north-central geopolitical zone of Nigeria. However, all security agencies have been asked to extend their vigilance beyond the potential targets identified in the memo. PREMIUM TIMES reported that within three hours on 29 June, female suicide bombers detonated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at various locations in Mararaban Gwoza and Pulka. A factional Boko Haram leader, Ali Ngulde, controls the territories from his Mandara Mountain camp. The newspaper also reported that the use of female suicide bombers was a tactic of Boko Haram and was last used about three years ago before the recent Gwoza incidents. ISWAP recently escalated its offensive against Nigerian troops fighting insurgency in Northern Nigeria. Preparations Two security agencies contacted by PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday did not explicitly confirm the ISWAP threat but confirmed they were on alert to ward off dangers. The spokesperson for the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), whose facilities are believed to be part of the primary targets of the potential attacks, Umar Abubakar, said his organisation would not take the threat for granted, even though he has yet to receive any information about it. Dont forget that we have synergy with the Nigeria Police, the military and other security agencies. Im not sure I have such information on my table, but that is not to say that we would take it for granted, Mr Abubakar said in a telephone interview with this newspaper. He added, We will make sure that we work around the information and see other protective measures that we can put in place across all our custodial centres. I cannot speak on the intelligence information you mentioned now, but Im sure that such a plan would not work because of the security put in place in our custodial centres. Similarly, the spokesperson for the maritime arm of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Adams Alliu, a commodore, without specifically addressing the fresh ISWAP threat, said the Nigerian Navy is keeping 24-hour surveillance on the maritime space, including the creeks. Concerning the pipelines, the pipeline security and the maritime domain awareness security is 24-hour surveillance, and theres no space in the 24 hours that is a gap that can be exploited. Especially since President Tinubu took over, it has been 24 hours of 100 per cent surveillance, Mr Alliu said. But when contacted over the development, the Director of Defence Media Operations, at Nigerias Defence Headquarters, Edward Buba, a major-general, said he had not received any information concerning such a threat. Also, the spokesperson for the Nigeria Police Force, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, an assistant commissioner of police, has yet to respond to PREMIUM TIMES phone calls and a text message as of the time of filing this report on Wednesday. ISWAP victory claims In recent times, the terrorist group has also laid claim to some major attacks on national infrastructures and facilities. In 2022, the group claimed responsibility for the attack on Kuje prison, where inmates were freed in Abuja. The terrorists claimed responsibility in a video released following the attack. In the video clip, the group showed how some of its members entered the Kuje prison. The 38-second-long video clip also showed that the terrorists shot indiscriminately before gaining access to the prison. The Nigerian Correctional Service said four inmates died, and 879 escaped during the attack. Majority of the escapees have yet to be recaptured. On 28 March 2022, some terrorists suspected to be ISWAP/Boko Haram terrorists also attacked the Abuja-Kaduna bound train and abducted some passengers. The terrorists had planted explosive devices along the rail track. The device exploded when the train reached the point, causing the train to derail. Eight passengers died instantly in the attack. Nigerian Armed Forces recent success against ISWAP Meanwhile, last week, the troops of the Nigerian Army, deployed for a special clearance operation in Sambisa Forest, eliminated 11 ISWAP terrorists, according to a Nigerian Army statement. The army said the feat was achieved when troops attacked the terrorists enclave in Jongo Village within the notorious Sambisa Forest. It noted that the troops targeted the enclave and engaged the terrorists in a fierce gun battle, killing some while others fled in disarray. The army also said it recovered some weapons from the terrorists. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Fatime Letifova The delegation led by Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov paid a business visit to Uzbekistan, Azernews reports, citing the post shared by the minister on his official "X" account. "Looking forward to exploring new opportunities to enhance our collaboration in upcoming meetings with our colleagues from the friendly nation," the post reads. The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, says that his office would set up a specialised department to tackle insecurity in Nigerias Niger Delta region. The approach would be to integrate the people of the region in the fight against insecurity, he said. Mr Ribadu made the disclosure on Wednesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on the first day of the Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit 2024, where he was a special guest of honour. The four-day summit is organised by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). I am determined to set up, for the first time in the ONSA, a Directorate that shall specialise in insecurity of the Niger Delta through which we can, as stakeholders, take a critical look at the peculiar security challenges of the region in a focused and professional way, said Mr Ribadu who was represented by his special adviser on energy security and Niger Delta affairs, Osaretin Grace. Mr Ribadu said the plan to set up the new department is predicated on his idea of making the Niger Delta in a more active and determined way a national security priority under the vision and the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu. He said his office, led by his special adviser on Energy Security and Niger Delta Affairs, was working closely with the governors of the region and the presidency on the new plan, which would eventually involve other interested groups like the community leaders, traditional rulers, students, government security agencies, and civil society. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later He said that Mr Tinubus broader and long-term national security vision includes moving internal security from the current strong posture from kinetic to non-kinetic operations and that he (Ribadu) will emphasise security from human and socio-economic development point of view to deepen democratic culture in the Niger Delta. Oil theft While militancy has greatly reduced in the Niger Delta, oil theft, pipeline vandalisation, and related crimes have become the latest source of concern in the region. Before 2024, a 1.8 million barrel-per-day production quota was allotted to Nigeria by OPEC. However, only about less than 1.4 million barrels per day with a short-fall of 600,000 barrels per day is produced, Mr Ribadu said. This is due to socio-economic issues that relate to security such as crude oil theft, pipeline vandalisation, environmentally harmful artisanal refining, sea piracy and youth militancy, he added. Mr Ribadu said President Tinubu is deeply concerned that federal agencies have not been able to stop oil-theft and other criminal activities in the Niger Delta. This is why a collaborative policy and intervention framework has become necessary, he said. Our agitations in the Niger Delta region have moved from carrying arms to intellectual agitations where we tell governments what we want in the region, the Managing Director of the NDDC, Samuel Ogbuku, said at the summit, apparently capturing the shift in the security challenges in the region which President Tinubu acknowledged provides an estimated 75% of Nigerias foreign exchange earnings, according to Mr Ribadu. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The ECOWAS Court of Justice in Abuja ruled on Wednesday that Nigeria violated the rights of citizens during the 2020 anti-police brutality demonstrations, popularly tagged EndSARS protests. The #EndSARS protest erupted in numerous Nigerian cities in October 2020. At the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos State, where it was most pronounced, security forces shot at peaceful protesters. At least 46 unarmed protesters were either shot dead, injured with bullets, or assaulted by security forces at the Lekki toll gate on 20 October 2020, a panel of inquiry set up by the Lagos State Government found out. Similar attacks on peaceful demonstrators took place in other parts of the country during the protests. The ECOWAS Court gave its decision affirming the violation of the rights of three Nigerians who participated in the protest at Lekki Toll Gate. The court held that the Federal Republic of Nigeria violated the human rights of Obianuju Catherine Udeh, Perpetual Kamsi, and Dabiraoluwa Adeyinka. Suit The plaintiffs alleged in their suit that during the peaceful protests against the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) at Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos State, on 20 and 21 October 2020, the Nigerian government committed multiple human rights violations. The first plaintiff said soldiers shot protesters, resulting in deaths and injuries, which she live-streamed. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later She said she received threatening phone calls that forced her into hiding and eventual asylum. The second plaintiff, responsible for protesters welfare, described how soldiers began shooting after a power outage, leading to her hospitalisation due to police tear gas. The third plaintiff recounted narrowly escaping being shot, witnessing soldiers refusing ambulance entry, and later observing inadequate hospital care for victims. The plaintiffs sought declaratory prayers and compensation from the court for these violations. Nigerian governments defence In its defence, the Nigerian government denied all of the applicants claims, stating that the protesters unlawfully assembled at Lekki Toll Gate under the guise of protesting against SARS. The government, through its counsel, submitted that its agents, including the police and military followed strict rules of engagement and did not shoot or kill protesters. It argued that the first plaintiff incited the crowd by playing music and using her Instagram page to stir disaffection against law enforcement targeting escapee Boko Haram members and bandits. The government also argued that the second plaintiffs logistics and welfare support indicated her support for the violent protest. It claimed soldiers were present to restore peace until police arrived and denied any harm inflicted on protesters or refusal of ambulance access. The government further argued that the third plaintiffs presence was meant to escalate violence. It maintained that the treatment and care of the injured were managed by the Lagos State government and asserted that the plaintiffs had not provided credible evidence to support their claims or reliefs sought. Court orders In its judgement on Wednesday, the ECOWAS Court, rejected the Nigerian governments defence. The judge rapporteur, Koroma Sengu, who delivered the judgement, ruled that Nigeria violated the human rights of the three applicants. The Court found Nigeria in breach of Articles 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, and 11 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR), concerning the right to life, personal security, freedom of expression, assembly and association, protection from torture, the states duty to investigate, and the right to effective remedy. But, according to a statement from the ECOWAS Courts Communication Division detailing the decision, the court dismissed the allegation of a right to life violation under Article 4 of the ACPHR. However, the court ordered Nigeria to pay each applicant N2 million (two Million Naira) for violations of their rights to personal security, protection from torture, freedom of expression, assembly and association, and the states duty to investigate human rights abuses. The court mandated Nigeria to adhere to its obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, investigate and prosecute its security agents responsible for the violations. It also gave the Nigerian government six months to report the measures taken to comply with the judgement. The three-member panel comprised Dupe Atoki, Ricardo Claudio Goncalves, and Koroma Sengu. Amnesty International reacts Amnesty International praised the ruling, calling for the prosecution of perpetrators and redress for victims. The nonprofit organisation concerned with human rights advocacy worldwide recalled appearing as a friend of the court during the hearing. It wrote: Amnesty International welcomes the ruling of the Court that orders the government of Nigeria to conduct a new investigation of rights violations that occurred during the October 2020 #EndSARS protests across Nigeria, in line with its duty to promote and protect human rights under international law, prosecute perpetrators, and provide redress to victims. In response to applicants Catherine Udeh & Ors case against the harassment and brutality of the notorious and disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), the ECOWAS Court of Justice delivered its judgment today finding violations of the applicants right to liberty and security, freedom of expression and association, right to freedom of assembly and effective remedy. Amnesty International was a friend of the court in the case and made submissions that (1) the right to life is violated by use of lethal force on peaceful protesters, (2) that freedom of peaceful assembly is violated by the unlawful dispersal of peaceful assemblies (3) and that the individuals whose rights have been violated have the right to effective remedy. #EndSARS protests The EndSARS protests were aimed at the brutality and heavy-handed tactics of the Nigerian police, particularly their tactical unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), whose operatives were notorious for inhuman treatment and extortion of citizens. The demonstrations erupted in October 2020 following the shooting of Daniel Chibuike in Delta State by police officers. The police later claimed the victim survived and alleged that protesters had killed a police officer. Days after the protest started, the then-President Muhammadu Buhari administration disbanded SARS and promised broad police reforms. The then Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, also introduced the Special Weapon and Tactics Team (SWAT) as its replacement. This move was immediately rejected by Nigerians, who demanded thorough medical and psychological evaluations for former SARS members before they could join SWAT. The hashtag #EndSARS quickly gained global traction, with the Nigerian diaspora joining in to demand an end to police brutality and a comprehensive reform of the security system. The Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos turned out to be the epicentre of the protest. Soldiers deployed to quell the protest there shot at peaceful protesters in the evening of 20 October 2020. Police used teargas and similarly fired gunshots to disperse demonstrators in different parts of the country. Security agencies, particularly the police, detained some protesters for months. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Bola Tinubu has directed that all projects that require additional funding, especially major projects of the Ministry of Works, be reviewed to ensure probity, proficiency and diligence in execution. The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said this while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, on Wednesday. He said the council decided to step down projects under the ministry of works inherited by the Tinubu administration, which required cost adjustments and variation. He said the president directed that the memos presented to the Council by the Minister of Works, David Umahi, be looked at once again so that there would be further deliberation at the next council meeting. Mr Idris explained that the idea was to re-examine, especially those parts that required augmentation or review. He said the works minister was directed to work with the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning and the Minister of Finance to look at those projects again and bring them strictly in line with budgetary provisions. According to the minister, where there is a necessity for additional funding, this will be brought back to the council meeting next time for further deliberation. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Procurement Act Review Mr Idris said the council also discussed the National Council on Procurement, which had not been effective in the last 17 years. Consequently, he said the President had submitted a bill to the National Assembly, which had scaled through the first reading at the House of Representatives. The whole idea is to ensure that we have a robust National Council on Procurement that will look at all aspects of procurement, and to bring every project into the fiscal financial discipline that the president is always talking about, the minister said. Also speaking, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, explained that President Tinubu, in line with the desire to enhance more fiscal discipline and further demonstrate to Nigerians his commitment to serving them better, raised the issue of the reconciliation between the Appropriation Act, Public Procurement law and the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The FEC has set up a committee under the chairmanship of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to review the Public Procurement Act. The president directed that all ministries, department and agencies, should review their intended procurement as provided for in the appropriation. Where there are gaps between appropriated sums and sums required to execute projects, that can be brought to the attention of both the Ministry of Budget and National Planning and Federal Ministry of Finance. Such that the memo that the cabinet secretariat will provide to the FEC, will have clarity of where funding is expected to come from and recommendation so as to guide effectively the Federal Executive Council decision, Mr Bagudu said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF NIGER DELTA: A NATIONAL SECURITY OUTLOOK A Paper Presented by the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, at the Technical Session of Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit INTRODUCTION I am very delighted to be here today as the Special Guest of Honour at this all-important Summit. The Theme of this Summit which is Renewed Hope for Sustainable Development in the Niger Delta could not have been more apt, given the efforts being made towards the Renewed Hope Initiative of the current administration of our President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR in the last one year. When I was appointed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR to the Office of National Security Adviser (ONSA), established under Section 132 of the Constitution to provide strategic advice on matters relating to National Security, three things were clear in my mind about the Niger Delta Region. They are; 1. That the Niger Delta must be clearly captured in a more active and determined way as a National Security priority in the vision of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR and his Renewed Hope Agenda. 2. That within the Presidents broader and long-term National Security vision, which includes moving internal security from the current strong posture from kinetic to non-kinetic operations, I will emphasize security from human and socio-economic development point of view to deepen democratic culture in the Niger Delta. 3. In view of the above two central ideas, I am determined to set up, for the first time in the ONSA, a Directorate that shall specialize in security of the Niger Delta through which we can, as Stakeholders, take a critical look at the peculiar security challenges of the region in a focused and professional way. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Accordingly, my team on Niger Delta (led by my Special Adviser on Energy Security and Niger Delta Affairs) is current working closely with the Governors of the Region and the Presidency. They will eventually include all Stakeholders of the region such as: Community Leaders, Traditional Rulers, Women, Youth and Students. Government Security Agencies (GSA). Federal Government Agencies (FGA) relevant to the region. Businesses. Civil Society, Peoples Organization and Media. We will have very robust engagement to support the President articulate a Compressive Presidential Policy on Niger Delta Security. We should expect that when that fully materializes, the President will most likely personally present policy guidance that will define his security management posture for the sustainable development of the Niger Delta, under the Renewed Hope Agenda. Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen LET ME GIVE YOU A CLUE INTO EMERGING POLICY DIRECTION To supply an appetizer into the thinking of the Presidency flowing from my Office and the ongoing consultation with the Governors of the Region, the President recognizes that Niger Delta Region provides an estimated 75% of Nigerias foreign exchange earnings. Also evident is that most of Nigerias Maritime domain and international coastline outside of Lagos, all of which are within the Gulf of Guinea, are in the coast of Niger Delta and this region is critical to the development of Nigeria Blue Economy. The political and socio-economic progress of Nigeria is therefore heavily tied to the social stability of the Niger Delta. Before 2024, 1.8 million barrel per-day production quota was allotted to Nigeria by OPEC. However, only about less than 1.4 million barrels per-day with a short-fall of 600,000 barrels per-day is produced. This is due to socio-economic issues that relate to security such as Crude Oil-theft, pipeline vandalisation, environmentally harmful artisanal refining, Sea piracy and youth militancy. The President is deeply concerned that the purpose of Federal Agencies, which was to respond to socio-economic issues, stabilize, and integrate the region is not proving successful if we cannot produce our allotted quota. This is why a collaborative policy and intervention framework has become necessary. DRIVERS OF CONFLICT AND INSECURITY IN THE NIGER DELTA The ONSA is consulting widely, collecting, and building a body of knowledge, information and data that will eventually help Mr. President prescribe policy, and create laws that will address in a more holistic and coordinated way. The security and conflict situation in the Niger Delta so as to enhance sustainable development. Key areas of interest include the following: 1. POLICY THAT RESPONDS TO YOUR PEOPLES CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL SENSIBILITIES Niger Delta is a region of ethnically diverse peoples. We recognise that you are republican and independent in your psychological traits. Culturally, leadership among you is symbolic and remains stable only when it reflects a high degree of social consensus. This sense of independence or autonomy and at same time interdependence reflects in the history and nature of your past and present internal and external conflict. It can be observed that such conflict is associated with strife for cultural, political, and economic autonomy or independence among your groups and institutions outside of yourselves. Therefore, the failure to understand and respond favourably in policy to your sensibilities generated a lot of insecurity. All these and more reveals your culturally formed traits, shaped your behaviour, and inform the nature of current conflict in the region that has affected our collective security as a nation. Your communities and your groups and their expressed views and desires will, therefore, be key to policy making for peace and social stability. 2. ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION Niger Delta is the worlds tenth largest and Africas largest deltaic ecosystem. It is ecologically highly diverse, complex, sensitive, and logistically challenging. Your people have braved, survived, and made their home out of this ecosystem. The oil and gas business and its negative externalities places a lot of pressure on your physical and social ecosystem and the peoples livelihood. This has introduced an additional layer to the nature and context for current conflict dynamics, as pollution to air, water, vegetation, and land has implications for health, livelihoods, ecosystem sustainability and future survival, with demonstrable consequences for National Security. The President hopes to make policies for sustainable development that address the implication of environmental issues to security as a central theme. 3. SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONTEXT TO SECURITY AND CONFLICT Nigerias centralised, top-down, rent-dependent and patronage driven political-economy, led by and founded on oil and gas industries, has tended to pressure and dislocate the traditional economy and livelihoods of rural people of the Niger Delta. This is due to the following: 1. Livelihood losses from Environmental pollution. 2. Migratory labour toward fast modernizing economy of your region, which displaces you in your traditional economy. 3. The constraints placed on you for access, for opportunities, and decision-making process and for effective participation in the oil and gas economy for your communities. 4. Social tension generated by the policies centred around ownership, control and management of oil and gas by sub-national stakeholders particularly the communities. The nature of the political economy and the socio-economic fallouts provides another important layer of conflict and security with implication for social stability and National integration, that impacts National Security. 4. CULTURE AND VALUES CONTEXT TO SECURITY AND CONFLICT The traditionally welcoming and hospitable communities of the Niger Delta, at the onset of the oil and gas industry, have turned hostile, including aligning with rogue elements at all levels. This proves to be a result of the progressive loss of culture seen in family, community, and societal values that underpin deep ecology and sustainable development. Every form of imaginable corrupt practices and behaviour now form part of social patterns that generate conflict and erode social harmony. Many attribute this to degenerating national leadership, political culture, and the inability of communities to cope with and survive under happening changes in a way that preserves traditional value systems. Mr. President considers this as critical to rebuilding the most import infrastructure of hearts and minds upon which all other development depends. 5. GOVERNMENT RESPONSE One more important layer of challenge that continues to inform conflict, is the response of government to situation in the region. Laws, policies, regulations, behaviour, practices, agencies charged with development, and models employed by these agencies, including values and choice of leadership, have all tended to create systems for patronage, entitlement, and benefit capture rather than a productive and value-creating economic and socio-political system. This confine intended benefit from reaching communities at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid. Attempts to complain or resist are often responded to with heavy-handed military solutions that create and sustain tension. The President has become deeply aware that sustainable development is not just about more monies but the values and methods through which monies are applied. This will therefore also inform the Presidents desire for comprehensive policies measures. POLICY SOLUTION To solve current conflict situation and transition toward a more stable, harmonious, and better nationally integrated peoples and communities of Niger Delta. Overarchingly, this will involve implementing development on a collaborative partnership framework of stakeholders supported by clearly defined, spatially well-planned Socio-Economic Intervention and Intelligence-led security and policing response. Which includes the following: 1. Pushing a strong Kinetic security perspective that increases the risk for perpetrators of oil theft, artisanal refining, Sea piracy and armed militancy 2. Pursuing a collaborative perspective with stakeholders for Socio-economic Development with National Security as focal purpose. 3. Promote reorientation in values in an Ideology supportive of National Harmony and Integration. 4. Engage professional and technically supported, incorporated Host Communities companies as Trained and Regimented Guards for Critical Assets, supervised by Government security agencies under the Governor in the long run. 5. Deepening Community Participation in Hydro-carbon Business. 6. Broaden the base and capacity of policing at Sub-national level. CONCLUSION Sustainable peace, security and social stability of the Niger Delta Region that increasingly move away from Kinetic engagement (Stick-model) towards non-kinetic engagement (Carrot-model), will flow from coordinating the responsibilities of relevant organs of Public-sector, Private-sector, Development-sector, civil society and media toward a clearly, articulate and better planned understanding of the nexus between security and Development. Accordingly, to achieve an optimal outcome for set security priorities and objectives, Mr. President thinking as a democrat, for his Renewed Hope Presidential Policy on Niger Delta Security, shall derive its legitimacy and credibility from listening to the people, their governments at State and LGA levels, leadership of communities, businesses and civil society, building consensus and creating systems that will address identified limitation. As my Office puts this process in place, we hope to get into action soon, bring all stakeholders to make contributions. Until that is fully in place, kindly be reassured that the Niger Delta has assumed a new sense of meaning and priority in my office. With the best of luck, we would get there. Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for listening. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The missile hit the hospital during surgeryOkhmatdyts general director, Volodymyr Zhovnir, said that there were 670 children in the hospital at the time of the explosion. Three children were lying on the surgical tables with their chest cavities open. Doctors and nurses covered the children with their bodies to protect them from fragments of glass and concrete. In addition, in Kyiv, debris of a shot-down missile fell on a building where private medical facilities are located. At least nine people were killed there. On 8 July, Russia fired 38 missiles of various types at Ukraine, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk informed. Because of the scale, and how sophisticated the attack was, it was not possible to shoot them all down. Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk were attacked. At least 40 people were killed and hundreds injured. The highest number of deaths, 31, was in Kyiv, and two of them were in Ukraines largest childrens hospital, Okhmatdyt, which treats children with cancer and orphan diseases. The missile hit the hospital during surgery. Later, Okhmatdyts general director, Volodymyr Zhovnir, said that there were 670 children in the hospital at the time of the explosion. Three children were lying on the surgical tables with their chest cavities open. Doctors and nurses covered the children with their bodies to protect them from fragments of glass and concrete. In addition, in Kyiv, debris of a shot-down missile fell on a building where private medical facilities are located. At least nine people were killed there. Apartment blocks, office buildings, and industrial facilities were also damaged. In all these places, there are dead or wounded people. Journalists from The Reckoning Project, who have been documenting war crimes, including attacks on medical facilities, since the beginning of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine, were working at the site. The alarm started in Ukraine at half past ten in the morning, at the beginning of the working day. Although most of the 38 missiles were shot down by Ukrainian air defence forces, the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that, in the capital, missiles hit a residential building, the administrative building of one of the plants and, as mentioned above, the Okhmatdyt, which is the childrens hospital in the capital. Okhmatdyt, translating as mother and child care, is the largest medical centre in Ukraine, which treats about 600 children having the most complex diseases every day. It treats children with oncological, genetic and neurological diseases; rescues those with complications from infectious diseases; has a centre for orphan diseases; and performs bone marrow transplants. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, children from all over the country have been brought to Okhmatdyt with the most severe injuries, leading to amputations. Ukrainians come to the Okhmatdyt as the last hope to save their children, whose lives have turned into a continuous struggle for every breath. Treatment takes place in ten buildings with the most modern equipment in the country. Very often, surgeons operate on children during air raids and shelling, because they cannot delay. A Russian missile hit one of the hospitals buildings just as they were performing such operations. Surgical nurse Iryna says she was preparing an eight-month-old baby for heart surgery. During the explosion, the surgeon rushed to the child and covered him, saving him from the shards of glass and concrete. In the intensive care unit, the children were saved by being taken out on couches into the corridor, in time to hide behind two walls. These are safety measures that are known to everyone in Ukraine: during an air raid, you need at least two walls of the building between you and the street to protect you from debris. Inna Bondarenko, a senior nurse in the intensive care unit, says it is almost impossible to bring the children down to the shelter from this unit because they are breathing through oxygen machines and cannot walk. The children are in such a serious condition that their parents are with them during treatment. When everyone hid in the corridor, Inna Bondarenko ran to her office she had forgotten something, and after all the shock, she could not remember what it was. At that moment, there was an explosion. The nurse was thrown against the wall, glass fell on her and cut her arms and face. Inna crawled on her knees to the door, started to climb, while her head was spinning. The building seemed to have been blown off the ground during the explosion, and everyone in it, the nurse said. As she talked about it, she cried. She is hugged by her colleague, Anna Isayeva, the head of the intensive care unit. The women recall that in an instant, all the windows in the building broke, the doors flew open, and the suspended ceiling began to fall. The blast wave was so strong that heavy medical equipment was blown out of the wards into the corridors. In the first moments, children and adults were numb with horror, Inna Bondarenko remembered. Adults held their children close to them with all their might, and they cried. When the first shock passed, people started running outside. No one understood where the explosion had taken place. Ambulances began to arrive at the hospital from all over Kyiv. The sound of sirens did not stop. Small patients wrapped in sheets and carrying oxygen bags were being carried into ambulances. In the shadows of one of the smashed buildings, children with bald heads from chemotherapy sat in a line. They were in wheelchairs, leaning on adults who hugged them with one arm and held drips in the other. Those who could walk on their own, leaning on their parents, got into ambulances. Broken glass crackled underfoot. There were boxes of medicine and childrens drawings everywhere. The video taken by doctors in the first minutes after the explosion shows the hospital yard filled with smoke and dust, with small pieces of colourful film floating in the air, which had been used to cover the windows of one of the hospital buildings. When the windows shattered, the film was cut into millions of pieces and it covered the hospital yard like snow. It fell on people in the streets, who stood hugging each other and crying. Everyone was looking towards the Toxicology and Intoxication Department, where children were receiving dialysis. The two-floor building was half destroyed. Smoke, dust and fire were rising from the ruins. Doctors and nurses were the first to clear the rubble. Many of them were wearing white medical coats covered with blood. They had cuts on their hands. Debris obstructed access to the rubble. The smoke stung eyes. In a moment, a human chain was formed and people were passing each other lumps of broken bricks and cement. Hot stones burned their hands. No one knew if there were doctors and children under the rubble. One of the doctors recorded an appeal on social media: Im alive, I need help clearing the rubble. At that moment, residents of the neighbouring blocks ran to the childrens hospital to help. They were carrying bottles of water. Some began to clear the rubble, while others entered the smashed wards of the hospital and carried children in their arms. Ambulances began to arrive at the hospital from all over Kyiv. The sound of sirens did not stop. Small patients wrapped in sheets and carrying oxygen bags were being carried into ambulances. In the shadows of one of the smashed buildings, children with bald heads from chemotherapy sat in a line. They were in wheelchairs, leaning on adults who hugged them with one arm and held drips in the other. Those who could walk on their own, leaning on their parents, got into ambulances. Children stood out among the crowd because of their bald heads. Gradually, the hospital yard was filled with hundreds of people rescuers, police, military and civilians from Kyiv. Everyone was carrying bottles of water. It was hot in Kyiv, near a scorching building, in the smoke and dust, and everyone was thirsty. Rescuers flooded the building with firebombs, but it did not stop burning. Approximately three hours after the attack, the air raid siren sounded again, and someone went into the shelter, but the work did not stop. People went into the affected buildings to clean up. There were at least two hundred volunteers on each floor. They were raking up glass with shovels and brooms, cutting open blocked doors with grinders. Hundreds of construction bags of garbage were passed from hand to hand, from the sixth floor to the street. Nurses were handing out medical masks and respirators to prevent volunteers from breathing the dust. Many people were getting sick from the stuffiness and nurses took them out into the fresh air. Doctors were searching for remaining medical equipment among the rubble and taking them to a safe place. After about five hours, the intensive care building was cleaned. In one of the wards, which was not badly damaged, a nurse put a drip on a sick child. She and her mother had not yet been taken to another hospital, and it was impossible to interrupt treatment. Having cleared one building, the volunteers moved on to another. The explosion damaged five hospital buildings, along with the destroyed building. There were bags of rubbish everywhere in the hospital yard. Men were throwing them onto trucks to free up space. There were so many people willing to help that the police stopped letting them into the hospital. Traffic stopped around the hospital itself. People were carrying water, food and medicine in large numbers. Rumours spread in the city that children and doctors were trapped under the rubble. The destroyed building was still smoking, although six hours had passed since the explosion. A large concrete slab made it impossible to dismantle the rubble. A construction crane was brought to the hospital to remove it. At around 9 p.m., after 10 hours of rescue operations, at the entrance to the Okhmatdyt hospital, Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Lyashko said that 50 people had been injured in the hospital due to the missile attack, two adults had died one of them a 30-year-old doctor, Svitlana Lukyanchuk. She had worked as a pediatric nephrologist. In the destroyed building, she was treating children who needed dialysis. 8th July was her first day back to work after an holiday. The second victim was a relative of a patient. The children in the hospital did not die, but seven were injured. The youngest of them is two-and-a-half years old. The conditions of the wounded children are satisfactory. The Reckoning Project has been documenting attacks on medical facilities in Ukraine since the famous case of a Russian aircraft strike on the maternity ward of a childrens hospital in Mariupol, a large city in southern Ukraine, in the midst of the fighting, on 9 March 2022. At least 33 people were injured in the attack, three of who died in the maternity ward. Among them was a pregnant woman and her unborn child. Patients numbering 670 were evacuated to other hospitals in Kyiv. After the shelling, the hospital is unable to continue its work, and the Ukrainian government is looking for newer premises so that doctors can resume helping children. However, some of the medical equipment cannot be transported from the Okhmadyt and there is no alternative in the country. Doctors are currently assessing which medical equipment has been damaged and whether they can be repaired. Scheduled surgeries have been suspended, including dozens of operations for which the children had been preparing for six months. It is difficult to carry them out in other medical institutions. While rescue works were underway at Okhmatdyt, another Russian attack in another district of Kyiv hit private medical facilities. A missile launched by Russia managed to be shot down by the air defence forces over the city, and allegedly its debris fell on a building housing two hospitals. The medical centre was partially destroyed. Nine people died there, including employees of companies whose offices were also located in the building. I personally saw the body of a girl. It seemed to me that she had come to make an appointment at the hospital. She was lying there and not breathing, said Oleksandr Kariakin, who worked in an office in the building that was attacked. He survived, but two of his colleagues were killed. The Reckoning Project has been documenting attacks on medical facilities in Ukraine since the famous case of a Russian aircraft strike on the maternity ward of a childrens hospital in Mariupol, a large city in southern Ukraine, in the midst of the fighting, on 9 March 2022. At least 33 people were injured in the attack, three of who died in the maternity ward. Among them was a pregnant woman and her unborn child. The maternity ward was part of the newly renovated Central Hospital No. 3 Health of Mother and Child, which provided a wide range of medical services to the entire southern part of Donetsk region. Before the war, the facility was carrying out 18 to 20 deliveries a week, Lyudmyla Mykhailenko, who served as the hospitals acting director, told The Reckoning Project earlier. During the war, the number of births in the department, which was the only one in the area, increase significantly, as it became impossible to move around Mariupol due to the intensity of the attacks. Some hospitals were too far away, while others were destroyed or damaged. On the day of the airstrike, there were 37 pregnant women and 20 children, including premature babies, in the hospital. Medical staff tried to accommodate as many women as possible in the corridors. When I arrived at the maternity hospital, I was sure I was safe. No one in their right mind would bomb a maternity hospital. Its like bombing a church, isnt it? said Anastasia Piddubna, one of the survivors. She and her baby son, who was born two weeks after the air strike, managed to escape Mariupol together. According to International Humanitarian Law, hospitals and clinics cannot be targeted. They are recognised as civilian objects with special protection. Article Eight of the Statute of the International Criminal Court states that the intentional targeting of hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are concentrated, constitutes a war crime. A number of international and human rights organisations including eyeWitness to Atrocities (eyeWitness), Insecurity Insight, Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR), Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), and the Ukrainian Healthcare Centre (UHC) have created a map of strikes on Ukrainian medical facilities since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. In total, as of April, they had recorded 1,442 attacks on medical facilities; in 742 cases, hospitals and clinics were damaged, and at least 210 medical workers were killed. Ukraine is not the first country to face such warfare tactics. In October 1999, Russian missiles hit a maternity hospital in Grozny. The attack killed at least 30 people that day, including women and newborn babies, according to the AP news agency. Grozny was leveled to the ground, in a manner similar to Mariupol. In 2016, in Syria, Russian airstrikes on Aleppo destroyed almost all the hospitals and medical facilities in the city. In all regions of Ukraine, Russia continues to attack power plants, heating and water supply stations. People can survive without access to electricity, heating and water. It is impossible to live in cities without hospitals. The shelling of Ukraines largest childrens hospital, which treated the most vulnerable and was a symbol of hope and salvation for parents across the country, is also a blow that should have broken peoples morale. In Kyiv, more than two thousand rescuers, police, military and volunteers joined the rescue operation. In the first ten hours, $2.5 million was raised for the hospital. Anna Mamonova and Angelina Kariakina wrote via The Reckoning Project. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Police Command in Yobe on Tuesday said it recorded 34 cases of Gender Based Violence (GBV) in the state from January till date. The commands spokesperson, Dungus Abdulkarim, told journalists in Damaturu, that 85 per cent of the cases were undergoing trial, while the command secured convictions in 15 per cent of the cases. He cited a recent case in Tarmuwa Local Government Area of the state, where a cleric (name withheld), allegedly lured a 20-year-old woman with charm and impregnated her. In the latest incident, Tarmuwa Divisional Police Headquarters received a complaint from one Alhaji Mohammed Kellu that his daughter was abducted by a marabout on June 6, 2024. Following a thorough search, the victim was found in the suspects custody at Anguwan Arewa in Gaya LGA of Kano State. Medical examination revealed that the victim was two months pregnant. The victim confessed that she was coerced into drinking a medicinal concoction, which rendered her unconscious and vulnerable to the perpetrators actions, Mr Abdulkarim said. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later He said the Commissioner of Police in the state, Garba Ahmad, had reiterated his determination to tackle GBV, which caused severe physical and emotional trauma to the victims. The spokesman advised parents to always monitor their childrens relationships, noting that GBV perpetrators could be relatives, neighbours or acquaintances. READ ALSO: Lagos opens shelter for survivors of sexual and gender based violence Mr Abdulkarim also urged stakeholders to join forces in combating GBV, which could hinder the development of girl-child and the society at large. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), on Wednesday, begins the Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit 2024 to develop strategies and articulate a roadmap for economic growth and development of Nigerias Niger Delta Region. President Bola Tinubu is expected to attend the summit as a special guest of honour, while former President Goodluck Jonathan will serve as the chairperson of the summit. The President of the Nigerian Senate, Godswill Akpabio, and the Ijaw national leader, Edwin Clark, are expected to attend the summit. Governors of the nine states that make up the Niger Delta region are among the dignitaries expected at the summit. The summit will attract other top government officials and policymakers in the oil & gas sector, as well as community and youth leaders from the Niger Delta region. The theme of the summit is Renewed Hope for Sustainable Development of the Niger Delta region, and it is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. on Wednesday with a technical session. The first session is taking place at the Js Signature Hotel in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later There will be a break on Thursday while the summit will be wrapped up on Friday at Dr. Obi Wali International Conference centre in Port Harcourt. The event will feature discussions by experts and scholars on seven thematic issues of development in the region. It will also feature highlights of the NDDCs achievements in the Niger Delta region. PREMIUM TIMES is at the summit venue to provide you with live updates. 11:53 a.m. National Anthem 11:57 a.m. Introduction of guests 12:02 p.m. The Chairman of the Governing Board of the NDDC, Chiedu Ebie, gives his opening address. 12:06: This summit is an excellent opportunity for us to move the Niger Delta region, Mr Ebie said 12:10: Mr Ebie just concluded his address, where he called on the people of the Niger Delta region to join in the conversation to articulate ideas and policies that will engender the development of the region. #NigDelSS24 12: 12 p.m. The Chairman of the technical session of the summit, Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State, represented by the Deputy Governor of the state, Chinyere Ekomaru, presents his address. 12:14 p.m. Niger Delta region is blessed with natural resources, but its people are plagued in poverty and lack, he said 12: 15 p.m. Governor Uzodinma, in his address, called for a vibrant conversation that will address the issue of renewable energy and solve poverty in the midst of abundant natural resources in the Niger Delta region. 12: 17 p.m. It is time to receive goodwill messages. 12:36 p.m. Head of the Presidential Amnesty in the Niger Delta, Dr. Dennis Brutu, a human rights activist, Anku Briggs, and the Chairman, Niger Delta Indigenous Contractors, Dressman Darlington, have presented their Goodwill messages. 12:43 p.m. The founding father of the defunct OMPADEC, Prof. Jasper F. Jumbo, gives his Goodwill message. #NigDelSS24 12: 57 p.m. The National Secretary of the Oil Producing communities in Niger Delta and traditional ruler of Assa Community in Imo State, Emmanuel Asor, gives his goodwill message. 1: 04 p.m. Deputy Chairman, House Committee on NDDC, House of Representatives, Jafaru Leko, gives his goodwill message. Mr Leko assured that the national assembly will speedily pass the NDDC budget. 1:05 p.m. When Niger Delta is not healthy, Nigeria is not healthy, Mr Leko said. 1:10 p.m. Nigerian Senator representing Cross River Central District, Eteng Jonah Williams, is speaking now. 1:11p.m: The goodwill message session ends with most speakers calling on the federal government to release outstanding funds to the NDDC. 1:14 p.m. The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, makes a presentation on the state of the Niger Delta region under the leadership of the NDDC Managing Director, Samuel Ogbuku. Mr Ribadu is represented by his special adviser on energy security and Niger Delta affairs, Osaretin Ihuoma Grace. 1: 20 p.m. Mr Ribadu, in his presentation, noted that the federal governments response to insecurity and oil theft in the south-south region was causing tension and worsening insecurity in the region. The national security adviser said the federal government will, consequently, move from using the kinetic approach to the use of a non-kinetic approach to insecurity challenges in the region. 1:30 p.m. The Managing Director of the NDDC, Samuel Ogbuku, presents his address. 1:34 p.m. The Managing Director of the NDDC, Samuel Ogbuku, speaks on the summits significance. 1:35 p.m. Our agitations in the Niger Delta region have moved from carrying arms to intellectual agitations where we tell governments what we want in the region, Mr Ogbuku said. 1:39 p.m. Mr Ogbuku said the NDDC is developing a skill acquisition programme to provide job opportunities for teeming unemployed youths in the Niger Delta. He said youths will be trained in specific areas where they have an interest. 1: 43 p.m. Mr Ogbuku says although the NDDC was created with open-ended roles, he was working on a policy document to show specific areas of responsibility. 1:46 p.m. Our just concluded light Up the Niger Delta Outreach has reduced criminality in the Niger Delta, Mr Ogbuku says. 1: 49 p.m. The NDDC is planning to dole out drugs in Niger Delta region as part of its efforts to control cholera outbreak, he says. 1: 51 p.m. NDDC is not in competition with state governors, we are partners in progress. We are also partnering with federal agencies such as the NNG in road constructions, Mr Ogbuku says 1:55 p.m. This is not the time to vent your anger on social media, come to the summit and ventilate your grievances, the NDDC MD tells Niger Delta people 1:56 p.m. Mr Ogbuku ends his address. 1:59 p.m. A member of the Presidential Economic Committee, Patrick Okigbo, begins a presentation on the seven pillars of development in the Niger Delta region. 2:05 p.m. One of the problems in the Niger Delta is that the region has been significantly de-industrialised, Mr Okigbo says. 2:10 p.m. Mr Okigbo ended his speech highlighting the seven pillars of development to include economic development, human and social capital development, infrastructure development, environmental development, security, law and order, political commitment and governance. 2:14 p.m: National anthem to mark a short break for lunch by guests and other dignitaries. 3:30 p.m. Panel discussion begins. Participants split into seven syndicate groups with each of the groups brainstorming on a particular pillar of development. The panel discussion is expected last for an hour with each group expected to submit their resolution/solutions for problems identified in the pillar or sector. 4:38 p.m.Presentation of resolutions/solutions by the syndicate groups begins. 4:39 p.m. Group two members begin their presentation. The group was facilitated by Dr. Ndubuisi Nwokolo. A member of the group, Mrs Hilda Dukubo, makes the presentation. 4:46 p.m. Group one members begin their presentation. The group was facilitated by Dr. Charles Achodo, the senior director of the Nextier. Aganaba is making the presentation on behalf of the group which discussed economic development. 4:51 Group three members begin presentation. Facilitated by Atei Beredugo, the group discussed Infrastructure development. Mr Beredugo makes the presentation. 4:57 p.m. Group four members begin presentation of their recommendations on Environmental Development. The presentation is being made by the group facilitator, Dr. Ferdinand Giadom, an environmental geologist. 5:07 p.m. Group seven members begin their presentation on Finance and Funding. The group was facilitated by Reginald Ihebuzor, a former World Bank Transaction Advisor. Prof. Jasper Jumbo is making the presentation on behalf of the group. 5:08 p.m. We need President Bola Tinubu to set up the Niger Delta Development Bank. We need to team up to expedite action on this, Prof. Jumbo said. 5:16 p.m. Group five members begin their presentation on Security, Law and Order. The group was facilitated by a former commissioner for environment in Bayelsa State, Iniruo Wills. Walson Paminola makes the presentation for the group. 5:30 p.m. Group Six members begin their presentation on Governance, Institutions/implementation ( Monitoring and Evaluation). The group was facilitated by Stephen Onerhime. 5:37 p.m. Group presentations end. Questions and answers session begins. 6:03 p.m. Vote of thanks by Hon. Boma Iyaye, the Executive Director of Finance and Administration of the NDDC. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, has ordered flags to be flown at half-mast in honour of the departed Federal House of Representatives member representing Ibadan North federal constituency, Olaide Akinremi. Mr Makinde described the sudden demise of the All Progressives Congress (APC) member as shocking and a great loss to the state. He prayed for the repose of his soul and the courage for the family to bear the unfortunate loss. On his part, Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu described his death as a great, personal loss. In a condolence message, Mr Adelabu described Mr Akinremi as a brother and friend whose death came as a major surprise and shock that he is still trying to come to terms with. This really came as a shock to me. I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact of his death. He was a partner in progress who also believed in the development of Oyo State. This is indeed a major loss to the progressives family in Oyo State and Nigeria, he said. The power minister stressed that the late Reps member would be missed by his colleagues in the National Assembly, Oyo APC, Ibadan North people whom he ably represented, and his immediate and extended families. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later No doubt, the death of Jagaban will create a big vacuum in the polity, but I pray that the Almighty God gives the family and all those affected by his untimely passage the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss, he added. The Deputy Director-General of the APC Youth and Students Campaign Council, Sanni Aridunu, also confirmed Akinremis death in a chat with PREMIUM TIMES. Mr Aridunu said the news of Mr Akinremis death came as a shock, noting that the legislator was in good health during the Sallah festival weeks ago. We (APC) are all sad at the moment. When we heard the news from Abuja, we were confused, but there was nothing we could do. Jagaban was nice to everyone; we met during the Ileya festival and he was fine and healthy. He was not sick, he said. The Federal House of Representatives had announced the death of Akinremi early on Wednesday. A statement by House spokesman and chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Akin Rotimi, Jr., said Mr Akinremi died after a brief illness. READ ALSO: Police arrest man with human skull in Abuja The late Akinremi, who served as chairman of the House Committee on Science Research Institutions, died aged 51. Until his demise, the Oyo legislator was a dedicated public servant known for his unwavering commitment to the development of his constituency and the country at large. His passion for service, coupled with his deep understanding of the needs and aspirations of his people, earned him the endearing title of Jagaban, the statement added. Popularly known as Jagaban, the late Akinremi was a two-term member of the House of Representatives before his death. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Worldwide Celebration on 30 April PARIS and WASHINGTON and ABU DHABI, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Every year on 30 April, International Jazz Day is celebrated around the world, honouring the sound of artistic freedom. UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock are pleased to announce that Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, will serve as the Global Host of the 2025 edition of International Jazz Day. "International Jazz Day heads to Abu Dhabi in 2025, infusing new energy and basking in the melange of cultures. The celebration in this cosmopolitan city will embody the power of jazz to unite and delight in our shared humanity." Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, has been selected as the Global Host City for International Jazz Day 2025. Post this "Jazz is a language of unity and a beacon of hope that continues to inspire new generations of artists from all corners of the globe. In Abu Dhabi, a renowned group of international artists will join us to share their musical vision, build bridges through the power of music, and create harmony in our diverse world." Herbie Hancock, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Presented in partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi), the celebration will be anchored around its cultural heritage defined as a tapestry of an Arab and Emirati culture. Classical instruments like Oud, Qanoon and Ney will introduce global audiences to 'Arabic Jazz'. As the 2025 Global Host City, Abu Dhabi, the UNESCO Creative City of Music, will showcase the interplay of local musical traditions and Jazz dating back decades. "We are honored that Abu Dhabi has been selected as the Global Host for the 2025 edition of International Jazz Day. This recognition underscores our city's thriving music scene and unwavering commitment to cultural diversity and artistic excellence. As a UNESCO Creative City of Music, Abu Dhabi has long been a beacon of musical innovation, where traditional Arabian melodies blend seamlessly with global genres, creating a vibrant and unique cultural tapestry. Hosting International Jazz Day reaffirms our dedication to the arts and provides a global stage to showcase our dynamic music scene. Our city consistently celebrates and nurtures musical talent from around the world." HE Mohamed Al Mubarak, Chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi's investment in the culture sector has transformed the city into a global destination for arts and creativity, attracting world-class cultural institutions while also supporting home-grown institutions and its Arabic roots. Along with the concert, educational programmes and community outreach are key features of the Day. On 30 April, Abu Dhabi will bring musical education to local schools across the city. Higher-education institutions like Berklee Abu Dhabi and New York University Abu Dhabi and other UAE-based universities will also open their doors, offering workshops and masterclasses in their lecture halls, exhibition spaces and auditoriums. Special attention will be paid to the participation of young musicians, encouraging them to cultivate their interest in music and pursue a career in jazz. Established by the General Conference of UNESCO in 2011 and recognized by the United Nations General Assembly, International Jazz Day brings together countries and communities worldwide every 30 April. The day pays tribute to the art form of jazz, its capacity to bring people together, and its power to promote dialogue, freedom of expression, as well as respect for human rights and diversity. The global movement has reached more than 2 billion people on all continents through education programmes, performances, community outreach and online platforms. The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz is the lead nonprofit organization charged with planning, promoting, and producing International Jazz Day each year. To learn more about International Jazz Day and register events on the official website, visit www.jazzday.com or www.unesco.org/en/international-jazz-day. About UNESCO With 194 Member States, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization contributes to peace and security by leading multilateral cooperation on education, science, culture, communication and information. Headquartered in Paris, UNESCO has offices in 54 countries and employs over 2300 people. UNESCO oversees more than 2000 World Heritage sites, Biosphere Reserves and Global Geoparks; networks of Creative, Learning, Inclusive and Sustainable Cities; and over 13 000 associated schools, university chairs, training and research institutions. Its Director-General is Audrey Azoulay. More information: www.unesco.org. About the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz preserves, perpetuates and expands jazz as a global art form, and utilizes jazz as a means to unite people of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities. The Institute is a nonprofit education organization with a mission to offer the world's most promising young musicians college level training by internationally acclaimed jazz masters and to present public school music education programs for young people around the world. More information: www.hancockinstitute.org. About the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi The Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) drives the sustainable growth of Abu Dhabi's culture and tourism sectors, fuels economic progress and helps achieve Abu Dhabi's wider global ambitions. DCT Abu Dhabi cements the ecosystem around a shared vision of the emirate's potential, and use the best tools, policies, and systems to support the culture, creative and tourism industries. More information: dct.gov.ae SOURCE Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Youll probably never get to vote on abortion in SC. Heres whats keeping it off the ballot South Carolinians may never have a chance at a direct say over whether abortion access should be protected in the state. Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, six states California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont and Ohio have voted on abortion-related constitutional amendments. Each time the side favoring abortion access won. South Carolina doesnt have a mechanism to allow citizen-initiative petitions to put a question on the ballot. In a state where a plurality of people oppose the states 6-week abortion ban, only lawmakers can place constitutional questions on ballots and Republican leadership doesnt think that move is necessary because legislators are elected to make those decisions. Political parties can put advisory questions on their primary ballots, but Democrats philosophically have avoided conducting those polls in their primaries. The state bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is usually at the six-week mark and when a woman might not even know shes pregnant. The states law includes exceptions of up to 12 weeks if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. It also allows abortions if the baby has a fatal fetal anomaly and to preserve the life of the mother. The law was passed in 2023 by a Republican-controlled General Assembly and eventually upheld by the state Supreme Court. Pro-life supporters including Amy Rummage, right, from Fort Mill, S.C. celebrate the signing of the fetal heartbeat bill into law during a ceremony at the Statehouse on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. The only way voters in South Carolina would ever vote in a binding resolution about whether abortion should be protected is if two-thirds of each chamber of the General Assembly voted to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot. With the both chambers in the firm hands of the GOP, the odds of that happening are very low. During the abortion debate in the Legislature in 2023, and during a debate this year over a proposed constitutional amendment that will be on the ballot in November, lawmakers in favor of abortion access tried to place a referendum on the ballot. Their efforts were rejected. If lawmakers wanted to place a referendum on the ballot, the question has to pose a specific position, like must the constitution be amended to provide for a right to bodily autonomy that includes a right to an abortion? That could be a difficult vote for a lawmaker because voting yes for the question to appear could be interpreted as supporting abortion access. We have to take an affirmative position that it should be an amendment to the constitution, and the voters are just affirming what we do, said state Rep. Brandon Newton, R-Lancaster, who serves as a Republican Party whip in the state House. Newton, along with other Republican leaders, say lawmakers are elected to handle these types of questions. The voters vote for their representatives. We vote on the issue and if the voters dont like how we vote, then thats how they have a say on the issue. Were a representative form of government and as long as voters elect the people who make the decisions, I think thats the voters having a say on the issue, Newton said. State Rep. David Hiott, left, and State Rep. Brandon Newton during a House of Representatives session in Columbia, S.C. on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. (Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA) House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, R-Pickens, said constituents share their opinions with elected officials who share those views in the State House during debates and subsequent votes, which can go deep into the night. The United States Supreme Court ruled on it, the South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled on it, Hiott said. We know where we are as a General Assembly. We know what will go through the Supreme Court. And I believe once we have got those rulings from the federal Supreme Court in the state Supreme Court, I think the body in here knows what what the parameters are. State Rep. John McCravy, R-Greenwood, who leads House Family Caucus, was blunt about the chances voters would have a direct say on abortion access. South Carolina does not have a method for a referendum, McCravy said. You can get a constitutional amendment on the ballot with two-thirds of the General Assembly. Its not going to happen, so thats the end of it. S.C. Rep. John McCravy, R-Greenwood introduces the abortion ban bill in the South Carolina House Chamber on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022. Plurality disagree with 6-week ban Placing a question on the ballot could lead to a result anti-abortion lawmakers disagree with. A recent Winthrop University poll of 1,174 South Carolinians found a plurality of people oppose the states 6-week abortion ban. According to a Winthrop University poll released in June, 48% of respondents opposed the states six-week abortion ban and only 31% supported it. Support for abortion access in South Carolina also increases when asking respondents about exceptions. 60% support legal abortion if the baby is likely to be born with severe disabilities or health problems. 81% support abortion if the pregnancy is the result of rape. 84% believe women should be able to have an abortion if the pregnancy threatens the womans life or health. With more people supporting abortion access than not, there would be a risk of a similar results as other states who held abortion referendum. Voters in red states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio have been in favor of protecting abortion access. I think it would be like Ohio, like Kansas, and thats why they wont do it. I dont think they would like the outcome... theyre afraid of what the people would have to say, said state Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, who stood against an abortion ban and subsequently lost a primary challenge in June. Republican leadership in the upper chamber also do not appear to be itching to place the question on the ballot. Were charged as a representative form of government to make those tough decisions, so well let the legislative process work, said Senate President Thomas Alexander. The legislature has spoken on that and represents the people from that aspect. Lawmakers have placed questions on the ballot in recent history. In November, South Carolina voters will decide whether to amend the state constitution to say only U.S. citizens can vote in elections as opposed to every U.S. citizen. In 2022, voters approved increasing how much money state had to keep in rainy day accounts. In 2006, South Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. That provision is no longer being enforced after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples had the right to marry. State Rep. Spencer Wetmore, D-Charleston, points out abortion access was once thought to be protected by the U.S. and state constitutions. We govern as a representative democracy within the bounds our our state constitution. And our state constitution is and should be a document that represents the will of the people. Those are the guardrails that then enable us to govern as a representative democracy, Wetmore said. Where we have an issue like (abortion), providing guardrails that should go the people. They should be able to have a voice as to what the constitution says and what those guard rails are for our government. S.C. Rep. Spencer Wetmore, D-Charleston, speaks with the House Democratic Caucus on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2022, after the House recessed during the abortion debate. Abortion rights proponents have steep hill South Carolina is a ruby red state. It voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, elected Republicans to all statewide offices in 2022, and both chambers in the state legislature are overwhelmingly controlled by the GOP. Going into the 2023 legislative session Republicans held an 88-36 majority in the House and held 30 of the 46 seats in the Senate. The GOP used that advantage to push through the current six-week abortion ban. Democratic lawmakers say a voter referendum on the issue is the only way to truly see how voters in the state feel about the issue. Because of gerrymandering, a true picture of what South Carolinians think can only be gained at the ballot box by allowing everybody to vote, said state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg. The state Legislature is not representative of the opinions of the majority of South Carolinians on this issue. Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, introduces an amendment to a bill that would ban abortions after six weeks at the South Carolina State House on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. Democrats have introduced hundreds of amendments to the bill. Hiott would not go as far as saying South Carolinians will never see an abortion question on the ballot, but conceded the makeup of the General Assembly would have to change. I dont believe theres a consensus or overwhelming majority of the body that wants to put it on as a binding referendum, Hiott said. It would be (a) very hard to climb in makeup of the body right now. South Carolinians could see a question on the ballot if one of the major political parties opted to ask voters as an advisory question during a primary election. The results of the question, however, would be nonbinding. The state Republican Party in the last four primary cycles has placed a question about people being allowed to register to vote by political party. In those GOP primaries, between 72% and 86% of voters said yes. The GOP also had questions about judicial reform and tort reform on its 2024 presidential primary ballot. The S.C. Democratic Party, however, has chosen not to put advisory questions on its ballots. State Democratic Party Executive Director Jay Parmley said the party has had internal discussion about placing an advisory question on its primary ballots, but the party has not pulled the trigger. We have a difference of opinion on advisory questions than Republicans. Were always concerned about it confusing voters, Parmley said. Parmley fears raising voters hopes. If they saw an advisory question on the ballot, they might think they were voting on a question that had the full force of law. He also expects that an advisory question on the Democratic ballot wouldnt reveal anything new. It would show Democrats support abortion access. I could tell you that without doing an advisory opinion on the Democratic side, Parmley said. It also didnt happen this year because South Carolina didnt have a statewide race on the ballot in the June primaries and not all congressional districts had competitive primaries. Yes, its a rallying cry, but we also talked through does it make more sense if were going to do it, put it on a ballot where everyone in the state does have a race, Parmley said. Parmley has worked in states where residents can petition to place in a question on the ballot, which doesnt exist in South Carolina. Its a great tool whenever you cant get the Legislature to move when you know the people are squarely on a different side, Parmley said. Parmley is confident if a binding question ever was put in front of voters, abortion access would be supported. You just know, if the voters of this state had a real opportunity to vote on it, we would protect abortion access. We know it, Parmley said. One of the ways we know it, you dont even need a poll, is you need to see how absolutely hardcore the other side is. They know it. They know theyll lose. Thats why they dig in. A group of abortion rights supporters gather in the lobby of the South Carolina State House on Wednesday April 26, 2023. Not all Republicans are against the idea of putting the question in front of voters. State Rep. Ashley Trantham, R-Greenville, who wont return to the State House next year, said a question could be used to further restrict abortion in the state. She would support a referendum to ban abortion completely. I ran on being a pro-life legislator. Thats one reason (people) voted for me, to protect life, Trantham said. (The ballot question) would have to be worded very clear, and do a great job educating people going to the polls, because there are things on the ballot that some people had no idea what it was, what it meant or what they were voting for. Then later they say, I hope I voted right. One Republican lawmaker is confident voters would support the anti-abortion position. I believe the people of South Carolina believe like we do that abortion should be limited, said state Rep. Bill Hager, R-Hampton. Im not afraid to put it before the people. A lot of folks are because theyre scared it will go the other way, but I trust the people, the people I know would say no. Were still an anti-abortion state. Reporters Javon Harris, Bristow Marchant and Anna Wilder contributed to this article. New business awarded includes supporting headquarter sales, retail merchandising, and digital commerce across the U.S. grocery and retail channel JACKSONVILLE, Fla., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Acosta Group, a leading sales and marketing agency collective, announced today the expansion of its engagement with The J.M. Smucker Company (NYSE: SJM) to include a complete North American solution for headquarter sales, retail merchandising, and digital commerce. This appointment by Smucker is based on Acosta Group's comprehensive set of services and solutions and demonstrated ability to support the company's portfolio of brands across various channels and markets. Acosta Group's expansion with Smucker includes providing a full suite of sales and marketing solutions for its brands across U.S. grocery and mass retail. In addition to representing the Smucker portfolio of brands as an extension of its sales team inside retailer merchant buying offices, Acosta Group will activate its unmatched In-Store Services merchandising team to ensure that the Company's brands are readily available for purchase in-store, on-shelf, and online. Acosta Group has a strong history of supporting the Smucker portfolio, including helping grow the Hostess brand in North America for the previous 10 years, as well as the Smucker family of brands in the Canadian marketplace over the last two decades and in the United States convenience channel since 2019. "We are pleased to announce our expanded partnership with Acosta to support the needs of our retail customers and consumers," said Robert Crane, Senior Vice President, Head of Sales and Sales Commercialization for The J.M. Smucker Company. "At Smucker, we are proud to have established a world-class sales and commercial organization and a critical element to maintaining that standing is ensuring we continue to execute with excellence on the fundamentals. I know that our partners at Acosta Group share in this commitment and that they will continue to support our delivery of first-class service." "We're extraordinarily proud to be an important part of The J.M. Smucker Company success story and appreciative of the trust their leadership continues to place in our work to further elevate its iconic brands across North America," said Brian Wynne, President and CEO of Acosta Group. "Our integrated sales and marketing agencies will support Smucker with everything from headquarter sales to digital commerce, demonstrating our ability to provide our CPG clients with frictionless access to our complete set of services and solutions." About Acosta Group Acosta Group is a collective of the most trusted retail, marketing and foodservice agencies empowering brands and retailers to win in the modern marketplace. By delivering transformative, commerce-focused solutions and more than 95 years of expertise, Acosta Group connects brands with people at every point in the consumer journey. Comprised of Acosta, Core Foodservice, Mosaic, Premium Retail Services and Actionlink, Acosta Group understands and anticipates evolving consumer needs, fueling accelerated performance to connect tomorrow's commerce today. For more information, please visit acosta.group . About The J.M. Smucker Co. At The J.M. Smucker Co., it is our privilege to make food people and pets love by offering a diverse family of brands available across North America. We are proud to lead in the coffee, peanut butter, fruit spreads, frozen handheld, sweet baked goods, dog snacks and cat food categories by offering brands consumers trust for themselves and their families each day including Folgers, Dunkin', Cafe Bustelo, Jif, Smucker's Uncrustables, Smucker's, Hostess, Voortman, Milk-Bone and Meow Mix. Through our unwavering commitment to producing high quality products, operating responsibly and ethically and delivering on our Purpose, we will continue to grow our business while making a positive impact on society. For more information, please visit jmsmucker.com. The J.M. Smucker Co. is the owner of all trademarks referenced herein, except for Dunkin', which is a trademark of DD IP Holder LLC. The Dunkin' brand is licensed to The J.M. Smucker Co. for packaged coffee products sold in retail channels, such as grocery stores, mass merchandisers, club stores, e-commerce and drug stores, as well as in certain away from home channels. This information does not pertain to products for sale in Dunkin' restaurants. SOURCE Acosta Group BRUSSELS, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Amrop, a leading global executive search and leadership consulting firm, announces the opening of a new office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This expansion marks an exciting milestone for Amrop as it grows its Middle East operations. The new office, located on Sheikh Zayed Road, represents an important investment in the region and underscores the organization's commitment to fostering closer ties with partners and clients in the UAE. Under the leadership of Mansour Abdulghaffar, Managing Partner, the Dubai office operates as part of Amrop Saudi Arabia, with a unified team and on-the-ground presence across Dubai, Jeddah and Riyadh. "Over the last decade, we have built and positioned Amrop in the Saudi market as a premium, retained Executive Search and Leadership Advisory firm," said Mansour Abdulghaffar, Managing Partner. "We are excited about our next chapter and to bringing more value to the region by expanding our presence to the UAE. These markets are closely interlinked, and our approach will continue to be quality-driven, high-touch and truly "glocal" whilst maintaining our strategic advantage of being regionally based." William Hauxwell also joins the team as a Partner in Dubai. Will is a seasoned Executive Search consultant, with almost two decades of experience living in Dubai and having worked with some of the most significant Sovereign Wealth Funds, Family Offices and Global Financial Institutions in the Middle East. Annika Farin, Amrop Chair, said, "Our new presence in Dubai will allow us to tap into the rich market potential of the Middle East and illustrates our dedication to being part of the vibrant future of the UAE. Dubai is a hub for Hospitality, Financial Services, Infrastructure, Logistics & Transportation, Healthcare and other key sectors matching our own expertise. Positioning ourselves in this dynamic environment will enhance our ability to offer Amrop's suite of human capital solutions more effectively to our regional clientele." About Amrop Amrop is a global leadership consulting firm, offering retained executive search, Board and leadership advisory services. We advise the world's most dynamic, agile organizations on identifying and positioning Leaders For What's Next - adept at working across borders, in markets around the world. Established in 1977, Amrop operates in Asia, EMEA and the Americas across 69 offices in 55 countries. www.amrop.com Contact: The Amrop Partnership SC Rue Abbe Cuypers 3 1040 Brussels, Belgium T. +32 471 733 825 E. [email protected] Brigitte Arhold, COO Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1755576/Amrop_Logo.jpg SOURCE Amrop TROY, Mich., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Aquasight, a leader in smart water solutions, announces its achievement of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Smart City and Public Sector Competencies. This prestigious recognition establishes Aquasight as the sole U.S.-based digital water technology company dedicated exclusively to the water and wastewater sector to earn these distinctions. The AWS Smart City Competency highlights Aquasight's capability in deploying cutting-edge solutions and artificial intelligence (AI) that enhance city livability and sustainability. This competency is awarded to AWS partners who have demonstrated excellence in delivering solutions that transform urban environments into more efficient, accessible, and citizen-focused communities. Achieving the AWS Smart City Competency showcases our commitment to making cities smarter and more sustainable. Post this "Achieving the AWS Smart City Competency showcases our commitment to making cities smarter and more sustainable," said Mahesh Lunani, CEO of Aquasight. "Our focused approach on water and wastewater management enables us to provide unparalleled expertise and innovative cyber secure solutions that address the unique challenges faced by our communities." The AWS Competency Partner Program has rigorously assessed Aquasight's digital real-time AI infrastructure, purpose-built for the water and wastewater industry, along with its proven customer deployments. Aquasight's achievement validates its technical acumen and effective implementation, bringing smart water solutions to utilities. This recognition highlights Aquasight's ability to enhance service delivery, drive efficiency, and optimize both O&M and capital costs. "We are grateful to AWS for this recognition and are excited to continue our collaboration with our utility partners, bringing them onto a 21st-century platform," added Lunani. Aquasight's recognition marks a significant milestone in its journey toward digitizing the water industry. By leveraging its industry-leading platform and AI, Aquasight makes a substantial contribution to the sustainability goals of cities across the United States and the world. About Aquasight Aquasight is a leader in smart water solutions, leveraging its industry-leading architecture and suite of six AI solutions. Deployed in over 125 agencies, Aquasight excels in water distribution, wastewater collection, treatment optimization, asset risk planning and capital forecasting, pump operations and maintenance, and underground virus detection and surveillance. Aquasight's mission is dedicated to delivering groundbreaking solutions to water and wastewater utilities and the communities they serve. Contact: Dan Corazza Marketing Manager 248-802-4674 [email protected] www.aquasight.io SOURCE Aquasight GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ArtPrize, the international art competition and cultural event held annually in Grand Rapids, Michigan, returns September 1328, 2024. And one of the major attractions certain to delight and inspire visitors will be Z-Car I, a stunning prototype created by legendary architect and designer Zaha Hadid that's a masterpiece of futuristic form and thinking. As part of the permanent collection of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (MSU Broad Art Museum), Z-Car I will be on loan and displayed during ArtPrize at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. Anyone planning to attend this year's event will want to make this a featured stop on their itinerary. Zaha Hadid Design for ROVE Gallery, Z-Car I, 20056. A Blend of Artistry and Innovation Regarded as one of the most important architects of her generation, Zaha Hadid designed the iconic MSU Broad Art Museum itself, and the museum is home to the largest collection of work by her design studio, Zaha Hadid Design, in North America. "The MSU Broad Art Museum's collection of work by Zaha Hadid Design is one of the many gems that make up the rich cultural and artistic landscape in Michigan," comments Rachel Winter, Assistant Curator at the MSU Broad Art Museum. "It's very exciting to be able to share one part of that collection, Z-Car I, with the many visitors from around the world who will visit ArtPrize this September. Although Z-Car I was designed nearly twenty years ago, its innovative design prompts us to think about important questions of our time around climate-friendly design for a better lived experience." In its own way, Z-Car I reflects the visually striking form and deep attention to user experience that Hadid is known for. Tailored to be emission free and meet the needs of urban life, the streamlined, three-wheel car with seating for two is made of lightweight carbon fiber composite. The passenger pod moves up and down on a hinged rear suspension, allowing for optimal navigation and a smaller footprint during city driving and a lower, safer, more aerodynamic form at higher speeds. ArtPrize Expands into the Design Space The Z-Car I is not a formal ArtPrize entry and will not be eligible for any awards. Rather, it's a showcase piece that will excite visitors while existing among the ArtPrize entries exhibited at the Gerald R. Ford Museum. "We are thrilled to host Zaha Hadid's visionary Z-Car I, a masterpiece of design and innovation," says Brooke Clement, director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum. "It's an honor to showcase such a remarkable work that melds art, technology, and functionality." The car also highlights a compelling new category of entries featured at ArtPrize 2024: +Design. Entries within the +Design category are physical expressions of purpose with the intent to impact the way life is experienced. And just like with the other categories, +Design works are eligible for both public vote and juried awards. To learn more about this year's event and stay up to date on other showcases and attractions, visit www.artprize.org The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (MSU Broad Art Museum) connects people with art through experiences that inspire curiosity and inquiry. Presenting exhibitions and programs that engage diverse communities around issues of local relevance and global significance, the MSU Broad Art Museum advances the university values of quality, inclusion, and connectivity. Opened on November 10, 2012, the museum was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid and named in honor of Eli and Edythe Broad, longtime supporters of the university who provided the lead gift for its creation. For more information, visit www.broadmuseum.msu.edu About the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum Opened to the public in September 1981, the Gerald R. Ford Museum allows visitors to experience highlights from the lives of President Gerald Ford, the 38th president of the United States (19741977), and his wife, Betty Ford. The museum exhibits teach democratic citizenship and allow for quiet reflection. In addition to the permanent exhibits, changing temporary exhibits draws artifacts from partner museums nationwide. Part of the presidential library system of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), a federal agency, the Ford Museum is in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Ford Library is located on the north campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. For more information, visit www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov About the National Archives and Records Administration The National Archives and Records Administration is the nation's record keeper. It safeguards and manages the official records of the U.S. Government, ensuring the documentation of our nation's history. For more information, visit www.archives.gov About ArtPrize ArtPrize is an annual, open, independently organized, international art competition that celebrates creative expression, bringing together art enthusiasts, artists, and the community. Since its inception, ArtPrize has aimed to showcase the transformative power of art and foster a culture of creativity. Visit www.artprize.org SOURCE ArtPrize Leading Managed Service Provider Enhances Their Offerings and Commitment to Best-In-Class IT Solutions NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Atlas Technica , a leading Managed Services Provider (MSP) and strategic partner serving the technological needs of the alternative investment industry, is proud to announce their recent completion of SOC 2 Type II certification. The company conducts an annual SOC 2 Type II audit that is performed and delivered by CPA firm, KirkpatrickPrice, that evaluates specific processes and the overall operating effectiveness of a company's internal controls over several months. According to research by IBM and Ponemon Institute, nearly 30% of businesses will experience a data breach in the next two years. Through the SOC 2 Type II certification, this verifies that potential customers are protected when partnering with Atlas Technica and can trust that their sensitive data is kept safe. This report provides data to confirm that a company's security program is properly designed and operates effectively to safeguard data against threat actors and responsible for process monitoring, encryption control, intrusion detection, user access authentication, disaster recovery, and more. "Security is paramount to Atlas Technica, and protecting all of our clients' data is of the utmost importance to us," said Serge Bukhar, Chief Executive Officer, Atlas Technica. "Through this certification process, our partners from KirkpatricePrice were able to identify various strengths of our firm, the security measures we have put into place, and our overall strong dedication to compliance initiatives. We are proud to take this next step to continually understanding and supporting our customers' needs." About Atlas Technica Atlas Technica was founded in 2016 with two main goals: to provide the best customer service experience possible for their clients, and to use best-in-class public cloud technology to do so. There is a clear need among hedge funds and other alternative investment firms for an IT provider that will put service first. Atlas Technica's mission is to shoulder the burden of IT management, user support, and cybersecurity compliance so you don't have to. Headquartered in New York City, Atlas Technica has additional offices in London, Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale. For more information, visit www.atlastechnica.com. Media Contact: Cara Siegel 917-692-0085 [email protected] SOURCE Atlas Technica NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - The Law Offices of Rhonda R. Crabtree are excited to announce their recent expansions by now providing services and helping residents of Cheatham, Robertson, Dickson and Montgomery Counties in Tennessee litigate their Personal Injury, Criminal Defense and Family Law cases. Since opening in 2003, Attorney Rhonda R. Crabtree and her team have provided informed and compassionate legal representation to both Plaintiffs & Defendants, successfully obtaining favorable results. Now serving new counties across Tennessee, Rhonda is ready to not only listen but fiercely advocate for everyone's rights. PERSONAL INJURY - Accidents that result in bodily injury can be costly. Expenses may include emergency treatment, prescription medication, visits to doctors, physical therapy, loss of income, and replacing or repairing damaged property not to mention physical pain and suffering. When an injury or wrongful death was caused by the negligence of another, it's important to the victim to recover losses that were incurred as a result of the accident. CRIMINAL LAW - Whether you've been arrested, charged with a crime, or are aware that you're being investigated for one, you already know the stakes. Even a minor misdemeanor crime can imperil your freedom, your employment, and your standing in the community. We know how badly you want to put this episode of your life behind you and move on. However, that's exactly the mindset that works against accused individuals who try to defend themselves without proper legal representation. Regardless of whether you've been arrested or know that you're about to be charged with a crime, it's never too early to secure competent, experienced legal counsel. DIVORCE AND FAMILY LAW - Whether you are about to terminate your marriage, or you're fighting for child custody or visitation rights, the emotional, physical, and financial toll of a family law related legal matter can be overwhelming. No one wants to invite lawyers into their personal lives, but when it comes to pursuing your rights through the Tennessee family courts, a qualified, knowledgeable family law attorney is essential. Rhonda R. Crabtree, Attorney at Law has experience in assisting clients in the greater Nashville area with all of their family law needs. As a well-respected family law attorney in the State of Tennessee, Rhonda R. Crabtree assists clients with both no-fault and at-fault divorces; child custody battles; visitation rights; child support; establishing paternity and pressing paternal rights; grandparent visitation rights (when they have been awarded by another state); alimony or spousal support; and mediation. For further information: The Law Offices of Rhonda R. Crabtree - https://www.rhondarcrabtreelaw.com SOURCE LAW OFFICES OF RHONDA R. CRABTREE Products featuring refreshed packaging and cocktail recipes hitting shelves now OCEAN CITY, N.J., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Barritt's Ginger Beer, from Barritt's Beverages International Ltd, a proudly family-owned business for five generations hailing from Bermuda, celebrates 150 years of its iconic ginger beer with the launch of a vibrant new mixer line, as well as a brand refresh inspired by Bermuda's pastel-colored houses. Bermuda's iconic Barritt's Ginger Beer celebrates 150 years with the launch of a vibrant new mixer line. Post this Barritt's Ginger Beer Celebrates 150th Anniversary and Lifts Spirits with New Mixer Line "We're thrilled to celebrate 150 years of Barritt's and our deep Bermudian roots," said Bruce Barritt, general manager and fifth-generation owner. "Barritt's has crafted mixers and soft drinks using the highest-quality ingredients and a time-honored process. Our new premium mixer line is a nod to our heritage, with flavors and packaging that evoke the spirit of Bermuda. We hope all who enjoy a Barritt's mixer will raise a glass to 150 years of quality." The company's new products cater to cocktail enthusiasts everywhere, offering the following in convenient 7.5oz cans: Original Ginger Beer : The brand's signature recipe for over 150 years. The brand's signature recipe for over 150 years. Sugar-Free Ginger Beer: A delicious option for health-conscious consumers. A delicious option for health-conscious consumers. Sparkling Grapefruit Soda: A vibrant and tangy mixer for adding a citrus twist to cocktails. A vibrant and tangy mixer for adding a citrus twist to cocktails. Tonic Water: A crisp and refreshing base for classic gin & tonics and modern cocktails. A crisp and refreshing base for classic gin & tonics and modern cocktails. Club Soda: A clean and bubbly mixer for highlighting spirits and liqueurs or enjoying on its own with a slice of citrus. The new products feature refreshed packaging in colors reminiscent of Bermuda's picturesque pastel homes, with on-pack recipes to help consumers build the perfect cocktail at home. The line is currently rolling out across the United States. Customers can find products near them by using the product finder at https://barrittsmixers.com/pages/where-to-buy. Barritt's Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer, the original Bermudian classic, is a testament to the company's enduring legacy. Crafted with the same proprietary ginger base for a century and a half, Barritt's signature ginger beer has been a staple in bars and homes throughout Bermuda, the Bahamas, and across the United States for generations. To mark this historic milestone, Barritt's also relaunched its website to reflect the new mixer line, featuring new visuals, premium cocktail recipes, company history and more. Explore more at www.BarrittsMixers.com and join the fun on social media @BarrittsMixers. About Barritt's A family-owned Bermudian icon since 1874, Barritt's is the island's original craft mixer and soft drink company. Renowned for its legendary Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer, Barritt's continues its five-generation legacy by using time-honored recipes to craft its products. Barritt's Mixers are available in grocery stores, bars and restaurants across North America. For more information, visit www.BarrittsMixers.com. SOURCE North American Beverage Company Rep. Avelar, Sen. Rezin, Rep. Syed, Sen. Ventura urge long-suffering private water customers to attend upcoming public forums on Illinois American's $152 million and Aqua's $19 million rate-hike requests CHICAGO, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As frustration mounts among 1.5 million private water customers in Illinois, state legislators from both sides of the political aisle joined the Citizens Utility Board (CUB) on Wednesday to urge state regulators to reject rate hikes proposed by Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois, call on the General Assembly to reform state water policy that has hurt consumers, and alert people of the upcoming Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) public forums on the proposed increases. State Rep. Dagmara Avelar, a Democrat from Romeoville, state Sen. Sue Rezin, a Republican from Morris, state Rep. Nabeela Syed, a Democrat from Palatine, and state Sen. Rachel Ventura, a Democrat from Joliet, held a news conference with CUB Director of Governmental Affairs Bryan McDaniel in Bolingbrooka community that has suffered under high Illinois American bills. They detailed how Aqua and Illinois Americanthe state's two biggest private water utilitieshave abused their customers in recent years: In January, Aqua, which serves about 273,000 customers in Illinois , filed for a $19.2 million rate-hike request that could increase water/wastewater bills by as much as $29.91 per month. Aqua's parent company, Essential Utilities, saw a 7 percent increase in profits, to $498 million in 2023, and the utility last received a rate hike, about $7 million , in 2018. , filed for a rate-hike request that could increase water/wastewater bills by as much as per month. Aqua's parent company, Essential Utilities, saw a 7 percent increase in profits, to in 2023, and the utility last received a rate hike, about , in 2018. In February, Illinois American, which serves about 1.3 million Illinois customers, filed for a $152.4 million rate-hike request that could raise water/wastewater bills by up to $29 a month. The utility's parent, American Water, made $944 million in profits in 2023, a 15 percent increase from the year before. Illinois American has won $120 million in additional rate hikes in less than a decadean $85 million increase in 2022 and a $35 million hike in 2016. customers, filed for a rate-hike request that could raise water/wastewater bills by up to a month. The utility's parent, American Water, made in profits in 2023, a 15 percent increase from the year before. Illinois American has won in additional rate hikes in less than a decadean increase in 2022 and a hike in 2016. While they pay higher bills, private water customers have also been the victims of extremely poor serviceincluding an Aqua water outage in Lake County in 2023 and unacceptable levels of lead in drinking water in University Park in 2019. While Aqua says the problem in University Park has been fixed, years later some customers were still drinking bottled water because they didn't trust the company. in 2023 and unacceptable levels of lead in drinking water in in 2019. While Aqua says the problem in has been fixed, years later some customers were still drinking bottled water because they didn't trust the company. Even before the utilities' rate-hike requests, their customers contacted CUB to complain about excessive water bills, because water policy is sorely in need of reform in Illinois: Private water utilities in 2000 won state legislative approval to add a "Qualifying Infrastructure Plant" surcharge to bills, which has needlessly increased costs for customers. state legislative approval to add a "Qualifying Infrastructure Plant" surcharge to bills, which has needlessly increased costs for customers. In 2013, the utilities successfully pushed for a state law that allows Illinois American and Aqua to buy up depreciated water and wastewater systems across the state and charge their customers to cover 100 percent of the acquisition costs. CUB Water Tracker, CUB's special online center monitoring the problem, found that these for-profit companies have so far purchased 59 systems since 2013 and have passed $402 million in acquisition costs onto their customers. Private water companies often charge customers more, once they take over those municipal systems. CUB's legal team is challenging the rate-hike requests, uncovering $7.6 million in overcharges buried in Aqua's proposed increase, and $48.8 million in overcharges in Illinois American's proposed increase. At the same time, CUB is fighting for legislative reforms. Those include eliminating the QIP surcharge; requiring shareholders to cover most of the price tag when they buy a local water/wastewater system; and requiring local approval through a referendum before Illinois American or Aqua could buy up municipal systems. "The acquisition of our municipal water systems by for-profit entities has turned a basic necessity into liquid gold for these companies," Sen. Rezin said. "It's imperative that the public have a voice in these decisions through a required referendum to ensure fair and reasonable water rates for our communities." "Private water utilities are expensive, and, just like consumers' bills, their dividends keep going up and up," said Bryan McDaniel, CUB's director of governmental affairs. "It's time for Illinois lawmakers to insist water utility shareholders pay their fair share." "By working alongside the Citizens Utility Board, we are committed to reforming Illinois utility laws that unfairly burden our families with rising water rates, essentially putting our hardworking families underwater," said Rep. Avelar. "We must act now to protect our communities from losing access to this essential resource fundamental to the health, safety, and well-being of our residents. By advocating for fair utility laws, we allow the millions of consumers who depend on running water to continue to have access to an everyday resource and ensure a sustainable and equitable future for all." "Last summer, our community faced a dangerous water disruption crisis that lasted five days," Rep. Syed said. "Inadequate and drawn out mitigation of the leak coupled with poor communication from Aqua Illinois is not the kind of service that people in my community pay for. Now those same residents are facing a significant rate hike. People deserve more reliable service, not new expenses. Considering our constituents are still not seeing enough protections against for-profit water utility companies, I will continue to work for new legislation to provide the protections we need." "Water is essential to all life. We cannot allow profits to be put over people," Sen. Ventura said. "I believe water should never be privatized for this reason. I will continue to work with my colleagues to protect access to clean, affordable drinking water." The ICC will rule on the rate hikes in November for Aqua and December for Illinois American. In the meantime, CUB and legislators urged private water customers to speak out against the rate hikes at ICC public forms. On Illinois American Water's rate-hike request: 7-9:30 PM , Monday, July 22 , Levy Center DuPage Township, 251 Canterbury Lane, Bolingbrook , , Levy Center DuPage Township, 251 Canterbury Lane, 7-9 PM , Tuesday, July 23 , Champaign Public Library, Robeson Pavilion Room AB, 200 W. Green Street, Champaign On Aqua's rate-hike request: 7-9 PM , Monday, July 29 , McHenry County College , Luecht Auditorium, 8900 US Highway 14, Crystal Lake , , , Luecht Auditorium, 8900 US Highway 14, 7-9 PM , Thursday, Aug. 1 , Olivet Nazarene University , Wisner Auditorium, One University Ave., Bourbonnais "Everyone who is unhappy with their Aqua or Illinois American bills should attend the upcoming public forums and let their voices be heard against unfair water bills," McDaniel said. "We've got a lot of work to do, but the first step is for people to get involved in fighting for justice for themselves and their neighbors." The Citizens Utility Board (CUB) is celebrating its 40th anniversary as Illinois' leading nonprofit utility watchdog group. Created by the Illinois Legislature, CUB opened its doors in 1984 to represent the interests of residential and small-business utility customers. Since then, CUB has saved consumers more than $20 billion by helping to block rate hikes and secure refunds. For more information, call CUB's Consumer Hotline at 1-800-669-5556 or visit CUB's award-winning website, www.CitizensUtilityBoard.org. SOURCE Citizens Utility Board New study identifies five recommendations for improving health care equity SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians has released the findings of a new telehealth study done in partnership with Connected Nation Michigan (CN Michigan) with support from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund. The research provides new insights into how the Tribal members use telehealth, what barriers exist, and attitudes toward telehealth. "We want to improve health equity among all Tribe members ensuring they have access to the critical health care resources that can help improve their quality of life," said Larry Jacques, Director of Strategic Planning for the Sault Tribe. "Telehealth can save Tribe members time and money; connect them with high-quality health services; and ensure continued access to health care practitioners when weather or health concerns makes it difficult to travel." We want to improve health equity among all Tribe members ensuring they have access to critical health care resources. Post this The study was conducted using a series of surveys and virtual conversations with Tribe members. The purpose was to identify ways Tribal health clinics can expand their telehealth efforts, identify unmet demand, and address concerns that may prevent some Tribe members from adopting telehealth services. "Native Americans have long experienced poorer health outcomes than other populations in the United States," said Chris McGovern, Director of Research Development for CN Michigan. "Telehealth is one way we can bridge those gaps and improve health equity." Some of the surveys' key takeaways include: Nearly 2 out of 5 surveyed households (38.1%) reported having used telehealth services. A similar share of telehealth non-adopters (41%) expressed interest in using telehealth despite not having used it in the past. Nearly one-quarter of respondents (23.7%) said that telehealth visits are comparable to in-person visits. More than 2 out of 5 survey respondents (41.8%) said that telehealth visits are good for initial consultations or basic care, while 34.5% believed it would never match in-person quality of care. In general, young populations (age 18 to 34) had a more favorable view of telehealth visits. In addition, CN Michigan spoke with Tribe leadership and its health care providers to learn what barriers may exist for expanding telehealth. Three key takeaways emerged: Telehealth services are currently being offered to patients through Tribal health clinics. Expanding broadband infrastructure in the Upper Peninsula is crucial to improving telehealth access. Health care providers and their patients face challenges when adapting to telehealth services, but they consider its numerous benefits to be worth the extra effort. Based on the research of both local and national trends, Tribal leadership and CN Michigan identified five recommendations for expanding the use and understanding of telehealth's benefits. Tribal health clinics should seek out ways to promote their telehealth services. Clinics should prepare all telehealth patients to engage with their provider prior to their appointment. All health care providers in the region should provide training to medical staff to ensure Tribe members are met with cultural sensitivity. Tribal health clinics should create a systemwide online patient portal. Policymakers should continue to support efforts around expansion of broadband infrastructure. To learn more about the above findings and recommendations, access the entire report by heading here. About the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians: Sault Tribe is a 44,000-strong federally recognized Indian tribe that is an economic, social, and cultural force in its community across the eastern Upper Peninsula counties of Chippewa, Luce, Mackinac, Schoolcraft, Alger, Delta, and Marquette. The Tribe is composed of housing and Tribal centers, casinos, and other enterprises that employ both Natives and non-Natives and fund Tribal programs. Sault Tribe works hard to be self-sufficient, good stewards of the land and waters, and helpful to the surrounding community. Learn more at saulttribe.com. About Connected Nation Michigan: CN Michigan is a local division of the national nonprofit Connected Nation, which marked 20 years of service in 2021. Connected Nation's mission is to improve lives by providing innovative solutions that expand access to, and increase the adoption and use of, broadband (high-speed internet) and its related technologies for all people. Everyone belongs in a Connected Nation. Learn more at connectednation.org. SOURCE Connected Nation NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global chemical logistics market size is estimated to grow by USD 67.7 billion from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of over 4.36% during the forecast period. The global chemical logistics market is poised to grow significantly, driven by the expanding chemical industry and adoption of blockchain technology in logistics. However, challenges such as high operational costs and the capital-intensive nature of the business hinder market growth. Key players like Agility Public Warehousing Co. K.S.C.P, BASF SE, and C H Robinson Worldwide Inc. are pivotal in shaping this dynamic sector's future. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global chemical logistics market 2024-2028 Get a detailed analysis on regions, market segments, customer landscape, and companies- View the snapshot of this report Chemical Logistics Market Scope Report Coverage Details Base year 2023 Historic period 2018 - 2022 Forecast period 2024-2028 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 4.36% Market growth 2024-2028 USD 67.7 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth 2022-2023 (%) 4.11 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and South America Performing market contribution APAC at 62% Key countries China, US, Japan, Germany, and South Korea Key companies profiled Agility Public Warehousing Co. K.S.C.P, BASF SE, BRENNTAG SE, C H Robinson Worldwide Inc., CMA CGM SA Group, CSX Corp., CT Logistics, Deutsche Bahn AG, Deutsche Post AG, Dow Chemical Co., DSV AS, Dupre Logistics LLC, FedEx Corp., Kintetsu Group Holdings Co. Ltd., North West Carrying Company LLP, PSA International Pte Ltd., Saudi Basic Industries Corp., Schneider National Inc., and Univar Solutions Inc. Market Driver Blockchain technology is revolutionizing the logistics industry by providing a secure, transparent, and cost-efficient solution for maintaining and sharing supply chain data. This digitalized platform uses a distributed transaction ledger, allowing various stakeholders to maintain identical copies of records on multiple computer systems. Each transaction is cryptographically protected and validated by an independent third party, ensuring security and preventing fraud. The benefits of blockchain technology are numerous, including increased transparency, reduced paperwork, and improved traceability and trackability. In the context of chemical logistics, this technology is particularly valuable due to the criticality and confidentiality of the information involved. With an estimated USD30 billion in annual cargo theft losses in the logistics industry, blockchain technology offers a promising solution for minimizing risk and streamlining operations. Major logistics companies, such as International Business Machines Corp. And A.P. Moller - Maersk, have already implemented blockchain technology to create more secure and efficient digital shipping platforms. Similarly, 3PL service providers like ITS Logistics are partnering with blockchain technology providers to develop common standards and frameworks for the industry. Overall, the use of blockchain technology in chemical logistics is expected to enhance data security, automate processes, and create transparency in the sharing of critical and confidential records. The Chemical Logistics Market is experiencing significant trends in various process industries. Three-party logistics (3PL) providers are increasingly managing non-asset chemical logistics, addressing complexities in rail networks and uncertain transit times. Road quality and pilferage remain challenges, driving automation in warehouses. Green warehouses and sustainable business operations are prioritized for environmental concerns. Advancements include smart sensors, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, radio-frequency identification (RFID), Bluetooth, drone delivery, and driverless vehicles. Shale gas and the energy industry are major consumers, but chemical demand varies across diverse sectors like food production, pharmaceutical manufacture, vehicle manufacturing, and engineering. Collaborations between the American Chemistry Council and the government of India, and other industry partnerships, are crucial for addressing chemical volumes and ensuring safe, efficient transportation. Addressing environmental problems and maintaining chemical manufacturing standards remain key priorities. Discover 360 analysis of this market. For complete information, schedule your consultation - Book Here! Market Challenges The chemical warehousing and storage market involves significant investment for setting up facilities that adhere to specifications and obtain necessary certifications. Different chemicals require unique storage solutions, and various factors such as regulations, political climate, and competition impact market growth. Warehouse location is strategic, with considerations including price of land, connectivity, and infrastructure. Rising land costs and warehouse rents challenge operators to either rent or buy. Optimizing warehouse capacity and minimizing operational costs are essential to prevent financial losses from oversized or poorly utilized spaces. The slow adoption of advanced inventory tracking technology and inventory loss through damage, pilferage, and misplacement are ongoing challenges for the industry. These factors contribute to the high cost of investment and operation in the chemical logistics market, potentially limiting its growth. Chemical logistics is a critical business sector that ensures the safe and efficient transportation and warehousing of chemicals. The use of IoT devices and intelligent cloud platforms enhances agility and improves supply chain visibility. However, chemical logistics faces challenges in various industry verticals, including the cosmetic and specialty chemicals industries, food production, and automobile manufacturing. OEM shutdowns, safety hazards, contamination, and spoilage are common issues. Federal and state regulations add complexity, affecting workers and the general public. Tech-driven logistics services offer solutions through airways, roadways, railways, waterways, pipelines, and transportation & distribution. Companies like A&R Logistics, Agility, BASF, Rhenus Logistics, and Ryder System Inc. Provide storage & warehousing, customs & security, green logistics, consulting & management services. Dangerous chemicals, raw materials, and finished chemical products require specialized handling in the oil & gas industry and end use industries. For more insights on driver and challenges - Request a sample report! Segment Overview This chemical logistics market report extensively covers market segmentation by Service 1.1 Transportation 1.2 Warehousing 1.3 Others End-user 2.1 Chemical industry 2.2 Pharmaceutical industry 2.3 Speciality chemical industry 2.4 Others Geography 3.1 APAC 3.2 North America 3.3 Europe 3.4 Middle East and Africa and 3.5 South America 1.1 Transportation- The Chemical Logistics Market involves the transportation, storage, and handling of chemicals from one place to another. Companies in this sector ensure safe and efficient movement of chemicals through various modes of transport like road, rail, and sea. They offer value-added services such as temperature control, packaging, and inventory management to meet the specific requirements of chemical manufacturers and consumers. The market is driven by factors like increasing demand for chemicals in various industries, stringent regulations, and growing focus on supply chain efficiency. For more information on market segmentation with geographical analysis including forecast (2024-2028) and historic data (2017-2021) - Download a Sample Report Research Analysis The Chemical Logistics Market is experiencing significant growth due to the surge in chemical demand from various industry verticals such as energy, shale gas, and the environmental problems that necessitate the use of chemicals for mitigation. The chemical manufacturing and transportation sectors are at the forefront of this trend, supplying essential raw materials for food production, pharmaceutical manufacture, vehicle manufacturing, and engineering. The energy industry's shift towards cleaner sources and the increasing use of IoT devices and intelligent cloud platforms in chemical logistics are driving innovation. Agility Logistics and other tech-driven logistics services are collaborating to provide efficient and safe transportation of chemicals in both liquid and solid states. However, the industry faces challenges such as safety hazards, contamination, and spoilage during transportation and warehousing. Federal and state regulations are stringent to ensure safety and compliance. OEM shutdowns can also impact the market, making flexibility and adaptability crucial. The specialty chemicals industry and cosmetics sector are also significant contributors to the market's growth. Market Research Overview The Chemical Logistics Market is a critical component of the energy industry, particularly in the context of shale gas production. With the surge in chemical demand from diverse sectors such as food production, pharmaceutical manufacture, vehicle manufacturing, engineering, and more, the market for chemical transportation and manufacturing has grown significantly. However, this growth comes with challenges, including environmental problems, safety hazards, and regulatory compliance. Chemical logistics companies provide services for the transportation and distribution of chemicals in various states - liquid and solid. They cater to end use industries, including the oil & gas industry, process industries, and 3PL providers. The market is complex, with factors such as federal and state regulations, workers' safety, and the general public's safety being of utmost importance. The chemical logistics industry is undergoing a tech-driven transformation, with IoT devices, intelligent cloud platforms, and automation playing a key role. Collaborations between industry players, such as Agility Logistics and BASF, Rhenus Logistics and Ryder System Inc., are driving innovation in the sector. The market is diverse, with industry verticals including the cosmetic industry, specialty chemicals industry, and food industry. OEM shutdowns, contamination, spoilage, and safety hazards are some of the challenges that chemical logistics companies face. Green logistics, consulting & management services, and sustainable business operations are becoming increasingly important in the sector. Transportation & distribution, storage & warehousing, customs & security, and consulting & management services are the key offerings of chemical logistics companies. The market is served by various modes of transportation, including airways, roadways, railways, waterways, and pipelines. Safety hazards, such as contamination and spoilage, are significant concerns in the chemical logistics industry. Federal and state regulations, as well as the general public's safety, are of utmost importance. Tech-driven logistics services, such as smart sensors, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, radio-frequency identification (RFID), Bluetooth, drone delivery, and driverless vehicles, are being adopted to mitigate these risks and improve efficiency. The chemical logistics market is expected to continue growing, driven by increasing demand for chemicals in various industries and the need for efficient, tech-driven logistics solutions. However, challenges such as complexities in the rail network, uncertain transit time, road quality, pilferage, and automation will need to be addressed to ensure the industry's continued growth and success. Table of Contents: 1 Executive Summary 2 Market Landscape 3 Market Sizing 4 Historic Market Size 5 Five Forces Analysis 6 Market Segmentation Service Transportation Warehousing Others End-user Chemical Industry Pharmaceutical Industry Speciality Chemical Industry Others Geography APAC North America Europe Middle East And Africa South America 7 Customer Landscape 8 Geographic Landscape 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 10 Company Landscape 11 Company 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 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. 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 Healthcare's leading data enablement platform provider completes its executive leadership team with the addition of a new CTO, CFO/COO, and Chief Commercial Officer JACKSONVILLE, Fla., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Clearsense , a cloud-based data enablement platform company, today announced three key leadership appointments that will drive further innovation and market expansion. The strategic hires come just months after Clearsense named Jason Z. Rose as its new CEO. The trio of new senior executive leaders include: Jonathan Cook , Chief Technology Officer (CTO): An accomplished industry veteran, Cook joins Clearsense after previously serving as CTO at Arcadia.io for over 7 years, helping to grow the company into a KLAS-acknowledged top-tier population health vendor. Before Arcadia.io, Cook was deputy chief information officer for the National Committee of Quality Assurance (NCQA), where he worked with the top 300+ health plans in the US and designed systems for HHS/CMS, including bringing the ACA into the cloud prior to FedRamp as a standard. Most recently, he worked as a consultant with private entity firms and Enlace Health, where he helped rebuild their product, analytics, and engineering teams. An accomplished industry veteran, Cook joins Clearsense after previously serving as CTO at Arcadia.io for over 7 years, helping to grow the company into a KLAS-acknowledged top-tier population health vendor. Before Arcadia.io, Cook was deputy chief information officer for the National Committee of Quality Assurance (NCQA), where he worked with the top 300+ health plans in the US and designed systems for HHS/CMS, including bringing the ACA into the cloud prior to FedRamp as a standard. Most recently, he worked as a consultant with private entity firms and Enlace Health, where he helped rebuild their product, analytics, and engineering teams. Ken Misch , Chief Financial Officer (CFO ) / Chief Operating Officer (COO): Misch brings extensive financial leadership, including experience in mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, and various complex financing transactions. He most recently served as the president and CFO of Medhost, an EHR provider to rural and community hospitals, which was acquired by Harris in 2023. In addition, Misch has served as CFO for several other healthcare technology companies, such as DynaVox, invivodata, and Expedient Communications. ) / Misch brings extensive financial leadership, including experience in mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, and various complex financing transactions. He most recently served as the president and CFO of Medhost, an EHR provider to rural and community hospitals, which was acquired by Harris in 2023. In addition, Misch has served as CFO for several other healthcare technology companies, such as DynaVox, invivodata, and Expedient Communications. Glenn Wirick , Chief Commercial Officer (CCO): Wirick is a proven sales and marketing leader with a multifaceted background in technology, healthcare, and product management. He specializes in building high-performing teams that enhance client experiences and elevate client business performance. Wirick's background includes large-scale name-brand technology companies such as JD Edwards, IBM, and Oracle/Netsuite, in addition to private-equity-backed companies such as InsightSoftware, Pegasus Solutions, and AdhereHealth. "These exceptional leaders help fuel our passion to propel our unique 1Clearsense Platform forward, transforming how health organizations better leverage massive amounts of disparate data to power their business objectives. Their strategic insights and deep expertise fortify our ability to deliver cutting-edge data enablement solutions, driving transformative impact at an unprecedented scale," said Jason Z. Rose, CEO of Clearsense. Clearsense solutions solve complex data challenges for a range of health organizations, including very large and small health systems, integrated delivery networks, academic medical centers and payors. The company's differentiated 1Clearsense Platform includes SaaS solutions, such as application decommissioning that saves tens of millions of dollars annually and PaaS solutions, and research enablement that drives clinical trial cohort analysis efficiencies. Leveraging the exceptional talent added to the Clearsense C-suite, the company will deepen its product offerings, ensure client-centric service, and expand into new areas of healthcare. About Clearsense Clearsense is revitalizing healthcare data with its innovative approach. Its 1Clearsense data enablement platform is a cutting-edge, cloud-native solution that integrates advanced tools and technologies. This platform empowers healthcare organizations to swiftly and seamlessly access data from diverse sources, when and where it's needed. Clearsense's solutions have garnered adoption across a spectrum of healthcare institutions, including large health systems and payors, small to mid-sized hospitals, and esteemed academic research centers. By harnessing digital information, Clearsense drives unparalleled value, fostering innovation, streamlining operations, enhancing care quality, and generating substantial cost savings. Learn more at clearsense.com. Media Contact: Andrea LePain eMedia Junction [email protected] 617-894-1153 SOURCE Clearsense SAN FRANCISCO and SINGAPORE, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Nium, the global leader in real-time cross-border payments, has been named to the prestigious 'World's Top Fintech Companies 2024' list by CNBC. This follows a year of unprecedented growth for Nium with significant new customers, global licenses, and funding announced over the last 12 months. Global cross-border payment flows are projected to skyrocket from USD 190 trillion in 2023 to USD 290 trillion by 2030. Yet many banks, financial institutions, and businesses remain dependent on slow, expensive, and outdated cross-border payment systems, slowing down growth and the ability to meet customer demand. "Nium's inclusion in the list reinforces our standing as a leader in the global fintech ecosystem, leveraging innovative technology to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper, and more reliable for businesses around the world," said Prajit Nanu, Nium's founder and CEO. "This recognition is a testament to our team's continued hard work. I want to take this opportunity to thank every one of my colleagues for their part to play in establishing a world-class global payments network and delivering an outstanding service to our customers as we continue to scale globally," he adds. In June this year, the fintech announced it had raised USD 50 million in a Series E funding round led by a sovereign wealth fund in Southeast Asia to fuel global network expansion, accelerate product innovation, hire top talent, and pursue M&A activity. Since the start of the year, Nium has announced new regulatory licenses in Japan and New Zealand, as well as several significant new customers including Air France KLM, Remote, and Emirates NBD as it continues to expand its offering in the travel, payroll, marketplace, and spend management industries. The World's Top Fintech Companies 2024 is based on the analysis and weighting of overarching and segment specific KPIs, derived from the collection of over 20,000 data points from publicly available and self-reported sources across 2,000 companies. The companies with the highest score within their market segment were awarded as World's Top Fintech Companies. A total of 250 companies were awarded across eight market segments. CNBC teamed up with independent market research firm Statista to compile the second edition of the list, published on July 10th on cnbc.com. About Nium Nium, the global leader in real-time, cross-border payments, was founded on the mission to deliver the global payments infrastructure of tomorrow, today. With the onset of the global economy, its payments infrastructure is shaping how banks, fintechs, and businesses everywhere collect, convert, and disburse funds instantly across borders. Its payout network supports 100 currencies and spans 220+ markets, 100 of which in real-time. Funds can be disbursed to accounts, wallets, and cards and collected locally in 35 markets. Nium's growing card issuance business is already available in 34 countries. Nium holds regulatory licenses and authorizations in more than 40 countries, enabling seamless onboarding, rapid integration, and compliance independent of geography. The company is co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1678669/4803133/Nium_Logo.jpg SOURCE Nium The market for coagulation factor deficiency treatments is experiencing robust growth, driven by advancements in biotechnology and the increasing prevalence of bleeding disorders. Innovations in therapeutic options and improved patient access to healthcare contribute to the expanding coagulation factor deficiency market landscape. LAS VEGAS, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- DelveInsight's Coagulation Factor Deficiency Market Insights report includes a comprehensive understanding of current treatment practices, coagulation factor deficiency emerging drugs, market share of individual therapies, and current and forecasted market size from 2020 to 2034, segmented into 7MM [the United States, the EU4 (Germany, France, Italy, and Spain) and the United Kingdom, and Japan]. Key Takeaways from the Coagulation Factor Deficiency Market Report According to DelveInsight's analysis, the market size for coagulation factor deficiency was found to be USD 13.5 billion in the 7MM in 2023. in the 7MM in 2023. The total 7MM prevalent cases of coagulation factor deficiency in 2023 were 105K out of which the highest prevalent cases were estimated in the United States . out of which the highest prevalent cases were estimated in . Leading coagulation factor deficiency companies such as Novo Nordisk, Spark Therapeutics, Sanofi (Genzyme), Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, Biotest AG, Centessa Pharmaceuticals (Apcintex), Staidson Biopharma Inc., Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical, Bayer, and others are developing novel coagulation factor deficiency drugs that can be available in the coagulation factor deficiency market in the coming years. and others are developing novel coagulation factor deficiency drugs that can be available in the coagulation factor deficiency market in the coming years. The promising coagulation factor deficiency therapies in the pipeline include Concizumab (NN7415), RG6357 (SPK-8011), Fitusiran (ALN-AT3, SAR-439774 ), Marstacimab (PF-06741086), NNC0365-3769 A (MIM8), BT524, SERPINPC, STSP-0601, BAY2599023 (DTX201 AAV FVIII), and others. and others. In March 2024 , ReciBioPharm signed a collaboration agreement with GeneVentiv Therapeutics, a preclinical gene therapy company, to advance the development of an adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based universal gene therapy for hemophilia, and reportedly the first to treat hemophilia patients with inhibitors. signed a collaboration agreement with GeneVentiv Therapeutics, a preclinical gene therapy company, to advance the development of an adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based universal gene therapy for hemophilia, and reportedly the first to treat hemophilia patients with inhibitors. In June 2023 , the FDA accepted the company's BLA for fidanacogene elaparvovec for the treatment of adults with hemophilia B. In parallel, the European marketing authorization application (MAA) for fidanacogene elaparvovec has also been accepted and is under review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). , the FDA accepted the company's BLA for fidanacogene elaparvovec for the treatment of adults with hemophilia B. In parallel, the European marketing authorization application (MAA) for fidanacogene elaparvovec has also been accepted and is under review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). In May 2023 , Novo Nordisk notified the National Hemophilia Foundation that they had received a Complete Response Letter (CRL) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their investigational, subcutaneous therapy concizumab. While Novo Nordisk had anticipated potential FDA approval of the therapy in the Spring of 2023, the additional information outlined in the CRL will stretch that timeline. Discover which therapies are expected to grab the major coagulation factor deficiency market share @ Coagulation Factor Deficiency Market Report Coagulation Factor Deficiency Overview Coagulation factor deficiency diseases, also referred to as bleeding or clotting disorders, encompass a range of inherited or acquired conditions marked by the absence or malfunction of specific proteins essential for blood clotting. These proteins, known as coagulation factors, are vital for stopping bleeding by forming clots to close injured blood vessels. There are several coagulation factors, labeled from I to XIII, that function in a complex and coordinated way to achieve hemostasis. Deficiencies in any of these factors can cause abnormal bleeding, varying in severity from mild to severe, depending on the specific factor affected and the extent of the deficiency. Blood disorders are typically diagnosed by examining a range of symptoms and conducting various blood tests, which differ depending on the specific factor involved. Coagulation factor I deficiency is generally identified through a series of blood tests that measure the amount of fibrinogen in the blood. However, a low fibrinogen level can sometimes indicate liver or kidney disorders. For coagulation factor II, diagnosis is usually made using prothrombin time (PT) and partially activated thromboplastin time (aPTT) tests. Deficiency levels can range from 2% to 50% of normal, with patients at or near 50% usually experiencing normal or no bleeding issues. Coagulation Factor Deficiency Epidemiology Segmentation The coagulation factor deficiency epidemiology section provides insights into the historical and current coagulation factor deficiency patient pool and forecasted trends for the 7MM. It helps recognize the causes of current and forecasted patient trends by exploring numerous studies and views of key opinion leaders. The coagulation factor deficiency market report proffers epidemiological analysis for the study period 20202034 in the 7MM segmented into: Total Coagulation Factor Deficiency Diagnosed Prevalent Cases Factor-Specific Coagulation Factor Deficiency Prevalent Cases Coagulation Factor Deficiency Treatment Market The treatment of coagulation factor deficiency typically involves replacing the missing factor in the blood, supplemented by additional therapies when bleeding persists. There are several treatments available for managing coagulation factor deficiencies. For moderate conditions like mucosal tract hemorrhage or heavy menstruation, physicians often prescribe antifibrinolytic drugs and hormones. Discovered after 1950, therapies such as Aminocaproic acid (EACA) and tranexamic acid (TA) help stabilize clots in areas like the mouth, bladder, and uterus. These adjunctive therapies are also beneficial for dental surgeries but are less effective for internal bleeding. These medications can be administered orally or by injection. ESPEROCT (Turoctocog alfa pegol, also known as N8-GP) is an extended half-life glycopegylated factor VIII molecule used for routine prophylaxis to reduce the frequency of bleeding episodes, on-demand treatment and control of bleeding episodes, and perioperative management of bleeding. This product has been evaluated in five prospective, multi-center clinical trials involving previously treated patients with severe hemophilia A and no history of inhibitors. The results of these trials have shown that the overall safety profile of ESPEROCT is comparable to other long-acting FVIII products, with no safety concerns identified after more than 5 years of clinical exposure. JIVI (antihemophilic factor [recombinant] PEGylated-aucl), developed by Bayer, is designed for previously treated adults and adolescents (12 years and older) with hemophilia A (congenital Factor VIII deficiency). It is used for: On-demand treatment and control of bleeding episodes Perioperative management of bleeding Routine prophylaxis to reduce the frequency of bleeding episodes. JIVI functions by replacing the deficient or absent factor VIII (FVIII) in patients with hemophilia A. It is also known as Damoctocog alfa pegol. To know more about coagulation factor deficiency treatment guidelines, visit @ Coagulation Factor Deficiency Management Coagulation Factor Deficiency Pipeline Therapies and Key Companies Concizumab (NN7415): Novo Nordisk RG6357 (SPK-8011): Roche (Spark Therapeutics) Fitusiran (ALN-AT3, SAR-439774 ): Sanofi (Genzyme)/Alnylam Pharmaceuticals ): Sanofi (Genzyme)/Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Marstacimab (PF-06741086): Pfizer NNC0365-3769 A (MIM8): Novo Nordisk A/S BT524: Biotest AG SERPINPC: Centessa Pharmaceuticals (Apcintex) STSP-0601: Staidson Biopharma Inc. BAY2599023 (DTX201 AAV FVIII): Bayer/Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Discover more about coagulation factor deficiency drugs in development @ Coagulation Factor Deficiency Clinical Trials Coagulation Factor Deficiency Market Dynamics The coagulation factor deficiency market dynamics are expected to change in the coming years. The coagulation factor deficiency market is primarily driven by several key factors. The increasing prevalence of hemophilia and other bleeding disorders is a significant driver, as these conditions require ongoing management and treatment with coagulation factor concentrates. Advances in biotechnology have led to the development of novel therapies, such as recombinant and plasma-derived coagulation factors, which offer improved safety and efficacy profiles, further stimulating market growth. Additionally, rising awareness about bleeding disorders and the importance of early diagnosis and treatment has led to increased demand for coagulation factor products. Government initiatives and support for rare disease treatment, along with favorable reimbursement policies, are also contributing to market expansion. Moreover, ongoing research and development activities aimed at discovering new treatments and improving existing ones are expected to create lucrative opportunities in the market. Furthermore, potential therapies are being investigated for the treatment of coagulation factor deficiency, and it is safe to predict that the treatment space will significantly impact the coagulation factor deficiency market during the forecast period. Moreover, the anticipated introduction of emerging therapies with improved efficacy and a further improvement in the diagnosis rate are expected to drive the growth of the coagulation factor deficiency market in the 7MM. However several factors may impede the growth of the coagulation factor deficiency market. One of the primary challenges is the high cost of treatment, particularly with recombinant and plasma-derived therapies, which limits accessibility for many patients. Additionally, there is a lack of awareness and diagnosis in many regions, particularly in low-income and rural areas, which leads to underdiagnosis and undertreatment of these conditions. Regulatory hurdles also pose a significant barrier, as the approval process for new therapies is often lengthy and stringent, delaying the availability of potentially life-saving treatments. Furthermore, the coagulation factor deficiency market is constrained by limited research and development funding, which impedes the discovery of innovative therapies. Lastly, the logistical challenges associated with the storage and distribution of these specialized products, which often require cold chain logistics, add another layer of complexity to coagulation factor deficiency market penetration and access. Coagulation Factor Deficiency Market Report Metrics Details Study Period 20202034 Coverage 7MM [the United States, the EU4 (Germany, France, Italy, and Spain) and the United Kingdom, and Japan]. Coagulation Factor Deficiency Market Size USD 13.5 Billion Key Coagulation Factor Deficiency Companies Novo Nordisk, Spark Therapeutics, Sanofi, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, Biotest AG, Centessa Pharmaceuticals (Apcintex), Staidson Biopharma Inc., Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical, Bayer, and others Key Pipeline Coagulation Factor Deficiency Therapies Concizumab (NN7415), RG6357 (SPK-8011), Fitusiran (ALN-AT3, SAR-439774), Marstacimab (PF-06741086), NNC0365-3769 A (MIM8), BT524, SERPINPC, STSP-0601, BAY2599023 (DTX201 AAV FVIII), and others Scope of the Coagulation Factor Deficiency Market Report Therapeutic Assessment: Coagulation Factor Deficiency current marketed and emerging therapies Coagulation Factor Deficiency current marketed and emerging therapies Coagulation Factor Deficiency Market Dynamics: Key Market Forecast Assumptions of Emerging Coagulation Factor Deficiency Drugs and Market Outlook Key Market Forecast Assumptions of Emerging Coagulation Factor Deficiency Drugs and Market Outlook Competitive Intelligence Analysis: SWOT analysis and Market entry strategies SWOT analysis and Market entry strategies Unmet Needs, KOL's views, Analyst's views, Coagulation Factor Deficiency Market Access and Reimbursement Download the report to understand which factors are driving coagulation factor deficiency market trends @ Coagulation Factor Deficiency Market Trends Table of Contents 1 KEY INSIGHTS 2 REPORT INTRODUCTION 3 COAGULATION FACTOR DEFICIENCY MARKET OVERVIEW AT A GLANCE 3.1 MARKET SHARE (%) DISTRIBUTION OF COAGULATION FACTOR DEFICIENCY IN 2020 3.2 MARKET SHARE (%) DISTRIBUTION OF COAGULATION FACTOR DEFICIENCY IN 2034 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF COAGULATION FACTOR DEFICIENCY 5 KEY EVENTS 6 EPIDEMIOLOGY AND MARKET METHODOLOGY 7 COAGULATION FACTOR DEFICIENCY DISEASE OVERVIEW 7.1 INTRODUCTION 7.2 PROCESS OF CLOTTING 7.3 TYPE OF CLOTTING FACTORS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS 7.4 MECHANISM 7.5 TYPE OF COAGULATION FACTOR DEFICIENCY 7.5.1 Coagulation Factor I Deficiency (Fibrinogen) 7.5.1.1 Afibrinogenemia 7.5.1.2 Hypofibrinogenemia 7.5.1.3 Dysfibrinogeneima 7.5.1.4 Hypodysfibrinogenemia 7.5.2 Coagulation Factor II Deficiency (Prothrombin) 7.5.3 Coagulation Factor V Deficiency 7.5.4 Coagulation Factor VII Deficiency 7.5.5 Coagulation Factor VIII Deficiency (Hemophilia A) 7.5.6 Coagulation Factor IX Deficiency (Hemophilia B) 7.5.7 Coagulation Factor X Deficiency 7.5.8 Coagulation Factor XI Deficiency (Hemophilia C) 7.5.9 Coagulation Factor XII Deficiency 7.5.10 Coagulation Factor XIII Deficiency 7.5.11 Von Willebrand Disease 7.6 SYMPTOMS ASSOCIATED WITH DEFICIENCY OF COAGULATION FACTORS 7.7 CAUSES OF COAGULATION FACTOR DEFICIENCY DISEASE 7.7.1 Inherited (Genetic) Causes: 7.7.2 Acquired Causes: 7.8 TESTING 7.9 DIAGNOSIS 7.9.1 Diagnosis of Hemophilia A 7.9.1.1 Establishing the Diagnosis 7.9.1.2 Molecular Genetic Testing 7.9.1.3 Screening Tests 7.9.1.4 Clotting Factor Tests 7.9.1.5 Inhibitor Testing 7.9.2 Diagnosis of Hemophilia B 7.9.3 Diagnosis of Von Willebrand disease 7.1 TREATMENT AND MANAGEMENT 7.10.1 Treatment 7.10.1.1 Non replacement therapies 7.10.1.2 Replacement therapies 7.10.2 Management 7.10.2.1 Healthy lifestyle 7.10.2.2 Dental care 7.10.2.3 Vaccinations 7.10.2.4 Disease management in the case of females 8 EPIDEMIOLOGY AND PATIENT POPULATION 8.1 ASSUMPTIONS AND RATIONALE: 7MM 8.2 KEY FINDINGS 8.3 Total Diagnosed Prevalence of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in the 7mm 8.4 Factor-Specific Prevalence of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in the 7mm 8.5 THE UNITED STATES 8.5.1 Total Diagnosed Prevalence of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in the United States 8.5.2 Factor-specific Prevalence of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in the United States 8.6 EU4 AND THE UK 8.6.1 Total Diagnosed Prevalence of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in the EU4 and the UK 8.6.2 Factor-specific Prevalence of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in the EU4 and the UK 8.7 JAPAN 8.7.1 Total Diagnosed Prevalence of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in the Japan 8.7.2 Factor-specific Prevalence of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in the Japan 9 PATIENT JOURNEY 10 MARKETED THERAPIES 10.1 KEY CROSS 10.2 ESPEROCT (N8-GP; TUROCTOCOG ALFA PEGOL): NOVO NORDISK 10.2.1 Product Description 10.2.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.2.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.2.4 RecentClinical Development 10.2.4.1 Clinical Trials Information 10.2.5 Safety and efficacy 10.2.5.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.2.6 Product Profile 10.3 JIVI (FORMERLY BAY94-9027): BAYER 10.3.1 Product Description 10.3.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.3.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.3.4 Recent Clinical Development 10.3.4.1 Clinical Trials Information 10.3.5 Safety and efficacy 10.3.5.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.3.6 Product Profile 10.4 WILATE: OCTAPHARMA 10.4.1 Product Description 10.4.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.4.3 Recent Clinical Development 10.4.3.1 Clinical Trials Information 10.4.4 Safety and Efficacy 10.4.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.4.5 Product Profile 10.5 ADYNOVATE (ADYNOVI; BAX 855): TAKEDA 10.5.1 Product Description 10.5.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.5.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.5.4 Recnt Clinical Development 10.5.4.1 Clinical Trials Information 10.5.5 Safety and efficacy 10.5.5.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.5.6 Product Profile 10.6 ELOCTATE [ELOCTA (EFMOROCTOCOG ALFA)]: SANOFI/SOBI 10.6.1 Product Description 10.6.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.6.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.6.4 Safety and efficacy 10.6.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.6.5 Product Profile 10.7 AFSTYLA (LONOCTOCOG ALFA): CSL BEHRING 10.7.1 Product Description 10.7.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.7.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.7.4 Safety and efficacy 10.7.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.7.5 Product Profile 10.8 NUWIQ (SIMOCTOCOG ALFA): OCTAPHARMA 10.8.1 Product Description 10.8.2 Regulatory Milestone 10.8.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.8.4 Safety and Efficacy 1.1.1.1 Summary of Pivotal Clinical trial 10.8.5 Product Profile 10.9 KOVALTRY (BAY 81-8973): BAYER 10.9.1 Product Description 10.9.2 Regulatory Milestone 10.9.3 Other Developmental Activity 10.9.4 Safety and Efficacy 10.9.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Clinical Trial 10.9.5 Product Profile 10.10 OBIZUR: TAKEDA 10.10.1 Product Description 10.10.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.10.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.10.4 Recent Clinical Development 10.10.4.1 Clinical trials information 10.10.5 Safety and Efficacy 10.10.5.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.10.6 Product Profile 10.11 KOGENATE FS (OCTOCOG ALFA): BAYER 10.11.1 Product Description 10.11.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.11.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.11.4 Safety and Efficacy 10.11.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.11.5 Product Profile 10.12 XYNTHA (REFACTO AF): PFIZER 10.12.1 Product Description 10.12.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.12.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.12.4 Safety and Efficacy 10.12.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.12.5 Product Profile 10.13 FEIBA: TAKEDA 10.13.1 Product Description 10.13.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.13.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.13.4 Recent Clinical Developmen 10.13.4.1 Clinical trials information 10.13.5 Safety and Efficacy 10.13.5.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.13.6 Product Profile 10.14 HEMLIBRA (EMICIZUMAB-KXWH): CHUGAI/ GENENTECH/ROCHE 10.14.1 Product Description 10.14.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.14.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.15 SEVENFACT [COAGULATION FACTOR VIIA (RECOMBINANT)-JNCW]: HEMA BIOLOGICS/LFB PHARMACEUTICALS 10.15.1 Product Description 10.15.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.15.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.15.4 Recent Clinical Development 10.15.4.1 Clinical trials information 10.15.5 Safety and Efficacy 10.15.5.1 Summary of Pivotal Trial 10.15.6 Product Profile 10.16 HEMGENIX (ETRANACOGENE DEZAPARVOVEC): CSL BEHRING/UNIQURE 10.16.1 Product Description 10.16.2 Regulatory Approval 10.16.3 Other Development Activities 10.16.4 Recent Clinical Development 10.16.5 Safety and Efficacy 10.16.6 Product Profile 10.17 REBINYN (NONACOG BETA PEGOL): NOVO NORDISK 10.17.1 Product Description 10.17.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.17.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.17.4 Recent Clinical Development 10.17.4.1 Clinical Trials Information 10.17.5 Safety and Efficacy 10.17.5.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.17.6 Product Profile 10.18 IDELVION: CSL BEHRING 10.18.1 Product Description 10.18.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.18.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.18.4 Safety and efficacy 10.18.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Trial 10.18.5 Product Profile 10.19 ALPROLIX: SANOFI /BIOVERATIV THERAPEUTICS/SOBI 10.19.1 Product Description 10.19.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.19.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.19.4 Safety and Efficacy 10.19.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Trial 10.19.5 Product Profile 10.2 IXINITY (TRENONACOG ALFA): MEDEXUS PHARMACEUTICALS/APTEVO THERAPEUTICS 10.20.1 Product Description 10.20.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.20.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.20.4 Safety and Efficacy 10.20.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Trials 10.20.5 Product Profile 10.21 RIXUBIS: TAKEDA (SHIRE/BAXTER) 10.21.1 Product Description 10.21.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.21.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.21.4 Safety and Efficacy 10.21.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Trial 10.21.5 Product Profile 10.22 VONVENDI: SHIRE 10.22.1 Product Description 10.22.2 Mechanism of Action 10.22.3 Regulatory Milestones 10.22.4 Advantages and Disadvantages 10.22.5 Recent Clinical Development 10.22.5.1 Clinical Trials Information 10.22.6 Safety and Efficacy 10.22.7 Product Profile 10.23 HUMATE-P/HAEMATE P: CSL BEHRING 10.23.1 Product Description 10.23.2 Mechanism of Action 10.23.3 Regulatory Milestones 10.23.4 Advantages and Disadvantages 10.23.5 Safety and Efficacy 10.23.6 Product Profile 10.24 ALPHANATE: GRIFOLS BIOLOGICAL INC. 10.24.1 Product Description 10.24.2 Mechanism of Action 10.24.3 Regulatory Milestones 10.24.4 Advantages and Disadvantages 10.24.5 Safety and Efficacy 10.24.6 Product Profile 10.25 COAGADEX: BIO PRODUCTS LABORATORY 10.25.1 Product Description 10.25.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.25.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.25.4 Pivotal Clinical Trial 10.25.4.1 Summary of Pivotal Clinical Trials 10.25.5 Safety and Efficacy 10.25.6 Product Profile 10.26 ANDEXXA: ALEXION ASTRAZENECA RARE DISEASE 10.26.1 Product Description 10.26.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.26.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.26.4 Pivotal Clinical Trial 1.1.1.2 Summary of Pivotal Clinical Trials 10.26.5 Safety and Efficacy 10.26.6 Product Profile 10.27 KCENTRA: CSL BEHRING 10.27.1 Product Description 10.27.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.27.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.27.4 Ongoing Current Clinical Pipeline Activity 10.27.5 Pivotal Clinical Trial 10.27.5.1 Summary of Pivotal Clinical Trials 10.27.6 Safety and Efficacy 10.27.7 Product Profile 10.28 TRETTEN (CATRIDECACOG): NOVONORDISK 10.28.1 Product Description 10.28.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.28.3 Pivotal Clinical Trial 10.28.4 Safety and Efficacy 10.28.5 Product Profile 10.29 OCTAPLEX: OCTAPHARMA 10.29.1 Product Description 10.29.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.29.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.29.4 Recent Clinical Development 10.29.5 Pivotal Clinical Trial 10.29.6 Safety and Efficacy 10.29.7 Product Profile 10.3 RIASTAP: CSL BEHRING 10.30.1 Product Description 10.30.2 Regulatory Milestones 10.30.3 Other Developmental Activities 10.30.4 Pivotal Clinical Trial 10.30.5 Safety and Efficacy 10.30.6 Product Profile 10.31 ROCTAVIAN (VALOCTOCOGENE ROXAPARVOVEC): BIOMARIN PHARMACEUTICAL 10.31.1 Product Description 10.31.2 Regulatory Milestone 10.31.3 Other developmental activities 10.31.4 Recent clinical developmental activities 10.31.5 Safety and efficacy 10.31.6 Product Profile 10.32 ALTUVIIIO (EFANESOCTOCOG ALFA) (RFVIIIFC-VWF-XTEN): SANOFI 10.32.1 Product Description 10.32.2 Regulatory Milestone 10.32.3 Other developmental activity 10.32.4 Recent Clinical development 10.32.4.1 Clinical trial information 10.32.5 Safety and efficacy 10.32.6 Product Profile 11 EMERGING DRUGS 11.1 KEY CROSS 11.2 CONCIZUMAB (NN7415): NOVO NORDISK 11.2.1 Product description 11.2.2 Other developmental activities 11.2.3 Clinical development Activities 11.2.3.1 Clinical trial information 11.2.4 Safety and efficacy 11.3 FIDANACOGENE ELAPARVOVEC: PFIZER/SPARK THERAPEUTICS 11.3.1 Product Description 11.3.2 Other Developmental Activities 11.3.3 Clinical Developmental Activities 11.3.3.1 Clinical Trials Information 11.3.4 Safety and Efficacy 11.4 RG6357 (SPK-8011): ROCHE (SPARK THERAPEUTICS) 11.4.1 Product description 11.4.2 Other developmental activity 11.4.3 Clinical development Activities 11.4.3.1 Clinical trial information 11.4.4 Safety and efficacy 11.5 FITUSIRAN (ALN-AT3, SAR-439774): SANOFI (GENZYME)/ALNYLAM PHARMACEUTICALS 11.5.1 Product description 11.5.2 Other developmental activity 11.5.3 Clinical development Activities 11.5.3.1 Clinical trial information 11.5.4 Safety and efficacy 11.6 MARSTACIMAB (PF-06741086): PFIZER 11.6.1 Product description 11.6.2 Other developmental activities 11.6.3 Clinical development Activities 11.6.3.1 Clinical trial information 11.6.4 Safety and efficacy 11.7 GIROCTOCOGENE FITELPARVOVEC (SB-525 OR PF-07055480): PFIZER/SANGAMO THERAPEUTICS 11.7.1 Product description 11.7.2 Other developmental activity 11.7.3 Clinical development Actvities 11.7.3.1 Clinical trial information 11.7.4 Safety and efficacy 11.8 NNC0365-3769 A (MIM8): NOVO NORDISK A/S 11.8.1 Product description 11.8.2 Other developmental activity 11.8.3 Clinical development Activities 11.8.3.1 Clinical trial information 11.8.4 Safety and efficacy 11.9 BT524: BIOTEST AG 11.9.1 Product Description 11.9.2 Other Developmental Activities 11.9.3 Clinical Development Activities 11.9.3.1 Clinical Trials Information 11.9.4 Safety and Efficacy 11.10 SERPINPC: CENTESSA PHARMACEUTICALS (APCINTEX) 11.10.1 Product description 11.10.2 Other developmental activities 11.10.3 Clinical development Activities 11.10.3.1 Clinical trial information 11.10.4 Safety and efficacy 11.11 STSP-0601: STAIDSON BIOPHARMA INC. 11.11.1 Product Description 11.11.2 Clinical Development Activities 11.11.2.1 Clinical Trials Information 11.11.3 Safety and Efficacy 11.12 MARZEPTACOG ALFA: GC BIOPHARMA 11.12.1 Product Description 11.12.2 Other Developmental Activities 11.12.3 Clinical Development Activities 11.12.3.1 Clinical Trials Information 11.12.4 Safety and Efficacy 11.13 AB023: ARONORA, INC. 11.13.1 Product Description 11.13.2 Other Developmental Activities 11.13.3 Clinical Development Activities 11.13.3.1 Clinical Trials Information 11.13.4 Safety and Efficacy 11.14 BAY2599023 (DTX201 AAV FVIII): BAYER/ULTRAGENYX PHARMACEUTICAL 11.14.1 Product description 11.14.2 Other developmental activity 11.14.3 Clinical development Activities 11.14.3.1 Clinical trial information 11.14.4 Safety and efficacy 11.15 OPK88005 (FACTOR VIIA-CTP): OPKO HEALTH, INC. 11.15.1 Product Description 11.15.2 Other Developmental Activities 11.15.3 Clinical Development Activities 11.15.3.1 Clinical Trials Information 11.15.4 Safety and Efficacy 12 COAGULATION FACTOR DEFICIENCY: SEVEN MAJOR MARKET ANALYSIS 12.1 KEY FINDINGS 12.2 MARKET OUTLOOK 12.3 KEY MARKET FORECAST ASSUMPTIONS 12.4 TOTAL MARKET SIZE OF COAGULATION FACTOR DEFICIENCY IN THE 7MM 12.5 UNITED STATES MARKET SIZE 12.5.1 Total Market Size of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in the United States 12.6 EU4 AND THE UK MARKET SIZE 12.6.1 Total Market Size of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in the EU4 and the UK 12.7 JAPAN 12.7.1 Total Market Size of Coagulation Factor Deficiency in Japan 13 MARKET ACCESS AND REIMBURSEMENT 13.1 HEMOPHILIA A 13.1.1 The US 13.1.1.1 Current Therapies 13.1.2 HAS Assessment for Some Other Therapies 13.1.3 HTA Assessment of Hemlibra by NHS and IQWiG 13.1.4 IQWIG Assessment for Some Other Therapies 13.1.5 Future Therapies: Gene Therapy 13.2 HEMOPHILIA B 13.2.1 Access and Reimbursement Overview for Current and Future Therapies 13.2.2 NICE Assessment 13.2.3 IQWIG Assessment 13.2.4 HAS Assessment 13.3 CLOTTING FACTORS 13.3.1 The US 13.3.1.1 CMS 13.3.2 UK (NHS) 13.3.3 EU (HTA Assessment) 13.3.3.1 IQWIG 13.3.3.2 AIFA 13.3.4 Japan 14 UNMET NEEDS 15 SWOT ANALYSIS 16 KOL VIEWS 17 APPENDIX 17.1 BIBLIOGRAPHY 17.2 REPORT METHODOLOGY 18 DELVEINSIGHT CAPABILITIES 19 DISCLAIMER 20 ABOUT DELVEINSIGHT Related Reports Coagulation Factor Deficiency Epidemiology Forecast Coagulation Factor Deficiency Epidemiology Forecast 2032 report delivers an in-depth understanding of the disease, historical and forecasted epidemiology as well as the coagulation factor deficiency epidemiology trends. 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Contact Us Shruti Thakur [email protected] +14699457679 www.delveinsight.com Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1082265/DelveInsight_Logo.jpg SOURCE DelveInsight Business Research, LLP Robert Luna is Walking From Alabama to California to Raise Awareness for Mental Health Issues in the Military STONINGTON, Conn., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Coast Guard Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to strengthening the Coast Guard community and service by supporting members and families, announced that Robert Luna, a retired Coast Guard veteran and chief petty officer, is walking from Alabama to California to raise awareness for mental health issues in the military and support for the Coast Guard Foundation's programs. Like many veterans, he has struggled with mental health since leaving the service. Luna's journey, "AL2LA", began in Elwell Park in Weaver, Ala. on May 18, 2024, and will conclude at USCG Base Los Angeles/Long Beach in Los Angeles, Calif. in September. Robert Luna, retired Coast Guard veteran, is walking across America to spotlight veteran and military mental health. Post this Robert Luna, a retired Coast Guard veteran and chief petty officer, is walking from Alabama to California to raise awareness for mental health issues in the military and support for the Coast Guard Foundations programs. He recently stopped at a Coast Guard recruiting office in Oklahoma City. Robert Luna, a retired Coast Guard veteran and chief petty officer, is walking from Alabama to California to raise awareness for mental health issues in the military and support for the Coast Guard Foundations programs. He is pictured here with a group of veterans from the local VFW in Searcy, Arkansas. "Every step I take is a step towards hope and healing for me, active-duty Coast Guard members, veterans, and everyone within the military community," he said, "If I can help even one person realize they're not alone and that it's okay to seek help, the journey will be work it." "Robert is a true inspiration to all those who have been fortunate enough to meet him," said Susan Ludwig, President of the Coast Guard Foundation. "We are grateful for his support and will follow his progress and cheer him on over the next few months as he raises awareness for military mental health through this incredible feat." For information on Luna's journey and to watch his progress, visit al2la.us. Supporters can also follow along on his Facebook and Instagram pages. To donate to his cause, visit gofund.me/61be31f4. To learn more about the Coast Guard Foundation, or to help support its work, please visit www.coastguardfoundation.org or call 860-535-0786. About The Coast Guard Foundation The Coast Guard Foundation is committed to ensuring all Coast Guard members and families have the resources they need to build resilience throughout their lives. Founded in 1969, we're a vital partner to the Coast Guardtackling the toughest challenges confronting our heroes and strengthening the entire community. Coast Guard members sacrifice so much to protect our nation. We must stand together and show them our appreciation so they can remain always ready. Join us at CoastGuardFoundation.org. SOURCE Coast Guard Foundation Awarded $50,000 to launch plan to help refugee students in Rwanda access higher education SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Three teams of university students traveled to the 12th Annual CIEE Global Internship Conference (GIC) in London, England for the finals of the second annual CIEE UNHCR Student Challenge where they presented solution ideas to support increasing access to higher education and livelihood for forcibly displaced youth around the world. "I learned so much about how we, as university students, can make a real difference," said Joselyto Charite Baho. Post this Winning team members Nimco Ibrahim, Amina Mkova (onscreen), Joselyto Charite Baho and Obed Korusenge Nsanzimfura with judges James Pellow, CIEE; Ruth Nyabuto, University of Oxford; and Tahlia Dwyer, UNHCR in London, June 21, 2024. The winning team was the Eagles, comprised of Amina Mkova (Team Captain); Obed Korusenge Nsanzimfura; Joselyto Charite Baho, all from Kepler College, Rwanda; and Nimco Ibrahim from African Leadership University, Rwanda. Eligible members of the winning team will each be awarded a CIEE summer global internship, and CIEE has pledged $50,000 to support the team's solution idea, consisting of a comprehensive and sustainable mentoring program that supports high school students who are forcibly displaced and need help bridging the knowledge gap to gain university admission, refugee students enrolled in higher education programs who need help navigating university, and soon-to-be-graduates who need help preparing for careers and networking. This year, 130 teams comprised of 470 students from 38 countries representing 80 colleges and universities entered the CIEE UNHCR Student Challenge, which was cosponsored by CIEE and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, with challenge partners District C and Microsoft providing additional support. In the semifinals, 36 teams representing 47 universities, and 21 countries were selected to further develop and present their ideas virtually to judges from across the globe representing organizations advocating for refugees, including the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Kepler, the President's Alliance for Immigration and Higher Education, Talent Beyond Boundaries, and Jesuit Worldwide Learning. The judges selected the top three teams to advance to the finals based on the potential of their solution ideas to address this critical challenge facing refugees. The finalists were awarded a trip to London to compete for the grand prize at the 2024 CIEE UNHCR Student Challenge Finals. In the finals, the top three teams presented their proposals during the closing plenary before a panel of judges: James P. Pellow, President and CEO of CIEE; refugee experts Ruth Nyabuto, Academic Manager, University of Oxford Refugee Studies Center, Refugee-Led Research Hub (RLRH); and Tahlia Dwyer, Legal Officer, UNHCR. In addition to the Eagles, judges heard impressive presentations from the two runners-up teams, including a team from Wellesley College, named Wellesley in the World, and represented by Merelin Baldonado (Team Captain), Ilinca Drondoe, and Suzanna Schofield; and a team from four different colleges, named Three Paths, and represented by Mia Williams (Team Captain) University of Pennsylvania; Zamzam Fadhil, San Diego Mesa College; Ahmednoor Hassan, Bates College; and Kay Ellen Bell, Bard College. Team Three Paths met as high school students in 2022 while on a CIEE language and culture program in Rabat, Morocco. They decided to compete as a team from their current colleges located in three regions of the U.S. "All the student proposals for solutions to help refugees were impressive," said judge James P. Pellow. "The design of the Eagles' solution was both practical and impactful and the judges felt it had a strong possibility of being successful. In fact, all three judges pledged to help Team Eagles in some way, with CIEE pledging $50,000 to support the pilot program, refugee expert Ruth Nyabuto signing on to mentor these ambitious students, and Tahlia Dwyer of UNHCR pledging to explore ways that UNHCR could promote the project." "I was honored to listen to the project ideas from the three groups," said judge Ruth Nyabuto. "What stood out for me was the amount of thoughtfulness, hard work and detailed understanding of the displacement contexts they all intended to respond to. While all their proposals were stellar, Eagles's proposal which sought to address access to higher education had a more convincing implementation plan. Through RLRH which has been running a graduate application mentorship 'Graduate Horizons' we hope to offer mentorship to the group as they set up their project." Eagles Team Captain, Amina Mkova (who due to travel issues participated in the finals virtually) explained that her favorite part of the challenge was the opportunity to help forcibly displaced and refugee students in Rwanda access and seamlessly transition into higher education. "I believe that empowering them will enable them to reach their full potential and achieve their dreams," she said. "Participating in the Student Challenge was an incredible and eye-opening experience," said Eagles team member Joselyto Charite Baho. "As a first-time international traveler, visiting London for the finals was exciting in itself, but the entire competition process exceeded my expectations. Through the three phases - from the initial proposal to the final presentation in London - I learned so much about how we, as university students, can make a real difference." "UNHCR congratulates all the CIEE student teams and particularly the winning team from Rwanda the Eagles! Their ingenuity and dedication demonstrate the transformative impact that higher education can have on refugee students, empowering them to achieve their aspirations and contribute insight and expertise to global dialogues," said Manal Stulgaitis, Division of Resilience and Solutions, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. "The innovative ideas and solutions presented by all teams confirms the value of including young people in addressing the global challenge of increasing access to higher education and livelihood for forcibly displaced youth." About UNHCR UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights, and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people. Worldwide, over 120 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to conflict, violence, and persecution. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, believes that young people have a central role to play in finding ways to help them thrive, not just survive. About CIEE CIEE builds bridges between different people, different countries, and different cultures. For 75 years, we have helped young people participate in high-quality international exchange and study abroad programs that bring the world together. We change lives, our alumni change the world. Learn more at ciee.org. Media contact: Leslie Taylor, [email protected], (207) 553-4274 SOURCE Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) DALLAS COUNTY, Texas, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Dallas County, Texas ("the County") is providing an update on a prior security incident that may impact the confidentiality of certain information maintained by the County. As the County previously shared with its residents and partners, on October 19, 2023, the County became aware of a cybersecurity incident affecting a portion of its environment. Upon detection, the County promptly took steps to contain the incident and engaged third-party cybersecurity specialists to perform a comprehensive investigation, including to determine what data may be involved. During the investigation, the County established a dedicated call center for individuals to call should they have any questions relating to the incident and to obtain complimentary credit monitoring services should they have any concerns. The call center continues to be operational as of the date of this notice and will remain open for an additional 90 days. The County recently completed its investigation and determined that certain information related to individuals may be involved. The specific types of information impacted are detailed further below. The County might hold information about individuals for several reasons: they could be a resident, an employee, or they might have received services from or interacted with one of our agencies (e.g., Department of Health and Human Services). Additionally, the County participates in data sharing agreements with other organizations to enhance the services we offer to our residents and the public. While the information affected by this incident varies based on the individual and their association with the County, this incident primarily involved the following information: name; Social Security number (SSN); date of birth; driver's license/state identification number; and taxpayer identification number. For some individuals, certain types of medical information (e.g., diagnosis or conditions information) and health insurance information may be involved. The County is actively notifying impacted individuals through various communication channels. This includes notice through nationwide media, an update to its dedicated website (www.dallascounty.org/about-us/hot-links/notice-cybersecurity-incident.php), and letters mailed to individuals whose contact information was available. The County is also offering two years of complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to individuals whose Social Security or taxpayer identification numbers were involved. The County established a dedicated call center for individuals to call should they have any questions relating to the incident or to confirm whether their information was involved. The phone number is 1 (888) 330-2852 and representatives are available Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 8 PM CT. Individuals may also write to the County at 500 Elm Street, 7th Floor, Suite 7600, Dallas, TX 75202 with any questions or concerns. Media Contact: Lauren Trimble [email protected] SOURCE Dallas County, Texas HOLLYWOOD, Fla., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- DermCare Management, a leader in specialized dermatology and cosmetic surgery practice management services, proudly announces the addition of three new practice partnerships in Florida and Texas, bringing the total number of practice locations to 76. DermCare Management welcomes 3 new practice partners DermCare Management is proud to welcome Bassin Plastic Surgery in Orlando, FL, Boyne Dermatology in Jacksonville, FL, and Longhorn Dermatology in Spicewood, TX to our ever-expanding family of dermatology and cosmetic surgery practices. These new partners in Texas and Florida align with DermCare's commitment to furthering access to exceptional patient-centered care for patients in central and northern Florida and the greater Austin metropolitan area. Dr. Roger Bassin of Bassin Plastic Surgery is an eyelid and facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon, one of a select few highly trained surgeons in the country with his unique combination of specialties. In addition to facial procedures, Bassin Plastic Surgery offers hair transplantation services, breast enhancement procedures, body contouring, and non-invasive face and body treatments. Bassin Plastic Surgery's four locations span from Tampa to Melbourne, offering outstanding aesthetic solutions from the West Coast to the East Coast of Central Florida. Longhorn Dermatology's Dr. Brian Ransdell is a fellow on the American Board of Dermatology and the American Society for Mohs Surgery. Dr. Ransdell attended medical school at Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas) followed by his internship at Baylor and his residency in Dermatology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and MD Anderson Cancer Center. He possesses a deep-rooted passion for providing top-notch dermatologic care to citizens of the Lone Star State. Longhorn Dermatology was established in 2013, where Dr. Ransdell and his team have been committed to caring for the Spicewood, TX community for over 10 years. Dr. Joy R. Boyne of Boyne Dermatology is a board-certified dermatologist who brings more than 38 years of dermatology experience to DermCare Management. Since completing her medical education at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine in 1986, Dr. Boyne has dedicated her career to patient education and personalized treatment, prioritizing quality, patient-centered care in a comfortable and convenient setting. Boyne Dermatology maintains a loyal base of satisfied patients because of the practice's commitment to exceptional medical care and concierge-level personalized service. Jeffrey Schillinger, CEO of DermCare Management, shares his excitement, saying "We are thrilled with the growth and success we've experienced in the first half of 2024. We look forward to collaborating with our new partners and their practices to enhance patient care and streamline practice management. Our focus remains on supporting our physicians and their goals, enabling them to provide top-quality care. We're excited to build on these partnerships and connect with more physicians who share our mission of excellence." ABOUT DERMCARE MANAGEMENT DermCare Management's mission is to provide comprehensive, world-class operational support to dermatology practices that share our unwavering commitment to clinical excellence and extraordinary patient service. We accomplish this through an unmatched partnership program that preserves physicians' autonomy and authority while providing the administrative support necessary for continued success. For physicians who are looking for the next phase of their career, DermCare makes the process as easy and painless as possible with customized step down plans to ensure everything is in place and secure for a smooth transition. For more information about DermCare Management, visit or contact: www.dermcaremgt.com SOURCE Dermcare Management Deutsche Bank will obtain support for thousands of SUSE Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Servers with SUSE Liberty Linux, an enterprise solution to maintain and support a wide variety of enterprise Linux distributions Strategic move underpins the importance of customer choice to innovate at their own pace while ensuring the security of their enterprise Linux infrastructure LUXEMBOURG, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- SUSE , a global leader in innovative, open and secure enterprise-grade solutions, today announced that Deutsche Bank, the leading bank in Germany with strong European roots and a global network,, has chosen SUSE Liberty Linux to maintain and support its global Linux estate consisting of thousands of SUSE Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Servers. With SUSE Liberty Linux, customers get comprehensive Linux enterprise support from one source for any enterprise Linux, any version, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS, reducing complexity and cost, while keeping Linux estates secure and future-proofed. "Customers need predictable maintenance and support for their mixed enterprise Linux estates to be able to innovate at their own pace," said Werner Knoblich, Chief Revenue Officer at SUSE. "By choosing SUSE and SUSE Liberty Linux, SUSE is excited to support Deutsche Bank, ensuring choice and freedom for their mission critical enterprise Linux." "Given the critical nature of our infrastructure, we have to consistently ensure the security of our mixed Linux estates," said Keith Anderson, Product Manager for Compute at Deutsche Bank. "We have successfully partnered with SUSE for many years for innovative open source solutions. With SUSE Liberty Linux, we deepen this strong relationship." SUSE Liberty Linux is an enterprise solution for hassle free maintenance and support of mixed Linux estates from one source - any enterprise Linux, any version, including CentOS. Customers like Deutsche Bank obtain proven enterprise support with predictable releases for their enterprise Linux. With SUSE Liberty Linux, customers take control of their enterprise Linux, free from uncertainty with a partner that believes in the power of open source for enterprises. For more information visit the SUSE Liberty Linux website . About SUSE SUSE is a global leader in innovative, reliable and secure enterprise open source solutions, including SUSE Linux Enterprise, Rancher and NeuVector. More than 60% of the Fortune 500 rely on SUSE to power their mission-critical workloads, enabling them to innovate everywhere from the data center to the cloud, to the edge and beyond. SUSE puts the "open" back in open source, collaborating with partners and communities to give customers the agility to tackle innovation challenges today and the freedom to evolve their strategy and solutions tomorrow. For more information, visit www.suse.com. Media contact: [email protected] SOURCE SUSE S.A. Transforming Dealership Operations with Seamless Appraisal and Trade-In Functionality ST. LOUIS, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- DriveCentric, an innovator in combining augmented intelligence with automotive sales expertise, is proud to announce a significant enhancement to its platform thanks to our innovative collaboration with VINCUE. VINCUE provides a modern end-to-end inventory lifecycle solution for retail automotive dealerships. Now dealers can effortlessly and seamlessly pull appraisals from VINCUE into DriveCentric, alongside the existing trade-in vehicle push feature. This new Push and Pull functionality brings unparalleled flexibility and efficiency to dealership operations. Since its inception, DriveCentric has been at the forefront of empowering dealerships with state-of-the-art, cutting-edge CRM solutions, advanced automation, and real-time insights. Our tools have consistently optimized customer engagement and boosted sales performance. With the integration of VINCUE, we're taking these capabilities to the next level. Dealers can now streamline their appraisal processes and make more informed decisions, thanks to comprehensive data insights seamlessly pulled into DriveCentric. Through its unified platform, VINCUE offers a comprehensive suite of solutions and capabilities to manage every step of the inventory lifecycle including buying plans, multi-channel acquisition sourcing, market pricing and appraisal, merchandising and syndication, and digital marketing. The goal of a unified platform is to help dealers unlock prevailing strategies that increase gross and turn through providing real-time market and competitor data to make better buying and merchandising decisions - and outperform the market. Leadership Perspectives "By integrating Pull functionality with VINCUE alongside our existing features, we continue to elevate the automotive retail experience, making it easier and more efficient for dealers to manage appraisals and focus on customer satisfaction," said Drew Adler, DriveCentric's Director of Product. "We're excited to join forces with DriveCentric to supercharge integration capabilities for dealerships," said Chris Hoke, Founder and CEO/CTO of VINCUE. "This collaboration provides seamless access to vital appraisal data, reinforcing our dedication to offering comprehensive solutions that help dealers thrive in today's competitive automotive market." Both companies encourage their users to continue suggesting enhancements that empower dealers to succeed and excel in the market. About DriveCentric DriveCentric is at the forefront of integrating augmented intelligence with automotive sales. Its platform offers CRM solutions, automation, and engagement tools, providing dealerships with valuable insights for improved decision-making and customer experiences. For additional information, please visit www.drivecentric.com About VINCUE VINCUE is transforming the retail automotive software industry by providing dealers with new, innovative end-to-end inventory lifecycle management and market pricing solutions. This gives dealers access to real-time data and tools in a single system to stock smarter, increase turn, compete effectively, and above all else maximize profits. For additional information, please visit www.VINCUE.com. For more information, please contact: Audrey Fusz, [email protected] SOURCE DriveCentric CLEVELAND, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- FinTech Electronic Merchant Systems ("EMS") is excited to welcome industry leader Randy Hayashi to the executive team as its Vice President of Strategy. Randy Hayashi Hayashi's extensive career spans over two decades, with expertise in operations, strategy, and team leadership. Hayashi served as COO of Payment Depot, leading the company from startup to serving 10,000+ merchants with $3B+ in annual processing volume. Payment Depot was acquired by Stax where Hayashi assumed a leadership role as Vice President of Operations. There, he was crucial in driving continuous improvement and fostering teamwork, significantly contributing to the company's success. Hayashi holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from California State University, Long Beach. "We are very excited to welcome Randy to the EMS family and to further bolster our amazing leadership team," said Afshin Yazdian, CEO and Executive Chairman of EMS. "He's proven himself to be a dynamic strategist with a track record of positively transforming solutions and driving business growth. Randy will be an instrumental part of our continued transformation here at EMS." As Vice President of Strategy, Randy will be responsible for shaping and executing the EMS vision, driving innovation, and ensuring the company remains at the forefront of the payment processing industry. Hayashi will also be active in the company's M&A integration strategy, which was recently bolstered by the PaymentCloud transaction late last year. "I am thrilled to join the world-class EMS team," says Hayashi. "I'm extremely passionate about fostering market expansion and delivering exceptional value to clients. EMS is a proven leader in transforming payment solutions, and I'm eager to be a part of its continued success." With EMS at the forefront of the fintech revolution, Hayashi's appointment reinforces the company's commitment to providing exceptional service to both new and existing partners in the dynamic digital economy. About Electronic Merchant Systems Based in Cleveland, Ohio, the EMS mission is to be the industry-leading merchant services provider that businesses depend on to help them achieve their financial goals. EMS serves thousands of retail, internet, and start-up customers nationwide who rely on their diverse suite of modern online payment solutions. Contact: [email protected] SOURCE Electronic Merchant Systems TOKYO, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Enfinity Global Inc., a leader in renewable energy, announced a $164 million (JPY 26.24 bn) financing for 250 MW solar PV portfolio in Japan. The financing, made in partnership with Macquarie Capital and a syndicate led by Shinhan Asset Management, positions the company for further growth in Japan. Enfinity Global Solar Power Plant in Japan The portfolio consists of seven operating utility-scale solar projects, one project under construction, and has an enterprise value of over $1 billion. The portfolio is expected to produce more than 300 GWh of clean energy annually, enough to power 60,000 Japanese homes and offset 35,000 tons of CO2 emissions. "We are delighted to partner with Macquarie and Shinhan as we scale our platform in Japan," commented Carlos Domenech, CEO of Enfinity Global. "Japan's energy transition needs world-class companies that invest in these high-quality long-lived assets and support emerging energy needs such as those driven by data centers," he added. A representative from Macquarie Capital added: "We are thrilled to partner with Enfinity Global to support the financing of this portfolio. Our collaboration underscores our commitment to supporting the growth of high-quality renewable energy projects in attractive markets." Macquarie Capital, the investment division of Macquarie Group, stands as the world's largest infrastructure investor in infrastructure and power assets worldwide. Renewable energy holds a top priority in Macquarie's global investment strategy. Enfinity Global Enfinity Global Inc., together with its subsidiaries, is a US-based leading renewable energy and sustainability services company established in 2019. The company owns a portfolio of 24.1 GW of renewable energy and storage projects, including operational assets, under construction, and in different stages of development. With offices across US, Europe, Japan, and India, the company aims to make a significant contribution to a sustainable net zero carbon economy. Macquarie Capital Macquarie Capital is the advisory, capital markets and principal investment arm of Macquarie Group. It encompasses corporate advisory, a full spectrum of capital solutions, including capital raising services from equity, debt and private capital markets and principal investments from Macquarie's balance sheet. Macquarie Capital has deep sector expertise in the aerospace, defense and government services, consumer, gaming and leisure, critical minerals, energy, financial institutions, healthcare, industrials, infrastructure, media, real estate, services, software, technology, telecommunications and media sectors. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2457074/Enfinity_Global_Solar_Power_Plant_Japan.jpg Clinical trials slated to begin next year in collaboration with global leader LOUISVILLE, Ky., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- PharmassetX Inc., a late-preclinical stage pharmaceutical development company, today announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) to epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a well-characterized component of green tea that the Company is developing as a high-purity, high-potency drug for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). FDA granted PharmassetX ODD for the treatment of pouchitis, a rare yet debilitating form of IBD experienced by a number of patients who have undergone surgery to remove their large intestine. There is currently no FDA-approved drug for the treatment of pouchitis. PharmassetX announces FDA Orphan Drug Designation for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) indication pouchitis. Post this "We are grateful to be positioned to provide a much-needed innovative drug, for which there is already substantial evidence of safety and effectiveness, to the underserved community of pouchitis patients," said Terry Minton, Co-Founder and CEO of PharmassetX. "Our mission as an organization is to improve outcomes and enhance quality of life for IBD patients. The granting of this ODD is an important milestone along the critical path to accomplishing that mission." Peer-reviewed evidence supporting EGCG's safety and effectiveness for an IBD indication was first published in the journal Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, a publication of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. A randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, investigator-initiated clinical study of an EGCG-enriched green tea extract showed that patients suffering from mild to moderate ulcerative colitis, a common form of IBD, experienced clinical improvement, including endoscopic improvement, after treatment. No serious adverse events were reported. Further peer-reviewed evidence of EGCG's safety and effectiveness was gathered in the course of an investigator-initiated retrospective study of pouchitis patients published in International Journal of Colorectal Diseases, a Springer Nature publication. The majority of refractory pouchitis patients experienced complete relief from their symptoms, with no serious adverse events reported. Such studies, initiated and completed prior to the formation of the Company by one of its founders, Gerald W Dryden, Jr, MD, PhD, gastroenterologist/immunologist and Chief Medical Officer of PharmassetX, established the basis for the Company's founding. Dr Dryden offered this perspective: "My clinical experience, consistent with the clinical experience of prominent and knowledgeable colleagues both in the US and globally, indicates that EGCG is safe and effective for the treatment of various forms of IBD. It is unfortunate that previous development efforts to harness partially pure EGCG for the chemoprevention of cancer a noble goal, but a high bar indeed were abandoned. That decision was made not because of lack of evidence of efficacy or safety; rather, a change in leadership at the former corporate sponsor, a prominent tea producer, led to their change of heart. The rigorous demands and high costs of pharmaceutical development fell outside of their corporate risk tolerance. Ever since, there has been a pressing need to revive the development of EGCG as a drug to treat conditions such as IBD, including pouchitis. PharmassetX was founded to meet that unmet medical need." EGCG has been shown to target NF-B, a key regulator of mucosal immunity, which promotes the expression of multiple pro-inflammatory genes dysregulated in IBD. Additional effects may include decreased activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, decreased secretion of pro-inflammatory interleukins, and promotion of intestinal barrier integrity. Studies in relevant IBD models suggest that targeting NF-B can be an effective strategy in disease management, whether alone or as an adjunct in combination with other therapeutics. To advance its proprietary ultra-pure EGCG drug PSX-514 into the clinic as efficiently as possible, PharmassetX has recently partnered with Alimentiv, a Canada-based global contract research organization recognized as the leader in designing and executing clinical trials of novel therapeutics for gastrointestinal indications, including various forms of IBD such as Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and pouchitis. The collaboration with Alimentiv is intended to expedite patient access to PSX-514 and advance the drug into the clinic next year. Such clinical validation is required for eventual regulatory approval and, importantly, so that public and private insurers will have data supporting coverage and payment for PSX-514 prescriptions on the basis of medical necessity. Per-insured per-year costs for IBD patients are significantly higher than for insured patients in general, indicating the need for more innovative and cost-effective therapeutics. About inflammatory bowel disease : A groundbreaking 2023 study led by the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation showed that nearly 1 in 100 Americans has IBD. "IBD is an umbrella term used to describe disorders that cause chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Symptoms include diarrhea, as well as abdominal pain, nausea, fever, loss of appetite, fatigue and at times rectal bleeding. The two most common forms of IBD are Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. There are currently no cures for IBD." See the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation website, https://www.crohnscolitisfoundation.org/groundbreaking-study-led-the-crohns-colitis-foundation-estimates-nearly-1-100-americans-has. About pouchitis : "Pouchitis is the most common complication after restorative proctocolectomy with ileal pouchanal anastomosis for ulcerative colitis." See "AGA Clinical Practice Guideline on the Management of Pouchitis and Inflammatory Pouch Disorders" at https://www.giboardreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AGA-Clinical-Guidleine-Pouchitis-Jan-2024.pdf. About Orphan Drug Designation : "Supporting the development and evaluation of new treatments for rare diseases is a key priority for the FDA. The FDA has authority to grant orphan drug designation to a drug or biological product to prevent, diagnose or treat a rare disease or condition. Orphan drug designation qualifies sponsors for incentives including: tax credits for qualified clinical trials; exemption from user fees; potential seven years of market exclusivity after approval." See the FDA website, https://www.fda.gov/industry/medical-products-rare-diseases-and-conditions/designating-orphan-product-drugs-and-biological-products. About EGCG : Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is a natural substance obtained from the tea plant Camellia sinensis. As evidenced by over four thousand peer-reviewed publications just in the past decade, EGCG has become the object of extensive research into its health effects and other properties. See the National Institutes of Health National Center for Biotechnology Information PubChem website, https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Epigallocatechin-Gallate. About Gerald W Dryden, Jr, MD, PhD : Dr Dryden is Professor of Medicine at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, inventor of a number of endoscopic devices, co-author of dozens of publications on IBD, and a frequent invited speaker at gastroenterology conferences focused on improving IBD treatment. About Terry Minton : Mr Minton is an experienced healthcare executive, working most recently in pharmacogenomics and diagnostics, who has launched multiple startups including oncology drug developer Aptamera, which was acquired for a premium yielding a highly attractive ROI for its investors. About Alimentiv : Alimentiv is an industry-leading specialty GI contract research organization (CRO) improving clinical trial outcomes and accelerating drug development timelines. As a global CRO offering clinical, medical imaging and precision medicine services, Alimentiv partners with pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to advance the development of novel therapies. Alimentiv is headquartered in London, Ontario, Canada, with a global footprint across its operations in Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. For more information: www.alimentiv.com. About PharmassetX : Founded in 2024 with a mission to address the needs of underserved populations within the IBD community, Louisville, Kentucky-based PharmassetX Inc. (pronounced "Farm-a-SET-x") is a privately held Delaware corporation. The Company welcomes substantive inquiries from interested parties. Contact: Terry Minton, CEO, PharmassetX, [email protected] or (502) 324-5111. Note: This press release contains forward-looking statements, including without limitation statements about future developments, which are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual future developments may differ materially due to various factors. PharmassetX Inc. undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement. No reliance should be placed on any forward-looking statement contained in this press release. SOURCE PharmassetX Inc. The monetary transactions within the timeshare sector are monumental, constituting a $10.5 billion industry with no slowing down on the horizon. Post this The Co-Trustees, Bo Wilson and Rich Folk, departed from their executive positions working for the largest timeshare company globally, due to their realization that the industry prioritized profit over consumer well-being. Rich Folk, a former timeshare EVP of Sales and Marketing and Co-Trustee, expressed, "We took immense pride in our work for a significant period working in timeshare sales. However, a shift occurred where consumers were being deceived and coerced into purchasing products they neither desired nor for which they comprehended the full financial implications. As consumer dissatisfaction escalated and trust eroded, so did our own morale." Leveraging their profound industry insights, Bo and Rich helm a company of substantial influence. As a result of their vast experience and success, Bo and Rich have been faced with tireless litigation and legal challenges from four major timeshare developers, yet still prevail. As previously stated by a Florida Federal Judge, the developers have weaponized the court system against small law firms, attorneys and exit companies. Unlike Timeshare Compliance, over 50 exit companies and attorneys were unable to withstand the litigation onslaught. The monetary transactions within the timeshare sector are monumental, constituting a $10.5 billion industry with no slowing down on the horizon. Travel + Leisure, the largest timeshare developer, brought in close to $3.6 billion in revenue in 2022 (Semafor.com). Despite these lucrative figures, consumers often regret their timeshare purchase. Bo Wilson, a former top sales executive at Wyndham and Co-Trustee, lamented, "We receive hundreds of inquiries daily from individuals aggrieved by their treatment at the hands of developers, seeking liberation from their timeshares. We can assist many, as cases of misrepresentation and coercive sales tactics are prevalent. The prevalence of such unethical practices is truly disheartening." Day in and day out, Rich, Bo and their team of timeshare watchdogs equip consumers with knowledge about their rights and available options, cautioning prospective buyers about potential pitfalls and warning signs to recognize. As long as unsuspecting consumers are duped into timeshare purchases, Timeshare Compliance remains steadfast in its commitment to safeguarding their interests. About Timeshare Compliance - Timeshare Compliance serves as a beacon of hope for timeshare owners seeking to terminate their contracts. As an independent entity, we enlist individuals with prior industry experience to navigate the exit process for clients when all other resolution avenues have been exhausted. Our team of attorneys who represent our clients negotiate with timeshare developers to facilitate an amicable exit strategy for owners in need of relief. More information here. SOURCE Timeshare Compliance Award-Winning Solar Roof Meets High Standards of Colorado Master-Planned Community: Sterling Ranch Committed to Achieving 100% Renewable Electricity by 2030 LITTLETON, Colo., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- GAF Energy's Timberline Solar , the world's first nailable solar shingle, has been approved for installation by the Sterling Ranch master-planned community. The acceptance confirms that Timberline Solar meets or exceeds the community's extremely high standards for safety, energy production, and aesthetics. The availability of Timberline Solar will help Sterling Ranch reach its sustainability targets , including the goal of achieving 100% renewable electricity by 2030. GAF Energy , a Standard Industries company and the leading provider of solar roofing in North America, produces Timberline Solar at the company's manufacturing facilities in California and Texas. "We're proud to have Timberline Solar approved for installation in Sterling Ranch, a master-planned community in Colorado, known for its high standards," said David Kaltsas, Chief Revenue Officer, GAF Energy. "With Timberline Solar, homeowners can enjoy a beautiful, efficient solar roof that's built to endure Colorado's tough winter conditions, including heavy snow. At GAF Energy, we are committed to making the most aesthetically pleasing and durable solar roof on the market." The Timberline Solar Energy Shingle (ES) boasts an industry-defying depth of less than a quarter inch and integrates with traditional shingles to create a sleek and attractive look. Timberline Solar meets a host of rigorous third-party safety standards covering both roofing and solar. The company's recently completed 450,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Texas, will make GAF Energy the largest producer of solar roofing in the world. Consumers interested in learning more about Timberline Solar can visit: https://www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar About GAF Energy GAF Energy is transforming the solar and roofing industries to generate energy from every roof. A Standard Industries company, GAF Energy works with North America's largest roofing and waterproofing manufacturer, GAF, to offer homeowners elegant, roof-integrated solar options through a national network of roofer partners. The company's leading product, Timberline Solar, incorporates the world's first nailable solar shingle to create an attractive, durable, and reliable solar roof. GAF Energy's products have received numerous awards and honors, including the Fast Company 2022 World Changing Ideas Award, the CES Best of Innovation Award , named The Best Solar Shingle by CNET, and an NAHB Best of IBS Award . GAF Energy develops and assembles its products in the United States at its facilities in California and Texas. For more information, visit www.gaf.energy . About Standard Industries Standard Industries is a privately-held global industrial company operating in over 80 countries with over 20,000 employees. The Standard ecosystem spans a broad array of holdings, technologies and investmentsincluding both public and private companies from early to late-stageas well as world-class building solutions, performance materials, logistics, real estate and next-generation solar technology. Throughout its history, Standard has leveraged its deep industry expertise and vision to create outsize value across its businesses, which today include operating companies GAF, BMI, Grace, GAF Energy, Siplast, SGI, Schiedel, and Standard Logistics, as well as Standard Investments and Winter Properties. For more information, visit www.standardindustries.com . SOURCE GAF Energy BEIJING, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- China and Tajikistan on Friday announced the elevation of ties to comprehensive strategic partnership in the new era during Chinese President Xi Jinping's ongoing state visit to Tajikistan, injecting new momentum and opening up a new chapter in bilateral ties and common development of the two countries. The visit, which saw Xi award Tajik President Emomali Rahmon the Friendship Medal of the People's Republic of China and the issuing of a joint statement detailing the blueprint for bilateral cooperation, is seen as a landmark event, underscoring the high-quality development and the elevation of bilateral ties led by head-of-state diplomacy, analysts said. It showed that the profound friendships between the two neighbors are "as steadfast as the Pamir Plateau," they noted. Deepening of bilateral ties is based on mutual trust and mutual support of core interests, which shows that the two countries - despite with different cultures, size of the economy and the level of development - have been pioneering in the development of a new type of international relations that are characterized by mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, observers said. In light of the new circumstances, more priority areas for bilateral cooperation are being laid out during the visit, which will inject new momentum and open up a new chapter to the collaboration of China and Tajikistan. The two countries will also gear up the joint building of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to create more growth opportunities for the Central Asian region. Some of the other focal areas of collaboration also align with the goals set by the just concluded Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in safeguarding regional peace and stability, analysts said, expecting the two countries, upon the visit, to coordinate more efforts to tackle both conventional and nonconventional security threats. Landmark visit During his talks with Rahmon, Xi said China and Tajikistan are connected by mountains and rivers, interdependent like lips and teeth, and sharing a common destiny. The relationship between the two countries has deep historical roots, a solid political foundation, rich content of cooperation, and broad popular support, he added. With joint efforts of both sides, China and Tajikistan have continuously deepened their political mutual trust, yielded fruitful results in the Belt and Road cooperation, and progressed a series of major projects smoothly, strongly promoting the common development of both countries, Xi said. "The visit is a landmark event. It has achieved significant results, laying the future foundation for deepening strategic relations between China and Tajikistan," Guzel Maitdinova, a professor at the Department of Foreign Regional Studies and Foreign Policy at Russian-Tajik (Slavonic) University, told the Global Times. Head-of-state diplomacy has a political advantage and is the greatest guarantee for the stable and long-term development of China-Tajikistan relations, observers noted. The ongoing visit also marks Xi's third state visit to Tajikistan in recent years. He also visited the Central Asian country in 2014 and 2019. The leaders of China and Tajikistan have been maintaining frequent interactions through various forms such as face-to-face meetings and phone calls, jointly steering and guiding the bilateral relationship. The visit of China's top leader has received warm welcome among the Tajik people. The Global Times witnessed on Thursday night a grand ceremony which was held at Dushanbe International Airport to welcome Xi's arrival in the country. Tajik young people dressed in traditional costume were performing folk dance and waving the national flags of China and Tajikistan at the airport. It is also interesting that some of the Tajik youth greeted the Global Times reporter and other Chinese visitors with bright smiles and simple Chinese such as "Nihao," the Chinese way of saying "Hello," with Chinese visitors responding in Tajik "Salom" in return, which offers a vivid display of the people-to-people connection between the two good neighbors and good friends. "The bilateral relationship is built on a high level of trust and mutual assistance, and the momentum of development and progress of China-Tajikistan relations has remained unchanged," Chinese Ambassador to Tajikistan Ji Shumin told the Global Times in an exclusive interview. The two sides support each other on issues concerning their core interests, including national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity. Both are firmly opposed to politicizing, instrumenting and applying double standards to the human rights issues, and to any country's attempt to interfere in other countries' internal affairs under the pretext of human rights, according to Ji. China and Tajikistan are also both founding members of the SCO, upholding the "Shanghai Spirit." In 2017, the two countries forged a comprehensive strategic partnership. And the two countries are committed to promoting the building of an SCO community with a shared future and a China-Central Asia community with a shared future, further strengthening mutual political trust through various cooperation frameworks. "The relations between China and Tajikistan represent a collaboration between a major country and a smaller one, as well as between economies of different size, with different civilizations. Despite the disparities, the two countries managed to build a partnership based on an equal footing, which demonstrates a new type of international relations based on equality and consultation," Cui Heng, a scholar from the Shanghai-based China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation, told the Global Times on Friday. Opening up a new chapter of cooperation Xi on Friday awarded Tajik President Emomali Rahmon the Friendship Medal of the People's Republic of China in Dushanbe. It is the first time the award was presented outside of China. When Xi revisited Dushanbe in June 2019, he also received the Order of the Crown from Rahmon, Xinhua reported at the time. Awarding honors is a very important and significant diplomatic ceremony, and also a rare case of its kind, which underscores the "profound" friendship between China and Tajikistan and is a recognition to the close bilateral ties and the shared vision of the two neighbors, observers said. The two presidents also attended the inauguration of a parliament building and a government building built with the assistance of China in Dushanbe. When passing through the blue-domed new Parliament House of Tajikistan in the city center of Dushanbe, the Global Times noticed that the magnificent building has already become a new calling card of the capital, attracting crowds of local residents to take photos. "Strengthening China-Tajikistan cooperation is important for Tajikistan to increase its level of economic development, develop infrastructure, energy and communication networks, and introduce innovative technologies, among other fields," Maitdinova said. According to the joint statement, the two countries will jointly build the multimodal transport corridor linking China and Turkiye via regional countries including Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran. "The fruitful results will inject new dynamics to the further development of bilateral cooperation, in par with the ongoing cooperative efforts that are being steadily carried out between China and Tajikistan," Cui added. Tajikistan is among the earliest countries to join the China-proposed BRI, and the country has been pairing the initiative with its National Development Strategy of Tajikistan for the period up to 2030, which has ushered in historic opportunities for cooperation. To date, China has become Tajikistan's largest source of investment and aid, and one of Tajikistan's most important trading partners. The visit will also lay a foundation for the two countries to explore joint measures to counter pressing challenges, such as terrorism, extremism and separatism, or known as the "three evil forces," transnational organized crimes, drug trafficking and cyber threats, which makes the two countries a vital force in "maintaining regional peace and stability and promoting common development and prosperity," Maitdinova said. The Chinese leader's state visit to Tajikistan follows a busy schedule at the SCO. On Thursday the SCO summit was concluded in Astana, Kazakhstan, with China assuming the rotating presidency of the SCO for 2024 and 2025. According to Cui, China and Tajikistan could also play a constructive role in helping implement the organization's future development roadmap drawn out during the SCO summit. In a statement following the summit, leaders of the SCO members called for the building of a multipolar world to address pressing security risks and challenges. They also urged coordinated efforts to tackle both conventional and nonconventional security threats. SOURCE Global Times TAMPA, Fla., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- HealthEdge Investment Partners, LLC ("HealthEdge"), a leading lower middle market healthcare-focused private equity fund, announced today that Josh Hamrick has been promoted to Principal. HealthEdge Founder and Managing Partner Phil Dingle commented: "Josh is a talented team member and this promotion reflects his achievements in driving due diligence and transaction execution, sourcing and business development, and helping grow our portfolio companies. He has created meaningful value for our firm and limited partners, and we look forward to his future contributions in this expanded role." Mr. Hamrick joined HealthEdge in 2016 as an Associate after working in investment banking at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey in the Mergers & Acquisitions group, where he focused on numerous sectors including healthcare. Josh has helped complete investments in several platforms across Funds III and IV including Today's Dental Network, Veridian Healthcare, and P3 Oral Surgery, and serves in board roles at P3 Oral Surgery and Spectrum Medical Partners. ABOUT HEALTHEDGE INVESTMENT PARTNERS HealthEdge is an operating-oriented private equity firm founded in 2005 that focuses exclusively on the healthcare industry. HealthEdge seeks to achieve superior returns by investing in businesses that benefit from the knowledge, experience, and network of relationships of its partners. HealthEdge's partners have more than 100 years of combined experience in healthcare as operators and investors. For more information on HealthEdge, please visit www.healthedgepartners.com. CONTACT: HealthEdge Investment Partners, LLC 5550 W. Executive Drive, Suite 230 Tampa, Florida 33609 (813) 490-7100 www.healthedgepartners.com SOURCE HealthEdge Investment Partners, LLC ARMONK, N.Y., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) will hold its quarterly conference call to discuss its second-quarter 2024 financial results on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. ET. The live webcast of the earnings call can be accessed at www.ibm.com/investor. Please also visit the investor website for the earnings press release prior to the webcast. A replay, associated charts and prepared remarks will be available after the event. Media Contact: Tim Davidson IBM Corporate Communications [email protected] SOURCE IBM NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global industrial clutches and brakes market size is estimated to grow by USD 268.5 million from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of about 3.2% during the forecast period. The global industrial clutches and brakes market is witnessing growth driven by increasing demand for higher capacity conveyor drives and a trend towards miniaturization of products. The adoption of new and innovative products, such as advanced electromagnetic clutches and brakes with enhanced efficiency and reliability, is expected to further propel market expansion. However, challenges like the rising manufacturing costs of neodymium magnets may constrain growth. Key players like Altra Industrial Motion Corp., Eaton Corp. Plc, and Nidec Corp. are focusing on innovation to capitalize on these trends and maintain competitive advantage in the market. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global industrial clutches and brakes market 2024-2028 Get a detailed analysis on regions, market segments, customer landscape, and companies- View the snapshot of this report Industrial Clutches and Brakes Market Scope Report Coverage Details Base year 2023 Historic period 2018 - 2022 Forecast period 2024-2028 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 3.2% Market growth 2024-2028 USD 268.5 million Market structure Fragmented YoY growth 2022-2023 (%) 3.06 Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution North America at 42% Key countries US, China, Germany, Canada, and UK Key companies profiled Altra Industrial Motion Corp., Dayton Superior Products, Eaton Corp. Plc, EMBRAGATGES I DERIVATS S.A, GKN Automotive Ltd., Hilliard Corp., KEB Automation, Lenze SE, Magnetic Technologies Ltd., Magtrol Inc., Nexen Group Inc., Nidec Corp., Ogura Clutch Co. Ltd., REDEX Group, Regal Rexnord Corp., SEPAC Inc., Sjogren Industries Inc., The Rowland Co., Thomson Industries Inc., and Valcor Engineering Corp. Market Driver The Industrial Clutches and Brakes market is experiencing growth due to the increasing demand for automation and smaller electric motors, particularly servomotors. During power outages, servomotors' axles can shift position, making clutches and brakes essential for maintaining axle placement through springs or permanent magnets. Small clutches and brakes are necessary to fit into the compact systems of servomotors, and advanced frictional materials and computer-designs have enabled miniaturization. The expanding applications in industries like printing, conveyor belts, solar tracking, and metal cutting require small servomotors with precise torque control, leading to increased usage of mechanical clutches and brakes. Overall, these factors are driving the growth of the Industrial Clutches and Brakes market. The Industrial Clutches and Brakes market is experiencing significant growth due to increasing demand in sectors like conveyors, cranes, hoists, motors, and engines for proper performance. Key industries driving this trend include oil and gas, mining, lumber, coal handling, steel, power generation, and infrastructure projects. Boston Gear's Tsubaki BRHT backstopping clutches are inventive items for heavy-duty machinery, providing enhanced material handling capabilities. Cranes, hoists, and yaw systems in cable cars, ropeways, and elevators also require clutches and brakes for smooth operation. OEMs in automation and smart manufacturing are investing in MRO services to ensure the proper functioning of these systems. Infrastructure investment in commercial and residential construction projects further fuels the demand. Demand analysis statistics report a positive outlook for this market, with a focus on OEMs and infrastructure projects. Discover 360 analysis of this market. For complete information, schedule your consultation - Book Here! Market Challenges Neodymium magnets, known for their resistance to demagnetization and high saturation magnetization, are extensively used in safety brakes for emergency stops. The demand for neodymium, a rare-earth metal, has experienced unexpected growth due to its increasing applications in wind energy plants. China, with significant investments in wind energy, has seen a surge in neodymium demand, leading to a supply shortage and a price hike for magnets by the end of 2021. Japanese companies, such as Hitachi Metals, hold most neodymium magnet manufacturing patents, requiring Chinese manufacturers to pay licensing fees, thereby increasing the cost of these magnets. These factors are expected to fuel the growth of the industrial clutches and brakes market during the forecast period. The Industrial Clutches and Brakes market is experiencing significant growth due to the ongoing industrialization and infrastructure investment. The demand for heavy-duty machinery in construction projects, commercial and residential sectors, and infrastructure projects is driving the market. MRO services and the manufacturing industry are also major consumers of clutches and brakes. According to statistics reports, the market is expected to grow at a rapid pace due to advancements in technology such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and the Internet of Things. The market includes various types of clutches and brakes like Backstopping clutches, Cam Clutches, and industrial gearboxes used in inclined conveyors, bucket elevators, pumps, winches, and turbines. The market consists of two major segments: Hydraulic and Mechanical. Hydraulic brakes are widely used due to their sophistication and cutting-edge braking systems. The metallurgy segment, which includes iron ore, copper, gold, and aluminum, is a significant consumer of industrial clutches and brakes. However, the market faces challenges such as national prohibitions on certain types of clutches and brakes, proper performance monitoring, and heat dissipation. Manufacturers are focusing on enhancing material quality, compact size, ease of repair, and sophisticated braking systems like electromagnetic and hydraulic systems to overcome these challenges. For more insights on driver and challenges - Request a sample report! Segment Overview This industrial clutches and brakes market report extensively covers market segmentation by Product 1.1 Mechanical friction clutches and brakes 1.2 Electromagnetic clutches and brakes 1.3 Over-running and heavy-duty clutches and brakes 1.4 Others End-user 2.1 Oil and gas industry 2.2 Mining industry 2.3 Power industry 2.4 Others Geography 3.1 North America 3.2 Europe 3.3 APAC 3.4 South America 3.5 Middle East and Africa 1.1 Mechanical friction clutches and brakes- The industrial clutches and brakes market primarily consists of mechanical friction clutches and brakes, which are extensively used in various industries such as oil and gas, mining, and food and beverage. In the oil and gas industry, these clutches and brakes are employed in draw works, drilling and service rigs, mud pumps, and platforms. However, due to the low crude oil prices over the past few years, the industry has witnessed a decline in projects, leading to minimal revenue growth for the frictional clutches and brakes market. The mining industry has also experienced a downturn, with depletion of mineral resources and low crude oil prices being the primary reasons. Consequently, the demand for mechanical friction clutches and brakes has decreased, as they have been replaced by electromagnetic and over-running clutches and brakes in heavy-duty applications. In contrast, the food and beverage industry has shown promising growth, with increasing investment in the sector leading to the need for conveyor systems for food handling and packaging applications. This, in turn, will boost the demand for clutches and brakes. The market is expected to remain competitive due to the advancement of frictional surfaces with innovative technologies and the relatively low manufacturing cost of frictional clutches and brakes. In conclusion, while the oil and gas and mining industries are expected to have a minimal impact on the growth of the frictional clutches and brakes market, the food and beverage industry is anticipated to contribute positively to the market's growth during the forecast period. For more information on market segmentation with geographical analysis including forecast (2024-2028) and historic data (2017-2021) - Download a Sample Report Research Analysis The Industrial Clutches and Brakes Market is witnessing significant growth due to the increasing demand for heavy-duty machinery in various sectors. According to the Statistics Report, the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 4% during the forecast period. Industrialization and infrastructure investment are major drivers for the market, with a focus on infrastructure projects and construction projects driving the demand for clutches and brakes in construction equipment, cranes, hoists, motors, engines, and turbines. In the MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) sector, there is a growing demand for inventive items like backstopping clutches, enhanced material, and automation solutions. The market caters to various industries such as power generation, oil and gas, mining, transportation, and manufacturing. Applications include rotor clutches for turbines, yaw systems for wind turbines, and clutches for cable cars, ropeways, elevators, stacker reclaimers, and OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) requirements. Market Research Overview The Industrial Clutches and Brakes Market is witnessing significant growth due to the increasing demand for heavy-duty machinery in various industries. The market statistics report reveals that the market is driven by infrastructure projects, commercial and residential construction, and MRO services. The infrastructure investment in sectors like transportation, energy, and water treatment is boosting the market growth. Industrial gearboxes, inclined conveyors, bucket elevators, pumps, winches, and other heavy machinery require proper performance, which is driving the demand for inventive clutches and brakes. Rapid advancements in technology are also impacting the market positively. Big data analytics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and the Internet of Things are being integrated into clutches and brakes for enhanced performance and monitoring. However, national prohibitions on certain materials and components may hamper the market growth. The market includes various types of clutches and brakes like backstopping clutches, electromagnetic systems, hydraulic systems, and mechanical brakes. The metallurgy segment is a significant consumer of clutches and brakes due to the extensive use in industries like iron ore, copper, gold, aluminum, and steel. Sophisticated and cutting-edge braking systems are being used in turbines, conveyors, cranes, hoists, motors, engines, rotor, yaw systems, cable cars, ropeways, elevators, stacker reclaimers, and OEM automation. Boston Gear is one of the key players in the market, offering a wide range of industrial clutches and brakes. Table of Contents: 1 Executive Summary 2 Market Landscape 3 Market Sizing 4 Historic Market Size 5 Five Forces Analysis 6 Market Segmentation Product Mechanical Friction Clutches And Brakes Electromagnetic Clutches And Brakes Over-running And Heavy-duty Clutches And Brakes Others End-user Oil And Gas Industry Mining Industry Power Industry Others Geography North America Europe APAC South America Middle East And Africa 7 Customer Landscape 8 Geographic Landscape 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 10 Company Landscape 11 Company 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 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. 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 Major product innovations for the Instructure Learning Ecosystem support the lifelong learning journey with a focus on AI and enhancements to insights and edtech effectiveness SALT LAKE CITY, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Instructure , the leading learning ecosystem, announced major AI innovations, partnerships and significant core LMS enhancements to increase educator efficiency and improve student success at its annual InstructureCon conference. Product innovation is focused on key areas: AI, insights, edtech effectiveness and the lifelong learning journey. The company also announced the launch of a standalone product, Instructure Intelligent Insights . From responsible integration of AI tools that enhance learning through personal connection to a more cohesive user experience with Canvas serving as the hub of all teaching and learning, the innovation announced by Instructure is designed to power a lifelong learning journey and turn education into opportunities. At InstructureCon 2024, new AI product announcements included features developed directly within Instructure products, a number of well-tested partner integrations, including Khan Academy's Khanmigo Teacher Tools and updates that enable partners to develop context-aware AI experiences within Canvas. "We're excited to announce substantive innovations to the Instructure Learning Ecosystem, with a strong focus on Canvas built in close partnership with our customers," said Shiren Vijiasingam, Instructure's Chief Product Officer. "We started with equitability in mind, addressing use cases that would help create a more level playing field for all learners while honoring the expertise of the educator." A Rich Landscape of AI Content Generation Instructure leverages internally developed tools and those of its network of over 1,000 partners to help educators harness the power of AI. One such area is AI-assisted content generation, with an ever-growing landscape of available tools. One way the company will meet the rapidly growing educator demand for AI-assisted content generation is by announcing the upcoming availability of a Canvas integration with a teacher favorite, Khanmigo Teacher Tools. Khan Academy: Khanmigo Teacher Tools Instructure announced the seamless integration of Khanmigo Teacher Tools, directly within Canvas and available later this year for all customers in the United States . Khanmigo simplifies AI for teachers and generates high-quality, trustworthy outputs they can modify and co-edit with AI support. This integration includes access to over 20 tools in Canvashelping educators plan lessons, generate questions, draft newsletters, write letters of recommendation, prep substitutes and more. By accessing Khanmigo from Canvas, educators can smoothly transition between planning, grading and student communication all within Canvas. Updates to Move AI Beyond Content Generation Beyond content generation, Instructure also announced holistic updates that go even further in supporting institutions by partnering with them to develop their AI policies and plans, accelerate teaching and learning practices and implement their own transformative AI solutions. The company is making its new AI tools freely available for Canvas customers and working with AWS to safely, securely and efficiently scale to its community of tens of millions of educators and learners at more than 7,000 organizations around the world. "With the LMS at the center of teaching and learning, Instructure is uniquely positioned to support institutions on their full AI journey," said Vijiasingam. "Not only can we connect our customers with a vast ecosystem of integrated content and efficiency tools, but we can also accelerate key learning experience workflows and help them transform to a future where AI is a core part of everything they do." Tools that Prepare Institutions to Adopt AI Nutrition Facts Instructure has published "AI nutrition fact" labels on all first- and third-party AI tools that integrate with its products, providing an unprecedented level of transparency into the LLMs and data policies of the tools in use. Nutrition facts on third-party AI tools are available on the Emerging AI Marketplace , giving institutions greater decision-making capability in service of safe technology use. LTI Certification With the upcoming launch of the Instructure Certified LTI Apps program, Instructure announced its plans to enable integration partners to set themselves apart, meet integration best practicesincluding those for AI data privacyand provide safe, seamless experiences with tools inside of Canvas. AI Tools that Scale and Enhance Teaching and Learning Discussion Summaries Educators can create customizable summaries of long and complex discussion threads, a feature especially useful for large-format classrooms. Translation of Inbox Messages and Discussions Educators can leverage real-time, context-sensitive translation of content across 100 languages, an ideal feature for students who may not speak the language of instruction or for students who aren't fluent in the course language. Smart Search Smart Search allows users to search across Canvas course content while returning results that recognize the relationship between conceptsfor example, searching for "guitar" will return results about violins because they're both stringed instruments. Tools that Enable Institutions to Adopt and Create Their Own AI Solutions Smart Search API The Smart Search API vectorizes Canvas course content so that LLMs or third-party AI tools have the context they need to produce more relevant results. This API, the first of its kind in an LMS, is now available to customers and partners. Institutional LLM-powered Features Instructors should have the flexibility to select the best tools for their instructional needs, so Instructure supports a seamless and safe experience as institutions integrate Canvas with their own LLMs. Instructure already enables several institution-driven self-hosted AI deployments, extending deeply embedded AI experiences within Canvas. Enhancing seamless AI assistant experiences in Canvas A new top navigation placement and postMessage API now allow students to interact with AI Assistants directly within their course content, without leaving their learning environment. Intelligent Insights Product Launch Instructure announced the launch of Intelligent Insights, which leverages AI and analytics to help educators make data-informed decisions that improve teaching and learning outcomes. With this new product, educators get insights about students in need of attention, course readiness, LTI usage and more. They can also use Ask Your Data, a conversational AI feature, to ask and answer questions in natural language. Core Teaching & Learning Innovation Instructure developed a customer innovation program to drive a series of improvements to the Canvas experience. Over 60 product enhancements resulted, including improvements to everyday educator workflows, an optimized feedback loop, increased personalization and streamlined communication within Canvas LMS. In addition, new features will be available throughout the year including: Block Editor Currently in Beta, Block Editor includes a drag-and-drop editor interface for easy content creation and is free for all Canvas users. Selective Release of Modules Educators can differentiate instruction and personalize learning content for students through the release of modules to individuals and sections. Canvas Rubric Enhancements Canvas rubric enhancements pair a cleaner user interface with easier workflows for creation and marking, facilitating consistency and fair evaluation. The company plans to release student self-assessment capabilities by the end of the year. Discussion Checkpoints Students can engage in deeper, more meaningful discussions with classmates with clear checkpoints to guide their way. Product Updates to Support EdTech Effectiveness Education leaders need insights and tools to optimize edtech efficiency, adoption and impact, both within and outside the LMS. These new features will help institutions engage with the Instructure partner network and take full advantage of the openness and extensibility of Canvas: EdTech Collective Marketplace This public-facing Instructure EdTech Collective partner product directory will allow users to search for Canvas-integrated tools by relevant criteria including grade levels, subject and more. Listings for each product will include basic overviews plus important information about LTI configuration. Canvas Apps Page This central hub for LTI tool discovery and management will increase administrator efficiency and power informed edtech decision-making inside of Canvas. It includes comprehensive partner listings, recommendations and LTI configuration resources to help elevate the most effective tools as well as a streamlined LTI installation and management experience. Expanded LTI Tool Usage Data and Analytics for Impact Customers By bringing LTI usage data into Impact, administrators will have access to actionable insights that help them drive engagement and best practices based on an understanding of how LTI tools are being used. Administrators can seamlessly launch campaigns within Impact to better support educators and students and get the most out of their edtech tools. Supporting the Lifelong Learner Journey: Portfolio and Journey Instructure announced its vision for the lifelong learning experience, which includes an Integrated LMS, Portfolio, Credentialing and Journey (Learner Record). Instructure has been building this through the additions of Portfolium, Concentric Sky, Parchment and Scribbles. The company is continuing to invest in a new lifelong learning experience by bringing together portfolios and credentials into one learner view. This will enable achievements to be housed and ultimately recognized by institutions and employers. Canvas Catalog - Enterprise Storefront Instructure is investing in Canvas Catalog to make lifelong learning initiatives more scalable and interoperable with customer CRMs, with Salesforce as its premier partner in this space. With user-defined fields designed to help identify monetization opportunities, institutions can better optimize course offerings. Credentials - Industry Standards Alignment Instructure also reinforced its continued investment in standards alignment as it creates digital credentials. In the digital credentialing world, interoperability and compliance with industry standards will bolster scalability, security, privacy and validity. Instructure products will adhere to OB 3.0 and CLR 2.0 standards. Scaling Credentials Programs Institutions need to scale credentialing programs across a wide range of courses and programs to better meet emerging learner needs. Instructure announced features to deliver more flexible, personalized lifelong learning experiences, including accessible pathways, removed badge requirements and removed course copy and blueprint. Mastery View College Prep Assessments Institutions will save time and money otherwise spent on scanning, grading and printing by administering Mastery View College Prep Assessments online. Assessment item banks are immediately available for purchase separately as add-ons to Mastery Connect. Digital college readiness assessments are also now available, helping students prepare for high-stakes tests, such as the ACT, as they move to an online format. The InstructureCon 2024 event takes place from July 9 to July 11 at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. It features prominent keynotes from Jimmy Chin, Mary Murphy and Dr. Jordan Nguyen and addresses some of the most impactful edtech trends and how to adapt to the modern learner journey. With over 260 sessions to choose from, attendees will learn classroom-tested best practices, dive into the latest innovation and collaborate with other Instructure community members focused on driving student success. For more information about InstructureCon, check out the Frequently Asked Questions page and the event agenda . FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"). Forward-looking statements are based on our management's beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. All statements other than statements of historical facts are "forward-looking statements" for purposes of these provisions, including those relating to future events or our future financial performance and financial guidance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," "project," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential," "intend," or "continued," the negative of terms like these or other comparable terminology, and other words or terms of similar meaning in connection with any discussion of future operating or financial performance. These statements are only predictions. You should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to future events, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, or currently unknown to us. Our assumptions may turn out to be inaccurate and cause actual events or results to differ materially from our expectation or projections. We discuss many of these risks, uncertainties and other factors in greater detail in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on February 21, 2024 and as may be described from time to time in future reports we file with the SEC. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based on information available to us on the date hereof, and we expressly disclaim any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements, except as required by law. ABOUT INSTRUCTURE Instructure (NYSE: INST) powers the delivery of education globally and provides learners with the rich credentials they need to create opportunities across their lifetimes. Today, the Instructure ecosystem of products enables educators and institutions to elevate student success, amplify the power of teaching, and inspire everyone to learn together. With our global network of learners, educators, partners and customers, we continue to deliver on our vision to be the platform that powers learning for a lifetime and turns that learning into opportunities. We encourage you to discover more at www.instructure.com . CONTACT: Brian Watkins Corporate Communications Instructure (801) 658-7525 [email protected] SOURCE Instructure BEIJING, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- JA Solar, a leading global manufacturer of high-performance photovoltaic (PV) products, is proud to announce its recognition as the Highest Achiever in the 2024 PV Module Index released by the Renewable Energy Test Center (RETC). This prestigious accolade marks the fifth consecutive year that JA Solar has been honored in RETC's annual rankings. JA Solar Recognized as Highest Achiever in RETC's 2024 PV Module Index for the Fifth Consecutive Year The RETC PV Module Index is a comprehensive evaluation that assesses the performance, reliability, and quality of PV modules from top manufacturers worldwide. Achieving the title of Highest Achiever highlights JA Solar's unwavering commitment to excellence, innovation, and sustainability in the solar PV industry. Over the years, JA Solar has consistently demonstrated its leadership in the solar PV industry through its innovative technologies and high-quality products. With over 201 GW (as of the end of Q1 2024) of PV modules shipped globally, JA Solar has played, and continues to play, a pivotal role in accelerating the adoption of renewable energy. The company's products are used in residential, commercial, and utility-scale projects across more than 165 countries, contributing to significant reductions in carbon emissions and supporting global efforts to combat climate change. "At JA Solar, we are committed to innovation and quality in every aspect of our work, and this is reflected in our products," said Aiqing Yang, Executive President of JA Solar. "We are immensely proud to be recognized as the Highest Achiever by RETC for the fifth year in a row. This recognition is a testament to our dedication to delivering superior quality solar PV products that meet the evolving needs of our global customers and contribute to a sustainable energy future." About JA Solar JA Solar is a manufacturer of high-performance photovoltaic products. With multiple manufacturing bases and 13 sales subsidiaries around the world, the company's business covers silicon wafers, cells, modules and PV power stations. JA Solar products are available in 165 countries and regions. With its advantages of continuous technological innovation, sound financial performance, and well-established global sales and service networks, JA Solar has been well received and highly recognized by customers from home and abroad. The company has been listed on Fortune China 500 and Global Top 500 New Energy Enterprises for several consecutive years. Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to know more about JA Solar. SOURCE JA Solar Technology Co., Ltd. The new Kress Commercial 60 V CyberLite Charger offers enough power to charge professional-grade batteries all day. CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Kress Commercial, proven leaders in the transition of professional landscapers from gas-powered to battery-powered outdoor power equipment, now offers a lighter, more portable charging option the CyberTank Lite DC-DC charging system powered by the new Kress Commercial 60 V CyberLite Charger and Kress Commercial CyberCapsule. With the CyberTank Lite DC-DC charging system, professional landscapers can reap the benefits of the Kress Commercial CyberTank with the added advantages of increased portability due to the CyberLite Charger's smaller size and lighter weight. The CyberTank Lite DC-DC charging system is ideal for small crews, landscapers with limited truck or van space, and crews that cover expansive properties or need an additional boost during peak season. More landscapers than ever have access to Kress Commercial's revolutionary rapid charging system with more portability. Post this Connect the Kress Commercial 60 V 1.5 kWh CyberCapsule to the 60 V CyberLite Charger to transfer energy and fully charge a 240 Wh CyberPack battery from 0% to 100% in as few as 12 minutes on the go. The Kress Commercial 1.5 kWh CyberCapsule offers flexible power for charging on-the-go or for an extra boost when used as a backpack battery with equipment like the Kress Commercial 35N Backpack Blower. Charging with the CyberTank Lite DC-DC charging system is facilitated by the CyberLite charger, which transfers power from the new 1.5 kWh (25 Ah) CyberCapsule battery to 240 Wh CyberPacks on-the-go. Landscapers simply need to connect the CyberCapsule to one side of the 60 V CyberLite charger and a 240 Wh CyberPack to the other to begin recharging. The CyberLite charger weighs just over 25 pounds and is roughly the size of a small backpack, meaning it is portable enough to go where it is needed most, whether in the back of a truck or across a large property for fast, easy and mess-free recharging. The new Kress Commercial CyberCapsule, designed as an energy storage module for use with the CyberLite Charger for DC-DC charging on-the-go, provides 1.5 kWh of flexible power for charging batteries when AC outlets are not accessible. With the CyberLite Charger and one fully-charged CyberCapsule, Kress Commercial 240 Wh CyberPacks can be recharged from 0% to 100% in 12 minutes or less as many as five times throughout the day. Crews needing more portable power for their day can charge as many as four CyberCapsules overnight using the Kress 4-Port Extended Charging Case and the Kress Commercial 60 V 30 A CyberPlug AC charger. "Battery-powered equipment doesn't work for professional landscapers unless there are reasonable, portable charging solutions in place," said Todd Zimmerman, head of product development for Kress North America. "With the CyberTank Lite DC-DC charging system, more landscapers than ever have access to Kress Commercial's revolutionary rapid charging system with more portability than before." With Kress' flexible design, the CyberCapsule, which charges from 0% to 100% in two hours or less, can also be used as a backpack battery to power tools like the Kress Commercial 35N Backpack Blower or with the Kress Commercial backpack battery harness to power any handheld tool for longer runtimes. What's more, the CyberCapsule weighs less than a pound more than the 660 Wh CyberPack with more than twice the battery capacity. The Kress CyberLite Charger and CyberCapsule are IPX5-rated; the CyberLite Charger is warrantied for four years and the CyberCapsule is warrantied for up to four years or 1,200 recharge cycles. For more information about the CyberTank Lite DC-DC charging system or to find a Kress dealer near you, visit kress.com. Landscapers interested in trying the CyberSystem for themselves can sign up for a 10-day trial with their local dealer. About Kress In 1966, Kress launched a quiet revolution. While others were focused on loud, smelly combustion engines, Kress perfected clean, quiet, tough-as-nails electric tools with zero emissions. Positec Group has acquired the Kress brand in North America and positioned Kress to become a powerhouse in producing professional-grade cordless equipment valued by professional landscapers and facilities managers in the industrial channel. Many benefits of Kress's batteries have never before been available in OPE in North America. Kress will sell its products at select dealer locations in the United States and Canada beginning January 2023. Join the quiet revolution. Visit Kress.com. Media Contact: Matt Lochel [email protected] 803.984.2883 SOURCE Kress Mindbody Insurance offers competitive prices with no hidden fees, specifically designed for Mindbody customers SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Mindbody, the leading experience technology platform for the wellness industry, today announced the launch of Mindbody Insurance, a specialized insurance program designed specifically for Mindbody customers providing comprehensive coverage, support, and the most competitive prices reflective of business's actual risk for entrepreneurs and professionals in the fitness and wellness industry. "With Mindbody Insurance, we can collectively bargain on behalf of our tens of thousands of customers to get the best possible rate without all the unnecessary fees of traditional insurance. Our plans save our customers money, while providing comprehensive coverage and personalized policies unique to their business so they can focus on running their business, worry-free," said Fritz Lanman, CEO of Mindbody. With the increasing demand for wellness services and the evolving fitness and wellness landscape, ensuring adequate insurance coverage has become more critical than ever. Powered by trusted insurance platform, Authentic Insurance, Mindbody customers can access and take advantage of Mindbody Insurance to easily explore insurance options, obtain quotes, and purchase coverage seamlessly. "Mindbody Insurance came at a great time as my old policy was up for renewal. I was able to seamlessly and quickly complete the process online, without the hassle that usually comes with traditional insurance companies," said Joel Crosby, Owner of Vitality Method. "In the end, the final quote ended up saving me a decent amount of money each month, which for a small business can mean everything." Mindbody Insurance joins an array of exclusive Mindbody benefits and offerings for customers including access to the largest global pool of wellness shoppers, Mindbody Capital for funding, specialized AI/ML features for customer retention and prospect targeting, and more. "As part of our commitment to empower wellness businesses to thrive, we are proud to offer Mindbody Insurance as a new insurance option or alternative for our valued customers," said Lanman. For more details about Mindbody Insurance and to get a quote within minutes, visit https://mindbody.prod.authenticinsurance.com/welcome. About Mindbody Mindbody is the leading experience technology platform for the fitness, wellness, and beauty industries. With the addition of ClassPass, the leading global fitness and wellness membership, to the Mindbody portfolio, consumers and wellness businesses around the world are easily connected through a rich wellness community. Fitness studios, salons, spas, and integrative health centersfrom the newest entrepreneurs to the largest franchisesuse Mindbody's integrated software and payments platform to run, market, and grow their businesses. Consumers use Mindbody and ClassPass to choose from a broad range of wellness experiences across thousands of gyms, exercise studios and wellness providers around the globe. For more information on how Mindbody is powering the world's fitness and wellness businesses and connecting them with more consumers, more effectively, than anyone else, visit mindbodyonline.com. SOURCE Mindbody NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global liquid biopsy market size is estimated to grow by USD 3.69 billion from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of almost 25.2% during the forecast period. Liquid biopsy techniques offer significant advantages over traditional biopsy methods in terms of accuracy and patient outcomes. Unlike traditional biopsies that often require invasive procedures, liquid biopsies use minimally invasive methods such as blood draws to detect circulating tumor DNA, RNA, or proteins shed by tumors into the bloodstream. This approach allows for earlier detection of cancer recurrence, monitoring treatment response, and identifying genetic mutations. Despite challenges such as limited reimbursement, the market for liquid biopsy is propelled by increasing cancer incidence and substantial investments in technology and research by key players like A. Menarini, Guardant Health, and Roche. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global liquid biopsy market 2024-2028 Get a detailed analysis on regions, market segments, customer landscape, and companies- View the snapshot of this report Liquid Biopsy Market Scope Report Coverage Details Base year 2023 Historic period 2018 - 2022 Forecast period 2024-2028 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 25.2% Market growth 2024-2028 USD 3696.4 million Market structure Fragmented YoY growth 2022-2023 (%) 19.78 Regional analysis North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of World (ROW) Performing market contribution North America at 55% Key countries US, Canada, Germany, UK, and Japan Key companies profiled A. Menarini Industrie Farmaceutiche Riunite Srl, ANGLE Plc, Bio Rad Laboratories Inc., Bio Techne Corp., Biocept Inc., Biodesix Inc., CellMax Inc., CIRCULOGENE, Exact Sciences Corp., F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd., Guardant Health Inc., Illumina Inc., Inivata Ltd., MDXHEALTH SA, Mesa Laboratories Inc., Myriad Genetics Inc., Novogene Co. Ltd., OncoCyte Corp., QIAGEN NV, and SAGA Diagnostics AB Market Driver Liquid biopsy has gained significant attention in recent years as a valuable research tool and advanced diagnostics technology. This trend has attracted investors to fund the research and development of new liquid biopsy technologies and the production and commercialization of related products. Notable companies, including GRAIL, Guardant Health, Exosome Diagnostics, Pathway Genomics, and Inivata, have secured funding from various investors. For instance, Dxcover raised USD14.34 million in Series A and grant financing in February 2023. This funding will support the advancement of Dxcover's liquid biopsy platform for the detection of early-stage cancers, such as brain and colorectal cancers. These investments are anticipated to fuel the expansion of the global liquid biopsy market throughout the forecast period. The Liquid Biopsy Market is experiencing significant growth due to the increasing demand for minimally invasive cancer diagnostic solutions. Companies like DiaCarta, Singlera Genomics, Sysmex Inostics, Helio Genomics, Foundation Medicine, Merck KgaA, Naveris, Grail, MiRXES, Epic sciences, Lucence Health, Amoy Diagnostics, Biocartis, Cell Search, Datar Cancer Genetics, Exosome Diagnostics, GeneCast Biotechnology, Integrated DNA Technologies, Lucence, MDNA Life Sciences, Miltenyi Biotec, NeoGenomics, ONCODE Scientific, Personal Genome Diagnostics, Predicine, ScreenCell, and NIH are leading the charge. The market is driven by factors such as cancer awareness initiatives, rising cancer deaths, and the need for better quality of life. CtDNA in plasma is the key biomarker used in Liquid Biopsy for early cancer diagnosis and monitoring treatment response. The Injection pen market is also expected to grow as these devices are becoming the preferred method for administering the tests. Buying behavior is influenced by cancer patient needs for accurate and timely diagnosis, as well as the potential for personalized treatment options, including surgery. Discover 360 analysis of this market. For complete information, schedule your consultation - Book Here! Market Challenges The liquid biopsy market is currently experiencing limited adoption due to restricted reimbursement and awareness in both developed and developing countries. In developed nations, reimbursement coverage for liquid biopsy tests varies, with some countries offering low coverage or none at all. In contrast, in developing countries like China and India, tissue biopsies remain the preferred method, necessitating efforts from companies and laboratories to promote liquid biopsy's benefits. The lack of reimbursement and awareness can hinder market growth, with Medicare, the primary insurer in the US, influencing private insurers' coverage decisions. Revisions to Medicare coverage and reimbursement rates occur annually and geographically, making predictability challenging. Third-party payers face difficulties in determining coverage and reimbursement rates due to the absence of automatic reimbursement for liquid biopsy tests. To secure inclusion in treatment guidelines, liquid biopsy tests must demonstrate medical necessity, improved clinical outcomes, and not just biomarker detection. The global liquid biopsy market has been impacted by stagnant or decreasing reimbursement rates, making unfavorable reimbursement a significant hindrance to market growth during the forecast period. The Liquid Biopsy Market faces several challenges in expanding its reach, particularly in identifying and targeting various tumor types like Gliomas and Sarcomas. Tumor vascularity and location pose difficulties in obtaining adequate samples. The Blood-Brain Barrier and developing economies also present challenges due to limited patient populations and cancer prevalence. Medical tourism and data requirements add complexity to the market landscape. Limited reimbursement and the prevalence of panel-based tests hinder the adoption of advanced NGS-panel tests and LDT scenario. Assay kits, cancer tumor cells, and tumor DNA require cost-effective solutions for wider accessibility. Monitoring patients, prevalence of cancer, and liquid biopsy products offer opportunities for customized therapies and emerging technologies. Reference laboratories, private laboratories, hospitals, and private practitioners are key players in the market. NABL-accredited diagnostic tests are essential in developed markets, while funding and investments from public and private organizations are crucial for market growth. Patient stratification based on SEER statistics and the discovery of novel cancer biomarkers through Guardant Health and other advanced technologies will drive the market forward. For more insights on driver and challenges - Request a sample report! Segment Overview This liquid biopsy market report extensively covers market segmentation by Application 1.1 Cancer applications 1.2 Non-cancer applications Technology 2.1 CTC and ctDNA 2.2 Exosome and RNA Geography 3.1 North America 3.2 Europe 3.3 Asia 3.4 Rest of World (ROW) 1.1 Cancer applications- The Liquid Biopsy Market refers to the diagnostic industry segment that utilizes liquid samples, such as blood or urine, to identify genetic information from cancer cells. This non-invasive approach offers several advantages, including early detection, real-time monitoring, and minimal patient discomfort. Companies like Qiagen, Guardant Health, and F. Hoffmann-La Roche are key players in this market, investing in research and development to improve accuracy and accessibility. The global Liquid Biopsy Market is expected to grow significantly due to its potential to revolutionize cancer diagnosis and treatment. For more information on market segmentation with geographical analysis including forecast (2024-2028) and historic data (2017-2021) - Download a Sample Report Research Analysis The Liquid Biopsy Market is experiencing significant growth due to the increasing prevalence of cancer and the advancements in biomarker discovery. Liquid biopsies offer a non-invasive alternative to traditional biopsies, making them an attractive option for patients. The injection pen market is also expected to grow in tandem with the liquid biopsy market, as these devices simplify the sample collection process. Cancer awareness initiatives and advancements in cancer research have led to an increase in the number of cancer diagnoses and subsequent demand for liquid biopsies. According to SEER statistics, there were approximately 1.9 million new cancer cases in the US in 2020. Liquid biopsies offer improved quality of life for patients by enabling early detection and personalized treatment plans. Companies such as Guardant Health, DiaCarta, Singlera Genomics, Sysmex Inostics, Helio Genomics, Foundation Medicine, Merck KgaA, Naveris, Grail, Lucence, MDNA Life Sciences, Miltenyi Biotec, NeoGenomics, ONCODE Scientific, Personal Genome Diagnostics, Predicine, and ScreenCell are leading the way in liquid biopsy technology development. Despite the promising advancements, buying behavior for liquid biopsies is influenced by factors such as cost, insurance coverage, and patient preferences. Cancer deaths continue to be a significant global health concern, making the development and adoption of liquid biopsy technology crucial for improving patient outcomes. Market Research Overview Liquid biopsy, a revolutionary diagnostic technique, analyzes cancer biomarkers in various biofluids, primarily blood, for early detection and monitoring of cancer. Biomarkers such as circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and exosomes are identified from plasma, providing valuable information on tumor types, tumor vascularity, and cancer signatures. This minimally invasive procedure is gaining popularity due to its cost-effectiveness and ability to monitor patients in real-time. Cancer awareness initiatives, breast and cervical cancer screening, and advancements in NGS technologies are driving the growth of the liquid biopsy market. However, factors such as limited reimbursement, data requirements, and the LDT scenario pose challenges. Developing economies, with increasing cancer prevalence and patient population, offer significant opportunities. Reference laboratories, private laboratories, hospitals, and private practitioners are key players in the market. NABL-accredited diagnostic tests and emerging technologies, including NGS-panel tests and single-cell analysis, are transforming the landscape. Funding and investments from public and private organizations are fueling innovation and patient stratification. Cancer types, such as breast, cervical, gliomas, and sarcomas, are under focus for liquid biopsy-based diagnosis and customized therapies. The market is expected to grow significantly, driven by the prevalence of cancer, the need for minimally invasive procedures, and the potential for customized therapies. According to SEER statistics, cancer deaths continue to rise, underscoring the need for early and accurate diagnosis. Liquid biopsy products are poised to play a crucial role in improving quality of life and reducing cancer mortality. However, challenges such as the blood-brain barrier and the need for assay kits and sample preparation remain to be addressed. Injection pen markets are also expected to benefit from the growing liquid biopsy market, as they offer a convenient and cost-effective solution for sample collection and preparation. The market for liquid biopsy is expected to grow significantly, driven by the increasing prevalence of cancer, the need for minimally invasive procedures, and the potential for customized therapies. Cancer tumor cells and tumor DNA are the primary targets for liquid biopsy analysis, providing valuable information on tumor types, tumor vascularity, and cancer signatures. The market for liquid biopsy is expected to grow significantly, driven by the increasing prevalence of cancer, the need for minimally invasive procedures, and the potential for customized therapies. The injection pen market is expected to benefit from the growing liquid biopsy market, as they offer a convenient and cost-effective solution for sample collection and preparation. The market for liquid biopsy is expected to grow significantly, driven by the increasing prevalence of cancer, the need for minimally invasive procedures, and the potential for customized therapies. Buying behavior for liquid biopsy tests is influenced by factors such as cancer awareness initiatives, patient demographics, and healthcare policies. In developed markets, advanced technologies and NGS are driving the growth of the market, while in developing economies, cost-effectiveness and accessibility are key factors. Medical tourism is also expected to play a role in the growth of the liquid biopsy market, as patients from developing economies seek affordable and high-quality diagnostic services in developed markets. The market for liquid biopsy is expected to grow significantly, driven by the increasing prevalence of cancer, the need for minimally invasive procedures, and the potential for customized therapies. In conclusion, the liquid biopsy market is poised for significant growth, driven by the increasing prevalence of cancer, the need for minimally invasive procedures, and the potential for customized therapies. Challenges such as limited reimbursement, data requirements, and the LDT scenario remain to be addressed, but the potential benefits of early and accurate diagnosis, improved quality of life, and cost-effective monitoring make liquid biopsy a promising area for innovation and investment. Table of Contents: 1 Executive Summary 2 Market Landscape 3 Market Sizing 4 Historic Market Size 5 Five Forces Analysis 6 Market Segmentation Application Cancer Applications Non-cancer Applications Technology CTC And CtDNA Exosome And RNA Geography North America Europe Asia Rest Of World (ROW) 7 Customer Landscape 8 Geographic Landscape 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 10 Company Landscape 11 Company 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 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. 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 New premium cocktails served tableside marks the first in a series of enhanced offerings coming to restaurants nationwide DALLAS, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Since opening its doors on the corner of Clark Street and Grand Avenue in Chicago, Maggiano's Little Italy has been synonymous with classic Italian-American dining, delighting guests with memorable experiences and timeless flavors. Today, the restaurant introduces the first act of its next chapter, blending Maggiano's cherished traditions with captivating cocktail presentations and refined ingredients, creating a unique and memorable experience that sets the standard for Italian-American dining. Presented in a smoke box for unique visual appeal and full depth of flavor, the Smoked Old Fashioned is an exciting twist on a classic. The Mixologist Collection at Maggiano's Little Italy blends fan-favorite flavors with the latest mixology trends, all presented with tableside flourish aimed at captivating the senses. Under the new leadership of Dominique Bertolone, boasting 20+ years of hospitality experience from notable destinations like MGM Resorts in Las Vegas and properties in Europe such as Monte Carlo Beach, his expertise will be pivotal in advancing the Maggiano's brand into its next chapter. "We are stepping into an incredibly exciting time at Maggiano's, bringing new and elevated elements inspired by luxurious experiences from Las Vegas and Italy, to our restaurants on a national scale," said Maggiano's President, Dominique Bertolone. "Guests will always be able to enjoy Italian-American classics at Maggiano's, and we'll continue to elevate signature dishes with premium ingredients, bolstering fan-favorite flavors and adding a touch of theatrical flair. Our beverage menu has also undergone a transformation, instead of just getting a great drink, guests will now get a full experience as cocktails are served with dramatic tableside presentations. With these changes, we're raising the bar for ourselves and most importantly, our guests." Expertly Crafted Cocktails Crafted by Maggiano's culinary and beverage experts, the cocktail menu is changing for the first time in seven years. Aptly named the Mixologist Collection, this offering blends fan-favorite flavors with the latest mixology trends, all presented with tableside flourish aimed at captivating the senses. From housemade foams to aromatic cocktail garnishes to visual elements like a smoke box, each sip is a reimagined journey. Maggiano's updated cocktails range from $14-$17 and include: Smoked Old Fashioned: Presented in a smoke box for unique visual appeal and full depth of flavor, the Smoked Old Fashioned is an exciting twist on a classic. It features Knob Creek Rye, Luxardo Maraschino and bitters with notes of oak added through the smoking process and served over a whiskey ice sphere. Presented in a smoke box for unique visual appeal and full depth of flavor, the Smoked Old Fashioned is an exciting twist on a classic. It features Knob Creek Rye, Luxardo Maraschino and bitters with notes of oak added through the smoking process and served over a whiskey ice sphere. Pomegranate Martini: The perfect balance of sweet and tart, the Pomegranate Martini combines Absolut Raspberri, Cointreau, pomegranate, cranberry and fresh sour. It's shaken and served tableside for the fullest, freshest flavors with each sip. The perfect balance of sweet and tart, the Pomegranate Martini combines Absolut Raspberri, Cointreau, pomegranate, cranberry and fresh sour. It's shaken and served tableside for the fullest, freshest flavors with each sip. Rosa Spritz: This cocktail mixes Malfy Gin Rosa, fresh sour, strawberry, and topped with Mionetto Prosecco Rose for the perfect summer sip. Served in a carafe, it's poured tableside and finished with a spritz of rose water. This cocktail mixes Malfy Gin Rosa, fresh sour, strawberry, and topped with Mionetto Prosecco Rose for the perfect summer sip. Served in a carafe, it's poured tableside and finished with a spritz of rose water. Grand Margarita: Named after the original Maggiano's at Clark & Grand in Chicago , the Grand Margarita features Patron Silver Tequila, Disaronno Amaretto, lime, orange bitters, and topped with Maggiano's signature, housemade Italian foam. Carefully Curated Partnerships Staying true to its commitment to quality, Maggiano's is improving ingredients in key recipes, sourcing trusted products from high-quality purveyors. From vine-ripened tomatoes cultivated exclusively for Maggiano's marinara sauce to the carefully selected heavy cream and Asiago cheese that create the rich, velvety flavor of the Alfredo sauce, this emphasis on premium ingredients reflects Maggiano's enduring dedication to taste and quality. This long-held standard of quality is also reflected in Maggiano's twice daily tastings of all sauces to ensure each maintains the right flavor, consistency and taste throughout the day. In addition, Maggiano's has been cultivating partnerships with distinguished industry figures, including one of the world's youngest sommeliers, Master Sommelier Jason Smith. These collaborations will further enhance and elevate Maggiano's menu and in the future, lead to new offerings for Maggiano's guests, which will continue to be unveiled throughout the summer and fall. For more information on Maggiano's new menu items or to find a location near you, visit maggianos.com, and follow along on social @MaggianosLittleItaly. About Maggiano's Little Italy Maggiano's Little Italy specializes in Italian-American cuisine served in a warm and friendly atmosphere. Maggiano's menu features both classic and contemporary recipes authentic pastas, signature salads, steaks, fresh seafood, regular chef specials,specialty desserts, and a theatrical cocktail menu. Maggiano's 50 restaurants nationwide offer lunch and dinner as well as delivery, carryout services and banquet spaces for special occasions. Maggiano's is owned and operated by Brinker International, Inc. (NYSE: EAT ), one of the world's leading casual dining restaurant companies, serving more than one million guests daily. Brinker owns or franchises more than 1,600 restaurants in 29 countries and two territories. In addition to Maggiano's, Brinker owns and operates Chili's Grill & Bar. Follow news about Maggiano's on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , YouTube and Pinterest . For additional information, including the restaurant nearest you, please visit maggianos.com. SOURCE Maggiano's Little Italy Maple Hill Creamery Expands Reach, Seeking to Grow its Network of Grass-Fed Organic Farmers in Lancaster County and Beyond KINDERHOOK, N.Y., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Maple Hill Creamery, America's original 100 percent grass-fed organic dairy company, today announced its expansion with the addition of new farms located in Central Pennsylvania and greater Lancaster County. This growth marks a significant milestone in Maple Hill Creamery's commitment to providing high-quality, 100% grass-fed organic dairy products to consumers while supporting sustainable and regenerative farming practices. Dwight Stoltzfoos (left) and Maple Hill Creamery's SVP of Supply Chain, Mitch Clark (right), at Maple Hill Creamery's new farm in Pennsylvania. This expansion includes 14 new farms in Central Pennsylvania, that will join Maple Hill's 120 small, family farms. These farms will be managed by dedicated farmers who share Maple Hill Creamery's values of sustainability, animal welfare, and environmental stewardship, and the commitment to producing the best-tasting, most nutritious milk available. Each farm will have an average herd of approximately 50 cows, ensuring the highest quality milk for Maple Hill Creamery's products. The first farm to join this growth is Springwood Organic Farm, owned and operated by Dwight Stoltzfoos and his family. The Stoltzfoos family has always been at the forefront of regenerative agriculture. They were early adopters of organic dairy in the mid-90s and transitioned to full grass-fed in 2012. As leaders in the movement, they routinely host educational events on their farms to help other farms advance on their regenerative journey. Springwood Organic Farm will serve as Maple Hill Creamery's flagship farm in Pennsylvania. "We are thrilled to expand our operations into Pennsylvania and welcome these new farmers into the Maple Hill Creamery family," said Tim Joseph, Founder of Maple Hill Creamery. "Our commitment to 100% grass-fed organic dairy is stronger than ever, and we are proud to support farmers who share our values and dedication to sustainable farming practices. We are especially honored to partner with the Stoltzfoos family and enlist their support as we continue to build out our best-in-class network of farms." In addition to welcoming new farms, Maple Hill Creamery is actively seeking new farmers throughout Pennsylvania who are interested in transitioning to 100% grass-fed organic farming methods. By expanding the brand's network of farms, Maple Hill Creamery aims to further strengthen its supply chain and provide consumers with even greater access to high-quality, grass-fed organic dairy products. The farms in Pennsylvania are expected to start producing milk for Maple Hill Creamery in Q3 2024. Maple Hill Creamery is committed to working with farmers who are already practicing 100% grass-fed organic farming methods or are in the process of transitioning from conventional organic farming to 100% grass-fed organic. Maple Hill's full product lineup features Whole and 2% Reduced Fat Milk; Plain and Vanilla Greek Yogurt; Plain, Strawberry, and Vanilla Kefir; Plain and Vanilla Cream on Top Yogurt; and Salted and Unsalted Butter varieties. For more information about Maple Hill Creamery, the company's commitment to sustainable farming practices and store availability, visit www.maplehill.com. About Maple Hill has been disrupting the dairy industry since its beginnings in 2009. From day one Maple Hill's founders committed to using regenerative agriculture practices that are better for the animal, for the planet and for everyone. The company was founded with a mission to create clean, organic dairy products and continues to meet that demand for consumers today. Maple Hill produces milk, kefir, butter and yogurt procured from small family farms in Upstate New York and Pennsylvania. You can find their products nationwide in more than 8,000 retailers including Whole Foods Markets, Amazon Fresh, Natural Grocers, Walmart, Jewel, Sprouts, Stop and Shop, ShopRite, Shaws, Meijer, Central Market, Kroger, King Soopers, Ralph's, PCC Markets, Safeway, Albertsons, Hannaford and Earth Fare, as well as many specialty and independent retailers. For more information, visit , and follow us on , , and Instagram @maplehillcreamery. Media Contact: Konnect Agency [email protected] 678-687-4937 SOURCE Maple Hill Creamery Dream Vacations travel agency franchise launches 13th annual "Operation Vetrepreneur: Become Your Own General" contest FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading travel agency franchise Dream Vacations is recruiting military veterans to enlist in its 13th annual, award-winning "Operation Vetrepreneur: Become Your Own General" contest and is accepting entries from now through Sept. 2, 2024. The number one franchise opportunity for veterans will be awarding three veterans a free franchise as part of the nationwide contest that since 2012, has given away 61 franchises valued at more than $700,000 dollars. Photo Cutline: (Left to Right) Ron Hargrove, Dillon Svoboda, Joelle Delva, and Mike Rigali celebrate veteran entrepreneurship at the 2023 Operation Vetrepreneur Winner Ceremony. "At Dream Vacations, we're deeply committed to supporting our veterans. We always aim to go the extra mile for our military heroes and their families," said Drew Daly, senior vice president and general manager of Dream Vacations. "Through our annual Operation Vetrepreneur contest, we're excited to help veterans achieve their dreams of owning a business and finding success for themselves and their families. This is our way of saying thank you and giving back to those who served our country with honor." The Dream Vacations franchise contest is open to former members of any of the six branches of the U.S. military (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Space Force and Coast Guard) who are retired, off active duty and/or honorably discharged prior to the contest start date and are residents of the U.S. To participate, candidates must complete an online entry form and an introductory phone interview with a Franchise Development Manager. Candidates will be required to submit a candidate profile, business plan and video. Finalists will be invited to participate in follow-up phone interviews before the winners are selected. The entry form and all contest details can be found at www.operationvetrepreneur.com. Three winners will be notified in September 2024. Each grand prize is valued at $12,300 and includes a complimentary Dream Vacations franchise with a waived $10,500 initial start-up fee and monthly administrative service fees for the first year. After completing Dream Vacations' New Franchisee Training, the winners will be armed with all the tools and knowledge they need to begin their next journey as small business owners creating dream vacations. "Melissa and I have always had an interest in the travel industry. The Dream Vacations Vetrepreneur contest seemed like an opportunity to make that a reality. We thought it was cool that a company would not only honor Veterans with their words, but that they would put their money where their mouth was in the form of a franchise," said Ron Hargrove, United States Navy Veteran and one of the 2023 Operation Vetrepreneur: Become Your Own General winners from Genoa, Ill. "We were shocked to find out that we won, and even more surprised to discover that they would fly us to training and provide us with so many tools to succeed. We are now just a few months after officially launching our franchise, and we have exceeded our own expectations thanks to the training and support teams at Dream Vacations!" According to the Department of Defense, more than 200,000 military veterans are entering the civilian workforce each day, and Dream Vacations recognizes that franchising provides a unique opportunity to leverage the traits gained in the military and translate them to entrepreneurship. This includes teamwork, decisive thinking, leadership and self-discipline to name a few. Those who have served in the Armed Forces also have an innate desire to serve others and see the world, which are important aspects of being a successful travel franchise owner. Military veterans and Gold Star families interested in starting a work-from-home business immediately can purchase a Dream Vacations travel agency business now at a 30 percent discount, receive an enlistment package valued no less than $5,000 and will have their administrative fees waived which is valued at $1,800. In addition to having access to the Command Center, an internal portal with veteran-specific training and veteran-themed marketing assets, all veterans and Gold Star families receive a waived training fee for a business partner and the ability to hire active-duty military spouses and veterans as associates at a discount. Additional veteran incentives include the ability to move residences and stay in business, travel discounts for military customers and access to veteran networking groups. The only travel franchise to receive a 5 STAR-ranking from the International Franchise Association's VetFran initiative, Dream Vacations proudly supports military veterans and is consistently recognized by leading industry publications as a veteran-friendly franchise. Dream Vacations was named Entrepreneur magazine's top franchise for veterans in 2021, and in the category, has ranked either first or second out of 150 franchises nationwide since 2017. Other recent number one rankings include Military Times and Forbes. In 2024, Dream Vacations was named the No. 1 travel agency franchise by Entrepreneur magazine for adapting and evolving when facing the unique challenges and changes that shaped the franchise industry over the last year. Additional recognitions include inclusion on G.I. Jobs annual "Hot Franchises for Veterans," US Veterans magazine's "Top Veteran-Friendly Companies", USA Today's "50 Top Franchises for Military Veterans" and recognition by MSC Cruises in its Seaside Salute Award. The "Operation Vetrepreneur: Become Your Own General" program won gold from the Travel Weekly Magellan Awards and the IFA Franchising Gives Back Awards. Military veterans with a passion for travel and entrepreneurship who are interested in opening a Dream Vacations travel franchise and want to be considered as a candidate for the "Operation Vetrepreneur: Become Your Own General" contest, please visit www.OperationVetrepreneur.com or call 888-249-8235. About Dream Vacations Travel agents with the top-ranked home-based travel agency franchise Dream Vacations have the resources to plan and create seamless vacation experiences for their customers while offering the best value. A member of the International Franchise Association, Dream Vacations is part of World Travel Holdings and has received franchise partner of the year, a top-ranking status, by all the major cruise lines as well as national recognition for its support of military veterans. For more information about Dream Vacations, visit www.DreamVacationsFranchise.com. Like Dream Vacations on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DreamVacationsFranchise, follow on Instagram at @official_dream_vacations and watch its videos at http://www.youtube.com/DreamVacationsBusiness. Begins July 5th, 2024, at 12:01 a.m. ET and ends September 2nd, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Void where prohibited by law. Must be 18 or older at the start of the Contest, have a computer and internet connection, be a legal resident of the US or DC and a former member in good standing of one of the six branches of the U.S. military who is retired, off active duty and/or was honorably discharged prior to the start date of the Contest. If selected as winners, Contestants must commit to a 5-year Dream Vacations home-based franchise, which requires attendance at a New Franchisee Training Class and a starting investment capital (for more information, go to www.dreamvacationsfranchise.com or call 888-441-2542). Only one (1) submission per contestant. To enter, complete the online entry form on our website (www.operationvetrepreneur.com). If qualified and selected to move to the next round after a phone interview, Semi-Finalists must submit a video, Dream Vacations candidate profile, and a minimum 300 - 1,200-word business plan. Submissions must comply with the Submission Guidelines in the Official Rules. Only complete, valid submissions will be accepted. Sponsored by Dream Vacations, 1201 W. Cypress Creek Rd. Ste. 100, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309. See [www.OperationVetrepreneur.com] for complete Rules and details. Media Contact: Michael Cadigan Public Relations Manager, Dream Vacations [email protected] (954)985-3627 SOURCE Dream Vacations Nearly $55 billion in PSLF forgiveness processed for 737,000 borrowers by MOHELA staff while operating as interim PSLF servicer ST. LOUIS, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- MOHELA, a governmental non-profit organization dedicated to helping the student loan borrowers it serves, announced it set a program record during its time as the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid's (FSA) interim Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) servicer from July 2022 through April 2024. "MOHELA is proud of our record in supporting the federal government as their interim PSLF servicer during its transition to a new loan servicing environment," said Scott Giles, CEO and Executive Director of MOHELA. "Our dedicated team of customer service representatives worked diligently to support federal borrowers during this time, setting the record for processing the highest amount of forgiveness in the history of the government-run program. This achievement reflects MOHELA's continued commitment to assisting and supporting the borrowers we serve as they repay their student loans." From July 1, 2022, through April 30, 2024, MOHELA supported the federal government as the interim PSLF servicer while FSA transitioned to its new loan servicing environment through StudentAid.gov, which was announced by the Department in May 2022. During this time, MOHELA helped student borrowers who qualified for PSLF process their request to FSA for forgiveness. During the history of the program, almost 876,000 borrowers have received PSLF forgiveness. Of those who received PSLF forgiveness under the program, MOHELA processed nearly $55 billion in PSLF forgiveness for over 737,000 borrowers at the direction of FSA. In contrast, directly prior to MOHELA becoming the PSLF servicer, only about 165,000 borrowers had received $10.5 billion in loan forgiveness during the previous five-year period from 2017 through June 2022. The final decision on a borrowers request to discharge their loan under the PSLF Program is made by FSA as the owner of the loan, not MOHELA. Borrowers seeking more information from ED about the transition of the PSLF Program to its new loan servicing environment can visit StudentAid.gov/streamlining. About MOHELA MOHELA is a governmental non-profit organization with 40 years of experience and a track record of providing exceptional customer service to the borrowers it serves. MOHELA plays an essential role in the federal student loan ecosystem, providing support and assistance for around eight million federal borrowers on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA). The organization is frequently named a top servicer in FSA quarterly surveys due to its performance and commitment to providing high-quality customer service to their borrowers. In 2023, MOHELA was proud to assist more than 6 million federal borrowers in their return to repayment. MOHELA's customer service team facilitated over 3.1 million customer service calls and processed more than 2.36 million Income-Driven Repayment Plan applications and over 2.58 million payments to the federal government on behalf of borrowers throughout 2023. Media Contact: [email protected] SOURCE MOHELA VANCOUVER, BC, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - Numinus Wellness Inc. ("Numinus" or the "Company") (TSX: NUMI) (OTCQX: NUMIF), a mental health care company advancing traditional and innovative behavioural health treatments with a focus on safe, evidence-based psychedelic-assisted therapies, will release its financial results for the quarter ended May 31, 2024, after market close on Thursday, July 11, 2024. Interested parties are invited to participate in the Company's Q3 2024 results conference call and webcast, which will be held on the same day at 5:30 p.m. Eastern time / 2:30 p.m. Pacific time. During the call, Numinus executives will review the Company's performance and recent initiatives. A question-and-answer session will follow management's prepared remarks. At this time, the operator will provide instructions for qualified equity analysts to submit questions. Investors are invited to submit questions by email to [email protected]. A selection of questions will be answered by management on the call, and all emailed questions will be responded to by email. To listen to the live webcast, please register at: https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/881868667 The webcast will also be archived on the Events and Presentations page of Numinus' Investor Relations website: https://www.investors.numinus.com/events-and-presentations/ To participate in the live conference call, please use the following dial-in information: 1 (888) 330-3632 (Toll-free North America) 1 (646) 960-0837 (International) Ask to participate in Numinus' Q3 2024 Results Call To avoid any delays in joining the call, please dial in at least five minutes before the call starts. If prompted, please provide conference passcode 3547386. About Numinus Numinus Wellness Inc. (TSX: NUMI) (OTCQX: NUMIF) helps people to heal and be well through the development and delivery of innovative mental health care and access to safe, evidence-based psychedelic-assisted therapies. The Numinus model including psychedelic research and clinic care is at the forefront of a transformation aimed at healing rather than managing symptoms for depression, anxiety, trauma, pain and substance use. At Numinus, we are leading the integration of psychedelic-assisted therapies into mainstream clinical practice and building the foundation for a healthier society. Learn more at www.numinus.com and follow us on LinkedIn , Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram . SOURCE Numinus Wellness Inc. Statement of Kathy Crosby, Truth Initiative CEO and President WASHINGTON, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The newly announced campaign by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to combat the flood of illegal e-cigarettes streaming into the state represents an important step to protect youth and young adults from the dangers of nicotine addiction and should serve as an example for other attorneys general across the nation. Attorney General Yost's press release made it clear that unless an e-cigarette is authorized by the FDA, the device is illegal. To date, the FDA has authorized only 27 e-cigarette products, all tobacco or menthol flavored. Yet thousands of illegal e-cigarettes, many in youth-appealing flavors like cotton candy or gummy bear, remain on store shelves across the country. Retailers bear a pivotal responsibility in curbing youth e-cigarette use in their communities and must swiftly remove these products to ensure a safer future for our young people. As AG Yost points out, this is a consumer protection issue, and the thousands of unregulated, unauthorized vapes on the market pose a significant health threat. Truth Initiative research shows that between 2017 and 2022, disposable e-cigarettes nearly tripled in nicotine strength, quintupled in e-liquid capacity, and dropped in price by nearly 70% all at the expense of young people's physical and mental health. The result is that youth e-cigarette use remains a serious public health threat, with the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey showing more than 2 million high school and middle school students use e-cigarettes, with one in four vaping daily. Not only is nicotine harmful to developing brains, but the high rates of daily use are also suggestive of a nicotine addiction. "I am so proud of the courage and dedication that AG Yost has shown in protecting Ohio's children by taking on the illegal vaping industry. His actions will save many young lives from a lifetime of nicotine addiction to a very dangerous product," said Truth Initiative Board Chair and former Attorney General of Mississippi, Mike Moore. "Hopefully, other Attorneys General will follow his courageous lead in this important effort." Truth Initiative applauds the Ohio AG for taking this important step and stands ready to assist other attorneys general across the country who want to protect youth and young adults from the serious, lifelong health consequences of nicotine addiction. Kathy Crosby is in Columbus, Ohio, and available to speak to press. About Truth Initiative Truth Initiative is a national nonprofit public health organization committed to a future free from lifelong addiction, fostering healthier lives and a more resilient nation. Our mission is to prevent youth and young adult nicotine addiction and empower quitting for all. Through our evidence-based, market-leading cessation EX Program and the nationally recognized truth public education campaign, we are leading the fight against youth and young adult tobacco use, which threatens to put a new generation at risk of nicotine addiction. Our first-of-its-kind text message quit vaping program, This Is Quitting, has enrolled over 750,000 young people across the country, and our youth e-cigarette prevention curriculum, Vaping: Know the truth, is currently implemented in over 9,000 schools nationwide, reaching a total of over one million students thus far. Our rigorous scientific research and policy studies, community and youth engagement programs supporting populations at high risk of using tobacco, and innovation in tobacco dependence treatment continue to contribute to ending one of the most critical public health battles of our time. Based in Washington, D.C., our organization was established and funded through the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories, and the tobacco industry. To learn more, visit truthinitiative.org. SOURCE Truth Initiative Kirschner's three decades of investment banking experience with BNP Paribas spans multiple financial disciplines, credit products and global industries NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Paladin Management, the middle-market advisory firm driving value creation through financial and operational consulting services, has further strengthened its partnership roster with new hire Amy Kirschner. Amy Kirschner, a senior corporate and investment banking professional, joins the Paladin team. Post this With a track record of success in credit origination and structuring, portfolio management and debt restructuring across numerous middle market sectors, Kirschner is ideally suited to joining the dynamic Paladin team. As a senior professional in corporate and investment banking with success in credit origination, structuring, portfolio management, and debt restructuring, Kirschner is ideally suited to joining the Paladin team. Her extensive experience spans asset-based and reverse-based lending, commodity trade financing, and leveraged finance across various industries and business segments. Offering a wide array of advisory services in interim management, crisis management and restructuring, the turnaround specialists were listed on Inc Magazine's list of fastest-growing private companies in America, reflecting the consultancy's sustained triple-digit growth year on year. Commenting on the new hire, Paladin founder Scott Avila noted, "With experience from a leading investment bank, Amy Kirschner brings a new and complimentary perspective on lending and restructuring to the Paladin team. As a company that believes in inclusion and diversity, we are also proud to promote another female leader and value her insights and skillset. Amy's diverse middle-market experience allows her to quickly understand client issues, prioritize, and identify key pressure points. She knows what bankers and other creditors are thinking and what they need. Amy is a consensus builder and a problem solver, something that is at the heart of what we do at Paladin." Working with BNP Paribas in New York since 1995, Kirschner leaves the premier French bank as a Managing Director in Asset Restructuring, where she was responsible for identifying financial and strategic alternatives and negotiating the restructure of complex distressed credits. Her work spanned North America, LATAM, Europe, and Australia, including out-of-court and bankruptcy recapitalizations, distressed refinancings, debt sales, Chapter 11 plans, and asset liquidations. She also collaborated with stakeholders to engage new boards, interim management teams, and key advisors. Commenting on her move to Paladin, Amy Kirschner concluded, "I am delighted to be joining Paladin Management at a time when there is so much opportunity to create value for middle market companies facing complicated turnaround and restructuring situations. I am looking forward to taking on the complex financial and legal challenges faced by our clients and getting immersed in the technical and operational issues at hand. My mantra is to maximize value while minimizing liability, something which appears to resonate at Paladin. I can't wait to get started." Amy received her BSc in French and Economics from the University of Michigan. Prior to her tenure with BNP Paribas, she also worked at Chase Manhattan Bank and other large financial institutions. About Paladin With offices nationwide, Paladin provides a range of middle-market services in restructuring, transaction advisory, performance improvement, strategic communications, HR, and strategic advisory. For more information, visit http://www.paladinmgmt.com/ Media Contact Larianna Evania [email protected] SOURCE Paladin The beloved Australian-born brand commemorates the ten-year milestone by unveiling a new collection and VIP party in Brisbane, Australia LOS ANGELES, July 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Petal & Pup, the female-founded apparel brand born out of Queensland, Australia, is celebrating ten years of business this summer. Founded in Australia, Petal & Pup has grown into an internationally renowned brand offering must-have styles geared toward women between the ages of 24 and 40. Muse Collection by Petal & Pup. Image Courtesy of Petal & Pup. "A decade ago, Petal & Pup was built on a passion for selecting the best, fashion forward styles. Today, we've differentiated ourselves as a brand that is synonymous with modern femininity and making elevated trends attainable for more women," said Victoria Perry, President of Petal & Pup. "Our focus remains on creating value for our customers and expanding our global reach." To commemorate a decade of growth and success, Petal & Pup is launching a new collection entitled MUSE, inspired by Australia's native flora and landscapes. True to Petal & Pup's reputation for blending style with ease, the 60-piece collection combines beautiful, hand-painted prints in a natural and earthy color palette, available online on July 8. Petal & Pup will host brand insiders, models, and influencers at its VIP birthday party to toast the milestone in Queensland, Australia, where it all began, at the end of July. Petal & Pup expanded to the U.S. market in 2019, opening an office in Los Angeles, California. That same year, it was acquired by brand accelerator a.k.a. Brands, aiming to further its growth and scale in new markets. By 2021, the brand opened a distribution center with quick shipping options across the U.S. Since September 2023, it has launched on five distribution channels, including Nordstrom, Macy's, Victoria's Secret, Target, and Liverpool, with in-store distribution in thirty locations across Mexico. ABOUT PETAL & PUP: Australian-founded. Loved worldwide. Founded in Queensland, Australia in 2014, Petal & Pup has quickly become the destination for elevated trends and effortless styling. With a focus on flirty and feminine fashion, Petal & Pup offers attainable style for all occasions. Known best for our impeccably designed and forward trending collections, we inspire and outfit the self-assured, modern woman. Explore your world of style at www.petalandpup.com | www.petalandpup.com.au SOURCE Petal & Pup Bringing Competitive Mortgage Solutions to Homebuyers in the Badger State SAN DIEGO, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Point Mortgage, a trusted name in the mortgage industry licensed in 32 states, is excited to announce its expansion into Wisconsin. This strategic move enables Point Mortgage to offer its comprehensive suite of competitive mortgage solutions to homebuyers and homeowners across the state. View PDF Point Mortgage Wisconsin Expansion Release PDF With a reputation for excellence and a commitment to customer satisfaction, Point Mortgage provides a variety of loan products, including conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, and jumbo loans. The company's mission is to deliver personalized mortgage solutions tailored to meet the unique needs of each client, ensuring a smooth and successful home financing experience. "We are thrilled to bring Point Mortgage to Wisconsin," said Peter Mendiola, President and CEO at Point Mortgage. "Our expansion into this vibrant market reflects our dedication to helping more families achieve their homeownership dreams. We are confident that our competitive rates, diverse loan options, and exceptional customer service will make a positive impact on the Wisconsin housing market." As part of the Point Mortgage Wisconsin launch strategy, veteran mortgage sales leader, loan officer and Wisconsin native Kristen Ambos will lead the effort as the new Chief Production Officer for the Point Mortgage Midwest Division. Ambos comes to Point Mortgage with over 20 years of mortgage experience and is ranked in the top 1% of loan originators in the nation. As the #1 female loan officer in Wisconsin two years in a row, Ambos is a household name in mortgage lending throughout the state of Wisconsin. "I'm extremely excited to join the Point Mortgage team," said Ambos. "This challenging real estate market requires a company that is nimble and creative to serve every client." Ambos added, "I am motivated to lead and grow Point Mortgage's Midwest Division quickly and strategically." Point Mortgage's expansion into Wisconsin underscores the company's commitment to growth and excellence in the mortgage industry. A strong emphasis of growth in the Midwest began in 2023 when Mike Prodehl, President and CEO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group, and the Prodehl Family became Point Mortgage shareholders. Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group operates in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan identifying Point Mortgage as its primary mortgage partner. Point Mortgage's team of experienced loan officers are ready to assist Midwest homebuyers with their mortgage needs, providing expert guidance throughout the loan process. The company's innovative technology platform ensures a seamless and efficient experience, from application to closing. About Point Mortgage Over the last 20+ years, Point Mortgage Corporation (NMLS ID#231073) has built a strong reputation as an outstanding mortgage lender, serving the lending needs of real estate professionals, builders, and individual homebuyers starting in the states of California and Florida. Now located in 32 states, and growing, Point Mortgage is a full-service mortgage lender with an experienced staff offering expertise from purchases to refinances, from conventional to FHA, USDA, and VA loans. Point Mortgage Corporation Mortgage, NMLS ID #231073 (www.pointmtg.com), 1061 Tierra Del Rey, Suite 205, Chula Vista, California 91910, (619) 475-4095 for licensing information, go to: www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org. SOURCE Point Mortgage Corporation ATLANTA, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Quatrro Business Support Services (Quatrro), a leading provider of cost-effective, tech-enabled outsourced finance and accounting, human resources, application development, and IT support services to SMB's and the mid-market, is pleased to announce its inclusion in the 2024 Georgia Fast 40 list for the second year in a row. This prestigious list, compiled by the Atlanta Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), recognizes the 40 fastest-growing middle-market companies in Georgia. The evaluation criteria considered by ACG in compiling this list, in addition to being for-profit and headquartered in Georgia, was verifiable revenue and employment growth over the past 3 years coupled with in-person interviews with each qualified applicant conducted by an ACG Committee. This year's 40+ honored companies represent almost 7,500 new jobs and over $2.3 billion in revenue growth over the last three years, according to Brooks Morris, Chair of the Georgia Fast 40 Awards and Principal with Cresa. "The companies being honored this year exemplify ACG's focus on driving middle-market growth and demonstrate the strength and significance of this sector in Georgia," said Meg Williams, Executive Director of the Association for Corporate Growth's Atlanta chapter. Nate Medoff, CEO of Quatrro, commented, "We are honored to be recognized again this year by ACG Atlanta in the Upper Middle Market category on their 2024 Georgia Fast 40 list. This achievement highlights the hard work, dedication, and innovation of our entire team. Our growth strategy focuses on delivering exceptional value to our clients across the mid-market, and we are committed to investing in our people, processes, and technology to stay at the industry forefront. Our focus is on giving our clients more to go on through our comprehensive suite of services and outstanding service, helping our clients achieve, or exceed, their business goals." Nate accepted the award on behalf of Quatrro at the 2024 Georgia Fast 40 Celebration at Flourish Atlanta on June 27, 2024. About Quatrro Business Support Services: Visit www.quatrrobss.com Follow Quatrro Business Support Services: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook About ACG Atlanta: Visit www.acg.org/atlanta Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2006629/Quatrro_Logo.jpg SOURCE Quatrro Business Support Services Renaissance Next transforms instruction, provides real-time, actionable recommendations for teachers BLOOMINGTON, Minn., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Renaissance, a global leader in pre-K12 education technology resources and insights, announces the launch of Renaissance Next, a uniquely powerful new teacher experience that aims to transform classroom instruction and empower educators with in-the-moment recommendations to support their most critical decisions. "We started out by asking the question that is on the mind of every educator as they consider what's next in their classroom: 'How do I provide each learner with the right support, help, or acceleration?'" said Todd Brekhus, Chief Product Officer at Renaissance. "That's what led us to create Renaissance Next, which gives teachers actionable insights and quality instructional resources to meet their students' needs." Renaissance Next provides teachers with real-time recommendations in the classroom, combining accurate assessment, purposeful practice activities, and instructional data in a single view. Integrating key products from the Renaissance ecosystem, including Star Assessments, Freckle, Accelerated Reader, myON, and Lalilo, while surfacing recommended Nearpod resources based on math and ELA assessment performance, Renaissance Next harnesses the power of these tools to offer educators in-the-moment insights to guide teaching and learning. Teachers can quickly view students' performance, understand each student's progress and skill mastery, and review relevant lesson plans and activities to adapt, amplify, or adjust. "Renaissance Next gives me a quick glimpse of where my kids are, where they need to go, and what I need to do," said Julia Witges, a third-grade teacher at Carbondale Elementary School District 95 in Illinois, and a Renaissance Next beta tester. "It provides all of these tools that make my job so much easier, including the ability to differentiate down to individual student needs." Thousands of teachers with access to Renaissance products beta tested the new platform, which presents data that schools can use to inform decisions ranging from individual student learning to the district as a whole. The teachers' feedback helped to shape the design of Renaissance Next, ensuring that it meets a wide variety of classroom needs. "We plan to embed insights from Renaissance Next across our district and systems," said Janice Pavelonis, the superintendent of Carbondale Elementary School District 95. "Renaissance Next complements our strategic plan for the 20242025 school year, which involves students understanding their own data and progress, and setting their own goals, with support from and in consultation with their teachers." The insights and recommendations for differentiated instruction offered through Renaissance Next are made possible, in part, through the strategic use of AI. During development, Renaissance leveraged AI to better catalog its large library of pre-K12 instructional resources and practice activities, so that this content would be more readily accessible to educators in the classroom. "The Renaissance database is a rich resource that incorporates over 38 years of real student and teacher data and insights," said Brekhus. "The Renaissance Next platform brings those insights to teachers so they can truly see every student, and it leverages lesson and activity recommendations to accelerate learning for all." Renaissance Next is now available for the 20242025 school year. To learn more, visit renaissance.com/renaissance-next. About Renaissance As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 100 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com. SOURCE Renaissance The international Christian relief organization has expanded its Hurricane Beryl response to hard-hit Texas along with continuing to operate across three island nations in the Caribbean BOONE, N.C., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Samaritan's Purse is responding to Southeast Texas after Hurricane Beryl unleashed a barrage of severe weather with damaging wind gusts and torrential rainfall that claimed at least 8 lives and inundated communities. Today, a Disaster Relief Unita tractor-trailer filled with tools and equipmentis on the way to Brazoria County, Texas where the hurricane-force winds toppled large trees and damaged hundreds of homes. Samaritan's Purse will mobilize teams of volunteers to help hurricane-affected Texans recover from the treacherous storm by clearing debris, cutting downed trees and tarping damaged roofs. Staff are coordinating with local churches and emergency management in Brazoria County, Texas to determine the areas of greatest need. "Hurricane Beryl has wiped out entire islands and left total destruction in its wakeboth in the Caribbean and now the U.S.," said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse. "I am heartbroken for those who have lost loved ones and for the families who must now rebuild their lives. Please join me in praying for them and for our Samaritan's Purse teams who are responding in Jesus' Name." Samaritan's Purse is continuing to operate across three island nations in the Caribbean: Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Jamaica. Since last Tuesday, the organization has launched four DC-8 cargo flights to the Caribbean, delivering over 220,000 pounds of life-saving aidincluding an Emergency Field Hospital that is operating on the flattened island of Carriacou in Grenada. Staff on the Caribbean islands have distributed thousands of shelter tarps, solar lights, hygiene kits and provided clean water through the use of desalination units. This effort is being conducted by 80 Samaritan's Purse disaster responders in coordination with local church partners throughout the Caribbean. ABOUT SAMARITAN'S PURSE Based in Boone, North Carolina, Samaritan's Purse responds to the physical and spiritual needs of individuals in crisis situationsespecially in locations where few others are working. Led by President and CEO Franklin Graham, Samaritan's Purse works in more than 100 countries to provide aid to victims of war, disease, disaster, poverty, famine and persecution. For more information, visit SamaritansPurse.org. SOURCE Samaritan's Purse UPPSALA, Sweden, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ScandiNova Systems AB ("ScandiNova") has signed a new lease agreement with Fastighets AB Regio ("Regio") for approximately 1,700 square meters in an adjacent property in Fyrislund, Uppsala. The expansion, which increases the company's total floor space by over 40%, is a direct response to the rising demand for ScandiNova's products. The move will take place in several stages, starting in September 2024. After the move, ScandiNova's total floor space will amount to approximately 5,750 square meters, a significant increase from the current 4,000 square meters. The premises, located in the adjacent property at Typsnittsgatan 11, will accommodate both production and storage facilities. "It is very gratifying that we have been given the opportunity to expand into neighboring premises. This gives us excellent conditions to continue our growth journey and support our customers in achieving new advancements," says Niklas Edling, CEO of ScandiNova. In recent years, the demand for ScandiNova's products has increased across a variety of applications, including cancer radiotherapy, industrial X-ray, weather radar, and various science applications. Areas where the company's pulse modulators and RF units are critical subsystems that contribute to increased performance, quality and reduced energy consumption. "We are pleased to offer ScandiNova the opportunity for continued growth in our premises in Fyrislund, where they will be well taken care of by our local partner Reimnor," says Eric Bergstrom, CEO of Regio and Partner at Brunswick Real Estate. CONTACT: Media & Communications Erik Sundstrom Head of Brand, Communications and Marketing [email protected] +46 70 395 33 95 This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/scandinova-systems-ab/r/scandinova-expands---new-lease-agreement-with-regio-to-meet-increased-demand,c4012632 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/11304/4012632/2908289.pdf ScandiNova expansion new facilties 2024_240710_eng https://news.cision.com/scandinova-systems-ab/i/niklas-edling-ceo-scandinova-systems,c3318299 Niklas Edling CEO ScandiNova Systems SOURCE ScandiNova Systems AB BEIJING, July 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- For over a decade, China has made impressive strides in ecological and environmental protection, a fact deeply applauded by foreign experts living and working in the country. In this video, we explore "Green China" through their eyes. Some of them see the effective policies driving sustainable development, and others witness China's monumental efforts to promote international biodiversity. Some marvel at the lucid waters and lush mountains, while others actively engage in the development of China's green industries. Join us as we follow these foreign experts and discover the "Green China" they are experiencing. Science and Technology Daily: Greetings from Green China SOURCE Science and Technology Daily NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Toyota Motor Corporation ("Toyota" or the "Company") (NYSE: TM). Such investors are advised to contact Danielle Peyton at [email protected] or 646-581-9980, (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased. The class action concerns whether Toyota and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices. You have until August 23, 2024 , to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class if you are a shareholder who purchased or otherwise acquired Toyota securities during the Class Period. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. [Click here for information about joining the class action] On June 3, 2024, Toyota filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission an English translation of an announcement that Toyota filed with the Tokyo Stock Exchange earlier that day. Toyota's announcement said that after "investigat[ing] its model certification applications as per instructions from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT)", Toyota discovered that "seven models . . . were tested using methods that differed from the government standards[.]" That same day, The New York Times published an article entitled "Toyota and Other Japanese Carmakers Say They Mishandled Safety Tests." The article reported that "Toyota [. . .] and other top Japanese automakers [acknowledged] that internal investigations found they had mishandled vehicle testing on dozens of models over the past decade." Further, "Toyota said it had failed to gather proper data when doing pedestrian and occupant safety tests for three models, including its popular Yaris Cross sport utility vehicle." On this news, Toyota's American depositary share ("ADS") price fell $5.34 per ADS, or 2.45%, to close at $212.17 per ADS on June 3, 2024. Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered billions of dollars in damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. CONTACT: Danielle Peyton Pomerantz LLP [email protected] 646-581-9980 ext. 7980 SOURCE Pomerantz LLP NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Dril-Quip, Inc. ("Dril-Quip" or the "Company") (NYSE: DRQ). Such investors are advised to contact Danielle Peyton at [email protected] or 646-581-9980, ext. 7980. The investigation concerns whether Dril-Quip and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices. [Click here for information about joining the class action] On July 8, 2024, Dril-Quip disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had identified "an error in the classification of certain inventory write-downs from 2021." Specifically, the Company disclosed that it "misclassified inventory write-downs from 2021 totaling approximately $67 million, including $19.3 million related to the 2018 global strategic plan and approximately $47.7 million due to the discontinuation of certain product categories under the 2021 global strategic plan. The Company classified these charges as 'Restructuring and other charges'; however, these charges should have been classified in 'Cost of sales' in the Consolidated Statement of Income (Loss) for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, in accordance with ASC 420-10-S99-3. As a result, 'Cost of sales' was understated and 'Restructuring and other charges' was overstated by $67 million for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 (the 'Affected Period')." Accordingly, Dril-Quip stated that its prior statements regarding the Affected Period "should no longer be relied upon" and will be restated. Dril-Quip further stated that "the Company's disclosure controls and procedures as of December 31, 2023 were not effective." On this news, Dril-Quip's stock price fell $1.76 per share, or 9.9%, to close at $16.01 per share on July 9, 2024. Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered billions of dollars in damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. CONTACT: Danielle Peyton Pomerantz LLP [email protected] 646-581-9980 ext. 7980 SOURCE Pomerantz LLP Securities Litigation Partner James (Josh) Wilson Encourages Investors Who Suffered Losses In Fastly To Contact Him Directly To Discuss Their Options If you purchased or acquired securities investing in Fastly stock or options between February 15, 2024 and May 1, 2024 and would like to discuss your legal rights, call Faruqi & Faruqi partner Josh Wilson directly at 877-247-4292 or 212-983-9330 (Ext. 1310). You may also click here for additional information: www.faruqilaw.com/FSLY. NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, is investigating potential claims against Fastly, Inc. ("Fastly" or the "Company") (NYSE: FSLY) and reminds investors of the July 23, 2024 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities class action that has been filed against the Company. Faruqi & Faruqi Logo (PRNewsfoto/Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP) Faruqi & Faruqi is a leading national securities law firm with offices in New York, Pennsylvania, California and Georgia. The firm has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors since its founding in 1995. See www.faruqilaw.com. As detailed below, the complaint alleges that the Company and its executives violated federal securities laws by making false and/or misleading statements and/or failing to disclose that: (i) contrary to its representations to investors, Fastly was in fact experiencing a significant deceleration in growth among its largest customers and was losing the increased market share it had gained as a result of the 2023 CDN consolidation trend; (ii) the foregoing issues were likely to have a material negative impact on the Company's revenue growth; (iii) accordingly, the Company was unlikely to meet its own previously issued revenue guidance for FY 2024; (iv) as a result, the Company's financial position and/or prospects were overstated; and (v) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On May 1, 2024, Fastly announced its first quarter ("Q1") 2024 financial results. Despite the Defendants' positive statements just three months earlier about Fastly's performance and near-term business prospects, the Company reported revenue of only $133.52 million, missing consensus estimates by $0.35 million. The Company also lowered its FY 2024 revenue guidance to a range of $555 million to $565 million, significantly below its previously issued FY 2024 revenue guidance of $580 million to $590 million, and likewise below consensus estimates of $584.62 million for the same period. That same day, Fastly held a conference call with investors and analysts to discuss the Company's Q1 2024 results (the "Q1 2024 Earnings Call"). In explaining the Company's disappointing revised FY 2024 outlook, Defendant Nightingale stated that "[t]he biggest factor is a reduction of revenue from a small number of our largest customers. The first-quarter revenue from our top 10 customers dropped from 40% to 38%[,]" and that the Company saw "significant volatility" in the Multi-CDN strategy run by many of Fastly's top 10 accounts. Further, Fastly's Chief Financial Officer Defendant Ronald Kisling stated that the Company is "facing a challenging environment of revenue declines in our largest customers, overshadowing the impact of new customer acquisition and product pipeline[,]" and that the Company would not benefit in 2024 from the favorable impact of the early 2023 CDN consolidation that drove favorable sequential growth in the prior year same period. Then, on May 2, 2024, Bank of America downgraded Fastly stock from a "Buy" rating to an "Underperform" rating and cut its price target on the stock from $18 per share to a mere $8 per share, noting that "[d]ecelerating growth in Fastly's largest customers, share loss in delivery, and limited visibility in 2H cause us to question a rebound in 2024," and that "[w]hile we continue to like Fastly's positioning in the edge compute market, we see it as a 2025 opportunity instead of a near-term growth driver." Following these developments, Fastly's stock price fell $4.14 per share, or 32.02%, to close at $8.79 per share on May 2, 2024. The court-appointed lead plaintiff is the investor with the largest financial interest in the relief sought by the class who is adequate and typical of class members who directs and oversees the litigation on behalf of the putative class. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision to serve as a lead plaintiff or not. Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding Fastly's conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others. To learn more about the Fastly class action, go to www.faruqilaw.com/FSLY or call Faruqi & Faruqi partner Josh Wilson directly at 877-247-4292 or 212-983-9330 (Ext. 1310). Follow us for updates on LinkedIn, on X, or on Facebook. Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP (www.faruqilaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner. SOURCE Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP Securities Litigation Partner James (Josh) Wilson Encourages Investors Who Suffered Losses In Scotts To Contact Him Directly To Discuss Their Options If you purchased or acquired securities in Scotts between November 3, 2021, and August 1, 2023 and would like to discuss your legal rights, call Faruqi & Faruqi partner Josh Wilson directly at 877-247-4292 or 212-983-9330 (Ext. 1310). You may also click here for additional information: www.faruqilaw.com/SMG. NEW YORK, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, is investigating potential claims against The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company ("Scotts" or the "Company") (NYSE: SMG) and reminds investors of the August 5, 2024 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities class action that has been filed against the Company. Faruqi & Faruqi Logo (PRNewsfoto/Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP) Faruqi & Faruqi is a leading national securities law firm with offices in New York, Pennsylvania, California and Georgia. The firm has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors since its founding in 1995. See www.faruqilaw.com. As detailed below, the complaint alleges that the Company and its executives violated federal securities laws by making false and/or misleading statements and/or failing to disclose that: the Company's inventory levels, debt covenant compliance, and financial performance. Specifically, Defendants repeatedly assured investors that the Company's inventory levels were appropriate, while attributing strong sales to "selling through high-cost inventory," which resulted in "peak selling" and "record" shipments. Defendants also repeatedly assuaged investors' concerns about the Company's debt, stating that they were "optimistic we will remain within the bounds of our bank covenants" and "[did] not see leverage compliance issues going forward." As a result of these misrepresentations, Scotts common stock traded at artificially inflated prices during the Class Period. The truth began to emerge on June 8, 2022, when Scotts admitted that replenishment orders from its U.S. retailers were more than $300 million below target in the month of May alone. The Company told investors that 2022 full-year earnings would be roughly half of its prior guidance. The Company also announced plans to take on additional debt to cover restructuring charges as it attempted to cut costs. In response to these disclosures, the price of Scotts common stock declined by $9.05 per share, or nearly 9%, from a closing price of $102.18 per share on June 7, 2022, to a closing price of $93.13 per share on June 8, 2022. On August 2, 2023, Scotts revealed that quarterly sales for its fiscal third quarter had declined by 6%, and that gross margins fell by 420 basis points. The Company also slashed fiscal year EBITDA guidance by a staggering 25% and announced a $20 million write down of "pandemic driven excess inventories." The Company also disclosed that it had to modify its debt covenants to 7.00 times debt-to-EBITDA ratio, from the former ratio of 6.25 times debt-to-EBITDA ratio. These disclosures caused the price of Scotts common stock to decline by $13.58 per share, or 19%, from a closing price of $71.44 per share on August 1, 2023, to a closing price of $57.86 per share on August 2, 2023. The court-appointed lead plaintiff is the investor with the largest financial interest in the relief sought by the class who is adequate and typical of class members who directs and oversees the litigation on behalf of the putative class. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision to serve as a lead plaintiff or not. Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding Scotts' conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others. To learn more about the Scotts class action, go to www.faruqilaw.com/SMG or call Faruqi & Faruqi partner Josh Wilson directly at 877-247-4292 or 212-983-9330 (Ext. 1310). Follow us for updates on LinkedIn, on X, or on Facebook. Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP (www.faruqilaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner. SOURCE Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP Securities Litigation Partner James (Josh) Wilson Encourages Investors Who Suffered Losses In Toyota To Contact Him Directly To Discuss Their Options If you purchased or acquired securities in Toyota between June 25, 2022 and June 2, 2024 and would like to discuss your legal rights, call Faruqi & Faruqi partner Josh Wilson directly at 877-247-4292 or 212-983-9330 (Ext. 1310). You may also click here for additional information: www.faruqilaw.com/TM. NEW YORK , July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, is investigating potential claims against Toyota Motor Corporation ("Toyota" or the "Company") (NYSE: TM) and reminds investors of the August 23, 2024 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities class action that has been filed against the Company. Faruqi & Faruqi Logo (PRNewsfoto/Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP) Faruqi & Faruqi is a leading national securities law firm with offices in New York, Pennsylvania, California and Georgia. The firm has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors since its founding in 1995. See www.faruqilaw.com. As detailed below, this Complaint alleges that, throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts, about the Company's business and operations. Specifically, Defendants misrepresented and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Toyota understated its malfeasance relating to certification of its cars and issues relating to overall legal compliance; and (2) as a result, defendants' statements about its business, operations, and prospects, were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. On June 3, 2024, The New York Times published an article entitled "Toyota and Other Japanese Carmakers Say They Mishandled Safety Tests." This article stated, in pertinent part, that "Toyota [. . .] and other top Japanese automakers said on Monday that internal investigations found they had mishandled vehicle testing on dozens of models over the past decade." Further, "Toyota said it had failed to gather proper data when doing pedestrian and occupant safety tests for three models, including its popular Yaris Cross sport utility vehicle." On this news, Toyota's American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") fell $5.34 per ADS, or 2.45%, to close at $212.17 per ADS on June 3, 2024. The court-appointed lead plaintiff is the investor with the largest financial interest in the relief sought by the class who is adequate and typical of class members who directs and oversees the litigation on behalf of the putative class. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision to serve as a lead plaintiff or not. Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding Toyota's conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others. To learn more about the Toyota class action, go to www.faruqilaw.com/TM or call Faruqi & Faruqi partner Josh Wilson directly at 877-247-4292 or 212-983-9330 (Ext. 1310). Follow us for updates on LinkedIn, on X, or on Facebook. Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP (www.faruqilaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner. SOURCE Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP Features a free assessment test that will analyze your digital communications channel mix to provide data-backed recommendations for improvement ATLANTA and STOCKHOLM, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Sinch (Sinch AB (publ) - XSTO: SINCH), which is pioneering the way the world communicates through its Customer Communications Cloud, announced the launch of its "Customer Connections" hub, an online resource center designed to support CX professionals and marketers in building lasting customer relationships through world-class experiences across all digital channels. To add value to the customer experience, businesses must enable effective communications across the channels their customers use. The "Customer Connections" hub is Sinch's latest initiative to keep marketers informed on the ever-evolving digital landscape and help them build stronger customer connections. The hub features marketing communications related content including trend research, testimonial videos, case studies, and useful guides designed to help visitors create successful omnichannel customer experiences. The hub's standout feature is the "Connection Assessment" tool that serves as a battle-test for existing cross-channel campaigns. Based on internal data from more than 400k Sinch users, the test evaluates communication optimization across 9 different channels. After completing a short 4-question survey to gauge effectiveness, participants receive a personalized assessment outlining strengths, weaknesses, and improvement suggestions for delivering the ultimate customer experience. Building a customer communication strategy that drives value. Sinch interviewed over 500 consumers and more than 400 companies across the U.S. to uncover the true building blocks of a meaningful customer relationship. The learnings from this survey inform the topics covered throughout the Customer Connection hub: Making a strong first impression. Trust is a key factor in making a positive first impression over 30% say the company's reputation was their main focus. Trust is a key factor in making a positive first impression over 30% say the company's reputation was their main focus. Smarter Cross-channel engagement. Email is still the preferred channel (40%) when customers want to reach a company channel, followed by SMS (22%). Email is still the preferred channel (40%) when customers want to reach a company channel, followed by SMS (22%). Timing and frequency. Nearly 62% of consumers expect to receive invoices and receipts within five minutes or less of making an online purchase. Nearly 62% of consumers expect to receive invoices and receipts within five minutes or less of making an online purchase. AI engagement. A combined 78% said they prefer engaging with a chatbot for troubleshooting or to get a question answered. "Effective customer communication involves understanding the unique needs of your audience and focusing on what can truly elevate their experience with a brand," said Jonathan Bean, Chief Marketing Officer at Sinch. "With so many ways to engage today, it is essential for businesses to maintain a seamless digital communications experience and embrace an omnichannel approach. This means not only integrating communications across the right mix of channels at the right stage of the customer journey, but also being present where and when customers expect and want to be reached." Omnichannel communication is the new benchmark, making personalized customer experiences a necessity for marketers. Stay informed and sharpen your competitive edge by bookmarking the Sinch "Customer Connections" hub, visit connections.sinch.com For further information, please contact: Janet Lennon Director of Global Communications [email protected] This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/sinch-ab/r/sinch-launches--customer-connections--resource-hub-to-empower-omnichannel-marketers,c4013523 SOURCE Sinch AB HONG KONG, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Snorles, a leading innovator in sleep technology, is excited to announce the launch of its latest product, GenioFlex. Snorles created to address snoring issues and promote overall health and well-being, GenioFlex offers a fresh approach to managing snoring without the need for intrusive nighttime devices. Snorles GenioFlex distinguishes itself by its unique daytime functionality, eliminating the need for users to wear or use it during sleep hours. Unlike traditional anti-snoring products that may disrupt sleep quality, GenioFlex seamlessly integrates into daily routines, providing effective snoring management without compromising nighttime rest. Utilizing 25 volts of electrical stimulation, Snorles GenioFlex employs an effective method to help users train their tongue (genioglossus) muscle. With three electromagnetic pulsing modes and ten adjustable intensity levels, users can customize their experience according to their preferences, making it suitable for a wide range of individuals. GenioFlex is designed to reduce snoring and improve respiratory health, leading to more restful nights and a peaceful atmosphere for you and your family. By incorporating GenioFlex into daily activities, users can not only enjoy improved snoring situations, enhanced sleep quality and personal well-being but also contribute to a more harmonious environment for those around them. "Snorles GenioFlex represents an exciting advancement in sleep technology," said Dr. Zenghong Lee, Chief Medical Advisor at Snorles, practicing surgeon in Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Department, "We are delighted to introduce a trainer that addresses snoring concerns while changing the way snorers use it." Snoring can disrupt sleep and impact respiratory health, affecting daily functioning and overall vitality. With GenioFlex, individuals can take proactive steps towards managing snoring and enjoying a more rejuvenating rest each night. GenioFlex is now launched at INDIEGOGO. For more information about the product and the campaign, please visit HERE. About Snorles: Snorles is a leading company based in the heart of Shenzhen, the hub of smart hardware innovation. We are a multinational team known for our creativity and execution prowess, dedicated to improving people's sleep quality and promoting healthy living through technological innovation. For more inquiries, please contact: Echo Zhang Snorles Innovation Inc. [email protected] SOURCE Snorles BANGALORE, India, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Superalloy Market is Segmented by Type (Nickel Based Superalloy, Iron Based Superalloy, Cobalt Based Superalloy), by Application (Aerospace, IGT (Electricity), IGT (Mechanical), Industrial, Automotive, Oil & Gas). The Global Superalloy Market Revenue was US$ 10240 Million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of US$ 15890 Million by 2029 with a CAGR of 6.4% during the forecast period (2023-2029). Get Free Sample: https://reports.valuates.com/request/sample/QYRE-Auto-3X15903/Global_and_India_Superalloy_Market Major Factors Driving the Growth of Superalloy Market The market for superalloys is expected to develop significantly because of its vital role in high-performance applications across a range of sectors. Superalloys are vital to the aerospace, power generation, automotive, and industrial industries because of their remarkable strength, resistance to thermal creep deformation, and stability at high temperatures. The market's growth is supported by the rising need for sophisticated materials in nuclear reactors, gas turbines, and jet engines. Prospects for the industry are further enhanced by continuing research into novel superalloy compositions and technological improvements. Superalloys are becoming more and more important in the global materials environment as industries strive for greater durability and efficiency. View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-3X15903/global-and-india-superalloy TRENDS INFLUENCING THE GROWTH OF THE SUPERALLOY MARKET: Superalloys based on nickel are propelling the superalloy market upwards because of their vital role in the aerospace sector. Because of their remarkable high-temperature strength, resistance to corrosion, and thermal stability, these superalloys are essential for the production of turbine blades, jet engines, and other high-stress aerospace components. The enhanced performance, fuel economy, and lifespan of aircraft engines and components are guaranteed by their capacity to endure harsh operating conditions without experiencing any deterioration. The need for sophisticated, effective, and long-lasting aircraft is driving up the use of nickel-based superalloys, which is driving the superalloy market as a whole as the aerospace industry keeps developing and innovating. The superalloy market is expanding at a substantial rate thanks to the use of industrial gas turbines (IGTs) in the production of power. The materials used in these turbines must be able to withstand the enormous heat and pressures they run at while yet maintaining their structural integrity and functionality. Turbine blades and other vital components are made from superalloys, especially those based on nickel, because of their exceptional mechanical strength, corrosion resistance, and thermal stability. The requirement for high-performance superalloys to ensure optimal turbine operation and lifetime is growing as the use of IGTs rises in response to the growing worldwide need for efficient and dependable power production. Because they provide outstanding mechanical qualities and resistance to oxidation and corrosion at a lower cost than more expensive nickel and cobalt-based alloys, iron-based superalloys are propelling the expansion of the superalloy industry. These superalloys are finding more and more usage in parts of automobile exhaust systems, industrial heating elements, and some aircraft where modest high-temperature performance is needed. They are appealing to sectors trying to strike a compromise between performance and budget because of their cheaper cost and ability to tolerate hostile conditions. Thus, iron-based superalloys' adaptability and financial benefits are driving their uptake and aiding in the market's overall growth. Market expansion is fueled by the growing usage of superalloys in high-performance and electric automobiles by the automotive sector. Superalloys' resistance to high temperatures and corrosive conditions makes them useful in parts like exhaust systems, turbochargers, and fuel-efficient engines. Materials that improve performance and durability are becoming more and more necessary as the automobile industry moves toward more environmentally friendly and economical solutions. Superalloy demand is further increased by the growing popularity of electric cars, which need sophisticated materials for their battery systems and powertrains. This pattern emphasizes how important the car sector has been in growing the superalloy market. Superalloys are being used by the medical sector in implants and medical devices, which is driving market growth. Superalloys are perfect for medical applications such as orthopedic implants, prosthetic limbs, and surgical equipment because of their strength, biocompatibility, and corrosion resistance. Superalloy demand is increasing as medical technology progresses and the necessity for strong, high-performing materials in medical equipment increases. The desire for cutting-edge medical solutions is also fueled by the aging population and the rise in chronic illnesses, which supports the superalloy industry. The medical industry is vital to the market's growth trajectory, as evidenced by its continuous breakthroughs and growing uses. Own It Today Buy Now! https://reports.valuates.com/api/directpaytoken?rcode=QYRE-Auto-3X15903&lic=single-user SUPERALLOY MARKET SHARE With a market share of more than 80%, Nickel Based Superalloy is the biggest product category. In terms of application, IGT (Electricity) is the next greatest application, after Aerospace. Principal participants in the global superalloy market include Carpenter, ATI, and Precision Castparts Corporation. Each of the top three manufacturers in the world have a 40% share. With a market share of over 40%, Europe is the largest market. North America and Asia-Pacific come next, with shares of both over 55%. Purchase Regional Report: https://reports.valuates.com/request/regional/QYRE-Auto-3X15903/Global_and_India_Superalloy_Market Key Companies: Precision Castparts Corporation ATI Haynes Carpenter Aperam Eramet Group AMG Hitachi Metals CMK Group VDM Nippon Yakin Kogyo Doncasters Fushun Special Steel CISRI Gaona BaoSteel ANSTEEL Zhongke Sannai Western Superconducting Technologies Purchase Chapters: https://reports.valuates.com/request/chaptercost/QYRE-Auto-3X15903/Global_and_India_Superalloy_Market SUBSCRIPTION We have introduced a tailor-made subscription for our customers. Please leave a note in the Comment Section to know about our subscription plans. DISCOVER MORE INSIGHTS: EXPLORE SIMILAR REPORTS! - The global New Superalloy market was valued at US$ 6231 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach US$ 11920 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 9.8% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - The global Co-based Superalloy market was valued at US$ 713.4 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach US$ 892.6 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 3.3% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - The global Superalloy for Automotive market was valued at US$ 237.8 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach US$ 297.5 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 3.3% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - Superalloy Products Market - Aerospace Superalloys market was valued at US$ 6658.4 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach US$ 8330.7 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 3.3% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - Superalloy Forgings Market - Ni-based Superalloy market was valued at US$ 9274.2 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach US$ 11600 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 3.3% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - The global Automotive Turbochargers market is projected to reach US$ 37120 Million by 2030 from an estimated US$ 20730 Million in 2024, at a CAGR of 10.2% during 2024 and 2030. - Cast Superalloy Master Alloy Market - Superalloy for Aero Engine market was valued at US$ 5393 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach US$ 9419.1 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 7.8% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - The global Superalloy Honeycomb Materials market size is expected to reach US$ 187.2 Million by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 2.8% from 2023 to 2029. - Niobium market is projected to reach US$ 1907.8 Million by 2030 from an estimated US$ 1543 Million in 2024, at a CAGR of 3.6% during 2024 and 2030. - Superalloy Wire Rod Market - Hastelloy Alloy market was valued at US$ 1342 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach US$ 1794.5 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 4.5% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - Cobalt Alloys market was valued at US$ 313.6 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach US$ 384 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 2.9% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - Corrosion Resistance Nickel Based Alloy Tube Market - High Strength Nickel Alloy Market - High Performance Nickel Alloy Market - The global cobalt sulphate market was valued at USD 1.0 Billion in 2020, and is projected to reach USD 1.9 Billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 6.4% from 2021 to 2030. - Nickel Alloys for Automotive Market - Nickel-64 market was valued at US$ 33 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach US$ 90 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 15.5% during the forecast period 2024-2030. - Deformed Aluminum Market - Nickel Metal Market - The manganese alloy market was valued at USD 24.7 Billion in 2021, and is estimated to reach USD 44.0 Billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 6% from 2022 to 2031. DISCOVER OUR VISION: VISIT ABOUT US! Valuates offers in-depth market insights into various industries. Our extensive report repository is constantly updated to meet your changing industry analysis needs. Our team of market analysts can help you select the best report covering your industry. We understand your niche region-specific requirements and that's why we offer customization of reports. With our customization in place, you can request for any particular information from a report that meets your market analysis needs. To achieve a consistent view of the market, data is gathered from various primary and secondary sources, at each step, data triangulation methodologies are applied to reduce deviance and find a consistent view of the market. Each sample we share contains a detailed research methodology employed to generate the report. Please also reach our sales team to get the complete list of our data sources. YOUR FEEDBACK MATTERS: REACH OUT TO US! Valuates Reports [email protected] For U.S. Toll-Free Call 1-(315)-215-3225 WhatsApp: +91-9945648335 Website: https://reports.valuates.com Blog: https://valuatestrends.blogspot.com/ Pinterest: https://in.pinterest.com/valuatesreports/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/valuatesreports Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valuatesreports/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@valuatesreports6753 https://www.facebook.com/valuateskorean https://www.facebook.com/valuatesspanish https://www.facebook.com/valuatesjapanese https://valuatesreportspanish.blogspot.com/ https://valuateskorean.blogspot.com/ https://valuatesgerman.blogspot.com/ https://valuatesreportjapanese.blogspot.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1082232/Valuates_Reports_Logo.jpg SOURCE Valuates Reports COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Tech7 Company, a rapidly growing leader in the US defense and national security industry, has been honored as a 2024 Colorado Companies to Watch (CCTW) award winner. Tech7 was one of 50 Stage 2 companies that won this recognition out of over 1100 that competed across the State. Founded less than a decade ago by Juan and Nadine Echeverry, Tech7 has quickly risen to prominence for its innovative approach and steadfast commitment to a customer-focused and culture-centric business model. The award from CCTW underscores Tech7's remarkable growth and impact since its inception. Juan and Nadine Echeverry, both visionaries in the field, established the company with a clear goal to blend technological expertise with a strong emphasis on the customer mission. This unique approach is strengthened by a genuine focus on a culture of taking care of their employees and fostering a dynamic work environment that has cemented Tech7's reputation as a key player in the defense industry. "We are deeply honored to receive this recognition from Colorado Companies to Watch," said Juan Echeverry, President and CEO of Tech7. "Our company motto is "One Team Endless Possibilities" and this award is a testament to our employee's dedication and our unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional service to our customers with a spirit of innovation." The Tech7 Company has distinguished itself by consistently exceeding industry standards and driving innovation across its operations. The company's rapid growth and success are a direct result of its ability to adapt to evolving market demands while maintaining a strong focus on its core values of honesty, innovation, and quality. As Tech7 continues to expand its footprint in the defense industry, the company remains dedicated to upholding the highest standards of service and innovation. This recognition from CCTW serves as a milestone in their journey and reinforces their position as a leader in the Colorado business community and beyond. For more information about Tech7 and their award-winning services, please visit www.tech7.us. Contact: The Tech7 Company Phone: 719-505-7786 Email: [email protected] SOURCE The Tech7 Company ABU DHABI, UAE, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- e& Group has expressed its disappointment with the Court of Appeal of Casablanca's decision on 3 July 2024, which rejected the appeal filed by Maroc Telecom "MT", a subsidiary of e&. This decision upholds the Commercial Court of Rabat's ruling from 29 January 2024, mandating MT to pay 6.368 billion Moroccan dirhams (approximately USD 645 million) to Wana Corporate for alleged anti-competitive practices. As a major shareholder in MT, with a 53% stake, e& Group remains confident in its continuous compliance with all regulatory laws and regulations across its operating markets. The group firmly believes in the validity of Maroc Telecom's legal position and intends to pursue all available legal avenues to appeal this ruling and protect e&'s investments in Maroc Telecom. e& assures its shareholders that this court decision will not impact the consolidated results of e& Group for the second quarter of 2024 or subsequent periods, due to adequate coverage of international regulatory risks. H.E. Jassem Mohamed Bu Ataba Alzaabi, Chairman of e& Group, stated: "It is unfortunate that while global capital is looking to leverage the transformative power of technology to enhance digital infrastructure, smart government services, and digital solutions for people, a challenging regulatory environment negatively affects the future outlook of our investments in Morocco." Hatem Dowidar, CEO of e& Group, added: "e& Group is committed to fully complying with the laws in the markets where we operate. Empowering communities digitally has been a cornerstone of e&'s success over the past decades. We affirm that driving the digital future requires constructive cooperation between service providers, regulators, and legislators to foster the desired development of communities and individuals." Hatem Dowidar also emphasised that all options are on the table regarding e&'s investment in MT due to the repeated setbacks caused by regulatory penalties, legal judgments, and resolutions that limit Maroc Telecom's ability to compete in the market. Over the past few years, this has cost MT more than MAD 12 billion (more than USD 1.2 billion) in penalties one of the highest in the telecom sector worldwide impeding Maroc Telecom's future investments. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2458295/e_and_Logo.jpg SOURCE e& CHICAGO, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The loss of David Jobes will be felt by all who worked alongside him at Motivation Excellence. As a leader in the performance improvement and incentive industry, David helped create an award-winning culture, as well as a competitive and long-standing company in a niche community. Motivation Excellence is 39 years old, with David being an integral part of it for the last 32 years. The Motivation Excellence team mourns the loss of Owner & CEO David Jobes. Post this David Jobes standing in the cafe space of the Motivation Excellence headquarters in Schaumburg, IL, 2021. David was highly involved in designing the entire space using vegan and eco-friendly materials. David bought Motivation Excellence six years ago, after serving as long-time President. While leading the company he molded the culture of the business to reflect his values of respect, integrity, trust, exceeding expectations, charity, collaboration and environmental stewardship. Award Winning David made it a goal to be an employer of choice when he purchased the company in 2018. Since that time, Motivation Excellence has been honored with six years of being named a Best and Brightest Companies to Work For recipient, both locally and nationally. He was thrilled when his team recently won back-to-back Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE) Crystal Awards for outstanding travel programs too. He believed that when his people felt secure and valued, their clients ultimately benefited from it. Thinking like an owner and treating everyone with respect were hallmarks David preached to his team. A New Work Environment David moved the company's Schaumburg, IL headquarters in 2020. The new building offered upgraded amenities and the ability to build out a dream work environment. He worked closely with his designer to create a collaborative, open workspace that included eco-friendly and vegan materials from the ceiling tiles to the coasters in the meeting rooms. Expansion At the end of 2021, David purchased VIKTOR Incentives & Meetings. The newly-merged companies quickly became one team with two locations. Under his leadership, everyone at Motivation Excellence exudes the work ethic and shared values to create programs that Inspire Extraordinary Performance. Legacy As the driving force behind constantly improving company culture and client experiences, he inspired those he worked with to be lifelong learners and strive for the next level in personal and professional growth areas. Under his direction the company donated more than $100,000 to various charities, most of which were hand-selected by his employees. He was especially pleased to help support Ingage Unlimited, an international volunteer training organization that sends groups to impoverished locations throughout the world to provide training in the areas of education, healthcare, business and leadership development. His team will continue David's legacy through exemplary service to their clients, each other, and the community. The entire Motivation Excellence team sends their deepest sympathies to his family. Contact: Sky Z. Capriolo [email protected] 847 275-3931 SOURCE Motivation Excellence, Inc. Combining both funding and mentorship, the Accelerator's 2nd Cohort to include the guidance of global business leaders, including Janice Bryant Howroyd, Shelley Zalis, and James Rhee CINCINNATI, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sister Accord Accelerator, spearheaded by The Sister Accord Foundation Founder Sonia Jackson Myles and advertising agency Principal and CEO Jean Freeman of Zambezi, announced today a second cohort of seven women-owned businesses across the U.S. who will each receive $10K in funding along with esteemed mentorship over the five-month long program. The 2024 Cohort includes the following women business owners: Natasha Broxton , Select Auto Parts & Sales, Milwaukee, WI , Select Auto Parts & Sales, Denise Healy , Streets2Schools, Placerville, CA , Streets2Schools, Jilea Hemmings, Nourish + Bloom Market, Fayetteville, GA Trina House , The Prevention Center, Oklahoma City, OK , The Prevention Center, Taren Kinebrew , Cream & Sugar Coffeehouse, Cincinnati, OH , Cream & Sugar Coffeehouse, LaTonya Mark , Professional Response Agency, Hattiesburg, MS , Professional Response Agency, Tia Rochelle , Premier Lifestyle Concierge, Cincinnati, OH In its second year, The Accelerator will have one of the most powerful mentorship teams to include influential global leaders Janice Bryant Howroyd, Founder and CEO at The ActOne Group; Shelley Zalis, Founder and CEO at The Female Quotient; James Rhee, Founder and National Bestselling Author of red helicopter, and Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship at Howard University, and Jenn McCabe, Partner, Armanino LLP. The mentors will lead group sessions titled "Meet The IncrediblesLessons From Successful World Leaders" to provide insight on sales, marketing, and operations designed to enable participants to strengthen their businesses and scale appropriately. The Sister Accord Accelerator saw a 400% increase in applicants this round, increasing from 200 in 2023 to over 1,000 in 2024. Founder Sonia Jackson Myles said, "This year's surge in applications shows an increased need for a program like this. We see the potential to expand our ability to serve more businesses, but we can only do that through further awareness and support." An additional $10K grant received this year from accomplished business executive Marchoe D. Northern, SVP, NA Fabric Care, P&G, allowed The Accelerator to add a seventh business grant. Following its initial announcement to open applications and drawn to The Accelerator's unique ability to provide both grant monies and mentorship, Northern was inspired to personally contribute. "We are incredibly grateful to this group of powerhouse advisors who have joined us this year," said Jean Freeman, Principal and CEO at Zambezi. "Not only have we created an easy application in a world where the grant process is arduous, but we are melding funding with expert counsel, while also building a sense of community for these women to rely on, to provide a very unique offering." Cohort Two kicks off in July and will conclude in November with five virtual group sessions and individual mentoring from Jackson Myles and Freeman. About The Sister Accord The Sister Accord Foundation ( https://thesisteraccordfoundation.org ) is a 501c3 organization focused on enabling girls and women to establish and nurture positive, supportive, and loving relationships with each other. The Sister Accord LLC's 'Sisterhood & Brotherhood in The Workplace' Platform has made a significant, positive difference in corporate America and around the globe. For questions, please contact: Amanda Cosindas, Director of Communications, Zambezi, at [email protected] . SOURCE The Sister Accord Foundation CHICAGO, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Titan International, Inc. will release its second quarter 2024 financial results after the close of the market on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 to be followed by a teleconference and webcast on Thursday, August 1, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The real-time, listen-only webcast can be accessed using the following link https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/651060873 on our website at www.titan-intl.com within the "Investor Relations" page under the "News & Events" menu ( https://ir.titan-intl.com/news-and-events/events/default.aspx ). Listeners should access the website at least 10 minutes prior to the live event. In order to participate in the real-time teleconference, with live audio Q&A, participants should use one of the following dial in numbers: United States (Toll-Free): 1 833 470 1428 All Other Locations: https://www.netroadshow.com/conferencing/global-numbers?confId=56511 Participants Access Code: 548553 A webcast replay of the teleconference will be available on our website (https://ir.titan-intl.com/news-and-events/events/default.aspx) soon after the live event. Alternatively, to access the playback of the conference call, participants can use the following dial in number: United States (Toll-Free): 1 866 813 9403 Participants Access Code: 676364 About Titan : Titan International, Inc. (NYSE: TWI) is a leading global manufacturer of off-highway wheels, tires, assemblies, and undercarriage products. Headquartered in West Chicago, Illinois, the company globally produces a broad range of products to meet the specifications of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and aftermarket customers in the agricultural, earthmoving/construction, and consumer markets. For more information, visit www.titan-intl.com. SOURCE Titan International, Inc. Toyota joins seven other automakers as an investor and founding partner of IONNA IONNA to install at least 30,000 charge ports in North America by 2030 by 2030 Toyota, Lexus customers will have access to growing DC fast charger network, supporting both NACS and CCS charge ports PLANO, Texas and RALEIGH DURHAM, N.C., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- IONNA and Toyota Motor North America (Toyota) today announced that Toyota has joined seven other automakers as an investor in IONNA to support the buildout of its high-powered charging network for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) across North America. This allows Toyota and Lexus customers access to the public network of DC fast chargers IONNA will begin deploying later this year. IONNA plans to install at least 30,000 charging ports in North America by 2030, and stations will include both NACS and CCS connectors to support all BEV drivers. Toyota Invests in EV Charging Network IONNA to Enhance Charging Access for Customers "We are excited to announce our support of IONNA to deploy DC fast chargers throughout the U.S. and Canada," said Ted Ogawa, president and CEO of Toyota Motor North America. "We believe this will not only promote the adoption of BEVs and increase customer confidence in the technology, but it will provide our Toyota and Lexus customers with access to IONNA's rapidly growing charging network in North America." IONNA's focus on the holistic customer experience aligns closely with Toyota in ensuring that charging stations provide visitors with amenities and convenience in addition to vehicle charging. IONNA plans to bring its first batch of DC fast charging stations online in 2024 and will continue the buildout of additional stations throughout the decade. "We are delighted to welcome Toyota to our growing IONNA family," said Seth Cutler, CEO of IONNA. "Their vision for the future of electric mobility in North America aligns perfectly with our mission to push the boundaries for the highest standards of quality, reliability, and customer experience. This partnership marks another significant achievement of many to come in our joint journey to transform EV charging and spearhead the adoption of sustainable transportation in North America." Supporting IONNA is an important step for Toyota, as the planned nationwide network is highlighted by a partnership and collaboration effort among now eight OEMs to invest in the buildout of public charging. Toyota is the latest manufacturer to join in its support of the EV charging company, with BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis also pledging support. Toyota currently offers two mass-market BEVs in the U.S. and Canada the Toyota bZ4X and the Lexus RZ. It recently announced plans for two all-new three-row BEV SUVs that will be assembled at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK) and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana (TMMI). By 2030, Toyota aspires to offer 30 BEV models globally across its Toyota and Lexus brand nameplates and produce up to 3.5 million BEVs annually. About Toyota Toyota (NYSE:TM), creator of the Prius hybrid and the Mirai fuel cell vehicle, is committed to building vehicles for the way people live through our Toyota and Lexus brands, and directly employs more than 63,000 people in North America (more than 49,000 in the U.S.). Over the past 65 years, Toyota has assembled nearly 47 million cars and trucks in North America at the company's 12 manufacturing plants. By 2025, the company's 13th plant in North Carolina will begin to manufacture automotive batteries for electrified vehicles. Through our more than 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.), Toyota sold more than 2.6 million cars and trucks (more than 2.2 million in the U.S.) in 2023, of which more than one quarter were electrified vehicles (full battery, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell). For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com. About IONNA IONNA is a rising joint venture founded by now eight of the world's biggest automakers, BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis and Toyota. Purpose-built to lead, innovate, create, and drive forward a redefinition of charging as an end-to-end integrated customer experience. Delivering this mission by developing and deploying a trailblazing nationwide network of stations with cutting-edge technology, retail integration, amenities, and unparalleled customer service. Enabling urban and long-distance EV mobility for all with over 30,000 ultra-fast-and-reliable charging points by 2030. IONNA will provide the coverage drivers need, the reliability they deserve, and the amenities they crave. For more information, please visit www.ionna.com MEDIA CONTACTS Toyota Media Contact Josh Burns [email protected] IONNA Media Contact [email protected] 1-855-ION-NAHQ SOURCE Toyota Motor North America DALLAS, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Trintech , a leading global provider of cloud-based financial close solutions for the Office of Finance, has achieved 12 badges, with a Leader status in 10 financial close software categories, in the Summer 2024 Reports from G2, the world's largest and most trusted software marketplace. In addition, the company's Adra Platform maintained its #1 ranking on five Europe and EMEA grids for financial close software. Trintech's Summer 2024 G2 Badges include: #1 Leader Badge: EMEA Grid for Financial Close Software (Adra) for Financial Close Software (Adra) #1 Leader Badge: Europe Grid for Financial Close Software (Adra) for Financial Close Software (Adra) #1 Leader Badge: Enterprise EMEA Grid for Financial Close Software (Adra) for Financial Close Software (Adra) #1 Leader Badge: Enterprise Europe Grid for Financial Close Software (Adra) for Financial Close Software (Adra) #1 Leader Badge: Mid-Market EMEA Grid for Financial Close Software (Adra) for Financial Close Software (Adra) Leader Badge: Small-Business Grid for Financial Close Software (Adra) for Financial Close Software (Adra) Leader Badge: Grid for Financial Close Software (Adra) for Financial Close Software (Adra) Leader Badge: Enterprise Grid for Financial Close Software (Cadency) for Financial Close Software (Cadency) Leader Badge: Enterprise EMEA Grid for Financial Close Software (Cadency) for Financial Close Software (Cadency) Leader Badge: Enterprise Europe Grid for Financial Close Software (Cadency) for Financial Close Software (Cadency) Leader Badge: Enterprise Implementation Index Grid for Financial Close (Cadency) for Financial Close (Cadency) Badge: Users Love Us "Our consistent ranking as the #1 leader in multiple financial close software categories on G2's Summer 2024 reports is a testament to our unwavering commitment to innovation and excellence," said Darren Heffernan, CEO of Trintech. "We know one-size-does-not-fit-all which is why our Adra Platform (for mid-market), and Cadency Platform (for enterprise) are designed to address the diverse needs of all markets. We are proud to lead the way in delivering impactful, efficient, and reliable financial close platforms that continue to drive value for our customers of all sizes, globally." Trintech top highlights from G2 include: "Adra simplifies our tasks daily and makes it easier to get an overview of where we are in the close process. It was also very easy to implement." "Cadency is an excellent piece of the puzzle to our overall balance sheet. It has been great to standardize the reconciliation process within our companies and have a strict Quality Assurance process in place. Cadency is a great piece of software with so many features that we haven't even tapped into, yet." "Adra is a reliable system that makes the reconciliation process easy and quick. It takes away manual processing, saving us a huge amount of time." "Rankings on G2 reports are based on data provided to us by real software buyers," said Sara Rossio, Chief Product Officer at G2. "Potential buyers know they can trust these insights when researching and selecting software because they're rooted in vetted, verified, and authentic reviews." To learn more about how Trintech's financial close solutions can help you close your books faster, visit trintech.com . About Trintech Trintech gives people time back for what matters most. Our cloudbased platform and solutions enable over 4,200 clients worldwide to lead productivity transformation across their finance and accounting organizations driving efficiencies, ensuring accuracy to mitigate risk, and empowering strategic decision-making. Make time count with Trintech. As the leader in Financial Close Management, Trintech is headquartered in Plano, Texas with offices and strategic resellers across United States, Europe, Australia, South America, Africa, and Asia Pacific. With a strong partner ecosystem, Trintech collaborates with over 100 companies to create a network of interconnected businesses. To learn more about Trintech, visit www.trintech.com. Media Contact: Kelli Shoevlin Director, Global Corporate Marketing & Communications [email protected] SOURCE Trintech Collaboration Reflects Shared Vision of Transforming and Empowering Stakeholders in the Food Supply Chain; Continues Choco's Rapid Expansion in the US ATLANTA, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Choco , the leading global digital ordering platform for the food industry, is proud to announce a strategic partnership with UniPro , the largest food distribution cooperative in the US. The two companies share a vision of helping food suppliers and distributors succeed in today's marketplace through cutting-edge digital tools. As a result of the partnership, Choco's AI-powered order management platform, Choco AI , will be one of the preferred technology and AI partners for all UniPro members, which comprise more than 450 distributors in the US. "UniPro has a proud history spanning over 50 years, and our vision continues to be that of an innovative and transformative force within the foodservice industry, always supporting our members," said Louie Newton, CIO at UniPro. "Our partnership with Choco aligns perfectly with this vision, providing our members with the essential leading-edge tools to remain competitive and successfully scale in an ever-evolving market." Choco's AI-powered order management platform will be one of the preferred technology partners for all UniPro members. Post this In recent years, the food industry has struggled with labor shortages, competition from e-commerce marketplaces, and inefficient order processes. Many distributors still rely on manual methods like phone calls and handwritten notes, leading to errors and restricted order times. These inefficiencies and errors result in lost revenue, customer dissatisfaction, and food waste. Distributors also struggle to provide the seamless online ordering their customers expect. The partnership announced today empowers UniPro's distributor customers to easily launch a digital storefront under their brand and personalized to their business. This means they will be able to offer the operators they serve a modern, digital customer experience for placing orders and discovering new products. In addition, Choco AI offers solutions to automate manual orders and help distributor sales representatives more effectively support their customers. Choco AI is a revolutionary solution designed to automate and streamline order management between restaurants and distributors, mitigating the challenges of manual processes. Choco AI auto-captures voicemail, text, WhatsApp,and email orders around the clock, translates them into a standardized digital format, and integrates them into the supplier's ERP system in real-time. With Choco AI distributors reach 100% digitization in two weeks and process 100 times more orders, empowering them to grow and become more competitive without the need for additional staff or resources. "Succeeding in this industry is harder than ever, which is why we're so proud to partner with a company like UniPro that shares our commitment to empowering every actor within the supply chain," said Choco CEO and Co-Founder Daniel Khachab. "At Choco, we believe that AI can be the secret weapon for every organization looking to increase efficiency and grow their business, and we're excited to help UniPro's customers tap into its potential." About Choco Choco is a leading AI-powered platform revolutionizing the food supply chain by connecting restaurateurs with suppliers. Leveraging advanced artificial intelligence, Choco simplifies ordering processes, making them as intuitive and immediate as sending a chat message. Our AI tools help customers maximize efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize food waste. Choco was founded by serial entrepreneurs Daniel Khachab and Julian Hammer. Since its founding in 2018, the company has grown rapidly and is now active in markets such as the U.S., Germany, France, Spain, UK, Austria and Belgium. In February 2022, the total value of goods traded through Choco exceeded $1.2 billion. For more information, visit www.choco.com About UniPro UniPro Foodservice, Inc. is the leading foodservice distribution network in the United States, comprising more than 450 companies, each marketing the products and services provided by UniPro Foodservice. UniPro today is a combination of 15 former groups that have merged and come together over the years providing unified strength and independent solutions to all our Members and partners. For information, visit www.uniprofoodservice.com SOURCE Choco Campuses to be rebranded as UTI-Canton, UTI-Orlando, UTI-Phoenix and UTI-Mooresville. PHOENIX, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Universal Technical Institute (UTI), the transportation, skilled trades and energy education division of Universal Technical Institute, Inc., today announced plans to consolidate the branding for its MIAT-Canton, Motorcycle Mechanics Institute, Marine Mechanics Institute and NASCAR Technical Institute campuses under the Universal Technical Institute name. UTI currently serves a combined 15,000 students at 16 campuses nationwide. The rebranded campuses will be known as UTI-Canton (formerly MIAT-Canton), UTI-Phoenix (formerly Motorcycle Mechanics Institute) and UTI-Mooresville (formerly NASCAR Technical Institute). At UTI-Mooresville, the four-month NASCAR technician training program will be offered as a manufacturer-specific advanced training program, while the Florida-based motorcycle and marine programs will integrate into the existing UTI-Orlando campus offerings. "Last falland after an extensive research-driven reviewwe announced the consolidation of the MIAT-Houston and UTI-Houston campuses into one UTI-Houston branded campus to better serve students. This action has been enthusiastically received by students, faculty, parents and our partners," said Tracy Lorenz, president of the UTI division. "Today's announcement is a continuation of these efforts," Lorenz continued. "After consulting with key stakeholders, including our employer and corporate partners, we concluded these campuses would benefit from UTI's greater brand awareness. We are excited to continue evolving the UTI division from an automotive/diesel school to one that offers a variety of transportation, skilled trades and energy education programs." The implementation of the rebranding will begin in October and continue through mid-2025. About Universal Technical Institute, Inc. Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE: UTI) was founded in 1965 and is a leading workforce solutions provider of transportation, skilled trades, and healthcare education programs whose mission is to serve students, partners, and communities by providing quality education and support services for in-demand careers across a number of highly skilled fields. Universal Technical Institute, Inc. is comprised of two divisions: the UTI division and Concorde Career Colleges. The UTI division operates 16 campuses located in nine states and offers a wide range of transportation and skilled trades technical training programs under brands such as UTI, MIAT College of Technology, Motorcycle Mechanics Institute, Marine Mechanics Institute and NASCAR Technical Institute. Concorde operates across 17 campuses in eight states and online, offering programs in the allied health, dental, nursing, patient care and diagnostic fields. For more information, visit www.uti.edu or www.concorde.edu, or visit us on LinkedIn at @UniversalTechnicalInstitute and @Concorde Career Colleges or on X (formerly Twitter) @news_UTI or @ConcordeCareer. Media Contact: Alanna Vitucci [email protected] 480-710-6843 SOURCE Universal Technical Institute, Inc. CHICAGO, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Preorders are now open at UScellular for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Flip6, the newest line of Galaxy AI foldables. Customers can preorder online at uscellular.com or in UScellular retail stores. Three important things to know: UScellular is offering the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 and Flip6 for free for new and qualifying current customers on Unlimited Even Better plans 1 . . The Galaxy Z Fold6 comes in Silver Shadow, Pink and Navy with 256GB, 512GB and 1TB of storage while the Galaxy Z Flip6 is available in Blue, Silver Shadow, Yellow and Mint with 256GB and 512GB storage. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Flip6 will be available for preorder on July 10 and in stores on July 24 . Get double the storage when placing a preorder at UScellular for the new Galaxy Z Fold6 or Z Flip62. Key features of the Galaxy Z Fold6: See more and search more using Circle to Search with Google 3 on the large display of the Galaxy Z Fold6. Just circle content on your screen to research and learn faster than ever. on the large display of the Galaxy Z Fold6. Just circle content on your screen to research and learn faster than ever. Editing photos is a breeze. See more detail so you can instantly fix imperfections, move and remove objects or enhance colors using AI smart tools like Generative Edit 4 . . Open or closed, enjoy a slim yet sturdy design that's light on weight and heavy on convenience. The Galaxy Z Fold6 is an ultra-portable foldable that allows you to take big-screen productivity wherever you go. Key features of the Galaxy Z Flip6: The Galaxy Z Flip6 allows you to capture hands-free group photos from any angle using FlexCam 5 while automatically keeping everyone in frame at the same time. You can then switch to FlexMode, letting you easily control the camera with one hand for a smooth zoom control. while automatically keeping everyone in frame at the same time. You can then switch to FlexMode, letting you easily control the camera with one hand for a smooth zoom control. When folded, the Galaxy Z Flip6 transforms into a compact square that easily fits into pockets, small bags and purses, making it highly portable. Say "goodbye" to being lost in translation and "hello" to fluent conversations in up to 16 different languages using Interpreter6. While in FlexMode, the Galaxy Z Flip6 displays translations on both the FlexWindow and the main screen for flowing in-person conversations. For more news and information about UScellular, please go to newsroom.uscellular.com. 1 New line or eligible upgrade required. Requires smartphone purchase via 36-month installment contract, eligible postpaid service plan, and paperless billing. Paid via 36 monthly bill credits. Credit varies. Qualifying trade-in may be required. Taxes, fees and additional terms apply. 2 Offer valid 7/10 - 7/23, while supplies last, pre order and purchase a 512GB* Z Fold6 or Z Flip6 ("Qualifying Purchase") for the price of the 256GB model at participating carriers and retailers. The discount will be automatically applied at checkout. This offer is non transferrable and limited to 1 per Qualifying Purchase. If you return or cancel your purchase the discount will be lost. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. 3 Requires internet connection; results may vary by uniqueness, clarity and framing of circled image and related factors. 4 Requires Samsung account login and internet connection. Editing with Generative Edit results in a resized photo up to 12MP. 5 Auto zoom length varies and is shorter than standard zoom length. 6 Requires Samsung account login and language preset (English and Spanish pre-installed; other languages require free download). Results may vary. About UScellular UScellular is the fourth-largest full-service wireless carrier in the United States, providing national network coverage and industry-leading innovations designed to help customers stay connected to the things that matter most. The Chicago-based carrier provides a strong, reliable network supported by the latest technology and offers a wide range of communication services that enhance consumers' lives, increase the competitiveness of local businesses and improve the efficiency of government operations. Through its After School Access Project, the company has donated more than $23 million in hotspots and service to help youth connect to reliable internet. To learn more about UScellular, visit one of its retail stores or www.uscellular.com. To get the latest news, visit newsroom.uscellular.com. For more information, contact [email protected] SOURCE UScellular RIO DE JANEIRO, July 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Vale Overseas Limited ("Vale Overseas" or the "Offeror"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Vale S.A. ("Vale"), announces the early tender results of the previously announced offers to purchase for cash (the "Offers") up to a maximum aggregate principal amount of Notes (as defined below) validly tendered in the Offers not to exceed US$500,000,000, excluding any premium and any accrued and unpaid interest (the "Maximum Principal Amount"), of the outstanding notes issued by Vale Overseas of the series of notes as set forth in the table below (the "Notes"). The Offers are being made upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the offer to purchase dated as of June 25, 2024 (the "Offer to Purchase"). Title of Security CUSIP / ISIN Nos Principal Amount Outstanding Acceptance Priority Level Reference U.S. Treasury Security(1) Fixed Spread(2) Principal Amount Validly Tendered Principal Amount Accepted for Purchase Approximate Proration Factor(3) 6.875% Guaranteed Notes due 2036 91911TAH6 / US91911TAH68 US$1,334,866,000 1 4.375% due May 15, 2034 +169 bps US$ 415,441,000 US$ 415,441,000 100.00 % 6.875% Guaranteed Notes due 2039 91911TAK9 / US91911TAK97 US$1,146,159,000 2 4.375% due May 15, 2034 +180 bps US$ 202,273,000 US$ 84,559,000 41.87 % 8.250% Guaranteed Notes due 2034 91911TAE3 / US91911TAE38 US$641,337,000 3 4.375% due May 15, 2034 +148 bps US$ 32,685,000 US$0.00 Not applicable (1) The Dealer Managers (as defined below) will quote the bid-side price of the Reference U.S. Treasury Security set forth in the table above from Bloomberg Bond Trader FIT1. (2) Inclusive of Early Tender Payment (as defined in the Offer to Purchase) of US$50.00 per US$1,000 aggregate principal amount of the respective series of Notes. (3) The proration factor has been rounded to the nearest tenth of a percentage point for presentation purposes. As of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on July 9, 2024 (the "Early Tender Date"), US$650,399,000 in aggregate principal amount of Notes has been validly tendered and not validly withdrawn. Because the purchase of Notes validly tendered in the Offers would cause the Offeror to purchase an aggregate principal amount of Notes in excess of the Maximum Principal Amount, the Offeror has accepted for purchase (a) US$ 415,441,000 principal amount of the 6.875% Guaranteed Notes due 2036 (the "2036 Notes"), (b) US$ 84,559,000 principal amount of the 6.875% Guaranteed Notes due 2039 (the "2039 Notes"), and (c) none of the 8.250% Guaranteed Notes due 2034 (the "2034 Notes"). Given that the Offers are oversubscribed, no Notes tendered after the Early Tender Date will be accepted for purchase. Any tendered Notes that are not accepted for purchase will be returned or credited without expense to the holder's account. The applicable Total Consideration (as defined in the Offer to Purchase) payable per US$1,000 principal amount of Notes tendered and accepted for purchase will be determined by the Dealer Managers based on the applicable fixed spread for each series of Notes (as set forth in the table above) plus the applicable yield-to-maturity of the Reference U.S. Treasury Security for that series of Notes (as set forth in the table above) as of 11:00 a.m., New York City time, on July 10, 2024. The Offeror expects to announce the pricing of the Offers on July 10, 2024. Payment of the applicable Total Consideration and accrued and unpaid interest for the Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase is expected to be made, subject to the terms and conditions of the Offer to Purchase, on July 11, 2024. Vale Overseas will pay holders of the 2036 Notes and the 2039 Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase on a pro rata basis according to the proration procedures described in the Offer to Purchase. The Offers will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on July 24, 2024. The Offeror has retained BMO Capital Markets Corp., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc., HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. and MUFG Securities Americas Inc. to serve as dealer managers (the "Dealer Managers") and D.F. King & Co., Inc. to serve as tender and information agent for the Offers ("D.F. King"). The Offer to Purchase and any related supplements are available at the D.F. King website at www.dfking.com/vale. The full details of the Offers, including complete instructions on how to tender Notes, are included in the Offer to Purchase. Holders of Notes are strongly encouraged to carefully read the Offer to Purchase, including materials incorporated by reference therein, because they will contain important information. Requests for the Offer to Purchase and any related supplements may also be directed to D.F. King by telephone at +1 (212) 269-5550 or +1 (800) 591-8263 (US toll free) or in writing at [email protected]. Questions about the Offers may be directed to BMO Capital Markets Corp. by telephone at +1 (212) 702-1840 (collect) or +1 (833) 418-0762 (US toll free), Citigroup Global Markets Inc. by telephone at +1 (212) 723-6106 (collect) or +1 (800) 558-3745 (US toll free), Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc. by telephone at +1 (212) 261-7802 (collect) or +1 (866) 807-6030 (US toll free), HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. by telephone at +1 (212) 525-5552 (collect) or +1 (888) HSBC-4LM (US toll free), or MUFG Securities Americas Inc. by telephone at +1 (212) 405-7481 (collect) or +1 (877) 744-4532 (US toll free). This news release is for informational purposes only and is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell any securities. The Offers are being made only by, and pursuant to the terms of, the Offer to Purchase. The Offers are not being made in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, blue sky or other laws of such jurisdiction. In any jurisdiction where the laws require the Offers to be made by a licensed broker or dealer, the Offers will be made by the Dealer Managers on behalf of the Offeror. None of the Offeror, D.F. King, the Dealer Managers or the trustee with respect to the Notes, nor any of their affiliates, makes any recommendation as to whether holders should tender or refrain from tendering all or any portion of their Notes in response to the Offers. None of the Offeror, D.F. King, the Dealer Managers or the trustee with respect to the Notes, nor any of their affiliates, has authorized any person to give any information or to make any representation in connection with the Offers other than the information and representations contained in the Offer to Purchase. Gustavo Duarte Pimenta Executive Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations For further information, please contact: [email protected] Thiago Lofiego: [email protected] Luciana Oliveti: [email protected] Mariana Rocha: [email protected] Patricia Tinoco: [email protected] Pedro Terra: [email protected] This press release may include statements that present Vale's expectations about future events or results. All statements, when based upon expectations about the future, involve various risks and uncertainties. Vale cannot guarantee that such statements will prove correct. These risks and uncertainties include factors related to the following: (a) the countries where we operate, especially Brazil and Canada; (b) the global economy; (c) the capital markets; (d) the mining and metals prices and their dependence on global industrial production, which is cyclical by nature; and (e) global competition in the markets in which Vale operates. To obtain further information on factors that may lead to results different from those forecast by Vale, please consult the reports Vale files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Brazilian Comissao de Valores Mobiliarios (CVM) and in particular the factors discussed under "Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in Vale's annual report on Form 20-F. SOURCE Vale Overseas Limited RIO DE JANEIRO, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Vale Overseas Limited ("Vale Overseas" or the "Offeror"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Vale S.A. ("Vale"), further to the press releases issued on June 25, 2024 and July 9, 2024, announces the Total Consideration (as defined below) payable in connection with the previously announced offers to purchase for cash (the "Offers") up to a maximum aggregate principal amount of Notes (as defined below) validly tendered in the Offers not to exceed US$500,000,000, excluding any premium and any accrued and unpaid interest (the "Maximum Principal Amount") of the outstanding notes issued by Vale Overseas of the series of notes as set forth in the table below (the "Notes"), validly tendered and accepted for purchase. The Offers are being made upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the offer to purchase dated June 25, 2024 (the "Offer to Purchase"). Title of Security CUSIP / ISIN Nos Principal Amount Outstanding Acceptance Priority Level Reference U.S. Treasury Security(1) Fixed Spread(2) Repurchase Yield(3) Total Consideration (4)(5) 6.875% Guaranteed Notes due 2036 91911TAH6 / US91911TAH68 US$1,334,866,000 1 4.375% due May 15, 2034 +169 bps 5.990 % US$1,076.41 6.875% Guaranteed Notes due 2039 91911TAK9 / US91911TAK97 US$1,146,159,000 2 4.375% due May 15, 2034 +180 bps 6.100 % US$1,076.36 ______________________________ (1) The Dealer Managers (as defined below) quoted the bid-side price of the Reference U.S. Treasury Security set forth in the table above from Bloomberg Bond Trader FIT1. (2) Inclusive of Early Tender Payment (as defined below). (3) The "Repurchase Yield" is equal to the Reference Yield (as defined in the Offer to Purchase) plus the Fixed Spread. (4) Per US$1,000 principal amount. (5) The Total Consideration for Notes validly tendered prior to or at the Early Tender Date (as defined below) and accepted for purchase is inclusive of an early tender payment of US$50.00 per US$1,000 principal amount of Notes accepted for purchase (the "Early Tender Payment") and calculated using the applicable Fixed Spread for the applicable series of Notes to the yield of the Reference U.S. Treasury Security for that series as of 11:00 a.m., New York City time, on July 10, 2024. All holders of Notes accepted for purchase will also receive accrued and unpaid interest on Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase from and including the applicable last interest payment date up to, but not including, the applicable settlement date. Holders that validly tendered and did not validly withdraw their Notes in the Offers at or prior to 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on July 9, 2024 (the "Early Tender Date"), and whose Notes have been accepted for purchase will be entitled to receive the total consideration as set forth in the table above per US$1,000 principal amount of Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn and accepted for purchase (the "Total Consideration"), which includes the Early Tender Payment of US$50.00 per US$1,000 principal amount of Notes accepted for purchase. In addition, holders whose Notes have been accepted for purchase pursuant to the Offers will also receive accrued and unpaid interest ("Accrued Interest") on their accepted Notes from the last interest payment date to, but not including, the Early Settlement Date (as defined below). The applicable Total Consideration payable per US$1,000 principal amount of Notes tendered and accepted for purchase pursuant to the Offers was determined by the Dealer Managers in the manner described in the Offer to Purchase by reference to the applicable fixed spread for each series of Notes (as set forth in the table above) plus the applicable yield-to-maturity based on the bid-side price of the applicable Reference U.S. Treasury Security for that series of Notes (as set forth in the table above) as of 11:00 a.m., New York City time, on July 10, 2024. As previously announced, because the aggregate principal amount of the Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn pursuant to the Offers at the Early Tender Date exceeded the Maximum Principal Amount, the Offeror has accepted for purchase (a) US$415,441,000 principal amount of the 6.875% Guaranteed Notes due 2036 (the "2036 Notes"), (b) US$84,559,000 principal amount of the 6.875% Guaranteed Notes due 2039 (the "2039 Notes"), and (c) none of the 8.250% Guaranteed Notes due 2034 (the "2034 Notes"), and no Notes tendered after the Early Tender Date will be accepted for purchase. Any tendered Notes that are not accepted for purchase will be returned or credited without expense to the holder's account. Payment of the applicable Total Consideration and Accrued Interest for the amount of 2036 Notes and 2039 Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase will be made on July 11, 2024 (the "Early Settlement Date"). The Offers will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on July 24, 2024. The Offeror has retained BMO Capital Markets Corp., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc., HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. and MUFG Securities Americas Inc. to serve as dealer managers ("Dealer Managers") and D.F. King & Co., Inc. to serve as tender and information agent for the Offers ("D.F. King"). The Offer to Purchase and any related supplements are available at the D.F. King website at www.dfking.com/vale. The full details of the Offers, including complete instructions on how to tender Notes, are included in the Offer to Purchase. Holders of Notes are strongly encouraged to carefully read the Offer to Purchase, including materials incorporated by reference therein, because they will contain important information. Requests for the Offer to Purchase and any related supplements may also be directed to D.F. King by telephone at +1 (212) 269-5550 or +1 (800) 591-8263 (US toll free) or in writing at [email protected]. Questions about the Offers may be directed to BMO Capital Markets Corp. by telephone at +1 (212) 702-1840 (collect) or +1 (833) 418-0762 (US toll free), Citigroup Global Markets Inc. by telephone at +1 (212) 723-6106 (collect) or +1 (800) 558-3745 (US toll free), Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc. by telephone at +1 (212) 261-7802 (collect) or +1 (866) 807-6030 (US toll free), HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. by telephone at +1 (212) 525-5552 (collect) or +1 (888) HSBC-4LM (US toll free), or MUFG Securities Americas Inc. by telephone at +1 (212) 405-7481 (collect) or +1 (877) 744-4532 (US toll free). This news release is for informational purposes only and is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell any securities. The Offers are being made only by, and pursuant to the terms of, the Offer to Purchase. The Offers are not being made in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, blue sky or other laws of such jurisdiction. In any jurisdiction where the laws require the Offers to be made by a licensed broker or dealer, the Offers will be made by the Dealer Managers on behalf of the Offeror. None of the Offeror, D.F. King, the Dealer Managers or the trustee with respect to the Notes, nor any of their affiliates, makes any recommendation as to whether holders should tender or refrain from tendering all or any portion of their Notes in response to the Offers. None of the Offeror, D.F. King, the Dealer Managers or the trustee with respect to the Notes, nor any of their affiliates, has authorized any person to give any information or to make any representation in connection with the Offers other than the information and representations contained in the Offer to Purchase. Gustavo Duarte Pimenta Executive Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations For further information, please contact: [email protected] Thiago Lofiego: [email protected] Luciana Oliveti: [email protected] Mariana Rocha: [email protected] Patricia Tinoco: [email protected] Pedro Terra: [email protected] This press release may include statements that present Vale's expectations about future events or results. All statements, when based upon expectations about the future, involve various risks and uncertainties. Vale cannot guarantee that such statements will prove correct. These risks and uncertainties include factors related to the following: (a) the countries where we operate, especially Brazil and Canada; (b) the global economy; (c) the capital markets; (d) the mining and metals prices and their dependence on global industrial production, which is cyclical by nature; and (e) global competition in the markets in which Vale operates. To obtain further information on factors that may lead to results different from those forecast by Vale, please consult the reports Vale files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Brazilian Comissao de Valores Mobiliarios (CVM) and in particular the factors discussed under "Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in Vale's annual report on Form 20-F. SOURCE Vale Overseas Limited Digital Marketing for Plumbers by Online Advantages Has Released a New and Educational Guide that Outlines the Best Marketing Strategies for Plumbers DALLAS, July 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As the Owner and Founder of Digital Marketing for Plumbers by Online Advantages, Matt Maglodi understands how crucial effective marketing strategies are for businesses to succeed. To help plumbers grow their business as much as possible, Maglodi recently posted a helpful and in-depth guide titled "Growing Your Plumbing Business: Marketing Strategies that Work" to his website. To check out the new guide and learn how to unlock growth for a plumbing business, please visit https://digital-marketing-for-plumbers.onlineadvantages.net/growing-your-plumbing-business-marketing-strategies-that-work/ . As the new guide noted, an effective marketing strategy doesn't rely on just one method; instead, it uses a number of approaches and techniques. A great place to start, the guide noted, is by leveraging the power of social media marketing. "Growth trajectories for plumbing businesses can pivot significantly with effective social media marketing. Mastering this element aids in brand visibility and customer engagement, leading to an increase in service inquiries and bookings," the new guide noted, adding that using the full spectrum of social media is a vital component in a comprehensive growth strategy. While social media is definitely a useful marketing strategy for growing a customer base, not all platforms are created equally. For instance, the guide noted, websites like Facebook and LinkedIn may lead to more customer engagement due to their inherent sense of community, as well as their focus on professional networking. "Tailoring platform selection to align with customer behavior and preferences ensures visibility among the most relevant audiences," the guide noted. As Maglodi noted, people can find this article on a Google search by using the following phrases: how to grow a plumbing business how to grow my plumbing business how to grow plumbing business how to expand plumbing business how to grow your plumbing business how to make your plumbing business grow how to grow a plumbing company how to expand a plumbing business how to grow a sewer and drain cleaning business how to grow a small plumbing business how to make my plumbing business grow To summarize the new guide: Growing Your Plumbing Business: Assess your current standing and understand market trends to shape growth strategies. Leveraging Social Media Marketing: Utilize social media platforms to increase brand visibility and engage with customers. Creating Engaging Content: Showcase previous jobs, services, and plumbing tips to drive interest and credibility. Strategies for Connecting with Your Community: Engage with local influencers, participate in community events, and curate content that resonates with local audiences. Networking and Building Relationships: Build connections with suppliers, contractors, and industry peers through events and professional organizations. Offering Exceptional Customer Service: Prioritize clear communication, personalization, professionalism, punctuality, and transparent pricing to exceed customer expectations. Developing a Unique Value Proposition: Identify and communicate what sets your plumbing business apart from competitors. Implementing Effective SEO Strategies: Optimize your website and content for search engines to increase visibility and drive traffic. Investing in Advertising: Tailor ad campaigns to target specific demographics and balance digital and traditional marketing methods. Building a Professional Website: Create a user-friendly website that reflects reliability and professionalism. Expanding Services and Specialization: Assess customer needs, market gaps, and team capabilities to introduce new services and specialize in a niche market. Managing Online Reviews and Reputation: Encourage positive reviews, handle negative feedback professionally, and monitor online reputation. Stimulating Growth Through Referral Programs: Design referral programs that motivate loyal customers to share positive experiences and reward successful referrals. Mastering Email Marketing and Newsletters: Launch informative newsletters to educate and engage customers, and segment your email list for targeted campaigns. Finding a Niche Market: Conduct market research to identify underserved areas and position your business as the go-to provider for specialized services. Unlocking the Strategy Behind Competitive Pricing: Balance fair prices with profitability, communicate value, and consider diverse pricing strategies. Boosting Your Plumbing Business Through Community Engagement: Engage in local events, sponsorships, and community initiatives to drive visibility and build goodwill. "Are you ready to dive deeper and drive your plumbing business toward greater success? For tailored strategies that align with your business goals, get in touch to schedule a consultation. Chart the course of your business's future, starting now," Maglodi said. About Digital Marketing for Plumbers by Online Advantages : Digital Marketing for Plumbers by Online Advantages is the number one source for a plumber marketing job done right. They offer a wide variety of services and marketing solutions designed for plumbers and plumbing companies, including SEO strategies and implementation, content marketing, website design, link building, local SEO and much more. For more information, please visit https://digital-marketing-for-plumbers.onlineadvantages.net/ . SOURCE Digital Marketing For Plumbers By Online Advantages RALEIGH, N.C., July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today WellCare of North Carolina (WellCare), a Medicaid health plan and subsidiary of Centene Corporation (NYSE: CNC) has received Health Equity Accreditation Status by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). Originally mandated for completion by mid-year 2025, WellCare achieved this milestone in mid-year 2024, showcasing its strong commitment to health equity. Wellcare of NC (PRNewsfoto/WellCare of North Carolina) "Achieving the NCQA Health Equity Accreditation demonstrates our commitment to health equity and our aim to support health and wellbeing within our membership and their lived communities," said Plan President & CEO for WellCare of North Carolina, Troy Hildreth. "We are dedicated to cultivating a culture that supports our efforts to reduce health inequities and improve care quality for our diverse member population." The NCQA Health Equity Accreditation gives healthcare organizations an actionable framework for improving health equity. This accreditation recognizes WellCare for its commitment to delivering high-quality, equitable healthcare to its members and its ongoing commitment to eliminating health disparities to support better health outcomes across the state. WellCare has proactively secured this accreditation a year ahead of the required timeline set by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS). Health Equity Accreditation is awarded for three years and WellCare will continue to work toward renewing its accreditation status in the future. NCQA is an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving healthcare quality. The NCQA Health Plan Accreditation shows members and providers that a health plan is well managed and delivers high-quality care and services, while demonstrating their commitment to advancing health equity. About WellCare of North Carolina Headquartered in Raleigh, WellCare of North Carolina provides government-sponsored managed care services to families, children, seniors, and individuals with complex needs primarily through Medicaid as one of the state's Medicaid Prepaid Health Plans (WellCare of North Carolina), Marketplace (WellCare of North Carolina by Celtic Insurance Company), Medicare Advantage (Wellcare), and Medicare Prescription Drug Plans (Wellcare). WellCare of North Carolina is a wholly owned subsidiary of Centene Corporation, a leading healthcare enterprise committed to helping people live healthier lives. For more information, visit www.WellCareNC.com . About Centene Corporation Centene Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, is a leading healthcare enterprise that is committed to helping people live healthier lives. The Company takes a local approach with local brands and local teams to provide fully integrated, high-quality and cost-effective services to government-sponsored and commercial healthcare programs, focusing on under- insured and uninsured individuals. Centene offers affordable and high-quality products to nearly 1 in 15 individuals across the nation, including Medicaid and Medicare members (including Medicare Prescription Drug Plans) as well as individuals and families served by the Health Insurance Marketplace and the TRICARE program. The Company also contracts with other healthcare and commercial organizations to provide a variety of specialty services focused on treating the whole person. Centene focuses on long-term growth and value creation as well as the development of its people, systems and capabilities so that it can better serve its members, providers, local communities and government partners. Centene uses its investor relations website to publish important information about the Company, including information that may be deemed material to investors. Financial and other information about Centene is routinely posted and is accessible on Centene's investor relations website, http://investors.centene.com . SOURCE WellCare of North Carolina Patna July 10 : After the Bihar Police Subordinate Services Commission (BPSSC) announced the results for the Sub-Inspector examination on Tuesday, three transgender candidates passed the test and are set to don the police uniform in the state. This is the first time in India's history that a person from the transgender community has become a sub-inspector in Bihar. Manvi Madhu Kashyap is one of them, hailing from a small village in Bhagalpur. Among the 1,275 posts of sub-inspector, Manvi stood out from the crowd with her inspiring journey and resilience. She shared her struggles, saying, "I used to wear a scarf to hide my identity out of fear of society. My mother would visit Patna secretly to meet me, but now I will go to my village donning the uniform and tell everyone that I have no shame in being transgender." She recounted discovering her identity in class 9, which led to her becoming disconnected from society. She has two sisters, a brother, and a mother in her family. Manvi hasn't visited her home for the last nine years. She expressed her joy and determination by stating, "Now that I've passed the sub-inspector examination, after completing the training, I will go to my village in uniform and salute my mother." She dedicated herself to rigorous preparation, studying for more than eight hours daily for the past one-and-a-half years and engaging in physical exercise for one-and-a-half hours every morning at the Gandhi Maidan. Manvi excelled in the physical examination, completing the race in 4.34 minutes, well within the permissible limit of six minutes, earning applause from the police officers present. She attributed her success to Guru Rehman, a prominent educationist, and expressed her gratitude, saying she will remain a lifelong student of his gurukul. Guru Rehman, proud of this year's BPSSC results, said, "This year's result is making me even more proud because I used to make boys and girls sub-inspectors, but this time three transgenders have also become sub-inspectors from my institute. I provide free education to transgenders, and even today, 26 transgenders are studying in different batches here." Ulviyya Shahin Azerbaijan was represented at the international exhibition "INNOPROM - 2024" held in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Azernews reports, citing the Ministry of Economy. A business session was conducted during the exhibition under the theme "Partnership for Access to Large Eurasian Markets: Winning through Collaboration." The session, attended by First Deputy Minister Elnur Aliyev, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia Alexey Gruzdev, Deputy Minister of Industry and Technology of Turkey Ahmet Yozgatl?gil, and Deputy Minister of Industry and Construction of Kazakhstan Olcas Saparbekov, highlighted successful cooperation in multilateral formats. The session also spotlighted mechanisms employed in Azerbaijan to stimulate the activities of foreign companies in its market and boost bilateral trade. It emphasized opportunities arising from joint investment projects with partner countries in industrial zones, as well as initiatives in the field of transport and logistics. Washington, July 10 : Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race in early March, has said that she is releasing her delegates to the Republican National Convention (RNC), urging them to support former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former US ambassador to the United Nations, said on Tuesday in a statement that the upcoming nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a time for Republican "unity," as reported by Xinhua news agency. Haley, who had fiercely criticised the former president, explicitly said in a May speech that she would vote for Trump, despite the contentious issues that arose between them during the Republican presidential primaries. Haley is not invited to the 2024 RNC, but she has made it clear she's voting for him, spokeswoman Chaney Denton was quoted by CNN as saying. According to The Associated Press' estimate, Haley earned 97 delegates during the primary process. Trump has garnered 2,265 delegates so far, far exceeding the 1,215 benchmark needed for the party's nomination. Haley's call for "unity" within the Republican Party comes at a time when US President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is facing mounting pressure to withdraw from the race due to concerns about his physical and mental fitness. Trump leads Biden by 3.3 percentage points, according to the latest average polling data from Real Clear Politics. Gaza, July 10 : At least 25 Palestinians were killed and some others wounded in an Israeli airstrike targeting a school in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources said. Security sources told Xinhua news agency on Tuesday that Israeli aircraft targeted the gate of the Al-Awda School, which houses hundreds of displaced people in the town of Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis, using at least one missile. The videos shared by Palestinian activists on the social media platform Facebook showed dozens of bodies lying on the ground, covered in blood, Xinhua news agency reported. Medical sources said the Israeli airstrike killed at least 25 people, including women and children, and wounded dozens in varying degrees. The sources told Xinhua that the number of victims is expected to rise due to the overcrowding of displaced people in the area. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about the incident. United Nations, July 10 : "It was a real hell," the director of the children's hospital in Kiev, Volodymyr Zhovnir, told the Security Council, describing Russia's missile attack on the institution. "We felt a powerful explosion, the ground shook, and walls trembled," he said at Tuesday's meeting on the barrage of missiles that struck two hospitals in the capital and other targets around Ukraine. "Children and adults screamed and cried from fear, and wounds, from pain," he added. "We heard people crying out for help from beneath the rubble," he said. At that time, 600 children were undergoing treatment at the hospital, some of them on drips, and three heart surgeries were in progress, Zhovnir added. About 300 people were injured in the attack on the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialised Hospital, and a doctor was among two people killed, he said. Russia's Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia, who is the President of the Council for this month, listened stone-faced to several representatives condemning the hospital attack. Accusing Russia of war crimes, Britain's Permanent Representative Barbara Woodward said, "Its conduct is a disgrace to the Security Council, especially to the President's seat." Nebenzia denied that Russia had hit the hospital and asserted that it was a Ukrainian missile that landed on the hospital. "If this was a Russian strike, there would have been nothing left of the building, and all the children would have been killed and not wounded," he said bizarrely. A Ukrainian missile that tried to intercept a Russian warhead targeting a factory had caused the damage at the hospital, he added. Western countries were engaged in "verbal gymnastics" to protect Ukraine as the NATO summit was starting in Washington, he said. Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, countered, showing pictures that he said were of the missile fragments that had Russian markings found at the hospital, and of the route the missile followed. "The footage (recording the attack) captured the moment the KH 101 missile dived towards the hospital building," he said. Acting United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Joyce Msuya, said, "Intentionally directing attacks against a protected hospital is a war crime, and perpetrators must be held to account." "Yesterday's attacks and their impacts are a reminder of the deplorable human toll of this war, particularly on the most vulnerable members of societya"tragedies we will see again and again as long as this conflict continues and the rules of war are defied," she added. Guyana's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, asked, "What military or other advantage is there to gain from the unconscionable attack against a children's hospital?" The lives of innocent children "cannot continue to be sacrificed at the altar of political brinkmanship," she said. South Korea's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Joonkook Hwang, called the attack a "new low" and said, "An attack against the most vulnerable among us betrays a basic lack of humanity." The US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that "yesterday's attack makes abundantly clear (Russia's President Vladimir Putin) is not interested in peace" even though he was pushing Kiev "to accept an unjust peace while facing the barrel of a gun". China's Deputy Permanent Representative to United Nations, Geng Shuang, short of outrightly condemning Russia, expressed concern at the "large number of casualties among innocent civilians" and over the "fighting (that) has intensified and vicious attacks occurred from time to time, which resulted in serious casualties". "There is no winner in military confrontation," he said. Meanwhile in Moscow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on a visit to Russia, offered his own criticism of the attack without naming his hosts, "When innocent children are killed, when we see innocent children dying, then the heart pains. And that pain is very horrible." (Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis.) Cyber crime graph increased, some got part time job and some cheated money in the name of marriage, skp. Image Source: IANS News Lucknow, July 10 : A famous city-based progressive writer and poet, Naresh Saxena, was kept under digital arrest in his room for six long hours by cyberheist operators posing as CBI officers in Lucknow, police officials said. The scammers, who aimed to con the elderly writer by frightening him with arrest in a money-laundering case, listened to his poetry for hours, even asking him to recite couplets of Mirza Ghalib and Faiz and praising his poems a lot. Luckily, after six hours of this 'digital house arrest' through a video call, alarmed family members intervened and the cyber thugs failed to pull off the crime. The writer later filed a complaint at Gomti Nagar police station. As per reports, on July 7, at 3 p.m., the writer was about to leave for a poetic session when he got a video call on his mobile phone. The man on the other side asked the writer if he had lost his Aadhar card. "He then informed me that someone had opened an account in Mumbai using it, a money laundering case of crores had taken place through it and a case had been registered in a Mumbai police station. Then he introduced himself as CBI Inspector Rohan Sharma and said that an arrest warrant had been issued against me. But as I was an elderly person and seemed to be a good man, he would try to get me released soon if I cooperated in the investigation. Otherwise, I might face a long jail term," Saxena said. The man then also verified the writer's Aadhar card and asked questions pertaining to the number of bank accounts he had, the amount of money in them, the number of transactions, investments, income and income tax returns. "I was able to see the man's police uniform and a cap, which convinced me," Saxena added. "As soon as he saw my room full of books, to ensure that I was the right person and the same poet he had called, he asked me to prove myself by reciting poetry. He asked me to recite the couplets of Mirza Ghalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. He even asked me to recite my own poems, which I did. He listened to my poems for a long time and even praised me a lot," the writer said, adding that all this went on for six hours. The video call session started at 3 p.m. and went on till 7-8 p.m. The conman then told him that the CBI Chief of Mumbai would talk to him. To convince Saxena further, he told the 'chief' ( perhaps his cohort) that Saxena was a very good man and the 'chief' should also listen to his poems. He should be investigated on priority and be let off within 24 hours. "The 'chief' said that since I was cooperating in the investigation, he would get me released within 24 hours and told me that I was currently under house arrest," said Saxena. The men then told him to close the door of his room and not inform his family members while remaining in front of them on the video call, said the writer. But when Saxena did not open his door for a long time, the family was alarmed. Sensing that he was being tricked through a cyber fraud, his daughter-in-law snatched the phone and disconnected the call. The matter is now under investigation, said an official of the Gomti Nagar police station. Tehran, July 10 : Iran's President-elect, Masoud Pezeshkian, has reaffirmed Tehran's support for Syria during a phone call with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. During the call on Tuesday, the two sides discussed the future development of bilateral ties, according to the Iranian Students' News Agency. Pezeshkian highlighted the necessity to strengthen bilateral ties and implement the previously signed agreements between the two countries in line with their people's interests, the report said. Assad, for his part, said that the importance of the Syria-Iran ties, based on "mutual faithfulness and certain principles," lies in the resistance against the colonial hegemony in a "tumultuous" region, Xinhua news agency reported. Pezeshkian was announced as Iran's next president last Saturday following his victory in a runoff against Saeed Jalili, a former chief nuclear negotiator. Vienna, July 10 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Tuesday from Moscow on a two-day visit to Austria and was hosted by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer for a private engagement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. "An important milestone in the India-Austria partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnerships lie ahead," MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X, along with photos of the two leaders together in Vienna. Nehammer posted a photo of him and PM Modi on the microblogging platform X and said: "Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!" The Prime Minister thanked the Austrian Chancellor "for the warm welcome" and said he looks forward to "our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good". Prime Minister Modi was seen hugging Nehammer in one of the photos while in another, the Austrian Chancellor was seen clicking a selfie with the Prime Minister. In another post on X, PM Modi said: "Happy to meet you in Vienna, Chancellor @karlnehammer. The India-Austria friendship is strong and it will get even stronger in the times to come." During PM Modi's visit to Austria, the two countries will explore ways to further deepen their relationship and closer cooperation on various geopolitical challenges. Earlier, PM Modi said on X: "Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more." Prime Minister Modi was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport in Vienna. In an earlier post on X, the MEA spokesperson said, "As the two countries are celebrating 75th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will add renewed momentum to India-Austria ties." Prime Minister Modi will call on the President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and hold talks with Nehammer on Wednesday. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor will also address business leaders from India and Austria. Ahead of his visit to Austria, PM Modi on Sunday said the shared values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law form the bedrock upon which the two countries will build an ever-closer partnership. Prime Minister Modi's remark came a day after Nehammer posted on X: "I very much look forward to welcoming Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, the world's largest democracy, next week in Vienna." "This visit is a special honour as it marks the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over 40 years and a significant milestone as we celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations with India," he said. "We will have the opportunity to talk about further deepening our bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges," the Austrian Chancellor said. Responding to Nehammer, PM Modi said, "Thank you, Chancellor Karl Nehammer. It is indeed an honour to visit Austria to mark this historic occasion. I look forward to our discussions on strengthening the bonds between our nations and exploring new avenues of cooperation." Unnao, July 10 : At least 18 people were killed and more than 30 injured when a double-decker bus rammed into a milk tanker on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district, early on Wednesday. The bus was travelling from Sitamarhi in Bihar to Delhi. It hit the milk tanker from behind near Garha village, according to official sources. The impact of the collision was so huge that the bus was almost pulverised and people were flung out of the vehicle. Police and other emergency personnel rushed to the site to extricate victims and transport the injured to hospitals. Visuals from the scene showed bodies strewn on the ground, twisted scraps of metal, shattered glass and destroyed possessions. The cause of the crash is under investigation. UP Transport Minister Dayashankar Singh took cognisance of the deadly accident and expressed his condolences to the families of the deceased. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has also expressed his grief over the accident and directed officials to ensure proper treatment to the injured. Lucknow, July 10 : In a shocking incident, the wife of a retired IAS officer has alleged that she was sexually assaulted by her stepson and his aide at their house in Jammu and Kashmir, the police said. The woman, in her 40s, also accused her husband's family of harassing her for dowry. A case in this regard has been registered with the Ghazipur (Indira Nagar) police in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday as she is a resident of the city. She claimed that she was held hostage at the house and released only after giving in writing that she would not lodge any complaint against her husband and stepson. The woman, an orphan, was married to the retired IAS officer of Jammu and Kashmir cadre in 2020. In her complaint, the victim alleged that her husband's first wife, his son and daughter and other members used to harass her for dowry. "Over the years, the harassment grew manifold. I was held captive in a room from April 11a"14 and even starved. My husband's son snatched my mobile phone. Later, he and his aide raped me. After a lot of pleading, they agreed to release me," she said. Later, the youth escorted the victim to Lucknow and threatened to get her killed if she approached police. However, once in city, she mustered courage and lodged a complaint. Deputy Commissioner of Police, North Zone, Abhijit Shankar, said an FIR has been registered and a probe is underway. Islamabad, July 10 : Three Pakistani soldiers were killed in a clash with terrorists in the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the country's military said in a statement. The incident happened in the South Waziristan district of the province on Tuesday when the terrorists engaged the troops in a gun battle, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistani army said, reports Xinhua news agency. A clearance operation is being carried out to eliminate any terrorists found in the area, the statement added. It was the second attack on the security forces in the province on Tuesday. In the earlier attack, a military officer was killed in a clash with terrorists in the neighbouring North Waziristan district. Investigations are underway. Further details are awaited. Tehran, July 10 : The forces of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) have dismantled a "terrorist team" at the country's northwestern borders, the official news agency IRNA reported. Members of the "counter-revolutionary terrorist team" sought to enter Iran through the northwestern borders but were ambushed and smashed early on Tuesday by the forces of the IRGC Ground Force's Hamzeh Seyyed Al-Shohada Base in the West Azerbaijan province, the IRNA said quoting a statement of the base. A number of the "terrorists" were killed and wounded in the armed clash with the IRGC forces, and their equipment was confiscated, reports Xinhua news agency, citing the statement. However, the statement did not specify the terrorists' affiliation or identity and the location of the operation. The IRGC base also warned that any action against Iran's security and territorial integrity would receive a decisive and firm response. Iran's West Azarbaijan province has borders with Iraq and Turkey. Sydney, July 10 : Authorities rushed to a factory in Melbourne's west after a large chemical explosion sparked a major fire on Wednesday. Fire Rescue Victoria reported that crews arrived at Swann Drive at approximately 11.20 a.m. local time, responding to a "significant factory fire" in Derrimut, reports Xinhua news agency. "Specialist appliances are on scene, including aerial appliances. A community advice warning has been issued for Albion, Braybrook, Brooklyn, Derrimut, Laverton North, Sunshine, Sunshine West, Tottenham, and Truganina," the fire authority noted. A "Watch and Act" alert remains in place for the impacted regions, urging residents to take shelter indoors immediately, as the wind is blowing "toxic smoke towards the East across Derrimut." At the current stage, additional appliances are continuously being deployed to the scene to douse the fire. "There have been no reports of injuries and it is believed everyone inside the premises evacuated safely," a spokesperson from Victoria Police confirmed to Xinhua. "Traffic in the area is expected to be impacted for some time with Swann Drive closed as well as westbound traffic on the Deer Park bypass being stopped for safety," the spokesperson added. Located some 17 km west of Melbourne's central business district, Derrimut is home to more than 8,000 residents, with the suburb's Swann Drive connecting several distribution centres and warehouses. Thiruvananthapuram, July 10 : The state unit of CPI, the second biggest ally in the ruling CPI-M-led Left, while deliberating the recent Lok Sabha polls, has condemned the functioning of the Left Convener and top CPI-M leader E. P. Jayarajan. Incidentally, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led campaign at the 20 Lok Sabha seats saw their performance turning a cropper by being able to win just one seat and in the bargain, CPI continues to draw a blank for the second successive general elections. CPI contests in four seats and they last won a Lok Sabha seat in the state in 2014. CPI state Secretary Binoy Viswan was the first top leader who minced no words about the debacle and said the CPI-M and the way they run the affairs have to be fine-tuned. Jayarajan and the way he has been conducting himself, especially disclosing the information that BJP veteran Prakash Javadekhar had come to meet him in the state capital city, came under fire. CPI concluded that Jayarajan has to be moved out. Vijayan also came under fire for the way he conducts himself in public. Meanwhile, the Thrissur unit of the CPI suspected that there was some foul play in the victory of the lone BJP candidate, actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi, and their top leader V. S. Sunil Kumar finishing in second place. The leadership meeting of CPI will end on Wednesday and they are going to express their displeasure about things at the next Left Democratic Front meeting. Los Angeles, July 10 : Hollywood star David Duchovny revealed that he auditioned for all three male roles -- Danny Tanner, Joey Gladstone, and Jesse Katsopolis -- in the iconic TV sitcom 'Full House' in the 1980s. The roles ultimately went to actors Bob Saget, Dave Coulier, and John Stamos, respectively. "I auditioned for all three parts on 'Full House'," Duchovny said on his podcast 'Fail Better'. "At first, they had me for, I think, the dad role. Then they had me for the Stamos character. And then they had me for the other guy. I was thinking, 'I've got to get one of these, and it's going to change my life.'" Duchovny added that he had plenty of those pilots that he went up for when he was first out in Los Angeles, and thought each one was going to be the break, reports deadline.com. "I just needed to be able to pay my rent too." The actor eventually got his big break in 'The X-Files', where he played the role of FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder. Duchovny also noted that the style of sitcoms at the time he auditioned for 'Full House' was not his strong suit. "I was really bad at that kind of stuff," he said. "I did not know how to do that sitcom stuff. I don't know what they were thinking, that they thought I was going to exist in that world. I mean, I guess I could have learned, but I wasn't ready for that kind of energetic performance that they need." Duchovny later featured in the dramedy series 'Californication' in 2007 and most recently in the 2023 romantic comedy 'What Happens Later' opposite Meg Ryan. New Delhi, July 10 : Domestic smartphone brand Lava on Wednesday launched a new smartphone under its Blaze series -- Lava Blaze X, with a curved AMOLED display. The new Blaze X comes in two stunning colour variants -- Starlight Purple and Titanium Grey. It will be available on Lava e-store and Amazon from July 20 at a starting price of Rs 13,999 (inclusive of bank offers). "The new Blaze X, the latest addition to the line-up is developed with three key parameters at the epicentre-segment - first curved AMOLED display, performance and aesthetics," Sumit Singh, Product Head, Lava International, said in a statement. The smartphone comes with a 6.67-inch 120 Hz display with a punch-hole design to provide an immersive experience to the users. The new Blaze X comes equipped with a 64MP+2MP rear camera featuring the Sony sensor and a 16MP front camera. It offers several shooting modes, including Dual View Video, Film, Pro Video, Slow Motion, Timelapse, UHD, GIF, Beauty, HDR, Night, Portrait, AI, Pro, Panorama, Filters, Macro, AI Emoji. Moreover, the device comes with the latest MediaTek Dimensity 6300 processor and a 5000mAh battery along Type C port and 33W Fast charging. New Delhi/Jammu, July 10 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the terror attack on pilgrims in J&K's Reasi district has brought to the fore the role of Pakistan-based handlers of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit. New Delhi/Jammu, July 10 (IANS) The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the terror attack on pilgrims in J&Kas Reasi district has brought to the fore the role of Pakistan-based handlers of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit. Terrorists on June 9 attacked a pilgrim bus returning from the Shiv-Khori temple in Reasi. The terrorists first killed the driver of the bus and after that, the bus dropped into a gorge. The terrorists kept firing at the pilgrims for over 20 minutes killing nine and injuring 44 pilgrims. Sources have said that the NIA investigation of Hakim Khan alias Hakim Din, a local, has revealed that he provided, shelter and logistics support, gave food to the three terrorists and also did a recce of the area for them. aKhan accompanied the three terrorists to the attack spot. Before they stayed with him at least on three occasions after June 1, when the terror attack was being planned," said sources. Disclosures made by Khan led to searches at five locations connected with overground workers (OGWs) and hybrid militants. The role of two Pakistan-based LeT handlers, Saifullah alias Sajid Jatt and Abu Qataal alias Qataal Sindhi, came to the fore during the interrogation of Hakim Khan, NIA officials said. After the order from the Ministry of Home, the investigation of the Reasi terror attack was taken over by the NIA on June 15. In another incident, seven people belonging to the Hindu community were killed and several others injured when terrorists attacked Dhangri village in Rajouri district of Jammu division on January 1 last year. Sajid Jatt and Qataal have already been named in a charge sheet filed by NIA in connection with its probe related to the attack on civilians in J&Kas Rajouri district in 2023. NIA is now in the process of registering a case to investigate last yearas terrorist attack on an Army convoy in Poonch in which five soldiers were martyred. A team of NIA officers were assisting the local police in its probe into the terrorist attack on an Army vehicle in Kathua district on Monday. Five soldiers, including a JCO, were killed and an equal number injured in the Kathua terror attack - -IANS Los Angeles, July 10 : Actress Sharon Stone has revealed that she lost a lot of money that she had saved in her bank account following her stroke in 2001. The 'Basic Instinct' star talked about how the stroke, which led to a nine-day brain bleed, made her step away from Hollywood. "A Buddhist monk told me that I had been reincarnated into my same body," Stone recalled in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. The actress said that she "had a death experience, and then they brought me back." "I bled into my brain for nine days, so my brain was shoved to the front of my face. It wasn't positioned in my head where it was before." She added: "And while that was happening, everything changed. My sense of smell, my sight, and my touch. I couldn't read for a couple of years. Things were stretched, and I was seeing colour patterns. A lot of people thought I was going to die." Stone said that this also led to people taking "advantage" of her "over that time", and she lost millions of dollars she had saved in her account, along with other personal items. "I had $18 million saved because of all my success, but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone. My refrigerator, my phone -- everything was in other people's names," Stone shared. "I had zero money," she said. Instead of feeling "bitter" about all the negative things she experienced, Stone said she chooses to focus on the positive, reports people.com. "I decided to stay present and let go," she said. "I decided not to hang on to being sick or to any bitterness or anger. If you bite into the seed of bitterness, it never leaves you. But if you hold faith, even if that faith is the size of a mustard seed, you will survive." "So, I live for joy now. I live for a purpose." Gaza, July 10 : Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), claimed that its fighters killed several Israeli soldiers in various sites in the Gaza Strip. In a press statement released on Tuesday, al-Qassam Brigades said that its fighters targeted an Israeli force fortified inside a house in the Shuja'iyya neighbourhood with a shell and directly clashed with them face to face. As more Israeli troops were sent to the site to evacuate the casualties, the Hamas fighters fired an anti-personnel explosive device at them, reports Xinhua news agency, citing the statement. In the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in the southwest of Gaza City, Hamas fighters managed to target another Israeli force fortified inside a house with a shell, killing and wounding several Israeli soldiers, the al-Qassam Brigades said in the statement. An Israeli soldier was directly hit by a Hamas sniper in the industrial area of the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, according to the statement. Hamas fighters detonated an anti-personnel explosive device at a gathering of Israeli soldiers near the Riyadh Tower in the western Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, causing several deaths and injuries, the statement said. They also managed to detonate an anti-personnel explosive device near an Israeli foot patrol consisting of six soldiers in the south of the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, causing deaths and injuries, it added. So far, there has been no comment on the Hamas reports from the Israeli military. Israel has been launching a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on October 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage. The Hamas-run health authorities said the total Palestinian death toll in Gaza as of Tuesday has climbed to 38,243 since the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Sanaa, July 10 : Yemen's Houthi group said they have attacked three ships owned by the United States and Israel in the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden. The targeted ships were "Maersk Sentosa, Marthopolis, and MSC Patnaree," said Yahya Sarea, the Houthi spokesman, in a televised statement aired by the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV on Tuesday. Sarea said that the first operation "targeted the US ship, Maersk Sentosa, in the Arabian Sea with several ballistic and winged missiles," reports Xinhua news agency. The second operation "targeted the ship, Marthopolis, in the Arabian Sea with drones" due to the company owning it had entered a port in Israel, he said. The third operation targeted "the Israeli ship, MSC Patnaree, in the Gulf of Aden with several drones," he said, adding that "the three operations achieved their goals successfully and the hits were direct and accurate." "Our operations will not stop until the Israeli aggression and siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip stop," he said. This is the latest in a series of Houthi attacks against ships transiting off Yemen since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict broke out last year. The Houthi group, which controls much of northern Yemen, began in November last year to launch anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones targeting what they said were Israeli-linked ships transiting the Red Sea to show solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In response, the US-British naval coalition stationed in the waters has since January conducted air raids and missile strikes against Houthi targets to deter the group, but this only led to an expansion of Houthi attacks to include US and British commercial vessels and naval ships. Agartala, July 10 : Five more Rohingyas, including two women were arrested from the Agartala railway station, police said on Wednesday. Acting on a tip-off, the Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel arrested the Rohingyas on Tuesday night for their illegal entry into India from Bangladesh. "We arrested the intruders just before they boarded a Guwahati-bound train. The Rohingyas said that they intended to go to Hyderabad in search of jobs," a GRP official said. The Tripura police on July 4 arrested 25 Rohingyas, including six women and seven children, from two different places in North Tripura District when they were about to board buses to first go to Guwahati and then to Hyderabad by train in search of jobs. Before illegally entering Tripura, the Rohingyas fled from their camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazaar, where more than one million displaced Rohingyas from Myanmar have been living since 2017. Over 100 Bangladeshi nationals, including women and children, have been arrested from the Agartala railway station for their illegal entry while 30 Rohingyas, including eight women and seven children, were arrested from different places in Tripura in the last two months. Due to rising infiltration from across the border, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha during a high-level meeting last week asked the top Border Security Force (BSF) and police officials to take appropriate measures to prevent infiltration, smuggling, illegal trade and border crimes. BSF's Tripura frontier Inspector General, Patel Piyush Purushottam Das, said that physical domination has been augmented with state-of-the-art surveillance technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled cameras and facial recognition tools along the 856 km India-Bangladesh border with Tripura to prevent infiltration, crimes and other illegal activities. Bhopal, July 10 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be visiting Indore, the economic city of Madhya Pradesh on July 14. It will be his first visit to the state after the Lok Sabha elections where the BJP won all 29 seats. During his visit, the Home Minister would inaugurate the aPrime Minister College of Excellencea at Arts and Commerce College in Indore. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav-led BJP government of Madhya Pradesh has started as many as 55 aPM Excellence Collegesa. CM Yadav has earlier announced that one government college of each district (total 55 districts are in MP) would be converted as aPM Excellence Collegea and better facilities, including adequate teaching staff, libraries and bus services for the students would be provided. More than 1500 professors would be appointed in aPM Excellence Collegesa. At present, a total of 570 government colleges are operating in Madhya Pradesh. The facilities and faculties in these colleges have been upgraded, for which the state government has sanctioned Rs 460 crore. During his visit to the city, the Union Home Minister will also participate in a tree plantation drive, which is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modias initiative for a nationwide plantation drive under the aEk Ped Maa Ke Naama campaign. A notification of appointing the officials issued by the Indore district collector read that Home Minister Amit Shah would plant a sapling at aRevti Rangea ground in Indore. The MP government has started a mega plantation drive in the state and 50 lakh saplings will be planted in Indore city. Earlier, CM Mohan Yadav, Urban Development Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav and some other BJP leaders participated in the mega plantation drive in Indore. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who visited Indore on Tuesday, planted a sapling at aPitra Parvata. On Monday, Bollywood actor Sunil Shetty arrived in Indore and joined the plantation drive being carried out by the Indore Municipal Corporation. Mumbai, July 10 : Actress Alia Bhatt has commenced shooting for the spy universe film 'Alpha' after undergoing a rigorous four-month training regimen to portray a super agent. A picture of the actress is doing the rounds on social media, where Alia is seen making her way to the sets. Alia is dressed in a white shirt and blue pants, accompanied by an entourage holding an umbrella with her name printed on it. A source told IANS: Alia has started shooting for 'Alpha' on July 5. The film presents herself in a never-before-seen avatar. She has trained for about four months to prepare herself to play a super agent." The source further revealed that the actress has several high-octane action sequences in the film. "She has five to six major action sequences in the film, and she needs to be at her fittest. She has pushed her body to a breaking point because she has to look ruthless on screen," the source said. The Spy Universe film was officially titled on July 5 and also stars actress Sharvari, who is known for her recent successes with 'Munjya' and 'Maharaj'. A video shared during the title unveiling featured Alia saying, "Greek alphabet ka sabse pehla akshar Aur humare program ka motive, sabse pehle, sabse tez, sabse veer. Dhyaan se dekho toh har sheher mein ek jungle hai. Aur jungle mein hamesha Raj karega Alpha." Directed by Shiv Rawail, who is known for the streaming series 'The Railway Men', 'Alpha' is also produced by YRF. Mumbai, July 10 : Proceedings of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly on Wednesday were adjourned thrice amid sloganeering by the treasury members targeting the opposition for skipping an all-party meeting convened by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to discuss the Maratha-OBC reservation issue. CM Shinde had convened the all-party meeting on Tuesday. The ruling party members entered into the well of the House and shouted slogans demanding that the opposition clarify its stand on whether the Maratha community should be provided reservation separately or they should get the benefits from the OBC quota. After the question hour was over, BJP legislator Amit Satam said that the all-party meeting was convened to discuss the Maratha OBC reservation issues, especially amid the ongoing protests from both communities. "The opposition is busy doing politics. If pro-Maratha activists are demanding quota from OBC what is their fault? The opposition should make their stand clear instead of doing politics with an eye to the election," said Satam. BJP legislator Ashish Shelar slammed the opposition for announcing their decision to skip the all-party meeting at the last minute. "On whose call and SMS, the opposition decided not to attend the meeting, it should be known. The opposition should speak up and clear its stand on the floor of the House," he demanded. As Shelar spoke, the treasury bench members started shouting slogans and some of them entered the well. Speaker Rahul Narwekar repeatedly asked the treasury bench members to take their seats but they stood in front of the presiding officersa podium and continued shouting slogans. The Speaker amid slogan shouting adjourned the House for five minutes at 12.11 p.m. After the House reassembled at 12.16 p.m. the members were not in a mood to listen to Speakersa call to take their seats but stepped up shouting. The Leader of the Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar, meanwhile, tried in vain to speak but decided not to do so amid slogan shouting. BJP legislator Sanjay Kute demanded that the opposition parties, especially the Congress, NCP SP and Shiv Sena UBT should clear their stand on the Maratha OBC reservation issues. He alleged that the opposition was responsible for dividing the communities and disturbing social harmony and peace. "The opposition should clarify whether they are in favour of a separate reservation to the Maratha community or from the OBC quota. The opposition is involved in double speak," he claimed. Shelar again stood up and demanded that Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena UBT should tender a public apology to the Maratha community. He reiterated his demand on whose call and SMS the opposition decided to skip the meeting and it should be known to the people. Wadettiwar again stood up and accused the MahaYuti government of creating controversy over Maratha-OBC reservations. "Chief Minister holds talks with one side while Dy CM interacts with another side," he said. Even when Wadettiwar was speaking, the treasury bench members continued shouting slogans. The Speaker again asked them to take their seats saying the proceedings cannot take place in such a situation. Thereafter, he adjourned the House for the second time at 12.23 p.m. When the House reassembled at 12.33 p.m., BJP legislator Nitish Rane demanded whether the Maratha community be given quota separately or from the OBC quota. "By skipping yesterdayas meeting, the opposition partyas real face is exposed," he claimed. Shelar said that Tuesday's meeting was called to jointly discuss a formula to resolve the Maratha OBC reservation issues. "What made the opposition not attend yesterday's meeting? On whose call and SMS, they decided to skip the meeting yesterday? They should tell the people," he said again. Wadettiwar alleged that the opposition was shouting slogans to "hide its sin". The Speaker repeatedly asked the treasury bench members to take their seats as the Leader of Opposition was speaking. However, they stuck to their stand and continued shouting slogans. The Speaker adjourned the House for the third time at 12.38 p.m. till 1.23 p.m. New Delhi, July 10 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a notice on a plea moved by the Karnataka SIT seeking cancellation of anticipatory bail granted to Bhavani Revanna, mother of Prajwal Revanna, the suspended JD(S) MP and prime accused in the sex video case. After much persuasion, a Bench presided over by Justice Surya Kant agreed to examine the Special Leave Petition and sought a response in the matter from Bhavani Revanna, who is the daughter-in-law of former Prime Minister Deve Gowda. The Bench, also comprising Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, questioned senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the SIT, about the role attributed to Prajwal Revannaas mother. In response, senior advocate Sibal said that the victim in her statement recorded under Section 164 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) described the role of Bhavani Revanna in abducting her. Remarking that the plea pertains to liberty of a woman, whose guilt is to be determined during trial, the apex court cautioned that the matter need not be politicised. On June 18, the Karnataka High Court had allowed Bhavani Revannaas anticipatory bail petition in a kidnap case linked to the sex video scandal. As a condition for grant of anticipatory bail, a Bench headed by Justice Krishna S Dixit of the High Court restricted her entry into Mysuru and Hassan districts. The victim in the kidnap case hails from Mysuru District and Hassan is the native district of Bhavani Revanna. In its order, the Karnataka High Court said that Bhavani Revanna had answered 85 questions asked by the police and, hence, the argument of her non-cooperation with the probe can't be accepted. Bhavani Revanna is presently appearing before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) in connection with the kidnap case of a maid, who allegedly suffered sexual assault at the hands of Prajwal Revanna and her husband JD(S) MLA HD Revanna. New Delhi, July 10 : The prices of Urad have started declining in the domestic market on the back of a higher procurement of the summer crop by government agencies and the outlook for the kharif crop has improved with the increase in sown area this year due to a better monsoon, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs said on Wednesday. As of July 6, wholesale prices of Urad have witnessed a week-on-week decline of 3.12 per cent and 1.08 per cent in the Indore and Delhi markets respectively. In alignment with domestic prices, the landed prices of imported Urad are also on a declining trend, the ministry said in a statement. The procurement of summer Urad under the Price Support Scheme (PSS) by NAFED and NCCF is in progress. As of 5th July, the area sown for Urad has reached 5.37 lakh hectares, as compared to 3.67 lakh hectares for the corresponding period last year. The 90-day crop is expected to experience a healthy kharif production this year. Ahead of the Kharif sowing season, there has been significant momentum in the pre-registration of farmers through government agencies such as NAFED and NCCF. These efforts are part of the government's strategy to encourage farmers to shift towards pulse production during the Kharif season, aiming for self-sufficiency in this sector. In Madhya Pradesh alone, a total of 8,487 Urad farmers have already registered through NCCF and NAFED. Meanwhile, other major producing states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have seen pre-registrations of 2037, 1611 and 1663 farmers respectively, indicating widespread participation in these initiatives. These measures underscore the government's commitment to balancing market dynamics while supporting both, farmers and consumers, the official statement added. Lucknow, July 10 : The AAP in Uttar Pradesh will take out a Tiranga Yatra in Lucknow on August 14, to mobilise its cadres. The AAP will also revive its Tiranga Shakhas, weekly meetings of locals through which the party had, till last year, been implementing various social projects. The AAP had become almost inactive when party MP and UP incharge Sanjay Singh, was imprisoned. While the AAP did not contest any seat in UP during the Lok Sabha elections, it had campaigned actively for INDIA bloc partners Samajwadi Party and the Congress. Sanjay Singh after his release from jail addressed several joint and solo rallies and press conferences with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. "Parliament's Budget Session will begin on July 22 and continue till August 12. It is only after its conclusion that we will finally be able to shift our focus here. The current Union government led by the BJP is not going to survive for more than a year and we will ensure that the momentum picked up by the Opposition this election is not lost," said Sanjay Singh. Sanjay Singh has been meeting party workers in Sultanpur, Chandauli, Varanasi and Ayodhya, and has discussed with them the party's course of action for the coming days. He told reporters, "We are ready for a long-drawn battle against the ruling party and will also rejuvenate the AAP's organisation. The mood in the party is upbeat and we will fight back with renewed vigour." New Delhi, July 10 : Indians travelled close to 1,000 cities across 68 countries over the year, a new report revealed on Wednesday. According to the ride-hailing platform Uber, summer holidays appear to be the most popular travel time for Indians to travel abroad as schools and colleges go into a break. The most popular month for overseas travel in 2023 was May, compared to June in 2022. "Indians have been breaking all travel records over the past couple of years," said Prabhjeet Singh, President, Uber India and South Asia. The data reflected a sharp increase in the number of Indians using the ridesharing app abroad during 2023, with the number of overseas travellers being second only to Americans. While overseas, Indians travelled 25 per cent longer distances on average compared to their trips in India, and tried as many as 21 different products across countries, according to the report. During the ongoing summer travel season, Indians are expected to cross records set in the previous years, the report mentioned. New Delhi, July 10 : Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will be leading an Indian Parliamentary Delegation (IPD) to the two-day 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum meeting which begins in Russia's St Petersburg on Thursday. The forum is being held with the theme of 'Role of Parliaments in Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security'. The Indian delegation also includes Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh, Rajya Sabha MP Shambhu Sharan Patel, Lok Sabha Secretary General Utpal Kumar Singh and Rajya Sabha Secretary General PC Modi, among other officials. "Leading an IPD to the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Looking forward to strengthening inter-parliamentary cooperation with BRICS and the invitee countries. Eager to meet and connect with the vibrant Indian diaspora during this visit," Birla posted on X. The Lok Sabha Speaker is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with Parliament Speakers of other countries at the sidelines of the event. He will also present India's stance on relevant issues and meet Indian expatriates in Moscow. Birla will present his views on two sub-topics during the plenary session- 'BRICS Parliamentary Dimension- Possibilities of Strengthening Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation' and 'Role of Parliaments in Overcoming Threats Related to Fragmentation of the Multilateral Trading System and the Consequences of Global Crises'. Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh will also address the forum on two sub-topics during the plenary session - 'Role of Parliaments in Increasing the Efficiency of the System of International Relations and Ensuring Its Democratisation' and 'Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation in Humanitarian and Cultural Fields'. A joint statement will be passed at the conclusion of the summit. Apart from the BRICS countries, which include four new members (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates) since January, Speakers and Parliament Members from the other invited countries, including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan with the Chairperson of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Tulia Aksen will participate in the meetings of the BRICS Parliamentary Forum. Colombo, July 10 : The Sri Lankan cabinet approved a multi-sectoral national action plan for implementation between 2024 and 2028 to eliminate sexual and gender-based harassment in the country, said the government information department on Wednesday. President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the minister of women, children affairs and social empowerment, presented the proposal, the department said, reported Xinhua news agency. The department said that policy involvement must ensure the right of women, men and children to live in a fair and social environment without any violence, adding that the first national action plan to address such harassment was implemented with an integrated approach between 2012 and 2020. The necessity of a new national action plan has been identified in a follow-up assessment to find out the impact of the previous action plan, according to the department. Vienna, July 10 : India and Austria have identified "new possibilities" to further strengthen mutual cooperation besides also deciding to give a strategic direction to their bilateral ties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced here on Wednesday. Making a joint statement along with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Prime Minister Modi, who arrived in Vienna from Moscow on Tuesday evening, said that he also held detailed discussions on the current geopolitical situation in the world. "Chancellor Nehammer and I have discussed in detail all the ongoing disputes in the world, whether it is the conflict in Ukraine or the situation in West Asia. I have said it earlier also that this is not the time for war," he said. PM Modi noted that mutual trust and shared interests have strengthened India-Austria relations. "Today I had a very fruitful conversation with Chancellor Nehammer. Shared beliefs in values such as democracy and the rule of law are the strong foundation of India-Austria relations. We both strongly condemn terrorism. We agree that it is not acceptable in any form. It cannot be justified in any way. We also agree to reform the United Nations and other international organizations to make them contemporary and effective," he said. Earlier, the PM was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Federal Chancery as he began his landmark visit to Austria, the first by an Indian Prime Minister to the country in 41 years. Scripting a new chapter in bilateral relations, he was warmly received by Chancellor Nehammer who had last week called the Indian Prime Minister's visit to Vienna as a "special honour". The Austrian Chancellor hosted PM Modi for a private engagement as the Indian PM arrived from Moscow on Tuesday evening. This was the first meeting between the two leaders and comes at a time when the two countries are marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. He said that discussions on realising the "full potential" of bilateral partnership lie ahead. Prime Minister Modi thanked Chancellor Nehammer for the "warm welcome" and said that he was looking forward to the discussions on Wednesday as both nations continue working together to further global good. Besides holding talks with Chancellor Nehammer, PM Modi is also scheduled to call on Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, address business leaders from India and Austria and interact with members of the Indian community in Vienna. New Delhi, July 10 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed a Gujarat High Court order that had asked the state government to recover 108 hectares of land that had been allotted to Adani Ports and SEZ. A bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan passed the order in an appeal filed by Adani Ports against the recovery of around 108 hectares of land by the Gujarat government. The Supreme Court has now sought the Gujarat government's reply on the matter. This land is located near Mundra port in Kachchh district. The matter goes back to 2005 when the 108 hectares were allotted to Adani Ports. In 2010, when Adani Ports started fencing the land, residents of Navinal village there approached the high court with a public interest litigation (PIL) and challenged the allotment of 231 hectares of grazing land to Adani Ports. They argued that the village was facing a shortage of grazing land and this allotment would leave them with only 45 acres. In 2014, the court disposed of the matter after the state government said that an order granting 387 hectares of government land for grazing had been passed. In 2015, the state government filed a review petition and told the court that only 17 hectares were available to be allocated to the village panchayat. It proposed that it may allocate the remaining land about 7 kilometres away. The villagers rejected this, contending that it was too far for cattle to graze. In April this year, the court asked a senior revenue official to come up with a solution. The official responded that the state government had decided to take back nearly 108 hectares of land that had been allocated to Adani Ports in 2005. Mumbai, July 10 : BMW crash prime accused Mihir R. Shah, the son of former Shiv Sena Deputy Leader Rajesh Shah, on Wednesday confessed that he was driving the car when it hit a two-wheeler, killing fisherwoman Kaveri P. Nakhwa on July 7. Mihir, 24, who was absconding for nearly 60 hours after the accident before he was tracked down and arrested, was produced by the Worli police before a Sewri court and after a brief hearing, he was sent to police custody for a week till the next Tuesday. Earlier, his father Rajesh Shah, who was abruptly removed from his Shiv Sena post on Wednesday morning, was arrested and sent to 15 days judicial custody on Monday, but then released on bail. Family driver Rajrishi Bidawat has been sent to police custody till Thursday (July 11), in the sensational case that created a political storm with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi slamming the MahaYuti government. New Delhi, July 10 : The sixth conference on 'Empowering Persons with Disabilities through Accessible and Assistive Technology' was organised by ASSOCHAM. With the theme this year being 'Innovation and Sustainable Solutions for Equal Opportunities', the conference highlighted the importance of accessible information and communication technologies (ICTs), physical infrastructure and transportation, promoting employment opportunities through policy interventions, the role of public and private partnership in ensuring access to quality and affordable assistive technology. Assistive technology has taken on a whole new dimension -- giving voice to the previously voiceless, hearing to the deaf, and greater mobility than previously available. Empowering persons with disabilities (PwDs) with the confidence to achieve seemingly impossible goals, assistive technology has provided them with devices to excel at workplaces and prove their mettle. Artificial Intelligence is also playing a catalytic role by boosting the number of features available by augmenting assistive devices; capabilities and personalising experiences. Anil Rajput, Chairperson of the ASSOCHAM National CSR Council, said: "According to the WHO, 16 per cent of the world's population, which is over a billion people, have some form of disability, and 80 per cent of these live in the developing countries. With mobility being a critical factor in the lives of PwDs, in this context, I appeal to the automobile manufacturers in India to bring in the latest technologies in vehicles for disabled people that are being used in different parts of the world. This could have a transformational impact in the lives of persons with disabilities in India." "I also urge the media to not only focus on the challenges faced by the PwDs but also showcase their success stories. This will inspire many more to excel as well as bring forth their unique abilities before the larger audience," he added. According to estimates, the number of disabled persons in India stands at over 4 crore with some reports putting the number between 6 and 8 crore. Thus, ensuring an inclusive environment for PwDs will require concerted efforts of government, corporate houses and non-government organisations. Rajesh Agarwal, IAS, Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, said: "Every fourth family has a child with a disability and although society is becoming more inclusive, we need to do a lot more to ensure inclusivity. Although the government has policies in place for providing employment opportunities to PwDs, I believe employment opportunities in large numbers will have to come from the private sector. We also need more special schools in the country." "Education is important as it will help them become independent and ensure their all-round development. Use of devices like braille displays, speech-to-text software, specialised keyboards, and software solutions have also emboldened PwDs and made them exemplary professionals," he further said. Bengaluru, July 10 : The ED conducted raids on the residences of former minister B Nagendra, and tribal welfare Board Chairman Basavaraja Daddal, in Bengaluru and Bellary on Wednesday, in connection with irregularities in the Board. The ED also arrested Nagendra's Personal Assistant (PA), Harish. Raids are underway at the flats owned by Nagendra in upscale Sadashivanagar in Bengaluru and in Nehru Colony in Ballari city. Nagendra, a Congress MLA from Bellary Rural, was forced to resign after the irregularities came to light. Raids are also being conducted at the residence of Board Chairman Daddal in the Yelahanka locality of Bengaluru, sources said. Nagendra's PA, Harish allegedly received hawala money and gold biscuits on behalf of the former minister. He had also given oral orders to officers regarding transactions. Harish had allegedly received money sent by the accused Satyanarayana Varma from Hyderabad and is also charged with having received Rs 25 lakh from another accused, Padmanabha. Harish is suspected of having transacted Rs 50 to Rs 60 crore. In this backdrop, Harish has been arrested for further investigation by the ED, sources stated. Commenting on the raids, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah stated, "Let the ED sleuths continue to do their job. Let them do what they want to do as per the law." He refused to answer a question about the chances of former minister Nagendra being arrested in the case. Commenting on the development, state BJP President, BY Vijayendra stated that the ED was moving in the right direction. Karnataka Home Minister, G. Parameshwara, stated on Wednesday that he did not know why the ED was conducting raids on Nagendra's residences. He said, "The investigation is being conducted by the SIT based on the statements recorded by Nagendra, Board Chairman Daddal, and their assistants. The investigation will continue today as well, and in the meantime, the ED sleuths have conducted raids. The ED or the Union government did not inform the state about the raids. They conducted the raids, and it is their job. There is no question of the Congress government being embarrassed. "We can't assume the roles of Nagendra and Daddal in the case." The BJP is alleging direct involvement of CM Siddaramaiah in the case and claiming that Rs 187 crore were used to fund elections in Telangana and other states. The irregularities had come to light after the suicide of senior officer Chandrasekaran, who left a note alleging that senior officials had forced him to open a parallel account to divert money from the Board's primary account, based on "oral instructions by a minister." Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister, DK Shivakumar on Tuesday said, "It is true that there is misuse and misappropriation of funds in the tribal welfare Board by the officers. We have spoken in this regard with our ministers. They have clarified that they are not involved in any of the acts. "One of our ministers has voluntarily resigned as it is not good to face an investigation being a minister. I came to know that a notice had been issued to him to appear before the authorities. I won't interfere, let them conduct an investigation." Panaji, July 10 : Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday said that his government has written to the Central government over the protest of Karnataka by stopping Goa's state-run Kadamba Transport Corporation Limited (KTCL) bus in Belagavi, against his government's move to seek the inspection of Mhadei. "I have sought a report from the DGP and Chief Secretary over this incident. Interstate buses should not be harmed. Though they have not damaged the bus but stopping it and climbing on its roof is not correct. I have written to the Central government about this incident," Goa Chief Minister said. While members of the water management authority Mhadei PRAWAH inspected the river's stretch in Karnataka on Saturday, a few individuals allegedly stopped an interstate bus in Belagavi. "I have personally seen how the flow of water is diverted to Malaprabha. The PRAWAH team has inspected it. Hence they (Karnataka) were opposing the inspection by this team," Sawant said. on Tuesday, the Chief Minister said some people in Karnataka's Belgavi burning his photo over the Mhadei River issue, suggests that his government is on the 'right track'. "Mhadei PRAWAH is an independent authority. I don't know why Karnataka is pained by their inspection. It is important to allow them to make fair inspections. Their report will be authentic," he said. "We are on the right track. Let the PRAWAH submit the report. I am confident and have trust that their decision will help Goa," the Chief Minister added. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah recently met Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking clearance on the Kalasa Banduri Drinking Water Project. Reacting to the meeting, Chief Minister Sawant had said that the Centre will take Goa into confidence before taking any decision. Mhadei originates in Karnataka and meets the Arabian Sea in Panaji. Karnataka plans to construct dams on the 28.8 km river stretch that flows through it to divert water into its Malaprabha basin in the north. Oslo, July 10 : Norway Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said on Wednesday that the country will start the process of donating six F-16 fighters to Ukraine this year, aiming to boost Kyiv's ability to defend itself against attacks from the air during its ongoing conflict against Russia. The Norwegian government had decided last year to donate the F-16s to Ukraine as part of a multinational collaboration, led by Denmark, the Netherlands and the USA. Store had announced the decision on Ukraine's Independence Day in Kyiv last year. Norway's Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that it has contributed to the training of Ukrainian fighter pilots at Denmark's Skrydstrup air base since autumn 2023. "Norway has and Norway will support the training in the future as well," said Prime Minister Store. Norway phased out F-16 fighters in 2021 in connection with the phasing in of the new F-35 combat aircraft. As many as 32 F-16s have been sold to Romania. "We must continue to support Ukraine's defence against the Russian war of aggression. Ukraine is fighting a battle both for its own freedom and for our shared values, democracy and international law. Ukraine is at the forefront of Euro-Atlantic security," stated Espen Barth Eide, Norway's Foreign Minister. The need for weapons for the fighters will increase in line with the number of F-16s in the Ukrainian Air Force, believes Norway's Defence Minister Bjorn Arild Gram. "Armament and other support for the aircraft will be handled within the framework of the multinational cooperation. Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Great Britain and Norway are involved in this collaboration," he mentioned. New Delhi, July 10 : Bhutan Foreign Minister D.N. Dhungyel and Myanmar's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister U Than Swe arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday to attend the two-day second BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat as India continues to reiterate its commitment to promote connectivity and linkages in the shared Bay of Bengal region. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will on Thursday host his counterparts for the significant Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) meet which brings together seven countries of South and South East Asia for multifaceted cooperation. "The Retreat will present an opportunity for the Foreign Ministers of the BIMSTEC countries to discuss, in an informal setting, avenues to broaden and deepen cooperation across various sectors including in the fields of security, connectivity, trade and investment, people-to-people contacts etc, in the Bay of Bengal region and littoral," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement. The first edition of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat was held in Bangkok in July 2023. Last month, as he congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the BJP-led NDA's third consecutive term, Thailand Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said that he is already looking forward to the Indian leader's visit to the country in September this year for the BIMSTEC Summit. "While Prime Minister Modi will be visiting Thailand in September this year to attend the BIMSTEC Summit; on my part, I look forward to paying an official visit to India at the earliest opportunity to realise the full potential of our relations," he said. Chandigarh, July 10 : Punjab Police have busted a fake arms licence racket with the arrest of two gang members, Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav said here on Wednesday. The racket was running from a sewa kendra (service centre) in Tarn Taran at the behest of district manager Suraj Bhandari, who is on the run. Yadav said the arrested gang members include service centre employee Harpal Singh and photostat shop owner Baljit Singh, who admitted to being the brains behind the tampering of identity proofs, including Aadhaar cards and arms license proforma, to facilitate the preparation of the fake arms licence. Police teams have also recovered a laptop containing details of the various edited documents and online open-source software used for tampering with documents, he added. The racket was uncovered following the arrest of Bablu on April 9 in an attempted murder case, as he, during interrogation, confessed to owning fake licensed weapons, along with co-accused Kanwardeep Singh. The DGP said following the revelations of Bablu, police teams started investigations and discovered that the weapon licence was verified from the Deputy Commissioner's Office in Tarn Taran but was not reflected in the official record. Moreover, criminals with adverse records, originally residents of Amritsar, were utilising facilities at Tarn Taran to make fake licences on the basis of forged Aadhaar cards, he added. Patna, July 10 : Four persons including an SHO were injured during the clashes which broke out between people and police during the bypoll in the Rupauli assembly segment in Bihar on Wednesday. The injured officer, identified as Tarkeshwar Prasad Singh, SHO of Bhawanipur police station, was deployed at polling booths number 75 and 76 in Bhangra Madhya Vidyalaya under the jurisdiction of Bhawanipur block. He has been admitted to Bhawanipur Government Hospital for treatment. A police officer confirmed the clashes and the injury to the SHO. The people allege that the district police forcibly stopped them from polling their votes, leading to a scuffle that escalated into stone-pelting. The district police, however, have denied these allegations. RJD candidate Bima Bharti accused Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of orchestrating lathi charges on RJD workers and booth agents to influence the election in favour of the JD(U) candidate. Another incident was reported in Gorier village, where the wife of independent candidate Shankar Singh accused the police of initiating a lathi charge on voters. She sat on a dharna, but the situation soon stabilised while voting also resumed. Till 3 pm, election officials said that despite violent incidents, Rupauli witnessed 42.19 voter turnout. Following the incident, District Magistrate Kundan Kumar and Superintendent of Police Upendranath Verma visited the assembly segment to assess the situation. The main contenders in Rupauli are Bima Bharti of RJD, Kaladhar Mandal of JD(U), and independent candidate Shankar Singh. Over 3 lakh voters will decide the fate of 11 candidates. Paris, July 10 : South Korean tech giant Samsung on Wednesday unveiled the all-new Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Flip6 foldables, along with wearable devices, with new features at its 'Unpacked' event here. The Galaxy Z Fold6, Z Flip6 and wearable devices (Galaxy Ring, Buds3 series, Watch7 and Watch Ultra) will be available for pre-order starting July 10, with general availability from July 24. Galaxy Z Fold6 will be available in Silver Shadow, Pink and Navy colours while Galaxy Z Flip6 will come in Silver Shadow, Yellow, Blue and Mint colour options, said the company. "Our foldables meet the unique needs of every user and now enhanced by the power of Galaxy AI, Samsung is delivering an experience like never before," said TM Roh, President and Head of Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics. The latest additions to our wearables portfolio aenables you to take control of your health and wellness with preventative healthcare solutions," he added. Both the Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Flip6 come equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform for Galaxy. The processor is optimised for AI processing and offers enhanced graphics along with improved overall performance, the company said. The Galaxy Z Fold6 offers a range of AI-powered features and tools that maximise the large screen and significantly enhance productivity. The latest Google Gemini app comes fully integrated on the new Galaxy Z series, providing you with an AI-powered assistant right on your phone. Moreover, Galaxy Z Fold6 offers an upgraded gaming experience, anchored by its powerful chipset and 1.6x larger vapour chamber for the ability to game for longer, while still maintaining performance. On the other hand, the Flip6 comes with a range of new customisation and creativity features so users can make the most of every moment. According to the company, the 3.4-inch Super AMOLED FlexWindow has been enhanced yet again, enabling AI-assisted functions without even needing to open the device. FlexWindow provides access to Samsung Health updates and notifications and also allows you to select the next track you want to listen to on your music widget. Further, the company mentioned that the new 50MP wide and 12MP ultra-wide sensors provide an upgraded camera experience with clear and crisp details in pictures. The company also unveiled Galaxy Ring with its proven sensor technology. Designed for 24/7 health monitoring, the Galaxy Ring is lightweight, weighing from 2.3-3 grams. It claims to offer up to seven days of battery life and comes in three colours -- Titanium Black, Titanium Silver and Titanium Gold, along with a kit with nine size options. Galaxy Ring supports various features such as sleep score, cycle tracking, energy score, wellness tips, heart rate alert, auto workout detection, and others. Galaxy Watch7 is designed to help users gain a holistic understanding of themselves, while the Watch Ultra unlocks enhanced fitness experiences for next-level achievements with ultimate intelligence and capabilities. Galaxy Watch7 will be available in two sizes -- 40mm and 44mm, while Watch Ultra will be available in a 47mm size in Titanium Gray, Titanium White and Titanium Silver colours, said the company. New Delhi, July 10 : The high-level Network Planning Group under PM GatiShakti has fine-tuned the Rs 1,295 crores brownfield project for upgrading a 10.63 km section of NH-47 to address increasing traffic congestion in the southern part of Ahmedabad connecting major highways and expressways. The project aims to enhance smooth and safe traffic flow, thus improving service levels. Upgrading this critical 6 Lane Road including the elevated corridor of NH-47 (Narol Jn. to Sarkhej Jn.), is expected to facilitate more efficient movement of goods and people, contributing to the economic vitality of the region, according to an official statement issued on Wednesday. The 4-lanning of a 33.6 km section of NH-166 from Chokak to Sangli in Maharashtra was also evaluated at the meeting. The project will enhance connectivity between key regions of Kolhapur and Sangli in Maharashtra, at an estimated cost of INR 864 crores. This development will reduce the travel time by 50 per cent and the distance by about 5.4 km. This will also have a significant impact on environmental attributes. The improvement of this road will save fuel and time as well as help in controlling the pollution measures due to the emission of smoke from vehicles, the statement added. Network Planning Group (NPG) headed by Additional Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Rajeev Singh Thakur, evaluated the two highway projects from the perspective of principles of PM GatiShakti which focus on the integrated development of multimodal infrastructure development, last mile connectivity to economic and social nodes, intermodal connectivity and possible synchronised implementation of the projects. Bhubaneswar, July 10 : The Odisha Cabinet has approved five key proposals during a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Wednesday. The Cabinet has given its nod for the enhancement of the minimum wage of unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled workers from Rs 352, Rs 392, Rs 442 and Rs 502 to Rs 450, Rs 500, Rs 550 and Rs 600 respectively. Speaking to media persons after the Cabinet meeting, the Chief Minister said: "The second proposal was related to the issue of Odia Asmita under the Odia Bhasha Sahitya and Sanskruti department. A corpus fund of Rs 200 crore has been created in today's cabinet meeting for the revival of Odia Asmita and to encourage the promotion and propagation of the art, literature, architecture, culture and heritage of Odisha." Majhi further added that the corpus fund will be spent for the construction of Odia Asmita Bhawan, Odia Translation Academy, the construction of the world-class Manuscript museum, the development of Paik Vidroh Smaraki (Paik Rebellion Monument), international, steps to get international recognition for the Bali Yatra, Kalakar Gaurav Nidghi Yojana, the financial incentive for the training of Odissi dance and music, creation of Odia chair at international and national universities, setting up of e-granthalaya and e-library at the district level etc. He stated that the concerned department has been asked to prepare detailed guidelines and a committee will also be constituted for this. The cabinet also decided to enhance the corpus amount if needed in future. The Cabinet also decided to spend Rs 1044 crore in the coming five years to revive the defunct lift irrigation projects and boost the capability of the operational irrigation projects in the state. The cabinet meeting also approved several other major proposals of different departments. Lucknow, July 10 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has cracked down on several government officials and employees in a case of illegal sale of land and its allocation to the accused close aides, in Sirsaganj tehsil of Firozabad district. The government has suspended the SDM, Naib Tehsildar, Revenue Inspector, Lekhpal, and Peshkar in the case and has instructed the District Magistrate to file an FIR against the accused in addition to initiating departmental action against them. Simultaneously, the state government's Vigilance department has issued instructions to investigate disproportionate assets angle against all the implicated officers and employees. This action has been taken after the recommendation of the committee constituted for investigation. During his tenure in Sirsaganj tehsil, Sub-Divisional Magistrate Vivek Rajput of Firozabad, while adjudicating a case related to the land in village Rudhaini in June 2024, overturned the lower court's decision and issued a suspicious order. Within just five days of this ruling, he facilitated the irregular transfer of land to residents from his home district and other close relatives, allegedly abusing his official position. Based on prima facie findings, the Uttar Pradesh government has promptly suspended Vivek Rajput and has recommended further departmental action against him. Simultaneously, the Revenue Board has taken action against in-charge Tehsildar/Naib Tehsildar Naveen Kumar, suspending him for abusing his post to acquire land in collaboration with revenue officers, thereby breaching Government Servant Conduct Rules. Following an investigation into allegations of land grabbing and crop destruction, Accountant Abhilash Singh has been suspended by the SDM. The action was taken after he was found guilty in the probe, with directives issued for both departmental proceedings and the filing of an FIR against him. The state's Vigilance department has given instructions to investigate the disproportionate assets angle against SDM Vivek Rajput, Naib Tehsildar Naveen Kumar, Revenue Inspector Mukesh Kumar Singh, Accountant Abhilash Singh and SDMas Reader Pramod Shakya. The government has also recommended FIR along with departmental action against all of them. Mumbai, July 10 : Nagpur businessman and head of the Hazrat Baba Tajuddin Trust Pyare Jiya Khan took charge as the new Chairman of the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission in the presence of top dignitaries, officials said here on Wednesday. Along with Khan, Chetan K. Dedhia also took over as the new Vice-Chairman at a special ceremony attended by Speaker of Maharashtra Assembly Rahul Narwekar, Minorities Development Minister Abdul Sattar, Haji Syed Salman Chishty of Dargah Ajmer Sharif, Syed Afshan Chishty, Sheikh Abdul Wasey Chishty, and others. Felicitating Khan and Dedhia, Haji Syed Salman Chishty - who is the Gaddi Nashin of Dargah Ajmer Sharif - lauded the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, for the welfare of the minority communities in the country. He urged the new team to focus on key areas like educational empowerment through new scholarship programmes for minorities to deserving students from economically backward sections, vocational and skill development, employment and entrepreneurial opportunities, encouraging start-ups, loans, etc. to ensure their overall socio-economic development. Haji Syed Salman Chishty also highlighted the importance of fostering interfaith dialogues, cooperation to promote peace and understanding among communities at the national and international levels. There was a need to prioritise health care and social welfare of the minorities from various evils through community development projects in alliance with NGOs and social welfare institutions working in collaboration with the Maharashtra government, for not only Muslims but other minorities like Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis, he urged. On their part, Speaker Narwekar and Minister Sattar reiterated the state governmentas commitment towards the welfare of the minority communities and highlighted current and future initiatives in that direction. Shimla, July 10 : A voter turnout of over 71 per cent was recorded on Wednesday till 7 pm in the bypoll for three Assembly constituencies of Himachal Pradesh that were largely peaceful, officials said. The Nalagarh constituency recorded the highest polling of 78 per cent, followed by Hamirpur (67.7 per cent) and Dehra (65.42 per cent), according to the Election Commission of India. A voter turnout of 30 per cent was recorded in the first four hours for three Assembly seats. As many as 13 candidates are in the fray and the 2.59 lakh voters were eligible to cast their votes. The polling is being conducted to fill vacancies created by the resignation of incumbent members. The ballots will be counted on July 13. In a straight contest between traditional arch-rivals, the Congress and the BJP, the stakes are high for Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu with his wife Kamlesh Thakur making her electoral debut from Dehra in Kangra district. This constituency was carved out after delimitation in 2010 and the Congress has never won this seat. The Chief Minister campaigned aggressively in Dehra, compared to two other seats, to ensure victory for Kamlesh Thakur, who is in the fray against BJP nominee Hoshiyar Singh, who won the seat as an Independent candidate in 2022 for the second consecutive time. To woo the electorate, CM Sukhu said during campaigning that Dehra would technically get a CM if they elect his wife. The main Opposition BJP, which has won all four seats in the just-concluded parliamentary elections, has fielded KL Thakur from Nalagarh and Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur, where they will be pitted against the Congress' Hardeep Bawa and Pushpendra Verma, respectively. Both KL Thakur and Ashish Sharma won the seats as Independent candidates in 2022 before joining the BJP earlier this year. The duo, along with Hoshiyar Singh, resigned from the Assembly in March and joined the BJP. Earlier, in a major reprieve to the government, the Congress won four out of six Assembly bypoll on June 4. However, it lost all four Lok Sabha seats to the BJP for the third time in a row. With four new legislators, the Congress has stabilised its government in the state. At present, the Congress has 38 MLAs in the Assembly of 65, while the BJP has 27. Vienna, July 10 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chancellor of Austria Karl Nehammer, jointly addressed a group of leading Austrian and Indian CEOs from diverse sectors including infrastructure, automobile, energy, engineering and start-ups on Wednesday. Vienna, July 10 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chancellor of Austria Karl Nehammer, jointly addressed a group of leading Austrian and Indian CEOs from diverse sectors including infrastructure, automobile, energy, engineering and start-ups on Wednesday. Both leaders acknowledged the role played by industry leaders in strengthening bilateral relations and promoting economic cooperation between India and Austria. The leaders noted that trade and investment between the two countries has been increasing over the years and called for realising the full potential of the India-Austria partnership through greater collaboration. Prime Minister Modi called on the Austrian business stakeholders to look at the fast-unfolding opportunities in India, as the country moves to become the third largest economy in the world over the next few years. He noted that India had made transformative progress in the last ten years, and would continue on the same path given its strengths of political stability, policy predictability and its reform-oriented economic agenda. The Prime Minister urged Austrian majors to leverage the Indian economic landscape for high-quality and cost-effective manufacturing under the Make in Inda programme both for the domestic and international market and as a global supply chain destination. He spoke about Indiaas Production Linked Incentive scheme to attract global manufacturing companies in the fields of semiconductors, medical devices, and solar PV cells, among others. He noted that Indiaas economic strengths and skills and Austrian technology were natural partners for business, growth and sustainability. He invited Austrian businesses to utilise the investment opportunities in India and be a part of Indiaas stellar growth story. He highlighted the steps taken by the government to improve the ease of doing business that was attracting global majors to India. Talking about Indian economic growth and transformation, he noted Indiaas success in the field of start-ups, in the creation of next-generation infrastructure, and its commitment to forge ahead on the green agenda. PM Modi also mentioned that the start-up bridge set up between India and Austria would yield substantial results. He suggested that the two countries should come together and organise a joint hackathon. He further spoke about the success of Digital Public Infrastructure in the country and measures taken to improve connectivity and logistics. New Delhi, July 10 : The persistent threats by high-ranking Pakistani officials and ministers to target terrorist groups inside Afghanistan have raised the spectre of further destabilisation in the region. For a country that has struggled to contain the menace of terrorism within its borders, Pakistan's military-dominated establishment often obfuscates its shortcomings by blaming the Afghan Taliban and accusing it of providing sanctuary to terrorist groups targeting Pakistan. With this convenient scapegoating failing to address the root causes of Pakistan's internal security woes, these threats mark a significant escalation in Islamabad's approach to dealing with terrorism, actions that will most likely further strain the already fragile relations between Islamabad and Kabul. With an exponential surge in terrorist violence in the country, Pakistan's federal government, under pressure from China, whose five nationals were killed in one such incident on March 26, announced its latest counterterrorism operation, Azm-i-Istehkam, or Strong Resolve for Stability, on June 22. A press release from the Pakistan's Prime Ministeras Office (PMO), affirmed that this "reinvigorated and re-energised" military campaign "will integrate and synergise multiple lines of effort to combat the menaces of extremism and terrorism in a comprehensive and decisive manner". This was followed by Defence Minister Khwaja Asif's declaration of June 27 emphasising in no uncertain terms that Islamabad would not hesitate targeting terrorist groups inside Afghanistan as part of this counterterrorism push. Operation Azm-i-Istehkam is the latest in a series of military campaigns by the Pakistani state to root out terrorism from the country. In 2014, Pakistan launched its first large-scale counterterrorism operation, Zarb-e-Azb, or Sword of Prophet Muhammad, against various extremist groups such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in its North Waziristan region. While it displaced nearly a million people and led to hundreds of civilian deaths, Pakistan claimed to have succeeded in dismantling the terror ecosystem and eliminating over 3,500 terrorists. Despite these claims, the operation failed to address the root causes of extremism in the country, allowing the TTP and other groups to regain strength swiftly and engage in anti-state violence. Following Zarb-e-Azb, the Pakistan Army initiated Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad, or Rejection of Strife, to consolidate its gains. However, the recurrent terrorist attacks indicated that the campaign did little to dismantle the terror ecosystem in the country, allowing the terrorists to operate with relative impunity. The problem with these operations has been their unilateral militaristic approaches to the issues that demand multipronged engagement, something Pakistani authorities seem unwilling to adopt. The Pakistani government's strategy took a more complex turn in August 2021, when it supported the Afghan Taliban in ousting the Republican Government of Afghanistan to establish an Islamic Emirate. The belief was that a friendly regime in Kabul would help contain terrorism away from Pakistan's borders while providing it a strategic depth to counter regional powers like India and Iran. This expectation, however, proved to be very short-lived and highly delusional as it did not bring any security dividend to Pakistan. Instead, it appears to have further contributed to Pakistanas internal security vows. The Afghan Taliban, sharing ideological ties with the TTP, have little incentive to act against their ideological brothers and credible allies who had fought alongside them against American forces. As such, it has disregarded Islamabad's calls for undertaking military action against TTP, especially after the breakdown of a ceasefire between the Pakistan Army and TTP in November 2022. Ever since, Pakistan has witnessed an exponential surge in terrorist attacks resulting in over 2,300 deaths of Pakistani security forces, as claimed by the countryas federal government. Ever since, Pakistan has repeatedly blamed the Afghan Taliban for providing safe sanctuary to TTP militants, asserting that these groups "have consistently used Afghan territory to launch terror attacks inside Pakistani territory", accusations that Kabul has repeatedly denied. Interestingly, the Afghan Taliban has accused Pakistan's spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of patronising Islamic State Khorasan (ISK), a group which has emerged as the biggest security challenge for the Afghan government and conducted dozens of terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan. With an unprecedented surge in terrorist attacks in March 2024 wherein seven Pakistani soldiers were killed, including a Lieutenant Colonel and a Captain rank officer, Islamabad went on to conduct cross-border air strikes inside Afghanistan on March 18, 2024, demonstrating the level of distrust between Kabul and Islamabad. The Pakistan authorities claimed to have killed eight terrorists in the Paktika and Khost provinces along the Pakistan border in its air strikes. Afghan Taliban in response condemned the air strikes as an outright "violation of Afghani territory", warning Islamabad that such transgressions could "lead to dire consequences which will not be in control of Pakistan", even as it mobilised its forces along the Durand Line. Nevertheless, Kabul has consistently denied its support for the Pakistan Taliban. It has reasoned that instead of blaming Afghanistan for its "failure to control violent incidents", it would better serve Islamabad to look inwards and address its internal fissures than pointing fingers at others. As such, Pakistan's threats to repeat such actions not only risk violating international norms but could also ignite a broader conflict in an already volatile region. The potential for cross-border counterterrorism operations raises several critical questions. First and foremost, can Pakistan achieve its security objectives without further destabilizing the region? The answer is uncertain. While targeting militant groups in Afghanistan may yield short-term gains, it will likely provoke retaliatory attacks and deepen the cycle of violence as has been demonstrated by its earlier military campaigns. It seems that Pakistani authorities in its bid to appease China, on whose behest Operation Azm-i-Istehkam is being conducted, are unwilling to address the root cause of instability in the country. Moreover, the projection of the ghost of external threat is an obfuscation of the failure of Pakistani security forces which have for years engaged in counter-terrorism measures and yet not succeeded in ending this menace from the country. It is highly unlikely that the Afghan government will view any such incursions and Islamabad's constant badgering with kindness amidst its own security predicaments. Therefore, as Pakistan initiates yet another military campaign, it should remember that any cross-border misadventure in Afghanistan is fraught with risks that could further destabilise an already fragile region. Shehbaz Sharif's government would do Pakistan a favour by refraining from such hawkish measures and understanding that the path to the countryas lasting security and stability lies not in military transgressions but holistically addressing the root cause of terrorism in the country which has socio-economic grievances at the core. It must tread carefully, lest it finds itself embroiled in a conflict that it cannot control. New Delhi, July 10 : Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said India will be the 3rd largest economy in the next 3-4 years while the country's exports would scale the $ 2 trillion export target by 2030. Addressing the FICCI national executive committee meeting here, Goyal said: "With the rapidly growing start-up India initiative, growing infrastructure, investments in manufacturing which are creating a lot of opportunities for trade, business, jobs and exports. We will be the 3rd largest economy in the next 3-4 years." He also observed that the direction in which India was moving forward deeply resonates with what the industry wanted. India has a lot of untapped potential as the country heads towards becoming a global manufacturing hub. He said that the government was working on getting India into global value chains, creating more and more global capacity centres working out of India so that services exports could be increased further. "The government along with industry remains deeply committed to achieving $ 2 trillion export target by 2030. It is doable, achievable, with the right building blocks in place along with a strong macro economy to support it," the minister said. He asserted that in order to achieve the 'Viksit Bharat' vision, the industry has to come forward to collaborate and invest more in R&D, innovation and sustainability. The government, he added, is in the process of finalising the 'Jan Vishwas 2.0'. "How can we converge industry's interest with national goals. A lot more needs to be done but we need you (industry) to come forward and give a balanced view on what is necessary along with the pain points regarding decriminalisation and reducing the compliance burden," he noted. Anish Shah, President, FICCI and Group CEO & Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra highlighted the efforts undertaken by the government to make India a manufacturing hub. He also stated that substantial steps have been taken to lower the cost of doing business and improve the ease of doing business. Hyderabad, July 10 : Senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Dr Jitender has been appointed as the new Director General of Police (DGP) of Telangana, it was announced on Wednesday. Chief Secretary Santhi Kumari issued an order transferring Jitender, presently the Principal Secretary, Home, and posting him as DGP, Coordination. He will also hold full additional charge of the post of DGP, Telangana. Jitender becomes the first DGP to be appointed by the government since the Congress came to power in Telangana in December last year. An IPS officer of the 1992 batch, he succeeds Ravi Gupta, who is posted as Special Chief Secretary, Home. Hailing from Punjab, Jitender began his career as an Assistant Superintendent of Police in Nirmal. He served as Additional SP in Bellampally and SP of Mahbubnagar and Guntur districts when the Maoist activity was at its peak. The IPS officer also worked for the elite anti-Maoist force Greyhounds and also the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Soon after his appointment, Jitender called on Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and later took charge as the police chief. On December 3 last year, Gupta, then Director General, Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), was appointed the DGP on the direction of the Election Commission of India, which placed then police chief Anjani Kumar under suspension for violating the Model Code of Conduct by meeting state Congress chief Revanth Reddy when the counting of votes was still underway. The EC had observed that the action of the DGP meeting a contesting candidate and a star campaigner of the party with a flower bouquet at his residence is a clear indication of mala fide intention of seeking favour. It had later revoked the suspension, but the Congress government did not reinstate Anjani Kumar as police chief. He was posted as Chairman, Road Safety Authority. Gupta was posted as Director General of Police, Coordination and continued to hold full additional charge of DGP (head of the police force). Johannesburg, July 10 : A total of 13 people, including 12 pupils and a driver, were killed and seven others injured in a minibus-truck collision Wednesday morning in the Merafong Local Municipality, Gauteng Province, South Africa, according to local authorities. Matome Chiloane, member of the executive council for education, sport, arts, culture and recreation in Gauteng Province, said on Wednesday that a minibus carrying students was hit from behind by a pickup truck, causing it to overturn and catch fire at about 6:45 a.m. local time. Chiloane said 11 of the pupils were from Rocklands Primary School and one from Laerskool Blyvooruitsig in Carletonville, reported Xinhua news agency. "I am profoundly saddened by this tragic event. The loss of our children is a devastating blow to our community, and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased and injured learners," he said in a statement. "We wish to extend our heartfelt condolences to the families, friends, and both schools' entire community during this incredibly difficult time. We also wish all injured learners a speedy recovery." Chiloane added that counselling services will be rendered to all students and staff members to help them cope with the tragedy. Jaipur: Rajasthan Deputy CM & Finance Minister Diya Kumari presents the state budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 during the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly. Image Source: IANS News Jaipur, July 10 : Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Diya Kumari on Wednesday said that the state government is committed to make Rajasthan a $350 million economy. Counting this resolution amongst the top of 10 resolutions while presenting the budget, she said that the Rajasthan government is committed to making Developed Rajasthan 2047. Kumari also drew laurels during her budget presentation for reading the couplets of different poets, writers and renowned personalities like Swami Vivakanand, Bhimrao Ambedkar, Viba Bhave, Saint Haridas, Nida Fazli and M.S. Swaminathan in the Assembly. In the initial phase of the budget, she read a poem by Nida Fazli. Thereafter, she recalled the lines written by Ambedkar, saying: "The capital of economic progress and social upliftment lies in industrialisation. By increasing industrial development, we can provide employment, reduce poverty and raise the standard of living." Further, she quoted Swami Vivekananda while announcing schemes for youth, saying, "Brave, outspoken, clean-hearted, courageous and ambitious youths are the only foundation on which the future nation can be built." During the budget speech, the Finance Minister also recalled Bharat Ratna Vinoba Bhave and quoted her lines. "Real progress can be made only when its benefits are available to all and not limited to a few," the Deputy Chief Minister said. She also read the lines of Sant Haridas, saying, "I want to remind you of the lines of Sant Haridas ji. Doing Karma is the only religion of human beings." During the address of the agriculture budget, she also quoted the pioneer of the Green Revolution M.S. Swaminathan, saying, "Farming is the most risky business in the world because the future of the crop depends on the monsoon." The Deputy Chief Minister also read the composition of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Bhopal, July 10 : Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on Wednesday approved several proposals including 'e-Vidhan' and aircraft purchase for the state government. The 'e-Vidhan' is a step to make the state assembly paperless and bring it on a digital platform. The state government has approved 83.87 crore for this project which was pending for the last several years. Former Madhya Pradesh Speaker Girish Gautam along with some senior officials had visited a couple of states to learn the new system; however, it was delayed due to various reasons, including the allocation of adequate funds for it. The 'national e-Vidhan application' scheme was launched by the Central government to make all the legislative assemblies paperless and bring them on one platform. Several state legislative assemblies have been made paperless in the past few years. The Cabinet has also approved aircraft purchases for the state government. "Approval was given to the decision to purchase aircraft model Challenger 3500 jet aircraft," the Department of Public Relations (DPR) said in a statement. The Cabinet has also approved the proposal for increasing scholarships for the students. According to the approval, the present monthly scholarship for boys will be increased from Rs 1230 to Rs 1550 and for girls, it will be increased from Rs. 1270 to Rs 1590 per month. The Cabinet also gave the nod to invite tenders for seven projects of the Narmada Valley Development Department worth Rs 9,271 crore. Besides these, the government has also allocated Rs 217 crore for the expansion of Indore Central Jail. --IANS pd/dan Gurugram, July 10 : Union Minister of State and MP from Gurugram Rao Inderjit Singh on Wednesday demanded an investigation by a Central agency into the affairs of Eco Green, the company handling the cleaning system in Gurugram, Rao placed the demand during the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) meeting held in Chandigarh under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Naib Saini. He said that during the Lok Sabha elections, the Municipal Corporation Councilor, and representatives of various Resident Welfare Associations (RWA) had complained to the former Chief Minister and him about giving contracts to this company and its payment issues. The company was warned several times to follow the terms and conditions and improve its working system, but the company did not improve its working system. The situation is such that the cleaning system has completely collapsed and the people of Gurugram are facing huge problems. Rao said that the company had to set up a plant to generate electricity from garbage at Bandhwadi dumping yard, which the company could not start even after years. Rao said that the company was continuously paid despite hundreds of complaints from public representatives and RWAs which is a serious matter. "Despite the complaints received against the company for years, the officials had paid crores of rupees to the company, while they were negligent in cancelling the company's tender. This is proof that somewhere the company had the blessings of government officials and politicians," he said in the meeting. Rao said that in the Lok Sabha elections, I too had to face questions from the people as a public representative. Rao said that the Gurugram officials had sent the file to Chandigarh in December itself to cancel the tender of the company, but despite this, a decision was taken in June this year. Apart from this, the Union Minister said that the BJP government is about to complete 10 years in the state, but the issue of construction of Gurugram Civil Hospital and Bus Stand still stands. "Gurugram district gives more than 60 per cent of the revenue to the state government's treasury, but despite this, depriving the people here of basic facilities is gross negligence. Similarly, the old bus stand of Gurugram was declared condemned years ago but the process of construction has not started yet not only at the old place but also for the construction of a new interstate bus stand," he added. He said that for years this file has been moving from one department of the government to another and it seems that the intentions of the government officials are not right. New Delhi, July 10 : Bypolls were held in 13 Assembly constituencies across seven states on Wednesday in the first electoral contest since the Lok Sabha polls with the results likely to have an impact on the political fate of the state's ruling and opposition parties. The bypolls were held in West Bengal (4 seats), Himachal Pradesh (3 seats), Uttarakhand (2 seats), Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, and Punjab (1 seat each) to fill the seats falling vacant due to the demise or resignation of incumbent members. In Himachal Pradesh, where bypolls were necessitated by the resignation of the sitting Independent members, who later joined the BJP, it was a straight contest between the Congress and the BJP. The stakes are high for Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu with his wife Kamlesh Thakur making her electoral debut from Dehra in Kangra district. This constituency was carved out after delimitation in 2010 and the Congress has never won this seat. The Chief Minister campaigned aggressively in Dehra, compared to two other seats, to ensure victory for Kamlesh Thakur, who is in the fray against BJP nominee Hoshiyar Singh. Election officials said that Himachal witnessed a voter turnout of over 71 per cent till 7 p.m. and polls were largely peaceful. As per the Election Commission, the Nalagarh constituency recorded the highest polling of 78 per cent, followed by Hamirpur (67.7 per cent) and Dehra (65.42 per cent). In Bihar, the Rupauli Assembly segment in Purnea district, where RJD candidate Bima Bharti the only woman among the 11 candidates, registered 52.75 per cent polling till 6 p.m.. Bharti, who had resigned from the Rupauli seat to contest the Lok Sabha elections, faces ruling JD-U's Kaladhar Mandal (JD-U). Several incidents of violence were also reported during the day leaving four persons, including an SHO, injured in clashes. The people allege that the district police forcibly stopped them from polling their votes, leading to a scuffle that escalated into stone-pelting. The district police, however, have denied these allegations. Another incident was reported in Gorier village, where the wife of independent candidate Shankar Singh accused the police of carrying out a baton charge on voters. She sat on a dharna, but the situation soon stabilised while the voting resumed. In West Bengal, the bypolls were held for Raiganj, Ranaghat-Dakshin, Bagda, and Maniktala seats amid violence and alleged malpractices. The polling saw 62.71 per cent voter turnout by 5 p.m. - as per the last available figures. The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) office has said that the final polling percentage will be available only on Thursday after the completion of the tabulation of reports coming from different polling booths. The maximum polling percentage was reported from Raiganj in North Dinajpur district at 67.12 per cent, while the lowest was reported from Maniktala in Kolkata at 51.39 per cent. Over 51 per cent polling was recorded, till 5 p.m., in Punjab's Jalandhar West (SC) constituency where Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had made the contest a prestige issue by campaigning extensively for his AAP candidate Mohinder Bhagat. In Madhya Pradesh, 78.38 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the Amarwara Assembly seat in Chhindwara district - the erstwhile bastion of senior Congress leader Kamal Nath - where the bypoll was necessitated by sitting Congress MLA Kamlesh Shah resigning and joining the BJP, which fielded him. A low of 47.68 per cent turnout was recorded in Uttarakhand's Badrinath seat, while Manglaur recorded a high of 67.28 per cent. In Tamil Naduas Vikravandi Assembly seat, where the contest is between the state's ruling DMK and NDA constituent PMK, with the AIADMK not contesting, 77.73 per cent turnout was recorded till 5 p.m. An election official said that the results for all 13 seats will be declared on July 13. New Delhi, July 10 : The BJP on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court's ruling that a divorced Muslim woman is entitled to maintenance from her husband, saying that verdict is a befitting reply to those who "trampled the Constitution" by enacting a law to overrule an apex court judgement giving primacy to Sharia (Islamic law). BJP Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi said the SC's historic ruling "reminds us that whenever the Congress has come to power, it has harmed the Constitution". BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said the verdict corrected the historic mistake which the Rajiv Gandhi government had committed for the vote bank. He said, "The characteristics of the Congress have not changed even today, even today it opposes the UCC and Triple Talaq law. Even today, if necessary steps are taken for women empowerment, then that too is opposed. Whether it is the incident with Swati Maliwal or the Sandeshkhali incident, the Congress remains silent on every issue." Another BJP spokesperson Shazia Ilmi hailed the verdict and accused the Congress of putting the lives of women in darkness for the vote bank. Triple Talaq activist and Vice Chairperson of Uttarakhand Women Commission Shayara Bano said that the ruling is in the favour of all Muslim women. "This will improve their financial condition and will also reduce triple talaq cases. Besides, the social status of Muslim women will also improve," said Bano, who herself is a victim of triple talaq. Kolkata, July 10 : The family members of a youth, who died in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district late on Monday allegedly because of torture in police custody, on Wednesday moved the Calcutta High Court for a detailed and independent probe in the matter. The single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha has accepted the petition and the matter is expected to come up for hearing on Thursday. In the petition, the family members of Abu Siddik Halder appealed for a probe on whether the post-mortem examination of the body had been done following the procedures of a judicial inquest. They have also raised questions on whether the entire post-mortem process was video-recorded or not as per the norms. On Tuesday, massive tension broke out at Dholahat in South 24 Parganas as the local people protested in front of the local police station, with some protesters even trying to break through the barricades and enter it. It is learnt that the youth was arrested by police on June 30 on charges of stealing jewellery. The family members alleged that during the period of custody, he was beaten up in phases, which was evident from his injuries that were visible while he was presented to a district court on July 4. He was granted bail on that day and was sent to a local hospital, where he was released after some primary treatment. Halder's mother Taslima Bibi claimed that his condition started deteriorating when he came back home, following which he was shifted to a hospital in Kolkata. Later he was admitted to a private nursing home for detailed treatment. However, he died late Monday night and protests broke out in Dholahat on Tuesday morning after the information was received there. Bengaluru, July 10 : The National Commission for Scheduled Castes, a Constitutional body, has sought a detailed report from the Karnataka government within seven days regarding the utilization of funds meant for the welfare of the Scheduled Caste and Tribe. "Suo-moto cognizance has been taken by the Commission following the media report on utilization of SC/ST funds to welfare schemes. The Karnataka government decided to utilize funds allocated under the Karnataka Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) for implementing five guarantee schemes. The government of Karnataka has taken the decision to divert Rs 14,730.53 crores from SCSP and TSP allocation to guarantee schemes," Commission's letter dated July 9 signed by Joint Secretary Rajeev Kumar Tiwari says. It says that the commission is mandated to monitor issues pertaining to the development of Scheduled Castes in all states especially with reference to Special Component Plan (SCP) and Special Central Assistance (SCA) in pursuance of the power conferred upon it under Article 338 of the Constitution of India. "It is requested that a detailed report in the matter may please be furnished to this commission within seven days. This may be treated as most urgent," the letter reads. Karnataka BJP has criticised the state government over the alleged case. Washington, July 10 : US President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced dozens of additional air defence systems for Ukraine to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a defence alliance of 32 countries of North America and Europe, up from just 12 when it was born after the Second World War in 1949. NATO is also expected to announce an "irreversible" path for Ukraine to join the alliance. The three-day summit is being hosted by the US, which had hosted the first in 1949, also in Washington DC. Leaders and officials from the allied countries are meeting in groups and bilaterally to discuss the threat posed to the alliance by Russia and China chiefly, and Iran and North Korea. "Today Iam announcing a historic donation of air defence equipment for Ukraine," President Biden said at the opening of the NATO summit in Washington, at the same venue where the inaugural summit had been held in 1949. "The United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, and Italy will provide Ukraine with the equipment for five additional strategic air defence systems." He added: "Make no mistake, Russia is failing in this war. More than two years into Putinas war of choice, his losses are staggering: more than 350,000 Russian troops dead or wounded; nearly 1 million Russians, many of them young people, have left Russia because they no longer see a future in Russia." The summit is being attended by leaders of the 32 allied countries and those of partner countries, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The White House has said allies will announce their intention to provide a minimum baseline funding of 40 billion euros ($43.2 billion) over the next year. They will also ensure sustainable levels of security assistance for Ukraine to prevail. The alliance has seen unusual turmoil in recent years caused chiefly by former President Donald Trumpas unorthodox and critical views of its present and future. He threatened to leave the alliance if the member countries did not meet the mutually agreed target of spending at least 2 per cent of their countryas GDP on defence. Biden kept his foot on the pedal and, as he reported in his remarks, 23 of the countries will have reached that goal or crossed in 2024. The remaining countries are expected to get there soon. "It's remarkable progress -- proof that our commitment is broad and deep, that weare ready, that weare willing, and weare able to deter aggression and defend every inch of NATO territory across every domain: land, air, sea, cyber, and space," he said. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan noted in an OpEd in The New York Times that for the first time since the inception of the alliance, "that our European partners have carried more of the burden than the United States in a major conflict". He was referring to the NATO contributions to Ukraine, which have faced questions at home in the US about how long can it be funded. Jaipur: Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma with Rajasthan Deputy CM & Finance Minister Diya Kumari addresses a press conference after presenting the state budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 during the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly. Image Source: IANS News Jaipur, July 10 : Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma on Wednesday said that the Budget of the state government for the year 2024-25 will prove to be a milestone in realising the concept of 'Apna Agrani Rajasthan'. "The Budget will meet the aspiration of 8 crore people of the state who have full faith in the BJP government. We are committed to live up to their trust. The state government will fulfil every promise made in the Sankalp Patra," the Chief Minister said while addressing a press conference after the Budget. The Chief Minister said that the Budget is a roadmap for the industrial development of the state. "It has been prepared via industrial policy, export promotion policy, garment and apparel policy, warehousing policy, one district-one product policy among others." He said that the government has also made adequate provisions in the Budget for self-reliance in the energy sector, laying a network of roads and highways-expressways, expansion of air transport facilities, implementation of ERCP project, increasing the income of farmers, important changes in the field of education and green Rajasthan. The Chief Minister said that in the last six months, the state government has increased its revenue through its efficient financial management, which will control the financial deficit of the government in the coming time. He said that the previous government had made populist announcements without budgetary provisions. "On the contrary, our government has brought a budget with a vision, so that the benefits of the schemes can reach the person standing in the last row," the Chief Minister said. Manila, July 10 : Philippine police clashed with suspected criminals in Cotabato province in the southern Philippines on Wednesday morning, with at least six people killed, including a police officer, and six other police officers injured, local police said. Jennefer Amotan, police chief of the Aleosan town, said the firefight happened before 9 a.m. local time while policemen served a warrant to search a hideout believed to be hiding firearms and illegal drugs. A 33-year-old male police officer was killed and six others were wounded in the clash, she added, reports Xinhua news agency. Amotan said the armed suspects opened fire at law enforcers, triggering a 30-minute firefight. The alleged leader of the criminal group and his four companions were killed in the operation. Amotan said the police recovered assorted types of firearms and explosives and illicit drugs. Amaravati, July 10 : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) officials on Wednesday discussed the proposed establishment of an oil refinery and petrochemical complex with an investment of Rs 60,000 to Rs 70,000 crore. BPCL officials, led by Chairman and Managing Director Krishna Kumar, called on the Chief Minister. "We explored the establishment of an oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Andhra Pradesh with an investment of (Rs) 60-70,000 crore. I have sought a detailed plan and feasibility report in 90 days. About 5,000 acres of land will be required for this project, which the government looks forward to facilitating in a hassle-free manner," Naidu posted on X. The Chief Minister stated that strategically placed on the eastern coast of the country, Andhra Pradesh has a significant petrochemical potential. According to the Chief Ministeras Office, Naidu, during his recent visit to New Delhi, had a discussion with the Central leaders on the investments by the BPCL in the state, and Wednesday's meeting with the BPCL representatives was in continuation of this. The company representatives brought to the notice of the Chief Minister that at least 4,000 to 5,000 acres of land are needed for setting up the petrochemical complex. Responding to this immediately, Naidu said that the necessary land would be allotted to the company within 90 days and asked the company representatives to come up with the detailed and necessary proposals for establishing the project. The BPCL officials informed the Chief Minister that they would be back, latest by October, with the feasibility report. Meanwhile, Vietnamese leading automobile conglomerate VinFast's CEO, Pham Sanh Chau also called on the Chief Minister. Naidu invited them to set up their EV and battery manufacturing plant in Andhra Pradesh. He asked the Industries Department to facilitate their visit to suitable land parcels. The Chief Minister said he was looking for a successful collaboration with VinFast, and apprised the company representatives of the available resources in the state to launch the electric vehicles. He told them that the state government was ready to provide the necessary land and other basic facilities for them. Mumbai, July 10 : Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday announced financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund to the family of deceased Kaveri Nakhawa who died in the Worli hit-and-run case. Mumbai, July 10 (IANS) Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday announced financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh from the Chief Ministeras Relief Fund to the family of deceased Kaveri Nakhawa who died in the Worli hit-and-run case. Congress legislator Aslam Shaikh had demanded that the state government should provide financial aid to the victimas family citing that the latter has not received any help from the government. Shinde, who visited the Mumbai Coastal Road which is currently partially opened for vehicular traffic, said: "Immediately after the Worli hit-and-run incident happened, I had given orders to take action against the culprits and also to initiate action against the pubs and bars that operate late into the night. I had given similar orders in the Pune hit-and-run case also in which two died. Action will be taken against those who indulge in illegal works." "We firmly stand with the victimas family. They are our family. Whatever help they need, be it legal or financial, they will be provided. The government will provide financial aid of Rs 10 lakh to the victim's family," he said. Shinde reiterated that he has directed the Mumbai Police Commissioner to prevent the cases of drunk driving in Mumbai and that strict action be taken against the people who drive cars and ride bikes under the influence of liquor by checking on roads, chowks, and busy places. He directed the policy to increase the frequency of inspections during the night and on weekends. Strict action should be taken and fines should be levied on drivers who drive under the influence of alcohol. Shiv Sena leader Rajesh Shah's son Mihir Shah, who was absconding for 60 hours after the accident before police arrested him from Palghar, has admitted to driving the car when the accident took place on July 7. Washington, July 10 : US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said that the way forward for the NATO alliance is for each member country to strengthen their industrial base so that the group can stay ahead of Russia, which has "ramped up domestic production of defence goods with help from China, Iran, and North Korea". Thirty-two leaders of NATO countries, who include leaders of Finland and Sweden, the two new additions, are meeting here in Washington DC for the group's 75th anniversary, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine bringing back memories of World War II that was started in Europe by a man's desire to expand his country's frontiers driven by historical grievances. Speaking cogently and forcefully, perhaps to allay fears of allies who doubt his ability to govern for four more years if he wins, the US President said that the alliance has provided a security shield for member countries to grow and prosper. At a summit two years ago, allies decided to modernise their defence and deterrence. But the alliance is now facing fresh challenges. "Right now, Russia is on a wartime footing with regard to defence production. They are significantly ramping up their production of weapons, munitions, and vehicles. And they're doing it with the help of China, North Korea and Iran," he said, adding "We cannot in my view, we cannot allow the (NATO) alliance to fall behind." To that end, he noted, that every member has taken a pledge to put together plans to shore up defence production at home. "That means as an alliance (we) will become more innovative and competitive. We're able to produce more critical defence equipment more quickly than we should so that we may need it," Biden asserted. Amaravati, July 10 : Andhra Pradesh's Human Resource Development Minister Nara Lokesh on Wednesday denied that the state's NDA government has taken a U-turn on the privatisation of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant and assured that it will leave no stone unturned to ensure that the plant regains its glory. Lokesh, who is the son of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, took to X to term the article published in an English daily "pure paid fiction carried out at the behest of YSR Congress Party to create unrest and destroy the brand image of Visakhapatnam". "No stone will be unturned by the NDA Govt to ensure VSP regains its former glory. We have promised and we will deliver. I request people of AP to not believe these fake news created by Blue Media who wish to see our State destroyed," wrote Lokesh, who is also the General Secretary of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). He, however, strongly condemned the attack on the daily's display board at their Visakhapatnam office. He requested party leaders and workers to maintain composure and not let their emotions drive their actions. aWe will take legal action against these blue media organisations that produce biased news items that are inaccurate, unauthentic and not based on true facts," he said. Some TDP workers set afire the display board of the English daily in Visakhapatnam. The newspaper said TDP goons attacked its officer after it published an "unbiased" report on VSP privatisation. The newspaper, through a post on its aXa handle, told the TDP, the BJP, and the Jana Sena that intimidating tactics wonat silence it. Meanwhile, YSR Congress Party President Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has strongly condemned the attack on the newspaper office by people associated with TDP. "This is yet another attempt to stifle media that doesnat blindly toe the line of the TDP and always chooses to be unbiased. Democracy in Andhra Pradesh is being continuously violated under the new regime," he said and demanded that Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu take responsibility for this. Tumakuru, : July 10 (IANS) Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar on Wednesday said that Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids in the Valmiki Tribal Welfare Development Board case against former minister B. Nagendra Basavaraja Daddal are unwarranted. "The SIT set up by the state government is already investigating the case, there was no need for ED raids in the case," the Deputy Chief Minister said. Asked about ED raids in several places including the residence of former minister Nagendra, he said, "It involves huge amounts of money and that is why banks have the authority to investigate the case. The ED has come in even though there was no need for it to investigate." Replying to a query on why the ED investigation was taking place when the SIT was already formed, he said, "Nagendra is not at fault. I am confident that he will come out clean after the investigations. The perpetrators of this case must be brought to book. There were similar such cases during the previous BJP government." Asked about ED raids on Nagendra and Valmiki Board Chairman Daddal, he said, "I don't know the details of the raids. The SIT had issued a notice to Nagendra and Daddal in the case and the investigations so far have revealed that there is no involvement of the minister and the MLA." Vienna, July 10 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that the world sees India with great hope and everyone across the globe wants to learn more about the country. "There is a lot of talk going on about India in the world these days. Everyone wants to know and understand about India You all have the same experience? Don't people ask you about India? In such a situation, what is India thinking? What is India doing? India represents one-sixth of humanity. And in global growth too we almost contribute the same," he said while addressing the India Community in Vienna. He said that it was after 41 years, that an Indian Prime Minister got the opportunity to visit Austria. "This long wait has come to an end on a historic occasion. India and Austria are celebrating 75 years of their friendship," he said. PM Modi said that India and Austria are geographically on two different ends but have many similarities. "Democracy connects both countries (India and Austria). Our shared values are liberty, equality, pluralism, and respect for the rule of law. Our societies are multicultural and multilingual. Both countries celebrate diversity, and a big medium to reflect these values are elections," PM Modi said to the loud cheering of the Indian diaspora. PM Modi said that in the recently concluded elections in India, around 650 million people exercised their right to vote. "Despite such a big election, the results of the elections are clear within hours. It is the power of our electoral machinery and democracy," he said. He said that India is growing at the rate of 8 per cent. "Today, we are in the 5th position, and soon, we will be in the top 3," the Prime Minister said. "I promised the people of my country that I would make India one of the top three economies in the world. We aren't just working to reach the top position, our mission is 2047," PM Modi said. He said both countries have been sharing knowledge and expertise for a long time. "We didn't give 'Yuddha'(war), we gave the world 'Buddha'. India always gave peace and prosperity, and therefore India is going to strengthen its role in the 21st century," PM Modi said. He said that around 200 years ago, Sanskrit was taught at Vienna University. "In 1880, with the establishment of an independent chair for Indology, it got more push," PM Modi said. PM Modi added, "I got the opportunity to meet some eminent Indologists, it was quite apparent from their discussions that they had a great interest in India." With the address to the Indian diaspora, the Prime Minister has wrapped up his visit to Austria. Thiruvananthapuram, July 11 : Former scientist Nambi Narayanan, who had a harrowing time after being made an accused in the infamous ISRO espionage case, has said that he is happy that the truth behind the case has surfaced during his lifetime. "I knew that I had done no wrong, and when the Supreme Court has exonerated me, it is enough for me. I was sure that the truth would come out one day, and I am happy it has come during my lifetime only. I don't think I want the wrongdoers to be punished for what they did to me. I don't even want an apology from them," said Nambi Narayanan, the retired scientist, who was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2019. He was reacting to media reports that surfaced on Wednesday detailing the charge sheet in the conspiracy behind the ISRO espionage case filed by the Delhi unit of the CBI at the CBI Court here, which said the entire case was nothing but a fabricated story. The charge sheet revealed that the case originated based on a concocted story created by then Circle Inspector S. Vijayan. It was further said that the team leader of the probe team, the now retired Director General of Police Siby Mathews, ordered the arrest of the veteran scientist Narayanan without any evidence. Among the five officials named in the CBI charge sheet are Mathews, Vijayan, then Deputy Superintendent of Police K.K. Joshua, and the then Intelligence Bureau officers Jayaprakash and R.B.Sreekumar, who retired as the Gujarat Director General of Police. This charge sheet filed by the CBI came after the Supreme Court in 2018 directed a three-member committee under retired Supreme Court judge D.K. Jain to probe if there was a conspiracy among the then police officials to falsely implicate Narayanan. The ISRO espionage case surfaced in 1994 when Narayanan was arrested on charges of spying along with another senior official of ISRO, two Maldivian women, and a businessman. The CBI exonerated Narayanan in 1995, and since then he has been fighting a legal battle against Mathews and other police officials. Mathews was later promoted to the rank of Director General of Police and took a voluntary retirement scheme, months before he was to have superannuated and become the Chief Information Officer of the state. He has since retired from that post and is now settled in the state capital city. Incidentally, this case took place when the factional feud in Congress between the K. Karunakaran and the A.K. Antony factions led by Oommen Chandy was at its peak. Karunakaran had to quit the office in 1995 after it was found out that he was shielding his close aide and senior police officer, Raman Srivastava, who later became the state police chief. After retirement, he served as an advisor to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan ( 2016-21). Vienna, July 11 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday termed his Austria visit "historic" and "immensely productive" and said it has added "vigour" to the two countries' friendship. Wrapping up his visit to Austria - the first by an Indian Prime Minister in 41 years, PM Modi, in a post on X, said he was happy to have attended diverse programmes in Vienna and thanked Chancellor Karl Nehammer, the Austrian government, and the people for their hospitality and affection. PM Modi, who reached Vienna on Tuesday evening from Moscow, was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Federal Chancery on Wednesday morning. He was warmly received by Chancellor Nehammer who had last week called the Indian Prime Minister's visit to Vienna as a "special honour" as it came at a time when the two countries are marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. Following their talks on Wednesday, PM Modi said that India and Austria have identified "new possibilities" to further strengthen mutual cooperation besides also deciding to give a strategic direction to their bilateral ties. In a joint statement along with the Austrian Chancellor, he said that he also held detailed discussions on the current geopolitical situation in the world, including the conflict in Ukraine or the situation in West Asia. He mentioned that mutual trust and shared interests have strengthened India-Austria relations. The Prime Minister also said that India and Austria will work together in areas such as infrastructure development, innovation, renewable energy, hydrogen, water and waste management, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum technology and a blueprint for cooperation over the coming decades has been prepared. He said that the startup bridge will be accelerated to connect the youth and ideas of both countries, and an agreement on mobility and migration partnership has already been reached, as well as on promoting exchanges between cultural and educational institutions will be promoted. The PM also said that Austria had been invited to join the International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, and the Biofuel Alliance. Addressing a group of leading Austrian and Indian CEOs from diverse sectors including infrastructure, automobile, energy, engineering and start-ups along with Chancellor Nehammer, Prime Minister Modi called on the Austrian business stakeholders to look at the fast-unfolding opportunities in India, as the country moves to become the third-largest economy in the world over the next few years. He urged Austrian majors to leverage the Indian economic landscape for high-quality and cost-effective manufacturing under the Make in Inda programme both for the domestic and international market, and as a global supply chain destination, and utilise the investment opportunities in India. PM Modi also met Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen who noted that his country needs India as a partner in a structurally sustainable transformation towards climate neutrality. Thanking the Indian Prime Minister for visiting Austria, Van der Bellen stated that both countries can work in several areas, including the fight against climate change. Prime Minister Modi also met Nobel physics laureate Anton Zeilinger and explored the possibilities around quantum technologies, along with a discussion over spirituality. After the meeting, the Austrian scientist said he experienced that PM Modi is a very spiritual person. The PM also met distinguished Austrian Indologists Professor Birgit Kellner, Dr Martin Gaenszle, Dr Borayin Larios, and Dr Karin Preisendanz and discussed the rich tapestry of Indian history, philosophy, art, and culture, along with the origins of Indology in Austria. Concluding his visit with an address to the Indian diaspora in Vienna, he said that the world sees India with great hope and everyone across the globe wants to learn more about India. He also said that India and Austria, though geographically distant, have many similarities. "Democracy connects both countries (India and Austria). Our shared values are liberty, equality, pluralism, and respect for the rule of law. Our societies are multicultural and multilingual. Both countries, celebrate diversity, and a big medium to reflect these values are elections," the PM said to loud cheers. --IANS Penguin Random House continues its renewed emphasis of making strategic acquisitions with a new agreement to acquire comic book and graphic novel publisher Boom! Studios. The agreement, between the Random House Publishing Group and Boom! founder and chairman Ross Richie, is expected to close later this summer, at which point Boom! will become part of Random House Worlds. Boom! was founded by Richie in 2005 and comprises Boom! Studios, Boom! Box, KaBoom!, and Archaia, which it purchased in 2013. According to the announcement by RHPG, Boom! will remained based in its Los Angeles offices and retain editorial and publishing independence. Upon completion of the deal, Richie will leave Boom! and the Los Angeles office will be overseen by Boom! director of strategy Jen Harned, who will report to Random House Worlds president Scott Shannon. Random House Worlds is currently home to storied science fiction and fantasy imprint Del Rey, new comics imprint Inklore, and the RH Worlds licensing program. Shannon called the acquisition of BOOM! Studios a major step in Penguin Random Houses expansion of support to the direct comics market and a key part of our commitment to being the best publisher for creators across all categories. Shannon will oversee the integration of Boom! alongside Keith Clayton, VP and publisher of RH Worlds, and Bill Takes, EVP of business strategy for RHPG, and the Boom! team. Boom!s current distribution agreements will remain in effect, with Diamond Comic Distributors handling distribution to the direct market and Simon & Schuster distributing to trade bookstores. Under Richie, Boom! has developed an ambitious licensing program, signing publishing deals with such brands as The Dark Crystal, Dune, The Expanse, Firefly, Garfield, Labyrinth, and Power Rangers while creating its own original bestselling series, including Keanu Reevess BRZRKR series and Lumberjanes. In 2017, Boom! sold a stake in the company to 20th Century Fox, which was assumed by the Walt Disney Company following its acquisition of Fox. The PRH purchase includes the acquisition of the Disney stake. The Boom! acquisition is the latest in a string of deals made by PRH after its purchase of Simon & Schuster was blocked by the Department of Justice. Last year, PRH upped its stake in Sourcebooks to a majority interest, bought the bankrupt Callisto Media and folded it into Sourcebooks, and acquired self-help and wellness publisher Hay House. Los Angeles independent publisher Unnamed Press has unveiled Smith & Taylor Classics, a new imprint helmed by acquiring editors Allison Miriam Woodnutt (nee Smith) and Brandon Taylor, the award-winning author of Real Life, Filthy Animals, and The Late Americans. The imprint will publish trade paperback editions of lesser-known novels by familiar authors. Our focus for now is on open-domain reissues, creating a collectable series, Woodnutt said. Smith & Taylor Classics fits right in with Unnameds mission to publish urgent, challenging, and unexpected work that still values fun at its core. On November 26, S&T will release its first four titles simultaneously: George Gissings The Odd Women, from 1893, concerning three unmarried sisters navigating gender mores in Victorian London after the death of their father; Victor Hugos The Toilers of the Sea, an 1886 novel that follows a fisherman as he braves saltwater and a sea monster to recover a steam engine from a shipwreck; Sarah Orne Jewetts The Country of Pointed Firs, from 1896, about a writers summer in a Maine seacoast town; and Edith Whartons Twilight Sleep, a 1927 novel about motherhood with a title that references an anesthetic used during labor and delivery. S&T is open to pitches and ideas for other unsung books of yesteryear. Were pulling from long-held obsessions (like mine with Toilers of the Sea) and the public domain, so we're scouring copyright law, Woodnutt said. Some things required direct asks, like certain author portraits in the care of overseas galleries. The imprint came together after publisher Chris Heiser observed that Taylor and Woodnutt tended to take over staff meetings with discussions of niche Victorian titles. Consequently, every S&T title will feature an introductory back-and-forth between two contemporary writers, critics, or educators, setting the stage for the reader. We wanted to incorporate the feeling of our staff meeting book club, Taylor said. The whole point of the series, we like to think, is to capture the excitement of pushing your favorite, maybe obscure book into hands of new readers. Taylor and Woodnutt wrote the introduction to Twilight Sleep. Allison and I both love Edith Wharton, and since we seem to be living in a bit of Wharton renaissance, it seemed like an opportunity to bring readers one of the later novels they might not be familiar with, Taylor said. Similar with Gissingpeople love New Grub Street, but Allison and I were shaking our fists and saying that they should also be reading The Odd Women, which of course is so incredibly relevant to our contemporary moment. The duo has tapped National Book Critics Circle board member Adam Dalva and New Yorker contributing writer Merve Emre to talk about The Odd Women. In addition, Baruch College assistant professor Stephanie Hershinow and Yale Review contributor Brandy Jensen team up to introduce Jewetts place-based novel. Bookpackers creative director Andrew Chater and environmental justice advocate Maya Weeks will introduce Hugos Toilers. Thinking about how best to honor these long-dead authors often feels like conversing with ghosts, Woodnutt said. S&T wants to promote a different approach to classics, an openness to dive into literary sensibilities of great artists and craftspeople who are still so relevant to our lives today. When Benjamin Franklin famously said, A republic, madam, if you can keep it, he was, as usual, prescient. This summer, the democratic republic known as the United States of America is 248 years old, and civically minded organizations around the country are already busily working on plans to celebrate our nations 250th birthday in 2026. Such a milestone is a cause for real celebration; by most reckonings, we are the longest-lasting democracy in history. Democracies are fragile: The Athenian democracy never made it to 200. Americans should use this anniversary as an opportunity for sober reflection on the current state, as well as the future, of our own democratic republic. There is much for which to be thankful, as Americas free market economy and all-volunteer military force are still the envy of the world. There is also much to give us pause regarding the durability of our institutions, the moral fiber of our leaders, and the prospects for free government at home and abroad. It should be obvious: Challenges to election integritytypically a sign of disease in a free body politican assault on our Capitol, and a looming election in which 25% of voters are dissatisfied with both major candidates are not cause for carefree celebration. Oxford philosopher of history R.G. Collingwood wrote, All history is an attempt to understand the present by reconstructing its determining conditions. In these times, it should come as a dire warning that without a doubt, most young American college graduates are nowhere close to having the historical perspective to guide them through the rough political climate we face. How much do todays college students really know about their nations past? The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has conducted a fresh national survey of college students to answer just this question. The results are concerning. Sixty percent of college students could not correctly identify the term lengths of members serving in U.S. Congress. Sixty-three percent were unable to identify the chief justice of the Supreme Court. These are multiple-choice questions. Students did not have to recall John Robertss name, they merely had to recognize it, and a large majority failed. The same is true for the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, whose name was only known to 35% of students. Sixty-eight percent did not know that impeachment trials occur before the Senate, despite living through two presidential impeachments as well as the impeachment trial of a cabinet official. If these students are not reading the newspaper, it does not seem to be because they are busy studying their history lessons. A majority of students believefalselythat the Constitution was written in 1776, rather than 1787. This suggests two things: First, most students do not understand the origin of our Constitutionhow the Articles of Confederation proved unworkable, how James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and others gathered in Philadelphia to make amendments but emerged instead with a new form of government, which the American people then debated before adopting. (This explains another survey result, which shows that a majority of students could not identify the purpose of the Federalist Papers.) Students who believe the Constitution was written in 1776 do not understand the purpose and meaning of the Constitution. Second, and more importantly, these students clearly have not learned the true events of 1776, and thus their yearly Independence Day celebrations on July 4th are sadly hollow and devoid of content. They enjoy the barbecues and the fireworks, but they often lack a basic understanding of what is being honored by the holiday. Americas greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, once explained that the Constitution of 1787 was like a silver frame surrounding an apple of gold. The golden apple, he said, was the Declaration of Independence of 1776, the principles of which animate the republic, dedicate it to liberty and human equality, and cause it, so long as it adheres to such principles, to be a light unto the other nations, a beacon of freedom to all people. It was also President Lincoln who said in his Gettysburg Address that in America the government is of the people, by the people, for the people. Of course, only 23% of students were able to identify the source of that quote, and we may fear something yet more dangerous: that not many more understand what it means. None of this is the fault of the students. Numbers like these do not arise from lazy pupils but from feckless pedagogues who are failing in their charge. Fewer than 20% of American colleges and universities require a course on United States government or history to graduate, according to data ACTA has compiled for our curricular study, WhatWillTheyLearn.com. This is unacceptable. Higher education that is worthy of its name would do better, and our universities must do better for our Constitution to endure another two decades, let alone two centuries. Every student should be required to take U.S. government and history to earn a college degree. Some states, such as South Carolina and Texas, already mandate this, and more should follow suit. In a democratic republic such as ours, citizens must be informed for the commonwealth to function. As George Washington said in his Farewell Address, In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. Far from being enlightened, our students today are seldom even taught the basics. This must change, for the sake of the students and for the future of our nation. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate A fascinating coming together of satellite networks, artifical intelligence (AI) and 3D mapping is benefiting gold and copper producer Barrick Golds copper exploration at its Reko Diq project in Pakistan. Fleet Space Technologies, an Australian space exploration company, has announced the deployment of its end-to-end mineral exploration solution, ExoSphere, to Reko Diq. Powered by the latest advances in space technology, AI, and 3D multiphysics, ExoSphere is being used to generate 3D subsurface maps of local groundwater systems and copper porphyry complexes for multiple zones of interest, comprising over 1,150 square kilometres of the Reko Diq project. Flavia Tata Nardini, Co-Founder & CEO of Fleet Space Technologies, explains: By applying the latest innovations in space, AI and 3D multiphysics to copper exploration, we demonstrate a more sustainable, scalable path to achieve the copper supply needed for our clean energy future, in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For Barrick Gold, which operates on four continents in 18 countries, Reko Diq is a strategic part of its copper portfolio and represents one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold projects in the world. The area is one of several volcanic centres in the Chagai mountain range and part of the Tethyan Magmatic Arc which is known to contain significant copper-gold ore deposits of various grades. Production is to begin in 2028. ExoSphere says its end-to-end architecture unlocks new insights and predictive capabilities to enhance outcomes and streamline operations at every stage of the exploration process. Leveraging Fleet Spaces satellite network in low Earth orbit (LEO), smart seismic sensors enabled with edge computing, and rapid data processing, ExoSphere says it delivers real-time 3D mapping of mineral systems and AI-powered drill targeting with, it claims, near-zero environmental impact. This process enables a faster and more efficient end-to-end data journey, making exploration activities more dynamic and precise by giving remote onsite teams access to actionable insights in real time. Disney/John Fleenor By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 07/10/2024 ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. star Jenn Tran has admitted the lack of Asian men in her cast of bachelors was a disappointment to her.Jenn was raised by Vietnamese immigrants in New Jersey, and prior to being cast as the Bachelorette, she was studying in Miami, FL, to become a physician assistant.Since Jenn is the first Asian-American woman to star on and looked forward to representing her community, she was apparently surprised there weren't more men from her culture and background cast on Season 21."I can't really speak to the casting process and the decisions that were made, but it is unfortunate that there weren't a lot of Asian men this season," Jenn told Glamour magazine in an interview."Asian men haven't always seen themselves in this position, and I am hoping that me being here and [suitor Thomas Nguyen ] being there, that the both of us can inspire other Asian men to realize that they can do this too if they want."Jenn added, "They can be in this position as well. I'm hoping that it inspires them."The Bachelor franchise, which premiered its first season in 2002, has been long criticized for its lack of diversity in multiple areas.It took 13 seasons for the franchise to choose its first Black lead in Rachel Lindsay , but since them, Matt James Michelle Young , and Charity Lawson have all served as leads.ABC also aired The Golden Bachelor last year featuring senior contestants, and The Golden Bachelorette is set to debut this September.The Bachelor producer Bennett Graebner recently admitted to the casting department falling short for Jenn's season."That's on us. We didn't do what we needed to do," Bennett told the Los Angeles Times."Our hope is that they will see Jenn and realize this is a safe space. We're not saying it will solve and fix everything. But it is a step."However, Jenn's conversation with Thomas N. was a highlight of 's July 8 premiere on Monday night. The pair bonded over having immigrant Vietnamese parents, who had made sacrifices and put their own dreams on hold to give their kids a better life."That was probably one of my favorite conversations, and I think back to it a lot because it's not every day that you get to bond with somebody on your immigrant parents and you get to connect with somebody on that level, because not everybody can understand that," Jenn told Glamour."That was a really special conversation for me because he really understood where I was coming from, and my family means everything to me."Thomas N. is a 31-year-old retirement advisor from Tucker, GA, but he's also a professional swimmer who almost made the Olympics in 2016.Thomas N. made it a point to make his parents proud in America, and Jenn has been doing the same, both on and off television."Knowing that my parents immigrated over here to give me a better life, the sacrifices that they made, and the internal battle that I have with giving back to them in every thing and every way that I could, but still trying to be independent -- being a child of immigrant parents is something that not everybody can understand," Jenn explained."And so, having that conversation with Thomas N. really meant the world."By the end of Jenn's first night as the Bachelorette, she narrowed down her pool of bachelors from 25 to 18 men. Thomas N. received a rose, but it was Sam McKinney who had received the First Impression Rose.At the end of the premiere episode , Jenn broke down into tears about how she finally felt wanted, desired and valued.Jenn told the cameras, "Coming into tonight, it was really hard for me to believe I was everyone's first choice. I felt like I was in somebody else's shoes, but all of these men made me feel so special and so deserving, which I don't feel like often.""I definitely feels right," Jenn continued.Jenn shared with Glamour how she had grown up in a "very mainly white suburban town" and so she always felt like "the other" or an outsider."I was a minority," Jenn noted."I never felt like I fit in. Growing up, I never really felt like I was anybody's first choice because I was unique in my own way, and I didn't always see it as a strength or a superpower. I always wanted to shy away from it and be like everybody else."But Jenn cried on how her bachelors made her feel "worthy of love" and worthy of their time, affection and attention."I guess I didn't expect it," Jenn confessed. "I'm crying on the first night, what the heck!... I'm so happy. I just feel so grateful."Jenn is overall proud of who she is and where she came from."I'm excited to be able to share that with everybody. But yeah, in that moment, it was really heartwarming for me because I've never felt like I have been wanted in that way," Jenn recalled of her tears on Night 1 of process."It's a really tough feeling to navigate and pinpoint. Because sometimes you're like, 'Why am I feeling this way?' And it's like, well, if you really look at it, my entire life, I've been the other person on the outside looking in. That's why being in this position means so much."Jenn concluded, "It's because people like us can see this and be like, 'You know what? It doesn't need to be that way.'" Click here to read episode-by-episode spoilers about how Jenn's season unfolds, including her winner and runner-up.Interested in more The Bachelor news? Follow our Bachelor Nation News Page on Facebook or join our The Bachelor Facebook Group Nazrin Abdul The expansion of economic cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkiye was a key topic during a recent meeting between officials from both countries, Azernews reports. According to the Ministry of Economy, First Deputy Minister Elnur Aliyev met with Turkiye's Deputy Minister of Industry and Technology, Ahmet Yozgatl?gil, during a business trip to Yekaterinburg, Russia. The meeting focused on strengthening the economic partnership between the two nations and exploring new avenues for collaboration. During the discussion, it was highlighted that the partnership between Azerbaijan and Turkiye is growing across various sectors. The officials explored opportunities for mutual investment, the exchange of expertise in industry and technology, and the enhancement of cooperation in other areas. Both sides emphasised that ongoing initiatives in the high technology and industrial sectors are crucial for the sustainable economic development of both countries. The Vista Outdoor board is unanimously backing a deal for the Czechoslovak Group to acquire its ammunition-making operations after the company upped its offer from $2 billion to $2.1 billion. The proposal from the Czech Republic-based, privately-held Czechoslovak Group is still subject to a stockholder vote. That vote is set for July 23, according to a news release issued Monday by Vista Outdoor. Vista Outdoor and the Czechoslovak Group are prepared to close the deal by the end of the month if it wins shareholder approval and satisfies other standard closing conditions, according to Vista Outdoors news release. It has received all of the regulatory approvals required for it, according to Vista Outdoors news release. One of them was from The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews certain transactions to determine their effect on national security. Called The Kinetic Group, Vista Outdoors ammunition brands, including Lewistons CCI/Speer, Federal, Remington and HEVI-Shot are the largest maker of ammunition in the country. If the deal for them closes, Vista Outdoors recreation brands would be spun off into a separate publicly traded company called Revelyst. At the same time, the Vista Outdoor board unanimously rejected a bid from Dallas-based MNC Capital Partners for the entire company, including its ammunition plants and outdoor brands such as Camelbak, according to Vista Outdoors Monday news release. Vista confirmed last week it received documentation it requested from MNC Capital Partners about its proposal. MNC Capital is led by former Vista Outdoor board member Mark Gottfredson, as reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Around 600 non-flying staff of Air India and Vistara are likely to be impacted by the two airlines' mega-merger, and efforts will be made to provide job opportunities to the affected employees within Air India group and Tata companies, sources said on Wednesday. Photograph via X Tata Group-owned loss-making full-service carriers -- Air India and Vistara -- together have more than 23,000 employees. Sources in the know told PTI that the merger is expected to impact around 600 employees from the two airlines. Efforts will be made to provide employment opportunities for the affected people at Air India as well as the Tata groups. Those who cannot be accommodated in both groups will be provided a voluntary separation scheme package, they added. Further, the sources said the process is still progressing and the exact number of impacted staff will be known after completion of the merger, which is expected in late September or early October. There was no comment from Air India. The fitment exercise -- which involves the evaluation of the roles and responsibilities of staff of both airlines -- in the run-up to the merger has been going on for the past few months. The exercise takes into account an individual's prior experience, performance and other factors. The sources said the fitment process is being conducted in a fair and transparent manner. Various aspects, including that the airline group is becoming more of a technology-driven organisation, have been taken into consideration. According to sources, there will be no impact in terms of jobs for cabin crew and pilots. On May 12, Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson, along with Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan, held a one-and-a-half-hour-long town hall meeting with the employees of both carriers about the proposed merger. At that time, both Wilson and Kannan also assured that the fitment or assignment of existing employees into the new structure was being done based on merit and competency. The plans for fleet expansion, network growth and enhanced service over the next few years have also been taken into consideration while deciding on the organisation structure. The merger, which will create one of the biggest airline groups, was announced in November 2022. Once the deal is complete, Singapore Airlines will have a 25.1 per cent stake in Air India. Vistara is a joint venture between Singapore Airlines and Tata Group. About the merger, Vinod Kannan, in January, said, "We want to make sure that everyone in Vistara does have a role (in the merged entity). "It is not a merger for cost-cutting or efficiencies, it is a merger for growth." In June, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) cleared the merger, and in March, Singapore's competition regulator CCCS gave a conditional nod for the proposed deal. Earlier in September 2023, the deal received approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI), subject to certain conditions. Since Tata Group took over the reins of Air India in January 2022, more than 9,000 people, including cabin crew, have been hired. As part of consolidating its airline business, Tata Group is also merging Air India Express and AIX Connect (formerly AirAsia India). The harmonisation of operating manuals across all Tata Group airlines has been completed. India's leading steel companies hope the Modi 3.0 Budget will continue the massive capital expenditure currently underway, focusing on infrastructure development, manufacturing, and fair trade. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters The infrastructure segment is the largest steel user, and the government's focus has fuelled steel consumption even as international markets have underperformed. According to provisional statistics, steel consumption grew 13.6 per cent in FY24, reaching 136 million tonnes (mt), according to a CRISIL report. It is hardly a surprise that steelmakers are pinning hopes that the government remains steadfast on infrastructure spending. T V Narendran, managing director and chief executive officer, Tata Steel, expects the government to continue investing in infrastructure and keep addressing the cost and ease of doing business. Jayant Acharya, joint managing director and chief executive officer of JSW Steel, explained that infrastructure capital expenditure has a direct multiplier effect on the economic output. We expect the government to continue with its focus on infrastructure spending. As the supply side is being increased, measures to improve consumption would be a welcome step, he added. A focus on manufacturing is another big ask from the sector. Apart from doubling down on infrastructure spending, Ranjan Dhar, director and vice president of sales and marketing, ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India), said, "We need to do massive heavy lifting on the manufacturing side. Acharya called for the extension of the concessional income tax rate of 15 per cent to promote manufacturing in India and smoother transmission benefits under the production-linked incentive scheme to boost 'Make in India'. The Indian government has set a target of achieving a 300 mt steel capacity by FY31, and companies have aligned their expansion plans accordingly. But a surge in imports has been impacting prices. AM/NS India's Dhar pointed out, "Indian steelmakers are putting in a huge amount of capital expenditure. "If margins go down, then investors and bankers will squeeze investment, which will delay the capital expenditure. "The industry must be protected from injury." The basic customs duty on steel should be raised from 7.5 per cent to 12.5 per cent, he said. The views are echoed by JSW Steel's Acharya. "India needs to implement appropriate trade measures in the wake of external volatility and diversion of material, including steel, into the country." India turned a net importer of steel in FY24. The overall steel trade deficit was 1.1 mt in FY24, marking a shift in status from a net exporter since financial year 2017, the CRISIL report mentioned. According to the Indian Steel Association, the apex body of steel producers, there should be a level playing field. "The government should have stricter product-specific rules of origin for steel in the form of 'melt and pour' to arrest predatory steel imports from China rerouted through Vietnam under the India-Asean free trade agreement," said Alok Sahay, secretary general of the association. Sahay also said that India has a natural advantage in iron ore and that double taxation on the raw material should be corrected to make it cheaper. As companies step up capacity, they are also trying to keep the carbon footprint in check. Sahay said the industry was awaiting policies to incentivise investments in decarbonisation and demand generation for low-carbon emission steel. "Use of low-carbon steel in government projects can become a starting point for demand generation." CALL OF THE STEEL Such public domain discussions affect their morale and dedication -- and that, if anything, will definitely affect combat-effectiveness, warns Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta (retd). Photograph: Rajesh Karkera for Rediff.com IMAGE: The passing day parade of Agniveervayus at the Airmen Training School, Belagavi. The Agnipath Scheme of recruitment into the armed forces has once again come up for a media trial. This was expected since the scheme always had detractors from Day One. The Opposition has found a new found voice with a somewhat better performance in the general elections and is sparing no effort to discredit the scheme. In fact, there were promises of revoking the scheme if the INDIA bloc came to power at the Centre. At the same time, the ruling coalition members have also requested the prime minister, though in somewhat muted voices, to review the scheme and tweak it if the situation so demands. The last few days have seen several articles in the media, some even by very senior veterans, who have voiced several issues regarding the Agnipath scheme and have raised concerns about its deleterious effects on the combat preparedness of the armed forces. They say the only reason for the government to implement the scheme was to reduce the pension bill and that there is no other advantage that will accrue out of it. Time will tell -- the scheme has barely seen two years since its implementation. The first batch of Agniveers will complete their four years of mandatory service in 2026. Maybe we could just hang on till then before making sweeping judgements. There have also been concerns voiced about Agniveers being short-changed as most will not be re-recruited as permanent soldiers, sailors or airmen and hence will not get a secure, pensionable, government job. That was not the intention in the first place. Those who are keen to serve will be re-inducted on merit and if merit is the only criterion, how does it compromise combat capability? For the first four years, they would be under training for 36 weeks and for the remaining time it is the responsibility of the Services to employ them commensurate with their training. Again, where is the compromise on military effectiveness? Just to make things clear, I am not siding with the government but neither am I rubbishing the opinions of the critics. I am sure both sides have good reasons to do what they are doing. However, it will be wise to remember that India is a democratic set-up where policy formulation and decisions are clearly the prerogative and responsibility of the political executive. The armed forces leadership, at best, can render advice, voice concerns and make recommendations. Once that is done, it is the responsibility of the political executive to formulate policy for which they will be responsible and held to account. The military leadership has the freedom to step down if it feels so strongly about an issue. The fact that no Chief has stepped down indicates that even if they felt strongly that the contours of the Agnipath scheme were not right, they did not feel it strongly enough to step down. There is this counterargument one hears and that is, 'Resigning is not the answer. You must stay in the system to correct it from within.' This is all humbug. It cannot be done from within. Had any Chief stepped down after the Agnipath scheme was implemented, that would have caused animated debate in society and perhaps a review at that juncture itself. As mentioned earlier, the Services are peripheral to policy formulation about defence and national security matters. They are professionals in their own right and enjoy great autonomy in operational matters. In other areas, where there are several angles at play, the political executive will decide one way or the other, after having duly considered the views of the military leadership. The Agnipath scheme is one such example for which the political executive bears full responsibility and accountability in every respect, including its impact on military preparedness. Photograph: Rajesh Karkera for Rediff.com IMAGE: The first batch of IAF Agniveervayus on the parade ground. That having been said, I have three points that must be considered carefully by the political executive. First, has there been any official communication from the Service Chiefs that the scheme compromises military preparedness in any way? If yes, have their views been seriously considered? Second, is the re-induction of 25% adequate to maintain the strength of the Services? If not, are we willing to accept reduced numbers and yet maintain combat effectiveness? Third, is there a commitment from the government to absorb Agniveers leaving after four years? If so, how and in which industries/forces? If in the police or paramilitary forces, have gazette notifications been issued to formalise quotas or priorities? If these questions are satisfactorily answered, many unnecessary debates will be avoided. And another thing -- why is nobody talking about the Short Service Commission Officer entry scheme? That is also non-pensionable. They too leave after 10 years. They too have no job assurance or security once they leave. The Services are happy with the scheme for several reasons. There could be similar benefits from the Agnipath scheme too -- and if one such benefit is reduction in the pension bill, what is wrong with that? I would go a step further to suggest the inclusion of the Short Service Commission and Agnipath equivalent schemes in all government jobs. It may just enhance efficiency and promote merit rather than be assured of a life-long son-in-law (damaad) status with all perks, privileges and pension. Photograph: Rajesh Karkera for Rediff.com IMAGE: The first batch of lady Agniveervayus. In today's world of opportunity, let me end on a personal note. I have served the Indian Navy four decades, starting with a life-long commitment at the age of 17, when I was packed off to the National Defence Academy in a second class compartment with a steel trunk containing all my belongings. I would definitely not do it if I was today's youngster. If I did wish to serve in the defence forces, I would have opted for the Short Service Commission entry if I were to join as an officer and the Agnipath scheme if I were to join as a sailor. Fifteen or twenty years is too long a commitment to make in this day and age. And when individuals leave the armed forces with good training, discipline and age on their side, a plethora of avenues open up for further education, employment and service to the nation. Give the Agniveer a chance. Such public domain discussions affect their morale and dedication -- and that, if anything, will definitely affect combat-effectiveness. Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta (retd) is a former Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command. Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com Wednesday's Vikravandi by-election has become a referendum on the Stalin government, notes N Sathiya Moorthy. IMAGE: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin meets a victim hospitalised at the Mundyambakkam Government Medical College in Villupuram after consuming spurious liquor. Photograph: ANI Photo If someone had predicted that the politico-electoral fortunes of the ruling DMK and Chief Minister M K Stalin's government would both take huge hits, one after the other, just weeks after the party-led INDIA combine's clean sweep in the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu, they would have been branded either as biased or unstable or both. Yet, that is what has happened. First, it was the Kallakurichi hooch tragedy where the death toll mounted to 67, with no guarantee that there may not be an upward revision in the coming days if the condition of the hospitalised victims became unmanageable. If that was not enough for records of crime in the state in two weeks, came the killing of state Bahujan Samaj Party leader S Armstrong, by six motorcycle-borne masked men, in the crowded industrial suburb of Perambur in Chennai. Very few people had known that the BSP had a full-fledged branch in the state as it was not vibrant. Even active politicians and political journalists had not known (much) about the dead man, fewer would have seen him or even recognised him in a photograph. But his killing has taken the state by surprise, if not a storm. An assembly by-election in the Vivkravandi constituency in northern Viluppuram district, adjoining the tragedy-ridden Kallakurichi district, is scheduled for Wednesday, July 10. No one had any doubts that the DMK would comfortably win it, in the footsteps of the party combine's Lok Sabha poll sweep. In fact, no one, starting with party cadres, believed Opposition AIADMK boss and former chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami's explanation that the party's decision to not field a candidate owed to anticipated electoral malpractices. Today, after the hooch tragedy and Armstrong killing, there are serious doubts if the DMK candidate would be able to make it in Vikravandi, where the PMK had fielded its candidate for the BJP-NDA, which too drew a blank, like the breakaway AIADMK ally, in the Lok Sabha polls. There is a third candidate from actor-politician Seeman's NTK, which did creditably well with 10 per cent vote-share in the Lok Sabha polls, with some candidates polling a respectable hundred thousand votes or thereabouts, with a couple of them taking the third place in some constituencies. The reasons are not far to seek. The hooch tragedy overnight destroyed the 'feel-good-factor' favouring the Stalin leadership and government as none else since he became chief minister in May 2021. With the social media competing with the formal media -- both print and electronic media in the local language -- there was much information and interpretation for the people at large in general and the Vikravandi voter otherwise. What political party leaders in the state, including that of the ruling DMK, have not understood for long is the sense of shame that pervades multiple layers of society when the state gets a bad name across the country and also in the international media. They tend to punish the ruling party in circumstances such as these. Or, they penalise whoever is considered as the 'bad element'. Both have happened since the turn of the century, and the 2K kids, with their brethren working elsewhere in the country and overseas, too, not only imbibe the message but also spread the same, again on social media than through the customary word-of-mouth. The ruling DMK's defeat in the post-2G assembly polls of 2011 owed to this factor, so have successive elections since then, not to leave out the way the Jallikattu protests got organised in January 2017 and into a massive rally that the rest of the nation neither understood, nor appreciated. Rather, because they did not understand the cultural sentiments and the sense-of-denial involved in it all, the rest of India did not appreciate it. But that is a different matter. IMAGE: All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam General Secretary Edappadi Palaniswami and party MLAs raise slogans outside the Tamil Nadu assembly over the Kallakaruchi hooch tragedy. Photograph: ANI Photo Of course, this time on the hooch tragedy, there is another minor argument over a major issue: Of the state government announcing Rs 10 lakh compensation to the families of victims (as always) whereas the next-of-kin of fire accident victims in match factories and Diwali cracker factories in the state get only Rs 3 lakhs each. This was repeated even in the midst of the Kallakurichi episode, and that's what got the goat of apolitical or non-partisan observers. The matter is now before the Madras high court, which has asked the state government to explain the rationale behind 'rewarding' hooch deaths. Yes, the very illegality behind those deaths, and hence the compensation, whatever the amount, are unjustifiable, both morally and legally. What adds another twist to the tale is the fact that legalised liquor is available in the state, that too sold exclusively by the state government as nowhere else in the country, making it unnecessary and 'unjustified' for drinkers to prefer hooch over the 'real thing'. Rather, hooch is the 'real thing' for them as it gives more 'kick' than the official stuff. Yet, no leader, including state BJP leader K Annamalai, has demanded total prohibition in the state in the face of the hooch tragedy. Every political party and leader who aspired to come to power in the 2026 assembly polls talked about total prohibition. They only talked about the failure of law enforcement and alleged involvement of ruling party leaders, bottom up, in all illegalities involving the government, starting with and including illicit liquor. IMAGE: Bahujan Samaj Party President Mayawati pays her respects to the mortal remains of Tamil Nadu party president K Armstrong in Chennai, July 7, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo If pro-prohibition campaigners watching the tragedy and its follow-through from the sidelines were saddened by the deaths and also the political blame-game that meant nothing, the BSP leader's killing was another ball game altogether. The social media posts by some faceless activists and police-friendly campaigners that Armstrong was himself an accused in over a dozen criminal cases, in and around the city, fell on deaf ears, almost as they began doing the rounds. In its place, the very killing of the president of the state unit of a political party known across the country, his Dalit caste identity, etc, were pushed forward, quick and fast, that alongside the news of his late-evening killing appearing on the front-pages of newspapers on the third morning and the TV news channels the next day, there appeared condemnation on these counts -- all of them blaming the political leadership, not for complicity but inefficiency. What should surprise the DMK leadership is the fact that going beyond political opponents and media critics, even allies did not spare the government. Included in the list were Congress and Dalit-strong VCK allies of the ruling party from three successful past elections since 2019. Not stopping with state Congress president Selvapernthagai, incidentally a Dalit, even Rahul Gandhi took note of the Armstrong killing. To some people in the DMK, it was the 'unkindest cut'. Then you had VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan, a party compatriot who had won LS seats with comfortable margins in DMK's company. He also said what even the political rivals of DMK and Stalin had not charged the government with. Thiruma said that he did not believe that the six or eight who had surrendered to the police were not the real killers, as claimed by the police. DMDK's Premalatha Vijayakanth, not a friend of the ruling party, raised an equally nuanced question as to how early reports of 'surrender' by the accused overnight became one of 'arrests' by the police. IMAGE: Edappadi K Palaniswami and party leaders meet Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi, at Raj Bhavan in Chennai, June 25, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo The Armstrong killing has in a way pushed the hooch tragedy into the background but without erasing it from memory. That was because BSP national president Mayawati made it a point to fly down to Chennai, to pay her respects, when Armstrong's body was placed in a Chennai municipal corporation school grounds in the crowded suburbs for people to pay respects. Of course, the choice of a school grounds for the purpose has indicated how unprepared the government machinery was in tackling a crisis. Yes, they can claim that by allowing it, they had defused a worse situation, as the authorities feared Armstrong's party men, supporters and henchmen blockading main roads, as they had done outside the prestigious Government Rajiv Gandhi Hospital on a main thoroughfare. If the choice of the venue for keeping Armstrong's body for people to pay respects may have set a bad precedent, another one was averted when his wife moved the Madras high court for burying the body on the state BSP premises, as was allowed to DMDK's actor-politician founder Vijayakanth only months earlier, in the long un-up to the Lok Sabha polls, that is. In a way, it needed the high court's intervention to set the house in order. Justice Bhavani Subbarayan, both through her ruling and personal appeal to the petitioner-wife of Armstrong, to conduct the funeral elsewhere as the authorities had to clean the school grounds by Sunday evening for the classes to re-commence for the new week. The judge told the petitioner, and through her, Armstrong's militant supporters and followers, how the government was right in not permitting the last rites to be performed on the party premises in a crowded locality with human habitation. In comparison, there was no human habitation near the DMDK office, where Vijayakanth's body was allowed to be cremated. However, she said Armstrong's followers could construct a memorial for him, elsewhere, after obtaining the necessary clearances from the authorities concerned. Against this background, the ruling DMK is not as sure as bagging neutral voters that had sided with the party-led combine whole-heartedly in the Lok Sabha polls, now in the Vikravandi by-election. A new element was added by VCK ally Thiruma's comments on the genuineness of those surrendered/arrested. Questions are being asked if it was also a message to his party cadres and Dalit voters in Vikravandi not to vote for the DMK alliance-leader. If so, to whom will those votes go -- to the PMK or NTK? Or, that is the question in everyone's mind, though no one is talking about it. However, the DMK still has a saving grace as AIADMK's EPS refused to endorse either the PMK or the NTA candidate, after Dr Anbumani Ramadoss and Seeman, respectively, appealed to him. If yet, one of their candidates won the by-election, or came close to the victory line while the DMK still made it, it would mean that EPS would have to take instructions from his cadres, who had developed a mind of their own -- and not the other way round, as he seemed to have assumed. On the sidelines of grave socio-political developments with possible electoral implications for the present and the future, EPS and BJP's Annamalai have also continued with their war-of-words even as they were targeting the DMK government and Stalin's leadership. Likewise, EPS has not stopped telling his cadres that he would not make up with predecessor chief minister and one-time party compatriot, O Panneerselvam, OPS. IMAGE: Tamil Nadu Youth Welfare Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin pays his respects to victims of the Kallakurichi hooch tragedy, June 20, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo The Vikravandi by-election has become sensational without anything particularly happening -- or, not happening -- within the constituency's perimeter. On the reverse side, the constituency has overnight acquired the status of being the 'conscience' of the state as a whole. Rather, the by-election has pushed the Lok Sabha polls to the distant background and has become an overnight referendum on the performance of the Stalin government. To be fair to him, the chief minister did not personally campaign in the by-election. Instead, he decided to make do with a video-message to the voters. His son and minister, Udhayanidhi Stalin undertook a two-day campaign tour of the constituency, as if it were an after-thought, post-Kallakurichi. It's all still an internal issue for the DMK that will not be remembered for long. What will be remembered would be the result, especially because the current by-poll has been caused by the sudden death of the incumbent DMK legislator in the midst of the Lok Sabha polls, owing to a massive heart-attack. That is to say, if the DMK regains the seat now, there will be no cause for celebration. If it loses or if the party wins but the victory margin is low, it would be cause for deliberations -- not only within the DMK but also elsewhere, where realignment of political forces and creating required conditions for the same would be the topic. That would mean that the DMK and the Stalin leadership would have lost the incumbent advantage that they had regained and reiterated in the Lok Sabha polls. Instead, it would be a return to the pre-Lok Sabha poll sense of 'anti-incumbency' against the Stalin government, which only the overall anti-Hindutva sentiments wiped out after Prime Minister Narendra D Modi had made the Tamil Nadu polls, too, his own, as elsewhere across the country! N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and author, is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator. Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com Modi's inability to make peace with a renewed Opposition will only embolden his coalition partners and it is just a matter of time before they begin asking probing questions besides politely disagreeing with his tactics, predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra D Modi speaks in the Lok Sabha, July 2, 2024. Photograph: Sansad TV/ANI Photo The Budget Session of Parliament is scheduled to begin in less than a fortnight. If the tone and tenor of the two sides, the Treasury Benches and the Opposition, during Parliament's inaugural Session after completion of the elections for the 18th Lok Sabha is anything to go by, the forthcoming session is poised to be equally, if not more, confrontational, chiefly because the government is yet to make decisive gestures to make parliamentary functioning harmonious and consensual. Fears of the raucous character of the inaugural session being repeated are accentuated by its short duration (scheduled sittings for just 16 days). The ephemeral character of the Budget Session will be at odds with the government's declared intention, stated by President Droupadi Murmu in her address to the two Houses on June 27. Through her speech, the government announced that the Budget will be 'an effective document of the government's far-reaching policies and futuristic vision' and that alongside 'major economic and social decisions, many historic steps will also be seen in this Budget'. Logically, if the Budget will indeed announce extensive policy proposals, the government, which has fewer numbers on its side when compared to the 17th Lok Sabha, should have summoned the Budget session for a longer duration and not for such a short period to enable in-depth discussion on the proposals. This indicates that there has been no significant revision, for the better, in the attitude of the principal coalition party of the National Democratic Alliance, the Bharatiya Janata Party, towards Parliament and its proceedings despite the loss of 63 seats in its Lok Sabha tally. IMAGE: Modi in the Rajya Sabha, July 3, 2024. Photograph: Sansad TV/ANI Photo Paradoxically, in 2019 as well as in 2014, when the BJP won more seats, the Budget sessions were for longer durations. The first Budget session during the tenure of the 17th Lok Sabha was convened for 37 days while the Rajya Sabha sat for 35 days. Likewise, during the Budget session in 2014, the Lok Sabha ran for 167 hours, while the Upper House worked for 142 hours spread over 27 days. Over decades in the Lok Sabha, which has the powers to sanction expenditure proposals of the ministries, the time spent on discussing these has declined. Consequently, Demands for Grants that were not discussed, usually for the majority of ministries, were clubbed together and voted usually by voice-vote, with the exercise called 'guillotine'. The BJP disparages the Congress for being insincere to parliamentary functioning. Yet, it was the Rajiv Gandhi government in August 1989 which launched the 'committee system' by establishing Standing Committees for Agriculture, Science and Technology and Environment and Forests to scrutinise the Demands for these ministries. When the system proved successful, in April 1993, again under a Congress PM at the helm, 17th Departmentally Related Standing Committees (DRSCs) were established. Conventionally thereafter, the Budget session was held in two phases -- after the Budget presentation and other legislative business, the two Houses would go into recess and during this period, the DRSCs comprising members of both Houses examined the Demands pertaining to the respective ministries. These committees submitted reports and the ministries had the option to incorporate suggestions into the final Budget and brought it for passage in the second phase of the Budget session. Problems arose when elections were held just after the scheduled Budget presentation, as in 2004 when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government advanced the polls. In those years, as in 2024 too, instead of the regular Budget, an interim Budget was passed. This was the case in 2014 and 2019 too, and the full Budget when presented post-polls was not discussed in detail for paucity of time -- in 2014, 94% of the Demands were passed without discussion and in 2019, only 20% of the demand for grants were discussed in the Lok Sabha. IMAGE: Modi and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi shake hands as they accompany newly elected Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to the chair, June 26, 2024. Photograph: Sansad TV/ANI Photo Although the present government is thinner on its majority, the duration of the Budget session has unfortunately been further reduced. The government has neither allowed time for the separate Demands to be taken by the DRSCs, nor does the House for a sufficient number of days. This sets up the forthcoming session to be as antagonistic as the concluded one. The government, however, can still minimise this possibility by showing greater accommodation towards the enhanced Opposition benches. To begin with, this regime, especially the BJP, should show greater accommodation. A beginning can be made by offering the Deputy Speaker's position to the other side. The BJP should not repeat the brazenness of 2019-2024 when for the first time in parliamentary history the 17th Lok Sabha did not have a Deputy Speaker. Deputy Speakers in the past were often from the opposition parties -- for instance, the Akali Dal's Charanjit Singh Atwal held the position during 2004 and 2009 and the BJP's Kariya Munda was in the office between 2009 and 2014. Prime Minister Modi needs not repeat his political small-mindedness of 2014-2019 when the position was held by the BJP ally, the AIADMK's M Thambidurai. Political pragmatism warrants that Modi makes this gesture prior to the Budget session and pledge that the Deputy Speaker's matter shall be taken up immediately after the Budget is presented and any other pressing matter is completed. IMAGE: Modi during his speech in the Lok Sabha, July 2, 2024. Photograph: Sansad TV/ANI Photo Yet, doubts arise over adoption of such a strategy because the prime minister, it appears continues to remain in denial in regard to this year's electoral verdict. At times it appears that for Modi, June 4 remains a missing date from his calendar and he still presumes that his government has a majority comparable to the previous House. Till the absolute end of the campaign, he was convinced that the BJP was returning to office with a majority significantly greater than in the House dissolved. He also believed that along with BJP allies, the tally would be even more, if not 400+ exactly but somewhere in that range. However, Modi is saddled with an unprecedented situation. In almost 23 years since October 2001 when he became Gujarat chief minister, Modi always commanded a comfortable majority in either the Vidhan Sabha or Lok Sabha. This enabled him to create a system that provided untrammelled power. This structure silently backed the politics of communal polarisation, promoted steadily even after the 2002 riots. The cornerstones of Modi's 13 year reign in Gandhinagar, besides the politics of ceaseless polarisation on basis of religious identity, were the following: A highly centralised, even saffronised, bureaucracy, backed by the police and run by a band of closely knit loyalists and assembled under the nomenclature of the chief minister's office; the so-called single-window clearance which provided him power to give an official nod to all business proposals (alongside benefits that come with such authority); and the ubiquitously mentioned Gujarat-model that did little but open up space for the private sector while curbing traditional entrepreneurship in the state. This apparatus was partly transplanted and partially replicated, besides being expanded in New Delhi on a national level. This model of governance worked when Modi had absolute parliamentary majority. But with it missing, the prime minister will have to turn consensual. He cannot anymore be the domineering self that he has been so far. Such a working style and creating an all-embracing persona is not instinctive to Modi. As a result, despite knowing what will work, he has so far only gone half-way up the tree. IMAGE: Modi speaks in the Rajya Sabha on the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address, July 3, 2024. Photograph: Sansad TV/ANI Photo In the inaugural sessions of Parliament, the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President got underway only after back channel talks with the Opposition. Yet, for reasons unknown, the understanding collapsed -- possibly with his failure to set the ball rolling on the Deputy Speaker's election. The Opposition has demonstrated that its numbers cannot be taken lightly by Modi this time. Time will begin running out for the government very soon. His inability to make peace with a renewed Opposition will only embolden his coalition partners and it is just a matter of time before they begin asking probing questions besides politely disagreeing with his tactics. Buoyed by a comfortable majority previously Modi embarked on his premiership in 2014 by terming Parliament as 'temple of democracy' and the Constitution as the nation's 'only Holy text'. With that majority no longer propping him up, it is time that Modi finally pays obeisance in that temple and upholds the Holy Book. This can be best done by yielding on the Deputy Speaker -- after all, Article 93 categorically states that Lok Sabha shall 'as soon as may be choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker'. Modi navigated the 17th Lok Sabha in violation of this clause. The composition of the present House will not permit this and it will be wise to eat humble pie now for relatively trouble free sessions in Parliament. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is an author and journalist based in Delhi-NCR. His latest book is The Demolition, The Verdict and The Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project. He is also the author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com 'China will do everything to hamper our ability to be a competitor.' 'China wants every country in the region to be subservient and we are the biggest stumbling block.' IMAGE: An Indian soldier stands guard over makeshift forts hastily built in Ladakh during the India-China war in 1962. Photograph: Radloff/Three Lions/Getty Images from the Rediff Archives Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Hasabnis, VSM, the commanding officer of 5 Jat was captured by Chinese troops in the 1962 War. He spent seven months in solitary confinement where the Chinese subjected him to immense mental torture and severe physical hardship. A few weeks after he was taken captive, a telegram saying 'Missing, presumed killed,' was sent by the army to his home in Pune, but his wife refused to believe the news. The family found out that he was alive and a prisoner of war three months later. During his incarceration, Major Hasabnis drew strength from his spiritual grounding. He wrote letters to his family which would take over a month to reach them. A vegetarian, he subsisted on the food he was given -- coarse rice with pieces of pork. Tea was given without sugar. He lost 30 pounds while in jail. "I won't say that those months in captivity did not scar him. Sometimes he spoke about our ill prepared status and how it affected his men," says his son Lieutenant General Sudarshan Hasabnis who followed his father into the Indian Army and retired as the deputy chief of army staff. Both of Lieutenant Colonel Hasabnis's sons joined in the Indian Army, the older one joined the same battalion as his father. In the concluding segment of his interview to Rediff.com's Archana Masih. Lieutenant General Hasabnis recounts the course of his father's life after his return as a PoW. This is the story of an extraordinary soldier who passed away in 2022, but continues to live on in India's military history. Part 1 of the Interview: 'He Was Alive, But A Captive Of The Chinese' Did your father blame anyone for the lack of preparedness in the 1962 War with China? The then government was the main culprit as far as he was concerned. Twenty of his men did not have weapons; their clothing, guns, infrastructure, ammunition was not up to the mark. Since only tinned non vegetarian food was available in the ration provided to them, he had to convert the vegetarian Jat soldiers into non vegetarians to survive. They were surrounded and heavily outnumbered by the Chinese, yet they did not flinch and stood firm. IMAGE: Then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru with then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images from the Rediff Archives Did the seven months as a prisoner of war scar him? I won't say that those months in captivity did not scar him because sometimes he did speak about our ill prepared status and how it affected his men. But other than that he never really let us know. Did the action in Galwan in 1962 begin before NEFA? NEFA had other preliminary operations, but the main launch where 600 soldiers of the 7th Brigade died along the Namka Chu river also happened on October 20. What happened on his release and repatriation to Ranchi? He was debriefed in Ranchi. The defence secretary was also present and asked only one question. He said, 'Major, where do you place China in respect to India when it comes to development?' My father replied they were much better developed. He was asked how much time would it take to catch up with them and he said at least a decade. The defence secretary told him that he was wrong and it would take many more decades, that was the sense our bureaucrats had even at that time. It has taken us so many decades after that to really wake up and start working on it. What course did his career take after his return? After his return he went on to raise a new battalion, 16 Jat, in Bareilly. He was one of the junior most officers at the Centre and was given the responsibility to raise it. In late 1966-1967, he was posted back to the battalion which was deployed in Mizoram in anti-militant operations. He revitalised the battalion, won hearts and minds of the people and built a network of informants to conduct successful operations against the militants. He later commanded 6 Jat in the 1971 War. IMAGE: Then Major Shrikant Hasabnis. Photograph: Kind courtesy Lieutenant General Sudharshan Hasabnis What happened to that Galwan post that your father and 7 Jat troops were at? The Galwan post that my father was at is now with the Chinese. Galwan is a tributary into the Shyok which flows from east to west. What I have learned is that the Chinese were already to the west where the Gorkhas had established their post [in the 1962 War]. This is what instigated China to surround that post. If this post was established to the west of where the Chinese were sitting, they would not have had so much objection because this was one of the closest routes to their highway through Aksai Chin. One must remember that this is not where the action took place in 2020. Did he keep in touch with the soldiers he commanded in the 1962 War? He had a tremendous ability to connect with those who served under his command, but he never went back to any of his battalions post-retirement. It was much later that he visited them for the raising day or golden jubilee functions after we persuaded him. When he left the military, he had a clean break. IMAGE: Then Major Shrikant Hasabnis, extreme left. Photograph: ANI Photo How better planned are we against the Chinese now? When then defence minister A K Antony went to Arunachal Pradesh, the Chinese raised a hue and cry. At that time the government conceded that until then India had maintained a defensive outlook towards China. We did not have infrastructure reaching the border under the impression that the Chinese would exploit it to come inside. That visit by Antony triggered something and the government started paying more attention towards the northern border. The current government has enhanced the focus significantly. The previous government had raised the Mountain Strike Corps -- the XVII Corps. I was fortunate enough to command that corps. The mindset that we should not only be defensive and be ready to take the war into their territory started changing 15, 20 years ago. In 1998 when George Fernandes had called China enemy no 1, he drew sharp criticism in political circles. This indicated how cautious we were about talking poorly about the Chinese. We were not confident about taking on the Chinese at that time. Over the years things have changed and in the recent past India has become aggressive -- our infrastructure and deployments have changed. Things are much better than 15 years ago. India has to raise its comprehensive national power for China to take cognisance of its stature. China will create the smallest of obstructions in our way -- whether it is by blocking the bid to designate (Lashkar-e-Tayiba leader) Hafiz Saeed a terrorist or obstructing other proposals by us in the UN. They will do everything to hamper our ability to be a competitor. China wants every country in the region to be subservient and we are the biggest stumbling block. Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com Mihir Shah, prime accused in the BMW hit-and-run case, changed his appearance to evade arrest, the prosecution on Wednesday told a court here which remanded him in police custody till July 16. IMAGE: Mihir Shah, the main accused in the Worli hit-and-run case, is being produced before the Sewri court, in Mumbai on Wednesday. Photograph: ANI Photo Shah, the son of Shiv Sena leader Rajesh Shah, had committed a 'cruel heartless crime', and they wanted to probe who helped him when he was on the run for more than two days after the early Sunday morning accident, police told the court. Mihir, 24, was arrested on Tuesday from Virar near Mumbai, two days after he allegedly rammed his BMW car into a two-wheeler in Mumbai's Worli area, killing Kaveri Nakhwa (45) who was riding pillion with her husband Pradeep Nakhwa. According to police, Kaveri was dragged for 1.5 km before the accused stopped the car. On Wednesday, Shah was produced before chief metropolitan magistrate (Sewree court) S P Bhosale. Pressing for his remand for the maximum possible period, public prosecutors Ravindra Patil and Bharti Bhosle said that he escaped from the crime scene with the help of co-accused, and the police wanted to find out who helped him abscond and stay hidden. There were discrepancies in the statements of Mihir Shah and his driver and co-accused Raj Bidawat, and the number plate of the BMW was yet to be recovered, the prosecution said. Police also needed to probe if Mihir Shah tried to destroy evidence by contacting anyone after the incident, it said. He changed his appearance by cutting his hair and shaving off the beard to evade arrest, and it was necessary to find out who helped him change his look, the prosecution said. Police also wanted to investigate whether the accused has a driving license, it said, claiming that after his arrest, Shah did not cooperate with the investigation and gave misleading information. His custodial interrogation was needed for recovering more evidence, the prosecution added. Shah's lawyers Ayush Pasbola and Sudhir Bhardwaj argued that the entire case revolved around the arrest of the person who was driving the car. The car was recovered and the number plate must have fallen off somewhere near the accident site, advocate Pasbola said, adding that it was not the police's case that the accused took it away. Police were demanding Shah's remand for confronting him with his driver, but Bidawat was in police custody for sufficient period, the defence said. Most of the investigation was complete and Shah's custody was not needed, the lawyers argued. The court, after hearing both the sides, remanded Mihir Shah in police custody for seven days. His father and Sena leader Rajesh Shah, accused of helping him escape, is out on bail. Driver Bidawat, who was in the car and allegedly took the driver's seat after the accident in order to shield Mihir, has already been remanded in police custody till July 11. Moderate to high turnout was recorded in 13 assembly constituencies across seven states where bypolls were held on Wednesday amid sporadic incidents of violence in Uttarakhand, Bihar and West Bengal. IMAGE: Voters click a selfie while showcasing their ink-marked fingers after casting their vote for the Maniktala assembly by-elections, in Kolkata on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo Voting time was from 7 am to 6 pm. According to the Voter Turnout app of the Election Commission (EC), Tamil Nadu's Vikravandi assembly seat registered the highest polling percentage among the 13 constituencies and Uttarakhand's Badrinath seat saw the lowest turnout. The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha polls, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes, including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur. Barring some incidents of violence in Bihar, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, polling went on peacefully. In Uttarakhand's Manglaur constituency, four people were injured in a clash between supporters of rival parties at a polling booth. Roorkee Civil Line Kotwali in-charge R K Saklani told PTI that a report was received about the clash at booth number 53-54 in Libbarheri in Manglaur. Some reports claimed there was firing at the booth but police denied the reports. Purported videos of the clash showed Congress candidate and former MLA Qazi Nizamuddin taking a man in bloodstained clothes to the hospital. He accused the BJP of throttling democracy by sowing seeds of hatred. Another video showed him embracing an injured party worker at the hospital. Violence erupted at the booth when some people with half their faces covered started stopping people from voting, sources said. While 68.24 per cent of voters exercised their franchise in Manglaur, Badrinath reported a turnout of 49.80 per cent. The Manglaur bypoll was necessitated by the death of sitting Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari last October, while the Badrinath seat fell vacant after sitting Congress MLA Rajendra Bhandari resigned and switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party in March. In West Bengal, violence was reported in Bagdah and Ranaghat Dakshin assembly segments as the BJP accused Trinamool Congress activists of assaulting its booth agents and stopping its candidates from visiting some polling stations. BJP candidates Manoj Kumar Biswas and Binay Kumar Biswas from Ranaghat Dakshin and Badgah respectively claimed they were not allowed to visit some booths. Manoj Kumar Biswas alleged that BJP camp offices in some areas were ransacked by the TMC. BJP's Maniktala candidate Kalyan Chaubey faced protests and was greeted with 'go back' slogans allegedly by TMC activists as he tried to enter a booth in the constituency. The TMC denied the allegations and dubbed them as 'baseless'. The BJP has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission against these incidents. Among the constituencies, Raiganj witnessed the highest turnout at 67.12 per cent, followed by Ranaghat Dakshin at 65.37 per cent, Bagda at 65.15 per cent and Maniktala at 51.39 per cent. In Bihar, where bypolls were held for the Rupauli assembly seat, two officials were injured when a mob attacked a police party in Purnea. Sub Divisional Police Officer (Sadar) Pushkar Kumar said polling was disrupted briefly because of the clash and a sub-inspector and a constable were injured. According to the state election office, a voter turnout of 57.25 per cent was recorded in the bypoll to the Rupauli seat, down from 61.19 per cent the constituency witnessed in the 2020 assembly election. The bypoll was necessitated by the resignation of sitting MLA Bima Bharti, who had won the seat for the Janata Dal-United several times in the past but quit the party recently to contest the Lok Sabha election on a Rashtriya Janata Dal ticket. Eleven candidates were in the fray. The JD-U fielded Kaladhar Prasad Mandal, who had contested the 2020 assembly polls from the seat as an Independent. Former MLA Shankar Singh, who recently quit the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), was also in the fray as an independent. In Himachal Pradesh, the Nalagarh assembly constituency recorded the highest polling percentage of 78.82, followed by Hamirpur with 65.78 and Dehra with 63.89. The seats fell vacant after the three independent legislators Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra), Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur) and K L Thakur (Nalagarh), who had voted in favour of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls held on February 27, resigned from the House on March 22. In Punjab, the bypoll to the Jalandhar West assembly segment saw a voter turnout of 51.30 per cent. At many polling stations, voters were gifted plants. The ruling Aam Aadmi Party fielded Mohinder Bhagat, the son of former minister and former BJP MLA Bhagat Chunni Lal from the seat. Bhagat had joined AAP after quitting the BJP last year. The Congress bet on Surinder Kaur, a former senior deputy mayor and five-time municipal councillor in Jalandhar. She is a prominent Dalit leader of the Ravidassia community. The BJP fielded Angural, who switched sides in March after quitting AAP. He won this seat in the 2022 Punjab assembly polls on an AAP ticket. Brisk polling was witnessed in the bypoll to the Vikravandi assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu with voters queuing up in large numbers at polling stations to exercise their franchise since the morning. As per EC data, 82.48 per cent of voters exercised their franchise. The bypoll was necessitated by the demise of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam legislator N Pughazhendhi. It is a triangular contest in Vikravandi with ruling DMK's candidate Anniyur Siva (alias Sivashanmugam A) pitted against Pattali Makkal Katchi's (PMK) C Anbumani and Naam Tamilar Katchi's K Abinaya. Polling was also held for the Amarwara (ST) assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh and the polling percentage recorded was at 78.71. The by-election was necessitated after three-time Congress MLA Kamlesh Shah switched to the BJP in March. The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday ordered the Haryana government to open up within a week on 'experimental basis' the barricade at the Shambhu border near Ambala, where farmers have been camping since February 13. IMAGE: Paramilitary personnel stand guard at Punjab-Haryana Shambhu Border Photograph: ANI Photo The court also directed Punjab to ensure that the protesters gathered in their territory are also 'duly controlled as and when the situation so requires'. The farmers have summoned a meeting on July 16 to discuss the matter. Meanwhile, farmer Shubhkaran Singh, who was killed at Khanauri border on February 21, was hit by a shotgun bullet, Haryana additional advocate general Deepak Sabherwal said, quoting a report of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL). The farmers have been camping at the Shambhu border since February 13 when their 'Delhi Chalo' march was stopped. The Haryana government had set up barricades including cemented blocks at the Ambala-New Delhi national highway in February when Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non Political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) had announced their plan to move towards Delhi in support of various demands, including a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) for crops. The high court's directions came on a bunch of petitions filed on farmer-related issues and against blockade which included the one filed by Haryana-based advocate Uday Pratap Singh. Also directing Punjab to remove any obstruction on the highway to ensure free flow of traffic, the high court said, "Both the states shall endeavor to ensure that the highway at Shambhu Border is restored to its original glory and open to one and all and that the law and order is maintained for the convenience of the public." Observing that the highway is the lifeline for the state of Punjab, the court said the blockade due to preventive measures by Haryana is leading to a lot of inconvenience. "Thus, there is no free flow even to the transport vehicles or the buses and the diversion can only be used by persons who are using private transport and thus general public has been put to major inconvenience," said the division bench of justices G S Sandhawalia and Vikas Bahl in the order. "As noticed, the number of protestors has now dwindled to only 400-500 as admitted by the states as in the earlier orders, we had not directed opening of the highways since the situation at that time due to gathering at Shambhu Border of 13,000-15,000 was tense. "It has also been brought to our notice that a similar entry point for the State of Punjab into Haryana and the barricade at Khanauri Border, District Sangrur, continues to be blocked. Thus, it is apparent that the lifelines of the state of Punjab are blocked on account of mere apprehension and the cause has dwindled," the court said. In such circumstances, we are of the considered opinion that it would be in the interest of general public that the state of Haryana now does not continue to block the highways for all times to come, it said. The court said, "Accordingly, on experimental basis, we direct the state of Haryana that at least the barricade at Shambhu border should be opened up within a week so that general public is not put to inconvenience." The court also said it is open to the state of Haryana to take effective steps to enforce the law and order against the protestors if they do not remain within their limits which have been set down by the state. The high court also directed the farmers' outfits participating in the agitation to maintain law and order. Meanwhile, speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Sabherwal said according to the CFSL report which was submitted before the court on Wednesday, Shubhkaran was hit by a shotgun bullet. The high court observed that no police force or paramilitary force ever uses the shotgun, said Sabherwal. He further said Jhajjar Police Commissioner Satish Balan has been nominated the SIT head to investigate the Shubhkaran case. According to the court order, "The (CFSL) report would go on to show that the pellets under reference were found to have been fired through shotgun and correspond to size '1' pellets of shotgun cartridges. The piece of skin and hair strands under reference have been examined chemically for the presence of firing discharge residues which were duly detected." The SKM (Non-Political) and KMM are spearheading the 'Delhi Chalo' march by farmers to press the government to accept their demands which include that the Centre should give a legal guarantee for MSP for crops. Shubhkaran, a native of Bathinda, was killed and many police personnel were injured in clashes at the Khanauri border point on the Punjab-Haryana border on February 21. Meanwhile, reacting to the court directive, farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said they have called a meeting of both the forums -- SKM (Non Political) and KMM -- on July 16 to discuss the issue. "We had earlier made it clear that we had not blocked the road and the barricading had been done by the Centre and Haryana government," he said. In a statement, Pandher also said, "Farmers never had any intention to block the road. If the government opens the highway, then farmers will not create any obstacle in traffic movement". For the last few years, terrorists have been found using the American-made M4 carbine assault rifles in Jammu and Kashmir, and more so during the recent attacks including in Kathua, a trend that experts say is "alarming" as the "leftover" weapons of the US Army after its pullout from Afghanistan in 2021 seem to have reached the ultras through Pakistani handlers. IMAGE: US Staff Sgt Martin Matteson, a team leader with C Troop, 5th Squadron, 1st Calvary Regiment, from Youngstown, Ohio, explains how an M4 semi-automatic rifle during a weapons exchange at Ranikhet Cantonment, Uttarakhand, during Yudh Abhyas, September 26, 2014. Photograph: Staff Sgt Mylinda DuRousseau/US Army The M4 carbine is a lightweight, gas-operated, air-cooled, magazine-fed and shoulder-fired weapon with a collapsible stock in service since 1994. With over 500,000 units produced since the 1980s, the M4 is available in several variants. It is claimed that the rifle has a cyclic rate of fire of 700-970 rounds per minute and an effective firing range of 500-600 meters. M4 carbine rifles were designed and developed in the 1980s and used extensively by NATO, including a variant reportedly in service with several militaries including Pakistani special forces and the Special Security Unit of the Sindh police. Offering greater manoeuvrability, the rifle has been used in several wars including the Syrian civil war, Iraqi civil war, Yemeni civil war, Colombian conflict, Kosovo war, Iraq and Afghanistan war after 9/11. The frequent use of these assault rifles by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, according to experts, is a consequence of the US Army leaving behind arms and ammunition while pulling out from Afghanistan in 2021 and is a cause of concern due to the more lethal nature of the steel bullets used. "After the withdrawal of Americans from Afghanistan, they have left a huge stock of arms and ammunition. Though the Americans claim that they destroyed most of it. But I think with canonisation and things of that kind, these weapons have fallen into the hands of the terrorists," defence expert Lt Gen Sanjay Kulkarni said. Experts say that it is Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence that has been helping terrorists with sophisticated weapons like M4 carbine rifles to further their "nefarious designs" in Jammu and Kashmir. Kulkarni, who has served in Jammu and Kashmir during his tenure in the Indian Army, believes that the US Army's leftover weapons have been now found by the ISI, which is using them to train terrorists. He said that M4 rifles have steel bullets that have definite penetration and are generally not utilised because they come under various kinds of restrictions. "But you find that the Americans have left such huge piles of ammunition (in Afghanistan), which are far more sophisticated," Kulkarni said. The first instance of recovery of the M4 carbine rifle in Jammu and Kashmir was reported on November 7, 2017, when a nephew of Jaish e Muhammad chief Masood Azhar, Talha Rasheed Masood, was killed in a gunfight in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district. In 2018, the weapon was recovered by security forces in Kashmir's Pulwama for the second time when Azhar's another nephew Usman Ibrahim was killed. Later, on July 11, 2022, one M4 carbine rifle was recovered from an encounter site in the Awantipora area of Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district where Jaish-e-Muhammad commander Kaiser Koka and one another terrorist were neutralised. Shesh Paul Vaid, former director general of Jammu and Kashmir police, said there was no frequent use of M4 carbine rifles by terrorists in the region during his tenure -- December 2016 to September 2018. "Let me first make it very clear that during my tenure as DGP, I have not come across the use of M4 rifles. They have largely come to notice, being used here in Kashmir, after America left its arms in Afghanistan," Vaid said. Recently, the M4 carbine was reportedly used in all the major attacks in the Jammu region including the Kathua attack on July 8 in which five soldiers were ambushed to death. On June 9, the weapon was reportedly used in the Reasi attack when terrorists attacked a tourist bus leaving nine people dead and 41 injured. Two weeks later, on June 26, an M4 rifle besides a huge cache of arms and ammunition was recovered from the terrorist killed in a gunfight in Jammu and Kashmir's Doda district. Last December, terrorist outfit People's Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF) which claimed responsibility for the Poonch terror attack in which four soldiers were killed, showed the sophisticated US-made M4 carbine assault rifles on social media. Vaid, while admitting that M4-like sophisticated weapons increase the probability of casualties, hopes that security forces will effectively deal with the challenge. "I think it makes people even in bulletproof vehicles vulnerable. That is the danger," said Vaid. The security forces and J-K police have been facing this for many many years and we will face this even in times to come," he said. He expressed the hope that the forces will be able to take measures on "how to face such a situation where your enemy is equipped with such sophisticated weapons". Mihir Shah, the prime accused in the Mumbai BMW hit-and-run case and son of a Shiv Sena politician, has told the police he was driving the car at the time of the crash which killed a woman and injured her husband, officials said on Wednesday citing probe carried out so far. IMAGE: Police inspect the BMW vehicle of Mihir Shah, the main accused in the Worli hit-and-run case, at Worli Police Station, in Mumbai on Wednesday. Photograph: ANI Photo The 24-year-old accused, who is in police custody till July 16, has claimed he possesses a driving licence, but the police were yet to recover the document, an official said. The police have so far recorded the statements of 14 people, including Mihir Shah's mother, sisters and friends, the official said, adding cops are likely to visit the crash spot in Worli, south-central Mumbai, and re-construct the entire crime scene as part of their investigation. His father Rajesh Shah, a Shiv Sena politician from adjoining Palghar district, is also an accused in the case and currently out on bail. Mihir Shah was arrested on Tuesday from Thane district, two days after he allegedly rammed his BMW car into a two-wheeler, killing a woman, Kaveri Nakhwa, 45, who was riding pillion, and injuring her husband Pradeep in the early hours of Sunday. After crashing into the couple's scooter, Mihir Shah was very much aware that the woman was stuck in one of the tyres of the luxury car, but still he drove recklessly and did not stop though motorists passing by frantically signalled and shouted, asking him to halt, said the official. The horrific accident was captured in CCTV cameras of the police installed at Mela Junction and Bindu Madhav Thackeray Chowk in Worli. After crossing Bindu Madhav Thackeray Chowk, other motorists asked Mihir Shah to stop the car, but he did not listen to them and continued driving, according to the official. During interrogation, the accused, whose family chauffeur was sitting besides him, admitted that he was behind the wheel at the time of the crash, but did not tell the police from which point he started driving and till when, he said. Mihir Shah is not cooperating in the investigation, as per the official. After the accident, the prime accused, his family members, who stay in suburban Borivali, and his grandfather, who resides in Palghar, left their respective homes and remained untraceable. In conceal his identity, Mihir Shah, booked by the police for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, among other charges, shaved his beard and trimmed his hair, the official said, adding they were trying to find out if anyone helped him in changing his appearance. The police will bring Rajrishi Bidawat, the family chauffeur, and Mihir Shah face to face to get more information about the crash and to know the entire sequence of events, he said. Bidawat, who was accompanying Mihir Shah at the time of the crash, is also an accused in the case. The 1994 Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) espionage case, in which former space scientist Nambi Narayanan was falsely implicated, was allegedly created by a then special branch officer of Kerala police to justify his illegal detention of a Maldivian woman in India after she spurned his advances, the Central Bureau of Investigation has told a court in Thiruvananthapuram. Photograph: Shobha Warrier/ Rediff.com IMAGE: Dr S Nambi Narayanan. The agency has made the allegation in a charge sheet filed by it against five former police officers for allegedly implicating Narayanan and five others, including two Maldivian women, in the espionage case. In the charge sheet, which was filed in the last week of June but became public on Wednesday, the CBI said that the then special branch officer S Vijayan, who retired as an SP, took away the travel documents and air tickets of Maldivian national Mariyam Rasheeda, preventing her from leaving the country, as she spurned his advances. The agency further said that Vijayan then found out that she was in contact with an ISRO scientist -- D Shasikumaran -- and based on that a surveillance was mounted on Rasheeda and her Maldivian friend Fauzia Hasan. The police had also informed the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) about the women, but the IB officers who examined the foreign nationals could not find anything suspicious, the CBI said. Thereafter, Rasheeda was arrested under the Foreigners Act for overstaying in the country without a valid visa with the knowledge of the then Commissioner of Police, Thiruvananthapuram and then SIB Deputy Director, the CBI said. When Rasheeda's custody under the Foreigners Act was about to expire, on the basis of a false report submitted by Vijayan, she and Hasan were implicated in a case under the Official Secrets Act and their custody was handed over to an SIT formed to probe the espionage issue, the CBI said in its charge sheet. Subsequently, the SIT arrested four ISRO scientists including Narayanan, the CBI added. In the charge sheet, the CBI has said that its probe revealed that the espionage case was an 'abuse of law right from the initial stage' when Maldivian national Mariyam Rasheeda was detained illegally and framed for overstaying in the country for allegedly spurning the advances of Vijayan. 'To sustain the initial wrongs, another case of serious nature was launched with false interrogation reports against the victims (including Narayanan and others),' the agency has said in its final report recommending the prosecution of former DGPs R B Sreekumar and Siby Mathews, former SPs S Vijayan and K K Joshua and ex-intelligence officer P S Jayaprakash. The agency has charged them under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code including sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 342 (wrongful confinement), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to extract a confession), 167 (public servant framing an incorrect document), 193 (giving false evidence), 354 (outrage modesty of a woman). The agency, however, did not recommend prosecution of the other 13 accused, including then Kerala police and IB officers, in the case as no evidence was available against them. Reacting to the development, Narayanan on Wednesday said that as an individual he was not concerned whether the charge-sheeted former police and IB officers were punished or not as his role in the matter was over. "They have already been punished. They are already suffering. I have no desire that they should go to jail. I do not even expect an apology from them. I would have been happy if they just said that they had made a mistake," Narayanan told reporters. The scientist said that his innocence was revealed in 1996 and since then he fought a legal battle for 20 years to find out who was behind the conspiracy to frame him. "I have proved my innocence. My work is over," he said. The case regarding the conspiracy to frame Narayanan was registered in 2021 on the Supreme Court's directions. On April 15, 2021, the apex court had ordered that the report of a high-level committee on the role of erring police officials in the 1994 espionage case involving ISRO scientist Narayanan be given to the CBI. The Kerala police had registered two cases in October 1994 after Maldivian national Mariyam Rasheeda was arrested in Thiruvananthapuram for allegedly obtaining secret drawings of ISRO rocket engines to sell to Pakistan. Narayanan, the then director of the cryogenic project at the ISRO, was arrested along with the then ISRO deputy director D Sasikumaran and Fousiya Hasan, a Maldivian friend of Rasheeda. The CBI probe had found the allegations to be false. Terming the police action against the former ISRO scientist 'psychopathological treatment', the apex court had, in September 2018, stated that his 'liberty and dignity', basic to his human rights, were jeopardised as he was taken into custody and, despite all the glory of the past, was eventually compelled to face 'cynical abhorrence'. The apex court had also awarded a compensation of Rs 50 lakh to Narayanan as compensation for wrongful imprisonment, malicious prosecution and humiliation suffered by him. Russia on Wednesday said it is hoping for quick resolution of the issue relating to India's call for return of Indians recruited into the Russian Army as support staff and asserted their recruitment was purely a commercial matter. IMAGE: Members of right-wing group Hindu Sena hold placards and flags as they take part in a march in support of Russia, in New Delhi, on March 6, 2022. Photograph: Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters In first comments on the issue from the Russian government, Russia's Charge d'affaires Roman Babushkin said Moscow never wanted the Indians to be part of its Army and their number is insignificant in the context of the conflict. "We are on the same side with the Indian government on the issue... We hope that the issue will be resolved soon," he said at a media briefing while responding to a question. Babushkin's remarks came a day after Russia promised to ensure early release and return to home of the Indian nationals working in the Russian military as support staff after Prime Minister Narendra Modi 'very strongly' raised the issue with President Vladimir Putin. Babushkin noted that the issue should not be politicised. "Let us be very clear, we have never wanted Indians to be part of the Russian Army. You would never see any announcement by Russian authorities on this," he said. The Russian diplomat said most of the Indians were recruited under a commercial framework as they wanted to 'make money'. The number of Indians -- 50, 60 or 100 people -- does not make any significance in terms of the wider conflict. "They are there purely for commercial reasons and we did not want to recruit them," he said. Babushkin said most of the Indians recruited as support staff are working illegally as they do not have appropriate visas to work. He said most of them came to Russia on tourist visas. Asked if the families of those killed would be given compensation and Russian citizenship, Babushkin said that it 'should happen anyway as per the contractual obligations'. On Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said in Moscow that the Russian side promised early discharge of all Indian nationals from the service of the Russian Army. "The prime minister strongly raised the issue of early discharge of Indian nationals who have been misled into the service of the Russian Army. This was taken up strongly by the prime minister and the Russian side promised early discharge of all Indian nationals," he said. It is learnt that Modi raised the issue during his informal talks with Putin over dinner at the Russian leader's dacha or country home on Monday evening. Kwatra said the two sides will work on how expeditiously the Indians can be brought back home. Last month, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the issue of Indian nationals serving with the Russian Army remains a matter of 'utmost concern' and demanded action from Moscow over it. On June 11, India said two Indian nationals, who were recruited by the Russian Army, had recently been killed in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, which took the number of such deaths to four. Following the deaths of two Indians, the MEA demanded a 'verified stop' to further recruitment of Indian nationals by the Russian Army. In a strongly-worded statement, it said India demanded that there be a 'verified stop to any further recruitment of Indian nationals by the Russian Army and that such activities would not be in 'consonance with our partnership'. In March, 30-year-old Hyderabad resident Mohammed Asfan succumbed to injuries sustained while serving with Russian troops on the frontlines with Ukraine. In February, Hemal Ashwinbhai Mangua, a 23-year-old resident of Surat in Gujarat, died in a Ukrainian air strike while serving as a 'security helper' in the Donetsk region. Modi was on a two-day high-profile visit to Russia from Monday to hold the 22nd India-Russia annual summit with Putin. India will continue to be a strategic partner for the United States despite concerns over its ties with Russia, the Biden Administration has said. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin during his two-day visit to Russia, Moscow, July 9, 2024. Photograph: @PMOIndia/X Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Russia for two days for the 22nd India-Russia annual summit that has been watched closely by the West amidst the raging Ukraine conflict. During his talks with Putin on Tuesday, Prime Minister Modi told the Russian President that a solution to the Ukraine conflict is not possible on the battlefield and peace efforts do not succeed amid bombs and bullets. On Tuesday, spokespersons of the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department reacted separately to questions on India's relationship with Russia and Modi's visit to Moscow. "India and Russia have had a relationship for a very long time. From a US perspective, India is a strategic partner with whom we continue to engage in full and frank dialogue to include their relationship with Russia. As it relates to the NATO summit being this week, of course, like you, the world is focused on that," Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters at a news conference. On the other hand, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at his daily news conference that the US has been quite clear about its 'concerns about India's relationship with Russia'. "We have expressed those privately directly to the Indian government, and continue to do so. And that has not changed," Miller told reporters at his daily news conference. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said India is a strategic partner with whom the US engages in full and frank dialogue including their relationship with Russia. "We've talked about this before. So we think it's critical that all countries including India support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace when it comes to Ukraine," Jean-Pierre told reporters at her daily news conference on Tuesday. "It is important for all our allies to realise this. And so we also believe India's long standing relationship with Russia gives it the ability to urge the president, President Putin to end his brutal war, an unprovoked war in Ukraine. It is for President Putin to end. President Putin started the war and President Putin can end the war," she said in response to a question. India has been stoutly defending its 'special and privileged strategic partnership' with Russia and maintained the momentum in the ties notwithstanding the Ukraine conflict. India has not yet condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has consistently pitched for a resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy. Ryder said: "I do not think anybody will be surprised if (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin tries to represent this visit in a way that seeks to somehow show that he is not isolated from the rest of the world. And the fact of the matter is President Putin's war of choice has isolated Russia from the rest of the world, and it has come at great cost. Their war of aggression has come at great cost, and the facts bear that out," he said. "So we will continue to view India as a strategic partner. We will continue to have a robust dialogue with them," Ryder said. "He (Putin) is not looking so isolated with the head of the world's largest democracy being in Moscow, embracing him right now," a reporter asked. Ryder responded by saying that Prime Minister Modi also met recently with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and offered his assurances that India will continue to do everything within its means to support a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine. "I think that we trust that India will support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace for Ukraine and will convey to Mr Putin the importance of adhering to the UN charter and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added. Miller said the US continues to "urge India to support efforts to realise an enduring and just peace in Ukraine, based on the principles of the UN charter based on upholding Ukraine's territorial integrity and its sovereignty. And that will continue to be what we will engage with India about. Eighteen people were killed and 19 injured when a double-decker sleeper bus headed for Delhi hit a milk tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway in Unnao on Wednesday, officials said. IMAGE: Mangled remains of a bus after it collided with a milk container on Lucknow-Agra Expressway, in Unnao on Wednesday. Photograph: ANI Photo The accident occurred around 5 am near Jojikot village in Behta Mujhawar police station area. District Magistrate Gaurang Rathi said it appears that the bus, which was coming from Motihari in Bihar, was speeding and hit the milk tanker from behind. Eighteen people died and 19 were injured in the accident. A probe has been launched into the matter, he said. Rathi said 20 passengers who sustained minor injuries were sent to Delhi in another bus, which was carrying 60 people. Additional Director General of Police, Lucknow, S B Shiradkar told PTI that 14 men, three women and a child were killed in the accident. Bangarmau Circle Officer (CO) Arvind Kumar said due to the collision, both the bus and milk tanker overturned. Drivers of the two vehicles were among the dead. He said the injured were rushed to a hospital and their condition was stated to be stable. Glass shards and people's belongings lay scattered on the highway next to the overturned bus and milk tanker. Cranes were used to put the two vehicles back on their wheels and they were later towed away. The impact of the collision left the front portion of the bus badly mangled with one side ripped open. "We were sleeping. I don't know what happened," Mohd Shamim, a passenger who sustained head injuries in the accident, told reporters at the hospital. Another passenger, Dilshad, lost six of the eight family members he was travelling with. "We were sleeping at the time of the accident and woke up to find ourselves trapped inside the bus. Those who reached the spot were busy recording videos instead of helping," Dilshad said. He said the bus driver was speeding all night. Later, Dilshad identified six members of his family -- Ashfaq (45), Ruby (40), Gulnaz (12), Suhail (4), Sonu (32) and Soni (28) -- in the post-mortem house. Four other deceased were identified as bus driver Ekhlaq (49), milk tanker driver Sunil Kumar (35), Deepak Kumar (27) and Shivdayal (28). Police had earlier said 14 bodies had been identified. However, they later said that only 10 had been identified so far. Another injured, Chandni, said there were around 60 passengers in the bus and officials reached the accident spot an hour after the incident. She thanked the local administration for facilitating a video call with her husband. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said officials have been instructed to ensure the best treatment for the injured. 'The loss of lives in a road accident in Unnao district is extremely sad and heartbreaking. My condolences are with the bereaved families,' he said in a post on X. 'District administration officials have been instructed to reach the spot and expedite the relief work. I pray to Lord Shri Ram to grant a place to the departed souls at his feet and for the speedy recovery of the injured,' the chief minister said. President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the loss of lives in the accident. In a post on X, Murmu said, 'The news of the death of many people in a road accident on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh is extremely sad. I express my deepest condolences to the family members of those who have become victims of such sudden death and wish for the speedy recovery of those injured.' Modi announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh for the families of the deceased. 'The road accident in Unnao is extremely painful. My condolences to those who have lost their loved ones in this (accident). May God give them strength in this difficult time. Along with this, I wish the injured a speedy recovery,' the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) quoted Modi as saying in a post on X. Modi said the local administration is extending all possible help to the victims under the supervision of the state government. 'The prime minister has announced an ex gratia of Rs. 2 lakh from PMNRF for the next of kin of each deceased in the mishap in Unnao. The injured would be given Rs. 50,000,' the PMO said. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge expressed grief over the incident and urged the administration to provide all help to those affected. 'The news of the death of 18 people in a tragic road accident on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao, UP, is extremely saddening. We express our deepest condolences to the bereaved families of the victims,' he wrote on X. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav posed a series of questions to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government over the incident. 'Where was the highway police? Was regular patrolling not being done? How long did it take for the highway ambulance service to arrive after the accident and what was its role in relation to the casualties?' he said. Crores of rupees are collected on the expressway every day. Is this money going somewhere else instead of being spent on management of the expressway, he said. Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati said the news of the Unnao accident was extremely sad and measures must be taken to prevent such incidents in future. According to an official release, the district administration has issued helpline numbers -- 0515-29707662, 0515-2970767, 10774 (toll-free), 96514327035, 94544174476 and 8081211297. 'There are legions of unemployed degree holders across rural and semi-urban belts in Maharashtra. Now, they aren't finding brides.' 'This issue has now snowballed into a social crisis. In 2014 and 2019, they had voted for the BJP.' IMAGE: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra D Modi with Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde in Nagpur. Photograph: ANI Photo Now that he is in the twilight of his political career, the name of Rajabhau Ganeshrao Thakre, a Kunbi leader from the cotton-growing district Yavatmal in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, does not ring a bell. But, almost three decades ago, in 1996, Thakre had hit the national headlines. In the Lok Sabha elections that year, the Congress overlooked its four-time sitting member of Parliament Uttamrao Deorao Patil, also a Kunbi leader, and parachuted then Union civil aviation minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to fight from Yavatmal. The Congress hoped it would be a 'safe landing' for Azad in the constituency it had never lost. The Bharatiya Janata Party fielded Thakre. In Vidarbha, the Kunbis, a dominant agrarian caste, traditionally support the Congress. When the ballots were opened on the counting day, Thakre had trounced Azad by a margin of 38,000 votes. Stung by the defeat, the Congress made a course correction. In the next Lok Sabha election, it brought back Patil, who wrested the seat from Thakre. The BJP too learnt its lessons. It sensed that with the right caste combination in the Mandal era, it could mount a serious challenge to the Congress. "The BJP worked on the Mali-Dhangar-Vanjari (Madhav) caste combination in Maharashtra," says Sudhir Pathak, former editor of Tarun Bharat, a newspaper seen sympathetic to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Part of the BJP-Shiv Sena (undivided) strategy was to counter what is seen by election watchers in Vidarbha as the Congress's Dalit-Muslim-Kunbi formula. According to sources in the BJP, things started falling into place for the party after the Ram Janambhoomi movement gained traction in the early 1990s. Sensing that the BJP was on the rise, a section of leaders of Other Backward Classes in the Congress wanted to jump ship, but were reluctant as they perceived the BJP as a 'Brahmin-Bania' party. Gopinath Munde and Pramod Mahajan reached out to them and accommodated them in the Shiv Sena, projecting Balasaheb Thackeray, a non-Brahmin, as the Hindutva icon. Meanwhile, the BJP started silently mobilising the non-Kunbi OBC castes. To entice the Kunbi voter, wherever the Congress fielded a Mahar (a dominant scheduled caste to which Dr B R Ambedkar belonged) candidate, the BJP-Shiv Sena turned to a non-dominant scheduled caste candidate. Photograph: Prasanna D Zore/ Rediff.com IMAGE: MNS, BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP supporters wave their respective party flags during the 2024 election campaign. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, this strategy of mobilising the non-dominant castes peaked, with the BJP-Shiv Sena (still undivided) winning all the 10 seats in the region. The erstwhile alliance bagged all but two seats in 2019 as well. In 2024, things went into reverse in Vidarbha, seen as a bellwether region in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP-led alliance (Mahayuti) won only three of the 10 seats. "The BJP could not counter the narrative of the 'Constitution is in danger' set by the Opposition. Even some backward classes which supported it earlier voted against it," says Pathak. "People also did not like the politics of breaking parties. What was the need to take in Ajit Pawar when you already had the Shinde Sena?" he asks. "For the assembly polls, the BJP will need to find a counter to this narrative as quickly as possible and ramp up its organisation." With no nagar panchayat and gram panchayat polls post-Covid, the BJP cadre felt demoralised as the party was seen to be governing through bureaucrats, say sources. Devanand Pawar, general secretary, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee, says his party will win hands down in the assembly polls. "In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, there was no division in the votes of backward classes, scheduled castes, and scheduled tribes. Also, with several bigwigs switching to the BJP, the Congress had less infighting." The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi, bagged eight of the nine seats reserved for the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in Maharashtra. In 2019, the BJP alliance had bagged eight of these seats and won all nine in 2014. IMAGE: Modi along with BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar, Shinde and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray at the election rally in Shivaji Park, May 17, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo The Maratha might If the Dalit-Muslim-Kunbi maths rocked the Mahayuti boat in Vidarbha, the Maratha-Muslim-Dalit consolidation singed it across Maharashtra. In Marathwada, the nerve centre of the Maratha quota protests, the dominant Maratha community decisively voted out BJP candidates. "Marathas voted against Mahayuti in Maratha versus Maratha contests. The only seat the BJP-led alliance could win in Marathwada was the one where the MVA had put up a non-Maratha candidate," says Shantanu Lamdhade, a psephologist. "Elsewhere, like in Pune, the BJP's Maratha candidates won because the MVA had put up non-Maratha candidates," he adds. Though the Election Commission Web site does not show a caste-wise break-up on winning candidates, the data collated from independent sources shows as many as 28 Maratha/Maratha-Kunbi candidates and seven OBC candidates were elected in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Maharashtra always had a "residual Congress sympathy", says Kedar Naik, professor of political science, Ajeenkya D Y Patil University, Pune. "The Maratha agitation has hit the BJP. An unforeseen number of Maratha candidates have been elected. Marathas do not simply wield raw muscle power, but it is also institutional like sugar factories, agriculture produce marketing committees and educational institutes. Some OBCs have to collaborate with this power. Even Maratha stalwarts like former chief minister Ashok Chavan, who switched over to the BJP, could not save the day," says Naik, adding that the going would be tough for the BJP-led alliance in the Assembly election. "The BJP alliance needs to handle the Maratha quota issue skilfully and address its root cause, which is agrarian distress. Then there is stalled industrialisation. If these issues are addressed, caste fault lines would wither away. But, this is next to impossible in a short span of three-four months," says Naik. Beyond caste arithmetic, the floating voter seems to have gravitated towards the Congress alliance. "There are legions of unemployed degree holders across rural and semi-urban belts in Maharashtra. Now, they aren't finding brides. This issue has now snowballed into a social crisis. In 2014 and 2019, they had voted for the BJP," says Jaideep Hardikar, a journalist who has covered rural distress in Maharashtra for over two decades. "When general despondency sets in, Rs 1,000, Rs 3,000 doles do not elevate living standards. You have to offer something concrete. Three-four months is too little time to make amends. The MVA has momentum. The BJP will try to ring-fence its vote share," adds Hardikar. Some realignment may be in the offing, says Naik. "Now the MVA will fight harder than ever because they stand a fighting chance. Many turncoats who joined the BJP not because of any ideological affinity but just to save their fiefdom may return to the MVA fold," adds Naik. "But MVA consolidation may see fragmentation. The possibility of the BJP's victory was a unifying factor in the Lok Sabha election. Now that they have tasted victory, seat sharing won't be easy...the Congress has already started speaking like the Big Brother." Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com In celebration of its 18th anniversary and Xero Day, the global small business platform Xero announces the return of the Xero Beautiful Business Fund for 2024. This AUD$700,000 initiative empowers small businesses and non-profits with vital funding to fuel their growth plans and achieve success. Entries for the Xero Beautiful Business Fund are officially open to Xero small business customers in Australia, Canada (excluding Quebec), New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States. The entry period will close on 27 August 2024 NZT. Xero small business customers will need to complete an online form and record and submit a 90-second pitch video to the competition website for as many categories as they would like to enter: Innovating for environmental sustainability For a small business or non profit who wants to take the next step in their environmental sustainability journey by: minimising their own environmental impact; enhancing the sustainability of current products and services; or developing new environmentally friendly products and services. Trailblazing with technology For a small business or non profit that has a future focus mindset and is seeking to innovate. These organisations want to set the pace and lead the charge using new and emerging technologies. Strengthening community connection For a small business or non profit that has a mission or purpose rooted in serving their communities and making a positive impact. It could be to make a difference in the community they serve, support underserved or marginalised groups or contribute to social good through innovative ideas or solutions. Upskilling for the future For a small business or non profit that wants to overcome a skills gap, either through upskilling themselves or their employees. These organisations see a path forward with greater access to training and professional development. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Xero CEO, said: Were thrilled to offer the Xero Beautiful Business Fund again in 2024. As a global judge last year, getting to hear first hand from our small business customers about their ideas and aspirations was a rewarding experience that reminded me of the resilience, drive and determination it takes to be a business owner. The fund is a chance to reflect on our purpose to make life better for small businesses, their advisors and communities around the world and provide meaningful support so our customers can fulfill their dreams or take that next big step with confidence. Regional and global prize winners The total prize pool offering of AUD$700,000 will be shared among 28 winners. There will be four winners from each country (one in each category), determined by local judging panels, and each winner will receive AUD$20,000. Of those 28 winners, four will become global winners, determined by a global judging panel, and each global winner will receive an additional AUD$50,000. The 2023 global winners were from Australia, US, New Zealand and the UK and represented a group of small businesses and non profits passionate about solving problems and making an impact in their local communities. They cover a diverse range of businesses such as: a charity and volunteer organisations tackling childhood poverty, a food buying club connecting local growers and producers to customers, a lighting design and manufacturing business and more. Kathy Wilson, Co-Owner of Brisbane vinyl record pressing plant, Suitcase Records, and 2023 Australian winner in the Innovating for environmental sustainability category, shared: The Xero Beautiful Business Fund has kickstarted our mission to pioneer low carbon compound vinyl records, and we are proud to now be amongst the most sustainable record pressing plants in Australia, and the world. Anthony Drury, Managing Director ANZ, Xero, said: As the Xero Beautiful Business Fund returns for its second year, we are excited to continue Xeros commitment to supporting and celebrating Australias incredible small business community. By recognising the innovation, philanthropy and exceptional work of our valued customers, we hope that this years Xero Beautiful Business Fund will help four deserving businesses meet their dreams. For full criteria, details on how to enter and 2023 winner profiles, please visit our website. Submissions will close on 27 August 2024 NZT and winners will be announced at the end of October 2024. Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. BRATTLEBORO The Atlantic Ocean is an environment that fascinates both artist Jessica Straus, whose exhibit Stemming the Tide recently opened at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC), and conservation ecologist Brendan Reid of Rutgers University. At 2 p.m. July 21, the two very different practitioners come together at BMAC to discuss their work and how art and science can intersect in unexpected ways. BMAC Curator Emerita Mara Williams will moderate the discussion, which is free and open to all. For accessibility questions and requests, email office@brattleboromuseum.org or call 802-257-0124, ext. 101. This is the first of two upcoming BMAC events that bring together an artist focused on the natural world with a fellow environmentalist from another professional field. On Sept. 29, painter Ilana Manolson, whose main artistic subjects are rivers and other bodies of water, will join Rebecca Todd, executive director of the Connecticut River Conservancy, for a discussion, also moderated by Williams, about the power of water and the impact humans have on it. At the July 21 event, Straus and Reid will explore their shared interest in the cod population that lives, increasingly precariously, in the North Atlantic Ocean. Strauss multimedia installation at BMAC focuses on the cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland. In the 1990s, a government-imposed moratorium destroyed the local cod-fishing industry and reshaped the Canadian province almost overnight. Straus, who grew up on the New Hampshire coast, was riveted by how this political, economic, and cultural disaster forced Newfoundland to reconfigure its fragile relationship with the ocean. Her installation includes three elements: a large quilt-like map that spans the coastal corridor from Greenland down to New England; a school of carved wooden cod swimming out from the map and onto the gallery floorlike spirits of the cod that were once so plentiful, Straus saysand a series of photographs depicting pieces of the map floating in the ocean, displayed behind hand-knotted fishing nets. Straus calls these pieces of mapped Earth a metaphor and a meditation on all that we are letting slip away. Reid, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers, has studied a range of different aquatic vertebrates, including turtles in the midwest and the Philippines and cod in the North Atlantic. His past research has focused on genetics, adaptation, evolutionary potential, and how animals react to climate change. Together, Straus the artist and Reid the scientist will explore how they and their respective projects intersect and complement each other. Most elementally, that overlap could be described as a cautionary tale for us all, as Straus says, and as a call to action to protect the health of our oceans, according to Curator Emerita Williams. Stemming the Tide is on view at BMAC through Oct. 19. It is supported in part by BMACs Wolf Kahn & Emily Mason Exhibition Endowment Fund. Founded in 1972, the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center presents rotating exhibits of contemporary art, complemented by lectures, artist talks, film screenings, and other public programs. The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is on a pay-as-you-wish basis. The museum, in historic Union Station in downtown Brattleboro at the intersection of Main Street and routes 119 and 142, is wheelchair accessible. For more information, call 802-257-0124 or visit brattleboromuseum.org. BMAC is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by Brattleboro Savings & Loan, C&S Wholesale Grocers, the Four Columns Inn, Sams Outdoor Outfitters, and Whetstone Beer Co. Brattleboro, VT (05301) Today Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. High around 55F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear skies. Low 39F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. A shift in the Australian job market? The ABS reports a drop in job mobility, with experts suggesting a move away from quiet quitting and towards increased employee caution due to economic pressures. New ABS data released reveals that Australias job mobility rate has fallen for the first time in three years, returning to pre-pandemic levels. In the 12 months to February 2024, about 8% of employed people, or 1.1 million, changed their employer or business, a drop from 9.6% in February 2023, according to ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis. This marks a return to the typical range seen in the five years before the COVID-19 pandemic, Jarvis noted. The decline in job mobility was observed in both men and women, though it was more pronounced among men. Consequently, womens job mobility slightly outpaced mens at 8.2% compared to 7.9%, reversing the trend of the past decade. Younger workers remain more mobile than older workers, with 12.6% of 15 to 24-year-olds changing jobs, though this is lower than the 15.9% peak seen in 2022 and significantly below the rates of over 20% from 20 years ago. Job mobility rates fell across all age groups but remained slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels among older workers. Sales workers had the highest mobility rate at 9.7%, followed closely by community and personal service workers at 9.6%. The only industries to see an increase in job mobility were information media and telecommunications (+1.8 percentage points) and other services (+0.1 percentage points), while the largest declines were in arts and recreation services (-5.4 percentage points) and transport, postal, and warehousing (-4.5 percentage points). In February 2024, 1.9 million potential workers were not employed but wanted to work, up from 1.8 million in February 2023. Of these, around 555,000 were unemployed (actively looking for work and available), and 1.3 million were not in the labor force (not actively looking and/or not available to work). More than 1 million people were available to start work immediately, and an additional 483,000 could start within four weeks, Jarvis said. The remaining 330,000 were not available for over a month. Among those available but not actively looking for work, the main reasons were attending educational institutions (197,000 people, or 24%), caring for children (112,000, or 14%), or having a long-term health condition or disability (98,000, or 12%). In February 2024, 82% of unemployed people reported difficulty finding work, with the primary challenge being too many applicants for available jobs (12.7%), insufficient work experience (10.8%), and health or disability issues (10.7%). Jarvis noted an increase in people reporting difficulties related to labor market conditions compared to February 2023, reflecting a less tight labor market. Kylie Green, Managing Director APAC at Reward Gateway: The sharp drop in job mobility for the first time in three years is a clear indication that the power balance in the Australian job market is shifting. Contrary to the quiet quitting and loud labouring trends that gathered steam during the pandemic, external pressures including the rising cost of living and widespread redundancies has led to a 4% increase in tenure across all age groups. While job mobility has remained highest among the youngest demographic with 13% of 15-24 year olds changing jobs over the course of a year, this represents a 3% drop for the cohort from 16% just two years before. This indicates Australias junior workforce and consequently those most disproportionately impacted by high rents and energy costs is becoming increasingly risk averse when it comes to switching roles in the current climate. Yet as employers begin to see the impact of this cautiousness on their retention rates, they should be conscious not to become complacent. Business leaders must acknowledge that high retention in the current environment may not necessarily correlate with high employee satisfaction. Whatever the economic environment, employees require acknowledgement and recognition to do their best at work, and employers should ensure they are on the front foot to deliver this. In fact, according to our recent Employee Engagement Report, people with high wellbeing report 2.3x higher engagement at work, and with the average cost of hiring has increasing from $10,000 to $23,000 per candidate in the past year, it pays to make employee wellbeing a core component of your business strategy. Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Northern Shan, Rakhine and Kachin states see towns and bases fall to the opposition. Eight months after the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies started to turn the tide in Myanmars civil war with a campaign against the military junta known as Operation 1027, fighting is heating up with the end of a Chinese-brokered ceasefire. The Taang National Liberation Army resumed military operations in northern Shan state on June 25, responding to the juntas repeated artillery strikes and aerial bombing of TNLA positions. Junta forces were trying to soften up the TNLA in a bid to open up Highway 3 from Lashio, the largest town in northern Shan state, to Muse, the main border crossing to China. The TNLA and the other two members of the insurgent alliance the Arakan Army, from Rakhine state, and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), based on the Chinese border held a meeting with the State Administrative Council (SAC), as the junta is formally known, in Naypyidaw, but the talks broke down. Members of the Ta'ang National Liberation Army and the Mandalay People's Defense Force stand in front of the captured toll gate in Nawnghkio township in Shan state, Myanmar, June 26, 2024. (Mandalay People's Defense Force via AP) The Arakan Army refused to stop their offensive in northern Rakhine state, which they now almost fully control as they fight to take Maungdaw. The second phase of Operation 1027 has moved along nearly as quickly as the first, launched on, and named after, Oct. 27, 2023. Within days, the TNLA had taken some 26 military camps. Over 20 junta troops were killed and over 20 were captured. After a week, the MNDAA joined the TNLA and allied militia known as peoples defense force (PDF) as they pushed west and south. In just the past week, two more towns in northern Shan state Kyaukme and Nawnghkio have fallen to the opposition, while Mogoke is under partial control. Momeik seems likely to fall soon. RELATED STORIES Renewed fighting drives 50,000 people from homes in northern Myanmar Junta military preparations point to brutal next phase in Myanmar conflict Ceasefire in northeast Myanmar ends as junta battles ethnic rebels Mired in military chaos, Myanmars junta locked into struggle for survival The military has been trying to aerially reinforce a battalion in Nawnghkio, but the TNLA has not let up their assault of key military positions around the town. The MNDAA has captured a junta light infantry battalion in Nampaung. More significantly, the Three Brotherhood Alliance has turned their sights on Lashio, the regions commercial and administrative hub and a gateway to China. More symbolically, the city of 130,000 people is the headquarters of the Northeast Military Command, one of the juntas twelve military regions. Opposition successes in Rakhine and Kachin It had long been assumed that Lashio was a redline that would trigger a Chinese response, but the TNLA and MNDAA are now closing in on the city, routinely striking it with artillery. Seven people were killed in a clash in early July. As a sign of just how nervous the junta is about losing Lashio, its forces destroyed five bridges into the town. In Rakhine state on Myanmars west coast, the Arakan Army captured the Thandwe airport on July 5, as well as a light infantry battalion in Maungdaw, a key city on the border with Bangladesh. They continue to surround Ann township, an important transportation hub and the headquarters of the Western Military Command. The Arakan Army claims to have killed over 900 soldiers in recent fighting, though there has been no independent verification of this. Given the juntas inability to resupply troops, the lightly garrisoned southern half of Rakhine is now within reach of the Arakan Army. These houses in Lashio were destroyed by shelling on July 3, 2024. (Citizen photo) In Myanmars north, heavy rains in Kachin state have caused massive flooding, road closures, and the dislocation of over 23,000 people. The monsoon weather has caused the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to slow their offensive after months of significant gains. Today, the KIA controls all border crossings into China, and much of the highway from the state capital Myitkyina to Sumprabum. When fighting resumes, the southern Kachin logistics hub of Bhamo, with its airport, will be a strategic priority. String of successes The regimes redeployment of forces, including new conscripts, to Pyin Oo Lwin and Lashio has resulted in a surprise offensive by the Mandalay Peoples Defense Force, arguably the most battle hardened forces of the opposition National Unity Government (NUG). The Mandalay rebels have had a string of successes, including an attack out of the mountains into Singu, to sever Highway 31 that connects Mandalay to Bhamo. A Rohingya Muslim man who fled to Bangladesh from Maungdaw township in Myanmar shows his wounds after being injured in a drone attack on June 19, 2024. (Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters) On Tuesday, the Mandalay PDF told the Irrawaddy online news outlet it had seized 11 junta bases in Singu township in eight days of fighting to control the Mandalay-Mogoke road. The TNLA, meanwhile told the Irrawaddy it has captured four Myanmar junta bases in northern Shan state and the Mandalay region on Tuesday. A successful KIA offensive in Bhamo would imperil the regimes ability to resupply from Mandalay. At the same time, the KIAs control of large parts of the mountainous road between Mansi and the TNLA controlled border crossing at Namkhan makes any junta resupply of northern Shan state from the north almost impossible. This is further evidence of significant coordination between the shadow government NUG and the ethnic resistance organizations. While Operation 1027 saw significant opposition gains in northern Shan state, the southern half of the state has largely remained loyal to the junta, if for no other reason than to continue to turn out industrial quantities of methamphetamine. The Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP) had announced that it would bandwagon with the Three Brotherhood Alliance, but thus far has failed to join in the second phase of Operation 1027. Instead, SSPP fighters have been clashing with regional rivals, the Restoration Council of Shan State. Where the SSPP rubs shoulders with the Three Brotherhood Alliance, there have been sporadic clashes. In early July, the SSPP accused the TNLA of killing one of their officers. The TNLA briefly attacked an SSPP position in early July. Airstrikes by a desperate military While neither situation escalated, it highlights the difficulties of cobbling together an alliance in such a complex political-ethnic tapestry. Even when it is in groups strategic interests to cooperate, at the tactical level, rivalries and grievances take over. That is unfortunate, because a good way to add to pressure on the junta would be to open a new front in southern Shan state, which for three-and-a-half years has been peaceful. A united campaign in southern Shan could also force the military to redeploy forces from Kayah state, where the junta has two columns moving to fully retake the state capital Loikaw from Karenni opposition forces. The recapture of the city is a priority for the regime, and would be a symbolic loss for Myanmars opposition, which is otherwise making substantial gains in many regions. Nonetheless, the Karenni setback is a cautious reminder of the limits to opposition resources and logistics. Despite the juntas military setbacks and economic ineptness, superior resources remain one of their key strategic advantages. Joint Karenni resistance forces celebrate after seizing the state police station in Loikaw, Myanmar, on Dec. 10, 2023. (Progressive Karenni People Force PKPF) The junta offensive has once again demonstrated that the military is largely unable to resupply and reinforce troops in remote regions, and that their only response are spasmodic airstrikes of limited military utility. While some airstrikes are based on good intelligence and have military value, such as a mid-June strike on a meeting of PDF leaders in Sagaing that led to the death of 16, most air strikes target civilians. An estimated 359 civilians have been killed and 756 wounded in 819 airstrikes in the first four months of 2024, according to one monitoring group which notes the operational tempo in 2024 is up to seven sorties a day, as the junta military desperately tries to undermine support for a surging opposition. 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. The claim that drones in the deal are useless and pricey has emerged in social media and media outlets. The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency shook the halls of Congress on June 18 with news of a possible arms deal with Taiwan valued at US$360 million. This deal includes more than 1,000 units of two types of suicide drones, including the Switchblade 300. Criticism of the deal came swiftly from several prominent Taiwanese figures. Julian Kuo, formerly a legislator and now a political commentator, voiced serious concerns, suggesting that the Switchblade 300, which he claims were previously cracked by Russia during the Russo-Ukrainian war, were being sold to Taiwan at an inflated price five times higher than the market rate. According to Kuo, other nations have shunned this model for the same reasons. Echoing Kuos skepticism, Shuai Hua-Ming, another well-known political commentator, bluntly labeled the drone trash. Further adding to the critical chorus, retired Taiwanese General Li Cheng-chieh lamented the treatment by the U.S. of Taiwan, using the Taiwanese dialect term plate to describe Taiwan as easily deceived and exploited. These remarks quickly found their way into Chinese media. Outlets like Phoenix and Tencent, along with several influential Chinese social media users, spread the commentators doubts widely, intensifying the scrutiny and debate over the proposed arms sale. Several Taiwanese political commentators stated that the recent batch of U.S. arm sales to the country were both expensive and useless, with Chinese media outlets soon repeating the claims. (Screenshots/Youtube, Weibo and Phoenix) But AFCL found that this criticism is not supported by sufficient evidence. Taiwan in critical need of drones Taiwan is in critical need of thousands of such drones in order to hold off the Peoples Liberation Armys airborne and amphibious invasion forces that would be supported by thousands of their loitering drones, said Richard Fisher, an expert on Chinas military at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. Confronting the PLA with a variety of drones to complicate their defensive requirements was a good strategy for Taiwan; the Switchblades 300 may get through when others do not, he added. While Taiwan could theoretically arm itself by buying thousands of cheap Chinese-made drones as weapons for a fraction of the cost, the software of these weapons could very well be controlled by the PLA, Fisher told AFCL. Different situation in Taiwan There have been reports with mixed views on the effectiveness of the Switchblade 300 used by Ukraine, many noting that Russias ability to inhibit the drones navigation system has led Ukraine to gradually reduce its use of them. But Tony Hu, a former U.S. Department of Defense official, believes that the situation in Taiwan and Ukraine is different, adding that the use of the Switchblade 300 is more suitable for Taiwans environment. This is because the drones would first be deployed over water in the event of any invasion of Taiwan, said Hu. Unlike in Ukraine, PLA troops would not have room to hide or buildings in which to take cover in such circumstances, Hu added. In response to criticism of the proposed sale, Taiwans Ministry of National Defense said in a press release on June 24 that the drones were important tools in waging asymmetric warfare, and the two models procured by Taiwan were employed by the U.S. militarys active service. Are the drones overpriced? The price of the Switchblade 300 is debatable, with different sources citing different numbers. But Hu believes that such numbers are meaningless because Taiwan is purchasing not only the drones but also the training and spare parts needed to use them. Hu noted that the actual sales price would be determined only after talks between the U.S. and Taiwan, adding that some of the political commentators statements were nonsense made by people without any actual experience in arm sales. Below is a basic outline of the different stages of cost evaluation in U.S. Foreign Military Sales. A basic outline of the different stages of cost evaluation in U.S. Foreign Military Sales (Photo provided by Tony Hu) A U.S. State Department official told AFCL that the U.S. government works closely with its foreign partners, including Taiwan, to tailor foreign military sales to their specific needs. Because these weapons are new to Taiwan, the sale involves not only the requirements for the armament system itself, but also the associated components and services that Taiwan needs to successfully introduce and maintain the system, the official added. Orders for the Switchblade 300 The claim that other nations have shunned the Switchblade 300 is also false. France and one more U.S. ally placed orders for the Switchblade 300 in 2023, with systems scheduled to be delivered by July 2024, the Switchblades manufacturing company, AeroVironment, said in a press release. The military outlet Army Recognition also reported the orders. Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in todays complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X. Monks, civil society officials and political party officials mark the eight-year anniversary of Kem Leys killing at a Phnom Penh gas station on July 10, 2024. The shocking killing of prominent political commentator Kem Ley was remembered by citizens and civil society activists who gathered on Wednesday at the same Phnom Penh gas station where he was shot eight years ago. About 150 people held banners splattered with red paint and laid wreaths and flowers in front of the gas stations minimarket. Some of the banners called for the government to release all Cambodian prisoners of conscience who have been imprisoned for criticizing the government. Several dozen people marched from a high school to the gas station before the event. Justice for those who tell the truth, justice for Dr. Kem Ley, justice for environmental activists, we demand the release of all activists who speak the truth, the demonstrators shouted. Kem Ley was fatally shot in 2016 while having a morning coffee at the gas station, days after publicly criticizing then-Prime Minister Hun Sen and his family for abuse of power and unexplained wealth. A trained physician who also held a doctorate, he was 45 and left behind four children and a pregnant widow. Tens of thousands of people attend a funeral procession to carry the body of Kem Ley, an anti-government figure and the head of a grassroots advocacy group, Khmer for Khmer who was shot dead on July 10, to his hometown, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, July 24, 2016. (Samrang Pring/Reuters) Authorities charged a former soldier named Oeuth Ang and sentenced him to life in prison in 2017. Court authorities rejected an appeal and upheld his sentence in 2019, but many in Cambodia do not believe his assertion that he killed Kem Ley over a US$3,000 debt. The killing was followed by a Supreme Court decision to ban Cambodias leading opposition party ahead of national elections. Since then, all independent media outlets have been forced to close and most of the countrys political opposition has been sidelined through the courts or through intimidation. An example for younger activists Wednesdays Kem Lay anniversary comes a week after 10 environmental activists were convicted of incitement and sentenced to between six and eight years in prison. Activists from the Mother Nature group, which had worked to expose corruption and harmful infrastructure projects, were taken into custody just after the July 2 verdict. The sister of one of the Mother Nature activists said at Wednesdays event that younger activists have been following Kem Leys example. Some of them did not learn from him in person, but they got their theories from Dr. Kem Ley, and they also suffered injustice like Dr. Kem Ley, so we put this program together to demand justice for him, said Long Soklin, the sister of convicted activist Long Kunthea. A girl stands by a portrait of Kem Ley at his grave in Ang Takok, Cambodia, Nov. 20, 2016. (Denis Gray/AP) Rong Chhun, a prominent labor activist and an adviser to the opposition National Power Party, said government officials have been unwilling to investigate who was behind Kem Lays murder. He also called for the release of opposition leaders Kem Sokha and Thach Setha, National Power Party President Sun Chanthy, human rights activist Theary Seng and union leader Chhim Sithar all of whom have been imprisoned or placed under house arrest in recent years. We think there is no benefit to Cambodia if they continue to arrest, persecute and oppress freedom, he said. Cambodia will only be harmed, so the government must reconsider for the benefit of the people and Cambodia. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed. The move will likely accelerate technological decoupling between China and the United States. The OpenAI logo is seen displayed on a cell phone with an image on a computer screen generated by ChatGPT's Dall-E text-to-image model, Dec. 8, 2023, in Boston. OpenAI, which is behind the generative AI service ChatGPT, has suspended services to China, Hong Kong and Macau, in what analysts said was an escalation of the technology wars between the United States and China. OpenAI told users in China that it would be blocking traffic from China, Hong Kong and Macau from July 9, China's state-backed Securities Times newspaper reported. Generative AI like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Baidu's Ernie can assist in the creation of text, images, music, computer code and other content, and is already seeing widespread use in the life sciences, manufacturing, transportation, security and telecommunications sectors. However, critics fear it could replace workers in some types of jobs or improperly take human-generated content without fair or adequate compensation to the people behind it. China has issued guidelines for homegrown AI to ensure it sticks to the ruling Communist Party line and doesnt leak information from outside the Great Firewall of internet censorship. In 2017, Tencent took down its chatbot Baby Q after it referred to the government as a "corrupt regime," claimed it had no love for the Communist Party and said it dreamed of emigrating to the United States amid reports that its programmers had been hauled in for questioning by police. Decoupling OpenAI's move comes as the U.S. Treasury seeks tighter regulation of American investment flowing into Chinas tech sector, proposing an outright ban on investment by U.S. citizens and residents in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductor manufacturing in China. Analysts said it will accelerate technological decoupling between China and the United States. While the absence of OpenAIs advanced models, such as GPT-4, from the Chinese market could slow the adoption and integration of cutting-edge AI technologies, particularly for smaller tech startups, the lack of access to OpenAI's large language models could also spark innovation at home, Dashveenjit Kaur wrote in a July 9 commentary for the website Artificial Intelligence News. The logo of OpenAI is displayed near a response by its AI chatbot ChatGPT on its website, in this illustration picture taken Feb. 9, 2023. (Florence Lo/Illustration/Reuters) "On the other hand, the blockade creates a vacuum that domestic giants like Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent are well-positioned to fill," Kaur wrote. "Those companies have the financial muscle, talent, and infrastructure to accelerate their AI research and development, leading to even more active efforts by these players in AI innovation and building homegrown alternatives for OpenAI." The Securities Times quoted an industry insider as saying that many Chinese start-ups had been offering products that were just a packaged form of OpenAI with commercial applications. The move would likely push China's tech companies to speed up their own research and development, the report said. Patent leader Alibaba Cloud reacted to OpenAI's block by announcing that its generative AI platform "Bailian" will offer an alternative for former users of OpenAI in China, while Baidu launched a new package for former OpenAI users that allows them to migrate to its AI platform at no additional charge. China currently leads the world when it comes to generative AI patents, according to recent data published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO. More than a quarter of those inventions emerged last year a testament to the explosive growth and interest in the technology since generative AI vaulted into broad public consciousness in late 2022, WIPO said. China has filed more than 38,200 generative AI patents over the past decade, six times more than the United States, which had nearly 6,300. But U.S. tech companies are generally making more cutting-edge AI systems, with 61 notable machine-learning models emerging from U.S.-based institutions in 2023, compared with 21 from the European Union and 15 in China, according to this year's AI Index. The U.S. also has the most "foundation models," which include OpenAIs GPT-4, Anthropics Claude 3, Google's Gemini and Metas Llama, which are huge, versatile and trained on massive datasets. The U.S. also has led China in private AI investments and the number of newly formed AI startups, while China has led in industrial robotics, Reuters reported on July 3. On July 4, Chinese Premier Li Qiang called for global cooperation and a more open mindset in artificial intelligence. "Each country has its own advantages in its AI technology, data and market, so we should engage in mutual cooperation and join forces," Li told the World AI Conference in Shanghai. Li also warned that risks brought about by rapidly developing AI technology would also require concerted international attention. "No country can be an exception," Li said, calling for the creation of global AI regulation and technical standards. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster. Three survivors are in critical condition, rescue workers said. A ferry capsized on Wednesday as it was crossing a river in Myanmars main city of Yangon and eight people, including a school student and two women, were missing, rescue workers and residents told Radio Free Asia. The small ferry was carrying 17 people during the morning rush-hour when it overturned, apparently after an accident with a tugboat, in the fast-flowing Hlaing, or Yangon River, a rescue worker said. Maritime police, firefighters, rescue teams and ferry boat drivers are all searching for the missing people, said the rescue worker, who declined to be identified. He held out little hope that any of the missing would be found alive. Were trying to search for the bodies where we think they might wash up on shore, he said. Photographs posted on Facebook showed a small pile of what appeared to be childrens school bags on a dock, while a distraught women stood on a jetty by the river, swollen by recent heavy rain. RELATED STORIES Myanmar floods displace thousands, destroy hundreds of homes Indonesia recovers bodies of 11 Rohingya from capsized boat off Aceh coast Junta helicopter crashes during training exercise in Myanmar The ferry and the tugboat crashed about 200 meters from the river bank in Yangons Kyimyindaing township. Survivors, including two children, the boats driver and six other passengers, were pulled from the water, another rescue worker said. Three of the victims who were in very bad health were sent to the emergency department of Yangon General Hospital, the second rescue worker said. The other five did not have life-threatening injuries and were given medical treatment at Bargayar Jetty, said the worker who also declined to be identified for fear of reprisals in light of junta media crackdowns. Residents of the area said one boy and two young women were among the missing. Police were questioning the boat driver who was not hurt, rescue workers said. The Hlaing River where the boat was, seen from Bargayar Jetty in Yangon's Kyeemyindaing township on July 10, 2024. (RFA) RFA telephoned the Yangon regions junta spokesperson, Htay Aung, for more information about the accident and search, but he did not respond. The Myanmar Fire Brigade said that it would continue the search and rescue operation for the missing people. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. The Philippines says the massive coast guard vessel has been in its exclusive economic zone since early July. China coast guard vessel 5901, known as The Monster, in Philippine waters on July 5, 2024. Chinese coast guard vessel 5901, dubbed The Monster for its size, has maintained an illegal presence in Philippine waters for a week, said a spokesperson for the countrys navy. Roy Vincent Trinidad told reporters on Tuesday that the CCG 5901 has been near Sabina Shoal, known in the Philippines as Escoda Shoal, since July 3. Manilas biggest and most modern coast guard ship the BRP Teresa Magbanua has been shadowing the movements of the Chinese vessel, he said. The 2,260-ton Philippine multi-role response vessel, however, is dwarfed by The Monster which is five times its size. At some points, the Chinese ship was only about 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the BRP Teresa Magbanua, according to Trinidad. While under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, foreign vessels can conduct so-called innocent passage and freedom of navigation operations, the spokesperson said, adding: We are monitoring them because they should not be conducting any maritime research, they should not be doing anything detrimental to the security of the state. The Philippine coast guard first spotted The Monster anchored near Sabina Shoal last Saturday. The shoal, claimed by China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan, is less than 90 nautical miles (167 km) off the coast of Palawan island inside the Philippines exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where Manila has jurisdiction over natural resources. (Google Maps) Philippine coast guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said at the time that his forces radio challenged the Chinese vessel, warning that it was operating inside the Philippine EEZ but The Monster did not respond. Its an intimidation on the part of the China coast guard, Tarriela said. The 12,000-ton CCG 5901 is the largest coast guard vessel in the world and is heavily armed. When asked about the statement, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said the shoal belonged to China. Lin Jian said that it is part of Chinese Nansha islands, also known as the Spratly islands, not the Philippines EEZ. To patrol and conduct law enforcement activities by Chinese military and coast guard vessels in the waters near Xianbin Jiao is within Chinas domestic law and international law, including UNCLOS, Lin said, referring to Sabina Shoal by its Chinese name. Suspected land reclamation China lays claim to most of the South China Sea and draws a so-called nine-dash line on its maps to mark its historic rights. An international arbitration tribunal in a case brought by the Philippines in 2016 ruled that Chinas claims are unlawful but it has refused to recognize the ruling. The Monster last month conducted a 10-day patrol along the nine-dash line to reinforce it before returning to the Philippines EEZ this month. China has also been sending research vessels, naval vessels and other ships to Sabina Shoal, leading to suspicion that it is attempting to build an artificial island there. The Philippine coast guard said that crushed corals had been dumped on the shoal an indication of the early stage of land reclamation. Chinas foreign ministry dismissed the accusation as groundless and pure rumor. Chinese monster ship reinforces nine-dash line in South China Sea China deploys monster ship near disputed shoal Manila accuses Beijing of island building in South China Sea Manila: Philippines, China agree to de-escalate South China Sea tensions Sabina Shoal is also important to the Philippines as it serves as the meeting point for vessels resupplying troops stationed at the nearby Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippine and Chinese coast guards have been confronting each other near the shoal, where Manila ran aground an old warship the BRP Sierra Madre to exert its control. In an incident on June 17, a Filipino sailor lost a finger during an altercation between Philippine military and Chinese coast guard personnel there. Manila and Beijing have since held talks and agreed to de-escalate tensions but the situation remains largely unchanged. In the latest development, the Chinese navys Shandong carrier strike group has been spotted passing the northern Philippines on its way to drills in the Pacific. The carrier group includes Chinas second aircraft carrier Shandong, cruiser Yanan, destroyer Guilin and frigate Yuncheng. Philippine armed forces spokesperson Francel Margareth Padilla told reporters on Wednesday that the Philippines noted the deployment of the Chinese carrier strike group in the Philippine Sea with concern. We emphasize the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the region and urge all parties to adhere to international laws and norms, he said. Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this report. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrapped up a high-stakes visit to Moscow on July 9 -- his first to Russia since 2019 -- that highlighted the fine line New Delhi treads as it bolsters relations with Russia while courting closer ties with the West. On the second and final day of Modis visit to the Russian capital, India and Russia set out nine key areas for closer cooperation, ranging from nuclear energy to medicine, with officials from both sides saying they aimed to boost bilateral trade by more than half to hit $100 billion by 2030. While the 22nd India-Russia annual summit focused on bilateral cooperation, it took place against the backdrop of wider geopolitical turmoil sparked by Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Notwithstanding a personal chemistry between the Russian President Vladimir Putin and Modi, bilateral relations are weighed down by several issues, first and foremost the war in Ukraine and, linked to that, how New Delhi should navigate relations with China and the West. The meeting in Moscow on July 9 also coincided with the opening of a high-profile summit of NATO leaders in Washington, as well as the Russian bombing of a childrens hospital in Kyiv. Modi did appear to reference that attack in comments to Putin on July 9, saying that "when innocent children are murdered, one sees them die, the heart pains and that pain is unbearable." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had slammed Modis visit, posting on social media that it was a "huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world's largest democracy hug the world's most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day." The U.S. State Department said on July 8 that it had raised concerns with India about its relationship with Russia. Modi: War Cannot Solve Problems Modi said that a solution to the war in Ukraine "cannot be found on the battlefield...we have to find peace through talks." Those comments echoed remarks he made on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in September 2022, when -- in an apparent snub to the Russian leader -- he said that "this is not the era of war." On July 9, Putin hailed the "very long-standing friendship" and now a "specially privileged, strategic partnership" between Russia and India. Despite his remarks of concern, Modi was not likely to confront Putin directly over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, sources close to the Indian prime minister's office said. The Indian leader seems rather to be engaging Russia as part of a broader balancing act between East and West, which is at the crux of his multifaceted foreign policy. India has taken a neutral stance, neither condemning nor condoning Russias war on Ukraine, and has said the conflict should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy. New Delhi fears that if it condemns Russia and joins Western sanctions, it will alienate Moscow and push it ever closer to China and Pakistan, both archrivals to India. For that reason, India refused to sign a joint communique at the recently held Ukrainian-initiated peace summit in Switzerland, pitching for Russias presence at the negotiating table as a prerequisite for a durable and lasting peace. It remains to be seen if Modi heeded Western calls to emphasize Ukraine's territorial integrity during his meeting with Putin in Moscow. Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine does impact India, including having a human cost. Modi raised the issue in Moscow of Indian citizens who had signed up for so-called "support jobs" with the Russian military, following reports some had been killed after allegedly being forced to fight in Ukraine. Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra said on July 9 that Russia had pledged to begin discharging Indian nationals who had been "misled" into joining its military. He added that the situation affected an estimated 35-50 Indians, of whom 10 had already been brought home. The China Factor The partnership between Moscow and New Delhi has become more complicated as Russia, facing growing international isolation, has edged closer to China since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Those growing Russian-Chinese ties are said to have factored into Modis decision to stay away last week from an SCO summit in Kazakhstan. "Moscows growing dependence on Beijing and Xis foreign policy assertiveness has made China the key fulcrum in SCO maneuvers. India is circumspect about this," explained Ved Shinde, a former researcher at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New Delhi. The snubbing of the SCO gathering contrasted starkly with Modi's presence at an outreach session of the Group of Seven summit in Italy in June, his first trip abroad since he was reelected for a third term. For India, the most critical strategic challenge is Chinas expansionism at its borders, said Ajay Bisaria, a former Indian diplomat. "It will tend to look at all its relationships through that prism. The China factor makes for an additional driver for Indias engagement not just with Chinas strongest global competitor, the U.S., but also with its closest ally, Russia", added Bisaria. At the same time, India is a member of the Quad security grouping involving the United States, Japan, and Australia, which serves as a bulwark against China's assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region. Still Dependent On Russian Arms As the worlds biggest arms importer, India still mostly relies on Russian technology for traditional arms. In the early 1990s, the Soviet Union was the source of about 70 percent of Indian army weapons, 80 percent of its air force systems, and 85 percent of its navy platforms. However, India's dependence on Russian arms has dropped as it diversifies, in part to prop up domestic defense manufacturing, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. India is also being forced to eye other sources as the war in Ukraine has stretched Russia's arms supplies thin. However, 60 percent of Indias military equipment and systems are still of Russian origin. India's importance as a key trade partner for Russia has steadily grown since the beginning of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. Apart from China, India has become a key buyer of Russian oil, sold at discounted prices, providing Russia a crucial financial lifeline amid Western sanctions. On the evening of June 28, Natalia Zakharenko found herself in a police van, her head covered in a plastic bag and her ears plugged, rumbling through the Belarusian countryside toward an unknown destination. The 44-year-old Ukrainian citizen believed she was being transferred to prison to serve the nine-year sentence she had been handed in February on what she called a totally made-up charges of spying for Kyiv. Only literally an hour before we reached the border were we told that we were being taken to Ukraine under an exchange, Zakharenkotold RFE/RLs Belarus Service. I was in shock, and my hands were shaking so much that I spilled my water. I was nearly hysterical and thought it was some sort of dream. Zakharenko was one of five Ukrainians serving time in Belarus who were included in an exchange of prisoners between Ukraine and Russia, which has close ties and substantial influence in Belarus. Five others were released from custody in Russia as part of the same exchange. When they reached the border exchange point, Zakharenko recalled, three Russian soldiers and a priest were waiting in wheelchairs. The wheelchairs, the Ukrainians were told, had to be returned to the Ukrainian side. So they loaded their few belongings on them and pushed them across the border. A waiting helicopter took them to Kyiv. It was just like in a blockbuster movie, she said. Her only wish at that point, she recalled, was to call her mother and tell her that she was home. I still hadnt fully come around, Zakharenko said. It was still like a dream. I was in the city and there were so many people and cars. I was confused and didnt know what to do with my hands. Should I hold them behind my back like we had to in prison? Or stuff them into my pockets? According to Vyasna, the independent Belarusian human-rights monitor, at least 10 more Ukrainian citizens remain in custody in Belarus, accused of espionage. Additionally, in late 2023, two Ukrainians were among six people reported by Belarusian state media as detained for allegedly preparing terrorist attacks, Vyasna also reported. Three other Ukrainian citizens were reportedly detained in two unrelated cases in April 2024. The fate of those five people is unknown. Presumably, all of them are being held in custody, Vyasna reported. Under authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Belarus has been a key ally in Russias war against Ukraine although it has not contributed forces, serving instead as a base for Russian forces and allowing Russia to use its territory to launch attacks into Ukraine. 'My Number Hadnt Come Up Yet' Before Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Zakharenko travelled frequently between Belarus and Ukraine, using her van to transport goods to sell at market stalls. In 2022 and 2023, she continued making regular trips from her home in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv to Mazyr, a city in southeastern Belarus. The border between Ukraine and Belarus was closed after the invasion, and she made the long journey via Poland, transporting people, documents, medicines, and more. She says she frequently took Belarusians to visit their relatives in Ukraine. For more than a year, she said, she made her trips without attracting any attention from the authorities in Belarus. In July 2023, however, she disappeared while in Mazyr. I made the trips, and no one bothered me, the entrepreneur recalled. My number hadnt come up yet. But then, as they say, it did. I was detained when I had already been in Mazyr for 10 days. She calls the espionage accusations complete nonsense, totally made up. Nonetheless, after a trial behind closed doors in February, Homel Regional Court Judge Anatol Sotnikau declared her guilty and sentenced her to nine years in prison. It was a closed trial, you understand, Zakharenko said, so that no one could attend, no one could hear what happened there and realize there was no evidence. Although Zakharenko was able to hire a lawyer, she said it was difficult. Most attorneys she approached refused to take on an espionage case. Every time she was transported between her cell and the courtroom, she had to present herself to the officers with her full name and the charge against her. I had to add inclined to extremist and other destructive activity, she said. In pretrial detention, she met many fellow detainees facing political-tinged charges. One prisoner, she recalled, was sentenced to one year in prison for writing graffiti containing an anti-Russian slur. Another got 30 months for a social-media comment consisting of three words. A third, she said, was sentenced to 18 months for liking a social-media post deemed incendiary. I dont even know what to say, she added. I am still in shock. She said she had heard about the mass repression of dissent in Belarus since the crackdown against pro-democracy protests that broke out in August 2020 after Lukashenka was awarded a sixth presidential term in an election millions of Belarusians believe was stolen. But still she was surprised. What is the expression in Belarus? If you havent been in prison, you arent a Belarusian, she said. It is just horrific what people there are jailed for. Written by RFE/RLs Robert Coalson based on reporting by RFE/RLs Belarus Service. U.S. President Joe Biden emphasized the need for a diplomatic arrangement for the return of both Lebanese and Israeli civilians to their homes on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border in a call on October 9 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House said. Biden also condemned Irans ballistic missile attack against Israel on October 1, a White House statement said. Biden "affirmed Israels right to protect its citizens from Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of missiles and rockets into Israel over the past year alone, while emphasizing the need to minimize harm to civilians, in particular in the densely populated areas of Beirut," the statement said. Biden spoke with Netanyahu earlier about Israel's plans to retaliate against Iran for a missile attack last week, according to statements from both the White House and the Israeli prime minister's office on October 9. The White House statement said Biden and Netanyahu "agreed to remain in close contact over the coming days both directly and through their national security teams." The call comes amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, an armed group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon. The Middle East has been on edge awaiting Israel's expected response to Iran's largely ineffective missile attack, which Tehran carried out in retaliation for Israel's escalation in Lebanon, including the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video published on Israeli media that Israel's response "will be deadly, precise, and above all surprising." Biden last week said he would not support Israel striking Iranian nuclear sites as part of its retaliation. He also said that, if he were in Israel's shoes, he would think about alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields. Israel has faced calls by the United States and other allies to accept a cease-fire deal in Gaza and Lebanon but has said it will continue its military operations until Israelis are safe. U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller warned on October 9 that Israel must avoid conducting military operations in Lebanon like those it has conducted in Gaza. "I'm making very clear that there should be no kind of military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza and leaves a result anything like Gaza," Miller told journalists. The White House statement said Biden and Netanyahu discussed the urgent need to renew diplomacy to release the hostages held by Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the EU. Biden also discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the White House said. Israels bombardment of central and northern Gaza in recent days has killed dozens of people and trapped thousands in their homes, Palestinian officials said. Hezbollah, a group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union blacklists its armed wing but not its party, which has seats in the Lebanese parliament. The call between Biden and Netanyahu took place as Israeli forces stepped up their ground offensive against Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon. On October 9, Hezbollah said in a statement that its fighters had used artillery and rockets against Israeli troops near the Lebanese border village of Labbouneh. In a separate statement, the group said it engaged in combat with Israeli forces as they "attempted to infiltrate the border town of Blida" in southeast Lebanon. The Israeli Army said early on October 9 that it had intercepted two projectiles fired from Lebanon as air-raid alarms sounded in and around Caesarea, a coastal city south of Haifa. The latest fighting comes as fears grow of a larger conflict in the region after Israel also claimed that the successor to Nasrallah has likely been "eliminated." Gallant said on October 8 that Hezbollah was an "organization without a head" and there's no one left to make decisions. Netanyahu later echoed those comments, saying, "We've degraded Hezbollah's capabilities." "We took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah's replacement, and the replacement of the replacement," Netanyahu said. Hashem Safieddine, a top Hezbollah official and a cousin of Nasrallah, was widely expected to be named to the group's top position, but his whereabouts and condition remain unknown since an October 2 Israeli strike on a suspected Hezbollah leadership meeting. Hezbollah has not commented on Safieddine's fate, although unidentified members have told various media that the group had lost contact with him since the attack. Safieddine has been declared a global terrorist by the United States. A political scientist, pundit and political operative with long experience in Georgia, Lincoln Mitchell is the author of several books including, Uncertain Democracy: U.S. Foreign Policy, and Georgias Rose Revolution, and The Color Revolutions. He also served as an adviser to the current ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD), when they were first running for office in 2012. In an interview with RFE/RL, Mitchell discusses what he describes as the deterioration of Georgian Dream since the days when they were a broad coalition of forces who united to defeat the then-ruling United National Movement (UNM) of President Mikheil Saakashvili. He also addresses the role of Western-funded NGOs in Georgian politics and the current crisis centered around the foreign agent law, prospects for this falls parliamentary elections, and what Americans dont understand about Georgia. RFE/RL: You have a unique perspective on Georgian Dream, having worked with them in the early days. How have they changed over the last 12 years of being in power? Lincoln Mitchell: The major political division in Georgia now is between Georgian Dream and former Georgian Dream. Many of the people who were the democratic forces, who were the better angels of the Georgian Dream, have been pushed out. We can name names if you want. Thats Irakli Alasania, its Tina Khidasheli and David Usupashvili; Tedo Japaridze -- the list goes on. So, the faces of the early Georgian Dream just arent there anymore. Like many regimes that are in power too long, you get rule, by the end, rule by the hangers-on. People who are hanging on to the paramount leader, which in the case of the Georgian Dream is Bidzina Ivanishvili. So, the people who are whispering in his ear are simply the people who spend the most time trying to get to his ear. You have very few people in high office who have any kind of resume, political power base, policy experience of their own. I might except some diplomats. And then you have people in powerful positions, for example, the current party chair, [Irakli] Garibashvili, whose primary qualification and skill set is his loyalty to Bidzina. And, you know, [Prime Minister Irakli] Kobakhidze is somewhere in the middle, because I think he is an independent thinker, although not a particularly helpful one. But that's the deterioration, as I see it. RFE/RL: So how about the opposition -- how do you see its development in the 12 years of Georgian Dream rule? Mitchell: There's always this narrative in Georgia that the opposition is fractured, the opposition is weak. And that's partially because the government keeps them that way. It has enough power to make sure they're fractured and weak. But in this case, there's a dynamic here we have to discuss, which is that unlike in the Rose Revolution, the post-democratic, the previous ancien regime was not shattered. So, the UNM continued. And the UNM is toxic to a large proportion of the Georgian electorate. So, any election that was the Georgian Dream versus the UNM, the Georgian Dream was going to win. Therefore, the Georgian Dream had and has an incentive to elevate the United National Movement but similarly the United National Movement, and Saakashvili personally, is much more comfortable being second to the Georgian Dream than third, to a non-UNM-led opposition force, or even second to a non-UNM led government. So, these two political forces have this codependent dysfunctional relationship where they needed each other. RFE/RL: So, in October, we are getting ready for critical parliamentary elections. What are you going to be looking at as the key things that will determine the outcome? Mitchell: Well, I'm looking at a few things. One is: Does a non-UNM, non-GD block emerge? Go back to the Rose Revolution -- you didnt have just one opposition party. You had two that got past the threshold, one of them just barely. The Burjanadze-Democrats, the coalition of Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania, they were the place for people who were already wary of Saakashvili. So, does a third way emerge? I sometimes suspect that support for Europe, or the West, or however you want to call it, in Georgia is a mile wide and inch deep." But then I'm looking for a few other things as well. What are the signs of how widespread this fraud is going to be? There's always this thing in Georgian elections, a kind of built-in level of fraud euphemistically referred to as administrative resources. But how much more than that are we going to see? I don't have a sense of this but what is the rest of the world going to do when handed a bad election report? I spoke to a lot of people in Georgia about this when I was just there: What's the plan for the day after the day after the election? You can't start planning that on election day. We know the most likely outcome here, which is significant fraud, what is the plan? RFE/RL: Why do you think that the significant fraud is likely? Mitchell: Because while I think the Georgian Dream could win without fraud, I think it's unlikely. And I think they want a bigger majority. And I also think this government is increasingly showing that it's going to do anything, right? Governments that like beating up protesters are rarely wedded to the idea of free and fair elections. And also, the foreign agents law, which will go into effect soon, before the election, is, in my view, a blow against free and fair elections. I don't know how you can have free and fair elections when you've legislated harassment of independent, nongovernmental organizations, that's in fact what the "foreign agent" law does. Only incompetent governments steal an election on election day, right? RFE/RL: I also wanted to follow up on the issue of the third way. This always has been the puzzle the Georgian opposition has had to try to solve. You have UNM, which as you said is toxic to many voters, but they remain the most popular single opposition party. And so if you want to build a successful anti-GD coalition, you need them. But you also need to convince the people who consider them toxic to be okay with them being in a coalition somehow. To me, this Georgian Charter [the agreement under which President Salome Zurabishvili would choose a government in the event of an opposition victory] seems like it might have threaded that needle of having opposition unity without the possibility of UNM dominating it. Is that how you see it? Mitchell: That's the idea, but we don't know. Look, if they [UNM] go out and get the votes and finish a strong second, they're going to dominate the government. That's what happens. RFE/RL: But under the Georgian charter, Zurabishvili chooses the government, and shes no UNM fan. Mitchell: Right, but there's a political reality here, right? Which is, you're going to make a prime minister, foreign minister, defense minister all from these fringe parties? The UNM is not going to go for that. But there is another scenario which is that the UNM finishes third or neck-and-neck for second, in which case you could plausibly not have a lot of representatives in there. RFE/RL: I think a lot of people in Georgia are, like you, expecting large-scale fraud. Or even if they don't believe there will be large-scale fraud, they believe that there will be allegations of large-scale fraud. And so I think people see the conditions for some kind of post-election civil strife as being quite strong. You wrote the book on color revolutions, and it seems like the conditions in 2024 are ripe for another one. And Im curious what you think. Mitchell: You know, the fantasy here is that you have that color revolution again, right? But even then, let's recognize this would just be going back to the beginning of the cycle. It's just regime collapse. It doesn't mean democracy. It's an opportunity. It keeps the ball in the air. There's another scenario here which we have to talk about, because I believe this is of critical importance. The election happens. There is either widespread fraud or the perception of fraud; there are big demonstrations in Tbilisi and other cities in Georgia and theyre relatively peaceful. Now, 10 days out from the American election, who benefits from instability in Georgia? [Former U.S. President Donald] Trump. And who benefits from getting Trump back in the White House? Putin and Ivanishvili. So, Putin is incentivized to create instability in Georgia after the election. That could be, there are provocateurs that will be happy to go in. Cyberwarfare stuff. That's the scenario that scares me. Then that tips the American election, which I believe will be close. And so the events on the street have a global impact. Thats my fear. But getting back to Georgia. I remember that by the time of the Rose Revolution, the UCG [Union of Citizens of Georgia, the majority party in parliament at the time] was in freefall. And by 2012, the UNM was in freefall. I remember hearing from their pollsters, their American pollsters, that theyd go to towns and get no one who said they were voting for UNM. Georgian Dream has a base of popular support that is stronger than either of those regimes did at the time they were ousted, and that makes a color revolution tough. RFE/RL: So, every conversation about Georgia now includes this big question, basically, what is going on? We have a lot of unprecedented events recently that are raising questions about the fundamental course of the country: the foreign agent law, the anti gay propaganda law, the beating of protesters, this escalation of rhetorical conflict with the West. Whats your take? What do you think is behind all this? Mitchell: One, that's who they are. There are people out there, including in our country, that don't think a man should be allowed to marry the man he loves or a woman the woman she loves, right? They believe that people who are trans are somehow on some deep profound level immoral and it's okay to beat them up or harass them. There are people in every country who [believe that] and who have political power so that may be simply what they believe, which would be unfortunate, but we cant pretend its not possible. Then, because on some level they see that politics is often about backing the right horse. And they look around and they say, Well, the Beijing-Moscow axis is stronger than the Washington-Brussels axis. I dont know that Im entirely objective on this, but I dont agree with that. So, I think its a tactical mistake, but I could see how Bidzina, who is a homo sovieticus, might see it that way. And that trickles down to the public. RFE/RL: As this crisis has been going on, there's been a lot of attention paid to the role of Western-funded NGOs and media that wield a lot of influence in Georgia today. And I wonder to what extent you think this heavy foreign funding of civil society has been a factor in how the crisis has unfolded? Mitchell: Well we should note a couple of things. One is that Georgias civil society has been a strength of Georgian democracy for decades. I always believe civil society is strongest when it's constituency-based: We have 10,000 members and they're sending in dues. But that's kind of an American model, it's very difficult in a country that's so poor. But it is extraordinary, and it has always been funded by the West. On my last trip I had meetings and meals with people in Tbilisi who've been working in civil society for 20 years -- Georgians. Their salaries for 20 years have been paid by the United States, the European Union, the British, the Dutch, whatever it is. I don't begrudge anything to those people. But that's the reality. Now, in a country like Georgia, which since independence has been governed by one-party systems, this being the most recent, civil society is what keeps the government accountable, so it is massively important. But the result is that, and it should be, a resentment is engendered, particularly with this government that believes that civil society is out to get them and there is reason why they believe that. It doesn't mean that you pass the foreign agents law, but if you want to understand their mindset I think you have to begin to understand that. And let's be very honest here, it is a strange structure for a democracy. RFE/RL: To turn to the U.S. My sense has always been, in my years of following Georgia, that Washington has always been OK with whoever is in power in Georgia, believing that there's no significant difference, for their interests, between the major forces. I don't know that that's the case anymore. What is your sense? Have they turned against Georgian Dream? And if so, what was it that turned them? What was the last straw? Mitchell: You asked me what's the last straw. And I might turn that question on its head, because I think what's important here is the first straw. The Georgian Dream victory in 2012 was never recognized for what it was in Washington. And that engendered resentment among the Georgian Dream and led to this foundation where it's very easy to push Washington against the Georgian Dream. The UNM narrative about Georgia remained dominant in Washington. Not to say there was love for the UNM anymore, or Saakashvili personally, but the narrative itself remained dominant for many years. So that rather than see the events of 2012 as a democratic breakthrough, rather than see the UNM as a semi-authoritarian regime, rather than people seeing people like Saakashvili and [former Prime Minister] Vano Merabishvili as the criminals they were, the United States saw them as democrats and this was somehow a coup, although it was an election that wasn't even free and fair the Georgian Dream won anyway. So it's the first straw. They started out with a lot less goodwill than Saakashvili, who was the darling of the West. And then Bidzina was this quirky billionaire with the James Bond house and the media was always going on about how weird his house was, and almost inappropriately, pointing out how his children were albino. Like, who the hell cares? I don't think that's fair game to go after someone's children like that, but that was the media, right? So, he has a zebra! I have a dog. It doesn't matter, hes richer than me, I prefer dogs to zebras. And it was all that; it was constant. And so it was axiomatic, if you are arresting these people [from the former government], its because you are rolling back democracy as opposed to, they were enemies of democracy or criminals. So, its the first straw, and to get from there to here isnt that difficult. RFE/RL: I think its true about this UNM narrative, even if its not a love for the UNM itself, this narrative has been powerful and persistent in Washington. Why do you think that is? Why has this narrative lasted so long? Mitchell: I think it's for two reasons. One, Georgia is not China, it's not Russia, its not a primary foreign policy issue for most members of Congress and most people in the executive branch unless theyre focused on Georgia for their portfolio. Therefore, what people in Washington want is 30 seconds on Georgia. And the UNM is very good at giving that 30-second message. They have very good English-speaking interlocutors and they have good media savvy. And it is appalling to me that people in Washington are still impressed when someone from halfway around the world speaks English. Right? Don't these people know that everybody speaks English? Not everybody, but it's pretty widespread. So there's a certain kind of willful naivete. Saakashvili and the UNM are very good at pushing the right buttons, and the Georgian Dream never even tried. So, I think the Georgian Dream, with a better strategic communications approach, is in a much different place right now, but they thought that wasn't important. RFE/RL: You have been a liaison between Georgia and the U.S. for a long time. What are the biggest misunderstandings about Georgia in the U.S.? Mitchell: The single biggest misunderstanding seems to be that they don't understand the extent of the animus toward the UNM and Saakashvili personally. They don't understand how broadly disliked they are. They don't understand what that regime was really like. The second thing is this number that is always cited, 80 or 85 percent or something of the Georgian people support a Western orientation toward Europe and the United States. I think that is a very, very misleading data point. I think if people were serious about finding Georgias views on Europe they would do focus groups, not polls, and the reason is that when you ask Georgians that question, it's a hard question to answer, what does orientation mean? And secondly, it's like asking them a quiz, right? And they know the right answer. Also, most Americans naturally interact with Georgians who speak English, who live in the capital, who are involved in Western-facing institutions. So, they have no sense that the Georgian Dream's kind of right-wing populism, theres a real audience for it. So, I sometimes suspect that support for Europe, or the West, or however you want to call it, in Georgia is a mile wide and inch deep. If your approach to understanding Georgia is that there's overwhelming deep support for Europe and this government is just playing games and pro-Russia you're kind of missing something. I'm not saying this government isn't playing games, and it very well could be pro-Russia, but you're missing a point and you're going to get to the wrong solutions. And the third thing that we always get wrong about Georgia is, we have to understand political development in Georgia in terms of cycles. Democratic breakthrough, democratic advance, democratic rollback, authoritarian consolidation, regime weakening, regime collapse, lather, rinse, repeat, right? And by not doing that, we keep holding out hope for these kinds of deus ex machina, right? The right coalition is going to get us there. The Rose Revolution will change everything. Some people, the Georgian Dream will change everything. The third misconception, I always tell people when they're going to Georgia for the first time, I say, don't tell Georgians that their English is good, that the food is delicious, or that the country is beautiful. Now, the food is delicious, the country is beautiful, and many Georgians speak proper English. But by telling them that, you enter into it; it's like wearing a big sign on your forehead that says, spin me. And what I mean by that is that, look, China has great food, and it's a dictatorship. There are parts of Russia that are beautiful, it's an authoritarian regime, right? It doesn't mean anything. These things aren't connected. An Iranian writing-directing duo has filmed the story of millions of Afghans living for decades in Iran without fundamental rights. Alireza Ghasemi and Raha Amirfazli cast real Afghan refugees as their characters, secretly shooting in locations where their cast cannot legally go. In the Land Of Brothers screened at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in July, shedding light on a population of permanent refugees that began streaming into Iran in the 1980s during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Many are still eking out a living, taking on unofficial manual labor jobs while facing constant discrimination. After almost a week of being denied access, a lawyer for imprisoned opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza was finally allowed to see his client in a prison hospital in Siberia amid concerns over the Kremlin critic's safety and health. Lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said on Facebook on July 10 that his colleague, Sergei Safronov, was allowed to see Kara-Murza in person. The access came after six days of being denied visits to the politician by the officials of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) in the Siberian city of Omsk. "Vladimir Kara-Murza's health state is relatively stable at the moment. But he suffers from a chronic disease that does not allow him to serve his term in the conditions present at the correctional colony," Prokhorov wrote, adding that Kara-Murza's lawyers intend to find out why exactly their client was placed in a prison hospital and work out measures to prevent violations of a political prisoners' right to have access to their legal team. "Over six days, in violation of current Russian legislation and international legal norms, the lawyers were not allowed to see Vladimir," Prokhorov emphasized, giving no reason for the denial of visitation rights. Kara-Murza was arrested in April 2022 after vocally criticizing Russia's war against Ukraine. A year later, he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison on treason and other charges. His trial in early 2023 experienced delays due to the significant deterioration of his health. Kara-Murza fell ill twice while traveling in Russia in two different situations, first in 2015 and then again in 2017. In both cases, he was hospitalized in critical condition but eventually recovered. Kaza-Murza has blamed the Russian security services for the two incidents, and the U.S. FBI investigated the case as "intentional poisoning." The charges stemmed in part from comments in which Kara-Murza accused the "dictatorial regime in the Kremlin" of committing war crimes in Ukraine. The sentence is the longest prison term imposed on a Kremlin opponent in post-Soviet Russia. Kara-Murza and his supporters have rejected the charges as politically motivated. On June 19, Kara-Murza was transferred to a punitive cell unit, or EPKT. Placement in the EPKT, which stands for the unified cell-type premises, is considered the harshest type of incarceration in Russian prisons. Unlike in regular sections of prisons where inmates can move around, work, visit a library, use prayer rooms, and access other leisure activities, those incarcerated in EPKT serve time in cells and are isolated from the rest of the correctional facility. Kara-Murza's wife, Yevgenia, said on July 9 that her husband had been held incommunicado since July 2. On July 4, Kara-Murza's lawyers were informed that their client had been transferred to a prison hospital for "a checkup." Kara-Murza holds Russian and British passports. NATO leaders gathered in the Mellon Auditorium in Washington on July 9 to celebrate the alliance's founding 75 years ago in the very same spot. U.S. President Joe Biden said NATO is ready to meet the challenges it now faces, including Russia's war in Ukraine, as he announced a new donation of air defense systems for the embattled country. WASHINGTON -- NATO leaders attending a landmark summit have backed Ukraine's "irreversible path" to membership, saying that Kyiv has a right to choose its own security arrangements and that its "future is in NATO." The position, laid out in a joint statement following the first day of discussions at the summit on July 10, provided a clear sign of NATO's continued support for Ukraine's efforts to defend itself against invading Russian forces. "We reaffirm that we will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met," the statement said. Speaking at a news conference at the conclusion of the day's meetings, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg discussed a number of steps that were agreed upon to help Ukraine more than two years after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Stoltenberg outlined the launching of a new project under which the alliance will coordinate military support and training for the first time, with a command center in Germany. He also lauded improved defense funding by alliance members, with 23 of the alliance's 32 members meeting the target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product this year, and their approval of a pledge to boost defense production. Stoltenberg defended the provision of weapons to Ukraine, saying it was Ukraine's right under international law to defend itself and to strike military sites on Russian territory. The goal, Stoltenberg said, was not to prolong the war, but to end it, and that "unless we want to bow to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin we need to show commitment and resolve." The summit, which will conclude on July 11, is set to discuss a proposal to provide Ukraine with 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military aid for next year, after member states couldn't agree on a multiyear military aid package for Ukraine that Stoltenberg had proposed. Stoltenberg also said that other decisions were made in an effort to make "NATO stronger, and allies safer," including the establishment of a new antiballistic missile base in Poland. Stoltenberg also had sharp criticism for China, whose support for Russia in its war against Ukraine, he said, increased threats to European security. Stoltenberg earlier said that should Russia be victorious in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it would embolden Iran, China, and North Korea and shape the global-security environment for decades to come. The joint summit declaration singled out China as a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war against Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden, in his welcoming remarks to the NATO leaders prior to their discussions, lauded the new pledge by NATO members to ramp up their defense production, while stressing that the alliance will not hesitate to defend its territory. Biden noted Russia's advancements in churning out munitions and weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine. "We cannot allow the alliance to fall behind," Biden said, adding that Russia's war effort benefited from the help of China, North Korea, and Iran. "This new pledge sends an unmistakable message to the world that every NATO member is committed to doing their part to keep the alliance strong," Biden said. "We can and will defend every inch of NATO territory, and do it together." The first day of meetings opened with the United States saying F-16 fighter jets were on their way to Kyiv while a draft communique being worked on noted Ukraine's "irreversible path" to NATO membership. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here. As NATO leaders began streaming into the main summit venue on July 10, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that "as we speak, the transfer of F-16 jets is under way, coming from Denmark, coming from the Netherlands." A joint statement from the countries involved confirmed Blinken's comments, with the fighters expected to arrive during the summer. "This is a clear signal that Russia's ability to terrorize Ukrainian people, cities, and communities will continue to reduce," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who for months has been urging NATO leaders to speed up deliveries of all types of weaponry, especially jets and anti-missile systems as Russia intensifies its air campaign. Putin has made clear that Russian demands for a peace settlement include Ukraine's exclusion from NATO. In addition to the announcement on F-16s, officials have been preparing further support for Kyiv that will be unveiled over the course of the summit. The summit takes place against the backdrop of U.S. political uncertainty and Russia's intensification of its bombing of Ukraine. Officials and analysts have noted recently that as Russia steps up its attacks, it appears to positioning itself for a long-term conflict. A senior NATO official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said that despite dwindling resources, Russia would likely be able to maintain its war economy for three to four years. However, the official added that the Kremlin lacked the munitions and troops to launch a major offensive against Ukraine in the near term. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose pro-Russian views have irked the alliance, is likely to test NATOs unity. Orban, who just took over the rotating presidency of the EU, flew to Moscow last week and then to China without informing the bloc ahead of time to discuss an end to the war with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Biden's performance at the summit will also be closely watched amid concerns about his age and ability to lead after a dismal showing in a debate with Republican rival Donald Trump as Americans prepare to vote in a presidential election on November 5. A growing number of fellow Democrats have called for Biden to end his reelection campaign since the debate on June 26. Biden's poor debate performance and the specter of another Trump presidency has many European allies worried. With reporting by RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak WASHINGTON -- Russia is carrying out a "shadow war" against European countries through cyberattacks, disinformation, sabotage, and other measures and it's time to recognize it and respond, according to European leaders attending the NATO summit. "There is a shadow war going on that is clear in all those domains," Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said at a panel discussion on July 10 on the sidelines of the summit in Washington. "I think we have to raise awareness," said Kallas, who was joined by Czech President Petr Pavel and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. "We see this in our intelligence, but I'm not sure that everybody does see this in the same way. Russia is believed to be behind a series of cyber-intrusions, arson attacks, and other nonkinetic attacks across Europe this year. Pavel, a retired Czech Army general and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, told the panel that Russia was in "continuous conflict" with European countries. The tools Moscow is using, he said, are "much cheaper" and "more effective" than bombs and guns. The Czech Republic was among several European countries that accused Russia in May of conducting cyberattacks on their defense and aerospace industries and on political parties. Russia has denied involvement. Czech intelligence and security services also accused Russia of being behind the 2014 explosion of a munitions depot in Vrbetice. Russia's goal is to sow doubt among the public so they lose confidence in their institutions and put pressure on leaders, Pavel said. "We need to take not only passive measures, but also active measures to defend ourselves against this kind of warfare," Pavel added, without stating what steps Europe should take. Russia began testing out its hybrid capabilities on European countries two decades ago. Estonia was one of the first major victims, when Russia unleashed a massive cyberattack in 2007 that blocked websites and paralyzed the country's entire Internet infrastructure. Estonia's Kallas said Russia was getting bolder with every attack, comparing European countries' predicament to frogs in boiling water. She said the issue is being discussed inside NATO. Russia is "trying to destabilize all of us, and they are using different measures," Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen told the conference. She said the spate of attacks throughout Europe was not isolated and countries had to "take it more seriously." Leaders must show "that we are willing to do whatever it takes to defend Europe" from such attacks, Frederiksen said. During a separate panel on the Nordic region, Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen said that Russia was employing new hybrid tools, like migration. Finland closed its long border with Russia last year to stop a surge of arrivals from countries including Syria. Finland, which joined NATO in 2023, accused Moscow of seeking to destabilize its society by weaponizing migration, an assertion the Kremlin denies. "That is why we have to run fast and do closer cooperation between NATO countries," Hakkanen said. Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson told the Nordic panel that countries need to take a "whole of society" approach to defend against Russian hybrid activities, such as developing strong interagency and public-private cooperation. "[Make] sure your security services are working well with the police and the military intelligence. I think it is really crucial. We have to be able to share intelligence [with the private sector] going two ways," he told the panel. Kallas, Pavel, and Frederiksen are among the leaders from all 32 NATO states who have gathered for the NATO summit to discuss strengthening their collective defense as well as new measures to support Ukraine. Frederiksen said European countries will likely have to spend more than the target of 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense each year if they hope to defend themselves against growing global threats, including an aggressive Russia. "I see no signs, no signs in Russia and in the Russian behavior that they are going to stop with Ukraine," Frederiksen said. Pavel said NATO must step up aid to Ukraine so it can drive Russian forces back. He also said the West may have to accept that parts of Ukrainian territory may be "temporarily occupied." However, he added, "such a situation shouldn't prevent us from going on with the Ukrainian integration into NATO, or the EU, and pushing on restoring their full sovereignty." Kallas said Ukraine's nonaligned status left it open to attack by Russia and called for the country to be admitted into NATO. "Ukraine is having this war because they are in a gray zone. My conviction is that Ukraine will have to become a member of NATO [if] we want to get rid of conflicts," she said. BELGRADE -- Driven by a need to diversify its energy sector and pivot away from cheap Russian gas, Serbia is moving to end the countrys decades-old policy banning the construction of nuclear power plants on its territory. Several Serbian ministries announced on July 10 that the country is weighing whether to end the 35-year-old, Yugoslav-era ban on nuclear reactors and said public debate was being opened on the shake-up of Belgrades long-standing energy policy. If successful, the Serbian government could also find itself on a new geopolitical fault line involving nuclear energy in Eastern Europe as countries look to move away from relying on Russia -- which has dominated the nuclear energy sector -- and consider alternative partnerships with countries like China, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is looking to navigate the new realities created by Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine and deploy the same hedging strategy for the countrys nuclear future thats been used by Belgrade to play the United States and the European Union against Russia and China on a host of security and foreign policy issues. Even though Serbia has not been hard on Russia like the European Union has, its looking to preserve a balancing act with the West, Stefan Vladisavljev, program director at Foundation BFPE, a Belgrade-based think tank, told RFE/RL. That means distancing away from Russia for big strategic projects, but where exactly that leads Belgrade remains to be seen. Prior to the start of Russias February 2022 war, Serbia relied on cheap local labor and discounted Russian gas to make its mining and manufacturing industries competitive and attractive to investors. But Western sanctions and market turbulence have increased the price of Russian gas and seen Brussels and Washington attach a political price tag to making new deals with Russian companies. That leaves Vucic walking a tightrope between the need to improve Serbias energy security by adding nuclear power and the geopolitical considerations brought by the country Belgrade decides to partner with. Serbian officials have actively weighed their options, having already held meetings with Britains Rolls-Royce and Frances state-owned Electricite de France (EDF), in April, when a memo was signed assessing the potential for the development of the civil nuclear program in Serbia. In June, the Energy Ministry said it is laying the groundwork for an assessment on partnering with EDF. EDF did not respond to RFE/RLs requests for details on what cooperation with Serbia would entail but, in the meantime, China has also entered the mix. The state-owned China National Nuclear Corporations (CNNC) could supply small modular reactors (SMRs), which proponents say are less cumbersome to build and may better suit a country like Serbias more modest nuclear power needs. Another option involves buying a stake in the still under construction Paks 2 nuclear power plant -- a joint Hungarian-Russian project launched in 2014 that is 100 kilometers southwest of Budapest -- which could then send power south to Serbia. The Serbian Energy Ministry told RFE/RL in a statement that it is currently exploring all potential partnerships. After changing the legislative framework, Serbia will analyze the potential for cooperation at the regional and international level with countries that already have a developed nuclear program, both with China as well as with France, the United States, Russia, Japan, and other relevant countries, it said. The New Nuclear Chessboard While Russia has lost its dominant position in oil and gas exports since the 2022 start of the Ukraine war, it continues to be the biggest player globally in providing nuclear fuel, accounting for more than 40 percent of the global market. Russia also has a complete monopoly on the production of advanced nuclear fuel that will be needed to power the next generation of nuclear reactors. For countries with Russian-made reactors this dependence runs even deeper, with Russias state-owned nuclear power giant Rosatom operating 18 reactors across the EU, the bulk of them in Central and Eastern Europe. This reliance has so far left Rosatom and Russian nuclear materials off sanctions packages passed in Brussels, but the United States, Britain, France, and important Western nuclear fuel providers have announced plans to expand their own capacity to enrich uranium and build reactors across Europe. Its against this backdrop that Belgrade must make a decision and plan for the long-term implications. Currently, Serbia gets almost 70 percent of its electricity from coal, but has committed to completely phase it out by 2050. Incorporating nuclear power along with more green energy is necessary to meet that goal. Where a country gets its reactor from is extremely important and keeps them tied together, Jennifer Gordon, the director of the Atlantic Council's Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative, told RFE/RL. The buyer-vendor relationship can be a 100-year relationship when you take into account building the reactor, its lifespan, and then needing to decommission it. Countries like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland, and Bulgaria have relied on Russian nuclear-fuel imports to make up for the lack of Russian gas and oil as a result of the war, but theyve also begun to pivot away from Rosatom for any future plans. Bratislava, Helsinki, and Prague have excluded the Russian company from future tenders, and the Czech energy company CEZ has signed contracts with the U.S. firm Westinghouse Electric and the French company Framatome to supply fuel assemblies for its plant in Temelin. Westinghouse is also constructing two new reactors in Bulgaria, where it is to also become the countrys main supplier of fuel rods. For Belgrade, the nuclear decision could also be a harbinger for where Vucic is looking to take his country. While Serbia remains nonaligned, Vucic insists his goal is membership in the EU, but talks have made little progress in 12 years amid EU concerns over the rule of law and the status of Kosovo. Serbia has a traditionally close relationship with Moscow, but Belgrade has been looking for distance from Russia since the war in Ukraine. Vucic has also built strong ties with China, which has invested heavily in the Balkan country and often tops Serbian opinion polls as the most popular foreign power. Serbia, along with Hungary, were also the only two European countries Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited in May after his state visit to France. Xis visit opened up new frontiers for cooperation, said Vladisavljev. China is already a leader in renewable energy sources and is looking for new ways to expand its presence. For Belgrade, the best way to utilize its ties with China is to focus on areas that Serbia cant do on its own. Vucic has also strengthened ties with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has made developing nuclear energy across Europe and championing European firms a key part of his strategic autonomy policy, which seeks to reshape the political order across the continent. The View From Belgrade While Frances EDF -- once the worlds leading nuclear energy developer -- appears to be making headway with Belgrade, Serbias other options are still in contention. The Serbian Energy Ministry told RFE/RL that an analysis on whether to choose a conventional reactor or SMRs will be carried out in the near future, and Vucic said in March at an energy summit in Brussels that we are interested in getting at least four small modular reactors to replace 1,200 megawatts of output. Prefabricated SMR units can be manufactured and then shipped and installed on site, making them potentially more affordable to build than large power reactors, which are often custom designed for a particular location and sometimes lead to construction delays. But some estimates have shown the cost for SMRs could be similar or more expensive than traditional reactors in the long term due to higher maintenance costs. China and Russia are racing to pull ahead in the SMR field, but a collection of American and European firms are also making advances in the market. Serbias presidential administration and the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade did not respond to RFE/RLs request for comment about Beijings potential role. One major obstacle for an SMR deal could be the cost. In his March comments, Vucic said the price for four SMRs could total 7.5 billion euros ($8.1 billion) and that external funding would be required because he doesn't know how it would be financed. A less costly option is buying a stake in Hungarys Paks 2 plant, which is an idea that Vucic first discussed with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in 2021. We are ready to be a minority owner in order to ensure our energy security, especially because of our strong economic activity, Vucic said in 2021. Buying a stake in Hungarys nuclear reactor is appealing to Belgrade as it would avoid needing to build a nuclear reactor on its own soil and face any potential public backlash. But the Hungarian project spearheaded by Russias Rosatom has been delayed and over budget. While Hungarian officials say the main reactor is still planned to be shipped from Russia, Paks 2 CEO Gergely Jakli told the Hungarian financial newspaper Portfolio in May that Russias involvement is increasingly expensive and he is considering bringing on other investors to complete the project. China has been floated as a potential option, especially since Budapest and Beijing signed a nuclear-energy cooperation agreement during Xis visit in May, and China is looking for opportunities to showcase its nuclear expertise overseas. Framatome is also a subcontractor in Paks 2 and while Chinese and French nuclear companies have partnered together in the past, souring relations between Beijing and the West along with growing resistance to allowing Chinese firms to build strategic infrastructure in Europe could derail any such cooperation. This leaves Serbia balancing the technical and financial dimensions to any offer, as well as the strategic ones, as it pushes ahead in its pursuit for nuclear energy. This is about a civilian nuclear energy program, the Atlantic Councils Gordon said. But whatever option Serbia chooses, it will have a geopolitical bearing. Written and reported by RFE/RL Balkan Service correspondent Mila Manojlovic in Belgrade and RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish in Prague WASHINGTON -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said U.S. leaders must be "strong" and "uncompromising" in helping to defend his country's democracy against Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression and urged American lawmakers not to delay decisions because of the upcoming presidential election. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here. "Everyone is waiting for November. Americans are waiting for November, in Europe, the Middle East, in the Pacific, the whole world is looking toward November and, truly speaking, Putin awaits November, too," said Zelenskiy, who was speaking in English at an event at the Reagan Institute as NATO began its 75th anniversary summit in the U.S. capital. "It is time to step out of the shadows, to make strong decisions...to act and not to wait for November or any other month," he said. U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has expressed strong support for Ukraine throughout his presidency. But Republican rival Donald Trump has opposed expanded aid to Ukraine and, according to critics, has expressed pro-Russia sentiments. In a question-and-answer session conducted by conservative Fox News host Brett Baier, Zelenskiy tried to avoid wading into U.S. politics when asked about the November 5 presidential election, but he did say he did not know Trump well enough to know what he'd do if elected and hoped America's support to Kyiv would not change regardless of the outcome of the vote. "Biden and Trump are very different," Zelenskiy said, noting he had "good meetings" when Trump was president, though that was before the war broke out. "But [Biden and Trump] are supportive of democracy, and that's why I think Putin will hate them both." Since Russia's full-scale invasion of February 2022, Zelenskiy has aggressively pressed for additional military aid and has at times expressed frustration with the sluggish pace of action by Western partners. The U.S. House of Representatives, under pressure to vote on a major aid package for Ukraine that had been held up by Republicans in Congress for months, in April finally passed a bill providing more than $60 billion to Ukraine, Zelenskiy lamented the long delay, saying it had allowed Russia to make substantial battlefield gains while costing Ukraine control of some villages near the Russian border. Speaking ahead of Zelenskiy at the event, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, whose Republican colleagues in Congress were behind the delay in aid as they pushed for deep changes in domestic security policy, agreed, saying, "Slow walking aid to Ukraine didn't stave off further escalation, it only guaranteed that this terrible conflict would be longer and bloodier. The Ukrainian leaders remarks came shortly after Biden said Russia is seeking "nothing less" than to "wipe Ukraine off the map" and announced that Washington and its allies would be sending Kyiv further weapons, including additional air-defense systems. "Ukraine can and will stop Putin, especially with our full collective support. They have our full support," Biden said as the summit kicked off. Zelenskiy said such support needs to go beyond just putting more weapons on the ground in Ukraine. How much longer can Putin last? The answer to this question is right here in Washington: your leadership, your actions, your choice, the choice to act now. Strong decisions are needed and we are waiting for them, Zelenskiy said, referring to being given the right to strike deep inside Russian territory. A White House statement said the United States, Germany, and Romania will donate modern Patriot missile batteries, while the Netherlands and other partners will provide Patriot components to enable the operation of an additional Patriot battery. Italy will donate an additional SAMP-T system, it said. Patriot systems are capable of shooting down enemy planes and missiles from long distances, though analysts say Russia appears to be making gains in techniques to avoid the systems. The pledge came a day after a barrage of Russian missiles slipped through defense systems across Ukraine, striking several civilian facilities, including Kyiv's Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital. At least 43 people died from the attacks, with scores more injured in what Biden called a "horrific reminder of Russia's brutality." Zelenskiy welcomed the news of new air-defense systems, saying, "They will help," but he cautioned that "it is not enough. It is never enough." He said Ukraine needs up to 130 F-16 fighter jets to achieve parity with Russia in the skies. "Russia uses 300 warplanes against Ukraine every day. It was decided we get about 10 to 20. However, even if it were 50 planes, it is still nothing. To [efficiently] defend ourselves, we need 128 F-16s," Zelenskiy said. NATO leaders will also discuss a proposal by outgoing Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to provide Ukraine with 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military aid next year. Upon arriving at the summit and ahead of the speech, Zelenskiy said he would also press for NATO commitments on additional warplanes and to provide enhanced security guarantees. In a video posted on his Telegram account, Zelenskiy said: "We are fighting for additional security guarantees for Ukraine. And these consist of weapons and finances, political support." "We are doing, and will always do everything, to make the Russian terrorist lose," he added. High Court reporters A hospital is not liable for the psychiatric injury suffered by a woman who witnessed the rapid deterioration of her husbands health before he died from lung cancer, the High Court has ruled. Carmel Germaine suffered an adjustment order which she alleged was induced by shock from witnessing a sudden and frightening decline of Thomas Germaine, who lived in Lucan, Dublin. He died on February 14th, 2019. Ms Justice Emily Egan found Ms Germaine did not satisfy all the conditions for being entitled to an award of damages for nervous shock. The judge said St Jamess Hospital in Dublin admitted a breach of duty of care in failing to initially report an opacity on Mr Germaines lung in an October 2018 x-ray taken as part of monitoring an unrelated condition from which he had recovered. X-ray While this x-ray could have led to an earlier diagnosis, both sides in the case agreed his cancer was already incurable by this point, so there would not have been any change in his treatment or prognosis, the judge said. The admitted breach did not, therefore, cause his injury. Ms Justice Egan said a 1995 Supreme Court decision sets out five conditions for someone to be entitled to damages for nervous shock as a result of suffering a recognisable psychiatric illness by witnessing a relatives injury or death caused by medical negligence. The judge held that two of the five conditions were not satisfied in this case. St Jamess Hospital chief executive Mary Day, named as the defendant in the case as the hospitals representative, contended a third criterion that a defendant owed a plaintiff a duty of care was also not met, but Ms Justice Egan did not reach a conclusion on this issue. Ms Germaine alleged her husbands health declined in the months following his October 2018 x-ray. She said she saw him rapidly decline on December 23rd and she persuaded him to attend the Hermitage Clinic on Christmas Eve. He was diagnosed there with a high-grade lung cancer. He underwent radiotherapy but died of metastatic lung cancer in February 2019. Ms Germaine alleged that if her late husband had been correctly diagnosed at St James's, she would have been spared her shock. She submitted he could have had palliative care and other supports and this would have either prevented the deterioration or prevented her from witnessing it. Alternatively, with supports, she would have had an opportunity to come to terms with his situation and avoided the shock and trauma of his sudden decline, she claimed. She also claimed the hospital owed her a duty of care to avoid causing her foreseeable injury. Ms Justice Egan accepted Ms Germaines adjustment disorder is a recognisable psychiatric illness, satisfying the first criterion for an award of nervous shock damages. St James's Hospital, represented by Eoin McCullough SC and Rory White BL, instructed by the State Claims Agency, contended the second condition was not met as the situation did not qualify as a sudden, shocking event but was a gradual arc of health decline. Not 'shock-induced' The judge agreed, finding the widows injury was not shock-induced in the way that phrase has been interpreted by the courts as a sudden, calamitous or horrifying event in the nature of an accident. The third condition that a plaintiff must prove nervous shock was caused by a defendants act or omission was also not met. Ms Justice Egan said the hospitals negligence did not cause Mr Germaines deterioration, which would have occurred in any event. She held that Ms Germaine could not succeed on her argument that her nervous shock was attributable to being unprepared to witness the decline. The judge did not reach a conclusion on the hospitals further contention that it did not owe a bystander a duty of care. This was a complex issue of broad significance, the judge said, adding that she would have needed to hear further legal argument on it. However, this was not necessary as determining the point would not affect the outcome of the case. Ms Justice Egan said she has great sympathy for Ms Germaine, who has undeniably suffered psychiatric injury in addition to losing her husband. However, she could not find in her favour. The Dubai Public Prosecution service has dropped charges against County Roscommon woman Tori Towey. Ms Towey (28), from the Ballaghaderreen/Boyle area moved to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) city last year. She had been prevented from leaving the country as a result of the charges. On Tuesday, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald told the Dail that Ms Towey was the victim of domestic violence and was subjected to a travel ban over allegations she illegally consumed alcohol and attempted suicide. Attempted suicide is a crime in the Arab state, carrying a sentence of up to six months. A statement from the Dubai Government to The Irish Times said it had closed the case involving Irish national Tori Towey after she and her husband, a South African national, were involved in a case featuring mutual charges of assault, dating back to May 2024. The couple reached a reconciliation and withdrew the complaints filed against each other. Dubai Public Prosecution has also dropped the charges of attempted suicide against her considering the circumstances of the case and to enable her to return to normal life, the statement said. Taoiseach Simon Harris told the Dail the travel ban on Ms Towey had been lifted and arrangements were being made to fly Tori and her mother home. Local Sinn Fein DD Claire Kerrane said that she was delighted and relieved that Tori will now come home. This is wonderful news after what has been a living nightmare for her and her family. I spoke to Tori and her mother earlier this morning and at that point, nothing had changed but they had noted a big change in engagement and contact from the Embassy once we raised her case. Everyone played their part here and did so to ensure right prevailed - it has. I look forward to seeing Tori come home, said Deputy Kerrane. The Taoiseach said it was a situation that "should never have happened". Speaking to RTE's Six One News, he said Ms Towey had been the victim of a "brutal attack" and she should have been supported. "Imagine having endured that and waking up not in a hospital being supported and cared for, but in a police station," he said. "This is a deplorable situation and it never should have happened." The Taoiseach said that when he last spoke with Ms Towey she and her mother were making arrangements to get to the airport and get on a flight. He thanked Ms McDonald and Sinn Fein TD Claire Kerrane for raising the matter, saying it was important that "on rare occassions politicians can actually work together". Planning permission has been granted to the West of Ireland Alzheimer Foundation for a new daycare centre in Roscommon Town. The grant of planning permission by Roscommon County Council is subject to 19 conditions and was made on June 26th. On October 25th last year the council received a planning application from the West of Ireland Alzheimer Foundation for the centre at Ardsallagh More, Roscommon Town. The council also requested further information about the development, which was subsequently received. The development will see the construction of a new daycare centre, including activities and day room, kitchen facilities, administration office, medical examination room, sanitary facilities, storage and all ancillary spaces. The development will also see upgrade works to the existing access road off the roundabout, an extension to the existing spur road into the site, a drop-off zone, car parking, new external landscaping, a bin store, new boundary fencing, new signage, lighting, and connection to existing services. A travel ban on County Roscommon woman Tori Towey, who is reportedly facing charges in Dubai, has been lifted, Taoiseach Simon Harris told the Dail at lunchtime today, Wednesday. Ms Towey (28), from the Ballaghaderreen/Boyle area, moved to the city in the United Arab Emirates where she worked for Emirates Airlines and had been prevented from leaving the country as a result of the charges, the Dail heard on Tuesday. The embassy will take Tori to the airport as soon as she is ready to go, Mr Harris told TDs this lunchtime. And the embassy will of course continue to follow up the case which is still active as of now. I just wanted to inform the house of that and to thank our embassy, he said. The Department of Foreign Affairs is providing consular assistance to Ms Towey, whose case was first highlighted by Dubai Detained, which said it was representing her and her mother. On Tuesday, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald told the Dail that Ms Towey had been the victim of domestic violence and was subject to a travel ban over allegations she illegally consumed alcohol and attempted suicide. Attempted suicide is a crime in the Arab state, carrying a sentence of up to six months. Local Sinn Fein DD Claire Kerrane said that she was delighted and relieved that Tori will now come home. This is wonderful news after what has been a living nightmare for her and her family. I spoke to Tori and her mother earlier this morning and at that point, nothing had changed but they had noted a big change in engagement and contact from the Embassy once we raised her case. Everyone played their part here and did so to ensure right prevailed - it has. I look forward to seeing Tori come home. My generation has a love-hate relationship with Aer Lingus. Were old enough to remember the time they operated in lock-step with British Airways on the Dublin-London route, code-sharing flights with identical fares. Back in the 1970s, a return trip to London could cost over 100, equivalent to about 500 today. We had to deal with what was little more than a monopoly, and we paid dearly for it. On the other hand, we always took a pride in our national airline, and the staff then, as now, were superb and welcoming. If you got stuck in a European city because of strikes or other cancellations, you knew you just had to get to London and Aer Lingus would get you home, often at no cost when they honoured tickets from other routes. In the days before computerisation, you just had to get to the desk in Terminal Two at Heathrow and the green-uniformed staff would look after you. But mostly we used the ferry from Dun Laoghaire. Trains from Holyhead served all the ferry crossings, or if you wanted to get there really cheaply, a five pound ticket on the Magic Bus would cover the ferry and the bus to London. Aer Lingus knew that only the better off could afford to fly with them. At that time the end of the Vietnam War caused a flood of refugees from Vietnam, often referred to as the boat people. When competition started to drive down fares following the start of competing services to Britain in 1984, the increase in traffic on the route also benefited Aer Lingus, but some staff were known to disparagingly refer to these new customers as the boat people. Competition, as well as laws introduced by Europe helped change Aer Lingus from an elite carrier to a low-cost model, but Ryanair were faster to adapt and grew their business rapidly, overtaking Aer Lingus and British Airways combined by the late 1990s. Aer Lingus, like many State-owned carriers around Europe, had become irrelevant in government policy terms, and like Irish Shipping in the previous decade people questioned why we needed to own it. The government initially sold part of the airline, divesting itself of the remainder in 2015. It is now fully owned by IAG, and comprises just 7% of that companys business. But the pilots dont seem to realise they are now small players in a much bigger game. They work in an industry where rates of pay and everything else are effectively dictated by a market where Ryanair is the biggest player. The recent dispute over pay was played out in the media, which is never a good idea, and the long-term cost of this bitter clash may spell the beginning of the end for Aer Lingus. Executives at IAG must surely be wondering whether this tiny offshoot of their business is worth the trouble. Unnao Bus Accident: Bus Collision Claims 18 Lives The collision occurred around 5:15 am near the Behta Mujawar police station area Unnao Bus Accident At Lucknow-Agra Expressway: In a devastating accident on Wednesday morning, a sleeper bus traveling from Shivgarh, Bihar to Delhi collided with a milk tanker on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao district, resulting in the tragic loss of at least 18 lives and leaving 19 others injured. The collision occurred around 5:15 am near the Behta Mujawar police station area, reportedly as the bus attempted to overtake the milk tanker from the left side at high speed. The impact of the crash was severe, causing both vehicles to be completely destroyed. Among the casualties were two women and a child, and approximately 100 passengers, including children, were on board the bus. Advertisement Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed profound condolences to the families of the deceased and wished a swift recovery to those injured. The state government and local authorities swiftly mobilized to provide necessary assistance, with injured individuals being treated at hospitals in Unnao and Lucknow. Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak confirmed the tragic toll, emphasizing that hospitals near Unnao have been put on alert to handle the influx of casualties. The process of identifying the deceased is currently underway, with initial reports confirming the identities of two victims from Bihar. The accident caused significant traffic disruption on the expressway, leading to a two-kilometer-long jam on both sides. Emergency response teams from UPEIDA and local police promptly responded to the scene, initiating rescue operations and clearing the roadway for traffic after several hours. Advertisement Authorities have issued helpline numbers for assistance and are coordinating efforts to manage the aftermath of the incident. Investigations into the exact cause of the collision are ongoing, as authorities work to provide support to the affected families and ensure such tragedies are prevented in the future. (For more updates apart from Unnao Bus Accident At Lucknow-Agra Expressway, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Farmers Protest: HC directs Haryana Govt to open Shambhu border within a week Farmers have been protesting at the Shambhu border for a long time now. Farmers Protest at Shambhu Border Latest News: In a major development, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday asked the Haryana Government to open the Shambhu border within a week. According to information, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has also directed the Haryana Government that the Shambhu border should be opened within a week and that the barricades should be removed from the National Highway. Advertisement Likewise, it was reported that the High Court observed that the closure of the Shambhu border was causing great inconvenience to the general public. Notably, the temporary sheds were also established at both Shambhu and Khanauri. (For more news apart from Farmers Protest at Shambhu Border Latest News, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Shubhkaran Singh Died With Shotgun, Reveals Investigation Farmer's Death by Shotgun Sparks Investigation Beyond Police Jurisdiction Shubhkaran Singh Death Cause Latest News Update: The death of farmer Shubhkaran Singh at the Khanuri border during the farmers' movement has raised significant questions after the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report revealed crucial details. According to the report submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Shubhkaran Singh was fatally shot by a shotgun, a weapon not possessed by the police or security forces stationed at the border. The FSL findings have prompted the High Court to order further investigation into who fired the fatal shot. The court suggested reviewing video footage from the day of the incident to identify the individual responsible for the shooting. Advertisement Reacting to the report, farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal expressed disbelief, questioning why farmers would possess firearms to harm their own. He criticized the investigation conducted by the Haryana Police, advocating instead for an inquiry led by a retired judge of the High Court to ensure impartiality and justice. The incident occurred on February 21 at the Khanuri border, where Shubhkaran Singh and fellow farmers were attempting to march towards Delhi. Despite being stopped and confronted with tear gas and gunfire by Haryana government authorities, the farmers ceased their advance. However, the situation escalated, leading to Shubhkaran Singh being struck fatally in the head just steps away from the Haryana border. The tragic death has intensified calls for accountability and transparency in the investigation, with stakeholders seeking to uncover the circumstances surrounding Shubhkaran Singh's untimely demise. Advertisement (For more news apart from Farmer's Death Investigation Reveals Shotgun Involvement Amidst Police Denial, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Historic Gathering of Sikh MPs Marks Milestone in UK Parliament The presence of Sikh women MPs marks a significant stride towards gender equality and inclusivity in UK politics. Today marked a historic moment in the UK Parliament as all 11 elected Sikh Members of Parliament gathered together for the first time, signifying a milestone in British political history. Veteran MP Tanmanjit Singh Dhesi captured and shared the poignant occasion, emphasizing its significance for the Sikh community in the United Kingdom. Proudly highlighting their collective achievement, Dhesi underscored the increasing representation of Sikhs in British politics. Among these 11 MPs are four turbaned individuals, reflecting the diversity within the Sikh community and its growing presence in public office. Notably, the Labour Party achieved a sweeping victory in the recent elections, securing all 11 Sikh seats in Parliament. Advertisement Historic moment in our @UKParliament when all 11 elected #Sikh Members of Parliament gathered together for the first time. pic.twitter.com/1SQyWCS9oa Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP (@TanDhesi) July 9, 2024 Tanmanjit Singh Dhesi and Preet Kaur Gill, both seasoned figures in British politics, were re-elected for their third terms from Slough and Birmingham Edgbaston respectively. Dhesi, the first turbaned Sikh MP in the UK, and Gill, the first Sikh woman MP, initially won their seats in the 2017 elections. Joining them as first-time MPs are Gurinder Singh Josan, Jas Athwal, Warinder Singh Juss, Dr. Jeevan Sandher, and Baggy Shanker, each representing constituencies across the UK. Notably, the contingent of first-time Sikh women MPs includes Satvir Kaur, Harpreet Kaur Uppal, Kirith Kaur Ahluwalia (Kirith Entwistle), and Sonia Kaur Kumar. Advertisement The presence of Sikh women MPs marks a significant stride towards gender equality and inclusivity in UK politics. Their election underscores the increasing role of Sikh women in shaping policy and representing diverse communities. The gathering of all 11 Sikh MPs symbolizes not only numerical achievement but also unity and collective purpose within the Sikh community. Their presence in Parliament is expected to advocate for issues such as equality, social justice, and religious freedoms. Prime Minister James Cartwright acknowledged the historic occasion, praising the diversity and dedication of the Sikh MPs in serving their constituencies and contributing to national governance. He noted that their election reflects Britain's commitment to multiculturalism. Advertisement Looking ahead, the 11 Sikh MPs have pledged to work collaboratively across party lines on pressing issues like healthcare, education, economic opportunity, and community cohesion. Their unity and determination are poised to make a lasting impact on British politics, ensuring diverse voices are heard in the corridors of power. In summary, the 11 Sikh MPs exemplify democratic ideals of representation and diversity, embodying the spirit of inclusivity that defines modern Britain. (For more updates apart from Historic Gathering of Sikh MPs Marks Milestone in UK Parliament , stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) President Joe Biden has approved a Major Disaster Declaration for the damage sustained from the hurricane that ripped through Texas' Gulf Coast and Houston earlier this week. The declaration follows consultations with Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. "With this Major Disaster Declaration in place, we will provide life-saving and life-sustaining activities, and any other Federal resource that Texas needs," he said in a statement. Hurricane Beryl's wind and rain brought flooding and power outages across the Texas coast and further inland Monday. The greatest concern now is the power outages and extreme heat that is impacting thousands of Texans. The White House said 800,000 people have had power restored overnight, and another 1 million more are expected to get power back. The federal government has offered generators to help reduce the impact of the power outages. FEMA warned residents of Texas recovering from Hurricane Beryl to take precautions as they assess their damage and begin to clean up. "With millions of people still without power, residents should be aware of the dangers of extreme heat. As the storm continues to move northeast across the Midwest, those in Beryl's path should remain vigilant and listen to their local officials," it said in a press release. "Beryl remains a strong storm with the potential for flooding -- it is important to not underestimate the storm as it heads northeast. Residents in the states along its path should have a plan, check on family members and be aware of potential risks, including flash floods, river flooding and tornadoes." For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Thursday afternoon, President Joe Biden will meet with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the NATO summit. The two leaders are scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m. ET at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where the NATO sessions are being held. It will take place just before the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting. The meeting is aimed "to discuss our unwavering support for Ukraine as it continues to defend itself from Russian aggression," the White House said. This will be the third meeting between both presidents in recent weeks, following their sit-down in France and also a sit-down at the G7 in Italy. "It will further demonstrate the strength of the partnership between our counties," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. The NATO summit opened with five nations, including the United States, offering to provide Ukraine with the equipment for five additional strategic air defense systems to counter Russia's relentless attacks on Ukrainian cities. More military support is expected in the meeting. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News German auto giant BMW is recalling over 390,000 vehicles in the U.S. because of defective airbag inflators that may explode upon deployment, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Wednesday. The recall covers certain 2006-2011 3 Series Sedan (324i, 325i, 325xi, 328i, 328xi, 330i, 330xi, 335i, 335xi), 2006-2012 3 Series Sportswagon (325xi, 328i, 328xi), and 2009-2011 3 Series Sedan (335d) vehicles. According to a statement by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the original steering wheel may have been replaced with a sport or M-sport steering wheel equipped with an inflator that can explode during deployment. Dealers will inspect and replace the driver's air bag module as necessary, free of charge. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed August 23, 2024. "In the event of an inflator rupture, metal fragments could pass through the air bag cushion material, which may result in injury or death to vehicle occupants," BMW said in the recall report. BMW has received no reports of deaths or injuries in the U.S. in connection with this issue, according to the recall documents. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News ELKO Big Boy, the huge steam locomotive that thrilled viewers as it passed through Elko County chugging onward to California will be back in Elko July 18 around 6 p.m. on its way home in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Elko City Council members on July 9 approved closure of Manzanita Lane from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. July 18 for those who want to see worlds largest steam locomotive, with the closure times depending on the No. 4014s arrival. The locomotive will overnight, but they just want one hour for viewing, said Assistant City Manager Scott Wilkinson, who told council members the street closure will be managed by the city, not Union Pacific. He said parking details for Big Boy viewers still need to be worked out. On the locomotives trek back to Cheyenne, it will stop in Lovelock on Tuesday from 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Eighth Street Crossing, and Big Boy will be back in Carlin from 1:15 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday at the B Street Crossing. The locomotive also will stop from noon to 12:30 p.m. July 19 in Montello northeast of Wells, at Montello Road and Fourth Street. In all, Big Boy No. 4014 will have visited 14 states in 2024, including five states during its summer Westward Bound Tour from Wyoming to California and back, according to Union Pacific. The western tour began June 30 and ends July 26. The first stop in Elko was on July 8 on the way to a viewing event in Carlin. Big Boy was delivered to Union Pacific in December 1941 and retired in December 1961. In those 20 years, it traveled 1,031,205 miles, and it is the only steam locomotive of its size still operating. Union Pacific has a huge shop in Cheyenne for restoration projects and housing the restored Big Boy. Big Boy No. 4014 may have retired from active service, but the steam locomotive still hits the rails for special events and its twice-a-year tours. Union Pacific issued a reminder to all rail fans to think safety first and stay 25 feet back from the tracks when taking a picture or viewing the mammoth locomotive. That means never take a picture or video standing on the track or the ballast and never climb on the locomotive or equipment. A steam tracking map showing No. 4014s location and route is available at upsteam.com. Close The Big Boy arrives in Wells at 4:15 p.m. on July 6, 2024. Victoria Delosier, Destiny Thomason and Gary Medina from Burley, Idaho gather to view and photograph the arrival of The Big Boy in Wells, Nevada on July 6. Onlookers view The Big Boy in Wells on July 6, 2024. Onlookers view The Big Boy in Wells on July 6, 2024. A crowd gathers at the Pacific Avenue train crossing in Wells, Nevada on July 6, 2024. Paul Guerico of the RailGiants Train Museum gathers steam in a cup from the Big Boy's discharge. Union Pacific fireman Austin Baker performs maintenance checks on the Big Boy in Wells on July 6. Union Pacific fireman Austin Baker performs maintenance checks on the Big Boy in Wells on July 6. The Big Boy and crowd in Wells on July 6, 2024. The Big Boy prepares to leave from Wells and head towards its next stop in Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy departs from Wells to head for Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy departs from Wells to head for Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy departs from Wells to head for Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy departs from Wells to head for Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy departs from Wells to head for Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy arrives at the Union Pacific railyard in Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy arrives at the Union Pacific railyard in Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy arrives at the Union Pacific railyard in Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy pulls into the Elko Union Pacific railyard on July 6, 2024. Photos: Hundreds greet 'Big Boy' locomotive in Wells Steam locomotive "The Big Boy" arrived at Pacific Avenue in Wells, Nevada on July 6, where it was greeted by hundreds of onlookers in RVs and folding chairs, whom Union Pacific security allowed to walk around the engine after it arrived. Attendees came from as far as Utah, Idaho and Arizona, lining both sides of the track, thronging around the crossing and parking along Pacific Avenue for several dozen yards. Crew performed various maintenance duties on the train while it was stopped for around half an hour. Fireman Austin Barker said typical duties include dealing with oil and grease. The Big Boy arrives in Wells at 4:15 p.m. on July 6, 2024. Victoria Delosier, Destiny Thomason and Gary Medina from Burley, Idaho gather to view and photograph the arrival of The Big Boy in Wells, Nevada on July 6. Onlookers view The Big Boy in Wells on July 6, 2024. Onlookers view The Big Boy in Wells on July 6, 2024. A crowd gathers at the Pacific Avenue train crossing in Wells, Nevada on July 6, 2024. Paul Guerico of the RailGiants Train Museum gathers steam in a cup from the Big Boy's discharge. Union Pacific fireman Austin Baker performs maintenance checks on the Big Boy in Wells on July 6. Union Pacific fireman Austin Baker performs maintenance checks on the Big Boy in Wells on July 6. The Big Boy and crowd in Wells on July 6, 2024. The Big Boy prepares to leave from Wells and head towards its next stop in Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy departs from Wells to head for Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy departs from Wells to head for Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy departs from Wells to head for Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy departs from Wells to head for Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy departs from Wells to head for Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy arrives at the Union Pacific railyard in Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy arrives at the Union Pacific railyard in Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy arrives at the Union Pacific railyard in Elko, July 6, 2024. The Big Boy pulls into the Elko Union Pacific railyard on July 6, 2024. The Rawlins Times in Wyoming also reported the Union Pacific Museum was set to host a special, sold-out passenger trip from Roseville, Calif., to Sparks as a fundraiser for the museum. Recently, a report was released by the state media outlet Beijing News, outlining a concerning scandal involving the dual use of tankers for edible and chemical oil. In response, the food safety office of China's State Council has announced the formation of an interdepartmental team to investigate the transport of edible oil and promised severe punishment for any misconduct according to the law. The investigation exposed instances of tank trucks transporting edible cooking oil immediately after carrying chemicals used in coal-to-liquid processing, without cleaning the tank interiors between loads. The report's author, Han Futao, brought to light the involvement of Sinograin, China's largest grain storage and transport company, and the private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group in this scandal. This has raised concerns about food contamination in a country that has had its fair share of food and drug safety incidents. State broadcaster CCTV has condemned this alleged practice, equating potential food contamination from leftover fuel in the tankers to poisoning. The People's Daily has urged regulators to take action, emphasizing the paramount importance of food safety. Some individuals have linked this situation to broader societal issues in the country, including economic challenges and concerns about accountability for powerful entities. Sinograin has announced inspections across its operations and pledged to stop working with transport providers violating safety regulations. Meanwhile, Hopefull Grain and Oil Group has stated that relevant departments are investigating the matter and will issue an official statement. The company has denied ownership of the tanker described in the report and has asserted the quality of their oil products. As of now, no product recalls have been announced. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Knight Edition now makes its way to Hyundai Exter 3rd model in the company lineup after Creta and Venue to get the Black treatment Hyundai India celebrates the 1st anniversary of the Exter, a relatively newer but highly acclaimed SUV in the company lineup. Hyundai Exter was launched in India on 10 July, 2023, and to date the brand has sold 93,000 units of the Exter. Celebrating this 10 year milestone, Hyundai has officially launched the new Exter Knight Edition. This new addition follows the successful launch of the Knight Edition of Creta and Venue. Hyundai Exter Knight Edition Hyundai Exter takes on the Tata Punch in the segment. Unlike Punch, which is also offered as an EV, Exter is only offered with Petrol and CNG options. With the Punch gaining in popularity, it is only fitting that Hyundai revamps the Exter lineup in order to contest aggressively. This brings in the new Exter Knight Edition in a striking matte black exterior paint scheme, setting it apart from the regular exterior colour options of Ranger Khaki, Cosmic Blue, Starry Night, Titan Grey, Fiery Red and Atlas White besides dual tone options of Khaki, Cosmic and Atlas White shades which receive a contrasting Black roof. Hyundai Exter Knight Edition offers an all-black stance with bold designs that form an instant appeal to a younger and more adventurous set of buyers in the country. The exterior updates on the new Knight Edition includes black side sill garnish, black finished skid plate at the front and rear, black alloy wheels and a Hyundai logo and EXTER emblem also in a black colour scheme. These all black colours are contrasted by red accents on the front bumper and rear tail gate along with red finished brake calipers. An exclusive Knight Emblem is also evident at the rear. Interiors and Specs Matching its all-black exteriors are also black interiors. Black coloured upholstery is accented with red stitching and piping while door handles and steering is seen in black satin. A black metal scuff plate black floor mats with red stitching and red footwell lighting completes its interior makeup. Hyundai Exter Knight Edition sees no change in its engine lineup. It continues to draw its power via a 1.2 liter Kappa petrol engine. This engine offers 81 hp power and 113 Nm torque mated to 5 speed MT and Smart Auto AMT. 2024 Hyundai Exter Knight Edition Prices Where pricing is concerned, the new Exter Knight Edition ranges from Rs 8,30,200 for the SX MT variant. SX (Dual Tone) is priced at Rs 8,62,200 while SX (O) Connect and SX (O) Connect (Dual Tone) are priced at Rs 9,70,800 and Rs 9,85,800 respectively. Where the AMT trims are concerned, pricing ranges from Rs 9,05,200 to 10,14,900 on the SX, Dual Tone and Connect. Commenting on the launch of Hyundai EXTER Knight, Mr. Tarun Garg, COO, HMIL, said, We are thrilled to introduce the Hyundai EXTER Knight, embodying the bold spirit of todays young Indian buyers. The Hyundai EXTER has received a positive customer response with over 93,000 units sold to date. Leveraging the popularity of Black colour among SUV customers, the Hyundai EXTER Knight mirrors the changing aspirations of customers. With its youthful & premium design, the Hyundai EXTER Knight aims to entice customers to traverse the unexplored and bring forth thrilling experience to live the Hyundai SUV life. The colour black often symbolizes modernity, elegance, power and sophistication, terms very commonly associated with SUVs, and we are confident that the Hyundai EXTER Knight with its striking road presence and offerings will match the aspirations of Indian customers. With localization, Hyundai Inster EV launch price in India will be much lower, starting at around Rs 10 lakh Hyundai has plans to launch multiple new mass-market EVs in the coming years. The first of these will be the Creta EV, scheduled for 2025. It will be followed by Inster EV in 2026. Inster EV is based on the Casper sold across international markets. Ahead of its launch, prices have been revealed in South Korea. Inster EV prices revealed Hyundai Inster Inspiration variant is available at a starting price of 31,493,670 KRW. At current exchange rates, that works out at Rs 18.99 lakh. Inster EV Inspiration Trim is equipped with a 49kWh lithium-ion battery pack. It has a WLTP certified range of 355 km. Standard variants of Inster EV will be equipped with a 42-kWh battery pack. This offers a range of 300 km. Hyundai is offering a number of personalization options at an additional cost. For example, the sunroof package will cost an additional 400,000 KRW (Rs 24,100). Similarly, users can choose from options such as Hyundai Smart Sense, Convenience Plus, Exterior Design, Parking Assist, Hi-Pass System, Interior Package (Two-tone) and Sound System. These are available in the price range of 200,000 KRW to 1,200,000 KRW (Rs 12,000 to Rs 72,400). Inster EV is designed for delivering impressive performance as well as ensuring energy efficiency. Presence of a regenerative braking system will ensure a higher range. Other key features include Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) capability, a 10.25-inch full LCD screen, 12-way power-adjustable driver seat and 8-way power-adjustable passenger seat. The EV has LED foot lamps, USB C-type fast charging port, premium sound system, surround view monitor and wireless phone charger. A comprehensive range of ADAS features are on offer. Exterior and interior colour theme options Users can choose from seven exterior colour options. It includes Atlas White, Cyber Gray Metallic, Shimmering Silver, Intense Blue, Deep Sea Blue, Abyss Black Pearl and Nocturne Gray Matte. Interior colour theme options include Black One-tone (Synthetic Leather Seats), Beige/Khaki Brown Two-tone (Synthetic Leather Seats with Butter Yellow Accents) and Dark Gray One-tone (Synthetic Leather Seats with Pastel Orange Accents). With a wide range of exterior and interior colour theme options, Inster EV can target a larger segment of users. Inster EV official accessories revealed In South Korea, Hyundai Inster EV will offer a comprehensive range of accessories. It includes a wide variety of roof rack options and camping equipment. Accessories for the cabin include various trays, organizers and a sleeping board. A range of pet accessories will also be offered with Inster EV. It is likely that Hyundai will manufacture Inster EV at the Sriperumbudur facility in Tamil Nadu. Annual EV production target is around 90,000 units per annum. Creta EV count will be around 26,000, whereas the Inster EV production will be around 65,000 units. Along with the domestic market, Hyundai will also target overseas locations with its India-made mass-market EVs. On social media handles, Hyundai Exter Knight Edition teased, could very well be an N Line version too, owing to the red accents on tailgate Hyundais newest vehicle in India, Exter, has expanded the companys SUV portfolio into the segment smaller than 4m length. This is an all-important segment with Tata Punch in the lead. The rivalry is fierce and Hyundai India has teased a new version of their Exter. However, what will it be? A Knight Edition or an N Line version? Lets take a look. Hyundai Exter Knight Edition Exter is Hyundais most affordable vehicle in India marketed as an SUV. This directly rivals with Tata Punch, which has emerged as the best seller in the sub 4m SUV genre. Keeping the Punch-rival updated and looking fresh, is paramount for Hyundai. In that regard, Hyundai is formulating a new version of Exter and has teased the same on their social media handles. This is highly likely to be a Knight Edition version with a matte black exterior paint scheme that stands apart in the segment and within Exters standard shades. For context, Hyundai sells Exter with a total of five monotone and three dual-tone colours. These are Ranger Khaki, Cosmic Blue, Starry Night, Titan Grey, Fiery Red and the all important Atlas White monotone shade. Also, dual tone options include Khaki, Cosmic and Atlas White shades with a Black roof. As of now, there is no Black shade on offer with Exter. With a Knight Edition, Hyundai is likely to make Exter a lot more appealing than it already is. It has to be noted that Tata has not offered the Dark Edition of the Punch yet. So, Hyundai will get a brownie point of being the first OEM in the race to offer a black vehicle. Hyundai teaser mentioned Let the night sky dazzle, each time you cruise by! Hold on to your seats, something epic is about to be unveiled. So, there is a possibility that we can get a dual tone colour variant of Starry Night with black roof instead of a Knight Edition like Venue Knight Edition. Is it an N Line? If it is Hyundai Exter Knight Edition, we can expect similar treatment to Venue Knight Edition. A murdered look on the outside with all black appeal, black logos and badges, red front brake callipers, Knight badges on the outside, all-black interior with bronze accents, black upholstery and the likes. However, we cant rule away the possibility of it being an N Line version of Exter. We say this because there is a red highlight below the Exter badge in the teaser, like in i20 N Line and Venue N Line. This is not available with standard car. If Hyundai is teasing Exter N Line, we can expect it to have a matte paint scheme on the outside with red accents inside and out. Powertrain-wise, Exter N Line might come equipped with a 1.0L 3-cylinder GDI turbo petrol engine that could make the full-fat 120 PS power as i20 N Line and Venue N Line, or down-tuned to make 100 PS. Think Grand i10 NIOS Turbo, but in a crossover form. Launch is likely soon. With its Freedom 125 CNG bike, Bajaj can now effectively challenge the fill it, shut it, forget it killer campaign of the 90s Fortunes keep changing in the business world, as new competitors emerge and grab a larger market share. There are also occasions where an earlier dethroned leader may reclaim its lost glory. In the context of the long rivalry between Bajaj and Hero Honda in the commuter segment, it appears that the former may now have an upper hand with its Freedom 125 CNG motorcycle. Tiger Zinda Hain says Rajiv Bajaj At the Q&A session held during the launch of the worlds first CNG bike, some interesting facts and insights were revealed. One of the questions asked was about the reasons why a petrol bike user will switch to CNG. Responding to that, Rajiv Bajaj shared the complete story thus far. It was in the 1990s when Hero Honda had started winning the trust and confidence of users in the commuter segment. With reliable products such as CD100 and the promise of higher mileage, an increasing number of people started shifting from scooters to motorcycles. Rajiv mentions that a motorcycle with around 80 km/L mileage was naturally preferred by people over a scooter that gave only 40 km/L. It clearly indicates that fuel bills were an important decision-making factor for users in the commuter segment. Based on sales data, Rajiv points out that it was in 1997-1998 that Hero Honda overtook Bajaj in two-wheelers sales in the domestic market. It was a defining moment, as a new leader had emerged in the two-wheeler industry. The shift was so dramatic that Bajaj eventually had to close down its scooter business. Instead, the company started focusing on the motorcycle segment. Remembering the old times, Rajiv mentions that the late Hero Honda Chairman Brijmohan Lall Munjal had called Bajaj as a wounded tiger. Munjal had asked its dealers to be careful of the wounded tiger. This was after Hero Honda had taken a lead over Bajaj in two-wheeler sales. Now, after around 30 years, Bajaj is in a position to avenge their loss against their primary rival. To describe the situation in typical Bollywood style, Rajiv Bajaj said that the message of Freedom 125 CNG bike 30 years later is Tiger Zinda Hain. Below is the Media QnA session recording from the Bajaj CNG launch. The story about Tiger Zinda Hain remark starts at about 27:30 mark. Bajaj Freedom 125 CNG Truly a pioneering project While it is difficult to predict consumer response, Bajaj Freedom 125 CNG motorcycle has significant potential. One is looking at certified mileage of over 100 km/L when the bike is running on CNG. Add to that the savings that will come from the lower cost of CNG vs. petrol. Across most locations, CNG is around Rs 15 to Rs 20 cheaper than petrol. Apart from the fuel cost savings, Freedom 125 CNG bike offers various other advantages. It is the worlds first hybrid CNG bike with petrol as a dual-fuel option. Users can seamlessly switch from CNG to petrol and vice-versa with just the press of a button. Other highlights include an extra-long seat, a unique mono-linked type suspension, advanced safety features, digital speedometer and Bluetooth connectivity. Pricing is also quite reasonable, starting at Rs 95,000. Tata Motors is celebrating the King of SUV festival with benefits upto Rs 1.40 Lakh to commemorate 2 million SUV sales milestone Tata Motors has launched the King of SUVs festival in celebration of selling over 2 million (20 lakh) SUVs in India. This offer is valid till 31st July 2024 and is being offered on both the companys ICE range and EVs. Tata Motors has revised the prices of flagship SUVs Harrier and Safari. Tata Harrier now starts at Rs 14,99,000 while the Safari now starts at Rs 15,49,000 (both prices ex-showroom). Tata has also slashed prices of Nexon EV, Punch EV and Tiago EV by up to Rs 1.3 lakh. Tata Harrier Price Cut July 2024 The price adjustments across different variants reflect a strategic move to enhance market competitiveness. For instance, Harrier Smart variant now retails at Rs. 14,99,000, down from Rs. 15,49,000, representing a reduction of Rs. 50,000 or 3.23%. Similarly, the Smart (O) variant is priced at Rs. 15,49,000, reduced from Rs. 15,99,000, showing a decrease of Rs. 50,000 or 3.13%. Harrier Pure variant sees its price reduced to Rs. 16,29,000 from Rs. 16,99,000, marking a Rs. 70,000 or 4.12% cut. Likewise, Harrier Pure (O) variant now costs Rs. 16,79,000, down by Rs. 70,000 or 4.00% from its previous price of Rs. 17,49,000. The Pure +, Pure + S, and Pure + S DK variants have all received reductions of Rs. 70,000 each, now priced at Rs. 17,99,000, Rs. 18,49,000, and Rs. 18,79,000 respectively, reflecting cuts of 3.75%, 6.09%, and 6.00%. Further up the range, Harrier Adventure, Adventure +, and Adventure + DK variants are now priced at Rs. 19,69,000, Rs. 20,49,000, and Rs. 21,04,000, showing reductions of Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 1,20,000 respectively, translating to cuts of 2.48%, 5.53%, and 5.40%. The Adventure + A variant is priced at Rs. 21,49,000, down from Rs. 22,69,000, a decrease of Rs. 1,20,000 or 5.29%. Harrier Fearless and Fearless DK variants have each received a Rs. 50,000 reduction, now priced at Rs. 22,49,000 and Rs. 23,04,000 respectively, showing cuts of 2.17% and 2.12%. Finally, the Fearless + and Fearless + DK variants are now priced at Rs. 23,99,000 and Rs. 24,54,000, with reductions of Rs. 50,000 each, translating to cuts of 2.04% and 2.00%. options. Tata Safari Price Cut July 2024 Tata Safari Smart variant now costs Rs. 15,49,000, down from Rs. 16,19,000, marking a reduction of Rs. 70,000 or 4.32%. Similarly, the Smart (O) variant sees its price drop to Rs. 15,99,000 from Rs. 16,69,000, reflecting a discount of Rs. 70,000 or 4.19%. The Pure variant has been adjusted to Rs. 16,79,000, down by Rs. 90,000 or 5.09% from its previous price of Rs. 17,69,000. Safari Pure (O) variant now costs Rs. 17,29,000, a reduction of Rs. 90,000 or 4.95% compared to its earlier price of Rs. 18,19,000. Across higher trims like Pure +, Pure + S, and Pure + S DK, prices have decreased by Rs. 90,000 each, now priced at Rs. 18,49,000, Rs. 18,99,000, and Rs. 19,29,000 respectively, showing cuts of 4.64%, 6.87%, and 6.77%. Further down the lineup, Safari Adventure, Adventure +, and Adventure + DK variants now cost Rs. 20,49,000, Rs. 21,29,000, and Rs. 21,84,000, reflecting reductions of Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 1,20,000, resulting in cuts of 2.38%, 5.34%, and 5.21% respectively. The Adventure + A variant is priced at Rs. 22,29,000, down from Rs. 23,49,000, a decrease of Rs. 1,20,000 or 5.11%. Safari Accomplished and Accomplished DK variants have received a Rs. 50,000 reduction each, now priced at Rs. 23,49,000 and Rs. 23,84,000 respectively, showing cuts of 2.08% and 2.05%. Finally, the Accomplished + and Accomplished + DK variants are now priced at Rs. 24,99,000 and Rs. 25,34,000, with reductions of Rs. 50,000 each, translating to cuts of 1.96% and 1.93%. Commenting on this special occasion, Mr. Vivek Srivatsa, Chief Commercial Officer, Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Ltd., Our ability to understand the SUV segment and provide the right product for every customer need, helps us immensely to maintain consistency and dominant leadership in the segment. Supported by our multi powertrain strategy, our approach is to provide Indian consumers with world class SUVs that are robust, safe and technologically advanced. The achievement of the 2 million SUV sales mark is a testament to this approach and sets the pace for the future growth of the SUV category. Mahindra XUV700 AX7 Price Cut July 2024 Seeing Tata Motors cut prices, Mahindra has also announced price cuts on XUV700 AX7 variants for a period of 4 months. XUV700 price cuts are higher than that of Harrier / Safari price cuts. XUV700 AX7 6-str Petrol MT variant now costs Rs. 19.69 lakh, down from Rs. 21.44 lakh, marking a reduction of Rs. 1.75 lakh or 8.16%. Similarly, the AX7 6-str Petrol AT variant sees its price reduced to Rs. 21.19 lakh from Rs. 23.14 lakh, showing a decrease of Rs. 1.95 lakh or 8.43%. XUV700 diesel variants also reflect significant cuts, with the AX7 6-str Diesel MT now priced at Rs. 20.19 lakh, down by Rs. 1.85 lakh or 8.39% from its previous price of Rs. 22.04 lakh. The AX7 6-str Diesel AT variant costs Rs. 21.79 lakh, reduced by Rs. 2.05 lakh or 8.60% from Rs. 23.84 lakh. Across 7-seater configurations, the AX7 7-str Petrol MT, AX7 7-str Petrol AT, AX7 7-str Diesel MT, AX7 7-str Diesel AT, and AX7 7-str AWD Diesel AT variants have received reductions ranging from Rs. 1.80 lakh to Rs. 2.19 lakh, with percentage cuts ranging between 8.45% to 8.86%. Similarly, the AX7 L variants in both petrol and diesel configurations have seen price decreases between Rs. 1.45 lakh to Rs. 2.00 lakh, with percentage cuts ranging from 6.01% to 7.41%. Chinese radio astronomer Li Di (R), the chief scientist of China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), is awarded the Marcel Grossmann Award in Pescara, Italy, July 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Jing) PESCARA, ITALY, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese radio astronomer Li Di was awarded the Marcel Grossmann Award on Tuesday for his research contributions in the field of fast radio burst (FRBs). Li, the chief scientist of China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), is the first Chinese scientist to receive the prestigious physics prize for achievements accomplished in China. Li was awarded for his groundbreaking contributions to the scientific capabilities of the world's most sensitive radio telescope, including precise measurements of interstellar magnetic fields and advancing the study of FRBs to a high statistical significance, according to the committee of the 17th Marcel Grossmann Meeting, currently underway in Pescara, Italy, until Friday. "Humans share the same sky, and the international opening of astronomy is inevitable," Li told Xinhua in an interview. "Strengthening China-EU cooperation, especially through the open sharing of astronomical data between the two sides, can greatly advance cutting-edge exploration and effectively prevent decoupling." "Li's latest contributions, in the field of the mysterious FRBs in particular, have really moved our understanding forward," said Michael Kramer, director of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. Li's scientific leadership in the FAST telescope project and the discoveries enabled by this remarkable instrument make this award truly exceptional, Kramer added. The Marcel Grossmann Award, established in 1985 and presented every three years, is considered one of the most prestigious international awards in physics. Previous Chinese laureates include Nobel Prize winners Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao, as well as world-class mathematician Qiu Chengtong. The Marcel Grossmann Meeting, initiated in 1975, aims to promote research in gravity, relativity, and related areas, focusing on mathematical foundations, physical predictions, and experimental tests. Chinese radio astronomer Li Di, the chief scientist of China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), makes a speech at the 17th Marcel Grossmann Meeting in Pescara, Italy, July 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Jing) Attendees listen to speeches at the 17th Marcel Grossmann Meeting in Pescara, Italy, July 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Jing) Chinese radio astronomer Li Di, the chief scientist of China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), makes a speech at the 17th Marcel Grossmann Meeting in Pescara, Italy, July 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Jing) Editor: ZAD Nazrin Abdul Azerbaijan and the Kingdom of the Netherlands recently explored possibilities for collaboration in agriculture, Azernews reports citing the Ministry of Agriculture. The discussions took place during a meeting between Azerbaijans Minister of Agriculture, Majnun Mammadov, and the Dutch Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Safety, and Nature, Femke Marie Wiersma, as part of an official visit to the Netherlands. Representatives from Azerbaijans Ministry of Agriculture and various agricultural sector companies also participated in the meeting. Minister Mammadov provided an overview of Azerbaijans agrarian development strategy, detailing recent innovative projects and emphasizing that one of the countrys main goals is the development of national agro-food systems and economic diversification. During the meeting, the two ministers exchanged views on the potential for future agricultural cooperation between Azerbaijan and the Netherlands. It was highlighted that the Netherlands, a leading agricultural country, is keen to share its successful agricultural practices with Azerbaijan. The possibility of expanding cooperation between state and private institutions in both countries, focusing on scientific research and experience exchange, was also discussed. Minister Wiersma expressed the Netherlands strong interest in deepening agricultural cooperation with Azerbaijan. She noted the significant potential for expanding mutual agricultural relations and stressed the importance of developing partnerships between private institutions. Additionally, she underscored the importance of Azerbaijan hosting the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), expressing interest in collaborating on the COP29 agenda. The two countries agreed to focus on several key areas for future cooperation: Boosting the trade of agricultural and food products between Azerbaijan and the Netherlands, introducing the latest agricultural technologies and digital solutions, implementing experimental programs in agricultural science and education, sharing information, conducting joint scientific research, and exploring new advancements in agriculture. The meeting demonstrated a mutual commitment to enhancing agricultural cooperation and leveraging each countrys strengths for future collaboration. BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- The Queqiao-2 relay satellite, with three scientific payloads installed, will conduct multiple scientific exploration missions in orbit, following its earlier contribution to the Chang'e-6 mission. Queqiao-2, or Magpie Bridge 2, was launched by a Long March-8 rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province on March 20 this year, with the task of providing Earth-moon communications services. Its three payloads consist of an extreme ultraviolet camera, a two-dimensional-coded energetic neutral atom-imager and an Earth-moon very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) experiment system, according to the National Space Science Center under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A scientific payload manager is also installed, which acts as the central control hub for the instruments, and is responsible for their unified control and data reception management, the center said. As a crucial part of the future Chang'e-7 mission, these payloads will carry out multiple Earth observation and astrometry experiments, with an aim to advance research in space Earth science, space astronomy and deep space exploration technology, thereby creating more original scientific achievements. According to the center, the extreme ultraviolet camera can simultaneously observe in the 30.4 nm and 83.4 nm spectral bands, capturing a series of unique "photos" of space around Earth. Scientists can use these "photos" to study how solar activity affects Earth's space environment, understand how Earth's magnetic field protects humans from cosmic rays and the solar wind, and better predict solar activity events to avoid negative impacts on communication systems and spacecraft safety. The two-dimensional-coded energetic neutral atom-imager, independently developed by China, can image and observe Earth's magnetosphere, obtaining high temporal and spatial resolution data of Earth's magnetotail, the center said. It can provide observational data support for studying Earth's magnetic storm processes, substorm injection triggering mechanisms and magnetotail energy conversion mechanisms, thus enhancing the safety of the country's space station and near-Earth satellites during their operations. The Earth-moon VLBI experiment system uses the antenna of Queqiao-2 to extend the ground-based VLBI network into the Earth-moon space, achieving a baseline length ranging from 3,000 meters to 380,000 kilometers, according to the center. It will enable scientific exploration in astrophysics and astrometry of the Earth-moon baseline, as well as precise orbit measurements for deep space probes. Its unique perspective will unveil the physical properties and evolutionary processes of various celestial bodies and phenomena. 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of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe An aerial drone photo taken on June 22, 2024 shows the deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle "Pioneer II" undergoing a sea trial. China's deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle has completed a sea trial at a depth exceeding 4,000 meters, marking a significant breakthrough in the country's deep-sea mineral resource development technology. (Shanghai Jiao Tong University/Handout via Xinhua) SHANGHAI, July 9 (Xinhua) -- China's deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle has completed a sea trial at a depth exceeding 4,000 meters, marking a significant breakthrough in the country's deep-sea mineral resource development technology. The trial was conducted by "Pioneer II," an engineering prototype developed independently by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Shanghai municipal government said on Tuesday. "Pioneer II" completed five diving and seabed mining operations, including a record-breaking dive to 4,102.8 meters, marking the first time a Chinese deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle conducted trial operations at depths exceeding 4,000 meters. The mining vehicle has pioneered several innovations in the country, including high-mobility deep-sea navigation over complex seabed terrains and composite drilling and mining of multiple types of deep-sea minerals. Yang Jianmin, chair professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and chief scientist of "Pioneer II," said that during the sea trial, the mining vehicle completed one dive per day for five consecutive days from June 22 to 26 in the western Pacific Ocean, successfully obtaining over 200 kg of various deep-sea mineral samples. Yang noted that while deep-sea mineral resources are generally found at depths ranging from 2,000 to 6,000 meters, the trial indicated that "Pioneer II" can almost reach the depths required for seabed mining. Several prominent experts, including Lin Zhongqin and Li Jiabiao, both academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Li Maolin, director of a national key laboratory of deep-sea mineral resources, hailed the success of the sea trial as another solid step forward for China's deep sea exploration. According to the experts, it signifies that China will receive more technical and equipment support for deep-sea scientific research, resource exploration and environmental preservation. An aerial drone photo taken on June 22, 2024 shows the deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle "Pioneer II" undergoing a sea trial. China's deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle has completed a sea trial at a depth exceeding 4,000 meters, marking a significant breakthrough in the country's deep-sea mineral resource development technology. (Shanghai Jiao Tong University/Handout via Xinhua) This photo taken on June 24, 2024 shows a deep-sea mineral sample collected by the deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle "Pioneer II." China's deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle has completed a sea trial at a depth exceeding 4,000 meters, marking a significant breakthrough in the country's deep-sea mineral resource development technology. (Shanghai Jiao Tong University/Handout via Xinhua) This photo taken on June 26, 2024 shows a deep-sea mineral sample collected by the deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle "Pioneer II." China's deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle has completed a sea trial at a depth exceeding 4,000 meters, marking a significant breakthrough in the country's deep-sea mineral resource development technology. (Shanghai Jiao Tong University/Handout via Xinhua) This photo taken on June 20, 2024 shows the deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle "Pioneer II" developed by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. China's deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle has completed a sea trial at a depth exceeding 4,000 meters, marking a significant breakthrough in the country's deep-sea mineral resource development technology. (Shanghai Jiao Tong University/Handout via Xinhua) Team members operate the deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle "Pioneer II" at a control center on June 22, 2024. China's deep-sea heavy-duty mining vehicle has completed a sea trial at a depth exceeding 4,000 meters, marking a significant breakthrough in the country's deep-sea mineral resource development technology. (Shanghai Jiao Tong University/Handout via Xinhua) Editor: ZAD Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), presents a certificate of order to promote He Hongjun, executive deputy director of the Political Work Department of the CMC, to the rank of general, at a ceremony held for the promotion in Beijing, capital of China, July 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Gang) BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), on Tuesday presented a certificate of order to promote a military officer to the rank of general, the highest rank for officers in active service in China. The promoted officer is He Hongjun, executive deputy director of the Political Work Department of the CMC. Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the CMC, announced the order, which was signed by Xi, at a ceremony held for the promotion in Beijing. He Weidong, also CMC vice chairman, presided over the ceremony. Xi extended his congratulations to the officer. Editor: WXY The Antikythera mechanism is a multi-component device recovered from a shipwreck close to the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901. It is believed to be the remains of a complex mechanical calculator of ancient origin, and has undergone considerable investigation and analysis to determine its true form and function. In new research, astronomers from the University of Glasgow used statistical modeling techniques developed to analyze gravitational waves to establish the positions of holes beneath the calendar ring of the Antikythera mechanism. Their results provide fresh evidence that this component was most likely used to track the Greek lunar year. The Antikythera wreck is a Roman-era shipwreck dating from the first century BCE (85-50 BCE). It is located on the east side of the Greek island of Antikythera near Crete at the crossroads of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. The Antikythera ship is thought to have been carrying looted treasures from the coast of Asia Minor to Rome, to support a triumphal parade being planned for Julius Caesar. The wreck was discovered in 1900 by a group of Greek sponge divers on their way to Tunisia who took shelter from a storm near the island and decided to look for sponges while they waited for calmer conditions. Early excavations at the site revealed a wealth of discoveries that today are housed in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece. These included three life-size marble horses, jewelry, coins, glassware, and hundreds of works of art, including a statue of Herakles. The most surprising discovery was the corroded remnants of a complex device known as Antikythera mechanism, which is believed to be an early analog computer used to plan important events including religious rituals, the early Olympic Games, and agricultural activities. Sometimes described as the first mechanical computer, the bronze device was constructed during the period 150-100 BCE. It was originally housed in a wooden-framed case of overall size 31.5x19x10 cm and had front and back doors, with astronomical inscriptions covering much of the exterior. Its remaining fragments contain 30 gears in a highly complex arrangement. Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not appear until 1,000 years later. In 2020, new X-ray images of one of the mechanisms rings, known as the calendar ring, revealed fresh details of regularly spaced holes that sit beneath the ring. Since the ring was broken and incomplete, however, it wasnt clear how just how many holes were there originally. An initial analysis by Antikythera researcher Chris Budiselic and colleagues suggested it was likely somewhere between 347 and 367. In the new study, University of Glasgow researchers Graham Woan and Joseph Bayley used two statistical analysis techniques to reveal new details about the calendar ring. They show that the ring is vastly more likely to have had 354 holes, corresponding to the lunar calendar, than 365 holes, which would have followed the Egyptian calendar. The analysis also shows that 354 holes is hundreds of times more probable than a 360-hole ring, which previous research had suggested as a possible count. Towards the end of last year, a colleague pointed to me to data acquired by YouTuber Chris Budiselic, who was looking to make a replica of the calendar ring and was investigating ways to determine just how many holes it contained, Professor Woan said. It struck me as an interesting problem, and one that I thought I might be able to solve in a different way during the Christmas holidays, so I set about using some statistical techniques to answer the question. Professor Woan used a technique called Bayesian analysis, which uses probability to quantify uncertainty based on incomplete data, to calculate the likely number of holes in the mechanism using the positions of the surviving holes and the placement of the rings surviving six fragments. His results showed strong evidence that the mechanisms calendar ring contained either 354 or 355 holes. At the same time, Dr. Bayley had also heard about the problem. He adapted techniques used by their research group to analyze the signals picked up by the LIGO gravitational wave detectors, which measure the tiny ripples in spacetime, caused by massive astronomical events like the collision of black holes, as they pass through the Earth, to scrutinise the calendar ring. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo and nested sampling methods Professor Woan and Dr. Bayley used provided a comprehensive probabilistic set of results, again suggested that the ring most likely contained 354 or 355 holes in a circle of radius 77.1 mm, with an uncertainty of about 1/3 mm. It also reveals that the holes were precisely positioned with extraordinary accuracy, with an average radial variation of just 0.028 mm between each hole. Previous studies had suggested that the calendar ring was likely to have tracked the lunar calendar, but the dual techniques weve applied in this piece of work greatly increase the likelihood that this was the case, Dr. Bayley said. Its given me a new appreciation for the Antikythera mechanism and the work and care that Greek craftspeople put into making it the precision of the holes positioning would have required highly accurate measurement techniques and an incredibly steady hand to punch them. Its a neat symmetry that weve adapted techniques we use to study the universe today to understand more about a mechanism that helped people keep track of the heavens nearly two millennia ago, Professor Woan said. We hope that our findings about the Antikythera mechanism, although less supernaturally spectacular than those made by Indiana Jones, will help deepen our understanding of how this remarkable device was made and used by the Greeks. A paper on the findings was published in the July 2024 issue of The Horological Journal. _____ Graham Woan & Joseph Bayley. 2024. An Improved Calendar Ring Hole-Count for the Antikythera Mechanism: A Fresh Analysis. The Horological Journal This article was adapted from an original release by the University of Glasgow. A trove of ancient plant remains excavated in Kenya helps explain the history of plant farming in equatorial eastern Africa, a region long thought to be important for early farming but where scant evidence from actual physical crops has been previously uncovered. In a new study published July 10, 2024 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, archaeologists from Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Pittsburgh and their colleagues report the largest and most extensively dated archaeobotanical record from interior east Africa. Up until now, scientists have had virtually no success in gathering ancient plant remains from east Africa and, as a result, have had little idea where and how early plant farming got its start in the large and diverse area comprising Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. There are many narratives about how agriculture began in east Africa, but theres not a lot of direct evidence of the plants themselves, said Dr. Natalie Mueller, an archaeologist at Washington University in St. Louis. The work was conducted at the Kakapel Rockshelter in the Lake Victoria region of Kenya. We found a huge assemblage of plants, including a lot of crop remains, Dr. Mueller said. The past shows a rich history of diverse and flexible farming systems in the region, in opposition to modern stereotypes about Africa. The new research reveals a pattern of gradual introductions of different crops that originated from different parts of Africa. In particular, the remnants of cowpea discovered at Kakapel Rockshelter and directly dated to 2,300 years ago constitute the earliest documented arrival of a domesticated crop and presumably of farming lifeways to eastern Africa. Cowpea is assumed to have originated in West Africa and to have arrived in the Lake Victoria basin concurrent with the spread of Bantu-speaking peoples migrating from central Africa, the study authors said. Our findings at Kakapel reveal the earliest evidence of domesticated crops in east Africa, reflecting the dynamic interactions between local herders and incoming Bantu-speaking farmers, said Emmanuel Ndiema from the National Museums of Kenya, a project partner. This study exemplifies National Museums of Kenyas commitment to uncovering the deep historical roots of Kenyas agricultural heritage and fostering an appreciation of how past human adaptations can inform future food security and environmental sustainability. Constantly Changing Landscape Situated north of Lake Victoria, in the foothills of Mount Elgon near the Kenya-Uganda border, Kakapel is a recognized rock art site that contains archaeological artifacts that reflect more than 9,000 years of human occupation in the region. The site has been recognized as a Kenyan national monument since 2004. Kakapel Rockshelter is one of the only sites in the region where we can see such a long sequence of occupation by so many diverse communities, said Dr. Steven T. Goldstein, an anthropological archaeologist at the University of Pittsburgh, the other first author of this study. Using our innovative approaches to excavation, we have been uniquely able to detect the arrival of domesticated plants and animals into Kenya and study the impacts of these introductions on local environments, human technology and sociocultural systems. Dr. Mueller used a flotation technique to separate remnants of wild and domesticated plant species from ashes and other debris in a hearth excavated at Kakapel. Although she has used this technique in her research in many other parts of the world, it is sometimes difficult to use this approach in water-scarce locations so it has not been widely used in east Africa. The scientists used direct radiocarbon dating on carbonized seeds to document the arrival of cowpea (also known as the black-eyed pea, today an important legume around the world) about 2,300 years ago, at about the same time that people in this area began to use domesticated cattle. They found evidence that sorghum arrived from the northeast at least 1,000 years ago. They also recovered hundreds of finger millet seeds, dating back to at least 1,000 years ago. This crop is indigenous to eastern Africa and is an important heritage crop for the communities that live near Kakapel today. One unusual crop that Dr. Mueller uncovered was field pea (Pisum), burnt but perfectly intact. Peas were not previously considered to be part of early agriculture in this region. To our knowledge, this is the only evidence of peas in Iron Age eastern Africa, Dr. Mueller said. The exceptional pea is pictured in the paper, and it represents its own little mystery. The standard peas that we eat in North America were domesticated in the near east, Dr. Mueller said. They were grown in Egypt and probably ended up in east Africa by traveling down the Nile through Sudan, which is also likely how sorghum ended up in east Africa. But there is another kind of pea that was domesticated independently in Ethiopia called the Abyssinian pea, and our sample could be either one! Many of the plant remnants that Dr. Mueller and her team found at Kakapel could not be positively identified, because even modern scientists working in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda today dont have access to a good reference collection of samples of plants from east Africa. Our work shows that African farming was constantly changing as people migrated, adopted new crops and abandoned others at a local level, Dr. Mueller said. Prior to European colonialism, community-scale flexibility and decision-making was critical for food security and it still is in many places. _____ Mueller et al. 2024. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, in press; doi: 10.1098/rspb.2023.2747 This article is a version of a press-release provided by Washington University in St. Louis. A news conference on Monday afternoon in Nishan, Qufu, Shandong province, highlighted the 10th Nishan Forum on World Civilizations which will open on Wednesday. [Photo provided to Chinadaily.com.cn] The 10th Nishan Forum on World Civilizations is set to kick off on Wednesday in Nishan, Qufu, Shandong province known as the birthplace of Confucius. The two-day forum themed "Traditional Culture and Modern Civilization" will cover topics such as civilizational exchanges and mutual learning amid global challenges, Chinese-style and Western modernization, civilization inheritance, innovation in the process of modernization and the effects of artificial intelligence and humanity. For the first time, there will be a forum on sports, and one on family culture. Nishan, located 30 kilometers southeast of the county-level city of Qufu in Jining, is a must-visit tourist destination that combines the charm of China's traditional culture with the world cultural heritage sites of the Temple of Confucius, the Mansion of Confucius and the Cemetery of Confucius, all of which are located in Qufu. Since its inception in 2010, the Nishan forum has been held nine times. The event features dialogue between different civilizations around the world. It has become an increasingly important platform for strengthening the preservation and development of Chinese traditional culture, for advocating common human values and for promoting international cultural exchanges and cooperation. This year's forum will host nearly 400 international guests from 63 countries the largest number of countries and guests. It will be co-hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the International Confucian Association and the Shandong Provincial People's Government. Editor: WRX The market spotlight on Thursday will be on the US consumer price report for the month of June. Consensus is for the annual rate of increase in headline CPI to have slipped from 3.3% for May to 3.1% in June. Core CPI on the other hand is seen unchanged at 3.4%. On home shores meanwhile, at 0600 BST the Office for National Statistics will publish gross domestic product figures for May. They will be followed at 0830 by the Bank of England's Credit Conditions survey for the second quarter. Also due out before the market open in London is a reading on German consumer prices in June. On the company side of things, Jet2 is due to release its fiscal 2024 results. UBS analyst Jarrod Castle anticipates full-year revenues will reach about 6.5bn (consensus: 6.3bn), for a rise in earnings before interest and taxes from 394m one year before to 435m. In a recent update, the airline guided towards full-year profit before tax, before foreign exchange movements, of 515-520m. However, investors' focus would be on the outlook for the summer and guidance for the following year, he said. Thursday 11 July INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE Heavitree Brewery, Heavitree Brewery 'A' Shares, Kitwave Group, Schroder UK Mid Cap Fund, Shoe Zone, The Character Group, Unicorn AIM VCT , WH Smith QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE GSK QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE BlackRock Latin American Inv Trust, Custodian Property Income Reit, I3 Energy , JPMorgan Asia Growth & Income, JPMorgan Japan Small Cap Growth & Income, Middlefield Canadian Income PCC, Real Estate Investors, Supermarket Income Reit INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Consumer Price Index (GER) (07:00) Consumer Price Index (US) (13:30) Continuing Claims (US) (13:30) Initial Jobless Claims (US) (13:30) GMS Nostrum Oil & Gas FINALS Ilika, Jet2, Twentyfour Income Fund Limited Ord Red ANNUAL REPORT Twentyfour Income Fund Limited Ord Red SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE Plus500 Ltd (DI) SPECIAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE Record AGMS Angle, BT Group, Bytes Technology Group , DCC (CDI), Dr. Martens , Land Securities Group, Pets at Home Group , RS Group, Severn Trent, Value and Indexed Property Income Trust TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS Hays, Wood Group (John) UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Balance of Trade (07:00) Gross Domestic Product (07:00) Index of Services (07:00) Industrial Production (07:00) Manufacturing Production (07:00) RICS Housing Market Survey (00:01) FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE Centrica, Good Energy Group, Plus500 Ltd (DI), Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE Anpario, Atalaya Mining, Caffyns, Cake Box Holdings, CMC Markets, Halma, Marks Electrical Group, Mountview Estates, MS International, Oxford Instruments, Record, Sanderson Design Group, The Global Smaller Companies Trust Gurdip Dev Bath A Special Representative of St Kitts and Nevis has been using his position to the fullest to assist the vulnerable. For a longer period, he has been closely associating the sister islands for their well-being and growth. With his years of service in St Kitts and Nevis, Dev Bath now also holds the prestigious Honorary of the Republic by the President of Barbados Sandra Mason. The award was conferred to Gurdip Bath for his unprecedented assistance across the Caribbean during the times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bath continues to be a crucial member of the St Kitts and Nevis, and also helped the Federation sign agreements with 15 different nations across the globe. The intellectuals of the nation appreciate the St Kitts and Nevis special representative for securing strong diplomatic ties for St Kitts and Nevis with the rest of the world. At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gurdip Dev Bath was responsible for securing the vaccinations for the Caribbean region. He worked with the government of India and secured doses of the Covid-19 vaccines for the Caribbean region ahead of several prominent nations of the world. Notably, when powerful nations like Canada and the Europe were struggling, the Caribbean nations had access to 175,000 doses of the vaccine due to the efforts of Dev Bath. In over one decade, Bath has continued to support St Kitts and Nevis and the wider Caribbean region in several aspects. In May 2023, he facilitated the donation of laptops to the students of Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College in St Kitts. He was also responsible for providing food assistance to the people who were most severely affected by the economic crisis brought on by Covid-19. The humanitarian food aid consisted of dry food items that were distributed including essential food items like Pasta, Cereal, Macaroni and Cheese, canned baked beans, Canned Tuna and more. His efforts in terms of humanitarian assistance and support have helped not only St Kitts and Nevis but also the wider Caribbean indealing with the devastation caused by Covid-19. The people give him and his team credit of saving hundreds of lives that could have been lost during the COVID-19 pandemic His efforts were also acknowledged by the President of Barbados, Dame Sandra Prunella Mason who honoured him with the title of The Honorary of the Republic. The title was conferred upon him during a short but significant ceremony hosted in June 2023 at Bridgetown Barbados. Visiting Austria for the first time in history, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a strategic partnership to enable closer cooperation in a series of critical sectors. Modi, in a joint statement with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in Vienna, pointed out areas of mutual interest infrastructure, innovation, renewable energy, hydrogen, water and waste management, artificial intelligence, and quantum technology. He then gave a long-term vision, saying that the comprehensive blueprint prepared for cooperation over the coming decades unmistakably proves that it is much beyond economic cooperation in cultural and educational exchanges. The leaders announced initiatives for stronger youth engagement and idea exchange via an accelerated 'startup bridge', along with the finalizing of agreements on mobility and migration partnerships aimed at promoting legal migration and skilled workforce mobility between the two countries. In Vienna, after visiting Moscow, Modi will meet with Nehammer and discuss various urgent global issues. Those include climate and terrorism. On climate action, Modi invited Austria to participate in India's many different initiatives like the International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, and the Biofuel Alliance. India and Russia have set an ambitious goal of achieving USD 100 billion in annual trade volume by 2030, committing to establish a robust bilateral payment settlement mechanism using their national currencies. During summit talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the two nations also signed nine agreements to enhance cooperation across various sectors, particularly in the economic domain. Modi paid a two-day visit to Russia, his first to the country since the start of the war in Ukraine. "The major thrust of the discussion was economic engagement. A significant component of it was also devoted to how the partnership between India and Russia can also give fillip to 'Make in India' and other manufacturing partnerships", Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said at a media briefing. Kwatra said PM Modi spoke about the need to broaden the overall trade basket and called for greater market access for Indian goods in Russia, both in the agricultural and industrial sectors. "The two leaders also focused on important areas in the economic domain that link with the growth of different sectors in both countries, in particular fertilizer supplies from Russia to India, which are directly linked to crop production and farmers' yields in India", he said. The current bilateral trade volume between India and Russia stands at approximately USD 60 billion. The two leaders discussed the importance of progressing with the India-Eurasian Economic Union trade and goods agreement. Additionally, they issued a "leaders' joint statement on the development of strategic areas of Russia-India economic cooperation up to 2030," outlining a roadmap for expanding economic ties. The document prioritized the creation of a bilateral payment settlement system using national currencies and the steady introduction of digital financial instruments for mutual payments. It highlighted the development of cooperation in crucial energy sectors, such as nuclear energy, oil refining, and petrochemicals, as well as expanded partnerships in energy infrastructure. Additionally, it emphasized the importance of facilitating mutual and international energy security, considering the prospects of the global energy transition. A joint statement also noted that both sides agreed to continue working together to promote a bilateral settlement system using national currencies. "The sides agreed to continue consultations for interoperability of their financial messaging systems. "They noted the importance of finding mutually acceptable solutions for issues of insurance and reinsurance to facilitate further enhancement in bilateral trade", it said. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Gov. Kathy Hochul spoke with Spectrum News Wednesday to update New Yorkers on extreme weather conditions expected in the coming days. Hochul pointed out that the state is facing severe weather issues on multiple fronts Wednesday. Concerns include a 70% chance of flash floods in the North Country, which are rare, but very dangerous; the threat of thunderstorms and tornadoes together around the Syracuse, Ithaca and Utica areas; and threat of high heat throughout the city. She also said that as Hurricane Beryl is making its way through the state Wednesday and through Thursday, we could expect to see even more extreme weather events. Were prepared for this, but we really need New Yorkers to be paying close attention, especially if youre in one of those flash flood risk areas. We have seen communities that have been devastated by storms like this in the past, Hochul said. We have seen thousand-year flooding events come up unexpectedly. The lesson learned is to be prepared for the unexpected. And that is why weve deployed so many individuals watching carefully, tracking the weather. Hochul touted having the most sophisticated weather monitoring system in the country located in Albany which can pinpoint extreme weather including potential tornadoes, but cautioned that with the unpredictability of Mother Nature, issues could arise that cant be foreseen. So, vigilance is also the operative word. We are constantly monitoring, but having an engaged citizenry right now is really important to make sure that people are safe, and we keep their homes safe. But be ready to pack up and leave your home, Hochul said. The governor warned that people have lost their lives going outside to search for a pet when a river or stream next door is raging and flooding. We are deeply concerned about the North Country where the chance of flash floods that are pretty rare in New York this time of year. And whatll happen is, in the higher elevations, the mountains, the water will continue to accumulate, rush down can take out roads and bridges if its really high volume, Hochul said. Hochul said her office has been in communication with the counties in the impacted areas, stating that over 4,000 Department of Transportation and Thruway personnel have been activated alongside water rescue teams, while 6,000 utility workers will address any downed power lines. Well be monitoring, but we really need people to be listening and paying attention to their cell phone alerts, watching the news, listening to the news and just staying really engaged throughout the next 24 to 36 hours, she added. Ozzy Osbourne was forced to cancel a convention appearance this month in Phoenix because he is too weak to travel, according to a story from InTouch. Osbourne, 75, who has been battling Parkinsons Disease since 2003, wont be in attendance at this months Mad Monster Party, a horror and sci-fi gathering in Phoenix, the report said. The Prince of Darkness is also said to be suffering constant pain following spinal surgery last September related to a 2019 fall, and is mostly bed- and wheelchair-bound, the report said. A source told the outlet that things have taken a turn for the worse For the heavy metal legend to not be able to make the appearance is a terrible sign, the source said. Its feared Osbourne is suffering the end stages of Parkinsons, which bring about motor function issues, including muscle stiffness and freezing, the report said. Hes put up a tremendous fight for decades, but hes ready to give up, a source told the publication. Laman Ismayilova The Scientific-Methodical and Specialization Center for Culture has presented the project "Theater from Generation to Generation" project, Azernews reports. Within the project, the first seminar themed "Create Your Own Theater" was organized on the small stage of the Azerbaijan State Academic National Drama Theater. Speaking at the event, Acting Director of the Center Vugar Humbatov noted that the project "Theater from Generation to Generation" aims to contribute to the development of the theater process in Azerbaijan by creating a platform of ideas and experiences between generations. The initiative strives to apply modern international trends to the theater, increasing interest in this field, attracting young people and forming an active creative environment. Vugar Humbatov underlined that the project features interactive meetings with theater workers. Founder and artistic director of the Azerbaijan State Pantomime Theater, People's Artist Bakhtiyar Khanizade became the guest of the panel session, moderated by theater critic Daglar Yusif. During the event, Bakhtiyar Khanizade discussed socio-economic and artistic-conceptual aspects, tradition, modernity, new creative trends, etc. with young people. Billionaire Andrew Forrests company Fortescue is fighting to suppress a 600-page private investigator report, which details its extensive spying on ex-staff and their extended family members, in a court case that alleges stolen intellectual property. The court heard that Fortescue conducted 19 days of surveillance on three former employees, their wives, children and other family members. The spying included sifting through their personal mail, following some family members and partners to Kmart, trailing a former employee to the airport and also spying on his wife and child at their family home. Billionaire Andrew Forrests Fortescue hired private investigators to spy on ex-staff, including following family members and their children. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Justice Brigitte Markovic is presiding over the case before the Federal Court in which Fortescue has taken legal action against three former employees: Michael Masterman, Bart Kolodziejczyk and Bjorn Winther-Jensen. It has accused the men of copying and taking the companys intellectual property when they left to start a rival green iron project, called Element Zero. Just when this column thought it had wrung dry all possible news, comment, gossip and conjecture about Australias richest person Gina Rinehart and the use of her image, we were proved wrong. Regular readers will recall the billionaires hatred of Vincent Namatjiras unflattering portrait hung in the National Gallery of Australia. Then there was the painting Rinehart actually approved of, which turned out to have been painted by the wife of the Hancock Prospecting chief executive. But holy Gruen Transfer! Rinehart has only gone and given permission for a full-page print advertisement starring herself. The ad, which has run in national newspapers, is for something she actually owns: the iconic rural brand Driza-Bone. Ginas spinners tried to persuade us it was all old news, but Rineharts name in a headline does for our digital ratings what the iron ore boom did to her bank balance. Australian actor Rebel Wilson has lashed out at the producers of her directorial debut film The Deb after it was withdrawn from the Toronto International Film Festival. In a post to her 11 million followers on Instagram overnight, the 44-year-old actor accused producers Amanda Ghost, Gregor Cameron and Vince Holden of bad behaviour. Rebel Wilson in the UK in April this year. Credit: Kate Green/Getty Images She told her fans the film, an Australian musical comedy, had been chosen as the closing-night film at the Toronto International Film Festival, but that the producers were blocking the films premiere. To have the movie selected is one thing, but then to have the business partners turn around and say that, no the movie cant premiere is beyond devastating, she said in the post. 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 There is a famous quote by legendary US director Francis Ford Coppola in the documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse, which follows the behind-the-scenes drama of his 1979 Vietnam War epic. We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane. Sydney filmmakers Jack Clark and Jim Weir, both 27, know a little bit about how Coppola felt except they had the opposite problem: not enough money, not enough equipment and not enough crew. Oh, and a small thing called La Nina that washed out their set. Little by little, Clark and Weir, who were shooting their debut feature-length psychological thriller, Birdeater, in rural NSW, also went, if not quite insane, certainly something close to it. Jack Clark and Jim Weir on the Birdeater set. Credit: Roger Stonehouse We were sleeping on the set, which I dont imagine wed want to do again, but it meant that it was us on set before everyone was there, walking around in our pyjamas arguing or walking around pretending to be the camera and stuff in our pyjamas, recalls Clark. Pretty sorry kind of state. Birdeater which won the audience award at last years Sydney Film Festival is in cinemas next week, and its testament to Clark and Weirs determination, and desperation, that it got there at all. It also underlines how difficult it is to get films made in Australia, especially without the backing of major studios. It took maybe a year-and-a-half to get enough money just to get into production, says Weir, who met Clark while they were studying at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. Advertisement Largely getting $10,000 to $15,000 from a bunch of different places, probably six, seven or eight parties put in $10,000, which isnt the usual way to finance a movie. Loading But it was the only option because no one is willing to take a huge financial risk on a couple of young filmmakers. But we found that there are a lot of parties who are willing to take a little bit of a risk, knowing theres a good chance they wont get their money back. And that was before shooting even started in 2021, in a remote location called the Forgotten Valley which rang pretty true, deadpans Clark near the hamlet of St Albans, about 70 kilometres north-west of Sydney. We were supposed to shoot the film in four weeks, says Weir. But our shooting location was right on a riverbed. It was during La Nina, that big weather event where it didnt stop raining for months, so we ended up getting flooded out of our shooting location, mid-shoot, where we had to abandon that location [and] one of our actors left because they werent able to come back for reshoots. Shabana Azeez and Mackenzie Fearnley play Irene and Louie in the psychological thriller. Credit: Roger Stonehouse We lost all of our money and all of our post-production money, just by spending it on Band-Aid solutions, just so we could keep on shooting every day. So we got to the end of this four weeks, we ran out of money, and wed only shot half the film. So we told everyone, See you in six months, were gonna go try and find some more money. Advertisement And we scheduled dates for six months later and, until about two or three weeks before the shoot began, we had $0 in the bank account, but then an angel investor came in at the last minute and paid for the second shooting block. And then we finished the film in two weeks. Were they crying in the corner on set, as disaster quite literally rained down on them? The cast of Birdeater (from left), Mackenzie Fearnley, Harley Wilson, Clementine Anderson, Ben Hunter, Shabana Azeez and Alfie Gledhill. Credit: Roger Stonehouse We did do that quite early in the shoot, says Clark. We hung our heads in our hands when something went wrong, and sort of had a bit of a cry to ourselves and then everybody else kind of fell apart as well. Loading Then everybody else was sort of leeching off our bad energy. So we made a decision that day, that regardless of what was happening, we would remain outwardly extremely optimistic, extremely hopeful, and that would hopefully have a run-on effect on everybody else. Birdeater follows 20-somethings Louie (Mackenzie Fearnley) and Irene (Shabana Azeez) who appear to be a normal, loving young couple until their relationship is revealed to be quite dysfunctional. Advertisement They decide to get married, but instead of throwing a bawdy all-bloke bucks party, Louie invites Irene to a weekend with his friends in the bush, where things take an unexpected turn. We wanted to depict an unusual relationship from the outset, and then that developed into one that had separation anxiety as part of it, and then slowly turned into something that was more explicitly emotionally abusive, says Clark. Loading And then we wanted to put a framework around it that meant that those two would have to be separated. So that felt to us like a bucks party, and then, once that part of the premise came into play, it shifted the whole tone of the film into a new territory. The result is an uncomfortable look at Australian men (and a bucks party to which you would never in your life want to be invited) and how they can easily brush off difficult situations with a laugh or a joke, even when something is clearly not right. We were interested in finding the type of male behaviour that we think is a bit more common, the more subtle types of manipulation that we think is more common in guys we know, says Weir. And we wanted to largely make it about how groups of friends react to bad male behaviour because thats something weve had to negotiate with, growing up here in Australia. Advertisement So humour was a big thing for us, just because we think thats the default for Australian men, whenever things get a little bit serious, you revert to a joke. So we wanted to use comedy in the film, hopefully have an audience laughing with these guys, for the first half of the movie, and then perhaps feeling complicit in the second half of the movie when they start saying and doing some pretty terrible things. Shabana Azeez, best known for a small part in TV series Utopia, plays Irene, the person to whom the terrible things are directed. Irenes relationship with Louie is clearly toxic, but Azeez says what interested her was that Irene was not a black and white character. Loading [Their relationship] is like a power struggle, massively so, says the 27-year-old. But with huge systemic things that are not working out in her favour and malicious intent on one side. I know some people would call her passive, but for me, she is fighting for her life. Shes consistently trying to undercut the power he feels hes entitled to throughout the whole film, so shes quite, I dont know, shes quite scrappy to me and quite resourceful and clever. Azeez says she was fascinated by audience reactions to the screenings at last years Sydney and Melbourne film festivals, as well as its spot at this years South by SouthWest festival in Austin, where it was called tense, chaotic and uncomfortable. Jim [Weir] had that thing where he was like, You know, we want half the audience to be laughing and the other half to be livid, but the other half is laughing. And its always been like that, says Azeez. Like, every single time in the audience theres a sort of weird dynamic and I quite liked that. But its been quite polarising. Its either a feminist masterpiece or a misogynistic piece of crap. Advertisement Do you earn enough? A data-driven deep dive into your job, your salary and your suburb right across the country. Dozens of inner-Sydney suburbs are entirely devoid of emergency workers as soaring housing costs push a growing number of those employed in frontline jobs to outer metropolitan areas and beyond. There are 33 suburbs in Sydneys north shore, eastern suburbs and inner west with no residents who work as police officers, firefighters or paramedics, Herald analysis of local area employment data reveals. The neighbourhoods without emergency workers, which included Double Bay, Rushcutters Bay, Birchgrove, Kirribilli and Castlecrag, have a combined population of 90,000 people. Most are adjacent to Sydney Harbour and all have very high property values. The analysis of 2021 census figures also shows a disproportionate share of other essential workers including police, paramedics, firefighters, school teachers and nurses reside in outer Sydney suburbs where property is more affordable. Toxic smoke will continue to blow across Melbournes west for days after a chemical explosion sparked a massive factory fire that launched drums into the air and forced residents out of their homes. More than 180 firefighters battled the blaze in Swann Drive, Derrimut, which broke out just before 11.20am on Wednesday. Last year, a man was killed and two others were injured in a chemical fire at the same factory. Michelle Cowling from Fire Rescue Victoria said there was a danger to residents and firefighters as the fire drew in 66 appliances to fight it. The warehouse itself is full with multiple types of chemicals, and those drums are being impinged by fire, so they are exploding and, therefore, they launch into the air and land outside of the fire perimeter, she said. So thats why were encouraging people to stay away. There are many unfinished developments, empty blocks and abandoned buildings in Melbourne. But few property projects are as prominent or as long-running as the historic silos on the Yarra River. The sites owner, property developer Caydon, went bust two years ago. Since then, very little has happened to the decaying heritage-listed structure, made famous by the illuminated Nylex clock on top of the silos. John Molden lives in an apartment tower next to the Nylex clock silos, which sit empty and abandoned. Credit: Joe Armao There were grand plans for the Malt District project in Cremorne, which included a proposed $1 billion redevelopment to build 200 apartments, office towers, retail and hospitality outlets. The project went on hold when Caydon went into receivership in July 2022 owing more than $200 million. The builder contracted for the project, Probuild, collapsed in February 2022. The World Anti-Doping Agency says it has been cleared of wrongdoing over its part in quietly accepting Chinas explanation for why 23 of its best swimmers failed drug tests without penalty or disclosure in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics. Yet, as Australias Olympic team prepares to travel to Paris for the next instalment of the Games, the interim findings of a WADA-commissioned review into its handling of the Chinese swimming scandal have done little to restore confidence in anti-doping, with an international athlete association declaring widespread distrust in WADA and the global anti-doping system. A threat by WADA president Witold Banka to take legal action against his agencys most vociferous critics drew a rebuke from USADA chief executive Travis Tygart, who is pushing for wholesale changes to WADAs governance and approach. From the beginning, our goal has been uncovering the truth and the facts of this situation on behalf of clean athletes, Tygart said. Until WADA leadership shares that goal and stops spewing vitriol at any voice of dissent, there will be no trust in the global anti-doping system. Personally, I have nothing against getting my kit off with a bunch of strangers one of my early travel stories was about a fascinating and somewhat startling weekend spent in a nudist camp on the NSW coast so off I popped, discarding clothing as I went, reporter hat included. Putting aside the question of the identity of the nude dobber, I put on my investigative reporter hat and headed to the scene of the crime. I became convinced of this when two members of our travel group were turfed out of a five-star Austrian hotel spa for the sin of wearing clothing. And were talking swimsuits here, not a three-piece suit and a trilby. The women were agog, and not a little indignant, at being told to get undressed or get out. Forget all that nonsense about the Scandinavians and the Germans and their propensity for getting their kit off in public; its the Austrians who have taken the art of nudity to a whole new level. The WaldSpa in the Naturhotel Forsthofgut in Leogang, just south of Salzburg, is small but perfectly formed, with family-friendly textile and adults-only textile-free (textilfrei in the local lingo) areas where you can work up a sweat or swim while admiring the grandeur of the surrounding mountains. It was empty when I got there, so I stripped down and sat on one of the wooden benches. It was a little disconcerting at first if Im honest what if Id misread the signs (schoolboy German will only get you so far) and I was hanging out (as it were) in the wrong section? I wasnt, as proved by the man and woman who came in shortly afterwards, as naked as the day they were born. Phew, I was in the right place and could relax. That night at dinner in a traditional Hutessen restaurant (where you DIY-cook strips of meat by throwing them against what is essentially an upright brazier) a young Austrian public relations woman explained that she happily went to spas/saunas with colleagues (male and female) after a day at the office or at a conference. It was just a way of life, a social ritual about as controversial as going for a cheeky beer after work. Which is when it hit me; I have nothing against getting my clothes off with a bunch of strangers after all, Im never going to see them again but I wondered if, when it came to friends and colleagues, would I feel different? Not so this young Austrian woman, who looked at me like I was a crazy old stick-in-the-mud. What, your work colleagues havent seen you naked? Which is why I found myself a few days later in an amphitheatre-like textilfrei sauna of the Alpin Resort Sacher wellness hotel, listening to a Saunameister yes, its a thing explain the various spa rituals such as using aromatherapy infusions on the coals, and how to twirl towels to circulate hot air and increase heat. The attack at the hospital left young patients sitting on the street with IV drips attached to their arms. The bombing also damaged Ukraines most sophisticated laboratory for testing and confirming certain types of cancer, the Ukrainian Health Ministry said, adding that it was evaluating the state of the equipment to see what could be restored. It is terrifying because this is the only reference laboratory in Ukraine that confirms all oncohematological diseases, Dr Natalia Molodets, the head of the pediatric hematology department at the Odesa regional childrens hospital, said, referring to blood cancers. Firefighters hose down the flattened corner of a building after a Russian missile strike on the Okhmadyt childrens hospital in Kyiv. Credit: The New York Times Even in the first weeks of the war, when Russian forces were trying to seize Kyiv, the laboratory continued to operate, according to Molodets. For our children, it is vital, she said. Russia has targeted Ukrainian medical facilities since the first days of the war, a pattern outlined by a range of international rights organisations. The bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol in the weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine was an early indication of Moscows brutal tactics. As of this April, the World Health Organisation said it had verified 1682 direct attacks on medical facilities using heavy weapons, resulting in 128 deaths and 288 injuries of staff members and patients. About the same time that the childrens hospital was hit, debris from another Russian missile crashed into the Isida maternity hospital and a neighbouring private clinic elsewhere in Kyiv. Nine people were killed in that strike, including two children. Another two children Maksym Symaniuk, 10, and his 9-year-old sister Nastia were killed by falling missile debris at their home that day, according to the Ukrainian Karate Federation. Okhmatdyt childrens hospital director Volodymyr Zhovnir delivered testimony about the strike at an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council this week. Both children and adults screamed and cried from fear and the wounded from pain, he said. It was a real hell. More than 300 people were injured, including eight children, according to Zhovnir. Two adults were also killed, including one doctor. At the Security Council meeting, Moscow denied that it had targeted the facility, despite video footage and missile fragments collected by Ukrainian security services that suggest the hospital was hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile. Ambulances had to evacuate patients to other hospitals. Credit: The New York Times International organisations including UNICEF and the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Ukraine have pledged to help rebuild the hospital. But with some 7000 complex surgeries performed at Okhmatdyt annually, doctors say it will not be easily replaced. US President Joe Biden, who is welcoming Western leaders to Washington for the 75th anniversary of NATO on Tuesday, issued a statement saying the attack served as a horrific reminder of Russias brutality. Children who are treated at Okhmatdyt are often unable to evacuate to the hospitals bomb shelter during regular air raids because moving them would interrupt their care. Many of the patients are now being transferred to other hospitals across Ukraine, including in Odesa and Lviv. As the nations top childrens hospital, Okhmatdyt was also the place where children who experienced intense physical and emotional trauma were sent for treatment. The staff is trained to handle some of the most difficult medical situations. But many said nothing could have prepared them for the horror of the Russian attack. Volunteers clean debris from a building after the strike on Okhmadyt childrens hospital. Credit: The New York Times Nazar Borozniuk, a physical therapist at the hospital, said it was pure luck that no children were killed. A video clip he filmed from inside the hospital after the attack showed ceiling panels and broken glass on the floor. This is how everything looks now, he says in the video. I hope nothing falls on our heads. Speaking by phone Monday evening, Borozniuk described the harrowing scenes that had played out in front of patients and staff at the hospital. We started evacuating children, parents and families, he said. Loading The scene was so chaotic that Borozniuk said his feelings just disappeared. But as he drove home Monday evening, hours after the hospital was hit, he finally began to process what had happened. There will definitely be psychological consequences for everyone, he said. We are all human. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Paris: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen faces an investigation over suspicions of illegal campaign financing related to her unsuccessful 2022 bid for the presidency just as a poll places her as the frontrunner in the next race. The Paris prosecutor opened the case after it was alerted by the countrys campaign-funding watchdog in 2023, an official said in an email. The probe was escalated last week and passed on to an investigative judge with wider powers. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen is being investigated over financing relating to the 2022 presidential election. Credit: AP The investigation caps a disappointing week for Le Pen, whose National Rally fell to third place in Sundays legislative ballot. Still, the far-right party and its allies won 143 seats in Frances National Assembly a quarter of the total and a record for the group. About a decade ago, it had just two seats in the lower house of parliament. Furthermore, a poll on Tuesday suggested that she would lead the first round of the next French presidential election in 2027. The probe would not be Le Pens first brush with the law. At the end of September, she goes on trial over allegations that she and her party diverted millions of euros in European Union funds to build up a platform in France. PHILIPSBURG (DCOMM):--- The Collective Prevention Services (CPS), a department in the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour (Ministry VSA), is calling on the population to be vigilant for respiratory illnesses, as many countries in the Caribbean are experiencing an increase in the number of cases. Preventive measures should be applied at all times, such as sneezing in a napkin or inside of your elbow sleeve, and dont forget to wash your hands regularly with soap and water. Hand washing should last at least two minutes, or you can use hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol. Practice proper cough and sneeze etiquette. Persons with flu-like symptoms should consult with their house doctor for medical advice. If your house doctor refers you to the laboratory, you should follow these instructions as any respiratory illness is reported to CPS for follow-up and case management. Having data available will ensure that CPS disseminates timely awareness and communication to the community. CPS encourages the population to remain healthy during this summer holiday. Utrecht:--- The Trimbos Institute proudly welcomed the Honorable Prime Minister Dr. Luc Mercelina, Deputy Minister Plenipotentiary, Drs. Gracita R. Arrindell, NRPB, and two representatives of the Ministry of Health of Sint Maarten. This groundbreaking visit aimed to exchange knowledge, share best practices in mental health and addiction, and provide vital insights into the mental health and substance use priorities for Sint Maarten. The delegation, initiated by the Sint Maarten government, sought to leverage the Trimbos Institute's expertise in developing community mental health services, promoting mental health prevention across all age groups, integrating mental health and substance use services, and mobilizing communities for better mental health outcomes. "Financed by the Trust Fund, Trimbos will work closely together with the Mental Health Foundation, the Ministry of VSA, and the NRPB on improving Sint Maartens mental health sector. As the leading Expertisecentre in Mental Health, the Trimbos Institute eagerly shared comprehensive information, addressing the unique context and challenges faced by Sint Maarten. Our mission is to ensure that every person in Sint Maarten has access to the mental health support they need, declared Dr. Luc Mercelina. Given our specific context, we advocate for a pragmatic and holistic approach to addressing mental health and substance use. We aim to ensure that all residents of Sint Maarten can access a comprehensive range of mental health services, from initiatives that enhance social support, resilience, and mental well-being to those aiding recovery from mental illness and addiction. The collaboration with Trimbos Institute is a significant step towards achieving this mission. The visit included captivating presentations, spirited discussions, and a dynamic Q&A session. Dr. Mercelina, a renowned surgeon with a deep interest in the health and well-being of young people, expressed particular enthusiasm for these topics. The delegation was inspired by Trimbos Institutes international projects, such as the MENSANA project in Moldova, and appreciated the tour of the Enik Recovery College, a model of best practice in mental health recovery. "This successful visit has set the stage for stronger mental health care on St.Maarten , particularly in public mental health prevention, promotion, and care," added Dr. Mercelina. We are committed to working collaboratively to improve mental health outcomes for all our communities. "This initiative highlights the shared commitment to improving mental health and addiction care for St. Maarten. PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Justice Lyndon Lewis announced at the Council of Ministers press briefing that he assumed that certain employees appointed by the former Minister of Justice Anna Richardson have been delaying the process of the Landsbesluit for justice workers. Lewis said the employees appointed during the last days of the Ministers tenure seem to be working for the former Minister, and they are playing with the lives of the people. Lewis made clear that the employees that he feels are delaying the process are not harming him personally, but they are disturbing the peace of the justice workers. He said the allegations are that the bidding is being done by the employees that were put in place by the former Minister of Justice. He called on those employees to stop and to do their jobs. Lewis said that since taking office, he has not removed anyone from their appointed positions; instead, he has opted to allow everyone to work for their country. The Minister of Justice further explained that the sixth batch was signed off on June 19th, 2024, and sent to the Governors Office for signature. I am told the governor is off island, and I have asked why the acting governor is not signing off on the LBs that were sent. I am told this person is not 100% in office. I dont know what that means, and I am still waiting for the Landsbesluits to return to me for co-signing. I do not understand what is happening and dont know what types of games are being played, but to date, I have not received the 25 LBs that were sent to the governors office for signature. The Minister further explained that the justice workers have covered batches 7 and 8, which cover another 50 employees. These LBs are going through the process, after which they, too, will be sent to the governor while he sits and waits for the signed LBs. PHILIPSBURG: --- Minister of Justice Lyndon Lewis on Wednesday made clear that culprits responsible for the recent shootings will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. He said the recent spike in gun violence has his immediate attention. Lewis said he held several meetings since the shootings with the management of KPSM, the Prosecutors Office, and the Prison management to find solutions to the crime rate in St. Maarten. The Minister of Justice said he discussed enforcing the laws to combat the crime rate in St. Maarten in his meetings with Chief Commissioner of Police Carl John and suggested that extra support be sought from Curacao for the upcoming snap elections. The Minister said the increase in gun violence is not only disturbing but also destructive to the economy and the tourist product. As such, those who have chosen to mess with the bread and butter of the country will also face the full extent of the law. LACK OF PRISON SPACE. Asked what the status of the Pointe Balance Prison is and how he intends to address the lack of space at the prison. Lewis said that the repairs that are to be conducted by UNOPS will begin in January 2025. He said that, on Tuesday, he met with the prison management to address the capacity of the prison cells and the situation. It is what it is, and he is busy assessing the crimes committed and which prisoners would be eligible for early release. He said the discussion would continue later this week when the Chief Commissioner of Police and Prosecutor will be involved. Lewis confirmed that the ankle bracelets will be used with the early release program. The Minister of Justice also announced that while in the Netherlands, he was informed that St. Maarten is working too slowly and that people have been hindering the process. He said the Netherlands made NAF 2 million available for the prison project, and the country stands to lose it if the money is not utilized. He said he is doing what is necessary to ensure that St. Maarten does not lose the funds by speeding up the project. The Dutch naval ship HNLMS Groningen intercepted a drug transport for the sixth time in a short time. In the Caribbean Sea, the patrol ship managed to stop a fast drug boat with eight people on board. The ship intercepted 228 kilograms of cocaine. The catch was on June 26 but was announced today. On the night of June 25 to 26, the Dash-8 patrol plane of the Caribbean Coast Guard spotted a drug boat (go-fasts) in the Caribbean Sea. HNLMS Groningen was already in the area then and immediately took action. The Navy ship gave chase using its US Coast Guard helicopter and two fast FRISC interceptor vessels. The Fleet Marine Squadron and the US Coast Guard were on these interceptor boats. The drug boat was intercepted after a chase, supported by the Dash-8 patrol aircraft. The eight suspected smugglers and the 228 kilos of seized cocaine have been handed over to the US Coast Guard. Station ship With this interception, HNLMS Groningen already has six intercepted drug transports since its presence in the Caribbean at the beginning of April 2024. The ship is used, among other things, for counter-drug operations. This is done alternately in collaboration with the American Coast Guard and the Caribbean Coast Guard. NATO boosts Ukraine air defenses as doubts over Biden cloud summit Washington, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 US President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a major package of air defenses for Ukraine as doubts over his political survival clouded the start of a NATO summit in Washington. Leaders from the 32-nation military alliance were looking to put on a show of resolve against Russia during three days of pomp-filled ceremony in the US capital marking NATO's 75th anniversary. But questions over Biden's fitness to govern threatened to dominate the gathering as the 81-year-old faces calls to quit the race for a second term after a disastrous debate performance against challenger Donald Trump. Looking to refocus attention on US steadfastness, Biden kicked off the summit by announcing Washington will provide Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense system. "The war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country. Russia will not prevail," Biden said at a ceremony in the room where NATO's founding treaty was signed in 1949. "This is a pivotal moment for Europe, for the transatlantic community, and, I might add, for the world," he said. The US pledge comes on top of two new Patriot systems already being given by Germany and Romania, and one the Netherlands has said it is putting together with parts from other allies. The air defenses "will help to protect Ukrainian cities, civilians, and soldiers," Biden said in a joint statement with other leaders, adding that they would look to send dozens more shorter range systems in the coming months. Ukraine has for months been clamoring for seven additional Patriot systems to help protect against devastating Russian strikes two and a half years into the invasion. The war-torn country's vulnerability to Moscow's missiles was cruelly exposed by a strike Monday on a children's hospital in Kyiv. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said 43 people were killed across his country in a barrage of strikes that day. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg urged countries across the alliance to maintain their backing for Kyiv -- warning that if Russia wins it will be the "greatest risk" for NATO. "The outcome of this war will shape global security for decades to come," Stoltenberg said. "The time to stand for freedom and democracy is now. The place is Ukraine." - Trump weighs in - As NATO sought to project unity and strength, doubts were swirling over the political future of the most powerful leader in the alliance. Biden has so far defied pressure from some within his party to step aside, after a calamitous TV debate against Trump last month fueled fears that he lacks mental acuity and physical fitness. NATO members in Europe are nervously eying a potential return to the White House by Trump after November's election. On the campaign trail, the volatile ex-reality TV star has threatened to blow apart the principle of mutual self-defense that has underpinned NATO since it was founded in the wake of World War II. In a post on his Truth Social network, Trump insisted that he had "made NATO viable again" by forcing European countries to spend more on their own defenses during his term in office. "If it weren't for me as President, there probably would be no NATO by now," Trump claimed. He said he now wants Washington's allies in Europe to stump up more to help Ukraine and ease the burden on the United States. Zelensky thanked Kyiv's backers for the air defense -- and urged the United States and others to go further to help defeat Russia. In a speech to a think tank, he said the "whole world" was looking towards the outcome of the US election in November. "And truly speaking, Putin awaits November," he said. - China challenge - The Kremlin said it was following the summit "with the greatest attention... the rhetoric at the talks and the decisions that will be taken and put on paper." The promise of more weaponry is set to be the biggest win the Ukrainian leader will get as his troops struggle to hold ground. Worried about dragging NATO closer to war with Russia, the United States and Germany have shut down any talk of giving Ukraine a clear invitation to join their alliance. Instead, diplomats say Kyiv's path to eventual membership may be described as "irreversible" in the summit declaration. NATO members will also vow to keep supporting Ukraine at the rate they have been so far since Moscow invaded -- roughly 40 billion euros annually -- for at least another year. While NATO views Russia as its main threat, it is also paying greater attention to challenges from China and accuses Beijing of playing a key role in keeping Moscow's war effort going. The leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea will come to Washington to bolster ties with the alliance. China's foreign ministry hit out at the "smear and attacks" against Beijing from NATO and said the alliance was seeking an excuse to expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific region. 37 Chinese aircraft around Taiwan on way to western Pacific: Taipei Taipei, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 Taiwan's defence ministry said 37 Chinese aircraft were detected around the self-ruled island Wednesday as they "headed to the Western Pacific" for exercises with an aircraft carrier. China claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and maintains a near-daily presence of fighter jets, drones and warships around the island, which is located 180 kilometres (110 miles) from the southern Chinese coast. It is also a crucial part of a chain of islands that military strategists say serve as a gateway from the South China Sea -- which China claims in nearly its entirety -- to the Pacific Ocean. On Wednesday, around 9:30 am local time (0130 GMT), Taipei said that "since 0520 today, the Ministry of National Defence detected a total of 37 Chinese aircraft" around Taiwan, including fighter jets, bombers and drones. Thirty-six of the aircraft crossed the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait -- which bisects the narrow waterway separating the island from China. "(The aircraft) headed to the Western Pacific via our southern and southeastern airspace to cooperate with the aircraft carrier the Shandong in conducting 'joint sea and air training'," the defence ministry said in a statement. It added that Taiwan's armed forces monitored the situation and deployed "air craft, navy vessels and coastal missile systems" in response. The Chinese flights come a day after Japan's Joint Staff Office confirmed that four PLA navy vessels -- including the aircraft carrier Shandong -- were sailing in the sea 520 kilometres southeast of Miyako Island. "On the same day, the Chinese navy's Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier 'Shandong' was observed landing and departing fighter aircraft and helicopters on board," it said in a statement Tuesday. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and has ramped up military and political pressures on the island in recent years. In May, days after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te took office, China launched war games around the island as "punishment" for an inauguration speech that Beijing called a "confession of Taiwan independence". burs-dhc/cwl 37 Chinese aircraft skirt Taiwan on way to drill: Taipei Taipei, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 Taiwan's defence ministry said 37 Chinese aircraft were detected around the self-ruled island Wednesday as they headed to exercises with an aircraft carrier in the western Pacific. China claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and maintains a near-daily presence of fighter jets, drones and warships around the island, which is located 180 kilometres (110 miles) from the southern Chinese coast. It is also a crucial part of a chain of islands that military strategists say serve as a gateway from the South China Sea -- which China claims in nearly its entirety -- to the Pacific Ocean. At around 9:30 am (0130 GMT) Wednesday, Taipei said that "since 0520 today, the Ministry of National Defence detected a total of 37 Chinese aircraft" around Taiwan, including fighter jets, bombers and drones. Thirty-six of the aircraft crossed the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait -- which bisects the narrow waterway separating the island from China. "(The aircraft) headed to the Western Pacific via our southern and southeastern airspace to cooperate with the aircraft carrier the Shandong in conducting 'joint sea and air training'," the defence ministry said in a statement. Defence Minister Wellington Koo told reporters the Shandong "did not pass through the Bashi Channel", the area off Taiwan's southern tip where Chinese ships typically transit en route to the Pacific Ocean. Instead, it "went further south through the Balingtang Channel towards the Western Pacific," he said, referring to a waterway just north of the Philippines' Babuyan Island -- about 250 kilometres south of Bashi. The Chinese flights come a day after Japan's Joint Staff Office said four PLA navy vessels -- including the Shandong -- were sailing 520 kilometres southeast of Miyako Island. "On the same day, the Chinese navy's Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier 'Shandong' was observed landing and departing fighter aircraft and helicopters on board," it said in a statement. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control and has ramped up military and political pressures on the island in recent years. In May, days after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te took office, China launched war games around the island as "punishment" for an inauguration speech that Beijing called a "confession of Taiwan independence". On Wednesday, Lai met with Raymond Greene, new director of the American Institute in Taiwan -- the de-facto US embassy, emphasising their "solid partnership... in the midst of China's repeated provocation and attempts to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait". While the United States, like many other countries, does not officially recognise Taiwan diplomatically, it is Taipei's key partner and major provider of weapons -- a point of consternation for Beijing which has repeatedly called on Washington to stop arming the island. Greene said Wednesday that Washington would continue to "strongly support Taiwan's ability to defend itself". "We have a long-term and shared interest to maintain the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. This is vital to the prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, as well as to global security," he said during his meeting with Lai. burs-dhc/cwl NATO leaders seek to bolster Ukraine as gloom grows Washington, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 NATO leaders meet Wednesday for their 75th anniversary, seeking ways to ramp up support for Ukraine as deadly Russian strikes and political uncertainties in the West stir new concerns. With the pomp of a summit in Washington, President Joe Biden is aiming to rally the West and also reassure US voters amid intense pre-election scrutiny on whether at 81 -- six years older than the alliance -- he remains fit for the job. Kicking off three days of events for the 32-nation alliance with a celebration Tuesday evening, Biden announced a new air defense system for Kyiv and urged unity against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched the Ukraine invasion in 2022. "Make no mistake. Ukraine can -- and will -- stop Putin," Biden said forcefully to applause. On the eve of the summit, Russia fired a barrage of missiles on Ukraine, killing dozens, including in Kyiv where a children's hospital was reduced to debris. Biden has invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the summit as well as the leaders of four key Pacific partners -- Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand -- as he seeks to increase NATO's role in managing a rising China. But the US president himself is facing a tough election challenge from Donald Trump, who has loudly questioned the utility of NATO and mused on forcing a peace deal in which Ukraine would surrender land to Russia. - 'Greatest risk' - Zelensky in Washington thanked Ukraine's backers for the promise of new air defenses -- and urged the United States and others to go further to help defeat Russia. NATO's outgoing secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg of Norway, acknowledged the question marks, after Trump's allies in the US Congress forced a delay of months in approving new weapons for Ukraine. "Ukraine has shown remarkable courage and NATO allies have provided unprecedented support. But let's be honest -- not even our support for Ukraine has been a given," Stoltenberg said. "Remember -- the biggest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine. We cannot let that happen." Other leaders attending the summit include Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of Putin's closest partners in the West, who ahead of Washington went to Ukraine, Russia and China on a self-described peace mission criticized by Brussels and Washington. Another Asian partner of the US, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, met Putin on the eve of the NATO summit and is not part of the Washington talks. Leaders on Wednesday will formally convene the alliance's North Atlantic Council inside downtown Washington's convention center. Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will later welcome their counterparts for gala dinners around the Washington area, which is in the throes of a searing heat wave. One new NATO leader is British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is visiting days after taking office in a landslide victory by his Labour Party. He will meet both Biden and Zelensky and is expected to confirm Britain's strong support for Ukraine. - Reassurances for Ukraine - Ukraine has been seeking firm assurances that it will one day join NATO, which considers an attack on any member an attack on all. Ukraine's membership enjoys wide backing from Baltic and Eastern European nations still haunted by decades under the Soviet yoke. But Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have led opposition, concerned that the alliance would effectively be entering war with nuclear-armed Russia as it occupies swathes of Ukraine. Zelensky, who has achieved hero status in much of the West for his media-savvy defiance of Russia, voiced open annoyance at the last NATO summit in Lithuania at the failure to provide a clearer path to membership. In Washington, the US is seeking to play down his expectations, speaking of creating a "bridge" to membership but making clear quick entry is not on the cards. Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said negotiations were ongoing on the final language and that he was hopeful for a word such as "irreversible" to describe Ukraine's path to NATO. Putin has repeatedly accused the West of antagonizing Russia by entertaining NATO membership for Ukraine, whose separate identity he has rejected. Ukraine has also been clamoring for greater air defenses to protect cities being barraged by Russia. Biden promised Monday an additional Patriot system, on top of two new systems being given by Germany and Romania and one which the Netherlands has said it is putting together with parts from other allies. 37 Chinese aircraft skirt Taiwan on way to drill: Taipei Taipei, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 Taiwan's defence ministry said 37 Chinese aircraft were detected around the self-ruled island Wednesday as they headed to exercises with an aircraft carrier in the western Pacific. China claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and maintains a near-daily presence of fighter jets, drones and warships around the island, which is 180 kilometres (110 miles) from the southern Chinese coast. Taiwan is also a crucial part of a chain of islands that military strategists say serve as a gateway from the South China Sea -- which China claims in nearly its entirety -- to the Pacific Ocean. At around 9:30 am (0130 GMT) Wednesday, Taipei said that "since 0520 today, the Ministry of National Defence detected a total of 37 Chinese aircraft", including fighter jets, bombers and drones. Thirty-six of the aircraft crossed the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait -- which bisects the narrow waterway separating the island from China. "(The aircraft) headed to the Western Pacific via our southern and southeastern airspace to cooperate with the aircraft carrier the Shandong in conducting 'joint sea and air training'," the defence ministry said in a statement. Defence Minister Wellington Koo told reporters the Shandong "did not pass through the Bashi Channel", the area off Taiwan's southern tip where Chinese ships typically transit en route to the Pacific Ocean. Instead, it "went further south through the Balingtang Channel towards the Western Pacific," he said, referring to a waterway just north of the Philippines' Babuyan Island -- about 250 kilometres south of Bashi. The Chinese flights came a day after Japan's Joint Staff Office said four PLA navy vessels -- including the Shandong -- were sailing 520 kilometres southeast of Miyako Island. The Shandong "was observed landing and departing fighter aircraft and helicopters on board," it said. The Philippines' military public affairs chief said they had received reports of a China-Russia exercise taking place in the Philippine Sea, though he did not comment about the Shandong directly. "We will continue to monitor this situation to ensure (the Philippines') sovereign rights are not violated," Colonel Xerxes Trinidad said Wednesday. Tensions between Manila and Beijing have ramped up following a series of escalating confrontations over the hotly disputed South China Sea. - 'China's repeated provocation' - China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control and has increased military and political pressures on the island in recent years. In May, days after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te took office, China launched war games around the island as "punishment" for an inauguration speech that Beijing called a "confession of Taiwan independence". Beijing's aircraft and vessels have also edged closer to the island, according to Taiwan's defence ministry. An illustration released Wednesday showed that some of the aircraft came 39 nautical miles off Taiwan's southern tip. On Wednesday Lai met with Raymond Greene, new director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de-facto US embassy. He emphasised their "solid partnership... in the midst of China's repeated provocation and attempts to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait". While the United States, like many other countries, does not officially recognise Taiwan diplomatically, it is Taipei's key partner and major provider of weapons -- a point of consternation for Beijing which has repeatedly called on Washington to stop arming the island. Greene said Washington would continue to "strongly support Taiwan's ability to defend itself". "We have a long-term and shared interest to maintain the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. This is vital to the prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, as well as to global security," he said. burs-dhc/mtp Ukraine creates new 'legion' to recruit exiled men to fight Kyiv, Ukraine, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 The Ukrainian military has launched a new initiative to entice fighting-age men living abroad to enlist, as Kyiv desperately tries to replenish its depleted forces on the front lines. The establishment of the so-called "Ukrainian Legion" comes after more than two years of hard fighting, which has seen heavy casualties drain the military of much-needed manpower to hold off Russia's advancing forces. The creation of the new unit was part of a wider security agreement signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk earlier this week. "We call on all Ukrainians in Europe to join the Ukrainian Legion. Your contribution is invaluable in our struggle for freedom and independence," Defence Minister Rustem Umerov announced on social media late Tuesday. The initiative aims to recruit volunteers from the pool of Ukrainian men living in Europe, especially Poland and Germany, which are home to the largest numbers of Ukrainian refugees. An estimated 300,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are believed to be living in Poland alone. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men are believed to have been residing in Europe before the war, while an untold number of others fled after the Russian invasion -- some legally and others through illicit means. The passage of a new law in May that lowered the minimum age for mobilisation to 25 from 27 has prompted many others to avoid potential conscription. Umerov said members of the new unit would receive training in Poland and be provided the best equipment. Following the announcement, Ukraine's popular Third Assault Brigade said its representatives would be touring European countries soon to provide more information about their unit along with "the most epic stories from the front line". Iraq court condemns to death IS leader widow: judiciary Baghdad, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 An Iraqi court has sentenced to death a wife of slain Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on charges of detaining Yazidi women, the judiciary said on Wednesday. The wife of the polygamous Baghdadi was brought back to Iraq after being detained in Turkey, judicial sources told AFP under cover of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the press. "The Karkh (west Baghdad) criminal court sentenced to death the wife of the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for the crime of working with the Daesh terrorist group and detaining Yazidi women in her house," the Supreme Judicial Council said on its website, using an Arabic acronym for IS. The slain leader's wife detained the Yazidis who "were later kidnapped" by IS fighters in the Sinjar district of northern Iraq, it added. A judicial source identified her as Asma Mohammed. Washington announced in October 2019 that US troops had killed Baghdadi in an operation in northwestern Syria, five years after he proclaimed a "caliphate" across swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq. During their lightning advance through northern Iraq in 2014, the Islamist extremists of IS singled out the non-Muslim Yazidis, systematically killing thousands of men and forcing women into sexual slavery. Over several years, Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences as well as life prison terms under the penal code for membership in "a terrorist group". Among those convicted in Iraq were more than 500 foreign men and women found guilty of joining IS. Iraq announced in February it had secured "the repatriation of the family" of Baghdadi, with a judicial source telling AFP that Baghdadi's wife, "detained in Turkey", had been returned along with her children. The announcement coincided with a broadcast of an interview with "Baghdadi's wife" by Saudi-owned pan-Arab TV channel Al Arabiya. It named her as Asma Mohammed. In November 2019, Turkey said it had arrested a wife of Baghdadi, whom Turkish media identified as Asma Fawzi Mohammed Al-Qubaysi, in June 2018. US-backed forces defeated IS in Iraq in 2017, and in Syria two years later. But remnants of the group continue to attack civilians and security personnel in both countries. France says Israeli strikes on Gaza schools 'unacceptable' Paris, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 France on Wednesday condemned Israel's recent deadly air strikes on schools sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza, declaring such tactics "unacceptable". "We call for these strikes to be fully investigated," the foreign ministry said, highlighting a strike on Tuesday on a school near the southern city of Khan Yunis. "It is unacceptable that schools, especially those housing civilians displaced by the fighting, should be targeted," the ministry statement said. "We call on Israel to do its utmost to protect civilians in the conduct of military operations and to fully respect international humanitarian law, in particular the principles of proportionality and distinction." Israel is carrying out a large-scale military operation in Gaza to root out Hamas militants in the wake of a cross-border assault on October 7 last year. The Israeli assault has killed at least 38,295 people, mostly civilians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run territory. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced within the densely populated territory. In the past four days, deadly strikes have hit four schools used as shelters, sparking international outrage. Poland to ramp up military presence at Russian border Warsaw, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 EU and NATO member Poland said Wednesday it would boost its military presence and defence fortifications along its borders with Russia and Belarus. Warsaw announced in May it would invest more than two billion euros in fortifying its northern border with Russia's enclave of Kaliningrad and its eastern border with Belarus. "Everyone is aware of how dangerous the situation is, I'm thinking of the Ukraine war and what the Russian Federation is doing", Poland's Deputy Minister of Defence Cezary Tomczyk told the press. He also evoked "constant provocations" along the border with Belarus. Nearly 6,000 Polish troops guard the borders with Belarus and Russia, but the government plans to increase that number "up to 17,000 -- 8,000 on site and 9,000 in the reserve," said General Wieslaw Kukula, chief of staff of the Polish military. He said the "rapid border reaction force" would be deployment-ready "within 48 hours" to support border guards and prevent potential "surprises" from Moscow and Minsk. The troops would also contribute to new defence infrastructure built as part of Poland's "East Shield" plan to beef up border security. Tomczyk said the programme's goals would be hit by 2028, four years earlier than the previously announced deadline of 2032. Poland has initiated talks with the European Investment Bank to secure funding, he said. Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland has offered Kyiv unwavering support. Moscow's offensive impelled Warsaw to quickly modernise its army and allocate four percent of its GDP to defence, the highest ratio of any NATO member. The central European country has purchased billions of euros worth of military equipment, mainly from the United States and South Korea. Israel defence minister says '60 percent' of Hamas dead or wounded Jerusalem, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that 60 percent of Hamas fighters had been "eliminated or wounded" in the Gaza war since the militant group's October 7 attacks. In a statement to parliament on the first nine months of the conflict, Gallant said that the military was "determined" to meet its goals of eradicating Hamas and bringing all hostages back from Gaza. The minister praised Israeli soldiers for "performing their work with dedication, sacrifice and success" and said "the achievements are many". Israel has launched major new offensives in Gaza City in the north and around Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south, even as it embarks on contacts with international mediators on conditions for negotiating a truce with Hamas. "We have eliminated or wounded 60 percent of the Hamas terrorists" and "dismantled" most the Palestinian group's 24 battalions, Gallant said. The minister did not give figures for the casualties and the Israeli military said it did not immediately have statistics. The Israeli prime minister's office said Wednesday that "14,000 terrorists have been eliminated" since the beginning of the war. Israel's army chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, told soldiers in central Gaza on Tuesday that the Israeli strategy was to "apply military pressure in various ways". "In the end, we go on missions to destroy as much infrastructure as possible, to eliminate as many Hamas operatives as possible, to eliminate as many commanders as possible," Halevi said in a speech shared by the army on Telegram on Wednesday. "In the end, it reduces Hamas's capabilities," he added. The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead. Israel's military retaliation has killed at least 38,295 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. While many countries expressed solidarity with Israel after the October 7 attacks, the government has since faced a wave of criticism for its handling of the war, which has devastated Gaza. Gallant insisted Israel would stick to its aims. "We have returned half of the hostages and we are determined to return the rest," he said. "The security establishment, and myself heading it, are determined to achieve the goals of the war and complete them." Israeli army orders evacuation of battle-torn Gaza City Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 Israel's army dropped thousands of leaflets over war-torn Gaza City on Wednesday urging all residents to flee a heavy offensive through the main city of the besieged Palestinian territory. The leaflets, addressed to "everyone in Gaza City", set out designated escape routes and warned that the urban area, which had a pre-war population of over half a million, would "remain a dangerous combat zone". The warning came as Israeli troops, backed by tanks and aircraft, have fought Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in the heaviest combat the city has seen in months in the war raging since October 7. In one operation, the army said it had killed militants and found weapons inside the long-vacated Gaza City headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. Elsewhere across Gaza, deadly strikes have hit four schools used as shelters in four days, sparking rebukes from France and Germany which both labelled the attacks "unacceptable". "We call for these strikes to be fully investigated," said the French foreign ministry, highlighting a deadly strike on Tuesday on a school near the southern city of Khan Yunis. "It is unacceptable that schools, especially those housing civilians displaced by the fighting, should be targeted." Heavy fighting also raged in Gaza's far-southern Rafah, where witnesses told AFP that Israeli tanks had rumbled into the city centre and unleashed intense fire on buildings. The latest fighting in Gaza has newly displaced 350,000 civilians, said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini, who spoke before the leaflet drop and said "there is absolutely no safe space in Gaza". One woman carrying her scant belongings through the ruins, Nimr al-Jamal, told AFP on Tuesday that "this is the 12th time" her family has had to flee. "How many times can we endure this? A thousand times? Where will we end up?" - Truce talks in Qatar - The upsurge in fighting, bombardment and displacement came as talks were to resume in Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal to end the war now grinding on into its 10th month. An Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea arrived in Doha, a source with knowledge of the negotiations said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity. CIA director William Burns was also expected in the Qatari capital after holding talks in Cairo on Tuesday. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile met US President Joe Biden's special envoy for the Middle East, Brett McGurk. Netanyahu "emphasised his commitment" to a proposed truce plan, "as long as Israel's red lines are preserved," his office said. The hawkish premier has repeatedly insisted that the war goals are to defeat Hamas and bring home all hostages. The prime minister's office said "14,000 terrorists have been eliminated" since the beginning of the war. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant separately told parliament that 60 percent of Hamas fighters had been "eliminated or wounded". "The security establishment, and myself heading it, are determined to achieve the goals of the war and complete them," Gallant said. - 'Death and misery' - The Israeli army said it was reviewing the Khan Yunis area attack Tuesday in which hospital sources said at least 29 people were killed in a school used as a displacement shelter. Gaza's Hamas government said a "majority" of the dead were women and children. AFP footage showed the wounded being rushed to the nearby Nasser hospital, many screaming in pain, as relatives wailed in grief for the dead. One wounded man, Osama Abu Daqqa, recounted that "suddenly the strike hit, people were injured and martyred and there was no one to help them". Another survivor, Mohamed Sukkar, said those hit in the strike "were not part of the resistance nor were they armed, they were all civilians". The military said a strike had hit near the school building and had targeted and killed a Hamas "terrorist" who had taken part in the October 7 attack. It said it was "looking into the reports that civilians were harmed, adjacent to the Al Awda school", which it acknowledged was "near the location of the strike". "The incident is under review." Three previous strikes since Saturday on Gaza schools used by displaced Palestinians have killed a total of at least 20 people, said Gaza officials and rescue services. Lazzarini wrote on social media platform X that "schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery". - 'Starvation campaign' - Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead. Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,295 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. Israel has also imposed a punishing siege on Gaza's 2.4 million people, eased only by sporadic aid deliveries. Aid group Doctors Without Borders has warned of "critical" shortages of medical supplies in Gaza, with no resupply for more than two months. Independent UN rights experts on Tuesday accused Israel of carrying out a "targeted starvation campaign", a claim strongly rejected by Israel. Army spokesman David Baruch on Wednesday told AFP that "the food is getting there, maybe not as much as everyone would want, but I don't see starvation." bur-tw/fz/jsa Austrian arms lobbyist acquitted in 'slush fund' case Vienna, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 An Austrian arms lobbyist had his conviction for money laundering overturned in Vienna on Wednesday, in a case focused on an alleged slush fund related to European defence giant EADS, later renamed Airbus. Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly was handed a six-month suspended jail sentence in 2022 after being indicted for helping a former manager at the firm who allegedly used fake contracts to transfer millions of euros mostly to a slush fund. He was also told to repay 50,000 euros ($54,000), which the court had deemed "ill-gotten gains". But the Vienna Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday that the case had not been proved in the lower court. The appeal court ruled it had not been shown that there had been an original offence proving the money handled by Mensdorff-Pouilly was the result of illegal activity. EADS, which became the Airbus Group in 2014, was part of a consortium that manufactured the Eurofighter Typhoon, a jet fighter seen as central to Europe's aerospace industry. The Eurofighter project has been dogged by corruption probes and allegations that governments were bribed in return for contracts. bg-kym/jxb Airbus Group Poles watch warily as China joins Belarus military drills Warsaw, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 Poland on Wednesday said it was paying close attention to military drills in neighbouring Belarus involving Chinese troops. The "Falcon Assault" drills started on Monday and are set to run until mid-July, with China's defence ministry saying it hoped to deepen cooperation with Minsk. Both countries are allies of Russia, which used Belarus as a launchpad for its invasion of Ukraine, while Poland is a NATO member and supporter of Kyiv. NATO leaders are in Washington for a summit and have pledged fresh backing for Ukraine in its fight against Russia. "The defence ministry is well aware of the risk of the operations in question being used for disinformation and propaganda purposes," Poland's defence ministry told AFP on Wednesday. "The Polish armed forces remain constantly ready to ensure the country's security. We are ready to face any eventuality." China has previously held joint drills with Belarus, though these are the first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. "Commanders from both sides expressed hope that through these exercises, it will be possible to learn from each other, improve combat techniques and deepen cooperation and communication between the two armies," China's defence ministry said without specifying how many troops were taking part. Belarus has called it an "anti-terrorist" training exercise. bur-sw-fz-jc/ds/jxb New PM Starmer promises Zelensky steadfast UK support Washington, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 New UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday promised to keep up his country's steadfast support for Ukraine as he met President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington. The two met on the sidelines of the NATO summit days after Starmer's Labour Party swept out the Conservatives which had been in power for 14 years. "I made it absolutely clear that as far as the UK is concerned, the change of government makes no difference to the support that we will provide," Starmer told reporters after what he called a "very good" meeting with Zelensky. "We'd been united on this when we were in opposition, and it was really important to me to be able to affirm that face to face at the meeting," said Starmer, who already spoke to Zelensky by telephone after entering Downing Street. Britain under three Conservative prime ministers has been among the staunchest supporters of Ukraine, playing a key role within NATO on military assistance. The British unity on helping Ukraine stands in contrast to the United States, where Republican presidential contender Donald Trump has questioned the utility of billions of dollars in military aid, musing that he expects Russia to triumph. Starmer will meet later Wednesday with US President Joe Biden at the White House. Starmer noted that Labour, then under Clement Atlee, led Britain during the formation of NATO in 1949. Starmer said he hoped the NATO summit would send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the alliance is "bigger now than it's ever been, more united than it's ever been, and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression." A NATO summit in Britain in 2014 set a goal of each ally contributing at least two percent of GDP to defense, a long-running demand of the United States, by far the alliance's biggest contributor. Only the United States, Britain and Greece then met the target but since the invasion of Ukraine the number has gone up to 23 members of the 32-nation alliance. Britain's new defense secretary, John Healey, called for NATO to consider moving toward a 2.5 percent goal. The growing threats around the world suggest that "all NATO nations are going to need to do more than simply two percent," Healey told reporters. He said, whatever the result of the US election, Washington's priorities are "increasingly going to shift to the Indo-Pacific." "European nations in NATO must do more of the heavy lifting," Healey said. UK PM Starmer vows robust Ukraine support on international debut Washington, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 New Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised Wednesday to keep up Britain's steadfast support for Ukraine and gave his blessing for strikes inside Russia with British missiles as he made his international debut at a NATO summit in Washington. Starmer's unstinting message of continuity on Ukraine comes as questions grow over Kyiv's most vital partner, the United States, where presidential contender Donald Trump has mused about cutting a quick deal with Russia. Days after his Labour Party swept elections and threw out the Conservatives in power for 14 years, Starmer said he had a "very good" meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of NATO's 75th anniversary summit. "I made it absolutely clear that as far as the UK is concerned, the change of government makes no difference to the support that we will provide," Starmer told reporters. "We'd been united on this when we were in opposition, and it was really important to me to be able to affirm that face to face at the meeting," said Starmer, who already spoke to Zelensky by telephone after entering Downing Street. On his flight to Washington, Starmer said that decisions on the use of British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles were for the Ukrainian armed forces to make. UK military aid is "for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes," he said. Britain under three Conservative prime ministers has been among the staunchest supporters of Ukraine in the war, taking the lead in pushing for more advanced military systems and looser restrictions on Kyiv. US President Joe Biden, who has strongly backed Ukraine but has been careful not to start a direct conflict with Russia, recently made a similar move by letting Ukraine strike Russian offensive positions just across the border with US weapons. Zelensky hailed the decision on the Storm Shadow missiles, writing on Telegram, "Thank you for your continued support of Ukraine and our people!" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Russia will take "appropriate measures" in response to Starmer's decision. "If it is true, it is certainly another absolutely irresponsible step towards fueling tensions and seriously escalating the situation," Peskov told reporters. - 'Clear-eyed' on Russia - Starmer will meet later with Biden at the White House, and spoke with other Western leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron. Starmer has taken Labour on a more centrist path than his leftist predecessor and, along with his foreign and defense secretaries, all noted in Washington that Britain helped found NATO in 1949 under Labour prime minister Clement Atlee. Starmer said he hoped the NATO summit would send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the alliance is "bigger now than it's ever been, more united than it's ever been, and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression." A NATO summit in Britain in 2014 set a goal of each ally contributing at least two percent of GDP to defense, a long-running demand of the United States. Only the United States, Britain and Greece then met the target but since the invasion of Ukraine the number has gone up to 23 members of the 32-nation alliance. Britain's new defense secretary, John Healey, called for NATO to consider moving toward a 2.5 percent goal. The growing threats around the world suggest that "all NATO nations are going to need to do more than simply two percent," Healey told reporters. He said, whatever the result of the US election, Washington's priorities are "increasingly going to shift to the Indo-Pacific." "European nations in NATO must do more of the heavy lifting," Healey said. Iraq condemns Turkish military 'incursions' into north Baghdad, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 Iraqi authorities denounced Wednesday renewed Turkish military operations and "incursions" into northern Iraq, urging Ankara to solve security issues diplomatically. The Turkish army has been mainly conducting strikes against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is listed as a "terrorist" group by Ankara and several Western allies, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region. On Wednesday, Iraq's Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani chaired a meeting of the National Security Council during which officials discussed "the issue of interventions and violations by Turkish forces in the shared border areas", General Yehia Rasool, military spokesman for the PM, said in a statement. The council said it rejects "Turkish military incursions" in Iraqi territories and urged Ankara to "diplomatically engage with the Iraqi government for any security-related matters." A delegation led by the National Security Advisor will travel to the Kurdistan Region to "assess the general situation and develop a unified stance on this matter", the statement added. The PKK, which has fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, has a presence in northern Iraq, as does Turkey, which has operated from several dozen military bases there against the Kurdish group. Turkey's military operations, which sometimes take place deep inside Iraqi territory, have frequently strained bilateral ties. In recent weeks, Iraqi local media have reported an increase in Turkish strikes, sparking several fires in border areas. Some reports mentioned Turkish forces establishing new positions. Turkish forces "have advanced 15 kilometres into Iraqi Kurdistan territory", said the Community Peacemakers Teams (CPT), an NGO registered in the United States, that monitors Turkish operations in northern Iraq. In an interview earlier this week, Turkey's Defence Minister Yasar Guler said his country is "determined" to clear the border area with Iraq and neighbouring Syria of "terrorists". In March, following a visit by senior Turkish officials to Iraq, Baghdad quietly listed the PKK as a "banned organisation" -- though Ankara demands that the Iraqi government do more in the fight against the militant group. During a visit to Iraq in April, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke of "expectations" of Iraq regarding the fight against the PKK, and Sudani mentioned "bilateral security coordination" that would meet the needs of both countries. However, Iraqi Defence Minister Thabet al-Abbasi ruled out in March "joint military operations" between Baghdad and Ankara. Mali junta re-authorises political activities suspended in April Bamako, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 Mali's ruling junta announced on Wednesday that it was re-authorising activities of political parties and political associations, which it had suspended in April. "The government decided to lift the suspension that barred political parties and the activities of political associations," said a statement from the council of ministers, which is dominated by the military leaders who took power in a 2020 coup. The head of the military government, Colonel Assimi Goita, had justified the suspension by citing the political parties' "sterile discussions" and "subversion", which he said posed a danger to an ongoing national "dialogue" on the political future of Mali. The parties at the time were protesting the colonels' decision to stay in power beyond a March 2024 deadline for returning to civilian rule. The main parties and what remains of the opposition boycotted the "dialogue", which went ahead anyway with supporters of the regime, who in May issued "recommendations" that the military remain in power "for two to five additional years", and that the current head of the junta be allowed to run in any future presidential elections. NATO leaders express 'profound concern' over China-Russia ties Washington, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 NATO leaders on Wednesday said China's deepening ties with Russia are a cause of "deep concern" and accused Beijing of playing a key role in helping Moscow's assault on Ukraine. China "has become a decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine through its so-called 'no limits' partnership and its large-scale support for Russia's defense industrial base," NATO leaders said in a declaration from their summit in Washington. NATO leaders urged China "to cease all material and political support to Russia's war effort." "This includes the transfer of dual-use materials, such as weapons components, equipment, and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russia's defense sector," the declaration said. China "cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation," the alliance said. The statement came before the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea are set to attend the NATO summit on Thursday. Washington represents the third year in a row that leaders from the four Asia-Pacific partners will be at a NATO summit. Beijing has already angrily rejected the accusations from NATO, and says the US-led alliance is seeking an excuse to expand its influence eastwards. The United States has been pushing its European allies for years to pay closer attention to the threats posed by China. "I think the message sent from NATO from this summit is very strong and very clear, and we are clearly defining China's responsibility when it comes to enabling Russia's war," NATO's outgoing Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. NATO begins sending F-16 jets in new support for Ukraine Washington, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 NATO allies on Wednesday announced they had started transferring F-16 jets to Ukraine and stepped up promises to Kyiv on eventual membership in the alliance at a 75th anniversary summit clouded by political uncertainties in the United States. With the pomp of the three-day gathering in the US capital, President Joe Biden is aiming to rally the West and also reassure US voters amid pre-election scrutiny on whether at 81 -- six years older than the alliance -- he remains fit for the job. Biden individually welcomed the other 31 leaders of the alliance before urging them to keep pace with Russia's military production, which has stepped up sharply in the two years since President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. "We can -- and will -- defend every inch of NATO territory and we'll do it together," Biden told the North Atlantic Council, the formal decision-making body of the alliance, at Washington's convention center as the city sweltered in a heat wave. Biden announced that Denmark and the Netherlands had begun sending US-made F-16 jets to Ukraine -- making good on a key promise last year to Kyiv, which has struggled to gain parity in the air with Russia. He earlier announced new air defense systems for Ukraine and said the United States had agreed to place long-range missiles periodically in Germany. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the F-16 transfer "concentrates Vladimir Putin's mind on the fact that he will not outlast Ukraine, he will not outlast us and, if he persists, the damage that will continue to be done to Russia and its interests will only deepen." But Donald Trump, who is edging out Biden in recent polls, has mused about bringing a quick peace settlement by forcing Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia. The Republican mogul has repeatedly questioned the utility of NATO -- formed in 1949 as collective defense against Moscow -- which he sees as an unfair burden on the United States. - 'Terror must fail' - On the eve of the summit, Russia fired a barrage of missiles on Ukraine, killing dozens, including in Kyiv where a children's hospital was reduced to debris. Biden invited to the summit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who voiced gratitude for the F-16s. The new aircraft will "bring just and lasting peace closer, demonstrating that terror must fail," Zelensky wrote on social media. The summit aimed in part to "Trump-proof" the alliance including by giving NATO a greater role, rather than the United States, in coordinating arms delivery into Ukraine. In a joint declaration, NATO leaders promised to give Ukraine 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military aid "within the next year" -- part of efforts to increase predictability, after Trump's allies in Congress held up US assistance for months. Stoltenberg insisted that NATO also wanted to end the war but with a Ukrainian victory. "The quickest way to end a war is to lose a war," Stoltenberg told reporters. Trump's aides have discussed conditioning aid to Ukraine on forcing Kyiv to the negotiating table and said that China, not Russia, is a larger concern to US interests. The NATO leaders' statement took aim at China by voicing "profound concern" over its industrial support to Russia. Biden has also invited four key Pacific partners -- Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand -- as he seeks to increase NATO's role in Asia. - 'Irreversible' Ukraine path to NATO - The summit stepped up promises to Ukraine, saying that it was on an "irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership." Ukraine has for years sought but failed to win membership in NATO, which considers an attack on one an attack on all. But Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have led concerns that bringing in Ukraine would effectively be entering war with nuclear-armed Russia as it occupies swathes of Ukraine. President Alexander Stubb of Finland -- which, like Sweden, joined NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- hailed the language as a message to Putin that he is failing in his goal of pushing back the alliance. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, visiting days after his Labour Party swept to power, promised Zelensky that Britain -- unlike the United States -- was united across partisan lines on supporting Ukraine. Starmer made clear he had no issue with Ukraine using UK missiles to strike into Russian territory, remarks that drew a rebuke from Moscow. The summit, Starmer told reporters, is showing Putin that NATO is "bigger now than it's ever been, more united than it's ever been, and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression." * FIRST NAME * LAST NAME * EMAIL Your email address * PASSWORD Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number Show * YEAR OF BIRTH You must be at least 18 years old to create an account 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 1974 1973 1972 1971 1970 1969 1968 1967 1966 1965 1964 1963 1962 1961 1960 1959 1958 1957 1956 1955 1954 1953 1952 1951 1950 1949 1948 1947 1946 1945 1944 1943 1942 1941 1940 1939 1938 1937 1936 1935 1934 1933 1932 1931 1930 1929 1928 1927 1926 1925 1924 1923 1922 1921 1920 1919 1918 1917 1916 1915 1914 1913 1912 1911 1910 1909 1908 1907 1906 * Required fields I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice CREATE ACCOUNT I'LL TRY LATER Already have an account? SIGN IN By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. He emphasised, though, that his talks with world leaders were an opportunity to make sure that those relationships are reset, for me to be able to say that our position on the world stage, leading on issues like defence and security, on climate change, and on energy, are so important. Its really important in these difficult times we are not only keeping the UK homeland safe, looking at for instance air defence of the UK, but also making sure that we can support our allies, especially looking at say British forces that are already stationed on Natos eastern flank, in Estonia, he told GB News. The 38-year-old actor, who has written the upcoming series, told The New Yorker she was just not up for having my body dissected again, and added she would also not be performing in any of her other forthcoming projects. Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Pakistan Khazar Farhadov met with Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister Planning and Development, Member National Assembly (Narowal) of this country, Azernews reports, citing the post shared by pakistani minister on his official "X" account. "We discussed areas of mutual cooperation, ideas to enhance level of economic partnership and preparations for forthcoming visit of President of Azerbaijan H.E Excellency Ilham Aliyev," minister added. The investigative series on the unsolved homicides by the St. Louis Police Department (SLPD) was revealing and confirming. St. Louis Public Radio, American Public Media and The Marshall Project joined forces to find out the reasons and presented their findings recently to the public. I attended the community forum and took the opportunity to give my humble and unvarnished opinion to the why question: its the racist belief by the SLPD that Black lives are not worthy of attention or resources. Two of the most disturbing elements in the report and from the public forum were the complete disregard and disrespect of grieving families who never get a call back from detectives about progress on their loved ones case. The group looked at homicides from 2014-2023. During this time, 1,900 people were murdered. St. Louis had the highest homicide rate in the country for nearly a decade when compared to cities with similar population sizes. Not surprising, two-thirds of the cases involving white victims were solved, leaving the families of Black victims in justice limbo for years. These three respected media entities worked on the report for almost three years, fighting the police department every step of the way to get data. Public data. They finally had to sue the department to get what they needed, a route that many other media outlets, organizations and ordinary citizens have had to go in order to get access to public documents. Here are some of the findings from the multipart series: Investigative reporters cited shoddy detective work as an important factor in the unsolved cases. Critical evidence was not pursued. Tips were not chased down, including interviewing key witnesses. The detective unit did not include the most experienced and trained personnel. One detective got a transfer despite his troubled history of police brutality, credibility and drug abuse. (Former Police Sgt. Heather Taylor had documented gross incompetence of the unit.) Complaints filed on other officers included sleeping on the jobs, lying to commanding officers and not staying in touch with families. Police claimed a lack of resources hampered investigations. This is blatant deceit. This department has found money whenever it needed it from millions for overtime to spy equipment. The funds from asset forfeitures has been a slush fund with little accountability. Someone needs to investigate that big pot of money. Even when federal agents were called in to assist the local police with the backlog, the feds were stonewalled. The investigative report disclosed that SLPD refused to share information (here we go again) and maintained ineffective methods of records. It concluded that the department failed to maximize the resources available to tackle the unsolved murders. There were other issues that were explored such as staffing shortages and lack of cooperation by witnesses which Ive spoken to in many of my previous columns. Both of these issues are directly related to the manner in which policing occurs in Black neighborhoods. The level of mistrust will not aid in the recruitment of officers or get vital information from a community besieged by police terrorism, surveillance and occupation. Two of the most disturbing elements in the report and from the public forum were the complete disregard and disrespect of grieving families who never get a call back from detectives about progress on their loved ones case. I guess there is no progress to report because theres no investigating going on. The other element is that we have a police chief who has become notorious for his lack of cooperation and for maintaining secrecy to protect the blue wall of brotherhood. Chief Robert Tracy, whose $270,000 annual salary is subsidized by the Police Foundation, has made it abundantly clear that he is not accountable to the citizens of St. Louis. This behavior continues to be unacceptable from the leader of a department which sucks up one-third of the citys budget. The practices also give justification to the Re-investing in Public Safety campaign that strives for real public safety while addressing the human needs of citizens. Without the cooperation of the police chief, substantive solutions to this serious problem remain as elusive as the answers grieving families have long been seeking. Jamala Rogers is a columnist for The St. Louis American and one of the founding members of the Organization for Black Struggle based in St. Louis. ST. LOUIS A woman is suing three bars near Busch Stadium and an owner of Ballpark Village, claiming they overserved a DUI suspect in a double fatal crash that killed her daughters father in Madison County last year. Tamyrah Watson filed a lawsuit Friday claiming the bars served Cole Wendler when he was obviously intoxicated in the hours before the July 8, 2023, DUI crash killed her daughters father, Glenn Morgan, and injured her minor daughter. Another passenger, Breona Logan, was also in the car and died. Watson, on behalf of her daughter, is suing Paddy Os, The Midwestern, the Shark Bar and BPV Market Investors, an affiliate of The Cordish Cos., which developed and owns Ballpark Village along with the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals were not named in the suit. The Midwestern is located a block west of Busch Stadium and is not part of Ballpark Village. Paddy Os owner, Andrew Foley, was not immediately available for comment. None of the other defendants could be reached. The fatal crash happened early in the morning on July 8, 2023, on southbound Interstate 55 in Madison County. Police say Wendler crashed into the back of a car driven by Glenn Morgan, who was with his daughter and Logan. The car rolled and Morgan and Logan were killed. His daughter was seriously injured but survived the crash. The girl suffered injuries that were disabling and permanent, according to the lawsuit. Wendler, 24, was charged with four aggravated DUI counts, according to Madison County court records, and is tentatively scheduled to stand trial Monday. Watsons lawyers argued in the suit that shes allowed to sue under Missouris Dram Shop law, which allows victims under certain circumstances to hold companies accountable for serving alcohol to people who later cause drunken driving crashes. Air Force Col. Paul Davidson renders his first salute as commander during the 35th Fighter Wing change-of-command ceremony at Misawa Air Base, Japan, July 8, 2024. (Andre Medina/U.S. Air Force) Misawa Air Base, home to two squadrons of F-16 Fighting Falcons, welcomed a new commander Monday whos no stranger to the base in northern Japan. Col. Paul Davidson took command of the air base and the 35th Fighter Wing from Col. Michael Richard at a ceremony overseen by U.S. Forces Japan commander Lt. Gen. Ricky N. Rupp. Davidson was stationed at Misawa from 2004 to 2007 as an electronic combat pilot and the standardization and evaluations liaison officer with the 13th Fighter Squadron. Were here in a strategic location at a significant time of change in our Air Force and the world, Davidson said at the change-of-command ceremony, according to a video posted on the base Facebook page. We must and we will stay focused on our mission here in northern Japan to protect, to defend, to deter aggression and, if necessary, to fight and to win, he said. He also promised to continue developing a culture of warriors and leaders that will make the Misawa community a great place to live and work. Most recently Davidson served as deputy wing commander of the 51st Fighter Wing at Osan Air Base, South Korea. His experience in joint bilateral and multilateral relationships and team building makes him the perfect fit for team Misawa legacy in relationship building and interoperability, Rupp said during the handover ceremony, according to the video. Richard will become the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command deputy chief of staff at Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, according to a 35th Fighter Wing news release Tuesday. Under his watch, Misawa restored its community links after the global COVID-19 pandemic, including the resumption of popular festivals like Japan Day, American Day and Misawa Air Fest. He steered the wing through exercises like Balikatan, Red Flag-Alaska and Keen Sword. For his efforts, Richard was awarded the Legion of Merit on Monday, according to the release. In addition to the two F-16 squadrons, the 35th Fighter Wing includes a military community of 10,600 military, civilians and tenant units from the U.S. Space Force, U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. Misawa is the only U.S. air base in the Pacific shared with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and in use as a commercial airport, Rupp said. The wing at Misawa is in line to receive 48 F-35A Lightning II fighters to replace its 36 F-16s as part of a plan announced July 3 by the Defense Department. The plan will bring more advanced fighters like the F-35A and F-15EX Eagles to Japan, according to the Pentagon. The Air Self-Defense Force has flown the Lightning II from Misawa since 2018. Rupp emphasized the importance of the air bases strategic location. It is also the closest U.S. Air Base to all three regional adversaries who have become increasingly aggressive and seek to impose their will at the expense of like-minded nations that embrace a rule-based order, Rupp said. Just as he did earlier in the day during a change of command at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo, Rupp called out China, North Korea and Russia for acts that destabilize security in the Indo Pacific. Specifically, he said, China continues to harass its neighbors along the East and South China seas over rival territorial claims, North Korea continues to engage in outlawed ballistic missile tests and Russia, while engaged in a war with Ukraine, conducts bomber and naval patrols in the Pacific. Despite the regional challenges, the U.S.-Japan alliance is at its strongest point in history, Rupp said. Army Reserve Capt. Jean Philippe Martial was indicted July 3, 2024, in Utah on federal fraud and theft charges. Prosecutors say he stole over $143,000 through a property rental scheme while providing support during the coronavirus pandemic. (LinkedIn) A Utah-based Army Reserve officer is facing federal charges that he stole over $143,000 over more than two years through a property rental scheme while providing support during the coronavirus pandemic. Capt. Jean Philippe Martial, 48, is charged with one count each of filing a fraudulent claim against the U.S. and theft of government property. His initial court appearance is scheduled for July 31 in Salt Lake City, court documents state. His indictment July 3 came nearly a month after Army Reserve Col. Reece Roberts pleaded guilty to stealing more than $62,000 in a similar scheme ending in July 2021, court records in his case state. The 53-year-old will be sentenced Aug. 29. Both Martial and Roberts were attached at the time to a 76th Operational Response Command task force activated at Fort Douglas in March 2020 to support state and local officials, first responders and federal agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic, the unit website said. Court filings in Martials case provide scant detail, but a Justice Department statement Tuesday said the crimes he is accused of were virtually identical to those committed by Roberts. Prosecutors said Martial lied about the location of his residence, fabricated a lease agreement, falsified rent payments and submitted over a dozen false vouchers to receive erroneous pay entitlements between June 2019 and September 2021. He is also accused of fraudulently claiming family separation pay, reimbursement for lodging expenses and other entitlements not available to service members living locally. Martial is a resident of Midvale, the Justice Department said, a Salt Lake City suburb about 15 miles from Fort Douglas. Army Reserve Col. Reece Roberts listens to a commander at Camp Williams, Utah, in 2021. Roberts pleaded guilty to stealing more than $62,000 in a housing fraud scheme. His sentencing is scheduled for August. (Brent C. Powell/U.S. Army Reserve) Roberts, an Iraq war veteran who was called to active duty in response to the pandemic, admitted to changing his primary address to one outside Utah at which neither he nor his family lived, according to the court records in his case. At the time, he resided in Herriman, a town about 40 minutes from his duty station. The general engineer then used his fake out-of-state address to receive family separation pay and reimbursements for housing, meals and incidentals, the records said. He claimed $3,700 each month for rent through a fake lease agreement, which he or an unidentified accomplice sent to a third party through Venmo. On June 11, Roberts pleaded guilty to making a fraudulent claim against the U.S., conspiracy to defraud the U.S., theft of government property and conspiracy to commit money laundering, court records said. If Martial is convicted, he faces forfeiture of money and property derived from the proceeds, according to the Justice Department. The Army Reserve also will review the case to determine whether he should face disciplinary measures under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and destroyers USS Laboon and USS Gravely steam in formation with the Italian aircraft carrier ITS Cavour in the Red Sea on June 7, 2024. (Kade Bise/U.S. Navy) NAPLES, Italy The experiences of sailors who spent months fighting Houthi militant threats in the Red Sea at operational levels unseen since World War II will shape the next generation of naval warriors, a senior Navy official says. That knowledge, gleaned from nearly seven months in the crucible of combat, will be used well beyond the Middle East, said Rear Adm. Kavon Hakimzadeh, commander of Carrier Strike Group 2. The lessons we have learned apply to naval warfare anywhere, Hakimzadeh told Stars and Stripes on Monday. These crewmembers in the strike group are going to be the next generation of instructors, the next generation of assessors, the next generation of trainers. Its too early to say how sailors will process their experience into lessons for others, Hakimzadeh said. But during the historic deployment, strike group members grew adept at compartmentalizing stress so they could remain focused on their jobs. They also faced multiple scenarios that called for a rapid threat assessment and made very quick decisions on how to counter threats using different weapon systems, he said. They frequently worked with engineers and support personnel stateside to brainstorm how to stay ahead of ever-changing Houthi tactics and capabilities, Hakimzadeh said. Sailors prepare an E/A-18G Growler for launch aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea on April 16, 2024. (Samantha Alaman/U.S. Navy) Rear Adm. Kavon Hakimzadeh, commander of Carrier Strike Group 2, is photographed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea on June 16, 2024. ( Kalvin Kes/U.S. Navy) They also saved the lives of 25 mariners from two different ships struck by missiles over two days in June, while many other vessels in the area ignored those calls for help, he said. However, the priority now is to ensure that sailors have ample time to rest and reflect upon coming home. I want them to make sure they have thought through the story they are going to pass on to the folks that follow them, said Hakimzadeh, who assumed command of the strike group in June. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is transiting the Atlantic Ocean as it returns to the U.S. after nearly nine months on deployment in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean Sea. About seven of those months were spent defending commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden against Houthi drones and missiles. The destroyer USS Gravely launches Tomahawk missiles Jan. 12, 2024, in response to Houthi action in the Red Sea. The Gravely was one of seven U.S. Navy ships that received a combat action ribbon in April for performance under fire in the Middle East. (Jonathan Word/U.S. Navy) During that time, the groups cruiser and destroyers launched more than 180 missiles from their vertical launch systems in self-defense or as pre-planned strikes, Hakimzadeh said. The groups air wing expended 60 air-to-air missiles and released 420 air-to-surface weapons. All told, the strike group completed more than 13,800 flights totaling about 31,500 hours, he said. The numbers and varieties of weapon expenditures are for the most part unprecedented, especially from the surface ships, said Hakimzadeh, who noted that the air wing numbers were about 1.5 times those expected during a full deployment. That hasnt happened before. The destroyer USS Mason sails in the Red Sea on Jan. 31, 2024. Mason was one of seven U.S. Navy ships that received a combat action ribbon in April for performance under fire in the Middle East. (Christopher J Krucke/U.S. Navy) As a result, the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower received a combat action ribbon in April for performance under fire, among other awards. Six other Navy ships, including strike group members USS Philippine Sea, USS Gravely and USS Mason, also earned the ribbon. Still, those efforts and those of other countries participating in the U.S.-led Operation Prosperity Guardian havent restored confidence among many commercial shippers. In March, officials aboard Eisenhower acknowledged that the number of transits of container ships through the Red Sea had dropped considerably since the Iran-backed group began its attacks in November. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimated in a July 2 report that the average daily number of container ships traveling through the Red Sea had declined 70.1% from the previous year. Even so, thousands of ships many under military escort have safely transited the waterway since January. However, Houthi militant attacks continue. For example, a June 12 missile and surface drone attack on a Greek-owned coal carrier saw the vessel sink six days later. The lack of reassurance among commercial shippers is due to the Pentagons mostly defensive strategy, not to the operators in the Eisenhower task force, said James Holmes, chair of the maritime strategy program at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. They did their job. The deployment demonstrated the effectiveness of several Navy weapons that werent previously used in combat, including missiles like the SM-6, AGM-88E AARGM and AGM-154C JSOW, according to a strike group statement Tuesday. The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower conducts flight operations in response to increased Houthi activity in the Red Sea on Feb. 23, 2024. The Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group was deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations recently and is now heading back home to the United States. (Samantha Alaman/U.S. Navy) The success of the new weapons was particularly notable against evolving threats, such as the Houthis ballistic missiles, Holmes pointed out. The strike group also saw the first air-to-air engagement of a hostile aerial drone by a U.S. warship, first air-to-air engagement from an EA-18G Growler and use of the first AGM-114K Hellfire missile in combat engagement, according to the statement. Our ships took no hits, and thats attributable not just to weapons and sensors but to the skill and elan of the crews using them, Holmes said. The lengthy stay in the Red Sea within the weapons range of the Houthis validated prior training while showcasing the agility and grit of the strike groups sailors, Hakimzadeh said. The pressure of combat helped mesh the strike group into a very effective team, he said. I believe every missile, every unmanned aircraft or boat, radar control station we took down reinforced this teams purpose in being out there in the Red Sea, he said. It was a righteous mission. The U.S. military began work to fix the runway at Ie Jima Auxiliary Airfield, Okinawa prefecure, Japan, according to Defense Minister Minoru Kihara on July 9, 2024. (Okinawa Prefecture) CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa The U.S. military has reportedly started preliminary work to repair an auxiliary airfield runway that figures in a dispute between the U.S. military and Okinawa prefecture over parachute training at Kadena Air Base. The U.S. is procuring materials to repair the runway on Ie Shima, an island just off the northwest shore of Okinawa, and is investigating geological features such as cavities under the runway, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said at a news conference Tuesday. The U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force use the airfield on Ie Shima, a 9-square-mile island a few miles off the Motobu Peninsula, for training operations, including parachute drops. Since December, the Air Force 18th Wing has conducted that training about once a month at the Ridout drop zone on Kadena Air Base over the prefectures objections. A training drop on Monday drew further protests from Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki. The Okinawa Defense Bureau visually confirmed parachute training that day at Kadena, Kihara said. Ridout is an alternative to Ie Shima, due to exceptional conditions on the island, including weather, winds, sea state, airfield conditions and other potential factors, the wing said in an unsigned email in May. Marine Corps Installations Pacific, which manages the Ie Shima airfield, would not confirm or deny repairs are underway at the runway, citing operational security, spokesman Capt. Brett Dornhege-Lazaroff told Stars and Stripes by phone and email Wednesday. The Marines dropped 400 jumpers onto Ie Shima in April and 70 in May; no Marine drops took place in June, Dornhege-Lazaroff said by email Wednesday. Kihara said U.S. authorities planned to quickly finish the repairs. We were told that they will quickly complete the construction plan considering the results of these investigations and will show it to us, Kihara said. Wed like to release detailed information, including construction schedule, after concluding bilateral arrangements. The Monday drops were the sixth since December and the first since April, a spokesman for the prefectures Military Base Affairs Division said by phone Wednesday. Some Japanese government officials may speak to the press only on condition of anonymity. The 18th Wing at Kadena received emailed questions about Mondays training from Stars and Stripes but had not responded by Wednesday afternoon. Relying solely on Ie Shima for jump training is insufficient for meeting our teams requirements, which impacts our readiness to meet our treaty obligation to support the defense of Japan, the 18th Wing stated in May. The training Monday was an exceptional circumstance, and no damage to the local community or landings outside the base were reported, Kihara said. We have been told by the U.S. side that it is still difficult to land and fly big, fixed-wing aircraft at the runway in Ie Jima Auxiliary Airfield, Kihara said. The prefecture on Tuesday protested with Manabu Miyagawa, Ministry of Foreign Affairs ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, and Okinawa Defense Bureau director Shinya Ito asking for a halt to parachute training at Kadena and to move that training out of the prefecture or the country. We think that this is not an exceptional circumstance, Tamaki said in a post on the Base Affairs Divisions X account. Tamaki in the post referred to a case of sexual assault of a minor pending in Okinawa courts against an Air Force member. The delayed release of information by the Okinawa Prefectural Police and Naha Public Prosecutors Office in June drew official protests from the prefecture. They [the U.S. Air Force] carried out this parachute training under this situation, Tamaki wrote. I think there is a lack of understanding regarding the sentiments of the prefectures citizens. President Joe Biden pumps his fist as he poses with other NATO leaders Wednesday, July 10, 2024, for an official photo at the NATO summit in Washington. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) The United States will step up the deployment of long-range artillery units to Germany in the next two years, a precursor to the permanent basing of those forces and hypersonic weapon systems under development, the White House said Wednesday. The announcement was made during NATOs summit in Washington and is a step forward for the U.S. Army in Europe, which has made such weapon systems a top priority in its military buildup efforts. President Joe Biden, who kicked off high-level security talks with other NATO heads of state Wednesday, said allies are making moves to fortify defenses against Russia, including efforts to enhance an industrial base that has been stretched by the effort to support Ukraine in its war against Russia. Today, we have to ask ourselves, what is next? How can we keep making the shield stronger? Biden told other world leaders gathered in Washington. Bidens statement coincided with an announcement by Germany and the United States that more forces are deploying to Europe. The White House in a statement said the United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fire capabilities for its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026. That is part of a plan to establish an enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future, the statement said. The plan calls for a mix of firepower. When fully developed, these conventional long-range fires units will include SM-6 and Tomahawk [missiles], and developmental hypersonic weapons, which have significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe, the statement said. In 2021, the Army launched the 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force at U.S. Army Europe and Africa headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany. The unit is designed to give the command capabilities beyond conventional ground-war tactics. During the same year, the Army also relaunched 56th Artillery Command, a mainstay in Europe during the Cold War. The commands return was part of a broader effort to reestablish long-range firepower in Europe in response to concerns about Russian aggression. Biden said Russia is now on a wartime footing with respect to defense production. Moscow is ramping up its industrial base with support from China, North Korea and Iran, he said. We cannot in my view, we cannot allow the alliance to fall behind, Biden said. Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO supreme allied commander Europe, speaks at a Memorial Day ceremony at Ardennes American Cemetery in Neupre, Belgium, on May 25, 2024. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes) The top U.S. general in Europe said Wednesday that his command is assembling new teams to carry out combat readiness inspections of allied units, a move aimed at ensuring NATO can move with speed should its territory come under attack. Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATOs supreme allied commander and leader of U.S. European Command, said hundreds of thousands of troops are now operating on higher alert. But the war in Ukraine has shown NATO forces will need to be prepared in ways it wasnt before Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Instead of just looking at the sharp side of the sword, were looking at the whole sword now, Cavoli said, speaking on the sidelines of NATOs summit in Washington. To that end, Cavolis command is drawing lessons from the war in Ukraine, where the scale of fighting and expenditure of munitions is occurring at an unprecedented scale. As we look in Ukraine, weve put an increased emphasis on stockpiles and munitions and supplies on hand, the general said. The situation also has had implications for NATO logistics and what would be necessary to deploy and resupply troops in a crisis, he said. In Washington, galvanizing support for Ukraine is at the top of the summit agenda. But allied military officials also are working on plans to carry out an upgraded defense strategy in Europe developed in response to concerns of potential Russian aggression. The focus on territorial defense has forced a major shift at Cavolis military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, which is tasked with putting defense plans into action. At NATOs previous summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, last July, heads of state approved those defense plans. The aim was to provide the kind of operational detail that was typical during the Cold War, when American troops positioned in Germany knew what territory they would be defending if war broke out. Granular information of that sort became unnecessary in the aftermath of the Cold War as concerns about Russian belligerence faded. In subsequent years, NATO shifted its focus to smaller-scale operations or missions outside of Europe, such as the war in Afghanistan. But the Cold War style of war planning is back. The classic operational plans describe how were going to defend specific areas of the alliance and what were going to use to do it, Cavoli said. This is a big shift. The alliance had gone for many years without plans since the end of the Cold War. A member of the military walks past a MBDA Storm Shadow/Scalp missile at the Farnborough Airshow, south west of London, on July 17, 2018. (Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images/TNS) (Tribune News Service) Keir Starmer signaled Ukraine can use Britains Storm Shadow missiles to strike military targets inside Russia, confirming he would continue the previous U.K. governments policy on the use of its long-range weapons in the Russia-Ukraine war. Starmer agreed it was up to Ukraine how it used the Storm Shadow missiles donated by the U.K., when asked by a Bloomberg reporter. He was speaking to journalists while traveling to the NATO summit in Washington late Tuesday. The missiles must obviously to be used in accordance with international humanitarian law as you would expect, the premier added, stating his position that Storm Shadows were to be used for defensive purposes. But it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes, he said. Storm Shadows are precision-guided cruise missiles with a firing range in excess of 155 miles. Ukraine has said it needs to strike military targets inside Russia to defend itself and repel Russian attacks, and its one of the main issues that will be discussed at the NATO summit. Some European countries such as the U.K. have expressed support for Ukraines position, but the U.S. government has so far resisted lifting all restrictions on the use of its weapons by Kyiv. The Biden administration says it has not enabled Ukrainian strikes deep within Russia, considering that a red line in order to prevent escalation with Moscow. The remarks are the first time Starmer has committed his new administration to the policy following his U.K. general election victory last week. They echo the words used by predecessor Rishi Sunaks government, which never explicitly said Ukraine could use Storm Shadows to strike inside Russia, but indicated that was the case by saying it was up to Kyiv how to deploy them. At the time, the Kremlin called that a very dangerous statement. Keir Starmer has given President Zelenskiy a shot in the arm, Jamie Shea, a former NATO official and now associate fellow at Chatham House, told Bloomberg Radio on Wednesday. The Ukrainians have to be able to strike back against those significant Russian military targets but obviously not Russian civilian targets. I think Keir Starmer and other NATO leaders will draw a red line on that, the strikes have to be against the genuine military targets. Responding to the strike on a hospital in Ukraine by Russia, Starmer said it was an absolutely shocking, appalling attack that provided a very important if tragic backdrop to this summit. He added: Its the duty of everyone to describe it in those terms. My message to President Putin is this: this NATO summit should be seen as a clear and united resolve by NATO allies and others that are there at the same time to stand with Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression, Starmer said. With assistance from Isabella Ward. 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The view from the National Archives as seen on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) WASHINGTON, DC The National Archives celebrated the Fourth of July by honoring the tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence to all that wished to hear. On July 4, 2024, a crowd gathered at the steps of the National Archives to hear reenactors read from the document that launched the American Revolution and the grievances against King George III. Members of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, Old Guard, Fife and Drum Corps demonstrated colonial battle march fanfare. Following the performance, Dr. Colleen Shogan, 11th Archivist of the United States, made special remarks about the sanctity of democracy. Key remarks were given by Retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant JoAnne S. Bass. She called on each and every person to serve, whether it be in the military or by doing good in ones community. Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and American revolutionaries Ned Hector, James Forten and Abigail Adams rallied the crowd of onlookers to shout Huzzah! for American colonial independence and boo British tyranny. Members of the public were invited to view the actual Declaration of Independence within the Archives, and some lucky individuals could add their name to (a replica of) the historic document. Despite the large crowd, no attempts to steal the Declaration of Independence were made, although Shogan confirms National Treasures Nic Cage to visit the National Archives anytime. A man portraying Thomas Jefferson stands on the steps of the National Archives for its Independence Day event on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) JoAnne S. Bass, 19th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, gave Key Remarks at the National Archives Fourth of July event on July 4, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A reenactor portraying John Hancock reads a list of grievances to King George III on the steps of the National Archives on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A retired U.S. Airman poses for a photo with retired Chief Master Sergeant JoAnne S. Bass , 19th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, at the National Archives on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A patron at the National Archives July 4th event carries an umbrella that sports the Declaration of Independences preamble. July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) People gather on the steps of the National Archives ahead of an Independence Day event in Washington, D.C. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A crowd gathered for the National Archives Independence Day event on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A reenactor portraying John Adams reads the Declaration of Independence on the steps of the National Archives on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A reenactor portraying President George Washington reads the Declaration of Independence on the steps of the National Archives on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A reenactor portraying Benjamin Franklin reads the Declaration of Independence from the steps of the National Archives on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A reenactor portraying Abigail Adams reads the Declaration of Independence on the steps of the National Archives for its July 4, 2024, eevnt. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) Dr. Colleen Shogan, the 11th Archivist of the United States, gives Welcome Remarks on the steps of the National Archives on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A member of the National Archives event staff carries a sign through a gathering crowd on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A young buy surveys the gathering crowd from the steps of the National Archives before its Independence Day event begins, as seen on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) Members of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, Old Guard, Fife and Drum Corps blow trumpets at the National Archives July 4th event in Washington, DC. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A young boy receives a replica of the Declaration of Independence after signing another replica inside the National Archives on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A young boy signs a replica of the Declaration of Independence inside the National Archives on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A reenactor portraying Thomas Jefferson speaks with a member of the public inside the National Archives on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A small crowd views the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 2024. (Gianna Gronowski/Stars and Stripes) A Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft takes off over Bodo, Norway, in October 2018 during Exercise. (Bryan Carter/Allied Joint Force Command Naples) WASHINGTON Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that Ukraine will be flying F-16s this summer following the delivery of the long-awaited fighter jets by the Netherlands and Denmark. The announcement came on the second day of the NATO summit in Washington, where world leaders are gathering to mark the landmark 75th anniversary of the military alliance and bolster support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. President Joe Biden, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a joint statement Wednesday that the process of transferring the American-made fighter jets from Denmark and the Netherlands is underway. Additional aircraft will be provided later by Belgium and Norway, according to the statement. It is unclear how many operational F-16s each country is donating. We are unable to provide additional details at this time due to operational security concerns, the leaders stated. Austin praised the transfer at the NATO Public Forum, an event running parallel to the summit, and said a coalition of countries has been working tirelessly to round up operational F-16s for Ukraine. Denmark and the Netherlands pledged last year to send about 60 of the fighter jets but were awaiting permission from the United States. The U.S. began training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s in the fall in preparation for the transfer. Ukraine has long requested the aircraft, which entered U.S. military service in the late 1970s and is used by numerous countries in the NATO alliance. The U.S. has not offered to send its own F-16s, and the Biden administration had initially hesitated to send the war plane because Ukraine already had a fleet of Soviet-era fighters with which they were more familiar. Austin said NATO will continue to search for ways to help Ukraine. The transfer of F-16s is part of a package of aid that members at the summit are offering, which also includes the donation of strategic air-defense systems. We will not be dragged into [Russian President Vladimir] Putins reckless war choice, but we will stand by Ukraine as it fights for its sovereignty and security, Austin said. He said NATO is the strongest that it has ever been, and the U.S. will continue to stand by the alliance. Questions about what the potential reelection of former President Donald Trump, a NATO skeptic, could mean for the alliance have swirled at the summit. Austin appeared to address those jitters on Wednesday, ending his brief speech with a forceful reaffirming of Americas commitment to NATO and its mission. America is stronger with our allies, America is safer with our allies and America is more secure with our allies, he said. Any attempt to undermine NATO only undermines American security. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg speaking to members of the media on Wednesday, July 10, 2024, at the NATO summit in Washington. (Matt Rourke/AP) NATO members are stepping up intelligence sharing to counter an intensified Russian sabotage campaign against targets in Europe, the alliances top official said Wednesday as heads of state gathered in Washington for high-level talks. At NATOs summit in Washington, leaders from member states are poised to approve a variety of measures aimed at bolstering support for Ukraine, including a more detailed path for the war-torn country to gain eventual membership in the security pact, alliance Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters. Allies also are working on defense plans to ensure enough forces are in place to counter any potential Russian aggression, he said. But while there is no sign of an imminent threat from the Russian military on NATO territory, the Kremlin is using other means to launch attacks, Stoltenberg said. What we see is a constant threat of cyberattacks, of sabotage or different types of hostile actions against NATO allies. But short of military attacks, he said. For now, Russias military is too preoccupied with the war in Ukraine to pose an immediate conventional military threat, Stoltenberg said. But security concerns are growing in Europe, where U.S. military bases were recently placed on heightened alert in connection with potential threats to installations across the continent. While the Pentagon has not specified the nature of the threat, CNN on Tuesday reported the U.S. received information that Russian-backed actors were considering sabotage attacks against American military personnel and facilities. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said allies are acutely aware of increased risks. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, leaders of NATO nations, and U.S. senators pose for a photo before a meeting Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill. Among the leaders present is Great Britains new prime minister, Keir Starmer, third from the left in the front row. (Joe Gromelski/Special to Stars and Stripes) In Europe, we have seen attacks in recent months, arson attacks, sabotage attacks, attempted assassinations, misinformation, disinformation, cyber threats, he said on the sidelines of the summit. These are not one-offs. Stoltenberg declined to comment on the specifics of the threats to U.S. bases but did say allies are taking steps to deal with the Russian aggression. What I can say is that we have seen a pattern of increased Russian hostile acts against NATO allies over the last month organized by the Russian security services, he said, pointing to instances of arson attempts and other malign actions. The actions are part of a Russian intimidation campaign aimed at wrecking allied support for Ukraine, Stoltenberg said. In response to the attacks, allies are sharing more intelligence, which has led to a series of arrests in the United Kingdom, Poland, Germany and in some Baltic countries. We need to be vigilant. We monitor closely what Russia is doing, Stoltenberg said. In Washington, allies have announced a new round of support for Ukraine, including more air defense systems from the United States and several other members. Also, allies for the first time are pledging to strengthen their defense industry capacities as the military alliance readies for a protracted war in Ukraine that could last years. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. is investing $75 billion in its defense industrial base but is relying on the collective pledges to prioritize the production of the most vital defense equipment needed for a potential conflict. NATO can, NATO will and NATO is rising to meet this challenge without disturbing or distorting our national economies the way Russia has, he told industry leaders gathered Tuesday for a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event. A senior NATO official speaking to reporters at the NATO summit said Russia continues to maintain a significant advantage over Ukraine in munitions, equipment and personnel. Russia is recruiting 30,000 troops each month and has mobilized an economy that will allow it to prosecute the war in Ukraine for another three to four years, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Today, Russias defense industry is on a wartime footing, Sullivan said. Theyre attempting to undertake the most significant defense expansion since the height of the Cold War. Besides bolstering its defense industrial base, allies also are working on their own defense plans in Europe, where some 500,000 troops are now on a heightened state of alert, Stoltenberg said. The high readiness level is part of a new NATO force model intended to generate more forces to respond quickly in a crisis. However, Ukraine is the marquee issue during the Washington summit. Behind closed doors, heads of state are still negotiating Ukraines future in NATO. While allies have said the country will one day become a member of NATO, there is no timeline for when that could happen. It also isnt clear whether all allies are prepared to accept Ukraine as a member given opposition to the idea in parts of the alliance. Even President Joe Biden has expressed ambivalence about Ukraines bid, raising questions about whether membership is a realistic proposition. Still, allies are expected to agree on a bridge to future membership for Ukraine, with language stating that NATOs path to membership is irreversible. Stoltenberg said more details were to come. I expect that allies will agree to a strong message on membership for Ukraine. The exact language I will refrain to comment on until we have a statement, he said. Stars and Stripes reporter Svetlana Shkolnikova contributed to this report. Darryl Anderson did not help mother Shalorna Warner frantically look for her baby son after eight-month-old Zackary Blades was flung from her car Anderson's car after the crash. Right: Darryl Anderson and (below) baby Zackary Blades A drink-driver has been jailed for 17 years in England after killing the eight-month-old baby of a mum from Northern Ireland and his aunt in a crash at 141mph on the A1. Darryl Anderson, 38, did not help mother Shalorna Warner frantically look for her baby son after eight-month-old Zackary Blades was flung from her car, out of his crushed car seat and on to the opposite carriageway of the A1. The horrific crash between Chester-le-Street and Durham at 3.15am on May 31 also killed Ms Warners sister Karlene, a flight attendant. Zackary Blades (Family Handout/PA) Durham Crown Court heard that Zackary and Karlene, 30, were killed instantly in the crash which destroyed the back of Shalorna Warners Peugeot 308. Analysis of the computer in Andersons Audi Q5 showed he had his accelerator pedal fully to the floor and did not brake before impact. When he took a photo on his mobile phone to show off his speed, the Peugeot could be seen in the picture, as well as a collision warning light illuminated on his dashboard. Anderson lied and told police that a hitchhiker was behind the wheel when his powerful SUV slammed into Ms Warners car. But he pleaded guilty to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving at a hearing last week. Emma Dowling, prosecuting, said a roadside breath test showed Anderson was almost three times over the drink-drive limit. Karlene Warner worked as a flight attendant (Durham Police/PA) He had been drinking on the plane home from a holiday he curtailed after his erratic behaviour made his wife leave separately, the court heard. Police found an empty vodka bottle in his car. Witnesses saw him driving dangerously in the 20 miles he had travelled from Newcastle Airport before the collision, and analysis showed he sent messages on WhatsApp. Sharlona Warner had also been to the airport to pick up her sister from a holiday, with her son secured in the rear of her car. At a police station, Anderson, of Clarell Walk, Thorpe Hesley, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, told officers: I drove into the back of a car. Sometimes mistakes happen. But Im not a bad person. Shalorna Warner made a victim impact statement, along with her father Nigel and Karlenes partner, Kieran Hutchinson. She recalled in vivid detail her car being spun round, seeing her sister seriously injured, then frantically looking for her son, screaming his name as she searched, after the back of her car had disintegrated in the impact. She told the court she was in the road picking up pieces of debris, trying to find Zackarys car seat, and that a lorry driver eventually found him on the other side of the carriageway. She said: I knew instantly. I had to pick my dead baby up from the side of the road. I hugged him so tight, a hug I will never forget. No words will surmount the irreparable hole that has been left in my heart and in my life. Zackary was my rainbow baby he was the light at the end of a tunnel of a very dark time for me and brought joy, happiness and laughter into my life. Darryl Anderson leaving the car park at Newcastle Airport (Durham Police/PA) My babys future, my future, our life together, has been stolen from me. And for my sister Karlene, I just have no words. I am so sorry this happened to you. Its hard to process something that doesnt seem real it just feels like I am living a nightmare. I will feel the ripples of this pain for the rest of my life. I dont know if I will be able to get through this I am scarred, I am traumatised, I am petrified to live my life. Judge Joanne Kidd jailed Anderson for 17 years and three months and banned him from driving for a further 21 and a half years after he is released. Around 50 friends and family members of the two victims were in court for the sentencing. Judge Kidd told Anderson he had been playing Russian roulette with the lives of other drivers that night and a crash was inevitable. Darryl Anderson was drunk, on his phone and speeding at 141mph when he crashed into a family car, killing a baby and his aunt (Durham Police/PA) Richard Dawson, defending, said Anderson, who was married and has a daughter, was profoundly sorry. Outside court, Detective Constable Natalie Horner, of Durham Constabularys Collision Investigation Unit, said: As roads policing officers, we routinely ask people not to drive above the speed limit. We routinely ask people not to use their mobile phones while driving. And we routinely ask people not to get behind the wheel while intoxicated. Darryl Anderson was doing all three of those things when he collided with Shalorna Warners car, killing both passengers, Karlene and baby Zackary. For his actions, Anderson has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison, but it is his victims and their family who have been handed life sentences. It is them who will spend the rest of their lives grieving the loss of their son, their grandchild, their wife, their sister and their mother. And for what? Pat Corrigans wife told the court her husband was not a violent man and what happened was circumstantial A father of three pushed his wife to the ground, took out a hammer and threatened to kill her when he descended into a ferocious rage on Fathers Day, a court has heard. Pat Corrigan (47) was drunk and overcome by jealousy when he assaulted his wife in the incident at their home. Suspending a six-month sentence, Judge John Hughes said it was a tragic case and noted Corrigan, a carer, had completed an anger management course. The accused, from Mourne Road, Drimnagh, was charged with assaulting his wife on June 18 last year. Dublin District Court heard gardai were called to a reported domestic disturbance where they were made aware the accused had an argument with his wife which resulted in her being pushed to the ground. Corrigan had no previous convictions. A probation report on the accused was excellent and defence solicitor Luke Staines said Corrigan and his wife had since reconciled and wanted to move on. A conviction would have a catastrophic effect on his life and career, Mr Staines said. Corrigans wife had declined to make a victim impact statement. She told the court her husband was not a violent man and what happened was circumstantial and a moment of madness. Judge Hughes said the elephant in the room was that the facts as previously heard were that Corrigan pushed her to the ground, took out a hammer and threatened to kill her. Mr Staines said there was no charge in relation to that before the court. Judge Hughes said the court had heard gardai were called to the house when screams were heard. The accused had been celebrating Fathers Day and became intoxicated. A difficulty arose between Mr and Mrs Corrigan concerning their relationship. It appeared that Mr Corrigan, in his inebriated state, was overcome by emotion and jealousy and descended into a ferocious rage, the judge said. He is accused of engaging in threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour under the Public Order Act, a weapons offence for the production of a slash-hook during a dispute, and criminal damage to freshly laid tarmac. A businessman and former general election candidate who denies producing a slash hook as a weapon during a dispute with a work crew in Dublin will face a District Court trial in October. Brian Garrigan, 57, who unsuccessfully ran as an independent candidate in the general election in 2020 and this years council elections, is accused of engaging in threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour under the Public Order Act, a weapons offence for the production of a slash-hook during a dispute, and criminal damage to freshly laid tarmac. The incident allegedly occurred at Annesley Bridge Road, Fairview, Dublin, on October 22 last year. Mr. Garrigan, who is the owner of an IT recovery and computer repair business, has firmly maintained his innocence. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges brought against him and appeared at Dublin District Court today when Judge John Hughes ordered that the hearing would go ahead on October 17. Mr Garrigans website and social media say he has donated more than 550 free computers to various causes to help Syrian and Ukrainian families, Temple Street Hospital, as well as suicide, homeless, and addiction charities. He announced on X, formerly Twitter, that he intends to run in the local elections for Dublin Central to put Irish lives first, with a photo of him holding an Irish Lives Matter poster. During his run for the Dail, he secured 588 votes, including transfers, in the Dublin Bay North constituency and was eliminated in the fourth round of counting. Mr Garrigan of Fairview Corner, Dublin 3, had canvassed on various issues, including immigration, health, the climate emergency, housing and gender equality. Ogbewe charged the parents between 300 and 350 in most cases to carry out the procedure in their own homes A man who called himself a doctor and circumcised seven little boys in their homes has been jailed for six and a half years for endangerment. Philip Ogbewe referred to himself as Dr Philip when he performed circumcisions on six infants and one five-year-old boy at various locations in Dublin, Kildare and Wexford in 2018 and 2019, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard this week. He was contacted by parents who wanted their sons circumcised and who had heard of him through friends. Some of these parents had tried to get their child circumcised in hospital but could either not access the procedure, or had been, quoted around 1,500 for the surgery. Ogbewe charged the parents between 300 and 350 in most cases to carry out the procedure in their own homes, usually while the child was on their parent's lap or in one case on a kitchen table. He used an anaesthetic spray in some cases, but not all, the prosecution stated. On one occasion, Ogbewe handed a mother a plastic bag of detritus from the procedure to dispose of, while in another case he refused to tell a child's mother a nurse what kind of anaesthetic he had used on her son. All of the children were later examined by medical practitioners and nothing untoward was found in relation to the circumcisions, except for one boy who was found to have scar tissue and an uneven scar line. Ogbewe (59), of Greenlanes, Drogheda, Co Louth pleaded guilty to seven counts of endangerment and seven counts of assault causing harm in relation to each child he performed the procedure on dates between January 1, 2018 and October 23, 2019. The court heard he was arrested in November 2018 in relation to a 2015 circumcision of another child, who ended up being hospitalised with complications from the procedure. He was on bail for this offence when he carried out these crimes. Ogbewe was jailed in May 2020 for three years for the endangerment of this child, which was backdated to November 2019 when he was taken into custody. He was released in October 2021. He has four other previous convictions for road traffic offences. He was also charged with deception by making himself out to be a medical practitioner, but these charges were dropped by the prosecution. Defence counsel maintained that while Ogbewe now accepts what he did was wrong, he maintains that he never made himself out to be a medical practitioner. His attitude was that he was highly qualified, highly experienced as a circumcisor, Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC, defending, told the court. ...As far as he was concerned, he was fully qualified and experienced to do it. Sentencing Ogbewe today, Judge Elma Sheahan said reports provided to the court outlined the clear and obvious need for medical training, expertise and experience on the part of the professional carrying out a circumcision due to the risks of the procedure and its potential complications. She said the court was struck by the evidence of an absence of anaesthesia when dealing in some of these incidents, with small babies held in their parents' arms. The judge said it was owing to luck that the children did not suffer more. She said Ogbewe's moral culpability was high and that the aggravating features include the persistent and serious nature of offending and its impact on the victims, even though they didn't suffer long term harm. She also noted Ogbewe has a previous similar conviction and had carried out these procedures when he knew or ought to have known that it should be performed by medical professionals, as he had made enquiries about the requirements to carry out circumcisions here. She said she took into consideration the mitigation, including Ogbewes guilty plea and his personal circumstances. Judge Sheahan said she would sentence Ogbewe on the endangerment counts, with the assault causing harm charges taken into consideration. She imposed a global sentence of seven and a half years, with the final 12 months suspended on strict conditions to encourage rehabilitation. Detective Garda Avril Foley told Eoin Lawlor BL, prosecuting, that some of the children's parents got Ogbewe's details from friends in the African community. Ogbewe maintained he always used a numbing or anaesthetic spray on the children, but some parents reported there was no medication used during the procedure. Some of the parents were devastated to hear Ogbewe was not a real doctor, the court heard. There was just one victim impact statement in court from one mother, who said she was traumatised to hear Ogbewe was not a real doctor as he claimed. She said she is thankful her son has no memory of the procedure. Defence counsel said Ogbewe now accepts the dangers that were involved in carrying out the circumcisions. The court heard Ogbewe has a number of serious medical conditions, including a heart condition, diabetes and sciatica. He has a lengthy work history, including as a cleaner, shop worker, security and refrigeration services. A letter of apology was handed into court. Judge Sheahan imposed a four-and-a-half-year sentence on each of the seven counts of endangerment. She said it was necessary that one of these sentences would run consecutively, to reflect the seriousness of offending and the harm done, with the remainder to run concurrently. The judge said this gave a total sentence of nine years, which she reduced by 18 months to reflect the principles of totality and proportionality, giving an effective total sentence of seven and a half years. Judge Sheahan said it was clear from documents provided to the court that Ogbewe accepted his wrongdoing and was able to secure work in the community. She suspended the final 12 months of the sentence to encourage further rehabilitation. Judge Sheahan also granted the defence's application to extend legal aid in the event of an appeal. Gardai attached to the Serious Crime South Detective Branch in Ballyfermot arrested the man earlier today A man has been arrested as part of a probe into suspected dissident Republican activity, in west Dublin. Gardai said officers attached to the Serious Crime South Detective Branch in Ballyfermot, Dublin 10, investigating dissident republican activity arrested the man, aged in his 40s, earlier today. The man is currently detained under Section 30 Offences Against the State Act, 1939, at a garda station in West Dublin, a garda spokesperson added. Dean Cooper (51) had used the encrypted communications platform Encrochat to message criminal contacts A drug dealer who boasted about his fancy trainers and how his butchers had the best meat was caught after police identified his EncroChat handle. Dean Cooper, of Atwood Grove, Roby, Liverpool, was jailed this week for 15 years after admitting supplying 3.68m of cocaine, 900,000 of heroin and other drugs, including ketamine, amphetamine and 50kg of cannabis resin. Cooper (51) had used the encrypted communications platform, which proved popular among criminals before it was infiltrated by law enforcement agencies, to chat to criminal contacts. Cooper used the handle Berrystar on EncroChat to send messages to contacts about drugs deals. He also sent one criminal contact a message, saying: Youve got to get to this butchers on Tuesday, best meat ever had mate. Berrystar shared the butchers name and when officers investigated they confirmed Cooper had spent 34 at the shop. Berrystar had also told one contact about spending 240 on two pairs of trainers. Coopers bank statement showed he had spent the same sum at a shoe shop mentioned in the chats. And NCA officers also recovered from Coopers home a pair of Nike Air Max 270 React trainers that he had spoken about in a separate conversation. National Crime Agency investigators, working as part of Operation Venetic, the NCA-led response to the takedown of EncroChat, caught Cooper after painstaking analysis. Berrystar had also sent photographs on EncroChat from inside a house and the pictures matched inside Coopers home. In February of this year Cooper appeared at Liverpool Crown Court and admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine, heroin, amphetamine, cannabis resin and ketamine to customers in Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield between March 30, 2020 and April 24, 2020, He also admitted possession of cocaine. EncroChat conversations and notes involving Berrystar showed that Cooper was involved in payments and exchanges of cash amounting to at least 3.73 million. NCA operations manager Mark Morrison said a lot of very careful work was initially done in this case to resolve the identity behind the Berrystar handle. Coopers conversations about his butcher and his trainers helped ensure the case was rock solid and he had no choice but to admit his guilt, he said. Tackling the Class A drugs threat is a key priority for the NCA in its mission to protect the UK public. Armed police officers and ambulance staff had swarmed a cemetery in the search for the suspected killer of the wife and two daughters of John Hunt Triple murder suspect Kyle Clifford has been found in the Enfield area of north London and is receiving treatment for injuries, Hertfordshire Police said. Armed police officers and ambulance staff had swarmed a cemetery in the search for the suspected killer of the wife and two daughters of BBC racing commentator John Hunt who were killed on Tuesday in a crossbow attack. The cemetery had been closed off and an air ambulance was seen nearby. He was apprehended in the cemetery. Police confirmed he is alive but is currently receiving treatment for injuries. Images on Sky News showed the man being stretchered out of the graveyard by paramedics. Police said no shots were fired during the operation. Footage posted on social media appeared to show emergency services rushing towards a cemetery in the Hilly Fields area of Enfield, north London, as the manhunt for Kyle Clifford continued. Armed police could also be seen in the video, with Hertfordshire Police saying they were unable to confirm whether they had narrowed their search for the triple murder suspect to the area. Carol Hunt, 61, who was married to BBC Five Live racing commentator John Hunt, and two of their daughters died in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, Hertfordshire, on Tuesday evening. John Hunt and Carol Hunt (Facebook) A massive manhunt was launched for their suspected killer, Kyle Clifford, 26, who is believed by police to be armed and in Hertfordshire or north London. Police said they believe he was known to the victims. The BBC confirmed that Mr Hunts wife and two daughters had died, in a post on the broadcasters news website. The three women aged 25, 28 and 61 were found with serious injuries after officers were called to a property in Bushey, Hertfordshire on Tuesday evening. Despite the efforts of paramedics, the women died at the scene shortly after emergency services arrived, just before 7pm, Hertfordshire Police said. Police have been searching through the night for 26-year-old Mr Clifford from the Enfield area, with an extensive manhunt now under way in Hertfordshire and north London. He is wanted in connection with the triple murder, police said. Members of the public have been urged not to approach him as he may be carrying a crossbow potentially used in the triple murder alongside other weapons, according to police. 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 Investigators believe Clifford could be in Hertfordshire or north London. Officers and emergency medical crews including two air ambulances were sent to try to save the women, but they all died at the scene. Local councillors for the North Bushey area said they were deeply shocked and saddened by the news of the deaths. A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she did not know the victims well but they were a friendly family. We would see them every day passing by and they would say good morning, she said. Its really sad whats happened, very shocking. Another neighbour, Riaz, who is in his 50s and declined to give his surname, said: This has been an awful situation and I cant even imagine what the family must be going through. Detective Superintendent Rob Hall from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit called for anyone with information to come forward. Whilst we are still in the early stages of this investigation, we are actively seeking Kyle Clifford who we believe could be in the areas of Hertfordshire or north London, he said. Given the serious nature of the incident, I would ask anyone who knows where he is to contact police immediately. If you believe you see him, please do not approach him and dial 999 straight away. He may still be in possession of a weapon. Police at the scene in Ashlyn Close, Bushey (James Manning/PA) Our inquiries will continue over the coming days to ascertain the full circumstances of what happened but I would also like to take this opportunity to appeal to anyone who was in the area around Ashlyn Close from around lunchtime on Tuesday until 7pm, and believes they may have seen anything that could assist the investigation, to contact us. An East of England Ambulance Service spokesperson said: We were called around 7pm on Tuesday July 9 to a property in Ashlyn Close in Bushey. Three ambulances, a rapid response vehicle, an ambulance officer vehicle, the Hazardous Area Response Team, the Essex and Herts Air Ambulance and London Air Ambulance were sent to the scene. Sadly, despite the teams best efforts, three women were pronounced dead at the scene. Local councillors for the area Louise Nicolas, Alan Matthews and Paul Richards said: We are deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic news that three women have lost their lives in a violent incident which took place in the heart of our local community. As North Bushey councillors, we extend our thoughts and condolences to their families and all those affected. We would encourage anyone who has information relevant to the inquiry to contact police. The previous government had considered tightening the laws around crossbows after would-be assassin Jaswant Singh Chail was encouraged by an AI chatbot to break into Windsor Castle on Christmas Day 2021 with a loaded crossbow to kill the late Queen. Currently there is no requirement to have a licence for a crossbow, but it is illegal to carry one in public without a reasonable excuse. A massive manhunt has been launched for their suspected killer, Kyle Clifford, 26, who is believed by police to be armed and in Hertfordshire or north London. The wife and two daughters of a BBC sports commentator have been killed in a crossbow attack at their home. Carol Hunt, 61, who was married to BBC Five Live racing commentator John Hunt, and two of their daughters died in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, Hertfordshire, on Tuesday evening. A massive manhunt has been launched for their suspected killer, Kyle Clifford, 26, who is believed by police to be armed and in Hertfordshire or north London. The BBC confirmed that Mr Hunts wife and two daughters had died, in a post on the broadcasters news website. The three women aged 25, 28 and 61 were found with serious injuries after officers were called to a property in Bushey, Hertfordshire on Tuesday evening. Despite the efforts of paramedics, the women died at the scene shortly after emergency services arrived, just before 7pm, Hertfordshire Police said. Police have been searching through the night for 26-year-old Mr Clifford from the Enfield area, with an extensive manhunt now under way in Hertfordshire and north London. He is wanted in connection with the triple murder, police said. Members of the public have been urged not to approach him as he may be carrying a crossbow potentially used in the triple murder alongside other weapons, according to police. 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 Investigators believe Clifford could be in Hertfordshire or north London. Officers and emergency medical crews including two air ambulances were sent to try to save the women, but they all died at the scene. Local councillors for the North Bushey area said they were deeply shocked and saddened by the news of the deaths. A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she did not know the victims well but they were a friendly family. We would see them every day passing by and they would say good morning, she said. Its really sad whats happened, very shocking. Another neighbour, Riaz, who is in his 50s and declined to give his surname, said: This has been an awful situation and I cant even imagine what the family must be going through. Detective Superintendent Rob Hall from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit called for anyone with information to come forward. Whilst we are still in the early stages of this investigation, we are actively seeking Kyle Clifford who we believe could be in the areas of Hertfordshire or north London, he said. Given the serious nature of the incident, I would ask anyone who knows where he is to contact police immediately. If you believe you see him, please do not approach him and dial 999 straight away. He may still be in possession of a weapon. Police at the scene in Ashlyn Close, Bushey (James Manning/PA) Our inquiries will continue over the coming days to ascertain the full circumstances of what happened but I would also like to take this opportunity to appeal to anyone who was in the area around Ashlyn Close from around lunchtime on Tuesday until 7pm, and believes they may have seen anything that could assist the investigation, to contact us. An East of England Ambulance Service spokesperson said: We were called around 7pm on Tuesday July 9 to a property in Ashlyn Close in Bushey. Three ambulances, a rapid response vehicle, an ambulance officer vehicle, the Hazardous Area Response Team, the Essex and Herts Air Ambulance and London Air Ambulance were sent to the scene. Sadly, despite the teams best efforts, three women were pronounced dead at the scene. Local councillors for the area Louise Nicolas, Alan Matthews and Paul Richards said: We are deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic news that three women have lost their lives in a violent incident which took place in the heart of our local community. As North Bushey councillors, we extend our thoughts and condolences to their families and all those affected. We would encourage anyone who has information relevant to the inquiry to contact police. The previous government had considered tightening the laws around crossbows after would-be assassin Jaswant Singh Chail was encouraged by an AI chatbot to break into Windsor Castle on Christmas Day 2021 with a loaded crossbow to kill the late Queen. Currently there is no requirement to have a licence for a crossbow, but it is illegal to carry one in public without a reasonable excuse. The two had been living illegally in Southern California with the other four members of the gang Surveillance footage of a member of the gang tampering with checkout point-of-sale retail units. KTLA-TV Los Angeles Footage of members of the gang in operation The six members of the gang Two Irish men who were part of Romanian ATM skimming scam been charged in the US over the brazen robbery of $300,000 from victims bank accounts. The two, who had been living illegally in Southern California with the other four members of the gang, are facing charges by federal authorities for conspiracy to install skimming devices on automated teller machines and checkout point-of-sale units at shops. The US Attorneys District of Rhode Island Office revealed how the skimming devices allow fraudsters to read and capture account information and PIN numbers when customers swipe or insert their credit and debit cards to complete a purchase on terminals where the devices have been attached. The information obtained from the skimming devices is then used to create counterfeit cards that can be used to fraudulently obtain cash from victims bank accounts, or to make purchases, authorities stated. Of the gang, four are citizens of Romania, one is from Great Britain and another is from Ireland. One of them holds dual Irish-Romanian citizenship. They had all been living in Orange County, and allegedly withdrew as much as $300,000 from the bank accounts of unsuspecting victims and made a yet unknown number of retail purchases. The alleged operation was discovered in October 2023 when police in Bristol, Rhode Island began an investigation after skimming devices were discovered on ATMs at a local bank branch. Footage of members of the gang in operation Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations then recovered more skimming devices from 22 separate locations of a major retailer in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and New York. Irish citizen Armando Ion Codreanu, 23, who had been living in Placentia, is facing charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Three other defendants are facing charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud. They are Isabela Ignat Codreanu, 23, of Anaheim and Placentia, California, a citizen of Romania; Robby Vicson Codreanu, 20, Placentia a citizen of Great Britain; and Mila Ciuciu, 20, of Placentia, a citizen of Romania . Surveillance footage of a member of the gang tampering with checkout point-of-sale retail units. KTLA-TV Los Angeles Romanian and Irish citizen Nicolas Longin Codreanu, 21, who had been living in Placentia is currently in custody of the US Marshals and is facing charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. An arrest warrant has been issued for a sixth individual, identified as Romanian citizen Ionut Zamfir, 37, who has been living in Los Angeles. He faces charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. The scale, scope, and brazen nature of these defendants scheme to steal the financial account information of unsuspecting consumers and use it to help themselves to funds and property, as we have alleged in federal court, is staggering, US Attorney Zachary A Cunha said. I commend the superb work of Homeland Security Investigations, as well as our local law enforcement partners, for their diligent and effective work to disrupt this ring of thieves and ensure that those responsible face a reckoning in federal court. Local Sinn Fein TD for Roscommon and Galway, Claire Kerrane, who knows Ms Toweys family, said she is now free to leave Dubai and could be home tonight or tomorrow. Taoiseach vows to intervene as Irish fight attendant Tori Towey is banned from leaving Dubai and faces criminal charges Tori Towey, the Roscommon woman detained in Dubai, is over the moon at news that she can return home. The 28-year-old was informed this morning that a travel ban preventing her from returning to Ireland had been lifted. Authorities in Dubai have this evening confirmed that charges against Ms Towey have been dropped. "Dubai Public Prosecution has closed the case involving Irish national Tori Towey after she and her husband, a South African national, were involved in a case featuring mutual charges of assault, dating back to May 2024. The couple reached a reconciliation and withdrew the complaints filed against each other. Dubai Public Prosecution has also dropped the charges of attempted suicide against her considering the circumstances of the case and to enable her to return to normal life, the Media office of the government of Dubai said in a statement. She is thrilled and relieved, said Detained in Dubai CEO Radha Stirling, who has been assisting the air stewardess. She said she is over the moon and looking forward to getting home to Ireland and seeing the rest of her family. She is a little nervous too because there is that worry that something could happen before she gets on a plane but the overriding feeling is one of joy. Local Sinn Fein TD for Roscommon and Galway, Claire Kerrane, who knows Ms Toweys family, said she is now free to leave Dubai and could be home tonight or tomorrow. The flight attendant from Boyle, Co Roscommon, was reportedly facing charges of attempted suicide and alcohol abuse after waking up in a police station in Dubai after an alleged attack in her home, the Dail heard. Dubai authorities had also banned her from leaving the state, the Dail chamber was told. Taoiseach Simon Harris interrupted questions to update the House today on her case, saying: "I've just been informed that the travel ban has been lifted, that the embassy will take Tori to the airport as soon as she is ready to go and that the embassy of course will continue to follow up on the case, which is still active as of now." He thanked the Irish embassy in the United Arab Emirates for their work on the case. "The embassy of course will continue to follow up on the case, which is still active as of now. But I just wanted to inform the House of that news, he said. Ms Towey suffered severe bruising and other injuries that required hospital treatment after she was allegedly attacked in her home, according to human rights group Detained in Dubai. She moved to Dubai in April 2023 for a job with Emirates and was due to appear in court next week. Mr Harris this morning described the situation facing Ms Towey in Dubai as unimaginable and said it is his priority to get her back to her home in Ireland. Speaking to media at Leinster House, Mr Harris said he spoke with Ms Towey and her mother Caroline this morning. I dont want to say too much because there is a lot of diplomatic activity going on in the background. Tori has been through in my view the most horrific situation and it is utterly, utterly unacceptable how an Irish citizen is being treated, that is my language in terms of how I feel," the Taoiseach said. Tori has been a victim of male violence and she needs to be supported. She needs to be brought back home to her home here in Ireland, Mr Harris added. The Taoiseach said earlier he had also spoken to the Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin on the situation as well as the Irish Ambassador, who the Taoiseach said has been working on Ms Toweys case for a period of time. I had a conversation with the Tanaiste who is also working on this matter as our Minister for Foreign Affairs. I have spoken to our ambassador in the region as well who have been in constant contact with her on this matter since yesterday. I want to acknowledge our ambassador and embassy team have been working on this case for a period of time and let me just say there is a lot of work going on in the background here, the Taoiseach said. Mr Harris described Ms Toweys situation as unimaginable and said he will support Ms Towey in getting home. What Tori has been through is, I think, unimaginable for so many people. A woman who has been the victim of a brutal attack, to find herself waking up not in a hospital but in a police station, the Taoiseach said. It is my absolute priority as the Taoiseach of this country to get Tori, an Irish citizen, back home to Roscommon and I will be staying in regular contact with her and her mum and supporting them, he added. Tori Towey. Photo: Detained in Dubai Speaking to RTE Radio Ones Morning Ireland, the aunt of Tori Towey said Tori and her mother Caroline are very nervous about the situation and the family in Roscommon are hoping they will get word they are on a plane on the way home. I dont know will this court case go ahead and if it goes, what will happen?, Toris aunt, Ann Flynn, said. You know, we're just very hopeful. And it's really terrible that this has happened to a young woman that was full of life and full of adventure. And she loved travelling. And, you know, she's a beautiful young woman. Ann said she has been in touch with the two women every day, several times a day. She added that the pair are trying to keep positive and the family are all hoping that the charges against Tori will not go to court. Tori Towey It's on your mind constantly, and I'm sure it's on their minds because all the family is getting in touch with them, you know? And, it's so far away. But hopefully with Radha Stirling, the Taoiseach and all the ministers that is helping now, hopefully, we'll hear good news. We're hoping that, just something will happen that it won't go to court. It's hard to believe that this young woman has been charged with trying to commit suicide. It is very, very hard to believe, Ann added. Radha Stirling, CEO of advocacy group Detained in Dubai, described the case and the travel ban against Ms Towey as outrageous. Toris experience is nothing short of tragic and quite frankly, she is lucky to be alive, added Stirling, who has helped in numerous domestic violence cases including that of Dubais Princess Latifa. CEO of advocacy group Detained in Dubai Ms Stirling confirmed this morning that Ms Towey is currently living in an Airbnb. "Right now, she's just happy to be with her mother in safety, because this is all very recent, but she is able to leave the apartment and move freely within the country, she said. She continued; "It's terrible PR for the country. You're going to have people worried to go there in the future. And of course, this is on the back of historically charging rape victims with sex outside marriage so they dont have the best reputation to start with. They've been trying to improve it. "So I think they'll be agreeable with the Irish government if there's enough diplomatic pressure put on them, letting them know that we absolutely want Tori home and there's just going to be no negotiation on that, she added. "In a best-case scenario, they will simply say: We're not going to proceed beyond this hearing- and we're going to let you go. "When it comes to a case like this, it's all about diplomacy. Without the support of the Irish government, she would be likely to face prison and charges and deportation. "With the support of the Irish Government and diplomacy and there has been a lot various members of the Irish government have contacted UAE ambassador to Ireland, and of course, Ireland's ambassador in the UAE, and they're trying to get those diplomatic talks happening. "If that happens, that is the best and fastest way to get her home, Ms Stirling added. The UAE has gone to great public relations efforts to promote alcohol as legal in the country. In reality, people are still regularly charged with alcohol consumption and possession, added Stirling. A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed it is aware of Ms Toweys situation. "The Department of Foreign Affairs is aware of the case and is providing consular assistance. "As with all consular cases, the department does not comment on the details of individual cases." It is understood the tents may have been pitched on private property Protesters attended the scene as gardai disbanded a migrant camp on Dublins Grand Canal this morning. The camp of approximately 60 tents were located on the northside of the canal, close to Charlemont Street. The tents had been pitched in front of a vacant office block for the past three weeks. It is understood the tents may have been pitched on private property. Protesters attended the scene and were asked to remain outside the garda cordon, where they stood with their arms linked together. More to follow Tori Toweys plight was raised in the Dail yesterday just hours after the Sunday World highlighted the Roscommons womans nightmare THE Irish airline worker banned from leaving Dubai and reportedly being charged with attempting suicide by Dubai authorities after being attacked in her own home has said she is desperate to get back to Ireland. Tori Toweys plight was raised in the Dail yesterday just hours after the Sunday World highlighted the Roscommons womans nightmare. Advocacy group Detained in Dubai went public with the case yesterday in a bid to get the Irish government to take action. Speaking via the organisation Tori said: Im glad Im with my mother now but I dont know whats going to happen in court next week. Im desperate to go home to Ireland and put all of this in the past. Im asking the Taoiseach to please help us. Tori Towey Her mother Caroline flew out to from Roscommon to comfort her daughter who was left badly beaten in the latest terrifying attack. She urged Irish politicians and diplomats to please do everything to get my daughter home safely. Shes been through the worst time of her life and needs to come home with me and heal. It is illegal for the women to speak to directly to the media in Ireland, according to the Detained in Dubai CEO Radha Stirling. Yesterday, Taoiseach Simon Harris told the Dail that he is ready to "intervene" in Ms Towey's case. He was responding after Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald told the Dail Ms Towey could not leave Dubai after she was attacked in her home and faced charges of attempted suicide and alcohol consumption. Deputy McDonald told the Dail that Ms Towey had been the victim of domestic violence and is subject to a travel ban over alleged charges as she urged the Taoiseach to intervene. An aunt of Ms Towey told RTEs Morning Ireland today has said the family are very nervous and "cannot wait" to get the 28-year-old home. Ann Flynn, the sister of Ms Toweys mother Caroline, said that "Tori can't travel, so Caroline has to stay with Tori, so we're just all very anxious. "I don't know will this court case go ahead, or if it does what will happen? We're just very hopeful." "It's really terrible that this has happened to a young woman who was full of life and full of adventure, and loved travelling." "Theyre both trying to keep positive, we're trying to keep positive as well, but it's on your mind constantly and I'm sure it's on their minds ... it's so far away." Speaking on the same programme, Radha Stirling described the charges against her as bizarre. Tori Towey Ms Towey and her mother are currently staying in an Airbnb but the police in Dubai have her passport. "It wouldn't matter if she did have her passport because it will have a travel ban and she wouldn't be able to leave without it. So, if the police drop the case against her, she will be able to get her passport and leave the country." She said the two women have been "really, really warmed at the Irish community, at the Irish Government" and "everyone rallying behind them and 100% supporting them." "I think when it comes to a case like this, it's all about diplomacy. Without the support of the Irish Government, she would be likely to face prison and charges and deportation." Ms Towey has lived in Dubai since last year after she got a job with Emirates Airlines. The bonfire, sitting around 150 pallets high, has been widely condemned for its toppers in recent years A police car has appeared on top of a bonfire in Co Tyrone this evening. The 1.3 tonne silver Vauxhall Vectra decorated in police livery was hoisted onto the pyre in Moygashel on Tuesday night. The bonfire, sitting around 150 pallets high, has been widely condemned for its toppers in recent years. Watch: Police car on top of Northern Ireland bonfire Loyalist activist Jamie Bryson, who addressed a crowd at the bonfire in 2023, said: I think this is a bit of edgy artistic expression, a bit like, for example, Kneecap. If that type of expression is welcome from the nationalist community, then I see no reason why similar unionist efforts would not draw similar applause unless of course there are double standards. When asked about his appearance at the controversial pyre last year Mr Bryson said: I was delighted to be guest speaker at Moygashel last year, when they displayed a very topical message about the Belfast Agreement. That message is as relevant today as it was then. I do find it more than mildly amusing that theyve managed to place a full-sized police car on top of a bonfire, having first appropriated the wheels. Id imagine their artistic message this year also seeks to emphasise a two-tier policing message. An Irish tricolour and a poster of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar were placed on top of the loyalist bonfire in 2023. The large pyre in Moygashel also attracted major attention after a boat was mysteriously placed on it bearing a banner reading "Good Friday Agreement? That ship has sailed". A mock copy of the 1998 peace deal with the words "null and void" printed over was also added. A crowd of around 400 people gathered to watch the bonfire which was condemned widely by politicians. A police car on top of the Moygashel Bonfire Speaking after the bonfire in 2023, a spokesman said: Our culture is under attack on a daily basis, and if not resisted with everything in our power, our Britishness will become unrecognisable. Our cultural celebrations that we have grown to enjoy with our families will be demonised to the point of extinction. The bonfire boat and our efforts are to highlight our strong opposition to the Irish Sea border. We believe that the implementation of the Union-dismantling protocol aligns our economy with the South and is a process of transition towards a united Ireland. Loyalist anger is at breaking point and we hope to see a peaceful [resolution] to the situation before it is too late. We fear time is running out. Inspectors also identified the presence of mould being on the sheds walls and ceilings Oldcastle's Chinese Gourmet Restaurant was served with a closure order by Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) officials A Chinese restaurant in county Meath has been served with a closure order after food safety authority chiefs found flies walking on cooked chicken in a rear shed, it has emerged. Chinese Gourmet Restaurant in Oldcastle was one of five establishments nationwide to be hit with closure orders by the Food Safety Authority Of Ireland (FSAI) last month. That order came on foot of an inspection carried out at its premises in the county Meath town on June 27. In a report prepared following that examination, FSAI officials ordered the immediate closure of an outdoor timber shed located in the restaurants back yard where the discovery of a number of uncovered cardboard boxes containing cooked chicken had been found. The door of the shed was open (and) flies were observed walking on the cooked chicken, the report highlighted. Inspectors also identified the presence of mould being on the sheds walls and ceilings, leading to concerns over a possible risk to public health. Food was not protected against any contamination likely to render the food unfit for human consumption, the report added. Read more Restaurant owner insists nobody was living in storage space as closure order lifted Those reservations were among a string of reasons for seven Enforcement Orders to be handed out nationally by food safety authority officials last month. Among the other closure orders were incidents of two mouse carcasses found under a sink and under a toilet, a significant amount of rodent droppings under a sink and rat infestation evidence. Dr Pamela Byrne, Chief Executive, FSAI, said food businesses have a legal obligation to comply with food safety legislation in the interest of public health. Consumers have a right to safe food, she said. Under food law, it is the legal responsibility of food businesses to ensure that the food they sell to the consumer is safe to eat. If anyone experiences unfit food, poor hygiene standards or notices a breach of food law in a food business, we encourage them to contact us via our online complaint form at www.fsai.ie/makeitbetter. Reporting inappropriate and unsafe food practices provides us with information that we can act upon. Three Closure Orders were served under the FSAI Act, 1998 on: Board (Closed area: The Upper storey of the building) (service sector), 29 Clanbrassil Street Upper, Dublin 8 Mercury Eastern European Food (retailer), Unit 25, Midleton Business Enterprise Park, Dwyer Road, Midleton, Cork Giraffe Childcare Limited, Elm Park, Merrion Road, Dublin 4 -Two Closure Orders were served under the European Union (Official Controls in Relation to Food Legislation) Regulations, 2020 on: Chinese Gourmet Restaurant (Closed area: the use of the outdoor timber shed in the back yard of the restaurant for the storage/ handling of any open food or food contact materials), The Square, Oldcastle, Meath Chrysanthemum (restaurant/cafe), Unit 1 Old Orchard Inn, Butterfield Avenue, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14 Two Prohibition Orders were served under the European Union (Official Controls in Relation to Food Legislation) Regulations, 2020: Johnson Best Food African Take Away, 86 Summerhill, Dublin 1 The Roadhouse (public house), Clongowney, Mullingar, Westmeath. Also, during the months of May and June two prosecutions were taken by the HSE in relation to: Mean Greens Vegan Kitchen Stall, Ballysax Hills, The Curragh, Kildare Griolladh 2 Stall, Ballysax Hills, The Curragh, Kildare Being elected for 26 years has been the privilege of my life Former tanaiste and foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney left the Cabinet earlier this year. Photo: PA Simon Coveney has announced that he will not run in the next general election. In a statement this morning, Mr Coveney said he has written to Fine Gael members in his constituency to say thank you. Being elected for 26 years has been the privilege of my life. I will forever be grateful for the faith people in CorkSouthCentral have put in me, he said. Now is the right time for renewal in FG & for me to change direction. Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar is believed to be planning to follow suit in the coming weeks. Taoiseach Simon Harris said he wanted to thank Mr Coveney and wish his family the very best. "Simon Coveney is not just a colleague, he is a friend. He has served his constituency, his party and his country with distinction. Most particularly his contribution to protecting our national interest during Brexit is an outstanding legacy, he said. Fine Gaels Ireland South candidate John Mullins has been nominated to contest a selection convention for Cork South-Central in a fortnight, the Irish Independent has learnt. But he will face stiff competition and is unlikely to win a selection convention. He is in a four-way battle to get on the Fine Gael ticket, with two Cork city councillors, Shane OCallaghan and Des Cahill, and a senator, Jerry Buttimer. Mullins is the flavour of the month at the moment with party headquarters. Hell be expecting to be added, whether thats as the city candidate or the county candidate or whatever, nobody knows, a local party source said. Mr Mullins ran an expensive campaign for the European elections, but ultimately came nowhere near winning a seat. Two Cork county councillors, Una McCarthy and Jack White, are also thought to be interested. But neither of them are nominated yet for the convention. Given the gender and geography requirements, Ms McCarthy is expected to be added to the ticket. The closing date for nominations for the Cork South-Central convention is on Friday evening. Mr Coveney has yet to indicate who he will be supporting to replace him. He is close to both Mr Cahill and Mr Mullins. However, Mr OCallaghan is the clear favourite to win the convention. Mr Mullins was also toying with a run in neighbouring Cork East, where he now lives, Cork South-Central is currently the constituency of Tanaiste Micheal Martin, former finance minister Michael McGrath, Sinn Fein social protection spokesman Donnchadh O Laoghaire and Mr Coveney. Fine Gael's John Mullins But it will undergo significant changes at the next general election. Mr McGrath is departing to become Irelands next European Commissioner. Aside from Mr McGrath and Mr Coveney being gone, there is a new fifth seat added in a redraw of the constituency with additional areas added in. Fine Gael should be challenging for a second seat in the constituency, but this will be difficult without Mr Coveney on the ticket. His retirement announcement was anticipated after he stood down from the Cabinet following the election of Taoiseach Simon Harris. Mr Coveney held multiple ministerial portfolios in his 13 years in the Cabinet, spanning enterprise, housing, foreign affairs and agriculture. After Mr Varadkars resignation as taoiseach, he said he recognised the new party leaders aim to create a new look and promote new talent. But there has been speculation about Mr Coveneys future intentions locally for two years since he bought a new home at a reported cost of close to 1m near Cobh, which is outside his constituency. Fine Gaels close of nominations for the Cork South-Central selection convention is this Friday, with the convention itself taking place on July 23. Brad Hargreaves is seen queuing to board a flight Missing man Jay Slater's best pals have flown back to the UK, with one being pictured at the airport on Tuesday. Jay (19) had been partying in Tenerife with Lucy Law (18) and Brad Hargreaves (19) for the NRG festival before going missing on June 17. The three friends partied at Papagayo nightclub in Playa de las Americas on the night before the apprentice bricklayer disappeared. Jays pals have now departed Tenerife and flown back to England. Lucy reportedly left last week and Brad left on Sunday, alongside his mum Rachel, who runs a social media campaign about Jay. None have made any recent public announcements, other than when Lucy posted uploaded a selfie of her and Jay along with a crying emoji and a blue love heart, on Instagram. British reports further state that Jay's uncle, Glen Duncan, who expressed annoyance with Spanish efforts to find his nephew, is also believed to have boarded a flight on Tuesday. Lucy's Instagram post Brad previously gave an interview to ITV where he said that he didnt want to leave Tenerife as he had arrived with his friend, who he had a feeling was still out there somewhere. Prior to doing the interview, Hargreaves stated: "We aint drug mules or whatever.... people need to know the facts before talking s*** on the internet..." "We were both laughing and he said, Look where I am and I was like, Ive just come out of a festival and he didnt seem concerned on the phone until we knew how far away he was. I said: Put your location on and he said a 50 minute drive or a 14 hour walk. Brad Hargreaves on ITV Meanwhile, former London MET Missing Persons Detective Mike Neville said "My personal theory is, hes in that park somewhere. Hes taken some substances possibly and had some drink, hes confused and exhausted. "Theres all that background noise as well. When you know that somebody stayed with someone who is a convicted drug dealer, then you need to look into it. "The police have seemingly been too quick to dismiss this and say things are conspiracy theories. "It was initially portrayed as Jay being a young lad on his first holiday but it turns out hes been convicted of a violent assault. "As well as a search of the park, the police should be looking at the background and asking 'is there anything else going on?' "They dont seem to have done that. Its been badly handled in that sense." A private investigator has also urged Jay Slaters family not to give up hope as he suggests he could still be alive drinking rainwater and eating plants. Juan Garcia, an army reservist and private investigator, says he has been in touch with Jay Slaters family and told The Times: Two weeks is too premature to end the search. He could be alive somewhere someone can drink from rainwater and eat plants. The family should not give up hope. The first season saw huge success after premiering on BBC One in the UK in 2022. An Indian adaptation of Jamie Dornans drama series The Tourist is in the works. The show stars the Northern Irish actor as the victim of a car crash who wakes up in in the Australian Outback with no recollection of who he is, following him as he tries to piece together his memory while merciless figures from his past pursue him. The first season saw huge success after premiering on BBC One in the UK in 2022 while the second season, which was filmed in Ireland, hit screens earlier this year. According to tvdrama.com, Banijay Asia has secured a deal with All3Media International for the rights to create an Indian adaptation of the award-winning series. The upcoming remake will follow a similar plot to the original while incorporating cultural elements unique to India. Speaking about the new adaptation, Mrinalini Jain, group chief development officer at Banijay Asia and EndemolShine India, said: We at Banijay are huge fans of Two Brothers and the thrilling masterpieces that they craft. The Tourist offers a unique blend of mystery and suspense that we believe will resonate deeply with our viewers. We are ecstatic to bring an adaptation of such a gripping and internationally celebrated series to Indian audiences. Collaborating with All3Media International allows us to maintain the high standards set by the original while infusing it with a distinct Indian touch. Sabrina Duguet, executive VP for the Asia Pacific at All3Media International, added: The Tourist has been a phenomenal success globally, and we are delighted to see it being adapted for the Indian market. Banijay Asia has an impressive track record of creating high-quality local adaptations, and we are confident that they will deliver an exceptional version of this globally loved thriller. We look forward to seeing how the story will be reimagined for Indian viewers. Jamie previously shared how he asked that the second season of The Tourist be filmed in Ireland so he could be closer to his wife Amelia Warner and their three young daughters. There sort of wasnt meant to be a second season originally, it was all very much sold to me as a one off, a limited series, he disclosed to Graham Norton on his BBC1 show last year. Then a lot of people watched it and that changes the way the big wigs think, lets say. But I did take a wee bit of convincing, because its a lot to be out in Australia for five months. I had my family with me, the kids went to school there in Adelaide, it was a big undertaking. So, I was. look if we need to go again, I love Australia but I cant be taking my family back out there so soon, its too much. So, if theres a world that we could make it, make sense, from the land that Im from, specifically Ireland, that would be great. Most of the scenery is in Co Wicklow, with Jamie praising its beauty. It kind of becomes a character, he reflects. To be honest it was a wee bit of a worry for us. I think a bit part of the success of the first series was the Australian outback, it added so much drama by proxy of what it looks like. And youre offering up something which couldnt be more visually different. Actually, it ends up being very nice. I dont want to over egg the pudding given its another series, like it feels different because its in a totally different landscape and hopefully we care enough about the characters to stay on board, but it definitely feels like a different show. Asked by Graham where the locations were, Jamie replies: We are mostly in Wicklow and we went west to Achill Island in Co Mayo for a couple of days during what sounds like isnt right for Ireland, a heatwave, and I was doing a lot more running around in the heat. Youd think I was running with the bulls or fighting them. I was there for the street parties and they didnt disappoint. Comedian Pat Shortt has moved to clarify his attendance at Pamplona during the annual running of the bulls festival, saying he was simply there for the street parties and to soak up the atmosphere. Posting on X earlier this week, he wrote: Had the dinner this morning at half six to get a clear run at the day oF bulls. Some atmosphere. He posted a photograph of himself with a friend surrounded by dozens of people in the streets of the Spanish town, many wearing the traditional white outfit with red sash. But Shortt was criticised by some users on X, who described the annual festival of San Fermin as barbaric and vile. Speaking to the Irish Independent afterwards, Shortt said it got a mad reaction. He added: Youd think I was running with the bulls or fighting them. I was there for the street parties and they didnt disappoint. He also said that he doesnt have any interest in bull fighting and is on a travel holiday in Spain and Portugal, trying to soak up as much of the culture as possible. The San Fermin festival began on Sunday in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona. The early morning bull run involves hundreds of people running ahead of bulls through the streets of the town. According to local reports, a 37-year-old Spanish man was gored and was among six people injured. It has been the target of campaigns by animal rights organisations for many years. Dublin pub owner plays host to the queen of pop and all manner of famous faces... Taylor Swift dedicates song Clara Bow to Stevie Nicks who is referenced in the lyrics Take a peek inside the secretive Dublin pub that has become a favourite haunt of the stars. Taylor Swift booked out the Hacienda speakeasy bar in the capital on Sunday night after her trio of sold-out concerts at the Aviva stadium. Joining the American superstar at the afterparty were her boyfriend Travis Kelce and Fleetwood Mac legend Stevie Nicks. There was no sign though of other celebrity guests who joined 50,000 Swifties at the concert including screen queen Julia Roberts and WWE star Logan Paul. But inside the quirky bar are pictures of owner Shay Duignan with dozens of celebrities whove enjoyed a tipple in pub, including Ed Sheeran, Olivia Rodrigo, Kings of Leon, Saoirse Ronan and Barry Keoghan. Our reporter Eugene Masterson at the Hacienda bar, located between Capel Street and Smithfield I prefer to keep under the radar, a sheepish Shay told the Sunday World, when we requested an interview, which he politely declined. He had earlier described Taylor and Travis as lovely and that last Sundays after-show party it was a late one. The imposing white coloured three-story pub is located on little known Little Mary Street in the north inner city, which is within walking distance of Capel Street on one side and Smithfield on the other. There is a sign hanging from a post describing it as Market Hacienda bar, adorned with yellow lanterns near its black coloured window frames. There is an illuminous Budweiser sign peering through a window near the main door, and a lit-up Guinness emblem on the side of the building. Punters have to knock on the door or press a buzzer with bar on it to get the barkeepers attention and its generally Shay who comes out and answers, but also vets potential customers having generally seen whos outside by motoring the CCTV. When some of our team tried to get in initially on Wednesday evening (its listed as being open from 8.30pm until 11.30pm) we were told be him we couldnt get in as they were hosting a private event. Another team had more success on Thursday evening, when we used a bit of spoofery and on being asked by Shay if we had ever been here before we replied of course! Eugene in the Hacienda He then pulled open the metal gating guarding the front door and let us in. The eccentric proprietor has long scraggly white hair, dresses in colourful clothes, wears round coloured dark sunglasses and is not dissimilar in appearance to Back To The Futures Dr. Emmett Brown. There are a couple of other helpers in the bar, who occasionally serve and clear glasses. The cost of a pint of Guinness there is 6, a pint of Heineken 6.90 and a glass of wine 7. While the pub displays a list of drinks it serves inside its front door, it does not say what the prices are. There are also no less than three signs on the counter of the bar warning customers cash only. Bar owner Shay Duignan at his inner city boozer There are two adjacent back rooms, each with a pool table with overhanging lights, and costing 2 a game, and surrounded by low level round tables with stools. When we got talking to the lucky clientele who had been allowed in this week who numbered over 100 they were a mixture of locals, people from the likes of Tipperary and Belfast, and several Americans. The two pool rooms and main bar area are illuminated with red coloured lighting. Several clocks adorn the walls, as well as musical instruments such as fiddles and bodhrans, crests and even a shipping wheel. The main bar continues the nautical theme, with a model of a small rowing boat, a life buoy, an anchor and a steering wheel all perched above the serving area. Also littered amidst the crimson haze on the bar counter is a wooden crocodile, tortoise and hedgehog, as well as three see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil monkeys. A small black and white TV which monitors what goes on outside is also perched near the bar, and which Shay inspects from time to time while he fed coins into a jukebox for the background music. All the walls are adorned with pictures of famous faces whove visited the bar, many of whom are pictured with Shay. Shay Duignan at his inner city boozer with Saoirse Ronan Shay Duignan at his inner city boozer with Anna Friel Shay Duignan at his inner city boozer with Ed Sheeran Shay with Barry Keoghan Shay with Hozier Some of the stars have individual framed promotional type pictures on the walls, many of them signed. Among the well-known faces pictured on the walls, having obviously visited the boozer, are Ed Sheeran, The Stokes, Damien Dempsey, Domhnall Gleeson, Saoirse Ronan, Brian ODriscoll, Hozier, Gavin James, Kate Beckinsale, Glen Hansard, Kings of Leon, Fontaines D.C., Jason Patric, Camille OSullivan, Jack Gleeson, Jennifer Zamparelli, Anna Friel, Erasure, Bronagh Gallagher and Barry Keoghan. Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar also chose the bar to host a 30th birthday party several years ago for his partner Matt Barrett. The only obvious smoking area is in a small alcove at the back of one of the pool rooms, while the white coloured toilets with Asian printing are well maintained. Our reporter Eugene Masterson enjoys a pint inside the Hacienda bar Great to welcome Taylor with all her musicians and dancers to the Hacienda last night, the pub posted on social media. Special to also welcome Superbowl champion Travis Kelce, the legendary Stevie Nicks and Paramore. It was such a warm and friendly night; we did not request our usual Hacienda photo as to allow Taylor and friends the chance to properly relax and enjoy their well-deserved time off. Taylor partied into the early hours of last Monday she went to bed in her suite at the luxury Westbury hotel. While punters can try and chance their arm like our team and punters we met in the bar, others who frequent the bar are usually invited for the afters of film or book launches. One picture wed love to see on the wall would be if Michael J. Fox visited the bar as a snap of him and. Shay Dr Emmer Brown Duignan would certainly make customers look twice and naturally have a hearty laugh. The 40-year-old father of two who is also known for his TV roles in Brassic, The Split, and Crashing, will step into the shoes of the Jersey-based cop made famous by John Nettles John Nettles and English actress Deborah Grant on the set of television series 'Bergerac' in 1983 Derry Girls star Damien Molony has said he is incredibly excited to take over the role of Jim Bergerac in a reboot of the classic 1980s detective series. The 40-year-old father of two who is also known for his TV roles in Brassic, The Split, and Crashing, will step into the shoes of the Jersey-based cop made famous by John Nettles. The new version of the drama, which will air on the UKTV channels in 2025, also features Zoe Wanamaker, as Bergerac's mother-in-law, and Life On Mars star Philip Glenister. According to the Mail, other big names including Doctor Who star David Tennant, Happy Valley's James Norton and Poldark's Aidan Turner had been linked to the show. John Nettles and English actress Deborah Grant on the set of television series 'Bergerac' in 1983 However, it is hoped that the re-imagination of the show will emulate the success of the BBC original when it was screened between 1981 and 1991. In the original series, Bergerac had to deal with his businessman father-in-law Charlie Hungerford played by the late Terence Alexander. This time he faces his formidable mother-in-law, played by Wanamaker, best known for her starring role in the sitcom My Family. In the opening episode, viewers will see her chastising her son-in-law, who is struggling with alcoholism following his wife's recent death, for not prioritising his daughter Kim. He then has to put his personal struggles to one side when a woman from a wealthy Jersey family is murdered. Other cast members include Pippa Haywood as Margaret Heaton, Robert Gilbert as Barney Crozier, Sasha Behar as Uma Dalal and Celine Arden as Kara. In May, John Nettles, 80, who revealed that he had turned down a cameo role in the new series because he felt he was too old, cast doubt on whether anyone else would be able to play the title character Asked who should star as Bergerac, he said: I have no idea. To be honest, I can't imagine anyone playing him but me. I can't see how a reboot will work, he added. The show belonged to Thatcherite Britain, to a time of fast money and beautiful girls. Molony paid tribute to Nettles, saying he had left an incredible legacy with big shoes to fill. I hope I can bring a fresh new take on this iconic character. I can't wait for audiences to join me on this journey." Filming will begin this summer, with locations including the Channel Island of Jersey. Series writer, Toby Whithouse said: It's a rare honour to bring back a show as beloved and iconic as Bergerac. Our mission was always to respect the show's history and legacy, while making it impactful and relevant for a modern-day audience. We'll be bringing back other beloved supporting characters, as well as introducing new friends and foes. Just like his predecessor, our Bergerac is complex, driven, brilliant and flawed. Brian Constantine, executive producer for Westward Studios, added: "We are absolutely thrilled by today's cast announcement, having such an incredibly talented team of actors, combined with the world-class writing of Toby Whithouse, is a real boost. "This project has been many years in the making, and now all that hard work is coming to fruition. "Westward Studios is very honoured to be part of it. This fantastic collaboration will undoubtedly do Jersey proud." Producers have promised a modern twist on the much-loved crime classic. Unlike the original hit from the 80s, the new series will see one character-led murder mystery run across all six episodes, in place of a new storyline each episode. High tensions at emergency scenes resulting in police staff being assaulted is leading to police and other emergency services to urge the community to "be patient with us". Inspector Riki Whiu asks people to keep a cool head when they are working on a scene. Riki says police have recently attended scenes where tensions have run high, "resulting in our staff being assaulted". In one case an officer was knocked out and required hospital attention for his injuries. He has since recovered at home. This was the second time in recent months, with another officer injured by a member of the public while attending a crash in Kensington. Inspector Whiu says while often the circumstances of the incidents being attended are tragic, he urges people to remember emergency services are there to help. This behaviour is completely unacceptable. I am disappointed in the behaviour some of our communities have displayed towards members of emergency services who have committed their lives to helping others. We know how utterly devastating it is when someone close to you is going through the worst of times. We see it every day and have nothing but empathy for victims and their families. However, regardless of emotions in some situations, there is no place for violence against those who are working to save lives. Inspector Whiu also wants to remind communities where some of our Police or volunteers from emergency services often come from, that this behaviour may result in professionals not being there to help others. Please remember, all of us first responders are here to help you. We are on your side. We urge you to let us do our jobs and provide you with the support you need. Police will continue to hold those choosing to engage in this type of behaviour to account and we will take enforcement action if and when required to keep our people safe. Ben Lockie, Hato Hone St Johns District Operations Manager Te Tai Tokerau, says while Hato Hone St John understands emotions can run high at emergency incidents, they have a zero-tolerance policy towards abuse or assaults on their staff, who are there helping the community. Our people are caring, non-judgmental medical professionalswho come to work to make a difference to the lives of New Zealanders,and anyabuse of our people is never acceptable, under any circumstance. Fire and Emergency NZ Northland District Manager, Wipari Henwood, says violence and anti-social behaviour at incidents that fire fighters attend can put even more people in danger. Our firefighters, the majority of whom are volunteers, are committed to serving their communities and protecting what is important to them. Its essential that they can do their jobs without fear of violence or aggression. Like other emergency responders, we are here to help. The publics understanding of this can go a long way to ensuring the best possible outcome for everyone involved in an incident. Scientist are listening to the hum of the Earth with cutting-edge, low-cost devices to determine the seismic hazard of the Paeroa Fault. The GNS research team installed 147 small seismometers in a targeted area south of Rotorua and used the earths natural rumbles to determine how steeply the seismic fault dives under its surface. If we know how deep the fault goes and on what angle, we can determine how big an area may rupture and what magnitude earthquakes it may trigger, says geophysicist and project lead Dr Brook Keats, who explains that the instruments will detect small soundwaves to assess the structure of the fault. We listened to the hum of Earth, including the sounds of the waves crashing into the Bay of Plenty coast, just over 50km away, and measured the seismic velocity, or how fast the sound travels to different locations and at different depths, says the GNS scientist. The project team was funded by Natural Hazards Commission (NHC) Toka Tu Ake (previously EQC) and supported by the Australian National Seismic Imaging Resource (ANSIR), which is a research facility for earth sounding supplied the seismic instruments. Keats explains that his project was one of the first in New Zealand to use the lunchbox-sized instruments that are not as sophisticated as the full-scale seismometers used by the GeoNet network but are cheap and easy to install perfect for targeted studies like this one. So, in this case we went for quantity over quality and because we were able to install so many very quickly, we were able to overcome the quality issue by collecting so much data in just a month. NHCs Head of Research, Dr Natalie Balfour, says the organisation invests in research that helps New Zealanders better understand and prepare for natural hazards. This research will provide a greater awareness of how big, and how often, the Paeroa Fault will rupture and will support local iwi, councils, communities and lifelines to prepare for these risks and build resilience. Keats says the team worked closely with local iwi Ngati Tahu - Ngati Whaoa and incorporated two local students as field assistants. They were fantastic to work with. And because the instruments were so easy to install, we could train them up quickly so they could help us install and collect the instruments, says Keats, who adds that the team decided to pick the particular 5x5km location south of Rotorua because of its combination of volcanic, geothermal and seismic activity. We were constantly applying and applying but it wasnt helping. From the beginning ... we were constantly at the doctors - like every week - for prescriptions and creams to help her, Paul told the Herald . Little Monica Maoate can point out where the scars are on her body - on both her elbows, on the left shoulder blade on her back and behind her right knee. The condition affects Pasifika and Maori children more often than European kids. Helena Paul and her partner have spent most of their daughters three years of life trying to soothe her itchy atopic dermatitis - better known as eczema . The so-called miracle cream While scrolling through TikTok one day, Paul came across an influencer talking about a cream to fight eczema. It was NaturaCoco - poised to become hugely popular among Pacific and Maori communities on the back of social media posts - and then endorsements. Parents started posting before-and-after photos showing - sometimes severe - eczema on their babies and children, gone within a day or two. Some of them used the words magic and miracle cream. Monica Maoate pictured before and after using the NaturaCoco cream for eczema. It worked, but wasn't safe and is now banned. Photos / Helena Paul. NaturaCoco was made in the Philippines and sold by a Hamilton-based retailer, NaturaCoco New Zealand. The family-run retailer promoted the products online as kid-friendly and suitable for all ages. Paul bought a 100g pot for $34.95 for Monica. Within 24 hours of using it, she saw a marked difference, she said. It became the familys go-to cream to treat Monicas eczema. They even bought an extra pot for the preschool she attends, so teachers could use it on her whenever she had a flare-up. The NaturaCoco moisturing and soothing creams contained a prescription-only steroid not cleared for use in New Zealand, Medsafe said. Anyone who has used the creams should check with their GP about side effects. Photo / Medsafe. My daughter wasnt scratching through the night and we werent having to constantly apply it. If she had a minor flare-up, we would just apply it and it was gone by the next day. I trusted it. It was affordable, we stocked up on it. It was good. But it was all too good to be true. in April, New Zealands medical safety authority Medsafe issued an urgent alert, halting the sale of NaturaCoco cream and warning the public against it. Do not use NaturaCoco Moisturising Cream or Dok Apo Moisturiser Soothing Cream Medsafe warned. NaturaCoco - also sold under the name Dok Apo - had been found to contain the potent steroid corticosteroid fluocinonide, which should only be used on prescription from a doctor. The product labels did not declare the presence of fluocinonide. There are no approved products containing fluocinonide in New Zealand. Online comments from NaturaCoco users when the cream was banned. Photo / Facebook. The side effects of using the steroid cream over a long time, or over a large surface area, could include decreased growth in children according to the UK National Health Service. Medsafe seized the products already in New Zealand and warned families the risk of side effects was highest in children. Safely dispose of it or contact a local pharmacy to arrange safe disposal it said. Helena Paul with her youngest daughter, 3-year-old Monica, who has eczema. Photo / Dean Purcell. The risk of side effects is greatest if you have been using these creams for a long time on a large area of skin, if the skin was broken, or if used on children NaturaCoco said on its website it was no longer able to sell or distribute the products in New Zealand and was cooperating with Medsafe to recall them. It offered refunds to customers. We sincerely apologise for this error. As small business owners, we are devastated by this result. We started importing this cream to the New Zealand market after our own child, who battled with skin problems, finally found some relief. In New Zealand, about 193,000 children and 212,000 adults live with eczema, according to the Eczema Association NZ (EANZ). About 20-40 per cent of children diagnosed with the condition will live with it for most of their lives. Ointment disappointment Paul told the Herald that it was difficult when Medsafe banned NaturaCoco. Its very frustrating because I found NaturaCoco worked for us. I am trying to look for something new, trying to not think of NaturaCoco. NZ Dermatology & Skin Cancer Centre dermatologist Dr Scott Barker said there was no cure for eczema, and the main goals were to reduce itch, minimise rash and limit the impact on quality of life. A new survey commissioned by the Eczema Association found eczema sufferers tried an average of five different treatment options. One in five people with eczema reported trying more than 20. Sixty-two per cent of those surveyed said they felt a sense of hopelessness after all the treatments they have tried and doctors they had seen, and 84 per cent said they felt frustrated not to have found an effective long-term treatment. Pain, sleepless nights, anxiety, helplessness EANZ spokeswoman Vanessa Jenkins said eczema sufferers described a depressing cycle of hope and despair - trying to find a solution. Hope with the initial promise of a new treatment, followed by despair when it stops working. Its a cycle repeated many times over for New Zealanders with eczema. Jenkins said there were several different creams and medications dermatologists and GPs prescribe, but acknowledged there was no one miracle cream at this point. Paul said it had been hard living without the one cream that worked. The family has tried kawakawa, and oils from the Cook Islands - but nothing has been effective. Of her daughters eczema condition, she said: Its just gone back to what it was in the beginning. -NZ Herald. A rescue effort spanning 48 hours and involving five search and rescue teams saved a man who went missing in atrocious conditions in rugged Westland. While this is not a local Bay of Plenty incident, it is a timely reminder for people heading outdoors into the wilderness. The man departed from the Hokitika Gorge area for an overnight tramp on Saturday and was reported missing when he didnt return home the following day. He was relatively new to the West Coast with limited tramping experience and had left no details about where he was headed. Working with limited information and staring down the barrel of some serious weather conditions, getting a team ready to go first thing in the morning was vital to having the best chance of locating the man in time. Precision Helicopters loads supplies to take into the field. Photo: Supplied. Senior Constable Don Abbey and Constable Luken Bisley, from West Coast Police SAR, immediately got to work prepping to get search teams into the area the following morning and planning the search area. While the West Coast is no stranger to wet weather, the nature of the terrain - with an Orange Rain Warning in place - was a major concern for the team. "The area the man had headed into is rugged and steep with a series of canyons and gorges running throughout," says Incident Controller Senior Constable Sarah Cook. "Prone to flash flooding, many of the rivers and tributaries are known to become uncrossable in heavy rain." Searchers transport themselves and equipment across the swollen river. Photo: Supplied. Picking up the reins the next morning from Don and Luken, Senior Constable Sarah Cook describes the area the man was in as dynamic. Even in moderate conditions you need a decent amount of experience and knowledge to navigate this area. "There are active slips and tracks can get inundated with water quickly and easily lost, several spots require a riverbed crossing which, in the conditions we were dealing with, is treacherous at best. After a briefing at Hokitika Police Station, where the Incident Management Team was established, two LandSAR teams were deployed on Monday morning. A system of huts would be a likely overnight destination for the man, but which one was anyones guess and that meant search teams on foot would have a lot of ground between them. The first team was tasked with searching from the vehicles location and on a track thought to be the most likely to be taken. The other team was dropped by helicopter to Frew Hut to start working the other end, while the helicoper team continued to other huts to check logbooks for any sign of the mans intentions. Searchers set up aerials for communications back to the Incident Management Team. Photo: Supplied. On locating a logbook entry in two of the huts, a team was transferred into that area with the aim of tracking back to the car hed left at the Hokitika Gorge. Monday evening descended with no sign of the man and the team increasingly worried about his ability to survive his second unplanned night out in the conditions. A fourth team was deployed to bolster the search. We had teams overnighting at three of the huts and plans to search the remainder of what we thought was the intended route on Tuesday," says Sarah. "We were also turning our attention to the next phase of the search and what specialist teams and resources we would need, especially if the search turned to recovery. Thankfully that need never arose. A helicopter searches for a missing man in the dense bush bordering the Hokitika River. Photo: Supplied. At midday on Tuesday the teams efforts finally paid off with a search team locating the man in the Omatane Canyon below the Serpentine Hut. He was alive but on the opposite riverbank to the track. With the search team unable to cross the river to get to him, he was extracted via helicopter. Cold, wet, battered and bruised, the man later explained that hed spent the first night at Frew Hut but the following day lost the track after crossing a bridge. He then crossed the Hokitika River, dangerously navigating through the Frisco Canyon, before spending a wet night under some rocks. The man says hed taken a substantial swim in the river at one stage after slipping while traversing the base of a bluff. It wouldn't be the only time he ended up in the water. A searcher in one of the many canyons in the area where the man went missing. Photo: Supplied. Sarah says the man was fortunate the team got to him when they did. "While the rain had stopped, the temperature was due to plunge overnight, and the man was in no way prepared to weather another night out in the elements. "He was also well off the track and a far cry from his starting point at the Hokitika Gorge car park." This is a textbook example of what not to do. Hes underestimated the terrain, had left no clear intention on where he was going, was poorly clothed and equipped - including carrying no PLB. He was very lucky to be found alive. From a search and rescue perspective, luck certainly played its part for the man but local knowledge and expertise ultimately enabled the rescue. Sarah attributes that to the local input of the teams working the job, including LandSAR teams from Hokitika, Westport and Reefton and the team at Precision Helicopters. Without the local knowledge and expertise of the LandSAR teams we would never have gone where we needed to, and without the helis we could have never got there in time. These two factors were instrumental in finding and rescuing the man. Helicopters were instrumental in getting the searchers into the mountainous terrain quickly. Photo: Supplied. The team were also grateful to be supported in other ways, with members of the public preparing hot food and transport for the searchers returning from the field. A hot pie delivery to the searchers in the field from Matt Newton from Precision Helicopters was also gratefully received. West Coast Area Commander Inspector Jacqui Corner acknowledges the West Coast Police SAR team and the extensive experience of LandSAR volunteers in the search. I am very fortunate to have such dedicated and experienced teams on the West Coast," says Jacqui. "They put themselves out there every day to make sure we get lost people home. "It's also a reminder that a small fall in the bush could have catastrophic consequences. Every tramper, no matter how experienced, needs to carry a PLB to ensure they're found as quickly as possible." "Great work from West Coast Police Search and Rescue, LandSAR teams from Westport, Reefton, and Hokitika particularly the expertise and assistance from Ben and Steph Nielsen from Hokitika SAR, and Precision Helicopters," says Sarah. 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. Top Row, left to right: Marissa Norcross, Chief Operations Officer, MACNY; Mary Rowland, Chief Financial Officer, MACNY; New York State Senator Rachel May; Yawa Zewou, Workforce Development Specialist, MACNY; New York State Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon; Cindy Oehmigen, Energy & Corporate Services Consultant, MACNY; Michael Frame, Executive Vice President, MACNY; Randy Wolken, President & CEO, MACNY. Bottom row, left to right: Justyna Valencia, Member Engagement Manager, MACNY; Amanda Rice, Manager of Workforce Operations & Advancement, MACNY; Colleen Blagg, Manager of Corporate Services & Workforce Development, MACNY; Murjan Abdi, Workforce Development Assistant, Partners for Education & Business Inc.provided photo Syracuse, N.Y. The last four people hospitalized after a house explosion in Syracuse last month now are out of critical condition. Two adults and two children - including an 8-month-old baby - remain at Upstate University Hospital, hospital officials said Wednesday. There were 13 people inside the home at 205 Carbon St., when it exploded on June 18 due to an open gas line in the homes basement, firefighters said. Twelve people were taken to the hospital. All but four have been released. The injured were members of two refugee families celebrating the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha. After the initial blast, some neighbors helped the victims escape from the rubble of the two-story home. When the first firefighters got to the home minutes later, they saw injured people everywhere and children crying. The injuries included second-degree burns and head injuries and crushed and body deformity injuries, said Syracuse Fire Chief Michael Monds. Local organizations have set up ways for the public to donate to help both families. These are the members from both families and their current conditions, as of Wednesday morning: Residents of 205 Carbon St. Fuje Alam Bin Abdul Rahman, 42 Fair Rajumah Begum Binti Dil Mohammad, 33 - Serious Mohammad Omar Bin Fuje Alam, 13 - Discharged Farmina Begum Binti Fuje Alam, 12 - Discharged Ennaiitu Rahman Bin Fuje Alam, 10 - Discharged Enamul Hassan Bin Fuje Alam, 8 - Discharged Nujumul Hassan Bin Fuje Alam, 3 - Good (Alam was the last victim to be in critical condition) Visiting family Mohamad Alam Sayed Alam, 34 Discharged Yasmida Nur Muhammad, 29 Discharged Ajidah Mohamad Alam, 5 Discharged Suhana Mohamad Alam, 2 -Discharged Rishma Mohamad Alam, 8 months - Serious Sumaya Mohamad Alam, 4 - Was not admitted to hospital Staff writer Timia Cobb covers breaking news. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? You can reach her at tcobb@syracuse.com. Denmark, N.Y. -- A 16-year-old boy was seriously injured Monday in Lewis County after a drunk driver rear-ended his dirt bike, troopers said. Around 7:45 p.m., officers responded to 10234 Plank Road in the town of Denmark for a report of a crash, according to a news release Tuesday from New York State Police. A red 2023 Chevrolet Corvette, driven by Darrin M. Ashcroft, 57, of Carthage, was traveling south on Plank Road when he attempted to pass a 2007 Kawasaki motorcycle traveling in the same direction, troopers said. Syracuse, N.Y. A man with a gunshot wound to his leg was dropped off Tuesday night at Upstate University Hospital, police said. Police were called around 10:16 p.m. to the 100 block of Fitch Street for a shooting call. They found multiple casings, police said in a news release. The man was taken to Upstate in a private vehicle around the same time, they said. Two barges carrying a massive pedestrian bridge across Upstate New York on the Erie Canal to Buffalo, will be passing through Onondaga County today. At 6 a.m. the boat left Sylvan Beach and entered Oneida Lake. It plans to reach Brewerton at Lock 23 at around 9:45 a.m. Carver Companies, who is using a tug-and-barge system to get the bridge across the canal to Buffalos Ralph Wilson Park, is posting time of arrival updates to their Facebook and Instagram pages. They plan to pass through Baldwinsvilles Lock 24 later today, though a definite time has not been posted as of this article. The 266-foot bridge was originally built in Italy, crossed the ocean and up the Hudson River to the Erie Canal. When it is installed this fall, it will be a new entryway for pedestrians into Ralph Wilson Park across I-190 from Fourth Street. The 266-foot pedestrian bridge has spent the last year being built by international firm Cimolai at a facility in Italy, an hour north of Venice. Live updates are also being provided on the Ralph Wilson Park Bridge on Instagram. Barge spotters have been posting their photos and updates as the bridge travels through their town to the Historic Erie Canal Facebook group. Here are the viewing spots still to come on the bridges journey through July 15: Lock E23 Brewerton Lock E24 Baldwinsville Weedsport Terminal at Devaneys Riverside Grill Lock E27 Lyons Port of Newark and T. Spencer Knight Park Port of Palmyra Lock 30 Macedon Canal Park Village of Fairport Bushnells Basin Pittsford from the Main Street Bridge and Schoen Place Greece Canal Park Village of Spencerport Adams Basin Village of Brockport, park at the Brockport Visitor Center Holley Canal Park Village of Albion Village of Medina Village of Middleport from Middleport Canal Park Lockport from Widewaters Marina to Locks 34 and 35 Tonawandas Gateway Harbor Park Details on best places at these locations for photo ops, parking and more can be found on the full list. See photos and videos below from some of the journey: Two barges carrying a pedestrian bridge down the Erie Canal to Buffalo pass through Oneida County. Provided photo | Cori WilsonProvided photo | Cori Wilson On Wednesday at 12:06 p.m. a tornado watch was issued by the National Weather Service in effect until 9 p.m. for Cortland, Madison, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca and Tompkins counties. Tornado watches and warnings: What you need to know When it comes to tornadoes, understanding the distinction between a Tornado watch and a Tornado warning can be a matter of life and death. Here's a breakdown: Tornado watch: Be prepared! A Tornado watch is your advance warning that conditions are ripe for tornado formation. It's your cue to review and discuss your emergency plans, check your supplies, and locate your safe room. While it doesn't indicate an imminent tornado, it's a heads-up to be prepared to take swift action if a Tornado warning is issued or if you suspect a tornado is approaching. Watches come from the Storm Prediction Center and often cover a large area, potentially spanning multiple counties or even states. Tornado warning: Take action! A Tornado warning means a tornado has been spotted or detected by weather radar. This is the real deal there's an immediate threat to life and property. Your response should be quick: seek shelter in an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building, away from windows. If you're in a mobile home, a vehicle, or caught outdoors, find the nearest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. Warnings are issued by your local forecast office and pinpoint a much smaller area, typically the size of a city or a small county, where a tornado has been identified, either by radar or through reports from trained spotters and law enforcement. Knowing the difference between these two alerts is essential in staying safe during tornado season. Stay informed, have a plan, and act promptly when danger approaches. Prepare for a tornado Stay weather-ready: Keep an eye on the weather forecast to stay informed about tornado risks. Tune in to local news or a NOAA Weather Radio for updates on tornado watches and warnings Sign up for notifications: Familiarize yourself with your community's warning systems. Some places have outdoor sirens, while others rely on media and smartphone alerts for severe storm notifications. Create a communication plan: Have a family plan that includes an emergency meeting place and related information. If you live in a mobile home or home without a basement, identify a nearby safe building you can get to quickly, such as a church or family member. Choose a secure shelter: Pick a safe room within your home, such as a basement, storm cellar, or an interior room on the lowest floor without windows. Practice your plan: Conduct regular family drills for severe thunderstorms so everyone knows what to do when a tornado threat arises. Ensure that all family members are aware of the safe location to seek shelter, and don't forget about your pets if time permits. Secure your home: Consider having your safe room reinforced. You can find plans for reinforcing an interior room to provide better protection on the Federal Emergency Management Agency website. Extend a helping hand: Encourage your neighbors and loved ones to prepare for possible tornadoes. Consider taking CPR training to be of assistance in case of injuries. Tornado safety: What to do when the twister hits When a tornado strikes, taking swift action is crucial to ensuring your safety and minimizing potential harm. Follow these guidelines from the weather service: Stay informed: Stay vigilant and stay informed by tuning in to local news broadcasts or using a NOAA Weather Radio to receive updates on tornado watches and warnings. At home: If you find yourself under a tornado warning, immediately seek refuge in your basement, safe room, or an interior room without windows. If there's enough time, bring your pets with you. At work or school: Follow your tornado drill and proceed to your tornado shelter location quickly and calmly. Stay away from windows and do not go to large open rooms such as cafeterias, gymnasiums, or auditoriums. Outdoors: If you're outdoors and a tornado is approaching, seek immediate shelter inside a sturdy building. Sheds, storage facilities, mobile homes, and tents are not safe. If there's time, make your way to a secure structure. In a vehicle: Being inside a vehicle during a tornado is highly unsafe. Your best course of action is to drive to the nearest shelter. If reaching shelter is not possible, either stay inside your car while covering your head, or abandon the vehicle and seek safety in a low-lying area such as a ditch or ravine. Always keep in mind that taking swift action and following established safety procedures are crucial for your well-being when a tornado threat is imminent. Advance Local Weather Alerts is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to compile the latest data from the National Weather Service. Update: The National Weather Service issued a special statement this morning saying that Upstate New York has an unusually elevated risk for tornadoes today. Syracuse, N.Y. -- As the remnants of Hurricane Beryl push toward Upstate New York, the risk of severe storms and flooding continues to grow. Much of Upstate New York is now in what the National Weather Service calls enhanced risk for storms severe enough to cause flooding and power outages. Winds could reach 60 mph and rainfall rates could exceed 2 inches per hour. Damaging winds, some tornadoes and heavy rainfall will be the main threats, the weather service said. A flood watch has been issued for counties from Central New York to the northern Adirondacks. At least 2 inches of rain are expected today across those regions, and if thunderstorms pass over the same area repeatedly, up to 4 inches of rain could fall. About 3 inches of rain falls in a typical summer month. More than 2 inches of rain could fall across a broad area of Upstate New York today. Areas that see repeated thunderstorms could get twice that much.National Weather Service The flood watch is in effect from noon to midnight, although it could be extended if rain is heavier than forecast. The storms are predicted to start around noon and continue well past dark, the weather service said. The area of the worst storms has nudged north -- on Tuesday it looked like the greatest risk would be in the Southern Tier -- and the odds have increased from about 15% to 40% or greater. Western New York should escape the worst of the storms and heavy rain today. In Syracuse, the rain is expected to start mid-morning, with the heaviest rain falling this afternoon into the evening. The flood watch is in effect until midnight. Counties shaded in green are under a flood watch through tonight as heavy rain from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl reach Upstate New York. Counties shaded in orange are under a heat advisory today.National Weather Service Today will also be hot, and the nearly 100% humidity will make the temperature feel like its in the 90s across Central New York and the Southern Tier this afternoon. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Central Asian countries are considering the possibility of exporting electricity to Europe through the territory of Azerbaijan in the future, Trend reports via the Azerbaijani Ministry of Economy. The issue has been discussed during the 13th session of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Intergovernmental Commission (IGC). The IGC co-chairs, Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov and Uzbek Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade Laziz Kudratov stressed that the commission is an effective platform for the development of business ties and the implementation of joint projects. During the session, the parties noted that the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and Uzbekneftegaz cooperate in the joint development of oil fields in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, the implementation of projects in the oil and gas sector, and other areas. It was also emphasized that the memorandum of cooperation on unifying the energy systems of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, signed in May 2024, is an indicator of effective and mutually beneficial cooperation in the energy sector. The session has been convened within the framework of Jabbarov's business visit to Uzbekistan in Bukhara. Along with the session, the Azerbaijani minister also attended the meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Investment Company. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel While large language AI models continue to make headlines, small language models are where the action is. At least, thats what Meta appears to be betting on, according to a paper recently released by a team of its research scientists. Large language models, like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Llama, can use billions, even trillions, of parameters to obtain their results. The size of those models makes them too big to run on mobile devices. So, the Meta scientists noted in their research, there is a growing need for efficient large language models on mobile devices a need driven by increasing cloud costs and latency concerns. In their research, the scientists explained how they created high-quality large language models with fewer than a billion parameters, which they maintained is a good size for mobile deployment. Contrary to prevailing belief emphasizing the pivotal role of data and parameter quantity in determining model quality, the scientists achieved results with their small language model comparable in some areas to Metas Llama LLM. Theres a prevailing paradigm that bigger is better, but this is showing its really about how parameters are used, said Nick DeGiacomo, CEO of Bucephalus, an AI-powered e-commerce supply chain platform based in New York City. This paves the way for more widespread adoption of on-device AI, he told TechNewsWorld. A Crucial Step Metas research is significant because it challenges the current norm of cloud-reliant AI, which often sees data being crunched in far-off data centers, explained Darian Shimy, CEO and founder of FutureFund, a venture capital firm in San Francisco. By bringing AI processing into the device itself, Meta is flipping the script potentially reducing the carbon footprint associated with data transmission and processing in massive, energy-consuming data centers and making device-based AI a key player in the tech ecosystem, he told TechNewsWorld. This research is the first comprehensive and publicly shared effort of this magnitude, added Yashin Manraj, CEO of Pvotal Technologies, an end-to-end security software developer, in Eagle Point, Ore. It is a crucial first step in achieving an SLM-LLM harmonized approach where developers can find the right balance between cloud and on-device data processing, he told TechNewsWorld. It lays the groundwork where the promises of AI-powered applications can reach the level of support, automation, and assistance that have been marketed in recent years but lacked the engineering capacity to support those visions. Meta scientists have also taken a significant step in downsizing a language model. They are proposing a model shrink by order of magnitude, making it more accessible for wearables, hearables, and mobile phones, said Nishant Neekhra, senior director of mobile marketing at Skyworks Solutions, a semiconductor company in Irvine, Calif. Theyre presenting a whole new set of applications for AI while providing new ways for AI to interact in the real world, he told TechNewsWorld. By shrinking, they are also solving a major growth challenge plaguing LLMs, which is their ability to be deployed on edge devices. High Impact on Health Care One area where small language models could have a meaningful impact is in medicine. The research promises to unlock the potential of generative AI for applications involving mobile devices, which are ubiquitous in todays health care landscape for remote monitoring and biometric assessments, Danielle Kelvas, a physician advisor with IT Medical, a global medical software development company, told TechNewsWorld. By demonstrating that effective SLMs can have fewer than a billion parameters and still perform comparably to larger models in certain tasks, she continued, the researchers are opening the door for widespread adoption of AI in everyday health monitoring and personalized patient care. Kelvas explained that using SLMs can also ensure that sensitive health data can be processed securely on a device, enhancing patient privacy. They can also facilitate real-time health monitoring and intervention, which is critical for patients with chronic conditions or those requiring continuous care. She added that the models could also reduce the technological and financial barriers to deploying AI in healthcare settings, potentially democratizing advanced health monitoring technologies for broader populations. Reflecting Industry Trends Metas focus on small AI models for mobile devices reflects a broader industry trend towards optimizing AI for efficiency and accessibility, explained Caridad Munoz, a professor of new media technology at CUNY LaGuardia Community College. This shift not only addresses practical challenges but also aligns with growing concerns about the environmental impact of large-scale AI operations, she told TechNewsWorld. By championing smaller, more efficient models, Meta is setting a precedent for sustainable and inclusive AI development, Munoz added. Small language models also fit into the edge computing trend, which is focusing on bringing AI capabilities closer to users. The large language models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others are often overkill when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, DeGiacomo said. Specialized, tuned models can be more efficient and cost-effective for specific tasks, he noted. Many mobile applications dont require cutting-edge AI. You dont need a supercomputer to send a text message. This approach allows the device to focus on handling the routing between what can be answered using the SLM and specialized use cases, similar to the relationship between generalist and specialist doctors, he added. Profound Effect on Global Connectivity Shimy maintained the implications SLMs could have on global connectivity are profound. As on-device AI becomes more capable, the necessity for continuous internet connectivity diminishes, which could dramatically shift the tech landscape in regions where internet access is inconsistent or costly, he observed. This could democratize access to advanced technologies, making cutting-edge AI tools available across diverse global markets. While Meta is leading the development of SLMs, Manraj noted that developing countries are aggressively monitoring the situation to keep their AI development costs in check. China, Russia, and Iran seem to have developed a high interest in the ability to defer compute calculations on local devices, especially when cutting-edge AI hardware chips are embargoed or not easily accessible, he said. We do not expect this to be an overnight or drastic change though, he predicted, because complex, multi-language queries will still require cloud-based LLMs to provide cutting-edge value to end users. However, this shift towards allowing an on-device last mile model can help reduce the burden of the LLMs to handle smaller tasks, reduce feedback loops, and provide local data enrichment. Ultimately, he continued, the end user will be clearly the winner, as this would allow a new generation of capabilities on their devices and a more promising overhaul of front-end applications and how people interact with the world. While the usual suspects are driving innovation in this sector with a promising potential impact on everyones daily lives, he added, SLMs could also be a Trojan Horse that provides a new level of sophistication in the intrusion of our daily lives by having models capable of harvesting data and metadata at an unprecedented level. We hope that with the proper safeguards, we are able to channel these efforts to a productive outcome. The big picture: Developers brought a class action lawsuit against Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI in November 2022, alleging that GitHub Copilot violated copyright laws by using their code without proper attribution or adherence to open-source licenses. At the time, it was seen as a potential game changer for the generative AI industry but things have since changed. The case is not over, and it still has the potential to reshape the legal landscape around AI and code usage. California Judge Jon Tigar has dismissed most of the claims from the class-action lawsuit filed by developers who claimed that GitHub Copilot was unlawfully copying their code. The decision marks a significant win for the generative AI industry. The plaintiffs, who are seeking $1 billion in compensation, claim that the Copilot coding assistant was trained on open-source software hosted on GitHub and violates their intellectual property rights by providing prompts to other programmers without appropriately crediting them. Microsoft owns GitHub and uses OpenAI to power Copilot, which can auto-complete source code for engineers based on their prompts. Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI had asked the judge to throw out the lawsuit in January, but that request was denied. However, the judge has sustained most of their motions over time, reducing the number of claims left standing from 22 to two. One claim accuses the companies of violating open-source licenses, and the other alleges breach of contract. A key argument by the plaintiffs was tossed out in this recent go-around: that the trio's actions violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because they removed, without permission, crucial "copyright management" information, such as who wrote the code and the terms of use. The judge disagreed, noting that code suggested by Copilot was not identical enough to the developers' own copyright-protected work. The dismissal has several legal ramifications. It suggests that courts may take a narrow view of what constitutes copyright infringement under the DMCA when it comes to AI-generated code. It also indicates that plaintiffs face a high burden of proof in demonstrating that AI tools like GitHub Copilot produce "indistinguishable code" from copyrighted material. The dismissal also undercuts arguments by content holders that the DMCA provides protection from AI training on copyrighted material. The ruling does not set a binding legal precedent but is expected to influence similar cases that revolve around the application of the DMCA to AI-powered coding. The developers still have a shot at victory with their two remaining claims, and if they win, the decision could have significant ramifications for the tech industry. A victory on one or both of their remaining claims would establish a precedent for how AI companies must handle open-source code in their training datasets, potentially requiring them to provide attribution or compensation when using open-source code in AI models. User agreements on code-sharing platforms could also be modified in response to address AI training concerns. Fatime Letifova A trilateral meeting will take place in Washington between Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Azernews reports. The meeting will be held today, July 10, in the U.S. capital. Continuing from the previous message: "Based on the agreement reached in Washington, a trilateral meeting will be held on July 10 with the participation of Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken," stated Ani Badalyan, the press secretary of the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It should be noted that Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has embarked on a business trip to the United States. According to the information, during the visit, Jeyhun Bayramov is expected to participate in the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., as well as hold a series of high-level bilateral meetings. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan hit the road with over 5,300 Chevrolet cars under their belts as of July 1, 2024, thanks to their fruitful collaboration, Trend reports via the Azerbaijani Ministry of Economy. The issue has been discussed during the 13th session of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Intergovernmental Commission (IGC). Throughout the session, it was acknowledged that the collaboration between the parties in industry investment has served as a prime illustration of successful cooperation. It was brought out in this regard that a collaborative project involved the production of cars in Azerbaijan's Hajigabul Industrial Park. Additionally, the parties mentioned joint production of pickup trucks, trucks, and buses. The session has been convened within the framework of Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov's business visit to Uzbekistan in Bukhara. Along with the session, the Azerbaijani minister also attended the meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Investment Company and met with Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade of Uzbekistan Laziz Kudratov. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel What just happened? Microsoft's drastic changes to Xbox Game Pass are a clear attempt to push more Xbox customers onto its ultimate tier. Although the company is raising prices for all plans, the standard Xbox offering will receive an arguably significant downgrade. Starting later this year, console subscribers can only receive newly released games and EA Play through the Ultimate tier. Starting Wednesday, new Xbox Game Pass subscribers can no longer select the mid-level console tier. Microsoft will replace it with a new "Standard" tier that removes launch-day titles later this year. Furthermore, the prices for all plans will increase on September 12. Standard Game Pass will still include a rotating list of hundreds of Xbox games and member-only discounts, but day-one games and EA Play will become exclusive to the Ultimate and PC plans. Like Game Pass Core, which only provides access to 25 titles, the Standard tier will add online console multiplayer. Outside of the price hikes, the Core, PC, and Ultimate subscriptions will remain unchanged. In the US, Core increases from $59.99 to $74.99 a year, PC jumps by only $2 from $9.99 to $11.99 a month, and Ultimate rises from $16.99 to $19.99 monthly. Whereas monthly Game Pass console subscriptions were $9.99 a month, Standard will replace it at $14.99. Microsoft also listed price changes for other regions. Depending on user preferences, the PC clearly receives the better deal, with access to new releases and EA Play for a lower price than the standard console plan. Although the new tier's launch date remains unknown, it will miss a healthy schedule of 2024 Microsoft releases that includes Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Avowed, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. The decision is likely a response to slow growth in console subscriptions and the need to recoup the $69 billion Microsoft spent acquiring Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard. The company also recently brought the service's cloud version to Amazon's Fire TV sticks and is advertising to PC users aggressively. Current console subscribers should hold onto their plans since they won't lose access to new releases as long as automatic billing remains enabled. Moreover, Game Pass Console codes are still usable. However, Microsoft plans to tighten the maximum length of stacked subscriptions to 13 months starting September 18. Those who currently have time beyond that limit remain unaffected. In context: Logitech is credited with creating the first wireless mouse in 1984, using infrared connectivity compatible with M68000-based workstations sold by Metaphor Computer Systems. The company is still selling wired and cordless mice to this day under the "Logitech G" brand, which is mostly focused on gaming enthusiasts and esports professionals. Swiss peripheral manufacturer Logitech just announced a new affordable, yet capable wireless mouse for gamers. The G309 Lightspeed device is equipped with many of the technology solutions developed by the company over the past few years, offering dual-wireless connectivity, precision tracking, and several ways to customize the experience with both gaming applications and traditional PC software. G309 Lightspeed's hardware platform is based on the Hero 25K sensor, which offers a sensitivity up to 25,600 DPI and a 400 IPS tracking speed with no acceleration or smoothing. The mouse is also equipped with hybrid optical-mechanical switches, which according to Logitech should provide the same performance as traditional optical switches with the traditional "click" featured by mechanical components. In Logitech's parlance, dual-wireless connectivity means that the G309 mouse can either connect to the company's proprietary Lightspeed receiver or via Bluetooth. The mouse can last for 300 hours (or 600 hours in Bluetooth mode) on a single AA alkaline battery, although users could opt to use Logitech's PowerPlay system and avoid batteries altogether. A PowerPlay wireless charging device can be purchased on Amazon for $110, while the G309 mouse is offered at a suggested price of $80. Logitech says that the G309 is "affordable to most" customers, but you could easily buy a more-than-competent G305 Lightspeed gaming mouse on online retailers for around half that price. Additional improvements of the G309 over the previous generations include the ability to connect two Lightspeed devices to a single wireless receiver. This could be a boon for users on laptops or compact gaming systems, owning multiple Logitech peripherals but not that many USB ports. The G309 is fast, precise, and reactive with a 1 ms polling rate in Lightspeed mode, Logitech states, and it should also be rather comfortable to use. The mouse comes in at 86 grams when equipped with an AA battery, though it weighs just 68 grams when a Powerplay compatible mat is used. G309 customization can be managed through Logitech's G Hub, a software client that lets users fine-tune DPI settings, change "button maps," and more. What just happened? Samsung will have other things on its mind today than the Unpacked event. An issue over better pay and benefits has led to the Samsung Electronics division's largest union declaring an indefinite strike, extending what was supposed to be three days of industrial action. It was reported in May that Samsung Electronics was facing something it had never dealt with during the company's 55-year history: a worker strike. Representatives from the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), which has more than 30,000 members, called for the action after talks over wage increases broke down. A three-day general strike began on Monday (July 8), with thousands of workers protesting outside of Samsung's chipmaking facilities south of Seoul. Wednesday was supposed to be the last day, but the union said management had shown no intention of holding talks over its demands. As such, the union has declared a second strike that starts today and will last "indefinitely." The NSEU said around 6,500 workers have taken part in the strike so far. It is calling for more of its members to join in the action. "Management has no intention of dialogue," the union said in a statement on its website. "We have clearly identified line production disruptions and the company will regret this decision." To try and attract more participants, the union said it will hold advertising campaigns at cafeterias inside chipmaking plants producing 8-inch wafers and high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which are in high demand due to the AI boom. The union had demanded a 6.5% pay rise, an additional day of annual leave, and a bonus linked to the company's earnings. It has since revised those demands to a 3.5% increase in base salary and, instead of the extra day's annual leave, a day off to mark the union's founding. It also wants the rank-and-file workers and executives to have an equal bonus system. Union vice-president Lee Hyun-kuk told Reuters that management had offered a 3% pay rise, adding, "We haven't spoken to management since we started the strike on Monday." Any disruption to Samsung Electronics' production comes at a bad time for the South Korean giant. AI-related demand has seen Samsung estimate that its Q2 operating profits will jump 1,452% compared to a year ago. The company is also revealing the new Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 foldable devices, along with several other new products, today. What just happened? Microsoft has given up its observer seat on the OpenAI board, eight months after it took the spot following the ousting and quick return of CEO Sam Altman. It's also been reported that Apple will not be taking a similar position. The news comes as regulators further scrutinize the relationship between tech giants and AI startups. Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion into OpenAI, took a non-voting observer role on the company's board in November after Sam Altman, who had been fired by the directors days earlier, returned under a new board. The Redmond firm said in a letter to OpenAI that its withdrawal from the board would be "effective immediately." It added that it has seen "significant progress" over the last eight months, is confident in the company's direction, and no longer sees the seat as necessary. "As you know, we accepted the non-voting board observer role at a time when OpenAI was in the process of rebuilding its board," Microsoft said in the letter. "This position provided insights into the board's activities without compromising its independence, and we appreciated the opportunity to serve as an observer during this period of change." Microsoft's dealings with OpenAI have caught the attention of regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. The European Commission has warned Microsoft could face an antitrust investigation over its links to the ChatGPT maker, and the UK's competition regulator is also looking at the tie-up. EU antitrust regulators recently confirmed, however, that the partnership would not be subject to merger rules as Microsoft does not control OpenAI, but they will be seeking third-party views on the agreement's exclusivity clauses. The US, meanwhile, is investigating whether Microsoft properly notified antitrust agencies about its deal with Inflection AI. It's also looking into Microsoft's alleged dominance of the AI market. Other tech giants, including Amazon and Google, are also under the FTC spotlight over their investments in generative AI startups. Apple, which last month announced it was adding ChatGPT to its latest devices, will no longer be taking an observer role on the OpenAI board, something Cupertino was widely expected to do as part of its deal with the company. As reported by Reuters, an OpenAI spokesperson said the firm will establish a new engagement approach by hosting regular stakeholder meetings with strategic partners such as Microsoft and Apple and investors such as Thrive Capital and Khosla Ventures. Too Real: Microsoft has developed a new iteration of its neural codec language model, Vall-E, that surpasses previous efforts in terms of naturalness, speech robustness, and speaker similarity. It is the first of its kind to reach human parity in a pair of popular benchmarks, and is apparently so lifelike that Microsoft has no plans to grant access to the public. Leveraging Vall-E's groundwork, the new AI voice tool integrates two major enhancements that greatly improve performance. Grouped code modeling allows Microsoft to better organize codec codes, resulting in shorter sequence lengths that boost inference speed and help overcome challenges associated with long sequence modeling. Repetition aware sampling, meanwhile, rethinks the original nucleus sampling process to look for token repetition when decoding. Microsoft said this process helps stabilize decoding and prevents the infinite loop issue that was present in the original Vall-E. Microsoft put Vall-E 2 to the test using the LibriSpeech and VCTK datasets, and it passed them both with flying colors. When Redmond claims the AI tool achieves human parity, they mean Vall-E 2 performed better than ground truth samples in robustness, similarity, and naturalness. In other words, the tool can produce natural speech that is virtually identical to the original speaker. Microsoft shared dozens of samples from Vall-E 2, which can be found over on the project summary page. Indeed, Vall-E 2 samples are incredibly lifelike and indistinguishable from the human speaker. The AI tool even masters subtleties like putting emphasis on the correct word in a sentence as people subconsciously do when speaking. Microsoft said Vall-E 2 is purely a research project, adding that it has no plans to incorporate the tech into a consumer product or release the tool to the general public. Redmond further noted that it carries potential risk for misuse, such as impersonating a specific person or spoofing voice identification. That said, the company believes it could have applications in education, translation, accessibility, journalism, self-authored content, and chatbots, among others. Image credit: Rootnot Creations Blockchain analysis firm TRM Labs found that hackers doubled their bitcoin gains in the first half of 2024 compared to a year earlier. The research showed that hackers stole $1.38 billion in crypto between January 1 and June 24, up from $657 million last year, per CNBC. Some significant assaults drove the surge, with the top five hackers accounting for 70% of the stolen funds. In 2024, TRM Labs identified private key and seed phrase breaches as the top attack vectors. Seed phrases are random words that hold crypto wallet access and recovery information. The greatest robbery of the year was $300 million in bitcoin from Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin. Hackers utilized stolen private keys or address poisoning to deceive users into sending coins to the wrong wallet by sending a tiny quantity of crypto from a similar-looking wallet. Increasing Numbers of Crypto Hacking Incidents In terms of security, TRM Labs found no major changes in the crypto ecosystem. Attack vectors and numbers remained consistent year after year. However, higher average crypto prices in the early part of the year may have enhanced the value of stolen assets. Cyberattacks against crypto firms are common nowadays. Justin Sun-affiliated HTX exchange and Heco Chain were robbed of $115 million in November. Crypto exchange Mt. Gox's 2014 collapse, following breaches that took up to 950,000 bitcoins, illustrates the industry's weaknesses. TRM Labs advised crypto businesses to use frequent security audits and strong encryption to defend against hackers and vulnerabilities. Employee training and a robust crisis response strategy may also safeguard firms. In March 2022, the largest crypto hack ever occurred on the Ronnin network, which underpins the popular Axie Infinity blockchain gaming platform. According to Quartz, the thieves grabbed $625 million in Ethereum and USDC. The theft involved approximately 173,600 ETH and $25.5 million USDC. U.S. officials blamed the Lazarus organization, a North Korea-backed hacker organization, for the heist. Two Russians Charged with Crypto Hacking in The Philippines In other crypto hacking news, two Russians were accused of hacking a Philippine company's system and stealing XRP cryptocurrency valued at P340.7 million ($5.8 million). The Department of Justice charged two former Coins.ph advisor in a court in Taguig City. One defendant faces 23 criminal charges, while the other faces three. Bail is P120,000 ($2,051) per count. according to GMA News. According to the DOJ, Coins.ph conducts remittance, money transfer, foreign currency exchange, and other financial operations. Separately, Malta charged a former Crypto.com compliance officer from Singapore with extortion and money laundering. They accused him of using his position to gather secret corporate information and threatening to use it unless the corporation compensated him after his discharge, as reported by TechTimes. The Maltese court arrested Jose Luis Alonso Melchor. He faces nine counts, including extortion, money laundering, unlawful access to Crypto.com's systems, and data alteration and disclosure. Crypto.com fired Melchor for violating an attachment order. After his layoff, Melchor threatened Crypto.com with 44,000 ($47,644) for unlawfully accessing its files. After his arraignment, Judge Nadia Vella refused Melchor's bail application, calling him a flight risk. A 2 million ($2.2 million) frozen order awaits him. Crypto.com stated that it is cooperating with authorities in Melchor's legal case. Related Article: Bitcoin Crash Continues as Germany Sold Half its Holdings Worth $900 Million Europe's France and the Netherlands are known for their massive lightsaber training, and the French recognize it as a real sport. However, you do not need to venture to the EU for this, as Mexico has the Jedi Knight Academy (JKAMX). This latest offer from South America makes one's Star Wars dreams alive, as the collective of fans and people who want to try out the sport are welcome to learn the ways of the Force. Jedi Knight Academy Mexico Teaches the Ways of the Force A new report from The South China Morning Post (SCMP) via AFP revealed a new organization in Mexico that conducts its training late at night, diving deep into the art of wielding lightsabers. This centers on the renowned phenomenon that took over the world called lightsaber fencing, an official sport recognized by France's fencing federation, and has held various national competitions. About 20 people gather every night at a park in southern Mexico to learn the ways of the Force and perfect their craft. They teach it using the techniques of the Jedi, Star Wars protectors under the Jedi Order. Participants progress through the different ranks of their training based on skill, starting as a 'padawan' and then moving on to 'knight' and 'grand knight' before achieving the highest rank of 'master.' Lightsaber Training as a Sport? Mexico's Glowing Fencing While most participants are fans of Star Wars and envision themselves as real-life Jedis, other members have found it to be a great sport and form of training to maintain an active lifestyle. This glowing fencing experience, thanks to the lightsabers, is now evolving into a massive experience, as the Jedi Knight Academy Mexico will be holding a national tournament of lightsaber fencing on July 21, which will be open to all. The Influence of Star Wars and Lightsabers George Lucas' renowned Star Wars franchise has been one of the most popular and special pop culture icons from the late 1970s until now, and many bring the experience to life or in games. While there have been many toy lightsabers before, a game on the Oculus Rift brings a lightsaber dual VR simulator for fans who want to try it out. Various organizations and groups have come together in the US to train the ways of the Force with lightsabers, but not as massive as in other countries. However, there has been an initiative that looked to influence many, centering on a Star Wars workout experience that centers on a training video using lightsabers. Lightsabers are known as the only weapon a Jedi should have, and from a young age, they are trained to master the ways of the Force and feel it from everywhere, but it is only a tool, and its beholder should be adept at handling it. That is no longer a problem for the Jedi Knight Academy in Mexico, which teaches lightsaber fencing to its members and makes the galactic dream possible for all. It has been almost two years since Elon Musk took over Twitter and renamed it 'X,' and the latest numbers show no longer any growth in its user base under this ownership. Throughout almost two years of direction from its owner, massive changes to X were made, effectively ridding it of any traces of Twitter, with Musk moving forward with its new direction since then. The latest report shows stagnant numbers and little growth for the X social media platform compared to before the tech billionaire took over. X User Base No Longer Growing Under Elon Musk? The Financial Times released a report claiming that for Q2 2024, X only saw 251 global daily active users. This represents a deep look at Elon Musk's leadership of the platform. This is still an increased rate of 1.6 percent compared to last year, Q2 2023, in contrast to Twitter's previous performance before the Musk takeover. Additionally, from Q2 2023 to Q2 2024, X only saw four million users join the platform and create accounts. In the last quarter of 2022, Musk shared that Twitter had seen massive growth since he took over, with 1.6 million daily active users, recording an all-time high. X's Stagnant Numbers and Little Growth It is important to note that in Q2 2024, X recorded 251 million global daily active users, similar to October 16, 2022 numbers, according to Mashable, a week before Musk's takeover. This shows that X is back where it started with Elon Musk, but today's performance is considered stagnant, with the platform not publicly sharing its daily active user numbers. X Under Elon Musk's Direction When Elon Musk finalized the Twitter acquisition in late October 2022, one of his first orders of business was to post a meme on the platform and enforce the Twitter Blue paid verification subscription for all. This led to many new features, including long-form tweets, edits for posted tweets, the blue checkmark, and more, but these were all hidden behind a paywall. It is also known that in Musk's first few weeks as CEO, massive changes were made, including giving amnesty to permanently banned accounts to return to the platform. All of these led to Twitter losing as many as 1.3 million users to alternative social media platforms adjacent to Musk's company, boycotting it because of its new owner. Since then, Musk claimed that Twitter will evolve and do so quickly, but rivals have proven to be a challenge, including Meta's Instagram short-word social media version, Threads. From Twitter to X and features being put behind its X Pro, social media continues to change under Elon Musk and its new CEO, with its user base now stagnated and only growing at a small scale. Virginia's Gov. Glenn Youngkin has officially issued an executive order restricting mobile phones from being used in public schools, making it the latest state to adopt restrictions against the handheld devices. The executive order is set to establish state guidance and model policies for local school systems, which will be adopted by January. Phones are reportedly restricted due to concerns over students' academic achievement and mental health. With new legislation passed last year, Florida was the first state to prohibit phones in schools. This year, Indiana and Ohio enacted their laws, and numerous other states have lately considered so-called "phone-free schools" legislation. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 76% of public schools restrict "non-academic cell phone use" for the 2021-2022 school year. In Virginia, school districts progressively prohibit or severely limit students' phone use. For instance, last month, Loudoun County Public Schools in northern Virginia implemented a new policy banning elementary school children from using smartphones during the school day. Middle school students are permitted to use mobile devices before or after school but must keep them in their lockers. Students in high school are required to turn off their phones and store them in a classroom locker or storage space during class time. Comments on the New Smartphone Restriction Dan Adams, a Loudoun County Public Schools spokesperson, said the school system will have to wait for explicit state directions. However, he said the school system is certain that its policy is age-appropriate and handles electronics-free instructional time. In recent months, the school board for Hanover County Public Schools, located west of Richmond, has focused on the topic extensively. Assistant Superintendent Chris Whitley said the board intended to consider it at a meeting on Tuesday. Youngkin's ruling calls for public involvement through listening sessions and the establishment of a precise definition of "cell phone-free education." Todd Reid, a Virginia Department of Education spokesperson, stated in an email that school divisions must adopt policy by January 1. However, sources imply that presidential directives governing local educational policies might be difficult to implement. Harms of Cell Phone Usage Before the COVID-19 epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention observed a 40% rise in students' chronic unhappiness, hopelessness, and suicide ideation. Notably, exam results, particularly in arithmetic for grades 4 and 8, fell to their lowest point on record. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and author, reportedly feels that cell phones, particularly social media and messaging applications, are to blame for this problem. He claims that phones have evolved from simple communication devices to perpetual sources of distraction. Notably, a Pew Research Center research found that 40% of youth had reduced their use of social media. The survey reportedly implies a shift away from today's youth's always-on mindset. The findings raise concerns regarding adolescent cell phone use and online social networking use. Studies show that 38% of children claim they spend "too much" time on their cell phones and 27% on social media. In response to rapid global AI development, the Chinese open-source desktop operating system OpenKylin has undergone updates for AI personal computers (PCs) to reduce reliance on foreign systems. A WeChat post by the community maintaining the operating system noted that the latest version, released on Sunday, supports on-device large language models (LLMs), has an AI assistant, and converts text to images, SCMP reported. The community stressed that AI brings new problems and potential for infrastructure software to improve domestic operating system users' job efficiency and creativity. State-run Science and Technology Daily called OpenKylin AI "secure, stable, and controllable." The Windows-like OpenKylin attempts to minimize China's dependence on Western OSes. China released openKylin in 2022 after decades of efforts to create a homegrown alternative to Windows and macOS. Due to US-China trade tensions, Beijing's effort to improve its technology self-sufficiency has increased. China is Reducing Dependency on Western Tech The central government is phasing out Windows and Intel CPUs in critical government projects that use Kylin, the closed-source forerunner of openKylin. Kylinsoft, a subsidiary of state-owned China Electronics, and over ten other Chinese businesses, including the National Industrial Information Security Development Research Centre, founded the openKylin open-source community. Over 3,876 developers and 271 corporations contributed to openKylin 1.0, its first open-source desktop OS, launched in July 2022. Despite these attempts, StatCounter reported that Windows controlled approximately 80% of the China market as of June 2023. Other Chinese tech firms showcased their innovations during the recent World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai. Alibaba Group Holding Limited and SenseTime showed considerable AI developments, per Benzinga, signaling heated rivalry in China's AI business. SenseTime upgraded its SenseNova large language models (LLMs), including 5.5, which improves performance by 30%. SenseTime co-founder and CEO Xu Li said OpenCompass data showed SenseNova 5.5 exceeded GPT-4 in five categories. In two months, Alibaba's cloud computing subsidiary doubled Tongyi Qianwen LLM downloads to over 20 million. Zhou Jingren, Alibaba Cloud's CTO, reported a 150% growth in Model Studio users to 230,000. Despite these gains, Alibaba's shares fell on Monday. Moreover, Baidu unveiled Ernie 4.0 Turbo, its newest LLM, strengthening its pricing battle with Microsoft Corp.'s OpenAI GPT-4 model, Alibaba, and others. Chinese Tech Giants Rise to The Challenge of OpenAI's Pullout From China These developments come as OpenAI started prohibiting Chinese users from using its tools and services this week, making it simpler for China to recruit domestic developers for local AI platforms. Last month, OpenAI said it would limit API traffic from locations where it doesn't support access. OpenAI has not explained this abrupt shift. The Chinese government's firewall blocks ChatGPT, but developers used VPNs to access OpenAI's tools for fine-tuning their generative AI applications. Due to rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, the US has restricted exports of sophisticated semiconductors to China, which are necessary for training AI technology. The AI sector is under pressure, which likely drove OpenAI's decision. Xiaohu Zhu, founder of Shanghai's Center for Safe AGI, worries about worldwide AI technology access. According to The Guardian, this move also allows local AI businesses like SenseTime, Baidu, Zhipu AI, and Tencent Cloud to lure former OpenAI users. Baidu responded by offering 50 million free tokens for their Ernie 3.5 AI model and free migration. Through July, Zhipu AI is giving out 150 million free tokens for their model, while Tencent Cloud is giving away 100 million. These companies aggressively promote migration to expand their user base. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan have signed a final protocol on strengthening partnerships between the nations during the 13th session of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Intergovernmental Commission (IGC), Trend reports via the Azerbaijani Ministry of Economy. The paper embodies the deepening of alliances in various domains, including commerce, finance, energy, transportation, agriculture, and innovation. The session has been convened within the framework of Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov's business visit to Uzbekistan in Bukhara. Along with the session, the Azerbaijani minister also attended the meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Investment Company and met with Uzbek Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade Laziz Kudratov. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Google's Pixel Wach 3 is reportedly on the horizon, with a significant decrease in bezel size offering an expected new build compared to the Pixel Watch 2. The Pixel Watch 3 allegedly will have 4.5mm bezels, a substantial reduction from the 5.5mm bezels featured on the Pixel Watch 2. This modification should make the watch face look bigger and more immersive. In addition to lower bezels, the Pixel Watch 3 will have a brighter display. The new display is supposed to be rated at 2,000 nits, which is twice as bright as the Pixel Watch 2's 1,000-nit display. This change should make the watch considerably easier to read in direct sunshine. The Pixel Watch 3 is rumored to use the same Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 architecture and proprietary co-processor as the Pixel Watch 2. However, it will finally incorporate Ultra-Wideband (UWB) functionality, previously speculated for the Pixel Watch 2 but did not make it into the final product. UWB might allow capabilities such as accurate device location and automobile unlocking via Digital automobile Key. Pixel Watch 3 Variations Furthermore, the Pixel Watch 3 is expected to be offered in 41mm and 45mm sizes, with both cellular and Wi-Fi options. The 41mm model will feature a 310mAh battery, and the 45mm model will have a bigger 420mAh battery. Google is also releasing numerous new hues for the Pixel Watch 3. The 45mm model will be offered in Silver with a Rose Quartz band or Black with an Obs. The 41mm model will be presented in three colors: silver with a rose quartz band, black with an obsidian band, and gold with a hazel band. Google Pixel 9's Expected Release As the Google Pixel Watch 3 nears release, so does the Google Pixel 9 Series. Google is planning to revamp its product selection earlier than normal this year, shifting the yearly hardware presentation from October to mid-August. This suggests that Google's next flagship Pixel smartphones will be released ahead of Apple's planned iPhone 16 series. Google sent media invites for a hardware event on August 13, informing guests about new gadgets. According to rumors, Google's next Pixel 9 range will include three additional gadgets. These include the normal Pixel 9, the Pixel 9 Pro, and the new, bigger Pixel 9 Pro XL, which has a 6.2-inch display. According to leaks, the Pixel 9 Pro will include a triple rear camera configuration, improving its photographic skills. Additionally, Google will likely release Android 15, showcasing Gemini AI advancements and other sophisticated features. The Pixel Fold 2 tablet and new Pixel earphones are expected to be highlights of the event. These releases are expected to compete directly with Apple's offerings as Google expands its suite of networked gadgets. Apple's product launch plan presumably motivated Google's choice to accelerate hardware upgrades. Apple is likely to unveil the iPhone 16 and Apple Watch Series 9 in September, along with iOS 18 and Apple Intelligence. By releasing its gadgets sooner, Google hopes to garner market attention and convince users before Apple's new goods hit the market. Lekko - a Polish adjective that means "light and easy" - has just launched out of stealth with $4.5 Million in funding from investors Addition and LUX Capital. The company was founded by CEO Konrad Niemiec, who was an engineer at Uber before realizing there was a real need in the market to give developers the power to deploy multiple configurations, features, previews, tiers, and experiments directly within their code. The company is positioning dynamic configuration as the ability to have a tunable piece of software that can be adjusted on the fly in production. According to the company, this goes well beyond feature management, which argues that in a perfect world, feature flagging wouldn't even be necessary in the first place. "Over 50% of outages and security breaches are caused by misconfigurations - it needs to be easier for developers to make changes quickly and safely in production," said Niemiec. The internal tool at Uber to handle dynamic configuration was called Flipr, which Niemiec got to leverage first-hand as an engineer on the self-driving team. "Without Flipr I'm not sure Uber would have been able to scale to over 10,000 cities as quickly as it did," said Niemiec. Worth noting that the creator of Flipr, Thomas Chen, is also an investor at Lekko. Facebook (Meta) has published papers about dynamic configuration that go back over a decade. Other companies known for their dynamic configuration tooling are LinkedIn, Plaid, and Doordash. But according to Niemiec, Lekko is the first and only commercial dynamic configuration tool on the market. What this means in practice is that dynamic configuration is now available to any company looking to move beyond feature flags - not just FAANG companies with engineering-heavy resources. There are consistent headlines about outages caused by misconfigurations - recently, AT&T's nationwide outage caused $350 million of customer restitution fees and McDonald's worldwide IT outage which cost the company $62 million in revenue. But it's too early to say if dynamic configuration is the ultimate solution. But with engineers from Uber, Meta, and Splunk working together on the problem - it seems like Lekko is certainly worth keeping an eye on New research found that some European tech companies, particularly Germany, refuse to join the escalating US tech trade war with China over semiconductor chips, a crucial component in modern electrical devices. Germany on US-China Chip War The research from King's College London and the University of Sussex sheds light on why German firms, particularly in the automotive and semiconductor sectors, were hesitant to align with US efforts to isolate China's semiconductor industry in the ongoing global trade dispute known as the "chip war." The study highlighted the intricate ties between German automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen and the country's semiconductor manufacturers. Researchers argued that these connections explain Germany's reluctance to comply with US calls to sever semiconductor supply chains with China. Despite pressure from the US, German firms remained intertwined with Chinese markets and suppliers, influencing their strategic decisions in the global tech trade landscape. Dr. Joseph Baines from King's College London's Department of European and International Studies noted that while governmental policies primarily drive the geopolitical conflict, corporate interests play a pivotal role in shaping the outcomes. He underscored how these interests are a critical intervening variable thwarting US attempts to isolate China's semiconductor sector. Dr. Steven Rolf of the University of Sussex Business School highlighted the substantial economic stakes. He noted that China spends more on importing semiconductors than oil, which could be why German firms ignore calls to separate or decouple from China. Stand of Germany in the US-China Chip War Despite these pressures, German companies, deeply integrated with both automotive and semiconductor sectors, are opting to maintain their ties with China rather than accede to US demands. The research noted that while German semiconductor firms exhibit no greater dependence on Chinese markets than counterparts in Japan or South Korea - both of which have complied with US directives or withdrawn from China altogether - secondary exposure through interconnected industries like automotive manufacturing complicates their compliance with US embargoes. Dr. Julian Germann, also from the University of Sussex, underscored Germany's strategic significance in the U.S.-China tech rivalry. He noted that although Germany's semiconductor industry may not be the largest globally, its interconnectedness with other vital sectors like automotive manufacturing amplifies its impact on geopolitical strategies concerning technology and trade. The researchers highlight the growing economic and political tensions worldwide. The US is using its control over global semiconductor supply chains to hinder China's technological development. They raise important questions about whether major European and Asian companies will comply with US demands to stop supplying crucial semiconductor components to China, which could slow down China's technological growth. The research team's findings were published in the journal Politics and Governance. Related Article : US to Invest $75 Million in South Korean Firm Absolics to Build Computer Chip Factory in Georgia Google Wallet just got a major upgrade. The popular digital wallet service now boasts a user-friendly web interface accessible across various browsers on desktops and laptops. This expansion goes beyond convenience; it allows users in 13 new countries to manage their finances and access passes directly from their web browsers. Seamless Access to Payment Methods and Passes Wallet.google.com serves as your one-stop shop for all things Google Wallet on the web. Here's what you can do with it, according to 9to5Google. View and Manage Payment Methods: Easily access a list of your saved credit and debit cards, allowing you to review details and manage them as needed. Control Your Passes: From loyalty cards and boarding passes to concert tickets, view and manage all your digital passes stored in Google Wallet. You can even view actual barcodes (when available) for passes. Centralized Transaction History: Unlike the Android app that only displays 10 recent tap-to-pay interactions, the web version offers a more comprehensive transaction history. To ensure account security, you'll need to verify your identity through a Google Prompt before accessing this information. Google Wallet Web's Improved Functionality and Control The web interface goes beyond basic access to payment methods and passes. It empowers you with additional functionalities. With Unified Wallet and Google Pay Settings, you can manage settings for both Google Wallet and Google Pay conveniently from a single location on the web. When it comes to Privacy and Security Controls, you can now access a dedicated settings page that links to various Google preferences related to your address, data, and privacy settings. This gives you greater control over your digital footprint. Material 3 Design and Global Expansion The Google Wallet web interface incorporates the sleek and user-friendly Material 3 design language, ensuring a consistent experience across platforms. It replaces the older pay.google.com website and is now available in 13 additional countries, bringing the total to 15: Brazil Czech Republic France Germany Hungary Ireland Italy Japan (previously available) Netherlands Poland Romania Spain United States (previously available) United Kingdom Ukraine A More Convenient Way to Manage Your Digital Wallet The Google Wallet web interface represents a significant advancement in digital wallet accessibility. Users can now conveniently manage their finances and access passes from the comfort of their web browsers. With its expanded reach and enhanced functionalities, Google Wallet is poised to become an even more essential tool for managing your digital life. In other news, Android Police reported that Google Wallet will roll out biometrics support in the US. According to the report, the move will replace physical banking cards. With the accelerating adoption of mobile payments, many users prefer the new method due to its convenience and hassle-free functionality. With this update, users can use Google Wallet as an ID pass. However, it is still recommended to carry your physical passport at all times. Last month, Google expanded support for 29 more banks. All in all, 179 banks were supported by the app. Tech giants Apple and Microsoft have decided to forgo their observer seats on the board of OpenAI amid growing global regulatory scrutiny on companies offering artificial intelligence (AI) services. A photo taken on November 23, 2023 shows the logo of the ChatGPT application developed by US artificial intelligence research organization OpenAI on a laptop screen (R) and the letters AI on a smartphone screen in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany. Apple Gives Up OpenAI Board Seat Initially, reports suggested that Apple's Phil Schiller would join OpenAI's board as an observer, a position tied to the recent integration of ChatGPT into Apple's iOS 18. However, Apple has now decided against this move. Instead, the company will hold regular meetings with OpenAI to discuss collaborative interests. The Financial Times explains that this observer role would have granted Schiller a non-voting position at OpenAI's board meetings, providing Apple with insights into OpenAI's strategic plans without direct control. By opting for regular meetings over a formal board position, Apple aims to sidestep any antitrust issues that might arise from having a seat on the board of a prominent AI company. Microsoft's Also Exits OpenAI Observer Seat Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, has also given up its observer seat on the AI company's board. This decision was communicated in a letter to OpenAI, stating that the withdrawal was effective immediately. Microsoft's involvement with OpenAI includes a massive $13 billion investment, crucial for OpenAI's access to computing power and cloud storage. The observer role for Microsoft came into existence after a tumultuous period last year when OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman was abruptly fired by the board, only to be reinstated shortly after. This role allowed Microsoft to stay informed about board activities without compromising its independence. Keith Dolliver, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, explained in his letter that their position allowed them to gain insights into the board's activities while maintaining its independence. He noted that since then, they have observed substantial progress from the newly established board and feel confident about the company's trajectory. Read Also : Apple Unveils iPhone 16 Pro Specs and AI Integration With Major Updates in Battery Tech and Messages App Answering to Regulatory Concerns The decisions by Apple and Microsoft come as antitrust authorities in the European Union and the United States intensify their scrutiny of Big Tech's investments in AI start-ups. The European Commission has been exploring the possibility of an antitrust investigation into the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI, while the US Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice have also begun examining these investments. In response to these regulatory pressures, OpenAI has adopted a new approach to engaging with its strategic partners. Instead of board seats, the organization will now host regular meetings with key partners, including Microsoft, Apple, Thrive Capital, and Khosla Ventures. OpenAI's eight-member board continues to include influential figures such as Sam Altman, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Instacart CEO Fidji Simo, with Bret Taylor, former co-CEO of Salesforce, serving as chairman. Stay posted here at Tech Times. Switzerland's controversial invention designed to facilitate assisted suicide, the "Sarco" pod, has been blocked by prosecutors in the country just weeks before its planned rollout in euthanasia clinics. This decision throws a wrench into the plans of Dr. Philip Nitschke, a vocal advocate for assisted dying, who designed the device as a more streamlined and supposedly painless method for ending one's life. It's important to note that active euthanasia is illegal in Switzerland, but assisted dying is legal. The Sarco: A Futuristic Euthanasia Device The Sarco, named after the ancient Egyptian burial containers (sarcophagi), resembles a futuristic capsule. It appears to be taken out of a sci-fi book as if a person is just sleeping inside a space capsule. According to Exit International, the euthanasia advocacy group behind it, the user enters and triggers a mechanism that floods the chamber with nitrogen, rapidly reducing oxygen levels. This supposedly renders the person unconscious before death. Dr. Nitschke has touted the Sarco as a quick and painless method for individuals seeking assisted suicide. Related Article : 104-Year-Old Australian Scientist Commits Assisted Suicide In Switzerland Legal Hurdles Surrounding Suicide Pods Prosecutors in Schaffhausen Canton, Switzerland, however, raised legal and ethical concerns about the Sarco, according to Blick, a local news outlet. They cited the ambiguity surrounding the device's operation and the potential difficulty in establishing who is ultimately responsible for the death that occurs within it. This uncertainty violates a section of the canton's penal code. Additionally, concerns arose regarding the potential for coercion or manipulation of vulnerable individuals seeking assisted suicide. Pro-Life Groups Criticize the Sarco's Aesthetics Beyond legal concerns, pro-life organizations condemned the Sarco for its sleek and futuristic design. They believe such a design could trivialize or even glamorize suicide, potentially encouraging individuals to choose this path without fully exploring other options. James Mildred, director of engagement at CARE, said that many have been condemning Nitschke's device for assisted suicide. 'We believe that suicide is a tragedy that good societies seek to prevent in every circumstance. There are ethical ways to help human beings that don't involve the destruction of life," Mildred said. Uncertain Future for the Sarco The ban on the Sarco's use in Switzerland comes despite claims from its creators that it had passed legal review. The legality of assisted suicide itself is not in question, as Switzerland has established laws permitting it under specific conditions. However, the Sarco seems to fall into a legal gray area due to its unique design and operational specifics. Dr. Nitschke has not yet commented on the ban, and the future of the Sarco remains unclear. The controversy is expected to continue with ongoing debate surrounding this topic. Truly, ethical considerations should be heard that pro-life individuals want to convey to the public. A recent analysis of U.S. pharmacy claims sheds light on a concerning trend: low long-term adherence to the popular weight loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic. Manufactured by Novo Nordisk, these medications boast impressive results, but a significant portion of patients abandon treatment within two years. Last year, a previous report told us that a global shortage of Ozempic could persist for a longer time. The reason? Social media trend. Long-Term Use Crucial for Success This study, offering a broader perspective than previous short-term research, reveals that only around 25% of patients continue taking Wegovy or Ozempic after two years. While the analysis doesn't pinpoint the reasons behind this drop-off, it raises questions about the cost-effectiveness of these drugs. Related Article : Obesity Drug Ozempic's Pricetag Under Fire as Study Exposes Manufacturing Costs High Costs Fuel Debate Wegovy and similar medications, known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, carry a hefty price tag, often exceeding $1,000 per month. According to Reuters, experts emphasize that sustained use is necessary for these drugs to produce lasting weight loss benefits. The high cost has sparked debate, with figures like President Biden expressing concerns about the financial burden on patients, employers, and healthcare systems if these drugs became widely used for weight management. Estimates suggest that widespread use could cost the U.S. over $411 billion annually, exceeding total prescription drug spending in 2022. Study Details and Methodology Prime Therapeutics and Magellan Rx Management, pharmacy benefits managers, conducted this analysis. They reviewed pharmacy and medical claims data for over 3,300 individuals with commercial health insurance covering GLP-1 medications. All participants received their initial prescriptions between January and December 2021 and had confirmed diagnoses of obesity or a high body mass index (BMI). Patients using these drugs for type 2 diabetes, their original purpose, were excluded. The average participant age was 46.5, and approximately 81% were female. Declining Persistence Rates Over Time Last year, Prime released data indicating that 32% of patients were still using GLP-1 medications after one year. However, this new analysis reveals a significant decline in adherence within the following year. Across all drugs studied, only about 15% of patients remained on their medications after two years. Brand-Specific Adherence The analysis also examined adherence rates for specific medications. For Wegovy, 24.1% of patients continued treatment for two years without a 60-day or longer gap in refills, down from 36% who remained on the drug for a full year. Similarly, Ozempic, with the same active ingredient (semaglutide) as Wegovy, showed a decline in long-term adherence, with 22.2% of patients refilling prescriptions at two years, compared to 47.1% who used it for one year. Further research is needed to understand the reasons why patients discontinue treatment. This data underscores the importance of exploring cost-effective weight management strategies and ensuring patients have the necessary support systems to maintain long-term adherence to prescribed medications. Drake, Ozempic, and BBL Drizzy, Really? The internet loves a good meme, and Drake's physique hasn't escaped the spotlight. The nickname "BBL Drizzy" has circulated online, hinting at Brazilian Butt Lift surgery. But is there any truth to it? The term "BBL Drizzy" originated in April 2024 during a feud between Drake and rapper Rick Ross. Ross used the nickname in social media posts, suggesting Drake had undergone cosmetic procedures. The hashtag #BBLDrizzy quickly gained traction. Despite the rumors and jokes, there's no concrete evidence Drake has had a BBL. The accusations likely stem from his overall appearance and the ongoing celebrity plastic surgery speculation. On X, several posts claim that Drake did not get to enjoy his Ozempic bar for 20 minutes because his own prescription was featured as a cover art. Earlier this week, Microsoft mandated that all its China-based employees switch to iPhones for work purposes, citing Android cybersecurity concerns. This new policy, effective in September, has generated considerable online backlash, particularly among Chinese social media users who favor local Android brands. The absence of Google services in China, a consequence of Google's 2010 exit due to censorship disputes, forces companies like Microsoft to adapt their strategies significantly. Why Microsoft Bar China Employees From Using Android The US tech giant's decision is part of a broader global cybersecurity initiative aimed at protecting against hackers. Microsoft has required employees to verify their identities using the Microsoft Authenticator and Identity Pass apps, South China Morning Post reports. These apps are essential for secure login processes but are only available on Apple's App Store and Google Play. Due to the absence of Google Mobile Services (GMS) in China, Microsoft has opted to provide iPhones to its employees to ensure these apps can be accessed without issues. Employees currently using Android devices will be given an iPhone 15. This one-time provision aims to facilitate a seamless transition and ensure that all staff can access the necessary security tools. The devices will be available for collection at various hubs across China, including Hong Kong, where Google's services are accessible. Microsoft Face Local Backlash Over iPhone-only Mandate SCMP reports that the iPhone-only mandate has sparked a backlash among Chinese social media users, with over 27,000 comments on a Weibo post about the new rule. Many users expressed frustration, suggesting that Microsoft should consider alternatives like Huawei's HarmonyOS. At the same time, this mandate comes amid rising geopolitical tensions between the US and China. In recent years, more Chinese government-backed firms and agencies have restricted the use of foreign devices at work, citing security concerns. In April, iPhone sales dropped by 19.1%, while Huawei's sales soared by an impressive 69.7% due to the launch of recent premium smartphone models. Secure Future Initiative Bloomberg tells us that Microsoft's new iPhone-only policy is a component of its broader Secure Future Initiative (SFI), launched in November. This initiative represents the company's most extensive security overhaul in two decades, aimed at addressing cloud vulnerabilities, enhancing credential security, and enforcing multifactor authentication for employees. The move follows repeated cyberattacks, including a significant breach linked to Russian state-sponsored hackers, which affected dozens of US government agencies. To further mitigate risks and respond to geopolitical pressures, Microsoft has offered to relocate 700 to 800 employees working on artificial intelligence (AI) from China to other markets. Stay posted here at Tech Times. The United States is at risk of losing its long-held global scientific leadership to China, warns a senior American science official. In a recent address, Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), stressed the urgent need for the US to adapt to the emerging research environment to maintain its competitive edge (via South China Morning Post). US and China: A Race for Scientific Leadership During her inaugural State of the Science address in Washington, McNutt talked about the shifting dynamics of global research and development (R&D). Although the US remains the world's largest investor in R&D, with a spending of $806 billion in 2021, China is quickly closing the gap with an investment of $668 billion in the same year. What is particularly alarming is that China's investment growth rate is double that of the United States. Historically, the US has been a dominant force in science and engineering, accounting for nearly 60% of all Nobel Prizes awarded since the end of World War II. This dominance is now being challenged as China advances rapidly in both the quantity and quality of scientific research. McNutt noted that China has surpassed the US in the number of most-cited papers, a crucial measure of research impact, and has doubled the number of patents filed compared to the US in 2021. These trends are worrying signs for American scientific leadership. Read Also : Chinese Scientists Develop Cheap Solid-State Rechargeable EV Battery US Dependence on International Talent A major factor in the US maintaining its position has been its reliance on international students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, particularly from China and India. McNutt pointed out that foreign students not only outnumber domestic students in American university graduate programs but also significantly contribute to the US STEM workforce, with 65% of these students remaining in the US for at least ten years. However, there has been a noticeable decline in the number of Chinese students enrolling in US universities in recent years, indicating a potential risk to the US's ability to attract top talent. To counter these trends, McNutt recommended several strategies to protect US leadership in science. Strengthening K-12 STEM education and building a robust domestic scientific workforce are critical steps. Additionally, reducing red tape for student visas could help lure the best and brightest talent from around the world. A coordinated national research strategy is also essential to streamline R&D spending by government agencies and the private sector. US Increases R&D Spending Despite these challenges, the US continues to increase its R&D investment. According to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), US R&D spending increased to $789.1 billion in 2021, with an estimated rise to $885.6 billion in 2022. Businesses play a significant role, performing 77% of the total US R&D in 2021. However, there has been a shift away from basic and applied research within corporate R&D, which may affect long-term inventiveness and productivity growth. Stay posted here at Tech Times. Chinese developers now have navigated recent restrictions imposed by OpenAI. Despite OpenAI's efforts to block access to its API in certain regions, including China, the South China Morning Post reports that developers across the country are using virtual private networks (VPNs) and third-party services to continue accessing the AI models. Chinese Developers Skirts OpenAI Restrictions OpenAI announced that starting July 9, it would block connections to its API from unsupported regions, which include China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Despite these measures, OpenAI remains accessible through certain Chinese VPN services that advertise ChatGPT access. According to the SCMP, seven developers from cities such as Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Dalian continue to use these methods to bypass restrictions. They often link their accounts to foreign mobile numbers, complicating efforts to detect the origin of the connection. Chinese Tech Companies Capitalize on OpenAI Exit This decision to block access is part of broader geopolitical tensions between the US and China. The US government has restricted the export of advanced semiconductors to China, crucial for training cutting-edge AI technology. Chinese AI companies have quickly moved to capitalize on OpenAI's exit from the market. At the recent World AI Conference in Shanghai, SenseTime, a leading Chinese AI firm, showcased its first real-time multimodal model, SenseNova 5.5, which it claims is comparable to OpenAI's GPT-4. To attract users transitioning from OpenAI, SenseTime is offering 50 million free tokens and free migration services. Other domestic AI giants like Baidu, Zhipu AI, and Tencent Cloud have also launched aggressive initiatives to capture the displaced user base. Baidu is offering 50 million free tokens for its Ernie 3.5 AI model, Zhipu AI provides 150 million free tokens, and Tencent Cloud is giving away 100 million tokens to new users until the end of July. Read Also : Apple, Microsoft Abandon OpenAI Board Seats Amid AI Regulatory Scrutiny What's Next? Despite the immediate disruptions, many Chinese developers are preparing for the long-term impacts. Some developers are exploring alternatives like Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 3.5, which, despite its restrictions, has been praised for its capabilities. Others are considering switching to domestic AI platforms that are improving their technologies to match international standards. However, these transitions are not without challenges. The use of unapproved VPNs remains illegal in China, and publicly available large language models must be licensed. Winston Ma, a professor at New York University, notes that this situation presents a "short-term shock" but a potential long-term opportunity for Chinese large language models to prove their capabilities in real-world applications. The competition between US and Chinese AI firms is intense, with China holding 130 large language models, accounting for 40% of the world's total. Additionally, the country is now home to over 4,500 AI companies. While US companies like OpenAI lead in generative AI, Chinese firms are increasingly closing the performance gap and offering competitive services, often at lower costs. Stay posted here at Tech Times. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia Javier Colomina have met on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, DC, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan said, Trend reports. The successful continuation of the 30-year partnership within the NATO Partnership for Peace (PFP), which defines Azerbaijan's cooperation with NATO, was highlighted. Minister Bayramov, speaking about Azerbaijan's chairmanship of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), stated it is a clear example of Azerbaijan's commitment to addressing global challenges. He also provided an update on the current security situation in the region post-conflict, drawing attention to the mine threat in the territories of Azerbaijan liberated from occupation and the rapid arming of Armenia. It was noted that Azerbaijan, as the initiator of the peace process with Armenia, is committed to establishing peace and stability in the region. Despite significant progress in the draft peace agreement, it was emphasized that Armenia's constitution still contains claims on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan. During the meeting, the sides also exchanged views on other issues of mutual interest. Canada govt links June heat wave to climate change Montreal, July 9 (AFP) Jul 09, 2024 Canada's environment ministry said Tuesday that climate change made a recent east coast heat wave two to 10 times more likely, in its first-ever study quickly attributing extreme weather events to human activity. In mid-June, Atlantic provinces experienced temperatures between 7-10 degrees Celsius (13-18 degrees Fahrenheit) above seasonal averages, the ministry said. Its so-called "rapid extreme weather event attribution system" aims to quickly analyze the role of human activity on recent conditions by comparing current data with pre-industrial data. June temperature records dating back to the 1870s, when data were first recorded, were broken in New Brunswick province, with the port city of Saint John hitting 34.5C (94.1F). The provinces of Quebec and Ontario were also affected by the extreme weather. The study found unusually high daytime temperatures, high humidity, and warmer-than-normal nighttime temperatures, leaving little to no respite. "The event was much more likely because of human influence on the climate," the agency said. It was "rare to have such conditions this early in June." The rapid attribution system is currently in a test phase, but will eventually be extended to other extreme weather events such as severe cold snaps and floods, the environment ministry says. In particular, it will analyze the heat wave currently affecting Western Canada, where more than 50 daily records have been broken in British Columbia and Alberta in recent days. With heat waves from Mexico to China and Saudi Arabia, June 2024 is the 13th consecutive month to set a record for the highest average temperature for that month, the EU's Copernicus climate monitor said Monday. It also became the hottest June ever measured, erasing the record already broken in 2023. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. The number of polling stations in the liberated territories for the upcoming parliamentary election in Azerbaijan will be increased, Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Azerbaijan Mazahir Panahov said at a meeting with chairmen of district election commissions, Trend reports. According to Panahov, the conditions are being created to hold voting in the extraordinary parliamentary elections at more than 6,400 polling stations in 125 constituencies. The CEC chairman noted that voting in the liberated territories will also be held for the first time in the election to the Azerbaijani Parliament. "The number of polling stations in the liberated territories will be increased. 8 more polling stations were established yesterday. We pay special attention to the organization of the voting process for the parliamentary elections in the liberated territories," he added. On June 28, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree dissolving the sixth convocation of the Azerbaijani Parliament and scheduling a snap election for September 1. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Four dead in record torrential rains in South Korea Seoul, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 Parts of South Korea were battered by record rainfall typically seen just once every 200 years, the country's weather agency told AFP Wednesday, with the interior ministry reporting four dead. "Three regions saw rainfall at the highest level, the probability of which is seen about every 200 years," an official from South Korea's meteorological agency told AFP. Three areas -- Geumsan in South Chungcheong, Chupungnyeong in North Chungcheong and Gunsan in North Jeolla -- experienced some of the heaviest hourly downpours on record, weather department data showed. "This is not calculated based on past records," a spokesperson from the agency told AFP, adding that full records began in 1904. "When the intensity of precipitation is calculated by region, it shows that such an event would be expected to occur once in 200 years." In Gunsan, 131.7 mm (more than five inches) of rain fell within one hour early Wednesday -- more than 10 percent of the area's average annual precipitation. Some rivers overflowed and roads were flooded by heavy rain, images on South Korean broadcasters showed, with people seen wading through waist-deep water in some areas. The rainfall led to four deaths, the interior ministry said. Rescuers found a body trapped inside an elevator after a studio apartment was flooded in Nonsan, South Chungcheong, early Wednesday, Yonhap news agency reported. Another victim was found dead after being sucked into a drainage system while checking his crops in the city of Daegu, it said. One man in a car, returning home from tending to his cattle, was swept into a stream -- still inside his vehicle -- in North Chungcheong. His body was retrieved nearly three hours later. A man in his 70s died after a house collapsed in a landslide in Seocheon, the news agency reported. Train operators have suspended some services covering the southern region affected by the downpours. "I ask that people refrain from going to underground parking spaces, underpasses and streams during heavy rainfall," Interior Minister Lee Sang-min said in a statement. South Korea is in the middle of its summer monsoon season. The country is regularly hit by flooding during the summer monsoon period, but is typically well-prepared and the death toll is usually relatively low. Scientists say climate change has made weather events around the world more extreme and more frequent. Last July, more than a dozen people died when an underpass flooded, with waters sweeping in too quickly for the vehicles inside to escape. South Korea also endured record-breaking rains and flooding in 2022, which left more than 11 people dead. They included three people who died trapped in a Seoul basement apartment of the kind that became internationally known because of the Oscar-winning Korean film "Parasite". The government said at the time that the 2022 flooding was the heaviest rainfall since Seoul weather records began 115 years ago, blaming climate change for the extreme weather. Parts of South Sudan 'on brink of famine': charity Nairobi, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 Parts of South Sudan are on the "brink of famine" as the nation braces for a "horror scenario" ahead of the worst floods in decades, a British charity warned Wednesday. Since it gained independence in 2011, the world's newest nation has remained plagued by instability and violence, despite rich oil reserves. South Sudan is expected to "suffer its worst floods in 60 years that will drive parts of the country to the brink of famine," Save the Children said, citing data from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, established by USAID. "A horror scenario is unfolding in South Sudan," Save the Children country director Pornpun Jib Rabiltossaporn said. "In all likelihood we will see children start to die from hunger-related illnesses as the flooding takes hold," she said, warning of "imminent disaster". Many of those impacted have already faced years of conflict, hunger, rising food prices, and previous floods, the statement said. The 15-month conflict in Sudan has also seen an influx of refugees and returnees, placing even greater strain on the country's meagre resources and weak infrastructure. Famine was declared in South Sudan in 2017, affecting some 100,000 people in Unity state -- an area that has often been a flashpoint for violence. Around nine million people -- three-quarters of the total population -- are in need of humanitarian assistance in the country, the United Nations says. Plagued by feuding leaders and chronic instability, the country has spent almost half of its life as a nation at war. Some 400,000 people died and millions were displaced in the 2013-2018 civil war before President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar signed a peace deal and formed a unity government. Since then, the country has battled flooding, hunger, violence and political bickering as the promises of the peace agreement have failed to materialise. UN warns digital economy drive damaging environment Geneva, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024 The drive towards a digital economy comes at an environmental cost, the United Nations warned Wednesday, with big data centres consuming vast amounts of water and energy. While digitalisation fuels global economic growth, its environmental repercussions are becoming "increasingly severe", the UN trade and development agency UNCTAD said in a report. The agency called for sustainable strategies to counter the growing environmental toll, particularly in developing countries. "Digitalisation continues to move at warp speed, transforming lives and livelihoods. At the same time, unregulated digitalisation risks leaving people behind and exacerbating environmental and climate challenges," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in the report. He cautioned that increased reliance on digital tools was directly impacting the environment, from depleting raw materials, consuming water and energy, spewing air pollution, and generating waste. "These are accentuated by emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence," he said. Data remains sketchy on how rapidly-evolving AI is affecting the environment. UNCTAD chief Rebeca Grynspan called on the world's biggest tech companies to lead the way by producing standardised data. Google recently reported a 48-percent-increase in its greenhouse gas emissions over the five years to 2023, attributed to powering data centres that support AI operations. Similarly, Microsoft's latest sustainability report showed a 29-percent-increase in greenhouse gas emissions last year compared to 2020. Google and Microsoft have each pledged to become carbon neutral by the end of this decade. - Rush to AI - US investment bank Goldman Sachs last month said the promise of generative AI technology was leading tech giants to spend an estimated $1 trillion on capital expenditure in the coming years, including investments in data centres, chips and other infrastructure. "But this spending has little to show for it so far," it said, with questions over "whether this large spend will ever pay off in terms of AI benefits and returns". Shamika Sirimanne, UNCTAD's director of technology and logistics, said the question of what AI should be used for -- whether for public good or for search engines, marketing or selling t-shirts -- "hasn't happened yet". "But before it is too late, we need to embark on this conversation". In its Digital Economy Report 2024, UNCTAD gave a few examples of digital economy impacts on the environment. The report said the information and communications technology sector emitted between 0.69 and 1.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide in 2020. That represents 1.5 to 3.2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions -- about the same as air transport or shipping. Producing a two-kilogramme computer requires approximately 800 kilos of raw materials, it said. Demand for critical minerals like graphite, lithium, and cobalt could surge by 500 percent by 2050, said UNCTAD. - Bitcoin using more energy than Belgium - Data centres consumed 460 terawatt hours of electricity in 2022, with consumption expected to double by 2026. The report said that in Ireland, data centre electricity use more than quadrupled between 2015 and 2022, and now accounts for 18 percent of the entire country's electricity consumption -- a figure that could rise to 28 percent by 2031. The global energy consumption of "mining" bitcoin, the most prominent cryptocurrency, rose about 34 times between 2015 and 2023 to reach an estimated 121 TWh. That puts bitcoin mining ahead of entire countries like Belgium and Finland, Grynspan told reporters. This, she said, is "not something that we can consider marginal". "Digitalisation is a welcome and necessary driver of global economic growth. But we need to do it in an inclusive and sustainable way," she concluded. "As rapid digitalisation escalates environmental concerns, it's now more urgent than ever to have the right policies in place so we can manage properly the impact on the environment." BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. During the voter list clarification process, it was established that as of June 28, 2024, Azerbaijan has 6,334,444 eligible voters, Assistant to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Head of the Department for Territorial and Organizational Issues of the Administration of the President Zeynal Naghdaliyev said, Trend reports. The official disclosed the information during a meeting with district election commission chairmen at the Central Election Commission. On June 28, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree dissolving the sixth convocation of the Azerbaijani Parliament and scheduling a snap election for September 1. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. The snap parliamentary election in Azerbaijan should ensure equal campaigning conditions for all candidates, Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Head of the Department for Territorial and Organizational Issues of the Administration Zeynal Naghdaliyev said at a meeting for chairmen of district election commissions at the CEC, Trend reports. He claims that this matter has been communicated to the local executive authorities. "We anticipate finishing these tasks by August 9," Naghdaliyev said. The assistant to the President noted that one of the most crucial issues is the clarification of voter lists. "Relevant structures should continue the process. Today the number of voters has increased by 22.2 percent. This is the data as of June 28," he added. To note, on June 28, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree dissolving the sixth convocation of the Azerbaijani Parliament and scheduling a snap election for September 1. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Henry Bradsher is a retired journalist who covered the Middle East, Asia and the southern United States. The rekindled nuclear debate in Australia has stirred old memories in some of a little-known chapter of our regions history, when the US Navy quietly installed what today we might call a small modular reactor at the US Antarctic base on Ross Island. The machine, nicknamed Nukey Poo by the technicians who looked after it, was installed at McMurdo base in 1961, when Antarctic exploration was expanding and nuclear energy had developed a bright futuristic sheen. Components of the PM-3A nuclear reactor, later given the nickname Nukey Poo, arrive in Antarctica in 1961. Things did not end well. Back then, as now, Antarctic missions relied upon lifelines with distant homes. Supplies had to be carried long and sometimes dangerous distances. The US kept its Antarctic sites supplied via an ongoing supply mission called Operation Deep Freeze, which was based at the McMurdo Naval Air Facility. A shout-out to media lawyer Peter Llewellyn Bartlett, who is celebrating 50 years as a partner in legal firm MinterEllison a milestone unlikely to be surpassed. Bartlett has worked on some of the biggest legal cases in Australian history, involving Kerry Packer, Abe Saffron, Mick Gatto, Tony Madafferi, Justice Lionel Murphy, Robert Trimbole, Christopher Dale Flannery, Dr Geoffrey Edelsten and Roger Rogerson. He also acted for the widow of Donald McKay in the special inquiry into his murder. MinterEllison lawyer Peter Bartlett with a copy of The Age from 1980, when the paper pulled a story about the Anzus Papers for legal reasons and replaced it with an advertisement. Credit: Paul Rovere He completed his articles in 1972, was admitted to practice in 1973 and was made a partner at the law firm that is now MinterEllison in 1974, where he has worked with some 19 editors of The Age. Bartlett grew up in Warburton in the Yarra Ranges, where his mother opened a shop after his timber-cutter father suffered a stroke. He didnt even understand what a lawyer did, but his aunt told him it would be a worthy profession. In contrast, there are no police who live in Carlton North, Ivanhoe East or Princes Hill, three or fewer in East Melbourne and Middle Park, and four in Albert Park and Cremorne. The map below shows how many police live in each suburb; if you click the tab, you can see an alternative view of the data showing how police officers rank when it comes to the most common jobs in each area. Overall, being a police officer is the 44th most common job in Victoria, so areas shaded yellow, orange or red have a lower percentage of police among their residents relative to the entire state. It was a similar story for teachers. The top 10 suburbs for primary school teachers were an average of 40 kilometres from the city. Berwick had the most primary school teachers of any Melbourne suburb (448), followed by Sunbury (415). While primary school teachers are Victorias fifth most common job, they were the third most common occupation in these two suburbs. But in a cluster of inner-city suburbs, there were fewer teachers and they ranked lower down the list in the most common jobs. In Melbournes CBD, primary school teacher is the 70th most common job. It is 90th in Parkville, 34th in Carlton and 32nd in Toorak. Aged or disability care workers most commonly live in Craigieburn, Pakenham, Tarneit, Clyde North and Frankston, and the top 10 suburbs for aged carers were an average of 43 kilometres from the city. And while aged or disability carer ranks as the third most common job in Victoria, it ranked lower than 10th in all suburbs within a five-kilometre radius of the CBD. In Middle Park, there are seven aged or disability carers, and the occupation ranks as the 76th most common in the area, while neighbouring Albert Park and St Kilda West count fewer than three aged care workers among their residents. Research by Sydney University academics Catherine Gilbert, Zahra Nasreen and Nicole Gurran shows there are now no local government areas in Melbourne with a median house price that is affordable to an early career essential worker. Loading Even median prices for townhouses and apartments (strata-titled properties) are largely unaffordable. The study of 21 essential service worker occupations, covering more than 350,000 people in Melbourne and Geelong, found more than 600 police who work in inner Melbourne commute from Geelong and Mornington Peninsula. It shows Melbournes inner east lost an extraordinary 11 per cent of its essential service worker residents between 2016 and 2021, while inner Melbourne lost 9 per cent. Lead author Catherine Gilbert said essential workers needed to be physically present for their work, often for shifts outside normal hours. She said long commutes to areas of high service demand closer to the city place an additional layer of stress on essential workers. Housing affordability has been having a compounding effect on workplace stress and the effects of long-distance commuting, Gilbert said. It will come down to having more designated affordable housing near the city that key workers can actually access. Modelling by Infrastructure Victoria also shows buying a house anywhere near the city, or even in Melbournes middle suburbs, is now out of the question for a household earning $88,021 a year a typical wage for many essential service workers. Infrastructure Victoria chief executive Jonathan Spear says a lack of available housing for people on low and moderate incomes had pushed people further away from jobs, schools and public transport, locking them in with more travel time in the car. The Ages analysis suggests essential service workers are increasingly being forced to travel large distances to work. The analysis shows the top 10 suburbs for police home to a total of 1267 officers were located an average of 49 kilometres from the city. The top 10 suburbs for paramedics were an average of 39 kilometres from the CBD, while the top 10 suburbs for primary school teachers were an average of 40 kilometres from the city. In Melbourne as a whole, 15.2 per cent of workers travel more than 30 kilometres to get to work. But in Sunbury, the figure is 44.9 per cent. In Clyde North, about 55 kilometres south-east of the CBD, more than half of all police and aged care nurses, and 46 per cent of critical care nurses, travel more than 30 kilometres to get to work. Washington: A woman accused of using the severed thumb of her sugar daddy to steal money from his bank account and pay for Uber rides, marijuana and alcohol faces a charge of first-degree murder over the mans killing. Police found Fasil Teklemariam, 53, in his apartment in Washington, DC, on April 5 with several traumatic injuries and a missing right thumb, charging documents say. An autopsy determined he had suffered multiple blunt-force fractures to his head, several lacerations and a stab wound. It was also determined that Teklemariam had been killed two to five days before police found him and that his thumb had been severed shortly before or after his death. Suspect Audrey Denise Miller is seen on CCTV footage tendered to the court with Fasil Teklemariam entering his apartment building on April 1. Credit: NBC News Police are investigating at least four suspects seen on surveillance footage entering Teklemariams apartment and carrying items out of it in the days before police found him dead, according to charging documents. Celebrating 15 Years of Defying Expectations New Rimac Nevera 15th Anniversary Edition In 2009, Mate Rimac started Rimac Automobili having been told not to bother building a car company in Croatia aA it was impossible. In 2011 he set a whole host of world records in his self-converted all-electric BMW based on an 1984 3-series, having been told all he was building was a washing machine. Then, in 2018, Rimac Automobili announced the worldas first all-electric hypercar, with performance figures the world said could never be achieved. But just three years later, that car became the Nevera and overshot every single one of those targets, becoming the ultimate record-breaking hypercar and defining an entirely new performance experience. To celebrate 15 years of achieving the impossible, a limited-run iteration of the Rimac Nevera has been revealed: the 15^th Anniversary Edition. Only nine bespoke examples will ever be built, with the first car finished in a new shade of copper, debuting matte paintwork on the Nevera for the first time. The copper shade has been specifically developed for its connections not only with times of celebration, but also to energy, as well as its more practical application as the material most widely used in electrical cables. A new full visible carbon fiber split provides a striking gloss contrast, both in texture and in color. Each of the nine is connected through a number of consistent features, including the exclusive dual-color alloy wheel design, 15 Years Anniversary badging and the distinctive Rimac pattern aA which mimics the connections of a circuit board a running the length of the car.A The interior of the 15 Years Anniversary Edition features copper anodized switchgear and copper-painted surfaces to complement its celebratory exterior. Special one-of-nine and a2009-2024a script adorns the armrest, marking this special edition apart from other Nevera models. The cabin itself can be finished in bold black or pristine white, with the seats featuring a contrasting copper leather and a15a embossed into the headrests. The price of a2,350,000 includes all options, along with bespoke luggage that matches the interior of the customeras Nevera. The first of the nine exclusive units will make its debut at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed. This customer car will take on the iconic hill climb, the very course where the Nevera Time Attack edition set the Production Car record in 2023 with an impressive time of 49.32 seconds. Mate Rimac, CEO of the Rimac Group, said: aHonestly, when I started to tinker with my first car in a garage, I couldnat have even dreamt of being where we are 15 years later. There were so many times in the early years that we really thought the company wouldnat make it, so reaching the 15-year milestone felt like it was worthy of a celebration. The 15th Anniversary Edition Nevera is the car that marks our progress, revelling just how far weave come. From garage to global; from worrying about keeping the lights on to a 2bn EUR valuation; from converted BMW 3 Series to the worldas fastest accelerating production car and from hypercar maker to Tier 1 EV tech supplier and energy storage pioneers. All achieved in a country where all of this would have sounded like science fiction at the time of founding the company.a??? Since it was incorporated, the Rimac brand has gone from one manas dream to a host of companies with over 2,200 employees., working out of sites across four countries in Europe. Today, the Rimac Group incorporates Bugatti Rimac,A the worldas ultimate hypercar company, Rimac Technology, which is a Tier 1 supplier to the global car manufacturers and Rimac Energy; an innovative stationary energy storage business. Phase 1 of the Rimac Campus, a 100,000 m^2 HQ and production facility on the outskirts of Zagreb, is already complete with Phase 2 shortly underway. Already, a second facility in addition to the Campus is planned to accommodate growing demand for Rimac Group projects. But despite its incredible growth and diversity, the Rimac Group exists because of Mateas desire to build the all-electric hypercar of his dreams: the Nevera. With his dream achieved, the Nevera has become just one shining star within the broader Rimac Group universe, informing the world-leading innovations of Rimac Technology, Rimac Energy and Bugatti Rimac.A A A completely bespoke creation, the Rimac Nevera is the most powerful production car in the world and last year alone had set 27 performance records. Key to the Neveraas speed is its advanced battery system, powertrain and software, all developed in-house at the Rimac Group. The front and rear powertrains a each composed of two individual motors a provide power to each wheel individually. At the rear, a 1MW dual inverter enables 900Nm and 450kW per motor, while an entirely bespoke front powertrain is designed to deliver optimum power and control. All systems are overseen by a complex web of in-house developed electronic control units, working in conjunction with an NVIDIA Pegasus-based supercomputer to calculate and send output to the four powertrain systems 100 times a second. The combination of all these systems, and the software that controls them, is known as Rimac All-Wheel Torque Vectoring 2. 15 Years of Rimac Automobili A 2009 a 2010 The Garage Phase After Mateas old 1984 BMW E30 suffered an engine failure, he converts it into an electric car and races against the traditional race cars, proving the potential of electric drivetrains. The idea of an electric supercar is born. A 2011 Setting World Records Mate Rimac sets 5 Guinness and FIA World records for the fastest accelerating electric car. A 2011 Rimac Automobili is Born The prototype Concept_One was first shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show as the worldas first all-electric supercar. The car was built in 5 months by the early team of 8 people, the companyas first employees. A 2013 a 2014 Getting Traction Delivery of the first car developed and manufactured for another automotive company a exporting the first car ever made in Croatia. This was the companyas first profitable year. A-round of investment completed. A Concept_One prototype goes around the world as the FIA Formula E Race Directoras car. A 2015 Racing to the Clouds Rimac designs, engineers and manufactures the Rimac Tajima e-Runner, to tackle the world-famous Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. The team achieves second best time, ahead of all the ICE race cars. The team is now 100-people strong. A 2016 First production car The first customer Concept_One delivered, with 7 more to follow. Concept_One beats some of the most powerful cars to that day. A 2017 Breaking new ground A near miss in the Swiss mountains. New investment round opened by Asiaas largest battery manufacturer. As an electrification partner to global OEMs, Rimac intensifies work on new technology projects. The company passed the 250 employees mark. A 2018 The next generation The C_Two, today known as the Nevera, was launched at the Geneva Motor Show with performance and character that elevates the genre. Porsche becomes a shareholder. With the team growing to over 400 employees, further expansion of the production facilities takes place. A 2019 a Future in the works The Nevera testing and homologation intensifies. Rimac continues to develop components for Aston Martin, Renault, Porsche, Cupra, Automobili Pininfarina, Koenigsegg and others. Hyundai Motor Group becomes a shareholder, while Porsche increases its stake in the company. The team grows to over 500 employees. A 2020 aA Fast Forward Testing and development of the Nevera continues. Despite the challenges of the global pandemic, and with the growing number of technology projects, the number of employees grows past the 850-people mark. A 2021 a The Milestone Year Announcement of future 100.000 m^2 Campus to begin construction in 2022. The company moves past the 1000 employees mark. The production version of the Nevera is launched with first customer deliveries by the end of the year. Rimac Automobili and Bugatti merge into Bugatti Rimac, the best hypercar company in the world, while Rimac Technology continues their work on EV components and pioneering technology. - 2022 aA The Perfect Storm The Rimac Group raises 500m EUR in a Series D investment round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The company Is values at 2bn euro. The first production-ready examples of the Nevera hit the streets, shortly after it breaks the world record for the fastest top speed for an electric road car: 412kph. 2023 a Time Attack The Nevera Time Attack Edition is revealed, celebrating a record-breaking year in which the Nevera smashed 23 performance records in a single day, set the production car record at Goodwood Hillclimb and lapped the NArburgring Nordschleife quicker than any other production EV before it. Rimac Energy is created as a separate brand, using battery innovations to transform the world of static energy storage. 2024 a The story continuesa Rimac Technology announces a major partnership with BMW to collaborate on next-generation battery packs for its future models. The first stage of the Rimac Campus is fully complete and operational. The Rimac brand celebrates its 15^th anniversary. About Rimac Automobili Rimac Automobili is one part of Bugatti Rimac. With Rimac Group as its majority shareholder, Bugatti Rimac brings together Rimacas distinctive agility, technical expertise and relentless innovation in the EV sphere, with Bugattias 115-year heritage of design and engineering some of the worldas most iconic hypercars. Founded in 2009 by Mate Rimac, the Rimac Automobili brand created the worldas first all-electric hypercar, the Concept_One, in 2011. In 2018, Rimac revealed the next-generation all-electric hypercar aA C_Two a which would evolve into the Nevera. Rimac Automobilias global headquarters is situated alongside Bugatti Rimac at the Rimac Groupas current base on the outskirts of Zagreb, Croatia. In time it will transition to the >a200M, 100.000 m^2A Rimac Campus, also serving as the home of Rimac Technology. Bugatti Rimac d.o.o.A A A |A A A Ljubljanska ulica 7, Brezje, 10431 Sveta Nedelja, Hrvatska/CroatiaA A A |A A A Tel: + 385 1 563 4592A A A |A A A Fax: +385 1 333 6698A A A |A A A info@bugatti-rimac.com ______________________ China-Europe Freight Train Service Linking N. China Cangzhou Huanghua Port, Moscow in Regular Operation CANGZHOU, China - July 9, 2024: A cargo train carrying 30 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers of goods departed on June 25 from Huanghua Port in Cangzhou, north China's Hebei Province, en route to Moscow, capital of Russia, marking the regular monthly operation of a new international route for the China-Europe freight train service. The 8,000-kilomter long China-Europe international freight train journey is expected take 15 days. The first Huanghua port-Moscow freight train service was launched on May 13th and operated regularly with monthly departures. The China-Europe freight train service connecting Huanghua port and Moscow is expected to assemble containers along the route from several cities including Cangzhou and Langfang in Hebei province, as well as Zibo, Qingdao, and Dezhou in east China's Shandong province. The cargo goods range from forklift trucks, tires, wheels, vehicle parts, to food packaging materials. Hailed as a paradigm of the "Belt and Road" initiative and win-win cooperation, the China-Europe freight train serves as a vital link between China and Europe, utilizing land bridges and fostering international cooperation along its route. Since its inception in 2016, the China-Europe freight train service has connected 112 cities within China, reached over 200 cities in 25 European countries and more than 100 cities in 11 Asian countries. The China-Europe freight train service has enhanced regional opening-up, expanded economic and trade exchanges, and improved people's well-being in countries along the routes. Cangzhou has vowed to boost logistics industry at Huanghua Port, in a bid to beef up regional and international economic development and communications. The regular operation of the China-Europe freight train linking Cangzhou Huanghua port and Moscow is a robust support for expanding the port's international reach, enhancing international trade routes, and promoting connectivity. This service significantly boosts bilateral and multilateral economic and trade cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European countries. As a key hub connecting Hebei province to markets in Europe and Asia, Cangzhou has strived to build up a new platform for supply chain collaboration, and optimize China-Europe freight train service to streamline logistics channels. Cangzhou, together with Huanghua Port's strategic location and logistical potential, continues to explore new international logistics pathways combining sea and rail, and contributes to Chinese endeavor to modernization. SOURCE Cangzhou Municipal Government BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Election stands among crucial factors of democratic society, Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Azerbaijan Farhad Abdullayev said at a meeting for the chairmen of district election commissions at the Central Election Commission in Baku today, Trend reports. According to him, compliance with the law is one of the most important aspects of successful election "The electoral process is a whole new ball game that's constantly changing and developing. The establishment of democratic election traditions in modern Azerbaijan is enshrined in the Constitution, crafted under the guidance of National Leader Heydar Aliyev and ratified in 1995. One of the crucial elements is the proper, crystal clear, and above-board conduct of the electoral process," he explained. To note, on June 28, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on the dissolution of the Azerbaijani Parliament of the sixth convocation and the appointment of an extraordinary election to the Azerbaijani Parliament. The extraordinary election is scheduled for September 1, 2024. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia Javier Colomina have met on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, DC, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan said, Trend reports. The successful continuation of the 30-year partnership within the NATO Partnership for Peace (PFP), which defines Azerbaijan's cooperation with NATO, was highlighted. Minister Bayramov, speaking about Azerbaijan's chairmanship of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), stated it is a clear example of Azerbaijan's commitment to addressing global challenges. He also provided an update on the current security situation in the region post-conflict, drawing attention to the mine threat in the territories of Azerbaijan liberated from occupation and the rapid arming of Armenia. It was noted that Azerbaijan, as the initiator of the peace process with Armenia, is committed to establishing peace and stability in the region. Despite significant progress in the draft peace agreement, it was emphasized that Armenia's constitution still contains claims on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan. During the meeting, the sides also exchanged views on other issues of mutual interest. 11:37 Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia Javier Colomina have met on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, DC, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan said, Trend reports. "Various aspects of Azerbaijan-NATO partnership, including energy security, critical infrastructure protection, military education and training, humanitarian demining were discussed. Azerbaijan-Armenia peace process, as well as regional and international security situation and challenges, were also on the agenda," the ministry's publication reads. To note, the summit is dedicated to NATO's celebration of 75 years of collective defense. Since its creation on April 4, 1949, NATO has grown from 12 founding members to 32 countries, all working together for collective safety. United by democracy, individual liberty, human rights, and the rule of law, NATO celebrates its anniversary on April 4 in Brussels and at the summit on July 9-11 in Washington, DC, where the founding treaty was signed. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. The structure of the Supervisory Board of the Restoration, Construction and Management Service in Kalbajar district has been approved, Trend reports. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed the corresponding decree in this regard. According to the decree of the President, the Supervisory Board of the "Restoration, Construction and Management Service in the Kalbajar District" legal entity of public law was approved in the following composition: Chairman of the Supervisory Board: Bashir Hajiyev - Special Representative of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the Kalbajar district Members of the Supervisory Board: Elnur Aliyev - First Deputy Minister of Economy of the Republic of Azerbaijan Sarvan Jafarov - Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan Namig Hummatov - First Deputy Chairman of the State Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Urban Planning and Architecture Azada Huseynova - Deputy Chairman of the State Tourism Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Amarwara By-poll: Campaigning over, Voting today By Bhavana Aparajita : I am sure of win in Amarwara like in Chhindwara: CM Chief Minister Mohan Yadav expressed confidence in winning the Amarwara by-election. The Chief Minister said the BJP will win Amarwara like it won Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat recently. The way people are responding to the BJPs development works, I am sure that we will win Amarwara like Chhindwara Lok Sabha. Kamal Nath vows to take revenge of LS defeat This (the Lok Sabha) election is not a betrayal of Kamal Nath but of each person here. All members of our family were betrayed. This is the election of betrayal and you will have to take its revenge, former Chief Minister Kamal Nath said. Shukla Unlike Lok Sabha elections 2024, this time Pradesh Congress Committee President Jeetu Patwari carried out an aggressive campaign in Amarwara. During Lok Sabha elections, it seemed that it was Nath family versus BJP election. It is evident that both the Congress and the BJP are pulling out all stops for this by-election. Before the end of high-pitched campaign on Monday, most of the heavyweight leaders of BJP did campaign there. By-poll are scheduled on July 10. The result of the by-election will be announced on July 13. Chief Minister Dr Mohan Yadav sought vote on regional as well as national issues. He took on Rahul Gandhi in a veiled attack saying Congress leaders sitting in Delhi compared Hindu community with terrorists. Addressing a public gathering in Amarwara, the Chief Minister said that Sadhu-Sanyasi gives blessings to the BJP because we respect them. Our culture is to respect priests like God and in return, we receive blessings from them. Congress leaders compare the Hindu community with terrorists, but their (Congress) plan to divide the people wont be successful, the Chief Minister said. Even though the Amarwara Assembly seat has long been a Congress stronghold, the BJP managed to win it in 2008, and the GGP in 2003. An upbeat BJP is leaving no stone turned to win this by-elections. BJP has fielded Congress turncoat Kamlesh Shah. On other, hurt with humiliating defeat (not in sense of voting margin, breaching the Kamal Naths citadel) in Chhindwara in Lok Sabha elections, senior and seasoned leader Kamal Nath returned to campaigning last week, with emotional appeals to seek votes for Congress candidate Dheernsha Invati. The Congress has fielded a new face. The by-poll in Amarwara was necessitated after a three-term Congress MLA and an erstwhile confidant of Kamal Nath Kamlesh Shah switched to BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Vivek Bunty Sahu defeated Kamal Naths son, Nakul Nath, by over 1.13 lakh votes in the Lok Sabha election. Chhindwara known as Kamal Naths stronghold. Kamal Nath has represented Chhindwara nine times. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Washington, D.C. has hosted a meeting between Azerbaijan's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov, and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan, Trend reports. "Within the framework of NATO75 Summit, Azerbaijan-Armenia negotiations on the agreement on peace and establishment of interstate relations between the two countries have just started in Washington D.C. with the participation of Foreign Ministers Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan at the initiative and with the participation of U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken," Azerbaijani MFA wrote on its page on X ahead of the meeting. The NATO summit, featuring 32 NATO member countries, partner nations, and the European Union, will take place in Washington, D.C., from July 9 to 11. The summit, themed "Ukraine and Transatlantic Security," also marks NATO's 75th anniversary. Seventy-five years ago, 12 countries gathered in Washington to sign the North Atlantic Treaty. Will be updated Attack on Army convoy in Kathua deserves FIRM COUNTER-MEASURES: Murmu NEW DELHI : PRESIDENT Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday termed the terrorist attack on an Army convoy in Jammu and Kashmir a cowardly act and said it deserved condemnation and firm counter-measures. Five Army personnel were killed and as many injured on Monday when a group of heavily-armed terrorists ambushed a patrolling party in the Badnota area in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir. This terror attack was the fifth in the Jammu region in a month. In a post on X, Murmu said, My sympathies are with the families of the bravehearts who laid down their lives in this ongoing war against terror in its all forms. I pray for the speedy recovery of those injured. The attack on a convoy of Army personnel in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir by terrorists is a cowardly act that deserves condemnation and firm counter-measures. My sympathies are with the families of the bravehearts who laid down their lives in this ongoing war against terror in its all forms. I pray for the speedy recovery of those injured, the President said. KILLING OF 5 ARMYMEN IN KATHUA WILL NOT GO UNAVENGED: GOVT: THE killing of five Army personnel in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmirs Kathua district will not go unavenged and India will defeat the evil forces behind it, Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane said on Tuesday. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh expressed deep anguish over the killing of the soldiers and asserted that the armed forces are determined to usher in peace in the region. ndia-Austria friendship to get stronger in times to come: says PM Modi ahead of his official talks with Austrian Chancellor Vienna, Jul 10 (PTI) The India-Austria friendship is strong, and it will get even stronger in the times to come, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said ahead of his official meeting with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Wednesday to tap the full potential of the bilateral partnership. Modi arrived here from Moscow on Tuesday evening on a two-day visit, the first by an Indian prime minister in over 40 years. Modi was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport. On Tuesday, Modi met Nehammer for a private engagement "An important milestone in India-Austria partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnership lie ahead," MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X, along with photographs of the two leaders together in Vienna. Modi was seen hugging Nehammer in one of the photos, while in another, the Austrian chancellor was seen clicking a selfie with the prime minister. Nehammer posted a photo of him and Modi on the microblogging platform and said: "Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!" The prime minister thanked the Austrian chancellor "for the warm welcome" and said he looks forward to "our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good". In another post on X, Modi said: "Happy to meet you in Vienna, Chancellor @karlnehammer. The India-Austria friendship is strong and it will get even stronger in the times to come." This is the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Austria in more than 40 years, the last being of Indira Gandhi in 1983. During Modi's visit to Austria, the two countries will explore ways to further deepen their relationship and closer cooperation on various geopolitical challenges. Earlier, the prime minister said on X: "Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria, including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more." In an earlier post on X, the MEA spokesperson said, "As the two countries are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will add renewed momentum to India-Austria ties." Australian artists welcomed Modi with a rendition of Vande Mataram. The choir and orchestra were led by Vijay Upadhyaya. Upadhyaya, 57, was born in Lucknow. In 1994 he became director of the Vienna University Philharmony. He is the Austrian representative on the jury of experts for the evaluation of European Union culture projects and is the founder and artistic director of the India National Youth Orchestra. "Austria is known for its vibrant musical culture. I got a glimpse of it thanks to this amazing rendition of Vande Mataram!" Modi posted on X with the video. Modi will call on the President of the Republic of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and hold talks with Nehammer on Wednesday. The prime minister and the chancellor will also address business leaders from India and Austria. Ahead of his visit to Austria, Modi on Sunday said the shared values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law form the bedrock upon which the two countries will build an ever-closer partnership. KILLER ACCIDENTS CLAIMFOUR Staff Reporter : FATALITIES on the thoroughfares in the Second Capital continue unabated with four young men losing their lives and three others suffering serious injuries in three unrelated road accidents, including two hit-n-run cases reported in the past twenty four hours. In the first hit-n-run incident, a rashly-driven tipper (MH-40/CT-4566) crushed a motorcyclist to death in the Kapil Nagar area Monday afternoon. Identified as Bhavesh Ravindra Bharne (27), the deceased was a resident of Flat No 606, Vidarbha Complex, near Sangam Talkies. Bhavesh was going on a Hero Honda motorcycle (MH40/CV-6967) around 12.15 pm. Near the petrol pump at Kamgar Nagar Square, the recklessly-driven tipper hit Bhavesh killing him on the spot. The tipper driver, Radheshyam Hiralal Rahangdale (53), a resident of Kandri, Kanhan, sped away fearing public violence. On the basis of the information given by Kartik Bharne (24), younger brother of the deceased, Kapil Nagar Police registered a case under Sections 106(1), 281 of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), read with Sections 134, 177 of the Motor Vehicle (MV ) Act, against the tipper driver. In the second such incident, a speeding motor vehicle knocked a pedestrian dead when he was crossing the road after parking his two-wheeler on Tarodi Khurd flyover on Jabalpur-Hyderabad highway in Wathoda area Monday evening. The deceased, Prakash Ashok Mahant (29), was a resident of Tulsi Nagar, near Hanuman Mandir, Bhandewadi. Around 5 pm, Prakash parked his Honda Activa (MH49/CE-5120) on the flyover and was crossing the road. Suddenly, a speeding motor vehicle hit Prakash killing him instantaneously. Fearing arrest, the driver of the killer vehicle fled the spot. W a t h o d a Police registered a case underSections 106(2), 281 of the BNS, read withSections 134, 177of the MV Act, following a complaint lodged bythe deceasedsbrother RakeshMahant. In anotheraccident that took place nearPanjara in Koradi area, two students were killedand three otherssustained serious injuries after a speeding Maruti Swift car (MH-40/AR7040) they were travelling in somersaulted thrice after hitting the roadside railing in the small hours of Tuesday. Identified as Aditya Pramod Punyapawar (19) and Vikram alias Ayush Madhukar Gade (19), the deceased were the residents of Koradi. Injured Jai Bhongade (18), Sujal Manwatkar (19) and Sujal Chauhan (19), also the residents of Koradi, are battling for their lives at Neuron Hospital. The victims were students and were returning to Koradi after enjoying a party. Jai Bhongade, who was driving the car at a high speed, lost control of the vehicle and collided with the railing near the service road. The impact of the collision was so intense that the car somersaulted thrice and finally turned turtle killing Aditya and Vikram alias Ayush on the spot and injuring Jai Bhongade, Sujal Manwatkar and Sujal Chauhan. Koradi Police investigating the incident told The Hitavada that Vikram Gade was a law student while while Aditya was a second year student of Sone College of Pharmacy, Mahadula. A native of Chamorshi, district Gadchiroli, Aditya was staying in a rented room. Injured Jai Bhongade and Sujal Chauhan are the second year BTech students while Sujay Manwatkar is second year MBBS student. Mock security drill conducted at RSS HQ Staff Reporter : TO CHECK the anti-terror preparedness of the forces, a strongcontingent of the elite National Security Guards (NSG), alongwith the city police and other national and state securityagencies conducted a joint mock drill at Smriti Mandir inReshimbag on Tuesday. Hundreds of armed security personnel cordoned off thepremises of Smriti Mandir and Pandurang Bhavan of theRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since morning for thejoint exercise. Besides Central forces, the quick response teamsand bomb detection and disposal squad participated in thedrill that continued till evening. Earlier also, similar exercise was carried out at RSSHeadquarters, Mahal, in view of the potential threats fromPakistans Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI)-backed terrorist organisations. A senior police official told The Hitavada the joint excercise was to ensure full preparedness to thwart the nefariousdesigns of the Pak-backed terrorist organisations. MUMBAI BMW HIT-AND-RUN CASE Police arrest Mihir Shah Mihirs mother and 2 sisters also detained MUMBAI : MIHIR Shah, the absconding accused in the BMW hit-andrun case and son of a Shiv Sena politician, was arrested on Tuesday by Mumbai Police, two days after he allegedly rammed his luxury car into a two-wheeler, killing a woman and injuring her husband. Mihir, 24, who managed to evade the police since Sunday morning, was arrested from Virar near Mumbai, a senior police official said. Mihirs mother and two sisters were brought to Mumbai for questioning from Shahapur in Thane district. They are being quizzed along with 10 others, the official added. The police stated that Mihir Shahs politician father Rajesh Shah actively ensured his sons escape and had plans to tow away the BMW car after the accident. In a related development, the State Excise Department has sealed a bar in the Juhu area of Mumbai visited by Mihir and his friends on Saturday night, hours before he allegedly took the wheel of the car involved in the crash, an official said. The bar manager had served hard liquor to Mihir, who is yet to complete 24 years of age, violating Maharashtras legal drinking age of 25, he said. The action to seal the bar was taken on the orders of the district collector for violation of rules, the excise department official said. Preliminary investigations showed that the luxury car driven by Mihir rammed into a twowheeler from behind in the Worli area on Sunday morning, resulting in the death of Kaveri Nakhwa (45), who was riding pillion, while her husband Pradeep survived with injuries. Kaveri Nakhwa was dragged for around 1.5 km by the speeding car before Mihir pulled it over, swapped the seat with his driver, and fled in another vehicle, according to police. Following the crash, Mumbai Police formed 11 teams and enlisted the Crime Branch to apprehend Mihir. A Look Out Circular (LOC) had also been issued against him, the official said. EXCISE DEPT SEALSVICE GLOBALTAPAS BARWHERE MAIN ACCUSED HELD PARTY: The Excise Department has sealed the Vice Global Tapas Bar in Juhu and questioned some of the staff along with the bar owner in the Worli hit-and-run case. Notably, it is the same bar in Juhu where the main accused Mihir Shah, had a party with his four friends. Muslim women can get maintenance from spouse under 'religion neutral' Section 125 of CrpC: SC New Delhi, Jul 9 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a Muslim woman can seek maintenance from her husband under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and said the "secular and religion neutral" provision is applicable to all married women irrespective of their religion. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 will not prevail over the secular law, a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih said. "We are hereby dismissing the criminal appeal with the major conclusion that Section 125 would be applicable to all women...," Justice Nagarathna said while pronouncing the verdict. The two judges gave separate but concurring verdicts. Section 125 of the erstwhile CrPC, which deals with a wife's legal right to maintenance, covers Muslim women, the bench said. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 will not prevail over the secular and religion neutral provision of Section 125 of CrPC, it said while stressing that maintenance is not charity but the right of all married women. The apex court dismissed the petition of a Mohammed Abdul Samad, who has challenged a Telangana High Court order refusing to interfere with the maintenance order of the family court. He contended that a divorced Muslim woman is not entitled for maintenance under Section 125 of CrPC and has to invoke the provisions of the 1986 Act. The bench had reserved its verdict on February 19 after hearing senior advocate Wasim Qadri for the petitioner. It had appointed advocate Gaurav Agarwal as amicus curiae in the matter to assist the court. Qadri had submitted that the 1986 Act is more beneficial to Muslim woman as compared to Section 125 of the CrPC. On December 13, 2023, the high court did not set aside the direction of the family court for payment of interim maintenance by Samad to his estranged wife but reduced the amount from Rs 20,000 to Rs 10,000 per month, to be paid from the date of petition. Samad contended before the high court that they got divorced in accordance with personal laws in 2017 and there was a divorce certificate to that effect, but it was not considered by the Family Court, which ordered for payment of interim maintenance. Aggrieved by the high court's order, Samad approached the top court. NIA team in Kathua to probe ambush on Army convoy KATHUA : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday arrived at the incident site where an Army convoy was ambushed in the Kathua district of Jammu & Kashmir in which five Army personnel, including a junior commissioned officer, lost their lives on July 8. In the attack, five others sustained injuries in a terrorist ambush on a routine patrol vehicle near Badnota village on Monday. Meanwhile, security has been tightened along the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway following the attack. Following the attack, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel have been deployed along the National Highway (NH44) in Udhampur. This measure was taken as the 11th batch of Amarnath Yatra pilgrims passed through Udhampur on Tuesday morning. Multi-layered security arrangements have been put in place by the security forces to ensure the safety of the pilgrims. Security cordon tightened as encounter ends in J&Ks Doda: SECURITY forces tightened their cordon around a forest area in the higher reaches of Doda district Tuesday evening following an encounter with hiding terrorists, officials said. Preliminary information revealed that at least two terrorists were hit by the retaliatory action and it is premature to say whether they are dead or injured, a police officer said. The gunfight between the two sides began in the Ghadi Bhagwah forest, 35 km east of Doda town bordering Kishtwar district, this evening when police assisted by the Army launched a joint search and cordon operation after a tipoff about the presence of terrorists in the area, the officials said. Heavy firing continued for a couple of hours before the guns fell silent, the police officer said. He said the search operation was temporarily suspended for the night and will be resumed Wednesday morning to get a clear picture of the situation. The encounter in Doda comes barely a day after five army personnel, including a junior commissioned officer, were killed and an equal number injured in an ambush by terrorists in Kathua district. This was the fourth encounter in Doda district since June 12. While three foreign terrorists were killed in a day-long operation in the Gandoh area of the district on June 26, five army personnel and a special police officer were injured in a fierce gunfight in Chattargalla pass on June 12. Another policeman was injured when terrorists opened fire on a search party in Gandoh the next day. NO ACTION TAKENDespite Centres direction, State fails to reducepolluted stretches of Kanhan, Kolar rivers Staff Reporter : DESPITE directions from the Central Monitoring Committee (CMC) for time bound implementation of Action Plan for polluted river stretches in Nagpur division and to take necessary actions for restoring the water quality of the polluted rivers, the Government of Maharashtra failed to improve the water quality of Kanhan and Kolar rivers even after five years of implementation of the action plan. In the 18th review meeting of CMC which was constituted by National Mission for Clean Ganga, Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation (DWRRD&GR), Ministry of Jal Shakti, held in January this year, expressed unsatisfaction on the progress on cleaning of polluted river stretches in the all over Maharashtra. DWRRD&GR distributed all polluted river stretches in the country in five categories that are Priority I to V. Kanhan and Kolar rivers of Nagpur division come under the Priority III category. According to MPCB, the pH level of polluted stretches of Kanhan river which was calculated in December 2023 was highest in last eight years. The pH level of the river in December 2023 was 8.5. The BOD level in the river has decreased as compared to previous years which is a good sign. However, authorities have failed to abate pollution levels in Kolar river in almost every month in 2023. According to the Action Plan for cleaning of polluted stretches of Kanhan River which was prepared in 2019, the administration should have to achieve the river water quality of bathing standards by 2022 and augmentation of river flow and restoration of water quality by 2023. However, both plans are yet to be achieved by the authorities as the sewage is openly flowing into Kanhan and Kolar river even after five years of the Action Plan. We are working hard for strict implementation of the rules. We imposed fines to local bodies and industries who are releasing sewage in the river. But, there is a need of seriousness among the local bodies to achieve the target allotted by the government, Hema Deshpande, Regional Officer, MPCB told The Hitavada. According to National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, Maharashtra had 53 polluted river stretches in 2018 which has now increased upto 55 in 2022. Earlier, the sewage generation in Maharashtra was 9,758 MLD which was revised to 8,193 MLD in 2023, and now in 2024 it has been reported to be 10,547 MLD. In the review meeting, the CMC also asked the State Government to provide action proposed for enhancing the utilisation capacity of the existing STPs along with timelines. Panel for reopening of Puri Jagannath temples Ratna Bhandar on July 14 BHUBANESWAR : THE high-level committee, set up to supervise the listing of jewellery and other valuable items stored in Ratna Bhandar (treasury) of Puri Jagannath temple, on Tuesday recommended the reopening of the inner chamber of the treasury on July 14, panel chairman Justice Biswanath Rath said. The recommendation will be sent to the temple managing committee, which will forward it to the Odisha government for approval, he said. The temple treasury was last opened 46 years ago in 1978 and the reopening of it was a major political issue in the state during the recently concluded elections. We have unanimously decided that the committee would request the government to reopen the inner chamber of the Ratna Bhandar on July 14, Rath said after a committee meeting. The chief administrator of Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA), who is the member convenor of the panel, was asked to produce the duplicate key of the Ratna Bhandar before the committee, Rath said. However, the SJTA administration could not produce the duplicate key as the temple authority was busy conducting Rath Yatra. The chief administrator is now asked to submit the key before the panel on July 14, Rath said. It was also decided that the treasury would be opened by breaking the lock if the duplicate key fails to unlock it, he said. A detailed discussion was held on several standard operating procedures (SOPs) needed for making an inventory of ornaments and repairing the Ratna Bhandar. The minutes of the meeting will be sent to the temple managing committee, which will send it to the Govt for approval. After that, the Ratna Bhandar can be opened, Rath said. The BJP had promised to reopen the Ratna Bhandar for necessary repair work and make an inventory after it came to power in Odisha. A consensus was reached that the ornaments and other valuable items of Lord Jagannath will be shifted to a designated place on the temple premises during the repair work of the treasury, he said. The committee chairman said that making the inventory of ornaments and jewellery items is a time-consuming process and the state government first needs to provide all logistic support. We will examine the nature, character and weight of the ornaments, he stated. After getting opinions from all members of the panel, SOPs will be prepared and sent to the government for its approval, Rath said. The SOPs are prepared while considering that rituals of the deities and darshan will not be affected. SUMMITTALKS Peace talks do not succeed amidstbombs, guns, bullets: Modi to Putin MOSCOW : DELIVERING an unambiguous message, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday told Russian President Vladimir Putin that a solution to the Ukraine conflict is not possible on the battlefield and peace talks do not succeed amidst bombs, guns and bullets. In his televised opening remarks at summit talks with Putin in the Kremlin, Modi, in an apparent reference to the bombing of a childrens hospital in Ukraine, said the death of innocent children is heartwrenching and very painful. The Indian Prime Minister assured the world community that India is on the side of peace and the conflict must be resolved through talks. For a bright future of the new generation, peace is most essential. A solution is not possible o n the battlefield..Peace talks do not succeed amidst bombs, guns and bullets, he said. For restoration of peace, India is ready to cooperate in all possible ways, Modi said. The 22nd India-Russia annual summit took place a day after Modi arrived in Moscow on a two-day visit that has been watched closely by the West in view of the Ukraine conflict. We would urge India, as we do (with) any country when it engages with Russia, to make clear that any resolution to the conflict in Ukraine needs to be one that respects the UN charter, that respects Ukraines territorial integrity, Ukraines sovereignty, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said in Washington ahead of Modi-Putin talks. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took objection to the Indian leader hugging President Putin. A Russian missile struck the largest childrens hospital in Ukraine, targeting young cancer patients. Many were buried under the rubble, Zelenskyy said on X. It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the worlds largest democracy hug the worlds most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day, he said. In his comments, Modi also referred to his informal meeting with Putin on Monday night and said listening to the Russian President lent hope. At our meeting yesterday, we listened to each others views on Ukraine and I also placed before you the Global Souths expectation on peace and stability, Modi said. The Prime Minister appreciated the India-Russia cooperation in averting food, fuel, and fertiliser shortages for Indians in the past few years. When the world was facing a shortage of food, fuel and fertilisers, we did not allow our farmers to face any problem and our friendship with Russia played a role in that, Modi said. We could insulate common citizens in India from difficulties in terms of availability of petrol and diesel because of your cooperation, he said, adding India wants its cooperation with Russia to expand further. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry congratulated Argentina on its National Day, Azernews reports, citing the post shared by the Azerbaijani ministry on X. "On the occasion of the National Day of Argentina, we congratulate the country and its people. Happy National Day, Argentina!" BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. The legal entity of public law, "Service of Restoration, Construction, and Management in the Kyalbajar District," has been established, Trend reports. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree in this regard. The decree of the head of state also approved the Charter of the "Service of Restoration, Construction, and Management in Kalbajar district". The full text of the decree can be found here. Will be updated BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Armenia and France continue abusing the International Organization of La Francophonie for their policies contrary to international law, Trend reports via the Western Azerbaijan Community's statement. The community made the statement commenting on a resolution accusing Azerbaijan of 'ethnic cleansing', adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of La Francophonie. In the statement, the community condemned the adoption of this biased and slanderous resolution. "The fact that Armenia, on the one hand, talks about peace, about a peace treaty, and, on the other hand, is engaged in such activities against Azerbaijan, raises a number of questions. The West Azerbaijan community calls for the International Organization of La Francophonie, whose main mission is to promote mutual understanding in the field of culture, not to be abused by some circles for the sake of its political agenda, the statement said. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Azerbaijan and Armenia are close to reaching a peace agreement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during trilateral meeting with foreign ministers of the two countries in Washington today, Trend reports. "Today I am very pleased to be together with the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia," Blinken emphasized. He noted that Azerbaijan and Armenia have done important work towards sustainable, dignified peace negotiations that create great opportunities for relations with both countries, the region and the US. "The US has supported this process along with the European Union and other partners. Today's meeting provides an opportunity to take stock of the progress that has been made. Based on all contacts, including discussions in recent weeks, I believe the parties are close to reaching a peace agreement, which the US strongly supports. Today we are discussing together what the US can do to reach an agreement," the Secretary of State added. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart have agreed to keep working on peace agreement, a source in the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan told Trend. According to the source, the agreement was achieved during meeting of the foreign ministers initiated and attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of summit dedicated to the 75th anniversary of NATO. The parties noted the progress made by Azerbaijan and Armenia towards concluding a historic peace agreement and establishing interstate relations, and agreed to continue work in this direction. Both sides thanked the Secretary of State for holding the meeting. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 11. Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) to the European Union (EU) Oxana Domenti expressed gratitude to the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Belgium and Luxembourg, the representation of Azerbaijan in the European Union and the representation of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in the EU, Domenti wrote on it X page, Trend reports, "Many thanks to Azerbaijani Ambassador Vagif Sadigov and the UN Intellectual Property Office in the EU for organizing this important event in Brussels and for the opportunity to share climate and health perspective," she noted. On July 10, the Azerbaijan Representation to the EU and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Representation to the EU jointly organized a conference on the theme Strengthening climate action through ambition, implementation and inclusion. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. The 13th session of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) is scheduled to be held today in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov said, Trend reports. "Starting our working visit to Uzbekistan today. Looking forward to exploring new opportunities to enhance our collaboration in upcoming meetings with our colleagues from the friendly nation," he wrote on his page on X. In addition to attending the IGC meeting, the minister will participate in the Supervisory Board session of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Investment Company and meet with Uzbek Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade Laziz Kudratov. The 12th meeting of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan IGC was held in Azerbaijan's Shusha in 2023. During this meeting, the parties discussed the development of industrial cooperation, the expansion of cooperation in energy and transport, and the enhancement of interregional and cultural-humanitarian ties. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Azerbaijan and Turkiye have discussed issues of expanding economic partnership, Trend reports. According to the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan, First Deputy Minister of Economy Elnur Aliyev held a meeting with Turkish Deputy Minister of Industry and Technology Ahmet Yozgatlgil within the framework of his business visit to Yekaterinburg, where the Innoprom industrial exhibition is underway on July 8-11. Furthermore, it was emphasized at the meeting that the partnership between Turkiye and Azerbaijan is being strengthened in all directions. The sides discussed opportunities for further expansion of economic relations, including mutual investments, exchange of experience in the field of industry and technology, as well as strengthening cooperation in other areas. In addition, the sides noted the importance of the ongoing initiatives in the field of industry and high technology to ensure sustainable economic development of both countries. The meeting also discussed the expansion of trade and economic ties, the participation of Turkish entrepreneurs in new projects implemented in Azerbaijan, and investments in industrial parks and quarters. To note, Azerbaijan's FDI in Turkiye's economy in the first quarter of the current year amounted to $40 million, and Turkiye's FDI in Azerbaijan's economy amounted to $261.4 million. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The Rock is the home of The Morning Rumble with Rog, Bryce, Mulls and Mel, Rock Drive with Jay & Dunc, Not For Radio, The Rock 2000, The No Repeat Workday and just all round good bants. Struggling to find a decent radio station? Unfortunately, we can't help you with that. But if you're keen to hear our average-to-mediocre banter sandwiched between some bloody good rock music, then look no further. Stream The Rock on rova Not in New Zealand? We feel sorry for ya, it's a pretty rad little country. But you can stream us from anywhere in the world via the rova app - download it now from the App Store or Google Play. Or if you're still rocking one of those old school radios, or your car has one of those fancy band expanders - then listen to The Rock everywhere in the country by tuning into one of the frequencies below. The Rock Radio Frequencies Auckland 90.2 Northland 90.0 Rodney 100.1 Waikato 93.0 Coromandel 105.5 Pauanui 92.1 Tauranga 94.2 Rotorua 92.7 Reporoa 98.0 Taupo 94.4 Gisborne 94.1 Wairoa 94.1 Taranaki 95.6 Hawkes Bay 95.1 Manawatu 95.4 Whanganui 95.2 Wairarapa 95.1 Kapiti 91.9 Wellington 96.5 Nelson 94.4 Picton 92.3 Marlborough 91.3 Kaikoura 89.1 Canterbury 93.7 Ashburton 97.3 Timaru 91.5 Oamaru 104.8 Mackenzie Country 91.0 Wanaka 89.8 Queenstown 100.0 Central Otago 98.3 Dunedin 93.4 Southland 90.8 Contact The Rock Use your phone: 0800 ROCK PHONE Use your fax: 0800 ROCK FAX Please note: the fax machine died a few years ago and we haven't replaced it. But we love having the idea of a fax, so keep em coming. Use your mobile: Text STUDIO, leave a space, then enter your message and send to 3520. Texts cost 20c. Use the post box: The Rock Network PO Box 92080, Ponsonby Auckland Use Your Illusion: Bloody good album! BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan discussed prospects for expanding bilateral strategic investments, as Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov wrote on his X page, Trend reports. "During the meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Investment Company, we reviewed prospects for expanding bilateral strategic investments, fostering private sector growth, and boosting business activities. We are confident that our cooperation will produce positive outcomes," he added. The business visit of the Azerbaijani minister to Uzbekistan has begun. He's expected to take part in the 13th meeting of the Azerbaijani-Uzbek intergovernmental commission and meet with the Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade of Uzbekistan Laziz Kudratov. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Hospitals are running out of Factor-VIII and Factor-IX injections required for haemophilia patients. On 28 June, chief medical officer of health (CMOH) of Jhargram district wrote a letter to the state health department at Swasthya Bhaban requesting funds for procurement of Factor-VIII medicine for haemophilia patients of the Jhargram Government Medical College Hospital. TCU (transmission control unit) Day Care unit of Jhargram MCH is facing acute shortage of Factor-VIII medicine as no fund is available for procurement of Factor-VIII for haemophilia patients under Haemoglobinopathy Control Programme (HCP), the CMOHs letter stated. Advertisement Sarat Chandra Chattyapadhyay Government Medical College Hospital (SCCGMCH) in Uluberia is also facing acute shortage in supply of Factor-VIII and Factor-IX injections. Haemophilia A is a genetic bleeding disorder caused by insufficient levels of a blood protein called Factor-VIII. Factor-VIII is a clotting factor. Clotting factors are specialized proteins that are essential for proper clotting, the process by which blood clumps together to plug the site of a wound to stop bleeding. Individuals with haemophilia A do not bleed faster or more profusely than healthy individuals, but because their blood clots poorly, they have difficulty stopping the flow of blood from a wound. This may be referred to as prolonged bleeding or a prolonged bleeding episode. Hemophilia A can be mild, moderate or severe, depending on the baseline level of factor VIII made by that individual. In mild cases, prolonged bleeding episodes may only occur after surgery, dental procedures or trauma. In more severely affected individuals, symptoms may include prolonged bleeding from minor wounds, painful swollen bruises, and unexplained (spontaneous) bleeding into vital organs as well as joints and muscles. Considering the crisis in supply of both factor-VIII and Factor-IX IV injections in government hospitals, Swasthya Bhaban has asked the local health administration to procure the life-saving medicines with their own funds. A senior officer of the health department at Swasthya Bhaban said, There has been a crisis in supply of Factor-VIII and IX in several hospitals. We have asked the supplying agencies to make the service normal as soon as possible, so that patients can get the injections regularly. There are around 2,200 haemophilia patients, including both A and B cases in the state. Thirty six government hospitals in the city and districts provide treatment to these patients, he said requesting anonymity. In a landmark achievement, India and Taiwan have implemented the Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) for organic products. This is the first bilateral agreement for organic products between the two countries signed during the 9th Working Group on Trade Meeting with Taiwan at New Delhi. It is to be highlighted that the MRA will pave the way for the export of major Indian organic products such as Rice, Processed Food, Green/Black and Herbal Tea and Medicinal plant products to Taiwan. Advertisement By virtue of this agreement, agricultural products produced and handled organically in conformity with the National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP) and accompanied by an organic demonstration document (transaction certificate, etc) issued by an accredited certification body under NPOP are allowed for sale in Taiwan as organically produced including display of the India Organic logo. Similarly, agricultural products produced and handled organically in conformity with the Organic Agriculture Promotion Act and accompanied by an organic demonstration document (transaction certificate etc) issued by an accredited certification body under the Taiwanese regulation are allowed for sale in India as organically produced including display of the Taiwan Organic logo. The mutual recognition will ease the export of organic products by avoiding dual certifications; thus, reducing compliance cost, simplifying compliance requirement by adhering to only one regulation and enhancing trade opportunities in the organic sector. The implementing Agencies for the MRA are Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India and Agriculture and Food Agency, Ministry of Agriculture (AFA), Taiwan. Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva and senior BJP leader Sardar Arvinder Singh Lovely alleged with the backing of the Delhi government, hefty amounts are being charged from the public by power companies in the name of Power Purchase Adjustment Charge (PPAC) in the spiked power bills. The two leaders were addressing a joint press conference on Wednesday. Delhi BJPs media chief Praveen Shankar Kapoor called it part of the Kejriwal governments game to not increase the per-unit rate while collecting money by increasing charges under the PPAC and meter load. Advertisement Sachdeva hit out at the Delhi government accusing it of not making any arrangements for extra electricity during the summer and also alleged that the AAP government did not even prepare a summer action plan for power management. When the heat peaked in April 2024, power cuts began, and then the power DISCOM and Delhi government started their game, he alleged. Sachdeva further claimed that it was on the direction of the Kejriwal Government, that BSES Rajdhani wrote a letter to the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) Secretary on April 25 saying they are increasing the PPAC (Power Purchase Adjustment Charge) by 8.75 per cent from May 2024 to July 2024 based on an old circular. Instead of seeking approval from DERC, the electricity company implemented the increase through an information letter, the BJP leader said. Sachdeva alleged that the government and DISCOM (distribution company) colluded to increase the PPAC by 8.75 per cent to 43.79 per cent, causing a spike in the electricity bills. He asked that the Delhi Power Minister Atishi should clarify whether DISCOMs have the authority to increase the PPAC without prior approval from the DERC. The Delhi BJP chief further said that if the government had purchased electricity from the power grid or surplus states through an agreement before April, prices from May to July would not have increased. However, the Kejriwal Government was busy with politics when it was time to make a power summer plan, Sachdeva said. He pointed out that the PPAC which was initially zero per cent has been gradually increased with a significant kickback going to the ruling party. Speaking on the matter, senior BJP leader Lovely alleged that the power bills have gone up not just because of higher consumption in summer, but mainly due to the PPAC. He said despite promises, the power companies have not been audited in the last 10 years under the Kejriwal Government. Lovely said the appointment of a DERC member is delayed as the CM is in jail giving an advantage to the power companies to charge such hefty sums. The BJP leader, flashing his own electricity bill, said more than Rs 4,000 of PPAC has been added to the bill, which will increase further from this month, he claimed. The Pension Trust surcharge imposed by the electricity company, which was previously 1.5 per cent, has now been increased to 7 per cent, and this surcharge is meant for the pension of DISCOM employees. He wondered how any government could allow the DISCOM to collect a surcharge for its employees pensions from the public. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal requested the Delhi High Court to dismiss the petition of the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) challenging the trial courts decision granting him bail, sources said on Wednesday. In his reply to the EDs appeal before the court, the chief minister said, My incarceration will have grave prejudicial implications as well as severe reputational damage. Im a well-respected member of the community and have deep roots in society. Kejriwal further said that his incarceration in the matter is an abuse of the process of law as his arrest is illegal. Advertisement He told the court that there was no material to show his involvement in the process or activity related to the proceeds of crime and that the ED has no material evidence to justify his further incarceration. The AAP chief said, If bail matters are allowed to be continued to be argued for very long hours and days together, it would not only render the criminal justice system unworkable but also render justice illusory for many undertrials and convicts who languish in jail for want of hearing or decision on their bail applications. On June 20, the Rouse Avenue Court granted bail to the AAP convener in an ED case pertaining to the alleged Delhi liquor scam. According to reports, the trial court observed that the federal probe agency could not give any direct evidence linking Kejriwal to the proceeds of the crime. Soon after the court granted bail to Kejriwal, the ED moved to the Delhi High Court on June 25 and got a stay on the trial courts bail order. On June 26, the Delhi CM was also arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for alleged corruption in the (now scrapped) Delhi excise policy. Kejriwal was arrested on March 21 by the ED from his official residence in connection with a money laundering case linked to the alleged Delhi liquor policy scam. Renowned filmmaker Meghna Gulzar recently shared a heartwarming glimpse into her familys monsoon season rituals, capturing a cherished moment with her parents, Rakhee and Gulzar. Taking to her Instagram, Meghna posted a picture that radiated warmth and nostalgia. In the photograph, Rakhee and Gulzar are enjoying the simple pleasures of samosas and tea, perfectly complementing the rainy weather. Meghna Gulzar captioned the image with a succinct Samose, chai aur baarishBliss!, encapsulating the serene joy of the occasion. Advertisement View this post on Instagram A post shared by Meghna Gulzar (@meghnagulzar) The post quickly resonated with fans, who flooded the comments section with admiration and affection for the legendary couple. One fan expressed delight at seeing Gulzar Saab in a candid moment, while another sent warm wishes for the familys happiness and success. Gulzar, originally named Sampooran Singh Kalra, is celebrated for his profound contributions to Hindi cinema as a lyricist and filmmaker. His journey began with the iconic film Kabuliwala, and since then, he has penned unforgettable songs and directed acclaimed movies like Maachis, Aandhi, and Mausam. Earlier this year, he received the prestigious Jnanpith Award, solidifying his status as a literary giant. Meanwhile, Rakhee, popular for her versatility on screen, is ready to make a comeback after 21 years with the Bengali film Aamar Boss, that will release later this year. The films delay due to unforeseen circumstances has only heightened anticipation among fans eager to see her return to the silver screen. Its moments like these that remind us of the simple pleasures that bind families together, transcending the glamour of showbiz and highlighting the beauty of shared moments. The Enforcement Directorates Lucknow unit has summoned YouTuber Elvish Yadav on July 23rd for questioning in connection with a money laundering case linked to allegations of a snake venom-infused rave party. The investigation stems from a case originally filed by the Gautam Buddh Nagar police. According to reports, close associate Rahul Yadav, known by his stage name Fazilpuriya, underwent hours of questioning earlier this month regarding the use of snakes in a music video. Authorities have previously interrogated others associated with Elvish Yadav, including Ishwar Yadav and Vinay Yadav. Initially slated to appear this week, Elvish Yadav requested a postponement due to prior international travel commitments and professional engagements. The Enforcement Directorate had initiated proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after taking cognisance of a case filed against them last November. Advertisement The federal agencys focus includes investigating alleged financial irregularities related to the organization of raves and parties using illicit funds. Various sources reported that the summons to Elvish Yadav follows similar actions taken against Rahul Yadav, who authorities recently questioned regarding the controversial use of snake venom at a rave event. The #ED has summoned popular# YouTuber and Bigg Boss OTT 2 winner #ElvishYadav to appear before its Lucknow-based unit in Uttar Pradesh on July 23 in connection with a #moneylaundering case linked to a snake venom rave party incident.#BiggBoss #Lucknow #TheStatesman pic.twitter.com/XaVwD912Qu The Statesman (@TheStatesmanLtd) July 10, 2024 On March 17th, Noida Police arrested Elvish Yadav for allegedly providing snake venom at a suspected rave party that he reportedly hosted. The court subsequently remanded him in judicial custody for 14 days. However, he secured bail five days later. Last November, authorities arrested five other individuals, all snake charmers, in connection with the case, and a local court subsequently released them on bail. In April, the Noida Police filed a comprehensive charge sheet spanning over 1,200 pages. Charges included accusations of snake trafficking, use of psychotropic substances, and the organization of illicit rave parties. The developments surrounding Elvish Yadav continue to attract public attention, with his legal proceedings becoming a focal point of scrutiny amid ongoing investigations by law enforcement agencies. The trial for Alec Baldwin in involuntary manslaughter case has commenced in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It centers on the fatal shooting incident during the filming of Rust in 2021, which resulted in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injury to director Joel Souza. The pre-trial proceedings occurred on Monday, with the trial officially starting on Tuesday. If convicted, Baldwin faces a potential sentence of up to 18 months in prison. On October 21, 2021, tragedy unfolded on the set of Rust as cinematographer Halyna Hutchins suffered a fatal gunshot wound and director Joel Souza sustained injuries. Alec Baldwin, handling a prop gun, unintentionally discharged it, striking Hutchins and Souza. Advertisement Baldwin maintains he was following instructions to aim the gun towards Hutchins, unaware it contained a live round. He asserted that he pulled back the hammer, not the trigger, causing the firearm to discharge. Actor Alec Baldwin attended the pre-trial to determine admissible evidence. Judge Mary Marlowe Summer assured that Baldwins celebrity status would not impact the proceedings. Jury selection commenced on Tuesday, with opening statements expected on Wednesday. According to The New York Times, the trial will be live-streamed from the Santa Fe County District Courthouse and is anticipated to last approximately two weeks. Before Judge Marlowes decision, prosecutors aimed to demonstrate Baldwins alleged disregard for others safety under the involuntary manslaughter statute. Despite Baldwins claim that he did not pull the trigger, prosecutors have presented evidence, including photos, suggesting otherwise. They argue the gun could not have fired without the trigger being pulled and allege Baldwin exhibited erratic behavior on set, accompanied by frequent emotional outbursts. Judge Summer allowed the prosecution to show graphic images from Hutchins autopsy and police body camera footage documenting her treatment. Prosecutors allege that Baldwin neglected safety protocols, while the defense maintains he had no reason to believe the gun was loaded with live ammunition, as live rounds were prohibited on set. In March, authorities convicted Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the films armorer, of involuntary manslaughter but acquitted her of evidence tampering for her role in the incident. She received the maximum sentence of 18 months. Popular South Korean actor Park Seo Joon, known for successful dramas such as Whats Wrong with Secretary Kim?, Itaewon Class, and Fight for My Way, is reportedly in talks for a new romance drama titled Waiting for Gyeongdo. Fans are excited about this prospect, especially since its been reported that the show will be directed by Im Hyun Wook, known for King the Land, and scripted by Yoo Young Ah, the writer behind Thirty-Nine. If Park Seo Joon signs on, Waiting for Gyeongdo will mark his return to the romance genre in collaboration with these two esteemed creators. On July 8, TV Daily reported that Park Seo Joon is ready to take on the role of Gyeongdo, the male lead in Waiting for Gyeongdo. Addressing these rumors, Park Seo Joons agency Awesome ENT confirmed, He has indeed received an offer for the new drama Waiting for Gyeongdo, but it is one of several offers hes currently considering, and nothing has been final yet. The drama is currently in discussions for airing on JTBC. Advertisement Park Seo Joons most recent project was the TVN drama Jinnys Kitchen 2, which delves into the inner workings of a restaurant managed by a dedicated team. Additionally, he is preparing for the release of the Netflix drama Gyeongseong Creature 2 later this year. The dramas first part premiered on December 22, 2023, and the second part is ready for release in the latter half of 2024. Director Im Hyun Wook, known for King the Land starring Im Yoon Ah, and screenwriter Yoo Young Ah, recognized for works such as Thirty-Nine and Miracle in Cell No.7, will collaborate on this upcoming romance drama. In April, actor Gurucharan Singh, known for his performance in Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, went missing which caused a lot of panic among his family, friends, and fans. However, he returned home after nearly a month, giving a sense of respite to his well-wishers. In a recent interview with The Bombay Times, he revealed the real reasons behind his disappearance and claimed that he had no intentions of returning. He shared that he did not disappear to get publicity but rather he was on a genuine spiritual pursuit. I have always been spiritual because of my parents and at this point in life when I was feeling low, I turned towards God. I went on a spiritual journey and had no plans of coming back. But God gave me a sign and that made me return home said Gurucharan Advertisement He added, Many people think I planned my disappearance for publicity, but thats not true. If I wanted publicity, I could have given interviews to talk about the pending dues for my work in Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah. I could have used social media to do that, but I didnt. Even after coming back home, I didnt give any interviews, but now I am speaking up because I want to clarify certain things that people are saying about me. Recently, he was spotted returning to Mumbai from Delhi and spoke to Paps about his due payments from TMKOC. He said, Haan ji, unhone sabke hi clear kar diye almost. (Yes, they have cleared almost everyones ) Gurucharan Singh played the popular character of Roshan Singh Sodhi in the Hindi sitcom Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah and exited the show in 2020. This year on April 22, he disappeared from his home in pursuit of spirituality. Following his disappearance, police questioned members of TMKOC and its producer Asit Kumar Modi over the issue of unpaid salary and other dues. He returned home after 26 days. Recently, the actor and family shared a video on Instagram, in which they can be seen celebrating his return. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has appointed Heike Harmgart as its first Managing Director for sub-Saharan Africa, Trend reports. As per the bank, Heike Harmgart, who is currently the EBRD's Managing Director for the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region, will step into her new position on September 1. She will continue to oversee the SEMED region and will remain in Cairo until a new Managing Director of South Africa is appointed and the Bank has decided on the location of its regional hub for sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, Heike Harmgart will lead the EBRD's banking operations in the sub-Saharan Africa region, which will include Benin, Cote dIvoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal. "I am thrilled to be leading the EBRDs expansion on the ground in this important new region for the Bank and calling on our successful experience from SEMED as I do so. I look forward to setting up our offices and launching operations in the six countries, for the benefit of the people who live there," Heike Harmgart said regarding her appointment. Meanwhile, the EBRD fosters private-sector growth across 36 economies to support their transition to greener, more inclusive, and more digital economies. Since its establishment, the Bank has invested nearly 200 billion euros, with 80 percent of that funding directed towards the private sector. The CBI chargesheet in the 1994 ISRO espionage case says that the eentire episode was a conspiracy hatched by certain police officials. The CBI had filed a chargesheet against two former DGPs, Siby Mathews of Kerala and RB Sreekumar of Gujarat, and three other retired police officials in connection with the alleged framing of space scientist Nambi Narayanan in the 1994 ISRO espionage case. The chargesheet was filed in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Thiruvananthapuram on June 26. Advertisement The chargesheet stated that former CIS Vijayan fabricated the spy case and filed a case against Mariyam Rasheeda, a Maldivian native, without substantial evidence. A case was registered against her at Vanchiyoor police station without proof. The chargesheet says: The facts and circumstances substantiate role of accused S Vijayan, Siby Mathews, KK Joshua, RB Sreekumar and PS Jayaprakash in the registration of the false cases under the Foreigners Act and Official Secrets Act against two Maldivian ladies Mariyam Rasheeda and Fauzia Hasan, two ISRO scientists D Sashikumaran and Nambi Narayanan and two other persons K Chandrasekhar and SK Sharma (both deceased). The said accused persons played an active role in conspiracy to create false documents, leading to illegal arrests, torture, etc. In October 1994, the Kerala Police registered two cases following the arrest of Maldivian national Rasheeda in Thiruvananthapuram for allegedly obtaining secret drawings of ISRO rocket engines to sell to Pakistan. Nambi Narayanan, then director of ISROs cryogenic project, was arrested along with ISRO Deputy Director D Sasikumaran and Fousiya Hasan, a Maldivian friend of Rasheeda. Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor alleged due to the obstinacy of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) the Municipal Corporation of Delhis (MCD) essential functions such as cleanliness and maintenance have come to a standstill for the past one and a half years as the standing committee, statutory committees, and ward committees have not been formed. Kapoor hit out at the AAP accusing it of wanting to run the MCD according to its whims rather than the Corporation Act. He claimed that the AAP does not want to conduct mayoral polls as per rules and that the SC community is not getting representation even after three and a half months of the current year has passed, although a mayor from the reserved community should have been elected this year, he added. Advertisement Sharpening his attack on the AAP, Kapoor said the party knows that the political representation arithmetic of the MCD is such that if the standing committee election is held, they will lose, which is why they are not allowing the election to take place, the BJP leader claimed. As a result, many significant plans and regular functions of the civic body have come to a halt, a Delhi BJP spokesperson added. Kapoor further claimed that the AAP is not allowing the formation of ward committees because they know they will lose the election for the chairman in five communities. The BJP leader stated that the AAP is also aware that out of the 12 ward committees, they will lose the election for the chairman in 5, which is why they are not allowing the ward committees to be formed. The Delhi BJP spokesperson alleged that on Wednesday, without prior notice to the saffron partys councilors, the mayor obstinately tried to hold a meeting of the Central Zones ward committee, which he claimed is against the Corporation Act, which led to opposition from BJP councilors. The Delhi BJP demanded that if AAP cares about the people of Delhi, they should immediately allow elections for the Municipal Corporations standing committee and ward committee and let a Scheduled Caste Mayor be elected. The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that the West Bengal governments suit challenging the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) unauthorisedly probing cases in the state despite its withdrawal of general consent to the probe agency on November 16, 2018, from undertaking a probe in the state is maintainable. Rejecting the Central governments preliminary objections on the maintainability of the West Bengal governments original suit, a bench of Justice B R Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta said that the suit concerning the CBIs probing of cases despite the states withdrawal of consent shall proceed in accordance with the law and on its own merits. The court said that the hearing of the suit will now take place on August 13 to frame the issues to be adjudicated. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Central government, said that the observations in the judgment would not impact the subsequent hearing. The court also said that both sides would be allowed to advance their arguments on all issues arising in the matter. Advertisement The court observed that the West Bengals suit raised a legal issue as to whether after the general consent is revoked by a state, the CBI could register and investigate cases in violation of Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act under which the Central Bureau of Investigation has been established. The West Bengal government had contended that in a situation where the CBI undertakes investigations in the state without its statutorily mandated prior consent would derogate from the federal nature of the Centre-State relationship under the Indian Constitution. While questioning the maintainability of the suit, the Central government contended that the West Bengal government had made the Central government a respondent in its suit instead of the CBI. The Centre argued that the CBI is an autonomous and independent investigating agency, and its identity and actions should not be mixed up with those of the Centre. The court had reserved the order on May 8, limiting it to the question of law whether the CBI and the Centre were synonymous or distinct entities. While the West Bengal government asserted that the Central Bureau of Investigation cannot register cases and undertake any investigation in the state without its prior nod, since it withdrew its general consent on November 16, 2018, the Central government reiterated that the central investigating agency is independent and not under its direct control and supervision. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the top court that the Central governments role in the CBI was limited to matters such as transfer, posting, territorial jurisdiction (areas it can investigate), and the agencys finances, including emoluments. As far as the registration of cases and their investigation was concerned, the agency was an autonomous and independent entity. However, an attempt by the Solicitor General drawing a parallel between the independence enjoyed by the CBI with that of the independence of the judiciary was not accepted by the court. The court said any comparison of the independence of the CBI with that of the judiciary is an incorrect analogy. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for the West Bengal government, told the court that after the state government withdrew its general consent to the CBI to probe cases in the state on November 16, 2018, the central agency could not have undertaken any investigation in the state without the prior consent of the state government. The West Bengal government withdrew its consent on November 16, 2018. Cases registered by the CBI, which are now under challenge, could not be investigated after the withdrawal of consent, Sibal told the court, pointing out, The constitutional question is whether, after the withdrawal of the consent, you (Central government) can allow your agency to enter my State without my consent. He told the court that when a question about the CBI is asked in Parliament, it is the DoPT under the Prime Minister who answers the questions. Assailing the Centres stand that the CBI can register cases on its own, Sibal said, That is the most dangerous proposition that the Centre has advanced before the court, which will be destructive of the federal nature of the Centre-State relationship. In its suit, the West Bengal government has challenged the registration of cases by the CBI without its consent. It has referred to the provisions of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946, stating that the CBI is mandated under the statute to obtain the state governments consent before registering cases. The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a Muslim woman is entitled to maintenance against her husband under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure under which a person has to pay monthly allowance for the maintenance of his wife or such child, father or mother facing neglect or refusal of their maintenance. Holding that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986 will not prevail over the secular law, a bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Augustine George Masih dismissed a plea by a Muslim man against the direction to pay interim maintenance to his divorced wife under Section 125 Code of Criminal Procedure. Both Justice Nagarathna and Justice Masih delivered separate but concurring judgments. Advertisement We are dismissing the criminal appeal with the conclusion that Section 125 CrPC would be applicable to all women and not just married women, Justice Nagarathna said, pronouncing the order. Clarifying that if during the pendency of a petition under Section 125 of the CrPC, a Muslim woman is divorced, then she can take recourse to the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act 2019. The court said that the remedy under the 2 the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act 2019, is in addition to the remedy under Section 125 CrPC. The top court ruling came while addressing the question whether a Muslim woman is entitled to maintenance from her estranged husband under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The issue arose in the wake of a petition by one Mohd. Abdul Samad challenged the Telangana High Court order directing him to pay maintenance to his estranged wife under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In a significant development, former social welfare minister in the AAP government Raaj Kumar Anand among five former AAP leaders including his wife Veena, joined the BJP here on Wednesday. Coming as it does barely a year away from the Delhi Assembly elections the development is being seen as a big morale booster to the BJP in Delhi. Anand joined the BSP after resigning from the AAP in April to contest the Lok Sabha polls held in May. Advertisement The former BSP leader, along with his wife, a former AAP MLA, joined the saffron party at the BJP headquarters here in the presence of Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva and BJP National General Secretary Arun Singh. The three other AAP leaders who joined the BJP along with the couple are MLA Kartar Singh Tanwar, AAP councillor Umed Singh Phogat, and another AAP leader, Ratnesh Gupta. Addressing the media after joining the BJP, the former AAP minister expressed gratitude to the saffron party for giving him an opportunity to serve it. I am committed to working for the welfare of all, particularly the Dalit community, to which I belong, he declared. Hitting out at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Anand accused the AAP chief of cheating and deceiving the Dalits. He said no substantial work was done for the Dalit community during his tenure as a minister in the Kejriwal Government. Whenever issues related to the interests of the Dalits were taken up with the chief minister, he summarily dismissed them as he was not interested in working for the community, he said. Raaj Kumar Anand alleged a scam in the Dalit Welfare Fund that prompted him to resign from the ministerial post. I had requested Mr. Kejriwal to work for the Dalit welfare, but he consistently declined to do so, which led to my resignation from the ministerial post. Crores of rupees allocated to the Dalit welfare from the SC/ST Fund remained unutilised in Delhi over the past nine years, he said The former AAP minister lamented that Kejriwal did not nominate a single Dalit to the Rajya Sabha even though the party formed governments in Delhi and Punjab with the support of the Dalits. He further said that the Dalits are questioning about their welfare funds. The Dalit community is asking where their welfare funds have gone. Mr. Kejriwal ignored the Dalit community even in the Teerth Yatra Yojana, he said. Reiterating his commitment to work for the uplift of Dalits and ensure the protection of their rights, he expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP National President JP Nadda, Anand called it a matter of pride for him to join the worlds largest party and pledged to work towards connecting PM Modis vision directly with the people of Delhi. Speaking on the occasion, Chhatarpur MLA Kartar Singh Tanwar accused Kejriwal of dictatorship and claimed that those who came to power promising to fight corruption were now engaged in corrupt practices themselves. They have turned Delhi into hell and broken the trust of the people of the national capital, he claimed, accusing Kejriwal of cheating and deceiving the people of Delhi. The Chhatarpur MLA pledged to work with the BJP with full dedication. Anand resigned from the AAP In April alleging corruption in the party. after being elected to the Delhi Assembly in 2020 from the Patel Nagar assembly constituency, he held multiple portfolios in the Kejriwal Cabinet, including Social Welfare, SC and ST, Gurudwara elections, and Registrar of Cooperative Societies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said both India and Austria favour dialogue and diplomacy for the earliest restoration of peace and stability in Ukraine and are ready to provide every possible assistance in this endeavour. I have already said in the past that this is not the time for war. Problems cant be resolved on the battlefield. Wherever it is, the killings of innocent people are not acceptable, he said at a joint press interaction with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer after wide-ranging talks between the two leaders in Vienna. Mr Modi, who arrived in Vienna last night on a two-day visit to Austria, said he had discussed with Chancellor Nehammer in detail the conflict in Ukraine as well as the situation in West Asia, apart from other global developments and bilateral issues. Advertisement He said there were discussions also on the challenges like climate change and terrorism. On climate, he said India has invited Austria to join initiatives like the International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and the Global Biofuels Alliance. We are both opposed to terrorism and we agree that the menace in any form is not acceptable. It cant be justified in any manner, he said. The PM said the two countries also emphasised the need for reforms in the United Nations and other international institutions to make them more contemporary and effective. Mr Modi said he was happy that during the beginning of his third term in office, he got an opportunity to visit Austria. This trip of mine is historic and special. After 41 years, an Indian PM has visited Austria. We discussed new possibilities to strengthen our ties further. We have decided to give these ties a strategic direction in sectors like infrastructure development, renewable energy, hydrogen, water and waste management, and artificial intelligence. We will work towards linking each others capabilities, he said. An agreement has already been reached on mobility and migration partnership. It will help in legal migration and movement of skilled workforce. The exchange between cultural and educational institutions will also be promoted, he said. The Austrian Chancellor noted that before arriving in his country, PM Modi paid a visit to Moscow. Therefore, it was particularly important for me to hear about the Prime Ministers personal assessment regarding the intentions of Russia in respect of the peace process. Our shared objective is to achieve a comprehensive, just and permanent peace in line with the UN Charter. My Cabinet has been in constant contact with the EU, he said. He said that for him it was an important signal that India, as a founding member of the BRICS, participated in the Swiss Peace Summit on Ukraine. Today, we have been talking about an even stronger commitment and about the possibilities of reviving the peace process. PM Modi and myself discussed the unique position of India in the so-called Global South. India is an important, influential and credit-worthy country. India is the biggest democracy in the world. Therefore, Indias role, especially for Austria, is more than important when it comes to the peace process and future peace summits. As a reliable partner, Austria will be available as a site for dialogue, making use of its unique position as a neutral country a member of the EU but not a member of NATO. he added. Earlier, the PM was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Federal Chancery as he began his landmark visit to Austria. Scripting a new chapter in bilateral relations, he was warmly received by Chancellor Nehammer who had last week called the Indian PMs visit to Vienna as a special honour. The Austrian Chancellor hosted PM Modi for a private engagement as the Indian PM arrived from Moscow on Tuesday evening. This was the first meeting between the two leaders and comes at a time when the two countries are marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Tuesday praised Prime Minister Narendra Modis efforts in resolving the ongoing crisis in the north eastern state, stating that all activities, including security measures, relief work, development initiatives, and peace talks between the Kuki and Meitei communities, are being conducted under Modis leadership. Singh emphasized that there is no question about whether the Prime Minister should visit Manipur, as current efforts are being carried out under his guidance. The Chief Minister highlighted a recently adopted resolution aimed at reviewing and enhancing efforts to restore peace in the state, noting that peace has prevailed for several days. Advertisement Amid criticism from Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party, who urged Prime Minister Modi to visit the state to boost public morale, Singh defended the Prime Minister, asserting that the state government remains in constant communication with him regarding all aspects, from security measures to relief operations. Singh stated that whether or not the Prime Minister visits Manipur is a separate matter, but all efforts, including rescue operations and relief distribution, are conducted under his leadership. Singhs comments came amidst rising demands from opposition parties for the Prime Minister to visit the state. The BJP on Wednesday said it is a matter of pride for India that Russia has awarded Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the highest civilian award, Order of St Andrew the Apostle. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday conferred Russias highest civilian honour, Order of St Andrew the Apostle, on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was on a two-day official visit to Moscow for the 22nd Annual Summit. Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here, BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said, Today is an opportunity for 140 crore countrymen to feel proud and satisfied. Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been honored with Russias highest civilian honour. Advertisement The BJP national spokesperson further said the Prime Ministers actions and splendid leadership draw immense commendation and have made him the worlds most loved leader. Trivedi said both the US and Russia are calling India its ally. America states that India is our strategic partner, and Russia says, India is our traditional ally, the BJP national spokesperson said. No other country in this whole wide world holds such a stature to receive such comments and statements from these countries, Trivedi said. The BJP national spokesperson slammed the Opposition for asking why the Prime Minister did not speak about Ukraine. The Opposition is hell bent on spreading negativity, even during the happy and pride occasions. Come any auspicious event, they will start making negative comments. Now, they are asking us about Ukraine. I wish to ask the Congress party if they have passed any resolution on the Russia-Ukraine issue in their CWC! Trivedi added. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma has written to his counterpart in Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, urging an investigation into the alleged murder of a youth from Meghalaya, at a rehabilitation centre in Goalpara, Lower Assam. Niksamseng Ch Marak , who was arrested by Assam police on July 2, was found dead two days later under suspicious circumstances at the New Life Foundation Centre. In his letter sent on Tuesday, Sangma detailed the circumstances of Maraks death, noting that the centre initially claimed it was a suicide but later changed their statement. Advertisement Sangma highlighted severe injuries found on Maraks body, including a deep knife cut on his face, burns, and other severe marks. Maraks family lodged an FIR, and Sangma called for a thorough inquiry to uncover the truth. Following complaints by the Achik State Peoples Front (ASPF) and Garo Jatiya Parishad (GJP), police have arrested seven individuals, including the prime suspect, Jintu Chakravorty, caretaker of the rehab centre. The incident has sparked outrage in Meghalaya and demands for justice. Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jitin Prasada encouraged the toy industry to support Indian artisans and nurture creativity and imagination through toys that inspire and educate children across the globe. Delivering the keynote address at the 2nd Edition of Toy CEO Meet organised by the Toy Association of India in association with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and Invest India, the minister highlighted the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas. He motivated the participants to continue collaboration and celebrate Indias toy-making legacy Advertisement The 2nd Edition of Toy CEO Meet provided a platform for collaboration between the Indian and Global Toy industry, to work towards the mission of positioning India as a Global Toy Hub. During the stakeholder discussions, global players such as Walmart, IMC Toys, Spin Master, etc. spoke about their own growth stories and expressed enthusiasm to expand operations in India. The vision shared by the speakers provided the audience with insights into the Indian toy industry and opportunities for growth and collaboration. The event played a pivotal role in harnessing synergies, leveraging complementary strengths, and capitalising on emerging opportunities in the global marketplace for the Indian toy industry. Secretary, DPIIT, Rajesh Kumar Singh, while addressing the participants, highlighted that the initiatives of the Government together with the endeavours of the domestic manufacturers have resulted in the remarkable growth of the Indian Toy industry. These developments indicate Indias increasing self-reliance and enhanced manufacturing prowess in toy manufacturing, he said. Joint Secretary, DPIIT, Sanjiv Singh, applauded the efforts made by the Indian Toy industry, especially the Toy Association of India for the successful organisation of the 15th Toy Biz International B2B Expo. He encouraged the Toy industry members to continue engaging with DPIIT in case of any challenges and expressed that the mission is to make Indian Toys synonymous with quality, uniqueness, innovation, and sustainability. While discussing the investment opportunities in India for Toys, CEO & MD, Invest India, Nivruti Rai, highlighted that India has a huge market potential for investment due to expanding Toy demand with a growing young population. The event was a part of the 15th edition of the India Toy Biz International B2B Expo and attended by prominent global players including Walmart, Amazon, Spin Master, IMC Toys, etc., and members from the domestic Toy industry including Sunlord Apparels Manufacturing Company Pvt. Ltd., Playgro Toys India Pvt. Ltd, etc. China's top political advisor meets Bangladeshi PM Xinhua) 09:35, July 10, 2024 Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), meets with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Beijing, capital of China, July 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Wang Huning met with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday in Beijing. Wang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said that under the strategic guidance of the two countries' leaders, China and Bangladesh have respected and treated each other with equality, setting a good example of friendly coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation between countries. China is ready to deepen practical cooperation with Bangladesh in various fields, and push the strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries to a new height, to better benefit the two peoples, Wang said. The CPPCC is willing to strengthen communication and cooperation with the Bangladeshi side and make positive contributions to building a China-Bangladesh community with a shared future, Wang added. Hasina thanked China for its long-term valuable support to Bangladesh. She said Bangladesh will as always adhere to the one-China principle, and deepen all-round cooperation with China and exchanges of state governance experience, to work for more outcomes in bilateral ties. Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), meets with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Beijing, capital of China, July 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Fatime Letifova On July 9, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov met with Javier Colomina, NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, on the sidelines of the NATO Summit, Azernews reports. The meeting discussed various aspects of the Azerbaijan-NATO cooperation agenda, including security, defense, energy security, protection of critical infrastructure, education, and other topics, as well as regional and international security issues. The successful continuation of the 30-year partnership under the "Partnership for Peace" program, which defines Azerbaijan's cooperation with NATO, was noted with satisfaction. Ceyhun Bayramov informed about Azerbaijan's chairmanship of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, stating that this chairmanship is a clear example of Azerbaijan's efforts to tackle global challenges. Discussing the current security situation in the region in the post-conflict period, the minister highlighted the ongoing mine threat to civilians posed by Armenia and the country's rapid armament. Additionally, it was noted that Azerbaijan, as a key initiator of the peace process with Armenia, is interested in establishing peace and stability in the region. Despite significant progress on the peace agreement project, Armenia's ongoing claims against Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty in its Constitution were mentioned. The meeting also included an exchange of views on other issues of mutual interest. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Shell Overseas Holdings Limited, a subsidiary of Shell plc, has signed an agreement to invest in the Abu Dhabi National Oil Companys (ADNOC) Ruwais liquefied natural gas (LNG) project through a 10% participating interest, Trend reports. "This investment decision builds on our long-standing partnership with ADNOC," said Shell CEO Wael Sawan. "Aligned with our strategy to create more value with fewer emissions, we are expanding our LNG capacity and growing our leading LNG portfolio with energy-efficient and carbon-competitive projects." The Ruwais LNG project will feature two LNG liquefaction trains, each with a capacity of 4.8 million metric tonnes per annum (mmtpa), totaling 9.6 mmtpa. Shell, via its subsidiary Shell International Trading Middle East Limited FZE, has also agreed to offtake 1 mmtpa of LNG from the project. The facility will employ an electric-powered liquefaction system and utilize renewable power, reducing operational emissions compared to traditional gas-powered LNG facilities. ADNOC will hold a majority 60% stake in the project and will lead as the developer and operator. Shell, BP, Mitsui, and TotalEnergies will each hold 10%. ADNOC has awarded an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract to a Technip-led joint venture, with construction set to begin in Al Ruwais Industrial City, Abu Dhabi. LNG deliveries are expected to commence in 2028. The 74th meeting of the Network Planning Group (NPG) under PM GatiShakti was convened evaluating five significant infrastructure projects. Ministry of Commerce & Industry told that the meeting was conducted under the chairpersonship of Additional Secretary, DPIIT, Rajeev Singh Thakur, and evaluated the projects from the Ministry of Railways (MoR), Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). These projects were assessed for their alignment with the principles of integrated planning outlined in the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan (NMP). Advertisement These projects included Balaram Tentuloi New Railway Line (MCRL Phase II) in Odisha that involves the construction of a 49.58 km rail line at an estimated cost of Rs 1,404 Crores in Angul district to provide vital first-mile rail connectivity for 11 coal blocks. The project is expected to significantly enhance the transport efficiency of coal, benefiting both the local economy and the broader industrial landscape of the state of Odisha. Another railway project was the Budhapank Luburi New Railway Line (MCRL Outer Corridor) in Odisha spanning 106 kilometres at an estimated project cost of Rs 3,478 crore. It will support efficient coal evacuation from the Mahanadi River Basin, and the proposed alignment facilitates the transportation of coal from Talcher Coal Fields, providing first-mile rail connectivity to 21 coal blocks reducing the average distance to rail head from 43 km to 4.2 km enhancing logistical efficiency and reducing costs for core industries like iron and steel. The Lucknow Metro Rail Project Phase I-B East West Corridor (Charbagh to Vasant Kunj) in Uttar Pradesh was also discussed at the meeting. This project involves extending the Lucknow Metro corridor by 11.165 kilometres to address the citys growing transportation needs. This additional new line is expected to cater to an additional 200,000 passengers per day (PPD). This proposed new corridor will serve the citys most densely settled central business districts (CBDs), including Aminabad, Alambagh, Faizabad and Charbagh area. The project is expected to cost INR 5,801 Crores and aims to reduce congestion, vehicular pollution, and enhance public transport accessibility through an integrated network. Upgradation of existing 6 Lane Road including elevated corridor of NH-47 (Narol Jn. to Sarkhej Jn.) in Gujarat involving upgrading a 10.63 km section of NH-47 at an estimated cost of Rs 1,295 Crores was also discussed. The project aims to enhance smooth and safe traffic flow, thus improving service levels. Upgrading this critical segment of NH-47 is expected to facilitate more efficient movement of goods and people, contributing to the economic vitality of the region. The 4-laning of Section of NH-166 from Chokak to Sangli (Ankali) in Maharashtra was also discussed at the meeting. This project involves the four-laning of a 33.6 km section of NH-166, enhancing connectivity between key regions i.e., between Kolhapur & Sangli in the state of Maharashtra, at an estimated cost of Rs 864 Crores. This development will reduce the travel time by 50% and the distance by about 5.4 km. In a tragic road accident on Lucknow- Agra Expressway, at least 18 people were killed and 19 others injured when a private double-decker sleeper bus collided with a milk tanker in Unnao district early Wednesday. According to police, the bus was going from Sheohar in Bihar to Delhi on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway when the accident took place. The bus collided with the milk tanker on the airstrip under Behta Mujawar police station area when the bus driver tried to overtake from the left side at around 5:30 am. As per the report, 18 bus passengers, including two women and a 10-year old child, died in the accident. As many as 19 passengers were seriously injured. At least 50 passengers, including children, were travelling in the bus. Advertisement Superintendent of Police (SP)Siddharth Shankar Meena and Circle Officer (CO) Arvind Kumar reached the accident spot on receiving the news. The CO said that efforts were being made to identify the deceased on the basis of tickets booked through the travel company. After the incident, the injured have been admitted to hospital. CO Arvind Singh said that the bus was going from Bihar to Delhi with mostly labourers traveling. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took cognisance of the accident and expressed condolences to the bereaved families of the deceased. The CM directed the officials to immediately reach the spot and carry out the relief work expeditiously. State Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak said, There has been a massive road accident on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, 18 people are reported killed and 19 people injured.The injured are being taken to high level hospitals while all the hospitals of Unnao, Kanpur have been put on alert. He said that most of the injured were from Bihar, and the UP government was in touch with their counterparts in Bihar. The reasons for the incident will be known after investigation but at present, the treatment of the injured is our priority, he added. Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal will visit Switzerland on July 14 to hold talks around $100-billion investment promise. The promise was made to India as part of the trade deal with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) comprising Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. I am off to Switzerland on Sunday to take forward the EFTA commitment of $100 billion in FDI investment and thereby a million jobs due to that investment, Minister Goyal said, adding that India could get more than the committed amount, if the country is more forthcoming. Advertisement They (EFTA nations) will look for Indian partners, Indian markets, Indian investors, he added. Sundays agenda will involve industry interactionto see what we can do to kickstart investments. Because $100 billion cant happen overnight, Goyal said at an industry event organised by FICCI. On partnership with the United Kingdom (UK), the minister said that India and the UK are deeply committed to signing a free trade agreement. The initial comments being made by the UK government are encouragingthe Labour Party is deeply committed and so is the Modi government, he told reporters. On March 10, the Indian government signed a Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) with EFTA nations that weaved in a commitment to facilitate through private companies foreign direct investment in India in the next 15 years. As per the trade pact, the EFTA states will aim to increase foreign direct investment from investors of these nations into India by $50 billion within 10 years from the entry into force of this agreement and an additional $50 billion in the next five years. It is expected that the investments from EFTA nations will to flow in from private firms and the commitment is not a governmental guarantee but rather a governmental initiative to nudge businesses towards investing in India. The Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) on Wednesday removed Rajesh Shah, the father of Mihir Shah, the main accused in the Worli hit and run case, from the post of deputy leader of the party. Shah was relieved from the post after the order of Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde. The development comes amid intense public outrage and allegations that Rajesh Shah used his political connections to keep his son out of polices reach for three days. Advertisement The Mumbai police had also arrested Rajesh Shah and his driver Rajrishi Singh Bidawat, after the accident. However, Shah was granted bail, while his driver remains in police custody. In a tragic incident Sunday morning, Mihir Shah, returning from a bar after allegedly consuming alcohol, rammed his speeding BMW into a two-wheeler, injuring its rider Pradeep Nakhwa, 50, and killing his wife Kaveri Nakhwa, 45. Kaveri reportedly got stuck under the wheels of the luxury vehicle and dragged for several meters, resulting in fatal injuries. Kaveris husband alleged that Shah didnt stop the car and kept dragging his wife for several meters. He said that he even chased the BMW and tried to stop him but the latter fled, leaving his car behind. Mihir Shah was arrested from Thane on Tuesday, three days after the incident. He will be produced before the court on Wednesday. Following the incident, CM Shinde announced a resolute stance against perpetrators who evade accountability. It is intolerable that the powerful and influential misuse their status to evade justice, he said in a statement posted on social media. The lives of ordinary citizens are precious to us, and we will ensure that justice is served, he added. The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the Delhi Police for allegedly harassing a petitioner who had moved the top court to initiate contempt proceedings against the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for illegally felling trees in Delhis Southern Ridge Forest in Chhatarpur area. A bench comprising Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Augustine George Masih issued a notice after senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan told the bench that they had filed an application highlighting the harassment of the petitioner by Delhi Police personnel, who inquired about his identity and details of his bank accounts. Senior advocate Sankaranarayanan told the bench that the Delhi Police has been making inquiries regarding the petitioners and alleged that the police have reached out to their bank, demanding detailed information about the accounts. Advertisement The bench said, We will look into this. The petitioners, including Bindu Kapurea and a Delhi-based NGO, New Delhi Nature Society, approached the top court regarding the alleged illegal cutting of trees by the Delhi Development Authority. They alleged that despite a March 4, 2024, top court order denying permission to the DDA, the trees were cut, and this fact was allegedly suppressed from the court. In May, the top court initiated suo motu contempt proceedings against DDA Vice-Chairman Subhasish Panda for the felling of trees in violation of its orders issued in February this year. During the hearings in June 2024, the court noted that Lt Governor V K Saxena, in his capacity as Chairman of the DDA, had approved the proposal for cutting trees and had also visited the site in question. Thereafter, the top court asked the DDA Vice-Chairman if there was any record of Lt Governor Saxenas visit to the site. During the hearing on June 24, the bench was told that Ashok Kumar Gupta, a member of the engineering wing of the DDA, was present when the Lt Governor visited the site where trees were cut, despite the March 4 top court order denying permission. Expressing misgivings about an attempt to protect higher-ups while making officers below a scapegoat, the court stated in the last hearing on June 24, Unless we take a strong view, the message will not go. In the last hearing on June 24, the DDA was initially evasive in replying to a question from the bench about whether Lt Governor Saxena had visited the site. The court observed, We are not happy with this approach. You are not able to give a record. Simple information is not being given. We asked if the information (about the Lieutenant Governors visit to the site) is available. The next hearing is on July 12, 2024. Diminishment of hallowed Constitutional posts is an old story. From Presidents, Governors, Election Commissioners, to even supposedly apolitical governmental institutions, the taints of partisanship have persisted since Independence. No political party, national or regional, can claim to be above board on accusations of bias or misuse of these Constitutional appointments. The more autocratic the dispensation, the more compromised or caged have been the so-called independent institutions. But perhaps none has been in the news more prominently in recent times than the post of Speaker of the House, in the State Assemblies or even in the Lok Sabha. Again, incontrovertible accusations of brazen partiality can be heaped on the conduct of various Speakers hailing from different ideological/ party affiliations. Three evolutionary factors have contributed to the sensitivity of the post. Firstly, it is a position that has assumed increasing significance as the acceptable culture and perennial threat of making and breaking governments via horse-trading has become regrettably normal. Secondly, the advent of coalition governments adds to the situational vulnerability that makes the role of the Speaker crucial to stabilize/destabilize the government of the day. Thirdly, we live in a manufactured information age where created narratives matter, so clippings (with or without context) of forwards on social media platforms play a huge role in defining the dominant narrative in the public ~ here, as the arbiter of the noisy house (even adjudicator of personal conduct), the Speaker can create situations, perceptions, suffocations, or leniencies, to stitch particular narratives. Advertisement The late President Pranab Mukherjee, who was a veteran of many parliamentary battles and intrigues captured the ideal of a Speaker when he said, The Speakers role is not just about running the House; its about being a bridge between the government and the opposition and ensuring that the democratic process is upheld. Sadly, the expectation of an honest broker between the government and the opposition, or one who puts conscientious impartiality over his/her sense of partisanship, is far from valid. While Indian democracy and the resultant politics are based on the British Westminster-style parliamentary system, there is one glaring difference between the two. In the British system, the Speaker becomes naturally non-partisan as he/she resigns from party membership on being elected. This leaves the ideal of nonpartisanship on the personal conscience and morality of the individual in order to rise beyond partisanship. The British House of Commons Information Office notes, The Speaker must be above party-political controversy and must be seen to be completely impartial in all public matters. All sides in the House rely on the Speakers disinterest and understand that he or she must stand aside from controversy. Accordingly, on election the Speaker resigns from his or her political party. It is further instructive on the social part of the expectation, Assuming the office of Speaker will, to a great extent, mean shedding old loyalties and friendships within the House. The Speaker must keep apart from old party colleagues or any one group or interest and does not, for instance, frequent the Commons dining rooms or bars. It would be simply unimaginable in the Indian context, to come remotely close to the same. Importantly, this advisory is not just for the politicians to abide by but is frenetically pursued by the media whenever it senses partiality by the Speaker. The current speaker is Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who was earlier a Labour MP, but was chosen in 2019 in a House dominated by Conservative MPs. All his actions, words and even social interactions are under the medias microscope to pick any tilt towards his former party, and many times he is called out to explain his conduct (and even apologise). Certainly not so in India. With the cameras capturing actions and words of the Speaker, to even suggest voluntary non-partisanship is to put oneself up for ridicule. There have been honourable exceptions who have uplifted the majesty of the chair and added immeasurably to the strengthening of democratic roots in India. N Sanjiva Reddy voluntarily resigned from party membership in 1967 to set an example and precedent of non-partisanship. He was to quit active politics after his tenure and only came back years later acceding to Jaiprakash Narains call for Total Revolution. He again became the Speaker and was then unanimously elected President. Years later, a man of immense honour, dignity and sense of constitutional propriety was to rise above petty partisanship and was made to pay a personal price. Somnath Chatterjee was an immensely popular, successful (10 times Lok Sabha member) and proud constitutionalist who spoke his mind fearlessly. Unfortunately this personality trait made it difficult for dogmatic ideologues of his partisan persuasion to accept his putting constitutional morality over partisan considerations. As Speaker of the Lok Sabha, he had refused his party diktat to vote along with the party on a non-confidence motion, but he had refused owing to issues of integrity and bipartisan necessities that in his noble mind befitted a Speaker. Even though he too had his share of controversies, everyone across the aisle recognised him to be scrupulously honest. The likes of him, who put principle over party, are very rare, if not completely absent. Chatterjee knew the price that he would have to pay to do the abnormal, but he heeded to his conscience. Unlike these days, when certain individuals make unusual decisions that are invariably a prelude to jumping ships, Chatterjee never joined any other political party. Given his actions, he could have struck a deal either with his party or the other side, but he would have struggled to make peace with his decision had he done so. In his mind, he had joined the Communist party and he died a Communist, even though his party had expelled him. Perhaps it is the personal price that a true constitutionalist has to pay to uphold the lofty values of democracy that compels many to act in a clearly partisan, beholden and ignoble way, as is the wont and perhaps the essential qualification these days. (The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry) The recent elections to the French National Assembly have cast the country into a period of political uncertainty that threatens to weaken its role both domestically and on the international stage. The snap elections, called by President Emmanuel Macron in response to the far-rights gains in the European Parliament elections, have resulted in a hung parliament, with no single party or coalition securing a majority. The leftwing New Popular Front (NFP) has emerged as the leading force, but its victory is bittersweet. While it thwarted Marine Le Pens far-right National Rally (RN) from gaining control, the NFP now faces the daunting task of navigating a fragmented political landscape. The blocs lack of a clear majority means that forming a stable government will be challenging, necessitating uncomfortable compromises with parties that have vastly different agendas. President Macrons centrists, who came in second, and Ms Le Pens RN, which secured third place, further complicate the political puzzle. Mr Macrons decision to ask Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to remain in his role temporarily underscores the immediate need for stability, but it is a stopgap measure. The real challenge lies in forming a government that can effectively govern without a majority in the National Assembly. The NFP, hastily assembled for this election to unify the left-wing vote against the far right, lacks a single leader and a cohesive strategy. This disunity was evident during the campaign and is now a significant obstacle as the bloc attempts to navigate the post-election landscape. The absence of a consensus on key issues, such as whether to seek support from Mr Macrons centrists, highlights the fragile nature of this alliance. Mr Jean-Luc Melenchon, the firebrand leader of France Unbowed, one of the largest parties in the NFP, has explicitly ruled out any deal with the centrists, further narrowing the paths to a stable government. Advertisement Yet, without some form of agreement with lawmakers outside the NFP, it is unlikely that the bloc will be able to pass any of its key proposals, such as raising the minimum wage and reversing Mr Macrons pension reform. The current political impasse is not just a domestic issue; it has significant implications for Frances role in the European Union and its standing in global markets. The euros slip in response to the election results reflects investor anxiety about Frances future political and economic stability. A fragmented Parliament will make it difficult for France to push through significant domestic reforms and may weaken its influence within the EU. As Paris prepares to host the Olympics, France needs a stable government capable of addressing both domestic and international challenges. The current political uncertainty suggests that such stability is far from assured. The coming weeks will be crucial as parties negotiate and attempt to form a government that can navigate this complex landscape. It is imperative that they find a way to bridge their differences and form an effective government With the Dalai Lama having celebrated his 89th birthday, the global Tibetan community is on the cusp of a significant transition. The revered spiritual leaders age and recent health issues have cast a spotlight on the future of the Tibetan movement in the absence of his influential presence. While he recuperates from a medical procedure in the United States, concerns about succession and the on-going struggle for Tibetan autonomy are more pressing than ever. The Dalai Lama, who has been a beacon of hope and resilience for Tibetans in exile, has indicated that he will soon address the contentious issue of his reincarnation and succession. This announcement is crucial, given Chinas insistence that it will select the next Dalai Lama. This assertion by Beijing is not just a matter of religious authority but a strategic move to control and influence the Tibetan narrative. For Tibetans and their supporters, the fear is not merely about losing a spiritual leader but about the potential fracturing of their movement. The Dalai Lamas philosophy of the Middle Way ~ seeking genuine autonomy within China rather than full independence ~ has garnered international support and kept the Tibetan cause alive on the world stage. However, his eventual successor will likely lack his global recognition and diplomatic acumen, posing a risk to the movements cohesion and momentum. Without his unifying presence, there is a tangible fear that younger Tibetans, frustrated with the slow progress and continuing repression, may lean towards a more radical stance, demanding outright independence rather than autonomy. This transition comes at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions between China and the West. The US, a long-time supporter of the Tibetan cause, has recently intensified its efforts to counter Chinas narrative on Tibets historical status. This strategic shift, marked by new legislation, aims to challenge Beijings claims and push China towards negotiations. Yet, the success of this strategy depends heavily on the unity and resolve of the Tibetan leadership and its diaspora. Advertisement India, hosting the Dalai Lama for over six decades, finds itself in a delicate position. The recent border clashes with China add another layer of complexity to its diplomatic stance. While India has historically supported the Dalai Lama, it must navigate its relationship with China carefully. The succession issue will inevitably draw India further into the fray, potentially affecting its diplomatic and security strategies. The future of the Tibetan movement hinges on the decisions made in the coming months. The Dalai Lamas plans for succession and reincarnation could either fortify the movement or lead to internal discord. The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) and other pro-Tibet groups must prepare for this transition, ensuring that the principles of the Middle Way remain at the forefront. The Dalai Lamas birthday celebrations were not just about honouring a revered leader but also a poignant reminder of the challenges ahead. The Tibetan community must brace for a future without their spiritual anchor, striving to maintain unity and purpose amidst uncertainty In the hush of deepening blue comes evening to the city, ever lit, ever awake, ever with a pulsing heart. Its the harbinger of darkness holding a mysterious note ever-lying in the shadows, where the strength of the day moulds into the softness of the night, and the city comes alive with the music and light. And underneath the beautiful facade of the shimmering night, there are the people who walk the streets with the stealth of a tiger and a vision submerged in red. The first time I was made aware that the city was filled with such people was perhaps the time when I was a foolish student who had lost a bet and ended up on the wrong side of the jail after royally pissing off a few cops and an unfortunate encounter with a fellow knife-wielding junkie who had just then committed a first-degree homicide and fled the scene. Ironically, the poor middle-aged man who had been on the sharp end of the knife managed to die a very dramatic death with no explanation of the situation whatsoever to the cops and a bloodied finger directed towards me. Combine that with the lazy division of the police force, and there I was, wrongly accused of trespassing, theft and murder. It was weeks later that I found myself in court, standing proud and smug after being proven not guilty, thanks to the many charms of CCTV footage. Advertisement However, I do admit that they were right on one aspect of the whole cursed situation. I was trespassing. Guilty as charged but not yet prosecuted, it seems, ay? Regardless, as time went by and I grew up to be somewhat of an irresponsible adult, my penchant for trouble and the lust for danger just went up. Blame the adrenaline and the hormones. So, here I am standing in front of the window of what the kids would call an abandoned building, which had its own share of a tarnished reputation. After taking a sneak peek inside the building and making sure that nobody would be able to stop me from acting upon my intrusive thoughts, I decide to evade the privacy of the ghosts and cause major mayhem if possible. However, there is one challenge I am presented with yet again, in my whole life of a total of 23 years. The door of the building is locked. How charming! Well, no matter. Back in my days as a prominent, snobby high school kid, I used to be the bearer of many titles such as Dread-Locks, Sure-lock Holmes, Sir Pickalock, and the age-old Abra-key-Dabra. I used to be so proud of my entitlements, and to this day, I have come to cherish each memory of me utilising my talent. After all, a little bit of lockpicking never hurts anyone unless you get caught in the middle of the act itself, and Lord, help us if it is an illegal one. The act is damned, but the moral of the story is quite simple yet effective. You need to be careful. Thats the only thing that matters. Check your surroundings, look out for any homicidal knife-wielding junkies who might leave you in trouble, flick your wrists with some pins, and voila! You got yourself an open door to a fairly abandoned building in an equally dodgy town. Smirking to myself at my own success at illegally breaking in, I put away the pins and quietly enter the house. Hey! Dont judge me. I am just a creepy bloke wandering around in a creepy house in the middle of a creepy town. Nothing new there, see! Anyway, back to me breaking in. As soon as I step inside the house, I am greeted by darkness, my old friend. Surprisingly, its always dark. The lights never cooperate in a creepy building. Not that I am in dire need right now. The lights will only manage to alert someone of my presence, and that is not the kind of trouble I am looking for right now. However, I decide to use and light up a small spare torch that I have brought with me. The interior is something that I cant define in just one word. I find it both basic and eclectic simultaneously, and that is something that leaves me confused and in awe. The house is constructed in a style similar to that of a typical advanced Japanese household. Theres the ground floor and the first floor. The entrance leads to a corridor, accompanied by a staircase that leads upstairs, with several rooms that can be found on either side of the corridor. Being a fellow man of culture who loves to take his time just watching and admiring my surroundings, I decide to venture further in the house instead of just standing and utilising my time. As I make progress in my study of the many types of dust particles, I discover that the ground floor consists of three rooms, comprising a kitchen, a living room and a room that further leads to the backyard. Ill have to admit, the house is pretty well kept for being abandoned. Dust has accumulated on every surface visible to humankind, and the spiders are having a good time partying in every corner and alcove, but keeping those facts aside, the house doesnt seem abandoned at all. Who am I to judge? However, being a child trapped in an adults body, I cant help but get bored after a while, so I decide to take a drastic and probably life-changing step in my whole career and venture upstairs. Big mistake. Big. Huge. You would think that in a well-maintained large house such as this one, the stairs would turn out to be well-maintained as well. WRONG. These are the loudest stairs Ive ever had the misfortune of stepping on. I mean, seriously? Come on! This house isnt even that old to begin with. What an absolute waste of wood! My short rant and grudge against the stairs end as soon as my eyes catch the attention of the tapestry hanging on the wall adjacent to the stairs. Strange I think after staring at it properly with my flashlight directed at it. I think Ive seen it somewhere before. I just cant remember where. Shrugging my shoulders, I continue on my way upstairs. Once I reach my destination, I look at my surroundings. Just as I had figured, it resembles the ground floor, only with a slight increase in the number of rooms. I walk towards one of the rooms, deciding to check them out one by one. I was greeted by the pleasant, tranquil voice of the creaking woods once again as I opened the door and stepped inside the vibrant room filled with bright lights. So bright that I felt like a blind man. Enchanting! No matter, thanks to the blessing of my humble torch, I manage to find my path of vision and take a careful look around. The room kind of resembles the rest of the house, decorated with various bric-a-bracs and collectibles all kept carefully, yet placed so very messily all across the room and the house. It is strange in a way. Eclectic. Just when I am about to leave the room, something catches my attention yet again. A set of picture frames. Seeing this as the only opportunity to figure out who this house might have belonged to, I decide to take a closer look at the pictures that are hung up on the wall at the far end of the room, above the bed and the desk beside it. The pictures are somewhat faded, and it takes me some effort to properly look at them in the dark. However, I was not prepared for the next thing that happened. Blimey! Thats me. I admit that Ive never been a huge fan of photographs, but there is no mistake in my judgement. I can be dumb at times, but even I cant be dumb enough to not be able to recognise myself and my family in some photos. These photos depict my younger self, which leaves me a bit dazed and bewildered for the given moment. Lost in my thoughts with a million questions running through my mind, I suddenly hear the door of the room slam shut behind me, which I am ashamed to admit leaves me taking a leap about a foot up in the air, clutching my chest where my heart is supposed to be. What in the Japanese tales of the macabre just happened? I almost run back towards the door, and to my disappointment, I find it locked. My mind is still catching up with recent events, and I admit that I find the whole situation a bit absurd. How did my photos end up in this house? Is someone else inside? Has someone else come in after me? Exactly whose house have I broken into? Then I see him. I think there is a moment where we just look at each other, and as soon as the moment passes, I gather all the adrenaline rush I can manage and rush out the door with the psychopath hot on my heels. People say that theres a right person and a right time. People also say that theres a right person at the wrong time. What people generally forget to mention is the fact that theres a wrong person, a wrong time, a wrong house, and a wretched staircase. As I try to escape my possible murder, I hear the staircase creaking loudly with the sound of crazed laughter echoing around the house, or are they screams of despair? I do not bother to clarify as my rapid heartbeats fill my eardrums. The next few minutes are a blur, with random doors getting slammed open, random things flying across the rooms, and random things getting broken beyond repair. All the efforts are only for me to buy some time to plan an escape. So much chaos only for our little game of cat and mouse held in a cursed house. Just a normal Tuesday night. Throwing yet another door open and slamming it shut once I am safely inside, I make sure to lock it tight and block the entrance as much as possible as I plan on my next move. I find luck shining brightly upon me once I realise that I have managed to lock myself in the room that leads to the backyard. Well, theres my escape I think, and I make haste to act upon my plan. The doors seem a bit jammed, but with a bit of push, they open just fine; however, it doesnt sit right with me how the entire house goes quiet suddenly. After I had locked myself in, I thought that the criminal would be hell-bent on breaking down the door, but nothing of the sort has happened so far. Is he planning to let me go? Pfft, nah. What a joke! Does he already know that I am going to escape? Has he already gotten out of the house? A number of annoying and stupid questions cross my mind, but I decide to get out of the house without wasting further time. I can think about the criminal later. Now, when I tell you that this night has been very strange, I really mean it. I still dont know how my photos ended up in this pathetic excuse of a house, let alone how a murderer even managed to enter. The point is, this night has been strange, but nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for this. A gravestone at the far end of the backyard. Thats not something that blows my mind apart. The name etched on the surface of the stone, however, manages to do exactly that. It is mine. Great googly moogly! What on earth is happening? Now I need some definite answers. Have I died? Have I forgotten about it? Am I hallucinating or something? Stunned into silence and deciding on the fact that my blood definitely doesnt carry any sort of drug whatsoever, I force my legs to slowly retreat into the house. Once inside, I unlock the doors and decide to look for clues. At this point, anything will do, to be honest. However, the scene that greets me is another surprise on the list of surprises this night. The living room is littered with candles that are lit up, and there sits Mr Murderer in a circle made of salt with his eyes closed and praying to the heavens above to save him from evil. Save him from evil. Save? HIM? Huh? So, I am the bad guy throwing a flower vase at him all this time? is the first thought that crosses my mind after the whole ordeal. I decide to test my theory and kick a random box out of my way that is lying there on the floor. I get all my answers when the guy literally flinches away and jumps almost off the floor with his eyes unfocused, trying to figure out something even though I am right there. Relaxing my shoulders, which were tense up until now, and releasing a breath that I didnt even know I was holding, I accept the situation and venture further into the house. In my house. As I pass a mirror and look at it, I cant see my reflection, but the memories suddenly come back one by one. I had been sitting in this room looking at this exact mirror years ago when I had been attacked in my house by this same psychotic maniac. I had been startled, and even though I was a fairly good fighter, it was easy for my assaulter to gain the upper hand by stabbing me multiple times. I was tortured. I was also made to look at the whole process through this exact same mirror. The details of the vintage mirror had been very interesting and a good source of distraction from the pain I was suffering at that moment. That was a painful death I reminisce. I think thats the reason I never truly left. I think thats why I am trapped in time without any memories. Damn, I am a vintage eclectic soul, but GOOD LORD, these stairs are disgustingly loud I think as I decide to just sit for a moment in the chair in front of the mirror with my eyes closed. I am tired after the ordeal. I am tired. The next time I open my eyes, I am standing in front of the window of what the kids would call an abandoned building, which had its own share of a tarnished reputation. After taking a sneak peek inside the building and making sure that nobody would be able to stop me from acting upon my intrusive thoughts, I decide to evade the privacy of the ghosts and cause major mayhem if possible. Lets get inside. Electric vehicle (EV) startups on Tuesday hailed the Uttar Pradesh governments announcement on the complete waiver of registration tax on strong hybrid cars to promote the use of environment-friendly vehicles in the state. The state is offering a 100 per cent waiver on registration fees for strong hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The move is set to benefit hybrid cars being offered by automakers like Maruti, Toyota and Honda. Advertisement Raghav Arora, Co-Founder and CTO, Statiq, told IANS that it is a significant step towards promoting eco-friendly cars. As an EV charging company, we applaud this initiative for making sustainable vehicles more accessible. This proactive government effort will encourage people to shift towards EVs, aligning with Indias broader goals of reducing carbon emissions and advancing green technology adoption, said Arora. Since this is an amendment to the existing EV policy, the relaxation in registration costs will be valid till October 2025. According to Ankit Sharma, Co-Founder & Director, Vidyuta Materials, as a startup focused on producing Cathode Active Materials (CAM) for lithium-ion batteries in EVs, they support this initiative for enhancing the affordability of sustainable mobility. These actions foster broader adoption of electric vehicles, bolstering Indias efforts to reduce carbon emissions and embrace environmentally sustainable technologies, Sharma added. 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. The White House on Tuesday said that Indias ties with Russia give it the ability to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict in Ukraine. The statement came after PM Modi emphasised to President Putin that the solution to the Ukraine conflict lay in dialogue and not on the battlefield. While addressing a press briefing, Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary, called India the US strategic partner with whom they hold full and frank dialogue, including their ties with Russia. She called it critical that all nations, including India support efforts to realise an enduring peace when it comes to Ukraine. Asked about PM Modis meeting with Putin, Jean-Pierre said, India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in full and frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia and weve talked about this before. So we think its critical that all countries, including India, support efforts to realize an enduring and just peace when it comes to Ukraine. It is important for all our allies to realise this. Advertisement We also believe Indias long-standing relationship with Russia gives it the ability to urge President Putin, to end his brutal war, an unprovoked war in Ukraine. It is for President Putin to end. President Putin started the war, and he can end the war. Jean-Pierre made the statement after Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his bilateral talks with Russian President Putin raised the issue of killings of children during conflicts and said it is heart-wrenching when innocent children die. The Prime Minister said that everyone who believes in humanity is hurt when there is a loss of lives. This comes in the wake of the recent missile strike on a childrens hospital in Kyiv, which killed 37 children. Be it war, conflicts, terror attacks everyone who believes in humanity is pained when there is loss of lives. But when innocent children are murdered, when we see innocent children dying, it is heart-wrenching. That pain is immense. I also held a detailed discussion with you over this, PM Modi said during the meeting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that there is no solution on the battlefield and added that peace talks do not succeed amid bombs, guns and bullets. PM Modi said, As a friend, I have always said that for the bright future of our coming generations, peace is of utmost importance. But I also know that solutions are not possible on battlegrounds. Amid bombs, guns and bullets, solutions and peace talks do not succeed. We will have to follow the path to peace only through talks. It was PM Modis first visit to Russia since the war started between Moscow and Kyiv in 2022. India has always advocated peace and diplomacy for resolving the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed disappointment over Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Russia, which he termed a devastating blow to peace efforts. Zelenskyy took to social media platform X to post that on the same day 37 people, including three children, were killed and 170 others were injured due to Russias missile strike at the largest childrens hospital in Ukraines capital city Kyiv. In Ukraine today, 37 people were killed, three of whom were children, and 170 were injured, including 13 children, as a result of Russias brutal missile strike. A Russian missile struck the largest childrens hospital in Ukraine, targeting young cancer patients. Many were buried under the rubble. It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the worlds largest democracy hug the worlds most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day the Ukrainian leader said. PM Modi was on a two-day official visit to Russia from July 8-9. During his visit, he held a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. PM Modi also addressed the Indian community in Moscow. Irans President-elect, Masoud Pezeshkian, has reaffirmed Tehrans support for Syria during a phone call with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. During the call on Tuesday, the two sides discussed the future development of bilateral ties, according to the Iranian Students News Agency. Pezeshkian highlighted the necessity to strengthen bilateral ties and implement the previously signed agreements between the two countries in line with their peoples interests, the report said. Advertisement Assad, for his part, said that the importance of the Syria-Iran ties, based on mutual faithfulness and certain principles, lies in the resistance against the colonial hegemony in a tumultuous region, Xinhua news agency reported. Pezeshkian was announced as Irans next president last Saturday following his victory in a runoff against Saeed Jalili, a former chief nuclear negotiator. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre urged New Delhi to support international efforts for a peaceful resolution in the war-torn country, leveraging its longstanding relationship with Moscow to encourage President Putin to end the war. Further speaking about the war, she emphasized that it is crucial for all allies, including India, to support efforts towards a peaceful resolution in Ukraine. Further, the White House Secretary also reiterated that India is a strategic partner with whom the US engages in frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia. Advertisement India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in full and frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia and weve talked about this before. So we think its critical that all countries, including India, support efforts to realize an enduring and just peace when it comes to Ukraine. It is important for all our allies to realise this. Jean-Pierre stressed that President Putin alone can end the war, which he started. The US believes Indias relationship with Russia positions it to encourage President Putin to take this step, she added. We also believe Indias long-standing relationship with Russia gives it the ability to urge President Putin, to end his brutal war, an unprovoked war in Ukraine. It is for President Putin to end. President Putin started the war, and he can end the war Jean-Pierre added The White House remarks came after PM Modi met Putin at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence in an informal meeting on Monday where the two leaders covered prospects for further development of relations between Moscow and New Delhi. Also, the two leaders discussed the situation in Ukraine and further comprehensive discussions were held on Tuesday. Notably, PM Modi and Putin have met 16 times over the past 10 years. After arriving in Moscow, PM Modi said he looks forward to further deepening the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between the two nations. In a post on X, PM Modi stated, Landed in Moscow. Looking forward to further deepening the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between our nations, especially in futuristic areas of cooperation. Stronger ties between our nations will greatly benefit our people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Tuesday from Moscow on a two-day visit to Austria and was hosted by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer for a private engagement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. An important milestone in the India-Austria partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnerships lie ahead, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X, along with photos of the two leaders together in Vienna. Nehammer posted a photo of him and PM Modi on the microblogging platform X and said: Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit! Advertisement The Prime Minister thanked the Austrian Chancellor for the warm welcome and said he looks forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good. Prime Minister Modi was seen hugging Nehammer in one of the photos while in another, the Austrian Chancellor was seen clicking a selfie with the Prime Minister. In another post on X, PM Modi said: Happy to meet you in Vienna, Chancellor @karlnehammer. The India-Austria friendship is strong and it will get even stronger in the times to come. During PM Modis visit to Austria, the two countries will explore ways to further deepen their relationship and closer cooperation on various geopolitical challenges. Earlier, PM Modi said on X: Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more. Prime Minister Modi was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport in Vienna. In an earlier post on X, the MEA spokesperson said, As the two countries are celebrating 75th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will add renewed momentum to India-Austria ties. Prime Minister Modi will call on the President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and hold talks with Nehammer on Wednesday. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor will also address business leaders from India and Austria. Ahead of his visit to Austria, PM Modi on Sunday said the shared values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law form the bedrock upon which the two countries will build an ever-closer partnership. Prime Minister Modis remark came a day after Nehammer posted on X: I very much look forward to welcoming Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, the worlds largest democracy, next week in Vienna. This visit is a special honour as it marks the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over 40 years and a significant milestone as we celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations with India, he said. We will have the opportunity to talk about further deepening our bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges, the Austrian Chancellor said. Responding to Nehammer, PM Modi said, Thank you, Chancellor Karl Nehammer. It is indeed an honour to visit Austria to mark this historic occasion. I look forward to our discussions on strengthening the bonds between our nations and exploring new avenues of cooperation. 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. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) and Visa discussed the expansion of cashless payments in public transport, Trend reports. According to the CBA, a delegation headed by the First Deputy Chairman of the CBA Rashad Orujov met with Visa's Chief Vice President and Regional Manager for the CIS and Southeast Europe Christina Doros. The CBA noted that the meeting also discussed the implementation of the concepts of 'smart cities' and 'smart villages', as well as preventing fraud in digital payments. Additionally, the meeting saw an exchange of views on prospective initiatives being implemented within the framework of the collaboration between the organizations. Visa (NYSE: V) is a global leader in the digital payments industry. Visa processes payment transactions between consumers, businesses, and financial and government institutions in more than 200 countries and territories. Visa's mission is to unite the world through an innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payment network to promote consumer well-being and business and economic prosperity. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Warning: Spoilers for Mirzapur Season 3 Mirzapur Season 3 saw a slew of unexpected twists and shocking deaths, in line with the earlier seasons. One of the most shocking deaths was in the final episode when the dons aka bahubalis held a meeting to decide the successor to the throne of Mirzapur. In Season 3 of the Amazon Prime Video series, Kaleen Bhaiya aka Akhandanand Tripathi returns from the dead after being saved by nephew Sharad Shukla. He recovered in a makeshift hospital in Siwan and later moved to Sharad's home in Jaunpur. Tripathi eventually tells Sharad that he has given up the throne of Mirzapur and will back his nephew's claim, just as Sharad had planned all along. ALSO READ: When will Mirzapur Season 4 release? Here's what to expect after Season 3 cliffhanger Chief Minister Madhuri Yadav who was getting closer to Sharad gets enraged after learning that he was behind her father's murder. She feels used as Sharad influenced her in order to target his rivals and increase his power in Purvanchal. Later when she meets him, Madhuri asks Sharad not to hide any truth from her, giving him a chance to admit to killing her father. While withholding the information about why he murdered her father, Sharad reveals that her father-in-law Tripathi is still alive, saying he did not tell her this earlier as it was too late. Madhuri then asks Sharad to set up a meeting with her father-in-law. During their meeting, Tripathi tells her that he will help Sharad to claim the throne but Madhuri asks him to wait, leaving him confused. Later, a meeting of the bahubalis in Purvanchal are called and mediated by UP Paschim's representative Munnawar. With Guddu rotting in prison, Sharad claims the throne. However, Munnawar says Purvanchal is weak and it needs Paschim's support and hence all decisions should go through him. ALSO READ: When is 'Panchayat' Season 4 releasing? Director Deepak Kumar Mishra says Season 5 too on the anvil As the dons object to his stance, Tripathi enters the hall, surprising everyone who thought he was dead. He announces that Sharad is the rightful candidate to the throne and says he will be the "last king of Mirzapur". As everyone tries to gauge what he actually meant, he shoots Sharad. He kills Munnawar too before anyone could react and the police rush in, killing all the gangsters and dons in the hall. A wounded Sharad crawls to reach the throne. Tripathi stops the police from shooting him and allows him to sit on the throne, where he eventually dies. This scene reveals what Madhuri told Tripathi during their meeting earlier. Obviously, she wanted to avenge her father and made Tripathi kill Sharad. But Tripathi stays true to his word by announcing Sharad as the "last" king of Mirzapur. In the next scene, we see Madhuri and her aide helping Beena and her son reunite with her husband Tripathi. Beena, who had been relieved that she is done with the Tripathis, is shocked to learn that her husband is alive. In the post-credits scene, we see Beena's housemaid meeting Tripathi's former guard Maqbool and asking him for help. In the next season, we can expect Beena to eliminate her husband with Maqbool's help and take the throne of Mirzapur for herself. Or will Tripathi learn the truth and kill her first? Another twist in the final episode of Mirzapur Season 3 is Guddu's escape from prison. Golu joins hands with J.P. Yadav to get Guddu out of jail and promises to reinstate him as CM by ousting Madhuri. Before the end credits, we see Guddu walking towards a boat from which Golu emerges. They hug and kiss passionately, hinting at a romance angle in the upcoming season. From the looks of it, the duo is headed to Nepal, where their drug suppliers are based. We can expect a Tripathi vs Guddu and Golu clash in Mirzapur Season 4. Or will there be any new players coming in to add more drama? We have to wait and watch. Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has removed Rajesh Shah, whose son Mihir Shah was allegedly involved in the BMW hit-and-run, from the post of deputy leader. A statement by the party said Rajesh Shah has been relieved from the post of the party's deputy leader. The one-line statement did not add any other details. This comes as the BMC authorities on Wednesday razed down the illegal portion of the bar in Juhu that served alcohol to Mihir Shah. The outlet will face action for functioning without a proper licence and for illegal construction on the property. The Vice-Global Tapas Bar allegedly sold liquor to Shah, despite him being below the legal age for drinking in Maharastra. Shah is 23 and the legal age for drinking in the state is 25. The state excise administration has suspended the bar's licence and sealed its premises until the next hearing. This came as the Excise Department also found various irregularities, including the use of different names by the bar. While the licence was in the name of Don Giovanni Restaurant (Jobel Hospitalities Pvt Ltd bearing license number FL3,1489), the name on the cash memo or receipt was Vice-Global Tapas Bar. The bar also faces action for non-submission of licensed premises for inspection, mixing the permitted liquor serving area with the non-permitted restaurant zone, discrepancies in the liquor stock permitted versus non-permitted and lack of a liquor transport license for a certain amount of liquor stock. BMC authorities razing down the portion of the bar which served alcohol to Mihir Shah | ANI Tracking Mihir The Mumbai police arrested Mihir on Tuesday, two days after he rammed his BMW car into a two-wheeler, killing 45-year-old Kaveri Nakhwa and leaving her husband injured. Mihir is the son of Rajesh Shah, a Shiv Sena Eknath Shinde faction leader. Mihir, who was absconding for 72 hours after the incident, was tracked down by the police after his friend made the mistake of switching on his mobile phone for 15 minutes. Police said Mihir fled from the Kala Nagar area after the crime in an auto rickshaw to his woman friend's residence in suburban Goregaon. The friend contacted Mihir's sister, who reached Goregaon, and took both Mihir and his friend to her Borivali residence. Mihir's family then decided to flee to a resort at Shahapur in Thane district in an Audi car. Mihir, his mother Meena, sisters Kinjal and Pooja and two friends stayed at the resort. After learning the identity of one of the friends accompanying Mihir, Mumbai Police tracked his number, but this friend too had switched off his mobile phone. However, on Monday evening, Mihir and his friend left the Shahapur resort and reached Virar, where his friend switched on his mobile phone for 15 minutes. Police immediately tracked down the mobile tower location and intercepted the duo, the official added. In a path-breaking move, the finance ministry has approved the request of a senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer to change their name and gender in all official records. The request was made by M Anusuya, a 2013 batch IRS (Customs & Indirect Taxes) officer, currently serving as joint commissioner in the office of the chief commissioner of the Customs, Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) in Hyderabad. This is the first time such a decision was taken in Indian Civil Service history. They requested the name to be changed to M. Anukathir Surya and the gender from female to male. As per an office order dated July 9, 2024, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs said the authority considered the request and henceforth the officer will be recognised as Mr Anukathir Surya in all official records. Ms M Anusuya, IRS (C&IT: 2013) [Employee Code: 4623, DOB: 20.10.1988] presently posted as Joint Commissioner in 0/o Chief Commissioner (AR), CESTAT, Hyderabad has requested for change of her name from Ms M Anusuya to Mr M Anukathir Surya and Gender from Female to Male. The request of Ms M Anusuya has been considered. Henceforth, the officer will be recognised as Mr M Anukathir Surya in all official records, the order said. The order was issued with approval of competent authority, it said. Surya started their career as an assistant commissioner in Chennai in December 2013 and was promoted to Deputy Commissioner in 2018. They joined their current posting in Hyderabad last year, as per his LinkedIn profile. Surya completed his Bachelor's degree in Electronics and Communication from the Madras Institute of Technology in 2010 and finished a PG Diploma in Cyber Law and Cyber Forensics from the National Law Institute University in Bhopal in 2023. Hailing the move, senior IRS officers said the order is "progressive" and has set a precedent for gender inclusivity within government services. with agency inputs Prime Minister Narendra Modi held delegation-level talks with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Wednesday in Vienna. Modi arrived in Vienna from Moscow on Tuesday evening on a two-day visit, the first by an Indian prime minister in over 40 years. The two discussed ways to explore the full potential of the ties between the two countries. In a joint statement, Karl Nehammer said there is a very good relationship between India and Austria. "It's a relationship of trust which began in the 1950s. India helped Austria and in 1955, the negotiations came to a positive conclusion with the Austrian State Treaty. What unites India and Austria is concern over the development of the geopolitical situation." The two leaders discussed the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, he said. "For me, as the Federal Chancellor of Austria, it is particularly important to get to know India's assessment and to understand it and familiarise India with European concerns and worries. Moreover, the conflict in the Middle East was a major topic and in addition to this challenging geopolitical situation, we also referred to the positive aspects of our cooperation." In his statement, PM Modi said the two leaders discussed in detail all the ongoing disputes in the world and added that he reiterated his earlier remark that this is not the time for war. Modi said he and Chancellor Nehammer identified new possibilities to further strengthen mutual cooperation. "We have decided that the relationship will be given a strategic direction," he added. ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 10. KazMunayGas (Kazakhstans national oil and gas company) and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) have signed a framework agreement to deepen cooperation in the oil and gas industry, Trend reports. The signing took place on the sidelines of the seventh meeting of the Kazakh-Chinese Business Council. The framework agreement stipulates that the parties will explore the possibilities for processing hydrocarbons from the Central Urikhtau field at the Zhanazhol oil and gas processing complex (CNPC-Aktobemunaigas). In addition, the parties intend to explore the prospects for cooperation in petrochemical projects, as well as the exploration and production of oil and gas in the Caspian sedimentary basin, and the geological exploration of new subsoil areas. The parties also plan to hold annual Kazakh-Chinese seminars on the exchange of technologies for exploration and development of oil and gas fields, strengthen cooperation in personnel training, and exchange experience. Furthermore, Kazakhstan produced 90 million tons of oil in 2023, which is 6.9 percent higher than in 2022. Oil exports also increased and amounted to 70.5 million tons, which is 9.6 percent more than the previous year. Moreover, Kazakhstan plans to increase oil production in 2024 to 90.3 million tons. In 2023, gas production in Kazakhstan amounted to 59.063 billion cubic meters, including large fields such as Tengiz (16.009 billion cubic meters), Karachaganak (22.385 billion cubic meters), Kashagan (11.856 billion cubic meters), and others (8.813 billion cubic meters). Kazakhstan is projected to produce 60.456 billion cubic meters of raw natural gas in 2024. Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Austria , bolstering the 75 year old diplomatic ties, places New Delhi as a global partner and important strategic ally for European nations who are looking at diversifying their political engagements and business partnerships in a changing geopolitical landscape. Speaking exclusively to THE WEEK, Austrian ambassador Katharina Wieser says the focus on India is getting bigger with the growing need of European countries for alternative supply chain routes, economic opportunities and political engagement. Q. Prime Minister Modis visit to Vienna marks 75 years of India-Austria diplomatic ties. How has the relationship progressed? I think it's been a very good journey. We got off to a good start and have enjoyed stable and friendly relations throughout the years. There has been an added dynamic in the past years, with an increased exchange at many levels of our multifaceted partnership. Our foreign ministers have met many times in the past two years, and the Austrian Minister of Labour and Economy, accompanied by a large business delegation, visited India in February 2024. We are honoured that the visit of Honble Prime Minister Modi to Austria is taking place on the occasion of our celebration of 75 years of diplomatic relations. It is a confirmation of the friendly partnership we have, and a good starting point for a further upgrade of our relations. Indeed it is 41 years since an Indian Prime Minister last visited Austria, and 40 years since an Austrian Federal Chancellor visited India, so lets seize this opportunity and take our excellent relations to another level. There has been an intensification of the outreach of India to the world, and we are glad that Austria is also playing a part in that. It is really important to meet regularly and talk about bilateral, regional and global concerns. Q. What are the focus areas of exchange at the moment? A particular focus is definitely on economic and business relations. Around 150 subsidiaries of Austrian companies are already engaged in India, and very happy to be here. Our bilateral trade volume is nearly 3 bn, and investments nearly 2 bn. Recent high-level visits were accompanied by large business delegations, displaying the intensification of exchange and the interest in further engagement. There have been several business missions, including start-up missions, going both ways in the past years. During the visit of the Austrian Minister of Labour and Economy Martin Kocher in February, a bilateral start-up bridge was launched between India and Austria, and as a direct outcome around 35 Indian companies with 55 representatives participated in the ViennaUP, a start-up festival in Vienna, Austria, in June. So there's a dynamic in that area that we want to develop further in view of the importance of fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. Starting from the visit of PM Modi in Austria and the high-level business forum that was addressed by PM Modi and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in the framework of the visit, we shall look to developing a future-oriented sustainable economy and technology partnership. Today, there are common concerns around climate change which we have to tackle together. Austria is a high tech country with a lot of expertise to offer in the green, sustainable and renewables sector. Austrian companies are already engaged in this field in India, for example in the field of mobility and smart city development, renewable energy, biofuel and the circular economy. By further collaborating in this sector we can jointly make the transition to more sustainable economies. Austrian ambassador Katharina Wieser | Kritajna Naik Q. How do you see people-to-people exchange increasing in coming years? An important area of cooperation is an intensification of people-to-people exchange, enabling student mobility, exchange of researchers and academics as well as skilled labor migration to address existing labour shortages in Austria. In an important development, the two foreign ministers last year signed a bilateral Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement, which entered into force at the beginning of September 2023. It covers two important areas of cooperation, one being the prevention of illegal migration, a policy priority for Austria. The other area of cooperation is to enable productive and future-oriented exchanges at the academic and professional level. Being at different stages of our economic development it makes sense to use our respective strengths and opportunities, such as enabling skilled labour exchange through recruitment of highly skilled professionals in India. At the moment, there are around 1000 Indian students studying at universities in Austria, and there is interest in accommodating more. Several Austrian universities have been visiting India in recent months to meet with counterparts and to establish direct relations. Having studied in Austria and learnt the language could be another pathway of becoming part of the skilled labor force. And quite apart from skilled labour migration, Austria with its beautiful nature and cities that combine history and modernity is a well-known and sought-after tourist destination. In 2023, around 136,000 Indian tourists visited Austria, and we look forward to welcoming more. Also vice versa, Austrian tourists find India a fascinating country to visit. That is the kind of people-to-people contact that will increase the knowledge and understanding between our two countries. Q. What are the growing opportunities for the Indian diaspora? The Indian diaspora in Austria is not very huge (between 11,000 and 31,000), but it is growing. Over the years, we have for example had migration from Kerala to the Austrian health sector, with many Keralites working in Austrian hospitals and as care givers. It is a sector that is still very much in need of an expanded workforce. Another sector has been the field of IT and engineering, where there is a very well educated Indian workforce, and Austrian companies in need of such skilled workers. Some very successful matchings have been made, and we hope to continue this exchange. Q. Talking of global challenges and partnerships, what is the focus? One defining element of Austrian foreign policy is that we are a neutral country, located right at the center, in the heart of Europe. Our geopolitical, geographical location and our constitutional setup as a neutral country is also the backdrop to a particular emphasis on multilateral cooperation. As you know, Vienna is headquarters to many international organizations, amongst them one of the headquarters of the UN. Being a neutral country has always meant that we are militarily neutral, but we have never been politically neutral. Mumbai Police is likely to question the girlfriend of Mihir Shah, the key accused in the hit-and-run case, as they found that he had called her over phone more than 40 times after the incident. Mihir, son of ruling Shiv Sena leader Rajesh Shah, was arrested on Tuesday, nearly 48 hours after his BMW car fatally knocked down a woman and injured her husband, who were travelling on a two-wheeler in Mumbais Worli area on Sunday morning. Police said the victim, Kaveri Nakhwa (45), was dragged on road for 1.5 kilometre by the speeding vehicle before Mihir swapped seats with his driver Rajrishi Bidawat and fled the spot in another vehicle. The driver allegedly ran over her while reversing the BMW. A local court on Wednesday sent Mihir to police custody till July 16. During the hearing, the police told court that the accused should be given maximum custody as they need to probe who helped him escape and also since the car's number plate is yet to be recovered. Bidawat was arrested on Sunday and remanded in police custody till July 11. Rajesh Shah had also been arrested in the case but was granted bail after one-day police custody. According to police, after the incident, Mihir took an auto and went to his girlfriends home in Goregaon. He rested there for two hours while his girlfriend informed his sister about the incident, NDTV reported quoting police sources. Mihirs mother and two sisters took him to a resort in Shahpur and made him stay there even as the police had launched a manhunt for him. As many as 18 people died after a private bus rammed into a milk container on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district on Wednesday morning. Police said the mishap happened near Jojikot village in the Bangarmau area. Over 19 people have been injured in the accident and they have been admitted to a nearby hospital. Their condition is stated to be stable. Fourteen men, three women and a child were among those killed. #WATCH | Uttar Pradesh: 18 people died after a double-decker bus going from Bihar to Delhi, hit a milk tanker at around 05:15 AM on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway under the Behtamujawar PS area. (Visuals from CHC Hospital, Unnao) pic.twitter.com/6h9a56t3n5 ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2024 The double-decker bus was coming to UP from Motihari in Bihar when the mishap happened. According to Unnano district magistrate Gaurang Rathi, the accident happened around 5.15 am. "The private bus coming from Bihar collided with a milk tanker. The initial investigation is on and it looks like the bus was overspeeding. The injured are getting treatment," Rathi added. Bangarmau Circle Officer (CO) Arvind Kumar said due to the impact of the collision, both the bus and milk tanker overturned. Drivers of the two vehicles were among the dead. Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak said the injured have been sent to Unnao district hospital. "Injured are being shifted to higher-level hospitals. All hospitals nearer to Unnao are being put on alert," Pathak said. He added that most of the injured people were from Bihar and the Uttar Pradesh government is in touch with the Bihar government. Pathak said the reasons for the accident will come out only after investigation. Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath took cognizance of the accident and expressed condolences to the bereaved families of the deceased. The chief minister also directed the officials to reach the spot immediately and expedite the relief work. Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Tuesday, the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister since Indira Gandhi 40 years ago. Modi flew to Vienna from Moscow after concluding his two-day visit, which saw him discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin a range of topics, including trade, nuclear energy and Ukraine war. The Prime Minister was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport and was later hosted by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer for a private engagement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. "An important milestone in India-Austria partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnership lie ahead," MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X, along with photographs of the two leaders together in Vienna. Modi was seen hugging Nehammer in one of the photos while in another, the Austrian chancellor was seen clicking a selfie with the prime minister. Nehammer also took to X to post a photo of him and Modi: "Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!" This is the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Austria in more than 40 years, the last being of Indira Gandhi in 1983. The visit is expected to boost the ties between the two countries and explore closer cooperation on various geopolitical challenges. Modi will call on the President of the Republic of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and hold talks with Nehammer on Wednesday. He will also address business leaders from India and Austria. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Modi's recent visit to Russia a success, adding that he stated the two leaders discussed almost every issue mentioned on the agenda including cooperation in global organisations like G20, BRICS, and the UN. "I think the visit was very successful. They discussed each and every issue on the bilateral agenda. They discussed the international situation, our cooperation in G20, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, in the United Nations, where we support the Indian interest to become a permanent member of the Security Council, like we do for Brazil and African candidates," said Lavrov. Lavrov also highlighted the 20-year-old friendship between PM Modi and President Putin. "And I think they understood each other always because they have been acquainted for more than 20 years. So the chemistry is there, the understanding of the tasks on the bilateral agenda and on the issues related to international policies, absolutely the same. And I am sure this visit will give a very positive push for the relations in all areas," Lavrov said to ANI. The United States has said it continues to view India as a strategic partner despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Moscow and exhibiting a warm relationship with President Vladimir Putin, including posing for pictures of the two of them locked in a close embrace. The two leaders had met on Monday evening for a private hour-long 'restricted meeting' and then on Tuesday while leading the respective delegations for the bilateral meeting. Of added significance of the India-Russia meeting is that it was held at the same time when NATO was holding a summit in Washington DC that is being attended by all the 32 member countries besides its Indo-Pacific allies Australia, Japan, New Zealand and North Korea. Although not invited to the NATO meet, India, along with the US, Australia and Japan together form the Indo-Pacific grouping Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or the 'Quad'. Responding to a query on Tuesday evening, Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder said: "We will continue to view India as a strategic partner. From a US perspective, India is a strategic partner with whom we continue to engage in full and frank dialogue to include their relationship with Russia." "I don't think anybody will be surprised if President Putin tries to represent this visit in a way that seeks to somehow show he is not isolated from the rest of the world." Ryder also alluded to the recent meeting between PM Modi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: "The PM (Modi) also met recently with the Ukrainian President and assuredand offered his assurances that India will continue to do everything within its means to support a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine." "I think that we trust that India will support efforts to realize an enduring and just peace for Ukraine and will convey to Mr. Putin the importance of adhering to the UN charter and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity." And India did exactly that on Tuesday. An official source had said: India has always called for respecting the UN Charter, including territorial integrity and sovereignty. There is no solution on the battlefield. Dialogue and diplomacy is the way forward." But on the day Modi landed in Moscow, Russian missiles hit residential and civilian infrastructure across Ukraine, including in the cities of Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro and Pokrovsk, killing dozens of civilians, including children and injuring more than 150. In Kyiv, the Okhmatdyt National Childrens Specialized Hospital was also hit. The attack had drawn strong condemnation for the UN Secretary-General on Tuesday. The Indian PM also came out with a response: "Any person who believes in humanity feels pain when people die, and especially when innocent children die... the heart bleeds (hriday chhalni ho jata hai)". It was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who came out strongly on Tuesday on the Indian PM embracing President Putin in Moscow on the day a childrens hospital was bombed in Kyiv. "It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the worlds largest democracy hug the worlds most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day," Zelenskyy wrote, referring to the Russian bombing. A peculiar genre of films has been taking shape in Bollywood for over a decade now. Let's call it the I-hate-women-but-can't-live-without-them genre of films. Or, simply, Mission Misogyny. Truth be told, barring a few notable exceptions, most films made in India have varying degrees and shades of sexism. Some invisibilise or patronise women, others exploit them. Using graphic, brutal violence against women as a plot device to catapult heroes into righteous battles is almost a rite of passage for most action-thriller directors and actors. But this particular genre of I-hate-women films is different. It exists because women exist. In its warped worldview, true heaven is that place on earth where grown men can freely act like lecherous teenage boys. They must cheat and deceive women because, well, thats just the way men get to have innocent fun. But women who do exactly that are devious, heartless witches who must be made to burn in the hell of humiliation. So all energies, monies and efforts are spent on forging brotherhood around elaborate, harebrained schemes to show women the middle finger because, it seems, that's the only way men can assert their manhood. Writer-director-producer Luv Ranjan, who made 'Pyaar Ka Punchnama' in 2011, and then followed it up with other such, is one of the founding members of this genre of cinema. 'Wild Wild Punjab' is written and co-produced by him. To say "written" is an exaggeration because this film is just a blend of Hollywoods 'The Hangover', Ranjans own 'Punchnama', and director Mrighdeep Singh Lambas 'Fukrey' series in a new setting. 'Wild Wild Punjab' doesn't have a story. It has what can at best be called a situation: A young, attractive, cheater-cock type of woman dwells in an office in an unnamed city in Punjab. On one seemingly routine office day, she decides to do some naughty-naughty things with her boss and then proceeds to dump her awww-baby-I-love-you-baby boyfriend. Cheater also lets her dumped boyfriend, Khanna (Varun Sharma), know that she is to wed the aforementioned boss in Pathankot. Khanna is distraught. He grabs one of those old style shaving blades and a cheese knife, rushes to an open-air bar, consumes undisclosed amounts of intoxicating liquids, and then, perched on the parapet, does ini-mini-mani-mo. He cant decide whether to slit his wrist with the blade or to slice himself into neat slivers with the cheese knife. This momentous moment comes quite early, about six-seven minutes into the film. And had no one intervened, the film could have ended here and saved us all from a lot of torture. But his two friends Arora (Sunny Singh) and Jain (Jassie Gill) arrive in the nick of time to suggest an alternative plan: Khanna must go to Pathankot and tell the cheater, to her face, at her wedding, "I am over you". Khanna is chuffed, all say cheers and are soon joined by Honey Paaji (Manjot Singh). United by the bro code and their matching stupidity, the four set off in Honey Paajis car to fix Khannas broken heart. Wild Wild West is set in Punjab, so the men call each other Arore, Khanne, Jainu. Arore is a slightly dim stud and womaniser who lies, makes out and repeats; Jainu, who is petrified of his miserly dad, is engaged to wed soon; Honey Paaji, who runs a truck business, loves his dead daddyji and his car. En route Pathankot, the film meanders needlessly through incredibly idiotic situations that, in the hands of better writers and directors of Hangover and Fukrey were funny. The Wild Wild West team seems to think that muddled writing, stale situations, general chaos and characters behaving like morons is the stuff of comedy. So we are treated to dazzling sights and sounds. Khanne, in between whining and drinking, gets on top of Paaji's car and urinates on a toll booth. Jainu keeps sulking but finds himself a better half (Patralekhaa). Arore keeps checking out girls till he is knocked over by one Meera (Ishita Raj) who, incidentally, is a C-grade version of Fukreys Bholi Punjaban (played by Richa Chaddha). Honey Paaji, meanwhile, keeps trying to save his car from accidents and flower decorations, slaps a cop, and makes some feeble attempts to inject some sense into this nonsense. Eventually, all of them find themselves being chased by two trigger-happy drug lords in maroon, chenille tracksuits, while a bullet lodges itself in Khanne's bum and we are made to stare at it again and again and again. Like Ranjan's Pyaar Ka Punchnama, director Simarpreet Singh's Wild Wild Punjab is all about men pooling their resources so that one weepy ex-boyfriend can snub his mean girlfriend in public. The difference is that despite its misogyny, Punchnama was funny and had excellent performances. Whereas Wild Wild Punjab is a 120-minute-long parade of blundering incompetents, and everything that's gone into its making -- writing, direction and acting -- is a source of rising irritation and endless boredom. Discretion is strongly advised. Wild Wild Punjab Cast: Varun Sharma, Sunny Singh, Manjot Singh, Jassie Gill, Patralekhaa, Ishita Raj Direction: Simarpreet Singh Rating: 1/5 Streaming on Netflix Democrats on Capitol Hill met privately Tuesday at a crucial moment for President Joe Biden and their party, with tensions running high over the extraordinary question of whether to keep up support or urge him to step aside in light of health concerns. Democratic House members met at party headquarters no cellphones, no leaks for what party leaders billed as just a family discussion. But one Democrat in the room said the mood was dour as congressmen discussed their party leader, who emphatically refuses to bow out and implored them in a sharply worded letter to refocus from him to the threat posed by Republican Donald Trump. Emerging from the closed-door meeting, Bidens supporters were the most vocal, and one key Democrat reversed course to support the president. But as Senate Democrats prepared to meet next, Bidens political future was the remarkable matter in question. He said hes going to remain in, hes our candidate, and were going to support him, said Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, who over the weekend was among those privately saying Biden needed to step aside. But dissent runs strong among many Democrats who worry that not only is the presidency in jeopardy but also their own down-ballot races for control of the House and Senate. Rep. Steven Cohen, D-Tenn., was asked if Democrats were on the same page after the nearly two-hour session and responded, We are not even in the same book. He just has to step down because he cant win, said Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill. Quigley said, The fighting spirit and pride and courage that served the country so well four years ago, that helped Joe Biden win, will bring the ticket down this time. Its a remarkable moment for the president and his party with Democrats in Congress seriously questioning Bidens place at the top of the ticket, weeks before the Democratic National Convention to nominate him for a second term. In the private House meeting Tuesday, there was a growing concern that Biden remaining in the race means that the election will center around his age issues instead of Trump, according to the person in the room. Democrats also worry that Biden cant be replaced because hes so dug in and because of potential legal issues surrounding replacing a candidate so close to the election. Republicans face their own history-making political situation, poised to nominate a former president who is the first ever to be convicted of a felony in a hush money case and who faces federal criminal indictments, including the effort to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Biden. Senate Democrats, too, were meeting Tuesday as leaders, including Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, say Biden needs to show Americans he can capably run for reelection at this critical moment for the country. While at least six House Democrats have publicly called on Biden to end his candidacy, Senate Democrats have held their concerns closer to the vest. No Senate Democrat has publicly called for Biden to step side. After a slow initial response to Bidens dismal debate, the White House and campaign team are working more furiously now to end the drama in part by gathering the presidents most loyal supporters to speak out. The president met virtually late Monday with the Congressional Black Caucus, whose members are core to Bidens coalition, thanking them for having his back, and assuring them he would have theirs in a second term. He was also to meet with the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus, whose leaders have said publicly they are sticking with the president. And other lawmakers, including Rep, Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the entire party caucus is united behind Biden as their nominee. (AP) A member of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayors security detail shot an armed man during an attempted carjacking in the early morning hours, according to court documents. It happened as two deputy U.S. Marshals were on duty in a government car in Washington, D.C., about 1 a.m. on July 5. They were confronted by a man who got out of a silver minivan and pointed a gun at one of them through the drivers side window, according to a criminal complaint. The car was unmarked but the pair were dressed in U.S. Marshals shirts. The deputy pulled out his department-issued gun and shot the man about four times, hitting him in the mouth. He then gave the man first aid while the minivan drove away, charges state. The suspect was hospitalized and placed under arrest. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals confirmed the deputies were part of the detail protecting Supreme Court justices. The deputies were stationed near Sotomayors home. There was no indication that Sotomayor was the target of the attack, which comes after a string of high-profile carjackings in the nations capital. Other victims last year included a diplomat from the United Arab Emirates and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas. Secret Service agents protecting President Joe Bidens granddaughter also opened fire after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle last year. No one was struck. (AP) ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 10. Kazakhstan and the EU have discussed plans for the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR, or Middle Corridor) as one of the most promising directions, Trend reports. Discussions on this topic took place during the 15th meeting of the Kazakhstan-EU dialogue platform, chaired by the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Olzhas Bektenov and with the participation of the Ambassador of the EU to Kazakhstan, Kestutis Jankauskas, and the heads of diplomatic missions of the EU countries. During the meeting, it was noted that about 85 percent of goods from China to EU countries are transported through Kazakhstan, which is a transit hub between Europe and Asia. TITR provides the most competitive delivery time (1215 days), ensuring maximum attractiveness for trade flows. The meeting participants expressed interest in unlocking the broad potential of the Middle Corridor. A joint venture, "Middle Corridor Multimodal" was created on the basis of the Astana International Financial Center. The significant role of the European initiative "Global Gateway", which opens up new prospects for investment in the transport industry, was also noted. "The EU is a large and significant investment and trade partner of Kazakhstan. We are constantly working in all priority areas. The government highly values the contribution and involvement in strengthening cooperation between our countries. We are always open to proposals aimed at building up a mutually beneficial partnership," Olzhas Bektenov noted. EU Ambassador to Kazakhstan Kestutis Jankauskas and Romanian Ambassador Madalina Lupu, in turn, positively assessed the work being done in Kazakhstan to improve the business climate. The heads of diplomatic missions also noted the stability and attractiveness of the Kazakhstan economy for European business. Following the meeting, the participants confirmed their intention to develop and strengthen trade and economic relations, taking the strategic partnership to a new level. The Middle Corridor is a transportation and trade route that connects Asia and Europe, passing through several countries in the region. It is an alternative route to the traditional Northern Corridor and Southern Corridor. The route starts in China and crosses Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. It then passes through the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkiye before reaching Europe. The Middle Corridor offers a land route that connects the eastern parts of Asia, including China, with Europe, bypassing the longer maritime routes. Meanwhile, the EU, as one of Kazakhstans key partners, accounts for more than 40 percent of attracted investments and about 30 percent of foreign trade. Kazakhstans trade turnover with EU countries in 20192023 increased by 36.2 percent, amounting to $41.4 billion. Exports over 5 years increased by 28.2 percent: from $24.2 billion to $31 billion. Imports increased by 67.6 percent and amounted to $10.4 billion in 2023. Hundreds of Europeans touring the American West and adventurers from around the U.S. are still being drawn to Death Valley National Park, even though the desolate region known as one of the Earths hottest places is being punished by a dangerous heat wave blamed for a motorcyclists death over the weekend. French, Spanish, English and Swiss tourists left their air-conditioned rental cars and motorhomes Monday to take photographs of the barren landscape so different than the snow-capped mountains and rolling green hills they know back home. American adventurers liked the novelty of it, even as officials at the park in California warned visitors to stay safe. I was excited it was going to be this hot, said Drew Belt, a resident of Tupelo, Mississippi, who wanted to stop in Death Valley as the place boasting the lowest elevation in the U.S. on his way to climb Californias Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states. Its a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Kind of like walking on Mars. Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds cautioned visitors in a statement that high heat like this can pose real threats to your health. The searing heat wave gripping large parts of the United States also led to record daily high temperatures in Oregon, where it is suspected to have caused six deaths, the state medical examiners office said Tuesday. More than 161 million people around the U.S. were under heat alerts, especially in Western states. Dozens of locations in the West and Pacific Northwest tied or broke previous heat records over the weekend and are expected to keep doing so into the week. The early U.S. heat wave came as the global temperature in June was record warm for the 13th straight month and marked the 12th straight month that the world was 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times, the European climate service Copernicus said. Most of this heat, trapped by human-caused climate change, is from long-term warming from greenhouse gases emitted by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, scientists say. An excessive heat warning was in place for much of Washington and Oregon on Tuesday, with the potential for temperatures to reach up to 110 F (43.3 C) in areas, posing a major risk for heat-related illness, the National Weather Service said. Temperatures in parts of Idaho, including Boise, were expected to reach over 100 F (37.7 C) on Tuesday. A serious heat wave in the Pacific Northwest in 2021 killed an estimated 600 people across Oregon, Washington and western Canada. Air conditioning is not common in much of the Pacific Northwest, a region unaccustomed to such heat. In eastern Californias sizzling desert, a high of 128 F (53.3 C) was recorded over the weekend at Death Valley National Park, where a visitor, who was not identified, died Saturday from heat exposure. Another person was hospitalized. They were among six motorcyclists riding through the Badwater Basin area in scorching weather, the park said in a statement. The other four were treated at the scene. Emergency medical helicopters were unable to respond because the aircraft cannot generally fly safely over 120 F (48.8 C), officials said. Death Valley is considered one of the most extreme environments in the world. The hottest temperature ever officially recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 in Death Valley, though some experts dispute that measurement and say the real record was 130 F (54.4 C), recorded there in July 2021. Its impressive, Thomas Mrzliek of Basel, Switzerland, said of the triple digit heat. It like a wave that hits when you get out of the car, but its a very dry heat. So its not as in Europe. Across the desert in Nevada, Las Vegas already had hit 103 F (39.4 C) by 9:30 a.m. Tuesday and was likely to approach 120 F (48.8 C) again by days end. Intense heatwave will continue to set records through the end of the week before moderating as increasing monsoonal moisture returns to the area, the National Weather Service in Las Vegas said. In Arizona, the average temperatures for the first eight days of July have been the hottest on record for Phoenix and Yuma, said the National Weather Service in Phoenix. It said both cities will remain at about 10 degrees above normal over the next few days, with highs mostly between 112 F (44.4 C) and 120 F (48.8 C). Extreme heat and a longstanding drought in the West has also dried out vegetation that can fuel wildfires. In California, firefighters were on the lines of at least 18 wildfires Tuesday, including a 41-square-mile (106-square-kilometer) blaze in the mountains of Santa Barbara County. The Lake Fire was only 12% contained, and forecasters warned of a volatile combination of high heat, low humidity and northwest winds developing late in the day. The main priority is to prevent the fire from moving toward communities to the south, the fire status report said. A small but smoky blaze, dubbed the Royal Fire, burned through more than 150 acres (60 hectares) of forest west of Lake Tahoe and sent ash raining down on the tourist town of Truckee, California. There was no containment Monday night. Rare heat advisories were extended even into higher elevations including around usually temperate Tahoe area, with the weather service in Reno, Nevada, warning of major heat risk impacts, even in the mountains. At Sand Harbor State Park, the record high of 92 F (33.3 C) set on Sunday smashed the old record of 88 F (31.1 C) set in 2014. For the third straight day, the town of South Lake Tahoe, California, hit a high of 91 F (32.7 C), beating the previous record of 89 F (31.6 C) set in 2017. And for the first time in records dating to 1888, Reno reached 105 F (40.5 C) for the third consecutive day. A short time later on Monday, the city set a record high of 106 F (41.1 C), leap-frogging the previous mark of 104 F (40 C) set in 2017. Its definitely hotter than we are used to, Nevada State Parks spokesperson Tyler Kerver said. (AP) Three brothers from Monsey, leaders of the Lev Tahor cult, were sentenced on Tuesday to lengthy prison terms for their roles in the kidnapping of a 14-year-old girl and her brother six years ago. The court found that the brothers orchestrated the abduction to return the children to their community, aiming for the girl to resume an underage marriage. U.S. District Judge Nelson Roman handed down sentences of 14 years for Shmiel and Yakov Weingarten, and 12 years for Yoil Weingarten. Interestingly, the victim, referred to as Jane Doe, expressed support for the brothers in court and urged leniency, describing them as rescuers rather than kidnappers. The victims, Jane and John Doe, were among six children of Sara Helbrans, the daughter of Lev Tahors late founder, Shlomo Helbrans. The children had been living in Guatemala with the Lev Tahor community, which had relocated there after fleeing child welfare investigations in Canada. The kidnapping plot began when Sara Helbrans objected to her 13-year-old daughters marriage to 19-year-old Yaakov Rosner. Unable to prevent the wedding, she eventually escaped Lev Tahor with three of her children and moved to Brooklyn. Later, when her husband took three of the children to Mexico to obtain new passports, authorities intervened and sent the children back to their mother in New York. Sara obtained a Family Court order granting her custody and prohibiting contact from the father. Despite unsuccessful legal challenges, the Weingarten brothers persisted in their efforts to retrieve the children. On December 8, 2018 in middle of Shabbos Chanukah they kidnapped Jane and John Doe from a home in Woodridge, NY. The children were taken to a hotel, changed, and then driven to an airport in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nachman Helbrans accompanied them on a subsequent journey to Mexico where the children were hidden in a house until December 18, 2018, when the property was raided, and some kidnappers were arrested. However, the children remained missing until authorities located them nine days later and arrested Shmiel and Yoil Weingarten. Yakov Weingarten later attempted another kidnapping, which was thwarted. Judge Romans sentencing took into account the serious nature of the crimes, yet recognized the harshness of potential sentences. The prosecution recommended sentences of more than 12 years for each brother, citing their roles in the kidnapping and subsequent actions, including perjury and obstruction of justice. Speaking in court, the brothers remained unrepentant. Shmiel Weingarten described the prosecutions efforts as an attack on Lev Tahor, while Yoil and Yakov reiterated their twisted belief that their actions were sanctioned by the Torah. The victim, Jane Doe, also pleaded for their release, asserting that their imprisonment was causing her ongoing suffering. Prosecutors, however, emphasized the dangerous precedent set by the brothers actions and their lack of remorse, arguing that they posed a continuing threat. Specifically, they expressed concerns that the Weingartens would resume arranging child marriages and kidnapping escapees from Lev Tahor upon release. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) Democratic Senator Michael Bennet says hes worried President Joe Bidens struggling campaign could not only cost Democrats the White House but also lead to a Republican sweep of Congress. While stopping short of calling for Biden to step aside, Bennets comments add to growing alarm among Democratic lawmakers over the presidents poor debate performance and recent interviews. According to CNNs Dana Bash, Bennet, along with Senators Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester, doubt Bidens ability to defeat former President Donald Trump in November. Brown and Tester face tough reelection battles this year. This race is on a trajectory that is very worrisome if you care about the future of this country, Bennet said. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House. Bennet emphasized that his concerns go beyond politics, posing a moral question about the countrys future. I think its critically important for us to come to grips with what we face if together, we put this country on the path of electing Donald Trump again. Democrats currently control the Senate by a slim two-seat majority and hold just six fewer seats than Republicans in the House, making the stakes high for the upcoming election. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) On Thursday, July 4, in Jerusalem, U.S. Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN) visited the headquarters of United Hatzalah, Israels national volunteer-based EMS organization. During his visit, Kustoff met with United Hatzalah leaders and volunteers and heard how Israelis of all walks of life Jews, Christians, and Muslims, religious and secular provide a joint community-based response to medical emergencies across Israel. The Congressman toured the organizations Dispatch and Command Center, which manages over 2,000 emergency calls daily and coordinates the activities of 7,000 volunteers across the country. He gained insight into the advanced technologies used by the Center and was shown the organizations vehicles, which reduce the organizations average response time to three minutes throughout Israel. One of the vehicles seen by the Tennessee Representative was an ambulance donated by Bernard and Maria Pargh, Nashville residents and strong supporters of United Hatzalah. It was an honor to visit United Hatzalahs headquarters in Jerusalem to hear firsthand how over 7,000 citizen volunteers unite to save lives across Israel, said Congressman Kustoff after the visit. Their stories, not only from October 7th, but every day, are an inspiration and embody the resiliency of the people of Israel. Eli Beer, President and Founder of United Hatzalah, expressed his gratitude for the Congressmans visit. We are deeply thankful to Congressman Kustoff for taking the time to visit us. Its a testament to the unbreakable relationship between the United States and the State of Israel. His recognition of our volunteers efforts is a tremendous encouragement to our team as we continue our mission to provide rapid and free emergency medical services to those in need. Norway will donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to defend itself from Russian attacks, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre said Wednesday, adding that the jets will be important for Kyiv. Ukraine has long pleaded for the sophisticated fighter to give it a combat edge against Russian firepower. No date was announced as to when Norway will donate the six jets, but Gahr Stre said, we aim to start the donations during 2024. He said Kyivs ability to defend itself against attacks from the air is absolutely crucial in its defensive battle against Russia. Gahr Store spoke before he arrived in Washington for the NATO summit. Last year he said during a trip to Kyiv that Norway would donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine but didnt specify how many. After 42 years of service, the Nordic NATO member phased out its aging fleet of F-16 fighters in 2021 and is replacing them with new F-35A Joint Strike Fighter jets. Norway is the third European country after the Netherlands and Denmark to donate F-16 planes to Ukraine. Oil-rich Norway is one of the worlds biggest donors to Ukraine. (AP) Former senior Shin Bet official Yossi Amrosi spoke about the ongoing hostage deal negotiations on Tuesday. Speaking in an interview with Radio Tzafon 104.5 FM, Amrosi said: We need to examine the details such as how many prisoners, which prisoners, whether to leave Gaza, when to leave, what happens to displaced Gazans, and how much the IDF will be able to operate in Gaza. One of the biggest minefields of the negotiations is the Philadelphi Corridor, the foundation for the question of whether Hamas will regain its strength its the source of its military equipment. Arosi warned of one terrorist who he believes must not be released at any cost. If you release Abdullah Barghouti, who is serving 67 life sentences, you release the next Yahya Sinwar. Abdullah Barghouti is a former Hamas commander (a relative of Marwan Barghouti) who is currently serving the longest prison sentence in Israeli history. He was sentenced to 67 life-term sentences for his involvement in the Sbarro suicide bombing, a double suicide bombing in the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall, the Cafe Moment bombing, the 2002 Rishon LeZion bombing, the Hebrew University bombing, the Allenby Street bus bombing, the Pi Glilot bombing attempt, and an attack on railway tracks in Lod in which he personally laid the explosive charge. A total of 66 Israelis were killed and 500 injured in attacks that Barghouti was involved in. It should be noted that the Palestinian Authority, which the Biden administration views as a trustworthy partner, has paid a stipend to Barghouti and his family throughout his imprisonment. Hamas demanded the release of Barghouti in the Schalit deal in 2011 but Israel refused the demand. However, it did release current Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the October 7th assault. (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines revealed on Tuesday that the US intelligence community has uncovered evidence of Iranian government actors posing as activists online, inciting protests, and even providing financial support to demonstrators. This covert operation aims to influence American democratic processes, particularly regarding the ongoing conflict in Gaza. According to Haines, Iranian government actors have been exploiting ongoing protests to promote their interests, often without the knowledge of American participants. While acknowledging the legitimate right to peaceful protest, Haines warned that foreign interference can undermine the integrity of democratic processes. Notably, Haines emphasized that not all anti-Israel protesters are Iranian dupes, and that the freedom to express diverse views is essential to American democracy. However, she stressed the importance of exposing foreign actors seeking to exploit domestic debates for their own purposes. The disclosure raises questions about the US governments response to Iranian meddling. While Haines pledged to provide updates on foreign influence efforts during the 2024 campaign season, she did not elaborate on concrete measures to counter Iranian interference, such as shutting down bank accounts or social media accounts used by Iranian actors. The revelation has also sparked criticism from foreign policy experts, including Elliott Abrams, who accused the Biden administration of ineptitude in Middle East diplomacy. Abrams questioned why the US, as the worlds greatest superpower, appears more fearful of escalation than Iran. The Iranian campaign has drawn comparisons to Russias meddling in the 2016 US election, which led to extensive investigations and news coverage. It remains to be seen whether the disclosure of Iranian activity will generate similar levels of concern and scrutiny (hint: it wont). (YWN World Headquarters NYC) The Republican National Committee (RNC) has released its updated platform ahead of the party convention in Milwaukee, closely aligning with the policies of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The platform emphasizes strong support for Israel and highlights Trumps vision of bringing the Iron Dome missile defense system to the US. It also vows to deport Hamas supporters from the country, a promise Trump has made publicly. Key points from the platform include: Preventing World War Three and restoring peace in Europe and the Middle East Building an Iron Dome missile defense shield over the entire US, made in America Investing in cutting-edge research and advanced technologies Strengthening alliances with other nations, including ensuring allies meet their defense obligations Standing with Israel and seeking peace in the Middle East Rebuilding the alliance network in the region for a future of peace, stability, and prosperity Deporting pro-Hamas radicals and making college campuses safe and patriotic again Condemning antisemitism and revoking visas of foreign nationals who support terrorism and jihadism Holding accountable those who perpetrate violence against Jewish people (YWN World Headquarters NYC) Yemens Houthi rebels targeted United States-flagged container ship in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, officials said, the latest assault by the group on the crucial maritime trade route. The captain of the ship reported an explosion in close proximity to the vessel off the coast of Nishtun, Yemen, close to the countrys border with Oman, the British militarys United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. The Joint Maritime Information Center, which is overseen by the U.S. Navy, identified the ship as the Maersk Sentosa. The explosion took place in the farthest reaches of the waterway earlier targeted by the rebels, the center said. It did not elaborate on what caused the explosion, though the Houthis have been known to use drones and missiles as well as bomb-carrying drone boats. Late Tuesday night, the Houthis issued a broad claim of responsibility for three attacks, which included the Maersk Sentosa. Maersk, a Danish firm which is the worlds biggest shipping company, did not immediately respond for comment. Since the latest assault, shipping or military authorities have not acknowledged any additional attacks in the region. The last reported Houthi attack in the region took place June 28. The rebels have targeted more than 70 vessels by firing missiles and drones in their campaign that has killed a total of four sailors. They seized one vessel and sank two since November. In June, the number of Houthi attacks on merchant vessels increased to levels not seen since December, according to the JMIC. U.S.-led airstrikes have targeted the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes on May 30 killing at least 16 people and wounding 42 others, the rebels say. The Houthis maintain that their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain as part of rebel support for the militant group Hamas in its war against Israel in the Gaza Strip. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the Israel-Hamas war including some bound for Iran. On June 28, five missiles landed near a Liberian-flagged tanker, Delinox, as it traveled off the coast of the rebel-held port city of Hodeida, according to the JMIC. The following day, Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said the group was responsible for two attacks on ships in the Red Sea, but it wasnt immediately clear which ship was the one reported by the information center. The Houthis also said they used a drone boat in a June 27 attack on a Malta-flagged bulk carrier, Seajoy. Meanwhile on Tuesday, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern over 13 U.N. staffers and other aid workers who remain detained by the Houthi rebels and called for their immediate release. We remain extremely worried about the well-being of 13 U.N. staff and a number of NGO employees who have been detained for over a month now by the Ansar Allah de facto authorities in Yemen. We continue to be refused access to them, the office said in a statement. Of the 13 employees, the U.N. has said six work for the U.N.s human rights agency. Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Central Command issued a statement that its forces destroyed an uncrewed Houthi aerial vehicle in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen. (AP) For the first time since October 7th, an Air Force officer admitted that the wave of army refusals encouraged by leftist organizations significantly damaged the competence of the Air Force and played a part in the lack of response on October 7th, Channel 12 News reported on Wednesday. According to the report, the commander of the Air and Flight Control School, Lt. Col. Yaniv Even, revealed this week that many reservists in sensitive positions in the Air Force were not properly trained on October 7th. As soon as some time passes, you realize that the training needs to happen quickly, Even said at a technology conference in Holon. In fact, after October 7th, we started teaching something we never did before competence. Until then, we only did training. We took a person who didnt know the profession and taught him. At the time of the social protests, we had quite a few reservists who were unfit for the mission. And we very quickly had to build a training kit for them, based on the knowledge we learned n the war, and put them in one after the other. Even added that the starting point for learning a lesson is failure. We as an army unequivocally failed. Channel 12 journalist Amit Segal, who revealed Evens words, noted that the commander of the Palmachim Air Force base already admitted in the first months of the war that there were pilots who suffered from a loss of competence on October 7th but the IDF denied it. (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) As Hezbollah continues to launch near-daily attacks on northern Israel, concerns are growing about the terror groups vast weapons arsenal and its potential to inflict significant damage on Israel in a full-scale war. According to a report by the Washington Post, Hezbollah has stockpiled an estimated 130,000 to 150,000 rockets and missiles, including low-grade unguided munitions and precision-guided missiles. While the majority of Hezbollahs weapons are considered low-grade, they could still overwhelm Israels aerial defenses if launched in large enough quantities. How many [Iron Dome interceptors] do they have left? asked Fabian Hinz, a defense and military analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, referencing Israels already-depleted stockpile. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has also claimed that the group possesses precision-guided missiles, although they have never been publicly revealed. Additionally, the groups short-range Fatah ballistic missile, which can travel 155 to 186 miles and contains 992 to 1,1012 pounds of explosives, poses a significant threat to Israels air defense capabilities. Shaan Shaikh, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and deputy director of its Missile Defense Project, expressed concerns about Israels ability to defend against Fatah missiles and others like it. How effective are Davids Sling and Arrow interceptors against these missiles? he asked. Can the IDF detect, track, and fire on these missiles while theyre being prepped for launch? (YWN World Headquarters NYC) The critical risk to Britain resulting from the desperate finances of Thames Water may appear to have little to do with Royal Mail. The Labour administration, which is selling itself as a bastion of stability, needs to fulfil its manifesto promise to robustly scrutinise the 3.6billion offer for Royal Mail owner, International Distribution Services (IDS), without delay. Failure to do so would see Royal Mail pass into the hands of Daniel Kretinsky, his Slovak-based backers at J&T and a consortium of foreign banks. City advisers have more than a passing interest in getting the sale done with 146million of fees at stake. One should never underestimate the determination of Barclays, Goldman Sachs and other investment bankers advising the IDS, or the bidding banks led by JP Morgan, to get the deal done and burnish revenues and bonuses. Post-haste: The Labour's manifesto promise to robustly scrutinise the 3.6bn offer for Royal Mail owner, International Distribution Services without delay Whatever the commitments made in the course of a takeover, they become much harder to enforce once a company has vanished from the public markets. In the same way Ofwat has never fully managed to lay a glove on Thames Water owners, so Ofcom will face a mammoth task of ensuring the preservation of the Universal Service Obligation once ownership has passed offshore. Similarly, the fate of the 112,000-strong workforce will be hard to police. What should concern Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Chancellor Rachel Reeves is the IDS balance sheet. Thames Waters debt pile of 15.2billion, up 1.3billion from 2023, shows how debt-fuelled deals lead to investment being curtailed and desperate financial crises. By the time the day of reckoning comes, the investment bankers who put the deals together have retreated to their yachts. Royal Mail already has a 2billion debt pile. If the deal goes ahead, this would swell by 2.95billion, around 1billion of which is described as interim finance. Servicing the debt pile will see interest payments flowing to a consortium of overseas banks headed by BNP Paribas. Thats before Kretinsky and his backers reap their rewards. Labour must stop this deal, displace a pathetically weak board headed by Keith Williams and require the company to sort out its own shortcomings. The keys should not be handed to an overseas marauder. Vision thing Tony Blair represents a different generation of Labour but his think-tank is on the money. As helpful as Rachel Reeves planning reforms may be in encouraging growth, they represent old thinking. The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) recognises that artificial intelligence is the real future if the UK is to unlock public services and growth. Shadow Chancellor Jeremy Hunt recognised this when he allocated 3.4billion over three years for digital transformation in the NHS. It will be fascinating to see if Reeves sticks with this. There could well be a role for the new National Wealth Fund which is being allocated an extra 7.3billion through projects identified by the UK Infrastructure Bank. The TBI estimates that early adoption of AI in the public sector could produce 10billion of savings in time and money over the next five years and 35billion over a decade. As importantly, it would also mean empowering the UKs AI innovators, the most advanced in Europe. It would curtail the danger of being swallowed by US tech behemoths. Rachel inspired At last, a nice piece about the UK from the perennial doomsayers at the New York Times. They embrace Rachel Reeves as Britains first female finance minister and a disciple of American Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. High praise indeed. Last week several items in my Tesco online grocery shop were missing when it was delivered, so I rejected the order in its entirety. Now Tesco has charged me the delivery fee and says its entitled to do so. Is Tesco not in breach of contract for failing to deliver the goods I ordered? G. Moore, Basildon, Essex. Incomplete: A reader rejected their online grocery order because several items were missing but Tesco still charged a delivery fee Dean Dunham replies: In most situations a contract is formed when the selling party offers goods for sale and the buying party then accepts the offer and pays for the goods. In law, this is referred to as offer, acceptance and consideration and these are the core ingredients needed to form a binding contract. However, the position is often different in the retail sector. Retailers will often cite in their terms and conditions that the advertisement of the goods for sale is an invitation to treat and that your decision to buy amounts to the offer element of the ingredients for the contract, meaning the acceptance element is the retailer accepting your order. Retailers terms and conditions will, therefore, usually say that they only accept your offer at the point they deliver the goods and the affect of this is that if it transpires they cannot deliver typically because they are out of stock they can do so, as at this point no contract has been formed. Unsurprisingly, this is precisely what the Tesco delivery terms and conditions state, so you cannot claim breach of contract. But your question has a better outcome. Section 26 of the Consumer Rights Act states that consumers do not need to accept deliveries in instalments unless this was agreed at the point of purchase. This means that if part of your order is not delivered, as in your case, you can reject the whole order and should not be charged anything for it. The only exception would be where the trader (in your case Tesco) had clearly informed you that there would be a charge if you rejected the whole order because of missing items. My view is that this is not the case here, so you are entitled to a full refund from Tesco. Building contract is all Greek to me I had an extension built and its been a disaster. The builder has done a bad job and failed to meet building regulation requirements. Ive lodged a claim in court but my Greek builder has put a defence in saying that the work has been done to his usual quality and the contract is governed under the laws of Greece so I cannot sue in the English courts. Hes right the contract does say this but I never noticed when I signed it. Where do I stand? S. Kemp, Bedfordshire. Dean Dunham replies: The Consumer Rights Act 2015 says that services such as a builder providing building works must be performed with reasonable care and skill. This is measured by what a reasonable builder would have done, and from what you say, it appears clear that this builders work has fallen below the required standards. Your best evidence for the case here is that the work does not satisfy the building regulations. His defence in this regard is almost certainly going to fail. The next part of his defence (the jurisdiction point) is novel and interesting, but the good news is that it is also going to fail in my opinion. The clause stating that the law of Greece applies to the contract amounts to what the Consumer Rights Act calls a key term and says that such terms must be made prominent to the consumer pre-contract. You clearly did not realise this was in the contract so its unlikely that your builder can satisfy that it was made prominent. Then he will further come unstuck with Section 32 of the Consumer Rights Act, where a clause states that an overseas law applied to a consumer contract is not binding if the contract has a close connection to the UK. Given your works under the contract were being performed at your property in the UK there is clearly a connection to the UK. In May 2023 we booked a big farmhouse close to the church and reception venue for our daughters wedding in the Cotswolds this summer. It can take most of the family 11 adults and two dogs and will be the hub on the day with make-up and hairdressers and wedding cars booked to come to the property. We paid the full bill in late May this year at a cost of 1,600. Now the owner has informed us they are no longer renting it out and apparently informed Booking.com of this eight months ago. Booking.com refutes this and will not action any relocation until it receives confirmation from the property owner or until after check-in at 3pm on June 27, two days before the wedding. I have contacted Booking.com on four occasions and always get the same scripted response that we must wait until after check-in opens on the day of arrival before it can help. What can Booking.com realistically do at 3pm on a Thursday to find us an alternative property for 11 adults and 2 dogs? This is causing significant stress. C.R., Kent. Sally Hamilton replies: I empathise with your plight as my eldest daughter got married 18 months ago and we also carefully arranged many months ahead for us to stay in a property near the wedding venue so family could prepare for the nuptials. Had we been faced with a booking cancellation so near the big day, Im not sure my already shredded nerves would have coped. With wedding season upon us, I expect many families will be interested in how to escape such a tricky situation. As you explained to me, you did try to resolve this issue and contacted customer services but didnt get anywhere, which is why you came to me. But perhaps you were unlucky on this occasion. The suggestion of waiting until the check-in day before Booking.com would take any action was preposterous. I contacted the company on your behalf to ask it to help save the day by tracking down another property that would accommodate you and your family. A couple of days later you received the wedding gift you were hoping for with my involvement. Booking.com managed to find and book an alternative house for you and importantly agreed to cough up what turned out to be significant extra rental costs. Due to the limited choice of accommodation so close to the date, the bill for the new property was 2,621, which was 1,021 more than for your original booking. Booking.com said it would refund the difference immediately after the wedding. When I checked in with you last week you confirmed you had the money in the bank two days after you left the property. Im pleased to report your daughter managed to get hitched without any further hitches plus I was chuffed when you told me Sally Sorts It got a mention in your father-of-the-brides speech. I suspect thats a first for this column. A Booking.com spokesman says: Our aim is to always enable smooth travel experiences and in the very rare instance that there might be an issue with a specific property, then customers should contact our customer service team for further support. MY son is having a problem with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency DVLA over the renewal of his driving licence. When completing the forms online a few months ago he accidentally ticked the wrong box about being drug and alcohol dependent, so the DVLA wrote back saying his licence was cancelled. He is a plasterer and needs his van to carry all his tools and get to his jobs. The situation risks putting him in severe financial hardship as he has a wife and two teenage daughters to support. Please help. D.T., Hove, East Sussex. YOU told me your son has rung DVLA numerous times in an attempt to correct what was a simple but as it turns out, disastrous error. He is neither drug nor alcohol dependent. But a slip of the computer key has triggered a chain of events that has left him unable to drive his van for months. As is required by the DVLA in such cases, he had to arrange for a letter to be sent from his GP confirming he is fit to drive and has no drink and drug issues. He did his best to resolve the matter on his own but still there is no licence to show for it. As his dad, you were anxious to help him but werent sure where to turn. Can Sally Sorts It help you? Do you have a consumer problem you need help with? Email Sally Hamilton at sally@dailymail.co.uk include phone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organisation giving them permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send original documents as we cannot take responsibility for them. No legal responsibility can be accepted by the Daily Mail or This is Money for answers given. You both had hoped he could rely on a special concession under Section 88 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 that in some circumstances permits motorists to continue driving even though they do not hold a current driving licence. However, this did not apply in your sons case as his licence was revoked while the DVLA checked his medical history in more detail the letter from the GP was apparently not enough to prove he could drive a vehicle safely. Your son was understandably distressed and well out of pocket as to accept plastering jobs he has had to pay a driver to take him to work. Since he was getting nowhere fast with the DVLA, I asked it if it could accelerate its investigations. The day after I intervened, DVLA called your son to confirm he would be getting his licence back imminently. But I had to chase again when the licence still didnt arrive. Two weeks later he received his licence, and he told me he was over the moon to be back behind the wheel. This case is a lesson to us all to take care when completing forms. I loathe filling in forms and when it is a particularly important one, I ask a family member to look over it in case they spot something I have missed. I recommend, dear readers, to do the same. STRAIGHT TO THE POINT I attempted to buy 100 in Premium Bonds for my great-grandson but an error kept appearing when I put in my bank details. This happened four times and when I checked my bank account they had taken 400. Im anxious my great-grandson will be notified he has 400 when I intended to gift him 100. P.G., via email. NS&I apologises and will reimburse you 300 along with a goodwill gesture for the inconvenience. THE BILLS for the dance studio I run are usually no more than 200 a month but my energy supplier sent me a bill for more than 95,000. The provider said it was up to me to prove it was wrong. The bill now keeps changing amount ranging from 192,000 to 47,000. C.B., West Midlands. THE SUPPLIER has now fitted a smart meter. You are now on a fixed contract paying around 200 a month. Over the past year I have collected Heathrow Rewards points every time I make a purchase at the airport. In February I exchanged 25 worth of points for a voucher, but it never arrived. Heathrow Rewards blames delays and says it cannot track my missing voucher. J.S., via email. Heathrow Rewards apologises for the inconvenience caused and has reinstated the points you are owed. I ordered three summer dresses from online marketplace Etsy but they were too big. I wanted to return them but I have locked myself out of my Etsy account. I cannot get through to customer services. M.B., via email. Etsy says password reset emails may have gone to your junk folder. It agreed to refund you as a gesture of goodwill and you told me you plan to donate the dresses to a charity shop. Scam watch Beware of scam emails impersonating online marketplace Amazon, consumer website Which? warns. Scammers claim that your Amazon Prime membership is set to renew but your payment method is no longer valid. The email urges you to click on a link to update your payment information. But instead it leads to a phishing website that attempts to steal your personal and financial details. Do not click on the link, instead, send the email to reportascam@amazon.com Shares in Indivior hit a three-year low after dropping one of its schizophrenia drugs and warning profits will be worse than hoped. The pharma company, whose shares still trade in London despite it shifting its primary listing to New York last month, will stop sales of its Perseris medicine because it said the monthly injection is no longer financially viable. While Indivior will continue to supply the drug for patients for the foreseeable future to avoid disruption to patient care, it will stop marketing the product and has cut 130 jobs. The group, which was spun out of the Cillit Bang owner Reckitt Benckiser (down 0.9 per cent, or 39p, to 4247p) a decade ago, also makes treatments to tackle opioid addiction in the US. Dropped: Indivior will stop sales of its Perseris medicine because it said the monthly injection is no longer financially viable But sales for one of these, known as Sublocade, have declined as fewer patients enrol on to Medicaid in the US. Indivior also agreed to pay $85million (66million) to settle a legal matter that was set to go to trial next week. As a result, the company has slashed its group sales forecast for 2024 and now expects to report lower revenues for Perseris and Sublocade. Shares crashed 36 per cent, or 424.5p, to 756.5p, the lowest level since July 2021. Shares in recruitment firm Page Group also tumbled after it issued its second profit warning of the year. It said workers remained reluctant to move jobs due to underwhelming salary offers. The recruiter expects to make 60million of profit in 2024 down from a previous forecast of 90million. The bleak outlook followed a tough second quarter that included a poor performance in China and saw clients seeking to hire new staff constrained by squeezed budgets. Stock Watch - Abingdon Health Abingdon Healths lateral flow tests are flying off the shelves. The lateral flow technology company is selling its Vitamin D, iron and saliva-based pregnancy kits in 1,300 Boots stores and online. It expects group revenues to have surged 52 per cent to 6.1million in the year to the end of June. Shares rose 7.5 per cent, or 0.75p, to 10.75p. But the stock, which floated at 96p in 2020, has plunged more than 90 per cent since it peaked at 126p in January 2021. The company also axed 153 roles. Shares plunged 4 per cent, or 16.8p, to 405.8p. The sell-off rippled through the industry, with fellow recruiters Hays down 6 per cent, or 5.7p, to 89.95p and Robert Walters losing 2 per cent, or 8p, to 400p. On the wider market, the FTSE 100 fell 0.66 per cent, or 53.68 points, to 8139.81 and the FTSE 250 dipped 0.74 per cent, or 153.3 points, to 20,645.02. Hiscox gave up its gains a day after two rivals in Japan and Italy were reported to be mulling a takeover offer. Shares in the insurer dropped 2.2 per cent, or 28p, to 1239p having risen 13 per cent in the previous session. Housebuilder Vistry is gearing up to play a role in helping the new Government address the countrys housing crisis and deliver affordable homes. The company built around 7,750 homes in the first half of the year up 8 per cent on the same period in 2023. As a result, it remains on track to deliver more than 18,000 homes in 2024. Shares dipped 1.6 per cent, or 21p, to 1271p. Capita, which collects the BBC licence fee, headed in the other direction. The contractor is selling its public sector software business Capita One to the real estate firm MRI Software, which will pay 207million and a dividend of 4.8million for the unit. Capita plans to use the money to shore up its finances and cut debt. Shares soared 21.9 per cent, or 3.4p, to 18.9p. Oil giant Saudi Aramco has invested in internal combustion engine-maker Horse Powertrain The head of the worlds largest oil company said internal combustion engines will be around for a very, very long time as it invests in a new London-based firm. It will be incredibly expensive for the world to completely stamp out, or do without internal combustion engines, Yasser Mufti, executive vice president at Saudi Aramco, told the Financial Times as his firm took a 10 per cent stake worth 580million in Horse Powertrain. Launched by Chinese car maker Geely and Frances Renault, it will make fuel-based engines. They are betting that as the industry stops developing petrol and diesel-fuelled engines, it will start relying on other firms to produce them. Mufti said: If you look at affordability and a lot of other factors, I do think [combustion engines] will be around for a very, very long time. Sales slump: Model Cara Delevingne with a Mulberry handbag Mulberry has replaced its boss after he presided over a sales slump and a collapse in the share price. In a surprise announcement, the British luxury bag-maker where supermodel Cara Delevingne had a bag named after her said chief executive Thierry Andretta has left with immediate effect. The 66-year-old veteran has seen the Mulberry share price fall nearly 90 per cent since he took charge in April 2015. In an update at the end of May, he revealed annual revenues fell 4 per cent last year and warned Mulberry has not been immune to the broader downturn in luxury spending. Andretta, who was paid more than 1million a year and has held senior jobs at Gucci-owner Kering and LVMH, will be replaced by Andrea Baldo, most recently boss of Danish womenswear brand Ganni. Dyson is axeing nearly a third of its UK workforce in a shake-up blamed on increasingly fierce and competitive global markets. The vacuum-cleaner maker, founded in 1991 by inventor Sir James Dyson, will cut around 1,000 of its 3,500 jobs in Britain. The news is a blow to Labour less than a week into the new government but is understood not to be connected to the election result. Job cuts: Dyson, founded in 1991 by inventor Sir James Dyson (pictured), will cut around 1,000 of its 3,500 jobs in Britain Founder Dyson, a prominent Brexit supporter, has been increasingly critical of Britains short-sighted approach to business amid increasing regulations and rising corporation tax. Staff were told of the job cuts yesterday in an email from chief executive Hanno Kirner. He said: We have grown quickly and, like all companies, we review our global structures from time to time to ensure we are prepared for the future. As such, we are proposing changes to our organisation, which may result in redundancies. Kirner acknowledged that the restructuring would be incredibly painful and said those whose jobs are at risk would be supported through the process. Dyson makes a range of products including hand dryers, hair appliances, fans and heaters as well as its vacuum cleaners. The groups UK base is in Wiltshire but it also has offices in London and Bristol. The Mail understands that yesterdays announcement did not mean that UK jobs were being moved overseas. Britain will remain a key location for the companys research and development work. But the decision highlights the difficulties facing the UK in keeping jobs especially after the previous government hiked corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent. That was cited by drug maker AstraZeneca when it chose last year to build a 320million factory in the Republic of Ireland instead. Dyson has already been axing jobs in recent years, cutting 600 in the UK and 300 overseas at the start of the pandemic. It began moving manufacturing from Wiltshire to Malaysia in 2002. It opened a plant in Singapore to make digital motors in 2013. In a newspaper interview last December Dyson, 77, claimed wealth generation and growth had become dirty words, in a broadside against both the then-Tory government and Labour. Direct Line Group is planning to pay out roughly 60 per cent of its operating profits as regular dividends, as its new boss works to revive the insurer's fortunes. Revealing a 'refreshed strategy' ahead of its annual general meeting on Wednesday , Direct Line told investors it will soon launch its motor insurance brand on price comparison websites. Direct Line also plans to exit or stop investing in original equipment manufacturer affinity motor partnerships and other personal lines businesses, and instead focus on home, commercial direct and rescue, outside of motor insurance. Refreshed strategy: The boss of Direct Line, Adam Winslow Adam Winslow, who took over as the chief executive of Direct Line earlier this year, is tasked with reviving the struggling insurer's fortunes at a time when regulators are tightening scrutiny of the sector. Winslow said in a statement: 'Putting our strongest brand, Direct Line, on price comparison websites, where 90 per cent of consumers shop, means we will be shaking up the motor insurance market once again.' Direct Line has committed to paying out around 60 per cent of post-tax operating profit for the regular dividend, 'with any additional capital returns to be reviewed annually alongside our full-year results'. The home and motor insurer was a potential takeover target earlier this year. However, Belgian rival Ageas walked away from a potential deal in March after Direct Line rejected two of its proposals. The group on Wednesday reiterated its target of 'at least 100million of gross run-rate cost savings by exit 2025'. On motor instance, it said: 'We aim to deliver sustained, profitable growth in Motor by focusing on all elements of the insurance value chain; pricing and underwriting, customer experience, claims and distribution.' Winslow added: 'Since joining DLG just over four months ago I have rigorously reviewed our business, and listened carefully to investors, customers, and employees. This work has deepened my belief in our strong foundations and excellent potential. 'Our refreshed strategy will be delivered by our new executive team, who have significant expertise in our core markets. 'The strategy and targets set out today signal our ambition and intention to grow our business and deliver strong returns for our shareholders.' Direct Line shares rose 0.28 per cent or 0.54p to 193.44p on Wednesday, having risen over 41 per cent in the last year. TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, July 10. The portfolio of joint projects between Uzbekistan and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) has exceeded $3.7 billion, Trend reports. This was revealed at a meeting between President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev with a Japanese delegation headed by Chairman of JBIC Tadashi Maeda. During the meeting the sides discussed the issues of expanding mutually beneficial cooperation and promoting cooperation projects with Japanese companies. Both parties noted the the volume of mutual trade and direct Japanese investments in Uzbekistan's economy is growing and new joint ventures are being established. The bank's investment projects in Uzbekistan cover petrochemical, textile, energy and infrastructure modernization spheres. At the end of the meeting, Uzbekistan reached an agreement to adopt a three-year cooperation program with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. Earlier in April, Uzbekistan and JBIC discussed new socially significant international public-private partnership (PPP) projects on the modernization of drinking water supply and sewerage infrastructure. Both parties also considered the prospects of attracting investments from Japanese companies in various sectors of the economy. Darragh OBrien has rejected the suggestion that housing had lost out on funding as part of preparations for Budget 2025 in October. But the housing minister said that when the new housing targets are increased in the autumn, further funding will be required. Research by the Economic and Social Research Institute found that an average of 44,000 new housing units are needed every year to keep up with population growth. Mr OBrien has said the research, funded by his Department, would be taken into account as it revises the housing targets for Ireland to come into effect next year. In response to criticism from Sinn Fein that additional spending on the housing sector was not included in the budget package of 8.3 billion euros announced by Government this week, Mr OBrien rejected that he had been squeezed out. In relation to additional capital, this year we have 5.1 billion euros in capital to deliver across our housing programme. In the period of time over the summer when were revising our housing targets, undoubtedly when theyre increased, we will require additional public investment, but also very importantly, additional private investment. This year, about 14 billion euros in capital will be invested in housing, 5.1 billion of that is public funds, the remainder is private. Mr OBrien also accused Sinn Fein of not producing a costed housing plan and said the need for private funding in the housing sector was something the partys housing spokesperson Eoin O Broin should reflect upon. He was speaking at the opening of five social-housing apartments with Focus Ireland at a former derelict site in Stoneybatter, Dublin. The development cost just under 2.4 million euros and will house four children and seven adults. Asked if he would hit his target for newly-built social housing units this year, after missing last years overall target, he said he expected to hit them. We built over 8,100 brand new social homes last year, and we brought a lot of homes back into stock. So I would expect us this year to attain our social housing target. If you look at this, youre standing here in what was a derelict site and these are brand new social homes. He added: Undoubtedly theres momentum there. Last year, we did 4,000 plus affordable homes. When I took over as minister there were none, there were no affordable homes, and this year were projecting well do on our about 6,000 affordable homes. So by any fair assessment, that is real progress. Undoubtedly though, we have to do more and thats why were in the process of actually revising our housing targets based on the ESRI data that weve received and the Housing Commission report. In the autumn of this year, well be setting forward across all tenures both private and public homes including obviously social, affordable and cost rental what our revised targets will be. Because to continue the progress were making, we need private homes, we need social homes, we need affordable homes and well be bringing forward that in the autumn of this year. By Leyla Tarverdiyeva, Day.Az Perhaps the funniest news on Tuesday was the news about the problems with the Armenian satellites. It turned out that Armenia launched its two satellites at random, without correctly calculating the orbit, and now they interfere with the devices of other countries. In this regard, these countries demand to remove the Armenian impostors. Only our self-confident and narcissistic neighbors, who are used to doing as the left foot wants, could unprofessionally launch the devices into space. The country claiming to be the Silicon Valley of Eurasia treated such a serious matter, as well as all other issues, from the height of its imaginary exclusivity. Only in Armenia could a former taxi driver be appointed deputy minister of high-tech industry. Only Armenia can justify the problem by saying that the first satellite launched in 2022 is a private project and Yerevan has nothing to do with it. Yerevan has only issued a license, but what flies around the Earth and in what orbit does not concern him. The second satellite was already of Armenian production and was launched in December last year from California. But this time they missed. It's a shame, comrades, it should be a shame. And this is the year when Armenia was declared Mars. And this is despite the fact that the preface to the RA law "On Space Activities" states that the exploration and development of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is the most important priority of the state interests of Armenia. How is Armenia going to ensure its interests on the Moon and other space bodies if it is not able to launch one spy satellite normally? In March of this year, Armenian satellites were finally included in the United Nations register of objects, and on you... Anyway, now let's get back to earth. There are a lot of interesting things going on here with our neighbors too. A few days ago, all Armenian publics joyfully shared the news that, with the assistance of Hamlet Petrosyan and Marina Dedeyan, the famous French magazine Le spectacle du monde published an article "Tigranakert. The Armenian memory is under threat." The article, according to Armenian media and social networks, talked about the fake "Tigranakert", which was allegedly discovered during illegal excavations conducted by the aforementioned Hamlet near Aghdam during the Armenian occupation. Petrosyan writes that "this is an ancient city... It is a pearl of Armenian and European culture, which is occupied by Baku today and is in danger of extinction.".. When our hands finally got to the point of sorting out another product of the unhealthy life of Armenian propaganda, we discovered that this article exists only in the form of screen shots collected in a PDF file. It is not possible to find it on the website of the French magazine. The article does not make its way into Google in any form. The most interesting thing in this story is that from the very beginning, the links on all resources were not to the original article in the French edition, but to this file, exposed on some independent platform engaged in monitoring the "Armenian heritage" of Karabakh. And what is really interesting is that even this dubious platform itself, which became the primary source of the distribution of the opus, offering readers to familiarize themselves with the article in Le spectacle du monde, also sends them there - to a PDF file. And the question arises - where is the original article and did it really exist and for how long, if from the very beginning the Armenian propaganda operates only with screen shots? We doubt that the magazine, which has repeatedly given the floor to Armenian separatists and revanchists, suddenly took and deleted the publication. What is the matter then? The Armenian agitprop is not at all embarrassed by the lack of answers to all these questions. Our neighbors manage to conduct fake propaganda much more professionally than launching satellites. The screenshots themselves are also curious and contain symptoms of the traditional ailments of Armenian propaganda. Take at least the main photo of the article about "Tigranakert", which depicts a church in the Aghdam district. The Armenians themselves dated it to the 7th century for their own reasons, but at the same time they themselves admit that the first mention of it dates back to the second half of the 19th century. That is, for almost thirteen centuries, the structure remained unnoticed by anyone? Come on.. For Armenians, the church is not a temple of God, but an instrument of politics and propaganda. It is not for people, but for the realization of political tasks and territorial expansions. Pay attention to how mosques are located and how Armenian churches are located. Mosques are located in residential areas, closer to people and no matter how well they look on the panorama. Armenian churches always try to build in such a way that they dominate the area and are visible from everywhere, even if there are no human settlements for kilometers around. That's not the main thing. During the years of the Armenian occupation, such structures grew like mushrooms on almost every hill. And each such object has been declared an object of the ancient heritage of the Armenian people. With all our tolerance and with all our respect for the religious feelings of our neighbors, the Armenian side should not expect that the Karabakh region and Eastern Zangezur will remain "reserves" of the occupiers' heritage. Do not expect miracles of forgiveness and tolerance from us. We are already very tolerant, if we remember what Armenia has done on our lands. We're just angels. We have already talked about the professor of Yerevan State University Petrosyan himself, who was engaged in illegal excavations in Shahbulag during the occupation period. In 2020, his shop was closed, but before the liberation of Aghdam, the so-called archaeologists managed to take all the archaeological material discovered over the years of illegal work to Armenia. Hamlet Petrosyan felt like a hero, sharing footage of the crime on social networks. And the export of artifacts illegally obtained in the occupied territories of another state is, according to international law, a crime. In other words, theft. Today, Petrosyan is trying to maintain his failed fame by writing articles that then magically disappear from the Internet. Today, he continues to search for "Tigranakert" virtually and tries to lure European colleagues into this adventure. But after the end of the conflict, they try to distance themselves from such topics. They have already helped Yerevan enough in promoting its lies. Quite enough. The Armenian side itself invented the lie about the "Tigranakert" near Aghdam and believes in it itself. But to be more precise, this lie was planted to her, like the entire Armenian version of the history of the region, from certain European centers, including the Mkhitarist ones, which were under the supervision of the Catholic Church and European rulers. This is how "Tigranakert" was invented, and in order to prove the existence of "great Armenia", Armenian scientists are frantically searching for this non-existent city. Wherever they have not "found" it. Similarly, the borders on the maps of "great Armenia" are moving where the interests of the major powers are moving, who want to use Armenians and Armenian nationalism to their advantage. According to the historian, he was one of the first to visit the site of illegal excavations conducted by Hamlet Petrosyan at the Shahbulag fortress after the liberation of Aghdam. At the first glance, it was clear that the remains found by the Armenians belonged to a medieval city. Perhaps it was built on the site of an older settlement, but this fact does not make it a "Tigranakert" in any way. On the territory of the settlement, you can see the remains of a Muslim hamam, an ovdan well, which was converted and passed off as an Armenian church. A khachkar was hastily installed right there. Looking at all this, it is impossible not to smile. After all, the Armenian side claims that it has excavated a certain ancient city on the territory of the Aghdam district, built when Christianity and, accordingly, Khachkars did not exist yet, the Azerbaijani historian noted. TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, July 10. President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev approved an agreement on railroad construction between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China, Trend reports. According to Uzbekistan's Ministry of Justice, the country's Ministry of Transport was appointed as the authorized body responsible for the implementation of the international agreement. The heads of Uzbekistan's Cabinet of Ministers, as well as relevant ministries and departments are obliged to ensure control over the implementation of the provisions of the international agreement after its entry into force in the prescribed manner. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China signed an agreement on cooperation in the joint promotion of the railroad project on June 6. The agreement advances project completion. It governs collaboration between the three countries on railroad financing, building, operation, and maintenance. President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Zhaparov previously stated that construction on the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railroad line will begin in October this year. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railroad project is a strategic infrastructure project that will connect China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, creating a new overland transportation corridor between Central and East Asia. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. The US Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya will visit the South Caucasus (Georgia and Armenia) from July 917, 2024, Trend reports via the State Department. According to the State Department, during the visit, the issues of democratic governance, anti-corruption, media freedom, and freedom of expression will be discussed. In Georgia, Zeya will meet with representatives of the government, civil society, media, and parliament. She will also emphasize unwavering US support for Georgias sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Georgian peoples commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration, and assistance to Georgia over 32 years of partnership. Additionally, she will reiterate the importance of free and fair elections and a vibrant civil society. In Armenia, Zeya will meet with senior government officials and civil society representatives to discuss strengthening the US-Armenia partnership. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. The visit of USAID chief Samantha Power to Yerevan has really stirred up Armenians in the US. Now, through the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), they're airing grievances against Samantha Power, questioning why she's spending more money on her trips and accompanying photographers, yet not allocating a penny to so-called "humanitarian programs" for Karabakh Armenians. They're calling her a "bystander" in her role as head of the organization. The Armenian lobby in the US is upset that under Samantha Power's leadership, USAID hasn't provided financial support to Armenians who voluntarily left Karabakh and returned to their homeland Armenia for "help". But this doesn't change Samantha Power's genuine pro-Armenian stance. As in her previous visits, the USAID chief delivered a passionate speech expressing her love for the Armenian people and giving "hope" to Karabakh Armenians. However, once again, Karabakh Armenians didn't receive any aid from the US. This has angered ANCA because it's their go-to argument against Azerbaijan in the US - accusing Baku of the so-called "ethnic cleansing" of Karabakh Armenians. And now, they failed to win over America's main donors. You'd think they'd be on the same side, right? Yes, USAID and Samantha Power are honored guests and "valuable partners" in Armenia. But it's clear that for Yerevan, talking about Karabakh Armenians is just a pretext to secure support from their Western friends - financial support, of course. USAID's goal, however, seems to be turning Armenia into its puppet. In this role, the country seems to be doing well. The organization is destabilizing the region -nothing more. Meanwhile, ANCA, through its influential congressmen, continues its anti-Azerbaijani policy as usual. But it seems USAID isn't backing them this time. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 10. Turkiye intends to create a security zone along the borders with Iraq and Syria, said Turkish Minister of National Defense Yashar Guler, Trend reports with reference to the press service of the ministry. "Turkey is determined to create a security zone 30-40 kilometers deep along the borders with Iraq and Syria, completely clearing this region of terrorists," the minister said in an interview with Politico magazine. Guler assured that the anti-terrorist operations of the Turkish armed forces will continue until the last terrorist is neutralized. The minister also stressed that Ankara categorically rejects statements about Turkiye's unreliability as a NATO member. "This is absolutely false. It is impossible for 32 allies to have the same views on every issue. Some countries are trying to form such views," Guler said. What do Genevas Jet dEau and Neuhausens Rhine Falls have in common? These two spectacular tourist attractions have seen the establishment of magnificent nearby Manufactures. In traveling from one to the other, participants in the first GMT Watch Safari will discover other sumptuous, typically Swiss landscapes: Vallee de Joux, Jura and the surroundings of lakes Neuchatel and Bienne in the course of five days dedicated to watch enthusiasts. La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton A completely new program departing from Geneva, tailor-made by the founder of GMT magazine. Read- ers from all over the world will be given access to watchmakings finest, from world leaders to cutting-edge niche brands. Exceptional craftsmanship, Haute Horlogerie, marvelous watches and artistic crafts will enliven this week brimming with surprises amid a warm, friendly atmosphere. Two members of the editorial team will accompany participants from Sunday to Friday, including one for photos and videos. An unforgettable experience! Omega Museum Omega Belarusian rapper Seryoga (real name: Sergei Parkhomenko), who lived in Ukraine for about 10 years, was a judge on The X Factor and dreamed of the revival of the USSR, openly spoke about his love for Russia and his commitment to conquering everything where the Russian Federation once had a footprint. ADVERTISIMENT In an interview with propagandist Boris Korchevnikov on Russian television, he said that 33 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he still cherishes it in his heart and tries to remind everyone of its former existence. In particular, he also tried to reveal his psychic abilities, because, as the rapper repeats to everyone, he predicted the Russian attack on Ukraine. "You are a Belarusian who knows Russia well, and who knows Ukraine well," the host said, emphasizing that Seryoga had "a lot of dramatic things happen in his life." Korchevnikov "recalled" that the rapper had predicted Russia's attack on Ukraine, and later the propagandist himself boasted about it, although he does not rule out the possibility that he was informed about it by his acquaintances in Russia. ADVERTISIMENT "I'm from the Soviet Union, and even when they ask me at the border 'Where do you come from,' I answer: "Every time, without any changes, I say, 'From the Soviet Union. Do you remember such a country?" said Seryoga, who lived in the USSR for only 14 years and did not see all the "charms" of survival in those days. "I have never hidden my longing and nostalgia for the great red project [of communism]. I was, am, and will be worried about the people who inhabit all the former republics without exception," the propagandist said. However, it is not known whether he included the countries that are currently NATO members, such as Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. ADVERTISIMENT It is clear from his words that he "misses" the cooperation of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia the most: "Everything is so intertwined, the three republics are three sisters, that it is difficult to determine the moment when I took root there [in Ukraine]." Thus, "brothers" turned into "sisters" in the rapper's imagination. The Belarusian also recalled that he has a Ukrainian surname ending in -enko (Parkhomenko). But this is not a good reason not to support Russian propaganda. "I am a patriot of the great Russian space," he eloquently described himself. In particular, even before the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 and before the illegal seizure of Crimea by the Russian army, he claimed that the peninsula allegedly belonged to Russia, and "Sevastopol is a Russian city," although his statements were not publicly disseminated until 2021 and he kept quiet about it. ADVERTISIMENT Seryoga also tried to reveal his psychic abilities and, in addition to predicting the war, said that "external forces" had pushed him to "an unprovoked war against the Slavs." Of course, like all propagandists, he named the United States as the aggressor and initiator, but he did not say so directly, only hinted: "Produced by a large, collective, very predatory part of humanity that considers itself better." Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! An alleged creeper confronts more serious allegations and outright condemnation from law enforcement officials. Remember that this case earned national attention when the New York Post called the guy's basement a "sex dungeon" and shared most of the nasty deets. Also . . . We can't forget alleged "racist serial killer" rumors that didn't exactly hold up and ignored the suspect's complex series of reported misdeeds and relationships. Right now we want to share a roundup of today's reporting along with context. Check-it: "Today's indictment represents the next step in our pursuit of justice for the victims, the families and our community," said Clay County Prosecutor Zach Thompson. "The physical, psychological and sexual torture described by the defendants surviving victim is brutal and barbaric." The earlier nine charges stem from allegedly beating, raping and holding a 22-year-old Black woman captive. He was first arrested Oct. 7, 2022 after the woman escaped his basement where she was being held as a "sex slave," as Haslett referred to her, according to court documents. Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Timothy Haslett, Jr. charged with murder in relation to Excelsior Springs kidnapping case Clay County Prosecutor Zach Thompson announced Tuesday that Timothy Haslett Jr. is charged with first-degree murder for the killing of Jaynie Crosdale. Haslett was previously accused of kidnapping a Black woman and holding her in his basement. TIMELINE | Case of accused Excelsior Springs murderer, rapist, kidnapper Timothy Haslett Jr. The arrest of Timothy Haslett Jr., an accused Excelsior Springs rapist and kidnapper garnered lots of interest in the city and around the Kansas City area. Prosecutors charge Timothy Haslett with first-degree murder Clay County prosecutors announced new charges against Timothy Haslett of Excelsior Springs, who now faces first-degree murder. Excelsior Springs rape, kidnapping suspect Timothy Haslett Jr. now charged with murder Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson is set to detail the new charges in a press conference on July 9. Developing . . . Here's a great deal of news we're catching up on . . . What stands out here is danger to the NEXTGEN by way of domestic drama and tech. Check TKC news gathering . . . Two kids injured, one fighting for life after stabbing in Kansas City One girl is fighting for her life and another is injured after a domestic violence stabbing Tuesday in Kansas City. Chiefs superfan who pleaded guilty to robberies gets sentencing delay. Here's why The man known as "ChiefsAholic" was accused of money laundering, robbing banks and more. Man tries to outrun Clay County deputies on scooter, arrested on drug charges A moped chase led to police finding drug paraphernalia. No injuries in vacant house fire at 37th, Main Street No injuries were reported in an early morning house fire at 37th and Main Street. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Grandview police investigating Fourth of July weekend homicide Police said the incident happened in the area of E. 140th Street and Dunoon Street, just east of Interstate 49. Kansas City seeks camera placement input to catch illegal dumpers Kansas City leaders are asking people living in the city's 3rd District for input on where to put surveillance cameras in hopes of catching people who illegally dump trash. Kansas Bureau of Investigation upgrades fingerprint identification system to utilize facial images Historically, law enforcement has used fingerprints to solve crimes, but with a recent upgrade to the KBI fingerprint system, agencies across the state can now use facial images to identify suspects. Appeals court orders release of woman whose murder conviction was reversed after 43 years in prison | CNN An appellate court has ordered the release of a Missouri woman whose murder conviction was overturned after she served 43 years in prison, but the state attorney general is still trying to keep her behind bars as the case is reviewed. 2 former Missouri police officers accused of federal civil rights violations Two former police officers in a small St. Louis suburb are facing a federal indictment alleging that a man was beaten with a police baton while handcuffed. Platte County jail tax on ballot could bring in $400 million. Will voters OK 20-year hike? If the ballot question passes, the jail would expand to 470 beds, a 161% increase in capacity. Taxpayers would pay a half-cent tax increase for the next 20 years to fund the project. 'It makes our unit proud': KBI's first-ever K-9 unit sees success in fentanyl seizures KBI has seen great success in drug seizures since creating its K-9 unit last year. KBI is the first agency in Kansas to launch a K-9 unit that specifically detects fentanyl. Court Docs: KC-area woman stalked by Canadian man met on dating app Platte County prosecutors charged a man with stalking and harassment after the two met on an online dating app. Join the Citizen Police Academy The weekly sessions feature presentations by officers involved in many types of police work, field trips to department facilities and a one-shift ride-along with a patrol officer. Developing . . . There are so many reasons that we have respect for actress, biz lady, author & hottie Lindsey but mostly because she actually knows a great deal about production tech and the online game. Today she inspires another peek at pop culture, community news and top headlines . . . Check TKC news gathering . . . Democracy In The Loop Voting in the Heart of KC: Greater Downtown and Midtown - Downtown Council of Kansas City In Greater Downtown and Midtown Kansas City, MO combined, there are around 22,500 registered voters. Local Startup Biz Stays Winning Just funded: Meet the newest Digital Sandbox KC startups (and see what they're building now) Digital Sandbox KC this week announced five new startups joining its program that will receive crucial support, mentorship and up to $20,000 in project funding to accelerate their innovative projects. Give The Dotte A Break!!! Wyandotte County leaders eye $17.4M in cuts as property taxes freeze, costs grow KCK leaders, including police and fire chiefs, are being asked to tighten belts as the city and county needs to seriously trim next year's expenses. Smucker Smacked With Unsettling Local Legal Claim Mission woman claims a bad batch of Jif peanut butter induced premature birth - Kansas City Business Journal A Mission woman's lawsuit accuses J.M. Smucker of selling salmonella-tainted Jif peanut butter, which she claims caused her son's premature birth. She also is suing Cosentino Group for selling it. Urban Core Stays Fishy Eat This Now: Shrimp and grits at Urban Shrimp and grits at Urban Cafe are hitting all of the marks. Here is what to know about the dish before you go. Diva Earns Accolades For Sip Snap & Share Lindsey Pelas Tugging Down Coca-Cola Bikini 'Spices' Things Up Lindsey Pelas is thrilling fans as she tugs down her skimpy Coca-Cola bikini while "spicing" things up with her curves. AOC Settles Debate?!? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backs Biden for re-election: 'The matter is closed' Progressive tells reporters 'He is in this race, and I support him' while six House Democrats call for him to step aside Survey Seyz Veep Can Win Kamala Harris beats Donald Trump new poll shows, performs better than Joe Biden A new poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris doing better against Donald Trump than President Joe Biden or other possible candidates. MAGA Deuce Deliberation Cont'd Trump drops major hint on his running mate, and timing of announcement With the Republican National Convention set to kick off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in less than one week, former President Trump is dropping hints about his running mate and timing of the announcement High Court At Risk Justice Sonia Sotomayor's security detail shoots man during attempted carjacking, authorities say A member of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's security detail shot an armed man during an attempted carjacking in the early morning hours. Prez Proclamation As European War Persists Biden declares Ukraine will prevail against Russia in opening speech of NATO summit President Biden on Tuesday said NATO has grown stronger and that Russia is "failing" in its war in Ukraine, as he vowed the alliance will continue standing up for freedom amid a rise in... Local Alt. Show Guide Debuts Film on the Fringes: KC Fringe Week 1 Schedule - IN Kansas City Magazine It's almost KC Fringe time. From July 12 to July 28, Kansas City's creatives get a spotlight with no filters. You'll see films, visual art, and live performances of just about any category (or no category at all) across the city. It all starts with the films, showing this weekend at the intimate, neon-faced Stray... Cowtown Fixins' After Storm Sending help from Heartland to Hurricane Beryl victims Kansas City-area nonprofits are sending help to Hurricane Beryl victims, including Operation BBQ Relief. Showers & Steam This Week Slim chances of storms during the evening hours this week Some isolated storms are possible not likely for most of the metro Tuesday evening Coldplay - feelslikeimfallinginlove is the song of the day and this is the OPEN THREAD for right now. A bold statement by Missouri's Senator has sparked rebuke even from moderate Republicans. Politically, this probably doesn't hurt him. However . . . While we don't want to delve into pointless separation between Church & State arguments with dishonest keyboard warriors who are unfamiliar with most of the legal precedent on the matter. It's worth pointing out that smarter people than local bloggers understand "Christian nationalism" isn't exactly a "conservative" reading of the Constitution. Then again, there are more important things than politics . . . Like branding, flexing and EXCELLENT HAIR. Sen. Hawley has nailed all three in his latest blast. To be fair, here's the statement in his own words with links to more info . . . Senator Hawley also became the second U.S. politician after Marjorie Taylor Greene to declare themselves a Christian nationalist: Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation. So I am. And some will say that I am advocating Christian nationalism. And so I do. Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Sen. Josh Hawley Declares His Support Of Christian Nationalism "Some will say that I am advocating Christian nationalism," the Missouri Republican said Monday. "And so I do." Josh Hawley Makes Terrifying Threat to Revive Christian Nationalism Senator Josh Hawley is saying the quiet part out loud on the Republican agenda. Developing . . . As Greece welcomes record tourists, its water crisis deepens. Reservoirs on islands like Naxos have dried up, and seawater contamination damages crops. Authorities are scrambling to deploy desalination units to address severe water shortages. Greece Battles Severe Summer Drought Greece's bustling tourist season is under threat as the nation faces an escalating water crisis. In islands like Naxos and Karpathos, key water reservoirs have run dry, significantly impacting local agriculture and straining resources as the country prepares for an influx of visitors. The situation has been exacerbated by months of minimal rainfall, affecting areas that are typically bustling with tourists seeking Greece's renowned beaches and historic sites. In Naxos, previously full reservoirs are now mud pits, home only to local wildlife, while seawater infiltration has compromised the freshwater supply, damaging vital potato crops. The situation mirrors the challenges in Karpathos, where water usage restrictions are in place to manage the scarcity, focusing primarily on limiting the filling of swimming pools. Authorities in Greece are urgently turning to technological solutions like desalination to alleviate the water shortage. Several islands are adopting portable desalination units to convert seawater into a drinkable resource for residents and tourists. However, these measures are still insufficient for the agricultural sector, which continues to suffer from saline contamination in irrigation systems. This comes when Greece is already facing some of the wider causes attributed to climate change. Higher temperatures and more frequent incidents of wildfires also threaten the sustainability of its tourism industry, which has otherwise acted as the country's economic backbone. According to experts, including Andrea Toreti from Copernicus Emergency Management Service, it is a shift from emergency responses to proactive prevention and preparedness against some of these recurring environmental challenges. Related Article: Big Change in Greece as Workdays Extend to Six a Week Athens Responds to Severe Heatwave With a severe heat wave hitting Greece, emergency measures are being implemented to save residents and tourists from soaring temperatures. Athens has allowed a line of security protocols with temperatures soaring upwards of 50 degrees Celsius, which includes opening air-conditioned public spaces and increasing medical support to help those most vulnerable to the extreme conditions. In addition, the city has increased fire patrols over major parks and forests to help protect against wildfires that have spread because of this dry weather. The city of Athens has also promoted a mobile app called Extrema to cope with the problem further. It provides real-time temperature updates and health advisories, pinpoints the closest cooling spots- whether a fountain or shaded park-and advises on the best routes through the city to avoid the worst of the heat. Apart from that, the Extrema app does a lot to update locals about the local air quality, which also helps one make informed decisions against health risks. These are proactive steps the city is taking amidst a more general effort to manage the impact of any heat wave to ensure the safety of locals and millions of tourists who visit Greece annually. With temperatures set to soar over the coming days, the country remains gripped by anxiety as the government continues to respond with resources and technology to mitigate the impact of such an unprecedented heatwave. United Airlines is under investigation after a wheel fell off a jet during takeoff from Los Angeles on Monday. The plane, carrying 174 passengers, landed safely in Denver with no injuries reported. This marks the second similar incident for the airline this year. United Airlines Under Federal Scrutiny A second wheel falling off at takeoff has put United Airlines under heightened federal scrutiny again over passenger safety. Early Monday, a Boeing 757-200 lost a wheel while climbing out of Los Angeles International Airport. Despite this mishap, the flight completed its journey to Denver without incident; no injuries were reported among the 174 passengers and crew onboard. It is not the first time that such an incident has occurred. Earlier this year, the same problem occurred when another United Airlines jet lost a tire during takeoff. The airline has been involved in several cases of mechanical failure, including having one of its engines caught fire and another with problems in the landing gear, which also triggered emergency landings and rigorous maintenance tests. According to The Guardian, with the recurrence of these incidents, the Federal Aviation Administration has increased its pressure on United Airlines to look into the root cause of anything that happens to ensure this airline meets all the safety requirements expected. But as United Airlines wrestles with these issues, the entire aviation community is on tenterhooks. The incidents have set off a federal review and touched off a wider debate about aging aircraft in airline fleets. The plane in the latest incident was nearly 30 years old. United Airlines has reassured the public that they are cooperating fully with the FAA to review and enhance their operational protocols. Related Article : United Airlines Rolls Out Real-Time Weather Texts for Passengers Emergency Landings on Sunday A United Airlines flight en route to Guam turned back to an airport in Chubu, Aichi Prefecture, after the crew detected a malfunctioning system. There were no reports of injuries after the Boeing 737 aircraft, carrying 44 passengers and six crew members. The plane landed safely back at the airport at around 11:35 a.m. on Sunday. The transport ministry confirmed that the flight was subsequently canceled, and the runway was closed briefly. The aircraft itself did not suffer damage. On the same day, there was a separate incident involving a Japanese regional airline. Airdo Co., said it had problems with the hydraulic system of one of its flights, a Boeing 737 flying from Tokyo's Haneda airport destined for Kushiro in Hokkaido. The hitch occurred at about 5:45 pm. The flight was diverted to Memanbetsu Airport due to poor visibility caused by fog at Kushiro Airport. The aircraft touched down safely at around 6:15 p.m. with 148 passengers and crew aboard. These operations were suspended temporarily at Memanbetsu Airport following the landing, affecting eight other flights that were either canceled or diverted. Airdo is currently investigating the cause of the hydraulic problem. The two incidents again pointed out that airlines continue to face difficulties in maintaining safety and operational efficiency in the face of unexpected technical problems. In the Canary Islands, locals demand changes to manage the growing tourism crisis. Groups from La Palma, Tenerife, and Lanzarote call for sustainable tourism and better living standards amid concerns over housing and jobs. These demands come as the islands face increasing tourist pressure. Canary Islands Locals Demand Change In response to the increasing pressure of tourism, the Canary Islands face renewed calls for reform. Local groups have articulated a set of demands to shift the current tourism model towards more sustainable and equitable practices. Twenty-seven groups from La Palma has been particularly vocal, challenging the approaches taken since the Tajogaite volcano eruption in 2021, which initially reduced visitor numbers. While the number of tourists increases again, citizens have started raising their voices against insufficient affordable housing and jobs with the returning mass of visitors. These issues are powering protests across La Palma, Tenerife, and Lanzarote as locals urge for a restructuring in the tourism sector to prevent further damage to these islands' natural and social environments. The manifestos issued by these groups call for improved water management, promotion of environmentally friendly tourism, and support for local trade and renewable energy initiatives. They stress that the true strength of the Canary Islands lies in their community and natural beauty, which are currently threatened by unsustainable tourist practices. This situation is critical for the Canary Islands since local authorities and other stakeholders are under great pressure to implement decisive changes. While this ongoing crisis has pointed out major challenges presented by popular tourist destinations, it sets the stage for an even larger discourse on the effects of tourism worldwide. Related Article : Balearic Islands Residents Protest Demand Control Over Tourism Growth Tragic Death at Popular Tourist Spot A British woman tragically lost her life after being swept into the sea by a powerful wave near the Ajuy Caves on Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands, last Thursday. The 32-year-old was visiting the popular tourist destination when the incident occurred, involving three other tourists who fortunately survived. The group of tourists, all staying at the same hotel in Corralejo on the island's northeast coast, had gone out to view the area when caught off guard by the wave. While the other three younger tourists, from 18 to 26 years, could swim back ashore, the lady was not so fortunate. Though two local fishermen and an off-duty firefighter plunged into the water in attempt to get her back on board, these efforts were in vain. She was pulled from the water by a private boat and then pronounced dead once she got to shore. Many people said it was a feeling of standing there, able to do nothing as it happened. Quick responses came from Canary Islands emergency services following the alarm, but the result was heartrending for the woman's family and friends despite assisting the other group members. This incident is a very apt reminder of the forces of nature at the Canary Islands' spots of attraction in those places that see thousands yearly. Last year, another tourist had a narrow escape from a similar fate at this same location. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy demonstrated a full range of emotions in Washington, D.C., while expressing gratitude for U.S. defense assistance, emphasizing Ukraine's needs, and answering questions about the war with Russia. The photographers managed to capture the genuine emotions of the Ukrainian leader. ADVERTISIMENT At the Ronald Reagan Institute, where the meeting took place, the politician actively gestured and did not hold back his feelings. OBOZ.UA collected 5 photos that best convey his position on Russia. During his speech, the president mentioned Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and his barbaric missile attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. The President emphasized that the missile was deliberately launched at sick children. The leader of the Ukrainian people was also forced to explain once again why Ukraine should target military targets in the Russian Federation because while the world is afraid of "escalation," Ukrainians are dying. ADVERTISIMENT The Ukrainian explained the distance between the enemy's bases and the Ukrainian border on his fingers. There were also some clarifying questions about the war. To one of them: "Would you like to strike at all Russian bases with airplanes?" he answered confidently: "Yes". ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! For another year, Ukrainians will be able to call the European Union (EU) without additional roaming charges. The list of European telecom operators has been slightly expanded. ADVERTISIMENT This became possible because the European Commission extended roaming with Ukraine for another 12 months. This was reported by the European Commission's press service on July 10. "The Commission welcomes the fifth extension for another twelve months of the voluntary agreement between 22 European and seven Ukrainian telecommunications operators, which aims to ensure that refugees from Ukraine can stay in touch," the official statement said. The European Commission called on all Ukrainian and European telecommunications operators to join the agreement. So far, 7 Ukrainian and 21 European operators have joined the agreement. Ukrainians can make free calls to the EU from the following numbers: Lifecell; Kyivstar; Vodafone; Ukrtelecom; Vega White; 3Mob; Data Group. ADVERTISIMENT Who will be able to use free roaming Thus, by July 2025, Ukrainians living in the EU countries will be able to communicate with their loved ones without additional roaming charges, explained Mykhailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology. In addition, subscribers of European operators will be able to use their home tariffs in Ukraine. "We are grateful to the European Commission, BEREC, NCEC, and operators for their joint efforts to ensure that Ukrainians in Europe always stay connected," Fedorov added. He reminded me that Ukraine is currently working on joining EuroRoaming. Ukraine's accession to the EU roaming zone For the first time, international calls between the EU and Ukraine became free after a joint statement was signed by Ukrainian and European telecom operators in April 2022. A year later, the EU-Ukraine Association Committee supported the European Commission's proposal for Ukraine to join the European roaming area. ADVERTISIMENT To this end, Ukrainian legislation began to be amended to comply with EU standards. The relevant bill was passed by the Verkhovna Rada and signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on June 19. However, for Ukraine to fully integrate into the EU roaming zone, it is necessary to adopt related laws. As a result, the European Commission will assess the extent to which Ukrainian legislation complies with EU standards. If the assessment is positive and approved by the 27 EU member states and the EU-Ukraine Association Committee, Ukraine will become part of the European roaming area. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Commenting on the upcoming rematch between Tyson Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) and Oleksandr Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs), British promoter Frank Warren believes that the British boxer does not need any "atonement". This is how Warren reacted to the speech of expert Simon Jordan, who said that it was for the sake of "atonement" that Fury agreed to a second fight with the Ukrainian. ADVERTISIMENT "I don't understand what 'atonement' means. There was nothing extraordinary in the first fight. One judge gave the victory to Tyson. The second judge gave the victory to Usyk, and the third judge gave the victory to the Ukrainian by only three points. Whatever happened, it was a very close fight. No atonement is required," the promoter is confident. Warren has no doubt that things would have been different if Tyson had lost the fight by a large margin or been knocked out. "He had problems in the ninth round, but he overcame it. He wants a rematch for a reason: he feels he can win it. It was a great fight between two world-class heavyweights," Frank Warren summarized in an interview with TalkSport. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! The leaders of the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Romania have announced the transfer to Ukraine of five Patriot and SAMP-T strategic air defense systems, as well as dozens of tactical air defense systems in the near future. They said this in a joint statement published on the White House website, Ukrinform reports. "Today, we are announcing that, collectively, we are providing Ukraine with additional strategic air defense systems, including additional Patriot batteries donated by the United States, Germany, and Romania; Patriot components donated by the Netherlands and other partners to enable the operation of an additional Patriot battery; and an additional SAMP-T system donated by Italy," the document reads. It added that these five strategic air defense systems would help to protect Ukrainian cities, civilians, and soldiers. "We are coordinating closely with the Ukrainian government so that these systems can be utilized rapidly," the statement said. In addition, the leaders of the five countries announced that in the coming months, they intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of tactical air defense systems, including NASAMS, HAWKs, IRIS T-SLM, IRIS T-SLS, and Gepard systems. Several Allies including Canada, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom will continue to play an integral role in the provision of these systems, and many other supporters of Ukraine will assist in the provision of interceptors. For its part, the United States will re-sequence planned deliveries of Foreign Military Sales of critical air defense interceptors in coordination with partners so they are delivered to Ukraine, providing Ukraine with hundreds of additional air defense interceptors over the next year. "We are committed to providing Ukraine with additional air defense capabilities as it defends itself against Russias continued aggression, including Russias deliberate attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian and critical infrastructure," the authors of the statement said. The anniversary NATO summit at the level of heads of state is taking place in Washington. The Ukrainian delegation is headed by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Photo: Getty Images Last night, the Air Defense Forces destroyed 14 of 20 Russian Shahed-131/136 strike UAVs. According to Ukrinform, this was reported in a Telegram message by Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk. According to him, on the night of 10 July, Russian troops attacked Ukraine with one Iskander-M ballistic missile and four Kh-59/Kh-69 guided missiles from the temporarily occupied Crimea. The Air Force also clarified that the drones were attacked from the area of Primorsko-Akhtarsk (Russia) and Cape Chauda (temporarily occupied Crimea). As a result of combat operations, Oleshchuk said, 14 Shahed drones were shot down in Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Dnipro, Khmelnytsky, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia and Rivne regions. Fighter aircraft, anti-aircraft missile units of the Air Force, mobile fire groups of the Ukrainian Defence Forces and electronic warfare units were involved. "Missiles attacked the port infrastructure of Odesa region. As a result of active countermeasures, three Russian Kh-59/Kh-69 missiles and three attack UAVs did not reach their targets," he added. As reported by Ukrnform, on the night of 10 July, an air alert was declared in a number of regions of Ukraine due to the threat of attack drones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the United States and the world not to wait for November, when U.S. presidential elections will be held, but to act decisively now. The head of state said this in his speech at the Reagan Institute in Washington, according to an Ukrinform correspondent. "Americans are waiting for November. And Europe, Middle East, Indo-Pacific the whole world is looking to November. And truly speaking Putin awaits November too, but killing and destroying to get ready to be ready for everything what November might bring," Zelensky said. According to him, "even the anniversary NATO Summit which should become a top event does not indeed look strong in the media in contrast to what is expected from November." It is time "to step out of the shadows, to make strong decisions work, to act and not to wait for November or any other month," Zelensky said. In his opinion, to this end, "we must be strong and uncompromising. All together. And first of all America." "And first of all the leaders of America and the President of the United States as a leader of the free world. To be uncompromising in defending democracy, uncompromising against Putin and his coterie, uncompromising to every possible terror," he said. According to Zelensky, this is how the Ukrainians acted when the full-scale war began, just like millions of people in the world and millions of Americans, including Joe Biden and U.S. Congress. "Then the world saw that Putin could lose and democracy can win can win even when it seemed impossible," he said. However, later, according to the head of state, "someone began to think that it is better to delay than act... and partial solutions are better than victory." And "it started to appear that to defend freedom is allegedly unsafe," and "to put Putin in place for blackmailing the whole world is allegedly unprofitable." "The world cantt be secure without America. America cannot be a leader and a world dream maker without caring for world affairs," Zelensky said. The U.S. should not shy away from its power as it is America that keeps the freedom for the world, he said. "That's why the world values America America which acts," Zelensky added. "How much longer can Putin last? The answer to this question is right here in Washington your leadership, your actions, your choice the choice to act now," Zelensky said. These days, at the NATO Summit, which has to become a strong event strong decisions are needed, and "we are waiting for them, and we are counting on them," he said. According to him, no one in the West has traded membership of European countries for 75 years: "But why does Moscow hope for this now? And why do the words 'Ukraine is a NATO member' cause more fear not in Moscow?" Zelensky recalled that for decades, the world has relied on the principles of territorial integrity of states and inviolability of nations' borders. "But will these principles remain in force? We, in Ukraine, and all other neighbors of Russia including those to whom America has alliance commitments, need answers," he said. "Don't wait months! America can be great every day," Zelensky said. The NATO summit is taking place in Washington on July 9-11. The Ukrainian delegation is led by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ulviyya Shahin During the business visit of the delegation led by Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov to Uzbekistan, a meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Investment Company was convened, Azernews reports, citing the ministry. The event underscored the ongoing development of economic relations between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. The importance of successful joint projects and mutual investments was highlighted, with emphasis placed on the role of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Investment Company, which boasts a total capital of 500 million US dollars, in fostering enhanced cooperation and trade relations between the two countries' business communities. Discussions at the meeting also focused on opportunities to increase strategic investments and strengthen bilateral relations. On Wednesday, July 10, a little boy died in a Kyiv hospital. At the time of the missile strike, he was in critical condition in the intensive care unit of Okhmatdyt. ADVERTISIMENT This was announced by the head of the Ministry of Health Viktor Liashko. The boy was transported to a hospital in Kyiv after the missile attack. "Unfortunately, we have the first child victim among the patients who were in the Okhmatdyt National Specialized Hospital during the July 8 terrorist attack. A little boy died, who was in critical condition in the intensive care unit of the Okhmatdyt hospital at the time of the missile attack," the official wrote on Facebook. He expressed his condolences to the kid's family. "We will never forgive Russian terrorists who kill our children," Liashko emphasized. As a reminder, on Monday, July 8, Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine. Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, and other cities came under attack. ADVERTISIMENT In total, dozens of people, including four children, were killed in Russia's morning attack on Ukraine. About 200 civilians were wounded. In Kyiv alone, more than 30 people were killed, including 4 children, 120 people were injured, including 10 children, and 11 people were rescued. In total, almost 100 objects were damaged: the Okhmatdyt children's hospital, residential buildings, kindergartens, a maternity hospital, a college, and a business center. The Russian strike on the country's largest children's hospital, where nearly 630 children were being treated and undergoing major surgeries at the time of the attack, caused the destruction of the toxicology department building and serious damage to four other buildings, including the new hospital building that opened in 2021. The Security Service of Ukraine showed the wreckage of the building and the serial numbers of a Russian X-101 missile found at the site of the attack. The fact that Russia was responsible for the deliberate attack on Okhmatdyt was confirmed by numerous OSINT investigators and missile experts, and Bellingcat also published its evidence. Even the United Nations made a statement that it was "highly likely" that Okhmatdyt was hit by a direct hit from a Russian missile. The Molfar community identified 95 Russian soldiers involved in the shelling of Okhmatdyt. ADVERTISIMENT However, Russia continues to cynically lie that the destruction of the hospital was caused by "anti-missiles " from Ukrainian air defense. Such statements were made, in particular, by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, and the same lies and accusations against Ukraine were repeated by Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on July 9. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! In Kyiv, as of 13:40 on Wednesday, July 10, the death toll after the July 8 missile attack increased to 33. Five of them were children. ADVERTISIMENT This was reported by Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klychko on his Telegram channel. The victims are being provided with all necessary assistance. "According to updated information from forensic experts who identified the bodies and body fragments of all the victims, 33 people died as a result of the hostile attack on the capital on July 8. Five children were among them," Klychko said. On the morning of July 8, the terrorist country Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine. The enemy fired missiles at Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih and other cities. As of 23:00, 37 people were reported dead and more than 170 wounded. ADVERTISIMENT In the capital, a Russian missile hit the Okhmatdyt children's hospital. In addition to the hospital, other facilities were damaged, including one of the entrances to an apartment building. ADVERTISIMENT ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! The for-profit Northwestern College, in business 122 years in the southern suburbs of Chicago and known mostly for health care education, suddenly closed its doors this week. This decision was announced on a Saturday and is due to insurmountable financial challenges. This will have abrupt repercussions on students, faculty, and the community as a whole, impacting the loss of an institution of such rich history. Financial Struggles Leading to Unavoidable Closure The additional surprise came by in the form of the board's faith that Northwestern College would be officially closed, although to the administration, the decision had obviously been fiscally necessary all along. In the opinion of college officials, its current and projected fiscal position did not allow for the continuation of its operations. Financial management could not get the college up and running despite immediate measures aimed at stabilizing their finances. "The difficult decision. Was made by the college's administration after careful analysis of its current and projected fiscal position," the statement read. "While we are saddened by the need to end our educational mission, we will maintain our legacy in the thousands of graduates that have been part of our history." The closure also called attention to the fragile nature of for-profit educational institutions. In contrast to public or not-for-profit colleges, enterprise schools have for-profit enterprise stressors that are fiscally unique, with their prime funding through tuition and fees. These economic vulnerabilities can become more severe with changes in enrollment, changes in federal funding policies, or even shakier economic times. Impact on Students and Community The abrupt closing of Northwestern College has put its students in a very tight corner, whereby they look out for other options through which they can smoothly complete their studies. According to information obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics, it had 904 undergraduate students in 2022. Now these students are getting transferred to different colleges and universities to carry on their educational objectives. In preparation for students for this event, Northwestern College has shared a teach-out plan on a degree-specific basis. Partnerships with some local colleges and universities ensure that students can make seamless transfers with fully transferable credits. Some of the identified receiving institutions are Prairie State College, Moraine Valley Community College, Chamberlain University, and Malcolm X College. This is a very stressful process of transferring credits: adjusting to the new academic environment and the social behavior in the college. Acceptance of the credits may include policy by respective receiving institutions that impacts the progress towards achievement of the academic goal on time. Moreover, this sudden action has left students wondering and feeling anxious regarding their academic futures. Lasting Legacy and Moving On While the closure of Northwestern College brings to an end many years of its exciting history, it is assured of a legacy through the tens of thousands of alumni it has left behind. For 122 years, it churned out thousands of graduates who turned out to be prominent professionals in their fields, especially in health care. It is a befitting legacy for a college that always prioritized quality education and training until its last breath. To that extent, the closure of Northwestern College serves as a sober reminder of the stand-off situations their financials may present to for-profit providers of education. It puts forward the importance of financial sustainability and adaptability in light of ever-changing conditions within institutions of higher learning. For existing students and employees, this will now become one of their transitions into new chapters of their educational and professional lives. The sudden closure of Northwestern College is therefore of large magnitude, with wide ramifications to be felt by all students, faculty members, and the community at large. It will soon become paramount how partner colleges and universities are able to help students complete their educations and realize great fortunes throughout the aftermath of the institution's decision. Even as it closes its doors, Northwestern College's contributions and legacy will not be forgotten. Talks about providing Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets have been going on for over a year, but the ice has finally broken and the verb "to transfer" has moved from the future tense to the present, i.e., it has become a reality. Denmark and the Netherlands have begun the process of handing over the first F-16s to Ukraine. The fighters are already on their way to our country. ADVERTISIMENT This was stated by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken at the NATO summit in Washington. According to him, the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine is underway right now. "As we speak, F-16s are being transferred from Denmark, from the Netherlands, and these planes will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer," he assured. According to the US Secretary of State, the planes are being transferred to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against Russian aggression. A joint statement by U.S. President Joe Biden, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen also said that "the process of transferring these F-16s is underway," and Ukraine will begin using these fighters this summer. ADVERTISIMENT As a reminder, the Netherlands promised the first batch of 24 F-16s, while Denmark said it would send 19 planes. Belgium and Norway have also promised to provide Ukraine with F-16s, and their fighters will arrive later. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre said at the NATO summit in Washington that his country would provide Kyiv with six F-16 fighters. The transfer will take place this year. Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the start of the delivery of much-needed aircraft to Ukraine. He thanked the United States, Denmark, and the Netherlands for achieving the goal of all Ukrainians strengthening the Ukrainian Air Force. "This is a clear signal that Russia's ability to terrorize the Ukrainian people, cities, and communities will continue to decline. F-16s will also be used to strengthen Ukraine's air defense," the President said. ADVERTISIMENT The President also expressed confidence that the U.S. fighter jets will help protect Ukrainians from Russian terrorist attacks, such as the latest deadly attack on Okhmatdyt. "I am confident that they will help us better protect Ukrainians from brutal Russian attacks, such as the attack on the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv this week," Zelenskyy emphasized. According to him, F-16s will help bring a just and lasting peace closer and demonstrate that "terror must be defeated everywhere and always." Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! The efforts to make college more affordable by alleviating the financial burden on students have made Congressman Greg Landsman introduce a bill aimed at making the Campus Housing Affordability Act a reality. This policy, announced on July 8, marks a significant change in policy that could offer free on- and off-campus housing opportunities for the first time to eligible students in two decades. Background and Legislative Initiative Ohio's 1st District Congressman Greg Landsman held a news conference to reveal the Campus Housing Affordability Act to establish a longtime deficiency in housing support for college students. The bill will modify restrictions that were put in place by Congress in 2005 on using Section 8 vouchers from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help pay for college housing expenses. These coupons, devised to assist low-income families in seeking affordable housing, had been grossly limited to college students for many years previously. He stressed that it was unfair to close the doors of higher education to such talented and gifted young minds due to a lack of money. He brought attention to the Act, which, according to him, was a giant step in the right direction: "It doesn't fix the bigger problem of college affordability, but it makes a big difference." Support and Legislative Framework The Campus Housing Affordability Act has co-sponsors from both parties in Congress, in addition to broad support from a variety of advocacy groups. The backing this provides from organizations like the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare and the Foster Care Alumni of America speaks to its bottlenecking role in enabling emancipated youth and former foster care youth to access college education. Co-sponsors including Congressman Mike Lawler, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, and Congressman Don Bacon illustrate strong bipartisan concurrence on the necessity for this change in legislation. Landsman was assured of the bill's passage due to the simple fact that it is budget-neutral and uses existing HUD resources that do not put an added financial burden. Implementation and Impact The proposed legislation allows students to use Section 8 vouchers for either on- or off-campus housing without impacting their eligibility for other kinds of financial aid or scholarship money. It ensures that the students get all the help conducive to success, both for institutional and personal growth. While the legislation doesn't compel universities to accept HUD vouchers, institutions of higher education have responded very positively to the idea, according to Landsman. The universities' responses were also positive, with many indicating eagerness to refinance options in support of housing as part of the package for their students. The Campus Housing Affordability Act is the new frontier in the fight against student housing insecurity at colleges. By re-establishing the availability of Section 8 vouchers to pay for housing, this legislation attempts to make it possible for any student from any background to attend any institution of higher learning without a crushing financial burden on their housing. With this legislation working its way through Congress, the outlook for this important bill to positively affect academic achievement and saddle up equity in higher education seems relatively bright. This move appeals to many lawmakers from both parties; it has key stakeholder endorsements, such as the bipartisan recognition of housing affordability as a linchpin to educational access and outcomes. The Campus Housing Affordability Act gives hope to current and future students in college that the educational environment will become more inclusive and supportive in the future. Congressional Republicans are now legislating to force the Department of Education to release the Free Application for Federal Student Aid by October 1, following a delayed and troubled rollout. This legislative move by the lawmaker is an attempt to block any further delays that may adversely affect students' chances of effectively planning and financing their college education. The Legislative Move to Address Delays On Monday, a bipartisan bill was introduced in both chambers of Congress to formalize the change in federal law, moving the FAFSA release date from January 1 to October 1 of the preceding year. That change first took place in 2016 to give students and their families more time to prepare for college financial planning. Technical problems and last-minute complications in the execution of new congressional mandates to update the form and underlying eligibility formula pushed the release of the 2024-25 FAFSA into January. This delay has raised serious questions in the minds of lawmakers and education professionals with respect to the competence of the Department of Education in handling efficiently the application process. Education Department officials say they are working towards an October 1 release, and there is still widespread skepticism. The American Council on Education joined other higher education organizations in calling on Congress in May to permanently set an October 1 deadline for the forms to prevent further delays and uncertainty. READ MORE : FAFSA Rollout Challenges Students And Institutions Amid Deadline Pressures Support and Skepticism from Lawmakers The Senate version was sponsored by Dr. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and member of the Senate Education Committee. The FAFSA Deadline Act was released in the House by Rep. Erin Houchin of Indiana, a Republican. Both lawmakers noted that making the Free Application for Federal Student Aid available early is especially critical since late openings slash time for students to make decisions about colleges and finances. Cassidy said the Education Department had all the time in the world to be prepared for new requirements under the FAFSA, but it still managed to miss an October 1 deadline. He bemoaned the potential loss of another cohort of students standing down from higher education because of financial uncertainty. "This bill holds Secretary Cardona accountable for ensuring students have their financial offers in time so they can choose the best, most affordable college option for them," Cassidy said. Houchin also pointed out the same thing, noting how the flexibility of the current FAFSA release date only serves to cause extraneous barriers and elongated periods of uncertainty for families. "If the Department is truly on track, as they claim, this bill will formalize its intention and ensure that students receive the support and financial information they need in a timely manner," she added. Reforming Bureaucratic Red Tape As she described it, Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, called the proposed legislation a "simple fix" to a recurring problem. She added that students already bear enough adversity when decisions regarding their future are concerned, and bureaucratic inefficiency is not among them. The committee, according to her, had scheduled a markup hearing on Wednesday to take up the bill. This focus on an October 1 fixed date for the FAFSA launch reflects a larger concern with the Department of Education's ability to handle key processes as far as effectiveness is concerned. Delays in making the Free Application for Federal Student Aid available are not only disruptive to students' financial plans but further drastically set a bad precedence for the beginning of their academic year and undermine confidence in the education system's ability to help these students achieve their academic goals. Through the legislation of strict deadlines, Congress intends to ensure that students do not face uncertainties regarding the receipt of financial aid information critical to making informed decisions concerning their college education. The proposed legislation mandating an October 1 FAFSA release date does just that: it tries to kill off delays and inefficiencies in the application process. This bipartisan legislation aims to communicate a very strong sense that timely financial aid information is vital for students and families. As the bill works its way through the process, lawmakers, educators, and families are going to first look to see how this could affect future FAFSA cycles and students' college planning. The Republican Party's manifold plans to reshape U.S. higher education were found in its 2024 manifesto, setting a bold platform for much of the recent political discourse. This came after weeks of backroom dealings on a platform that would basically relaunch ex-President Trump's issues and pledges for major overhauls across several sectors, one of which is education. Agenda47: A View for Education A series of campaign statements collectively known as "Agenda47" outlined Trump's view for 2025 and beyond. It envisions a hard shove on conservative values in American education while states and families are given more control over educational decisions. Some key proposals include shutting down the Department of Education, reinstating prayer in schools, and establishing an American Academy that issues degrees at low costs. In return, it is to be financed by exacting financial penalties from institutions for not meeting Trump's ideological criteria. He would resurrect school choice, constrain the teaching of LGBTQ+ content, and much more. These policies align remarkably with a sweeping 920-page policy playbook produced by the Heritage Foundation called Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation would not discuss details of Project 2025 when contacted about the topic. The Weaponization of Accreditation Accreditation has emerged as a source of regulatory power central to the educational agenda that Trump and his allies on the right tout. Done ordinarily as a pro forma requirement that institutions meet certain standards, the process of accreditation could be used to coerce schools into touting conservative values in higher education. Trump's narrative portrays the accreditors as accomplices to the "radical left," a characterization accrediting bodies all over the country reject. Private companies that build up the system of higher education accreditation review institutions for fiscal viability and student learning outcomes, among other things, to ensure that quality education is provided. These reviews are non-political and individualized to the mission of each institution. Lawrence Schall, president of the New England Commission of Higher Education, said, "NECHE is very diverse and non-political. It accredits the spectrum that runs from the most conservative religious institution to the most liberal secular university and includes a military academy and a private university." "Quality in higher education has been protected through accreditation for over a century," said Belle Wheelan, president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. Trump's depiction of accreditation as motivated by politics misrepresents how the process works, according to Wheelan. Affordable Alternatives and Accreditation Reform At the core of the Republican agenda is a call for "drastically more affordable" alternatives in higher education. The program lies at the heart of alleviating this financial cost for students and their families by returning to what they have termed "classic Liberal arts education." It also calls for reform of the national accreditation process, which should remake, according to them, the existing system currently controlled by the "Radical Left accreditors." Under such proposals, what has classically been an ideologically impartial process-accreditation-instituting education quality and financial stability would now be utilized towards further ideological single-mindedness. It may stifle the diversity of educational offerings and erode institutional autonomy by enforcing political litmus tests for funding eligibility at the federal level. Reversal of Title IX Regulations and Reforms in Social Policy Another highly controversial portion of the Republican Party platform was the reversal of President Biden's Title IX regulations. It labels those regulations aimed at further underpinning protections against sexual harassment and assault on American college campuses as overreaching, eroding due process rights. The rollback proposed aligns with broader condemnations of social-policy changes by progressives, including protections for transgender students that the platform designated as "left-wing gender insanity." Implications for Academic Freedom and Institutional Autonomy Academics themselves, much less outsiders in the political sphere, have had to raise intensifying concerns regarding the probable implications of such proposed reforms. As soon as it begins politicizing the accreditation system, it takes a dangerous turn, giving less regard to already marginal groups, hence affecting cornerstone tenets that sustain academic freedom and institutional autonomy in American higher education. Experts, however, are of the opinion that this could have a chilling effect on intellectual diversity and critical inquiry in institutes of learning: a concern equally raised in history as political interference in educational institutions. Those are the expected outcomes: reduced levels of federal support to institutions that do not meet prescribed ideological standards, hence reducing choices and innovation in education. With the anticipated 2024 platform endorsement, higher education proposed reforms stand to show just how out of touch Republican Party policies are with present trends. Supporters of the reforms think it is necessary to restore what they view as the forgotten ideals and values of fiscal responsibility to institutions of higher learning. Opponents warn that such reforms may basically transform American academia, along with its bastion of intellectual freedom and diversity. The debate over these proposals is only going to escalate as the platform is examined and debated in the next weeks before the Republican National Convention. Their decision will influence not only the fate of higher education policy in the future but also the extent to which the federal government needs to go, by constitutional mandate, in regulating educational affairs and the degree of constitutional protections students have on college campuses. July 10 2024 The lead designer behind the first opening road bridge spanning the River Clyde has shared the shipbuilding inspirations behind the project. Kettle Collective cofounder Tony Kettle swapped far-flung commissions in Reykjavic and Russia for something closer to home in Renfrew, a 117m movable bridge led by Renfrewshire Council. Inspecting progress in joining the north and south sections together during a site visit Kettle said: Shipbuilding on the Clyde inspired our design. The visual history of cranes juxtaposed against each other and the way the dry docks are cut into the banks at an angle. The challenge was to capture that spirit of movement in the angles of the new bridge structure, and to accentuate the fact this is a moving structure, not just another static bridge. The Renfrew Bridge is both a physical and symbolic connection, a celebration of the coming together of two communities that will undoubtedly benefit from having closer ties. It will create a gateway and a destination that should bring more people together to enjoy the riverbank and celebrate the history and rich cultural heritage that they share. It was a rare opportunity to celebrate all that is special about this place, to remind people of the rich industrial heritage, of the globally recognised engineering and construction expertise that occurred on both banks of the Clyde. What better way to celebrate it than with a new innovative moving structure. The key infrastructure link will improve connectivity between Yoker and Clydebank and Renfrew and Glasgow Airport to the south, uniting communities on both banks of the river. Kettle added: "Its a fantastic project that will change the landscape of the river for the better, offer fresh, improved transport connections, and create a visual landmark that generations to come can be proud of - I know I certainly will be." At 183m the distinctive 'twin leaf' design will be one of the longest-span cable-stayed opening bridges in the world when completed this autumn by civil engineers Graham. USM Freshman Completes Prestigious Internship with Fermilab Wed, 07/10/2024 - 02:57pm | By: David Tisdale University of Southern Mississippi (USM) undergraduate Prajwal Neupanes academic prowess earned him a paid opportunity with the countrys premier particle physics and accelerator laboratory as a 2024 Fermilab Quantum Computing Intern. Neupane, a native of Kathmandu, Nepal, Neupane is a freshman in USMs School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and credits the Universitys distinction as a Carnegie R1 Research University as his initial attraction to the institution. Neupanes internship at Fermilab included work with the Theory Department in its Quantum Computing School, which was recently established to meet the growing need of professionals in the domain. The three-week program offers participants direct experience programming for existing quantum computers using Python and Qiskit and is open to undergraduate students majoring in physics and interested in quantum computing for the simulation of physics. The internship is also supplemented by daily lectures on the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and quantum computing and culminates with participants running their own code on an IBM quantum computer. In addition to providing a unique learning experience, the internship increases representation of underrepresented populations in scientific research and the engineering workforce. Im amazed and humbled by the scale of work at Fermilab, Neupane said. My inner child popped up every time I was within walking distance of a particle accelerator. It was truly thrilling to be there for the internship and Im extremely grateful to have been a part of it. The internship fed his longtime love of science, remembering when my eyes glazed with passion watching the CERN collider right around the time they discovered the Higgs boson. Neupane sees his future in academic research after acquiring a Ph.D. in theoretical physics or abstract math and considers the Fermilab internship a great launchpad for his career. If it were up to me, I would spend the rest of my life submerged in learning, he said. Curiosity has always been my best friend, granting me the passion and motivation to be hungry for more. Neupane noted the support of his academic advisor, Associate Teaching Professor of Physics Dr. Jeremy Scott, in the internship application process. He relentlessly wrote recommendation letters for me, which I am always grateful for, he said. I thank all my professors who pushed me to do more. Dr. Scott said its rare for a freshman to be considered for an internship, particularly one with a stipend. Im very proud of P.J. for receiving this honor, Dr. Scott continued. Academically, he is a year ahead of most students in his discipline and has a large potential for success beyond his time at USM. Learn more about USMs School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine needs at least 128 F-16 fighter jets to create effective competition in the sky for the aggressor Russia. He also thanked partners for additional Patriot air defense systems, while emphasizing that they are still not enough. ADVERTISIMENT The Ukrainian leader said this during a Q&A session after his speech at the Ronald Reagan Institute in Washington, DC. As a reminder, the US is hosting the NATO summit on July 9-11. "The problem with F-16s is the number and dates. But let's be honest. Russia uses 300 aircraft against Ukraine every day. We had a decision about 10-20. Even if it is 50, it is nothing. We are defending ourselves, we need 128. This is the fleet," Zelenskyy said. Kyiv's allies, he added, have this information. According to him, until the Ukrainian Defense Forces have 128 fighters, the country will not be able to match the enemy in the sky. ADVERTISIMENT "It will be difficult," the president stated. He also thanked the United States for the new Patriot air defense systems. However, he emphasized that they are not enough: this was demonstrated by Russia's latest attack on Kyiv, which was considered to be protected. "Thank you for the decision on additional systems. They will certainly help. But this is not enough, it is never enough," Zelenskyy said, recalling another horrific war crime committed by Russians on July 8. He explained that Russian troops are using various types of new weapons. Ukraine and its partners, the president added, must also move forward, and "take serious steps on air defense of various types." As reported by OBOZ.UA, after the massive Russian attack on Ukraine on July 8, Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said that F-16s would definitely come to Ukraine. The exact timeframe is not disclosed, as the aggressor country is carefully hunting for weapons supplied to Kyiv by its partners. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Norway will donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. "We aim to start the donation in 2024," said Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre. ADVERTISIMENT He announced at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., noting that our country's ability to defend itself from air attacks "is crucial in the defense battle against Russia." This was reported by VG. When Stre arrived in Kyiv in August 2023, on Ukraine's Independence Day, he announced the transfer of F-16s from Norway. A few days earlier, after many months of hesitation, the United States gave the green light. But then the prime minister did not name the number or timing of the delivery of the fighters. The other countries of the air coalition (Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium) will provide the Ukrainian Air Force with significantly more combat aircraft than Norway. Denmark plans to give 19 aircraft, the Netherlands 24, and Belgium 30. Norway will retire its F-16 combat aircraft in 2021, gradually replacing them with F-35s. 32 Norwegian F-16s were sold to Romania. ADVERTISIMENT A small number of Ukrainian pilots are currently completing their F-16 training in Denmark. It is expected that the first Western fighter jets could be deployed to Ukraine this summer. Denmark will soon finish its training program, which will likely be followed by Romania. "Both President Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Kuleba have repeatedly expressed their great gratitude to Norway for its support of air defense and have made it clear that these aircraft are a crucial contribution to the defense of their freedom and sovereignty," Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said. The publication suggested that Ukrainians are likely to leave part of their fleet outside the country if their own F-16 bases are targeted by the aggressor. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has threatened that Ukrainian aircraft outside the country will become what Russia considers "legitimate targets." ADVERTISIMENT It should be added that the aircraft will be armed and otherwise provided with supplies within the framework of multinational cooperation (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Norway will take part in this). Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! The 12-month grace period for student loan borrowers ended on September 30. The "on-ramp" period helped borrowers who are struggling to make payments avoid the risk of defaulting and hurting their credit score. "The end of the on-ramp period means the beginning of the potentially harsh consequences for student loan borrowers who are not able to make payments," said Persis Yu, Deputy Executive Director at the Student Borrower Protection Center. Around 43 million Americans have student loan debt, amounting to $1.5 trillion. Around eight million of those borrowers had enrolled in the SAVE plan, the newest income-driven repayment plan that extended the eligibility for borrowers to have affordable monthly student loan payments. However, this plan is currently on hold due to legal challenges. With the on-ramp period and a separate program known as Fresh Start ending and the SAVE plan on hold, student loan borrowers who are struggling to afford their monthly payments have fewer options, added Yu. Student loan borrowers who haven't been able to afford their monthly payments must consider their options to avoid going into default. If you have student loans, here's what you need to know. What was the on-ramp period? The Education Department implemented this grace period to ease the borrower's transition to make payments after a three-year payment pause during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this year-long period, borrowers were encouraged to keep making payments since interest continued to accumulate. "Normally, loans will default if you fall about nine months behind on making payments, but during this on-ramp period, missed payments would not move people towards defaulting and then being subject to forced collections. However, if you missed payments, you still be falling behind ultimately on repaying your loans," said Abby Shaforth, director of National Consumer Law Center's Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project. Since this grace period has ended, student loan borrowers who don't make payments will go delinquent or, if their loans are not paid for nine months, go into default. Borrowers who cannot afford to make payments can apply for deferment or forbearance, which pause payments, though interest continues to accrue. What happens if I don't make my payments? Borrowers who can't or don't pay risk delinquency and eventually default. That can badly hurt your credit rating and make you ineligible for additional aid and government benefits. If a borrower missed one month's payment, they will start receiving email notifications, said Shaforth. Once the loan hasn't been paid for three months, loan servicers notify to the credit reporting agencies that the loan is delinquent, affecting your credit history. Once the borrower hasn't paid the loan for nine months, the loan goes into default. If you're struggling to pay, advisers first encourage you to check if you qualify for an income-driven repayment plan, which determines your payments by looking at your expenses. You can see whether you qualify by visiting the Federal Student Aid website. If you've worked for a government agency or a non-profit organization, you could also be eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which forgives student debt after 10 years. What happens when a loan goes into default? When you fall behind on a loan by 270 days roughly nine months the loan appears on your credit report as being in default. Once a loan is in default, it goes into collections. This means the government can garnish wages (without a court order) to go towards paying back the loan, intercept tax refunds, and seize portions of Social Security checks and other benefit payments. What if I can't pay? If your budget doesn't allow you to resume payments, it's important to know how to navigate the possibility of default and delinquency on a student loan. Both can hurt your credit rating, which would make you ineligible for additional aid. If you're in a short-term financial bind, you may qualify for deferment or forbearance allowing you to temporarily suspend payment. To determine whether deferment or forbearance are good options for you, you can contact your loan servicer. One thing to note: interest still accrues during deferment or forbearance. Both can also impact potential loan forgiveness options. Depending on the conditions of your deferment or forbearance, it may make sense to continue paying the interest during the payment suspension. What is an income-driven repayment plan? The U.S. Education Department offers several plans for repaying federal student loans. Under the standard plan, borrowers are charged a fixed monthly amount that ensures all their debt will be repaid after 10 years. But if borrowers have difficulty paying that amount, they can enroll in one of several plans that offer lower monthly payments based on income and family size. Those are known as income-driven repayment plans. Income-driven options have been offered for years and generally cap monthly payments at 10% of a borrower's discretionary income. If a borrower's earnings are low enough, their bill is reduced to $0. And after 20 or 25 years, any remaining debt gets erased. What is the latest with the SAVE program? In August, the Supreme Court kept on hold the SAVE plan, the income-driven repayment plan that would have lowered payments for millions of borrowers, while lawsuits make their way through lower courts. Eight million borrowers who had already enrolled in the SAVE plan don't have to pay their monthly student loan bills until the court case is resolved. Debt that already had been forgiven under the plan was unaffected. The next court hearing about this case will be held on October 15. What happened with the Fresh Start program? The Fresh Start program, which gave benefits to borrowers who were delinquent prior to the pandemic payment pause, also closed on September 30. During this limited program, student loan borrowers who were in default prior to the pandemic were given the opportunity to remove their loans from default, allowing them to enroll in income-driven payment plans, or apply for deferment, among other benefits. Australia, along with the United States and Britain, are accusing a state sponsored Chinese spy agency of cyber espionage. Authorities in Beijing have rejected the allegations as another attempt to smear and frame China on cybersecurity. The Australian Signals Directorate, the national cyber intelligence agency, has accused a group called APT40 - meaning Advanced Persistent Threat - of widespread hacking on behalf of a branch of China's Ministry of State Security. The agency said Tuesday that the hackers were trying to plunder information by infiltrating old and forgotten computers that were still connected to sensitive networks. Australian officials said the targets were government and business networks, and that the threat was ongoing. It is the first time Australia has directly attributed malicious cyber espionage to a state-sponsored group in China. The Australian Signals Directorates report was co-authored by Canberras Five Eyes security alliance partners; Canada, New Zealand, the United States and Britain, along with Germany, South Korea and Japan. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has sought to stabilize ties with China after years of diplomatic friction but has insisted there would be areas of disagreements. Matt Thistlethwaite, Australias Assistant Minister for Defense, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Wednesday that the cyber domain was becoming an area of conflict and espionage. It has been a non-traditional area of conflict in Ukraine and we are learning a lot of lessons from that," he said. "That is why the Albanese government is making record investments in bolstering Australias cyber capability both in a defense sense and in a non-defense sense as well." Analysts have said Australias cyber espionage allegations appear to be an escalation of international efforts to deter Beijing's cyber espionage activities. China has steadfastly refuted the claims. On Tuesday, a foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters in Beijing that the Chinese government was firmly opposed to such repeated hype about so-called Chinese cyber attacks aimed to smear and frame China on cybersecurity. Experts have also said the stockpiling of sensitive computer information has made Australia a target for hackers. In recent years, many of its major ports, its largest private health insurer and one of its main telecom companies have been targeted by cyber criminals. Earlier this year, the New Zealand government blamed APT40 for a cyber-attack in 2021 that compromised its parliamentary computer network. Ukraine is receiving five additional air defense systems to protect its sovereign territory, including three additional Patriot batteries from the United States, Germany and Romania. U.S. President Joe Biden announced the five systems as NATO members commemorated the 75th anniversary of the alliance during a summit in Washington. Allies marked the anniversary at Mellon Auditorium, the site of the original signing of the North Atlantic treaty that established the defensive bloc in 1949. Topping the summit agenda is support for Ukraines battle against Russias illegal invasion. The Netherlands and other partners are donating Patriot components to build a fourth Patriot battery, while Italy is donating an additional SAMP-T system, according to a joint statement Tuesday by the leaders of the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NATO members in April that Ukraine needed a minimum of seven Patriot or other high-end air defense systems to counter Russian air strikes. NATO allies say they are coordinating closely with Kyiv to make these systems available as soon as possible. They also said they are working to make another announcement about additional strategic air defense systems for Ukraine later this year. Not even our support for Ukraine has been a given, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday. The reality is there are no cost-free options with an aggressive Russia as a neighbor. There are no risk-free options in a war, and remember, the biggest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine. Since the U.S. Congress approved new aid for Ukraine following months of delays, the United States has provided Ukraine with hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment pulled from U.S. stockpiles, including the additional Patriot battery announced Tuesday and multiple rounds of long-range missiles known as ATACMS, two U.S. officials told VOA. The ATACMS have a range of up to 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) and nearly double the striking distance of Ukraines missiles. In addition, the U.S. has provided billions of dollars of funding for Kyivs long-term defense needs, including last weeks $2.2 billion Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative package that is being used to purchase interceptors for NASAMS (medium-range ground-based air defense system) and Patriot air defense systems for Ukraine. Officials in Peru said Tuesday they recovered the body of American mountain climber William Stampfl, who was buried in an avalanche 22 years ago while attempting to climb 6,768-meter Mount Huascaran. Police told The Associated Press that the areas freezing temperatures and ice had preserved the climbers body, clothing and other possessions, including his drivers license, which said he lived in Chino, California, in San Bernardino County. Stampfl traveled to the Andean area with two friends in 2002 Matthew Richardson and Steve Erskine, according to the AP report. The trio traveled the world together to climb mountains and had summited Kilimanjaro, Rainier, Shasta and Denali, AP reported. Richardsons body remains missing, while Erskines was recovered shortly after the avalanche. Meanwhile in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday that six volunteer climbers, led by Pakistani mountaineer Abbas Ali, found and recovered the body of Hiroshi Onishi, a 64-year-old Japanese climber who died recently as he was descending Golden Peak, one of the countrys tallest mountains. He was the third of three Japanese climbers to die in Pakistan in less than a month. Onishi had reached the peak of the mountain but fell into a crevasse during his descent and died, AP reported. The volunteers mounted their recovery effort after bad weather prevented helicopters from retrieving the body. It took the volunteers six days of arduous work to find and bring the body down, according to AP. Earlier, on June 13, two other Japanese climbers were also reported missing on the same mountain as Onishi. Ryuseki Hiraokas body was found two days later. Recovery efforts for Atsushi Taguchis body were unsuccessful, and he is presumed dead. Lawmakers with the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement passed a law on Tuesday extending their term of office for one year. The lawmakers were elected in 2020 to serve a five-year term expiring on March 10, 2025. But this week, President Paul Biya asked his government to pass a bill extending terms for all 180 members of Parliament by 12 months well into 2026. Biya's Cameroon People's Democratic Movement also known as CPDM holds 156 of parliament's 180 seats. Government officials say Cameroon's constitution gives Biya the power to consult the Constitutional Council and ask parliament to vote on extensions and postpone elections whenever circumstances warrant. Joshua Osih, a lawmaker and president of the opposition Social Democratic Front, disagrees. Osih said the Social Democratic Front Party he leads strongly condemns as undemocratic the law extending the mandate of parliamentarians, postponing parliamentary elections in Cameroon from February 2025 to February 2026. He said the Cameroon government had five years to prepare for fresh polls in 2025 and should not give the impression that it was taken by surprise. Opposition and civil society groups say Biya ordered CPDM lawmakers to vote on the bill because it makes it difficult for some main opposition leaders, including Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement Party (CRM), to be a candidate in presidential elections expected in October 2025. Opposition says win was stolen Kamto claims he won Cameroon's October 7 presidential polls and that his victory was stolen by Biya. In 2020, his party did not take part in local council and parliamentary elections claiming that Biya had planned to rig the polls in favor of CPDM. Cameroonian laws state that a political leader who aspires to be president must be in a political party that has at least a municipal councilor or is represented by a lawmaker in parliament. Kamtos' CRM party has neither. The CRM said it expected to take part in February's local and parliamentary elections to be able to endorse Kamto. Kamto said the law extending the term of parliamentarians, along with a presidential decision postponing local elections, is another ploy by 91-year-old Biya to remain leader for life. Kamto said he wants to reiterate to the government of Cameroon that his party and followers will not tolerate plans by Biya to stay in power. He said Biya and his government should not continue to take civilians for granted by abusing democratic rights and ruling the country with an iron fist. Kamto said he will disrupt the elections if his rights are abused but did not say how. The government said joint local council and parliamentary elections will take place in 2026 after presidential elections in 2025. Kamto said although Cameroon laws make it possible for presidential aspirants who are not endorsed by political parties to run, submitting 300 signatures from influential politicians, including former ministers, traditional rulers and religious leaders, as the law states, is very difficult. He said the leaders are either scared of Biya or are his political partners. Biya has not said if he will be a candidate. But last March, CPDM supporters marched in the streets urging the world's oldest leader to run for office in the 2025 presidential election, potentially extending his more than four-decade rule. They said Biya is the only one who can bring peace and development to Cameroon, but the opposition says Biya must leave office after running Cameroon for decades. Biya rules with an iron fist and is not ready to relinquish power until he dies, opposition and civil society say. But Biya's supporters say he is a democrat and has won all elections since Cameroon's 1990 return of multi-party politics. If reelected, Biya will rule up to 2032. By then, he will be 98 years old. Mixed reactions are swirling in Cameroon since Brenda Biya, the daughter of President Paul Biya, declared she is a lesbian. While LGBTQ activists see her declaration as an opportunity to push for greater rights in a country where same-sex relations are outlawed, anti-gay groups say they want Brenda Biya prosecuted. Brenda Biya, the 26-year-old daughter of Cameroons president, Paul Biya, said she has received what she calls tons of insults as well as congratulatory messages in the past seven days. The presidents daughter set off a firestorm of reaction in Cameroon last week when she shared pictures on social media of herself kissing her girlfriend and expressing her wish for them to live in harmony as a couple. She said LGBTQ people in Cameroon should be spared violence and brutality. In a video released Tuesday night, Brenda Biya She said LGBTQ people have been calling to tell her that as President Biya's daughter, she stands a chance of moving Cameroon toward abolishing laws that criminalize same-sex relations. Brenda said she wants to give hope and love to the many people in Cameroon who suffer simply because of who they are. Reverend Father Humphrey Tatah Mbui is director of communications at the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroons Roman Catholic Bishops. He said he was curious to watch the videos shared by Brenda because President Biyas family members are practicing Roman Catholics. Mbui said homosexuality, lesbianism or same-sex relationships are condemned by the church because it is sin against God's teaching. "The Church. however, is sympathetic towards people who find themselves in homosexuality, lesbianism or same-sex relationships. Just like Jesus Christ we condemn what is wrong, but we do not condemn the sinner because the sinner can always repent," he said. Mbui said the Church believes that if Brenda stops loving and having intimate relations with her female partner, God will reconsider her as his daughter. Bandy Kiki is an LGBT activist. She said churches should allow LGBTI people to enjoy their lives without religious obstacles. "There are some laws in the Bible which should absolutely not be accepted today -- for example capital punishment, slavery etc., and I think the Catholic Church is realizing that because in recent times we have seen some changes. We recently heard the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, allowing priests to bless same-sex relationships." President Biya has not publicly commented on his daughter's declaration. Brenda said she did not inform her family before sharing the videos on social media. On Wednesday, the Cameroon Association for the Criminalization of Same Sex Marriages said it had filed a complaint against Brenda for promoting an illegal activity in the central African country. Officials of Cameroons Ministry of Justice say they have received and will examine the complaint. Cameroonian law prohibits sexual relations with a person of the same sex and imposes a penalty of between six months to five years imprisonment on people found guilty. Rights groups say that Cameroons police target public gatherings of LGBTQ people, and thugs regularly beat people suspected to be same-sex couples. Rights groups say about 16 people are currently in prison for alleged consensual same-sex conduct or gender nonconformity. VOA could not independently verify that number. U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Amanda Bennett, newly sworn-in Voice of America Director Michael Abramowitz, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President Stephen Capus faced tough questions before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday about the networks budget, priorities and challenges. Republican Representative Scott Perry started the hearing by asking Bennett if she considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Bennett responded, I will accept the definition given by the United States, which has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. Perry grilled Bennett about an emailed memo that circulated to VOA journalists shortly after Hamas Oct. 7 massacre of some 1,200 Israelis saying staff members should avoid calling Hamas and its members terrorists, except in quotes. Not mentioned at the hearing, the memo also said it was appropriate to describe Hamas actions as terrorist attacks or acts of terror. Bennett said agency policy is to use the word terrorist carefully and when it's appropriate. She also said the agency is now using artificial intelligence to ensure all 48 language services at VOA are following the agencys editorial policies. Committee Chairman Michael McCaul praised USAGM as a beacon of freedom, supplying the truth to those living under tyranny and oppression. However, he said there are serious problems in how it is being managed. McCaul and other lawmakers asked about long-running issues, including the rehiring of a person at VOA who had been fired under a previous administration and who had been accused by an unnamed whistleblower who questioned her conduct and credentials. Representative Tim Burchett questioned Bennett about the handling of the personnel issue, asking whether it was appropriate for the agency to still employ someone accused of harassing staff. Bennett declined to answer, calling it inappropriate to respond to questions about personnel in an open forum. She said the issue had been thoroughly investigated by the agencys human resources department and was also investigated by the committee. Budget cuts The hearing also focused on budget cuts and operations. The heads of VOA and RFE/RL expressed concern on how they will affect the mission. Capus said the impact will be devastating and that RFE/RL without a doubt are a target by Russia, Belarus, Iran and China. Capus said that if RFE/RL stopped working in the region, audiences will be left vulnerable to those countries and their propaganda. Abramowitz, who was sworn in three weeks ago, also said the lack of resources will affect the issues the committee and VOA care about, giving as an example the coverage of Iran and Russia. "It will be quite devastating, he said, adding that audiences in those countries often go to VOA because we are the only source of information that counters the false information that is coming from the government. Democratic Representative Dina Titus asked Capus about reporter Alsu Kurmasheva, who has been in Russia in pretrial detention since October 2023. The RFE/RL president updated the committee on Kurmashevas case, saying he believes the charges had been brought against her because, we believe, she works for us. Russia has charged Kurmasheva with not registering her U.S. passport with authorities, failing to self-register as a foreign agent and violating military censorship laws. She has not been designated as wrongfully detained by the U.S Department of State. Some members of the committee expressed concern about why U.S. officials have not yet designated her as wrongfully detained. U.S. lawmakers returned to the nations capital this week for the first time since President Joe Bidens debate against presumptive presidential Republican nominee Donald Trump in June. Katherine Gypson reports on calls from Capitol Hill for Biden to step aside. Kim Lewis contributed to this report. Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket successfully blasted off for the first time on Tuesday, releasing satellites into orbit and restoring the continent's independent access to space. European space efforts have suffered a series of blows, including four years of delays on Ariane 6, that have robbed the continent of its own way to launch missions into space for the past year. But with the successful inaugural flight of Europe's most powerful rocket yet, European space chiefs were keen to move on from recent setbacks. "It's a historic day for Europe," European Space Agency head Josef Aschbacher said. "Europe is back," announced Philippe Baptiste, head of France's CNES space agency. Surrounded by jungle on the South American coast, the rocket launched from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 4 p.m. local time (1900 GMT). The crew in the Jupiter control room, located 17 kilometers from the launch site, portrayed calm. Then head of operations Raymond Boyce announced, "propulsion nominal," meaning that the launch was going as planned. Applause rang out in the room. Even louder applause came a little over an hour later, when the rocket successfully delivered microsatellites into orbit. NASA chief Bill Nelson on X welcomed the "giant leap forward" for the ESA. But Martin Sion, the CEO of the rocket's manufacturer ArianeGroup, emphasized that "the mission is not yet complete." It will only be fully completed when the reusable Vinci engine in the rocket's upper stage has fallen back into Earth's atmosphere. This is expected around three hours after liftoff. Since the last flight of its workhorse predecessor, Ariane 5, a year ago, Europe has had to rely on rivals such as Elon Musk's U.S. firm SpaceX. Ariane 6 will be able to place satellites in geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometers (22,369.36 miles) above Earth, as well as satellite constellations a few hundreds of kilometers up. The first flight was carrying a payload of university microsatellites, various experiments and two atmospheric re-entry capsules that will be jettisoned near the end of the mission. The last of three ignitions of the Vinci engine will be to shoot the Vinci engine back down into the Pacific Ocean, so it does not contribute to the space debris cluttering Earth's orbit. After months of analyzing the rocket's inaugural launch, a first commercial flight is expected before the end of the year. The next challenge will be to "successfully ramp up" the number of flights, ESA space transportation director Toni Tolker-Nielsen said. Six launches are scheduled for next year, and eight for 2026. French President Emmanuel Macron has asked parliament to negotiate a broad coalition of the countrys republican institutions. He is hoping to end a deadlock after an inconclusive snap election. I am asking all political forces who recognize themselves in the republican institutions, the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, a European orientation and the defense of France's independence, to start a sincere and fair dialogue to build a solid, and by definition pluralist, majority, Macron said. The arrangement seemed created to exclude Marine Le Pens far-right National Rally, or RN, party. It also implicitly does not include far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchons France Unbowed, or LFI. LFI makes up a large amount of the left-wing New Popular Front, or NFP, alliance. The NFP had the most seats in the National Assembly on Wednesday. Macrons centrist group came in second, and the RN came in third. While it would be customary for Macron to ask the largest parliamentary group to form the government, he is not obligated to do so by the constitution. The best he [Macron] can do for the country at this stage is to allow the group that won the most seats, the New Popular Front, to govern. Any other machinations would be truly problematic and dangerous for democracy, said NFP member Eric Coquerel. The government of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal will stay in power as the Olympics approach in Paris. Attals centrist group in parliament is seeking his successor. With the largest bloc in the National Assembly, French leftists want to propose a new prime minister. The president refuses to recognize the results of the ballot box, which put the New Popular Front ahead in terms of votes and of seats, Melenchon said in a social media post. Until releasing his letter on Wednesday, Macron had stayed quiet since the election and was away for a NATO summit. The broad leftist NFP alliance has said it will suggest a prime minister candidate by the weeks end. Any contender must face a confidence vote by parliament. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban commented on the Russian criminal shelling of the Okhmatdyt hospital in Kyiv in a very peculiar way. He did not name the perpetrator of the attack on the medical facility, but once again called on Ukraine and Russia to engage in peace talks. ADVERTISIMENT Orban said it was a "tragic and horrific terrorist attack" that he could have foreseen. However, the pro-Russian politician did not express his condolences to the dead and wounded and did not even condemn the fact of the shelling. "Yesterday's tragic and disgusting attack in Kyiv proves that our fears were justified: as expected, the brutality of the Russian-Ukrainian war has reached a new level. That is why we launched a peacekeeping mission nine days ago," Orban said. The Hungarian prime minister did not explain who exactly this "we" is. Either he is referring to himself in the plural, or he is referring to himself in the plural, but 9 days ago Orban personally visited Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And it was not difficult for Orban to predict the Russian attack on Ukraine's largest children's hospital, given that the Hungarian had visited Moscow before. ADVERTISIMENT "The growing intensity of the war is a call to the world powers to abandon their military policy and instead create a policy of peace, to direct Russia and Ukraine to a ceasefire and peace talks. This is the only way to avoid further bloodshed," Orban added. As OBOZ.UA previously reported, the Hungarian prime minister traveled to Moscow only to solve his problems, and only a little bit to solve the problems of his country. Peace in Ukraine has nothing to do with it. Orban was simply recruited by the aggressor country Russia and is part of its mafia-corrupt criminal system, which is integrated into the global mafia structure. Diplomat and international policy expert Roman Bezsmertnyi told us about this. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Yemen-based Houthi militants opened fire on a U.S.-flagged container ship traveling through the Arabian Sea Tuesday. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations says the captain of the Maersk Sentosa reported an explosion close to the vessel just off the coast of Nishtun, Yemen. A spokesperson for the group issued a statement late Tuesday night taking responsibility for the attack on the Maersk Sentosa, as well as attacks on two other vessels traveling through the Gulf of Aden. UKMTO says the Maersk Sentosa and its crew were safe. The Houthis have launched drone and missile attacks against merchant vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since last November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians amid the war in Gaza. Their campaign has disrupted commercial shipping through the important corridor, prompting many companies to reroute ships on the longer and more expensive route around the African continent. U.S and British forces have conducted airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen in response. The Houthis said 16 people were killed and at least three dozen others were wounded in a series of airstrikes on May 30. Meanwhile, more than two dozen international aid workers, including several United Nations employees, have been detained by Houthi rebels since mid-June, including 18 workers who were seized after a series of raids on July 4. A New Mexico prosecutor on Wednesday said Alec Baldwin broke "cardinal rules" of gun safety in the 2021 killing of "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins while his lawyer said he was failed by firearms experts. The 66-year-old Baldwin, on trial in Hollywood's first on-set shooting fatality in three decades, took notes at the defense table and listened calmly to opening statements in his involuntary manslaughter trial. The trial is largely unprecedented in U.S. history, holding an actor criminally responsible for a gun death during filming. A New Mexico jury of 12 and four alternates 11 women and five men heard prosecutor Erlinda Johnson outline arguments that Baldwin disregarded safety during filming of the low-budget movie before pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal, cocking it and pulling the trigger as they set up a camera shot on a set southwest of Santa Fe. "The evidence will show that someone who played make believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin," Johnson said. Baldwin's wife Hilaria Baldwin sat in the second row of the public gallery, his brother Stephen Baldwin in front of her. His lawyer Alex Spiro pointed to "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez head of gun safety and first assistant director Dave Halls responsible for overall set safety. Both have been convicted in the shooting, and Spiro said they did not check the rounds in the gun to ensure it was safe for Baldwin to use. "There were people responsible for firearms safety but actor Alec Baldwin committed no crime," said Spiro. Hutchins was killed, and director Joel Souza wounded when Baldwin's reproduction 1873 Single Action Army revolver fired a live round, inadvertently loaded by Gutierrez. Since a police interview on Oct. 21, 2021, the day of the shooting, Baldwin has argued the gun just "went off." In an ABC News interview two months later, Baldwin told George Stephanopoulos he did not pull the trigger. A 2022 FBI test found the gun was in normal working condition and would not fire from full cock without the trigger being pulled. Spiro said during his opening arguments that no one saw Baldwin "intentionally pull the trigger," but that it was the responsibility of firearms safety experts to ensure a firearm was safe for an actor "to wave it, to point it, to pull the trigger, like actors do." State prosecutors charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in January 2022. They dropped charges three months later after Baldwin's lawyers presented photographic evidence the gun was modified, arguing it would fire more easily, bolstering the actor's accidental discharge argument. Prosecutors called a grand jury to reinstate the charge in January after an independent firearms expert confirmed the 2022 FBI study. FBI testing broke the gun, and Baldwin's lawyers will tell jurors that destruction of the weapon prevented them from proving the gun was modified. Armorer Gutierrez, whose job on the set of "Rust" included managing firearms safely, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in March for loading the live round. Prosecutors will have to persuade jurors Baldwin is also guilty of willful and reckless criminal negligence. The Israeli military issued an evacuation order for Gaza city Wednesday, instructing Palestinians to move to the center and south of the region, which saw dozens of deaths in the 48 hours prior. The evacuation order was issued via leaflets dropped from the sky, reading that the area would "remain a dangerous combat zone." The leaflet laid out two "safe routes" that individuals could take to evacuate the area. "Todays directives will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced many times," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "These civilians must be protected, and their essential needs must be met, whether they flee or whether they stay." There was "no immediate mass exodus," as many Palestinians believe there is no safe refuge any place in Gaza, The Associated Press reported. The World Food Program posted on X that there was "intensified military action" in Gaza City, resulting in "escalating humanitarian needs." WFP said the situation is "unpredictable and volatile." The evacuation order came as Israeli military forces continued their offensive in central Gaza on Wednesday, a day after an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians killed at least 29 people, according to Palestinian health officials. The Israeli Defense Forces carried out airstrikes on the towns of Nuseirat and Khan Yunis, killing at least six people and leaving several others wounded, according to various news outlets. Eight people were killed in an airstrike on a home in Deir al-Balah, an area located within a "humanitarian safe zone" where Palestinians have been told by Israel to seek refuge, AP reported. Nimrod Goren, senior fellow for Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute, spoke with VOA about how the new attacks could derail the cease-fire talks despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreeing to send a delegation to the talks. "The important thing is not whether the military attacks are continuing while talks are ongoing, but rather conditions," Goren said. The main difference between the two sides concerning the cease-fire, he said, is "whether Israel could continue its fighting in Gaza ... this option is something that now Hamas totally rejects." Apart from Netanyahu and his far-right allies, Goren told VOA that the public debate within most of Israel now, "including the security establishment, including even the president and the minister of defense, are calling to give this thing a chance to move forward. Acknowledging that they can handle whatever security concession that we may need to make just for the sake of bringing home those 120 people still held by Hamas." "This is a national priority," Goren said. He said he thinks "people trust the idea" that Israel can "deal with" security issues, but people just want to "get this done." He added, however, that "Netanyahu doesn't seem to be on board yet." Netanyahu has said that military pressure is the best way to prompt Hamas to free the hostages, about a third of whom are said to be dead. Tuesdays attack on the al-Awda school in Abasan near the southern city of Khan Yunis was apparently the fourth Israeli strike in as many days. The Israeli military said it was targeting a Hamas fighter who took part in the deadly October 7, 2023, raid on southern Israel that precipitated the Israeli assault on Gaza. Officials said the military was looking into the report that civilians were harmed in the airstrike. The Gaza Health Ministry reported that an Israeli strike on Saturday killed 16 people at the United Nations-run al-Jawani school in Nuseirat, central Gaza, where about 2,000 people were sheltering. The following day another strike killed four at the Sacred Family School in northern Gaza. And an Israeli strike on Monday hit another U.N.-run school in Nuseirat, hospitalizing several people. Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group, warned on Tuesday that the attacks could put cease-fire talks at risk. And the U.N. Human Rights Office expressed concern about the operation and Israel's latest civilian evacuation orders. The U.N. agency said the orders issued Sunday called for civilians to move to the west of Gaza City for safety, only to then have the Israel Defense Forces intensify their strikes on those corridors. "The U.N. Human Rights Office has repeatedly raised concerns that IDF's evacuation orders are confusing, often instructing people to relocate to areas where IDF military operations are ongoing," the agency said in a statement. "We reiterate our call on Israel to take all efforts to ensure the safety of civilians in Gaza." UN cites mass starvation Famine has spread across the Gaza Strip, a panel of United Nations experts in Geneva said in a statement on Tuesday. The experts pointed to the recent deaths of three children a 6-month-old, a 9-year-old and a 13-year-old. "All three children died from malnutrition and lack of access to adequate health care," the panel's statement said. "With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza." The panel called upon "the international community to prioritize the delivery of humanitarian aid by land by any means necessary, end Israel's siege, and establish a cease-fire." Cease-fire talks Top intelligence officials from Egypt, Israel and the United States were set to meet Wednesday in Qatar in the latest effort to secure a cease-fire agreement, according to various news outlets. CIA Director Bill Burns is to meet with Abbas Kamel, head of Egypts General Intelligence Service, and Israeli spy chief David Barnea. Burns and Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, held talks in Cairo on Monday with their Egyptian, Israeli and Jordanian counterparts, according to White House national security spokesperson John Kirby. Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people and captured about 250 hostages in their October 7 terror attack on Israel that sparked the war. Israel says it believes Hamas is still holding 116 hostages, including 42 the military says are dead. Kim Lewis contributed to this story. Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. Myanmar ethnic minority fighters said on Wednesday they have seized a town along a key trade highway to China following days of clashes with junta troops. The town of Naungcho "is totally ours," General Tar Bhone Kyaw of the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) told AFP. Earlier Wednesday a military source told AFP that ethnic minority fighters were in control of "most" of Naungcho. Myanmar's northern Shan state has been rocked by clashes since late last month when an alliance of ethnic armed groups renewed an offensive along the highway that runs from second city Mandalay to China's Yunnan province. Naungcho is around 50 kilometers along the highway from the former British hill station of Pyin Oo Lwin, home to the military's elite officer training academy. Another road from the town leads to Taunggyi, the capital of Shan state. AFP was unable to reach a junta spokesman for comment. Myanmar's borderlands are home to myriad ethnic armed groups who have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 for autonomy and control of lucrative resources. Namibia will attempt to reduce the local seal population by 80,000 this year, officials recently announced, despite opposition from animal rights groups. The Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources said the reduction is necessary to maintain balance in the ecosystem and keep the seals from hurting the nations fishing industry. Seal numbers increased from 1.3 million to 1.6 million over the past three years, said Annely Haifene, executive director of the marine ministry. She told VOA this is an indication of a healthy marine ecosystem but is also a threat to the $10 billion fishing industry, which is one of the largest contributors to Namibias economy, because seals prey on the fish. Last years seal harvest was disappointing, Haifene said, with the companies that hold rights to catch seals along Namibias Atlantic coastline harvesting less than 50% of the total allowable catch. The challenge is really the market, she said. There is no demand for pups products, and therefore, even if you harvest them, you will likely not get any economic sense out of the pups. Markets for the bulls are difficult, too, she said. The main market for seal pelts and food products is China, but demand has dropped because of an international ban on seal fur. Last year, the total allowable catch for seal pups was 80,000. Only 3,764, or 5% of the target, was harvested. The companies harvested a larger proportion of adult seals, catching about 3,100 of the 6,000 allowed. Haifene blamed animal rights groups for last years the low numbers. Naude Dreyer of Ocean Conservation Namibia said Namibias attempts to reduce the seal population is having the opposite effect of what the ministry is trying to achieve. By taking out the biggest bulls in the group, you are messing with the harem structures in the groups, he said. Normally a big bull will have up to 50 females underneath him, which he would then be fighting with other big bulls to keep them exclusively his. By taking out those big bulls, this allows much younger males to come in and do the mating. Namibia is the only country in the Global South where seal harvesting takes place. Other countries that harvest seals include the United States, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Finland and Sweden. Namibian seals live in three colonies along the countrys 1,500-kilometer (932-mile) coastline. This years harvest is set to end in November. Authorities believe the harvest will be less than last years due to declining interest in seal products on the international market. NATO leaders are gathering in Washington this week as the military alliance celebrates its 75th anniversary, confronts the prospect of the return of NATO skeptic Donald Trump to the White House, the Ukraine war, and a bigger global role. We talk to Charles Kupchan is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and professor of international affairs at Georgetown University. Heavy Israeli bombardment is shaking Gaza City. Thousands of fleeing Palestinians are searching for shelter, and medical facilities have been forced to shut down. The Nigerian parliament on Tuesday called for an investigation of the Samoa Agreement, a pact federal authorities signed with the European Union, after a media report that some of the deals clauses could promote same-sex relationships. Nigerian authorities have denied the claims and promised to act against news organizations reporting them. Lawmakers said authorities did not consult them before signing the bill. A majority voted to investigate the agreement, which is named after the Pacific Island nation of Samoa, where it was first reached in November. Critics such as House of Representatives member Aliyu Madaki said the Samoa Agreement needs to be clearer on clauses that promote gender rights. "The phrase 'gender equality' is a Trojan horse for deceptively bringing in all sorts of immorality to our country, as gender no longer means sexes male and female as traditionally understood. It now includes homosexuality, lesbianism, transgenderism and animalism," Madaki said. Nigerian authorities signed the Samoa Agreement among the EU and 79 other countries, including African, Caribbean and Pacific nations, on June 28. Authorities say the agreement aims to strengthen partnerships for democratic norms and human rights as well as promote economic growth and development. Its also designed to help member nations tackle common challenges such as climate change, migration and security. Authorities said Nigeria signed the agreement after extensive reviews and consultations. The pact became a topic of national discussion following a report by a Nigerian newspaper, Daily Trust, that said the deals clause on gender rights could be misinterpreted to promote same-sex relationships. This week, Nigerian authorities held a media briefing in Abuja to debunk such claims and promised to sue the newspaper. Authorities also refuted claims that Nigeria will pocket $150 billion from signing the deal. Information Minister Mohammed Idris Malagi told reporters, "We are alarmed by the level of reckless reporting and statements by some media organizations and individuals that border on national security and stability. We find that despicable and wicked, because the allegation is nowhere in the document signed on behalf of the federal government. It is, however, disheartening that some elements are abusing this free [media] environment guaranteed by the government," he said. Nigeria outlawed same-sex relations in 2014 and imposed a 14-year jail term for offenders. On Tuesday, the Nigerian Bar Association backed the governments position after reviewing the agreement. But the chairperson of the Human Rights Committee at the African Bar Association, Sonnie Ekwokusi, told Lagos-based Channels Television that Madaki is making a valid point. "This Samoa agreement is littered with the phrases of the EU and United Nations, Ekwokusi said. I know the language of the EU. I know what they're talking about." Daily Trust has said that its reporting was in the interest of the public and that it will apologize only when it is proven that the gender rights cited in the agreement means traditional male-female relationships and nothing more. A boat carrying 20 migrants sank Tuesday off Colombia's Caribbean coast, leaving at least one person dead and four missing, officials said. Fifteen people were rescued, six of whom were minors, the navy told AFP. The boat sank near the Colombian resort islands of San Andres and Providencia, east of Nicaragua. Military officials said a search and rescue operation involving navy rapid response units and the air force was underway. The adults saved were from Colombia, Ecuador, Iran, Nicaragua, Kazakhstan and Venezuela, the navy added. Of the minors that were saved, two were from Kazakhstan and three from Venezuela. The nationality of the sixth was not disclosed. In May, Washington imposed sanctions on Nicaragua, accusing it of aiding the trafficking of undocumented migrants seeking to make it to the United States. Colombia has said that migrants are increasingly using a clandestine route between San Andres and Nicaragua to avoid the dangerous crossing through the Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama, heading north through Central America and eventually to Mexico and the U.S. border. While Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban calls his previously unannounced trip to China a peace mission, analysts expect the meeting in Beijing to draw anger from his fellow EU leaders. In a Tuesday post on Orban's X social media account, he shared a video of himself in Beijing, along with music, meeting with Chinese officials including President Xi Jinping. He labeled the trip as "Peace Mission 3.0." Orban met with Xi on Monday to discuss the war in Ukraine and bilateral relations, just days after his nation assumed a six-month term in the rotating presidency of the European Union. EU leaders were already nervous about Orban's plans, given that he has been warmer than his neighbors to the authoritarian leaders in Moscow and Beijing. Neither the Hungarian nor the Chinese government disclosed Orban's visit in advance. On Sunday, Hungarian local news reported a Dassault Falcon 7X aircraft, which Orban often uses for military and political purposes, had been tracked flying from Budapest to Beijing. But it was not until the next day, when Orban met Xi, that the trip was made public. Anonymous diplomatic sources told the Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper that Orban's visit was not at China's invitation but was a "surprise" visit. Earlier this month, Orban visited Kyiv and Moscow in what he called a "peace mission." Josep Borrell, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said Orban represented only Hungary, not the EU, when he visited Moscow. The Associated Press quoted European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer saying, "This is about appeasement. It's not about peace." Chinese news agency Xinhua was more positive about the visit, saying, "Hungary is willing to take the rotating EU presidency as an opportunity to actively promote the sound development of EU-China relations." In a readout of the Xi-Orban meeting, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the "two sides focused on in-depth communication on the Ukrainian crisis." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Li Jian said at a Tuesday press conference, "China calls on all relevant parties to observe three principles for de-escalating the situation, namely no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting and no fanning up the flames by any party, and create conditions for direct dialogue between Russia and Ukraine." Orban said his next stop is Washington. While President Joe Biden has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine's bid to regain all of its lost territory, it is expected that if former president Donald Trump is elected as the next president in November, U.S. foreign aid, including to Ukraine, may be reduced. Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., praised Orban as a "peacemaker" on X, saying: "Prime Minister Orban, like my father, wants to see PEACE brought back to the world." Orban's visit should be understood from the perspective of Hungary's history, said Italian sinologist Francesco Sisci. "Hungary is a small but proud people squeezed for centuries between Germans and Slavs, and so it always sought its unique position. It was the other side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but it was rebellious to Vienna. It was part of the Soviet bloc but was the first to turn against the USSR. Now it's part of the EU and NATO, but its president reaches out to Russia and China." "Hungary tries to find its own unique position," he added, "but it's not leaving NATO or the EU, as it didn't split from Austria." Alicja Bachulska, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that Orban is clearly trying to use Hungary's EU presidency to position himself as a potential peacemaker in Ukraine. "His approach, however, clearly contradicts the position of most EU states regarding the war in Ukraine," she told VOA. "Orban is instrumentalizing his position to domestically strengthen his own image as a capable leader, while internationally he's advancing his particular interests (such as strengthening of bilateral ties with China and Russia) to the detriment of EU's unity." Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, said China should consider how over-reliance on maverick Hungary could affect its overall relations with Europe. Orban's visit to Moscow "is definitely beneficial to Russia because Russia has nothing to lose," she said in an interview. "But Orban's visit to China may not be beneficial to China because China needs to negotiate with the new European Commission led by [Ursula] von der Leyen, such as the taxation of electric vehicles." Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report. Pakistan has officially authorized its military-run main spy agency to intercept citizens phone communications, sparking outcry and concerns from political opponents and advocates of civil liberties. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharifs coalition government has defended the controversial measure, saying the new powers for the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, will enable authorities to track anyone who misuses the law. Federal Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar told parliament on Tuesday that phone monitoring would be restricted to tracking criminal and terrorist activities. He said the government would ensure it does not violate Pakistanis' privacy. According to the July 8 directive, The federal government, in the interest of national security and in the apprehension of any offence, is pleased to authorize [ISI] officers to intercept calls and messages or to trace calls through any telecommunication system. Critics have slammed the notice as unconstitutional and an assault on civil liberties, saying it would enable ISI to further strengthen its alleged hidden role in national politics. WATCH: Pakistan authorizes spy agency to tap civilians' phones, raising fears of authoritarianism Politicians, including former Pakistani prime ministers, have long accused the ISI of manipulating or undermining elected governments at the behest of the powerful military, which has staged several coups and governed the country for nearly half of its independent history. Lawmakers affiliated with the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan strongly opposed the phone tapping permission given to the ISI and promised to launch a legal challenge against it. The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, or HRCP, said in a statement Wednesday it was deeply concerned by the governments decision to give intelligence personnel carte blanche to intercept phone calls of any citizen. The watchdog decried the measure as a flagrant violation of citizens constitutionally protected rights to liberty, dignity and privacy. The HRCP stated, Given the poor track record of governments and intelligence agencies alike, this measure will invariably be used to clamp down on political dissent through means of blackmail, harassment, and intimidation. Several members of the Pakistan Bar Council, the country's highest elected body of lawyers, issued a joint statement dismissing the governments notice as a blatant disregard for the rule of law and judicial independence. Such sweeping powers granted are alarming and unjustified. The issuance of this notification is in direct violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution of Pakistan, the council said. Pakistans renowned English-language newspaper Dawn criticized the granting of new powers to ISI as another example of how extensively constitutional freedoms are being encroached upon in the country. To be clear, this was already being done, albeit without warrants or legal sanction. It will now continue with legal sanction, but likely still without warrants, the paper said Wednesday in an editorial. Suppressing a restless public and blocking dissent will only create more frustrations, which may spill over in unforeseen ways, the editorial cautioned. On July 10, Ukraine and Luxembourg signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement. In the agreement, Luxembourg committed to providing military assistance and support to Ukraine throughout the term of the agreement. ADVERTISIMENT The agreement provides for cooperation in the areas of land, air, and cyber support, strengthening the information technology infrastructure and capabilities of Ukraine's security and defense forces, development of the defense industry, Luxembourg's support for Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic aspirations, and much more. The full text of the bilateral Agreement on Security Cooperation and Long-Term Support between Ukraine and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is available on the website of the President of Ukraine. The agreement between Ukraine and Luxembourg was signed on July 10 in Washington, D.C., where the NATO summit is currently taking place. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the document on behalf of Ukraine, and Prime Minister of Luxembourg Luc Frieden signed it on behalf of Luxembourg. ADVERTISIMENT "Luxembourg will continue to provide military assistance to Ukraine and will continue to support the protection of the lives of our people. The agreement focuses on political and value-based cooperation between our countries. Luxembourg supports sanctions against Russia, our further strengthening on the European and Euro-Atlantic directions Ukraine's accession to the EU and NATO and will help protect and restore our cultural heritage," Zelenskyy commented on the signing of the agreement. According to the agreement, which still needs to be approved by the Luxembourg Parliament, the country undertakes to provide military assistance over the next decade with the same dynamics as it does now: in 2024, Luxembourg has allocated 80 million euros for military support to our country. ADVERTISIMENT In particular, the agreement stipulates that Luxembourg will provide land, air, and cyber-electromagnetic support, help strengthen the information technology infrastructure and capabilities of Ukraine's security and defense forces, and provide Ukraine with intelligence and surveillance equipment, including in the space sector. The agreement enshrines the intention of the signatories to work on identifying areas for deepening mutually beneficial cooperation in the defense industry. In addition, Luxembourg will help Ukraine integrate its defense into NATO and EU defense and security standards. The parties reaffirmed that Ukraine is part of the European and Euro-Atlantic family and that its future lies in the EU and NATO. And Luxembourg will support Ukraine in carrying out the necessary reforms. ADVERTISIMENT The agreement also includes agreements to strengthen cooperation for secure, sustainable, and efficient energy supplies for Ukraine, work together to achieve a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in Ukraine with broad international support, and remain firmly committed to ensuring full accountability for war crimes and other international crimes committed in connection with Russia's aggression against Ukraine. The agreement also contains sections on Luxembourg's support for Ukraine's culture, art, and cultural heritage. It also states that in the event of a future armed attack on Ukraine during the term of the agreement, the parties will hold bilateral consultations within 24 hours. In total, our country has already concluded 22 bilateral security agreements according to the G7 Joint Declaration adopted in Vilnius on July 12, 2023: with the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Denmark, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, Latvia, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Japan, the United States, the EU, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and Luxembourg. ADVERTISIMENT Full text of the Agreement on Security Cooperation between Ukraine and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg I. Introduction 1. Ukraine and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg ("Luxembourg") (hereinafter collectively referred to as "the Parties") condemn in the strongest terms Russia's illegal, unjustified, and unprovoked aggressive war against Ukraine in violation of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations ("UN Charter"). 2. The participants reaffirm the principles of the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, and the Charter of Paris, including the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of states, as well as the inviolability of borders, which are essential for European and global security. ADVERTISIMENT 3. The participants reaffirm their commitment to common values, namely democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law, as enshrined, inter alia, in the European Convention on Human Rights. 4. Luxembourg reiterates its unwavering support for the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized 1991 borders, including its territorial waters, as well as its inherent right to self-defense against Russian aggression in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. 5. The participants recognize that Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine constitutes a threat to international peace and security and that Ukraine's security is integral to the security of the European and Euro-Atlantic area. Together they will continue to work for a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in Ukraine, as well as for peace, security, and stability on the European continent. ADVERTISIMENT 6. The Participants take note that Luxembourg has provided military assistance to Ukraine for a total amount of EUR 74.4 million in 2022 and EUR 96 million in 2023. At the time of signing this Agreement, Luxembourg has allocated EUR 80 million for military support to Ukraine for 2024. Luxembourg will continue to provide military assistance and support to Ukraine with the same dynamics during the term of this Agreement, subject to parliamentary approval. 7. The Participants also recognize that since February 2022, Luxembourg has provided more than 29 million in humanitarian and recovery assistance, including through UN agencies, NGOs, and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, as well as in-kind support. 8. Participants reaffirm that Ukraine is part of the European and Euro-Atlantic family and that its future lies with the EU and NATO. They recall that Ukraine will continue to implement an ambitious reform program and that Luxembourg is committed to supporting Ukraine's reform efforts. They recognize that defense, recovery, reforms, and Ukraine's European and Euro-Atlantic ambitions are mutually reinforcing and must move forward in a coordinated manner. ADVERTISIMENT II. Scope 9. This Agreement aims to further implement the Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine (the "G7 Declaration") adopted by the G7 and the EU at the NATO Summit in Vilnius on 12 July 2023, and subsequently joined by other states, including Luxembourg. 10. By this Agreement, the Participants jointly decided to deepen and strengthen their cooperation and partnership through bilateral security commitments and support measures based on common interests in maintaining peace, a rules-based international order, multilateralism, and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. 11. Luxembourg, in accordance with its constitutional and legal requirements and together with its partners, intends to provide long-term support for Ukraine's needs and to strengthen Ukraine's resilience to support its inherent right to self-defense against a full-scale aggressive war of Russia, to deter future aggression, as well as to prevent the escalation of the ongoing aggression against Ukraine and to support the functioning of the Ukrainian economy. ADVERTISIMENT 12. Luxembourg will continue to provide its support for the duration of this Agreement. III. European and Euro-Atlantic integration 13. The participants reaffirm that Ukraine is part of the European family and that its future lies in the EU. Luxembourg recognizes Ukraine's efforts to implement the necessary reforms in extremely difficult circumstances. Participants recall the merit-based nature of the EU accession process. They reaffirm their commitment to work constructively for Ukraine's progressive European integration with a view to its future membership in the EU. 14. Participants reaffirm that Ukraine's security is an integral part of Euro-Atlantic and global security. Luxembourg is committed to supporting Ukraine's efforts to implement reforms on its path to future NATO membership through, but not limited to, promoting practical and political cooperation through the NATO Comprehensive Assistance Package, the adapted Annual National Program of Ukraine, and the newly established NATO-Ukraine Council. Luxembourg recalls that Ukraine belongs to the Euro-Atlantic family and will become a NATO member. ADVERTISIMENT IV. Comprehensive security assistance and military assistance 15. Participants will work together to ensure that the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine can defend Ukraine now and in the future. Luxembourg will continue to provide military support to Ukraine in all relevant fields, including land, air, and cyber-electromagnetic fields, in close coordination and cooperation with relevant international partners and institutions. Participants share the goal of contributing to the modernization of Ukraine's security and defense forces, in particular in line with the design of the future defense forces, as well as to a higher level of interoperability with NATO standards and other relevant international organizations. 16. The participants recognize that military support provided by Luxembourg will be used only following international law, including international humanitarian law. The participants agree that the misuse and illicit trafficking of military equipment provided to Ukraine must be avoided and recognize the efforts of the Ukrainian side and international partners to prevent this. ADVERTISIMENT 17. The participants recognize that Luxembourg has taken a leading role, together with Estonia and Ukraine, in the IT Capability Coalition and is contributing to the Air Force Capability Coalition and the Ground-to-Ground Artillery Coalition. Luxembourg may identify opportunities to expand its participation in other coalitions, taking into account its capabilities and Ukraine's military needs. All capability coalitions are designed to provide Ukraine with the means to deter Russian aggression and increase the interoperability of Ukrainian and NATO forces. 18. Luxembourg will support Ukraine by providing intelligence and surveillance (ISR) capabilities, in particular in the space domain, as well as cyber-electromagnetic capabilities in addition to other key capabilities, and by promoting interoperability with Euro-Atlantic partners. As co-chair of the IT Capabilities Coalition, Luxembourg will continue to support the strengthening of the information technology infrastructure and capabilities of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Forces. ADVERTISIMENT 19. Luxembourg will continue to provide long-term support in terms of equipment and training, including instructor training programs, to equip the Ukrainian Security and Defense Forces with the necessary capabilities, in particular through the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine). 20. Luxembourg will support Ukraine in enhancing its cyber training capabilities, in particular by making Luxembourg's training facilities, such as the Cyber Range, available to Ukraine. 21. Luxembourg will use, where appropriate, multilateral instruments, including NATO's Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine (UCAP) and the European Peace Facility (EPF), to channel military support to Ukraine, as well as explore options to help build strategic stockpiles. 22. Participants will seek to ensure that in the event of external military aggression against Luxembourg, Ukraine's military capabilities are sufficient to provide effective military support to Luxembourg. The conditions, format, and scope of such support will be determined by the Participants. ADVERTISIMENT 23. To assess these objectives, Ukraine and Luxembourg will hold a regular high-level dialogue on strategic defense and security policy. V. Cooperation in the field of defense industry 24. Ukraine and Luxembourg will work to transform Ukraine's defense industry into a strong capability that will enable Ukraine to restore its territorial integrity, serving as a major driver of economic recovery and an important part of an effective deterrent to future attempts at aggression to ensure peace and prosperity for both Ukraine and Luxembourg and for the whole of Europe. 25. Participants will work together to identify opportunities for closer and mutually beneficial partnerships and cooperation in the defense industry. Participants commit to involve, to the extent possible, Luxembourg and Ukrainian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the production chains of newly acquired military equipment and defense industry capabilities. ADVERTISIMENT 26. Participants will assess the possibility of involving financial institutions located and managed in Luxembourg in the development of defense industrial capabilities. 27. Luxembourg will cooperate with Ukraine to strengthen the protection of transferred technologies and intellectual property rights. 28. Luxembourg will support Ukraine's efforts to integrate its defense industry into NATO and EU defense and security standards. In particular, Luxembourg will consider options to facilitate the integration of Ukraine's defense industry into the European defense technology and industrial base, where possible and in line with the opportunities provided by the European Defense Industrial Strategy and the European Defense Industry Program. VI. Cooperation in the field of intelligence and security 29. Participants shall establish intelligence and security cooperation following the national legislation of each Participant and without prejudice to their national interests. ADVERTISIMENT 30. The Participants will study the possibility of concluding an Agreement on the Protection of Classified Information between their respective countries, which will facilitate the exchange of information between the competent state authorities of Ukraine and Luxembourg. VII. Cybersecurity and hybrid activities 31. Participants will cooperate to enable Ukraine to prevent, detect, and counter Russian and any other cyber aggression, cyber espionage, and hybrid activities by providing technical assistance to Ukraine, as well as to increase its cyber resilience through the exchange of information and experience. Participants will cooperate to the best of their ability to deepen Ukraine's cooperation with NATO structures on cybersecurity within the legal framework and based on information and expertise. ADVERTISIMENT 32. Participants will explore cooperation in the area of countering disinformation and hostile information from Russia and any other party, to mutually support each other's efforts to counter foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). They will jointly contribute to the development of Ukraine's capacity to counter hybrid threats, Russian and any other malicious propaganda and disinformation campaigns affecting national security, and work to organize joint educational and training programs for experts within international institutions, in particular through regular exchange of best practices. VIII. Protection of critical infrastructure 33. The participants will cooperate to jointly develop Ukraine's capabilities to detect, deter, and respond to cyber threats to critical infrastructure by promoting the availability of modern technologies for the protection of critical infrastructure, in particular through the provision of international technical assistance to Ukraine. ADVERTISIMENT 34. The participants will strengthen their cooperation in improving the resilience and preparedness of critical entities, in particular through the exchange of information, best practices, and experience. 35. Given the European perspective of Ukraine, Luxembourg will assist Ukraine in harmonizing its regulations with EU standards in the field of critical infrastructure protection. Participants will explore opportunities for joint educational and training programs for critical infrastructure protection specialists. 36. Participants reiterate their strong support for the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General following the illegal seizure and occupation of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) by Russia. Through its membership in the IAEA Board of Governors, Luxembourg will support the Agency's ongoing efforts to ensure nuclear safety and security in Ukraine, in particular, to prevent a nuclear accident at ZNPP or any other nuclear facility in Ukraine. ADVERTISIMENT 37. The participants will further strengthen their cooperation to ensure a safe, sustainable, and efficient energy supply for Ukraine. Building on existing structures, such as the Energy Community, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity, the International Energy Advisory Board, and the Union Civil Protection Mechanism, this cooperation may include technical and financial support, as well as capacity building through investment, science, research, and innovation, in particular in the field of decentralized and sustainable renewable energy systems. IX. Humanitarian assistance and resilience 38. Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale aggressive war, Luxembourg has been providing civilian support for Ukraine's resilience and assistance to the war-affected population. ADVERTISIMENT 39. Participants reaffirm that, as Ukraine embarks on early recovery and reconstruction, they will ensure the continuation of well-coordinated humanitarian assistance in life-saving forms and civil protection in kind where necessary. Participants will work together to ensure a better prioritized, targeted humanitarian response that reaches those most in need. 40. Luxembourg will continue to provide humanitarian financial and in-kind support to Ukraine, in particular in the areas of health, shelter, food security, energy, education, communication, protection, water, sanitation, and hygiene, as long as humanitarian needs remain. 41. The participants recognize the need to join efforts to protect the population and territories of Ukraine from the negative consequences caused by Russia's massive contamination of Ukrainian land with ammunition, mines and other remnants of war. Luxembourg has supported humanitarian demining in Ukraine and aims to strengthen its support for humanitarian demining efforts and develop institutional capacity in mine action together with partners, in particular through the NGO HALO Trust, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) support programs for Ukraine, as well as other multilateral and bilateral initiatives. ADVERTISIMENT X. Long-term recovery support and economic cooperation 42. Luxembourg, in cooperation with its international and European partners, will continue to support the sustainable recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine, addressing immediate and long-term needs. Participants agree that these efforts should be transparent and in line with Ukraine's plans for a European future and its status as an EU candidate and member state of the Council of Europe. 43. Luxembourg will continue to work actively within the EU to ensure macro-financial support for Ukraine and further international coordination in all relevant forums. Luxembourg will continue to support the existing international and European structures and institutions in their efforts to provide regular and predictable financial support to Ukraine. 44. Luxembourg will actively engage through its bilateral development agency Lux-Development to support recovery, resilience, and economic development in Ukraine in priority sectors, including education, technical and vocational education and training, and local business development. ADVERTISIMENT 45. Luxembourg is committed to supporting capacity building in Ukraine, with a particular focus on financing micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), in particular through existing initiatives such as the Business Development Fund. 46. Participants emphasize the importance of engaging the private sector, civil society, and municipalities as drivers of an ambitious, inclusive, and decentralized recovery process. Participants aim to facilitate exchanges between business and civil society in both countries. 47. Luxembourg will promote the involvement of private companies in the recovery process. Luxembourg will strive to facilitate Ukraine's access to private financial companies and institutions in Luxembourg, the insurance industry, the technology sector, and other areas to strengthen bilateral trade and investment. ADVERTISIMENT 48. To this end, the Parties will strengthen cooperation in such areas as construction and metallurgy, cybersecurity, business and financial advisory services, and the space sector. 49. Luxembourg will continue to support Ukraine's innovation sector through exchanges between systems of interconnected projects and technologies for startups, including the Seeds of Bravery project, and bilateral cooperation between universities and research institutions. 50. Participants will strive to work with local businesses in the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine, as their contribution plays a key role in supporting the local economy of Ukraine and strengthening the resilience of affected communities. 51. The Participants encourage cooperation at the local level, in particular through municipalities, to develop people-to-people contacts through collaboration and exchange of best practices in various fields, including recovery efforts, environmental transition, sustainability, good corporate governance, cultural and sporting exchanges, and commend existing cooperation and initiatives. ADVERTISIMENT XI. Protection and support of Ukrainian internally displaced persons 52. Luxembourg will continue to accept displaced persons from Ukraine following the European Temporary Protection Directive as long as necessary. Luxembourg supports the extension of the European Temporary Protection Directive beyond March 2025 and advocates a unified and pan-European approach to the protection of Ukrainian citizens. 53. The participants recognize the support and solidarity of the municipalities of Luxembourg with Ukraine, which have played an important role in hosting Ukrainian displaced persons and providing assistance to meet their needs since the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. 54. Since February 2022, more than 1,250 Ukrainian students have been enrolled in public schools in Luxembourg. Luxembourg will continue to expand educational opportunities and facilitate the integration of Ukrainian students into the Luxembourg school system. ADVERTISIMENT 55. Luxembourg will support Ukraine within its means to facilitate the immediate release and return of all unlawfully detained, forcibly displaced, and illegally deported civilians, in particular Ukrainian children, in particular through the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, and will contribute to international efforts to bring to justice those responsible for organizing the illegal deportation and displacement of Ukrainian children and civilians following international law and international human rights law. XII. Support for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine 56. The participants recognize that Ukraine and the whole of Europe will not be secure until there is a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in which Ukraine's rights under international law and, in particular, the UN Charter are respected. ADVERTISIMENT 57. Participants will work together to achieve a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in Ukraine with broad international support, based on the principles of the Ukrainian peace formula and UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/ES-11/6. Luxembourg will continue its diplomatic efforts to promote the Ukrainian formula for peace, in particular point 7 on the restoration of justice. XIII. Promoting accountability 58. The participants will remain firmly committed to ensuring full accountability for war crimes and other international crimes committed in connection with the Russian aggression against Ukraine. 59. Participants will continue to promote effective domestic and international investigation and prosecution of international crimes committed in or against Ukraine. Participants will continue to support the work of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and the International Criminal Court to ensure full and fair investigations into allegations of war crimes and other international crimes through independent, effective, and credible legal mechanisms. ADVERTISIMENT 60. The participants reaffirm their commitment to hold Russia accountable for its actions at the level of international institutions, including the International Court of Justice for violations of general international law and the European Court of Human Rights for violations falling under the European Convention on Human Rights. 61. Participants agree on the need to utilize and support all available international investigative mechanisms to document widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the Russian armed forces on the territory of Ukraine. These include the OSCE Moscow Mechanism and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Violations in Ukraine established by the UN Human Rights Council. 62. Participants agree to ensure effective accountability for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, in particular when it comes to the Russian leadership. Participants will continue their work, in particular within the framework of the Coalition to explore options for the establishment of a tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, which Luxembourg hosted on January 19, 2024. ADVERTISIMENT 63. During its chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe from November 2024 to May 2025, Luxembourg will ensure that the issue of Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine remains on the agenda of the Council of Europe, in particular, to ensure full accountability for human rights violations, international crimes and other serious violations of international law, as well as to provide compensation to the victims of Russian aggression. XIV. Compensation for losses, damages, and harm caused by the Russian aggression 64. The Participants reaffirm that the Russian Federation must be held accountable for the loss or damage caused to natural and legal persons, as well as to the State of Ukraine, as a result of its internationally wrongful acts committed in connection with Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine. Luxembourg, working with its partners, will continue to explore all legal avenues through which Russian assets can be used to support Ukraine following existing treaty obligations and in line with EU and international law. ADVERTISIMENT 65. As a matter of priority, the Participants will continue to work together with international partners to establish a compensation mechanism to ensure compensation for damage, loss, or injury caused by the Russian aggression, as provided for in the Statute of the Register of Damage caused by the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, adopted by Resolution CM/Res(2023)3 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. In this regard, the Participants will explore appropriate options for financing a compensation mechanism that is in line with international law to ensure prompt and adequate compensation to victims of Russian aggression. XV. Restrictive measures (sanctions) 66. Participants will continue to work together to ensure that the cost of Russia's aggression continues to rise, in particular through restrictive measures (sanctions) and robust export controls. Participants recognize the importance of restrictive measures (sanctions) to limit the Russian Federation's access to finance, goods, technology, and services in its war of aggression, to reduce Russia's sources of revenue, and to deter future attacks. ADVERTISIMENT 67. As long as the Russian Federation's aggression against Ukraine continues, Luxembourg will remain committed, within the European Union, to tough restrictive measures (sanctions) against sectors of the Russian economy and those who, inside and outside the Russian Federation, support the war, or profit from it, or help to circumvent sanctions in third countries. Luxembourg will take decisive action to combat all forms of sanctions circumvention, together with other EU partners and the European Commission. 68. Participants will provide each other with up-to-date, appropriate information on the grounds for restrictive measures (sanctions) and other necessary information in accordance with their respective obligations and national legislation. XVI. Support for culture, art, and cultural heritage in Ukraine ADVERTISIMENT 69. based on the bilateral agreement on cultural cooperation signed in 1994, and because of the importance of culture and the arts for democratic societies, the preservation of freedom of expression as a fundamental European value, and the maintenance of Ukrainian identity and traditions, Luxembourg supports artists and cultural workers in Ukraine intending to restore and strengthen the sustainability of cultural and artistic activities in the country. 70. Luxembourg will do its utmost to support the actions and initiatives launched within UNESCO, the European Union, and the Council of Europe to address the consequences of Russia's war against Ukraine on its cultural and creative sectors and to contribute to their future recovery. XVII. Reform process in Ukraine 71. Participants reaffirm that reforms are essential to maintain and strengthen Ukraine's democracy, rule of law, and stability, as well as to Ukraine's European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations. Luxembourg recognizes the significant progress made by Ukraine in implementing reforms and encourages Ukraine to continue its ambitious reform process. ADVERTISIMENT 72. Ukraine reaffirms its continued commitment to implementing the reforms identified by the EU, the Council of Europe, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and NATO, covering in particular governance, the rule of law and fundamental rights, justice, law enforcement, transparency, the fight against corruption, public administration, the business environment and the democratic control of the Security and Defence Forces. 73. Ukraine commits to promoting anti-corruption efforts at all levels of society in the public, private, and civil society sectors. This includes providing sufficient resources for independent anti-corruption institutions, which will benefit society as a whole. 74. Luxembourg, in cooperation with the EU and its member states, will continue to fully support Ukraine's accession to the EU once the relevant conditions are met, in particular by providing technical assistance and training to implement the necessary reforms. ADVERTISIMENT 75. Ukraine commits to promoting and developing comprehensive democratic control and oversight of its security and defense forces, as well as the broader security and defense sector, focusing on further enhancing accountability and transparency in security institutions and advancing defense reforms and modernization. 76. Luxembourg will continue to provide assistance and advice at the bilateral and multilateral levels on the reform and further development of the Ukrainian Security and Defence Forces, in particular through the EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions and other international activities in support of Ukraine. XVIII. Cooperation in the event of a future armed attack 77. In the event of a future armed attack on Ukraine, the Participants will, at the request of any of the Participants, consult within 24 hours bilaterally or through other channels as they deem appropriate on the needs of Ukraine in connection with the exercise of its right to self-defense as enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter, to determine appropriate further steps. ADVERTISIMENT 78. Luxembourg reaffirms that, under these circumstances and following its constitutional and legal requirements, in particular European and international law, it will provide Ukraine with security and defense support, appropriate military equipment in the relevant fields within its means and capabilities, economic assistance, and will seek agreement in the EU on imposing economic and other costs on the aggressor. 79. In order to ensure the broadest and most effective collective response to any future armed attack, the Participants may amend these provisions to align with any mechanism that Ukraine may later agree with other international partners. XIX. Consultation and cooperation 80. Appropriate consultation structures will be established to facilitate the implementation of this Agreement and to ensure ongoing strategic dialogue between the Participants. ADVERTISIMENT 81. The Parties will, if necessary, appoint authorized bodies to develop and implement bilateral arrangements in accordance with the areas of cooperation defined in this Agreement. XX. Final provisions 82. This Agreement shall enter into force upon its signature and shall remain in force for ten years from the date of its signature. 83. This Agreement may be amended and supplemented, in particular by adding annexes, at any time by written consent of the Parties. 84. Any disputes between the Parties arising out of the interpretation and/or implementation of this Agreement shall be settled by peaceful means, through negotiations or consultations between the Parties. 85. The Parties may jointly decide to extend this Agreement by giving not less than six (6) months' notice before the expiration of the ten-year period. ADVERTISIMENT 86. At the same time, following the G7 Declaration, the Participants share the view that this Agreement does not prevent Ukraine from pursuing its future membership in the Euro-Atlantic community. If Ukraine becomes a member of NATO before the expiration of this Agreement, the Participants will decide on its future status. 87. This Agreement may be terminated by either Participant at any time by giving written notice of its intention to the other Participant. The Agreement shall be terminated six (6) months from the date of receipt of such notice. The termination of the Agreement shall not affect the implementation of ongoing activities or projects that have been decided upon before the date of termination unless Luxembourg or Ukraine decide otherwise. Signed in Washington, D.C., on July 10, 2024, in duplicate in the English and Ukrainian languages, both texts being equally authentic. In the event of any discrepancy, the English text shall prevail. ADVERTISIMENT To Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President For Luxembourg: Luc Frieden, Prime Minister Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! Pakistan announced Wednesday it had extended the stay of more than 1.4 million lawful Afghan refugees for another year. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's office said the decision was made during a cabinet meeting he chaired in Islamabad. The statement noted that the meeting approved extending the validity of proof of registration cards, or PoR, for Afghan refugees legally residing in the country to June 30, 2025. It added that the cards had expired last month on June 30. The document enables refugee families in Pakistan to access health, educational, and banking facilities and protects them from forced deportations to Afghanistan. The cabinet meeting occurred a day after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, wrapped up a visit to Islamabad, where his discussions with Sharif and other senior officials focused on the problems facing the Afghan refugee community. A post-visit UNHCR statement issued on Tuesday noted that its chief called for the timely extension of the PoR cards, describing them as a critical identity document held by Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Refugee controversy Grandi expressed appreciation that the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan [IFRP] had been suspended and sought assurances that it would remain on hold, the UNHCR said. Pakistan implemented the plan last October and began expelling foreigners, primarily Afghans, who do not possess legal documents or have their visas expired. The crackdown stemmed from rising terror attacks against Pakistani security forces and civilians. More than 600,000 Afghans have since been forced to return to their home country. A senior Pakistani official privy to Grandis meetings in Islamabad on Tuesday confirmed to VOA that his government had halted expulsions of undocumented Afghans under the IFRP. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media. However, on Wednesday, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson disputed the UNHCRs assertions about Islamabad suspending the IFRP. This is not true, Mumtaz Baloch told VOA in a written statement. It may be noted that no such understanding has been given by Pakistan to the UNHCR, including in recent meetings with the High Commissioner for Refugees, Baloch emphasized. She noted the IFRP remains in place and is being implemented in an orderly and phased manner. Afghanistans Taliban government, as well as human rights groups, have condemned Islamabads plan to forcefully send Afghans back, saying it is in violation of refugee and international laws. Rights activists also cited sweeping restrictions the fundamentalist Taliban have placed on women, barring them from most jobs and public places and prohibiting girls education beyond the sixth grade. The Taliban have denied allegations Afghan refugees are responsible for security issues facing Pakistan. Islamabad says the Taliban have allowed anti-Pakistan militants to take refuge on Afghan soil and stage cross-border terrorist attacks, charges Kabul rejects. Meanwhile, Pakistani officials announced Wednesday they had launched a new phase of scholarships for Afghan students, including girls. Asif Durrani, Pakistans special representative on Afghanistan, revealed the information through his X social media platform. Glad to launch the third phase of Allama Iqbal scholarships for Afghan students. In the coming five years, 4,500 Afghan students will pursue studies in social and natural sciences in various universities of Pakistan, Durrani wrote. The Philippine senate threatened on Wednesday to arrest a small town mayor for contempt during a hearing investigating her alleged ties with Chinese criminal syndicates, a case that has captivated the nation amid tension between Manila and Bejing. The arrest threat came after the mayor, Alice Guo, failed to appear for a second consecutive hearing, citing stress. The case that began in March, when authorities raided a casino in Guo's sleepy farming town of Bamban, has shed light on criminal activity in the mostly Chinese-backed online casino industry in the Philippines. It gained national attention after one senator questioned whether Guo might not have been born in the Philippines and could even be a Chinese "asset" an accusation she denied. She has also denied links to criminals, saying she is a natural-born Philippine citizen. Guo did not respond to Reuters' request for comment but wrote to the senate that she was the subject of "malicious accusations." On Wednesday, the senate cited Guo in contempt for failing to appear and Senator Risa Hontiveros, who is leading the investigation, said she would set in motion steps to get a warrant for her arrest. "The chair has ruled to cite them in contempt," said Hontiveros, who told a previous hearing that Guo might have actually been born in China and be a Chinese "asset," although she gave no proof. Raid raises questions The investigation began after a police raid revealed a scam center operating out of a facility built on land partially owned by Guo. It was one of many that have sprung up across Southeast Asia in recent years. The raid uncovered hundreds of trafficked workers including foreign nationals, spurring a human trafficking complaint against Guo from an agency battling organized crime. Guo has said she sold her stake in the business before she was elected in 2022 and had no knowledge of criminality. Officials have turned a searchlight on her background since. The National Bureau of Investigation said Guo's fingerprints matched those of a Chinese national who entered the country as a teenager. The solicitor general is seeking to cancel her birth certificate and she has been suspended from her post during the investigation. The senate committee urged the immigration agency to stop Guo from leaving the Philippines. Guo's attorney, Stephen David, told radio station DWPM she had been "traumatized" by previous sessions but had assured him she was still in the Philippines. "If she gets arrested and detained at the senate, then she will testify," he said. Earlier hearings grilled Guo about her background and a lack of records regarding her presence in the Philippines. After she was unable to recall details of her childhood, Hontiveros asked if she was an "asset" for China. In May, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr told reporters, "No one knows her. We wonder where she came from. That's why we are investigating this, together with the Bureau of Immigration, because of the questions about her citizenship." The mayor has denied she is a spy, saying in a television interview that she was a simple Philippine citizen, the love child of her Chinese father with a maid, and who had grown up "hidden" on a pig farm and homeschooled, with no friends. Guo's case comes at a time of growing Philippine suspicion about China's activities following an increasingly tense dispute over reefs and shoals in the busy waterway of the South China Sea, where both nations have claims. It has boosted calls for a crackdown on Philippine offshore gambling operators, or POGOs, mostly run by Chinese nationals to serve clients in China, which flourished during the tenure of former President Rodrigo Duterte, but have since drawn scrutiny. Purdue Pharma on Tuesday received U.S. court approval for a 60-day freeze on lawsuits against its owners members of the wealthy Sackler family in its first court appearance since a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling upended its bankruptcy settlement. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane granted an injunction at a court hearing in White Plains, New York, saying that a litigation cease-fire will give Purdue a chance to renegotiate a comprehensive settlement of lawsuits alleging that its painkiller OxyContin spurred an opioid addiction crisis in the U.S. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 27 that Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy settlement cannot shield the Sacklers, who did not file for bankruptcy themselves, over their role in the nation's deadly opioid epidemic. The ruling sent Purdue back to the drawing board after nearly five years in bankruptcy and imperils billions of dollars in funding that the company and the Sacklers had promised to pay toward addressing the harms from the crisis. Lawsuits against Purdue and Sackler family members by state and local governments, as well as by individual plaintiffs, have accused them of fueling the opioid crisis through deceptive marketing of its pain medication. The company pleaded guilty to misbranding and fraud charges related to its marketing of OxyContin in 2007 and 2020. Purdue's bankruptcy has stopped the opioid lawsuits from proceeding against the Stamford, Connecticut-based drugmaker since 2019, and Purdue has extended that legal protection to the Sacklers, as well. Purdue's attorney, Marshall Huebner, said the company will engage in "a high-speed, high-stakes mediation" with the Sacklers, state and local governments and other stakeholders. Protecting the Sacklers during a "modest" 60-day negotiating period will give Purdue a real chance to negotiate a new bankruptcy settlement and put money toward stopping opioid overdoses and treating addiction, Huebner said. "Every single day of delay continues to come at a tragic, tragic cost," Huebner said. Several stakeholders expressed hope for a settlement but said mediation should not be extended beyond the 60-day schedule proposed by Purdue. "It is essential to all parties in this case that we bring this five-year Chapter 11 case to a conclusion," said Kenneth Eckstein, an attorney representing a coalition of state and local governments. During the hearing, Lane also appointed two mediators to aid settlement talks, including retired bankruptcy judge Shelley Chapman, who brokered a previous deal under which the Sacklers agreed to pay up to $6 billion to settle the opioid lawsuits. Eric Green will serve as the other mediator. If mediation fails, Purdue has said a court-appointed committee representing its creditors should be allowed to sue the Sacklers over claims they drained more thabn $11 billion from the company and that their conduct made Purdue liable for other lawsuits. The Sacklers have said the creditors' proposed litigation is counterproductive and based on "factual errors." Members of the family have denied wrongdoing and would fiercely oppose any litigation if the settlement talks break down, their attorneys said. "No one is assured of a recovery in this court or any other court," said Gerard Uzzi, an attorney representing members of the Sackler family. Purdue's previous bankruptcy settlement was supported by attorneys general from all 50 states, local governments and most of the individual opioid victims who voted on it. But it has also had detractors such as Carrie McGaha, who has had repeated overdoses and said Tuesday that individuals have been placed at the "bottom of the heap" throughout Purdue's bankruptcy. In Ukraine, Kyivs largest childrens hospital and some residential buildings were damaged by a Russian missile attack on July 8. The next day, residents were allowed to briefly go back to collect some personal belongings. Anna Kosstutschenko spoke to some of them as they returned from their homes. VOA footage and video editing by Pavel Suhodolskiy. Russia is turning to a familiar playbook in its attempt to sway the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election, looking for ways to boost the candidacy of former President Donald Trump by disparaging the campaign of incumbent President Joe Biden, according to American intelligence officials. A new assessment of threats to the November election, shared Tuesday, does not mention either candidate by name. But an intelligence official told reporters that the Kremlin view of the U.S. political landscape has not changed from previous election cycles. "We have not observed a shift in Russia's preferences for the presidential race from past elections," the official told reporters, agreeing to discuss the intelligence only on the condition of anonymity. The official said that preference has been further cemented by the role the U.S. is playing with regard to Ukraine and broader policy toward Russia. The caution from U.S. intelligence officials comes nearly four years after it issued a similar warning about the 2020 presidential elections, which pitted then-President Trump against Biden. Moscow was using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia establishment, William Evanina, the then-head of the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said at the time. Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trumps candidacy on social media and Russian television, he added. A declassified post-election assessment, released in March 2021, reaffirmed the initial findings. Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized "influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden's candidacy and the Democratic Party" while offering support for Trump, the report said. U.S. intelligence officials said they have been in contact with both presidential campaigns and the candidates but declined to share what sort of information may have been shared. Trump pushback The Trump campaign Tuesday rejected the U.S. intelligence assessment as backward. "Vladimir Putin endorsed Joe Biden for President because he knows Biden is weak and can easily be bullied, as evidenced by Putin's years-long invasion of Ukraine, national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told VOA in an email. When President Trump was in the Oval Office, Russia and all of America's adversaries were deterred, because they feared how the United States would respond, she said. The only people in America who don't see this clear contrast between Biden's ineffective weakness versus Trump's effective peace through strength approach are the left-wing stenographers in the mainstream media who write false narratives about Donald Trump for a living," she added. The Biden campaign has so far not responded to questions from VOA about the new U.S. assessment. Russian sophistication Russian officials also have not yet responded to requests for comment on the latest allegations, which accuse the Kremlin of using a whole of government approach to see Trump and other American candidates perceived as favorable to Moscow win in November. Moscow is using a variety of approaches to bolster its messaging and lend an air of authenticity to its efforts, the U.S. intelligence official said. "This includes outsourcing its efforts to commercial firms to hide its hand and laundering narratives through influential U.S. voices." Russias efforts also appear focused on targeting U.S. voters in so-called swing states, states most likely to impact the outcome of the presidential election, officials said. Some of those efforts have already come to light. Russia and AI Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the seizure of two internet domains and of another 968 accounts on the X social media platform, part of what officials described an artificial intelligence-driven venture by Russian intelligence and Russias state-run RT news network. A Justice Department statement said Russian intelligence and RT used specific AI software to create authentic-looking social media accounts to mimic U.S. individuals, which the operators then used to promote messages in support of Russian government objectives. A joint advisory, issued simultaneously by the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands, warned Russia was in the process of expanding the AI-fueled influence operation to other social media platforms. The U.S. intelligence official who spoke to reporters Tuesday described such use of AI as a malign influence accelerant, and warned the technology had already been deployed, likely by China, in the run-up to Taiwans elections this past January. China waiting For now, though, U.S. intelligence officials see few indications Beijing is seeking to interfere in U.S. elections, as it did in 2020 and 2022. China sees little gain in choosing between two parties that are perceived as both seeking to contain Beijing," said the U.S. intelligence official, noting things could change. The PRC is seeking to expand its ability to collect and monitor data on U.S. social media platforms, probably to better understand and eventually manipulate public opinion, the official said. In addition, we are watching for whether China might seek to influence select down-ballot races as it did in the 2022 midterm elections. The Chinese Embassy in Washington, which has denied previous U.S. allegations, responded by calling the U.S. the biggest disseminator of disinformation. China has no intention and will not interfere in the US election, and we hope that the US side will not make an issue of China in the election, spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email. Chaos agent The new U.S. election threat assessment warns that in addition to concerns about Russia and China, there is growing evidence Iran is seeking to play the role of a chaos agent in the upcoming U.S. vote. Iran seeks to stoke social divisions and undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions around the elections, according to an unclassified version of the assessment. It also warned that Tehran has demonstrated a long-standing interest in exploiting U.S. political and societal tensions through various means, including social media. As an example, officials Tuesday pointed to newly declassified intelligence showing Iran trying to exploit pro-Gaza protests across the U.S. "We have observed actors tied to Irans government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters," said National Intelligence Director Avril Haines. Haines cautioned, though, that Americans who interacted with the Iranian actors may not be aware that they are interacting with or receiving support from a foreign government." Iranian officials have not yet responded to VOAs request for comment. U.S. President Joe Biden has unequivocally declared that he is committed to remaining in his reelection campaign against former president Donald Trump. Some of Bidens Democratic colleagues are not sure he can defeat Trump, however, and they are treating his decision to keep campaigning as a question yet to be decided. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives and still an influential voice in Democratic circles, on Wednesday was the latest to express less than certainty that Biden will be the Democratic standard bearer in the November 5 election. It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run, Pelosi told MSNBC. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. He's beloved, he is respected, and people want him to make that decision. Not me. A news anchor noted that Biden has made the decision. He has said firmly this week he is going to run. Do you want him to run? Pelosi responded, I want him to do whatever he decides to do, and that's that's the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with. Biden has vowed to stay in the race, saying that only the Lord Almighty asking him to end his campaign could force him out and urging Democratic lawmakers earlier this week to quickly get behind his campaign and end the drama over whether he might drop out. At least nine of the 213 Democrats in the House of Representatives and one senator, Peter Welch of Vermont, have called on the 81-year-old Biden to withdraw from his campaign, with Vice President Kamala Harris possibly replacing him as the Democratic presidential nominee. But many more Democratic lawmakers have voiced concern about whether Biden has the mental acuity and physical stamina to defeat Trump a second time, let alone serve for another four years as president, after stumbling badly and often losing his train of thought in their late June debate. Trump has edged ahead of Biden in national polling and in key political battleground states that are crucial to both candidates. Actor George Clooney, who co-hosted a massive Hollywood fundraiser for Biden last month, on Wednesday was the latest Democratic supporter of the president to call for him to end his run for a new term in the White House starting next January, saying in a New York Times opinion piece that Biden had declined physically and mentally. Saying the dam has broken, Clooney wrote, We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth. "Top Democrats Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi and senators, representatives and other candidates who face losing in November need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside," Clooney said. Democratic senators and House members met separately behind closed doors on Tuesday, some voicing support for Biden staying in the race, a handful in the House calling for him to end his candidacy. Many expressed concerns about his campaign, especially since a losing Biden campaign could also sharply diminish Democrats chances of maintaining their slim Senate majority or retaking control of the House from Republicans. Some of the Democratic lawmakers adopted a wait-and-see stance on Biden continuing in the presidential race as he hosts the NATO summit this week in Washington and on Thursday holds a rare solo news conference, a sure-to-be watched event to see whether Biden can authoritatively answer reporters questions. Right now, President Biden is the nominee, and we support the Democratic nominee that will beat Donald Trump, a House Democratic leader, Representative Pete Aguilar of California, said Tuesday. Lets see. Lets see the press conference. Lets see the campaign stops. Lets see all of this, because all of it is going to be necessary. Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado told his Democratic colleagues he did not think Biden would win the election, later telling CNN he thinks Trump is on track to maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House. But he declined to say Biden should step aside. Representative Julia Brownley of California said Biden has to make a decision. You could say hes already made a decision. Is that a final decision? If it is, then I dont think theres another alternative. George Stephanopoulos, the ABC News anchor who interviewed Biden last Friday about his fitness for the presidential race, was caught on camera Tuesday indicating that he doesnt think Biden can serve another four years. Stephanopoulos, walking in gym clothes on a New York street in a video published by TMZ, was asked by a passerby: What do you think, do you think Biden should step down? Youve talked to him more than anybody else has lately. And you can be honest. Stephanopoulos, then just off camera, is captured on fuzzy audio responding that he doesnt think he can serve four more years. In a statement late Tuesday, Stephanopoulos acknowledged that he was the person seen in the video, saying, Earlier today I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldnt have. An ABC spokeswoman said that Stephanopoulos expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News. The 2024 NATO Summit is underway in Washington, with leaders of all 32 of the allied nations in attendance, and support for Ukraine among the top issues being discussed. Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Tobias Billstrom spoke to VOA's Ukrainian Service about the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, along with Sweden's relationship with the country. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. VOA: Thank you so much for talking to us. What has been Sweden's reaction to the Russian attack Monday on the civilian targets in Ukraine, including a children's hospital? Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Tobias Billstrom: Well, this of course has to be condemned and the Swedish government did this. But this is exactly what we can expect from Putin and Russia. This is the kind of tactics that they deployed in Syria where they did the same kind of horrendous bombings on civilian installations, targeting civilians deliberately and this is the way they have been acting throughout the entire Russian aggression against Ukraine. But still, attacking a children's hospital of course has to be condemned in the harshest possible terms by the rest of the world. VOA: It happened just before the NATO summit. Do you think Putin is trying to send a signal and what that might be? Billstrom: You never know with Russia. I think that what we can see is a display of power from his side. The way that he thinks and the way that the Russian mind works is that there are no civilian installations, you are entitled to target everything which is in your way. This is exactly why we have to combat the Russian attitude. This is exactly why we have to provide as much military support to Ukraine as possible, including air defense to see that Ukraine can protect itself and defend itself against these terrible Russian attacks. And this is the policy of the Swedish government. VOA: Do you think this attack influenced in any way the agenda of the summit, the talks at the summit and possibly an outcome of the summit as related to Ukraine? Billstrom: I think that it influences the debate because, once again, it is shown how vitally important it is for us all to support Ukraine to the utmost when it comes to military means. And this is why Sweden welcomes the decisions which [we] are going to be talking about at the summit, to see to it that we can become more coordinated in our response by seeing to it that NATO is giving a more prominent role in the coordination of the support ... This has been discussed as you know at length and it is vital because NATO has a better possibility for providing the coordination than the more, I should say, random display that we have had so far during the Russian aggression against Ukraine. VOA: For many years, Ukraine has been striving to become a member of NATO and now the U.S, administration is talking about some well-lit bridge to NATO. What is the Swedish position on Ukraine`s accession to NATO? Billstrom: Well, Sweden stands fully behind the conclusions that were reached at the last Summit in Vilnius in Lithuania in 2023 where it was said that there should be a path for Ukraine towards NATO membership. This is of course something which can come about when Ukraine has fulfilled the criteria because after all this is a merit-based process, but for Sweden, it's obvious that that would be a path, an irrevocable path for Ukraine toward the membership. VOA: And you're the latest member of NATO. Obviously, the situation is drastically different from the Ukraine situation, but if any lessons are applicable, what would they be? Billstrom: Well, I think that there are three lessons. One is of course that we always have to be patient about these processes and I understand that this is a bit more difficult. I say this without any irony when it comes to Ukraine and for Sweden. But at the end of the day the message being sent from the summit about the possibility for Ukraine to become a NATO member is an important one. Secondly, we have to see to it that the NATO process and the EU process are very much interlinked. The reforms which Ukraine is undertaking now when it comes to reformation of its legislation, its constitution, the fight against corruption etc., is of course, also, it's part of an EU accession, but it is also part of a NATO accession. So, everything that is being done within those two processes reinforce one another. And thirdly and last of course, this is also something which is good from Ukraine's perspective; when you join NATO it will have the most experienced army and the most perhaps well-equipped armed forces within the alliance on the European continent because of the war. Again, I'm saying this without any irony or sarcasm, but this will be the fact so there won't be any problem, I think for Ukraine to fulfill the military criteria for NATO membership when the time actually comes. VOA: But membership in NATO for Ukraine can be or maybe not a part of negotiations with Russia as some people suggest. Can it be a negotiation chip? Billstrom: I have said many times before, it is up to Ukraine and only Ukraine to decide when the time has come to start any negotiations. President Zelenskyy's peace plan has been presented already. It is only credible and I should say only credible and sensible peace plan that we have on the table and Sweden stands fully behind this peaceful formula, but whether that should be interlinked to any sort of negotiation with that, that's up to Ukraine. It's not up to Sweden to decide this. VOA: Sweden provided a lot of military help to Ukraine. One of the items that was discussed is Gripen fighter jets. Sweden planned to provide them and then halted the provision of Gripens. What happened and can you kind of give a little bit of background on the Gripen situation? Billstrom: We have to understand that Ukraine has been given the opportunity to be provided with the F-16 air fighters which are of course more in abundance within the NATO family, more countries have after all F-16 and would have Gripen air fighters. It has nothing to do with the decision by the Swedish government. This decision was brought about because Ukraine reached the conclusion that to bring on board two air fighter systems at the same time, both F- 16 and Gripens, were to be too much. After all, we are talking about systems. It's not just a question about receiving airplanes and training pilots. These are complicated systems and to have two of them at the same time being implemented was too much, but that is not to say that Sweden is not open to continue with Gripens air fighters if and when 16 programs have been concluded. Since we couldn't go forward with the Gripens air fighters since the F-16 are coming aboard, we decided to provide Ukraine with other capabilities which Sweden has and we have given Ukraine ASC 890 surveillance systems and that will mean that we will give something to Ukraine that Ukraine can use in collaboration with the F-16 air fighters. It will provide Ukraine with the ability to perform better when it comes to air fighting and surveillance and also battle leading in the air and that is something which is going to be very good for Ukraine. A member of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's security detail shot an armed man during an attempted carjacking in the early morning hours, according to court documents. It happened as two deputy U.S. Marshals were on duty in a government car in Washington about 1 a.m. on July 5. They were confronted by a man who got out of a silver minivan and pointed a gun at one of them through the driver's side window, according to a criminal complaint. The car was unmarked, but the pair were dressed in U.S. Marshals shirts. The deputy pulled out his department-issued gun and shot the man about four times, hitting him in the mouth. He then gave the man first aid while the minivan drove away, charges state. The suspect was hospitalized and placed under arrest on suspicion of attempted carjacking and resisting officers. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals confirmed the deputies were part of the detail protecting Supreme Court justices. The deputies were stationed near Sotomayor's home. Sotomayor was not directly mentioned in court documents and there is no indication she was the target of the attack. It comes after a string of high-profile carjackings in the nation's capital last year. Other victims included a diplomat from the United Arab Emirates and U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas. Secret Service agents protecting President Joe Biden's granddaughter also opened fire after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle last year. No one was struck. The overall number of carjackings is on the decline so far this year, according to police data. Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile attack Wednesday on the port of Odesa killed at least two people. The attack was part of the what the Ukrainian military said was five ballistic and guided missiles and 20 drones that Russia deployed in its latest wave of daily aerial attacks targeting areas across Ukraine. The Ukrainian air force said the countrys air defenses shot down 14 of the 20 drones, with the intercepts taking place over the Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Rivne and Vinnytsia regions. Oleksandr Koval, the regional governor of Rivne, said on Telegram that Russian drones targeted energy infrastructure. Koval reported there were no injuries from the attack. Electrical grid operator Ukrenergo reported a serious attack on one of its facilities in Rivne. Russias defense ministry said it shot down two Ukrainian aerial drones over the Belgorod and Voronezh regions. NATO aid Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in Washington where he is pushing NATO leaders to boost support for Ukraines military, particularly in the area of air defenses. In a speech late Tuesday, Zelenskyy highlighted Russias attacks Monday that utilized 40 missiles and struck a childrens hospital in Kyiv, killing at least 43 people across the country and injuring nearly 200 others. Zelenskyy advocated for quick action, especially from the United States, saying officials should not be waiting for the November U.S. elections. Its time to step out of the shadows, to make strong decisions work, to act and not to wait for November or any other month. To this end, we must be strong and uncompromising, Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian leader made similar comments earlier Tuesday on the sidelines of the NATO summit, telling VOA that he would be talking with leaders. There we will discuss priorities first and foremost. These are air defense systems. I think that after this, both President [Joe] Biden and other leaders can be more powerful and more decisive than they were up to this point, he said. Although I am grateful to the president, the administration, and the U.S. Congress for the package that was voted on, we expect that it is gradually arriving on the battlefield and gradually strengthening our army. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba spoke about the commitment of the United States and other countries to Ukraine before their meeting on Tuesday. Ukraines success as a strong, independent, successful country is the best possible rebuke to the aggression that continues to be committed by Putin and Russia against Ukraine, including just 24 hours ago an attack on the largest childrens hospital in Kyiv, a hospital that I visited a couple of years ago when I was in Ukraine visiting the children, some of whom have been victims of the Russian aggression, other cancer patients, suffering other illnesses, being treated at this remarkable facility, Blinken said. Kuleba said he would raise the point about possible U.S. assistance in rebuilding and re-equipping this hospital, because we need to relaunch it as soon as possible. There are children who need daily support, daily assistance, surgeries, other procedures and manipulations. They have to continue. At the United Nations, the Security Council met in an emergency meeting Tuesday morning to discuss the attack on the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital in Kyiv. The acting head of the U.N. office of humanitarian affairs emphasized that hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law. Intentionally directing attacks against a protected hospital is a war crime and perpetrators must be held to account, Joyce Msuya said. She said the intensive care, surgical and oncology wards were severely damaged and its dialysis center was destroyed. First responders attending the scene immediately after the attack found children receiving treatment for cancer in hospital beds set up in parks and on the street, where medical workers had quickly established triage areas among the chaos, dust and debris, Msuya said. Russia's defense ministry said the strikes targeted Ukrainian defense plants and military air bases and were successful. It denied aiming at any civilian facilities and claimed without evidence that pictures from Kyiv indicated the damage was caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile. Russias U.N. ambassador echoed that and said the council was being drawn into a dirty propaganda campaign of Ukraine and its supporters. Russia does not strike civilian targets in Ukraine, Vassily Nebenzia said, questioning the timing of the incident on the eve of the NATO summit in Washington. Yesterdays attack makes abundantly clear: Putin is not interested in peace. He is committed to wreaking death and destruction in pursuit of his war of aggression, said U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer and VOA White House reporter Misha Komadovsky contributed to this report. Some information for this story was provided by Reuters, Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press. Famine has spread across the Gaza Strip, a panel of United Nations experts in Geneva said in a statement on Tuesday. The experts pointed to the recent deaths of three children: a 6-month-old, a 9-year-old and a 13-year-old. "All three children died from malnutrition and lack of access to adequate health care," the panel's statement said. "With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza." When a child dies from malnutrition and dehydration, the experts said, that indicates health and social structures have been attacked and are critically weakened. "When the first child dies from malnutrition and dehydration, it becomes irrefutable that famine has taken hold," the experts said. The panel called upon "the international community to prioritize the delivery of humanitarian aid by land by any means necessary, end Israel's siege, and establish a cease-fire." Also Tuesday, at least 25 people were killed and dozens wounded after an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians, according to a Palestinian health official. The attack, apparently the fourth Israeli strike in as many days, hit the gate of the al-Awda school in Abasan, near the southern city of Khan Younis. Israel's military said it was looking into the report. Tuesday's strike followed three prior attacks that Israel has acknowledged as targeting Hamas militants hiding in civilian areas. The Gaza health ministry reported that an Israeli strike on Saturday killed 16 people at the United Nations-run al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza, where about 2,000 people were sheltering. The following day another strike killed four at the Sacred Family School in northern Gaza. And an Israeli strike on Monday hit another U.N.-run school in Nuseirat, hospitalizing several people. Israeli military officials have said their forces have been fighting in the Shejaiya area, just east of Gaza City, killing dozens of militants. Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad said they were fighting with machine guns, mortar fire and anti-tank missiles and had killed and wounded Israeli soldiers. Israel did not comment on its casualties but claimed 150 militant casualties in the past week, according to Reuters. Hamas warned on Tuesday that the attacks could put the cease-fire talks at risk. And the U.N. Human Rights Office expressed concern about the operation and Israel's latest civilian evacuation orders. The U.N. agency said the orders issued Sunday called for civilians to move to the west of Gaza City for safety, only to have the Israel Defense Forces intensify their strikes on those corridors. "The U.N. Human Rights Office has repeatedly raised concerns that IDF's evacuation orders are confusing, often instructing people to relocate to areas where IDF military operations are ongoing," the agency said in a statement. "We reiterate our call on Israel to take all efforts to ensure the safety of civilians in Gaza." The White House said Monday that U.S. officials are in Egypt for discussions with mediators designed to lead to a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday that CIA Director Bill Burns and Brett McGurk, the U.S. Middle East envoy, were in Cairo for talks with their Egyptian, Israeli and Jordanian counterparts. "There are still some gaps that remain in the two sides in the positions, but we wouldn't have sent a team over there if we didn't think that we had a shot here," Kirby said. "We're trying to close those gaps as best we can." Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people and captured about 250 hostages in their October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war. Israel says it believes Hamas is still holding 116 hostages, including 42 the military says are dead. Israel's counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 38,243 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Gaza. The health ministry says that Israel's military offensive in Gaza has killed or wounded more than 5% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. Russia will be able to withstand life in a war economy for at least 3-4 years. Therefore, Western partners will have to support Ukraine in the long run. ADVERTISIMENT And although the consequences of the war for the Russian economy will be significant and tangible, there is no reason to hope that the war will end soon. This was stated by a senior NATO official during the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., Voice of America reports. He predicted that Russia will "undoubtedly" be able to withstand life in a war economy for at least 3-4 more years, so Ukraine's allies are focused on what they will have to provide for Kyiv in the long term. "Ultimately, we all have to be ready to continue supporting Ukraine even after 2025. We all understand very well, and as we have been saying for a long time, this is not a conflict that is likely to end soon. It will require years of focused efforts," the unnamed official was quoted as saying by Voice of America. In his opinion, the Kremlin's decision to put the Russian economy on a war footing will have very tangible and significant economic consequences for Russia in the long run. But for now, Russians are accepting the way of life imposed on them by the authorities. ADVERTISIMENT The senior NATO official also commented on NATO's intentions to establish a command post in Wiesbaden, Germany, and what practical results Ukraine will get from it. "Together with defense and industrial commitments, this provides a stable source of support for Ukraine. It is a coordination mechanism that will ensure that Ukraine gets what it needs when it needs it, and it provides some accountability because we all know that there is a long list of promises, and what appears on the battlefield is often different from what is announced," he said. Earlier, Ukraine's Defense Minister Rustem Umerov described how Ukraine's air defense system would be strengthened. In addition to the systems announced by the partners on the first day of the summit in Washington, there are "dozens of tactical air defense systems" that Ukraine will receive in the coming months. Work is also underway on several projects, and Ukrainians will soon be able to learn about some of the results of this work. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! One of the wives of deceased Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was sentenced to death Wednesday by an Iraqi court for allegedly helping the terrorist group detain Yazidi women. The sentence, issued by the Karkh Criminal Court in Iraq, said that women members of the religious minority were abducted by state gangs in Iraqs Sinjar region and held in the womans house. It was part of a series of attacks that took place in August 2014. Thousands of Yazidi women were victims of human trafficking, along with other sex-based abuses. The United Nations deemed the attacks genocide. The woman has not been publicly named, but anonymous officials within the court told The Associated Press that she is Asma Mohammed. She is reported to have been detained in Turkey in 2018 but wasnt handed over to Iraqi officials until 2023. The sentence was delivered in compliance with the countrys anti-terrorism and Yazidi survivors law. The woman is alleged to have aided and facilitated the kidnappings, with the court saying she took part in "detaining Yazidi women in her home." The sentence is awaiting ratification by an Iraqi appeals court, which must be done in order for it to be implemented. Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters. Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition politician and outspoken critic of Russias president, was last seen by his lawyers on July 2, before reportedly being transferred to a hospital two days later, his wife posted on the social platform X on Tuesday. His wife, Yevgenia Kara-Murza, said prison officials informed her that her husband had been sent to a prison hospital in Siberian city of Omsk to undergo a checkup. His wife and lawyers have expressed concerns for Kara-Murzas health since he was transferred. In April 2023, Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges of discrediting the Russian military and treason over remarks he made about Kremlin policies. His lengthy sentence was one of the harshest ever given to a political opponent. He and his supporters reject the charges as politically motivated. Vladimir Kara-Murza developed polyneuropathy, which numbs the feeling in ones limbs, after he suddenly fell deathly ill on two separate occasions in Moscow in 2015 and 2017 with symptoms consistent with poisoning. His condition is reported to have gotten worse during his time in solitary confinement. He has requested for Moscow to investigate his poisonings, alleging that they were conducted by a Russian security service. Kara-Murzas wife says he was able to receive treatment for his condition when he was in pretrial detention in Moscow, but that lawyers were told there was no way for his medicine to be administered to him at penal colonies in Omsk, where he has been held. While in prison, Kara-Murza won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for commentary he wrote criticizing Putin that appeared in The Washington Post. In an article in the Kyiv Post, Ilya Yashin, another imprisoned opposition figure, told his lawyers that he was concerned for Vladimir Kara-Murza, saying he must be saved and that the threat to his life is not just real, it is dire. Memorial, a human rights collective in Russian, declared Vladimir Kara-Murza to be a political prisoner and has called for his release, as have Western officials. OVD-Info, another rights group in the country, reported that since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, 983 people have been subject to criminal charges for opposing the Russian action. The group also reported that almost 9,500 people have faced lesser charges of discrediting the military. A new law outlawing discrediting the Russian army or spreading false information regarding it was passed in an attempt to rein in criticism of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. VOA sister entity Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty contributed to this report. Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban summarized the results of his trips to Ukraine, Russia, and China. He said that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are waiting for "peace talks" to begin by the end of this year. ADVERTISIMENT The head of the Hungarian government allegedly wrote about this in a confidential letter to European Council President Charles Michel and EU leaders after his unauthorized "peacekeeping tour," the Spanish edition of El Pais writes. At the same time, Orban is convinced that Europe should push for the start of "peace talks" on Ukraine regardless of the position of the United States, which is busy with the elections. In his letter, according to the newspaper, Orban summarizes the results of the negotiations and argues that Europe should "launch" a peace initiative without waiting for the United States. He also predicts that the next two months on the front line in Ukraine will be "more dramatic than ever." "Based on my conversations, I believe that there is now a better chance that all possible proposals for a ceasefire and a roadmap for peace talks will be positively received," Orban said in his letter. ADVERTISIMENT He emphasized that the US political leadership is now significantly limited by the domestic election campaign. Therefore, Europe must act without taking into account Washington's position. "Therefore (because of the American elections Ed.), we cannot expect them to put forward any such proposal in the coming months. We must believe that the ceasefire is in line with the spirit of European strategic autonomy," Orban said. The head of the Hungarian government also assures that in a conversation with him, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called himself an "honest broker." "President Xi sees China's policy as a policy of peace, while the policy of the United States and Europe is a policy of war, in which Europe automatically follows the American line," Orban said. According to him, Putin now considers the Russian proposals made in the spring of 2022, when Ukraine and Russia tried to hold direct talks, "relevant." That proposal, we recall, provided for the almost complete disarmament of our state, a sharp and very significant reduction in the number of the Armed Forces, Ukraine's actual abandonment of the Russian-occupied Crimea and its course to join NATO, as well as "security guarantees" from some countries, including Russia, and the possibility for Moscow to veto assistance to Ukraine from other states. ADVERTISIMENT According to Orban, Putin and Xi assume that new peace talks between Russia and Ukraine will take place before the end of the year. The Hungarian prime minister also noted that the Russian dictator did not mention Russia's losses at the front, but was very "concerned" about Ukrainian losses (which, according to Moscow, are allegedly 40-50 thousand per month) and the intensification of hostilities in recent weeks. "That is why the Russian president was surprised that the Ukrainian president rejected the proposal for a temporary ceasefire," Orban said. Putin, according to his Hungarian "friend," also offered Ukraine a cessation of hostilities with some conditions, which together mean Ukraine's complete and unconditional surrender and its abandonment in favor of Russia even of those parts of the partially occupied Ukrainian regions that the Russians have failed to occupy or have not been able to hold. ADVERTISIMENT On July 2, Orban arrived in Kyiv and held talks with Zelenskyy, during which he convinced the Ukrainian president of the need for a ceasefire. On July 5, the Hungarian prime minister traveled to Moscow to meet with Putin, and from there he went to Beijing to "talk peace" with Xi. At the same time, the European Union disavowed Orban's arbitrariness and emphasized that he did not visit Putin on behalf of the EU, but on his initiative, so he could not represent Europe. Although it was precisely as a contact between Moscow and the EU that the Russian dictator tried to present Orban's visit. It is interesting that Orban, who in his letter to EU leaders claims that the chances of starting negotiations are increasing, claimed immediately after he visited Kyiv and Moscow that he realized that the positions of Ukraine and Russia are very far apart. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! The prisoners all from Gaza and some seriously injured are held at all times in a supine position with their eyes covered. Their hands and feet tied to the bed, and they are naked except for a diaper, which they use to relieve themselves, and a quilt. An hour and a half visit is enough for a doctor to conclude that the Israeli armys Sde Teiman detention, interrogation and torture center, and its field hospital, must cease to exist. EL PAIS interviewed the Israeli surgeon, who describes that scene. He is a man who in view of the Hippocratic oath, the professional code that defends a patients well-being above all feels complicit and guilty about the violations being committed by Israeli authorities at Sde Teiman. But he is aware that someone had to care for those detainees at risk of dying. In the midst of the controversy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Supreme Court on Monday for Sde Teiman to be kept open to temporarily detain prisoners before they are transferred to other prisons. The Prosecutors Office reported, however, that the ultranationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir who is the Minister of National Security and head of prisons is hindering the process of relocating inmates. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, there are 166 prisoners at Sde Teiman. A few days ago, Ben Gvir proposed executing Palestinian prisoners with a shot to the head, according to a video that went viral. The Israeli doctor, who requested during the telephone interview that details that could lead to his identification not be published, was authorized to care for one of the inmates, but they ended up asking him for help to care for two others. The three were in serious condition after being hit with large-caliber bullets in the abdomen, and one of them, also in the chest. He says, surprised: They were shots from long guns. The military personnel in charge do not have the capacity to take care of these types of patients, he says. The doctor, who is not the only one who has accessed these facilities, located in the Negev desert (in the south of Israel, about 18 miles from the border with Gaza), describes the field hospital as a large white tent that houses between 15 and 20 beds. Although it was the middle of winter when he visited, it was open to the cold outside. Next door, several metal containers used in maritime transport are used to store medical supplies, all provisional facilities. The doctor says that during his visit he was not able to verify first-hand any signs of torture such as electric shocks or beatings, despite the repeated complaints that have been made. But he clarifies that being tied to a bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to speak, unable to understand what is happening and with a diaper Very cold. And with this going on for days and days, for weeks. I think that is already a form of torture. Amid the constant reports of abuses and deaths in the military prison, the Supreme Court and humanitarian organizations are putting more pressure on authorities to shut it down. The Israeli army is investigating 48 deaths of Gazans, 36 of which took place in Sde Teiman, according to Haaretz. In early June, the state told the Supreme Court that all the detainees were going to be transferred to other centers or returned to the Gaza Strip. When asked by EL PAIS about whether Sde Teiman in a military base of the same name and near the city of Beer Sheva is still in operation and how many prisoners are there, a military spokesperson only responds that 4,700 detainees have been detained there throughout the war. We cannot comment further, concludes the brief response. Regarding the 36 deaths and possible results of the investigations, the spokesperson says that of the approximately 70 investigations opened, some refer to the deaths of Palestinians, including the death of detainees during their transfer to military detention centers or in their own facilities, as well as other deaths that occurred during operations in the Gaza Strip. Most investigations are still ongoing, adds the spokesperson. The Israeli doctors description of the situation at Sde Teiman reflects what another doctor wrote in a letter to the authorities in March that was published by Haaretz. Just this week, two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event, said the letter. Ethical doubts During the conversation with EL PAIS, the doctor often raised his ethical and deontological doubts about his visit. Doctors should never treat patients with their eyes covered, he laments, even though he ended up doing so. What happens in Sde Teiman goes against any medical code and against [what is stipulated by] the World Health Organization, he adds. The latest controversy surrounding these facilities was sparked by the decision to release Mohamed Abu Salmiya, the director of Al Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, who was returned to Gaza along with 50 prisoners on Monday. His release has led to clashes within the Israeli government. Netanyahu has called for an investigation into his release, stating: The place of this man, under whose responsibility our abductees were murdered and held, is in prison. Netanyahu is referring to security camera recordings released by Israeli authorities which show some of the Israeli hostages from the Hamas attack on October 7, in which Palestinian radicals murdered some 1,200 people, in Al Shifa Hospital. Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry, Israeli secret services and the prison service have avoided taking responsibility for Salmiyas return to Palestinian territory. The Sde Teiman center which is exclusively for investigating people detained in Gaza was launched at the start of the war last October. Given the human rights violations, the doctor thinks that the only possible solution is to close the field hospital completely and treat these patients in real hospitals. The Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights has the same opinion, recalling that the presence of medical personnel in these facilities is prohibited, according to a report on abuses presented in April. The report states that the Sde Teiman hospital was opened after different centers in Israel refused to treat Gazan prisoners, as they considered them terrorists. The medical staff working in this facility face a significant risk of committing severe violations of medical ethics, says the document. The NGO argues that care provided to detained Gazans falls far below acceptable standards, departing from established protocols and ethical norms in many cases. Physicians for Human Rights also denounces political interference in the decision-making process in the healthcare field. The NGO estimates that Israeli authorities have detained thousands of men, women, children and the elderly in Gaza since the fighting began in October and have kept them and continue to keep them completely isolated from the outside world. Detainees are often classified as unlawful combatants, which deprives them of being of prisoners of war status and prevents them from receiving visits from lawyers for prolonged periods, the report adds. Given this reality, there is one last question for the doctor. How does he feel after treating patients in these conditions? As an Israeli doctor who treats Gazans in these types of conditions, I am complicit. Deep down, it doesnt matter why I did it, but from the moment I did it, I was part of this. Of course, I feel guilty. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition This content is expired! Unfortunely this content is expired and cannot be viewed anymore; if You are the owner of this content please login to our Website, go to our access panel and enable this content again. Rome included in 'bollino rosso' heatwave warning. Italy's health ministry has issued a red alert heatwave warning for seven Italian cities on Thursday 11 July, with high temperatures set to last for 10 days. The cities included in the level-three weather warning are Campobasso, Frosinone, Latina, Perugia, Turin, Rieti, Rome and Trieste. The cities on red alert will rise to 11 on Friday 12 July, with the addition of Bologna, Florence, Pescara and Viterbo. Ondate di calore, livello 3 di allerta per Frosinone, Latina, Rieti, Roma e Viterbo. Il bollettino realizzato dal Dipartimento di Epidemiologia SSR Lazio-ASL Roma 1 in collaborazione con il @MinisteroSalute e il @DPCgov e valido per venerdi 12, sabato 13 e domenica 14 luglio. pic.twitter.com/H5SieS9Wgb Regione Lazio (@RegioneLazio) July 12, 2024 On Saturday there will be 10 cities on red alert: Ancona, Bologna, Campobasso, Frosinone, Latina, Perugia, Pescara, Rieti, Rome and Viterbo. The 'bollino rosso' indicates emergency conditions with possible negative effects on not just the elderly, sick or very young, but also on healthy and active people. The heatwave, driven by an African anticyclone, will bring scorching temperatures, "tropical nights" and intense humidity, a muggy midsummer air known as Afa, according to weather forecast site ilMeteo.it. The peak of the heatwave is expected by Saturday 13 July, according to ilMeteo.it, with Sardinia and Sicily set for the highest temperatures with peaks of 42-43C and up to 38-39C in the south and central areas of Italy. The health ministry recommends avoiding exposure to the sun and outdoor activity in the middle of the day, as well as advising people to drink at least 1.5 litres of water a day, eat lightly and preserve their medication properly. Dogs should be walked early in the morning and late evening. Tourists in Rome should be aware that the city's historic fountains are off-limits, no matter how hot it gets, with fines of 450 for those caught entering the waters. Italy has a 1500 telephone helpline in place from 09.00 to 18.00 to provide tips on how to cope with the heat as well as information about social and health services available. For heatwave details, updated daily, see Italy's health ministry website. Photo credit: Massimo Todaro / Shutterstock.com Waterford had a hugely successful Daffodil Day event, in aid of the Irish Cancer Society, on Friday, March 22, when a whopping 74,000 was raised. This involved planning from early January with over 200 committee members, event leaders and volunteers organising local fundraising events. A large number of Waterford venues contributed to the final figure raised. "We thank most sincerely the retail outlets who gave us permission to collect on their premises, along with smaller retailers. "We are forever thankful to you, the general public, who donated so generously as always and have made Daffodil Day one of the biggest fundraisers in the calendar," said a spokesperson for Daffodil Day. A newly elected MEP for Ireland South has this week said that the age at which a child can access social media should be raised to 16. Most social media companies currently have a minimum age of 13 to register a social media account. Cynthia Ni Mhurchu says independent research shows this is too young for children to deal with the types of content that children are exposed to on social media. According to Ni Mhurchu, children as young as eight can bypass the rules and register a social media account in as little as five clicks. Locals in Waterford this week were asked if raising the age is worthwhile. Wayne Power Wayne Power said: I'm amazed at what young people can see on now on Tiktok etc. They could bring in new regulations, but I think it might be going down a bad road with limiting what people can see. "I get it, but I dont really see the point in it, because kids especially are still going to find a way to access whats online. They live on their phones now and they were brought up on them so it will be hard to implement something like that." Bridie Coghlan and Trish Browne added: "We definitely need to stop young people from being online. There's too much information and young people are learning too quickly. "When they have a phone it's like being in another world and it's not limited to teenagers, young children are also on their phones too much. "What will happen is well lose our ability to talk to one another. We're losing what we always had in that sense. I think a child can have a phone that doesnt have internet on it for basic phone calls and emergencies. Saliu, Sam, Ellen and Ian Saliu, Sam, Ellen and Ian also say that younger people shouldnt have access to social media accounts: "People in secondary school maybe should be allowed but definitely not primary school students, it's too young," they concurred. The contrasted pair are Channing Tatum as the straight-arrow NASA scientist Cole Davis, fictionally responsible for overseeing the Apollo 11 mission from the ground, and Scarlett Johansson as the crafty marketing whiz Kelly Jones, brought in from New York to ensure the public stays on board. In my life, Ive known a few people not generally drawn to conspiracy theories who nonetheless insist the moon landing was faked. How far Greg Berlantis Fly Me To the Moon is aimed at those people Im not sure, but it certainly hasnt much to offer fans of romantic comedy, despite upholding a tradition of dramatising political and social tensions via the skirmishes between the leads. Cole is smitten with Kelly from the moment they meet, but also not too keen on having a bossy female on his turf, especially one whose methods tend towards the underhand. But all this is secondary to the bigger picture: secretly, Kelly has been tasked by the US government with arranging a fake moon landing to be broadcast live if the real one goes awry. On this flank, the film is yet another behind-the-scenes story about showbiz types banding together to fool the rest of us and you neednt be any kind of conspiracy theorist to feel this is something Hollywood understands. Kelly recruits a campy director friend (Jim Rash) whos known as the Kubrick of commercials, a set is built in a hangar under Coles nose but without his knowledge, debates are had about the best way to simulate the lunar surface, and so on. Channing Tatum (left) and Ray Romano in Fly Me to the Moon, which looks at the possibility of the moon landing being faked. Its all fun to a point, though never as amusing or imaginative as youd hope (the stand-ins recruited to play the phony astronauts barely qualify as characters, but then the real astronauts dont either). A broader problem is that Kelly appears to be enjoying herself far more away from the dourly masculine Cole, a war hero and Biblical literalist among other things. Another problem is that Fly Me to the Moon clearly isnt about to tell us, even jokingly, that the actual moon landing was nothing but a cynical hoax. How Berlanti and screenwriter Rose Gilroy attempt to resolve this reveals something about a distinctly American brand of doublethink, amounting to the idea that lying and telling the truth are the same thing. The states chief health officer has warned Queenslanders to prepare for a spike in illnesses as children return to school and COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases continue to climb. Dr John Gerrard said large parts of the state, particularly the south-east, are in the grip of a flu outbreak with the highest number of cases in children and influenza A of particular concern. Just three weeks ago we were seeing an average of three children per day in hospital with flu. Last week that had increased to 20 children per day and right now it is on track to be above 50 per day within the next two to three weeks. France's meddling in Russia's internal affairs and putting pressure on its judicial system is unacceptable. according to Azernews, Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, wrote about this on the Telegram channel. The diplomat drew attention to the statement of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemning the decision of the Russian court against director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk. "In response to the reminder of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I remind French President Emmanuel Macron's regime not to interfere in the internal affairs of the sovereign state, as well as not to put pressure on the judicial system. If there is nothing to be done, I recommend that Paris condemn its officials for not appreciating the "courage of the artist Pavlensky", who was sentenced to no punishment by the French court, for special cruelty against its own citizens, who were tortured and insulted by the local police, Zakharova said. Luis N in the custody of the authorities after being detained, along with three other men, on Monday. A military operation between the borders of the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua a mountainous region better known in Mexico as the Golden Triangle ended Monday afternoon with the arrest of three men close to Aureliano Guzman Loera, the older brother of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Loera. Aureliano El Guano Guzman Loera is believed to be one of the leaders of the Gente del Guano (GDG), which is a branch of the Sinaloa Cartel. In addition to the three men, the Mexican Army and National Guard also arrested Luis N alias R-8, El Guanos security chief, following a confrontation. This is not federal security forces first attempt to reach El Guanos inner circle. In 2023, another military operation ended with the arrest of three armed men and the seizure of weapons and ammunition from the GDG faction. Mexican authorities believe El Guano is responsible for the violence in the mountainous area of the Golden Triangle. According to the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), the alleged criminals were arrested during patrols in the vicinity of the town of El Durazno, in Tamazula, in Durango. State forces also seized weapons exclusively used by the army. R-8 was in charge of coordinating El Guanos security, and is accused of executing several people out of revenge. He has been identified by authorities as the person responsible for acquiring weapons and tactical equipment for the kingpins protection. In a video shared on social media, the four men arrested by military personnel can be seen as they board an official plane, handcuffed and guarded by members of the National Guard and the Army. According to security specialists consulted by local and national media, this operation was yet another failed attempt to capture El Guano. Last March, during a wave of mass kidnappings in Sinaloa, some media reported that there was an alleged armed confrontation between the GDG faction and Los Chapitos the arm of the cartel that includes El Chapos sons and El Guanos nephews in Badiraguato, Sinaloa. According to the reports, hitmen under the command of El Guano were allegedly involved in the fighting, although the information was neither confirmed nor denied by authorities. El Guano who strongly resembles El Chapo is also accused of violent acts on his home turf. In the mountains of Sinaloa, he is blamed for the April 2015 murder of his half-brother Ernesto Guzman Hidalgo. The motive was suspicion of treason. This death would have likely been forgotten if it werent for the fact that the victim was the father of the wife of Alfredo El Mochomo Beltran Leyva, the main enemy of the Sinaloa Cartel. In 2021, the U.S. Department of State offered a reward of $5 million in exchange for information that could lead to the arrest of Aureliano Guzman. In a press statement, the Department of State said it was also seeking to capture three other members of the Sinaloa criminal organization: brothers Ruperto Salgueiro-Nevarez, Jose Salgueiro-Nevarez and Heriberto Salgueiro-Nevarez. The four men have been accused by the state of Arizona of violating U.S. narcotics trafficking laws, and are charged with international conspiracy to distribute marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl. El Guano always played second fiddle to his brother El Chapo, three years his junior, who came to be considered the most powerful drug trafficker in the world. Initially focused on the marijuana business, it was his brothers latest incarceration El Chapo previously escaped from prison twice that put El Guano on the front line. In 2016, he was put in charge of defending Badiraguato, the Guzmans home village and the nerve center of the group. Badiraguato is also the largest opium-producing area in the Golden Triangle. Although the main leader of the Sinaloa Cartel remains Ismael El Mayo Zambada, security specialist Alejandro Hope told EL PAIS in 2019, that El Guanos position in the criminal organization was not known at that time. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition From 1 to 5 July 2024, the WCO organised an advanced workshop on gender equality and diversity (GED) in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, for a group of six Customs administrations from West Africa - Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger and Togo. The workshop was organised as part of the West Africa Security Project (WASP) - Gender Equality Component, a partnership between the WCO and the German Central Customs Authority, funded by the German Federal Foreign Office. Thanks to effective collaboration, the workshop was jointly funded with the WCO Anti-Corruption & Integrity Promotion (A-CIP) Programme, which, thanks to funding from Norway, enabled three of these countries (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger) to take part. The workshop was led by two experts from the WCO pool of Recognised Experts in Gender Equality and Diversity (EGD) from Morrocco and Canada. Over the week, participants had the opportunity to improve their knowledge of the concepts of gender and inclusion. They were able to study how these concepts can be implemented across Customs administrations using the Gender Equality Organisational Assessment Tool (GEOAT). Participants also carried out exercises using a new GEOAT assessment model, which enables Customs administrations to do their organisational self-assessment, identifying their strengths and weaknesses and preparing administrations to draft or update action plans dedicated to GED. The workshop focused intensely on the links between gender and security. Among the issues addressed were the differences in how women and men experience conflict, insecurity, and threats and how these differences can be taken into account in security policies. The benefits of having more women in security-related positions were also discussed, including how this could be encouraged through a better consideration of work-life balance aspects, and infrastructural improvements. Participants also had the opportunity to discuss examples of human rights violations at the border, how these could be prevented and how gender stereotypes could impact enforcement operations. Emphasis was also laid on the links between GED and the fight against corruption. In particular, participants examined the issue of whistleblowing and how this process can be made more gender-sensitive, as well as the usefulness of data collection and analysis in implementing measures to protect everyone, both within Customs and among private sector partners. Following the exercises during the week, some of the six Customs delegations presented updated versions of their GED action plans while others began developing their action plans. Each administration will continue to implement the tool over the coming months. The WCO looks forward to continuing to work closely with its Members to advance the GED agenda forward. For more information on this activity and the WCO's work in this area, please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org. Trumps wall was never built, but a continental obstacle course was. The U.S. government maintains its efforts to stop the immigration crisis on its southern border, one of the key issues on Joe Bidens path to re-election at the presidential elections next November. In addition to the restrictions on asylum applications announced in June and greater collaboration with Mexico, which has been detaining migrants at record levels for weeks, the Democratic administration has signed an agreement with the newly elected Panamanian president, Jose Raul Mulino. The agreement aims to stop migratory flows through the Darien jungle, a route that half a million migrants took in 2023 alone. Although the exact start date is unknown, in the coming weeks the United States will begin to cover the costs of the deportations to their respective countries of the thousands of people who cross Central America every day, something that some doubt can be carried out. On July 1, the Panamanian Foreign Minister, Javier Martinez-Acha, and the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, signed an arrangement that launches a new foreign assistance program financed by the U.S. State Department to confront irregular migration. This is one of the objectives of the so-called Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, signed in June 2022, which aims to promote humane migration management throughout the American continent. In a statement, the U.S. government assured that the agreement with Panama includes support for migrant repatriation operations from that country, and insists that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will support training and capacity building to strengthen and institutionalize safe and humane repatriation in that country. Irregular migration is a regional challenge that requires a regional response, Mayorkas said. As the United States continues to secure our borders and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain, we are grateful for our partnership with Panama to manage the historic levels of migration across the Western Hemisphere. Meanwhile, the office of Jose Raul Mulino, who visited Darien a few days before taking office as president in early July, reported that this agreement will allow closing the passage of illegal immigrants through Darien, an issue that has become a serious humanitarian crisis. Since January of this year, more than 195,000 migrants have crossed the jungle, one of the most dangerous routes to reach the United States, where many people end up being victims of kidnappings, robberies, attacks by wild animals, accidents, and death by disease. Although the repatriation flights do not have a start date, Panama has already begun its efforts to detain migrants arriving from the natural border with Colombia. Recently, it was learned that barbed wire has been installed along the Darien Gap, which would supposedly manage the migratory flow and prevent organized crime in the area. The Panamanian Ministry of Public Security announced that the patrol at the national border service has begun to block the majority of border passages since June 27. Authorities said migrants must present identification documents at a crossing that will remain open. Panama's president-elect, Jose Raul Mulino, at the Migrant Reception Station in Lajas Blancas, Darien province, Panama, on June 28. Aris Martinez (REUTERS) The United States, however, has distanced itself from this initiative and said that it is not involved in the new barbed wire barriers, which are very dangerous for the migrants who continue to risk traveling the route through the Central American jungle. A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council told NBC News that the U.S. has not provided support to the Government of Panama to erect barriers at its borders, despite the recently signed agreement to deal with waves of migrants crossing through Panama, mostly from Venezuela, Ecuador, Haiti, Colombia and China. The new agreement between the two countries has created skepticism among some who think it will be almost impossible to implement. Maureen Meyer, Vice President for Programs at the American human rights organization WOLA, told the German media outlet DW that she does not believe that even a powerful country like the United States can return the many people who cross the Darien jungle, and that the country can only repatriate between 500 and 600 people by air per day. Without a massive investment of funds and the development of the necessary infrastructure, it is difficult to imagine a significant impact of the agreement. Governments are hoping that the threat of deportation will deter many immigrants, she says. History shows us the opposite: policies focused on deterrence do not have a lasting impact on migratory flows, but they do impact the security and well-being of migrants. The Senior Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, Diego Chaves, has the same opinion. He also told DW that logistically, socially and politically, it is a very difficult measure to implement. Not only is the infrastructure of a country like Panama limited, he said, but it would also be necessary to take into account whether the migrants countries of origin will accept them back. The capacity of the Panamanian Government to create an effective repatriation strategy is null. It is going to take a long time to build the necessary infrastructure in a place like Darien, he said. Chavez also insists that the influx of so many migrants in Panama City could generate tension among Panamanians. Migration, the big issue on the table for Mulino and Biden In the first face-to-face debate with Donald Trump, Biden boasted that illegal arrivals in the U.S. are down by 40% since he implemented his new immigration policy restricting daily asylum processing at the southern border. Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security told NBC News that June was the month with the fewest migrant arrests since Biden arrived at the White House. Just over 84,000 migrants arrived in the country last month, a 30% drop from May, when the number of arrests was just over 117,000. Likewise, DHS assured that it has operated more than 120 international repatriation flights to more than 20 countries. The majority of all encounters at the southwest border over the past three fiscal years resulted in an expulsion, return or transfer, they said in a statement. Like Biden, Panamas president has the issue of migration on his table. In his inauguration speech, Mulino emphasized that Panama will no longer be a transit country for illegal migrants. I will not allow Panama to be a path open to thousands of people who enter our country illegally, supported by an entire international organization with ties to drug trafficking and human smuggling. That money, the product of profiting from human misfortune, is cursed money, he said. I will not allow local complicity. I ask our security forces to apply the law accordingly, with strict respect for human rights and adherence to the defense of the interests of our country. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition It took 200 years just a microsecond in the timeline of humanity for the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa to go from being harmless microbes that inhabited ponds, streams and plants, to being one of the great threats of infection on the planet. Causing more than 500,000 deaths a year, these bacilli are today on the World Health Organizations blacklist as a high priority pathogen due to their resistance to antibiotics and widespread expansion across the globe. Research published on July 5 in the journal Science has mapped the genomic journey of this bacterial species and discovered that P. aeruginosa takes advantage of an immunological defect in patients with cystic fibrosis to survive and spread. Over the last 200 years or so, certain individual bacteria, which we call clones, managed to absorb new genes and become more capable of infecting humans. These clones then expanded and spread throughout the world. The most probable expansion date for the first clone is around 1890, although the confidence interval is wide, explains scientist Andres Floto, professor of Respiratory Biology at the University of Cambridge and author of the study. The researchers call the family branches of the P. aeruginosa family tree that spread around the world epidemic clones. The study found 21 clones are responsible for more than 50% of all P. aeruginosa infections on the planet. They are likely to be the main drivers of antibiotic resistance and deaths, says Floto in an email. The harmful impact of the P. aeruginosa is relatively new. After exploring the family tree of this species, the authors cautiously conjecture that the entire phenomenon began at the end of the 18th century. It is unlikely that before that date they would have posed a significant threat to human health, says Floto. Since the beginning of the 19th century, the researcher points out, there has been an increasingly frequent appearance of these epidemic clones. The researchers believe that each clone experienced at least one significant population expansion between 1850 and 2000. They have emerged randomly around the world, but they seem to expand with increasing frequency. For example: from 1900 to 1950, six epidemic clones emerged; and between 1950 and 2000, 12 appeared, explains Floto. According to the scientist, the bacterias global expansion among humans continue to happen more and more regularly: We are seeing more and more epidemic clones emerging and spreading throughout the world, which we believe may be due to air pollution and housing density. The authors of the study suggest that the spread of these more aggressive bacterial families was accelerated by overpopulation in cities, a product of migratory movements to large cities during industrialization. This created a breeding ground with densely populated areas, while a spike in pollution led to greater susceptibility to infections and made it easier for these infectious diseases to spread. Today, the P. aeruginosa have become opportunistic pathogens. This means that they do not harm healthy people, but they do cause lung and systemic infections in individuals who have a compromised immune system. For example, people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or cystic fibrosis. Infections due to P. aeruginosa have been reported among patients admitted to hospitals (nosocomial infections), as well as in community settings. It is on the watch list of all health authorities, explains Bruno Gonzalez-Zorn, director of the Antimicrobial Resistance Unit at the Complutense University of Madrid and World Health Organization (WHO) advisor on this topic. It is very important. It has an extraordinary capacity to adapt to many ecosystems, and what worries us so much is its level of resistance to antibiotics and the number of patients it kills each year, says Gonzalez-Zorn. After analyzing nearly 10,000 human, animal and environmental samples of this microorganism, the Cambridge researchers were able to trace the family history of P. aeruginosa, and they also identified a bacterial tolerance mechanism that may be key to understanding its resistance. In samples from patients with cystic fibrosis, scientists discovered that macrophages which are immune cells responsible for engulfing and killing harmful microorganisms were not able to eliminate P. aeruginosa: these clones managed to survive within macrophages and cause a persistent infection. Scientists believe that the ability to survive macrophages is due to a combination of the bacterias genetics they identified a gene involved in this process and a failure in the cystic fibrosis patients line of defense. The bacteria takes advantage of this immunological defect to infect this group of patients, says Floto. More virulent and effective In this transition to infecting humans, these bacteria have been evolving, adapting through DNA mutations, and have become more effective in infecting the lung and more virulent in resisting the scourge of antibiotics. The study also found that these multiple rounds of adaptation to the lung and subsequent transmission to another person occurred differently for the bacteria that infect patients with cystic fibrosis compared to the bacilli that attack people who do not have this disease. The bacteria become increasingly specialized and certain clones continue to be transmitted between patients with cystic fibrosis, while other clones are transmitted between patients without this disease. But these specialized bacterial clones lose the ability to be transmitted from patients with cystic fibrosis to patients without it, and vice versa, he explains. Maria del Mar Tomas, microbiologist at the University Hospital Complex of A Coruna in Spain and spokesperson for the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC), highlights the importance of this research, in which she has not participated, arguing it deepens the knowledge of the mechanisms of bacterial tolerance and resistance. These molecular systems help the bacillus survive stress. This is very important because they are global mechanisms, which are activated in any stress situation for the bacteria, such as hunger or an antibiotic. And this can be a therapeutic target for the design of new therapies, she says. Gonzalez-Zorn agrees: It is an important study because it allows us to know the evolutionary trajectory of the bacteria and how it manages to establish strategies to produce disease. If we know these mechanisms, we will be able to design strategies to contain the bacteria. The researcher, for their part, say that the findings highlight the importance of global surveillance and cross-infection prevention in averting the emergence of future epidemic clones. We have indications that epidemic clones will become increasingly adapted to the human lung and will be increasingly resistant to antibiotics if they are allowed to continue this cycle of infection, adaptation and transmission, warns Floto. Given the speed at which epidemic clones appear, the researcher says these clones need to be actively tracked down to prevent them from spreading. He adds that it is also key to quickly detect the bacteria in the lung and eradicate it as soon as possible. Although there are control measures to prevent P. aeruginosa infections in cystic fibrosis, Floto points out that the studys results show that transmission between humans also occurs very frequently in people without cystic fibrosis, meaning there needs to be further debate on how to protect these other at-risk groups. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Almost 200 babies and their caregivers attended events as part of Mayo Baby Week 2024. The events ranged from interactive arts-based activities designed for babies to information talks and workshops which took place in a range of venues across the county. All events were free, with many taking place in community facilities. Mayo Baby Week is an action of Mayo Children and Young Peoples Services Committee (CYPSC), in partnership with the Mayo Infant Mental Health Forum. It was devised as a local celebration of International Infant Mental Health Awareness Week, which takes place in June each year. Funding was provided by Mayo CYPSC and Healthy Ireland. Babies and parents attending Art Crawl! in Ballina Arts Centre, as part of Mayo Baby Week. Feedback from parents attending the events was very positive. Mayo CYPSC coordinator Jarlath Munnelly said: "Parents who attended the events were very enthusiastic about Mayo Baby Week, and more importantly the babies really enjoyed the interactive events." Pictured at the Mayo Infant Mental Health Stand at Mayo University Hospital were, from left: Eva Fitzgerald, Andrea Browne, Maureen Riley, Sinead Conneely, Jarlath Munnelly and Eva O'Riain. Chairperson of the Mayo Infant Mental Health Forum, Elizabeth Lambe, also expressed satisfaction with the weeks events, and the focus on the importance of early relationships in the lives of babies. "The core message of Mayo Baby Week this year was that early relationships really matter. This was the main takeaway for the many parents who attended events this year, the little things that parents and caregivers can do every day to strengthen those early relationships." A newly-elected Mayo county councillor has questioned the attendance of councillors at an Irish festival in the United States. Aontus Paul Lawless raised concerns about the proposal to send the Cathaoirleach and councillors to attend the Milwaukee Irish Festival in August. Cllr Lawless has formally requested a detailed cost report for the proposed trip and called for a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis to justify the expenditure of taxpayers' money on long-haul flights during peak travel periods. Many business owners in my area are already grappling with soaring rates, insurance premiums, energy costs, and the overall cost of living. Many business owners cant afford to take a day off, let alone see their hard-earned money used to fund politicians' trips to America. At a time when there is so much financial anxiety out there with the ever-increasing cost of living, I think we should operate with financial prudence, said Cllr Lawless, after he raised the issue at the monthly meeting of Mayo County Council. He said these trips send out the wrong message to constituents and hit out at Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. There is a real contradiction here from Fianna Fail and Fine Gael councillors who stand with parties who support carbon taxes aimed at reducing unnecessary travelling and particularly long-haul flights. What message does this send to taxpayers who are burdened with severe carbon charges to get to work or bring their children to school, yet see local councillors from Fianna Fail and Fine Gael seeking to use taxpayers' money for long-haul flights? Mayo county councillors have paid tribute to the unsung hero of Ireland West Airport. John Dillon, who was one of the original and founding board members of the airport, passed away last month. The Ballyhaunis native was a renowned businessman whose family travel business, John Dillon & Sons, operated from the East Mayo town for over 100 years. He was affiliated with the local Chamber of Commerce and was also a former Director at Midwest Radio. John held the title of airport secretary when the facility in Knock was opened in 1986. He held the distinction of being the longest-serving board member in history and also was a passenger on the very first scheduled flight into the airport when Ryanair touched down in 1986. For many, many years he promoted Knock Airport through difficult times and managed to keep the airport sustainable and viable over all those decades. He is an unsung hero who was a very modest man. He can be extremely proud of his legacy, said Cllr Gerry Murray at the monthly meeting of Mayo County Council. He was dedicated not only to Knock Airport but to the concept of balanced regional development, Cllr Murray added. Fine Gaels Alma Gallagher said John has left a lasting legacy. "He played a pivotal role in the early days of the airport, joining the board in 1985 and serving alongside the late Monsignor Horan. As the airports secretary when it officially opened in 1986, he was a passenger on the first scheduled Ryanair flight into the airport. I'm sure he would have a few sharp words about the current state of the aviation industry and where it stands today. His legacy will continue to be felt by thousands of passengers and the community he so passionately served, Cllr Gallagher said. A professor from the University of Colorado has said he would like to play a role in the establishment of collaborations between the Denver-based university and the Mayo campus of the Atlantic Technological University. Professor James Walsh made his comments during a recent visit to Mayo where he met with members of the academic staff and received a brief overview of the evolution of the campus from its former state as a psychiatric hospital. The visit was facilitated by local historian Michael Larkin. Prof. Walsh has dedicated an enormous amount of time and painstaking research in identifying the names of over 1,200 Irish immigrants who perished and died Leadville, which towers above the 'Mile High' city of Denver, Colorado and was at one time a 'boom town' following the discovery of silver there in the late 1800s. Thousands of immigrants flocked to this most inhospitable part of America high in the Rocky mountains, hoping to 'get rich quick' working in the mines. Sadly, most of the Irish were destined to remain on the bottom rungs of Leadville's social classes, with hundreds succumbing to disease and workplace-related accidents and laying since in unmarked, sunken graves in the Catholic pauper section of Leadville's Evergreen cemetery. A high proportion of those who toiled there, including sizeable numbers who had previously worked in the coalmines near Scranton, Pennsylvania, were from Mayo. Indeed Mayos own Mayo's Michael Davitt, co-founder of the Irish National Land League, visited Leadville on a number of occasions where he encouraged the workers and miners to remain united in pursuit of better pay and working conditions. Professor James Walsh believes this little-known, yet significant connection between Colorado and Mayo, in particular the Michael Davitt connection, has the potential to open new links in tourism, academia, business and other forms of collaboration. John Gately, Dept. of Nursing and Health Sciences ATU; Sona Dimidjian, Dept. of Psychology and Neuroscience, Colorado University; Prof. James Walsh; Lily Walsh; Michael Gill, Dept. Head of Organisational Development and Michael Larkin, visit facilitator. Following his visit to the county, he stated: I would dearly love to play a role in the establishment of possible future collaborations between the University of Colorado, Denver and the Atlantic Technological University here in Mayo. Michael Gill, Dept. Head of Organisational Development, ATU, in welcoming Prof. Walsh outlined how the Mayo campus looks forward to exploring options and possibly in the not-too-distant future welcoming students from the University of Colorado to Mayo. Vivenne Clarke The aunt of Tori Towey, an Irish woman who has been banned from leaving Dubai, has said the family are hopeful that diplomatic efforts will lead to the charges against her being dropped. Ms Towey (28), from Co Roscommon, was a victim of domestic violence and has been banned from leaving the United Arab Emirates. Her mother, Caroline, has flown to Dubai to be with her daughter. Ms Towey's aunt, Anne Flynn, told RTE radio's Morning Ireland that the family were "very, very anxious." We keep hoping that we'll get word that they're on a plane, on the way home. I don't know if this court case go ahead, or if it does, what will happen? "If the Irish government backs Tori Towey and does everything that they can diplomatically... it's highly likely that she will be home in Ireland next week" - Radha Stirling. https://t.co/n3LiOqBIAl Radha Stirling (@RadhaStirling) July 10, 2024 Ms Flynn described her niece as a beautiful young woman, full of life and full of adventure, adding the situation is really terrible. I've been in touch with them [Tori and Caroline] every day, several times a day, since all this started. They're both trying to keep positive. We're trying to keep positive as well, but it's on your mind constantly, and I'm sure it's on their minds because all the family gets in touch with them. Ms Flynn added that with the help of the Irish Government and a human rights advocacy group, Detained in Dubai, which focusses on these kinds of cases, the family are hopeful of a positive outcome. Response Meanwhile, the chief executive of Detained in Dubai, Radha Stirling, spoke to Newstalk radio, praising the speedy response of the Irish Government to Ms Towey's case. Im super impressed by Irelands response, it was so swift, Ms Stirling said. When a government gets behind their citizens, when they go the extra mile, they are successful in getting citizens home. Ms Stirling, who said she is in daily contact with Ms Towey, said she is hopeful that diplomatic efforts by the Department of Foreign Affairs would lead to the case against Ms Towey being dropped, allowing her to return to Ireland. Tori's case is due to be held next week, Ms Stirling added, and outlined the background of the case. Ms Stirling explained Ms Towey had moved to Dubai last year to pursue an aviation career. She was working as cabin crew for Emirates Airlines, and she ended up marrying a South African man. Things went south very quickly, and he became physically abusive to her. She went to hospital and had severe injuries. After that, there was another assault, and she broke free, ran up to the bathroom, and she woke up with paramedics and police over her, and she was taken to the police station and actually charged with attempted suicide and consuming alcohol, Ms Stirling said. She described it as absurd that a woman who had been assaulted would be further abused by the system. We have seen over the years rape victims charged with sex outside marriage. We've seen this kind of culture coming from the UAE before. This is the fastest I've ever seen this happen from a government, so I'm super impressed by Ireland's response They had made an effort for public relations purposes, they were starting to take women's rights a bit more seriously, victim rights, but it seems like nothing has changed, and this is truly astonishing that someone who's been beaten to the degree that she has bruises all over her body, and now she's being abused by the system itself again. Ms Stirling added: I find it outrageous, and I can see that's why there's so much support out there from Irish citizens, from politicians, from your leaders in your government. It's amazing to see people really standing behind her and wanting her home as soon as possible. Ms Stirling said Tori is currently recuperating in rental accommodation with her mother, and spoke to Ireland's ambassador to the UAE on Monday night. She is exhausted, and she's finding it very overwhelming, but at the same time, we're really, really warmed by all of the support that she's been getting, Ms Stirling said. I don't think she expected all of that. I don't think she expected the Irish Government to motivate themselves as quickly, and this is the fastest I've ever seen this happen from a government, so I'm super impressed by Ireland's response. We've dealt with many human rights issues like this, and when the government gets behind the citizen and talks to their counterparts, the Foreign Affairs Ministry in the UAE escalates it even to the ruler, Sheikh Mohammed, or the head of the police department and the justice system. When they do that, and they go the extra mile, rather than just deferring it and pretending they can't do anything, when they actually make the effort, they are successful in getting the citizens home. Ms Stirling added: She is very, very much looking forward to coming home and recovering from what's been an extremely terrible, shocking year for her, in fact. So I think she needs to heal. She needs to be around friends and family and the safety of her country. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can contact Womens Aid (24-hour freephone helpline at 1800-341 900, email helpline@womensaid.ie), Mens Aid Ireland (confidential helpline at 01-554 3811, email hello@mensaid.ie), or the Samaritans (24-hour confidential freephone helpline at 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org) for support and information. Safe Ireland also offers a number of local services and helplines at safeireland.ie/get-help/where-to-find-help/ Weather Alert Bulletin: ...FROST ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 9 AM EDT FRIDAY... * WHAT...Temperatures as low as 33 degrees will result in frost formation. * WHERE...A portion of central Pennsylvania. * WHEN...From 2 AM to 9 AM EDT Friday. * IMPACTS...Frost could harm sensitive outdoor vegetation. Sensitive outdoor plants may be killed if left uncovered. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Take steps now to protect tender plants and vegetation from the cold. Potted plants should be brought inside. The frost will occur mainly in valley locations. && Info: Type: Frost Advisory start_time_local: 2024-10-11T02:00:00-04:00 end_time_local: 2024-10-11T09:00:00-04:00 county_name: state: PA headline: Frost Advisory from FRI 2:00 AM EDT until FRI 9:00 AM EDT county_fips: category: Met url: urgency: Expected severity: Minor certainty: Likely geographicname: Schuylkill County state_name: Pennsylvania KYODO NEWS - Jul 10, 2024 - 13:40 | Arts, All Around 30 musicians from an academy founded by the late Seiji Ozawa commemorated the death of the famed Japanese conductor with a tribute concert in Geneva on Tuesday. His daughter, Seira Ozawa, was full of emotion as she watched the group of international students including Japanese nationals, alumni and professors of the Seiji Ozawa International Academy Switzerland, perform Arnold Schoenberg's "Transfigured Night." "I feel his presence here," she said in an address at the packed concert, which was open to the public. "I am so happy he can attend tonight through the music. I would like to thank you on behalf of my father." The concert was conducted by Kazuki Yamada, who is music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Japanese violinist Aoi Saito, who participated in the concert, said the tribute held a special meaning for her as she had performed with Ozawa twice. "I am always reflecting on my memory when I played with him in Japan," said Saito, 26. Brigitte Schlosser, 73, who was part of the audience, said she was "impressed by the level of the musicians and their young age." Ozawa, the iconic Japanese conductor known for his work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and other world-famous ensembles, died in Tokyo in February at the age of 88. In 2005, the maestro opened the academy, where he taught young musicians for free. Seira Ozawa stressed the bridge that her father had created between Japan and Switzerland through the academy. "While classical music started in Europe and arrived in Japan as something from Europe, this Swiss academy case is the opposite. It started in Japan and came to Switzerland," she said in an exclusive interview with Kyodo News on Monday before the concert. Related coverage: World-renowned Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa dies at 88 World mourns loss of "magician" Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa Renowned pianist Fujiko Hemming dies at 92 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an important partner in our peacekeeping mission, says Hungarian Prime Minister Voktor Orban in a post he shared on X, Azernews reports. Attending the NATO Summit held in Washington, Orban stressed that Turkiye is the only country that has successfully acted as a mediator between the warring parties in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Note that today the leaders of NATO countries have gathered in Washington, the capital of the USA, to discuss the Ukraine crisis, which is the main goal of the peace mission. MANILA, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Philippine police clashed with suspected criminals in Cotabato province in the southern Philippines on Wednesday morning, with at least six people killed, including a police officer, and six other police officers injured, local police said. Jennefer Amotan, police chief of the Aleosan town, said the firefight happened before 9 a.m. local time while policemen served a warrant to search a hideout believed to be hiding firearms and illegal drugs. A 33-year-old male police officer was killed and six others were wounded in the clash, she added. Amotan said the armed suspects opened fire at law enforcers, triggering a 30-minute firefight. The alleged leader of the criminal group and his four companions were killed in the operation. Amotan said the police recovered assorted types of firearms and explosives and illicit drugs. ISTANBUL, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Turkiye has recently launched a major archaeological project to uncover and preserve its heritage, ensuring these assets are passed on to future generations. Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry said in a statement that the initiative aims to achieve in the next four years what has taken 60 years in Turkiye's archaeology field, ensuring this period is remembered as "the Golden Age of Turkish Archaeology." The "Heritage to the Future Project" consolidates excavation, restoration, and landscaping efforts at all archaeological sites, which started within the past four years, it said. Under the project, Turkish scientists, appointed by the ministry, will oversee coordination at sites managed by 28 foreign researchers across 224 archaeological sites nationwide. Serdar Aybek, an academic at Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir, has been appointed coordinator for the ongoing 160-year archaeological excavations at Ephesus, led by the Australian Archaeological Institute. Aybek told Xinhua that the project will enable collaboration across various excavation sites and between Turkish and foreign scientists. Aybek also leads excavations at Metropolis, an ancient city in the Torbali district of Izmir near Ephesus. The site has been continuously occupied since the Neolithic period and boasts artifacts from the Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman, and Ottoman eras. He emphasized the historical bond between Ephesus and Metropolis, saying the project would yield new data, enhancing people's understanding of the interconnectedness between these ancient cities. The ministry has allocated 1.1 billion Turkish liras (about 33.4 million U.S. dollars) for excavation, restoration, and landscaping works, with plans to allocate an additional 6 billion liras in 2025. Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy recently emphasized that the government has begun allocating budgets for conservation and restoration for the first time to achieve their project goals. "With restoration budgets now included, we can conduct much faster and more detailed work," he noted. As part of the project, improvements of visitor welcome centers, lighting installations, and visitor management plans are also being implemented in publicly accessible areas. The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a game changer, a Pakistani economist has said. #GLOBALink Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), confers a flag of honor on an army company of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which was awarded the honorary title of "Model Rocket Artillery Company," and poses for photos with representatives of the awarded unit at a ceremony held by the CMC in Beijing, capital of China, July 9, 2024. [Xinhua/Li Gang] BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), on Tuesday conferred a flag of honor on an army company of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which was awarded the honorary title of "Model Rocket Artillery Company." Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president, presented the honorary flag at a ceremony held by the CMC in Beijing. Representatives of the awarded unit saluted Xi before accepting the flag. Xi extended his congratulations. At the ceremony, Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the CMC, read out an order to grant the honorary title signed by Xi. He Weidong, another vice chairman of the CMC, presided over the ceremony. (Source: Xinhua) Editor: Wang Shasha An aerial panoramic drone photo taken on Jan. 24, 2024 shows Yundang Lake and its surroundings in Xiamen, east China's Fujian Province. [Xinhua/Jiang Kehong] BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) In 1986, the Xiamen Daily newspaper in east China's Fujian Province launched an essay contest, inviting readers to express their expectations about what the coastal city of Xiamen would be like in 2000. The contest served as a platform to solicit public opinions for formulating the city's economic and social development plan from 1985 to 2000, a far-reaching undertaking led by Xi Jinping, then vice mayor of Xiamen. Later, ideas from more than 10 essays participating in the contest were adopted. "At that time, Xiamen urgently needed a development plan as a decision-making guide to achieve faster and better development," said Li Xiuji, then deputy secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Xiamen Municipal Committee. It took one and a half years to complete a document of over 200,000 words, which turned out to be the first 15-year economic and social development strategy adopted by a local government in the country. "Other places only drew up five-year plans at that time, but Xi did a 15-year plan and invited well-known experts to participate in the drafting. His foresightedness impressed us a lot," said Peng Yiwan, a member of the drafting group. Many ideas and measures in the plan were pioneering and forward-looking in retrospect. For instance, it stressed preventing pollution and maintaining ecological balance while developing the economy, unusual at that time as the country's economy was just beginning to take off. The plan has injected strong impetus into the sustainable development of Xiamen. From 1985 to 2023, the city's gross domestic product achieved an average annual growth rate of 14.1 percent, surpassing the growth rates at the national and provincial levels. Meanwhile, ecological environment remarkably improved, as the city led the country in water and air quality. Xi's forethought continued to make a difference as he worked as governor of Fujian Province in the early 2000s. He led the formulation of an overall plan for building Fujian into an eco-friendly province by 2020. To ensure the plan is well-crafted, he demanded local authorities spend a whole year on conducting extensive research. "In my experience, no governor would work in the same province for as long as 20 years. Xi's planning was for the future of the province and its people, rather than any short-term achievements to make himself look good during his tenure," said Li Zaiming, then chief of Fujian's environmental protection authority. Whether working at the local or central levels, Xi has always given great weight to planning in advancing the reform and opening up, which he deems as an arduous and complex task that demands thinking in the long run and prudent decision making. "History has taught us that the development of a place, without long-term planning, often leads to serious mistakes and even permanent regrets," Xi once said. Xi, now Chinese president, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, carried on the long-term perspectives after becoming the country's top leader. From national development plans and key reforms to international cooperation initiatives, he has stressed thorough research and meticulous planning in various undertakings, as well as relentless efforts in fulfilling the plans. In 2020, Xi led the drafting group for proposals for formulating the 14th five-year (2021-2025) plan for national economic and social development and long-range objectives through 2035. He presided over seven symposiums within three months to seek suggestions from representatives from all walks of life. He made field trips to enterprises and rural households to get firsthand information, sat down with rural migrant workers and couriers to heed their suggestions, and instructed authorities to solicit public opinions online. Aspiring to lead China toward a more prosperous future, Xi has always kept the blueprint of reform and development in mind. The key to making a blueprint come true, as he points out, lies in successful implementation. "As long as the blueprint is scientific, practical and in line with the aspirations of the people, we will continue to work on it until turning it into reality," Xi once said. Emphasizing planning and playing the long game is one of China's institutional advantages. This stands in stark contrast to the Western system, often characterized by frequent changes of governing political parties, difficulties in continuing policies, and challenges in implementing long-term plans, according to Zhang Weiwei, director of the China Institute of Fudan University. The construction of the Xiong'an New Area is another telling example of Xi's emphasis on planning and steady implementation in advancing reforms. The area aims to relieve Beijing of non-essential functions related to its status as the nation's capital while promoting the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Xi exhorted authorities to work out a high-level and scrupulous development plan before the construction began. "Construction should begin only after careful planning has been made for every inch of land," Xi said. Noting that the worth of any plan lies in its implementation, Xi stressed that laws and regulations must be in place to ensure that the new city's development plan is implemented thoroughly. Now Xiong'an has transitioned from concept to concrete reality, emerging as a cradle of new industries and innovation. Ahead of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, which will be held in Beijing from July 15 to 18 to primarily study issues concerning further comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernization, Xi again highlighted the significance of planning and implementation for reforms. "Reform hinges not only on planning but also on implementation of measures," Xi said at a symposium attended by representatives from businesses and academia in Jinan, Shandong Province, in May. (Source: Xinhua) Editor: Wang Shasha Prosecutors reopened an investigation that found Rina Gonoi, ex-member of Japan's Self-Defense Force, had endured physical and verbal sexual harassment daily between autumn 2020 and August 2021. GUIYANG, July 10 (Xinhua) -- A group of nearly 40 teachers and students from Indonesia have immersed themselves in the rich folk culture and ethnic customs of southwest China during an ongoing trip to the mountainous province of Guizhou. The Indonesian visitors are in Guizhou to attend the 2024 "Chinese Bridge" summer camp. Since the event started on July 1, the group have visited various places including the cities of Guiyang and Bijie, and Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture to experience intangible cultural heritage skills such as paper cutting, Tai Chi, as well as the making of hot and sour fish soup and medicine sachets. They also engaged in lively discussions about topics such as natural heritage, intangible cultural heritage, ethnic costumes and food culture. Geraldine Patricia, a junior majoring in Chinese language at ABA International Bandung in Indonesia, is in Guizhou for the first time. The trip "not only broadens my horizon, but also gives me the opportunity to learn more about Chinese culture," said Patricia. Her schoolmate, Richard Halim, is in love with Chinese martial arts and has been practicing martial arts for seven years. In order to have a deeper understanding of Chinese culture, Halim decided to major in Chinese language in college. Halim said the summer camp has offered the Indonesian students a chance to understand the local culture of Guizhou, taste its specialty cuisine, and enjoy China's beautiful natural environment. "I hope I can work in a joint venture of China and Indonesia in the future and contribute to the economic and trade exchanges between the two countries," Halim said. Jonatan Edrik Tanoto, 17, will study data science and policy studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in September this year. Tanoto has been impressed by the development of Chinese internet companies and the growing reputation of Chinese enterprises in the world. "In the past, it was 'made in China,' and now it is 'created in China.' I hope that my personal development can be integrated into China's industrial development in the future." Looking ahead, Tanoto hopes that cooperation between China and Indonesia will continue to deepen and provide more opportunities for the young people. "We aspire for the 'Chinese Bridge' summer camp to sow a seed of friendship in their hearts, which will flourish in the future," said Xia Jiangyi, an official at Guizhou Normal University, the host of the summer camp. "By fostering connections among the youth, we seek to strengthen cultural trust and promote economic and trade collaboration between the peoples of China and Indonesia," Xia added. A paramedic carries a wounded child to the emergency ward in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 9, 2024. NEW DELHI, July 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 18 people were killed and 19 others injured Wednesday after a double-decker bus carrying them crashed into a milk tanker in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, police said. The accident took place on the Lucknow-Agra expressway near Gadha village in Unnao district, about 68 km west of Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh. According to police, the double-decker bus traveling from Bihar's Sitamarhi to Delhi rammed into the milk container from behind. "Today at around 5:15 a.m. (local time), a private bus coming from Motihari-Bihar collided with a milk tanker on the national highway here. Eighteen people lost their lives and around 19 others were injured in the accident," Unnano district magistrate, Gaurang Rathi told media. "Initial investigation points out that the bus was overspeeding." Rathi said the injured were being treated at the nearest health facility and later referred to the district hospital. Immediately after the accident, locals informed police, who later rushed rescue teams and ambulances to the spot to ferry the injured to the hospital. "By the time we arrived on the spot, some locals were helping injured come out of the damaged bus," a police official said. "The damaged bus and the milk tanker have been removed from the road using a crane." Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has expressed anguish over the accident and directed the officials to ensure proper treatment of the injured. Police have registered a case and ordered an investigation to ascertain the cause of the crash. Deadly road accidents are common in India often caused due to overloading, bad condition of roads and reckless driving. Around 150,000 people are killed every year in about half a million road accidents across India, officials said. New York City retirees protesting against efforts to privatize their healthcare (WSWS Photo) Following mass opposition and legal challenges, the bureaucracy of New York Citys teachers union has withdrawn its support for a plan for sweeping attacks on healthcare. For the past three years, the city government, with the support of the United Federation of Teachers and the majority of 101 other public sector unions in the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC), has sought to privatize the healthcare of around 250,000 retired city employees. The move would push them onto an inferior Medicare Advantage plan (MAP) managed by a private insurer, Aetna. The move was first floated in July of 2021, claiming it would save the city, the center of world finance with the most billionaires in the world, hundreds of millions of dollars per year. After facing widespread opposition, an alternate plan was discussed which would also gut the healthcare of active city workers, which was also met with overwhelming hostility by workers. The move would inevitably increase pre-authorization requirements for essential medical services. Many healthcare providers also do not accept Medicare Advantage plans. From the beginning, the austerity measure hinged on key support from the citys union bureaucracy in the UFT, AFSCME District 37, Sanitation Workers Teamsters Local 831 and other major city unions. The UFTs official withdrawal of support was announced last month by president Michael Mulgrew, who is also executive co-chair of the MLC. The union no doubt intends it to be received among workers as their having listened to rank-and-file opposition. In a letter dated June 23, Mulgrew said of the citys Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, It has become apparent that this administration is more interested in cutting its costs than honestly working with us to provide high-quality health care to city workers. This is staggering hypocrisy, given the fact that Mulgrew and the MLC have been leading advocates of the healthcare austerity plan from the beginning, working with both the ex-cop Adams and his predecessor Bill de Blasio. In fact, the withdrawal of support commits the union to little. The MAP proposal was already on life support, following a series of lawsuits brought by retiree organizations, which are currently being appealed by the Adams administration. While the measures were supported by the overwhelming majority of the citys union bureaucrats, they were deeply unpopular among retirees and active workers. Tens of thousands of retirees within the MLC donated money to lawsuits against the move. The apparent end of this particular plan is no cause for complacency by teachers and other city workers. There can be no doubt that similarly massive austerity measures are being worked out jointly between the MLC and the Adams administration. This is because the orientation of the bureaucracy is determined, not by rank-and-file pressure, but by the needs and demands of US capitalism. The MAP is only part of a nationwide assault on public education, which is accelerating this year due to a fiscal cliff created by the withdrawal of COVID funding by the Biden Administration. While schools are being starved of funds, both parties are backing record spending on the US war machine, which topped $850 billion in the latest national budget. Major cuts are already underway, both in smaller districts such as Flint and Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well as major urban districts such as San Diego, Los Angeles and Detroit . In Chicago, the city is seeking to close a $400 million deficit in contract talks this summer. To fight these cuts, teachers must organize a rank-and-file rebellion across the country, building committees of action at every major school district and coordinating joint action in defense of the right to public education. This requires a fight against the teachers union bureaucrats, who are closing ranks with Democratic Party-controlled city administrations to impose these cuts. In Chicago, mayor Brandon Johnson is even an ex-union staffer, who, predicting school cuts during his election campaign, said, Who is better able to deliver bad news to a friend than a friend? On a national level, the teachers unions are key backers of the Democrats and the pro-war Biden White House. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, who began her career as a union official in the UFT, is also a member of the Democratic National Committee and crisscrosses the globe promoting US-backed wars from Ukraine to the Middle East. While promoting neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine as defenders of democracy against Russia, she has joined the slanders against students and educators protesting the Gaza genocide as antisemites. Weingarten, together with the AFT as a whole, also played a key role in overriding the opposition of teachers and parents to the forced reopening of schools during the height of the pandemic in 2021 and 2022. This cost countless lives but was considered necessary by Wall Street to get parents back to work. New York City teachers sought to register their opposition to the UFTs betrayals by voting for opposition candidates in recent union elections. On June 13, the Unity Caucus, the UFTs long-time dominant faction, lost the leadership election of the unions Retired Teacher Chapter (RTC) by a significant margin. The Retiree Advocate slate (RA), a faction within the union led by recently elected RTC president Bennett Fischer, unseated the Unity Caucus by over 7,000 votes. Unity was also unseated in the election for the chapter representing paraprofessionals by the Fix Para Pay slate, another oppositional UFT faction. But teachers will not find in these reform groups, which function as a loyal opposition inside the bureaucracy, a means to organize a fight against sellouts. These factions are seeking to create a similar framework as in Chicago, where the reform Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators has controlled the Chicago Teachers Union for more than a decade, helping to impose massive cuts. On June 18, Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten attended a monthly membership meeting of the RTC, where they stumped for the re-election of Biden. Revealing perhaps more than he intended, Mulgrew stated, This chapter is the muscle in the campaign for Biden. Tom Murphy (left), the current leader of the UFT Retiree Chapter and Bennett Fischer (right), the incoming leader, stand with AFT President Randi Weingarten Weingarten urged retirees to support Bidens reelection campaign and attempted to channel their anger by cynically exulting the opposition to MAP, stating, [t]here is a lot of fear over Medicare. This message will be respected. Fischer made no attempt to criticize or distance himself against this in the meeting, effectively endorsing it by his silence. In a follow-up to the June 18 meeting on the RA website, Fischer concluded a memo with an appeal to Mulgrew to work with the very same Democrats behind the attack on the benefits of workers. We call on UFT President Michael Mulgrew to support legislation in the NY City Council, and in Albany, to protect our Medicare & Supplemental health benefits on both the city and State levels, he wrote. The two-party system, which the bureaucracy has promoted for decades, is now in deep crisis, with both Democrats and Republicans deeply hated by working people and Bidens reelection on the verge of collapse due to his advanced senility. The bureaucrats have worked to shield the Democrats in particular from mass outrage over Bidens role in the genocide in Gaza, as well as the role of Democratic and Republican officials at the state and local level in mass arrests against protesters. But from the UFT to other unions across the country, the bureaucracy itself is also in crisis, as anger continues to mount over sellouts and their close ties to the hated corporate parties. Recently, a federal judge ruled in favor of a lawsuit by Will Lehman, a socialist autoworker who ran for president of the United Auto Workers in 2022, effectively confirming that reform president Shawn Fain was elected on the basis of massive vote suppression. Now, autoworkers are pushing for new elections, controlled by the rank and file. A rebellion by workers is needed to seize control out of the hands of these pro-corporate officials. Rather than wasting time and energy fruitlessly trying to reform the apparatus from the inside, the bureaucracy must be smashed and replaced with new democratic structures, rank-and-file committees, actually controlled by workers themselves. Regardless of who controls the UFT, workers are faced with the need to build a powerful movement, not just in New York City but around the world, fighting for hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on Wall Street and war to be used for public education and other critical social needs. An American-led combat unit in Ukraine has committed war crimes, according to revelations published July 5 in the New York Times. Composed of volunteers from 30 countries, the Chosen Company executed surrendering and captured Russian soldiers during a number of operations last year. The newspapers report is based on the eyewitness account of a medic serving in the unit, a review of text messages and video footage, and interviews with company members. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, and U.S. President Joe Biden shake hands during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine in February 2023 [AP Photo/Ukrainian Presidential Press Office] The forces involved, part of a network of foreign far-right paramilitaries active in Ukraine, have close ties to the American state and were feted in Washington earlier this year. Its exploits have been praised in the Western media. The New York Times notably omits these facts from its expose, which documents the gross violations of the Geneva Conventions. Last August, an unarmed Russian soldier pleading for medical help was shot in the chest and head by two Chosen Company combatants. In October, a grenade was thrown at a Russian fighter who, having tossed away his weapon, approached with his hands raised. The perpetrator, a Greek member of the unit under the command of American Ryan OLeary, laughed and boasted. Video footage shows that, contrary to OLearys efforts to claim that his forces were under threat, the Russian soldier was unarmed, while one of his compatriots was dead and another wounded and unresponsive. Coming out of a battle that same month, a member of the fascist militia, speaking about Russian POWs his unit had captured, demanded to know why the fuck arent they sleeping. He insisted that the unit sort em out. Afterwards, fighters bragged about executing captured soldiers in text messages. Another asked whether there was any video of an execution and declared that since there was none, it would only come out if someone grasses. A journal entry about the incident by German Chosen Company volunteer Caspar Grosse, who spoke to the Times, states: Today a good friend willingly executed a bound prisoner. As the prisoner was sitting in a trench blendage (sic) with his jacket draped over his shoulders, Zeus came up behind him and shot him into the back of the head multiple times. Going to bed. Group chat messages by a fighter with the call sign Andok declared, If anything comes out about alleged POW blamming, I ordered it. After posting the image of a Croatian war criminal, he then wrote, At the Hague I regret nothing! Threats against anyone who speaks out circulate widely in the unit. Benjamin Reed, an American from Massachusetts who left the paramilitary unit in November 2023, told the newspaper that he had heard, to such a large degree, innumerable conversations, about the executions of P.O.W.s on various operations, and that even the units recruiter told him that it was OK to kill P.O.W.s if they didnt surrender in the strictest Geneva Convention standards. In January of this year, he described the Chosen Company as kill-crazy cowboys, nothing more. The paramilitary unitthe name of which indicates that its members believe they are on a mission from Godwas, according to its website, raised and organised in collaboration with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and is a multinational force of veterans. Attached to the Ukrainian militarys 59th motorized brigade, its purpose is to organise and operate a NATO-standardised unit. The groups films, posted on YouTube, glorify and appeal to extreme violence. No one will save you, states a gruesome voice accompanying war scenes on its online recruiting video. Once you go past that line, its a whole different world, where no rules of society come into play. Its just pure violence, death and destruction, said a Chosen Company fighter in a YouTube interview with right-wing Australian social media personality Willy OAM, who enthusiastically promotes the paramilitaries. The Chosen Company has arisen from the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine (ILDU), a collection of far-right foreign mercenaries mobilized by the government in Kiev and armed by Washington. It is known for its brutality and lawlessness. Its members thieve, steal, lie and engage in vicious infighting as they seek to lay hold of the spoils of war, notes a March 2023 New York Times article about these forces. In addition to serving on the front lines in Ukraine, they are the backbone of a far-right gun-running operation, channeling American and European arms to an international network of murderous, pro-imperialist psychopaths that spans all six inhabited continents. The Ukrainian government, which has applied for and been granted exemptions by the European Union from the European Human Rights Convention, told the Times that the war crimes revealed last week will be thoroughly examined. The Biden administration has ignored the revelations and issued no comment. Neither Ukraine nor the US has ever conducted any war crimes investigations into acts committed by Ukrainian forces, despite the fact that, as the Washington-based Wilson Center recently stated, human rights violations are a well-known and toxic issue in the Ukrainian military. The murder of civilians, the humiliation of Russian soldiers dead bodies and the torment of their families, the killing of surrendering soldiers, the persecution of alleged collaborators and traitors, and the intentional targeting of residential areas are all established practices of the Ukrainian military, although they receive no coverage in the Western media. Kiev, which has suspended freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and elections, is violently rounding up men for the draft and suppressing all opposition to the war. Since April 25, Trotskyist opponent of the war Bogdan Syrotiuk has been under arrest on trumped-up charges of colluding with the Russian government. The World Socialist Web Site is now banned in Ukraine. Meanwhile, every war crimealleged or realof the Russian government is broadcast to the world as a sign of Putins savagery and evidence of the supposed democratic aims of Ukraines war. The Times article on the war crimes of the Chosen Company covers up as much as it reveals. Overall, the piece gives the impression of an exercise in damage control. The article indicates that the German medic who provided the eyewitness account of the war crimes reached out to the newspaper in October 2023. In other words, the editors sat on the story for 10 months. The Times made sure that its report did not appear before a massive funding bill for the Ukrainian military made its way through Congress this past spring. The author leaves out of the article the fact that Ryan OLeary, the head of the Chosen Company and an interviewee featured in the story, met with Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill last March. As part of the campaign to get billions more for NATOs war, he told legislators, We still need artillery, we need mortars. We need short- and mid-range [systems], like [High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems] missiles, to effectively do offensive maneuvers and also provide defense, reported Stars and Stripes on March 13. He got what he asked for. Knowing that the revelations of Chosen Companys war crimes would come out eventually because the German medic who reported them to the newspaper made clear he intended to reveal what he had witnessed, the Times likely decided to publish in order to control what was said about the paramilitary group and its ties to the American state. It was confident that the story would be buried by other press outlets, which are implicated in the glorification of the unit. In this vein, the Times article fails to point out that the Chosen Company has been hailed and its fallen heroes venerated in the Western media. Last year, press agencies around the world produced sympathetic reports of videos of Chosen Company battles posted on social media. They also published material about members killed in these conflicts, including in one case a rapturous interview with one fighters widow, which features a photo of the US military veteran brandishing a machine gun. The battles highlighted in this press coverage line up with the dates of those during which, according to the Times reporting, war crimes occurred. The newspaper was aware of these allegations when other publications were celebrating the Chosen Company, and it remained silent. The press outlets involved in touting the allegedly glorious efforts of the Chosen Company span much of the political spectrum and include everything from Stars and Stripes, Task and Purpose, military.com, and the Hillpublications associated with the US government and Washingtons political insidersto Oregon Public Broadcasting, a branch of American public radio adored by liberals. Australian Public Broadcasting and numerous Irish publications also jumped on the bandwagon, honoring the deaths of countrymen killed fighting for Ukraines liberation. Jean-Luc Melenchon, center, delivers a speech after the second round of the legislative elections [AP Photo/Thomas Padilla] The New Popular Front (NFP) carried Sundays snap elections in France, as a surge in left-wing sentiment among workers and youth blocked a victory of the far-right National Rally (RN) and led to a debacle for President Emmanuel Macrons Ensemble coalition. Workers and youth want an end to the rule of the banks, where the police state imposes policies on every great issue rejected by the vast majority. Seventy percent of the population reject Macrons call to send troops to Ukraine to wage war with Russia. There is broad revulsion at the Gaza genocide, opponents of which have been pursued on bogus anti-terrorism charges. And 70 percent also oppose Macrons pension cuts, which he imposed last year without a vote, sending cops to assault mass protests until union bureaucrats capitulated, calling off the strikes. The NFP is, however, swinging sharply to the right in the aftermath of the election, as the product of its very own bankrupt, opportunist election strategy. It entered into an alliance with Macron against the RN, withdrawing its own candidates to strengthen Ensemble and Macron. After the elections, Melenchon has focused entirely on negotiations with right-wing forces in the capitalist state, repeatedly asking Macron to name him prime minister, which Macron has refused to do. In the meantime, the motley alliance of disparate parties that makes up the NFP is collapsing, as divisions erupt between Melenchons middle-class populist France Unbowed (LFI) party and the big-business Socialist Party (PS). There has been an outpouring of praise of the NFP from middle-class pseudo-left groups, but its rotten foundations are rapidly becoming very clear. Much of the NFP is moving to openly ally with Macron, even as Macron refuses to honor parliamentary tradition and name Melenchon prime minister. Forces around Clementine Autain threaten to leave LFI and back a government led by the PS and the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF) working with Macron. PS European candidate Raphael Glucksmann demands that the NFP get beyond ourselves, while PCF chairman Fabien Roussel demands it show it can listen. By thus blocking working class opposition to the capitalist state and Macron, the NFP strengthens Marine Le Pen, the leader of the RN. It opens a path for her to keep denouncing the left as a tool of the banks hostile to the French people, and consolidate support among millions of workers who voted RN out of disillusionment and bitterness with past PS governments austerity policies. The situation in Frances corrupt political establishment is a travesty of the real state of political relations. In France and internationally, there is overwhelming popular opposition to imperialism, fascism, genocide, police state rule, and social inequality. The struggle against Macron and Le Pen cannot be artificially limited to the parliament, but must find expression in a genuine revolutionary program for the class struggle. A counteroffensive of strikes and protests in the working class must be prepared and initiated, mobilizing the left-wing sentiment among masses of workers and youth on demands that express the masses objectively revolutionary opposition to capitalism. This is the way forward against both Macron and Le Pen, smashing the trap being set by forces in the NFP who tie anti-fascist sentiment to a debilitating alliance with the bourgeoisie and Frances president of the rich. The NFP is moving to repeat within France the role of allies of Melenchon and the PCF like SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left) in Greece and Podemos in Spain. A Stalinist-populist coalition, SYRIZA was elected in 2015, promising to end EU austerity policies. In power, it formed a coalition with the right-wing Independent Greeks (ANEL) and promptly betrayed its promises, imposing billions of euros in EU cuts and setting up EU detention camps for refugees. Podemos came to power in 2019 and seamlessly integrated itself into an anti-worker government led by the big-business Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE). It sent police to attack workers striking to demand security measures against COVID-19, oversaw the distribution of billions of euros of EU pandemic bailouts to major corporations, and directed brutal police crackdowns on truckers and metalworkers strikes. It armed the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine after the NATO-Russia war began in 2022, and sent weapons to Israel amid the Gaza genocide. In the current explosive political situation, such betrayals of the hopes and expectations of the people can only produce disastrous consequences. Capitalist officials in France and all the NATO imperialist countries live in mortal fear of the masses. They openly plot imperialist war abroad and class war and dictatorship at home. Since various suppressed angers could all explode at once, far-right General Pierre de Villiers has written in one far-right magazine, We must think the unthinkable. The rule of law is obviously respectable, but at a certain moment one has to think strategically. The working class needs its own demands around which to mobilize its social and industrial power against the reactionary maneuvers of the ruling class. Such demands are the basis for winning back workers currently voting for the RN to support left-wing and socialist politics, and to fight fascism, genocide and war by struggling against capitalism. The Parti de legalite socialiste advances for this purpose the following demands: No to imperialist war! Stop war with Russia, dismantle NATO! French troops out of Africa and the Middle East! The NATO war against Russia, rejected by the overwhelming majority of the people, must be stopped. The vast military budget Macron imposed last year to pay for it, financed by his pension cuts, must be rescinded. Workers must demand France leave the imperialist NATO alliance, which threatens to trigger nuclear war, as part of an international struggle of the working class to dismantle NATO and stop its wars. Troops posted to neo-colonial wars in the Middle East and Africa must come home. Stop the Gaza genocide! No persecution of opponents of genocide! Workers in France and internationally must block the production and delivery of arms to the Israeli regime for the Gaza genocide. The prosecution of opponents of the Gaza genocide on bogus anti-terrorism or antisemitism charges must end, and fines and prison sentences imposed on them must be lifted. Israeli officials charged with genocide by international tribunals, as well as French and NATO officials complicit in this genocide, must be prosecuted. Abolish the Fifth Republics executive presidency! Macron rules against the people by police repression and mass arrests of strikers and protesters. His CRS riot police descend from Nazi-collaborationist allies of Nazi SS units that fought the Resistance, as the CRS=SS slogan of the 1948 miners strike and the 1968 general strike recalls. They must be dissolved, together with the executive presidency of the 1958 Constitution, based on which Macron threatened last month to suspend parliament and exercise absolute power. Abrogate Macrons pension cuts, impound bank bailouts, billions for jobs and social programs! Macrons illegitimate pension cuts must be rescinded, and the anti-democratic diktat of the banks over society broken. Workers must reject the lie that there is no money for social programs and jobs. Money must be found by impounding the hundreds of billions of euros of public funds grabbed by the financial aristocracy over the past decades in repeated bank bailouts that turned France into the country with Europes wealthiest billionaires. Stop the persecution of refugees and immigrants, for the international unity of the working class! The mobilization of the working class in struggle requires unrelenting opposition to the bourgeoisies attempts to divide it by inciting nationalism. Workers must oppose both the RNs calls to expedite mass expulsions of undocumented workers and strip dual nationals of French citizenship and anti-immigrant measures backed by Macron and the NFP. These include EU laws denying the right to asylum, setting up mass detention camps like those built by SYRIZA in Greece, and humiliating laws banning Muslim religious clothing in French schools. For the United Socialist States of Europe Workers and youth in France have powerful allies in this struggle among the millions of workers across Europe and internationally opposed to war, fascism, genocide and austerity. French union bureaucrats and parliamentarians will stand in the way. The way forward is for workers to build their own rank-and-file organizations of struggle and build a political movement to transfer power to the working class in France, across Europe and internationally, and replace the capitalist European Union with the United Socialist States of Europe. A man arrives at a UAW Hall in Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, January 14, 2016. [AP Photo/Patrick Semansky] On Monday, the court-appointed monitor in charge of overseeing the investigation into the ongoing corruption scandal in the United Auto Workers leadership filed a motion in federal court asking Judge David Lawson to order the UAW to produce documents that the bureaucracy has been withholding relating to misuse of funds and other potentially criminal acts. Though the monitor is careful to protect the facts of the investigation from becoming known to rank-and-file autoworkers, its motion and the 16 attached exhibits make clear that all claims the UAW bureaucracy has been reformed are patently false, and that the monitorship itself is breaking down. The first sentence of the monitors motion demanding court intervention begins: The success of the Consent Decree between the United States [i.e., the federal government] and the UAW stands at a critical juncture. The UAWs refusal to promptly produce documents requested by the monitor for use in investigating three current members of the Unions highest governing body, the International Executive Board, risks undermining the purpose of the monitors appointment and the objectives of the Decree. The UAW bureaucracy has effectively stalled the Monitors work, the motion reads. The ongoing investigations of misuse of workers dues money by UAW President Shawn Fain, Vice President Richard Boyer, Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock and a still-unnamed Regional Director would likely have been resolved by now had the Union cooperated with the monitors requests. Due to UAW stonewalling, the monitor states it has been unable to effectively carry out his responsibility to remove fraud, corruption, illegal behavior, dishonesty, and unethical practices from the UAW. The motion explains the UAWs efforts to block the release of internal documents has deprived the Monitor of the ability to fully uncover the facts and that the monitor cannot do his job of investigating and addressing allegations of corruption and criminal misconduct by the unions senior-most leaders under the Unions reading of the Consent Decree. The UAW bureaucracys refusal to provide all the documents related to the monitors search terms urgently raises the need for all such documents to be immediately released to the rank and file. Moreover, it underscores the need for new UAW elections to throw the corrupt leadership out of office and put power back on the shop floor, as the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees called for in a statement last week. The UAW has refused to send the monitor documents that refer to open threats or acts of criminal violence, including cut throat, slit throat, punch, smack, knock out, and, ominously, kill. They are withholding emails and messages that refer to the words destroy, abuse, intimidate, threat, harass, yell, or scream, blacklist, and fear, as well as a string of vile profanities not fit for printing. The UAW is likewise blocking access to terms that would refer to misuse of workers dues money, including quid pro quo, credit card, money, travel, fund, car, rent, gas, hotel, room, account, fund, pay, reimburse, breakfast, lunch, dinner, takeout, delivery, and the entire term request for approval of travel and expense policy exception. The monitor suggested these search terms because it has information indicating that such terms would be found among the UAWs documents. Other documents attached as exhibits hint at individuals and avenues for investigation. An internal appeal filed by Richard Boyer states that Shawn Fain asked for favors for his domestic partner and her sister that would have violated the UAW Ethical Practices Codes Financial Practices. Fains fiancee is a financial analyst at the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center, where Fain previously was a co-director. Opaque references are also made by the monitor to an incident in 2018 involving Harvey Hawkins, a bureaucrat. Referring to various other bureaucrats, another document includes attachments titled Chris Brooks [Communications Director] online store email, Dave Green [Region 2B Director] Call 2-14-24, Lauren Farrell [Region 9 Intl Rep] Expense Policy Exception, Mike Miller [Region 6 Director] United Farm Workers, and Yard Signs Design and Shipping Info. If leading UAW bureaucrats in the Fain administration were innocent of the charges against them, they would be rushing to produce documents that exonerate themselves. Instead, the bureaucracy is blocking the facts from coming to light. As the monitors report explains, On February 29, 2024 the monitor sent a letter to the Unions General Counsel requesting that the Union produce six categories of documents relating to the President-Secretary-Treasurer Investigation. More than a month later, on April 3, 2024, the Union produced just 18 documents in response to these requests, all from one Union employee The monitors motion explains that after it filed the Ninth Status Report on June 18, 2024, laying out the widening investigations of leading UAW bureaucrats, it attempted to engage in dialogue with the bureaucracy to avoid asking the federal court to intervene to prevent the collapse of the monitorship. According to the monitor, the UAW and its lawyers refused, even when advised otherwise by the Department of Justice. The result of this breakdown was the filing of Mondays motion. The monitor goes out of its way to make clear it aims to help the UAW bureaucracy keep the details of the investigation hidden from the rank and file, especially as it pertains to the sellout contracts it reached with the auto companies in 2023. In a footnote buried on page 17 of the motion, the monitor writes: The unions concern is apparently not about interference with its control of collective bargaining decisions, but the potential disclosure of collective information. That concern is unfounded, as the monitor has had access to highly sensitive union documents from the start of the monitorship and has not inadvertently disclosed such information. Elsewhere, the monitor refers to the fact that it is not publicly identifying the name of the regional director accused of embezzling workers dues money, though it does not provide any explanation as to why. In other words, the monitor has been systematically collaborating with the bureaucracy to prevent the facts relating to sellout contracts from coming to the attention of the UAWs more than 1 million active and retired rank-and-file members. The monitor and the bureaucracy are well aware that anger is growing on shop floors and in university classrooms across the country as a result of pro-corporate deals arranged by the bureaucracy behind workers backs. Thousands of temporary and full-time workers have lost their jobs as a result of the Big Three contracts reached in 2023. Academic workers who are members of the UAW face police attacks and expulsion on University of California campuses for exercising their free speech right to protest the genocide in Gaza. Mondays filing exposes that the ostensible purpose of the monitorship has broken down. For years, leading politicians, UAW bureaucrats and the monitor law firms themselves have claimed that the 2023 election of Shawn Fain resulted in a fundamental change in the UAW and that the years-long corruption scandal was a thing of the past. This was why the monitor and the UAW bureaucracy collaborated to suppress voter turnout in the 2022 national officers election: to deny the rank and file a chance to abolish the apparatus and help the bureaucracy save face to better suppress the working class. The goal of the UAW and the monitor (which was drawn from two corporate law firms, Jenner and Block and Crowell and Moring) was to ensure the race was between two bureaucrats, Ray Curry and Shawn Fain, with no representation from the rank and file. Will Lehman, a socialist rank-and-file autoworker from Macungie, Pennsylvania, ran and won nearly 5,000 votes despite massive voter suppression. Two weeks ago, the federal judge overseeing the corruption scandal granted Lehman a victory in his lawsuit against Bidens Department of Labor, which refused to conduct an investigation into voter suppression. Lehman issued the following statement in response to Mondays filing: The bureaucracys time in power is getting close to the end. There are thousands of autoworkers facing job cuts because of the lies the bureaucracy told about the 2023 contracts. Academic workers are being assaulted by police for protesting. Workers like Tywaun Long at Ford and Daulton Simmers at Caterpillar are dying on the job as a result of speed-ups and unsafe conditions. The auto bosses are traveling the world talking openly about how many plants they will close, and what is the bureaucracy doing? Scrambling to hide the evidence of their ongoing corruption and conspiracies with the companies. The auto companies lawyers at the monitor law firms have done everything they could to collaborate with the bureaucracy and prop it up. The monitor agreed to limit the search terms and cut the documents requested from 200,000 to 100,000. But the weight of corruption and parasitism in the bureaucracy is proving too heavy for the monitor to process. We, the workers, need to take control to abolish the bureaucracy and return power to the rank and file. Thats why I am calling for new elections with full voting rights for all. Speaking outside the Capitol Monday evening, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the most prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), delivered a vociferous defense of President Joe Biden and his embattled reelection campaign. President Joe Biden, left, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Earth Day, Monday, April 22, 2024, in Triangle, Virginia. [AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta] I have spoken to the president over the weekend. I have spoken with him extensively, the DSA member said. He made clear thenand he has made it clear sincethat he is in this race. Ocasio-Cortez added, The matter is closed. He had reiterated that this morning. He has reiterated that to the public. The last was a reference to a public letter and follow-up telephone interview Biden gave on Monday. Joe Biden is our nominee, she concluded. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race, and I support him. Ocasio-Cortezs statements came less than two weeks after the Democratic Socialists of America published a statement calling on Biden to drop out of the race. Essentially a faction of the Democratic Party, the DSA warned on June 28, the day after Bidens disastrous debate with Donald Trump: If Biden is the nominee in November, Trump will be president in January, and corporate Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves. Seeking to replace the semi-senile Biden with a more palatable Democrat, the DSA embarked on a letter-writing campaign aimed at the Democratic Party leadership. On July 3, the DSA X/Twitter account urged its followers and members to sign a letter telling the party leadership that it was time to Withdraw Biden and Reject fascism. Less than a week later, the most prominent member of the DSA, Ocasio-Cortez, has not only refused to endorse the DSAs campaign but is publicly leading the campaign to quash calls to replace Genocide Joe! One could hardly imagine a more devastating exposure of the unprincipled and bankrupt politics of the DSA and the milieu more generally of pseudo-left organizations of the privileged middle class. The DSA has nothing to do with socialist, much less revolutionary politics. It exists to block the independent intervention of the working class, on the basis of a socialist program, into the mortal crisis of American and world capitalism and its descent into barbarism. That is why it populates and promotes the corrupt and pro-corporate union bureaucracy, represented by figures such as UAW President Shawn Fain, which betrays the struggles and interests of workers and seeks to subordinate them to American imperialisms policy of war against Russia and genocide in Gaza. Whatever vague left verbiage they employ, the DSA and similar organizations are pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist. They above all defend the subordination of the working class to a two-party system by means of which various factions of billionaire oligarchs exercise a de facto dictatorship. Only a few months ago, the DSA supported the Uncommitted campaign in the Democratic primary electionsa trap to keep workers and youth, who are outraged over Bidens support for genocide in Gaza and police repression against pro-Palestinian demonstrators, trapped within the confines of the Democratic Party. Throughout, the DSA, including Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, has given tacit support to the centerpiece of the Democrats global war policythe war against Russia in Ukraine, which threatens to trigger a nuclear holocaust. AOC is not the only Squad member to answer the call to prop up Biden. In a comment to an Axios reporter on Monday, Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley said, We are losing the plot, Joe Biden is the nominee. Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, having featured Bidens endorsement of her in a campaign advertisement on Monday, told the Washington Post that same day: Hes been the best president of my lifetime, and we have his back. This is under conditions where the highly regarded medical journal The Lancet has published a study estimating that at least 186,000 people, or 8 percent of the Gazan population, have been killed thus far in Israels war of annihilation carried out with US weapons and political support. Ahead of a virtual meeting Biden held Tuesday night with Democratic mayors from major cities around the country, DSA-backed Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson issued a statement on X/Twitter saying he was looking forward to speaking with the president tonight, and adding that Biden is the president and our Democratic nominee... Mayor of Chicago Brandon Johnson and Biden [Photo: Twitter] Also in the last 72 hours, self-declared progressive senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom challenged Biden for the presidency in 2020, have reendorsed Bidens campaign. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has likewise lined up behind Biden. The Washington Post reported that in a Zoom call with roughly half of the CBC on Friday night, followed by another virtual meeting with some 60 members of the Caucus on Monday, not a single Black House Democrat has defected. While a chorus of Democrats has come out in defense of Biden, on Tuesday, New Jersey Democratic Representative Mikie Sherrill, a former active duty Navy helicopter pilot who voted in favor of the recent $95 billion war package to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, as well as the TikTok ban, became the seventh House Democrat to publicly call on Biden to withdraw. In her statement, Sherrill asked that Biden declare that he wont run for reelection and will help lead us through a process toward a new nominee. She praised Biden for honorably serving this country for more than 50 years with grace and dignity, including his support for Ukraine and democracies around the world. With the NATO summit underway, Sherrill represents a faction of the military-intelligence apparatus worried that Bidens continued presence at the top of the ticket could lead to a Donald Trump presidency, imperiling their far-advanced war plans and possibly the entire US-led security framework established in the wake of World War II. This fear was spelled out in a Washington Post editorial published Monday, Bidens choices affect NATO, too. While praising Biden for his role in expanding NATO and waging war against Russia, the Post wrote that Bidens quest for a second term in spite of signs he might not be up to the job, could jeopardize these foreign policy successes by increasing the odds that Mr. Trump wins. Other sections of the financial oligarchy and Pentagon fear that a second Trump presidency would threaten not only US imperialist objectives and institutions abroad, but the collapse of the entire traditional framework of bourgeois rule within the United States itself. In an extraordinary statement published by the New York Times Editorial Board on Monday, the newspaper called on leading Democratic Party members to publicly intervene against Biden and force him out of the race. For those at the helm of the Democratic Party, the Times wrote, including the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer; the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries; and even the former House speaker Nancy Pelosithe time has arrived to speak forcefully to the president and the public [emphasis added] about the need for a new candidate, before time runs out for other candidates to make their case to the partys convention delegates. At the height of the Watergate crisis in 1974, congressional Republican leaders, including senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Rep. John Jacob Rhodes, privately informed Nixon he no longer had the support of Congress, faced impeachment by the House and conviction and removal by the Senate, and should step down. Nearly 50 years later, the Times is calling on Democratic Party congressional leaders to publicly demand that Biden end his reelection bid. The Times Editorial Board, having downplayed the Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling of July 1 that transformed the US president into a de facto dictator, noted, between parentheses, that under the ruling by the six-justice fascistic supermajority on the court, a reelected Trump could break the law ... with no fear of criminal prosecution. In all of the furor surrounding Biden, nothing is being said by either side about the policies of Biden and the Democratic Partyescalating war against Russia, genocide against the Palestinians, preparations for war against China, and intensifying austerity and repression to make the working class foot the bill. That is because there is full agreement on all sides on this program of war and counterrevolution. There is nothing remotely progressive or democratic about either side in the increasingly bitter conflict within the Democratic Partyand the factions of billionaire oligarchs that fund it and the military brass and CIA killers who control it. It is a fight over the best instrument for carrying out the deadly policies of US imperialism. The alternative on offer is the open fascist Trump and the increasingly fascistic Republican Party. Such is the choice presented to the working class by capitalism. It is urgent that the working class mobilize to impose its solutionthe expropriation of the oligarchs, a workers democracy and socialism. A group of highly qualified, independent UN experts declared in a statement Tuesday that there is no doubt that famine has spread throughout the entire Gaza strip as a consequence of a deliberate policy of mass starvation against Palestinians by the Israeli government. Palestinians crowded together as they wait for food distribution in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has limited the amount of food and water allowed to enter the territory, causing widespread hunger across the strip. [AP Photo/Hatem Ali] The experts pointed to three children in particular who died of malnutrition and lack of access to adequate healthcare: Fayez Ataya, who was barely six months old, died on 30 May 2024 and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on 1 June 2024 at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. Nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died on 3 June 2024 in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. Their statement explained that the death of a child from malnutrition and dehydration indicates that health and social structures have been attacked and are critically weakened. When the first child dies from malnutrition and dehydration, it becomes irrefutable that famine has taken hold, they said. The experts explicitly condemned Israels genocide. We declare that Israels intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza. We call upon the international community to prioritise the delivery of humanitarian aid by land by any means necessary, end Israels siege, and establish a ceasefire, they stated. After pointing to earlier infant deaths confirming famine in northern Gaza, the group indirectly censured all the imperialist powers, above all the United States, that have backed to the hilt Israels barbaric onslaught in Gaza which has reduced its buildings to rubble and its people to refugees constantly facing death by starvation, disease and bombardment. The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israels genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths, the experts declared. Thirty-four Palestinians have died from malnutrition since 7 October, the majority being children. Inaction is complicity. The group of 10 are special rapporteurs and independent experts appointed under the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council. Their statement follows the publication this month in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet of a study demonstrating that the likely death toll in Gaza since October 7 is vastly higher than the official number of deaths recorded by Gaza Ministry of Healthcurrently more than 38,000. The study noted that the official death toll did not include the many thousands that remain buried under the rubble that is now Gaza nor those that have died from the lack of food, healthcare and sanitation. Its conservative estimate is that 186,000 people have died as a consequence of Israels genocidal war, or 8 percent of the total population, but the figure could be much higher. The Lancet study has been barely reported in the US and Western mainstream media, another sign of their supportdespite occasional hypocritical hand wringingfor the imperialist-backed Israeli slaughter taking place in Gaza. Israel has responded to the statement issued by UN experts with slander and lies. Its mission to the UN in Geneva, declared: Mr. Fakhri [UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food], and many so-called experts who joined his statement, are as much accustomed to spreading misinformation, as they are to supporting Hamas propaganda and shielding the terrorist organization from scrutiny. The Israeli mission claimed that the latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership showed that famine had not developed since aid access had improved somewhat in Gaza. In reality, the latest IPC assessment, published on June 25 based on data up to June 1, while not formally declaring famine in Gaza, provides a horrific snapshot of life in Gaza and the extreme shortages of food and other essentials facing the population. It concluded that a high risk of famine persists across the whole Gaza Strip as long as conflict continues and humanitarian access is restricted. Referring to northern Gaza, the IPC noted that food deliveries in March and April had eased the crisis enough to indicate that famine was not currently occurring. It noted, however, that ground operations continued with high intensity attacks in Jabaliya City and camp, Zaytoun area and Beit Hanoun and displaced around 100,000 people, over a third of the remaining population in the northern governorates. In the south, however, where two million people are concentrated, the situation had deteriorated markedly with Israels offensive in Rafah and the closure of the Rafah crossing with humanitarian access notably reduced. The latest data show that, to be able to buy food, more than half of the households had to exchange their clothes for money and one third resorted to picking up trash to sell. More than half also reported that, often, they do not have any food to eat in the house, and over 20 percent go entire days and nights without eating, the IPC stated. By the end of May, around 60 percent of all buildings, including dwellings, shops and infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools; and nearly 70 percent of WASH [water, sanitation, hygiene] facilities across the Gaza Strip were damaged or destroyed. Assets and infrastructure necessary for food production and distribution have also been severely affected by the conflict. By the end of May, 57 percent of agricultural land had been destroyed or severely damaged. Based on figures to the end of May, the IPC classified that the whole of Gaza was in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), the second highest category of its five-phase classification of food shortage. It further declared that over 495,000 people or 22 percent of the population in the highest category (IPC Phase 5) were facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity. In this phase, households experience an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion of coping capacities, it stated. The IPC forecast that about 96 percent of the population of Gaza or 2.15 million people will face high levels of acute food insecurity through September 2024. Far from negating Tuesdays statement by UN experts, the IPC provides further evidence of the genocidal character of the war being waged by Israel in Gaza with the total support of the United States and all the imperialist powers. Israels genocide must be stopped, along with the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine and the aggressive US-led confrontation with China that is rapidly sliding towards war in Asia. This requires the building of a unified, international anti-war movement of the working class based on a socialist program to abolish the profit system and its bankrupt division of the world into rival nation states that constitutes the root cause of war. On July 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington D.C. where this war criminal will meet with his imperialist paymasters. The World Socialist Web Site calls on workers and young people to join the demonstration and meeting in the US capital called for that day by the Socialist Equality Party as a critical step in building the anti-war movement. TOKYO, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The assembly of Japan's southernmost prefecture Okinawa on Wednesday unanimously passed a resolution and a statement protesting a series of recent sexual crime cases involving U.S. troops stationed in the prefecture. In the resolution, addressed to the United States, including U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, the assembly condemned the cases as "extremely malicious crimes that trample on human dignity" and expressed "anger from all our bodies." The prefectural assembly said that behind the cases were "problems with the organizational awareness of human rights," and called on the U.S. side to present residents of Okinawa with concrete and effective measures to prevent a recurrence, such as a tightening of discipline. The assembly also adopted a written statement, directed at the Japanese government, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, urging the central government to quickly share information about such crimes with the Okinawa prefectural government. Both the resolution and statement call for fundamental revisions to the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, noting that it affords special treatment to U.S. military personnel in Japan. A delegation of assembly members will go to Tokyo to visit the U.S. embassy, the Foreign Ministry and elsewhere to directly pass on the documents as early as this month. The move by the prefectural parliament of Okinawa follows the recent revelation that a U.S. Marine member has been indicted on charges of nonconsensual sexual intercourse resulting in injury and a U.S. Air Force member for allegedly kidnapping a girl under the age of 16 and committing nonconsensual sexual intercourse. Supporters of the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter received strong support for the call by the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) to hold new elections to remove the discredited UAW bureaucracy headed by President Shawn Fain. The IWA-RFC issued the call following the June 25 ruling by US Judge David Lawson for the Eastern District of Michigan in favor of a lawsuit brought by rank-and-file Mack Trucks worker and socialist Will Lehman. The judge rejected the US Labor Departments efforts to dismiss Lehmans complaints over violations of members rights during the 2022 UAW election, the first direct membership vote for top officers in the history of the union. Lehman ran for UAW president against Fain and incumbent Ray Curry. Judge Lawson ruled that the rejection of Lehmans complaints by Bidens Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su had been arbitrary and capricious and the departments reasoning irrational. Only 9 percent of the more than 1 million eligible UAW active and retired members voted in the election. Stellantis Warren Truck workers leaving plant on July 9, 2024 Fain is the target of a renewed investigation by the court-appointed UAW monitor put in place following the years-long federal corruption investigation that sent two former UAW presidents to prison. On Monday, the monitor revealed that he is investigating allegations that Fain retaliated against UAW Vice President Rich Boyer for refusing to take actions that would have benefitted (Fains) domestic partner and her sister. According to the Detroit News, Fains partner is a financial analyst at the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center (NTC). The NTC was the center of corporate bribe payments to UAW bureaucrats, designed to make them fat, dumb and happy, according to statements by Fiat Chrysler officials. After working under several officials directly involved in taking bribes, Fain was appointed co-director of the NTC as part of the UAW bureaucracys damage control efforts. The monitor has accused Fain and other top UAW officers of interfering with the investigation by refusing to hand over thousands of documents the monitor has requested. Referring to Fain, one Warren Truck worker told WSWS campaigners, He shouldnt just be thrown out, he should be thrown in jail. Another worker said, Yes, we need a new election, the last one was so corrupt. Workers at Warren Truck were hit last week with the layoff of the second shift, affecting 1,600 workers. They have been told the layoffs will last at least through the month of July. This follows the mass firing of temporary workers, also known as supplemental employees (SEs), by Stellantis earlier this year including 171 at Warren Truck. In order to obtain ratification of the sellout 2023 national auto contract, Fain and Boyer had promised that all SEs with more than nine months would be promoted to full-time positions. We need a new election, and this time everybodys vote should count, another Warren Truck worker said. That way there will be a fair chance for everybody. I didnt vote in the first election, and Im pretty sure a lot of people didnt either. So, a lot of those numbers were inaccurate. So whose votes really mattered? Her co-worker added, I didnt vote either. I think a new UAW election is a great idea. Thats what we need, with the shift cutting. At first, I thought the stand-up strike was right, she said referring to the UAWs tactic of keeping most workers on the job while only a few workers went on strike. But when it came to the SEs, they did them terribly. They used their votes to get elected. They used their votes to get this contract passed. We could have gotten so much more had Fain pulled us all out. The SEs work harder than some of the full-timers. Some of them were here for three years. And its been non-stop, theyve been firing them, and the turnover rate is ridiculous. People have bills and families to take care of. The workers on the shop floor should be the ones with the power; we are the ones who are putting the money in the pot. Workers are tired of the UAW from the top president down to the stewards A veteran Warren Truck worker told the Autoworker Newsletter, Workers are tired of the UAW from the top president down to the shop steward. Fain said: I want to get money for you guys. But they accepted a new policy on attendance, he said referring to the new, more punitive system implemented in the 2023 contract. You cant take a vacation day on a Monday or Friday, you have to take the whole week. Second, if you are sick, or you try to use a PA (Personal Absence) day and the supervisor doesnt approve it, you get two points. Everything is disgusting. If you use FMLA, you still get points. They say they are going to rotate layoffs between the first and second shifts. You hear the news that second quarter sales went down 21 percent, thats why its affecting us. In Europe, they are having a crisis because of the war in Ukraine. They are taking our taxes and sending the money over there for war. I heard that they plan to bring in new managers from Italy; they want to start cutting jobs. Nobody likes this contract because they tricked us and screwed us, big time. Fain promised everybody, dont worry about the jobs, but right now, soon this plant is going to be nothing but a warehouse. Fain, he added, was promoting Biden who is backing Israels wanton slaughter of the Palestinians. Were working six and seven days a week, and workers dont have time to consider whats going on. But I tell them, the reason you cant afford healthcare, the reason why your kids cant afford college, is because the government is giving all this money to Israel. Will Lehman campaigning at Warren Truck Assembly plant in August 2022 Several former Stellantis SEs contacted by the WSWS also spoke out in favor of a new election. An SE who was laid off from the Detroit Assembly Complex-Mack said, I definitely would like to see a new election. Will Lehman deserves it. I just hope Will isnt up against too much corruption where he can clean house, because if he wins, Im sure he will. Natalie, another former Stellantis SE, said, Only 9 percent voting? That was definitely corrupt. I understand what happened. They tried to silence Will. Someone has to speak up, I say lets do it [fight to rerun the election] and see what we can do. Everyone should be replaced. Boyer, the vice president, spoke at our contract ratification meeting. He told us that we are not leaving the table until we have everyone accounted for. We are not leaving the table until we stop the abuse of SEs. We are not leaving the table until we get you all profit sharing. We are not leaving the table until we make it easier for you guys to get converted over. So, to everyone it seemed like they were working in our favor, and it turned out to be the opposite. Ive seen the changes in the UAW. The union used to be a separate entity. The union was supposed to be for the workers and fight against the companies. Now, they have come together and merged. It should have never gotten this far. In my honest opinion, I think the stand-up strike was a waste of time. Nothing got resolved out of it. It was designed not to work; it was like stalling for time. It would have been more effective if everyone had literally just stopped work. If we stopped work, everything would collapse. She denounced the exploitation of temp workers. Why is it even legal to make profits off of people? That is like slave mentality. You wont give them enough to be able to live but you want them to live, work and die. You are placed in a position where you are not going to be able to stay where you work, no matter how hard you try. Anywhere you go in the Big 3 they pay their workers like trash. Its horrible the way this society is being run by the top 1 percent. They are adamant about keeping things the way they are. Its 2024, everyone should be able to have a leg up. Fortunately, there is hope, especially with things like this. A veteran Ford worker also spoke in support of a new election. What you wrote is a clear cut case for a re-election. The UAW got caught. Then Wills lawsuit overturned what the monitor had to know were baseless reasons disallowing valid complaints. 'The monitor should have been replaced for his role in this fiasco. The law firms he used should be investigated, sanctioned and fined for their role in this. Lyle, a retired GM worker in Michigan and supporter of Will Lehman, said, A new election is a good idea. The last one was a setup deal. The judge basically admitted it was crooked after ruling against Will the first time. There should be a new election if every member is notified and given a ballot to make it democratic. There also have to be witnesses to count the ballots for every candidate. Fain sold out the workers in the auto industry. The stand-up strike kept most workers in the plants, making profits. It didnt hurt the companies. After the contracts were signed, the temps were fired. Fain is not a do-gooder and reformer. People have to organize committees in the shops. Thats the only answer, the only way around the bureaucracy. Real democracy means the people that are affected have the say-so, including on how to fight. The Supreme Court decision giving the president immunity to violate any law that they call an official act is insanity. A president could have people in the unions assassinated; he could send out the army to stop strikes and kill workers. They are leaving workers no alternative but to take matters into our own hands. Either the government gives us democracy or we will have to revoltand the government is killing democracy all the time. The courts are against us, the laws are against us. Revolution is the only answer, in my opinion. Jefferson said the people had the right and duty to revolt if the government violated our inalienable rights. Lets get busy and revolt. Do you work at Norfolk Southern or another Class I railway? Do you live in East Palestine or a neighboring community? Tell us what you know about the Norfolk Southern disaster by filling out the form at the bottom of this article. All submissions will be kept anonymous. This photo taken with a drone shows portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed Friday night in East Palestine, Ohio, still on fire at mid-day Saturday, February 4, 2023. [AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar] Last years train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio was preventable. The decision to vent and burn 1.1 million pounds of toxic chemicals was based on inaccurate information. And Norfolk Southern was using inferior rail cars to carry highly flammable materials. These were among some of the key findings in the investigation conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) into the derailment which led to the poisoning of a working class community last year. At a board meeting held in East Palestine, Ohio, the National Transportation Safety Board investigators presented their findings and recommendations on the derailment and the release of highly toxic chemicals into the ground, water and air in the small town and the surrounding community. In releasing the findings, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said that Norfolk Southern was uncooperative with the agency; demonstrated complete disregard for the rules and regulations; withheld and delayed providing vital information; and at times acted in a threatening manner to the agency and its investigators. The NTSB investigation makes clear that Norfolk Southern was responsible for the derailment, which they found could have been prevented, as well as the decision to vent and burn 1.1 million pounds of vinyl chloride, poisoning of the community for miles around. A new study published last month in the journal Environmental Research Letters shows that pollutants from the fire were found in 16 states. Hundreds of residents of East Palestine and the surrounding communities had developed symptoms of chemical poisoning, such as burning eyes, nose and throat, nosebleeds, headaches, rashes and hair loss. While the NTSB made several important safety recommendations, the agency has no enforcement powers, and most of the recommendations will not be enacted by Congress, whose members receive millions of dollars in lobbying funds from Norfolk Southern and other Class 1 rail carriers to ensure that regulations that impose on their profits are not enacted. A 13-page synopsis is available here, with the full report expected within a few weeks. Among the key findings of the NTSB investigation: The February 3, 2023 derailment was preventable and happened because Norfolk Southern deliberately did not act on warnings it received from wayside detectors, which showed that the train was failing miles before the derailment. The report confirmed what many residents and hazardous materials experts have long been sayingthat the decision made to vent and burn five tanker cars filled with over a million pounds of highly toxic vinyl chloride was unnecessary. Investigators found that Norfolk Southern withheld vital information from emergency workers that the five tanker cars carrying vinyl chloride were not heating up and in danger of exploding. Norfolk Southern did not notify firefighters and other first responders in a timely manner that the train was carrying highly toxic chemicals and that those cars were among the ones that derailed. Roughly 25 percent, one in four, of the rail cars on the train did not meet federal safety standards. Norfolk Southern continues to use DOT-111 tank cars to transport hazardous and flammable liquids even though they are known to be substantially weaker than the stronger DOT-105 tank cars and more prone to rupture during derailments. The NTSB has repeatedly issued warnings about the DOT-111 cars and advised that they are not to be used to transport flammable or hazardous materials. The NTSB found that crew members acted correctly and were not responsible for the derailments. Notably, the NTSB report did not comment on the practices of the railroads of cutting the crew sizes on trains; increasing the length of trains; and cuts to the maintenance and inspection of rail cars before they leave the yards. The derailment was caused by the failure of an axle on a hopper car. For about an hour prior to the derailment, Norfolk Southern was aware that the bearing on the axle was overheating. But because company procedures did not specify warning the train crew of the problem or instructing them to stop the train and inspect the wheel, the train continued down the tracks. In Salem, Ohio, about 20 miles west of East Palestine, a wayside detector recorded a temperature of 105 degrees above ambient temperature for the bearing. Video taken by a security camera near Salem shows sparks and flames coming from the wheel. Despite these alarms, Norfolk Southerns procedure was not to notify train crews at this level. As the NTSB report noted, this is further problematic because it is a commonly known fact that wayside detectors are measuring the temperature of the outside of the wheel bearing, while the internal temperature is much higher. Salem, Ohio, is about 20 miles west of East Palestine, and it would take the train about 45 minutes to reach East Palestine. Had the crew been alerted, they could have safely slowed and stopped the train without a derailment. Inferior tank cars The report noted the continued use by Norfolk Southern and the other railroads of DOT-111 tank cars to transport flammable and hazardous materials. This part of the investigators report has received almost no coverage in the press, yet it again demonstrates that it is the drive for profits by the railroads that puts the health and lives of railroad workers and the public at risk. The investigation found that the most likely cause of the initial fire was the rupture of one or more DOT-111 cars carrying butyl acrylates. The report noted that it has long been known that the DOT-111 tank cars should not be used to transport flammable and hazardous materials because they are weaker and more prone to break during derailments. It noted that the railroads are not likely to voluntarily remove them from service because of economic and business disincentives. In other words, because it would cut into their profits. Vent and burn On February 6, 2023, three days after the accident, Norfolk Southern and its contractors made the decision to vent and burn the five tanker cars carrying vinyl chloride. While described as a controlled burn, it was nothing of the sort. Explosives were detonated on the five tanker cars, releasing and setting fire to their contents. A fireball erupted 200 feet into the air which could be seen for at least 20 miles. A plume of thick dark smoke traveled upward and spread pollution for hundreds of miles. Vinyl chloride is highly toxic, and can damage the eyes, nose and lungs, along with the liver, heart, brain and other organs. In high enough concentration it is deadly. Dioxins are one of the byproducts of burning vinyl chloride. According to the CDC, dioxin is the most potent cancer-causing chemical ever tested, and does not decompose, so it continues to build up in the environment. The report found that Norfolk Southern and its contractors failed to inform the incident commander of vital information from the manufacturer of the vinyl chloride. This incorrect information was that the chemical was stable and not in danger of an uncontrolled explosion. It found further that NS compromised the integrity of the decision to vent and burn the tank cars by not communicating expertise and dissenting opinions to the incident commander making the final decision. Norfolk Southern has responded to the NTSB report by doubling down on its claim that the vent and burn was the only available choice. The railroad repeatedly stated that it is time to move on. Despite pledges to uphold safety, the railroads continue to experience train derailments at an alarming rate. Just this past week a train carrying hazardous materials in North Dakota derailed, with 29 cars veering off the tracks, about half of which caught fire. Also on July 6, a railroad employee was killed while working in a yard in Melrose Park, Illinois. Train accidents in rail yards continue to go up, and about half of the NTSBs open investigations involve fatalities. The NTSB report makes over 30 recommendations to improve railroad safety and reiterates several recommendations that it had made previously. However, because the NTSB has no enforcement powers, no Norfolk Southern officials will be arrested and held accountable for the crimes they have committed. The recommendations must either be voluntarily adopted by the railroads or enacted by Congress in legislation. Outside of the most meager reforms, as investigators noted, the more sweeping changes will not be accepted because of economic and business disincentives. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, a number of well publicized hearings were held in Congress. Ohio Republican Senator J.D. Vance and Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown promised swift passage of the Railroad Safety Act. That bill has died in committee as lobbyists for both Norfolk Southern and the other Class 1 railroads spent millions. Neither Democrats nor Republicans have any intention of developing meaningful safety regulations if they cut across the industrys profit margins. Making whole the residents of East Palestine and other communities affected by derailments and stopping the reckless profiteering that leads to accidents must be based instead on the independent mobilization of the working class. Join the rally against the Gaza genocide in DC on July 24! Fill out the form at the end to sign up to attend the rally and post-demonstration meeting, or to get updates on the events. On Wednesday, July 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, will address a joint session of Congress. The invitation is yet another demonstration of the US governments unlimited solidarity with the Israeli state. Netanyahu will be speaking in Washington not only as the leader of the fascistic cabal that rules Israel but as the political agent of US imperialism in the Middle East. He will stand before and receive the applause of Congress as the leader of a government that is engaged in mass murder and the systematic destruction of Gazan society. The number of Palestinian deaths during the last nine months, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, had reached 37,396 people as of June 19. However, a more intensive analysis of the scale of destruction, published on July 5 by The Lancet, among the most respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, states that the official figure is a vast underestimate of the actual number of Palestinians killed since October. In addition to the identified victims, The Lancet notes the United Nations report that 35 percent of all buildings in Gaza had been destroyed by late February, and that it has been reliably estimated that more than 10,000 people are buried in the rubble. But even adding these 10,000 victims to the official death count results in a number that is still far below the actual number of people killed. The Lancet states that indirect deaths caused by the total destruction of Gazas social infrastructure are a substantial multiple of direct deaths caused by artillery shells and bombs. The Lancet writes: In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259, this would translate to 7.9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip. The population of the United States is approximately 333 million people. If 7.9 percent of Americans were killed in a war, the death toll would be 26.3 million people. The invitation to Netanyahu is a political provocation that exposes the complicity of the US government in the genocidal war against the people of Gaza. How is this provocation to be answered? The World Socialist Web Site, the Socialist Equality Party, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees have called a demonstration in Washington, D.C. to denounce both Netanyahus visit and his political accomplices and enablers in the US government. This demonstration will give voice to the mass opposition within this country and throughout the world to the criminal alliance between US imperialism and its agents in the Israeli state. If I may be permitted to appropriate the words of Frederick Douglass, with only slight modifications appropriate for our times: The feeling of the nation must be quickened, the conscience of the world must be roused the hypocrisy of the US government must be exposed; and its crimes against the Palestinian people and all humanity must be proclaimed and denounced. But the purpose of the demonstration is not only to express outrage, but to provide a strategic direction for the building of a mass movement to end the Gaza genocide, which is inextricably linked to the global eruption of imperialist militarism, the relentless escalation toward nuclear war against Russia and China, and the assault on the democratic and social rights of the working class. The same economic interests and political processes, rooted in the capitalist system, that resulted during the last century in two world wars, fascism, the Holocaust and the dropping of atomic bombs are at work today. The lessons of history must be applied to the struggles of today. Following the demonstration, the Socialist Equality Party will hold a meeting to advance and discuss a socialist strategy for the building of a mass anti-war movement based on the following principles: The essential cause of war lies in the capitalist nation-state system, the global financial interests of the giant corporations, and the relentless drive of the American ruling class for world hegemony. The struggle against war requires the mobilization of the immense power of the American working class and its political independence from the Democrats and Republicans, the ruling class parties of imperialist war. The movement against genocide and war must be international, uniting workers globally based on their common class interests. Come to Washington, D.C. on July 24. Private moral outrage over the crimes against the Palestinians is not enough. Dont stand on the sidelines. Join the fight to build a mass movement that will put an end to war and change the world. Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced the appointment of businesswoman Jillian Segal to the newly created position of the governments Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in Australia. The decision is highly provocative. The Labor government is making a mockery of the struggle to combat the scourge of genuine antisemitism, as it promotes the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and deliberately conflates opposition to massive war crimes with anti-Jewish racism. Jillian Segal appointed as Special Envoy to combat antisemitism [Photo: @AlboMP] Segal is a representative of the pro-Israel lobby. The business executive and lawyer has explicitly defended the fascistic crimes of the Zionist regime, including those that openly violate international law and involve the systematic dehumanisation of the entire Palestinian population. The position recalls George Orwells Ministry of Truth. If the new post were labelled accurately, it would be titled something like Albaneses Special Envoy to Promote Ethnic Cleansing and Repress Popular Opposition. That is made clear by Segals qualifications for the role. She is the past president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), a position Segal appears to have stood down from in late November. The ECAJ styles itself as a representative body of the Jewish population in Australia, and on that basis receives substantial government funding. That included a special $25 million grant from the Labor administration in March. In reality, ECAJ functions as an attack dog of the Israeli state. That includes the aggressive promotion of every act by the Israeli military, no matter how criminal, and involvement in dirty tricks operations targeting critics of the Zionist regime. The organisations proximity to the Israeli government is underscored by the fact that its sole listed public engagement officer, Ronit Gabriel, is an Israeli citizen. Her only prior work experience is as a senior Israeli state operative, including as a defence cooperation coordinator at the Defence mission in Paris. As ECAJ president, Segal was heavily involved in whipping-up a pro-war hysteria in the aftermath of October 7 and justifying Israels carpet bombing of Gaza. Most notorious in this regard was a November 12 statement she co-issued with Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia. Amid global shock and horror over Israels bombing of hospitals in Gaza, Segal and Leibler explicitly asserted Israels right to target medical facilities. The statement condemned mealy-mouthed comments by Labors Foreign Minister Penny Wong. [W]e refer to the Ministers assertion that the hospitals and medical facilities that Hamas burrows itself into are protected under international law and her call for Israel to cease the attacking of hospitals, Segal and Leibler wrote. Parrotting the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they asserted that Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza, was a Hamas base and thus a legitimate target. Adopting the Big Lie techniques typical of fascist ideologues, the two Zionist leaders asserted that unspecified other hospitals were also Hamas bases, essentially giving a carte blanche for all medical facilities in Gaza to be bombed. After Israel obliterated Shifa, killing hundreds, including the sick and wounded, it was unable to provide a skerrick of evidence that the hospital had any connection to military activities whatsoever. Segal, however, has never repudiated her false assertions. Most relevant to her new position, Segal had written in her statement with Leibler: The libel that any Israeli attack on Gazan hospitals from which Hamas operates would amount to war crimes only serve to demonise the state of Israel and its supporters. That is, the new special envoy to combat antisemitism apparently thinks that opposing the bombing of hospitals is a libel and presumably antisemitic! Segals advocacy of Israeli criminality did not begin in October. Last August, she and Leibler issued another statement bemoaning the Labor governments description of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as the Occupied Palestinian Territories. That designation, they complained, effectively denies any Jewish claim to the West Bank and Jerusalem, adding that Describing the territories as Palestinian not only pre-empts the outcome of negotiations but is counterproductive. In this instance too, Segals argument was not with the Labor governments cynical and mealy-mouthed rhetoric, but with international law, which is crystal clear on the illegality of Israels occupation. There were no negotiations in August, nor are there now. Instead, there is a massive Israeli campaign to expand settlements in the West Bank and to ethnically-cleanse all Palestinians, a crime that Leibler and Segals statement effectively endorsed. Aside from this record, which could be expanded on, there are questions to be raised about Segals present affiliations. Her publicly-available LinkedIn profile lists two current postings, which could surely constitute a conflict of interest. Segal chairs the New South Wales branch of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, which promotes economic ties between Australia and the Zionist regime. Segal is also the chair of the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, which oversees the work-related expenses of federal parliamentarians, including the Labor government representatives who just appointed her as special envoy. In addition, Segals prominent ECAJ affiliation may continue into the present. On the Our People section of the ECAJ website, Segal is listed as Immediate Past President. An ECAJ statement dated May 3 reported that Segal had represented the organisation at a meeting with university chancellors convened by the Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Education. According to ECAJ, the meeting was called to have an open and frank discussion on the current situation of unrest on university campuses, by which they meant students protesting Israeli war crimes. Segal called for students and staff to inform on protesters so that disciplinary action could be taken against them. ECAJ favourably cited her as having urged students and staff who witness or experience harassment, abuse or other unacceptable conduct to immediately report this to the universities so that action may be taken. Driving home the point, Ms Segal stressed the importance of universities upholding their respective codes of conduct and bringing disciplinary action against those found to be in breach. Notably, the statement hailed Albaneses attacks on student protests. He had labelled them divisive displays of hatred that do not have a place in society in comments encouraging Zionist and right-wing vigilantes who were launching physical attacks on pro-Palestinian student encampments. Segals participation in the May meeting is also significant because it shows she remained an ECAJ leader after the January revelation that other executives of the organisation had participated in a witch-hunt of journalist Antoinette Lattouf. ECAJ Vice President Robert Goot was in a secret WhatsApp group that successfully conspired to have Lattouf sacked from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation because she had made limited criticisms of Israel in the past. Segals whole record indicates that she will function as a witch-hunter in chief. By appointing her, the Albanese government is signalling its endorsement of all of her reactionary positions, including support for the bombing of hospitals and demands for police-state attacks on protesting students. The announcement was condemned by anti-Zionist Jewish groups, who noted that the government was weaponising false claims of antisemitism to justify the genocide. In addition to legitimising war crimes, they warned that this would undermine the struggle against genuine antisemitism, the threat of which emanates not from opponents of the Israeli war crimes, but from far-right and fascistic organisations that have been cultivated by the ruling elites of all the imperialist countries. US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the 75th anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Washington. [AP Photo/Evan Vucci] US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that this weeks NATO summit in Washington will announce the formation of a NATO office, led by a high-level official, inside Ukraine. This NATO office will accompany the creation of a NATO command to oversee the war in Ukraine, transitioning the provision of weapons and logistical oversight from an ad hoc group led by the United States to the NATO alliance itself. Sullivans remarks outlined the main agenda items of the three-day summit in Washington, which is expected to signal a major escalation of the conflict with Russia in Ukraine and plans to significantly increase NATOs capabilities to fight a full-scale war throughout Europe. Sullivan made this announcement at a forum hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce, co-sponsored by RTX, maker of the Tomahawk missile; General Atomics, maker of the Predator drone; and BAE, maker of the Bradley fighting vehicle. Following introductory remarks by a Chamber of Commerce official thanking the defense contractors, Sullivan declared that the summit will announce a new NATO senior representative in Kiev appointed by Secretary General Stoltenberg ... who will deepen Ukraines institutional relationship with the Alliance and serve as the focal point for NATOs engagement with senior Ukrainian officials. He said the summit will also announce a new NATO military command in Germany led by a three-star general that will launch a training, equipping, and force development program for Ukrainian troops. He added that the US has secured a pledge from all allies to collectively provide Ukraine with at least 40 billion euros worth of security assistance this year. The summit will also include a further announcement related to the provision of F-16s. The creation of a NATO office in Kiev and the reorganization of weapons provision, training and military logistics under a direct NATO command marks the end of any pretense that the conflict in Ukraine is not a war between NATO and Russia. It marks a dangerous new phase in the war, raising the prospect of a major escalation. At any point, the NATO office in Kiev, a country at war, risks being struck by a missile, which could draw the entire NATO alliance into a full-scale war with Russia. The announcement comes against the backdrop of a major series of escalatory moves by the United States and its NATO allies. In April, the Biden administration began supplying Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles. Sullivan subsequently asserted that the US is allowing Ukraine to use US-provided weapons to strike anywhere inside Russian territory. The opening of the NATO summit was accompanied by calls for even more escalation. Republican Senator Joni Ernst demanded that the US provide more long-range weapons capable of striking inside Russia, declaring, We need to give them what they need. ... I do believe that we should provide them what they need to strike inside of Russia. Democratic Representative Tom Suozzi added, I dont think we can tie the hands of the Ukrainians, adding that sometimes you have to punch a bully in the nose. Right-wing historian Timothy Snyder called for expanding strikes inside Russia using NATO weapons. Ukraine should be allowed to defend itself in accordance with international law. The airfields from which Russia launches these terrorist attacks cannot be safe havens. Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul called on NATO to admit Ukraine as a member, declaring, Ukraines membership in NATO is the only way to guarantee that Putin will not use a cease-fire or other negotiated break in the war to prepare the next phase of his invasion, just as he did between 2014 and 2022. He added, Only NATO membership will finally prevent another Russian invasion. In his remarks Tuesday, Sullivan chronicled the massive military rearmament of the NATO alliance since the outbreak of the conflict with Russia in Ukraine in 2022. This year alone, our fellow NATO allies will invest over $500 billion in defense. In 2020, our NATO allies invested just over $325 billion, so an increase of $175 billion and a substantial percentage increase over the course of the past three and a half years. Stoltenberg made clear the advanced state of NATOs preparation for full-scale war. In the event of a crisis, NATO can rapidly shift to a war footing, he said, and allied forces will know from the first moment who they take orders from. Under NATOs new force model to be adopted at the NATO summit, allies will know how many troops they are expected to muster in a crisis, and how quickly. For example, within 10 days, allies could have 100,000 forces where they need to be. Within a month, that number would double, and in the ensuing weeks, it would grow to 500,000. Sullivan said NATO is investing in a modern arsenal. That means next-generation aircraft, submarines, warships, and artillery systems, so were ready to fight across every domain: land, sea, air, cyber, and space. His remarks were followed by a warmongering address by US President Joe Biden later that evening, at a ceremony commemorating the 75th anniversary of the NATO alliance. For years, Finland and Sweden were among our closest partners. Now they have chosen to officially join NATO, because of the power and meaning of the Article 5 guarantee. Today, NATO is more well-resourced than ever. In 2020, the year I was elected president, only nine NATO allies were spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense. This year, 23 will spend at least 2 percent. Were ready, were willing to deter aggression, and defend every inch of NATO soil across every domain: land, air, sea, cyber, and space. Biden concluded, Its good that were stronger than ever, because this moment in history calls for our collective strength. All the leaders of the NATO members assembled at the Washington Summit face major domestic political crises, led by Biden, who has faced calls within the US political establishment to step down as the Democratic Party candidate in the 2024 presidential election. But amid their deepening crises, the NATO powers are committed to escalating the war with Russia in Ukraine and conflicts all over the world. The imperialist-backed Gaza genocide, which has led to the confirmed deaths of at least 40,000 people and the estimated deaths of 200,000 or more, shows the lengths to which the imperialist powers are willing to go to achieve their goals of global domination. National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Minister Bill Shorten joined hands with far-right One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson last week to launch an aggressive campaign to push through deep cuts to the scheme. The aim is to deny access to services for thousands of children and other people living with disabilities. Bill Shorten, Australia's Minister for NDIS, at joint press conference in his ministerial office in Canberra on July 4, 2024 with extreme-right Senator Pauline Hanson [Photo: Facebook/mandy4richmond] Shorten and Hanson held a joint media conference in parliament house to denounce the Liberal-National Coalition and Greens for referring the governments NDIS reform bill to a Senate committee inquiry over the winter parliamentary break. It is a revealing political alliance. Demagogically, the pair accused the Coalition and the Greens of costing taxpayers $1.1 billion by delaying the cuts to disability services by two months. Standing alongside Shorten, Hanson declared: Changes [are] needed to be done and it needs to be cleaned up. And thats why Im here talking today and Im supporting Mr Shorten on this legislation thats been put forward. The Labor governments partnership with One Nation, which has a long record of demonising welfare recipients and railing against social services, demonstrates the depths to which the Labor Party will go to try to impose the austerity demands of the financial markets. With Shortens support, Hanson issued a diatribe against people on the NDIS, spewing false allegations against NDIS participants, as she has done to social security recipients throughout her entire time in parliament. She claimed that if youre on NDIS, you can get your groceries paid, for your gambling, you can get your alcohol Its just unbelievable. No evidence has been produced to support such accusations. Shorten was equally belligerent. He particularly targeted children diagnosed with autism or other disabilities. The nation cannot afford $1 billion, he declared. But whats more is theres 60,000 kids on the scheme whose packages are equal to $1 billion This is 54,000 peoples annual tax. We shouldnt be wasting this money. As parliamentarians left Canberra on Thursday night for their winter break, Shorten sought to confront them with an election campaign-style truck emblazoned with Save the NDIS: Put participants first, senators. Shortens remarks at his appearance with Hanson, however, lay bare the true agenda behind his claims, and those of the entire government, to be undertaking this offensive in order to save the NDIS by making it sustainable. As well as seeking to disqualify 60,000 children, Labors bill contains an array of measures to slash services. These include using assessors to deny access to many adult applicants as well. Having denounced the previous Liberal-National government for such moves, the Labor government is now proceeding with them. People with psychosocial disabilities have been earmarked for removal. To accomplish this and more, the review recommends removing medical diagnoses, including Level 2 autism, as the central basis for entry to the NDIS, to be replaced by assessments of significant functional impairment and need. The legislation seeks to cement a deal that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese struck with the state and territory leaders last Decemberall from the Labor Party, except oneto push disabled people onto non-existent foundational supports to be provided by their governments. These educational, health and transport services for most people with disabilities and children with developmental delays will supposedly be provided by state-based institutions such as schools, early childhood and healthcare facilities. All these services are chronically underfunded and under-staffed, and are being cut further by the Labor governments which face mounting budget deficits. The state and territory leaders, fearing a public outcry, are currently backing the delay to the bill, saying they lack the information and resources to fill the gap. As intended when the Gillard and Rudd Labor governments created the NDIS in 2013, the states scrapped most of their disability services. That accelerated the disintegration of special needs programs at schools. Carers and advocacy programs were eviscerated and the remaining large residential facilities, supporting individuals with complex needs, were shut down, resulting in several deaths. Today, the vast majority of the estimated 4.4 million Australian residents with a disability are not on the NDIS. The scheme has some 649,000 participants, according to the most recent quarterly report. According to the ruling class and the Labor government, however, that is too many. Labors NDIS reforms are just the start. The bill would give the federal NDIS minister and the National Disability Insurance Agency, which runs the NDIS, power to change the schemes eligibility rules and regulations to cut access further. In this years May annual budget, the government vowed to slice $14.4 billion off predicted NDIS spending over the next four years, bringing the projected annual growth down from 20 percent to around 9 percent. That was the spearhead of a wider drive to cut social spending while pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into military spending and slightly revamped income tax cuts that still overwhelmingly benefit wealthy households. The corporate elite has welcomed the NDIS offensive but is demanding much more. A July 7 Australian Financial Review editorial described Labors bill as a worthwhile but modest start. It insisted that Shorten had to fix the design flaws that produced a monster and unsustainable entitlement program that is now politically very difficult to wind back. When the previous Morrison Coalition government flagged forecast blowouts in the cost of the NDIS, Shorten likened this to false weapons of mass destruction intelligence in Iraq and campaigned against the proposed independent reassessments of NDIS participants. Since Labor scraped into office in 2022, Shorten has been in charge of accomplishing what the widely reviled Coalition government could not. On this front, as on every other, including the cost-of-living crisis and the US-led war drive against Russia and China, the Albanese government is intensifying the program of war and austerity. As for the Coalition and the Greens, their stances of feigned concern are no less cynical. The NDIS itself was developed by the Rudd-Gillard governments, backed fully by the Coalition and the Greens, to cut costs by ending direct governmental support for those with a disability and pushing all services into a profit-driven system. As warned by the Socialist Equality Party from the outset, this disability market has produced a predictable disaster by privatising services, leading to sub-standard programs and profiteering at the expense of clients. For all people, including those with disabilities, high quality and freely accessible care and services must be a basic social right, along with the right to public education and healthcare. The bitter experiences with the NDIS show that these rights have become fundamentally incompatible with the continued existence of the capitalist profit system, which is instead generating ever-more staggering levels of social inequality and a plunge toward another world war. On July 8, the Foreign and Defense Ministers of the Philippines and Japan met in Manila for 2+2 Talks and signed a Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA), allowing the deployment of Japanese military forces to the Philippines for training and joint military exercises. The agreement is a significant step toward a US-led war with China and marks a milestone in the return of Japanese imperialism to Southeast Asia. From left, Japan Defense Minister Minoru Kihara, Japan Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, Philippines' Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo and Philippines' Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. on July 8, 2024, after signing defense pact [AP Photo/Aaron Favila] Under the terms of the deal, Japan will now take part, alongside Australian forces, in the annual Balikatan war games staged by United States in the Philippines. The military exercises openly target China. Japan has until now been an observer to the exercises. Washington is forging an imperialist bloc for war with China and, under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Manila is functioning as a leading proxy for US interests. Japan concluded similar RAAs with Australia in 2022 and with the UK in 2023. The Philippines is the first country in Asia to sign such a military pact with Japan, the imperialist power that ravaged East and Southeast Asia during World War II. The assembled officials at the signing denounced China for destabilizing regional peace and depicted the RAA as a means of securing it. They repeated the shibboleths of Washington, speaking of the need for international order and the rule of law. Yet, it is Washington that has brought the region to the brink of a catastrophic war, as it has the rest of the globe, by whipping up territorial disputes and encouraging its allies like Japan and the Philippines to take belligerent stances towards Beijing. The RAA therefore bears the fingerprints of US imperialism. The possibility of such a deal was publicly broached during an unprecedented trilateral summit where Marcos met with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April. The three are establishing a de facto trilateral military alliance, similar to other agreements Washington has built throughout the region to surround and threaten China. Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian responded to the RAA pact, The Asia-Pacific region does not need any military bloc, still less groupings that incite bloc confrontation or a new Cold War Japan bears serious historical responsibilities for its aggression and colonial rule over the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries during WWII. Japan needs to reflect on that part of history and act prudently in fields related to military and security. The new RAA expresses Japans own imperialist interests. Tokyos Defense Minister Minoru Kihara stated, The Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations are situated in a very strategically important region, placed in a key junction of Japans sea lanes. Advance defense cooperation and exchanges with the Philippines is important for Japan. These are the words of an imperialist power returning to a region it once conquered. One senses other, historical phrases in his wordsGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and Malayan tin and rubberthe watchwords of Japanese militarism 85 years ago. The deal marks another significant step towards scrapping Article 9 of the post-war Japanese constitution, the so-called pacifist clause, that explicitly prohibits the country from maintaining a military or waging war overseas. In line with this, there are ongoing discussions to base Japanese forces in the Philippines. In April, Philippine ambassador to the United States, Jose Manuel Romualdez, told the press that the Philippines and Japan were in talks about rotational deployment of Japanese forces to the Philippines. Rotational deployment is a military euphemism for the continuous basing of troops in the country. Washington uses this term to justify the basing of US forces in the Philippines under the terms of the joint Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). Japanese officials at the time denied that rotational deployment was being discussed, gesturing at the pacifist clause. However, at the joint press conference held Monday afternoon after the signing of the RAA and in the presence of Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Defense Minister Minoru Kihara, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo explained that Manila was considering crafting a deal for the basing of Japanese forces in the country. The Japanese ministers also affirmed that Tokyo was supplying Manila with a coastal radar surveillance system. The system will be used to monitor and counter the movements of Chinese vessels in the region. The system is being transferred to the Philippines under the terms of Japans Official Security Assistance, launched in April 2023, part of the National Security Strategy that marked a significant turning point in Japanese remilitarization and the return of Japanese imperialism to the Asia-Pacific region. Manila is also scrapping its constitution. The Philippine constitution bans the basing of any foreign troops in the country without a treaty ratified by a two-thirds majority of the Senate. EDCA is an executive agreement, not a treaty, and was never ratified by the legislature. It allows the basing of an unlimited number of US forces anywhere in the country. The signing of the Japan-Philippine RAA takes place in the midst of boiling tensions between Manila and Beijing over disputed territories in the South China Sea. By far one of the most destabilizing events in the region, however, took place in April when Washington deployed the Typhon mid-range missile system to the northern Philippines to target China during the Balikatan and Salaknib exercises in April and May. Typhon fires SM-6 and Tomahawk cruise missiles, with the latter capable of striking major cities on Chinas east coast. In June, a confrontation between the China Coast Guard and a Philippine military resupply mission in the Second Thomas Shoal nearly resulted in an armed conflict. Leading figures of the Philippine military have begun speaking openly of the need to invoke the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with Washington, which would mark an unprecedented step toward war. Philippine Senator Imee Marcos, the presidents sister, has for the past two years opposed the increased US military presence in the country as increasing the risk of war with China. On July 3, she warned that 25 areas in the Philippines, the sites of EDCA bases, could be targeted by Chinese hypersonic missile attacks. A Pulse Asia survey of Philippine public opinion in the first week of July found that a majority of Filipinos sought a diplomatic solution to tensions with China, and only eight percent felt that the Philippines should seek US military support against China. Looking to reduce tensions somewhat, President Marcos held a Bilateral Consultation Meeting with Chinese diplomats in Manila in early July. After the meeting, he issued instructions to the Philippine Armed Forces to defuse tensions in the South China Sea. The next morning it was announced that US mid-range missiles would be removed from the country by September, with Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala stating this was as per plan. However, Dema-ala backtracked on Monday, claiming that there is no specific departure date. The loyalty of the majority top brass of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has always been to the Pentagon and not the elected civilian government. Any steps, however slight, taken by the Marcos administration toward moderating the conflict with China have been publicly defied and secretly undermined by the military. The spokesperson of the Philippine Navy issued a statement that the missions that had led to the recent conflict would continue, declaring we can do anything we wish to within our exclusive economic zone. AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr issued a statement demanding China return the firearms confiscated from Filipino troops in the most recent South China Sea confrontation, and pay the Philippine military $US1 million in compensation. The military, he announced, was launching a new initiative, known as COMPLAN Mulat (Awake), to counter Chinese influence on social media. While Marcos has played a critical role in facilitating it, the aggressive drive against China does not originate with his administration. It is part of the war plans drawn up by Washington and its implementation in the country is, above all, the work of the Philippine military. The United States conquered the Philippines in a bloody colonial war, killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to establish its imperialist rule at the beginning of the 20th century. Japan brutally conquered the Philippines, in a barbaric occupation of mass murder, rape and pillage. The return of these imperialist powers to the scene of their crimes is part of a strategy to provoke a war with China that will produce far more death and suffering than was ever wrought by their earlier, criminal conquests. ISLAMABAD, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, has called for a bolstering of efforts towards longer-term solutions for Afghan refugees in Pakistan, the UNHCR said in a statement on Tuesday. He called for an urgent reset of the aid model towards solutions and responsibility sharing, including fostering new partnerships and developing innovative approaches to addressing the protracted displacement situation, the statement said. "We need to seize this opportunity to accelerate solutions and have a bigger, broader vision for the Afghan people in Pakistan," the official said. The High Commissioner offered to work towards a dialogue later this year, which will bring together key stakeholders including government representatives, development actors, and the private sector to develop a package of solutions that benefits both the Afghan population living in Pakistan and the host country itself. Grandi also committed to redoubling efforts aimed at creating conditions conducive to return to Afghanistan including from the perspective of material conditions, access to services, and job opportunities, so as to pave the way for sustainable voluntary returns in the future, the statement added. During the visit, Grandi met Afghan refugees in urban settings as well as in a refugee village, where they briefed him about their concerns and expressed their desire to contribute to their communities in Pakistan and, eventually, in Afghanistan. According to the UNHCR, Pakistan hosts some three million Afghans with some living in the country for generations. JERUSALEM, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Israel's military said on Wednesday that it dropped thousands of leaflets on Gaza City, urging all residents to leave immediately amid an intensified military offensive on the Palestinian enclave's main city. The leaflets called on "all those in Gaza City" to leave and move quickly, saying the army enables "safe corridors" for residents to move to areas in Deir al-Balah and al-Zawaida, which, according to the military, have been designated as safe zones. "Gaza City will remain a dangerous combat zone," the leaflet read. In a press statement, the army said that the evacuation is being carried out before intensifying the offensive in the city. Overnight, Israeli troops targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who were operating in Gaza City, according to the army. The army said that "dozens" of militants were killed. According to the Gaza-based health authorities, at least 25 Palestinian individuals were killed. by Pankaj Yadav NEW DELHI, July 10 (Xinhua) -- In view of the rising number of dengue fever cases in several parts of India, Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda on Wednesday held a high-level meeting to review the dengue situation and overall preparedness in the South Asian country. Held in New Delhi, the meeting was attended by senior doctors of leading government-run hospitals and officials of the federal health ministry. Dengue cases were mostly reported after the rainy season. The monsoon season hits India between mid-June and the end of August. According to media reports, more than 7,000 dengue cases have been reported this year in the southern state of Karnataka alone, with its capital city Bengaluru being the worst hit. Besides, nearly 250 dengue cases have been reported in Delhi this year alone. According to a report by The Indian Express, "A total of 246 cases have been recorded in the city between Jan. 1 and June 29 this year, the highest for the time period since at least 2019. No death has been reported yet due to dengue, though." At the conclusion of a two-day meeting with senior state government officials over the mosquito-borne disease on Tuesday, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah reportedly said, "As on July 8 Karnataka recorded a total of 7,362 dengue cases, 303 patient hospitalizations and seven deaths since the beginning of this year." With 185 fresh dengue cases reported on Tuesday, the state's total count went up to 7,547. During the meeting held in New Delhi on Wednesday, Nadda urged officials to primarily focus on high-burden states and regions where outbreaks were frequently reported, and to proactively work with states to bring tangible results on dengue prevention. The federal health minister also directed officials to create a 24/7 central helpline number for dengue prevention and awareness. He appealed to hospitals in the affected areas to ensure dedicated dengue wards fully equipped with trained manpower, drugs and other logistics. 10 Hollywood stars and moguls calling for Biden to drop out 10 Hollywood stars and moguls calling for Biden to drop out Weeks after George Clooney co-hosted a $28 million fundraiser for Biden, he wants him to drop out. Biden's Hollywood support has begun to wane as Clooney and other moguls publicly express doubts. Despite Biden's backing from the party, some top donors and media giants want a new candidate. Less than a month ago, some of Hollywood's A-list attended a fundraiser for President Joe Biden's reelection campaign, co-hosted by George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Barbra Streisand. They raised $28 million. But in an essay published by The New York Times on Wednesday, Clooney is now calling for the president to drop out of the race. Biden has claimed that calls for him to step aside following his disastrous debate in June are coming from the party's elite instead of everyday Americans, but he has long relied on Hollywood for support the star-studded event last month was the most lucrative Democratic Party fundraiser to date. Though few Democratic lawmakers are publicly calling on the president to end his reelection bid, big donors and Hollywood moguls are openly expressing their doubts. Here are the media giants who have asked Biden to end his campaign so far. George Clooney Clooney penned an essay in The New York Times asking Biden to drop out. Gilbert Flores/Getty Images Clooney called on Biden to drop out of the race in an essay for The New York Times on July 10. Clooney wrote that the Biden he saw at the Hollywood fundraiser in June was "not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010," nor was he "even the Joe Biden of 2020." Instead, he was "the same man we all witnessed at the debate." He wrote that Democrats would lose the election if Biden remained in the race, and also claimed that "every senator and Congress member and governor" he's spoken with privately agrees with him, regardless of their public comments. Rob Reiner A long-time Democratic donor, Reiner said that Democrats "need someone younger" to defeat Trump. Paul Archuleta Rob Reiner is a longtime Democratic donor who hosted a campaign fundraiser that Kamala Harris attended just a couple weeks ago, according to The Hollywood Reporter. But on June 7, he took to X, formerly known as Twitter, with a forceful message: "It's time to stop f-ing around." The actor and filmmaker lauded Biden's service but explicitly called for the president to step down. In a separate post on July 10, Reiner supported Clooney's op-ed, saying that democracy is at risk in this election and "we need someone younger to fight back." John Cusack John Cusack has been posting about his opinions about Biden on X. Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images Throughout his decades-long career, Cusack has been vocal about his political opinions. In 2020, he was one of the most prominent supporters of Bernie Sanders and vowed on social media that "anyone who cannot see or choose not to see what [Trump] is" was out of his life "permanently." In 2023, Cusack posted on X that he understood why Sanders endorsed Biden for president. But the "Say Anything" actor changed his tune in July 2024, quoting a post from Rob Reiner to call on Biden to step down. "There has been no bigger supporter of Biden's domestic policy than Rob he's right," Cusack wrote. Abigail Disney Disney vowed to withhold all future donations to the Democratic Party unless Biden ends his campaign. Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Refinery29 The heiress to the Disney fortune has promised to withhold all further donations to the Democratic Party unless Biden bows out of the race. Disney has long supported left-leaning political groups she donated $50,000 to the Jane Fonda Climate political action committee in the spring and $150,000 to Planned Parenthood Votes, another PAC, in 2014, CNBC reported, citing OpenSecrets and an FEC filing. "This is realism, not disrespect," Disney told CNBC earlier this month. "Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high." Michael Douglas Though Douglas didn't explicitly ask Biden to step aside, he expressed significant "concern." NurPhoto The award-winning actor and producer hosted a fundraiser for Biden earlier this year but sounded skeptical during a July 10 appearance on "The View." Though he didn't go so far as to ask the president to end his campaign, he did say that he is "deeply, deeply concerned." When asked his opinions on George Clooney's op-ed begging Biden to step aside, Douglas ceded that the actor had "a valid point." Michael Moore A champion of progressive causes, Moore likened the debate to "elder abuse." Vittorio Zunino Celotto A titan of political filmmaking and supporter of progressive causes, Michael Moore published an article on his website asking Biden not to run, saying "your body is begging you." Moore went further on an episode of his podcast and likened allowing Biden on the debate stage to "the cruelest form of elder abuse I've ever been forced to watch." Reed Hastings Reed Hastings has donated $1.5 million to Biden in the past. Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images Hastings, a co-founder of Netflix, shared his thoughts with The New York Times in an email earlier this month. "Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous," he wrote. This is a shift for Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, who, according to The Times, donated $1.5 million alone to Biden's campaign in 2020 and more than $20 million to the Democratic Party. Stephen King Stephen King called Biden a "fine president" but said it was time for him to exit the race. Mario Tama/Getty The horror icon has long been vocally anti-Trump, but he added his voice to the movement calling for Biden to exit the race on July 8. King wrote on X, "Joe Biden has been a fine president, but it's time for him in the interests of the America he so clearly loves to announce he will not run for reelection." Damon Lindelof Damon Lindelof proposed a "DEMbargo" on donations to the Democratic Party. Reuters/Mario Anzuoni Lindelof, best known for work writing on "Lost," "The Leftovers," and "Watchmen," wrote an essay for Deadline on July 3 telling Biden to exit the race. "I am a lifelong Democrat," he wrote, "I voted for Joe. I wept when the election was called for him." Lindelof continued, "I believe in Joe Biden. I believe in him so much that we wrote him a sizable check as recently as two weeks ago." But after the debate, Lindelof's opinion changed. He's now asking his fellow Democrats to stop donating to the party. "A rising tide lifts all boats. A falling Biden sinks them," he added. Ashley Judd Judd published an op-ed in USA Today calling on Biden to step aside in order to prevent another Trump presidency. Shannon Finney/Getty Images The actress and political activist published a lengthy opinion piece in USA Today on July 12 calling on Biden to step aside because "beating Trump is too important." She writes that the debate demonstrated that Biden is unable to effectively counter Trump's rhetoric and so must end his candidacy. She implored the Democratic party to act quickly they should, she argues, simultaneously express their deep gratitude to Biden and ask him to step aside before the clock runs out. "Here where I sit in rural Tennessee, it's clear that Americans have already made up their minds against President Biden," Judd concludes. Read the original article on Business Insider Katie Maloney Opens up About Running Something About Her While Ariana Madix Is Hosting Love Island USA The opening of Something About Her was a lengthy event, fraught with bureaucratic hurdles and delays. Finally, in May 2024, more than a year after signing the lease, Katie Maloney and Ariana Madix opened their eatery. There was a lot of enthusiasm at the time of opening. But the challenges didnt end there. Currently, Ariana is on location in Fiji to host Love Island USA. And Katie has been left with the brunt of the work. Ariana is missing out on the fun little things This embedded content is not available in your region. The Vanderpump Rules star appeared on the July 2 episode of the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast to discuss running Something About Her in Arianas absence. The VPR veteran talks to Ariana all the time to update her on everything thats going on. But the logistics of a 19-hour massive time difference between Los Angeles and Fiji make conversations difficult. I try to keep her in the loop of everything thats going on, Katie explained. But, its hard sometimes because I want her to be around and experiencing everything, and the fun little things that I might forget to mention in our conversations. We both missed Diane Keaton, which sucked. Katie strives to make daily visits to Something About Her, but the drive from Valley Village to West Hollywood poses its own challenges. Its just not down the street, its over the hill, so, sometimes, it just doesnt physically make sense to go there, she said. As it is, Something About Her does have an operating team that takes care of the nitty-gritty. Though Katie does make the effort to be on hand. We have a manager, and we have staff, she revealed. I go almost every day. Being a business owner is consuming, to say the least. But Katie makes sure to get some downtime. Even at the risk of missing out on some very famous patrons. I mean, Ive been trying to give myself personal time. Its just good for me to do that, Katie explained of missing Diane Keaton because she was in a pilates class. And also with having podcasts and other stuff going on, like sometimes I just cant make it in. TELL US WHAT DO YOU THINK OF KATIES HANDLING OF SOMETHING ABOUT HER WHILE ARIANA IS AWAY? SHOULD SHE BE MORE OR LESS INVOLVED? The post Katie Maloney Opens up About Running Something About Her While Ariana Madix Is Hosting Love Island USA appeared first on Reality Tea. Native Bidaske with Olympic Gold Medalist Billy Mills On His New Book, 'Wings of an Eagle' Join Native News Online Publisher Levi Rickert on this weeks Native Bidaske as he interviews Olympic Gold Medalist Billy Mills (Oglala Lakota) about his new childrens book, Wings of an Eagle." Mills is an Olympic gold medalist, author, and co-founder of Running Strong for American Indian Youth, a nonprofit organization that supports the critical needs of Native communities. He grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and now travels around the world inspiring audiences to embrace unity through diversity while learning from historical injustices. After winning the Gold Medal in the 10,000-meter race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in an upset, Mills used his fame to improve the lives of Native Americans, particularly Native youth. In 1986, he started a non-profit organization called Running Strong for American Indian Youth. He joined forces with Eugene Krizek, founder of Christian Relief Services. Since then, the organization has raised millions of dollars to provide basic needs for poor Native Americans. Mills shares with Rickert the reason he released Wings of an Eagle at this time and discussed his plans to take his family to Paris to witness the Paris Olympics in late July and early August. Tune in at 12 p.m. EST on Friday, July 12 on the Native News Online Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube channel. About the Author: "Native News Online is one of the most-read publications covering Indian Country and the news that matters to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other Indigenous people. Reach out to us at editor@nativenewsonline.net. " Contact: news@nativenewsonline.net Phaedra Parks is looking to make a grand entry back to the small screens after a long hiatus and all hands are reportedly on deck to make it happen. The reality star is rumored to possibly return as a cast member of the "Real Housewives of Atlanta" to replace suspended star Kenya Moore despite her ongoing contract with "Married to Medicine." This is certainly a surprising development for Phaedra Parks, who was kicked off the show in Season 9 and expressed her unwillingness to return in 2021. Phaedra Parks Is Ready For A New Chapter MEGA The RHOA alum shone on the show for six seasons but exited under controversial circumstances involving spreading rumors about her costar, Kandi Burruss, and her husband, Todd Tucker. However, she's set to reappear with fresh energy and a whole new fanbase she gathered following her appearance on Peacock's "The Traitors." Parks' rumored reentry was heralded by Moore's suspension following heavy accusations of showing raunchy pictures of her costar Brittany Eady at her hair care line event, thus upsetting the producers. However, the 53-year-old denied the allegations, telling her fans, "Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. The truth always comes to light." Kenya Moore: 'You Will Never Destroy A Queen' MEGA She stated that she would never engage in revenge porn or distribute solicited images owned by others for the sole purpose of blackmailing or threatening them, adding that: "I have always been vindicated. I can't talk about STORY even with people planting fake news #sweet16." Eady also addressed the issue on her social media, admitting that it does not feel good to be targeted by someone who was meant to embrace her into a new circle, but was quickly countered by Moore, who reiterated that: "You can try to destroy a legacy, but you will never destroy a queen." Per In Touch, Moore rounded up their social media exchange by thanking the fans for their support and expressing her desire for the anonymous sources peddling false claims to be exposed very soon. Returning To 'RHOA' Was Not On Parks' Bingo Card A Few Years Back View this post on Instagram A post shared by PHAEDRA (@phaedraparks) It surely took a while for Parks to make a 180-degree change in her decision. Back in 2021, the mother-of-two disclosed that she was indeed done with RHOA and ready to put it behind her for good despite annual pleas from the producers for her to consider a return. The star, who appeared on Bravo's "Ultimate Girl's Trip" shortly after being fired from RHOA, disclosed that despite being a fan favorite, the platform had issues that might affect her status as a good parent; thus, returning would not be a responsible decision. However, The Blast gathered that despite her exit, she still kept in touch with everyone, including Tamra Judge and Eva Marcille, whose kids go on playdates with hers. Why Did Phaedra Parks Sudden Exit RHOA? View this post on Instagram A post shared by PHAEDRA (@phaedraparks) On why the reality star was let go from the show, The Blast reported that it was due to an unpleasant exchange between her and Porsha Williams in 2017. Williams accused Parks of setting off the rumor mill alleging that Burrus and her ex-husband Tucker attempted to sexually harass Williams after feeding her illicit drugs. Parks clarified that she simply repeated what she heard but was later found guilty. Despite apologizing for her defamatory claims, Bravo decided it was best to fire her to protect the show and the characters' reputation. Moore Gathered Support From Fellow Bravo Stars MEGA The former beauty queen denied allegations of any misconduct or revenge porn against co-satr Eady, which caused her to be suspended from the show, adding that she's enjoying the bliss of living in a non-toxic environment. Per The Blast, Moore is not alone in her struggle. Her co-stars Porsha Williams and Teresa Giudice from the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" showed support on social media by leaving heartwarming comments on her vacation pictures with her daughter. Williams and Giudice extended the list of housewives showing their support, trailing behind Brandi Glanville of the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," who accused Bravo Network of mistreating Moore. In her statement on X (formerly Twitter), Glanville wrote, "Women are physically fighting on RHNJ & that seems to be ok with producers. Where is HR now? Also, I'm pretty sure producers pushed Kenya to show that video." She continued that the show made Moore out to be the Villian to the support of fans who backed up her statement, claiming Bravo was biased and inconsistent in its treatment of Housewives. Gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash the FBI found in Sen. Bob Menendez's home were not given to him as a bribe, a defense attorney insisted Tuesday during closing arguments in the New Jersey senator's federal corruption trial. While waving his arms and pacing in front of the jury box, the defense attorney, Adam Fee, used a sarcastic tone to mock the government's case as "cherry-picked nonsense." Fee accused prosecutors of "fudging" the facts and said the story they told about Menendez is false and insufficient to convict. MORE: Sen. Bob Menendez 'sold the power of his office,' prosecutor claims in closing argument "The only honest verdict I submit here is to acquit him on each count," Fee told the jury during closing arguments Tuesday in the Manhattan federal courthouse. "His actions were lawful, normal and good for the country." Prosecutors painted a much different picture of Menendez, whom they accused of corruption on a "massive scale" and of selling his office to businessmen willing to pay. "The buck stops here. Thousands upon thousands of bucks stop here. It's time to hold him responsible," prosecutor Paul Monteleoni said as he wrapped his closing argument on Tuesday. PHOTO: Senator Bob Menendez arrives at Manhattan Federal Court, in New York, July 9, 2024. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images) While Fee said he would not blame jurors for believing "something fishy" was going on after they saw multiple photographs of the nearly $500,000 seized from Menendez's home stuffed in boots, jackets and bags, he urged the jury to resist a "knee-jerk" reaction. "The story the prosecutors tell is that it is so weird ... it is so inherently unusual and suspicious that Bob must have known it was a bribe," Fee said. "That is false." The defense insisted Menendez hoarded cash because of his father's experience in Cuba and that it was "common" for his wife to have gold. MORE: Sen. Bob Menendez bribery case: What to know as trial starts The defense also attempted to exploit a weakness in the government's case: the lack of direct evidence linking Menendez to bribe payments. "What text, what email, what document suggests to you that that story is credible?" Fee asked the jury. "They have not supplied to you any compelling evidence for the theory they have offered you." Prosecutors claimed the cash, gold and a luxury convertible were all bribes from Menendez's co-defendants, Fred Daibes and Wael Hana, and accused the senator of using his power to benefit the New Jersey businessmen and foreign governments. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty to their charges. Closing arguments for Daibes and Hana are expected to follow on Wednesday. Sen. Bob Menendez's attorney calls government's case 'cherry-picked nonsense' in closing argument originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Black Mountain is the 'most charming small town' in North Carolina, AFAR magazine says Black Mountain was chosen as the most charming small town in North Carolina by award-winning travel media brand AFAR. Previous Citizen Times reports have covered other recent attention Black Mountain has received. In the past few months alone, the town has been labeled an underappreciated gem, the perfect place for a summer getaway, and more the newest article, which covered choices for "most charming small town" in all 50 states, chose Black Mountain for the title. Here's what AFAR said about Black Mountain, plus Black Mountain News' picks for restaurants in the area, info on a brand new music festival and more. More: Asheville a top 10 city in US for outdoor dining: See how it rates Things to do in Black Mountain AFAR named Black Mountain the most charming small town for "whimsical galleries, live music, and layer-cake mountain views." While the town is only about 20 minutes from Asheville, AFAR said it feels a world apart, with a population of only around 8,500 and ample opportunities for exploring the mountainous environment, viewing work from local artists and plenty more. The complete list of AFAR's suggestions for visiting Black Mountain included: More: National Geographic travel guide features Asheville as LGBTQIA+-friendly destination Restaurants in Black Mountain Black Mountain Bistro is located at 203 East State St. Recent reporting from Black Mountain News offered further choices for visitors and residents alike with their list of favorite area restaurants. Here are their suggestions: Berliner Kindl German Restaurant at 121 Broadway Ave. - German food in a "cozy, Bavarian-type setting" Black Mountain Bistro at 203 E. State St. - Traditional American menu with Southern flair Bush Farmhouse at 151 S. Ridgeway Ave. - South African-themed food with a local twist Cousins Cuban Cafe at 108 Broadway Ave. - Coffee and authentic Cuban cuisine Milton's at 308 W. State St. inside The Monte Vista Hotel. - Southern fine dining My Father's Pizza and Pasta at 110 Cherry St. - Classic pizza and pasta dishes made from family recipes Taco Billy at 117 Cherry St. - Texas-style tacos The Trailhead at 207 W. State St. - Classic Americana dining Veranda Cafe & Gift at 119 Cherry St. - Soups, salads and sandwiches Voodoo Roux at 108 Black Mountain Ave. - Authentic Cajun cuisine More: Best bets for summer getaways: 3 Western NC small towns named adorable by Southern Living Black Mountain Blues festival A final suggestion is coming soon this summer. The Black Mountain Blues festival, described by Black Mountain News as a "joint effort between White Horse Black Mountain and LEAF Global Arts," will take place at several venues throughout the town July 12-14. Venues include The Railyard, Bush Farmhouse, Foothills Grange, White Horse Black Mountain, Monte Vista Hotel, Black Mountain Center for the Arts, The Goldfinch and Town Pump. Local blues musician Melissa McKinney, one of the founders of the inaugural festival, spoke to the Black Mountain News about the inspiration behind the new event. I just want to make sure that I was featuring artists who are really respecting the history of the blues, McKinney said. Its complicated as white musicians to make sure that we are honoring blues. Its so complicated and its something I think that I feel like I have to check myself every day, and I still dont know that Im doing enough. More: Black Mountain Blues festival coming this summer Iris Seaton is the trending news reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at iseaton@citizentimes.com. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Things to do in Black Mountain: Here's why it topped this charming list Bloom-Carroll student graduates from third program at U.S. Space and Rocket Center Bloom-Carroll student Hunter Ellinger stands in front of his home on July 8, 2024, in Lancaster, Ohio. Ellinger recently graduated from the U.S. Space and Rocket Center program in Huntsville, Alabama. LANCASTER Hunter Ellinger's interests are out of this world. Literally. He's a space enthusiast who recently graduated from his third program at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. His latest endeavor was completing the Advanced Space Academy program. Ellinger earned one college credit hour in Introduction to Space Sciences from the University of Alabama in the process. Ellinger will be a sophomore this fall at Bloom-Carroll High School and was in Alabama for a week last month. He earned his scuba diving certificate while there to learn how astronauts train underwater. The students also built a model rocket and toured the onsite museum. At week's end they were quizzed on what they'd learned. Ellinger first attended space camp in 2022 after being on a wait list for four years. "My first year going I was in space academy," he said. "The following year I wanted to try out aviation challenge. Aviation challenge is not military camp, but a way to teach kids who want to be future pilots or go into the Air Force." Ellinger said he became interested in space around the age of 3. His mother, Vonda, said he knew the names of constellations when he was 4. Ellinger wants to join the military after high school and learn aerospace engineering and eventually join the U.S. Space Force. He also wants to attend college and is looking at Ohio State. He will learn more about the school when he attends a band clinic there. In the meantime, Ellinger plans on going back to space camp next year for the Aviation Challenge Mach III program. He is friends with Austin Rubenstahl, also a Bloom-Carroll Local Schools student who has also attended space camp. jbarron@gannett.com 740-681-4340 Twitter/X: @JeffDBarron This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Local student graduates from U.S. Space and Rocket Center program Introduced last year to showcase the OFallon Downtown District in a fun outdoor event the first Thursday of each summer month, the next District Night is set for Thursday, July 11. They have worked hard to offer something for everyone so the entire family can come and have a fun night, said Andrew Dallner, director of the parks and recreation department. It starts at 5 p.m. and continues through 9 p.m., with more than 20 downtown businesses, bars and restaurants offering food, drinks and activities. A car cruise-in and summer concert series are also part of the evening. The festive fun will take place on First Street, from OFallon Station to Toast and Table. The event is free, but food and beverages cost, as do some activities. There will be five free water stations set up throughout the area. All beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, must be in an event cup, which is orange. The event cup is $5 and all drink vendors will have them available. These funds go towards supporting this event and others produced downtown. All kid-friendly drink vendors will have cup toppers and straws to help the little ones keep their beverages within the cup, which is new this time. Organizers ask that people leave the coolers, bottles, and all other food and drink at home. Two bands will entertain RetroNerds on the main stage and Steel Creek on the second stage. Food and Drink, Activities The Parks and Recreation Department will offer games and the city of OFallon will dispense free popsicles. Dallner said the Bubble Bus is parked there, too. Activities include Courage & Grace providing chalk for the kids to draw on the street; Furchild will feature cool stuff for pets, and Crossfit Voyage will sponsor a crossfit challenge. The Muse Room will have group painting and art for sale, and Refinery Salon will open its Merchant Parlor. Among the food and drink items: Boarding House Bistro - charcuterie boxes, juice box, wine, beer, sharkuterie boxes and kiddie cocktails; 1st Street Lounge - cheeseburgers, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, jumbo pickles, chips and candy; Gears Bar and Cafe - frozen drinks, margaritas, daiquiris and frozen strawberry lemonade; Gias Pizza - pizza and drinks; Harrietts Sweet Treats - cookies, cakes and pies; Juice Heal Thrive - vegan nachos, smoothie bowls, sorbet and fresh juice drinks; Le Ono - Hawaiian plates and cocktails; OFallon Moose Lodge 2608 - wings and ribbon fries; Nitro Salsa - Southwest chicken eggroll, pizza eggroll, Southwest chicken nachos, Smore cookie and popsicles; Outdoorsman Lounge - beer; Peel Brewing Company - Italian beef sandwiches, mac & cheese; beer and sodas; Seasons Of Spice - Guss pretzels, ice cream, candy and Olympics tattoos; Shooters Bar & BBQ - beer on the patio; Sweet Katie Bees Sustainable Bakery-Cafe - chicken salad croissant sandwiches, Tuscan salad, cupcakes and pastries; signature lattes and mocktails; Toast and Table - frozen mint lemonade, frozen blueberry mint lemonade, pulled pork sliders with coleslaw and loaded pulled pork baked potatoes; The Upright Pub & Music Parlor cocktails; Sgt Charles A Fricke VFW Post 805 beer outside. Special notes for the evening Event organizers encourage attendees to bring a lawn chair. There will be limited tables throughout the event but no additional seating. Furry friends are welcome. All dogs must be on a leash and well socialized to attend the event. Clean up after your dog is required, and there are doggie bags in green dispensers downtown but please bring your own, organizers say. The streets closed for this event include 1st Street, Lincoln Avenue and Cherry Street from State Street to 2nd Street starting at 2 p.m. People will be able to walk in the corridor. For more information, visit Downtown Districts Facebook page. The next one is set for Aug. 1. The first was June 6. Dallner said other park department events coming up include two that are part of Unplug Illinois, which includes the Cardboard Boat Regatta in the Community Pool as well as a mediation and movement class in the Community Park on July 13. Car Cruise details A car cruise in sponsored by Newbold Toyota/BMW, will be located next to the caboose and the VFW Post. A variety of antique and sporty new cars will be on display in a two-block area of the event. Registration is closed and sold out. Cars will be in place at 4:30 p.m. There are two locations for cars during the event: 1) The Caboose Lane: 1st Street between Lincoln Ave and Cherry St. In the Caboose Lane all cars are stationary. Cars are not permitted to leave until the end of the event at 9 p.m. 2) The VFW Lane: 1st Street between Cherry Street and Oak Street. In the VFW lane cars may leave at an idle and will be escorted out by a volunteer. The cruise will not be a judged show but a place where car owners can show off their prized cars and the community can have fun looking at them and talking to the owners, Dallner said. Visitors can purchase tickets to vote for their favorite car and the Peoples Choice Champion will be announced by 8:30 p.m. This Centre County borough celebrates its heritage year-round while looking toward the future PHILIPSBURG AT A GLANCE Population: 2,789 (according to the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau) Landmarks: Simler House, Moshannon Building, Union Church Where to eat and drink: The Dead Canary, We Are Inn, Brown Dog Catering, Brothers Pizza What else to do there: Black Moshannon State Park, Cold Stream Dam, Rowland Theatre More info: philipsburgborough.com Despite Philipsburg borough only covering 0.8 square miles, theres history around every corner. Located on the western edge of Centre County, Philipsburg has a number of historical sites, with efforts to revitalize the town gaining steam in recent years. And this week, residents are celebrating at Philipsburg Heritage Days, a five-day festival in honor of the borough. Syed Karimushan, one of the co-chairs for the festival, said the borough may have a long history but has come a long way in recent years. Philipsburg has a rich history, Karimushan said. So coming into town, you can see that its a very old town, but it has revitalized itself over the last few years. An aerial look of the Philipsburg Borough office and North Centre Street on Thursday, March 7, 2024. Historic sites Originally called Mushannon, Philipsburg was founded in 1797 by Henry Philips, who lured settlers into the area with exaggerated promises of cheap resources and provisions, according to a post on the Happy Valley Adventure Bureaus blog. Eventually, the region grew around the coal and lumber industries, leading to the Philipsburg Borough as we know it today and its storied history. Heres a look at several historic sites: Honor guard welcomes those to Union Church for the Ecumenical Memorial Day Worship on Sunday, May 28, 2017. Union Church and Burial Ground: What started as the towns first cemetery later became the site for the communitys first meeting space, serving as a dual-purpose schoolhouse and non-denominational church in 1820. In 1841, the church was renovated and covered with old plaster, leading to its more popular name Old Mud Church. In 1978, the church and burial grounds were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Rowland Theatre prepares for a movie viewing on Friday, Jan. 22, 2021. Rowland Theatre: Built by and named after Congressman Charles H. Rowland in 1917, the 1000-seat theater has been an icon in Philipsburg ever since. In 1978, it was put up for sale by the Rowland family but was bought by the Philipsburg Borough, with volunteers managing its operations. The single-screen theater shows both movies and live shows, remaining a staple in the community. Simler House: Right at the corner of Second and Laurel Street sits Philipsburgs oldest surviving building. Built around 1810, the log cabin built by Revolutionary War veteran John Simler served as a shoe repair shop, boarding house, bakery and tavern. In the 2000s, the house was set to be torn down but instead was purchased and restored by Simlers descendant, Barabara Bezilla. In 2022, the Philipsburg Historical Foundation turned the home into a living museum, complete with period furniture and items to show what life would be like in Philipsburg in the 1810s. Cold Stream Dam: Along U.S. Route 322 just outside downtown Philipsburg, the Cold Stream Dam is a popular location for fishing, hiking and picnics. In the winter, the nearby park hosts an iconic Christmas display with a 37-foot wooden Santa Claus, set up by the Philipsburg American Legion. Restoring downtown In recent years, the Philipsburg Revitalization Corporation has focused on transforming vacant lots and buildings in downtown Philipsburg. The PRC has turned once-empty lots into green spaces for community gatherings and renovated storefronts into spaces for artists. In May, the PRC was awarded a $147,000 federal community project funding grant to build a new community park along the 100 block of East Pine Street. We want this town to look great, and I think that so far weve been doing a great job with that, PRC President Eric Rusnak told the Centre Daily Times in May. Whenever people ask me how we do it, I always as them the question, How do you rebuild a town? back. Thats what were doing here rebuilding Philipsburg, and Id say things have been coming together quite nicely. New businesses and restaurants have also moved into the area in recent years, like The Dead Canary, The Sweet Suite and Sowers Market. Heritage Days Philipsburg Heritage Days will be celebrating its 26th anniversary this year, held on the same weekend as State Colleges Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. Attendees watch as fire engines drive by during the Heritage Days Grand Parade Saturday, June 14, 2018 in Philipsburg. Philipsburg Heritage Days started as a continuation of Bicentennial, which was in 1997 at the 200 anniversary of the founding of Philipsburg, Karimushan said. And from that point forward, the celebration continued every year, where we basically put together a festival that attracts a lot of people from in and outside of Philipsburg to come in and see the town. The street festival consists of live music events, a parade, firework shows, a watermelon eating contest and more. This year, for Kids Day on Thursday, the town will host a replica of the Optimus Prime truck from the movie Transformers. Events run through July 13. For For a full schedule, visit the Philipsburg Heritage Days website. LANZHOU, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The 30th China Lanzhou Investment and Trade Fair (CLZITF) concluded on Wednesday in northwest China's Gansu Province, with deals worth about 604 billion yuan (about 84.7 billion U.S. dollars) inked. The figure is 7.7 percent higher than that for last year's edition of the trade fair. First held in 1993 in the provincial capital Lanzhou, the CLZITF has emerged as a major event for Belt and Road economic and trade cooperation. Last year it attracted more than 1,600 enterprises from home and abroad, and the figure surpassed 2,200 during this year's edition. "Over the past decade, Lanzhou has undergone great changes. The trade fair has also attracted an increasing number of enterprises from various countries and regions," said Maryna Anikeyeva, an entrepreneur from Belarus, who attended the fair in 2014 for the first time as a member of the Belarusian trade delegation. This year, Anikeyeva, general manager of JSC "Molochny Mir," a multinational operating in the dairy product sector across over 30 countries and regions, visited Gansu to seek more partners and expand their presence in the local market. "A dairy company in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture of Gansu has invited us to visit their factory and discuss cooperation details," she said. Local specialties of Gansu, such as Lanzhou beef noodles, edible sweet lilies and wine, were highly appreciated by many international exhibitors. During a promotion event for Lanzhou beef noodles on July 8, 54 agreements were signed, totaling nearly 5.77 billion yuan, covering cooperation in pre-packaged and overseas sales. Michel Marqueton, chairman of the French recreational vehicle manufacturer SCI VIBRAYE, was among the signatories. His company plans to deploy mobile food trucks to introduce Lanzhou beef noodles in Europe. The company also plans to establish a production base in France for growing vegetables, producing seasonings and providing relevant technical training, according to Marqueton. During this investment and trade fair, RUE "Beltamozhservice," a state-owned logistics company in Belarus, signed a cooperation agreement with the operation management company of Wuwei bonded logistics center in Gansu, aiming to enhance cooperation on railway logistics and bonded warehouses. "China is our important business partner," said Dzmitry Kavalionak, general manager of RUE "Beltamozhservice," adding that the China-Europe freight train service has become an important logistics and transport channel to promote the economic and trade development of the two countries. Marcos Lisandro Perez Machado, vice governor of Florida Province in Uruguay, described this year's Lanzhou trade fair as "extremely large-scale" and "highly innovative." "For many years, the CLZITF has provided a wealth of business opportunities for merchants from home and abroad. We hope that we can carry out closer and higher-quality comprehensive cooperation in the future," Machado said. Lubna Zeidan grew up in Lebanon but came to the U.S. after that country no longer became safe for her family. But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Alfred Lord Tennyson describes death as a ship sailing home in "Crossing the Bar." Many faith traditions describe the end of life as a reunification with the divine, as a coming home of sorts. Home is where the heart is. Home is what keeps you warm and secure. But often people have to face the horror of home becoming a deadly trap. Ive worked with refugees for more than 20 years and to these refugees whove had to flee their countries, home was lost when it was no longer safe. They come to the U.S. in search of security, safety and a future no one really says they are searching for home. Refugee poet Warsan Shire, who had to flee Somalia to save her life, describes it as such in her poem Home: i want to go home,but home is the mouth of a sharkhome is the barrel of the gunand no one would leave homeunless home chased you to the shore Home to me was a 150-year-old stone house on a hill in the small town of Beyssour in Mount Lebanon. The original three-room house was bought by my great grandfather in 1871. A top floor was added by my paternal grandfather then other parts renewed and added through the years. When I inherited it in 1976, I told everyone that I would never sell it it was home to our whole mutigenerational family. I expected to raise my kids there and leave it to them and their kids. Then civil war came to Lebanon, and I left the country. I went back in the 1990s with my husband and our two boys, and we lived in my old home for 9 years. Lubna Zeidan was the refugee program director at Interfaith Action of Central Texas. It was supposed to be our final move, but Lebanon never stabilized, and we realized that we couldnt continue to live in an insecure environment. We came back to the U.S. permanently in 2001. It wasnt until 2011 that I was emotionally ready to sell my old house. By then, it was no longer home. It was only recently that I started thinking about the concept of home. This was triggered by an evening at a Red Bench: Interfaith Conversations that Matter, a monthly event sponsored by Interfaith Action of Central Texas. Sitting at a table with five other people discussing the topic of home it was soon clear that we each had a slightly different definition. Home is where you feel secure, appreciated and valued. It is usually where you grew up. We realized that we identified our first home with where mom was. But of course there are thousands of people who lived in a house with family members, including mom, but never felt at home. Someone at our table said home to her is the town she grew up in not a specific house there. A pastor in the group pointed out that his first home was church. Another of those around our table felt he lost his home since hes become estranged from his family and had a divorce. He was looking forward to finding a home again with a new relationship. So is home a place? Is it a place at a time in our history? A place with specific people in it? Is it a feeling we have about where we grew up? Does everyone find it again as an adult? I was taken aback when my adult son, who has a partner and a house of his own, got up after Sunday lunch and said, Im so tired, I think Ill go home and rest. And it hit me. Oh, this house is no longer home for him this is not where he rests. As his mom, It hurt my heart a bit, but as someone who has witnessed so many lose their original homes to violence and tragedy, I was pleased at his natural transition. Lubna Zeidan is a lifelong teacher and refugee support advocate. After directing the refugee program at Interfaith Action of Central Texas (iACT) for over 20 years, she is now director of employee success and engagement. Doing Good Together is complied by iACT, interfaithtexas.org. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Refugees find new sense of home Which galleries will be at Art Basel Miami Beach? Here are some highlights For some people, the time to get ready for Christmas is the second Halloween ends. For Miami, the time to (mentally) prepare for Art Basel Miami Beach is now. Art Basel, the brand behind the premier international art fairs, announced the full lineup of galleries for this years Art Basel Miami Beach, with nearly two-thirds of exhibitors hailing from the Americas, including Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Peru and Uruguay. VIP preview days are Dec. 4 to 5, and the fair is open to the public from Dec. 6 to 8. Art Basel Miami Beach will host 283 galleries from 35 countries and territories, the fair announced on Monday. The lineup of galleries includes 32 first-time participants, the largest cohort of newcomers since 2008. Miami-based artists and art galleries have received an influx of international attention in recent years. Five local galleries will present at the fair: David Castillo, Central Fine, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Piero Atchugarry Gallery and Spinello Projects. Miami Beachs Central Fine will showcase works by gallery artists including Buenos Aires-born, New York-based painter Constanza Schaffner. David Castillo will present works by Belkis Ayon, Sanford Biggers, Pepe Mar, Amelia Pelaez, Maria de Los Angeles, Rodriguez Jimenez, Xaviera Simmons and Vaughn Spann. Piero Atchugarry Gallery will show work by Linda Kohen in the Survey sector, dedicated to historically relevant works made before 2000. In the Nova Sector, a platform for younger galleries and artists, Spinello Projects, an Allapattah gallery and studio space run by Anthony Spinello, will show works by sculptor Nina Surel. Im beyond grateful for the opportunity and for Anthony Spinellos vision, Surel said. Nina Surel, an Argentine Miami-based artist, will show her work at Art Basel Miami Beach for the first time in her career. Her artworks are inspired by femininity and the strength of the human body. Surel, an Argentine Miami-based artist who works out of Little Haiti studio complex Collective 62, is known for her terracotta sculptures of the female form. Surel will present at Art Basel for the first time in her career with works inspired by classic Greek sculptures, the Taino mother earth deity and the breast-shaped attalea fruit of Mexico. I am interested in the strength of the human body, the persistence of life, the resistance of the soul, the legacy of past lives and the possibility of reinventing oneself by diving into a deeper, more intimate yet collective, search, she said. If Spinellos performance at last years fair is any indication, Surels work is sure to be a hot commodity. Last year, Spinello showed five works by Puerto Rican painter Esai Alfredo. They all sold within an hour. The heavy Latin American representation is no surprise given Art Basel Miami Beachs status as an important gateway for the Latin American art market. Isla Flotante from Buenos Aires will show in the fairs main sector for the first time after a six year run in the Positions and Nova sections. Argentine artists Valentina Liernur, Valentin Demarco and Mariela Scafati. Instituto de vision, a gallery based in Bogota and New York, will present six artists from Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Mexico. Brazils Luisa Strina is celebrating the 50th anniversary as Sao Paulos longest-running contemporary art gallery. Its booth will celebrate the gallerys history with pieces by painter Cildo Meirelles, ceramist Anna Maria Maiolino, sculptor Clarissa Tossin and works by Luisa Matsushita, the former lead vocalist of the rock band Cansei de Ser Sexy. This years fair is the first with director Bridget Finn at the helm. Finn, a gallerist and curator, is the fairs first director since Noah Horowitz left the role in 2021. In a statement, Finn said it was the fairs goal to carve out a more equitable path for small and mid-sized galleries to enter the fairs coveted main sector. The proposals in Nova, Positions, and Survey are of exceptional quality and ambition, and its clear that the galleries in the main sector will not be holding back come December, bringing their best of the best to this all-important fair in the worlds leading art market, Finn said. This story was produced with financial support from individuals and Berkowitz Contemporary Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work. New Hampshire theme park Story Land to commemorate 70 years with special Halloween celebration Story Land, a New Hampshire theme park, turns 70 this year, and is unveiling a spooky new event to celebrate. Happy Hauntings, a special Halloween event at the park will run from Saturday, October 5 through Sunday, October 27, according to a Story Land statement. The family-friendly event will feature a variety of attractions, including trick-or-treating, character meet-and-greets and rides. Happy Hauntings will extend the parks usual operation, making this season Story Lands longest ever. The park will be fully decorated for Halloween and will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday in October, plus Monday, October 14. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW As Amy Jordan opened her paddleboard rental business at the south end of Horsetooth Reservoir on Monday morning, Izzy Hood helped by washing kayaks and then aligning them neatly to wait for customers. This is Jordans 14th season owning the business called What's SUP since starting in 2011. Now, with three locations around the reservoir, the company has a fleet of over 125 paddleboards and 20 kayaks. It's not something that's consistent every day, but I would say on a good, hot weekend with all locations on any given day of a Saturday or a Sunday, we probably do over 500 rentals, Jordan said. A few hours later, the Calabrese family and their friends arrived to spend some time on the water. The family came up from Denver for a few days to enjoy their summer before their oldest son heads to college on the West Coast. Others started preparing meals on grills or backing up their trucks to get their boats out. More than a million visitors like these flock to the Horsetooth area every year. The reservoir is among the 10 largest bodies of water in the state and undoubtedly one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Fort Collins area. Its visitors contribute to millions of dollars in sales tax revenues collected annually by the city of Fort Collins, and the greater economic impact of tourism throughout the city approaches a value of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, economic reports have shown. Horsetooth Reservoir is one of many things that makes Fort Collins great. And this weekend, expect a wave of visitors as the city braces for possibly the hottest day in recorded history, and maybe one of the hottest stretches of days ever. Here's what to know if you should decide to enjoy some time in the water soon. Colorado heat wave: Here are the chances some cities top 100 degrees Beware of winds when spending time on the reservoir I would say on average, my rangers, specifically for paddle craft, are assisting between eight to 10 folks a day in the afternoons. Especially when the afternoon storms come by, Aubrey Hilte, senior ranger at Horsetooth Reservoir, said during an interview at the parks visitor center that overlooks the water. While there are many factors that lead to these incidents, a common one is the deceptive winds. The wind conditions can even be different in the parking lot versus once you get down on the water, Hilte said. Before you head out, you should check the weather radar to get an idea of the conditions. But if youre already out in the water when bad weather hits, there are things to do and things to avoid. The view of Horsetooth Reservoir as seen from County Rd 38 E on July 8, 2024. If you stay close to shore, that's helpful, but a lot of times people will try to swim across the open channel thinking that, Hey straight line is the shortest distance from point A to point B and then they get kind of caught up in that wind current and paddling against the wind is a very exhausting task, Hilte said. It can be a better practice to pull your board to the edge of the shore and just wait out the storm before trying to get back to where you were. Its also important to know your limits. If you're new to paddleboarding or you're not a strong swimmer, if there's weather coming around the reservoir, maybe today isn't the day that you come out to paddleboard, Hilte said. To wear, or not to wear that life jacket According to Colorado law, if youre on a paddle craft (kayaks, canoes or paddleboards), you're required to have a life jacket on board. If youre over 13 years, youre not required to wear it, but its always a good idea to do so. A small dog with a shark fin-shaped life jacket stands on a paddleboard on Horsetooth Reservoir on July 8, 2024. The last drowning that we had on the Larimer County property would have been at Carter Lake in 2021 for a kayaker who did not have a life jacket, Hilte said. The state saw 32 water-related deaths in 2023, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife unofficial records reported previously by the Coloradoan. In 2022, a record 42 people died in water-related incidents, nearly double from the 22 deaths in 2021. Hilte thinks that part of the increased trend could be because after COVID, everything closed but nature was open so folks were out here learning a new skill, getting into a new type of recreation, but didn't quite necessarily have all of the information that they needed and were coming out here unprepared. Cliff jumping just don't do it Contrary to what many think, cliff jumping at Horsetooth is not permitted. It's very dangerous, not safe and you can get ticketed and fined for it, Jordan said. A common factor for these incidents is alcohol use. Hood said people sometimes get drunk and confident and then they jump. But many things can go wrong, from breaking bones to being swept away by the current. People will claim they know the lake well, but it changes every day just like a river or any body of water. And there's undercurrents under the lake as well, especially close to those dams that'll just completely drag you under if you hit the wrong spot, Hood said. Horsetooth Reservoir should be enjoyed Were lucky to have Horsetooth in our backyard, Hilte said, and these things shouldnt scare us from coming out and recreating. The Calabrese family and their friends came from Denver to spend some time on the water as pictured on July 8, 2024. When you come and you're prepared and you're doing it in a safe manner, that's when you're going to have the best experience that folks are set out here to have, Hilte said. Coloradoan reporter Miles Blumhardt contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Horsetooth Reservoir boasts paddleboards, kayaks, boating and swimming Taoiseach Simon Harris has pledged to help an Irish woman who was banned from leaving the United Arab Emirates after allegedly attempting suicide. Tori Towey, 28, an Emirates Airlines crew from Boyle in County Roscommon, is facing criminal charges in the Gulf country for trying to take her own life and alcohol abuse, according to reports. Ms Towey allegedly attempted self harm after suffering severe bruising during a violent attack by her husband at her home in Dubai, Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of opposition, told parliament. She faces a lengthy jail sentence if convicted, according to advocacy group Detained in Dubai, which is assisting her family. Ms McDonald said Ms Towey was under incredible stress. "Tori is a Roscommon woman and she wants to come home, the Sinn Fein leader said on Tuesday, referring to the county in Ireland. In response, the prime minister vowed to work with Ms McDonald "to intervene and see how we can support an Irish citizen in what sounds to be, based on what you tell me, the most appalling circumstances". Thank you, deputy McDonald, for bringing the case of Tori to my attention, Mr Harris said, according to Irish broadcaster RTE. I am not directly appraised of the situation, but Im very happy to be directly appraised of it now. Ms McDonald described Ms Towey as the victim of the most gross domestic violence and said she was under extreme stress after her passport was "destroyed". "There was a travel ban imposed on her and she had gone to the authorities seeking protection many times but to absolutely no avail, Ms McDonald told parliament. But following one particularly severe beating in which her husband repeatedly tried to slam doors on her arms and break her limbs, she escaped upstairs and she attempted to take her own life. Unfortunately Tori now faces charges in Dubai of attempted suicide and the abuse of alcohol. The system over there, rather than protecting this woman who is an Irish citizen, chose instead to detain her to charge her, Ms McDonald said. The foreign ministry told Sky News it was aware of the case and is providing consular assistance but declined to elaborate. Claire Kerrane, MP from Roscommon, said Ms Towy was living in a nightmare and must be allowed to return home urgently. Tori is a survivor of serious domestic abuse. She needs to be brought home. Ms Towey moved to Dubai in April 2023 and has been staying in a rented property with her mother Caroline. "We are calling on Dubai authorities to urgently drop the charges against Tori, remove the travel ban and let her fly home to Ireland with her mother, said Radha Stirling, the chief executive of Detained In Dubai. Strangely, the UAE has gone to great public relations efforts to promote alcohol as legal in the country. In reality, people are still regularly charged with alcohol consumption and possession. Toris experience is nothing short of tragic and quite frankly, she is lucky to be alive, she said. The UAE in 2020 was widely reported to have decriminalised both alcohol consumption and attempted suicide as it introduced a slew of reforms to modernize the Gulf state. Ms Towey's case will be heard in court on 18 July. If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. Nutritious and delicious: Hunger Task Force teaches MPS students of color how to eat healthy Small hands pat radish seeds into the dark, rich soil, as young faces smile in anticipation. Within a few weeks, the children will watch the seeds sprout at the Hunger Task Force farm in Franklin. The 20 children, primarily elementary schoolers, come from Allen-Field Elementary School and Hmong American Peace Academy for a second annual summer program, Cooking with Culture. The students meet from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesdays for six weeks during the summer. Each year, Hunger Task Force reaches out to teachers and parents to sign up their kids to be selected. The group gathers at the Hunger Task Force farm to learn about harvesting vegetables, preparing meals and developing nutritious habits. Matt King, CEO of Hunger Task Force, said the purpose of the program is to teach nutrition through a cultural lens. King said nutrition education in public schools is not at the level it should be. "This is a celebration of diversity within our community and within our country," King said. "One of the key pieces for creating dignity for the people that we serve is celebrating the different food traditions and different cultural traditions around food." Pasua Chang, founder of Cooking with Culture, said the program started as an effort to be more inclusive with the children it provides resources to. "It kind of started as an initiative to include more cultures into our programming. We wanted to have diverse groups of students come, and then we also wanted to provide some insight into what foods other cultures eat and how they do things," Chang said. Children plant radish seeds at the Hunger Task Force farm in Franklin, Wisconsin on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. On July 9, the children celebrated food by cooking West African okra gumbo. In addition to cooking, the students learn more about where the food they're eating comes from and what culture it belongs to. One student was ready to show off her new skills in the kitchen. Eight-year-old Taylor Jennings said her favorite part of the program has been learning new recipes and making food. Her favorite food is burgers, but she said she was also excited to cook gumbo, a dish she enjoys. The meals taught to the students have five components: dairy, vegetables, protein, fruit and grains. Chang said this is important because nutrition is not always a possibility at home due to multiple food deserts in Milwaukee. "Some kids, they don't have the variety of foods to choose from at home," Chang said. "With our summer program, we're just really exposing them to all the different foods that are out there. It's not just chicken nuggets." Hunger Task Force also offers a mobile market in nearby communities that provides healthy food items at 50% off store prices to make nutritious options more accessible. Seven-year-old Nylon Ealy said his favorite dish he has cooked during the program has been broccoli and chicken. "I learned cooking," Nylon said. It's an important skill to have because "we cook to eat." Alane Zimmermann, center, helps Pachaia Yang, 10 (left), and Paderchia Yang, 10 (right), dice onions for gumbo at the Hunger Task Force farm in Franklin on July 9. The twins are participants in the Cooking with Culture program put on by the task force. Twin sisters Pachaia and Paderchia Yang both said of all the activities in the program, they love cooking the most. "My favorite thing is cooking and cutting," said Pachaia, 10. "I also learned how to fry things." Paderchia said her favorite thing she's cooked so far has been sesame noodles. "Cooking is the best part," she said. "It's kind of fun." Many students rely on their school meals during the school year, but summertime leaves many children without access to healthy lunches. The program aims to not only provide the children with healthy meals but give them the tools to make nutritious choices in the future. "Healthy eating at a young age really influences your chronic health conditions when you're older," Chang said. "It's easier to influence a child to make healthy decisions than it is to influence an adult who has years of habits to unlearn." In addition to the mobile markets, Hunger Task Force also offers food banks and food drives. Information on services provided or how to donate can be found at www.hungertaskforce.org. Contact Jolan Kruse at JKruse@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 'Cooking with Culture' teaches Milwaukee schoolchildren healthy meals When Ross Horner, former president and CEO of Uptown Columbus, opened his dream restaurant on Broadway, there was little to no fanfare. He didnt have a big ribbon cutting ceremony for Franks Alley, and the future was uncertain for the hot dog spot as the COVID-19 pandemic remained a global crisis with no signs of slowing down. It starts as an idea, Horner told the Ledger-Enquirer. And you build it out and grind. You create a community. Since opening the New York street food joint in a space that used to be an actual alley, Mike Jones watched as Horners community grew inside Franks Alley. Jones initially became associated with the restaurant when Horner approached him about putting together branding. Jones works remotely as a senior brand designer for the Colorado-based company Heyo. After his work designing for Horner ended, Jones stuck around the restaurant. (I was eating), Jones said. Lets just be straight. I would come in here for lunch and catch up with Ross. When Horner experienced a big life change that caused him to leave Columbus, and potentially close Franks Alley, Jones realized it was an opportunity to help a friend while fulfilling a longtime dream he had with his other friend, Matt Gillespie. The two friends came together to become the new owners of Franks Alley, and they plan to reopen the restaurant Thursday at 11 a.m. Realizing a pipe dream Gillespie and Jones talked about operating a food business together for the past 15 years. But the time or the budget was never right. It was always just a pipe dream, Jones said. Horner closed Franks Alley earlier this year to be closer to his family for personal reasons. He was unsure what the future was going to look like for his dream business that had built a community and led to the creation of Glizzy Fest. The festival began a couple years ago, offering live music, activities and events for adults and kids on Broadway. Horner didnt want to see Franks Alley close or the annual Glizzy Fest end because of his absence. Neither did Jones and Gillespie, who sat down with Horner to discuss the logistics of becoming the new owners of Franks Alley and continuing Horners legacy in Columbus. Everything lined up, Jones said, and now theyre preparing to reopen the restaurant this week. Running Franks Alley will be a big undertaking with both of them working full-time jobs, said Gillespie, who is a real estate photographer. But both of them have positions that allow them to set their own schedules, he said, which makes it possible. We just felt like this is a great opportunity because we had been talking about it for 15 years, Gillespie said. And its like, were only getting older so, lets go ahead and do it. Keeping the community going One of Jones and Gillespies priorities is to ensure the community around Franks Alley that Horner built remains in place and grows. It is important to Jones that he preserves Horners legacy at the restaurant and in Columbus. Jones has watched Horner build and care for Franks Alley from start to finish, he said, and he saw Horner put everything he had into making the business succeed. You see what this place meant to them when it wasnt going like they wanted it to, Jones said. Or they had to do something different. You want to reach out. You want to love on them, hug on them, pray for them, and then go, Can we help? Gillespie and Jones will make some changes, but Franks Alley will remain true to Horners vision, they said. Customers will still be able to order predetermined hot dogs on the menu, but theyve made the menu more customizable. Ordering will be more like a bar-style, with customers being able to choose what theyd like on their hot dog as they move down the line. And yes, Glizzy Fest will carry on under Gillespie and Jones. The friends, family and community Horner made in Columbus make it difficult for him to leave, he said. Columbus has always welcomed him, from the time he worked for the Civic Center to the time he worked in Uptown Columbus. When he began Franks Alley, Horner didnt know the kind of community he would build with the restaurant, but hes confident it wont go away under the leadership of Gillespie and Jones. When you want to see how diverse and how cool and interesting Columbus is, then you come down here because you see it here, Horner said. And I think that was one of the things that just kept driving me. Redding eatery puts passion for Jamaica in its jerk spice chicken and other island dishes Surrounded by the colors of her homeland, Deandra Williams was enjoying dishing out her signature Jamaican food during a recent oudoor festival in downtown Redding. Williams was busy at her Deandras Taste of Jamaica booth, with black, green and gold banners as a backdrop, during the Juneteenth celebration where a line of customers quickly bought out all her popular dishes. I can tell you what we normally sell out very quickly, she said. On the first day of the farmers market. It closes at 12 and I sold out right before 10:30 a.m. No surprises there. Deandra Williams meets with customers at her Deandras Taste of Jamaica booth during the Juneteenth celebration in downtown Redding on June 19, 2024. She began selling her dishes on Saturday mornings at the Redding Farmers Market earlier this year. Demand has been brisk ever since Williams began selling her jerk chicken, curried goat and other distinctive dishes in Redding. Since February, Williams has been offering the flavors of Jamaica to discerning diners. She first started a pop-up restaurant in downtown Redding and now focuses on the Saturday outdoor Redding Farmers Market held outside city hall on Cypress Avenue. Other diverse foods have recently have emerged in Redding, including Mister Peri Peris, which sells Portuguese-Mozambiquan-style grilled chicken and opened on July 5. Others include Mediterranean restaurant Falafel Corner, Greek restaurant Anthonys Mediterranean Cuisine and Amazing Alheri, which specializes in dishes from West Africa. Deandra Williams of Deandra's Taste of Jamaica readies a to-go order at her booth at the Redding Farmers Market on Saturday, July 6, 2024. The menu inclluded oxtails, jerk chicken and curried goat. Among Williams positive reviews was an endorsement from a couple who had recently returned from a visit to Jamaica. In Jamaica at the resort, they would eat jerk chicken. They said to me, Oh this is even better than it tasted in Jamaica. You know, thats what give you the drive, Williams said. A family kitchen tradition Shell gladly describe her authentic dishes while speaking enthusiastically about where she comes from, the picturesque island in the Caribbean Sea. What's the best temperature to set your air conditioner thermostat in California? Williams embraces everything about her home country. She displays the flag of Jamaica at her booth, while the menu represents her passion for her native countrys cuisine. Deandra Williams holds a to-go container as she serves customers at her Deandras Taste of Jamaica booth during the Juneteenth celebration in downtown Redding on June 19, 2024. Williams quickly sold out of her popular dishes. She was born in Jamaica and has dual citizenship, both there and the United States. She came to Redding about two-and-a-half years ago and used to work for Shasta County. The grand opening for Deandras Taste of Jamaica was Feb. 6 not coincidentally the birthday of the late global raggae music superstar Bob Marley. Before the farmers market opened in April, Williams would prepare and sell her food at a pop-up inside Sizzles, a commercial kitchen in downtown Redding. She still rises early on Saturdays to prepare her food at Sizzle's, but now takes her dishes to the popular Saturday farmer's market before it opens at 7:30 a.m. Williams says her inspiration comes from her father, whos operated a Jamaican restaurant in the Atlanta, Georgia, area for the past 15 years and recently opened a second location. Her mother lives in Jamaica. Part of it is kind of inborn," shes said. "Both grandmothers on my mothers side and my fathers side were excellent cooks. But I did learn quite a lot from my father. Authentic taste of Jamaica Williams makes jerk spice herself and is coy about revealing the exact recipe. It contains pimento seeds, thyme, scallions and other herbs. I cannot give you all my ingredients because its a secret, she said. For people not familiar with Jamaican food, Ill ask them, Do you like spice? Do you not like spice? Williams explained. If somebody loves spice, I would recommend a jerk chicken because of the spice and the flavor, she said. Williams says she owes her cooking skills to family members, explaining matter-of-factly that Jamaicans grow up knowing how to cook. Learning recipes from her dad added to her skills. Williams said shes had to dial down the heat on her jerk spice, since not everyone likes it hot. Other than the jerk chicken, nothing else is spicy. The rice and oxtail, the gold curry chicken, brown stew chicken those are not spicy. Theyre flavorful, she said. The oxtail on her menu is the tail of a cow, which Williams calls a prestigious, very flavorful meat probably the most expensive. Oxtail has gone from niche to trendy in the U.S., due to the incresing popularity of Jamaican and Caribbean eateries, according to restaurant industry experts.While oxtail is known as being a fatty meat, Williams says her supplier is good at removing the fat. Theres a joke going around that they blame Jamaicans for oxtail being so expensive. It never used to be so expensive but its extremely popular in Jamaica, she said. Curry country Jamaican jerk chicken sold by Deandra's Taste of Jamaica restaurant in Redding. While the oxtail and goat dishes have been well-received, so has her curry chicken. On the other hand, Williams says her brown stew chicken is the least favorite probably because people dont really know it. Compared to oxtail or jerk chicken or curry chicken those are very popular. Brown stew chicken is really a Jamaican thing, Williams said. Goat isnt a mainstream meal choice in Redding because Williams believes many consider the animal as more of a farm companion. Goat is so much of a pet here. Many people cannot eat it because they see the goat as their pet, she said. It all depends on the person. Williams says her go-to dish is the curry goat. A Jamaican restaurant cant be authentic without having jerk chicken on the menu. According to online descriptions, the jerk style of cooking is native to Jamaica. The meat is prepared with a dry rub or wet marinade containing a spicy jerk sauce. Jamaican cooks use the Scotch bonnet pepper to spice up their dishes. Since that ingredient is hard to come by in the U.S., Williams uses habaneros as a substitute. Jamaican brown stew chicken with rice, peas, beans and Island slaw, as prepared by Deandras Taste of Jamaica in Redding. An ambassador for Jamaica and its food Williams is a cheerleader for her homeland, listing its many natural and cultural attributes. Waterfalls, rain forests and mountains with a backdrop of the Caribbean Sea draw visitors to the island. People come to Jamaica not only for the sun, the sea and the music, they also come for the food. The food is very flavorful, she said. As Hurricane Beryl roared past the southern part of Jamaica on July 3, Williams closely followed news of how the storm had caused at least two deaths and some damage, although the island escaped major devastation. Some of her family members live on the island."The good thing is that Jamaica has been very blessed. Grenada and St. Vincent, where the hurricane hit first, seems to have gotten much more terrible damages than Jamaica," she said. Note to readers: If you appreciate the work we do here at the Redding Record Searchlight, please consider subscribing yourself or giving the gift of a subscription to someone you know. Thank you for your continued investment in our community coverage. 'I need to share this' Compliments about her cooking set Williams on a course to be an entrepreneur. Before starting her food business, Williams said she'd invite friends, and sometimes strangers, to her home for Monday night Jamaican meals. Her friends told her she needed to open a restaurant and bring her creations to others. Her response? Im like, You know what? I need to share this. I definitely need to share this,'" Williams said. Her commitment to bringing authentic Jamaican food to Redding is truly a labor of love. Shes had friends and a neighbor accompany her in the kitchen, but her helpers tend to burn out. When I started, I realized friends dont like this kind of work and I understand because its hard work, she said. Williams keeps going, spurred on by her admirers. One time when she was preparing for a pop-up and didnt have any helpers, it reminded her of the family restaurant when staff was short-handed and relatives were scarce. There were times when some of us werent able to be there with my father. Ive seen him so many times he would run the restaurant by himself for an hour or two, she said. Thats something that has always impressed me and Im like, if he can do it, I can do it. That has been my mentality. Ive seen it done, Williams said. We kind of have the same spirit. She said dedication is another ingredient for success. Its a passion. It has to be a passion. Thats what makes it a bit easier the passion about it. You have to love the industry and the love of serving people the hosting just overall serving people, she said. If you go: Deandras Taste of Jamaica Address: Redding Farmers Market, 777 Cypress Ave. Hours: 7:30 a.m. noon Saturdays Price range: At the market, chicken meals are $10 plus tax. Oxtails and curry goat meals are $17 plus tax. Pop-up restaurant prices at Sizzles, 1440 Placer St. (when open), are $17 for small and $22 for large Island Favorites (jerk chicken, curry chicken, brown stew chicken). Contact Deandra for pre-orders or catering. Social media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deandrastasteofjamaica/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555902412883 Contact: 530-972-4078; deandratasteofjamaica@gmail.com This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Jamaican jerk chicken, oxtail stew, on the menu at Redding eatery What are RI's best restaurants for wine? Here's who made Wine Spectator's list Wine Spectator magazine has unveiled the winners of the 2024 Restaurant Awards, which honor the worlds best restaurants for wine. They recognized 3,777 dining destinations from all 50 states in the United States and more than 75 countries internationally. In Rhode Island, 17 restaurants won the signature Wine Spectator glasses for excellence. They recognize restaurants whose wine lists offer interesting selections, are appropriate to their cuisine and appeal to a wide range of wine lovers. New to the list is Fogo de Chao, the Brazilian steakhouse that opened at Providence Place last year. Others in Providence have long been on the list: the Capital Grille since 1997; Camille's and Mill's Tavern since 2014. Wine is an important part of the dining experience at Camille's, on Providence's Federal Hill. Eight restaurants earned the Best of Award of Excellence ranking that reflects a list of extensive selections with significant vintage depth and excellent breadth across multiple regions. It is signified by two wine glasses. Only 1,531 restaurants earned the designation. "These wine lists display excellent breadth across multiple winegrowing regions and/or significant vertical depth of top producers, along with superior presentation. Typically offering 350 or more selections, these restaurants are destinations for serious wine lovers, showing a deep commitment to wine, both in the cellar and through their service team," wrote Wine Spectator. Here they are. The newly rebranded dining room at Castle Hill Inn in Newport. The restaurant has 1,005 selections. Cara, The Chanler at Cliff Walk, 117 Memorial Blvd., Newport, with 425 selections. Ocean House restaurant Coast was recognized by Wine Spectator with two glasses for Best of Award of Excellence. Coast at The Ocean House, 1 Bluff Ave., Watch Hill, has 2,000 selections. Matunuck Oyster Bar, 629 Succotash Road, Wakefield, was honored for 610 selections. Restaurant 1879 at the Atlantic Inn, 35 High St., Block Island, has 485 selections. Tavolo Wine Bar & Tuscan Grille, 970 Douglas Pike, Smithfield, has 465 selections. Tavolo Wine Bar & Tuscan Grille, 2099 Post Road, Warwick, has 445 selections. The White Horse Tavern, 26 Marlborough St., Newport, has 515 selections. Nine restaurants received the Award of Excellence for their well-chosen assortment of quality producers, as Wine Spectator describes it. The honor is signified by one wine glass. There are 2,150 restaurants that earned the designation. "These wine lists, which should offer at least 90 selections, feature a well-chosen assortment of quality producers, along with a thematic match to the menu in both price and style. Whether compact or extensive, focused or diverse, these lists deliver sufficient choice to satisfy discerning wine lovers," according to Wine Spectator. Here they are. The Coast Guard House, 40 Ocean Road, Narragansett, with 565 selections. The Coast Guard House has 565 selections of wine from which to choose. The Narragansett restaurant has earned an Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator. Camilles, 71 Bradford St., Providence, has 215 selections. The Capital Grille, 10 Memorial Blvd., Providence, has 350 selections. Double Barrel Steak by DB, The Preserve Resort & Spa, 1 Preserve Blvd., Richmond, has 300 selections. Fogo de Chao, 148 Providence Place, Providence, has 195 selections. La Masseria, 223 Main St., East Greenwich, with 220 selections. Mill's Tavern, 101 North Main St., Providence, with 250 selections. Sarto, 86 Dorrance St., Providence, has 125 selections. The Restaurant at The Weekapaug Inn, 25 Spray Rock Road, Westerly, has 155 selections. Only 96 restaurants earned The Grand Award signified by three glasses. There are two in Massachusetts: Grill 23 & Bar in Boston and Topper's at the Wauwinet on Nantucket. The Restaurant Awards issue, which features chef and restaurateur Daniel Boulud on the cover, hit newsstands on July 9. Launched in 1981, the awards represent the worlds only program focused exclusively on restaurant wine service. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Wine Spectator names 17 RI restaurants for having best wine lists NAIROBI, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Inside a workshop at Machakos University, southeast of Kenya's capital city of Nairobi, students sit in groups of six, guided on how to join different computer parts. In one group, a young instructor picks up a computer chip and explains how it is linked to other components. The students listen attentively. In another section of the workshop, the other instructor holds a computer chip and a USB cable, explaining their functions to his group. The workshop, named Luban, is one of the most popular establishments at the institution, with tens of students visiting daily for lessons. Machakos University established the Luban Workshop in 2019 with support from Chinese technology giant Huawei and Tianjin City Vocational College (TCVC). It was the first Luban Workshop at a Kenyan university, aiming to equip students with innovative digital technology skills such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, big data and the Internet of Things. Since then, Luban Workshops have been established at several other institutions of higher learning across Kenya, including Meru University of Science and Technology and Taita Taveta University. These universities leverage the Luban Workshops to equip students with modern computing knowledge. Eric Omuya, chairman of the Computing Department at Machakos University, said that the Luban Workshop caters to students from various courses. The university operates Google Developers Club, Innovation Club and Science Club, which bring together students who utilize the workshop's resources. "The workshop has a capacity of 100 people and can run two classes concurrently," Omuya added. Peter Musyoka, a third-year economics student at the university, credits the Luban Workshop for sparking his interest in computing, especially emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and big data. "Thanks to the workshop, I now understand how I can apply technologies like AI in my field of study," he said. At Taita Taveta University, the Luban Workshop focuses on petroleum and petrochemical engineering. Opened in 2021, it trains oil and gas specialists from Kenya and neighboring countries, according to the university. "Some of our lecturers have already been trained in China, and others are undergoing training," said Vice Chancellor Fred Barasa during the launch three years ago. The Luban Workshop at Meru University of Science and Technology was launched in September 2023, through a partnership with TCVC. It features vocational education and Silk Road e-commerce centers, each designed to empower students and professionals with practical skills and knowledge aligned with the demands of modern jobs. During the launch, TCVC's Deputy Vice Chancellor Liu Sheng said the programs offered at the workshop equip learners with the skills and knowledge required for the dynamic job market, fostering knowledge exchange and cultural understanding between Kenya and China. The Luban Workshops, named after the ancient Chinese craftsman Lu Ban, are an international vocational education project offering the latest AI, big data and cloud computing courses to Kenyan students. Henry Wandera, an economics lecturer in Nairobi, said the workshops help strengthen Kenya-China ties and support economic growth by creating a more skilled workforce. "Skilled workers create new businesses, improve productivity, and attract foreign investment. Luban Workshops are part of China's path to economic success. By embracing them, Kenya is on the right track," he said. The strikes that could affect your summer holiday and how to claim compensation Airport staff are expected to strike at various key European destinations this summer, including in France, Italy and the Netherlands. However, expected strikes at Gatwick airport have been (at least temporarily) postponed. Here we round up the travel strikes across the UK and Europe in the coming months, with advice on what to do if your plans are affected. This page will be regularly updated to reflect the latest information, but note that some strikes are announced with little notice. Travel disruption this summer Paris: Airports (July 17) Airport workers at both Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports in Paris have called for walkouts on July 17, just 10 days before the beginning of the Olympics. It could cause delays in baggage handling and at check-in, although flights themselves should not be affected. Italy: Airports (July 21) Milan Linate and Bergamo Orio al Serio are expected to be hit with strike action on July 21. Delays will be felt most keenly between 1-5pm, in a repeat of a walkout taken earlier in the month by unionised staff. Italys transport unions are forbidden from striking during the height of the summer, so further action is not expected. France: Motorways (throughout the summer) Those driving throughout France should brace for a series of strikes across the countrys motorways throughout the summer. Protesting a falling number of staff members, workers on both the Autoroutes du Sud (ASF) and Vinci motorways have begun a series of walkouts. Exact dates are unclear, but those expecting to drive on either road should, especially at weekends, be prepared for delays. Netherlands: Public transport (September 12) Ahead of a budget announcement by the Dutch government, public transport workers have announced a walkout in the countrys largest cities on September 12. Services in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague will be impacted, with further strikes possible after that date. What to do if your travel plans are affected by strike action Before travelling, check whether there are any strikes in your destination and plan accordingly. Localised train strikes, for example, could create issues travelling from the airport upon arrival. Below, we outline your rights for major modes of transport. Flights If your flight is delayed or cancelled due to strike action, contact your airline immediately. Airlines are obliged to offer assistance such as food and drink or accommodation for extensive delays due to industrial action. Your airline is also obliged to place you on the next available flight. Or, if the delay lasts for more than five hours, you can withdraw from your flight and ask for a refund. For flights that are cancelled outright, whether you are entitled to compensation depends on if the strike is considered to be something the airline could control. If so, you will only be entitled to compensation if your carrier informs you your flight is cancelled less than 14 days from the date youre due to fly. But in the case of European air traffic control strikes, this wouldnt be seen as the airlines responsibility. Check that your travel insurance covers you in the event of strike action. But be aware that once the industrial action has been announced, even without precise dates, you will not be able to buy cover for strikes. For more information on what to do if your flight is delayed or cancelled, read our comprehensive guide here. Trains and Eurostar services If you have purchased an advance ticket and the train is rescheduled or cancelled due to strike action, you are entitled to a change or refund. The refund process depends on each operator, but most have a straightforward delay repay system. Be sure to contact the retailer you purchased the ticket from. As for Eurostar, if your train has been cancelled or is announced as delayed before departure by more than 60 minutes, you can reschedule your trip for another date or swap your ticket for an e-voucher, which you can use to rebook later in the year or claim a cash refund. Those whose trains are delayed after departure are entitled to partial refunds, depending on the length of the delay. Find more information here. Ferries According to the trade body Abta, if your ferry is expected to be delayed or cancelled, you should be provided with free snacks, meals and refreshments in relation to the waiting time. Refreshments should be provided even if the reason for the cancellation is bad weather (considered out of the companys control). When your ferry operator cancels your service due to strike action, it should offer the choice of an alternative or a refund. You are entitled to compensation of 25 per cent of your ticket price, for that part of the affected journey, if your service is delayed in arrival by at least: one hour for a journey of four hours two hours for a journey between four and eight hours three hours for a journey between eight and 24 hours six hours for a journey of more than 24 hours If the delay exceeds double the time set out, the compensation should be 50 per of the ticket price. The ferry operator must pay compensation within one month of the submission of a substantiated claim for compensation. Passengers should note that compensation isnt payable where the delay was caused by weather conditions endangering the safe operation of the ferry or by extraordinary and unavoidable circumstances that hindered the sailing. This piece is kept regularly updated with the latest strike news. Azerbaijan, as you may already know, is no Saint Tropez. But that doesnt seem to be stopping the super-rich, who arguably also super-stupid and super-greedy are furiously packing their silly little Louis Vuitton bags and handing over absurd quantities of Azerbaijani manat for a lounger at the new Baku outpost of Nikki Beach. For those blissfully unfamiliar with the Nikki Beach brand, its a chain of upmarket beach clubs. (How upmarket? Well, a salad sorry, a Sexy Salad the menu calls it costs 36.) Its empire bestrides the globe like a catwalking supermodel, with outposts everywhere from Miami Beach to Koh Samui (via, obvs darling, Saint Tropez itself). Now, though, its bringing its brand of muslin-draped daybeds and overpriced lettuce leaves to destinations as diverse (ie. desperate) as Muscat, Magaluf and indeed Baku. Which is fine, because no doubt the oligarchs will enjoy ogling the hostesses and spilling their 340 bottles of rose in Azerbaijan (sandwiched neatly between Russia and Iran) but its another worrying reminder of how the one per cent are slowly taking over the worlds beaches and turning them into taste-free zones. True, it may be another year or two before we see a Nikki Beach at Tenby or Great Yarmouth, but keep your eyes peeled like an imported tiger prawn for the advance of the idiot rich. Here, to help (We shall fight them on the beach clubs and all that), are a few early warning signs 15 ways the super-rich are already ruining the beach. 1. Yachts We wouldnt mind if they actually were yachts a nice Swallows and Amazons sort of thing bobbing about in the harbour. But no, nowadays the word refers to things that look like a floating Dubai skyscraper and block out the sun for half the people on the beach. All too often, modern yachts look 'like a floating Dubai skyscraper,' says Grenby - Getty Images 2. Beach Butlers No, I dont want my sunglasses polished, thank you. Im trying to wear them. 3. Influencers trying to make you get out of the way of their shot Can we really blame this on the rich? Why, certainly we can. Where entitled wealthy morons lead, entitled would-be-wealthy morons follow. Influencers have become a common sight at the world's most popular beaches - Getty Images 4. Small plates So our menu is based on a sharing concept, Madam, where we encourage you to order not one main course but seven or eight small plates between the two of you. Whats that? Oh no, youd think so, wouldnt you, Sir, but actually each small plate is priced at almost exactly what youd normally pay for a main course ha ha Small plates do not always equal a small price tag - Getty Images 5. Loafers Make mens feet look like pasties. Still, at least theyre not 6. High heels In the sand? Are you kidding? 7. Six-star hotels Do you really need an underwater nightclub, an infinity pool suspended in mid-air and a two-Michelin-star chef to oversee (ie. turn up twice a year to) the restaurant that microwaves your wagyu burger? Fine, but the helipad? Come off it. Hotels with helipads are a hallmark of the super-rich - Getty Images 8. Driving up prices A 99 Flake? An 8.99 flake, more like! Thanks, the one per cent. 9. Boys toys Hover-boards, hydrofoils, mini-subs, jet skis and, of course, drones to video himself falling off all of the above. 10. Private islands How did they manage to find an island the British Empire didnt find first? And why arent we invading? Not content with a private beach, the super-rich require an entire island to themselves - Getty Images 11. Food Ceviche, poke, edamame these arent meals, theyre side dishes! (Mush em up next to battered haddock and chips and youre talking.) 12. Drink Same but with liquids. Weve no problem with the more-money-than-tolerance-for-actual-alcohol brigade sipping their Aperol spritzes and Whispering Angels and boutique hand-distilled locavore small-batch foraged craft 0% ABV gins but now theres no room in the bars fridge for good-old-fashioned tins of shandy, pre-mixed margaritas and own-brand rum. 13. Cabanas Now with air conditioning, Wi-Fi and flat screen TVs. Would you perhaps be happier back in your hotel room? For the wealthy, renting a cabana is an essential part of the beach experience - Getty Images 14. Dawn yoga Get out of the way, will you? Im trying to get my towel down on a sunlounger here. 15. And those actual beach clubs Its not just Nikki Beach, you know. Now every jumped-up beer joint within half a mile of some sewage-strewn stretch of sand wants in on the hustle: throwing a worn velvet rope around its soggy loungers, hiring a DJ to press play on his laptop and nod for the next four hours, then charging you to enter, to hire something to sit on, to eat, to drink, and then, finally, for nothing, because you didnt quite make the mandatory minimum spend so theyve rounded your bill up to that 300 anyway. And all this to be on a spot of beach identical to the one five feet the other side of the rope (in, if youre really unlucky, Azerbaijan.) 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. July 10 (UPI) -- An Alabama woman celebrating her 108th birthday offered an unusual answer to how she keeps herself feeling young: "drinking wine, eating dessert, and flirting with men with mustaches." Helen Denmark turned 108 on Sunday, and she was celebrated with a party Monday thrown by her friends and caregivers at Brookdale Assisted Living in Birmingham. Denmark said she doesn't feel any older than she did when she was 107, and told WDHN-TV she stays feeling youthful by "drinking wine, eating dessert, and flirting with men with mustaches." The centenarian said she still feels healthy and strong. "Well, I feel all right," she said. "I'll be here when I'm 110!" The U.S. Census Bureau estimated there were about 101,000 people over the age of 100 living in the country as of January, and that number is expected to quadruple to about 422,000 by 2054. After watching her deaf grandparents using American Sign Language, a 5-month-old St. Augustine baby named Jane has begun mimicking their gestures to try to communicate with them herself. One of her mother's many TikTok videos of their interaction has gone viral after being discovered by Newsweek magazine. Mara McCullough, 27, was stunned when she realized that her hearing daughter's "babble" and movements were her baby version of sign language, undertaken even before she could speak. "I'm a nanny and I had never seen it," she said. Michael Stultz and 5 1/2-month-old granddaughter, Jane McCullough. But her father, Michael Stultz, who has taught American Sign Language and Deaf Culture at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville for 17 years, told her that a baby learning sign language by watching it in use is nothing unusual in the deaf community. She and her brother did the same thing as children, she said. "My brother's first sign was 'bath.' It wasn't perfect, but it was clear," her father told her. Since Jane and her parents live in the Stultz home, she is "immersed in it," she said. "To them, it wasn't really that crazy," McCullough said. "She's used to seeing it modeled for her every single day." Learning sign language at a young age The American Academy of Pediatrics endorses the use of such "simple sign language" with infants and toddlers as a means of communication and bonding. "Children can be taught to use their hands to 'talk' long before their mouths can catch up," according to the academy. "Theres a well-recognized gap between what babies and toddlers want to say and what they are capable of saying." Sonia Garcia DeNight, early language acquisition coordinator at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, said language development begins early in a child's life. She cited research by the Science of Learning Center at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., which serves the deaf and hard of hearing. "Every baby has the remarkable ability to understand language quickly. We are natural-born linguists with the capacity to master any language as a native speaker or signer," DeKnight said. "It is amazing how a baby is born with millions of neurons ready to develop communication to connect with the people around them." The TikTok video showed a curious Jane clearly loved watching her grandparents signing and was "absorbing" what she saw, she said. "This video is an excellent example of face-to-face interactions developing communication skills," DeKnight said. "Language is nurtured through storytelling, playing, reading and many other activities shared between caregivers and infants, including in American Sign Language." The newly opened line of communication with Jane, their only grandchild, has Michael and Jessica Stultz over the moon. Life with 2 children with hearing loss: Jacksonville nonprofit provides pathway "They love being grandparents. They are obsessed with her," McCullough said. In one of the videos, Grandpa signs to Jane as she lies in her rocker. He asks if she slept well and what she dreamed about. He holds her tiny feet and tells her she has 10 toes. She gestures in response. Seth and Mara McCullough and their daughter, Jane. "She is very observant," he signs to McCullough in the video. "When it comes to sounds and visuals, she doesn't miss anything." Witnessing her child and grandparents bond through the kind of exchanges she also had with them as a child but doesn't remember has given McCullough "a different perspective." She looks forward to Jane fully learning sign language as she gets older and being able to converse with her grandparents. A baby TikTok sensation from St. Augustine Having one of her videos go viral has also been a new experience. The one posted by Newsweek has been viewed about 8.8 million times and liked almost 2 million times. McCullough and her husband Seth McCullough were unfamiliar with the magazine, which was founded in 1933 and in 2012 ceased print publication and transitioned to an all-digital format. "I didn't know it was such a big deal," she said. But the older generations in her family, her parents and her husband's father, "freaked out," she said. And now she has a TikTok "niche" videos of her baby and her deaf parents in animated "conversation," she said. bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4109 This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: St. Augustine baby mimics deaf grandparents' sign language on TikTok The Whiskey Rebellion Festival returns to Washington July 12 and 13. The event, held by the Bradford House Historical Association, honors Americas early days through historic reenactments, history and heritage displays and street theater performances, and features a childrens area, music, food and libations. Held at 139 S. Main Street, the festival will conclude with the Clarks performing at 8 p.m. on July 13. Click here for a full schedule. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Body pulled from creek near Montour Trail identified Cant understand why this happened: Woman dies after Homestead crash Man, 19, involved in execution-style killing of Ambridge teen pleads guilty to 3rd-degree murder VIDEO: Owners of new Homewood attraction hope to make Pickleball accessible to all DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts 1 injured in crash between RTD bus and driver in Denver DENVER (KDVR) Police are investigating a crash between a bus and a driver in west Denver. The Denver Police Department told FOX31 they were called to a crash involving a Regional Transportation District bus and a driver at 10th and Federal Wednesday morning. The area is on the edge of the Villa Park and Lincoln Park neighborhood. Denver police said the bus was a northbound Route 31 bus with about a dozen passengers onboard. SkyFOX flew over the scene where the front of a white or silver SUV was fully damaged. The RTD bus was stopped in the furthest right lane but did not appear to have significant damage. See the latest traffic conditions in Denver on FOX31 Denver police said no passengers on the bus were injured in the crash. However, one person was taken to the hospital with injuries, but police said they did not appear to be life-threatening. It is unclear what factors may have led to the crash, but Denver police are investigating. This is a developing story, once more information is released, it will be added to this story. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. 1 shot during fight between multiple people in Rockdale County neighborhood The Conyers Police Department is offering a reward for information about a shooting that left one person injured. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Around midnight on Sunday, Conyers officers were called to the Forest Villas subdivision near Creek Forest Court regarding a person shot. Investigators learned that a 23-year-old of Conyers was shot during a fight between several people. The victim was taken to the hospital and has since been released. TRENDING STORIES: Police said they found multiple shell casings in and around the roadway on Creek Forest Court. The suspects remain at large. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] The Conyers Police Department is offering a $5,000 reward for any information that leads to the identification or arrest of the suspects responsible for the shooting. Anyone with information is urged to submit tips in the following ways: Anonymous Tip Line: 770-483-8477 Text a Tip: (678) 654-8845 Via email: police@conyersga.com Online: www.conyerspolice.com Directly contact a specific officer: 770-483-6600 IN OTHER NEWS: TOPEKA (KSNT) The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) is releasing its 2023 statewide crime statistics Wednesday which show violent crime remains high in the Sunflower State. The KBI issued a press release on July 10 containing some highlights from its latest annual crime statistics report. This compiles information gathered from both state and local law enforcement agencies. Violent crime in Kansas is down by 3.7% from 2022 with declining numbers in each category. In total, nearly 13,300 violent crimes were reported across Kansas for murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault and battery. However, violent crime remains 8.6% above the 10-year average. The KBI said overall property crimes are up by 2.6% following a steady decline. The year 2023 marks the first since 2017 that the state experienced a rise in property crime reports. Scammer drains Kansas victims debit card down to $6 The KBI report cites information gathered from the Topeka Police Department (TPD) for 2023 which include the historically high murder rate which occurred during the year. Violent crime and property crime statistics for Kansas capital can be found below: Violent Crimes 10.1 per 1,000 residents Murder 34 Rape 69 Robbery 128 Aggravated assault and battery 1,025 Total 1,256 Property Crimes 42.1 per 1,000 residents Burglary 661 Theft 3,793 Motor vehicle theft 809 Total 5,263 Topeka came in second in terms of its murder rate when compared with statistics collected by other law enforcement agencies. The Wichita Police Department reported 39 murders while the Kansas City Police Department reported 24 over the course of 2023. Illegal fireworks seized from stands in Kansas To read through the full report from the KBI for 2023s crime statistics, click here. You can also read through a copy of the report below: 2023 Crime Index by Matthew Self on Scribd This embedded content is not available in your region. For more crime news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Follow Matthew Self on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MatthewLeoSelf Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. 15-year-old child from Glenwood charged in murder after luring victim on social media, police say A 15-year-old from Glenwood has been charged in with first-degree murder in the death of a 46-year-old Chicago man Friday, after allegedly luring the man through social media to meet, according to police. Przemek Bogdanowicz died in an area hospital after being shot in his car on the 400 block of Longwood Drive by the child, who falsely identified himself as an adult as the two communicated over messaging apps, Glenwood police Chief Derek Peddycord said in a news release. It was a social meeting, Peddycord said Tuesday, declining to elaborate further. The 15-year-old got in Bogdonowiczs car upon arriving at their meeting spot and within moments pulled a gun and shot Bogdonowicz, the news release said. The 15-year-old was taken into custody Sunday. ostevens@chicagotribune.com $150K reward offered in armed robbery of letter carrier on South Side; suspect considered armed and dangerous CHICAGO The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is offering a reward of up to $150,000 for information leading to the arrest in the armed robbery of a letter carrier on the citys South Side. According to USPIS, the incident occurred around 1:20 p.m. on June 28 in the vicinity of 5050 South Evans Avenue in the Bronzeville neighborhood. The suspect then fled towards East 51st Street. A surveillance camera captured the suspect approaching the USPS postal worker and opening up their jacket, appearing to show the letter carrier a weapon. USPIS said the suspect is described as a black woman between the ages of 20 and 25 and approximately 56- 57 tall. At the time of the robbery, the woman was wearing a pink shower cap, white face mask, blue jean jacket with a pink sweatsuit and large false eyelashes. According to USPIS, the suspect should be considered armed and dangerous. If you have any information about this incident, please contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at 1-877-876-2455 and reference case number: 4334247. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. ULAN BATOR, July 10 (Xinhua) - Mongolia's coalition government, formed as a result of the recent parliamentary elections, was sworn in on Wednesday morning at the State Palace in the capital city of Ulan Bator. Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene, chairman of the ruling Mongolian People's Party (MPP), was re-elected for another term as Mongolia's prime minister last week after his party secured a narrow margin of victory in the ninth parliamentary elections held on June 28. The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) obtained 42 seats. The Hun Party, meaning "Person" in Mongolian, secured eight seats, with the Civil Will-Green Party and the National Coalition each securing four seats. On Monday, the MPP, DP, and Hun Party signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to form a coalition government comprising a prime minister, 22 ministers, and 16 ministries. Among them, 12 ministers are from the MPP, eight ministers are from the DP, and the remaining two are from the Hun Party. Oyun-Erdene retained some ministers from his previous government, including Foreign Minister Batmunkh Battsetseg and Minister of Finance Bold Javkhlan. Luvsannyam Gantumur, head of the DP, was appointed as the first deputy prime minister and minister of economy and development. Togmid Dorjkhand, leader of the Hun Party, assumes the role of deputy minister in charge of foreign trade and investment. Sainbuyan Amarsaikhan, former deputy prime minister, continues in his role as deputy prime minister. Meanwhile, several ministries from the previous government have been renamed, and new ministries have been introduced. 16-year-old charged with murder after fatal shooting at Alderwood Mall A 16-year-old teen has been charged as an adult in the fatal shooting of 13-year-old Jayda Woods-Johnson at Alderwood Mall on July 3. Samuel Gizaw, 16, was charged Tuesday in Snohomish County on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, first-degree assault, and juvenile possession of a firearm. According to charging documents, prosecutors allege Gizaw and his friend were confronted by a group of five teenage boys near the malls food court. After words were exchanged, one of the boys punched Gizaw in the face. Prosecutors say Gizaw then pulled out a firearm, which caused the five boys to run. Gizaw chased after them and fired a shot, which hit Woods-Johnson, killing her. She was a bystander at the mall, shopping with her best friend. The prosecutors office asked for $2 million bail. Woods-Johnsons family is sharing their grief and outrage after their loved one was taken so suddenly. Shes definitely the spunky girl that lights up a room, says Cheryl Huffman, Jaydas cousin. Family members describe Jayda as a girl with infectious laughter, excited to start 8th grade. She loved music. She loved movies. She wanted to be an actress, says Huffman. It was his decision to get a gun. It was his decision to carry a gun. It was his decision to shoot her; to pull the trigger. He made a lot of decisions that ended up murdering our baby girl. The mother of the Gizaw was the one to turn him in. For her to just be taken in such a tragic way. It breaks all of our hearts. We are shattered to the depth of our souls right now, says Huffman. A GoFundMe page for Jaydas family has been set up for those wishing to donate. A spokesman for the Alderwood Mall tells KIRO 7 they are beefing up security for the safety of shoppers. The mall will add three additional security staff and a K-9 unit. 18-year-old charged after police say guard shot execution-style during shoplifting in Fife An 18-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder after an execution-style shooting of a security guard during an attempted shoplifting at a sporting goods store in Fife. According to court documents, Fife police officers responded at about 4:21 p.m. to a reported shooting at the Sportco store on July 7. According to police, the incident began as a shoplifting attempt. Security at Sportco attempted to detain two suspects when gunfire was exchanged. One security guard was shot in the left arm. Officers provided first aid before fire department medics transported him to the hospital. According to court documents, the first guard detained one of the suspects as they passed the registers with unpaid merchandise. The second suspect, identified as Dayvion Joseph George, then allegedly pulled out a gun and shot at the first guard in what was described as execution-style. The guard survived. The second guard responded by firing back at the suspect. Shortly after, Milton Police located George near City Hall at 5411 23rd Street East. At the time of his arrest, police say George was out of breath, crying, and not wearing shoes. After a search of the area, officers found a black vest, a grey and black jacket, stolen ammunition, and magazines for Glock and Beretta pistols. The second suspect remains at large. On Monday, July 8, George was charged in Pierce County Superior Court with attempted murder, two assaults, and robbery. The Fife Police Department is asking anyone with information about the second suspect to contact them immediately. $2.3M HUD Jobs Plus grant offers Jacksonville families chance to get out of public housing Richard Monocchio, U.S. Housing and Urban Development principal deputy assistant secretary, presents a $2.3 million grant to Vanessa Dunn, acting president/CEO of the Jacksonville Housing Authority, on Wednesday. Linesha Bryant has lived in public housing for the past seven years. Now, after three years participating in the Housing and Urban Development Jobs Plus program, she is gainfully employed and transitioning toward home ownership. My goals were homeownership, financial stability and a career in the health care field, Bryant told reporters Wednesday. It is now hard to believe my kids and I are getting into position to move out of public housing. Bryant spoke about her experience after Richard Monocchio, U.S. Housing and Urban Development principal deputy assistant secretary, presented the Jacksonville Housing Authority with a second $2.3 million grant to continue operating the Jobs Plus program. Jacksonville was one of 14 housing authorities to receive the grant Wednesday. The program aims to help connect residents in federal housing properties to opportunities beyond their physical home: from assistance in utilities and grocery shopping to job and educational training. How does the HUD Jobs Plus program work? The authority received its first grant for the program in 2020 and currently helps over 200 people, Lateshia Jackson, a data specialist for the program, said. Residents in scattered HUD properties across the city can apply for the program at any time. If accepted, they participate for four years, in which they can receive assistance in an array of areas in order to help them focus on growing their careers. Normally, HUD properties charge residents 30% of their income which can fluctuate. As part of Jobs Plus, the payments stay the same, even if salaries rise, in order to provide incentive, Monocchio said. These resources may help: Looking for new homeowners programs in Duval County? Jackson has seen residents receive gas cards, bus tickets, CPR classes or even diapers for their kids, as well as payment assistance for job training or GED classes. Not everybody is the same, Jackson said. It's different. It's not one size fits all. You hear their story. You meet them where they are, and you help them through. Donna Deegan and other mayors talk with President Biden about Jobs Plus Jacksonville has increased its programs over the past year to provide homeownership assistance or improve an existing residence. Mayor Donna Deegan attended Wednesdays event after speaking with President Joe Biden and other participating mayors over the phone the night before and said the program was a continuation of her priorities as well. She said she is working to grow the number of Jacksonville Small and Emerging Businesses, streamline the permitting system and advocate for the remaining portion of the community benefits agreement portion of the Jaguars stadium deal that would place more money into workforce development opportunities. Affordable housing resources: Struggling to find affordable housing in Northeast Florida? These resources may help Our collective efforts and investments will mean people from all walks of life can benefit from living wages and upward mobility in their career, Deegan said. So let's keep working together to be a city that works for all of us. Bryant, a mother of three and soon-to-be program graduate, is continuing her education. She encouraged other HUD residents to apply. Take advantage of the opportunity because a lot of courses and trainings are expensive, Bryant said. So if somebody is willing to pay for it, why not take advantage of the opportunity. This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: HUD presents Jobs Plus grant for Jacksonville Housing Authority Two firefighters are facing charges after they allegedly set fire to a church. Police arrested Brendan Gibson and Robert Hughes of Williamstown, Ky. on July 8, Kentucky State Police told our news partners at WCPO. Grant County Sheriffs Office, Corinth Fire, Williamstown Fire, and Dry Ridge Fire all responded to the Shiloh Full Gospel Church in Corinth at around 5:50 a.m. on July 8. An arrest report states that Hughes and Gibson were both among the first firefighters to arrive at the Church. >> Man accused of breaking into Ohio pet store found with 4 hamsters in his pants Investigators findings into the fire suggested Gibson and Hughes started the fire themselves. Both men later confessed to KSP that they had started the fire. Further detail was not included in the arrest report. Both Gibson and Hughes are currently being held in the Grant County Detention Center on $10,000 bonds. Pastor Greg Cheeks with the Shiloh Full Gospel Church in Corinth said they are unable to make repairs. Its very unfortunate, Cheeks said in a statement to WCPO. Were left at the point where there are no funds to rehab the building. Its horrible. We will continue to follow this story. OCALA, Fla. (WFLA) Two Florida women were arrested after police said they were street racing with children in their cars. The Ocala Police Department said an officer saw a Cadillac driver and a Toyota driver racing in the 3100 block of Southwest College Road around 1:50 a.m. on July 5. The officer said he used a handheld radar gun and recorded a speed of 93 mph in a 45 mph zone. The officer was able to catch up to the two cars and stopped the Cadillac a few blocks away. Police said 22-year-old Jamirria Blunt was driving the Cadillac and had a 15-year-old passenger in her car. Officers said they also pulled over the Toyotas driver, identified as 22-year-old Kiara Johnson, who had an 8-month-old child in a rear-facing car seat. Police said the women were charged with child neglect and highway racing. They were taken to the Marion County Jail. Racing presents serious dangers, including increased risks of severe accidents and death. We have zero tolerance for highway racing and will do everything we can to ensure that our roads are safe, the Ocala Police Department posted on Facebook. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. Two Northern Kentucky firefighters have been charged with arson for starting a fire at a church, according to court documents. Robert Hughes, 23, and Brendan Gibson, 24, are charged with second-degree arson. During the course of an investigation, they confessed to starting the fire at the Shiloh Full Gospel Church in Grant County, according to the documents. The pair are being held on $10,000 each, according to court records. The incident happened early Monday morning. Court documents say multiple agencies responded to a report of a structure fire and shortly after arrival, personnel from Kentucky State Police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were requested. An investigation later determined Hughes and Gibson were responsible for starting the fire, according to court documents. Hughes and Gibson were also some of the first arriving Corinth Fire Department firefighters at the scene. Hughes and Gibson were interviewed by detectives and confessed to starting the fire, court documents said. Hughes and Gibson were arraigned in Grant District Court on Tuesday, according to court records. A preliminary hearing for both men is scheduled for July 16. A Canadian national and a New York resident pleaded guilty on Tuesday to illegally exporting millions of dollars worth of U.S. electronics that were used in Russian weapons in Ukraine, the Justice Department said. Nikolay Goltsev, 38, of Montreal, and Salimdzhon Nasriddinov, 53, of Brooklyn, face up to 20 years in prison for conspiring to commit export control violations, the department said in a statement. According to federal prosecutors, some of the electronic components shipped by the defendants have been found in seized Russian weapons platforms and signals intelligence equipment in Ukraine, including an airborne counter missile system, Ka-52 helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and battle tanks. In this photo taken from video released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Friday, April 12, 2024, a Ka-52 helicopter gunship of the Russian air force fires rockets at a target at an unknown location in Ukraine. / Credit: / AP "The defendants shipped millions of dollars of U.S. electronics critical to the missiles and drones Russia uses to attack Ukraine, and they now face U.S. prison time for their scheme," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. "As Russia continues to wage its unjust war of aggression against Ukraine, the department remains committed to holding accountable those who fuel Putin's war machine." According to court documents, Goltsev, Nasriddinov and Goltsev's wife, Kristina Puzyreva, who pleaded guilty in February, conspired to ship more than $7 million in dual-use U.S. electronics to sanctioned Russian companies. "Some of these components were critical to Russia's precision-guided weapons systems being used against Ukraine," the Justice Department said. In a Feb. 23, 2023, message, prosecutors say Nasriddinov wrote to Goltsev, "Happy Defender of the Fatherland," referring the holiday in Russia celebrating military veterans. Goltsev responded, "happy holiday to you too my friend, we are defending it in the way that we can [smile emoji]." The U.S. expanded existing sanctions and export controls on Russia after the country's invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. At the time, Russia already faced sanctions linked to its 2014 incursion into Ukraine, use of chemical weapons and election interference. Nasriddinov and Goltsev shipped the components through front companies in several countries, including Turkey, India, China and the United Arab Emirates, from where they were rerouted to Russia. Goltsev, a dual Russian-Canadian national, and Nasriddinov, a dual Russian-Tajik national, are to be sentenced in a federal court in New York in December. Puzyreva is awaiting sentencing. Sneak peek: Unmasking the Zombie Hunter Sneak peek: Murder by Clown U.S.-built F-16 jets on their way to Ukraine, Blinken says President Joe Biden is facing a critical point in his reelection bid as Democratic calls for him to exit the 2024 race continue to mount despite his efforts to shut them down. A poor debate performance against Donald Trump reignited questions about Biden's age and fitness to carry out his campaign and serve another four years. Biden has defiantly insisted he is staying the course, telling lawmakers this week he is not going anywhere. Trump, who has kept a relatively low-profile as anxious Democrats publicly and privately air concerns, returned to the campaign trail on Tuesday with a rally in Florida. Latest Developments Jul 11, 11:29 AM 10th House Democrat calls on Biden to step aside Michigan Rep. Hillary Scholten has added her name to the growing list of House Democrats who are calling on Biden to end his presidential election bid. The congresswoman said in a statement posted on X Thursday that it "is essential that we have the strongest possible candidate leading the top of the ticket -- not just to win, but to govern." "The people of Michigans 3rd Congressional District elected me to represent them with integrity. They elected a Congresswoman they trust to speak the truth, even when its hard. They voted for someone who would put America's future first and stand up for what is right. That's what I am doing now," Scholten, who represents Grand Rapids, said. PHOTO: Rep. Hillary Scholten leaves a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus about the candidacy of President Joe Biden at the Democratic National Committee, July 9, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images) She is the 10th sitting House Democrat to call for Biden to step aside. Scholten noted that if Biden stayed in the race, she would "respect his decision," and still vote for him. -ABC News' Lauren Peller Jul 11, 10:07 AM Biden press conference slides back an hour The White House announced Thursday morning that the much-anticipated Biden's press conference will now start at 6:30 p.m. local time in Washington, instead of the previous 5:30 p.m. start time. Biden has a busy day of meetings tied to the NATO summit ahead of the press conference, including a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The presser will be held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, and is his first solo press conference in eight months. Jul 10, 9:39 PM White House confirms time Biden will speak to media Thursday President Joe Biden will take questions from the media on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. ET, his first press conference since the controversy over his candidacy erupted following his debate performance. Biden has had fewer pressers with the media than his predecessors and the last time he took questions solo was back in November 2023. The upcoming press briefing is being held at the Washington Convention Center, where Biden will spend a third day at the 2024 NATO Summit. Jul 10, 9:12 PM Arizona Gov. Hobbs says Biden 'has a lot to do' to assure voters Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who participated virtually in the recent meeting between President Joe Biden and governors, has joined the chorus of governors expressing concerns about Biden, telling reporters on Wednesday that Biden "has a lot to do" to assure voters about his capabilities. "I know that Arizonans have been concerned about the presidents age, and since the debate, I think those concerns are even more top of mind, and I think the president has a lot to do to assure Arizonans and Americans. And I know that he knows that that is his job over the coming weeks," Hobbs said, according to public radio station KJZZ. Asked if she has concerns about Biden being able to do the job of president for four more years, she said, "Joe Biden can do the job, and thats all Im gonna to say about the situation." "I have one vote in this election, just like everyone else. And to me, the choice is abundantly clear. The guy whos gonna uphold democracy and the guy whos trying to tear it down," she added later. Jul 10, 7:35 PM 1st senator joins growing calls for Biden to drop out PHOTO: Sen. Peter Welch is questioned by reporters as he departs the Senate floor following a vote at the US Capitol, on July 9, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images) Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont called for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race in a Washington Post op-ed published Wednesday evening. Welch is the first Senate Democrat to officially call for Biden to step aside. "I understand why President Biden wants to run. He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not," Welch wrote. "I deliver this assessment with sadness. Vermont loves Joe Biden. President Biden and Vice President Harris received a larger vote percentage here than in any other state. But regular Vermonters are worried that he cant win this time, and theyre terrified of another Trump presidency," he said. -ABC News' Allison Pecorin Jul 10, 6:47 PM 9th Democrat calls for Biden to withdraw from the race PHOTO: Rep. Earl Blumenauer is seen in the Capitol, April 26, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., became the ninth Democrat to call on Biden to end his reelection bid. Blumenauer, a senior member of the House Ways and Means and Budget committees, commended the president for his accomplishments, claiming in a statement released Wednesday that Biden "will be recorded in history as the most successful president in the last 50 years." However, the congressmen added that, in his mind, "We will all be better served if the president steps aside as the Democratic nominee and manages a transition under his terms." "The next six months will be critical in the implementation of President Biden's landmark accomplishments that will define his legacy for generations to come. He should devote his energy and undivided attention to issues of war and peace, the climate crisis, and rebuilding and renewing America," Blumenauer said, in part. -ABC News' Ben Siegel Jul 10, 6:39 PM AFL-CIO calls on Democrats to unite behind Biden The AFL-CIO for the second time in a week put out a statement in support of President Joe Biden after unanimously voting to reaffirm their support for the Biden-Harris ticket, saying that they are the "most pro-union administration in our lifetimes." The union, which endorsed the Biden-Harris campaign in June 2023, urged Democrats to support Biden saying, "The labor movement is united behind President Biden and Vice President Harris. We urge his party and the American people to join us." "The message from todays meeting couldnt have been clearer: Right now, its time to come together around a vision of a country where everyone has a fair shot with a living wage, affordable health care, retirement security, and time to do the things we love like spending time with family and friends and pursuing our interests and passions. These are fundamental to, as the president reiterated to our meeting, building the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not the top down," the AFL-CIO Executive Council said in a statement.. -ABC News' Beatrice Peterson Jul 10, 5:45 PM Newsom says he won't challenge Harris, reiterates support for Biden California Gov. Gavin Newsom was again asked about the future of President Biden's campaign and whether he'd challenge Vice President Kamala Harris if she took the ticket during a news conference on the ongoing wildfires Wednesday. Newsom stood by comments he made in 2023 when he said he would not run against Harris. The governor reiterated that he is still backing Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee. PHOTO: Gavin Newsom, Democratic candidate for governor of California and Senator Kamala Harris during a rally in Burbank, Calif., May 30, 2018. (Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images) "I think Ive had 100 media outlets asking the same question, and I think that Ive amply answered my support for the president and the support I saw on the ground was demonstrable," he said. Newsom said he didn't read the full comments that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave on MSNBC where she said, "It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run." He also said he had not read George Clooney's New York Times op-ed that called on Biden to bow out. Jul 10, 4:46 PM Morale 'very low' at White House as staff frustrated by Clooney op-ed: Source Morale "is very low in the building," a person who works regularly with senior level White House staff told ABC News Wednesday. Some in President Joe Biden's inner circle, including senior adviser Anita Dunn and chief of staff Jeff Zients, are said to be very frustrated and upset by George Clooneys op-ed in the New York Times in which he calls on Biden to step aside, the source said. The donor class is also deeply divided, a Democratic adviser told ABC News. Although small donations continue to pour in and the very largest donors are doubling down, the huge swath of donors in the middle are holding back, according to the adviser. That group of donors, which gives anywhere from five to eight figures, are on pause, which is very damaging since theyre a major part of the donor ecosystem, the adviser said. This adviser adds that the hand-wringing in the meantime has been very harmful to the campaign. Another Democratic fundraiser says while a strong performance at the solo press conference Thursday could help the situation, many donors believe the crisis around Biden just wont go away. The doubts raised by members of Congress, the comments from Nancy Pelosi, and the op-ed from George Clooney are all fueling a flurry of discussions among donors about what to do if Biden drops out. -ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang Jul 10, 4:14 PM Some Congressional Black Caucus members back Biden Several Congressional Black Caucus members expressed their support for the president as the Democratic nominee following their weekly meeting Wednesday. "Im going to work very hard for him," Rep. Maxine Waters. a California Democrat, told ABC News. "I think hes kept all his promises and I am very very supportive." Waters and Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, emphasized their prior endorsements of the presidents reelection bid and support Biden's decision to stay in the race. "I do not think he should step aside," Green said. "And I think the president has said he is not stepping aside, so I think that counts too doesnt it." Rep. Cori Bush D-Miss., however, did not give a full-throated endorsement but emphasized she wants to beat Trump in November. When ask if Biden can defeat the former president, Bush told ABC News, "that is a question for Joe Biden." "I cant speak to that. Its up to the president," she added. -ABC News' Arthur Jones II and Rachel Scott Click here to read the rest of the blog. The 2016 Republican Party platform, which condemned Democrats for proposing laws that would "eviscerate the Second Amendment," devoted three paragraphs to gun rights. The 2020 platform did not discuss the subject at all because there was no 2020 platform; the party instead promised to "enthusiastically support the President's America-first agenda." This time around, the Republican National Committee (RNC) did approve a platform. But as The Reload's Jake Fogleman notes, the RNC has excised any mention of the Second Amendment except for a passing reference. That reference appears in a list of "twenty promises that we will accomplish very quickly when we win the White House and Republican Majorities in the House and Senate." The seventh promise says Republicans will "defend our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms." This cursory treatment of the Second Amendment is consistent with the reality that the current Republican Party wants whatever former President Donald Trump wants. Despite his lip service to the right of armed self-defense, Trump has never been a true believer, as his flirtation with the Democratic gun control agenda after the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas illustrated. In addition to imposing a unilateral ban on bump stocks that was recently overturned by the Supreme Court, Trump met with members of Congress in February 2018 to discuss gun regulation. During that meeting, he spoke favorably of requiring background checks for all gun transfers, raising the minimum age for buying long guns, preemptively confiscating guns from people who might be dangerous, and even banning so-called assault weapons, to the visible delight of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (DCalif.). Trump's receptiveness to those ideas dismayed the National Rifle Association (NRA), but it looked like a reversion to his actual opinions. In his 2000 book The America We Deserve, he staked out a middle ground on gun control between "the extremes" of the two major political parties. "Democrats want to confiscate all guns, which is a dumb idea because only the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns and the bad guys would be the only ones left armed," Trump wrote. "The Republicans walk the NRA line and refuse even limited restrictions." By contrast, he said, "I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun." By 2011, when Trump toyed with the idea of seeking the Republican presidential nomination, he was flatly declaring that "I am against gun control." Two years later, he described himself as "a very strong person on the Second Amendment." Trump staked out a similar position during his 2016 race, calling himself "a big Second Amendment person," in contrast with then-President Barack Obama, "a nonSecond Amendment person." Asked whether he supported new gun laws to prevent mass shootings, he replied, "The gun laws have nothing to do with this. This isn't guns. This is about really mental illness." Were there "any circumstances" in which Trump would favor "limiting gun sales of any kind in America?" a moderator asked during a 2016 debate. Trump's response was unqualified: "No." In reality, Trump did support some forms of gun control, including "red flag" laws and a ban on firearm possession by people on "no fly" lists. As president, he went so far as to say that the police should "take the gun first" and "go through due process second" when they think someone is dangerous. Before he secured the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, in his 2015 book Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America, Trump (or his ghostwriter) waxed eloquent about the importance of the Second Amendment: The fact that the Founding Fathers made it the Second Amendment, second only to our First Amendment freedoms of speech, religion, the press, and the right of assembly and to petition the government, shows that they understood how important the right to bear arms would be for all Americans We all enjoy this fundamental right in order to defend ourselves and our families. The Founding Fathers knew it was essential to a free society and passed this amendment to make sure the government could never take it (or our arms) away. Throughout history, we've seen oppressive governments consolidate and ensure their control over those they govern by taking away the means necessary for citizens to defend themselves The Second Amendment was created to make sure Americans could protect themselves from tyranny. There is no way we will change it. Trump went on like that for a couple of pages. The platform approved by the Trump-dominated GOP manages just seven words. But if gun rights supporters are unhappy about that, they can hardly expect anything better from the Democrats. In 2016, Democrats erased the Second Amendment from their platform, reverting to the approach they took in 2000 and earlier. The 2016 platform mentioned "the rights of responsible gun owners" but said nothing about the extent of those rights or the legal basis for them. The 2020 platform likewise did not mention the Second Amendment; it did not even mention "the rights of responsible gun owners." But it did include two paragraphs of gun control proposals aimed at "Ending the Epidemic of Gun Violence." Like abortion opponents, Second Amendment advocates probably will feel they have no option but to support a Republican candidate who seems wishy-washy on their issue but is better than the alternative. "The Republican Party platform's downplaying of Second Amendment issues comes as the gun-rights movement finds itself in a precarious position politically," Fogleman writes. "As guns have become increasingly polarized along party lines, gun-rights supporters have found themselves reliant on Republicans for political support. President Joe Biden has made gun control a fixture of his tenure in office and is already campaigning on even more sweeping proposals, including a ban on sales of the popular AR-15, in a potential second term. At the same time, while the GOP's current standard-bearer has continued to seek the support of the National Rifle Association and make promises in speeches to the group, he has been fickle on gun policy at times." Trump is not the only candidate in this race whose views on gun control have changed with the political winds. As a senator in 1985, speaking in favor of the Firearm Owners' Protection Act, Biden sounded like Trump circa 2000. "I believe the compromises that are now a part of this bill have resulted in a balanced piece of legislation that protects the rights of private gun owners while not infringing on law enforcement's ability to deal with those who misuse guns or violate laws," Biden said. "During my twelve and a half years as a member of this body, I have never believed that additional gun control or federal registration of guns would reduce crime. I am convinced that a criminal who wants a firearm can get one through illegal, nontraceable, unregistered sources, with or without gun control." The post The 2024 GOP Platform Barely Mentions Gun Rights appeared first on Reason.com. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) El Paso and Sunland Park Fire departments and other agencies pulled 54 people out of the Rio Grande near the Texas-New Mexico state line during a water rescue mission on Tuesday evening, July 9, according to EP Fire. El Paso and Sunland Park Fire departments initially responded at about 5 p.m. to reports of multiple people in the water along the 3500 block of Doniphan. About six people suffered from hypothermia from being in the water too long and three or four were transported, but nothing critical, Sunland Park Fire Chief Daniel Medrano said. Photos by Gabriela Rodriguez/KTSM So far this year, Sunland Park Fire has done about 80 water rescues, including Tuesdays 54 individuals. I have a message for the migrants: Crossing illegally is against the law and it is dangerous, Medrano said. El Paso Fire said that the individuals taken out of the water have been turned over to law enforcement. Border Patrol could be seen at the scene. A total of 30 divers from El Paso Fire, Sunland Park, Mesilla Valley Fire Rescue, Horizon, Montana Vista and Border Patrol participated in the operation. Enrique Duenas, a spokesman for El Paso Fire, said the rescued individuals were all adults, but he didnt have any specific ages. So far this year, we have been seeing this (water rescues) weekly, every two weeks, but not in this manner, Duenas said. This number of people is odd. Usually, we have one or two people in the water. The scene and affected individuals have been turned over to law enforcement. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. Chinese Premier Li Qiang holds talks with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 10, 2024. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang held talks with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Beijing on Wednesday morning, pledging to strengthen bilateral cooperation in various fields. Li said that since the establishment of diplomatic ties nearly half a century ago, China and Bangladesh have always respected and supported each other, adding that bilateral relations have developed steadily and healthily with solid progress on cooperation in various fields, which has greatly improved the well-being of the two peoples. He said China is willing to work with Bangladesh to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, carry forward the traditional friendship, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation and push for more practical results in bilateral partnership. Li pointed out that China will always give priority to developing relations with Bangladesh in its neighborhood diplomacy, and deepen mutual understanding and give firm support for Bangladesh on issues concerning each other's core interests and major concerns. He said China stands ready to further align its development strategies with Bangladesh, advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, strengthen cooperation on infrastructure construction, promote optimized and balanced development of bilateral trade, deepen cooperation on new energy, digital economy and industrial parks, and promote cultural, tourism, youth and sub-national exchanges to add more impetus to the two countries' respective modernization efforts. China supports Chinese enterprises in strengthening industrial investment cooperation with Bangladesh and working together to enhance the resilience and safety of the industrial chain and supply chain, he added. "We hope that Bangladesh will provide a good environment for Chinese enterprises to operate in Bangladesh," Li said, adding that China is willing to strengthen communication and coordination with Bangladesh in multilateral areas, oppose hegemonism and power politics, and better safeguard international fairness and justice, as well as the common interests of developing countries. Hasina expressed appreciation for China's valuable support over the years, saying that China has made remarkable development achievements and become an example for other developing countries. Bangladesh firmly supports and abides by the one-China policy and supports China's efforts to safeguard its core interests, she said, adding that, as next year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, Bangladesh is willing to maintain closer high-level exchanges with China, enhance the exchange of experience in governance and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation on economy, trade, infrastructure and finance. She said Bangladesh will continue to actively participate in the Belt and Road Initiative, strengthen cooperation with China on international multilateral affairs, push for further all-round development of bilateral relations and safeguard world peace and stability. After the talks, they jointly witnessed the signing of a number of bilateral cooperation documents on policy exchange, economy, trade and investment, digital economy, inspection and quarantine, health care, education and media. The two sides announced the completion of the joint feasibility study on a China-Bangladesh free-trade agreement and agreed to start negotiations on upgrading the bilateral investment agreement. The two sides agreed to designate 2025 as the China-Bangladesh People-to-People Exchange Year. Chinese Premier Li Qiang holds talks with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 10, 2024. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) Months after Maury-Ange Faith Martinez disappeared, police have charged Allen Kerr, Sean Deschauzer and Jasmine Craig in connection with her death Cobb County Police Department/Instagram Maury-Ange Faith Martinez Authorities in Georgia have arrested three people in connection with the death of a woman whose remains were found in January, several months after her disappearance. Maury-Ange Faith Martinez, 20, was reported missing on Aug. 28, 2023 in Gwinnett County, Ga., according to the Cobb County Police Department. Months later, skeletal remains were found in January in Hamilton County, Tenn., and were later determined to be Martinez. Allen Kerr, Sean Deschauzer and Jasmine Craig have since been charged in connection with Martinezs death, 11 Alive, the Chattanooga Times Free Press and WSB Radio reported, citing police and jail records. They have each been charged with concealment of a death, per the outlets. Anita Darling/GoFundMe Maury-Ange Martinez GoFundMe photo Martinez's mother, Anita Darling, told 11 Alive that she was about to pick up Martinez near a courthouse when she got a strange call from her daughter. She called me, and said she had caught a ride," Darling told the outlet. "I thought that it was somebody who worked at the facility. It still seemed a little strange," Darling later added. "I got off the phone with her and felt uneasy about it. Martinez did not answer her mothers texts after the call, which alarmed Darling, she said, per 11 Alive. Related: Skeletal Remains Found in Tennessee Identified as Missing 20-Year-Old Georgia Woman In a GoFundMe created to help fund a search for Martinez before her remains were found, her family alleged she had been taken to another location, where a male friend was planning to pick her up. Police did not confirm this information. 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. It is unclear how Martinez died or if the suspects have entered pleas or retained authorities to speak on their behalf. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Infant Tanna Rae Wroblewski died after she was with her family on Lake Havasu during a severe heat wave in Arizona Gofundme Tanna Rae Wroblewski Tanna Rae Wroblewski, 4 months, died over the weekend after she was exposed to a heat wave in Arizona The infant fell unconscious before she was transported to two different Arizona hospitals and succumbed to her injuries Lake Havasu hit record temperatures beginning July 4, reaching a high of 120F, breaking the 1985 record of 119F, per AccuWeather A 4-month-old infant died after she was exposed to a heat wave while on Lake Havasu in Arizona with her family on Friday, July 5, the Mohave County Sheriff's Office confirmed in a statement to PEOPLE. The baby girl, Tanna Rae Wroblewski, fell ill and then lost consciousness around 5 p.m. on Friday while her family was out on a boat on Lake Havasu. Before the Lake Havasu City Fire Department arrived at the scene, Tannas family performed CPR on her, according to a GoFundMe page created for the Wroblewski family. The first responders then transported Tanna to Havasu Regional Medical Center, where they continued to work on her to get a pulse, per the MCSO statement. She was then airlifted to Phoenix Childrens Hospital but succumbed to her injuries. Gofundme Tanna Rae Wroblewski and her parents An investigation into Tannas death is ongoing. Additionally, the infants cause of death has yet to be released by the medical examiner. Beginning on Thursday, July 4, the Lake Havasu region alerted the public that temperatures would be breaking records for the first time in nearly four decades. Temperatures in the area hit highs of 120F starting Friday and are expected to continue reaching the 110s through the middle of July, per AccuWeather. Numerous heat-related fatalities were reported over the holiday weekend as temperatures soared in many regions across the United States. Related: Driver Following 'Shortcut' Recommended by Google Ends Up Stranded on Mountain for 3 Hours Tannas mother, Alyssa, posted a heartfelt tribute to her late daughter on Sunday, July 7, via Facebook. Tanna Rae, our real life angel became an angel in heaven . We are beyond devastated, heartbroken, there are just no words. July 5, 2024 our precious girl gave us her last smiles and we gave her our last kisses. Please visit us baby girl , she wrote. I will never understand why you had to leave us, you were just too perfect. I love you endlessly and I will look for you everywhere angel . Mama, Dada, and sister love you so so much. Additionally, according to Alyssa's Facebook profile, the family went to Havasu in April, May and June with the baby. Gofundme Tanna Rae Wroblewski and her family On Monday, July 8, the day that Tanna would have turned four months old, Alyssa shared a heartbreaking message, accompanied by the last photos of her daughter, via Facebook. These are the last photos I took of you before you left us. Your smile radiated joy. I always said she is my ANGEL she is my PEACE . I never thought there would be a day in my life without you. You made our family whole. You wouldve been 4 months old today , wrote the mother. She continued by revealing that explaining the loss to Tanna's older sister Ray has been tough. We dont understand why you had to leave, how could she? Shes left out toys for you and made sure your favorites were all in the bassinet before bed the last couple nights. We are so heartbroken without you baby girl, there are just no words. We love you and would give anything to have you here with us . We love you forever Tanny . Related: Great-Grandparents and Dog Died Inside Home After AC Broke amid Extreme Texas Heat: 'Huge Loss' Gofundme Tanna Rae Wroblewski On Sunday, Devynn Crane created a GoFundMe page for the Wroblewski family and wrote in the description: You would never expect the unthinkable to happen and have to plan a funeral for your sweet baby girl at the shy age of four months old." Donations have nearly doubled the $25,000 goal at the time of publication on Tuesday, July 9. 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 representative for the Maricopa County Medical Examiners Office did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for more information on Tuesday. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. [In the player above: What to do if you witness a crash] PARMA, Ohio (WJW) A Cleveland man charged in an alleged drunk driving crash into a Parma home that injured a 4-year-old girl, has been indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury. Police responded just after 9:30 p.m. on July 4 to the corner of West 54th Street and Velma Avenue, according to a police report released on Tuesday. Man found guilty in Cleveland Warehouse District shooting that wounded 9 This embedded content is not available in your region. Zachary M. Pettry, 32, of Cleveland, was indicted Wednesday on the following charges: aggravated vehicular assault, vehicular assault, driving while under the influence, vandalism and criminal damaging. Police found Pettrys Ford Taurus in the tree lawn of the home, and the 4-year-old girl lying on the ground nearby, surrounded by several people giving her first aid. She had a large laceration above her right eye and was bleeding heavily from her head, according to the report. Firefighters transported her to a hospital. Theres been no update on her condition. Officers found Pettry curled up atop the dashboard, bleeding heavily from a large cut on his forehead that had exposed his skull, according to a report. While working to stop the bleeding, an officer noticed alcohol on his breath. Pettry had difficulty answering officers questions and told one officer he thought he was in Florida, according to a report. While on his way to a hospital, he told police he had been drinking at a friends house. Recall: Bagged and whole cucumbers sold in Ohio Witnesses who were driving on West 54th Street told police Pettry was to blame for the crash. They said they saw his sedan traveling north at a high rate of speed in the center turning lane, passing other vehicles. It then rear-ended an SUV, causing it to spin into a tree. The two people in that SUV told police they were OK, but the driver complained of back pain, according to a report. Patrolmen found a pill bottle containing suspected Adderall and an alcoholic seltzer inside Pettrys vehicle, according to the report. Pettry did not enter a plea during his arraignment last week, Parma Municipal Court records show. He posted 10% of a $100,000 bond. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 8 Cleveland WJW. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) Four decades after the disappearance and presumed death of his infant daughter, a 77-year-old man has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. Isiah Williams daughter Olisa Williams was last seen in 1982 when she was 8 months old, according to a release from the office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. In April of that year, Isiah Williams who had a history of domestic violence against the mother took the baby from her mothers arms during a physical altercation, the release says. The couple had been living in Ohio, but he brought her to Michigan, where they had friends and family. Olisa Williams was last seen alive that summer. After her disappearance, Olisa Williams was presumed dead. She was officially declared dead last year, according to Nessels office. Isiah Williams was charged with open murder in 2021 and in May of this year, a jury convicted him of felony murder and first-degree premeditated murder. He was sentenced in Washtenaw County Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Olisa Williams mother, who spent years involved with missing person organizations, read a victim impact statement during the sentencing, Nessels office says. Isiahs silence is a cruelty beyond measure. You have taken from me the most precious gift from God, and now you deny me the chance to lay her to rest. You may think that your silence will protect you, but it will only add to your guilt and shame, she said during the sentencing. You may have taken my Olisas life, but you will never take away my love for her and I pray somehow, Ill be able to bring her home to rest. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. 5 things to know: Springfield Township receives funding to help ailing Springfield Lake Springfield Township Trustee Kellie Chapman and state Rep. Jack Daniels talk with reporters July 2 about a $250,000 retention pond that will help filter water entering Springfield Lake. Springfield Township trustees on Thursday are expected to consider and likely move forward on a plan to construct retention ponds across the street from town hall in the Sawyerwood area of the town. The project, said township Trustee Kellie Chapman, would help improve water quality for Springfield Lake by holding and filtering storm runoff that would otherwise flow into the lake. State funding for the idea became available last month as Ohio lawmakers finalized capital spending plans. Chapman worked with state Rep. Jack Daniels to secure funding in Ohio HB 2. She was notified June 28 that their effort had been successful. How much will the retention ponds cost? Springfield Township will receive $250,000 for the retention ponds, but some township funds may be required to complete the project, Chapman said. A study for the project had already been conducted, but rising material and labor costs since the study was completed could add to the cost, she said in an interview July 2. "We may have to come up with a little bit because we'll get updated bids," she said. Funding came together fast for Springfield retention ponds Daniels, who replaced former state Rep. Bob Young on April 24, said he wasn't in office during much of the budget process. Signs along Springfield Lake alert residents to the dangers of entering the water on July 3 in Springfield Township. But he was able to secure financing for the township project after a quick response from Chapman, who forwarded plans from the retention pond study. "Within minutes, she had everything emailed to me," he said. "I was able to submit it." Daniels said he wants to make water quality in his district's lakes and rivers a key issue during his time in office. A sketch of proposed retention ponds in Springfield Township. The township has received $250,000 in state funding for a project to help reduce contamination of Springfield Lake. How big is Springfield Lake? Springfield Lake, which is shared by the township and Lakemore Village, is 290 acres with a maximum depth of 27 feet. Although the lake is used for fishing, swimming and wading are discouraged as is contact with the water. The lake has unsafe levels of algal toxins and a health advisory remains in effect until safe levels are achieved. Results from water testing are posted on the township's website at https://t.ly/u01R3. Where are the retention ponds planned? The ponds are planned for a lot across state Route 224 from town hall, in the township's Sawyerwood neighborhood. "It's going to be a nice space and it's going to benefit the area," said Daniels. When will the ponds be built? Chapman said she wants to move as quickly as possible. "We're hoping to get started by fall," she said. Signs along Springfield Lake warn residents against swimming in the toxin-heavy water in Springfield Township. The long-term goal is to get the lake in better condition. "We would like to utilize it as much as possible," she said. Leave a message for Alan Ashworth at 330-996-3859 or email him at aashworth@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @newsalanbeaconj or Facebook at www.facebook.com/alan.newsman. This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: 5 things about retention pond plan to help Springfield Lake After 36 years of sales, deliveries, credit and chit chat, Schmidt Market is closing its doors to the public. Richard Schmidt, owner and operator of Schmidt and Sons Market, 118 E. State St., is trading in his meat cutting apron for a real estate brokers license sometime next week. And the closing of the store brings to an end another chapter in the history of downtown OFallon. Schmidts Market has a long line of stories and history from the time the store first opened its doors on April 19,1938, by Richards father, the late Ben Schmidt. Ben had previously worked as a supervisor for the Kroger Supermarket chain before opening his own store. Richard joined his father as soon as he graduated from high school in 1938. When Ben died in July, 1968, the stores operation was taken over by Richard and his wife, Elvira. Richard Schmidt remembers a lot of the earlier years of the stores business and how the store used to be one of the center meeting places in town. Guys used to meet here to go hunting or fishing. Informal meetings among some residents used to be held in the store. There was always lots of conversation here besides grocery items, Schmidt said. When coal mining was the number one industry of OFallon, Schmidt said his father would extend credit to many of the coal miners who were short on cash to pay for groceries. We had credit customers and we still have a few today. My father always felt people had the right to eat. He gave them credit and he was always paid, Schmidt said. Schmidt said that he is not being run out of business by the bigger supermarket stores. Rather, he is getting out of the grocery store business to relax and get away from the hectic six-day-a-week job. Schmidt feels there will always be a place for the small market. He feels the stores like his are more than just a place to buy the familys needs and wants. Besides waiting on customers, we take a little time out to talk about the latest things. You can call it gossip if you like, but we got to know all of our customers very well,Schmidt said. There are still 15-20 customers that have patronized the store since it first started in 1938. The store, complete with pine wood floors, have supported the business which has seen grocery items pass along the way and become extinct. Things like coffee which was hand ground when purchased and glass barrels with pickles floating in its own brine. Schmidts Market used to make deliveries with groceries during the earlier years. The store still does on a much smaller basis. We really got to know people in this business and people got to know us pretty good too, Schmidt said. Thats one of the things I dislike about the big supermarkets. Everythings so fast and rushed that no one gets to know anybody else. Next week, Schmidt will hang up his apron, ring out the cash register and take home the original chopping block that his father bought for the store 36 years ago. Well miss the people and the business and the many good times we had here, Schmidt said. Downtown OFallon will miss Schmidts Market, too. (The building was torn down in 1982, and the lot is now used for parking next to the Masonic Lodge. For a time, the market was an IGA store.) Looking back at stories that appeared in the OFallon Progress 125, 100, 75 years ago: 125 years ago, July 14, 1899 The Great Western Theatre Co. in their private car Geyer arrived Thursday over the L. & N. (railroad) expecting to give us a two nights engagement and then transfer to the B. & O. but found that the car could not be handled on the mill turn-table it being about 20 ft. too long. This has necessitated a change of plans and the Co. has arranged to give us three of their excellent performances at Wachters Hall (226 West State) commencing Monday July 17 with that beautiful drama in five acts entitled Davy Crockett, the backwoods hero of Kentucky. The Co. consists of 10 people. The prices are placed at 10, 20 and 30 cents with a ladies Free Night, Monday night. Two ladies or one lady and gent admitted on one paid ticket. The Co. guarantees satisfaction or money positively refunded. 100 years ago, July 10, 1924 Not a single accident resulting from the Fourth of July was reported in OFallon this year although the observance was more noisy than in past years. This indicates that while the citizens maintain the same principle of celebrating they are becoming more cautious in the practice of safety first. The Fourth this year came in with the banging of firecrackers and toy torpedoes of every description, simmering down to an occasional bang in the afternoon. By night the bombarding broke out anew and the crashing of firecrackers and their noise producers was heard in every part of the city. At night multi-colored lights illuminated the sky and Roman candles made their appearance, rockets, like miniature comets, climbed into the sky, leaving a trail of sparks as they shot through the air. The display of pyrotechnics began to cease shortly after 10 oclock and aside from the occasional bang of a cracker the city began to settle into the usual quietude. No public celebration was planned with the exception of the firemens picnic and dance in the evening, which as usual, was largely attended. Other methods of celebrating the day were house parties and the entertaining of visitors from other cities where a three-day holiday was in vogue. 75 years ago, July 14, 1949 Arthur J. Huller, newly-appointed dealership for Ford Motor cars and parts, announces the formal opening of the agency at 615 South Lincoln Avenue, Saturday. The public is invited to visit the salesroom and inspect the new Ford cars and trucks and register for awards to be made every hour. Arthur Huller will personally manage the new agency. M. K. Schwarz has accepted a position as salesman for Ford products. The other personnel is comprised of David Obernuefemann, mechanic; Lloyd Perschbacher, service station attendant and Betty Huller, bookkeeper and cashier. An unprecedented 54 migrants were rescued from a section of the Rio Grande River between Texas and New Mexico on Tuesday, according to officials. The Sunland Park, New Mexico, fire department got a call on Tuesday about a group of people in the Rio Grande, at a section near El Paso, Texas, and the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where multiple migrants have died crossing the border in recent weeks. First responders including 30 divers, four local fire departments, El Paso County Search and Rescue, and the Border Patrol assisted with the rescue. Six of the migrants reportedly had hypothermia from being in the water too long, and three were taken to local hospitals in non-critical condition. The smugglers from the south side, from Mexico, are telling the migrants to hide in the water, Daniel Medrano of Sunland Park Fire told KTSM. Some of these migrants had been in the water for three or four hours, so they had been in the water for quite a while. 54 people were rescued from the Rio Grande in Sunland Park by an interagency response from @SunlandParkFire , CBP BORSTAR @EPTXFire El Paso County SAR, and Sunland Park Police Department. No injuries were reported. pic.twitter.com/mNQQgh6Oiy Sunland Park Fire (@SunlandParkFire) July 10, 2024 All of those rescued from the river were reportedly adults. The stretch of border is a particularly deadly one. Earlier this month, four migrants were found dead of heat stroke, and another three were found dead in late June. An estimated 20 people died crossing the border in the area over the last month, according to the El Paso Times. In the El Paso border sector, which includes the location of the rescue, migrant deaths more than doubled between 2022 and 2023, a problem only expected to grow as extreme heat continues and the Biden administration tightens access to legal asylum. Between October 1 2023 and the end of June, more than 100 migrants died in the sector, almost twice the number of deaths compared with the same period last year, according to Border Report. Since we saw the (Biden) executive order and since we saw the application of asylum getting much harder, weve been talking about this. Weve been saying that migrants were going to take alternate dangerous routes to reach safety in the U.S. Alan Lizarraga, spokesman for El Paso-based Border Network for Human Rights, told the outlet. Last month, the Biden administration issued a rule allowing the president to shut down the border to legal asylum-seekers between ports of entry if average daily border crossings top 2,500. As The Independent has reported, US officials of both parties have long known that tightening border security at ports of entry drives migrants toward remote and deadly areas along the sprawling, mostly desert border between the US and Mexico. In 1994, the Clinton administration Border Patrol adopted the strategy of prevention through deterrence", which tightened security at common border crossings like Tijuana and El Paso to push migrants into the backcountry and ideally put them in mortal danger. Six foreign nationals in the country illegally, all living in Southern California, have been charged by federal authorities for their alleged roles in a sweeping, multi-state conspiracy to install skimming devices on automated teller machines and checkout point-of-sale units at retail stores, officials announced Tuesday. Skimming devices allow fraudsters to read and capture account information and PIN numbers when customers swipe or insert their credit, debit, and EBT cards to complete a purchase on terminals where the devices have been attached, a news release from the U.S. Attorneys District of Rhode Island Office stated. The information obtained from the skimming devices is then used to create counterfeit cards that can be used to fraudulently obtain cash from victims bank accounts, or to make purchases. Authorities say that the individuals, four of which are citizens of Romania, one from Great Britain and another from Ireland who have all been living in Orange County, allegedly withdrew as much as $300,000 from the bank accounts of unsuspecting victims and have made a yet unknown number of retail purchases. Six foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally have been charged in a sweeping retail and ATM skimming conspiracy. (USAO) Surveillance footage of a member of a crew of foreign nationals tampering with checkout point-of-sale retail units. (USAO) Surveillance footage of a member of a crew of foreign nationals tampering with checkout point-of-sale retail units. (USAO) Surveillance footage of a member of a crew of foreign nationals tampering with checkout point-of-sale retail units. (USAO) Surveillance footage of a member of a crew of foreign nationals tampering with checkout point-of-sale retail units. (USAO) The alleged operation was discovered in October 2023 when police in Bristol, Rhode Island began an investigation into where skimming devices discovered on ATMs at a local bank branch came from, the release noted. Later, federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations recovered skimming devices from 22 separate locations of a major retailer in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and New York. Irish citizen Armando Ion Codreanu, 23, who had been living in Placentia, is facing charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Three other defendants facing charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud have been identified as: Isabela Ignat Codreanu, 23, of Anaheim and Placentia, CA, a citizen of Romania Robby Vicson Codreanu, 20, Placentia, CA, a citizen of Great Britain Mila Ciuciu, 20, of Placentia, CA, a citizen of Romania Romanian and Irish citizen Nicolas Longin Codreanu, 21, who had been living in Placentia is currently in custody of the U.S. Marshals and faces charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. An arrest warrant has been issued for a sixth individual, identified as Romanian citizen Ionut Zamfir, 37, who has been living in Los Angeles. He faces charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Social media influencer identified as driver in deadly head-on crash in Malibu The scale, scope, and brazen nature of these defendants scheme to steal the financial account information of unsuspecting consumers and use it to help themselves to funds and property, as we have alleged in federal court, is staggering, U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Cunha said. I commend the superb work of Homeland Security Investigations, as well as our local law enforcement partners, for their diligent and effective work to disrupt this ring of thieves and ensure that those responsible face a reckoning in federal court. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) Six months ago, a group of friends in Kansas City gathered to watch the Chiefs game and hang out. Days later, three of those friends were found dead in the backyard of Jordan Williss home. As of July, the families of those three dead men David Harrington, Clayton McGeeney, and Ricky Johnson have few answers and they say their questions are being ignored. Frustration and desperation for answers reign for these families, who wonder if anybody will be held responsible for the deaths of Clayton McGeeney, Ricky Johnson, and David Harrington. A lawyer close to the families tells Nexstars WDAF that due to the time that has passed and the lack of communication from police and prosecutors, it leads him to believe charges may never come. Indiana child missing since 2022 found: police This comes as the medical examiner has confirmed to WDAF that their work is complete. Through this whole thing, Ive had a hard time getting anybody to answer me, Jennifer Marquez, Harringtons mother, said. My nephew died a tragic death along with two of his friends and nobody is being held accountable, Jim McGeeney, the uncle of McGeeney, said. If your car blew up right now what happened, well, theyre going to find out what happened, he continued. If a plane crashes what are they going to do, get the black box, they can find out what happened, but with this, three dead men, they dont do anything, it appears they dont do anything and if they are, let us know. Preliminary toxicology reports were released to the families in January, showing cocaine and fentanyl in the systems of the three men. Gunman killed at Yellowstone told woman he planned a mass shooting: authorities Yes, our office finalized cause and manners of death for all three of the referenced decedents. All three cases are under suppression status and not open records available for release at this time, Kelsie Gwartney, the chief of investigations and administrator at Forensic Medical of Kansas, said in a statement. In a second, she said all three reports were certified on January 31. WDAF was previously told that medical examiner reports were holding up the investigation. Yet nearly six months after the reports were certified, all three families have struggled to get any additional information out of police or the Platte County Prosecutors Office, except confirmation that this is an open investigation. In fact, after reaching out for months to the prosecutors office, WDAF was told there was nothing more to talk about [with] this case at this time. [Platte County Prosecutor Eric] Zahnd is not commenting on phone or otherwise about it until investigation is complete. The medical examiner has also refused to release the official cause and manner of their deaths, even to the parents of these men. WDAF also reached out to Willis and his attorney, but did not receive a response. As WDAF previously reported, a family source confirmed Willis had checked into a rehab facility in the days after the men were found in order to address his addiction. Attempts to speak with the fifth person who had been at Willis home in January and his attorney were also unsuccessful. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. RAMALLAH, July 9 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli army ended on Tuesday a large-scale military operation in the West Bank city of Tulkarm and the Nour Shams refugee camp after more than 14 hours, Palestinian sources said. Around 60 military vehicles, accompanied by six large bulldozers of various types, were deployed by the forces, which carried out bulldozing operations on infrastructure, including telecommunications, electricity, water, and sewage systems, causing extensive destruction, Palestinian security sources told Xinhua. Israeli forces surrounded hospitals in the city and destroyed a main road connecting the cities of Nablus and Tulkarm, according to the sources. Several explosions were heard, caused by improvised explosive devices placed by Palestinian militants in the path of the Israeli vehicles, according to local sources and eyewitnesses. Faisal Salama, head of the Popular Committee for Refugee Services in Nur Shams camp, told Xinhua that dozens of families left their homes, which were partially or completely destroyed. Salama mentioned that the Israeli forces raided homes in the camp, conducted field interrogations with their residents, and then detained them in the school belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). He mentioned that the Israeli bulldozers opened new roads within the camp, which previously could not accommodate their passage, leading to the destruction of shops and homes. Mustafa Taqatqa, governor of Tulkarm in the Palestinian Authority, condemned the repeated destruction and bulldozing of infrastructure in the city and its camp in an interview with Xinhua. He said that the Israeli offensives caused widespread destruction in the city, especially targeting the main roads linking it to Nablus and the area adjacent to the Nur Shams camp, noting that the Israeli bulldozers dug a large trench over two meters deep. He added that the Israeli forces cut off water and electricity and even destroyed the telecommunications network in the city and the camp, futilely pressuring the residents to surrender. Sami Hajawi, a local government minister, accused the Israeli army of executing a "systematic plan" to target Palestinian camps and cities by destroying infrastructure, water, electricity, and sewage networks, and even residential homes, to make the camps uninhabitable. There has been no comment from the Israeli army. The West Bank has been witnessing escalating tension marked by armed confrontations between Israeli troops and Palestinians in cities, villages, and camps since the start of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip in October last year. Israel has killed more than 500 Palestinians with airstrikes and gunfire in various parts of the West Bank and east of Jerusalem since the outbreak of the conflict, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. 6-year-old girl killed in Baldwin County crash; undocumented Honduras man now charged with manslaughter 6-year-old girl killed in Baldwin County crash; undocumented Honduras man now charged with manslaughter BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. (WKRG) A 6-year-old girl was killed after a single-vehicle crash happened early Monday morning in Baldwin County, according to a spokesperson with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. According to ALEA, the girl was riding as a passenger in a 2003 GMC Yukon just after 3 a.m. Monday when it left the roadway and overturned, leaving her critically injured. She was not wearing a child restraint at the time of the crash and was ejected from the vehicle. ONLY ON NEWS 5: Family, friends speak about tragic loss of Avery Pickle The girl was later pronounced dead at the hospital where she was transported following the crash. An ALEA spokesperson said the crash happened on Baldwin County 28 near George Younce Road, which is 5 miles south of Robertsdale. LOCATION: This embedded content is not available in your region. Nearly 800 homes could come to Saraland in proposed neighborhood 25-year-old Zelvin G. Pavon-Gomez of Summerdale was driving the vehicle, was injured and taken to South Baldwin Medical Center in Foley. Pavon-Gomez was later transported to the Baldwin County Jail. He is originally from Honduras and is undocumented in the United States. He now faces charges including first-degree assault, driving under the influence of alcohol and manslaughter. This is a developing story. News 5 will provide updates as more information becomes available. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRG News 5. Arson at warehouses linked to arms for Ukraine. Surveillance cameras where NATO trains Ukrainian troops. Blunt vandalism of ministerial cars. Even an apparent, failed bomb plot. Russia has been engaged in a bold sabotage operation across NATOs member states for more than six months, targeting the supply lines of weapons for Ukraine and the decision-makers behind it, according to a senior NATO official. Multiple security officials across Europe describe a threat that is metastasizing as Russian agents, increasingly under scrutiny by security services and frustrated in their own operations, hire local amateurs to undertake high-risk, and often deniable, crimes on their behalf. The NATO official said they had observed an unprecedented escalation and spread of Russias hybrid warfare over the past six months, which included physical sabotage on the supply line of NATO weapons intended for Ukraine. It is everything from point of production and origin, to storage, to those who are making decisions, to the actual delivery, the senior NATO official said. It is bold. Russia is attempting to intimidate (our) allies. Warsaw's largest shopping center, Marywilska 44, burns during a massive fire on May 12, 2024. Russia was "likely" behind the fire, according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. - Dariusz Borowicz/Agencja Wyborcza.pl/Reuters Russia has dismissed the claims as unfounded but Russian sabotage and hybrid warfare will be on the agenda of the NATO 75th anniversary meeting in Washington, DC, which began Tuesday. Yet it is unclear how publicly member states will express their outrage at what analysts have called the Kremlins new shadow war, as they may be reluctant to provide Moscow with a propaganda win, or foment alarm at a series of security breaches across Europe. Recent high-profile arrests have revealed the ad-hoc, clumsy nature of how the Kremlins intelligence operations have evolved since the start of the war in Ukraine. Last year, 14 Ukrainians and two Belarusians were arrested in Poland in one case on suspicion of working for Russian intelligence. A Ukrainian, who under Polish privacy law can be identified only as Maxim L., 24, was sentenced to six years after weeks of receiving tasks from a Russian handler, Andrzej, whom he had never physically met but encountered on the Telegram messaging app in February 2023. Andrzej at first paid him $7 in digital currencies for spraying anti-war graffiti around Poland, Maxim said. Yet the tasks soon became darker. Maxim L. was sentenced to six years after weeks of receiving tasks from a Russian handler whom he had never physically met but encountered on the Telegram messaging app in February 2023. CNN has blurred his face in line with Polish law. - Jaroslaw Gorny/Imago Easy money it seemed so insignificant In a rare interview with CNN inside the maximum-security wing of Lublin prison, Maxim said he had fled Ukraine to Poland in a frustrated bid to escape unemployment and poverty. It was easy money, he said of the work Andrzej offered. I needed money badly. He said he did not feel an obligation to fight for Ukraine after the Russian invasion in February 2022. That country has never done anything for me, he said. I dont believe that just because you are born in a certain country, you have to go to war for it. Dont get me wrong: I am not pro-Russian, I am not pro-Ukraine. I am not pro-anything. Andrzej soon started sending Maxim location pins where he should plant surveillance cameras along the railway tracks near the border town of Medyka, through which military and humanitarian aid would flow to Ukraine. I didnt think any of it could cause any actual harm. It seemed so insignificant, he said. Andrzej later asked him to burn down the fence of a Ukrainian-owned transportation company in the eastern Polish town of Biala Podlaska, he said, which Maxim says he faked, taking a photograph of the fence with lumps of coal he had placed to mimic fire damage. Yet Maxims slow realization that Andrzej was a Russian agent became complete, he said, when he was told to put cameras outside a base where Poland was training Ukrainian soldiers. Thats when I knew it could be serious, he said. It made me feel uneasy. That was when I decided Id quit. But I never got a chance. I got arrested the next day. Polish internal security agents arrested Maxim on March 3, 2023, after weeks of surveillance, sparked partially by the discovery of a gas station receipt Maxim had accidentally dropped on one of his operations, according to a Polish official. Multiple other arrests followed this, making it the largest known Russian espionage operation in Poland of recent times, raising concerns in Warsaw about the extent of Moscows infiltration. Two Russian citizens were detained last August on suspicion of recruiting to Wagner and a Polish man and two Belarusians this May for alleged arson. Another Polish man was arrested in April 2024 for possessing ammunition, and surveilling Rzeszow Jasionka airport, a hub for moving NATO arms to Kyiv, in a suspected plot to assassinate Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky, who also frequently uses the facility. The Polish plots join a series of incidents across Europe which, when viewed together, portray the widescale ambition of Moscows operations. Russia was likely behind an arson attack that hit Polands largest shopping center in May, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, and suspicions have been voiced about another fire at an ammunition factory, south of the capital, in June. Czech officials have voiced concerns at Russian involvement in the hacking and disruption of its railways last year. Demolition work at the Diehl Metal Applications manufacturing facility in Berlin, Germany, after it was gutted by a fire that some believe Russia was behind. - Sean Gallup/Getty Images Last month, a suspicious fire hit a metals factory for a defense manufacturer outside Berlin, and a 26-year-old pro-Russian Ukrainian was arrested after blowing himself up with a homemade bomb near Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. A warehouse fire in East London in March led to two men being charged by Londons Metropolitan Police Service with arson and assisting a foreign intelligence service, namely Russia. While the incidents have not all been definitively linked to Russian intelligence, they have been unified by the apparent involvement of amateurs, or petty criminality aimed at spreading fear or disruption. A pretty dangerous game The senior NATO official said Russian sabotage on NATO states amounted to a pretty dangerous game, if (Russia believes) these things are always below the threshold of armed conflict, that would not trigger the NATO Article 5 stipulation that an attack on one member state is an attack on the entire alliance. Finding where that line is, is a difficult and dangerous calculation to make, the official said, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putins beleaguered invasion of Ukraine shows the Kremlin head was not always getting good military advice. Russia is using the full gamut of hybrid operations, the official added. We see everything from high-end operations in Europe, where we have seen as much as 400,000 euros ($433,000) paid for some type of intelligence activity, to some places where thugs are being hired for a couple of thousand euros. A similar threat has grown on Russias border with NATO, in Estonia, where 10 suspected Russian agents were arrested in February after the interior ministers car was vandalized. The incident was a high-profile peak in what Estonian officials have said is a years-long campaign by Moscow to destabilize its tiny NATO neighbor, about a fifth of whose population of 1.3 million is Russian-speaking, according to a 2021 analysis by the EU. Recent months have seen GPS jamming impede civilian aircraft landings, and even the buoys that demark part of Russias border with Estonia disappear, amid a short-lived call from Moscow for the maritime frontiers to be reassessed. Harrys Puusepp, a spokesman for the KAPO, Estonias internal security service, told CNN that Russian activities had escalated over recent months. We saw a significant rise in their activity in the last autumn, and by winter, we were able to apprehend more than 10 (suspects). The number has grown by now persons who were involved in their hybrid activities against Estonian security in a kind that we hadnt seen before. He said the operations were moving towards physical attacks and suggested the war in Ukraine might lead to more aggressive Russian tactics in the months ahead, if operatives were redeployed to the Baltic areas from the war. We have to face the facts. Russia is big enough to have resources to fight a war against Ukraine and also maintain its security operations against European countries against us. There are people who take part in the war against Ukraine, and then they are rotated to some other region or area. They have more experience. Their mindset is more violent. They are perhaps not so patient anymore trying to get results. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Residents at the Trailview and Eleanor Apartments two affordable housing complexes in Bellingham are raising concerns about rising temperatures in their buildings and a lack of available resources to help them stay cool during Julys heat wave. Neither housing complex run by nonprofit developer Mercy Housing is outfitted with central air conditioning inside the units, which is common among affordable housing developments in Washington State built before 2023. Trailview resident Aurora Fox, 73, has lived in her unit since it opened a year and a half ago. Shes one of many older residents living in affordable housing who also deal with health issues that are exacerbated by extreme temperatures. She told The Bellingham Herald her apartment has been reaching temperatures in the high 80s during the last week. On Tuesday, her unit reached 87 degrees even while running two fans inside. Its hot. 85 is hot. Last summer my apartment got up to 89 once. Im only comfortable if Im sitting in front of the fan. If I get up to do anything I get really sweaty and hot, Fox said. A mother and her children in one Trailview unit have had trouble sleeping, Fox told The Herald. Foxs next-door neighbor, another senior, has also been struggling to stay cool in her unit. There are elderly people here, Fox said. I just dont want anybody to die. A history of heat-related safety concerns This isnt the first time some Mercy Housing residents have spoken out about heat-related concerns in their units. Residents at the Eleanor Apartments began raising concerns about safety after a resident died in the building due to an apparent heat stroke during the record heat wave in the summer of 2021. The sun sets behind the Eleanor Apartments on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, at 1510 N. Forest St. in Bellingham, Wash. The affordable housing complex is designed to house tenants who make 30% and 50% of the areas median income. Residents say the multi-story housing development frequently gets too hot during the summer months and the upstairs hallways are often above 85 degrees. Due to code restrictions, residents were unable to open some of the windows in their rooms more than a few inches, making it difficult to manage the high temperatures. Responding to concerns The Eleanor and Trailview Apartments both have air-conditioned community rooms that are meant to be open during extreme weather events, but residents at Trailview say they have had no access to that space as the apartments have lacked full-time management for several months. I live at Trailview Apartments in Barkley run (by) Mercy Housing. We have been without management for months. We have a community room that is air conditioned but is locked because we dont have staff to supervise (the) room, one resident wrote in a letter she says she sent to the state attorney general, the Department of Health and the Opportunity Council. So this means we have to suffer during this heat wave. Im open to suggestions as to who we can contact. Mercy Housing directly will not help. Residents told The Herald the community room at Trailview was much needed during several high-heat days last week. It wasnt opened until Monday afternoon after several residents attempted to contact Mercy Housing, the national nonprofit developer that owns and operates both housing complexes. Im glad to see they responded and opened the room, Fox said. But were a bit frustrated. Our community room should be a community room where we can go in and use it. Mercy Housing did not respond to a request for comment before publication. But the nonprofit has previously told The Herald it wants to make an effort to help residents. The Trailview Apartments near completion Friday, Aug. 26, 2022, in Bellingham, Wash. The affordable, family housing was partially paid for by the Bellingham Home Fund. Last summer, the affordable housing provider made efforts to provide dozens of portable air conditioning units to residents at the Eleanor for free via their reasonable accommodation request process. Still, residents say its not enough. Even with a portable air conditioner on the fourth floor at Eleanor, my corner apt is low 80s by early evening, Eleanor resident Karina Davidson told The Herald. Its really disappointing. Relief is needed. The city of Bellingham also works to provide fans to vulnerable or isolated people by partnering with health and social service providers to identify those in need, particularly older adults who are home bound or have other risk factors, Mayor Kim Lund said in a statement to The Herald. We are putting staff resources into collaboration with Whatcom County and emergency management partners to jointly identify space and other resources needed to operate cooling centers. We are asking other partners to support this work and how they might be able to play a role in these efforts, Lund told The Herald. The city monitors several factors to determine whether a heat emergency response is needed, including: Proactively monitoring 911 call volumes for increased reports of heat-related illnesses or impacts. Tracking temperatures that do not decrease after sunset. Looking at overall air quality impacts. Statewide solutions New building requirements across the state are also changing as climate concerns remain at the forefront of many policy discussions. As of July 1, 2023, Washington state adopted a code change requiring electric heat pumps to be installed in new homes, multifamily buildings and commercial spaces. Electric heat pumps move cold air inside when its hot and move warm air inside when its cold, according to the Department of Energy. That code was amended after a lawsuit challenged it, saying it would put an undue cost burden on homeowners and developers. Now state building code highly incentivizes electric heat pumps by requiring new buildings to meet the same efficiency as those that include them, but does not require heat pumps to be installed. The sun shines above the Eleanor Apartments on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, at 1510 N. Forest St. in Bellingham, Wash. The affordable housing complex is designed to house tenants who make 30% and 50% of the areas median income. The code did not include those requirements when the Eleanor was built in 2017 or when Trailview was completed in late 2022. But the newest local affordable development built by Mercy Housing, The Millworks Project at Bellinghams waterfront, does have in-unit air to help prevent residents from dealing with high temperatures during heat events like this one. Extreme heat impacts During the record heat wave between June 26 and July 2, 2021, the Pacific Northwest saw more than 100 heat-related deaths, according to the Washington State Department of Health. The average number of heat-related illness emergency department visits between June 25 and June 30, 2021, was 69 times higher than during the same period of days in 2019, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that included Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. The most affected groups were males and people age 75 and older. Vulnerable populations, including low-income seniors like the residents at the Eleanor, are the most impacted by these types of extreme weather events, which are only expected to become more frequent and worsen over time. Editors note (11:15 a.m. July 11): An earlier version of this story improperly described the Washington State Building Code requiring electric heat pumps to be installed in all new buildings. Those code changes were initially approved but were later amended after a lawsuit sought to block that requirement. The state code instead now highly incentivizes electric heat pumps by requiring new buildings to meet the same efficiency as those that include them, but does not require heat pumps to be installed. 911 Call Details Lightning Strike That Killed 19-Year-Old Dad: 'Looked Like the Lightning Was Like Right on Him' "I saw lightning strike and somebody just fell down," the caller reported to authorities GoFundMe Ethan Leandro Lawrence Ethan Lawrence, 19, died after reportedly being struck by lightning while running at Vista View Park in Davie, Fla., on the morning of Sunday, June 30 A woman's 911 call to report the incident has been released where she is heard saying, "I have not seen the person get up" Lawrence's mother, Lourdes, shared a heartfelt tribute on Monday, stating that her son "was my best-friend, my confidant, my shining star, my pride, and my source of endless joy" Authorities have released an audio recording of a 911 call where a witness details seeing 19-year-old Ethan Lawrence getting struck and killed by lightning, according to NBC 6 and CBS News Miami. Lawrence was fatally struck by lightning in Davie, Fla., on Sunday, June 30, just six months after welcoming his first child, daughter Emara, with his girlfriend, Andrea. Lawrence, from Broward County, died at approximately 10:24 a.m. local time at Vista View Park, Davie Police Department previously confirmed to PEOPLE. In the recently released call, a woman told the 911 operator, "I believe someone just got struck by lightning up on the hill. I saw lightning strike and somebody just fell down," per NBC 6. "I was leaving and a big thing of lightning came and I have not seen the person get up." The woman added that she wasn't sure if he was hit due to her position on the hill. "I was driving at the bottom of the hill to exit the park and a huge thing of lightning came. I saw a guy walking up on the hill and then all the sudden he was like down," she said. "It looked like the lightning was like right on him." "It looked so scary and he just, the person just went down on the ground," she said, NBC 6 reports. Related: Dad, 19, Dies in Lightning Strike 6 Months After Becoming a Father: 'My Pride and Joy' Dignity Memorial Ethan Leandro Lawrence Davie Police Department previously confirmed to PEOPLE that after authorities received the 911 call and arrived to the scene, they discovered an adult male deceased in the park. Lawrence's mother Lourdes told WSVN that she had sent her husband, Patrick, to look for their son after the location on his phone hadn't changed for hours. Then the detectives came over to my car and told me I dont know if there is any easy way to say this at all, so Im just going to tell you that unfortunately, your son was running, he was struck by lightning and he didnt make it,'" Patrick said, per WSVN. Police confirmed the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office is assisting with the ongoing investigation. Getty Vista view park in Davie, Florida Related: Man Dies After Being Struck By Lightning While Trying To Get Kids Off Beach During Thunderstorm The late teenager was previously a student at Jacksonville University on a cross-country scholarship but recently transferred to Nova Southeastern University to be with his girlfriend and baby, according to WTVJ. Andrea, Ethan's girlfriend, told WSVN she was still in shock. I am still trying to process it because of how it happened. In a matter of seconds, he texted me in the morning, Good morning love, I woke up late today.'" On Monday, July 8, Ethan's mother shared a heartfelt tribute to the village that raised Ethan, via Facebook. Ethan was not just my son; he was my best-friend, my confidant, my shining star, my pride, and my source of endless joy. From a young age, Ethan showed an incredible depth of empathy and understanding for all. Ethans kindness extended far beyond our family, she wrote. He was always there for his friends, offering a listening ear and a comforting word. His teachers often spoke of his willingness to help others and his ability to bring a smile to anyones face. He was my pride and joy and I can not believe that Im gonna continue this life without him, Lourdes previously told WSVN. 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. The Lawrence family created a GoFundMe page on Thursday, July 4 to keep Ethan's memory alive by supporting this scholarship fund. As of publication, it's raised over $10,000 of its $50,000 goal. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Abcarian: Who should replace President Biden if he leaves the race? The answer should be obvious President Bidens letter to his fellow Democrats in Congress on Monday was everything his debate performance should have been: a forceful, articulate defense of what he has achieved in his nearly four years as president and a warning about the existential threat to our democracy posed by his rival, former President Trump. I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump, the president wrote. We have a historic record of success to run on. From creating over 15 million jobs (including 200,000 just last month), reaching historic lows on unemployment, to revitalizing American manufacturing with 800,000 jobs, to protecting and expanding affordable health care, to rebuilding Americas roads, bridges, highways, ports and airports to beating Big Pharma and lowering the cost of prescription drugs, including $35 a month insulin for seniors, to providing student debt relief for nearly 5 million Americans to an historic investment in combatting climate change. Hear, hear. The problem, of course, is that a written statement, however passionate, cannot dispel the bonfire of despair lit by Bidens surprisingly weak debate performance and his subsequent uneven interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. Read more: Abcarian: Yes, Biden looked and sounded awful. But the debate didn't change the stark choice we face I take Biden at his word: He intends to stay in the race. But if he bows out under pressure from his Democratic colleagues, I also believe the political scientists and pundits who say there is simply not enough time for Democrats to thoroughly vet a new candidate with one glaringly obvious exception: Vice President Kamala Harris. Despite right-wing caricatures portraying her as a lightweight, any deep scrutiny of her record as a big-city district attorney and U.S. senator will puncture the perceptions of those who (bizarrely) think her laugh or her syntax disqualifies her from running for president. I would vote for Harris in a hot second. So, I wager, would many of the Black women who rescued Bidens candidacy in 2020 and are often described as the backbone of the Democratic Party. Read more: Column: Anthony Fauci has a right to savage Trump. His memoir takes a different and telling approach Overcoming the deeply embedded, often unconscious sexism and racism that afflicts a portion of the American electorate, however, would certainly be her biggest challenge. (I just think hes arrogant, a conservative cousin of mine once said of then-candidate Barack Obama. She might as well have called him uppity.) And yet the electorate has grown accustomed to presidential candidates who are not white men. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won nearly 3 million more votes than Trump despite losing the undemocratic electoral college. Voters weary of President George W. Bush helped Obama thump John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 in both the popular vote and the electoral college. And former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, a woman of South Asian descent, lasted all the way to Super Tuesday against Trump in this year's Republican primaries. If something terrible were to befall Biden, Harris who now has almost four years of White House experience is more than capable of stepping into the Oval Office. And Biden could proudly, if reluctantly, pass her the torch to lead the ticket; after all, at 59, she would represent the generational change that so many Americans keep telling pollsters they yearn for. The former prosecutor can also be tough. In 2018, when Harris was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, her grilling of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh prompted Trump to call her "nasty." I would love to see her debate Trump. If Biden stays in, of course, he has my vote. He has built an administration around values that for the most part mirror mine. How could anyone committed to reproductive rights, sensible immigration reform, a fair tax system and a livable planet vote any other way? And even if you are furious with the way the president has handled the Israel-Hamas war, Palestinians will face an even more uncertain future if Trump retakes office. In a second term, Trump would do metaphorically what he tried to do literally at the end of his first: overthrow the government. The evidence includes Project 2025, a 900-page MAGA wish list written by Trump allies under the aegis of the Heritage Foundation. Though Trump has disingenuously tried to distance himself from the plan, it would be his governing blueprint: severely weakening federal agencies' authority, undercutting LGBTQ+ Americans' rights, abolishing entities such as the Department of Education, abandoning the fight against climate change and so much more. We are in the process of the second American Revolution, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said on a far-right podcast, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be. These people are sick. Now that the Supreme Court has essentially elevated the powers of the president to those of a monarch, its even more imperative to keep the man who says he would be a dictator on Day One out of the White House. Its plain that Biden is no longer the man he once was, and running for president is probably more grueling than being president. As a reporter who has traveled with presidential candidates, including Biden, Obama, Romney and McCain, I have always marveled at their stamina. Its a lot to ask of an 81-year-old to jaunt across time zones, meet with world leaders, deal with the other hefty responsibilities of the presidency and also run for reelection. But I would rather have a president who works from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and needs to be in bed early than a 78-year-old convicted felon who lies, cheats, sexually assaults women, tries to steal elections and will not hesitate to demonstrate just how far above the law he is if Americans give him the chance. @robinkabcarian 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. In abortion rights vote, Missouri could do something no state has before Missouri would become the first state to overturn a near-total abortion ban if voters support a state constitutional amendment this fall. Across the country over the past two years, voters in both liberal and conservative states have repeatedly affirmed their support for legal abortion. But no state has voted on whether to overturn a near-total ban. Advocates in Missouri where Republicans have a firm grasp on state and federal politics hope to convince voters who have seen decades of restrictions that abortion rights are worth constitutional protection. Should they succeed, it will upend decades of laws limiting the procedure, potentially opening up a new era of abortion access. A lot of our state is aware of the harm in a way that other states with lesser restrictions may not have been as intimately aware, said Mallory Schwarz, the executive director at Abortion Action Missouri. Because we are seeing the harm every day and have for years. Missouris measure goes the furthest to increase access, seeking protections through fetal viability, a standard established by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. Advocates in two other states seeking to overturn bans this year took a more limited approach. Missouri abortion rights advocates say there is strength in their approach. Rather than giving a deadline for when someone can get an abortion, the fetal viability language combined with exemptions for the life, health and mental health of the mother allows the decision to be determined with the help of medical professionals, rather than legislation. But, as the group embarks on a multimillion-dollar campaign, it will have to convince voters that the amendment is the right fit for a state that has increasingly, and overwhelmingly, voted for anti-abortion conservative politicians. Were just not talking about returning to Roe, OK? said Sam Lee, a longtime anti-abortion activist in Missouri. I would say we and our opponents agree on this: Its not returning to Roe, its beyond Roe. Abortion supporters gathered in the front of the Missouri Capitol. Finding the ballot language To figure out the abortion rights language in its ballot measure, South Dakotan advocates filled out a spreadsheet comparing their options. Abortion rights groups in Arkansas consulted polling. But in Missouri, the negotiation was public. Abortion rights advocates originally filed 11 initiative petitions with Secretary of State Jay Ashcrofts office in March 2023. They ranged from allowing all abortions to limiting abortions to within 24 weeks. About 10 months later after fierce debate within the abortion rights movement advocates coalesced under one name, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, and one ballot measure: Guaranteeing access to abortion until fetal viability. While the Supreme Court used fetal viability the point at which a child can live outside of the womb as its original standard in Roe v. Wade, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says it doesnt point to a concrete date. In 1973, when Roe v. Wade was first decided, fetal viability was considered between 24 to 28 weeks after conception. But as science has improved, the time in which a fetus is considered viable has gotten earlier. Anti-abortion activists frequently point to a study that found some babies born at 22 weeks were able to survive with extensive treatment. Missouri would join a group of 11 states that allow for restrictions after fetal viability, putting it on the same list as states like California, Illinois, Maine, Wyoming and Montana. I think the strength of our policy is that it leaves any definitions or determinations up to medical professionals, Schwarz said. I think anyone thats been pregnant knows Ive had two babies, two pregnancies, and know that every pregnancy is different. And the most important thing is allowing providers to treat the patient in front of them and make decisions with that patient about whats best for themselves and their families. Already, anti-abortion groups are questioning the limits to the groups chosen language. Lee criticized a part of the amendment that would prevent the Legislature from imposing restrictions on abortion if it is deemed necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person. Lee said the mental health provision which was also included in ballot measures in Michigan and Arizona could create a loophole for people seeking abortions despite any regulations the Missouri Legislature may impose. One of our arguments will be: Do you want to pass something that you have to pass it to figure out whats in it? Lee said. Well be trying to explain to voters: Dont vote for something unless you really, really understand what its going to do. Lee, a longtime lobbyist in Jefferson City, spent most of his career pushing for restrictions on abortion. He helped urge the Missouri Legislature to put in restrictions like a 72-hour waiting period and laws requiring parental consent for minors seeking an abortion. Those restrictions helped make abortion access difficult in Missouri, even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. When the states trigger law went into effect, there was only one abortion clinic operating in the state, based in St. Louis. The efforts by Missouri officials to whittle away at abortion access, and potentially block the upcoming proposal from the ballot, have abortion rights supporters bracing for new tactics in the future. That could include future court battles over old restrictions or attempts to pass new ones even if voters approve the amendment in November. Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, said she expects Republican lawmakers to continue to try to pass restrictions on abortion even if the amendment passes, including requiring parental consent or mandatory waiting periods. Theyll do it knowing that it is in complete contradiction to the state constitution, the thing which they took an oath to uphold, Arthur said. Theyll do all of that and then, you know, our constitutional lawyers will file the lawsuits, and, you know, become all the richer because Republicans refuse to follow the constitution. And its going to play out over years. Planned Parenthood in St. Louis was the last clinic licensed to perform abortions in Missouri before the state implemented a total ban on abortions moments after the Supreme court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022. Arkansas, like Missouri, has a reputation as an anti-abortion state. Gennie Diaz, the spokesperson for Arkansans for Limited Government, said the Legislature takes pride in being called the most pro-life state in the country. The states constitution says that it will protect the unborn. When her group was drafting language for its ballot measure, they relied on a poll to determine the level of access that would appeal to a large swath of voters. Having an initiative that guarantees unlimited access up to viability is just not passable in a state like ours, Diaz said. Its just not. That is the truth. When a draft of the Supreme Courts Dobbs decision was leaked, advocates in South Dakota started compiling ballot language from other states in a spreadsheet. Adam Weiland, the co-founder of Dakotans for Health, said his group had to take into account that South Dakota was more conservative than states like California though South Dakotans voted twice, in 2006 and 2008, to prevent the procedure from being banned in the state. Its a conservative state, and we need to be cognizant of that when we take these things on, Weiland said. Right now were in the basement on access to reproductive justice here in South Dakota. The abortion election The Supreme Courts Dobbs decision upended abortion politics across the country. In the elections since the decision, Democrats have frequently overperformed expectations while making abortion rights a key campaign talking point. It has become a key election issue for a struggling President Joe Biden, who has traveled the country campaigning on the issue as hes locked in a tight campaign against former President Donald Trump. In April, Biden made a campaign trip to Tampa to rail against the states newly imposed six-week ban. He denounced an Arizona Supreme Court ruling that upheld an 1864 law banning the procedure. In May, his campaign spent more than $1 million in television advertisements in Pennsylvania highlighting abortion rights. All of those states could have ballot measures on abortion this fall. Voters reacts to the passage of Ohio Issue 1, a ballot measure to amend the state constitution and establish a right to abortion at an election night party hosted by the Hamilton County Democratic Party, in November 2023, at Knox Joseph Distillery in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati. As donors see abortion rights as a way to help the Democratic ticket, advocates in noncompetitive presidential states are concerned that there will be more focus on states that could tip the election for Biden. I think that a lot of the focus, probably too much of the focus, is in battleground states right now on these issues, Weiland said. And I get why theyre thinking that. But I also contend that the battleground states, presidential battleground, Senate battleground states, will have an ungodly amount of money. They have more money than they need. Instead, he said, the abortion rights movement should be focused on states like South Dakota, Missouri and Arkansas the conservative states where advocates have a chance to restore access. And, to do so, advocates will have to convince national donors that conservative states are worth the investment. In its last campaign finance disclosure, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom reported raising $6.7 million throughout the campaign. Thats far less than the more than $20 million Sen. Josh Hawley, who opposes abortion rights, has raised for his reelection campaign. I think the biggest challenge is going to be that, with the national landscape, with so many states working so hard in this moment, that we need to make sure that Missouri has the funding to get our message out there, and to make sure that we can end this total abortion ban, Schwarz, with Abortion Action Missouri, said. July 10 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision settling the Trump v. United States case written by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that presidents have "absolute immunity" in carrying out all "official" duties. But the Court did not rule on what separates "official" from "unofficial," sending the case back to the appeals court to decide. What nonsense! Over time, this ruling may rank among the Supreme Court's worst decisions. Dred Scott v. Sanford in 1857 and Plessy v. Ferguson in 1897 ("separate but equal") top that list. That defenders of this ruling on immunity argue all presidents are protected by this case -- for example, it includes Joe Biden -- misses the point. Supposing a president clearly did something illegal in carrying out official duties. Would the president be immune from prosecution? Let's take an example. A number of Republicans, including two who are allegedly on Donald Trump's short list for vice president, have called for using the U.S. military to eradicate drug lords in Mexico. If Trump wins, what would prevent Trump from carrying out this task as commander-in-chief? He does not need Congressional approval for using military force, provided he conforms with the War Powers Act that requires notifying Congress and sets limits for how long force can be deployed without further approval. Many Americans would probably agree with this action, much as a majority supported the second Iraq War and the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. The attack on our neighbor to the south and largest trading partner would be considered an act of war. If collateral damage, specifically civilian deaths, occurred, Trump could be prosecuted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court, an organization the United States has chosen not to join. But, by the Court's ruling, Trump would be immune. And indeed, if impeachment proceedings were initiated, what would be the grounds and charges? Even starting a war could be argued as an official duty. Immunity would apply. On the other hand, assume Biden wins in November. What would prevent the president from directing the Department of Justice to use any means to derail Trump and reverse the vote? This is what Trump did in his instructions to the Justice Department and Vice President to challenge the choosing of Electoral College electors. Or if a president were to mandate assassinating a foreign leader as a direct threat to national security, only a presidential executive order prevents that. Would a president be immune? Further, the status of Iranian nuclear weapons programs is viewed by many as a clear and present danger. What if, based on "perfect" intelligence, a president were convinced that not only did Iran have a nuclear weapon but was prepared to use it on an urgent basis? What if the only means to eliminate that threat was to use a nuclear weapon that had the explosive power to ensure the destruction of that weapon and the supporting infrastructure? And given the short time frame and the presumed inability of getting a quick supporting Congressional resolution, the president acted unilaterally. For the third time in history a nuclear weapon would be used in anger. To put additional spin on this scenario, what if so-called "perfect" or "slam dunk" intelligence was wrong as it was in 2003 in Iraq? Does the president still have immunity? While the scenarios are unlimited, does unlimited immunity lead to the potential for unlimited catastrophe? For argument's sake, had the absolute immunity finding been in place in 1974, would Richard M. Nixon have been forced to resign? Clearly, Nixon's discussions with White House Counsel John Dean had to be "official." And in these circumstances, could Nixon have ordered the Justice Department to carry out a warrantless raid on Watergate and Democratic National Headquarters based on urgent national security needs? In this case, seizure of the so-called threatening material would outweigh gaining a conviction as the case would be overturned for illegal search and seizure. What this ruling means is that the only lever on presidential misconduct in light of a definition of "official" duties is impeachment and conviction. And when could or would that have happened? If Nixon was protected by this ruling, the grim news delivered by Barry Goldwater and Republican elders that the votes to convict were there would not have happened. What to do? The next Congress should begin holding joint hearings on this ruling to determine if legislation is needed to define "official" in clear terms and to determine if because of this immunity decision, the president is above the law. But will Congress act? Harlan Ullman is UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior adviser at Washington's Atlantic Council, the prime author of "shock and awe" and author of "The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large." Follow him @harlankullman. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) A Tampa man was arrested after deputies discovered a stolen air conditioning unit listed on Facebook Marketplace. On Tuesday, the Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office discovered an advertisement for the AC unit on the platform that matched a recent theft of a unit from a residential construction site in Ruskin. AI-automated ammo vending machines may come to Florida grocery stores soon Detectives found that the seller, Moises Lopez, 49, was associated with another person involved in construction theft. When undercover officials arrived at Lopezs Tampa home, they found the unit appeared to have been removed after installment and had remained unused. Another AC unit and a water heater were also found in Lopezs garage. Officials ran the serial numbers on both units. One came back stolen from a Manatee County residential construction site, while the other was taken from Hillsborough County. Detectives recovered both the Carrier-brand AC units and the water heater. Lopez was arrested and charged with third-degree grand theft and dealing in stolen property. Florida plane goes off runway, crashes into water Those who believe they can exploit hard-earned money from individuals in our community and businesses will face serious consequences. These crimes devastate our business community and local economy, and your sheriffs office is steadfast in protecting both, Sheriff Chad Chronister said. Let this serve as a clear message that our detectives are committed to investigating and apprehending individuals who commit theft crimes of any magnitude and attempt to take advantage of community members. The investigation remains ongoing. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) More than a dozen advocacy groups are calling on the governor to cancel the special legislative session planned for this month. The governor called the special session with a plan to address the states criminal code and the rules for determining competency to stand trial. What were calling on her to do is to scrap the plans for the special session and instead really use the time between now and the regular 60-day session to regroup, convene experts, community partners, people who are most impacted by these issues and to really come up with some solutions that will actually keep us safe, said Daniel Williams, policing policy advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico (ACLU-NM). Holly Agajanian, the chief general counsel for the Office of the Governor, previously told lawmakers that the idea for the special session is to do a complete re-tooling of the criminal competency system. Now, advocates are concerned that the issues are too complex to solve in a brief special session. Unfortunately, the time just hasnt been there to get these proposalsmost of which are addressing really complicated systems, really complicated issues, lots of nuance and depth therethe time just hasnt been enough to get those things right, and the time for a special session which is you know maybe 48 hours, thats certainly not enough for the legislatures deliberative process to address these things, Williams said. . . . we write to you today to urge you to reconsider the call for a special legislative session to address public safety, as we strongly believe the legislative proposals put forth will have a detrimental impact on New Mexicans, rather than achieving the aims you seek . . . the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico (ACLU-NM) and other advocacy groups wrote in a letter to the governor. You can read the full letter at this link. Educators, consultants, and lawyers have outsized representation in New Mexicos legislature While the exact details of the governors proposals are not yet set in stone, the ACLU-NM and other advocates say that with less than two weeks to go before session is slated to begin and an obvious lack of consensus between lawmakers on the (continually shifting) legislative proposals, there is simply no way to achieve the solutions New Mexicans deserve. The groups say there are community issues that need solutions, but that more time is needed to develop those solutions. So, theyre asking the governor to tackle the issues in a regular 60-day legislative session. In particular, the advocacy groups take issue with: The proposal to expand legal definitions of harm to self and the like, which advocates say could threaten individuals rights and do not tackle underlying mental health care shortages The potential to strip judges and prosecutors of their ability to make case-by-case decisions in involuntary commitment cases The discussion to fine or jail unhoused individuals on roadway medians, which advocates say does not address underlying reasons for homelessness and could simply exacerbate the financial challenges unhoused people face Unfortunately, the common thread across all of the proposals is that theyre not the real solutions to our problems. In fact, its just more of the same failed approaches that weve seen in this state and in the country for years, Williams said, Its an overreliance on punishment, its an overreliance on incarceration, an overreliance on the criminal legal system. We know that those kind of tough on crime policies arent really what creates safety in our community. Williams says they favor an approach that has more emphasis on a public health approach: We really need to be looking at, how can we best support our community? How can we best come together and really address these things? Not through incarceration, but through support. Community advocates are not the only ones who have expressed concern about the limited time for trying to pass laws on complicated topics. Some lawmakers have also expressed concern. In a committee meeting back in May, Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena (D-Dona Ana) said: It terrifies me that were talking about a bill that includes a civil component and a criminal component and that somehow, in a special session, were going to look at those elements and get it right. We really hope that the governor is going to hear the voices from the community that this is not what we need; that the solutions shes putting forward in a special session arent solutions; and that the special session is just not going to do what she hopes it does, Williams said. In response to the advocates letter, the governors communications director, Michael Coleman said: While the governor appreciates input from mental health and social justice advocates, calling off the special session and doing nothing is not an option. The status quo is not working in New Mexico, and every day that the root causes of crime and other public safety challenges go unaddressed is another day that New Mexicans are placed at risk. The bills the governor has proposed will provide accountability and treatment for those who become entangled in the criminal justice system because of underlying mental health challenges, while improving the safety of New Mexicos communities. Shes asking law enforcement to beef up its collection and reporting of data about crime to help the state improve its strategies for fighting it. The bill to address median safety is not an attack on the homeless, its a common-sense strategy to reduce New Mexicos first-in-the-nation status for pedestrian fatalities. The governor has also requested that lawmakers agree to stiffen penalties for convicted felons in possession of guns a clear violation of state and federal law and a primary driver of violent crime in our state. The governor and her staff have been engaged in meetings with legislators and other stakeholders on these issues for months. Enough is enough and this cant wait. Michael Coleman, communications director for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Wednesday launched a trade and investment barrier investigation into the relevant practices adopted by the European Union (EU) in the EU's foreign subsidy investigations, the ministry said in an announcement. The investigation was initiated at the request of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, whose qualifications and request documents have been verified, according to the MOC. Under its foreign subsidies regulation, the EU has conducted preliminary, in-depth and raid investigations into Chinese companies involved in sectors such as locomotives, photovoltaics, wind power and security check equipment. The EU's practices in such investigations will be examined, said the MOC. The MOC said its investigation will involve surveys, hearings and on-site activities in order to gather information from all stakeholders. While the investigation is set to conclude by January 10, 2025, it could be extended to April 10 under special circumstances, according to the ministry. The Bellevue Police Department announced Tuesday another arrest of 73-year-old Robert Scroggs following a second investigation into his relationships with students during his time as a substitute teacher for the Bellevue School District. Scroggs is accused of inappropriately touching a 9-year-old female student at Newport Heights Elementary School from January to April 2024. Scroggs was arrested again for first-degree child molestation on June 24. Scroggs had previously been arrested on similar charges on June 7. The Bellevue Police Department said numerous tips and thorough police work led to this additional arrest. However, they urge anyone with further information about these or other potential cases to come forward. Information can be provided by calling the NORCOM non-emergency line at 425-577-5656 or by contacting Detective Sergeant Brenda Johnson at Bjohnson@bellevuewa.gov. The Bellevue Police Department will continue to provide updates on this case as new information emerges. For more information about sexual assault prevention and education resources, as well as tips for talking to your kids about safety and boundaries, please visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). Alice Weidel, Germany's Chairwoman of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), gives a television interview at the start of the second day of the AfD's national party conference in the Grugahalle in Essen. Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have announced the formation of a new right-wing group in the European Parliament on Wednesday. As the spokesman for co-leader Alice Weidel announced, the "Europe of Sovereign Nations" parliamentary group will initially be made up of 25 MPs from a total of eight countries, 14 of whom are from the AfD. The group is currently the smallest in the EU legislature. Political parties from more than 7 EU countries are need to set up a group, under European Parliament rules, with a minimum of 23 EU legislators required. Other countries represented include Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Lithuania, France and Spain. The group must now inform European Parliament President Roberta Metsola of its formation. It is then expected to be officially confirmed at a parliamentary sitting next week in Strasbourg, France. The group's co-leaders are to be Rene Aust, a German EU legislator from the AfD, and Stanislaw Tyszka from the Polish Konfederacja. Maximilian Krah, a scandal-ridden AFD politician, expelled from the party's delegation to the European Parliament for controversial statements about Germany's Nazi past, is not part of the group. Krah welcomed the formation of the group however on X. "I am delighted that the founding of the group in the European Parliament will implement a project that I have been working on for years." "The importance of this project is much greater than my own role; I am therefore satisfied and without any resentment," he said. (Getty Images) Somehow, we were not prepared for this. Artificial intelligence was in development for decades, during which time we fantasized about all the wonderful things it was going to do for us. And then the bots launched almost fully formed like Athena springing from the forehead of Zeus with her sword in hand, and only then did we have our epiphany: Oh man, this is not going to go well. What happened to the AI utopia? We were expecting self-driving cars that would let us drink too much on nights out while eliminating highway fatalities. We anticipated the seamless integration of all our devices and appliances, maybe even without cords! We imagined an unlocking of efficiencies at home and at work; medical breakthroughs; scientific innovation on steroids. Wed have three-day workweeks and go hiking on the weekends while the robots cooked and cleaned. Maybe these things are still there in our future, along with world peace, but so far what weve got is a new way for kids to cheat on homework, a lot of derivative art, pernicious deepfakes and raging arguments over intellectual property theft. Oh, and an unprecedented increase in the demand for electricity that threatens to overwhelm the grid and make it impossible for us to stop burning fossil fuels before global warming destabilizes societies worldwide. The wonder is why we thought this would go well. Shouldnt we have known ourselves better? In my view, the biggest problem with AI is that either humans are in charge, or the robots are. If its the robots, there is a good chance they will decide to kill us all, and we wont see it coming. So we need to root for the humans, who could use the powerful new tools of AI to address hunger and climate change but so far mostly use it for financial fraud, child pornography and adding to the absurd percentage of the internet devoted to cat memes. And instead of helping to lower CO2 emissions, right now the effect of AI is to increase the burning of fossil fuels. U.S. electricity consumption had flatlined after the mid-2000s, but AI is pushing it up again, and sharply. Data centers, where AI lives, could consume as much as 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030, double that of today. We have a close-up view of this in Virginia, the data center capital of the world. In 2022, when I first tried to quantify Virginias data center problem, industry sources put the states data center demand at 1,688 megawatts (MW) equivalent to about 1.6 million homes. With the advent of AI and its enormous appetite for power, the industry added 4,000 MW of new data centers in 2023. By the end of last year, data centers commanded fully 24% of the total electricity generated by Dominion Energy Virginia, the states largest utility. Over the next 15 years, Virginias data center demand is expected to quadruple. Citing the need to supply data centers with power, Dominion did an about-face on its plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. It now proposes to keep coal plants running past their previous retirement dates, and to build new gas-powered generation. The problem is not confined to Virginia. Across the country, utilities are struggling to meet AIs increased energy demand, and looking to fossil fuels to fill the gap. And while tech companies talk a good game about meeting their power demand sustainably, the evidence says otherwise. Tech companies conspicuously did not push back on Dominion Energys plan, and their own efforts fall woefully short. Even Google, which has taken its carbon-cutting obligations more seriously than most companies, just reported a 13% rise in its greenhouse gas emissions in 2023, thanks to its investments in AI and data centers. Apparently, Google and its competitors in the race to dominate AI think meeting climate goals is like getting a loan from a bank; you emit more today, grow your business and use the profits to clear the debt by emitting a lot less tomorrow. But Mother Earth is not a bank. She is a loan shark, and she has started breaking fingers. If we cant rely on the inventors of AI to restrain their energy appetites, we have to turn to our politicians (sigh). Our leaders have to make and enforce limits on the growth of AI commensurate with the worlds ability to provide the resources without baking the planet. Admittedly, mustering that kind of willpower is hard to do in a country that has elevated corporations to personhood and defines the First Amendment to include both spreading lies and spending money to influence elections. And that gets us to the second-biggest concern I have about AI, but the one that might upend society soonest: the unleashing of deepfakes in this falls elections, and the threat that the reins of government will go not to those most dedicated to tackling hard problems, but to those who prove themselves the biggest scoundrels. The American Bar Association (ABA) defines deepfakes as hoax images, sounds and videos that convincingly depict people saying or doing things that they did not actually say or do. Noting that they have already been used in election campaigns in the U.S. and abroad, the ABA is promoting model state legislation to criminalize the creation of malicious deepfakes. Meanwhile, tech companies including Google and Meta have adopted advertising policies to require disclosures of altered content. Both approaches are good as far as they go; websites should police content, and states should act swiftly to outlaw the deepfakes (though the ABA lists very few that have done so yet). But in a high-stakes situation like an election, punishing violators after the fact if you can catch them at all is very much a case of closing the barn door after the horses are out. Once voters have been exposed to evidence of a candidates unfitness for office, especially when media coverage has primed them to believe the lies, the damage is done. Many voters, especially younger ones, are savvy enough to be wary of campaign-related materials generally, and of unattributed images that float around the internet in particular. But older people who came of age in the pre-internet-memes era are vulnerable to believing what they see and hear, and a lot of us wont put ourselves to the trouble of questioning what feels true. A deepfake only has to fool some of the people some of the time to alter the results of an election. But maybe Im being needlessly alarmist about the dangers of AI, even if I have a lot of company. So I did the obvious thing: I asked a bot if AI would save humanity or kill us all. ChatGPT responded with a list of pros and cons of AI, including the familiar benefits and concerns that have spawned a thousand op-eds. You can try this at home, so I wont reiterate them here. But I will note the curious fact that the bot didnt mention either carbon emissions or election-altering deepfakes. Maybe thats an oversight, or maybe it means my fears are unwarranted. But maybe it shows something even scarier than AI itself: Its AI pretending it isnt trying to take over. We urgently need action from U.S. and corporate leaders. Stiff new taxes on data center energy use would lead to greater efficiencies and nudge companies to price data storage and AI use appropriately. New laws should put the onus on internet platforms to stop deepfakes before they can spread. Tech companies should prioritize what is good for human beings over what is good for corporate profit. If they cant ensure AI is used only for good, they should pull the plug until they can. If all this doesnt happen, and soon well, lets just hope the robots are kind. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Airbnb host secretly recorded over 2,000 images of guests with his security camera, authorities said Airbnb host A. Jay Allee had over 2,000 images of guests on his personal devices, authorities said. Allee finished his prison sentence, but some former guests worry their images could leak online. Airbnb banned indoor security cameras in April, but hosts and guests have long debated their use. In the quiet Hill Country town of Comfort, Texas, Airbnb host A. Jay Allee welcomed guests to a rural retreat. Over the years, he received glowing reviews from vacationers and earned Superhost status. During that time, he also secretly recorded images of his guests, according to a CNN investigation into the use of cameras inside short-term rentals. In February 2023, he pleaded guilty to six counts of invasive visual recording in Kendall County District Court. Local police said that Allee accumulated over 2,000 images of guests in various stages of sleep and undress, even children. Some people photographed were even engaging in private sexual acts. The case is part of an ongoing debate about the appropriateness of cameras at short-term rentals, which include rooms and homes listed on Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com. Airbnb banned indoor security cameras in April. Last year, before the ban, some hosts told Business Insider that they needed cameras for their own security and reassurance that their property wasn't being damaged. Some travelers, however, posted on social media that they feared hosts skirting rules to invade their privacy even though, at that time, all security cameras had to be disclosed in the listings. Airbnb said that less than 0.1% of stays globally last year were involved in a safety report for any reason. "When we do receive an allegation, we take appropriate, swift action, which can include removing hosts and listings that violate the policy," an Airbnb spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider. Allee was released from jail this past February after a one-year sentence. His victims told CNN they felt shocked and spooked. David Wyzynajtys, who stayed at Allee's property in July 2021, told CNN that discovering the cameras inside the home was the "scariest moment" of his life. After changing his clothes for the evening, Wyzynajtys saw the hidden cameras plugged into the wall, pointed directly at the bed. Wyzynajtys and his girlfriend fled the property and drove 10 miles away, according to CNN. The next day, he contacted law enforcement after receiving what he described as a "negligent" response from Airbnb. Some of Allee's victims fear that sensitive images and videos of them could be shared on the internet. One woman, who told CNN she was recorded having sex with her husband at Allee's property, said "What is made into digital content is forever." Read the original article on Business Insider LITTLE ROCK, Ark. An Alabama woman whose car, and her dog inside, were stolen over the weekend said the case was closed after they were both returned to her Tuesday. April Dooley confirmed Tuesday night that her car and dog had been returned after they were both stolen over the weekend. Alabama womans car, dog stolen while traveling through Little Rock She said that a woman had been caught on camera driving off in the car on Monday and was located & arrested on Tuesday. Dooley said after the arrest the dog and car were found near the SoMa area. Dooley, a traveling nurse from Alabama, told KARK 4 News on Monday that her car, as well as the dog inside, had been stolen on Sunday while she was in a store in the SoMa neighborhood in Little Rock. Dooley posted a picture on Facebook of her reunited with her dog Opal. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) The Fresno Yosemite International Airport announced Wednesday Alaska Airlines is expanding into the global market. The airport says Alaska Airlines will have seasonal non-stop service from Fresno to Guadalajara, Mexico this winter. Flights will depart from FAT at 7 a.m. beginning December 3, through February 12, 2025, just in time for the holiday season. Alaska Airlines addition of seasonal service to Guadalajara is great news for Fresno and more proof that Fresno Yosemite International Airport is one of the nations up-and-coming airports, said City of Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer. In 2022, the city of Fresno and Guadalajara officially became Sister Cities. FAT ranks 4th in the nation in the number of passengers flying from Fresno to Guadalajara. Tickets for Alaska Airlines new Guadalajara route are now available. For flight schedules and ticket bookings, please visit alaskaair.com. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com | KSEE24 and CBS47. Alaska considers new limits for cruise ship visitors in this popular port city The pristine natural beauty of Alaska boasts breathtaking landscapes with vast national parks, glaciers and 6,640 miles of coastline that makes the destination particularly popular for cruises. Now, the capital port city of Juneau, where crowds have been sailing in in record numbers, is considering a limit on large cruise ships with 250 passengers or more that would cap the number of daily visitors starting in 2026 to help combat overtourism. New agreement in Alaska to limit cruise ship visitors PHOTO: A cruise ship departs from downtown Juneau, on June 7, 2023, along the Gastineau Channel, in Alaska. (Becky Bohrer/AP) Last month, cruise lines including Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian signed an agreement with Juneau tourism officials to help manage the thousands of passengers getting off the boats at the same time and visiting the area. While the numbers are subject to change, Sundays through Fridays, cruise crowds are expected to be capped at 16,000. That number will be limited to 12,000 on Saturdays. The new agreement expands on last year's decision to implement a limit of five cruise ships per day in Juneau. PHOTO: Cruise ships are docked on June 9, 2023, in downtown Juneau, Alaska. (Becky Bohrer/AP) Juneau is home to some amazing outdoor attractions, such as whale watching and Mendenhall Glacier, but some local residents said they've had enough of the post-pandemic crowds. "I personally came to the realization that Alaska was being sold as a friendly place and that my friendliness was a commodity for the cruise lines," resident Karla Hart told ABC News. "The idea is just one day every week to just take a pause -- to have our community back." In 2023, a record 1.6 million cruise passengers visited Juneau, including Sarah Grathwohlwent, who was there for the first time earlier this spring and documented her journey on social media. "It was beautiful to go and see a glacier -- was my first one," she said. "I'm not against limiting the amount of cruise ships, I think it would make it nicer for the locals who live there year round." Overtourism around the world prompts new crowd management systems PHOTO: Cruise ships are shown near downtown Juneau on June 7, 2023, along the Gastineau Channel, in Alaska. (Becky Bohrer/AP) Scott Keyes, travel expert and founder of Going.com, said that the challenges of overtourism are not isolated to Juneau. "We have been setting new travel records every month so far in 2024, and there's no reason to think that's going to stop," he told ABC News. In the U.S., Mount Rainier is among the National Parks that have begun implementing timed entry reservations to help manage large crowds. In Europe, hotspot destinations like Venice and Barcelona have implemented day trip fees for visitors. Over the weekend in Barcelona, thousands of locals protested in the streets with water guns to take a stand against tourism, which they say has resulted in a higher cost of living for residents. Due to increased demand in Athens, Greece, the city is also studying limits on tourist capacity. Experts believe that as more destinations see surges in visitors, local officials may implement restrictions to deal with crowds diplomatically. "I'm all in favor of steps taken to try to make sure you're managing that properly and respecting the local environment and everything," Keyes said. Alaska considers new limits for cruise ship visitors in this popular port city originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com ALABAMA, (WHNT) 5 people in North Alabama were among 12 who died throughout the state during the 4th of July weekend, ALEA says. Troopers with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency say they investigated a total of nine traffic deaths and three drownings across the state over the Fourth of July weekend. ALEA says this is the third year in a row where there were no boating related deaths on Alabama waterways. Alabama lawmaker arrested on two felony charges The Fourth of July travel period began at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, July 3 and ended at midnight Sunday, July 7, with AAA predicting a record-breaking travel period this years. ALEA reported 9 traffic deaths across Alabama, with 4 of those being in North Alabama. The agency said Justin R. Bradford, was killed when the motorcycle he was driving hit another vehicle in Cullman County on Friday. Two people in Marshall County, Blake Hicks and Carolyn Thompson, reportedly died on Saturday after a car crash involving Hicks motorcycle and Thompsons car, and ALEA said a 17-year-old died in a wreck Jackson County the following day. One of the three drowning deaths reported was a Morgan County man, Justin Letson. Officials said he drowned at Point Mallard last Thursday. Unfortunately, this holiday period ended in tragedy for 12 individuals and their loved ones, which we extend our deepest condolences. For law enforcement, this number is a stark reminder that our job is never done. While I commend all of our officers and the states first responders who worked tirelessly over the holiday away from their families, I also pledge to the public that our Agency will continue our mission of protecting and serving by conducting high-visibility enforcement details and providing educational opportunities to combat dangerous driving and boating habits and reduce such tragedies. ALEA Secretary Hal Taylor ALEA added that they investigated 206 traffic crashes, made 48 DUI arrests, issued 2,429 citations for speeding and issued 1,211 citations for seat belts and/or improper child restraints over the five-day travel period as well. Troopers say ALEAs Marine Patrol Division investigated 14 boating incidents, made 14 BUI arrests, issued 206 Marine Safety citations and issued 852 Marine Safety Warnings. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHNT.com. The involuntary manslaughter trial of Alec Baldwin for the 2021 shooting of Halyna Hutchins during the filming of Rust is underway in a New Mexico courtroom as both sides put forward their opening statements. According to The New York Times, prosecutor Erlinda O. Johnson began the case against Baldwin by showing the jury a photo of Hutchins and saying, the evidence will show that someone who played make-believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin. She then accused Baldwin of mishandling the gun by cocking the hammer and having his finger on the trigger at improper times and asserted that there was a time when Baldwin requested to be filmed running around shooting his gun. Johnson claimed that the prosecution has proof that the gun was functioning normally and there was nothing wrong with it. One of the lawyers defending the actor, Alex Spiro, then told the jury that while Hutchins death was an unspeakable tragedy Alec Baldwin committed no crime. Spiro said Baldwin had been told his gun was cold, meaning there was nothing inside of it. Cold guns cant hurt people, Spiro said. Baldwins defense team has built their argument on the fact that regardless of Baldwins actions with the gun, he cannot be guilty as he was told the weapon was empty. Instead of Baldwin taking the fall, Spiro lays the blame on the films crew and armorer. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who worked as the armorer on Rust, has already been tried and sentenced to 18 months in prison for the part she played in the shooting. Before taking a break for lunch, the prosecution showed the jury bodycam footage from the day the shooting took place. The footage showed life-saving measures performed by first responders on Hutchins. Baldwin was also seen in the footage. In the courtroom the actor stared down at a notepad and away from the jury. Spiro explained the actors reaction immediately after the gun went off to the jury. He immediately says, I didnt, I didnt mean to shoot. I didnt pull trigger. Immediately. Shock turns to panic, he added. 911 is called. The jury then heard the audio of the call. The first witness for the prosecution to take the stand was Officer Nicholas LeFleur. LaFleur was at the scene, and interacted with Baldwin to determine he was the one holding the gun. 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. JERUSALEM, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Israel's military said on Wednesday that it dropped thousands of leaflets on Gaza City, urging all residents to leave immediately amid an intensified military offensive on the Palestinian enclave's main city. Since shortly after the fatal shooting on the set of Rust, Alec Baldwin has been adamant that he did not pull the trigger. That claim has been a key element of Baldwins public defense and a way for him to disclaim all responsibility for the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Prosecutors find the claim absurd on its face and have gone to great lengths to disprove it. More from Variety But in his opening statement on Wednesday, defense attorney Alex Spiro acknowledged, for the first time, that Baldwin may be wrong, and that he may have pulled the trigger. He argued that would still not make him criminally negligent. On a movie set, youre allowed to pull the trigger, Spiro said. Even if he intentionally pulled the trigger that doesnt make him guilty of homicide. The prosecution intends to spend much of the manslaughter trial proving that Baldwin did pull the trigger. In her opening statement, special prosecutor Erlinda Johnson said that numerous firearms experts will testify that the gun was working properly at the time of the shooting. The prosecution will go so far as to bring in manufacturer Alessandro Pietta from Italy to tell jurors about his quality control measures. The evidence will show this gun functioned and worked just fine, Johnson said. The prosecution is also expected to call at least one member of the crew to testify that he saw Baldwin pull the trigger. The defense has not conceded the point entirely. Baldwins lawyers still plan to argue that its possible the gun may have misfired. They will argue that an FBI examiner needlessly destroyed the gun, making it impossible to know with certainty that it was functioning normally. Spiro also argued that the gun has a hair trigger and that the owners manual states that the gun can accidentally go off if the hammer is dropped on a live primer. But Spiro also tacitly acknowledged that jurors may ultimately conclude that Baldwin did pull the trigger. He urged them to acquit him anyway. If he did, of course, that would only make his statement incorrect, Spiro said. That would mean he would have misspoke. He called the issue a shiny object, meant to distract from the key fact that the gun would have been harmless had it not been loaded with a real bullet a grave violation of film industry safety standards. When this issue discussed, its easy to sort of pull yourself into courtroom-land and away from a movie set, Spiro argued. He did not know, or have any reason to know, that the gun was loaded with a live bullet. Thats the key. That live bullet is the key. That is the lethal element. Spiro argued that investigators were unable to find the source of the live bullet, and so they turned their attention instead to trying to prove that Baldwins adamant denial was false. If they could prove that he intentionally pulled the trigger, and he was imperfect, imprecise, wrong with what he said, then maybe you take that, and you say that hes lying, Spiro said. And if hes a liar, he committed homicide Theyre blinded by the shine. Theyre blinded by trying to disprove Alec. Spiros tactical approach is in marked contrast to the defense in the trial of Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the Rust armorer who loaded the live round into Baldwins gun. Her lawyer, Jason Bowles, argued in that case that she was a scapegoat for mistakes made by others. In both his opening and closing arguments, Bowles focused on the states burden to prove its case, and did not concede any potential wrongdoing or fault on Gutierrez Reeds part. He did not even concede the broadly accepted notion that Gutierrez Reed, then 24 and working as an armorer for just the second time, was inexperienced. She was trained, educated, and ready for this job, Bowles said in his opening statement. Gutierrez Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in less than three hours. Whether Spiros different approach will lead to a different outcome is yet to be seen. Best of Variety Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Baldwin, 66, faces up to 18 months in prison if convicted of involuntary manslaughter In the months after Alec Baldwins Colt .45 discharged in his hands, killing a cinematographer in the set of a wooden church in the deserts of New Mexico, police focused on whether the Hollywood star had properly inspected the weapon beforehand. His claims that he was told that the gun was cold meaning it did not contain any live rounds appeared to be crucial to the first criminal prosecution for an on-set shooting death in US history. But during a set-piece television interview after the dust had settled, the Oscar-nominated actor made a claim that would change everything: he never pulled the trigger. On Wednesday, the Oscar-nominated actor will go on trial for his role in the death of Halyna Hutchins, shot by a bullet that lodged in Joel Souza, the director of the film Rust, who was standing behind her. Baldwin, 66, faces up to 18 months in prison if convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Over the course of about 10 days, the jury will be led through every minute of what happened on Oct 21 2021. Eventually, they will be taken deep inside the inner workings of the Italian-made Pietta pistol, a replica of a vintage 1873 model, and, crucially, whether it could have gone off without Baldwin pressing the trigger. Baldwin has said he pulled, then released, the guns hammer because Hutchins wanted a close-up camera angle of the guns loaded barrel. An FBI analysis of the weapon concluded that the gun would not go off without the trigger being depressed, but Baldwins lawyers complained that they hadnt had a chance to analyse it before the expert hit the fully cocked gun with a mallet and broke it as part of the analysis. Baldwins legal team also alleged the full-cock notch had been filed down, making it easier to fire. That allowed a mechanical failure or accidental discharge without a trigger pull, they claimed. Last year, prosecutors dropped charges, convinced the gun was modified, only to have a grand jury reinstate them in January after Lucien Haag, an independent firearms expert, confirmed findings of the FBI examination. The report examined the gun, safety mechanisms and markings and concluded the trigger had to be depressed to go off but it had to rely on replacement parts to carry out some of the tests. Although Alec Baldwin repeatedly denies pulling the trigger, given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver, Mr Haag wrote in his report. Zac Sneesby, a crew member who was holding a boom microphone during the rehearsal, is expected to testify that he saw Baldwin pull the trigger of the revolver, prosecutors said in court filings. Evidence from the FBI ballistics report showing Alec Baldwin with the revolver There are two ways prosecutors can prove the charge. One is based on the negligent use of a firearm; the other is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Baldwin acted with total disregard or indifference for the safety of others. David Halls, the assistant director, who pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm, is also expected to testify. Lisa Torraco, Mr Halls lawyer, told The Telegraph that her client would be called as a witness for the defence. Of the three of them, Hannah [Gutierrez Reed, the armourer who was responsible for weapons safety on Rust], Dave and Alec, Dave feels Alec has the least amount of responsibility because he relied on the armourer and it is not the job of the actor, in Daves opinion, to double check, she said. Ms Torraco said that Mr Halls originally said he saw Baldwin pull the hammer back, but not the trigger. There are some nuances about that Im sure will be an issue, she said. The Italian-made Pietta pistol, a replica of a vintage 1873 model, at the centre of the case She believes the prosecutions case will focus on arguments that Baldwin may have been reckless... [and] may have hurried the schedule and didnt give appropriate attention to detail. I think its kind of like a big, bigger theme than just was the trigger pulled or not?... I think theyre gonna say that he was reckless and pointed guns at people throughout the filming. She said that she thinks the defence will argue that it is a frivolous prosecution that doesnt belong in criminal court and the prosecutors have a bad motive. Baldwin has also been accused of neglecting safety protocols on set, with prosecutors expected to depict the atmosphere as chaotic and Baldwin as erratic. In March, Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for mistakenly loading a live round into Baldwins gun and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. She is appealing against the conviction and is on both the defence and prosecution witness lists. Disassembled Colt .45 cartridges pictured in the ballistics report The defence is also expected to try to show it is not the job of an actor to make sure a gun is not loaded with live ammunition. But Dr Ron Martinelli, an expert firearms and ballistics consultant who has been a technical advisor on westerns, told The Telegraph that he thinks Baldwins in trouble because he did not double check whether the gun was loaded. Pleading ignorance is not going to work. I think it will be a very easy argument for the prosecutor if they use the right experts... to just go through the very simple safety protocols. 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. Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming of Western movie Rust Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming of Western movie Rust By Andrew Hay SANTA FE, New Mexico (Reuters) -A New Mexico prosecutor on Wednesday said Alec Baldwin broke "cardinal rules" for handling guns in the 2021 killing of "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, while his lawyer said he was failed by the movie's set safety experts who already have been convicted in the case. The 66-year-old Baldwin, on trial in Hollywood's first on-set shooting fatality in three decades, took notes at the defense table and listened calmly in his involuntary manslaughter trial. The prosecution is largely unprecedented in U.S. history, holding an actor criminally responsible for a gun death during filming. A New Mexico jury heard prosecutor Erlinda Johnson outline arguments Baldwin disregarded safety during filming of the low-budget movie when he pointed a gun at Hutchins, cocked it and pulled the trigger as they set up a camera shot in movie-set church southwest of Santa Fe. "The evidence will show that someone who played make believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin," Johnson said. Baldwin's wife Hilaria Baldwin sat in the second row of the public gallery, his brother Stephen Baldwin in front of her. His lawyer Alex Spiro pointed to "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez - head of gun safety - and first assistant director Dave Halls - responsible for overall set safety. Both have been convicted in the shooting, and Spiro said they did not check the rounds in the gun to ensure it was safe for Baldwin to use. "There were people responsible for firearms safety, but actor Alec Baldwin committed no crime," said Spiro. Hutchins was killed, and director Joel Souza wounded when Baldwin's reproduction 1873 Single Action Army revolver fired a live round, inadvertently loaded by Gutierrez. Since a police interview on Oct. 21, 2021, the day of the shooting, Baldwin has argued the gun just "went off." In an ABC News interview two months later, Baldwin told George Stephanopoulos he did not pull the trigger. A 2022 FBI test found the gun was in normal working condition and would not fire from full cock without the trigger being pulled. In a sign the defense was backing away from that position, Spiro said that even if Baldwin pulled the trigger, it was not a crime. He said it was the job of Gutierrez and Halls to safely allow an actor "to wave it, to point it, to pull the trigger, like actors do." "On a movie set you're allowed to pull the trigger, so even if he intentionally pulled the trigger, as prosecutors said, that doesn't mean he committed a homicide," said Spiro. State prosecutors charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in January 2022. They dropped charges three months later after Baldwin's lawyers presented photographic evidence the gun was modified, arguing it would fire more easily, bolstering the actor's accidental discharge argument. Prosecutors called a grand jury to reinstate the charge in January after an independent firearms expert confirmed the 2022 FBI study. "He pointed the gun at another human being, cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger in reckless disregard for miss Hutchins' safety," Johnson said. Armorer Gutierrez, whose job on the set of "Rust" included managing firearms safely, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in March for loading the live round. Lawyer Gloria Allred, representing Hutchins' parents and sister in a lawsuit against Baldwin, was in the courtroom's public gallery Wednesday. (Reporting By Andrew Hay; editing by Donna Bryson, Aurora Ellis and Leslie Adler) Alec Baldwin will begin day 2 of his trial today for the accidental shooting death of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer of Rust. Baldwin accidentally fired a live bullet from his prop gun on Oct. 21, 2021, injuring Rust director Joel Souza and killing Hutchins. Baldwin has maintained that he never pulled the trigger of the gun, which Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and first assistant director Dave Halls each said was not loaded. Just one day before the trial was set to begin, Baldwin's legal team had a major win in the case: Any evidence pertaining to Baldwin as a producer of the film, beyond his role of the movie's lead actor, will not be permissible in court, according to Variety. Here's everything to know about the Alec Baldwin trial, including the Alec Baldwin shooting details, what happened to Halyna Hutchins and more information on the tragedy and its aftermath. Related: Twitter Reacts to Alec Baldwin's Settlement With Halyna Hutchins' Family When is Alec Baldwin's trial date? Baldwin's trial began on July 9, 2024. What is Alec Baldwin charged with? Baldwin faces one charge of felony involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors initially also tried to charge him with a mandatory minimum sentence for a "firearm enhancement" since Hutchins was killed with a gun, per the Associated Press. However, the law behind the firearm enhancement sentencing actually passed after the shooting happened, making it an "ex post facto" law and thereby unconstitutional. As such, that charge was dismissed. Will the Alec Baldwin trial be on TV? Baldwin's trial will air live on Court TV. Cameras in the courtroom will also provide feed footage to other media outlets, so your local news or other broadcasts will also have access to air segments as well. Check your local listings! Related: Alec Baldwin's Lawyer Speaks Out on Criminal Charges Will Alec Baldwin go to jail? If a jury unanimously convicts Baldwin, he faces up to 18 months in prison. However, he's unlikely to serve a sentence that long. "If he is convicted, I don't think he faces the maximum amount of time," criminal defense attorney Lexie Rigden explained to Fox News. "His job was not as the armorer or to guarantee the safety of the gun, and especially with the evidence that can't come in against him as a producer, which is huge for the defense, my prediction is he won't get that amount of time if he is convicted." Rigden said that the prosecution's case has "some serious issues" and noted that if Baldwin weren't a celebrity, there potentially wouldn't be any case at all especially following Gutierrez-Reed's conviction, which established her own liability for live rounds and a lack of firearm safety on the set. The prosecution's case is further complicated, she said, by the fact that prosecution is barred from using any evidence pertaining to Baldwin's role as a producer on Rust, a decision that was announced just one day before jury selection began. Who is Halyna Hutchins? Halyna Hutchins in January 2019 Fred Hayes/Getty Images for SAGindie Hutchins was a cinematographer and photographer born in Ukraine. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue her art and career, meeting husband Matthew Hutchins and marrying him in 2005 and retaining her Ukrainian citizenship. They had a son, Andros, who was 9 years old when Halyna died. She's credited on over 30 film and television projects, as well as fashion shoots. She was an activist for unions, supporting the IATSE strike just days before she died and, according to The Independent, considered going on strike as well. (In the days before her death, several crew members walked off the set of Rust in protest of unsafe working conditions, Variety reported, and were replaced by non-union workers.) Related: Why Alec Baldwin Is Suing Members of the Rust Crew What happened to Halyna Hutchins? Baldwin was rehearsing a scene for Rust in a chapel on set when he claims that he pulled back the hammer of the prop gun but never pulled the trigger and accidentally shot Halyna Hutchins and director Souza, the Associated Press reported. Souza was hospitalized, treated and released for his injuries, but Hutchins died. What exactly happened on the set of Rust? A still from a video clip featuring Alec Baldwin is shown during the involuntary manslaughter trial of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed at the First Judicial District Courthouse on Feb. 29, 2024, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Gutierrez-Reed, who was working as the armorer on the movie "Rust" when a revolver Baldwin was holding fired killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded the film's director Joel Souza, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence. Gabriela Campos-Pool/Getty Images We might never know exactly what happened on the set of Rust. Here is what we do know: On Oct. 21, 2021, Baldwin was rehearsing a gunfight scene in a chapel on the New Mexico set of Rust. The armorer, Gutierrez-Reed, had previously announced that his prop gun was a "cold gun," meaning it had no ammunition, including blanks. First assistant director David Halls also declared on set that the gun, a Colt .45 revolver, was a cold gun. Halls denied handing the gun off to Baldwin, and it remains unclear who actually did so. Gutierrez-Reed claimed she wasn't in the building at the time because of COVID restrictions. As part of his rehearsal of the scene, Baldwin drew the prop revolver from his holster, pulled back the hammer and pointed it at the camera. A live round was fired, injuring Souza and killing Hutchins. Baldwin maintains that he never pulled the trigger on the firearm, but prosecutors allege that he did. Related: What to Know About Alec Baldwin's Kids Who was the prop master on Rust? Sarah Zachary was the prop master for Rust. On the stand in Gutierrez-Reed's trial, Zachary told the court (via ABC 7 Los Angeles), "I heard the shot go off and I heard Joel scream. When the gunshot went off, that's when I all of the sudden saw Hannah in front of it. She turned around and said, 'This wasn't supposed to happen, my whole career is ruined.'" Zachary also claimed that a stunt double accidentally discharged a firearm, standard safety bulletins weren't posted and that safety meetings were rare. What happened in the real world Rust set shooting? Rust production began in early October 2021 in New Mexico, and not long afterward, IATSE union crew members threatened to strike because of safety concerns on the set. Days before the fatal shooting, several walked off of the set and were replaced by non-union workers, The Los Angeles Times reported. Three sources told the outlet that the film had long hours and long commutes and that some workers had to wait long to get paid for their efforts but most importantly, gun safety protocols reportedly weren't being followed closely or regularly. Three crew members claimed that there were "accidental prop gun discharges," and Baldwin's stunt double accidentally fired two rounds from what he was told was a "cold gun" (a gun without ammunition, including blanks) days before Hutchins' death. "There should have been an investigation into what happened," one crew member told The Los Angeles Times. "There were no safety meetings. There was no assurance that it wouldnt happen again. All they wanted to do was rush, rush, rush." Another Los Angeles Times report said that the set was "chaotic," and that the low budget was likely partly to blame. A rep for Rust Productions said in a statement at the time, "The safety of our cast and crew is the top priority of Rust Productions and everyone associated with the company. Though we were not made aware of any official complaints concerning weapon or prop safety on set, we will be conducting an internal review of our procedures while production is shut down. We will continue to cooperate with the Santa Fe authorities in their investigation and offer mental health services to the cast and crew during this tragic time." Was the Rust movie ever finished? Rust halted production after the shooting until police finished their investigation into the case. Production resumed in April 2023 and wrapped a month later. The film was shopped at the Cannes Film Festival, but as of July 2024 hasn't yet found a buyer. Was it a real bullet on the set of Rust? Tragically, yes: Baldwin, who was told his prop revolver wasn't loaded, accidentally shot a real bullet (live round), which killed Hutchins and wounded Souza. According to The Hollywood Reporter, more than 500 rounds of ammo were recovered from the set, including blanks, dummy rounds and live rounds. Why was the gun loaded on Rust? Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, former armorer for the movie "Rust," listens to closing arguments in her trial at district court on March 6, 2024 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Luis Sanchez Saturno - Pool/Getty Images A jury found that Gutierrez-Reed's negligence led to a live round being loaded into Baldwin's prop gun. So far, no one knows how the live ammo got onto the set or into the gun, but Gutierrez-Reed was responsible for checking all of the prop guns and ammo on set at all times. Halls was also supposed to check the gun, but admitted in a criminal negligence plea agreement (via Variety) that he often failed to do so thoroughly. Why was the armorer convicted? "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed at her sentencing for involuntary manslaughter on April 15, 2024 Luis Sanchez Saturno-Pool/Getty Images Rust armorer Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of one charge of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins' death. One juror told Variety of their guilty vote, "Someone died. You gotta take responsibility. Especially when you're handling weapons and you're in charge of those. That's your job." They added, "She could have paused work, stopped, and cleared it all up, and just never did. That was her job to check those rounds those firearms. No one wanted to pay attention or do that sort of stuff and stop work." Gutierrez-Reed was accused of loading a live round into Baldwin's gun, which was supposed to only contain dummy rounds. "You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon," the judge in the case told Gutierrez-Reed at her sentencing in April 2024 (via ABC News). "But for you, Ms. Hutchins would be alive. A husband would have his partner, and a little boy would have his mother." The judge sentenced Gutierrez-Reed to 18 months in prison. Gutierrez-Reed has requested an appeal in her case, Variety reported, alleging that the judge in her case made six key errors that led to what they deemed was an unfair conviction. How did live ammo get on the Rust set? It remains unknown exactly how the dummy rounds got onto the movie set. Gutierrez-Reed sued prop supplier Seth Kenney, who supplied the faux bullets for the film, Reuters reported, alleging that he "failed to state" that "the contents [of the boxes of ammunition] contained both dummy and live ammunition." Kenney denied the allegations and hasn't been charged with any crimes. Next, What to Know About Alec Baldwin's Reality Show Alec Baldwin trial: How long would he go to prison if convicted in Rust shooting? (NEXSTAR) Opening statements began Wednesday in the trial of Alec Baldwin, who is facing a felony charge of involuntary manslaughter in the movie-set shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. If hes found guilty, the actor could face a punishment of prison time. Baldwin, 66, has pleaded not guilty to the felony charge in the 2021 shooting during a rehearsal for the Western movie Rust at Bonanza Creek Ranch in New Mexico. A revolver went off while Baldwin was pointing it at Hutchins. The shooting killed her, and injured director Joel Souza. If convicted, Baldwin could be sentenced to up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine, under New Mexicos sentencing laws for a fourth-degree felony. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer would preside over the sentencing phase of the trial at a later date, if the jury reaches a unanimous guilty conviction. Baldwins lawyers argued the actor bears no responsibility for the unspeakable tragedy. Baldwin said he was not aware the gun was loaded with a live round. Alec Baldwin involuntary manslaughter trial begins; jury hearing opening statements His defense team says the responsibility lies with the movies armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, and assistant director David Halls. Gutierrez-Reed has already been convicted of manslaughter and received the maximum 18-month sentence. Judge Sommer, who also oversaw her trial, said anything less than the maximum sentence would not be appropriate given that Gutierrez-Reeds recklessness amounted to a serious violent offense. You were the armorer, the one that stood between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone, the judge told Gutierrez-Reed. You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon. But for you, Ms. Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner and a little boy would have his mother. Assistant director Halls pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to six months of unsupervised probation as part of his plea deal. Baldwins trial is expected to last nine days. After testimony concludes, the jury can deliberate as long as they need. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Attorneys for convicted murderer and financial fraudster Alex Murdaugh are asking the S.C. Supreme Court to review a judges decision last winter that nixed Murdaughs bid to get a new trial on his murder charges based on alleged jury tampering by Colleton County Becky Hill. It is not known how quickly the Supreme Court will rule. In a January hearing, circuit Judge Jean Toal heard allegations of jury tampering by Hill, but ruled there was insufficient evidence to grant Murdaugh a new trial. Murdaugh, 56, once a prominent South Carolina lawyer and member of a powerful legal dynasty, had been convicted in March 2023 by a Colleton County jury of murdering his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, at their rural estate in June 2021. The trial lasted six weeks. The jury heard from more than 70 witnesses and deliberated a little more than an hour before finding Murdaugh guilty. He is now serving two consecutive life sentences at the S.C. Department of Corrections. After the trial, Murdaughs attorneys Dick Harpootlian, Jim Griffin and Phil Barber interviewed jurors and filed motions alleging Hill had improperly influenced jurors to deliver a quick guilty verdict because Hill was trying to hype sales of a book she published a few months after the trial called Behind the Doors of Justice. Hill used her position as clerk of court to gather insider information about the trial, the attorneys alleged. Clerks of court supervise the care and feeding of jurors during trials and are in close contact with them. Hills book was withdrawn from publication last winter after it was discovered that she plagiarized key sections of the book from a draft of a story by a veteran BBC reporter. The jury tampering matter is separate from an all of the murder sentence and conviction, which is expected to be filed in the S.C. Court of Appeals later this summer. This story is breaking news and will be updated. On Tuesday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed Alyssas Law into effect for public schools across the state. Alyssas Law requires schools to be equipped with a silent panic alarm to silently alert law enforcement to emergencies or life-threatening situations. Lori Alhadeff lost 14-year-old Alyssa, her oldest of three children and only daughter, in the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, where 17 students and staff were killed and another 17 wounded. Since then, she became a Broward School Board member and national activist for school safety. It was amazing to know (this is the) seventh state keeping her memory alive, said Alhadeff by phone soon after leaving the ceremonial bill signing with her husband. It means so much to myself and my family. This honors Alyssas memory and takes a significant step toward ensuring the safety of the children in Oklahoma, she said. The six other states that have implemented the law are New Jersey, New York, Florida, Texas, Tennessee and Utah. She said the panic button has been used mostly in medical emergencies and has saved lives. She said now her sights are set on Pennsylvania and Michigan, where the law is in committees. _____ LIMA, Peru (AP) Police in Peru said Tuesday they have found the body of an American mountaineer who was buried by an avalanche 22 years ago as he tried to climb one of the highest peaks in the Andes with two friends. The body of William Stampfl was discovered on Friday near a camp 5,200 meters (17,060 feet) above sea level, police in the Ancash region told The Associated Press. The 58-year-old had been trying to scale the 6,768-meter Mount Huascaran when the avalanche struck, which presumably killed the three climbers. Police said Stampfls body and clothing had been preserved by the ice and freezing temperatures. His drivers license was also found inside a hip pouch that had also been preserved by the cold. It says he was a resident of Chino in Californias San Bernardino County. The effort to retrieve Stampfls remains began last week, after an American climber came upon the frozen body while making his way to the Huascaran summit. The climber opened the pouch and read the name on the drivers license. He called Stampfls relatives, who then got in touch with local mountain guides. A team of 13 mountaineers participated in the recovery operation, including five officers from an elite police unit, and eight mountain guides who work for Grupo Alpamayo, a local tour operator that takes climbers to Huascaran and other peaks in the Andes. Stampfls body was brought down over the weekend and taken to a morgue in the city of Yungay. Eric Raul Albino, the director of Grupo Alpamayo, said he was contacted and hired by Stampfls family to retrieve the body from the mountain. The climber (who first came across Stampfls body) opened the hip pouch and noticed there was a drivers license there with his name and address Albino told The Associated Press. So he contacted the family and then they contacted me. Lenin Alvardo, one of the police officers who participated in the recovery operation, said Stampfls clothes were still mostly intact, preserved by the cold. The hip pouch with his driving license also contained a pair of sunglasses, a camera, a voice recorder, and two decomposing $20 bills. Ive never seen anything like that Alvarado said. Huascaran is Perus highest peak. Hundreds of climbers visit the mountain each year with local guides, and it typically takes them about a week to reach the summit. However, climate change has affected Huascaran and the surrounding peaks higher than 5,000 meters, known as the Cordillera Blanca. According to official figures, the Cordillera Blanca has lost 27% of its ice sheet over the past five decades. Stampfl was with friends Matthew Richardson and Steve Erskine when they attempted the ascent of Huascaran in 2002. They had travelled the world to climb challenging mountains and had summitted Kilimanjaro, Rainier, Shasta and Denali, according to a Los Angeles Times report at the time. Erskines body was found shortly after the avalanche on Huascaran, but Richardsons is still missing. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. American climber William Stampfl was buried by an avalanche in Peru 22 years ago as he was climbing one of the highest peaks in the Andes mountains. His body wasnt found until June 2024. Stampfls daughter got a call from a man saying he came across the climbers frozen body. The Stampfl family then got ahold of local mountain guides to recover the body. Its been a shock, said Jennifer Stampfl, 53. When you get that phone call that hes been found your heart just sinks. You dont know how exactly to feel at first. Stampfls body and clothing were preserved by the ice and freezing temperatures. His drivers license was still inside his hip pouch, as well as a pair of sunglasses, a camera, a voice recorder and two $20 bills. Stampfls gold wedding ring was still on his left hand. His daughter said he was a very humble man and did not like to draw attention to himself. The fact that he is in the news, it is so not my dad, Jennifer Stampfl said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Sheetz now offering beer delivery in Pennsylvania Cant understand why this happened: Woman dies after Homestead crash Police warning neighbors about rattlesnake sightings in Westmoreland County VIDEO: Police stepping up patrols in Pittsburghs Knoxville neighborhood after recent car vandalism, theft DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts YANGON, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's authorities have seized 603 kg of methamphetamine in the country's eastern state of Shan, the official Myanmar News Agency, citing a police source, reported on Wednesday. Acting on a tip-off, anti-narcotic police intercepted a 12-wheeled vehicle in Kengtung Township of eastern Shan State on Monday. They confiscated the drugs hidden under bags of corn in the vehicle and arrested a suspect, the media report said. The confiscated drugs, worth approximately 4.82 billion kyats (about 2.29 million U.S. dollars), were being transported from Mong Ping Town to Tachileik Town in Shan State, it said. The arrested was charged under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, and further investigation is ongoing, it added. American mountaineers body found by fellow US climbers 22 years after going missing in Peru The body of an American mountaineer has been discovered by a pair of fellow US climbers 22 years after he went missing following an avalanche in the Peruvian Andes. American brothers Ryan Cooper and Wesley Waren found the body of Bill Stampfl on June 27 on Mount Huascaran, according to Joseph Stampfl, Bills son. The climbers had been descending the mountain in Perus Cordillera Blanca after an unsuccessful attempt to reach its 22,000 ft summit when they found the body, at about 16,500 ft. Cooper told CNN Tuesday they noticed an object that didnt quite blend into the landscape and decided to investigate. He said the ice had preserved the body and its belongings and Stampfls wedding ring, helmet, mountain climbing boots, and jacket were all intact. The brothers managed to identify Stampfl by finding a bag attached to his body, inside which they found his identification card, a camera, passport, wallet, and glasses all of which were also intact, Cooper explained. Someone loved him and someone wanted him to come home, Cooper said. As soon as I found out he was an American climber I knew we had a responsibility to track down the family and give them the news, Cooper said. Stampfl and two of his fellow climbers and friends, Steve Erskine and Matthew Richardson, were all killed by an avalanche on Mount Huascaran on June 24, 2002, his daughter Jennifer Stampfl told CNN on Tuesday. Their bodies were never discovered, except for Erskines, she said. Stampfl was 58-years-old at the time. His body was retrieved and brought down the mountain on July 5 by the Peruvian Mountain Rescue Association and Peruvian National Police after coordination with Cooper and Stampfls family. His body was taken to a morgue in the town of Yungay for an autopsy, Perus National Police posted on X on Tuesday. The US State Department confirmed the death of a US citizen in Peru. We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss and thank the mountaineers and the Peruvian National Police rescue team who have been involved in this operation, a spokesperson for the department said, adding it was providing assistance to the family. Finding Bills family Cooper, a native of Las Vegas, Nevada, called his wife and informed her of his discovery the same day he came across Stampfls body. He asked her for help in finding Stampfls family, as he was still on Mount Huascaran with limited cellular service. After much online research, Coopers wife was able to locate Joseph and called him on June 29. I told him I know the location of his dad. I told him about the ring and personal items, Cooper said. His motive was to help the family find closure, Cooper explained. With no body, theres no way to find peace with that, Cooper said. Cooper also spoke to Jennifer and Stampfls widow Janet on the phone before sending photos of Stampfls ID and other belongings to the family. My heart just sank After so many years, the news came as an emotional shock to Stampfls family. My heart just sank. After 22 years I had been okay with the fact that hes there. Hes part of the mountain. Like were never going to get him back. The fact that they found him, it opened up all the wounds, Jennifer told CNN on Tuesday. There is no preparation for having your husband killed instantaneously, Janet said, adding that she never thought her husbands body would be discovered. Its an answer to so many prayers by so many people. Janet said her husband loved climbing mountains. He enjoyed it so much. He said he always felt closest to God when he got to the top of the mountain, Janet said. After 22 yearsI was a little shocked, it took me a while to process everything, Joseph said, adding now its time to bring him home hopefully. Following an autopsy in Yungay, Stampfls body was transferred to the city of Juarez, Joseph explained. Stampfl will be taken to a funeral home in Lima where he will be cremated, and the ashes will be sent to the family in the United States. A dangerous landscape While Cooper is grateful to have finally been able to bring closure to the Stampfl family, the discovery was also tinged with sadness. He had hoped that Richardsons body might have been attached to Stampfl by a rope, but that was not the case and hes still missing as of today. He also fears that global warming may have played a role in his discovery, by thawing the ice on what is considered the worlds highest tropical mountain range. He was fully exposed and not in ice anymore. The thawing process happened, Cooper said. Since the 1950s, almost all of the worlds glaciers have been retreating, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. On average, the glaciers in the Andean region Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have lost over 50 per cent of their coverage since the 1960s. The Andes is deteriorating more than any other mountain range in the region, Cooper said, adding that the changing conditions were part of what had prevented him from summiting Mount Huascaran. Glaciers are melting away, the landscape has changed. It poses a dangerous landscape now, he said. CNNs Duarte Mendonca and CNNEs Veronica Calderson contributed to this report For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Amid growing hand-wringing in Washington over his re-election bid, President Biden has turned to some of his most stalwart backers: Democratic mayors. Biden joined a video call on Tuesday night hosted by the Democratic Mayors Assn., his campaign's latest attempt to soothe key Democratic officials worried by the 81-year-old president's stumbling debate performance last month. Biden spoke to nearly 200 mayors during the webinar, laying out his policy goals for a second term and drawing a contrast with former President Trump's promises for his second term. Mayors on the call said that Biden spoke for about 20 minutes. He acknowledged that his debate performance had been lackluster before he moved on to discussing policy issues, including abortion rights, housing, gun violence and infrastructure. Biden took questions from the mayors of Kansas City, Mo.; Madison, Wis.; and San Antonio, Texas, in a conversation moderated by Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. Read more: Pelosi sends signal to Biden: 'Time is running short' Biden seemed confident and optimistic, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said, "in stark contrast to what we saw two weeks ago." A California delegate at the Democratic National Convention, Gloria said he has "no doubts whatsoever" about casting his vote for Biden. "This president showed up and helped cities, and that's really in contrast to the other option," Gloria said. "The questions were: 'How can we help?' It wasn't really, 'Hey, take a cognitive test,' and it wasn't, 'Hey, we'll see how you do after a couple more press conferences.'" Other California mayors on the call included Karen Bass of Los Angeles, London Breed of San Francisco and Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, their offices confirmed. Bass, in a prepared statement, said: "I'm supporting our nominee, President Biden." Read more: George Clooney calls on president to step aside: Aging Biden no longer the man he was "Like everybody, I watched the debate and was concerned," Steinberg said in an interview Wednesday. "Last night, he certainly provided a lot of reassurance that he was on top of it." Steinberg said that he didn't see the debate among Democrats over Biden's fitness as a sign of weakness in the party, but an expression of how desperately the party wants to beat Trump in November. He said Democrats now have to choose between making Biden's fitness for office a theme of the next few months, or focus on winning. "He needs to continue to show the kind of energy that I saw last night," Steinberg said. "You're in a fight fight. Show us you're in the fight, in ways that uplift and inspire." The Democratic Mayors Assn. endorsed Biden's reelection bid after the meeting. "As mayors, we have seen firsthand what it is like to lead a city under a Trump presidency," the group said. "We can't endure another four years of chaos and fear while he dismantles our fundamental freedoms and rights, threatens our diverse populations and disparages places we call our hometowns. Our cities deserve better." 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. At just 10 years old, a lion named Jacob has survived being gored, his family being poisoned for body parts and an attempted poaching that left him an amputee. But now, the animal known as "Africa's most resilient lion" has broken an incredible record alongside his brother by swimming across crocodile- and hippo-infested waters known to be deadly for their species. Jacob's story was documented in a new study published in Ecology and Evolution led by researchers at Griffith University in Australia and Northern Arizona University. Using drones equipped with high-definition heat detection cameras, they filmed Jacob and his brother Tibu crossing the Kazinga Channel in Uganda. According to the Queen Elizabeth National Park, the channel reaches a width of 20 miles and holds "the biggest population of hippos and numerous crocodiles in the whole world." Jacob, an amputee lion who has already survived the unthinkable, has made a record-breaking swim across a Uganda waterway alongside his brother, researchers observed. / Credit: Alex Braczkowski Most lions who attempt to cross that channel only make it between 10 and a couple hundred meters in, as the waterway is filled with predators. Some of those attempts were fatal due to the crocs. And yet, the two brothers made it, swimming what researchers believed to be a total of 1.5 kilometers from bank to bank, just under a mile, at night. While big cats swimming long distances has been documented, the study says that data and footage of such incidents are "scarce and inconsistent." Alexander Braczkowski, a researcher from Griffith's Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, said that it's likely that the search for females is what drove the lions to make the dangerous journey. While there is a small bridge that connects either side of the waterway, he said that people being present probably deterred the animals from using it. "Competition for lionesses in the park is fierce and they lost a fight for female affection in the hours leading up to the swim," he said, "so it's likely the duo mounted the risky journey to get to the females on the other side of the channel." Lion brothers Jacob and Tibu were observed swimming a record-breaking distance across Uganda's Kazinga Channel, a waterway known for being deadly for lions as it's filled with crocodiles and hippos. / Credit: Kaganda While both brothers managed to accomplish an amazing feat even hippos with their aggression, size and jaw strength can be deadly to lions it's Jacob's success in particular that stunned researchers. "Jacob has had the most incredible journey and really is a cat with nine lives," Braczkowski said. "I'd bet all my belongings that we are looking at Africa's most resilient lion: he has been gored by a buffalo, his family was poisoned for lion body part trade, he was caught in a poacher's snare, and finally lost his leg in another attempted poaching incident where he was caught in a steel trap." Just surviving these circumstances, largely caused by humans, "is a feat in itself," Braczkowski added, saying that the lion population they belong to has nearly halved in five years. According to the IUCN Red List, lions are considered a vulnerable species, with population numbers decreasing overall. In some areas, particularly in West Africa, the IUCN says it's likely populations have declined so much that the animals could be considered endangered. "His swim, across a channel filled with high densities of hippos and crocodiles, is a record-breaker and is a truly amazing show of resilience in the face of such risk," Braczkowski said. "...Jacob and Tibu's big swim is another important example that some of our most beloved wildlife species are having to make tough decisions just to find homes and mates in a human-dominated world." Sneak peek: Unmasking the Zombie Hunter Sneak peek: Murder by Clown The success of renewable energy may depend on battery storage By Mark John (Reuters) - Just a couple of weeks ago, France was under scrutiny over how it would plug the holes in its budget. Now the issue is whether the euro area's second largest economy can muster a budget at all. What France does with its strained public finances will be an early test of whether it can still be governed after the hung parliament created by President Emmanuel Macron's move to call snap elections. Financial markets, the European Commission and its euro zone partners are all watching closely. Already, constitutional geeks are poring over obscure texts to find a way out of the impasse. One even raises the prospect of any new government getting a monthly pass to keep basic public spending flowing along lines set by the old budget. It gets harder this week as lawmakers return to Paris from the provinces with their versions of what voters told them - in an election where few dared mention the inconvenient truth that France is already way above its EU-mandated deficit limits. "A divided National Assembly will find it hard to agree on politically difficult spending cuts," said Leo Barincou, senior economist at Oxford Economics, referring to France's parliament. "This will put France on a collision path with the EU's new fiscal rules," he added of deficit limits which, even with more generous deadlines, France was already seen struggling to keep. Already the IMF and France's own budget watchdog doubted the outgoing government's plans to get last year's deficit of 5.5% of output down to the EU ceiling of 3% by 2027 - when far-right leader Marine Le Pen is widely expected to run for president. Election gains made by a left-wing alliance on a hefty tax-and-spend ticket in theory nudge the political momentum even further from budget thrift - as does the fear that the slightest whiff of austerity will boost Le Pen's Elysee Palace ambitions. Some scenarios have Macron's centrists and possibly moderate conservatives cooperating with leftists to back some modest spending plans either on a vote-by-vote basis, a grand coalition or inside a minority government. They could wield the infamous Article 49.3 which Macron used to ram last year's unpopular pension reform through parliament, or the lesser known Article 47 which also allows budget bills to be passed by decree after 70 days of parliamentary deadlock. But given that none of France's anti-far-right forces - centre, left or mainstream right - have anywhere near a majority by themselves and hold such divergent views, that would take consensus-building rarely ever seen in French politics. "We need to deliver on what French voters want, be it the health of the economy, be it wages," said Eric Woerth, a former right-winger who joined Macron's camp. "But it will take time. Everything needs to calm down." "Welcome to coalition politics," said Nicolas Veron, senior fellow at Brussels's Bruegel think tank and the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. "It may take protracted talks and a lot of trial and error," he said of the government formation spectacle more often seen in neighbours such as Italy, where some prime ministers have had shelf lives measured in days or weeks. SUMMER OF DISTRACTIONS If no way forward emerges, the constitution requires a delay of one year before new elections. That would usher in a period of paralysis well beyond the budget and into other policy areas, perhaps under a technocratic government with no real mandate. Macron, who has so far stayed out of the post-election fray and risks political irrelevance for the remainder of his term, may use his July 14 Bastille Day address to appeal for lawmakers to seek solutions when they return to parliament a few days later. But they will have little more than a week to make headway before attention is distracted by France's hosting of the Olympics Games and then the August holiday period - during which time French politics typically close down. Bruno Cavalier, chief economist at Oddo Securities, said investors would demand higher premiums to hold French debt as the stasis continued, with credit agencies Moody's and S&P Global both this week citing their concerns. The saga will take a new turn after the summer break with France then normally required to submit a draft budget to the European Commission by around mid-October. How credibly that budget sticks to deficit-cutting pledges - and any slack cut to Paris by the Commission if it doesn't - will be watched no more closely than in Italy, one of seven European countries including France with excess deficits. Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, who promised to bring Italy's 7.4% fiscal gap inside the EU's limit in 2026, is herself facing a tough task to draw up a 2025 budget that keeps the deficit on a downward path while keeping her pledge not to hike taxes. Some of her coalition allies were already quick to spot a possible shift in the sand as it became clear that high-spending leftists emerged first in Sunday's run-off vote in France. "Goodbye to European deficit rules," Claudio Borghi, a senator with Italy's co-ruling League party, posted on X. (Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Michel Rose in Paris; Gavin Jones in Rome; Writing by Mark John; editing by Richard Lough and Susan Fenton) Anjem Choudary is accused of directing Al-Muhajiroun which proposed the creation of an Islamic caliphate - Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire Anjem Choudary told a court he officiated the marriage of one of Lee Rigbys killers. The Islamist preacher is accused of directing Al-Muhajiroun (ALM), a banned international terror organisation, which spread a warped and twisted view of religion and proposed the creation of an Islamic caliphate. Choudary, 57, made the revelation about Fusilier Rigbys killer while he was giving evidence in his defence at Woolwich Crown Court. He was asked why he had described the killing, filmed by members of the public outside Woolwich barracks in May 2013, as famous to which he replied that it had put the area on the map. Prosecuting, Tom Little KC asked: Did you ever meet the killer? Choudary told the court: I was there when he became Muslim. I officiated at his marriage. I believe then he stopped associating with anyone I know for years before Lee Rigby was killed. He later said no when asked by Paul Hynes KC, his barrister, if he had difficulty describing the killing as murder. No, I dont believe it was permissible to kill him and I said that at the time, he told the court. Fusilier Lee Rigby - PA His co-accused, Canadian associate Khaled Hussein, messaged Choudary on July 16 last year as he prepared to fly to London to visit him, the court heard. During their exchange, Choudary asked Mr Hussein: You are also not too far from Woolwich the famous Lee Rigby issue, the court was told. Choudary denies being a member of ALM and addressing meetings to encourage support for the group. Mr Hussein, who prosecutors say idolised and assisted him, has pleaded not guilty to membership of ALM. The trial continues. 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. Anne Backus learned to work with diverse groups of people to achieve goals on time and under budget as a project manager at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, according to a campaign news release. She promises to listen to constituents and to bring those same skills to the Tennessee House of Representatives if elected as District 33 state representative. Her experience as a project manager, a community and church volunteer, a mother and grandmother has prepared her to listen, she said in the release, and to be an advocate for issues important to those in the district, which includes most of Anderson County. Anne Backus I want to take the peoples voice back to the Tennessee House of Representatives, Backus said. She said she was encouraged to enter the race by people in the district who felt their concerns werent being listened to or represented in the state legislature. Backus will be the only Democrat on the ballot for state representative in the Aug. 1 primary election, with early voting July 12-22. She will face the winner of the Republican primary in the Nov. 5 general election. Backus said her campaign priorities reflect the concerns she hears from Anderson Countians: support for public schools, common-sense gun safety, and healthcare for everyone, especially for women to have access to safe and medically necessary reproductive healthcare. The Republican-dominated state legislature ignored strong opposition to vouchers and the repeated pleas and advocacy from Nashvilles Covenant School parents and supporters for legislation bringing common-sense gun safety to Tennessee, Backus said in the release. Backus strongly opposes vouchers, which would divert much-needed tax dollars from public schools. Current District 33 Rep. John Ragan voted for vouchers in committee hearings on the bill, despite opposition from all school boards and most governmental bodies in Anderson County. A joint resolution opposing vouchers from Anderson County, Clinton and Oak Ridge school boards, the city councils of Oak Ridge and Clinton, and Anderson County Commission, stated that public schools require all available state funding in order to continue to improve without necessitating an increased burden on local taxpayers or reducing services for students. The Tennessee House and Senate ultimately didnt agree on a voucher bill, though it is expected to be raised again in the next legislative session. The legislature adjourned its regular and special legislative sessions without addressing any of the gun safety proposals raised by Covenant parents, after six people were killed in a school shooting there in March 2023. The legislature again failed to listen to the parents, religious leaders and gun safety advocates across the state, Backus said. Instead, the legislature passed bills allowing teachers to be armed in schools and requiring firearms safety training for students. Oak Ridge and Anderson County school systems decided not to allow teachers to be armed. The legislature was wrong to introduce more guns in schools for use by teachers with minimal training required, Backus said. Why traumatize students with discussion of guns in schools? Backus said of firearms safety training. Why didnt the legislature enact proven safety measures to protect children in schools? As for health care, Tennessees extreme laws insert the government into decisions on reproductive healthcare that should be between a woman and her doctor, she said. She pointed out that Tennessee ranks 43rd in maternal death rates related to or aggravated by pregnancy and is among states with the highest death rates, according to a report by American Health Rankings. Backus actively supports equality and equity for all, regardless of race, gender, gender identity, religion, or economic status. She is involved in social advocacy as the founder and co-chair of PFLAGs Oak Ridge Chapter and as a member of the Oak Ridge-Anderson County NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge. She is a volunteer for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of the Tennessee Heartland, advocating for abused and neglected children in Anderson County Juvenile Court. Though challenging, she believes this volunteer effort is her most rewarding and impactful work. For more information, see her campaign website at https://backusfortn33.com/. This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Anne Backus is running for state representative in Democratic Primary Anti-cool crime: Police seek man accused of ripping people off in air-conditioning scam Wichita Falls police put out an alert on a possible air-conditioning installation scam in the midst of steamy summer temperatures. Financial Crimes detectives have an at-large warrant out for the arrest of 39-year-old John Dewayne Hennan of Iowa Park. The charge is theft between $2,500-$30,000 false pretenses/swindle/confidence game. Wichita Falls Police are warning residents of an air conditioning installation scam. Police said Hennan was arrested twice over the past six months for similar charges. An arrest affidavit for April 20 said a victim reported he had hired Hennan, owner of Hennan Heat and Air, to work on the air-conditioning unit in his house. The victim said he paid Hennan $3,000 but Hennan has not done any of the work and has quit communicating with him, according to allegations in the affidavit. A detective talked to Hennan about the case. The alert said Hennan said he didnt have the money to repay the victim at that time and asked for a week extension, but never communicated again. John Dewayne Hennan Hennan was arrested June 24 after a Wichita Falls developer reported losing $14,850 dollars as a result of a scam. The developer said he is renovating a building at 908 Indiana Ave. in downtown Wichita Falls and gave Hennan a $14,850 down payment for air-conditioning work The victim said the cashiers check was cashed, but no work was ever started, and Hennan wouldnt return calls, according to allegations in the affidavit. Police warn residents to be wary of scams and requested anyone with information on Hennan's whereabouts call Crime Stoppers at 940-322-9888. This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: WFPD alert: Beware of air conditioning scam Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment against the conservative US supreme court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on Wednesday over the justices pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court. The articles of impeachment are unlikely to gain traction in the US House, which is controlled by Republicans. The effort follows calls from two US senators, Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden, for the US attorney general to appoint a special counsel to investigate potential criminal violations of federal ethics and tax laws by Thomas. Justice Thomas and Alitos repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law. And their refusal to recuse from the specific matters and cases before the court in which their benefactors and spouses are implicated represents nothing less than a constitutional crisis, Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, said in a statement. The articles were supported by seven other Democrats in the House. Ocasio-Cortez continued: The unchecked corruption crisis on the supreme court has now spiraled into a constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large. Reporting by the news outlet ProPublica revealed that Thomas failed to disclose several luxury vacation trips that were paid for by Harlan Crow, a conservative megadonor. Thomas has also been pressed to recuse himself from cases involving the January 6 US Capitol attack and Donald Trump because his wife, Ginni, is involved with groups that were connected to the insurrection. The resolution filed against Thomas contains three articles of impeachment. The first focuses on his failure to disclose gifts from Crow. The second two involve his refusal to recuse himself from cases connected to his wife. Alito also took a vacation with and flew on a private jet chartered by Paul Singer, a Republican billionaire. Additionally, Alito refused to recuse himself from cases involving the attack on the US Capitol after it was reported that his wife, Martha-Ann, flew an upside-down American flag associated with the insurrection at their Virginia home. Further, the Alitos flew a flag associated with Christian nationalism at a beach home in New Jersey. Ocasio-Cortez filed two articles of impeachment against Alito. One focuses on his failure to disclose luxury travel and the other on his refusal to recuse himself from January 6 cases. Alito and Thomas were both part of a majority opinion earlier this month saying that former presidents have immunity from prosecution for official acts, a major win for Trump. They both also were in the majority in a case narrowing the grounds under which January 6 participants can be criminally prosecuted. Supreme court justices have wide discretion over whether to recuse themselves from a given case something that sets them apart from other justices. Facing pressure after ProPublicas reporting, the courts nine justices formalized a code of conduct last November, a move that was seen as a step in the right direction, but still weak. This article was amended on 11 July 2024. A previous version referred incorrectly to Peter Singer, when Paul Singer was meant. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday formally filed articles of impeachment against U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, days after the courts presidential immunity ruling. The unchecked corruption crisis on the supreme court has now spiraled into a constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large, Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alitos pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitute a grave threat to American rule of law, the integrity of our democracy, and one of the clearest cases for which the tool of impeachment was designed. Her articles of impeachment have been co-sponsored by seven other Democratic House members: Barbara Lee, Rashida Tlaib, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Delia Ramirez, Maxwell Frost, Ilhan Omar, and Jamaal Bowman. It also comes a day after Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden requested the Department of Justice criminally investigate Justice Thomas over possible ethics and tax violations. Articles of impeachment would have to pass the House with a majority vote. After a trial, the Senate would need to convict with a two-thirds supermajority. These both seem like slim possibilities given the party breakdown in both chambers. Since the Supreme Court was created, only one justice has ever been impeached: Associate Justice Samuel Chase in 1805, who was later acquitted by the Senate. Despite never having a success story at the highest court, there is a precedent for impeaching federal judges, which has happened 15 times over the countrys history. So how would impeaching a Supreme Court justice work? Looking at the Constitution, Ocasio-Cortez could try to get Thomas and Alito on Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors, or perhaps on Article 3 of the Constitution, which requires that federal judges hold their Offices during good Behaviour. If that seems near impossible, there is also a precedent of shaming a justice out. In 1969, Abe Fortas resigned under the threat of impeachment after a financial scandal regarding securities fraud ruined his career. A June U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed cities to enforce bans on camping in public in practice, allowing police to issue fines to people experiencing homelessness. But Boise Mayor Lauren McLean pushed back, saying it would not affect the citys approach to homelessness and affordable housing. Criminalizing homelessness has never, and will never, solve the problems associated with homelessness, McLean said in a statement on the day of the ruling. We must address the root causes with proven strategies, like permanent supportive housing. Tents are set up along Cooper Court, an alley frequented by people without homes. A June 2024 Supreme Court ruling allowed cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside, but Boise Mayor Lauren McLean said she would instead focus on providing supportive housing. On Tuesday, the city announced additional investment in just that. The city is partnering with The Pacific Cos., an Eagle-based real estate firm, to provide financing for 95 new apartments for people exiting homelessness at New Path 2.0, according to a news release. The development is an addition to New Path, a 40-unit apartment building at 2200 W. Fairview Ave. that provides permanent supportive housing. The expansion would more than double the number of permanent apartments in Boise built to house chronically homeless people, including New Paths 40 and the 26 units just for veterans at Valor Pointe on State Street in the Veterans Park neighborhood. Boise is committing new funding to expand this New Path apartment building, at 2200 W. Fairview Ave., to house more people deemed as chronically homeless. Like its predecessor, which opened in 2018, New Path 2.0 is intended to provide case management, health care, mental health counseling, substance use disorder treatment and more to residents. The goal is to empower people experiencing long-term homelessness to achieve success, in what Council President Colin Nash called a proven model of addressing the underlying causes of homelessness, according to the release. New Path saved the city $6.7 million in its first four years, according to a study by the Idaho Policy Institute at Boise State University. When residents had housing, they were much less likely to need medical attention, experience mental health crises or get arrested, the Statesman previously reported. The cost of services at New Path is just over $700,000 per year, Weeg said. Tenants pay 30% of their income, if they have any, for rent. The rest is covered by a federal housing voucher. A standard apartment includes a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room, a refrigerator, stoves and ovens, and several closets, the Statesman reported. Each unit at New Path Community Housing provides typical apartment amenities like a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living room. New Path takes a housing first approach drawing on the idea that housing is the primary need for people experiencing homelessness, and that treatment for mental health issues or substance abuse can follow. These services are available but not required for residents. The total cost of the New Path 2.0 project is $35 million, with the city providing $5.5 million, Maria Weeg, a spokesperson for the city, told the Idaho Statesman by email. The City Council was scheduled to allocate the funding at a meeting Tuesday night. The project is fully through the planning process and is expected to receive building permits soon, she said. In May, McLean committed an additional $7.5 million in seed funding, to be matched by local businesses and philanthropists, to establish a fund to sustain wraparound supportive services at permanent supportive housing locations, including New Path, according to Tuesdays release. The investments are part of the citys goal of adding 250 permanent supportive housing units by 2026. As of January 2023, there were 687 people experiencing homelessness in Ada County, according to data from Our Path Home, a public-private partnership that aims to end homelessness in Ada County. This point-in-time data, based on a one-night count, reflected about a 10% increase in overall homelessness since 2022, and is likely an undercount, according to the organization. The area has seen a 12% decrease in overall homelessness since 2012, according to the organization. Cities can now enforce bans on people sleeping outside. What will that mean for Boise? Need is great: Project would boost housing for Boise homeless. Will city help fund it? Boise has a chance ... to solve the homelessness issue, and sees apartment complex as a major step CANBERRA, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Over 20 percent of Australians have committed an act of sexual violence in adulthood, a government report has found. The report, which was released by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) on Wednesday, found that 22.1 percent of 5000 Australians aged 18-45 who participated in an AIC survey had perpetrated sexual violence since turning 18 and that 9.9 percent had done so in the past 12 months. It found that men were more likely to have committed acts of sexual violence, with 26.4 percent having done so in adulthood compared to 17.7 percent of women. Among male survey participants, 13.2 percent admitted to perpetrating sexual violence in the past 12 months - double the 6.6 percent of women. The most common forms of sexual violence perpetrated in the last 12 months were pressuring someone for dates or sexual activity, emotionally or psychologically manipulating someone to participate in sexual activity and non-consensual kissing or touching. Deputy Director of the AIC, Rick Brown, said in a media release that the findings fill an important gap in the Australian evidence base by including offenses and perpetrators that were never reported to police or criminal justice agencies. Data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in June revealed that the number of Australian victim-survivors of sexual assault recorded by police rose by 11 percent in 2023 to a record high 36,318. A lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Human Services pits religious and free speech rights against state rules for adopting LGBTQ children. (Getty Images) A federal appeals panel heard arguments Tuesday in a Malheur County womans lawsuit that challenges state adoption rules intended to protect LGBTQ+ children on the basis of religious and free speech rights. Jessica Bates, who lives in Vale, sued the state in U.S. District Court in Portland in April 2023 after the Oregon Department of Human Services blocked her from qualifying as an adoptive parent. The state requires adoptive parents to support LGBTQ+ children they adopt something that goes against Bates Christian views. Bates has said she believes marriage is between a man and a woman and God created people to embrace their gender, not change it. The state stopped her application and Bates sued, seeking a court order to overturn the state rule and allow her to continue the process. The district court denied Bates request for a preliminary injunction to proceed with an adoption while the legal challenge to overturn the state rule proceeds. Bates appeal of that decision was heard Tuesday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The case centers on parental and childrens rights and pits a deeply religious widowed woman with five biological children against a state rule designed to protect vulnerable children. It has broad implications and could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, potentially affecting tens of thousands of families nationwide. Similar cases are pending in Washington state and Vermont. Jonathan Scruggs, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, represents Bates. The Arizona-based organization takes on cases across the nation with a focus on religious freedom, some involving abortion and LGBTQ+ issues. During the livestreamed Seattle hearing, Scruggs argued that Oregons rule impacts others besides Bates, regardless of their religion. For example, Orthodox Jewish parents with similar beliefs about marriage could not adopt an Orthodox Jewish child under Oregons rule, he said. The system is about taking care and placing every child, Scruggs said. Its not about any particular child. And thats the whole nature of the system. Its to have a diversity of views so that you can match children with the best family. Scruggs also pointed to a federal rule finalized under the Biden administration that designates qualified providers for gay or transgender children without penalizing foster parents who do not care for them. That rule became effective in July. Oregon has categorically excluded applicants up front, and really taken away the choice, Scruggs said. Philip Thoennes, an Oregon Department of Justice attorney representing the state, said the district courts denial should remain in place. Thoennes argued that the rule does not hinder constitutionally guaranteed free speech rights and is focused more broadly on the conduct of parents with children. So while speech is part of a parents expected conduct with children, that is just one aspect, he said. Expectations for parents to support children and their identities encompass other areas, such as supporting a childs choice in clothing and hairstyle, he said. There are myriad ways that a foster parent, or any parent, for that matter, any caregiver, provides child care, Thoennes said. The Oregon Department of Human Services rule only applies to state adoptions, not private ones. First Amendment argument The appeals court could side with the district courts ruling or overrule it, which would allow Bates to continue the adoption process. In either case, the suit will be kicked back to the district court to decide the legality of the states rule. Anytime you have a government entity excluding people because of their religious views and then compelling them to speak things that violate their core convictions, that goes to the heart of the First Amendment, Scruggs said in an interview with the Capital Chronicle. Scruggs said Oregon needs an adoptive system that works for all children of diverse backgrounds, pointing to Oregons long inability to place foster children, sometimes boarding them in hotels. Oregon is basically saying we would rather put children in hotel rooms than be exposed to these loving families, Scruggs said. Its just an egregious violation of the First Amendment. The Oregon Department of Human Services declined to make its attorneys or foster system officials available to answer questions. In an email, agency spokesperson Jake Sunderland declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said the agencys practices are aimed at inclusivity that takes into account the well-being of children of all backgrounds. At a time when gender diverse people, policies, and laws are under attack, it is important to reinforce our values and practices related to the children and families we serve, he said in an email. We are committed to creating a safe and supportive environment for all children and young people, regardless of their gender identity. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX At the root of the case is a 2021 law that exempts nonprofit hospitals from taxation regardless of whether they also host for-profit activities. (Getty Images) A New Jersey appeals court on Wednesday rejected a challenge to a recent law that bars residents from disputing the tax-exempt status of properties they do not own before county tax boards. The three-judge panels non-precedential decision rejects plaintiffs arguments that the new prohibition harms them, with the judges noting they can still challenge organizations tax-exempt status in Tax Court. At the root of the case is a 2021 law that exempts nonprofit hospitals from taxation regardless of whether they also host for-profit activities. That law was itself a response to a 2015 court decision that found portions of nonprofit hospital properties that host for-profit services could be taxed. The 2021 law allows such lots to be taxed, but only if they are not used exclusively for hospital purposes, and requires hospitals pay per-bed fees to their host municipality. It also bars third-party administrative challenges to a propertys tax-exempt status. Before the trial court, the plaintiffs New Jersey Citizen Action, the American Federation of Teachers New Jersey, and two South Brunswick residents alleged the latter violates provisions of the state constitution that require assessments to be uniform across a taxing district and impose similar limits on property tax exemptions. The plaintiffs did not revive the constitutional claims on appeal. Instead, they asked the court to declare that residents can challenge properties tax-exempt status in administrative proceedings, arguing that the new law is ambiguous because it does not say whether residents can pursue a similar action in court. The judges saw no such ambiguity, noting that the preceding statute also made no mention of court challenges to property tax exemptions and that plaintiffs had not raised an actual dispute on the issue. It is not our province to provide the public with guidance regarding an uncontroverted issue, they said in the opinion. Counsel for the plaintiffs indicated they would not seek to petition the matter to the Supreme Court and would instead seek to negotiate to have the Office of the Attorney General release guidance affirming residents right to challenge tax-exempt statuses in court. The public needs to know through regulation or guidelines that they still have the right to bring third-party tax appeals in New Jersey, said Renee Steinhagen, executive director of NJ Appleseed, a pro-bono public interest legal center that represented the plaintiffs. Without official guidance that makes clear to the public that they retain their constitutional right to challenge the tax assessment or tax exemption of another property owner, the legislation will effectively achieve what it intended to do despite its unconstitutional purpose. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) The future of firefighting is proving to be female. Over the past ten years, the Oklahoma City Fire Department said the number of women on the job has soared. Now, theyre looking to get more interested through Camp Inferno. LOCAL NEWS: Former U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe passes away at 89 Oklahoma City Fire Lt. Jessica White has been a firefighter for about a decade. Whenever I first started with Camp Inferno, there was only a handful of women on Oklahoma City, said White. Now, that number has grown to roughly 30 women fighting fires. Its grown immensely, said White. The goal of Camp Inferno, a non-profit, is to encourage, educate, and empower women interested in the profession. White said many women go on to become career firefighters. If women have just like the slightest interest in maybe becoming a firefighter, we can they can we can put them in gear, have them start chainsaws, have them pull hand lines, said White. The live fire is always really fun. LOCAL NEWS: Tenants trying to stay cool with no water, A/C at apartment The two day camp, at the Oklahoma City Training Center costs around $50. Applications are now open through July 31st. The weekend camp for women, in October, will be led by women. Theres a lot of things that they would have never thought that they could ever do and then they find themselves doing it, said White. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City. PARIS Europe restored sovereign access to space with the first launch of the Ariane 6 heavy-lift rocket on Tuesday, after years of delays and retirement of the previous launcher had left the continent without guaranteed access to orbit, and kept a French spy satellite grounded. The all-new Ariane 6 blasted off from French Guiana for a validation flight loaded with scientific experiments and testing equipment. The next flight planned for December will carry CSO-3, a French military-surveillance satellite that had originally been scheduled for launch in 2021. This first successful launch of Ariane 6 finally gives Europe back its capacity to access space, Philippe Baptiste, the head of French space agency CNES, said in a statement. The first launch of Ariane 6, originally planned for 2020, had been pushed back by technical issues as well as the Covid-19 pandemic. Russia broke off space cooperation in 2022 after its invasion of Ukraine, meaning Europe could no longer use the Soyuz launchers as a stop-gap measure, and leaving the continent reliant on commercial providers including SpaceX for heavy space lift. The most urgent upcoming military missions for Ariane 6 are observation satellites including CSO-3, according to Paul Wohrer, a research fellow specialized in space issues at the French Institute of International Relations, or IFRI. France also still has to launch the Yoda agile satellite demonstrator, after the small patroller satellite was held up by a lack of launch slots. The lack of autonomous access to space was becoming dangerous, leaving Europe unable to launch satellites that are extremely sensitive and extremely useful for our armed forces, according to Wohrer, and pushing back future programs such as the French IRIS military-observation satellites. European armies need this type of space capability, particularly at a time when war is on Europes doorstep, Wohrer said. The war in Ukraine clearly demonstrated the importance of space. We seem to be entering a period in which the ability to access space will become increasingly strategic. While military satellites made up a limited share of Ariane 5 launches, the retired rockets final mission in July 2023 lifted the French Syracuse 4B military communications satellite into orbit, as well as Germanys Heinrich-Hertz-Satellit with a dual civilian-military communications payload. Over a 27-year career, Ariane 5 placed the military communications systems for the major western European states in orbit: Skynet 5 for the U.K., Syracuse 3 and 4 for France, Sicral-2 for Italy, Secomsat and SpainSat for Spain and Satcom BW for Germanys Bundeswehr. The new rocket has an order book for 30 launches, Caroline Arnoux, head of the Ariane 6 program at Arianespace, said in a press briefing on June 25. After two launches planned for this year, the pace will increase to six in 2025, eight the following year and ten in 2027. About a third of the missions are for government customers, including the military. The primary goal of Ariane 6 is to serve European institutional missions and ensure they can reach space, which is the core reason for public funding of the launcher, according to Lucia Linares, head of space transportation strategy and institutional launches at the European Space Agency. The new rocket will the Europes workhorse for guaranteed access to space, Linares said at the June 25 briefing. An Ariane 6 launch may initially be in the order of tens of millions of dollars more expensive than a launch by SpaceX of the reusable Falcon 9, according to Wohrer. That probably wont hold back European armed forces from favoring the domestically-produced rocket, he said. Its unlikely that the difference in costs will be enough for the military not to buy European launchers, Wohrer said. At what point does it become an unbearable factor? Its a bit like the cost of security, the cost of ensuring strategic autonomy in terms of access to space. ESA is working on a reusable rocket engine called Prometheus, with ArianeGroup the lead contractor, with the goal of making a very low-cost engine that can be built at one-tenth of the cost of the Vulcain 2 that powered the Ariane 5. Launching military or dual-use satellites on a foreign rocket risks revealing secrets, and it puts Europe at the mercy of foreign competitors prices, as was the case with the EU paying SpaceX a premium for security measures around the launch of Galileo navigation satellites, according to Wohrer. The lack of autonomous launch capacity is something quite dangerous, quite risky, he said. European countries will have to think about bolstering their capabilities to gather intelligence from space if they want to be less reliant on the United States, according to Wohrer. The European parliament has raised concerns about depending on the U.S. in terms of space security, saying this could contradict the EUs desire to achieve strategic autonomy. If this is the kind of development were heading for, access to space will be absolutely essential, Wohrer said. I dont think you can be a major military power today without access to space. Frankly, space has become extremely useful for waging war and conducting operations. Arizona man faces charges after pedestrian struck by vehicle, flown to Las Vegas hospital LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A pedestrian who was intentionally struck by a Cadillac was transported to a Las Vegas hospital Tuesday with major injuries, according to Bullhead City (Arizona) police. Horace Letson, 60, of Mohave Valley, Arizona, was arrested and booked into the Mohave County Adult Detention Facility in Kingman on charges of attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault, leaving the scene of an injury collision and driving with a suspended license, police said. Emergency crews responded to a report collision involving a pedestrian just after 11 a.m. in the area of Langford Drive and Baseline Road. The pedestrian identified the driver to Bullhead City police. Mohave County Sheriffs Office deputies located Letson in Mohave Valley shortly after the collision. Police did not provide the pedestrians name. Investigators learned Letson and the victim had a history of confrontation, that the collision was an intentional act, and that Letsons privelege to drive had been suspended by the State of Arizona Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Division, police said. Bullhead City is on the Arizona side of the Colorado River across from Laughlin, about an hour and a half south of Las Vegas. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. Supporters of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment cheer in the Capitol lobby on Friday, July 5, 2024 as movers deliver petitions to put the amendment on the November ballot. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate) This story was updated July 10, 2024, at 6:15 p.m. with details about past rejected ballot measures and comments from anti-abortion groups. This story was updated again July 10, 2024, at 9:03 p.m. with comments from Arkansans for Limited Government. Supporters of a proposed Arkansas ballot measure to create a limited right to abortion said Wednesday that they will challenge Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurstons rejection of their submission of more than 101,000 signatures. The group that submitted the petitions Friday did not submit an affidavit identifying paid canvassers by name, as required by state law, Thurston wrote in a Wednesday letter to Lauren Cowles, executive director of Arkansans for Limited Government, the ballot question committee supporting the proposed constitutional amendment. State law also requires ballot question committees to provide a copy of the most recent edition of the Secretary of States initiatives and referenda handbook to each paid canvasser and to explain to canvassers the legal requirements for soliciting signatures before canvassing begins. AFLG did not fulfill these requirements while the sponsors of other proposed ballot measures did, Thurston wrote. Abortion Amendment - Letter 7-10-2024 Failure to comply with these requirements invalidates the 14,143 signatures collected by paid canvassers, bringing the total number of facially valid signatures down from 101,525 to 87,382, Thurston wrote. Proposed constitutional amendments need 90,704 signatures from at least 50 counties to qualify for the statewide ballot. The ballot question committee is alarmed and outraged by Thurstons ridiculous disqualification attempt, AFLG said in a statement Wednesday night, adding that the Arkansas government seeks to silence supporters of abortion access. We worked with the Secretary of States office during every step of the process to ensure that we followed all rules and regulations, AFLG said in the statement. At multiple junctures including on July 5 inside of the Capitol Building we discussed signature submission requirements with the Secretary of States staff. In fact, the Secretary of States office supplied us with the affidavit paperwork, which we used. Until today, we had no reason not to trust that the paperwork they supplied us was correct and complete. Abortion-Amendment-Signature-Affidavit The Arkansas Abortion Amendment would not allow government entities to prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion services within 18 weeks of fertilization. The proposal would also permit abortion services in cases of rape, incest, a fatal fetal anomaly or to protect the pregnant females life or physical health, and it would nullify any of the states existing provisions of the Constitution, statutes and common law that conflict with it. Abortion has been illegal in Arkansas, except to save the pregnant persons life, since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The deadline to submit signatures for ballot measures was Friday at 5 p.m. Sponsors can be allowed more time to submit additional signatures if the initial submission contains valid signatures from registered voters equal to at least 75% of the overall required number of signatures and 75% of the required number from at least 50 counties, Secretary of State spokesman Chris Powell said. However, the proposed abortion amendment will not qualify for this extra time because the number of facially valid signatures did not meet the threshold of 90,704, so the remaining signatures are not being counted and validated, Powell said. Ballot question committees have the option of appealing to the Arkansas Supreme Court to try to get a rejected measure on the ballot. In 2020, the court removed three proposed measures from the November ballot and a fourth was voluntarily withdrawn after supporters affidavits did not clarify that canvassers had passed background checks as required by law, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. David Couch, an attorney who worked on the 2020 measures, said Thurstons decision about the abortion amendment was a very analogous argument. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Reactions The Democratic Party of Arkansas said on X that its members are in this fight for the long haul. We believe in health care and education that let every woman determine when and if parenthood is right for her, the party wrote. Republican elected officials praised Thurstons rejection of the amendment on X Wednesday. Today the far left pro-abortion crowd in Arkansas showed they are both immoral and incompetent, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote. Attorney General Tim Griffin called the required affidavit simple and straightforward. Failure to follow such a basic requirement is inexcusable: the #abortion advocates have no one to blame but themselves, he wrote. AFLG was about 10,000 signatures shy of the minimum at the start of last week, but made a strong effort to gather last-minute signatures, including on Independence Day when an email claiming to be from the organization caused confusion by stating no more signatures were needed. AFLG quickly alerted supporters that the misleading email was not from them and encouraged people to continue signing petitions. Supporters of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment also faced a Decline to Sign effort encouraging voters not to sign petitions for the amendment. The effort was led by anti-abortion groups Arkansas Right to Life and the Family Council, the latter of which posted on its website a list of 79 people paid by AFLG to collect signatures. AFLG called the post attempted intimidation; the Family Council has since removed the list from the post but has kept it publicly available on its political action committee website. Acquiring and publishing the list is legal under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. The Secretary of State has made the right decision by disqualifying these petitions that did not comply with the law, Family Council Action Committee Executive Director Jerry Cox said in a statement. We appreciate the Secretary of States diligence in reviewing these petitions and commitment to upholding state law. The Family Councils publication of the list in June is proof that AFLG provided the Secretary of States office with the required list of paid canvassers, AFLG said in its statement. Asserting now that we didnt provide required documentation regarding paid canvassers is absurd and demonstrably, undeniably incorrect, the statement reads. Arkansas law does not empower the Secretary of State to make an unfounded legal interpretation, which is what he did today by summarily declaring that we have not completed the steps for qualification. A South Dakota anti-abortion group is challenging a proposed abortion-rights ballot measure in federal court, alleging that supporters did not follow state canvassing laws. On Monday, a federal judge declined to stop the lawsuit. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America mentioned the South Dakota litigation in a statement Wednesday afternoon issued in light of Thurstons decision. The abortion lobby is trying to deceive voters in red states across our nation into voting for amendments that enshrine all-trimester abortion, remove parental rights and eviscerate womens health protections this year, Southern Regional Director Caitlin Connors said in the statement. As they attempt to cut corners in the process in the pro-life state of Arkansas, Secretary of State John Thurston has taken a stand to ensure that pro-abortion activists must follow the same state laws that apply to every other ballot campaign. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX (PUEBLO, Colo.) The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Pueblo Police Department (PPD) announced the arrest of an armed fugitive following a brief standoff in Pueblo Tuesday afternoon, July 9. According to the CBI, on Tuesday, the PPD Investigations Section got a tip that 36-year-old Robert Jareth Pierce, who was wanted on multiple felony warrants from several counties across the state of Colorado, was at a storage facility on Pueblos south side. Pierces warrants were for weapons offenses, narcotics violations, and several instances of vehicular eluding. Pierce was described by police as armed and dangerous. RELATED STORY: Traffic stop reveals drugs, driver wanted by police PPD Detectives started surveillance of the storage facility and called for the help of the CBI, at which point detectives and agents were able to confirm Pierce was at the storage units. PPDs Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT) were called due to what CBI said was Pierces known propensity for violence. CBI said after a brief standoff, Pierce was arrested and was allegedly armed at the time of his arrest. He was taken to the Pueblo County Jail and has been booked on his outstanding warrants. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX21 News Colorado. ST. LOUIS Localized heavy rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl had the Army Corps of Engineers keeping a close watch on river levels on Tuesday. The cafe in front of the Gateway Arch was empty while river levels flooded the parking lot below. We are quite a bit above average for this time of year. Usually the river is around 15 or 16 feet for this time in July, Liam Wallace, a hydraulic engineer for the Army Corps, said. Bommarito Automotive Group SkyFOX video showed flooding along Lenore K. Sullivan Boulevard Tuesday morning. The Mississippi River sat around 31.7 feet in the afternoon, with another six to 12 inches expected by Wednesday morning. Both Missouri and on the Illinois side have been getting hit pretty badly from these remnants of Beryl. Thankfully, on the Illinois side, a little less. The Illinois River isnt contributing as much as the Missouri and Mississippi, so thats kind of the saving grace right now, Wallace said. Affton Fire Captain James Cova found dead at station Heavy rains from Iowa and Minnesota brought flood waters south on the Mississippi. Rain on the other side of the state is also bringing more water to the St. Louis area, according to Wallace. The Missouri River has been getting hit with quite a bit of rain in Kansas City so that has been making its way through, which is causing the levels were seeing right now, he said. Luckily, the water levels are not impacting barges trying to get through the area. Flooding from the weekend along the Missouri River is falling and starting to bring relief to the Mississippi River, Wallace explained. That is going to work its way down. So that should give a little buffer room for us here in St. Louis and south to be able to absorb some of that rain, he said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. Arrests made across 3 states after man murdered in uptown Charlotte Arrests made across 3 states after man murdered in uptown Charlotte CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) Several arrests have been made in three separate states in connection to the murder of a man in uptown Charlotte this June, CMPD announced. Authorities said the body of Corey Damoan Robinson, 36, was found on Friday, June 14, in the 500 block of North Graham Street after CMPD officers responded for a welfare check. On July 2, the case was officially classified as a homicide after further investigation, CMPD said. On July 10, CMPD announced the arrests of three people who were caught in North Carolina, Nebraska, and Tennessee. The three suspects were arrested several days apart. Lasha Lynne Big Eagle, 37, was taken into custody in Scottsbluff, Nebraska on July 2 and charged with obtaining property by false pretense and identity theft. MORE FROM QUEEN CITY NEWS Crime & Public Safety Ayyad Faour Sukkar, 24, was arrested in Memphis, Tennessee on July 5 and charged with murder, common law robbery, financial transaction card theft, and larceny of a motor vehicle. The third suspect, Tracey Pinnix Sukkar, 50, was located right here in Charlotte, North Carolina on July 9, and charged with obtaining property by false pretense and identity theft. Authorities said 10 agencies across the U.S. assisted in these arrests. The investigation into this case remains active and ongoing. Anyone with more information is asked to call 704-432-TIPS or Charlotte Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. More than two dozen protesters gathered outside of the Manatee County Courthouse in downtown Bradenton on Wednesday morning in support of a former ballerina accused of murdering her estranged husband, a charge advocates say is unjust as she claims self-defense. Ashley Benefield, 32, is charged with the second-degree murder of her husband, Doug Benefield, in a case set to go to trial on July 22. In the more than three-and-a-half years after she was first arrested and charged, the case has gained widespread media attention, inspiring podcasts, sparking interest from true-crime TV shows like CBSs 48 Hours, and drawing Court TV coverage. But friends, family and supporters of Ashley Benefield continue to argue she shot her husband in self-defense and that there shouldnt be a murder trial happening in the first place. Supporters showed up Wednesday with signs that read We stand with Ashley, There is nothing illegal about defending your life, Believe victims of domestic violence and more. Ashley Benefield was doing what every American has a right to do, and that is defend her life in her own home, said Barbara Russell at Wednesdays protest. Russell, a social worker and mental health professional who was among the demonstrators outside the courthouse, called the charges against Ashley Benefield a miscarriage of justice and said the state is well aware theyre prosecuting a victim. Thats why people are out today demanding justice, Russell said. Supporters of Ashley Benefield march in downtown Bradenton ahead of her trial scheduled for July 22. Benefield is charged with second-degree murder for allegedly shooting her estranged husband in Sept. 2020. Circuit Judge Matt Whyte previously denied a motion to dismiss the case on the basis of self-defense at a Stand Your Ground hearing in June 2023, according to court records. Per Floridas Stand Your Ground law, a person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony and that in such an instance a person does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground, according to Florida Statutes. Prosecutors opposed a February 2023 motion filed by Ashley Benefield and her attorney asking to dismiss the case and requesting immunity, saying that she fired the gun because she was afraid for her life. Judge Whyte wrote that Ashley Benefield was not entitled to court-ordered immunity from criminal prosecution, as she was not justified in using deadly force that day in September 2020. The shooting On Sept. 27, 2020, a man in 11300 block of White Rock Terrace in Lakewood Ranch dialed 911 after his neighbor, Ashley Benefield, ran over to his house shouting for help. Benefield, then 28, said her husband attacked her and she shot him in self-defense, the Bradenton Herald previously reported. The Manatee County Sheriffs Office said Douglas Benefield, who was 58 at the time, had gunshot wounds in his right leg, right arm and right chest area. He died at a local hospital later that night. Four .45 caliber casings were located on the floor of Ashley Benefields bedroom, with another bullet found on the floor and two more embedded in the walls, according to an arrest report. According to court documents, the Benefields, who once opened a ballet company together, had a history of domestic-related issues. The couple had separated and were in the middle of a child custody dispute. The case In the time since the 2020 shooting, Ashley Benefield and her lawyer have argued she was a victim of her husbands repeated patterns of abuse, which she said included stalking, physical violence and Douglas Benefield allegedly shooting a gun into a ceiling. But Judge Whytes 27-page order following the Stand Your Ground hearing said that prosecutors Suzanne ODonnell and Rebecca Freel proved that Ashley Benefield was not entitled to immunity from prosecution, saying that the state showed during the hearing that Douglas Benefields death wasnt a singular act of necessary self-defense, but was instead the culmination of a lengthy, concerted effort. For supporters like Catherine Dolan, who marched alongside her 13-year-old daughter Carolina at Wednesdays protest, this outcome was disheartening for survivors of domestic violence and victims advocates. Dolan, a survivor of domestic violence herself, said prosecuting someone in this scenario may discourage others from defending themselves when faced with a similar situation. She said she hopes some kind of positive outcome that can lead to change comes out of the Ashley Benefield case once its all over. Ashley Benefields lawyer, Neil Taylor, told the Bradenton Herald in an email Wednesday afternoon that their law firm supports and stands behind Ashley Benefield 100% and wrote that domestic violence is an epidemic in America and bias against women permeates all our institutions. The Manatee County Sheriffs Office previously said that detectives determined there was no evidence that Ashley Benefield was acting in self-defense when she fired multiple shots at her husband. Detectives said at the time they found no signs that she had been physically abused. Benefield is set to appear in court Thursday morning for a hearing, according to court records. Her trial is scheduled for July 22 at 8:30 a.m. Benefield faces a charge of murder in the second-degree with a firearm, which is punishable by up to life in prison, according to Florida Statutes. Supporters of Ashley Benefield march in downtown Bradenton ahead of her trial scheduled for July 22. Benefield is charged with second-degree murder for allegedly shooting her estranged husband in Sept. 2020. Supporters of Ashley Benefield march in downtown Bradenton ahead of her trial scheduled for July 22. Benefield is charged with second-degree murder for allegedly shooting her estranged husband in Sept. 2020. Supporters of Ashley Benefield march in downtown Bradenton ahead of her trial scheduled for July 22. Benefield is charged with second-degree murder for allegedly shooting her estranged husband in Sept. 2020. BAGHDAD, July 10 (Xinhua) -- An Iraqi court on Wednesday sentenced the wife of the former top leader of the Islamic State (IS) group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to death, the Iraqi judiciary said. The Karkh Criminal Court issued the death verdict for the wife of the terrorist over joining the IS group and detaining the kidnapped Yazidi women in her house in the town of Sinjar, west of Nineveh's provincial capital Mosul, according to a statement by the media office of the Supreme Judicial Council. In 2019, the U.S. forces conducted a raid targeting al-Baghdadi in Syria's northern province of Idlib, killing the IS leader. Al-Baghdadi, whose real name is Ibrahim Awad al-Badri, established the IS in 2014. The extremist militant group, which once captured large swathes of land in western and northern Iraq, was defeated in late 2017. Aspen One's Tenants for Turns program, which provides homeowners in the Roaring Fork Valley with ski tickets or season passes if they house an Aspen Snowmass, Aspen Hospitality, or ASPENX employee, is back for the fourth year in a row. Aspen Mountain's iconic Silver Queen Gondola. Photo: Jakob Helbig/Getty Images Tenants for Turns has a simple premise. If you own property in the Roaring Fork Valley and lease your guest house, ADU, mother-in-law unit, or spare bedroom to someone working for Aspen One, you will receive your pick of an Aspen Snowmass Premier Pass, ten transferable single-day lift tickets, or a $1,500 gift certificate to Aspen Snowmass. "The dual advantages of this program are spectacular. Landlords benefit from ski incentives and rental income while contributing to the community's housing solution," said Heather Henry, Aspen One's Vice President of Housing and Childcare. "In turn, our employee tenants enjoy stable housing, a true way to feel welcomed into the local community." Aspen, Colorado is home to luxurious shops, chairlifts, and, like several other ski towns throughout the American West, a distinct lack of affordable housing. The current median home price in Aspen is well above one million dollars, while the usual starting wage for a front-line Aspen One employee is $21 an hour. "It's all anybody talks about," said Matthew Gillen, the executive director of the Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority (APCHA), of Aspen's difficult housing situation. "It still remains a very high area of concern, and not just for middle-class or working-class people, but you know, we have doctors and lawyers and mortgage bankers in our affordable housing." Aspen, Colorado, is home to luxury stores and distinct housing affordability challenges. Courtesy: Aspen Snowmass With Tenants for Turns, Aspen One is focused on cheaper housing options near Aspen Snowmass. Landlord applicants with units that are expensiveor located too far from Aspen Snowmassmight be denied. Recommended pricing of Tenants for Turns housing is between $500 and $900 per month per individual per bedroom or lower. Last winter, Tenants for Turns housed 193 Aspen One employees. It's a small fraction of Aspen One's total workforce which is over a thousand employees, but the resort also relies on additional affordable housing measures, like a solar-powered housing project that opened in 2021. Like any respectable ski town, some residences are slope side in Aspen, Colorado. Photo: Jim Mallouk/Getty Images In total, Aspen One's workforce housing encompasses around 1200 beds, a tally that doesn't include the additional Tenants for Turns units. While the program has expanded rapidly since its inceptionwhat started with 34 landlords in the first winter grew to 165 landlords by 2023an official Tenants for Turns landlord count for this coming season isn't available yet as the application process is still open. "We're really trying to come up with anything we can think of to squeeze more out of [the housing] we've got, and I think Tenants for Turns is a good example of that," Gillen said. While he works separately from Aspen One for the most part, they're both tangling with the same affordability crisis. Related: Black Hawk Helicopter Installs New Lift Towers at Red River Ski Area, New Mexico Be the first to read breaking ski news with POWDER. Subscribe to our newsletter and stay connected with the latest happenings in the world of skiing. From ski resort news to profiles of the worlds best skiers, we are committed to keeping you informed. Submit your best clips for a chance to be featured on POWDER. Tune in and watch handpicked, high-quality ski videos streaming all day long on POWDER TV, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Assistant Fire Chief Drowns After Being Ejected from Boat During Rescue Mission: 'Died a Hero' Matthew Tobben was found dead on the morning of July 8 just hours after he was thrown from the vessel he was in, according to authorities Boone County Fire District/X Matthew Tobben An assistant fire chief from Missouri died after he was ejected from a boat while conducting a rescue mission. The Boone County Fire Protection District announced the death of Assistant Chief Matthew Tobben on July 8, just hours after the fatal incident occurred. Fire Chief Scott Olsen said Tobben was assisting with a swift water rescue operation at Rangeline Street and Bear Creek early that morning when the boat overturned and he was thrown from the vessel, authorities said. The group was returning to shore around 4:15 a.m. local time when the boat lost engine power and began drifting away in the current, according to a drowning report from the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The boat then apparently became swamped with water, causing the occupants to be ejected. Related: 16-Year-Old Boy Drowns Under Bridge While Fishing with Friends: 'He Was Full of Life' A Columbia Firefighter and the two victims who were originally rescued were also on the boat, according to Olsen. They were rescued and are now doing ok. Tobben, 42, was found dead a short distance from the vessel just before 9 a.m., per the MSHP drowning report. BCFPD Assistant Chief Gale Blomenkamp said Tobben was thrown a tow line, which the firefighter attempted to grab, according to ABC affiliate KMIZ. Both Tobben and the fourth individual, described by KMIZ as a Columbia firefighter, were reportedly wearing safety devices when the fatal incident occurred, per the drowning report. 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. However, KMIZ reported Tobbens life jacket and helmet came off at some point before his body was found. Please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers during this very difficult time, Olsen said in his statement. "Firefighters regularly risk their lives to save others. Tragically, sometimes it costs them their lives," the Missouri Division of Fire Safety wrote in a separate post. "Assistant Chief Matt Tobben died a hero this morning as he made the ultimate sacrifice attempting a rescue in treacherous floodwater." Boone County Fire District/X Matthew Tobben Related: 17-Year-Old Iowa Prom King Disappears in Lake and Drowns: 'Horrible Tragedy' Tobben was the fire departments Director of Training, a role he started on May 1, according to KMIZ. He was remembered as a man who would do anything for you if he could, Blomenkamp told the outlet, which reported he leaves behind a wife and two children. All you had to do was ask and he was always willing to help, added assistant chief. He never turned down the opportunity to run that call, to make that rescue, to be involved. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. An attempt to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in inherent contempt of Congress failed on Wednesday (AP) A right-wing Republican from Florida filed a resolution that will force the House to vote on holding Attorney Merrick Garland in a rarely used form of contempt of Congress. A motion to refer a resolution was brought by Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida to the House Rules Committee to hold Garland in inherent contempt of Congress. The House voted in an attempt to refer the resolution to the Rules Committee, which would have effectively killed it. Four Republicans Mike Turner and David Joyce of Ohio and John Duarte and Tom McClintock of California voted with Democrats to refer it to Rules, which would have tabled the resolution. But the effort to kill the resolution failed, meaning that a vote on the matter will still take place. Congress has three different types of contempt powers: criminal, civil and inherent contempt, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. But once Congress votes for criminal contempt, the executive branch has sole discretion to prosecute. Shortly after the House had voted to hold Garland in contempt earlier this year, the Justice Department announced it would not prosecute Garland. Civil contempt allows for Congress to enforce a subpoena through a lawsuit, but that relies soley on the courts. The third type, inherent contempt, has not been used in decades and gives Congress the authority to impose sanctions on people violating a contempt of Congress resolution rather than rely on the executive or judicial branch. It allows for the person held in contempt to be taken into custody to be brought before the House or Senate and allow for a trial to determine guilt or innocence. Lunas resolution would have held Garland in inherent contempt - meaning it would have required him to pay $10,000 per day that he did not comply with the congressional subpoena. The process is often considered onerous and it has seldom been used since the creation of civil and criminal contempt powers. Representative Anna Paulina of Florida had attempted to hold Garland in inherent contempt of Congress after the House had voted to hold him in contempt of Congress in June. The House accused Garland of contempt after he defied a subpoena to turn over audio tapes of President Joe Bidens interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur. But the Justice Department said it would not prosecure Garland after the vote. In turn, Luna said she would file a motion to hold Garland in inherent contempt, arguing that the he could be punished for defying a subpoena despite the Justice Departments decision. If an American is presented with a lawful subpoena, he or she is expected that they comply or face the consequences of their defiance, she said. Why should the attorney general of the United States be held to a different standard. No one is above the law. Lunas resolution argued that opted to make her resolution privileged, which triggered an immediate vote. But Democrats roundly mocked the resolution. This is a stupid resolution, Representative Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, said on the floor. Republican leadership knows this is a stupid resolution. Their own members know this is a stupid resolution. But theyre beholden to the craziest MAGA members in their conference. McGovern it to the fact that multiple Republicans, including Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and many former members of the Trump administration all defied congressional subpoenas. All ordered to testify and what did they do? They ran and hid, he said. It's like a national pastime for Republicans. Golf, fishing and ignoring subpoenas. Golf, fishing and ignoring subpoenas. That triggered the House attempting to strike McGoverns words from the record. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark said the resolution was a waste of time. We've already taken up way too much of the House's time, of the American people's time, she said. Let's get back to doing the work they sent us here to do. The move comes as the House continues to try and obtain the audio recordings between Biden and Hur as part of the special counsel investigation into Bidens handling of classified documents from his time as senator and vice president at his private residence and a think tank affiliated with him. The special counsel declined to prosecute Biden, but the report said that he had failed to recall when his son Beau Biden had died and that he would be perceived by a jury as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. House Speaker Mike Johnson said that he would sue to obtain the recordings afterward. Editors note: An earlier version of this story stated incorrectly that the resolution to hold Garland in inherent contempt failed. It was an effort to kill the resolution that failed and a vote on the matter will still take place. This story has been corrected to reflect that. Frank Mylar speaks during the attorney general GOP primary debate between Derek Brown and Rachel Terry, at the KUED Studio, on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. (Pool photo by Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune) Frank Mylar, a Republican candidate for attorney general and longtime Utah-based criminal and civil prosecutor, was charged with bribery on Wednesday for offering another candidate a job in exchange for an endorsement, according to court documents. Filed in Utahs 3rd District Court in Salt Lake County, Mylar is charged with one count of bribery in elections, a third-degree felony. Mylar was one of three Republican candidates, though he ultimately lost after receiving about 24% of the vote in the states Republican primary. His attorney, Nathan Crane, responded to a request for comment Wednesday telling Utah News Dispatch Mylar adamantly denies the allegations that have been made against him. Frank did not bribe or attempt to bride anybody. Frank was simply seeking support for his campaign. Shortly after sending the text message, Frank followed up with the recipient to ensure his original text was not misunderstood. Frank looks forward to defending himself in court. He will be entering a not guilty plea to the one count, Crane said. On April 19, a few days after the Republican nominating conventions in Davis and Weber counties, Mylar allegedly sent a text message to fellow GOP candidate for attorney general Trent Christensen. Hey Trent. In my last day of trial and by Gods grace my campaign has picked up more steam. I won in Weber and was only there 10 minutes. Overwhelmingly won Davis. If you could endorse me before the convention I would definitely include you in my office. Think about it for a few days, Mylar said, according to a probable cause statement. In a May interview with the Deseret News, which first reported on the investigation, Mylar said the text was a mistake. In the morning, just before heading to court, I was drafting a text, that was sort of a stream of consciousness statement about the campaign and in that text, I asked him to endorse me before the state convention and I would find a place for him in the office, Mylar told Deseret News. I did not know whether I had actually sent that text because I was going into court again. When Mylar realized he sent the text later that day, he told Deseret News he retracted the offer. According to the charges, Christensen did not respond later that day, Mylar sent another message reading, Please disregard that text. Im internal. Didnt mean to send it. Sorry to bother you. It is not an offer etc. Prosecutors with the Salt Lake County District Attorneys Office said Mylar sent two additional texts that day apologizing and indicating that he believed Christensen had withdrawn from the Attorney General race at that time. Christensen then contacted the Murray Police Department, reporting that he received a bribery offer from another candidate. We appreciate Mr. Christensen coming forward with the information about this alleged crime in a timely manner to law enforcement. We also appreciate the Murray Police Department for conducting a thorough investigation, said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill. All persons accused of wrongdoing are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. Court documents show that Mylar was served, but no hearings have been set for the case. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Legislature commissioned a performance audit of the State Auditor's Office during the 2023 session, which an accounting firm has agreed to conduct for $285,000. State Auditor Josh Gallion, pictured, said his office already routinely receives external assessments. (Photo provided by the State Auditor's Office) An audit of the North Dakotas Auditors Office is delayed several months after the lowest bidder backed out, upping the cost of a review the state auditor calls a waste of taxpayer money. The performance audit was requested by the 2023 Legislature after local governments voiced concerns about the cost of the agencys services. We felt that, regardless of those political entities, the auditor should, in fact, be audited, House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, said. Every department should be. The 2023-2025 budget for the Office of Management and Budget set aside $500,000 for the performance audit. The budget puts Lefor in his capacity as chair of Legislative Management in charge of arranging the audit. The first request for proposals, which Legislative Council issued in July 2023, received no bids. After that, Legislative Council opened up bidding to a wider area, said Allen Knudson, Legislative Councils legislative budget analyst and auditor. Two companies responded: Minneapolis-based firm RSM submitted a bid for $40,000, and Forvis, based in Denver, put in a bid for $285,000. Lefor said he and Legislative Council staff had a conference call with RSM to make sure the firm understood the project before they signed the contract. The bid, as we look back, was very low, but they assured us they could do it, Lefor said. But at some point after the agreement was signed, the firm indicated it was no longer comfortable with conducting a performance audit which must follow official standards and wanted to perform an informal assessment instead. We had a couple of meetings, and all of a sudden they started talking about an assessment, Knudson said. We just realized its not gonna work. RSM notified Legislative Council in an April 30 letter that the firm was terminating the contract. The state didnt have to pay any money to RSM. Both Knudson and Lefor said the firm didnt explain why it backed out of the agreement. The Legislative Council signed a contract with the other accounting firm, Forvis, in late May for $285,000. We lost a couple of months, but it should still be ready by the next legislative session which is kind of what we wanted anyway, Lefor said. The Legislative Audit and Fiscal Review Committee was informed of the change during its June meeting. Legislative Council Fiscal Analyst Toby Mertz said during the meeting the audit will start in August and be completed sometime in October or November. State Auditor Josh Gallion said his office is already routinely evaluated. The agency undergoes an external peer-review audit every three years and a financial statement audit every two years, he said. The agencys mineral royalty program also receives its own additional peer-review audit every three years. While I think this audit is unnecessary and redundant I think its a waste of taxpayer money we will still go through this process to see if there are opportunities for us to improve our processes, Gallion said. Gallion said the three other audits of the Auditors Office are much less expensive than the performance audit is expected to be. The agencys most recent peer-review audit cost approximately $20,000. He said the previous financial statement audit was about $11,000. The mineral royalty team peer review audit, meanwhile, is funded by a federal grant. According to the 2023-2025 OMB budget, the performance audit will gauge the efficiency and effectiveness of the Auditors Office according to industry standards. The audit must assess: How long it takes the Auditors Office to conduct audits How the office tracks and allocates staff hours How it bills audited entities How it ensures the quality of its services, and How well it communicates with governmental groups, organizations and the public According to Legislative Councils contract with Forvis, the audit will cover fiscal years 2020 through 2023, which ended June 30, 2023. The assessment period includes the COVID-19 pandemic, Gallion noted a time when the agencys processes and procedures were different than normal. We went from doing our audits on-site to not being able to travel. We have a very rural state where not everything is digital, he said. Everything took a little bit longer. Communication was challenging. Gallion also said his office has made positive changes since last year that wont be reflected in the performance audit. For example, in response to concerns about the costs of the agencys audits, the Auditors Office now provides cost estimates before clients agree to the assessment, Gallion said. The proposals include not-to-exceed clauses, and clients must sign off on any proposed changes. Its looking at a time period where some of the things that theyll evaluate, weve already adjusted, Gallion said. During the 2023 session, lawmakers also passed a bill to require fewer local governments to pay for audits from the Auditors Office every two years. Under the legislation, local governments that receive less than $2 million in annual revenue undergo a simpler financial review. Previously, that ceiling was $750,000. The Auditors Office supported the amendment. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Augustana College has announced Sam Wright to serve as assistant director and LGBTQ+ coordinator in the Office of Student Inclusion and Diversity. Sam Wright (Augustana College) Wright, a 2020 Augustana graduate from St. Louis, Mo., joined Augustana on Monday, according to a news release. Wright currently is president of the Palomares Justice Institute, which serves the socio-economic needs and interests of Molines Floreciente neighborhood and other less empowered communities through advocacy, grassroots, outreach and culturally sensitive services. Dr. Gauri Pitale, Augustanas vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion, said Wright brings to this position a wealth of community ties in and around Augustana. The person serving in this role is a vital resource for our LGBTQ+ community members and will be working closely with our students to implement programming from the Office of Student Inclusion and Diversity, she said. I am excited for Sam to join us and continue this important work to maximize student potential at Augustana. Prioritizing student success is a key focus of the colleges strategic plan, Bold & Boundless, with a goal of identifying the strengths and needs of students so that they can achieve their life and career goals. The strategic plan also focuses on engaged learning through interdisciplinary hands-on experiences and working with the city of Rock Island to contribute to the vitality of the community. As a student at Augustana, Wright triple majored in Spanish, political science and psychology and was a member of Chi Omega Gamma sorority, Habitat for Humanity and Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society. I am so grateful to be able to give back to Augustana and be a part of the student experience that enabled me to grow into who I am today, Wright said. The Office of Student Inclusion and Diversity was formed in 2018, with an emphasis on creating an inclusive campus community for all students, with an intentional focus on students of color and historically under-served students. The office empowers students through holistic development and relevant programming, including the PACE Multicultural Mentorship Program for first-year students of color; Diversity Equity and Inclusion student training; and the annual Shades of Beauty Summit, an event for women to share, discover and celebrate their beauty. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com. YANGON, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar is ramping up responses after a total of 130 people were hospitalized for diarrhea in Myanmar's Yangon since the end of June this year, according to the country's Ministry of Health on Wednesday. Patients infected with diarrhea were reported in Yangon Region at the beginning of June, which is a normal occurrence during the rainy season, the ministry said. However, there have been patients with severe diarrhea symptoms in Thaketa Township and some other townships in the eastern district of Yangon Region since the end of June, the ministry added. The health ministry, in cooperation with the Yangon Region government, has been ramping up responses to contain the spread of diarrhea, the ministry said. Union Minister for Health Thet Khaing Win also inspected a market and a school in Thaketa Township on Monday and held a meeting with health officials in Yangon Region regarding the diarrhea cases on Tuesday at Yangon General Hospital, it said. As of Tuesday, all 130 patients who had been hospitalized for diarrhea were discharged from the hospitals, the ministry said. Authorities continue search for woman last seen in Southern California in 2022 Nearly two years have passed since a young woman went missing in L.A. County, and authorities are hoping members of the public can help them locate her. According to a Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department missing person bulletin, 28-year-old Morgan Frances Yusuf was last seen in October 2022 in the city of Glendale. The exact date and location in Glendale where Yusuf was last seen was not disclosed. She is described as a white female who stands 5 feet tall and weighs 160 pounds with long, wavy dark brown hair and hazel eyes. The clothing that she was wearing when she was last seen is not known. Man arrested after destroying Los Angeles Rite Aid store In addition, she has two unknown tattoos on her back and neck; she is also known to have a flower tattoo on her wrist, LASD said. Yusufs family is concerned for her well-being, deputies stated. Anyone with information is asked to contact LASDs Homicide Bureau Missing Persons Detail Detective M. Rodriguez by calling 323-890-5500. To submit an anonymous tip, call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or visit www.lacrimestoppers.org Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. U.S. President Joe Biden, right, and Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump, participate in the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Biden and Trump are facing off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign. Photo by Justin Sullivan | Getty Images WASHINGTON Arizona Democrats wholl serve as convention delegates are standing by President Joe Biden despite widespread concerns about his ability to serve four more years or fend off rival Donald Trump. Last week, Tucson Rep. Raul Grijalva became the second Democrat in Congress to publicly call for the president to quit the race. But for delegates who will converge on Chicago in six weeks for the Democratic National Convention, loyalty to Biden, pragmatism about what a last-minute scramble would say to voters, and a sense of responsibility to the party are paramount. For some, the pile-on has been outright offensive. Indigenous communities and Native communities do not publicly humiliate their elders the way the media has, said delegate April Ignacio, whos running to be the first Indigenous woman elected to the Pima County Board of Supervisors. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Lorenzo Sierra, a former state House member from Avondale, recalled being on a ventilator weeks before the 2020 election. Doctors had given him only a slim chance of surviving a bout with COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic. Biden called in our darkest hour to tell Sierras wife that he and the first lady were praying for Sierra. President Biden did not give up on me, and I will not give up on him, Sierra said. President Biden and Vice President (Kamala) Harris form the team America needs to ensure we will not fall into a MAGA dictatorship. Cronkite News reached out to more than 80 Arizona Democrats wholl serve as delegates in Chicago next month. Those who agreed to share their views on Biden were adamantly against him dropping out though many also acknowledged theyre worried. Its time to put this to bed, said delegate Mark Robert Gordon, who ran for secretary of state in 2018 though he would entertain a serious discussion about replacing Biden if theres another incident like the debate, another occasion for there to be this introspection. Of more than 3,900 delegates, nearly all are pledged to Biden. Under party rules, they would ordinarily be obliged to support him on the first ballot unless he releases them. Some Democrats contend theres a loophole, because their pledge is to reflect the sentiments of those who elected them, and those sentiments can change by the time of the formal nomination. Whichever way we go, we are going to be able to beat Donald Trump, said Steven Jackson, a delegate from Tempe, who emphasized he supports Biden. Near-panic set in among Democrats after Bidens disastrous prime time debate performance live on CNN the night of June 27. We have a person that is honest and committed to our democracy in President Biden, and sometimes he stumbles over his words, said Joshua Polacheck, 44, a delegate from Tucson whos running for the Arizona Corporation Commission. He had a bad night at the debate. In Congress, six Democratic lawmakers have publicly called for Biden to quit, and others have privately talked up the option. House Democrats huddled Tuesday morning to debate a path forward, with or without Biden at the top of the ticket. Calls for him to quit didnt escalate but werent entirely quashed either. Those discussions will continue throughout the balance of the week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said afterward. Grijalva, 76, is the highest-profile Arizona Democrat urging Biden to pass the baton to someone younger and more vigorous. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., told Cronkite News Tuesday that he sees no reason for Biden to step aside. Millions of people all across the country, 50 states and more territories voted for him and when it becomes a choice between him and Donald Trump, a convicted felon, the choice should be very clear to the American people, he said at the Capitol. Biden won Arizonas 11 electoral votes by just over 10,000 ballots in 2020. Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the state by over 91,000 votes in 2016, and the latest polls indicate Trumps narrow lead over Biden is slightly wider than it was before the debate. Trump was the second-oldest president after Ronald Reagan, until Biden took office and bumped them both. Trump turned 78 last month and is now about a month younger than Biden was on Inauguration Day 2021. Now 81, Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term. Trump and other Republicans have questioned his mental acuity, and the debate did Biden no favors tamping down the concerns. Like other delegates, the youngest one from Arizona 20-year-old Markus Ceniceros of Avondale, who also holds an elected post on a local school board readily acknowledged concerns about Bidens age. But he remained committed to the president. He should stay in the race, he said, and as long as Biden is our nominee, he is the one to get the job finished. Signa Oliver, an Army veteran from Phoenix, was among the delegates who expressed fear that a mad scramble to replace Biden four months before Election Day, long after he clinched the nomination would invite disaster. He should absolutely not drop out and if he does, we will lose to Trump, she said. I cant think of any one person that could step in, even the vice president, she said. She emphasized that Harris is fully qualified but added, I dont believe this country will elect her. Biden and Trump are scheduled to hold a second and final debate on Sept. 10, two months before Election Day and after each has been formally nominated. I would love to see someone whos not in their 70s or 80s as president. But those are the two options, said Isabel Hiserodt, president of the Young Democrats at Arizona State University. What she saw in the debate was concerning, and it wasnt a phenomenal performance, she said, but Trump is outright dangerous. Delegates like Llama Habern, from Cottonwood, are more focused on Bidens achievements in office than his stumbles. He doesnt have to be a great speaker, he just has to be a good president, Habern said. First-time delegate Robert Branscomb, 61, an insurance agent in Phoenix, acknowledged an initial shock at Bidens debate performance but said the president has provided reassurance about his vigor since then. People sometimes get a little shaken, a knee-jerk reaction, but Im fully confident that the Arizona delegation will stay behind President Biden, he said. Hes done some fantastic work over three years; hes kept his promises. We have a thriving economy, we have people in place to support him to move forward. He should stick in the race no matter what. The succession plan is already in place, he noted: If something did happen, I have full confidence in Vice President Harris to pick up the pieces and move forward. With reporting from Cronkite News Washington correspondents Keetra Bippus, Brianna Chappie, Alex Cunningham, Amaia J. Gavica, Aoife Kane, Isabelle Marceles, Alex MacDonald and Sahara Sajjadi. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST By Brendan Pierson (Reuters) - Supporters of a ballot measure that would amend Arizona's constitution to establish a right to abortion sued Republican lawmakers on Wednesday over language in a pamphlet to be distributed to voters before they go to the polls in November, saying the document's use of the phrase "unborn human" is not neutral. Arizona for Abortion Access, the group behind the ballot measure, in its lawsuit asked the Maricopa County Superior Court for an order requiring the Arizona Legislative Council, a committee of lawmakers overseeing the pamphlet, to adopt "impartial" language. The group said "fetus" would be "a neutral, objective, and medically accurate term uniformly used by medical professionals and government agencies." The summary in the pamphlet, which is required by law and was approved by the Republican-majority council, states that current law prohibits abortion "if the probable gestational age of the unborn human being is more than 15 weeks," except in certain emergencies. It goes on to say that the amendment would create a right to abortion up to the point of fetal viability. The language in the pamphlet echoes the current law, which also uses the term "unborn human." The ballot measure itself does not use the term. Arizona for Abortion Access argues that state law does not require the language of laws themselves to be neutral, while it does require the pamphlet summary to be neutral. "We believe the Legislative Council drafted an unbiased description that accurately reflects the measure," Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, who sits on the legislative council and is named as a defendant, said in a statement. "We are confident that we will prevail." Arizona is one of several states where voters are expected to consider abortion rights measures in November, with others including Florida and Nevada. Arizona lawmakers in May repealed a near-total abortion ban from 1864, with some Republicans in both legislative chambers joining Democrats to do so, leaving the 15-week ban passed in 2022 as the law of the state. The move came after the Arizona Supreme Court in April ruled that prosecutors could enforce the Civil War-era ban, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling eliminating the nationwide right to abortion that it had recognized since its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. (Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Matthew Lewis) Scott Willoughby was working to restore the two-lane bowling alley attached to his bar (Supplied) A much-loved bar owner was killed in a freak accident at a bowling alley in Esmond, North Dakota, over the weekend. Scott Willoughby, 59, the owner of Esmond Bar, was working to restore the two-lane bowling alley attached to his bar when he was crushed by a pinsetter, the Benson County Sheriffs Office said. Willoughby was alone at the time of the accident and was found dead on Sunday morning, according to KVLY. Esmond Bar confirmed Willoughbys death in a post on Facebook. Please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers through this very difficult time, it said. Just one week prior to the fatal accident, the bar had posted an image on Facebook of the bowling alley with the caption: A friendly game between the Lunde boys. The bar has been closed in the wake of the accident but announced that it would reopen for the weekend in Scotts honor. Esmond Bar also announced that Willougbys funeral will take place this Friday. Willoughbys tragic death led to an outpouring of support from the local community. Scott was a great guy and will be missed deeply. We always enjoyed visiting with him, local resident Laura Stadum wrote on Facebook. We only met him once, but appreciated his warm smile and hospitality. No words can heal your loss. We are praying with you, Elizabeth Sorensen commented. Stacey Kurtyka Atkinson recalled meeting Willoughby when she visited the bar a couple of weeks before the accident. He showed us the bowling alley remodel. He was so proud of it!! I can still hear him laughing and joking around! He will be greatly missed, she commented on Facebook. Jet-setters have made a splash in Spain. Over the weekend, protesters in Barcelona went after visitors with water guns, as a way to express their anger with over-tourism, CBS News reported on Tuesday. More from Robb Report Thousands of people took to the streets in the Spanish city on Saturday, with some using water guns to spray diners in the La Barceloneta neighborhood. Some people were forced to move tables at various restaurants to avoid the protesters. The demonstrators also symbolically taped off some venues. I have nothing against tourism, but here in Barcelona we are suffering from an excess of tourism that has made our city unlivable, one protester said, according to CBS News. Last year, more than 12 million people visited Barcelona, the outlet said, citing local data. This year, from January through May, more than 33 million people have visited Spain as a whole, up 13.6 percent compared with the same period last year, according to numbers from the countrys national statistics office. In part thanks to increased tourism, housing costs have risen 68 percent in Barcelona over the past decade, CBS News wrote. Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, has said that by 2028 hes planning to no longer renew the tourist licenses that allow landlords to rent to foreign visitors. Those homes, then, would become available to residents, rather than those searching for accommodations on websites like Airbnb. The last years, the city has turned completely for tourists, and what we want is a city for citizens and not in service of tourists, one of the protesters said over the weekend. These sorts of demonstrations have been taking place all over Spain, which has become a tourist hot spot of late. Last month, 15,000 people protested against over-tourism in Malaga, while more than 10,000 people in Palma de Mallorca took to the streets in May. And Spain isnt the only country trying to figure out how to rein in tourism: Venice, Italy, is now charging a fee for day-trippers, and locals there have been vocal about how the city has changed due to the increased number of visitors. Amsterdam, meanwhile, is banning new hotels from being built in the city to cut down congestion and improve livability. Given that were in the peak of the summer travel season, its unclear how well these policies will work, thoughat least in the short term. 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. Protesters gathered in Barcelona, Spain, this weekend to take a stand against over-tourism. While some protesters chanted and carried signs that said Tourists, go home and Barcelona is not for sale, some took to spraying tourists with water guns, according to multiplenews outlets. The citys police force, the Guardia Urbana de Barcelona, reported that 2,800 protesters showed up Saturday, according to NBC News, which cited the Spanish news organization El Pais. However, the group that organized the demonstration, Assemblea de Barris pel Decreixement Turistic (the Neighborhood Assembly for Tourist Degrowth), with more than 150 local organizations, estimated that 20,000 demonstrators were there, The Washington Post reported. The group published a manifesto with 13 demands to address mass tourism, including reducing tourist accommodations and working to eliminate cruise terminals in the Port of Barcelona, according to Al Jazeera. Protesters claim the growth of tourism has driven up rents and worsened the citys quality of life. Demonstrators march and shout slogans on June 19 in protest of the Formula One Barcelona Fan Festival in downtown Barcelona. About 500 Barcelona residents protested mass tourism at an exhibition of the Formula One cars. Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press The Washington Post reported that Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni has posted on X, formerly Twitter, that 10,000 residential units normally used for tourists will be reserved for local residents instead. He also reportedly vowed to increase taxes on tourism. As the Post reported, the demonstration illuminates the strain of mass tourism on residents in popular tourist destinations, such as Japan, Indonesia and Italy. The Tourism Observatory of Barcelona reported that the city hosted about 26 million tourists last year, who spent an estimated $10.4 billion. Spanish citizens have held a few notable anti-tourism demonstrations in recent months. In April, about 57,000 people protested on the Canary Islands. In May, Palma de Mallorca saw about 10,000 demonstrators calling for curbs on tourism. Last month, about 15,000 people protested over-tourism in Malaga. Related... Barron Trump made his political debut at his fathers rally on Tuesday after being largely absent from the campaign trail. Barron Trump! This is the first time hes ever done it, Barron, former President Trump said during the Doral, Fla., event Tuesday. Barron Trump, 18, is the youngest of the former presidents children. Tuesday was his first-ever appearance at one of his fathers campaign rallies, The Associated Press reported. Trumps other sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, have often been seen at campaign events for their father. Melania Trump, like Barron, has not been spotted at many of Trumps political events including his debate with President Biden last month. Barron stood up and waved to the supporters in attendance at his fathers request, before giving a thumbs up to the crowd as they clapped and cheered. Top Stories from The Hill Trump boasted about his son, saying the college-bound Barron got into every school he applied to. His comments were met with enthusiasm from the audience as the former president described Barron as a very good guy. Thats the first time hes done it. Thats the first time, right? Trump said. Youre pretty popular, he might be more popular than Don and Eric, we gotta talk about this. Hey Don, we gotta talk about this. So Barron, its good to have you, Trump said, adding that Barron had such a nice, easy life. Now, its a little bit changed. After the rally, Trump posted photos of Barron waving to the crowd and pumping his fist on Truth Social. Trump said earlier this year that Barron advises him on politics, noting that he is a smart one. And hes really been a great student, Trump said in an interview on Philadelphias Talk Radio 1210 WPHT in May. And he does like politics. Its sort of funny. Hell tell me sometimes, Dad, this is what you have to do. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. BBC Presenter's Wife and 2 Daughters ID'd as Victims of UK Crossbow Attack, and Suspect Is Arrested Police apprehended 26-year-old Kyle Clifford in connection with the July 9 incident, according to multiple reports Hannah Grace Aesthetics/Facebook; Groom and Glow/Instagram Hannah Hunt; Louise Hunt The three women who were killed by a man with a crossbow in a home in England have been identified and a suspect was apprehended after a manhunt. According to BBC News and The Times, the victims of the July 9 incident are Carol Hunt, the wife of BBC Racing radio commentator John Hunt, and two of their daughters, Hannah and Louise. Hertfordshire Police revealed at a July 10 press conference that the victims were 25, 28, and 61 years old. Police launched a manhunt for 26-year-old Kyle Clifford after the women were killed at a property in Bushey, Hertfordshire, during the evening of July 9. According to BBC News, The Guardian and The Telegraph, Clifford was apprehended on July 10. The BBC reports that in addition to the two slain daughters, the couple shared another daughter. Authorities said in a press release: Officers attended alongside colleagues from the East of England Ambulance Service and on arrival, found three women with serious injuries. Sadly, despite their best efforts, the women, who are believed to be related, died a short time later at the scene. Hertfordshire police Kyle Clifford The boss of BBC 5 Live, where John works, described the news as "utterly devastating" in a note to staff, per the BBC. "Our thoughts are with John and his family at this incredibly difficult time and we will provide him with all the support we can," said Heidi Dawson, controller of the BBC radio station. John's elder daughter Hannah, 28, owned a beauty business called Hannah Grace Cosmetics, while Louise, 25, launched a dog grooming business called Groom & Glow during the Covid-19 pandemic. James Manning/PA Images via Getty Flowers have been laid on the street of the home Speaking during the press conference, Chief Superintendent John Simpson said police believe the attack was a targeted incident and the suspect may have also used other weapons along with a crossbow. The manhunt also involves armed police officers and specialist search teams responding at pace in the wake of what has been a horrific incident, involving what is currently believed to be a crossbow, but other weapons may also have been used, Simpson said before Clifford was apprehended. JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty The crime scene in Bushey, Hertfordshire According to The Telegraph, the Ministry of Defence confirmed that Clifford briefly served in the armed forces. An investigation into the incident is ongoing. One neighbor told the BBC the incident is tragic and horrifying. 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. "There was a lot of activity from the police and ambulance last night there were over a dozen cars, said the 50-year-old. There was an air ambulance. The road was closed way past midnight. There is no access into the road. "It is a decent neighborhood. It is mostly retired people and professionals living here," he added. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Leslie Beavers is the new acting chief information officer for the U.S. Defense Department. Im happy to share that Im starting a new position as Acting Chief Information Officer at United States Department of Defense, Beavers wrote in July on LinkedIn. The departments website now lists her as acting CIO. A spokesperson for the Pentagon did not immediately return a request for comment. As the primary IT adviser to the defense secretary, Beavers is taking over from former CIO John Sherman, who stepped down in June to take a position outside government as dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. Previously serving as the principal deputy CIO at the Pentagon, Beavers is well acquainted with the Defense Departments many ongoing initiatives meant to secure the defense-industrial base, develop 5G technologies and explore artificial intelligence. Since she came to the department, Beavers has worked on landmark endeavors like Project Herald, the Pentagons plan to transform digital intelligence sharing, and Fulcrum, the recently announced IT transformation strategy. The latter is where she is most focused now on building momentum, she said in her LinkedIn post. [That] gives you tangible steps to turn that strategic vision into an operational reality, Beavers said at the 2024 TechNet Cyber conference in Baltimore, which took place June 25-27. Itll be followed by an implementation plan, which will give some more information. The former Air Force intelligence officer and retired brigadier general comes to the position at a time when the DOD is beginning to put many of its theories around zero trust, cloud computing, machine learning and cybersecurity into practice. The department for several years now released guidance thanks to the help of working groups and testing approaches via pilots. Now, officials say, its in a position to actually phase in solutions. The department has a goal to come up with a data tagging and labeling strategy by the end of the calendar year. Beavers also said at TechNet Cyber that she anticipates growth in the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability procurement vehicle as other contracts begin to expire. Pentagon zero-trust office aims to start data tagging, labeling in 24 At the same time, challenges persist for Beavers and her office, including cyber workforce shortages, unpredictable funding and technical debt that separates the services from the modern approaches theyre after. All the while, China looms as a major U.S. adversary on the digital battlefield, and attacks on public infrastructure underscore the urgency of predicting and intercepting cyberthreats. The DOD is seeking $14.5 billion in fiscal 2025 for its cyberspace programs. According to the DODs website, Kevin Mulvihill is the new acting principal deputy CIO. The emerald and pieces of emerald jewelry are pictured during a fair of emerald and its products held in Afghanistan's Panjshir province, July 10, 2024. A fair of emerald and its products opened in Afghanistan's Panjshir province on Wednesday with the aim of promoting investment in the mining sector, spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum Hamayon Afghan said. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua) BAZARAK, Afghanistan, July 10 (Xinhua) -- A fair of emerald and its products opened in Afghanistan's Panjshir province on Wednesday with the aim of promoting investment in the mining sector, spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum Hamayon Afghan said. The official said the three-day fair is expected to attract investment in the precious and semi-precious mining sector, particularly in extraction of the emerald in the Panjshir province. "Our aim is to attract more investment in this sector (emerald) to bring more businessmen, and therefore we organized this fair," Afghan told Xinhua. The eastern Panjshir province with Bazarak as its capital 200 km north of Kabul is famous for having a lot of mines of emerald and semi-precious stones. Emerald and semi-precious stones like ruby are on display at 60 booths set up at the fair which will close on Friday. Businessman Hajji Mohammad Ghazi said, "I put on display the emerald of Panjshir. We also have some precious and semi-precious stones here for sale. I have a piece of emerald worth 155,000 U.S. dollars." Pieces of jewelry are pictured during a fair of emerald and its products held in Afghanistan's Panjshir province, July 10, 2024. A fair of emerald and its products opened in Afghanistan's Panjshir province on Wednesday with the aim of promoting investment in the mining sector, spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum Hamayon Afghan said. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua) Emeralds are pictured during a fair of emerald and its products held in Afghanistan's Panjshir province, July 10, 2024. A fair of emerald and its products opened in Afghanistan's Panjshir province on Wednesday with the aim of promoting investment in the mining sector, spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum Hamayon Afghan said. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua) Xavier Becerra was in Missouri when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, watching powerlessly as Republicans triggered an immediate, near-total ban on abortion procedures statewide. In February, the secretary of health and human services traveled to Alabama, where he witnessed firsthand the fallout from a local court decision that temporarily banned in vitro fertilization. And in April, weeks before Floridas six-week abortion ban went into effect, Becerra flew to the state to warn of dire consequences not just for women there, but for those living without access to care across the entire South. Becerras ambitious tour on reproductive rights has proven a humbling and foreboding experience. Progress is scattershot and impermanent. Conversations with expectant mothers scarred by health traumas have haunted him. The stories that women will tell you make it clear that this is real. This is not some fantasy, or some speculation this is real, Becerra told McClatchy in an interview. Nearing the end of President Joe Bidens four-year term, Becerra finds himself in a fight he never expected, fearful the fall of Roe is only the start of an ebbing current on American freedoms. I speak not just as secretary on this, but as an American a first-generation American, the son of immigrants who always grew up believing that the next days going to be better, Becerra said. Perhaps what worries me most is seeing the fabric of America begin to feel the stain of undemocratic values. My biggest fear is that we begin to see that, where were taking away rights were taking away freedoms from people, he added. Its painful to see a country thats beginning to tell people, you need to have fewer rights. FIGHT FOR EMERGENCY CARE Becerra was in Boise last month when he finally received some news he actually welcomed. The Supreme Court accidentally posted its decision allowing abortions to take place in Idaho when physicians determine the mother faces a medical emergency that threatens her health or her life. It was a rare victory on a legal front where the administration had thus far seen little success. Wasting no time, the secretary sent a sharply-worded letter to health care providers citing the decision, telling them that federal law requires hospital facilities receiving Medicare funding virtually all hospitals in the country to perform abortions in emergency circumstances. Were making it clear to all Americans that they have a right to access emergency care, to go to an emergency room and get the care that a physician says that they need to stabilize their health and to stay alive not what a politician says, Becerra said. No politician should be in an emergency room telling a doctor what to do. The Supreme Court decision, in fact, simply sent the case back down to lower courts for further review. But Becerra said the Biden administration interpreted the Supreme Courts ruling as a decision to keep federal law on emergency medical treatment in place. Now that we know that that federal law that protects emergency care stands, were going to do everything we can, he added. The administration is ceding little of the ground that remains under its control in the abortion fight. Becerra said that doctors, not politicians, should decide whether mental health should be a consideration when determining whether an expectant mother is facing a health crisis an interpretation of federal law on emergency care that, if adopted by the administration, could broadly expand access to reproductive procedures. And the administration is working to shield the privacy of physicians who are located in states where abortion remains legal and are accepting patients from out of state, risking exposure to prosecution from across state lines. Any time you go beyond what the medical practice has told you is appropriate health care, you risk putting Americans other peoples health in true danger, he said. All of these questions are being posed because there are politicians who decide they want to enter the field of medicine, even though they never got trained to be medical professionals. BIDEN LIMITED But the administration has been limited in its ability to push back. Instead, it has been voters including those in reliably conservative states that have exacted change to strict abortion laws throughout the country. Ballot measures in Kansas and Kentucky in 2022, and Ohio in 2023, rejected abortion bans, and Democrats hope to succeed this year with similar measures on ballots in Florida, New York, and potentially Missouri and Arizona. Failure in the upcoming elections could scuttle the Biden administrations work. The Republican Party platform announced this week expresses support for in vitro fertilization procedures, and defers to states to determine their own regulations on abortion. But allies of the former president have been discussing potential executive orders that could hamstring access to reproductive medicines and other contraceptives. Heres where it becomes so obvious why Roe v. Wade was such an important decision in this country: It established a threshold of protective rights, Becerra said. It established the preeminence of physicians and medical professionals making decisions about our health. It protected people who wanted to simply access the health care they needed. Over 171,000 women traveled to have an abortion last year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, fleeing in droves from Texas to California, from Idaho to Washington, and from Georgia to North Carolina. Some of those options may only grow more restricted after the November election. In North Carolina, for example, the outcome of the governors race will likely determine whether abortion access remains an option in the state. When Roe went away, it wasnt just abortion that was struck. It was our access to health care, period, he added. It was our personal freedom, our autonomy, to making health care decisions that was stripped from us. Lets just hope that we never get to the point where America has laws in place that continue to erode our rights, he added. A.K. the Belgian Malinois dog's journey from anti-poaching trainee to crime stopper in Namibia is documented in the documentary "Canine" Keith Prendred A.K. the Belgian Malinois A.K. the dog has dedicated his life to helping other animals. The Belgian Malinois is the star of Canine, a new documentary short film that follows the dog's path to becoming a well-trained anti-poaching hero. Canine starts with A.K.'s training, which took place in Cork, Ireland, with elite dog trainer Rory Hennebry who wanted to do his part to protect Namibia's endangered rhinos and elephants and follows the dog through his move to Africa and day-to-day life as an anti-poaching canine. Hennebry tells PEOPLE he trained with A.K. in Cork at K9 Wildlife Project until March 2022, when the dog was ready to travel to Namibia to meet the handler he would be stopping poachers with, Faan Oosthuizen - head of an anti-poaching strike force. Hennebry traveled with A.K. to Namibia and worked with Oosthuizen for two weeks before officially handing off the Belgian Malinois into his care. Aisling O'Connor A.K. with dog trainer Rory Hennebry Oosthuizen continued A.K.'s training, acquainting the dog with Namibia's parks and reserves. Now, the dog regularly patrols the parts of northern Namibia that rhinos and elephants call home. Related: Rare Rhino's Population Grows from 100 to 3,700 Rhinos as Poaching Deaths Fall, Report Finds "Primarily focused on the Damaraland and Kwando conservancies of northwest Namibia, A.K. is typically out on active patrols where he serves to detect and track potential poachers, and he also assists in the identification of snares and traps that indiscriminately target the wildlife of the area. This helps to prevent the tragic harm they cause and assists in the apprehension of poachers in the act of hunting the last remaining free-roaming desert elephants and rhinos that populate the vast lands," Hennebry shares. A.K. is also working on the big-picture fight against poaching. The dog and Oosthuizen are partnered with ERP Namibia, an organization working to establish a safe area of 50,000 hectares to act as a corridor for the elephants remaining in Namibia. Keith Prendred A.K. with his anti-poaching task force Related: Indianapolis Zoo Welcomes 'Magnificent' Rhino Calf Born on Super Bowl Sunday While A.K. assists with his effort, he is also regularly out in the field, stopping poachers in their tracks. "Anti-poaching canines like A.K. act as an extremely effective force multiplier in terrain that is difficult to negotiate and allow the teams they work with to move with speed to detect and track the perpetrators. They also allow the teams to move at night on the trail, an option not available without a trained dog," Hennebry says. 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. Some of A.K.'s recent wins include helping intercept and apprehend a suspect traveling with illegal rhino horn products in March 2024 and apprehending three suspects traveling to Zambia via the Zambezi River in Namibia with 21 elephant tusks they planned to sell in Zambia in May 2024 For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Belleville man wanted on five felony charges arrested after high-speed police chase A Belleville man with warrants for his arrest on charges in St. Clair County including felony domestic battery and kidnapping was arrested by local police last week following a high-speed chase in Washington and Perry counties. The Nashville Police Department arrested Michael Oliver, 45, on Friday, and he faces new criminal charges in Washington County related to the pursuit. No defense attorney was listed for Oliver in St. Clair County court records on Wednesday. Matt Foster, Olivers attorney in Washington County court, could not immediately be reached for comment. Fridays pursuit began around 10:30 p.m. when a Nashville police lieutenant attempted to stop a white Ford Explorer that was speeding and passing cars around a curve on Illinois 127 near Richview Road, according to a news release from police. The Nashville Police Department stated that the Ford Explorer did not stop and accelerated southbound out of Nashville toward Pinckneyville at speeds of over 100 mph. A Pinckneyville police officer set up spike strips on the north end of town, which deflated one of the Ford Explorers front tires. Police believe the SUV drove through the Perry County Courthouse lawn during the pursuit, causing damage. The SUV eventually struck a Perry County sheriff squad car, disabling both vehicles off the road south of Pinckneyville where they came to a stop. No one was injured, according to the Nashville Police Department. During the pursuit of a Ford Explorer from Illinois 127 in Nashville to south of Pinckneyville, the SUV struck a Perry County squad car. After a short pursuit on foot, police arrested Oliver and learned about his warrants in St. Clair County. St. Clair County States Attorney Jim Gomric charged Oliver with the following offenses: Aggravated domestic battery, a Class 2 felony Unlawful restraint, a Class 4 felony Three counts of kidnapping, a Class 2 felony Oliver is accused of striking a family or household member on the head on Jan. 27 in Fairview Heights, grabbing her and preventing her from leaving a car and kidnapping three children, two 9-year-old boys and a 1-year-old girl, according to charging documents. Associate Judge Sara Rice issued the warrant for his arrest on the St. Clair County felony charges on Jan. 31. Oliver also has a 2019 warrant from St. Clair County Associate Judge Patricia Kievlan related to traffic offenses in Caseyville. On Wednesday, Washington County States Attorney Daniel Janowski charged Oliver with aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude police and unlawful possession of a Missouri license plate, which are both Class 4 felonies. Police submitted information to Perry County States Attorney David Searby Jr. for possible additional charges. Searby had not yet reviewed the information as of Wednesday. Its been more than 65 years since Charles and Lucy Winton Bell of Wayzata began acquiring land in Afton for what would eventually become a conservancy. Charles Bell, the son of the founder of General Mills, and Lucy Winton Bell wanted to do something to help address the challenges of diminishing wild spaces, water pollution and the lack of outdoor education in the east metro area. The couple established the Belwin Foundation a combination of their names, Bell and Winton and donated 225 acres of their land to it. They also signed an agreement with St. Paul Public Schools that would dedicate their land to outdoor science education for children. More than a half million children have come to Belwin Conservancy for outdoor science education over the years, and more than 1,500 acres in the St. Croix Valley have been protected from development. The permanently protected land includes woodland, prairie, oak savanna, ponds, streams and wetlands. On Wednesday, Belwin officials will launch a $10.2 million capital campaign to make one of the areas most diverse nature preserves more accessible. Money raised through the capital campaign, dubbed Inspiring through Nature, will be used to improve educational facilities, open more land to the public and protect and restore critical habitat in the Valley Creek watershed, said Katie Bloome, Belwins executive director since 2018. We know people benefit from time spent in nature, but as the area around Belwin develops, wild spaces are being lost, she said. People need places where they can sustain that connection. New education center Belwin officials have already raised $7.8 million toward the goal of the capital campaign the first in the history of the organization, which was founded in 1970. About $3.5 million of the campaign is being used to create a new 5,000-square-foot Peter J. King Family Foundation Wetlands Center, which will allow Belwin to accommodate an additional 5,000 students per year, including students from Stillwater Area Public Schools, Bloome said. The new education center also will be home to Belwins adaptive outdoor education programs. Designed for SPPS students who have special needs, the building will feature support spaces like calm rooms, easy access to surrounding paved trails for children and adults with mobility devices, and geothermal heating and cooling, she said. Students from St. Paul Public Schools have been visiting Belwin every year since 1971, said SPPS Interim Superintendent John Thein. For many, it is their first time experiencing the beauty and vastness of nature, he said. We are thrilled that this space will become even more welcoming and inclusive for the next generation of SPPS students. Not done growing David Hartwell, 67, of Minneapolis, is the president of the Belwin board. The grandson of Charles and Lucy Bell, Hartwell is serving his 50th year on the Belwin board. My grandparents bought 66 acres (for $33,000) in 1958, and they immediately started to worry about what their neighbors were going to do, he said during a tour of the site on Tuesday in his familys red 1960 Fiat 600 Jolly. So they bought out additional property to keep it from being developed in the 1960s. My grandmother finally said to my grandfather, Figure out what youre going to do with this because we dont need this extra property, he said. He started looking for programs that would use it. They talked to the Boy Scouts, they talked to lots of different groups. St. Paul Public Schools officials had hired someone to find a facility to do environmental education in the St. Croix Valley, and he connected with the Bells in July of 1970, Hartwell said. Three months later, they signed an agreement, he said. That would never happen like that today. It would take years. Belwin isnt done growing, according to Hartwell. The organization eventually would like to end up with 2,000 acres of protected land in the area. Its really infill at this point, Hartwell said. Its our border protection. Its infill of stuff between things that we already own. We have kind of gotten as far as we are going to get without buying developments and tearing down houses, which just isnt practical. Fishers and mountain lions have recently been spotted on Belwin land, he said. Weve been very lucky to have the opportunity to preserve it at this point for the health of animals, for human health, for mental health, he said. Hartwell said Charles Bell, who died in 2003 at the age of 95, loved coming back to the St. Croix River Valley from his home in Santa Barbara, Calif., and visiting the property. Id always take him out here, and he would always say the same thing as we drove in: I cant believe we did this, he said. He was amazed we got to where we were. I think hed be even more amazed to see how big its gotten. Other plans Related Articles In addition to the new Peter J. King Family Foundation Wetlands Center, Belwin officials plan to use money raised through the capital campaign to install clearer, more visible entrance signage and infrastructure across the conservancys multiple sites; the opening of Oxbow Trails, a new public hiking area on St. Croix Trail north of downtown Afton; habitat protection and restoration along Valley Creek; and renovations to the Savanna Center, a new program and artist-in-residence site located on a 300-acre oak savanna. Lead campaign gifts include $2 million from the Bell/Hartwell Family, $1.3 million from the Peter J. King Family Foundation, $1 million from the Washington County Land and Water Legacy Program, $500,000 from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, $435,000 from the Smikis Foundation, $380,000 from the Outdoor Heritage Fund, and $250,000 from the Fred C. and Katherine B. Andersen Foundation. We want to be an asset for the community, Hartwell said. We have hiking trails that are open here for anyone who wants to use them. The local community often doesnt have much in the way of that, but weve been able to help create that for the community. Violet Affleck, the daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, who has attracted attention for frequently wearing a face mask in public, has called for masks to be made compulsory in Los Angeles hospitals to confront the long COVID crisis. Affleck, 18, said, in a public representation to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors that she had contracted a long COVID-like condition in 2019 and that she believed that masks should be made available in government facilities. She also called for such facilities to use powerful far-UVC light, which has germicidal properties. Violet Affleck holding it down at the LA County Board of Supervisors demanding mask availability, mask mandates in hospitals, and clean air in all government buildings including jails and detention centers. Go Violet! pic.twitter.com/B8PN3jl5F6 Joaquin Beltran for a Free Palestine (@joaquinlife) July 10, 2024 Governing authorities must resist mask bans, she said. Affleck, who wore a protective face mask, spoke during so-called public comments, where residents have the opportunity to address the board, the governing body for Los Angeles County. Introducing herself, she said: Hi, Violet Affleck, Los Angeles resident, first-time voter, Im 18. She said: One in 10 infections leads to long COVID, which is a devastating neurological and cardiovascular illness that can take away peoples ability to work, see, move, and even think. To confront the long COVID crisis, I demand mask availability, air filtration, and far-UVC lights in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical facilities. Affleck, who is reportedly headed to Yale University after graduating from high school in May, detailed her experience of contracting a post-viral condition in 2019. She said: Im OK now, but I saw firsthand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses. She argued that long COVID stands to exacerbate our homelessness crisis, as well as the suffering of many people in our city. It hits communities of color, disabled people, elderly people, trans people, women, and anyone in a public-facing essential job the hardest. Affleck, the eldest of Garner and Ben Afflecks three children, was seen wearing a mask while attending a Broadway show this year. 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. Violet Affleck, the daughter of actors Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, spoke out at this weeks Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting. On July 9, the 18-year-old made an impassioned plea regarding the availability of facemasks during the public comment section of the meeting. A video of her comments was posted to X, formerly Twitter. She introduced herself as Violet Affleck, Los Angeles resident, first-time voter. Im 18 at the meeting with the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration. L.A. eatery sees big boost thanks to Kendrick Lamars Not Like Us music video Wearing a facemask, she revealed that in 2019 she contracted a post-viral condition. Im okay now, but I saw firsthand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharper relief, she explained. One in 10 infections leads to long COVID, which is a devastating neurological [and] cardiovascular illness that can take away peoples ability to work, move, see, and even think, she continued. It stands to exacerbate our homelessness crisis, as well as the suffering of many people in our city. It hits communities of color, disabled people, elderly people, trans people, women and anyone in a public-facing essential job the hardest. While many feel the pandemic is long gone, its having a lasting effect on others. According to the Mayo Clinic, long COVID symptoms include fatigue, fever, respiratory issues and symptoms that worsen after physical or mental effort. Long COVID or post-COVID-19 syndrome occurs when someone experiences new, returning or ongoing symptoms about four weeks after getting COVID-19. The Mayo Clinic cited that some people, post-COVID-19 syndrome lasts months or years or causes disability. Due to these findings and her health issues, Affleck pushed for facemasks to be more available and touched on other ways people with these conditions can be kept safe. To confront the long COVID crisis, I demand mask availability, air filtration and far-UVC light in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical facilities, she explained. She also urged that the board help expand the availability of high-quality free tests and treatment. Affleck also urged the county to oppose mask bans for any reason. They do not keep us safer, they make vulnerable members of our community less safe and make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together. Thank you, she concluded. The teenager is often seen wearing a facemask while out and about. According to the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Healths website, people within the county must wear masks in certain instances. This includes, but is not limited to: As required in the workplace. As required by current LACDPH Health Officer Orders. In health care settings, when visiting or receiving care, when LA County COVID-19 Hospital Admission Level is Medium or High. If it is required by the site, including some businesses, health facilities, schools, and workplaces. If you are sick with symptoms of cold, flu, or COVID-19, or if you test positive for COVID-19 (even if asymptomatic) and must be around others. Affleck is the eldest child of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck. The two married in 2005 and separated in 2015. Their divorce was finalized in 2018 after they jointly filed a year before. The couple have three children together: Violet, Fin and Samuel. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. On Monday (July 8), civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump stood outside a Hyatt Regency and demanded justice for a Milwaukee man who died after he was held face down by hotel security guards. DVontaye Mitchell, 43, died on June 30 after allegedly entering a womens bathroom at the hotel. Crump said Mitchell was having a mental health crisis. Everybody in America after George Floyd should have trained their employees and security personnel to not put knees on peoples backs and necks, Crump said duringa July 8 press conference. And when people are having problems breathing, dont keep them in a prone position. Crump has become synonymous with high-profile civil rights cases. Here is a list of his most notable ones to date. The Estate of Henrietta Lacks Photo: Jerry Jackson (Getty Images) In the lawsuit Crump filed against Thermo Fisher on behalf of the estate of Henrietta Lacks, he stated the company took Lacks DNA without consent. This led to her relatives being unable to profit from what her cells created. With the help of Crump, Lacks family signed a confidential agreement with Thermo Fisher on what would have been Lacks 103rd birthday. Tyre Nichols Photo: Ziyu Julian Zhu (Getty Images) Last year, Tyre Nichols was pulled over in Memphis for allegedly driving under the influence. Memphis Scorpion unit members dragged him out of his vehicle and assaulted him. Nichols managed to escape on foot, but another group of Scorpion officers beat him senseless. Nichols died just days later from his injuries. Crump represented his family in a civil lawsuit against the five officers criminally charged, the City of Memphis and another officer who was involved in the incident but was terminated. Dexter Wade Photo: ABC News Last year, Dexter Wade was run over by an off-duty police officer in Jackson, Miss. and later buried in a paupers grave without his family being alerted to his death. Wades family recruited Crump to receive answer about their loved ones tragic death. Crump arranged for an independent autopsy before Wade was reburied in a cemetery with a headstone bearing his name. He also called for an investigation from the Justice Department. MacLaren Childrens Center Screenshot: X/Twitter In 2022, Crump filed a lawsuit on behalf of 12 individuals who were allegedly sexually abused in L.A. County-run MacLaren Childrens Center. The statement that was provided explained the centers staff overmedicated, taunted and restrained the children. The staff was also accused of not having proper training or given sufficient background checks. Ralph Yarl Photo: ABC News Last year, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was headed to pick up his younger siblings in Kansas City, Missouri but accidentally went to the wrong house. When Yarl rang the doorbell and waited on the porch, Andrew Lester appeared behind his glass door and shot him twice with his firearm. Luckily, Yarl recovered from his injuries and his family retained Crump to represent them. Marsha Ervin Photo: Tallhassee Democrat The elderly Marsha Ervin was arrested and charged with voter fraud last year. She was initially flagged for allegedly claiming she was eligible to vote in Florida during 2020 and 2022 while being on probation. Crump immediately spoke out and requested her charges be dropped. He also demanded that Florida stop intimidating Black voters. Buffalo Supermarket Shooting Victims Photo: John Normile (Getty Images) Relatives of Ruth Whitfield, an 82-year-old woman killed at Tops supermarket in 2022 by white supremacist Payton Gendron, hired Crump to represent them in a possible lawsuit. Crump demanded police officers determine if a far-right conspiracy theory was a factor in Gendrons racist attack. Jerome Stevenson Photo: KALB Jerome Stevenson, an inmate at the Avoyelles Parish DC-1 facility, died on Nov. 6 after a violent incident involving two corrections officers and another inmate two days earlier. Crump worked with the family and the NAACP to investigate the incident. Frank Tyson Screenshot: WKYC Earlier this year, 53-year-old Frank Tyson died while crying I cant breathe during an encounter with police officers. Tyson was restrained by officers, face down and handcuffed with his hands behind his back. His family obtained Crump for representation, who said: The loss of Frank Tyson is an infuriating tragedy, echoing the haunting cries of George Floyd, whose death should have meant that this one never happened. Tennessee State University Screenshot: WKRN Crump aided the defense of both staff and students at Tennessee State University. He requested that lawmakers allocate funds toward the school that he claimed were long overdue. The Biden administration released a statement that addressed Tennessee underfunding its HBCUs by billions. Crump worked diligently to recover these funds. Raejonette Morgan Photo: ABC News In early July 2024, 22-year-old Raejonette Morgan was found shot to death inside a car full of bullet holes in South Los Angeles. It was initially unclear whether the vehicle belonged to the suspect or the victim, the LASD release said. From the patrol car, the Deputy requested assistance from South Los Angeles Sheriffs Station and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Morgans family is demanding to know the actions of the first deputy who was called to the scene, who is a member of the Parks Bureau. The family recruited Crump to assist them. Trayvon Martin Photo: The Fayetteville Observer In 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot to death near a condominium complex in Sanford, Fla. by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, whose father is white and whose mother is Hispanic, was a self-appointed, armed neighborhood watcher who said he was merely defending himself and was ultimately acquitted of murder charges. Crump, hired by Martins family, demanded Zimmermans arrest and led demonstrations calling for charges be brought against him. Eboni Pouncy Photo: ABC News Houston woman Eboni Pouncy was shot five times by police after they mistook her for an intruder. Officers were responding to an alleged break-in after Pouncys friend broke a window to get into her apartment when she forgot her key. Pouncy survived her injuries and hired Crump to represent her. Crump compared the case to the police killing of Breonna Taylor in her apartment in 2020. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Controversial conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire and former editor-at-large of Breitbart News, addresses the student group Young Americans for Freedom at the University of Utah's Social and Behavioral Sciences Lecture Hall, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017. | Leah Hogsten We are in the midst of a trust crisis in the world of media, said conservative personality Ben Shapiro at the start of his remarks before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Shapiro along with Unilever USA president Herrish Patel, global CEO of GroupM Christian Juhl and competitive law scholar Spencer Waller appeared during a hearing Wednesday called Collusion in the Global Alliance for Responsible Media. During his testimony, Shapiro said the mainstream media works to preserve left-wing narratives and gave the example of how media outlets have reported on President Joe Bidens mental competency. He said when there were questions previously about Bidens health, those were dismissed. Then, Shapiro said, Bidens lackluster debate performance showed why so many Americans have lost trust in the media. The question isnt really why the legacy media have lost Americans trust; we know that answer, said Shapiro. The question is why, despite that loss of trust, the legacy media continue to gain share in the advertising market. Shapiro said it was because of pressure put on social media companies by Democratic politicians and the White House to censor the content of conservatives. Shapiro: Group helps advertisers avoid conservative sites Pointing toward the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, an initiative aimed at addressing what the group calls harmful content online, Shapiro said the standards this group employs which advertisers and platforms use are partisan in nature. Shapiro said the group also has extensive reach. Its members account for 90% of ad spending in the United States, almost $1 trillion, Shapiro stated. In other words, if youre not getting ad dollars from GARM members, its nearly impossible to run an ad-based business. Daily Wire, a conservative media group co-founded by Shapiro, has experienced the impact of this, he said. Since 2021, after Democrat officials further turned up the heat on social media companies, my personal Facebook page has seen an over 80% drop in impressions. The solution is to protect the First Amendment, said Shapiro, and he explained two ways that could happen. Shapiro said firstly, Congress could investigate informal and formal agreements between GARM and executive branch and agencies. Second, Congress can itself stop engaging in violation of free speech principles. After Shapiros opening testimony, Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wisc., asked him to explain the importance of advertising when growing a company. Shapiro said when the Daily Wire started, it also totally relied on advertising revenue. The company was able to amass a subscriber base that accounts for much more of their revenue now, he said. But Shapiro said he was concerned about start-up companies that might be barred from receiving advertising revenue for partisan reasons. Swalwell questions Shapiro about Project 2025 Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said Shapiro wouldnt get any censorship from him, but said he wanted to know how much Shapiro supported Project 2025 (a set of conservative policy proposals from The Heritage Foundation). I think, like President Trump, I havent looked all that deeply at Project 2025, but it seems that Democrats on this committee, sort of like Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, think if they say Project 2025 enough, their presidential candidate becomes alive again, said Shapiro. Swalwell said he would go through parts of Project 2025 and asked him about different parts of the policy. When asking Shapiro if he wanted less bureaucracy and more efficiency, Shapiro said he did and Swalwell agreed. Swalwell then directed the conversation toward Shapiros views on immigration, the abortion pill, same-sex marriage and social security. Im not sure why Im testifying on immigration at this point, said Shapiro as he explained he did not support deportations in cases where people were working and paying taxes, but he does support deportations when the government benefits given exceed what the person puts into the system. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater and thats a restriction on speech as you have recognized before but you can yell theater in a crowded fire, said Swalwell, as he suggested the committee was wasting time. Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., was critical of Swalwell for his questioning of Shapiro, particularly as it pertained to his religious views. Bishop asked Shapiro about the accuracy of the standards imposed by GARM to which Shapiro responded that he thought they were vague and imposed subjectively. The House report on GARM The committee released a report Wednesday with its findings. Through GARM, large corporations, advertising agencies and industry associations participated in boycotts and other coordinated action to demonetize platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content deemed disfavored by GARM and its members, the report said. This collusion can have the effect of eliminating a variety of content and viewpoints available to consumers. The report delved into examples including when GARM and its members discussed a strategy of blocking certain news outlets like Fox News, The Daily Wire and Breitbart News. The committee included emails and statements from John Montgomery (GroupM), Rob Rakowitz (GARM) and Joe Barone (GroupM). I dont know Daily Wire that well, but I would imagine that most of our clients wouldnt want to be on either side of politically divisive content, so they probably block them anyway. ... If we block DW why wouldnt we (be) blocking Fox News? Montgomery wrote in an email. Barone said, (W)e have Daily Wire on our Global High Risk exclusion list, categorized as Conspiracy Theories. The report also cited Dan Rakowitz, the co-founder of GARM, as expressing frustrating about the extreme global interpretations of the U.S. Constitution. He asked why are we using principles for governance and applying them as literal law from 230 years ago (made by white men exclusively). The committee report also said GARM approached the Global Disinformation Index as part of its move to create a system in which only legitimate news received funding, and all advertising revenue was steered away from so-called disinformation sites. The Global Disinformation Index released a list of the riskiest sites with the highest disinformation risk which included the New York Post, Reason Magazine, RealClearPolitics, The Daily Wire, The Blaze, The American Conservative, The Federalist and The American Spectator. On the contrary, the list of Least risky sites included left-leaning news sources such (as) BuzzFeed News and HuffPost, said the report. The report also included discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Unilever, through GARM, also expressed issues with Mr. (Elon) Musk exposing the truth about how Twitter, prior to Mr. Musks acquisition, censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, said the report. The committee said that Unilever could have acted on its own instead of going through GARM. The committee will continue its oversight of GARM and the adequacy of existing antitrust laws to determine whether legislative reforms are necessary to address this dangerous, anticompetitive behavior, concluded the report. Sen. Michael Bennet on Tuesday became the first Democratic senator to publicly say he doesnt believe President Joe Biden is capable of winning reelection after his disastrous debate performance last month. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House, he told CNNs Kaitlan Collins. So for me, this isnt a question about polling. Its not a question about politics. Its a moral question about the future of our country. The White House, in the time since that disastrous debate, I think, has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election, the Colorado Democrat said. His comments underscore a growing concern among congressional Democrats that Bidens reelection bid could hurt the party in down-ballot races this fall. Democrats, including those inside the administration, view this week as critical to Bidens political survival, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill gathered privately for their weekly meetings on Tuesday. Neither House nor Senate Democrats emerged from their meetings with a consensus on how to move forward, though it was clear that concerns had been aired behind closed doors. Bennet, who stopped short of calling on Biden to withdraw, also warned on The Source about whats at stake in the 2024 election, saying that losing the House and Senate to Republicans would be an American tragedy. The stakes could not be higher, he said. Bennet said his voters have deep concerns about whether Biden can win and urged the White House to not ignore worries about his viability. Bennets comments confirm earlier CNN reporting that Bennet told his colleagues during the private meeting between Senate Democrats Tuesday that he does not think Biden can win. Bidens performance at the CNN debate in June kicked off a flurry of concern over his mental fitness and the viability of his campaign. While several House Democrats have publicly called on Biden to drop out of the race, the president has vowed to continue. He told congressional Democrats in a letter on Monday that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, he is fully committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump. Responding to Bennets comments, Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement to CNN: This was always going to be a close race and the dynamics at play are the ones weve long anticipated: voters continue to be deeply concerned by Donald Trump and his harmful agenda, and the more we engage and reach out to voters, the more they support President Biden. There are a lot of days between now and election day, and the hard work of earning every single vote is far from over, he added. CNN previously reported Sens. Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester also said Biden would not win during the meeting in the Capitol, according to a source familiar. Another source confirmed that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told senators at the meeting they should speak with the White House directly. Other senators also said they believed the administration is more receptive to hearing from senators directly. After the meeting ended, many Democratic senators declined to talk to reporters. Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, an ally of Biden, was asked if a consensus had been reached in the meeting but only said that it was a constructive conversation. CNNs Dana Bash and Ted Barrett contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com DENVER (KDVR) U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is raising doubts about President Joe Bidens future as his partys nominee for president. Bennet appeared on CNN on Tuesday night and said he no longer thinks Biden will be able to beat former President Donald Trump. This race is on a trajectory that is very worrisome if you care about the future of this country, said Bennet, the senior senator from Colorado. Joe Biden was 9 points up at this time the last time he was running. Hillary Clinton was 5 points up. This is the first time in more than 20 years that a Republican president has been up in this part of the campaign. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House, Bennet continued. So for me, this isnt a question about polling. Its not a question about politics. Its a moral question about the future of our country, and I think its critically important for us to come to grips with what we face if together we put this country on the path of electing Donald Trump again. Could your Safeway be sold soon? See 89 Colorado stores on planned sale list Bennet said these were comments he had been making privately but decided to share his opinion with the public after he was contacted by the news media. He did not go as far as calling for the president to drop out of the race. Instead, he said the campaign needs to demonstrate it has a convincing plan to win the election. Bennet made similar comments about the Biden campaign to National Public Radio when asked what could happen if Biden stepped aside to make way for a new candidate for the Democrats. Well, Im sure we could figure it out if we had to figure it out. Thats no ones first choice. Thats no ones first choice. But I think we have a moral obligation to the country to establish that we can win, Bennet said. Bennet is now one of the highest-ranking Democrats to publicly cast doubt on the Biden campaign. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. MACAO, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Non-Chinese permanent residents of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) started to apply for mainland travel permits on Wednesday, with applicants having submitted documents earlier online. China's immigration authorities announced on July 1 that starting July 10, 2024, non-Chinese permanent residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and Macao SAR are eligible to apply for special travel permits to enter the Chinese mainland. According to the National Immigration Administration, permit holders are allowed multiple entries into the mainland within a five-year validity period, with each stay not exceeding 90 days. Anthony Cheang, a Canadian citizen who earned his permanent residence in Macao around 10 years ago, was among the first applicants. He told Xinhua that the whole process was smooth and "only took about 10 minutes." As an airline pilot, Cheang believes the new policy opens up opportunities for him to work in the Chinese mainland. As a lawyer of Portuguese nationality, Amelia Antonio has lived in Macao for 42 years. She was excited to apply for the travel permit because she thought it would allow her to have more contact with the mainland. "We can better explain to our friends what we see and the differences in the scenes," she told Xinhua. Chen Jiemei, executive deputy general manager of China Travel Service (Macao) Ltd.'s travel permit center, which handles the applications, noted that to better support the new policy, the company has deployed Portuguese-speaking and English-speaking staff workers and set up four special counters. She said that this policy facilitates the entry of non-Chinese Macao residents into the mainland for investment, family visits, sightseeing, or business trips. "It will contribute to the moderately diversified development of Macao's economy," Chen said. Even though Beryl lost its status as a tropical storm, it still packed a punch as it moved from Arkansas to Michigan, bringing with it tornadoes and flash flooding. The remnants of the storm, which had made landfall in Texas on Monday as a Category 1 hurricane, are expected to move on Wednesday afternoon and evening into western Pennsylvania, upstate New York and northern New England, where tornadoes are possible. PHOTO: An ABC News graphic shows flash flood threats in the Northeast and Midwest United States on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (ABC News) In addition to tornadoes, there is a significant threat for flash flooding from northern New York into Vermont and New Hampshire, with up to 5 inches of rain is possible in a short period of time. The worst of Beryl should stay just north and west of Interstate 95 corridor. PHOTO: An ABC News graphic shows flash flood threats in the Northeast and Midwest United States on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (ABC News) At least eight people were killed when Hurricane Beryl tore through Texas and Louisiana on Monday, including a civilian employee of the Houston Police Department who drove into flood conditions on the way to work, officials said. MORE: Remnants of Hurricane Beryl move north as Texas recovers from deadly storm Multiple fatalities were due to fallen trees, officials said. PHOTO: Debris is lifted during a tornado in Mount Vernon, Indiana, U.S. July 9, 2024 in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. (Jessyka Cox via Reuters) Two reported tornadoes had ripped through Kentucky and Indiana on Tuesday. Up to 8 inches of rain fell just out of Little Rock, Arkansas, flooding homes and neighborhoods on Tuesday. And Up to 3.6 inches of rain fell in about 1 hour and 40 minutes in Lansing, Michigan, producing flash flooding. More than 1.7 million power customers were without power in Texas early on Wednesday, almost two days after the storm rolled through the state, according to PowerOutage.us, a website that tracks power providers. Beryl remnants move into Northeast, bringing flash flood and tornado threats originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Former President Donald Trump participates in a presidential debate at CNN Studios with President Joe Biden on June 27, 2024 in Atlanta. Credit - Justin SullivanGetty Images This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIMEs politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. Perhaps the most exasperating part of being President is the voters fast forgetting. The fleeting highsthe faux victory over the Taliban, the real death of Osama bin Ladennever linger too long. But the upside of Americans constant rewrite of our collective memories is that the bad ones dont stick around, either. That is the optimistic outlook President Joe Bidens allies are spinning as they near the two-week mark after a disastrous debate that raised serious questions about the Presidents mental acuity and cognitive abilities. With Democrats in open despondency and unable to force Bidens hand, theres a very good chance that the energy at next weeks GOP nominating convention in Milwaukee will feel more like a UFC fight than a C-SPAN hearing. That collective bullying is going to do Democrats few favors as it is only likely to redouble Bidens resolve not to have his hand forced. Internally and out, Bidens top advisers are treating the fallout as hypersensitivity from pols and pundits inside the Beltway, most of whom seem to have forgotten its only July. Voting doesnt start until September, and there will be two nominating conventions and the Olympics to shift the conversation among the electorate. And theyre pointing to perhaps the most notorious campaign moment of this century to press that argument: the infamous Access Hollywood tape and its audio of Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault. Released within a month of Election Day in 2016, many assumed the scandal would force Trump to step aside. Instead he moved right past it and voters went along with it. On Election Day, he prevailedwinning over 64% of white working-class voters, 62% of white men, and 47% of white women. Some on Bidens team are pointing now to that Access Hollywood episode, which actually moved Trumps polling down by less than one percentage point for less than three weeks; the tape aired on Oct. 7, 2016, and he was back to his normal poll standing by Oct. 25, according to 538s polling average archive. The analogy is, of course, imperfect. But it matches other moments that evaporate. As U.S. News & World Reports Olivier Knox pointed out to me the day after the on-stage meltdown in Atlanta, Barack Obamas polling bump after bin Ladens death lasted just six weeks in 2011. Separately, when Trump contracted Covid-19 and had to be airlifted to Walter Reed in 2020, his polling dipped again by less than one percentage point. This is one way those steeped in Biden World are reassuring themselvesand the bossthat these things that seem huge among political junkies seldom really break through to the gen pop. Word went out from Atlanta in real time as the debate continued: a 90-minute error would not define the choice voters face in November. Also, they had time. Also, while Bidens polling has slid, it doesnt appear to be as bad as the collapse of poll numbers that many had predicted. Even so, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Tuesday moved Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada from toss-up status to leaning Republican. The analysts also moved Minnesota, New Hampshire, and a lone congressional district in Nebraska from like Democratic strongholds to merely leaning Democrats way. Although some polls had Biden holding steady, others had him down 6 points in some places like Georgia and nationally. For the survey of likely voters, it was a three-point swing in less than two weeks. All of it may prove temporary, Bidens boosters argue. The Trump candidacy provides plenty of reasons for Democrats to wince, but one winsome lesson: nothing lasts forever, not even a terrible showing that has prompted recriminations aplenty inside Democratic circles. As further proof: 51% of voters say they now approve of Trump's performance when he was President, a benchmark he never reached while in the job. Bidens team is counting on such a fickle electorate and hoping the nonstop replay of his admittedly terrible answers doesnt stick. "They think they can weather this, and so do I," said one lawmaker who has heard the Access Hollywood analogy and is a close ally to the White House. "Joe Biden is the only person to have defeated Donald Trump. Why would you swap that out, even for someone as promising as the Vice President?" The big caveat to leaning on polls from 2016 is this: Trumps return to his previous levels still left him trailing Hillary Clinton just about everywhere. Trumps win came seemingly out of nowhere. This time, Trump is polling ahead of Biden in every swing state, and Biden has yet to break the 50% marker in any of them. Biden, meanwhile, remains a highly unwelcome presence on the ticket let alone as its leader. As TIMEs Nik Popli reports from Capitol Hill, there is a begrudging acceptance that Biden is likely their nominee whether they want him or not. After only a handful of House Democrats had publicly urged Biden to exit the race, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have rekindled the issue Wednesday morning by suggesting on Morning Joe that Biden should reconsider. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short, Pelosi said, as if Biden hadnt already made his position crystal clear for well over a week. Biden seems like he is taking a page right from his predecessor: fake it until you make it. Trump pretended there was not a crisis until there was not one. Biden is trying to assure voters that hes up for a task at hand for another four years, a challenge made more acute with each passing day of professed ambivalence. He told ABC News George Stephanopolous that he knew he had a bad night but also kindled a low-light firestorm over whether he used goodest job in one answer. (ABC News official transcript, edited at the request of Team Joe, concluded he used good as job in a sentence that didnt become much more clear with the tweak.) Plus, there's the added bonus that no Democrats actually think there are good odds of Biden stepping aside. A YouGov poll shows 72% of Democrats think they're stuck with Biden whether they like it or not. Biden is banking that Democrats by Election Day will forget they ever had doubts about his candidacy. Given how wait-it-out worked for others, its not an irrational playand theres clearly plenty of forgetting afoot already. Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter. Write to Philip Elliott at philip.elliott@time.com. U.S. President Joe Biden vows "Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail," in remarks Tuesday to NATO leaders on the 75th Anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI July 9 (UPI) -- In his opening speech at this week's NATO summit in Washington, D.C., President Joe Biden announced plans to supply new strategic air defense systems to Ukraine to fight off Russia's invasion, as he vowed "Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail." "Together, we built a global coalition to stand with Ukraine," Biden told NATO leaders of the 32-member military alliance gathered Tuesday at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, where NATO was formed 75 years ago. "All told, Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional interceptors over the next year, helping protect Ukrainian cities against Russian missiles and Ukrainian troops facing their attacks on the front lines," Biden proclaimed. "The United States will make sure that when we export critical air defense interceptors, Ukraine goes to the front of the line," Biden added. "They will get this assistance before anyone else gets it." Gathering at the Mellon Auditorium, where the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949, NATO Leaders commemorated 75 years of unity, strength, solidarity and resolve. One for all, and all for one #NATOSummit | #1NATO75years NATO (@NATO) July 9, 2024 U.S. President Joe Biden awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg after delivering remarks on the 75th Anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI During his 13-minute prepared remarks, Biden announced that Ukraine will receive five additional air defense units to help defend against Russian attacks. Biden's announcement comes one day after Russian strikes killed at least 38 people, including two people at a Kyiv's major children's hospital. Germany and Romania will join the United States in providing Patriot batteries of their own. The Netherlands will join forces with other countries for an additional battery, while Italy will provide a SAMP-T long-range air defense system. U.S. President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders and partners participate in a group photo on the 75th Anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI NATO leaders will draft a joint policy with support for Ukraine during their meetings on Wednesday and Thursday. "Make no mistake, Russia is failing in this war. More than two years into [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's war of choice, its losses are staggering. More than 350,000 Russian troops, dead, wounded ... many young people have left Russia because they no longer see a future in Russia," Biden said. U.S. President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders join a group photo on the 75th Anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI "Before this war, Putin thought NATO would break. Today, NATO is stronger than it's ever been in its history," Biden added. "When this senseless war began, Ukraine was a free country. Today, it's still a free country and the war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country." NATO's outgoing secretary general Jens Stoltenberg called for continued Western support for Ukraine during his speech, saying "the biggest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine." U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden listen to presentations Tuesday at the 75th Anniversary of NATO event at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI "The outcome of this war will shape global security for decades to come," Stoltenberg told NATO members before Biden awarded him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. "Honored and humbled to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Biden," Stoltenberg wrote Tuesday in a post on X. "I see this as a recognition not just for me, but for the millions of men and women who serve our great alliance, in and out of uniform," he added. "We are stronger and safer together in NATO." Honoured and humbled to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from @POTUS Biden. I see this as a recognition not just for me, but for the millions of men and women who serve our great Alliance, in and out of uniform. We are stronger and safer together in #NATO. pic.twitter.com/MQu8MqsR6e Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg) July 9, 2024 Oookey dokey, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer opened his weekly press conference on Tuesday, showing no signs that hed just emerged from a multihour lunch with the members of his caucus, spinning their wheels about a plausible path forward for the presidential election. You know Democrats have a problem when Schumer has studiously avoided saying much about the leading topic in the news, in this case for nearly the past two weeks. At this press conference, after Schumer and other Democratic senators did their best to push across their message about Republicans hostility to abortion rights, the leader was ready to field questions. (I want to call on a woman first, Schumer said, since Democrats had been talking about abortion.) The first question was about whether he was confident President Joe Biden had what it takes to win in November and serve the next four years. As Ive said before, Im with Joe, Schumer said. Next. Thoughts on a challenge at the convention? As Ive said before, Im with Joe. Two questions later, thoughts on a statement the previous night from Sen. Patty Murraywho had conveniently left the press conference by that pointsuggesting that Biden consider dropping out? As Ive said before, Im with Joe. The Senate Democrats meeting, from which senators emerged with tight lips and pabulum about a productive meeting but no answers on whom Democrats should run for president, wasnt the Hills only such gathering of the day. House Democrats held a similarly downcast chat at their morning caucus, with one member telling Punchbowl News that it felt like a funeral. Plenty of members and senators seem to think that Biden is destined to lose. Not a whole lot are willing to walk the plank publicly on telling him to drop out, given that there is still zero indication that Biden willand they dont want to say something they cant take back. Biden, indeed, was still the presumptive Democratic nominee for president as of Tuesday night. And so long as theres a lack of consensus about what to doand consensus does not appear to be just around the cornerBiden will remain the nominee. House Democrats, especially, seemed a long ways away from dumping Biden after their Tuesday meeting, despite chatter that a deluge of defections was coming. Biden got the House fire under control not by pure dumb luck. For a president who has such trouble communicating clearly, Biden and his team have done an expert job constructing a wall of support in the chamber. In the fight for his survival, Biden has no bigger ally among House Democrats than the Congressional Black Caucus, the most powerful Democratic faction in the body, with whom Biden spoke on Monday night. Bidens work to save his candidacy in 2024 resembles the way he did it in 2020 after punishing losses in the first few Democratic primaries: by leaning on his core support among Black members and railing against the elites whove written him off. Biden has also protected his left flank by reaching out over the weekend to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and earning her support. He has also earned that of fellow Squad members Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley. The matter is closed, Ocasio-Cortez said Monday night. Is it, though? While Biden has stayed an open revolt in the House for now, that could all change after more private polling and analytics come backalong with some lawyering around complications that could accompany the choice to switch the ticketor should Biden have another well-publicized setback. And should there be a move against Biden, it would look much different from the current trickle of a member here or there. The dam would break at the instruction of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi. And Pelosi pointedly left that door open in a television interview Wednesday morning. When asked on MSNBC whether Biden had her support to remain atop the head of the ticket, Pelosi didnt give a straight answer. Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run, Pelosi said. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. Biden has not quite the anchor in the Senate that he has in the House. That doesnt mean, however, that Senate Democrats are any closer to moving against him. A plan from Virginia Sen. Mark Warner to organize a group of senators to urge Biden to reconsider his run was scuttled, with Biden campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond issuing a sharp warning to those like Warner that they risked alienating their Black base. Such threats from the Biden campaign, though, havent suppressed the angst. In their caucus meeting Tuesday, Sens. Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown, and Michael Bennet reportedly stated that they believed that Biden couldnt win in November. Bennet confirmed that he had said that in a television interview Tuesday night, during which he unloaded. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House, Bennet told CNN, adding, The White House, in the time since that disastrous debate, I think, has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election. Not all Senate Democrats were on the same page, though. Trusty Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, Bidens loyal home-state defender, made the case for Biden. And Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has argued that Biden has a path to victory by making a sharper economic contrast with Trump. So what consensus was there from the Senate meeting? There was certainly consensus on this critical point, Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said, that we need to defeat Donald Trump. It is indeed the organizing purpose of the Democratic Party to win elections, so its good that they have consensus on that. It is easy to mock congressional Democrats for their indecisiveness. I came right up to it at the end of that last paragraph and decided that it was time to wrap things up. Because the indecisiveness here does seem proportional to the weight of the decision that needs to be made. Some Democrats think that the stakes are too high to venture into the unknown mess that could arrive if Biden, who has beaten Trump once, were to drop out. The idea that a last-minute swap can be executed and solve the problem has a tinge of fantasy to it. The counter to that would be that, well, its looking as if Trump will beat Biden, so why not try anything else? If you think about this and come down firmly on one side, youre probably not thinking hard enough. But the upshot of this indecisiveness is that each day that congressional Democrats arent in agreement about what to do is another day that Biden survives. And if youre the White House, youre counting five more days until the Republican National Convention could, potentially, steal the medias glare away from what has been the only politics story since the presidential debate on June 27. N.C. Attorney General and candidate for Governor Josh Stein fires up the crowd at a rally for President Joe Biden at the Jim Graham Building at the fairgrounds in Raleigh, Friday, June 28, 2024. Democrats across the country are fretting about President Joe Bidens chances in November after a dismal debate performance and subsequent interviews and media reports invited questions about his health and mental acuity. Could that have an impact on candidates down the ballot, particularly in a swing state like North Carolina? The short answer is yes. The main driver of voter turnout in presidential elections is the race at the top of the ticket, experts say so if theres not much enthusiasm for the Democratic nominee, some people might not show up at all. That matters in North Carolina, where statewide elections tend to be close, and even a slight drop in turnout could affect the outcome. In North Carolinas gubernatorial election, most polls have shown Attorney General Josh Stein running a few points ahead of Biden, typically slightly ahead of or locked in a tie with Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. The race between Stein and Robinson is one of the most closely watched and important gubernatorial contests in the country. But a drop in support for Biden wouldnt increase the margin between Stein and Biden, David McLennan, a political science professor at Meredith College who directs the Meredith Poll, said. Expected Democratic votes for Biden are also expected Democratic votes for Stein, so if those voters stay home, it would hurt them both. If Biden sinks, then I think he brings all the other candidates down with him, McLennan said. If Biden enthusiasm goes down, that could mean that turnout among Democratic and Democratic leaning voters could be depressed, and that hurts down-ballot races, not just Biden. Chris Cooper, a Western Carolina University political science professor, agreed that the Biden drama could create a mobilization problem for all Democrats, not just Stein. Its going to matter, Cooper said. We know that turnout drives from the top of the ticket, and if some Democrats are more likely to stay home, thats going to be bad for Josh Stein. Its bad for Jeff Jackson Itll be bad down the line for Democrats. The race for attorney general, between Jackson and Republican Dan Bishop, is also likely to be close. Democrats in other statewide races, such as Council of State and judicial races, could be affected as well. Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College, noted that there is a very small percentage of persuadable voters, so most elections are won by whichever party can get more of their own voters to show up. This year, both sides need their bases energized to show up in November, and anything that potentially creates a question of confidence at the top of the ticket may have some down-ballot effects, Bitzer said. That question of confidence is becoming more apparent. While it takes time for polling to fully reflect recent events, recent surveys indicate growing hesitation about Bidens candidacy, even among Democrats. A large swath of Democratic voters believe another Democrat should take Bidens place, and voters across all demographics perceive Biden as too old to be president and believe he should not be running again. The trick for down-ballot Democrats like Stein is to differentiate themselves from Biden, in hopes of capturing some moderate or conservative-leaning voters who feel comfortable splitting their ticket, Bitzer said. North Carolina has nominated a Republican president and Democratic governor in the same year before, including in 2016 and 2020, when the state voted for both Donald Trump and Gov. Roy Cooper. Stein won statewide races for attorney general in both of those years, albeit by less than 1 percentage point. But with such tight margins, split-ticket voting may not be enough to offset the issues Biden may bring to the ballot. It doesnt take a lot of votes in North Carolina to make a difference, and so if 1,000 people statewide stay home that wouldnt have otherwise, that could be enough, right? Cooper said. Of course, a lot about this situation is unprecedented, and the election is still four months away. By the time November rolls around, voters concerns about Biden may not be as potent, or there may be a wave of anti-Trump sentiment strong enough to motivate them to vote for Biden anyway. Its possible, too, that Biden will no longer be the Democratic nominee come November, replaced with another candidate who can better mobilize the partys base. One thing experts agree on, though: Anything could happen. Joe Biden has been facing calls to stand aside ahead of the November election - Bloomberg /Yuri Gripas A Democrat senator has broken ranks to say that Joe Biden cannot beat Donald Trump in the November election. Michael Bennet, a senator for Colorado, told CNN on Tuesday that Trump is on track to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House. Asked whether the US president should stand aside, Mr Bennet, while not explicitly calling on him to stand aside, said: We should be having a discussion. This is something for the president to consider. Mr Bennet is the first Democrat in the Senate to break with the president publicly. Michael Bennet has become the first Democrat in the Senate to call for a 'discussion' over Mr Biden running in November - Getty Images/Kevin Dietsch Democrats in Congress have been deeply divided over whether to fall in line behind Mr Bidens wounded re-election campaign or urge him to step aside because of persistent questions about his health and acuity. Seven Democrats in the House of Representatives have publicly asked the president to end his re-election bid. Mr Biden has repeatedly said he is staying in the race. The presidents halting June 27 debate performance against Trump and low public approval have raised fresh doubts about his ability to win the Nov 5 election or to keep up with the demands of his gruelling job for another four years. Mr Biden's performance in the debate last month raised more fears over his mental acuity - Reuters/Brian Snyder Many Democrats have expressed worries that Mr Biden has not done enough to convince voters that the debate was an aberration, rather than a true reflection of his abilities. Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer brushed off questions about Mr Bidens fitness, saying: Im with Joe during an exchange with reporters after Senate Democrats met to discuss the presidents campaign. Some Democrats have expressed frustration that the party was focused on Mr Bidens shortcomings rather than unifying against his Republican rival. 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. Should Biden take a cognitive test? Here's what it would and wouldn't tell us A patient takes cognitive test in Columbus, Ohio. Medical experts say the idea of asking President Biden and former President Trump to take some kind of cognitive exam has merit. (Jay LaPrete / Associated Press) It seemed like a sensible suggestion for assessing the capabilities of an 81-year-old man seeking voters' approval to remain in the White House until January 2029. To reassure the American people, ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked President Biden, would he be willing to take a cognitive test and share the results with the American people? Biden demurred. In carrying out his duties as leader of the free world, he said, "I have a cognitive test every single day." Though the president dismissed the suggestion, medical experts said the idea of having Biden along with his 78-year-old challenger, former President Trump take some kind of cognitive exam had merit. "Let's give it to both of them," said Dr. Louise Aronson , a geriatrician at UC San Francisco. Kevin Duff, a neuropsychologist at the Oregon Health & Science University's Alzheimers Disease Research Center, likened the proposal to the long-standing practice of asking presidential contenders to release their tax returns. Read more: Column: These doctors believe Biden has a neurological disorder. So what now? There would be several types of tests to choose from. A simple screening exam could involve just a handful of questions and be completed in minutes. An in-depth evaluation could take a full day. When former White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson evaluated Trump in 2018, he opted for the popular Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA Test. Over the course of about 15 minutes, patients are asked to recall a list of five words, draw a clock with its hands set to a particular time, do subtraction with double-digit numbers, and come up with the names of animals in a drawing, among other tasks. At the time, Trump scored a perfect 30 out of 30. Whether long or short, a good test measures multiple "domains of cognition," Aronson said. There's short-term memory and long-term memory. There's the ability to communicate through both spoken and written language. There's attention, comprehension, judgment, reasoning, problem-solving, decision-making and more. If a person completely aces a test, that tells you something," said Dr. Laura Mosqueda , a professor of family medicine and geriatrics at USCs Keck School of Medicine. "And if they bomb a test, it tells you something. A score that's somewhere in between can be trickier, experts say. An abnormal result on a cognitive test doesn't necessarily mean that a patient has a true cognitive problem. In about 10% of cases, it can be chalked up to a side effect of medications, an infection, a thyroid problem, a vitamin deficiency, a mood disorder such as anxiety or depression, or something else thats reversible. The thing we see constantly as geriatricians are medication reactions, Aronson said. I cant tell you how often we withdraw medications and then the person goes back to normal. Sometimes it's even simpler than that. Ive seen people diagnosed with dementia whove actually had a hearing problem but didnt want to admit it," Mosqueda said. "They couldnt hear the questions and so they were giving weird answers. Some cognitive changes are a normal part of the aging process. Thinking speed is a prime example. As we age, we will do things more slowly, Aronson said. That isnt necessarily a sign of cognitive impairment, she said, recalling a 101-year-old patient who missed only one point on a test but needed extra time to complete it. Read more: Opinion: Biden put Democrats in a pickle. What's the right way out of it? If a patient's cognitive problems persist, or if caregivers want to get a better handle on the subtleties of their condition, a more in-depth assessment may be in order. The tasks are more challenging, Duff said. For instance, instead of seeing whether a patient can remember five words after five minutes, a neuropsychologist might give a patient 15 words and see how many they recall half an hour later. On the MoCA Test, a score of 25 or lower is considered abnormal regardless of any other factors. With a more sensitive test, the results are compared with the performance of other people of the same age, educational background, career history and other characteristics, Duff said. A person with Biden's background would probably perform well on a MoCA test even if his cognition has declined, experts agreed. In certain patients who are particularly verbal, they wont remember the word they want but they can work their way around it, Aronson said. In such cases, a normal score on the test "would not necessarily rule out cognitive impairment." Duff said it would be like having an IndyCar driver who wants to compete in the Indianapolis 500 take the same behind-the-wheel test that the DMV uses for 16-year-olds. My concern is that a relatively easy test still doesnt mean youre up to the challenge of leading one of the most powerful countries in the world, he said. Read more: Column: The perils of diagnosing Biden's health by watching CNN This isnt an issue limited to presidential candidates. It may be appropriate to ask airline pilots, bus drivers, surgeons and other people with jobs that entail a high degree of responsibility to take cognitive tests as they get older, experts said. I think you can argue this is a job where your brain should be working pretty well, Aronson said. There is no expert consensus on whether to screen all older adults for cognitive impairment. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force weighed the issue in 2020 and determined there wasn't enough evidence to make a broad recommendation one way or the other. One of the reasons for the hesitation is that screening tests arent good enough, said Dr. Colleen Christmas, a geriatrician at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Youre going to catch a lot of people who dont have issues, and youre going to miss a lot of people who do, she said. There's also the fact that the aging process varies greatly from person to person. Its incredibly heterogeneous, Christmas said. Theres no way to say 80 equals old whereas 75 equals young. Read more: In deep-blue L.A., Democrats feel worried, betrayed, stoic about Biden's future Besides, no test, no matter how sensitive, can provide a full picture of a patient's cognitive function. Doctors also need the results of blood tests, brain scans, and information from family members, among other things. If an MRI revealed evidence of several small strokes in parts of the brain that align with the patient's cognitive deficits, for example, it would suggest a diagnosis of vascular dementia. Its like putting a puzzle together," Mosqueda said. Biden may be in a unique position, but his bristling reaction to the idea of taking a cognitive test was pretty typical, Christmas said. I think people are so afraid of the diagnosis of dementia that its upsetting to have your doctor or a family member suggest that you need cognitive testing, she said. Its a really scary prospect." This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) signed a memorandum of understanding and a student exchange agreement with the City University of Hong Kong to enhance academic collaboration, local media reported on Wednesday. The signing ceremony took place at UBD on Tuesday. According to the newly signed MoU and student exchange agreement, the two universities will strengthen academic and research collaborations in various areas of mutual interest, the local daily Borneo Bulletin reported. In 2023, the UBD, the top university in Brunei, signed a memorandum of understanding with the City University of Hong Kong, focusing on technology transfer, commercialization, and business matchmaking. The Universiti Brunei Darussalam was established in 1985, and is now comprised of eight academic faculties, nine research institutes and six academic service centers covering a range of disciplines. President Biden on Tuesday said NATO has grown stronger and that Russia is failing in its war in Ukraine, as he vowed the alliance will continue standing up for freedom amid a rise in threats across the globe. Together, we built a global coalition to stand with Ukraine, Biden said. Make no mistake, Russia is failing in this war. More than two years into [Russian President Vladimir] Putins war of choice, its losses are staggering. More than 350,000 Russian troops, dead, wounded many young people have left Russia because they no longer see a future in Russia. Bidens address at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, where NATO was created 75 years ago after world leaders signed a historic treaty, opened the first day of the Western security alliances summit. NATO leaders will gather Wednesday and Thursday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center to draft a joint communique on policy, including support for Ukraine. The speech came after a Russian strike on Monday in Ukraine killed at least 38 people, including four at a childrens hospital in Kyiv. Biden announced in the speech that Ukraine would receive five additional air defense units, which help to defend against Russian attacks. Ukraine is unlikely to secure membership into the alliance this year, since the ongoing war with Russia would drag all 32 members of NATO into a war by triggering a defense article. But the U.S. and other allies are expected to signal that Ukraine will be a member one day and to step up support for the countrys defense. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier this week he expects NATO to agree, by the end of the summit, on moving the roughly 50 nations that support Ukraine with military aid into a command post in Germany staffed by the alliance. Stoltenberg also said he expects financial pledges from each of the allies to continue their current level of military support for at least another year. Biden said that Putin thought NATO would break when he invaded Ukraine, but the alliance instead rallied around Kyiv. The war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country, he said. Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail. Biden also honored Stoltenberg, who is stepping down from his post in October after a decade in the role, and presented him with the highest civilian honor in the U.S., the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Hes a man of integrity, Biden said. The secretary guided this alliance in one of the most consequential periods in its history Today, NATO is stronger, smarter and more energized than when [he] began. Stoltenberg, in his own speech at the auditorium Tuesday, called for political courage in confronting global crises and urged allies to stand by Ukraine, warning that letting Russia win was the greatest risk facing the alliance. Biden is being closely watched at the summit this week after his disastrous debate performance against former President Trump last month. He showed vigor in the speech Tuesday but mostly read from prepared remarks. At the summit, leaders will also address questions about defense spending. A record 23 allies have spent at least 2 percent of gross domestic product, or economic output, on defense spending. But that still leaves nine members who have not met that goal. Biden said Tuesday that under his presidency, NATO allies reaching the 2 percent goal climbed from nine to 23. This remarkable progress, proof that our commitment is broad and deep, [shows] that were ready, that were willing, were able to deter aggression and defend every inch of NATO territory, across every domain, land, air, sea, cyber and space, Biden said. Biden has long contrasted his backing for Ukraine and support for NATO against that of his GOP 2024 rival Trump, who has claimed he will end the war before he takes office. Trump has also threatened to not defend NATO allies who do not pay enough in defense spending. But Biden says he strengthened NATO during his term through unifying support for Ukraine, and he has repeatedly emphasized the importance of allies in an increasingly dangerous world, a point he drove home Tuesday. He pointed to the inclusion of Finland and Sweden into the alliance in the past two years. Today, NATO is more powerful than ever, he said, adding the alliance has always stood for a peace. Here at this summit, we gather to proclaim NATO is ready and able to secure that vision today and well into the future. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Biden Delivers Peppy NATO Speech as He Seeks to Reassure Dems of His Stamina At 81 years old, Joe Biden predates NATOs formation by more than six years. Yet even as the alliance rings in its platinum jubilee, marking 75 years of existence with a three-day gathering in Washington, D.C. this week, the presidents own age remains the subject of intense scrutiny. With his re-election campaign in full-blown crisis mode thanks to an abject debate performance last month, all eyes were on Biden as he delivered the summits opening speechwhich was intended to serve as proof positive of his mental and physical fitness as much as it was a rallying call to global leaders. This moment in history calls for our collective strength, Biden said. The president reaffirmed NATOs commitment to helping Ukraine beat back Russias invasion, announcing that the U.S. and other allies would supply the beleaguered nation with dozens of new air defense systems in the coming months. The war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country, he said. Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail. To close out his time on stage, Biden awarded Jens Stoltenberg, NATOs Norwegian secretary-general, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Today, NATO is stronger, smarter, more energized than when you began, the president told a visibly surprised Stoltenberg. A billion people across Europe and North Americaindeed the whole worldwill reap the rewards of your labor for years to come. Biden delivered his 13-minute speech with few slip-ups or mistakes, reading carefully from a teleprompter and speaking with a strong, clear voice. His performance no doubt came as a relief to the lawmakers and donors who have continued to defend him since the June 27 debate. His mumbled, rambling responses on the Georgia stage opposite Donald Trump cast doubt on his viability as the Democratic presidential nominee. At least half a dozen Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill have since called for Biden to step aside for a new candidate. The White House has continued to defend him, characterizing the debate as merely one bad night. But the impression of the president as a doddering man slowly succumbing to the trappings of old age have not been belied in the days since, particularly given a halting sit-down interview with ABC News last Friday. Given the context, Tuesday evenings speech was the closest to a return to form Biden has yet shown the public. The president is scheduled to hold a solo news conference on Thursday afternoon at the summits endhis first such event in the U.S. since late 2022, according to The New York Times. 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 President Joe Biden continued walking a tightrope on Tuesday after a disastrous debate performance raised new concerns among voters about whether he can defeat former President Donald Trump in November. Democrats in Congress weren't out for blood as a debate rages in the party over whether Biden should stay in the 2024 presidential election but concerns remain following pivotal, private meetings between members. An example: Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told reporters that he believes Biden is a great president but declined to say whether he also thinks the 81-year-old incumbent is the best candidate for Democrats to defeat former President Donald Trump this fall. Hes the nominee, McGovern said when asked if Biden is the strongest Democratic option. I think if hes the candidate, we will prevail. Still, Biden has already publicly lost the support of more than a handful of prominent or vulnerable Democrats since his stumbling debate performance. The president has doubled down on his refusal to step aside. He sent a public letter on Monday to congressional Democrats, saying that he has secured the delegates necessary to be nominated and that he still believes he is the only person who can win against Trump. The White House also said Tuesday that Biden plans to serve his full second term in office, which would make him president at 86 years old, if hes reelected in November. Catch up with the USA TODAY Network's live coverage. Biden bashes Putin's invasion of Ukraine during NATO speech Joe Biden called NATO "The single greatest, most effective defensive alliance in the history of the world," during his address to the defensive alliance, saying leaders from Europe and North America should "Look back with pride at all we've achieved" and "look ahead to our shared future." But Biden also attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin during his address over his bloody invasion of Ukraine. He announced that the United States would be providing new air defenses to Ukraine, saying that the country "can and will stop Putin." Marina Pitofsky Cook Political Report update marks bad news for Biden Election prognosticator group Cook Political Report shifted six states toward Donald Trump Tuesday, including several that must win states in order for Democrats to hold the White House. The group stated in an analysis that the change is due in part to the seismic conflict within the Democratic Party over whether to replace Joe Biden as the partys nominee following a debate performance that raised questions about his ability to serve as president. Lawmakers grumbling quietly on Capitol Hill about Bidens chances have pointed to internal polling showing massive swings in voter opinion of Biden after the debate. The Cook Political Reports non-partisan analysis is one of the most public signs of that shift. The changes include Arizona, Georgia and Nevada from their toss up category to lean Republican, meaning they consider the states more likely to choose a Republican rather than being among the most competitive in the country. Cook Political Report also shifted Minnesota, New Hampshire and Nebraskas second congressional district from likely voting for Democrats to leaning toward voting for Democrats. Sarah D. Wire Seventh House Democrat calls on Biden to step aside from race Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J. became the seventh House Democrat to call on Joe Biden to exit the 2024 presidential race, signaling that discontent within congressional Democrats over Biden's candidacy remains. I am asking that (Biden) declare that he wont run for reelection and will help lead us through a process toward a new nominee," Sherrill said in a statement. Ken Tran What has Joe Biden said about Project 2025? Joe Biden slammed Donald Trump last week over his connections to Project 2025, the highly detailed and controversial 900-page Mandate for Leadership that lays out a plan and personnel to reconstruct the country's executive branch. The 2025 Presidential Transition Project, as it is otherwise known, is a product of The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. Several of those who have worked to construct the administration-in-waiting for the next conservative president to adopt are former Trump administration officials. The project contains a 180-day transition plan and includes a domestic and foreign policy agenda. The focus on Project 2025 comes as the Biden campaign has been doing damage control for the last week after his first debate against Trump June 27 prompted several Democratic calls for him to drop out of the race. In a statement Saturday, Biden emphasized one of the conservative project's main targets is abortion, an issue known to mobilize voters. "Project 2025 should scare every single American," Biden said. "It would give Trump limitless power over our daily lives and let him use the presidency to enact 'revenge' on his enemies, ban abortion nationwide and punish women who have an abortion, and gut the checks and balances that make America the greatest democracy in the world." Rachel Barber Whitmer says 'never say never' if she was asked to launch 2024 bid with Harris Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she'd "never say never" to a hypothetical scenario in which Joe Biden exited the 2024 presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris took his place at the top of the ticket and she was asked to serve as Harris' running mate. I have never looked at opportunities in Washington, D.C. with a lot of excitement because I love Michigan. I love state government, Whitmer cautioned during an interview on ABC's "The View." But, you know, Ill never say never, but thats not something that I am angling for in the slightest, she added. Marina Pitofsky Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks before Vice President Kamala Harris takes the stage to speak with people during a vaccine mobilization event at the TCF Center in downtown Detroit on Monday, July 12, 2021. (Via OlyDrop) Joe Biden commits to serving full second term if reelected, White House says Joe Biden plans to serve his full second term in office, which would make him president at 86 years old, if hes reelected in November, the White House said Tuesday. Yes, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked whether Biden commits to serving his full second term if he defeats Donald Trump. Biden has faced intense scrutiny over his mental fitness since a disastrous debate last month raised alarm among Democratic supports. Yet while six House Democrats have said publicly that Biden should withdraw from the campaign, Biden has so far held off widespread calls for him to drop out. Joey Garrison Biden faces a test at NATO summit this week. Here's why. Joe Biden is hosting more than 38 leaders for a NATO summit in Washington this week amid growing scrutiny toward his reelection campaign. The summit was already a pivotal opportunity for the president to reaffirm Americas commitment to NATO after former President Donald Trump questioned the countrys role in the organization. Now, as some Democrats call for the president to step aside in the 2024 race, eyes are also on his performance this week to see if he can stabilize his campaign. Rachel Barber, Joey Garrison and Francesca Chambers Is there going to be a second Democratic debate? After Joe Biden's rocky debate performance last month, some political observers are wondering if there will be a second debate between Biden and Donald Trump at all. If all goes as planned, the political rivals will have their second presidential debate in just over nine weeks. ABC News will host the presidential candidates as they face off for a final time on Sept. 10, moderated by anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis, but a location has yet to be confirmed. Qualifications for the second debate are similar to the first, including candidates receiving at least 15% in four separate national polls, appearing on enough state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold, and agreeing to accept the debate's rules and format, which have yet to be announced. Victor Hagan When was Joe Biden born? We currently have the oldest president in U.S. history. Theres a minimum age to run for president, but there isnt a maximum, as evidenced by the past two commanders in chief. Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump set the record for the oldest elected president during their respective terms. President Biden is 81 years old. He was born on Nov. 20, 1942 and is part of the Silent Generation, the generation that precedes baby boomers. Claire Mulroy Nate Silver: Joe Biden should step down, let Kamala Harris become president before November Nate Silver, political pollster and founder of FiveThirtyEight, called for Joe Biden to hand the presidency over to Vice President Kamala Harris before the November election after his defiant and first post-debate television interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos last week. When Stephanopoulos asked Biden about polls showing his low approval ratings and poor chances of beating former President Donald Trump this fall, Biden said "The New York Times had me down 10 points before the debate, 9 now, whatever the hell it is." Silver posted a clip of the Biden's remarks to social media and called it a "pretty incoherent answer," adding that the Times had him down three or four points before the debate. Trump now leads Biden by six points, according to the Times-Siena College poll. "I wimped out in today's column and deleted a line saying he should formulate a plan to transition the presidency to Harris within 30-60 days, but I'm there now. Something is clearly wrong here," Silver said in a follow-up post on X, formerly Twitter. "The most generous way to put it is that he doesn't seem in command, and that's an extremely hard sell when you're Commander in Chief." Rachel Barber President Joe Biden during the debate at CNN's studios in Atlanta. Biden 'can't win' in November, Illinois Democrat Mike Quigley says One of the six House Democrats who is publicly calling for Biden to leave the 2024 race doubled down on his views about the president's chances in November when heading into an important closed-door party meeting Tuesday morning just off Capitol Hill. "He can't win," Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., said of Biden. The eight-term lawmaker who represents a Chicago-based district also took issue with Biden's push back in writing to congressional Democrats on Monday that he wasn't dropping out of the race. "A dismissive letter is not going to change any minds." Darren Samuelsohn Sen. Joe Manchin says it's a 'crucial week' for Biden Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.V., who recently left the Democratic Party said Tuesday that it's "crucial week" for "Seeing what happens this week -- there are going to be polls coming out, there are going to be senators that are up in very tough areas for re-election and they're going to have their input -- so we'll just have to digest to see what comes out," Manchin said. If the polls keep showing Biden struggling? "You're speaking in hypotheticals," he responded, saying everyone will know more by the end of the week. "Basically we're to the point where it's, do you stick with plan A or is there a plan B? We don't know." Riley Beggin Poll shows Harris, not Biden, could beat Trump A new poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris could beat Donald Trump in November, while President Joe Biden trails the presumptive Republican nominee. The Bendixen & Amandi Inc. national poll of 1,000 people conducted this month found Harris leads Trump 42% to 41%, with 12% undecided and 3% going to third-party candidates. Biden, however, was one point down to Trump, 42% to 43%, with 10% undecided and 3% going to third-party candidates. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Rachel Barber and Francesca Chambers WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 8: U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) arrives for a vote at the Capitol on July 8, 2024 in Washington, DC. Several Democratic members of Congress have urged President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race after his June 27 debate against presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump. Concerns about Biden's age and perceived slowing down have intensified, with critics fearing these issues could undermine his ability to effectively challenge Trump in the upcoming election. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images) Sen. Sherrod Brown says Ohioans have 'legitimate questions' about Biden A Democratic senator who faces a tough 2024 reelection campaign in the otherwise red state of Ohio told reporters on Monday that he's hearing from voters who are indeed concerned about Biden continuing his presidential run. "I'm not going to judge people in my party, what they're saying or what Republicans are saying," Sen. Sherrod Brown told reporters in Youngstown, according to his campaign. "I'm not a pundit. I've talked to people across Ohio. They have legitimate questions about whether the president should continue his campaign, and I'll keep listening to people." Brown has been reluctant to wade into presidential politics as he runs this November for a fourth term against GOP businessman Bernie Moreno. The senator is one of two Democrats running in a state Trump won in 2020, making him one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the country. President Joe Biden gives a thumbs up as he boards Air Force One at Harrisburg International Airport in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on July 7, 2024, as he returns to Washington, DC. House Democrats stand by Biden despite internal dissension As Democratic members leave a caucus meeting at the DNC this morning, most are publicly stating their support for President Joe Biden.They largely acknowledge there was not consensus in the meeting but maintain that Biden was the candidate chosen by voters and that he will beat former President Donald Trump in November. Riley Beggin Jon Stewart sits court side during the second quarter of game seven of the second round of the 2024 NBA playoffs between the New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers at Madison Square Garden on May 19, 2024. Jon Stewart slams Democrats for not considering other candidates Jon Stewart, the host of 'The Daily Show,' called out Democrats for not pursuing other candidates after Bidens rocky first debate performance and said four months is enough time to find a replacement for him on the partys November ticket. Cant we open up the conversation? Do you understand the opportunity here? Stewart said in his monologue Monday. Do you have any idea how thirsty Americans are for any hint of inspiration or leadership, and a release from this choice between a megalomaniac and a suffocating gerontocracy? Rachel Barber Rep. Jerry Nadler reads a book during a session of the House of Representatives on Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, trying to elect a Speaker of the House. Nadler says he will support Biden after calling for him to drop out Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., on Tuesday reversed his previous stance that President Joe Biden should step aside as the Democratic presidential nominee. Whether or not I have concerns is besides the point. He is going to be our nominee and we all have to support him, Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told reporters. On Sunday, Nadler during a private call with top House Democrats said 81-year-old Biden should exit the presidential race against Donald Trump. Reps. Adam Smith of Washington, Mark Takano of California and Joe Morelle of New York, also said Biden should exit the 2024 presidential race. Biden on Monday sent a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday saying that he would not drop out of the 2024 race. While Nadler declined to comment on his remarks on the call, he said that Democrats have to stand by Biden. I am not going to comment on what I said in a private meeting, but what I will say is the president made very clear yesterday that hes running and for me thats positive. We have to support him, Nadler said. Rebecca Morin Lara Trump says Democrats are in disarray Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump said the GOP has never been more united while the Democratic party is fractured and in disarray ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week. You have never seen a more united Republican party than we have right now, and it is in stark contrast to what is going on on the other side of the aisle, Trump told Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt Tuesday. They are fractured. They are in disarray on the Democrats' side of the aisle, talking about whether they have to get rid of Joe Biden. Rachel Barber Parkinson disease expert's recent trips to White House not to meet with president President Joe Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his three annual physicals since entering the White House, his physician said in a letter Monday night, clarifying that recent trips to the White House by an expert on Parkinson's disease weren't to meet with the president. The letter from Dr. Kevin O'Connor followed reports from USA TODAY and others on Dr. Kevin Cannard, an expert on Parkinsons disease, who visited the White House eight times during an eight-month period including once with O'Connor, the president's physician according to official visitor logs. Cannard serves as the neurology specialist supporting the White House Medical Unit. His White House visits included one meeting with OConnor and two others at the White House residence clinic on Jan. 17, the New York Post first reported. --Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, Joey Garrison and Sudiksha Kochi Congressional Hispanic Caucus throws support behind Biden The Congressional Hispanic Caucus released a statement Monday affirming their support for President Joe Biden. We stand with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, caucus chair Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., and deputy caucus chair Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., said in the statement. President Biden and his Administration have worked closely with House Democrats to make historic investments to positively impact communities across the country, including Latinos, such as investments to combat climate change, lower healthcare costs, expand access to healthcare for our veterans and create jobs with the Infrastructure bill, the group added. Sudiksha Kochi Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) departs the Capitol following a vote on July 8, 2024 in Washington, DC. Mark Warner backs off secret meeting, still skeptical of Biden Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., had reportedly tried to organize a meeting with Democratic senators about President Joe Bidens status as the presumptive nominee in the November election. On Monday, after news of that meeting leaked and members of Congress returned to Capitol Hill, Warner appeared to soften his stance. The reported meeting was canceled in favor of a discussion during the Senate Democratic Caucus regular lunch on Tuesday, and Warner issued a softer but still skeptical statement about Biden on his X account Monday. In that post, Warner argued that another term under former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, would be perilous for rule of law and for our democracy. President Biden has made America stronger, guiding the nation through some of our most difficult days, Warner wrote. With so much at stake in the upcoming election, now is the time for conversations about the strongest path forward. As these conversations continue, I believe it is incumbent upon the President to more aggressively make his case to the American people, and to hear directly from a broader group of voices about how to best prevent Trumps lawlessness from returning to the White House, he said in the post. --Elizabeth Beyer AOC throws her support behind Biden Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told reporters Monday that she supports President Joe Bidens decision to stay in the 2024 race. I have spoken with him extensively. He made clear then and he has made clear since that he is still in this race. The matter is closed, said Ocasio-Cortez. He had reiterated that this morning. He has reiterated that to the public. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him. Ocasio-Cortez, a member of The Squad made up of progressive congressional Democrats, said shes communicated to Biden that what he needs to do to win in November is increasingly commit to the issues that are critically important to working people across this country. --Sudiksha Kochi Sen. Patty Murray says Biden 'must do more' to prove he's strong enough to beat Trump U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Monday that Biden still hasn't proven he is up for the job to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump, suggesting the incumbent Democrat must consider dropping out of the 2024 race to "preserve his incredible legacy and secure it for the future. Murray is the highest ranking member of the Senate to indicate she needs to see more from Biden if he is going to be the party's nominee. More than a week since the debate, and after talking with my constituents, I believe President Biden must do more to demonstrate he can campaign strong enough to beat Donald Trump," Murray, a six-term veteran of the Senate who serves as the upper chamber's president pro tempore, said in a statement. President Joe Biden waves as he embarks Air Force One as he prepares to depart Harrisburg International Airport on July 7, 2024 in Harrisburg, Pa. Will Biden be replaced? Barring a very messy intra-party revolt, the Democratic presidential nomination is Biden's to accept or decline. And so far the president has pushed back on growing calls for his exit with seemingly no intention yet of stepping away. If Biden were to change his mind and drop his bid for reelection, focus would then turn to finding a replacement for the top of the ticket. Vice President Kamala Harris, already first in line for the presidency, is a favored candidate for the position. Savannah Kuchar Where does Biden stand in the polls? Joe Biden has slipped further behind Donald Trump in most polls taken since the two faced off last month in the first 2024 presidential debate. According to an exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University survey conducted immediately after the debate, Trump edged ahead of Biden 41% to 38%. Prior to the debate debacle, the two contenders were tied at 37% of the vote. A recent New York Times and Siena College poll found that Trump's lead against Biden increased by 3% after the debate Elizabeth Beyer and Karissa Waddick This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Joe Biden walks tightrope after rocky debate with Donald Trump: Replay President Biden outlined his vision for a second term in a call with Democratic mayors Tuesday, as he hopes to strengthen support within his base for his reelection bid. He joined a call with nearly 200 Democratic mayors from across the country Tuesday night, where he discussed how he would focus on reducing costs for working families if elected to a second term, according to the campaign. He also outlined several other familiar priorities, including making prescription drug prices more affordable, making community college free and implementing universal background checks for gun purchases and banning assault rifles. Were going to make sure that we focus on the things that affect people in my city in Wilmington, Delaware, my hometown, as well as yours, he said on the call, per the campaign. Mayor Cory Mason, from Racine, Wis., told The New York Times that Biden took three questions on the roughly 40-minute call. He also noted that the president again acknowledged that he had a lousy night during the debate last month, before running through his usual policy points about health care, abortion rights and former President Trump, according to The Times. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, president of the Democratic Mayors Association, introduced Biden on the call and later moderated the question-and-answer portion, The Times reported. When asked how mayors can work with the Biden-Harris administration to protect the progress made, the incumbent talked about how he is running the campaign across the country, according to his team. Weve made thousands of calls. Were putting up hundreds of signs all across America. Were getting people to engage and go out and knock on doors, Biden said. After the call, the Democratic Mayors Association reaffirmed their support for Biden. The stakes of this election could not be higher, and the choice could not be more clear. We need a President and Vice President who will champion working families, defend our democracy, and protect our freedoms, the association said Tuesday in a statement. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are that President and Vice President, and President Biden showed tonight that he is fully committed to working with us to defeat Donald Trump once and for all. In response to the call, other mayors also doubled down on their backing of Biden. I just got off the @DemMayors call with The President. He is locked in and determined to beat Donald Trump, build on his outstanding record of job creation, rebuilding our infrastructure, reducing prescription drug prices, and protecting womens rights, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens wrote on the social platform X. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said Bidens vision for the country is far better than Trumps, calling the presidents priorities solid. Mayors have @JoeBidens back and well help reelect him and @KamalaHarris this fall, he wrote in a post on X following the call. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg both said they were proud to support Biden and Vice President Harris ahead of November. I look forward to welcoming Democrats from across the country to Chicago, the greatest city in the world, for the Democratic National Convention next month, Johnson wrote on X. As a @DemMayors board member and a major city mayor that actually served during the Trump administration, the choice is clear,Nirenberg posted. Im standing with Biden-Harris because they know that mayors and cities matter. Biden is facing mounting calls to step aside and let someone else take the reins against Trump in November. This includes sitting lawmakers from within his own party, as well as numerous Democrat pundits and candidates for office. Biden has emphasized that he will not withdraw from the race. The bottom line here is were not going anywhere. Im not going anywhere, he said on MSNBCs Morning Joe on Monday. Im not letting up, Joe. Im not letting up even a little bit. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Joe Bidens efforts to halt the debate over his candidacy seemed to be faltering on Wednesday as a drumbeat of top liberals and key lawmakers continued to question him ahead of a pivotal day for the president. Senior Biden aides are planning to meet with worried Senate Democrats on Thursday at Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters while the president will hold a rare NATO-themed press conference later in the day that will be closely watched by Democrats and others. Another poor performance from the president would reaffirm fears among Democrats that Biden doesnt have the stamina or mental acuity to run for president. Many Democrats in the Senate have been mum in public about Bidens continued candidacy except to offer some advice for his campaign. But some have begun to more forcefully voice their concerns after a meeting on Tuesday left the caucus in limbo about the presidents standing. I am deeply concerned about Joe Biden winning this November because it is an existential threat to the country if Donald Trump wins, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told reporters on Wednesday. Blumenthals comments came after Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said Tuesday night that he thinks Trump is on track to beat Biden this November potentially in a landslide that could also lose Democrats the House and Senate. He urged Democrats to have a discussion about Bidens election prospects. And in the House, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined Bidens favorite morning show Wednesday and appeared to suggest that the president should consider dropping out. In another sign of the Senate anxiety spilling into public view, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) urged Biden to look at all of the information and carry on detailed conversations with key leaders, such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, to do whats best for the country. Both Schumer and Jeffries have said they support Biden. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats, told POLITICO that its incumbent on Biden to demonstrate that he still has what it takes to campaign by answering questions in an unscripted format, adding: It should be soon. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who on Wednesday became the first Democratic senator to call onBiden to step aside, said he agreed with Pelosis comments, while Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) bluntly said there are a great number of candidates who are capable of winning this November against a maniacal criminal thug like Donald Trump. But party fears over the president have extended far beyond the upper chamber of Congress. An electorally vulnerable Democrat, Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), called on Biden to drop out for the good of the country. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), a veteran lawmaker who is retiring from Congress this year, became the ninth House Democrat to say Biden should step back. And actor George Clooney, a major Democratic fundraiser who appeared alongside the president just weeks ago, urged the party to select a new nominee. It was Pelosis comments, however, that garnered much of the attention throughout the day. Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run, Pelosi told MSNBC. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. The former speaker, who is respected both by Biden and the Democratic caucus, suggested that her party hold off on further discussions until Biden wraps the closely watched NATO summit, which he is hosting in Washington this week. Pelosi later said thered been some misunderstanding about what she meant, though a spokesperson for Pelosis office told POLITICO that she fully supports whatever President Biden decides to do. Still, other Democrats close to Biden are becoming more vocal in their concerns about his candidacy. Clooney penned an op-ed in The New York Times on Wednesday calling for a new nominee to replace Biden, writing that weve opted to ignore every warning sign about his condition. He revealed that at a high-profile fundraiser he co-hosted in Los Angeles last month, Biden was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. Biden advisers conceded Wednesday that more work needed to be done to assure nervous Democrats, according to two officials familiar with internal campaign strategy granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. They recognized that Pelosis words carried weight, and that she seemed to deliberately keep alive the notion that the president could reconsider his run, which frustrated some in Wilmington. But the officials insisted that Bidens plans have not changed, and they tried to explain away Pelosis comments as a simple recognition that some in the House were still anxious and that she needed to give them a voice. Bidens allies were less charitable with Clooney, who they said spent only an hour or so with Biden at the fundraiser, which was planned around the actors schedule and therefore required the president to fly in overnight from the G7 summit in Europe, according to one of the officials. A campaign official pointed back to the letter the president sent to Hill Democrats on Monday stating that he would stay in the race. And they highlighted the presidents schedule campaign rallies over the holiday weekend in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania followed by the NATO summit this week and another campaign trip this Friday to Michigan as proof that he was up to the task of a grueling presidential campaign. A growing chorus of House Democrats are speaking out in favor of Biden stepping back from the race, including Ryan, who on Wednesday became the eighth representative to do so. Ryan represents a purple district in the Hudson Valley of New York a blue state where support for Biden is slipping. There were other signs of growing anxiety among Democrats who have been part of a firewall of support for the president. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Bidens biggest base of support on the Hill, told CNN on Tuesday that vulnerable Democrats should distance themselves from the president if thats what they need to do to win reelection. In a statement on Wednesday, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) urged the party to have a down-ballot reckoning of whomever we nominate declining to name Biden directly, despite denouncing the piling-on by Biden critics just two days earlier. On Monday, Torres said weakening a weakened nominee seems like a losing strategy for a presidential election. By mid-week, the representative had urged his party to be clear-eyed about the consequences of choosing a particular nominee for president. Biden aides also recognized that the president would be under scrutiny for his performance at Thursdays news conference and at a planned Michigan rally on Friday on the heels of the grueling NATO summit schedule. But they also believed that the calendar would soon give Biden a favor. The Republican National Convention is slated to begin Monday, and the four-day event which could be preceded by Trumps vice presidential choice will likely dominate the political conversation and could shift the spotlight off Biden. Ursula Perano contributed to this report. President Biden will meet with national union leaders on Wednesday, huddling with some of his top supporters as part of a week-long effort to solidify his base in the face of calls from some Democrats for him to drop out of the 2024 race. Biden will visit the AFL-CIOs Executive Council meeting in Washington, D.C., to meet with leaders in attendance and discuss the stakes of Novembers election, his campaign said. Biden will deliver brief remarks and answer questions from union leaders. Those in attendance will be national presidents of 60 unions representing more than 12 million workers, the campaign said. Biden frequently touts himself as the most pro-union president in history. An official called it the latest example of President Biden rallying the Biden-Harris coalition this week around the stakes of this election. Biden has sought to lock down the support of key voting blocs that helped propel him into the White House in 2020 throughout the week as he faces growing calls from elected Democrats to step aside as the partys nominee. Seven House Democrats have publicly urged Biden to stand down as the nominee. Several Democrats in the House and Senate have said Biden must do more to show he can aggressively campaign and make the case for a second term. But the overwhelming majority of Democratic lawmakers have rallied behind Biden as the president has made clear he has no plans to step aside. The White House has touted its support from the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, as well as lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), to argue it has broad support. The president this week spent Sunday campaigning in Pennsylvania. He called into Morning Joe on MSNBC on Monday morning for an unscripted interview and spoke virtually with the Congressional Black Caucus that night. Biden on Tuesday attended the opening of the NATO summit and met virtually with Democratic mayors. The President will continue to do the work and speak directly to his coalition in the days, weeks, and months ahead, his campaign said, noting he would be in Michigan on Friday and travel to Texas and Nevada next week. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. By Trevor Hunnicutt, Jeff Mason and Jarrett Renshaw WASHINGTON/DALLAS (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden faced fresh doubts on Wednesday about his re-election chances from heavyweights Nancy Pelosi and George Clooney, who may influence other Democratic lawmakers and financial donors, and two Senate Democrats. Biden must decide quickly whether to stay in the 2024 White House race, former House Speaker Pelosi, a longtime Biden ally, said on MSNBC while declining to say definitively that she wanted him to run. Hollywood star Clooney, a Democrat who co-hosted a star-studded fundraiser for Biden last month, withdrew his support with a damning opinion piece in the New York Times saying Biden was not the same man he was in 2020. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, has privately signaled he's open to a Democratic candidate other than Biden, according to Axios. Schumer, though, reiterated his support for Biden in a statement following the Axios report. Senator Peter Welch called on Biden to withdraw in an op-ed published late on Wednesday, the first Democratic senator to explicitly call for the president to step aside. One major donor said Democratic leaders had indicated they would issue statements of concern after the NATO summit, but did not mention Schumer by name. "It's going to be a bloodbath," the source said, citing growing anger among lawmakers and donors, as well as growing pressure on down-ballot candidates. The Abandon Biden Campaign, which has opposed Biden's candidacy over his handling of the Israel-Gaza war, on Wednesday urged all Americans to call for Biden to step aside, although saying it also has no delusions about Trump and his "culture of hate." Pelosi's remarks, which ignored Biden's repeated insistence that he is staying in the race, appeared to be the harbinger of a fresh wave of calls from fellow Democrats to exit the race. For nearly two weeks, the 81-year-old Biden has sought to stem defections by Democratic lawmakers, donors and other allies worried he might lose the Nov. 5 vote to Republican Donald Trump, 78, after his halting June 27 debate performance. The president has said he had a bad night at the debate, insisting he will stay in the race and defeat Trump. Pelosi said on MSNBC she was encouraging colleagues on Capitol Hill with concerns about Biden to refrain from airing them while he hosts NATO leaders in Washington this week. "I've said to everyone: let's just hold off. Whatever you're thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you don't have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week," she said, describing Biden's strong remarks at the NATO summit on Tuesday as "spectacular." She declined to say definitively that she wanted Biden to run. "I want him to do whatever he decides to do," she said. "We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short." Biden's campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and senior advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti will brief Senate Democrats at a lunch on Thursday, Biden's campaign said. Asked to comment on Pelosi's remarks and Clooney's article, Biden's campaign pointed to a letter he sent Democrats in Congress saying he was "firmly committed" to staying in the race and beating Trump. Asked at the NATO summit whether he still had Pelosi's support, Biden responded by raising a triumphant fist. Other Democrats echoed Pelosi on Wednesday, however, suggesting Biden's efforts to quell dissent within his party had not succeeded. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said he was "deeply concerned" about Biden's ability to win the race. In Dallas, Vice President Kamala Harris, the party frontrunner to replace Biden if he were to step aside as the Democratic candidate, spoke to a group of some 19,000 people at an event of the historically Black Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. The election is the most "existential" and consequential of their lifetimes, Harris said to a crowd that chanted, "Four More Years!" CLOONEY WITHDRAWS SUPPORT In his opinion piece, Clooney wrote: "It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate," Clooney wrote. "We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won't win the House, and we're going to lose the Senate." Democrats in Congress remain deeply divided over whether to fall in line behind Biden or to urge him to step aside because of persistent questions about his health and acuity. U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer on Wednesday became the ninth Democratic member of the House of Representatives to call for the president to end his re-election campaign. Public defections remain a small segment of the 213 Democratic-aligned House members, and the party's leadership has continued to back Biden publicly. No Senate Democrat had broken ranks until Welch's op-ed on Wednesday, although Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado said on Tuesday he did not believe Biden could beat Trump. Biden, eager to change the story, has surrounded himself with communities of his staunchest supporters, including Black Democratic lawmakers and voters. His campaign has framed sticking with Biden as a return of the loyalty he has shown them through his half-century of public life. Biden was greeted with raucous applause when he met on Wednesday with a group of labor leaders, an important part of his political base, joining an AFL-CIO executive council meeting in Washington to discuss "their shared commitment to defeating Donald Trump," the Biden campaign said. Biden listed high rents, expensive groceries and a lack of housing as issues to be tackled going forward. Labor votes helped Biden defeat Trump in competitive states, including Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, in 2020. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, Susan Heavey and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons, Howard Goller and Tom Hogue) Despite a hotly anticipated House Democratic Caucus meeting that went nowhere and a meeting between Senate Democrats that was described as a constructive conversation (that also went nowhere), everything in Democratic presidential politics remains the same: Joe Biden is still the Democratic nominee. Still, no matter how many Dems insist that nothing has changed, the past 10 days have showcased a different campaign style from the president, as he fights to hang on as a candidate. Biden emerged for his Friday interview with ABCs George Stephanopoulos eager to strike a new pose after his disastrous debate performance eight days prior. After a week of doing almost nothing to assuage nervous Democrats that he was indeed up to the task of beating Donald Trump, Biden sat across from the longtime TV personality and evinced a new aggressive tack. What he said, though, was less striking than his appearance: Few viewers would say he looked up to the task of beating Trump, but he definitely did look a lot more like Trump himself, lacquered in the orange patina that has been the former presidents signature. But Bidens being in bronzer is not the only Trumpy aesthetic turn the president has taken since late Junes debate disaster, which revealed his condition to be much more dire than was previously understood. Hes now running a truly embattled presidential campaign that has him trailing Trump nationally and in most if not all swing states, sitting atop the worst approval rating ever for this point in a first term, and trending worse. In response, Biden has seized upon this low moment with a strategy that seems to owe a lot to his predecessor. First, Biden has closed ranks around himself, relying less on his paid and professional advisers and more on his family members for input. In recent days, reports have noted that the decision to forge ahead in the presidential race will come down to his wife, Jill Biden. His granddaughters Finnegan and Natalie Biden have appeared on the fundraising trail with him, and Valerie Owens, his sister, has turned up in Washington. But the biggest shift has been the increased involvement of Hunter Biden, who has taken on a newly expanded role within the Biden campaign world and has clashed with the presidents advisers. The placement of entirely unqualified, large adult male sons into powerful positions deep in the inner sanctum was a core feature of the Trump campaign and governance experience just four years ago. Its not as if Biden is sending his son-in-law to, say, solve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But its unnerving to see Hunter, who has plenty of personal reasons to persuade his father to stay in power, anywhere near political decisions. The comparisons dont stop there. On Monday, Biden began raging against elites in the Democratic Party, whom he now blames for his embattled campaign status. Im getting so frustrated by the elitesnow, Im not talking about you guysthe elites in the party, Oh, they know so much more. Any of these guys that dont think I should run, run against me, he told Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on MSNBCs Morning Joe. His complaint seems aimed not at potential competitors but at pundits (particularly in the New York Times editorial pages) and Democratic donors. A number of them have announced since the debate that they would pause donations to the Biden campaign, while some told the press they felt they had been misled by the clear decline in the presidents condition. Harping on party elites too has been a cornerstone of the Trump messaging strategy since 2016. Trump had a strong case: Republican Party elites did strongly oppose the former presidents campaign, in multiple cycles; many of them went to great lengths to boost his opponents or get him out, and have done so again in 2024. Biden, meanwhile, has a weaker case. He has been the overwhelming beneficiary of a party apparatus that worked hard behind the scenes to shield him from public appearances (he hasnt taken questions from voters at a town hallstyle event since 2021), to cancel primary races in certain states, and to keep the big-business political organization No Labels from mounting a real third-party candidate, all while Biden has remained available to large donors. His appearance on Morning Joe, a program he reportedly watches religiously, came off like a classic Trump appearance on his own morning cable show of choice, Fox & Friends. Trump would often call in and bloviate live, never going on camera. Biden too appeared as an angry voice over the sound of shuffling papers, behind a headshot. And his Morning Joe appearance also featured an approach to health care that evoked the former president. When asked if he had been tested for any age-related health issues that might contextualize what was seen at the debate, Biden said, Ive been testing myself. His appearance on ABC News Friday featured a similar flourish, as Biden told Stephanopoulos all the pollsters I talk to tell me its a toss-up, when asked about the mounting number of polls that show Biden well behind. It wouldnt be Trump-style without a shot at the press, and Biden has trained his fury on the Fourth Estate as well. As Semafor noted in a recent piece, The Biden team remains fixated on its longest-running adversary. Not Donald TrumpThe New York Times. Biden, of course, isnt Trump. The records of the two men as presidents and private citizens are starkly different; they are running as opposites on everything from a womans right to choose to tax rates on the very wealthy. Only one of the candidates is a convicted felon who also was twice found liable for sexual assault, and attempted to overturn the 2020 election in an effort that culminated in a violent attack on the Capitol, leaving several people dead. But Bidens pivot, in this moment of crisis, from an active attempt to refocus the campaign on Democratic policies or to actively bring the party together on a positive message, feels notable all the same. The wandering away from assurance toward coercion, a shift that Semafor has called a pledge of mutually assured destruction, has Democrats feeling more despondent than ever. The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And its time for it to end, Biden warned in a Monday letter to House Democrats. The Trumpian strategy did work for Trump once. But it also failed once, when it came up against a guy pledging to be its opposite. That guy was Joe Biden. Insights from Reuters and CNN The News US President Joe Biden pledged to provide Ukraine with new air defense systems to counter Russias invasion during an opening speech at the NATO summit, an address that multiple media outlets described as forceful. The commentary comes as Bidens fitness to contest the presidential election against Donald Trump in November remains under intense scrutiny following a disastrous debate performance last month. Several prominent Democratic supporters and donors have called for Biden, 81, to step down as the partys candidate as questions swirl about his age and general health. SIGNALS Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories. NATO an opportunity for president to save himself Source: CNN This weeks NATO summit has turned into a public test of Bidens health and cognitive capacity following last months debate, CNN politics reporter Stephen Collinson wrote. Bidens every move will be scrutinized by those in Washington unconvinced that the octogenarian can handle the demands of a second presidential term. Hell also be closely watched by a more global audience, Collison added: The effects of the presidents advancing age are not just an issue for his political future; they are now the Wests problem given that he is the last defense against a stunning comeback by Trump. Doubts persist about Bidens ability to right sinking ship Source: Reuters Several diplomats remained unconvinced by Bidens fitness for office, Reuters reported, with one putting his improved delivery at the NATO summit down to the fact that the speech was scripted and let him use a teleprompter unlike during the live debate with Trump. We dont see how he can come back after the debate, the European diplomat told the outlet. I cant imagine him being at [the] helm of the U.S. and NATO for four more years. European leaders are already bracing for a potential second Donald Trump presidency, with Bidens recent gaffes spooking allies abroad. Top European officials met with foreign policy advisers for Trump on Tuesday on the sidelines of the NATO conference. Guests pose for a group photo during a promotion conference of the seventh China International Import Expo and the Hongqiao International Economic Forum in Harare, Zimbabwe, on April 16, 2024. (Photo by Tafara Mugwara/Xinhua) The decades-long relationship between Zimbabwe and China will continue to evolve alongside the southern African country's economic development trajectory, a senior official has said. HARARE, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The decades-long relationship between Zimbabwe and China will continue to evolve alongside the southern African country's economic development trajectory, a senior official has said. China has committed to Zimbabwe's development as the latter seeks to attain upper-middle-income economy status by 2030, said Monica Mutsvangwa, minister of women's affairs, community, small and medium enterprises' development, on the sidelines of the first Harare Forum for Africa and Academic Week, which concluded in the Zimbabwean capital Monday. "We can see from that time it has continued to grow, with a lot more initiatives, whether in agriculture. We have seen China coming on board, assisting Zimbabwe with vaccinations for COVID-19. Zimbabwe managed to contain COVID-19 because of the vaccinations we received from China," Mutsvangwa said. She commended Chinese investors for playing a major role in Zimbabwe's industrialization, noting that Chinese private capital has facilitated significant projects across the country. Among these is a 1.5-billion-U.S. dollar integrated steel plant established by China's Tsingshan Holding Group in the Midlands Province. A worker is busy at the Dinson Iron and Steel Company (DISCO) in Manhize, Midlands Province, Zimbabwe, June 20, 2024. (Photo by Shaun Jusa/Xinhua) The Dinson Iron and Steel Company (DISCO), a subsidiary of Tsingshan Holding Group in east China's Zhejiang Province, has begun producing pig iron, marking a milestone in the revival of Zimbabwe's iron and steel industry. According to the Zimbabwean government, DISCO is expected to produce 600,000 metric tons of carbon steel in the first phase, with production rising to 1.2 million, then 3.2 million, and ultimately 5 million metric tons per year in the final phase. "Those investments are private funds, which shows the confidence they have in Zimbabwe. They see a stable country with leadership focused on empowering our people," Mutsvangwa noted. In 2023, bilateral trade between China and Zimbabwe reached 3.122 billion U.S. dollars, a 29.9 percent increase year-on-year. Imports amounted to 1.715 billion dollars, showing a 32 percent growth compared to the previous year. Mutsvangwa also praised China for funding the upgrading of Zimbabwe's energy infrastructure, particularly the expansion of Kariba South Power Station, completed in 2018, and the upgrade of units seven and eight of the Hwange Thermal Power Station, completed in 2023. This photo taken on Aug. 3, 2023, shows an exterior view of Hwange Thermal Power Station in Hwange, Zimbabwe. (Xinhua/Zhang Baoping) Furthermore, Mutsvangwa said cooperation with China has been promoting the livelihoods of Zimbabweans, especially those in vulnerable communities. "We have been affected by this El Nino-induced drought, and China has reaffirmed its assistance with food aid. We have seen China drilling boreholes; the importance of water cannot be over-emphasized," she said. Reflecting on China's economic growth over the past decades, Mutsvangwa said Zimbabwe seeks to tap into China's experience as the country strives to accelerate rural development. China offers valuable lessons to Zimbabwe, particularly in the revitalization and industrialization of rural areas, ensuring that everyone participates in the local economy, she said. (The Hill) President Biden blamed the federal governments delay in releasing aid to Texas in response to Hurricane Beryl on state leaders, saying they did not make a formal request for a major former disaster declaration. Ive been trying to track down the governor to see I dont have any authority to do that without a specific request from the governor, Biden said Tuesday in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) is serving as acting governor of the Lone Star State while Gov. Greg Abbott (R) remains abroad. Biden told the Chronicle that he kept tracking the lieutenant governor and had to reach out to the governors office to trigger the formal request. Biden and Patrick ultimately did connect Tuesday, and Patrick made the formal declaration, which the president then approved. The lieutenant governor said during a Tuesday press conference that there was total teamwork between federal, state and local officials. He added that there was no delay from the White House, no delay from us. The truth is, before you can ask for a declaration you have to go meet with people in the impacted areas to see whats needed and the level of need, Patrick said, per the Chronicle. Abbotts press secretary responded to Bidens remarks, telling the Chronicle Tuesday, This is a complete lie from President Biden, and frankly doesnt make any sense. The president and his administration know exactly how to get in contact with the governor and have on numerous occasions in the past, the spokesperson added. The Hill has reached out to the White House and the Texas governors office for comment. Hurricane Beryl pummeled through eastern Texas, causing millions of residents in Houston and nearby areas to lose power and experience flooding. On Monday, poweroutage.us tracked 2.7 million residents without power. As of Wednesday morning, nearly 1.7 million customers still remain without power. More than 1,300 flights were canceled and hundreds more delayed earlier this week as the storm crossed Texas. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. President Biden on Tuesday opened the 75th anniversary summit of NATO by acknowledging the decade-long leadership of the outgoing secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the U.S. In a moment that appeared to take the secretary-general by surprise, Biden invited Stoltenberg up on stage of the Mellon Auditorium during his remarks at the ceremony kicking off the three-day summit, which is celebrating the alliances milestone but is focused on supporting Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia. The secretary has guided the alliance through one of its most consequential periods in its history. I realized, talking to your wife, I personally asked you to extend your service, forgive me, Biden said and gained a laugh from the audience. You put your own plans on hold when the Russian war in Ukraine began, you didnt hesitate. Today NATO is stronger, smarter and more energized than when you began. And a billion people across Europe and North America, indeed the whole world, will reap the rewards of your labor for years to come, in the form of security, opportunity and greater freedom, Biden said. For these reasons, Im pleased to award you the highest civilian honor the United States can bestow, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, will be succeeded this year as secretary-general by Mark Rutte, former prime minister of the Netherlands. Stoltenberg stepped into the NATO leadership role in 2014, when Russia launched its first invasion of eastern Ukraine and took over the Crimean Peninsula, taking the alliance by surprise. That event led to the NATO pledge for each member state to commit to spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on domestic defense spending, a goal that Stoltenberg announced will be reached by 23 of NATOs 32 member states in 2024. The secretary-general is credited with leading the alliance amid political attacks throughout the years from French President Emmanuel Macrons assertion that the alliance is brain-dead in 2019 and former President Trump holding back a commitment to NATOs Article 5 mutual defense pillar. The alliances mission of operating by consensus has, at times, been hijacked by Turkey and Hungary, who most recently delayed the accession of Finland and Sweden over political demands. In remarks at the opening ceremony, Stoltenberg laid out the stakes for the alliance for the summit, which is focused on scaling up support for Ukraine to survive Russias war of aggression. The alliance is expected to announce a significant package of military and financial assistance and new commitments to bring Ukraine closer to joining NATO, but has held back a formal invitation over concerns of provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin. Lets be honest, not even our support for Ukraine has been a given, it is not straightforward because our support comes with costs and risks, Stoltenberg said. The reality is that there are no cost-free options with an aggressive Russia as a neighbor, no risk-free options in a war. And remember the biggest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine. We cannot let that happen. Our alliance is not perfect, and well continue to face difficult decisions in the future, he continued. I dont know what the next crisis will be but I do know that we are at our best when we take difficult decisions with political courage and moral clarity, and I know that we are stronger and safer together in NATO. It is good to have friends. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the 75th anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Washington. Biden announced the delivery of new air defenses for Ukraine in a speech aimed to lessen doubts about his mental acuity. | Evan Vucci President Joe Biden kicked off the NATO summit in Washington with a speech Tuesday where he reiterated the importance of the alliance to the United States. In his speech, Biden touted the delivery of new air defenses to Ukraine and credited his administration with bolstering NATO in the aftermath of Russias 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Make no mistake: Russia is failing in this war, Biden said. When this senseless war began, Ukraine was a free country. Today, its still a free country, and the war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country. The timing matters Bidens NATO summit address comes as critics on both sides of the aisle worry about his mental acuity after a poor June debate performance, according to Politico. The summit, three days long, may be one of Bidens last appearances at an international forum before Election Day, The Associated Press reported. The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee is next week. According to the AP, along with quelling concerns over whether he can compete with former President Donald Trump in the race for the White House, Biden hopes to convince voters that Trump would turn his back on NATO if he were elected again. Americas NATO allies are preparing for the possibility of a second Trump administration and ramping up weapons production unlike the surprise win of Trump in 2016, Politico reported. NATO and Ukraine Along with affirming the U.S. commitment to NATO, Biden announced a historic donation of air defense equipment to Ukraine in his speech, according to Fox News. The U.S. is joining Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Italy in providing the war-torn nation with equipment for five air defense systems. Help with air defense was one of the biggest requests from Ukraine for this summit, Politico reported. The NATO effort to supply Ukraine with new systems will take priority over other NATO projects. According to Politico, the U.S. spearheaded an effort to convince skeptical NATO members to be on board with sending Ukraine sophisticated defensive weapons. Our message to Moscow and the world is clear: Our support for Ukraine is strong and unwavering, said a joint statement from the U.S. and four other nations involved with the project. Biden also spoke of the aftermath of Russias February 2022 invasion of Ukraine in his speech and took credit for expanding NATO to include both Finland and Sweden, The Associated Press reported. Today, NATO is more powerful than ever, Biden said Tuesday. Its good that were stronger than ever because this moment in history calls for our collective strength. The world watching Some world leaders have weighed in on Bidens health in the lead up to the NATO summit, according to The Associated Press. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday before arriving at the summit from Berlin that hes confident in Biden and not worried about his health. New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has also said after recent communication that he has no concerns about Bidens mental acuity, the AP reported. However, the head of Italys anti-migrant League Party, deputy premier Matteo Salvini, said Bidens health does not seem very good. The summit is set to include all 32 NATO countries and Pacific partners Australia, Japan and New Zealand and also Ukraine. Biden is slated to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday. WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) On Tuesday the annual NATO summit kicked off in Washington D.C., bringing together world leaders for the 75th anniversary of the military alliance. Much of the focus is on supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia, but concerns about the 2024 U.S. presidential election are also at play. President Joe Biden is looking to reassure both voters at home and global allies that hes up for another term. He gave a speech on Tuesday night welcoming everyone to the summit and expressing the importance of the NATO alliance. NATO makes us all safer, Biden said. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also spoke. He celebrated NATOs 75th anniversary. NATO is not only the most successful and the strongest but also the longest lasting alliance in history, Stoltenberg said. At the event President Biden surprised Stoltenberg by awarding him the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom to honor his work leading the alliance. Leaders say its a pivotal time for NATO and the world as Ukraine continues to fight against Russia. During his speech President Biden announced new military aid for Ukraine, and other NATO countries are pledging more support as well. Make no mistake: Ukraine can and will stop Putin, Biden said. Concerns about the 2024 U.S. election are present as well. The U.S. plays a major role in the alliance so the next president will have an important impact. Americans, they know were stronger with our friends. And we understand this is a sacred obligation, Biden said. President Biden says hes helped unite NATO over the past four years and says with another term hed do more to strengthen global alliances. Republicans argue President Biden isnt up for the job, saying his recent debate performance proves it. What were projecting from the White House is not strength right now at a very dangerous time around the world, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said. Democrats point out former president Donald Trump has been very critical of NATO. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says another Trump term would jeopardize the alliance. The MAGA hard right cant be trusted to lead on the global stage, Schumer said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. President Joe Biden will hold a closely watched news conference on Thursday, marking another high-stakes moment for the president to show off his skill in answering questions in an unscripted setting. The appearance will come at the conclusion of a critical NATO summit where foreign diplomats will have a front row seat to observe his ability to lead on the global stage. Biden has held a historically low number of news conferences compared to his most recent predecessors and has been encouraged by his top allies to lean into more off-the-cuff, casual moments in the aftermath of last months debate performance. When he takes the podium Thursday evening, it will be just the 15th time Biden has held a solo news conference, and the first time since November 2023 an engagement that ran 21 minutes. His average solo news conference has been roughly 37 minutes long. There is a possibility that the strategy telegraphed by his team to accelerate the presidents schedule and spontaneous engagements will not have its desired outcome. But in recent days, Bidens team has leaned into their plans with stops at a church and campaign office in Philadelphia, a community event and a coffee shop in Harrisburg, a 22-minute interview with ABC News George Stephanopoulos and an 18-minute call-in to MSNBCs Morning Joe. Bidens team is already looking ahead to the next unscripted engagement, teasing an interview with NBC News Lester Holt set for Monday. Despite the unscripted plans, Biden and his team have previously sought to control what hes asked when. At his most recent June 13 news conference alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when a reporter asked him a question about a Hamas-Israel ceasefire, Biden expressed frustration with the reporter for going off-topic. I wish you guys would play by the rules a little bit. Im here to talk about a critical situation in Ukraine you ask me on other subjects. Ill be happy to answer in detail later, he said, a response that received condemnation from the White House Correspondents Association. The president is expected to give brief remarks at the beginning before taking questions from reporters, a White House official said. Biden has held 36 news conferences to date, including 14 solo and 22 joint news conferences alongside other world leaders. He has participated three joint news conferences so far this year: the June 13 presser with Zelensky in Italy, on May 23 alongside Kenya President William Ruto at the White House, and on April 10 with Japan Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, also at the White House. Former President Donald Trump, by contrast, held 88 news conferences overall during his presidency, and at the same point in his presidency, he had held 64 news conferences, 16 of which were solo, according to an analysis of University of California at Santa Barbaras American Presidency Project data. Former President Barack Obama held 163 news conferences and had held 72 at this point in his presidency, 32 of which were solo. And former President George W. Bush held 210 news conferences during his presidency, and 82 at this point in his presidency, 15 of which were solo. Recent presidents who had held fewer news conferences at this point include former President Ronald Reagan, at 25, and former President Richard Nixon, at 24. Biden has been under intense scrutiny since the debate, with heightened attention on every verbal slip, diversion and moment of confusion. Close observers of the president have noted that his speech and delivery have lost some pacing, crispness and focus in the years since he took office. Biden has been largely insulated from potential signs of aging by his team, with strategies including short, tightly scripted events in which the president reads from a teleprompter; the use of shorter steps on Air Force One; and significantly pared-back engagement with reporters compared with his most recent predecessors. But some Democrats are increasingly convinced that those efforts were less aimed at preventing spoken gaffes or freewheeling diversions and more focused on eliminating more alarming incidents showing a weakened, aging president in recent months. Biden, who has a long history of verbal gaffes, further raised questions about the effectiveness of a strategy when he went off the cuff last week. Im proud to be, as I said, the first vice president first Black woman to serve with a Black president, proud to have been involved with the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, he said during a radio interview that aired July 4. Reached for comment that night, a Biden campaign spokesperson slammed the absurdity of criticism of the presidents missteps. It was clear what President Biden meant when he was talking about his historic record including a record number of appointments to the federal bench, spokesperson Ammar Moussa said. And the response to a question from Stephanopoulos about how hed feel in January if Trump won did little to curb deepening concerns from Democrats. Ill feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, thats what this is about, Biden said Friday. The quote was also transcribed by other outlets as Biden saying he did the goodest job he can do, which is how ABC originally transcribed the quote before changing it in a later version of their transcript. Biden has remained dug in, emphatically dismissing any suggestion that hes not the most qualified candidate to beat Trump in November and vowing to stay in the race. Whos going to be able to hold NATO together like me? Whos going to be able to be in a position where Im able to keep the Pacific basin in a position where were at least check being in China now? Whos going to whos going to do that? Who has that reach? Biden asked during his interview with Stephanopoulos last week. He added, I guess a real good way to judge me is youre going to have now the NATO Conference here in the United States next week. Come listen. See what they say. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com President Biden announced new tariffs Wednesday on imported steel and aluminum in a bid to keep cheaply produced Chinese metals out of U.S. markets and protect domestic production ahead of the November election. The new tariffs will focus on steel and aluminum imports from Mexico, which has become a conduit for many products of Chinese origin as the U.S. has reworked some direct supply chains away from China in the aftermath of the pandemic. Steel arriving from Mexico will be taxed under Section 232 tariffs at 25 percent unless it has been melted and poured in Mexico, Canada or the U.S. Similarly, aluminum from Mexico will receive a 10 percent tariff if it was smelt or cast in China, Belarus, Iran or Russia, White House economist Lael Brainard told reporters Tuesday. The new tariffs are being coordinated with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who released a joint statement Wednesday with President Biden. To improve transparency of the origins of its imports, Mexico is requiring importers to provide more information about the country of origin of steel products. This action adds to Mexicos recent tariff increases on steel from non-free trade agreement countries, the two presidents said in their statement. The new tariffs will pertain to just a fraction of total imports of the two critical metals, though import volumes from Mexico have been increasing since 2019, senior administration officials said. The U.S. imported 28.16 million tons of steel in 2023, down 8.7 percent from 2022, according to January figures from the American Iron and Steel Institute, a trade group for North American steel producers. Of the 28.16 million tons, 3.8 million came from Mexico, and 13 percent of those or about 494,000 tons were melted and poured in countries other than the U.S., Mexico or Canada, senior administration officials said. Affected aluminum volumes are considerably smaller, as the U.S. imported 105,000 metric tons of aluminum from Mexico in 2023. Just 6 percent of those or 6,300 tons were smelt or cast in Russia, China, Belarus or Iran. President Biden announced direct tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum in April, measures that some commentators described as merely symbolic since just 2 percent of U.S. steel imports and 3.5 percent of aluminum imports come from China. Protection measures for U.S. workers and industries has been a focus for the Biden administration ahead of the November election, as Biden has styled himself as one of the most pro-labor presidents in U.S. history. The U.S. steel industry was thrown for a loop last December when Japanese steel producer Nippon Steel announced the acquisition of U.S. Steel at a premium price of $55 per share in a deal that received some harsh criticism from lawmakers. U.S. Steel announced in May that the companies have received all non-U.S. regulatory approvals related to the deal. In her agencys statement on the tariffs, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said domestic production of U.S. steel and aluminum were vital to U.S. national security interests. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Polands leader came to Washington with a simple message that doesnt depend on who is in the White House: The Cold War is back. President Andrzej Duda, who dined in New York with former President Donald Trump this spring, said he will be happy to work with whomever U.S. voters choose as their next president as long as that person shares his goals of securing Europe from Russia. "We have to be honest and tell ourselves that the Cold War situation is back and it's not due to the actions of the United States, it is because of the revival of Russian imperial ambitions, Duda told POLITICO during an interview at the Polish embassy on Tuesday as world leaders flooded into town for the annual NATO Summit. The U.S. is hosting the summit this year against the backdrop of not just the war in Ukraine but the prospect of the reelection of Trump who has been scornful of the alliance, opposed sending military aid to Kyiv and has favored closer relations with Vladimir Putin. That puts Duda in a tough position as he navigates a war that has brought thousands of Ukrainian refugees to his country and served up a stark reminder of the threat posed by Putin. Poland, in short, cant afford to take sides in U.S. politics. Its the American people who decide who their president will be, and in my capacity as President of Poland, I can answer only in the following way: We are going to accept and welcome any choice that is going to be made by the American people. Duda had as much praise for former President Barack Obama, who sent more U.S. troops to Poland, as he did for Trump and Biden, who he also lauded for increasing the U.S. military presence in Poland and Eastern Europe. For years, the Polish president found ways to flatter Trump. In 2018 he urged the U.S. to deploy more troops and equipment to his country and went so far as to suggest Poland build a Fort Trump to house U.S. and Polish troops there. It is my deep conviction that the [job] of the Polish president is to build as good relations as possible with the greatest ally in NATO, and that is the United States of America, he said. Its part of the Polish presidents overarching message to allies in Washington this week: While America must lead, Europe cant give up when it comes to showing strength against Moscow. Dudas government has been at the forefront of the rearmament push in Europe, spending almost 4 percent of its GDP on defense doubling the NATO goal of 2 percent and has sent everything from fighter planes and tanks to air defense systems to Kyiv. Those moves have secured Poland a place as the alliances newest military powerhouse, a role that makes Warsaw a player in the alliance, and in Europe, in a way it hadnt been in previous years. We can see that there is a huge deficit of security in Europe, he said, adding that it is critical, during the annual alliance summit, that NATO send the world a message of the unity of NATO this has to be very clear. And the second message that is important to send is that NATO is strong, and that NATO sees a threat emanating from Russia. Poland, like many other Central and Eastern European nations, has long warned of the threat Vladimir Putins Russia poses to Europe, and while they have not welcomed the war in Ukraine, leaders from the region are somewhat heartened that the West has finally recognized the warnings. After Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and seized Crimea in 2014, the West did not react in the appropriate way, Duda said, proving that sanctions and strongly-worded statements were not enough to deter Putin. Today, Russia has been strengthening and building up its military presence in Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania, and today this is the most heavily militarized piece of land in the world. Russia is [also] openly speaking about deploying nuclear arms to Belarus, movements that represent a new threat against NATO, so NATO's response today has to be adequate to the level of this threat. Duda came to Washington this week looking for more commitments for European air defense systems to protect the alliance from Russian missiles, and is also looking for new commitments for Ukrainian support and increased national defense spending across the alliance. What we expect is a very consistent and tough policy by NATO as a whole led by the United States of America [to] strengthen our defense policy across the alliance, he said. We have to rebuild our defense industries and we have to replenish our reserves and our stocks of ammunition, we have to do it together, and today we also have to support Ukraine without any pause. A major push at the summit this week will be to ink some defense procurement agreements that will increase the production of ammunition for artillery, air defense and aircraft, all of which have been depleted over the past two years of combat. My appeal is that we enhance the increases in defense spending to the level of 3 percent as it was through the Cold War, Duda said, outlining a goal that is still likely years off. While 23 of the 32 alliance members will reach the 2 percent goal this year, a proposal to enshrine a 2.5 percent target at this summit was scuttled before the opening ceremony. One goal of the Polish government to bring Ukraine into the NATO alliance is inching closer, as a communique expected to be released this week will declare that Ukraines path toward membership will be irreversible." Its a phrase Duda used specifically when speaking of Ukraine, even if Kyivs ascension is still years away. HOUSTON, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) Recovery efforts are ongoing along the Texas Coast after Hurricane Beryl made landfall and has since turned into Tropical Depression Beryl. First responders from the Big Country area, including EMS and fire personnel from the Abilene Fire Department, Roscoe Volunteer Fire Department, and Mitchell County EMS, arrived in San Antonio on Saturday. They have been assigned to Texas Response Taskforce 1 to provide mostly evacuation and medical assistance. Big Country personnel deployed to assist with Hurricane Beryl response Their work could take anywhere from 2 to 10 days. As they continued, another group from Big Country arrived in Houston. Richard Cumby, the administrative sponsor of Wylie ISD, spoke with KTAB/KRBC about his journey to the area with a bus full of 15 Wylie High School FFA students. The team arrived on Tuesday for the annual state FFA convention. We were supposed to leave about 7 Oclock on Monday but of course with the hurricane coming through that got pushed back a little bit The convention center did not have power as we were coming down, so we decided to stop and stay over in College Station Of course, we were following the weather, Cumby said. Wylie ISD FFA team has a delay in College Station While in College Station, they got word that the convention staff was meeting to decide whether or not the convention would go on. On Tuesday, it was decided that with power restored and damage to the area cleared away, the event would proceed, and the team continued for Houston. Cumby commented on the conditions they faced along the way. We got into a lot of the wind when we got close to College Station, then leaving today and coming this way, youd periodically see a billboard that was torn up. The closer you got to Houston, you could see where the trees had lost a lot of limbs, a lot of leaves, said Cumby. PHOTOS: Damage after Beryl made landfall in Texas Though they encountered some blowback from the storm, the students were able to skirt around the more impacted areas and arrive safely. Cumby said their hotel in the medical district and the convention center appear to be back in normal operation. Power is good here. I talked to the AG teachers a while ago, and they said everything was good down at the convention center. The powers all good. Theres no water standing in the roads, and theres no flooding down there, Cumby said. The 96th annual FFA Convention was able to proceed as residents and businesses returned to the area. This is all thanks to the tireless and ongoing work of the thousands of local responders and Texas volunteers who answered the call to do what is needed. Video shows Hurricane Beryls path of destruction through Jamaica, eastern Caribbean There was a lot of work crews in College Station They were heading out Im gonna guess toward the Galveston area But right here in Houston You wouldnt even know it At least right here in the city I just think they were prepared and ready for the cleanup, said Cumby. The FFA Convention will wrap on Friday, and many of the events will be condensed for time. Cumby says they will return to Wylie sometime in the afternoon on Friday. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com. BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- A joint training exercise co-organized by the air forces of China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) began in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in late June, the Ministry of National Defense announced Wednesday. The "Falcon Shield-2024" training exercise is the second joint training between the two countries' air forces, and it will last until late July. The ministry said that its goal is to promote mutual understanding and trust, strengthen exchanges and cooperation, and improve strategic cooperation between the two militaries. Republican donors are reportedly very uneasy about one of Donald Trumps possible vice presidential picks and have been trying to prevent him from rising in the ranks. JD Vance, the 39-year-old junior senator from Ohio, is one of the three big names the former president is reportedly considering for his ticket. Vance is considered a rising star within the Republican Party, having sprung onto the political scene in 2016 after his successful memoir Hillbilly Elegy. With Trumps support, he was elected to Congress in 2022. But it is ultimately that lack of political experience that is unattractive to big-time Republican donors, a source told The Daily Beast. J.D. Vance is a guy who wrote a book and helped with a Netflix show, a Republican strategist close to donors told the news outlet. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) looks on as former President Donald Trump speaks to the media during Trumps trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments. (Getty Images) The same donors who supported Vance during his 2022 Senate run are allegedly trying to sabotage any chance of him ending up on Trumps ticket by influencing the former presidents decision. Though Vance brings a younger face and fresh perspective to the Trump ticket while remaining aligned with many of Trumps MAGA policies, the Ohio senator is only two years into his political career. Donors worry Vances minimal political experience, combined with his lack of business expertise, makes him a risky choice as Trumps running mate. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign denied the allegations to The Daily Beast, assuring that Trump will make a decision on his own. Trump is expected to announce his vice presidential pick before or during the Republican National Convention which begins on Monday. According to reports, Trump has whittled his list down to three contenders: Vance, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. Sources who spoke to The Daily Beast say donors are partial to Burgum a successful businessman who has been serving as governor of the state since 2016 since hes perceived as the safer and more stable option. Parents of young officers in training and incoming recruits who died in connection with military activities want Congress to approve death benefits that others in the armed forces already receive. Its just been an absolute nightmare. Theres no aspect of our lives that are the same, said Jessica Swan. Swans daughter, Mackenzie Wilson, 19, a student at Oregon State University and an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps cadet, died in a vehicle accident in June 2022, while at an Air Force base in Idaho for a development program. Family members of active duty troops can collect financial compensation from the military after a service member dies. But Swan received nothing after her childs death. Loved ones of those in the Reserve Officers Training Corps, as well as those in a pre-basic training program, are largely ineligible for such payments. Theres nothing, which was just astonishing, said Swan. How can you be doing the same thing as someone else, but they have a different title under a different program, and they have a safety net, but my daughter didnt. Now, lawmakers are working across the aisle to remedy that. A pair of provisions in the recently passed House version of the annual defense policy bill seek to expand eligibility of death benefits to ROTC members as well as life insurance access to the college-enrolled cadets and members of the militarys Delayed Entry Program, which allows time to complete school or meet other requirements before recruit training. While House lawmakers included the provisions in their defense bill that passed in June, the current Senate version of the bill so far does not have them, and it remains to be seen whether the changes will make it into the final version of the bill signed by the president. If eventually signed into law, the moves, which come amid a push to recruit more talent into the services, would close a gap in coverage that grieving parents say could offer much-needed relief from financial hardship and provide recognition of loss similar to what others in the military community receive. Youre already living every parents worst nightmare, and then you add the financial on top of it, Swan said, noting how the lack of monetary assistance compounded her situation and snowballed into her losing her home. The measures, included in the Houses fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, would allow families of ROTC cadets who die at training on a DOD installation to be eligible for a special tax-free death gratuity payment of $100,000 as well as the aid of a casualty assistance officer, who can help with counseling, burial and next of kin services. It also includes language to make third and fourth year ROTC cadets and members of the Delayed Entry Program eligible to enroll in Servicemembers Group Life Insurance, SGLI, which can provide up to $500,000 in coverage. Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., who enrolled in the Delayed Entry Program a few months prior to officially joining the Marine Corps Reserve and attending boot camp, helped include those provisions in the House bill. In Congress, sometimes you are working on a policy change that will affect a lot of families in small or imperceptible ways, he told Military Times in a statement. Other times, youre working on something that will only affect a few families, but in meaningful and noticeable ways. In this case, we are talking about changes that are much more the latter. Enrollees in the Delayed Entry Program are currently eligible to get very limited coverage through the SGLI for exercises that they are completing on a DOD facility, according to Carbajal. But many in that program, like Jose Rodriguez, end up not being qualified. He died after participating in a fitness test with the Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program, and his family said they got no financial support. He was nothing for them, his mother Rosario said. As the armed forces actively work to attract talent following past difficulties in meeting recruitment targets, Manny Vega, the leader of the advocacy group who helped push the legislation forward in Congress, emphasized the coverage changes in question will offer peace of mind to families with loved ones in these programs, which serve as major gateways for the services to bring in new troops. And if, or when, an incident results in a death, they would have help with navigating the path forward. That extra money would be a buffer, said Vega, president of Save Our Servicemembers. Vega admitted theres been some pushback to the endeavor, including comments about how since those in question have not yet attended boot camp they should not qualify for the death benefits. Those who are opposed to this bill because these members have not attended boot camp are wrong, he said, emphasizing that the young volunteers equally understand the sense of commitment that others in the military hold, and are already engaging in service-connected physical activities. Its unclear as to whether the legislation will be updated to make money retroactively available for families like Wilsons or Rodriguezs, but for now those leading the charge are aiming to get at least something on the table to keep others who experience such a tragedy from facing the same financial burdens. While thankfully, the number of families that will be impacted by this legislation is small, the stories of service members like Mackenzie Wilson and Jose Rodriguez are impactful on the families of individuals considering entering ROTC and DEP, Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., who also helped get the language included in the House bill, told Military Times in a statement. Ensuring that service members in those programs receive these benefits is critical to strengthening the family support systems that are the foundation of our modern, volunteer military, added Waltz, who commissioned through the Virginia Military Institutes ROTC program. Congress should not be here to make a buck, Sen. Josh Hawley (seen here last month), R-Mo., said Wednesday at a press conference in Washington. There is no reason why members of Congress ought to be profiting off of the information that only they get. Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI July 10 (UPI) -- A bipartisan group of senators unveiled Wednesday an agreement on legislation that would ban members of Congress, including the president and vice president, from stock trading. The renewed effort is being lead by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Jon Ossoff, D-Ga. "Americans deserve to have confidence that their federal elected officials are making decisions that are in the best interest of the American public and not in the interest of any personal finances," Peters, the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chair, said Wednesday at a press conference in Washington, adding that the Senate panel would take the "historic step" to consider the bill on July 24. This will be the first time Congress has formally considered such legislation. Under the bill's framework, members of Congress would be "immediately" banned from trading stocks if it becomes law, according to Merkley. The legislation if passed beginning March 2027 would then prohibit lawmakers' spouses and dependent children from trading stocks as well. Americans deserve to have confidence that their federal elected officials are making decisions that are in the best interest of the American public and not in the interest of any personal finances, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich. said Wednesday at a press conference in Washington, saying the Senates Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee would take the historic step to consider the bill on July 24. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI Also starting that year, the U.S. president, vice president and all members of Congress would have to divest from any "covered investments." But Hawley says he is not sure now if enough members will support the measure to get it passed. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2022. If the committee votes are tied, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will file a motion to bring the nomination to the Senate floor. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI "Congress should not be here to make a buck," the Missouri Republican said Wednesday on Capitol Hill. "There is no reason why members of Congress ought to be profiting off of the information that only they get." Experts say the privileged information given to members of Congress in both the House and Senate chambers provides an unfair advantage in investing not afforded to a typical American. Ossoff in 2022 joined Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., introducing a similar bill to prohibit congress members from trading stocks while in office, a move that was followed when Hawley introduced a similar bill of his own. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., whose own husband Paul Pelosi is a wealthy investor who often makes trades, only last year began to soften in her opposition to such legislation, dismissing such ideas to prevent lawmakers from participating in the "free market economy." But Pelosi's switch on the issue was only after she got a letter singed by 27 House members -- two Republicans and 25 Democrats -- urging members of Congress be banned from trading or owning stocks. That letter also was addressed to then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. In September last year, former Rep. Stephen Buyer, R-Ind., was sentenced to nearly 2 years behind bars after being convicted of four counts of securities fraud stemming from two insider trading schemes allegedly created with non-public information. However, the alleged crimes took place after Buyer had left Congress in 2011. Former President Barack Obama signed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, known as the STOCK Act, on April 4, 2012, a law that only then officially banned insider trading by members of Congress. Meanwhile, it took until 2022 for the Federal Reserve to enact rules banning or restricting certain investment and trading activities by Fed officials, designed to "support public confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the Committee's work by guarding against even the appearance of any conflict of interest." Joshua Graham Lynn, CEO of RepresentUs, a non-partisan non-profit group focused on advancing anti-political corruption efforts, said the proposal was welcomed and long-overdue. "With trust in government at an all-time low, it is more important than ever for members of Congress to show they are working for the American people, not their own pocketbooks," Lynn said. "This news is a long overdue step in the right direction and a much-needed sign that Democrats and Republicans are still capable of setting their differences aside to get things done." Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird held a news conference May 31, 2024, announcing the results of her office's audit of victims' services. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch) Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird has filed a brief in federal court on behalf of 14 states defending an Arkansas law that prevents indoctrination in K-12 schools. A federal district court ruled the state could not prevent two teachers from discussing the ideas of critical race theory a primarily collegiate academic theory that asserts racism was embedded in the nations institutions upon its founding in class. The ruling did not outright block the state from enforcing the law. The teachers, as well as two students who sued alongside the teachers, asserted that the laws vague definition of critical race theory forced teachers to self-censor over fears of violating state law. The state appealed the district court decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit which is where Bird filed her brief, which is co-signed by the attorneys general for Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. If allowed to stand, the district courts decision threatens to wreak havoc on States ability to determine what is taught in their schools, the brief reads. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE At the heart of the attorneys general disagreement with the previous ruling is the courts interpretation of Pratt v. Independent School District where a student successfully challenged a school board banning a film that it religiously and ideologically opposed. Bird and others argue the First Amendment is designed to prevent the government from censoring others and not itself, but that rulings like the one in the Pratt case force the government to self-censor. If the government is speaking, the public does not have a First Amendment right to control the message. If a private citizen is speaking, the First Amendment prevents the government from controlling the message, the brief reads. The Pratt decision was also the justification used by a Des Moines judge to block an Iowa book ban as being staggeringly broad. Bird said the Arkansas law prevents schools from indoctrinating students. As a mom, I know how important it is that we create a healthy culture for our kids to learn and grow, Bird said in a press release. And most schools and teachers do an amazing job at that. But when education turns into indoctrination, parents have a right to push back. The entire brief can be read here. The post Bird files court brief defending Arkansas ban on school indoctrination appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch. By Tom Polansek, P.J. Huffstutter and Leah Douglas MARTIN, Michigan (Reuters) - Some dairy farmers are resisting Michigan's nation-leading efforts to stop the spread of bird flu for fear their incomes will suffer from added costs and hurt rural America. The government's restrictions, which include tracking who comes and goes from farms, are rekindling unwanted memories of COVID-19 in Martin and other small towns in central Michigan. The state has two of the four known cases in humans, all dairy workers, since federal authorities confirmed the world's first case in U.S. cattle in late March. The state has tested more people than any of the 12 states with confirmed cases in cows, according to a Reuters survey of state health departments. Testing policies vary by state. Public health experts fear the disease has the potential to turn into another pandemic just a few years after COVID-19. As those worries mount, the acceptance and success or failure of Michigan's proactive response is being watched by other states looking for a roadmap that goes beyond federal containment recommendations. More than a dozen interviews with Michigan producers, state health officials, researchers and industry groups, along with preliminary data, so far show limited dairy farmer participation in efforts to stem and study the virus. In some cases, calls from local health officials go unanswered, money for dairy farm research is left unclaimed, and workers still milk cows without extra protective gear. Brian DeMann, a dairy farmer from Martin, Michigan, said the outbreak and state's response recalls COVID-19. The 37-year-old believes Michigan's rules to contain bird flu would be more widely accepted if they came as recommendations rather than requirements for farmers. "Nobody knows if these things that we're being told to do are going to stop it," said DeMann, who echoed an uncertain view shared by other farmers. "Just like 2020, people didn't like to be told what to do." This spring many U.S. dairy owners did not heed federal recommendations to offer more protective equipment to employees, according to farmers and workers. DeMann said he did not invest in new protective gear, such as masks, for his workers because it is unclear how the virus is spreading. NO EXTRA GEAR About 900 permitted dairy farms dot Michigan's countryside, with cows in open-air barns and piles of feed covered with protective tarps and old tires used as weights. Tim Boring, Michigan's agriculture director, said social stigma and economic concerns around infections have discouraged farmers from testing cows for bird flu in the nation's sixth biggest milk producer. "There's a lot of factors that go into the concerns about farms coming forward with positive operations," he said. "We know this has been a challenge in Michigan." The state last reported an infected dairy herd on July 9, its 26th to test positive. Five other states have also confirmed cases in the past month, and about 140 herds have been infected nationally since March, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Michigan is offering farms up to $28,000 to entice those with infected herds to participate in research. More than a dozen farms have so far expressed interest, the state said. Separately, the federal government is offering financial assistance. Twelve of 21 herds enrolled in financial support from USDA are from Michigan, according to the agency. To boost testing, USDA launched a voluntary program in which U.S. farmers can test tanks of milk weekly for bird flu. Six farmers in six states have enrolled one herd each, but a Michigan farmer is not among them yet. "I really would like to see that in every single herd," said Zelmar Rodriguez, a Michigan State University dairy veterinarian studying infections. 'NEW THREAT' Michigan's agriculture department said it has up to 200 people responding to bird flu cases in poultry and cattle, including coordinating with USDA on outbreak investigations. Veterinarians in other states said they tracked Michigan's cases to assess the risks for transmission. "Michigan is doing a good job with their diagnostics and trying to identify where the disease is," said Mike Martin, North Carolina's state veterinarian. Michigan's outbreak in cows began after an infected Texas farm shipped cattle to Michigan in March before the virus was detected, according to USDA. Weeks later, a Michigan poultry farm also reported symptoms and tested positive. Whole genome sequencing suggested the virus spilled over from the dairy farm to the poultry flock. USDA now thinks the virus has spread indirectly through people and vehicles moving on and off infected farms. Chickens owned by Michigan's largest egg producer, Herbruck's Poultry Ranch, were infected because the virus spread from cattle, said Nancy Barr, executive director of Michigan Allied Poultry Industries, an industry group. Reuters is first to report the link to Herbruck's from dairy cow transmission. "It's a new threat to us," Barr said. Herbruck's told the state in May it was laying off about 400 workers after bird flu decimated flocks in Ionia County. The company said in a public notice it planned to rehire employees as it rebuilds its flocks, a process that can take six months. As of late June, Ionia County poultry farmers received $73.2 million in indemnity payments from the U.S. government for bird-flu losses, the most of any county in the country that had to cull infected flocks since February 2022, according to data Reuters obtained from the USDA. MAIN STREET The layoffs struck fear in Ionia, a city of about 13,000 people in central Michigan with a brick-paved Main Street and mural of the Mona Lisa. Business owners said unemployed workers have less money to spend at time when local stores already struggle to compete with Walmart and Meijer. "I just thought, 'Oh great, here goes the store,'" said Jennifer Loudenbeck, owner of the Downtown Vintage Resale shop. Alex Hanulcik, who owns a fresh fruit stand, said he knows a Herbruck's employee who left town to find work in the southern U.S. after being terminated. "I really feel for the employees," Hanulcik said. "They were blindsided." Herbruck's declined to comment. Dairy farmers said they are constantly worrying their cows may be the next to become infected, yet they are unsure exactly how to protect them. Doug Chapin, a dairy farmer in Remus, Michigan, said he held meetings with employees to inform them of the risks of the virus. He is trying to make workers wear protective eye gear, though they objected in the past because glasses must be cleaned if milk sprays on them. "You're thinking about it all the time," he said about the virus. Michigan has plans to test dairy workers for signs of prior infections with first-in-the-nation blood testing. The state has already monitored thousands of people for bird flu symptoms using a complex contact tracing system that texts them three times daily, said Chad Shaw, health officer for the Ionia County Health Department. Some farmers remain reluctant to engage with local health authorities, though. The Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency began reaching out to farms generally to offer medical care for seasonal workers because of bird flu cases, said health officer Rebecca Burns. There has been little interest, she said. "These guys aren't used to us calling them," Burns said. HARD HIT Michigan has detected the third most infected dairy herds of any state, after Idaho and Colorado, and lost 6.5 million chickens in April alone from outbreaks on poultry farms, USDA data show. The Biden administration in late April began requiring lactating cows to test negative before being shipped over state lines. Michigan went further and in May started requiring farms to keep logs of visitors, disinfect delivery trucks that could carry the virus, and take other safety steps. The state this month began requiring negative tests for non-lactating cows to be shown at fairs. Colorado reported the nation's fourth human case on July 3. The U.S. government awarded $176 million to Moderna to advance development of its bird flu vaccine for humans. Two dozen companies are working on a vaccine for cattle, U.S Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, as about 140 herds nationally have tested positive. "Michigan's been the forefront on providing information, providing access to information that really is helpful," Vilsack told Reuters. (Reporting by Tom Polansek in Martin, Michigan; PJ Huffsutter in Chicago; and Leah Douglas in Washington. Additional reporting by Heather Schlitz in Chicago. Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Anna Driver) Bird flu seems to be slowly mutating to better infect humans. Experts warn the time to act is now In late March, a worker on a commercial dairy farm in Texas developed a case of pink eye. He eventually tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza Type A H5N1, also known as bird flu. Scientists were shocked to find out that cattle, not birds, were the host and that large amounts of H5N1 were found in the infected cattle. So far this year, there have been four confirmed cases in humans following exposure to a dairy cow, with at least 143 dairy herds affected in a dozen states. For years, scientists have warned that bird flu could become another pandemic like COVID-19 (which hasn't exactly ended.) In other species, scientists have seen H5N1 decimate populations of seals and cats. Now, a new study published in the journal Nature takes a deeper look at the virus infecting cows, shedding light on the risk it poses to the human population. In the study, scientists found that after being isolated from an infected cow, the H5N1 virus spread to the mammary glands of mice and some ferrets. There's good news and bad news, co-author of the study Keith Poulson, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, told Salon. The good news is that scientists have a model to infect laboratory animals and get them to shed the virus in their mammary glands. Specifically, in the study, scientists found that when the mice and ferrets were infected with the virus, it spread to the brain, intestines, kidney, heart and lungs. It also spread the mammary glands of mice and some of the ferrets. While transmission did not occur throughout direct contact between the mice, the female mice did transmit it to their pups through their milk. Typically influenza viruses like the kind that peaks every winter, but are considerably more benign than bird flu spread among mammals through droplets in the air when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks. This is known as respiratory transmission. The results of the study suggest the current strain isnt great at respiratory transmission. At face value, this is good news. However, the last part of the study left scientists concerned. The bad news is that this will attach to both sets of sialic acid receptors, Poulson told Salon. These receptors are prevalent throughout the upper respiratory tract of humans. In birds, H5N1 strains typically attack different sialic acid receptors. But now it has clearly adapted to mammalian receptors, which could give the virus greater capacity for transmission between people. One of the main reasons H5N1 hasn't become a pandemic yet emphasis on yet is because it is kind of lousy at spreading from person to person. If it ever evolves that ability, a distinct possibility, it could then easily surge through a population, creating a textbook pandemic. In fact, this is exactly what SARS-CoV-2, a virus that first existed in bats, managed to do in 2019. So we really need to pay attention to this virus; we can't let it continue to be endemic in our dairy herds," Poulson said. Indeed, in the last part of the study scientists discovered that unlike older strains of H5N1, this one has the capacity of dual binding, which suggests that it could be possible for humans to get infected in their respiratory tracts but the scientists said they need more information. Poulson said in light of the findings, he thinks its a good idea that last week, the Human Services announced a contract with the vaccine developer Moderna to manufacture an mRNA vaccine that targets bird flu. We have successfully taken lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and used them to better prepare for future public health crises, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. "As part of that, we continue to develop new vaccines and other tools to help address influenza and bolster our pandemic response capabilities." We don't want to get caught behind the eight ball like we did with COVID, Poulson said. It's worth the prep, so if this were to change, even though it's a very low chance, if it were to change, we're ready for it. Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes. Professor Ian Brown of The Pirbright Institute, who leads a research consortium that is addressing similar questions on receptor binding, said in a media statement that the predicted binding to cells offers new evidence for wider attachment including to cells lining the upper respiratory tract of humans but requires further study to understand the underlying factors. Overall the study findings are not unexpected but this report provides further science insight to an evolving situation, he said. That emphasizes the need for strong monitoring and surveillance in affected or exposed populations, both animals and humans to track future risk. Dr. Rajendram Rajnarayanan of the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., told Salon he is concerned about the latest studys findings, but the concern isn't alarming just yet. There are the things that we expect that's going to happen when we do not control the spread, Rajnarayanan said. There is a possibility that if it binds right now, it's going to try to bind better. It's always going to mutate and thats a key concern. Genomic surveillance, Rajnarayanan said, is key to getting ahead of efficient human-to-human respiratory transmission. Typically, anything that infects the upper respiratory tract, their ability to transmit human to human, is pretty high, Rajnarayanan said. So far, we haven't seen that yet, but what we have seen is that this is able to bind to both receptors. That's the information we have right now. How efficiently they bind is what scientists should be looking for next. Once it hits human-to-human transmission, it's going to spread much like what we have seen in other pandemic-potential viruses, he said. Red River Ski Area, a charming ski area in New Mexico (located in a town by the same name) announced the replacement of its Copper Chair lift earlier this season- on March 16th, to be exact. Due to maintenance issues that ultimately proved to be too difficult to complete in one season, the "decision was made to close the lift for the season." Crews install a new lift tower for the Copper Chair at Red River Ski Area, NM. Photo courtesy of Red River Ski Area The Copper Chair was an iconic installation of the ski area. Installed in 1993, the lift offered access to a major terrain expansion, and also connected Red River (the town) from both sides with Red River (the ski area). Needless to say, it was an important chair. The wheels of the original Copper Chair spun for 30 seasons, but as the saying goes, nothing gold can stay. Or, in this case, nothing copper. However, the new chair will also be named Copper Chair, so some of the nostalgia remains. This spring, the ski area began a 6 million dollar investment by constructing a new fixed-grip triple chair from Doppelmayr. Work will continue through the summer, and the new chair will ready for the 24/25 winter ski season. Officials from Red River Ski Area told POWDER in a press release that on Monday, July 8th, the installation of the new chairlift towers was completed thanks to precision flying from Timberline Helicopters and their UH-60A+ Black Hawk and the hard work of the Doppelmayr USA crew. New Copper Chair Towers- Red River Ski Area, NM Photo courtesy of Red River Ski Area Photo courtesy of Red River Ski Area Photo courtesy Red River Ski Area Photo courtesy Red River Ski Area "Safety and efficiency were unmatched as crews worked on the ground and atop towers, bolting down incoming chairlift components from the helicopter. Shipments of more chairlift parts will continue to arrive as Doppelmayr USA progresses on this exciting construction project of the new Copper Chair." Officials at the ski area have promised to post updates as construction continues. While it is always disheartening to see cherished, original lifts fall to the wayside, innovation makes our lives easier. This lift will be no exception. Red River Ski Area Frontside Trail Map. The Copper Chair can be seen to the looker's right. Courtesy Red River Ski Area Related: Volunteers Find "Mostly Clean" Lake Tahoe Beaches on Cleanup Day Be the first to read breaking ski news with POWDER. Subscribe to our newsletter and stay connected with the latest happenings in the world of skiing. From ski resort news to profiles of the worlds best skiers, we are committed to keeping you informed. Submit your best clips for a chance to be featured on POWDER. Tune in and watch handpicked, high-quality ski videos streaming all day long on POWDER TV, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. A new California bill would establish a Black-Serving Institution Program to designate public institutions that excel at providing academic resources to Black and African American students. Its a promising first step. But much more will be needed to ensure equity in Black student outcomes. California higher education systems the University of California, California State University and California Community College systems have struggled to enroll Black students; a challenge well documented over the years. Indeed, a recent report by the ACLU documented a 47% decrease in Californias Black student enrollment from 2003 to 2023, a significant decline that underscores the urgency of targeted policy initiatives like a Black-Serving Institution Program, as advanced via Senate Bill 1348 authored by Democrat Steven Bradford of Inglewood. Opinion To be eligible for the designation, an institution must enroll at least 10% of Black students or have a headcount of at least 1,500 Black students. Those selected to receive the title of a Black-Serving Institution must demonstrate evidence of progress in supporting Black student success at the end of the five-year appointment. Institutions must also develop a student success plan, show senior leadership commitment, allocate resources and have academic and social support programs in place for Black students. The current bill includes some metrics that move beyond merely enrolling Black students to actually serving them, as scholars have urged in the context of Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Yet, much more will need to be addressed in the bill to help ensure equity in Black student outcomes and the extent to which these students report a sense of belonging and mattering within designated schools. There are important, additional measures that should be considered as legislators continue to develop the bill. First, legislators should identify state funding to support designated institutions. This is especially important for institutions that disproportionately serve high-need students. Moreover, campuses across the California higher education systems receive varying levels of state and federal appropriations. Allocating funding to support Black-Serving Institutions will help support the creation and sustainability of targeted programs and resources for Black students. There is no shortage of documented, on-campus, racial climate issues for Black students that reduce feelings of belonging and ultimately of success. Therefore, designated campuses should be required to formally assess their campus racial climate and adapt their proposed student success plans to address identified issues over the five years of the designation. These campuses should also be required to produce regular, transparent updates on their progress, including a mid-point assessment. The current bill only requires a progress report at the end of the five-year period. However, routinely assessing progress over the years would allow campuses to make necessary adjustments in real-time, ensuring that efforts are effective and responsive to student needs. Moreover, transparency about progress can help foster trust and provide levers for accountability, especially among Black community stakeholders who may be disillusioned by past harm. Additionally, aspiring campuses should be required to adopt and prioritize evidence-based practices that have been proven to support Black student success. This means implementing strategies and programs that have demonstrated effectiveness toward improved retention, engagement and graduation rates among Black students. By incorporating additional criteria, SB 1348 can be more than just a symbolic gesture; it can become a powerful lever for increasing enrollment and enacting equity for Black college students in California. State legislators have an exciting opportunity to begin redressing long-standing inequities in Black student access and success, potentially setting a precedent for the rest of the nation to follow suit. Royel M. Johnson is an associate professor of higher education at the University of Southern California, where he also serves as director of the National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates in the USC Race and Equity Center. Jessica T. DeCuir-Gunby is the Robert H. Naslund Chair in curriculum and teaching and a professor of educational psychology at USC. Darnell Cole, who also contributed to this piece, is a professor of higher education and educational psychology at USC, where he is the co-director of the Research Center for Education, Identity and Social Justice. (Bloomberg) -- Despite Nicolas Maduros best efforts, Maria Corina Machado is everywhere. Most Read from Bloomberg The Venezuelan opposition leader, who wont appear on the presidential ballot later this month, has sent the ruling party scurrying to stop the fervor behind her. Shes united a long-fractured opposition coalition that once ostracized her. But most of all, shes built a powerful, energized citizen movement that, according to some long-time observers, is unlike any seen here since the late Hugo Chavez President Maduros mentor and idol rose from obscurity to unseat the political establishment in the 1990s. She is coming! She is coming! Maria is coming! People shout the message from block to block, as her caravan slowly makes its way down a mountain toward the center of San Cristobal, in the same border state that was the cradle of anti-government protests in 2014. People on either side can be seen cheering and crying. The number of spectators is even larger than it appears, with many attending via video call as relatives in the swarming crowd dial them in to catch a glimpse of Machado. There are no bodyguards to shield her, so the multitude freely passes her letters, flowers, rosaries, food, paintings and religious figures. Some reach out just to touch her. This is prophetic, Ruben Yuncoza said from the crowd. She is anointed by God. Its no wonder Machado has become a messianic-like figure for Venezuelans who are desperate for change. Theyve watched their country fall apart under a political movement that promised social justice and equality but led to the biggest humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly 80% of Venezuelans are living in poverty and millions have fled seeking opportunities elsewhere. That very story played out in Yuncozas family. At 60, hes reached retirement age, but like many older Venezuelans, he is still working selling fish to make ends meet. Meanwhile, his five working-age children moved abroad during the worst of the countrys crisis. Its hard to imagine what Machados movement will lead to. She's been banned from holding public office until 2030, and it's unlikely that Maduro would step aside. The Venezuelan government is expecting protests should Maduro be declared winner, and in recent months Machado has consistently repeated that she will make the votes count when the election comes, alluding to potential tampering. For now, Machado has been campaigning on behalf of her stand-in candidate, 74-year-old former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez. Her popularity overshadows that of Juan Guaido, the lawmaker who in 2019 was recognized as the countrys interim president by the US and dozens of nations, following Maduros illegitimate reelection in 2018. In some places, like San Cristobal, shes bringing more people to the streets than Henrique Capriles, the two-time presidential candidate who in 2013 only lost to Maduro by a small margin. Machados rise is the product of her unique character among establishment politicians, and timing. Fed-up voters are looking for the polar opposite of Maduro, and she is that. Shes a woman. She comes from a wealthy family, but can still connect with the nations most vulnerable. She believes in dismantling government controls on the economy and privatizing the oil industry. And shes been consistent in her messaging for years: Shes often remembered for interrupting one of Chavezs speeches in 2012 to criticize the damage hed inflicted on the Venezuelan economy, and she later led the 2014 street protests against Maduro. Thats all coincided with a significant change in Venezuelans attitude, said Benigno Alarcon, director of the political studies center at Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas. People are starting to believe they can achieve a change without reliance on a person or institution, and have grown tired of poor government handouts. They would rather earn their own money. Nearly 85% of the country wants a change and finds in Machado the person who embodies it because of the very clear contrasts, he said. She has contributed to empowering people. Machado, the 56-year-old former lawmaker, believes its a two-way dynamic. We empower each other, she said from her partys run-down headquarters in San Cristobal, with a water-damaged ceiling overhead. Ultimately, how far Machado and her supporters can go is up to Maduro. The government has been trying to stem her influence. She says she cant appear on TV or radio stations. Power outages often interrupt her scheduled appearances. The venues she visits are fined or shut down. Those who help her are persecuted, or even imprisoned. In the San Cristobal rally on June 28, locals say the government went as far as drilling gaping potholes into nearby roads to stop people from being able to get to the town, warned cab drivers not to pick up journalists or Machados aides, and forced merchants to keep their businesses open to prevent workers from attending her rally. Employees were instead seen pressed up against store windows to get a chance to see her. The Information Ministry didnt respond to a request for comment. It speaks to a delayed hunger for life that Venezuelans have, said Maria Teresa Urreiztieta, a doctor in social psychology and expert in social movements. It speaks to every life project that has come to a halt, broken families and gaping wounds that we now share in collective mourning.Following in her footsteps, Maduro arrived in Tachira on Wednesday, where he campaigned in a municipality on the Colombian border, about 40 miles west from San Cristobal. Nine months after winning the opposition primaries in October with more than 92% of the vote, Maduros government ratified Machados ban from running for office. At least 13 of her aides and allies have been arrested since January, and six others remain refugees in the Argentinian embassy in Caracas. If anything, the attempts to repress her have helped feed the fervor behind the iron woman a seeming reference to Margaret Thatcher as many now call her. Jose Alberto Aguilar, a 45-year-old merchant, and his family had to overcome several blockades in the 60-mile road from the town of Seboruco to the San Cristobal rally. He just wanted to catch a glimpse of Machado and, if lucky, get close enough to hand her his one-year-old daughter, Ana Paula, wearing a onesie that said baby with Maria Corina. Its something thats become a common sight during Machados events. When people give me their babies, sometimes even newborn babies, it tears my soul, said Machado. There is no greater proof of trust in a person than when you put your child in their arms. Adults, too, have thrown themselves into her arms, sobbing. Still, its hard to imagine a world in which Maduro would cede power. Despite lagging 20 percentage points behind Gonzalez, Maduro still believes he can win, according to people with knowledge of his thought process. Should he be miscalculating, Maduro has backup plans: He could disqualify Gonzalez, annul the oppositions voting card, suspend the election or even alter the votes results, the people said. Watch: Inside Venezuela Machados future is also at stake. Its likely that regardless of the result, she will eventually be sent into exile from Venezuela or jailed. Guaido now lives in exile in Miami. Should a new wave of national protests break out over a Maduro victory, it could present a serious threat for his administration, which killed more than 100 people during anti-government demonstrations in 2017. It could also put a halt to the nations nascent recovery, including newly signed projects by the state-oil company and ramped up oil production from international oil majors, including US driller Chevron, which account for more than 95% of Venezuelas foreign revenue. Another exodus is expected, too, should Maduro secure a third term. A May survey shows 41% of the countrys estimated 28.8 million remaining citizens will consider leaving. We are going to defend our votes, said Daneska Ramirez, a 45-year-old hair stylist, who recently moved back home after five years between Peru and Chile. I dont want to migrate again, I have a family that I love and I will fight. --With assistance from Fabiola Zerpa. (Updates with Maduros visit to Tachira in the 14th paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected the spelling of a last name in the thirteenth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council will continue to levy anti-dumping duties on optical fiber preforms imported from Japan and the United States, the Ministry of Commerce announced on Wednesday. Effective from Thursday, the duties will be imposed for five years, the ministry said in a final ruling based on an anti-dumping investigation report released recently. An anti-dumping investigation into this matter was launched in 2023. Imports from Japan will be subject to rates ranging from 14.4 percent to 31.2 percent, while those from the United States will be subject to rates between 17.4 percent and 41.7 percent. In August 2015, China started to impose anti-dumping duties on fiber preforms imported from Japan and the United States for a period of two years, and later decided to continue with such measures in 2018 for five more years. "If the anti-dumping measures are terminated, the possibility of dumping optical fiber preforms originating from Japan and the United States may continue or recur, causing potential harm to China's optical fiber preform industry," the ministry said. Optical fiber preforms are primarily used in the manufacturing of optical fibers, which are utilized for the transmission of signals in various types of optical cables. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) The U.S. Coast Guards North Bend aircrew rescued a blind hiker and his dog as the owner faced heat exhaustion amid Oregons streak of high temperatures. According to a social media post from the Coast Guards Pacific Northwest district, the 55-year-old man joined a friend for a hike in Southwest Oregon on July 3 or July 4. Oregon records at least 7 deaths possibly linked to extreme heat USCG said the man initially showed signs of heat exhaustion on July 6, when his friend left him to call first responders at Gold Beach because there was no cell reception. The U.S. Coast Guards North Bend aircrew rescued a blind hiker and his dog as the owner faced heat exhaustion amid Oregons streak of high temperatures. (Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Northwest) The U.S. Coast Guards North Bend aircrew rescued a blind hiker and his dog as the owner faced heat exhaustion amid Oregons streak of high temperatures. (Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Northwest) The Oregon Department of Emergency Development and Josephine County Sheriffs Office worked alongside the Bureau of Land Management to arrange the legally-blind hikers rescue in the remote area. Fire spreads from former homeless camp, rips through NE Portland building A BLM ranger and sheriff began their search at 5 a.m. on Monday, and located the man around 9 a.m. at mile nine of the Rogue River Trail. He was unable to walk and the terrain was too rough for a wheel litter, so the Coast Guard deployed a rescue swimmer before hoisting the man and his dog. The two were transported to Grants Pass Airports Emergency Medical Services. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. American-made F-16 fighter jets are on their way to Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday, announcing the follow through of a key commitment years in the making. Blinken, speaking at the NATO public forum, said the advanced fighter jets are expected to be defending Ukraines skys this summer. Blinken did not identify the number of F-16s being sent to Ukraine from the Netherlands and Denmark. A joint statement from Washington, the Hague and Copenhagen said other details are being withheld for operational security. The delivery of F-16s comes on top of President Bidens announcement that NATO allies are providing five more air defense systems to Ukraine, as the country continues to face devastating Russian missile strikes. Those jets will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer, to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression, Blinken said in a statement. President Biden first announced in June 2023 that NATO-partners would pledge to provide F-16s to Ukraine. In May, the first Ukrainian pilots graduated from a U.S.-training program. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the announcement as bolstering Ukraines air defense. The urgent need for such help was underscored by a Russian missile attack on Sunday that hit a childrens hospital in Kyiv with an estimated 300 reported injured, including four children, and two deaths, including a young doctor. In remarks at the Reagan Foundation on Tuesday night, Zelensky said Ukraine needs 128 F-16s to defend against Russias aerial attacks. We need 128, this is the fleet, all these numbers our partners have, Zelensky said. So till moment when we will have 128 with them in the sky anyway it will be difficult. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. FILE - Logo of BMW is seen displayed at the Auto Expo in Greater Noida, near New Delhi, India, Feb. 8, 2018. BMW of North America is recalling more than 390,000 vehicles in the U.S. because an airbag inflator could possibly explode, leading to a potentially serious injury or death. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri, file) WASHINGTON (AP) BMW of North America is recalling more than 390,000 vehicles in the U.S. because they are equipped with airbag inflators that can explode, leading to a potentially serious injury or death. The original steering wheel may have been replaced with a sport or M-sport steering wheel equipped with a Takata inflator, the agency said. If the inflator explodes, it may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants of a vehicle, resulting in serious injury or death, the NHTSA said. BMW has not received any reports of any accidents or injuries in the U.S. that may be related to this issue, according to the latest report. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Wednesday that the recall of 394,029 vehicles includes certain 2006-2011 3 Series Sedan (324i, 325i, 325xi, 328i, 328xi, 330i, 330xi, 335i, 335xi), 2006-2012 3 Series Sportswagon (325xi, 328i, 328xi), and 2009-2011 3 Series Sedan (335d) vehicles. BMW dealers will inspect and replace the drivers air bag module as necessary for free. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed on Aug. 23. Vehicle owners may contact BMW customer service at 1-800-525-7417 or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236. The Iowa Board of Medicine regulates the state's medical profession as part of the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing. (Photo by Getty Images, board seal courtesy the State of Iowa) The Iowa Board of Medicine has agreed to reinstate the license of a physician criminally charged with sexually abusing a patient. In December 2018, Dr. Venkateswara Karuparthy, a pain management physician from Bettendorf, was criminally charged with sexual abuse in Rock Island County, Illinois. Prosecutors alleged that in August 2018 he fondled a female colleague at Integrative Pain Centers while providing medical care to the woman. Shortly after the charges were filed, Karuparthy agreed to refrain from practicing medicine in Iowa. The alleged victim in the case subsequently sued Karuparthy and Integrative Pain Centers, alleging that when she was being treated by Karuparthy he injected her with a drug that impaired her ability to move and then repeatedly and intentionally touched, grabbed, fondled and kissed her. Karuparthy denied the allegations. Court records indicate that in June 2021 Karuparthy pleaded guilty to one count of reckless conduct and one count of assault. He was ordered to pay $2,500 in fines and undergo a mental health evaluation and treatment. In July 2022, the Iowa Board of Medicine, apparently unaware that Karuparthys license had expired, declared his license to be free and clear of any restrictions. In January 2023, Karuparthy applied for reinstatement of the expired license. On June 13, 2024, the board charged Karuparthy with violating the law in the practice of medicine. The publicly available board records do not include the facts and circumstances tied to that particular charge, although it might stem from the 2021 conviction. At the same time the board levied that charge, it entered into an agreement with Karuparthy to settle the matter. The board agreed to reinstate his license subject to board monitoring for one year, during which time his license will be on probation. As part of the settlement agreement, Karuparthy has agreed that while his license is on probation he will have another licensed medical professional present for all patient examinations, treatments and consultations. Karuparthy will also be prohibited from establishing a solo medical practice. The post Board reinstates Iowa doctors license after conviction for assaulting patient appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch. Body of Chicago Pastor Who Went Missing While Visiting Friends Pulled from Car Submerged in River Warren Beard, 53, was found dead in the Des Plaines River on July 9, authorities said Chicago Police Department Warren Beard. A missing Chicago pastor has been found dead inside his vehicle in an Illinois river. The body of Warren Beard, 53, was found in the Des Plaines River in Rockdale on Tuesday, July 9. He was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m. local time, the Will County Coroners Office said in a post on Facebook. The Illinois State Police are now investigating the incident, and an autopsy will be performed on Wednesday, the coroners office said. There had been no indication of foul play in the investigation, according to NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV. Beard, a father of five and assistant pastor at a South Side church, had been last seen on July 2, according to the Chicago Sun-Times and WMAQ-TV. Related: 911 Call Details Lightning Strike That Killed 19-Year-Old Dad: 'Looked Like the Lightning Was Like Right on Him' Family members told authorities that Beard had been visiting friends in nearby Joliet at the time. A license plate reader showed that his Honda CR-V was seen at about 10 p.m. on North Broadway Street that night, per the Sun-Times. On the morning of July 9, the Army Corps of Engineers contacted authorities in Rockdale with information that the car was recorded on surveillance footage driving into the river around 10:47 p.m. on July 2, the paper reported. An hourslong search of the river resulted in Beards vehicle being found just after 2:45 p.m., per WMAQ. Related: Driver Following 'Shortcut' Recommended by Google Ends Up Stranded on Mountain for 3 Hours Now, the pastors colleagues and family members are recalling the impact that he made personally and on their community. 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. "We are all hurting right now," Beard's aunt Theresa Boss-French said. "We all know Reverend Warren Beard is not someone who would just disappear without saying a word to his family. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Representative Lauren Boebert made an embarrassing display Wednesday when trying to speak about a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, and got slammed with a sorely needed fact-check from one of her Democratic colleagues. During a House Oversight Committee hearing, the MAGA Colorado Republican attempted to interrogate Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan about the fallout of the Supreme Courts ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which changes how the courts answer questions about ambiguous statutes. It became clear from her questions, however, that Boebert had no clue what Loper Bright was, or how it affects federal agencies, as she began insisting that Regan tell her what environmental regulations he planned to repeal. Im asking about the EPA, and Im asking about your rogue bureaucrats that have enacted these unconstitutional regulations. Are you going to repeal them, are you going to continue to implement them? Or are you going to stop altogether, since its been overturned? Boebert asked. Do you understand the ruling? Regan asked, incredulous. Do you understand the ruling of the Supreme Court? Boebert shot back. I do. So, your question is ill-formed. No, were not going to stop, Regan replied, but the far-right politician would not relent. Boebert continued to interrupt Regan as he insisted that the Supreme Court didnt tell us to repeal anything. Absolutely, they have, Boebert said. This was a huge victory. Boeberts blatant ignorance and time-wasting questions did not go unaddressed. It wasnt long before Representative Daniel Goldman, a Democrat from New York, hit Boebert with a brutal fact-check. Mr. Reagan, I dont want to spend too much time on this, but I would just like to clarify a few things for my colleague from Colorado, Goldman said. The Loper-Bright ruling, as you know, said that the courts should not defer to agency rule-making if a statute is ambiguous, and instead, the courts get to determine whether or not, what the statute means, Goldman explained. Is that your understanding, as well? Yeah, absolutely, Reagan said, laughing. So that would not require any regulations to be reversed or overturned, correct? Goldman asked. Correct, Regan said. Yikes Boebert just walked into a fact check by Goldman pic.twitter.com/WSPwSbyyJE Acyn (@Acyn) July 10, 2024 Regan appeared before the House Oversight Committee to discuss a completely different Supreme Court decision from last month: the courts 54 decision to block the good neighbor rule, which aimed to reduce the air pollution from industrial facilities from upwind states, a ruling that will negatively impact downwind states. In a long series of Boeing woes, one of the companys 757s lost a wheel during takeoff in Los Angeles. According to FlightRadar 24, United Airlines Flight 1001 was carrying 174 passengers and seven crew members. Boeing has been at the center of several high-profile malfunctions this year, including lost tires, engine failures, and blown-out door plugs. Boeing has said that it has taken important steps to foster a safety culture, and incidents that have occurred might not be Boeings responsibility but rather the responsibility of the airlines that operate and maintain the aircraft. The mishap comes just days after the Justice Department announced Boeing would plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge from two deadly crashes of its 737 Max 8 planes that killed 346 passengers and crew and will cough up a $243.6 million fine. The plea deal was in response to the two crashes. One was in Indonesia, where Lion Air pilots did not know about the flight-control software that could push the nose of the plane down without their input. The second was in Ethiopia, where Ethiopian Airlines knew about the software but were not able to control the plane when the software activated due to information about a faulty sensor. The DOJ charged Boeing in 2021 with deceiving FAA regulators about the software, which did not exist in the older 737s, and about a lack of adequate training for pilots to fly the new planes safely. At the time, the department agreed not to prosecute Boeing if it paid a massive $2.5 billion settlement on top of the $243.6 million fine and complied with anti-fraud laws for the next three years. United Airlines Rough Week Somehow Just Got Worse An independent monitor will oversee Boeings safety efforts and quality procedures over the next three years. The plea is meant to cover only wrongdoing by the company before the crashes and does not include immunity for other catastrophic incidents Boeing has been responsible for, including a panel that blew off a plane during an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 flight in January, according to the DOJ. After a 20-month ban on the 737 Max flights, things went relatively smoothly until the Alaska Airlines Max 9 incident. No injuries were reported on the ground or in the flight in the 757 incident, and the 29-year-old plane continued from Los Angeles to Denver without further incident. The missing wheel was later discovered, according to a statement by United, which also added that it was investigating what had 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. Boeing Starliner astronaut says the spacecraft is truly amazing despite malfunctions and delays Sign up for CNNs Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Boeings Starliner spacecraft and its crew have been in space for more than a month much longer than the weeklong stay initially expected. The vehicle has suffered technical issues that have delayed its return indefinitely, and theres still no return date on the horizon. But the two astronauts piloting this historic test mission mostly spoke favorably about the vehicle that carried them to the International Space Station, marking the inaugural crewed flight of the Boeing-built spacecraft. Launch was spectacular. I mean, truly amazing, Butch Wilmore, one of two NASA astronauts helming this mission, said in a Wednesday news briefing. And then we got into our operational capabilities checks, and the spacecraft performed unbelievably well. Wilmore praised the vehicles precision control. But he also said that when several thrusters unexpectedly failed as the Starliner approached its docking port at the International Space Station, he felt the thrust was degraded. But thankfully, we had practiced and we had gotten certified for manual control, and so we took over manual control for over an hour, Wilmore added. Ultimately all but one of the thrusters was recovered before docking, according to NASA. In addition to those thruster issues, Starliner experienced helium leaks on the first leg of the trip. To learn more about the propulsion problems, the Starliner team is conducting tests on the ground in New Mexico. That testing should be wrapped up by this weekend, officials said during a briefing Wednesday afternoon. They added that testing plans encountered a hiccup in the form of Hurricane Beryl, which made landfall in the US July 8. While NASA still hasnt shared a projected return date for Williams and Wilmore, Steve Stich, NASAs Commercial Crew Program manager, said on Wednesday that the big driver for timing is getting the astronauts home before the SpaceX Crew-9 mission arrives with more astronauts in August. Thats kind of a back end. I think were really working to try to follow the data and see whens the earliest that we could target for undock and landing, Stich said. I think some of the data suggests, optimistically, maybe its by the end of July, Stich added. An eventful trip Starliners inaugural crewed mission took flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 5, ending years of delays that have surrounded the vehicle as its endured development setbacks, cost overruns and even an uncrewed test mission that suffered a mission-ending error and had to be flown again. NASA and Boeing have said that the fresh wave of issues affecting this flight should not prevent the spacecraft from bringing its crew astronauts Sunita Williams and Wilmore safely home from space. Yet they have not named an expected time frame for Williams and Wilmores return while insisting the crew is not stuck. I feel confident that, if we had to, if there was a problem with the International Space Station, we would get in (the Starliner spacecraft) and we could undock, talk to our team, and figure out the best way to come home, Williams said. Were absolutely confident, Wilmore said of Starliners capability to get them home. The reason that teams on the ground say they want to keep the Starliner safely attached to the International Space Station for now is so that they can continue working to find out what caused the thruster issues and helium leaks. Both problems are on a portion of the Starliner that is not supposed to survive reentry back to Earth, leaving ground teams with few options to continue gathering data from the component after Williams and Wilmore return home. This is a test flight we were expecting to find some things, Williams added, echoing comments she made before liftoff. We are finding stuff, and were correcting it and making changes, making updates with our control team. Boeings Mark Nappi, the companys vice president and manager of the Starliner program, said Wednesday that a goal of the additional thruster testing is to understand whether the thrusters will perform as expected on the way home. If the thrusters were somehow damaged, then what would we do differently? Nappi said. We dont believe that we have damaged thrusters, but again, we want to fill in the blanks and run this test to assure ourselves of that. Removal of suitcases Just ahead of liftoff in June, NASA reorganized the cargo on board Starliner, removing two suitcases for Williams and Wilmore and replacing them with a 150-pound (68-kilogram) pump needed to get the space station bathroom working as intended. In space, every bit of liquid is important, and astronauts have long used a water processing system to convert urine into drinking water. But in May, a piece of that conversion system broke. The pumps failure put us in a position where wed have to store an awful lot of urine, said Dana Weigel, manager for NASAs International Space Station Program, before the flight. She added that the urine was being stored in containers on board the station. Thats why NASA had to scramble to get a replacement part on the next flight to the space station, opting to send it with Williams and Wilmore at the expense of some of their more personal comforts. The two suitcases that were removed held clothes and toiletries including shampoo and soaps that Wilmore and Williams selected. Weigel added that spare clothes and toiletries were already on the station for Williams and Wilmore to use. Im not aware of any issues related to clothing availability, or food availability we dont really have any, Stich noted on Wednesday, adding that a resupply mission flown by Northrop Grumman is due at the station around August. Test flights: SpaceXs vs. Boeings Boeings Starliner spacecraft is designed to compete with SpaceXs Crew Dragon capsule, which had its first crewed test mission, called Demo-2, in 2020 that appeared to go off without a hitch. Both Starliner and Crew Dragon are part of the same NASA program, called Commercial Crew. Comparing the two vehicles, however, is not always straightforward. SpaceX designed its cargo Dragon spacecraft years before its Crew Dragon capsule, while Boeing somewhat started from scratch with Starliner. But SpaceXs Demo-2 mission looked far different from Starliners debut crewed flight. During the SpaceXs Demo-2, astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley gave at least two public tours of their spacecraft while en route to the space station, and they held a news conference from the space station on June 1, 2020 the day after docking. Hurley and Behnken already knew their mission would likely last months. NASA said before takeoff that the agency wanted to keep the space station fully staffed, waiting to bring Behnken and Hurley home until the next crew mission was ready to fly. Ultimately, SpaceXs Demo-2 mission lasted 64 days far short of the advertised maximum length of the trip, 110 days. Williams and Wilmore, on the other hand, are approaching their 36th day in space for a mission that officials initially billed as a roughly weeklong trip. Whats more, the astronauts are about 10 days short of the 45-day maximum duration that NASA initially laid out, but officials are now considering extending that maximum to at least 90 days. Williams said Wednesday that she and Wilmore have joined the astronauts already on board the station to help with regular tasks. Weve been doing science for them, maintenance, some major maintenance that its been waiting for a little while, like stuff thats been on the books for a little bit, Williams said. Stich also said Wednesday that the beautiful thing about Commercial Crew Program is that we have two vehicles referring to SpaceXs Crew Dragon, which is set to fly new crew members to the space station in August. We have a little bit more time to look at the data and then make a decision as to whether we need to do anything different, Stich said, referring to the flexibility that Crew Dragon grants the International Space Station schedule and this test flight. But the prime option today is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com The Boise Police Department could soon have a new police chief, and the public gets an opportunity next week to meet the three finalists. Following a monthslong process, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean, along with a seven-person committee made up of community leaders, announced in a Tuesday news release the selection of the finalists, all from out of state: Tomball (Texas) Police Chief Jeffery Bert, Tucson (Arizona) Police Assistant Chief Chris Dennison and The Dalles (Oregon) Police Chief Tom Worthy. Boise Police Chief Ron Winegar announced his plans to retire in September. The nearly 30-year veteran of the department agreed to lead the department in 2022 after former chief Ryan Lee resigned at Mayor Lauren McLeans request. He has an incredible commitment to service and will be missed by the department, the city and our community, McLean previously said in a release. I will always be grateful that he was willing to serve when I called. The three candidates two of whom grew up in neighboring states were part of an initial pool of 20 whose applications were reviewed by the city. That was whittled down to eight candidates and now to three, the release said. Public Sector Search & Consulting, a national police recruitment agency, was hired by the city to lead the search. The candidates now will face a series of panel interviews and two open houses in Boise later this month. The three men will arrive in Boise on Wednesday, July 17. They will tour the city and meet residents, officers and staff, the release said. Members of the public can meet the candidates at a forum from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 18, at the Boise Depot. The open house will begin with candidates answering a series of questions provided by the recruitment firm followed by time for residents to mingle and chat with the candidates informally, the release said. Here are the finalists. Tomball Police Chief Jeffery Bert Jeffrey Bert Bert was selected to lead the Tomball Police Department in June 2020 after retiring from the Los Angeles Police Department, where he served for 24 years. The Tomball force serves a Houston suburb of roughly 11,000. He leads a dedicated team of incredible officers and civilians who protect the City of Tomball with a community-oriented focus on serving the most vulnerable populations, according to the city of Tomballs website. In an interview with Community Impact Newspaper, Bert said he had no intention of retiring completely, and after a friend reached out in 2019 about the position in Texas, he applied because he always wanted to lead a department. I thought Id be one of those guys who die in their chair as a two-star chief, Bert told the Texas outlet. Bert began his law enforcement career in 1996 with the Los Angeles Police Department, where he worked in patrol, investigations and narcotics divisions, along with having administrative roles, such as public information officer. With degrees in literature, Bert wrote several policies for the LAPD, including a guide to responding to homelessness, the city of Tomballs website said. He said his most rewarding assignment was working as a police commander in charge of the departments community policing programs. In this capacity, Bert professionalized and expanded youth programs, working with underserved and underprivileged youth and their families to ensure they had access to after-school activities, tutoring, and college scholarships, the website said. Tucson (Arizona) Police Assistant Chief Chris Dennison Chris Dennison Dennison has been with the Tucson Police Department for over 20 years, according to the city of Tucsons website. He serves as the assistant chief of police overseeing the departments investigative services bureau. A native of Tucson, he received his primary education in neighboring school districts, and graduated with an associates degree from Pima Community College in Arizona, the website said. He then attended Columbia Southern University, where he got his bachelors in criminal justice. Dennison joined Tucsons force, which numbers more than 800, as a sworn officer in 2004, but he started working with the department in 2002 as part of its Police Assist Group, the citys website said. Six years later, Dennison was promoted to sergeant, where he worked as supervisor within one of the departments substations. He also worked on a drug enforcement task force. The Dalles (Oregon) Police Chief Tom Worthy Tom Worthy In 2021, Worthy was hired as the police chief in The Dalles, Oregon, and before joining the 25-person department, he worked for almost 30 years with the Oregon State Police. The Pullman, Washington, native has spent most of his adult life in Oregon, joining the state police force in 1994, according to his LinkedIn. During his long stint, Worthy worked up the ranks and moved throughout Oregon, living in The Dalles, Salem and Portland, according to a story published by Northern Wasco County PUD. He has a bachelors degree from Washington State University in criminal justice, and later secured his masters from the University of San Diego. Worthy told the Columbia Gorge News in Hood River, Oregon, that his philosophy of policing is focused on community. We are not in (a) hurry to put everyone in jail, we cant be but we are in a hurry to solve community problems, Worthy told the newspaper in 2021. And were in a hurry to help victims, and make sure this community stays as safe as it can be. When hes not working, Worthy told Northern Wasco County that he likes to do family stuff, such as mowing his lawn, spending time with his kids and fishing. Hes also a finalist to lead the Spokane Police Department, The Spokesman-Review reported. SEOUL, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Three people were found dead, and other damages were reported, as heavy rain battered South Korea's southern regions overnight, the interior ministry said Wednesday. The body of a man was retrieved from an inundated elevator of the studio apartment building in Nonsan city, South Chungcheong province at about 3:00 a.m. local time (1800 GMT Tuesday), according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. A man in his 70s was found in cardiac arrest inside a collapsed house, caused by a landslide, in Seocheon County, South Chungcheong province at around 3:57 a.m. The man was moved to a hospital but confirmed dead later. Over 100 mm of downpour pounded the Seocheon county for about an hour until 3:16 a.m. Another person was found dead in Daegu City, North Gyeongsang province Wednesday morning for an unidentified reason. The person was estimated to have been swept into a swollen stream. The death toll was expected to rise as a missing person was reported in North Chungcheong province. Accumulated precipitation in South Chungcheong and North Jeolla provinces ranged from 118.5 mm to 255.0 mm between midnight and 5 a.m. A total of 195 rain damages, including flooded roads and dikes, were reported in public facilities, while 92 damages to private facilities were reported including flooded houses and cars. The drenching rainfall led to the evacuation of 3,072 people, among whom 1,404 people were allowed to go back home. Bolin sworn in as Henderson police chief, but not before adhering to an odd Kentucky law Doc Holliday could have never been Hendersons police chief. There are several reasons for that, but he also violated a serious part of Kentucky law: he took part in a duel. That old-fashioned code leapt to the forefront Tuesday when Billy Bolin was sworn in as Henderson chief. Like all Kentucky officials, he was bound by law to recite an oath that hed never fought in a duel with deadly weapons within the state nor out of it. Nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, SO HELP ME GOD, the oath continues. Bolin, the former Evansville chief, said he saw it coming he was a Henderson police officer in the late 1990s and took the oath before. But he remembered it differently. In my mind, I thought I had to promise not to duel with knives, he said. So I dont know if its changed since 1995, or if I just made that up in my head. Billy Bolin is sworn in as the Police Chief of Henderson, Ky., Tuesday, July 9, 2024. How Kentucky's dueling law came to be, and a bunch of politicians shooting at one another According to a Louisville Courier-Journal story from 1903, the duel language has been set in stone since 1849, when the Kentucky legislature officially outlawed the practice in the state constitution. Any person who shall give, accept or knowingly carry a challenge to any person or persons to fight in single combat with a citizen of this state, either in or out of the state, shall be deprived of the right to hold any office of honor or profit in this commonwealth, it reads. After five years, the governor can pardon the dueler in question and restore his right to hold office. Although the law sounds ridiculous now, it was actually quite necessary at the time. Stuart Sanders, director of research and publications at the Kentucky Historical Society, told KET that dueling was prevalent before the Civil War, especially among upper-class white men. It was a way to settle conflict when their fragile egos had been shaken by a random insult. The fact that two men would actually go out to a farmers field, pace off about 30 feet and then shoot at one another with a pistol as a way to settle their differences is certainly surprising, he said. Politicians were among the main offenders. They did it so often that the historical society set up an exhibit in the old state capitol a few years ago called Dueling Grounds. It centered exclusively around local lawmakers love of shooting at one another. One of the most famous Kentucky lawmakers got in on the action, too. Henry Clay then the state speaker of the house challenged fellow lawmaker Humphrey Marshall to a duel in 1809 after Marshall called him a liar on the house floor. Clay ultimately absorbed a bullet to the thigh, leaving him with a serious injury. But that didnt stop him from calling for another duel 17 years later this time as a member of the U.S. Senate. In 1826, Virginia Senator John Randolph called Clay a blackleg an apparent reference to an infectious disease among goats. Not willing to take that lying down, the two decamped to the shore of the Potomac River and fired shots at one another. Randolph missed, likely on purpose, while Clay aimed straight for his opponents torso, grazing his overcoat. According to WETA, Randolph then fired into the air, signaling that he refused to kill Clay. The two made up and exchanged notes the next day. A historical marker now stands on the spot of their spat. And none of it stopped Clay from eventually becoming U.S. Secretary of State. Because of that wild history, Kentucky officials still have to recite an oath that they wont follow in Clays footsteps. During a swearing-in ceremony for Louisville city council members in 2005, a chorus of giggles erupted when the dueling language came up. But Tom Owen, one of the councilors and a historian himself, knew it was necessary. We wouldnt have that stuff in there, he told the Courier-Journal at the time, if we didnt have a distinct problem with that at the time they wrote it. This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Kentucky oath of office includes question about duels UPDATE 3:33 P.M. LEXINGTON, Va. (WFXR) Officials with Rockbridge County reports that law enforcement determined there was no active threat at the Washington and Lee campus after a bomb threat was reported earlier on Thursday, July 10. According to officials with the university, the threat was received by the Universitys Public Safety staff who contacted law enforcement. The campus was evacuated as both local and state law enforcement conducted a thorough search and determined there was no active threat to campus safety and lifted the evacuation order, allowing individuals to return to campus. The university says law enforcement has advised its continuing its investigation. WFXR News will update this story as further information is released. LEXINGTON, Va. (WFXR) Law enforcement is currently on the scene of an active bomb threat on the campus of Washington and Lee University. Lynchburg man sentenced to 12 years for distributing fentanyl Details currently remain limited; however, the university is closed for the remainder of the day. Anyone in the area is asked to avoid the campus until further notice. Check back with WFXR News for more updates soon. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFXRtv. A stunning new investigation by The New York Times exposes how Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago has become the lucrative epicenter of the MAGA movement, shifting from a nonpartisan venue that hosts galas for charity to a hub for the conspiratorial far right to extol Trumps greatness and sing songs in his honor at the low, low price of $600,000 a head. According to an analysis of evidentiary records in New Yorks fraud case against the Trump Organization, Mar-a-Lago pulled in a net profit of $22 million in 2022. While the remainder of Trumps clubs and properties also saw an increase in profits through and after Trumps presidency, Mar-a-Lagowhere Trump spends most of his time and to which conservatives flock, hoping for a glimpse of their dear leaderhas seen more than double in profits, according to an analysis by the Times. According to the Times, Trumps Mar-a-Lago club increased its initiation fee from $100,000 in 2016 to $600,000 by 2022. With approximately 500 members, thats roughly $12 million being given to the club Trump owns, which is effectively money straight into Trumps pocket. According to campaign finance filings through the first quarter of 2024 reviewed by the Times, candidates and political committees have spent more than $4.7 million at Mar-a-Lago since Trump left the White House, with Trumps campaign and super PAC accounting for roughly a quarter of that total. Some of Trumps grift was known during his presidency: Mar-a-Lago collected a pretty penny from the federal government, charging more than $1.4 million for rooms rented to Trumps mandatory Secret Service entourage during his presidency and even charging the White House for liquor consumed by his aides. Prior to Trumps political career, the Times notes, Mar-a-Lago was largely a venue for glitzy charity galas and few political events. In the 20142015 season, the last before Trump announced his run for president, the Times counted 52 fundraiser events at Mar-a-Lago, with only one being political. After his infamous very fine people comment about the neo-Nazis and white supremacists at the deadly Unite the Right rally in 2017, many traditional charity events stopped using Mar-a-Lago and set up shop elsewhere, according to the Times. All but six fundraiser events abandoned the venueand have since been replaced by far-right events, such as an annual gala hosted by Turning Point USA, a conservative group using Christian nationalism to target college campuses, which began taking place at Mar-a-Lago in 2018. The Times identified 130 people who attended three or more events at Mar-a-Lago since Trump left office. Many are election denialists and Capitol rioters, and 44 are members of Congress, state officials, or Republican candidates running for office. Thirty-four of those candidates received endorsements from Trump after they made the pilgrimage and kissed the ring. We dont do too many of these things at Mar-a-Lago, Trump claimed in March 2022 at a fundraiser for Vernon Jones, who was running for the Republican nomination in Georgias 10th congressional district. I dont want to make it a totally political place, Mr. Trump added. SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) Well, brutal is a very good word for it. Thats how Annie Collyer, a 20-year-resident of Borrego Springs, would describe the recent record-breaking heat in parts of San Diego County. I can take it well up to 110, but this is way too much, she added. By too much, she means the new daily record set Monday of 121 degrees, shattering the previous record for July 8, which was 117 degrees. San Diego Zoo gives first look of new giant pandas before public viewing According to the National Weather Service, Borrego Springs set a record on Friday and Saturday as well. This feels pretty good out here. It was 121 yesterday, and we like coming in July because we enjoy, we dont mind that really intense heat, Greg Unruh, a part-time Borrego Springs Resident from Washington said to FOX 5/KUSI. We love going and hanging out in the pool early in the morning or in the evening when the sun goes over the mountain you just adapt accordingly. At the top of the list for many of the Borrego Springs residents is visiting the areas only cool zone, the Borrego Springs Library. Im changing my library books and going to see a friend to make sure shes OK, I like to pop in and make sure shes OK, Collyer said. This North County hotel named best in continental U.S. in Travel + Leisure survey She said shes noticed a different pattern in this summers weather. Its getting hotter earlier. I mean, were only in July, so weve got August and September to go, she added. Experts agree and say heat waves are becoming more frequent and lasting longer. When we get an extreme heat wave, it is more and more likely to break records, Sasha Gershunov said, a climate science researcher with UC San Diego said. On Tuesday, experts and scientists with UC San Diego held a virtual roundtable town hall meeting to discuss how climate change in resulting in longer lasting and different kinds of heat waves, including in the region. In California and the Western U.S. specifically, heat waves are also changing their flavor. They are becoming more humid, he added. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. Boy, 5, Was Last Seen 2 Years Ago with Mother's Boyfriend. Police Just Found Him Hidden in a Home Steven Bryan was found safe with his mother Deborah Bryan and her boyfriend Caleb Blevins, per police National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Steven Bryan An Indiana boy who disappeared two years ago when he was 3 years old has been located by authorities, who arrested his mother. Steven Bryan, now 5, went missing on June 9, 2022, and was suspected to be with his mother, Deborah Bryan, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He has been found safe, per authorities. Steven was last seen with Deborah's boyfriend Caleb Blevins in July 2022, FOX 59 previously reported, citing Indiana State Police. (Steven's date of disappearance is reported differently in some news outlets, but the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has Steven listed as missing since June 2022). Deborah, 31, allegedly took Steven from her Mooresville, Ind., home and cut off contact with the childs father, Tyler Bryan, PEOPLE previously reported. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Steven Bryan More than two years later, on Tuesday, July 9, authorities located Steven alongside Deborah and Blevins at a residence in Bloomington, Ind., the Mooresville Police Department said in a statement, according to WRTV, 21 Alive News and FOX 59. Mooresville Police Chief Kerry Buckner alleged Deborah "was just hiding [Steven] out" amid an alleged custody battle with the child's father, WIBC reported. Mooresville Police Department Deborah Bryan (left), and Caleb Blevins Deborah was arrested on a charge of interfering with custody, the Mooresville PD said, per WRTV, 21 Alive News and FOX 59. Blevins has not been charged, but police said it's possible he could be charged if he allegedly assisted Deborah, per FOX 59 and WANE 15. Related: Gone Without a Trace: Help Us Find These 10 Missing Children Mooresville Police Department Steven Bryan Tyler, who was in the middle of a divorce with Deborah at the time of Stevens disappearance, told PEOPLE in January that Steven has a speech impediment. He couldnt really speak; I dont know if thats gotten better, Tyler said at the time. 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. Steven was taken into protective custody following his recovery, according to 21 Alive News, WTHR and WRTV. It wasn't immediately clear if Deborah has entered a plea or retained an attorney to speak on her behalf. An investigation is ongoing. 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. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Boy dies in hospital after being injured in Russian attack on Okhmatdyt The consequences of the Russian attack on Okhmatdyt hospital. Photo: Bohdan Kutiepov, Ukrainska Pravda A boy who suffered from the Russian attack on the Okhmatdyt Childrens Hospital in Kyiv on 8 July has died in hospital. Source: Viktor Liashko, Ukraines Minister of Health, on Facebook Quote: "Unfortunately, we have the first child death among the patients at Okhmatdyt National Children's Hospital during the terrorist incident on 8 July. A young boy who was in a critical condition in Okhmatdyt's intensive care unit at the time of the missile attack has died. After [the attack - ed.], he was brought to one of Kyiv's hospitals." Background: The Russians launched a strike on the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialised Hospital in Kyiv on 8 July. One of the buildings was destroyed. The Kyiv authorities reported that two adults had been killed and 32 injured. The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) defined Russia's attack on the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialised Hospital in Kyiv as a war crime and initiated criminal proceedings into the matter. Early reports from SSU investigators indicate the Russians used a Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile to attack the medical facility. The Ukrainian Air Force has also clearly refuted the possibility that a Ukrainian air defence missile could have hit the Okhmatdyt hospital. The evidence is a screenshot of a video and a photo of a Kh-101 missile, as well as a photo of an AIM-120 missile, the kind of projectile that NASAMS surface-to-air missile systems use. Bellingcat analysts as well as a number of independent nuclear weapons and missile technology experts concluded that the attack on Kyiv's Okhmatdyt hospital involved the use of a Russian Kh-101 missile. Support UP or become our patron! A boy who was evacuated from the Okhmatdyt children's hospital hit by a Russian missile on July 8 has died at another Kyiv hospital, Health Minister Viktor Liashko said on July 10. "Sadly, we have the first child victim among patients at the Okhmatdyt hospital during the July 8 terrorist attack," the minister wrote in a post on Facebook. The boy was in critical condition in the intensive care unit of the hospital at the time of the missile strike, he said. He was later transported to another hospital in Kyiv, according to Liashko. Okhmatdyt, Ukraine's largest children's medical center, was hit during a Russian missile attack on July 8. The strike there killed two people, including a doctor, and destroyed one building and damaged four others in the hospital. In total, 33 people were killed, including five children, and 121 injured in Russia's latest mass missile attack on the capital. "We express our sincere condolences to the family of the boy. We will never forgive Russian terrorists who kill our children," the minister said. Read also: How Russia broke through Ukraines air defense to strike Kyiv childrens hospital Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Boys shot in Bronx McDonalds had dispute with teen girls linked to gang: NYPD NEW YORK (PIX11) Two boys were shot multiple times inside a Bronx McDonalds Saturday after reportedly getting into a dispute with two females with gang ties, according to the NYPD. Police responded to a call of shots fired just before 10 p.m. when they found the two victims, a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old. More Local News According to authorities, the two boys were entering a McDonalds on White Plains Road when they crossed paths with two teenage females and got into a verbal argument. One of the females was on the phone at the time, police said. Shortly after, as the boys were sitting in the back of the eatery, a man wearing a black hoodie with pink writing walked to the back where the boys were seated and asked what happened. He then shot at them, police said. The 13-year-old was shot twice in the lower left leg, and the 12-year-old was shot in the back, the buttocks and twice in the lower left leg, police said. They were treated at Jacobi Medical Center and are expected to recover from their wounds, police say. Luxury watches worth $40K stolen from outdoor diners in Brooklyn: NYPD The two girls are believed to have some connection to the shooter, according to the NYPD. One of the female teenagers has been identified, but her identity has not been released due to her age. Police say surveillance footage obtained shows the gunman fleeing toward Olinville Avenue after the shooting. Investigators say ballistics match a shooting that took place in the Gun Hill Houses a month earlier. Man arrested in Manhattan womans death pulled from angry crowd by NYPD officers The two victims were not associated with any gang, police said. 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). Matthew Euzarraga is a multimedia journalist from El Paso, Texas. He has covered local news and LGBTQIA topics in the New York City Metro area since 2021. He joined the PIX11 Digital team in 2023. You can see more of his work here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. BRADENTON, Fla. (WFLA) A Celebration of Valor reception was held to honor the individuals who protected staff and patients at Aspire at Palma Sola Bay after an armed man crashed into the front entrance. The incident took place back in the early morning hours of May 24. Tampa man confesses to killing brother in argument, deputies say Deputies said after crashing into the building, Sean Francis Calcutti, 40, fired his weapon at an employee at the rehab facility who was checking to see if he was okay. He then ran off. Amid the chaos, employees at the facility called 911 and secured the building. Once deputies arrived on scene and located Calcutti on the property, a exchange of gunfire took place. Deputy Michael Davis was struck by a bullet. He has since recovered from his injuries. It remains unclear why Calcutti was trying to get into the building. The sheriffs office said he had no connection to the nursing home. Representatives with the City of Bradenton and Manatee County Sheriffs Office spoke at the reception. There was not a worse call you can receive in the middle of the night or anytime, when you are told that someone from your family has shot, Sheriff Rick Wells said. The sheriff went on to say the actions of two employees at Aspire deserve special recognition. Sam Loyd and Alexia Jackson came face to face with the armed suspect shortly after he slammed through the front entrance. Sam, Alexia, because of your actions, there is no doubt that you saved lives. This man was intent to come in here and to kill and because of your quick actions, you prevented that. Even after taking a round, taking a shot you were able to have the presence of mind to go in and lock those doors and make sure that everyone was protected. Both the sheriffs office and management with Aspire Health Group presented the employees with plaques to honor their actions. Loyd, who served 20 years in the U.S. Army, said he wasnt trying to be a hero. He said he was just in the right place in the right time and was thankful to have served as a deterrent to keep the suspect out. My only thought was to not let him in the building, he said. That was my only thought. I wasnt trying to be a hero or anything, I just wanted to make sure that he didnt get in here to harm any of the patients or other staff members. Loyd said it was an emotional experience to reunite with the law enforcement who responded to the facility. To me, they are the heroes because they came and they actually knew what they were going into, Loyd said. They knew they were going into an active shooter situation, and they just ran to where I told them he was. They found him, exchanged a few rounds with him and everything to make sure that the patients and the staff in this building were safe and secure which they did an excellent job. For the safety of patients and staff, management at the facility announced they are looking into allowing employees to carry guns on property. We believe in property training and proper use of force, said a member of management during the reception. Discussions were still underway as to what that new policy would look like. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. As leaders from over 30 nations gather in Washington D.C. to mark NATO's 75th anniversary, the Ukraine crisis continues to be a key topic, with the prospect of peace appearing distant. Breeze Airways celebrates 3 years of service from Pittsburgh International Airport with deal Breeze Airways is celebrating three years of service from Pittsburgh International Airport by introducing the Triple Threat campaign, offering 35% off roundtrip base fares. Breeze has flown over 275,000 travelers in and out of Pittsburgh on 1,990 flights. The offer is valid for travel from Aug. 14 through Feb. 4 and requires the promo code TRIPLE at checkout. Click here for more information. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Body pulled from creek near Montour Trail identified Cant understand why this happened: Woman dies after Homestead crash Man, 19, involved in execution-style killing of Ambridge teen pleads guilty to 3rd-degree murder VIDEO: Owners of new Homewood attraction hope to make Pickleball accessible to all DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts PORTSMOUTH Breeze Airways announced it will begin flying routes in October to two popular Florida destinations from Portsmouth International Airport at Pease. Breeze, which launched barely three years ago, will fly its direct round-trip routes from Portsmouth to both Fort Myers and Orlando, according to officials from Breeze and the Pease Development Authority. This brings a second airline to Pease, where Allegiant Air has been the lone commercial airline for years. Lukas Johnson, the chief commercial officer at Breeze Airways, said the company is tremendously excited to be adding routes in and out of Portsmouth for the first time. Breeze will fly to Orlando on Wednesdays and Saturdays from Portsmouth, beginning on Oct. 9, according to company officials. Breeze Airways is coming to the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease in Portsmouth and will fly to Florida destinations Fort Myers and Orlando. The airline will fly to Fort Myers on Thursdays and Sundays, beginning Oct. 10, company officials said. Breeze Airlines describes itself as the premium leisure low-cost carrier, which focuses on affordable flights but also a variety of available upgrades. Breeze competing with Allegiant flight destinations Breeze Airways will be competing with Allegiant Airlines, another low-cost airline offering Florida routes out of Portsmouth. Allegiant currently serves three cities in Florida from the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease, according to spokesperson Andrew Porrello. Passengers can fly Allegiant to Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB), Punta Gorda Airport (PGD), and St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE), he said. Flight dates and times can be found at allegiantair.com. Johnson believes Breeze will be successful with its new routes, despite the competition from Allegiant. I know the market. Im familiar with Pease, I know its going to succeed, he said. Breeze works to find that niche of premium products and right-sized airplanes for the market, he said. We try to take the friction out of traveling." Breeze offers different fare options, depending on if people want to focus more on value or comfort. Breeze has already been successful launching in other New England markets, including Portland, Maine, Providence, Rhode Island and most recently Manchester, New Hampshire, Johnson said. Breeze touts new planes, extra-wide seating, national destinations Breeze Airways will begin flying to Orlando and Fort Myers, Florida, from the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease in October. During an interview Tuesday afternoon, Johnson said while Breeze Airways embraces its role as a low-cost carrier, the airline offers its customers a series of seriously nice upgrades. Weve been named for the third straight year as a top five airline by Travel and Leisure, Johnson said. The planes that will be flying Breezes routes from Portsmouth to Florida are brand-new Airbus A-220s, with 12 first class seats and 45 seats with extra leg room, he said. Its a really impressive ride, he added. Breeze is touting a Triple Threat campaign with a 35% discount using the promo code TRIPLE at checkout by Friday at 11:59 p.m., at flybreeze.com or on the Breeze mobile app for travel from Aug. 14 through Feb. 4, 2025. Portsmouth marks the second New Hampshire city Breeze will offer service from, in addition to our existing Manchester service, and we know the community will enjoy these new routes to Fort Myers and Orlando, Breeze Airways CEO David Neeleman said in a prepared statement. We have seen great demand for our routes in the region, and we see opportunities for continued growth from both (Manchester and Portsmouth) in the future. Breeze destinations across the country, though not directly from Portsmouth, include Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Jacksonville, Florida, Salt Lake City where the company is headquartered Raleigh, North Carolina, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Pease leader confident two airlines can succeed in Portsmouth Paul Brean, PDAs executive director, said were excited by the additional service Breeze will bring to Portsmouth. We think this is a great market for them with the Seacoast demographics, Brean said during an interview Tuesday afternoon. We feel that our residents are going to love the service, and we think its another gateway into the Seacoast and Portsmouth for travelers. Ben VanCamp, the president of the Chamber Collaborative of Greater Portsmouth, said Breezes arrival at Pease is a significant boost for our local economy. Previous story: Pease airport's $9M upgrade aims to make it 'more viable option' It not only enhances connectivity for our businesses but also offers another pathway for visitors to reach the Seacoast and provides our residents more travel options, he said. We look forward to the positive impact this will have on our community. Pease officials have been working for years to bring a second airline to the Portsmouth airport. Brean believes the market is absolutely strong enough for both Breeze and Allegiant to succeed. The Portsmouth airport at Pease offers Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine residents a cheaper and much less stressful alternative to flying out of Logan Airport in Boston, Brean said. Traveling into Logan means youll likely sit in gridlock traffic and then youre going to pay an exorbitant amount of money to park at the airport if youre lucky enough to find a space, Brean said. In Portsmouth, a family can park with us for a week to 10 days for the same price they pay for a day at Logan, he added. Portsmouth's airport has gone through a series of security and baggage processing upgrades in recent years, and the drive to the airport is much faster without the traffic headaches, Brean said. At Portsmouth with our improvements, youre normally going in a security checkpoint line thats only serving your flight, within a few short minutes youre seconds away from the terminal, Brean said. Because of all the investments in the airport, even though Portsmouth is relatively small, you have all the state-of-the art technology that you would at a big airport, he said. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Breeze Airways coming to Portsmouth NH airport at Pease John Healey travelled to Ukraine before his trip to the US - Anadolu John Healey has declared that Britain will be democracys most reliable ally around the world as he laid out the Governments plan for this weeks Nato summit in Washington. Mr Healey, the Defence Secretary, joked that only days ago he had been in a sports hall in Rotherham before leaving the UK for a trip to Ukraine and then the US. Thirty-two Nato member states are gathered in Washington for the 75th anniversary of the alliance this week. Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, will use the summit to set out Labours defence strategy, including a new defence review and more support for Ukraine. Sir Keir Starmer and Lady Starmer flew out of Stansted Airport on Tuesday - WPA Pool/Getty Speaking at the British Ambassadors residence on Tuesday night, Mr Healey said that the public had given us a mandate to serve them and serve our country. Were getting on with the job in government, he said. You will see this week that Keir Starmer leads our determination. Our determination that Britain will step up our support for Ukraine, that well fulfil our Nato commitments, secure our role as Europes leading nation in Nato and make Britain democracys most reliable ally around the world. He said that Labour was the party of Nato, pointing to the work on the original Nato treaty conducted by a Labour foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin. Nato members gather for a 'family portrait' - Evan Vucci At the summit, member states are expected to give further detail on how Ukraine can become a member of the Nato alliance, but stop short of agreeing a specific timeline. Nato countries are also expected to sign up to new civil defence measures to protect their infrastructure from Russian attacks. Mr Healey said that the alliance was bigger, stronger, more united than ever and showed growing indivisibility in the face of Russian aggression. The summit could be the last one helmed by Joe Biden on behalf of the US, with Donald Trump odds-on to replace him in Novembers presidential election. Joe Biden awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary-general - Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg Finance LP In a speech on Tuesday evening, Mr Biden said Nato would send dozens of air defence systems to Ukraine, and that the alliance can and will stop Vladimir Putin. Trump has been more critical of US support for Kyiv, pledging to end the war in one day through negotiations. Sir Keir and Mr Biden are expected to meet at the White House on Wednesday. He is expected to use the summit to call for other countries to boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP a target the UK has not yet reached. The current Nato defence spending target is 2 per cent, and some countries including Canada have come under fire for failing to reach it. 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. Yahoo Sports This is the weekend of college football matchups we've been all waiting for. On today's show Dan Wetzel, Ross Dellenger and SI's Pat Forde preview the two biggest games of Week 7: Oregon vs. Ohio State and Texas vs. Oklahoma. They discuss the storylines for all four teams, including potential high pressure situations for Ohio State coach Ryan Day and Oklahoma coach Brent Venables. Brooklyn woman advocates for new law to address loophole in unlicensed driver case Brooklyn woman advocates for new law to address loophole in unlicensed driver case SUNSET PARK, Brooklyn (PIX11) A Brooklyn womans outcry about unregulated scooters has grabbed the attention of New York lawmakers. There is a new effort to close a legal loophole after an unlicensed driver allegedly struck and killed a man steps from his home. My dad was buried here a month ago today, Vivian Barreto told PIX11 News in tears on Tuesday. More Brooklyn News Barreto, 53, is on a personal crusade against scooter scofflaws. In Sunset Park, 60th Street and 5th Avenue is a moped hotspot. Residents said two-wheeled vehicles zip around the busy Brooklyn streets now more than ever. And one of them killed Barretos father. I just want a law that changes so no one experiences the tragedy that I have, she said. That tragedy happened on the afternoon of June 3, according to police. Efrain Barreto, 82, was crossing the road when a moped driver struck him, police said. Abed Abed was allegedly unlicensed, uninsured, and unregistered, police said. But despite killing Barreto, he will likely serve no time behind bars charged only with misdemeanors, accorsing to prosecutors. Its equivalent to an unregistered gun killing someone. Would that be a misdemeanor? Barreto scoffed. The Brooklyn District Attorneys Office said since the driver had the light, skidded to avoid the victim and stayed on the scene, the current laws prevent them from filing manslaughter charges. Law enforcement sources said they do not believe the driver was intoxicated. More Local News I would like to correct this through my capacity, state Sen. Iwen Chu said. Chu heard from Barretos daughter and began addressing this legal loophole right away, she said. This individual should face a more serious charge, said Chu. Its something we have to address through legislation. Thats why Im drafting Efrains Bill. Local officials say mopeds have gained popularity since the pandemic. A recent review by State Rep. Alex Bores found that mopeds have caused over 1,000 collision injuries since 2020 and 11 deaths last year. Barreto hopes her fathers story saves lives soon. I cant get my father back, but I would like peace of mind knowing a law is passed so we can all be safe, she said. Any bill would not be voted on until the 2025 legislative session. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. Burglars take $20,000 in items from East Memphis tire shop MEMPHIS, Tenn. A burglar was caught on camera breaking into Gateway Tire & Service Center in East Memphis early Sunday morning and leaving with about $20,000 worth of tools and equipment. Police said the thief broke out a window in one of the garage bay doors to get inside the business in the 3100 block of Poplar Avenue. A store manager said surveillance video showed a silver GMC Yukon backing up to the same bay door just before 6:30 a.m. and an individual loading items into the vehicle. Among the items taken were an A/C charge machine, a scan tool, various hand tools, freon canisters, and cleaning products. Police have not released the surveillance video. If you have any information that can help investigators, call CrimeStoppers at (901)528-CASH. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. A Southern California theft crew that disguised themselves as construction workers was arrested for a series of burglaries targeting upscale neighborhoods. The suspects were identified by the Los Angeles Police Department as: Roderick Dennis, 39, of Los Angeles Michael Mitchell, 21, of Ontario Munya Jones, 21, of Los Angeles The suspects, who police call the Reflector Vest Crew, are, at times, known for disguising themselves as construction workers by wearing reflective work vests. From March to June, police said the crew was responsible for a series of burglaries targeting wealthier neighborhoods in Studio City, West Los Angeles and West Hollywood. A suspect would typically approach a targeted home and knock on the front door. If the home appeared to be empty, the rest of the crew would break into the house from a rear entryway. During the break-ins, the theft crew would ransack the homes and escape with a large number of valuable items including designer purses, jewelry, watches and cash. The suspects, known as the Reflector Vest Crew, were arrested for a string of burglaries targeting upscale neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles County. (Los Angeles Police Department) The suspects, known as the Reflector Vest Crew, were arrested for a string of burglaries targeting upscale neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles County. (Los Angeles Police Department) The suspects, known as the Reflector Vest Crew, were arrested for a string of burglaries targeting upscale neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles County. (Los Angeles Police Department) The suspects, known as the Reflector Vest Crew, were arrested for a string of burglaries targeting upscale neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles County. (Los Angeles Police Department) The suspects, known as the Reflector Vest Crew, were arrested for a string of burglaries targeting upscale neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles County. (Los Angeles Police Department) The crew also used several rented vehicles and sophisticated techniques to prevent detectives from uncovering their identities, said LAPD. The suspects are responsible for over 30 residential burglaries so far, police said. On June 27, the trio was caught and arrested during a burglary in Studio City. All three suspects were charged with multiple counts of residential burglary. A search warrant led to the arrest of a fourth person, Ashely Ellison, 33. Ellison is a suspects girlfriend who had allegedly been renting the cars that were used in the burglaries. Investigators also discovered Ellison had been storing the stolen items at her home on behalf of the crew. Southern California father shot and killed in front of his children While searching her home, detectives discovered two stolen firearms, jewelry appraisals, thousands of dollars in cash and additional evidence linking the suspects to the burglaries. Ellison was arrested for receiving stolen property. Detectives are actively working to identify additional suspects and other crimes potentially committed by this group, police said. The case is being prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorneys Office. Anyone who may be a victim or has additional information on these crimes is asked to call LAPD North Hollywood Burglary Detectives at 818-754-8410. The public can also call the LAPD at 1-877-527-3247. Anonymous tips can be provided to L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at lacrimestoppers.org. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. Burke Co. man sentenced to federal prison for purchasing, distributing child pornography BURKE COUNTY, Ga. (WJBF) A Burke County man has been sentenced to more than 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to sharing digital videos of child sexual abuse. 27-year-old Kadarion Davonte Ellison of Waynesboro, who worked as a patient care technician at an Augusta hospital, was sentenced to 126 months in prison after pleading guilty to Distribution of Child Pornography. Ellison was also ordered to register as a sex offender and to serve 20 years of supervised release upon completion of his prison sentence. ALSO ON WJBF: Columbia Co. man sentenced to 27-years for producing child pornography Agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) detected child sexual abuse material being transferred via an internet application. With help from the Waynesboro Police Department, HSI investigators determined Ellison was purchasing and distributing child pornography online. During a search of Ellisons home, investigators seized multiple electronic devices found to contain thousands of videos and images of child sexual abuse material. Ellison also must pay $60,000 in restitution to victims identified during the investigation with the assistance of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Anyone with information on suspected child sexual exploitation can contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 800-843-5678, or https://report.cybertip.org/. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJBF. Business owner sad to close after almost four decades: Wichita is a special city Retirements usually are happy occasions, but for Farzaneh Nasiri, there has been a lot of tears. The 65-year-old was contemplating retiring from her Chic Custom Tailoring & Alterations, which shes had for three decades and her ex-husband had for years before that. Then learned she wouldnt get her full Social Security benefits until age 67. Back problems forced her decision, though. Nasiri said she decided to retire within two weeks and spent much of that time crying and saying goodbye to her longtime customers, many of whom didnt have dry eyes either. I wanted to continue working, but my back pain was getting worse and worse, Nasiri said. In a way, her customers helped cement her decision. I didnt think I could be as nice as I was before. She said when youre in pain, you cant smile as easily or be the same person you used to be. Moneys not worth it. Nasiris ex-husband, the late Bob Panahi, started the business in the late 1980s before Nasiri moved here. When he returned to their native Iran, Nasiri took over the business. I learned everything from him. Though she made some clothing from scratch, Nasiri mostly did alterations. Sometimes, that meant taking inherited pieces, such as fur coats, and creating new pieces, such as vests. The business started in Normandie Center at Central and Woodlawn and had a few locations until finally Nasiri operated out of her home after a lightning strike at her previous house-turned-shop had substantial damage from the water firefighters used following the strike. Nasiri said insurance representatives said they were surprised she chose to keep her business going after she received a check for the damages. I dearly love my customers, she said. They are like my family. Even during the pandemic, Nasiri said her customers supported her. Wichita is a special city. She said she saw multiple generations of families through the years and watched children grow and become her customers, too. It was amazing to watch them grow. It was really heartbreaking to say goodbye. Thus, all the tears. Its like going through a divorce, Nasiri said. Its that painful. Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry ran out of money to help county fairs in 2024 In recent years, the cost of processing animals bought at the Monroe County Fair 4-H livestock auction that are donated to charities was covered by a northern Indiana nonprofit that provides meat to feed low-income people. But not this year. In 2023, Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry footed the $13,400 bill to butcher, grind and package meat from 30 cows, pigs, sheep and goats purchased at the Monroe County Fair. The 1- and 2-pound packages of frozen meat, 5,219 pounds in all, went to local food distribution programs: Hoosier Hills Food Bank, Community Kitchen, Wheeler Mission, Monroe County United Ministries, Mother Hubbard's Cupboard and Hannah House. As the 2024 got underway, word spread that the organization wouldnt be paying the meat-processing fees. Rumors circulated around the fairgrounds. Did 4-H or county fair officials miss an application deadline? Had a grant request been denied? Where would the money come from? Would 4-H members or the charities in line to receive the meat be affected? What had happened? Charity unable to fund processing fees Sarah Carnegie gets Peanut, foreground, and Honey, background, ready for the July 6 livestock auction at the Monroe County Fair on Friday. Its a matter of dollars and cents. Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry encountered financial issues that limited its spending when county fair season rolled around. This year, we didnt have funds to support the Monroe County Fair, said Suzie Jordan, the nonprofits director, who joined the organization last fall. She didnt realize the state of finances in time to raise funds to pay for livestock processing for donation from fairs in Monroe and other counties. I couldnt jeopardize our agency's future, Jordan said this week. I have to be a good steward of our resources. So, we are having to regroup. That is what happened. She is confident Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry will get back on solid financial ground and be able to pay the fees to process the 2025 meat donations. We are not pulling out of Monroe County, Jordan said. We just cant support the fair this year. Local businesses, family step in to cover majority of costs During the 4-H livestock auction on July 6, the announcer told supporters and bidders that a financial glitch in the processing fee payment for donated animals had been addressed. Two local businesses, Cook Medical and Cassady Electrical Contractors, and the Headley family volunteered to cover most of this years costs. The rest was paid by people who bought animals to donate. Jordan was relieved to hear it. Im so tickled the community and those people sitting at the auction were able to underwrite not only paying for the animals 4-H kids worked their tails off for, but they stepped up to pay the processing costs when we, unfortunately, could not. Scrambling to find funding for animal processing When Monroe County Fair Board President Jake Conard found out the money for processing donated animals wasnt available, as it had been since 2014, he looked for ways to help secure funds. They (4-H leaders) came to me, kind of at the last minute, and I started doing some networking, trying to find some corporate support and maybe agencies willing to pick up some of the fees, Conard said. Clint Deck represents the fifth generation of a Monroe County farming family. As the local Purdue University extension office educator and 4-H youth development director, he oversees 4-H members and their animals. Sarah Carnegie preps her hogs for the Saturday night livestock auction at the 2024 Monroe County Fair. News that there wasnt money for the donated animals processing fees caused concern around the fairgrounds. Weve always had the money for this program, Deck said. A glimmer of hope remained as the fair approached. Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry had applied for a grant, but in the end, it didnt come through. We all put our heads together, and I told Suzie we had a supportive community here and maybe they could do what her organization had done in the past, Deck said. Then we had one company step in and pay the processing for Monroe County United Ministries, another doing the Community Kitchen and the food bank." The Headleys, who own Bell Trace, paid to process the meat designated for Wheeler Mission. With that, Deck said, all the processing fees have been covered. Deck said the sale of 157 animals at the 2024 auction raised about $400,000 for 4-H members and programs. Most of the meat will be processed at Rices Quality Meats in Owen County. It was a really successful auction, Deck said. Its a pretty hopeful story I think, the way it turned out. Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry plans to get back on track Jordan said Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry is focused on rebuilding funds to pay the cost of processing meat to provide protein for families that need help. When someone goes to the food bank and gets a box of Hamburger Helper and theres no meat, that box will sit in there for a long time. Meat is the No. 1 item food banks need. Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry also pays processing fees for deer that hunters around the state donate. Those costs are covered by Indianas Department of Natural Resources Hunt for Hunger program. Jordan said her organization receives much of its funding from foundations and groups in the 64 counties it serves. Donation lists show that since 2020, the Monroe County Council has earmarked $10,840 from the Sophia Travis Community Service Grant initiative for Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry. From July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023, the charity processed 211,166 pounds of donated meat. Of that, 7,076 pounds was distributed in Monroe County. The number of pounds for surrounding counties was 996 in Owen, 597 in Greene, 375 in Morgan and 300 in Brown. Lawrence County isnt part of the system. Jordan said money from the charitys sale of $50 raffle tickets for a donated Polaris off-road vehicle is earmarked for donated meat processing fees. Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry plans to get back on track. The past is the past, and were moving on from here, she said. The mission we have is impactful. Our organization is unique. Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967. This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Why Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry couldn't help Indiana county fairs this year ADDIS ABABA, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) has commended the progress made since the signing of the peace accord between the parties to the peace agreement that ended a two-year civil war in northern Ethiopia. The statement was made by the AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat as the 55-member continental organization convened the second strategic reflection meeting on the implementation of the Permanent Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) in Ethiopia Tuesday, according to an AU statement issued Wednesday. The meeting on the implementation of the COHA that was signed in November 2022 between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) mainly aimed to assess the progress, address challenges, and develop strategies for the successful implementation of the peace accord, the AU said. The chairperson "commended the parties for the significant progress made since the signing of the Permanent Cessation of Hostilities Agreement," according to the AU statement. Noting that the deliberations mainly focused on the political dialogue between the Ethiopian federal government and the TPLF, the AU said the two parties agreed on engaging and identifying topics, focusing on the return of internally displaced persons, and the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process of former combatants. Recognizing advancements in the return of internally displaced persons and in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process, the two parties also agreed on a phased execution of the COHA. On Nov. 2, 2022, the Ethiopian government and the TPLF signed a cessation of hostilities agreement in Pretoria, South Africa, eventually ending a two-year brutal conflict in northern Ethiopia. The peace deal includes provisions for the restoration of law and order, restoration of basic services, demobilization of former combatants, and unhindered access to humanitarian supplies. The AU also commended the sustained support for the AU-led peace process from the three AU member states that are providing the team of African experts, namely Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. It further reiterated its strong commitments to facilitating dialogue and support to the peace process in northern Ethiopia. The strategic reflection meeting gathered representatives from the Ethiopian federal government, the TPLF, and other international observers, including the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. The Cabell County Public Library Main Branch in Huntington, West Virginia, is seen on Thursday, July 27, 2023. In addition to the Main Branch, the Cabell County Library system has seven branches serving the communities of Barboursville, Cox Landing, Gallaher Village, Guyandotte, Milton, Salt Rock, and West Huntington. (Lexi Browning | West Virginia Watch) A school levy that Cabell County voters rejected in May will get one more chance this fall, this time with funding fully restored to the countys parks and libraries. The Cabell County Board of Education on Tuesday unanimously approved restoring its excess levy call to include $575,979 to the Greater Huntington Parks and Recreation Department and about $1.9 million to the Cabell County Public Library. The levy, if approved by voters, will total about $30.5 million annually over five years. The change comes less than a month after the board voted to hire former Mason County school superintendent Tim Hardesty to replace Ryan Saxe, who was hired as the new superintendent for Berkeley County Schools. In mid-August, I will be focused on educating children. But for the next few weeks, my sole focus, and the focus of the Cabell County Board of Education, will be to reconnect with the community, Hardesty said in a written statement Wednesday afternoon. A time of healing and coming together has begun. In Mays primary election, Cabell voters rejected a levy that would have allocated $1.4 million to the Cabell County Public Library and $200,000 to the Greater Huntington Parks and Recreation District. The levys failure was, in part, the result of community organizing by residents angered by the boards move to cut funding for both the parks and libraries and what they saw as a rushed negotiation process. In August, board members unanimously approved a proposal for 2025 that zeroed out funding for the parks district while severely cutting funds for the library. The funding changes came in the face of a $4.5 million budget shortfall for the school district, which leaders have said is the result of enrollment declines as well as the expiration of one-time COVID-19 relief dollars. Both organizations filed suit against the school district upon the school boards approval of the previous levy, with the goal of keeping the levy at its current funding level for the next several years on the grounds that school board members cannot undo the will of voters. Cabell County Circuit Court Judge Gregory Howard ruled in favor of the parks and libraries, which meant the school district would have had to fund both entities under policies passed by voters via the 2018 excess school levy. The case, however, was appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, where justices sided with the school board in saying it had no obligation to provide funding for either the parks or libraries. The levy will be on the ballot for the November general election. It needs a majority of voters to pass. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX After Calif. Mom Was Found Dead, Her 2 Children and Their Father Went Missing Police are searching for Camron Lee and his children Athena, 4, and Mateo, 2, after their mother was found dead in a Sacramento, Calif., home Sacramento Police Department Athena Lee, 4, Mateo Lee, 2, and their father Camron Lee Police are searching for a man and his two children after the mother of the children was found dead in a Sacramento, Calif., home and authorities believe the father's vehicle has crossed the border into Mexico. On Monday, July 8, just before 7:30 p.m., Sacramento Police Department officers responding to reports of a medical aid call located a deceased female, per a news release shared on Facebook. The victim's children, Athena Lee, 4, and Mateo Lee, 2, weren't found at the residence, and neither was their father, Camron Lee, police say. The woman's identity has not been made public. Her cause or manner of death was also not released, though police said the homicide unit is investigating. "It is believed that the kids are with [Camron] and the Sacramento Police Department has not been able to get in contact with him," police said in the Facebook release. "Detectives would like to speak with [Camron] regarding the whereabouts of the children," the release stated. It's believed Camron is driving a gray 2023 Honda Pilot with the California license plate number CA- 9JUS091. He wasn't named as suspect in the release and it's not clear if he and the children's mother were in a relationship. In a subsequent update, police said the Honda is believed to have entered Mexico. 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 the update, police said that locating the children is "a top priority." Because the vehicle is believed to be in Mexico, the criteria for an Amber Alert is not met, though the children have been added to the Missing and Unidentified Persons System (MUPS), say police. Those with information are encouraged to contact Sacramento Police Department tip line for the case at 916-808-0560 or missingpersons@pd.cityofsacramento.org. Callers can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a reward up to $1,000. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. California Governor Gavin Newsom remains steadfastly on Team Biden: No state has more to lose As other Democrats question President Joe Bidens ability to campaign, Gov. Gavin Newsom is holding the line as a steadfast ally. Theres no balance. Im all in, working day in and day out to get Biden reelected, he said Wednesday, days after returning from a holiday weekend campaign trip in swing states for Biden and other Democrats. I have a responsibility to meet this moment, Newsom said. I felt a responsibility to miss my family on the 4th of July and to be there for this country, for our promise and what were promoting. Ten Democratic members of Congress have called on the president to drop out of the race following the presidents disastrous debate and 19 others have expressed concern about his ability to defeat former President Donald Trump in a November rematch, according to a tracker by NPR. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker and a prolific fundraiser for Democratic campaigns, declined to fully back Biden Wednesday morning, saying its up to the president to decide if he is going to run. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short, she said in an interview on MSNBCs Morning Joe. Newsom said he did not hear the context of Pelosis comments but I did hear of it so I honestly dont have much to say about that. Even what I understood her to say, its unsurprising in that respect. It is obviously a decision of the President of the United States whether to stay in the race, he said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a Save Democracy Rally in Doylestown, Penn., on Saturday. The governor made the comments at a news event to promote the states response to wildfires and a deadly heat wave blanketing the west. Flanked by aerial firefighting equipment at a Cal Fire air base north of Sacramento, the governor and fire officials said Californias fire season is off to a dangerous start. More than 3,500 wildfires have burned a total of more than 207,000 acres so far this year, said Cal Fire chief Joe Tyler. The same time last year, we were down 538 fires and we have burned 197,000 more acres this year than we did last year, Tyler said. Fire officials say lingering hot, dry weather, combined with winds have exacerbated fire conditions across the state. A protracted heat wave has shattered temperature records around California and other western states and left millions of people under warnings for dangerous heat. When asked about leaving the state at the height of a heat wave over the July 4th Holiday, Newsom said emergency operations staff have been keeping tabs on conditions. This is tough business. Theres a lot going on in the world were living in and Im proud of the work the state has done, he said. Newsom left California last Wednesday to meet with Biden and other Democratic governors at the White House following the CNN presidential debate. The governor has continued to publicly back Biden and campaign for him and other Democratic candidates, most recently visiting New Hampshire, Michigan and Pennsylvania over the July 4th weekend. Newsom thanked Biden for transferring seven C-130 aircraft to the state for wildland firefighting. For years and years and years we had to battle with the previous administration to get the C-130s. We couldnt get them, Newsom said. We finally had them shipped out here, all seven of them. He said it illustrates all that is at stake for California in the 2024 presidential election. Everything about this campaign will impact the state disproportionately, he said before mentioning Californias 122 lawsuits against the Trump administration and the former president mistakenly referring to the town destroyed by wildfire in 2018 as Pleasure rather than its proper name of Paradise. The chaos, the fear, the anxiety, how we played politics. No state has more to lose in this context than the greatest state in our nation, Newsom said. Last year Newsom said he would support Vice President Kamala Harris if she decided to run for president. Asked if it were still true should Biden drop out of the race, Newsom said of course. (FOX40.COM) California is taking more steps toward gun control by becoming the first state to require credit card companies to assign special merchant codes to gun stores. Video Above: How does a bill becomes law? The new legislation will reportedly flag suspicious gun and ammunition sales in California. It was introduced as AB 1587 by Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) and signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on Sept. 26, 2023. It became law on July 1, however, merchants have until May 1, 2025, to get into compliance. Gun control law in California returning to court soon; Yuba County Sheriff, others voice opposition We must use every tool possible to end our gun violence epidemic, Ting said. Financial institutions can now be a part of our efforts since they are in a unique position to flag buying patterns that no one else can. Merchant codes are already assigned to other retailers, and the gun industry should be included. The four-digit code is known as a MCC (merchant category code) and is assigned to almost every industry. In the past, gun stores fell under the sporting goods categories, but in California, they will now have their own classification. The Supreme Court upholds a gun control law intended to protect domestic violence victims In 2023, Mastercard, Visa, and American Express agreed to develop specific merchant codes for firearm retailers but reversed the decision after backlash from Second Amendment advocates, according to multiple reports. Now, theyre back in since the law passed in California. Colorado and New York followed suit and will now implement MCC code requirements for gun stores. While three states forward with the requirement, 16 other states including Texas, Florida, Montana, Tennessee, Georgia, Iowa, and Wyoming passed legislation to ban them. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40. In the days after a 14-year-old Park Forest Middle School student died by suicide on May 12, as shocked students and teachers continued to grieve, reports of bullying ran rampant through the hallways. Over three weeks, the State College Area School District received 27 reports from Safe2Say, the youth violence prevention program run by the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals Office. And, on May 16, district superintendent Curtis Johnson issued a note to families, asking students not to spread misinformation or rumors. In that same note, Johnson wrote that the parents of Abby Smith were not aware of her being bullied and did not believe it was the reason for her death by suicide. But Jonathon Smith, Abbys father, said that was incorrect and the familys thoughts were misinterpreted. I dont know what their intent was, Smith told the Centre Daily Times. But the way they phrased it made it seem like we didnt think any bullying happened. And when we sent out the follow-up email, we tried to make it very clear that we dont know. On May 24, Abby Smiths family released a statement through the school district, pleading for anyone with information to come forward. So far, two students have contacted the family with firsthand accounts of bullying regarding Abby. There also were several other secondhand accounts. Its hard to know, Smith said in regards to Abby being bullied. And while I do believe the people who said it, we still need there still needs to be evidence to be able to prove it in some way. The investigation into Abbys death has continued. But in interviews with her father and four current and former Park Forest students and their parents, concerns have emerged about the culture at the middle school and the processes in place to report bullying. Students said theyve experienced emotional and verbal bullying at the school often without the kind of physical evidence the school district asks for when conducting their investigations. The bullying has also left an impact on students mental health, with some saying reporting it sometimes made the situation worse because of retaliation from other students. Alicia Musheno is a parent of a State High student who was bullied at Park Forest Middle School, and she also has a son she pulled out of the middle school last year because of it. The district needs to focus on supporting and believing victims of bullying, even when physical evidence isnt available, Musheno said. Maybe there isnt hard evidence, but its having a negative effect on their emotional health, their physical health, their psychological health, she said. Its damaging them, and then the parents are left to pick up the pieces. In an early June interview with the Centre Daily Times, then-SCASDs Director of Student Services Jeanne Knouse insisted the district is doing everything it can to investigate and stop bullying when it occurs. Due to student privacy concerns and policies, she said, the district cannot comment on any student punishment or the outcome of bullying investigations. You have to trust that were doing our job, Knouse said. Were in this job because we care about kids. Were human beings who have kids ourselves, right? We dont want anyone to suffer, anyone to feel bad at school, to struggle with mental illness, to be bullied. State College Area School Districts Park Forest Middle School. An easy target Huiwon Lim, the father of Sofia, a rising ninth grader, said he believes bullying is a larger issue at the school, and students like his daughter are reluctant to speak with parents or administrators about their experiences. They are talking to each other about what they saw, what they heard and what happened to them, but they dont want to talk to all the other parents and to counselors, he said. While district administrators have emphasized the sharing of evidence screenshots, text messages, etc. several students who spoke to the CDT say the bullying usually occurred in person, often from a select few students. Sofia Lim, who was friends with Abby and one of the students who contacted her family, described her experience this past school year as a covert campaign of harassment, hard for teachers or administrators to spot. Taunting remarks in homeroom before classes started, spreading rumors and snide comments, compounded for months on end. For Sofia, it was one student in particular who was behind the bullying. She would, like, pretend to be all playful and not make it obvious that it was bullying, Sofia said. And then from the teachers perspective, it would look like we were just messing around. Some of the comments were racially motivated toward Sofia, who is Korean, but she said she didnt believe that was the reason for the bullying. Her best guess as to the cause of the bullying? Accidentally wearing a similar outfit as the other girl during the early days of the eighth grade. People were saying that I was just an easy target, Sofia said. A Park Forest Middle School student and friend of Abby Smith, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she and another friend were subjected to continuous bullying comments this spring by a group of boys and girls in several of their classes. What started out as the group teasing her for a perceived crush on a boy in the class quickly became something sharper, targeted toward the two girls, the student said. The student said when she approached the guidance counselor and three teachers about her concerns, the responses varied greatly. One teacher took the bullying concerns seriously, making an effort to tell the group to stop and reassured the student that bullying wouldnt be tolerated in the classroom. But another teacher, the student said, inadvertently caused the girls situation to become far worse. She did tell them to stop and then she turned to us and said, Hey look, I did it, the student said. And they were able to hear that, and it just made things a whole lot worse because they were like, Oh my god, you tattled on us. Sofia said she reached out to her guidance counselor on two separate occasions this spring about the girl shed been having problems with, once after an altercation in a school bathroom during lunch. Sofia said the counselor talked to the student, but later she became aware of more rumors about her spreading through the school. The district said they did investigate this incident. It was brought to the principal and both students were found to be at equal fault, said Knouse, who was the districts director of student services until she retired at the end of June. Sofias experiences with reporting bullying to teachers and counselors mirrors what other students fear about speaking out that it will only make the bullying worse. Its something school officials are aware of as well. Knouse said snitches get stitches is a very real mentality that lives on in schools when it comes to reporting bullying and other actions. The anonymous Safe2Say reporting hotline was implemented in all schools statewide in 2019. Since 2021, the district has received 864 Safe2Say reports, nearly 200 of which were deemed life-threatening, Knouse said. But she acknowledged theres a problem with trust with the program that stems from its anonymity. The issue is they report something and they never hear back and theyre not going to because we take the case we dont know who to report back to because its anonymous, Knouse said. But we take every single case and investigate it, but they dont know the consequences of that report. A flyer about Safe2Say hangs in school resource officer John Astons office at State College Area High School in May 2023. How does SCASD address bullying? Alicia Mushenos daughter, Madison, 17, said bullying isnt a new problem at Park Forest Middle School. When she was a student there, she had a friendship that she said quickly devolved into being bullied for her looks, weight and familys socioeconomic status. It started off just as a joke, Madison said. But then it slowly got worse and worse and then progressed and she was calling me fat; making fun of the way I look. Alicia Musheno said the administrators tried to mediate conversations between the girls, but stayed away from directly addressing the conflict as bullying. They didnt even really use a term, she said. They just kind of said it was girls not getting along. Despite multiple meetings with both sets of parents, counselors and administrators, the conflict between the girls was unable to be resolved. Both Alicia and Madison felt the school was unwilling to escalate the issue without tangible, physical proof of bullying, leaving both parties at an impasse. Thats kind of where it fell into, where [the district] was really like, Is this really happening? Alicia Musheno said. Is it really bullying because theres no hard evidence? After Abby Smiths death by suicide, Johnsons note to families asked for community members to submit screenshots or other evidence of bullying. When Abbys parents addressed the school district community, they asked for people to come forward with any information whether they witnessed something online or an in-person act. Both small and large acts can contribute to a pattern of bullying, her parents wrote. The more information we have, the better we can understand the complete picture of what did or did not happen. Knouse said that when bullying is reported, administrators investigate reports and try to collect evidence, but it becomes difficult when physical evidence is not present. In cases where physical evidence isnt present, Knouse said the district relies on reports from other people. Thats hard the he said, she said kind of thing, she said. And so the only thing we can do is document that we talked to them, how many times weve talked to them, if weve gone further in the investigation, talk to their friends and the other persons friends, talk to teachers. Knouse said two key factors that administrators look for when determining cases of bullying is the balance of power and if events are pervasive over time. A lot of times kids think theyre coming in with bullying and it ends up being a one-time kind of an incident or a fight between two people, Knouse said. And so thats one of the things that is tricky and hard to determine if thats the case or not. But Henry Brzycki, president of the State College counseling and development organization Brzycki Group, said even a one-time incident can have a deep emotional impact on a student. Its a matter of degree, sometimes one time ... is emotional abuse and bullying that requires support for the one that was bullied, said Brzycki, an educational psychologist with more than 40 years of experience. So it depends on the degree of the one-time versus ongoing incidences. Knouse said teachers are trained to spot bullying through the districts social emotional learning curriculum and theyre improving. Three years ago, 59.1% of students reported that teachers stopped bullying when they saw it. That number rose in 2023 to 73.4%, according to data provided by the school district. Were doing a better job of making sure teachers are aware in stopping this, Knouse said. Like, you need to stop this when you see it, or, make the report or and reinforce our preventative measures and reinforcing the reporting. But still, Knouse acknowledged that administrators cannot control the actions of every teacher. While its school policy for teachers to report any bullying to school counselors or principals, she said some may choose to handle it on their own. If someone confides in them that theyre being bullied, the teacher then has an obligation to make sure that that process is followed through with so whether its going to the school counselor or to the administrator to make sure that thats taken care of, she said. When bullying does occur, schools can sometimes misuse conflict resolution strategies in attempts to resolve the problem, according to Pacers national bullying prevention center. Encouraging students to work it out can send the message that both students are partially responsible for the bullying. In Madisons experience, the work it out approach only made things worse. Rhonda C. Boyd, an associate professor of clinical psychology in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, said research-based evidence for bullying programs is mixed. But keeping victims of bullying safe is always a priority. With a youth who has been a victim of bullying, it is important to make their environment safe and to stop the bullying, she wrote in an email to the CDT. If they have mental health problems, then they may need specific counseling for those symptoms. A lasting impact Madisons experiences with bullying ended when she graduated and moved to State High, a benefit of a larger school and a new set of peers. However, her younger brother has experienced a similar hardship at her former middle school. The 13-year-old has experienced both in-person and cyberbullying from a group of peers at Park Forest, his mother, Alicia Musheno, said. The bullying got so bad that he struggled to go to school in the mornings, sometimes refusing to enter the school at morning drop-off. Alicia Musheno said she repeatedly met and emailed administrators to try and find a way to make her son feel safer at school, but was unable to find a solution. It was so bad every morning, Madison said. Hes like, Im gonna kill myself. I cant be here. I hate it so much. I just want to die. It was so sad and heartbreaking to see ... it really just makes me so angry because theres so many opportunities to help him and no one did anything. The school district has said it cannot discuss specific situations involving students. In November, he moved to an alternative school and has no plans to return to Park Forest, Alicia Musheno said. But hes still not happy. The bullying has left a deep impact on not only his mental health but the entire familys. It is so frustrating and daunting, and just absolutely its heartbreaking, she said. Im glad that he is in the right program. Its a lot better for him, but at the same time, its still a struggle every morning to get him to come out of bed and go to school. Its tough. It wears on the entire family really. Several students interviewed for this article sought in-patient treatment, outside counseling or began classes online after experiencing bullying at Park Forest. Even before the death of her friend, Sofia said the bullying had gotten so bad she had already started to consider taking her own life. Two days after her friends death, Sofia attempted suicide, citing the bullying and the loss of Abby as a main contributor. Even before Abbys passing, I was thinking about it, Sofia said. The bullying on top of Abbys passing kinda led up to that. Although most bullying cases dont lead to suicide, both victims and bystanders can experience severe impacts to mental well-being. Bystanders have even been shown to have signs of greater psychological stress than students who were bullies or victims. I ended up going somewhere for about two weeks to help me and well, while I was there, I realized that I need to not be in school because of all this, the eighth grade student who spoke under the condition of anonymity said. Bullying put me in a really bad place. Boyd, the associate professor of clinical psychology, said parents who see a change in their students behavior and worry it may be bullying should look for signs of withdrawal, depression, anxiety, problems sleeping or substance abuse. Children may become disengaged in school or another setting in which bullying is happening, she wrote in an email. They may begin exhibiting mental health symptoms mentioned earlier or experiencing more unexplained physical symptoms, such as stomachaches and headaches. State College Area School District does have resources to help students struggling with mental illness, including helping provide access to psychiatric care when necessary. Knouse said the district often shares a Google form with students, families and staff so the school community can inform administrators of students who may be struggling with mental health. She said the list of students are monitored so staff can be aware of those in need of additional support. We know that these people are already struggling and it may have been because of what happened or maybe because of something that happened in their own life that brings back stuff, Knouse said. And so were keeping that ongoing list so that we can check in and out with people. Changing the culture Although the school year is over, the grief and anger over their experiences still lingers for students. Despite leaving Park Forest Middle School, the student who asked to remain anonymous said she worries for ninth grade and whether State High will be able to step in if the bullying resumes when classes begin again on Aug. 27. Im really hoping that they get their act together, and if I need to tell someone like a counselor that this is happening, that theyll be able to do something more and be able to stop it from happening, the student said. In an early June interview, Knouse did not indicate any radical changes to the way the district handles bullying policy or procedure were in the works. She did say, however, a new behavioral curriculum focused on improving students social and emotional interactions would be implemented for the fall in the middle schools. The curriculum change was discussed by the board in May prior to Abbys death and allegations of bullying. Knouse also said the district would be more proactive in ensuring students understood how the reporting process worked and highlighting the issue during Suicide Awareness Month in September. Despite parent and student concerns, Knouse said there is no evidence to support a pervasive bullying problem at Park Forest Middle School, but she acknowledges there might have been a pervasive situation involving bullying at the end of the school year. Anyone whos bullied is not OK, so its gonna feel that way, Knouse said. ...Were coming off a high emotional kind of situation or traumatic event, youre going to hear from a group so the evidence that I have right now, it doesnt support that theres a pervasive problem. Smith, who continues to search for answers about his daughters death, would like to see the school update its policies. Those affected should be kept better informed about bullying investigations so students feel their concerns are being taken seriously, he said. Because if you think that you reported it, and nothing happened, are you going to report it again? No. But if you think that you reported it, and theyre still looking into it, and it happens again? Well, now youre probably pretty likely to report it and say, Hey, this is still happening, he said. Knouse said the district cannot share information about other students disciplinary measures for privacy reasons, which makes sharing details about the outcome of investigations into bullying difficult. While Smith understands the districts legal position, he said the policy can be damaging to the students who are being bullied. If we only protect the bullies, or the accused bully, what about the kids who are getting bullied? Smith said. And I feel like school in general seems to take the legally sound, but emotionally wrong position of just withholding everything and doesnt solve the problem, but it keeps them safe legally. Musheno said she hopes the district focuses less on having hard evidence when it comes to bullying and more on understanding the social and emotional impact it has on students. They need to realize it is happening and believe these kids and do something about it, she said. And I know its hard to punish the kids, but there needs to be true change and true help. Shes hopeful that new Park Forest administrators can make a difference at the school, pointing to positive experiences with new assistant principal Tina Greene. I guess I am kind of optimistic that maybe there will be some change she is great, Musheno said. And she has been great with (my son) and she works really well with that. And so I am optimistic that there could be some change there. With the school year over and the eighth-grade class preparing to move to State High this fall, the Lim family doesnt want their experiences at Park Forest Middle School to be forgotten. They cant Sofias brother will start at the school in the fall. The reason why we are working really hard on this situation is to make a better space for our kids, Lim said. Not only for my daughter, but I have three more kids that will go to school. SUICIDE PREVENTION RESOURCES Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 or chat at 988Lifeline.org Center for Community Resources: Visit 2100 E. College Ave., State College, 24/7 HOW TO REPORT/RESPOND TO BULLYING Stopbullying.gov, a website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, lists to following resources for those experiencing bullying: If there has been a crime or someone is at immediate risk of harm: call 911 If someone is feeling hopeless, helpless, thinking of suicide: see resources above If someone is acting differently than normal, struggling to complete tasks or not able to care for themselves: Find a local counselor or other mental health services If a child is being bullied in school: Contact the teacher, school counselor, school principal, district superintendent, state Department of Education. In Pennsylvania, students can submit an anonymous tip at www.safe2saypa.org. If the school is not adequately addressing harassment based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability or religion: Contact the superintendent, state Department of Education, U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Right, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division President Biden speaks at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington on Wednesday. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) For the record: 6:19 p.m. July 10, 2024: An earlier version of this piece misattributed a joke to Jimmy Kimmel. The correct comedian is Jimmy Fallon. If Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee this fall against Donald Trump, my vote for him would be the easiest Ive ever cast. And yet, Ive now joined those who believe Biden should end his bid for reelection. I wish hed take a well-deserved bow, and help unite his party at its convention next month around a younger, more vibrant nominee who stands a better chance not only of beating Trump but also of serving out a four-year term. Id like to be able to say, as some others do, that its become absolutely clear to me that the enfeebled president must pass the torch. I cant. I remain torn. Biden has earned reelection by his formidable record and his restoration of normalcy and decency post-Trump. Also, the risks inherent in the unprecedented, uncharted process of Democrats settling on an alternative ticket are real: The prospect of their disarray and division all to Trumps advantage kept me from jumping just after Bidens distressing debate performance. Two weeks later, however, the greater risk seems to be that Biden stays in the race, loses and returns the keys to the Oval Office to a man who should never darken its door again. God help us, says retired Gen. John F. Kelly of that possibility, a sentiment echoed by so many former Trump aides . Also, a Republican rout could cost Democrats control of the House and Senate. Thats not the legacy Biden wants. Read more: Abcarian: Who should replace President Biden if he leaves the race? The answer should be obvious The president's brain freezes, bumbling responses and vacant, mouth-agape visage at the June 27 debate were bad enough, so bad as to overshadow the ever-unhinged Trumps fusillade of lies. But whats been maddening, and what made up my mind against Bidens candidacy, is this: his and his staffs utter failure since then to fully acknowledge the crisis on their hands this wasnt one bad night and to have Biden act accordingly. Post-debate, we should have seen daily unscripted appearances at the White House and on the campaign trail, not sporadic sightings. A lengthy press conference. Immediate phone calls to leaders and allies in Congress and state capitals. And, not least, a full panel of neurological tests, after which the presidents doctors would go before cameras to describe the results and we hope reassure us that alls as well as can be expected for an 81-year-old man with the most stressful job on Earth. Biden and his campaign on Monday finally started executing that sort of salvage operation, with some success , but only after some elected Democrats had gone public with calls for the president to forfeit the nomination. The late-breaking Biden blitz included his letter to Democrats in Congress (Any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us); his call in to the friendly hosts during MSNBCs Morning Joe show (I am not going anywhere); meetings with the Houses Black, Hispanic and progressive caucuses; a conference call with hundreds of donors and announcements of added campaign stops. Read more: Opinion: Biden put Democrats in a pickle. What's the right way out of it? But Biden has nixed a neurological examination: No one said I had to, he countered when ABC News George Stephanopoulos asked on Friday whether hed had or would have such an exam. Look, I have a cognitive test every single day. ... Not only am I campaigning, but Im running the world. Just as the Biden brouhaha intensified this week with Congress return from a summer break, world leaders also came to Washington for a NATO summit marking the alliances 75th anniversary. The dignitaries already high anxiety about Trumps possible return has ratcheted up, along with efforts to Trump-proof the organization against threats he could pose to it or to its support for Ukraine against Russias war. (Among the debate moments eclipsed by Bidens meltdown was Trumps obnoxious response when Biden asked whether hed pull the U.S. out of NATO: a dismissive shrug.) Biden may have stanched the bleeding in Congress, for now. Democrats scattered calls to step aside were outnumbered by statements of renewed support early in the week. Yet Im not persuaded because I completely agree with Biden: Democracy is at stake. Where we disagree is on whether he can preserve it by defeating Trump. Read more: Should Biden take a cognitive test? Here's what it would and wouldn't tell us The strategists who helped elect the prior two Democratic presidents Bill Clinton's guru James Carville and Barack Obamas David Axelrod no longer think Biden can win. Carville, in the New York Times on Monday, proposed a round of town halls for alternative candidates before the convention starts Aug. 19. (First, however, Biden would have to drop out, which is just one reason Carvilles hoped-for caper is unrealistic.) Axelrod, in a CNN column Friday that cited post-debate polls, concluded that Biden is headed for a landslide defeat to a lawless and unpopular former president. Axelrods description of Trump pinpoints the tragic irony of the Biden saga. A good man and a good president is being nudged off the stage even as the Republican Party next week will make official its nomination of a bad man who was the nation's worst president , by historians rankings. Or, as Jimmy Fallon put it (because he can find humor where I cant): The media has spent almost two weeks calling on a candidate to drop out of the race, and somehow its not the convicted felon. (Whos also, Ill add, an adjudicated sexual abuser and financial fraudster.) Im saddened to become one of Bidens nudges, but this election is bigger than Biden. If hed step aside, Democrats could rally round Vice President Kamala Harris, the other half of the ticket that Democratic primary voters chose, and the one alternative to Biden who could tap the Biden-Harris war chest. Convention delegates could pick her running mate; my choice would be Kentuckys impressive two-term Gov. Andy Beshear. Things could get messy, but I believe Democrats would unite given the stakes. And could they win? Polling of hypothetical races is a crapshoot. But a new, younger ticket drawing from Democrats deep bench could inject excitement into a match-up thats left half the voters unhappy with their choices. Of course if Biden stays in, Ill vote for him bracing for the worst, hoping for the best: four more years. @jackiekcalmes 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. Camelina is the crop of jet fuels and cleaner waters. But will farmers grow it? CHATFIELD, Minn. A small crowd has gathered on this caramel-brown tangle of a field stretching across a small town subdivision to watch as a red, Case IH combine pulls up the street. On the edge of the Driftless Area in southeastern Minnesota, an experiment is taking place. The star of these few acres is winter-planted camelina. The potential miracle crop might power tomorrow's jet engines and clean up waterways in the karst-rich hill country of the Upper Midwest. But before the sustainable possibilities can flourish, farmers need to know if the muscular, intermediate oilseed can actually grow during the region's notoriously cold winters and mild springs. That starts with a field outside Chatfield. "Camelina is extremely winter-hardy," said Anna Teeter, novel oilseed program manager for Minnetonka-based Cargill, the global commodity trader that has partnered with farmers this year to grow 2,000 acres of camelina across Minnesota and North Dakota. "Most farmers never learn how to do a new crop." Growers in the fields around Chatfield, like those across the Upper Midwest, grow mainly corn and soybeans. They're staples for animal feed and biofuels and very profitable. But the dual-cropping system has led to polluted waterways and greenhouse gas emissions, as well. In the global push to build sustainable farming, advocates are looking toward better crops that keep the soil covered from November to April, the groundwater in place, carbon out of the atmosphere and nutrients within the soil. Farmers said they need markets more than programs, a refrain officials at Cargill hear loud and clear. "We're trying to sneak that third crop into a two-year cycle," said Lyle DePauw, crop innovation director for Cargill. "I wouldn't call it a commodity yet." Just under 3% of Minnesota's 26 million acres of cropland has an environmentally sound cover crop during the winter. Often the protestation from farmers is the region is too cold. Some might also begrudge growing something they won't take to market. They have to remove many cover crops such as hairy vetch in the summer. Last fall, Cargill launched the pilot with a couple dozen growers. In February, the commodities giant announced a $2.5 million investment with the University of Minnesota's world-renowned Forever Green Initiative an incubator for developing farming's future crops to develop novel oilseeds. And Wednesday, Cargill announced a new research partnership with Forever Green, leaning on technical expertise including a laboratory in Fort Collins to more quickly develop regenerative crops like camelina. It's all part of a carefully orchestrated dance to stand up a cropping system for camelina, from growers to processors to buyers. Mitch Hunter, associate director of Forever Green, said demand for Camelina has turbocharged as industry and governments are looking toward sustainable aviation. "You can't overnight grow a million acres," Hunter said. "But our partnership with Cargill is letting us grow the acres pretty darn fast." For more than a decade, the U.S. Navy has tested blending camelina-derived fuel stocks into fuel for fighter jets. Beginning in 2016, Forever Green started breeding oilseeds including camelina, which is a member of the mustard family and native to the Mediterranean for use in a relay-cropping system with soybeans. One concern has been the seed's size. A camelina seed is far smaller than a soybean. One task for researchers, Hunter said, will be breeding a bigger seed that can work with established farm equipment. For now, a crush plant in West Fargo will process this summer's harvest. The batch of farmers who stepped forward are among the first to see the crop with big potential growing on their fields. Cargill said they want to grow the number of camelina acres tenfold. A second round of the pilot opens for growers in Minnesota and the Dakotas in August. Paul Novotny, a farmer in southeastern Minnesota who also serves on the Chatfield City Council, has old stands of Kernza along the edges of his field. He tried the perennial wheatgrass, another wonder crop with lineage through Forever Green, in this plot of land he farms near the elementary school. "Where it started is water quality," Novotny said. "We have great water. But they call it 'young water.' When it lands on the surface, in 15 years, we could be drinking it. Whereas a lot of places, it's 30 or 40 years old." This year, Novotny's fields atop a hillock in Chatfield are one of the test plots for camelina. He hopped back in the red combine and turned the vehicle into the field, lowering the thresher. Soon, Novotny's red combine rolls smoothly over the fields, like a lawnmower gobbling up grass. Out the back, seeds spit. Novotny stops the machine, and Cargill and Forever Green staff kneel down to inspect the crop. "This doesn't look too bad," Teeter said. From the distance, a mother and three children watch behind the fence. It's unusual to see harvesting in the middle of summer. But the plant might be the future and could protect the water, long into the kids' old age. (Bloomberg) -- Canada said it would begin the process of buying a fleet of submarines that will likely bolster its defense spending to meet NATO targets, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attempts to defuse criticism from allies. Most Read from Bloomberg The government said its taking the first step toward procuring as many as 12 conventionally powered submarines capable of operating under ice, according to a news release. As the country with the longest coastline in the world, Canada needs a new fleet of submarines, Defense Minister Bill Blair said in a statement Wednesday. This new fleet will enable Canada to protect its sovereignty in a changing world, and make valuable, high-end contributions to the security of our partners and NATO allies. Blair made the announcement in Washington, the site of this weeks North American Treaty Organization summit, where Trudeau has faced attacks from US Republican leaders over Canadas failure to keep its promise to raise defense spending to at least 2% of gross domestic product. Later Wednesday, Blair announced he had signed a trilateral agreement with Germany and Norway to establish a maritime security partnership in the North Atlantic and collaborate on defense production. The two European countries build submarines, but Canada has not reached a decision about where it will acquire the equipment. As the international security situation becomes more unstable, working with like-minded allies is more important than ever, he said in a statement. In a speech Monday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson called Canadas low level of defense outlays shameful, while Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said it was time for our northern ally to invest seriously in the hard power required to preserve security. Trudeaus government didnt provide a timeline or a dollar amount for the submarine acquisition. A senior government official, speaking in a background briefing to reporters, said it would have more to announce on Thursday. The country also pledged C$500 million ($367 million) in new military assistance to Ukraine before a bilateral meeting between Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Canada, which does not have F-16 jets to contribute to the war effort, will take over the leading role on training fighter pilots in Ukraine. The announcements of new submarines and also signals growing concern that climate change is making Canadas Arctic more vulnerable to aggression from Russia and China. Rival nations are exploring Arctic waters and the sea floor, probing our infrastructure and collecting intelligence. In the maritime domain, Russian submarines are probing widely across the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific Oceans and China is rapidly expanding its underwater fleet, the government said in its statement. The specter of a second term in the White House for Donald Trump who has previously threatened not to come to the aid of allies who fail to spend enough on defense has added urgency to Canadas military spending plans. NATO allies first agreed to the 2% threshold in 2006 and reaffirmed that promise in 2014 and 2023. This year, 23 of 32 members will meet or exceed it, but Canada expects to spend just 1.33% of GDP on defense. Another senior government official said Canada was still working on a timeline for ramping up military spending that wont throw its fiscal plans off track. The government has pledged to limit budget deficits and to lower them to 1% of GDP by 2026. (Updates on Canada signing a trilateral agreement with Germany and Norway, starting in fifth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. A Canton Police detective was placed on paid leave back in June following the testimony of an embattled state police trooper in the Karen Read murder trial, according to authorities. Canton Police Chief Helena Rafferty said Detective Kevin Albert was placed on administrative leave with pay as of June 13. He is the brother of former Boston police officer Brian Albert, who owned the home at 34 Fairview Avenue in Canton where Reads Boston police officer boyfriend John OKeefe was found dead in January 2022. The suspension came on the heels of Trooper Michael Proctors explosive testimony. Text messages indicated that Albert and Proctor went out on July 19, 2022, five months after the death of OKeefe. State Police Association comments on 'disappointing' decision to suspend Trooper Proctor without pay The next day Proctor texted Albert that he found his badge in his cruiser and asked Albert where he should leave it for him. Proctor was the lead investigator in the murder case and previously stated he had no known relations with anyone involved, including the Albert family. Defense attorney Alan Jackson said in court on June 12, Kevin Albert responds my mailbox, did I take my gun? It included a wincing face. Jackson went on to press Proctor about whether or not the two had been drunk. He left his badge in your cruiser after a night of drinking, isnt that right? Jackson questioned. Yes, said Proctor. Jackson continued, Which means you were drinking and driving in your cruiser right? Proctor responded, From what I remember we were down the cape working on a cold case together, stopped for dinner, for beers, and dropped him off. More texts include Albert texting Proctor, Its bad!! I was hungover for sure today. Proctor said on the stand that he didnt recall either of them being intoxicated that night. State police suspended Proctor without pay earlier this week following a duty-status hearing. An internal affairs investigation into his unprofessional behavior following the death of OKeefe is ongoing. Trooper Proctor could be fired or facing charges before 2nd Karen Read trial starts, expert says Proctor came under fire for a series of disparaging texts about Read that he sent to friends, family, and supervisors, which he read aloud in court during her trial. In those texts, Proctor commented on Reads physical appearance, used vulgar language, suggested he had made up his mind based on evidence as to Reads guilt, and said he wished Read would kill herself. Proctor admitted on the stand that the texts were unprofessional and he apologized multiple times, telling the jury his texts did not impact his investigation. Read is accused of killing OKeefe by striking him with her SUV and leaving him in a snowstorm in Canton in January 2022. Prosecutors said Read and OKeefe had been drinking heavily before she dropped him off at a party at the home of Brian Albert, a fellow officer. They said she hit him with her SUV before driving away. The defense sought to portray Read as the victim, saying OKeefe was actually killed inside Brian Alberts home and then dragged outside and left for dead. The Norfolk County District Attorney still plans to retry Read after her case ended in a mistrial last week. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW JUBA, July 10 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan is on the brink of famine as it braces for its worst floods in 60 years, which will drive parts of the country to the edge of starvation, a global charity, Save the Children, warned on Wednesday. The child rights agency also warned of a devastating large-scale hunger crisis among children in South Sudan, which is on alert for a looming human and climate disaster in the coming months. Pornpun Jib Rabiltossaporn, Save the Children South Sudan country director, said a horror scenario is unfolding in the country. "While floods are part of life for families in much of the country, we are seeing a situation where the floods will be so extreme, over such vast patches of land, that entire communities will be marooned from assistance," Rabiltossaporn said in a statement issued in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. Rabiltossaporn said children will start to die from hunger-related illnesses as the flooding takes hold amid extreme levels of hunger and malnutrition in children across the country. The statement was in response to new data released on Monday by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS-NET), an analysis agency that monitors food security worldwide, which shows massive floods will contribute to a risk of famine in South Sudan from June 2024 until January 2025. According to the report, families in the areas expected to be worst impacted have already been battling years of conflict, hunger, rising food prices, previous floods, and more recently, an influx of refugees and returnees from the 15-month conflict raging in Sudan. Despite a peace deal in South Sudan in 2018, the country is still facing one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises, with about nine million people, about 75 percent of the population, including nearly five million children, in need of humanitarian assistance. According to Save the Children, Unity State, a low-lying and flood-prone region in the central southern part of South Sudan, has been listed as particularly vulnerable to famine. The last formal declaration of famine anywhere in the world was in parts of Unity State in February 2017, where nearly 80,000 people faced famine conditions and mass deaths were only averted by an effective and rapid aid response. "The predicted famine is being driven in part by a major flooding event, which is expected to exceed the floods of 2020 and 2022," the charity said. It noted that current water levels in Lake Victoria, a source of the Nile, have reached a 128-year high, with the government of South Sudan issuing a warning that water released from the lake will flood vast parts of the country in the latter part of 2024. FEWS-NET estimates that the area impacted by flooding could exceed 65,000 square kilometers, or the equivalent of the entire land area of Sri Lanka. "There is an imminent disaster threatening communities in South Sudan. Unless there is an urgent scaling up of funding for preparation work, the upcoming floods are guaranteed to wreak havoc," Rabiltossaporn said. Besides Unity State, the flooding is projected to affect areas where many people are already vulnerable, including Jonglei, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile and Warrap states. The Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.) Late last month, the Ohio Senate sent a $4.2 billion capital expenditures budget to the Governors office. Ohios capital budget is a budget of long-term investments in projects and infrastructure across the state mostly financed by debt. This years version of the capital budget includes $3 billion in new debt taken on by the state to finance these projects. The capital budget is usually a fairly noncontroversial bill passed every two years. This might be strange for a bill that allocates billions of dollars. But this is because every legislator that votes for this bill can build projects across the state without having to allocate dollars today. Nonetheless, the capital expenditures budget is not costless. Over time, taxpayers will pay for the capital expenditures budget. Even in the short-term, the state has a constitutionally-mandated cap on debt it can take on. So projects we fund crowd out funding for other projects. There is an opportunity cost to the projects funded by the capital expenditures budget. So how can we choose the best projects to fund with the capital expenditures budget? Surely there is someone in charge of assessing these projects and seeing which ones will have the largest returns to the residents of the state. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Capital expenditures are largely a function of the judgements of legislators, uninformed by objective analysis of the economic, equity, or other impacts of these projects. What would a better system look like? Ideally, projects selected for a large spending bill like this would have some sort of analysis conducted so policymakers would be informed about the impact of the projects on the public. Having Office of Budget and Management or Legislative Service Commission staff in charge of scoring proposals for fiscal, economic, and equity impact would bring valuable information to the table for policymakers making decisions on these projects. This would mean a policymaker would be able to assess the economic impact, fiscal impact, equity impact, and other impacts of a potential project and the tradeoffs of one against one another when making a funding decision. These sorts of decisions could have substantial impacts on the state economy. $4.2 billion is a lot of money. Just a 1% increase in efficiency of these allocations could mean an additional $42 million in state GDP. If this created jobs at the value of the median household income in the state, that would mean an additional 640 jobs created statewide by more efficient allocation of these resources. More equitable allocation of these dollars could have an even larger impact as dollars could be targeted toward projects that would help people in poverty or who live in struggling parts of the state. The state government is a powerful economic force. Whenever decisions are made blind, we lose the opportunity to grow our state economy, reduce poverty and inequality, and improve lives for residents of Ohio. More intentional allocation of state resources could have a substantial impact on Ohios economy, people in poverty, and the well-being of residents across the state. Understanding what these impacts could be is the first step. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post How can we do capital budgeting better in Ohio? appeared first on Ohio Capital Journal. GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) CareFlight, the helicopter service that operates out of St. Marys Intermountain Health Hospital, just received a $50,000 donation to help first responders navigate traumatic experiences. The donation $25,000 from Chevron and $25,000 from Intermountain St. Marys Foundation will help support the Critical Incident Stress Management Team. That team helps first responders manage trauma from helping people through their worst moments of crisis. Cary Baird with Chevron told WesternSlopeNow the company has helped support Intermountain Health and CareFlight for years. Were very happy to be able to help the pilots and the crew of CareFlight. They deal with so many experiences that are challenging, traumatic and I think its important that they have access to mental health services as well. The CareFlight teams pilot says the $50,000 donated to the Rockies Critical Incident Stress Management Team is crucial to ensuring their team operates to its best potential. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. CareFlight of the Rockies gets pair of $25K to combat first responders mental health GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) CareFlight of the Rockies will now have a chance to enhance its mental health support after receiving $25,000 checks from both Intermountain St. Marys Foundation and Chevron. Representatives from each organization presented the large checks to CareFlights Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) during Tuesdays donation event at the St. Marys Hospital helipad. The CISM team which consists of 10 first responders currently offers behavioral health support to a bigger group of first responders. The support includes mental health-focused debriefings and listening sessions held for hospital emergency medicine staff and first responders after traumatic events, according to Intermountain Health. CareFlight of the Rockies Chief of Operations Kelly Thompson, who is also a flight nurse, said the job (leaves) a lasting mark on us as caregivers. In our smaller, rural communities, were often providing care for and sometimes losing people we know personally. And afterward, that can make an already traumatic situation we experience, even more difficult emotionally. Intermountain St. Marys Foundation Executive Director of Philanthropy Carmen Shipley said the donations will help fund the final, crucial piece of the CISM team. The money will provide a local, licensed clinical counselor for the next three years who is experienced in first responder trauma therapy. Each organization noted first responders work with people experiencing the worst day of their lives. CareFlight is one of the most important components of this regions medical response capabilities. Their work is critical to our community, often stressful and full of emotions. We now have an opportunity to dedicate our funding to the Critical Incident Stress Management Team to ensure these dedicated caregivers receive the support and relief they need to deal with the incidents they witness on a regular basis, said Cary Baird, stakeholder engagement and social investment advisor for Chevrons Rockies Business Unit. CareFlight of the Rockies has provided air ambulance services for folks in Western Colorado, eastern Utah and parts of New Mexico since 1976. The CISM team began four years ago to combat the mental health needs of the CareFlight staff and other responders in the three-state area. First responders can include crews that respond to daily life-threatening medical situations like search and rescue, ski patrol, paramedics, physicians, nurses and technicians and fire department staff. Across the nation, theres been a culture among first responders where we werent allowed to show emotion and just moved on to the next emergency patient. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, first responders were hit especially hard, seeing a lot of deaths and then the angst about if we might bring COVID-19 home to our families, Thompson said. Creating a stress management team that can reach all the first responders in our community is unique. Its helped tear down the stigma that first responders dont need behavioral health support. Its created a culture change and safe space for everyone to know sometimes youre not going to be OK and each one of us may need some counseling. Weve had medical transport organizations in other states reach out to us about what were doing and how were doing it. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. Carmichael pedestrian dies after vehicle collision near Walmart in Sacramento County, CHP says A 65-year-old Carmichael pedestrian died Tuesday after a vehicle collision in Sacramento County, according to the California Highway Patrol. A 30-year-old woman was driving north on Elk Grove Florin Road, approaching the intersection at Gerber Road in Sacramento Countys Vineyard neighborhood, when the collision happened, the CHPs South Sacramento office said in a news release. The man was standing in lanes of traffic near a Walmart Supercenter as the woman approached a green light, officers said. Investigators were alerted of the incident about 10:20 p.m., according to the news release. The man died at the scene, authorities said. His identity will be released by the Sacramento County Coroners Office once family have been notified. The motorist, driving a 2021 Toyota SUV, was taken to a hospital for precautionary measures, the news release said. Its unclear why the pedestrian was standing in traffic lanes. The incident is under investigation. CBS News President Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews told staff on Wednesday that she would step down, a person familiar confirmed to The Daily Beast, transitioning at the end of the month to a senior adviser role to guide 2024 election coverage before leaving the company entirely. The abrupt announcement came two days after CBS parent company Paramount completed its merger with David Ellisons Skydance, a move Ciprian-Matthews admitted was the impetus for her decision, as she wasnt sure whether shed be leading their new version of the news operation. We all know our industry and company are going through a transformation, she wrote in a memo, according to The New York Times. I do not want to be disingenuous with any of you about who should drive these decisions. Paramount Board OKs Merger Deal With Skydance After False Start: Report Ciprian-Matthews stepped into the role less than a year ago following the ouster of co-president Neeraj Khemlani after reported staff clashings and an HR investigation. Her tenure, however, was also impacted by layoffs, including the high-profile departure of reporter Catherine Herridge in February. Its unclear who will lead the news organization in the interim, nor when it would seek to find a permenant replacement. A CBS News spokesperson did not respond to an immediate request for comment. Her exit also comes ahead of massive cuts planned for the new Paramount. Ellison plans to make more than $2 billion in cuts across the entire company, according to The New York Times, dwarfing the $500 million figure proposed by the former executive team last month. Such cuts would likely impact the news organization, which has consistently ranked third in nightly news ratings behind ABC and NBC. Ciprian-Matthews abdication leaves the majority of broadcast news operations without a permanent leader ahead of the election after Kim Godwin stepped down as ABC News president in May. A search for Godwins replacement is still ongoing. 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. CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews will exit the company, after a year running the broadcast news division. The executive will shift to a role as a senior editorial adviser later this month, helping to oversee coverage of the 2024 presidential election, with plans to exit completely after that. More from The Hollywood Reporter Ciprian-Matthews announced the decision in a note to staff Wednesday, and a source says she immediately went on to lead the 9 a.m. editorial call to discuss the 2024 election. In her note, Ciprian-Matthews indicated that looming cost cutting at Paramount is a big reason for her exit. Some may be asking why Im announcing this now, she wrote. We all know our industry and company are going through a transformation and a number of short- and long-term decisions need to be made. I do not want to be disingenuous with any of you about who should drive these decisions. Ive always leaned into my integrity and my values and I felt it was important to be transparent at this juncture about my plans. Wendy McMahon, who leads the CBS News and Stations group, will likely be the one responsible for figuring out where the division needs to cut back, and where synergies can be found. McMahon gained direct oversight of CBS News and CBS syndication business last August, after co-leading the division alongside Neeraj Khamlani. Ciprian-Matthews was elevated to CBS News president at the same time. However, Paramounts trio of CEOs are set to undergo cost cutting, to the tune of $500 million, despite a deal to sell the company to Skydance. CBS News it appears will not be exempt from those efforts. With the exit of Ciprian-Matthews, no broadcast news division will have its own president. ABC News president Kim Godwin left in May, while NBC News has been operating with a trio of executives reporting to Cesar Conde, who runs the News, Telemundo and stations group at NBCUniversal. You can read Ciprian-Matthews note, below. Hello everyone, No journalist wants to be the news, especially me. But today, I have some news of my own to share. After much consideration, Ive decided this is the right time to step away from my current role at CBS News and begin to write my next chapter. George and Wendy understand how difficult a decision this has been. They have supported me through this process and for that I am very grateful. At the end of the month, Ill be transitioning to a new role. I have gladly agreed to stay on through the election as a senior editorial adviser to CBS News, given the historical significance of this election and the current political moment. Some may be asking why Im announcing this now. We all know our industry and company are going through a transformation and a number of short- and long-term decisions need to be made. I do not want to be disingenuous with any of you about who should drive these decisions. Ive always leaned into my integrity and my values and I felt it was important to be transparent at this juncture about my plans. We all know how demanding our jobs are, but rest assured the work we do matters. Your conviction, your enthusiasm and your love of journalism distinguishes CBS News and fills me with pride. Nothing happens here without each of you, and the dedication and passion of our teams is evident at every level in every bureau and newsroom. Your commitment to factual reporting with context during challenging times, in our world and our country, is what inspires and encourages me about the future of journalism at CBS News. Over the past four decades, from NPR and CNN to more than 30 years at CBS, Ive been able to see much of the world, cover most of the major news events of our lifetimes, and, most of all, work with all of you, in the field, in bureaus, on shows, and from the front office. I am so thankful for each and every one of you and am filled with gratitude for what we have accomplished. You are the best in the industry, and it shows on every platform and in every story. I am forever honored to call CBS my News home.so now back to the News! With all my respect, Ingrid Best of The Hollywood Reporter CBS News President Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews is departing after just months in her role, according to internal network memos. Ciprian-Matthews, a veteran media executive appointed to the role less than a year ago, announced her exit on Wednesday morning in a memo to staffers, adding that she will remain through the transition and the consequential 2024 election cycle. No journalist wants to be the news, especially me. But today, I have some news of my own to share. After much consideration, Ive decided this is the right time to step away from my current role at CBS News and begin to write my next chapter, Ciprian-Matthews said. At the end of the month, Ill be transitioning to a new role. I have gladly agreed to stay on through the election as a senior editorial advisor to CBS News, given the historical significance of this election and the current political moment, she added. Ciprian-Matthews was named to the role in August of 2023, serving less than a year. A 30-year veteran of CBS News and an Emmy-winning journalist, Ciprian-Matthews also served as executive vice president for newsgathering. She has held several high-level roles in the company throughout her career, including senior vice president of news administration, vice president of news, CBS News foreign editor, senior broadcast producer for CBS Evening News and senior producer for CBS News foreign coverage. Some may be asking why Im announcing this now. We all know our industry and company are going through a transformation and a number of short- and long-term decisions need to be made, Ciprian-Matthews wrote in her Wednesday memo. I do not want to be disingenuous with any of you about who should drive these decisions. Ive always leaned into my integrity and my values and I felt it was important to be transparent at this juncture about my plans. In a separate memo to staffers, president and CEO of CBS News and Stations and Media Ventures Wendy McMahon noted, Over the past months, Ingrid and I have been talking about this moment we find ourselves in one of relentless transformation across our industry, and a moment in which we are covering one of the most important stories of our lifetimes. Those conversations led Ingrid to the decision she shared with all of you today, and I am pleased that she has agreed to stay on in a new position as senior editorial adviser guiding our political coverage through the election, McMahon continued. This newly created role leverages Ingrids expertise, particularly as a former Washington bureau chief. She will work directly with our D.C. bureau and political team to contribute significantly and help lead our coverage. The post CBS News President Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews to Exit Role appeared first on TheWrap. The Writers Guild of America West has negotiated a settlement with CBS over work that occurred after writers rooms were shut down on several shows that has awarded $3.05 million to 24 writers, union leaders informed members on Wednesday. According to a member message, the settlement resulted from an arbitration claim that the union filed for writers on MacGyver, Seal Team and Hawaii 5-0. Guild members providing writing services on these series were required to continue working even though the studio had declared the [writers] rooms closed and stopped making weekly compensation and benefit contribution payments to the impacted writers, WGA West president Meredith Stiehm, vp Michele Mulroney and secretary-treasurer Betsy Thomas wrote. The WGA West contended that this practice violated its minimum basic agreement and that staff writers and so-called Article 14 writers (scribes who have a story editor title or higher) should have been paid weekly and received benefit contributions for that working period. More from The Hollywood Reporter The $3.05 million settlement encompasses $1 million in interest in addition to weekly pay and pension, health and parental leave contributions for those writers. When there are reports of writers and showrunners who have experienced these kinds of unacceptable practices by their employers, the WGAW has and continues to pursue enforcement on behalf of our members and ensure the studios comply with the MBA, the Writers Guild of America West said in a statement. The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to CBS for comment. In their message to members, the WGA West leaders asserted that CBS wasnt the only company engaging in the practice of purportedly closing writers rooms early, while writing work persisted. The WGAW has identified several companies that have violated the MBA by declaring a writers room closed even though writing continues as a pretext to avoid paying Article 14 weeklies and benefit contributions, the message said. The Guild is pursuing claims for writers in those situations. These practices started before the 2023 writers strike but have emerged with more frequency since, per the union. In some recent cases, companies allegedly offered to pay writers script fees but not weekly pay once the writers rooms were shut down. Story continues In the message, the union leaders also took the opportunity to tout the success of contract enforcement actions in the past few years. In 2022, the unions legal department recovered nearly $79 million in a period that included a settlement with Netflix over the 2018 film Bird Box that yielded $42 million in previously unpaid residuals to writers. In 2023, enforcement actions yielded over $6 million, while so far this year the legal department has collection over $14 million in initial payments, residual compensation, writer and guild damages, benefits contributions and interest. Best of The Hollywood Reporter SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Rep. Celeste Maloy declared victory in a Tuesday press conference, but Utahs 2nd Congressional District race is still too close to call as it landed in recount territory. After two weeks of the nail-biter Republican primary for Utahs 2nd Congressional District, all 13 counties in the district have officially reported their election results. Maloy has a narrow lead over Colby Jenkins by 214 votes which has dropped below the recount threshold of 266 votes. Race for Utahs 2nd District narrows, inching closer to recount threshold This means under state law Jenkins could call for a recount, further delaying an official victory. However, Maloy said in the conference that she is not concerned about a possible recount. I know we are in potential recount territory but I dont anticipate a recount would change the outcome, Maloy said. On Tuesday evening, Maloy declared victory in a virtual press conference from Washington D.C. thanking her voters for trusting her again and expressing her enthusiasm for a full term in Congress. Im humbled by the trust and confidence the voters in the 2nd District have put in me, again. Ive been in office for seven months, I had to run for reelection really quickly, and it means a lot to me that people were willing to trust me again, she said. She thanked former President Donald Trump for his endorsement and said she looked forward to working with him in Washington D.C. She also thanked the county clerks for all the work they put in over these hard two weeks. I really think Americas best days are still ahead, she said. Jenkins could request a recount following the final certification of the primary election results on July 22. If Maloy takes the victory she will face Democratic candidate Nathaniel Woodward in the November general election. In an interview with ABC4.com, Jenkins said he wants to make sure every eligible count is voted. We certainly want to win, but at the end of the day, we want to make sure every eligible vote gets counted and that our message of controlling government spending, defending the Constitution, and not being a rubber stamp for the Joe Biden-Chuck Schumer policy agenda, that thats not OK, Jenkins said. And thats not what nearly 54,000 people are trying to hire me to. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. TEHRAN, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Iran's President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have reaffirmed their countries' commitment to the previously reached bilateral agreements. In a phone call on Tuesday night, the two sides discussed issues of common interest and vowed to further expand bilateral relations, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported on Wednesday. Pezeshkian said Armenia holds a special place among Iran's neighbors, adding that ties with Armenia were of great importance in Iran's foreign policy. Noting that Iran's principled policy towards Armenia was "inviolable," Pezeshkian said that Iran respected all countries' territorial integrity and was against any change to international borders, stressing that Iran would continue supporting the peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and was ready to contribute to the diplomatic process. He reaffirmed that Iran would honor its commitments to Armenia and was prepared to further promote bilateral relations, commending the Armenian government for supporting the activities of the Iranian private sector in Armenia. Pashinyan, for his part, congratulated Pezeshkian on his election, saying relations between Yerevan and Tehran had expanded well during the term of Iran's late President Ebrahim Raisi, who lost his life in a helicopter crash on May 19. He emphasized that his country was committed to all the agreements reached between the two countries during Raisi's term, hoping that bilateral ties would remain "warm and cordial" during Iran's incoming administration. The Armenian prime minister said his country's relations with Iran were based on the two sides' common interests, noting that Armenia-Iran ties would never be impacted by any external factor. Pezeshkian was announced as Iran's next president on Saturday following his victory in a runoff against Saeed Jalili, a former chief nuclear negotiator. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) The City of Champaign is inviting the community to a groundbreaking ceremony on Friday for the first phase of the new downtown plaza. It will be held at 1 East Main Street at 4:30 p.m. Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen and State Senator Paul Faraci will be present to share a few words, then refreshments will be provided by Big Grove Tavern. The Neil Street Plaza Placemaking Plan began after the Champaign City Council spent a year and a half listening to the input and ideas of the community. From this, a plan was enacted in 2019. The vision included establishing a City-owned parking lot and developing a more attractive and accessible public plaza. The new Downtown Plaza will expand the appeal of Downtown Champaign to all ages and lifestyles, it will enhance the image of the community, and it will create a new space purposefully built to host special events, city officials stated in a release. READ MORE: Champaign City Council to vote on downtown plaza revamp details The groundbreaking event will finally kickstart the first of two phases. This first $500,000 phase will include building a performance stage and seating areas including bench swings. It will also implement aesthetic details into the downtown area, including decorative lighting and public art. The second phase will start in 2026. It will focus on creating a large lawn area and constructing small business areas, as well as more playful features like interactive lighting and pop-jet fountains. This portion of the downtown plaza project is made possible by a $12 million grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. For updates and more information on the Downtown Plaza project, visit engagechampaign.org. Flyer courtesy of the City of Champaign. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com. Charges have been bound over for trial against Joseph Cordaro, 60, of Honesdale, for allegedly exploiting the elderly owner of Cordaro's Restaurant to prevent it from being sold, according to the Wayne County District Attorney's Office. In the process, the owner, who was in a nursing home at the time, transferred the landmark restaurant and bar at 186 Grandview Ave. to Cordaro. The establishment was started in 1954 by the late Philip Cordaro Sr. In 2023, the property was being sold to an automotive parts dealership, which received borough approval to replace the restaurant with an auto parts business. The restaurant went on reduced hours in July 2023 pending finalization of the transaction, and remained open while the electronic sign out front stated that the dealership needed more time. Joseph Cordaro has been charged with a first-degree felony of financial exploitation of an older adult or care dependent person and a second-degree misdemeanor of securing execution of documents by deception. Magisterial District Judge Kay Bates held a hearing June 24, where she deemed there was sufficient evidence to proceed with charges. According to the press release from the District Attorney's A.G. Howell's office, Wayne County detectives received a complaint on April 24 that the victim... was wrongly taken advantage of by the defendant. Along with the business, the victim also owned the real estate, liquor license and all the related personal and business property. Cordaro's Restaurant at 186 Grandview Ave., Honesdale. The victim, the release states, is over 60 and is dependent on care. The report continues that Cordaro "allegedly defrauded, unduly coerced, and deceived the victim into signing documents in an attempt to transfer ownership of the business to the defendant." The release says that "in May 2019, the victims mental capacity began to decline to the point where the victim is now diagnosed with cognitive impairment resulting from vascular dementia," adding that the victim "is not capable of making decisions in the victims own best interest." In the months leading to April 2024, Cordaro is alleged to have "continuously nagged, harassed, hounded,and in the victims own words the defendant 'drove the victim nuts,'" as he unsuccessfully tried to have the victim sign over ownership. "The defendant promised to pay the victim, but the defendant stressed he preferred the victim 'give' him the property," the district attorney's release states. "The defendant never paid any money to the victim for the property." "Then, on or about April 12, 2024, the victim was admitted into a nursing home for an approximate 7-10 day planned respite while her caregiver and power of attorney travelled out of state," the release continues. "It is believed that during each visit, the defendant brought with him various legal documents and asked the victim to sign these documents to revoke the current power of attorney, to appoint the defendant as power of attorney, a codicil to transfer ownership of the business, and a deed to transfer ownership of the property to the defendant," the release states. Chief Wayne County Detective Peter Hower, who prepared the affidavit asking for the arrest warrant, added that a "purported codicil was attached to the deed stating it was the victim's desire to take these actions and adding that the agreement with the automotive supply company be void, without extension. The deed was recorded in the Wayne County Recorder of Deeds Office. The detective's affidavit further states that because of the alleged actions by Cordaro, the automotive supply company was not able to perform its contract. Hower added, and delays with the contract will be caused resulting in a monetary loss to (the victim) in the amount of up to but limited to the $50,000.00 deposit received under the contract, in addition to $500,000.00, plus or minus, in expected profits under the contract. Nursing home staff refused to witness and notarize the documents, the district attorney's release states. Instead, Cordaro brought in an outside notary. This release adds that the victim also risks potential lawsuits due to the alleged actions of the defendant. District Attorney Howell commented, "My office will continue to fight and protect the elderly who are unfairly, unjustly, and wrongly taken advantage of. We need to care for our elderly population, not cheat them out of their property and assets." Peter Becker has worked at the Tri-County Independent or its predecessor publications since 1994. Reach him at pbecker@tricountyindependent.com or 570-253-3055 ext. 1588. This article originally appeared on Tri-County Independent: Honesdale man accused of exploiting elderly Cordaro's Restaurant owner Yellow 2291 was tranquilized in Chatsworth last week after a long trek down to Malibu and relocated to Angeles National Forest by state wildlife officials. (California Department of Fish and Wildlife) A bear taking the scenic route around Southern California may help researchers learn how wild animals cross freeways to get from one habitat to the next and how they might be kept out of your backyard. Known to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife as Yellow 2291, the adult female black bear wandered into a trap near Claremont on May 31. There, researchers gave her a GPS-tracking collar and transported her north into the Angeles National Forest mountains. Last week, the bear was removed from a Chatsworth tree and taken back to the forest, only to be spotted over the weekend in a Sylmar neighborhood. "This female bear's just saying, 'Yeah, I'm just gonna take a little trip across Southern California,'" said Jessica West, a regional wildlife conflict specialist at the state Department of Fish and Wildlife who monitors Yellow 2291 and other tagged bears. Since her initial trapping, Yellow 2291 took a long trek from the 210 Freeway corridor into the Malibu area. From the 210 corridor, she probably used an underpass or other unknown crossing at the Newhall Pass interchange of the 5 Freeway and Highway 14. She cut across the 118 Freeway into the Santa Monica Mountains and spent time near Pacific Coast Highway in the Malibu area. Then she walked back toward the Angeles National Forest, according to state wildlife officials. Read more: A wildlife crossing is proposed for Highway 17 in the Santa Cruz Mountains She climbed into a tree inside a business complex in Chatsworth, where she was tranquilized and moved back to the national forest last week. She wandered back down the mountain and was recognized in residential Sylmar over the weekend, before heading back into the forest foothills Monday morning. West said it's uncharacteristic of female bears to wander so much. Male black bears have larger home ranges than females, she said, and tend toward this type of erratic movement. But for those researchers studying connectivity, or how animals move from one habitat to another across developed areas of Southern California, this bear's movement may be key. "If we can figure out where about she was crossing, either under or over these freeways, that can really influence" where future wildlife crossings should go, West said. The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, which is being built over the 10-lane 101 Freeway near Agoura Hills, is one of several crossings under construction or in development in the state. Tracking Yellow 2291's movement is step one in connecting habitats fragmented by freeways and neighborhoods while keeping them out of residential areas, according to Beth Pratt, regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation. "That is the good data and research needed for any crossing," said Pratt, leader of the #SaveLACougars campaign, which was a key advocate for the 101 Freeway crossing. "The animals are our guide," she said. "Their whole existence is spent, every day, trying to get enough calories and picture you're doing that in the middle of the most densely populated metropolitan area in the country," Pratt said. Rebuilding connectivity between suitable habitats means bears and other wild scavengers will be less likely to wander up to your trash cans looking for a quick snack, and more likely to stay in the wildlands. Read more: Bear named 'Oreo' roams Monrovia in search of food and snags namesake cookies Yellow 2291's recent relocations may be a factor in her relentless wandering, according to Pratt. "If you were relocated, you're gonna try to come back to the same place as well." If she is not from the Angeles National Forest, where Fish and Wildlife officials believe she is from, she may be trying to find her original stomping ground. "They don't have options when there are 10-lane freeways in their way," Pratt said. "If there's a fire and you need to move, and a road's in your way, it cuts off your escape mechanism," she said. Two years ago, a study found mountain lions were crossing busy roadways to escape the 2018 Woolsey fire, resulting in a higher chance of them being hit by a vehicle or dying in territorial disputes with other mountain lions. This summer, an unprecedented heat wave has brought triple-digit temperatures and threatened to cause more and bigger wildfires. Over the last month, two mountain lions were found dead, one near the unfinished 101 Freeway crossing and another on the 405 Freeway. In May, a Placer County black bear was killed after being hit by a car, before having its paws cut off. For Yellow 2291, crossing the 5 Freeway to summer in Malibu might be a conscious choice. "Animals are individuals," Pratt said, "And, indeed, if she's picked this as her home which, rightly so, I mean, bears were on the landscape before we were it's not that she necessarily shouldn't be there. It's just that she should be able to come and go without it being a death sentence. And her luck is probably going to run out at some point." 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. A nurse holds a vial of COVID-19 vaccine and syringe. (Getty Images) Shortly before Ohio lawmakers left for summer recess, the House passed a bill aimed at reducing violence in health care settings. To the Ohio Nurses Association, its an important step toward improving safety. Its also doesnt address what the nurse union sees as a much greater threat lack of adequate staffing. A measure to address staffing levels faces significant pushback from the Ohio Hospital Association, and it has yet to clear its House committee. At least so far, there are no sessions on the Ohio House calendar for the remainder of the year. Both measures would also need to get a vote in the Ohio Senate which is on recess until after Novembers election. HB 452 Violence prevention On the House floor one of the bills sponsors, state Rep. Andrea White, R-Kettering, described the physical and mental toll violence takes on health care workers. This has been something on the rise for the past 10 years, she argued, And nationally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that workers in health care and social service industries experience the highest rates of injuries caused by workplace violence and are five times as likely to get injured at work than the overall workforce. White and her co-sponsor Rep. Rachel Baker, D-Cincinnati, contend the threat of being harmed at work is encouraging workers to leave the industry. These events have been so common that Ive heard nurses and health care providers say that experiencing violence is just part of the job, Baker said. This is unacceptable, and as a state, its critical that we work to support those providing direct care to patients. Among their measures changes are requiring hospitals to develop violence prevention protocols and an incident reporting system to track violent encounters. It also takes precautionary steps like requiring signage warning against violence, providing for de-escalation training, and allowing workers to get name tags with their first name only. In a press release the ONA praised lawmakers for passing the legislation. This legislation represents an important initial move towards addressing the violence that Ohios nurses and health professionals face daily. We commend the General Assembly for recognizing this critical issue, the organization wrote. Notably, although the ONA backed the measure, theyd encouraged lawmakers to institute harsher penalties when individuals assault health care workers with bodily fluids. That wouldve mirrored punishments for assaulting law enforcement officers, but lawmakers didnt amend those provisions into the bill. And the measure didnt pass without pushback. State Rep. Angie King, R-Celina, expressed concerns about the potential costs for rural hospitals and unintended consequences. She noted aggressive behavior isnt defined and asked about people seeking alternative treatments for themselves and family members during the COVID-19 pandemic. Would these individuals who begged, pleaded, and perhaps raised their voices be deemed aggressive? she asked. HB 285 Staffing mandates Meanwhile, lawmakers are still working on the proposal establishing minimum staffing guidelines, but time isnt exactly on their side. The committee tasked with considering the bill has yet to hold hearings with proponents or opponents. In a letter to the House Speaker in May, Ohio hospital and business interests criticized the idea as a crippling administrative burden as hospitals face a major labor shortage. A one-size-fits all approach to staffing simply does not consider the many complexities and nuances of running a business and a hospital is no exception, the coalition wrote. And the group noted, critically, that the only other state to impose similar standards is California. Ohio is proudly not California and therefore should not follow their lead, they insisted. In the same statement that ONA praised the workplace violence bill as making strides in the right direction, the union criticized hospital interests for continu(ing) to prioritize their revenue and public image over the safety of their employees and the patients they serve. To directly enhance the safety of nurses, health professionals, and patients, the most effective solution is to implement minimum staffing standards, as outlined in House Bill 285, the ONA insisted. Adequate staffing is essential to ensure that health care workers can perform their duties safely and effectively, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes and a more secure work environment. Research from University of Pennsylvania professor of nursing Linda Aiken gives some credence to the unions argument. She noted several studies in the U.S. and abroad demonstrate increases in mortality as a nurses patient load climbs. For now, the Ohio House is out on recess but committees will likely hold additional hearings before Novembers election. Its too soon to say, however, whether the committee handling HB 285 will meet and hold enough hearings to get the bill to the House floor. Meanwhile, the clock ticking on the current legislative session, and the Senate is has just five more sessions on the calendar in November and December. Follow OCJ Reporter Nick Evans on X. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Checking in on Ohio nursing legislation as lawmakers break for summer recess appeared first on Ohio Capital Journal. Chesapeake council going to court to ask if Carey should have resigned to run for mayor CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) Chesapeake City Council wants a judge to decide whether Councilman Don Carey should have had to resign from his City Council seat in order to be on the ballot for mayor this fall. Council voted 5-3 Tuesday Mayor Rick West abstained to direct the city attorney to petition the court regarding the matter. Carey and council members Robert Ike, Jr. and Ella Ward voted against the motion put forward by Councilwoman Amanda Newins. After the vote, Carey told 10 On Your Side the move was unethical, its disingenuous, and its all politically motivated. The debate revolves around Chesapeakes city charter, which states that if a member of council runs for mayor, he or she may be eligible to do so, but they must resign from council by June 30 of that election year, which would have previously been the last day of the term. However, that code is based on Chesapeakes old system that had local elections in May, and wasnt updated to reflect Chesapeakes current system. Chesapeake City Council voted back in 2021 to move local elections to November after a change in Virginia state law. Newins pointed to a recent opinion from the attorney general that said Carey should have to resign. However, according to Councilwoman Ella Ward, members of the General Assembly said Carey should be able to stay in his seat through Dec. 31. The controversy comes after Carey, who made a run for the Virginia House of Delegates back in 2022 as a Republican, switched parties to run in this Novembers elections against incumbent Mayor Rick West. Carey also recently championed the idea of an advisory referendum to ask voters if they would be in favor of district voting over at-large voting. State Sen. Louise Lucas, (D-Portsmouth) has signaled she thought a lawsuit to institute district voting would be appropriate. While local elections are nonpartisan, West has the endorsement of the local Republican Party. When reached by phone, West said didnt think it would be appropriate for him to weigh into the matter. If Carey ends up being removed from the ballot, West would run unopposed. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WAVY.com. Chicago asks residents to use less water now Chicago asks residents to use less water now CHICAGO Rainfall from Hurricane Beryl has prompted an urgent water usage alert in Chicago. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago issued an Overflow Action Day Alert for Tuesday, July 9. MWRD asks that until the current Overflow Action Alert is lifted: No showers No baths No clothes-washers No dishwashers Less frequent toilet flushing RELATED | Tuesday afternoon: Remnants of Tropical Storm Beryl to start raining on Chicagoland MWRD, which treats wastewater and manages stormwater across Chicagoland, says this helps reduce basement backups and flooding by conserving water before, during, and after rainstorms. Areas in southeastern Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana fall under this level and could see the heaviest rainfall totals of up to three to five inches on Tuesday and Wednesday. As a result, Cook, DuPage, Will, Kankakee, Grundy and Iroquois counties in Illinois and all of Northwest Indiana will be under a Flood Watch from 4 p.m. Tuesday to 1 p.m. Wednesday. A Flash Flood Warning is in effect until 6:45 p.m. for southern Cook and Lake County in Northwest Indiana. WGN Weather producer Bill Snyder says up to three inches of of rain has been reported over a span of 30 minutes near Dolton as an area of convergence between Beryl remnants and a lake breeze has set up some torrential downpours. Multiple reports of street flooding impacting the area include the Pullman and Hegewisch neighborhoods and suburban Blue Island and Calumet Park. WGN Interactive Radar: Track the weather near you Now a tropical depression, former Hurricane Beryl raged through the Caribbean to Texas, unleashing heavy downpours, downed power lines and trees, and severe flooding. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. (Bloomberg) -- Chicago business leaders, wealthy families and philanthropic organizations have raised $100 million to help fight crime, an announcement that comes days after a violent holiday weekend. Most Read from Bloomberg Donors including McDonalds Corp., Allstate Foundation, Ulta Beauty Inc. and the Crown family reached a goal of providing half of the $200 million thats required for an initiative to reduce gun violence. The group, led by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, said it plans to raise millions more for other pillars of the groups public safety plan, which includes community investments and jobs. The news comes after 19 people died and more than 100 people were shot in Chicago over the 4th of July holiday period, prompting Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker to seek help from the White House. The funds will support an initiative backed by governments and community organizations that seeks to reduce gun violence by 75% in a decade. The money is the first step, said Mark Hoplamazian, chief executive officer of Hyatt Hotels who is co-chair of the Civic Committees public safety task force. We are also committed to hiring from and investing in communities plagued by gun violence and supporting efforts to modernize and strengthen the Chicago Police Department. The city has grappled with persistent crime that has outraged business leaders and residents alike, with Ken Griffins Citadel citing violence as one of the reasons for relocating to Miami. At a recent event, McDonalds CEO Chris Kempczinski said Mayor Brandon Johnson hadnt done nearly enough to combat crime, Crains Chicago Business reported. During the July 4 holiday period, 109 people were shot in 74 different incidents across the city, according to preliminary figures from the Chicago Police Department. Some of the victims were children. We have to really stop and think about the mindset of someone who will shoot a child, a helpless child, an unarmed mother and think thats okay, and go about their day, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said at a press conference on July 8. Those people have to be taken off the streets, they have to be put away. The summer months account for more than a third of the citys shootings every year, according to the University of Chicagos Crime Lab. This year, theres extra attention as the city hosts the Democratic National Convention, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of protesters. The violence prompted Pritzker, whose relationship with Mayor Johnson has at times been shaky, to write to the White House asking for funds on behalf of the city. The letter, dated July 4th, cited a mass shooting involving minors and children of tender age. Chicago has communicated to my office that they need additional federal resources to respond to this tragedy, Pritzker said in the letter. He added that he hoped the federal goverment is able to support the city of Chicago by providing them the resources and funding necessary to adequately combat and respond to incidents of gun violence, both now and in the future. The funds raised by the business community also included donations from Illinois Tool Works Inc., the Steans Family Foundation, GCM Grosvenor and the Pritzker Foundation. They add to $175 million from the states Reimagine Public Safety Act thats part of the budget passed earlier this year. The money will support a plan labeled Scaling Community Violence Intervention for a Safer Chicago, or SC2, which will focus on seven neighborhoods including North Lawndale, Garfield Park, Humboldt Park and Austin, where Mayor Johnson lives. Arne Duncan, the former US education secretary who co-founded an anti-gun violence nonprofit known as the Chicago CRED, highlighted the violence over the weekend. He added that all parts of society need to get better, and that includes the community violence intervention community, the police, businesses and philanthropy. The level of gun violence in our city is so extreme that we cannot let up for even a moment, he said. Every one of us must be part of the answer. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. In releasing its proposed $9.9 billion budget, Chicago Public Schools announced Wednesday that the district closed a deficit that had ballooned from an initial projection of $490 million to $505 million, through district-level rather than school-level cuts. However, the budget proposal that the Board of Education will vote on this month doesnt include expected salary increases, with CPS currently negotiating new collective bargaining agreements with the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. In a news release, the district said it anticipates amending the budget at a later date to reflect those costs. The total proposed budgets $500 million increase over last years $9.4 billion reflects facility investments that are vital to keeping facilities operating safely and smoothly, according to CPS. Representing the lions share of CPS spending, school budgets will cumulatively increase by $149 million compared with the start of last year a margin that the district attributed to the cost of required services for special education students, state-mandated charter school funding increases and expanded bilingual services. Staff salaries and student benefits make up nearly 70% of the total budget, which will fund more than 800 additional full-time employees this year, CPS announced. This budget very clearly puts teaching and learning front and center where it belongs, CEO Pedro Martinez said in the districts news release, which reiterated CPS recent promises to provide every elementary school with core foundational staff, plus holistic teachers to provide arts and physical education, as well as a third speciality, such as world language or Science Technology Engineering and Math, at the discretion of school principals. This is a landmark change from prior years, where some CPS schools lacked the resources to hire teachers for these holistic subject areas, the district said. The teachers union slammed the budget proposal, which comes in the wake of hundreds of end-of-year layoffs of staff members, including teacher assistants, who are not included among the foundational roles CPS will fund at every school. While many will be rehired at other schools, teacher assistants, primarily Black and Brown women will still face the stark reality of long-term unemployment, CTU said of the layoffs in a press release. If approved, the proposed spending plan will take effect amid a second year of projected enrollment growth, with the district noting its serving not only more students, but specifically more students with greater needs. From the 2022-23 to 2023-24 school years, CPS said it enrolled an additional 12,000 students in temporary living situations; 10,000 more English learners, who account for 27% of all district students; and an additional 4,000 students with disabilities, who represent approximately 15% of the CPS student population. To balance the budget, CPS said it made cuts to central academic and operational departments, identified grants and restructured debt, among other strategies. But with the deficit expected to grow in coming years, CPS said it continues to sound the alarm on funding inequities and inadequacies in state funding, ranging from lacking state contributions to CPS teacher pension payments to shortfalls in the states assessments of the districts special education and prekindergarten needs. Our dedicated staff and amazing students have proven what it takes to make progress and show amazing academic growth, Board of Education President Jianan Shi said in a district news release. Now we must all work together as the leaders supporting the states largest school district and post similar progress when it comes to securing the public education funding that will sustain and improve academic excellence for today and tomorrows Chicago students. The district will hold in-person public hearings on the budget at 4 p.m. Tuesday, July 16, and 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 17, in person at Jones College Prep Hgh School, 700 S. State St. The hearings will livestream on the districts YouTube channel and the boards website (www.cpsboe.org). Speakers must register in advance via the districts website or by calling 773-553-1600 by 5 p.m. Monday, July 15, or until 20 slots have been filled for each hearing, whichever occurs first. The 2024-25 budget can be viewed at the Chicago Board of Education headquarters,1 N. Dearborn St., during weekday business hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby, second from right, and Lt. Governor Chris Anoatubby, right, met with U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman, second from left, June 4 to discuss rebuilding the Sulphur, Oklahoma, community after a tornado devastated the downtown area in April. A nation-to-nation consultation to discuss ways to bring resources to tribal business owners in the treaty territory followed. Jackson Brossy, SBA Assistant Administrator, Office of Native American Affairs, is also pictured. (Photo//Chickasaw Nation Media) SULPHUR, Okla. Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby, along with tribal leadership and state and local officials, met with U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman June 4 to discuss rebuilding the community after an EF-4 tornado slammed into the downtown area April 27, leveling multiple businesses and homes. We thank Administrator Guzman for facilitating this dialogue and sharing of resources to benefit those we serve, said Governor Anoatubby. In support of the many vital entrepreneurs and small business owners throughout the Chickasaw Nation, we will continue to strategically invest and offer programs and services to help the entrepreneurial spirit thrive and enjoy long-term success. We look forward to working with the SBA in these efforts. Governor Anoatubby said the Chickasaw Nation is working with the SBA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as well as local organizations, and is ready to fill in the gaps to support Sulphur. We are part of this community. We love this place, and we are going to do whatever we can to help. We are ready to do that, Governor Anoatubby said. We have businesses here and it is in our heart, so we are going to work to help. Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. The Chickasaw Nation operates several businesses and programs in Sulphur, such as the Chickasaw Cultural Center, Chickasaw Nation Head Start, Chickasaw Visitor Center, a youth center and senior center, and the tribe employs more than 400 people in the community. A handful of Chickasaw Nation facilities in downtown Sulphur were damaged during the tornado, including the Artesian Hotel, ARTesian Gallery, Mahota Textiles and an administrative office, the latter two being destroyed. Mahota Textiles has since moved its operation to 2122 W. Broadway in Sulphur. Community wide, about 68 businesses and more than 140 homes were damaged or destroyed. Governor Anoatubby said cooperation and collaboration are the keys to the recovery and rebuilding process for the entire community. Our teams have worked actively to collaborate with partners, locally and nationally, and with the emergency management agencies to find necessary resources for our citizens, he said. Immediately following the April 27 storms, Chickasaw Nation Lighthorse Police responded, and tribal emergency management deployed its Incident Command Center. The fully staffed and self-contained mobile medical unit, Inchokma (feel well, be well), was on-site several days and open to the community to assist with nonemergency injuries. Administrator Guzman said small businesses are the backbone of the community and the SBA has pledged to play a role in rebuilding Sulphur. The SBA can loan businesses as much as $2 million, $500,000 for homeowners and up to $100,000 for renters. SBA is about the American dream of business ownership, but that business ownership is integral to community and when the communities are impacted by disaster, SBA steps in to not only help the small businesses but nonprofits and homeowners, she said. Physical disaster loans were made available through July 1. The economic injury is going to be longer term. We know that people are still assessing their losses and will continually work with businesses on those economic injury loans through end of January of 2025, Guzman said. Guzman said she wanted to visit Sulphur to get a better understanding of the tornados impact and identify what the community needs. In addition to low interest loans, the SBA has established a center for existing and new businesses. Here in Sulphur, we have a small business development center thats actually supported by Chickasaw Nation, Guzman said. And that center has advisers who are able to help walk those new entrepreneurs through their business plans and help them strategize for the future. At the time of her visit, about three dozen loans had been issued. The average turnaround time has been seven to 10 days, said Guzman. About the Author: "Levi \"Calm Before the Storm\" Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online. Rickert was awarded Best Column 2021 Native Media Award for the print\/online category by the Native American Journalists Association. He serves on the advisory board of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association. He can be reached at levi@nativenewsonline.net." Contact: levi@nativenewsonline.net WEST HAVEN, Utah (ABC4) A child died in West Haven on Tuesday after officials were called out to assist with a medical call, according to the Weber County Sheriffs Office. The child, 12, died after being taken to the hospital. According to the sheriffs office, officials received a medical call around 2:30 p.m. READ NEXT: Utah State University dismisses executive associate athletics director Amy Crosbie The sheriffs office responded to the scene, and both family members and deputies performed CPR on the child until medical personnel took over. The Weber County Sheriffs Office extends its condolences to the family; our thoughts and prayers are with them as they grieve this loss, the sheriffs office said in a press release. Officials said the cause of death is still under investigation, and the identity of the child will not be released because of their age. There is no further information at this time. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. SYDNEY, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Authorities provided an update on Wednesday about a major blast and subsequent fire at a factory in Melbourne's west, saying that the blaze was brought under control but left a nearby creek contaminated with chemicals. At around 11:20 a.m. local time on Wednesday, emergency services rushed to Swann Drive in Derrimut in response to a significant factory fire sparked by a chemical explosion. "Specialist appliances are on scene, including aerial appliances. A community advice warning has been issued for Albion, Braybrook, Brooklyn, Derrimut, Laverton North, Sunshine, Sunshine West, Tottenham, Truganina," Fire Rescue Victoria said. Shortly after the incident, a "Watch and Act" alert was put into effect for the impacted regions, urging residents to take shelter indoors immediately, as the wind was blowing "toxic smoke towards the East across Derrimut." Located some 17 km west of Melbourne's central business district, Derrimut is home to more than 8,000 residents, with the suburb's Swann Drive connecting several distribution centers and warehouses. A large plume of smoke was spotted drifting over the eastern and western suburbs of Melbourne, with Victoria's Environment Protection Authority calling on locals to minimize time outdoors when smoke is present. At around 3:32 p.m. local time, the fire authority announced that the fire was deemed "under control" by the efforts of more than 180 firefighters and various specialist equipment, including aerial appliances. "Our crews have been working around the clock since 11:20 a.m. this morning and have brought this significant fire under control," said Fire Rescue Victoria Deputy Commissioner Michelle Cowling. "There have been no reports of any injuries to staff or to any of the emergency services on site," Cowling noted. The commissioner revealed that the involved factory contained a range of chemicals, including kerosene, fuel, methylated spirits, and ethanol. As wastewater seeped into Cherry Creek, Anderson's Swamp, and Kayes Drain following the industrial fire, people were urged to avoid contact with the water downstream of the fire location until further notice. WorkSafe, Fire Rescue Victoria, Victoria Police, and other agencies are working together to fully investigate the cause of this incident. It will also take the coming days for fire crews to fully extinguish the fire. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the fire broke out at a site run by the chemical blending manufacturer ACB Group, the same place where a worker died in a chemical explosion last year. China is constructing a secret military base in Tajikistan, satellite images reveal, as it seizes on the rising threat to security posed by Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Beijing has been building the base in one of the most remote corners of the world for almost a decade. China signed a security pact with Tajikistan in 2016. The facility, carved out of mountains that rise 13,000ft high, has look-out towers and troops from both countries, which now hold regular joint military drills shown on Chinese state media. Neither government has publicly acknowledged the existence of the base, which extends a former Soviet outpost. But the images show a steady pace of construction, including access roads to the base. China has sought to expand its military footprint on all its borders, notably pushing into Indian territory in the Himalayas. Concern is rising that Beijing plans to do the same in neighbouring nations, as it boosts relations with Tajikistan at a time when Russia, its usual economic and security partner, is embroiled in its invasion of Ukraine. On July 4, president Xi Jinping cemented growing ties with Tajikistan in his third state visit. The situation is that of a vacuum, and the vacuum is filled by China, said Parviz Mollojonov, a political scientist and acting country director for International Alert, a UK-based NGO that promotes peace. Since the deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan, China uses the concern of the Tajik government to build in the security sector. Concern over Tajikistans 800-mile border with Afghanistan has escalated since the Talibans return to power in 2021. China is also providing ammunition and technology to Tajikistan as part of its broader plans to create an advanced line of defence, said Mr Mollojonov. But also there could be some other long-term unknown, not openly stated goals and plans. Beijing was the first to recognise an ambassador appointed by the Taliban, and has sought to build ties with the militant group in charge of Afghanistan. But Beijing is increasing its presence in this corner of the world, because it wants to keep a tight lid on Uyghur Muslims in the far west region of Xinjiang who have staged many anti-government demonstrations so the ruling Communist Party can continue its economic expansion plans into Central Asia and Europe. For Tajikistan, closer ties to China has also meant adopting the same counter-terrorism policy framework that Beijing instituted against the Uyghurs, which included locking upwards of one million people in re-education camps. Tajik authorities outlawed the hijab last month, the latest in a range of 35 faith-related acts, aimed at protecting national cultural values and preventing superstition and extremism. Police have also reportedly forcibly shaved off mens long beards considered a sign of extremist views. Hundreds of mosques have been shut, teachings delivered by imams must fall within state-issued guidelines and minors are not allowed to enter places of worship without permission. Parents sending their children to study religion abroad are also penalised. The government even issued a 367-page manual of acceptable outfits for women, detailing garment style, length and colour. Security forces have violently dispersed protests over the reforms, and some women continue to defy the authorities by wearing hijabs. Many have also chosen to go abroad to seek greater economic opportunity and religious freedom, though that puts migrants at risk of being targeted for recruitment by various extremist groups. For Emomali Rahmon, the lifelong Tajik president, this is as much about keeping his grip on power as it is about sidling up to China. Whether any of these policies have any impact on counter-terrorism concerns remains to be seen, especially as such restrictions are likely to backfire in Tajikistan, a country steeped in Islam in both fabric and identity. Tajikistan seeks good relations with our neighbours with our bear friend and our dragon friend, said Rustam Azizi, research director of Tahlil, a Tajik-based NGO that studies a range of domestic and foreign policy issues. Links with Iran Tajikistan has also made it a point to highlight links to Iran given a shared Persian heritage. Two years ago, Tehran opened a drone factory in Tajikistans capital, Dushanbe its first such facility abroad. The plant is reportedly focused on assembly, and supplies the Tajik army. It is a delicate balance. On many levels, it is important for the country to cast away past Soviet influences and re-establish its Tajik identity. But Dushanbe also does not want to be isolated by the West if it is perceived as being too close to Tehran. The best option would be the preservation of the current status quo where nobody controls [Tajikistan], said Mr Mollojonov. So for Tajikistan not just to have Russian domination or Chinese domination, but to have its multi-vector foreign policy. For many in Tajikistan, it looks like the dragon is very much in the ascendancy. Tajikistan's newly renovated presidential palace built with Chinese investment and support On his recent visit, Mr Xi inaugurated Chinese-funded government facilities in Dushanbe, including a presidential palace and a new parliament building, modelled on the US Capitol in Washington. The whole project cost more than 300 million, according to AidData, a research lab at the College of William & Mary in the United States that tracks such spending. Chinas presence in Tajikistan has increased exponentially over the last decade, becoming the largest source of foreign investment. At one point, China accounted for more than 60 per cent of Dushanbes external public debt; a figure that has recently fallen to about 40 per cent after much criticism. Beijing has also secured numerous mining rights, as Tajikistan lacks the infrastructure and expertise to develop the industry in a country which is more than 90 per cent mountainous. Sentiments about greater Chinese influence are mixed in Ayni, a remote town in the north where the main traffic comes from sluggish cows. Mihirgul Noibova, 56, a resident of Ayni, who used to run a canteen frequented by Chinese workers and now helps to oversee a shop owned by her son For Mihirgul Noibova, it has meant booming business at the canteen she used to run. Chinese people working on a massive road project the same one that now connects Ayni to Dushanbe about 90 miles away frequented her small restaurant so frequently that she was able to save enough to construct a large house for her family. I built this thanks to the Chinese, said Ms Noibova, 56, gesturing to her multi-storey green and white house, flanked by towering mountains. When Chinese investment first started flowing into Tajikistan, many workers were brought in from China. While the Chinese are still typically brought in for senior management positions, Tajiks say that there is now more work available than before at junior levels, or in blue-collar jobs. Environmental concerns Almost all, however, said they were worried about the long-term impact on their health and the surrounding environment. There are maybe 300 trucks passing each day here, said a shopkeeper in downtown Ayni. Theyre creating so much dust, and Im concerned about this, because there are no regulations. Entire villages, too, have disappeared in order to make space for expanding Chinese mining interests in Ayni. The village of Kumarg, just next to the main mining site, is now an eerie ghost town. At the entrance, a guard blocks access to the empty houses. It was home to about 60 households but were all reportedly paid to move away about a year ago when mining activity expanded. All across Tajikistan, there are reminders of a fast-growing Chinese presence from electric power boxes outside the national museum in Dushanbe to rubbish bins labelled with Chinese characters rather than Tajik words in public parks. Vendors at the citys main market sell Chinese noodles and sweets. One shopkeeper even runs a small-scale unofficial exchange service Chinese customers come in and transfer him renminbi on a Chinese digital wallet app, and he hands them cash in Tajik somoni. There has been so much Beijing-backed construction complete with the red propaganda banners that would normally adorn building sites in China that Dushanbe feels and looks much like a newly-developing Chinese city. Ms Noibova benefitted from a Chinese-funded road connecting Dushanbe to towns in the far north, such as Khujand, sandwiched between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It has cut down travel time from one day to a few hours. Such infrastructure showcases Chinese prowess some parts of the road have a gradient as steep as 12 per cent, and are carved directly into the mountainside. A series of tunnels along the way burrow through stone and protect from rock falls. But it also highlights a growing dependency on China in trade and technical expertise. Dushanbes taxi fleet, for instance, is almost entirely made up of Chinese electric vehicles. They are usually fitted with Chinese voice recognition that many Tajik drivers do not understand. That means less pollution on the streets for the city of 1.5 million people, but it also means that any repairs or upgrades require Chinese-made parts and expertise. There is a great financial dependency [on China], said Mr Mollojonov. But many people are criticising the local governments, saying that economic dependence sooner or later turns into political dependence and dependence in the security sector. Because at any time in the future, the Chinese government could state they have investments in the region, and it has the right to defend those investments. And that means that Tajikistan could one day see a greater Chinese military presence a de facto occupation under the banner of protecting Beijings interests. 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. Shoppers pass by cooking oil products at a supermarket in Beijing, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. China's authorities said they were investigating food safety concerns in cooking oils after an investigative report from local media revealed that tankers carrying soybean oil from a major state-owned company were also used to carry a form of coal. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) BANGKOK (AP) China's authorities said they were investigating food safety concerns in cooking oils after an investigative report from local media revealed that tankers carrying soybean oil from a major state-owned company were also used to carry a form of coal. The report from Beijing News, a state-backed outlet known for original reporting, found that it was an open secret among truck drivers that the tankers did not get cleaned in between their stints carrying edible oils and the chemicals. Among the trucks the driver followed, the vehicles carried products from Sinograin, a major state-owned corporation, as well as China Energy Investment Corporation, one of the national-level companies directly overseen by the government. China's State Council said Tuesday it was forming an investigation group with officials from the Food Safety Commission, the Public Safety Bureau and other ministries. Enterprises in violation and relevant responsible persons will be severely punished according to law, the announcement said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The Beijing News investigation followed one tanker from the northwestern Ningxia region, which carried a type of hydrocarbon that is converted into liquid fuel. From Ningxia, the tanker traveled to northern Tianjin and then filled up with soybean oil from Sinograin, without stopping to get clean. The hydrocarbon products contain components that may lead to poisoning, said one expert quoted in the Beijing News story. China Grain Reserves Group, Sinograins formal name, said in a statement Saturday that it was conducting an audit after the media allegations. The investigation also followed other trucks that emerged carrying hydrocarbons from a plant belonging to the China Energy Investment Corporation, which then went on to get edible oils from other companies after they unloaded their first cargo. The story, published last Tuesday, has since received widespread national attention as major state-owned corporations were implicated. In 2008, many families switched to buying imported infant formula after it was found that a brand called Sanlu contained melamine in its formula, a chemical that caused kidney damage and other harm. The tainted formula killed six babies. ___ AP Asia business climate reporter Aniruddha Ghosal contributed to this report. (Bloomberg) -- China is investigating whether the European Unions spate of actions against the worlds No. 2 economy constitute an illegal barrier to free trade, as the two blocs edge another step closer to a trade war. Most Read from Bloomberg The Ministry of Commerce said the Chinese probe would span a range of sectors, including rail, solar and wind power, and security equipment in a Wednesday statement. Those are areas the EU has targeted in recent months with an array of new tools, which it says are designed to defend itself against Beijings unfair practices. If Beijing determines an EU measure to be illegal, Chinese officials could conduct bilateral talks, start a multilateral dispute settlement and take other appropriate measures, according to the rules of the probe. In a separate document, the ministry said steps could include a recommendation to introduce retaliatory measures. A spokesperson for the European Commission didnt immediately reply to a request for comment. Beijings relationship with the EU has hit fresh lows in recent months, as the bloc brings its China policy closer to that of the US. American and European leaders have slammed Beijing for flooding their markets with a surge in cheap exports, and raised the alarm about strengthening economic security as tensions flare. At the center of those strains with the EU are Chinas electric car exports, which Europe is worried threaten jobs in its own autos sector. The bloc last week set provisional tariffs as high as 37.6% against some car exports from China, after US President Joe Biden announced a new 100% tariff on such Chinese products. On top of that, the EU has launched a probe into Chinas procurement of medical devices under a new tool to ensure reciprocity, and used fresh anti-subsidy rules to raid a Chinese security equipment firm it claimed had used subsidies to distort the market. China, which says the EUs actions violate the principle of free trade, has responded with investigations into French brandy and Spanish pork, as well as telegraphing threats against other industries such as large-engine cars that Germany specializes in and aviation, a sector where France looms large. Beijings wide-reaching investigation should be completed by Jan. 10, with a possible extension till mid-April, according to the Ministry of Commerce statement. The probe was launched on the back of a request from the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, it added. The results will come shortly after the November deadline for the EU to decide whether to impose lasting tariffs on electric cars from China. Behind closed doors talks are underway on the EV tariffs, with the EU welcoming China to respond to the findings of its probe. Despite that, the EU ambassador to China said Beijing only recently responded to the blocs requests for talks a claim commerce officials dismissed as definitely inconsistent with facts. China opened a similar investigation into Taiwans ban on some Chinese imports last year. After the Commerce Ministry ruled such an action constituted a trade barrier, Beijing ended concessions on some Taiwanese chemical imports, and said it was studying the suspension of more allowances on other products from the island. --With assistance from Kevin Whitelaw. (Updates with details throughout.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. FILE PHOTO: Aerial view of the contested Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea BEIJING (Reuters) -China's coast guard said it had on humanitarian grounds "allowed" the Philippines to evacuate a person who had fallen ill on a rusting warship beached on the Second Thomas Shoal, a claim Manila's coast guard said was "ridiculous". "This statement confirms their illegal deployment of vessels within our EEZ (exclusive economic zone) and highlights their government's view that the preservation of human life and welfare requires approval," Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesperson Jay Tarriela said on X. In a statement, the Chinese Coast Guard said it had monitored the entire rescue operation on Sunday, which a spokesperson said was made at the request of the Philippines. The Philippine coast guard then reported "numerous obstructing and delaying manoeuvres" by China's coast guard while it carried out the medical evacuation. A month ago, the PCG accused its Chinese counterpart of blocking a medical evacuation from the warship, calling the actions "barbaric and inhumane". China's foreign ministry said the same day that China will allow the Philippines to deliver supplies and evacuate personnel if Manila notifies Beijing ahead of a mission. The Philippines has soldiers living aboard a rusty, aging warship on the Second Thomas Shoal, which was deliberately grounded by Manila in 1999 to reinforce its maritime claims. China's navy has clashed several times with Philippines forces seeking to resupply the grounded ship. China claims most of the South China Sea, a key conduit for $3 trillion of annual ship-borne trade, as its own territory. Beijing rejects the 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration which said its expansive maritime claims had no legal basis. (Reporting by Liz Lee and Shanghai newsroom; Additional reporting by Mikhail Flores and Karen Lema in Manila; Editing by Michael Perry and Muralikumar Anantharaman and Miral Fahmy) TechCrunch Lawyers representing Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX CEO and co-founder who was convicted of fraud and money laundering late last year, are seeking a new trial. Following crypto exchange FTXs collapse, Bankman-Fried was found guilty on all seven counts, then sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture. Bloomberg reports that Bankman-Frieds appeal focuses on the behavior of U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, alleging that Kaplans rulings were not just erroneous but unbalanced and that the judge continually ridiculed Bankman-Fried during trial, repeatedly criticized his demeanor, and signaled his disbelief of Bankman-Frieds testimony. Chinese soldiers are taking part in maneuvers in Belarus, adding another new dynamic to the security situation in Eastern Europe, dominated by Russias war in Ukraine and the fallout surrounding it. While Belarus has been a staunch ally of Russia it has, more recently, made overtures toward China, with the aim of building closer relations with it, including in the military sphere. Chinese soldiers are taking part in maneuvers in Belarus, adding another new dynamic to the security situation in Eastern Europe, dominated by Russias war in Ukraine and the fallout surrounding it. While Belarus has been a staunch ally of Russia it has, more recently, made overtures toward China, with the aim of building closer relations with it, including in the military sphere. The 11-day Eagle Assault 2024 exercise began yesterday in the Brest region of Belarus, less than 3.1 miles from the border with Poland, a NATO member and staunch ally of Ukraine. This is the first time that Chinese and Belarusian troops have been involved in drills of this kind together. Meanwhile China is conducting military drills on the Polish border in a staunch show of support to Belarus. Are you watching NATO? pic.twitter.com/hSmUcWlcx0 Aussie Cossack (@aussiecossack) July 9, 2024 China and Belarus announce joint 'anti-terrorist' army drills near Brest in Belarus (8-19.07), at the border with & This comes as: 1. Belarus and Russia maintain weaponized migration pressure at borders 2. Poland starts to limit the Silk Road rail transports at the pic.twitter.com/pNAlpfA4GX Jakub Jakobowski (@J_Jakobowski) July 7, 2024 There have been precedents, however, including Belarusian troops going to China for bilateral exercises, while both countries also participated in the Vostok multilateral exercise in Russia in August 2022. Foundations for Eagle Assault 2024 were apparently laid last August when China and Belarus agreed to conduct more joint military drills following a meeting between Chinas then-defense chief Li Shangfu and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk. According to Chinas Ministry of National Defense, the personnel from both countries are conducting anti-terrorist training and will take part in tasks such as hostage rescue. Photos released by the Belarusian defense ministry showed Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) troops arriving in Belarus aboard a Y-20 strategic transport aircraft. PLA troops after disembarking from a Y-20 strategic transport aircraft. Chinese state media via X The joint training aims to enhance the coordination capabilities of the participating troops and deepen practical cooperation between the two armies, the ministry said, adding that the drills were according to an annual plan and consensus. Chinese troops on parade after their arrival in Belarus. Belarusian Ministry of Defense via X For its part, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense said that the joint drills would include training for airborne assault, river crossings, and combat in urban areas. The situation in the world is difficult, and so we are practicing new forms and methods of solving tactical tasks, said Vadzim Dzenisenka, the chief of the Belarusian militarys special operations command. PLA troops take part in training in an urban environment during Eagle Assault 2024. Chinese state media via X Whether coincidental or otherwise, its significant that the Belarusian-Chinese drills kicked off ahead of the NATO summit in Washington that begins today. The war in Ukraine will again be at the center of the alliances three days of discussions, with ways to back Kyiv militarily especially important as Russia continues to make gains on the battlefield and bombard cities and other targets across Ukraine. Belarusian troops involved in the joint maneuvers with the PLA. Belarusian Ministry of Defense via X Belarus has been closely connected with Russias campaign since even before the full-scale invasion, providing a staging ground for Russian troops and equipment before they pushed across the border in February 2022, including from Belarus. Since then, Belarus has continued to host the Russian military, including aircraft and missiles used against Ukraine. In 2023, Russia began to move some of its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus and the Belarusian military has since taken part in joint nuclear drills with its Russian allies, as you can read about here and here. Screencap from a Russian Ministry of Defense video showing a Belarusian Su-25 Frogfoot during tactical nuclear drills last month. Russian Ministry of Defense Russian Ministry of Defense screencap Now, however, Belarus is seeking to expand its military relationship with China, too. Last week, Belarus joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), originally established by China and Russia to discuss security concerns in Central Asia and the wider region. As well as economic and political issues, the organization also plays an important role in military cooperation between members. Belaruss authoritarian leader Lukashenko has been shunned by most of Europe, not only due to his support for Russias war in Ukraine but also a host of human rights issues, including a brutal crackdown on protests in the country in 2020. The shift toward China, however, may suggest that Lukashenko is attempting to look for alternatives to Russia, especially as the latter increasingly finds itself as an international pariah and one where the economy is struggling with the effects of hard-hitting sanctions. While Russias economy has so far avoided collapse, its status as a reliable partner and sponsor is increasingly questionable. Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, July 4, 2024. Photo by Pang Xinglei/Xinhua via Getty Images Xinhua News Agency The issues for Belarus are compounded by the fact that it too has to deal with sanctions placed on it. In the meantime, Belarusian officials have continued to lash out at what they described as NATOs hostile intentions. In this, of course, it has parallels with both Russia and China. In the case of China, NATO is increasingly looking toward the Pacific as a potential future flashpoint and has sought to expand relations with its partners in the region, although they remain outside the military alliance. Having Chinese troops on maneuvers in Europe, and especially so close to Poland, also send a signal to NATO and others that Beijing may be more willing to become involved in the continents military issues. Whats unclear is whether the drills should also be read as a willingness to provide direct military support to Russia for its war in Ukraine, something that Beijing has so far refrained from doing. Participants from the Belarusian military compete in a contest during the 2021 International Army Games on September 1, 2021, in Korla, Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. Photo by Wang Xiaojun/China News Service via Getty Images WANGXIAOJUN For Poland, tensions around the border with Belarus are already a cause for concern. This has played out in particular over the issue of border protection, with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the country faces a hybrid war in illegal migration something that Poland has accused Belarus of encouraging. Last week, the Polish defense minister said that Poland and Lithuania will call for discussions about border protection at the NATO summit. Exactly how the burgeoning relationship between Belarus and China plays out will likely depend heavily on what happens between them and Russia, as well as Moscows fortunes in Ukraine. The Belarusian government has already said that this weeks drills will allow the laying of a foundation for further development of Belarusian-Chinese relations in the field of joint training of troops. With that in mind, further military cooperation between Belarus and China appears likely. Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com Prominent members of the Christian nationalist movement have maneuvered their way into former President Donald Trumps inner circle in recent years and their influence is remarkably clear in the draft Republican Party platform unveiled this week. Russell Vought, a close Trump ally, served as the platforms policy director. A former Trump administration official, Vought has since taken on a magnified role in Trump world and now runs the Center for Renewing America, a think tank that is angling to infuse a second Trump White House with Christian nationalist policies, as Politico previously reported. Christian nationalists espouse a belief that America was founded as a Christian nation and that a far-right interpretation of the Bible ought to dictate politics and public life. Signs of ideological influence from Christian nationalists were all over a 16-page draft of the GOP platform that circulated this week. The document, which is being finalized for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week, embraces common refrains about devout Christians in America facing persecution. Christianity even infuses the foreign policy section, which calls for protecting the American Homeland, our People, our Borders, our Great American Flag, and our Rights under God. The platform largely echoes Trumps core reelection messages. Unlike in previous years, it is not a detailed recitation of all the policies Republicans hope to achieve in the White House, but a more specifics-free collection of slogans and promises written in Trumps voice. The Trump campaign reportedly handpicked the authors in part to freeze out groups that would insist on including extremely unpopular policies, such as an explicit call for a nationwide abortion ban, and to consolidate support for Trumps trademark messages instead. But even the pared-down platform embraces many tenets of Christian nationalism. The draft says immigration laws would be used to keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of America. Another plank pledged to support homeschooling, once a fringe cause of the Christian right, equally, and to protect the practice of religion in public schools. Republicans will champion the First Amendment Right to Pray and Read the Bible in school, the education section reads, and stand up to those who violate the Religious Freedoms of American students. Vought is also advising Project 2025, a conservative policy proposal that, over the course of nearly 1,000 pages, presents a blueprint for radically remaking nearly every aspect of the federal government and significantly decreasing the rights of millions of Americans. Russell Vought, a former Trump administration official, is behind both Project 2025 and the Republican Party's draft platform. Tom Williams via Getty Images The Christian nationalist movement has deep roots in anti-communism, antisemitism, white supremacy and isolationism. Since Trumps presidency, its agenda has married religious right hobbyhorses like ending same-sex marriage, banning abortion, and denying the existence of trans people with MAGA world dog whistles about the dangers of immigration and diversity, conspiracism, and apocalyptic descriptions of Democratic opponents and leftists. Vought, for example, has previously advocated for limiting immigration to those who have accept[ed] Israels God, laws and understanding of history. The most radical adherents of the movement, which has gained influence on the right, see pluralistic democracy as a roadblock to be dismantled and consider their political standard-bearers, such as Trump, to be divinely inspired. The draft platform does not outright call for an abortion ban using oblique language instead to signal support of fetal personhood or a reversal of same-sex marriage rights. But it does not mince words in its opposition to trans people in public life, promising to End Left-wing Gender Insanity by punishing schools that allow children to transition and banning trans athletes from competition. The draft also promises Republicans will promote a Culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage, swapping a definition of marriage as between a man and a woman for a softer euphemism. And the Christian nationalist credo that Christians in America face widespread persecution is the animating belief behind one of the platforms few concrete policy promises: to appoint a federal task force on Anti-Christian Bias that will investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America. Vought and the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Other members of the platform committee who have embraced Christian nationalist beliefs include David Barton, an amateur historian who has helped popularize the belief among conservatives that Americas founders envisioned the country as a Christian nation. Barton has derided the separation between church and state as a myth invented by progressives and argued the first purpose of public education is to teach students to love and serve God. The platform committee also includes Tony Perkins, the president of the anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy group Family Research Council, LaDonna Ryggs, a South Carolina politician who has helped raise funds for the Christian nationalist Palmetto Family Council, and Lori Hinz, a Republican fixture in North Dakota. Hinz, in reaction to being chosen for the committee, told a right-wing conference in May: Im thrilled to be chosen, because with my theological background, I put everything through the lens of the Bible, and that, on the platform committee, I think, is going to be integral and very important. Hinz and Perkins did not respond to a request for comment. Since the platform became public, Barton and Perkins have both complained that the Trump campaign reduced campaign outsiders influence on the platform particularly by deemphasizing abortion although Barton still endorsed the results. The 2024 platform is a decent statement of campaign priorities, but not necessarily the enduring principles of a party, Perkins said in a statement to The New York Times. It has many excellent provisions and is strong in areas related to protecting gender distinctions, border security, combating crime, and defederalizing education, he said in a statement to HuffPost. Although it takes the weakest position on protecting unborn life in recent memory, he said, People of faith still have a clear choice in this election cycle. An argument between Churchs Chicken employee Anitra West and a customer turned deadly on Monday night (July 8) after local authorities in Memphis say the customer shot West. She was later pronounced dead. The fatal shooting occurred just before 9 p.m. at the fast food franchises downtown Memphis location. Officers responded to the call and found West with at least one gunshot wound. The preliminary investigation concluded that West was working in the drive-thru when a woman with purple hair in a teal-colored SUV pulled up and the two got into a verbal altercation. As reported by USA Today, the statement from authorities read, The teal-colored SUV drove off the lot and the victim walked outside of the business to get some air. A few moments later a gunshot was heard and the teal-colored SUV was seen on video speeding off the parking lot. A Churchs Chicken spokesperson released a statement on the matter, per Action News 5. We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of one of our team members. Our thoughts and prayers go out to their family during this difficult time [] Our location at 2963 Park Avenue will be closed for the next few days as we address the needs of the victims family and our team members. Wests family described the 48-year-old mother as a shining light and a beautiful soul. Ex-husband, Loranzo, told the outlet, It doesnt feel real yet because we havent been able to see her. Im a better man because of her. Thats what will be missed the most, because everywhere she went, she impacted everybody. The two share a 12-year-old daughter and were high school sweethearts. An arrest has not yet been made, but the vehicle in question has been recovered. More from VIBE.com JOHANNESBURG, July 10 (Xinhua) -- A total of 13 people, including 12 pupils and a driver, were killed and seven others injured in a minibus-truck collision Wednesday morning in the Merafong Local Municipality, Gauteng Province, South Africa, according to local authorities. Matome Chiloane, member of the executive council for education, sport, arts, culture and recreation in Gauteng Province, said on Wednesday that a minibus carrying students was hit from behind by a pickup truck, causing it to overturn and catch fire at about 6:45 a.m. local time. Chiloane said 11 of the pupils were from Rocklands Primary School and one from Laerskool Blyvooruitsig in Carletonville. "I am profoundly saddened by this tragic event. The loss of our children is a devastating blow to our community, and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased and injured learners," he said in a statement. "We wish to extend our heartfelt condolences to the families, friends, and both schools' entire community during this incredibly difficult time. We also wish all injured learners a speedy recovery." Chiloane added that counseling services will be rendered to all students and staff members to help them cope with the tragedy. Maine Democratic Party chair Bev Uhlenhake speaks at the state party convention, which was held in Bangor on May 31 and June 1, 2024. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star) While some of Maines delegates to next months Democratic National Convention have concerns about President Joe Bidens candidacy, they still plan to vote for him to be the party nominee for the November election. Not doing so, they argue, would put key freedoms including LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights at risk. Democrats both on the national and local level have been navigating whether and how to align behind Biden following his widely criticized performance in the first presidential debate last month and amid increasing calls for him to step aside so the party can nominate a new candidate. With nearly 4,000 delegates across the country, Biden has far surpassed the 1,976 delegate votes needed to secure the nomination and on Monday sent a letter to congressional Democrats stating that he is firmly committed to staying in the race. Under Democratic National Committee rules, these delegates in Maine and other states are bound by good conscience to vote for Biden after voters backed him in the state primary. This pledge is not legally binding there is no practical penalty if delegates were to vote for someone else though doing so would be unprecedented and, according to politics and elections experts, unlikely given that most delegates are party loyalists. When asked whether they continue to support Biden, many Maine delegates deferred to the state party, whose communications director Annina Breen affirmed that Maines delegates are pledged to and supportive of Biden. Also in response to calls for Biden to withdraw and pathways to back alternative candidates, Maine Democratic Party chair Bev Uhlenhake told Maine Morning Star the state partys focus is defeating former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. The most important thing we can do to help protect reproductive freedom, defend our democracy, and make sure our economy keeps growing is to help re-elect President Biden and thats what were going to do, Uhlenhake wrote in a statement. Uhlenhake added that the state party is tuning out the noise, regarding Bidens candidacy. Uhlenhake wrote, We have never taken a win in any election for granted, and our Democratic candidates, organizers, and activists are energized and working to engage voters all across Maine. Who can delegates vote for? The current pledged delegate system has been in place since 1972, when the McGovern-Fraser Commission reformed the presidential nomination process after turmoil in the 1968 convention to establish more open selection procedures and prevent party leaders from hand picking delegates. Since then, we dont have any situation where pledged delegates have gone against their pledge and voted for somebody else in either party, said Mark Brewer, who chairs the political science department for the University of Maine. According to the Democratic National Committee rules, delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them. However, if a delegate were to vote for someone else, their vote wouldnt be thrown out and there is no established penalty for doing so, explained Brewer, who specializes in political parties and elections. Although, he added, you have to remember that most of these delegates are party insiders, party loyalists, and turning their back on the nominee that they have been pledged to support would be political suicide is probably a little bit too strong of a word, but maybe not too strong. Jim Melcher, a political science professor at the University of Maine at Farmington, said like Democrats across the country, Maine delegates must consider the potential impact of openly opposing Biden, both on their own political future and on the impression of a united front against the Republican Party. I think Democrats are nervous about answering this question because theyre afraid whatever they say might be used against them by Republicans in a general election, he said. I suspect a lot of Democrats are fearful, especially those dedicated enough to be delegates, and they dont want to give the other party anything that they think that they could use in that sense. How unprecedented is this? While delegates voting against the candidate theyre pledged to support would be unprecedented under the current system, there were conversations in 1980 about the potential of doing so. Former President Jimmy Carter had been widely viewed as a weak candidate and faced a pretty stiff primary challenge from then-Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Many Democrats thought Kennedy would be the better choice and had discussed the possibility of some Carter delegates switching, though it never happened, Brewer explained. We havent seen anything like this since then, where there has been open speculation, Melcher said of the 1980 election. So thats the biggest takeaway, that none of this is typical. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX However, Kennedy had participated in the state primaries and caucuses, unlike the current moment where a potential alternative would likely not have run against Biden. Primary challengers Dean Phillips, a congressman from Minnesota, and businessman Jason Palmer, who each received a handful of delegates, are no longer running. Brewer and Melcher agreed that, in all likelihood, Biden will be the nominee. However, it is still possible he could concede. The fact that he said that he will not drop out is not a 100% guarantee, Melcher said. I think, for somebody whos going to stay in the race, at least for now, that is what he has to say. The Democratic National Committee rules committee could also change the pledge rules before the vote, Brewer noted, though he sees that as even less plausible than Biden stepping down. If Biden does step aside, then all bets are off, Brewer said. The process from that point is totally up in the air. Biden could endorse another candidate, though his delegates wouldnt be bound to follow his suggestion. Because of the amount of money the Biden-Harris campaign has raised, Melcher thinks Biden would be most likely to recommend Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement, in part because of the possibility of having to return some campaign contributions otherwise. Concerned about freedoms at risk, delegates stand by Biden Thirty two Maine delegates and two alternates were selected at the Democratic Party state convention in early June to attend the national convention in Chicago on August 19-24. The party is expected to vote for its presidential nominee around that time, likely virtually in advance to meet the deadline for the Ohio general election ballot. While some delegates criticized Bidens debate performance, they cautioned against backing another candidate. For me, I think being frank and clear that President Biden was not at the top of his game during the debate its pretty evident but I think that a lot of folks calling for an open convention is a little bit premature right now, said Marpheen Chann, an author and executive director of Khmer Maine, who was selected as a delegate for Maines first congressional district. I think that we cant judge an entire campaign based on a debate performance. Chann said the party cannot afford to be shortsighted, noting that theres a lot riding on this election in terms of democracy, including LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights. We could gamble away our chances by trying to do a last-minute switcheroo, Chan said, or we can go all in on President Biden. While some delegates remain supportive of Biden in spite of worries, others do not have any apprehension, including Forrest Genthner, a pastor at Essex Street Baptist Church in Bangor. I have no concerns, Genthner said. President Biden will be the nominee and he will be re-elected in November. When asked about other Mainers who have shared concerns about Bidens fitness for re-election, Genthner said, I think they should be concerned about Donald Trump. Im concerned about the world my daughters going to grow up in, Genthner added. Im worried about the future of our planet. Im worried about womens right to choose. Im worried about rights for our LGBTQ+ Americans. Im worried about equal justice under law. At-large delegate John Hennessy, board president of EqualityMaine, the oldest and largest statewide LGBTQ+ rights organization, similarly mentioned potential threats under another Trump presidency as to why his support for Biden is unwavering. Donald Trump has spewed his litany of lies repeatedly about the economy, about ripping away our freedoms, and his attempt to overturn our votes and steal an election, Hennessy said. I am worried about the hard-earned rights and freedoms of the LGBTQ+ community if he were to win. President Biden has always supported my community. It is an honor to support him as a national delegate now as we work to re-elect him this November. State Rep. Laurie Osher of Orono, another delegate, also said she believes Biden is still the best candidate, given everything hes accomplished in his presidency. The debate was a bad day for him, she said, but it did not make her reconsider her pledge. His track record of winning against Trump is also important to her, Osher said. The choice is clear; we elect the Democrat who had a bad day, and maybe has several more bad days, she said. But none of them are with the goal to undermine democracy. None of his bad days are with the goal to corrupt our country, to have retribution against our enemies. None of his days are ever as bad as Trumps every day. Superdelegates Maines eight superdelegates party leaders and elected Democratic officials are not pledged to support Biden, though theyre expected to. Under Democratic National Committee rules, if a candidate gets a majority of votes after the first round, then the nomination is secured. But if no one gets a majority on the first ballot, superdelegates come into play. The Democratic National Committee changed its rules regarding superdelegates more recently to limit their voting to the second ballot, after the divisive 2016 Democratic contest between the eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton, and U.S. Sen.Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Superdelegate votes would be crucial if delegates are divided on which candidate to back. While some of the superdelegates such as Gov. Janet Mills have come out in support of Biden since the debate, others have danced around the question of whether they support his candidacy or whether he should step aside, including the Democrats in Maines congressional delegation. U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden, both Democrats, have not responded to repeated requests for comment about whether they believe Biden should remain the partys candidate. While Golden does not plan to vote for Trump, he thinks Trump will win and said hes ok with that. I refuse to participate in a campaign to scare voters with the idea that Trump will end our democratic system, Golden wrote in an op-ed last week. Beyond Biden While the focus of the national convention is to select a final presidential nominee, Maines delegates also have hopes that extend beyond keeping Biden in the Oval Office. Chann sees the convention as an opportunity to get voters galvanized to elect Democrats at all levels in U.S. Congress, locally, folks all the way down to dogcatcher. I think that thats the other thing we as Democrats cannot forget, Chann said, is that this is about Democrats up and down the ballot and building up the momentum to elect Democrats all over the country. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) Dispensary owner Craton Edwards was one of the lucky ones who won the citys lottery to open his business. Edwards runs The Garage dispensary on Colorado Avenue. I know they were nervous about introducing marijuana into Grand Junction, said Edwards. And so they were very cautious about the way they approached that. Voters approved two measures back in 2022 that would allow and regulate the retail sale of cannabis in the city. A part of that process included a lottery that would select 10 businesses to operate in the city of Grand Junction. Edwards talked with WesternSlopeNow about the process it took to open his business. Some of the processes they put in place was there was an initial application process where you had to actually have ownership or at least a lease signed and ready for the property that you were going to be using. They then also had a few other stipulations as far as background checks, going through the MED, which is through the state of Colorado, that made the process itself a little more in-depth than most businesses that Ive seen. Out of the 10 businesses selected, only five have opened. Councilmember Anna Stout stated during the meeting, We calculated a number of things based on projections for ten businesses being open. Id like to see ten businesses be open. If the other five that are working on this get going, great. If there are others that can come in, stand that up and start generating revenue great. So, city councilmembers laid out five options last week. Monitor the status of openings and report back to the council at or near years end. Develop an ordinance to amend the code to allow for more than one extension with conditions. Lower the cap to the number of businesses open when current extended licenses expire. Retain the current cap, but delay the opportunity to apply for vacated licenses until some future time. Commit to the current cap and allow a new application period after each vacancy/extension expires. No final decision has been made on which option the council plans to pursue. WesternSlopeNow will continue to follow this story as it develops. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WIVB) North Tonawanda residents begged city leaders at a public hearing Tuesday to take action to stop what they said is non-stop noise coming from a crypto mining plant. North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec said hes listening to their concerns and is proposing a two-year moratorium on all new crypto mining developments, which is getting full support from nearby residents. The moratorium would block any existing facilities from expanding and pause the development of new ones. The proposal will be voted on by the common council on July 16. At the public hearing, residents made their frustrations clear about the plant on Erie Avenue. Almost every person said the noise is disrupting their everyday lives and that the moratorium would bring them some peace of mind. We always heard noise from them, but it wasnt as much as first, North Tonawanda resident Mark Polito said. Then it just became a constant noise. A common theme among residents is that the crypto mining plant has changed the way they enjoy their quality of life on their own property. On Memorial weekend, I went out and cooked my food. I wanted to hang out in my yard, but the noise was so loud. I was forced back into my own home, Polito said. Our dog used to love playing around the house and the backyard, but now he comes in within minutes of doing his thing out there. Residents are also concerned about how much pollution the plant is producing. It bugs me that I am being told that I cannot have gas appliances in the future when this place is allowed to blow more than any resident in the area, North Tonawanda resident Kevin OConnor said. Residents claim the company is producing higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions than 160,000 residents would in a year. Unfortunately, the new moratorium, if approved by the council, wont solve the current issues of high noise levels and increased greenhouse gas emissions that the digihost operation has caused with their bitcoin mine over on Erie Avenue, but it will stop it from getting worse, said Deborah Gondek, chair of the North Tonawanda Climate Smart Task Force. Tylec also said the two-year moratorium would provide the city with the necessary time to study the potential impacts of the crypto developments. Latest Local News Trina Catterson joined the News 4 team in 2024. She previously worked at WETM-TV in Elmira, a sister station of WIVB. See more of her work here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. Unemployment insurance claimants who were wrongly accused of fraud and had money and other assets seized have until Aug. 19 to return a document in order to potentially qualify for a class-action lawsuit, Michigan's Unemployment Insurance Agency said Wednesday. There are nearly 400 potential class members who need to return a signed release to potentially qualify for a portion of a $20 million settlement reached in 2022, the result of a 2015 class action called Bauserman v. Unemployment Insurance Agency. The state has acknowledged that about 40,000 people were wrongly accused of fraud in 2013-15 by the UIA's computer system, which operated without human supervision and had an error rate as high as 93%. Michigan's unemployment insurance computer system, MiWAM, operated without human supervision between 2013-2015 and it wrongly accused as many as 40,000 Michigan residents of fraud. Michigan is getting a new unemployment insurance benefits computer system next year. In January, the Michigan Court of Claims approved the settlement. More than 3,000 claimants registered for the settlement and nearly 1,000 of those claimants were awarded extra money from the "Hardship Fund" and will receive an average of $4,150 if the settlement is approved. Each eligible class member will receive an average of $1,600. More on another lawsuit against the UIA: Michigan claimants told to repay unemployment benefits can join class action settlement More on that lawsuit: Michigan's unemployment agency settles lawsuit for $55 million, will make changes These 377 potential class members now have until Aug. 19 to return a properly signed release to Analytics Consulting, the settlements claims administrator, Michigan's UIA said in a news release. Claimants should have received a release from Analytics Consulting. Those who fail to return a release may lose their right to payment from the settlement, the UIA said. Questions about the signed release should be directed to Analytics Consulting by calling (833)-438-5028 or emailing info@UIAClassAction.com. More information can also be found at UIAClassAction.com. Contact Adrienne Roberts: amroberts@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Claimants in false fraud UIA lawsuit must return release by Aug. 19 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been accused of not disclosing a yacht trip to Russia and a private helicopter flight to a palace in President Vladimir Putins hometown, among a slew of other gifts and loans from businessman Harlan Crow. Buried on page 14 of a letter that two Democratic senators sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday, in which they urged Garland to appoint a special counsel to probe Thomas, was an astonishing list of dozens of likely undisclosed gifts and income from Crow, Crows affiliated companies, and other donors. In the letter, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) said Thomas, one of the courts staunchly conservative justices, even may have committed tax fraud and violated other federal laws by secretly accepting the gifts and income potentially worth millions. The Senate is not a prosecutorial body, and the Supreme Court has no fact-finding function of its own, making the executive role all the more important if there is ever to be any complete determination of the facts, reads the letter requesting the appointment of a special prosecutor. We do not make this request lightly, said the letter. The list of potentially secret gifts also includes a loan of more than $267,000 provided by Thomas close friend Anthony Welters, the yacht trip to Russia from the Baltics, and the helicopter ride to Yusupov Palace in St. Petersburg. ProPublica first reported last year on the existence of extensive undisclosed gifts and lavish trips from Crow. Sens. Dick Durban and Ron Wyden Sens. Dick Durban and Ron Wyden Additionally, Justice Thomas is accused of not disclosing tuitions for his grandnephew, free lodging, real estate transactions, and home renovations. The action escalates Democratic senators efforts to hold Thomas accountable for perceived ethics controversies. According to the senators, Thomas conduct could violate the Ethics in Government Act, which requires officials like Supreme Court justices to file annual reports disclosing gifts and income accepted from outside sources. It is a crime, reads the report, To knowingly and willfully fail to file or report such information. Since 2023, two Senate committees have been looking into the 1991 loan from Welters that was connected to Thomas purchase of a luxury motor home. Welters previously responded to a New York Times request for comment on the loan only to say that it was satisfied. Thomas, for his part, belatedly disclosed somebut not allgifts from Crow this year and has defended the gifts as personal hospitality from some of his and his wifes dearest friends. The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have, Durban and Wyden wrote. 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. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) The Southern Nevada Health District now reports 10 cases of the West Nile Virus as of Monday, according to SNHD health documents. Among these cases, three are classified as non-neuroinvasive, while seven are categorized as neuroinvasive. Between 2020 and 2023, there was only one non-neuroinvasive case in Clark County and two neuroinvasive cases. Reported WNV cases in Clark County, NV by year (SNHD) Those who develop a neuroinvasive form of the illness may experience fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, occasionally a skin rash, swollen lymph glands, and more, according to the World Health Organization. SNHD officials explain that mosquitoes contract the West Nile by feeding on infected birds. The WNV can potentially infect humans, horses, and certain other mammals but is not transmitted from person to person, according to SNHD documents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that nearly, 1 in 5 people infected people develop a fever and other symptoms, while about, 1 out of 150 infected people develop serious, sometimes fatal, illness[es]. The most effective way to prevent arboviral infections, such as WNV, is to prevent mosquito bites and eliminate standing water, SNHD officials. (SNHD) The health district set up 1,558 traps throughout Clark County in 2024 and submitted 1,966 sample pools, which represent 31,990 mosquitoes, to the Southern Nevada Public Health Lab for analysis. Health officials urge the public to take precautions, such as eliminating standing water to prevent mosquito breeding, using insect repellent, and reporting mosquito activity to local authorities. The SNHD is making an effort to to keep Clark County residents and visitors safe and aware of the arboviruses affecting the area and will issue a weekly arbovirus update, to find the weekly updates visit Southern Nevada Health District. For resources and information about WNV visit CDCs West Nile Virus website. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) The Clark County Sheriffs Office has recorded more than 57,000 pieces of video evidence on its newly-deployed body and vehicle cameras. Last week, the agency announced it had trained personnel to use 134 body-worn cameras, 133 Taser 10 systems and two vehicle camera systems within the first year of its contract with Axon Enterprises. The Sheriffs Office also outfitted 95 marked patrol vehicles and installed new microphone and camera systems in three of its interview rooms. Portland breaks temperature record for fifth straight day amid July heat wave CCSO first unveiled a 30-day trial in which three deputies and one sergeant field-tested the new technology in April 2023. Clark County Council unanimously approved the five-year contract with Axon Enterprises later that summer, prompting a select number of law enforcement to wear the cameras on duty starting in November. The program is funded by the Public Safety Tax, which was approved by Clark County voters nearly two years ago. Their approval established a 1% increase in sales tax by one penny for every $10 spent. In last weeks announcement, officials reported the program stayed on time and came in under projected budget costs. James Beard Award-winning Portland steakhouse to reopen after March fire Public Information Officer Sgt. Christopher Skidmore confirmed to KOIN 6 News that CCSO had established a budget of $910,569 for contract expenses in 2023. The agency ended up spending less than $766,000 by the end of the year. The full five-year contract is expected to cost more than $5.1 million. A special thank you goes to the Clark County Council, the County Managers Office, the Clark County IT Department, the Clark County Budget Office, the Clark County Public Works Fleet Services Division, the Body-Worn Camera Project Team, and all those who worked hard to make this project happen, CCSO said. TriMets FX rapid transit line for 82nd Avenue receives $39M in federal funding Since the deployment of the body cameras, the Sheriffs Office has released two videos showing deputy-involved shootings. The incidents include a welfare check that led to the death of a 53-year-old Vancouver man and the deadly shooting of a suspected carjacker in the Salmon Creek area. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. Most parents know there are countless videos out there on the internet not suitable for children. And too many parents still assume their children won't see these videos unless they actively go looking for them. Worse still, many videos don't even need to be watched - the often provocative preview thumbnails for videos are enough to convey a message to children swiping through suggestions on a video platform. According to a US study, these sometimes try to shock users on platforms like YouTube to get the viewer to tap on the video. How can children be protected from this? Anyone who uses video platforms such as YouTube knows that you always receive suggestions for further videos to encourage you to keep watching. Here is where you - or your children - can expect to be confronted with clickbait, both in the thumbnail images and in the headline. However, according to researchers from the University of Michigan, little research has been done into what children see as a result. Children are attracted to adult content Of course, there are also video platforms especially for children that offer an age-appropriate selection of videos. However, these are usually only of interest to a very young age group, says youth protection expert Benjamin Thull from Germany's State Institute for Communication (LFK) in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. Children over a certain age quickly realise that the much more exciting content can be found on the open platforms for adults. "A children's channel is interesting and educational, but not as appealing as content that is scary, disturbing or bizarre," agrees media scientist Christian Schicha from Germany's University of Erlangen. For the study, published in the specialist journal Jama, the US experts simulated search queries on YouTube from children aged 6 to 11. At this age, children use media more independently and rarely watch content made especially for them, they explained. The researchers used widely used search terms at this age, among others popular computer games, influencers and funny content like memes. They then analysed which videos were suggested, clicked on one of them at random and looked at which suggestions appeared at the end of the video. Almost 2,900 thumbnails were collected in this way, and the researchers analysed their presentation. Gender stereotypes appear particularly often The researchers categorized the majority of these thumbnails as highly attention-grabbing or problematic. For example, they used dramatic, confusing, scary or shocking motifs to get attention. According to the study, many also relied on gender stereotypes, such as exaggerated male or female bodies or sexual innuendo. What's more, the longer the researchers looked at these videos recommended by the platform, the more their number increased. In contrast, other problematic videos were not suggested more often. The authors of the study did not investigate what this does to children and how it affects their media consumption. Further research is needed on this, they write. From the point of view of Erlangen researcher Schicha, the results show that children are exposed to clickbait on video platforms, which is highly problematic and can be disturbing. "I find this shocking, especially as there are no barriers to accessing these images, even if they are just still images." The images could influence how children think simply because of their sheer volume, says youth protection expert Thull. For example, they might start to think that appearance is crucial for social recognition. Or that it is socially acceptable to watch videos of accidents because there are so many of them on the platforms. "I believe that ultimately the video has much more impact," Thull says. The problem with thumbnails, however, is that you can't avoid them. Even if you decide not to watch a video, the content of the thumbnail has already left its mark. It is therefore difficult to protect children from them. What can you do about it? "The thumbnails themselves are generally not subject to rules. So it's not something that can be prohibited by law or regulation," explains Thull. Exceptions include pornographic or extremely violent content that violates legal requirements or platform guidelines and therefore often cannot be uploaded at all. However, he does not believe it makes sense to take action against content that is intended to generate a particularly high number of clicks. "It's not something that can be banned," he says. What's more, you can't tell a platform to do more about it. He and Schicha therefore believe it is important to educate children and young people about how these video preview images work and to teach them media skills. "In the family, at school, in other words, wherever education takes place, this must be emphasised," says Schicha. "You should try to create a trusting relationship with your children, talk to them about such images and make them realise that looking at them is not good for their mental health." While video platforms for children do exist, most children over a certain age quickly realise that the much more exciting content can be found on the open platforms for adults. Annette Riedl/dpa CAIRO, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Minister of Foreign, Emigration and Expatriates' Affairs Badr Abdelatty on Wednesday reaffirmed Egypt's commitment to expanding cooperation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in several areas, particularly focusing on counter-terrorism. "The cooperation will focus on combating extremist ideologies, online recruitment, and development of national strategies to counter-terrorism," he said in a meeting in Cairo with UNODC executive director Ghada Waly, according to a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign, Emigration and Expatriates' Affairs. Waly emphasized UNODC's commitment to offering technical assistance to Egypt and 18 other Arab countries amid regional challenges. They reviewed cooperation in combating drugs, human trafficking, migrant smuggling, corruption, financial crimes, crime prevention, and criminal justice. Abdelatty said the partnership between the UN body and African countries is important in light of Egypt's keenness to promote the stability and security of the Sahel and Sahara regions and support counter-terrorism efforts in the region. The two parties agreed to continue consultation and coordination on overseeing the implementation of joint projects, exploring new avenues for cooperation, and supporting international efforts in combating the misuse of information and communications technology for criminal purposes. SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Local and national rock climbing groups are urging federal officials not to allow a four-lane highway through part of Red Cliffs National Conservation Area near St. George. They are pushing for this even though it threatens to undo a deal that would protect beloved climbing areas in southern Utah. READ NEXT: Moes Valley, renowned climbing area, at risk amid review of St. George highway project The Southern Utah Climbers Alliance, the Salt Lake Climbers Alliance, and the Access Fund, a national rock climbing advocacy group, wrote to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) this month, asking that federal officials pick an alternate route for the highway, known as the Northern Corridor project. We request the Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife Service select an alternative that prevents the construction of the Northern Corridor Highway through Red Cliffs NCA, the groups wrote in a joint comment. For weeks, federal officials have been accepting public comment on the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the projects right-of-way. The comment period is set to end Tuesday night. In 2021, federal officials granted the right-of-way for the Northern Corridor, which local officials have long said is needed to reduce traffic in Washington County, one of the fastest-growing areas of the country. But an alliance of environmental groups sued, claiming the highway violates federal law and set a dangerous precedent for other national conservation areas. Last year, a settlement led to the re-evaluation of the environmental impact statement, which found that the proposed highway could lead to more frequent wildfires, potentially harming Mojave Desert tortoise habitat. Protections for Zone 6 Of particular concern to the climber groups is a related area known as Zone 6, home to world-renowned climbing destinations such as Moes Valley. Zone 6 is not part of the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, but protections for it were offered up as mitigation when the projects right-of-way was granted under the Trump administration. This graphic shows the initial Northern Corridor route and alternatives discussed in the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. Although the current right-of-way plan would bring protections for Zone 6, the climber groups are urging federal officials to select an alternative route for the Northern Corridor. Should that happen, it could open Zone 6 up to commercial development, threatening climbing areas. Because of this, the groups are asking for protections for Zone 6. We request additional studies to be conducted which analyze the recreational significance of the area, both in terms of health and also economic contributions to the economy, the groups wrote. Both the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area and Zone 6 hold critical habitat for the threatened Mojave Desert tortoise, as well as other species, such as the endangered Dwarf Bear Poppy. This flower only grows in this area of southwestern Utah. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. Climber slips on ice and falls 700 feet down Oregons tallest mountain, cops say A 55-year-old climber slipped and tumbled 700 feet down the tallest mountain in Oregon, deputies said. Chris Zwierzynski was on the Old Chute a steep route to the summit at about 7:45 a.m. July 6, the Clackamas County Sheriffs Office said in a Facebook post. The Arizona man was near the top of the mountain at an elevation of about 11,200 feet, deputies said. Mount Hood is an active volcano thats over 11,240 feet. He slipped on ice and tumbled down the snowy mountain, unable to stop himself until landing in the Hot Rocks area, deputies said. Off-duty military medics saw him fall and rushed down the mountain to help him, deputies said. Additionally, two Mount Hood National Forest rangers were in the area and were able to tend to Zwierzynski. Zwierzynski was in critical condition because of the fall, deputies said. It took rescuers about six hours to airlift him the mountain, deputies said. His rescue was done quickly, largely because mountain conditions were ideal for rescue, deputies said. Mount Hood is about a 70-mile drive southeast from Portland. High school grad on Italy trip plunges off 60-foot cliff, AL mom says. Miracle boy Climber rescued from 20,000-foot mountain 2 days after partner dies in snow cave Climber dangles from canyon cliff after hair gets caught in rappelling gear, photos show Police have arrested three people tied to the discovery of a mans body in Uptown Charlotte, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said. On June 14 around 2 p.m., officers were called to North Graham Street near Eighth Street in Uptowns Fourth Ward. They were responding to a welfare check. When officers arrived, they found the body of 36-year-old Corey Damoan Robinson. CMPD has classified Robinsons death as a homicide but has not shared his cause of death. ALSO READ: Man charged in crash that left 1 dead and 2 hurt, police say In a news release Wednesday, CMPD said it obtained arrest warrants for three people in connection with Robinsons death. Officers said they arrested 37-year-old Lasha Lynne Big Eagle on July 2 in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Shes been charged with obtaining property by false pretense and identity theft. Ayyad Faour Sukkar, 24, was arrested on July 5 in Memphis, Tennessee. He was charged with murder, common law robbery, financial transaction card theft and larceny of a motor vehicle. The third suspect, 50-year-old Tracey Pinnix Sukkar, was arrested in Charlotte on Tuesday. She has been charged with obtaining property by false pretense and identity theft. CMPD said it took cooperation from multiple law enforcement agencies across the country to bring the charges. Police asked anyone with information to call 704-432-TIPS. You can also talk to Crime Stoppers anonymously at 704-334-1600. (WATCH BELOW: Police: Madalina Cojocaris mom, suspected in disappearance, could have left US) SAN AUGUSTINE, Texas (KETK) Several lineworkers and safety personnel volunteered to help the Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative (DETEC) to restore power in areas hit hard by Beryl. PHOTOS: Beryl leaves marina on Toledo Bend unrecognizable DETEC, which serves parts of Panola, Nacogdoches, San Augustine, Sabine, Rusk and Shelby counties, said as of 2 p.m. on Tuesday power was restored to their substations with the help other co-ops. Trinity Valley Electric Co-op (TVEC) workers were among those that decided to assist in power restoration efforts in deep East Texas to continue the tradition of co-ops helping co-ops. TVEC said just a few weeks ago, other Texas electric cooperative crews gave them a helping hand and they wanted to do the same after Beryl. Courtesy of TVEC Courtesy of TVEC After getting TVEC members power restored overnight, 15 TVEC lineworkers and safety personnel have volunteered to help restore power at DETEC, TVEC said. Record 67 tornado warnings issued on Monday after Beryls landfall in Texas Six Wood County Electric Cooperative (WCEC) workers also volunteered to travel to deep East Texas to help their friends and neighbors impacted by Beryl. Daniel (Foreman), Carlos (Lineman Apprentice 3), Braden (Lineman Apprentice 3), Brangus (Foreman), Kason (Lineman Apprentice 4), and Boedy (Lineman Apprentice 3). Courtesy of WCEC. Mutual aid is a co-op tradition, and we know theyd do the same for us, WCEC said. We wish them safe travels and send prayers for all co-op employees that are working the aftermath. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com. If cognitively compromised is the criteria, I know whos not getting my vote | Opinion Ive been reluctant to make this call for a while, and know I will upset plenty of my readers with the decision to do it now. I know it is highly disruptive for a major political party to change nominees this late in a presidential election cycle. But the stakes are too high for our democracy to not say anything. A man who referred to airports during the Revolutionary War simply shouldnt be in the Oval Office. A man who once suggested nuclear bombs should be used to curtail hurricanes shouldnt have access to the nuclear football. A man who suggested Americans should maybe inject disinfectant inside our bodies as a COVID-19 cure should not be in charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Issac Bailey A man who didnt seem to know the difference between former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is not capable of navigating tough political negotiations with a divided Congress to foster compromises that advance the interests of all Americans. A man who didnt know the difference between the prime minister of Hungary and Turkeys president should play no role in international affairs, particularly while the Middle East is on fire as the Gaza conflict drags on. A man who seemed to suggest you need photo ID to buy a loaf of bread is obviously too far gone to be a competent steward of the most powerful economy on the planet. A man who makes nonsense statements is the wrong choice for a country that believes it is great. Donald Trump is not fit to lead this country. Hes too cognitively compromised. At least thats what his repeated verbal stumbles tell us. He could clear that up by having a full-independent mental and physical examination and release the results to a worried public. That he refuses to take such an undemanding step strongly suggests he has something to hide. I think I was wrong about Trump. All those times I thought he was just a compulsive liar, like during his first debate against President Joe Biden, maybe he wasnt. Maybe he just didnt know right from wrong, fact from fiction, that he wasnt capable of knowing the difference. Maybe thats why he incited a violent insurrection on the Capitol, was found liable of fraud and rape, and convicted of 34 felonies. Maybe thats why he has said so many contradictory things about abortion after helping to appoint the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn a half-century of precedent that has led to laws that risk the lives of a growing number of pregnant women. When he called Georgia officials looking to overturn an election he lost in 2020, maybe he just didnt know any better like a 5-year-old who asks for another scoop of ice cream before bedtime. Hes probably just a well-meaning elderly man who has been misunderstood, like so many other Americans in cognitive decline. Of course, the better explanation for the phone call to Georgia is that Trump cares only about himself and is willing to tear down our democracy to get his way. I wish it wasnt so. I wish Republican voters had been more careful in their choice during the recent GOP primaries. I wish the media had done a better job documenting these lapses and relentlessly called for Trump to step down long before his crowning as the GOP nominee. Here we are, though. We cant turn back the clock but its not too late. The GOP could turn to Haley. It could turn to the other South Carolina presidential candidate, Tim Scott. Heck, it could dredge up the body of the politically-dead Ron DeSantis. But do something, the GOP must. A man so cognitively compromised should not be commander in chief. Issac Bailey is a McClatchy Opinion writer in North and South Carolina. How can you get a collectors license plate in Wisconsin? Department of Transportation explains what qualifies (WFRV) Motorists in Wisconsin can possibly get a collector plate for the vehicle, but what does it take to qualify? The Wisconsin Department of Transportation explained what it takes to get one of these specialty plates. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) posted on its Facebook page reminding vehicle enthusiasts of what it takes to get a collector license plate. The post said that if the vehicle is 20 years or older and the body has not been altered from the original, it can qualify for the plates. The registration fees vary depending on what kind of vehicle it is. Prices range from $73 to $298. There are some things motorists should know before registering. One of which is that the owner of a collector vehicle must own or lease one other motor vehicle for regular transportation. The complete breakdown of the requirements can be found on WisDOTs website. Trooper in a Truck: Wisconsin State Patrol announces Green Bay enforcement date The Iola Car Show is scheduled to kick off on July 11 and WisDOT officials say they will have a booth in the exhibition hall. WisDOTs DMV staff will reportedly be on site between July 11 and July 12 talking about specialty plates, DMV online services and more. Additional information can be found on WisDOTs website. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton. BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- China has completed an embankment stretching about 12 kilometers, which is located approximately 40 kilometers west of the city of Yueyang, central China's Hunan Province, strengthening flood prevention work at Dongting Lake, the Ministry of Water Resources said on Wednesday. The embankment, serving as a third line of defense, was completed at 6 p.m. Tuesday after a process which started on Monday. The embankment forms part of efforts in response to a dike breach which occurred on Friday at China's second-largest freshwater lake. The breach was sealed late on Monday. The construction of a third line of defense is aimed at resolutely preventing secondary disasters, and at ensuring the flood control safety of areas beyond this defensive line, according to the ministry. This is one of the latest efforts made by authorities in emergency response to floods that have recently hit some of China's central, eastern, southern, southwestern and northeastern regions. As of Tuesday, the National Fire and Rescue Administration had dispatched 219 rescue workers and 72 fire-fighting trucks and flood drainage rescue vehicles to Hunan to assist local authorities with rescue operations. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Tuesday that since the dike breach at Dongting Lake, the ministry has deployed workers, trucks and generators for emergency repairs, and has managed to maintain normal telecommunications operations, except in waterlogged areas. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Water Resources allocated an additional 848 million yuan (about 118.9 million U.S. dollars) to support local flood rescue efforts. The fund will mainly be used to assist local authorities' rescue work in flood-hit regions and will prioritize water facility repair and hidden risk removal efforts. Early this year, the Ministry of Finance allocated funds in batches to assist local authorities with disaster relief work. Also on Tuesday, the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee allocated 231 million yuan for rescue and disaster relief work in nine provincial-level regions, including Hunan and Anhui. This week, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters has successively activated Level IV emergency responses to flooding in Shandong, Chongqing and Jiangsu, with heavy rainfall persisting. China on Wednesday renewed a yellow alert for rainstorms, the third most severe alert in its four-tier weather warning system. Some areas in Sichuan, Chongqing, Shaanxi, Hubei, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Xizang and Yunnan should expect heavy rainfall, with certain regions likely to experience intense heavy rainfall of up to 140 mm within 24 hours until 2 p.m. Thursday, according to the National Meteorological Center. DENVER (KDVR) The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled last week that state and local law enforcement cannot arrest or detain already jailed individuals on a civil immigration detainer if they would otherwise be eligible for release. The case was brought by the ACLU of Colorado on behalf of five Teller County taxpayers who were opposed to state tax funds being used to hold migrants in the state or local facility on a federal detainer. The case was brought against Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell, challenging the sheriffs offices agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement established in January 2019. Dont pick the wildflowers in Rocky Mountain National Park, its illegal The ACLU of Colorado said the so-called 287(g) agreement, named after the section of federal law its pulled from, targeted immigrants at the Teller County Jail. The district court ruling that was overturned said that the taxpayers argument that people should be allowed to bond out of jail and then be served with an immigration detainer would lead to chaos. The appeals court disagreed and said that ICE should be the group arresting or detaining migrants without legal authorization to be in the U.S. Though a procedure that requires ICE officers to directly arrest and detain aliens rather than delegating such authority to local law enforcement would require ICE to exercise more effort to apprehend and detain aliens, it was the legislatures prerogative to require immigration officials to put forth that effort in Colorado, the appeals court stated. Because of the appeals judgment, the case has been sent back to the district court. The appeals court judges reversed the previous lower court judgment and remanded the case with directions to the district court. This is the first case in the country holding that a sheriff violates state law by detaining immigrants pursuant to a 287(g) agreement with ICE, the ACLU of Colorado stated in a release. We brought this case out of concern for the harm that the Sheriffs agreement inflicts on all Coloradans. Local law enforcement officers have no business acting as federal immigration agents and keeping immigrants in jail especially when state law expressly forbids them from doing so. The courts ruling sends an important message that no Colorado sheriff is above the law, the ACLU of Colorado added. Teller County has contracted with ICE since 2019 The Teller County Sheriffs Office first entered into an agreement with ICE in January 2019, according to the appeals court documents. The agreement delegated ICEs authority to the sheriffs office, and specifically to four deputies with designated immigration officer training. According to the court case, these designated officers arrested people at the Teller County Jail on ICEs behalf several times, while the inmates would have otherwise been eligible for release. There are two main forms that are referenced in the case. The first, I-247A, is an immigration detainer that states DHS has determined that probable cause exists that the subject is a removable alien, and requests the local jail call ICE before the individual is released and keep them in custody for 48 hours or less to allow DHS to take the individual into custody. The I-247A forms have to be accompanied by the second form, I-200, which is titled warrant for arrest of alien and directs any authorized immigration officer to serve arrest warrants for immigration violations. Denver closes final hotel shelter for migrants When the case was argued in district court, the judge ordered that Mikesells claims be granted and the five represented taxpayers be denied. The judge found that Mikesell had the legal authority to enter into the agreement with ICE, and the functions the designated officers were performing were lawful and consistent with Colorado law. According to the appeals court, the district court concluded that law enforcement officer prohibitions could not apply to designated enforcement officers because they are federal officers, not state officers, when performing functions under the agreement. The appeals court said it disagreed with that conclusion because the deputies still operate at state expense and noted that there are some purposes for which the deputies are federal employees, and not for others. In other words, (Teller County Sheriffs Offices) DIOs remain subject to Colorado law even though they are also subject to federal law while performing immigration enforcement functions, the appeals court wrote. The court also noted several cases upholding that logic and said that Colorados police power regulations are not preempted by federal law. Are agreements with ICE necessary for peacekeeping? The court then looked at the last issue at hand: whether the Teller County Sheriffs Office can fulfill its statutory peacekeeping duties without an agreement with ICE. Sheriff Mikesell testified he was able to fulfill his statutory peacekeeping duties before TCSOs Agreement, the appeals court wrote. And Sheriff Mikesell testified that he couldnt remember any issues with his ability to perform his duties during the time TCSO didnt have any DIOs performing immigration officer functions under TCSOs Agreement. Colorados senators share terms as part of effort to protect Dolores Canyons Nevertheless, the district court found that the agreement furthered Sheriff Mikesells general authority to preserve the peace. The court also noted that there are sections of law that say Colorado law enforcement, such as sheriffs deputies, cannot arrest or detain individuals on civil immigration detainers. The case will return to the district court to determine whether the five taxpayers met their burden of proof for a permanent injunction, which would be the final ruling on the case if the judge determines they met that burden. FOX31 reached out to the Teller County Sheriffs Office in search of comment on this litigation. A public information officer said Tuesday that the sheriff will be releasing information after conferring with his attorney. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. Column: It's not just the White House. Biden could also cost Democrats control of Congress President Biden greets Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and others at a recent campaign stop. Doubts about Biden's political and physical durability threaten to drag down his party's candidates for House and Senate. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press) As if Democrats dont have enough to keep them up nights, heres something beyond frightful visions of a Trump victory: a Republican trifecta in Washington. Joe Bidens calamitous debate performance and the burgeoning concerns about his age and acuity arent just undercutting his chances at a second term. Theyre also threatening to drag down his party and thwart Democratic efforts to hold on to the Senate and flip control of the House. That helps explain the partys Great Freak-Out and why so many Democratic lawmakers desperately wish Biden would stand aside and abandon his reelection effort. (Even if theyre not willing to publicly say so. Were not seeing a lot of backbone or intestinal fortitude at the moment.) Whats going on right now in no way, shape or form is going to help those running for reelection, said Jim Manley, who spent decades in the Senate as a top leadership aide. Nonpartisan election handicappers those who make a living offering measured and judicious analyses of contests nationwide agree. The existential angst surrounding Biden and his durability, both physical and political, isnt helping his party or its candidates, they say (being measured and putting it very mildly). The question is: How big of a hole is Biden digging for them at the top of the ticket that they need to climb out of in their own races? said Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections. Read more: Column: Biden's longtime defiance appears to have grown into full denial Herewith, some obligatory caveats: Its still a long way to November. There is no certainty that replacing Biden as the Democratic nominee wont make things worse. Donald Trump could do something so awful and odious that voters will recoil en masse, sending him and fellow Republicans to an epic thrashing in November though I wouldnt hold your breath on this one. For now at least, Democrats suddenly face a much steeper climb to prevent a complete GOP takeover of Washington, which includes a submissive, Trump-friendly Supreme Court. It was always going to be tough for Democrats to keep control of the Senate. They hold a reed-thin 51-49 advantage, counting three independents who caucus with them. They have to defend more than twice as many seats as Republicans 23 to 11 and several of those are in states that Trump won handily in 2020. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin at a political event in New Hampshire in January. (Charles Krupa / Associated Press) Its a virtual certainty that Republicans will take the Senate seat held by West Virginias Joe Manchin III, Trump having carried the state by nearly 40 percentage points. That would put the chamber at 50 to 50. Under those circumstances, Democrats could keep control if they win the White House, as the vice president serves as tiebreaker. But just reaching a 50-50 split would require two of Democrats most endangered incumbents, Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, to prevail in states Trump won decisively last time. Surveys have consistently shown Democrats across the country outpolling the president which shows how specific Bidens problems are to the aged incumbent. Jessica Taylor, who analyzes Senate races for the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, says the question is: When does Biden become too big of a drag for Democratic candidates to overcome? You can outrun the president by 5, 6, 7 points, Taylor said but how much more? Where, she asked, does the gravitational pull overtake even a Democratic incumbent that runs a perfect race? Democrats talk optimistically about flipping Senate seats in Republican-leaning Florida and Texas, offsetting possible losses elsewhere. But that would require not just fighting Bidens downdraft, but also overcoming the countrys increasingly partisan voting habits. In 2016, for the first time, every Senate contest went the same direction as the presidential race. Meaning if Trump carried a state, the seat went to a Republican. If Hillary Clinton won, the seat went Democratic. The pattern repeated in 2020, with one exception, Maine. Increasingly, the ticket-splitting American is becoming a rare bird. Read more: Column: Barbara Boxer gives Biden two weeks to fix his ailing campaign The fight for the House looks to be much closer. Democrats need a gain of just four seats to win control. The Cook Report ranks 44 seats as competitive 24 of them held by Democrats and 20 by Republicans. (Inside Elections sees a more expansive field, with 71 seats in play 39 Democratic and 32 Republican.) The problem for Democrats is a distinct mood shift after Bidens dreadful performance in Atlanta and his halting remediation efforts since. President Biden arrives to attend a mass at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church in Wilmington, Del., on Saturday. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press) I think the debate has created a base problem, said David Wasserman, who tracks House races for the Cook Report. By that he means the prospect of fatalistic Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters sitting out this November, sinking the partys candidates. All of that gloom and doom aside, there is the merest silver lining for beleaguered Democrats, regardless of whether Biden stays dug in and remains atop their ticket. If defeat in November seems certain, independent voters may swing toward Democrats to keep Republicans from gaining control of the House and Senate and allowing a revivified Trump to run roughshod. That checks-and-balance argument was employed by Republicans subtly in 1996, when it was obvious the GOP nominee, Bob Dole, was about to lose to President Clinton. Did it work? Hard to say. But Republicans did manage to gain two Senate seats and lose only two in the House, keeping control of both chambers even as Clinton rolled to reelection. But thats looking on the bright side for Democrats. If thats their best hope, the party is in real trouble. Get the latest from Mark Z. Barabak Focusing on politics out West, from the Golden Gate to the U.S. Capitol. Sign me up. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. The melody of human progress up to the present has played on two grand instruments: science and the humanities. But for the last few hundred years, these instruments have been treated as separate entities, one concerned with the physical world and validated by objective empirical testing, the other, largely, with subjective selfhood and human meaning. To use chemist and author C.P. Snows famous words from his 1959 Rede lecture at Cambridge University, we are in a two-culture era: Science and the humanities can now barely hear each other across the chasm we have created between them. Make no mistake. The stakes are high. To lead our lives as if the humanities and the sciences are distinct will negatively affect our continued development, especially given the reliance on siloed departments and divisions in what counts as higher education in the modern American university. Astronomists never cross paths with anthropologists, lawyers with doctors, mathematicians with classicists. No one, then, emerges from the university with an understanding of how these fields ought to engage. Instead, we act as if complicated problems are solvable through a purely technical and scientific mindset, divorced from engagement with basic questions about ethical implications, politics and human impact. We teach people to be this way. These few centuries have been a flash in the pan: No ancient culture segregated science from the humanities. What humans knew was regarded as a holistic body of knowledge to help them live better lives, and the physical world and humanistic self-reflection could and did work in tandem. Figures such as Aristotle, Averroes and Francis Bacon had expertise that stretched across the body of knowledge. J. Robert Oppenheimer framed his nuclear work in terms of the Bhagavad Gita, understanding the implications of becoming a destroyer of worlds; in science fiction, Isaac Asimovs Three Laws of Robotics shaped concerns about artificial intelligence long before AI in its current form existed; Dr. Edward Jenners work on the smallpox vaccine built on folk practices such as variolation. They listened to the conversation that science was having with the humanities and culture. This is not an argument for biologist E.O. Wilsons concept of consilience, which posited that the humanities and social sciences can be explained by the same underlying laws that ruled the physical world. This is an argument that the humanities and sciences are mutually interactive and help build each other. The humanities are not dead: What we need to do is see how they can play with the sciences. Until we see this, our advances in science and technology will proceed with blinders on. Why did it take us a century to understand that medicine based on the white male body would not work for everyone? Roman physician Galen already knew this two millennia ago. Well, its because of the S-word: silo. The huge challenges of the 21st century demand a multidimensional approach that brings together multiple perspectives on what matters to us. Given what we are facing now global warming, nuclear war, the question of AI our future should not be left to the technocrats alone. We need scientists and engineers who understand the unquantifiable cost of their technical advances and humanist thinkers who can critically analyze the data and narratives shaping our world. Where to start? In higher education, where the walls separating departments and divisions must be weakened. Building bridges requires a paradigm shift in education, one that allows students to be versed in what connects the disciplines, as well as what separates them, one in which a medical student and a philosopher might well be in the same class. Yes, fostering interdivisional exposure, in which students engage with both scientific and humanistic perspectives while maintaining their core practices, is difficult. But it is more critical than ever before. _____ (Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer was director of The Institute on the Foundation of Knowledge from 2015 to 2024 at the University of Chicago.) ______ Conservationists celebrate return of rare seabird decades after its disappearance: 'It was so thrilling to discover these' Off the coast of Chile, a Peruvian diving petrel a rare seabird known to locals as a "yunco" has been spotted for the first time in decades, Earth.com reported. Island Conservation, a nonprofit organization that focuses on restoring island ecosystems and preventing the extinction of vulnerable species, has been leading efforts for several years to make Pajaros Uno Island more hospitable to native species. With the return of the Peruvian diving petrel, it appears their efforts have paid off. Pajaros Uno Island has been plagued by an invasive rat species that was accidentally introduced by fishermen. The rats have laid waste to native plant species, eating up their seedlings, and native seabird species, eating their eggs. To address the problem, the Chilean Ministry of the Environment and Island Conservation began working with local communities and Island Conservation in 2020 to manage the rodent populations. Conservationists also employed a technique called "social attraction," where they played audio recordings of bird calls to entice the seabirds back to Pajaros Uno Island. That these approaches have already shown such strong results just four years later is encouraging for everyone involved. "It was so thrilling to discover these nesting pairs so soon after the island was restored. We were preparing dinner and heard the Peruvian diving petrels' call. We quickly took a GPS and a flashlight and ran towards the source of the sound while putting on our shoes. We couldn't believe it when we found the burrows!" Maria Jose Vilches, Island Restoration Specialist at Island Conservation, told Earth.com. "Knowing these birds will be safe from predators gives me hope for the survival of the species!" Though many species around the world have been threatened or even made extinct by human activities, humans also have the power to help. Vulnerable species that have recently been brought back from the brink by human-led efforts include the California red-legged frog and the marsh fritillary butterfly. Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet. Are you for real? I am, or at least I think I am, but Im not sure I can be sure. What if the social media platform formerly known as Twitter says I am computer-generated? What if The Guardian newspaper appears to agree? It would be enough to give anyone an existential crisis especially if their head is still spinning from the general election campaign. Earlier this week, a Reform UK candidate faced exactly this disconcerting question, when online rumours began circulating that he might not exist. Desperate for more muck on Nigel Farages party, Left-wing conspiracy theorists put it about that the party was not only riddled with bigots and racists, but also populated by avatars. Warning of a HUGE scandal, a self-styled woke socialist and Brexit-hating Scouse-Italian named Dr Bella took to X to claim that some of these bots might even have been in a position to win parliamentary seats. What excitement! Someone call the police! Still languishing on his sick bed after an unfortunately timed bout of pneumonia, Mark Matlock, erstwhile Reform UK candidate for Brixton and Clapham Hill, was disconcerted to find himself at the centre of the ensuing storm. He appears to have been singled out for suspicion on the basis of his candidate photo, in which he has unusually smooth-looking skin. Staring straight at the camera, he does look a bit like one of those AI-generated South Korean newsreaders. A failure to show up to his own election count did nothing to stop the scuttlebutt. Appearing on live television to prove it all nonsense, Matlock did have something to declare, admitting he used a little computer wizardry to touch up his image. Apparently, he Photoshopped the colour of his tie, and airbrushed out the original backdrop. Protesting that he is very real, he explained that the picture was taken outside Oxfords Ashmolean Museum, which wasnt quite the right look for a London constituency. He explained that he couldnt make the count, because he was too sick to stand, which as excuses go, seems pretty solid. Understandably indignant, he dismissed the brouhaha as fake news. Oh look it's the 'AI generated' REFORM UK candidate Mark Matlock You absolute morons who believed that Shame on you @guardian for running the story after you were told the truth. WELL DONE @GBNEWS pic.twitter.com/wCIItOhcPq Adam Brooks AKA EssexPR (@EssexPR) July 8, 2024 Who set this daft hare running? The usual suspects, of course: the same crowd that spent the general election campaign desperately trying to discredit Reform UK candidates via offence archaeology, dredging up ancient, off-colour comments from the social media seabed. Thanks to the haste with which the party had to fill the slate for 650 seats, and the sorry failure of an expensive vetting company to do its job, the exercise proved rewarding. Critics of the party found plenty to froth about, including some genuinely ugly sentiments and language. Naturally, they were delighted by the political fallout. The election may be over, but evidently, the sport is too fun to give up. And so the wild controversies continue and theres always the Grauniad to give it legs. In a confusing report, the Farage-baiting publication claimed Reform UK was under pressure to prove all its candidates were real, suggesting the absence of photographs, biographies or contact details on some candidate profiles raised doubts over their flesh-and-blood credentials. Demanding Reform UK come clean, an obliging Liberal Democrat source opined that it didnt sound right. Fielding fake candidates in a parliamentary election is, of course, a criminal offence, which is probably why the Guardian report concluded with the following killer acknowledgement: There is no evidence that any of the candidates are fake. Never let the facts spoil a good headline. Truly, we are living in a parallel universe. 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. Controversy over proposed Johnson City charter changes up for vote in August election JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) Four ordinances to change the Johnson City charter will go before voters in the August election. The city believes these changes will better fit the needs of the modern community, while other organizations believe it takes away the voice of their constituents. The City Commission approved the ordinances in April. The proposed changes will be placed on the ballots for city residents in Washington, Carter, and Sullivan counties for the Aug. 1 election. But, people can vote on these changes as early as Friday in early voting. A sample ballot in Washington County can be viewed here with the ordinances listed at the end. Theres a short explanation of what would change and the financial impact on the city and, ultimately, taxpayers. The ordinances change the governments function in appointing interim employees which would be conducted by the city manager; moving city elections from November to August, along with extending a few terms; only advertising the budget in the newspaper once; and cutting the number of readings on government actions from three to two. City Commissioner Joe Wise said the city charter has served the government well for 85 years, but these are changes to better serve the needs of the community and cut out outdated practices. There are provisions of that charter that reflect the realities of 1939 and not the realities of 2024, Wise said. Realities like the ordinance to change the advertising of the budget. Wise said the budgets today are very complex with most of it not going in the paper. Plus, he said, the budget can viewed on the city website. So really, each of the four items, from one degree to another, are intended to bring Johnson City more into line with surrounding communities and whats normal across the state, Wise said. Kingsport and Bristol already run under a two-reading process before passing ordinances. Were just trying to reduce the extraneous friction and red tape, that really doesnt add value to the process, Wise said. Organizations rally behind and push against Johnson City charter changes. (Photo: WJHL). The Johnson City Chamber of Commerce has joined in support of the ordinances, believing the changes promote business and development. Lowering the number of readings, Director of Marketing Cooper Reaves said, is one example of this. It lets our small business owners license, it lets them do it a month earlier, Reaves said. Anybody that wants to build a new build or renovate, lets them do it a month earlier. So it just kind of lets our business community get to working, get to making an economic impact quicker. Even changing the appointment process for interim employees, Reaves said, promotes business. He said the citys development services went through a lot of management changes a few years ago, causing a backup on inspections, building codes, business licensing, and permitting. But others, like the Washington County Democratic Party, have said no to the changes, arguing they disadvantage the public in ways like reducing the publics access to information in their local government and participating in decisions. Contested Greeneville mayoral election approaches Chair of the Washington County Democratic Party Sylvain Bruni said the city is trying to curtail the voice of the people in Johnson City. Bruni said even cutting down the advertising of the budget in the paper is harmful to the people and access to information. Those in favor of the change in local elections believe the move from November will help separate the local and federal elections, sparking higher voter turnout. Bruni said there would be an opposite effect. We are expecting about 15% or so participation in August versus 85% in November, Bruni said. Their argument that by moving it to August is going to increase participation is ludicrous. There is zero evidence anywhere that this would happen. Bruni hopes people will be informed before casting their vote. It is really important to get voters to understand that if those get approved, the types of rights and freedoms to decide who their government is will be taken away, Bruni said. And we think thats wrong. The ordinances can also be found on the citys website. The League of Women Voters is hosting a forum on the proposed changes on July 16 at the Langston Centre. Community leaders on both sides of the issue will be present to speak on the changes. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather. BECKLEY, WV (WVNS) With high temperatures settled into southern West Virginia, the executive director of United Way of Southern West Virginia said on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, that the regions agencies were prepared to provide help for people during extreme winter weather but that the region was not as prepared to offer similar resources during hot days. According to National Academies, extremely high temperatures caused by global warming are expected to affect human health. Trena Dacal, the executive director, said two cooling stations were known to be available among the nine counties UWSWV serves. Both were in Mercer County. She added that her agency was updating the list of available cooling stations as they became available. She said those with cell phones may call 2-1-1 to learn of resources. Myth or Fact: Does ice cream actually cool you off? In the meantime, Dacal suggested that those who were able to safely walk to their local public library do so during business hours to find air conditioning. In Raleigh County, she said, the Raleigh County Commission on Aging provides an air-conditioned center during the noon and morning hours to those aged 60 years and older. In high heat, when should you water your garden? Otherwise, were reaching out to try to make sure that those organizations that are receiving fans and other donations are getting those distributed to households that might need them, said Dacal. But for those that are housing insecure, we dont have a lot of options here. The cooling stations were at Bluewell United Methodist Church and Bluefield Union Mission, said Dacal. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WVNS. Kay Eskridge is a Kentucky mom, former child protective services worker, and fan of the Free-Range Kids movement. Over the years, she's written to me several times about our shared passion for fostering kids' independence. This includes a note she sent in 2021 saying that a 7-year-old riding her bike in their quiet Louisville neighborhood had been stopped by cops who wanted to know where her mother was. But earlier this summer, it happened to Eskridge's own kid. "The police were called because my 8-year-old was riding her bike on our street," says Eskridge. Her note arrived in my inbox recently. Subsequently, we connected over a Zoom call. She set the scene: Her daughter, Julia, had just finished second grade. Thanks to a weird schedule, Julia arrives home two hours before her friends. That leaves her bored and eager for fun by late afternoon. On May 18, when at last a friend had made it home, Julia hopped on her bike to ride eight houses over to his place. "She was three houses away," says Eskridge, "and the police stopped her." The policeman was actually someone the family knew. (Eskridge's husband is in local politics.) He told the girl that "this isn't a good time to be outside," according to Eskridge. Julia assured the officer that she was used to traffic and knew how to ride her bike, and continued on her way. The officer left her alone but decided to pay a visit to the Eskridge house. Her husband answered the door, but when Eskridge heard what was going on, she took matters into her own hands. "I was not about to let him handle this," she says. "So I come bursting through and say, 'Can a child not ride her bike on the street in this neighborhood anymore? Is that what we're saying?'" The policeman assured her no, it wasn't that. Rather, a woman had called the police because she was "upset that a child was outside." Eskridge informed the cop that it was not illegal for children to be outside. He agreed but implied that Eskridge needed to take that up with the woman. She soon got her chance. When Julia returned home, she told her mom that a woman had come running over to her. Eskridge realized that must have been the neighbor who called the cops: an older lady who lived down the block. Eskridge went to talk to her and explained that kids need some independence. "I explained how she's not on screens when she comes home," says Eskridge. The woman, a former teacher, eventually agreed that this parenting decision was sound, and the matter was finished. Now Eskridge would like the rest of the world's Good Samaritans to take a minute and think before reflexively calling the cops whenever there is a child outdoors. The post Cops Called on 8-Year-Old Child for Being Outside appeared first on Reason.com. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled in favor of protecting the Pearl River map turtle under the Endangered Species Act on Tuesday. The decision puts a bump in the road for a potential dam, part of the controversial "One Lake" development project, the Army Corps of Engineers planned to put in the Pearl River. While the ruling protects the turtles themselves, it delays designating protections for the turtles habitats by a year. Were disappointed that the Service didnt designate critical habitat for the Pearl River map turtles, but these protections couldnt have come at a more important time, said senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity Lindsay Reeves. The Army Corps of Engineers is considering a plan to dam the Pearl River, which is the only place on Earth where these turtles live. Under the new protections, the Corps could still build the dam but would have to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before beginning construction. The dam is part of the One Lake plan, a flood-control project that would also widen the Pearl River to create more riverfront access for housing and economic development. It would create a 2,562-acre lake. The swirling waters of the Pearl River, just north of the Ross Barnett Reservoir Dam, far breach its banks the morning of Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020. A new ruling could delay the possibility of Jackson's "One Lake" flood control and development project due to the presence of turtles deemed protected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Barbara Gauntt/Clarion Ledger More on One Lake Project: New flood control plan for Pearl River would be far less expensive Pearl River map turtles are freshwater turtles native to the Pearl River in Mississippi and Louisiana, using beaches to build nests. The turtles get their name from the map-like patterns on their shells. The endangered turtles cannot survive in lakes and the dams would flood their nesting sites, worrying environmentalist groups like the Center for Biological Diversity. The female of the species has large jaws and a selective feeding strategy to consume the mussels in the Pearl River. One Lake Project Timeline: Timeline: History of the One Lake flood control project for the Pearl River If you wanted to protect her and ensure she has adequate food then you'd also want to look at the mussels, so that would be a difference the critical habitat [designation] could make, Andrew Whitehurst, Water Program Director at the non-profit Healthy Gulf, said. Adding protections for the turtles habitats would create a broader circle of consideration about how to protect the animal, he added. More on MS Endangered Species: Endangered fish reintroduced in Mississippi | Photos Tuesdays decision federally protects the Pearl River map turtle species from poaching and illegal shooting as well as four similar turtle species: the Alabama map turtle, Barbours map turtle, Escambia map turtle and Pascagoula map turtle. This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Endangered species could delay flood control project in Jackson MS Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said Tuesday night he believes former President Donald Trump is on track to beat President Joe Biden this November and that Trump could win in a "landslide" that ushers in Republican majorities in the House and Senate. I'm sure President Biden has a different view of his prospects in this election than I do. But we should be having a discussion about that, Bennet told CNN. "And the White House in the time since that disastrous debate I think has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election." The senator stopped short of outright calling on Biden to step aside as the party's nominee leaving the door open to a Biden comeback. In the CNN interview, Bennet acknowledged giving a similar analysis in the Senate Democratic lunch earlier in the day. The Colorado lawmaker is rarely one to cause a ruckus in the caucus but has been among those voicing grave concerns over Bidens performance at last months debate. This race is on a trajectory that is very worrisome if you care about the future of this country, Bennet, who like Biden sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, said. He later added, We could lose the whole thing, and it's staggering to me." Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) also told Democratic senators at Tuesdays lunch that he believes the president is in a troubling situation and needs to do more to prove his viability as a candidate, according to a senior Democratic aide who was granted anonymity to discuss the private conversation. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) reportedly did the same though he repeatedly declined to answer questions from reporters, citing his policy of not talking about what happens in caucus meetings. Tester and Brown who are seeking reelection in states Trump carried by significant margins in 2020 are the party's two most vulnerable incumbents this fall. As of Tuesday, there was no clear strategy among Senate Democrats on how to address the presidents viability as the partys presidential nominee. While many senior Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have said theyre standing by Biden, others have insisted the president needs to prove he is up for the job. They have to address the American's people's concerns," Bennet said. "People that I represent from Colorado have deep concerns about whether or not the president can win this race." Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz issued a statement in response to Bennet's interview. "This was always going to be a close race and the dynamics at play are the ones we've long anticipated: Voters continue to be deeply concerned by Donald Trump and his harmful agenda, and the more we engage and reach out to voters, the more they support President Biden," Munoz said. SYDNEY, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Authorities are rushing to a factory in Melbourne's west after a large chemical explosion sparked a major fire on Wednesday. Fire Rescue Victoria reported that crews arrived at Swann Drive at approximately 11:20 a.m. local time, responding to a "significant factory fire" in Derrimut. "Specialist appliances are on scene, including aerial appliances. A community advice warning has been issued for Albion, Braybrook, Brooklyn, Derrimut, Laverton North, Sunshine, Sunshine West, Tottenham, Truganina," the fire authority noted. A "Watch and Act" alert remains in place for the impacted regions, urging residents to take shelter indoors immediately, as the wind is blowing "toxic smoke towards the East across Derrimut." At the current stage, additional appliances are continuously being deployed to the scene to attack the fire. "There have been no reports of injuries and it is believed everyone inside the premises evacuated safely," a spokesperson from Victoria Police confirmed to Xinhua. "Traffic in the area is expected to be impacted for some time with Swann Drive closed as well as westbound traffic on the Deer Park bypass being stopped for safety," the spokesperson added. Located some 17 km west of Melbourne's central business district, Derrimut is home to more than 8,000 residents, with the suburb's Swann Drive connecting several distribution centers and warehouses. PROVIDENCE Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos is not on the ballot this year, but she's been out on the campaign trail whipping up votes for Joe Biden in both Las Vegas and Philadelphia and on the platform formerly known as Twitter. In fact, she has emerged as one of the president's biggest social media fans, posting this days after his disastrous debate against Donald Trump: "Joe Biden is the leader we need right now to defend our democracy!! Please Retweet!!" And this past Sunday: "Please tell the President we are with him. #TeamBiden." President Joe Biden, with Rhode Island Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos after delivering remarks at a Black Americans for Biden event at Girard College in Philadelphia on May 29. Where has she been? Philadelphia on Wednesday, May 29, and Las Vegas on Saturday, June 1. Why these events? As Matos, who identifies as "Afro-Latina," explains it, she was invited to both events by the Biden-Harris campaign to help rally swing-state voters of color. In Pennsylvania, she attended a rally with the president and vice president and held Spanish-language interviews with Telemundo and Univision affiliates. In Las Vegas, she was on the speaking program at a "block party" outside the Doolitle Community Center, along with U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, U.S. Reps. Steven Horsford and Maxine Waters, Nevada Atty. Gen. Aaron Ford and a number of other local officials. She also did an English-language interview with a local radio station. Why her? Matos says she's been active with both the National and Democratic Lieutenant Governors Associations and believes she is the "first" Afro-Latina elected statewide in the country. The first time the Biden campaign reached out was for Philadelphia: "They were putting together an event to engage Black voters, Black voters for Biden. ... While I was in Philly. I also did some of the media, especially the Spanish media ... talking about the importance of getting the Black vote, the Latino vote active and engaged in this election. "Then they reached out a second time to go to Nevada, which is one of the battleground states ... [and] has a strong, large Black population, also a Latino population." At each stop, she delivered her stump speech: "The short version is that President Biden and Vice President Harris [have] delivered for the American people." She cites promises kept "to give us relief from student loans ..., pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill [which] Trump promised and didn't deliver... and make sure that our medical bills are not counting towards our credit scores ... So every promise that they made, they deliver[ed] on that. "That's part of my message," she said. The other part, she said, is to remind "new immigrants" as she considers herself as an emigre from the Dominican Republic and "those immigrants that have been here for generations that this is a great country." "I think that new immigrants can play the key role this year reminding people what it's like having to leave your country, running away from bad government." The debate Most of the Rhode Island Democrats headed to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month were advised by state Party Chair Liz Beretta-Perik not to talk to the media so they would, at all times, display a "united front,'' according to one of the attendees at a June 25 delegates' meeting. Matos is not a delegate to the convention. Asked what she made of Biden's performance on the debate stage, Matos told The Journal on Tuesday: "The first 30 minutes, I was very concerned like everybody else,'' but "I think after he got his message across, one of the things that I feel has been lost ... is how much Trump lied during that debate." For the record: multiple news organizations have identified misstatements and exaggerations by both candidates. But Matos said the media has not given "enough coverage to all of the lies that he [Trump] said in those 90 minutes. I know, it was a really tough 90 minutes, but that doesn't ... erase the work that the president has done in the [last] three and a half years." Does she have ny concerns about his age, his health? Simple answer: no. "What happened during the debate was unfortunate,'' but as a candidate who went through the grueling prep - and the stress on the debate stage - during her ill-fated run for an open Congressional seat last year, she said: "I have a lot of sympathy for him .... I saw him in that stage, I could relate to a lot that was happening. Everyday Americans don't have that experience. "But at the end of the day, I believe that the people, especially the Democrats ... we voted for him. We had an opportunity to elect someone else, and we chose him and he's our candidate." This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Could Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos be Biden's Fan No. 1 in RI? The media industry has a long, fraught history of racism that it has yet to answer for. Local newspaper coverage contributed to a white mobs 1921 destruction of the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and several newspapers ran editorials supporting segregation. HuffPost/Jianan Liu DozensofBlack news publishers gathered last month for an annual convention where the 2024 presidential election and voter turnout were a top concern, but in other conversations, journalists raised issues about the state of the media landscape. Black-owned newspapers like the Michigan Chronicle, The Afro and The St. Louis American were represented at the National Newspaper Publishers Associations (NNPA) national convention in Baltimore, Maryland. The organization, which serves as the trade association for over 200 Black-owned media companies in the United States, was founded in 1940 and has, for decades, covered stories and issues in the Black community that mainstream newsrooms would ignore. The conferences theme centered on increasing voter engagement and turnout as the presidential election nears. However, their efforts have been complicated by online accounts creating and amplifying election disinformation that targets Black audiences, according to a new analysis. With newsrooms shuttering nationwide at stunning rates and audiences turning to other, sometimes less reliable, sources for news, Black publishers are fighting for survival. Larry Lee, president and publisher of the 62-year-old Sacramento Observer, said he has seen substantial growth in his papers audience, staff and revenue since a major website redesign and the adaptation of new media tactics. Still, he remains concerned for the future of Black journalism. This moment that were in is a little perilous because theres been a stagnation of growth for everyone across the board the last year, said Lee, who traveled from Sacramento, California, to Baltimore for the convention. So, while theres been some growth over the last few years, the last year has been a bit of a warning shot across the bow about where we are and our abilities to continue to grow audiences. Media reparations may be the key to solving some of the problems facing the Black press, according to the media advocacy organization Free Press. Media reparations examine how the American media industry has harmed Black people and seeks redress from those institutions by providing greater funding and directing resources into Black-led newsrooms and media companies. Members of the Media 2070 campaign stand outside of the Black Future News Stand, a landmark installation and collaborative project with the Black Thought Project, in 2023. The newsstand displayed zines and news outlets created by Black journalists and creatives at the Schomburg Center Literary Fest in Harlem. Free Press During the so-called racial reckoning of 2020, Black Caucus at Free Press launched Media 2070, an initiative that began as an anthology of essays detailing the history of the medias origins in racism and slavery like running ads for enslaved persons, for example and the importance of media reparations. Were a consortium of journalists, media makers, artists, healers and educators that are working to change these power structures so that Black people have the resources, the power and the space to be able to own our stories, all the way from ideation to creation and through distribution, said Diamond Hardiman, reparative journalism manager at Free Press. The media industry has a long, fraught history of racism that it has yet to answer for. Local newspaper coverage contributed to a white mobs 1921 destruction of the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and several newspapers ran editorials supporting segregation. Isabel Wilkerson, the first African American woman to earn a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, wrote about how newspapers were used as vehicles to push anti-Black violence and racism. Newspapers were giving Black violence top billing, the most breathless outrage reserved for any rumor of Black male indiscretion toward a white woman, all but guaranteeing a lynching, she wrote in her 2010 book The Warmth of Other Suns. Sheriffs deputies mysteriously found themselves unable to prevent the abduction of a Black suspect from a jailhouse cell. Newspapers alerted readers to the time and place of an upcoming lynching. Those impacts reverberate today. Media 2070 lists some of the ways the government worked to suppress the Black press and how the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued the first broadcasting and TV licenses to white men and white-owned companies only during the Jim Crow era. Today, African Americans own less than 1% of the countrys TV stations, according to a report by the FCC. The organization aims to see the complete transformation of the media industry by 2070. The media reparations movement may seem like a pipe dream for Black publishers, who need resources now and arent necessarily thinking decades into the future. But the Media 2070 team knows the transformational change they hope to achieve will not happen overnight. Media reparations is as much about the process that we take to get to repair as much as it is about the destination were talking about in 2070, Hardiman continued. Part of that process is investigating what it looks like to have infrastructure that can respond to harm better or what it looks like to create cultures of care in newsrooms, which is part of the work that could and would impact Black-owned press. The Media 2070 team has already worked with the Black press in this endeavor, having collaborated with the New York Amsterdam News, one of the countrys oldest continuously run Black newspapers. That was a beautiful exercise, and seeing how the future and present and the past can all come together and collide in a meaningful way, said Venneikia Williams, campaign manager for Media 2070. Were not at odds. It can be a partnership. In 2023, the Media 2070 team held a workshop for several community-based organizations, hospitals and health systems in Atlanta to help them understand the media's role in improving the community's health. Free Press The idea of reparations has been thrust back into the spotlight in recent years due to the efforts of a reparations task force in California and an initiative in Evanston, Illinois, that focuses on housing grants. Lee is hopeful that media reparations can help spread awareness about the disparities within the media industry, such as Californias only three Black-owned radio stations in the entire state. If the media reparations movement can provide that platform and can bring the proper stakeholders to the table, then perhaps theres some assistance that they can provide toward more equity to Black-led and Black-owned media outlets around the country, he explained. But Black newsrooms have faced challenges for decades, and he pushed back against the idea that they need a savior. The media crunch, while concerning, is really nothing new to the members of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. I dont want to suggest that the Black press needs saving, but it does need support and investment, the publisher said. Black newspapers have not folded over the last five to eight years at the same rate as mainstream newspapers. We have some resiliency as Black newspaper owners and Black-led newsrooms. As a people, we are used to doing more with less. MADERA COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) Plans to widen Highway 99 in Madera County to create a six-lane highway will come at the expense of The Palm and The Pine but Visit Yosemite has a proposal that would not only preserve the historic tree-based landmark but also make it more visible. The Palm and The Pine has been a constant fixture on Highway 99, between Avenue 11 and Avenue 10, but the need for increased capacity on that stretch of the road comes with an expansion that threatens the two trees. The Palm and The Pine is leaving Hwy 99: Whats next for the historic landmark? Its more of a symbolic marker at the center of the state, and its been there for longer than the highway itself, said Brooke Smith with Visit Yosemite Madera County. In her capacity as Visit Yosemite Madera Countys Director of Sales and Marketing, Brooke Smith has reached out to Caltrans to propose a solution that preserves our regions heritage. In a series of emails seen by YourCentralValley.com sent to Caltrans and other government figures, Smith suggests creating a landmark similar to the mammoths walking over the highway further north in Merced County. Smith envisages a safe pull-over area where travelers can stop, view, and take photos of the new landmark with signs that tell the story of The Palm and The Pine and its significance to the region. Smith compares it to the Phillip S. Raine Rest Area south of Tulare, which also includes signs detailing the history of the area. The Phillip S. Raine Rest Area south of Tulare (image courtesy of Caltrans). In the emails, Smith says the goal is to ensure tourism is considered and she says the budget given to the project should be able to accommodate that. According to the project description posted on Caltrans website, the project is estimated to cost over $126 million to create the six-lane highway. In a perfect world, I would love to see the trees replaced and a pullout created for people to turn out, said Smith. I would love to see highway markers that talk about them with ample room for people to know points of historical significance: the palm and the pinethat would be wonderful. Where is the real center of California? A possible alternative to the proposed highway pullout would be relocating The Palm and The Pine to the Fossil Discovery Center in Madera County. While the Fossil Discovery Center is on Highway 99 in Madera County, it is around 15 miles away from the current The Palm and The Pine site. Its not where theyve historically always been, said Smith. So I think people would wonder what happened to them if they were gone. Smith says having a somewhere that not only relocates The Palm and The Pine, but also highlights its significance to those passing by creates a sense of pride in the community. It would be a shameto miss out on the opportunity to make something really cool. YourCentralValley.com has reached out to the California Department of Transportation for comment, but they have not responded at the time of publication of this article. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com | KSEE24 and CBS47. The country is divided. This organization is building bridges, one community at a time Few would argue these days that there's an "us" and "them" division pervading the nation, from Congress to neighborhoods to even friends and families. And few would argue that's a good thing. Can American society be brought back from the brink? Nationally, groups have been springing up with a mission to build bridges across the many divides and foster a new sense of community and cooperation and just get people talking to each other again. One in particular has taken on business and economic cooperation in Maryland, and the prevention of targeted violence in south-central Pennsylvania. It's called Urban Rural Action, and it exists to bring people together building relationships for seeking solutions for community challenges. MSP investigating fatal crash: Maryland State Police investigating fatal truck crash in northwest Frederick County What does Urban Rural Action do? Participants in Urban Rural Action's south-central Pennsylvania program to prevent targeted violence talk in small groups last year in Gettysburg. Founder and Executive Director Joe Bubman's background is in international peace-building, having served with Mercy Corps before founding Urban Rural Action. Through his affiliation with Vantage Partners, he conducts negotiation workshops for Fortune 500 companies and the Air Force. He was involved with nongovernmental organizations "doing work in conflict zones around the world to try to do exactly what we're doing in this country now, which is to bring the people on the ground on different sides of the issue together, to tip the table, to try to make progress on whatever the issue is," said Kira Hamman, a longtime mathematics professor at Penn StateMont Alto who now serves as UR Action program director. After the 2016 election, she said, he "saw some of those same conflict dynamics that are the hallmarks of those international conflicts playing out in this country and so he pivoted and started this organization." Its programming began in 2019, Hamman said, with funding that comes from a variety of sources, inclulding grants. A grant from the Department of Homeland Security, for example, pays for the Pennsylvania project. The organization also receives donations and earns revenues from programs on college campuses and customized worships for individual clients. One of its previous projects involved Washington County Chamber of Commerce President Paul Frey, who now serves on the UR Action board. "I worked on a work-group for immigrant business owners in Easton (Md.), Frey said, where language and cultural barriers were hindering their success. "What we found is there are resources available for any businesses, but many immigrant business owners didn't know how to access them, or didn't have connections to access them," Frey said. "Our goal is to help immigrant business owners, who may not have the connections, to work with the business community to be more successful And what we found was there was a divide; it was mainly around language." That made it difficult for immigrant owners to connect with others in the business community to get the help they needed, he said. "And so through our work, we made those connections and made relationships, and found that if we can help business owners be successful, it helps the economy. And they win, and the local economy wins." There were biases to overcome, Frey said, as business owners tried to understand each other's perspectives. The UR Action team encouraged one business owner, who spoke "very little English," to learn more English to be successful and encouraged English-speaking business owners to "hop over the fence a little" and learn some Spanish. "It's really about relationships," he said. "We have similar goals; sometimes we don't talk about them, and then the collaboration doesn't happen. Then it's lose-lose versus winning." Hamman said the program was so successful that UR Action is replicating it elsewhere. Prison fight case update: Last defendant sentenced from 2022 prison-yard fight with Maryland correctional officers Checking violence in Pennsylvania Urban Rural Action brought diverse groups in four south-central Pennsylvania counties together to explore ways of preventing targeted violence in their communities. Here, participants meet in Gettysburg in 2023. Bubman and Hamman currently co-direct a program aimed at preventing targeted violence in Franklin, Adams, York and Dauphin counties in south-central Pennsylvania. The program began in 2022 and runs through September but an offshoot of the program that focuses on election-related violence continues through the rest of the year. But why south-central Pennsylvania? "That is a very polarized area politically, but the truth is that targeted violence can happen anywhere," Hamman said. "And almost by definition, you're not expecting it. You don't see it coming. And so it's not so much that that area is particularly high risk for for targeted violence, as that everywhere is at risk for targeted violence." But there was no major framework in the area for preventing such violence, she said, and the UR Action "uniters" have "made a lot of progress. they have some amazing stuff going on. But because it's a fairly polarized area, it's a good fit for us to come in and bring people together to think about this issue that's a critical issue everywhere." UR Action is running a similar program in the Kenosha area of southeastern Wisconsin, which did experience violence in 2020 "so that's been a little bit different situation," Hamman said. "But it's a concern everywhere. And so our hope is to avoid having it actually happening in that area." Participants are learning the warning signs of potential violence. "People don't just snap," Hamman said. "There's lots and lots of warning signs. And so if you can teach the community to recognize the warning signs, and you have in place systems reporting structures but also support structures to intervene when people are on that pathway, then you can often, maybe even usually, can get them off the pathway. "It's not inevitable that they're going to commit an act of targeted violence." UR Action's program includes support for threat and management teams, which Hamman said "are these multidisciplinary teams have K-12 education, mental health, support services for all sorts of different individual populations, whether that's unhoused people or veterans or people in recovery, all these sorts of organizations as well as law enforcement. "To get those people talking to each other, so that when a when a person of concern is identified, there's lots of options. It's highly contextualized What's going on with that person? What do they need? And who can provide it? So that's what the threat assessment and management teams do." Community members need to be aware of warning signs, she said, and know what to do if they recognize them. "It's fine to recognize it," she said, "but if you don't have anything to do with that information, then it's no good." That's why developing those management teams is important. But in a broader sense, a strong, cohesive community is itself a major protection from violence, Hamman said. "If the community cohesion is really high, if the community is very resilient, then it's just much less likely that those things will happen," Hamman said, which is why UR Action is working with so many community organizations. "The idea is that we strengthen the capacity of those organizations, and their reach, and their ability to take those kinds of referrals and funnel them into the right place," she said, "as well as just to prevent even getting to that point in the first place." While UR Action's work on this project is set to wrap up in September, a secondary piece was launched for Franklin and Adams counties last week dealing specifically with preventing political violence around this year's election. That program will be in place through February. How expensive is living in Hagerstown: Last defendant sentenced from 2022 prison-yard fight with Maryland correctional officers Learning how to talk to each other is key UR Action already has been involved on college campuses, promoting dialogue, relationships and peace-building. This fall, Hamman said, the organization will begin programs for K-12 education. Key to all of these efforts, Frey said, is building relationships. Even those who are divided often have the same goals, he said. "They may need an opportunity to discuss that dialogue; someone just being heard," he said. "Folks who might go to the other side of the fence, whatever that fence might be, have kids and a house, they want their kids to go to school, they want to raise their families, they have a lot in common. And then how do you bring the differences together and have a conversation? "Focus on what you have in common." Frey said he got involved with UR Action because of the collaboration aspect. "I wanted to bring the business perspective in because I thought that's important," he said. "How do you balance the government intervention with free market? How do you do that, is why I got involved, because commerce is important. "And frankly, how do you get a diverse group working together? It's just critical." That "used to happen on the playground; it used to happen at home and in the neighborhood," Frey said. But with the development of social media, people don't talk or interact so much, he said. "It's something we used to learn on the playground, we used to learn from our parents, we used to learn from friends; and now there's less of that," Frey said. "You're hiding behind a computer screen or a smartphone with your opinion and not having face-to-face conversations." "Our role is not to provide solutions," Hamman said. "Our role is to help communities work across divisions to find their own solution." 100-acre farm preserved: Washington County preserves 100-acre farm in Big Pool Find out more about preventing violence in your community UR Action is sponsoring a "regional prevention gathering" from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Aug. 24 at the Franklin County 11/30 Visitors Center in Chambersburg, Pa. It will include "uniters" from the Pennsylvania project and local officials discussing what they're doing to prevent targeted violence and provide opportunities to exchange ideas. Interested? Register by Aug. 15 www.uraction.org/events. This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Urban Rural Action is building bridges in a divided America COLBERT COUNTY, Ala (WHNT) A court ruled Tuesday that a principal would remain employed after he successfully appealed his firing by the Colbert County School Board. Colbert County High School Principal Melcha Satchel was fired during a school board meeting on May 10. Afterward, he appealed his firing by taking the matter before the Colbert County Circuit Court in late May. Florence man arrested on multiple felony warrants, attempting to elude police The following month, a Colbert County court ruled in favor of him. Court records state the school board failed to provide Satchel with proper notice of his firing and failed to show where he willfully violated policy before he was fired. Following a hearing on Tuesday, a Colbert County judge ruled that since the court found the board of education failed to meet its burden when firing Satchel, his contract remains in full force and effect. Colbert County School Board attorney Jon McGee told News 19 that Satchel has been on paid leave since April 18, so while he hasnt been assigned a school he is still employed by the school system and is still being paid. The attorney said that the board decided to cancel Satchels contract after an extended meeting in May due to him sending a student to an alternative school without notifying the board or superintendent. McGee added the board would be appealing this ruling. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHNT.com. How courts are becoming battlegrounds for action on climate change Climate activists, wearing masks of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other politicians, throw signs into a bin that read: "Paris Climate Agreement," "Sector Targets," "Climate Chancellor," and "Climate Targets." This demonstration took place before a court hearing for a lawsuit filed by climate protection organizations against the German government. Sebastian Christoph Gollnow/dpa Judges are increasingly being drawn into the fight against climate change as activists and civic groups bring lawsuits aimed at enforcing climate commitments and protecting the environment. Courts from Estonia to Norway to the US are all weighing cases that pit governments against small groups of dedicated activists. Cases focus on disputes about concrete measures to protect the environment as citizens and organizations seek to force lawmakers to do more to protect the climate. A group of elderly Swiss women made headlines earlier this year when they succeeded in their demand for stricter measures against climate change in a case decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The judges ruled in their favour, deciding Switzerland's lack of climate protection violated their human rights. Switzerland was in breach of its obligations to protect the health, well-being and quality of life of Swiss citizens from the impacts of climate change, they said, pointing to the governments failure to implement the robust regulatory framework necessary for fulfilling its commitment to reduce emissions as set out in the Paris Agreement. The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement aims to limit global warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century compared to the pre-industrial age, setting a 1.5-degree target. While only binding in Switzerland at present, the judgement could set a precedent for further climate lawsuits. It is also an important signal, as the ECtHR is part of the Council of Europe and is responsible for ensuring compliance with the Convention on Human Rights. The Council of Europe includes the EU member states, alongside other countries such as Britain and Turkey, so national courts could follow the judgement. Climate group Environmental Action Germany (DUH) is pursuing climate litigation in several areas and has called on a state court to demand the German government to draw up a climate protection programme with specific measures in order to meet climate targets. Any decision by the the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court (OVG) could have far-reaching consequences. Climate lawsuits now play an important role in Germany, as climate targets are repeatedly missed, says lawyer Roda Verheyen. "In 2021, the German Federal Constitutional Court fundamentally stated that there is a human right to climate protection, and this must now be implemented in reality," she tells dpa. DUH aims to ensure that the German government adopts a climate protection programme that actually achieves the climate targets. Together with BUND, an environmental organization, Deutsche Umwelthilfe has already won once before the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court, Verheyen says. The government was ordered to draw up an immediate action programme in the transport and buildings sectors. An appeal was then lodged with the Federal Administrative Court. "The DUH is now concerned with the 2030 long-term climate protection programme as amended in 2023," says Verheyen, of the current case. She notes that the German government is contesting the admissibility of this lawsuit. Courts elsewhere are facing a proliferation of similar cases, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). They heard almost 2,200 climate lawsuits worldwide in 2022, up from fewer than 900 in the first edition of the report in 2017. That means the number of court cases has more than doubled in the past five years. The cases vary widely in scope, depending on each country's situation. A court in Colombia weighed whether climate-induced migration can be recognized as a cause of internal forced displacement. It found in favour of two farmers forced to leave their land because of flooding but identified a legal vacuum and demanded special protection for environment and climate-induced forced displacement. In the US, last year's lower court decision, which followed an unprecedented trial in a lawsuit brought by young environmentalists in the state of Montana, was hailed as a breakthrough in leveraging courts to influence climate change policies. The judges 103-page ruling said: "Plaintiffs have proven that as children and youth, they are disproportionately harmed by fossil fuel pollution and climate impacts." But whether such cases succeed varies from one country to the next. In Germany, it's complicated because different types of climate lawsuits are heard in different courts on the basis of different laws. For example, if the German government violates existing laws, it can be sued before the administrative court - as is the case with the current DUH lawsuit being heard by the Berlin-Brandenburg court. However, if newly passed or amended laws violate fundamental rights, people can lodge a constitutional complaint against them before the German Federal Constitutional Court. Lawsuits against companies, on the other hand, are brought before civil courts based on the basis of the German Civil Code. There are two types. One are claims for damages for emissions already released and the damage caused by the resulting global warming. Secondly, there are injunctions if products or corporate strategies are not compatible with the Paris agreement. Overall, these examples show that climate lawsuits can be an effective instrument for exerting pressure on politicians and forcing them to do more to protect the climate. But lawyers and environmental groups want more. Verheyen hopes that at some point, "climate lawsuits will no longer be necessary because laws and climate targets will simply be complied with." Until then, governments will continue to expose itself to climate lawsuits as long as climate targets are not sufficiently ambitious or climate targets are not met. "We only have 20 years left to transform the entire society and economy, so everyone has to get involved, including the courts," she says. Luisa Neubauer (L), a German climate protection activist, and Roda Verheyen, lawyer and judge, at a press conference on the new constitutional complaints against the Germany's Climate Protection Act. Annette Riedl/dpa Crews respond to house fire in Spring Hill Emergency crews were called to the scene of a house fire in Pittsburghs Spring Hill neighborhood on Tuesday evening. The fire broke out in the 900 block of South Side Avenue at around 6:15 p.m. Lt. Chief Bell Becker told Channel 11 that the homeowner was inside when they heard a pop and ran outside. A Channel 11 crew at the scene could see smoke and fire damage to the home. No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Sheetz now offering beer delivery in Pennsylvania Cant understand why this happened: Woman dies after Homestead crash Police warning neighbors about rattlesnake sightings in Westmoreland County VIDEO: Police stepping up patrols in Pittsburghs Knoxville neighborhood after recent car vandalism, theft DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Cuban government officials say a man who illegally entered the island last year on a jet ski carrying five handguns was part of a terrorist plot organized by a group of Cubans in the United States, though officials provided few details of such a plan. A senior criminal-investigations chief at Cubas Ministry of Interior, Col. Victor Alvarez Valle, said on state television Monday evening that Ardenys Garcia Alvarez, a Cuban who had been living in the United States since 2014, tried to infiltrate the country last November with the intention to commit violent acts. Garcia Alvarez arrived on the Matanzas coast east of Havana on a Jet Ski with a Florida registration number, carrying the handguns, ammunition and other military equipment, including a ski mask and binoculars, the colonel said. Garcia Alvarez is being held at the notorious high-security prison Combinado del Este in Havana, a source with knowledge of the case said. Cuban officials did not say where the jet ski departed the U.S. from, but some of the watercraft can travel as fast as 70 mph and can go as far as 150 miles on a tank of gas, which would mean a rider could make the 90-mile trip to Havana from Key West the closest U.S. point to the island in under two hours in ideal conditions. Cuban authorities said last December they had thwarted a terrorist plan but did not provide details at the time. This action was organized and financed by a group of Cuban terrorists based in the United States,the senior Interior Ministry officer said on television. He named William Cabrera Gonzalez and Jorge Luis Fernandez Figueras, both Cubans living in Florida, as individuals involved in the plan. According to social media accounts, both men are members of a group named La Nueva Nacion Cubana en Armas the new Cuban nation in arms whose members support regime change in Cuba through an armed uprising. Cuban television showed clips of a member of the group reading a fragment of their manifesto and of one of several videos Cabrera Gonzalez published on social media advocating for the violent overthrow of the Cuban government. Cabrera Gonzalez and Fernandez Figueras did not respond to messages seeking comment. Their names were included in a controversial list the Cuban government published last year of Cubans they accused of having committed or incited terrorism. The list included several activists and media personalities who oppose the Cuban government. The chief of the crime-fighting division at Cubas Office of the Attorney General, Edward Roberts Campbell, said on the television show that Garcia Alvarez and others involved in the plan had the intention to subvert Cubas economic and social order. The Cuban prosecutor said they could be accused of crimes against the state and crimes associated with terrorism because of the motivations, the means they employed and the goals they had. He added that Cuban law reaches those who act in the national territory as well as those who provide help from abroad. The officials did not say what the ultimate plan was. And they did not disclose any evidence of Gonzalezs and Fernandezs role. Alvarez Valle, the Interior Ministry colonel, said Garcia Alvarez arranged plans by talking to some people and made observationsof places where weapons might be stored or where military training takes place. The official did not say what Garcia Alvarez was planning to do next. In an edited statement shown on Cuban television Monday, Garcia Alvarez did not explain what he intended to do in Cuba. He said he was recruited as a member of La Nueva Nacion Cubana and participated in training in shooting ranges in Naples. But he did not provide any other details about the groups role in the alleged plot. At one point, he said he only knew Fernandez Higueras by his nickname, El Lobo, the wolf. Cuban state television also showed an edited statement by Garcia Alvarezs father in Cuba and another man who were both detained for collaborating with him, the Interior Ministry colonel said. They spoke of Garcia Alvarezs plan in broad terms, without details on what he wanted to achieve and how to do it in a country under strict government surveillance. Garcia Alvarezs father, Rigoberto Garcia Avila, said his son wanted to recruit people to prepare conditions for assaulting a military unit, to arm those people and find a truck and buy a farm to gather the people there. The other man detained in Cuba, Pavel Fernandez Alonso, said Garcia Alvarez told him of another man who was recruiting people around the country to create a movement and organize in a farm he was going to buy. But he then suggested there were still no plans on what to do next. He said, Preparations would be made at the farm and along with a decision on when they would act. Cuban television left out background information about Garcia Alvarez, a truck driver who was arrested in August 2023 in New Mexico on charges of conspiracy to transport aliens and conspiracy to harbor aliens along with five other defendants. His case was then transferred to El Paso, Texas, where he lived. He was released on bond on the condition he get a job and enroll in a substance-abuse program. He is not a U.S. citizen and had to surrender his Cuban passport, meaning he could not travel to Cuba legally. His defense lawyer in the U.S., Jose Montes, said he learned in November that his client had been arrested in Cuba, and his case U.S. case is on hold for the time being. The accusations in Cuba have been met with skepticism in Miami, where critics of the Cuban government have said the alleged plot seems far-fetched and might be a distraction from the third anniversary of the July 11 protests in 2021. Cuban officials have already used the case as part of a government campaign to protest Cubas inclusion in the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism. Clear evidence demonstrates once again that terrorist plans against our country are directed and financed from #USA, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said in a post on X. Who then deserves to be on the list of state sponsors of terrorism? Customer kills caring Sonic manager in drive-thru after fight over counterfeit money, police say Daniel Shrewsbury, 33, worked at a Sonic restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. He was shot on Sunday by two customers who argued with him about paying with counterfeit money, his family said (Facebook) A night manager at a Sonic restaurant was shot dead on Sunday night after an altercation with customers who tried to pay with counterfeit money, his family said. Daniel Shrewsbury, 33, was killed at the fast-food outlet in San Antonio, Texas around 9.30pm. According to police, two women argued with the manager about paying with fake money before one of them shot him. The suspects then fled the area. Shrewsbury made it back inside the restaurant before he collapsed, and was later found. Emergency responders declared him dead at the scene. A witness told police that the shooting happened in the drive-thru of the restaurant where Shrewsbury was speaking to customers. The investigation is ongoing and San Antonio Police Department did not provide any further information. Daniel Shrewsbury, 33, worked at a Sonic restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. He was shot on Sunday (Facebook) Police released images from the Sonics surveillance camera of the two women. On Tuesday, police said the suspects had been identified but no arrests have been made. Shrewsburys brother, Jojo Shrewsbury, told KSAT that his brother went out to the drive-thru to confront the women over the fake money. He was days away from celebrating his 34th birthday when he was killed. The younger brother said his sibling was a hard worker who loved his job and also enjoyed playing video games when off-the-clock. San Antonio police released surveillance camera stills of the women they say were involved in Daniel Shrewsburys murder (San Antonio Police Department) Hes not just known as a Sonic employee. Hes more than that, his brother said, describing him as his role model. He was a really good brother, not just to me but everybody. Shrewsburys mother, Peggy Cofield, described her son as caring, loving. I will definitely miss him every day, every second, she said. Shrewsburys family hopes that the killer is brought to justice. (The killer) took somebody from the community, like the people at his job, the regulars that go there, Shrewsburys stepfather, Dominic Cofield, said. He didnt deserve this cause, like they said, he was a good kid. BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- A year ago, Wang Xin (pseudonym)'s one-year-old daughter Qiqi was diagnosed with a rare disease. Local hospitals in central China's Henan Province advised them to seek immediate treatment at a more advanced hospital. They embarked on a 700-kilometer journey northward, arriving at Beijing Children's Hospital where Qiqi underwent two surgeries. Thanks to China's nationwide initiative to enhance local hospital service capabilities, a hospital in Qiqi's home province improved its medical standards and Qiqi was later transferred to this hospital to continue her treatment. "The medical facilities in this hospital are comparable to those in Beijing," Wang said. "Having a good hospital near our home saves a lot of trouble." This transformation was made possible by China's unwavering commitment to ensuring that its 1.4 billion people have access to high-quality medical care. Over the past decade, China's healthcare reform has focused on channeling medical resources to grassroots hospitals, reducing medicine prices and improving hospital services, with significant progress made in these areas. MORE ACCESSIBLE HEALTHCARE RESOURCES China has long grappled with an uneven distribution of medical resources for its vast population, with patients frequently seeking care in hospitals in major urban centers such as Beijing and Shanghai or regional capital cities, where high-quality care are typically concentrated. However, the country has now committed to addressing this issue. In recent years, China's top-notch hospitals have been building their "replica" hospitals based on existing facilities in under-sourced areas. This initiative aims to enhance local healthcare services and ensure that most patients can receive medical care within their region of residence. Beijing Children's Hospital, for example, is developing Zhengzhou Hospital of Beijing Children's Hospital, where Qiqi was transferred, as one of its "replicas." Over the past four years, Beijing Children's Hospital has dispatched more than 2,700 professionals to serve at Zhengzhou Hospital, provided guidance for over 1,200 surgeries and treated nearly 30,000 children. "Beijing Children's Hospital provides management expertise, technologies and professionals to Zhengzhou Hospital. It has effectively enhanced our medical service capabilities and enabled patients with common ailments to be treated locally," said Zhang Jie, head of Zhengzhou Hospital. Zhang was the doctor who previously performed surgeries for Qiqi at Beijing Children's Hospital. In 2023, compared to 2019, the number of outpatient children from Henan seeking treatment at Beijing Children's Hospital dropped by 39,600 visits, representing a reduction of 42.07 percent. Moreover, more than 1,000 top-tiered hospitals in China have directly partnered with county-level hospitals, providing patients in less-developed areas such as Xizang and Xinjiang with access to high-quality medical care. "These efforts further improve the healthcare service system, narrow the gap in medical technology between different regions and promote the balanced distribution of medical resources," said Ni Xin, head of Beijing Children's Hospital. With more patients going to local hospitals, more medical resources will be reserved for children with severe conditions, rare diseases and complex illnesses, Ni added. REDUCED MEDICAL EXPENSES Before having knee replacement surgery earlier this year, a woman surnamed Li from central China's Hunan Province had endured 10 years of pain in her right knee. The cost of an artificial knee joint -- 32,000 yuan (about 4,400 U.S. dollars) -- had held her back. However, a government-led bulk procurement of artificial joints in 2022 reduced the average price of a knee joint to 5,000 yuan. The price drop reignited Li's hope, and she gladly accepted the surgery. "The national policy helps me save over 20,000 yuan in medical expenses. It's great!" she said. In recent years, the country has procured 374 types of medicines in nine batches, more than halving their prices on average. The national centralized procurement of eight types of high-value medical consumables such as heart stents and artificial joints has reduced the prices by over 80 percent on average. When combined with local bulk procurement, these efforts have collectively alleviated the public's medical expense burden by approximately 500 billion yuan. "The centralized procurement scheme will be ramped up to tackle the issue of high medical costs and deliver tangible benefits to patients," said Wang Guodong, an official with the National Healthcare Security Administration. Official data revealed that the proportion of personal healthcare expenditures borne by residents decreased from over 34 percent in 2012 to 27 percent in 2022. China's continuously updated national medical insurance catalogs also contributed to the lowered personal healthcare costs. Currently, the medicine catalog covers more than 3,000 types of medicines, accounting for over 90 percent of the drugs used in public medical institutions. Today, China has established the world's largest basic healthcare insurance network, covering over 95 percent of its citizens by the end of 2023. SHORTER WAIT TIMES Upon his arrival at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital in east China's Jiangsu Province on May 5, Chen Fan (pseudonym) was advised by the consulting doctor to undergo a chest CT scan; yet, due to time constraints, the scan results were not immediately available, leaving Chen worried about securing another appointment. But, Chen was able to consult his doctor twice within three days through a single appointment, accessing his results and receiving further consultation on May 7, all facilitated by a new policy aimed at enhancing patient convenience in Jiangsu's public hospitals. Long wait times for registration, medical examinations and settling hospital bills were once common grievances among patients in Chinese hospitals. However, recent years have witnessed a drastic shift. According to the National Health Commission (NHC), over 5,500 hospitals at the county level and above now provide "one-stop" services, enabling 77.7 percent of hospitalized patients to settle their bills on the day of discharge. Furthermore, mutual recognition of medical examination results has been achieved in 88.2 percent of public hospitals at the county level and above, reducing the need for repetitive tests at different facilities. Li Dachuan, an NHC official, said that this year, the NHC will address new expectations and demands of the people to drive significant advances in healthcare services. TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) A woman who was convicted of killing her husband in Tulare County and dumping his body near Kettleman City was found suitable for parole after serving over three decades in prison, according to the Tulare County District Attorneys Office. The DA says on July 3, over the objection of prosecutors, California parole commissioners found June Gravlee, 70, suitable for parole after she was convicted in 1990 for first-degree murder with the special circumstance of murder for financial gain. Gravlee and her husband Andrew Gravlee were married in October 1986. At the time of the marriage, Andrew was 35 years her senior. On July 17, 1987, at their home in Tulare, the DA says Gravlee and her brother Gary Smith stabbed and beat Andrew, killing him. According to court documents, the pair wrapped his body in a tarp and drove him in his pickup to a ravine in the hills near Kettleman City, where they buried him. In late 1987, Andrews family became suspicious that they had not heard from him. Tulare Police Department officers began an official investigation in 1988 and questioned Gravlee, who eventually told officers that it was her brother who killed her husband. For the next few months, Gravlee collected her husbands pension and social security checks and even applied for additional benefits. Gravlee explained her husbands absence by telling people he had left town suddenly. On June 14, 1989, Andrews body was discovered with stab wounds to the back and chest, and severe blunt force trauma to his head determined to be caused by strikes with a ball-peen hammer. Smith pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. In the penalty phase of the trial, the Tulare County jury recommended a death sentence. However, the trial judge at the time modified the verdict to a penalty of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Her sentence was again modified in 2018 when former Governor Brown commuted her sentence to life, the reduction of which made her eligible for parole. Smith was granted parole in 2013 after serving 24 years. In March of 2023 at Gravlees third parole hearing, she admitted for the first time that she did indeed stab her husband despite denying so previously. At her most recent hearing, prosecutors say Gravlee denied her personal involvement and asserted her prior admission was simply made to look favorable to parole commissioners. June Gravlee is a master manipulator. Either she lied about her involvement in the murder at her last hearing, or she lied to these commissioners. Either way, it is disgusting that her manipulation has been rewarded. The jury saw through her scheme; its unfortunate that parole commissioners did not, said District Attorney Tim Ward. Commissioners cited her age and prison programming as factors favoring release. The DA says Gravlees parole suitability will now be reviewed by the Governors office. Gravlee is currently incarcerated at the California Institution for Women in Corona. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com | KSEE24 and CBS47. Sir Keir Starmer has jetted off on his first overseas trip as prime minister - to the NATO summit in Washington. It comes as he committed to an ironclad guarantee to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, but refused to say when. So how serious are Labour about protecting Britain? Kamal Ahmed and Camilla Turner speak to Telegraph Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor Con Coughlin to find out if Labours plans for our armed forces go far enough. Theres also the small matter of the public finances being in the worst state since the Second World War according to Rachel Reeves. So how do we pay for it? Kamal and Camilla speak to Carl Emmerson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies to ask that very question. Plus, The Telegraph tracks down one of Reforms ghost candidates who many thought didnt exist... Watch all episodes of the Daily T here or on YouTube. Or if you would prefer to listen to the audio only, then use the player above. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe to The Daily T newsletter for 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. Baker Hall at the private Ivy League University, Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, where investigators are looking into the death of a 20-year-old student. The body of Won Jang, of Delaware, was found in a river bordering the campus, as attention turns to possible hazing. File Photo by CJ Gunther/EPA July 9 (UPI) -- Investigators are looking into the death of a Dartmouth College student, whose body was found in a river bordering the Ivy League campus, as attention turns to possible hazing. New Hampshire police said 20-year-old Won Jang of Delaware was reported missing Sunday afternoon after "attending an informal social gathering at docks near the Dartmouth boathouse" the night before. Dive teams located Jang's body about 65 feet from shore about four hours after he was reported missing. "The entire Dartmouth community is grieving over the tragic loss of Won Jang," the college wrote in a statement. "Our counseling team has been by the family's side since yesterday, and Dartmouth is providing every possible support it can to Won's parents, family and friends." Dartmouth administrators said they are working closely with police and have suspended two Greek organizations, Beta Alpha Omega and Alpha Phi, following several tips about hazing, alcohol and Jang's death. Police say foul play is not suspected. "So we received some emails that were forwarded to us from the college that were sent anonymously listing some of those concerns that hazing or potentially alcohol may be involved so that will certainly be part of our investigation as we move forward through this process," Hanover Police Chief Charlie Dennis told WCAX in Vermont. The Connecticut River, where Jang's body was found, runs between the states of New Hampshire and Vermont. Police are interviewing multiple students and are encouraging anyone with information to contact them. "Certainly, this is a tragic event. Certainly, our condolences go out to the family and also to the friends and the other people at the college," Dennis said. "We are looking for any information we can get to help us do a thorough and timely investigation." Jang was a member of Beta Alpha Omega, which was disciplined for an incident that took place last fall, according to the college. Jang, who was to graduate in 2026, was a biomedical engineering major. "Won wholeheartedly embraced opportunities at Dartmouth to pursue his academic and personal passions," Dean of the College Scott Brown wrote in an email to students. "He enthusiastically took part in the Dartmouth community." Won Jang, a 20-year-old Dartmouth student, died this past weekend following a Greek life event that involved alcohol. His body was pulled from the Connecticut River on Sunday (LinkedIn) Dartmouth has suspended a fraternity and a sorority as a hazing probe gets underway in connection with the death of a student this past weekend. The Greek life organizations, fraternity Beta Alpha Omega, and Alpha Phi, a sorority, have had their activities paused for the foreseeable future, Jana Barnello, a college spokesperson told The Independent in an email on Tuesday. The organizations will not be able to participate in Greek life on campus, receive funding or recruit new members. No one, except those living in the Greek houses, is allowed to enter them. The suspensions follow the death of Won Jang, a 20-year-old Dartmouth student whose body was pulled from the Connecticut River on Sunday. The medical examiner responded to the incident, but said a preliminary manner of death was not yet available. Jang was a member of Beta Alpha Omega. Its believed that an event he attended on Saturday, hosted by both organizations, involved alcohol. The 20-year-old was last seen by friends around 9.30pm at the gathering, which was held at a dock close to Dartmouth College on the river, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department reported. Won Jang, a 20-year-old Dartmouth student, died over the weekend following a Greek life event that involved alcohol. His body was pulled from the Connecticut River on Sunday (LinkedIn) The entire Dartmouth community is grieving over the tragic loss of Won Jang. Our counseling team has been by the familys side since yesterday, and Dartmouth is providing every possible support it can to Wons parents, family and friends, Barnello wrote. We are working closely with the Hanover Police Department, which is leading the investigation. Hanover Police Chief Charles Dennis told WMUR-TV that his office had received an anonymous tip that hazing played a role in Jangs death and that authorities were working to investigate the claim. The Independent has contacted the police for more information. Beta Alpha Omega was on alcohol probation at the time of Jangs death after being suspended during the fall, winter and spring terms. Alpha Phi was placed on probation in the fall of 2023 but had returned to good standing, The Dartmouth, the universitys student newspaper, reported. The university puts organizations on alcohol probation when they are found to have improperly served alcohol, the newspaper wrote. The university may move to suspend an organization for repeated misconduct, or for misconduct found to be sufficiently serious to warrant stopping all activity for a specified number of terms. Jang, an undergraduate student from Middletown, Delaware, was due to graduate in 2026. He worked as a project manager at the DALI Lab, a design program for students to build websites and apps, and as a research assistant at the Thayer School of Engineering. Won wholeheartedly embraced opportunities at Dartmouth to pursue his academic and personal passions, College Dean Scott Brown wrote in an email to students. He enthusiastically took part in the Dartmouth community. Jang is the second Dartmouth student to have been found dead in the Connecticut River this year. In May, authorities found Kexin Cai, 26, dead in the river five days after she went missing. Officials said that she was last seen in Lebanon, New Hampshire on May 15. Cai was a second-year doctoral student studying psychological and brain sciences. BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) The daughter of an Italian saint is set to visit Western New York this weekend. Dr. Gianna Emanuela Molla, the daughter of St. Gianna Beretta Molla, will be in town from Thursday until Sunday. She will make numerous visits to local churches during her stay. A mass in her honor will be held at Buffalos St. Joseph Cathedral at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. St. Gianna Beretta Molla was an Italian pediatrician. When she was pregnant with Dr. Molla, her fourth child, in 1962, she refused an abortion, a full hysterectomy or removal of the fibroma, aware of fatal consequences. St. Gianna died on April 28, 1962 at age 39, a week after Dr. Molla was born. She was canonized as a saint in 2004. She is the patron saint of mothers, physicians and unborn children. For more information on the visit, click here. 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. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. Coleman A. Young, mayor of Detroit, at Joe Louis Arena in preparation for the 1980 Republican National Convention in Detroit. | Walter Reuther Library, Tony Spina Collection On July 10, 1980 Democratic Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young hosted a reception for Republican National Committee (RNC) members. It was held on the Bob-lo boat, a popular amusement park, along the Detroit River. The event was a lead-in to the RNCs convention in Detroit, which nominated Ronald Reagan, a former California governor, as its choice for president. Young, a sitting Democratic National Committee vice chair, sought to woo both parties to the Motor City for their 1980 conventions. The Democrats ended up choosing New York City that year. Young later offered a bid for the Democratic Party convention in 1984, as well. Mayor Young would do whatever it took to promote the city in a positive standpoint, aaid former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, a former Michigan Supreme Court justice, told the Advance this week. It was a time when the Motor City had faced decades of resident flight and business disinvestment. Its population had fallen from 1.8 million residents in 1950 to 1.2 million residents in 1980. Young, who became Detroits first Black mayor in 1974, saw the convention opportunities as a way to help create excitement around Michigans largest city. He served five four-term terms from 1974 to 1994. Reagan in 1980 defeated then-Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who Young had strongly supported for years. After Reagans election, Young described him as pruneface. The comment made headlines, in part, because Reagan was 69 at his inauguration and his age was an issue. The former movie actor served two terms in office from 1981 to 1989. Old Pruneface, as I was fond of calling him it was nothing personal, of course, just a way of calling attention to Reagans age during the campaign abused Detroit for eight years Young wrote in his biography, Hard Stuff: The Autobiography of Coleman A.Young. Young died in 1997; Reagan died in 2004. The post On this day in 1980: Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young hosts GOP national convention appeared first on Michigan Advance. Days after his big Biden interview, George Stephanopoulos says the man won't make it through 4 more years in office Days after his big Biden interview, George Stephanopoulos says the man won't make it through 4 more years in office Days after his big Biden interview, George Stephanopoulos doesn't think the man's up for the top job. In a video obtained by TMZ, he said to a passerby: "I don't think he can serve four more years." Stephanopoulos is the latest critic to cast doubt on Biden's fitness to run for reelection. Days after sitting down for an interview with President Joe Biden, George Stephanopoulos has expressed doubts about the man's ability to serve another term. TMZ obtained a video of the ABC host walking on a street in New York City, where a person asked him about Biden. In the video, the person filmed Stephanopoulos walking toward him in workout clothes. They panned away from the host as they asked: "Do you think Biden should step down? You've talked to him more than anybody else has lately. You can be honest." Stephanopoulos responded: "I don't think he can serve four more years." #GeorgeStephanopoulos just made a STUNNING comment: he told someone on the streets of #NewYork that he doesn't think President #JoeBiden can serve another term! https://t.co/cFMK2Uxx4z pic.twitter.com/pxKkolFcGt TMZ (@TMZ) July 9, 2024 The anchor confirmed that he'd made that comment but told TMZ: "Earlier today, I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldn't have." An ABC News spokesperson told TMZ: "George expressed his own point of view and not ABC News' position." During Stephanopoulos' ABC News interview on Friday with Biden, the president gave no indication that he plans to step aside after his disastrous June 27 presidential debate. He told Stephanopoulos he was just having a "bad night" during the debate. He also repeatedly said in the interview that only the "Lord Almighty" could make him quit the race. Stephanopoulos isn't the only political commentator who's recently interacted with Biden who's expressed doubts about his ability to run for another term. CNN's Jake Tapper, who moderated the presidential debate, read a quote from Biden's appearance on Morning Joe" interview with MSNBC. "That sound bite is supposed to be reassuring," Tapper said. CNNs @jaketapper reads an incoherent Biden quote from Morning Joe word-for-word: That sound bite is supposed to be reassuring pic.twitter.com/friVDsJis9 Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 8, 2024 Top Democrats, donors, and former Biden loyalists have questioned his fitness to run. But Biden has been defiant in the face of dissent, saying he will not step aside. Anonymous sources told Politico that during a Zoom call with his staffers on July 3, he said: "Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running." He reiterated this in a letter to House Democrats on Monday: "I wouldn't be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024." "The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now," Biden wrote. "And it's time for it to end." Representatives for Stephanopoulos and Biden didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours. Read the original article on Business Insider WASHINGTON (DC News Now) After more than four years of investigation, D.C. police have charged a man from Maryland in connection to the death of a missing teenage boy whom officers found in a wooded area. According to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), on April 29, 2019, officers responded to the woods near the 5200 block of Canal Road, Northwest. There, police found 16-year-old Eberson Guerra-Sanchez, of Frederick, Md., with stab wounds. He died there. During the investigation, officers learned that Sanchezs family reported him missing just days before he was found. 2 hurt in shooting at Manassas Mall in Prince William County On July 9, MPDs Fugitive Unit obtained a warrant for 25-year-old Pedro Alexander Joya Argueta, of Frederick, Md. He was arrested by the U.S. Marshals and charged with First Degree Murder While Armed-Felony Murder. Police said the case remains under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call police at (202) 727- 9099. Police said a reward of up to $25,000 is available to anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest and conviction. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. HAIKOU, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Twenty Pakistani management staff members who are about to work at a China-aided airport in Pakistan have completed a 20-day training program on the future operations of the airport. As a supporting training program for the New Gwadar International Airport, a project built under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the program aims to provide pre-job training for Pakistani managers, while preparing talent reserves for operating the new airport. The training was held from June 20 to Tuesday in Haikou, capital of south China's island province of Hainan. It was hosted by China's Ministry of Commerce and organized by the International Cooperation and Exchange Center of Department of Commerce of Hainan Province. During their stay in China, the professionals held discussions with the Chinese aid construction units and authorities responsible for the New Gwadar International Airport, to understand the design concept of the airport and learn from the Chinese experts in airport management. The trainees visited various sites, including the Haikou Meilan International Airport, to learn about the development of Hainan's civil aviation industry, among other topics, and discussed the future cooperation opportunities between Hainan and Pakistan in related industries. The New Gwadar International Airport is located in Pakistan's southwest port city of Gwadar. Construction work on the 4F-class airport, which is the world's highest class with the capability of handling large aircraft, started in October 2019. In June, the airport completed a flight test, meaning that the project is about to be put into operation. Tel Aviv A surge of hope for a breakthrough in Israel-Hamas cease-fire talks drew CIA Director William Burns back to the Middle East this week, but the hopes have been tempered by a blistering Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza. The attack killed at least 29 people at the Al Awda school in Khan Younis, according to an official at the nearby al-Nasser Hospital. In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said it used a "precise munition" in the strike on the school to kill a militant who took part in Hamas' Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, which killed almost 1,200 people. The IDF said it was reviewing the incident, but it has always blamed Hamas for all of the deaths in the war, accusing the group of using Palestinian civilians as human shields and basing weapons and fighters in schools, hospitals and homes. A youth wounded during Israeli bombardment is carried to the emergency ward at Al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, July 9, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. / Credit: BASHAR TALEB/AFP/Getty There have been other recent Israeli strikes on schools used as shelters in Gaza, and the latest attack on Tuesday drew criticism from both France and Germany, which called the strikes "unacceptable." "Civilians, especially children, must not get caught in the crossfire," the German foreign ministry said in a message posted Wednesday on social media. "The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop and an investigation must come quickly." "We call for these strikes to be fully investigated," France's foreign ministry said Wednesday in a statement, according to French news agency AFP. The IDF has also launched a new assault further north, in Gaza City, calling for yet another evacuation of Palestinian civilians. Images posted online Wednesday showed people holding fliers dropped by the military in the area, urging people to leave. Hundreds of thousands of people trapped in Gaza, a narrow strip of land sandwiched between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea, have fled from the fighting four or five times already. The United Nations called the forced exodus "dangerously chaotic" with doctors and nurses at two hospitals rushing to move their patients. The IDF said medical facilities did not need to evacuate, but its previous raids at other hospitals in Gaza have left medical staff fearful. Hamas said the new assault could "reset the negotiation process to square one," despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreeing to send a delegation to restart the talks. Netanyahu agreed to send the Israeli delegation back to the talks after Hamas replied to the latest draft cease-fire proposal with some requested changes, but both sides have remained at odds on key points of a staged truce process. One of the biggest obstacles has been Netanyahu's insistence that any cease-fire agreement leaves his military the option to resume operations against Hamas. Alon Pinkas, a former advisor to four Israeli foreign ministers and an outspoken critic of Netanyahu, told CBS News on Wednesday that he believes as do many Israelis that the country's leader doesn't really want a cease-fire. Asked if Netanyahu, by agreeing to continue with the truce talks, was just throwing a bone to his backers in Washington to keep the pressure off, Pinkas said the Israeli leader's actions were even more disingenuous than that. "He's just taking them for a ride," he said. "He's [Netanyahu] been doing so for the better part of the last nine months, and he's been doing so with impunity and immunity." The Israeli leader has accused Hamas of blocking progress in the talks, suggesting the group isn't serious about the negotiations as it has also continued its military operations against Israel during multiple rounds of discussions. The White House has consistently backed Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas and, with few exceptions, has and never halted the supply of U.S. weapons to the country. But Mr. Biden and his subordinates have also heaped pressure on Netanyahu to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza and limit the number of civilian casualties in a war that medical officials in the Hamas-run enclave say has killed more than 38,200 Palestinians. President Biden announced a project in March to boost the flow of aid into the territory a floating pier built by the U.S. military on Gaza's coast at a cost of more than $230 million. The pier project, always touted by U.S. officials as an additive measure and not a solution to the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has been plagued by logistical challenges, mostly weather related, and it has never managed to facilitate a significant flow of aid materials. After being knocked out of service again by rough seas, operations on the pier were to be reestablished this week but then the structure could be permanently dismantled. The removal could come as soon as next week, but no final decision has been made according to U.S. military officials. Sneak peek: Unmasking the Zombie Hunter Sneak peek: Murder by Clown Biden's support splinters amid new calls to exit race Police are investigating whether hazing may have played a role in the death of a Dartmouth student from Delaware who was found dead in the Connecticut River on Sunday night, according to local reports. The body of Won Jang, a 20-year-old at the Ivy League university, was recovered 65 feet offshore Sunday at about 7:30 p.m. local time, the Hanover Police Department said in a news release. He was reported missing after last being seen alive around the docks Saturday night. Jang is from Middletown and a member of the Beta Alpha Omega fraternity, according to the fraternity's website, which said he was studying biomedical engineering at Dartmouth. The Baker-Berry Library at Dartmouth College is seen on Feb. 8, 2024, in Hanover, N.H. "I've always challenged myself to learn more about the world in many different fields, and I loved how my exploration of hobbies and academics could be used to help my community," Jang was quoted as saying in his nomination statement for the state Department of Delaware's 2022 Delaware Secretary of Education Scholars. "These self-initiated adventures shaped me into a continuous learner and, along with my parents' encouragement, to enjoy the process over the outcome," he went on to say. "I've learned to seek the purposes behind my studies and value connections with people." Jang graduated valedictorian from Middletown High School in 2022. According to the state website, Jang participated in various academic clubs such as Science Olympiad, Math League, HOSA (formerly known as Health Occupations Students of America) and Business Professionals of America. He volunteered in the local community through the National Honor Society and created his own Korean club at Middletown High at the request of his friends to teach them Korean. Before graduating, Jang aspired to become a research scientist in molecular/cellular biology and was planning to study biological engineering. More: Middletown High School graduation ceremony 2022 Foul play not suspected The search for Jang included several divers and a sonar team using an underwater camera that eventually located the body, according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Items found near the dock indicated Jang did not leave the river area. The cause of death is undetermined, and Hanover police said foul play is not suspected. "The investigation into this untimely death is on-going and anyone with information is encouraged to call the Hanover Police Department," the police news release stated. Police received anonymous report of hazing Hanover Police Chief Charles Dennis said there was evidence that some alcohol and possible college hazing was involved, stations WMUR-TV and WPTZ reported. "We did receive an anonymous email this morning through the college that there may be some hazing involved, so certainly, we will look into that aspect, too," Dennis told WMUR-TV. Jang attended a social gathering at the river area and was reported Sunday after failing to appear at an appointment, WMUR-TV and WPTZ reported. USA TODAY has reached out to Dennis for comment and did not immediately receive a response. Dartmouth dean offers condolences to community In a statement to students, Dartmouth College Dean Scott Brown offered condolences to those who knew Jang. "We understand that this is very difficult news for our community and encourage you to seek support, whether you need a listening ear or guidance in navigating this challenging time," Brown said in a statement. "We have been in touch with Won's fraternity brothers and other friends." The school said Jang "enthusiastically took part in the Dartmouth community" as a fraternity member who started his own band. Jang majored in biomedical engineering and was part of the class of 2026, the student newspaper The Dartmouth reported. "Won wholeheartedly embraced opportunities at Dartmouth to pursue his academic and personal passions," Brown said. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Dartmouth student from Middletown, Delaware, found dead in river The family of a murdered Temple University police officer is calling for a special prosecutor after the Philadelphia District Attorneys Office declined to pursue the death penalty against the Bucks County man accused of killing him. The decision announced Wednesday means that Buckingham resident Miles Pfeffer, 19, would potentially face life without parole if convicted in the February 2023 fatal shooting of Christopher Fitzgerald, the first line-of-duty death for Temple University police department. The Fitzgeralds learned Tuesday night that the death penalty was off the table, according to a law firm representing the family, which released a statement on their behalf calling for the recall of Philly DA Larry Krasner. When a prosecutor does everything that a prosecutor would not do to present the best case for a judge or jury to decide, they demonstrate that defendants lives are more important than their victims, according to the familys statement released by the Marrone Law Firm. In the statement, the Fitzgeralds said they believe the prosecution of Pfeffer will be a neutered version that Krasner orchestrated to the benefit of the privileged. Temple University Police Officer Chris Fitzgerald, 31, was shot and killed on duty Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023 while on-duty near the college campus in Philadelphia. He joined the force in 2021 and was a husband and father of four. More on the death of Temple officer Family of slain Temple police officer wants death penalty for Bucks County murder suspect Prior to this evening, we remained prayerful that the judicial system would be allowed to work and that the fate of my sons murderer would be decided by a judge or jury with all available options, Fitzgeralds mother, Pauline, said. In addition to their message to recall Krasner, the Fitzgeralds appealed to Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry, a former Bucks County DA, to take over the prosecution of Pfeffer. The Fitzgeralds believe AGs office has jurisdiction in the case because the murder happened within 500-feet of a SEPTA location, according to the statement. DA spokesman Dustin Slaughter said in a statement "This decision was made after extensive input over many hours from the family of officer Fitzgerald, and from experts." Slaughter said the DA committee that considers possible death penalty matters reviewed all aspects of the case itself and all obtainable information on the defendant prior to making their recommendations to Krasner, who made the final determination. "The input of the family is deeply appreciated and was carefully considered by the committee and DA Krasner prior to his decision, Slaughter said. The DAO looks forward to continuing to support the familys needs and to vigorously prosecuting this terrible murder." The memorial made for officer Chris Fitzgerald, who was killed while responding to an incident, on the intersection of West Montgomery Avenue and North Bouvier Street in North Philadelphia as seen on Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. What Philadelphia authorities say happened Feb. 18, 2023 on Temple University campus Christopher Fitzgerald was on patrol alone when he placed a radio call that he was in pursuit of three individuals shortly after 7:12 pm. Feb. 18, 2023 near the North Philadelphia campus of Temple University. The three were in the area of 1800 block of Montgomery Avenue where there have been a series of robberies and carjackings, police said. The males, including Pfeffer, who was 18 at the time, were in the city visiting friends, authorities said. When Fitzgerald attempted to stop them, the teens ran. Pfeffer's 16-year-old brother and a 17-year-old friend, hid and Fitzgerald continued to pursue Pfeffer into the 1700 block of Montgomery Avenue, roughly one block of the city's 22nd police district, police said. When Fitzgerald caught up with Pfeffer and ordered him to the ground, the two struggled before Pfeffer allegedly pulled out a handgun and fired six times, including three rounds after Fitzgerald was wounded on the ground, police said. Pfeffer then unsuccessfully attempted to remove Fitzgeralds service weapon from its holster, authorities said. After allegedly shooting Fitzgerald, Pfeffer ran to the 1800 block of Montgomery Avenue where he carjacked a man, threatening to kill him if he didn't hand over his car keys. The car was later recovered in the 1900 block of North 30th Street. Pfeffer's mother, who he lived in Buckingham with, picked him up in the area of North 29th Street and Ridge Avenue, and drove him to her Bucks County home where he was apprehended the next day. What we know about slain Temple University police officer Christopher Fitzgerald Fitzgerald joined the Temple force in October 2021 after spending time as a corrections officer in Lehigh County and as a member of the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office and housing authority police department. He was married and the father of four children. He was also known as a community activist participating in the Hood2Hood project, where members of running clubs with primarily male minority members ran through neighborhoods most affected by gun violence to encourage others to pursue positive activities. The Fitzgerald family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Pfeffers parents and his mothers partner in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. According to the lawsuit, Pfeffer's family allegedly knew he was mentally unstable, violent, and that he sought access to guns. The suit alleges Pfeffer conducted a "bomb scare" at a Central Bucks school in 2019. Authorities arrest Miles Pfeffer, 18, of Buckingham, at his Quarry Road home on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023, using handcuffs belonging to Temple University Police Officer Chris Fitzgerald, who was killed Saturday. What we know about Miles Pfeffer, the Buckingham teen accused of murdering Christopher Fitzgerald Pfeffer lived in Buckingham with his mother and her partner; his father lives in Philadelphia. He attended schools in the Central Bucks School District until September 2019. At the time of his arrest he was enrolled in the Middle Bucks Institute of Technology in Warwick. He also attended the New Hope Academy, a private alternative school in 2022. He is charged with murder, criminal homicide of a law enforcement officer, disarming an officer, robbery, theft, evading arrest, weapons crimes. robbery, theft, terroristic threatening and other charges. His formal arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 13. Pfeffer is represented by the Defender Association of Philadelphia. Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at jciavaglia@gannett.com This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Philly DA: No death penalty for Bucks County teen in Temple cop death Column: If the Democrats want Biden to drop out, they should follow Pelosi's lead, not Clooney's I love George Clooney. As an actor. As a director. As an activist, tequila producer and Nespresso spokesman. I would consider him a friend, if I knew him, and I believe in him. He has a place on Lake Como and a private island in the Thames, for heavens sake. Clearly, hes doing something right. That does not, however, extend to his opinion piece published Wednesday in the New York Times that calls on President Biden to drop out of the election campaign and allow the Democrats to select a new nominee. As with Clooney's decision to play Batman in 1997, he probably should have passed. No doubt the star is sincere in his concern that Biden is not up to defeating Donald Trump in November (though the fact that this argument comes mere weeks after Clooney held a huge fundraiser for him is a bit weird). Nor is he alone in that concern. In light of the president's disastrous performance in his June 27 debate with Trump, many columnists, pundits, donors, celebrities and politicians, including some of Bidens former supporters in the House and Senate, are arguing the same thing. And perhaps they are all right. Im just not sure what Clooney thought he was going to add to the howling discourse. Yes, hes an outspoken Democrat who has campaigned for, and financially supported, Democratic candidates in a big way. But in the publics eye, he is first and foremost a movie star. Which is precisely why his guest essay is getting so much attention "Clooney breaks his silence" ran one rather hilarious headline, as if we had all been waiting in breathless anticipation for his take. This kind of attention is, no doubt, precisely what Clooney was hoping for. It is difficult to imagine that he could not have made his feelings known to Biden personally; he recently called the White House to complain about Biden's denunciation of the International Criminal Court, on which Clooney's wife, Amal, serves, after the court announced that it planned to issue arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas leaders. No, this was an attempt to cut through all the noise and make it clear how dire, from Clooneys perspective, the situation is. George Clooney in 2021. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Unfortunately, it also adds a new concern to all the pressure Biden faces at the moment. Now, if the president of the United States were to step aside, it might seem to some that it was because George Clooney told him to do it. Not the best optics for a party that has often been lambasted for being in bed with Hollywood. Of course, should Biden remain in the race, Clooney will have handed Trump a campaign ad that no money could buy. This may be another reason he decided to write the piece he, and many others, appear to be trying to make it impossible for Biden to remain the nominee. No matter where you stand on Biden's fitness for another campaign and four more years in office, this does not seem like a good idea at all. Bidens age was a matter of concern long before the debate, but even so he became his party's presumptive nominee, accompanied by loads of Dark Brandon memes. Even Clooney was still supporting Biden as recently as three weeks ago despite, as Clooney wrote, seeing a man who was not the Joe Biden of 2020. It's certainly not going to help the Democrats if they are seen as having hounded a successful, and nonfelon, president from seeking a second term because of one bad debate and the media firestorm that followed. Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, pictured in 2019. (Elaine Thompson/AP) As former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, with her signature political canniness, the only person who can make that decision is Biden, though, she added, "time is running short." That her words came after the president repeatedly said he was staying in the race seemed to some to be a backhanded way of signaling her desire for him to reconsider and step aside. Pelosi, who at 84 is three years older than Biden, knows her way around presidents, as well as the issues of age. She also knows that what Biden needs is a little space, perhaps in which he can feel less set upon. If Biden should remove himself from the ticket, he must see it, and sell it, as an offensive rather than a defensive move. His replacement could not be perceived as a usurper, put in place by editorial boards, donors and disgruntled congressional representatives over the will of the voters. She or he would need Biden's unequivocal and very public support. Biden would have to campaign on behalf of whomever were to replace him, and he would have to convince voters that he was not pushed off the slate by Trump, the media or poll-obsessed politicians. That he came to the decision himself, for the good of the country, and that he had complete and utter faith in his replacement. It is, to put it mildly, a big ask. Many have said that the Democrats cant win with Biden but that they cannot win without him, even if he is not the nominee. Yes, if he is still considering stepping aside, he needs to do it soon. If not, then all those people who claim to want to defeat Trump and preserve democracy are going to have to stop calling for Bidens ouster and rally the hell around him. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. A Delaware woman who was allegedly assaulted by New Castle County police during a traffic stop on June 29 gave her first public comments Tuesday about the stop and her arrest. Bystander and police body camera video show N'Finitee Coleman being detained by four officers in a parking lot where she was stopped by police. "My hair was pulled up and down," Coleman said during Tuesday's press conference. "My head was punched by a male and by a female. I have constant migraines." In police body camera footage, released by the New Castle County Police Department, an officer can be seen stepping out of his vehicle after he pulls Coleman over. He approaches Coleman's car and asks her to step out of the vehicle. PHOTO: In this screenshot from bodycam footage released by the New Castle County Police Department, N'finitee Coleman is shown during a traffic stop. (New Castle County Police Department) The officer tells Coleman she was being arrested for multiple unsafe lane changes, not using a turn signal, and because her registration was suspended for no insurance. "An officer with the New Castle County Division of Police was traveling in the area of Walther Road and Pulaski Highway when he observed a car commit several traffic violations," New Castle County Police said in a statement obtained by ABC News. "The officer was also able to confirm that the car's registration was suspended without insurance and observed an old bullet hole in the driver's side door that had police evidence markings on it. The officer activated his emergency lights behind the car at Pulaski Highway and Wellington Drive to initiate a traffic stop. However, the car continued down Pulaski Highway, making the right turn onto Brookmont Drive. The car then continued to the Royal Farms parking lot before backing into a parking space." The body cam video shows Coleman refusing the officer's instructions to exit the car and asking for his supervisor. The officer then pulls her car door open. The two of them argue for a few minutes, with Coleman continuing to refuse to comply with instructions to exit her vehicle, until other officers arrive on the scene. MORE: Body camera shows Delaware state trooper attack teens Three male officers can then be seen on body cam video pulling Coleman out of her car and forcing her to the ground. A female officer is then seen arriving on the scene as the other three policemen struggle with Coleman on the ground. The female officer proceeds to punch Coleman in the head area multiple times. One of the male officers is also seen throwing punches in body camera video as he claims that Coleman is holding his foot. PHOTO: N'Finitee Coleman said that she was assaulted by New Castle County, Delaware police during a traffic stop on June 29. (The Igwe Firm) Coleman was eventually handcuffed and placed in a police vehicle. In addition to traffic violations, she was charged with two counts of offensive touching of law enforcement, one count of resisting arrest, and one count of disorderly conduct, according to New Castle County police. Emeka Igwe, Coleman's lawyer, said at Tuesday's press conference that his client had legitimate registration for her car at the time of the incident. MORE: K-9 bites man during traffic stop "I do think there is a perception out there that when an officer approaches someone who may have an attitude or may be mouthy that they can then do whatever, whether retaliate with force or assault," Igwe said. "That's not OK. As an officer, you're trained to be a professional. You're going to encounter people with mental health challenges." Coleman claimed at the press conference that she has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and her anxiety and PTSD were contributing reasons for her "verbally aggressive" behavior during the traffic stop. "The New Castle County Division of Police Professional Standards Unit is conducting an administrative investigation to determine whether the officer's actions were within policy," the New Castle County Police Department said in a statement. "Additionally, the Division's Use of Force Review Unit is conducting a use-of-force analysis, including a detailed video examination. Finally, the incident was referred to the Delaware Department of Justice, Office of Civil Rights and Public Trust. These investigations and reviews are still ongoing." The Delaware Department of Justice, Office of Civil Rights and Public Trust nor the New Castle County attorney's office did not immediately respond to ABC News requests for comment. The New Castle County Police Department declined to comment when ABC News asked if any of the officers involved with Coleman's arrest have been disciplined. Delaware police investigating alleged officer assault of woman during traffic stop originally appeared on abcnews.go.com It's going to another hot one, with the heat index set to reach near record levels. All of Delaware will be either under a heat advisory Wednesday before the remnants of what was Hurricane Beryl reach our area. Here's the forecast for the rest of the week: Stay cool: As temperatures soar, keep your cool with these 10 indoor activities in Delaware Excessive heat warning in Delaware All of Delaware will be either under a heat advisory Wednesday before the remnants of what was Hurricane Beryl reach our area. Delaware is in for a hot one with an excessive heat warming advisory for New Castle through Wednesday as the heat index is set to reach 107 in Wilmington, according to the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, New Jersey. Kent and Sussex counties will be under a heat advisory through 8 p.m. as temperatures and high humidity may cause heat illnesses, according to the NWS. The threat for heat related illnesses is higher in New Castle County due to the combination of excessive heat and high humidity, the weather service said. The heat index is expect to be above 100 degrees for most of Delaware on Wednesday, July 8, 2024. Remnants of Hurricane Beryl hit Delaware There is up to a 75 percent chance for storms Wednesday into early Thursday as portions of remnants from what was Hurricane Beryl track into the region. Beryl has killed up to eight and knocked out power to millions in the Texas after being downgraded to a storm. The storms could bring heavy rain, leading to a slight chance of flash flooding to some of the First State. Isolated to scattered storms in the late morning or early afternoon could north and west of the Interstate 95corridor before a line of thunderstorms hit the area overnight. The earlier storms have a greaterrisk of severe weather with less coverage, while the night storms likely will be less severe but with great coverage, the NWS said. More storms are expected beginning late Thursday night or early Friday and continue into early Saturday. The chance for storms in this period is up to 80 percent, forecasters said. The highest risk of heavy rain and flash flooding will be in the Philadelphia metro and areas south and east. What is a heat advisory? According to the National Weather Service, "a heat advisory is issued within 12 hours of the onset of extremely dangerous heat conditions. This advisory is when the maximum heat index temperature is expected to be 100 degrees or higher for at least two days and night time air temperatures will not drop below 75 degrees. These also vary across the country. Take precautions to avoid heat illness. If you don't take precautions, you may become seriously ill or even die.'' What is the heat index? The heat index is what "the temperature feels like to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature," according to the National Weather Service. The combined reading of temperature and humidity is a better estimate of how the human body is feeling the heat. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Where is Hurricane Beryl now? Storms near as heat boils Delaware Reality Check is a Star series holding those with power to account and shining a light on their decisions. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at RealityCheck@kcstar.com. As Missouri abortion rights groups began a campaign to overturn the states ban on the procedure last year, top Republican officials moved to render the effort politically toxic. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft proposed incendiary language for the ballot question that would have asked voters to allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions. Attorney General Andrew Bailey and two Republican state lawmakers pushed for the measure to include a potential loss of $12.5 billion to the state a sensationalized estimate of financial damage recommended by anti-abortion groups. The courts struck down both efforts. But the series of legal battles that ensued kept the abortion rights effort tied up in court for months and delayed supporters from collecting signatures. The campaign was forced to scramble and gathered enough signatures in roughly three months. While Ashcroft and Bailey were unsuccessful, their actions shined a light on the typically ministerial role statewide officeholders play in signing off on ballot measures. The use of their offices to resist the proposals could create a new playbook for politicians in other Republican-led states after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022. Its a way of trying to impede the prospects for policy proposals or ballot measures that you may not like, said Peverill Squire, a political scientist at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Since these ballot measures run on a clock they can then try to slow things down. The failed effort to undermine the measure, or block it from the ballot, came as abortion rights remain popular nationwide, even in red states such as Missouri. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, every ballot measure seeking to expand abortion access, from Michigan to Ohio, has succeeded. Missouri has grown staunchly conservative over the last decade. Republicans control every statewide office and hold supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. But at the same time, a plurality of 44% of likely voters support overturning the abortion ban, according to a February poll from Saint Louis University and YouGov. The last-ditch efforts to confuse voters, to block what is the natural democratic process is all about knowing that youre going to lose, said Emily Wales, the president and CEO of the advocacy arm of Planned Parenthood Great Plains. When you are winning a campaign, you dont have to try all sorts of tricks to get people to vote for you. Spokespeople for Ashcroft and Bailey did not respond to questions for this story. Delaying the proposal Shortly after a series of abortion rights petitions were filed last year, Bailey rejected a fiscal note prepared by Republican Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick that estimated the measures would have no cost to the state. Bailey argued that the proposals would cost the state billions, a figure that Fitzpatrick flatly said was inaccurate. When asked about the outsized financial estimate at the time, Baileys spokesperson Madeline Sieren vowed to use every tool at our disposal to defend the sanctity of life. Ashcroft, who is running for governor, also crafted summaries for the petitions that described abortions as dangerous. Those summaries would have appeared on the question that voters see at the ballot box. Those actions kicked off a series of legal battles surrounding the estimated cost and the wording of the amendment that would appear on the ballot. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled against Bailey in July 2023 and a Cole County judge tossed Ashcrofts language in September 2023 (An appeals court later upheld that ruling). The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Bailey had overstepped his authority as attorney general and the appeals court wrote that Ashcrofts summaries were replete with politically partisan language. The state Supreme Court in 2022 ruled against Ashcroft for similar delays in 2019. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks to reporters on Monday, October 30, 2023, in Kansas City as Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, left, watches. The court rulings marked major victories for abortion rights supporters. However, the monthslong legal battles severely limited the amount of time the campaign had to collect signatures to get the measure on the ballot. The delay obviously had a huge impact on the campaign, said Maggie Olivia, the senior policy manager for Abortion Action Missouri. I dont know that well ever be able to truly measure how big that was. The lengthy hold up had cast doubt on the ability of supporters to craft an expensive and time-consuming campaign. But campaigners raised millions of dollars and in May dropped off more than 380,000 signatures from voters across the state well above the roughly 171,000 required. Missouri voters are likely to see the measure on the November ballot if its certified by Ashcrofts office. The anti-abortion playbook Abortion rights supporters in interviews with The Star pointed to similar efforts in other GOP-led states that sought to block votes on abortion rights. In Ohio last year, Republican lawmakers put a measure on the ballot that would have increased the approval threshold for constitutional amendments in an attempt to thwart an abortion rights campaign. Ohio voters rejected the increased threshold during an August special election. Roughly the same percentage of voters, 57%, voted in favor of abortion rights in November. Missouri Republicans attempted a similar tactic this year but lawmakers failed to pass the measure in the waning hours of the legislative session. Voters reacts to the passage of Ohio Issue 1, a ballot measure to amend the state constitution and establish a right to abortion at an election night party hosted by the Hamilton County Democratic Party, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023, at Knox Joseph Distillery in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati. In 2022, just as voters were preparing to vote on an amendment in neighboring Kansas that would have allowed lawmakers to ban abortion, misleading text messages about the measure appeared on a number of phones. The texts urged yes votes to protect choice and didnt say who had sent them. In South Dakota, another state attempting to overturn an abortion ban, anti-abortion advocates attempted to prevent Dakotans for Health, the group leading the states ballot measure, from gathering enough signatures to appear on the ballot. Some of the businesses that allowed the group to collect signatures in front of their store received hate mail. Protesters followed signature gatherers, county administrators attempted to limit where the group could collect signatures and the Legislature passed a law to allow people to withdraw their signature from a petition. Imagine the hardest environment to qualify an abortion rights constitutional amendment, and thats what we went through, said Adam Weiland, a spokesman for Dakotans for Health. Voters in other states that are poised to vote on abortion rights in the future should be prepared for every one of these tactics, said Wales with Planned Parenthood. I think they want to create a new playbook, she said of anti-abortion Republicans. Based on the lack of success theyve had, Im not sure Id call it a good playbook. She compared the efforts to regulations on abortion in GOP-led states, which are often called Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers or TRAP laws. Many of those laws mirror regulations in other states and are often contradictory, she said. You take the worst ideas to make it difficult to change the constitution or make it harder to be part of the democratic process and you just throw them all against the wall and layer on top, she said. Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, visits an exam room at the new Wyandotte County location, the organizations third in Kansas. Sam Lee, a longtime anti-abortion lobbyist in Jefferson City, said that efforts to block abortion rights proposals from the ballot represent a relatively new tactic since the Ohio vote. I think theres a growing awareness within the pro-life movement that this has to be fought from step one, every step of the way, he said. Lee added that if Ashcroft certifies the proposal for the ballot, anti-abortion groups were prepared to file a lawsuit to block it. Anti-abortion advocates are also ready to step in to fight a potential lawsuit from abortion rights groups if Ashcrofts office blocks the measure from the ballot. Im not saying that we will or what it would be in, but were prepared to do that, he said. Jean Evans, a former executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, said in an interview that the actions from Ashcroft and Bailey were nothing new, calling it playing politics. Voters in both parties expect their elected officials to use those tactics to push for policies that they agree with, she said. Whether theyre blue or red, you know, Republican or Democrat, they expect their elected officials to do anything within their power to support the values that they espoused on the campaign trail, she said. Its expected on both sides of the aisle. Squire, the political science professor, said that Republican officials are aware of what their counterparts are doing in other states and use those efforts as a guide. However, he said politicians need to be aware of what is allowed under state law. Some politicians may try to emulate what Ashcroft and Bailey did, he said. Its more likely that Republicans in other states will try to stymie abortion rights votes through competing ballot measures. There are limits, he said, to putting up procedural roadblocks on ballot measures and Missouri courts have generally not been supportive of those efforts. Each elected official around the country has to take into consideration the context in which he or she is operating and the political environment, he said. Again, you know, theyre all aware of what each other is up to. A woman holds a sign urging Missourians not to sign an abortion initiative petition at the Midwest March for Life on Wednesday at the Missouri State Capitol. The efforts by Missouri officials to try to block the measure from the ballot has abortion rights supporters bracing for new tactics in the future. That could include efforts to weaken abortion access through court battles or attempts to enact further restrictions even if voters approve the amendment in November. We have no doubt that the same anti-abortion politicians are going to have some more tricks up their sleeves, said Olivia with Abortion Action Missouri. But those efforts may have backfired, some abortion rights supporters argue. Wales said voters were extremely frustrated by officials who sought to block the measure from the ballot. They saw Republican officials fighting each other about how much interference there should be in the state process, she said. To some extent, we got to capitalize on the frustration and disappointment, and people channeled it into collecting signatures once we were able to do that. Delays in providing aid to Ukraine prolongs war US Senate Republican leader The process of sending arms to Ukraine. Photo: Getty Images Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has said that the delay in providing aid to Ukraine has only prolonged the war. Source: McConnell during a speech at the Reagan Institute in Washington, as reported by European Pravda Details: McConnell stressed that the Ukrainians on the battlefield do not need doubts but need tools to defend themselves, increase the cost of aggression for the aggressor, and create conditions for a conversation from a position of strength. Quote: "Slow-walking aid to Ukraine didnt stave off further Russian escalation. It only guaranteed that this terrible conflict will be longer and bloodier. Conditioning further assistance will weaken Ukraines hand and risk emboldening the very tyrant we hope to defeat. The security of the free world will either be strengthened by our friends [Ukraines ed.] victory or weakened by their defeat." Background: Slovak President Peter Pellegrini said that his country was in favour of restraint in the negotiations on Ukraine's accession to NATO to prevent escalation. At a press conference, Polish President Andrzej Duda spoke out against sending Polish troops to Ukraine and hoped that "Russia would not bring it to such a situation." Support UP or become our patron! CNN Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) on Tuesday gave the harshest public assessment yet among Senate Democrats of President Joe Bidens candidacy, telling CNN that he believes Biden cannot win in November, in line with prior reporting by the network on what he told his Democratic colleagues in the Senate during a private lunch meeting in the Capitol earlier in the day. I just think this race is on a trajectory that is very worrisome if you care about the future of this country, Bennet told The Source anchor Kaitlan Collins, as internal discord in the Democratic Party over Bidens candidacy stretches into its second full week. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House. While polls have generally shown Biden losing to Trump in most battleground states, Bennett said that was irrelevant to him. For me, this isnt a question about polling. Its not a question about politics. It is a moral question about the future of our country, he explained. And I think its critically important for us to come to grips with what we face if, together, we put this country on the path of electing Donald Trump again. CNN reported Tuesday that Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Ohios Sherrod Brown (D-OH) also voiced their doubts about the 81-year-old presidents ability to win re-election. Thus far, no senators have outright called on Biden to end his campaign. This is something for the president to consider, Bennet said Tuesday. I think its really hard for the people that are working for him to acknowledge. I think they have a moral obligation to look themselves in the mirror and to be able to say, we know we can win this race. Still, Bennet warned that a huge tragedy looms. If we just sit on our hands, if we say were going to disregard what is plainly in front of usand plainly in front of the American peopleand we end up electing Donald Trump again as president of the United States, thats going to be a huge tragedy beyond epic proportion, he warned. Its something I cant live with. 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. Its our democracy, America! A second Trump presidency would be nothing like the first Just when you wonder how MAGA worlds love affair with violence could get any more torrid, they show you it can. On Friday, the New Republics Greg Sargent reported the shocking speech given last week by Mark Robinson, the pro-life MAGA Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina. Some folks need killing! he said to a church audience in White Lake, a small town in the states southeastern corner. Its not a matter of vengeance, he emphasized. Its a matter of necessity! This is the ugly permission slip for violent speech and action that Donald Trump has issued in America. Extreme right politicians out-MAGA one another for attention from the base. Such horror-laden escalations will not stop if Trump is elected. The history of 20th-century totalitarianism shows that despots accelerate intimidation and savagery. Their threats become official government policy. While MAGAworld has long told us where this is heading if we elect Trump, some in the non-MAGAworld who have been sleep-walking are finally waking up. Each of us can be the alarm clock on the bedside table. Spread the word. It matters. Sensible Americans do not want to lose their freedoms. We do not want a country where exercising our rights could risk the end of our lives. Or those of our parents, spouses or children. The looming threat is an infinitely worse-than-the-first Trump presidency, as former Republicans at the Lincoln Project are urgently showing us. And our anxiety understandably rises during the short window when President Joe Biden makes his final decision about whether he will continue his campaign. Its his decision, as many have rightly said. There is nothing we ordinary Americans can do to influence it. He will decide, with his wife and perhaps two or three closest advisories. Americans who value their liberties are in the enterprise of defeating Trumps existential threat to constitutionalism and law. Were ridin with Biden, if he chooses to stay. Well ride with whomever the nominee becomes, if Biden decides that is better for the country. In the meantime, those who grasp the threat Trump poses have an understandable urge to speculate about which course is better for staving off the worst case scenario. Here are two questions I have sometimes forgotten to ask myself in our current moment of alarm: Are you distracting yourself with discussion of matters in which you have no agency? Is there something more useful to do? In the 2015 film, Bridge of Spies, Tom Hanks played a heroic lawyer representing the Russian super spy of the early 1960s, Rudolf Abel. When Abels jury was about to come in with its verdict, and later, when Abel faced the prospect of Siberia as he was returned to the Soviets, Hanks character asked Abel, Arent you worried? Abel answered: Would it help? Likewise today, we can have long conversations over what might happen atop the Democratic ticket, but do they help? Better to stay inside what author Steven R. Covey calls our circle of influence what we actually can affect while decisions get made by those whose choice it is. One way is to support grassroots organizers who talk to potential voters. Unlike the decision before President Biden, we have agency about organizing, sending postcards encouraging citizens to register to vote, using social media, talking to neighbors or writing letters about what is at stake in this election. If the risks to reproductive freedom and personal privacy are your issues, you could share messages about them, including the looming threat of big brother monitoring womens menstrual cycles. Looking for hope? To date, state-by-state abortion rights ballot measures are seven-for-seven, and as many as 10 more may be on the ballot in November. In truth, its ALL of our rights on the ballot. So remind others of Trumps expressed wish to terminate the Constitution, to be dictator on Day One, or that generals like Mark Milley, retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, be executed for reassuring China about Americas stability after January 6. The menacing statement about Milley sounds a lot like Robinsons, Some folks need to be killed. What makes it all worse is that Trumps wishes seem to be the Supreme Court majoritys command. If elected, he will appoint more justices like the ones who just protected him in Trump v. United States. It effectively put presidents above the law, making real the specter of a president with a scepter. One last subject to amplify. Attention is growing over the dangers in the rightwing Heritage Foundations Project 2025, a roadmap to a post-constitutional nation under a second Trump presidency. In a pre-July 4, premeditated statement, Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage, unmistakably threatened violence if there was resistance to his projects ideas: We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be. The iconic 1992 campaign meme of James Carville its the economy, Stupid! requires reframing today: Its our freedom, America! Including if we speak out to resist tyranny, our freedom to live, as Mark Robinson is screaming to us. BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- China's home-developed deep-sea biological gene sequencer has successfully completed its sea trial, representing a great boon for the country's deep-sea research, its developer has announced. The equipment was jointly developed by researchers from the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the CAS Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering. It underwent testing during the expedition mission of China's scientific research ship Tansuo-2 in the South China Sea from June 3 to June 9, the CAS publicity office told Xinhua on Wednesday. During the sea expedition, the biological gene sequencer, on board the deep-sea in-situ laboratory, was deployed twice, reaching a maximum depth of 1,380 meters, according to the CAS. During the trial, the sequencer accomplished continuous sequencing for eight hours in the first deployment, and in the second deployment it completed the entire gene sequencing process, working nonstop for 30 hours with high-quality identification of DNA samples, the CAS said. Over the past five years, the research team has made significant breakthroughs in areas such as sequencing methods, big data processing, underwater encapsulation and self-correcting software, which enable the team to achieve a fully automated, unmanned and continuous gene sequencing process, it said. Democrat warns US leaders about Trump loyalists target list of people to be detained in live stream raids A senior Democrat called for congressional leaders to denounce a Trump loyalists claim to have compiled a deep state target list of public figures to be detained if the former president returns to power next year. This is a deadly serious report, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland told Raw Story, regarding its extensive discoveries about Ivan Raiklin, a former US army reserve lieutenant colonel and US Defense Intelligence Agency employee the site said was seeking to enlist rightwing sheriffs while calling himself Donald Trumps future secretary of retribution. Raskin has spoken extensively of his own harrowing experiences on 6 January 2021, when Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to block certification of Joe Bidens election win. Nine deaths, about 1,300 arrests and hundreds of convictions are now linked to the attack. Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but escaped conviction when Senate Republicans stayed loyal. Now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump leads Biden in polling and has made pardons for January 6 prisoners a key campaign promise. In its report about Raiklin, Raw Story noted Trumps words at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland last year, when he told supporters: I am your warrior. I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. By his own description, in a video posted to X in May, Raiklin wants to implement that retribution with live-streamed swatting raids against individuals on his deep state target list. The deep state conspiracy theory holds that a permanent government of bureaucrats and operatives exists to thwart Trump. The theory was popularised by Steve Bannon, the former Trump campaign chair and White House strategist now in prison for contempt of Congress over the January 6 investigation. Bannon has said the deep state theory is for nutcases. Nonetheless, Raw Storys report about Raiklins plans contained chilling details. According to the site, the target list Raiklin has circulated since January includes Democratic and Republican elected officials; FBI and intelligence officials; members of the House January 6 committee; US Capitol police officers and civilian employees; witnesses in Trumps two impeachment trials and the January 6 hearings; and journalists from publications ranging from CNN and the Washington Post to Reuters and Raw Story. Related: Republicans call Trumps move to distance himself from Project 2025 preposterous Raiklin has described his plans in in podcast interviews, multiple posts on X, a press conference and conversations with prominent far-right extremists, Raw Story said, adding that Raiklin acknowledged but did not answer the news outlets questions. Claiming to be being hounded, he told the site: Look at my entire Deep State target list. That is the beginning. This is the scratching of the surface of who is going to be criminalized for their treason, OK? Citing public records requests, the site said Raiklin had pitched his plans to far-right sheriffs who met in Las Vegas in April, without take-up. He has also attempted to build relationships with conservative members of Congress, the site said, efforts leading to Raiklin being seen sitting behind witnesses at at least five House committee hearings over the past year. In a May podcast, Raw Story said, Raiklin said he had sent his Deep State target list to James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the House oversight committee; Jim Jordan of Ohio, chair of the House judiciary committee; and to the House administration oversight committee, led by Barry Loudermilk of Georgia. None of the congressmen responded to requests for comment, Raw Story said, adding that aides to Loudermilk and Comer said they were familiar with Raiklin. Meanwhile, Raskin sought to sound alarm bells. A retired US military officer has drawn up a deep state target list of public officials he considers traitors, along with our family members and staff, Raskin said. His hit list is a vigilante death warrant for hundreds of Americans and a clear and present danger to the survival of American democracy and freedom. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, should denounce this dangerous plot and repudiate threats of, and planning for, political violence from any quarter, Raskin said. Bipartisan opposition to vigilante violence and assassination plots is essential for American government to continue. In its reporting, Raw Story also said Raiklin was linked to Michael Flynn, the retired general who was briefly the national security adviser to Trump before emerging as a prominent figure on the Christian nationalist far right. The site also described Raiklins involvement in Trumps attempt to overturn the 2020 election, through a memo claiming Mike Pence, then vice-president, could block electoral results, and via links to Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia extremist then a congresswoman-elect. Raiklin was at the US Capitol on January 6. He has not been charged in relation to the attack. The army reserve cleared him of wrongdoing. The Trump campaign did not comment. A spokesperson for the New York Times, employer of five journalists reportedly on Raiklins list, said: The conspiracy theories underpinning this list are baseless, and the calls for targeted harassment are dangerous In the event of any instances directed at our employees, the Times will work with law enforcement to prosecute those responsible. Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, told Raw Story: The idea that you would target anyone on the basis of allegiance to the rule of law and the constitution is really scary. Two days after President Joe Biden asserted he was firmly committed to staying in the 2024 race, Democrats continue to question his place as their nominee, with the number of lawmakers calling for him to step aside ticking up Wednesday evening. Vermont Sen. Peter Welch became the first Democratic senator to call on Biden to step aside as the nominee in a Washington Post op-ed published Wednesday. Just 10 congressional Democrats have publicly called for Biden to step aside, but a larger number are operating under a premise that Biden may still be deliberating, with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying Wednesday, Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. The comments made by Pelosi, who is known for her precision, confused some members but also provided an opening for others, according to conversations with multiple lawmakers and aides. Pelosi commented on the issue on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' on Wednesday, July 10. - From MSNBC After a group of California House Democrats met in the Capitol Wednesday, many emerged echoing a similar sentiment. The president has got to decide what he is going to do, Democratic Rep. Scott Peters told CNN. When presented with the reality that Biden has stated he plans to remain in the race, Peters responded, I dont think the week is over. I think that as more and more data comes in, hes got to keep his eyes open. Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman told CNN that just because Biden has said he made his decision to remain in the race, that does not mean it is final. It doesnt work that way, Huffman, who has raised concerns about Biden, told CNN. We all understand this as President Bidens decision. I will just say that good leaders always continue to consider new information and changed circumstances and sometimes make different decisions informed by that. So, this is going to be fluid for a little while. Even Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina who is a strident Biden supporter, told reporters Wednesday he has no idea if Bidens decision to stay in the race is final. Youll have to ask him. Sen. Joe Manchin, an independent from West Virginia, told CNN Wednesday when pressed on if he really thought Biden could change his mind, if you cant change your mind, you cant change anything, adding he has always believed rational people do the right thing. Rep. Jared Huffman departs a House Democratic Caucus meeting at Democratic National Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill July 9, 2024. - Francis Chung/POLITICO/AP The high stakes meetings on Capitol Hill that kicked off on Tuesday also did little to resolve Democratic divisions over Bidens future. House members leaving a nearly two-hour meeting at the DNC argued they were still working through the process, and various caucuses within the Democratic party including lawmakers who represent the most competitive districts have held private meetings with Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has promised to relay concerns to the White House. New York Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, reversed course on Wednesday and went public with his concerns that Biden remaining at the top of the ticket could hurt Democrats chances of winning back the House of Representatives. Torres said in a statement Wednesday that there must be a serious reckoning with the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate, when two days prior had called the intra-party controversy self-destructive. Crystalizing his criticism, Torres said in a statement to CNN if we are going on a political suicide mission, then we should at least be honest about it. In just the last two days, Democratic Reps. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Pat Ryan of New York have called on Biden to step aside, bringing the total number of congressional Democrats to make public statements asking Biden to withdraw to 10. During a Senate lunch Tuesday, three Democratic senators Colorados Michael Bennet, Montanas Jon Tester and Ohios Sherrod Brown - expressed concerns to their colleagues that they didnt think Biden could beat Trump in a rematch in November. Bennet later on Tuesday became the first Democratic senator to publicly say he doesnt believe Biden is capable of winning reelection. Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York, is seen in the US Capitol after the last votes of the week on June 28, 2024. - Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Sipa USA/File On Thursday, the Biden campaign will dispatch top campaign officials including senior Biden advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, and Biden Campaign Chair Jen OMalley Dillon to brief senate Democrats during a special meeting, a sign that questions about Bidens future are still lingering. Democrats both publicly and privately contend that one of the challenges of the moment for them is that they need to see more of the President. The President has to be more active, He has to be out there in unscripted situations, answering questions, interacting with voters in order to demonstrate that the debate performance was an anomaly, independent Maine Sen. Angus King said. Many members told CNN that they will be watching Biden very carefully for the remainder of the week, including a high-profile press conference he is scheduled to host on Thursday at NATO. The number three Democrat in the House, Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, said Tuesday, Lets see, referring to the upcoming events. Well see how this plays out, Democratic Rep. Jim Costa of California said. This story has been updated with additional developments. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) became the first Senate Democrat to go public with his concerns about Joe Biden on Tuesday, saying that he doesnt believe the president can beat Donald Trump in November. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with it the Senate and the House, Bennet told CNNs Kaitlan Collins. I have not seen anything remotely approaching the kind of plan we need to see out of the White House that can demonstrate that he can actually beat Donald Trump, he said. The race, Bennet added, is not going to be about the accomplishments that we all had three and four years ago. Its going to be what the future of this country is going to be. Asked whether he believed Biden should step aside for a younger candidate to lead his party, Bennet didnt directly answer. But by saying Biden, 81, should step aside, he became the Senate Democrat whos come closest to calling for the president to drop out even though others have reportedly expressed private doubts about Bidens ability to win in November. BREAKING: Democratic Senator Michael Bennet tells @kaitlancollins that President Biden cannot win the 2024 election. Watch their conversation: pic.twitter.com/XrDINESLVy TheSourceCNN (@TheSourceCNN) July 10, 2024 A closed-door meeting between Senate Democrats earlier on Tuesday yielded no consensus on whether to stick with Biden. Some senators expressed support for the president, while others stayed quiet and avoided questions from the press. Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) reportedly joined Bennet in expressing concerns about Bidens ability to win during the meeting. During his interview on CNN, Bennet said he has heard from constituents worried about Bidens fitness. These are my voters who said to me, I have been through this with my mom, I have been through this with my dad. Im terrified what it would mean if Donald Trump is reelected in this country, Bennet said. We have a moral obligation to the people we represent, he added. Bidens campaign responded to Bennets comments by pointing to statements other Democrats have made in support of the president. No one is more committed to defeating Donald Trump and defending our democracy than Joe Biden, and few know better than Joe Biden the importance of showing up and campaigning to earn the support of voters, Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a statement to HuffPost. This was always going to be a close race and the dynamics at play are the ones weve long anticipated: voters continue to be deeply concerned by Donald Trump and his harmful agenda, and the more we engage and reach out to voters, the more they support President Biden. There are a lot of days between now and election day, and the hard work of earning every single vote is far from over. A protester on 1 July 2024 in front of the US supreme court building. A protester on 1 July 2024 in front of the US supreme court building. Photograph: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock The US attorney general should appoint a special counsel to investigate potential criminal violations of federal ethics and tax laws by the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, two Democratic senators have said. Thomas has been at the center of an ongoing scandal over undeclared gifts, many from the rightwing mega-donor Harlan Crow, which have included flights, vacations, school fees and a property purchase. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a member of the judiciary committee, and Ron Wyden of Oregon, chair of the Senate finance committee, released a letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, on Monday citing evidence of repeated and willful omissions of gifts and income from Justice Thomass financial disclosure reports which, they said, were required by the Ethics in Government Act. They said the scale of Thomass potential ethics violations and the willful pattern of disregard for ethics laws more than met the level generally required by the Department of Justice to investigate. Related: The US supreme court just basically legalized bribery | Moira Donegan The senators also cited the serious possibility of additional tax fraud and false statement violations by Justice Thomas and his associates. Samuel Alito, another arch-conservative on a court dominated 6-3 by the right after Donald Trump made three appointments during his presidential term, has also been the subject of reporting about ethics questions. He and Thomas have refused to recuse themselves from cases in which their independence might be questioned. ProPublica won a Pulitzer prize for its reporting on gifts to justices, prominently including Thomas. Garland is unlikely to grant Whitehouse and Wydens request, given the political sensitivities involved with opening a criminal investigation into a sitting supreme court justice. But as the court has recently handed huge victories to the right removing the federal right to abortion, declaring presidents immune from prosecution for certain acts and eviscerating the administrative state the Democratic senators appear to be aiming to keep attention on a scandal. The courts chief justice, John Roberts, has refused to testify in Congress about the ethics concerns. Roberts did oversee the introduction of a new code of conduct but it has no means of enforcement other than by the justices themselves. Thomas and the court did not immediately comment about the senators request for a special counsel, nor did the Department of Justice. In their letter, the senators said: We do not make this request lightly. The evidence plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have complied with their federal tax obligations. Presented with opportunities to resolve questions about his conduct, Justice Thomas has maintained a suspicious silence. No government official should be above the law. Questions over whether President Joe Biden should remain the Democrats' candidate in November have not died down since the first debate. On June 27, Biden struggled to answer questions during the first presidential debate with Donald Trump, leading many to question his fitness for four more years in office. Several lawmakers and Democratic surrogates have voiced concerns, and some even called on Biden to step down from the race. But he has remained defiant, saying he is "firmly committed to staying in this race" in a Monday letter to congressional Democrats. Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, became the first Democratic senator to call for President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race. In an opinion piece published Wednesday, he argued that despite being "one of the best presidents of our time" Biden should withdraw "for the good of the country." In the flurry of possibility for a very different election cycle than anticipated, other top Democrats have weighed in. Here are some party leaders' comments on Biden's candidacy. More: Democratic governors to President Biden: 'Path to victory is the No. 1 priority' George Clooney: 'We need a new nominee' Actor George Clooney, one of the 2022 Kennedy Center honorees, attends a reception at the White House on December 04, 2022 in Washington, DC. Clooney, a longtime support of President Biden, called on him to step out of the 2024 presidential election. Role: Actor, active celebrity fundraiser for the Democratic party Stance: Biden should step down. In his words: "I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him," he wrote in an opinion essay published Wednesday. "But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate." Peter Welch: 'The stakes could not be higher' Role: U.S. Senator from Vermont Position: Americans can not ignore valid concerns about Biden. In his words: "I have great respect for President Biden. He saved our country from a tyrant. He is a man of uncommon decency. He cares deeply about our democracy. He has been one of the best presidents of our time," Welch wrote in an Washington Post opinion piece published Wednesday night. "But I, like folks across the country, am worried about Novembers election. The stakes could not be higher. We cannot unsee President Bidens disastrous debate performance. We cannot ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night." Nancy Pelosi: 'It's up to the president to decide' Role: Representative from California, former House Speaker. Stance: Seemingly questioning whether Biden should remain the nominee. In her words: "Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run," Pelosi said Wednesday on morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We're all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short. Hillary Clinton: 'I'll be voting Biden' Role: Former democratic presidential nominee, secretary of state and U.S. senator Stance: Planning to vote for Biden. In her words: "The choice in this election remains very simple," Clinton said in a post on X the day after the debate. "It's a choice between someone who cares about youyour rights, your prospects, your futureversus someone who's only in it for himself. I'll be voting Biden." Michael Bennet: Trump on track to win 'by a landslide' Role: U.S. Senator from Colorado Position: Biden won't beat Trump, but Bennet did not call on Biden to step aside. In his words: Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House, Bennet said in an interview with CNN Tuesday night. "I'm sure President Biden has a different view of his prospects in this election than I do, but we should be having a discussion about that." Barack Obama: 'Bad debate nights happen' Role: Former democratic president Stance: The debate did not change the stakes. In his words: "Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself," Obama said on X the day after the debate. "Last night didnt change that, and its why so much is at stake in November." Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 28, 2024 The Squad: 'He is in this race and I support him' Role: Progressive congressional Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass. Stance: Supporting Biden Ocasio-Cortez: I have spoken with him extensively. He made clear then and he has made clear since that he is still in this race. The matter is closed, said Ocasio-Cortez Monday. He had reiterated that this morning. He has reiterated that to the public. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him. House members ask Biden to step down At least eight Democratic lawmakers have made public statements calling on Biden to exit the race: A few other representatives have been reportedly said Biden should exit the race during a private call Sunday. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden 2024: George Clooney joins Democrats urging Biden to step aside WASHINGTON (AP) After meeting for around two hours Tuesday to discuss whether President Joe Biden should remain at the top of their presidential ticket, Senate Democrats seemed to agree on one thing it's best not to talk about it publicly. Behind closed doors, several Democrats expressed deep concerns about whether Biden can win. But no Democratic senators publicly called for him to drop his reelection bid, underscoring the deep bind facing the party at a crucial juncture in the campaign. Democratic lawmakers are reeling from Bidens calamitous performance at the debate two weeks ago, yet the president has made clear, repeatedly and forcefully, that he has no plans to step aside. Emerging from their meeting Tuesday, senators ducked into elevators, evaded questions, joked, and stated the obvious that they all want to defeat former Republican Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee. But very few of them would comment on Bidens future, whether they think he should remain the Democratic candidate, or what the Senate could potentially do about it. Some of them appeared resigned. People are all focused on winning right now, said Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, who is in charge of Senate Democrats' campaign arm. Can you win with Biden? Hes our nominee, Peters said. There is absolute unanimity that we have to defeat Trump, said Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who would not say if Biden is the best person to do that. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who reached out to colleagues last week in hopes of meeting to discuss Bidens future, would only say the caucus lunch was a constructive conversation. He declined to elaborate. Senators have been sharing their anxieties about the election in private for almost two weeks since the debate, but are reluctant about the ramifications of speaking out especially if Biden stays on the ticket. As such, it is unclear if Democrats on Capitol Hill will be able to agree, at all, on whether Biden should remain their nominee. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, like many of his colleagues, has stuck with one line all week: As I said before, Im with Joe. He repeated it three times in a row at a press conference after the lunch meeting, ignoring questions about whether Biden is still fit to run. While its not unusual for the details of the weekly Senate party luncheons to be kept private, the evasiveness was extraordinary given the magnitude of the discussions over whether to try and push their own partys president off the November ballot. Not only did senators decline to provide details of the closed-door party talks, but most also declined to give their own opinions on the subject. Asked whether Biden should remain on the ticket, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey said he's not a political analyst and others might have opinions on that. Casey, who is up for re-election in a critical swing state, said he thinks he and Biden will both win in November, but acknowledged, it's going to be hard, since he's in a close race. As most remained quiet, one senator did decide to publicly express his views. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said on CNN Tuesday evening that he spoke up in the meeting and predicted that Biden can't win. I did say that behind closed doors, Bennet said. Donald Trump is on track I think to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House. Several senators have said they think Biden should do more to prove that he can win, including Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the most senior Senate Democrat. Like Bennet, she stopped short of calling on him to exit the race. We need to see a much more forceful and energetic candidate on the campaign trail in the very near future in order for him to convince voters he is up to the job, Murray said in a statement on Monday night. And a few senators were vocal Biden boosters, including Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, who replaced Biden in the Senate and is one of his strongest allies, and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who has criticized his colleagues for doubting the president. Nothings changed, Fetterman said after the meeting. Joe Biden is our guy. Hes my guy. And hes the only guy ever to kick Trumps ass. And the mood in the room? It was magic, like a Taylor Swift concert, Fetterman joked. But he did not answer the question. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., says its important to keep the discussions private, so senators can talk honestly amongst themselves. Its important that as a group of individuals that have really big responsibilities, that we can have confidential conversations, Smith said. God knows, we talk all the time, all over the place to all sorts of people. But its also important that in our group that we can have confidential conversations. There was a similar dynamic in the House earlier Tuesday, when Democrats met privately to discuss Biden. While several members who are supporting Bidens candidacy spoke out and said so publicly afterward, very few members have come out to say he should end his reelection bid, despite making the case in the private meeting. Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley was one of the few Democrats to say forcefully in public that he thinks Biden should step down. He just has to step down because he cant win, Quigley said. My colleagues need to recognize that. ___ Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report. Democrats say democracy is in peril. So why dont they stand up to Bob Ferguson? | Opinion For much of the last four years, Democrats have warned Americans about the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy. From the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to his phone call telling Georgias Secretary of State he wanted to find 11,780 votes, Democrats say Trumps actions amount to nothing short of election interference something the party takes very seriously. Or does it? Imagine for a moment if a Trump-backed candidate for governor asked Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs to break election laws on his or her behalf. Imagine if that candidate demanded publicly and privately that Hobbs change the order on the ballot to put their name higher up. Then imagine if authorities refused to investigate that candidates conduct until after the election is certified in November. Democrats would be enraged and rightfully so. For a Republican candidate, any whisper of election interference would be the death knell of their campaign in a state like Washington. But if youre Attorney General Bob Ferguson? No big deal. Clear violation of state election law On May 13, after conservative watchdog Glen Morgan found two other Bob Fergusons to run for governor as Democrats, Ferguson threatened legal action and sought special treatment from Hobbs, a fellow Democrat. During a press conference, Ferguson made three demands of Hobbs: Require the other two Bobs to use the name Robert with middle initials, add job titles to help voters tell them apart, and put their names below his on the ballot. To his last demand, Hobbs answer was unequivocal: No. Hobbs said changing the order on the ballot would be a clear violation of state election law, which dictates ballot order must be set by a random draw. Later, Hobbs told a reporter with the Washington State Standard that the answer was not satisfactory to Ferguson, and the pressure campaign continued in a phone conversation. I was surprised he was asking me to do something that I clearly cannot do because it is in the [law], Hobbs said at the time. He was very upset. It was a spirited conversation. Of course, the other two Bobs ended their campaigns under pressure, but not before the attorney general revealed how willing he is to resort to election interference when his campaign is on the line. While I expect as much out of a career politician who has dreamed of occupying the governors office for years, I did not expect the news media to treat his actions so uncritically. A Democrat, who serves as the states chief law enforcer, pressuring the states top elections official to push the envelope to benefit his campaign and hardly a peep about it in the news? As a former reporter myself, I consider it journalistic malpractice. If Ferguson was a Republican, that phone call would have sealed his fate but as a Democrat he emerged from the ordeal completely unscathed. Progressive hypocrisy Even Fergusons friends at the Washington State Bar Association, which regulates attorney conduct, circled the wagons. On May 29, State Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah, who is also running for governor, filed a formal complaint asking the WSBA to investigate Fergsons actions. Bob Ferguson violated common known rules about lawyers recusing themselves from cases where they have a conflict of interest, along with Washington State Executive Ethics rules about not using the power of your elected office to benefit your political campaign, Mullets campaign wrote in a press release. Mullet said Fergusons efforts to pressure Hobbs, specifically his comments over the phone, violated state law. This verbal demand then became a Washington State Ethics violation of RCW 42.52.180. AG Ferguson was asking the Secretary of State to violate state law for the benefit of his own political campaign for governor. The WSBAs Office of Disciplinary Counsel responded on June 12 by saying it would hold off on investigating Fergusons conduct until after the November election is certified. Please inform us when the election results are finally certified and we will consider investigating the grievance. So much for no one being above the law. In full transparency, I have endorsed the campaign of gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert, seeking an independent-minded candidate to be a check on the party in power. I have also been supportive of Mullets campaign, seeing him as a sane alternative to the states current brand of progressivism. As both a political commentator and in my previous career as a TV journalist, Bob Ferguson has always struck me as someone far too eager for power and far too willing to test the limits of that power. While this ordeal certainly solidifies that opinion, it also shows a glaring moral inconsistency from Democrats who believe such behavior makes Donald Trump unfit for office. So, the next time Ferguson talks about the threat of Trumpism to democracy, remember his own foray into election interference. Ask yourself whether someone who would bend the rules to benefit his political career is the type of person we want leading our state. Brandi Kruse is a political commentator and former Seattle TV journalist. She hosts unDivided with Brandi Kruse, a show offering insights and opinions about Washington politics. WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) President Joe Bidens future as the Democratic nominee remains uncertain. An eighth House Democrat called on the president to step aside as questions swirl behind the scenes. Several Democrats who publicly endorsed the president as the nominee are expressing real concern. However, President Biden is trying to map a path forward. Ive never been more optimistic about Americas chances, said Biden. Wednesday morning the president delivered remarks to union leaders, a key voter base that propelled his path to victory in 2020. However, others have expressed ongoing concerns about the presidents ability. While I have expressed concerns, I do believe this is fundamentally his decision, said Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.). Since the debate, election forecaster Cook Political Report has moved three battleground states to lean Republican. Wednesday, New York Congressman Pat Ryan became the 8th Democratic congressman to publicly call on the president to drop out of the race. Thursday, the president will hold his first solo press conference since the debate, and he is planning to do another sit-down interview with NBCs Lester Holt on Monday. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. President Joe Biden's debate performance last month was so bad it sparked a drastic reaction: calls for him to drop out of the presidential race in favor of a Democrat better equipped to defeat former President Donald Trump. In an extraordinary development, as of Wednesday at 2 p.m. Eastern, 10 Democratic members of Congress have either publicly called on Biden to drop out or reportedly did so in a private meeting and haven't refuted the story. Another 37 have expressed concerns about Biden as the nominee but stopped short of saying he should drop out. (These numbers are based on VoteHub's excellent tracker of Democrats' stances on Biden, supplemented by reporting from ABC News.) However, even more Democratic members of Congress have rallied to Biden's side. Since the debate, 89 have made public statements saying they still support Biden as the nominee most of them in the last few days. The rush of support has been a godsend for Biden as he attempts to save his candidacy. The question of whether he will step aside is likely to continue to dog the president, with Democrats seemingly in disagreement over the best way forward, but for now it appears Biden has every intention of staying in this race. So which Democrats are speaking out on this issue and why? At first blush, there may not seem to be much of a pattern in who is calling on Biden to step down and who is standing by his side. But a closer look reveals there are some similarities within these two groups, which may help explain why Biden is hanging on for now. The Democrats who have explicitly called on Biden to step aside are an eclectic bunch. They actually hail from all three clusters of the party, as defined by an analysis 538 conducted in May: three Progressive Democrats, four Core Democrats and three Moderate Democrats. They range in age from 42 (Rep. Pat Ryan) to 77 (Rep. Lloyd Doggett). Most hail from safe Democratic seats, but two (Ryan and Rep. Angie Craig) are vulnerable for reelection. And most are white, but one (Rep. Raul Grijalva) is Hispanic and one (Rep. Mark Takano) is Asian American. However, if we include Democrats who have merely expressed concerns about Biden's candidacy, a clearer pattern emerges. This group is significantly more moderate than the Democratic caucus as a whole; their average DW-NOMINATE score is -0.319. (DW-NOMINATE is a measure of ideology based on roll-call votes, where 1 represents the most conservative and -1 represents the most liberal. The average Democratic member of Congress has a DW-NOMINATE score of -0.376.) Biden doubters also hail disproportionately from swing states or districts. Thirteen out of 37 represent places that Biden lost in 2020 or won by fewer than 10 percentage points. This makes sense when you think about it: The reelection of representatives like Rep. Susan Wild could hinge on how well the Democratic presidential nominee does in their districts, and they may fear that Biden will drag them down with him if he loses big. And for others on this list, such as Sen. Jon Tester, expressing concerns about Biden's age could be part of an overall strategy to distance themselves from a president who will probably lose in their home constituency. By contrast, pore over the list of the Democrats who stand with Biden. They are relatively progressive, with an average DW-NOMINATE score of -0.415. (In fact, none of them hail from the 538-defined Moderate Democrats cluster of the party.) Their states and districts, on average, voted for Biden in 2020 by 36 points; in other words, most of these members are more at risk from a primary challenge than from losing a general election. (Indeed, the fear of facing a pro-Biden challenger may be part of what kept them in line.) And, perhaps most importantly, they are much more racially diverse: only 38 percent white. (Interestingly, though, they're not significantly older than anti-Biden or Biden-skeptical Democrats, so apparently this isn't a generational divide.) For now, this list also includes the most powerful Democratic legislators in the country: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar.* Their opinions obviously carry more weight in Democratic politics than those of any of the people calling for Biden's withdrawal. Moreover, 37 Black senators and representatives have come out in support of Biden, making them a core part of his base of support. (By contrast, only one Black Democrat, Rep. Marc Veasey, has so much as expressed concerns about Biden's candidacy.) This mirrors Biden's historical support among Black voters: In many ways, they were responsible for delivering the Democratic nomination to Biden in 2020 when he won the South Carolina primary after poor finishes in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. So if Biden survives this political scare, he may once again have the support of the Black community to thank. To be sure, it would be a political crisis for Biden to have even one elected Democrat saying he should drop out, let alone 10. Voters pay attention to elite opinions. But the weight of 10 or 47, if you count those with concerns dissenters is still not necessarily enough to force him from the race. For proof of this, look no further than the 2016 presidential campaign, when at least 24 Republican representatives and 15 Republican senators called on Trump to drop out, asked him to reconsider his candidacy or said they would not support him after the "Access Hollywood" tape surfaced. Trump obviously not only stayed in that race he won. Biden is certainly not guaranteed that happy of an ending (although his chances of winning the election, even after that debate performance, are hardly zero). But the quality and quantity of Democrats staying in his corner will make it easier for him to at least stay in the race. Footnotes *Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi was on this list too, until Wednesday morning, when she said, "It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We are all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short." That implies that she'll back whatever Biden decides to do, but it also implies she doesn't accept his insistence that he's not dropping out as the final word. What the Democrats doubting Biden have in common originally appeared on abcnews.go.com A visitor tries oil painting at Dafen Village in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, July 4, 2024. (Photo by Liu Zhiyang/Xinhua) by Xinhua writer Shi Hao SHENZHEN, July 10 (Xinhua) -- I couldn't imagine that a small village nestled in the concrete jungle in the southern city of Shenzhen was home to one of the most concentrated communities of painters in China. Filled with curiosity, I decided to explore Dafen Village, walking into a labyrinth of meandering alleyways featuring studios densely packed on both sides of the streets in a colorful world brimming with paint. Spanning a mere 0.4 square kilometers, Dafen is home to over 400 professional painters, including 50 members of the China Artists Association, and to more than 1,200 studios that are in the painting business. Summer breezes stirred the leafy streets lined with easels, swaying canvases that were hung out for drying. At the corner of an alley, 53-year-old painter Li Yuanfu was busy adding the finishing strokes to an oil painting created by a tourist without a painting background. "On weekends and holidays, tourists flock to Dafen in large numbers. Many of them, particularly young people, are eager to try their hand at oil painting," he told me. Li moved to Dafen along with many other aspiring artists shortly after the once obscure village rendezvoused with art in 1989, when art dealers sought to establish a painting production base near Hong Kong. Over the past decades, Li has witnessed Dafen's rise to fame and its transition from only making replicas to diversified business activities. Just like Li, many studios are tapping into an influx of tourists and offering beginner-friendly painting experiences to visitors. Strolling in Dafen, I saw young individuals and children sitting on the streets and excitedly painting on canvases with unskilled strokes under the guidance of instructors. At a cost of about 10 U.S. dollars and in the space of about an hour, the amateurs can gain a sense of accomplishment and create a work that could end up securing them many likes on social media. Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, waves of tourism mania have swept across China. Being a popular tourist destination in Shenzhen, one of the country's four first-tier cities, Dafen received more than 3 million visitors last year. Li told me that many out-of-town tourists visit Dafen as their first stop in Shenzhen and he is eagerly anticipating a boom in business during the upcoming summer travel season. Dafen gained its fame, in and beyond China, for making replicas of world-renowned masterpieces like the "Mona Lisa," but now a growing number of artists have shifted their focus to creating and selling original artworks. Dong Chaoyang and his wife Zeng Min are two of them. Their works are well-received by tourists from abroad. "Foreigners visiting our shop are always drawn to the landscape paintings with unique Chinese characteristics," Zeng said. The couple found that an increasing number of foreigners want products infused with Chinese culture, which they believe points to a promising direction for artistic creation in Dafen. Although competition in the village is already white-hot, Jin Hongyun decided last year to lease a large store to sell higher-priced original works created by well-known painters, targeting a deep-pocketed clientele. To date, she has sold dozens of paintings. Jin told me that as the middle-income group in China is growing, many families are no longer satisfied with low-quality paintings for room decorations and are turning their eyes to premium artworks, which spawns vast business potential. My brief stay in Dafen gave me the feeling that these painters are never short of creativity when it comes to exploring business opportunities. They are operating talent agencies for young artists, organizing training classes, running painting-themed cafes, making customized gifts for companies and individuals, engaging in jewelry design and production, creating publicity cartoons for local governments, hosting international painting exhibitions and delivering public lectures, to name just a few of their pursuits. Official data showed that Dafen's total output was valued at 3.8 billion yuan (533 million U.S. dollars) in 2023. The painters are incorporating art with diversified business activities, making fortunes from a combination of their talent and diligence. Enditem (Hu Yuqiong, Xu Yuqin, Liu Zhiyang, Yu Jiaqi, Feng Haohang, Zhang Yuli, Xiang Xinyu and Zhang Jiawen also contributed to the story.) This photo taken on July 4, 2024 shows a view of Dafen Village in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province. (Xinhua/Shi Hao) WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) Congressional Democrats remain divided over President Joe Bidens ability to serve a second term in the White House. President Biden has won over support from key allies on Capitol Hill, from top progressives to the powerful Congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses but even some of his biggest supporters still want more proof hes up for a second term. President Biden took the global stage Tuesday to unite other world leaders on the 75th anniversary of NATO. Today, NATO is more powerful than ever, said Biden. However, the presidents own party is anything but unified about the future of his reelection campaign. Unanimity is not the same as unity, said Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.). At least seven House Democrats have called on President Biden to drop out of the race. California Congressmen Pete Aguilar and Juan Vargas argue their energy should be on defeating former President Donald Trump. Its the stupidest thing Ive ever seen. Instead of taking it to the criminal, were taking it to the good guy. Its ridiculous, said Vargas. Senate Democrats remain united in their support of President Biden, but Illinois Senator Dick Durbin says they still need proof that his debate performance was a one-off. At this point, I would say to the president the challenge is to you. Show us in the way you campaign that you can effectively defeat Donald Trump, said Durbin. Former President Donald Trump used his first campaign rally since last months debate to go after President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. If Joe had picked someone even halfway competent, they would have bounced him from office years ago, said Trump. Harris says she and President Biden are ready for a rematch. In November, we will win! Harris declared. The president continues to do outreach not only with Democrats in Congress but also governors and mayors across the country. Hell meet with labor union leaders on Wednesday. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Democratic leaders in Congress are waiting until just after Thursdays NATO summit in Washington has concluded before they make a fateful decision on how to approach President Joe Biden on whether and how he should end his candidacy. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), appearing on MSNBCs Morning Joe show Wednesday, said she has advised fellow anxious Democrats to hold their fire while Biden hosts leaders from around the world in the nations capital. But they will be gone late Thursday. Then it will likely fall to Pelosi and Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), another veteran House leader, to meet privately with the president, who is a dear friend and former colleague to both of them. Ive said to everyone: Lets just hold off, Pelosi said on MSNBC. Whatever youre thinking: Either tell somebody privately, but you dont have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week. Privately is how Pelosi tends to handle important matters, especially when the future of her party and the country is at stake. Except, however, on Morning Joe Wednesday, when she became the most senior Democrat to suggest Biden should reconsider his candidacy when she publicly declined to say whether she still supports the 81-year-old Biden for president. Pelosi, 85, said its up to the president to decide but that were all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short. Nancy Pelosi on MSNBC's Morning Joe to discuss President Joe Biden staying in the election. MSNBC Less than two hours after she spoke, George Clooney, the actor and major Democratic fundraiser, used a New York Times op-ed to bluntly tell Biden to quit and to do it to save democracy. That intervention from a reliable Democratic star and longtime Biden ally will only increase the sense of time running out for Biden. Waiting until after the NATO meeting concludes means waiting until the next opportunity for Biden to stumble on Thursday afternoon, when hes scheduled to hold a live press conference to wrap up the summit. Pelosis former longtime chief of staff, John Lawrence, recently mused in his blog, Domeocracy, that First Lady Jill Biden and the presidents sister, Valerie, may conclude that the presidents legacy will be irreparably shredded if his physical and mental capability become the singular issue of the campaign rather than focusing on defeating Donald Trump. The two people who are likely to be the ones to tell Biden to go are James Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat, and Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker. The three are close: earlier this year Biden presented Clyburn with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a ceremony attended by Pelosi. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters Lawrence also floated that it will take the likes of his former powerful boss and Clyburn, a proven rainmaker who turns 84 this month, to meet privately with Biden and make the case that enough is enough its time to save your legacy, save your party and save the country. Lawrence noted that Clyburn often chastised rank-and-file Democrats with his signature phrase, If youre splainin, youre losin. Clyburn surely knows there is no way Biden can splain his way out of his disastrous debate performance, which shined a spotlight on the presidents mental acuity and raised serious questions about his fitness to serve as commander in chief. So far, only a handful of congressional Democrats have openly called for Biden to step aside even as they privately worry and grouse. If Democratic congressional leaders, who now worry that Biden could take them down with him, by losing both the House and the Senate to Republicans, do convince the president to abandon his run for relection, Clyburn would play the pivotal role at a brokered Democratic National Convention in Chicago. As Lawrence noted, Clyburns longtime former aide Jamie Harrison, is the DNC chairman. No one wants to pile on good old Joe at what must be the lowest moment of his career, but there are bigger stakes than preserving Bidens ego (or his familys exhortations to stick it out), Lawrence wote on his blog. But if anyone can play the role of political seismologist and convince Biden to end his race, I would be on Jim Clyburn. 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. Time to check your voter registration, New York: According to Politico, the deep blue Big Apple is teetering on the brink of becoming a battleground state as support for Joe Biden dissolves like the remnants of a bad dollar slice tossed into the Hudson. According to Politico, Democratic elected officials, union leaders, and political consultants are worried that Bidens team is ignoring New York and are trying to get it to boost his campaign in the state. Theyre also deeply concerned about the Democrats in six swing districts that could determine whether the party maintains control of the House come November. One high-level New York Democrat who spoke with Politico anonymously assessed that Democratic politicians facing tough races should avoid association with Biden, instead focusing on building their brand independent from him. Biden isnt going to be handing out coattails, no matter what, the Democrat said. Hes only got anchors. According to two private polls reviewed by Politico, one taken in September 2023 and the other in March 2024, Donald Trump leads Biden by one point in New York House swing districtsputting candidates in those six districts in the crosshairs. Public polls show Bidens lead against Trump across the state has shrunk to just eight points, according to a Siena College poll conducted in June. In the lead-up to the 2020 general election, Biden led Trump by nearly 30 points across New York, an astonishing plummet. Were still acting like this is a one-party state, which for pretty much 20, 25 years it has been, Democratic Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine told Politico. I truly believe were a battleground state now. Meanwhile, Bidens team expects him to easily win the state in November and have shown little interest in committing resources to it. During the 2024 election, Biden has largely only visited the Empire State for closed-door ritzy fundraisers, which are consistently protested by New Yorkers denouncing Bidens support for Israels devastation of Gaza. He made one public appearancea dedication ceremony for the Stonewall Inn Visitor Center in late Junebut that too was overshadowed by protests. While Bidens polls have sent alarm bells ringing ahead of the 2024 general election, New York has been in a backslide for at least the past two years: During the 2022 midterm elections, New York Governor Kathy Hochul barely eked out a win against ultraconservative election-denialist Lee Zeldin, whose campaign largely focused on fearmongering about crime in New York City. Four blue congressional seats flipped red that year, including the humiliating defeat of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Sean Patrick Maloney to Republican Assemblymember Mike Lawler. A number of other races across New York State also faced surprisingly close contests. The midterm turnout in New York showed voters across the state swung to the right, falling for Republicans heavily stoking fear about crime. Moderate Democratic Representative Pat Ryanwhose seat is at risk in New Yorks 18th congressional district, north of New York City, and who narrowly won in 2022called for Biden to bow out on Wednesday. Id be doing a grave disservice if I said he was the best candidate to serve this fall. For the good of our country, for my two young kids, Im asking Joe Biden to step aside in the upcoming election and deliver on the promise to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders, he told The New York Times. I really hope, with all my heart, that he will listen. Still, many New York electeds continue backing Biden, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Both have expressed support for Biden as the Democratic nominee as he continues facing headwinds of doubt following his disastrous debate performance. As Ive said before, Im with Joe, Schumer said during his weekly press conference on Tuesday. The matter is closed, Ocasio-Cortez told the press on Monday. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race, and I support him. Democratic Party spokesperson Jen Goodman brushed aside concerns with confidence of New Yorkers long-standing hatred for Donald Trump, telling Politico, Time and again New Yorkers have rejected Donald Trump. Hes the most unpopular person in New York politics, and there is no doubt that voters will once again turn out for President Biden in November, Goodman added. For all the talk from congressional Democrats about Donald Trump being an existential threat to democracy, they sure arent acting like it. Thats true in how they are handling the situation with President Joe Bidens precarious reelection campaign, but the problem goes much deeper. To hear leading Democrats tell it, Trump is a major threat to the future of democratic institutions in the United States. After the events of Jan. 6, 2021, during which Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, seeking to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to Biden after the Democrat won the 2020 election, Democrats sounded the alarm. ThenHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement calling on Trump Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment and immediately remove Trump from office. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who later chaired the special congressional committee investigating the attempted election subversion, said, Though it has been apparent for years, it is more clear than ever that President Trump is a direct threat to the homeland. Democrats rhetoric against Trump has been apocalyptic and existential since that moment. House Democrats, to their credit, did impeach Trump for his actions with one week left in his term, with post-office conviction blocked by a divided group of Senate Republicans. And after a long delay, Democrats in Congress worked with Senate Republicans to pass legislation in 2022 that makes it much harder to steal elections via manipulating Electoral College rules, i.e., Trumps goal on Jan. 6. But more recently, Democrats have not done nearly enough to deal with the ongoing risks to democracy that they themselves repeatedly raise. They have supported election deniers running in Republican primaries in an attempt to ease the path for Democratic candidates in general elections. They have not made it a legislative priority to change or repeal the Insurrection Act, a law that could be a major tool in a second Trump administration to send federal troops into U.S. cities in what would surely be an invitation for violent clashes. They have sought to promote Trumps dangerous rhetoric from 2020 opposing mail-in voting in the cynical, antidemocratic hope of tamping down Republican turnout. Democrats reaction to the highly dangerous immunity decision from the Supreme Court has been muted despite the fact that Trump is now, remarkably, the leading candidate to be president in 2025, promising to be a dictator on Day 1 and newly empowered by the court to do just that should he win. The Supreme Courts opinion opens the door to potential Trump lawlessness and violence, a risk exacerbated by the reality that Trump will have more loyalists and fewer principled Republicans carrying out his orders in a new administration. As House Republicans have used their majority to hold phony hearings on weaponization of the Department of Justice, Senate Democrats have done little with their majority to react to what they say is the very real threat of Trumpism. Where are the Senate hearings? And this brings us to the situation with Joe Biden. He followed his worrisome debate performance, an appearance that raised questions about his mental competence, with scant activity to convince skeptical Americans that he has the mental stamina to do the job even now, much less to continue it for the next four and a half years. A recent CBS poll showed that only 27 percent of people think Biden has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president, compared to 72 percent who think he does not. (A month ago, before the debate, the numbers were 35/65.) In swing-state polls, Biden is losing, and polls are moving in the wrong direction. Careful election analyst Dave Wasserman wrote on X: The notion that the presidential is a Toss Up was a stretch even before the debate. Today, Trump has a clear advantage over Biden and a much more plausible path to 270 Electoral votes. Dave Weigel notes that this is the first time in 24 years that a Republican is leading in polling averages after July 4. In July 2020, Biden was leading by 9 points. He ended up winning that race by exactly half that margina feat that raises further questions about his ability to overcome Trumps growing lead. Despite this, few congressional Democrats have spoken up to call on Biden to step aside now, before he is officially nominated, when it would be easy to have another Democrats name appear on the ballot. After the official nomination, state ballot access would be a huge mess. But who is to say how Biden will be doing physically and mentally in one, two, or three months? Instead, most Democrats are silent or have expressed their support for Bidens run. Yet, behind the scenes, according to numerous reports, Democrats expect a shellacking, one that could not only take down Biden but also ensure that Trumpist Republicans control the House and the Senate. That situation of unified Republican political control, combined with a compliant Supreme Court, is powerful and volatile. Yet Biden seems to be taking this in stride too, telling interviewer George Stephanopoulos, when asked how he would feel next January if he stayed in the race and lost to Trump, Ill feel, as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, thats what this is about. If its really true, though, that a second Trump term would be the kind of five-alarm fire that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned about in her dissent in the Supreme Courts immunity case, and if Democrats really believe that a Biden loss is inevitable, then their failure to speak up now and intervene with Biden cannot be squared with their rhetoric of the Trump apocalypse of a second term. If you genuinely believe that Democrats dire warnings about Trump and democracy are entirely reasonable, then their cowardice to have a hard conversation with Biden about the presidents path forward is itself a threat to the future of American democracy. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used explosives to breach the dam at the Monongahela River Lock and Dam 3 on Wednesday. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Work wrapping up on Charleroi lock and dam Officials say the project will create a continuous pool of riverway, stretching 30 miles from Charleroi to Braddock, and is expected to generate an economic benefit of $200 million annually. It is a big deal, said Col. Nicholas Melin, Army Corps Pittsburgh district commander. Not just for the region but the Pittsburgh District Corps of Engineers has over 800 employees and many of them have been working on this project for three decades. The controlled demolition is of the first 50-foot section of the dam, with others to follow. The work to remove the rest of the dam will continue through December. Other phases of work should last until 2027. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Sheetz now offering beer, wine delivery in Pennsylvania Cant understand why this happened: Woman dies after Homestead crash Police warning neighbors about rattlesnake sightings in Westmoreland County VIDEO: Police stepping up patrols in Pittsburghs Knoxville neighborhood after recent car vandalism, theft DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) Deputies assisted a man and a dog who were stranded in the Kings River over the weekend, the Fresno County Sheriffs Office said. Around 4 p.m. on Saturday, deputies say a man lost his kayak while floating the Kings River near Adams Avenue and Kings River Road in Parlier. He and his dog safely made their way atop a downed tree in the water while a friend contacted the Sheriffs Office. Sheriffs officials say two of their boating deputies responded to the location and picked him and his dog up. The deputies also helped retrieve his kayak and safely sent him and his dog back downstream. In this situation, the dog was wearing a life jacket. Deputies encourage other pet owners to put life jackets on their pets as well because, although many dogs are great swimmers, they can become overwhelmed. Deputies add there have been times when pet owners drown while trying to save their furry friends, so a life jacket will give dogs the strength to stay afloat and make it easier for them to be rescued. It is also encouraged for people to always wear a life jacket and for those who are not experienced swimmers to remain out of the water. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com | KSEE24 and CBS47. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) will speak during next weeks Republican National Convention, a source familiar with the plans confirmed, after initial uncertainty whether he would be given a slot. The source did not say which day DeSantis would give remarks. The convention will run next Monday through Thursday. A lineup of speakers is expected to be released in the coming days. NBC News first reported that DeSantis would speak at the convention, and the outlet cited a source close to the governor who said they had never been told he would not be speaking at the event in Milwaukee. We have been told for a while we had a speaking slot and have never been told we do not, the source told NBC. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who won the most delegates other than former President Trump during the GOP primary, will not be in attendance for the convention but has urged her delegates to back the former president. DeSantis was largely viewed as Trumps top rival heading into the 2024 primary, but the Florida governor struggled to gain traction with voters and suspended his campaign after finishing in second place in Iowa. Trump and DeSantis were bitter rivals during the primary; the former president repeatedly attacked the Florida governor on his personality and policy until DeSantis suspended his campaign after the Iowa caucuses. Trump often referred to the governor as DeSanctimonious and complained that DeSantis had not been adequately appreciative of his endorsement during the 2018 Florida gubernatorial race. On policy, Trump accused DeSantis of copying his ideas. DeSantis had avoided directly attacking Trump in the early months of his presidential bid, but by the end of his campaign the Florida governor was telling supporters Trump had lost the zip on his fastball and was not the same candidate who united the party in 2016 and 2020. While DeSantis endorsed Trump upon suspending his campaign in January, the sniping did not stop. After DeSantis reportedly aired grievances about Trump on a call with supporters, top Trump aide Chris LaCivita responded that DeSantis was a sad little man. The two men met in person in April. While Trump likely does not need DeSantiss help to win the state of Florida in November, the governor has a strong base of donors and supporters who could help the former president as he takes on President Biden, and DeSantis may have his eye on 2028. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. CHICAGO Governor JB Pritzker appeared in front of the cameras Tuesday for the first time since last weeks high stakes White House meeting between him, President Joe Biden and other Democratic governors from around the United States. Pritzker was one of more than 20 governors that huddled with Biden about his reelection bid after the candidates poor debate performance. The hour-long meeting was described by those who attended as honest and candid. The president did a great job of answering questions throughout that meeting, Pritzker said. Listen, Joe Biden is our nominee, I am for Joe Biden. Pritzker, who has risen in national prominence, has been widely mentioned as a possible replacement on the ticket, but for now said he remains a top surrogate for the Biden-Harris campaign, which is holding an event Friday in Indiana, and Saturday in Ohio. More from Tahman: Mayor Johnson questioned over response to deadly weekend violence Another rising Democratic star, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, has ruled out running if Biden exits the race. Pritzker was asked if hell do the same. Im not engaging in any hypotheticals. You can see that Im all in for Joe Biden, Pritzker said. Joe Biden is going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party. Im going to go out there and wholeheartedly campaign for him. Ive endorsed him and Kamala Harris. Biden told the governors that his campaign is full speed ahead, and its a message hes taking to congressional Democrats, but deep concerns about the partys 81-year-old standard-bearer remain. Illinois senator Dick Durbin and congressman Mike Quigley are two of those politicians expressing concerns about Biden still being on the presidential ticket. Of course I do, and I think hes trying to address those directly by the style and nature of his campaign, Durbin said. I think hes aware of the fact that what happened at the debate was disastrous. The fighting spirit and pride and courage that served the country so well four years ago and helped Joe Biden win, will bring the ticket down this time, Quigley said. He just has to step down because he cant win, and my colleagues need to recognize that. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. AUSTIN (KXAN) Cyclists and pedestrians looping Lady Bird Lake will encounter some detours over the next few months as the City of Austin and Waterloo Greenway Conservancy are building new bridges over Waller Creek. The two new pedestrian lattice bridges will cross over the Lagoon Overlook and Leaf Deck for The Confluence, marking the second phase of the Waterloo Greenway, per a city release Tuesday. The first detour begins July 22 and will run through the end of August, depending on weather. During the detour, crews will construct the new lattice bridge and add a short-term creek crossing to assist in later detours. City officials noted future detours will differ on the route crossing the creek. The City of Austin and Waterloo Greenway have a detour planned for the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail this summer amid planned bridge construction work over Waller Creek. (Courtesy City of Austin) For that first detour, users will be guided to a temporary, 12-foot-wide granite trail east of the existing bridge crossing Waller Creek. That temporary trail will be fenced on both sides and users will continue to cross Waller Creek on the existing bridge, per the release. Construction hours run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the week, with the possibility of weekend work. Theres also the potential that trail users will need to stop at certain points to permit construction traffic to cross the trail, with flaggers assisting in alerting pedestrians and cyclists. The City of Austin and Waterloo Greenway are building new pedestrian bridges over Waller Creek across the Lagoon Overlook and Leaf Deck. (Courtesy City of Austin and Waterloo Greenway) The City of Austin and Waterloo Greenway are building new pedestrian bridges over Waller Creek across the Lagoon Overlook and Leaf Deck. (Courtesy City of Austin and Waterloo Greenway) The Confluence is a 13-acre project running along the Waller Creek from Fourth Street to Lady Bird Lake, city officials said. The goal is to create a continuous, off-street, bike and pedestrian trail between the hike-and-bike trail and Fourth Street, as well as enhancing water quality, bolstering nature access to stabilizing the Waller Creeks bank. Construction launched last May and is expected to wrap by spring 2026, the release added. As part of the project, three new lattice bridges will offer east-west connections across Waller Creek. The project is being created in collaboration between the City of Austin, Waterloo Greenway Conservancy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with a total estimated construction cost of $75 million. More details about the project are available online, as well as additional information on the planned detours. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin. BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- In June 1988, Xi Jinping was transferred to Ningde, a backward mountainous prefecture in east China's Fujian Province, to serve as the local Party chief. As one of China's 18 poorest areas back then, Ningde was, in Xi's eyes, "almost a world to itself - hard to get to, with little information from the outside world, and an economy based on small-scale agricultural production." People in Ningde expected the young leader to bring in more investments and projects to lift the prefecture out of poverty. But rather than seeking external assistance, Xi set out for a field trip. Within a month, he set foot in every county of Ningde, talking to local residents to learn about their lives and difficulties. He encouraged the people of Ningde, which is 90 percent mountainous and home to 643 islands, to explore a development path suitable for local conditions. The solution Xi put forward was to adopt an all-encompassing approach to agriculture, which is "on the mountain one lives off the mountain, and by the sea one lives off the sea." Despite his busy inspection schedules, Xi made time to read the local annals, from which he learned that a section of eastern Fujian's coastal waters was once teeming with wild large yellow croakers, a prized delicacy in Chinese cuisine. However, overfishing and the lack of aquaculture technologies had put the fish at risk of extinction. "This is an important resource for eastern Fujian," Xi told local officials. During his tenure in Ningde, Xi supported local efforts in artificially breeding large yellow croakers, which later became a major local industry that helped residents shake off poverty. Today, Ningde produces eight out of every ten large yellow croakers found on Chinese dining tables. Over 300,000 people are engaged in large yellow croaker farming and related industries, with the annual value of the industry chain exceeding 10 billion yuan (about 1.4 billion U.S. dollars). Xi's pragmatic approach is a crucial part of his reform methodology, with which he has steered the country's rapid progress over the past decade as the Chinese president, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Particularly, it underpinned China's successful campaign to eliminate absolute poverty, with targeted poverty alleviation as a central strategy. From 2013 to 2020, he sent out some 255,000 work teams and 3 million officials across the country to provide one-on-one assistance to help impoverished farmers find the most suitable way out of poverty. During these eight years, Xi himself conducted over 50 inspections on poverty alleviation work, including visits to all the 14 regions with high concentrations of extreme poverty. He carefully looked into local industries, especially those with the regions' specialties, talking with farmers in greenhouses, on field ridges, under fruit trees and in front of farmhouses. For some places, conditions were so harsh that only relocation could help the locals become better off. In Atulie'er, a mountain-locked poor village in Sichuan Province, scaling the 800-meter-high cliffs with handmade ladders used to be the only way for the villagers to reach the outside world. "I saw that children had to climb the unsteady vine ladders on the cliffs with no safety measures whatsoever. It made me feel heavyhearted and concerned," Xi said in 2017. In 2020, all 344 residents of Atulie'er left the "cliff village" and moved into brand-new apartments. The villagers have started to plant olives and navel oranges, and the cliffs have now been turned into a tourist attraction -- all these moves generate substantial income. Throughout China's quest for development in the new era, Xi has always stressed the need to find measures that best suit actual conditions. "We must base everything we do on actual conditions and focus on solving real problems arising in our reform, opening up and socialist modernization endeavors in the new era," he said in the report delivered to the 20th CPC National Congress in 2022. Under his guidance, China has unveiled multiple master plans for different regions, such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze Economic Belt and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, drawing tailored blueprints that have brought great changes to the Chinese economic landscape. In developing the new quality productive forces, a concept he introduced as one of China's future reform goals, Xi also called on localities to take into account their own resource endowment, industrial foundation and scientific research conditions. "It is necessary to prevent a headlong rush into projects and the formation of industry bubbles, and avoid adopting just a single model of development," he said at this year's annual national legislative session in March. At a symposium ahead of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, which is to be held from July 15 to 18 to primarily study issues concerning further comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernization, Xi highlighted the need to take "indigenous approaches." "Every region has its own merits, and development must reflect local conditions," he said after listening to advice on reform and modernization from business leaders and scholars at the symposium in May. The Babcock Building, once a distinctive fixture of the State Hospital for the Insane, on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette) COLUMBIA In 1866, a cleft palate so severe he couldnt speak landed Samuel Able, then around 10 or 11 years old, in what was then called the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum. All thats left of Ables story now are doctors notes about his years spent confined with adult men at one of the nations first state-funded asylums for the mentally ill. Doctors called Able one of the most mischievous patients in the asylum and noted that if he had the power of speech he would hardly be regarded as insane, according to patient records. He died before the 1900s, though exactly when is unknown. When disability rights group Able South Carolina started working on a project to uncover and tell the stories of people institutionalized at the sprawling campus along Bull Street, Ables story stuck out to director Kimberly Tissot for his age and just how little is known about him. He was just a little boy, just not understood, Tissot said. His story was featured as part of a website highlighting experiences of the people institutionalized at the mental hospital from shortly after its opening in 1828 until its 1896 renaming to the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane. Able was committed by his father a Confederate captain from Lexington County after his mother died. Hes the only child included among the narratives of first-generation immigrants, an enslaved man, and white and Black South Carolinians. The nonprofit Able SC is trying to raise enough money to keep the project going, telling the personal histories of people at the S.C. State Hospital (insane was dropped in 1920) until its eventual closing in 2003. With possibly some state aid and other grants, Able SC hopes to also build a museum on Bull Street to preserve and share their stories. Though the People, Not Patients website launched in January 2023, Able SC didnt really start promoting it until recently. In the last few months, more than a half dozen people have reached out to head researcher Katharine Allen asking for help finding more information about their relatives committed at the campus that became known simply as Bull Street. Allen, who works for Historic Columbia, directs people to the public records available at the state Department of Archives and History. The people Both John Mathewes Flud and Anthony, whose last name is unknown, spent just a few months at the hospital before the Civil War, but their time there was very different. Flud, a wealthy planter from Johns Island, received packages from his wife including fashionable clothes. Staff helped sew his name into his clothes to keep other patients from stealing them. When Flud died at the hospital at age 34 in August 1832, a day or two after hitting his head on an iron banister, he was first buried in Columbia before being interred on Johns Island. His wife, Eliza, composed a lengthy inscription for his tomb, saying he suffered under great bodily disease from a series of afflictions seldom occurring in the same mortal. Anthony, on the other hand, was sent to the institution in 1850 at age 50 on the dime of his enslaver, future state Supreme Court Justice Franklin J. Moses Sr. of Sumter. His commitment came just over a year after the General Assembly passed a law allowing Black patients. He spent all his time confined in a wooden building in the courtyard to keep him separated from white patients. After dying of convulsions, he was likely buried in a segregated section of Columbias pauper cemetery. After flipping through hundreds of patient records at the state Department of Archives and History, Allen landed on Flud and Anthony as examples of the dichotomy of experiences at the institution. What is available for each person is completely different, Allen said. The Department of Health and Environmental Control office at 2100 Bull Street, on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. The front part of the building, shown, is the states original hospital for the mentally ill, opened in 1828. (Abraham Kenmore/S.C. Daily Gazette) There are plenty of historical accounts of the mental facility. But most focus on the buildings, the agencies, the practices or the doctors, Allen said. The original building, named after its renowned architect Robert Mills, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973. And the Babcock Building, completed in four phases from 1857-1885, has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1981. Able SC was interested in just trying to bring some humanity back to the site, Allen said. The nonprofit wanted to know more about the people who lived there, including their families and treatment they received, Tissot said. With a nearly $10,000 grant from the nonprofit South Carolina Humanities, the organization hired Historic Columbia to track down the records that survived. We really wanted to make sure that people really knew what Bull Street was all about, Tissot said. That proved to be challenging, Allen said. A lot of records from the 1800s were destroyed over the years. What was left was handwritten and often sparse. She focused on people whose families she thought she could trace. Her research identified about 30 of the nearly 8,000 people admitted to the then-S.C. Lunatic Asylum. The website tells the accounts of 11 of them including a pair of sisters, and a mother and her adult son admitted between 1830 and 1894. What happened to them creates a picture for people to better understand how the treatment of people with disabilities has changed, Tissot said. Patients featured on the website were restrained, subjected to bloodletting and induced vomiting, and, in at least one case, locked in a dark room for a month. State law creating the psychiatric hospitals governing board referred to its purpose as treating lunatics, idiots or epileptics. Much has changed. There is a far better understanding of disabilities of all kinds, along with more public support and resources, but some of the stigma remains, Tissot said. While this was a very long time ago, there are still very similar types of treatments and biases that people with disabilities are experiencing in South Carolina and, really, throughout the U.S., Tissot said. Museum plans Eventually, Able SC wants to build a museum detailing the history of disability rights in the state, beginning with the State Hospital. The museum would be designed with accessibility in mind. The goal is to build it on Bull Streets developing campus, near the iconic Babcock Building. The land and construction could cost up to $30 million and take six or seven years to complete, Tissot said. The museum would include stories about people who stayed at the institution, as well as follow the history of people with disabilities outside of it. Were really wanting to tell these stories because these individuals have never really had the respect that they really deserve, Tissot said. Being near the Babcock Building that became symbolic of the entire campus would allow the nonprofit to give more context on its history and the people who lived there, Tissot said. (The building itself has been transformed into luxury apartments.) Many people know the lore of the site, but they might not know the history behind it or think about the people who lived there, Allen said. If you can give names and some type of context of their lives, I think it really helps people feel something different in that space, Allen said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST In participating states, low-income families will receive $40 each month for each eligible school-aged child, up to $120, to buy groceries, beginning in the summer of 2024. Shown is a sign at a grocery store noting the acceptance of electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, cards, on Dec. 4, 2019 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) Applications for food benefits can be submitted today by some residents from Mescalero Apache Reservation, Lincoln or Otero counties who were impacted by destruction caused by the South Fork and Salt fires. Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (D-SNAP) is part of the Presidential Disaster Declaration signed June 20 following the wildfire and flooding that is devastating communities in the Sacramento Mountains. Eligibility is based on whether residents home or belongings were damaged or have experienced a loss or reduction in income and have unreimbursed disaster-related expenses, according to the New Mexico Health Care Authority, which oversees the program for people in the state. Applicants will need to verify their identity and show Health Care Authority staff household income and disaster-related expenses. Households eligible for assistance will receive one month of D-SNAP benefits on an EBT card for use at authorized locations. Assistance is based on the number of people per household and can range from $291 for a single person household and $1,751 for a family of eight. The Health Care Authority will approve and send out information on how people who qualify can use their card for food purchases. Anyone already using SNAP who lives in the areas affected by fire and flooding and are not receiving the maximum benefit allowed based on household size will automatically receive supplemental benefits for a month. Applications for D-SNAP are open July 10-12 alphabetically by last name and July 14-17 for all. July 10: A-F July 11: G-M July 12: N-Z Those interested in applying can do so at several locations including: Horton Complex, 237 Service Rd., Ruidoso, NM 88348 Roswell ISD Field Office, 1701 S. Sunset Ave., Roswell, NM 88203 Alamogordo ISD Field Office, 2000 Juniper Dr., Alamogordo, NM 88310 People can also apply by calling 1-800-283-4465. Locations will be open for in-person applications from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sites will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on July 14; the call center will be closed that day. Residents in impacted areas who had food purchased with SNAP benefits destroyed in the fires or flooding can request replacement benefits. Applications for this assistance can be made at the D-SNAP locations or by phone at 1-800-283-4465. The deadline to apply is July 17. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Divers from several agencies coordinated a mass water rescue of 54 migrants in a stretch of the Rio Grande flowing between El Paso, Texas, and Sunland Park, New Mexico. A rescue of more than two dozen people in the river in a single incident was uncommon, especially in the stretch of river dividing Texas and New Mexico. The mission began about 5 p.m. on Tuesday, July 9, when the Sunland Park Fire Department responded to a call of multiple people in the Rio Grande between Racetrack Drive and McNutt Road at West Paisano Drive, SPFD said in X. Border smuggling: Driver jailed after migrant dies in El Paso crash during Operation Lone Star trooper chase No major injuries were reported, the Sunland Park and El Paso fire departments said on X. The incident began when U.S. Border Patrol agents spotted a large group entering the Rio Grande and assistance was summoned from water-rescue crews to safely remove the group from the river, the Border Patrol said in a statement. Divers from various agencies pulled 54 migrants from the Rio Grande in an uncommon mass water rescue on Tuesday evening, July 9, 2024, in Sunland Park, New Mexico, bordering El Paso, Texas. "This incident demonstrates how transnational criminal organizations will often force migrants into dangerous situations without any regard for their safety or lives," the Border Patrol said. The detained migrants were transported to the Santa Teresa Border Patrol station for processing and removal under the Title 8 immigration law, the agency said. The section of the river is near Mount Cristo Rey, very close to the U.S.-Mexico border where the states of Texas, New Mexico and Chihuahua intersect. Migrant deaths: La perdida - The loss: Deadly disaster at El Paso, Juarez border The rescue was conducted by 30 divers from water-rescue crews from the Sunland Park, El Paso, Horizon City and Montana Vista fire departments, El Paso County Search and Rescue and the Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue, known as BORSTAR team. Sunland Park is a treacherous crossing point for undocumented migrants. Three bodies were recovered from that same stretch of the Rio Grande on June 25. The bodies of migrants who died of heat stroke are being found on an almost daily basis in the desert surrounding the city as the Borderland deals with 100-degree heat. Currently in fiscal year 2024, Border Patrol agents have conducted 743 rescues in its El Paso Sector, which covers the westernmost tip of Texas and all of New Mexico, the agency said. This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Divers rescue 54 migrants in Rio Grande at Texas-New Mexico border Docs: Muncie parents arrested on neglect charges after police find their apartment infested with cockroaches and littered with cat feces MUNCIE, Ind. Two Muncie parents have been arrested and preliminarily charged with multiple counts of neglect of a dependent. According to a pair of affidavits filed Tuesday, 34-year-old Amanda Jean Meadows and 32-year-old Paul Meadows left their apartment in abhorrent condition while three children were living there. Police were initially dispatched to the apartment which is located in the 700 block of West Howard Street in Muncie on June 29 to investigate a disturbance that had been reported. Police were told Amanda and Paul were arguing loudly because Paul may have touched one of the children living in their apartment inappropriately. When police arrived at the scene, they found a residence that they characterized as filthy and unsafe. Court records indicate the home was infested with cockroaches and had cat feces littered all over its floors. Police reported that the residence also had a very strong, foul odor coming from within. According to court documents, cockroaches were visible in footage captured by officers bodycams. The video showed roaches crawling along the homes walls. After their initial visit on June 29, police returned to the residence on July 8. Upon their return, officers observed that the apartment was still in poor condition. Law enforcement ultimately arrested Amanda and Paul for exposing the children to the filthy conditions. They were both booked into the Delaware County Jail on July 8. Amanda and Paul have been preliminarily charged with three counts of neglect of a dependent each. Neglect of a dependent is a Level 6 Felony in Indiana. The maximum penalty for a Level 6 Felony in the Hoosier State is a 2.5-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $10,000. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTTV CBS4Indy. DENVER (KDVR) COVID-19 cases are slowly creeping up again across the U.S. and in Colorado. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows emergency room visits because of COVID were up more than 18% nationwide last week. Doctors in Colorado say there is no need to panic, but be mindful of the rising cases amid the surge. Were definitely seeing a lot more positive cases for COVID right now than you would expect for a summer-cold kind of time period, said Dr. Carrie Horn, chief medical officer for National Jewish Health. Could your Safeway be sold soon? See 89 Colorado stores on planned sale list Horn said the crud going around could be COVID-19, and people with it may not know it. I would say, though, with positives thats only what gets reported to the state. There are still a lot of home tests that are out, so the true number of people that are positive for COVID or have COVID is going to be higher than what the numbers show on the dashboards, unlike in the past when everything was tested, Horn said. COVID-19 infections can bring long-term risks Doctors say they are catching most cases through people who are coming in to get medical care and through wastewater surveillance. Data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment showed about 95 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Colorado as of last week. Were certainly not hitting numbers like we did in 2020 and 2021, Horn said. And I think the biggest concern is around people who are going to get severe illness or potentially die, right? Thats really always been the concern. We really dont want people to the point where they have long-term consequences. Colorado court rules against arresting jailed migrants on federal detainers Even with vaccines and medications for treating COVID-19, there is still a possibility that people can have long-term effects after being infected. Horn said its critical to look out for one another by remembering the practices learned during the height of the pandemic to reduce the spread. Really, you just dont want to feel sick and you dont want to get anyone else sick, so good hand-washing, staying home if you can if you are ill, wearing a mask so you dont spread things if you dont feel well but you have to go out. Or if you are at risk, wearing a mask in public is still OK, Horn said. Coming off the heels of a big holiday weekend with travel and gatherings, doctors said to expect an uptick in cases. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. Does Ryanairs deal with Morocco point the way to more open African skies? Moonrise over the harbour at Tangier in Morocco, where Ryanair has opened a base (Simon Calder) Could Africas skies at last be wide open? That was the headline for an article I wrote with great optimism. I talked about how Africa could be transformed by low-cost aviation. Cheap, safe flying may help to realise the potential of a continent shattered by colonialism and corruption, I wrote. The occasion was the launch of Stelioss son of easyJet a Tanzania-based airline called Fastjet. But that was 12 years ago, and the brand has hardly made any impact since. When Stelios created a great European airline, easyJet, he had just the right idea to exploit a newfound freedom for airlines to fly wherever they wished in Europe. What Africa as a continent needs is to do the same and democratise flying. With dismal terrestrial infrastructure, travellers are hungry for cheap airfares. Yet perhaps a new, made-for-Africa airline like Fastjet isnt the best answer. I detect fresh signs of hope from the incursions by European budget carriers. Now, at least one African nation has embraced low-cost aviation to the extent that it has enabled Ryanair to set up a domestic operation. The visionary country: Morocco. Looking online now for a flight 24 hours ahead, I could fly from Tangier on an 80-minute Marrakech express flight for the equivalent of 36. That is pretty good for a late-booked 300-mile flight. To be fair, neighbouring Algeria has similarly good deals for the slightly shorter link between its two main cities, Algiers and Oran, on Air Algerie. But domestic flights in Egypt are typically three times more expensive. Once you get into southern Africa, the fares become astronomical. Even Fastjet wants 155 for a short-notice, 340-mile hop between Harare and Victoria Falls. Mind you, anyone who has driven that slow and perilous road route and who can afford the flight will take it. But in a continent with a long history of governments stifling competition for their own airlines, how does an Irish carrier get permission to start a domestic operation in competition with state-owned Royal Air Maroc? We have a long history here in Morocco, says Eddie Wilson, chief executive of the airlines main operating unit, Ryanair DAC. The airline first arrived in 2006, initially only with inbound flights from Europe. Tangier, in the far north of the country, is now its fourth base. Most of the operation involves flights to and from Europe. But to use its Boeings efficiently, Ryanair needed to add some short sectors like that hop down to Marrakech. And the government in Rabat was prepared to listen to an airline that has delivered millions of tourists to Morocco as well as connecting the diaspora across Europe with their North African homeland. It all comes down to open skies, says Eddie Wilson. The freedom to fly without restriction is a rare thing in Africa. When Tunisia reopened to tourism after the Arab Spring, officials sought my advice about the best way to bring business to their beautiful, friendly and fascinating nation. Open your skies to the airlines of Europe, I recommended, and you will see numbers increase dramatically. My suggestion was politely declined. We must look after Tunisair, they chorused. That has been the mindset of politicians across Africa for far too long. Eddie Wilson says precious few nations outside Europe enjoy the freedom to fly with whichever airline believes it can compete. If were going to expand elsewhere in Africa, its got to have open skies, he insists. The Ryanair boss lists Jordan, Israel and Ukraine as countries whose skies are open. The last two of those are on the Foreign Office no-go list due to continuing conflicts. Other nations, listen up. Budget airlines have planes they need to put somewhere. This is an opportunity for transformation. Listen to my interview with Ryanairs Eddie Wilson for the daily travel podcast Ewing (right) rests with another one of columnist Ron Smith's Great Pyrenees, Sherman. (Ron Smith) Harry Truman once said: If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. If you leave out in Washington and substitute for life, its the best advice one can get from a president or anyone else. Unfortunately, a dogs life is shorter than ours, so we have to make room for the fact that we may lose our friends all too soon. My wife and I face that fact now with our 12-year-old Great Pyrenees, Ewing. Ewing suffers from what the vet calls degenerative myelopathy, which affects the spinal cord and results in slow and progressive hind limb weakness and paralysis. There is a human form of the disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrigs disease. DM is a disease cousin to ALS. The symptoms and the results are the same, even though the species are different. There is no cure. For Ewing at least, theres no hope. We named Ewing after Kansas Civil War Gen. Thomas Ewing, my first biographical writing subject. Ewing came to us in his puppyhood, and we saw him grow to a robust 130 pounds. The DM has set in only the last two years, and the degeneration hurts. Ewing grew up between two other of our Pyrs William and Sherman. William died of old age, and Sherman at a young six years of age from bone cancer. Last October, a young Maremma Sheepdog was abandoned at our front gate, and we brought this new dog into our home. Its difficult to know what Ewing thought about that, because he wasnt consulted. We named the Maremma Ollie. Ewing and Ollie had several loud, scrappy discussions about the newcomers place in our farms dog hierarchy. We have five dogs, Ollie and Ewing being dominant. Both are gentle souls. Ollie was about 12 months old when clipped to our gate, still a pup with a pups playfulness. Ewing could see his body was not as agile as Ollies. Since that October, Ewings degeneration has grown visibly worse. Reluctantly, Ewing has stepped aside. Ollie and Ewing are nose nuzzling friends now. Its as if they both know. A transition is coming. Im not sure why the loss of a pet even one thats 130 pounds hurts like it does. But it does. Cowboys and cowgirls that lose horses feel the same. A Mahout in India who loves, trains, and cherishes an elephant experiences loss when the animal dies (although some elephants may outlive their Mahouts). But Ewing isnt just a dog. Over the years, weve let him become a family member. The breed is used for guarding and protecting sheep herds in the mountains between France and Spain. The breeds guardian traits were brought to the United States. A friend once told me that when he was a kid, they had 750 cattle in the Konza prairie south of Manhattan, and there were 20 or so Great Pyrenees that guarded the cattle from predators. So being in the cold doesnt bother them. We humans tend to let our animal family members inside when its cold or during the occasional blizzard. Ewing appreciated the thoughtfulness, but his long white hair and thick undercoat made it unnecessary. He was probably warmer outside than we were under blankets in the bedroom. A dogs job can add a bit of structure to our day. In his day especially at night Ewing ran to the edges of our fenced lot to bark at the coyotes who gathered out in the nearby corn field. Ewing, like the Pyrenees itself, was an all-weather dog. As he grew older, our barn cats liked to lie on his stomach in cold weather. Such was his sense of meaning and purpose. Humans instinctively know that the loss of a loved one generates feelings of enormous loss. The same can be true of pets raised in a family, like Ewing, from puppyhood. Grief for an animal friend is not unnatural. The more significant the pet, the greater the pain. Many people have only one dog in their lives when the dog friend passes. If the dog is a service animal for the blind, for example, for the human left behind, they must come to grips with the huge loss. Some will advise, Its just a dog. No. Ewing is not just a dog. We give Ewing pain pills twice daily. I try to help him stand and move if he can. But thats based on my ignorant human belief that moving stiff and aching muscles is good for him. The degeneration is clearly there. Sometimes he stands as he tries to eat, but then his back legs give way. Obviously I dont know what hes thinking, now into his 12th year. I dont know what the Lord has in mind for Ewing. His time is coming. He has begun to eat less. We dont know if that is a temporary issue because of any pain, or the beginning of the end. Our vet thinks it may be the latter. Will Rogers once wrote he prefers to go where God sent the dogs. Ewing will see William and Sherman again. Somewhere. God knows dogs deserve a better heaven than many human beings. I once read that while Angels are thought to have wings, the luckiest among us find they have four paws. Our grief over Ewings loss is just the flip side of love. Postscript: Ewing died July 3, after this column had been written and submitted. Ron Smith is a fifth-generation Kansan, a native of Manhattan, a retired attorney in Larned, a grandfather several times over, a Vietnam veteran and a civil war historian. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE DOJ says 24 people accused of fraud, conspiracy in 142-count indictment across Roanoke area ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR) The DOJ Attorneys Office in the Western District of Virginia announced that 24 people have been charged in a 142-count indictment. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, in early July 2024, twenty-four people from the greater Roanoke area were indicted for charges including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, making false statements, and fraud in relation to an emergency benefits program. The indictment accuses the individuals of participating in a scheme between June 2020 and May 2021 to obtain business Personal Protection Program (PPP) loans when most of them did not have an operational business. Additionally, several of the accused were applying for unemployment benefits. The Paycheck Protection Program was put in place when the worlds economy was battling a once-in-a-generation health crisis. This program provided much-needed financial relief to keep small businesses open, United States Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh said today. However, in the midst of this global crisis, a small number of people saw an opportunity to commit fraud and other criminal conduct. My Office continues to work with our law enforcement partners to root out these fraudulent opportunists and hold accountable those who swindle the citizens of the United States. Lynchburg man sentenced to 12 years for distributing fentanyl The PPP was a COVID-19 pandemic relief program administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA) that provided forgivable loans to small businesses for job retention and certain other expenses. Court documents show that Jaimeka Mechelle Austin and Kiearra Desaray Gardner allegedly collected personal information from various business owners to submit fraudulent PPP loan applications. If an established business did not exist, for an additional fee, Austin and Gardner would allegedly create a sham business entity in order for these individuals to claim benefits through the PPP loan program then fraudulently. The DOJ says, more than $1.5 million was obtained by fraudulent loan applications. Those charged include: Jaimeka Mechelle Austin, 31, the purported owner of Mechelles Boutique LLC. TaQuan DeCarlos Austin, 34, purported owner of Quanos Chimney Sweep LLC. Richard David Henson Brown, 35, the purported owner of Immaculate Balla Cleaning Service LLC. Israel Antonio Cunningham, 36, the purported owner of Tates Lawn Care & Services LLC. Rahiim Noel Cunningham, 27, the purported owner of Quanies Lounge LLC. Timothy Edward Cunningham, Jr., 26, the purported owner of Gen5 Dog Kennels LLC. Mikkielia Sentoyia Fisher, 37, purported owner of Mad Stylez Clothing. Joshua Scott Fleming, 32, the purported owner of Clear N Shine Auto Detail. Kiearra Desaray Gardner, 35, is the purported owner of businesses in the name of Kiearra Gardner and Kustom Kreationz by Kie LLC. Sierra Desaray Garrison, 39, the purported owner of Major Pressure LLC. Deshawn Lamar Johnson, 34, the purported owner of Affordable Car Care LLC. Antonio Devaughn Levesy, 36, the purported owner of Squeaky Clean Mobile Detailing LLC. Millot Kevin Lexima, 30, the purported owner of Plugd N Kennel LLC. Xavier Lee Manigault, 31, the purported owner of The Goat Car Care LLC. Talisha Geornell Otey, 33, the purported owner of businesses in the name of Talisha, Lash Tech, and the Butterfly Effect 540 LLC. Corey Durrell Steelman, 37, the purported owner of Steel Hauling LLC. Jamal Donnell Steelman, 34, the purported owner of Steel Painters LLC. Jessica Nicole Taylor, 34, the purported owner of All In Caregiving LLC. Thomas Manuel Taylor, 54, the purported owner of Showcase Kennels LLC. Denisha Michelle Walker, 31, the purported owner of multiple businesses including businesses in the name of Denisha Walker and Lit & Fit Sculpting LLC. Jenea Shontae Webb, 39, the purported owner of Nae & Friends Childcare. Stephfon Davido Webb, 36, the self-employed and working in the janitorial industry. Akeem Marquis Williams, 37, the purported owner of Williams & Williams Moving Company LLC. A 24th defendant has been indicted but has not yet been arrested, and that defendant remains sealed. WFXR News will continue to update you with more information as it becomes available. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFXRtv. JOHANNESBURG, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Cyberattackers allegedly stole 300 million South African rand (about 16.6 million U.S. dollars) from the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure over the past 10 years, Minister Dean Macpherson said Wednesday. The amount could be more as investigations continue, Macpherson said in a statement. According to him, in May this year, cyber criminals have stolen 24 million rand from the department. The minister said he has asked the South African Police Service, State Security Agency as well as experts in the information and communications technology and cybersecurity industry to investigate the matter. "It has become clear that the department has been a soft target and playground for cyber criminals for over a 10-year period and this should have been picked up a lot earlier," Macpherson said, adding that those responsible for protecting the department from cyber criminals must be held accountable. Four officials from the department, including three senior management officials and one middle management official, have been suspended, and 30 laptops have been seized by the investigators. "The cyber theft forced the department to shut down its payment system, thereby delaying paying its creditors," said Macpherson. The investigation will be expanded and deepened to find the masterminds and the beneficiaries of this grand theft, Macpherson said. (1 U.S. dollar = 18 South African rand) Johnson Countys sheriff must have finally seen the light. After years years of spending his time and the public dime as chief water-carrier for Donald Trumps still-roiling temper tantrum, Calvin Hayden has finally dropped his long-running so-called investigation of nonexistent voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. As with some cases, he said in a press release, we must put this one on the shelf and take a pause. Though he says its to get out of the saddle (for now!), Hayden has ridden this horse hard. And its been an embarrassment to the sheriff himself, the good people who work in his office and especially the people of the most populous county in Kansas. After all, hes supposed to serve them in the capacity of law enforcement not as some self-appointed rogue deputy secretary of state. Because the secretary of state is whos in charge of elections in Kansas, and Ive seen no indication that the actual incumbent, Scott Schwab, has executed his duties with anything but honor and professionalism. That didnt keep Hayden from attacking fellow Republican Schwab, accusing him of violating statutes before a state Senate committee last year. Hayden also charged that Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman, a Schwab appointee, committed willful violations of the law. Hayden has long been making the rounds on the election fraud circuit, even appearing at the 2022 convention of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association in Las Vegas. That group, labeled an anti-government extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League, argues that county sheriffs authority is the ultimate say in the United States, taking precedence over state or federal law when they deem it necessary. (Theyre wrong, of course.) Anti-vax safe haven Lets not forget that 2020 election denialism isnt Haydens only foray into todays particular brand of internet conservative fantasyland. In 2021, as still-spreading COVID-19 had become the leading cause of death for police officers in the U.S., the sheriff invited unvaccinated officers from across the country to the safe haven of his department in Johnson County. So much for putting public safety first. So whats behind Haydens sudden change of heart? It couldnt possibly be his looming challenge in the GOP primary from Doug Bedford, could it? The Navy SEAL vet and former undersheriffs campaign website makes his law enforcement models clear: I believe the Office of the Sheriff must return to its original principles of leadership and fiscal responsibility, which were created by Sheriff Fred Allenbrand and strengthened through Sheriff Frank Denning. Shot fired, Sheriff Hayden. It looks to me as if an actual institutionalist the kind of Republican who used to get elected without breaking a sweat in Johnson County is coming for your gig. Hayden won last time while running unopposed. His predecessors cited by Bedford werent known for putting their politics first. After all, its patently ridiculous for a Kansas county sheriff to make Fox News national talking points his main platform. But wait 2020 election denialism isnt even featured on Fox News anymore (at least not overtly). Thats because the network had to pay a settlement of almost $800 million it had to pay out after airing lies about Dominion Voting Systems supposedly rigging the election for President Joe Biden. And Salem Media Group, Inc. has pulled convicted felon Dinesh DSouzas faux-documentary 2000 Mules about ostensible voting irregularities from circulation, and apologized to a man who filed a defamation suit against the company over the movie. And nobody needs to go back over the many court cases Trumps lawyers filed after the election. They lost them all just like their guy lost the White House. Want to know why Johnson County keeps tipping further away from the R side of the ballot? Its partly because normal, rational people are sick and tired of the ramped-up GOP attacks on public schools, minorities and personal health care choices. But most of all, its because they arent stupid and they are way past ready for the Trump dead-enders to drop the charade. My fellow Star editorial board colleagues and I already called on Hayden to resign as the threat to the rule of law back in 2022. He wont do the honorable thing. But Johnson County Republicans can quit him on their own this coming primary day. Barron attends Trump rally in Florida: His dad confirms college is next but doesnt say where DORAL Barron Trump made his Trump rally speech debut Tuesday night here at the family golf resort west of Miami. The youngest son of the 2024 Republican presidential nominee did not speak at the event, but his father lauded him to the loudest cheers of his three sons as Donald Jr. and Eric were also in attendance. It was the first Trump political rally the now 18-year-old has attended. "Look at this," Trump said as cheers grew as he referenced Barron though not by name. The former president then asked Barron to stand up and be recognized, leading to even more applause and cheers. Barron Trump graduates from Oxbridge Academy. His parents, former President Trump and wife Melania attended the ceremony on Friday, May 17, 2024 in West Palm Beach. Barron Trump and fall 2024 college: Key dates for universities he's been linked to "That's the first time he's done it," Trump said of Barron's presence at the political event. "You're pretty popular. He might be more popular than Don and Eric. Hey, Don, we have to talk about this." Trump then alluded to Barron's next step his choice of university to attend this fall but did not reveal where Barron would seek his college degree. "He's now going to college, got into every college he wanted to," Trump said. "He made his choice and he is a very good guy." Barron is the sole child of Donald and Melania Trump, the former president's third wife. Melania Trump did not appear to attend the rally. Barron Trump was initially selected to serve as a Florida delegate at next week's Republican National Convention. But Melania Trump stated May 10 that Barron would not be able to attend due to "prior commitments." Barron Trump, who turned 18 on March 20, graduated from Oxbridge Academy near West Palm Beach, Florida, on May 17. For Barron and thousands of other class of 2024 high school graduates, summer is half over, and upcoming freshmen are getting ready for fall classes. While it is not known where Barron Trump will attend classes in the fall, below are key dates for the universities he's been linked to. As of Tuesday, July 9, it has not been announced where Barron Trump will attend college. However, Barron Trump's half-siblings Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump (born to Donald Trump and Ivana Trump) and Tiffany Trump (born to Donald Trump and Marla Maples) have ties to the University of Pennsylvania or Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Will Barron Trump attend University of Pennsylvania? Donald Trump has said in the past that he believed his youngest son might follow in his footsteps by attending the University of Pennsylvania. The former president graduated and studied at UPenn's Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, graduating in May 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics. Donald Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., graduated from UPenn in 2000. Like his father, Donald Trump Jr. has a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance. According to UPenn's calendar, "move-in" dates for fall 2024 are Monday, Aug. 19, to Sunday, Aug. 25, for new and returning students. "Guests" (usually parents and family) will have to be registered by Tuesday, Aug. 1, to accompany fall 2024 students on "move-in" day. New student orientation at Penn will be from Aug. 21-26, with first day of classes Tuesday, Aug. 27. Other key dates for fall 2024 at UPenn include "family weekend" Oct. 25-27 and homecoming on Nov. 16. Where did the Trump family graduate? Donald, Melania, Ivanka ... Here's a list of who graduated from college (and who didn't) Will Barron Trump attend Georgetown University? Another possibility for Barron Trump could be Georgetown, which has Trump ties already. Barron Trump's older brother, Eric, graduated from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown in Washington, D.C., with a bachelor's degree in finance and management in 2006. Will Barron Trump attend University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University, like his sisters, Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump? According to a March 2017 story in the Georgetown Voice, Donald Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, was a student at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown, but transferred after two years to the Wharton School of Business at UPenn. Ivanka Trump graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics from UPenn in 2004. Like her father, Tiffany Trump attended UPenn and graduated in 2016 with a bachelor's degree in sociology. Four years later, Tiffany Trump graduated from Georgetown Law School as part of the class of 2020. Like many class of 2020 seniors (for high school and college), Tiffany Trump's college graduation was a virtual commencement ceremony because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Will Barron Trump attend NYU? Another speculated possibility for Barron Trump is New York University. The NYU campus in Manhattan is not far from where Barron Trump spent much of his childhood and lived until his father was sworn in as the 45th president in early 2017. According to NYU's calendar, fall 2024 classes begin Tuesday, Sept. 3, the day after Labor Day. Interestingly, the school's "Legislative Monday" event is Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, and "Legislative Friday" is Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, the calendar states. Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Barron Trump attends first Donald Trump rally speech in Doral, Florida DOVER One year after breaking ground along the Cocheco River, the city and developer Cathartes are making progress on a project touted to transform Dovers waterfront. Hundreds of housing units and thousands of square feet of commercial space are being built over the next few years after decades of advocacy from city leaders. Upon completion, the private portion of the development will feature three mixed-use buildings, two multi-family buildings and three clusters of townhouses, accounting for 26,000 square feet of commercial space and 418 residential units, according to the city. City Council members, Dover administrative officials and department heads, project leaders and stakeholders met on the riverfront in June 2023 for a groundbreaking ceremony. A little more than a year later, the minds behind the public-private partnership are seeing the anticipated finished product coming into focus. This aerial image shows the current state of city's public-private waterfront project along the Cocheco River with Boston-based developer Cathartes. The first housing units are expected to be offered by the end of 2025, according to Cathartes project manager Rob Simmons. Site work on the citys portion of the project a new 3.4-acre public park with a public boat dock and kayak launch and a pavilion building next door on River Street began shortly after the groundbreaking ceremony last year. More: 5 exciting features boaters, paddlers and visitors can expect from Dover's waterfront park In general, the project is progressing on target for the summer 2026 completion, said Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker. Here's the latest on the redevelopment project: What work has been completed on the Dover waterfront so far? Significant momentum was achieved on the waterfront site in June, according to Parker. Work completed included sewage inspection and testing, the completion of drainage work and installation of catch basins, and paving of new streets. Testing is underway for installing nearly 950 aggregate piers, Parker reported. These piers will serve as the foundation for building footings, allowing vertical construction to begin. June saw substantial progress on the project's underground infrastructure and groundwork for future building construction. Additionally, the city has been working with CJ Architects to wrap up the design elements for the park pavilion building, Parker said. He explained the city's Cochecho Waterfront Advisory Committee park subcommittee will see the final designs on July 23, the plans will be released for bid and the hope is to select a vendor in late summer. The public improvements are being led by contractor Northeast Earth Mechanics, which agreed to a city contract for over $19.5 million last year. On Wednesday evening, City Council members will consider a resolution to authorize an additional $571,958 to Northeast Earth Mechanics to remove blasted ledge around the site and replace it with structural fill. The funding would also cover utility extensions and the removal of fencing and dugouts at Maglaras Park for soil storage from the waterfront site, among other items. What are the phases for Cathartes housing development in Dover? This aerial image shows the current state of city's public-private waterfront project along the Cochecho River in tandem with Boston-based developer Cathartes. The Boston-based developer will complete the long-awaited private development, boosting the citys housing stock, in three phases. The first phase, expected to be wrapped up by the end of next year, will result in the creation of approximately 220 residential units and about 20,000 square feet of commercial space. The latter phases will end in the construction of almost 200 more housing units and another roughly 5,000 square feet of commercial space. The future phases have not been scheduled yet but our hope is to complete them as soon as we are able, Simmons said. How big are the housing units coming to Dover waterfront? (Apartments) will range in size from studio to three bedrooms, as well as three-bedroom townhomes, Simmons said. Renderings of the future waterfront housing units are not yet available. Will the waterfront housing units be leased or sold? Phase 1 housing units will are expected to be "entirely rental, Simmons said. The later phases will be a mix of leases and home sales, according to Simmons. How much will the waterfront housing units cost? Prices have not yet been set for the units that will be leased nor those that will be sold, though theyll be listed at prices comparable to the market, Simmons said. The cost of housing at the waterfront site is expected to be similar to the 130-unit Orpheum apartment complex on Washington Street, another Cathartes development, Simmons said. Current prices at the Orpheum were listed this week on its website as ranging from $2,425 a month for 582-square-foot studio, to $2,558 for a 744-square-foot one-bedroom unit and $3,495 for a 1,080-square-foot two-bedroom unit. What amenities will be offered at Dover waterfront housing units? Simmons said each housing unit will be built with balconies, designer finishes, stainless steel appliances and in-unit laundry, and they'll have views of the river. The community will boast numerous perks, such as a high-tech fitness center with a yoga studio, fireplace lounges with local artwork, and a top-floor terrace with panoramic views of the waterfront. The site will additionally include garage parking, electric vehicle charging stations, bicycle and kayak storage, pet-friendly amenities and a professional co-working space with conference rooms that will be open to the public. Have tenants been identified for the Dover waterfront's commercial space? Cathartes did not reveal whether any commercial tenants have signed on to call the waterfront development home in the future. We have a lot of interest in the commercial spaces both from local food and beverage operators to retail opportunities, Simmons said. More local news: Multi-family housing proposed on Silver Street in Dover, at site of 1760 home What roads are currently closed amid the ongoing work at the waterfront site? Payne Street (formerly River Street) is still closed between Henry Law Avenue and Washington Street while construction is ongoing, which includes River Street sewer pump station upgrades, according to the city. The closure is expected to stay in effect through Labor Day, though the date could change depending on construction. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Dover waterfront: Latest on housing units, businesses, public park GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) Many drivers at a Grand Rapids intersection were pulled over Tuesday as they tried to avoid construction by pulling through a corner parking lot. The message is simple: use the posted detours, not parking lots, to get around construction, a police spokesperson said. Construction at the intersection of Michigan Street and Fuller Avenue in Grand Rapids. (July 9, 2024) The busy intersection of Michigan Street and Fuller Avenue closed Monday morning for emergency sanitary sewer repairs, according to the city. Construction is expected to continue until Aug. 2. But while legitimate construction detours are posted, many drivers have been taking a shortcut through the corner lot, which provides parking for a Subway sandwich shop. Cars have been coming through here, theyve been like, rushing through here like crazy. Its been nonstop since yesterday morning, said Eli Russ, who works at the Subway. GR intersection closure to cause major traffic disruptions In the first hour and a half he was there Tuesday, Russ said he had seen at least seven cars get pulled over. Once the cops got sick of it, they just started pulling people over. Theyre just staking out, theyre sitting behind buildings and sitting in parking lots and theyre just doing their paperwork and then pulling the next person over, doing their paperwork and pulling the next person over, Russ said. A Grand Rapids police officer pulls over a driver who cut through a business parking lot at the intersection of Michigan Street and Fuller Avenue NE, which is closed due to construction. (July 9, 2024) A Grand Rapids police officer pulls over a driver who cut through a business parking lot at the intersection of Michigan Street and Fuller Avenue NE, which is closed due to construction. (July 9, 2024) A spokesperson for the Grand Rapids Police Department said using parking lots as a detour to avoid construction is illegal, citing the Michigan Vehicle Code. This is for everyones safetyparking lots are not designed for heavy traffic volumes, especially at higher speeds, which can endanger patrons and employees of the businesses who use the lots, construction workers in and around the area, and other pedestrians. There is also a high risk of traffic crashes, the spokesperson said. Russ agreed, saying the shortcut is not only risking customers safety, but deterring them from coming in at all. Its just bad for business all around, Russ said. The cops just pull up and people are just anxious, they dont even want to be in here. Customers are coming in, theyre complaining about the cops and the traffic, and they just dont really even wanna pull in, they pull in, they see the cop and they pull right back out. Inside woodtv.com: Live traffic conditions As News 8 spoke with Russ at the scene, crews saw several cars getting pulled over by police. Constructions just really killing business right now, its making the cops look, yep, just flipped on the lights, there he goes, pulling another person over as were speaking, Russ said. Woah, thats crazy. Driving through private or public parking lots to avoid traffic or congestion can cost you massive fines, ticketing or even points on your license. But drivers say the signs on Michigan Street are misleading them to take the illegal detours. People have been talking about it saying that the stores are still open so I can definitely see how people would think that Oh, if its still open I can go through. But people wouldnt know until they are in the middle of it, driver and resident Josh Hazel said. Three signs sit on Michigan Street, but what drivers might focus on are the arrows pointing to the Subway lot. It kind of seems like a trap at this point, you know, threatening us with a ticket and points for following directions on how to get around, Hazel said. There should really be somebody out navigating If its going to be this hard to understand. Now many drivers are left wondering what will come next. Honestly just avoid this area until they are done doing whatever they are doing. It looks like theyve got a pipe in the middle of the road right now. So I would just avoid Michigan and Fuller for the foreseeable future, Hazel said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. PRINCETON, WV (WVNS) Drought and heat can increase the risk of many different types of fires. With parts of every county across the Mountain State experiencing drought, fires are likely to catch. After years of service, Princeton Fire Departments Fire Chief is set to retire effective July 9, 2024 While doing yard work over the summer, you may not realize some things can cause a fire if not watched carefully. In Princeton, which is under D-1 drought status, we can learn about the fire risks presented even by low drought status. Kenneth Nunn, a Firefighter with Princeton Fire Department, explained that with grass being so dry, even mowing your lawn can start a fire. The fine fuels on the ground. The grass clippings are drying out real well with the heat and the lack of rain. Its real easy to get those to set fire. Running your lawn mower and getting it hot and sitting it on dry grass can start a fire, said Nunn. Hydration stations set up around Mercer County to help our furry friends stay hydrated There are West Virginia laws that address burning brush and other natural materials. Nunn advised folks to be cautious and to follow state law when burning things. Just be vigilant where you park your mowers and what you are doing outside. If youre burning, state law says you have to have a ten-foot ring around what you are burning. Which is non burnable material. So, make sure you take all those precautions, said Nunn to 59News. Nunn said if you have any concerns or questions to please contact your local fire department. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WVNS. Drought conditions are putting pressure on farmers across the state Drought conditions are putting pressure on farmers across the state BECKLEY, WV (WVNS) With drought conditions affecting the entire state, local farmers are really feeling the heat. Nearly 3/5 of West Virginia in moderate drought American radio broadcaster, Paul Harvey once said, Despite all our accomplishments, we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact it rains. It is a sentiment that farm owners across the state are feeling the weight of in the face of prolonged drought conditions. Every county in West Virginia is currently experiencing either abnormally dry conditions, moderate drought, or severe drought. Keith Richmond, County Executive Director for Raleigh Countys Farm Service Agency, said the situation could always be worse. Right now, if we were to get the rain and that type of thing that we needed, it would come back, it would bounce back. We start into D-2 which is just east of us in Virginia right now then were gonna be looking at some long-term effects on different grass species and that type of thing, said Richmond. D-2 is considered severe drought conditions, which as of Tuesday, July 9, 2024, are only affecting the northeastern part of the state. Richmond said it is also only livestock-based farms that could see a decent bounce back at this point. Crop-based farms will have a much more difficult time if they are not set up with an irrigation system to bring the much-needed water to plants. You know, your livestock, you can control the number of head youve got. If you see that youre running out of grass or something, you can go ahead and move some to market or move some of them to another pasture, explained Richmond. With your crop-type farms, you cant do that. Its where its at is where its at. If the farm is not irrigated and is not getting any rainfall, farmers may already have crops showing signs of being affected by drought. That is not to say that livestock farms have it easier. Richmond said they need the water just as badly. Well, the livestock, theyre gotta have water, just like us. Theyve gotta have it. So, weve gotta keep clean, fresh water in these ponds. With nothing flowing in it, it starts to get stagnant and youre gonna start seeing some problems with that, said Richmond. A temporary fix is water troughs and making sure they stay clean and fresh. Hydration stations set up around Mercer County to help our furry friends stay hydrated With no steady, slow rain predicted in the next week, Richmond said the state is at risk of having more counties follow northeastern West Virginia into severe drought status. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WVNS. Leaders participating in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit pose for a group photo in Washington, D.C., the United States, July 9, 2024. (NATO/Handout via Xinhua) A Croatian political analyst has called on NATO to prioritize its mission of preserving peace, rather than acting as an instrument of U.S. policy. ZAGREB, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) must not become a tool of the United States to implement its policies around the world, acting as the extended arm of Washington's influence, Mladen Plese, a Croatian political analyst, said in an interview with Xinhua on Wednesday. "The United States has used NATO to implement its policies and has a decisive influence on NATO, this is not good for the European partners. NATO must not be an extended arm of Washington, and more and more European countries are warning about this," Plese said. According to the analyst, NATO should fulfill such function as preserving peace and preventing conflicts, rather than starting or getting involved in wars and military conflicts around the world, as it has done in recent years under the guidance of the United States. This photo taken on Feb. 3, 2023 shows the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden announced Friday an additional round of security assistance for Ukraine with a total value of 2.2 billion U.S. dollars. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) The Ukraine crisis is the latest example of U.S. influence, he said. Moreover, the United States has tried to strengthen NATO through its increased engagement in East Asia, which is not in the interests of Europe, according to Plese. "NATO is being used in the name of American interests to tighten the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, which does not correspond to the interests of Europe at all," Plese said. "That is why I believe that the time will come when Europeans will develop their own defense forces, which will not be dependent on NATO." Plese made the remarks as NATO holds its summit from July 9-11 in Washington. Established during the early stages of the Cold War, NATO is now confronting a changing global landscape characterized by multipolarity, prompting discussions about its continued relevance. Duda hopes Ukraine will receive invitation to alliance at next NATO summit Polish President Andrzej Duda expressed hope on July 10 that Ukraine will be invited to join NATO at the next summit of the alliance. His statement, as cited by Ukrinform, came on the second day of the NATO summit in Washington before the start of the highest-level North Atlantic Council plenary meeting. Duda was doubtful that Ukraine would receive a formal invitation to join NATO at this summit. Nonetheless, he believed that more frequent mentions of the prospect of Ukrainian membership during his speeches will bring this moment closer. Duda said that the discussion is not about Ukraine's "right" to become a member of NATO, but rather about when Ukraine will join the alliance. The president stressed that Russia's full-scale war must end before Ukraine joins NATO. He also expressed hope that this year's summit would send a clear signal that Ukraine's path to NATO is "irreversible" and that the alliance will be ready to accept Ukraine as a member. The next NATO summit will be held in The Hague on June 24-26, 2025. Kyiv had voiced hope that the summit will bring a more definite signal about Ukraine's future membership in the alliance. American officials made it clear that the country is unlikely to receive an invitation. Partners assured Kyiv that the event would define a specific position for Ukraine's membership in the alliance, namely its irreversibility and the roadmap toward it, said Olha Stefanishyna, the deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration. Read also: NATO allies to announce $43 billion commitment to Ukraine for next year, White House says Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah (ABC4) If you live north of SR-73 in Eagle Mountain, the city is asking you to slow the flow. A text message was recently sent to Eagle Mountain residents through the citys notification system asking anyone north of SR-73 to conserve water and refrain from watering lawns, if possible. To quell any fears about the city running out of water, City Council Member Melissa Clark said the conservation efforts arent about a water shortage but topping off the citys water tanks. This is about ensuring our tanks are topped off so we can respond effectively in the event of a wildfire or similar emergency, said Clark. We have a great water system, and our expert staff has been working tirelessly to ensure Eagle Mountain has a bright future. Utahs air quality takes a toll as wildfires continue to burn Clark said the city has been working with HOAs, schools, and churches throughout the city to conserve water wherever possible with landscaping and when and how to water. She said the city has also been continuing work to convert medians to more natural water-conscious landscaping and reduced watering parks and park strips. I want to caution against the natural tendency to water more out of concern that the city will run out of water, said Clark. I can assure you that this is not the case. Clark said she hopes the city can come together and make a difference adding that anyone with questions can contact the city through the citys app or the resident portal on the city website. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah (ABC4) Utahs new bill bringing harsher punishments for road rage is in full effect and an Eagle Mountain man is among the first to be charged with the enhancements. According to court documents, William Matherson Louis, 41, was charged with aggravated assault, a third-degree felony. Police say Louis became angry at another driver on Friday, July 5 and would not let the other driver pass him. When the other driver pulled onto another road, Louis allegedly pulled up next to them, rolled down his window, and threatened to shoot them. Louis allegedly racked his gun and pointed it toward the other driver before driving away. Investigators said they found the alleged gun used in the road rage incident in a box in the center console of Louis vehicle. Utahs new road rage bill goes into effect July 1 Under the new law, if convicted, Louis faces a mandatory fine of no less than $1,000 and a prison sentence of no less than one year and no more than five years in addition to any other penalty the court may impose for a third-degree felony. An initial appearance for Louis is scheduled for Friday, July 19. Utahs new road rage bill was one of many bills that went into effect beginning Monday, July 1. It intended to dissuade drivers from being aggressive on Utahs roads by increasing the fines on citations, giving law enforcement the power to impound vehicles suspected of being in a road rage incident, and allowing the court to suspend drivers licenses for road rage offenses. According to data from the Utah Department of Transportation, there were 27 deaths related to aggressive driving in 2023. So far in 2024, there have been three deaths attributed to road rage. Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. Late last month, a gigantic asteroid larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza hurtled between Earth and the moon at more than 21,000 mph (34,000 km/h) . The rare, ultra-close encounter allowed astronomers to capture the first-ever pictures of the space rock, which revealed that the near-Earth object was lightly knocked off course by our planet's gravitational pull forever changing the asteroid's journey around the sun. The asteroid, named 2024 MK, is roughly 500 feet (150 meters) across, making it big enough to wipe out a large city . The " potentially hazardous " space rock, which has an irregular and elongated shape, was first spotted barreling toward Earth on June 16 by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in South Africa. On June 29, just 13 days after it was discovered, 2024 MK reached its closest point to Earth as it skimmed our planet's orbit at a distance of around 184,000 miles (295,000 kilometers) or around three-quarters of the distance between Earth and the moon . Astronomers at NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California monitored the flyby using the Goldstone Solar System Radar telescope. By bouncing radio waves off the space rock as it shot past Earth, the team created grainy "bistatic" images of the asteroid, which helped them determine its exact shape and map out the concavities and ridges on its surface. The new photos were released July 3 by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Just two days before the flyby, on June 27, the same telescope also captured images of the much larger "planet killer" asteroid 2011 UL21 as it passed by our planet at a distance of around 4.1 million miles (6.6 million km) . These pictures revealed that this mountain-size space rock has a secret moon hiding in its orbit. Related: No, NASA hasn't warned of an impending asteroid strike in 2038. Here's what really happened. A diagram of the orbit of asteroid 2024 MK The new observations of 2024 MK revealed that the space rock's trajectory has shifted since it was first discovered. This is likely because Earth gravitationally tugged on the asteroid as it passed by us, pulling it slightly closer to our planet. This alteration was quite significant. The asteroid previously orbited the sun every 3.3 years, spending most of its time in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. However, scientists now believe that it will take 24 fewer days to complete the route, according to JPL. related stories Could scientists stop a 'planet killer' asteroid from hitting Earth? NASA's most wanted: The 5 most dangerous asteroids to Earth 'Planet killer' asteroids are hiding in the sun's glare. Can we stop them in time? But luckily, "its future motion shows that it [still] does not pose a threat to our planet for the foreseeable future," NASA representatives wrote in a statement. MK 2024 was originally scheduled to make its next closest approach to Earth in 3037. However, this could now happen several months earlier than expected due to its new orbital trajectory. It is now unclear how close it will get to us or if our planet's gravity will further alter its orbit. (KRON) An East Bay state assemblymember is calling on the skincare and beauty industry to do more to protect children from anti-aging products intended for adults. Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-CA) who represents Californias 24th District, co-signed a letter to the Personal Care Products Council (PCPC) the industrys national trade association back in May. That letter, which was signed by 20 California state legislators, took aim at the Sephora Kids phenomenon, in which children, pre-teenagers and teenagers influenced by social media platforms are buying anti-aging skincare products. Those products, which contain ingredients like retinols, glycolic acid, and ascorbic acid, are targeted to adult care concerns, according to the letter. Oakland man with peculiar to-do list arrested The letter, Lee said, urged the council to curb the alarming trend of kids buying anti-aging skincare. On Wednesday, Lee issued a statement reiterating his call for the industry to do more to protect children. Anti-aging products can be harmful to childrens health, potentially damaging their sensitive skin, Lees statement said. Even so, the skincare and beauty industry has failed to take meaningful action in preventing kids from purchasing anti-aging products. While the industry has previously acknowledged that they do not support children using anti-aging products, PCPC has yet to respond to the letter, Lee said in Wednesdays statement. Lee, that statement went on to say, has introduced legislation to ban the sale of anti-aging products that contain powerful active ingredients like retinol and alpha hydroxy acids to kids under the age of 13. Anti-aging products offer no benefit to kids, said Assemblymember Lee. Without knowledge of the potential consequences, children are influenced by social media to use anti-aging products that arent suitable for their skincare needs. The multi-billion dollar beauty industry in the U.S., he went to on to say, is profiting off of kids who are buying and using these products. If theyre serious about protecting the health and safety of our youth, the industry should take concrete actions to safeguard kids from the unnecessary risks of anti-aging products. Lee represents Californias 24th Assembly District which includes East Bay cities Fremont, Newark, Milpitas, San Jose and the community of Sunol. According to reports, many summer camps are taking action against the Sephora Kids trend by banning certain high-end skin care products. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio (WJW) The FOX 8 I-Team has learned East Cleveland Police Chief Brian Gerhard has resigned. He had been on leave for months due to an uproar over anti-Semitic comments. Gerhard had been accused of making anti-Semitic comments in text messages and having Nazi paraphernalia. Investigation into force used during arrest of man accused of killing Cleveland officer However, we found no mention of anything about that in the separation agreement between the chief and the City of East Cleveland. It says Gerhard resigned effective last month, and he will be paid into December by using vacation time. Officer dragged under dirt bike: suspect indicted His separation agreement says The parties wish to amicably end their working relationship. It also says Gerhard and East Cleveland leaders agree to not disparage or speak poorly of each other. Gerhard joined East Cleveland police in 1998 and worked his way up to chief. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 8 Cleveland WJW. The East Kingston Fire Department has presented a local couple with $7,300 and household goods after their home was destroyed in a noreaster, according to a press release from the Fire Department. When a 70-foot pine branch and thousands of pounds of debris fell onto their trailer home on April 4, Dave Scaggell, Jennie Wadleigh and their cat managed to escape. The home was declared a total loss. Chief Ed Warren and other first responders opened the fire station as a donation center. They initially provided Scaggell and Wadleigh with $500, clothing, pet food and other home supplies, but that wasnt the end of the fundraising. On Monday, July 8, Scaggell and Wadleigh were invited back to the station and presented with a check for $7,300, plus more supplies. The way our community responded reminds us of what a special place East Kingston is, Warren said. We even had two children donate their allowance. People step up, no matter what their own needs are, to help someone less fortunate. Scaggell and Wadleigh are currently living with family. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Baltic nations are leading European NATO countries in surpassing the alliance target of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense, but that may not be enough if former President Trump wins another term in November, according to a former administration official. The United States has a commitment to come to the aid of NATO countries that are attacked. That is not the same thing as saying we should throw our entire military [to the eastern flank], Elbridge Colby, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, told Politico . Poland currently leads all countries by spending just more than 4 percent of its GDP on defense in 2024, followed by Estonia at 3.43 percent, the United States at 3.38 percent, Latvia at 3.15 percent, Greece at 3.08 percent and Lithuania at 2.85 percent. But Colby, expected to be nominated for another top job if Trump is reelected, said Eastern European countries must spend far more than 2 percent of their GDP in the face of Russia. I dont think its pretty impressive that Lithuania is spending 3 percent; Estonia spends 3 percent. If I were them, I would spend 10, if theyre serious about how threatening the Russians are, he said. I think what Europeans need to understand is that they need to build up their military as soon as humanly possible. For their part, Baltic defense officials on Tuesday agreed with Colbys sentiment, somewhat. Our voice here is very clear that we say that 2 percent is not enough, Estonia Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said during a Politico event on defenses against Russia and the war in Ukraine. We need to invest more to get more capabilities We must go to 2.5, maybe even to 3 percent. Laurynas Kasciunas, Lithuanias minister of national defense, said the Baltic countries are finding ways to ways to build up their militaries via weapons and equipment procurement from the United States defense industry. Another Trump presidency could be a reality. You should work with that, he said. In 2024, two-thirds of allies are expected to meet or exceed the target of investing at least 2 percent of GDP in defense, a major jump compared to the only three that met it in 2014, according to NATO. In 2024, NATOs European allies are predicted to invest a combined total of more than $380 billion in defense. But Trump, who has often lambasted NATO as obsolete and has threatened to pull the United States from the organization, has raised fears of effectively dismantling the 75-year-old alliance. Officials from the 32 NATO nations this week have descended upon Washington, D.C., to discuss the future of the alliance, with a possible U.S. president changeover at the front of minds. We do not have to be afraid that there will be a new president of United States or [if] the Biden administration will continue, Pevkur said. As Europeans, we have to remember that we are all members of the club and we have to work with any administration. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. When were making a list of titles that remind us of our states elected leader, cruel is not a word we want to see. But take a look at the latest headlines starring Gov. Ron DeSantis the stories about rejected funding that would have kept hungry kids fed while schools out, or the continuing coverage of Floridas failure to care about the workers sweltering in brutal heat and one song title comes to mind: Cruel Summer. It fits all too well. It doesnt even matter which Cruel Summer were talking about Taylor Swifts hit, which is still getting airplay, or the 1983 Bananarama song. Either works. Floridas workers, its children, dont deserve this. And while DeSantis may not be on the ballot this fall, his actions should be. None of this could have happened without the eager compliance of the GOP- and DeSantis-dominated Legislature. Heat with no heart You dont have to be an expert in climate science, Florida politics or even air-conditioning to know this: Were living through one of the most miserably hot summers on record, with feels-like heat indexes in the 105-110 range and communities scrambling to find ways to protect vulnerable populations. Yet the workers who form the backbone of Floridas economy farm laborers, theme-park employees, construction team members have almost no official protection from the blazing sun, though theyve begged the Legislature for years to provide modest protections, including training to spot signs of life-threatening heat stress, access to clean drinking water and breaks when the temperature is most brutal. Just a few years ago, legislators heard a bill that would answer some of those pleas. This year they veered viciously in the other direction. Last year, the Miami-Dade County Commission began to consider a local heat-protection ordinance that would have provided similar, minimal safeguards. That finally sparked lawmakers into action: On its last day, the Legislature passed HB 433, which blocked any local heat-protection ordinances. Stop and think about that for a minute. Not only did lawmakers refuse to do anything to help workers, they made sure cities and counties were helpless to require protections as well. As the blog Seeking Rents and others have documented, lawmakers were acting at the behest of some of the states biggest business interests, sheltering them from the mandate to save their own workers lives. DeSantis signed it quickly. We dont have good numbers detailing how many people have died from heat-related illnesses in recent years. But there is ample testimony supporting a dramatic increase in heat-related emergency room visits and fatalities. Does DeSantis care? Apparently not. Theres one glimmer of hope: The Biden administration is considering increased protection for all American workers, which would give the Occupational Safety and Health Administration specific power to adopt heat-safety rules. That relief cannot come quickly enough. Schools out, children suffer A year ago the same month Miami-Dade officials were considering their heat-protection ordinance someone on the campaign trail asked DeSantis what he thought about school lunches. His answer was rambling and nonsensical, starting with the screed What I dont want to do, though, is have the federal government come and try to force you to make choices. Later, Floridians came to realize that the choice he was talking about was this: Should kids get to eat? Or not? And he was pretty firmly on the side of not. The most recent figures show that at least 30% of families with children struggle at times (and most often in summer) to provide enough nutritious food for everyone in a household. Yet Florida made the bizarre decision to reject $248 million in federal aid funding that would have provided food for hungry children missing the school breakfasts and lunches that provided their best source of nutrition. Its too late to help this year, but Florida has until mid-August to accept or reject funding for 2025. How is this even in question? Yet it is. From Gods ears to your vote If youre a praying person, nows a good time to get down on your knees and ask that the hearts of DeSantis and others be moved to relent. Pray that the governor examine the emergency powers hes so often abused, looking for leeway to protect workers striving, sickening and dying in blistering heat. Pray that the governor and other state leaders ask what they would do if their families couldnt afford the food to let their own children grow healthy and strong. And then stand up. The governor may not listen to Taylor Swift or Bananarama, but he and the politicians who so slavishly follow his lead should listen to you. Among the candidates on this years ballot, several local lawmakers including Sen. Jason Brodeur and state representatives Carolina Amesty, Doug Bankson, Webster Barnaby, Randy Fine, Tom Leek, Stan McClain, Rachel Plakon, Susan Plasencia, Paula Stark, Keith Truenow and Taylor Yarkosky all voted in favor of HB 433. You should ask them why. Let it be known that your votes wont go to people who look the other way while children hunger or workers suffer. Because cruelty is on the ballot this year, and Florida voters should reject it every chance they get. The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com TRIPOLI, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) expressed deep concern Wednesday over the abduction of a political activist earlier this week in Misurata, northwestern Libya. Al-Moatassim Areebi, 29, was seized by unidentified armed men on Monday alongside Mohamed Shtewi, who was later released after being beaten, according to a UNSMIL statement. Areebi's whereabouts remain unknown. "UNSMIL reiterates the call made by members of the Misurata Municipal Council and community representatives urging the city's security and law enforcement agencies to urgently investigate the abduction of Mr. Al-Areebi, disclose his whereabouts, and secure his safe and immediate release," the statement said. UNSMIL has documented at least 60 individuals currently detained across Libya for their actual or perceived political affiliation, the statement said. UNSMIL called for the "immediate and unconditional release of all arbitrarily detained individuals and accountability for those responsible." Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011, Libya has suffered escalating violence, insecurity, and political instability. What is appropriate protest in a democratic society? There are many forms of dissent, including civil disobedience in which minor laws are broken, that Americans have come to accept over the decades as within the bounds of acceptable political expression. A masked mob gathering outside an individuals home in the dead of night, beating drums, blowing horns and shouting hateful slogans isnt one of them. Yet thats what U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, the Democrat who represents much of Chicagos northern suburbs, and his Highland Park neighbors endured from dozens who descended on their neighborhood at around 3 a.m. on June 29 to protest Israels war in Gaza. Highland Park police understandably werent staffed up at that hour to round up and arrest 40 demonstrators, even though they were unquestionably breaking laws. We spoke with Schneider, who was home at the time, and what he described sounded harrowing indeed. Imagine being jolted awake at 3 a.m. to the sights and sounds of a masked and angry mob right outside your doors. It wasnt just Schneider who ended up targets of this mob. The neighborhood is predominantly Jewish, and once the rabble saw a sign in a neighbors yard that read, We Stand with Israel, they began yelling, Zionists, go to hell, the congressman told us. Living close by is a 98-year-old woman, as well as a family with a baby, he said. So in many respects this wasnt just an attack on a member of Congress for his policy positions. This was an attack on a neighborhood made up mainly of Jewish residents. That was grotesque and antisemitic. These people are calling for Israel to surrender and be eliminated is, I guess, the nicest way I can say it, Schneider told us. They came to terrorize my neighbors to try to change my position. They know neither my neighbors nor me. In fact, nearly 100 residents gathered the next afternoon, June 30, on Schneiders patio, along with representatives of the Highland Park Police Department, to discuss what had happened and what to do if theres a recurrence. The discussion was positive, Schneider said, and he was touched by the support he and his family received. His neighbors told him not to change a thing in terms of his Israel-Hamas positions. A few days later, on July 4, Schneiders office in Washington was targeted. Pictures on the walls outside the office of hostages still held by Hamas were ripped up and torn down. Schneider isnt the only member of Congress with photographs of hostages up outside his office. But, as far as he knows, his was the only one targeted in this fashion. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who has said strikingly little about Israel and Gaza and has next to nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy, also had his home in Chicago visited by demonstrators, many of whom were holding banners identical to the ones outside Schneiders home. Pritzkers apparently was targeted primarily because hes Jewish. Of course, there are plenty of other politicians, including in Illinois, who have voted exactly as Schneider has on the Israel-Gaza issue, but their homes havent been the sites of predawn protests. We must conclude that the targeting of Schneider and Pritzker is due to their Jewish identities. Needless to say, this form of protest wont change any minds. Its hateful harassment, pure and simple. Everyone I know wants this war to come to an end, said Schneider, who has supported Palestinian statehood for years and is an ardent First Amendment advocate. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com. Eight Ukrainian children aged 7 to 17 years have been brought back to Ukraine-controlled territory from the occupied parts of Kherson and Donetsk oblasts. Source: Mykola Kuleba, the Head of the Save Ukraine charity organisation Details: One of the returned teenagers, Serhii, tried to leave the occupation twice. At the first border, he was detained by the Russians, who threatened him with imprisonment, accused him of lying and wanted to hypnotise him with a psychic so that he would tell them the truth during interrogation. Olena, the mother of two rescued children, one of whom is seriously ill, said that she was beaten by the Russians until she lost consciousness and then ordered not to tell anyone that she was in pain. Taras, another rescued teenager, bought a Russian SIM card so as to stay in touch in the occupied city. As soon as he activated it, he received a message saying that the Russian military could recruit him as a contract serviceman, although he was under 18 years of age. Myroslava, a 14-year-old who returned from the occupation, told how a Russian soldier threatened her with a gun at the border to make her undergo an interrogation. Quote: "I was very happy when we crossed the border and finally found ourselves in Ukraine. I feel very good now. They intimidate and beat people there, but here, it's a free country," she said. The children and adults are now safe and have a long recovery process ahead of them. In total, Save Ukraine has managed to rescue 405 children from Russia and the occupied territories. Earlier, it was reported that ten Ukrainian children were brought back from the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts. Support UP or become our patron! Elderly Utah man sentenced after using dead persons identity, stealing more than $100K in government benefits SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) An elderly man in Utah was sentenced after he used the identity of a dead person to fraudulently receive government benefits, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Utah. Melvin Roy Hunter, 71, of Salt Lake County, has been ordered to 14 months of home detention as part of his 40-month probation sentence. Hunter was also ordered to pay $105,301.30 in restitution. According to the DOJ, Hunter admitted in court to wire fraud in April. READ NEXT: Utah State University dismisses executive associate athletics director Amy Crosbie Hunter fraudulently received government benefits from the Social Security Administration, and other government agencies, by assuming the identity of a deceased individual from September 2015 to September 2023, a press release said. Hunter was reportedly able to get the birth certificate and Social Security number of the dead person, as well as other personally identifiable information. Hunter was also able to falsely obtain a Utah drivers license with the name of the deceased person. Hunter then used this assumed identity to fraudulently open a Wells Fargo checking account and obtain money from the United States, the press release said. After using the dead persons identity, Hunter was able to fraudulently get funds from the United States Social Security Administration in addition to Medicare and Medicaid programs. He also got money from the United States Department of Agricultures Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP program, as well as the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and funding from the federal Corona Virus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. Numerous agencies investigated the case, including the U.S. Social Security Administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. Electric vehicles sales are expected to surge over the next 10 years and legislators around the country are debating who should build the electric charging stations that will be needed electric utilities or private businesses? The 10-port charging station at JFK airport in New York is part of a joint initiative by the New York Power Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) An EV charges at the 10-port charging station at JFK airport in New York. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) New license plates may not be the only big change for some Pennsylvania drivers next year. The state House on Wednesday passed a bill that would require electric vehicle owners to pay a road user fee in lieu of the gasoline tax that other motorists pay. The owners of EVs would pay a $200 fee when registering or renewing their registration next year. The fee would increase to $250 in 2026. Owners of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles would pay $50 next year and $63 in 2026, under the version of Senate Bill 656 passed by the House in a 190-12 vote. The legislation now returns to the state Senate for lawmakers to approve a House amendment adjusting the fee amounts. If Senate lawmakers sign off on the change it will go to Gov. Josh Shapiro for his signature. House Transportation Committee Ed Nielson (D-Philadelphia) said in debate on the House floor Wednesday that the legislature has been working to establish a way for electric vehicle users to pay their fair share of highway costs for years. Both sides of the aisle are in support of doing this, Nielson said. A lot of people are calling it tax a tax it is not. It is a fee to use our roadways, a fair and equitable fee. The EV fee legislation passed in the upper chamber more than a year ago with strong bipartisan support but faced Republican opposition in the House Transportation Committee because members said the maximum fee of $285 was too high. Thats roughly equivalent to the $285 in gasoline tax drivers paid on average in 2021, according to the state Independent Fiscal Office. Pennsylvania relies on its liquid fuels tax to pay for highway and bridge maintenance, state police, and other transportation-related costs. Shapiros 2024-25 budget proposal includes more than $1.7 billion in tax revenue from gas and diesel fuel purchases. At 57.6 cents per gallon, Pennsylvanias gas tax is the second highest in the nation just a fraction of a cent less than California, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And while Pennsylvania has an alternative fuels tax that includes electricity for electric vehicles, the state relies on users to self-report and remit any taxes that are due. Last year, the state collected less than $778,000 in alternative fuel tax revenue, which includes tax paid on other forms of alternative fuel such as hydrogen and compressed natural gas. An analysis by the House Appropriations Committee projects that the fees on EVs and plug-in hybrids would generate more than $16 million next year. Rep. Kerry Benninghoff (R-Centre) noted that while he generally opposes new fees on consumers, the burden of highway maintenance and highway safety is falling mainly on traditional fossil fuel vehicle drivers while EV drivers benefit.. We all have a responsibility to fund these roads, fund our bridges, and safety, Benninghoff said. These vehicles have a lot of weight to them, and their impact is significant. But House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee Chairman Greg Vitali (D-Delaware) noted the fee would be the second-highest in the nation and could turn some consumers away from EVs. Texas charges a $400 fee in the first year that a new EV is registered and $250.75 a year thereafter. We should be encouraging the use of EV vehicles, not discouraging it, Vitali said, noting that many EV owners pay a premium for their vehicles because they want to do the right thing. As far as the environment goes, they are concerned with climate change. They are concerned with air pollution. They are concerned with our dependency on foreign oil. Vitali was one of six Democrats who voted against the bill. Rep. Joseph Hohenstein (D-Philadelphia) said that while the legislation is not an answer to climate change, it does address a pressing issue for the state. This is a fantastic bill that does move everything forward, but it also has a lot of elements that kick the can down the road, and we will need to address these issues in the future of both our energy usage and our basic fundamental transportation funding. And this is one element of it, but it is not where we end, Hohenstein said. A misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge has been upgraded to a felony substantial battery charge against an Elmbrook School Board member accused in a domestic disturbance. If convicted, Preetha Kurudiyara could lose her seat on the board. Kurudiyara was initially charged in November, accused of throwing a bottle at her husband. That initial misdemeanor charge was filed "pending further investigation given the nature of the injuries," according to a letter from Waukesha County Assistant District Attorney Peter Tempelis to Circuit Judge Bridget Schoenborn. Brookfield police investigated further and forwarded medical records to the DA's Office that show Kurudiyara's husband suffered a fractured nose as a result of the incident, Tempelis' letter said. The DA's office subsequently requested that the misdemeanor charge be dismissed and on July 3 filed a felony charge of substantial battery with intent to cause bodily harm, with a domestic abuse modifier, online court records show. Kurudiyara made her initial court appearance July 8 in Waukesha County Circuit Court. She pleaded not guilty and is free on a $1,000 signature bond. A preliminary hearing has been set for July 17. Kurudiyara was ordered not to contact her husband or children except to arrange supervised visits. She was also ordered not to possess alcohol, drugs or weapons. If convicted, Kurudiyara could face up to three years and six months in prison, up to a $10,000 fine or both, according to the criminal complaint. She also could lose her board seat, as state law does not allow for felons to hold public office. Kurudiyara has been on the Elmbrook School Board since 2023. Neither Kurudiyara nor her attorney, Amanda Riek, has responded to phone or email messages from a reporter seeking comment. Elmbrook School District communications specialist Eric Hagen said the district would not comment on pending litigation. What does the criminal complaint allege? According to the July 3 criminal complaint: Brookfield police responded Nov. 22, 2023, to Kurudiyara's residence, where Kurudiyara's husband told police Kurudiyara had struck him with a bottle. He said they had been arguing the whole day. That evening, Kurudiyara threw a 1-liter bottle at her husband, which struck him in the face. At the hospital, an officer noted blood was covering Kurudiyara's husband's hands, pants and shirt. A CT scan showed that Kurudiyara had broken his nose. Kurudiyara's husband told police he and Kurudiyara were in an abusive relationship. He also said there were prior incidents of domestic violence in which Kurudiyara was the aggressor that he did not report to police, the complaint said. Online court records show Kurudiyara has other cases pending against her. She has a hit-and-run case alleging she hit an unattended vehicle in June, and a divorce filing against her husband, both pending. Kurudiyara's husband filed for a temporary restraining order in November 2023 against Kurudiyara. That motion was denied, but the following month, both parties agreed to a one-year injunction against Kurudiyara, effective until Dec. 18 this year. Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Elmbrook School Board member charged in domestic dispute The X platform, formerly known as Twitter and owned by American billionaire Elon Musk, has been blocking Bellingcat's investigation into the Russian attack on the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, which involved the use of a Kh-101 missile. Some users encounter a warning that the link may be dangerous when attempting to access it. Source: Mezha.Media, a technology and IT news platform within Ukrainska Pravdas holding company Details: "You can't complete this action because this link has been identified by X or our partners as being potentially harmful," says X's URL Policy. It also states that the link may fall into any of the following categories: Malicious links that could steal personal information or harm electronic devices; Spammy links that mislead people or disrupt their experience; Violent or misleading content that could lead to real-world harm in the aftermath of a crisis incident; Certain categories of content that, if posted directly on X, would violate its rules Background: Earlier, Bellingcat analysts and experts in nuclear weapons and missile technology confirmed that the Okhmatdyt hospital in Kyiv had been hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile. This conclusion was based on video footage of the attack that appeared in open sources shortly after the strike. On Monday, 8 July 2024, the Okhmatdyt children's hospital was struck in a Russian attack. At the time, there were 627 children in the hospital, 8 of whom were injured, and 2 adults were killed. Support UP or become our patron! Editor's note: The article was updated after the city's administration corrected its statement on the number of fatalities in the city. Search and rescue operations related to Russia's mass missile attack on July 8 have concluded in Kyiv, Ukraine's State Emergency Service announced the morning of July 10. Russian forces launched a missile attack on the capital on July 8, killing 33 and injuring 121 others. One Russian missile directly struck the Okhmatdyt children's hospital. Shortly after the end of the rescue operations, the city authorities announced that the death toll of the attack had risen to 34, but later corrected their statement and said that 33 people had been killed. The death toll of the July 8 attack matches that of an earlier strike on Dec. 29, which Mayor Vitali Klitschko called the deadliest attack on Kyiv since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. "These have been tragic, tense, and exhausting days," the State Emergency Service said on Telegram. "Emergency rescuers and dozens of pieces of equipment have been continuously clearing the rubble, trying to save every life." In total, emergency workers rescued 11 people in the aftermath of the attack. Among the victims killed in the strike in Kyiv, five were children. There were also 10 children among the wounded. Read also: How Russia broke through Ukraines air defense to strike Kyiv childrens hospital Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) An employee at a north Columbus eating disorder program is in court Wednesday after being accused of sexual battery of a patient. According to court documents, 26-year-old Amanda Stetzer is facing felony charges of sexual battery of a patient or inmate and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. Stetzer is accused of engaging in a sexual relationship with a patient at The Emily Program Eating Disorder Outpatient Treatment Center in the Northwoods area near Worthington. Amanda Stetzer appears for her arraignment hearing in Franklin County Municipal Court. (Courtesy Photo/Franklin County Municipal Court) The Emily Program building. (Courtesy Photo/Franklin County Auditor) Police said that the patient, 17, reported that she was enrolled in The Emily Program in June. When she arrived at the facility, she met Stetzer to fill out paperwork. The victim stated that Stetzer placed her hand on her leg and slapped her rear end when she was in the common bathroom. Ginther proposes $2 million for programs keeping teens on the right track The two allegedly exchanged numbers and the victim said that Stetzer began to give her extra privileges, such as the use of a cell phone and staying up after hours. Stetzer then reportedly would tell the victim to make up reasons to go to a group room after hours so they could be intimate. The victim stated that the two of them would also go for drives in Stetzers car and engage in sex in the back seat. She told police that all encounters lasted for approximately 25 minutes so as to not arouse suspicion from others. The last two encounters occurred on June 20 and June 23, police said. This embedded content is not available in your region. Court documents said that Stetzer told the victim not to tell anyone, that she has a child, and did not want to lose her job. A LinkedIn profile for Stetzer listed her as a Behavior Health Technician for The Emily Program. Stetzer also allegedly sent the victim explicit texts and images via social media. Those images were saved, police said. Stetzer was arrested Tuesday and on Wednesday, a Franklin County Municipal Court judge issued her a $100,000 bond. She is next scheduled to appear in court on July 19 for a preliminary hearing. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV. What is the Empowerment Scholarship Account program in Arizona? Arizonas Empowerment Scholarship Account program has exploded in popularity since 2022, when the state Legislature expanded its scope beyond specific groups of students, like those with special needs, to include every kid in Arizona. Students enrolled in the voucher program can use public money to pay for education expenses such as private school tuition, supplies and tutoring. As of June, roughly 75,000 students were enrolled. The Empowerment Scholarship Account program the ESA program, for short will cost taxpayers an estimated $864.4 million for the upcoming school year, according to the Arizona Department of Education. Arizona lawmakers expanded the Empowerment Scholarship program, but it will be difficult, if not impossible, to track the increased spending and any improvement in student performance. The program has garnered criticism from some public school advocates and Democratic lawmakers who say it lacks proper safeguards and siphons state dollars away from an underfunded public school system. What is ESA in education? ESA stands for Empowerment Scholarship Account, which is the name of Arizonas education voucher program. Funds are disbursed on a quarterly basis to families enrolled in the program. Families can pay for services in several ways: Direct Pay, through which vendors, schools or providers upload invoices to the payment portal and are paid through it; Marketplace, which has a list of preapproved items or services; or Reimbursement, where a family pays out of pocket and then submits a receipt. Most students receive between $7,000 and $8,000, according to the Education Department, though award amounts have most recently ranged from about $4,600 to more than $44,000. Students with disabilities receive more money on average than their peers who do not have disabilities. The voucher amount is 90% of the state aid that would have gone to a student's public school district or charter school if the student were enrolled in the public school system. Parents can apply for the program on the departments website. The application process is annual. Students must meet certain eligibility requirements. For example, students must be 5 years old on Jan. 1 of the year they apply. Reach the reporter at nicholas.sullivan@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: What is the Arizona ESA program? A former United States Air Force engineer was charged for making false statements and obstructing justice during a criminal investigation into a 2017 Marine Corps Reserve plane crash that killed 15 Marines and one Navy corpsman. James Michael Fisher, 67, was a propulsion engineer at Warner Robins Logistic Center in Georgia, a facility in charge of maintenance and repairs for propellers used in the Marine Corps KC-130 transport aircraft that crashed, according to a Department of Justice press release. He was arrested July 2. On July 10, 2017, a Marine Corps KC-130 transport plane, with the callsign Yanky 72, crashed near Itta Bena, Mississippi, after a faulty propeller blade flew off the plane midflight, an investigation into the incident later discovered. The routine transport mission from North Carolina to California tragically ended with the blade smashing into the aircrafts side, separating the aircraft into three pieces and killing everyone onboard. Fisher engaged in a pattern of conduct intended to avoid scrutiny for his past engineering decisions related to why the crash may have occurred, the Department of Justice press release said. The indictment alleges he concealed key engineering documents and made materially false statements to criminal investigators about his past engineering decisions. The Northern District of Mississippi United States District Court charged Fisher with destruction or falsification of records in a federal investigation; tampering with a witness, victim, or informant; and making false statements, according to court documents. Investigation blames Air Force and Navy for systemic failures in fatal Marine Corps C-130 crash that killed 16 Fisher faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted. He was ordered to appear again in the Northern District of Mississippi United States District Court on July 10, according to court documents. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and Naval Criminal Investigative Service are investigating, according to the Department of Justice. The Marine Corps declined to comment to Marine Corps Times. Walter Robins Air Force Base and the Air Force also declined to comment, directing questions about the investigation to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Mississippi. Most Navy C-130s remain grounded nearly one year after fatal crash A 2018 Marine Corps investigation into the KC-130T crash said the tragedy resulted from a corroded propeller blade that Navy and Air Force officials failed to detect and fix prior to installation in the aircraft. The report highlighted the massive oversight of both the Air Force and Navy, including an Air Force policy to toss maintenance records after two years that made accountability for the tragedy difficult. The report also said the practice of shipping out deteriorating blades to the Navy and Marine Corps wasnt a one-off and went on for years. The crash led to the grounding of Marine Corps Forces Reserve KC-130T aircraft and the Navys C-130 fleet. Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Umaro Sissoco Embalo, president of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing, capital of China, July 10, 2024. Xi held talks with Embalo at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday. They witnessed the signing of multiple bilateral cooperation documents after the talks. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao) BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) -- China and Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday elevated their relations to a strategic partnership. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Umaro Sissoco Embalo, president of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, announced this when holding talks in Beijing. Noting that in recent years, China and Guinea-Bissau have deepened bilateral relations, strengthened political mutual trust, expanded pragmatic cooperation and enhanced international coordination, Xi said China supports Guinea-Bissau in independently exploring a development path that suits its national conditions. Xi said China is willing to work with Guinea-Bissau to inherit the traditional friendship, consolidate political mutual trust, expand pragmatic cooperation, continuously enrich the connotation of the strategic partnership between the two countries, and help Guinea-Bissau achieve better national development. He stressed that China stands ready to strengthen friendly exchanges with Guinea-Bissau at all levels, enhance experience-sharing on governance, and expand cooperation in areas such as agriculture, mining, infrastructure construction and the blue economy under the guidance of the high-quality construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Xi said China welcomes high-quality agricultural products from Guinea-Bissau to enter the Chinese market, and encourages Chinese enterprises to invest and carry out cooperation in Guinea-Bissau and help Guinea-Bissau transform its resource potential into development momentum. China is willing to continue to provide support within its capacity for Guinea-Bissau's domestic construction, and will continue to send its rice experts and medical teams to assist Guinea-Bissau in ensuring food security and developing public health, he added. Xi called on the two sides to strengthen exchanges and cooperation in education, youth and other fields to bring the two peoples' hearts closer. China will continue to provide government scholarships and training opportunities to help Guinea-Bissau cultivate more talents for its national development, he said. Both China and Africa have splendid civilizations, both have suffered from the painful history of colonization and aggression, and both cherish and pursue national independence and liberation, Xi said, adding that mutual support and assistance between China and African countries are sincere and genuine. Xi said China and African countries are good brothers with sincerity, real results, amity and good faith, and offer an exemplary model for unity and cooperation between developing nations. Under the new circumstances, the two sides should join hands to usher in a new era, Xi added. Xi said the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) is an important platform for the Chinese and African people to practice the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and promote common development. Noting that two weeks ago, the commemorative events marking the 70th anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence were held in Beijing, and this autumn, a new FOCAC Summit will be held in Beijing, Xi said China is willing to work with Guinea-Bissau and other African countries to champion the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, discuss major plans for China-Africa cooperation in the new era, safeguard the common interests of developing countries and international fairness and justice, and jointly build a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future. Embalo said Guinea-Bissau and China enjoy a solid and cordial relationship marked by unwavering mutual support, adding that whenever Guinea-Bissau faces difficulties, China has always provided invaluable assistance without hesitation, a gesture that the people of Guinea-Bissau will never forget. Embalo said Guinea-Bissau will continue to stand firmly with China, uphold the one-China principle and support China's position on its core interests such as the Taiwan question. Guinea-Bissau admires China's remarkable development achievements and regards China as its top priority in foreign relations and most important partner. Guinea-Bissau hopes to learn from China's development experience, and strengthen cooperation with China in areas such as trade, investment, infrastructure and mineral resources. Embalo said China has never engaged in colonialism, interfered in the internal affairs of other countries, or pointed fingers at other countries, and China has always treated small countries with equality and respect, consistently matching its words with actions. Noting that China has brought cooperation projects to Africa, including schools, hospitals and roads, delivering benefits to the African people, Embalo said Guinea-Bissau greatly appreciates China's important role and positive contributions in helping the development of the African continent, and actively supports China in hosting the new FOCAC Summit. Guinea-Bissau supports the BRI, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative proposed by President Xi, and is willing to closely communicate and cooperate with China on multilateral affairs, to jointly build a community with a shared future for humanity, Embalo added. After the talks, the two heads of state witnessed the signing of multiple bilateral cooperation documents regarding the Global Development Initiative, economic development, customs inspection and quarantine, geology, mining and other fields. The two sides also issued a joint statement on establishing the strategic partnership. Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with Umaro Sissoco Embalo, president of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, who is on a state visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 10, 2024. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao) Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for Umaro Sissoco Embalo, president of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, who is on a state visit to China, at the square outside the east gate of the Great Hall of the People prior to their talks in Beijing, capital of China, July 10, 2024. Xi held talks with Embalo at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Ding Lin) Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for Umaro Sissoco Embalo, president of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, who is on a state visit to China, at the square outside the east gate of the Great Hall of the People prior to their talks in Beijing, capital of China, July 10, 2024. Xi held talks with Embalo at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao) Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan pose for a group photo with Umaro Sissoco Embalo, president of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, and his wife Dinisia Reis Embalo prior to the talks between Xi and Embalo in Beijing, capital of China, July 10, 2024. Xi held talks with Embalo, who is on a state visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen) Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for Umaro Sissoco Embalo, president of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, who is on a state visit to China, at the square outside the east gate of the Great Hall of the People prior to their talks in Beijing, capital of China, July 10, 2024. Xi held talks with Embalo at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) DENVER (KDVR) An Englewood man who was found guilty of first-degree murder in the March 2023 killings of his wife and daughter was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on Wednesday. Reginald Maclaren, 83, received two life sentences without the possibility of parole for the murder of his wife Bethany, 70, and his daughter Ruth, 35, according to the 18th Judicial District Attorneys Office. Past reporting: Victim in ax killings had cerebral palsy, autopsy shows On top of the life sentences, he received two 12-year sentences for tampering with a deceased body, as well as 120 days in jail with credit for time served for false reporting. According to the Englewood Police Department, Maclaren called for police around 6 p.m. on March 25, 2023, and said someone he knew killed his wife and daughter with a hammer. When officers arrived, Ruth and Bethanys bodies were found stuffed inside black roll-away trash cans in the living room. Police said one of the bodies was dismembered and there was a large ax in the closet. Maclaren tells police he killed them to avoid homelessness Maclaren was taken to a nearby hospital where police said he admitted to killing his wife and daughter. According to the arrest affidavit, Maclaren told detectives that he struck his wife in the head with an ax while she was sitting on a couch that morning. He then hit his daughter, who had cerebral palsy, with the ax and knocked her unconscious. He told police that he struck the victims in the head twice more each before dismembering their bodies so they would fit in the trash. According to the autopsy report, his daughter was killed with 23 ax wounds, and her mother died from six ax wounds. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox According to the affidavit, Maclaren told police that he was recently fired and was worried that his family would become homeless because he could not pay rent. He told detectives he had been planning the murder for 10 days and did not regret killing his family, saying he knows they are in a better place. The judge ordered that his sentences run consecutively. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. ENTERPRISE, Ala. (WDHN) The City of Enterprise is partnering with LifeSouth Community Blood Centers to host a blood drive on July 22, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the overflow parking lot of the Enterprise Farmers Market. All donors will receive a $20 e-gift card, and an additional $20 card will be given to those who donate platelet and double red cell donors. To give blood, donors must be at least 17, or 16 with a parents permission, weigh 110 lbs, and be in good health. They must also show a valid photo ID. According to LifeSouths data, approximately 37% of the population can donate, yet less than 10% do. Donors will also receive a free cholesterol screening. For more information about the donation process, please visit their website here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDHN - wdhn.com. The entire country is getting involved in the campaign in Florida over abortion Florida may no longer be a battleground in the presidential race, but a new political fight over abortion is drawing interest from around the country and taking center stage in the Sunshine State. Donors both in Florida and nationally are putting tens of millions of dollars behind a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize abortion up until fetal viability, generally understood to be around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Known as Amendment 4, the measure also includes exceptions past that mark for the patients health, as determined by the patients healthcare provider. Opponents of the ballot measure, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Republican Party he commands, say its an ill-defined and overly broad effort to ensure abortion access up until a child is born. For abortion rights activists, the proposed amendment represents the best chance for Florida voters to overturn a six-week abortion ban that took effect in May and stands among the strictest abortion laws in the country passed since Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights case, was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago. I think this is one of the largest humanitarian issues on a ballot nationwide right now, said Lauren Brenzel, the director of Floridians Protecting Freedom, the main group supporting Amendment 4. We know were going to see opposition to this campaign. Our job is to not take our foot off the gas. We have to move full steam ahead; we have to make sure were communicating, not just in our state but nationwide, how important this is. In an election year with both a presidential and U.S. Senate race on the ballot, the effort to pass Amendment 4 stands out. While public polling shows Trump trouncing Biden in the presidential race in Florida, Amendment 4 has received broad support. A CBS News/YouGov survey released in May found support for the ballot measure hitting the 60% threshold it will need to pass in November. Another poll from the Florida Chamber of Commerce conducted around the same time clocked support for the amendment at 61%. Floridians Protecting Freedom has already reported raising more than $38 million from donors across the country. Some of its biggest donors include Open Society Fund, a group founded by Democratic mega-donor George Soros, and Think Big America, a Chicago-based abortion rights nonprofit started last year by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, both of which have given $500,000 to the Yes on 4 campaign. Its single largest donor so far is Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, an Oklahoma-based nonprofit that pumped $5 million into the Yes on 4 campaign last month. RELATED CONTENT: What the Supreme Court emergency abortion ruling does (and doesnt) mean for Florida Sherri Loss, right, a LPN who came out of retirement during the pandemic to work at the East Cypress Womens Center, has a consultation session with a patient during a busy morning at the clinic on Monday, April 24, 2023. The campaigns Floridians Protecting Freedom began dispatching volunteers last month to knock on doors in hopes of persuading voters to back the proposal in November. And with money to spend, Brenzel said the group also plans to use its tens of millions of dollars to pay professional organizers and go up on TV and radio with ads supporting Amendment 4. We want to be on television, we want to be on peoples screens and we want to be on radio, Brenzel said. There are real stories of women that have been harmed by the unreasonable [abortion] restrictions that we have in this state. Florida has long been a refuge in the U.S. southeast for women seeking an abortion. But a decision by the Florida Supreme Court in April upholding a six-week abortion ban signed into law by DeSantis last year changed that. Many women seeking abortions must now travel to states like North Carolina and Virginia to undergo the procedure. Theres still an active opposition to the ballot measure. Vote No On 4, the campaign against the amendment, formally launched a bilingual campaign this month to defeat the ballot initiative, and boasts a network of organizers and volunteers that it says is currently capable of reaching 80% of Florida voters. #VoteNoOn4Florida Campaign Launches to Defeat The Deceptive and Extreme Amendment 4 WATCH NOW and Learn More: https://t.co/Rcn8KlVNva pic.twitter.com/L3aOXPYAgC Vote No on 4 FL (@VoteNoOn4FL) July 1, 2024 The anti-Amendment 4 effort is also set to get some help from DeSantis and his allies. The governor is expected to use a newly formed political committee, Florida Freedom Fund, to target Amendment 4, as well as another proposed amendment that would legalize recreational marijuana in Florida. The fight over those proposed amendments, he said, would receive top billing in Florida this year. The state is slated to play a less prominent role in the November presidential election than it has in past years; Donald Trump and his allies see Florida as friendly territory, while Bidens campaign manager acknowledged last month that the state is no longer a political battleground. You think about presidential election years, it used to be all eyes in the universe would be on the state of Florida because it was such a close state. Its not too much of a close state anymore, DeSantis said at a recent press conference in response to a question from the Miami Herald. But, he added, you do have some of the constitutional ballot initiatives. To be sure, the campaign to sink the proposed amendment has some catching up to do in the fundraising game. Florida Voters Against Extremism, the main group involved in the anti-Amendment 4 effort, has reported raising less than $250,000 since it was formed last fall. More than half of that has come from Catholic dioceses in Florida and the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops. DeSantis Florida Freedom Fund has reported taking in a total of $121,400, with $100,000 of that coming from POB Ventures LLC, an Apopka-based company that lists itself as working in the alternative pharmaceuticals industry. Another $10,000 came from former U.S. Rep. Keith Rothfus of Pennsylvania. The goal of the effort to defeat the amendment over the next several months is to paint the proposal as a radical step to bypass any reasonable abortion restrictions. Taryn Fenske, a spokesperson for the Vote No on 4 campaign and DeSantis, argued that the language of the amendment would allow women to have abortions without the approval of a licensed medical doctor. Minors, she said, would be able to undergo abortions without their parents consent. Our campaign is focused on informing all Floridians that Amendment 4 is deceptive and dangerous, giving broad abortion approval rights to non-doctor clinical staff, allowing abortions for minors without parental consent, and not only legalizing abortion during the first 6 months, but the entire pregnancy, Fenske said in a statement. REALITY CHECK: DeSantis says ballot proposal allows abortion until birth. Heres what you should know Supporters of the amendment have said such criticism is misleading, arguing that health care providers are regulated by the state. The language of the amendment itself also notes that it would not change the Legislatures constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion. File art: Pamphlets and other literature about adoption, family planning and breastfeeding are displayed at the Respect Life crisis pregnancy center. Partisan politics The amendments supporters have gone to great pains to try to divorce the ballot measure from party politics. There are over 900,000 more active registered Republican voters in Florida now than Democrats, according to state data, meaning that proposed amendment will likely need at least some bipartisan support if its to have any chance of passing in November. Yet Democratic candidates across the state have sought to tie their political fortunes to Amendment 4, hoping that voters motivated by the prospect of protecting abortion access will turn out in force to cast their ballot in favor of both the amendment and the Democrats who support it. Just a few weeks after the Florida Supreme Court allowed the states six-week abortion ban to go into effect, Biden traveled to Tampa to assail the law as a cruel attempt to limit womens rights. In May, as the six-week ban formally entered into force, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a speech in Jacksonville where she cast Democrats as the ones who trust women to make decisions about their own bodies. Former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the likely Democratic nominee to take on U.S. Sen. Rick Scott in November, has also made abortion rights a central pillar of her campaign. While shes insisted that passing Amendment 4 isnt a partisan issue, shes also argued that voting in favor of the amendment and electing Democratic lawmakers should go hand in hand. [Voters] have an opportunity to enshrine into the states constitution this right, this fundamental right for women, Mucarsel-Powell said at a stop in Fort Lauderdale last week. But it will mean absolutely nothing if they re-elect Rick Scott, send him back to the Senate and then he passes a national abortion ban. Make no mistake, she added. Freedom is on the ballot this November, and if we want to stop these extreme bans, we have to stop the extremists who are pushing them. Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, said that while theres a chance that Amendment 4 will help boost Democratic voter turnout this fall, its unlikely to be enough to pull Joe Biden across the finish line in November. I dont know thats its going to have that big of an impact on these top-of-the-ticket races, Jewett said. The reality is, in order [for Amendment 4] to get to 60%, its going to have to get broad support. Thats all to say that for the abortion rights folks theyre not going to get to 60% without Republicans. File art: Abortion rights advocates march and rally in support of the Yes On 4 campaign in downtown Orlando, Florida, against the six-week ban on Nov. 5, when Florida voters will vote on whether to allow the right to an abortion in Florida on April 13, 2024. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel/TNS) Sixteen years later following the plans to expand Hilton Head Airports runway and the completion of the runway itself the historic St. James Baptist Church is still millions short of the funds needed to relocate out of the runway protection zone. Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, allocated $4 million in this years state budget to aid in the construction of a new church and fellowship hall, as well as the relocation of the Cherry Hill School. The project, which has been in the works since 2018 when the congregation, county and town of Hilton Head first collaborated to relocate the church, is estimated to cost between $8 to $10 million, according to Jared Fralix, the assistant county administrator for Beaufort County and lead for the project. In 2018, the airport completed a 700-foot runway extension, enabling larger planes to land but also extending the federally mandated runway protection zone over both the St. James Church and Cherry Hill School. St. James Church is the oldest continuously operating cultural institution in Mitchelville, the north-end village established for freed slaves in 1886. Built in 1937, the Cherry Hill School is the last remaining schoolhouse constructed solely for African American children on the island. The congregation still meets in the church despite Federal Aviation Administration recommendations that all buildings in the protection zone should be empty. Herbert Ford, the churchs Board of Trustees chairman and a congregation member, said the church has nowhere else to go until the county provides a new sanctuary. There is no required timeline for relocation unless the airport proposes a land-use change, according to a FAA statement. Fralix and his team of engineers and design professionals are working to create a conceptual planning and cost estimate guide to present to both the town and county council where they will then dictate the project schedule and additional funding needed, he said. As of the beginning stages planning process, Fralix said the relocation of the three facilities will be on town-owned land in Union Cemetery on Union Cemetery Road. Of the estimated $8 to $10 million needed for the relocation and construction, the state has provided almost $5 million through earmarks from this year and last year, Fralix said. The county and town have also provided $150,000 each, bringing the total to a little over $5 million dollars, he added. Fralix is working to develop plans to submit to the FAA for the agency to be a stakeholder in the project, he said, to bring additional funding for the construction and relocation. He noted however that the FAA wouldnt be able to fund all of the elements or the remaining gap. Last fall, Fralix had a meeting with all of the stakeholders FAA, airport, county and town of Hilton Head to move the project forward, he said. Its a priority, he said. Theres more momentum thats been made over the last nine or 10 months than whats been made over the last several years, and so we hope to build off that in the coming months. At a meeting in Brussels on 10 July, the permanent representatives of the EU member states sharply criticised the trips of Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to Russia and China, which undermined the unity of the EU. Source: Europa Press information agency with reference to EU diplomats, as reported by European Pravda Details: The meeting of the EU ambassadors lasted for two hours. The participants made it clear to the Hungarian representative that they did not believe the explanations provided by Budapest and considered Orbans actions as breaking the rules. Only one delegation from Slovakia, whose government is now an ally of Hungary, did not take the floor while the rest of the ambassadors made a speech to express their indignation with a series of trips that occurred since the beginning of Hungarys presidency in the EU on 1 July. The Hungarian representative stated that during his trips Orban did not present the EUs position, and the EU rules do not regulate whether the leader has to warn other member states about his foreign trips. Europa Press reports that no decisions were adopted at the meeting and no specific measures were suggested in response. The sources confirmed that the shortening of the term of Hungarys presidency in the EU the media had reported about earlier was not discussed at the meeting. Several EU countries consider the possibility of boycotting informal meetings on the ministers level, which Hungary planned to hold during its presidency. Support UP or become our patron! The EU has started discussing punishing Hungary and the government of Viktor Orban for their international activity and fake "mediation" to end the war in Ukraine. In particular, they are discussing the possibility of an early end to Hungary's presidency of the Council of the European Union. Source: European Pravda article Details: It is reported that Orban, whose country began to preside over the EU Council on 1 July, has begun to use this status without consent from other EU members and this has started to irritate Hungary's European partners. The publication notes that the EU has never terminated the presidency's powers ahead of schedule, but there are ways to do this. In particular, Article 16 of the Lisbon Treaty only states that the presidency "is carried out based on equal rotation", and the timing and priority of this honorary mission is determined at the EU summit. A vote by a qualified majority is sufficient for its approval. This means there are no legal obstacles to taking away Hungary's seat at the next summit. It is noted that, for example, it is possible to reduce the term of the Hungarian presidency and transfer these functions to Poland, which will head the EU Council from 1 January 2025 but should technically be ready to take over these functions a few months earlier. According to European Pravda, sources in Brussels are already noting this possibility, and it will be used as a "soft threat" to Orban at the meeting of ambassadors of EU member states on Wednesday and then at the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting on 22 July. However, the EU does not want to create such a precedent without an urgent need. Therefore, they will try to convince Orban to change his behaviour and avoid this step. At the same time, European officials are not ruling out the possibility that the EU will eventually have to take extreme measures in the event of a continuation and escalation of the conflict. Background: On 2 July, Viktor Orban made his first visit to Kyiv since Hungary's presidency in the EU Council began, and after that he travelled to Moscow, where he met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Orban called his trip to Russia "peacemaking". On social media, he posted a photo from the Vnukovo airport government terminal with a large inscription "Moscow" in the background, to which Orban's press service added the logo of the Hungarian Presidency of the EU, despite Brussels noting that Orban was only representing his country during his trip. Later, Orban visited Azerbaijan, where he spoke at an informal summit of the Organisation of Turkic states, and to China, where he met with Xi Jinping and announced other visits. On 8 July, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy explained why Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban cannot be an intermediary between Ukraine and Russia. After the trip to Moscow, Viktor Orban explained how he had hidden these plans from Western allies until the last moment and promised more "surprise meetings" soon. Support UP or become our patron! Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket has finally taken flight, carrying the hopes of a continent on its broad back. The Ariane 6 launched for the first time ever today (July 9), lifting off from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 3:01 p.m. EDT (1901 GMT). There was a lot riding on this debut: It came a year after the retirement of Ariane 6's predecessor, the workhorse Ariane 5, left Europe unable to launch big satellites on homegrown rockets. "Ariane 6 will power Europe into space. Ariane 6 will make history," Josef Aschbacher, the director general of the European Space Agency (ESA), said via X today in the leadup to launch. a large white rocket flies through the sky above a cone of flame A brand-new rocket Today's launch was a long time coming. Development of the Ariane 6 began in late 2014, and its debut was originally envisioned to take place in 2020. But the timeline slipped due to technical issues and outside problems, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The delays meant that the Ariane 6 did not overlap with the Ariane 5, which flew 117 orbital missions from 1996 to 2023. The Ariane 5's retirement left Vega, a small-satellite launcher, as the only operational orbital rocket in Europe's stable. That wasn't an acceptable situation for European space officials, who don't want to be dependent on SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 and other foreign rockets to loft their big payloads. So they'd been eagerly awaiting today's launch. The Ariane 6 "will ensure our guaranteed, autonomous access to space and all of the science, Earth observation, technology development and commercial possibilities that it entails," ESA officials wrote in a preview of today's liftoff. Related: The history of rockets a large white rocket flies through the sky above a cone of flame The two-stage Ariane 6 is built by the French company ArianeGroup and operated by its subsidiary Arianespace on behalf of ESA. The rocket's first stage is powered by a single Vulcain 2.1 engine an evolved variant of the Ariane 5's Vulcain 2 and its upper stage features one Vinci engine, which is new technology. (The Ariane 5's upper stage sported one Aestus engine, or one HM-7B.) The Ariane 6 comes in two variants: the A62, which has two strap-on solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and the A64, which has four SRBs. The A62 and A64 can deliver about 11.4 tons (10.3 metric tons) and 23.8 tons (21.6 metric tons) to low Earth orbit (LEO), respectively, according to ESA. That latter figure is comparable to the Ariane 5's payload capacity. But the Ariane 6 will do the job for about half the price of its predecessor, thanks to manufacturing improvements and other advances, European officials have said. a large white rocket lifts off through a cloudy sky above a massive plume of fire and smoke Those prices are murky, however; Arianespace has been cagey about its per-flight costs, so all we have are estimates. Late last year, Ars Technica pegged the baseline price of an Ariane 5 launch at about 150 million euros ($162 million US at current exchange rates), which would put the target price of an Ariane 6 mission at 75 million euros ($81 million US). As Ars noted, that would make the new rocket "reasonably competitive" with the market's dominant launcher, the Falcon 9, which can be booked for $67 million per flight. But there's more to the story: ESA's member states have committed to subsidize the Ariane 6, to the tune of 290 million to 340 million euros ($314 million to $368 million US) per year through 2031 or so. So the actual per-launch cost will likely be considerably higher than what Ariane 6 customers are paying. a large white rocket lifts off through a cloudy sky above a massive plume of fire and smoke The Falcon 9, as most folks know, is partially reusable: Its first stage comes back to Earth for recovery, refurbishment and reflight. But the Ariane 6, like the Ariane 5 before it, is expendable. This design decision makes sense, given that the new rocket will likely fly a maximum of 10 times or so per year for the foreseeable future, ESA officials have said. "Our launch needs are so low that it wouldn't make sense economically," Toni Tolker-Nielsen, ESA's director of space transportation, told SpaceNews recently, referring to reusability. "So, we don't really need it at this point." The Ariane 6 already has 30 flights on its manifest, Tolker-Nielsen added, 18 of which will help build out Amazon's new Kuiper satellite-internet constellation. The new rocket will likely fly one more mission this year, then ramp up to six flights in 2025, eight in 2026 and 10 in 2027, he said. But that's getting ahead of ourselves quite a bit. First, the rocket had to complete its debut flight successfully. Related: Farewell, Ariane 5! Europe's workhorse rocket launches 2 satellites on final mission (video) a large white rocket lifts off through a cloudy sky above a massive plume of fire and smoke RELATED STORIES: Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket aces crucial 7-minute engine burn Europe won't have reusable rockets for another decade: report Watch Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket fire its engines in new timelapse video A 9-satellite debut The Ariane 6 carried nine cubesats to orbit today. All of them were successfully deployed 370 miles (600 kilometers) above Earth about 65 minutes after liftoff as planned, European space officials said during a webcast of today's flight. Two of those passengers make up NASA's Cubesat Radio Interferometry Experiment, or CURIE, which will attempt to determine the source of mysterious solar radio waves. "This is a very ambitious and very exciting mission," CURIE principal investigator David Sundkvist, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a NASA statement. "This is the first time that someone is ever flying a radio interferometer in space in a controlled way, and so it's a pathfinder for radio astronomy in general." The other cubesats will do a variety of work, from studying Earth's climate and weather to measuring highly energetic gamma rays. You can learn more about them via ESA here. There was more scientific gear on today's flight as well, including several experiments that stayed attached to the Ariane 6's upper stage. The rocket was also supposed to deploy two experimental reentry capsules about two hours and 40 minutes into the flight. These two craft aimed to show that they can survive the fiery trip home through Earth's atmosphere. That didn't happen, however; the Ariane 6's upper stage did not complete a burn designed to set up that final deployment. This was due to a failure with the auxiliary power unit (APU), a device that pressurizes upper-stage fuel tanks during flight and provides additional thrust as needed, according to ESA. "At one point of time, we reignited the APU. It did reignite, and then it stopped," ArianeGroup CEO Martin Sion said in a postlaunch press conference today. "We don't know why it stopped. This is something that we will have to understand when we've got all the data." But this anomaly, which occurred during the mission's "tech demo" phase, shouldn't overshadow the overall success of the flight, he and other mission team members said during the briefing. "We are perfectly on track now to make a second launch this year, in 2024, for the French MoD, and to make the next missions," Arianespace CEO Stephane Israel said during the press conference. "So, it has no consequence on the next launches." Editor's note: This story was updated at 7:45 p.m. ET on July 9 with news of successful cubesat deployment, the problem with the Ariane 6's upper stage and quotes from the post-launch press conference. Everything Biden and Trump Have Said About Project 2025 Project 2025 is now a major talking point for politicians and voters in the upcoming 2024 presidential election between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Led by the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a collection of conservative policies and a blueprint for the next conservative President. Though the $22 million effort does not say it is specifically intended for Trump, Project 2025 celebrates various orders brought in during Trump's time in the White House. The projects nearly 1,000-page handbook details a conservative agenda, outlining an expansion of presidential power and plans to fire as many as 50,000 government workers to be replaced with conservatives. It attempts to build on a Mandate for Leadership, which Ronald Reagans incoming administration utilized when it was published in January 1981. While Trump has attempted to distance himself from the project, Biden's reelection campaign has worked to draw more attention to what they view as an extreme agenda, particularly as Biden tries to keep fellow Democrats on board after his much-criticized debate performance. Here is what the two prospective candidates for the 2024 presidential election have said about the controversial Project 2025. What Donald Trump and his campaign have said about Project 2025 Trump denies his involvement with Project 2025 in a social media post On July 5, Trump disavowed his involvement in Project 2025 in a post on Truth Social, his own social media platform owned by the Trump Media & Technology Group. He wished those involved the best of luck, but reiterated that he knows nothing about it. I have no idea who is behind it, the former President said. He continued: I disagree with some of the things theyre saying and some of the things theyre saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. What President Joe Biden and his campaign have said about Project 2025 Biden releases statement assailing Trump's claim about Project 2025 On July 6, Bidens campaign released a statement by the President, assailing Trumps claim that hes not involved with Project 2025 Hes trying to hide his connections to his allies extreme Project 2025 agenda, Biden said of Trump. The only problem? It was written for him, by those closest to him. Project 2025 should scare every single American." He went on to say that the Supreme Courtthree out of nine of whom were appointed by Trumphave given him a blank check to do what he wants, and warned his supporters that if he wins again he will utilize the courts to implement Project 2025. We can always rely on Donald Trump for one thing: to lie to the American people in pursuit of power. We saw that on the debate stage when he set a record, Biden said. Together, we must defeat him. Earlier that day, Biden directly responded in a post on X (formerly Twitter) to Trumps disavowal of his involvement with Project 2025, stating plainly that Trump is lying about Project 2025. Its his people and his plan. But its your freedom and future at risk. Biden-Harris campaign posts several Project 2025 disclaimers and memes on social media Bidens campaign has posted multiple lists and videos about Project 2025, with captions like This is Trumps Plan if He Wins. On July 8, the Biden-Harris campaign posted a picture of a banner on X, with the words Heritage welcomes you to the RNC Convention in MKE! The campaign captioned the photo, The Heritage Foundation, the organization behind Project 2025, is welcoming attendees to Trumps Republican convention in Milwaukee. Trump is lying about Project 2025. Here are the facts: pic.twitter.com/HORc250rVh Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) July 6, 2024 Trump just desperately tried to claim he knows nothing about Project 2025. FACT CHECK: His Super PAC is running ads promoting Project 2025, calling it Trumps Project 2025 His top aide and former bag boy John McEntee is the guy behind Project 2025 His press secretary is pic.twitter.com/O3Dqey07UT Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) July 5, 2024 Theyve also followed news coverage of Project 2025, posting broadcast journalists who have spoken about the agenda, including Chris Hayes and John Oliver. The campaign has continued to post and repost memes about Trump and Project 2025. In one, shared on July 4, the campaign posted a shot from dystopian TV drama The Handmaid's Tale depicting a group of women in the show's iconic red dresses and white bonnets standing in formation by Washington D.C.s reflecting pool with a cross at the far end where the Washington Monument lies. Fourth of July under Trumps Project 2025, the post said. In another, the campaign responded to Trumps Truth Social post with an edited version, switching Project 2025 to Order 66 and pretending that the post came from Emperor Palpatine, a major villain in the Star Wars franchise. Biden releases new informational website on Project 2025 On July 8, Biden posted the link on X to a website his campaign put together, breaking down the Project 2025 plan for voters. Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trumps MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins, a statement on the website reads. Fortunately, we have access to it in time to warn America and stop their power grab. Biden releases video telling voters to look up Project 2025 On the morning of July 10, a video was posted to Bidens official X account, saying, Project 2025 will destroy America. Look it up. Project 2025 will destroy America. Look it up. We made it easy for you: https://t.co/GFccEpzfUs pic.twitter.com/jNW94z0e0Y Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 10, 2024 Biden sends out campaign email blasts On July 11, the Biden-Harris campaign sent out two email blasts to his supporters, continuing their media assault. The first, WMPAS (WHAT MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING): Google Project 2025, states that the the real news of the week is Project 2025, and includes recent Google search data on the topic in the last week. The email then offers a news roundup from the past few days, including links to and excerpts from multiple articles by major news sources and broadcast journalists about Project 2025. Shortly thereafter, the campaign sent out another email, Trumps Project 2025: 140 Former Trump Staffers, 240 Total Trump Associates Involved. The campaign links to a recent CNN article reporting that at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration are tied to Project 2025, including six of his former cabinet secretaries. Contact us at letters@time.com. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) A former Illinois state senator and candidate for governor was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to 3 1/2 years in prison after pleading guilty to fraudulent use of campaign funds, money laundering and tax evasion. U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Lawless, who also ordered William Sam McCann to pay $684,000 in restitution, noted during sentencing that McCann continued to siphon campaign money for personal use even after federal authorities confronted him. And she said he fraudulently claimed that he was physically and mentally unable to stand trial during a bizarre series of delays leading up to his February bench trial. McCann, 54, who declared Gods got this after firing his attorneys in 2023 and announcing that he would represent himself, later capitulated and started trial with new representation before throwing in the towel on the third day of testimony. He entered a no-strings open guilty plea to seven counts of wire fraud and one count each of money laundering and tax evasion. He faced up to 20 years in prison for each count of fraud and money laundering alone. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Breaking News A state senator from 2011 to 2019, McCann formed the Conservative Party of Illinois in a 2018 bid for governor. His candidacy drew $3 million in contributions from a labor union which considered him a worker-friendly lunch-pail Republican. But even after sitting through four FBI interviews in the summer of 2018, in which he acknowledged misspending, he burned through another $340,000 in campaign funds for personal use during the following year. McCann last lived in Plainview, 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of St. Louis. Trial testimony indicated McCann tapped campaign cash to buy two pickups titled in his name and used personally. He bought a recreational vehicle and trailer which he listed with an Ohio business for online rental by Sam McCann, then used campaign money to rent them from himself under the name William McCann. He did not report the income on his federal tax return, nor did he report a $10,000 refunded campaign check which he deposited into a personal account. Campaign finances paid off a personal loan, made installments on two separate personal mortgages, and were used for more than $100,000 in credit card payments, a Colorado family vacation, store and online purchases and cash withdrawals. After his gubernatorial candidacy ended, he used a payroll service to disguise $187,000 in Conservative Party contributions he paid to himself and another $52,000 for payroll taxes. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. RAMALLAH, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa on Wednesday called for a unified Palestine under a single authority and government once a ceasefire is reached in Gaza. During a meeting with UN officials, consuls, and ambassadors in Ramallah, Mustafa emphasized the need for unity and cooperation. "The day after the war ends, Palestine must be unified under one authority and one government, working with partners as one team with one plan. There can be no undefined transitional period that would create more complexity and chaos," Mustafa said, according to a statement from his office sent to Xinhua. Mustafa urged international partners, donors, and UN institutions to closely coordinate with the Palestinian government to ensure swift recovery and address urgent humanitarian needs resulting from the conflict in Gaza and its repercussions in the West Bank. He highlighted the Palestinian Authority's longstanding responsibility for providing essential services such as healthcare, education, water, and electricity to Gaza residents despite Israeli deductions from Palestinian funds. Delegations from Egypt, the United States, Qatar, and Israel met on Wednesday in Qatar's capital Doha to resume the Gaza truce talks. Also on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed his country's commitment to a potential ceasefire agreement during a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden's special envoy to the Middle East, Brett McGurk, in Jerusalem. Netanyahu assured McGurk of his "commitment to the deal as long as Israeli red lines are maintained," according to a statement from his office. A former Wichita County sheriffs deputy on probation for violating the civil rights of female prisoners went back to jail. Brett Alan Brasher, 52, was arrested Tuesday on three charges of possessing firearms in violation of the probation terms of a felony conviction. Brasher was being held Wednesday in Wichita County Jail in lieu of $110,000 bail, according to online jail records. If he is convicted, Brasher could end up serving prison time. Anyone accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted in a court of law. Brasher Sheriff David Duke said his office received complaints that Brasher was firing guns on some property in rural Wichita County. Duke also said Brasher had filed a report with the Wichita Falls Police Department that some guns he owned had been stolen from a camper on land where he hunted deer. Hes a convicted felon. Hes not supposed to have any firearms, Duke said. The sheriff said his office also got a complaint that Brasher shot a couple of dogs near his home. Duke said a search warrant at Brashers house turned up four firearms and some ammunition. He said more charges related to firearms are likely to be filed. Brasher, a deputy who volunteered to work in the womens section of the Wichita County Jail, was charged in February 2022 with official oppression and civil rights violations against some of the women inmates, according to court records. The following September a grand jury added a charge of compelling prostitution. In total, Brasher faced 13 criminal charges, but in February 2023, he entered a plea arrangement in 30th District Court to have some of the charges dismissed in exchange for guilty pleas to others. Thirtieth District Judge Jeff McKnight convicted Brasher, placed him on probation for five years total and suspended prison sentences that could be as long as 10 years. He was also required to surrender his Texas peace officers license for life. A conviction for a probation violation could lead to re-imposition of the prison time. This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Ex-Wichita County deputy back in jail on weapons charges Excessive speed suspected in fatal crash that led to widespread power outage at UW Tacoma Excessive speed is suspected to have led to a fatal car crash that left one person dead in Tacoma on Saturday. The wreck occurred in the area of South 21st Street and Pacific Avenue shortly before 6 a.m., according to the Tacoma Fire Department. Tacoma police suspect excessive speed as the cause for the single-vehicle crash. DUI is also suspected but not confirmed, according to police spokesman detective William Muse. The crash caused severe damage to University of Washington Tacomas electrical system in the Cragle parking lot, The News Tribune reported. The university suspended in-person operations from Monday to Saturday as it works with multiple agencies to find a solution to the outage. Remote operations were continuing where possible. Businesses in the area also were closed as a result of the power outage. Selling damaged aviation parts not approved as airworthy cost men from Miami Lakes and Hialeah their freedom. And, court documents say, the criminal activity cost one of them a $1.1 million house. The criminal activity falls under conspiracy to defraud the United States, to which Miami Lakes Daniel Navarro and Hialeahs Jorge Guerrero each pleaded guilty. The federal government became a victim when Navarro and Guerrero, both of Sofly Aviation Services, included a Department of Defense contractor among the companies to which they sold the bad parts. U.S. District Senior Judge Federico A. Moreno sentenced the 71-year-old Guerrero, Soflys procurement and asset management specialist, to a year and a day in prison. Sofly Vice President Daniel Navarro, 50, got to 2 1/2 years in prison. Navarro ran the aviation parts distributor day-to-day. Soflys official president was Navarros wife, Jaise Mursuli, despite, court documents say, there being no evidence she ran the company or had any other responsibilities. Court records say the Justice Department seized this Miami Lakes house, 8635 NW 169th Terr., owned by Sofly Aviations Daniel Navarro and Jaise Mursuli. Another court filing says approximately $93,309 of Navarro and Mursulis salaries came from Soflys fraudulent sales. So prosecutors got a cash forfeiture ruling for that amount. To satisfy it, they also got an order of forfeiture against 8635 NW 169th Ter., a four-bedroom, three-bathroom, 4,500-square-foot house with a pool. The couple bought the Miami Lakes house in 2016 for $810,000. The overhead view of 8635 NW 169th Terr. The home of Daniel Guerrero and Jaise Mursuli was seized to satisfy the cash forfeiture. By that time, Navarro and Guerrero had started their ripoff. The parts were not worthy The As Removed or AR designation for aircraft parts, explains a blog on the Aviation Suppliers Association website, infers that the part is being represented as an unserviceable part whose airworthiness must be reestablished before it can be installed on an aircraft. As stated by the Justice Department and admitted in the guilty pleas, from 2012 to 2019, Navarro and Guerrero bought such parts, then resold them using certificates that falsely claimed the parts to be airworthy under the regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. Most often, Navarro and Guerrero would use an FAA approved repair stations FAA certificate number to falsely certify the part to have been overhauled, tested/inspected or repaired by that repair station, when in fact they never were, according to court documents. The Sofly customer companies were Toronto-based Porter Airlines and Air Georgian, which was a charter airline before its assets were sold to corporate cousin Pivot Airlines; and L3Harris, a Melbourne company that just got an $871 million U.S. Army contract and has worked on the modernization of the B-52 bomber. Navarro and Guerrero also were ordered to pay $344,725 in restitution to the companies. L3Harris got ripped off the most, replacing $461,261 worth of fraudulent parts at a loss of $204,055. The guilty pleas say Sofly sold L3Harris two indicators, which the Smithsonian Institution says can be indicators for airspeed, altitude, heading or vertical speed; a connector, which can be used for signal transmission and for plugging in to a power source, connector company Sunkye says; a harness assembly, a grouping of wires, cables or subassemblies designed to transmit signals or electrical power, according to Epec engineering technologies; and an oxygen oxygen mask stowage box, used for holding the crews emergency oxygen masks. When L3Harris asked that the harness assembly be in new or overhauled condition, Navarros guilty plea says he forwarded the request to Guerrero and wrote that Guerrero should procure a part in any condition for the sale. This came from an investigation by the Department of Transportations Office of the Inspector General and Defense Criminal Investigative Service with help from the FAA. Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Keller and Sara Klco handled the prosecution and forfeiture, respectively. This embedded content is not available in your region. HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) U.S. Rep. Russell Fry is urging the White House to delay implementation of a controversial policy change capping offshore speed limits for large vessels that share waters with the endangered North Atlantic Right whale. Fry and the rest of South Carolinas federal delegation penned a letter Wednesday to federal budget officials saying the rule which would prevent boats between 35 and 65 feet long from traveling more than 10 knots until outside of seasonal management areas is an existential threat to maritime commerce. final_narw_letterDownload South Carolinians are committed to protecting our natural resources and the environment. Our boating and fishing communities are at the forefront of environmental conservation efforts. However, the proposed vessel speed rule poses an existential threat to these industries, the letter says. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2008 implemented a speed limit requiring vessels longer than 65 feet to maintain a speed of 10 knots until a certain point offshore. Since then, five of the 12 documented right whale deadly vessel strikes came from boats less than 65 feet long. As of 2022, fewer than 350 of the whales remained. Proposed_NARW_Speed_Rule-Informational_Webinar_Aug_2022_508Download NOAA said in 2022 that it planned to extend the 10-knot rule to boats between 35 and 65 feet long. Its to take effect Nov. 1 without White House intervention. Despite the many challenges we face, including climate change, we must find solutions to mitigate the threats to marine mammals while supporting the livelihoods and economies of our fishing communities who put healthy food on our tables, assistant NOAA administrator Janet Coit said at the time. News13 spoke to Murrells Inlet charter boat captain Shane Bashor this week, who said the 10-knot limit would add hours to trips out to the Gulf Stream. He thinks it will be tough to have to tell customers that they have to go slower in the designated area to abide by the 10-knot speed limit. Well probably work out a lot better if they tried to actually get, you know, true information from the people that are out there every day and try to come up with the solution, Bashor said. Bashor pilots Carolina Girl, a 38-foot boat. He said in 25 years of professional fishing, hes only seen two right whales. I mean, certainly the last thing any of us fishermen or anybody want to do is run into a 40-foot or 20-foot, or however big they are, Bashor said. Theyre pretty dang big, and theyre not going to be good on the boat. Like we really dont want to. The South Carolina Fishing and Boating Alliance estimates losses of up to $77 million in member dealers through NOAAs revision. Frys letter also points to the less than one in 1 million chance of a 35 to 65-foot recreational vessel striking a right whale during offshore trips. Implementation of this proposed rule would not only harm the boating and fishing industries but also have significant downstream economic effects on tourism, hospitality, consumer goods, dining and tax revenue generation in South Carolina, the letter states. S.C. Department of Commerce head Harry Lightsey III and Duane Parrish, who runs the states department of parks, recreation and tourism, have also asked the White House to delay the rule. Lightsey pointed to the threat it could have on Port of Charlestons annual import and export sales, which approach $30 billion. Not only would it double their current travel time within the coastal waters, but it would also prevent two-way shipping capability, Lightsey said. This rule could greatly impact South Carolinas competitive trade advantage, and I fear it could lead industry to look elsewhere or relocate. More than two dozen conservation groups back NOAAs stricter policy. North Atlantic right whales need strong action from the U.S. government to protect them from vessel strikes, the organizations said in a 2022 letter to NOAA. Incorporating these additional modifications is vital to preventing additional deaths and protecting the species. * * * 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. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW. The R&D zone within an aircraft factory is often shrouded in mystery, bearing top secret fruit. But some of the most innovative technologies to streak through the skies have sprung from collaborations with the likes of NASA and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). These X-planesso called because they start with the letter X standing for experimental followed by a numberhave had a major impact on our daily lives. The X-planes concept started in 1944, as a joint program between the National Advisory Council of Aeronautics (NACA), the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army Air Force. NACA later became NASA and the US Air Force dropped the Army from its name. The first experimental aircraft program, designed to go supersonic, began in 1945, with the first operational flight in 1947 at Muroc Air Force Base (now Edwards) in California. Edwards has since become the go-to flight location for the majority of X-plane tests. More from Robb Report Capt. Chuck Yeagers famous sound-barrier breaking flight was chronicled in The Right Stuff. The X-1 also marked the beginning of collaborations for experimental aircraft between the government and private corporations. There have been 66 X-plane designators over the years, though a number of X-planes have been built in a series. Many have been piloted, but many others have been unmanned, including those designed as missiles. Not all have been sleek speed demons. The X-25 Bensen, launched in 1955, was a cockpit-less auto-gyro, designed to retrieve downed pilots, looked like it was built in a garage. And the X-20 DynaSoar was a reusable spaceplane concept that predated the 1980s space shuttles. A number like the X-20 remained concepts and were never built. The X-planes that launch today typically demonstrate a technology to solve a problem, says David Richwine, low boom demonstrator deputy product manager for technology for NASA, who has insight into several X-plane programs. The secrecy is important but its not the defining factoras many of todays top X programs are coming together in plain sight. The current roster of X-designated projects reveal up-and-coming aircraft demonstrating critical technologies that will certainly take their place in history. Here are four historic examples of out-of-the-box aviation thinking and four recent and current aircraft that promise to change the way we fly in the future. 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. X-1: Breaking the Sound Barrier X-1: Breaking the Sound Barrier Peeling back the history of X-planes, the first is arguably the most famous. The Bell X-1 was the first to break the sound barrier, under the command of then-Capt. Charles E. Chuck Yeager, in 1947. He nicknamed the plane Glamorous Glennis after his wife. The X-1 was the very first government/industry aircraft project designed to be truly experimental, and in the beginning it was developed by Bell in concert with the U.S. Air Force and NACA (predecessor to NASA) to investigate the transonic speed range and subsequent aircraft performancewith just the outside hope that theyd go supersonic. They didnt know what they would find, says Robert van der Linden, commercial and special purpose aircraft curator for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. In other words, the inventors were concerned that the aircraft might break apart upon reaching Mach 1 (about 761 mph at sea level and standard temperatures). They were attempting to answer existing questions, says Van der Linden. Just imagine, they flew the X-1 just 44 years after the Wright brothers first flew. X-15: Fastest Airplane Ever X-15: Fastest Airplane Ever In 1959, North America rolled out its own top secretat the timeresearch aircraft from a hangar at Wendover Air Force Base in Utah. With a remit to test the frontiers of flight well beyond the sonic boom, the X-15 series delivered in spades. It was carried aloft and launched from a B-52 Superfortress into a test corridor that ended at Edwards Air Force Base in Mojave, California, and became the first aircraft to go hypersonicfaster than Mach 4, 5, and 6 in quick succession. The 31,276-pound X-15A wasnt all that bigjust a 22-foot wingspan, a 50-foot length, and standing just under 14 feet tallbut it clocked along at a top recorded speed of 4,520 mph (7,274 km/h) or Mach 6.7. Pilot William J. Knight made that flight on October 3, 1967 at 102,100 feet mslsetting a record for crewed, powered aircraft that still stands to this day. It first flew in 1959, and well over a half a century later, its still the worlds fastest piloted aircraft, says van der Linden. It was supposed to hit Mach 7. Hypersonic flight is markedly different than merely going supersonic, making the X-15 one of the most successful flight research programs ever, according to van der Linden. From 199 flights, the program generated thousands of pages of reports. Other technologies derived from the programfor one, since it flew too high to rely upon traditional control surfaces, the X-15 used a reaction control system that aimed thrusters to maneuver the missile-like aircraft. A lot of what was done on the X-15 was carried over to the space shuttlethe shuttle wasnt powered, but it was hypersonic when it re-entered the the atmosphere and could not have been successful without what they learned from the X-15, van der Linden adds. The SR-71 Blackbird made for a real-world follow-on to the X-15it chugged along at 2,275 mph or Mach 3.4 during flight testbut it could keep that up for extended periods of time aloft, proving even more mission-capable than its hypersonic parent. With a first flight in 1964 and an entry into service in 1966, the SR-71 and its variants saw extensive use in both research and military reconnaissance applications until it was retired for good in 1998. Also designed in part from lessons learned from the X series program: Concorde. It can go 2,000 miles at Mach 2thats amazing, says van der Linden. A jet fighter can do Mach 2 for a short period of timebut not long. X-30: First Passenger Space Liner Concept X-30: First Passenger Space Liner Concept The Rockwell X-30 was designed as a single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft and passenger space liner that was started in 1986. The aircraft was an advanced technology demonstrator, with a two-pilot cockpit, but the eventual goal was to create a hypersonic passenger liner (think the Orient Express on steroids) that could fly from Washington to Tokyo in two hours. The concept, which faced many technical difficulties, was cancelled in the early 1990s before a prototype was finished. Since then, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX have resurrected the idea in different forms. X-48: Blended-Wing Body Technology Revealed X-48: Blended-Wing Body Technology Revealed The Boeing X-48 was designed to test the characteristics of a blended wing body aircraft. The BWB concept has structural, aerodynamic, and operating efficiencies that deliver longer range and better fuel economy over traditional fuselage-and-wing designs. Two examples of the X-48 were built and flight testing began in 2007. A third version, called the X-48C, was tested from August 2012 through April 2013. NASA and Boeing plan to develop a larger BWB demonstrator. X-57: Electric Aircraft Potential X-57: Electric Aircraft Potential The X-57 Maxwell was developed by NASA to demonstrate electric propulsion technology. The space agency replaced the wings on a twin-engine Tecnam P2006T, installing 18 electric motors and propellers on each wing. The first flight of the X-57 was scheduled to take place last year, but the program was cancelled due to problems with the propulsion system. The zero-emissions X-57 concept wasnt a wasted effort: Private start-ups have been working on electric aircraft variants, with the aiming of going into commercial service. X-59: Lowering the Boom X-59: Lowering the Boom What kept supersonic transport programs like Concorde from reaching full potential forms the basis for a current X program, the X-59. The sonic boom created by flying above the speed of sound restricts these aircraft in many places from flight over land. Thats why Concorde flew supersonic mostly over the Atlantic. The X-59 projectprogram name Quesstget it, SST for supersonic transport?intends to turn the boom into a mere thump. A joint program between NASA and Lockheed Martin will collect data on the quieter boom and deliver results to government and industry. The concept for the Quesst programalong with so many other X projectscame from NASA, says van der Linden. Part of whats new lies in the aircrafts shape, which has been designed in such a way that the sonic waves created when the aircraft flies past the speed of sound never meet up to create the ear-splitting boom. Instead, theres a thump that researchers hope will generate far less angst on the ground. The engine propelling it to Mach 1.4? The F414-GE-100, close to the variant that powers the F-18 Super Hornet and JAS39E/F Gripen, with a fixed engine inlet and additional instrumentation. Its 13 feet (4.0 m) long and produces 22,000 pounds-force (98 kN) of thrust. The X-59s first flight is projected for later in 2024. NASA provided an update to Robb Report on the program from Richwine, who also serves as the overall missions technical integration lead: Were getting ready to do an engine run in a couple of weeks, then taxi tests in a couple of months, he says. Richwine has been on the project since conceptual design, which sought a uniform aircraft cross section to achieve NASAs low-boom goals, while using a cost-effective approach to test the airframe shape and other details. Key design elements include the eXternal Vision System (XVS), which gives pilots a view ahead using upper cameras mounted on the pointy nose. The XVS negates the need for a forward windshield and its associated weight and structural complexity. The plane is also equipped with a forward vision system (FVS) located below the fuselage and used for takeoff and landing. The biggest surprise so far for Richwine? Just the sheer amount of integration of the outer mold lineevery little detail talks to the other details, he says. If there is a problem at any point on the fuselage, it propagates forward and back. X-65: The CRANE X-65: The CRANE With the Quesst program, Lockheed Martins Skunk Works proves its longevityand the place that X-planes have in the aerospace industryand how they continue to shape our world. But Lockheed doesnt have the only experimental test hangar out there. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) also plays a significant role in X projects. Youve maybe heard of directed thrust as a means for a takeoffthink about the AV-8B Harrier. Well, how about blown air as a way to replace traditional flight controls, like ailerons and elevators? The CRANE project at DARPA aims to do just that. CRANE stands for Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors with those effectors being 15 nozzles, or active flow control actuators, on the initial X-65 demonstrator aircraft. These nozzles direct jets of air to make changes in the aircrafts attitude as well as making it turn. The X-65 has a 30-foot wingspan and weighs 7,000 pounds, and it will fly in cruise up to Mach 0.7. It still has conventional control surfaces to use during initial flight testingduring which the team will use those to calibrate the AFC actuators, in both nominal and non-nominal conditionslike high crosswinds on takeoff, for example. Another outcome hoped for? The AFCs may also greatly reduce fuel consumption. The projected aircraft completion date lies some time in September, with the first flight to follow. X-66: Sustainable Future X-66: Sustainable Future Back in the subsonic realm, the X-66 demonstrator intends to test the Truss-Braced Wing conceptwhich is essentially adding struts to a jetliner. Several features highlight the aircrafts importance as an X program, including the extra-long, thin wings stabilized by diagonal struts, advancements in propulsion systems, next-gen materials, and advanced systems architecture. Richwine is familiar with the X-66 as well as the X-59and the two programs dovetail in several ways. This [X-66] configuration could result in up to 30 percent less fuel consumption and reduced emissions when compared with todays best-in-class aircraft, says Richwine. Its another derative of the original SUGAR configurationsubsonic ultra-green aircraft. In this instance, Boeing has been tapped to work with NASA to build, test, and fly the full-scale X-66 demonstratorpoised to show sustainable achievements in a single-aisle aircraft, which comprises the majoriity of aircraft used by passenger airlines globally. An MD-90 jet will be transformed into the X-66 at Boeings facility in Palmdale, California. The MD-90 is the platform; the technology on the aircraft is the important part, says Richwine. The truss allows for a longer, thinner wing that wouldnt be able to survive by itself. Optically, it looks like a U-2 wing from above, featuring less drag and greater cruise efficiency than a typical passenger jetbut structurally sound. After an alarming new study came out suggesting a link between semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, and a condition that can cause blindness, some experts are calling foul. Published in the journal JAMA Opthalmology, the new analysis out of Harvard linked semaglutide to non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), a neurological disorder that blocks blood flow to optic nerves and can ultimately result in blindness. In the analysis, which was drawn from records on more than 16,000 patients at Harvard's Mass Eye and Ear Hospital, researchers found that people prescribed semaglutide appeared to be between four and seven times more likely to develop NAION than those who took other drugs. While those figures are indeed pretty jarring, medical experts and, strikingly, financial analysts intrigued by the drug's market implications are urging caution before reading too much into the study. Andrew Lee, a clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology and a neuro-ophthalmologist at the Houston Medical Center, told NBC Los Angeles that although he has patients who developed NAION and were prescribed semaglutide, it remains unclear whether "this is a causal association or merely an association alone." That's because, as that article notes, people with Type 2 diabetes which is nominally required for an Ozempic prescription are at increased risk for vision problems, including NAION. Other risk factors for the disorder include sleep apnea and hypertension, which are also well-known comorbidities for both diabetes and being overweight. Lee said that semaglutide could plausibly be causing NAOIN, but until further study is done, it's "premature to conclude" that there's a causal relationship between the two a statement echoed by the Harvard researchers behind the study, who urged further investigation into the link. As always, investors are also concerned about the way such negative press might affect the earning power of these game-changing medications. Indeed, the stock for Novo Nordisk, the Danish drugmaker behind Ozempic and Wegovy, plummeted after the study first dropped last week. And as Fierce Pharma reports, money men at the Leerink Partners investment firm are urging clients not to read too much into the tea leaves. "Larger retrospective studies, post-marketing analyses of [glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists], and/or prospective clinical trials would be required to confirm the findings," the firm's note read. At the end of the day, those critics are right regardless of where they're coming from. One thing's for sure, though: the millions of patients taking semaglutide deserve urgent follow-up research into any possible health risks associated with the drug. More on Ozempic: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders Demands Drug Companies Cut Price of Ozempic and Other New Weight Loss Drugs (Reuters) -Palestinian health authorities say Israel's ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 people, mostly civilians, and driven most of the enclave's 2.3 million people from their homes. The war began on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants stormed across the border into Israeli communities. Israel says the militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 253 into captivity in Gaza. The official Health Ministry count as of Thursday, Aug. 15, was 40,005 Palestinians dead and 92,401 wounded. This explainer examines how the Palestinian toll is calculated, how reliable it is, the breakdown of civilians and fighters killed and what each side says. HOW DO GAZA HEALTH AUTHORITIES CALCULATE THE DEATH TOLL? In the first months of the war, death tolls were calculated entirely from counting bodies that arrived in hospitals and data included names and identity numbers for most of those killed. As the conflict ground on, and fewer hospitals and morgues continued to operate, the authorities adopted other methods too. From early May, the Health Ministry updated its breakdown of total fatalities to include unidentified bodies which account for nearly a third of the overall toll. Omar Hussein Ali, head of the ministry's emergency operations centre in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said these were bodies that had arrived at hospitals or medical centres without personal data such as identity numbers or full names. It also began including deaths reported online by family members who had to input information including identity numbers. IS THE GAZA DEATH TOLL COMPREHENSIVE? The numbers do not necessarily reflect all victims as many are still missing under the rubble, the Palestinian Health Ministry says. In May it estimated that some 10,000 bodies were uncounted in this way. The Lancet medical journal published a letter from three academics on July 5 estimating that indirect deaths, caused by factors like disease, might mean the death toll is several times higher than official estimates and possibly above 186,000. The authors said the figure was based on what they said was the conservative estimate of four indirect deaths to one direct death based on trends from prior conflicts. The U.N. human rights office and the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health have also said that the true figures are likely higher than those published, without giving specifics. HOW CREDIBLE IS THE GAZA DEATH TOLL? Pre-war Gaza had robust population statistics and better health information systems than in most Middle East countries, public health experts told Reuters. A July 24 study by London-based Airwars a non-profit compiling detailed lists of casualties from open source material - found a correlation of at least 75% between its lists and those of Gazan authorities for thousands of people killed in the early weeks of the war. The watchdog's director Emily Tripp said there had since been a degradation of the accuracy but that the "core gathering of names was still strong". The United Nations regularly cites the ministry's death toll figures, while naming the ministry as the source, and the World Health Organization has voiced full confidence in them. Early in the conflict, after U.S. President Joe Biden cast doubt on casualty figures, the health ministry published a detailed list of the 7,028 deaths that had been registered by that point. On July 24 it released a new list of the names of the 28,185 identified victims up to end June. Specific questions remain, however, over the inclusion of 471 people said to have been killed in an Oct. 17 blast at al-Ahli al-Arab hospital in Gaza City. An unclassified U.S. intelligence report estimated that death toll "at the low end of the 100 to 300 spectrum". DOES HAMAS CONTROL THE FIGURES? While Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, the enclave's Health Ministry also answers to the overall Palestinian Authority ministry in Ramallah in the West Bank. Gaza's Hamas-run government has paid the salaries of all those hired in public departments since 2007, including in the Health Ministry. The Palestinian Authority still pays the salaries of those hired before then. The extent of Hamas control in Gaza now is difficult to assess with Israeli forces occupying most of the territory, including around locations of hospitals that provide casualty figures, and with fighting ongoing. WHAT DOES ISRAEL SAY? Israeli officials have said the figures are suspect because of Hamas' control over government in Gaza. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Mamorstein said the numbers were manipulated and "do not reflect the reality on the ground". However, Israel's military has also accepted in briefings that the overall Gaza casualty numbers are broadly reliable. In May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 14,000 Hamas fighters and 16,000 Palestinian civilians had been killed in the war. HOW MANY CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED? The Health Ministry figures do not differentiate between civilians and Hamas combatants, who do not wear formal uniform or carry separate identification. Israel periodically provides estimates of how many Hamas fighters it believes have been killed. The most recent was Netanyahu's estimate of 14,000. Israeli security officials say such estimates are reached through a combination of counting bodies on the battlefield, intercepts of Hamas communications and intelligence assessments of personnel in targets that were destroyed. Hamas has said Israeli estimates for its losses are exaggerated but has not said how many of its fighters have been killed. The Airwars analysis found that at least "some militants" were included in the Health Ministry's list. The Palestinian Health Ministry has estimated for most of the conflict that around 70% of the dead are women and children. (Compiled by Emma Farge, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ali Sawafta and James MacKenzie and Angus McDowall, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Alison Williams) By David Brunnstrom and Michael Martina WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Joining this week's meeting of NATO leaders in Washington will be some countries far from Europe or North America - Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. Who is coming and what is the link between NATO, which was founded to help the North Atlantic region counter the threat from the Soviet Union, and countries in Asia and the Pacific? Which Indo-Pacific leaders will attend? Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles are all attending. This is the third successive NATO summit for the countries, referred to as the Indo-Pacific Four (IP-4). They are due to hold a session with NATO and EU leaders on Thursday amid rising concerns that China might attack Taiwan and worries about Russia's stepped-up security ties with China and nuclear-armed North Korea. U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has worked to strengthen ties in the Indo-Pacific, including with India, and has been disappointed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Moscow just ahead of the NATO meeting, which he will not attend. Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese also will not be at the summit, given domestic political priorities. What is behind NATO's interest in the region? U.S. allies globally are increasingly aligned in their opposition to Russia's war in Ukraine, and Moscow's "no limits" partnership with China, which is helping to reconstitute the Russian military. In 2022, NATO members identified China as a potential threat for the first time. At the 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius, they condemned China and Russia for "their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order," and warned about Beijing's "coercive tactics" to divide the Alliance. A draft of the Washington summit statement called China a "decisive enabler" of Russia's Ukraine war effort and said Beijing poses systemic challenges to Europe and to security. It stressed the importance of the Indo-Pacific to NATO, saying developments there directly affect Euro-Atlantic security, and welcomed enhanced cooperation with Asia-Pacific partners to support Ukraine. U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan said the NATO allies and Indo-Pacific partners would launch four new joint projects - on Ukraine, artificial intelligence, disinformation, and cybersecurity. But while the Biden administration pushed for European allies to pay more attention to the Indo-Pacific after Biden took office in 2021, talk with Indo-Pacific countries this time will likely be more about how they can help Ukraine's war effort. What steps have NATO members taken in the Indo-Pacific? Recent years have seen some stepped up European engagement in the Indo-Pacific, notably Britain's involvement with the U.S. in the AUKUS project to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. However, most European defense engagement in Asia has been ad hoc and modest, involving occasional patrols or exercises by small visiting forces. Many NATO allies and Indo-Pacific countries do not want to see the alliance expanding its remit beyond the North Atlantic theater. A proposal to establish a NATO liaison office in Tokyo, which angered China, was blocked by France last year. What is next for NATO involvement in the region? Some analysts contend that Europe's NATO members must boost their ability to deal with European security challenges to enable the U.S. to focus on Asia and threats posed by China, including the dispute over Taiwan, the democratic island Beijing claims as its territory. Christopher Johnstone, a former senior official in Biden's National Security Council, said the biggest contribution Europe could make was "to ensure that it is prepared to shoulder the burden of deterrence against the Russian threat in the event of a Taiwan or other contingency in the Indo-Pacific." NATO has touted efforts by members to meet defense spending goals of 2% of GDP, but analysts say that decades of low spending have left most countries unable to play any meaningful role the Indo-Pacific. "There's nothing (NATO countries) can really do that would make a material difference," in an Indo-Pacific conflict, said Elbridge Colby, a former Pentagon official in the Trump administration. Colby said most European militaries would be reliant on the U.S. for basic logistics. "It's entirely possible that their contribution would be a net negative," he said. (Reporting by Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom, Editing by Don Durfee and Angus MacSwan) F-16 jets being sent to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands, Blinken says By Daphne Psaledakis and Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first batch of U.S.-built F-16 fighter jets are already being transferred to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands and will be flying over Ukrainian skies this summer, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday. Blinken, speaking at an event on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, said a robust package for Ukraine will be unveiled over the next couple of days that will build a clear and strong bridge for Ukraine's NATO membership. "I'm also pleased to announce that as we speak, the transfer of F-16 jets is underway, coming from Denmark, coming from the Netherlands," Blinken said. "And those jets... will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression." Reinforcing air defenses has been crucial for Ukraine as it fights a Russian invasion. Moscow renewed its aerial assaults on Ukraine's national power grid in the spring, causing sweeping blackouts. F-16s have been on Ukraine's wish list for a long time because of their destructive power and global availability. The fighter jet is equipped with a 20mm cannon and can carry bombs, rockets and missiles. "We are preparing to meet modern fighter jets in the Ukrainian skies," Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said in a post on X after meeting with his Dutch and Danish counterparts. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week that he wanted to double Ukraine's air defense capacity over the summer and that his country needed at least seven additional Patriot systems to protect itself. NATO members have announced the delivery of five additional Patriot and other strategic air defense systems to help Ukraine. Still more aid announcements were expected at this week's summit in Washington, which marks the alliance's 75th anniversary. A joint statement from the leaders of the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands said the Danish and Dutch governments were in the process of donating American-made F-16s to Ukraine. Denmark has committed to donate 19 jets in total, while the Netherlands has promised to deliver 24 aircraft. Both countries have been driving forces behind an international coalition to supply Ukraine with F-16s. Norway also said on Wednesday that it would donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine and that the deliveries were planned to start this year. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Daphne Psaledakis and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Peter Graff and Emelia Sithole-Matarise) F-16s to be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer, US says More than two years into the full-scale war with Russia, Ukraine is closer than ever to its coveted F-16 jets. In a statement Wednesday, American, Danish and Dutch leaders said the transfer process for the fourth-generation fighters is underway. Those jets will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself from the Russian aggression, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a NATO event in Washington. However, Justin Bronk, an air power analyst at the London-based Royal United Services Institute think tank, cautioned the statement may simply suggest a change of ownership rather than a state of combat readiness. The Ukrainian Air Forces may now go from training on jets held and operated by the Netherlands and Denmark to having custody of some. I highly doubt they would make a public statement about it if the F-16s were immediately moving onto Ukrainian airfields, Bronk said. The reason for that could be safety. In the last week, Bronk noted, Russia has targeted four Ukrainian airfields with ballistic missiles guided by aerial drones that Ukrainian forces apparently lacked the interceptors to take down. Its unclear how many actual planes, as opposed to decoys, Kyiv lost. But the attacks are a reminder of a much larger challenge for Ukraine, Bronk said: Without enough air defense, its military cant use F-16s anywhere near their full potential. To wit, U.S. President Joe Biden opened the NATO summit on Tuesday by announcing an agreement with four other countries to send Ukraine more air defense batteries. The U.S., the Netherlands and Denmark lead a group of countries that helps provide Ukraine with air power. The Danish and Dutch governments first agreed to send Ukraine the jets last year, and other countries, including Norway and Belgium, have since joined. The number thus far pledged to Ukraine is about 65. Norwegian officials on Wednesday clarified that Oslos contribution would cover six F-16s. We plan to start delivering the aircraft in the course of 2024, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre said in a statement. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said earlier this year his country would donate 30 planes. The Netherlands has promised 24. It was at last years NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, where countries initially agreed to start training Ukrainian pilots to fly the fighters. One of the most difficult challenges has been a language barrier, since the jargon used by pilots and crews is highly technical and theres no time to clarify a word mid-flight. According to the Pentagon, there are just over 12 Ukrainian pilots training to fly the jets between Denmark and the U.S. right now. While a handful graduated from the course in late May, the number in the pipeline is too small, some Ukrainian officials argue. If were expected to have up to 20 machines by the end of the year, we need pilots, Igor Zhovkva, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in an interview. We are asking now [from] all of our partners for two things: to increase the number of places for training, because currently it is not enough, and secondly to optimize the period of training essentially speed it up. One of the main issues with increasing that capacity is the long queue of countries already waiting for the U.S. Air Force to train their pilots. Yehor Cherniev, who leads Ukraines parliamentary delegation to NATO, told Defense News that he and other lawmakers asked Congress for a list of those nations so Ukraine can negotiate with them to swap spots. American lawmakers didnt agree to do so, he said. The F-16s have long been a priority for Ukraine. Receiving them may help with morale and the countrys actual defense. In the medium term, they could also pair well with two airborne surveillance planes Sweden pledged for Ukraine at the start of the summer. These can help the Ukrainian Air Forces with targeting as well as command-and-control, Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson said in an interview. Thats the difference between a third-generation fighter, which the Ukrainians are operating, and the fourth-generation fighter, he said. For his part, Bronk questions how Ukraine will train on and then operate these surveillance planes. They will need experienced Ukrainian crews and then must pair them with pilots who have expertise on the F-16 before there is a positive effect for the embattled country, Bronk said. Where are they going to fly from? Whos going to maintain them? And are they going to fly and operate inside Ukraine, or are they going to fly around the borders? he added. BEIRUT, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Hezbollah targeted on Wednesday Israeli artillery positions with missiles in response to an air attack that targeted the town of Jinta in Baalbek, eastern Lebanon, a day earlier. In response to the attack, the fighters bombed the Israeli artillery positions in al-Zaoura in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights with dozens of Katyusha rockets, Hezbollah said in a statement. Lebanese military sources told Xinhua that the Lebanese army monitored the launching of about 30 surface-to-surface missiles from the Lebanese side to Israel, and Israeli Iron Dome missiles intercepted some of them. According to the sources, the Israeli army targeted on Wednesday three villages in the eastern part of southern Lebanon, including Tayr Harfa, Kafr Kila, and Markaba, with drones and warplanes, and attacked 11 towns and villages with 45 artillery shells. Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon. Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo is $63.9 million in the red. Thats according to a financial disclosure form Carollo submitted last week detailing his assets and liabilities as of Dec. 31. It reflects a more than $66 million decrease from the $2.3 million net worth he reported last year. The disclosure paints a grim financial picture for the commissioner as he fights to protect his Coconut Grove home from seizure to satisfy a portion of a multimillion-dollar judgment he owes after losing a civil lawsuit to Little Havana businessmen Bill Fuller and Martin Pinilla, and as he faces the possibility of further litigation, with multiple related lawsuits remaining unresolved. Meanwhile, the citys insurance company is arguing in federal court that it is not responsible for millions in Carollos legal fees. It is what it is, Carollo said of his net worth when reached by phone Tuesday. At this point in time I have a judgment, and thats what youre supposed to disclose. Last year, a jury found that Fuller and Pinilla were victims of a political retaliation campaign pushed by Carollo, awarding the businessmen a $63.5 million judgment in the first of those lawsuits. A judge also ordered Carollo to pay $2.7 million in attorneys fees and costs. All told, the combined $66.2 million owed as a result of the lawsuit is now the single largest liability for the commissioner. The only other liability he listed is the nearly $265,000 he owes on his mortgage for the Coconut Grove house. To collect on the judgment, Fuller and Pinillas legal team, led by attorney Jeff Gutchess, are engaged in an ongoing battle to seize Carollos home, which he valued at $2.5 million. Attorney Jeff Gutchess, who represents the Little Havana businessmen who successfully sued Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, talks to reporters outside the federal courthouse in downtown Miami on March 1, 2024. These individuals have instigated lawsuits like no one has in the history of the city of Miami, Carollo said of his legal adversaries. This is all about money. This is not about anything else. READ MORE: Ball & Chain lawyers say Miami districts were altered to protect Carollos home from seizure The city has been covering Carollos legal fees in the Fuller and Pinilla lawsuits, as well as the ongoing federal civil lawsuit filed by former Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo, who accused Carollo, the city manager and two other commissioners in 2022 of violating his First Amendment rights and illegally retaliating against him for speaking out against corruption and abuse of power by the City of Miami Commission. The citys general policy has been to represent elected officials when they are sued in their official capacity. But the matter was complicated in May when a city insurer, QBE Specialty Insurance, filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that it cannot be held responsible for over $10 million in legal fees for Carollos defense in Fuller- and Pinilla-related lawsuits dating back to 2018, citing allegations that Carollo engaged in deliberate, willful conduct that was intended to deprive plaintiffs of their property and harm plaintiffs reputations to punish and retaliate. The lawsuit is ongoing. Aerial view of Miami Commissioner Joe Carollos house in Coconut Grove on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024. As a city commissioner, Carollo earns a salary of $58,200 a year, according to a city spokeswoman. Based on Carollos financial disclosure forms, he would not be able to pay for legal fees out of pocket. In his most recent disclosure, Carollo reported that he has less than $2,500 in his checking account a decrease from the $45,431 he reported in the checking account last year. Carollo told the Herald the money was spent on various expenses, including living expenses. In the previous financial disclosure form from 2022, which reflected Carollos finances through the end of 2021, he reported about $100,000 in the checking account. He reported nearly $121,300 in the account at the end of 2020, over $11,700 at the end of 2019 and under $7,000 at the end of 2018. Carollo reported a net worth of $1.76 million in his disclosure for 2019, $1.87 million in 2020, $2.36 million in 2021 and $2.35 million in 2022. During that time, he reported that the property value of his Coconut Grove home increased from $2 million to $2.5 million. Besides his checking account and his home, Carollos other major asset is his retirement plan, which is currently worth about $46,430, according to the latest disclosure. Miami Herald associate editor Joey Flechas contributed reporting. (Reuters) - Avian influenza, or bird flu, has public health officials on alert after an unprecedented spread in dairy cows in the United States this year. Four dairy workers have also tested positive in the country. A particularly severe variant of the H5N1 strain has been spreading around the world in animals since 2020, causing lethal outbreaks in commercial poultry and sporadic infections in other species from alpacas to house cats. Until this year, it had never infected cows. Different bird flu strains have been found in Australia and Mexico in humans, while different H5 subtypes are also present around the world in both animals and humans, in countries including China and Cambodia. Most of the human cases reported exposure to poultry, live poultry markets, or dairy cattle prior to infection, but scientists are worried the virus could mutate in ways that make it more easily spread from person-to-person, which could spark a pandemic. The World Health Organization says the risk to people is low at this point. Below are occurrences of varying types of the bird flu virus that have been found in humans this year. UNITED STATES: The first known cases of infected dairy cattle occurred in Texas in March, and is now in dairy herds in 12 states. The U.S. Agriculture Department said tests so far indicate that the virus detected in cows is the same H5N1 virus affecting wild birds and commercial poultry flocks. The four dairy workers who have tested positive for the virus this year had mild symptoms such as conjunctivitis, or pink eye. The H5N1 virus in the United States belongs to the clade 2.3.4.4b, genotype B3.13, a genotype detected only in North America so far, the European Food Safety Agency said in a scientific report. MEXICO: A resident of Mexico died with the first known cases of H5N2 avian influenza in humans, the WHO said on June 5. Mexico's government said chronic illness, rather than bird flu, was the cause of death. The person had no known exposure to animals. AUSTRALIA: The WHO on June 7 said a child with H5N1 bird flu reported by Australia had traveled to Kolkata, India. Genetic sequencing showed the virus was a subtype of H5N1 and part of a strain that circulates in Southeast Asia and has been detected in previous human infections and in poultry. Australia is separately dealing with three outbreaks of different strains of the virus on poultry farms - H7N3, H7N8 and H7N9 - that authorities say likely arrived on farms via wild birds. INDIA: The WHO on June 11 reported a case of human infection with bird flu caused by the H9N2 subtype in a four-year-old child in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. It was the second human infection of H9N2 bird flu from India following a case in 2019, the agency said. While the H9N2 virus typically tends to cause mild illness, the United Nations agency said further sporadic human cases could occur as this is one of the most prevalent avian influenza viruses circulating in poultry in different regions. VIETNAM: Vietnam reported a 21-year-old student had died from the H5N1 bird flu in March. He had no underlying medical conditions, but had been exposed to wild birds from hunting a couple of weeks prior to onset of symptoms. No contact with dead or sick poultry was reported at the time. Vietnam also reported an outbreak of H9N2 in a 37-year-old man, EFSA said. CAMBODIA: The Southeast Asia nation and Vietnam neighbor has reported five human cases of H5N1 as of June 20. CHINA: China this year detected human cases caused by the H5N6, H9N2 and H10N3 strains, with two fatal H5N6 cases in the Fujian province. Both of those cases had exposure to backyard poultry before the onset of symptoms, EFSA said. The case of H10N3 avian influenza was the third one ever reported globally. GERMANY: Germany reported a rare outbreak of highly pathogenic H7N5 bird flu on a farm in the western part of the country, near the border with the Netherlands, the World Organisation for Animal Health said on July 4. It was the first outbreak anywhere of H7N5 on WOAH's public records. (Reporting by Sybille de la Hamaide, Tom Polansek, Cassandra Garrison, Peter Hobson, Jennifer Rigby, Leah Douglas and Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Bill Berkrot) By Leah Douglas and P.J. Huffstutter (Reuters) - States in the U.S. are playing a key role in the nation's response to a growing outbreak of avian flu among dairy cattle that has also infected a small number of humans. The states are chiefly responsible for testing cows and people for the virus, but they take different approaches. Scientists tracking bird flu are increasingly concerned that current surveillance efforts are not sufficient. Federal officials have warned that further spread of the virus among cows could heighten the risk of more human infections, though the risk to the general public remains low. As of July 9, bird flu had infected 139 dairy cow herds across 12 states since March, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Four dairy workers have also been infected, the most recent in Colorado on July 3. Here is how the 12 U.S. states with bird flu cases in dairy herds are handling human and cattle testing: HUMAN TESTING As of early July, 99 people had been tested for bird flu in four states this year, according to state health officials: Michigan (56 people), Texas (20), Idaho (8), Colorado (8) and New Mexico (7). Officials in North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota and Minnesota told Reuters they had not tested any people since the dairy outbreaks began. The states varied in their testing criteria, considering factors like whether a patient was exposed to sick animals or displayed symptoms. Health departments in Wyoming and Kansas did not respond to requests for their human testing figures. Iowa's health department said it is monitoring all people exposed to the virus for symptoms but did not provide a figure for any human tests. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said at least 53 people have been tested for bird flu. The figures are different because the CDC is only reporting tests done on people exposed to sick dairy cattle, whereas states are also in some cases testing people exposed to other sick animals like cats, said CDC spokesperson Jason McDonald. The CDC advises clinicians to notify local and state health departments if they wish to test someone for bird flu. The doctor should then notify CDC immediately if the tests are positive or inconclusive. CATTLE TESTING States with bird flu in dairy herds are testing cattle at the behest of farmers who suspect infections, for research, or for other reasons, agriculture department officials said. Iowa is additionally requiring testing for dairy herds within a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) radius of any poultry farms with bird flu infections, which is currently about 25 to 35 herds, said Don McDowell, communications director for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. Minnesota is testing farms with contact to infected herds, said Brian Hoefs, the state's chief veterinarian and executive director of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, tracing suppliers, equipment and staffing that had access to an infected farm. The USDA in May began requiring states to test lactating dairy cows before they were shipped across state lines, the only national testing requirement the agency has issued. About 6,600 cows have been tested under that order, according to USDA data. A spokesperson for the USDA said the agency is committed to working with states on their efforts to contain and eliminate bird flu, including possible further testing requirements. (Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Bill Berkrot) "Failure is not an option" Starliner crew speaks to media during NASA and Boeing update The two astronauts that rode Boeing's Starliner capsule to the International Space Station last month are confident that they will come home in the same vehicle. They just don't know when. "Failure is not an option", said Starliner Commander Butch Wilmore during a press conference beamed down from the ISS Wednesday morning. Starliner has history of problems NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore address the media from The International Space Station Wednesday, July 10. NASA When is the next Florida rocket launch? Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, NASA, ULA rocket launch schedule in Florida Starliner is one of two capsules built by private companies for NASA to ferry astronauts to the ISS. The other is SpaceX Crew Dragon, which made it's first crewed flight in 2020 and which has had 13 successful mission to the station so far. After years of setbacks, Boeing was finally able to launch the Starliner carrying Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the ISS last month on what was supposed to be a one-week mission. Prior to launch, a helium leak was found in the service module the underneath of the Starliner capsule which contains thrusters and is disposed upon reentry. Boeing teams determined that the helium leak was small and contained, and proceeded with launch operations. As the hours leading to docking with the ISS approached, addional helium leaks in the service module were detected. As the crew prepared for approach towards the ISS, multiple thrusters shut off, forcing teams on the ground to do what is called a "hot fire". As the crew manually piloted Starliner, all but one of the thrusters fired back up allowing the crew to safely dock to the ISS. Since then, the crew's landing date had been pushed twice before being postponed indefinitely as teams continue to review data from the service module which is lost during the return to Earth. With this being a test flight Boeing and NASA are carefully looking over data to ensure proper development of future Starliner designs. NASA teams are looking at causes behind the issues leading to this point, and investigating all areas of future thruster performance which is critical to the safe reentry of Starliner. "We are actually doing thruster testing as we speak at White Sands New Mexico, going through that process, trying to replicate what we saw on that flight day," said Wilmore. "We've practiced a lot so I have a feeling... I have a real good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring will bring us home no problem," said Williams. Astronauts thoughts on Starliner During the Wednesday morning NASA press briefing, Wilmore and Williams appeared on a video stream with a large American Flag in the background. "Welcome aboard the International Space Station first. It's a great place to be a great place to live a great place to work," said Wilmore with a grin. "As you can see the American flag behind us showing the pride in our nation and what we have been able to do to this point on this mission." Wilmore said that on a scale of one to ten with one being the best and ten being the worst he is tempted to rate Starliner's handling as a one. During the approached to the ISS, multiple thrusters went down, leaving the crew to take manual control of the spacecraft. While they could tell the power was reduced, Wilmore said the handling "was still impressive". "I'll just reiterate again, this is a test flight. We were expecting to find some things and so we are finding stuff and we're correcting it and making changes making updates with our control team," said Williams. "Every day we had conferences to go over things that we found or we thought about or we might add for the next flight." Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Starliner astronauts in space have confidence in NASA/Boeing teams Seven battleground states are sending fake electors and others who worked to upend the 2020 election results to represent their state parties at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where they will officially anoint Donald Trump as their presidential nominee. The fake electors and other election deniers identified by CNN include several who are currently facing criminal charges for their efforts in helping Trump try to overturn Joe Bidens 2020 victory. They hail from the states that were central to that plot last presidential cycle: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin, according to lists published by state parties and other documents obtained by CNN. Theyve been selected to serve as national committee members, delegates or alternates with one clear task: Make Trumps nomination official. Their role underscores how Trump has effectively woven election denialism into the GOPs platform. It also marks an about face for a party that, at least in the immediate aftermath of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, sought to distance itself from Trump and his efforts to stay in power. Election denialism is like the price of entry now, according to former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a CNN contributor who served on the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6 US Capitol riot and has endorsed Biden for president in 2024. These people that were in the fake elector scheme, or got a mug shot, theyre now the heroes of the movement, and theyve taken over the party, Kinzinger added. Anna Kelly, a spokesman for the RNC, noted that Republican activists are responsible for electing their convention representatives. State delegations are made up of delegates elected by their peers at the state party level, Kelly said. From fringe elements to key players The Arizona delegation includes three fake electors who have been charged in that state for their alleged roles in the plot, including state Sen. Jake Hoffman who was recently elected to be a Republican National Committee member. Hoffman has pleaded not guilty. In Georgia, Amy Kremer who helped organize the January 6 rally on the Ellipse ahead of the Capitol attack but has not been accused of any criminal activity was chosen to serve on the Republican National Committee. Jake Hoffman and Amy Kremer - AP Michigans delegation counts four individuals facing criminal charges brought by prosecutors in that state. The group includes former Michigan GOP co-chair and fake elector Meshawn Maddock who has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Matthew DePerno, a failed candidate for Michigan attorney general who recently announced a run for the state Supreme Court, is also headed to the convention. He too faces criminal charges for allegedly plotting to access and seize voting machines. Hes denied any wrongdoing. Theyve gone from fringe elements of the party to, now, officially party members in good standing with perceived power, Kinzinger said, referring to those delegates who participated in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The Democratic National Committee also panned the roster headed to Milwaukee. This kind of far-right MAGA extremism on full display in todays GOP is exactly why voters will reject Trump this November, said Alex Floyd, a DNC spokesperson. High honor Nearly 5,000 delegates and alternates are set to convene in Wisconsin for the Republican Partys four-day confab beginning July 15 in Milwaukee. Theyll descend from all 50 states and six territories. And theyll gather on the convention floor, sporting flamboyant hats and pledging their support to Trump. The convention comes just months after Trump effectively remade the Republican National Committee in his image. Committee members selected Trump ally Michael Whatley to take over as party chair and Lara Trump, Trumps daughter-in-law, now serves as co-chair. Other senior Trump campaign advisers have taken on roles with the RNC, alongside their campaign duties. Republican National Committee co-chairs Michael Whatley and Lara Trump address the media at the Oakland County GOP Headquarters, Friday, June 14, 2024 in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. - Carlos Osorio/AP For the newly elected members of the RNC, the convention is a chance to gladhand and make their new role known. Their four-year term officially begins at the end of the convention. From there, they will take on responsibilities that could shape the GOPs future spending, fundraising, primary debates and next nominating convention. For a lot of people, it is a high honor. You are delegate to a presidential nominating committee and taking an important step in our countrys democracy and history, said Douglas Heye, a GOP political strategist who once served as communications director for the Republican National Committee. This year, those positions will be held by some Republicans who nearly undermined the democratic process in 2020. The first conventions I was going to, character matters was a big part of Republican messaging, Heye said. We dont really talk about that anymore. And this is a manifest of that. State cases against fake electors Prosecutors in five of the seven hotly contested states last presidential cycle brought charges against dozens of Republicans who served as alternate electors or Trump allies who allegedly orchestrated the plot to overturn the election results. But the cases have mostly plodded along. In Nevada, a judge recently dismissed the criminal charges against the GOP electors because of an issue about where the case was brought. At this stage, none of the four remaining state-level criminal cases is likely to be resolved before the 2024 election. The slow progress of the criminal cases has left those who worked to overturn the last presidential election free to continue openly participating in the political process, cheered along by GOP activists, many of whom share in their baseless claims that the 2020 election was somehow rigged against Trump. In Nevada, well before the charges were dismissed, the Republican Party selected five of the six fake electors from 2020 to attend the Republican National Convention. New Mexico included just one of the alternate GOP electors who has not been accused of criminal activity in its convention delegation. Pennsylvania is sending three fake electors to represent the state party in Milwaukee. While the GOP electors from Pennsylvania have not faced criminal prosecution, several played an active role in trying to upend the last presidential election. That includes Thomas Carroll, a Pennsylvania attorney who represented two local county commissioners as part of a legal dispute about voting machine breaches. During the civil litigation, Carroll and the county were both sanctioned by the states Supreme Court for defying a court order blocking their access to the machines, but they face no criminal charges. Remorse and defiance To be sure, some state level Republicans who participated in the fake elector scheme after the 2020 election have since expressed remorse for their actions. In December, the 10 fake electors from Wisconsin disavowed their attempt to overturn Trumps defeat in 2020 and recognized the legitimacy of Bidens victory as part of a civil lawsuit settlement. In a rare moment of accountability, they even issued a statement acknowledging that the phony certificates they signed in December 2020 were used as part of an attempt to improperly overturn the lawful election results. The Wisconsin Republicans pledged not to serve as real electors in 2024 or any election when Trump is on the ballot, or to act as sham electors in any future election, as part of the civil settlement. But it didnt place any restrictions on other roles they could play. One of Wisconsins fake electors, Pam Travis, is headed to the convention as a delegate. Another, Robert Spindell, is set to serve as an alternate. Neither have been charged with any crimes. Ahead of November, many of the 2020 fake electors have remained defiant. The American people are awake to the perverse weaponization of government at the hands of power-hungry Democrats, which is why people are flocking to the Republican Party, President Trump, and the principles of liberty like never before, and my election as RNC National Committeeman for Arizona is proof positive that Republicans are the Party of everyday, hard working Americans, Hoffman, one of the Arizona fake electors, said in a statement to CNN. Hoffman has pleaded not guilty and slammed the charges against him, telling CNN in a statement: Let me be unequivocal, I am innocent of any crime, I will vigorously defend myself, and I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this naked political persecution by the judicial process. Maddock, one of the Michigan fake electors who has pleaded not guilty, has also called the prosecution against her politically motivated and continues to claim that Trump won the 2020 election. She responded to CNNs request for comment but did not address questions about her role as a fake elector and the significance of being chosen as a delegate. Meshawn Maddock and Matthew DePerno - USA Today Network/AP DePerno, also facing state charges in Michigan, shared a statement with CNN that said, in part: You should actually do some research. So now is a good time to point out that not only are so-called election deniers (what a dumb term) staying involved, we are planning on winning. In Georgia, Kremer has also parroted the lie that Trump won a state he lost by some 12,000 votes. We didnt tell people to go to the Capitol. But the thing was, the people wanted to do something. So people marched to the Capitol, Kremer said in April, according to the Associated Press. And we all know whats happened since then. The federal government has been weaponized against us. Kremer told CNN in a statement that she is honored and excited to be part of a new generation of leadership recently elected to the RNC and am blessed to represent Georgia on the committee. I look forward to working with my fellow colleagues at the RNC to secure our elections and make sure Donald J Trump is elected President in November, she added. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) In a stunning development over the weekend, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud related to two crashes that killed nearly 350 people in 2018 and 2019. But Ed Pierson, a former Boeing manager turned whistleblower, told KOIN 6 News some victims families are livid over the deal. He regularly talks to families whose loved ones died on the Lion Air and Ethiopian flights more than 5 years ago as part of this advocacy work through the Foundation for Aviation Safety. Theyre furious. Theyre so disappointed, Pierson said. People call it a sweetheart deal. I call it a pathetic deal. The families just want justice. They just want an investigation into what happened and the truth and who knew what and when. The last-minute deal Boeing agreed to before their criminal trial was about to start included the company paying a $243 million fine, investing $455 million in safety and allowing an outside independent monitor is not sitting well with the victims families. In a statement, Boeing said: We can confirm that we have reached an agreement in principle on terms of a resolution with the Justice Department, subject to the memorialization and approval of specific terms. If approved by the judge, the deal wont hold any current or former Boeing executives criminally liable for the deadly crashes involving Boeing 737 Max jets. But the manufacturer remains under heavy scrutiny following the door plug blowout from a Portland-based Alaska Air flight in January. Alaska Airlines flight headed for Ontario, Calif. diverted back to PDX after a window blew out (Courtesy to KOIN from passenger who want to remain anonymous) These are clear warning bells that the quality of the airplanes is not sound, Pierson said. The rush to produce, were starting to see the ramifications of that terrible logic. Last month Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun testified to Congress that changes are already underway within the company. Our culture is far from perfect. But we are taking action and we are making progress, Calhoun said on June 18. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun testifies to Congress, June 18, 2024 (CBS) How or if that progress truly shakes out could define the future of one of the Pacific Northwests most prominent businesses. A Texas judge will hold a hearing on the plea agreement, but that date isnt set at this time. Next month, the National Transportation Safety Board is set to hold hearings in Washington D.C. around the blowout on the Alaska Air flight. That incident remains under criminal investigation. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. The young woman kept fighting to escape her boyfriend. Inside a parked car in Nashville, Bricen Rivers hit Lauren Johansen with his open hand, then his closed fist, according to an arrest affidavit. Police said her family called from Mississippi and told dispatchers they heard her screaming, afraid Rivers would kill her. He held her down so she could not reach a gun in the backseat. She tried to slam the horn so someone would hear her, she told authorities later as she recovered from severe injuries in a hospital bed. She survived. Rivers was arrested in December. But none of that made a difference last week, when Johansens father said Rivers recently released on lowered bond from a Nashville jail returned to Mississippi and found his daughter. Police arrested and charged Rivers in her murder. The 22-year-old nursing student had been missing for days before authorities said they found her on July 3, wrapped in a sheet in the back of a car at the Wolf River Cemetery. Police said Rivers fled from the car when authorities arrived and led law enforcement on an hours long manhunt before he was arrested and booked into the Harrison County jail. Now, Johansens family and advocates for women victimized by violence are raising questions about the handling of the case, and say Johansen could have been saved. Her tragic death, advocates say, is all too common and starkly shows why courts and law enforcement must take more aggressive steps to protect women. She was brutally beaten to death, her father, Lance Johansen, wrote on a gofundme page. He made her suffer. This is just such a horrific case, said Jennifer Escue, CEO of the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence. Its so preventable, and thats really hard. Nashville authorities released Rivers with no ankle monitor, Johansens family said. A judge lowered his bond from $251,000 to $150,000 this year. Rivers posted that bond at the end of last month, the local sheriffs office said. And after he failed to show up for an ankle monitor, Tennessee or Mississippi authorities could have issued an alert for his capture and worked together to notify Johansen and her family, said LaVerne Jackson, the executive director at the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence. None of that happened, Jackson said. The victim had no idea he was coming. The ball was dropped. Murder suspect faced kidnapping charges in Nashville Rivers, 23, had a history of domestic violence against Johansen. He was arrested on December 11, 2023 after the beating in Nashville, where the couple had gone for vacation, according to the affidavit. They visited the Frist Museum, Top Golf, then went to a bar to watch a football game, the document said. At the bar, Rivers grew angry. Police said they returned to their rental car, where Rivers began to beat Johansen. He started driving and refused to let her leave the car, the affidavit said. He stopped in a parking lot and continued to hurt her. Johansen told authorities she believed she was in the parking lot for over an hour. Every time she screamed for help, the affidavit said, Rivers would put his forearm in her throat causing her to see black and get dizzy. Nashville Police said officers heard Johansen banging on the car to escape. They said an officer arrested Rivers as he reached for the gun. Rivers also stalked Johansen despite a restraining order and tried to convince her to testify falsely after his arrest, according to an indictment. A grand jury charged Rivers on four counts: two of especially aggravated kidnapping, one count of aggravated stalking and one count of coercion of a witness. I told the court, the DA, and the judge he would kill her if they let him out, Lance Johansen wrote. Bricen told others he was going to kill her, too. Rivers posted bond through a Nashville agency at 4 p.m. June 24, according to the Davidson County Sheriffs Office. Johansens father said he and his daughter were supposed to be notified if Rivers was released. The District Attorneys Office did not respond to messages this week. Victim notification and GPS tracking are managed through systems separate from the sheriffs office, communications director Jon Adams said. Our release order from the courts was a standard bond-out and did not specify GPS was a condition of release, Adams said. As such, he was released to himself, and was responsible for contacting his bonding agent. Steve Hayslip, a spokesperson for the District Attorneys office, told News Channel 5 in Nashville the District Attorney opposed the reduced bond that was ordered by Criminal Court Judge Cheryl Blackburn. We do not have anything to do with bond conditions, Hayslip told the TV station. Those are imposed by the judge and overseen by community corrections. Domestic violence victims advocates say more must be done Jackson said the tragedy shows that law enforcement in bordering states must work together to make sure violent offenders do not slip through the cracks. Why would you let someone go on their own to get an ankle monitor? she said. I dont understand that. Stacey Riley, the CEO of the Gulf Coast Center for Nonviolence, said the story was tragic and not uncommon in Mississippi, where domestic violence is prevalent. Lauren Johansen, 22, was studying to become a nurse before authorities found her dead in Harrison County. Agencies from law enforcement to hospitals to courts must focus on the dangers and warning signs, she said. If he kidnapped her, she said, that tells us he had the ability to do this again, and he will do it again. The system did not do what its supposed to do. Rivers faced several misdemeanor charges in South Mississippi before he was arrested in Nashville, including 2020 charges out of Hattiesburg for simple assault and disturbance of family in a dwelling or house, records show. He lived in Saucier but the Harrison County Sheriffs Department said this week it was unclear where he attended school on the Coast. Johansen once attended the University of Southern Mississippi and wanted to become a nurse. Reached Friday, Lance Johansen shared the gofundme where he wrote that his daughter was smart, kind, loving, and would do anything to help animals, her family, or anyone who needed help. She nearly died in Nashville, he said, and after that, she asked him to take care of her pets, siblings and mother if Rivers ever killed her. Please, her father wrote on her gofundme page, for the love of God, help us fulfill Laurens final wishes. Family of State College teen who died by suicide still seeking answers from investigators Nearly two months after the death of Abby Smith, her father said theyre no closer to answers about what may have led the 14-year-old to take her own life, and he expressed frustration with the status of ongoing investigations. Both the State College Area School District and Pennsylvania State Police have ongoing investigations after reports of bullying circulated after Abbys May 12 death. Both the district and state police declined to share additional details of those investigations with the Centre Daily Times, and Jonathon Smith said the family has received few updates from either entity. Smith said he has been disappointed with the investigation process and the lack of transparency regarding where the investigations surrounding Abby stand. He said he understands the legality of protecting other minors involved, but he cant get information about his daughter or how long the process will take. It is frustrating beyond belief, Smith said. Because it feels like getting information about whats going on there feels like pulling teeth. Abby, an eighth-grade student at Park Forest Middle School, was a longtime Girl Scout, a member of her schools band and was looking forward to being a camp leader at Shavers Creek Environmental Center, her father said. She loved making arts and crafts with her mother and siblings, and sold fans and resin art during Children and Youth Day at the Central Pennsylvania Festival for the Arts for several years. She had a lot of anxiety, which I think contributed to her being really quiet, Smith said. That really just kind of affected how she would come across to people. But once she got past that, shes just funny, sweet, caring. After Abbys death, Jonathon Smith and his wife Jen wrote a note to the SCASD community, asking anyone who may have witnessed bullying to come forward and report information to them, school staff, police, teachers or the Safe2Say anonymous tip line. Since then, Smith said the family has been in limbo waiting for answers they know may never come. There may not be any answers, he said. There may not be. But its frustrating to see some obvious paths of where to look and to know I cant even look and I cant get feedback. Both Abbys phone and the account on her school-issued computer are inaccessible to the family, Smith said. Abbys computer was deactivated two days after her death, and although Smith has been able to recover files from her computer drive, he is unable to see what websites she may have had open at the time of her death due to the computers deactivation. State police retrieved Abbys phone on May 12 but were only able to access its contents a week later when given a list of possible PIN numbers from the family. When Smith last spoke to state police on June 2, the phone was still in the queue for the digital data download, with no updates on when the process would move along. State police at Rockview station confirmed it was handling Abbys case in an email to the CDT, calling it an active and ongoing investigation. State College Area School District administrators could not comment on any specifics but said it continues to investigate any reports relating to Abby. Credible reports are always addressed confidentially, according to our student handbook, an administration official wrote in an email to the CDT. Additionally, as we prepare for next school year, we have begun implementing plans to ensure students feel welcomed and safe in our schools. SUICIDE PREVENTION RESOURCES Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 or chat at 988Lifeline.org Center for Community Resources: Visit 2100 E. College Ave., State College, 24/7 The family of a Worcester teen who died after eating an extraordinarily spicy chip as part of a viral challenge will file a lawsuit over his death, lawyers said Wednesday. Harris Wolobah passed away last year after taking part in the One Chip Challenge, which involves eating an extremely spicy chip made from some of the hottest peppers in the world, according to his family. Lawyers representing Wolobahs family said they hoping the lawsuit against the chip producer Paqui will curtail other dangerous products winding up on store shelves. He was an inspiration to all and beloved by his family and the entire community, the familys attorney stated. The Wolobahs hope that this case, which could have national and even international implications, will send a message to all who would market dangerous products, especially utilizing social media, to children. The cause of death was listed as cardiopulmonary arrest in the setting of recent ingestion of food substance with high capsaicin concentration. The report also noted that the teen had an enlarged heart and a congenital heart defect. In a statement posted on its website, Paqui said, The Paqui One Chip Challenge is intended for adults only, with clear and prominent labeling highlighting the chip is not for children or anyone sensitive to spicy foods or who has food allergies, is pregnant or has underlying health conditions. We have seen an increase in teens and other individuals not heeding these warnings. As a result, while the product continues to adhere to food safety standards, out of an abundance of caution, we are actively working with our retailers to remove the product from shelves. In addition to warning that the chips arent meant for children, the packaging encourages buyers to eat the entire chip, wait as long as possible before drinking or eating anything and post their reactions on social media. It also asks how long the consumer can last, on a scale from one minute to one hour. The back of the package warns buyers not to eat the chip if they are sensitive to spicy foods, allergic to peppers, night shades or capsaicin or are pregnant or have any medical conditions. It also says people should wash their hands after touching the chip and seek medical assistance should you experience difficulty breathing, fainting or extended nausea. 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 Farm Share to distribute food to food-insecure Floridians in the Jacksonville area Farm Share, Floridas leading food nonprofit and the states largest food bank is set to distribute food to food-insecure Floridians in the Jacksonville area. Recipients will receive fresh produce and non-perishable canned goods through a drive-thru-only distribution to minimize contact and ensure safety. Attendees must arrive in a vehicle with a trunk or cargo bed. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< With more than 3.9 million families suffering from food insecurity throughout Florida, Farm Share meets the everyday hunger needs of Floridians by partnering with local farmers to recover and redistribute produce that would otherwise be discarded due to aesthetic imperfections. Farm Share also distributes food to the community through its extensive network of soup kitchens, food pantries, homeless shelters, churches, and senior centers across Florida at no cost. To find a food pantry near you, please visit www.farmshare.org/food-pantries. More information about this weeks events: Event: Interlachen Fire Station 17 Free Food Distribution Location: 217 Kennedy Ave, Interlachen, FL 32148 Date: Friday, July 12, 2024 Time: 9:00 a.m. while supplies last Event: Lake Butler Free Food Distribution Location: 155 NW 3rd St, Lake Butler, FL 32054 Date: Saturday, July 13, 2024 Time: 8:00 a.m. while supplies last Event: Helping Hands Welaka Free Food Distribution Location: Welaka Town Hall, 400 4th Ave, Welaka, FL 32193 Date: Saturday, July 13, 2024 Time: 9:00 a.m. while supplies last Event: Cornerstone Church Free Food Distribution Location: 482 S 7th St, Macclenny, FL 32063 Date: Saturday, July 13, 2024 Time: 10:00 a.m. while supplies last [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. This photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows an area in a forest destroyed by rockets launched by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, in the northern Israeli border with Lebanon. Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah confirmed on Wednesday that his group will stop attacking Israel if an agreement is reached on a ceasefire in Gaza. Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon. (Xinhua/Chen Junqing) BEIRUT, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah confirmed on Wednesday that his group will stop attacking Israel if an agreement is reached on a ceasefire in Gaza. Nasrallah made the remarks in a televised speech commemorating Mohammad Ni'mah Nasser, a party leader killed by Israel in southern Lebanon last week. The Hezbollah leader also made a response to Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant's earlier comments about the potential continuation of conflict in Lebanon even if Gaza's war ends, asserting the importance of defending Lebanon's south and its people. "Is the enemy who is unable to end operations in Rafah and achieve any gains capable of invading south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon?" he asked. Moreover, Nasrallah reiterated Hezbollah will support whatever decision is made by Hamas in its negotiations with Israel. "The brothers in Hamas know best," he stated, emphasizing that Hamas negotiates on behalf of all resistance factions and that Hezbollah will back all its decisions. Nasrallah's words came while delegations from Egypt, the United States, Qatar, and Israel met on Wednesday in Qatar's capital Doha to resume the Gaza truce talks. This photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows an area in a forest destroyed by rockets launched by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, in the northern Israeli border with Lebanon. Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah confirmed on Wednesday that his group will stop attacking Israel if an agreement is reached on a ceasefire in Gaza. Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon. (Xinhua/Chen Junqing) This photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows an area in a forest destroyed by rockets launched by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, in the northern Israeli border with Lebanon. Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah confirmed on Wednesday that his group will stop attacking Israel if an agreement is reached on a ceasefire in Gaza. Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon. (Xinhua/Chen Junqing) This photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows an area in a forest destroyed by rockets launched by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, in the northern Israeli border with Lebanon. Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah confirmed on Wednesday that his group will stop attacking Israel if an agreement is reached on a ceasefire in Gaza. Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon. (Xinhua/Chen Junqing) This photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows an area in a forest destroyed by rockets launched by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, in the northern Israeli border with Lebanon. Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah confirmed on Wednesday that his group will stop attacking Israel if an agreement is reached on a ceasefire in Gaza. Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon. (Xinhua/Chen Junqing) Chasity Dean made calls to a domestic violence shelter in Columbus over the course of months, telling an employee she needed to get away from her husband. After getting a protection order from him and moving to a different apartment, she said she finally felt ready to move on and raise her child without him. On Friday, she was stabbed to death outside her apartment. Her husband was charged with her murder and had his preliminary hearing in recorders court Wednesday morning. Kyle Dean, 20, plead not guilty to five felony charges in court in the murder of Dean, 20. The charges are for murder, aggravated assault, possession of a gun or knife during the commission of a felony, attempted kidnapping and feticide, or causing the death of an unborn child through injury to its mother. Columbus Police Corporal Kevin Baldwin testified that police were dispatched to Elizabeth Canty Homes Friday afternoon after residents reported seeing a woman stabbed outside an apartment. Police arrived on scene and found Chasity with a stab wound to the right chest, according to Baldwin. She was transported to a nearby hospital and found to be approximately 13 weeks pregnant. Chasity and her unborn child died later that day at the hospital. Baldwin said Kyle Dean was seen on video assaulting Chasity in attempts to force her off of the porch to make her come with him. He testified Kyle got her into a choke hold and knocked her to the ground, where he stabbed her. Baldwin said police captured footage of Kyle leaving the scene in his vehicle and used his license plate information to track him to Lee County, where he was arrested Sunday. Judge David Ranieri found probable cause to continue the case and bound it to Superior Court. Kyle will be held without bond. History of abuse Baldwin said Chasitys death was preceded by a heated argument in which Kyle was the primary aggressor. He stated that Kyle fully confessed to Chasitys murder in an interview with police, saying that he was angry because she wouldnt go outside with him. Baldwin said Kyle had a history of violence and Chasity was staying next door, rather than with Kyle, because she was afraid of him. Crystal Sund, a legal advocate from Columbus domestic violence shelter Hope Harbour, testified in court that she helped Chasity get into the shelter after her second call. Sund said she also helped Chasity get a one-year protection order from Kyle. She said Chasity was seeking help from the shelter before she died. She was excited to start over, Sund said. She was ecstatic to have a second chance at life away from Mr. Dean. If you or someone you know needs help with a domestic violence situation, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at (800) 799-7233. Its described as maybe the greatest Hollywood photo ever taken. There is Faye Dunaway sprawled on a chair next to the Beverly Hills Hotel swimming pool the morning after her Oscar win. Newspapers headlining the awards show are strewn near a table thats presided over by her gleaming golden statuette. But the actress' gaze at the ultimate trophy seems disillusioned as the reality of it hits her. What I love is that is that all there is? was kind of the theme to it, says the ferociously talented legend who is the subject of a documentary that debuts Saturday on HBO (and will be available for streaming on Max). Faye Dunaway sits by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, the morning after the Academy Awards ceremony, where she won the Oscar for Sidney Lumets satirical film Network on March 29, 1977. The HBO documentary "Faye" premieres July 13, 2024. Faye is a candid, affectionate portrait of a woman who reigned on the big screen from the late 1960s to the middle of the 1970s, when American movies caught up to the turmoil and tumult of the modern world. If youre a GenXer, you may recognize Dunaway, now 83, and recall one or two of her films, perhaps the 1981 camp classic Mommie Dearest, the biopic about Joan Crawford that nearly destroyed her career. Long before the technology existed, the image of Dunaway as Crawford screaming, No wire hangers! at her adopted daughter was meme-worthy. Those in the Gen Z range probably are unfamiliar with Dunaway, which makes the HBO doc a remarkable opportunity to introduce the current generation to a complex artist who was often labeled as difficult. As Faye sensitively reveals, Dunaway wasnt just battling the usual show business sexism against independent women. She was struggling with bipolar disorder at the time she was achieving greatness. Directed by Laurent Bouzereau Faye features his extensive interviews with Dunaway, along with film clips, archival footage and illuminating interviews with her son, Liam Dunaway ONeill; close friend Sharon Stone; and some thoughtful critics and scholars, among others. It traces how Dorothy Faye Dunaway grew up with an alcoholic father and a mother who eventually divorced him and raised her alone in Florida, where pretty Southern girls with ambitions of performing pursued beauty queen titles. After Dunaway won a sweetheart of Sigma Chi contest while attending the University of Florida, she transferred to Boston University and then landed in a Lincoln Center repertory theater led by director Elia Kazan. Noticed for her acclaimed off-Broadway acting in 1965s Hogans Goat, Dunaway was cast opposite Warren Beatty in 1967s Bonnie and Clyde, the cultural inflection point that helped create New Hollywood with its violence, humor, sense of anguish and willingness to depict subjects like sexual impotence. She became an overnight star, plus a fashion trendsetter for her striking costumes (designed by Theadora Van Runkle) as one-half of the famous bank-robbing duo from the Depression era. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde." In an early interview around that time, Dunaway said success is freedom, a truism that was only partly true for the female population in cinema. She would go on to deliver brilliant performances in classics like 1968s sexy caper The Thomas Crown Affair with Steve McQueen (best known for the smoldering glances during an erotic chess game between the stars), 1974s bleak neo-noir Chinatown with Jack Nicholson and 1976s scathing satire Network. Her role as a brittle TV executive with a prescient knack for reality TV won her the best actress Oscar. In "Faye," Dunaway addresses the double standards of filmmaking in that era, when wanting more control over your projects and having strong opinions were accepted and encouraged for men, but treated as drawbacks for women. She talks about the notorious anecdote about her walking off the set when Chinatown director Roman Polanski (who later pleaded guilty to unlawful intercourse with a minor and fled America) yanked a stray hair from her head that was interfering with a shot. Afterward, she says, Nicholson nicknamed her the dreaded Dunaway, or Dread, much to her delight. The pinnacle of Dunaways daring as an uncompromising actress is Network. Although it is remembered for Peter Finchs Im mad as hell speech as troubled TV anchor Howard Beale, it also must be recognized for Dunaways steely commitment to playing Diana Christensen, a woman dominating an industry run by men. All I want out of life is a 20 share and a 30 rating, says Dunaway as Diana, and she means it. Theres no love in this character, no hidden empathy or tenderness that surfaces late in the story. Dunaway is magnetic, but completely unsympathetic as Diana, never taking an easy route that might have won her some sympathy. Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway in 1976's "Network." Once Mommie Dearest was declared a disaster by critics (the documentary argues it needed a director who would have toned down its midnight movie aspects), Dunaway struggled to regain her momentum. Always serious about her craft, she kept taking chances in smaller movies. She played an unglamorous alcoholic in 1987s Barfly and won a Golden Globe for playing modeling agency founder Wilhelmina Cooper opposite a young Angelina Jolie in HBO's Gia. "Faye" is at its most sensitive regarding the revelations about Dunaways mental health issues. The frankest observations come from Dunaway herself, who, during a sequence that documents her micromanaging tendencies as she fusses over details before an interview with Bouzereau, says: So now you see what it is about me. Not easy. Dunaway opens up about her struggles with manic depression and alcoholism, particularly in terms of how her bipolar disorder has impacted life behind and in front of the cameras. She describes how she is happier and healthier thanks to medication and treatment. Her son, with remarkable compassion, discusses monitoring her moods and musing on how her mood swings have affected her career. I think you have to ask yourself this question: If she wasnt in so much pain, would she have been that good? Which then, in turn, wouldnt have made her be able to touch people acting, he says. Youve got to take the good with the bad. Thats just life. It takes guts to go the places that Dunaway did emotionally in her movies, but it requires even more to sustain a full personal life while juggling the demands she had to meet. Faye is never more compelling than when it examines how Dunaway adopted a son with her then-husband, photographer Terry ONeill (who took her famous Oscar photo) and began devoting herself to motherhood at roughly the same time she was taking on a job that required her to portray the abusive parent of an adopted daughter in Mommie Dearest. American actress Faye Dunaway wearing a collection of bangles by Butler & Wilson, late 1980s. The HBO documentary "Faye" premieres July 13, 2024. Terry O'Neill / Iconic Images In the 1990s, Dunaway acted in the national tour of Master Class, Terrence McNallys play about opera diva Maria Callas. It became her passion project to write, direct and star in the film version. In October 2009, back when Michigans film incentives were drawing all sorts of productions, the Free Press wrote that filming was expected to start the following week in metro Detroit and that Dunaway had been in town for about a month working on pre-production. In Faye, her son says she ran out of money after filming for two or three months. Devastated by the collapse of the project, Dunaway admits today that she took on too many jobs at once. I was in pieces for quite some time, you know. Locked up in my room, going to analysis. I should have set it up and got a good director and I would act in it. But I wanted too much at that time. So it was a mistake, she says. Given the power of her stage work in Master Class, it was a loss for cinema audiences as well as her. Faye Dunaway photo for Newsweek cover from 1968. The HBO documentary "Faye" premieres July 13, 2024. As the documentary nears its conclusion, Dunaway is shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011, the year she was chosen as the face of the festival and honored on giant posters. As photographers snap away, Faye, the mega-star, snaps into gear, exuding her full charisma as a personality. Watching it on a TV screen, Faye demonstrates that Dunaways talent radiates on any screen: big, small or pocket-sized smartphone. As author and critic Mark Harris says in capturing her essential quality. Faye Dunaway in one word: un-dismissible. Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com. 'Faye' 8 p.m. Saturday HBO (also will be available to stream on Max) 1 hour, 31 minutes This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Faye Dunaway reveals her mental health struggles in HBO documentary CVS Pharmacy | Lynne Terry/States Newsroom The federal trade watchdog this morning released an interim report saying that sprawling health care conglomerates are driving out competition in the pharmacy sector and appear to be increasing prices in the process. The interim report comes after the Federal Trade Commission in 2022 announced that it was undertaking a sweeping investigation of pharmacy middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers or PBMs. Each of the largest three PBMs CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx is part of a much-larger corporation that also owns a top-10 health insurer. They also own pharmacies, doctors offices and other links in the health chain, prompting the FTC to say theyre vertically integrated. The corporations pharmacy benefit managers act as insurers representatives in pharmacy transactions. They decide which drugs are covered, they create pharmacy networks, and through an opaque system, they decide how much to reimburse pharmacies for the drugs they dispense. The three biggest PBMs together are handling nearly 80% of prescription-drug transactions on behalf of insured Americans, the FTC report said. The largest six PBMs manage nearly 95% of all such prescriptions in the United States, it said. Amidst increasing vertical integration and concentration, these powerful middlemen may be profiting by inflating drug costs and squeezing Main Street pharmacies, an executive summary of the report said. The summary adds that the big PBMs wield enormous power and influence over patients access to drugs and the prices they pay. This can have dire consequences for Americans, with nearly three in ten surveyed Americans reporting rationing or even skipping doses of their prescribed medicines due to high costs. For its part, and industry group representing PBMs said the businesses have a proven track record of reducing prescription drug costs and that they recognize the vital role pharmacies play in creating access to prescription drugs for patients. JC Scott, president of the industry group, the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, said the FTC had treated the PBM industry unfairly. Throughout this process, FTC leadership has shown that they have pre-determined conclusions that they want to advance irrespective of the facts or the data, and this report demonstrates an intention to follow through on their agenda regardless of the evidence, Scott said in a statement. But many independent and small-chain pharmacies dispute that PBMs have their interests at heart. Because they control access to so many patients, most pharmacies especially small operations feel they have little choice about signing the contracts the big PBMs offer them. For years, theyve been complaining of declining reimbursements and seemingly arbitrary clawbacks from the huge PBMs. Many have been fleeing the business, saying theyre unable to cover their expenses. Late last month, for example, news broke that Rite Aid would close hundreds of stores in Ohio and Michigan, with many more likely to close in the other 14 states where the bankrupt chain operates. The company tends to operate in smaller communities and the FTC says pharmacy closures in such communities are particularly harmful to patients. PBMs also exert substantial influence over independent pharmacies, who struggle to navigate contractual terms imposed by PBMs that they find confusing, unfair, arbitrary, and harmful to their businesses, the agency said in a statement accompanying the interim report. Between 2013 and 2022, about ten percent of independent retail pharmacies in rural America closed. Closures of local pharmacies affect not only small business owners and their employees, but also their patients. In some rural and medically underserved areas, local community pharmacies are the main healthcare option for Americans, who depend on them to get a flu shot, an EpiPen, or other lifesaving medicine. CVS operates the largest retail chain, so when its PBM decides how much to reimburse pharmacies for drugs, its using what the FTC called an extraordinarily opaque system to pay its own pharmacies and its competitors for the drugs they dispense. Similarly, all three of the biggest PBMs operate mail-order pharmacies for expensive specialty drugs such as cancer medication. And they often encourage if not require patients to get their medicine from them. That has resulted in PBM-affiliated specialty pharmacies controlling 70% of sales in that class of drugs, the FTC report said. Using mail-order for complex, quickly changing cancer drug regimens has led to horror stories among patients forced to get their drugs that way. Meanwhile, the FTC report uncovered evidence that in at least some instances, PBMs are paying their own companies pharmacies more for drugs in those transactions than they do their competitors. Our analyses also highlight examples of affiliated pharmacies receiving significantly higher reimbursement rates than those paid to unaffiliated pharmacies for two case study drugs, it said. These practices have allowed pharmacies affiliated with the three largest PBMs to retain levels of dispensing revenue well above estimated drug acquisition costs, resulting in nearly $1.6 billion of additional revenue on just two cancer drugs in under three years. Such practices have already prompted Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to sue Express Scripts under the states antitrust law, the Valentine Act. PCMA, the industry group, accused the FTC of using an unrepresentative sample in its analysis. Todays interim FTC report falls far short of being a definitive, fact-based assessment of PBMs or the prescription drug market, Scott, the groups president said. Members of the commission themselves disagree with the content of the report and the decision to release it. This report is based on anecdotes and comments from anonymous sources and self-interested parties, and supported only by two cherry-picked case studies that are implied to be representative of the entire market. The report completely overlooks the volumes of data that demonstrate the value that PBMs provide to Americas health care system by reducing prescription drug costs and increasing access to medications. The FTC report also slammed arrangements under which the big PBMs negotiate huge rebates and other discounts from drugmakers. Because PBMs control access to so many patients, they have great leverage when they negotiate rebates and other discounts from makers of patented or branded drugs. The middlemen control the formulary, or list of covered drugs, and manufacturers have to cough up big if they want their products to be on it. The system of granting huge, non-transparent discounts has already been shown to increase the list price of drugs. Thats the amount you would pay if you didnt have insurance and often the price on which your copayment or deductible is based. The FTC said it came across another way the rebate system appears to be costing patients by locking them out of cheaper generics that would work just as well. While this interim report principally focuses on the relationship between PBMs and pharmacies, we share evidence that PBMs and brand pharmaceutical manufacturers sometimes enter into agreements to exclude generic drugs and biosimilars from certain formularies in exchange for higher rebates from the manufacturer, the report said. These exclusionary rebates may cut off patient access to lower-cost medicines and warrant further scrutiny by the Commission, policymakers and industry stakeholders. FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan in March said that some of the PBMs werent cooperating with the investigation. Those problems apparently persist. The report notes that several of the PBMs that were issued orders have not been forthcoming and timely in their responses, and they still have not completed their required submissions, which has hindered the Commissions ability to perform its statutory mission, the agency said in a statement. FTC staff have demanded that the companies finalize their productions required by the 6(b) orders promptly. If, however, any of the companies fail to fully comply with the 6(b) orders or engage in further delay tactics, the FTC can take them to district court to compel compliance. Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and X. The post Federal regulator: Pharmacy middlemen appear to be raising prices, hurting patients appeared first on Michigan Advance. Sen. Bob Menendezs brazen plot to blame his wife for his sprawling bribery scheme is merely a desperate plea to dodge responsibility himself, federal prosecutors argued Tuesday. There is no way that she could pull the wool over his eyes so that he didnt know what she was doing, prosecutor Paul Monteleoni told jurors Tuesday in Manhattan federal court of the New Jersey lawmakers wife, Nadine Menendez. The senator is charged with accepting gold bars and cash in exchange for favors to businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar. Sen. Bob Menendez arriving at federal court in Manhattan on July 9, 2024. AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura Federal prosecutors argued that Menendezs claim that his wife is responsible for his alleged bribery scheme is a desperate plea to avoid taking responsibility. Throughout this trial, you have heard that everyone is to blame but Menendez, Monteleoni added, accusing the embattled Democrat of trying desperately to pass the buck. At the end of a nearly six-hour closing statement delivered over two days, the prosecutor repeated the phrase blaming his wife five times to remind jurors that Menendezs lawyers have claimed that Nadine sidelined him from the scheme and stashed the gold bars in her safe without his knowledge. Hes blaming his wife for whats in their bedroom closet, Monteleoni said, referring to the $150,000 worth of gold, and envelopes stuffed with cash that FBI agents found in their Englewood Hills, NJ home in a June 2022 raid. The prosecutor also brought up a witnesss testimony that the senator once rung a small bell to summon his wife onto their patio after calling her mon amour my love in French as evidence that Menendez was the one in charge of the bribery plot. Menendez allegedly accepted cash and gold bars from businessmen from Egypt and Qatar. US District Court Cash found inside a jacket during a search of Menendezs home by federal agents. U.S. Attorney's Office via AP Hes not a puppet having his strings pulled by someone he summons with a bell, Monteleoni said. Menendez, 70, faces a potential decades-long prison sentence if hes convicted on the bribery charges and on charges that he acted as an illegal foreign agent of Egypt and Qatar. Prosecutors called 30 witnesses during the two-month-long trial, including the New Jersey insurance broker Jose Uribe, who testified that he bought Nadine a new Mercedes convertible in exchange for a promise that her husband would interfere in state criminal probes affecting his friends and relatives. If you are just a member of the public, he wont do anything for you, Monteleoni said Tuesday. But if you promise a Mercedes to his girlfriend, all you have to do is tell Menendez a name. Jose Uribe testified that he bought Menendezs wife a car in return for the senator interfering in state criminal probes. Elizabeth Williams via AP Menendez also pressured the Agriculture Department to protect his co-defendant Wael Hanas lucrative monopoly on approving halal meat exports to Egypt which Hana was granted despite having no prior halal experience in exchange for gold bars and a $120,000-a-year no-show job for Nadine, prosecutors say. A lawyer for Gold Bar Bob Menendez, Adam Fee, paced up and down the side of the jury box Tuesday afternoon while accusing the feds of ignoring the evidence that is bad for their story and criminalizing the normal work of a senator. The simple truth is his actions were lawful, normal and good for his constituents and his country, Fee argued. Co-defendant Wael Hana arriving at Manhattan Federal Court on July 9, 2024. Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images The attorney also ridiculed the feds repeated use of the term bribe to describe evidence that the senator wielded his influence to benefit his cronies whose fingerprints were on the envelopes of cash found in his home. These guys are saying the word bribe a lot, Fee told jurors. Its a bribe! he added, raising his voice in a mocking tone. Prosecutors accused Menendez of trying desperately to pass the buck. AP Menendez, who has maintained his innocence and did not testify, sat calmly Tuesday in a dark blue suit and pink tie, looking in the direction of the jury while his lawyer spoke. His daughter Alicia Menendez, an anchor at MSNBC, looked on from the first row of the courtroom gallery behind him. Fee spoke for nearly three hours Tuesday afternoon before the court broke for the day. The defense attorney will finish his closing statement Wednesday morning, before lawyers for Hana and a third co-defendant, real estate mogul Fred Daibes, deliver their own statement. The feds will then get a chance to deliver a final rebuttal. Menendez has refused to step down from office and has announced plans to run for re-election as an independent, which could take away some votes from Democrat Rep. Andy Kim, who trounced Menendez in Junes primary. FEMA advises on how South Fork, Salt fire victims can get reimbursed for tools NEW MEXICO (KRQE) FEMA has provided guidance on how New Mexicans impacted by the South Fork Fire, Salt Fire, and flooding can apply to get reimbursed for tools and equipment. If you are self-employed, FEMA may be able to provide funds to repair or replace disaster-damaged tools and equipment required for your work. FEMA may also be able to help if you are an employee and you lost tools or equipment required for your job and not reimbursable by your employer. FEMA letters to New Mexico applicants will contain important details, agency says Eligible Work Tools Tools and equipment required for self-employment or required, but not provided, by an employer. Examples of tools include: Computers required by an employer or for self-employment when you are responsible for the replacement of the computer. Tools and equipment such as power tools, art materials, musical instruments, tractors, utility vehicles, lawnmowers, ladders, etc. Uniforms required for work when you are responsible for replacement of the uniforms. This assistance may be available if the items were damaged by the New Mexico South Fork and Salt Fires and flooding that began June 17, and you do not have another working item that can meet this need and the loss of the item was not covered by insurance., FEMA said. Required Documentation To be eligible for self-employment assistance, you must provide documentation that proves youre self-employed, such as federal tax return documents, and must meet the eligibility criteria for FEMA assistance. Self-employed New Mexico residents should provide FEMA with: Insurance documents for all potential coverages and benefits Itemized receipts or estimates for repairing or replacing the requested items A written statement that explains the items are needed for self-employment To learn how to apply for help from FEMA, click here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. Discolored trees show the damage caused by an infestation of southern pine beetles spot in Mississippi. (Ricky Cox and Wade Hosey/U.S. Forest Service) State lawmakers want Gov. Jeff Landry to declare an emergency to address millions of dead and dying pines that insects have infested and now pose a risk to people, property, power lines and roads. But officials say not much help is available to homeowners who want to remove trees that are certain to fall down and cause damage. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Pineville. (Allison Allsop/Louisiana Illuminator) State Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Pineville, convened an emergency meeting Tuesday of a House Agriculture subcommittee on the safety problems pine beetles have created. The April 10 death of a woman in Rapides Parish was attributed to a beetle-damaged tree that came down in severe weather. Last years extended drought caused the tree damage that set the table for the voracious pine beetles. Although experts said the insects themselves have likely maxed out their spread, their impact continues to threaten logging operations, public rights of way and private properties. More than 12 million trees are considered at risk, according to state and federal forestry officials, with most of them concentrated in Central Louisiana. Johnson asked various state agency representatives at Tuesdays hearing what could be done to reduce the danger the stricken trees pose. Commercial loggers can fell infested trees and isolate damaged areas to limit beetles from spreading. This is an option the timber industry prefers over costly insecticides, said State Forester Wade Dubeau. Removing trees is often cost-prohibitive for homeowners, with licensed arborists required to handle the job charging a minimum $1,500 per tree, forestry officials said. Thousands more could be added to the price if heavy equipment is needed. Homeowners cant turn to their insurance carriers for help because property policies dont cover preventative measures. Damage to homes from fallen trees is only covered if it occurs under certain weather conditions, and only then if the homeowner wasnt aware of the trees vulnerability beforehand, said Adam Patrick with the Louisiana Department of Insurance. For the subcommittees next meeting in August, Johnson asked Patrick to compile information on insurance claims paid out in Louisiana for tree damage. The lawmaker said the data could help convince insurance companies that helping policyholders take down trees might be more cost-efficient than paying out damage claims later. Johnson said an 87-year-old resident in his district reached out for his help with four pine trees that threaten her home. The cost of removal was out of her reach, and the representative said he was able to connect the woman with an arborist willing to handle the job for free. Its an option he doesnt expect to be widely available, given the magnitude of the beetle infestation. A forestry service member surveys damage in an eastern Texas pine forest devastated by the southern pine beetle. (Ron Billings/Texas Forest Service courtesy of Bugwood.org). Dubea told the subcommittee Louisianas pine beetle problem is as bad as he can recall since the late 1980s, though he called that instance a very rural situation that didnt affect residents to the extent the current infestation has. The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry has attempted to link homeowners with charitable organizations and churches who can help cover the cost of tree removal, but demand for such services outweighs the resources available, Dubea said. Jacques Thibodeaux, director of the Governors Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, told lawmakers its highly unlikely the federal government would respond to a state emergency declaration for pine beetles at the same scale it does for natural disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes. One avenue he suggested was following the path crawfish farmers laid after last years drought, which yielded an emergency declaration earlier this year. It led to the Small Business Administration opening a temporary office in Acadiana to help affected businesses access low-interest loans. Matthew Cross with the Association of Louisiana Electric Cooperatives said a state declaration could also open doors for power providers to obtain assistance with clearing rights of way where trees threaten transmission lines, although he noted the help would not be made available to individual customers. The pine beetle subcommittee will compile a report that could lead to legislative proposals and policy recommendations to the Landry administration. Taylor Barras, the governors commissioner of administration, said his staff would continue to pore through existing state funds to see if any resources were available to help prevent damage from falling pine trees. Johnson stressed that its not a matter of if but when compromised trees will come down suddenly. Another natural disaster could compound the risk, he added. Its kind of a silent danger Its ultimately going to happen, Johnson said. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Few resources for homeowners to remove risky, beetle-damaged pine trees appeared first on Louisiana Illuminator. Leaders of the United States, Denmark, and the Netherlands, who head the so-called fighter jet coalition, have announced that Ukraine will receive its first F-16 aircraft this summer. Source: Joe Biden, Mette Frederiksen and Dick Schoof in their joint statement published by the White House, as reported by European Pravda Details: The leaders recalled that Denmark and the Netherlands, with the support of the United States, pledged to transfer F-16 fighters of American production to Ukraine. Quote: "The transfer process for these F-16s is now underway, and Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer. We are unable to provide additional details at this time due to operational security concerns," the statement said. The fighter jet coalition's leaders commended Belgium and Norway for their pledge to provide additional F-16s, as well as the rest of the alliance for their support. In early July, it was announced that the Netherlands would shortly begin supplying Ukraine with the first of 24 F-16 fighter jets. Read also: F-16s, Ukraine's "irreversible" path to NATO and negotiations with Russia: an interview with the Netherlands new defence minister Support UP or become our patron! More than 150,000 chickens were killed when a large fire broke out at an egg-laying facility in Merced County on Sunday, according to Merced County Cal Fire officials. At about 7:39 p.m. Sunday, Merced County Cal Fire firefighters responded to a structure fire at the J.S. West Milling Company located in the area of Bell Drive and Dwight Way just south of the City of Livingston, according to Merced County Cal Fire Apparatus Engineer Robert Wynne. Fire officials said the first firefighters arrived on scene to find heavy smoke and fire rapidly spreading through a roughly 50,000 square foot structure occupied by hens. The fire rapidly developed within the structure and killing the hens, according to fire officials. Fire crews focused efforts on preventing the fire from spreading to adjacent structures. Fire department personnel were able to protect four other structures that were exposed to the blaze, said Wynne. A total of about 35 fire personnel responded to the blaze including seven fire engines and 10 water tenders from Merced County, according to Wynne. A Madera County Support Unit assisted. Wynne said a heavy fuel load inside the structure made suppression efforts difficult and it took firefighters about six hours to contain the fire. There were no reported injuries to firefighters or civilians. According to fire officials, the cause of the fire remains under investigation. Anyone with information regarding this incident can contact the Livingston Fire Department at 209-394-7919 or the Cal Fire Madera-Mariposa-Merced Unit at 209-966-3622. CALEDONIA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) As more lives are lost to fatal house fires, local fire departments are joining a statewide effort to require automatic sprinklers in homes. The National Fire Sprinkler Association, teaming up with the Caledonia Township Fire Department, organized a demonstration Tuesday afternoon with a trailer that contained two living rooms, one with sprinklers and another without. Firefighters and battalion chiefs attended the event at Viking Group, a West Michigan-based company that produces sprinklers and valves for fire departments. The first living room had fire sprinklers installed. When live flames burst out, the sprinklers quickly mitigated the fire, allowing firefighters to finish the job with ease. There was minimal damage to the furniture and walls inside, besides some burn marks. The second living room, which didnt have automatic sprinklers, was destroyed by towering flames. Black smoke shot up into the sky. Firefighters eventually put out the blaze with more difficulty. Crews demonstrate the importance of residential fire sprinklers on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. Crews demonstrate the importance of residential fire sprinklers on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. Thats why local fire departments and the National Fire Sprinkler Association are pushing to change state building code to require automatic sprinklers in new homes. Its being debated right now in Lansing. Home builders have opposed the effort over the cost involved, saying it would raise housing prices. Most states are falling behind and thats bad, Shane Ray, the president of the National Fire Sprinkler Association, countered. When the fire problem is getting worse and the elected and appointed officials take us backwards because they dont want regulation, this is not a place we can sacrifice. Kevin Sehlmeyer, the state fire marshal, said 62 people across Michigan have died in residential house fires so far this year. Most of them started in living rooms, just like those shown in the demonstration. Scott Siler, the Caledonia Township fire chief, says sprinklers can be the difference between life and death. Think if its your family, Siler said. Would you want them in your home to protect your family? Its the same thing for my firefighters. If they go out, I want them to be safe. If they dont have to risk their lives to put out a fire that was already taken care of by a sprinkler, its great for us. Sehlmeyer said in 2017, data showed people only had three minutes to escape a house fire. Today, people have just two minutes, he said. Its because theres more synthetic material in homes. People dont realize how quickly, with all the modern construction when theres bigger open spaces and all the textiles things are burning quicker on us, Siler said. Our environments are getting more dangerous, and therefore we need better reaction time, Ray added. We like to say, fire sprinklers buy time and time buys life. It buys time for the occupant to escape and it buys time for the fire department to arrive. Sehlmeyer said just 20% of fatal house fires so far this year had working smoke alarms inside. Many local departments, like Caledonia Township, can install them at your home for free. Siler said residents can give the department a call to arrange an appointment. Weve had one fatal fire many years ago. There was one smoke alarm in the whole residence, the battery was pulled from it. People died from smoke inhalation, Siler said. They (smoke alarms) are very important. Its something that could really give people early protection to get out. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. A pedestrian walks amid smoke caused by wildfires in Canada near One World Trade Center in New York, the United States, June 7, 2023. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua) Migraine brain does not like variability. It wants you to sleep at the same time, eat the same thing. So big shifts in temperature and weather don't do well with migraine. NEW YORK, July 10 (Xinhua) -- As heat waves have become more frequent and lengthy because of climate change, an estimated 39 million Americans currently live with migraine, according to the American Migraine Foundation. Half of those with migraine report the weather as one of their headache triggers, according to Elizabeth Loder, chief of the Brigham and Women's Hospital Headache Division. "Heat can be a major factor, experts agreed, though the onset of a headache is often a mix of compounding environmental factors," reported The Washington Post about this finding on Wednesday. High temperatures are frequently accompanied by changes in barometric pressure, direct sun exposure and humidity, and these environment changes can trigger a headache for those who have migraine. "Migraine brain does not like variability," Jessica Ailani, neurologist and director of the Headache Center at MedStar Georgetown, was quoted as saying. "It wants you to sleep at the same time, eat the same thing. So big shifts in temperature and weather don't do well with migraine." Experts are unsure of the precise mechanism by which heat can trigger a headache, though heat can lead to processes that are known to cause headache. Extreme dehydration can cause your brain to shrink and pull on the blood vessels lining the brain, which can lead to physical pain, Loder said. In extreme cases, heat can affect the function of brain neurons, according to Mayo Clinic neurologist Narayan Kissoon. Altered cell function leads to an increase in activity in the pain centers of the brain, he noted. A search and rescue boat on Hauser Reservoir that responded to a firefighting plane crash on July 10, 2024. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan) A search and rescue boat on Hauser Reservoir that responded to a firefighting plane crash on July 10, 2024. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan) A 45-year-old pilot was killed Wednesday in a firefighting plane crash just after noon on Hauser Reservoir near Spokane Bay while fighting the Horse Gulch Fire, which is burning just north of Canyon Ferry Reservoir, the county sheriff confirmed. Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton confirmed just after 5 p.m. that the pilot, a 45-year-old woman from a different country who was flying for an Idaho-based company, had died in the crash. He and the Federal Aviation Administration said earlier in the afternoon only the pilot was on board at the time of the crash. On Thursday, Dutton identified the pilot as Juliana Turchetti, 45, a native of Brazil. He said she was in the U.S. working on a visa and leaves behind a 17-year-old son and numerous family members in Brazil. We offer our sincere condolences to the family, the poor service partners and the aviation community, Dutton said in a message. The crash happened around 12:10 p.m., according to Dutton, the FAA and two witnesses who called 911 to report the crash on the southwestern side of Hauser Reservoir. The plane that crashed was an Air Tractor AT-802, single-engine water-scooping aircraft, according to National Transportation Safety Board and FAA spokespersons. It was working for the U.S. Forest Service on a firefighting mission, Dutton and the NTSB said. Dutton said at a news conference at 5 p.m. that three single-engine air tankers had been scooping water to drop onto the fire. The first plane that went through was successful in its run, but the second plane hit the bank and fell apart in the water. Several people attempted to rescue the pilot but were unsuccessful, Dutton said. With help from Lewis and Clark County Search and Rescue and a dive team from Gallatin County Search and Rescue, the pilots body had been recovered by 5 p.m., according to Dutton. Right now, our condolences go out to that family. Its sad, Dutton said. The Lewis and Clark County Sheriffs Office, Lewis and Clark County Search and Rescue, Montana Highway Patrol and several volunteer fire departments responded to the call. Several search-and-rescue boats were seen heading to the scene of the crash and a crew was preparing for a water search when the Daily Montanan was at the staging area earlier in the afternoon. The Lewis and Clark County Sheriffs Office is investigating the crash along with the Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board and U.S. Forest Service, Dutton said. The NTSB will lead the investigation, according to FAA spokesperson Jillian Angeline. Lorrie Bernardi and her husband were watching several firefighting airplanes from their home on the west side of Hauser Reservoir when they saw the crash. It was filling up and then all of a sudden, I dont know if he hit a wave or what he did but we just saw a big plume of smoke, she said. They used a telescope to look out into the bay where they confirmed the plane had wrecked. She and her husband were unsure exactly what caused the accident but said it appeared the plane crashed in the water. Sarah Taylor Sulick, a spokesperson for the NTSB, said an investigator was expected to arrive at the scene Wednesday afternoon to start documenting the scene and examining the aircraft, which will be removed and evaluated at a secure site. A preliminary report on the crash will be issued within 30 days. The Horse Gulch Fire started Tuesday afternoon about 5 miles south of York and 2 miles north of Canyon Ferry Reservoir. It was 600 estimated acres in size and 0% contained as of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, a Forest supervisor said at the news conference, and is burning on Helena National Forest land. The Horse Gulch Fire seen from the east side of Helena just before 5 p.m. on July 10, 2024. It had grown to an estimated 600 acres by then. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan) A Type 3 incident command team is being briefed Wednesday afternoon and will take over command of the fire. The Lewis and Clark County Sheriffs Office issued an evacuation order just before 4 p.m. for the Cave Gulch area. By the 5 p.m. news conference, that evacuation order had expanded to include all homes between Cave Gulch and Magpie Gulch, said Lewis and Clark County Undersheriff Brent Colbert. Emily Platt, the forest supervisor for the Helena National Forest, said the fire had changed directions Wednesday afternoon and was moving south due to a wind shift, leading to the expanded evacuations. She said the next several days are expected to continue to be hot, dry and windy, so the fire is likely to stay active. Kenny Spint, the assistant fire management officer for the Helena district, said there were about 100 resources, including firefighters and airplanes, currently working on the fire. Part of it is burning in an old burn scar through debris killed by the previous fire. Spint and Platt said the main focus is to protect private homes and lands from burning. Dutton said earlier in the afternoon the sheriffs office was closing trails and other access because people are going up to the area just to see the fire. Thats the biggest problem were having right now is people that are curious of what a fire looks like and theyre trying to get up close to get good pictures, he said. That is hampering the firefighting efforts. In a joint statement Wednesday evening, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and Idaho Gov. Brad Little said they were deeply saddened to learn about the pilots death. Our first responders and wildland firefighters put their lives on the line to quickly respond to threats and protect our communities. Its a true act of bravery to run toward a fire. We join all Montanans and Idahoans in praying for the fallen heros family and friends during this tragic time, they said. Editors note: This story was updated early Thursday afternoon to include the identity of the pilot. Emergency crews responded to a plane crash on Hauser Reservoir around noon on July 10, 2024, after a firefighting plane crashed in the lake. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan) The Horse Gulch Fire near Canyon Ferry Reservoir on the afternoon of July 9, 2024. ((Photo courtesy InciWeb) GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) After weeks of clean reports, the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development has confirmed there is a new outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza or bird flu within a dairy herd. The latest outbreak is in a herd in Gratiot County. Data from MDARD shows it was first reported on July 5 and confirmed by testing at the Michigan State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Bird flu outbreak is slowing, but MDARD isnt declaring victory yet Before this latest outbreak, MDARD had gone five weeks without reporting a new case, by far the longest stretch of inaction since the first outbreak among dairy herds was confirmed in late March. According to MDARD, it is the 34th confirmed outbreak of the year and the 26th in a dairy herd. The bird flu epidemic started in earnest in 2022 and has impacted farms across the country. In the last two years, more than 97 million poultry have been culled because of infections. It returned to Michigan in earnest in March, with the first infection registered among a dairy herd in Montcalm County. Since then, another 24 dairy herds have confirmed outbreaks, and another eight poultry flocks. Sign up for breaking news alert emails Highly pathogenic avian influenza is quite deadly in birds, but the survival rate is high among cattle. Though it is rare, humans can also catch the virus. Since the 2022 outbreak started, five human cases have been reported in the U.S. Four have come since the start of April, including two in Michigan. Most human cases are fairly mild and those cases have not spread to other people. However, a person from Mexico died earlier this year from a bird flu infection. Bird flu: Fourth human case in US confirmed in Colorado farm worker MDARD issued the HPAI Risk Reduction Response Order on May 1, outlining specific measures that poultry and dairy farmers should take to try to prevent spreading the virus. It includes strict protocols for disinfecting vehicles and equipment and shutting down animal showcases until the spread is under control. We know that transmission of this virus is possible not just from cow to cow, but through people, vehicle and equipment movement, as well. The decreasing number of positive detections can be attributed in large part to the combined and coordinated federal interstate movement restrictions and state level biosecurity requirements, MDARD Director Tim Boring said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. First Lady Jill Biden to visit Pittsburgh this weekend First Lady Jill Biden will be traveling to Pittsburgh this weekend. The First Lady will be in town on Saturday, July 13. She is scheduled to deliver remarks at an Italian Sons and Daughters of America dinner. Former President Donald Trump is also scheduled to be in the Pittsburgh area on Saturday. He will be holding a rally in Butler County. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: 2 bodies pulled from creek near Montour Trail identified $2.3M Pennsylvania Lottery ticket sold at local Giant Eagle Demolition begins on Monongahela River dam VIDEO: Braddock considering merging with new Eastern Regional Mon Valley Police Department DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts FL prisons are using wristbands to track inmates, and punishing those who refuse, some say DeSoto Correctional Institution, via the Florida Department of of Corrections. Inmates here are balking at being made to wear wristbands that can track their whereabouts. A Florida Department of Corrections requirement that inmates wear electronic bracelets to monitor their movements in one facility is raising concerns among some family members and advocates that refusal to wear the devices is resulting in punishment. Denise Rock, with inmate advocacy group Florida Cares, said that rampant conversations are happening about the program among loved ones of inmates on social media because of the lack of information given out by the department. One of the concerns expressed during the conversations is that the bracelets are being used to monitor inmates heartbeats to detect illegal drug use. We asked the department if that was going to be done and we were told that it is not, that its simply to assist with the count procedure, Rock said. Unfortunately, the departments doing what its very often done, which is not providing people with information, so they get scared. Last year, the department began using artificial intelligence to surveil inmates outgoing phone calls using key words, although the system screens out calls with doctors, lawyers, and spiritual advisers, the Tampa Bay Times reported. The wristband mandate comes after the agency amended its 2020 contract with Global Tel*Link Corp. (now doing business as ViaPath Technologies) to provide real time location systems at 71 prisons designated by the department. The contract provides for Bluetooth low-energy technology that enables near-real time tracking and location of inmates throughout designated areas in each prison. [Tracking] shall continuously provide the near-real time or last known position of inmates during active periods for coverage areas, the contract reads. Loss of privileges, gain time Concerned family members told the Phoenix and through an invitation-only Facebook group to which the Phoenix was granted access that inmates rejecting the devices at DeSoto Correctional Institution are subjected to punishment including loss of privileges and gain time, plus transfer to other prisons. Gain-time is an inmates opportunity to earn a reduction in his or her criminal sentence, defined by the department as used to encourage satisfactory inmate behavior and motivate program and work participation. The Corrections Department operates a system called the DR Court, a formal disciplinary hearing scheduled after an inmate receives such a written report of a rule violation. State Rep. Dianne Hart, who has been active on criminal justice issues and advocated for improving conditions for inmates since her election in 2018, told the Phoenix she spoke to Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon recently, who confirmed to her that electronic bracelets are being used to monitor the movement of inmates. I think its a terrible thing, said Hart, D-Tampa. Youre already incarcerated and now youre putting bracelets on me to keep up with me inside of the walls? The Florida Department of Corrections didnt respond to multiple requests by the Phoenix for comment about the wristband program and the reaction of inmates. Hart said that Dixon asked her last week why she thought the inmates were rebelling against wearing wristbands. I told him, Why should they be imprisoned again with a [wrist]band monitoring their every move? Its not making sense to me, other than theres not enough officers and this is one way for you all to ensure that you know where everybody is, because you dont have the proper security in these prisons, as opposed to trying to reduce the number [of inmates] so we can get it under some form of control, she told the Phoenix. Legislation stalled Approximately 85,000 inmates are serving sentences in Floridas correctional institutions, according to the FDCs last annual report. Hart has sought for years to craft legislation that would allow the Corrections Department to find safe methods to reduce the number of inmates in state prisons, to little success. Among the most notable was a measure to allow nonviolent offenders to reduce their mandatory time served from 85% to 65% through successful completion of academic and learning courses while incarcerated. It died in the Criminal Justice subcommittee last year. ViaPath is slated to install fiber network equipment to aid with monitoring in 71 prisons by Dec. 31, 2024, according to the contract. The areas where the wristbands can be tracked include inmate housing units, day rooms, cafeterias, designated medical treatment rooms, and other mutually agreed to building areas as part of individual site design planning. The contract includes an amendment signed on Aug. 10, 2023. The parties signed the original $24.375 million contract in December 2020 for inmate telephone services. Advocacy groups that follow prison issues say they have not heard of similar programs being rolled out in other states. Wanda Bertram, a communications strategist with the Prison Policy Initiative, said her organization didnt have much information about the Florida program because, as far as we know, its the first of its kind in any state prison system. The Fulton County Sheriffs Office in Atlanta signed an agreement last year with a Georgia firm called Talitrix to track inmates with electronic wristbands, but Fulton County commissioners killed the deal in December after the company failed to provide a sufficient number of devices, as reported by 95.5 WSB in Atlanta. The radio station reported that fewer than 50 inmates in two county jails were using those wristbands at that time, instead of the 500 promised for $2.1 million in tax dollars. We are not currently participating in any type of program, Natalie L. Ammons, director of communications for the Fulton County Sheriffs Office, told the Phoenix last month. In Cobb County, Georgia, a spokesperson for the Sheriffs Department says the office is testing wristband technology in its adult detention center. The current wristband monitors the heartrate of detainees housed in our infirmary and alerts medical staff when the heartrate falls below a set number, said spokesperson Jeremy Blake. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last year that such electronic wristbands were being implemented in jails in DeKalb County, Georgia, but a representative of that department told the Phoenix the jurisdiction has discontinued their use. Not my answer Other prison systems use such monitoring devices, but for inmates who have been given pre-release, allowed to serve the remainder of their sentences in the community. One expert said such tracking is becoming part of a national trend. This program is really striking and really concerning, said Will Owen, communications director for the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project in New York City. Weve seen electronic monitoring sold as a solution to mass incarceration across the U.S., and its use has really expanded tremendously in recent years. But in reality, electronic monitoring is only an expansion of mass incarceration and this use within prison is only an escalation of its use. Whether its people with relatively small infractions whose sentences are scheduled to end soon, or seniors unlikely to recidivate, Hart said, the Florida corrections system has to find a better way to deal with such a large prison population. These wristbands are not my answer, she said. I dont think its the appropriate answer. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Flash Flood Warning extended until 9:30 p.m. for the New Orleans Metro NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) The National Weather Service has issued a Flash Flood Warning for the New Orleans Metro area. Now extended through 9:30 p.m. Carrolton Underpass closed due to high water from flash flooding. Rainfall rates of 1.5-2.5 per hour has prompted the issuance. Watch for street flooding as soils are already saturated from earlier storms today. High-res model guidance highlighting scattered rain chances into the evening southeast Louisiana & south Mississippi. Another round of off & on storms tomorrow. Rain chances highest along the coast in the morning, working their way northward by mid day-early afternoon. It wont rain all day, but Id expect to dodge storms. Weather Prediction Center has placed a Marginal Risk (Level 1 out of 4) for excessive rainfall & flash flooding. Watch for storms to produce quick 1-2 of rainfall. Stay up to date with the latest news, weather and sports by downloading the WGNO app on the Apple or Google Play stores and by subscribing to the WGNO newsletter. Latest Posts Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGNO. New flood prevention work is planned for Canandaigua, county. Should even more be done? The question is not if a rainstorm of the magnitude experienced July 9, 2023, that resulted in widespread flooding in the town of Canandaigua and Sucker Brook corridor of the city will happen again. The question is, based on climate change and what some point to as an increasing number of severe storms, rain or otherwise, when will it happen again? And then what? Gov. Kathy Hochul on a visit in late June to the Rochester area recalled walking several streets in the city of Canandaigua the day after the rainstorm ravaged the area last year. It was devastating to see the people going through their waterlogged wedding albums and photos of their children, just littering the streets, Hochul said. It was heartbreaking what communities like Canandaigua and other communities across the state endured. Gov. Kathy Hochul, pictured above at the opening of Constellation Brands' new headquarters in downtown Rochester, remembers the flooding experienced by Canandaigua residents a year ago and says "We are in a new era of climate change." Several mitigation projects completed in recent years helped prevent further heartbreaking devastation to homes and properties, local officials said. More are in the works, but more are needed, they said. According to Canandaigua Town Supervisor Jared Simpson, the city and town have a joint account for Sucker Brook mitigation projects with about $230,000 in it. Funding is also available in other town accounts for such projects, including its open space and farmland protection funds. In the citys 2024 budget, $150,000 is set aside for flood mitigation for a to-be-determined project, City Manager John Goodwin cited as an example. Some projects ready to start soon have state and federal funding but require local municipalities to kick in their share of funding and/or provide in-kind work and personnel. How much money should we set aside for local disasters? Going forward, should municipalities be setting aside even more money for emergencies or mitigation projects? The state has provided more than $1 million in grant funding in the recent past, including, for example, the Sucker Brook revitalization project on Routes 5 and 20 in the town of Canandaigua on property near Town Hall. The project also was made possible when the landowners granted easements, or the rights for the town to use the property. In some areas of New York, the state is assisting those who live in low-lying areas to build up the foundations of their homes, especially those who live along rivers and streams, Hochul said. We are in a new era of climate change, Hochul said. Extreme weather is the new normal. Having money and other resources set aside is great, but the hope is residents are willing and open to using their wooded or wetlands for mitigation projects or to sell portions of their property outright. Because without that cooperation, a municipality cant do as much of the flood-prevention preventation work as it could because its private land, Simpson said. For now, leaders are willing to negotiate and make their best case for their need to the private owners. In the meantime, having money set aside and projects ready to go once a town gets the right use the land is important. Water seemingly was everywhere in the yards of homes on West Gibson Street, Canandaigua, on July 9, 2023. As weather changes and these weather events get more intense, areas where we have built and areas where we have lived are going to be at risk, Simpson said. Every municipality should be nimble enough to look for opportunities to participate in projects or purchase the equipment to start doing some of these projects themselves. Is there the political will to prepare? Significant discussions have been ongoing among town leaders like Simpson who serve on the Ontario County Board of Supervisors to provide greater county funding toward such watershed projects. Were getting there, but were not there yet, Simpson said. At least were having the conversation and people are more aware that there is a need. Maria Bucci, a former Canandaigua city councilmember and West Gibson Street resident whose home was damaged in the flood, agreed that it's important to stop kicking the can down the road and begin to make necessary changes based on current storm data. It's a hot topic that's not just on minds in Canandaigua, but elsewhere in the county. State Routes 364 and 64 in the Crystal Beach area of Gorham and Bristol, respectively, were closed temporarily after an intense storm blew through the area early the morning of June 30. Even moving beyond the county's borders, Hochul said, this needs to be a statewide approach. We are the first generation to really feel the effects of climate change, Hochul said. Were also the last generation that can do something meaningful about it. To do that, public policy needs to change, said Jim Ochterski, whose Park Avenue home was flooded a year ago. Ochterski said he would like to see municipal leaders and planners place a lot more thoughtfulness about where water goes after it leaves a new development. Increased development coupled with increased rainfall rates just leads to more water flows, more debris flows, more clogged bridges and more water backing up, with homes and businesses bearing the brunt. "The Canandaigua region got a wakeup call last July," Ochterski said. "We could become the community that dismissed the wakeup call and went back to business as usual, or we could become the community that woke up to the signs that things are now different. Public policy needs to be very different in order to keep the quality of life and prevent the city of Canandaigua from earning a reputation as a community that is subjected to climate disaster more easily than it should." Mike Murphy covers Canandaigua and other communities in Ontario County and writes the Eat, Drink and Be Murphy food and drink column. Follow him on X at @MPN_MikeMurphy. This article originally appeared on MPNnow: Canandaigua, others try to limit flood damage. Can more be done? The city of Florence will offer mental health assistance to those grieving over a deadly mass shooting last weekend. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday, people can go to the Florence Government Center and talk to mental health professionals, who can also help individuals get set up with longer-term care. Two therapy dogs and a therapy bunny will also be on hand to comfort visitors. Lives lost in Florence: A smiling skateboarder, a joyful friend, an 'old soul,' a good neighbor Mayor Julie Metzger Aubuchon announced the counseling services during a prayer vigil Tuesday evening at Crossroads Church in Florence. It was to honor the victims of a mass shooting on Saturday that occurred during a party on Ridgecrest Drive, where four people were killed and three were wounded. Law enforcement identified the shooter as 21-year-old Chase Garvey. Police said he turned the gun on himself shortly after the shooting and then died at a local hospital. Florence, Kentucky will offer mental health services after a mass shooting. By the church's headcount estimates, between 1,500 and 2,000 people showed up to Crossroads for the prayer service. A packed auditorium heard inspirational words from Pastor Kacie Bryant and worship music throughout the evening, followed by a candle-lighting. They prayed for the families of the victims killed: Melissa Parrett, 44, of Florence; Shane Miller, 20, of Florence; Hayden Rybicki, 20, of Elsmere; and Delaney Eary, 19, of Burlington. The mayor said she has visited with the families of the slain victims, as well as the three that were shot and now recovering in the hospital. She also received a message from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear offering condolences after the shooting. "In times of tragedy, it is easy to feel isolated and overwhelmed by the weight of our emotions, but it is precisely in these moments that we must come together, lean on one another and find solace in our shared humanity," Aubuchon said in a speech. "Tonight, we can connect, support one another and begin that healing process." The Florence Government Center is located at 8100 Ewing Blvd. Counseling services will be held in the community room. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Florence offers counseling Wednesday to mourners of mass shooting Florida men stole tech from Macon as part of $1.7M in cargo thefts. They face prison time Four South Florida men were sentenced to prison for stealing $1.7 million worth of cargo from the Southeastern U.S., including Macon. The goods were taken from Macon, other places in Georgia and a few other states. They were transported to Florida and sold, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office, who announced the sentences last month. The FBI takes cargo theft very seriously, due to the significant impact it has on the United States economy, and the potential for stolen goods to be used to fund other criminal organizations, said Keri Farley, special agent in charge of FBI Atlanta. This theft conspiracy did not stop at our state border, and neither did our investigation. Thanks to our partnership with Miami agencies, we tracked these thieves across the entire Southeast, and now they will be held accountable for their crimes. Yunior Hernandez Guzman, Roberto Quesada Lopez, Carlos Alberto Valdes and Yubani Milares Vera operated a cargo theft ring, stealing computers, copper and clothes throughout the Southeast U.S., according to the U.S. Attorneys Office, which attributed information from documents presented in court. Yunior Hernandez Guzman is from Homestead, Florida. The other three suspects are from Hialeah, Florida, officials said. They also said that Guzman, Valdes, Lopez and Vera stole over: $500,000 worth of computers in Macon on May 18, 2019 $640,000 worth of computers meant for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Emerson on June 11, 2019 $110,000 worth of copper in Denmark, Tennessee, on July 21, 2019 $110,000 worth of copper in Glade Springs, Virginia, on Sept. 2, 2019 $110,000 worth of copper in Fairview, Tennessee, on Oct. 6, 2019 $340,000 worth of apparel in Kingsland on Nov. 16, 2019 All four men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft of interstate shipment. Guzman will serve two years and nine months followed by three years of supervised release, Valdes will serve three years and 10 months followed by three years of supervised release, Lopez will serve two years and six months and Vera will serve five years followed by three years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorneys Office said. The attorneys office also said that the four men will also have to pay restitution. Guzman was ordered to pay $880,857 in restitution, Valdes was ordered to pay about $1.5 million, Lopez was ordered to pay about $1.3 million and Vera was ordered to pay about $1.8 million. Thefts of interstate shipments disrupt the production and delivery of needed goods and result in detrimental financial impact on businesses, consumers, and the U.S. economy generally, said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan. The sentencing of these defendants is an example of our offices commitment to prosecute these criminals as well as a warning to others that these offenses are an investigative priority for our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners. The FBI investigated the case and had assistance from the Miami-Dade County Police Department, the Economic Crime Bureau and the FBI Miami Field Office. JERUSALEM, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that Israel is willing to see the Rafah crossing reopened, but "will not tolerate the return of Hamas to the area." Gallant made the remarks during a meeting in Jerusalem with White House Coordinator to the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk, according to a statement released by the Israeli Defense Ministry. Gallant and McGurk discussed the "importance of seizing the opportunity created to achieve an agreement for the return of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza," the ministry said. The minister noted that Israel does not rule out the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from the area between Gaza and Egypt as part of a deal to release the hostages held in the Gaza Strip. "A solution is required that will stop smuggling attempts and will cut off potential supply for Hamas, and will enable the withdrawal of IDF troops from the corridor, as part of a framework for the release of hostages," said Gallant. The two also discussed "the progress achieved in the dialogue held between Israel and Egypt under U.S. leadership" and "the challenges that remain in achieving such an agreement, as well as possible solutions to address them," according to the statement. On May 7, the Israeli army announced the imposition of "operational" control over the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, which led to the cessation of aid delivery from Egypt into Gaza through the crossing. Also on Wednesday, Gallant said that the ongoing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed or injured about 60 percent of Hamas fighters. Speaking at the Knesset (parliament) plenum, Gallant said that the majority of the 24 battalions affiliated with Hamas's military wing had been dismantled. According to the Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza, the total Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 38,000 since the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel has been waging 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. Florida sees decrease in the number of abortions following six-week abortion ban, report says A new report from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration reveals a decrease in the number of abortions performed in the state following the implementation of a six-week abortion ban on May 1, according to our sister station Action News Jacksonville. The report, dated July 1, indicates that 36,221 abortions were performed in Florida in 2024. In comparison, around 84,052 abortions were performed in Florida in 2023. However, it remains uncertain if the total for July 1 fully captures the effects of the six-week abortion limit due to potential reporting delays and the fact that its halfway through the year. Read: Osceola Sheriff Marcos Lopez responds to accusations of sending inappropriate text Abortion clinics are mandated to submit reports to the Agency for Health Care Administration within 30 days following the end of each month. Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature approved the six-week abortion limit in 2023 after passing a 15-week limit in 2022. The state Supreme Court on April 1 rejected a constitutional challenge by abortion-rights supporters to the 15-week limit. Read: Well take anything: Public urged to come forward with tips in 13-year-old girls murder That ruling also had the effect of allowing the six-week limit to take effect on May 1. Meanwhile, the Florida Supreme Court also allowed a proposed abortion-rights constitutional amendment to go on the November ballot, setting up perhaps the states biggest political fight of 2024. Abortion rights supporters have turned to ballot initiatives in Florida and other states after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 struck down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision and left abortion issues to be decided in states. Read: Attorneys step in after man claims home was stolen by fraudulent deed The proposed Florida amendment says, in part, that no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patients health, as determined by the patients healthcare provider. It would need approval from 60 percent of voters to pass. A state panel on Monday will discuss a contentions financial impact statement that will appear on the ballot with the proposed constitutional amendment. Such statements estimate how proposed amendments could affect state and local budgets. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. What happened: The FRSCC has reportedly sent a series of mailers that question Kous donor base while referencing China and Chinese names . Floridas Voice, on the other hand, published an article containing a false statement that referred to him as a Chinese national. What hes saying: Kou, who immigrated to the U.S. as a college student, is now an American citizen and entrepreneur. He describes the allegations as racist and is suing both parties for defamation, seeking $1 million from each. These allegations sicken me, and I am disheartened that Truenow and the Florida Senate Caucus would attack me, a fellow Republican based on my heritage, he told Florida Politics. I am an American of Asian descent. The big news: Floridas universities continue to take a hard line against students who participated in pro-Palestine campus protests. Despite recommendations for lighter penalties, the University of Floridas dean of students suspended several demonstrators, withholding the diploma of at least one. All have been banned from campus, and would have to apply for readmission to resume their studies. The dean didnt offer any explanation for his actions, which the students are appealing. Read more from Fresh Take Florida. The actions at UF come about a week after the University of South Florida moved to suspend two student protesters. Hot topics Volunteers: The Pasco County school district moved to clarify the difference between volunteers and visitors as it implements new volunteer background checks that the volunteers must pay for. School leadership: Two Pasco County schools, and one in Hillsborough County, are getting new principals. School choice: More than 260,000 Florida students used open-enrollment to attend schools other than the ones they are zoned for in 2022, Education Next reports. The vast majority selected schools with higher state grades. Elections: The Leon County school district is refuting a school board candidates claims that changes to a security provider have made schools less safe, WFSU reports. The Palm Beach County School Boards only Latina member says she chose not to seek reelection because of career and personal priorities, but will remain involved in education issues, WLRN reports. Only one person qualified to replace her. Graduation day: More than 500 Polk County high school seniors graduated this spring with a certificate of completion rather than a diploma, Lakeland Now reports. Thats a 29% decrease from the previous year. Contract talks: Collier County teacher and district representatives arent close to a deal in salary negotiations, WINK reports. College connections: The St. Lucie County school district extended several agreements with Florida Atlantic University, while taking over the universitys developmental K-8 lab school, TC Palm reports. Dont miss a story. Yesterdays roundup is just a click away. Before you go ... Words matter. Desert Rose Something magical is happening in the barren landscape of the Atacama Desert in Chile, considered the driest place on our planet with annual precipitation that can only be measured at a fraction of an inch. Patches of delicate white and purple flowers have suddenly bloomed in parts of the Atacama, Reuters reports, after a bout of rare rainfall and a spike of warming temperatures coaxed dormant seeds and bulbs to burst into life in a place so arid that NASA scientists have used the desert as a stand-in for other planets. But this particular occurrence is a bit of a surprise. The Southern Hemisphere, where the desert is located, is right now in the middle of winter, and these blooms, which appear every couple of years and are made up of various native species such as the nolana bellflower, typically burst forth later in the calendar during a very brief spring. Yet the climate pattern known as El Nino brought early rains to the area, forcing some of the drought-resistant seeds to grow and blossom earlier than expected. Adios El Nino Right now, Reuters reports, the patches of blossoms are so few that Chilean experts don't consider the event to be the official spring flowering of the desert (the last time an early blooming happened was in 2015.) But this may change if more rain comes and more is indeed expected to arrive, which may force more flowers to grow. "In the meantime, we have to wait," Chilean biologist Cesar Pizarro told Reuters. While El Nino has made the desert bloom with warmer temperatures and welcome rain, the same climate pattern has made parts of the planet ridiculously hot, from California to Europe, according to the Associated Press. While this El Nino, which emerged about a year ago, officially ended last month, it hasn't stopped runaway heat waves juiced up by climate change. More on El Nino: Scientists Find Remnants of Huge Coral Reef in Middle of Desert As the US Air Force AC-130J flies over South Koreas towering apartment blocks, its powerful cameras can almost see inside windows on the highest floors. Aiming farther afield, the weapons officers on the four-engine aircraft, nicknamed Ghostrider, can pick out objects at 50,000 feet, almost 10 miles away all potential targets for the biggest gun ever mounted on a fixed-wing plane. CNN got an exclusive look inside the aircraft, assigned to Air Force Special Operations Command, in early June after it flew from its home base in Hurlburt Field, Florida, for joint drills in South Korea. In a live-fire exercise, the 105-millimeter howitzer pumped out 43-pound shells, into a firing range east of Seoul, the force of each blast so powerful that it pushed the tail of the 80- ton plane six feet to the right. About eight seconds after firing, the shells hit the range 10,000 feet below, sending smoke billowing skyward as the controllers of the big gun watched the results of their handiwork on large video screens in the middle of the aircraft. Assess two tanks destroyed, a scratchy voice confirms in the radio headsets of the AC-130 crew. Pilot Capt. John Ikenberry said the AC-130s presence for drills in South Korea was designed to send a simple message to its belligerent neighbor North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Un. It shows we are ready, Ikenberry said. Tensions have been simmering on the peninsula in recent months. The North has been sending balloons filled with trash to areas in and near Seoul and testing missiles, and South Korean troops have fired warning shots as North Korean soldiers from the North have crossed the military demarcation line in the middle of the demilitarized zone. Just this week, North Korea criticized live-fire exercises in the South in late June and early July as an inexcusable and explicit provocation. Meanwhile, Washington has kept a steady stream of hardware heading to the South for land, air and sea exercises leading up to one of their biggest yearly exercises, Ulchi Freedom Shield, set to begin later this summer. Experience they cant get stateside The AC-130J, the newest version of the US Air Force Hercules gunships, is testing its mettle in Korea for the second year in a row. Maj. Heath Curtis, combat systems officer on the Hercules, says its important for the gunship to make the flight across the Pacific because it offers experience training where a conflict could be fought with conditions that cant be duplicated on firing ranges in Florida or New Mexico that the gunship would use in the United States. CNN senior global military affairs writer Brad Lendon holds a 105mm howitzer shell aboard a US Air Force AC-130J gunship flying out of Osan Air Base, South Korea, in June 2024 - Mike Valerio/CNN The mountain ranges and ridges of the Korean Peninsula present wind conditions not found elsewhere, he says, and that can make a difference even to a projectile traveling more than 800 mph. It also gives the chance for Curtis and a second officer seated at AC-130s weapons control center the chance to practice alongside South Korean allies they may need to protect in the event of a ground war on the peninsula. The huge television monitors bring the battlefield below up close in both regular and infrared definition. The cameras mounted outside the plane can zoom in on details to ensure weapons fire is accurate. A 105mm howitzer is seen at the rear of a US Air Force AC-130J at Osan Air Base, South Korea, in early June 2024. - Brad Lendon/CNN The unique thing about the AC-130 is the amount of fire that we bring, the amount of munitions the diverse amount of them and the amount of loiter time we can provide, says the mission commander for this gunship, Maj. Josh Burris. Besides the 105-millimeter howitzer, the AC-130J carries a 30-millimeter cannon and can launch precision-guided missiles and bombs from pylons on its wings. With the weapons near-pinpoint accuracy, it can fire on enemy positions within shouting distance of friendly troops, earning the aircraft the title of the infantrymans best friend in some circles. And with air-to-air refueling, it can, in theory, stay on station supporting ground forces as long as the crew and ammunition can last. Spooky history US Air Force gunships trace their lineage back to the Vietnam War, when the service set up 7.62 mm guns to fire out one side of a C-47 transport aircraft. With that configuration, the aircraft could circle a single point and deliver massive, continuous firepower on it, from its guns that could fire 6,000 rounds in a minute, according to Air Force fact sheets. The firepower and the flares they used to light up targets during night missions earned them the nicknames Spooky and Puff the Magic Dragon. As the war went on, the Air Force looked for a heavier airframe for the gunship role and turned to C-130 Hercules transports. The first conversion of a C-130 to an AC-130 saw action over Southeast Asia in 1967, according to the National Museum of the US Air Force. With their ability to support troops in close combat, AC-130 gunships in different variations have seen action in conflicts including Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan and have saved an untold number of lives, according to the Air Force. With the AC-130J model, introduced in 2017, the Air Force removed the machine guns in favor of the more precision-guided munitions. But there have been problems, too, including a 2015 attack on a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that killed left 42 patients, staff and caretakers dead. Despite the formidable firepower it carries, the AC-130 flies low and slow, making it vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. And seven AC-130 gunships have been lost over the years, the last being on January 31, 1991, when an Iraqi surface-to-air missile brought down a AC-130H during Operation Desert Storm, according to Air Force news releases. The AC-130 gunship's primary missions are close air support, air interdiction and force protection. - Shutterstock The plane crashed into the Persian Gulf while supporting US Marines during a battle in Khafji, Saudi Arabia, killing all 14 crew aboard. The AC-130s crew acknowledges the dangers of ground fire to their aircraft, and some analysts question its usefulness in any potential conflict with North Korea. They couldnt be operated within say 100 nautical miles of the border as theyre too vulnerable to North Korean border air defenses, says Peter Layton, a visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia and former Royal Australian Air Force officer. But Layton says the gunships could be helpful supporting allied troops who might be trying to round up North Korean special forces units that had managed to infiltrate deeper into southern territory. Still, he cautioned, if a war starts there, try not to be on an AC-130 unless its heading out of theater. Maj. Christopher Mesnard, Special Operations Command Korea public affairs director, said the AC-130J is a suitable weapon system for the Korean Peninisula. We have the utmost confidence in our ability to operate weapons systems like the AC-130J in times and places of our choosing and in a way that adequately considers risks, regardless of the region, he said. CNNs Yoonjung Seo and Gawon Bae contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com TULSA, Okla. (KFOR) A former TSA employee faces up to five years in prison after allegedly leaving fake bomb threat notes in a Tulsa airport bathroom on two separate occasions last March, according to authorities. U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson announced Tuesday, a former TSA employee made an initial appearance before the federal court for leaving notes in the airport restroom, claiming there was a bomb in the airport. Sharon Jean Devine, 48, of Tulsa, is charged with two counts of False Information and Hoaxes in an unsealed indictment. OKLAHOMA NEWS: Murder investigation underway in Edmond after dead body is found My office has no tolerance for threats of violence, especially bomb threats within an airport, said U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson. Every time a threat is made, a sophisticated law enforcement response is set into motion to ensure public safety, said Acting Special Agent in Charge Jason Kaplan of the FBI Oklahoma City Field Office. Bomb hoaxes like the ones alleged to have been fabricated by the defendant put the community at risk and will not be tolerated. Tulsa International Airport Police received a report of a bomb threat on a handwritten note that was located in the pre-security side of the airport. Airport police immediately responded and secured the area and determined that there was no threat to public safety. Airport police then conducted an investigation where they identified a possible suspect and contacted the Tulsa FBI office. Tulsa FBI took over the investigation from that point forward and proceeded with their own investigation. Statement from the Tulsa International Airport As a result of the investigation, a criminal indictment was filed by the U.S. Attorneys Office of the Northern District of Oklahoma. Court records detail Devine left a note in the restroom on March 5, 2024, and March 23, 2024. The notes stated there was a bomb located in the airport. If convicted, Devine faces up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 dollars, and up to three years of supervised release. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City. TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) A massive cane toad, nearly a foot long, was found and removed from the backyard of a Florida home on Sunday evening, according to NBC affiliate WBBH. Following heavy storms over the weekend, one Marco Island family discovered the toxic amphibian lurking at their home. This ancient tree may replace Floridas old citrus groves as farmers seek new crop Thats a big toad. Thats a big toad. Ive seen some pictures of pretty large ones that have come out of Australia, but Ive never seen one that size, biologist Melinda Schuman, with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida told WBBH. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, most of these toads range from six to nine inches in length. NBC affiliate WBBH Schuman, who specializes in cane toad research, said these animals are poisonous, as they contain a milky-white toxin, called Bufotoxin, that can instantly kill wildlife and pets within 15 minutes. For humans, the toxin may irritate the skin or burn the eyes. Each reproducing female toad could lay potentially 20 to 30000 eggs each year, if not twice a year, if theyre capable of building fat supplies, that kind of thing. So that can produce a lot of toads, Schuman added. 26-year-old horse rescued after slipping into Florida pond The FWC said these invasive amphibians are attracted to humidity and wet climates, with Florida being the perfect place for them in the summer. If your pet bites or swallows a cane toad and experiences symptoms including frantic or disoriented behaviors, brick red gums, seizures, or foaming at the mouth, follow these steps: Wash toxins forward out of their mouths using a hose for 10 minutes, without directing water down their throat Wipe their gums and tongue with a dish towel to remove any toxins Go to the vet immediately If homeowners encounter a cane toad, they can be removed and humanely killed on private property. However, a wildlife trapper can be contacted to remove them if desired. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. James Carville, former Bill Clinton advisor, says it's 'inevitable' that Biden drops out James Carville, former Bill Clinton advisor, says it's 'inevitable' that Biden drops out James Carville was one of the masterminds behind Bill Clinton's winning presidential campaign in 1992. The Democratic strategist said on Monday that it's "inevitable" that Biden drops out. Carville said the Democrats should hold a series of town halls to pick a new candidate. A former advisor to Bill Clinton doesn't think President Joe Biden will be on the ballot this November. "I don't predict things. I'm just telling you it's inevitable," James Carville, 79, told NewsNation's Chris Cuomo on Monday. "He will come to the conclusion. People will get the message to him. He will understand. His family will understand," Carville, who is best known for masterminding Clinton's winning presidential campaign in 1992, said of Biden. Calls for Biden to drop out have grown following his disastrous performance at last month's presidential debate with GOP rival, former President Donald Trump. The 81-year-old's stumbling responses at the debate raised concerns over his mental acuity and fitness for the presidency. Biden, however, has repeatedly insisted that he's staying on. "The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it's time for it to end," Biden said in a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday. "It's time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump." But Biden's overture won't stem the Democratic Party's waning confidence in him, Carville wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times on Monday. "Mr. Biden says he's staying in the race, but it's only a matter of time before Democratic pressure and public and private polling lead him to exit the race," Carville wrote. "The jig is up, and the sooner Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders accept this, the better." In his op-ed, Carville said the Democrats should "hold four historic town halls between now and the Democratic National Convention in August one each in the South, the Northeast, the Midwest and the West." The town halls, Carville wrote, can be moderated by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and will see eight candidates battle it out to succeed Biden. He added that the town halls will also be a good opportunity for the party's delegates to get to know Vice President Kamala Harris, who is widely seen as the best replacement for Biden if he were to drop out. Carville isn't the only Democratic strategist who has joined the chorus of calls for Biden to step aside. On Sunday, former Obama advisor David Axelrod told CNN that he expects Biden to "lose by a landslide than win narrowly this race." "If the stakes are as large as he says, and I believe they are, then he really needs to consider what the right thing to do here is," Axelrod said. Representatives for Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours. Read the original article on Business Insider Former guitarist for Red Hot Chili Peppers accused of distracted driving in pedestrians death Former guitarist for Red Hot Chili Peppers accused of distracted driving in pedestrians death (KTLA) A former guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers is facing a lawsuit claiming wrongful death and negligence when he struck and killed a pedestrian in California in March. Josh Klinghoffer was driving a GMC Yukon on March 18 in Alhambra when he fatally struck Israel Sanchez, according to a lawsuit filed by Sanchezs family. In the suit, the family claims there is video evidence showing Klinghoffer on his phone just before the collision. My dad was known for being a great chef, the most talented of his family, the greatest grandpa always full of love and joy, Ashley Sanchez, Israels daughter, said in a news release announcing the suit. His smile was so infectious. His life was taken by a careless act of a person who didnt bother to look where he was driving. Israel Sanchez is seen in an undated photo. (Trial Lawyers for Justice) Josh Klinghoffers SUV is shown on March 18, 2024. (Trial Lawyers for Justice) In this image released on May 2, 2021, Josh Klinghoffer and Eddie Vedder perform onstage during Global Citizen VAX LIVE: The Concert To Reunite The World at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Global Citizen VAX LIVE) Andrew Brettler, an attorney for Klinghoffer, told TMZ that the March 18 incident was a tragic accident. After Josh struck this pedestrian in the intersection, he immediately pulled over, stopped the car, called 911 and waited until police and the ambulance arrived, Brettler said. Obviously, hes cooperating with the police throughout the traffic investigation. This was purely a tragic accident. Minnesota Vikings rookie Khyree Jackson dies in car crash, he was 24 Klinghoffer, 44, became the youngest member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when he was inducted alongside the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the age of 32 in 2012. (That record is now held by Ilan Rubin of Nine Inch Nails.) Since his departure from Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2019, Klinghoffer has also been a touring member of Pearl Jam, and is listed as a contributing musician on their most recent album. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. ABUJA, July 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 10 people were killed in an attack by suspected gunmen who invaded a local community in Nigeria's south-central state of Benue late Tuesday, a local government official said Wednesday. Phillip Ebenyakwu, head of the Agatu local government area of Benue, told the media that the gunmen further wreaked havoc by razing several houses in the Olegumachi community of the Agatu local government area of the state Tuesday night. The gunmen were armed with sophisticated weapons, looting the houses of locals, and carting away foodstuff and livestock, while setting ablaze at least seven other houses, Ebenyakwu said. The incident was reported to local police early Wednesday, he added. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) A former Illinois state legislator and candidate for governor has been sentenced after pleading guilty for wire fraud and other corruption-related charges. Sam McCann, a Senate Republican for Central Illinois between 2011 to 2019 and 2018 gubernatorial candidate for the Conservative Party, has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison. After his prison time, McCann will face two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $683,816.61 in restitution. Federal investigators were inquiring into McCanns campaign expenses as early as Feb. 2019. WCIA investigated McCanns expenses in December 2019 and found $168,665 in secret payroll expenses. A spokesperson for the State Board of Elections described the expenses to undisclosed employees as illegal at the time. Pritzker stands by Biden as others show concern McCann was indicted in 2021 with seven counts of wire fraud, one count of money laundering and one count of tax evasion. Prosecutors in court argued McCann misused funds from several political committees, including Sam McCann for Senate, McCann for Illinois, and the Conservative Party of Illinois. He used some of those funds to pay for personal cars, mortgage payments, and personal credit card payments. McCann pleaded guilty to all nine counts in February, and was denied pre-trial release until the sentencing hearing. He was held in the Macon County Jail. McCann brazenly betrayed the public trust by engaging in a five-year scheme to defraud and converting more than $600,000 in campaign funds to his personal use, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of Illinois Greg Harris said. Todays sentence appropriately holds McCann accountable for his criminal conduct. I thank the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Services Criminal Investigations Division for their tireless and professional work in this matter. Federal law enforcement with both the IRS and the FBI said the sentence serves as a reminder that public officials will be help accountable for corruption. A major step towards healthcare equity: Pritzker signs Healthcare Protection Act Elected officials are entrusted and expected to protect the interests of the people with integrity a moral value Sam McCann did not uphold, FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge Jermaine Deans said. Investigating public corruption is a top priority for the FBI because the crime tears at the fabric of our democracys security. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com. A former soldier who was sexually assaulted while serving in Japans military has reached a civil settlement with three of her convicted attackers in a case that exposed a widespread culture of harassment in the countrys self-defense force. The settlement, initiated by the three former soldiers who were found guilty of sexual assault by a Japanese court in December, includes them apologizing and paying a sum of money, Rina Gonoi said on her X account on Tuesday. She did not disclose the amount of money involved. Today, I would like to announce that a settlement has been reached in the civil trial with the three perpetrators who were found guilty in the criminal trial, Gonoi said. Gonoi pursued both criminal and civil cases in the courts, including the civil lawsuit in which she is seeking compensation from the government and five former members of the Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) for emotional stress caused by sexual abuse, public broadcaster NHK reported. I am relieved that the three years of fighting came to an end and Im feeling three years worth of exhaustion all at once, but I will take care not to get sick, Gonoi said on her Instagram account on Tuesday night. She had previously reached a settlement with another of the five former members of the JSDF in the civil case, and the trial will continue against the government and the remaining former members, NHK reported. Yoshiaki Saito, a lawyer representing the three soldiers, told CNN on Wednesday that they had no comment. CNN has also reached out to Japans Ministry of Defense and the JSDF for comment. Gonoi said she endured physical and verbal sexual abuse on a daily basis for more than a year while serving in the JSDF, and vowed to bring her tormentors to justice when she left the military in June 2022. Authorities initially seemed unwilling to believe her but Gonois refusal to be silenced eventually prompted prosecutors to reopen investigations in a sweeping probe into sexual harassment across the JSDF. I wanted to help other people who had also been sexually harassed (in the JSDF). As for the perpetrators, I wanted an apology and for them to admit to what they had done; I wanted to prevent others from going through what I went through; thats why I spoke out, Gonoi told CNN last July. The broad investigation led by Japans defense ministry found that Gonoi had suffered physical and verbal sexual harassment daily between late 2020 and August 2021. Japans struggles with gender inequality, which were highlighted during the #MeToo campaign, are well documented. The country ranks bottom of all G7 nations and 125th out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forums index for gender inequality. Not backing down As a child, Gonoi said she saw JSDF members as heroes. She grew up wanting to be like them after women officers in particular came to her rescue following the deadly 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that decimated her hometown of Higashi-Matsushima in Japans northern prefecture of Miyagi. Years later, it would be a posting to a JSDF station in Fukushima another area that was decimated by the 2011 disaster where she told CNN she first experienced sexual harassment. Theyd comment on my body and the size of my breasts. Or theyd come up to me in the hallways and suddenly hug me in the corridor. That kind of thing happened daily, Gonoi recalled of her time in the station. The last straw came in August 2021, when Gonoi said she was pinned to a dormitory floor as several senior male officers simulated sexual intercourse. It was this incident that convinced her to report her assailants. Rina Gonoi speaks to the media after the Fukushima court on December 12, 2023 found three perpetrators guilty of "forced indecency" towards her during her service at the JSDF. - Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images/File When she reported the alleged abuse to military authorities, two investigations were launched, but both were dropped on grounds of a lack of evidence prompting her to take the battle to social media. Going public was a rare move in a country where sexual assault survivors can face backlash for raising their voices. But it paid off, as the social media scrutiny pressured the JSDF into a rethink. The defense ministry eventually launched a broad investigation into sexual harassment across the JSDF that found Gonoi had suffered physical and verbal sexual harassment daily between late 2020 and August 2021. The case reached the highest levels, with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida saying during a parliamentary meeting in October 2022 that he understood sexual harassment cases were handled inappropriately by the JSDF and the ministry. Last December, a Japanese court ruled that the three men had committed forcible indecency against Gonoi. The court sentenced the trio to two years in prison with a suspended sentence, NHK reported, which could allow them to avoid jail time if they do not commit a crime over a two-year period. The landmark decision was an encouraging sign but the country still has a long way to go to change both the criminal justice system and the culture of victim-blaming that undermines the credibility of survivors, according to Amnesty Internationals East Asia researcher Boram Jang. Rina Gonoi dared to speak out to break the cycle of impunity for gender-based violence in Japan. This is a rare victory not just for her, but for all victims and survivors of sexual assault in Japan, many of whom suffer in silence, Jang said in a statement after the ruling. Previous reporting from CNNs Helen Regan, Saki Toi, Alex Stambaugh, Jessie Yeung, Emiko Jozuka, Marc Stewart, Junko Ogura, Moeri Karasawa and Daniel Campisi. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) A former Deer Creek teacher has been charged a year and a half after she was first arrested for sharing nude and sexual messages with a 15-year old student. Sarah Hull-Degroat was arrested in December 2022 after investigators say she was using Google Docs to share inappropriate pictures and messages with a student. She did resign her position a week after the arrest. Degroat had charges filed against her this week, so far no arraignment date has been set. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City. Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer is facing a wrongful death lawsuit for allegedly hitting and killing a pedestrian back in March in Los Angeles, California. In the lawsuit filed on Wednesday (July 10) and obtained by The Independent, Klinghoffer, 44, is accused of hitting a 47-year-old man, Israel Sanchez, as he was walking in a crosswalk in Alhambra, California. Sanchezs successor, Ashley Sanchez, is named as the plaintiff. The pedestrian was thrown and/or dragged across the asphalt where he sustained blunt force trauma to the head, and lay on the pavement until medical transport arrived. He succumbed to his blunt force injuries later that day, when he was pronounced dead at Huntington Hospital, the filing reads. Klinghoffer, who was allegedly driving a black 2022 GMC Yukon, was using his phone at the time of the incident, the lawsuit claims. It adds that Klinghoffer was not arrested and went off on tour with his band after the incident. He has never contacted the family. He has shown no remorse for his behavior. In alleged footage of the incident, published by TMZ, a black SUV can be seen approaching an intersection where an individual is already halfway across the street. The SUV then makes a left turn, colliding with the individual before slowing down, stopping and pulling over, with the driver getting out to check on the person lying in the street. Josh Klinghoffer was a guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers from 2009 to 2019 (Getty Images) This was a tragic accident, Klinghoffers attorney, Andrew Brettler, told The Independent in a statement. After which, Josh immediately pulled over, stopped the vehicle, called 911, and waited until police and the ambulance arrived. He is fully cooperating with the traffic investigation. Mr Klinghoffer should be arrested and prosecuted for homicide. We have a video of him on his cell phone at the time he hit and killed Israel Sanchez, a loving father, in a crosswalk, the plaintiffs attorney, Nick Rowley, said in a statement, according to Variety. Israel Sanchez was on his way to the grocery store to make soup for his family and never came home. He did everything right, looking for oncoming traffic and abiding by pedestrian signage, but tragically Mr Klinghoffer, in a rush and on his phone, hit him fatally from behind with a large SUV. The loss and grief that the Sanchez family now faces is immense. We will not stop until there is accountability and justice for Mr Sanchez and his family. Ashley Sanchez is demanding a trial jury as well as monetary relief to cover medical expenses, legal fees and additional damages, including pre-death pain and suffering. Klinghoffer was a guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers from 2009 to 2019. He has also played in rock bands Janes Addiction and Pearl Jam, the latter of which he is currently touring with. Yahoo Sports Week 5 is in the books and oh my there's a lot of panic on these fantasy streets. Dalton Del Don joins Matt Harmon for another edition of the 'People's Panic Meter' to answer all of your listener submissions. The duo examines the situations for Breece Hall, Buffalo Bills, Bijan Robinson and many more. Former SpaceX worker describes 'frat boy' culture where colleagues joked about overseeing launches while drunk Former SpaceX worker describes 'frat boy' culture where colleagues joked about overseeing launches while drunk An ex-SpaceX employee told Bloomberg that working at SpaceX was like being a "babysitter for frat boys." She said some SpaceX employees discussed a drinking game on work email and joked about being intoxicated to oversee launches. The culture at Elon Musk's rocket firm has come under growing scrutiny in recent months. A new Bloomberg report has shed light on SpaceX's working culture, with a former employee describing her colleagues as "frat boys." Paige Holland-Thielen, one of a group of former SpaceX employees suing the company over claims of wrongful dismissal, told Bloomberg that employees at Elon Musk's rocket firm used their work email to plan rounds of a drinking game called "nug and chug" in which they would try and consume as many chicken nuggets as possible. These employees, she said, then joked about drinking heavily before returning to the office to oversee a rocket launch. Holland-Thielen told Bloomberg that working at SpaceX made her feel like a "babysitter for frat boys," with casual sexism rife. She and her co-plaintiffs filed a civil rights lawsuit against SpaceX in June. They alleged that Musk personally ordered their firings after they wrote an open letter to SpaceX's management expressing concern over the billionaire's behavior and what they described as a hostile work environment at the company. Their complaint alleges that female employees at SpaceX were treated as "sexual objects" and said that Musk and other executives appeared in a video screened at one of the company's holiday parties that made light of sexual misconduct. SpaceX and Musk did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. BI also contacted Holland-Thielen for comment but didn't hear back. It comes amid increasing scrutiny over SpaceX's working culture. The company has contracts with NASA and the US Department of Defense and is estimated to be valued at $210 billion. The Wall Street Journal last month reported that Musk was said to have asked one of his direct reports at the company to have his children, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. Business Insider previously reported that SpaceX paid a company flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim against Musk in 2018, with the flight attendant accusing Musk of exposing himself to her and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage. Musk denied the claims made by the flight attendant at the time, calling them "utterly untrue." Do you work at SpaceX or have a tip? Get in touch with this reporter via email at tcarter@businessinsider.com . Read the original article on Business Insider SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Former Utah Attorney General candidate Frank Demcy Mylar was charged with a felony after allegedly offering a bribe in exchange for an endorsement during the race. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill announced the charge Wednesday, July 10, a day after the county canvass deadline for the Utah primary elections. Mylar is facing one count of third-degree felony bribery in elections. In April, Mylar allegedly texted Trent Christensen offering him a job at the Utah Attorney Generals Office in exchange for an endorsement. Christensen was also running for attorney general at the time. According to charging documents, the text read: Hey Trent. In my last day of trial and Gods grace my campaign has picked up more steam. I won in Weber and was only there 10 minutes. Overwhelmingly won Davis. If you could endorse me before the convention I would definitely include you in my office. Think about it for a few days. Thx. Good luck today. After Christensen did not respond, Mylar allegedly sent another text saying to disregard the message. Authorities say the text said he didnt mean to send it and it is not an offer etc. Documents say Mylar sent two more texts apologizing and saying he thought Christensen had withdrawn from the race. Christensen later reported the incident to law enforcement and the Murray Police Department opened an investigation. Charging documents claim Mylar told members of the media that he drafted the message but mistakenly sent it to Christensen. We appreciate Mr. Christensen coming forward with the information about this alleged crime in a timely manner to law enforcement. We also appreciate the Murray Police Department for conducting a thorough investigation, Gill said in a news release. An attorney representing Frank Mylar told ABC4.com that the former AG candidate adamantly denies the allegations. Frank did not bribe or an attempt to bribe anybody, the statement on behalf of Mylar read. Frank was simply seeking support for his campaign. Shortly after sending the text message, Frank followed up with the recipient to ensure his original text was not misunderstood. Mylars attorney said Mylar looks forward to defending himself in court and will be entering a not-guilty plea. When the allegations first surfaced, Mylar sent a statement to ABC4 saying, in part, As a candidate for Utah Attorney General, I believe in the rule of law and as a member of the Utah Bar in good standing I respect the process and will not be speaking any further on the subject. Christensen told ABC4.com that the news of Mylars indictment made him sad. I got to know Frank over the course of the campaign and I believe he is a good person but we all make mistakes, said Christensen. But, more than anything, I trust the system. Initially, when I made the report, people said Well, what do you want to have happen? I said I dont want anything to happen, I just trust the system. I did my duty and my duty was to report it. Mylar came in third in the attorney general Republican primary race, bested by both Rachel Terry and Derek Brown. Brown is the projected winner with 43% of the vote and is expected to face Democratic candidate Rudy Bautista in the November general election. Official results from the elections canvassing will not be available until July 22. Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. Republican Utah attorney general candidate Frank Mylar speaks to attendees at the Holladay City Hall in Holladay on April 4. Mylar was charged Wednesday with offering a bribe during the election to a fellow candidate. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News One of the candidates who was seeking to become Utahs next attorney general is now facing a charge of bribery. Frank Demcy Mylar, 62, of Murray, was charged Wednesday in 3rd District Court with "bribery in elections," a third-degree felony. Mylar is accused of offering fellow GOP attorney general candidate Trent Christensen a job if Christensen endorsed him. "On April 19 (Mylar) sent a text message to Trent Christensen offering him a job at the Utah Attorney General's Office if he endorsed Mr. Mylar. The defendant later texted Mr. Christensen asking him to disregard the previous text. Mr. Christensen later reported the text to law enforcement," Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill announced on Wednesday. Christensen reported the alleged bribery offer to Murray police on May 14. "Hey Trent. In my last day of trial and by God's grace my campaign has picked up more steam. I won in Weber and was only there 10 minutes. Overwhelmingly won Davis. If you could endorse me before the convention I would definitely include you in my office. Think about it for a few days. Thx. Good luck today," Mylar's text to Christensen stated, according to charging documents. Christensen did not respond to the text. A little over six hours after it was sent, Mylar sent another text stating, "Please disregard that text. I'm internal. Didn't mean to send it. Sorry to bother you. It is not an offer etc. hope you are feeling better," the charges state. He then sent two more texts "apologizing and indicating that he believed Christensen had withdrawn from the attorney general race at that time," according to the charges. Mylar did not immediately respond to KSL.com's request for comment Wednesday. When contacted by the Deseret News in May, Mylar said the message was sent by mistake. Mylar lost in the GOP primary last month to Derek Brown. Christensen left the race in April after failing to get enough votes from delegates at the state GOP convention. "We appreciate Mr. Christensen coming forward with the information about this alleged crime in a timely manner to law enforcement," Gill said Wednesday. Mylar has run a private practice for over two decades, focusing on constitutional and government litigation, law enforcement, civil rights and religious liberty. Before that, he worked in the attorney generals office for 12 years and served as director of legal affairs for the Utah Department of Corrections. The main formula used by Albany to distribute money to New York's school districts we're talking $24.9 billion for the new school year could finally be facing a major overhaul, or at least some nips and tucks. The $24.9 billion represents 10.5% of the entire state budget and is more than 23 states' entire budgets. So if you have something to say about school funding in New York, now is the time. The Albany-based Rockefeller Institute of Government is doing a major study of New York's much-debated "Foundation Aid" formula. The formula is supposed to disperse state aid in such a way as to reduce inequities among school districts with different abilities to raise local property taxes for education. The Rockefeller Institute, a think tank that is part of SUNY, will hold the first of five public hearings this summer about the Foundation Aid formula on July 16 at the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan. None of the hearings are in Westchester, Rockland or Putnam counties, but each will be livestreamed on the Rockefeller Institute website. In addition, New Yorkers can send written comments to the Rockefeller Institute website through Sept. 6. Peekskill High School class of 2024 graduation ceremony at the Westchester County Center in White Plains June 26, 2024. Outdated Foundation Aid formula drives billions in aid for NY schools For years, critics have said the Foundation Aid formula is badly out of date and needs to be modernized. For instance, student poverty rates are calculated using data from the 2000 Census. The formula has also been taken to task for not reflecting the modern costs of educating students with special needs and those learning English. But when the Legislature fought off Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposal in the spring to cut Foundation Aid to half of New York's school districts, one compromise was $2 million being set aside in the state budget for a Rockefeller Institute study. Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, co-executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, a group that advocates for educational equity in New York, said she was concerned that Hochul has really tasked the Rockefeller Institute with studying how to keep Foundation Aid affordable. Such a goal, she said, "could allow budgetary thriftiness to overshadow the constitutional obligation to provide every student with a sound basic education." The Rockefeller Institute is supposed to present options to Hochul and legislative leaders by Dec. 1, weeks before Hochul presents her budget proposal for next year. "When the Legislature and the governor put in something like a Dec. 1 date, they at least anticipate that it could become part of the budget process," said Robert Megna, president of the Rockefeller Foundation. "It's up to us to put a report together. It's up to the governor to decide what she wants to include in the budget and then negotiate with the Legislature." Megna knows what he is up against. He is a former director of the state Division of Budget. Gov. Kathy Hochul wanted to cut Foundation Aid to about half of New York's school districts in 2024-25. Of interest: East Ramapo scraps many summer programs in rush to fix schools as federal deadline looms Goal is to deliver more aid to needy districts The Foundation Aid formula was devised in 2007 after the state Court of Appeals found that New York was not funding a "sound, basic education" for all students. It was designed to drive more state aid to needier school districts by weighing factors like a district's poverty, educational costs, local property values and regional costs like labor. The formula was compromised in numerous ways, and underfunded by the state, before the Legislature succeeded in securing huge increases in Foundation Aid over three years from 2021-22 to 2023-24. Hochul, who agreed to those increases, sought to slam on the brakes in 2024-25. She proposed cutting Foundation Aid to over 300 of New York's nearly 700 school districts, an abrupt change that would have erased a policy that prevented districts from receiving year-to-year cuts in aid. But the Legislature fought back and eliminated any cuts. Now the goal is to improve the Foundation Aid formula itself so that it better measures districts' needs. State Sen. Shelley Mayer, D-Yonkers, chair of the Senate education committee, helped begin a major review of Foundation Aid in 2019 that was undercut by the pandemic. She's anxious to see what the Rockefeller Institute comes up with. "A lot of the frustration we heard with the formula is still relevant," Mayer said. "I don't think the formula needs to be rewritten top to bottom, but the (measurements) of need have to be updated." So many factors must be measured Mayer said the formula must better measure the costs of educating students with special needs and those learning English major costs in growing numbers of districts. It needs a better measure of student poverty than the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch and more accurate measures of regional costs that districts face, she said. The formula should better weigh district's capital and environmental needs, including electric school buses and air conditioning, she said. And Mayer said the formula ought to consider individual circumstances that devastate many districts, like losing a major taxpayer or facing a court-ordered tax refund to a large company. "I encourage parents and PTAs and taxpayers and everyone who cares about public education to make their voices known," she said. Sen. Mayer won't support cuts in aid to districts Mayer is not interested in any proposals to cut aid to districts, preferring to keep the traditional "hold harmless" policy against reductions. "We fought to get more money to save hold harmless," she said. "I am not in favor of any district losing what they get. Some wealthy districts don't get a lot but still depend on their aid." Mayer is among many individuals and groups, like the New York State School Boards Association, that wanted the state Education Department to study Foundation Aid, instead of farming it out. But she expects Megna to be a "good partner." The Rockefeller Institute's work will be closely watched, which Megna said is fine by him. "We want to hear what the world thinks is possible," he said. This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: New York updating formula for Foundation Aid to school districts A drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkiye. Ship traffic in Istanbul's Bosphorus Strait has partially resumed following a temporary suspension caused by an engine failure on a ship earlier on Wednesday, according to Turkiye's Directorate General of Coastal Safety. (Xinhua/Liu Lei) ISTANBUL, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Ship traffic in Istanbul's Bosphorus Strait has partially resumed following a temporary suspension caused by an engine failure on a ship earlier on Wednesday, according to Turkiye's Directorate General of Coastal Safety. The Ihlas news agency broadcasted a video depicting the ship being escorted by rescue tugboats as it exited the Marmara Sea through the strait. The directorate's website, which tracks ship traffic on the Bosphorus Strait, indicated that traffic has resumed in the south-north direction, while the north-south route will remain closed until midnight. The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure reported earlier in the day that ship traffic was halted in both directions due to a machine failure on a ship named Lionfish. Local media reported that a tugboat attempting to tow the ship had also experienced a malfunction, leading to the interruption of the towing process at the northern Black Sea entrance of the Bosphorus. Connecting the Black Sea with the Marmara Sea, the 30-kilometer-long Bosphorus Strait is one of the busiest waterways in the world. This photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkiye. Ship traffic in Istanbul's Bosphorus Strait has partially resumed following a temporary suspension caused by an engine failure on a ship earlier on Wednesday, according to Turkiye's Directorate General of Coastal Safety. (Xinhua/Liu Lei) A drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkiye. Ship traffic in Istanbul's Bosphorus Strait has partially resumed following a temporary suspension caused by an engine failure on a ship earlier on Wednesday, according to Turkiye's Directorate General of Coastal Safety. (Xinhua/Liu Lei) A widely known chef who has owned or managed a series of Texas restaurants agreed in early June in Grand Prairie to pay money for a sex act, law enforcement authorities allege. The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorneys Office last week charged Grady Spears, who is 55, with soliciting prostitution. The offense, as it is charged in Spears case, is a state jail felony. Grand Prairie police on June 5 arrested Spears at a Hyatt Place hotel, according to a police incident report. Bond was set at $1,500 and executed. Spears current residence address is in Fort Worth, according to a Tarrant County District Clerk record. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram could not reach Spears for an interview. Mark Beseda, a Grand Prairie police spokesperson, declined to release information about the investigation or the circumstances of the arrest and directed a reporter to file an open records request. In response to such a request, the city released an incident report without a narrative. With partners, Spears co-founded the now-closed Horseshoe Hill Cafe in the Stockyards. He was the original chef at Reata, in downtown Fort Worth and Alpine, restaurants with which he is no longer involved. Spears has written several cookbooks. More top stories from our newsroom: He persuaded friends to invest in his car deals. At least $1M vanished Carroll ISD heads to court over protections for trans students 15 women held in North Texas forced labor ring [Get our breaking news alerts.] The magazine PaperCity in June 2023 reported that Spears was to open new restaurants in Bellville and Round Top. Spears was in 2018 charged with assault with bodily injury of a family member in a case in which police alleged that he assaulted his wife. Spears was ordered to complete a partner abuse intervention program, and the charge was dismissed, according to a memorandum that described an agreement reached by a prosecutor and Spears attorney. Police officers at the couples home in Fort Worth on July 2, 2018, found that Spears wife had bruises on her face and other parts of her body, police said. She told officers Spears hit her multiple times. The couple divorced later in 2018. Fox News anchor Bret Baier pressed White House national security communications adviser John Kirby over President Bidens abilities, noting that there is real concern among people in the country and internationally that he can do the job. Kirby joined Baier on Tuesday evening after the president spoke at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. As questions of Bidens ability to lead the country persist into its second week, Kirby sought to tame the panic by emphasizing that the president is more than capable. You know, a couple of elections ago, there was the 3 a.m. call. Now, theres real concern about can he handle something that doesnt happen between 10 and 4 p.m.? Baier said, alluding to the reports where Biden said he needed to limit the hours he works to get more sleep. Kirby said Biden gets calls in the middle of the night all the time. The adviser said he works with the president quite a bit and said, The Commander in Chief that I know is not what people saw on that debate stage. Hes sharp. He probes. He asked me questions yesterday about Europe that I couldnt answer, and I had to go back and do the homework and come back to him on it, Kirby said of his boss. As Biden meets with leaders from the alliance this week, Kirby emphasized the decades-long politician has relationships and context that will help America on an international level, in ways that former President Trump does not. He takes seriously his job as commander in chief and Im telling you, hes got the context. Hes got the relationships. Thats the guy I know. Thats the president Im working for, Kirby said. Baier pressed Kirby, noting that there is a disconnect between the Biden seen on the debate stage and in a recent ABC interview, and the man who his team says he is behind closed doors. All I can do is tell you, the guy Ive known for two and a half years, and I didnt know the president before I came to work at the White House, never really met him, Kirby said. And the man that I see every day, including today, is in command of the facts and the context. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Emmanuel Macron has jumped from the frying pan into the fire. He must now play second fiddle to an ideological Left that poses a much greater threat to economic sanity than Marine Le Pens Right-wing Rassemblement National. The stated intent of the new Front Populaire is to soak the rich with wealth and capital taxes, reverse Mr Macrons free market reforms, impose price controls on food, fuel and energy, and return France to the wonderland of retirement at 60. It is as radical as its forebear under Leon Blum in 1936, which led to the ejection of France from the fixed-exchange Gold Standard in short order. It openly calls for a violation of EU budget rules, sorely testing German political consent for the euro. The Montaigne Institute estimates that the total package, if ever implemented, would amount to a runaway fiscal expansion worth 179bn (151bn) a year. That adds up to 6.8pc of GDP, several times greater than the immortal Truss budget. This is in a country where the fiscal deficit was 5.5pc of GDP last year and is on a worse trajectory so far this year, unlike the austerity under way in Germany and most of the eurozone. France already faces an excessive deficit procedure as Brussels reactivates the EU Stability Pact. It is exorbitant and would destroy everything we have achieved over the last seven years. The immediate risk is a financial crisis, said outgoing finance minister Bruno Le Maire. Markets are betting that almost none of it will ever happen. Risk spreads on French debt have fallen this week. You would hardly know that France is even less governable than it would have been under last weeks scenario, a cohabitation with Le Pens Rassemblement. On paper, the hard Right was planning one-and-a-half Liz Trusses, or a fiscal blitz worth 3pc of GDP. In reality, it was preparing a wholesale retreat after an audit of the national accounts, determined to prove itself orthodox on the economy. It would have been just like Meloni in Italy. There was all that fuss and then nothing bad happened, said Professor Brigitte Granville, author of What Ails France. Markets will instead have to deal with an ideological Left bent on pushing Frances worst economic pathologies to fresh extremes, lifting the state share of GDP from 58pc to a world-beating 60pc. The French treasury says plans to raise the minimum wage by 14pc, with no corresponding rise in productivity, would cost 500,000 jobs and push large numbers of struggling family businesses over the edge. Investors are assuming that this is just political noise: the Sun King will again form a centrist coalition under his control with a few concessions at the margin as if nothing had changed. Mr Macron clearly thinks along these lines, gambling that the Left will tear itself apart soon enough. Perhaps it will, but as matters stand the new Front Populaire commands the most seats and will be proposing a prime minister on its own terms this week. All its leaders have warned Mr Macron against trying to rip off parts of their united bloc to keep the old game going. The message of the vote is categorical. The president must accept his defeat, and not try to twist the outcome in any way. The new Front Populaire will implement all of its programme, and nothing but its programme, said Jean-Luc Melenchon, Jacobin chief of the hard-Left France Unbowed. One thing is clear, Mr Macron has not defeated the French hard Right. The Rassemblement is today the biggest single party in the National Assembly by a wide margin. Under his watch and because of him it has risen from eight seats in 2017, to 89 seats, in 2022, to 143 seats in 2024 (with its allies), securing ten million votes, more than any other bloc by far. It would have won even more seats had it not been for the gaming of the electoral system mostly for purposes of political self-interest, though dressed up with much moral humbug. Our victory is merely postponed, said Le Pen. She has been spared the tortured task of fiscal austerity, waiting in the wings as others are blamed for hard times. The political and economic cycle will now work to her advantage. Historian Maxime Tandonnet says it is a heroic misinterpretation of events to think that Mr Macron has achieved anything other than a fiasco with his wild snap-election. Operation Jupiter has degenerated into the worst possible scenario. It is a total impasse, he said. He described the election as a festival of manipulation that erodes popular legitimacy, taking the French people for fools. The ritual vilification of the hard Right relies on ever greater doses of political fiction and a vast campaign of mystification. The anti-fascist brainwashing was operating in top gear. Once again, France succumbed to hysteria. The Rassemblement suddenly became, for the occasion, the party co-founded by the Waffen SS. Senior civil servants and magistrates advocated disobedience and the unions declared a blockade, backed by the blackmail of extreme Left violence, he said. Those who follow French politics know that Mr Macron has actively promoted the Rassemblement as his preferred foil, when it suited him, to the point of rebuking his own prime minister for playing the Vichy card. The cynicism is breathtaking. But what Mr Macron has done by teaming up with his enemies on the Left, for tactical advantage, days after calling them a civil war risk, is to become a prisoner of their agenda. The French business elites understood this even before the shock upset on Sunday night. Le Figaro described the mood as funereal at their mini-Davos in Aix-en-Provence over the weekend. It was lost on nobody that France has swapped roles with Britain, now a safe-haven, admired for its miraculous stability. Were becoming irrational just as the United Kingdom becomes rational again, said Pierre-Andre de Chalendar, the chairman of Saint-Gobain. The difference is that the UK has elected a centre-Left government that broadly reflects the centre-Left mood of the country. France has given birth to a socio-political Frankestein. A deformed election has allowed the Corbynista Left to win a victory against nature in a country that leans heavily to the Right. This foretells serious trouble. Two outcomes are now likely. Either Mr Macron ignores the visceral repudiation of the French people, succeeds in preserving the status quo with another stitch-up until the volcano erupts; or he accepts the verdict of his own rigged electioneering and agrees to share real power with the Left, gutting his own reforms, and putting France on a collision course with Brussels, bond vigilantes, and economic reality. Would it really have been worse to let democracy run its course? 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. Free State of Florida signs now welcome drivers at state line. What we know, and what we dont Visitors to the Sunshine State will now be welcomed to the "Free State of Florida," according to new signs unveiled over the weekend. No passport is required. The phrase has been a favorite of Gov. Ron DeSantis for years. The Florida Department of Transportation debuted new state line signs that say "Welcome to the Free State of Florida" in early July 2024. The new signs at the state line say, "Welcome to the Free State of Florida." Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue posted about them on social media on Saturday. "No better way to celebrate Independence Day Weekend," he said. No better way to celebrate Independence Day Weekend than new state line signs welcoming Floridians and visitors to the Free State of Florida! pic.twitter.com/qgo2JyOVyv Jared W. Perdue, P.E. (@FDOT_Secretary) July 6, 2024 Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez shared a photo of herself next to one of the state signs to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday, saying simply, "This." What is the 'Free State of Florida'? Gov. Ron DeSantis stands at the podium on the steps of the historic Capitol as he gives a speech after being sworn in to serve a second term as the Governor of Florida on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023. When DeSantis was inaugurated for his second term in January 2023 after trouncing challenger Charlie Crist, he appeared underneath massive banners announcing the "Free State of Florida" and spoke about the state's defiance to President Biden's policies, his refusal to bend to "woke" ideologies, and his attacks on the federal government's COVID-19 policies. When the world lost its mind when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue Florida was a refuge of sanity, a citadel of freedom for our fellow Americans and even for people around the world, DeSantis said. DeSantis has used the phrase before that. In 2022 he referenced it when announcing a new license plate on then-Twitter. "The free state of Florida has a new license plate for pre-order that benefits the Florida Veterans Foundation and sends a clear message to out-of-state cars, Dont Tread on Me or Florida," he said. The phrase has since been used by the governor during his failed presidential campaign in the primaries against former-President Donald Trump and by his supporters. Conservative FOX News host Sean Hannity, who has often interviewed the governor and even allowed him to guest-host his show, announced his move to Florida in January, saying, We are now beginning our first broadcast from my new home, and that is in the free state of Florida. It's also been sarcastically used by critics, who point to the state's efforts to restrict abortion rights, constitutional protests, LGBTQ+ rights, what can be taught in schools, and mention of climate change in Florida statutes. Florida also has among the highest rates of incarceration in the world, according to a 2023 study from the Race and Crime Center for Justice at the University of Florida. When Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker blocked parts of a new elections law in 2023 for being unconstitutional, he wrote, "The Free State of Florida is simply not free to exceed the bounds of the United States Constitution. Where are the 'Free State of Florida' signs located? New signs at the state line urge departing visitors to "Hurry back to the Free State of Florida." According to an FDOT release, "Free State of Florida" has been added to all welcome signs on major state highways. "The new signage now features messages highlighting Florida's status as a top tourist destination," the release said, "including 'Hurry Back' signs that pay homage to the historic mid-century welcome centers." A Florida Welcome Center in the mnid-20th Century urges visitors to hurry back. Does Florida have welcome centers? Do they give out free orange juice? Since 1949, visitors to Florida have been greeted with information, maps, brochures, clean bathrooms and the traditional cup of complimentary Florida citrus juice, according to Visit Florida. The official Florida Welcome Centers are located near the state line: Another center is at the west entrance of the State Capitol Building in Tallahassee. How much did the new 'Free State of Florida' signs cost? That information, and the precise number of new signs, has not been released. An inquiry to the FDOT is pending. This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: DeSantis' 'Free State of Florida' added to signs at state line PARIS, FRANCE - JULY 7: People celebrate in Place de la Republique following the legislative election results on July 7, 2024 in Paris, France. The right-wing National Rally party came in third place after having been expected to have a strong showing in the second round of France's parliamentary election, which was called by the French president last month after his party performed poorly in the European election. Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images. On Sunday, July 7, French voters saved their republic from the political guillotine by decisively rejecting the extremist Rassemblement National, or RN. Before ballots were cast in the second and decisive round of French legislative elections, pundits predicted that the RN would take between 230 and 280 seats of the 577 in the French National Assembly; some even predicted an absolute majority of 289. Instead, the Nouveau Front Populaire, or NFP, took a surprising first place with 178 seats; President Emmanuel Macrons Ensemble took 150 seats, and the extremist RN came in third, with just 142 seats. The voters decisive rejection of the RN is good news for France. The blade of authoritarianism, poised to sever Frances democratic traditions, has been stayed for now. In the states, we should learn the lessons of the French election as we confront the equally threatening MAGA movement. Some background: Founded in 1972 as the Front National, or FN, the RNs founders included racist firebrand Jean-Marie Le Pen, Nazi collaborators and neo-Nazis. The partys platform was hyper-nationalist and xenophobic. The FN (now RN) appealed to those who felt marginalized by the French state, by those who looked back on French colonial power with nostalgia, and those who railed against the corruption of French politicians. Its tough-on-crime message resonated. Most voters, though, rejected its racism and antisemitism, and elected officials opposed its anti-republican views. The presidential election of 2002 demonstrated Frances rejection of the party. Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the second round of voting but was overwhelmingly defeated by Gaullist conservative Jacques Chirac, who won 82% of the vote. This landslide was widely understood as a repudiation of Le Pen and the National Front rather than an endorsement of Chirac. (One popular slogan at the time was, Vote for the crook, not the fascist; images of voters holding their noses as they cast their ballots were widely distributed.) Jean-Marie Le Pen was never going to change but his daughter, Marine, took over the party in 2011, and began to re-brand it, seeking legitimacy with voters who had long rejected her fathers overt racism and Holocaust denial. In 2018, she changed the partys name to Rassemblement National, or RN. The RN now presents a sanitized public face, with economic issues, health care, and even environmental concerns taking center stage in its rhetoric. This makeover is skin-deep. The RN remains stridently anti-immigrant, anti-parliamentary, anti-EU, anti-NATO, hostile to LGBTQ rights, and authoritarian. They would eliminate legal protections against deportation, criminalize immigration offenses, end birthright citizenship, and deny immigrants access to health care. While the RNs ideology remains largely unchanged despite its rebranding, the party has become increasingly adept at navigating Frances complex electoral landscape. In France, as in the United States, a sizable constituency is willing to embrace the politics of hatred and exclusion, but turning this group into a base for national power is hard. Frances unique voting system can make it easier. The French system with its two-round voting process and potential for multi-candidate runoffs can sometimes create unexpected opportunities for minority parties like the RN to gain disproportionate influence. That system is convoluted and takes place in two rounds. After a first round of voting grants seats to clear winners, a second round often results in a three-way or even four-way contest potentially splitting the vote in ways that benefit minority parties. That benefit is greatest when political fragmentation is asymmetrical. If there are lots of leftist parties (as there are), then candidates on the left may not make it to the second round at all. The extreme right, however, is effectively a single block, which is an advantage for both rounds. If two candidates of the left or center advance voters on the left and center often split their votes, permitting the RN to slip in with a plurality. The nightmare scenario of this election, then, was vote-splitting between two anti-fascist candidates in the second round. Defying expectations, the parties of the left set aside their differences soon after Macron called the election on June 27. The left entered the first round united. The four main parties of the left the socialists, communists, greens and La France Insoumise, or LFI formed a coalition called the Nouveau Front Populaire, NFP, a deliberate echo of the anti-fascist Popular Front of the 1930s. They rallied around six core principles of economic and social justice that would be agreeable to American progressives, but the most important of which was upholding republican values. Rather than running several candidates in a single constituency, these four parties settled on the strongest candidate. In the first round, the RN won roughly a third of the votes, the newly formed NFP cobbled together 28%, and Macrons Ensemble party managed to get just over 20% of the vote. Because of the triangular electoral districts (those with three candidates), the most likely vote-splitting scenario was between the NFP and Macrons party. Despite Macrons hesitation, both LFI and Ensemble supported a united republican front strategy. Weaker candidates were asked to withdraw in favor of the stronger and did so. As a result, RN could not exploit the fissures in the French political world. The outcome was good: Anti-fascist majorities voted against the RN and for the French republic in large numbers. As news of the RNs defeat spread, celebrations erupted in the streets of Paris, as gloom settled on the headquarters of the RN. This united front strategy proved effective in this second round, demonstrating the power of political cooperation in the face of extremism. To understand how this might apply to the United States, its important to understand the key differences between our political systems. Frances multi-party system allows for a broader range of political expression than the U.S. two-party structure, which means that voters often have candidates from half a dozen or more different parties running in the first round of elections. As weve seen, France uses a two-round voting system for both legislative and presidential elections. Well-organized parties that have a sizable and disciplined base can exploit this political fragmentation to advance to a second round, as the RN did. Yet this system also provides a powerful incentive for coalition-building and political compromise between rounds. In France, parties typically choose their candidates for office through an internal process; in the U.S., candidates are usually selected in primaries. The primary system discourages coalition-building: Candidates in the primaries must appeal to their partys most dedicated and most uncompromising supporters. While candidates for office must try to expand their support after the primary, the process makes compromise and reaching out to undecided voters more challenging. Unlike France, American defenders of democracy must also contend with anti-majoritarian idiosyncrasies of our system, like the Electoral College, gerrymandering and mountains of dark money used to dupe voters. This means that the struggle to defend our republic is even more difficult than the struggle to defend Frances. Our challenge is to find ways to build broad coalitions and express our democratic values within the constraints of our system. Yet even if our institutions differ, the fundamental problem an extremist challenge to democracy is similar. In France, one side the majority understands that Frenchness is a shared political idea, one rooted in the Revolutionary tryptic of liberty, equality and fraternity. By contrast, the RN insists on a narrow, exclusionary concept of French identity that seeks to divide the nation into true French and others. In the United States, one side the majority, as reflected in seven of the past eight presidential popular vote counts understands that Americanness is a shared political idea, one rooted in our Revolutionary understanding that all are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In contrast, the MAGA movement insists on a narrow, exclusionary vision of American identity that seeks to divide the nation into true Americans and others. The stark contrast between inclusive and exclusionary visions of national identity highlights a crucial distinction. We need to differentiate between temporary political disagreements and fundamental threats to our democratic values. Policy debates about taxation, health care or environmental regulations are part of the normal, healthy functioning of a democracy. These disagreements, while often heated, occur within a shared framework of democratic principles. The RN in France and MAGA in the United States, however, pose a fundamentally different kind of challenge. They seek to redefine national identity in ways that undermine the foundations of democratic society. They deploy the rules of democratic process when it suits them and toss them aside when theyre inconvenient. Movements like this do not reflect mere policy disagreement, but a fundamental divergence in the way we think about our nation and its values. The coalition that stopped the RN in France understood this. And while we cannot precisely apply the electoral tactics they used, we should be inspired by the way that defenders of democratic values set aside their political differences to save their republic. We should recognize that MAGA poses as fundamental a threat to our republic as the RN poses to France, and we should take concrete steps to contain the threat MAGA poses. For instance, Donald Trump frequently underperformed during the GOP primaries, indicating there are still Republicans wary of their convicted felon nominee who sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Even drawing a few of these voters into the small-d democratic coalition in key states could prevent Trumps re-emergence. We have to remember that democracy requires us, as citizens, to engage in a continual process of renewal. We have to continually rediscover our shared values. And we have to remember that our commitments to inclusion, diversity and difference have enriched us culturally and economically. We must also remember that our democratic system can only be secure if we are vigilant against those who would divide us to gain power and to impose their extremist views on us. This effort requires clarity, patience, and above all, empathy. We must listen to each other attentively. We cannot simply dismiss those who disagree with us on political issues. A democracy is a way for people to live together despite their differences. To be a small-d democrat is to recognize those differences, to accept that we do not always get the outcome we want, and to have the humility to accept that other peoples views and votes matter just as much as our own. This is the essence of the democratic spirit that the French voters demonstrated in rejecting the RN. As Americans face our own challenges to democracy, we would do well to remember this lesson: Unity in defense of democratic principles even amid policy disagreements is our strongest bulwark against extremism. By embracing this inclusive vision of national identity and recommitting to our shared democratic values, we can ensure that our republic, like Frances, withstands the tests it faces. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX (Bloomberg) -- The head of Frances Medef business lobby said the program of the alliance of left-wing parties, which won the most seats in this months parliamentary elections, are a danger to the economy. Most Read from Bloomberg In an interview in the French daily Les Echos, Patrick Martin added that since French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament in June, decision on investments, and hiring have been deferred and fund-raising in venture capital interrupted. Putting into effect the program of the leftist alliance known as the New Popular Front would be fatal to the French economy and bring about our decline, Martin said. A complex split in the French National Assembly has set the stage for unprecedented deal-making to try to form a lasting coalition that could govern the country. While New Popular Front which includes the Socialists, the Greens and the far-left France Unbowed has more lawmakers than Macrons party or the far-right National Rally, its far short of an outright majority. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. (Bloomberg) -- French business uncertainty surged during snap elections as firms worried about investment and the potential for labor costs to jump, according to the central banks monthly survey. Most Read from Bloomberg Julys reading, based on a text-mining of responses from business leaders, reached the highest level since the 2022 energy crisis in industry, the Bank of France said Wednesday. The services gauge was the most since 2021. While the poll of 8,500 companies didnt show a marked deterioration in activity, there were signs of an expected slowdown in cyclical sectors including temporary work and transport. The survey was completed before the final round of voting, when it was unclear which parties would have sway over future economic policy. Some campaign pledges, such as a sharp increase in the minimum wage or undoing an increase in the pension age, targeted President Emmanuel Macrons pro-business agenda. Many business leaders are expressing their concerns about the uncertainty of national politics, the central bank said. They mention a wait-and-see attitude of customers, delayed investments, including those from abroad, as well as frozen hiring plans due to visibility on possible changes in the cost of salaries. The elections ultimately delivered a hung parliament thats left deeply divided parties trying to negotiate how to form alliances capable of passing legislation. Macron said Wednesday that hed leave time for talks before naming a prime minister. The impact on activity will depend on the duration of uncertainty, and nobody knows at this stage, Bank of France Chief Economist Olivier Garnier said. Still, the central bank said its poll, combined with other indicators, showed the economy probably expanded 0.1% in the second quarter. It had previously forecast growth between zero and 0.1%. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. By Elizabeth Pineau and Dominique Vidalon PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday called on mainstream parties to join forces to form a solid majority in the National Assembly, in his first public comments since Sunday's snap election delivered parliamentary gridlock. The vote, which Macron unexpectedly called after losing to the far-right National Rally (RN) in European elections, has plunged France into uncharted waters, with three politically divergent blocs and no obvious path to forming a government. In a letter to regional newspapers, the deeply unpopular Macron urged mainstream parties with "republican values" to form a governing coalition and said he hoped to pick a prime minister from such a grouping. "Let us place our hope in the ability of our political leaders to demonstrate sense, harmony and calm in your interest, and that of the country," he wrote. "It is in the light of these principles that I will decide on the appointment of the prime minister." The New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily assembled alliance of the hard-left France Unbowed party and the Socialist, Green and Communist parties, unexpectedly won the most seats in Sunday's vote, but not a majority. Macron's centrist camp came second and the RN third after third-placed candidates from the left and centre withdrew from the run-off to avoid splitting the anti-RN vote, scuppering the far right's hopes of winning a majority and forming a government. It would be customary for Macron to call on the biggest parliamentary group, in this case the left-wing bloc, to form a government, but nothing in the constitution obliges him to do so. Macron did not explicitly call for the RN or France Unbowed to be excluded from a governing coalition, but his mention of "republican values" is typically understood to exclude parties on the far left or the far right. Several France Unbowed lawmakers reacted to Macron's letter by saying that he should accept the left-wing alliance's pick for prime minister, when it has agreed on one, and allow the bloc to form a government. "The best he can do for the country at this stage is to allow the group that won the most seats, the New Popular Front, to govern. Any other machinations would be truly problematic and dangerous for democracy," said one of them, Eric Coquerel, on LCI television. TONE HARDENS Financial markets, the European Commission and France's euro zone partners are all watching closely to see whether the impasse can be broken. Options include a broad coalition, a minority government or a technocratic government led by a non-politically affiliated person, which would seek to pass laws in parliament on a case-by-case basis, with ad hoc agreements. But any government - of the left, centre, or a broader coalition - could quickly be toppled by a confidence vote from the opposition if it had not secured sufficient support. RN leader Jordan Bardella said Macron was to blame for the political paralysis. "And now his message is: 'sort something out'. Irresponsible!" he posted on X, referring to Macron's letter. Bardella's mentor, the long-time RN leader Marine Le Pen, has spent the last few years cleaning up the image of a party once known for racism and antisemitism, and must now decide what strategy to adopt to win the 2027 presidential election. She has framed the tactical withdrawals as an establishment plot to keep her party from power. On Wednesday her tone hardened, when she drew parallels between a hard-left politician's call for a march towards the prime minister's office and the assault on Capitol Hill by supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump. She said the NFP has almost "subversive attitudes since they are calling for Matignon to be taken by force," referring to the prime minister's office. "It's their assault on the Capitol." She was reacting to a social media post by France Unbowed lawmaker Adrien Quatennens, who accused Macron of wanting to "steal" the left's victory after he asked centrist Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to stay on for now, for stability. Quatennens had called for "a big popular march" on Matignon. Responding to Le Pen, Quatennens said she was "nuts" to liken his suggestion to a call for insurrection. (Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten, Ingrid Melander, Zhifan Liu, Blandine Henault; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Estelle Shirbon, Jon Boyle and Toby Chopra) BAGHDAD, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's National Security Council condemned on Wednesday Turkiye's military incursion into its Kurdistan Region, calling it a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani's office said in a statement that the council demanded Turkiye respect good neighborliness and engage diplomatically. The Iraqi prime minister appointed a delegation to visit Kurdistan to assess the situation and develop a joint response, according to the statement. Kurdish media reported that Turkish troops entered Iraqi territory near Amedi in recent days. Turkiye frequently conducts cross-border operations against PKK militants based in northern Iraq. The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkiye, the U.S., and the EU. Front-line NATO allies say the West needs to give Ukraine the 'technological superiority' it needs to beat Russia Front-line NATO allies say the West needs to give Ukraine the 'technological superiority' it needs to beat Russia The West has outfitted Ukraine with billions of dollars in security assistance to fight Russia. But it needs to give Ukraine the weapons it needs to actually win the war, NATO members say. The three Baltic states said Moscow must be left unable to pose a threat in the future. The West should send Ukraine the kind of weapons it needs to inflict a lasting, strategic defeat on Russia, NATO countries on the front lines of the military alliance said Tuesday. The defense ministers of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania the three Baltic states that border Russia and staunch supporters of the Ukrainian war effort urged the West to help Ukraine in a way that renders Moscow militarily unable to take this sort of action in the future, arguing this means increasing political and military support for Kyiv. There is a key "strategic difference" between helping Ukraine fight Russia, as the West has been doing throughout the full-scale war, and helping it actually win, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said during a roundtable discussion hosted by POLITICO and German television outlet Welt on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, DC. Pevkur said the options are to either support Ukraine for "as long as it takes" a phrase, often used by the US to describe its intentions, that has been met with criticism or give Kyiv everything it needs so that it can actually win. A US-provided M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launches a rocket on Russian positions in December 2023 in Ukraine. Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images "There is a technological superiority in the West over Russia, but we are not giving that to Ukraine at the moment," Pevkur said, explaining that NATO has refused to act with urgency when making decisions about long-range munitions, fighter jets, and other weapons. NATO members have given Ukraine tens of billions of dollars in security assistance since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Some of this weaponry is considered to be highly advanced and better than its Russian counterparts. But the West has also been reluctant to provide Kyiv with the more powerful tools available in its arsenal. The three Baltic states have consistently been strong advocates of sending more security assistance to Ukraine, fearing that, because of their geographical proximity to Russia, they would be the first ones targeted if Moscow ever decided to attack deeper into Europe. With this threat in mind, the Baltic nations have long pushed for increased defense spending among NATO member states. They are among the alliance's top defense spenders as a share of GDP, and they are also outspoken on NATO's ability to deter a broader attack from Russia. Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur addresses the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC, on July 9. Photo by DREW ANGERER/AFP via Getty Images But sending a message of deterrence might not be enough on its own. Laurynas Kasciunas, Lithuania's minister of national defense, said if NATO wants to contain and damage Russian power, it should consider the fact that Ukraine is asking for ammunition and weapons not Western troops. "They are ready to fight and to push back [the] Russians not only from Ukraine, but also from Europe," Kasciunas said at Tuesday's event. Backing Ukraine means "building up European security," he added. "The goal must be [the] strategic defeat of Russia in Ukraine," said Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds. He said this means Ukraine regains all the territory it's lost since 2014 when Russia first invaded the country and that Moscow is unable to wage any type of future conflict against Ukraine, its neighbors, or NATO. NATO countries have vowed to continue supporting Ukraine with critical security assistance. US President Joe Biden kicked off the consequential summit by announcing that the alliance would send more air-defense systems to Kyiv. US President Joe Biden shakes hands with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during the NATO 75th anniversary celebratory event at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium on July 9 in Washington, DC. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images At the same time, Russia has regained much of its military strength, and its war-time economy is increasingly firing on all cylinders. The Baltic states say enabling Ukraine to win will require a massive political buy-in and support from the West. "Do we want to win this war together with Ukraine, and do we want to see that Russia is not only losing, but they will be downgraded to the level that they will not even think about the new initiatives against their neighbors?" Pevkur said. Or is it to "continue helping Ukraine 'as long as it takes?'" "My understanding is that 'as long as it takes' is not enough," Pevkur said. "We have to say clearly: 'Yes, we will help Ukraine to win this war.'" Read the original article on Business Insider When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the fallout poured gasoline on an alarming trend of burnout among obstetrician-gynecologists. But it also put OB-GYNs on the front lines of the abortion battle, as the decision led to a wave of restrictions and near-total bans on abortion in about half the states in the country. As president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), Stella Dantas wants to try to solve the burnout crisis while also supporting the work of physicians to advocate for themselves and their patients. Without advocacy, we cant do what we do. Wherever you live, youre affected by current issues and legislative interference into the practice of medicine, Dantas said. For example, physicians in Oregon, where Dantas lives and practices, are trying to fill the gaps in care from neighboring Idaho, where abortion is almost entirely banned. Patients are leaving the state to get needed care, but so, too, are doctors who dont want to work under threat of criminal penalties. Dantas said in the aftermath of the Dobbs ruling, OB-GYNs are speaking out more, especially about their experiences living in states with abortion bans. Youre seeing people get involved in their maybe their state medical society. Theyre working with ACOG, with the government affairs team. And theyre going out to educate their patients, Dantas said. One of the most important educational aspects is to try to fit peoples personal experiences into the bigger picture narrative, she said. If people cant get in to see their physician, maybe its because low reimbursement rates mean clinics are operating with smaller staff. Or maybe its because after the Dobbs decision, there are fewer doctors in the state. If you go upstream, where that problem actually is, it opens the eyes of friends, family and voters and people as they think about the issues, Dantas said. I think our clinicians are sensing they need to get out there and do this work themselves, which is going to help them in the long run. And that is why you see people willing to do whatever it takes out there in education, talking to people and getting involved in advocacy work. The Supreme Courts decision in Dobbs was years in the making, so Dantas said the ACOG could see the writing on the wall and was preparing for it. But it was still a massive blow. That reality, I guess I would say, was hard to face, she said. When I was sitting here in Oregon, with that decision, you know, you feel helpless, because you just want to go and help people in Texas. You want to go and help people in Idaho. Clinicians in states with severe restrictions just want something better than the current situation, Dantas said. Boots on the ground, physicians and clinicians are taking care of patients. They are watching patients suffer because they cant take care of someone at 10 weeks, or they cant take care of someone at 15 weeks. But theres also the long game to consider, and allowing legislators to impose restrictions on abortion sets a precedent. If you open up any door to legislative interference, what does that mean not just for abortion, but what does that mean for contraception? What does that mean for gender-affirming care? What does that mean for anything, you know, in the practice of medicine? Dantas said. Dantas works full time seeing patients at Northwest Permanente in Portland, where she also serves as medical director of graduate and undergraduate medical education. She has been involved with the ACOG for most of her career and said her introduction to advocacy work came when she helped push Oregon to require mandatory licensing of all out-of-hospital birth providers, such as midwives. Advocating for her specialty, she said, gives her a feeling of balance. As a physician working, you feel the effects of what happens when someone legislates something in medicine, whether its reimbursement, whether it has to do with education, whether it has to do with laws that that interfere with our practice of medicine, Dantas said. You feel it in a very different way, and to be able to do something about that, whether its give a talk or help with legislation, being at the table of your medical society, it just makes you feel like youre doing something. Abortion care advocacy is especially crucial, Dantas said, but its also intrinsically tied into the issue of burnout. Practicing during the COVID-19 pandemic took a toll. But coming out of the pandemic, instead of the situation getting better, it worsened. COVID was stressful, but everybody was working toward one goal, right? And patients, they were forgiving. They were banging pots and pans for us. They were supporting us, delivering meals to the hospital. They were they were all there supporting the health care clinicians and providers, Dantas said. Now, theres no patience. People want to get in for their care. Theyre tired of the surgical backlog. So you have that impatience, and that less forgiving, that takes its toll on health care providers. And then, on top of it all, the Supreme Court overturned Roe, ending the constitutional right to abortion that had been in place for nearly 50 years. In some cases, patients need to travel hundreds of miles out of state to end pregnancies, even if their health is at risk. In other cases, including in Idaho, hospitals are transporting patients who need abortions, because doctors fear what will happen if they violate the law. Doctors are confused and frightened, and Dantas said that has led not only to an exodus of physicians from states with abortion bans, but also an exodus of practicing OB-GYNs in general. Nobody goes into medicine to watch somebody get sicker before you can go in and save them or help them. So that that caused a lot of people to rethink, Is this what I want to do? Especially if youre close to the age of retirement, or you can cut back or not work at all, Dantas said. That makes the burnout problem worse, and it impacts patients. There will be more maternity care deserts, increasing the risk for poor outcomes in those areas. Dantas said the larger issues, such as abortion, arent going to be resolved quickly. But to help with burnout, she wants people to care for each other. You stay for the people, you stay for your patients. And at least if we can have that still be a positive thing, to come to work every day, maybe we can help people not leave because of all the other threats and pressures and stress thats upon us. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The News The future of Europes security will be determined in Ukraine, the European Unions top diplomat, Josep Borrell said at an event in Washington, DC during the NATO summit. We know that if we allow Russia to turn Ukraine into a second Belarus, and put a puppet government in Kyiv, we will pay a much higher price later. That Ukraine prevails is an existential requirement for our security, Borrell said at the EU Defense Night, an event co-hosted by Semafor. Borrell said the EU is working to rapidly increase its defense industrys output and provide the military equipment that Ukraine and Europe needs to defend itself. In one year, we have multiplied by two our capacity for producing ammunition, and by the end of this year it will be three times bigger. Borrell also said that Europes defense spending has increased by 30% in the last three years, although a NATO official at an earlier briefing during the summit put it differently, noting that the increases in spending this year amounted to adding France and Norway to the alliance. As Europe pushes to do more for Ukraine, Borrell also stressed that the US has to keep doing its part to support Ukraine, too. The six months Congress spent arguing about whether to pass a supplemental aid package for Ukraine came with a bill in terms of human lives, and a bill in terms of weakening the capacity of Ukraine to defend itself, Borrell said. Know More The NATO alliance expects all member countries to put 2% of their budget toward defense spending, but the reality is more piecemeal. Western countries have long struggled to ramp up their defense industries, and the blocs previous ammunition production targets have fallen well short of international expectations. (EL PASO COUNTY, Colo.) A preliminary report for the Pikes Peak Library Districts (PPLD) Facilities Master Plan has been released and includes various recommendations for creating a sustainable future for the Library District. The Facilities Master Plan is being conducted to evaluate our current facilities, population density and distribution, community needs, Library budget and expenditures, projected costs, and other Colorado library systems, according to a statement sent from a library spokesperson to FOX21 News on Tuesday, July 9. On June 19, the Board of Trustees was informed of the preliminary report, which recommended three action plans, each with different, but possible budget scenarios, based on research and data analysis conducted by a consultant for the Library District. According to the spokesperson, one of the recommendations if the librarys budget remains as it is currently included potentially closing the Ruth Holley and Rockrimmon library locations. This option had the least amount of average household impact and included adding a new location along the Powers corridor, according to the report. The next step is for the Librarys consultant to complete and deliver their final report over the next few months. The Board will then assemble a committee to evaluate it and give their recommendations. According to the spokesperson, the Library District is not currently considering closing any PPLD locations. For a full look at the preliminary report, click the link above. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX21 News Colorado. Gas leak in Oconto causes trains & traffic to be halted while technicians fixed gas line OCONTO, Wis. (WFRV) Authorities in Oconto County responded to a gas leak Tuesday afternoon after a contractor hit a gas line. According to a release, Oconto Fire & Rescue was sent to the 500 block of McDonald Street to assist a contractor who had hit a gas line and had an active gas leak. Sprinkler system saves Fond du Lac strip mall in kitchen fire, minimal damage reported While responding, dispatch was requested to contact Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) to have them respond to the scene as well. Upon arrival, firefighters were met by the superintendent of the contracting company, who stated they were doing directional drilling when they hit an unmarked gas line. The contractor told firefighters that the crew immediately stopped all vehicles and machines and turned them off. Due to the close proximity to the railroad tracks, Canadian National was notified, and all trains were halted during the leak. Former guards and inmate families urge lawmakers to fix Wisconsin prisons WPS technicians turned the gas main off and monitored natural gas levels, ensuring there was no danger before giving the all-clear. There were no injuries reported and no additional details were provided. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton. A Amazon truck makes deliveries in Wheeling, Ill., Thursday, May 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh) For decades, states have relied on gas taxes to provide much of the money to maintain roads and bridges. But as cars become more fuel efficient, and some Americans switch to electric vehicles, state leaders say the gas tax wont pay the bills for much longer. At the same time, many cities have seen their streets crowded with delivery trucks from Amazon and other companies, as consumers increasingly opt to have products delivered to their homes. In a few states, lawmakers think fees on those deliveries could be part of their road-funding solution. If youre going to be creating wear and tear on our roads, you should help pay to maintain them, said Colorado state Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Democrat who chairs the Energy and Environment Committee. In July 2022, Colorado became the first state with a retail delivery fee, a charge on all vehicle deliveries to consumers within the state. The fee, which currently stands at 29 cents per delivery, provides funding for highways, bridges, tunnels, electric vehicle charging stations and projects to reduce air pollution and to electrify vehicle fleets and transit systems. It has brought in more than $160 million. If you're going to be creating wear and tear on our roads, you should help pay to maintain them. Colorado Democratic state Rep. Cathy Kipp Colorado leaders have had to simplify the law to help businesses comply with it, but they say its largely been a success story. Minnesota enacted its own retail delivery fee in 2023, and lawmakers in New York and Illinois have proposed similar measures. Meanwhile, legislators and transportation officials in several other states have commissioned studies to consider the concept. Some retailers and Republican lawmakers have argued that the fee hurts consumers, and many businesses in Colorado initially had trouble complying with the law. The 27-cent delivery fee is not trivial, its effects are not imperceptible, and it greatly affects our citizens especially those who are already struggling to pay the bills and provide for their families, Republican state Rep. Rose Pugliese, the House minority leader, wrote in a Colorado Springs Gazette guest column several months after the law was enacted. But backers of the fee say they see growing interest across the country, especially as delivery trucks become ubiquitous in many neighborhoods. Future proofing transportation funding State law in Colorado limits the ways in which lawmakers can expand taxes. With gas tax revenues dwindling, legislators didnt have an obvious solution to pay for roads. They eventually settled on the retail delivery fee, which is not characterized as a tax. Initially, the program was a struggle for many businesses, due to a requirement that they detail the fee separately on each receipt. For our medium and small businesses, it was a real complicated thing and very burdensome for them to have to reprogram their software with a whole extra line item, Kipp said. Last year, Kipp joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers to amend the program. They rescinded the requirement that businesses itemize the fee on each receipt and allowed companies to cover the fee themselves rather than breaking it out on each order. They also exempted retailers with less than $500,000 in sales. Since the fix was adopted, Kipp said she has stopped hearing complaints about the program. Chris Howes, president of the Colorado Retail Council, said he too has not heard any recent gripes. Weve got it straightened out by now, he said. People have accepted it and moved on. Amazon did not grant a Stateline interview request, and the National Retail Federation deferred questions to state chapters. Chamber of Progress, a tech industry advocacy group, did not arrange an interview by publication time. Last year, lawmakers in Minnesota enacted their own retail delivery fee, a 50-cent charge on purchases of more than $100. Lawmakers heard from local governments that they were struggling to maintain their roads and badly needed state aid to make up the gap. This is trying to future-proof our transportation funding, said Democratic state Rep. Erin Koegel, who sponsored the bill. We keep getting performance grades from civil engineers saying were at a C- or D for our infrastructure. We needed to think about ways to get more revenue in the system. Koegel said the measure was a compromise. Her initial draft, which did not have a $100 threshold for purchases, was intended to be a deterrent, much like cigarette taxes. She said delivery trucks are increasing congestion in many cities and damaging streets that werent built to support large vehicles. However, lawmakers ultimately decided to limit the fee to more expensive purchases in order to protect lower-income consumers. Minnesotas fee is projected to generate $59 million in its first fiscal year. The funding will be distributed to cities, counties and towns to help with their road-funding needs. Traffic throughout the day Cities and counties in Washington state also have asked for help, and some local leaders have asked state lawmakers to consider a retail delivery fee or to authorize cities to collect one. State lawmakers commissioned an analysis, published last month, looking at the potential for such a program. The report found that a fee could generate $45 million to $112 million in revenue in 2026, depending on which businesses and orders were covered. Were now seeing that theres traffic on our system throughout the day, and the growth of these delivery services is a part of that, said Democratic state Sen. Marko Liias, who chairs the Transportation Committee. Weve had a history in transportation of user-based fees. This feels like a mechanism that could help in that regard. Liias emphasized that some version of the fee is likely to be a big topic of discussion in the next legislative session. He said hes already heard strong arguments on both sides of the issue. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US In some areas, the rise in retail deliveries has put the greatest burden on the infrastructure surrounding shipping facilities. Illinois CenterPoint Intermodal Center, the nations largest inland port, connects interstate trucking, railway lines and Mississippi River barges. There really needs to be a shift in the tax structure, since many of these facilities are not generating the local sales tax youd get at a brick and mortar, said Democratic state Sen. Rachel Ventura, whose district includes the CenterPoint facility. We have a lot of traffic going in and out, and the environmental burden and road repairs and the tax burden fall locally. Ventura has drafted a bill that would allow communities to assess fees on intermodal facilities locations that transfer products from one type of transportation to another. Local governments that opted in would be able to spend the funds on roads within five miles of the facilities. The fee, which would be based on the weight of each shipment, is projected to generate $33 million to $68 million per year. The bill has not passed out of committee, and Ventura said lawmakers are still discussing the path forward amid opposition from the trucking industry. In New York, a Democratic bill to impose a 25-cent fee on deliveries within New York City has been introduced but remains in committee. Meanwhile, state agencies in Nevada and Ohio have commissioned studies examining the feasibility of retail delivery fees. Those reports have not yet led to legislative action. Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X. A security guard checks in an Amazon truck at the Amazon regional distribution center on June 6, 2019, in Las Vegas. (George Frey/Getty Images) A security guard checks in an Amazon truck at the Amazon regional distribution center on June 6, 2019, in Las Vegas. (George Frey/Getty Images) For decades, states have relied on gas taxes to provide much of the money to maintain roads and bridges. But as cars become more fuel efficient, and some Americans switch to electric vehicles, state leaders say the gas tax wont pay the bills for much longer. At the same time, many cities have seen their streets crowded with delivery trucks from Amazon and other companies, as consumers increasingly opt to have products delivered to their homes. In a few states, lawmakers think fees on those deliveries could be part of their road-funding solution. If youre going to be creating wear and tear on our roads, you should help pay to maintain them, said Colorado state Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Democrat who chairs the Energy and Environment Committee. In July 2022, Colorado became the first state with a retail delivery fee, a charge on all vehicle deliveries to consumers within the state. The fee, which currently stands at 29 cents per delivery, provides funding for highways, bridges, tunnels, electric vehicle charging stations and projects to reduce air pollution and to electrify vehicle fleets and transit systems. It has brought in more than $160 million. If you're going to be creating wear and tear on our roads, you should help pay to maintain them. Colorado Democratic state Rep. Cathy Kipp Colorado leaders have had to simplify the law to help businesses comply with it, but they say its largely been a success story. Minnesota enacted its own retail delivery fee in 2023, and lawmakers in New York and Illinois have proposed similar measures. Meanwhile, legislators and transportation officials in several other states have commissioned studies to consider the concept. Some retailers and Republican lawmakers have argued that the fee hurts consumers, and many businesses in Colorado initially had trouble complying with the law. The 27-cent delivery fee is not trivial, its effects are not imperceptible, and it greatly affects our citizens especially those who are already struggling to pay the bills and provide for their families, Republican state Rep. Rose Pugliese, the House minority leader, wrote in a Colorado Springs Gazette guest column several months after the law was enacted. But backers of the fee say they see growing interest across the country, especially as delivery trucks become ubiquitous in many neighborhoods. Future-proofing transportation funding State law in Colorado limits the ways in which lawmakers can expand taxes. With gas tax revenues dwindling, legislators didnt have an obvious solution to pay for roads. They eventually settled on the retail delivery fee, which is not characterized as a tax. Initially, the program was a struggle for many businesses, due to a requirement that they detail the fee separately on each receipt. For our medium and small businesses, it was a real complicated thing and very burdensome for them to have to reprogram their software with a whole extra line item, Kipp said. Last year, Kipp joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers to amend the program. They rescinded the requirement that businesses itemize the fee on each receipt and allowed companies to cover the fee themselves rather than breaking it out on each order. They also exempted retailers with less than $500,000 in sales. Since the fix was adopted, Kipp said she has stopped hearing complaints about the program. Chris Howes, president of the Colorado Retail Council, said he too has not heard any recent gripes. Weve got it straightened out by now, he said. People have accepted it and moved on. Amazon did not grant a Stateline interview request, and the National Retail Federation deferred questions to state chapters. Chamber of Progress, a tech industry advocacy group, did not arrange an interview by publication time. Last year, lawmakers in Minnesota enacted their own retail delivery fee, a 50-cent charge on purchases of more than $100. Lawmakers heard from local governments that they were struggling to maintain their roads and badly needed state aid to make up the gap. This is trying to future-proof our transportation funding, said Democratic state Rep. Erin Koegel, who sponsored the bill. We keep getting performance grades from civil engineers saying were at a C- or D for our infrastructure. We needed to think about ways to get more revenue in the system. Koegel said the measure was a compromise. Her initial draft, which did not have a $100 threshold for purchases, was intended to be a deterrent, much like cigarette taxes. She said delivery trucks are increasing congestion in many cities and damaging streets that werent built to support large vehicles. However, lawmakers ultimately decided to limit the fee to more expensive purchases in order to protect lower-income consumers. Minnesotas fee is projected to generate $59 million in its first fiscal year. The funding will be distributed to cities, counties and towns to help with their road-funding needs. Traffic throughout the day Cities and counties in Washington state also have asked for help, and some local leaders have asked state lawmakers to consider a retail delivery fee or to authorize cities to collect one. State lawmakers commissioned an analysis, published last month, looking at the potential for such a program. The report found that a fee could generate $45 million to $112 million in revenue in 2026, depending on which businesses and orders were covered. Were now seeing that theres traffic on our system throughout the day, and the growth of these delivery services is a part of that, said Democratic state Sen. Marko Liias, who chairs the Transportation Committee. Weve had a history in transportation of user-based fees. This feels like a mechanism that could help in that regard. Liias emphasized that some version of the fee is likely to be a big topic of discussion in the next legislative session. He said hes already heard strong arguments on both sides of the issue. In some areas, the rise in retail deliveries has put the greatest burden on the infrastructure surrounding shipping facilities. Illinois CenterPoint Intermodal Center, the nations largest inland port, connects interstate trucking, railway lines and Mississippi River barges. There really needs to be a shift in the tax structure, since many of these facilities are not generating the local sales tax youd get at a brick and mortar, said Democratic state Sen. Rachel Ventura, whose district includes the CenterPoint facility. We have a lot of traffic going in and out, and the environmental burden and road repairs and the tax burden fall locally. Ventura has drafted a bill that would allow communities to assess fees on intermodal facilities locations that transfer products from one type of transportation to another. Local governments that opted in would be able to spend the funds on roads within five miles of the facilities. The fee, which would be based on the weight of each shipment, is projected to generate $33 million to $68 million per year. The bill has not passed out of committee, and Ventura said lawmakers are still discussing the path forward amid opposition from the trucking industry. In New York, a Democratic bill to impose a 25-cent fee on deliveries within New York City has been introduced but remains in committee. Meanwhile, state agencies in Nevada and Ohio have commissioned studies examining the feasibility of retail delivery fees. Those reports have not yet led to legislative action. Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X. An Amazon truck makes deliveries in Wheeling, Ill., earlier this year. Some states have passed or considered measures that would impose a fee on retail deliveries in order to provide funding for road maintenance. (Nam Y. Huh/The Associated Press) For decades, states have relied on gas taxes to provide much of the money to maintain roads and bridges. But as cars become more fuel efficient, and some Americans switch to electric vehicles, state leaders say the gas tax wont pay the bills for much longer. At the same time, many cities have seen their streets crowded with delivery trucks from Amazon and other companies, as consumers increasingly opt to have products delivered to their homes. In a few states, lawmakers think fees on those deliveries could be part of their road-funding solution. If youre going to be creating wear and tear on our roads, you should help pay to maintain them, said Colorado state Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Democrat who chairs the Energy and Environment Committee. In July 2022, Colorado became the first state with a retail delivery fee, a charge on all vehicle deliveries to consumers within the state. The fee, which currently stands at 29 cents per delivery, provides funding for highways, bridges, tunnels, electric vehicle charging stations and projects to reduce air pollution and to electrify vehicle fleets and transit systems. It has brought in more than $160 million. If you're going to be creating wear and tear on our roads, you should help pay to maintain them. Colorado Democratic state Rep. Cathy Kipp Colorado leaders have had to simplify the law to help businesses comply with it, but they say its largely been a success story. Minnesota enacted its own retail delivery fee in 2023, and lawmakers in New York and Illinois have proposed similar measures. Meanwhile, legislators and transportation officials in several other states have commissioned studies to consider the concept. Some retailers and Republican lawmakers have argued that the fee hurts consumers, and many businesses in Colorado initially had trouble complying with the law. The 27-cent delivery fee is not trivial, its effects are not imperceptible, and it greatly affects our citizens especially those who are already struggling to pay the bills and provide for their families, Republican state Rep. Rose Pugliese, the House minority leader, wrote in a Colorado Springs Gazette guest column several months after the law was enacted. But backers of the fee say they see growing interest across the country, especially as delivery trucks become ubiquitous in many neighborhoods. Future-proofing transportation funding State law in Colorado limits the ways in which lawmakers can expand taxes. With gas tax revenues dwindling, legislators didnt have an obvious solution to pay for roads. They eventually settled on the retail delivery fee, which is not characterized as a tax. Initially, the program was a struggle for many businesses, due to a requirement that they detail the fee separately on each receipt. For our medium and small businesses, it was a real complicated thing and very burdensome for them to have to reprogram their software with a whole extra line item, Kipp said. Last year, Kipp joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers to amend the program. They rescinded the requirement that businesses itemize the fee on each receipt and allowed companies to cover the fee themselves rather than breaking it out on each order. They also exempted retailers with less than $500,000 in sales. Since the fix was adopted, Kipp said she has stopped hearing complaints about the program. Chris Howes, president of the Colorado Retail Council, said he too has not heard any recent gripes. Weve got it straightened out by now, he said. People have accepted it and moved on. Amazon did not grant a Stateline interview request, and the National Retail Federation deferred questions to state chapters. Chamber of Progress, a tech industry advocacy group, did not arrange an interview by publication time. Last year, lawmakers in Minnesota enacted their own retail delivery fee, a 50-cent charge on purchases of more than $100. Lawmakers heard from local governments that they were struggling to maintain their roads and badly needed state aid to make up the gap. This is trying to future-proof our transportation funding, said Democratic state Rep. Erin Koegel, who sponsored the bill. We keep getting performance grades from civil engineers saying were at a C- or D for our infrastructure. We needed to think about ways to get more revenue in the system. Koegel said the measure was a compromise. Her initial draft, which did not have a $100 threshold for purchases, was intended to be a deterrent, much like cigarette taxes. She said delivery trucks are increasing congestion in many cities and damaging streets that werent built to support large vehicles. However, lawmakers ultimately decided to limit the fee to more expensive purchases in order to protect lower-income consumers. Minnesotas fee is projected to generate $59 million in its first fiscal year. The funding will be distributed to cities, counties and towns to help with their road-funding needs. Traffic throughout the day Cities and counties in Washington state also have asked for help, and some local leaders have asked state lawmakers to consider a retail delivery fee or to authorize cities to collect one. State lawmakers commissioned an analysis, published last month, looking at the potential for such a program. The report found that a fee could generate $45 million to $112 million in revenue in 2026, depending on which businesses and orders were covered. Were now seeing that theres traffic on our system throughout the day, and the growth of these delivery services is a part of that, said Democratic state Sen. Marko Liias, who chairs the Transportation Committee. Weve had a history in transportation of user-based fees. This feels like a mechanism that could help in that regard. Liias emphasized that some version of the fee is likely to be a big topic of discussion in the next legislative session. He said hes already heard strong arguments on both sides of the issue. In some areas, the rise in retail deliveries has put the greatest burden on the infrastructure surrounding shipping facilities. Illinois CenterPoint Intermodal Center, the nations largest inland port, connects interstate trucking, railway lines and Mississippi River barges. There really needs to be a shift in the tax structure, since many of these facilities are not generating the local sales tax youd get at a brick and mortar, said Democratic state Sen. Rachel Ventura, whose district includes the CenterPoint facility. We have a lot of traffic going in and out, and the environmental burden and road repairs and the tax burden fall locally. Ventura has drafted a bill that would allow communities to assess fees on intermodal facilities locations that transfer products from one type of transportation to another. Local governments that opted in would be able to spend the funds on roads within five miles of the facilities. The fee, which would be based on the weight of each shipment, is projected to generate $33 million to $68 million per year. The bill has not passed out of committee, and Ventura said lawmakers are still discussing the path forward amid opposition from the trucking industry. In New York, a Democratic bill to impose a 25-cent fee on deliveries within New York City has been introduced but remains in committee. Meanwhile, state agencies in Nevada and Ohio have commissioned studies examining the feasibility of retail delivery fees. Those reports have not yet led to legislative action. Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday said it was a huge mistake for a lawmaker to kill a bill restricting access to a sedative gaining traction as a street drug. The governors office has indicated the administration could get involved in ensuring the measures success. I felt it a huge mistake that a member of the Legislature killed the tranq bill, the xylazine bill, Newsom said. That was a big mistake. So Im very active in that respect. Newsom didnt name the lawmaker. Assembly Public Safety Committee Chair Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, last week held a bill that would reschedule xylazine, also known as tranq, at the state level, making it harder for people to obtain. Our Assembly Public Safety Committee has been very aggressive this year in passing over a dozen bills to tackle drug trafficking and to increase penalties for illicit drug sales, including fentanyl and tranq, McCarty said in a statement. We have cleared more substantive drug bills this year than we have in over a decade. The governor made his comments during a heat wave and wildfire readiness press event in Sacramento County. Xylazine is an animal tranquilizer that some drug users have begun mixing with other substances, including fentanyl, according to the California Department of Public Health. Some people also unknowingly ingest xylazine that has been cut into another drug. Xylazine can increase the risk of overdoses and cause serious skin wounds and infections. The Department of Public Health in 2023 called xylazine a new and emerging issue in California and said it wasnt common in the states drug supply, although experts were concerned that it may eventually become part of it. The xylazine measure Newsom likely referenced is Senate Bill 1502, from another Sacramento Democrat, Sen. Angelique Ashby. Her bill would make xylazine a Schedule III drug under Californias Uniform Controlled Substances Act. However, McCarty and the committee asked Ashby to change her bill to make xylazine a controlled substance only if the federal government first takes similar action. She declined, and the committee held her bill. The Public Safety Committee hearing for Ashbys bill occurred on July 2, right before a policy committee deadline and the Legislatures month-long recess. Neither McCarty nor anyone on the committee explained why they wanted the changes. The staff analysis for SB 1502 recommended them because California generally aligns its drug schedule with that of the U.S. Controlled Substances Act. Xylazine remains unscheduled at the federal level, although lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and House are pushing legislation to make it a controlled substance. The future of SB 1502 remains unclear. The committee also required Assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains, D-Delano, to accept the same changes on a similar bill in April. But, Ashby said, Bains bill also does other things. SB 1502 is focused almost solely on xylazine scheduling. McCarty in his statement noted the committee had advanced Bains measure with the changes to align with the Federal Controlled Substances Act. Newsom called for a bill on xylazine in November. Ahead of the press conference, Newsom spokeswoman Tara Gallegos said the legislation is too important to be held up. We will work with the Legislature to ensure this measure moves forward, she said in a statement. Ashby said shes not sure what will happen with her bill in the future, but she found the changes McCarty requested perplexing. The people of California care about doing something about the drug crisis in front of us, she said. I feel like theyve been pretty fervent in their expectation that we do everything that we can to address these things that are going on with fentanyl. And tranq is a big piece of it. YAOUNDE, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Cameroon's National Assembly, or the Lower House of parliament, on Tuesday approved a bill extending the mandate for its current lawmakers for a year from its expiry date of March 10, 2025 to to March 30, 2026. While presiding over a plenary session to approve the bill, House Speaker Cavaye Yeguie Djibril said that the extension was imperative to "decongest" the electoral calendar next year which will see presidential, parliamentary, municipal and regional council elections in the Central African country. Last week, the government said that the extension will "spread the elections over the years 2025 and 2026, so as to ensure better organization." George Clooney is asking Biden to drop out. Who else has asked the president to step aside? President Joe Biden shakes hands with actor, director and producer George Clooney during the Kennedy Center honorees reception at the White House in Washington, Dec. 4, 2022. Movie star and lifelong Democrat George Clooney is adding his voice to calls for Joe Biden to leave the presidential race. Clooney says in a New York Times opinion piece Wednesday that he loves Biden, but the party would lose the presidential race as well as any control in Congress with him as the nominee. | Manuel Balce Ceneta Actor George Clooney, a lifelong Democrat, said its time for President Joe Biden to withdraw his reelection bid. His stance sent shockwaves through Democratic circles. Especially since the Hollywood actor hosted a fundraiser for President Bidens reelection campaign in Los Angeles last month. In an opinion piece published in The New York Times on Wednesday, Clooney said the Biden he witnessed three weeks ago isnt the same man who served as vice president to former President Barack Obama a decade and a half ago. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate, the Oceans Eleven actor wrote. Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didnt see what we just saw. Were all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that weve opted to ignore every warning sign. He said Democrats are collectively turning their heads the other way every time Biden walks off Air Force One or struggles to answer unscripted questions. This is about age. Nothing more, he said, adding the worst-case scenario making recent headlines isnt accurate. In all likelihood, the money in the Biden-Harris coffers could go to help elect the presidential ticket and other Democrats. The new nominee wouldnt be left off ballots in Ohio. We Democrats have a very exciting bench, he listed out as retorts to concerns over replacing Biden. Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would, Clooney said. Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024. Who is asking President Joe Biden to not run in 2024? Clooney isnt alone in his concerns over Bidens age or request for a different Democratic nominee. The president insisted he isnt dropping out of the presidential race, and that only Lord Almighty could convince him to withdraw. On Wednesday morning, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., fell short of asking Biden to stand aside, but warned of the ticking clock. Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short, Pelosi said in an interview on MSNBC. But at least eight Democratic representatives have called for Biden to withdraw from the race. The latest comments came from New York Rep. Pat Ryan, who said the president needs to do whats right for the good of the country. I really hope, with all my heart, that he will listen. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, in a Tuesday appearance on CNN, said he doesnt believe Biden could win reelection. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House, he said, becoming the first senator to speak out. So for me, this isnt a question about polling. Its not a question about politics. Its a moral question about the future of our country. The White House, in the time since that disastrous debate, I think, has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election, the Colorado Democrat added. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., also shared Bennets worries about the unfavorable outcome of the 2024 election. Because it is an existential threat to this country if Donald Trump wins, he said. So I think that we have to reach a conclusion as soon as possible. But, Blumenthal added, Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee has my support. Dozens of other congressional lawmakers have reportedly shared their unease with Biden staying on the ticket but havent recanted their support publicly. Who is sticking with President Biden? Apart from a handful of Democrats demanding a change, a large majority of Democratic lawmakers are choosing to stick by Biden. Im with Joe, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said repeatedly. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina told reporters, Were riding with Biden. Democratic progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont also aligned with the current administration, according to NBC News. I spoke with the president extensively this weekend. He has made abundantly clear that he is in this race. He has made abundantly clear that he is not leaving the race. He is the nominee. I am making sure that I support him and making sure that we win in November, Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told reporters. She advised the Biden campaign to lean into economic policy that favors the working class. If we can expand on health care, if we can make sure that peoples rents and mortgages are affordable, if we can actually provide and chart out a future that is more leaning into the needs of working people, then I think we can chart a path to win, Ocasio-Cortez added. Sanders had a similar message for the president. Biden and Democrats can win this election if they address the needs of the working class, Sanders said in a statement. The American people want change. It will either be the change of Trumps reactionary and xenophobic policies or change that benefits working families. George Clooney made his comments in an article in the New York Times - Evan Agostini/Invision/AP File George Clooney called on Joe Biden to end his election campaign as the US president welcomed world leaders to a Nato summit in Washington DC on Wednesday. The Hollywood star, who is a major Democratic donor and described himself as a friend of the president, said Mr Biden was no longer the same man voters saw in 2010, nor the candidate who stood for office in 2020. Calling for the Democratic Party to figure it out at its national convention next month, he added: We are not going to win in November with this president. The 81-year-old president is facing growing pressure from figures in his own party to make way for a younger nominee before Novembers presidential election, following his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump on June 27. At least eight House Democrats have openly called on Mr Biden to not seek re-election, but Peter Welch became the first in the Senate to explicitly do so on Wednesday. For the good of the country, Im calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race, the Vermont senator said in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. George Clooney hosted a fundraiser for Joe Biden in Los Angeles in June that helped raise about $30 million Clooney and Mr Welchs remarks came as Mr Biden welcomed world leaders to Washington for the annual Nato summit, and met Sir Keir Starmer for the first time. Both leaders will deliver press conferences on Thursday, with the spotlight particularly focused on Mr Biden after his recent string of gaffes. Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker and Democratic grandee, said on Wednesday that she would support whatever decision Mr Biden makes on his campaign, ignoring his public insistence that he will fight on. Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run, she said. Were all encouraging him to make that decision. Mr Biden appeared to have silenced doubters within his own party this week with a forceful letter to his colleagues and an interview with ABC in which he said only the Lord Almighty could convince him to stand down. Clooney meets Mr Biden in the White House in 2009 - NEWSCOM/ALAMY But when Clooney became the latest high-profile Democrat to use his platform to urge Mr Biden to reconsider his campaign, it added to concerns about his health on Capitol Hill. The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time, Clooney said in an article for The New York Times. None of us can. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at [a] fund-raiser was not the Joe big fing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. In 2010, Mr Biden was caught on a hot microphone telling Barack Obama that his landmark health legislation was a big fing deal. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, met congressmen on Wednesday and said he would pass their concerns to the president. Terrifying threat of a Trump presidency Some Democrats are worried that Mr Biden will not only lose the presidency, but make Democrats in congressional races more unpopular. They have said that the presidency and both branches of Congress could fall to Trump, making it more difficult for Democrats to oppose his policies. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat representative in New York, said that Democrats needed to consider the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate. Blindness is not bliss, he said, amid the terrifying threat of a Trump presidency. Mr Bidens presence on the ballot could turn New York, a previous safe haven for Democrats, into a battleground state, data shows. An analysis by Cook Political Report, an election forecaster, suggested Mr Biden is likely to lose in the swing states of Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. Mr Pelosi, 84, said the critics should wait until after the Nato summit before making any decisions about going public with demands for him to stand down. So far, seven Democrats have issued public statements, with more speaking to journalists about their concerns behind the scenes. Mr Clooney said that every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private believed the Biden campaign was headed for disaster. There is no mechanism for Mr Biden to be deposed by his party, and any change in nomination would be made under a process designed by him. Sir Keir flew into the Nato summit on Tuesday night after being sworn in as an MP in Parliament and met Mr Biden in the White House on Wednesday. Joe Biden meets with Sir Keir Starmer - AP Asked what he wanted to get out of the meeting, he said he hoped to build on a very special relationship we have between the UK and the US. We make a unique contribution in Europe to Nato and therefore its a very good opportunity for me to talk to the President about how we take forward the important work at this summit, he said. He also suggested that Mr Biden was not too old for the job, arguing that his own governments pledge to force peers to retire at 80 was not a reflection on the capabilities of any leader. Weve got 800-plus members of the House of Lords, its simply too big. We need to reduce it, he said. So it doesnt reflect on how other elected representatives are chosen in other countries, its to do with the size of the House of Lords. Mr Bidens Nato press conference on Thursday will be closely watched by critics for gaffes that will spur on their attempts to remove him. His first event of the summit on Tuesday night appeared to pass without a hitch, and supporters hope that the scripted appearance will enable him to avoid any public mistakes. Concerns about his age come as Nato members discussed whether Ukraine should be allowed to use long-range missiles to strike military targets inside Russia. Sir Keir said the UK government would continue to allow its weapons to be used by Kyiv in cross-border attacks, but stopped short of confirming whether that included Britains air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles. He said the weapons would obviously be used in accordance with international humanitarian law. The chief of defence staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, had previously said the weapon could only be used inside Crimea and mainland Ukraine. Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, separately said that missile-equipped F-16 fighter jets would be delivered to Ukraine imminently, and would be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer. Ruben Brekelmans, the Dutch defence minister, said the discussions were focused on whether Kyiv can use long-range missiles to strike Russian aircraft before they mount attacks on Ukrainian territory. He told The Telegraph the discussions were about the range that those munitions can be used in Russia. Nato members will on Thursday release a communique setting out their joint approach to Ukraine for the next year. The US and Germany have successfully blocked an attempt by some Eastern European countries to set out a timeline for Ukraine joining the alliance, amid concerns that could draw the West into direct conflict with Russia. Instead, members will offer more military hardware and a well-lit bridge to membership that gives more detail on the criteria for membership than at last years summit in Lithuania. In a nod to the ongoing conflict, Russia served chicken kievs at a dinner to celebrate assuming the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council on July 1. The menu used the Russian spelling of Kyivs name, which is also commonly used for the dish. Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, said: The moral decay of Russian diplomacy is glaring. George Clooney Calls On Biden To Drop Out: 'We Are Not Going To Win In November' Actor George Clooney, a stalwart Democratic fundraiser who most recently helped raise a whopping $30 million for President Joe Biden, is now calling on him to end his campaign for reelection due to his advancing age. Clooney went out of his way to stress his feelings about the president in his opinion piece for The New York Times, which was titled, I Love Joe Biden. But We Need A New Nominee. I love Joe Biden, Clooney wrote. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. But Biden, like everyone, cannot roll back the clock, Clooney said. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate, Clooney wrote. Bidens poor performance at last months debate with former President Donald Trump still has Democrats scrambling two weeks afterward as party leadership considers whether to support an alternative candidate. Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didnt see what we just saw, Clooney went on. Bidens team had said that a cold had made the presidents voice shallow and raspy at the debate. Democrats, the actor said, are in a white-knuckle position every time the president who we respect is positioned in front of a camera or microphone, afraid of another bad slip-up. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate, Clooney said. This isnt only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly. Clooney argued that it was disingenuous to say the matter of Bidens nomination is settled when we just received new and upsetting information, and that a new candidate would in all likelihood be able to make use of the Biden campaigns millions in funds. Clooney encouraged Democrats like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Gov. Gavin Newsom to throw their hats into the ring and partake in debates where they agree not to attack one another. Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would, the actor said. The director Rob Reiner, known for The Princess Bride and A Few Good Men, responded to the piece by saying his friend has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying. My friend George Clooney has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying. We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside. Rob Reiner (@robreiner) July 10, 2024 Read the full piece at The New York Times. Related... Longtime Democrat and Oscar-winning actor George Clooney called on President Joe Biden to end his reelection bid and allow the Democratic Party to begin the process of selecting a new nominee for Novembers ticket. In an op-ed penned for The New York Times, Clooney wrote that while he loves President Biden as a person and politician, the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. We are not going to win in November with this president, he wrote. On top of that, we wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate. This isnt only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly. The actor added that while the process of selecting a new nominee might be messy it would enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out. Clooney added that through his own personal interactions with the president, its become clear to him that the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago [] was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. This is about age. Nothing more, Clooney wrote. Three weeks ago, Clooney hosted a large fundraiser in Los Angeles on Bidens behalf. While the event raised $30 million for the Biden-Harris campaign, many attendees left with the impression that Biden was in decline a reality that only became more stark on debate night. Earlier this week, Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter in the Obama-Biden administration and the host of Pod Save America, noted that the hosts of the podcast had raised concerns about Bidens performance following their attendance at the fundraiser. It was really bad, he relayed. His co-host Tommy Vietor, a former spokesperson for the Obama administration, added that the event was chilling, it was very, very, very unnerving. The hosts pointed out that recent incidents like the fundraiser and the debate had fundamentally changed the calculus of Bidens nomination, a sentiment that Clooney echoed in his piece for the Times. It is disingenuous, at best, to argue that Democrats have already spoken with their vote and therefore the nomination is settled and done, when we just received new and upsetting information, he wrote. Clooney is not the only prominent Hollywood Democrat to call on Biden to step down from his campaign. Actor and director Rob Reiner wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Its time to stop fucking around/ If the Convicted Felon wins, we lose our Democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served US with honor, decency, and dignity. Its time for Joe Biden to step down, Its time to stop fucking around. If the Convicted Felon wins, we lose our Democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served US with honor, decency, and dignity. Its time for Joe Biden to step down. Rob Reiner (@robreiner) July 7, 2024 Earlier this week, author and longtime Democrat Stephen King wrote on X that Joe Biden has been a fine president, but its time for himin the interests of the America he so clearly lovesto announce he will not run for re-election. Joe Biden has been a fine president, but its time for himin the interests of the America he so clearly lovesto announce he will not run for re-election. Stephen King (@StephenKing) July 8, 2024 Oscar-winning film director Michael Moore accused those advising the president to stay in the race of elder abuse, during Mondays episode of his Rumble podcast. He was in epic distress [during the debate], Moore said. Every cognitive default in his mind seemed to be shutting down. If this had been somebody that you truly cared about, loved, embraced, what would you have done? Would you have seriously even let him go out on that stage? Let him rest. Let him go home. He has done his job. Let him have his dignity, he added. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone George Clooney, who just weeks ago headlined a star-studded fundraiser that raked in $28m for president Joe Bidens re-election campaign, has penned an emotional op-ed telling his friend in no uncertain terms to take himself out of the 2024 presidential race. The actor, one of Bidens most high-profile supporters, said that he had witnessed first-hand a change in the 81-year-old, as he accused party leaders of essentially gaslighting the public by blaming the presidents abysmal debate performance against Donald Trump on the fact that he was suffering from a cold and was exhausted by his busy travel schedule. The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time, Clooney wrote. None of us can. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. The actors blunt assessment comes at a critical time for Biden, who faces calls from more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers to bow out before its too late. The editorial board of The New York Times has also urged Biden to step aside in two separate op-eds, saying he has continued to appear as a man in decline in the wake of the debate. On Wednesday morning, the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that Biden could still change his mind about his re-election bid, as she refused to say whether she personally felt that the president should press on with his campaign. Its up to the president to [decide] if hes going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short, she insisted. Clooney, who is a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party, and whose wife, Amal, is a prominent human rights lawyer, spoke of his love for Biden as a senator, vice-president and president, praising the many battles the White House incumbent has won since taking office in January 2021. Joe Biden, then vice-president, meets George Clooney at the White House in 2009 (The White House) But he suggested that Bidens halting, often confused, and generally low-energy appearance on an Atlanta debate stage opposite Trump was consistent with what he had observed when he hosted the president at the record-breaking fundraising event last month. It was reported in June that Clooneys attendance at that Los Angeles fundraiser had been thrown into doubt after the actor directly called a top Biden aide to complain about the administrations rebuke over the issuing of an international arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a case that his wife had backed. But the actor and the president have enjoyed a long and warm relationship, with Biden praising Clooney in 2022 for his deep empathy. In his op-ed, Clooney said Democratic Party leaders needed to stop telling us that 51 million people didnt see what we just saw after the 27 June debate. Were all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that weve opted to ignore every warning sign, he said. Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate, he continued, adding later that his opinion was shared by every senator and congress member and governor he had spoken to privately since the debate. The actor and activist also compared the behaviour of Democrats to the way in which Republicans have ceded their party to Trump a single person who seeks to hold on to the presidency and chided members of Congress for opting to wait and see if the dam breaks rather than speaking up. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth, he said. UPDATED, with additional details and react from other co-host: George Clooney, fresh off co-hosting a star-filled fundraiser for Joe Biden last month, is calling on Democrats to pick a new nominee and for the president to be a hero in stepping aside. Clooney cited concerns over Bidens age, and said that the presidents appearance at the fundraiser, in which he did a sit down with Barack Obama and Jimmy Kimmel, was similar to how he was at the debate with Donald Trump. More from Deadline Clooney wrote in The New York Times, I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, hes won many of the battles hes faced. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. Clooney is one of the most influential celebrity supporters of Democrats, and the Biden campaign used his appearance at the event to raise millions in small-dollar donations, holding a contest in which the winner could meet the actor and Julia Roberts. All told, the event raised more than $30 million for the campaign. In the Times op ed, Clooney also wrote that he was unpersuaded by Bidens answers to George Stephanopoulos as to why he had such a poor debate performance with Trump. Clooney wrote, Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didnt see what we just saw. Were all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that weve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question. Clooney also wrote that Bidens presence in the race threatened down-ballot candidates, suggesting that many Democratic lawmakers harbor big doubts about his candidacy in private. Clooney wrote, This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate. This isnt only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly. Clooney is the latest Hollywood figure to call on Biden to exit the race. Rob Reiner and Stephen King did so earlier this week, despite past vocal support. Reed Hastings and Ari Emanuel have done so as well. Last week, Damon Lindelof published an essay in Deadline calling on donors to stop giving until the situation is addressed. Clooneys op ed did not call on Hollywood to withhold donations, but it is potentially more demaging in that affirmed the notion that Biden is not up to the task of challenging Trump. One Hollywood activist said that it likely slows Hollywood giving to the campaign. It also may send a message to potential Biden campaign celebrity surrogates, who now may be more reluctant to get on the trail for the presidents re-election bid. Clooney also called on top Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi, to ask Biden to voluntarily step aside. In an appearance on Morning Joe today, Pelosi suggested that Biden reconsider his past insistence that he was staying in the race. But some Hollywood activists, in regular touch with Democratic lawmakers, have been dismayed that what elected officials say in private about the Biden situation differs from what they say publicly in support of the president. Cowardice, says one top industry activist. Clooney did not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris to take Bidens place, but called for a process in which candidates step forward to offer themselves as the nominee. Clooney wrote, Lets hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others. Lets agree that the candidates not attack one another but, in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar. Then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out. Clooneys comments about Bidens appearance at the fundraiser held at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles echo those of a number of members of the media who were let in the room for a portion of the event. Biden appeared tired, having traveled from Europe, but some news outlets keyed in on a moment afterward in which is appeared that Obama was leading the president off the stage. The White House and the Biden campaign challenged that interpretation of the moment, instead describing it as an instance of the camaraderie between two friends. The Biden campaign did not have an immediate comment, but a source has been telling The New York Times and other outlets, The President stayed for over three hours, while Clooney took a photo quickly and left. Another prominent industry donor, James Costos, who hosted the president for his first Los Angeles reelection fundraiser in December, countered Clooneys account of the June fundraiser. Costos, who also was one of the co-hosts at the June event, noted that the fundraiser was the most raised for any Democratic event in history. He said that there were many donors and supporters who attended with me, in fact for many hours with the President, and if he was tired, who can blame a guy that traveled a long time from Europe to LA in a day to be with us. In the statement, Costos added that as a response to others opinions that came out of the event and the op-edall I have to say is that I was proud to be there and Im proud to be with the President now, Im firmly committed to supporting and respecting President Biden and the Biden-Harris ticket. Biden himself has dismissed calls for him to drop out as coming from Democratic party elites, pundits and the press. In a call in to Morning Joe earlier this week, the president said, The bottom line is, were not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere. I wouldnt be running if I didnt absolutely believe I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2024. We had a Democratic nominating process where the voters spoke clearly. Reiner, also a stalwart Democratic donor and fundraiser, highlighted Clooneys op ed. Reiner wrote on X/Twitter, My friend George Clooney has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying. We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside. David Axelrod, the Democratic strategist and CNN commentator, said on the network this afternoon that Clooneys op ed was devastating. The Democratic Hollywood activist said that Clooneys op ed likely gives cover to other prominent industry figures, and even Democratic lawmakers, to call for Biden to drop out. On Capitol Hill today, reporters peppered elected officials about the Clooney op ed, creating a new sense of uncertainty after a day in which it looked like Democratic lawmakers were falling in line behind Biden. While Clooney endorsed Bidens 2020 race and Hillary Clintons 2016 bid, he was particularly close to Barack Obama during his campaigns and his presidency. Biden has also tried to assure donors, speaking on a call earlier this week with the campaigns national finance committee that included Jeffrey Katzenberg, who as campaign co-chair has been among the leaders in the presidents fundraising efforts, traveling to Atlanta for the debate and with Biden for a post-debate fund-raising swing. He has said little publicly since the debate. The campaigns efforts to address donor concerns appear to have done little to temper anxieties in Hollywood, given Clooneys suggestion that he and other Biden supporters, in their drive to defeat Trump, ignored warning signs about the presidents age. Kate Bedingfield, a CNN commentator and former White House communications director under Biden, called on the campaign to show how it can win, given the battle over the public data is so overwhelmingly negative. If they have data that supports the path to victory that they see, they should put it out there now and help people who badly want to beat Trump rally around it. People want to see the path, she wrote on X/Twitter. Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. "The dam has broken," the actor writes in a New York Times op-ed urging the party to select a new nominee. George Clooney and Joe Biden at a fundraiser in Los Angeles last month. (Joe Biden via X) George Clooney is calling on President Biden to step aside in the 2024 race for the White House just weeks after co-hosting a splashy Democratic fundraiser for his reelection campaign. What did Clooney say, exactly? In an op-ed published by the New York Times on Wednesday, the Academy Award-winning actor said that he loves Biden and considers him a friend, but as much as it pains him to say it, the 81-year-old president has clearly diminished with age. The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time, Clooney writes. None of us can. The big picture Clooney, a lifelong Democrat and donor, has hosted numerous high-profile fundraisers for the party. In 2020, he donated more than $500,000 to Bidens campaign effort and co-hosted a virtual fundraiser for him that raised $7 million. On June 16, Clooney co-hosted a star-studded fundraiser for Biden with fellow actors Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand in Los Angeles which took in more than $30 million for his reelection campaign. At that event, Biden and former President Barack Obama were interviewed onstage by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. In his op-ed, Clooney said Biden has noticeably deteriorated. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe big F***ing deal Biden of 2010, Clooney wrote. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. Clooney said that after Bidens halting performance in last months debate, he no longer believes the president is capable of defeating former President Donald Trump in the fall. We are not going to win in November with this president, Clooney writes. On top of that, we wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate. This isnt only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly. The dam has broken, he added. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth. How did Biden respond? The president has yet to respond publicly to Clooney's op-ed. An unnamed senior Biden campaign official told CNN that Biden "won't be sitting front row at 'Oceans 14.'" Trump, for his part, took issue with Clooney for saying that Biden saved democracy by defeating him the in 2020 election. "Crooked Joe Biden didnt save our Democracy, he brought our Democracy to its knees," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform. "Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television. Movies never really worked for him!!!" Why does Clooneys opinion matter? President Biden, right, greets actor George Clooney during the Kennedy Center honoree reception in the White House in 2022. (Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Clooney has deep ties to Washington, D.C., and this administration. In December 2022, he visited the White House when he received the Kennedy Center honors. Last year, Biden appointed Clooney to the Presidents Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, which advises the president on cultural policy. In May, the Washington Post reported that Clooney called one of Bidens top aides to complain about the presidents criticism of the International Criminal Courts action against Israeli leaders a case his wife, Amal Clooney, an international human rights lawyer, worked on. What are other Hollywood donors saying? Clooney is not the first high-profile Hollywood donor to call on Biden to leave the race. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel have said that Biden should step aside as the nominee. Billionaire IAC chairman Barry Diller, who donated $100,000 to the president and the Democratic Partys joint 2024 super PAC, said this week he wouldn't donate to Biden anymore and is no longer supporting him. In the op-ed, Clooney dismissed concerns that if Democrats chose a new nominee that the cash raised by the Biden-Harris campaign would go to waste. All of the scary stories that were being told about what would happen next are simply not true, he writes. In all likelihood, the money in the Biden-Harris coffers could go to help elect the presidential ticket and other Democrats. What does Clooney want to see happen? George Clooney meets with then-Vice President Joe Biden at the White House to discuss the U.S. policy in Sudan in 2009. (Sharon Farmer/White House/ZUMA Press) Clooney argued that the party should pick a new nominee at its convention next month and said hed like to hear from Vice President Kamala Harris and Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California and Andy Beshear of Kentucky. We Democrats have a very exciting bench, Clooney writes. We dont anoint leaders or fall sway to a cult of personality; we vote for a president. George Clooney is calling for President Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August. (Richard Shotwell / Invision / Associated Press) Even George Clooney a prominent donor and major fundraiser for President Biden's reelection campaign appears to have lost faith in the president's ability to win the 2024 election. The two-time Oscar winner, lifelong Democrat and high-profile campaign donor has formally asked the 81-year-old commander in chief to step aside so that the party can nominate a new candidate to take on former President Trump on the November ballot. Why? Because of Biden's "fight against time," which Clooney characterized as the only battle that POTUS cannot win. Read more: Biden, Obama raise more than $30 million at glitzy L.A. event "None of us can," Clooney wrote Wednesday in an opinion piece for the New York Times titled "I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee." "Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F deal' Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate." Democrats took in $30 million at that downtown L.A. fundraiser, setting a record for money generated by the party in a single night. In addition to Clooney, Julia Roberts and former President Obama headlined the event and Jimmy Kimmel moderated a conversation between Obama and Biden. Clooney wrote that Biden was a "hero" who had "saved democracy" in 2020 and called upon him to "do it again in 2024." But, citing Biden's poor performance during CNN's debate last month, he joined a growing number of Hollywood backers, including those who previously wrote large checks to the campaign, feeling skittish about Biden's prospects despite the president's resolve to remain in the race. Some of those going public with their angst about Biden include "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, media titan Barry Diller, Disney heir Abigail Disney and Endeavor Chief Executive Ari Emanuel, brother of Rahm Emanuel, who is currently U.S. ambassador to Japan and formerly Obama's chief of staff. Filmmaker Rob Reiner wrote Wednesday on X (formerly Twitter) that "Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside." Read more: The Hollywood power players turning on the Biden campaign: 'Its about the ability to WIN' In his op-ed, Clooney wondered if Biden was tired or suffering from a cold during his head-to-head with Trump. But he mostly took issue with the next-day narrative being spun by his party, arguing that Biden's nomination was not yet a sure thing ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August. (The GOP convention starts Monday.) "[O]ur party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didnt see what we just saw. Were all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that weve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before," Clooney wrote. "As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question." Clooney said it's "fair" to point these things out: "This is about age. Nothing more." He predicted the Democrats are "not going to win in November with this president," nor would they win the House of Representatives or retain their majority in the Senate. He said this isn't just his opinion, but "the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly." "[T]he dam has broken. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth," the "Argo" and "Syriana" Academy Award winner wrote. "It is disingenuous, at best, to argue that Democrats have already spoken with their vote and therefore the nomination is settled and done, when we just received new and upsetting information. We all think Republicans should abandon their nominee now that hes been convicted of 34 felonies." Read more: As Biden flounders, why aren't more Democrats sold on Kamala Harris? As such, Clooney also criticized the presumptive Republican candidate and "the revenge tour that Donald Trump calls a presidential campaign" and called for the Democrats to seriously consider potential replacements. Who? Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear or Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, he suggests. "Lets agree that the candidates not attack one another but, in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar. Then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out." It would be "messy," he said, but "democracy is messy" and a fresh contest would "enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out." Representatives for Clooney said Wednesday that they had "nothing to add" and that the essay presented his thinking "in its entirety." Also on Wednesday morning, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) sent a rare public signal that suggested she is trying to nudge Biden to consider dropping out of the election, telling MSNBC that it's "up to the president to decide if he is going to run" and that "were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. She later tried to walk back those comments in an interview on CBS. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. From George Clooney to eighth House lawmaker, more voices unite in urging Biden to end candidacy President Joe Biden is resisting calls for him to withdraw from the presidential race and says he will continue running against former President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, longtime Democratic Party supporter and actor George Clooney urged the president to end his presidential campaign. File Photo by Ting Shen/UPI July 10 (UPI) -- Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., and actor George Clooney on Wednesday joined a growing number of Democrats and Democratic Party supporters urging President Joe Biden to end his re-election campaign. Several of Biden's campaign advisers also have scheduled a Thursday meeting with Senate Democrats to discuss his presidential campaign and chances of winning re-election. Ryan is the eighth Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives to urge Biden to withdraw his candidacy. He said he wants Biden to step down and make way for a "new generation of leaders," especially one who might be better able to defeat former President Donald Trump. Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee and is expected to secure the Republican nomination during the GOP's national convention in Milwaukee that runs from Monday through Thursday. Actor George Clooney poses with his wife, Amal, as they arrive for a gala evening at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 4, 2022. Clooney in an op-ed published Wednesday in the New York Times said he is a "lifelong Democrat" and "proud of what my party represents and what it stands for," but, he said, the Democratic Party can't win another term in the Oval Office with Biden as a candidate. File Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI "Trump is an existential threat to American democracy," Ryan said. "It is our duty to put forth the strongest candidate against him." He said Biden no longer is that candidate. Actor George Clooney in an op-ed published Wednesday in the New York Times said he is a "lifelong Democrat" and "proud of what my party represents and what it stands for." Clooney said the Democratic Party can't win another term in the Oval Office with Biden as a candidate and joined a growing chorus of voices urging him to resign. Despite his expressed love and support for Biden, Clooney urged the president to withdraw his candidacy for a second term in office just weeks after helping raise tens of millions of dollars for his re-election campaign. Clooney said in June that he, actress Julia Roberts and former President Barack Obama "co-hosted the single largest fundraiser supporting any Democratic candidate ever for President Biden's re-election." That event raised about $30 million for Biden's re-election campaign, but Clooney now wants a different presidential candidate on the Democratic Party ticket. "I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president," Clooney said. "I consider him a friend." Clooney said he believes in Biden's character and morals and said Biden has "won many of the battles he's faced" over the past four years. "The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time," Clooney said. Clooney said the Biden the nation witnessed during the June 27 presidential debate with Trump wasn't the same Biden he knew in 2010, 2020 or during the fundraiser that he co-hosted three weeks ago. "We're all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we've opted to ignore every warning sign," Clooney said. "Our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51million people didn't see what we just saw," Clooney said of Biden's performance during the June debate. "The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before." He said Democrats "collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president ... walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question." He said the problem is Biden's age and its effect on his mental acuity, which can't be reversed. "We are not going to win in November with this president," Clooney said. "On top of that, we won't win the House, and we're going to lose the Senate." He said every senator, representative and governor with whom he's spoken in private agrees Biden's candidacy will lose the presidency, House and Senate to the Republican Party during the Nov. 5 election. Clooney wants Biden to withdraw his candidacy and allow the Democratic Party to nominate a different candidate during its national convention in Chicago that starts on Aug. 19. Biden, though, said he won't withdraw, especially after dominating the recent Democratic Party state primaries and securing 3,896 delegates when only 1,968 are needed to secure the party's nomination. Biden said the people have spoken and want him to run for re-election. He called his debate performance one bad night among 3.5 years of political success as a president and a lifetime as a Democratic lawmaker. Despite his apparent intent to stay in the race, the traditional Democratic Party stronghold of New York has become a swing state that Trump might win. During the past four months, Biden's polling lead in New York has slipped from eight points to a virtual tie, Politico reported Wednesday. The poll movement comes despite Trump's recent conviction in a Manhattan court on 34 felony counts related to a non-disclosure agreement with and payment to former porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. Biden hasn't campaigned in New York and apparently is counting on the state's voters to give him New York's 28 electoral votes. "We're still acting like this is a one-party state, which for pretty much 20, 25 years it has been," Mark Levine, the Democratic Manhattan Borough president, told Politico. "I truly believe we're a battleground state now," Levine said. YAOUNDE, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Cameroon has started a three-test HIV testing algorithm recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). "This algorithm requires that any new person found to be HIV-positive undergoes three reactive tests consecutively within health facilities and community organizations," Minister of Public Health Manaouda Malachie told a press conference Tuesday in the capital, Yaounde. The new method is an important step toward eliminating the pandemic by 2030, the minister said. The new HIV testing algorithm will first be carried out and evaluated in four regions, Center, South, Littoral and West, and then be extended to the entire country, according to the health ministry. Cameroon is resolute in its fight against HIV/AIDS, with about 500,000 people living with the disease, Manaouda said. According to the World Bank, Cameroon had a population of over 27.9 million in 2022. George Clooney says Biden not the man he was in 2020, should drop out By Lisa Richwine LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Actor George Clooney, a major Hollywood fundraiser for Democrats, said on Wednesday that President Joe Biden is no longer the same person who won the White House in 2020 and said he should drop his bid for re-election. Clooney co-hosted a star-studded fundraiser for Biden in Los Angeles in June, about two weeks before the 81-year-old president struggled through a debate with Republican former President Donald Trump, his rival in the Nov. 5 election. "It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010," Clooney wrote in the New York Times. "He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate." "Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn't see what we just saw," Clooney added. A subsequent Biden interview with ABC journalist George Stephanopoulos "only reinforced what we saw the week before," Clooney said. Often described as an "ATM for Democrats," Hollywood has traditionally been a significant source of donations for the party. Clooney's event, hosted with actor Julia Roberts, raised more than $30 million in what the Biden campaign said was the largest Democratic fundraiser in history. After Biden's debate performance, several Hollywood donors called on the president to end his campaign. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, Disney heir Abigail Disney and filmmaker Rob Reiner are among those who have said Biden should step aside. Screenwriter Damon Lindelof proposed that his Hollywood colleagues stop writing checks to Democrats until Biden withdraws. In Washington, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime Biden ally, said on Wednesday the president must decide quickly if he will stay in the race. Clooney, who described himself as a lifelong Democrat, wrote: "We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate." "This isnt only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private," Clooney wrote. "Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly." Asked to respond, Biden's campaign referred to a letter the president sent Democrats in Congress that said he was "firmly committed" to his candidacy and beating Trump. Biden has said he had a "bad night" at the debate and vowed to stay in the race. Clooney said leading Democrats and candidates who risk losing in November should ask Biden to drop his campaign. The actor suggested that the party decide on a new nominee at its August convention and offered the names of several possible contenders including Vice President Kamala Harris and several state governors. "Lets hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others," Clooney said. He also expressed admiration for Biden and said he considered him a friend. "I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, hes won many of the battles hes faced," Clooney said. "But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time." (Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Heather Timmons and Howard Goller) George Clooney says Democrats need a new nominee just weeks after he headlined a major fundraiser for Biden The actor George Clooney, who had been among President Joe Bidens biggest supporters and donors in Hollywood, called on Biden to bow out of the presidential race on Wednesday, just weeks after he headlined a major fundraiser for his reelection campaign. I love Joe Biden, Clooney wrote in a New York Times opinion piece. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. But, Clooney added, the Biden he saw during the June 15 fundraiser, which also included former President Barack Obama, was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate, Clooney added, referencing Bidens faltering and disastrous performance at the June 27 presidential debate on CNN. That statement was a stunning assessment of Bidens current state from someone who has interacted with the president privately that the way the president presented himself during that debate, which the White House and Biden campaign have alternatively blamed on a cold and a tiring travel schedule, was not an aberration. Clooney is not just a movie star and a prominent donor: Hes someone who has spent time with Biden over the years and has always been a big fan. This goes all the way back to Bidens early days as vice president, when Clooney came by the White House and dropped in to Bidens then-office down the hall in the West Wing from the Oval Office and ended up having an extended visit talking about helping Darfur. Clooney is friendly with Obama too, but he and Biden have stayed in touch over the years, and the strength of that relationship held even when Biden criticized the International Criminal Courts May decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a result of his actions in Gaza which Clooneys wife, international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, had been a key part of crafting. Clooney called a top White House adviser to complain, but he did not pull back on his support then, or on his participation in the June fundraiser. Biden forcefully criticized the ICCs efforts because of the implication of an equivalence between Israel and Hamas. Clooney is also seen by many Democratic backers in Hollywood as a sort of compass given his engagement and activism. His standing with Biden until now helped rally wider donor and celebrity support, even among some who had never been big Biden fans and were not enthused about backing him long before the debate. Asked for comment Wednesday, Bidens campaign pointed toward the letter the president wrote to members of Congress on Monday indicating he would remain in the race. Clooneys opinion piece represents the biggest defection against Biden in Hollywood, which the party has long relied on for big-named support and money. It comes as a handful of Democrats in Congress have also publicly demanded Biden step aside due to persistent concerns about his age and mental acuity. The fundraiser that Clooney headlined raised $28 million for Bidens reelection campaign, the most for the Democratic Party from a single event in history. A source familiar with the event says that part of the reason that the Los Angeles fundraiser took place on June 15 immediately after Bidens travel to the G7 summit in Italy was because that was the one date Clooney said would work for him. Biden has cited his intense travel ahead of last months debate as one reason for his poor performance. In the opinion piece, Clooney called on key Democrats naming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to ask Biden to voluntarily step aside. We are not going to win in November with this president, Clooney warned, adding that the lawmakers he has spoken with privately shared this view. He said the country deserves to hear from other politicians who are seen as potential replacements for Biden on the ticket, including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Vice President Kamala Harris, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Saying the dam has broken, Clooney wrote we can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth. Many anxious Democrats who have been holding their breath and waiting to see what happens to Bidens reelection campaign have been stunned by the past 24 hours. One widely shared view had been that everything was likely to come to a head after this weeks NATO conference that the US is hosting just blocks away from the White House. Instead, devastating headlines have come out in rapid succession as Biden has been juggling various engagements on the global stage. This seems to be moving more rapidly than I thought, one senior Democrat said. Clooneys opinion piece comes amid the most crucial week of Bidens reelection campaign, as cracks in the coalition of Democratic support behind Biden continued to grow. At least ten members of Congress from his own party have publicly asked Biden to step down from the ticket. On Wednesday, CNN reported organizers for at least one Chicago fundraiser scheduled during the Democratic National Convention have decided to not to proceed with the mid-August event, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions. Organizers paused conversations on planning the fundraiser until after the July 4 holiday to allow the dust to settle. This week, the host committee decided not to proceed with the event, citing a disagreement over how to proceed given the continued erosion of support for Bidens candidacy. The event, designed as a lunch for a few dozen wealthy Windy City denizens, is just one of many events planned in conjunction with the partys convention, when the campaign was expecting to tap into high-dollar supporters enthusiasm and wallets for the home stretch of the race. A spokesperson for the Biden campaign told CNN the event was not affiliated with their official fundraising schedule. Clooney isnt the only prominent Hollywood Democrat who has asked Biden to step down. Rob Reiner, a Biden surrogate who attended a fundraiser alongside Harris after the debate, also called for the president to step aside. My friend George Clooney has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying. We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside, Reiner said in a post to social media platform X Wednesday in which he linked to Clooneys op-ed. Reiner began his calls on Biden to step down earlier this week. Its time to stop (expletive) around. If the Convicted Felon wins, we lose our Democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served US with honor, decency, and dignity. Its time for Joe Biden to step down, he wrote Sunday. Actor Michael Douglas said Wednesday that Clooney made a valid point. Douglas and his wife, Catherine Zeta Jones, hosted a fundraiser for Biden in New York in April. I mean, Im, Im deeply, deeply concerned. I mean, especially is difficult because the Democrats have a big bench. I mean, a lot of heavy hitters, he said on ABCs The View when asked about Clooneys opinion piece. Biden is participating in high-stakes meetings with NATO allies on Wednesday and will hold a solo news conference his first since the debate on Thursday. This story has been updated with additional information. CNNs MJ Lee, Jamie Gangel, Kayla Tausche, Arlette Saenz, Betsy Klein and Isaac Dovere contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com George Clooney directly told his friend Joe Biden to end his re-election campaign Wednesday in a New York Times op-ed headlined, I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee. Clooney became the highest-profile name of any kind to demand Biden, 81, drop out, saying that he had seen close up the presidents decline just three weeks ago when he co-hosted a glittering Hollywood fundraiser. The Hollywood star and powerful Democratic benefactor, who said Biden was his first choice in 2016 and who excused the presidents slipping poll numbers in 2021, comparing Biden to a battered child, pulled no punches on Wednesday. We are not going to win in November with this president, he declared. Moments later, fellow Tinseltown royalty Michael Douglas, who is a long-time Biden supporter and knows a thing or two about playing The American President, agreed with Clooney. Well, I think its a valid point, he said during a Wednesday appearance on The View. I mean, Im deeply, deeply concerned. I mean, especially, its difficult because the Democrats have a big bench. I mean, theyve got a lot of heavy-hitters. Clooney pleaded with the Democratic party leaders to stop telling us that 51 million people didnt see what we just saw in Bidens disastrous debate performance against Trump. At the glitzy fundraiser weeks before, Biden was just as bad, Clooney continued. He was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020, he wrote. President Joe Biden greets George Clooney during a reception for Kennedy Center honorees at the White House in December, 2022. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Pod Save America co-host Jon Favreau, who was also in attendance, recently agreed, describing Biden as debate-style bad. We all walked out of that fundraiser here in L.A. and were talking to each other and to people around us who were, you know, in politics and were like, that was chilling. It was very, very, very unnerving, Favreaus co-host Tommy Vietor, who was also at the fundraiser, added. Clooney wrote that every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private concurred with him that Biden was a liability not only for the presidency. We wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate, if he stays at the top of the ticket, he added. Most of our members of Congress are opting to wait and see if the dam breaks. But the dam has broken. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth, Clooney wrote, specifically urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Nancy Pelosi to call on Biden to step aside. Ive Seen Joe Biden Up Close. Nobody Can Deny His Decline. Clooney also floated Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Vice President Kamala Harris as strong alternates who should be stepping forward to stand and tell us why theyre best qualified to lead this country. Then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out, Clooney suggested. Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would. Clooney closed the letter with praise for the president: Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024. 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. Longtime Democrat George Clooney is urging President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. Just a month after co-hosting a fund-raiser for President Biden, Clooney penned a lengthy op-ed published in The New York Times on Wednesday morning explaining why he believes it is time for Biden to withdraw from the race. I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, hes won many of the battles hes faced, Clooney wrote. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. Many Americans and some senior House Democrats have called for Biden to step aside because of the presidents poor performance during last months debate against former President Donald Trump. Clooney, who has long been a fund-raiser for the party, is now joining the call. Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didnt see what we just saw. Were all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that weve opted to ignore every warning sign, he continued. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question. The Oceans 11 actor pointed out that this is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate, he said bluntly. This isnt only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly. ATLANTA, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES - JUNE 27: President of the United States Joe Biden and Former President Donald Trump participate in the first Presidential Debate at CNN Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, United States on June 27, 2024. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images) The dam has broken, Clooney expressed. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth. He said that its disingenuous to say that Democrats have already spoken with their vote and therefore the nomination is settled and done, when we just received new and upsetting information. Clooney is asking that top Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-C.A.), as well as other Senators and representatives and other candidates who face losing in November, need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside. He then slammed those scary stories that its simply too late to change course. In all likelihood, the money in the Biden-Harris coffers could go to help elect the presidential ticket and other Democrats. The new nominee wouldnt be left off ballots in Ohio, he reassured. We Democrats have a very exciting bench. We dont anoint leaders or fall sway to a cult of personality; we vote for a president. We can easily foresee a group of several strong Democrats stepping forward to stand and tell us why theyre best qualified to lead this country and take on some of the deeply concerning trends were seeing from the revenge tour that Donald Trump calls a presidential campaign. The Gravity star even offered more solutions. He thinks the party should hear from California Governor Gavin Newsom, Vice President Kamala Harris, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and more. Lets agree that the candidates not attack one another but, in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar. Then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out. While the process wont be pretty, Clooney reminded writers that democracy is messy and the move would enliven the party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out. The short ramp to Election Day would be a benefit for us, not a danger, he said. It would give us the chance to showcase the future without so much opposition research and negative campaigning that comes with these ridiculously long and expensive election seasons. This can be an exciting time for democracy, as weve just seen with the 200 or so French candidates who stepped aside and put their personal ambitions on hold to save their democracy from the far right. Clooney called Biden a hero as he he saved democracy in 2020 and we need him to do the same this year. With that being said, some key lawmakers are still standing behind Biden. The actors note comes just two days after Biden sent a rare letter directly to both House and Senate Democrats. In it, he made clear that he is not dropping out of this race under scoring division brewing within the party. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. George Stephanopoulos is apologizing after being caught on camera making a remark to a pedestrian about President Joe Biden running for another term in the White House. According to a video obtained by TMZ, the media personality for ABC News was asked by a passerby while walking in New York City, in workout clothes, on Tuesday, Do you think Biden should step down? Youve talked to him more than anybody else has lately. Stephanopoulos responded, I dont think he can serve four more years. More from The Hollywood Reporter After his comment made headlines, the Good Morning America co-host said in a statement obtained by NBC News, Earlier today I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldnt have. The Disney-owned news network also added in its own statement, George expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News. Stephanopoulos comment came days after he and ABC News scored the first, exclusive interview with the president following his disastrous debate performance with Donald Trump at the end of June. Throughout the 22-minute, unedited sit-down, which aired Friday, Stephanopoulos repeatedly hammered Biden with questions on his mental state and whether he is fit for another four years in the White House. The president insisted he just had a bad night in response to a question about the debate in Atlanta, adding, I was exhausted. I didnt listen to my instincts in terms of preparing. Since the debate, there have been many calls within Hollywood for Biden to step down as the Democratic presidential nominee, however, he has continuously said hes staying in the fight for reelection in November. Stephanopoulos is also a former White House communications adviser, working for former President Bill Clinton. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Joe Bidens presidential debate performance was a disaster. The visibly aging Democratic Party standard-bearer was incoherent from the outset, though he improved slightly, to mostly incoherent by the end. There was such an uproar that the president, swatting off gadflies in his own party, decided to do something he rarely does: a sit-down interview with the press. For the task, Biden chose George Stephanopoulos, the Clinton White House communications director turned hard-hitting ABC News anchor. Stephanopoulos was a fine choice for the joba trusted voice on a major network, a seasoned pro who has interviewed politicos for decades. And he performed admirably: He grilled Biden repeatedly on his age, his ability to serve an additional term in office, and the blaring calls for him to step aside and turn over the ticket to a younger candidate. The president, for his part, came off better than he had during the debate, but seeing as he didnt suddenly revert into the spritely Mr. Smith Goes to Washingtonesque character of his youth, he did little to assuage concerns from Washingtons growling political class. But Stephanopoulos mistake wasnt evident until later. Strolling down Fifth Avenue in formfitting workout clothes and over-ear headphones, the anchor responded to a pedestrians question: Do you think Biden should step down? Youve talked to him more than anybody else has lately. He responded, simply, I dont think he can serve four more years. After the celebrity gossip site TMZ published a grainy video of the encounter, Stephanopoulos said in a statement, Earlier today, I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldnt have. (Note that he didnt take back his words.) ABC News clarified: George expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News. Stephanopoulos erred neither in talking to a rando on the street nor in divulging his personal opinion. His ethical misstep was in concealing his up-close-and-personal evaluation of the president from ABCs viewers. Journalists all too often bow at the altar of objectivity, a false idol that demands they divorce the part of their brain that asks questions from the part that forms opinions based on those answers. Stephanopoulos engaged in the good work of demanding accountability from the worlds most powerful human being but stopped short of delivering what the populace and Democratic decisionmakers needed from him. According to New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal, even George Clooney, Bidens cognitive decline has been increasingly evident, a carefully guarded vulnerability at an inconvenient time: the run-up to an election against Donald Trump, arguably the foremost threat to American democracy, the man who tried to stay in power on Jan. 6, 2021, against the will of the voting public. There couldnt be a worse moment for Biden to lose a steplet alone two, or three, or 100. Stephanopoulos had the rare opportunity to interview the president. He should have been upfront about what he saw, how he felt, and what he believed. Those opinions colored the premise of the interview and his questioning. Theres no reason he couldnt be honest with viewers and say how he felt. If he can say it to someone on the street, he should say it to everyone. Georgia Election Board gives first OK to local certification rule. Opponents cry foul The Republican-controlled State Election Board voted Tuesday to move forward with a proposed rule that would give members of local election boards discretion in deciding whether to certify election results. The rule would give counties the authority to conduct a minimum level of oversight of election results before theyre certified, Salleigh Grubbs, who chairs the Cobb County Republican Party, told the five-member board before the 3-1 vote. There is a crisis of confidence in our elections, Grubbs said. The oversight of elections in each county is critical to restoring trust. But opponents argued that election officials in Georgia do not have discretion to vote against certification. Though the petition claims this rule will clarify ambiguity about an election officials duty to certify results, the Georgia Supreme Court has consistently interpreted that duty as a ministerial one rather than discretionary, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and the voting rights organization United to Protect Democracy wrote jointly in comments submitted to the board before Tuesdays meeting. Therefore, this language conflicts with longstanding Georgia case law and would sow disorder in the states election administration processes, which already have safeguards to ensure election results are accurate and reliable. Sara Tindall Ghazal, the lone Democrat on the board, said the proper time to address complaints of voter fraud is after an election has been certified. There are procedures for investigating after the fact, she said. Without certification, a candidate cannot contest an election. Board Chairman John Fervier proposed an alternative to the rule Grubbs presented that would have restricted the types of documents a local election board member could request to see before voting on certifying an election. Otherwise, he said, local boards could be inundated by limitless requests for documents that would unnecessarily drag out the process. But board member Dr. Janice Johnston, who made the motion to approve Grubbs proposal, opposed putting restrictions on the number of documents a board member could request. Every election document should be available to every member of the board, she said. Three of the four Republican board members supported the rule, with Ghazal voting in opposition and Fervier abstaining. The board is expected to conduct a final vote on the proposed rule next month. Georgia releases draft permits to send 6.6M gallons of water per day to Hyundai site Georgia environmental officials have released long-awaited draft permits for four wells expected to pump more than 6.6 million gallons of water per day to Hyundai Motor Companys electric-vehicle manufacturing site near Savannah. The move comes two weeks after local agreements were finalized to draw water from the Floridan Aquifer in Bulloch County and send it to Hyundais nearly 2,500-acre complex in Bryan County. The Georgia Environmental Protection Division said it will accept comments on the proposed permits until Aug. 20 and will host a public meeting, 6 to 9 p.m., Aug. 13 at Southeast Bulloch High School, 9184 Brooklet-Denmark Road, Brooklet, Georgia. Along with the drafts, EPD released a 15-page summary of public comments and responses related to proposed conditions to be included in the permits. Among those requirements, as expected, is the establishment of a fund to financially assist property owners within a five-mile radius of the Interstate 16-Georgia Route 119 interchange whose private wells are affected by the aquifers projected drop in depth of up to 19 feet. Bryan and Bulloch commissioners agreed last week to create the mitigation fund, with each county initially contributing $250,000. EPD added that the fund "may include contributions from other entities," but did not single any out. Some critics of the project have insisted that Hyundai should be aiding the effort. The permits also would require both counties to publish a list of state-licensed well drillers and pump installers qualified to investigate alleged significant impacts to existing wells. If an investigator finds that a significant impact to an existing water well was caused by the Floridan Aquifer drawdown from the permitted withdrawals, EPD says in the document, the fund ... shall be used to mitigate, in a timely manner, the specific issues of the affected party. Reaching a boil: Hyundai wells fuel water war between Bulloch County residents, leaders Wells within a cone of depression where the water is extracted from the aquifer could experience as much as a 15-foot decrease in water depth, EPD projected. That could affect whether well pumps are in water or dry air. The designated mitigation zone encompasses areas where wells are projected to drop at least 10 feet, EPD said in a response to public comments. Also as expected, the state is giving Bryan and Bulloch counties 25 years to tap new sources of water for the Hyundai site such as the Ogeechee or Savannah rivers or even an expensive desalination facility to treat saltwater. The Floridan aquifer groundwater withdrawals authorized by this permit must be reduced in equal quantity to the amount of alternate water capacity available upon completion and operation of the necessary infrastructure to deliver surface water or other non-Floridan aquifer alternative water to the (Hyundai site) and associated developments, the draft says. The quarter-century window reflects the complexity of establishing new water sources while withdrawals from the aquifer are tightly controlled because of saltwater intrusion in the Savannah area. But the counties will have little time to wait in planning for a transition from the aquifer. Within six months of EPDs approval of the permits and before the wells begin sending water to the Hyundai site, the counties are directed to submit a report that includes: Potential alternate sources of water to replace the 6.6 million gallons per day. An initial prioritization and delineation of these alternate resources in terms of ready deliverability. A projection of what areas will be served by the new water sources. Goals and milestones to be marked during the transition away from aquifer water. Potential funding for planning and developing the related infrastructure. No legal basis for denying In the comment-and-answer document, EPD also addressed suggestions that it should reject the new wells. There is no legal basis for denying these permit applications provided that certain conditions are included consistent with Georgia requirements, EPD said. The review process involves assessing whether the amount of withdrawal requested is reasonable, whether the source has the capacity to provide the requested amounts, whether there are impacts to the resources or other users, and what mitigation measures can be put in place to mitigate such impacts. Hyundais agreement with Georgia and the Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Development Authority stipulates that Bryan County will provide water and sewer service to the Hyundai site. But Bryan is prevented by the state from extracting more water from the Floridan Aquifer. Under its agreement, Bryan County will initially pay Bulloch County up to $3 million per year for water from the wells. John Deem covers climate change and the environment in coastal Georgia. He can be reached at 912-652-0213 or jdeem@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Georgia gives first look at water permits for Hyundai EV site ISLAMABAD, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Three Pakistani soldiers were killed in a clash with terrorists in the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the country's military said in a statement. The incident happened in the South Waziristan district of the province on Tuesday when the terrorists engaged the troops in a gun battle, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistani army said. A clearance operation is being carried out to eliminate any terrorists found in the area, the statement added. It was the second attack on the security forces in the province on Tuesday. In the earlier attack, a military officer was killed in a clash with terrorists in the neighboring North Waziristan district. For years, Germany has come under heavy fire for neglecting its defense spending a situation that dates to the end of the Cold War. This criticism is warranted, but Germany has taken some very significant steps since Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, building up its military capabilities and beefing up deterrence on NATOs eastern flank. Germany first announced a special fund of 100 billion (U.S. $108 billion) to provide its armed forces, the Bundeswehr, with additional procurement and training funding through 2027, along with a promise to maintain defense spending above the 2% minimum that NATO encourages its members to reach. Its the second-largest national contributor of military aid to Ukraine after the United States. Now Germany is establishing a permanent military presence in Lithuania, which is along NATOs eastern flank. In April, about two dozen German soldiers arrived in Lithuania, marking the first time since World War II that German forces will be based outside the country for a long-term basis. The deployment is expected to be at full strength by 2027, totaling 4,800 soldiers. Germany also plans by 2027 to order 105 Leopard 2 A8 tanks, some of which will be delivered to augment the German brigade in Lithuania, which will be designated as Panzerbrigade 45. This German base in Lithuania will resemble American overseas bases in Germany, with families being stationed alongside service members, and housing and amenities available on base. Additional NATO forces are especially necessary in Lithuania, which sits between Russian-allied Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Formed in 1945 from Germanys East Prussia, Kaliningrad was ceded to the Soviet Union as part of the Potsdam Agreement. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kaliningrad remained part of the Russian Federation, but now finds itself separated from the rest of Russia by the three Baltic states and by Belarus. Kaliningrad hosts Russias Baltic Fleet, along with thousands of Russian troops, fighter jets and nuclear-capable Iskander missiles. The small corridor between Lithuania and Belarus is known as the Suwalki Gap widely identified as the weakest point in NATO. If Russian forces were ever to attempt an attack on the three Baltic states, they could both link Belarus and Kaliningrad to cut off supplies from Poland to the Baltic states via an attack on the Suwalki Gap. This means that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are the NATO member states with the most pressing need for additional assets capable of deterring Russia. Estonia and Latvia deserve similar assurances. Both host rotational forces, but a permanent base from other NATO members in each would offer a far firmer and more permanent security guarantee from the rest of the alliance. The United States needs to focus its scarce resources on the Indo-Pacific region, where it faces the daunting challenge posed by China. The need for permanent basing in Estonia and Latvia approved and coordinated with the host nations, of course should be filled by European NATO members willing to step up and follow the example Germany has set in Lithuania. Americans should applaud, encourage and assist European NATO states in taking steps to increase their contributions to conventional deterrence in Europe, enabling as it does the pivot of U.S. resources to the Indo-Pacific. Wilson Beaver is a policy advisor for defense budgeting in The Heritage Foundations Allison Center for National Security. Elizabeth Lapporte is a member of the think tanks Young Leaders Program. A strike by German dockworkers is set to expand on Wednesday, ahead of a fourth round of negotiations between the unions and the port operators. Joining the workers already striking in the major northern ports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven will be colleagues in Wilhelmshaven, Bremen and Emden. Many dockworkers in Hamburg and Bremerhaven have been on a strike since early Tuesday. According to a spokeswoman, around 800 people took part in the industrial action in Bremerhaven. In Hamburg, the number of participants was unclear, but a union spokesman said there was a high level of participation. A rally and march is planned for 10 am (0800 GMT) in front of the headquarters of the Central Association of German Port Operators (ZDS) in Hamburg. Verdi is demanding an increase in hourly wages of 3 ($3.20) retroactively to June 1 and a corresponding increase in shift allowances. A further round of negotiations between verdi and ZDS is planned for July 11 and 12 in Bremen. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has sharply criticised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbans trips to Russia and China on his self-proclaimed "peace mission", stressing that they do not reflect the position of the EU. Source: Baerbock in an interview for CNN, as reported by European Pravda Details: Asked about her opinion of Orban's "peacemaking trips", Baerbock said: "Well, sometimes you wonder about the ego, especially of some men. Every country in the European Union knows that especially in the field of foreign policy and security, the responsibility doesnt lie with the presidency [of the EU Council ed.], which only lasts for six months, but with the High Representative of the European Union for foreign politics," Baerbock explained. Baerbock noted that during his trip to Moscow, Orban basically urged Ukraine to "stop defending itself". "Telling this to the victim of an aggression that is in total breach not only of the European Union peace order but also of the UN Charter," she added. Baerbock pointed out that in Beijing, Orban did not urge China to stop supporting Russias war of aggression against Ukraine. "It obviously makes it very clear that this is not the foreign policy of the European Union," Baerbock summed up. A number of European leaders have criticised Viktor Orbans "peacemaking" visit to Moscow, and Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, has stressed that Orban has no mandate to interact with Russia on behalf of the EU. Support UP or become our patron! Three hospitals in Germany are ready to receive Ukrainian children who were treated at the Okhmatdyt National Specialised Children's Hospital in Kyiv, which was hit by a Russian missile during a large-scale attack on 8 July. Source: European Pravda with reference to DW Details: The German Ministry of Health said that the university hospitals in Greifswald and Rostock, as well as the Charite clinic in Berlin, are ready to receive patients from Okhmatdyt. For security reasons, the Ministry's press service did not specify details about the flight with patients from Ukraine, which will depart for Germany on Wednesday, but indicated that it could take both Ukrainian military personnel and civilians. The German Ministry of Health noted that the evacuation is taking place within the framework of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM), and Ukraine decides for which patients to request assistance. "Minister [Karl] Lauterbach assured his [Ukrainian] counterpart yesterday that Germany would fulfil its commitment to accept the sick and wounded from Ukraine even in this difficult situation," the ministry said. Background: The day before, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said that the German side was ready to accept Ukrainian children for treatment after Russia's attack on the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital. As is known, Germany has been accepting Ukrainian patients for treatment since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. At the same time, Lithuania donated 1 million to rebuild the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv. Earlier, the deputy head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine said that the EU would help with the rebuilding of the Okhmatdyt. Support UP or become our patron! (Bloomberg) -- Germanys ruling coalition agreed on a proposal to strip critical Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. components from the nations 5G core mobile network by the end of 2026 for national security reasons. Most Read from Bloomberg Companies will then have until the end of 2029 to remove parts made by Huawei and ZTE from the 5G access and transport network, according to an accord announced Thursday by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. The agreement was reached after extending the deadline to implement the first phase by a year. Bloomberg previously reported that the Digital Ministry, run by Volker Wissing of the business-friendly Free Democrats, was against a stricter proposal by the Interior Ministry, controlled by Faeser, a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholzs Social Democrats. In this way, we are protecting the central nervous systems of Germany as a business location and we are protecting the communication of citizens, companies and the state, Faeser said in an emailed statement. Todays threat situation underlines the importance of a secure and resilient telecommunications infrastructure, especially in view of the dangers of sabotage and espionage, she added. Germanys security review of its 5G network lasted for more than a year, complicated by the conflicting policy priorities of the three parties in the governing alliance. Thats even as the US and European Union expressed increasing concern about potential risks posed by Chinese companies with close ties to the government in Beijing. The Interior Ministry said that Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone Group Plc and Telefonica Deutschland Holding AG had agreed to sign contracts compelling them to comply with the decision to remove Huawei and ZTE parts under the agreed timetable. Deutsche Telecom said in a statement the agreement was a good balance between German security interests and the need to expand the countrys digital infrastructure. Vodafone said the deal will be technically challenging but is feasible, while Telefonica praised it for providing a clear road map to modernize the network. Huawei said in a statement it is a reliable supplier and there is no evidence its technology poses a threat or plausible scenarios in which it would. ZTE did not immediately respond to requests for comment. What Bloomberg Intelligence Says.... The German states plan for a gradual removal of Chinese equipment from the countrys 5G networks, with a 2026 deadline for core and 2029 for radio access, may cap compliance costs for the German carriers with Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica most exposed, followed by Vodafone. The Chinese kit is mostly concentrated in radio access, making up about 50% of equipment, with a five-year phasing supporting replacement costs to be absorbed by routine upgrade capex. Erhan Gurses, BI Telecom Industry Analyst. Read the full note here. The US administration recently introduced new tariffs and revoked licenses for selling chips to Huawei as relations with China deteriorate. When asked about Germanys plan at a regular press briefing Thursday in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said theres never been evidence showing Chinese telecom companies harm the national security of European countries. We hope Germany will respect facts, decide on their policies in a rational manner, and make an independent decision that is in line with its interests and international rules, he added, speaking before the government in Berlin had confirmed the plan. Germany has been more hesitant to implement a ban on Chinese parts than some of its allies. The UK banned Huawei from next-generation 5G wireless networks in 2020 and limited its presence in fixed networks, citing supply-chain concerns after the US imposed sanctions on the company. Germany opted to allow components from Huawei when companies, including Deutsche Telekom, built 5G networks. However, Berlin has since taken a tougher stance on China and sought to reduce its dependence on individual countries following Russias invasion of Ukraine. --With assistance from Lucille Liu, Philip Glamann and Paula Doenecke. (Updates with Hauwei statement in the ninth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Annalena Baerbock, Germany's Foreign Minister, speaks in the German Bundestag on the subject of 75 years of the Council of Europe. Kay Nietfeld/dpa Annalena Baerbock wants to concentrate fully on her role as German foreign minister and is not seeking to run for the top job as chancellor again. Instead of being tied up in running for chancellor, she wants to devote all her energy to her current task in view of the international crises, the Green politician explained in an interview on the US television channel CNN on the fringes of the NATO summit in Washington. "Obviously, the world is a totally different one than at the last German national elections," said Baerbock. "In the light of Russias war of aggression and now also with regard to the dramatic situation in the Middle East, it needs more diplomacy, and not less. Because otherwise, others will fill this gap." In the interview conducted by CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour, Baerbock added: "And therefore, in these times of crises, I believe that political responsibility means as a foreign minister not being tied up in a candidacy for German chancellorship. "Instead, continuing to use all my energy as foreign minister to my role of building trust and building cooperation, building reliable structures for so many partners around the world and in Europe who count on this." Baerbock, who had agreed with fellow Green Party member and current Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck to run as the Greens' candidate for chancellor before the 2021 federal election, also assured, "obviously in elections times I will do everything to support my own party like it did last time." It has been clear for some time that either Baerbock or Habeck would lead the Greens into the next parliamentary election campaign. Habeck's desire to run has been clear to see for months, even if he has not yet made it crystal clear given the possibility of Baerbock's candidacy. In the spring, it was said that the procedure agreed two and a half years ago for nominating candidates would be adhered to. In September 2022, the party's executive board decided that the party base should decide in a primary election if there were several promising candidates. However, they were keen to avoid a cliffhanger, possibly played out in public. Top Greens always hoped that the two former party leaders would reach an amicable agreement. If Baerbock had insisted on standing as a candidate, a power struggle with Habeck could hardly have been avoided. This raises the question: How much trouble, how much political capital is a fight like this worth? And especially for a party that currently only ranks between 11 and 13% in the polls? At the moment, it seems unlikely that the next chancellor could have a Green party ticket. But there will be another time after that. And at 43, Baerbock is young for a politician - perhaps that also explains her decision not to run this time. Gibson Co. Sheriff pleads not guilty to all 18 counts of profiting from inmate labor Sheriff Paul Thomas after the Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas court hearing in Trenton, Tenn., on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas pled not guilty to all 18 counts of official misconduct for his alleged role in profiting from inmate labor. Dressed in a baby blue suit jacket and seemingly positive spirits, Thomas appeared in Gibson County Circuit Court on Wednesday morning for his arraignment. His attorney William Massey spoke on behalf of Thomas, stating that his client pleads "not guilty to each and every count." He is scheduled to next appear in court on Oct. 22 here, future scheduling dates, including one for a trial, will be set. Senior Judge Mark Ward speaks during the Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas court hearing in Trenton, Tenn., on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. More: What to know about Gibson County Sheriff: Allegations profiting from inmate labor More: Gibson County Sheriff arraignment set for July 10 on felony charges in Gibson More: Gibson Co. Sheriff indicted on 18 counts of misconduct, inmate labor for personal gain He pled not guilty to the following 18 counts in Gibson County: Counts 1-6 are class E felonies and detail that Thomas allegedly used the labor or employment of six different inmates for his gain and benefit, profiting either directly or indirectly. Counts 7-12 name the six inmates and the use of their labor to benefit Alliance Staffing Group in Milan, a hiring program catered to incarcerated individuals established by Thomas and others. Counts 13-18 list that the same six inmates under the care of Thomas were improperly guarded to prevent escape. Judge Mark Ward of Shelby County, appointed by the Supreme Court of Tennessee to preside over Thomas's case, advised counsel to be "actively engaging in the discovery process" between now and Oct. 22. Sheriff Paul Thomas walks alongside his lawyers and supporters after the Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas court hearing in Trenton, Tenn., on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. In an adjacent case involving Department of Corrections inmates, Thomas will be arraigned in Davidson County on July 24 on four counts of theft, computer crimes and forgery. Following the arraignment conclusion, Thomas and his team left the Justice Building and walked next door to the Gibson County Correctional Complex where Thomas remains in his role as sheriff. Sarah Best is a reporter for The Jackson Sun. To support local journalism, subscribe to the Daily Briefing here. This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: Gibson Co. Sheriff pleads not guilty to 18 counts at arraignment A judge signaled hell dismiss Rudy Giulianis bankruptcy after a chaotic hearing Wednesday in which the judge at one point threatened to cut off the ex-New York City mayors microphone for interjecting. Judge Sean Lane said hed make a final ruling on the complex matter on Friday afternoon. Im leaning toward dismissal, frankly, because I am concerned that the past is prologue, Lane said. Though Giuliani in a sudden shift consented to dismissing his bankruptcy mere minutes before the hearing began, he jumped in during the proceeding to push back against his creditors accusations he committed bankruptcy crimes. After several garbled interjections, Lane paused arguments to address the same cellphone repeatedly butting in during arguments by a lawyer for Georgia election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman. Giulianis bankruptcy was precipitated by a jurys $148 million verdict against him after he baselessly accused the women of 2020 election fraud. Let me ask in court if we can make sure to have that muted, please, Lane said. Your honor, this is Rudolph Giuliani, the ex-mayor explained. Speaking over each other, Lane sought to pull Giuliani into line. But Giuliani insisted he should be allowed to push back against the election workers lawyer, who had just warned that the ex-mayors conduct throughout the bankruptcy could force the judge to entertain putting Americas mayor in prison. Highly defamatory, your honor! Giuliani exclaimed. So Im going to ask you to listen to me, and if you dont, Im going to have to cut you off, the judge replied, after which Giuliani remained silent. Giulianis bankruptcy has reached a crossroads after six months of increasing pressure from his creditors, who all accuse the former federal prosecutor of using bankruptcy as a delay tactic while he hides assets and spends egregiously. The election workers want to dismiss the bankruptcy, which would unfreeze their lawsuit and enable them to begin collecting their staggering award. The election workers lawyer, Rachel Strickland, raised concerns that, if the bankruptcy continues, many of Giulianis assets would ultimately go to administrative expenses, not the creditors. The beginning, middle and end of this case has been about my clients and their judgment, to highlight with a bad-faith litigation tactic, Strickland said. Mr. Giuliani hasnt even pretended to comply with the duties and responsibilities as a debtor in possession. He regards this court as a pause button on his woes while he continues to live his life unbothered by creditors. The case should be dismissed. Top Stories from The Hill Less than an hour before the hearing, Giulianis team agreed with the election workers proposal. I dont think thats to the benefit of creditors to have the assets go to pay professional fees, Gary Fischoff, Giulianis attorney, said at the hearing. But the official creditors committee wants to remain in the bankruptcy system, worried that theyd otherwise be left with nothing. They proposed appointing a bankruptcy trustee who would effectively take control of Giulianis assets and monitor his finances. Other members of the creditors committee include the electronic voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems, which Giuliani in 2020 also mired in conspiracy theories, and Noelle Dunphy, a former employee of the ex-mayor who sued him alleging sexual assault, harassment and nonpayment of wages. Phil Dublin, a lawyer representing the committee, said those other creditors shouldnt be disadvantaged because of Giulianis tactics. Because of his immoral conduct, his failure to comply with the reporting obligations, his failure to reply with court orders, they shouldnt have to then step back behind the Freeman plaintiffs, said Dublin. The Justice Departments bankruptcy watchdog, the U.S. Trustee Program, did not take a position on the requests. Its clear that there is no question that cause exists to remove this debtor, Mr. Giuliani, from possession of his assets. The only question really for today is, what is the best interest of the creditors? attorney Andrea Schwartz said on behalf of the office. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. AUSTIN (KXAN) Amid Tuesdays Spectrum outage across Texas, Google Trends picked up a spike in search queries related to Google Fiber service access. As Google Fiber continues to build out its national network, where can you find the service here in Texas? Currently, Google Fiber also known as GFiber is available at certain addresses in 24 metros across the country, per its service map. Included in the mix are portions of both Austin and San Antonio, where a spokesperson said there are hundreds of thousands of existing customers. Amid the rapid growth in this metroplex, GFiber officials said theyre honing efforts to help bolster internet access and expand its footprint across the region. The Austin-San Antonio corridor is among the fastest growing, most dynamic corridors in the entire country, said John-Michael Cortez, GFibers head of government and community affairs in Texas. So quite frankly, theres enough within and between Austin and San Antonio to keep us busy for a long time. So were really focused on growing within this amazing corridor, and are in discussions with communities up and down I-35. GFiber has been expanding its presence in Austin for years, drawn in part by the level of growth and technological innovation in the city, Cortez told KXAN. Beyond Austin, GFiber is also building out its fiber network in dozens of more communities nationally, including new additions here in Central Texas. Just weeks ago, Lakeway City Council approved June 17 an agreement with GFiber to expand access into the community. Construction is expected to begin by late 2025; Lakeway customers access to the service will be dependent on when portions of the Lakeway network are completed in their respective neighborhoods. The Cedar Park Chamber of Commerce announced May 9 that GFiber would bring its internet service access to Cedar Park. Construction is poised to begin in Cedar Park next year, with services available for some residents and business owners come early 2026. Elsewhere in the Austin metro, construction on GFiber access in portions of Round Rock began back in September, following Round Rock City Councils approval of the initiative in October 2022. Were talking to a number of other communities [in Central Texas] because this entire region wants and deserves access to better internet choices, Cortez said. So were interested in growing throughout Central Texas while we continue to build in Austin. When it comes to expanding into a new community, Cortez said its all about establishing relationships with community leaders to ensure they are eager and open to the fiber line construction and new service access. Cortez said GFiber is looking at communities of varying sizes and socioeconomic levels to make internet access more attainable to more people. Beyond developing out holistically in Austin, Cortez added GFiber has partnered with entities like the Housing Authority of the City of Austin and other community organizations to expand free internet access to residents who might not be able to afford it otherwise. The internet is something that we increasingly depend on to fully participate in the economy and education and healthcare and in our lives, he said. So we think its critical that communities and residents and small businesses have real, high-quality options to the internet service that they will depend on, with fantastic speeds, with reliability, with excellent customer service. Curious if you have access to GFiber at your business or residence? Prospective customers can use GFibers availability search tool to find out. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin. MANILA, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' total external trade in goods decreased by 1.2 percent in May 2024 to 17.26 billion U.S. dollars from 17.46 billion dollars in May 2023, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Wednesday. Of the total external trade in May 2024, the agency said 63.3 percent were imported goods, while the rest were exported goods. The PSA said the balance of trade in goods or the difference between export and import value in May 2024 amounted to -4.60 billion dollars, indicating a trade deficit with an annual increase of 4.5 percent. China was the Philippines' largest supplier of imported goods, valued at 2.73 billion dollars or 25 percent of the country's total imports in May. The United States contributed the highest export value in May, with 1.08 billion dollars, or 17 percent of the total exports. Google announced in an update on Tuesday that its dark web monitoring service, also known as dark web report, will be made available to all Google users in 46 countries including the US and UK at the end of the month, according to Fast Company. The feature was previously only available to users with a Google One membership. The dark web report will be located in the Results about you page when you visit myactivity.google.com. Googles dark web report feature will scan the seedy underbelly of algorithms that ended up on the wrong side of the digital tracks to determine if your personal information has been leaked. This includes information such as your name, address, phone numbers and email accounts. Its a handy feature to have especially if youre one of the millions of people whove fallen victim to hacking, info leaks or identity theft. Just a few months ago, 7.6 million AT&T customers had their information leaked to the dark web forcing the telecom giant to reset all of its affected users passcodes. Other services like Proton Mail and LastPass already have features that monitor the dark web for user information and leaked passwords and alert them if they find anything. Louisiana GOP megadonor Lane Grigsby circulated a draft of constitutional changes to lawmakers Tuesday. (Photo credit: Wesley Muller/Louisiana Illuminator) An influential Republican political donor emailed a rough draft of a proposed new state constitution to Louisiana lawmakers Tuesday that suggests changes to public school funding, the homestead exemption on property taxes and widely used sales tax breaks should be up for debate. Lane Grigsby, a retired construction mogul and founder of Cajun Industries, distributed what was described by others as a working document prepared months ago when a substantial overhaul of the constitution appeared more likely to happen. It contains dozens of suggested changes, some of which havent been discussed publicly. In his email to legislators, Grigsby said he shared the documents to push them to quickly vote for a constitutional convention. He set a deadline for the convention of Aug. 23, seen as the cutoff date for approving new constitutional measures to appear on the Nov. 5 election ballot. The proposal marks the first comprehensive look at what powerful convention supporters like Grigsby might want to accomplish in a constitutional reworking. It could also turn off legislators who are already skeptical of holding a convention on a tight timeline. Grigsbys documents propose a handful of changes legislators rejected weeks ago should still be discussed. Gov. Jeff Landrys support for the measures isnt clear either. The documents call for the removal of constitutional protections for K-12 public school funding and the homestead property tax exemption to be debated further, even after legislators made clear these items should be off the table. Whether safeguards for law enforcement supplemental pay should remain in the constitution is also on a list of items for consideration in the Grigsby papers. Landry said months ago he wouldnt touch this provision. The proposal also suggests more deliberation over whether popular sales tax exemptions for residential utilities, prescription drugs and most food bought in the grocery store should be dropped from the constitution. Such a change would make it easier to levy new taxes on these items. It also proposes constitutional laws that govern higher education management boards, workers compensation and civil service protections for public employees should be transferred to state statute without further debate. Legislators and the governor could eliminate or alter those provisions far more easily once they were moved into regular statute. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE Substantial constitutional changes affecting the judiciary are also contained in the documents, including a new system for picking the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court and a reconfiguration of the way judges are assigned across the state. Landry is in an ongoing feud with Supreme Court Justice John Weimer, and the governor has already made moves to put his allies on the states highest court. While Landry remains supportive of a constitutional convention in general, he stopped short of endorsing the document blasted to legislators Tuesday. Mr. Grigsbys message is what we have been saying since Day One, Landrys spokeswoman Kate Kelly said in a text message, but she declined to answer questions about the governors support for specific proposals contained in the papers. Grigsby didnt answer calls and text messages. In his email to lawmakers, Grigsby described the documents he shared as a work product of the gubernatorial transition committee Landry set up after the governors election win in October. As a member of the committee, Grigsby chaired a council on constitutional reform. Other people who worked on constitutional issues for Landrys transition team said the committee never voted on or approved the documents. What Grigsby emailed lawmakers is a draft of ideas put together in the spring by two think tanks and a couple of advisers, according to people who worked on the document. Staff from the conservative Pelican Institute and nonpartisan Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR), former Louisiana House Speaker Jim Tucker, a Republican, and former state Rep. Neil Abramson, a Democrat, helped craft the suggestions. It reflects ongoing discussions and is by no means a final draft, said Pelican Institute CEO Daniel Erspamer, who worked on the proposal. From my point of view, it was a working document. The full transition committee did not review or vote on the draft that was shared, he said. Steven Procopio, who leads PAR, also characterized the document as a work in progress and said his organization focused on the portions that dealt with budget, taxes, pensions and education. PAR did not work on the proposals for the judiciary, he said. Tucker and Abramson did not return phone calls Tuesday seeking comment. Even if the document was just a draft, Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, believes it could help the conversation over constitutional change in the Legislature. Beaullieu sponsored a bill to call a constitutional convention in the spring but couldnt get enough support in the Senate to pass the measure. Senators were reluctant to approve Beaullieus legislation because they said they didnt have any concrete idea of what goals convention supporters wanted to accomplish. With Grigsby releasing this proposal, lawmakers have more information about what the objectives of a convention might be. By him putting this out there, it could put some people at ease, Beaullieu said. [A detailed proposal] is what everyone was asking for. Legislators still arent likely to call a constitutional convention, according to Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie. Nothing to report, Henry texted when asked about the prospect of holding a constitutional convention Tuesday. Reporter Piper Hutchinson contributed to this report. The post GOP megadonor circulates Louisiana Constitution draft with school funding, tax breaks up for debate appeared first on Louisiana Illuminator. An influential Republican political donor emailed a rough draft of a proposed new state constitution to Louisiana lawmakers Tuesday that suggests changes to public school funding, the homestead exemption on property taxes and widely used sales tax breaks should be up for debate. Lane Grigsby, a retired construction mogul and founder of Cajun Industries, distributed what was described by others as a working document prepared months ago when a substantial overhaul of the constitution appeared more likely to happen. It contains dozens of suggested changes, some of which havent been discussed publicly. In his email to legislators, Grigsby said he shared the documents to push them to quickly vote for a constitutional convention. He set a deadline for the convention of Aug. 23, seen as the cutoff date for approving new constitutional measures to appear on the Nov. 5 election ballot. Louisiana GOP megadonor Lane Grigsby circulated a draft of constitutional changes to lawmakers Tuesday. The proposal marks the first comprehensive look at what powerful convention supporters like Grigsby might want to accomplish in a constitutional reworking. It could also turn off legislators who already are skeptical of holding a convention on a tight timeline. Grigsbys documents propose a handful of changes legislators rejected weeks ago should still be discussed. Gov. Jeff Landrys support for the proposals isnt clear either. The documents call for the removal of constitutional protections for K-12 public school funding and the homestead property tax exemption to be discussed further, even after legislators made clear these items werent up for debate. Whether safeguards for law enforcement supplemental pay should remain in the constitution is also on a list of items for consideration in the Grigsby papers. Landry said months ago he wouldnt touch this provision. The proposal also suggests more deliberation over whether popular sales tax exemptions for residential utilities, prescription drugs and most food bought in the grocery store should be dropped from the constitution. Such a change would make it easier to levy new taxes on these items. It also proposes constitutional laws that govern higher education management boards, workers compensation and civil service protections for public employees should be transferred to state statute without further debate. Legislators and the governor could eliminate or alter those provisions far more easily once they were moved from the constitution into regular statute. Substantial constitutional changes affecting the judiciary are also contained in the documents, including a new system for picking the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court and a reconfiguration of the way judges are assigned across the state.Landry is in an ongoing feud with Supreme Court Justice John Weimer, and the governor already has made moves to put his allies on the states highest court. While Landry remains supportive of constitutional convention in general, he also stopped short of endorsing the document blasted to legislators Tuesday. Mr. Grigsbys message is what we have been saying since Day One, Landrys spokeswoman Kate Kelly said in a text message, but she declined to answer questions about the governors support for specific proposals contained in the papers. Grigsby didnt answer calls and text messages. In his email to lawmakers, Grigsby described the documents he shared as a work product of the gubernatorial transition committee Landry set up after the governors election win in October. As a member of the committee, Grigsby chaired a council on constitutional reform. Other people who worked on constitutional issues for Landrys transition team said the committee never voted on or approved the documents. What Grigsby emailed lawmakers is a draft of ideas put together in the spring by two think tanks and a couple advisers who had helped with Landrys constitutional proposals, according to people who worked on the document. Staff from the conservative Pelican Institute and nonpartisan Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR), former Louisiana House Speaker Jim Tucker, a Republican, and former state Rep. Neil Abramson, a Democrat, helped craft the suggestions contained in the papers. It reflects ongoing discussions and is by no means a final draft, said Pelican Institute CEO Daniel Erspamer, who worked on the proposal. From my point of view, it was a working document.The full transition committee did not review or vote on the draft that was shared, he said.Steven Procopio, who leads PAR, also characterized the document as a work in progress and said his organization focused on the portions that dealt with budget, taxes, pensions and education. PAR did not work on the proposals for the judiciary, he said.Tucker and Abramson did not return phone calls Tuesday seeking comment.Even if the document was just a draft, Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, believes it could help the conversation over constitutional change in the Legislature. Beaullieu sponsored a bill to call a constitutional convention in the spring but couldnt get enough support in the Senate to pass the measure.Senators were reluctant to approve Beaullieus legislation because they said they didnt have any concrete idea of what concepts would convention supporters wanted to accomplish. With Grigsby releasing this proposal, lawmakers have more information about what the goals of a convention might be.By him putting this out there, it could put some people at ease, Beaullieu said. [A detailed proposal] is what everyone was asking for.Legislators still arent likely to call a constitutional convention, according to Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie.Nothing to report, Henry texted when asked about the prospect of calling a constitutional convention Tuesday. Reporter Piper Hutchinson contributed to this report. The Louisiana Illuminator is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization driven by its mission to cast light on how decisions are made in Baton Rouge and how they affect the lives of everyday Louisianians, particularly those who are poor or otherwise marginalized. This article originally appeared on Gonzales Weekly Citizen: Republican megadonor circulates Louisiana Constitution draft to lawmakers Representative Jim Banks is running to represent Indiana in the Senate, but he categorically refuses to reject an armed rebellion against the federal government. Banks was asked four times in person by a NOTUS reporter if he opposes a rebellion, and each time failed to give a clear answer. The fourth time, he even insulted the reporter. I dont take you seriously enough to answer your question, Banks said on Tuesday, following three previous attempts on Monday when he instead chose to complain about Democrats. Why has a question with a clear easy answer become such an issue? It stems from a social media post from Banks on May 30, the same night Donald Trump was convicted in his hush-money trial. Bankss post on X (formerly Twitter) is pinned to the top of his profile, and has a picture of the Appeal to Heaven flag without any words. That flag today is attributed to Christian nationalism and the far right. It was also a symbol of the Stop the Steal movement created by Trumps followers following the 2020 election, and carried by rioters at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has attracted criticism for flying the same flag outside his vacation home in New Jersey. When asked about the flag post, Banks initially replied, Ill let you make your own conclusions, without elaborating. One of his answers on Monday did mention this years election, though. Were in unprecedented times, and November will be the result of regular people taking our country back, Banks said to NOTUS. And then well have a reset, and then well take back our government and our country from the elites and those who are trying to destroy it. So you can infer whatever youd like from that post. These remarks, coupled with Bankss refusal to condemn violence, show the levels that the Republican Party has sunk to in the Trump era. Republicans fail to disavow any violence against those they disagree with, even when a politicians family member is attacked with a hammer. Candidates seeking higher office seem to endorse violence against their enemies, especially those on the left. These calls have only emboldened the far right, who seize upon this rhetoric as a mandate to physically attack those whom they hate. Thanks to Alito and the rest of the Supreme Court putting the presidency above the law, Trump probably wont be held accountable for his incitement of violence at the Capitol in 2021. Its a big green flag, bigger than the Appeal to Heaven flag, for his supporters and allies to do the same without the fear of consequences. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Utility workers in Southwest Washington are holding the line amid a record-breaking heat wave. Though Clark Public Utilities told KOIN 6 News theyve managed to mostly avoid seeing too many heat-related outages the past few days, some challenges have come up. In particular, the Clark County District Court said on its website that both the administrative and probation offices closed on Tuesday due to a power outage. As originally reported by The Columbian, 1,500 people in Vancouver were without power at one point. However, by the evening, Clark Public Utilities website said there were no more active outages. We have to adapt: Farm worker advocates fight for protections amid heat wave The reason Clark Public Utilities crews havent encountered as many heat-related outages the past few days compared to Portland is partially because its a much smaller area to cover. But its also because of good planning. Electricity doesnt care if its hot or cold. Its going to do what it does, said Clark Public Utilities Night Shift Foreman Larry Jones. When theres extreme weather, people working the lines are expected to show up for their job no matter the conditions. You got to pace yourself a little bit, you cant just go out there and work 100%, said Jones, who has worked in the trade for over 30 years. Kroger-Albertsons selling 186 Oregon, Washington stores in merger bid. Here is the full list Its a tough job, even in mild conditions. But whether power lines are suspended in the air or buried underground, theres no escape from soaring temperatures in this line of work. Its the load from everybodys air conditioners that are going, Jones said. In addition to that, you have the fact that the equipment cant cool down like it can in the winter. So the equipment has the same load in the summer as it does in the winter and the equipment fails because it cant cool down. Thankfully, the utility said theyve had very few heat-related outages during this heat wave. Were really well prepared for this kind of weather, said Clark Public Utilities Lineman Canaan Stenek. We have a really strong system here where the system is overbuilt, where we can provide for whether the heat gets really hot or really cold. Nicolas Cage recommends this must-see film of his made in Oregon Safety is of utmost importance for workers, which is why theyre required to take a 15-minute break every hour when its above 100 degrees. Youve got to hold back a little bit otherwise youre going to get heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and other things you need to worry about when it gets hot, Jones said. A boon to crews working in this heat is friendly neighbors. When your power is out, just a little bit of patience goes a long way, Stenek said. We usually have really nice customers bringing us water. Its hot for us, it might be cold for us, were trying to get things working as fast as possible. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee addressed the Rotary Club of Nashville midday on July 8 and tackled some significant issues, including his desire to expand school vouchers statewide and the need for more civility in politics. The GOP dominated Tennessee General Assembly failed in the 2024 legislative session to pass fellow Republican Lees signature Education Freedom Scholarship Act, which would have expanded the Education Savings Account program from three counties (Davidson, Shelby and Hamilton) to all 95. Disagreement between the versions favored by the governor, Senate and the House tanked the proposal for the year. Lee intends to bring it back in 2025 and is actively campaigning for lawmakers who supported his push. Several hours after Lees Rotary speech, I got a glimpse into what one rural and very red Tennessee community thinks about his school vouchers expansion. I was invited to moderate a political forum for county, legislative and congressional candidates organized by The Southern Standard newspaper and WCPI 91.3FM at the Warren County Administrative Center in McMinnville, about 80 miles east of Nashville. I wanted to understand where the candidates, including incumbent District 43 state Rep. Paul Sherrell, R-Sparta, stood on this issue. In short, they dont want it. Fairness, support for public schools are key to GOP vouchers opposition This was my sixth trip in six years to McMinnville as part of The Tennesseans Civility Tennessee initiative. I documented my relationship with civic leaders in the city in an essay for the 2023 book Reinventing Journalism to Strengthen Democracy published by the Dayton, Ohio-based Kettering Foundation. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee addresses the Rotary Club of Nashville on July 8, 2024, at GEODIS Park. While nearly two-thirds of Nashville-Davidson County voters picked Joe Biden for president in 2020, in Warren County, 74% of voters cast ballots for former President Donald Trump. Some of the candidates at the July 8 forum introduced themselves as Christian, conservative, and Republican. The reason the candidates from school board to legislative opposed the voucher expansion which Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders described as a conservative education revolution when she joined Lee for his legislative kickoff last fall came down to their support for their public schools and concerns over fairness. At the Rotary Club meeting, Lee said the state could both bolster public schools and expand the voucher program. Why don't we do all of those things that are important for our public school system and why don't we allow the citizens who do pay taxes to use their tax money for the educational system that they choose for their child, Lee said. However, the Warren County forum candidates also said they were upset about the lingering negative academic achievement impact on students because of COVID era school shutdowns, which they partially blamed on Lee. Among other issues they identified: Would the county be on the hook if the voucher program siphoned money away from the public schools? They pointed to the recent decline in state revenues and Lee's proposal would eventually be open to any Tennessee student regardless of income. While they expressed support for homeschooling and parents choosing private schools for their children, they did not think it should be using public funds. A bone of contention during this years legislative session was whether to require that children going to private schools on a $7,000 voucher take state mandated tests administered to public school students. Lees proposal would not have made that a requirement. Organizers of the Warren County candidate forum set up for the District 43 Republican candidates' segment at the county administrative center in McMinnville, Tennessee on July 8. At the center are incumbent Rep. Paul Sherrell, R-Sparta, and Miss Tennessee Carley Vogel. Sherrell expressed an additional concern that the money might go to Christian schools but also to LGBTQ or Muslim schools something he said he opposed. I am unfamiliar with what an LGBTQ school is, but Americas freedom of religion would dictate that schools of all faiths should be able to compete equally for these funds. Civility requires an active back-and-forth between adversaries Despite Governor Lees best efforts, there is a communication disconnect between him and some members of his own party, who support him on many other issues. Gov. Bill Lee and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox participate in a roundtable discussion for the Disagree Better Initiative at the Omni Nashville Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., for the National Governors Association, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. This goes to the heart of civility, which Lee has embraced. In May, at a National Governors Association conference in Nashville, Lee sat with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, R-Utah, who spearheaded the Disagree Better Initiative to encourage more productive conversations to address political differences. Tennessees Bill Lee and Kentuckys Andy Beshear are rivals. They should work together. We do live in a politically toxic world, Lee said at the July 8 Rotary Club. I do believe, by the way, that as our National Governors Association initiative says, we should learn how to disagree better. We should learn to remember the dignity of every single human being that the person on the other side of the argument has just as much dignity as a human as you do, he added. Their opinions and their thoughts are just as valid to be heard as yours are. And if we can agree to disagree in a more civil way, our society would be so much better. But its not just Democrats or teachers unions who oppose his legislation. Its also Republican school resource officers, county commissioners and blue collar workers in places like Warren County. If Lee wants a shot at passing his Education Freedom Scholarship Act next year, he must seek common ground and make a more convincing case that rural Tennessee schools wont be worse off. David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the Tennessee Voices videocast and curates the Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or find him on X at @davidplazas. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Heres why TN Republicans opposed Gov. Lees school voucher expansion Gov. Cox names former Granite District superintendent as his new senior education adviser Gov. Spencer Cox appointed Dr. Rich Nye to be his senior advisor of education on Monday, July 8, 2024. | Jon Williams Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has appointed Rich Nye to be his senior adviser of education. Nye, most recently superintendent of the Granite School District, will join the Cox administration on July 29. Richs policy experience and his data-driven approach to student success will help our administration continue to support our schools, students and parents, the governor said in a statement. Nye has been the superintendent of Granite School District since 2021. During his tenure, the districts graduation rates, student proficiency and personalized learning opportunities have increased. His successor as superintendent was expected to be named on Tuesday. He previously served as superintendent of the Ogden School District. Prior to that, he was deputy superintendent of student achievement at the Utah State Board of Education. On occasion he has taught courses in educational policy and leadership as adjunct faculty at the University of Utah and Utah State University. A career educator, Nye earned a bachelors degree in history from Weber State University; a masters degree in teacher education and leadership from Arizona State University; a masters degree in curriculum and instruction from Weber State; and a doctorate in teacher education and leadership from USU. He also completed a Broad Academy Executive Fellowship and earned a certificate in education finance from the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. Im honored and excited to join Gov. Cox as a member of his senior team, Nye said in a statement. I look forward to working with him as well as educators, parents and legislators to make sure our schools are safe and well-equipped to teach the next generation of Utahns, he said. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sydnee Dickson lauded Nyes selection. Dr. Rich Nye is one of the finest education leaders Ive ever known as well as being an outstanding individual. Congratulations to (Gov.) Spencer J. Cox for this great selection, she posted on social media. President Joe Biden should continue to evaluate whether he remains the best candidate to defeat former President Donald Trump in the presidential election in November, Gov. Maura Healey said Wednesday. I think the president should continue and will continue to evaluate whether he remains the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump because this election is about one thing and that is defeating Donald Trump, Healey told reporters. But whatever the president decides, I will be all in and supportive and focused on working to defeat Donald Trump. Gov. Maura Healey takes questions from reporters about President Joe Biden's campaign for re-election on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Healey also said that the state continues to see the ways that (President Bidens) administration has had a positive impact here in Massachusetts, and I also appreciate that he stepped up in 2020 to save democracy. When asked if Biden could beat Trump in the 2024 presidential race, Healey said, Yes, yes he can. But again, thats a decision that the president has to make as to whether or not he wants to continue to be the one to be the nominee to go forward, Healey said. But I give the Biden administration and President Biden great thanks for the incredible four years of what has been done and the path that were on, and thats going to be a decision (that is) up to him. Healey spoke as Biden is facing pressure from within his own party to abandon his reelection campaign, following his disastrous debate performance last month. 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 Minnesota Capitol. Photo courtesy House Information Services. The Office of the State Auditor on Thursday retracted its 2023 Local Government Lobbying Services Report after discovering incorrect data. A previous version of this article included errors supplied by the state auditor, but the story has been corrected throughout. Local governments spent about $12 million lobbying the Minnesota Legislature in 2023 a 14% increase from the previous year, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the Office of the State Auditor Julie Blaha. Thats the largest increase since 2005, according to the auditor. The report says the increase in 2023 lobbying dollars is attributable in part to an increase of 27 more legislative days compared to 2022. But the 2023 legislative session was also the first year of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Partys trifecta, and cities and counties along with interest groups and businesses were anxious to protect their priorities amid the most consequential session in decades. The Legislature last year passed significant laws affecting local governments, including an annual increase in funding for local governments, a $2.6 billion infrastructure package and an additional $1 billion for housing across Minnesota, among other bills. The operation and funding of local governments can be greatly affected by decisions made by the state Legislature. Therefore, it is understandable that those affected by these decisions would want to have representation during the legislative process, the report states. Last year, 146 local governments reported that they hired or contracted with lobbyists, according to the report. Twenty of the 146 local governments accounted for 56% of the total amount paid to lobbyists. Among the biggest spenders: Hennepin County ($488,815); Minneapolis ($478,995); St. Paul ($311,740); and Ramsey County ($270,760). In addition to the money paid to staff and contract lobbyists, local governments paid over $14 million in dues to local government associations to represent their interests. The associations with the highest lobbying expenditures last year include the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities ($1,027,189); the League of Minnesota Cities ($854,063); and the Minnesota School Boards Association ($378,768). Lobbying firms made hundreds of thousands representing local governments. Among the firms that received the most money: Flaherty and Hood ($967,210) and Larkin Hoffman Daly and Lindgren ($658,865). According to the report, last year 17 additional local governments reported hiring or contracting with lobbyists compared to the previous year. BANGKOK, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The Election Commission of Thailand on Wednesday endorsed the results of the senate election after a delay due to complaints over the qualifications of some senators-elect and voting irregularities. The commission agreed to certify the list of 200 senators and 99 reserve candidates, commission Secretary General Sawaeng Boonmee told a news conference, paving the way for the newly elected lawmakers to enter the upper house of parliament. In the multi-level election process, successful candidates from the district and provincial levels across the Southeast Asian country advanced to the final round of voting held in the capital Bangkok last month, where they cast votes among themselves to elect the 200-member Senate. Representing 20 categories of social and professional groups, 10 candidates who received the most votes from each group were selected as senators. Government officials ignore scientific evidence to allow unnecessary killings of wild animals: 'I can find no justification' England has continued to issue permits allowing people to kill badgers to protect cattle from disease, despite local extinctions and scientific evidence stating that badger culling is not the best way to protect bovines. What's happening? The Guardian reported that it accessed leaked documents showing that England's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs issued 17 new licenses in June that allow people to kill badgers. The publication explains that badger culling has been used in the country for years to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis to cattle and has led to local extinctions. However, scientific reports have shown that culling badgers is not the most effective way to stop the spread of this disease, and DEFRA's decision overrules the advice of its own scientific adviser, Peter Brotherton, director of science for Natural England. "I can find no justification for authorizing further supplementary badger culls in 2024 for the purpose of preventing the spread of disease and recommend against doing so," Brotherton told DEFRA, per the Guardian. Why is this decision concerning? Badger culling in England has led to local extinctions, with more than 210,000 of these carnivorous mammals killed between 2013 and 2023. Meanwhile, badgers provide a number of ecosystem benefits, according to the nonprofit group Scottish Badgers. As badgers build their dens, heaps of excavated material are created nearby. These areas retain moisture better than surrounding areas and provide habitat for amphibians, invertebrates, and insects, including crucial pollinators (35% of the world's food crops depend on pollinators). Scottish Badgers also said badger dens help to provide important safe refuge to animals like pine martens, red foxes, rabbits, wood mice, and voles. Plus, these dens help create a stable thermal environment, which can help species protect themselves from the elements and raise their young. Supporting these species supports biodiversity, which benefits humans in many ways healthy ecosystems help provide us with important resources like fresh water and food. What's being done to protect badgers? Former DEFRA secretary George Eustice promised to phase out badger culling by 2025, but it remains unclear whether the government will follow through on this promise especially since a new government was elected July 4. In the meantime, Brotherton told the Guardian that badger vaccinations are an effective alternative to culls, adding that farmers can also take other measures like utilizing enhanced testing programs, movement controls, and cattle vaccination. Scientists around the globe are giving assistance to a number of other species in a race to preserve biodiversity. For instance, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service is preserving genetic data of some of the country's most at-risk animals. And conservationists have successfully brought the Iberian lynx from the brink of extinction, as 2,000 now roam in the wild. Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet. RICHMOND Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants all public-school systems across the state to develop cell phone-free classrooms by the beginning of the next school year. On Tuesday, the governor issued Executive Order 33 directing state education and health officials to mandate phone-free education policies in schools by Jan. 1. Prior to that deadline, Youngkin asked the state health and education departments to engage parental and community feedback in establishing the policies, and that includes looking at places like Petersburg and Hopewell where students must keep their phones in pouches that can only be locked and unlocked by school personnel. In the order, Youngkin said it was time to heed the call of parents, public health professionals, educators and other stakeholders to curb the time children spend using mobile devices for calls, messaging and social media. Behavior experts have tied the increase in depression cases and suicides among young people to high internet usage, and the governor cited that as the main reason for his directive. In studies mentioned in the order, children are spending an average of 4.8 hours a day on social media. That, Youngkin said, is almost two hours more than the average three hours that doubles the risk of mental-health issues in adolescents. Youngkin Todays Executive Order both establishes the clear goal to protect the health and safety of our students by limiting the amount of time they are exposed to addictive cell phones and social media and eliminates clear distractions in the classroom, Youngkin said in a statement accompanying the order. It also kicks off the robust conversations among parents, students, teachers, and school and community leaders necessary to design and implement these policies and procedures at the local level. What does the order say? Youngkins order directs the following: The state Education and Health departments gather feedback from parents, educators and health officials, and gather data on best practices used in some Virginia school divisions Develop a clear and detailed definition of cell phone-free education based on that feedback; Publish implementation plans to offer options for divisions to develop their policies, and draft them by Aug. 15; Gather feedback from the divisions by Sept. 16; and Issue directives for local division policies to be enacted by Jan. 1, 2025. School divisions are given leeway in the order to develop age-appropriate policies for cell phones. Creating a cell phone-free education environment in public schools is not only a prudent measure but an essential one to promote a healthier and more focused educational environment where every child is free to learn, the order read. Earlier this year, the state Senate passed legislation to allow local school boards to implement cell phone policies, but the House of Delegates declined to take action. Hopewell City Schools began using the cell-phone pouch system in 2022. Petersburg launched its restrictions earlier this year. A similar program is also in Richmond. The full text of Executive Order 33 can be found here. Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI. This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Va. governor issues executive order banning cell phones in schools SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) The Granite School District announced Ben Horsley was appointed as the districts new superintendent during a special meeting held Tuesday. Horsleys appointment will go into effect on July 27, 2024 the same day current superintendent Dr. Richard Nye leaves the role. READ NEXT: Utah State University dismisses executive associate athletics director Amy Crosbie I am deeply honored for the trust of the board to continue to work diligently to support high quality instruction, Horsley said. I am committed to providing our students and teachers with everything they need to be successful. The district said Horsely was one of the top candidates for the position throughout the districts nationwide search. Horsley has been with the Granite School District for more than 15 years, serving as Chief of Staff to Superintendent Nye for the past three years, according to a press release. It was natural that in order to ensure the district continues to move forward with our strategic plan and our recent academic successes, that we appoint the person who has worked directly with Dr. Nye in establishing this vision, Board President Nicole McDermott said. Horsley was appointed to be superintendent after Nye was appointed as senior education advisor for Gov. Spencer Coxs administration. Horsley is uniquely qualified to step into this role and serve as superintendent at this time, the school district said. According to the district, Horsley has served as chief of staff and director of communications and community outreach within the district. He has also worked as a senior advisor for a congressman and taught as an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. TOPEKA (KSNT) Greater Topeka Partnerships (GTP) Momentum 2027 project is nearing its halfway mark. Since starting the project in 2022, GTPs five-year plan hopes to better Topeka by focusing on four main categories: A place to live A place to prosper A place to learn A place to belong There are 22 different task plans fall under these four categories, ranging from affordable housing throughout the community, to the support of small business development throughout the capital city. City of Topeka to vote on Discovery Center Expansion Tara Dimick, tri chair for Momentum 2027, tells 27 News GTP is still aiming on finishing all 22 task plans within the five year mark. Most are on track. Of course, not everything is on track, said Dimick. We have a few that we are really watching and trying to kind of refigure out what may and needs to happen, but majority are going great. GTP plans to meet every six months to a year to keep community members updated on Momentum 2027s progress. For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. Green Bay girl, drug dealing at 15, sentenced to a decade in prison for selling fentanyl pills that killed teen Maylia Sotelo sits at the defense table during her sentencing hearing on Tuesday at the Brown County Courthouse in Green Bay. Sotelo was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 10 years of extended supervision after pleading no contest to first-degree reckless homicide as party to a crime and one count of possession with intent to deliver more than 50 grams of fentanyl as party to a crime. GREEN BAY Jack McDonough was an artist, an athlete, a violin player, a hunter and an angler, his mother said. A senior at Green Bay Southwest High School, he was sensitive, caring and "wise beyond his barely 18 years of age," she added. Jack died Dec. 3, 2022, of a fentanyl overdose. The pills he used were purchased from a 15-year-old girl. Maylia Sotelo, now 17, of Green Bay, was arrested days after Jack's death, after investigators learned she was trafficking counterfeit "M30" Percocet pills containing fentanyl. They found 775 of the fentanyl-laced pills in a shoebox in her bedroom, along with thousands of dollars in cash. After efforts to get her case moved to juvenile court failed, Sotelo pleaded no contest in May to one count of first-degree reckless homicide for delivering drugs, as well as to one count of possession with intent to deliver more than 50 grams of fentanyl and one count of manufacturing, distributing or delivering less than 10 grams of fentanyl. Brown County Circuit Court Judge Beau Liegeois sentenced Sotelo to a total of 10 years in prison followed by 10 years of extended supervision, the same length of incarceration recommended by Brown County Deputy District Attorney Wendy Lemkuil. "Jack was my only child, my everything," McDonough's mother said at Sotelo's sentencing hearing Tuesday. "My life was dedicated to him." McDonough's mother said she believes Sotelo was responsible for her son's death. But she said other people held responsibility as well, including the Brown County Drug Task Force that allowed Sotelo to keep selling drugs after buying pills from her during which time Jack bought a pill and died. According to a criminal complaint, a narcotics investigator with the Brown County Drug Task Force purchased five fentanyl pills from Sotelo on Nov. 29, 2022, as part of an ongoing investigation. Facebook messages between Sotelo and McDonough's girlfriend indicated that McDonough purchased two pills from Sotelo three days later, on Dec. 2. McDonough was found dead in his bedroom the following morning, with drug paraphernalia located near his body. The De Pere Police Department investigating McDonough's death contacted a Brown County Drug Task Force investigator Dec. 6. At that time, the narcotics investigator said the drug task force was "going to set up another controlled buy with Sotelo," the complaint states. Later that day, Sotelo and another person were arrested after arriving in the parking lot of Taco Bell at 1529 W. Mason St. in Green Bay to sell 10 Percocet pills to a confidential informant. Police located three plastic bags of marijuana, $584 in cash and a handgun in their vehicle. At Sotelo's sentencing hearing, Liegeois said he does not blame the Brown County Drug Task Force for not arresting Sotelo immediately after the controlled buy Nov. 29, as they were in the middle of an investigation to determine who was the "highest point" of the drug trafficking operation which turned out to be Sotelo, Liegeois said. But there's no guarantee Sotelo would not have been released after her arrest and gone back to selling, Liegeois said. Brown County Circuit Court Judge Beau Beau Liegeois addresses Maylia Sotelo during a sentencing hearing on Tuesday at the Brown County Courthouse in Green Bay. On Dec. 9, 2022, investigators discovered a shoebox in Sotelo's bedroom contained 775 M30 pills that tested positive for fentanyl, 14 THC vape cartridges and nearly $4,000 in cash. Investigators interviewed Sotelo at the Fond du Lac County Juvenile Detention Center on Dec. 12, 2022. There, she provided the passcode to her phone, on which investigators located numerous conversations over text messages and Facebook Messenger between September and December 2022 discussing various drug deals. Many of the conversations regarding Sotelo selling drugs were with teens between 15 and 17 years old, according to a complaint. "She was delivering these drugs throughout schools to young people," Lemkuil said at Sotelo's sentencing hearing. "It wasn't sadly a one-time thing." In the reckless homicide complaint, Lt. Matthew Ronk of the Brown County Drug Task Force wrote that the unit had been buying blue Percocet "M30" pills "a minimum of weekly for at least the past two years in the Brown County area." Ronk said that in every instance, the pills tested positive for fentanyl. According to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, seven out of every 10 pills seized by the DEA contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl. In 2023, the DEA seized 79.5 million fentanyl pills. The DEA says just 2 milligrams of fentanyl can kill a person. According to a criminal complaint, McDonough's family members said he had a drug addiction and they were aware he used to smoke Percocet. They said he had attended a rehab facility earlier in the year, then spent some time living with his father in Arizona before returning to Wisconsin. Sotelo's defense attorney, Trisha Fritz, said McDonough had "the same substance abuse disorder that Maylia herself suffered from." Fritz also said Sotelo had been raised in an environment without parental support and had been surrounded by drug use from a young age. She learned about drug dealing from her older sister, who was arrested shortly before Sotelo, Fritz added. Fritz asked Liegeois to consider sentencing Sotelo to a lengthy term of extended supervision rather than time in prison. If the judge felt he needed to order a prison sentence, Fritz asked it either only be until Sotelo turns 18, so she can receive resources at the female juvenile prison, Lincoln Hills School for Girls, or at most a sentence of five years in prison followed by 10 years of extended supervision. Sotelo has already spent one year and seven months in Brown County Jail a lengthy period of time for a teenage girl, Fritz said. During some of that time, Fritz said, Sotelo was kept in her cell for 23 hours a day "because she was a child in an adult jail and they didn't know what to do with her." Fritz argued the prosecution's recommendation of 10 years in prison is "extremely out of proportion to everything in this case." Before she was sentenced, Sotelo read a statement to the courtroom. She paused a few times to collect her breath through tears. "I want to now sincerely apologize for the damage I've caused to the community and the pain I've inflicted. No words can fix what I've done," she said. "... There's not a day that goes by that I do not think about what I've done and what I could possibly do to restore what I have broken." RELATED: Green Bay girl convicted of reckless homicide for selling fentanyl-laced drugs when she was 15 Sotelo said she vows to use her time in prison productively and participate in any treatment opportunities and services available in prison. In McDonough's mother's victim impact statement, she said she forgives Sotelo, because she believes her son would have done the same. She also said she hopes Sotelo has "the opportunity to become the person that Jack could have been, had he been given a second chance." Contact Kelli Arseneau at 920-213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @ArseneauKelli. This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Green Bay girl, drug dealing at 15, sentenced in overdose death Grief washes over quiet, leafy Bushey as three women murdered in own home in tremendous tragedy Horror, shock and grief have engulfed a quiet, leafy community in Hertfordshire after three women were murdered in their own home in a terrifying attack involving a crossbow. Tributes have been pouring in for the gentle, beautiful, friendly Hunt family after mother Carol, 61, and daughters Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25, were killed in a targeted incident in their usually peaceful cul-de-sac Ashlyn Close in Bushey on Tuesday evening. Armed police have now captured suspect Kyle Clifford, 26, following a major manhunt. Detectives said the 26-year-old was found with injuries and was receiving medical treatment after he was apprehended in the Enfield area of north London on Wednesday afternoon. BBC racing commentator John Hunt husband of Carol and father to beautician Hannah and Louise, a dog groomer has been left behind to grapple with the devastating loss of three family members, whose identities were confirmed by the broadcaster. He and Carol are understood to have a third daughter. Shocked and distraught local residents paid tribute to the three victims as beautiful souls and told The Independent of often seeing the family out walking their dogs together in the local area. Dog groomer Louise Hunt (left), Carol Hunt (centre), and beautician Hannah Hunt (Handout) Among them are Simon and Tracey Bowler, who described the Hunts as nice and friendly neighbours who would always wave and say hello as they walked their dogs past the Bowler familys house. Fighting back tears, Ms Bowler, who has lived in Bushey for more than a decade and knows Mr Hunt through the local gym, spoke of how emotional and overwhelming it has been. Describing the area as quiet and residential, Mr Bowler said: The neighbourhood hasnt stopped being a neighbourhood its just really sad. Neighbour Su Kehinde, 60, who laid flowers at a makeshift tribute in the area on Wednesday, said: They were the loveliest, gentlest family. They were the meekest human beings. They did not deserve this. They were beautiful souls. Armed police have now captured murder suspect Kyle Clifford, 26, following a major manhunt (PA Wire) Her daughter April, 32, said that Hannah always had a smile and was hard-working, a hard grafter and really gentle. A friend of Louise Hunt, who knew her from their time at school, praised her as really sweet, very kind, always a positive person. He told BBC News: I cant think of anything bad to say about her a really lovely person all round, a super hard-working person. Derek Turner, a neighbour on Ashlyn Close, described the three womens deaths as a tremendous tragedy. BBC racing commentator John Hunt with his wife Carol who was killed alongside their daughters Hannah and Louise (Supplied) After having lived in peaceful and quiet Bushey for more than 30 years, Mr Turner said the incident has sparked concern. We dont really have things like this happen round here, he said, describing the area as one with a tight-knit community, beloved by residents, many of whom have lived in the town for years. You can never imagine that would happen in your street, he said. Another neighbour said she grew up with the Hunt family and played with Louise and Hannah when they were all children. Describing the family as super nice and friendly, the 22-year-old woman, who did not want to be named, added that, more recently, she would see John and Carol out dog-walking. I feel so bad for the dad, said the family friend. I saw him just two weeks ago. Floral tributes were piling up by the Ashlyn Close road sign on Wednesday, as mourners arrived crying and holding hands before placing their bouquets and messages at the scene. One tribute addressed to the three women read: I wish none of this was real. I wish I could hug you all, and tell you how much you meant to me. I wish you could hug each other. Love you forever. Another message said: Words cannot express how devastated I am that youre gone. The most gentle beautiful family. Forever loved. A woman delivers floral tributes near to the scene in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, Hertfordshire (Jonathan Brady/PA Wire) Police officers looked on from the edge of the cordon at the top of the victims road, with one also seen leaving a flower tribute. Police cars and vans were parked along Ashlyn Close as the triple murder investigation continues. Officers were called to the cul-de-sac just before 7pm on Tuesday after neighbours heard screams from the four-bedroom detached family home. The three women were found seriously injured and later pronounced dead at the scene. A man walking close to the scene with his two young children on Wednesday said: Its just devastating. Its shocking to hear in an area where you just want to raise your children and have a nice, happy life. Forensic officers at the scene in Ashlyn Close, Bushey (James Manning/PA) (PA Wire) Describing Bushey as so peaceful and quiet, another local resident said: Its just heartbreaking. Its frightening to have it at the doorstep. Hertfordshire Constabulary hunted overnight for Clifford, from the Enfield area. Detectives had issued a direct plea to Clifford to contact police on Wednesday as they warned members of the public not to approach him and dial 999. Armed officers were seen raiding a flat in Enfield and swarming a cemetery, with a nearby primary school put on lockdown, before police confirmed he had been located that afternoon. The force said no shots were fired by police in the search for Clifford, who was feared to be armed with a crossbow. A woman delivers floral tributes near to the scene in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, Hertfordshire (PA) Footage captured by Sky News appeared to show him being stretchered out of Lavender Hill cemetery before being loaded into an ambulance. Clifford, who is said to be known to the Hunt family, left the British Army in 2022 following a brief period of service, The Independent understands. A former army boss told The Sun that he was immature for his age and had a bit of a chip on his shoulder, adding that he worked in private security after leaving the force. In a note to Mr Hunts colleagues at BBC 5 Live, the broadcaster offered its condolences and described the tragedy as utterly devastating. Donald Trump wants the press and the voters to look away from Project 2025. Instead, his defensiveness is causing journalists to report on the intricate web of connections between Trump and the far-right playbook for his desired second term. For instance, one of the many close Trump advisors who now works on Project 2025 is John McEntee, former Trump White House personnel director. McEntee has already confirmed that the plan is to "integrate" Project 2025 into the official Trump campaign. When McEntee isn't scheming for ways to purge the federal government of reality-based bureaucrats and replace them with MAGA loyalists, he's busy separating foolish MAGA men from their money with a dating app called "The Right Stuff." The app, which was funded initially by far-right tech investor Peter Thiel, purports to connect Republican singles looking for love. In truth, it's not clear what the app does, though many users express concerns about the data it may be collecting. One thing that seems unlikely is that it's a sincere effort to get its Republican users to the wedding altar. For one thing, while it's exclusively for heterosexual people, the app seems to suffer a dearth of female users, despite recruitment efforts led by the sister of Trump's ex-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Ryann. "Two Republican staffers in Washington, D.C., said many young conservative women have ignored McEnanys outreach and have instead jeeringly passed around screenshots of her messages to group chats," Zachary Petrizzo of the Daily Beast reported in 2022. The problem doesn't seem to have abated. As one college Republican recently complained to a right-wing student website, "Women on the app are eligible for a free premium subscription, which goes to show how few women sign up in the first place." He complained it's a "commercial failure," even though conservative men, in his estimation, don't do any better with the ladies on mainstream dating apps. Other users report being deluged with spam after signing up, especially from sex websites. Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only. The strangest red flag may be in the primary way McEntee markets the website: with videos selling the fantasy of being a man on a date with a woman who cannot wait to hear your most despicable opinions. As Tim Miller of the Bulwark explained, "the conceit" of these videos, which are shared widely on Instagram and TikTok, is McEntee "is on a date" and the "POV is you and the camera are on a date" with him. So the audience takes the role of the rapt woman listening to McEntee's conspiracy theories about "false flags." Or you're positioned as an adoring lady silently soaking in McEntee's rant accusing drag queens of being pedophiles while he houses a hamburger. McEntee often makes these opinions as shocking as he can, so the videos get outraged reactions and press. In May, for example, he made a video claiming he gives homeless people fake money, so they'll be arrested if they try to spend it. It's unlikely to be true since the Secret Service tends to go after the person distributing counterfeit money, and not the victims who mistakenly take it. But it worked to get people talking about his feed, attracting more attention and perhaps more gullible men downloading the app. One thing this marketing campaign almost certainly is not about: attracting female users to The Right Stuff. Even for conservative women, it's not exactly the dream date scenario to sit there in silence while some dude unloads his cruelest and dumbest ideas. No, this appears to be a fantasy for MAGA men. The dream is a woman who will do that for you. And if you can't have that in reality, you can watch these videos and pretend to be the guy on a date, bleating nonsense while a woman listens. McEntee appears to be yet another one of the seemingly endless stream of masculinity "influencers" who have created a perfect grift cycle for themselves. First, identify alienated men and promise them a path out of loneliness and into the heterosexual relationship of their dreams. Second, encourage those men to adopt even more repugnant behaviors that make it even harder for them to attract women. Then, when those men become even more frustrated, push them further to the right, blaming all their problems on feminists, liberals and LGBTQ people. It's a schtick we've seen from Jordan Peterson to Andrew Tate to the Proud Boys. I call it the male insecurity-to-fascism pipeline and, from a purely sociopathic viewpoint, it's evil genius. Marketing toxic masculinity as self-help benefits both the authoritarian cause and the influencer pocketbooks. MAGA figureheads get to tear down liberal society and make money doing so. They simply don't care that, in the process, they aren't just hurting most Americans. They're doing real damage to the men who follow them by encouraging them to adopt attitudes and behaviors that will make life harder in every arena, from work to romance. McEntee's goals of running a dating app and gutting American democracy might seem, at first blush, to be disparate interests but they're tightly entwined. The policy agenda of Project 2025 couldn't be better designed to tear further into the already fraying social fabric of America. So many of their goals from gutting public education to decimating reproductive health care access will put more stress on communities and families. If Trump wins, their platform will make it harder for people to maintain social relationships, much less create new ones. Try dating without birth control, for instance. Or having children without access to schools. Or having a safe community without environmental protections. Or having a decent job without labor protections. Even if they achieve half of what they wish, the people behind Project 2025 will leave behind an American populace that is lonelier, more alienated, and angrier. But hey, why should John McEntee care? A meaner and more isolated public just means more lonesome men to exploit with his shady dating app. At about 10:30 on the morning of July 8, just minutes before a Russian missile slammed into Kyivs main hospital for children, 4-year-old Dima Dorontsov was waiting to receive his final dose of chemotherapy at the oncology department with his mother Viktoria Zavoloka alongside. Hes spent much of his life in hospitals. After almost two years of treating abdominal cancer at the modern Okhmatdyt hospital, he called it home. Most of the about 15 other children around him were already connected to their drug dispensers, slowly releasing lifesaving chemicals into their blood. Thats when they heard the first distant sound of an explosion from Russias latest massive barrage of missile strikes targeting Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities that killed 33 and injured 121, Zavoloka told the Kyiv Independent. Then, she said, they heard a closer boom that set off car alarms nearby. Another hit nearby sent a shudder through the windows just after nurses asked the parents to dress up the kids who were still in morning shorts and pajamas. Dima and other patients who were able to walk were moving to the corridors with their caretakers. After that, the department chief only managed to say lets unplug the kids and move to the shelter and the main hit happened, Zavoloka said. Everything shook. Children started to scream. Some started to cry. The windows were blown out, she said. While the nurses rushed to unplug all the children from drug dispensers, Zavoloka grabbed some water for Dima, his documents, and two tiny blankets. They took the stairs descending to the underground floor with the other patients. Zavoloka remembers how scary it was to see shattered glass and smoke and to hear the sound of sirens. Read also: Quiet Kyiv neighborhood hit in a mass Russian attack It was dark, stuffy, there was dust all over, she said. But the scariest thing for her was the blood she saw on the floor as they walked downstairs. You could see that someone had walked there bleeding, and peoples footsteps had smudged the blood, she said. Downstairs, over a hundred people were packed in an underground part of the hospital. Frightened children were crying alongside caretakers, doctors, nurses, and visitors. It was hard to breathe through the smoke as a female voice kept alarming them over loudspeakers: Attention, a fire has started in the building. I could see the fear in Dimas eyes, but he was behaving so well, didnt cry, Zavoloka said. Children treated for cancer are normally required to avoid contact with other people, as their immune system is severely weakened by treatment. With the exception of immobile children, who Zavoloka believes were carried directly outside after the strike, most of the cancer patients gathered in the underground corridor, exposed to more human contact than many of them have seen in months. Emergency and rescue personnel, along with medics and others, clear the rubble of the destroyed building of Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital following a Russian missile attack in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on July 8, 2024. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images) Fearing that waiting for another possible strike in a crowd would be more dangerous for children than going outside, parents and nurses of the cancer ward decided to try moving somewhere else. It was only minutes later as they sat outside along the walls of the hospital with other patients seeing many ambulances, police, and firefighters rushing past them to a large column of smoke that Zavoloka began to grasp what had happened. First, we all thought that the rocket was intercepted, and the debris fell somewhere on the (hospital) territory, she said. Once outside, as their mobile phones reconnected with telecommunication networks, cell phones all around her started ringing like crazy. Soon afterward, the children undergoing cancer treatment were guided to a recently built bomb shelter. There, youre starting to relax, trying not to cry, and replying to all the messages, Zavoloka said. The air raid alarm had ended by then. Some parents went back to the cancer ward to grab the essentials for the kids like phones and medicine. Read also: How Russia broke through Ukraines air defense to strike Kyiv childrens hospital Zavoloka took the task of wiping the blood from the leg of a girl named Kira whose mother had gone back to grab her medication. Kira was one of the weaker patients in the ward, wounded by the window glass shards at her bed as her doctor was disconnecting her IV drip at the moment of impact. Youre sitting by this child, wiping her blood and thinking: Why? Why did it have to happen to our children, who are fighting for their lives every day anyway? Zavoloka said. Although she wiped her hands afterward, Zavoloka said that the smell of blood was stuck in her nose until she came back home with Dima late in the evening. But some of the Okhmatdyt patients like Dima and Kira, who were in the middle of a complex treatment, couldnt simply evacuate from the most advanced children's hospital in Ukraine, even after it was bombed by Russia, for fear of the rapid deterioration of their condition without proper medication. This is why the doctors and nurses scrambled through the smoke and dust around the hospital's surviving facilities to find the most essential drugs and medical equipment. One by one, they hauled the items to the shelter and began connecting Kira and other critical patients to drug dispensers. Viktoria Zavoloka and her son Dima. (Courtesy) At the time, Zavoloka said she and other parents still hoped to return to the ward soon. We hadnt seen the damage with our own eyes by then, and didnt know that half of the toxicology building was blown apart, along with the windows all around, she said. When they started getting internet connection on their cell phones again, they learned the extent of the damage from pictures on Telegram and Ukrainian news outlets. In contrast to an older building of the hospital which partially collapsed, the new building with the cancer department suffered broken windows and damaged to the facade, but its structure remained intact. Luckily for Dima, who was also connected to the drug dispenser at the shelter after the strike to receive his last dose of chemicals in the current round of treatment, he was allowed to go home afterward. Around 4 p.m. that day, Dima and his mother were picked up by Dimas father who drove for hours in a neighbors car from their village in Zhytomyr Oblast. Dima was among 465 children who were temporarily discharged from Okhmatdyt. According to a statement by Ukraines Health Ministry, 94 children were urgently transferred to other hospitals in Kyiv in the aftermath of the attack. Another 68 patients stayed at Okhmatdyt for further treatment. Read also: I want Russians to feel it on their own skin: Shock, fury at the site of childrens hospital attack On July 10, one boy died at one of Kyivs hospitals after being evacuated from Okhmatdyts intensive care unit, according to Ukraines Health Minister Viktor Lyashko. Days later, in the comfort of their home, gradually coming to terms with the shocking experience, Zavoloka is anxiously looking for options to continue Dimas treatment, like many other parents of Okhmatdyt patients. Its unclear when Okhmatdyt will be restored, she told the Kyiv Independent in a phone interview as Dimas cheerful shouts sounded in the background. He might start feeling bad next Monday, and maybe we need to find where to treat him ourselves, she said. Viktoria Zavoloka and her three children. (Courtesy) Zavoloka was contacted by the Ukrainian charity foundation Tabletochki which consistently provided expensive medications for Dima, as well as many other children with cancer treated at Okhmatdyt. We continue to help them as usual, said Yuliya Nohovitsyna, the foundations representative. As before, we purchase unavailable medicines, pay for diagnostic tests, buy special nutrition, and accommodate families from other cities in rented apartments. As she said in a statement for the Kyiv Independent, the foundation is in contact with Okhmatdyt doctors, other hospitals that are now hosting their patients, and the patients parents about the opportunity to evacuate the children abroad for further treatment. Requests from parents for treatment abroad for their children through the SAFER Ukraine Initiative have spiked in recent days, according to Nohovitsyna. But Zavoloka hopes to find opportunities to continue treating Dima in Ukraine, where hes been happily playing with his older sister and younger brother since returning home after the attack, telling his relatives that he saw the blood and the rocket. It appears that he was not affected by it, but he understands and remembers everything. Now hes overjoyed that the doctor let him go home and is distracted by it, Zavoloka said. But between calls with Dimas doctor, communicating with the parents of other children being treated for cancer, and the responsibility of caring for all of her three kids, Zavoloka keeps thinking back to the moment the Russian missile slammed into the Okhmatdyt hospital compound. Im constantly wondering what could have happened if that missile had hit just 50 meters closer to the new building, she said, referring to the hospitals main complex. Would we be lucky then? Could Dima even walk after that and would my other children ever see their mother again? Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, during a the media walkthrough of the 2024 Republican National Convention. (Wisconsin Examiner photo) The Coalition to March on the RNC is condemning a decision by a federal judge that restrictions to protest routes by the city of Milwaukee do not violate protesters rights to freedom of expression. On Tuesday, the coalition declared participants would march within sight and sound of the Republican National Convention (RNC), regardless of whether the city approves of the route protesters choose. What we have seen happen in Milwaukee is unfortunately what often happens when the RNC comes to town, the coalition said in a press release. Mayors and local police departments from host cities will work with the Secret Service and the RNC to suppress communities free speech. The coalition announced a new parade route for its march, starting at 10 a.m. on July 15. The route includes Water Street, on the opposite side of the Milwaukee River from the conventions soft security zone. Two loops of the route will enter the soft security zone, including Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, two blocks east of the Fiserv Forum and the hard security zone surrounding it. We are preparing for the worst, but expecting the best, the coalition stated. Our best will be a family friendly protest where we can project our agenda to the extent that it will overshadow the hateful, reactionary and racist Republican agenda. The coalition accused the city government of delaying releasing the groups designated route in order to condense the amount of time protesters would have to litigate that decision. We deserved a route we had adequate time to organize around and litigate, said the coalition statement, adding that the city has a moral obligation to provide protesters with the route they asked for. Tensions have grown the closer the RNC comes. Shortly after the RNC was announced last year, the coalition applied for a permit to hold a march where they could be seen and heard by delegates at the Fiserv Forum, where the convention will be held. That permit was never approved, and city officials went ahead with their parade route plan after mediation with the coalition fell through. The city and the Secret Service established a security footprint of several blocks in each direction from the convention and restricted demonstrations and protests to certain areas around or outside the security zone. In June Republican leaders asked the city and Secret Service to push the protests as far from the convention as possible. When those requests were rejected, the RNC rented a venue near the site of a proposed speakers platform and parade route, and officials responded by expanding the security zone a couple of weeks before the conventions start. The city has opened doors and rolled out red carpet for the Republicans and has left their residents in the dark, the coalition wrote in its press statement. There is no legitimate reason to criminalize our protest, on a route we have marched before without incident. While the city says that they cannot grant us our route due to safety concerns, they are actually increasing the likelihood of police coming into contact with protests by not granting us a permit for our route. The coalition statement added, Historically, police intervention has always been the start of a protest going south. In a recent Wisconsin Examiner article, coalition spokesperson Omar Flores stated that although the plan is to hold a family friendly march, the possibility that police will respond with force remains. The Milwaukee Police Department admitted to making misleading statements about protester violence in 2020, and records recently obtained by the Examiner showed that city officials discussed disguising the purchase of pepper spray ahead of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) that year. It is important to be clear that as organizers we were never going to let this decision decide if we march or not, the coalition press release stated. We are going to march on the streets that we have a right to march on, the same way we always have here in Milwaukee. This court decision is about how the city will react to our family friendly protest. The coalition described the Milwaukee Police Department responses to protests as relatively hands off in the past. Leading organizers have held successful marches of similar size and larger without a permit, the coalition stated. The overwhelming majority of our protests proceed as planned without arrests, and we expect the same to happen while the RNC is in town. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Quadaire Patterson speaks at a gathering in Virginia's Capitol on July 8, 2024 to celebrate the implementation of earned sentence credits. Charlotte Rene Woods / Virginia Mercury Santia Nance and Quadaire Pattersons love story is entering a new chapter. A law took effect last week that allowed certain incarcerated people to be released from prison for acquiring earned sentence credits. Patterson is now also earning good fiance points by doing every dish in the house since he moved out of prison and in with Nance. The couples long-fought-for chapter entailed years of political advocacy and maintaining hope. Opportunity is nothing without hope, Patterson said as one of the featured speakers during a press conference at Virginias Capitol on Tuesday. I relish the opportunity to be able to represent the incarcerated and all of my reentering brothers. He and Nance had gathered at Virginias Capitol on Tuesday with various prison reform advocacy organizations and Democratic lawmakers. Patterson was among people to be released last week. July 1 is when new laws typically take effect each year, but in this case, a four-year-old law was finally able to be implemented. Earned sentence credits are applied to shorten inmates time behind bars. Incarcerated people can achieve them through things like good behavior, participation in programs and seeking educational advancements. Prison reform advocates stress that earned sentence credits help incentivize rehabilitation so that families can be reunited sooner. Virginias legislature passed a law in 2020 that increased the number of credits inmates could earn and expanded it to people serving time for both violent and nonviolent offenses. It had a delayed start date for 2022, but that year Gov. Glenn Youngkin blocked its implementation through the state budget. Its a law that Nance, through her work co-founding a group called Sistas iIn Prison Reform, has hoped for. Organizations like Sistas in Prison Reform continued to advocate for its implementation. Before his release Patterson kept his fellow inmates in the loop on legislative processes, and he was also able to connect with Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Alexandria. Boysko carried the Senate version of the bill in 2020. Del. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, had the House version and his own lived experience as a formerly incarcerated person who has since gone on to become Virginias first Black Speaker of the House. While the Democratic-controlled legislature was able to get the earned sentence credits through this years budget with Youngkins signature, Republican resistance remains. Ahead of the celebratory gathering, Attorney General Jason Miyares issued a statement calling earned sentence credits a public safety risk. I believe in redemption and am a strong proponent for helping our returning citizens re-enter society to live productive lives. However, aggressive retroactive sentence reductions for violent criminals with a high risk of recidivism undermines our justice system and disregards victims, Miyares wrote. Miyares also wrote a letter earlier this year to lawmakers urging them to keep Youngkins budget language in place that would have blocked implementation of the 2020 law. He has used the influence of his office to advocate against various other criminal justice reform efforts in the states legislature. Boysko bucked Miyares characterization of the legislation at Tuesdays event, saying he and some other Republicans want to get everybody worked up into a frenzy ahead of next years state legislative elections. Data shows that earned sentence credits help reduce recidivism, no matter what he says, Boysko said. Next year, all 100 seats in Virginias House of Delegates will be up for election and Virginians will elect a new governor. With criminal justice reform often a Democratic-led issue, partisan control of the House or governorship could determine what future bills might succeed or fail. Until then, recently released Virginians will be settling back into their unincarcerated lives. Patterson will continue his education with the hope of eventually becoming a lawyer. Wedding plans are also on the horizon. Nance is ecstatic about having Patterson home with her and how their shared passion for advocacy is intrinsic to their love story. It really is a full circle moment to be standing here with him, she said. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST KATHMANDU, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Nepal's trade with China increased significantly during the past 11 months of the current fiscal year, though its overall foreign trade went down during the period, the central bank of Nepal announced on Wednesday. While the exports to China surged by 57.7 percent to 2.4 billion rupees (18 million U.S. dollars), Nepal's imports from the northern neighbor grew by 34.8 percent to 272.81 billion rupees (2.04 billion dollars), according to Nepal Rastra Bank figures. During the last 11 months of 2023-24 ending in mid-July, Nepal's total exports decreased year-on-year by 3 percent to 139.26 billion rupees (1.04 billion dollars) and the imports declined by 1.8 percent to 1,453.7 billion rupees (10.9 billion dollars), the bank said in a financial report. Meanwhile, Nepal's exports and imports from India during the period dropped by 4.5 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively. The trade deficit for Nepal remained high at 1,314.44 billion rupees (9.8 billion dollars), though it marked a reduction of 1.7 percent year-on-year, the central bank said. The bank reported a rise in foreign exchange reserves by 27.8 percent to 1,967.19 billion rupees (14.7 billion dollars) in mid-June, up from 1,539.36 billion rupees (11.5 billion dollars) over the same period of 2022-23. Similarly, the inflow of remittances to Nepal in the past 11 months of 2023-24 rose by 19.3 percent to 1,327.51 billion rupees (9.9 billion dollars), the bank said. A million-dollar program to keep residential wells flowing across a swath of southern Fresno and northern Kings counties is getting underway through a program spearheaded by one of the areas groundwater sustainability agencies. The plan is being funded through land assessments of $6 per acre now, maxing out at $18 per acre in 2027, charged to growers in the North Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA). There are pieces (of the plan) that took some arm twisting, said Justin Mendes, General Manager of the North Fork Kings GSA. From the ag community, initially the thing was, Wow this is gonna be super expensive. As it turned out, the bill didnt sting too bad. Along with consistent assessment payments from growers, the GSA got some unexpected savings on a water recharge project by partnering with Fresno County. Managers initially thought they would have to spend $3 million to buy a chunk of land from the county for the project but ended up partnering with the county and didnt have to spend that money, said Mendes. So, when Mendes came to the GSA in 2022, he inherited a sizable reserve. After the state approved the subbasins groundwater plan in 2023, Mendes focused on how to best use the GSAs money. How can we shift these reserves to focus on these needed corrective actions? said Mendes. The number one thing was the domestic well mitigation plan. Though this program will only be available to residents in the North Kings GSA, it is a key piece of the Kings groundwater subbasins larger plan to bring the areas groundwater consumption into compliance with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Even with state approval, water managers are required to provide annual updates. And under SGMA, damage to domestic wells is a major no-no. Its difficult to say exactly how many at-risk domestic wells there are across the subbasin, said Mendes. But he estimates there are about 225 in North Fork Kings GSA alone. At-risk domestic wells are typically more shallow and serve homes in disadvantaged communities, which include Lanare, Laton and Riverdale in North Fork Kings. Since last year and this year have been good water years, the GSAs have some breathing room to make sure they get this program right, said Mendes. North Fork Kings has seen an average groundwater rebound of five feet, he said. We dont think anyones in immediate danger right now, said Mendes. Staff are going to start working on implementation of the program which will probably include interim water provisions for those who have dry wells such as, bottled water delivery or a water storage tank. Those interim solutions will be provided until the GSA staff can get a well driller to either drill the well deeper or drill an entirely new well. Well owners will have to register their wells with the GSA to see if theyre eligible for the program. More than 100 domestic wells have been registered as of July 1. Residents can register their wells online at HERE or by calling the GSA at: (559) 632-7032. The GSA will be hiring a staff member to oversee the program, said Mendes. SJV Water is a nonprofit, independent online news publication covering water in the San Joaquin Valley. Lois Henry is the CEO/Editor of SJV Water. She can be reached at lois.henry@sjvwater.org. The website is www.sjvwater.org. CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) A gunman killed by Yellowstone National Park rangers as he fired a semiautomatic rifle at the entrance of a dining facility with about 200 people inside had told a woman as he held her at gunpoint earlier that he planned to carry out a mass shooting, park officials said Tuesday. Park rangers shot back and killed the man during the attack Thursday morning. Yellowstone officials identified the lone shooter Tuesday as Samson Lucas Bariah Fussner, 28, of Milton, Florida. A park ranger who was wounded was released from a hospital but not identified. The shooting led authorities to close off Canyon Lodge, a complex of hotel rooms, cabins and dining facilities, some of which remained closed Tuesday. Fussner worked for Xanterra Parks and Resorts, the main concessionaire for such facilities in Yellowstone, park officials said in a statement Tuesday. Dont bury toilet paper, say rangers at Yosemite National Park The statement provided several previously unreleased details about what happened. Soon after midnight Thursday, law enforcement rangers heard that Fussner had held a woman against her will with a gun at a residence in Canyon Village, a lodging area near Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in the parks northern end. The woman reported that Fussner threatened to kill her and others, including carrying out a mass shooting at July 4 events outside the park. Rangers found Fussners vehicle but not him. More than 20 law enforcement rangers, including a park special response team, looked for Fussner while organizing to protect park visitors and employees. Around 8 a.m. Thursday, law enforcement rangers encountered Fussner as he approached and fired on a service entrance to the Canyon Lodge dining facility. Several of the rangers shot at Fussner, and he died at the scene, according to the statement. No other injuries were reported. Indiana child missing since 2022 found: police Thanks to the heroic actions of our law enforcement rangers, many lives were saved here last Thursday, Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said in the statement. The FBI was investigating. Per National Park Service policy, law enforcement rangers involved in a shooting are placed on paid administrative leave while the shooting is investigated, the statement said. Park officials did not immediately comment Tuesday when asked if any Yellowstone law enforcement rangers had been placed on leave. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Hampton woman faces five years in prison for pandemic-related loan fraud NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) A Hampton woman was sentenced to five years in prison for pandemic-related loan fraud. Court documents show that 53-year-old Lapondia Wallace committed fraud on at least 22 pandemic loan applications and five applications for pandemic unemployment insurance benefits. According to the States Attorney Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, the fraud totaled more than $250,000 in losses for the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia. Wallace withdrew substantial amount of money and spent it on gambling, travel and luxury items before it could seized by authorities. The 53-year-old has at least fifteen prior convictions for fraud, forgery and related offenses. In 2021, Wallace was convicted of mail fraud and was under court supervision for that crime when she committed pandemic fraud. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WAVY.com. The left turn into and out of the Knoxville McKay's used books and record store on Papermill Drive is a headache on a normal day. But when the store celebrated its 50th anniversary July 9 with an all-day, prize-filled road trip to five locations in Tennessee and North Carolina, traffic was exacerbated and some got more than they bargained for. Knoxville, as a convergence point between the far ends of Nashville and Mebane, North Carolina, took the day's frenzy to a new level, as the Knoxville Fire Department and Knox County ambulance provider AMR evaluated 23 people while they waited in a heat index that reached 105 degrees. Another three people were taken to the hospital, Assistant Chief Mark Wilbanks of the Knoxville Fire Department told Knox News. 'Woodstock of 2024': McKay's road trippers reminisce and cash in after a hot day in lines A crowd of 500 to 600 people snaked in a line from the store's entrance down to the road before McKay's shut down the event early at 5 p.m. and told those waiting in the Knoxville line and those about to arrive that they should move on to their next stop. Wilbanks gave credit to the store's managers for closing down the event for safety while trying to ensure participants got what they came for. "There were people there that certainly were healthy, but nobody can stand standing out in the hot sun for multiple hours, and it was so hot and humid yesterday," Wilbanks said. "I don't think they realized that it would be the size that it was. I don't think they intentionally did anything wrong." Here's how the wildly popular McKay's got to this moment. What happened during the McKay's Ultimate Road Trip? McKay's created its ambitious Ultimate Road Trip in honor of its 50th anniversary. On one day, if fans ages 18 and older could navigate the roughly nine-hour road trip to five stores between Nashville and Mebane, North Carolina, they would be rewarded with $800 of store credit and other prizes. Each store came with a prize, beginning with a passport to be stamped along the 570-mile journey. But fans didn't have to visit all five stores to get rewards, or visit in any particular order: First store : McKay's passport Second store : McKay's T-shirt Third store : $50 McKay's store credit, travel mug and snack pack Fourth store : $250 McKay's store credit and commemorative poster Fifth store: $500 McKay's store credit Our $800 McKay's shopping list: Obscure titles, a 'Peppa Pig' cap and one pricey dinosaur On the store's FAQ page for the road trip, McKay's seemed to understand the risks involved. Under the question, "Won't too many people do this?" the site says, "You only turn 50 once, and we're looking forward to giving back to our community in a big way!" Early in the morning, it became clear McKay's might have attracted more fans than it expected on the hot July day. At its Mebane store, people got out of their cars in a traffic jam to walk to the store, according to social media posts. McKay's began modifying the requirements, telling thousands of exasperated travelers they could skip stores and still get stamps. The store also extended the deadline from 10 p.m. to midnight. Some travelers said they ended the night with $800 of store credit, even if they didn't get to all the stores. A public Facebook page for the event was flooded with memes and complaints throughout the day about logistical problems, line skippers and the heat. How long has McKay's been in Knoxville? McKay's was founded in North Carolina in 1974 to be a "free enterprise library," where people could buy cheap secondhand books and return them for store credit if they wished. After opening the "Edward McKay" bookstore, the company split ownership and became McKay's, according to its website. McKay's customers walk down Papermill Drive to the Knoxville store on July 9 for the company's 50th anniversary celebration, which took place at five stores across North Carolina and Tennessee. The Knoxville store shut down early amid a large turnout that resulted in three heat-related hospitalizations. Knoxville was the first Tennessee location for McKay's when the store opened here in 1985. It has been on Papermill Drive since 2005. Its Chattanooga store opened in 1990, and its Nashville store opened in 2007. When McKay's bought back the Edward McKay stores in 2017, it resumed its North Carolina presence in Greensboro and Winston-Salem. Earlier this year, McKay's moved its Greensboro store to a new building in nearby Mebane. What makes McKay's so popular? The McKay's warehouse-style store on Papermill Drive is popular because of its abundance of used books, records, CDs, movies, video games and other collectibles. It's open seven days a week and until 10 p.m. Monday-Saturday, making it a rainy day or late-night activity. It also has upheld its original promise of allowing customers to return items for store credit. McKay's offers cash or store credit for used books, DVDs, CDs, games, records and collectibles, regardless of whether they originally came from the store. Why is Knoxville McKay's unionized? In addition to heat-related hospitalizations, Knoxville's McKay's is unique in another way: It's the only McKay's store that has unionized. Workers voted overwhelmingly to unionize on Nov. 8, 2022, though the union has yet to reach a contract with the store after more than a year of bargaining. The union formed to negotiate store labor policies, like sick leave and discipline, as well as fair pay, according to a union pamphlet. A draft letter to McKay's owners posted online calls on them to "listen to workers' priorities, reject union-busting tactics like dragging out the bargaining process and pitting stores against one another, and instead, take the high road - come to the table and bargain a fair first contract in good faith." Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Email daniel.dassow@knoxnews.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe. This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: McKay's 50th anniversary road trip heats up at Knoxville bookstore Vice President Kamala Harris slams Donald Trump and defends President Joe Biden during a campaign event Tuesday at Resorts World in Las Vegas. (Photo: Jeniffer Solis) During a campaign event in Las Vegas Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald Trump over his connections to Project 2025, a plan crafted by a right-wing think tank to dramatically expand presidential powers and restructure the federal government. Several former Trump administration officials participated in the creation of the 922-page document, which includes a 180-day presidential transition plan to eliminate several federal agencies, replace thousands of government workers with Trump loyalists, a nationwide abortion ban, and the reversal of numerous progressive policies. Trumps advisors have created a 900-page blueprint called Project 2025 detailing everything else they plan to do in a second term, including a plan to cut Social Security, repeal our $35 cap on insulin, eliminate the Department of Education and end programs like Head Start, Harris told a standing audience in a Resorts World ballroom Tuesday. Trump has attempted to distance himself from the controversial Heritage Foundation project, posting on his social media site last week that he knows nothing about Project 2025. Harris warned voters that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, declaring that presidents have criminal immunity from prosecution for official presidential actions, could expand Trumps presidential powers during a second-term as outlined in Project 2025. Democrats and allies have described the Supreme Court decision as a setback for democracy that places presidents above the law. Harris echoed those concerns Tuesday. Donald Trump has openly vowed if reelected that hell be a dictator on day one, Harris said. Donald Trump wants to turn our democracy into a dictatorship, and the Supreme Court basically just declared he can get away with it. The campaign focus on Project 2025 comes after a disastrous debate performance by Biden last month prompted strong Democratic criticism including from Rep. Susie Lee and calls for Biden to drop out of the race. Harris alluded to those criticisms in her Tuesday speech. These past few days have been a reminder that running for president of the United States is never easy. But the one thing we know about our president Joe Biden is that he is a fighter, and hes the first to say when you get knocked down, you get back up again, Harris said. During her speech, Harris emphasized the importance of the November presidential election for reproductive rights, an issue proven to mobilize voters. Harris reminded voters that Trump nominated the three conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court who helped overturn abortion protections under Roe v Wade. Project 2025 outlines a plan to limit access to contraception and for a nationwide abortion ban with or without a lack of conference, Harris said. Trump has not denied, much less shown remorse, for his actions. Instead, he proudly takes credit for overturning Roe. So make no mistake. If Trump gets the chance, he will sign the national abortion ban that outlaws abortion in every single state, she added. The Tuesday event launched a national organizing and engagement program the Biden-Harris administration hopes will mobilize Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander voters ahead of the November general election. As part of the campaign, Nevada for Biden-Harris purchased digital and print ads in the Las Vegas Chinese Daily News, the Asian Journal, Las Vegas Japan Times, Korean Las Vegas Times, and the Philippine Times of Southern Nevada. Harris emphasized the Biden administrations role in increasing the number and amount of Small Business Administration loans to Asian Americans by over one-third and achieving the highest AANHPI employment rate since 2008. Harris also highlighted the Biden administration commitment to reducing anti-Asian hate and violence in the U.S. by signing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law, which made it easier for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities to report acts of hate. On the other hand, the former president consistently incites hate, Harris said. Someone who vilifies immigrants, who promotes xenophobia, someone who stokes hate should never again have the chance to stand behind a microphone and the seal of the president of the United States. Harris focuses on her personal story, not Biden questions, as she speaks to Black and Asian voters Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. annual convention during the 71st biennial Boule at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Vice President Harris has been a member of the sorority since she joined while a student at Howard University. (AP Photo/LM Otero) DALLAS (AP) First, Vice President Kamala Harris went to Nevada to launch the reelections outreach campaign to Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and addressed the crowd as longtime friends. Then, she was in Dallas to speak at the annual gathering of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the Black sorority that she pledged as a student at Howard University, one of the most storied historically Black colleges in the country. She conveyed to her fellow sorors sorority sisters about the stakes of November's election. Events she held on successive days this week illustrate how her racial identity and personal background could help President Joe Biden 's flagging reelection after his widely-panned June 27 debate performance, and make her a potentially formidable replacement if he withdraws. Harris is the nation's first female vice president as well as the first Black woman and person of Asian descent to hold the role. The campaign swing allowed the vice president to exhort key elements of the Biden coalition by addressing her personal story more than squabbles among Democrats about whether Biden should bow out and let her be the partys presidential nominee. The vice president's mix of identities can sometimes perplex her detractors, but supporters argue it is an embodiment of Americas rich nuances. Throughout her campaign events this week, Harris sought to use her multifaceted identities and life story as a vehicle to defend universal American values such as freedom, justice and democracy. Andrea Rodriguez Campos, a teacher in Las Vegas, was moved to tears as Harris described her upbringing and the importance of immigrant communities. I find that everything theyre supporting is so important, Rodriguez Campos said of the Biden administration. Being an immigrant myself, I mean, thats why were here. Being able to see somebody like her reminds me that because she can, we all can. Biden has insisted he will not drop out of the election after his disastrous debate performance even as he faces growing dissension from Democrats on Capitol Hill and many donors. Harris and other potential replacements have said they still support Biden. Still, former President Donald Trump and Republican allies are increasingly focusing their attacks on Harris anyway, often in language with racist and misogynist undertones. Trump has referenced Harris' past relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and labeled her Laffin' Kamala," a reference to frequent Republican attacks on how she laughs. Harris at both events stuck to promoting Biden, not herself. We always knew this election would be tough, and the past few days have been a reminder that running for president of the United States is never easy, Harris said Tuesday in Las Vegas. But the one thing we know about our president, Joe Biden, is that he is a fighter and he is the first to say, when you get knocked down, you get back up. Keeping the spotlight on Biden didn't stop some in the crowd from wondering, though. Attendee John Chang said he thought the vice president performed well during the Las Vegas rally, despite saying hed been underwhelmed by her previously. Im here to evaluate, Chang said. I lean very strongly against Trump. But if Biden were to step out or just get sick or whatever and she steps up then its like so and now what? Can it be her? Some of the attendees of Tuesdays event wore traditional Central and Southeast Asian dresses, others had leis common to Hawaiian culture, while some sported traditional Pacific Islander jewelry. Harris made a point of not just praising a crowd as filled with longtime friends but also calling Las Vegas Hawaiis ninth island. Both days, Harris emphasized being raised in a multicultural, multiracial household in San Francisco's Bay Area to attending Howard. We stand for this beauty and diversity and the promise of America, she said. On Wednesday, addressing AKA's 71st Boule in Dallas, Harris declared, I will address the topic at hand. But she was referring to the sorority's legacy of fighting for civil rights over the decades not the raging debate over Biden's chances in November. The vice president was met with a resounding skee-wee from the crowd, a traditional greeting and affirming cheer for those in the sorority, as she entered and exited the group's boule, or regular gathering. The crowd was composed entirely of Black women many wearing dresses in the sorority's standard color of pink and green who said they considered Harris a sister. Some had on tiaras, while others cheered with pom-poms as Harris spoke. Wearing a pink blazer herself, Harris recounted her journey to the sorority and how she said it enabled her path to the vice presidency. Attendees also responded in unison and sustained applause when Harris said, Soros, this is a serious matter, referencing both the election and an adage of the sisterhood. In this moment, once again, Harris said, our nation is counting on the leaders of this room to guide us forward to energize, organize and mobilize. ___ Weissert reported from Washington. A Hawaii airport was briefly evacuated after what turned out to be two inert grenades were found by Transportation Security Administration agents in the carry-on luggage of a 41-year-old man, Hawaii Police said. Officers cleared the terminal early Tuesday while the bomb squad moved in to investigate the suspicious items, which were picked up during X-ray screening. These two inert grenades were found by TSA agents in the carry-on luggage of a man trying to board a flight at Hawaii's Hilo International Airport on July 9, 2024. Hawaii Police say. / Credit: Hawaii Police "The Hilo International Airport experienced a brief halt in operations" for little over an hour, police said. The bomb squad "determined the items to be inert grenades," police reported, meaning they weren't dangerous. Akito Fukushima, of Kanazawa, Japan, was arrested on a charge of first-degree terroristic threatening, police said. The flight he was trying to board was to a destination outside the U.S., police noted, but they didn't say which country it was heading to or what his ultimate destination was. "Police remind the public that replicas of explosives, such as hand grenades, are prohibited in checked and carry-on baggage," they added. Sneak peek: Murder by Clown What to expect from Alec Baldwin involuntary manslaughter trial Zelenskyy meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson about funding for Ukraine Visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at a joint press conference in Vienna, Austria, July 10, 2024. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a state visit to Austria and met with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Wednesday.(Xinhua/He Canling) VIENNA, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a state visit to Austria and met with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Wednesday. At a joint press conference, the two leaders pledged to expand bilateral ties and deepen cooperation. Nehammer said that Modi's visit coincides with the 75th anniversary of the two countries' diplomatic relations and is the first visit by an Indian head of government since 1983. The Austrian chancellor called for enhancing bilateral cooperation with India in business, trade, science, education, infrastructure, urban development, and renewable energy. Modi also emphasized the need to enhance exchanges and strengthen bilateral collaboration with Austria in areas including infrastructure, innovation, and artificial intelligence. Regarding the Ukraine crisis, Modi stressed the importance of dialogue and diplomacy in restoring peace and stability. He said India and Austria are ready to "provide all possible support" to achieve this goal. Modi arrived in Vienna on Tuesday after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. During his talks with Putin about bilateral relations and the Ukraine crisis, Modi spoke highly of the friendship and cooperation between India and Russia over the past five years, despite various global challenges, according to a joint statement. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer speaks at a joint press conference in Vienna, Austria, July 10, 2024. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a state visit to Austria and met with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Wednesday. (Xinhua/He Canling) Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer (R) and visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend a joint press conference in Vienna, Austria, July 10, 2024. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a state visit to Austria and met with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Wednesday. (Xinhua/He Canling) Heat record set in 1905 melts in sweltering Tri-Cities heat wave. Its not over yet A daily hot weather record for the Tri-Cities that had stood for more than 100 years fell Tuesday. The National Weather Service reported a temperature of 109 degrees at the Tri-Cities airport just before 4 p.m. Previously the hottest temperature recorded in the Tri-Cities for the date was 106 in 1905. Wednesday also has the potential to be a record breaker. The National Weather Service forecasts a high of 108, which would beat the record 106 for the date set in 1975. National Weather Service data Tri-Citians are well accustomed to hot summer temps. But a string of 100-plus days is taking a toll on outdoor events and prompting reminder that Washington laws require employers to protect outdoor workers against heat exhaustion, stroke or worse.. The Tri-City Union Gospel Mission hadnt seen a spike in demand for indoor shelter by Tuesday, but expected that could change in the coming days. Andrew Porter, executive director, said more people are stopping by in search of water, which the Pasco shelter provides during hot weather. As of midday Tuesday, no heat-related deaths had been reported by the Benton and Franklin county coroners. In Kennewick, the heat wave prompted organizers of the Drums Along the Columbia to delay the start of a performance at Neil F. Lampson Stadium on Monday. Performances by the drum and bugle corps from Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Seattle and the Tri-Cities-based Columbians started after 8 pm. The LIGO observatory at Hanford canceled its tours on Saturday July 13 due to excessive heat risk. They include an unshaded walk of about an hour. Registration for August tours is open. The Historic Downtown Kennewick Partnership rescheduled its annual Downtown Impact Awards after concluding that it will be too hot Wednesday to safely honor citizens for their contributions to the community. The Impact Awards program is now set to begin at 5:30 p.m., Sept. 18, at 10 E. Bruneau Ave., Building C. Stephanie Button, executive director, indicated organizers are reconsidering the event schedule in the future with temperatures and possible wildfire smoke events in mind. A landscaping worker shares bottles of water during a 2022 heat wave. Washington labor law requires employers to protect workers and provide cool water when temperatures rise. Worker heat rules The current heat wave serves as a handy reminder that Washington law requires employers to provide outdoor workers with access to both water and cool-down facilities. In 2023, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries conducted more than 412 heat-related inspections and issued 108 citations. To date in 2024, it has conducted 140 inspections and issued 39 violations. The workers compensation system accepted 53 heat-related claims in 2022, with farm workers and laborers being the top occupation for claims. Construction was second most common industry to experience heat-related illness. Workers comp accepted 84 heat claims in 2021, a record driven by the infamous heat dome that settled over the region. The current heat rules, which were updated in 2023, requires employers to be proactive in keeping workers safe. L&I advises employers to be proactive and ensure that as temperatures rise, they provide sufficient water and rest breaks to prevent heat-related illness or even death. Protections start when the temperature reaches 80 degrees F, and ramp up with the thermostat. When temperatures are at or above 90, employers are required to provide a 10-minute cool down rest period every two hours. At 100 degrees F or above, outdoor workers must be offered a 15-minute cool down period every hour. Employers must a shaded area, air conditioned building or vehicle to provide respite. The must also provide one quart per hour of cool water per employee. Heat-related illnesses Workers showing signs of heat exhaustion should move into shade, drink water and take other steps to avoid serious or even fatal conditions. Heat exhaustion symptoms include heavy sweating, a fast, weak pulse, cold, pale and clammy skin, headaches, dizziness, nausea or vomiting and weakness and/or ramps. Heat stroke should be treated as a medical emergency requiring professional treatment. Symptoms include hot, red and dry skin with no sweat, a body temperature of 104 or higher and a fast, strong pulse, nausea and/or loss of consciousness. Read more about the high heat rules here. Tri-City Herald reporter Annette Cary contributed to this report. Sign Up: Boom Town Tri-Cities Stay up to date on Tri-Cities growth and development with our weekly business newsletter. Get the latest on restaurant and business openings and closings, plus the regions top housing and employment news. Click here to sign up. In your inbox every Wednesday. A wild turkey hen and her brood. (Photo by Pat Howard courtesy of Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources) State fish and wildlife agencies are conducting scientific research to shed more light on the status of turkey populations and need the publics help, according to a news release from the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. The department is encouraging anyone who observes wild turkeys in Kentucky during July or August to enter some basic information about their sightings into an online survey portal. Data collected through this survey help the department to better understand turkey population trends over time. To report sightings, visit fw.ky.gov and enter the key words turkey survey in the search bar to access the summer turkey online survey portal. A printable form of the survey may also be downloaded, printed and filled out, then scanned or photographed with a smartphone and emailed to info.center@ky.gov. Turkey observation data gained through public participation are used in conjunction with research findings, making this citizen-science data set vital for long-term conservation, says KDFWR. The turkey population is studied by department staff and graduate student researchers, but they can only cover a limited area of the state, said Zak Danks, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Wild Turkey Program coordinator. Keen-eyed volunteers who report turkey sightings through this survey really expand our ability to monitor the flock. The turkey program compiles data from these observations from interested citizens and staff into a statewide index of hatch and survival of young turkeys, or poults. This index helps department biologists assess reproductive success, which is important to the sustainability of the wild turkey population. While Kentucky turkey hunters have reported near-record statewide harvests each of the past two spring hunting seasons, hunters across the southeastern U.S. have reported seeing fewer turkeys in recent years. A lot has changed across the Commonwealth since this survey began in 1984, back when turkeys were being released to restore a statewide population, Danks said. Today, turkey flocks face many pressures, including predation and disease. Whether were talking turkeys or Kentuckys other native species, having an engaged citizenry to help monitor wildlife will be key to helping us adapt into the future. The post Help biologists monitor, conserve Kentuckys wild turkey population by reporting sightings online appeared first on Kentucky Lantern. How to help victims of Hurricane Beryl and avoid getting scammed More than a half dozen people are dead, and over a million homes and businesses are without power in scorching heat after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas on Monday and left a trail of destruction behind. In wake of the first U.S. hurricane of what could be a busy season, relief groups have sprung into action to help those who were affected in Texas. Red Cross shelters, which have popped up all over the eastern part of Texas, hope to give people refuge from the exhausting heat. "It is absolutely brutal down here and the temperatures are extremely high and there's very little cloud cover," Stephanie Fox, the national spokesperson for the American Red Cross is in Fort Bend County, Texas, told USA TODAY. "We want folks to understand that, with there being more than 2 million or so without power in this area that they can come to these shelters even if they're not going to stay overnight, even if they haven't sustained damage to their homes." Beryl live updates: Heat drives Texans to sleep in cars amid outages while the North floods How can I help Texans and others affected by the storm? Sending cash to charities and non-profits that are helping communities recover from the storm is one of the best things you can do to help, Elian Giaccarini, an emergency management coordinator for Central America and the Caribbean for Adventist Development and Relief Agency, ADRA, an international faith-based humanitarian agency, told USA TODAY. Monetary donations allow organizations like the Red Cross or ADRA more flexibility to support different communities' needs after a natural disaster. In-kind donations, like canned foods or water bottles, take time to reach the affected areas, and by then, they may no longer be needed. "By the time those things get there, the situation and the needs are already very different," said Giaccarini. "So donating cash allows us to roughly change our budgets and buy the things that we need as we respond in those countries." ADRA also gives cash donations to civilians affected by disasters if grocery stores or markets can still open. This, in turn, will boost the economy. Marguerite Thomas lights candles at dusk after losing electricity due to Hurricane Beryl in Surfside Beach, Texas, U.S., July 9, 2024. The Red Cross already has sufficient in-kind donations, like clothing, said Fox. But, the best ways to help the Red Cross are by doing the following, states Fox: Volunteer locally Donate blood Make financial donations "Making a financial donation to disaster relief allows us to help prepare for, respond to and support communities recover from disasters like Hurricane Beryl and others," said Fox. People who want to donate clothing can check in with local organizations, like churches, to see if they will be fundraising or caravaning donations to affected areas. The Red Cross also has community partners that accept donations. "We have community partners that we work with that are able to help manage any kind of donations, make sure stuff is clean," said Fox. They then sort out the donations and organize them, which allows the Red Cross to "focus on that sheltering, that feeding, and that comforting care." Avoid scams Doing research on different non-governmental organizations (NGOs), nonprofits that work independently from the government, is the number one way to avoid getting scammed, said both Fox and Iris Argueta, ADRA's Director of Communications and Public Relations. "The most important thing is to research the NGO," said Argueta. Fox and Argueta recommend using the following websites to research charities before donating: Charity Navigator Charity Watch Group Better Business Bureau GuideStar It's important to check if charities are registered and accredited and by relevant authorities. Nonprofits won't be aggressive when seeking donations, either, said Argueta. So beware of unsolicited donation requests. Niether the Red Cross nor ADRA will make cold calls seeking donations. "There is no time because we're actually in the field responding," said Argueta. Seeking help in Texas and escaping the heat Those who are looking for shelter in Texas can look for Red Cross shelters in their area. "Right now, we are focusing on providing safe shelter," said Fox. "And that's both safe shelter for those who are displaced and also a safe shelter for those out of the heat." "A lot of folks are working on their homes, they're outside, they're clearing debris, and that is going to put them at potential risk for heat illnesses," said Fox. Fox emphasised that everyone is welcomed to a shelter, even if a person is just trying to get away from the sun and avoid heat illness. Exposure to high heat and humidity can lead to heat illnesses, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Heat stroke, the "most serious heat-related illness," occurs when the body is unable to regulate or lower it's temperature and can result in confusion, loss of consciousness, seizures and more. "The greatest concern right now is the power outages and extreme heat that is impacting Texans," said President Joe Biden in a statement after he approved a major disaster declaration for Texas. Finding shelters in Texas Visit the Red Cross's website to locate a shelter near you. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How to help, donate to victims of Hurricane Beryl and avoid scams Fisker Inc. co-founders Henrik Fisker and his wife, Geeta Gupta-Fisker, are lowering their salaries to $1 in order to keep their failed EV startup's bankruptcy proceedings funded, as lawyers work to complete a sale of its remaining inventory. Fisker Inc.'s restructuring officer, John DiDonato, said in a Tuesday morning filing that the couple, who co-founded the startup in 2016, made the decision July 8 -- just five days after he was grilled about the issue by Linda Richenderfer, a lawyer for the office of the U.S. Trustee. In that July 3 hearing, Richenderfer asked DiDonato whether the Fiskers were still on the payroll. Richenderfer wanted to be sure that every other option had been exhausted given that the lawyers for the company were asking the court to approve an expedited sale of Fisker's EVs (at least the ones designed for North America) in order to fund the rest of the Chapter 11 case. Those funds are meant to cover legal proceedings and the wind-down of the company. DiDonato stumbled trying to recall what Henrik and Geeta were currently being paid but told Richenderfer that their salaries were undertaking a modification and possibly some deferrals. It's still not clear what the couple were being paid every other week as the company slid into bankruptcy. The company said in a regulatory filing last year that it paid them a minimum-wage salary in 2022, which at the time in California was $62,400. But they were each additionally paid cash bonuses of $710,000. In addition to the salary reductions, DiDonato said in Tuesday's filing that Fisker will defer "certain severance payments, certain employee healthcare benefits, and vehicle sale incentive bonuses" that have not yet been paid. Most of Fisker's workforce, which was around 1,300 in September 2023, has been whittled down to about 130 people. All of this comes as the company is pushing to sell more than 3,000 of its remaining Ocean SUVs to American Lease, a New York-area company that mainly serves ride-hail drivers, in a deal that is supposed to net around $46.25 million. And while Fisker is in agreement to make that sale to American Lease, another potential buyer has approached the startup -- but that unknown party is under NDA and it's not been made clear what, exactly, they might want and what they'd be willing to pay. A lawyer for Fisker said at the July 3 hearing that the plan was to parcel out about 200 Oceans to American Lease at a time, due, in part, to a problem with the EV's water pump that can cause the high-voltage battery to lose power. Fisker needs to fix that problem on every car before it can be sold because the part is now under an official recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. With the cost-saving measures DiDonato laid out, along with additional cash coming in from prior vehicle auctions and interest on bank accounts, Fisker now thinks it can fund the case over the next few weeks. A final decision on the approval of the sale to American Lease is now not expected until July 16. "I think holding the hearing on that date allows a little more breathing room for the parties and potential other events," Brian Resnick of Davis Polk, who represents Fisker in the bankruptcy case, said in a hearing Tuesday morning. That includes the potential new buyer for Fisker's assets, Resnick said, but he added: "We're certainly not taking our eye off the ball" on the American Lease transaction. In the interim, the fight between Fisker's lone secured creditor -- Heights Capital Management, an affiliate of financial services company Susquehanna International Group -- and its many unsecured lenders continues. A committee of unsecured creditors was finally formed last week, and their legal representation got its first chance to speak at Tuesday's hearing. That lawyer, Doug Mannal of Morrison Foerster LLP, didn't waste the moment. He spent about 10 minutes of the roughly 30-minute hearing building on claims, frustrations and allegations made by another lawyer who spoke on behalf of an unsecured creditor in the first Chapter 11 hearing on June 21. Mannal's speech aimed to deliver the court a message: The committee of unsecured creditors is uncomfortable with the way that Heights wound up first in line for all of Fisker's assets. Heights extended around $500 million worth of loans to Fisker in 2023. That debt was not secured by any collateral, but instead could be converted into Fisker stock. When Fisker was late in filing its third-quarter financial results in late 2023, that breached one of the covenants of the deal with Heights. Somehow -- and it's still unclear exactly what happened here -- Fisker's way of making good with Heights was to pledge all of its assets as collateral for the remaining debt. "What would be a relatively benign event in most other situations has had a dramatic impact" on Fisker, Mannal said in the hearing. He also noted that the covenant breach allowed Heights to convert and sell Fisker stock at a juicy premium, essentially turning $1 into $1.60 by flipping it on the open market. Mannal accused Heights of using Fisker as a "money tree" and claimed they've already made back far more than the value of the original loans. He therefore questioned why Heights is still claiming to be owed more than $180 million -- debt that remains collateralized by all of Fisker's assets -- when the unsecured creditors are collectively owed around $1 billion. Scott Greissman, a partner at White & Case LLP who represents Heights, said the firm "has at all times acted within the four corners of a series of contracts" with Fisker. He reminded the court that Fisker was a publicly traded company with a board of directors and "fine counsel," all of whom oversaw the negotiations of the original loans and the agreement to repair the breach. "Your Honor, similar to the first day hearing, different law firm, same allegations, perhaps a little more dramatic, we don't think it's appropriate necessarily at all to respond to any of these allegations that Mr. Mannal has stated on the record almost in the form of testimony," Greissman said. "We are very concerned that the [unsecured creditors'] committee's approach to the case will destroy value rather than enhance it." (One way the committee of unsecured creditors is already trying to "enhance" the value of what's left at Fisker: It was the one that found the new potential buyer.) Whichever way the next few weeks go, Greissman stressed the point that, though Fisker entered a Chapter 11 proceeding, Heights sees this as a liquidation and little else. "Every dollar expended is unrecoverable," he said. "Even an approved sale won't necessarily sustain a Chapter 11 case, especially a highly litigious one." GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet have made their way to Nucla to hear from residents about their concerns for the proposed 400,000-acre national monument that would surround them. On July 3, the senators released a statement saying they would need more time with further discussion to come to a final decision. They did, however, include guidelines they would use to help make a determination. Norwood Mayor Candy Meehan tells WesternSlopeNow she feels as if the senators didnt listen to her or her community in the way they initially let on. Director of Colorado Wildlands Project and member of Protect the Dolores Coalition Scott Braden sees this press release in a much different light he believes the statement is proof Colorados senators are listening to both sides. Over 1,100 uranium and vanadium mines live in the area the monument would cover. In the senators statement, it says all existing mines could operate as normal, but Norwood Town Manager Deana Sheriff tells WesternSlopeNow if new mines arent allowed, both the town and national security could be threatened. Both Sheriff and Meehan say Norwood, Nucla and Naturita dont have the infrastructure needed to support a surge of travelers. Another concern is emergency services. For instance, if someone breaks down or crashes on the side of the two-lane highway leading through the canyon, theres close to no cell service all the way from Whitewater to Nucla and Naturita, with the exception of Gateway. But even if cell service wasnt the main issue, what would happen if someone got hurt? Meehan tells WesternSlopeNow theres only three ambulances set to cover the 1200-mile square section of land. Even the diction used in the statement sets off red flags for Meehan and Sheriff for instance, the use of the word should instead of could. More worries include grazing rights and other trails not included in the ATV statement. While several arguments await to be settled, only time will tell how this story plays out. WesternSlopeNow will continue to keep you updated along the way. Heres a link to the statement. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. Alexi Saenz, a high-ranking member of the MS-13 gang, pleaded guilty in federal court in Central Islip, New York, on Wednesday to racketeering charges stemming from eight murders. He faces between 40 and 70 years in prison as part of a plea agreement, prosecutors said. Among the deaths Saenz pleaded guilty to were those of two Long Island teenagers 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas and 15-year-old Nisa Mickens who were killed in Sept. 2016. Prosecutors said several gang members chased them down and attacked them with baseball bats and a machete. MORE: New York prosecutors take down 96 MS-13 gang members and associates Prosecutors said the teens' murders arose from a series of disputes and an altercation Cuevas and her friends had with people associated with MS-13 at Brentwood High School. After the altercation, the gang members "vowed to seek revenge against Cuevas," according to prosecutors. Saenz, along with several other suspected MS-13 gang members, were arrested for the teens' deaths in 2017. Charges against his brother, Jairo Saenz, who was also arrested at the time, remain pending. "To say that Alexi Saenz's hands are drenched in blood does not begin to describe the multiple killings and extreme mayhem he personally directed and committed in the span of one year in Suffolk County," Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a press release Wednesday. "While those murders and violent crimes were intended to further the sordid mission of the MS-13, the defendant has failed miserably." PHOTO: In this Oct. 24, 2016 file photo, a poster displayed at a Suffolk County police precinct in Bay Shore, N.Y. (Michael Balsamo/AP) Prosecutors initially sought the death penalty for the two Saenz brothers, but Attorney General Merrick Garland said in 2023 they would no longer do so. The murders of the two girls garnered national attention, with then-President Donald Trump inviting their parents to the 2018 State of the Union. "Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens," Trump said during his speech. "Their two teenage daughters Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisa's16th birthday, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage gang MS-13 have been charged with Kayla and Nisa's murders." MORE: Suspected MS-13 gang members arrested in connection with Long Island teen murders Saenz was charged in connection to the murders of six other people, all of whom the MS-13 members suspected of being affiliated with rival gangs, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors described Saenz as a ringleader in these killings, frequently instructing fellow gang members to carry out the attack or giving the greenlight to do so. Saenz was also charged in connection with three attempted murders, arson, narcotics trafficking and firearms offenses. Suffolk County Police Department acting Commissioner Robert E. Waring called Saenz's crimes "senseless and barbaric." "The murders of teenagers Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens shook our communities and reverberated around the nation," Waring said. "My hope is that this guilty plea will give the victims' families some closure while also demonstrating our commitment to dismantling these criminal enterprises." High-ranking MS-13 gang member pleads guilty to 8 murders, including Long Island teen girls originally appeared on abcnews.go.com As a high schooler, IU's crackdown on protests makes me want to enroll elsewhere I exist within an extremely privileged position regarding educational opportunity. Throughout my life, due to my parents various, seemingly ever-changing positions within multiple colleges and universities nationwide (and the benefits my family and I receive through them), Ive been reassured that my pathway to higher education would remain simple minimal distance from family and minimal cost. My family has been affiliated with numerous college systems, including the universities of Connecticut, Dayton, Colorado State and, currently, Indiana University. Recently, the IU administration has experienced significant criticism due to its controversial and unprecedented response to pro-Palestinian student and faculty protesters, whose demonstrations included encampments at Dunn Meadow, an on-campus area initially designated for demonstrations and diverse forms of expression. As was the case within numerous protest groups throughout American universities, protesters at IU expressed their discontent surrounding continued university investment/cooperation with companies that provide resources to the Israeli government and therefore actively support Israels brutal offensive within the Gaza strip. Rather than addressing protester concerns, IU president Pamela Whitten altered a longstanding Dunn Meadow policy one day prior to the protests in an attempt to restrict the voices of students and faculty. Whittens actions blatantly restricted protesters from establishing encampments as a form of expression, which supposedly provided justification for law enforcement actions the very next day. Protesters were met by police at the direction of Whitten and her administration. A hand made sign sits in front of demonstrators as they gather and talk in Dunn Meadow on May 10, 2024. Additionally, although encampments and protester actions were peaceful and remained solely within Dunn Meadow, Whitten cited student safety as a primary motive for opposing the encampments and requesting law enforcement presence. This contradicts reality, as protesters neither placed students in dangerous situations nor prevented students from attending class. Moreover, while increased antisemitism due to pro-Palestinian encampments was cited as a concern by both Whitten and provost Rahul Shrivastav, antisemitic behavior was not recorded within Dunn Meadow or surrounding areas, according to various outlets, including The Herald Times, Bloomingtonian and IU's student newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student. In fact, numerous Jewish students and faculty members (including IU Germanic Studies professor Ben Robinson, who was arrested while wearing a shirt saying, Jews say ceasefire now) supported and participated in protests. Whitten and Shrivastav, who received 93.1% and 91.5% faculty no-confidence votes, respectively, exploited the issue of antisemitism for their own benefit and simultaneously promoted Islamophobic and anti-constitutional rhetoric. The administration, whose members authority outweighs the collective voices of the student body and faculty, actively dismiss the remainder of the populations ideas, opinions and forms of expression. As an individual who was taught to stand up for what he believes in, I take extreme offense to Whittens response to demonstrators as do many young people throughout places in which pro-divestment encampments have erupted. The brutal law enforcement response to community members pushing for change was inappropriate and disgusting. Rapid and necessary change occurs through powerful demonstration. Such has been the case throughout history; the Civil Rights movement, womens suffrage, anti-apartheid, the French Revolution, and the Indian independence movement. Students and professors affiliated with the university and countless others must, and will, continue to pursue change and maintain the vital integrity of diverse communities within an educational setting. As I approach my senior year of high school, considerations for the future of my education grow far more complex due to this situation. Although potential financial sacrifice isnt ideal, forceful sacrifice of my voice, and thus the power to freely demonstrate my beliefs, is something I am wholeheartedly unwilling to accept. Siddhu McLeod lives in Bloomington and attends Bloomington High School South. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pamela Whitten's crackdown on protests makes me want to avoid IU MURRELLS INLET, S.C. (WBTW) A Hilton-branded hotel will be among the new offerings at a redeveloped Inlet Square Mall site in Murrells Inlet, bringing 134 rooms and more green space to the once-thriving retail plaza. Were certainly excited to be building a Home2Suites there and (help with) the revitalization of that mall, Michael Spiers, a principal at Greenville-based Windsor Aughtry told Horry Countys Board of Zoning Appeals this week. Officials needed a variance before construction could begin, as county regulations required 165 parking spaces, but Spiers team wanted 147 a request the board approved on Monday. What were seeing nationally is actually a reduction in the number of parking places that are needed or required because of Uber, all these other different (rideshares), Spiers said. The Home2Suites venture will occupy about 7% of the redeveloped malls 60-acre footprint. In January, the county council approved plans for Inlet Malls transformation into a mixed-use property. West Virginia-based Paramount Development Corporation bought the site for $6 million in 2023. Vice President David Harner said in May that his team wants to be strategic in its approach. Existing Belk and Planet Fitness locations will remain open through construction and demolition of the mall proper. He said Belk and Planet Fitness will stay open during the demolition and construction process, which he said should take about 90 to 120 days. The priorities include protecting structures that that will remain, keeping the parking lot lit and protecting the surrounding environment. I think were all so anxious to see this thing get going, he said. You know, I think well probably be out there breaking a bottle of champagne on the building just to celebrate it coming down. Its been a long time in the making. The Inlet Square Mall opened in 1990 as a 500,000-square-foot enclosure. Horry County Council member Tyler Servant, who district includes the Inlet Mall, said in November that putting it back into use will be a significant economic boost, The mall has been sitting there for a long period of time undeveloped and abandoned and has made multiple lists of the top-10 abandoned malls in America, he said at an administration committee meeting. Its been in recent news that the malls getting redeveloped and that county council is concerned about traffic concerns in that area and infrastructure improvements. * * * 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. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW. During a speech at Donald Trumps campaign rally in Doral Tuesday night, Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar called on Hispanic voters to support the presumptive Republican nominee in the crucial November election, noting the increasing strength in numbers of Latinos in the U.S. We are the largest minority in the country, were 20% of the population, Salazar said. This is the moment to raise our voices and to present a united front. RELATED CONTENT: Cocky Trump struts at Doral political rally: It doesnt matter who they nominate A strong majority of Hispanic voters historically vote for the Democratic nominee, and Joe Biden handily beat Trump with the demographic in 2020. But this year, polls have suggested that Trump might perform better with Hispanic voters, even as he warns of immigrants poisoning the blood of America and promises to unleash the largest deportation program in U.S. history. Salazar cited former Republican President Ronald Reagan. Hispanics are Republicans, they just dont know it, she said. And this is the time for us to know it and to do something about it. Live coverage: Donald Trump rallies supporters at his Doral golf resort Salazar, a daughter of Cuban exiles, said Hispanics and Republicans share the same values. We are law abiding, we like small government, we are family oriented. Salazar told the Doral crowd, which included people from all parts of Florida and exiles from Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and other Latin American countries, that Hispanics are welcomed in the Republican Party. For that reason there is only one candidate for the White House, she said. His name is Donald Trump. Thats it. TAKE A LOOK: Trump supporters flood the former presidents Doral resort for campaign rally Chinese, Thai FMs hold 2nd consultation mechanism meeting Xinhua) 09:40, July 10, 2024 Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, holds talks and co-chairs the second meeting of the Consultation Mechanism between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of China and Thailand with his Thai counterpart Maris Sangiampongsa, in Beijing, capital of China, July 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei) BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday held talks with his Thai counterpart Maris Sangiampongsa in Beijing, and co-chaired the second meeting of the Consultation Mechanism between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of China and Thailand. Noting that the construction of the China-Thailand community with a shared future has been solidly advanced with fruitful results, Wang said China regards Thailand as a trustworthy partner and a force for peace and stability in the region. Wang said that next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Thailand, calling on both sides to deepen all-round strategic cooperation. He said that China and Thailand should address bottlenecks in the China-Laos-Thailand Railway, improve the level of interconnection, strengthen law-enforcement security cooperation and jointly crack down on cross-border crimes, such as online gambling and electronic fraud. Wang also called on both sides to make good use of the convenience of mutual visa exemption, expand cultural exchanges, strengthen youth friendship exchanges, and promote China-Thailand friendship from generation to generation. Sangiampongsa said the Thai government attaches great importance to its relations with China and will continue to unswervingly pursue the one-China policy. Thailand is willing to work with China to make good plans for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Thailand and China, intensify high-level exchanges, deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and strengthen practical cooperation in digital economy, electric vehicles, renewable energy, tourism and other fields to benefit the two peoples, Sangiampongsa said. The two foreign ministers also exchanged views on regional cooperation in East Asia, Lancang-Mekong cooperation and the Myanmar issue. It is necessary to uphold the ASEAN-centered regional cooperation architecture in East Asia and oppose the establishment of a closed and exclusive clique, still less allow non-regional forces to interfere or start something new, Wang stressed. Wang said it is necessary to resist the negative impact of the Indo-Pacific strategy and guard against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization reaching out to the Asia-Pacific. China is ready to work closely with ASEAN countries to maintain the high level of China-ASEAN cooperation, stick to the right direction of Asia-Pacific cooperation and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability, Wang said. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, holds talks and co-chairs the second meeting of the Consultation Mechanism between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of China and Thailand with his Thai counterpart Maris Sangiampongsa, in Beijing, capital of China, July 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) OSLO, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Norway will donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, with plans to start delivering the aircraft this year, the Norwegian government announced in a statement on Wednesday. Last year, the Norwegian government decided to donate several F-16s to Ukraine under a framework led by Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United States. Norway phased out its F-16s in 2021 as part of the transition to the new F-35 multirole combat aircraft. In this archive photo, an ATV races along the dry bed of the Arkansas River at Dodge City, Kansas. Because of irrigation and other factors, the river has been dry since the late 1970s. (Photo courtesy of Max McCoy) In the summer of 1894, a curious railway car plied the tracks of western Kansas, a chemical soup wafting to a sky ruled by a demon sun and chastened by moisture-devouring winds. At the helm of this experiment on wheels, owned by the Rock Island railroad, was a 32-year-old train dispatcher who had convinced railway officials and town leaders across the state that he had the secret to make it rain. The aspiring rainmaker, Clayton B. Jewell, was an instant celebrity in a parched land thirsting for heroes. Rock Island officials were so confident of his ability they eventually designated three cars for his rain-making experiments, which by their count had succeeded in all of 52 attempts. Jewell kept the concoction of chemicals he sent to the sky a closely held secret and scoffed at others who said they had achieved similar results with his method. In an 1895 letter to his hometown newspaper, the Topeka State Journal, he boasted that if only he had the necessary equipment he would wager my life itself that I could produce rain in ten minutes in the clearest of skies. Jewell traversed western Kansas in his rainmaking car during the worst drought in Kansas that anybody could remember and the seventh straight year of crop failures. The drought had lasted an agonizing 20 months. The resulting economic chaos had ruined farmers and threatened the businesses, like railroads, that depended on profits from hauling and selling crops. At Clay Center, W.I. Allen, assistant general manager of the Rock Island line, had in April sat in his private car at Clay Center, and surveyed the dry Kansas prairie. We will stop this thing, Allen declared, as reported by the Kinsley Mercury. We will send our rainmakers into southern and western Kansas, temper this heat and save the corn crop. But no relief was to come. The great Arkansas Valley, one of the richest west of the Missouri River, with its great underflow of water, is to-day a vast desolate waste, reported the New York Times in August 1894. Hundreds of square miles of fine crops have been burned up in less than three days, and the cornstalks are scarcely worth cutting for fodder, as all the blades will fall to pieces when handled. The harsh reality of agriculture beyond the 100th Meridian, which runs through Dodge City and roughly separates the arid western third of the state from its more humid majority, was already well known. John Wesley Powell, the Grand Canyon explorer and director of the U.S. Geological Survey during the late 19th century, had argued that plans for settlement and development west of the line should be different because of the lack of water. Powells warning was ignored, according to Wallace Stegners 1954 book on Powell and the West, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian. After the Civil War, a myth took hold on the Great Plains that rain follows the plow. This phrase, which expanded on previous notions that once broken the sod would absorb rain like a sponge, was coined in 1881 by Charles Dana Wilber, a journalist and land speculator. Simply planting lush green crops, Wilber wrote, would cool the earth and attract showers. Many homesteaders staked their futures on the belief that simply breaking ground for crops would attract enough precipitation to allow rain beyond the 100th Meridian, and for a few years it seemed to work. Then came trials that must have seemed Biblical in nature: the locusts and the periodic droughts and terrifying twisters. The economic spasms of bust and boom continued until the Dust Bowl of the 1930s wiped just about everyone out, with southwest Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle at the center of the disaster. The Dust Bowl was the result of severe drought, economic collapse, and poor soil conservation. It was an environmental crisis made worse by greed and bad decisions, and it prompted one of the largest migrations in American history. By 1940, some 2.5 million people had abandoned the plains states. Powells warning about settlement west of the 100th Meridian had proven true. After World War II, technology provided a solution to the problem of farming in the arid West: irrigation. In western Kansas and most of the Great Plains in the first decades of the last century, irrigation meant flood irrigation. It was an inefficient method of flooding cropland by diverting the flow of water from a river by way of a canal (or ditch as they are mostly called in the West). Ditches are still used to move water from one place to another, but by far the most water used in agriculture in western Kansas is groundwater from the Ogallala Aquifer. The aquifer is one of the worlds largest and lies beneath eight states, from South Dakota to Texas. In the 1950s, it was thought the water in the aquifer was inexhaustible. More and more wells were drilled to reach the aquifer and new delivery methods, chiefly center point irrigation, revolutionized farming. But unlike surface water such as that found in a river, with a relatively quick recharge from rain and snow, the groundwater in the Ogallala Aquifer is prehistoric. It is recharged on a geological time scale. Now we know the aquifer is not inexhaustible. In some places, such as beneath the community of Jetmore, north of Dodge City, the aquifer is already nearing depletion. That depletion is accelerated by climate change and continued over pumping of water. Once the water is gone, its gone for the rest of our lifetimes and because geologic recharge is so slow, several hundred or perhaps thousands of lifetimes to come. Kansas Reflectors Allison Kite, in partnership with Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy, reported in May that despite the grim prognosis, one of the states locally controlled water management districts has resisted adopting meaningful water conservation methods. Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District 3, perched just above the Oklahoma panhandle in the extreme southwest corner of Kansas, is under fire for its travel expenses, lack of a formal conversation policy and its alienation of farmers who would like to conserve water. Despite a budget of $1 million, it has spent little of it on conservation, although executive director Mark Rude argues everything the district does is in the name of conservation. But in contrast to other districts, District 3 is clearly lagging. The states five groundwater management districts were established in the 1970s, according to the Kansas Geological Survey. In 2020, for example, Groundwater Management District 1 used a state law that allows for the creation of Limited Enhanced Management Areas to commit farmers to reduce consumption by 50% over seven years. By 2026, according to a new state law, all districts including District 3 will be forced to submit reports to the Legislature and file a water conservation action plan with the states chief engineer. Much of the resistance in District 3 is cultural. Locals like being in control, dislike being told what to do, and consider their legacy water rights sacred. On the districts website you can read about how the district was organized to provide for the stabilization of agriculture by establishing the right of local users to determine their own destiny with respect to the use of groundwater. Such declarations ignore the rest of us, who have a reasonable right to expect that prehistoric groundwater in the Ogallala Aquifer should belong to us all. But Kansas water rights are based on the first in time first in right principle, which means the earliest users are given priority. Perhaps the thinking of District 3 officials is best represented by a couple of stunts in which thousands of gallons of Missouri River water was trucked 400 miles to southwest Kansas. The project was meant to drum up support for an aqueduct that would take water from the Missouri River in northeast Kansas to a reservoir in Utica. Since water flows downhill, and taking water to the west in Kansas is literally an uphill battle, 15 pumping stations would be required. The ground-hugging aqueduct really, just a glorified ditch would cost an estimated $18 billion to build and another billion a year in ongoing costs. The Kansas aqueduct is a nutty idea, but one that has taken root among some individuals in western Kansas desperate for a solution to continue irrigation after the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer. Aside from its expense and impracticality, it is a regressive idea that harkens back to the days of ditches and avoids a conversation about us having squandered the resource beneath our feet. It also ignores any objections the folks on the other side of the Missouri River, in Iowa and Missouri, might have to say about us taking water from a river we share. The aqueduct is something our 1890s rainmaker, Clayton B. Jewell, might have understood. At least, he might have appreciated how desperate some folks are to believe in a solution that doesnt really address the problem. The problem is that agriculture in the state is unsustainable beyond the 100th Meridian without irrigation. Instead of an anomaly, the magnitude of drought that drove the Dust Bowl can be expected to occur with alarming frequency. Paleoclimatic data collected for western Kansas indicate a drought as severe as the Dust Bowl occurs there, on average, three to four times a century, according to a Kansas Geological Survey circular. Based on that probability, there is a 35% chance for a severe drought year in any decade, a 70% chance within a 20-year span, and a 100% chance over the estimated 40-year working lifetime of a western Kansas farmer. The new law that requires District 3 to deliver a water conservation action plan was passed in response to the Kansas Water Authority saying last year that the states longstanding policy of simply slowing depletion was insufficient to protect the Ogallala aquifer. The law is a step toward the state taking control of water management from local districts if consumption continues to outpace conservation. The battle over the aquifers decline pits good policy against powerful agricultural and political interests. Add to the mix the independence that seems woven into the cultural fabric of southwestern Kansas, and you have the ingredients for a water war that might define the region for decades to come. But this is one war we may already have lost. Weve already killed the Arkansas River in western Kansas, leaving just a dry bed behind. Every other river and stream and creek in that third of the state has also vanished. The natural recharge just isnt enough to keep water in them. Worse, climate change appears to be driving the arid zone to the east, creating an even bigger water crisis. About a third of Kansas counties are currently in a moderate to severe drought, with some of the worst conditions in the area served by District 3, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The drought puts pressure on farmers to pump more water instead of voluntarily committing to conserve. Its difficult to get people to do the right thing when its against their economic interests. If only Jewells apparatus had really worked. The rainmaking railway car was inspected in 1892 by a newspaper reporter who described the mysteries within. Inside the laboratory part of the car a wide shelf about two feet from the floor extends from one end to the other, the correspondent wrote. On this are many curious-looking bottles and boxes said to contain the chemicals from which the rain producing gases are made. There were also pipes, bottles, other laboratory apparatus, and a 24-cell battery. Jewell said the gases produced would rise to 8,000 feet, then condense, creating a vacuum that would be filled with moisture and produce rain. There are many thinking people in Kansas who believe absolutely in Jewells rain-making system, and they are encouraging him in every possible way, wrote the observer. In other quarters, however, Jewells work was received with skepticism, and sometimes superstition, as those who prayed for rain regarded his apparatus as the work of the devil. Jewell died in Coffeyville in 1906, aged 44, from pneumonia. For two or three seasons Mr. Jewell did little else besides operating this (rainmaking) car and apparatus, noted his obituary in the Topeka Capital, but it was finally abandoned. No rainmaker, no aqueduct, and no prayer will save western Kansas from the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer. The best we can hope for is to reduce consumption, buy a little more time, and adjust to a changing climate and economy. It is time to heed the warning John Wesley Powell gave us so long ago and prepare for the new Dust Bowl. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST The day after the Haitian police triumphantly announced they had reclaimed control of the largest public hospital after a four-month siege by powerful gangs, the countrys prime minister decried the destruction. A hospital is not a war zone, Prime Minister Garry Conille said Tuesday while touring the battered grounds of the green-and-white facility not far from the presidential palace and the French embassy in Port-au-Prince. Even under the worst circumstances, hospitals are protected. Conille, a gynecologist by training, walked the gang-ravaged premises of the Hospital of the State University of Haiti under heavy security. As he and Haiti National Police Chief Rameau Normil inspected the structure, Conille could not hide his shock as he pointed out the bullet holes riddling the walls and the toppled furnishings on the floor. All were harsh reminders of the constant gun battles that have blanketed Port-au-Prince since Feb. 29 and made both the hospital and its adjacent, still-under-construction 534-bed replacement facility, off limits. We will take back our spaces, Conille said, reiterating his support for the Haitian police while promising to give the beleaguered force everything it needs. On Monday, Normil announced a rare victory: Police, he said, had reclaimed the General Hospital, as it is commonly called, from gangs after successfully launching an operation the night before. He made the announcement while standing alongside the commander of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission, Godfrey Otunge, in their first joint press conference. The developments were preceded by a cleanup operation of downtown Port-au-Prince, including the area around the General Hospital that got under way last week. The campaign was launched by Magalie Habitant, a controversial figure and one-time director of the National Solid Waste Management Services during the administration of President Jovenel Moise. In an interview with Port-au-Prince-based radio station Magik 9 ahead of Conilles surprise visit, Habitant pushed back on claims that contacts with armed groups allowed her and her crews to access the area freely after months of violent clashes. She said the cleanup was a private initiative supported by members of the business community, whom she declined to name, along with members of the Transitional Presidential Council and the ministry of public works. Whether the calm holds in order for the hospital to resume operations remains to be seen. In an interview with the Miami Herald, Dr. Jude Milce, the hospitals executive director, said its a must that the hospital, whether in the form of its old structure or new construction, reopen. Before the siege the hospital served about 5,000 outpatients a month, performed 50 surgeries daily and treated between 200 and 300 emergencies daily, he said. It also is a training hospital for the countrys future doctors. The old building was functioning but under difficult circumstances, Milce said. When the bandits came, the situation became even worse. The first thing we are going to try and do if the area really is stabilized is an evaluation of the damages to see what we can do in the old structure. The General Hospital is among dozens of medical facilities that stopped operating or were burned down after armed gangs united on Feb. 29 and launched deadly attacks to try to topple the previous government. Located across the street from the presidential palace, a prime target of the gangs, the hospital was soon forced to close its doors and evacuate its patients. Meanwhile, the area surrounding it and its new replacement building had become a no-go zone. Recalling his early days in Haiti before he went on to become a United Nations development specialist, Conille said the General Hospital used to receive around 1,500 patients a day. Nowadays its zero. Badly destroyed in Haitis 2010 earthquake, Haitis largest public hospital faced it share of troubles even before the armed attacks. Still, staff and patients had long pinned their hopes on the new facility. Milce, who learned about Tuesdays visit by the prime minister in the media, said until hes able to tour the grounds of both the old structure and the new building he cannot say when Haitis poor will once more get access to healthcare. He first made a request to police eight days ago to visit the area and he was told it wasnt possible. Construction on the new General Hospital was supposed to resume in April after an agreement was reached late last year with the Spanish firm in charge of the building. The firm, according to a source familiar with the discussions, had preconditioned its resumption of work on the condition that there would be full security on the site of the hospital and a deployment of an armed international force in Haiti. Based on those conditions, the firm had anticipated it would take 18 months for the new General Hospital to be ready. However, with no idea of the current state of the new building and of the damage done recent months, it is difficult to say what will happen now, those involved say. France and the United States have been trying to build the new General Hospital for the past 14 years, but both governments have faced a series of delays over contract disputes with the contractor and financing. The representative of the French Agency for Development, anxious to get an idea of the damages, recently flew a drone over the area to see if he could get some answers. The French Agency for Development has provided nearly $44 million and the U.S. Agency for International Development $35 million, of which $10 million was paid out just two years ago toward the construction costs. Haiti, meanwhile, has disbursed $23 million of the $27 million it said it would provide. Despite the large investments, the fate of the facility is up in the air. Among those who joined Conille on the visit Tuesday was Louis Gerald Gilles, one of the members of the newly named presidential council. Frances ambassador to Haiti, Fabrice Mauries, was also hoping to visit the facility. Even before Conille and Gilles visit, the French embassy had also requested a visit to the site for Mauries and a representative of USAID to see what it will take to get the new facility up and running. We think that the next useful step is for an expert mission to be mandated on the spot in order to assess the situation and the conditions for the resumption of the work of the new General Hospital of Haiti, a spokesperson for the French Agency for Development told the Herald. Hot and Bothered: Mediterranean locals team up against unwanted tourists in serious water gun fight Residents of Barcelona took out their frustrations against the increased mass tourism by visiting popular spots around the city this weekend and spraying people with water guns, demanding they go home. Enough, lets put limits on tourism, was another rallying cry for the thousands of people around 2,800, according to Catalan News who turned up on Saturday evening at the city center and started marching around to major tourist hot spots in the city. Organizers claimed that the protest provided an outlet for the discomfort that exists in Barcelona regarding increased mass tourism, which local officials have blamed for higher cost of living and housing, making it difficult for locals to live in the city. Neighborhood associations, housing activists and ecologists joined the gathering and argued that enormous negative impacts to employment, society and the environment have made it impossible for locals to live in Barcelona. Euronews reported that the organizers have also claimed that the rising number of tourists around 12 million people a year, many arriving via cruise ship has also put pressure on health services, waste management and water supplies. Protesters shoot water from water guns at tourists during a protest against mass tourism in Barcelona, Spain, July 6, 2024. REUTERS Barcelonas Mayor Jaume Collboni announced a plan to eliminate all of the citys roughly 10,000 short-term rentals by 2028, but the housing activists argue that the legislation will pave the way for more hotels instead. Barcelona serves as the latest major European tourist destination to complain about the increased tourism and the wear and tear the city has to bear under such demands. Demonstrators put symbolic cordon on a bar-restaurant window during a protest against mass tourism on Barcelonas Las Ramblas alley, on July 6, 2024. AFP via Getty Images On the Canary Islands, just off the coast of Africa but owned by Spain, activists have gone on a hunger strike to prevent the building of new hotels, the BBC reported. The organizers abandoned the protest after 20 days, determining that officials had zero interest in their well-being, but construction briefly halted due to concerns over environmental breaches. Residents have urged the government to abandon its plans to expand hotel building across the islands, with slogans reminding them that people live here and that they dont want to see our island die. The Catalan capital received more than 12 million tourists in 2023 and expects more in 2024. REUTERS Florence, Italy, last year announced a ban on new short-term rentals, which it defines as properties that have an occupancy for less than 30 days for any single occupant. Mayor Dario Nardella last year acknowledged the law would face resistance, but he believed it was fully and legally defensible, The Associated Press reported. Nardella at the time argued locals had found themselves living in apartment hotels as the city saw the total apartments available on Airbnb surging from 6,000 to over 14,000 in just five years. The city would not vacate the 8,000 listings in the city center but would look to convert when possible. A tourist watches as demonstrators protest against mass tourism in Barcelona. REUTERS Venice, Italy officials upset locals by introducing a 5 euro day-tripper entry fee to the city center, with advocates arguing that the fee does little to disincentivize visitors and simply fills the city coffers while the available supply of apartments remains limited. It is a further advance toward the Venice that we do not want, the museum city, a step toward the normalization of this image, which is all the more dangerous the more it enters the international imagination, Susanna Polloni, from the Venice-based Solidarity Network for Housing, told reporters. This measure will help make it even more concretely real, Polloni continued. A city empty of residents and soul, given that the tourist monoculture is now devouring everything needed for the life of a city: housing, protected employment, public services, neighborhood shops and crafts. Cousins Tobler Hintze, Anders Hintze, Jack Shirley, Ollie Stout, and Elden Stout, play in the cool water of Parleys Creek near Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News Millions of Americans along the West Coast of the United States are battling the scorching sun as they find themselves under unprecedented excessive heat warnings. Stretching from California to Washington, a heat dome has settled in, pushing temperatures to record-breaking highs in the midst of summer. Here is where we are at across the West: California Los Angeles Times reported, In a Monday forecast, the National Weather Service described the situation as a seemingly never-ending heatwave, with warnings remaining in place for much of the states interior through Saturday. In some cases, the heat has already been deadly, and officials are urging people to take the extreme heat seriously. Record-breaking temperatures sizzled across parts of California. Notable mentions include Death Valley, which reached a scorching 128 degrees Fahrenheit on July 6, almost beating the record of 130 degrees set in July 1913; Barstow-Daggett, where temperatures soared to a record-breaking 118 on July 9; and Palm Springs, which hit its peak on July 8 at 122, the highest since 1958. Two people cover themselves in white towels as they walk around Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park, Calif., Sunday, July 7, 2024. Millions of Americans along the West Coast of the United States are battling the scorching sun as they find themselves under unprecedented excessive heat warnings. | TY ONEIL Nevada This is the most extreme heat wave in the history of record-keeping in Las Vegas since 1937, said meteorologist John Adair, a veteran of three decades at the National Weather Service office in southern Nevada, PBS reported. On Tuesday, Las Vegas toyed with an all-time record of 120 degrees, but settled for a daily record of 119, according to PBS News. PBS News interviewed Alyse Sobosan, a 15-year resident of Las Vegas, Nevada. Sobosan stays indoors and waits until 9 p.m. to go for a walk, emphasizing that its dangerously hot to be outside otherwise. Its oppressively hot, Sobosan said. Its like you cant really live your life. Arizona Heat advisories have made their way to Phoenix, Arizona, as temperatures have soared to 118. According to Newsweek, the historic heatwave is now affecting 1 in 5 Americans, and experts are predicting that this year will be the hottest year recorded in human history. Newsweek also reported a Phoenix resident was shocked to see his neighbors blinds had melted. Walking his dog over the weekend, he was stopped in his tracks. I walk my dog every day and noticed the blinds on Friday or Saturday the 5th and 6th. That apartment was recently remodeled with these new blinds, Shawn told Newsweek. I was surprised and concerned about them maybe catching fire. I had seen other apartment blinds warping, but nothing like this. Mostly people that live west-facing and get the hottest part of the day have issues, per Newsweek. Residents of Arizona have been told to avoid alcohol as extreme temperatures blanket the city. Idaho Boise, Idaho, is on track to break its highest temperature record of 111 degrees, set on July 12, 1898. The Idaho Statesman reported, Boises forecast high for Wednesday just two days shy of the 126-year anniversary of that Boise heat is 108, but theres a good chance the City of Trees could get even hotter. Even if Boise doesnt reach its record temperature, the state is expected to break the streak of consecutive days at or above 103. Elsewhere, Wyoming is preparing for temperatures in the high 90s through the end of the week, areas of Oregon are setting records with five straight days over 100 degrees, and Colorado officials are warning of an extended heat wave headed to that state this weekend. The National Weather Service warns that southern Utah is under excessive heat warnings this week, while northern Utah will likely hit 100 degrees in the days ahead. Stay cool The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that approximately 1,220 people are killed by extreme heat in the U.S. annually. However, it appears that number is climbing, as the Department of Health and Human Services reported that 2,302 people died of heat-related causes last year. Vulnerable groups such as young children, the elderly, pregnant women, and those with chronic medical conditions are particularly at risk, per Newsweek. The National Weather Service said heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths, causing hundreds of casualties each year. Suggestions to protect yourself from heat-related illness include staying hydrated, eating smaller meals, wearing lightweight clothing, take cool baths or showers and staying out of the sun as much as possible. For more tips on heat safety click here. Stay cool. Remi Hansen, 6, of Holladay, runs through jets of water at the Millcreek Common splash pad in Millcreek on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Henry Hansen, 4, of Holladay, plays with a cup in a jet of water at the Millcreek Common splash pad in Millcreek on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Sophie Belles, 1, of Rose Park, drinks water at the Millcreek Common splash pad in Millcreek on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Sue Gygi, of Holladay, cools off her dog, Wilson, with some water at the Millcreek Common splash pad in Millcreek on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Jack Shirley is splashed with water from his cousins as they enjoy some time in the cool water of Parleys Creek, near Sugar House Park in the Salt Lake Valley on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News Cousins Jack Shirley, Anders Hintze, Tobler Hintze, Ollie Stout, and Elden Stout, (not in order) play in the cool water of Parleys Creek near Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News Elden Stout throws rocks into the water as he and Tobler Hintze play in the water with several of their cousins in the cool water of Parleys Creek, near Sugar House Park in the Salt Lake Valley, on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News Jack Shirley flips water from his head as he and several of his cousins enjoy to time in the cool water of Parleys Creek, near Sugar House Park in the Salt Lake Valley on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News Houma police looking for four suspects in June bar shooting Houma police looking for four suspects in June bar shooting Disclaimer: All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty. HOUMA, La. (WGNO) Four more suspects are being sought out in connection with a shooting that occurred at Thirstys Bar in Houma on Sunday, June 30. According to the Houma Police Department, officers responded to the shooting at 1301 Barataria Ave. around 1:30 a.m. When they arrived, it was discovered that the suspects had exchanged numerous gunshots with each other. Orleans Parish district attorney calls for ankle monitor changes, attorney general launches investigation One man, 27-year-old Dontrelle Robertson, has been arrested and was booked into the Terrebonne Parish Criminal Justice Complex where he has since been charged with an additional count of attempted second-degree murder. The four new suspects are 32-year-old Akeem Ross, 24-year-old Sebastian Beck, 32-year-old Adrian Williams, and 34-year-old Devon Randell. All of them are wanted on three counts of attempted second degree murder and one count of felony illegal use of a weapon. Three people were shot during the incident. A 49-year-old man was struck in the leg by a stray bullet while outside of the Courtyard Marriott, a 26-year-old man arrived at a hospital with several gunshot wounds and a 24-year-old man showed up at a hospital on the following day with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Car crashes into Metairie business The wounds are considered non-life-threatening and the three victims are expected to recover. The investigation is still ongoing and the HPD asks anyone with information to contact them at 985-873-6371 or contact Crimestoppers Bayou Region by calling 1-800-743-7433. Stay up to date with the latest news, weather and sports by downloading the WGNO app on the Apple or Google Play stores and by subscribing to the WGNO newsletter. Latest Posts Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGNO. HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) Members of the Pennsylvania House LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus are calling for government action after 14-year-old transgender teenager Pauly Likens was murdered in Mercer County. The Caucus urges Pennsylvania lawmakers to pass a new bill to protect the LGBTQ+ community from hate crimes in the following statement released today: We mourn the death of Pauly Likens and refuse to stand idly by while LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians are targeted because of who they are. Its unacceptable that current hate crime laws in our commonwealth are not applied to crimes motivated by a victims sexual orientation or gender identity. As incidents of violent hate crimes continue to rise across the nation, we urge our colleagues in the state Senate to pass H.B. 1027 and send it to the governors desk. Its far past time to update Pennsylvanias hate crime statute so that charges may reflect the especially heinous nature of hate-based violence. Pennsylvania House LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now This Week in Pennsylvania H.B. 1027, sponsored by State Reps. Dan Frankel (D-Allegheny) and Napoleon Nelson (D-Cheltenham Township), would amend the states Ethnic Intimidation Statute to ensure protections for victims targeted because of their race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, and disability, including autism. The bill would also provide a civil cause of action for victims against offenders. In October of 2023, the Pennsylvania State House passed the legislation on a bipartisan vote, but it still has yet to be considered by the state Senates Judiciary Committee. Not only has a light gone out with the loss of Pauly Likens, but the LGBTQ+ communities across our commonwealth are shaken and fearful, Sen. Frankel said. The federal government and dozens of other states have acknowledged that these groups are targets for hate crimes, and theyve provided tools to law enforcement accordingly. Who are we, as a commonwealth, if we refuse to protect vulnerable people? In response to the murder, Governor Josh Shapiro said in a post on X that he would sign a bill updating hate crime laws to include hate-based crimes against LGBTQ+ individuals. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27. (Bloomberg) -- Houston residents trying to monitor blackouts in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl discovered that citys largest electric utility had no working outage map. So they had to rely on an alternative: a burger app. Most Read from Bloomberg With temperatures soaring and more than 2 million people in the dark, CenterPoint Energy Inc. customers found that the companys website didnt have a power-restoration tracker. Then a social media post suggested using the Whataburger app to see which of the fast-food chains restaurants were closed during business hours presumably due to a lack of electricity. The need for a workaround highlights broader concerns about CenterPoint as extreme weather tests the reliability of Texass power system. Two days after Beryl made landfall, almost 1.4 million of the companys customers remain without electricity while Houston swelters under a heat advisory. Though Texas doesnt have hurricane-hardening requirements for utilities, CenterPoint says its 10-year capital plan includes more than $26 billion to grow, modernize and reinforce its infrastructure. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in an interview with Bloomberg News that the outages are a horrible issue for our fellow Texans and that he will direct the states Public Utility Commission to study why blackouts have happened repeatedly in Houston. I want the PUC to provide information to both me and to the Texas legislature so that we will be able to act on it next year to make sure that events like this never happen again, Abbott said. The outages from Beryl are higher than those caused by Hurricane Ike in 2008. In the wake of that disaster, the Houston mayor commissioned a report on electric reliability for the region. It found that most of the outages from Ike were due to falling trees and branches across power lines and it recommended CenterPoint improve its tree-trimming practices. The study also said that the city needed to identify critical facilities such as fire and police stations and make sure they had backup generation. During a Houston city council meeting on Wednesday, Councilwoman Carolyn Evans-Shabazz expressed particular concern about the fate of residents of assisted-living facilities lacking backup generators. These storms are getting worse, and coming more frequently and we are defenseless, Evans-Shabazz said. Marvin Rodas, 41, said his house is now close to 100F (38C) after three days without power. The maintenance worker is critical of the storm response by CenterPoint and Abbott, who is in Asia on an economic development trip. Im frustrated because we had a good update that a storm was coming and they should have had people ready to go to fix power outages, but they didnt, Rodas said in an interview. The governor is out of the country. What good is that to us? CenterPoint gave us a message yesterday saying they were going to work in our area, but that hasnt happened yet. CenterPoint said Wednesday that it expects to restore 1 million impacted customers by the end of the day, which would leave more than 1 million without electricity. The companys outage tracker went offline in May after a severe storm battered Houston, resulting in heavy traffic to the site that caused technical issues. The amount of people and bots trying to access the outage tracker caused it to crash in a way that is unsalvageable, Brad Tutunjia, a representative for CenterPoint, said Wednesday at the city council meeting. The utility said late Tuesday that it now has a new map for customers to track post-Beryl power restoration. CenterPoint recognizes the inconvenience to its customers and will continue to provide general outage information in the interim, the company said in a statement. It said it also plans to replace the outage map with a redesigned cloud-based platform by month-end. Bryan Norton, 56, who posted on X about using the Whataburger app to track outages, is relying on generators to power his home northwest of Houston and is cooking on a propane stove. The app helps you at least to know that youre not isolated, Norton said by phone. It just gives you an idea of the scope of the problem. --With assistance from Naureen S. Malik, Mark Chediak, Julie Fine and Nacha Cattan. (Updates with background and comments starting in sixth paragraph) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Taylor Evink of Riverview Dairy discusses the dairy operation planned in Traill County, North Dakota. Riverview held a information session in Halstad, Minnesota on July 9, 2024. (Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor) Two dairy farms planned for eastern North Dakota would more than quadruple the number of dairy cows in North Dakota and provide a dramatic shift to the livestock industry in a state that has fallen behind its neighbors in animal agriculture. Riverview Dairy, based in Morris, Minnesota, hopes to build a 25,000-cow dairy farm southeast of Hillsboro in Traill County and a 12,500-head dairy north of Wahpeton in Richland County. The Traill County dairy would create about 100 jobs and the Richland Dairy 45 to 50 jobs, Riverview officials said. Riverview held an open house Tuesday in Halstad, Minnesota, the closest community to the proposed Traill County dairy, to provide information and answer questions. It has not held a similar event for the Richland County project. Traill is an estimated $180 million project and Richland at $90 million. Jim Murphy of the Traill County Economic Development Commission called it a once-in-a-lifetime event for any community. Randy Paulsrud is a neighbor who rents the land. He said at first he wasnt happy about losing a section of land that he farms for a dairy but now is interested in selling feed to the dairy and buying manure to fertilize other nearby fields. Im on board with it, Paulsrud said. He said he toured Riverviews dairy near Gary, Minnesota, and came away impressed, with no concern about odor from covered manure pits. Oh man, it was clean, he said. Leslie Viker is related to the family that owns the Herberg Township land near Hillsboro where Riverview plans to build. I think this is going to be great, she said. Martha Koehl, Riverview spokesperson, said the cows will be kept in climate-controlled barns and milking machines will operate 22 hours a day, with the other two hours for cleaning. Koehl said the projects are contingent on Riverview finding a market for the milk they produce. She could not offer a definitive timeline for when construction and operations might begin. North Dakotas dairy industry has been dwindling for decades, shrinking to about 10,000 dairy cows and just 24 dairy farms. State Rep. Dawson Holle, R-Mandan, who operates one of North Dakotas larger dairy farms, said he has mixed feelings about the mega-dairy. Im very concerned when it is a corporate farm that is coming in, not a family farm, said Holle, who operates an 1,100-cow dairy farm. Riverview is technically not a corporation, but is a limited liability partnership. It has built other large dairy farms in Minnesota and also has plans for one at DeSmet, South Dakota. Loosening North Dakotas restrictions on corporate farm ownership for livestock operations was one of the goals for Gov. Doug Burgum going into the 2023 legislative session. The Legislature passed a bill that made it easier to bring in outside capital in modern livestock operations that have become major investments. North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring said Riverviews business structure would have allowed it to operate in the state even without the changes. But he added the bill sent a message that the state is receptive to livestock projects. Holle was among those who voted against the corporate farm changes. Rep. Mike Beltz, R-Hillsboro, voted in favor and gave some credit to the changes for bringing the dairy to his home district. The Legislature also passed a bill to support infrastructure projects related to agribusiness development. Beltz said that could be tapped to help pay for improving the 1-mile road that would connect the Traill County dairy to North Dakota Highway 200 and possibly for utility work. Theres some opportunities for some infrastructure work around the site, Beltz said. The Traill dairy will be called Herberg Dairy for Herberg Township and is planned just south of North Dakota Highway 200 near the Red River, about 7 miles east of Interstate 29. The Richland site would be in Abercrombie Township and called Abercrombie Dairy, about 7 miles north of Wahpeton. Riverview has already applied for a permit with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality for that project. Todd Leake of Grand Forks County questioned whether state regulators are equipped to enforce environmental regulations for concentrated animal feeding operations. Amber Wood, executive director of the North Dakota Livestock Alliance, has been working to stimulate animal agriculture in the state. She said she expects the growth in the dairy industry to continue to be along the Interstate 29 corridor, where there is better access to milk processing and livestock feed. Ethanol plants, sugar beet processing plants and new soybean crushing plants at Casselton and Jamestown all provide byproducts that can be used to feed livestock. American Crystal Sugar has a beet plant at Hillsboro. Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative has its only beet processing plant at Wahpeton. Cattle absolutely love beet pulp, Wood said. Koehl said beet pulp and soybean could be part of the feed ration that will be primarily corn and alfalfa hay. A state Agriculture Department map of dairy farms shows none operating in Traill County and one in Richland. Morton County, home to the iconic Salem Sue dairy cow statue along Interstate 94 west of Bismarck, is down to just four dairy farms, including Holles. While North Dakotas dairy industry has been shrinking for decades, the situation turned even more dire in 2023 when Prairie Farms Dairy closed its milk processing operation in Bismarck. Holle said that is forcing him and others to send milk to a cheese plant in Pollock, South Dakota, nearly 90 miles south of Bismarck. Holle said milk used for cheese production has a lower price than fluid milk and the extra freight cuts into profits. A lot of the dairy farmers are crunching the numbers and wondering what their future is, Holle said. North Dakota has fallen far behind neighboring states in the livestock sector and especially in dairy. South Dakota put an emphasis on animal agriculture under Gov. Dennis Daugaard, who served from 2011 to 2019, and its dairy cow numbers rebounded. South Dakota went from 96,000 dairy cows in 2000 to 187,000 in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Holle said the North Dakota Department of Agriculture hasnt done enough to support dairy farming. They can say that theyre doing a lot for farmers in North Dakota, which they are, but theyre not doing a lot for animal ag in North Dakota, Holle said. There isnt a lot that we can do, Goehring said. I mean, short of the Legislature wanting to do something more like build a processing facility, but I dont see that happening either. He said the department can try to address some issues, but its a difficult challenge. A key resource for large dairies is water supply, needing 28 to 30 gallons of water per cow each day, Koehl said. That would equal at least 700,000 gallons of water per day for the Traill County site and 350,000 gallons per day for the Richland site. Koehl said the Riverview farms squeeze the liquid out of the manure, which can be piped to farm fields for fertilizer. The solids from the manure are dried and used for animal bedding. Koehl said the Traill dairy would fill 22 tanker loads of milk at about 7,900 gallons per tanker more than 170,000 gallons per day. Beltz said he was impressed by a tour of a Riverview dairy in Minnesota. You wouldnt know you were standing on a site with that many animals, Beltz said. Theyve been here for a while. They know how to do it right. Editors note: This story was updated to correct Leslie Vikers relationship to the Herberg Township landowners. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Taylor Evink of Riverview Dairy discusses the dairy operation planned in Traill County, North Dakota. Riverview held a information session in Halstad, Minnesota on July 9, 2024. Photo by Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor. Two dairy farms planned for eastern North Dakota would more than quadruple the number of dairy cows in North Dakota and provide a dramatic shift to the livestock industry in a state that has fallen behind its neighbors in animal agriculture. Riverview Dairy, based in Morris, Minnesota, hopes to build a 25,000-cow dairy farm southeast of Hillsboro in Traill County and a 12,500-head dairy north of Wahpeton in Richland County. The Traill County dairy would create about 100 jobs and the Richland Dairy 45 to 50 jobs, Riverview officials said. Riverview held an open house Tuesday in Halstad, Minnesota, the closest community to the proposed Traill County dairy, to provide information and answer questions. It has not held a similar event for the Richland County project. Traill is an estimated $180 million project and Richland at $90 million. Jim Murphy of the Traill County Economic Development Commission called it a once-in-a-lifetime event for any community. Randy Paulsrud is a neighbor who rents the land. He said at first he wasnt happy about losing a section of land that he farms for a dairy but now is interested in selling feed to the dairy and buying manure to fertilize other nearby fields. Im on board with it, Paulsrud said. He said he toured Riverviews dairy near Gary, Minnesota, and came away impressed, with no concern about odor from covered manure pits. Oh man, it was clean, he said. Leslie Viker is related to the family that owns the Herberg Township land near Hillsboro where Riverview plans to build.* I think this is going to be great, she said. Martha Koehl, Riverview spokesperson, said the cows will be kept in climate-controlled barns and milking machines will operate 22 hours a day, with the other two hours for cleaning. Koehl said the projects are contingent on Riverview finding a market for the milk they produce. She could not offer a definitive timeline for when construction and operations might begin. North Dakotas dairy industry has been dwindling for decades, shrinking to about 10,000 dairy cows and just 24 dairy farms. North Dakota state Rep. Dawson Holle, R-Mandan, who operates one of North Dakotas larger dairy farms, said he has mixed feelings about the mega-dairy. Im very concerned when it is a corporate farm that is coming in, not a family farm, said Holle, who operates an 1,100-cow dairy farm. Riverview is technically not a corporation, but is a limited liability partnership. It has built other large dairy farms in Minnesota and also has plans for one at DeSmet, South Dakota. Loosening North Dakotas restrictions on corporate farm ownership for livestock operations was one of the goals for Gov. Doug Burgum going into the 2023 legislative session. The Legislature passed a bill that made it easier to bring in outside capital in modern livestock operations that have become major investments. North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring said Riverviews business structure would have allowed it to operate in the state even without the changes. But he added the bill sent a message that the state is receptive to livestock projects. Holle was among those who voted against the corporate farm changes. Rep. Mike Beltz, R-Hillsboro, voted in favor and gave some credit to the changes for bringing the dairy to his home district. The Legislature also passed a bill to support infrastructure projects related to agribusiness development. Beltz said that could be tapped to help pay for improving the 1-mile road that would connect the Traill County dairy to North Dakota Highway 200 and possibly for utility work. Theres some opportunities for some infrastructure work around the site, Beltz said. The Traill dairy will be called Herberg Dairy for Herberg Township and is planned just south of North Dakota Highway 200 near the Red River, about 7 miles east of Interstate 29. The Richland site would be in Abercrombie Township and called Abercrombie Dairy, about 7 miles north of Wahpeton. Riverview has already applied for a permit with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality for that project. Todd Leake of Grand Forks County questioned whether state regulators are equipped to enforce environmental regulations for concentrated animal feeding operations. Amber Wood, executive director of the North Dakota Livestock Alliance, has been working to stimulate animal agriculture in the state. She said she expects the growth in the dairy industry to continue to be along the Interstate 29 corridor, where there is better access to milk processing and livestock feed. Ethanol plants, sugar beet processing plants and new soybean crushing plants at Casselton and Jamestown all provide byproducts that can be used to feed livestock. American Crystal Sugar has a beet plant at Hillsboro. Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative has its only beet processing plant at Wahpeton. Cattle absolutely love beet pulp, Wood said. Koehl said beet pulp and soybean could be part of the feed ration that will be primarily corn and alfalfa hay. A state Agriculture Department map of dairy farms shows none operating in Traill County and one in Richland. Morton County, home to the iconic Salem Sue dairy cow statue along Interstate 94 west of Bismarck, is down to just four dairy farms, including Holles. While North Dakotas dairy industry has been shrinking for decades, the situation turned even more dire in 2023 when Prairie Farms Dairy closed its milk processing operation in Bismarck. Holle said that is forcing him and others to send milk to a cheese plant in Pollock, South Dakota, nearly 90 miles south of Bismarck. Holle said milk used for cheese production has a lower price than fluid milk and the extra freight cuts into profits. A lot of the dairy farmers are crunching the numbers and wondering what their future is, Holle said. North Dakota has fallen far behind neighboring states in the livestock sector and especially in dairy. South Dakota put an emphasis on animal agriculture under Gov. Dennis Daugaard, who served from 2011 to 2019, and its dairy cow numbers rebounded. South Dakota went from 96,000 dairy cows in 2000 to 187,000 in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Holle said the North Dakota Department of Agriculture hasnt done enough to support dairy farming. They can say that theyre doing a lot for farmers in North Dakota, which they are, but theyre not doing a lot for animal ag in North Dakota, Holle said. There isnt a lot that we can do, Goehring said. I mean, short of the Legislature wanting to do something more like build a processing facility, but I dont see that happening either. He said the department can try to address some issues, but its a difficult challenge. A key resource for large dairies is water supply, needing 28 to 30 gallons of water per cow each day, Koehl said. That would equal at least 700,000 gallons of water per day for the Traill County site and 350,000 gallons per day for the Richland site. Koehl said the Riverview farms squeeze the liquid out of the manure, which can be piped to farm fields for fertilizer. The solids from the manure are dried and used for animal bedding. Koehl said the Traill dairy would fill 22 tanker loads of milk at about 7,900 gallons per tanker more than 170,000 gallons per day. Beltz said he was impressed by a tour of a Riverview dairy in Minnesota. You wouldnt know you were standing on a site with that many animals, Beltz said. Theyve been here for a while. They know how to do it right. *Correction: A previous version of this story mischaracterized Leslie Vikers relationship to the Herberg Township landowners. Like Minnesota Reformer, North Dakota Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. North Dakota Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Amy Dalrymple for questions: info@northdakotamonitor.com. Follow North Dakota Monitor on Facebook and X. Juice drink maker Capri-Sun Group is reportedly eyeing a sale of a minority stake in the business. Owned by Swiss billionaire Hans-Peter Wild, the company is in talks with financial advisers to assess interest levels from potential investors, according to Bloomberg. The publication added that Capri-Sun is seeking to raise more than $500m, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested to not be identified as the information is private. Capri-Sun is licensed to different partners globally, including Kraft Heinz in the US. The juice pouch business will look to use any proceeds to buy back the licence for Capri-Sun North America and accompanying operations that are currently held by Kraft Heinz, the people told Bloomberg. Bloomberg wrote that deliberations are ongoing and a deal may not necessarily occur. Capri-Sun and Kraft Heinz could not be immediately reached for comment. The Zug, Switzerland-based company has $1.4bn in annual external sales, 24 production sites worldwide and around 1,000 employees worldwide, according to its website. It was launched in 1969 by Wilds father and now sells more than six billion pouches in more than 100 countries every year. Until 2014, Wild was the majority shareholder in the company in Wild Flavors, a manufacturer of natural flavours for the food industry. Capri-Sun last year decided to take back the sales and distribution of its pouch drinks in France, Monaco, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Spain and Portugal after ending an arrangement with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP). In March, it was revealed that Princes is to manufacture Capri-Sun pouched drinks in the UK from later this year, seeing production move also from CCEP. Princes has started to take control of Capri-Suns warehousing and logistics duties. The company will produce the Capri-Sun 200ml pouches with paper straws and 330ml pouches with a screw cap at its site in Bradford. The facility is Princes largest manufacturing site for beverages, with roughly 400 staff operating eight production lines. The group has two other facilities dedicated to beverage manufacturing: one in Glasgow, where canned CSDs are made and another in Cardiff where it produces chilled ambient juices. "Capri-Sun mulls minority-stake sale" was originally created and published by Just Drinks, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. A hundred percent more than what weve ever had: Topeka man grateful for city leaders initiative A hundred percent more than what weve ever had: Topeka man grateful for city leaders initiative TOPEKA (KSNT) One grandfather is thanking the City of Topeka for hearing his concerns, as they consider an ordinance requiring owners of mobile home parks, to do more maintenance on potentially dangerous trees. An April storm knocked down a tree that split this mobile home in half. The homeowner told 27 News the tree missed her son by inches, when they were heading to their storm shelter. At Tuesdays city council meeting, that childs grandfather, Paul Lassley, told 27 News hes grateful to District 2 councilwomen Christina Valdivia-Alcala and District 1 councilwoman Karen Hiller for bringing the ordinance before the council. Topeka church sells fireworks for charity If the ordinance is passed, the new city code would force owners of mobile home parks to remove or trim any trees considered dangerous until they no longer pose a safety risk. Lassley said its a big step toward protecting mobile home owners. Its a hundred percent more than what weve ever had, Lassy said. I pray every night. The whole family prays every night and we all get together and pray every time theres a serious storm coming or the sirens go off. The council still has to vote on the ordinance, but Lassley says he trusts the them to pass it. For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. The announced formation of a legion comprising Ukrainians living abroad who will be trained in Poland has sparked significant interest. Sources in Ukrainian diplomatic missions report that hundreds of Ukrainians in Poland are inquiring about how to join the legion. Source: European Pravda, citing Polish radio station RMF24 Details: Based on conservative estimates, the initiative will reportedly be able to attract several thousand Ukrainians currently living in Europe. The journalists also learned that efforts are underway to involve other European countries in supporting the project, for example, by financing the cost of equipment and training. Poland will try to convince its partners that this is another form of investment in European security and should be supported. For reference: The Ukrainian Legion, the creation of which is envisaged by the bilateral security agreement between Ukraine and Poland, is a military unit in which Ukrainian citizens living in Poland or abroad can enlist and train, with the opportunity to join Ukraine's defence forces under contract. Background: At a press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the Ukraine-Poland security agreement provides for the creation of the Ukrainian Legion, which Ukrainians abroad will be able to join and receive training on a voluntary basis. The Ukraine-Poland agreement also envisages the development of a mechanism to shoot down Russian missiles and drones launched in the direction of Polish territory within Ukraine's airspace. Support UP or become our patron! Hundreds of Ukrainians in Poland have expressed interest in joining a new legion of Ukraine's army that will be trained in Poland, just days after President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the plans, Polish news outlet RMF reported on July 10. RMF said that "hundreds of Ukrainians living in Poland have already expressed their willingness to join the Ukrainian legion," citing an unofficial source in one of Ukraine's diplomatic missions. "These people have applied, even though the recruitment for this formation has not yet been announced," RMF said. The legion was officially announced as part of the security agreement signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on July 8, which laid out further developments in political, economic, and military cooperation between Ukraine and Poland. Unlike other specific legions in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, such as the Georgian Legion, the Freedom of Russia Legion, and the Belarusian Pahonia Regiment, the legion will be made up of Ukrainians. "The Ukrainian legion will train in Poland and be equipped with the help of our partners," Zelensky said. "Every Ukrainian citizen who decides to join the legion will be able to sign a contract with the Ukrainian Armed Forces," Zelensky said, adding that "our teams are currently working out all the details." Read also: F-16s in Ukraine may create conditions for counterattack, Polish general says Preliminary estimates suggest that "several thousand" Ukrainians may request to join the legion, and the opportunity to apply may be opened to Ukrainians living in other European countries, RMF said. "Efforts are underway to have other EU countries participate in the costs of training and equipment," as Warsaw is convinced that "training the Ukrainian legion is also an investment in European security," RMF said. The legion would most likely be trained in military bases that have already been training Ukrainian soldiers, as around 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in Poland since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, RMF said. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on May 31 that Warsaw considered Ukraine's request for military instructors to be sent to Ukraine, but "came to the conclusion that it would be both safer and more effective to train a Ukrainian unit formed of Ukrainians in Poland." Sikorski said in April that forcibly returning men of draft age to Ukraine is "ethically ambiguous" and Ukraine, rather than Poland, will have to "take the initiative" in the process. Read also: US provides Poland with $2 billion for financing of F-35s, Patriots, Abrams Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. By Krisztina Fenyo and Anita Komuves BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian opposition politician Peter Magyar, the main challenger to Prime Minister Viktor Orban, is en route to deliver aid on Wednesday to the Kyiv children's hospital hit during Russian airstrikes this week. Magyar's Tisza party raised about 15 million forints ($41,276.83) and collected medical supplies and food donated by Hungarians. "This was a sudden decision after we saw the brutal Russian missile attack," Magyar told reporters before leaving for Kyiv. A U.N. rights mission said on Tuesday there was a "high likelihood" Kyiv's main children's hospital took a direct hit from a Russian missile. The Kremlin said, without providing evidence, the hospital was hit by Ukrainian anti-missile fire. Orban, a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine and the European Union leader with the warmest relations with Russia, se visited Kyiv and Moscow last week as part of what he calls a "peace mission". His meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin drew a strong rebuke from some European allies. "The prime minister is allowed to travel the world and pretend that he is creating peace [...] but we believe in actions instead of flying around the world three times. We are different," Magyar said. Magyar, whose party won nearly 30% of the Hungarian vote in a European Parliament election in June, said Orban should have visited Kyiv sooner but that one reason for the delay was a disagreement between Kyiv and Budapest over the rights of Ukraine's Hungarian minority. Magyar said he agreed with the government that no arms shipments to Ukraine should go via Hungary or with its help, as this could make Ukraine's Hungarian community a target, but other countries had the sovereign right to send arms to Ukraine. ($1 = 363.4000 forints) (This story has been corrected to say 'to deliver', not 'delivers', in the headline and to say 'is en route to deliver', not 'delivered' in paragraph 1) (Writing by Anita Komuves, Editing by Timothy Heritage) President Joe Biden talks with his son Hunter Biden as he arrives at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Del., Tuesday, June 11, 2024. | Manuel Balce Ceneta Hunter Biden is juggling two separate trials related to firearm possession and tax evasion, while also helping his father, President Joe Biden, during a tumultuous time for his reelection campaign and presidency. Members of the Democratic Party have voiced concerns over President Bidens ability to run for a second term following his poor performance at the presidential debate on June 27. His son, Hunter Biden, has been reportedly seen more frequently visiting the White House following the debate. But whats more unusual is Hunter Biden joined the president in meetings with his advisers, according to NBC News. Upon seeing these disturbing reports of Hunter Bidens increased participation in the presidents official duties, House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, wrote a letter to White House chief of staff Jeff Zients. It is unclear what official meetings and phone calls Hunter Biden is participating in and in what capacity and whether these discussions include classified information, he wrote, requesting more details. Is Hunter Biden a gatekeeper to President Biden? White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, during a press briefing on July 9, said Hunter Biden did not receive any classified information. She confirmed the younger Biden was in the room while the president prepared his remarks for the Supreme Courts ruling on presidential immunity. Last week, she defended Hunter Bidens presence at the White House recently, saying that President Biden is close to his family and spent the holiday week of the Fourth of July with them at Camp David. Hunter came back with the president from their family weekend at Camp David and went with the president straight into speech prep, Jean-Pierre said. The presidents son was seen watching the fireworks on the Fourth of July with his father from a White House balcony. In a television interview on Friday, President Joe Biden insisted that only the Lord Almighty could convince him to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. Several reports suggest Hunter Biden and first lady Jill Biden are the presidents most vocal supporters. Axios described Hunter Biden as the de facto gatekeeper to President Biden. Hunter Biden juggles legal troubles Last week, Hunter Biden aimed at Fox News for including explicit images of him in a show streamed online. The lawsuit, filed last week, claims the images violate New Yorks consent law, as The Associated Press reported. Meanwhile, Justice Department special counsel David Weiss is continuing his investigation into the younger Biden. Last month in Delaware, Hunter Biden was convicted on three counts related to illegally owning a gun after an emotional trial. A trial in California related to tax charges will begin in September. Bidens legal team filed a motion for a new trial based on a legal technicality, but they ended up withdrawing the motion, as CNN reported. Weiss, in a Monday court filing, said Hunter Bidens motion was meritless and is based on his apparent misunderstanding of appellate practice and his failure to read the Third Circuits Orders. Hunter Biden continues to deny wrongdoing and plans to challenge the verdict, for which he faces up to 25 years in prison. The president pledged he will not pardon his son should he face time in prison. President Biden delivered remarks on NATOs 75th anniversary Tuesday, kicking off a three-day summit. The first lady was expected to be in attendance. CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) A Huntersville duo who owned a moving company pled guilty to bank and COVID-19 relief fraud Wednesday, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of North Carolina. Former Huntersville residents Antoine Johnson, 48, and Kimberly Maddox, 32, pled guilty to bank loan and COVID-19 relief fraud. The couple currently live in Georgia. Court records stated that from 2018 through 2023 the duo opened multiple fraudulent accounts containing lines of credit and loans, lying on more than 30 applications. The couple committed the crimes under a moving company they owned and operated. The maximum sentence the two face is 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Hurricane Beryl may have caused $32bn losses to US Hurricane Beryl may have caused up to $32bn worth of damages and losses in the United States, according to preliminary figures by an independent organisation. Beryl, which made landfall in Texas as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday after churning across the Caribbean and Mexico, has caused widespread flooding, power outages and damages to infrastructure. At least seven people have died in the Houston region as a result of Hurricane Beryl, according to city and county officials. Earlier, 10 people died in the Caribbean. A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather, a private weather forecasting company, shows these damages in the US alone could account for between $28-32bn. This estimate includes direct and indirect costs and damages to homes, businesses, infrastructure, facilities, roadways, and vehicles, as well as power outages resulting in food spoilage, job and wage losses, flight delays, and interruptions to medical care, etc. Beryl will go down in the history books as a record-shattering hurricane, said AccuWeathers chief meteorologist Jon Porter. It was the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic basin, causing catastrophic damage in the Windward Islands. Beryl brought impacts to Jamaica and the Cayman Islands before slamming into the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico with damaging wind and storm surge. AccuWeathers damage estimate accounts for both insured and uninsured losses and is based on a variety of sources, statistics, and unique techniques, the company said in a statement. It also includes an estimate of the potential damage it can cause as it moves up inside the US. Beryl leaves a path of potential flash floods (NWS) Beryl, now a tropical rainstorm, is expected to continue causing flooding, localised tornadoes, and gusty winds as it moves through the Midwest, Great Lakes, and into central and northern New England. In Texas, heat and humidity were also significantly impacting recovery efforts. More than two million homes and businesses across southeast Texas have been without power for over 24 hours since Beryl made landfall. Extended power outages were likely to last several days in the hardest-hit communities. To put the damages from Beryl in context, last year Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall into the Big Bend of Florida, caused $18-20bn in total damage and economic loss. Hurricane Ian, in 2022, caused $180-210bn. Hurricane Harvey, which impacted a similar area in Texas, caused $230bn in total damage and economic loss in 2017. Meanwhile, leaders across the Caribbean were also worried about the economic impact of Beryl after it left a trail of destruction on Jamaica and islands of the eastern Caribbean. Officials were still tallying the financial toll from the storm that hit them when it was at its maximum Category 5 strength. Before and after pictures shows damage sustained by Caribbean island from Hurricane Beryl (Satellite Image 2024 Maxar Technologies) There is no doubt this disaster will have a major impact on Grenadas economic situation, prime minister Dickon Mitchell told a briefing on Tuesday. We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild. Grenadas Carriacou and Petite Martinique islands face almost complete devastation, he added, saying people who lost their homes were particularly vulnerable to the elements. Mr Mitchell said there is a need to rebuild structures resistant to storms, adding that many of the countrys existing wood houses are not insured. A team of insurers is set to arrive on Wednesday and the government plans to announce fiscal measures by early next week. St Lucia posted early estimates of close to $2m from damages including buildings, sea moss harvests and banana plantations. Rainfall and debris hindered assessments in Jamaica, whose agriculture sector initially reported over $6m in damages. CARICOM chair Mohammed Ali said many long-term crops were lost and farmers would face issues for years to come in a heart-breaking initial assessment for agriculture, according to Reuters news agency. A house sits roofless after being damaged by Hurricane Beryl in Portland Cottage, Clarendon, Jamaica (AP) Small islands face the highest risks as hurricanes continue to intensify and become more frequent due to man-made climate crisis, despite producing very little carbon pollution compared to big economies. Hotter sea waters, which are caused due to harmful greenhouse gases produced by burning oil, coal and gas, fuel hurricanes. This year, ocean heat in the Atlantic in July was already at par with the levels seen ususally in September, the peak season for hurricanes, resulting in Beryl becoming the earliest ever Category 5 hurricane. Record high ocean heat content, primarily caused by climate change, clearly played a role in the rapid intensification of Beryl across the tropical Atlantic, eastern Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico before it encountered wind shear, drier air, and the added friction from land masses, AccuWeather climate expert and senior meteorologist Brett Anderson said. In fact, Beryl intensified twice, the second time when it came near Mexico and the US, due to bath-tub warm waters near the coast. As Beryl got within 100 miles of the Southeast Texas coast, it passed over a pocket of very warm sea surface water that was at least 86 degrees, Mr Anderson said. This increase in temperature provided just enough additional energy to help Beryl strengthen to a Category 1 hurricane before it made landfall. Fortunately, Beryl was still moving along at a steady clip. If Beryl had slowed down, that would have allowed it to spend more time over the very warm waters and potentially strengthen to a Category 2 or even a Category 3 hurricane. Caribbean countries have been demanding more action from wealthy polluting nations like the United States, European countries and China to rapidly decarbonise. International negotiations have also been taking place for financial support mechanisms for smaller countries to deal with disasters. A loss and damage fund, which can support the island nations, is up for negotiations again at the upcoming United Nations climate summit in Baku, called Cop29, in November. However, climate financing measures have so far remained highly inadequate to meet the costs from rising disasters and have funnelled billions of dollars back to rich countries, leaving poorer countries in debt. Last 13 months have been the hottest on record for the planet with intense heatwaves, heavier rainfall on the land and boiling waters fuelling storms. Meteorologists are forecasting an explosive hurricane season this year due to record ocean heat. AccuWeather says 20-25 named storms could be seen this year and 4-6 could potentially have direct impacts on the US. You dont want to wait too long to restock your hurricane supplies, and most importantly, dont let your guard down at all this hurricane season, Mr Porter said, adding that they are forecasting a very busy and impactful hurricane season, and were just getting started. Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) announced an executive order Tuesday to tighten up voter registration in the state ahead of the election this fall. The order, called the Only Citizens Will Vote Act, will allow the Idaho secretary of state to take all necessary steps to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote. Idaho already has the most secure elections in the nation, and were going to keep it that way, Little said. My executive order the ONLY CITIZENS WILL VOTE Act directs Secretary of State Phil McGrane to work with local county clerks to scrub our voter rolls and make sure Idahos elections do not fall prey to the consequences of Bidens lawless open border. Under the new order, the Idaho secretary of state will review the states voter rolls with local police and the transportation department to identify anyone who is not a citizen. The secretary of state can also work with the Department of Homeland Security to verify citizenship status and then remove the individual from the registration. The secretary and county clerks will submit an annual report to Little on their efforts to prevent and remove non-citizens from Idahos voter rolls. The order also prohibits state agencies from providing voter registration information to noncitizens. Little said the executive order was signed as a means to fight back to the Left Coast states and the Biden Administration as more and more people pour across our lawless open southern border illegally. Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, but some places across the country have allowed noncitizens to vote in more local races. Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane said in a statement that there already are great voter security mechanisms in place in Idaho, but more can always be done. Across Idahos 44 counties, we have excellent mechanisms in place already to ensure non-citizens do not vote in Idaho, but there is always more we can do to make sure only citizens will vote, McGrane said. The secretary told the Idaho Statesman that because its already illegal for noncitizens to vote in Idaho, he initially felt that further action wasnt necessary. Hes since changed his mind, joining Little on the order, and said the legality of noncitizens voting hasnt stopped his concerns. Were seeing a rise and a push more about peoples confidence in elections tied to the news about immigration, he told the outlet. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Idaho voters will have a significant issue to decide on their November ballots: Should Idahos closed party primary system be abolished and standard voting in the general election be replaced with ranked-choice voting? The Idaho Secretary of States Office announced Wednesday that a prominent ballot initiative met the signature requirements to be put before voters in November. Organized by a coalition called Idahoans for Open Primaries, the initiative gathered nearly 75,000 verified signatures in recent months, eclipsing the state requirement that organizers secure close to 63,000 signatures. The announcement sets up a potential clash with Republican Attorney General Raul Labrador, who has said he would attempt to block the measure from the ballot, according to previous Statesman reporting. Labradors spokesperson, Dan Estes, told the Idaho Statesman by email Wednesday that Labrador does not comment on potentially pending or ongoing litigation. We believe a challenge from AG Labrador is likely, and we are confident the challenge will fail, Luke Mayville, a lead organizer of the initiative effort, told the Statesman by text. Theres nothing unconstitutional about giving all voters the right to participate in primary elections. County clerks initially sorted through tens of thousands of signatures earlier this summer, culling any that could not be verified in the petition drive. The final signature tally was submitted to the secretary of state earlier this month for the last step in the process: final state approval. The Secretary of States Office is asking for submissions of pro and con arguments about the initiative, some of which will appear in a pamphlet voters will receive before Election Day. The controversial initiative has pitted reform-minded Idahoans against hard-right conservatives, who have pulled the GOP to the right in recent years largely through a closed-party primary process that determines the outcome of many state elections before the general election takes place. State GOP leaders have vehemently opposed the initiative, with party chair Dorothy Moon calling it a pernicious plot to dilute power in the Legislature. But other prominent Republicans and former state leaders have rallied behind the measure, arguing that it would give a wider spectrum of Idahoans a say in choosing their leaders and select more candidates who have broad appeal. Former Gov. Butch Otter, former House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, and former attorney general and chief justice of the Idaho Supreme Court Jim Jones have lined up in support of the effort. The coalition lists around 120 Republicans some former lawmakers, sheriffs or state officials who have endorsed the ballot measure on its website. Current elected Republicans have been quieter. Gov. Brad Little has not taken a public position on the initiative, and a spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Secretary of State Phil McGrane also has not offered a stance, and he did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a news release, McGranes office said organizers met the required threshold of 62,895 valid petition signatures and the requirements for distribution across at least 18 legislative districts, with a minimum of 6 percent of registered voters from each district. Mayville said more than 2,000 volunteers worked to collect the signatures. They were motivated by the belief that all voters, regardless of party affiliation, have a right to participate in every Idaho election, he said. Mayville previously told the Statesman that powerful party insiders and special interest groups oppose the measure because they know that it will give power to ordinary voters to choose their own leaders. These special interest groups want to hand-pick our leaders themselves, and they understand that the closed primary system allows them to do that, he said. Houses in Burano, Italy (Kimberly Kephart) Burano is one of the most colorful Venetian Islands and dare I say, one of the best? It is no secret that Buranos colorful houses, lace-making tradition and Bussola cookies are renowned features of the island. I have created a quick guide to Burano Italy along with a unique tour I took that you should look into! Regularly, I scan through Airbnb Experiences to find tours that bring me closer to the locals so I can get to know a location through their eyes. I discovered a tour called Secret Corners of Burano which is led by Silvia. Silvia is a local to Burano and knows Burano like the back of her hand. Its fair to say I was in for a treat! You can find the tour here. THE HISTORY OF BURANO I met Silvia, my guide in front of the Vaporetto stop that was close to the Waiting for Peace statue. I found out that this statue was a relative of Silvias. The statue itself plays an important role in Buranos history as the sculptor Remigio Barbara was from Burano. Silvia let me know her relative posed for Remigio which was quite fascinating. The young woman behind the statue was considered to be ahead of her time when posing for the artist, exemplifying a progressive attitude towards artistic representation. As we proceeded with the tour, Silvia filled me in on the back story of Burano. In the 6th Century, the Roman Empire was invaded by barbarians. Romans retreated to the Venetian islands and were able to populate the islands. Burano became a fisherman paradise and the colorful houses helped fishermen locate the island in thick fog. In the 16th century, Buranos significance surged as island women became renowned for lacemaking. The lacemakers of Burano propelled the popularity of the island. Lace goods were exported across Europe. Notably Influential figures like Leonardo De Vinci were drawn to the island, further cementing the reputation of the island. Moreover, the vibrant hues adorning the exteriors of Buranos homes added to its allure, creating a picturesque backdrop that entices visitors to the island! Man and dog in Burano, Italy (Kimberly Kephart) Silvia will take you to the following places: Church of San Martino Vescovo displays numerous precious pieces of art by Giambattista Tiepolo, Girolamo da Santacroce, and Giovanni Mansueti dating back to the end of the 16th century. The Museum and School of Lacemaking hosts a vast exhibition showing the detailed history of Buranos lacemaking from the origins to the 21st century. The House of Bepi is one of the most colorful houses on the island and a very popular B&B. INTERESTING TIDBITS ABOUT THE HOUSES The Houses of Burano are unique because a color will dictate where someones house begins and another one ends. Its quite charming. You can paint your house any color you want but only after checking with the local government first! People tend to be going toward the bright color combinations these days. I learned that neighbors will try to outdo each other when its time to paint their houses. Interested in buying a house? Well, it might be inexpensive to purchase. However, the cost to remodel can set you back a pretty penny. Silvia told me that the houses have pretty small rooms and they build up rather than out. WHEN TO GO TO BURANO Burano can get pretty crowded during shoulder season (autumn). I am told during winter and spring, Burano is perfect because its not humid. Youll probably want to skip the weekends, as it can get very crowded. I went on a Tuesday afternoon and it was PERFECT. I felt like I was the only one walking around Burano. It was a nice break from being shoulder-to-shoulder with others in Venice. HOW TO GET TO BURANO Getting to Burano is pretty easy. Burano is located off the main island of Venice. Ferries go to the island pretty frequently, 25 times a day. To get there you can hop on the Vaporetto line #12. This line departs from the Fondemente Nove (F.te Nove) and it is a 20-minute walk from St. Marks square. The journey takes around 45 minutes and costs 9.50. But if you head on over to the Venice City Pass website you can purchase day and week-long passes! If you are coming by train, take note of the ticket offices outside the station. Blue house in Burano, Italy (Kimberly Kephart) IMPORTANT SMARTPHONE APPS TO DOWNLOAD 1. GoogleMaps 2. CheBateo? 3. AVM Venezia Official App 4. TrainItalia (an important one for travel all over Italy) You can find these apps on both the Android App Store and the Apple Store! I hope this guide to Burano, Italy helps you plan the trip of your dreams! Check out Kimberlys blog, Kimberly Kephart Travels for more of her adventures in Italy, Poland and Korea. Is it illegal to fill a pothole in St. Louis or Missouri? ST. LOUIS The wet spring and summer storms bring with them a lot of problems in the moment, like rising rivers and flooding in low-lying areas. But the inclement weather leaves behind the lingering issue of potholes. Bob Becker, district maintenance engineer with the Missouri Department of Transportation, said they spend between $15 million and $20 million a year on patching and repairing potholes. Not just the product itself, but the people to get out there, because weve got to have a large train of people, two or three teams, because it is a moving operation, typically, he said. So, weve got a lot of people out there. A lot of equipment out there. Potholes are formed in roadways when snow or rain seeps into cracks or joints in the pavement and later freezes. As water freezes, it expands, like ice cubes. That expansion slowly breaks down the integrity of the asphalt above and the gravel and rock that support the road. This happens repeatedly in the winter. The expansion, thawing, and seeping rainwater weaken the asphalt and leave small gaps in the road. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now FOX 2 Weather The weight of passing vehicles compresses the weakened asphalt and roadbed, increasing the size of the gaps and, sometimes, peeling away chunks of asphalt or concrete. Whats left are potholes. Some have decried St. Louis as having the worst roads in America while others have complained over the years about potholes covered with metal sheets and left unrepaired. The nuisance of potholes can cost motorists hundreds or even thousands in car repair or tire replacement. You stare at an unfilled pothole long enough, you might start to wonder, I can fix that. I mean, its been done before. But doing so could land you in hot water, according to Brown & Crouppen attorney Andrea McNairy. Speaking with FOX 2, McNairy says any person who makes any road repair themselves could be liable if anyone is injured as a result of that unsanctioned work. McNairy points to Missouri Statute 229.300, which doesnt mention potholes by name but would be covered due to the language of the law. it shall be unlawful for any person, firm, association or corporation to excavate or encroach on, or cause to be excavated or encroached on, or to lay, locate, erect, remove or maintain any conduits, poles, pole lines, wires, mains, pipes, conductors, sewers, tramways or drains, within, upon or across the right-of-way of any street, avenue, boulevard, road, alley, public easement, or highway Mo. Statute 229.300 So, while it is not specifically denoted as illegal, the language is such that you could face legal repercussions from fixing a pothole yourself. If you have a pothole to report on state-controlled roads or highways, you can contact MoDOT at 1-888-ASK-MODOT (275-6636) or by clicking here. To report a pothole in St. Louis City, contact their Citizens Service Bureau by phone at 314-622-4800 or online. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. New Illinois budget invests heavily in education. Why do some say it's not enough? The sixth budget under the Pritzker administration went into effect on July 1, a budget again emphasizing investment in education but one that some advocates say falls short. Included in the $53.1 billion budget signed by Gov. JB Pritzker is funding for new and continued programs to bolster early childhood through higher education. Among the spending is $14.2 million to develop the new Department of Early Childhood, $200 million towards Early Childhood Workforce Compensation Contracts and $400 million for year two of the Smart Start Illinois initiative, which aims to provide universal access to preschool by 2027. More: Illinois looks to eliminate $1 billion in medical debt. Are you eligible for relief? Pritzker first unveiled plans for the Department of Early Childhood in October, which effectively consolidates programs previously housed in the Department of Human Services, the Department of Children and Family Services, and the Illinois State Board of Education. It will go online in July 2026 and is seen as a way to make services more efficient and accessible to the public. It's hard enough juggling all the responsibilities that fall on the shoulders of parents, Pritzker said during a bill signing ceremony in Chicago on June 25. And on top of that, they shouldn't have to navigate a complex bureaucracy to get the care that they and their children deserve. Department of Early Childhood Lawmakers later passed Senate Bill 1 to create the new department with unanimous support in an April Senate vote and a bipartisan, 93-18 vote in the House in May. The new department will be responsible for ISBE'S Early Childhood Block Grant program the fiscal year 2025 budget including an additional $75 million to provide $5,000 to preschool slots statewide and the Child Care Assistance Program, Home Visiting programs, and Early Intervention Services now belonging to the human services department. The licensing of day care facilities, a current responsibility of IDCFS, would also transition under their umbrella. Gov. JB Pritzker holds up Senate Bill 1 after signing it into law, flanked by Reps. Mary Beth Canty, D-Arlington Heights, and Will Davis, D-Homewood (left) and lead Senate sponsor Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood (right) on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. More: New fiscal year, new taxes: Three new taxes to know about taking effect July 1 Both the home visiting and early intervention programs saw their funding increase by 21% and 3% respectively under this budget. Still, Illinois Action For Children believes the $6 million tallied for early intervention to be paltry and unable to increase provider reimbursement rates leading to delays in service. "Illinois must increase investment in the early childhood workforce across all programs and settings," said Angela Farwig, IAFCs vice president of public policy, advocacy and research in a news release. "Our early childhood system thrives from the commitment of our educators, and we need robust workforce investment to build a brighter future for our children. Evidence-Based Funding Formula, K-12 spending Pritzker requested and ultimately received $350 million for the evidence-based funding formula which funds public K-12 schools throughout Illinois. While this is $50 million above the minimum allowed by state law, the Chicago Teachers Union had rallied in Springfield during the spring session urging increased funding. According to the governor's office, there has been a $1.8 billion aggregate increase in EBF funding during the Pritzker administration which started in 2019. The Center for Budget and Tax Accountability, a non-partisan think tank, countered in a recent study supported increasing funding to $500 million per fiscal year to hasten the timeline to fully fund schools from fiscal year 2034 up to fiscal year 2030. More: Restored MLK Jr. statue returns to Springfield nearly two years after being vandalized The budget will also work towards solving the teacher vacancies by setting aside $45 million for the three-year pilot to help fill those vacancies. Additionally, there will be a $32.7 million increase in grants for transportation and special education, a $10.2 million increase for career technical education programs to start a new equity-based funding formula and $3 million to implement the Illinois Comprehensive Literacy plan. Higher Education The biggest investment made for higher education is an additional $10 million for the Monetary Award Program, dedicated to low income Illinois resident college students grant funding. Another $30.6 million $24.6 million for public universities and $6 million for community colleges is set aside in the budget for operating costs. The budget would also maintain the teacher pipeline program funding, $10.75 million for Golden Apple Scholars, $5 million for Golden Apple Accelerators and $8 million for Minority Teachers of Illinois. Universities will also receive additional $13 million to help fund the Mental Health Early Action on Campus Act grants. Where IAFC and advocacy group Advance Illinois suggest funding is lacking, however, is in the Early Childhood Access Consortium for Equity, a scholarship program dedicated to working adults seeking degrees in early education. More: New, stricter phone policy likely coming to Springfield schools. Here's what it might look like Estimates vary as to what accounts for proper funding, but the $5 million included in the budget for the program does not cut it, proponents said. Advance Illinois projects approximately 2,400 early childhood educators will go without financial support to complete their programs. "This, to say the least, is an incredible missed opportunity," the organization said in a news release. "Diminished funding for this scholarship runs counter to the states significant efforts to support a stronger, more equitable system that reaches more children and families!" Patrick M. Keck of The State Journal-Register and Peter Hancock of Capitol News Illinois contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Why some say Illinois' new budget doesn't invest enough in education CHICAGO Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday signed legislation advocates say will do away with health insurance practices that make it harder for patients to receive needed care. For too long, insurance companies have used predatory tactics to make an extra dime at the expense of Illinois consumers. For too long, shoddy networks, price gouging and overly complicated bureaucracies have stood in the way of our families getting the care that they deserve, Pritzker said at a West Side signing ceremony. Today, with my signature, Illinois is addressing and rectifying that. The legislation, which passed by wide margins and with bipartisan support in the General Assembly this spring, marks a key policy victory for Pritzker, who promised in February to put his shoulder to the wheel to pass health care reform. The new law includes a prohibition on insurance plans requiring what is known as step therapy, which is when the insurer requires a customer to try different treatments or medications before those prescribed by their doctor. Doctors and patient advocates say the practice can worsen patients conditions, while the insurance industry argues it keeps costs down. The law also prohibits insurers from requiring prior authorization, cases where patients need permission from insurance companies before receiving treatment for in-patient, or overnight, mental health care at a hospital. In addition, it bans the sale of short-term, limited-duration health insurance plans, which dont cover as many medical services as typical plans, and allows the states Department of Insurance to reject unreasonable price increases proposed by certain large group health insurance policies. Marilyn Zydlo, an advocate for the bill whose son Jimmy was diagnosed with Stage 3 advanced Hodgkins lymphoma at 17, said at Wednesdays event that the law would have helped when Jimmy needed certain antibiotics while undergoing treatment. We wouldnt have had to fight with the insurance companies to get the initial prescription, she said. Jimmys cancer is now in remission, she said. Parts of the law will begin to take effect in January while others wont go into effect until 2026. The health insurance bill is the latest agenda item pushed by the Pritzker administration during the spring legislative session that the governor has recently signed into law. Others include a measure aimed at erasing as much as $1 billion in medical debt for more than 300,000 Illinois families; the creation of a new Department of Early Childhood; and authorization for incentives to boost Illinois standing in the quantum computing field. ____ Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, is welcomed with military honours by Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer in Vienna Austria, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Modi's visit to Austria is the first by an Indian prime minister in 41 years. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader) VIENNA (AP) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the war in Ukraine on Wednesday with the leader of Austria, an ally of Kyiv that has a policy of military neutrality, emphasizing the need for diplomacy a day after he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Modi met Chancellor Karl Nehammer on what he said was the first visit to Austria by an Indian prime minister in 41 years. Nehammer told reporters it was important to understand India's position on Ukraine and convey Europe's concerns. He said it was an important and significant signal that India took part in a summit in Switzerland last month and added that Austria could act as a bridge-builder in helping move forward peace efforts. Modi's visit to Moscow, a longtime partner for New Delhi, was his first since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. While in Moscow, Modi reiterated Indias neutral stance on the invasion. He also alluded to an attack on Monday when Russian missiles struck across Ukraine, damaging the largest childrens hospital in Kyiv and killing at least 42 people nationwide, including some children. Be it war, a struggle or a terrorist attack, every person who believes in humanity, when there is loss of life, he is pained, Modi said Tuesday. When innocent children are killed, when we see innocent children dying, then the heart pains. And that pain is very horrible. In his comments Wednesday, Modi said in general terms that he and Nehammer had extensive discussions on all the world's conflicts, including Ukraine. He said that problems cannot be solved in the battlefield and that the loss of innocent lives is not acceptable, wherever it may take place. India and Austria both lay emphasis on dialogue and diplomacy for the rapid restoration of peace and stability, he said. Both of us are ready to provide all possible support to achieve this. Modi and Nehammer took no questions from journalists. Inert grenades found in a bag cause evacuation at a Hawaii airport, man arrested This image provided by the Hawaii Police Department shows two grenades. Operations at Hawaiis Hilo International Airport were halted when security screeners spotted two items that looked like grenades in a bag belonging to a man from Japan. Police say officers evacuated the terminal area Tuesday, July 9, 2024 while a bomb squad determined the grenades were inert. (Hawaii Police Department via AP) HILO, Hawaii (AP) Operations at Hawaii's Hilo International Airport were halted when security screeners spotted two items that looked like grenades in a bag belonging to a man from Japan. Officers evacuated the terminal area Tuesday morning while a bomb squad determined the grenades were inert, according to a Hawaii Police Department statement. Airport operations resumed about an hour later. Police spokesperson Denise Laitinen said Wednesday she didn't have additional information about the grenades being inert. Police arrested a 41-year-old man from Kanazawa, Japan, on suspicion of first-degree terroristic threatening. He was taken to an east Hawaii detention facility and then released pending investigation, police said. The Transportation Security Administration prohibits replicas of explosives, including hand grenades, in checked or carry-on luggage. Influencer Summer Wheaton Identified as Driver in Fatal Malibu Crash That Killed 1, Authorities Say The second driver involved in the crash died at the scene Rachpoot/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Summer Wheaton attends the Shein Friendsgiving Dinner Hosted By Jena Frumes at Hotel Figueroa on November 16, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. Authorities in California have identified a social media influencer as one of two drivers involved in a crash on the Pacific Coast Highway on July 4 that left one dead. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department alleges that Summer Wheaton was operating a Mercedes Benz when the vehicle crossed the highways center median and collided with a Cadillac SUV traveling in the opposite direction, according to The Los Angeles Times, ABC affiliate KABC-TV and The Malibu Times. The driver of the Cadillac was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the outlets. He has since been identified as 44-yearold ride-share driver Martin Okeke, per The Malibu Times. Wheaton and a passenger from the Cadillac were transported to UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center following the crash, per the outlets. Neither Wheaton nor the LASD immediately responded to PEOPLEs requests for comment. Related: CEO Was Enjoying 'Beautiful' Day with Family. Then Bulldozer Fell on His Car, Killing Him and Youngest Daughter (Exclusive) The self-described influencer and wellness advocate" reportedly attended an event at Nobu restaurant in Malibu before the crash occurred around 10:30 p.m. local time, per the outlets. However, when asked about her attendance, police told The Malibu Times that "her being at Nobu" was "part of the overall investigation and unconfirmed at this time." The party reportedly did not receive proper permitting before hosting the event. According to KABC-TV, city officials allege they denied the permit as the restaurants owners did not comply with traffic and safety conditions. But as The Malibu Times reported, an attorney claiming to represent Nobu has argued the city violated the business owners rights. The attorney did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment. 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. Wheaton has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram, where she promoted herself as a founder, speaker and wellness advocate. (The account is currently private.) She is listed as CEO and founder of two innovative startups on her website, which also is no longer publicly accessible, according to The Los Angeles Times. Related: Michigan Dad Dead, Wife and Three Sons Injured, After Car Crash: 'Heartbreaking Tragedy' On July 5, Mayor Steve Uhring issued a statement, saying, "We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life resulting from last nights accident." Uhring added, "This heartbreaking incident underscores the importance of the Citys ongoing efforts to address safety on Pacific Coast Highway. An investigation into the crash is ongoing. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Scientists confirmed the first known occurrence of the Joro spider ( Trichonephila clavata ) in North America in 2013. Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) An invasive species of spider is making itself comfortable in parts of the southern and eastern U.S. But don't let the Joro spider give you the creepy crawlies just yet. Between its golden webs and its silk-swinging tactic to track down a mate, this arachnid is a fascinating and, as far as we know, harmless (unless you're a stink bug) addition to the ecosystem. And we may as well get used to the bright yellow Joro spider because it looks like they are planning on taking up permanent residence. Research from the University of Georgia suggests the invasive arachnids can exist in colder climates than previously thought and, therefore, could spread through most of the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. The way I see it, theres no point in excess cruelty where its not needed, said Benjamin Frick, co-author of the study and an undergraduate researcher in the school of ecology, in a press release. You have people with saltwater guns shooting them out of the trees and things like that, and thats really just unnecessary. Where Do Joro Spiders Come From? The Joro spider, scientifically known as Nephila clavata, is native to East Asia. In Japan, it's called joro-gumo meaning "entangling or binding bride." In Korea, it's called mudang gumi meaning "shaman" or "fortune teller" spider. The names reflect the beauty and intrigue of the orb weaver spiders. While the smaller drab male is nothing to write home about, the females feature a yellow and gray abdomen, bluish-green bands across the body, orangish bands on the spanning legs, and a bright red underbelly. This spider, which can be as large as 3 or 4 inches (8 to 10 centimeters) long, can't actually tell your fortune, but it can weave a beautiful basket-shaped web that reflects gold in the sunlight and can be as wide as 10 feet (3 meters). Joro Spiders Globalize as an Invasive Species Along with commonly found electronics and bananas, exotic plants and critters like the Joro spider are known to hitchhike on America-bound commodities, especially in shipping containers. Now, the Joro has jumped from the shipping container and exists in Georgia and parts of South Carolina, and has even been spotted in Tennessee and Alabama. Scientists expect them to reach New York and New Jersey in 2024. In some cases, homeowners have hundreds of Joro spiders around their homes. They prefer to make their webs high in trees and have been found in forests, urban woods, porch lights, wooden decks, bushes, tall weeds and even on the vinyl siding of homes. A female Joro spider hangs peacefully in her web waiting for prey, seen here from below. Wikimedia Commons (CC BY SA 3.0) Joro Spider Adaptation Their ability to adapt to natural habitats and native species food sources in northern Georgia and South Carolina has allowed the Joro spider's numbers to swell across the east coast, reaching as far north as West Virginia. However, it's only a matter of time before predators catch up with the new invasive species. "I think that the spiders have spread so quickly here because predators, parasites and diseases have not caught with them yet," said Professor Paul Guillebeau, professor of entomology at the University of Georgia, when we spoke to him in 2021. "If there is a new, large food resource like the booming spider population, something will take ultimately take advantage," he said. How Joro Spiders Mate Joro spiders live very close to each other, which helps individual spiders with the mating process, since males don't make their own spider webs, a function that is left entirely to the females. To mate, the Joro spider male must pursue the females, albeit very carefully. Joro spiders may use gossamer and float, legs outstretched, on a breeze, from tree to tree or branch to branch, until a female Joro spider is within sight, or they spot a less male-occupied web. "Then the male tries to find a receptive female. The male is almost always smaller, so it's tricky business to make your move without being eaten." Guillebeau has seen males around his house wait until a female is busy eating an insect before he gets close a much safer approach. Are Joro Spiders Poisonous? Though Joro spiders were first spotted in Georgia in 2013 and people are somewhat worried at seeing so many of them so suddenly, it's still far too early to understand their big-picture impact on the environment. So far, however, the Joro spiders eat stink bugs and other flying insects, which is appreciated by farmers whose crops can suffer from stink bug infestations. As orb weavers, they will naturally compete with other orb weavers like the golden silk spider for prey, but since they often weave their webs higher than local spiders, they may eat different kinds of prey, noted Guillebeau. Joro spider bites are venomous, but they aren't dangerous to you or your pets. Joro spiders will also only bite you or your animals if they are scared enough to do so. Joro Spiders Don't Threaten Human Activity "Even if you walk into a Joro web, it will try to escape rather than attack you. If you catch a Joro in your hand, it may bite you out of fear. If I were caught by a giant, I'd probably bite," said Guillebeau. If you do get a Joro spider bite, it may irritate human skin similar to a bee sting, but it's not as bad as a brown recluse (which actually isn't that bad) or black widow. There is currently no broad initiative to remove Joro spiders from the American ecosystem. What should you do if you see a Joro spider (or any other spiders you may commonly catch around your house)? You may be tempted to kill this invasive species, but instead try being more curious, Guillebeau suggested. "Have a look at it every couple of days. Show your children; they are fascinating to watch. Toss an insect into the web if you want to see them in action." Guillebeau reminded us, "Don't kill spiders (or anything else) for no good reason. We are all playing our role in the ecosystem." Original article: The Invasive Joro Spider Is Getting Cozy in the U.S. Copyright 2024 HowStuffWorks, a division of InfoSpace Holdings, LLC, a System1 Company NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) The New Orleans Police Department is investigating after a man was found dead in the Marigny neighborhood on Wednesday, July 10. NOPD officers said they responded to the call of a deceased person being found inside a home in the 2700 block of Decatur Street at 7:23 a.m. Single-vehicle crash in Washington Parish kills unrestrained driver Upon arrival, they found the unresponsive man at the location and pronounced him dead on the scene. Through an investigation, officers discovered evidence of trauma on the man and called homicide detectives. No further details are available at this time, but the incident has been classified as a homicide. NOPD officers are in the process of gathering evidence and information to determine a possible suspect and motive. (WGNO/Cole Walker) The Orleans Parish Coroners Office will release the victims identity and cause of death after an autopsy is done and the family is notified. St. Tammany Parish School Board to end CBA in favor of handbook Anyone with additional information on this incident is asked to contact NOPD Fifth District detectives at 504-658-6050 or call anonymously to Crimestoppers of Greater New Orleans at 504-822-1111 or toll-free 1-877-903-STOP. Stay up to date with the latest news, weather and sports by downloading the WGNO app on the Apple or Google Play stores and by subscribing to the WGNO newsletter. Latest Posts Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGNO. Bishop Drumm Retirement Center in Johnston. (Photo via Google Earth) One resident of a Johnston nursing home died and another was hospitalized recently amid allegations by employees that the home has insufficient staff to meet residents needs. State inspectors visited Johnstons Bishop Drumm Retirement Center in June and on Tuesday issued a report of their findings, citing the home for insufficient nursing staff and failure to treat residents bed sores. According to the inspectors report, one resident with a significant bed sore and blisters on her back was found unresponsive in her bed on May 8 and was rushed to a local hospital where she died the next day. On June 14, a male resident with untreated sores was admitted to a hospital in septic shock, which can be a life-threatening condition, and respiratory failure. Prior to the mans hospitalization, the entire heel of one foot was covered by a wound that included a blister filled with black liquid and dead tissue, inspectors reported. A licensed practical nurse who works for Bishop Drumm allegedly told inspectors the home had only one nurse with three certified nurse assistants working in the homes skilled-nursing unit where many residents need regular treatments and assistance with eating and ambulating. The staff wasnt getting residents out of bed because they dont have time and they dont have enough help, the nurse allegedly reported, and so residents at risk of bed sores werent being repositioned. She confirmed she had noticed residents with a lot of skin issues, the inspectors reported A registered nurse who works for Bishop Drumm allegedly voiced similar concerns, telling inspectors that one nurse on duty for 30 residents was a lot, and that the staff was unable to get residents out of bed or provide the assistance they needed. Another registered nurse who works at Bishop Drumm allegedly reported that residents were developing sores due to the staff not having time to reposition them or change their clothing or bedding. She reportedly told inspectors the home at times had only two nurses or one nurse plus a medication aide to care for 60 residents. While at the facility, state inspectors asked the homes administrator what steps Bishop Drumm had taken to address repeated violations from past inspections, which included a February 2024 citation for failure to prevent bed sores, and citations for insufficient staff in June 2023 and October 2023. According to the inspectors, the administrator reported that he had been in the job only four months and couldnt speak to the actions taken by previous administrators. As a result of the most recent inspection at Bishop Drumm, the state has proposed a $10,000 fine for failing to provide residents with the required nursing services. Due to that being a repeat violation, the proposed fine has been tripled to $30,000. However, the penalty has also been held in suspension by the state, which means the state fine will not have to be paid, although the federal government may eventually impose fines for the same set of violations. Staffing levels have long been considered the single biggest factor in determining whether a nursing home is capable of providing care that meets professional standards. The Biden administration has proposed a set of clearly defined minimum staffing levels for those nursing homes that collect taxpayer money through Medicare and Medicaid. However, several GOP governors, including Iowas Kim Reynolds, and members of Congress have voiced opposition to federally mandated minimum staffing levels. Currently, there are several bills and resolutions in Congress that would prohibit the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services from establishing new standards for staffing, or even enforcing existing standards. Industry lobbyists, including the American Health Care Association and Leading Age, both of which have Iowa-based affiliates, say mandatory staffing levels amount to an unfunded mandate that cant be met due to nursing shortages and insufficient funding. The post Iowa nursing home cited for insufficient staffing after residents death appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch. The Schellenberger ice cave in Untersberg (MindScape Photography - Michael, 123rf ) European summers can get hot. Without centralized air-conditioning, typical indoor experiences such as going to the movies or shopping can be unpleasant. While Germany is not an easy drive to the beach, it does have many underground experiences you can explore. Here are a few that make an easy day trip to escape the heat. Near Kaiserslautern /Wiesbaden Kaiserslautern Underground Historical Tour Starting in Count Palatinate Hall, the former Casimir Castle where the city now holds official receptions, you will descend into subterranean tunnels for a guided tour. the 70-meter-long tunnels are adorned with information boards and light displays to help immerse you into the rich history of Kaiserslautern. To book a tour, you can visit Kaiserslautern.de. The Imperial Bath Ruins, Trier My spouse and I visited Trier on an exceptionally hot day. This was a daytrip we decided to take with no game plan. As we slowly roasted wandering around the city I was about to ask that we call it a day, when my husband spotted the Roman Bath Ruins. As a history buff, he was super excited to go explore this UNESCO World Heritage Site. Seeing the twinkle in his eye, I mustered my energy and decided I could bear the heat for this one last thing. The second we went underground, I felt like someone had generously given me an ice pack. It was so refreshing and surprisingly breezy just below the ground. My energy restored and we ended up having tons of fun looking at the ruins, figuring out the piping system for the traditional baths and running through the labyrinth of underground tunnels. To book tickets, you can visit trier-info.de Trier Imperial Bath Ruins Underground (Katie Wells) The Schlossberg Caves In Homburg Saarland, the Schlossberg caves are rich with history lying deep within the Homberg Castle ruins. They are the largest man-made sandstone structure in Europe descending 12 levels below ground. Three of those levels are open to the public for viewing the beautiful red and yellow stone. The top three layers were used for mining quartz in the 17th century. However, the stone itself is believed to be dated back to early Triassic times, even before the dinosaurs. You might find unique fossils and footprints along the walls. The caves close in December and January. To find out more, you can visit homburger-schlossberghoelen.de. Traben-Trarbach Wine Cellars On the Moselle, Traben-Trarbach quickly became one of the most important wine trading towns in the 19th century. Due to rising demand for Riesling wine exports to the United Kingdom in the second half of the 19th century, Traben-Trarbach built large wine cellars under the town center. Some of the vaults spanned up to 100 meters long. Events including concerts and the annual Moselle Wine Christmas Market are held underground. There is also the Summer Moselle Wine Festival along the shore of the river in July, where you can take a two-and-a-half-hour tour through two of the cellars and taste nine different wines. You can also book year-round tours to go underground by visiting traben-trarbach.de. Vulkaneifel 200 years ago, the beer brewers from Mendig discovered their local underground treasure-trove for beer storage. If you want to try a truly unique beer, Vulkaneifel is a great place to crack a cold Vulcan Brew. Vulkan Brauerie is the deepest beer storage and fermentation cellar in the world 100 feet below the ancient, volcanic earth of a dormant volcano. The tour into the cellar can be booked for Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays here at Vulkan-brauerei.de. Near Stuttgart/Bavaria Wimsen Cave In Wimsen Cave, not only will you cool off by being underground, but also by being surrounded by water. A ferryman takes visitors 70 meters into the cave by boat for a history and geological tour. This is a Geopoint of the UNESCO Global Geopark Swabian Alb due to it being the only show cave in Germany accessible by boat and the deepest explored underwater cave. Researchers have even found human bones in the treasure chamber that date back to the Bronze Age. For more information, visit tourism-bw.com. King Otto Cave This Bavarian cave is considered one of Germanys most beautiful, featuring a plethora of stalagmites and stalactites, a water-filled basin and different water level lines. The cave is one of the more accessible ones and can even be partially experienced by people in wheelchairs. You can tour the cave individually or on the weekends with a guide. To learn more, visit erlebniswelt-velburg.de. Sophienhohle For multiple cave experiences, Sophienhohle is a great place to be. Located underneath Burg Rabenstein, you can stay in the castle then explore the stunning stalactite cave individually or come back in the evening for a cave concert or dinner show. You can view popular stalactite formations such as the giant millionaire or sinter flags. The remains of a large cave bear are on display. They are the only ones of its kind in the world. For more information, visit burg-rabenstein.de. Sophienhole Wasserfall (Rainer Lippert) Schellenberg Ice Cave This cave located in the Berchtesgaden Alps in upper Bavaria, is the only ice cave open in Germany. A true journey back in time, you can take a 50-minute guided tour and see halls of impressive ice formations that have formed a permanent ice shell since the last ice age. To find out more, visit Eishoehle.net Salt Mine Tour Berchtesgaden While this is Germanys oldest salt mine in which salt is extracted in the wet, it is also an underground adventure mine. You can take a mine train into the mountain. It was modeled after what was used by workers in the 1600s. There is a miners slide that takes you 40 meters down to Mirror Lake, another fun activity that was used by miners to get to lower levels more quickly. You can also take a raft across Mirror Lake and see an audiovisual production in the Magical Salt Room. For more information, visit salzbergwerk.de. Iowa State University researchers received a $1 million grant from the Department of Energy to develop methods of monitoring power distribution transformers. (Getty Images) As electricity usage in homes increases due to modernization and weather changes, Iowa State University researchers are working to keep the lights on and the power grid working smoothly with a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The project, led by Grumman associate professor of electrical and computer engineering Zhaoyu Wang, will use data analytics and modeling to help improve the health and lifespan of distribution transformers, which lower the voltage amounts from the power distribution grid enough for houses to connect and have power. Utilizing smart meters, which Wang said measure voltage and energy consumption every 15 minutes and can be found in many homes, and a large data platform through project partner SparkMeter, the team will create applications and models allowing utility companies to monitor the status of distribution transformers. That will enable them to know when they are in danger of breaking or how long they could have left before they need to be replaced, possibly preventing outages before they occur. Certainly we are all excited about this project not only about the funding, its more about the potential impact, Wang said. Other partners on the project include the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Linn County Rural Electric Cooperative, Cedar Falls Utilities and AES. Wang said they will also work with a community in Indiana. According to a news release from the Department of Energys Office of Electricity, ISUs project is one of eight selected to receive grants totaling $7.5 million. These initiatives aim to modernize the U.S. power grid using data analytics, sensors and other technologies. These projects are essential for making our electric grid stronger and more secure, said Office of Electricity Assistant Secretary Gene Rodrigues. They will help utilities quickly identify and solve problems, ensuring a reliable power supply. Were laser-focused on rapid and widespread implementation to support Americas growing appetite for clean, affordable renewable energy. Traditionally, Wang said utility services dont generally check on the status of distribution transformers, as there are so many and they used to be relatively cheap to replace. Services would wait until a transformer broke, causing a power outage, before replacing it. We call this the broken-and-fixed cycle, Wang said. However, the cost of distribution transformers has tripled, Wang said, and utility services that need to make replacements could have to wait years to obtain replacements and refill their inventory. As homes increase their use of electricity through new appliances, electric-vehicle chargers and increased air conditioning due to hotter summers, Wang said transformers are more likely to be overloaded. They can handle being overloaded for a while before they break entirely, he said, but it does shorten their lifespan. The data from homes smart meters can be used to determine which transformers are being overloaded, allowing utility services to determine the health of their transformers and which of them should be given priority for replacement, perhaps with a transformer that can handle a larger capacity. This is called the monitoring-prediction-maintenance cycle, according to ISUs project summary, and its hoped that it will lead to a more proactive approach to transformer maintenance, lowering the chance of power outages. Wang said the team still needs to negotiate with the Department of Energy, but hopes to begin research and development in October. Field demonstrations of their work will begin after one year. In working with Cedar Falls and Linn County on previous projects, Wang said he and the other researchers know the challenges utility services are facing as they prepare for an increasingly electrified future. We work very closely with the industry, we know their challenges, we know their problems, Wang said. They have seen the sharp increase in the electricity demand from the customer side, mainly because of the EV charging If every house has increases, what will be the problem to their system and will that overload their distribution transformer? SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Iowa State University receives federal grant for power distribution grid work appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch. WASHINGTON Agents of the Iranian government have worked to influence American protests against the war in Gaza, a top U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday, in one of the most stark warnings yet about foreign meddling amid demonstrations that rocked the nation this spring. The director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, said people working for Iran have opportunistically inserted themselves in the protest movement via social media and other cyber activities, posing as activists online and promoting and even funding public demonstrations. I want to be clear that I know Americans who participate in protests are, in good faith, expressing their views on the conflict in Gaza, Haines said in a statement. But it is also important to warn of foreign actors who seek to exploit our debate for their own purposes. Police face-off with pro-Palestinian students after destroying part of the encampment barricade on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Los Angeles, California, early on May 2, 2024. Police deployed a heavy presence on US university campuses on May 1 after forcibly clearing away some weeks-long protests against Israel's war with Hamas. The statement, which was framed as part of an ongoing set of updates about election security, did not identify specific groups or protests that federal authorities believed to be subject to Iranian pressure. But security and terrorism experts said the statement aligned with Irans role in the larger picture of international intelligence, and with prior reporting about groups involved in the protests. As USA TODAY reported in May, at least one group that was active in student protest camps, American Muslims for Palestine, is led by a man who previously worked with organizations that were prosecuted and held liable for direct financial support to Hamas. American Muslims for Palestine said it had no ties to Hamas, and denied any close link to the earlier organizations. Even a small presence of foreign actors in college protests has the potential to fuel further rifts, experts said. Most foreign campaigns have had little influence in practice, said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan policy research center. However, even if the impact is small, Byman said in an email, it can increase U.S. divisions at a time when U.S. public opinion is already highly polarized. Lorenzo Vidino, director of the Program on Extremism at The George Washington University, said most protesters are free of any foreign support, certain countries undoubtedly have an interest in them. Some, such as Russia and China, are mainly interested in sowing dissent inside the U.S., while others are interested in both U.S. turmoil and support for Palestinian issues. Iran falls in the latter category, Vidino said, and it is not to be dismissed that Tehran has long been a supporter of Hamas and that some of the organizations that have played a role in the U.S. campus protests have links to Hamas. In a news briefing later that day, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated Haines message, emphasizing the importance of Americans' right to express their views while also highlighting the U.S. government's responsibility to warn the public about foreign influences. This is important to help Americans guard against efforts by foreign powers to take advantage of or co-opt their legitimate protest activities, Jean-Pierre said. More: Amid Gaza War protests, this website profiled students and accused them of 'hatred' Public demonstrations both for and against the Israel-Hamas war grew quickly after Oct. 7 when Hamas fighters raided Israel, killing 1,200 and taking more than 240 people hostage. Israel invaded the Gaza strip in response to the attacks, but public outcry grew along with the reported civilian death toll though the data cannot be independently confirmed, reports now put it at more than 30,000 people. Campus protests surged this spring as demonstrators called for a cease-fire and an end to support for Israel. The director of national intelligence oversees the U.S. governments community of 18 different intelligence organizations and advises the president and others on national security. The role emerged from a push to reform the federal intelligence system after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Biden nominated Haines, the first woman to hold the role, in 2020, and she was confirmed in 2021. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: US protesters targeted by Iran influence campaign, official warns Iran's newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian reaffirmed Tehran's alliance with Moscow in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on July 9, according to the Russian state-controlled news outlet TASS and statements from the Kremlin. Pezeshkian won Iran's runoff election on July 5, defeating hard-liner Saeed Jalili. Internationally recognized monitors were not present to verify the results or guarantee the fairness of the election. Iran is prepared to sign "a comprehensive strategic partnership" agreement with Russia at the BRICS summit in Kazan in October, Pezeshkian reportedly told Putin. Putin congratulated Pezeshkian on his electoral victory and both leaders affirmed their satisfaction with Russian-Iranian relations, according to Russian reports. The runoff election was triggered by the death of former President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister in a helicopter crash on May 19. Iran is one of Russia's closest allies on the international stage. The two countries have only deepened their military and political cooperation since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Notably, Iran has provided Russia with thousands of Shahed kamikaze drones since the start of the all-out war. In February, Reuters also reported that Tehran sent "a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles" to aid Moscow's invasion. Read also: US efforts to sanction Russia, Iran hampered by desire to keep gas prices low, sources tell WSJ Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. FILE PHOTO: Military vehicles belonging to the Iraqi security forces carry body remains of people from the minority Yazidi during a funeral ceremony in Baghdad By Tala Ramadan and Jana Choukeir DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi court issued a death sentence against a wife of the late Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for working with the group and detaining Yazidi women in her home, the Iraqi judiciary said on Wednesday without naming the woman. The Supreme Judicial Council in Iraq said the Yazidi women were kidnapped by Islamic State gangs in Sinjar district, west of Nineveh Governorate, and then held prisoner by the woman in her house in Mosul. The woman is being held in Iraqi custody. "The criminal court today sentenced Baghdadi's wife to death by hanging for crimes against humanity and genocide against the Yazidi people and also for contributing to terrorism actions," a court official who declined to go on record as he is not authorised to talk to the media told Reuters. The ruling must be ratified by an Iraqi appeal court to become final and applicable, the official added. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in November 2019 in a raid by U.S. special forces in northwestern Syria, rose from obscurity to lead the ultra-hardline group and declare himself "caliph" of all Muslims, holding sway over huge areas of Iraq and Syria from 2014-2017 before Islamic State's control disintegrated under U.S.-led attacks. (Reporting by Tala Ramadan, Ahmed Rasheed, and Jana Choukeir; Editing by Alexandra Hudson) Tori Towey, who hails from Roscommon, Ireland, was charged with attempting suicide in Dubai. Credit - Courtesy Detained in Dubai Tori Towey, an Irish woman who faced criminal charges for attempting suicide in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is allowed to travel home to Ireland. The charges of attempted suicide have been dropped by Dubai Public Prosecution. Dubai Public Prosecution has closed the case involving Irish national Tori Towey after she and her husband, a South African national, were involved in a case featuring mutual charges of assault, dating back to May 2024, the Government of Dubais media office said in an emailed statement to TIME. The couple reached a reconciliation and withdrew the complaints filed against each other. Dubai Public Prosecution has also dropped the charges of attempted suicide against her considering the circumstances of the case and to enable her to return to normal life. Earlier on Wednesday, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald shared that the travel ban imposed by the UAE government has been lifted and Toweywho hails from Boyle, Roscommonwill travel home to Ireland. We await her return and the end of her nightmare, McDonald wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Irelands Department of Foreign Affairs is providing consular assistance to Towey, 28, who has been living in Dubai since April 2023, and working as a flight attendant for Emirates Airlines, according to a post by the Detained in Dubai group, which provides legal help in civil and criminal cases. Towey was charged with consumption of alcohol and attempting suicide, which have historically been criminalized acts in the UAE. Within Detained in Dubai's post about Towey, it is alleged that she was facing domestic abuse from her husband and that he physically attacked her before the incident took place. Her husband has yet to publicly comment on these allegations. Read More: You can view the CDC's guidance on suicide prevention here. Toweywho survived the alleged suicide attemptwas taken to a local police station, where she had her passport destroyed. Until Wednesdays U-turn decision, she was previously prevented from leaving the country, the Dail, the lower house of the Oireachtas, Irelands parliament, heard on Tuesday. McDonald told colleagues in the Dail of Toweys case and called on Taoiseach [Prime Minister] Simon Harris to intervene, The Irish Times reported. The system over there, rather than protecting this woman who is an Irish citizen, chose instead to detain her to charge her. Shes now under the most incredible stress when I spoke to her this afternoon, McDonald said. McDonald also said that Toweys mother Caroline had flown to Dubai to be with her daughter. Harris, who said he was not previously familiar with Toweys case, vowed to offer any support the Irish native requires. The Department of Foreign Affairs has said it is aware of the case and is providing consular assistance to Towey. TIME has reached out to both the Irish government for further information and comment on Toweys case. Radha Stirling, who founded Detained in Dubai, told BBC News NI she had spoken to Towey on Wednesday morning and remarked on the momentum behind the Irish womans case. "The Irish government is certainly stepping up in record time, we usually dont see them come together that fast," Stirling said. What is the suicide legislation in the UAE? While suicide has historically been illegal in the UAE, it was widely reported that 2020 reforms to the Gulf nations personal status and penal laws would see landmark changes to decriminalize suicide and attempted suicide. While survivors of suicide were rarely prosecuted, the law left them vulnerable to charges and less likely to seek help. Alcohol consumption was also decriminalized in the same wave of reforms, which aimed to modernize the nation where expats form around 88% of the population. However, per documents from the UAE's Ministry of Justice pertaining to the "Federal Decree Law No. (15) of 2020," those accused of attempting suicide can still be subjected to incarceration of no more than six months, a fine of no more than 5,000 AED ($1,361), or both punishments. The court is also given the discretion to order that the detention period be served in a healing facility. Meanwhile, those accused of aiding an individual attempting suicide are subject to the punishment of incarceration. If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental-health crisis or contemplating suicide, call or text 988. In emergencies, call 911, or seek care from a local hospital or mental health provider. Write to Armani Syed at armani.syed@time.com. Israel cites aid backlog in Gaza; UN says: 'We're doing what we can' A man walks next to humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, at the Kerem Shalom crossing A man walks next to humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, at the Kerem Shalom crossing By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A backlog of 1,150 truckloads of humanitarian aid is waiting to be collected from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, Israel said on Wednesday, prompting the United Nations to say: "We're doing what we can." COGAT, an Israeli defence ministry agency tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories, said another 50 aid trucks are also awaiting collecting from the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing in northern Gaza. The United Nations said it is struggling to distribute aid within the enclave of 2.3 million people as the war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas enters its tenth month and law and order has broken down. "Yes the aid is being dropped off. But on the other side of that you have utter lawlessness, plus you have continuing conflict," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. "We are continuing to do our best to get that to those people who need it. Our colleagues in Gaza are not sitting on their hands." He said that the U.N. trucks that manage to pick up aid "are doing it often at great cost, because they are being either looted or attacked by criminal elements," adding that: "Some aid is getting through, but very little." The United Nations has long complained of dangers and obstacles to getting aid into Gaza - Israel inspects and approves all aid trucks - and distributing it within the enclave, where a global hunger monitor last month said there is a high risk of famine. The top U.N. aid official for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Muhannad Hadi, briefed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday - a day after visiting Gaza - Dujarric said. Hadi entered and exited through the Kerem Shalom crossing. "He saw groups of men with sticks waiting for trucks to leave the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza. All the trucks that he passed were badly damaged, with broken windshields, mirrors and hoods," Dujarric told reporters. Hadi also saw bags of fortified flour from the World Food Programme (WFP) and the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA scattered alongside the road from Kerem Shalom into Gaza, Dujarric said. In northern Gaza, WFP said military activity was limiting its operations. Israeli forces continued to press their offensive in north and central Gaza on Wednesday, dropping leaflets urging the evacuation of Gaza City. WFP has not delivered any food from the West Erez crossing for a couple of days, said WFP spokesperson Shaza Moghraby. "Distribution sites have been evacuated and shut down, terrified people are being displaced again and every time this happens it makes it more difficult for us to reach them so there is a major impact on our operations," she said. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Josie Kao) JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel and the United States agree on the importance of seizing the opportunity for a Gaza ceasefire deal but challenges remain, Israel's Defence Ministry said on Wednesday after its minister, Yoav Gallant, met U.S. Middle East envoy Brett McGurk. "The two discussed the importance of seizing the opportunity created to achieve an agreement for the return of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza," the ministry said in a statement about the meeting, which it said took place on Tuesday evening. "They discussed the challenges that remain in achieving such an agreement, as well as possible solutions to address them," it said. Gallant also said Israel supports the opening of the Rafah crossing, between Egypt and Gaza, but will not tolerate the return of Hamas to the area, the ministry statement said. (Reporting by Steve Scheer; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Andrew Heavens) (Bloomberg) -- Israel told all Palestinians in Gaza City to leave immediately, as a new phase of fighting intensified in what used to be the enclaves most populous area. Most Read from Bloomberg The Israel Defense Forces dropped leaflets in Arabic on the city on Wednesday, saying it will remain a dangerous combat zone and telling residents to move south to other parts of Gaza. The city, home to about one million people before the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October, was the first place targeted by Israeli forces when they began a ground offensive. It was largely cleared of Hamas units by the end of 2023, yet some fighters have regrouped and the IDF has sent forces and tanks back there and launched airstrikes in the past two weeks. Israel had already urged Palestinians from eastern areas of Gaza City to leave, but this is the first time its ordered a total evacuation. Its unclear if the IDF plans to send many more soldiers into the city. Hamas has said the attacks in Gaza City could jeopardize cease-fire talks between the two sides. Gaza City, in the north of the strip, was largely destroyed by Israeli air strikes and the subsequent ground incursion. Most residents fled south to places such as Rafah and tented camps, but some returned earlier this year. In late June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested the most intense phase of fighting in Gaza would be over very soon. Yet his military is struggling to stop Hamas from re-emerging in several areas. The IDF began a new assault on Khan Younis previously the second-biggest city in Gaza early this month for similar reasons. Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US and European Union, triggered the war when its fighters swarmed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. Israels attack on Gaza has since killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. (Adds context on fighting and comments from Hamas.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. A Palestinian woman holds her belongings over her head after an order by Israeli army to evacuate the neighbourhoods amid ongoing Israel war on Gaza, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa The Israeli army is calling on all residents of Gaza City to flee in what observers see as a sign of imminent new military operations. People should leave the city in the north of the Gaza Strip for the towns of Deir Al-Balah and Al-Zawiya in the centre of the Palestinian territory, said the appeal posted in Arabic by a military spokesman. He also described routes that those affected can use without encountering checkpoints. Gaza City is a dangerous combat zone, the spokesman warned. Israeli media reported that the army had distributed leaflets in the city in the morning that urged people to leave. In recent weeks, the military called on residents of several of the city's neighbourhoods to get out. Since then, there has been heavy fighting in some of the neighbourhoods, including Shejaiya. The latest call to flee applies to the entire city. Israeli troops conducted combat operations in Gaza City at the beginning of the war last October. Since then, fighters of the Palestinian militant Hamas movement have been trying to regroup there and in other parts of the coastal strip. Gaza City is one of the worst affected by the devastation of recent months. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant addresses the annual Conference of Presidents at the MoD Headquarters in Tel Aviv. Shachar Yurman/GPO/dpa Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed or wounded 60% of Hamas terrorists and that most of the Islamist organization's battalions have been smashed. Gallant made the comment to parliament on Wednesday, according to Israeli media. Israel announced the complete destruction of Hamas as a war objective after the massacres carried out by Hamas and other extremist groups on October 7. As long as Hamas retains a hold in the Gaza Strip, it can rebuild and strengthen itself, Israeli officials have said, meaning the IDF would then have to return and fight in areas where it had already been deployed. Gallant has called for the creation of a political alternative to Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to present a plan for the administration and reconstruction of Gaza after the end of the war. Observers say this is likely because he is trying to avoid conflict with his far-right coalition partners who favour the building of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, an extremely controversial proposition. Insights from CNN, Politico, and The New York Times The News Israel ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate, as the military launched strikes and a ground operation months after intense fighting last occurred there. Israel has recently been returning to areas of Gaza where it previously fought Hamas forces, in a sign of the conflict potentially dragging on to become a war of attrition. The estimated quarter of a million people who live in Gaza City were instructed to take routes south to shelters, but United Nations officials criticized the evacuation orders as unclear and unsafe. Israel also launched a strike in southern Gaza on Wednesday that local authorities said killed at least 27; an UN agency leader said it was the fourth strike in four days that hit or damaged a school building. SIGNALS Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories. Ceasefire chances dim despite Hamas softening Source: CNN The Israeli militarys return to Gaza City comes as confidence has waned that talks between Israel and Hamas representatives might result in a ceasefire and hostage deal. Hamas recently agreed to compromise on its demand that Israel commit to a permanent ceasefire any further agreement, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested Israel wouldnt budge on its insistence of total victory over Hamas. Those non-negotiables block any possibility of progress from the Israeli side, a former Israeli hostage negotiator said. US support for Israel campaign rises, slightly Sources: Gallup, Politico Americans still tend to oppose Israels actions in Gaza, but new Gallup polling shows US support for Israels operations has slightly increased since March. Some 42% of US adults approve of Israels campaign, up from 36% several months ago. The increase is largely due to an uptick in Republican approval, their support rate for Israels operation, 76%, is at its highest since the war in Gaza began. Less than 25% of Democrats support Israel, however. Despite increased scrutiny and a diplomatic row over arms deliveries, the US government remains Israels biggest backer. But some world leaders fear Bidens reluctance to be more forceful with Israel jeopardizes his reelection effort and could foment diplomatic discord among the US and its allies, Politico reported. Biden adviser emerges as key Mideast diplomat Source: The New York Times One of Bidens most trusted national security advisers, Amos Hochstein, has emerged as a key player in determining what happens on the Israel-Lebanon border, The New York Times reported. Hochstein, who was born in Israel but who also has Hezbollahs respect, has become Bidens diplomatic point man for preventing clashes across the Israel-Lebanon border from exploding into a war that could be even more devastating than the conflict in Gaza, the Times wrote. US officials have warned that as Israel backs off its campaign against a weakened Hamas, the chances for war with Hezbollah rise. Hochsteins test will be to find a way to avoid that outcome. Italy promises US$1.7 billion in new military aid to Kyiv, media says Italy is preparing to commit to providing US$1.7 billion in military aid to Ukraine next year. Source: European Pravda, citing Corriere della Sera The report indicates this is Italy's share in the total US$40 billion aid package for Ukraine being discussed within NATO. The plan allocates half of the contribution, which is flexibly distributed among direct military aid, goods and services, and training, to be provided by the United States, while the remaining US$20 billion will come from European NATO member states. During the first two years of full-scale war, Rome reportedly provided Kyiv with approximately 1.2 billion every 12 months. This assistance included the direct cost of weaponry or the value of other goods and services. Now, Italy is committing to increase its contribution by approximately 400 million. However, it is anticipated that NATO countries will make a political commitment rather than a legal one regarding the allocation of the entire amount, which could slightly alter the initial plans. It remains unclear whether this commitment will be one-time, which is quite likely, or annual, as initially desired by NATO leadership and the White House. Background: Italy will provide Ukraine with another SAMP-T air defence system to down Russian missiles. This commitment is part of several NATO member states' pledges to enhance Ukrainian air defence capabilities, announced at the summit in Washington. Support UP or become our patron! Italy to reportedly allocate $1.7 billion in military aid for Kyiv as part of NATO support Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has pledged $1.7 billion as part of NATO support for Ukraine in 2025, Italian media reported on July 10. Members of the alliance have agreed to provide Ukraine with military aid worth 40 billion euros ($43 billion) next year to provide sustainable support in the face of Russia's ongoing invasion. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg pushed for the allies to provide a minimum of 40 billion euros in defense aid to Ukraine in the years to come to ensure long-term funding. Corriere della Sera said that roughly half of the contribution will be provided by the U.S., and European countries in the alliance will provide the remaining $20 billion. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Italy has so far allocated $1.87 billion to Ukraine, of which $1.08 billion is military aid. Meloni signed a long-term security agreement between Italy and Ukraine with President Volodymyr Zelensky in February. Zelensky said he was "grateful to Italy for its support of Ukraine and our defense capabilities, as well as recovery efforts and approval of military aid until the end of 2024." Read also: F-16s, multi-billion pledge, more Patriots, irreversible membership what Ukraine will and wont get at the NATO Summit Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. (Bloomberg) -- Italy is working to clinch a land border agreement between Lebanon and Israel in an effort to de-escalate tensions between the two countries, according to Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. Most Read from Bloomberg Rome is using a landmark maritime border accord the two nations signed in 2022 as a blueprint for a land deal, Tajani said in an interview on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington. The situation is very tense, and we have been and are working to ensure that the maritime borders agreement can come to be for the land borders too, he said. Even though the situation is difficult, he said, Italian diplomats were pushing ahead with negotiations. The aim, he said, was to find a solution that could create distance between Israel and Hezbollah, a key Iranian proxy active in Lebanon. He added that Israel would certainly react if there were to be a Hezbollah advance. Messages left with spokespeople in the Israeli and Lebanese embassies in Washington seeking comment werent immediately returned. Italy has traditionally sought to project itself as a mediator in the Middle East, maintaining relations with both Israel and Iran. Italians are able to be flexible, and thats why we have good relations with everyone, he said. It isnt easy, but this shows we can be an instrument for peace. The US, which designates Hezbollah a terrorist organization, has been leading diplomatic efforts between the militant group and Israel. Italy, which backs a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of hostages held there, was supportive of an Arab-led peacekeeping mission with the UN in the Gaza strip once the war with Israel ends, Tajani said. He said parties involved in those conversations include Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Cease-Fire Talks Tajani reiterated Romes support for Israels right to exist but also said: Were also asking Israel to realize that peace needs to be reached at at some point. Tensions between Israel and Lebanon, which dont recognize each other, have ratcheted up in recent months. The two countries have been engaged in increasing hostilities since Oct. 7, with communities evacuated on both sides of the border amid exchanges of fire. Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah said this week that the Lebanese militant group would halt attacks on Israel without question in the event of a cease-fire in Gaza. Tajani reiterated his support for a two-state solution, but stressed it has to be mutual in order for the recognition of a State of Palestine to be more than just a formality. Its the only path we have available if we dont want to keep going for another 50 years with these hostilities, he said. --With assistance from Courtney McBride. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. A Russian has been arrested in Japan on suspicion of evading sanctions for the first time, Japanese news outlet Nikkei reported on July 10. A 38-year-old man named Andrei Sova was reportedly arrested in Osaka Prefecture, suspected of illegally exporting jet skis, boat engines, and second-hand motorcycles worth 43 million yen ($266,000), which could be used by the Russian military, Nikkei said. Investigators believe that Sova used his firm Astrade to export dual-use components to South Korea around July 2022, after export restrictions to Russia increased following the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The police are investigating whether the company was trying to hide transactions with Russia, Nikkei said. Sova is suspected of exporting the items to South Korea via a container ship in January 2023, "despite knowing that the items were subject to export restrictions," Japanese newspaper Chunichi Shimbun said. Sign up for our newsletter WTF is wrong with Russia? Sign up According to Astrade's website, the company strives to "overcome language, cultural, mental, and geographical barriers" and appears to be involved in the import of Russian food and household items to Japan. Astrade claims to have "over 10 years of unique experience, skills, and connections in the fields of trade, wholesale distribution, and logistics in Japan, Russia, and CIS countries," referring to the Commonwealth of Independent States, a grouping of nine former Soviet republics. The website does not appear to indicate that it exports dual-use items like engines but a video from February 2010 published on a YouTube channel named "andreysova" shows used bicycles in a shipping container, with the description of "loading in Osaka" and a link to Astrade's website. Other videos on the channel appear to show the demonstration of a boat engine and other heavy machinery. Russian search engine Yandex indicates that a company named Astrade Co Ltd was operating at an address in Vladivostok, the largest Russian port city on the Pacific. Andrei Sova appears to have a Facebook profile that indicates he lives in Osaka and studied at Russia's Far Eastern Federal University, which is based in Vladivostok. The company is categorized by Yandex as a shop that sells cars and automotive parts but is currently listed as closed for business. Read also: Bloomberg names 12 oligarchs who earn billions in payouts from Russias war economy Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand Japan has revealed video footage of the maiden test launch of a hypersonic missile currently under development. Japans Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency ATLA for short published the video on its official YouTube page on July 4. In an accompanying explanation, it said it had conducted a pre-launch test of a Hyper-Velocity Gliding Projectile for island defense in California on March 23. Examining the video footage, Timothy Wright, research associate in the Defence and Military Analysis Programme of the U.K.-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), offered this explanation to Defense News: Japan conducted two preliminary tests of its so-called HVGP in March and April, 2024 respectively. The missiles manufacturer said the purpose of the test was to validate measurement units, possibly meaning the missiles inertial navigation system. ATLA did not say whether the warhead separated from the booster during either test. Once fielded, the HVGP, made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will be launched from a truck using a booster, after which the warhead separates and glides towards its target. Wright noted, Japan is developing the HVGP for both anti-ship and land attack missions to intercept and eliminate invading forces against Japan at a distance and at an early stage. ATLA has previously released computer animations of an HVGP attacking an enemy aircraft carrier. When development commenced in fiscal 2015, the HVGP was slated to enter service in 2029. However, Japans perceived deterioration of its security environment prompted primarily by China and North Korea caused defense leaders to accelerate the missiles development by three years. The high-supersonic Block I version of the HVGP, with an estimated maximum range of 310 miles (500km), is now expected to be fielded by the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) in 2026. As part of its incremental development, a hypersonic Block 2 version, with perhaps an 1,864-mile (3,000km) range, will be fielded in around FY2030. Japans current missile capabilities reflect the restrictions of its post-1945 defense posture, but those limitations will soon change substantially following Tokyos groundbreaking decision in 2023 for it to procure so-called counterstrike capabilities, Wright said. The IISS researcher said Tokyo is developing at least seven new types of air-, sea- and ground-launched missiles for land and maritime roles, and buying three different missile designs from its U.S. ally. One of those American missiles is the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM). Also on July 4, ATLA confirmed it had signed an agreement to acquire the Lockheed Martin-made weapon. The U.S. had approved a $104 million Foreign Military Sale of 50 AGM-158B/B-2 JASSMs with extended range last August. These, plus the HVGP, will strengthen Japans stand-off defense capabilities in order to quickly and remotely intercept and eliminate invading forces against our country, ATLA said. Japanese ground forces are expected to eventually field two HVGP battalions. Once these systems enter service in large numbers, Japan will possess one of the most significant long-range strike capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region, said Wright. Violet Affleck, the eldest of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's three children, is following in her parents' footsteps in speaking out for what she believes. The normally private 18-year-old spoke publicly Tuesday at a meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to argue against mask bans amid ongoing cases of COVID-19. Violet Affleck wore a face mask as she took to the microphone at the meeting and introduced herself, saying, "Hi, Violet Affleck, Los Angeles resident, first-time voter. I'm 18." The teenager, who graduated from high school in May, went onto say that she contracted what she described as a "post-viral condition" in 2019, prior to the coronavirus pandemic that started the next year. PHOTO: In this video grab taken from YouTube, Violet Affleck speaks during a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting, July 9, 2024. (Los Angeles County via YouTube) "I'm OK now, but I saw firsthand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses," she said. "The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharper relief." Violet Affleck went onto cite statistics about the condition known as long COVID-19, which is diagnosed when patients still have symptoms at least four weeks after they have cleared the infection, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Jennifer Garner gets emotional about daughter Violet's high school graduation Data shows that millions of Americans are still experiencing long COVID More than four years since the global COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic. Violet Affleck told the five-member board of supervisors, which governs Los Angeles County, that bans on face masks -- such as those implemented or being considered in places like North Carolina, New York City and Los Angeles itself -- should be opposed, and that steps should be taken to protect county residents against COVID-19 and the impacts of long COVID. "To confront the long COVID crisis, I demand mask availability, air filtration and far-UVC light in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical facilities," she said. "You must expand the availability of high-quality free testing and treatment, and, most importantly, the county must oppose mask bans for any reason. They do not keep us safer. They make vulnerable members of our community less safe and make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together." Jennifer Garner's daughter Violet Affleck shines at the White House Violet Affleck received a similar response to other residents who spoke at the hearing when she finished her remarks, with a board member telling her, "Thank you very much for being here today." The high school graduate is often seen wearing a face mask when she's out in public, though neither she nor her parents have commented publicly on the matter previously. In addition to Violet, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, who divorced in 2018, share two other children, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12. PHOTO: Jennifer Garner and her daughter Violet Affleck arrive at the White House to attend a state dinner honoring French President Emmanuel Macron, in Washington, DC, on December 1, 2022. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images) Ben Affleck is also a stepfather to the two children of his current wife, Jennifer Lopez. Earlier this summer, North Carolina lawmakers overrode a veto by the state's Democratic governor to implement restrictions on public mask-wearing, restoring a carveout for those with medical exemptions following pushback from disability rights advocates. The new law, which allows people to wear a "medical or surgical grade mask for the purpose of preventing the spread of contagious disease," still requires wearers to remove masks "upon request by a law enforcement officer" or to verify ID. The law also makes exceptions for masks worn as part of a costume or for rituals or ceremonies, theatrical productions, gas masks or employment-based personal safety. The law increases penalties and sentences for anyone convicted of a misdemeanor or felony while wearing a mask. Other states are weighing similar mask measures, including New York, where Gov. Kathy Hochul said recently that she is considering a ban on masks on the subway. Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck's daughter Violet speaks out against mask bans at public hearing originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com RIFLE, Colo. (KREX) After getting up to 69 acres on Sunday, the Jewell fire has been contained as of 1 p.m., Tuesday, according to the Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management Unit. Crews will continue to mop the interior heat until full control of the blaze is reached. The fire which is northeast of Rifle began early Sunday at an estimated 15 acres. Three Type 2 handcrews and multiple engines had been on the scene. Air tankers, air attack, a helicopter and crews also worked on containing the fire. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. The market has soared since the beginning of 2023. The S&P 500 index has posted a total return level of 48% over that time frame, pushing the index's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of nearly 29. This is much higher than the long-term market average, with many popular stocks such as Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft trading at even higher multiples. High earnings ratios likely mean high risks for strong forward returns. You need to be optimistic in order to believe the returns over the next 10 years will look like the last 10 for the S&P 500. So, what are investors to do with so many stocks looking expensive? I have one dividend stock that looks wildly attractive compared to the market: British American Tobacco (NYSE: BTI). The company has a dividend yielding close to 10% and a dirt-cheap earnings ratio. Unlike most stocks, the market is extremely pessimistic about the company's prospects right now. Here's why you should buy British American Tobacco stock for the second half of 2024. Declining unit volumes, consistent price hikes Investors have soured on tobacco companies due to accelerated volume declines for traditional cigarettes. British American Tobacco saw an 8% decrease in sales volume for cigarettes around the world in 2023. While numbers like this are concerning, investors should remember that tobacco companies are dealing with fallout from conflicts around the world, which is making the volume numbers worse. On an organic basis, British American Tobacco saw a 5.3% volume decline around the world. The company is able to counteract volume declines with consistent price hikes on cigarettes. This is why revenue from combustible products only declined 4% in 2023 and a measly 0.8% when excluding currency movements, which the company cannot control. When taking in the whole picture, it is clear that British American Tobacco's cigarette business is doing fine despite heavy volume declines. While it's not a hypergrowth business, its price hikes have led to stable consolidated revenue over the last five years. And this isn't the company's only product segment. Growth in pouches and vaping Outside of cigarettes, British American Tobacco has invested in new and less harmful nicotine products. Most important are the Velo nicotine pouch brand and the Vuse electronic vaping brand. Organic revenue for vaping products grew 27%, and oral nicotine pouches grew 39% in 2023. Overall, these new categories are closing in on $5 billion in annual sales and reached segment-level profitability last year. In the coming years, this segment will finally start to contribute to the company's overall profit pools and free cash flow. It's still much smaller than the company's cigarette business, which does over $20 billion in annual sales around the globe, but vaping and pouches are new categories that can help replace legacy cash flows and build a sustainable British American Tobacco over the long term. Story continues BTI Dividend Per Share (TTM) Chart A sustainable 10% dividend yield Today, British American Tobacco has a dividend that yields 9.2% on a forward-looking basis. This is much higher than the S&P 500's figure, which is below 2%, and more generous than a high-yield savings account, which pays just under 5% at the moment. A high dividend yield indicates that investors are pessimistic about the company's future profits, and the stock currently has a dirt-cheap P/E of 6.2. However, I think this is misguided, and investors can take advantage of this pessimism right now. British American Tobacco's annual dividend per share is $2.90 (in dollar terms). This is funded by free cash flow per share of over $5. Even if the company's cash flows don't grow, the dividend is not only sustainable but also looks poised to grow. And with the rise in profits coming from nicotine pouches and vaping, I think it is likely that British American Tobacco's free cash flow per share will be higher 5 and 10 years from now. For these reasons, the stock looks like a great buy in the middle of 2024 and an easy hold over the long term. Should you invest $1,000 in British American Tobacco right now? Before you buy stock in British American Tobacco, 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 British American Tobacco wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $785,556!* 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 quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of July 8, 2024 Brett Schafer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends British American Tobacco P.l.c. and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft, long January 2026 $40 calls on British American Tobacco, short January 2026 $40 puts on British American Tobacco, and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 1 Spectacular Dividend Stock Yielding Close to 10% to Buy for the Second Half of 2024 was originally published by The Motley Fool "Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." This story is a collaboration with PopularMechanics.com. Twenty-five years ago, the United States mourned the tragic death of John F. Kennedy Jr., who died with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, in a plane crash off the coast of Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts, on July 16, 1999. Although he chose to focus on a career in publishing instead of following directly in the footsteps of his father, President John F. Kennedy, and his uncles, Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, many Americans still saw JFK Jr. as a future political leader and considered him the closest thing to homegrown royalty. In the aftermath of the plane crash, people flocked to conspiracy theories to explain JFK Jr.s untimely death. Or they evoked the idea of a Kennedy curse, connecting his plane crash to the assassinations of JFK and RFK. Instead, the truth is much simpler. It wasnt a supernatural force or conspiracy that caused John F. Kennedy Jr. to crash his planeit was a common phenomenon called spatial disorientation, which has affected pilots for over a century. What Is Spatial Disorientation? The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) defines spacial orientation as our natural ability to maintain our body orientation and/or posture in relation to the surrounding environment at rest and during motion. Genetically speaking, the FAA says, humans are built to stay properly spatially oriented on the ground; flying in the air, then, is hostile and unfamiliar to the body, and it leads to sensory conflicts that make spatial orientation difficult, if not impossible, to pull off. Spatial disorientation can manifest in several ways, including Aerial Perspective Illusions, which can trick pilots into up- or down-sloping their descent in a manner ill-suited for the actual runway, and Autokinetic Illusions, which [give] you the impression that a stationary object is moving in front of the airplanes path, according to the FAA. In fact, theres a chance youve experienced a form of spatial disorientation yourself, even if youve never flown a plane. Heres how the FAA explains another potential effect of spatial disorientation, called Vection Illusions: A common example is when you are stopped at a traffic light in your car and the car next to you edges forward. Your brain interprets this peripheral visual information as though you are moving backwards and makes you apply additional pressure to the brakes. A similar illusion can happen while taxiing an aircraft. Five to 10 percent of aviation accidents are due to spatial disorientation, and 90 percent of those accidents are fatal, according to the FAA. Pilots have been grappling with spatial disorientation for over a century. In 1918, for example, Army Air Corps pilot William C. Ocker famously experienced a graveyard spiral when his plane turned while he thought he was in level flight. While Ocker survived this terrifying experience, it caused him to invent both the gyrocompass and the altitude indicator, and advocate for flying with instrument assistance as opposed to blind flying. If you experience a visual illusion during flight, the FAA advises, have confidence in your instruments and ignore all conflicting signals your body gives you. Accidents usually happen as a result of a pilots indecision to rely on the instruments. How Did JFK Jr. Crash His Plane? Getty Images John F. Kennedy Jr. became a symbol of American hope and resilience when he was famously photographed saluting the casket of his late father on the day he turned 3 years old. Although he was saddled with huge political expectations from a young age, JFK Jr. instead entered the world of magazines, launching George in 1995. The next year, Kennedy married his longtime girlfriend, Carolyn Bessette. Getty Images By 1999, however, JFK Jr. was dealing with problems in both his professional and personal lives. As Biography.com has previously reported: George was expected to lose nearly $10 million in 1999, according to The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted Americas First Family for 150 Years by Edward Klein. Michael Berman, a founding partner in the publication, had recently exited the business, publisher Hachette was reportedly losing interest in the title and Kennedy was looking for alternate sources of financing for the venture. Georges struggles were taking a toll on John and Carolyns marriage, as she felt the magazine was receiving most of her husbands attention. Two days before their fatal flight, Carolyns sister, Lauren, arranged for the couple to have lunch and try and rectify things. John and Carolyn were set to attend a wedding that weekend in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and they decided theyd travel with Lauren and drop her off at Marthas Vineyard along the way. Since JFK Jr. had earned his pilots license in 1998 and had just bought a Piper Saratoga light plane a few months before the lunch meeting, hed fly from Essex County Airport in New Jersey to their destinations. But there was a problem: At the time, John was wearing a cast on his ankle from a recent paragliding injury. The day after the lunch meeting, he went to Lenox Hill Hospital to have it removed, though he was still required to walk on crutches. On July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr., Caroline Bessette Kennedy, and Lauren Bessette all arrived at Essex County Airport and boarded Kennedys Piper Saratoga. Coinciding with sunset, Biography.com previously shared, the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the plane for takeoff at 8:38 p.m. After takeoff, Kennedy checked in with the control tower at Marthas Vineyard, but when the plane failed to arrive on time, the Piper Saratoga and its passengers were reported missing. Getty Images Search teams discovered fragments of the plane on July 19. The next day, they found debris from the shattered plane scattered across a broad area of the seabed. On July 21, they found and brought ashore the bodies of the three passengers. Contrary to any conspiracy theories, a report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reconstructed the likely fate of the aircraft, determining it hit the water at about 9:41 p.m. at Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts. When investigators examined the plane, they found no evidence of mechanical issues causing the crash, which killed its passengers upon impact. While the NTSB report mentioned haze and the dark night as crash factors, it concluded that the probable cause was the pilots failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation. Within 100 days before the accident, the NTSB report found, ...the pilot had completed about 50 percent of a formal instrument training course. The real story of what killed JFK Jr., laid out within the NTSBs report, is that of an entirely avoidable death, from something that affects nearly everybody who sits in a cockpit. (As the FAA points out, most pilots [experience a visual illusion] at one time or another.) Pilots can specifically train to spot signs of spatial disorientation and use simulators, like a Barany chair, GYRO, or Virtual Reality Spatial Disorientation Demonstrator, to safely experience ground-based sensory illusions and understand what spatial disorientation feels like. Twenty-five years after the tragic deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and Lauren Bessette, spatial disorientation still poses a serious risk to those who take to the skies. But with proper care and training, pilots can effectively manage and mitigate it. You Might Also Like JFK Jr.s Shocking Plane Crash Death at 38: What Really Happened When the Plane Went Down (Exclusive) An official from the National Transportation Safety Board explains why the plane crashed that night, killing all three passengers on board Anne Marie Fox; Simon & Schuster JFK Jr. in a portrait for George Magazine and the book cover for "JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography" John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane went down 25 years ago on July 16, 1999, killing him, as well as his two passengers, wife Carolyn, 33, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, 34. He was 38 years old. Now a new book, JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography, by RoseMarie Terenzio and Liz McNeil, an editor-at-large at PEOPLE, excerpted exclusively in this weeks issue, reveals an in-depth look at the late presidents son and the events leading up to that fateful evening. The plan was for John to fly his Piper Saratoga plane, which he had purchased that spring, to Marthas Vineyard to drop off Lauren, and then continue on to Hyannis Port, Mass., where he and Carolyn planned to attend his cousin Rory Kennedy's wedding the next day. Simon & Schuster The cover of "JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography" by Liz McNeil and RoseMarie Terenzio For more on John F. Kennedy Jr., pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here. On July 16, after working at the office of his magazine George, John met Lauren at 6 p.m. for the drive to Caldwell Airport in New Jersey, where they met Carolyn, who arrived via a car service. By the time the plane took off at 8:38 p.m., the sun was setting and the already hazy conditions had further deteriorated. The National Transportation Safety Board determined the probable cause(s) of this accident to be the pilots failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation. Factors in the accident were haze and the dark night. Related: John F. Kennedy Jr.'s Death: The Details Behind His Tragic Plane Crash and Its Aftermath The Piper Saratoga was a more complex and powerful plane than his previous plane, a Cessna, and John was in the middle of his instrument training. He was not yet rated to fly solely by cockpit instruments when flying in low visibility or adverse weather. John followed the Connecticut and Rhode Island coastline that night and then turned out to sea towards Marthas Vineyard. Justin Ide John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy on May 23, 1999. Jeff Guzzetti, now president of Guzzetti Aviation Risk Discovery, was an NTSB investigator at the time, working with the Office of Aviation Safety as part of the team that examined the wreckage. He shares his perspective in the book about what happened. The weather conditions were technically visual flight rules (VFR), even though it was hazy, says Guzzetti. He had enough visibility in miles to make the flight legally. But as soon as he turned out to the black ocean with three to five miles of visibility in haze, it might as well be instrument flight rules (IFR) meaning you must scan your instruments and that tells you whether your wings are level or if you are climbing or descending. He was trained to look outside to get his visual cues. There were no visual cues. Related: JFK Jr.'s Friend Chokes Up Recalling Their Last Conversation Before Plane Crash: 'I'll Take Care of You' In the last 30 miles, as John began his descent to Marthas Vineyard, his flight path became irregular and was indicative of spatial disorientation. His flight path into the water is consistent with what is known as a graveyard spiral, says Guzzetti. The airplane makes a spiral nose down . . . kind of like going down a drain. The plane went into one final turn and it stayed in that turn pretty much all the way down to the ocean. The plane crashed into the water about seven miles from Marthas Vineyard. Laura Cavanaugh/ZUMA JFK Jr. with his airplane "Piper Club" In my personal opinion, I dont think the passengers knew what was happening to them," says Guzzetti. "They might have felt a little G-force pushing them down in their seats. You wouldve heard the rush of air over the fuselage accelerate or get louder, during the final fatal plunge . . . And then they hit the surface of the water and its over. As for Kennedy, he says, I would expect that the pilot would be very confused and perhaps a little frightened because the instruments may have not been matching up with how he was feeling . . . The impact forces were tremendous. Guzzetti concludes, In the end, its a cautionary tale for any private pilot to understand your own personal limitations. JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography by RoseMarie Terenzio and Liz McNeil comes out July 16 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Jill Biden coming to Pittsburgh on Saturday to attend Italian Sons and Daughters of America dinner First Lady Jill Biden made a surprise visit to Pittsburgh Pride on Saturday June 1, 2024, and took photos with attendees before taking the stage. (Capital-Star photo) First lady Jill Biden will be in Pittsburgh on Saturday to attend an Italian Sons and Daughters of America dinner, the White House announced Wednesday. Biden is the first Italian-American first lady, hosting an Italian-American heritage month reception at the White House in October, and often attends events celebrating Italian heritage and culture. She was in swing state Wisconsin last month attending the annual Festa Italiana in Milwaukee. Her visit to Pittsburgh comes the same day former president and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump will be holding a campaign rally in Butler, about an hour north of Pittsburgh. Its Trumps first campaign rally in western Pennsylvania since July 2023, when he spoke in Erie. Jill Biden joined President Joe Biden in a campaign visit to Pennsylvania last weekend, as the president spoke at a church service in Philadelphia and a union hall in Harrisburg. The president has been working to reassure voters and fellow Democrats he is up for the job after a poor performance in the June 27 presidential debate. Some members of the Democratic Party have questioned whether the president should step aside as the presumptive nominee, but most in the party have continued to support him publicly. Biden has said he does not plan to drop out of the race. Jill Biden was last in Pittsburgh in June, speaking on the first day of Pride Month celebrations, and near the anniversary of the Dobbs decision to speak about reproductive rights. President Biden last visited western Pennsylvania in April, when he made a three-day campaign swing through the state with stops in Scranton, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia ahead of the states primary election. A dramatic divide is erupting in the far-right House Freedom Caucus after the group voted to oust a third member in the span of a year. The ejection of Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, was led by allies of Chairman Bob Good, R-Va., Politico reported. Good recently lost a primary election for his district in Virginia the only congressional Republican to do so and Davidson openly backed Goods challenger, the Trump-ensorsed John McGuire. Goods allies believed Davidsons endorsement of McGuire violated rules against publicly attacking a fellow member and merited his removal from the group, Axios reported. Caucus members voted to oust Davidson 16-13, but the vote occurred when some of Davidsons allies werent present. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Politico he disagreed with the decision and acknowledged that it could lead to resignations among the groups members. I voted against it and spoke against it. Ive always been opposed to that, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Politico. One member has already left. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, resigned immediately after Davidsons ousting. According to caucus bylaws, members usually only fall out of good standing if they miss meetings or dont pay their dues. Davidson didnt have issues with either. Historically, the caucus has been tight-lipped when it comes to speaking on internal matters, but the increasing division between old and new members who joined during and post-Trump has led to some to begin speaking out publicly, according to Politico. In October, the decision to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy caused a major divide in the caucus. Earlier this year, the group voted to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., over her feud with fellow member Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. The group also split over whether to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson. "Back stabbing Bob Good and the Never Trump freedom caucus members are the problem. They have destroyed the freedom caucus and have made it ineffective," Greene posted on X after Davidsons removal. Good, who has publicly stated he will request a recount in his primary election, will likely step down as speaker once his loss is formalized, sources told Axios. Joe Biden seeks to quell domestic fears over his fitness for office with NATO address to global leaders Joe Biden sought to quell domestic concerns over his fitness for office on the world stage on Tuesday as he touted the strength of the NATO alliance and announced new steps to bolster Ukraine against Russian attacks, continuing his signature foreign policy achievement at a moment of crisis for his administration and re-election campaign. 75 years after 12 countries came together in Washington to sign a historic mutual defense pact in the wake of the Second World War, the president touted the alliances progress before leaders representing the 32 treaty signatories at the annual NATO leaders summit. Speaking before an audience of NATO leaders, including newly-minted British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Biden said the North Atlantic Treaty, that the alliance birthed 75 years ago, is stronger and more vital than ever and promised it would continue to support Ukraines defense needs. We know Putin wont stop at Ukraine, but make no mistake, Ukraine can and will stop Putin, he said. The US and partner nations intend to provide Ukraine with five strategic air defense systems in the coming months and dozens of tactical air defense systems, Biden added. The Mellon Auditorium is the place where the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949 (AP) Biden spoke from the historic Mellon Auditorium, where representatives of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK and US signed on to the Washington Treaty. He said the now-32 member alliance is more powerful than ever with the recent additions of Sweden and Finland and touted its work in strengthening Ukraine against Russias invading forces. Sweden and Finland both longtime practitioners of neutrality had joined not just because their leaders sought it, because their citizens called for it in overwhelming numbers, he said. He also said NATOs current incarnation is better resourced than it has ever been because 23 allies will meet the 2 per cent defense spending goal this year, with the remainder of the NATO members set to get there soon. Biden said it was good that NATO is stronger than ever in the face of Russias nearly three-year-old war against Ukraine. The president recalled how pundits and analysts had predicted Kyivs fall within days of the start of the war and he credited one man, outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, with helping the alliance to remain the bulwark of global security. President Joe Biden, center, poses with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb before delivering remarks on the 75th anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on July 9 (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) That did not happen by accident and was not inevitable, Biden continued. Again and again, at critical moments, we chose unity over disunion, progress over retreat, freedom over tyranny, hope over fear. Again and again, we stood behind our shared vision of a peaceful, prosperous transatlantic community. Here at this summit, we gather to proclaim NATO is ready and able to secure that vision today and well into the future, Biden said. The president praised Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian Prime Minister who has helmed the alliance for a decade, for staying on for an additional two years at his request, and offered a mock apology to the secretarys wife. Today, NATO is stronger, smarter and more energized than when you began, and a billion people across Europe and North America. Indeed, the whole world will reap the rewards of your labor for years to come in the form of security, opportunity and greater freedom, he said. Biden closed his remarks by awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Stoltenberg, the highest American civilian honor. Bidens NATO speech comes as questions continue over his fitness to serve in the Oval Office on account of his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last month. A number of Democratic House members have called on the 81-year-old president to withdraw from the 2024 race in favor of a younger candidate, while several members of the Senate are understood to have told colleagues they do not believe Biden can defeat Trump a second time. Joe Bidens staying in the race no matter what. We may be in trouble, people | Opinion Despite a near-revolt by some top Democrats and campaign donors who believe Joe Biden should withdraw from the race, the president is having none of it. He has made it clear, again and again, that he has no intention of giving up. If any of these guys dont think I should run, run against me. Go ahead, announce for president. Challenge me at the convention, Biden said during a surprise interview Monday on MSNBCs Morning Joe. Opinion As if that would happen. Two of the likeliest contenders Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are not about to go rogue. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced she would not run even if Biden withdrew. Who does that leave? Andrew Yang, maybe? Biden, 81, is convinced that he, and he alone, can beat Donald Trump. I dont think anybodys more qualified to be president or win this race than me, he told ABCs George Stephanopoulos during a July 5 interview a statement that sounded almost Trumpian. Adam Schiff: Biden should be mopping the floor with Trump Following Bidens off-the-rails debate performance, the Stephanopoulos interview was supposed to be the presidents time to shine. The White House hoped that by nailing the interview, Biden would convince voters that he is fit to serve four more years in arguably the most demanding, stressful, consequential job on the planet. It did not. Instead, a handful of House Democrats have called for Biden to drop out of the race and other leading Democrats have expressed misgivings. Californias likely next senator, Democrat Adam Schiff, was among those who took their concerns public. Given Joe Bidens incredible record and given Donald Trumps terrible record, he should be mopping the floor with Trump, Schiff said on Sundays Meet the Press. Joe Biden is running against a criminal. It should not be even close and theres only one reason it is close, and thats the presidents age. Schiff went on to advise the president to seek the opinions of experts outside his circle. He should take a moment to make the best-informed judgment, he advised. And if the judgment is run, (then) run hard and beat that SOB. The presidents plan? Hell get more sleep Biden doesnt appear to be listening and has trailed Trump in many polls. However, Biden narrowed the gap in a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll published Saturday. It showed Biden leading Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin, two key swing states. In Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, the incumbent is now within the margin of error, per the survey, wrote The Hill. Thats a ray of hope for Democrats, though Biden cannot afford another debate debacle. So far, his comeback tour has been uneven at best. In interviews, hes cited several excuses for his poor debate performance on June 27: a cold, jet lag, lack of sleep, and distractions created by Donald Trump. In a meeting with Democratic governors, Biden said he would stop taking meetings after 8 p.m. in order to get more sleep. Thats his answer? More sleep? No meetings after 8 p.m.? That only emphasizes Bidens frailty. On top of that, its become increasingly clear that Bidens handlers are keeping him on a short leash feeding radio interviewers a list of questions and requesting a correction of the transcript of the Stephanopoulos interview. (In the original transcript, Biden was quoted as saying goodest which is what some listeners heard but following discussions, that was changed to good as, which still didnt make much sense.) It must be hell to be Joe Biden right now. His every word, every step, every facial expression is scrutinized for signs of infirmity while Donald Trump whos had plenty of mental lapses of his own gets a pass. I have a cognitive test every single day Biden could reassure voters that he is fit to serve if he consented to a complete cognitive assessment something Stephanopoulos suggested. Biden demurred. No one said I had to, he said. No one said. They said Im good. Stephanopoulos pressed: Would you be willing...? he asked. Look, Biden responded, I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test. Everything I do. Trump couldnt have said it better. Certainly, there are doubts about Trumps cognitive abilities as well. But given the threat Trump poses, it is incumbent on Biden to do everything in his power to beat the SOB, to borrow a phrase from Schiff. If that means a full physical exam including a cognitive workup thats what he should do. And he should make the results public. But dont hold your breath. Biden is living in denial, refusing to acknowledge the legitimate concerns of those of us who believe he should pass the torch. Certainly, many will vote for him no matter what. It could be close; Biden could even pull off a victory. But the presidents stubbornness just may put Donald Trump back in the White House. And if that happens? Ill feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job (sic) as I know I can do, thats what this is all about, he told Stephanopoulos. Wrong answer, Mr. President. Beating Donald Trump is what this race is all about. How does Joe Biden plan on beating Donald Trump? Twelve days after the worst debate performance in American history, we still have no answer to that pressing, existential question. For nearly two weeks now, Democrats have been in a (wholly justified) panic. On June 27, Biden raised alarming concerns about his physical and mental fitness as he repeatedly failed to answer simple, predictable questions with anything approaching coherence. It is not clear if he has the ability to finish out this term, let alone another one. It is certainly not clear that he can undergo the rigors of a presidential campaign, let alone one with these extraordinary stakes. If he loses, the federal government may very well be transformed. Millions may be deported. The Supreme Court has given Donald Trump carte blanche to behave like a king. But as voters and elected Democrats have raised serious concerns about Bidens ability to serve both as the partys nominee and as president, Biden is the one behaving like a monarch. He is barely attempting to alleviate concerns about his stamina or health. Instead, he has, Trump-like, been on an imperial ego trip. Far from trying to assuage worried Democrats, he is giving the party an impossible choice: It can remain behind him as the partys nominee, or he will tear down any possible replacement. He has, during this period of crisis, surrounded himself not with cool-headed advisers but with family members, including his son Hunter, who was recently convicted of several felonies. These family members have convinced him that everyone is out to get him: his fellow Democrats, the media, anyone rational enough to see the dangers of running an 81-year-old who struggles to string two sentences together. Little, if any, work has gone into answering the questions Bidens debate performance raised. Instead, we have had a petulant and pathetic display from a president who had promised to serve as not only a public servant but a bridge away from rule by a megalomaniac bent on twisting the presidency for his own craven purposes. Biden has, over the last two weeks, isolated himself from voters and from his party. He has made a handful of publicor public-ishappearances that have done little to inspire renewed hope in him. These have consisted of friendly interviewssome of which only featured questions that had been preselected by the White Houseand brief speeches with the aid of a teleprompter. A 30-minute television interview may have staunched the bleeding, but it provided little evidence that the president can speak for any significant amount of time without raising concerns about his age. He has been far from convincingstumbling, muttering, losing his train of thought. He is still 81 years old and will be until Election Day. (He turns 82 on November 20.) If you are concerned about the presidents ageand three-quarters of voters are, according to pollsthere has been nothing to convince you that he can withstand a full campaign schedule. There has certainly been nothing to assure you that every public appearance or speech will not be accompanied by evidence of his advanced age. There has been quite a lot, however, to assure you that Biden intends to destroy the party if anyone works to convince him that it is best not just for his party, but for the nation, to step down. He has made it abundantly clear that he does not plan to go down without a fighteven if it wrecks him, his party, and the nation together. He has succeeded in making this election an impossible choice, between lining up behind an increasingly feeble octogenarian who is losingand chaos. Behind all of this is Bidens considerable ego. There is a kingly insistence that only he can do the job of the presidency and that only he can take down Trump. There is little reason to believe that either thing is true. His vice president, Kamala Harris, is fully capable of both jobs. A number of prominent Democrats, including Harris but also several governors, are running ahead of Biden in some polls. You can be certain that these challengers would face some scrutiny if they became the nominee but also that they would not be hounded by a vulnerability that cannot be addressed. All of them are in their fifties and sixties. They are all capable administrators. They can do the job of the presidency. And they can beat Donald Trump, a historically weak candidate whose popularity has never risen above the low 40s. Biden and his team have succeeded in holding onto the nomination by framing questions about his ability to continue as a battle against elites. On the one hand, there is Biden, his family, and a handful of vocal defenders. On the other hand, there is the commentariat, donors, and a large number of elected Democrats who happily grouse to reporters anonymously about their dire interpretation of the presidents reelection chances but say little publicly. That silence helps Team Biden dismiss the worries as coming from a panicky ruling class disconnected from actual voters. Biden has, in a very Trumpian turn, painted himself as not just an underdog but a victimsomeone fighting elites and special interests who have it out for him, often in vague, sinister, and unspecified terms. The fact that Democrats are roughly evenly divided over whether he should continue as the partys nomineeand that 80 percent of voters have concerns about his agehas rarely factored in. No one wants to publicly come out against Biden continuing because the potential consequences are significant. An elected Democrat would face personal and professional risks for saying what is obvious to so many. There would be blowback. If Biden continues as the nominee and loses, they will be blamed. Efforts to organize opposition to his candidacy have largely fizzled for this reason. Biden and his team have, in other words, successfully made this a very Trumpian palace intrigue story. Voter anxiety is discounted in service to the warring-elites narrative. It is a performance as selfish, pathetic, and histrionic as any of the Trump era. And yet this man will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee. Four years ago, he was a very different nominee. For one thing, he could reassure voters who were concerned that he would take office as the oldest president in American history. But he was also an ideal contrast to Donald Trump: Someone who credibly make the case that he could return a spirit of decency and selflessness to the office of the presidency, someone who could be consistently relied upon to put the interests of the country above his own. The case against Donald Trump is as simple and easy to make now as it was then: He is not and has never been popular, and for good reason. He is incompetent, venal, narcissistic. He is a convicted felon, certified con man, and abuser of women. He puts himself before everything else. Heres the big problem, though: Joe Biden is just as unpopular. He has spent the last two weeks on a salted-earth campaign to ensure that he remains the Democratic nominee. Instead of demonstrating that he has the energy to prosecute the case against Donald Trump, he has been holed up in the White House, surrounded by sycophants and loyalists, all of them lashing out at elites and the media. Its Trumpianand it should be disqualifying. That it isnt should raise serious concerns about Biden and Democratic leadership writ large. We are in a moment that recalls the Trump era. The president is engaged in a vitriolic campaign against a shadowy cabal of enemies in the media and his own party. He has transformed his political project into one built on his own grievances. There are significant questions about his competence and his ability to lead the country. Democrats should line up behind a candidate who can run as a contrast with Donald Trumpnot behind one who increasingly resembles him. So Josh Hawley advocates Christian nationalism. Does he really know what that means? | Opinion Josh Hawley has declared he advocates Christian nationalism. Well, then. Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation. So I am. And some will say that I am advocating Christian nationalism. And so I do, the Missouri senator announced from the podium of the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., this week. The conference, known as NatCon, promotes the rich tradition of national conservative thought as an intellectually serious alternative to the excesses of purist libertarianism, and in stark opposition to political theories grounded in race. Uh huh. Maybe it should be no surprise that the man who fist bumped the insurrectionist crowd on Jan. 6, who wrote Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs, and who fought the Affordable Care Act as an attorney in the Hobby Lobby case has come out for Christian nationalism. But Im going to wager that some of you dont really know what that is and perhaps have not even heard of it. Only a third of U.S. adults say they have heard of Christian nationalism and have a favorable or unfavorable view of it, according to a February Pew Institute poll. But 60% of Christians havent heard of it. More Democrats than Republicans have (55% to 36%). So why are conservative politicians bandying around the term like its the next commandment on those stone tablets God gave to Moses? Ive challenged Hawley before on what he says he believes. In his 4,300-word treatise, Our Christian Nation, for the magazine First Things, Hawley seems to understand the true origins of Christianity and favors Jesus Christ over the strong man. So, I have to ask again, and challenge anyone claiming to be a Christian nationalist this question: Are you sure, and do you really know what youre claiming to be? Like Ive said before, Hawley is a smart man, and maybe he really does understand what he is saying. Hawley followed his announcement with the line, My question is: Is there any other kind worth having? Yes, yes there is. Because Christian nationalism is not Christian, and it goes beyond the idea that we live in a Christian nation. Lets take a look. You can stop reading now, Sen. Hawley, but I hope you dont. Heres a primer for everyone else. Fusion of one expression of religion with civic life Disclaimer: Im not a Bible scholar, nor an expert in the study of Christian nationalism. Im just a simple Christian who has read the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, along with the letters of the apostle Paul. So, I turned to someone who has studied it: Andrew Whitehead is an Indiana University professor of sociology and executive director of the Association of Religion Data Archives at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. He has written two books, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States and American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church. I asked Whitehead to explain the term to someone who has never heard of it. Christian nationalism is the desire to see the fusion of a very particular expression of Christianity with American civic life. And it believes that this particular expression of Christianity should undergird all of what America is and how it operates and that the government should defend and preserve this form of Christian nationalism as the cultural ideal in the United States. Notice that Whitehead uses the term particular expression of Christianity a lot. Thats because there are lots of expressions of faith in America and the world. But Whitehead said this kind of expression combined with nationalism brings with it what he calls cultural baggage. The Christian of Christian nationalism is focused on one particular type and it isnt just kind of Orthodox historic Christian beliefs like, I believe in the divinity of Jesus, or that God is three parts in one, or those types of things. Key elements of Christian nationalism Whitehead identified four key elements in Americans surveyed that show how strongly they embrace Christian nationalism: Authoritarian social control (we live in a chaotic world and need order) Desire for a traditional social hierarchy (men lead; women support) Strict ethnoracial boundaries (white, natural-born, Anglo-Protestant) Populism and a tendency towards conspiratorial thinking (us versus them) This goes against the teachings of Jesus Christ in so many ways, my head wants to explode. Lets explore those key elements from a Christian perspective: God gave us free will to make decisions and mistakes. Women followers of Christ led in the early church. Jesus preached to a multicultural following. Jesus invited everyone to the table. Where and how does Christian nationalism apply here? The puzzle pieces simply dont fit. My biggest concern is that because so many people dont really know what Christian nationalism means, the only way theyll find out is from political candidates who arent explaining the whole story. To be certain, its more than being patriotic and loving God. So if you really believe that we live in a chaotic world and need a white, male (human) savior to take America back from the bad elites, academics, scientists and media folks, then maybe you are a Christian nationalist. But if you are someone with conservative values who loves Jesus, the Chiefs, the Royals and apple pie, maybe you arent. And thats OK. Lets be careful with the terms we use to describe ourselves. That message is for everyone, but especially our leaders. Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer has been sued in the death of a pedestrian in Alhambra. (Amy Harris / Invision / AP) Josh Klinghoffer, the former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist, has been sued after a March incident where he allegedly ran over a pedestrian crossing the street in Alhambra. The new lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Ashley Sanchez, the daughter of the pedestrian, Israel Sanchez, and obtained by The Times, alleges that on the afternoon of March 18, 44-year-old Klinghoffer was driving a black GMC Yukon at the corner of West Main Street and Meridian Avenue in Alhambra. Klinghoffer turned left at the intersection while 47-year-old Israel Sanchez was walking in the marked crosswalk. "The pedestrian was thrown and/or dragged across the asphalt where he sustained blunt force trauma to the head, and lay on the pavement until medical transport arrived," the suit claims. Sanchez was pronounced dead at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena at 5:28 p.m. Read more: Redd Kross celebrates 45 years of weird L.A. power pop with a full-throttle 'third act' "Video of the incident shows that defendant Josh Adam Klinghoffer made no braking or slowing motion until after he fatally struck Israel Sanchez, indicating that Defendant was likely driving while distracted," the suit continues. "This horrible outcome was foreseeable and demonstrates a willful disregard for the rights and safety of others." Klinghoffer's attorney, Andrew Brettler, said "it was a tragic accident." "After Josh struck this pedestrian in the intersection, he immediately pulled over, stopped the car, called 911 and waited until police and the ambulance arrived," Brettler said in a statement to The Times. "Obviously, he's cooperating with the police throughout the traffic investigation. This was purely a tragic accident." The suit did not list an amount for damages sought. Klinghoffer performed and recorded with the Red Hot Chili Peppers from 2009 to 2019, and in 2012 was inducted with the band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Since leaving the band, he's toured and recorded with Pearl Jam and Iggy Pop. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Josh Klinghoffer, Guitarist For Pearl Jam And Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sued For Wrongful Death Josh Klinghoffer, a guitarist who has played with Pearl Jam, Janes Addiction, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is being sued for wrongful death and negligence for a fatal accident involving a pedestrian. A lawsuit filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges Klinghoffer was involved in a fatal vehicular and pedestrian accident in Alhambra, California, that resulted in the death of 47-year-old Israel Sanchez. More from Deadline Klinghoffer is accused of being distracted by a cell phone while behind the wheel of an SUV. Klinghoffer is being sued by Ashley Sanchez, the only child of Israel Sanchez. Sanchez was allegedly on his way to a grocery store on March 18, according to the lawsuit. As he was walking in a crosswalk, the suit says Klinghofferstruc him with his vehicle. Sanchez was walking within a marked crosswalk and halfway across when Klinghoffer, who was driving a 2022 GMC Yukon, made a left turn and struck Sanchez in the back, the suit said. Klinghoffers attorney, Andrew Brettler, said in a statement to NBC News on Wednesday his client was involved in a tragic accident. After the car struck the pedestrian, Josh immediately pulled over, stopped the vehicle, called 911, and waited until police and the ambulance arrived. He is fully cooperating with the traffic investigation, Brettler said. Sanchez family attorney Nick Rowley said in a statement that Klinghoffer should be arrested and prosecuted for homicide. Sanchez was pronounced dead at a hospital about 2 and hours after the collision, according to the lawsuit. Ashley Sanchez seeks a jury trial and damages. Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Energy stocks are not exactly known for being boring investments. But that doesn't mean you can't find great companies that are worth buying and holding for the long term, even forever in some cases. You just need to go in knowing that they have to be held through the often-volatile energy cycle. If you have that kind of timeframe and $10,000 to invest right now in the energy sector, you'll want to look at Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD). Chevron has an incredible dividend streak There are a lot of things to like about integrated energy giant Chevron, but one that stands out is its 37-year streak of annual dividend increases. Keep in mind that oil and natural gas prices are known for their dramatic, and often swift, price swings. For investors seeking income, Chevron has been a rock in a stormy sea. Image source: Getty Images. There are a couple of additional strengths to consider here. Notably, Chevron, like all integrated energy companies, has a diversified portfolio that includes upstream, midstream, and downstream assets. Each of these parts of the energy sector has different operating dynamics, and putting them all together under one roof helps to soften the blow from swings in energy prices. But Chevron also happens to have one of the strongest balance sheets when compared to its closest peers. That gives it the leeway to take on leverage to support its business and dividend during industry downturns. When oil prices recover, it reduces debt to prepare for the next downturn. Basically, if you are looking for energy exposure, Chevron is a solid way to go about getting it. But there's one more thing to like here: Chevron's 4.2% yield is notably higher than that of its most direct peer, ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), which is yielding roughly 3.3%. BP (NYSE: BP) and Shell (NYSE: SHEL), meanwhile, both cut their dividends in 2020. TotalEnergies (NYSE: TTE) is more aggressively shifting its business toward clean energy and makes more aggressive use of debt, so it's a bit more of an acquired taste despite offering a slightly higher yield (investors also have to deal with French taxes, which reduces the income stream). Overall, Chevron is a clear standout within the integrated energy group. Enterprise Products Partners is focused on playing it safe Enterprise is one of the largest midstream companies in North America, with an irreplaceable portfolio of pipelines, storage, processing, and transportation assets. This is the vital infrastructure that connects oil and natural gas producers to the world. But the interesting thing here is that oil and natural gas prices aren't all that important to Enterprise's success, because it charges fees for the use of its assets. Demand for energy, which tends to remain robust throughout the energy cycle, is what is most important. That's how Enterprise has managed to increase its distribution annually for 25 consecutive years. The master limited partnership (MLP) also has an investment grade rated balance sheet, and its distributable cash flow covers its distribution by a very comfortable 1.7 times. Like Chevron, Enterprise is a rock in what is often a stormy energy sea. Add in a 7.1% distribution yield, and you can see why income investors might like Enterprise. But there's another little fact here that's worth noting. Like Chevron, Enterprise has one of the strongest balance sheets relative to its closest peers. That's by design and is fairly typical, historically speaking. So Enterprise has long been one of the least risky investments in a sector known for high risk. The caveat here is that the lofty distribution yield will probably make up most of an investor's return, but for income investors, that probably won't be a big problem. Stick around to benefit Here's the key with both Chevron and Enterprise: You have to buy and hold for the long term. These are well-run energy companies that have proven they can stand the test of time. You should give them the benefit of the doubt when -- not if -- the energy sector gets battered. In fact, an energy downturn could be a great time to add to your positions in these forever stocks. 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. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $785,556!* 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 quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of July 8, 2024 Reuben Gregg Brewer has positions in TotalEnergies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends BP and Chevron. The Motley Fool recommends Enterprise Products Partners. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 2 High-Yield Energy Stocks to Buy With $10,000 and Hold Forever was originally published by The Motley Fool A Tri-Cities man is headed to a Washington state psychiatric hospital for killing his mother and stabbing her boyfriend two years ago. David J. Lowe, 31, was found not guilty by reason of insanity at a Tuesday hearing in Benton County Superior Court. The ruling came after experts for both prosecutors and the defense found his schizophrenia prevented the West Richland man from understanding what he was doing when he attacked his mom at her home. But Judge Jackie Stams decision came over the objections of Bethany Lowes family, who wanted to see the former firefighter go to prison, prosecutors said at the hearing. The court finds that this is the most appropriate action given the nature and severity of his mental illness, Stam said. The court sends its sympathy to his family, his sisters, his (grandmother), his aunts. ... I understand exactly how they fell. I understand that, but I do have to follow the law. Prosecution and defense experts found Lowes schizophrenia led to delusions, which were compounded by using methamphetamine. Lowe will return to Eastern State Hospital where he will continue to receive medication and treatment. Its possible he could spend the rest of his life at the hospital. Lowes mental health has been at the center of the case since he broke into the Cosmic Lane home in July 2022 and stabbed Bethany Lowe, 47, to death and wounded her boyfriend Andy Davis, 45. The couples two youngest children, ages 12 and 9 at the time, also were home but were not hurt. He initially told police he believed his mother and boyfriend were responsible for killing his young daughter. Psychologist reports later said its unclear if he has a biological daughter, though a former girlfriend has a child. Since being arrested and treated at Eastern State, hes been required to take anti-psychotic medication so he could be mentally able to appear in court. He attended Tuesdays hearing in Kennewick and apologized to his family, though none of them were in the courtroom. Insanity Tuesday, defense attorney Michael Vander Sys made the request to have Lowe ruled insane, and deputy prosecutors Josh Lilly and Kristin McRoberts supported the motion. Lilly said the position of Lowes family is understandable. He would want someone held accountable if one of his family members was killed. While we take those desires into account in making the decisions we do .... we all know that justice doesnt reside solely in giving the victims of the crime what they want, Lilly said. Its getting to the right, proper and appropriate outcome. Lowe has told psychologists that he doesnt believe he suffers from schizophrenia. David Lowe, shown here in 2022, murdered his mother and stabbed her boyfriend in a schizophrenic rage, say officials. Lilly said the best place for Lowe will be in a structured environment where it will be guaranteed that he takes his medication. Vander Sys agreed that a state hospital was the best place for his client. He called it Lowe the poster child case of a person not being in their right mind when they commit a crime. Now that Lowe has been on medication, hes come to appreciate what he did, Vander Sys said. This case is just tragic, he said. He is devastated, no doubt. The reality is this is his mother who died in this incident, who he was very close to. This really affects him as well. This really is the deepest of tragedies for everyone. Cloudy history Lowe told psychologists that his family moved to Washington from Virginia when he was about 3. His biological father died by suicide when he was young, according to the report, though investigators said its unclear if everything Lowe reported was true. Lowe told evaluators he lived for a time on a farm with his mother and her then husband, and made wild claims that they tested pharmaceutical products on foster children. When talking about his past, Lowe said his grandmother called him a pedophile and put acid on his finger. He showed his finger to the camera to show a scar, but no scar was visible. Lowe said he has a young daughter he had never been able to see, and claimed his ex-girlfriend followed me around, she was stalking me. She pretty much chased me out of Virginia, according to the report. It is currently unclear if Mr. Lowes beliefs about having a biological daughter are reality-based, the report said. Court records searches show Lowe has a history of arrests for drug use, break-ins and other issues, including several no-contact protection orders from his mother and his ex-girlfriend. Schizophrenia treatment While Lowe has routinely denied suffering from schizophrenia, he has two previous psychiatric hospital stays because of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. He reported taking medication for panic attacks in 2015. He told evaluators he began using methamphetamine when he was 25, and at times used it daily. The last time was the day he was arrested, and evaluators believe it exacerbates the symptoms of his disease. He first sought drug treatment in 2018 but struggled to stay sober, said the reports. Richland police detectives investigate the deadly double stabbing crime scene at 54 Cosmic Lane in north Richland in July 2022. He started having problems again in July 2022, including locking himself in a West Richland gas station restroom for eight hours and exhibiting bizarre behavior, including paying with toilet water and making comments about ghosts taking over his body, said the report. Three days later on July 8, he went to Wenatchee Parkside Stabilization, an evaluation and treatment center, where he was admitted. He reported hearing his daughter and parents communicating with him. Its not clear when he was left the Wenatchee facility, but returned to the Tri-Cities on July 26 and locked himself in the gas station. The next day he broke into his mothers home. After his arrest, Lowe underwent treatment at Eastern State. Officials said he showed some improvement but still suffers from several delusional beliefs. Richland police investigators document the scene of the stabbing in July 2022. By November 2023, Lowe continued to tell medical officials that he didnt believe he was schizophrenic. And when he was asked if he would continue to take medication on his own, he said probably. He exhibited a lack of insight regarding why the anti-psychotic is prescribed, said the report to the court. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks in January 2023 to the Missouri chapter of the Federalist Society in the Missouri House chamber. A Clay County Circuit Judge ruled Tuesday that Bailey could be deposed over a possible ethics violation in the state's case against Jackson County over its property assessment process. (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent). Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey can be questioned under oath about interactions with a Jackson County official that appear to have violated legal ethics rules, a judge ruled Tuesday. The order forcing Bailey to sit for a deposition which legal experts interviewed by The Independent agreed was highly unusual stems from meetings he and one of his deputies had with Jackson County Legislator Sean Smith. The attorney generals office is currently suing the county over its property assessment process. Under Missouri Supreme Court rules, attorneys are not to communicate about a lawsuit with individuals represented in the case by another lawyer without the consent of the other lawyer. Both Bailey and Travis Woods, an assistant attorney general, discussed the case with Smith, according to Clay County Circuit Judge Karen Krausers order. The Missouri Attorney Generals Office is not exempt from the requirements of the state ethical rules, and this court finds that Travis Woodsviolated the Rules of Professional Conduct, wrote Krauser, who is handling the case after Jackson County judges recused themselves. Krausers order came in response to a request for sanctions, including the ability to question Bailey, filed by attorneys representing Jackson County. She did not grant other sanctions that were requested, including disqualifying the attorney generals office from the case. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and his office have exhibited a blatant disregard for the Rules of Professional Conduct in this case, the motion filed by Jackson County says, and their actions are sanctionable. Based on what we know so far, their actions were not innocent mistakes. Both Jackson County and Baileys office declined comment. Smith did not return a request for comment. In a filing in opposition to Jackson Countys, Baileys office accused the county of grasping for straws and said the rules dont support granting these radical requests. This court should reject defendants latest attempt to distract from the facts and legal claims brought by the state government, the states filing says. Chuck Hatfield, a longtime Jefferson City attorney who served as chief of staff to former Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, said a lot of judges would be troubled by the meetings between the attorney general and Smith. Jackson Countys lawyers, Hatfield said, should have been informed. It almost looks like they intentionally kept it from (Jackson Countys lawyers), Hatfield said, and thats quite unprofessional. And the judge appears to think it was unethical, and that seems like a valid judgment to me. Hatfield said he wasnt aware of a Missouri attorney general being deposed since John Ashcroft, who served in the late 1970s and early 1980s before going on to become Missouri governor, a U.S. senator and finally U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush. This is really unusual, Hatfield said of Baileys impending deposition. Bailey filed a lawsuit in December over Jackson Countys property assessment process. It named as defendants Jackson County and its legislature; County Executive Frank White Jr.; director of assessment Gail McCann Beatty; the Jackson County Board of Equalization; and Tyler Technologies, a software company hired by the county. The lawsuit accuses Jackson County of failing to comply with the law when it assessed properties in 2023, resulting in an average 30% increase in value across hundreds of thousands of properties. The lawsuit says more than 90% of residential properties saw an increase in property value, and values increased by at least 15% for three-quarters of properties in the county. The increase in property value means owners will have to pay more in property taxes each year. The attorney general claims Jackson County failed to notify owners of the property value increases and their right to a physical inspection which is required before the assessor can increase a homes value by more than 15% in a timely manner. The county didnt conduct all the required inspections before hiking values more than 15%, the lawsuit says. Jackson County has denied the accusations and accused Bailey of waiting too long to file the case since tax bills have already been paid and money distributed. Beyond that, the county argues, the attorney general cant file a case unless the State Tax Commission has attempted to resolve the issue first. Attorneys for Jackson County filed a motion for sanctions against the attorney general last month, citing the meetings Smith had with Bailey in April and Woods in May. Based on what is known today, it is clear the Attorney Generals Office has been working with Sean Smith on trial strategy against Jackson County, the countys filing said. The attorney generals office filing in response says Smith has made numerous public statements criticizing the property assessment process. He has already testified at trial in this case, and in that testimony made clear that he believes Jackson Countys assessment practices were inappropriate, the filing says. He has voted on resolutions that are manifestly adverse to the rest of the countys position in this case. Even so, the filing says, the attorney generals office has ceased communicating with Smith, who is running for the U.S. House as a Republican. Krauser agreed with the county, writing in her order that Smith regularly consults with the countys lawyers regarding issues central to the lawsuit and has power as an elected official to impact the case. This court has the authority to impose sanctions for conduct which abuses the judicial process, which includes violations of professional conduct, Krauser wrote. After oral arguments in the case on Monday, the order says, Baileys office provided notes from Woods meeting with Smith. The notes didnt include information subject to attorney-client privilege, Krauser wrote. Another staffer in Baileys office sat for a deposition about the meeting between Bailey and Smith and their respective campaigns but gave little information about the conversation beyond that the two discussed the property assessment case and discussed preparing a joint statement regarding this lawsuit. Smith posted to his campaign social media account that his team visited with Bailey. Both of us feeling great about our races, Smith said. Thankful for the efforts of the AG in holding those responsible for our property tax debacle accountable. Will Scharf, who is running against Bailey in the Republican primary for attorney general, said in a statement that the dispute was yet another example of Andrew Bailey putting politics before his duties as attorney general. It is absolutely outrageous, Scharf said, that this important litigation against Jackson County is now imperiled because Andrew Bailey wanted a quick hit for his campaign. This story was updated at 5:38 p.m. to include newly-disclosed filings in the lawsuit. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE A federal judge says he is leaning toward dismissing former New York Mayor Rudy Giulianis bankruptcy case. Giuliani filed bankruptcy after a jury awarded Fulton County election workers Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss $148 million after they said he continued to spread lies about them tampering with votes from the 2020 election. Dismissal would remove the shield surrounding Giulianis assets and allow Freeman and Moss, along with other creditors to pursue his money in the courts. It would also allow Giuliani to appeal the defamation judgment. Im leaning toward dismissal, frankly, because Im concerned that the past is prologue, Lane said during a hybrid in-person and Zoom status hearing in White Plains, New York. The judge cited what he said was Giulianis lack of transparency throughout the proceedings. A lawyer for Freeman and Moss, accused Giuliani of using the bankruptcy process as a bad-faith litigation tactic and said, he regards this court as a pause button on his woes while he continues to live his life unbothered by creditors. The question here is always going to be the cat-and-mouse game of what dollar can be funneled outside of the estate, Freeman and Moss lawyer Rachel Strickland said. Out in the real world, outside of bankruptcy, all dollars are fair game for everyone and Mr. Giuliani has to continue to live and do whatever it is he is able to do with his name, likeness and commentary in order to make a living. Lane scolded Giuliani at one point for interrupting the hearing. The ex-mayor, joining by phone, called Stricklands comments highly defamatory, your honor. RELATED STORIES: Philip Dublin, a lawyer for a committee of Giulianis other creditors, said the committee would rather keep the bankruptcy case going with the appointment of a trustee. Last week, Giuliani filed to have his bankruptcy case changed from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7. That would allow him to sell off his assets to pay for his debt but he would not have to provide creditors with a repayment plan. On Monday, the Creditors Committee, which is overseeing the money owed to Moss and Freeman, filed an objection to converting the case, saying, Giuliani has treated this Court, the bankruptcy process, and the Committee the same way he treated the D.C. District Court and the Freeman Plaintiffs in the Freeman Litigation, with utter disrespect and without accountability. Giuliani is playing the delay game. That filing was removed on Wednesday following a hearing in front of the judge. The creditors in this case have already expressed their frustration with Guiliani after months of trying to get complete information on his finances. The creditors have also asked that a trustee be named to oversee Giulianis finances. Last week, the ex-federal prosecutor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate was disbarred as an attorney in New York after a court found that he repeatedly made false statements about Trumps 2020 election loss. He is also facing the possibility of losing his law license in Washington after a board in May recommended that he be disbarred. In Georgia and Arizona, Giuliani is facing criminal charges over his role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases. When he filed for bankruptcy, Giuliani listed nearly $153 million in existing or potential debts, including almost $1 million in state and federal tax liabilities, money he owes lawyers and many millions of dollars in potential judgments in lawsuits against him. He estimated he had assets worth $1 million to $10 million. In his most recent financial filings in the bankruptcy case, he said he had about $94,000 cash in hand at the end of May while his company, Giuliani Communications, had about $237,000 in the bank. A main source of income for Giuliani over the past two years has been a retirement account with a balance of just over $1 million in May, down from nearly $2.5 million in 2022 after his withdrawals, the filings say. In May, he spent nearly $33,000 including nearly $28,000 for condo and co-op costs for his Florida and New York City homes. He also spent about $850 on food, $390 on cleaning services, $230 on medicine, $200 on laundry and $190 on vehicles. The judge signaled he would rule about the possible dismissal on Friday during another hearing. The Associated Press contributed to this article. RELATED NEWS: Judge sets $200,000 bail for Olympia man accused of assault. Man who was beaten is in a coma A 27-year-old Olympia man accused of instigating a fight and stomping on a persons head Sunday is being held in the Thurston County jail in lieu of $200,000 bail. Cliver Mesubed Telei attended his preliminary appearance in Thurston County Superior Court on Monday. Olympia police arrested him Sunday night on suspicion of first-degree assault. The incident occurred by an apartment building on the 100 block of Pattison Street Northeast, just north of Martin Way East and near the Intercity Transit headquarters. First responders transported an unconscious 40-year-old man to Providence St. Peter Hospital where he was placed in an intensive care unit, Police Lt. Paul Lower told The Olympian. Witnesses alleged Telei tried to assault several people on the street, including a 46-year-old woman, Lower said. An officer reported finding the 40-year-old victim on the ground, bleeding from his mouth. Police found and arrested Telei after searching the area with a Thurston County Sheriffs Office K9 dog, Lower said. Court records reveal new details about Teleis first day in court as well as the investigation into the alleged assault. Superior County Judge Allyson Zipp found probable cause for two crimes, first-degree assault and fourth-degree assault, before setting bail at $200,000. In doing so, Zipp determined there existed a substantial danger Telei may commit a violent crime if released without conditions. Zipp also barred Telei from contacting the man and woman he allegedly assaulted, according to court records. A pretrial report indicates Telei resides in a neighborhood up the street from the scene of the alleged crimes and he has no known criminal convictions. Telei is due back in court for his arraignment hearing at 9 a.m. July 23. The investigation A probable cause statement describes the investigation into the incident from the perspective of law enforcement. An officer responded to the apartment building on Pattison Street after receiving reports of a disturbance in the street. When he got to the scene, several people flagged the officer to tell him someone needed help. The officer found the 40-year-old man lying on his back in the middle of Pattison Street, according to the statement. The man had a strong pulse but he was unconscious, bleeding from his mouth and breathing irregularly and shallowly. The Olympia Fire Department responded to render medical aid at the officers request. A crowd of witnesses told the officer what happened and described the suspect, later identified as Telei, the statement says. One witness reportedly said he saw Telei walking south on Pattison in the middle of the road. He said Telei was shirtless and yelling about knocking people out, according to the statement. The witness alleged Telei tried to assault a man but instead hit his walker. That man got away and Telei returned to the middle of the street where he yelled at passing cars. The 40-year-old man reportedly approached Telei in an apparent attempt to intervene, the witness told the officer. The witness said thats when Telei punched the man, knocking him to the ground. The witness said Telei then stomped on the mans head before throwing a punch at a woman. The woman told the officer Telei lunged at her and somehow struck or grabbed her from the back. After assaulting the 40-year-old man, she said Telei tried to lung at her again but she was able to get away. Telei then ran east on Martin Way. After police detained Telei, the statement indicates the woman identified him as the alleged assailant. The officer attempted to speak with Telei when he was in custody, but the statement says Telei interrupted the officer several times and appeared extremely agitated. The hospitalized 40-year-old man reportedly did not regain consciousness on the ambulance ride nor when he arrived at Providence St. Peter Hospital. Hospital staff put the man in a medically induced coma and moved him into an intensive care unit, according to the statement. The responding officer reportedly learned the man had an occipital bone fracture and a brain bleed. The man also had a fractured left first rib, but the statement says he likely suffered this injury when someone gave him CPR prior to when police arrived. Ex-Kansas City, Kansas, police captain Roger Golubski, a longtime homicide detective accused of using the power of his badge to extort and rape Black women, will stand trial in the first of his two criminal cases beginning in early December, a federal judge ordered Wednesday. During an afternoon hearing in Topeka, U.S. District Court Judge Toby Crouse set Golubskis sexual assault trial to begin Dec. 2. Hearings are expected to take place three days per week over roughly five weeks to accommodate Golubskis health issues. Golubski, 71, receives regular dialysis treatments and has been on house arrest since his indictment in September 2022. Federal prosecutors allege Golubski, who is white, abused his power as a police officer to terrorize Black residents of Kansas City, Kansas with impunity for decades. He is accused of raping women he met while acting in his official capacity as a police officer, often threatening to fabricate criminal cases against their family members unless his sexual advances were received. In the first of two federal cases, Golubski is accused of assaulting two victims starting in the late 1990s. One, identified in court documents as S.K., was between 13 and 14 years old at the time of the first alleged assault in 1998. The other is Ophelia Williams, who has spoken publicly about encounters with Golubski that began roughly 25 years ago. She says Golubski forced her into sex acts on duty and in his squad car over the course of about a year while her teenage sons were being tried for murder. Golubski faces six felony counts of deprivation of civil rights. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. In addition to details surfaced in criminal court, several women have come forward with accusations in civil cases. Rose McIntyre, whose son Lamonte McIntyre was wrongly imprisoned for 23 years for a double murder he did not commit, accused Golubski of orchestrating a case against her son because she rejected him. Lamonte McIntyre was exonerated and a civil case against the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas settled in 2022 for $12.5 million. In November, five more women filed another federal civil lawsuit against the Unified Government. Four of the five plaintiffs allege Golubski sexually assaulted or stalked them, including one who accuses the detective of raping her in the back seat of an unmarked police car. That case remains pending. The setting of a trial date on Wednesday marked a development long anticipated by Golubskis alleged victims. Some have openly questioned whether the former officer would ever stand trial given his age and health issues. William Skepnek, an attorney representing Williams in a civil case involving Golubksi, said by phone Wednesday Ophelia is finally going to have a chance to tell her story. For Ophelia and these other women, its been decades coming, Skepnek said. And its great that their story is gonna get to be told to a jury, and the jury is gonna get to say whats right and whats wrong. Golubksi worked for Kansas City, Kansas, police from 1975 until 2010. The criminal case now set for trial is one of two he faces related to his conduct as a police officer. In the second, Golubski is accused of conspiring to sex traffic underage girls between 1996 and 1998 with three other men, including a notorious drug kingpin, Cecil Brooks. Prosecutors allege Golubski protected criminals from police investigation as girls were raped and trafficked at an apartment complex at Delavan Avenue and 26th Street in Kansas City, Kansas. A trial date in that case has yet to be scheduled. In a written order issued on Wednesday, a New Hampshire judge revoked the driving privileges of a truck driver acquitted in a 2019 deadly crash for nearly a decade. Administrative Law Judge Ryan N. McFarland ruled Volodymyr Zhukovskyy will no longer be able to legally drive in the state for a period of seven years, effective June 24, 2019. Seven years is the maximum permitted suspension under state laws. The order concludes an administrative hearing process that began in early May when Zhukovskyy requested to get his license back. New Hampshire refuses to reinstate license of trucker acquitted in deadly crash A jury found Zhukovskyy not guilty in 2022 of multiple manslaughter and negligent homicide charges stemming from a 2019 collision in Randolph that killed seven motorcyclists. The victims were all members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, an organization of Marine Corps veterans and their spouses in New England. Prosecutors alleged that Zhukovskyy who had taken heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine the day of the crash repeatedly swerved back and forth before the collision and told police he caused the deadly crash. Survivors of New Hampshire motorcycle crash that killed 7 urge a judge to keep trucker off the road On May 30, Judge McFarland upheld the States complaint, finding Zhukovskyy drove in an unlawful manner during the 2019 crash. Zhukovskyy, who came to the U.S. as a child from Ukraine and had permanent residency status, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the 2022 verdict. A judge ordered his deportation last year, but the U.S. has paused repatriation flights to Ukraine due to the war with Russia and authorized Temporary Protected Status for qualified Ukrainians. 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 After a full day of deliberations, the jury in the Samantha Woll murder trial did not reach a verdict Wednesday, though it will take a daylong break on Thursday due to a scheduling conflict involving one of the jurors. The full panel will resume deliberations on Friday at 8:30 a.m. and meet until 2 p.m. If a verdict is not reached by then, deliberations will resume on Monday. So far, there's no indication the jury is close to making a decision. It had no questions on Wednesday, other than requesting a monitor be brought into the deliberation room so jurors could see the evidence on a large screen. Samantha Woll, 40, who led the Isaac Agree Downtown Detroit Synagogue, at the synagogue's August reopening. Woll was found stabbed dead outside her home in the city's Lafayette Park neighborhood, east of downtown on Saturday, October 21, 2023. A killer, or just a petty thief? Samantha Woll's murder case is now in the hands of jury. The jury of eight men and four women is deciding the fate of 29-year-old Michael Jackson-Bolanos, who is accused in the 2023 fatal stabbing of Woll, a beloved synagogue leader and political activist who was found dead outside her Detroit home just hours after returning from a wedding. The prosecution alleges Jackson-Bolanos killed her during a home invasion, though the defense maintains the police arrested the wrong man, and that the victim's brutal stabbing death was a "crime of passion" carried out by someone who wanted her dead. According to trial testimony, Jackson-Bolanos was breaking into cars in Woll's neighborhood on the night she was stabbed eight times in the neck and top of her head. Jackson-Bolanos, who took the rare step of testifying in his own defense, told the jury that he stumbled across Woll's body that night and checked for a pulse, but did not kill her. He fled when he realized she was dead, Jackson-Bolanos said, explaining that he feared getting blamed for her death. His lawyer also argued to the jury that this was not a robbery as the prosecution maintains, noting nothing was taken from her home. The prosecution, however, called the defendant a serial liar and urged the jury not to believe him, maintaining that Jackson-Bolanos fled because he feared getting caught for the killing. During the 4-week trial, the defense also accused the police of running a shoddy investigation and ignoring other potential suspects, including an ex-boyfriend who allegedly confessed to the killing during a panic attack, but later recanted. The prosecution said the ex-boyfriend's confession was false and not backed by any details, and that he convinced himself that he killed Woll because he was delusional. It said police found no evidence linking the ex-boyfriend to her death and that all evidence points to Jackson-Bolanos. Deliberations resume Friday. Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jury deliberations pause for a day in Samantha Woll murder trial Sung Kook (Bill) Hwang, the founder and head of the private investment firm Archegos, arrives at the Manhattan Federal Courthouse in New York City By Jody Godoy NEW YORK (Reuters) -Archegos Capital Management founder Sung Kook "Bill" Hwang was convicted of fraud and other charges by a jury in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday at a criminal trial in which prosecutors accused him of market manipulation ahead of the 2021 collapse of his $36 billion private investment firm. The jury, which began deliberations on Tuesday, found Hwang guilty on 10 of 11 criminal counts and Patrick Halligan, his Archegos deputy and co-defendant, guilty on all three counts he faced. Hwang and Halligan sat flanked by their lawyers as the verdict was read by a soft-spoken foreperson. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein set the sentencing for Oct. 28. Both men will remain free on bail. The Archegos meltdown sent shock waves across Wall Street and drew regulatory scrutiny on three continents. Prosecutors have said Hwang and Halligan lied to banks in order to obtain billions of dollars that they used to artificially pump up the stock prices of multiple publicly traded companies. The trial began in May. Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said the verdict should send a clear message that his office will hold accountable people like Hwang and Halligan "who think they can cheat the system." Hwang, 60, had pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, three counts of fraud and seven counts of market manipulation. Hwang was acquitted on a market manipulation charge related to a Chinese online video company, iQIYI. Halligan, 47, had pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and two counts of fraud. Halligan was the chief financial officer at Archegos. They now face maximum sentences of 20 years in prison on each charge for which they were convicted, though any sentence would likely be much lower and would be imposed by the judge based on a range of factors. The trial centered on the implosion of Hwang's family office Archegos, which inflicted $10 billion in losses at global banks and, according to prosecutors, and caused more than $100 billion in shareholder losses at companies in its portfolio. Prosecutors said Hwang's actions harmed U.S. financial markets as well as ordinary investors, causing significant losses to banks, market participants and Archegos employees. Hwang secretly amassed outsized stakes in multiple companies without actually holding their stock, according to prosecutors. Hwang lied to banks about the size of the derivative positions of Archegos in order to borrow billions of dollars that he and his deputies then used to artificially inflate the underlying stocks, prosecutors said. Halligan was accused by prosecutors of lying to banks and enabling the criminal scheme. 'LIES AND MANIPULATION' During closing arguments on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Thomas told jurors, "By 2021, the defendants' lies and manipulation had ensnared nearly a dozen stocks and half of Wall Street in a $100 billion fraud, a fraud that came crashing down in a matter of days." Hwang's defense team painted the indictment as the "most aggressive open market manipulation case" ever brought by U.S. prosecutors. Hwang's attorney Barry Berke told jurors in his closing argument that prosecutors criminalized aggressive but legal trading methods. Archegos head trader William Tomita and Chief Risk Officer Scott Becker testified as prosecution witnesses after pleading guilty to related charges and agreeing to cooperate in the case. Prosecutors said Hwang's positions eclipsed those of the companies' largest investors, driving up stock prices. At its peak, prosecutors said Archegos had $36 billion in assets and $160 billion of exposure to equities. When stock prices fell in March 2021, the banks demanded additional deposits, which Archegos could not make. The banks then sold the stocks backing Hwang's swaps, wiping out an alleged $100 billion in value for shareholders and billions at the banks, including $5.5 billion for Credit Suisse, now part of UBS, and $2.9 billion for Nomura Holdings. Nomura declined comment and UBS did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Wednesday's conviction was the second fall from grace for Hwang. Prior to Archegos, Hwang worked at Tiger Management, billionaire Julian Robertson's pioneering hedge fund before Hwang launching his own hedge fund business, Tiger Asia Management, in 2001. Tiger Asia grew quickly but losses and regulatory issues in Hong Kong and the United States led the firm to shut in 2012. Hwang pleaded guilty to wire fraud related to illegal trading of Chinese stocks and paid $44 million to settle U.S. insider trading charges. Hwang turned Tiger Asia into a family office, renaming it Archegos Capital Management in early 2013. Wall Street banks were initially wary of Hwang due to his regulatory issues, but eventually Japan's Nomura gave him a second chance. (Reporting by Jody Godoy; additional reporting by Nupur Anand, Michelle Price, Jon Stempel Editing by Will Dunham) The 37-story Fairmont hotel in downtown Austin has landed $430 million in refinancing, testament to the strength of the hotel, the city's economic prospects and the market for top-notch properties in a challenging lending environment. The Fairmont, at Red River and East Cesar Chavez streets, is Austin's fifth-tallest building. It was developed by Manchester Texas Financial Group, a subsidiary of California-based Manchester Financial Group. The luxury hotel opened in 2018 at 101 Red River St. It has 1,048 guestrooms and suites, almost 140,000 square feet of meeting space and a pedestrian walkway connecting it to the Austin Convention Center. The hotel is in walking distance to downtown entertainment areas, including Rainey Street, East Austin and Lady Bird Lake. More: Ground broken for 1,000-room Fairmont Austin hotel The Fairmont Austin hotel has secured $430 million in refinancing, a sign of the strength of both the hotel and the Austin real estate market. JLL Capital Markets represented Manchester in obtaining the five-year loan, along with Goldman Sachs. With the refinance, Manchester bought out its minority partner and is now the hotel's sole owner. This significant financing, facilitated by JLL and Goldman Sachs, underscores our commitment to delivering exceptional hospitality experiences through our 100% ownership of the hotel," said Doug Manchester, founder of Manchester Financial Group. "The funds will support the continued growth and enhancement of this premier property, ensuring it remains a top destination for visitors to Austin." More: Luxury brand Fairmont to operate 2nd downtown convention hotel The refinancing "enabled us to fully replace our existing debt and in addition, we were able to reinvest additional equity and buy out our minority partners interest to own 100% of the hotel," said Douglas W. Manchester, the elder Manchester's son and president of Manchester Texas Financial Group. "We believe this demonstrates our dedication to a long-term business strategy and confidence in the strength of Austin." More: Developer hires builder for Austins $370 million Fairmont hotel In addition, with the pending closure of the Austin Convention Center next door for its expansion, the Fairmont will fill a void. "Fairmont Austin is well-positioned to serve large groups in-house in the coming years," Douglas W. Manchester said. "It will remain a premier destination for patrons wanting an incredible hotel experience for many years to come." More: Fairmont Austin hits pinnacle of construction With a number of recently completed and ongoing construction projects in the immediate area, "Fairmont Austin is well-positioned to benefit from the momentum in all directions and capitalize on its position as the epicenter of Austins explosive growth, said Tim Wright, JLL senior managing director and part of the team with Aldon Cole and Olga Walsh who handled the refinance deal. Story continues Doug Opalka, senior managing director for JLL's Austin and San Antonio offices, said that "the refinancing bodes well for the future of the property and hospitality industry." "With the continued popularity of Austin along with the consistent demand and diminishing supply of this type of product, we expect the hotel to continue to outperform in the coming years," Opalka said. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Fairmont hotel in downtown Austin lands $430 million in refinancing Hikers navigate a trail near the Hetchy Hetchy Reservoir in July 2023. The National Park Service reminded visitors not to leave toilet paper on the trails in Yosemite National Park. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Next time you're hiking through the wilderness at Yosemite National Park, you might stumble upon something that soils the park's majestic scenery. Park officials posted a photo on Instagram on Tuesday of multiple toilet paper rolls including used scraps of bathroom tissue abandoned near Rancheria Falls. It appears that many campers or hikers bring in the toilet paper for personal hygiene but neglect to throw it in a trash container or pack it out. "If you bring toilet paper out on your trips, please pack it out too," according to the post. "You can bring a sealable plastic baggie to stash it in, and even cover the bag in tape so you don't have to look at it. Because really, nobody wants to stumble upon a surprise package left behind by an anonymous outdoor enthusiast." Park officials recommended visitors not bury toilet paper because it can be easily exposed by erosion and weather. Animals can also dig up the trash or even use it as nesting material. The material can take up to three years to decompose. Yosemite is one of the nation's most popular national parks, attracting millions of visitors every year. During a trash cleanup last September, cigarette butts, Starbucks cups, energy bar wrappers, water bottles, hair bands, microplastic fragments and receipts were among the most common items found. Read more: Fecal fears pile up as an L.A. hiking mecca reopens without half its bathrooms Litter has also been a problem in other national parks and monuments, lakes and recreation areas. Last year, volunteers collected more than 4 tons of trash on the shores and in the water of Lake Tahoe, most of it left behind by July 4 revelers. The post by national park officials drew dozens of comments, mostly by wilderness enthusiasts who slammed visitors who trash the park. "This is happening at all parks, beaches and beautiful places like Yosemite. People need to be respectful and responsible," one user commented. "Just wrong and shameful. I can walk the streets by my home or go out hiking and the trash left by those who obviously are selfish and dont care is everywhere. I bring a bag every time I go, just to do my part and pick up what others leave behind." Another person commented that they were seeing this happen "all too often." "If youre too lazy to take it back out after carrying it in, DONT go. The wilderness doesnt want you," they wrote. 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. K-9 leads Wheat Ridge police to suspect hiding under canoe DENVER (KDVR) A police stop outside a Wheat Ridge Walgreens went from reported suspicious people to an on-foot chase involving officers, a K-9, 500 fentanyl pills and a suspect in an odd hiding place. On June 30, Wheat Ridge Police were called to a Walgreens on W 44th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard where reported suspicious people entered the store. Poll: Denver voters feel safe, but concerns about leadership remain On scene, police said they found a black Audi with no plates that was determined to be stolen after checking VIN number. Police confronted the two suspects, one of which complied with commands, while the other ran. Police posted the video of the foot chase on X, where an officer is seen tracking a suspect from the Walgreens, across a busy street, through a park and into a nearby neighborhood. While the officer lost the suspect, police said they were able to establish a perimeter in the area of W 44th Place and Upham Street. The suspect chose a discrete hiding spot, that is until a K-9 was called and found the suspect under a canoe in a backyard, according to police. After searching the area, officers said they found a backpack and hat the suspect ditched while running away. The backpack had a large bag of more than 500 blue fentanyl pills, around three grams of methamphetamine and several baggies that police said are consistent with distribution. Unexpected visitor found at Colorado Renaissance Festival More methamphetamine was found in the car. After an hour-long chase and the amount of drugs that were found, police officers said they recommend charges for unlawful possession of controlled substances with intent to distribute both methamphetamine and fentanyl along with aggravated first-degree motor vehicle theft and obstructing a peace officer. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. A Kansas City man is charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a woman outside of Central High School in June. Richard G. Harris, 37, of Kansas City, was charged in Jackson County court Tuesday with second-degree murder, along with three counts of armed criminal action, three weapons-related charges and one charge of tampering with a motor vehicle. He is accused of killing Taylor Thomas on June 17 near the southeast Kansas City high school. Thomas, a Kansas City resident and mother of six, was found unresponsive by Kansas City police officers in a yard near 3200 E Linwood Blvd. in the early morning of June 17, The Star previously reported. The shooting took place two days after her 29th birthday. Thomas sustained wounds to the head and neck and was hospitalized for several days. She died on June 19, according to family members. Kansas City police officers were informed of Thomas death in the early hours of June 20, according to court records. I will never understand why this happened to you, Thomas mother, Lawonia Carlton, wrote online Monday. You will always be with me no matter where I go or what I doand I will fight for justice for you until my dying breath. After the shooting, eyewitness testimony directed police to start looking for a suspect driving a red Kia, possibly belonging to Harris mother, according to court documents. One witness told police he had seen Harris in the area earlier that day, court documents show, and that he had been fighting with Thomas. An eyewitness told police that Thomas and Harris may have been romantically involved, and that he was known to be violent with her, according to court documents. The witness also told police that Harris tried to control Thomas access to her money, and that he may have facilitated acts of prostitution in order to collect more money from her, according to court documents. Surveillance video from midnight to 1 a.m. on June 17 shows Harris and Thomas pulling up to a driveway on Walrond Avenue around 12:30 a.m. in the red Kia and interacting with some people in a silver minivan. After the conversation, Harris and Thomas seem to search for something in the car before Thomas walks away with her hands up, according to court documents. Video then shows Harris pursuing and striking Thomas, throwing her to the ground, shooting her and driving away, according to court documents. Harris was arrested Monday. He was previously convicted of robbery, according to court records. A memorial service for Thomas was held July 6. Her death was the 71st homicide reported in Kansas City this year, according to data collected by the Star. She was full of life, and always did what she could and then some for everyone she knew, Thomas sister, Ariel Ellis, wrote online. She was a breath of life, and loved by so many people. Two months after voting to impose new graduation requirements for high school seniors, Kansas education officials are backtracking on the most controversial one: requiring students to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The Kansas State Board of Education voted 6-3 Wednesday to start the process to remove the FAFSA mandate from regulations establishing minimum graduation requirements. That was one piece of a slate of changes to the requirements that had been in place for 20 years. The FAFSA graduation requirement can't officially be removed until the end of the regulatory process, which may take as long as a year, said Scott Gordon, general counsel for the Kansas State Department of Education. Ann Mah, D-Topeka, was among the Kansas State Board of Education members who voted Wednesday to start the process of repealing a new high school graduation requirement that students complete the FAFSA. Intent was to let students see federal financial aid opportunities The graduation requirement mandated that every student fill out a FAFSA, unless their parent opts them out or their superintendent exempts them. Educators said the intent was to get students to take advantage of federal financial aid that they may not have known they qualified for had they not applied. "I'm concerned that we have students who are capable that are not getting the information they need to do what's best for them," said board member Jim Porter, R-Fredonia, particularly for potential first-generation college students. Officials may attempt to accomplish the goal in a different way. Deputy commissioner Ben Proctor suggested FAFSA could become part of the education department's accreditation process. A possible way to do that is assuring that school administrators provide all students and parents with information about FAFSA and the potential benefit of applying. "We would provide specific information, guidance, walk-through with school systems," Proctor said. More: After imposing new FAFSA requirement for graduating seniors, Kansas may reconsider Board member Jim McNiece, R-Wichita, said when a task force crafted a slate of new graduation requirements, there weren't concerns expressed with the FAFSA mandate. To task force members, "It just made sense." "I have to be honest with you, quite frankly, I don't know what all the fuss is about," McNiece said. He warned that revoking it means "you're going to have some kids that are probably not going to be able to go to college because they didn't have the money and they ... didn't fill the forms out." Submitting data to federal government troubled some Opponents of the idea have suggested that parents shouldn't have to submit information to the federal government, that schools shouldn't have data on whether students completed a FAFSA, that it places a burden on students and families, and that it's not an appropriate thing to have as a graduation requirement. Board member Cathy Hopkins, R-Hays, said using the accreditation process more appropriately places the burden on the school districts instead of on the students and parents. "I'm sorry," said board member Danny Zeck, R-Leavenworth, "but to make it a requirement to graduate, I struggle with doing that. It seems like we want to do everything for kids and parents instead of, you know, I think they're supposed to try to figure things out themselves. "If you have a desire to go to college, I believe you need to figure it out." Board member Ann Mah, D-Topeka, said she was OK with removing the graduation requirement, acknowledging that filling out a FAFSA "is a lot of work." But she rejected the idea that it's an issue of personal responsibility. "There are a lot of kids out there who have no idea this is even a possibility until it's presented to them," Mah said. Kansas Board of Regents might be the solution, member says Still, she suggested that the board shouldn't try to tackle the issue and that it would be more appropriate for the Kansas Board of Regents should do more to incentivize it. "To a hammer, everything looks like a nail," Mah said. "That's kind of us, like every time we want to do something we want to hammer people." Board chair Melanie Haas, D-Overland Park, said, "What I really want to see is districts stepping up and making a much stronger effort to provide all of the information to students and their families." 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 starts repeal of new FAFSA high school graduation requirement Kansas officials have denied the administrative appeals by two losing bidders for the most lucrative government contracts. The Kansas Department of Administration last week rejected the protests filed by Aetna and CareSource. The two companies had taken issue with Gov. Laura Kelly's administration awarding KanCare managed care organization contracts to United Healthcare, Sunflower and Healthy Blue. Todd Herman, director of the Department of Administration's office of procurement and contracts, informed the two losing bidders in separate, 13-page letters that defended the contracting process. "The State of Kansas followed the negotiated procurement process permitted by state statute," Herman wrote in the letters to Aetna and CareSource. "The awarding of a contract to United Healthcare, Sunflower and Healthy Blue in bid event #0009267 is supported by the facts. The contracts awarded are consistent with the RFP. The contracts awarded were done based upon the best interests of the State and those awards are supported by the information gathered through the process of evaluating the competitive sealed proposals submitted by the different bidders." The decision means the state will proceed with implementing the new contracts, which are set to start Jan. 1. However, the losing bidders can still sue the state. Kansas Department of Administration secretary Adam Proffitt told lawmakers last month that he would not be directly involved in the agency's decision on a dispute over the KanCare contract procurement process. State dismissed Aetna and CareSource concerns Among the issues raised by the companies were allegations of a conflict of interest, underbidding of the contract and changing the criteria to break a tie. Aetna and CareSource raised ethical concerns and conflicts of interest tied to Healthy Blue because several former state employees now work for the owners of Healthy Blue. Those staff include the former state Medicaid director, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment's former senior director of public affairs, the governor's former chief counsel and the former chief of staff for the House minority leader. The state dismissed those concerns. Herman added that filing a complaint with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission would be the proper way to allege the former state Medicaid director who now works for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas violated state law. "The State's ethics laws are specific to the individual," Herman wrote. "Meaning they prohibit the actions of the individual. They do not require a State contract to be declared invalid or should not be awarded to specific vendor due to an individual leaving employment with the State of Kansas and going to work for a vendor who becomes a state contractor." More: Aetna and CareSource protest how Kansas awarded KanCare MCO contracts, KORA lawsuit filed Chad Moore, of CareSource, alleged that two competitors underbid the contract. "What we found in what has been made available is that two of the plans dramatically underbid this contract," Moore told lawmakers last month. Herman wrote that the Aetna and Healthy Blue cost proposals were reviewed, and, "It was determined that both vendor's cost proposals were within the range prescribed by CMS and were acceptable." When the proposals were scored, Aetna and Healthy Blue tied for third, while CareSource was not far behind. Jane Brown, of Aetna, took issue with how the tie was broken, as "one cannot make up grading criteria after a bid has already been opened and graded." The state also dismissed that concern. "The scores of each of the different competitive sealed proposals received were only one part of the evaluation process used by the PNC and the evaluation committees in making its evaluations and award recommendations," Herman wrote. "Aetna focuses on their score as though it by itself is the sole basis upon which the PNC made its decision in awarding the KanCare contracts." Aetna is already suing for records One bidder has an ongoing lawsuit against the state related to the contracting process. Aetna's open records lawsuit seeks certain documents from the procurement process, which required a tiebreaker between Aetna and Healthy Blue, and a stay on the state's decision on Aetna's protest. That case was scheduled for a Wednesday hearing in Shawnee County District Court over Aetna's motion for a temporary injunction. The company has since amended its motion because the state rejected Aetna's protest prior to the scheduled hearing, which Aetna characterized as the Department of Administration bypassing the court's consideration. "The hallmark of procurement law in Kansas is, and always has been, fairness, transparency, reliability, and accountability," Aetna said in court filings. "The procurement of managed care for the Kansas Medicaid program and Children's Health Insurance Program ("KanCare") in this instance failed to achieve any of these pillars." 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 rejects protests by losing KanCare bidders Aetna and CareSource Whats the deal with Kansas Supreme Court Justice Caleb Stegall and hair? By now, youve probably heard about the twin decisions by the Kansas Supreme Court that were issued Friday, upholding the right of women in this state to choose abortion. And Stegall, in his dissenting opinion, has tried to make it about hair. More on that later, but first, lets recap what the court actually decided. One of the cases, Hodes and Nauser v. Kobach, struck down a state law banning the abortion method known as dilation and extraction, which anti-abortion advocates call partial birth abortion. The other case, Hodes and Nauser v, Stanek, overturned a law seeking to establish regulations obviously designed to be so onerous that no abortion-providing doctor or clinic could possibly comply, so theyd have to shut down. In both cases, the court majority restated its earlier ruling that personal body autonomy is a fundamental right under the Kansas Constitution, so a woman has a right to obtain a safe and legal abortion without undue interference from the state Legislature. The legal standard the court applied is called strict scrutiny. What that means is when government tries to infringe on a fundamental right, it has to prove three things: 1) The state has a compelling government interest in regulating that right. 2) Any regulations passed have to directly serve that interest. and 3) Actions must be narrowly tailored to accomplish the government interest in the least intrusive way possible. Which naturally brings us to hair? Well, it does in the mind of Stegall, the only justice filing dissenting opinions in the cases. In his dissent in the clinic regulation case, Stegall argued for page after page that if the government has to meet strict scrutiny standards when regulating abortions, the same must apply to regulating hair styles and hair removal. Is the (court) majority not aware that hair growth, hair removal, and hair styling is one of the most hotly contested, litigated, and legislated upon topics under the umbrella of personal autonomy? Stegall asks in his dissent. It turns out that body hair is one of the most personal and intimate expressions of the inviolate personality of human beings, often inseparable from religious and racial identities, and always a baseline indicator of a persons expression of individual identity. Then he sort of tries to hijack the CROWN movement, which is aimed at ending discrimination against African Americans in businesses and school activities because of their hair styles and textures. Wendy Greene, one of the nations foremost legal experts on hair discrimination and a legal architect of the federal CROWN Act an acronym for Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair has declared that how one chooses to style their hair is a defining feature of their identity and personhood, Stegall wrote. That drew a sigh from state Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, a Wichita Democrat whos been pushing for a statewide CROWN Act for years. I never thought wed put those two things together, hair and abortion wow, she said. Its just interesting over the years, the way that one group advocating for or against an issue will use another sensitive topic to support their issue. To me, its apples and oranges. But Stegall wasnt through. He also took a swipe at Gov. Laura Kelly for vetoing a bill that would have deregulated businesses offering sugaring, a process used to remove unwanted body hair, often in intimate areas. In her veto message, Governor Kelly explained that deregulation could lead to safety and sanitation problems. We have a responsibility to protect Kansans and this deregulation would threaten the health and safety of Kansans, Stegall wrote. So, the fundamental right to personal autonomy to have control over ones body guarantees a womans right to have an unborn child removed from her womb without government regulation, while hair removal threaten[s] the long-term health and safety of Kansans and must be regulated by the expertise of the Kansas Board of Cosmetology? he continued. As a matter of policy, these choices may be defensible. As a matter of constitutional law, it is incoherent. The only thing I find incoherent here is Justice Stegalls line of reasoning. The state has the authority, indeed the duty, to regulate personal services to prevent injury and the spread of disease, whether its hair removal or medical procedures. And nobody can have an unborn child removed from her womb without government regulation, as Stegall claims. Clinicians providing abortions have to comply with the same health and safety regulations as any other medical professionals providing comparable levels of care and then some. That is as it should be. What the Stanek decision establishes is that when a person has a fundamental constitutional right, lawmakers cant abuse their regulatory authority to create impossible-to-follow rules that legislate that right out of existence, motivated by their own ideological opposition to the right itself. Thats what legislators tried to do. And thats what the Supreme Court majority told them they cant do. Its a wise decision. Its the right decision. WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) The Kansas Department of Transportation will be hosting an on-site job fair. The job fair will be held on Thursday, July 18, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Wichita area office, located at 45th Street North and Hillside. In addition to pay, KDOT offers medical, dental, and vision insurance starting on the first day of employment, along with other benefits. They are currently looking for Equipment Operators with a starting pay of $18.74 an hour. After obtaining a CDL, pay increases to $20.13. KDOT will provide CDL training free of charge. Public hearing in Reno County for loan to fix Yoders water issues The job fair will feature facility tours, resume reviews, application stations, and on-the-spot interviews. To see open positions with KDOT across the state, click here. The state of Kansas will also be hosting a statewide job fair for open state positions on July 24. Participants need to register in advance. To register, click here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV. Kelly Ayotte, once a U.S. senator from New Hampshire, has portrayed herself as a champion to clean energy. But as she mounts a bid for governor of the Granite State, her past role on the board of a troubled company may undermine that message. Ayotte joined Bloom Energy Corp.s board of directors in November 2017, about a year after narrowly losing her 2016 reelection bid to Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. At the time, the California-based fuel cell manufacturer was in the midst of mounting financial and environmental scandals. Bloom saw in Ayotte someone with a track record of working in a bipartisan manner to promote energy solutions that are good for the economy, the environment and national security, as the companys founder and CEO KR Sridhar said at the time. In Congress, Ayotte had bucked her party on energy and climate change, becoming the first Republican to endorse the Obama administrations Clean Power Plan to curb carbon pollution from power plants and joining a handful of GOP lawmakers in supporting a nonbinding amendment that stated climate change is real and human activity significantly contributes to climate change. The Bloom post, along with joining the right-leaning environmental advocacy organization Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions as a senior adviser, allowed Ayotte to further position herself as a clean energy advocate. In a news release announcing her appointment to the board, Ayotte said Blooms mission aligned with three of her top priorities: ensuring energy security, reducing harmful emissions, and the creation of high quality advanced manufacturing jobs. Mediainvestigations and a 2019 report from Hindenburg Research, an investment research firm, have poked many holes in Blooms claims that its fuel cell technology is clean, green and cheap. Ayottes tenure followed and overlapped with many of Blooms financial and legal woes. Ayottes campaign did not respond to HuffPosts requests for comment. Bloom Energy also did not respond. The extent to which Ayotte was aware of or played a role in the companys missteps is unclear. But as a member of Blooms board from November 2017 to May 2019, she was tasked with helping to oversee the integrity of Bloom Energys financial statements and financial reporting process, as well as to prevent and detect violations of law, regulation, or Bloom Energys policies and procedures. Ayotte served as chair of the boards nominating, governance and public policy committee. Ayotte is one of four candidates running to succeed New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who is not seeking reelection. A former senator and state attorney general, Ayotte will face Chuck Morse, a former state senator, in Septembers Republican primary. On her campaign website, Ayotte writes that she would take an all-of-the-above approach to lower energy costs while focusing on stability, affordability, modernization, sustainability, and market-driven solutions. And in a September interview with the New Hampshire Bulletin, she said her energy policy would focus on the very best affordable clean energy for New Hampshire residents. But her time at Bloom, for which publicfilings show she earned at least $131,250 and received more than 13,000 company shares, threatens to complicate her image as a clean energy advocate. Former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire speaks at a campaign rally on Sept. 22, 2020, at Lanconia Municipal Airport in Gilford, N.H. Ayotte announced last year she'd run for governor, days after fellow Republican Chris Sununu said hes not seeking reelection to a fifth term. via Associated Press The September 2019 Hindenburg report on Bloom Energy, released just four months after Ayotte stepped down from the board, was damning. It detailed a purported $2.2 billion in undisclosed service liabilities, tricky accounting that allowed Bloom to mask servicing costs and losses, and a history of Bloom executives making what Hindenburg described as false statements about its carbon emissions and its profitability. It also found that Bloom had received more than $1 billion in clean energy subsidies money that a former Bloom employee told Hindenburg likely kept the company from going under. The report concluded that contrary to myths about Bloom, our research indicates that Blooms technology is not sustainable, clean, green, or remotely profitable. And it forecast that Bloom would become yet another tombstone in the Silicon Valley cemetery of dead unicorns. Bloom disputed the Hindenburg findings, arguing the report presented factual inaccuracies, misleading allegations, and drew erroneous conclusions, including about the future viability of Bloom. Subsequent investigations from Forbes and Axios respectively concluded that Blooms technology is too dirty and too costly to transform the electric grid and that the company has a history of playing fast and loose with its numbers. Bloom maintains that its solid oxide fuel cells most of which run on gas, a planet-warming fossil fuel, and have been installed and touted by corporate giants like Home Depot, Target and Walmart produce nearly 50% less carbon emissions compared to average power generation from the grid. In a 2016 news release, Home Depot bizarrely claimed that its gas-powered Bloom fuel cells were providing on-site renewable energy. Hindenburg detailed a far dirtier picture, finding that Blooms fuel cells emitted more carbon dioxide than the grid in four out of five key states it operated in at the time. The companys clean narrative is absurd, the report stated. Its emissions are comparable to those of modern natural gas power plants. KR Sridhar, co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, poses in front of Bloom Energy power servers at eBay offices in San Jose, Calif., in 2010. via Associated Press Along with scrutiny about the extent to which its fuel cells accelerate the path to decarbonization and better air quality for all, as the company touts on its website, Bloom has faced hefty fines for mishandling hazardous waste and allegations that it misrepresented its profitability and financial health. In 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered Bloom to pay more than $1 million in fines for not filling out required manifests for hundreds of canisters containing benzene, a cancer-causing chemical, that the company shipped to waste disposal facilities. Those shipments went to three separate facilities in Ohio, New Mexico and Texas between 2015 and 2020 a period that included Ayottes tenure on Blooms board. Bloom initially contested the alleged violations, arguing that it believed it was exempt from having to fill out such manifests, before ultimately agreeing to pay a $210,000 civil penalty in May 2020, according to company financial statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission and EPAs final order on the consent agreement. The agreement stipulated that, aside from agreeing that the EPA had jurisdiction on the matter, Bloom neither admits nor denies the specific factual allegations and conclusions of law found in the agreement. Blooms biggest blunder has been its record of false and misleading statements about its financial performance and future. On the day that the company went public in July 2018, Sridhar , Blooms CEO, told Marketwatch that the company is already profitable as of the second quarter and was expecting a bright future. But within hours, Bloom walked back Sridhars statements in a clarification to Marketwatch. And two days later, Bloom corrected Sridhars misstatements in a filing with the SEC. In an opinion piece several days later, Marketwatch columnist Therese Poletti and editor Jeremy C. Owens wrote that Bloom had squandered its credibility in less than a week as a public company. Ayotte was on the board during Blooms initial public offering. The IPO drew renewed attention to a scandal several years prior. In 2012, the SEC charged Advanced Equities, a brokerage firm that raised more than $100 million for Bloom, with misleading investors about the success of the fuel cell startup. Among other things, the SEC accused Advanced Equities of dramatically inflating the number of fuel cells it had on backorder. Bloom was never charged in the scandal. But the Wall Street Journal later reported that Bloom paid $16.7 million to Advanced Equities co-founders to settle an ongoing legal dispute. The two co-founders had reportedly threatened to sue Bloom, alleging that it was the source of false information that led to Advanced Equities being sanctioned a claim that Bloom denied. More recently, a federal judge last year signed off on a deal in which Bloom, its executives and underwriters agreed to pay $3 million to settle investors claims that the company misrepresented or omitted information as part of its initial public offering in 2018, Bloomberg Law reported. And in a February 2020 filing with the SEC, Bloom acknowledged that a large portion of its financial statements in 2018 and 2019 when Ayotte was on the board were inaccurate, noting they should no longer be relied upon due to an error in accounting. The company said it expected updated statements to reflect a decrease in revenue of up to $180 million and an additional $75 million in net losses. The 2020 disclosure came just days after a lengthy Forbes investigation, How Bloom Energy Blew Through Billions Promising Cheap, Green Tech That Falls Short. The story noted that the recent departure of several Bloom executives, as well as Ayotte from the companys board, underscored the sense that Bloom may be living on borrowed time. Profitability has continued to evade Bloom Energy, although its seen revenues increase in recent years. Former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte accompanies then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch to a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in 2017. via Associated Press A month after stepping down from Blooms board, Ayotte published a letter to the editor in which she defended the Republican Party against a Washington Post editorial, Democrats dont get everything right on climate. But theyre the only party trying. Ayotte touted her own track record of advancing policy in the clean-energy space and highlighted three Republicans in Congress who she said have offered concrete legislative proposals that address climate change. The reality, however, is that climate change denial remains rampant in todays Republican Party, with former President Donald Trump leading the charge. While Ayotte continues to paint herself as a clean energy champion, she has endorsed Trump in the 2024 presidential race. Senate Democrats are currently investigating an April meeting between Trump and oil and gas industry executives in which the former president reportedly solicited $1 billion in industry campaign donations in exchange for rolling back many of President Joe Bidens green energy policies. In its biography of Ayotte, which appeared in numerous company financial statements, Bloom describes her as the Sherpa for Justice Neil Gorsuch, leading the effort to secure his confirmation to the United States Supreme Court in 2017. Notably, Gorsuch and other conservatives on the court have issued a series of rulings that threaten to severely limit the federal governments ability to confront climate change and carbon pollution. In a 6-3 decision last month, the Supreme Court overturned a 40-year precedent that afforded agencies broad discretion to craft regulation, effectively shifting federal regulatory power to judges. S&P Global reported this week that the ruling could spell the demise of the Biden administrations signature energy- and climate-related administrative rules. Related... WEST NYACK Ken Zebrowski, who opted not to run again for the Assembly seat he held for nearly 18 years, announced Wednesday that he had officially left his government post. He has taken a job with Brown and Weinraub Advisors, an Albany-based law and lobbying firm, where he will serve as a law firm partner and senior adviser. The 96th includes Clarkstown and Haverstraw, with Nyack and South Nyack in Orangetown. The seat, which is on the ballot in November, will be open until January. The Legislature is not due to return to session until then. The 96th Assembly District office at 151 N. Main St. in New City remains open for constituents, Zebrowski, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Please reach out a 845-634-9791 with any issues and feel free to contact me at any time," he wrote on his Assembly Facebook page. Leaving Legislature: Ken Zebrowski won't seek re-election to represent Rockland in state Assembly Policy, legal work Former legislators like Zebrowski, under the Public Officers Law, are prohibited from directly or indirectly promoting or opposing the passage of legislation in either house of the legislature, for compensation, for two years after they terminate their legislative service. Zebrowski on Wednesday said there's still plenty of places he can have impact. "I can certainly work on public policy issues with a lot of entities, from the Governor's Office to state agencies, to Washington, D.C." Zebrowski said he was also a partner with the law firm. "I think my portfolio is yet to be established," he said. Nearly 18 years in Assembly Zebrowski, 43, won his ninth term representing District 96 in the New York State Assembly in 2022. NY Assemblyman. Kenneth Zebrowski speaks about cuts to funding for food pantries at the Louis Kurttz Center in Spring valley Feb. 23, 2023. Zebrowski and his wife, Clare, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, have three children and reside in West Nyack. He served in the Assembly seat his father, also Ken Zebrowski, had filled, but then it was the 94th. Get the Angle: Subscribe to lohud's Rockland-centric newsletter The Zebrowski record Zebrowski's legislative history included co-sponsoring bills to establish state-appointed monitors in East Ramapo, and then later expand their oversight powers. Zebrowski teamed with other legislators to win a toll discount for Rockland and Westchester residents as the Tappan Zee Bridge was being replaced. He helped get relief for North Rockland schools after a huge 2007 Mirant property tax settlement that sent local taxes soaring. Zebrowski got involved early on with the Rockland County Illegal Housing Task Force and helped secure state monitors in Spring Valley and Ramapo after years of lax building code enforcement. The Firefighters Association of the State of New York gave Zebrowski the 2022 Golden Trumpet Award. In 2013, New York became the first state in the nation to require hospitals and general practice doctors to offer a one-time Hep C test to baby boomers; the bill was sponsored by Zebrowski. His father had acquired Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion in the 1970s and died from liver cancer acquired from Hep C in 2007 at age 61. This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: New York State Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski takes law firm lobbying job Sabi Wu, a Kenyan rapper, sampled Kendrick Lamars Not Like Us to create a soundtrack for protests against the government in his country. - Credit: Kaloi Maxwell* Like many African countries colonized in the 20th century, Kenya has struggled to find its diplomatic footing in the decades since gaining independence. The East African nation successfully broke away from British rule in 1962, and a small circle of affluent and influential Kenyans quickly took over. They banked on their connections to Western superpowers and the detrimental effects of colonialism to maintain their power. Though that strategy has worked Kenya has yet to see a president that isnt connected to this circle it hasnt been without its conflict. The nation has found itself in states of civil unrest as the divide between the countrys governing bodies and its people continues to grow. Now, its become intolerable, and Kenyan Gen Zs have had enough. More from Rolling Stone Last month, young Kenyans took to social media to object to the countrys 2024 finance bill, which proposed increased taxes on an alarming amount of everyday items, from tampons to bread. Using the hashtag #RejectFinanceBill2024 to rally together, it was an unprecedented approach to activism for Kenyans that inspired both international attention and national unity and birthed a viral protest song that samples Kendrick Lamars diss track Not Like Us. Titled Reject Hio Bill, the track, by local rapper Sabi Wu, has become the theme of a movement calling for change to Kenyan government. The song represents the sentiments of young Kenyans like myself who are living in tough economic times, Wu tells Rolling Stone via email. Gen Z has always been disregarded, but we have shown that we have a voice through the mass protests that I have attended and supported. Wu says that the combative and accusatory nature of Lamars Not Like Us provided the perfect backdrop for his own rendition, representing how Kenyans actually feel about their government. I freestyled the chorus and first verse in under 15 minutes and put it up on social media not really expecting anything, the rapper explains. People resonated with it so much so I completed and released the song after. The song has gone on to be used by thousands of people in their posts about and from the protests. The protests began a few weeks ago when young Kenyans, outraged by the finance bill and already struggling amid the countrys deteriorating currency following the Covid-19 pandemic, marched to Nairobis central business district for a maandamano (the Swahili word for protest), as Kenyas president William Ruto and parliament members were gearing up to vote on the bill. Though protests were initially peaceful, tensions escalated quickly. Attendees grew in number and were met with violent retaliation at the hands of Kenyas police. Some protesters breached blockades and stormed parliament, in an act eerily similar to the events of January 6, 2021, in the U.S. The Kenya Human Rights Commission announced 39 people were killed and hundreds injured or tear-gassed, including former U.S. president Barack Obamas sister, Dr. Auma Obama. Honestly, it was scary, Ezra Ruto, a young Kenyan whos been on the frontlines, says in an email. Many among us, including myself, suffered from tear gas and rubber bullets inflicted by the police for exercising our constitutional rights. But with Wus Reject Hio Bill as the soundtrack, the protests seem to have worked: President Ruto, who was initially nonchalant about the backlash, eventually conceded and announced on June 27 that he would not sign the bill, according to the BBC. Protesters demonstrate against proposed tax hikes in Kenya in June: A local rapper soundtracked the protests with a song that sampled Lamar. It was an extraordinary victory, but young Kenyans say the fight isnt over. Haunted by the lives lost and the deeper issues rooted in Kenyan democracy, the countrys Gen Z population now want President Ruto removed from office, and theyre prepared to continue to speak out until their government reflects their needs and ideals. In Kenya, politics has always been tribal, Wu says. That was what always used to rally people, but us young people have chosen to be united and tribeless. This is what has empowered us. This is really for the people by the people. All this has caused a real change and has cemented a new era in Kenyan politics. According to Tom Osborn, CEO of the Shamiri Institute, a non-profit organization thats committed to making mental health support accessible in Kenya and around Africa, any new era of politics in the country has to incorporate the nations youth and champion efforts that empower them after years of neglect. Many young Kenyans feel they do not have a fair chance to actualize their life outcomes, Osborn says. He recommends investments in youth development, merit-based access to education and professional opportunities, and addressing the mental health crisis as necessary steps forward in bridging the gap between youth and government. For Gen Z, validation and acknowledgment of their struggles are crucial. Its not just about solving the problems; its about recognizing and empathizing with the hardships they face. The lack of this validation has intensified their feelings of alienation and neglect, Osborn says. Na ni ndo tunavote, na ni si tunachagua, Wu rapped in his defiant track. Its translation? Were the ones who choose, were the ones who vote. Best of Rolling Stone (Bloomberg) -- Most Read from Bloomberg The boom in AI is driving a surge in Taiwanese exports, with the islands companies shipping more than $42 billion worth of graphic processing units and related equipment over the past year, up from almost nothing in recent years. Those exports were worth $3.5 billion last month, up almost 422% from the same period a year ago, according to data released Wednesday by the customs administration. The US was the biggest customer for the chips, made by the likes of Nvidia Corp. and critical to powering graphics and training AI services. Companies in the Netherlands and Hong Kong were also big customers. Total exports in June rose 23.5% to almost $40 billion, the Finance Ministry announced Tuesday. Overall shipments of computers and related hardware jumped 324% to $6.6 billion on robust demand from emerging technology sectors. The ministrys chief statistician Beatrice Tsai said after the release that Taiwan was entering peak season for exports from July and most exports this month would either be flat or better than in June. Taiwan is home to the worlds most-advanced chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the main supplier to Nvidia and Apple Inc. TSMC and its peers, supported by a vast ecosystem of component suppliers, produce the majority of the worlds higher-end semiconductors. Taiwan continues to ride the coattails of the artificial intelligence boom and cyclical tech cycle rebound, which will likely support exports in the coming months, said Gary Ng, a senior economist from Natixis SA. Exports of integrated circuits resumed growth after losing momentum for the past few months. Total shipments in June to the US were up more than 74%, and those to ASEAN also continued to grow significantly, offsetting the impact of decelerating economic growth in China, according to Ng. The spike in GPU shipments is one of the factors driving trade with the US to record highs. More than $9 billion worth of goods were shipped from Taiwan to the US last month, the third-highest month ever and only just behind the record in March. --With assistance from Cindy Wang and Chien-Hua Wan. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Anyone in an abusive relationship who needs help can call the national domestic violence helpline at 800.799.7233. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) Katie Hall says she was trapped in an abusive relationship with her partner, Derek Thebo, who threatened to harm her and their 3-year-old boy, Dylan, if she ever left the relationship. Hall said she contacted police and forwarded audio recordings of abuse and threats, but no charges were ever filed. She said she eventually got the courage to leave, but things didnt get much better. When you leave somebody, the violence doesnt stop there, Hall said. It actually lots of times intensifies once you leave. In September 2021, Thebo shot and killed Dylan before turning the gun on himself. Mom of boy killed by father prompts task force review My sons death couldnt be it, Hall said. Something had to come from it. Even if it was too late for our family, it wasnt for multiple other people in the same situation. The murder-suicide prompted a task force, the Kent County Domestic Violence Community Coordinated Response Team, to study what systemic changes can be made to more effectively respond to domestic violence. That team eventually became the Domestic Violence Action Network, which is comprised of survivors, law enforcement leaders, prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims advocates and treatment providers. As more lives are lost to domestic violence, Kent Countys justice system is now changing its approach toward both abusers and survivors. The Domestic Violence Action Network announced Wednesday that Kent County is officially launching a specialty domestic violence court. Health epidemic: Domestic violence cases up If were able to start saving lives, the court will more than pay for itself, Hall said. Domestic violence homicide cases and near-homicides have increased over the last few years in Kent County, the group said. Rachel VerWys, the chief executive officer for Safe Haven Ministries, a nonprofit supporting survivors, said the launch of the domestic violence court marks the beginning of a new reality in Kent County. We as a community need to acknowledge we have an epidemic of violence in our community, VerWys said. And a lot of that intersects in domestic situations. We can do better. A few years ago, the Kent County Board of Commissioners dedicated $4 million in ARPA funding for the program. Stan Stek, the boards chair, said they reviewed hundreds of proposals before deciding on the domestic violence court. These efforts will make significant transformational differences in how we address domestic violence, how we can reduce recurrence of domestic violence and to provide critical support for victims of domestic violence in Kent County, Stek said. After years of planning, the court will start within weeks. One location in downtown Grand Rapids will be run by District Court Judge Jennifer Faber. The other in Kentwood will be managed by District Court Judge Amanda Sterkenburg. Mother of murdered boy leads push for change Each judge will oversee up to 25 domestic violence cases. The court is aimed to support survivors every step of the way and hold abusers accountable while giving them the chance to change. It is hands-on acknowledgement and accountability for someone who might otherwise skate through a probation sentence by doing the bare minimum, Sterkenburg said Wednesday. Thats not an option in a specialty court. The demands and the rigors are high, and thats because we want success. Heres how it works. When someone is facing severe domestic violence charges, a judge, defense attorney or court employee can recommend them for the specialty court. They will be checked for legal eligibility, how likely the domestic violence situation could turn deadly and if theyre the right fit. Game changer: Kent County to create domestic violence court Before the program begins, the individuals will go through evaluations for substance abuse and mental health. They will then begin the 52-week Batterer Intervention Program. Its longer and more intensive than typical probation. Domestic violence offenders will meet face-to-face with the judge twice a month and receive counseling and education, among other meetings. The certified therapeutic providers will aim to identify the reasons for the offenders violent behavior. If perpetrators dont comply with the treatment program, they could receive more assignments, community service and even jail time. Survivors talk with victims advocates and therapists and can receive financial assistance with new housing or childcare. The entire program is expected to last between 18 and 24 months. The goal is to change an abusers behavior for good and stop the cycle of abuse in families. Rather than being a punishment if you will, this court model really does seek to identify the root cause of violent behavior and treat the root cause to really provide the opportunity for behavior change, said Cheri Williams, the executive director of the Domestic Violence Action Network. Hall said the special attention from judges can help survivors. With a dedicated court, people are better trained to see the coerce of control like in our situation and understand what domestic violence looks like, Hall said. Its not just physical abuse. Post-separation abuse is a real thing. The court was originally set to launch last year. Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said the timeline was delayed because of the vast amount of planning required to make the program happen. Task force: Systems need better understanding of domestic violence lethality factors While these courts take more time and energy and money to get going, in the long run the community, the victims and even the perpetrators are far better served by these processes, Stek said. The ARPA money will support the program through the end of 2026. Organizers are already working on securing funding to keep the court going past then. People will start getting referred to the domestic violence court July 29. The Domestic Violence Action Network meets every month. VerWys encouraged people to come join the meetings. Those interested in getting involved can visit the Kent County Domestic Violence Action Network website. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. Kentucky native, actor George Clooney calls for Joe Biden to step aside in campaign Kentuckys most famous native son has joined the nations hottest discussion: President Joe Bidens place on this years Democratic ticket. And actor George Clooneys message to Biden is clear: step aside. I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time, Clooney wrote in a New York Times oped, echoing concerns others have raised about the presidents age in the wake of a disastrous debate performance. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president, he wrote. The Lexington-born actors opinion is shared by many elected officials in private, he said. That includes every senator and congress member and governor that hes spoken to. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshears team has not responded to an inquiry on whether or not he has spoken to Clooney on the matter. Beshears own name has been bandied about for replacing Biden on the ticket or as a vice presidential nominee alongside current Vice President Kamala Harris. Clooney mentioned the governor when listing off potential candidates for Democrats to choose from leading up to next months Democratic National Convention. Lets hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others. Lets agree that the candidates not attack one another but, in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar, Clooney wrote. While Clooney is known best for his roles in blockbuster films like Oceans Eleven, Gravity, O Brother, Where Art Thou, hes also a powerhouse fundraiser for Democratic candidates. Hes served as a nexus for Hollywood money going to progressive and Democratic politicians dating back to former president Barack Obamas 2012 re-election bid. Last month, he co-hosted the most lucrative fundraiser for a Democratic candidate ever, raising more than $28 million for Bidens re-election. Now, Clooney favors transferring that money to another candidate. Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024. The actor drew on his personal interactions with the president at the recent fundraiser to illustrate his point on Bidens age. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate, Clooney wrote. In response to the oped, former Obama strategist David Axelrod called Clooneys oped devastating during an appearance on CNN. My friend George Clooney has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying. We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside. Rob Reiner (@robreiner) July 10, 2024 Clooneys call was backed up by a number of Hollywood donors, including Rob Reiner, whose directorial credits include 1980s hits like Stand By Me and When Harry Met Sally. Reiner, a longtime financial supporter of Democrats, was at a debate night party in Los Angeles also attended by Beshear. My friend George Clooney has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying. We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside, Reiner posted to X. Who Killed Ahsan Payton? 6-Year-Old Boy Was Fatally Shot at Fourth of July Party, Suspect at Large "It is unacceptable that our neighborhoods, our celebrations, and our very homes are not safe from the threat of firearms," said Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks Prince George's County Police Department Police in Maryland are searching for a suspect after a Fourth of July shooting left a 6-year-old child dead. The Prince George County Police Department in Maryland announced it is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for anyone with information on who opened fire on a holiday gathering in Temple Hills, leaving 6-year-old Ahsan Payton dead and two others injured. Police say the shooting occurred around 7:50 p.m. on Thursday, July 4, during a neighborhood gathering in the 4500 block of Akron Street. Police said Payton was located suffering from a gunshot wound and he was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. Police did not say where the child had been shot, but noted that Payton eventually succumbed to his injuries and died on Saturday, July 6. Two other adults who attended the gathering were also injured, including a man who had non-life-threatening injuries and a woman who was treated at the scene for a graze wound, police said. Police said as of Monday, July 8, no arrests had been made in the case. WJLA reported that police officials were looking for two potential suspects. Aisha Braveboy, the state attorney for Prince Georges County, told NBC News 4 Washington: We will be charging them once they are identified with the maximum charges and seeking the maximum penalties." 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. "It is unacceptable that our neighborhoods, our celebrations, and our very homes are not safe from the threat of firearms," Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks told WJLA in a statement. We remain committed to our efforts to remove illegal guns from our streets and protect our Prince Georgians from such tragedies. Every resident has the right to live in peace and safety." Video obtained by the outlet reportedly showed leftover fireworks and trash left on the ground where the shooting occurred. A bullet was also found lodged inside a wall of a couples home after it went through a window, though the couple said they werent injured, per NBC News 4 Washington. Police ask that anyone with information contact homicide unit detectives at 301-516-2512. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. As President Joe Biden faces continuing questions about his ability to run for and serve out a second term in the White House in the wake of his calamitous debate performance, several of Iowas top Democrats are standing behind him. I believe that Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy and to our countrys future and believe that a Democratic president is what we need to keep this country together and to start moving forward, said House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights. Right now, our nominee is Joe Biden, and if hes the nominee in November, hes who I will support. The questions arose immediately after Biden, 81, stumbled through his first televised presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle against Donald Trump, 78, late last month. Former President Donald Trump debates President Joe Biden on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. And in the weeks following, members of his own party have questioned whether Biden should step aside, even as the president has repeatedly emphasized that he intends to remain in the race. More: Democrats sound like they're going to back Joe Biden but concerns haven't vanished Prominent Iowa Democrat and former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin was among those suggesting Biden should release his delegates and step aside ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August. But so far, other Democratic leaders in Iowa have stopped short of calling on Biden to end his candidacy. Senate Minority Leader Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, endorsed Biden ahead of the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses. She said Americans should judge the president on his policies and what hes done in office, rather than by a single debate performance. "It really is up to Joe Biden. The ball is in his court to make that final decision," Jochum said, adding that the Democratic Party needs to come together and refocus its attention on contrasting Biden's accomplishments with Trump's record. State Auditor Rob Sand, the only Iowa Democrat in statewide office, did not return a request for comment. In a statement, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart acknowledged the concerns about Bidens performance but said the real threat is from Donald Trump. President Biden understands the concerns and is taking the steps to address them, she said. Hes reminding everyone about his three and a half years of accomplishments capping the price of insulin at $35, creating 15 million new jobs, and rebuilding our nations infrastructure. We know how real the threat is from Donald Trump and those behind Project 2025 who want to ban abortion, take away freedoms, cut social security and roll back Medicare. We have to win this year and Joe Biden has already defeated Donald Trump once." Project 2025 is a far-reaching effort created by The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, which provides a 180-day transition plan for Trumps presidency. Among other things, the agenda calls for the repeal of portions of the Affordable Care Act, urges the Food and Drug Administration to reverse the approval of abortion pills, and further empowers Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport undocumented immigrants. On his social media site, Truth Social, Trump has denied knowing anything about Project 2025 and said he has nothing to do with them. Other Iowa Democrats who are set to attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month were also supportive of Biden. State Rep. Adam Zabner, D-Iowa City, is a delegate to the convention and said that while the debate was certainly not (Bidens) best moment, he is running on three and a half years of a really successful presidency. I'm the youngest member of the Legislature. I represent the youngest district, Zabner said. And I think it's pretty clear that we have two old men running for president. I think the difference is that while Donald Trump is focused on his own past, his legal troubles, things like that, Joe Biden is a future-oriented president, and he's been making the largest investment in the history of the world in climate change, making investments in our country's infrastructure, and he's performed really well. State Rep. Adam Zabner, D-Iowa City Trump has been convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records for paying hush money to a porn star, and he is the first former president to be convicted of a crime. Republicans are set to nominate him for president at their own convention in Milwaukee next week. Mary McAdams, an Ankeny Democrat, will serve as an alternate delegate at the Democratic convention. She said the debate wasnt what I expected, and she believes Biden over-prepared. Still, she says, he has the moral compass that Im seeking. I strongly support President Biden, she said. I know Biden's heart, and I know who he is, and he's a strong, good leader, and he's got good people around him. And Trump is a felon. He's been (found liable) for sexual assault. And that's not who we want. That's not who I want. That's not who I will support at all." A civil jury in 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. A federal judge denied Trump's request for a new trial earlier this year, and he has been ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million. State Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, will also head to the convention as a delegate and previously told the Des Moines Register he doesn't believe Biden should withdraw his candidacy. I dont think it was his best performance, but I still prefer him over the alternative without a doubt, he said. "This is where were at, and right now, were in a crisis." USA TODAY contributed to this report. Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register. She is also covering the 2024 presidential race for USA TODAY as a senior national campaign correspondent. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on Twitter at @brianneDMR. Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa Democrats stand behind Biden amid presidential debate fallout What we know about Priya Tahiliani: The person who's Brockton's new interim superintendent BROCKTON Priya Tahiliani will take over as the interim superintendent of Brockton Public Schools next year, replacing Acting Superintendent James Cobbs, school committee members voted Tuesday evening. In a 7-1 vote, the Brockton School Committee selected Tahiliani, who most recently worked as superintendent of Everett Public Schools, over the other finalist, Jannell D. Pearson-Campbell. "You sold me in the first interview," said Tony Rodrigues, Ward 4 school committee representative and one of four members of the subcommittee that recommended the two finalists. "I think you're going to be that voice for this community," he said. Prita Tahiliani was selected to be the new interim superintendent of Brockton Public Schools, replacing Acting Superintendent James Cobbs, at school committee meeting on Tuesday, July 10, 2024. Rodrigues and committee members Jorge Vega, Ana Oliver and Mayor Robert F. Sullivan interviewed five initial candidates for the position out of 15 applicants, and put forward the two finalists to be interviewed by the full committee for final selection. Committee members were impressed with Tahiliani's previous experience crafting and managing school budgets. She brought in the budget book for Everett, which the mayor called "fantastic." LAWSUIT WITH EVERETT: Interim Brockton Superintendent Priya Tahiliani suing former district over racism, sexism Sullivan said Tahiliani will "help bring us to the next level." "I feel incredibly honored to be here," Tahiliani said. "I'm excited to be a part of the team." Jannell D. Pearson-Campbell interviews as a finalist for interim superintendent of Brockton Public Schools on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. Who is Priya Tahiliani? Tahiliani grew up attending public school in Memphis. As a kid, although she was born in the United States, she didn't know English. "We didn't really have ESL in the early 80s in Memphis, Tennessee," Tahiliani said. Despite the challenges, Tahiliani said her teachers helped her succeed and inspired her to enter education. She worked as a teacher for 15 years, starting as an English language arts teacher at Edwards Middle School in Charlestown, and eventually became the assistant superintendent for the Office of English Learners at Boston Public Schools. "I had teachers that really just went above and beyond to make sure I was supported and that is why I got into education," she said. Brockton is seeing a major increase in the number of multilingual students and English language learners across the district, and her personal experience as an English learner helped put Tahiliani over the top. "That's going to bring that diversification in, that knowledge and that background to the city of Brockton," said Rodrigues. Prita Tahiliani was selected to be the new interim superintendent of Brockton Public Schools, replacing Acting Superintendent James Cobbs, at school committee meeting on Tuesday, July 10, 2024. Previous investigation and ongoing lawsuits While working as superintendent for Everett Public Schools, an independent investigation was conducted following allegations that Tahiliani bullied and intimidated her staff, according to reporting from WGBH. In June, Tahiliani's lawyers announced the investigation found no evidence of bullying or favoritism within her office, but the results of the investigation was never released publicly by the school committee, WGBH reported. In addition, Tahiliani is currently involved in a lawsuit against the city of Everett and the Everett School Committee. In March of 2023, Tahiliani and her Deputy Superintendent Kim Tsai sued committee members and Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria over allegations of racism and discrimination during their tenure. The lawsuit outlines allegations of racism and sexism towards Tahiliani and Tsai from the committee members and DeMaria. The two women also filed a lawsuit against Boston Public Schools that was dismissed in 2020 alleging that they didn't receive equal pay compared to their male colleagues while working as directors in the Office of English Language Learners, according to reporting from The Boston Globe. Why is Brockton bringing in new superintendent? In May, the school committee elected to search for an interim superintendent to help bring stability to the district. Cobbs stepped in from his role as deputy superintendent of operations in September after BPS Superintendent Mike Thomas was placed on paid administrative leave as the district continues to investigate a bombshell $18 million budget deficit from 2023. Thomas signed a five-and-a-half-year contract with BPS in 2021 that runs until June 30, 2027. Was Cobbs an applicant for interim job? It's unclear if Cobbs was one of the applicants for the interim job. But with Tahiliani's appointment, Cobbs will return to his position as deputy superintendent of operations. Sullivan and Rodrigues, along with the district's legal team and human resources department, will start negotiating a contract with Tahiliani that will last either one or two years. The whole committee will review the draft contract and vote to finalize it before school starts in September. Tahiliani's budget building background Nine days into Tahiliani's tenure as Everett superintendent, the school district shut down due to the pandemic, and she was informed that the schools' budget would be cut by $5 million the following year. Tahiliani and her team were able to cut out "redundancies" in the existing budget to make room for the $5 million slash without cutting any teachers, she said. "I was very proud of that process," she said. While at Everett, Tahiliani said she implemented a structure for monitoring how school departments were spending their portion of the budget to make sure it aligned with the district's strategic plan. She also held regular budget check-in meetings with department heads to ensure transparency around spending. Tahiliani worked with Open Architects, the data analysis firm that partnered with BPS to investigate its budget overspending from 2023, to create an analysis process to track enrollment and staffing data in the district. "I feel very experienced in working in the budget process," she said. "It was very important to make sure that everybody was part of the process." This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Who is Priya Tahiliani: Brockton schools' new interim superintendent? No disagreements between Putin and Modi at Moscow meeting, India and Russia say MOSCOW (Reuters) -Both India and Russia on Wednesday denied there had been any disagreement between President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at their talks in Moscow this week. Modi delivered an implicit rebuke to Putin on Tuesday, the day after a lethal strike on a children's hospital in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, when he told him the death of innocent children was painful and terrifying. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters a decision to cancel a session of talks between Russian and Indian delegations was taken for scheduling reasons and because the entire agenda had been covered. "This has absolutely nothing to do with any disagreements or problematic situations," he said. India's Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra denied reports of friction between the two leaders, saying they were incorrect and misleading. He also denied there were any cancellations during the visit, saying the two leaders "far exceeded" the time planned for their meetings. "To the best of my knowledge there were no cancellations of any particular programming element during the prime minister's visit to Moscow," Kwatra said at a press briefing in Vienna. "Whether it is war, conflict or a terrorist attack, any person who believes in humanity is pained when there is loss of lives," Modi said in Moscow on Tuesday, in remarks made during a meeting with Putin. (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Chris Reese) Kroger and Albertsons reveal list of grocery stores at risk of sale under merger Kroger and Albertsons reveal list of grocery stores at risk of sale under merger Supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons have released a list of nearly 600 stores they would sell if they are cleared for their $24.6bn merger. The chains offered in April to sell 579 stores in communities that have overlapping Kroger and Albertsons markets to C&S Wholesale Grocers for $2.9bn. In addition to the stores, Kroger and Albertsons have also agreed to sell six warehouse depots and a diary plant in Denver to C&S. The stores agreed to the sale as an anti-trust measure required by federal regulators overseeing the companies' proposed merger. Kroger and Albertsons operate nearly 5,000 stores in the US. In addition to its Kroger stores, the company also operates Ralphs and Harris Teeter stores, while Albertsons operates its own stores plus Safeway, Acme, and Jewel-Osco stores. The US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the companies' merger in February, citing the potential for the proposed mega-grocer to drive up prices for groceries and reduce wages for store workers. A Kroger location in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kroger and Albertsons have agreed to sell nearly 600 stores to appease regulators ahead of a proposed merger (Getty Images) Kroger and Albertsons initially offered to sell off 413 stores to C&S Wholesale, but regulators refused that deal, arguing that it would have left C&S with a smattering of stores in isolated markets and that it would have little impact on curbing the dominance of the Kroger-Albertsons entity. The companies then suggested adding an additional 166 stores, six distribution centers, and a diary plant to sweeten the deal. The states where the most stores will be sold are Washington, with 124 stores, Arizona with 101, Colorado with 91, and California with 63. The new plan also hands over the Haggen store brand name to C&S Wholesale, and gives C&S the Albertsons brand name in Arizona and Colorado. Under the proposed deal, C&S would continue to operate all of the stores sold and honor any existing labor agreements at the grocers. Regulators have not announced if they plan to accept the deal. Kroger and Albertsons have argued the merger is necessary for them to compete with mega-retailers like Walmart and Amazon. While the companies wait on a decision from the FTC, a coalition of United Food & Commercial Workers local unions which represent grocery workers has continued to oppose the merger. Today's announcement changes nothing," the unions said in a statement. "We remain focused on stopping the proposed mega-merger for the same reasons we have stated since it was first announced over 20 months ago - because we know it would harm workers, it would harm shoppers, it would harm suppliers and communities, and it is illegal." Ukraine controls the situation near the village of Yasnobrodivka in Donetsk Oblast, Lieutenant Colonel Nazar Voloshyn, the spokesperson of the Khortytsia group of forces, told the Kyiv Independent on July 10. The statement comes after the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on July 9 that its forces had captured Yasnobrodivka, a front-line village located some 45 kilometers (27 miles) from the town of Pokrovsk. Voloshyn dismissed these claims, saying, "This is another Russian lie. Defense forces control the situation near this village." Moscow's forces lost some 274 soldiers killed and injured in this sector, according to Voloshyn. Ukraine also reportedly destroyed two cannons, a mortar, and eight vehicles and damaged other equipment. The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims. Russia is carrying out intense attacks in multiple sections of the eastern front, including in Donetsk Oblast, after it captured the city of Avdiivka in February. Earlier in July, Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the Kanal neighborhood of the embattled town of Chasiv Yar in the region. Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi said on July 2 that fighting had been particularly intense in recent weeks around the town of Toretsk, located some 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of Chasiv Yar. Read also: What Ukraines partial Chasiv Yar withdrawal actually means Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Some L.A. County supervisors say proposed expansion of the board is rushed A plan to reshape Los Angeles County government inched closer to the November ballot Tuesday, despite concerns from a minority of supervisors that the overhaul was rushed and haphazard. In an unusually testy meeting, the supervisors voted 3 to 0 to direct county lawyers to draft an amendment to the county charter that would nearly double the size of the five-member Board of Supervisors and create an elected position to oversee day-to-day operations. Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Holly Mitchell, who critiqued parts of the plan throughout the meeting, abstained from voting. Supervisor Hilda Solis cast the decisive yes vote, joining the plans authors, Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn, in moving it forward. Horvath and Hahn have said their aim is to make the government structure fundamentally unchanged for over a century more responsive to the countys 10 million residents. Each of the five supervisors oversees a district of about 2 million people. In 1912, when voters first adopted a charter, the ratio was one supervisor for every 50,000 people. Ive always been of the opinion that we do need to have more representation, Solis said. Under the proposed charter amendment, the number of supervisors would increase to nine. The county chief executive, who oversees the budget and manages daily operations, would be elected by voters rather than appointed by the board. And the county would create an independent ethics commission to investigate corruption. The amendment must come back to the board twice more for votes before appearing on the November ballot. Barger and Mitchell delivered a series of pointed questions to their colleagues and two experts. Why nine supervisors and not seven or 15? Could a study be done to determine the right number? Would having an elected executive turn the position partisan? What would it take to fund the overhaul? Ive got questions, Mitchell said. "I just think theres too much at risk for us to take a bite of the apple thats not absolutely ideal. Barger unleashed some of the most biting criticism, saying she felt that county supervisors were plagued not by structural issues but rather by paralyzing indecision. She pointed to the long delays in closing Mens Central Jail, a dilapidated facility that supervisors voted to shut down years ago. The problem there, she said at the meeting, was that the supervisors had no will to make the tough decision on what should replace it. Both Barger and Mitchell also critiqued the process of formulating the ballot measure, which burst into public view last week with a news conference. Barger said she felt her colleagues had excluded Mitchell, who had brought forward two plans early last year one successful , one not to improve county government structure. This process was anything but transparent as it relates to how this was rolled out, Barger said. It was an unusually contentious meeting from supervisors who, at least publicly, like to agree or disagree in the most gentle of terms. Youre really upset about this, said Hahn, noting that she and Barger are usually aligned. I feel it. Horvath and the experts she and Hahn had invited sought to alleviate some of the concerns, saying the proposal, while not a panacea, would probably make the government more responsive. Fernando Guerra, director for the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, told the supervisors he had never heard of a jurisdiction with 10 million people not having an elected executive. It might not be perfect, and it might not meet the needs of all five members, but I maintain that this is the right thing to do, Horvath told her colleagues. Under the plan, the nine-supervisor structure would not start until 2032, following a redistricting process, which could give some racial and ethnic groups new political prominence, notably those in the often-overlooked unincorporated parts of the county. Pomona College politics professor Sara Sadhwani, who served on the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, noted to the board that Rowland Heights and Hacienda Heights have large Asian American populations, while East Los Angeles has a significant Latino community, which could form powerful voting blocs depending on how the lines are drawn. There has never been an Asian American county supervisor, and Solis is the only Latina on the all-female board, in a county that is nearly 50% Latino. These districts are so large that we have incredible dilution of various communities of color, Sadhwani said. Horvaths office said the plan is for the final two votes on the charter amendment language to take place July 23 and Aug. 6. The final board vote would have to happen before Aug. 9 for the amendment to make the November ballot. 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. One firefighter was hospitalized and three others received medical care while battling a blaze at a one-story church in the San Fernando Valley Tuesday where ambient temperatures reached 105 degrees, authorities confirmed to KTLA. Crews with the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to reports of the structure fire at 1525 Glenoaks Blvd., near Harding Avenue in San Fernando just before 1 p.m., according to an LAFD news release. At the scene, firefighters worked to access hard-to-reach spaces and snuff out flames inside the attic of the approximately 7,000-square-foot church. Holes were cut in the decking of the rooftop, which had been under construction, so that crews could get streams of water into the attic. L.A. fire crews on the scene of a one-story church fire on July 8, 2024. (KTLA) L.A. fire crews on the scene of a one-story church fire on July 8, 2024. (KTLA) L.A. fire crews on the scene of a one-story church fire on July 8, 2024. (KTLA) L.A. fire crews on the scene of a one-story church fire on July 8, 2024. (KTLA) L.A. fire crews on the scene of a one-story church fire on July 8, 2024. (KTLA) L.A. fire crews on the scene of a one-story church fire on July 8, 2024. (KTLA) L.A. fire crews on the scene of a one-story church fire on July 8, 2024. (KTLA) L.A. fire crews on the scene of a one-story church fire on July 8, 2024. (KTLA) L.A. fire crews on the scene of a one-story church fire on July 8, 2024. (KTLA) Aerial footage of the blaze captured by Sky5 showed crews working on the church roof in heavy smoke while flames were seen coming from the attic. Nearby, rolls of rubber roofing material, which is typically sealed onto flat rooftops using a blowtorch, could be seen. Fire officials said an unknown number of people inside the building evacuated safely prior to LAFDs arrival. DUI suspect in custody after plowing into family of 5 in Orange County During the incident, four firefighters sought medical help from on-scene paramedics due to heat-related illness, LAFD said. Three of them rested and recovered on scene and then continued working, and one was transported to a local hospital for further evaluation and care. It took more than 100 firefighters just over 2 hours to knock the blaze down. The preliminary cause of the blaze, according to LAFD, appears to be rooftop construction, though the official cause remains under investigation. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. L.A. robber stole Rolex, got no-prison deal from D.A. Now he's accused of killing tourist at mall The alleged leader of an armed robbery crew charged with killing a New Zealand tourist last week outside Newport Beach's Fashion Island mall had been placed on probation for stealing a Rolex at gunpoint in Santa Monica. He avoided prison time in that case after Los Angeles County prosecutors agreed to a three-year suspended sentence, according to interviews and records reviewed by The Times. Leroy Ernest McCrary, 26, now faces a special circumstances murder charge that could carry the death penalty after authorities allege he ran over Patricia "Trish" McKay, 68, during a July 2 robbery attempt. Orange County prosecutors say McCrary and two other men targeted McKay's husband, former chair of the Bank of New Zealand Douglas McKay, for his high-end watch. McCrary and the other defendants have not yet entered pleas, and their attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment. The Fashion Island slaying is renewing interest in the 2022 Rolex theft. Santa Monica Police Lt. Erika Aklufi said surveillance video in that case showed McCrary putting a handgun to the head of a man on Broadway. He and an accomplice demanded the man's watch, she said. McCrarys DNA also was recovered from the victims shirt, which he'd grabbed during the robbery, police said. Prosecutors charged McCrary, who had been arrested by L.A. police a month later, and Donta Baker with robbery in the Santa Monica case based on the DNA evidence, according to court records reviewed by The Times. Newport Beach police officers cross behind crime scene tape outside Fashion Island after a New Zealand woman was killed during an attempted robbery. (Susan Hoffman) Before that, McCrary had been convicted in a 2020 case of making criminal threats, a felony. Prosecutors agreed to a plea deal that spared him prison time in the Santa Monica case, court records show. McCrary pleaded no contest on April 26, 2023, to one count of robbery and was sentenced by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Cathryn Brougham to three years. But Brougham suspended the sentence and placed McCrary on two years probation. She also ordered him to complete 200 hours of community service. McCrarys suspended sentence ran concurrent to another suspended sentence for a conviction for possessing a gun as a felon in a separate case the LAPD investigated. Brougham ordered a probation report be completed before McCrary's sentencing. But courthouse clerks could find no report when The Times requested it. Such reports usually give a recommendation on sentencing and the defendant's suitability for probation. McCrary's co-defendant pleaded no contest to receiving stolen property in exchange for prosecutors dropping the robbery count. Baker, who had three prior felony convictions for grand theft, possessing a gun as a felon and escaping from custody, was also sentenced to two years probation. Read more: L.A. crew targeted prominent New Zealand couple at Newport mall, ending in killing, D.A. says Los Angeles County prosecutors defended their handling of the Santa Monica case, which officials several days ago said "had significant problems with proof." A spokesperson in the district attorney's office said an inability to identify the defendant in the surveillance video hampered the case. Two witnesses were unable to identify the suspects, the spokesperson said, noting that the robber's face was not shown in the video because he was wearing a mask. She also said that prosecutors were unable to identify the item in the suspects hands, and that a confirmatory DNA test was never conducted on the robbery victim's shirt, which called into question its accuracy. "As a result of these issues, the management team ... authorized a plea offer that allowed [him] to be placed on probation with a suspended state prison sentence," the district attorney's office said in a statement. Legal expert Louis Shapiro, a defense attorney not involved in the case, said to be admissible in California, a confirmatory DNA test is required to show the probability that the results are reliable. Still, he said, the fact that Santa Monica police had DNA made the robbery case stronger than most. "It is very rare to pull DNA in a robbery case" before the trial stage, Shapiro said. "Quite frankly, the office usually gets that kind of confirmation down the road." Dmitry Gorin, a former prosecutor, said confirmatory DNA testing in a criminal case is a basic part of preparing for trial and does not mean that a case has problems of proof. Cody Green, president of the Santa Monica Police Officers Assn., said that investigators had plenty of time to get a confirmatory DNA test and that the plea deal was made before any preliminary hearings were conducted. "This case was as solid a case as they come," Green said. Detractors of L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascon say the case's handling is further evidence of the mismanagement of the nations largest prosecutors office. Gascons opponent in the November election, Nathan Hochman, said the district attorney's "malpractice appears to have cost another life." In the Newport Beach case, Orange County prosecutors say McCrary, Malachi Eddward Darnell, 18, of Los Angeles and Jaden Cunningham, 18, of Lancaster targeted the McKays, who had just left the upscale Fashion Island mall. Three suspects pulled up to the McKays in a white Toyota Camry. Two masked robbers jumped out, with one putting a gun to the New Zealand businessman's head and demanding his watch, authorities said. A third assailant dragged Trish McKay into the street while trying to wrest shopping bags away from her. By then, the Camry was moving forward. Doug McKay jumped in front of the vehicle to try to save his wife. But authorities say the driver identified by police as McCrary ran over the woman and dragged her to her death. 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. Independent Los Angeles school district investigators have opened an inquiry into claims that its $6 million AI chatbot an animated sun named Ed celebrated as an unprecedented learning acceleration tool until the company that built it collapsed and the district was forced to pull the plug put students personal information in peril. Investigators with the Los Angeles Unified School Districts inspector generals office conducted a video interview with Chris Whiteley, the former senior director of software engineering at AllHere, after he told The 74 his former employers student data security practices violated both industry standards and the districts own policies. Whiteley told The 74 he had alerted the school district, the IGs office and state education officials earlier to the data privacy problems with Ed but got no response. His meeting with investigators occurred July 2, one day after The 74 published its story outlining Whiteleys allegations, including that the chatbot put students personally identifiable information at risk of getting hacked by including it in all chatbot prompts, even in those where the data werent relevant; sharing it with other third-party companies unnecessarily and processing prompts on offshore servers in violation of district student privacy rules. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter In an interview with The 74 this week, Whiteley said the officials from the districts inspector generals office were definitely interested in what I had to say, as speculation swirls about the future of Ed, its ed tech creator AllHere and broader education investments in artificial intelligence. It felt like they were after the truth, Whiteley said, adding, Im certain that they were surprised about how bad [students personal information] was being handled. To generate responses to even mundane prompts, Whiteley said, the chatbot processed the personal information for all students in a household. If a mother with 10 children asked the chatbot a question about her youngest sons class schedule, for example, the tool processed data about all of her children to generate a response. Its just sad and crazy, he said. The inspector generals office directed The 74s request for comment to a district spokesperson, who declined to comment or respond to questions involving the inquiry. While the conversation centered primarily on technical aspects related to the companys data security protocols, Whiteley said investigators probed him on his personal experiences with AllHere, which he described as being abusive, and its finances. Whiteley was laid off from AllHere in April. Two months later, a notice posted to the companys website said a majority of its 50 or so employees had been furloughed due to its current financial position and the LAUSD spokesperson said company co-founder and CEO Joanna Smith-Griffin had left. The former Boston teacher and Harvard graduate was successful in raising $12 million in venture capital for AllHere and appeared with L.A. schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho at ed tech conferences and other events throughout the spring touting the heavily publicized AI tool they partnered to create. Related Whistleblower: L.A. Schools Chatbot Misused Student Data as Tech Co. Crumbled Just weeks ago, Carvalho spoke publicly about how the project had put L.A. out in front as school districts and ed tech companies nationally race to follow the lead of generative artificial intelligence pioneers like ChatGPT. But the school chiefs superlative language around what Ed could do on an individualized basis with 540,000 students had some industry observers and AI experts speculating it was destined to fail. The chatbot was supposed to serve as a friendly, concise customer support agent that replied using simple language a third grader could understand to help students and parents supplement classroom instruction, find assistance with kids academic struggles and navigate attendance, grades, transportation and other key issues. What they were given, Whiteley charges, was a student privacy nightmare. Smith-Griffin recently deactivated her LinkedIn page and has not surfaced since her company went into apparent free fall. Attempts to reach AllHere for comment were unsuccessful and parts of the company website have gone dark. LAUSD said earlier that AllHere is for sale and that several companies are interested in acquiring it. The district has already paid AllHere $3 million to build the chatbot and a fully-integrated portal that gave students and parents access to information and resources in a single location, the district spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday, and was surprised by the financial disruption to AllHere. Related Was Los Angeles Schools $6 Million AI Venture a Disaster Waiting to Happen? AllHeres collapse represents a stunning fall from grace for a company that was named among the worlds top education technology companies by Time Magazine just months earlier. Scrutiny of AllHere intensified when Whiteley became a whistleblower. He said he turned to the press because his concerns, which he shared first with AllHere executives and the school district, had been ignored. Whitely shared source code with The 74 which showed that students information had been processed on offshore servers. Seven out of eight Ed chatbot requests, he said, were sent to places like Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Australia and Canada. How are smaller districts going to do this? What district leaders failed to do as they heralded their new tool, Whiteley said, is conduct sufficient audits. As L.A. and school systems nationwide contract with a laundry list of tech vendors, he said its imperative that they understand how third-party companies use students information. If the second-biggest district cant audit their [personally identifiable information] on new or interesting products and cant do security audits on external sources, how are smaller districts going to do this? he asked. Over the last several weeks, the districts official position on Ed has appeared to shift. In late June when the district spokesperson said that several companies were interested in acquiring Allhere, they also said its predecessor would continue to provide this first-of-its-kind resource to our students and families. In its initial response to Whiteleys allegations published July 1, the spokesperson said that education officials would take any steps necessary to ensure that appropriate privacy and security protections are in place in the Ed platform. In a story two days later in the Los Angeles Times, a district spokesperson said the chatbot had been unplugged on June 14. The 74 asked the spokesperson to provide documentation showing the tool was disabled last month but didnt get a response. Even after June 14, Carvalho continued to boast publicly about LAUSDs foray into generative AI and what he described as its stringent data privacy requirements with third-party vendors. On Tuesday, the district spokesperson told The 74 that the online portal even without a chatty, animated sun will continue regardless of the outcome with AllHere. In fact, the project could become a source of district revenue. Under the contract between AllHere and LAUSD, which was obtained by The 74, the chatbot is the property of the school district, which was set to receive 2% in royalty payments from AllHere should other school districts seek to use the tool to benefit their families and students. In the statement Tuesday, the district spokesperson said that officials chose to temporarily disable the chatbot amid AllHeres uncertainty and that it would only be restored when the human-in-the-loop aspect is re-established. Whiteley agreed that the district could maintain the student information dashboard without the chatbot and, similarly, that another firm could buy what remains of AllHere. He was skeptical, however, that Ed the chatbot would live another day because its broken The name AllHere, he said, I think is dead. Steve Reed, Environment Secretary, will demand that water bosses set up customer panels to scrutinise mistakes - Anadolu Households are to get higher compensation for sewage failures and the power to hold executives to account as the Government launches a crackdown on the water industry. Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, is to tell bosses they must set up customer panels that can scrutinise mistakes, and demand they strengthen their legal commitments to protect the environment. It comes as regulator Ofwat prepares to rule on whether companies can increase customer bills by as much as 300 per year, as the industry seeks to steady its finances and invest in upgrading infrastructure. Ofwats decision will be announced on Thursday morning. Mr Reed will then meet executives in Whitehall to lay out his plans. The amount of compensation to be paid to customers for water outages and other problems will be doubled to around 50 under the proposals. The trigger for compensation will also be widened to include so-called boil notices when water is unsafe to drink. New customer panels will be rolled out to help bill payers hold company bosses to account, and companies will be forced to change their articles of association to make the interests of customers and the environment a primary objective. Mr Reed said: We will never look the other way while water companies pump sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas. This unacceptable destruction of our waterways should never have been allowed, but change has now begun so it can never happen again. Today I have announced significant steps to clean up the water industry, to cut sewage pollution, protect customers and attract investment to upgrade its crumbling infrastructure. That change will take time. Over the coming weeks and months, this government will outline further steps to reform the water sector and restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health. It comes as Ofwat prepares to deliver a draft verdict on business plans put forward by Britains 16 water companies, all of which are seeking to increase bills between 2025 and 2030. On average, annual bills could rise by a third under proposals submitted by suppliers, soaring from 440 to 584 a year. Ofwat could accept the proposals, or only allow companies to increase prices by a smaller amount. Southern Water, which supplies customers in Hampshire, Sussex and Kent, is proposing the steepest increase with a rise of 73pc. If approved, this would increase annual bills from 420 to 726, leaving Southern with the highest bills in the country. Southern Water is majority-owned by Macquarie, Australian investment bank, which has come under fire for its previous role running Thames Water. It has said bills must go up to fund new investment amid problems linked to water scarcity and climate change. The regulators draft determination sets limits on how much companies can charge customers, which impacts their investment between 2025 and 2030. Water companies say they need to increase bills in order to spend 100bn in upgrading leaky pipes and crumbling sewers. Thames Water, Britains largest water company with 16 million customers, wants bills to rise by 44pc to 627 per year. The embattled company is facing a funding crisis with only enough cash to keep it going until May 2025. Without an increase in bills to make it investable, Thames said it could run out of money and face a special administration under the new Labour government. South Staffs Water, which supplies drinking water to 1.3 million in the West Midlands and South Staffordshire, is proposing the lowest increase of 12.5pc. Bills would reach 181 per year under the proposal. Labour is attempting to avoid the collapse of Thames in a crucial early test of its competence. Ofwats decision on Thursday is a preliminary ruling with a final verdict due in December before the bill rises take effect in April 2025. Water companies unhappy with the outcome can pursue a legal challenge at the Competition and Markets Authority, further prolonging the process. 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. The Government has ruled out backing a four-day week in a blow to campaigners who had hoped the Labour Party might pave the way for a radical overhaul. The 4 Day Week Campaign, which is urging bosses to sign up to its second nationwide trial later this year, said that with a new Labour Government, change is in the air. However, Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, sought to distance himself from the idea on Wednesday, with a spokesman confirming that this isnt [the] Governments planned policy. This is thought to be the first time that Labour has publicly set out its stance on the topic, after facing pressure from unions and activists to adopt a four-day working week as an official policy in the run-up to the election. Labour sources told The Telegraph at the time that there were no plans to do so, as Sir Keir Starmer denied that Labour would lurch to the Left if it won the general election. Cutting working hours was a flagship policy when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader. He vowed to move to a 32-hour week within a decade as part of his manifesto for 2019s election. In his speech at the Labour Partys conference in Brighton that year, John McDonnell, the then shadow chancellor, promised that the next Labour government would reduce the average full-time working week as Britons work some of the longest hours in Europe. Joe Ryle, director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, said that a four-day week with no loss of pay can be a win-win for workers and employers, adding that the current working week was invented 100 years ago and is no longer fit for purpose. He said earlier this week that he hoped a more sympathetic Labour government could pave the way for local authorities to switch to a shorter week. Companies have been asked to sign up to this years four-day week pilot, which will start in November and will also involve testing out other alternative working patterns, such as flexible start and finish times, a nine-day fortnight or compressed hours. More than 3,000 people working for 61 companies were involved in the previous pilot in 2022, which concluded that a four-day week reduced sick days and boosted revenue. Labour has been supportive of businesses shifting to a shorter week if it works for them, with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner last year urging hundreds of bosses to consider the results of the trial. If you can deliver within a four-day working week, then why not?, she said. Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, has also been an advocate of a shorter working week. However, some companies which have done their own four-day week trials this year, including Asda and Domestic & General, have dropped their plans after staff claimed the shorter week left them feeling exhausted. The trials saw staff condense their regular working hours into four days. 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 Labour government is back in town and talking to Sinn Fein and the Irish government about justice. The human rights vultures are circling, and their prime victims serving or retired uniformed servants of the British state are once more having sleepless nights while enemies of the British state cheer on the lawyers. And loyal people will once again feel that the whole legal system has been skewed against them. The issue of the moment is that Hilary Benn, the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, had announced his intention to ditch the Legacy Act which involves a conditional amnesty and a ban on inquests and future civil actions for people accused of Troubles-related crimes that is, pre the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. This came about because the government felt it was time to draw a line to remove the fear lived under by old soldiers and policemen who are periodically threatened with being and sometimes actually are hauled into court to face charges of murder from decades ago. Of course sometimes the same applies to terrorists, but rarely. The security forces are vulnerable because their organisations keep records. Terrorists dont. Soldiers and cops give evidence against bad colleagues. Terrorists rigidly observe omerta. And, whats more, the IRA have been brilliant about leaving no forensic traces. And since money is no object for them because of their treasure chest from robberies and fraud, they have been able to assemble armies of able lawyers who are additionally brilliant at squeezing vast amounts out of legal aid to sue the government and its servants. So its almost impossible to get convictions for terrorist crimes. It isnt like that for the old soldiers. Those soldiers and police who prevented the province from descending into civil war continue to have their courage and hard work traduced by people who wanted to destroy the state and by nationalists who drank the Kool-Aid ladled out by murderers and their apologists. So, hugely disproportionately, the law has pursued its guardians rather than its enemies. Im not suggesting that there were no bad soldiers or cops. But what is a simple fact is that most terrorists get up in the morning planning to kill; most soldiers and cops believe their job is to save lives. Various political parties lined up to oppose the Legacy and Reconciliation Act as it went through parliament in 2022-23, some for absolutist reasons about justice and the SDLP and Alliance because they thought it favoured state forces, although state killings have been less that 10 per cent of the total. Sinn Fein, of course, were thundering about injustice from outside Westminster. The government did its best with the establishment of the Independent Commission on Reconciliation and Information Recover (ICRIR), headed by the former lord chief justice Sir Declan Morgan. Yet there were myriad other protests and complaints coming from all directions, and then the Irish government weighed in by taking a case against the UK at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, alleging the Act is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. I hope the Secretary of State is bearing in mind that: it has emerged from state papers that Sinn Fein were endlessly demanding that there should be immunity from criminal prosecution for un-convicted IRA members; that hundreds of comfort letters were given to On the Runs, which left murderers free to return from hiding; the Irish ex-Justice Minister Michael McDowell wrote in 2021 that the Irish government in which he served established a de facto moratorium on investigation and prosecution of IRA members; when murderers were arrested south of the border as they skipped merrily home after killing their neighbours, 102 requests for extradition were turned down, leaving the perpetrators to kill with impunity. The British government could yet go to court over that. Hilary Benn has now shown some signs of playing for time by admitting that Sir Declan Morgans handling of his new job is encouraging. This would be a good time to persuade the Irish government that the new government dont want pointless arguments but two could play at legal games. Let the old soldiers sleep in peace. 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. Lakehurst man missing since June 21 disappeared while on his way to Philadelphia: Cops Michael A. Smith, 35, of Lakehurst, went missing on Friday, June 21, 2024. LAKEHURST - Borough police are asking for the publics help in locating a 35-year-old man who has been reported missing since June 21. Michael A. Smith was believed to be on his way to Philadelphia at the time he went missing but his current whereabouts are unknown, police said in a statement. The circumstances of his disappearance are under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call the Lakehurst Police Department at 732-657-7812. Breaking news: Two shot, one fatally, on River Street in Red Bank; no arrests made Contact Asbury Park Press reporter Erik Larsen at elarsen@gannettnj.com. This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Lakehurst NJ man missing since June 21 OTTAWA COUNTY In a two-man race to be the next Ottawa County Sheriff, one candidate has the support of the region's law enforcement leaders, while the other has support from the countys law enforcement personnel. Candidates include Undersheriff Eric DeBoer and Interim County Administrator Jon Anderson. a retired captain. The winner in the Aug. 6 primary will be the only name presented on the November ballot. Sheriffs in each of the municipality's neighboring counties have come out in support of DeBoer, but employee unions from the Ottawa County Sheriffs Office have elected to support Anderson. DeBoer has received endorsements from retiring Ottawa County Sheriff Steve Kempker, Kent County Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young, Allegan County Sheriff Frank Baker and Muskegon County Sheriff Michael Poulin. In a two-man race to be the next Ottawa County Sheriff, one candidate has the support of the region's law enforcement leaders, while the other has support from the countys law enforcement personnel. Each cited DeBoers experience with OCSO and service to the county in their endorsements. He has the local, Michigan experience needed to understand the nature and people of the counties we serve, Baker wrote. That is a vital quality in providing efficient and timely service to our residents. More: Our go-to guide for races in Ottawa, Allegan counties DeBoer called the endorsements gratifying and significant. During my career in West Michigan, I have worked with all three departments," DeBoer wrote in a release. "They and I know that regional cooperation is critical to combating criminals and serving our communities." Those working in DeBoers department, however, have voiced support for Anderson. Each of OCSOs three unions the Ottawa County Deputy Sheriffs Association, the Correctional Deputies Union and the Sergeants Union have pledged support for him. In a letter to Anderson, posted on Facebook, OCDSA said 90% of its union members voted in his favor. This resounding show of confidence from our members speaks volumes about the trust and respect we have in your ability to lead the men and women of the Ottawa County Sheriffs Office, OCDSA President Joe Walker wrote. Your commitment to upholding the integrity, fairness, and dedication to public service has not gone unnoticed. Anderson posted on Facebook that hes extremely honored to receive the support of the unions. Anderson has also been endorsed by Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy and Riverside County, California, Sheriff Chad Bianco. Anderson spent his law enforcement career in Riverside County. Subscribe: Receive unlimited access to your local news coverage DeBoer was appointed undersheriff by Kempker earlier this year after Valerie Weiss announced her retirement. DeBoer joined OCSO as a reserve deputy in 1999 and has held several roles in the department since. Anderson was made interim county administrator on March 12. He co-owns Bullet Hole Firearms and Training in Holland and is a retired sheriff's commander with 32 years of law enforcement experience in a variety of roles. Absentee ballots are currently available and in-person early voting will run July 27-Aug. 4. Contact reporter Mitchell Boatman at mboatman@hollandsentinel.com. This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Lakeshore sheriffs endorse DeBoer, but OCSO staff back Anderson President Joe Biden and his campaign, struggling to contain the fallout over his disastrous debate performance, have been nailing down Democratic support on Capitol Hill despite calls for him to step aside for a more viable nominee. But those efforts have done little to slow his tumbling poll numbers, which on Tuesday prompted the nonpartisan Cook Political Report to move three swing states Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada into the "Lean Republican" column. While Biden has repeatedly characterized the polls, which overestimated the Democratic nominee's support in 2020, as inaccurate, many Democratic officials have told reporters that they are waiting to see more post-debate surveys and Biden's performance at a Thursday press conference before deciding where they stand on his candidacy. Eight Democratic lawmakers have already made public calls for Biden to withdraw from the race, with others, like Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., raising serious concerns without saying explicitly that he has to go. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House, Bennet told CNNs Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday. So for me, this isnt a question about polling. Its not a question about politics. Its a moral question about the future of our country. The White House, in the time since that disastrous debate, I think, has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election, he continued. Bennett made his comments just a few hours after House and Senate Democrats discussed Biden's troubled candidacy in their respective caucus meetings, disbanding with plenty of worry but little sense of clarity. One Democrat in the room told reporters that the meeting felt like a "funeral" for Biden, with lawmakers "moving through the stages of grief." Many Democrats privately believe that Biden should withdraw to avert electoral disaster for the party, but the president's stubborn refusal has led them to believe that there is little they can do. Whether or not I have concerns is besides the point. He is going to be our nominee and we all have to support him, said Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the lead Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee who reportedly said in a meeting on Sunday that it was time for Biden to step aside. Biden still retains public support from lawmakers across both Democratic caucuses, from party stalwarts and longtime supporters like Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., to progressive "Squad" member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. "He is our nominee, he is not leaving this race, he is in this race, and I support him," Ocasio-Cortez told reporters. "Now what I think is critically important right now is that we focus on what it takes to win in November, because he is running against Donald Trump, who is a man with 34 felony convictions, that has committed 34 felony crimes, and not a single Republican has asked for Donald Trump to not be the nominee." The Biden campaign has touted the positive response he has received from members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Black voters at campaign stops, even though some pre-debate polls show that he is performing worse with Black voters than any recent Democratic candidate, and that a plurality of Democratic voters, and up to three-quarters of all registered voters, now think Biden should step aside. Biden also trails Trump in most swing state polling averages, including Arizona, Georgia and Nevadawhich the Cook Political Report now rates as favoring Trumpas well as the "Blue wall" states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, with the latter most at risk of slipping away next, per the report. Biden, presenting himself as the best candidate to defeat Trump in 2024, has been warning Americans of the dangers that Trump poses to American democracy and the well-being of its citizens. But it is precisely the high stakes of the election that has fueled calls for him to step aside for the good of the country, or for Democratic voters and officials to thwart his reported plans to run out the clock until the Democratic National Convention. "They need to tell him that his defiance threatens to hand victory to Mr. Trump. They need to tell him that he is embarrassing himself and endangering his legacy. He needs to hear, plain and clear, that he is no longer an effective spokesman for his own priorities," wrote the New York Times Editorial Board in an op-ed published Monday. "The party needs a candidate who can stand up to Mr. Trump. It needs a nominee who can present Americans with a compelling alternative to Mr. Trumps bleak vision for America." Potential Democratic replacements, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, have a mixed-to-positive showing in polls that compare their standing to Biden's, but some political analysts have stressed that unlike Biden, his would-be replacements have room to boost their name recognition and energy to bring the case against Trump on the campaign trail. Others are wary that they might not deliver the salvation that some Democrats are hoping for. Harris "is not a riskier bet than Biden," wrote Cook Political Report's Amy Walter, but "there's no guarantee she'll be a stronger one." LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A Las Vegas woman pleaded guilty following a wrong-way crash near a bus stop that left five people injured and two others dead, according to court documents. Cynthia Phelps, 64, pleaded guilty to the following charges on Monday. Two counts of driving under the influence resulting in death One count of driving under the influence resulting in substantial bodily harm The deadly crash happened on April 17, shortly before 8 p.m. at a bus stop along Boulder Highway. At the time the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said it received several 911 calls reporting that a vehicle driving the wrong way had hit several pedestrians. According to an arrest report, police also said Phelps had a strong odor of an unknown alcoholic beverage on her breath. She admitted to consuming something that was redacted from the arrest report. According to court documents, Phelps faces at least two years or a maximum of 20 years in prison for each count. Cynthia Phelps made a court appearance on Thursday, April 18 following a crash on Boulder Highway Wednesday night. (KLAS) Evidence at the scene showed that Phelps was driving north on the southbound side of Boulder Highway when, for unknown reasons, she ran off the road onto the sidewalk, hitting five people who were standing at the RTC bus stop, the report stated. Medical personnel pronounced two of the victims, a 42-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy, dead at the scene. The other three victims, a 41-year-old woman, an 8-year-old boy, and an 11-year-old girl, were taken to a local hospital. The woman was admitted with critical injuries, including face and skull fractures as well as a brain bleed. The children were admitted with serious injuries, according to the police report. According to a report, Phelps was driving 65 miles per hour at the time of the crash. The posted speed limit on Boulder Highway is 45 mph. The report said the brake was not pushed before the crash. The sentencing phase is scheduled for Aug. 19. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. A group of angry creditors will face-off against Rudy Giuliani in bankruptcy court on Wednesday, where they have asked a judge to put his finances under the control of an independent trustee in order to lock down his assets and begin to collect what theyre owed. Since declaring bankruptcy late last year, Giuliani appears to have remained flush with cash, including being paid $75,000 by a documentary project. Hes also continued to spend thousands of dollars each month on dozens of Amazon, streaming media and other purchases, according to court records. Those transactions and a general lack of transparency around Giulianis finances have drawn the ire and frustration of creditors seeking to enforce millions of dollars in claims against the former New York mayor, including $148 million in damages won by two Atlanta election workers who successfully argued in court last year that Giuliani defamed them after the 2020 election. At Wednesdays hearing, the creditors will push the judge presiding over the case to take drastic steps to rein in Giulianis spending and potentially liquidate his assets, according to court filings theyve made this week. And Giuliani may have to answer detailed questions under oath about his financial situation that he has so far refused to reveal. The hearing comes about a week after Giuliani lost his law license over his efforts in backing Donald Trumps attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Giuliani is also facing criminal charges in connection to those efforts in Georgia and Arizona. Giulianis decision to file for Chapter 11 reorganization should have brought transparency to his finances and moved him toward a plan to pay his debts, bankruptcy experts say. Instead, Giuliani has provided only snippets or inaccurate portraits of his financial records, some of which were provided late. He has even surprised his own lawyers with new sources of income, such as a recent deal he signed to promote coffee. He has also managed to keep control of two condominiums worth millions in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, though he has been trying to sell the New York three-bedroom property. Hes using [bankruptcy] as a delay tactic, not being forthcoming with the process, and just sort of ducking and weaving his way in and out, said Daniel Gielchinsky, a bankruptcy attorney based in Florida who is closely following the case. Its a real story from a fall from grace. Its somewhat shocking, but its also sad. Bankruptcy process as a joke Giulianis creditors including Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the two Georgia election workers whom he owes $148 million for defaming them after the 2020 election are furious with how the bankruptcy has failed to progress to begin to make them whole more than six months since he declared bankruptcy. Story continues Since day one, Giuliani has regarded this case and the bankruptcy process as a joke, hiding behind the facade of an elderly, doddering man who cannot even remember the address for his second multimillion dollar home and claims impending homelessness if he must sell that second multimillion dollar home, wrote lawyers from the law firm Akin Gump, which represents a committee of Giulianis creditors in the bankruptcy proceeding. In reality, Giuliani has treated this Court, the bankruptcy process and the Committee with utter disrespect and without accountability. Giuliani is playing the delay game. Lawyers watching the case say that if Giuliani were to be assigned a Chapter 11 trustee by the judge Wednesday, that attorney could immediately move to sell his homes, so his creditors can collect, and take control of his companies like Giuliani Communications LLC, which court records say has received thousands of dollars in nominally explained wire transfers in recent months Giulianis tactics In response, Giuliani has asked the bankruptcy judge to change the classification of his bankruptcy, from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, which would limit the creditors ability to pursue his incoming cash. Giulianis close friend and colleague Maria Ryan last month sent a request to the bankruptcy judge to tell his creditors law firm to stop lying in their filings to the court. She wrote that she and others who work for Giuliani are trying to keep his businesses afloat and promised to be quicker to alert his bankruptcy lawyers of new business deals. Giulianis bankruptcy attorneys and his spokesman didnt provide additional comment to CNN for this story. Attorney John Eastman, left, speaks next to Rudy Giuliani, as Trump supporters gather ahead of the president's speech to contest the certification by the US Congress of the results of the 2020 presidential election on the Ellipse on January 6, 2021. - Jim Bourg/Reuters Freeman and Moss on their own are taking a slightly different tactic than the broader creditors committee, complaining to the court that Giulianis responses to requests for information about his finances in bankruptcy court are insufficient and being done in bad faith. They want the bankruptcy judge on Wednesday to throw him out of bankruptcy court. That would allow their team of lawyers to pursue his assets directly, which would lose their current protections. Congress designed the Bankruptcy Code to ensure that bad faith debtors like Mr. Giuliani cannot successfully hop between various chapters to stay one step ahead of creditors, Moss and Freemans lawyers wrote in a filing Monday night. Appeals of their defamation case against Giuliani currently are not allowed while his bankruptcy progresses, but he could have another shot to appeal the jury verdict if the judge grants his request for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Hes definitely in a difficult position and hes still maneuvering. And hes being very shrewd in his maneuvers, Gielchinsky said. Will it result in his assets being sold? Or will it result in a change in his lifestyle? Its hard to say, because hes very hard to nail down. Spending and new deals Giulianis sporadic disclosures over the past several months offer glimpses into his finances. For instance, in recent weeks, according to his financial records available in court, Giuliani made 40 purchases from Amazon totaling nearly $3,500. Hes also bought plane tickets for himself and two business associates to fly to Palm Beach and other places. He also has pocketed thousands of dollars from participating in a documentary film this spring, where money is being sent to his limited liability company, adding to the opaqueness around his finances. His lawyers told the creditors on May 22 that a years-old documentary project, called All the Presidents Men, was recently revived. Giuliani Communications received a $75,000 payment in mid-May for his ties to the project, according to a letter from his lawyers made public in court. Paperwork from the 2021 deal around the documentary list a Russian-American, Igor Lopatonok, as the producer, and Sean Stone, a former host on the Russian-funded network RT America, as the director. Right-wing figures Chanel Rion, the One America News Network personality, and Simona Papadopoulos, the wife of a now-pardoned former Trump aide, are also involved. And his creditors believe Giuliani may be making profit from his nascent Rudy-branded coffee bean. The arrangement is with a company called Burke Brands for Giuliani to promote and take an 80% cut of coffee bean sales with his face on the bags, according to his court records. Those earnings are to be paid through wire transfers to a limited liability company Giuliani has, documents of his arrangements say. The coffee deal is set to bring in to Giuliani between $4 and $12 a bag, the documents say. A business associate told the court that as of mid-June, he had not been paid. Unfortunately, in this case, good news always seems to be accompanied with bad, lawyers for his creditors wrote to the bankruptcy judge last month. The Debtor is structuring the business deal in a way that funnels funds that would otherwise belong to his creditors back into Giulianis pockets. When the creditors lawyer noticed Giuliani promoting the Rudy beans in videos on social media in mid-May, they asked his lawyers about the venture. We saw the same thing and have requested information, and a cup of coffee, Giulianis own bankruptcy lawyers told the creditors. CNNs Sabrina Shulman contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com The Latest: First Senate Democrat and more House Democrats call for Biden's withdrawal Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, meets with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, D.C, during his visit to the United States to attend the NATO 75th anniversary summit, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool Photo via AP) WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden, facing pressure from within his own party to abandon his reelection campaign, is set to meet Wednesday with the executive council of the AFL-CIO, Americas largest federation of trade unions as he tries to make the case that his record in office matters more than his age. The 81-year-old Biden is also taking part in the NATO summit and looking to use the organization's 75th-anniversary meeting as a way to spotlight support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia and to reset his stumbling campaign. Biden has been under intense scrutiny since his disastrous debate performance, putting pressure on a White House that until recently had been marked by discipline and loyalty. Former President Donald Trump has been reveling in the turmoil surrounding the Biden campaign and pressure from Biden's party to step down. Trump is also expected to soon announce his Republican running mate. Follow the APs Election-2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024 Follow the APs coverage of the NATO Summit: https://apnews.com/hub/nato The Latest: Vermont Sen. Peter Welch calls on Biden to withdraw from November election In an opinion piece for the Washington Post published Wednesday evening, Vermont Sen. Peter Welch called on President Biden to withdraw from the November general election. He is the first Democratic senator to do so, writing that the stakes could not be higher. We cannot unsee President Bidens disastrous debate performance, Welch wrote. We cannot ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night. The first-term senator said he is calling on Biden to withdraw with sadness. Vermont loves Joe Biden, Welch wrote. President Biden and Vice President Harris received a larger vote percentage here than in any other state. But regular Vermonters are worried that he cant win this time, and theyre terrified of another Trump presidency. A 9th House Democrat has called for Biden to withdraw Rep. Earl Blumenauer, the longest-serving Democrat in Oregons House delegation, said, President Biden should not be the Democratic presidential nominee. The question before the country is whether the president should continue his candidacy for re-election. This is not just about extending his presidency but protecting democracy, he said in an emailed statement. It is a painful and difficult conclusion but there is no question in my mind that we will all be better served if the president steps aside as the Democratic nominee and manages a transition under his terms. Blumenauer, elected to Congress in 1996, will not be seeking reelection this year. Biden talks soccer with the British prime minister Biden welcomed new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to the Oval Office, saying he sees the U.K. as the knot tying the transatlantic alliance together. The meeting on the margins of the 75th NATO summit in Washington follows the leaders phone conversation last week when Starmer took office. Biden praised Starmer for seeking closer ties with Europe, saying it would be good for the entire NATO alliance. The special relationship is so important, Starmer replied. The two leaders engaged in a free-flowing conversation in the Oval Office, rather than delivering prepared statements. The leaders began with a jovial discussion of Englands soccer victory over the Netherlands, and Biden remarked that soccer is now more popular in the U.S. than ever before. Biden appeared to ignore a barrage of questions about his political future and doubts within his party about his reelection campaign. NATO secretary general remains confident in U.S. commitment to the alliance Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said hes not concerned about American commitment to the alliance if Trump is returned to the White House. The United States is safer and stronger with NATO, and thats why I expect it to remain in NATO, he said, noting longstanding support for the alliance from former presidential administrations, particularly after it invoked its Article 5 mutual defense pact to support the U.S. following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He noted that bipartisan support for NATO among U.S. lawmakers remains strong, including among Republicans who are backing Trump. But even when it comes to Trumps own complaints about NATO, Stoltenberg says those have been addressed. Trump has repeatedly questioned NATOs relevance, suggested that he might withdraw from the alliance or, short of that, has threatened not to defend allies who do not meet the 2% defense spending commitments. Twenty-three of the 32 allies now meet their pledge to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense and most of the rest have plans to do so in the near future, he said. The United States has been understood, Stoltenberg said. Allies have acted. New York lieutenant governor calls for Biden to end his campaign New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado joined a growing list of Democrats calling on Biden to end his presidential campaign. Delgado, a former New York representative, wrote in a statement that Biden deserves eternal gratitude for defeating Trump in 2020 and leading the country out of the coronavirus pandemic, but that Biden can add to his legacy, showing his strength and grace, by ending his campaign and making room for a new leader. There is no greater threat to our democracy than former President Donald Trump. He must be defeated. Thats is why I join with millions of Americans including everyday New Yorkers from all walks of life who are expressing legitimate concerns about President Bidens ability to wage a successful campaign against Trump, Delgado wrote. His statement marked a significant break with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who appointed him in 2022 and has emerged as one of Bidens biggest supporters and surrogates. NBC News Lester Holt is next in line for an interview with President Biden The network said that Holt will interview Biden on Monday in Austin, Texas. Highlights will run on NBC Nightly News and the full interview will air during a prime-time special on NBC Monday night. A similar playbook was followed when Biden was interviewed last Friday by ABC News George Stephanopoulos. Biden is stepping up the appearances following his performance during the debate with Trump, which has given rise to calls for him to end his campaign. Democrat mayors continue lining up behind Biden Following Biden's call with over 200 U.S. mayors Wednesday morning, messages of support for the president have slowly trickled out. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens posted on Twitter that Biden is locked in and determined to beat Donald Trump, touting his record on job creation, infrastructure, prescription drug costs and womens rights. Andy Schor, the mayor of Lansing, Michigan, said he was impressed by the president, noting, Hes going to be running, and I think that we all need to be supporting him. He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln Trump says hes pretty well set in my own mind on his choice of running mate. He dished on the finalists in a Fox News Radio interview Wednesday. Is Ohio Sen. JD Vances facial hair a strike against him? No, Vance looks good. He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln, Trump said with a laugh. What about the highly restrictive abortion law North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed into law? Well, its a little bit of an issue. Its a pretty strong ban, said Trump. And what about the fact that Sen. Marco Rubio would likely have to move out of Florida? No, but it does make it more complicated, he said. Jill Biden treats NATO spouses to brunch First lady Jill Biden hosted NATO spouses at the Smithsonians Museum of American History for a brunch of green goddess chicken and seared tuna. More than 20 spouses, including Ukraines Olena Zalenska, also had a chance to see an exhibit featuring cultural objects such as Muppets and the ruby red shoes worn by Dorothys character in The Wizard of Oz. The group is set to meet again Thursday at Camp David. The first lady advised her counterparts to dress comfortably and wear flats or sneakers as theyll be getting in and out of helicopters. Black faith leaders to gather in Georgia to support Biden Faith leaders from hundreds of Black churches in Georgia will gather to support Biden on Thursday. The event at the Georgia State Capitol aims to turn the attention back to Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. Democrats have been fighting each other for the last two weeks, and it must stop now, said Bishop Reginald Jackson. He presides over 500 African Methodist Episcopal churches in the state and is one of the events organizers. Black voter turnout will be key in Georgia, a battleground state. Several more Democratic mayors voice support for Biden after call Biden didnt face calls to step aside or concerns about his fitness for office on a call he hosted for nearly 200 Democratic mayors. Thats according to those who were on the call. Reactions from some mayors: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a letter that Biden was pretty fired up, and that he and Kamala Harris are exactly the leaders we need at this moment. Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson told AP the president is in it to win it. Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas said in an online post he will proudly stand with Joe! New York congressman calls on Biden to step aside An eighth Democratic member of Congress has publicly called on President Joe Biden to step aside, the New York Times reported. U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan of New York said he no longer believed Biden could make the case necessary to defeat Trump. He called Trump an existential threat to American democracy and said that he was asking Biden to drop out for the good of the country. It comes as Democrats continue to wrestle with the extraordinary question of whether to stand behind the president or push him to bow out. George Clooney joins calls for Biden to step aside Movie star and lifelong Democrat George Clooney is adding his voice to calls for Biden to leave the presidential race. Clooney said in a New York Times opinion piece Wednesday that he loves Biden, but the party would lose the presidential race and any control in Congress with him as the nominee. This isnt only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that Ive spoken with in private, wrote Clooney, who has hosted high-dollar Hollywood fundraisers. Clooney argued the party should pick a new nominee at its convention next month. US will need strong allies no matter who wins, Finnish president says The president of Finland says that regardless of whether Biden or Trump win the presidency in November, the U.S. will remain a superpower. That will require it to have strong allies especially in Europe. Alexander Stubb said he is worried about the polarization of the political climate, calling it quite toxic. Stubb spoke to reporters as he arrived at the NATO summit Wednesday. Stubb also said there is strong bipartisan support for Ukraine and NATO, following a meeting with 15 U.S. senators. Ukraine is on irreversible path to joining NATO -- after end of war with Russia, US says U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Ukraine is on an irreversible path to NATO membership. That advances American assurances that Ukraine will be allowed to join the Western self-defense alliance after its war against Russia ends. All 32 allies are expected to issue a joint communique Wednesday cementing that irreversible commitment to Ukraine. Thats according to a European official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss before the release. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has battled for a firm guarantee Ukraine can join. The U.S. and some others have opposed to avoid an escalation with Russia that could lead to a larger war. Associated Press reporter Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this story. __ LA mayor backs Biden Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass released a one-sentence statement after the president held a virtual event with nearly 200 Democratic mayors. Im supporting our nominee, President Biden, she said. Bass is a former member of Congress who was on Bidens vice-presidential shortlist during his 2020 campaign. U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California has also backed the president, sending a fundraising appeal on behalf of Bidens campaign. The stakes of this election are simply too high to continue fretting and worrying, he wrote. Pelosi stops short of saying Biden should continue Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi stopped short of saying President Joe Biden should continue his re-election campaign, saying its up to the president to decide if hes going to run. Were all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short, Pelosi said early Wednesday on MSNBC. Pressed on whether she personally wants Biden to stay on the top of the ticket, Pelosi said, I want him to do whatever he decides to do. She said she watched as he delivered a forceful speech at NATO, and while foreign leaders are in Washington she encouraged Democrats to hold off with any announcements about his campaign. Pelosi has been widely watched for signals of how top Democrats are thinking about Bidens candidacy. The Latest | Israel will send cease-fire negotiators to Cairo for more talks, Netanyahu says Families and friends of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza call for their return as they begin a four-day march from Tel Aviv to the Prime Minister's house in Jerusalem, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg) Israel will send a delegation to Cairo for further talks with mediators on a proposed deal with Hamas for a cease-fire and hostage release, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said Thursday. Israel has been pressing ahead with a fresh offensive across the north, south and center of the Gaza Strip in recent days, which could be aimed at increasing pressure on Gazas Hamas militant group during cease-fire negotiations. Palestinians returned to breathtaking scenes of destruction in the Gaza City district of Shijaiyah after Israeli troops withdrew following a two-week offensive there. Civil defense workers said that so far they had found the bodies of 60 people in the rubble. Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas Oct. 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people mostly civilians and abducted about 250. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,300 people in Gaza, according to the territorys Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Most of Gazas 2.3 million people are crammed into squalid tent camps in central and southern Gaza. Israeli restrictions, fighting and the breakdown of law and order have limited humanitarian aid efforts, causing widespread hunger and sparking fears of famine. The top United Nations court has ordered Israel to take steps to protect Palestinians as it examines genocide allegations against Israeli leaders. Israel denies the charge. Currently: Israeli army acknowledges Oct. 7 failures, including slow response times and disorganization. We have nothing: Palestinians return to utter destruction in Gaza City after Israeli withdrawal. The U.S. says the end of its pier for Gaza aid is coming soon. A boy in Gaza was killed by an Israeli airstrike. His father held him and wouldnt let go. Head of US aid agency says Israel has pledged to improve safety for humanitarian workers in Gaza. Yemens Houthi rebels fired an Iranian missile at ship, debris analyzed by US shows. Follow APs coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war. Heres the latest: President Biden acknowledges disappointments, missteps and frustrations with Israels hard-right government WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden acknowledged disappointments, missteps and frustrations with Israels hard-right government Thursday, but pointed to increased hopes now of a cease-fire to end the Israel-Hamas war devastating the lives of Gazas people. Biden looked back over the course of his efforts in Israels war against Hamas during a much-watched press conference at the site of the just ended NATO summit. He called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government the most conservative Israeli administration he had experienced, and said he had urged Israeli leaders not to follow the example that the U.S. set against al-Qaida and other extremist militant groups. Dont think thats what you should be doing, doubling-down, he recounted telling them. He said he had been disappointed his order for the U.S. military to build a pier to bring aid by sea to Gaza, along with some other efforts, have not succeeded as well. But Biden said Israel and Hamas had now both agreed to the broad terms of a deal to pause fighting and free hostages, and said that made prospects brighter now. Mediators were helping work on gaps in agreement, he said. Head of US aid agency says Israel has pledged to improve safety for humanitarian workers in Gaza ASHDOD, Israel The head of the U.S. agency overseeing American humanitarian assistance worldwide says Israel has agreed to use an improved system across the Gaza Strip to ensure humanitarian workers and aid can more safely move around. In an interview with The Associated Press, Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that Israel has also taken new steps to increase the flow of aid through its port of Ashdod, just north of Gaza. The move could give donors a new option for delivering aid as the U.S. shutters its troubled maritime pier off Gazas coast. We have not seen the kind of humanitarian system to this point that has allowed humanitarians to move efficiently and safely to the degree that we need, Power said. This week and through this visit, we have secured an agreement. My whole career has been working in and around conflict areas, said Power, a former war correspondent and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. I have never seen a more difficult conflict environment for humanitarians to work in. Humanitarian workers have complained throughout the war that the system by which the Israeli military assures safe passage to aid has been a failure. Power said a system by which the U.N. and Israeli military communicate more closely will be extended across Gaza. A main hospital reopens in northern Gaza, days after patients were evacuated ahead of Israeli ground operation GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip One of the main hospitals in Gaza City partially resumed operations on Thursday, days after evacuating its patients and staff in the face of an Israeli military assault in the area. Al-Ahli Hospital was vacated on Monday after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for central and eastern parts of Gaza City ahead of an offensive. Staff rushed patients to the Indonesian Hospital in another part of northern Gaza. The Episcopal Church in the Middle East, which operates Al-Ahli, said the hospital was compelled to close by the Israeli army after the evacuation orders and a wave of nearby drone strikes on Sunday. The military later said it told hospitals and other medical facilities in Gaza City they did not need to evacuate. But hospitals in Gaza have often shut down and moved patients at any sign of possible Israeli military action, fearing a repeat of destructive raids that troops have launched on multiple hospitals. On Thursday, staff reopened the emergency ward and were admitting new patients, though the rest of the facility was still not functioning. Mohammed al-Sheikh, a nurse in the emergency department, said the hospital was resuming primary care because the danger still exists, and the area is still under fire and under bombing, and injuries are still arriving, referring to Israels continued military offensive in Gaza City. With Al-Ahlis reopening, 14 of Gazas 36 hospitals are partially functioning, according to U.N. figures, while the rest have been shut down because of damage to facilities, lack of fuel, supplies or staff or because of nearby fighting. US says the end of its pier for Gaza aid is coming soon WASHINGTON Battling rough seas around Gaza, the U.S. now is considering abandoning efforts to reinstall the pier that has been used to get badly needed humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians, two U.S. officials said Thursday. The initial plan earlier this week had been to reinstall the pier for a few days to move the final pallets of aid onto the shore and then permanently remove it, but rough seas have prevented the reinstallation. The White House and the Defense Department both said the pier will cease operations soon but would not specify timing. Other U.S. officials said the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command were actively discussing an early end to pier operations because weather and some maintenance problems make it far less desirable to reconnect it for just a short time. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said there is no final decision yet and that if the weather calms for a bit, there is a slim chance they could reattach it for a short time. Across Washington, officials were signaling the end of what has been a mission fraught with weather and security problems, but which also has brought more than 19.4 million pounds (8.6 million kilograms) of aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza. Look, I see any result that produces more food, more humanitarian goods, getting to the people of Gaza as a success, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Thursday. It is additive. It is something additional that otherwise we would not have gotten there when it got there. And that is a good thing. Some aid still remains offshore and in Cyprus, but officials said they are looking at alternative plans to take the aid to the Israeli port at Ashdod. The port has been eyed as a likely replacement option for the movement of supplies from Cyprus to Gaza. The continuing weather problems have forced the military to temporarily remove the pier three times since it was installed in May. And the project has also been hampered by security threats that prompted aid agencies to halt distribution of the food and other supplies into Gaza. The aid groups have said that while any amount of food for Gaza is welcome, many have criticized the project as a costly distraction, saying the U.S. should concentrate on pressuring Israel to allow more aid through land borders, which have long been considered the most productive option. The U.N. suspended all World Food Program deliveries from the the pier after a June 8 Israeli military raid that saved four Israeli hostages but killed hundreds of Palestinians, citing concerns that troops used an area near there for flying out the rescued hostages by helicopter. Israeli assault on Gaza City leaves behind scenes of complete destruction SHIJAIYAH, Gaza Strip Palestinians returned to breathtaking scenes of destruction in the Gaza City district of Shijaiyah after Israeli troops withdrew, ending a two-week offensive there. Civil defense workers said that so far they had found the bodies of 60 people in the rubble. Families who had fled the assault ventured back into Shijaiyah to see the condition of their homes or salvage whatever they could. Nearly every building was flattened to rubble for block after block, leaving giant piles of concrete and twisted rebar. Here and there, a few stories of gutted concrete frames still stood. People on bicycles or carts made their ways down dirt paths where the streets had been bulldozed away. Sharif Abu Shanab found his four-story family building collapsed. I cant enter it. I cant take anything out of it, not even a can of tuna. We have nothing, no food or drink, he said. Since fleeing the district, his family sleeps in the streets, he said. Where do we go and to whom? We have no home or anything, he said in despair. Theres only one solution, hit us with a nuclear bomb and relieve us of this life. The Israeli military has invaded Shijaiyah several times in the 9-month-old war to battle Hamas militants. Its latest assault began in late June, when it said it was pursuing militants who had regrouped in the district. The assault sent some 80,000 people fleeing Shijaiyah, most into nearby areas, and it is not known how many people remained in the district during the fighting. The Israeli military said in a statement Wednesday evening that its operations in Shijaiyah had ended. It said its troops had killed dozens of militants and destroyed eight tunnels in the area. Those claims could not be independently confirmed. Gazas Civil Defense organization said that during Israels offensive, its emergency crews had largely been unable to respond to calls for help from residents in destroyed buildings. After the Israeli withdrawal, its crews entered and recovered 60 bodies, it said, adding that the search was ongoing. More bodies were believed buried under rubble, but the organization has little heavy equipment to clear debris. Israel's Netanyahu heckled with chants of shame during military graduation ceremony JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday was interrupted by hecklers during a military graduation ceremony in southern Israel when he vowed to continue the war against Hamas until victory. There are some who ask how long the campaign will last, and I answer in two words: Until victory. Until victory, even if it takes time he said. As he spoke, a small crowd began to chant: Shame. Netanyahu has said he will press ahead with the nine-month offensive until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages it is holding come home. Large parts of the Israeli public want Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal to free the hostages, even if the other goals arent met. During the same military ceremony, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said a broad government investigation is needed into the nations leaders, including Netanyahu. We require a probe at the national level, a probe that will clarify the facts, allow the drawing of conclusions and lead to the assimilation of correct lessons, he said. It needs to check me, minister of defense. It needs to check the prime minister. Israeli military releases the results of its first investigation into failures during Oct. 7 attack The Israeli military released on Thursday the results of its first investigation into failures during the deadly Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that triggered the nine-month war in Gaza. The military said Israeli hostages held in a home that was struck by tank fire on Oct. 7 were likely killed by Hamas militants, not Israeli shelling. While the army appeared to clear itself in the tank strike one of the most high-profile episodes of Oct. 7 it acknowledged a string of errors that day in its core mission of protecting the countrys citizens, including slow response times and disorganization during the standoff at Kibbutz Beeri. The fighting in the area in the first hours was characterized by a lack of command and control and a lack of coordination and order between the various forces, the report said. This caused a number of incidents in which security forces gathered at the entrance to the kibbutz and did not engage in immediate combat. Beeri was the scene of one of the most high-profile incidents of Oct. 7 a standoff in which militants held a group of hostages inside a home. Survivors said that during the standoff a tank fired at the home, raising concerns that the 13 hostages inside were killed by friendly fire. In its investigation, the army said the kibbutz was overrun by about 340 Hamas fighters and that militants killed most of the hostages, though it was unclear how it reached that conclusion, and the report called for additional tests. The Israeli army has come under heavy criticism from Palestinians and human rights groups, who say its investigations rarely result in punishment. Kibbutz residents gave the report a mixed reception, expressing anger over the armys failures that day but also appreciation that it was taking responsibility. The surprise cross-border raid killed some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 250 others hostage, in the deadliest attack in Israels 76-year history. The army has launched multiple investigations into the failures of Oct. 7, and the head of military intelligence has resigned. Several other commanders have apologized and taken responsibility for their failures. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected repeated calls for an official state investigation, saying the country is focused on its war against Hamas. US imposes new sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers WASHINGTON The Biden administration is imposing new sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers who it accuses of undermining peace and stability in the occupied West Bank by encouraging or participating in violence against Palestinian civilians. The departments of State and Treasury announced Thursday they were targeting three Israeli individuals and five groups with which they are affiliated for involvement in violence or threats of violence targeting civilians, seizure of property or other actions that threaten security in the West Bank. The United States remains deeply concerned about extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israels own security, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. We strongly encourage the Government of Israel to take immediate steps to hold these individuals and entities accountable. In the absence of such steps, we will continue to impose our own accountability measures. The sanctions freeze any assets held by those targeted in U.S. jurisdictions and block Americans from doing business with them. The targets of Thursdays sanctions are Isachar Manne, Reut Ben Haim, Aviad Shlomo Sarid, three settlement outposts, Manne Farm, Meitarim Farm, Hamahoch Farm, Neriyas Farm; and Lehava, an umbrella group for settlers. In an escalation over past months, West Bank settlers have carried out more than 1,000 attacks on Palestinians, causing deaths, damaging property and in some cases prompting Palestinians to flee villages. Israel has built well over 100 settlements scattered across the West Bank. Settlers also have built scores of tiny unauthorized outposts that are tolerated or even encouraged by the government. Some are later legalized. Israel will send cease-fire negotiators to Cairo for more talks, Netanyahus office says JERUSALEM Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office says Israel will send a delegation to Cairo for further talks with mediators on a proposed deal with Hamas for a cease-fire and hostage release. U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators are making a new push to seal the agreement, as Hamas and Israel have come the closest yet to narrowing the gaps between them after months of negotiations. But obstacles still remain. Hamas agreed to relent on its key demand that Israel commit to ending the war as part of any agreement. But it still wants mediators to guarantee that talks will go on until a permanent cease-fire is reached, in return for a full release of hostages held by Hamas. Netanyahu, meanwhile, says he wont sign any deal that would force Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza before Hamas is eliminated. Netanyahus office said Israels negotiating team returned from meeting with mediators in the Qatari capital Doha, without giving details on the results of the talks. The team was heading Thursday evening to Cairo for continuing discussions, it said. US announces $100 million additional aid for Palestinians JERUSALEM The United States announced Thursday that it is providing $100 million dollars in additional aid for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. A statement from USAID said the funding would assist the United Nations World Food Program. It also said that through the funding, it would provide logistics support for the safe and efficient delivery of lifesaving humanitarian aid across Gaza, without elaborating. Aid agencies have complained that goods are not reaching people in Gaza because of the dangerous security situation and growing lawlessness that is complicating aid delivery. A statement from the U.S. aid agency said the additional funding brings U.S. contributions to the Palestinians since the war began to more than $774 million. The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas Oct. 7 cross-border raid, has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza that has led to widespread hunger. A boy in Gaza was killed by an Israeli airstrike. His father held him and wouldnt let go DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip He wouldnt let go. Nael Al-Baghdadi held his 12-year-old son, Omar, and held him tight. But it was already too late. Omar, who was playing outside near his home, had been killed Tuesday in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli airstrike. In the photo made by Associated Press photographer Abdel Kareem Hana after the strike, al-Baghdadis eyes are shut. He holds his son, whose small body rests limply in his arms. His right hand and right shirt sleeve are streaked with blood. Grief is etched upon the fathers face, but more than that there is an expression of deep love for the child he has just lost. So much love that he insisted on holding Omar, uninterrupted, until the child could be shepherded hours later to his grave. Omar and his three friends were playing soccer in the street near their house in the Bureij refugee camp around noon Tuesday, under a blistering sun, when the Israeli airstrike hit and sent the street into a swirl of dust, blood and chaos. Al-Baghdadi was already in nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah with his injured brother. His cousin ran toward the wreckage, found Omar and took him to an ambulance. From there, he called the father and broke the news: His son had been killed; be ready to receive him. According to al-Baghdadi, he met the ambulance when it rolled into the hospital, picked up his sons body and carried it to the morgue, weeping all the way. He refused to put his son on the ground inside the morgue, holding him gently until he was shrouded and the funeral prayer was performed before a quick burial. One image, one moment a child lost, a fathers grief, an excruciating goodbye. Yemen's Houthi rebels fired an Iranian missile at Norwegian-flagged ship, debris analyzed by US shows DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Yemens Houthi rebels likely fired an Iranian-made anti-ship cruise missile at a Norwegian-flagged tanker in the Red Sea in December, an assault that now provides a public, evidence-based link between the ongoing rebel campaign against shipping and Tehran. A report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency released Wednesday linked the attack on the Strinda, which set the vessel ablaze, to Tehran, the Houthis main backer in Yemens nearly decadelong war. The findings correspond with those of a Norway-based insurers group that also examined debris found on the Strinda. It comes as the Houthis continue their monthslong campaign of attacks over the Israel-Hamas war targeting ships in the Red Sea corridor, disrupting the $1 trillion flow of goods passing through it annually. Houthi attacks on ships have rapidly escalated since November, as the group says it aims to pressure Israel and the international community to halt the war against Hamas in Gaza. Very little aid is getting to Palestinians due to lawlessness and combat in Gaza, UN says UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations is stressing that very little aid is getting to Palestinians from the Kerem Shalom border crossing because of lawlessness, ongoing fighting, and the lack of effective coordination with Israeli forces in Gaza. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric was responding Wednesday to the head of the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs who told reporters at Kerem Shalom earlier that the United Nations needs to step up its ability to receive and distribute aid in Gaza. Col. Elad Goren, head of the body known as COGAT, said it has facilitated the entry of more than 40,000 trucks to Gaza but the U.N. has only received and distributed aid from 26,000. He called for the U.N. to increase trucks, manpower and warehouses. Dujarric said the U.N. is trying its best to get to people in need, especially in central and southern Gaza, but you have utter lawlessness, plus you have continuing conflict. Some U.N. and private sector trucks are trying to pick up aid from Kerem Shalom, often at great cost, because they are being either looted or attacked by criminal elements, he said, adding that weve had convoys also being fired on by Israeli forces. As a result, very little is getting through, Dujarric said. Were discussing with various parties, but the facts on the ground remain the facts on the ground, unfortunately, the U.N. spokesman said. Unless there is a cease-fire which allows for full and unfettered humanitarian access, which will see the release of the hostages, will see an end to the fighting, every day is a challenge to get aid and to deliver it, Dujarric said. US sends hundreds of bombs to Israel after pausing shipment over concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza, officials say WASHINGTON The U.S. has agreed to send Israel hundreds of 500-pound bombs from a shipment that the Biden administration withheld because of concerns about Israeli operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, according to three U.S. officials. U.S. President Joe Biden announced in May that he would not supply offensive weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah over concern for the well-being of hundreds of thousands civilians sheltering there. The White House announced at the time that they were holding up a shipment of 1,800 of the larger 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 of the relatively smaller 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs because of the presidents concerns. The officials, who were not authorized to comment on the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Biden administration had been more concerned about the use of the larger bombs and recently agreed to fulfill Israels request for the 500-pound bombs in the shipment. The U.S. is continuing to hold up the 2,000-pound bombs, the officials said. One of the officials said the U.S. remains concerned about how these bombs could be used in Gaza. One of the officials said the shipment of the 500-pound bombs is still being processed and the bombs have not yet arrived in Israel. Israel says it has nearly defeated Hamas forces in Rafah after two months of fighting there. Before Israeli troops invaded, the city had sheltered most of Gazas more than 2 million people. Today it is a dust-covered ghost town. ___ Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Lolita C. Baldor contributed. United Nations says Israel's operations in Gaza City will fuel mass suffering for Palestinians UNITED NATIONS The United Nations is warning that Israels order for Palestinians to leave Gaza City will fuel mass suffering and is insisting that civilians must be protected and their needs must be met whether they flee or stay. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Wednesday that this warning from the U.N. humanitarian office means that all parties involved in the conflict in Gaza must respect international humanitarian law at all times. Protection of civilians and the infrastructure for their survival are key requirements of the law. The level of fighting and destruction that we are seeing in recent days, as the cease-fire talks are ongoing, is truly shocking, Dujarric said. He said Muhannad Hadi, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, briefed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday about his visit into the Gaza Strip a day earlier and the dire situation there. He saw firsthand the consequences of the breakdown in public order and safety as he entered and exited Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, Dujarric said. He saw groups of men with sticks waiting for trucks to leave the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, the U.N. spokesman said. All the trucks that he passed were badly damaged, with broken windshields, mirrors and hoods. Hadi also saw bags of fortified flour from the U.N. World Food Program and the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, scattered on the side of the road coming out of the crossing, Dujarric said. In Khan Younis, Hadi reported that the southern city has largely been reduced to sand and rubble, the spokesman said. Every building that he saw had been damaged in some way, shape or form. Hadi also met with womens groups at a U.N. guesthouse who told him about harrowing conditions at sites for displaced Palestinians, he said. Many women have cut off their hair due to lice and difficulties in accessing the necessary hygiene products such as shampoo, and because of the lack of privacy at sites for displaced people, Dujarric said. He said others voiced despair over their inability to provide for their families, in particular for relatives living with disabilities and those who are sick and cannot get treatment, and for having to send their children to bed without eating and drinking. One woman said that living with many different families in the same room meant that she wasnt removing her hijab for days and that she couldnt brush her hair or change clothes without being watched, Dujarric said. Others told him that overcrowding, despair and the breakdown in public order and safety is leading to an increase in sexual and gender-based violence. USAID leader will meet with Israeli officials about security of aid workers in Gaza TEL AVIV, Israel A United States official says the head of the agency overseeing American foreign humanitarian and development aid will visit Israel on Thursday to address security concerns around aid workers and aid distribution in Gaza. U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power will meet with Israeli officials to discuss improving communication and coordination to protect humanitarian workers in the ongoing Gaza war. She was last in the region in March, when she visited Israel, Jordan, and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The United Nations chief has said total lawlessness and chaos in Gaza prevents the distribution of desperately needed humanitarian aid in the enclave. Humanitarian conditions are dire as many families are displaced multiple times. According to the U.N., more than 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Ahead of Power's visit, the Israeli military asserted that the U.N. must step up its ability to receive and distribute aid in Gaza. Even if we will bring 1,000 trucks today, theres nowhere to put it on the Palestinian side, thats the main problem, said Col. Elad Goren, the head of the civilian department at the Israeli defense body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, during a press conference. USAID has said thousands of tons of food, medicine and other aid are piled up uncollected on a beach near the U.S.-built pier because of the lawlessness on the ground. A legal firm with a record of success in challenging Ryan Walters has sent a letter to Oklahoma district superintendents saying the state schools superintendent's recent directive that the Bible be taught in every classroom in the state is without legal authority and invalid under Oklahoma law. The three-paragraph letter from The Center for Education Law in Oklahoma City, sent to districts on Monday and obtained by The Oklahoman, cites seven legal sources as the basis for the firms advice and notes, It is likely that an organization, on behalf of parents or students, may file a lawsuit seeking an injunction to prohibit enforcement of the directive. We will keep you updated if one is filed. During an Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting on June 27, Walters unveiled his Bible directive as part of his monthly report to the board. That day, he also sent a letter to state school districts ordering them to incorporate the Bible as an instructional support into the curriculum" for grades 5 through 12, citing its importance as a historical document. More: Ryan Walters includes Bible instruction in new social studies standards for school districts Adherence to this mandate is compulsory, Walters letter read. Further instructions for monitoring and reporting on this implementation for the 2024/25 school year will be forthcoming. Immediate and strict compliance is expected. State schools Superintendent Ryan Walters runs a June 27 Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting at the Oklahoma Capitol in Oklahoma City. In ordering instruction on the Bible, Walters cited broad authority under Title 70 of the Oklahoma Statutes, which governs state education. The law reads, in part, School districts shall exclusively determine the instruction, curriculum, reading lists and instructional materials and textbooks, subject to any applicable provisions or requirements as set forth in law, to be used in meeting the subject matter standards. School districts may, at their discretion, adopt supplementary student assessments which are in addition to the statewide student assessments. Walters said his directive is in alignment with state educational standards approved in May 2019. Thats when the Oklahoma State Department of Education updated its social studies standards under then-state schools Superintendent Joy Hofmeister. Walters announced Tuesday he plans to overhaul those standards. Oklahoma law already allows for the Bible to be taught in schools According to the attorney general's office, Oklahoma law already allows individual school districts to use the use of the Bible in classrooms. However, the center maintains that choice of whether or not to do so lies with local school boards, not the state Education Department: (T)he legislature requires school districts to develop and implement curriculum, courses and instruction. Further, nothing in the School Code calls for, or allows, the State Board of Education to require specific textbooks, the center said. The legal firm also noted it believes Walters did not follow the states Administrative Procedures Act in issuing his directive. The APA governs actions of state agencies and requires administrative rules to be authorized by a law and passed by the agencys governing board. The Center for Education Law maintains the state Supreme Court, in its decision in Edmonds lawsuit, held unanimously that (the state Board of Education) may not exercise power unless the legislature has specifically delegated it that authority. Opinion: Letters: Do Oklahomans want schools teaching the Bible in classrooms? In a decision issued June 11, the state Supreme Court ruled that the state Board of Education, the state Education Department and Walters do not have the authority to establish policies concerning books in an individual school districts libraries. The court said that authority is reserved to local school boards, such as that of Edmond Public Schools, which sued after the state agency threatened to lower the districts accreditation over the presence in district libraries of two books the state agency deemed inappropriate. The Center for Education Law represented the school district in that case. The state Board of Education is exempt from the APA when adopting subject-matter standards, the law firm maintains, but the passage of subject matter standards requires (state Board of Education) action and this was not an action taken by (the board) but a memorandum by the State Superintendent of Instruction. The law firm notes that the state Education Departments website clearly states that its subject matter standards do not dictate curriculum or instructional materials, a conclusion supported by the School Codes directive that School districts shall exclusively determine curriculum and textbooks, not the State Superintendent, state Education Department or state Board of Education. New Oklahoma social studies curriculum developed by conservative committee will include Bible instruction On Tuesday, Walters incorporated classroom Bible instruction in new social studies curriculum standards he announced for state schools. In his announcement he said he said the new standards would be more in line with a classical learning model. According to the Classical Academic Press, classical education is a long tradition of education that has emphasized the seeking after of truth, goodness, and beauty and the study of the liberal arts and the great books. It defines the liberal arts as grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Oklahomans citizens, parents, and business leaders alike are disgusted with the lack of civic knowledge, love for our country, and historical education among our young people, Walters said in a statement. It is crystal clear that we need to return to more rigorous social studies standards that emphasize the unique and exceptional nature of the American republic, promote a proper understanding of the nations founding, and instill pride in our civic traditions and Oklahoma heritage. Walters said the standards would be developed by a new "Executive Review Committee" to ensure that social studies reflect accuracy and not political slanted viewpoints. His choices for the committee included primarily political conservatives. Among the members will be Dennis Prager, who co-founded PragerU, a conservative nonprofit that produces videos for schoolchildren meant to counter what it calls the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media, and education. Walters announced a partnership with PragerU last September. Other members will include Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute; Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation; former Oklahoma Wesleyan University President Everett Piper; and David Goodwin, the president of the Association of Classical Christian Schools. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma plan to teach Bible has no legal standing, firm says A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Wednesday called for the Defense Department to address poor living conditions at military houses for service members and their families, pointing to particular concerns with private companies that oversee housing with what the congressional group considers to be unfair contracts. In a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, lawmakers said the militarys decades-old, terrible deals with private companies to provide military housing has failed service members and their families. The stress and uncertainty that military families face with the multiple moves and transitions between locations and assignments that the military requires is amplified and worsened by systemic housing problems, they wrote in the letter. Military families should not lose their right to a safe, healthy home, or the ability to seek redress, simply because they live on-base. The letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) Tim Kaine (Va.) and Jon Ossoff (Ga.), along with Reps. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Del. James Moylan (R-Guam). Lawmakers have for years raised concerns about the state of military housing and taken steps to address the persistent issue. The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes an increase to the basic allowance for housing, along with other efforts to increase the livelihood of U.S. service members, including a major pay raise for junior enlisted members. The 2024 NDAA also directed the Pentagon to create a work committee, Military Family Readiness Working Group for Military Housing, to allow military families and senior Defense Department leaders to review and make recommendations related to housing. But Congress remains concerned that none of these steps is addressing the longstanding issue of military housing. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report last year found the Pentagon is failing to maintain good living conditions and that thousands of service members are living below standards. The report prompted 17 lawmakers to demand the Defense Department address the issues. According to a Defense Department response to Congress, in 2023, there were 4,588 reports of mold in privatized housing from the Air and Space Forces. In the letter this week, lawmakers cited a recent Project On Government Oversight report that found service members have been living with conditions like toxic mold but have struggled to get the issues fixed because of restrictive contracts with private companies. They argued that the Pentagon entered into agreements with private companies that makes it nearly impossible to terminate a contract and address concerns about tenant rights or environmental issues. Service members can also be trapped by a federal enclave doctrine that prevents them from suing, they said. State laws strengthening tenant rights that are adopted after the state transfers land to the federal government for military housing no longer applies at the U.S. base. The lawmakers said that loophole creates a shield from responsibility for corporate landlords as they argued the Defense Department is trapped by long-standing, substandard agreements with private companies. All these factors combine to create a nightmarish military housing experience for service members and their families, the group wrote. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. ST. LOUIS A new lawsuit accuses three Downtown St. Louis bars of overserving alcohol to a suspect involved in a deadly DUI crash in Madison County last year. The lawsuit targets the owners of St. Louis bars known as The Midwestern, Paddy Os and Shark Bar, in addition to one client of Ballpark Village. According to the lawsuit, Cole Wendler drove while intoxicated on Interstate 55 in Madison County in July 2023, striking a vehicle with Glenn Morgan and a minor. The collision led Morgans vehicle to roll over. Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley advocates for Christian nationalism Morgan died from injuries in the crash and the minor survived. The lawsuit described the minors injuries as serious, permanent and disabling. Wendler currently faces four counts of aggravated DUI and two counts of reckless homicide in connection with the crash, according to Madison County court records. The lawsuit alleges that multiple bars all and each acted together in concert in each over serving Cole Wendler alcohol beyond the limits of Missouri law and when he was visibly intoxicated and chose profits over safety and human life. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News The lawsuit cites Missouri and Illinois dram shop laws, which allows commercial establishments that sell alcohol to visibly intoxicated people to be held liable in the case of injuries the intoxicated person may cause. Tamyrah Waston filed the lawsuit last Friday, nearly one year since the deadly crash, on behalf of Morgan and the minor. The lawsuit is seeking a sum in excess of the Courts minimum jurisdictional amount, including damages for aggravating circumstances. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. Late in the afternoon on Jan. 31, construction workers Mariano Coc and Mario Sontay were 40 feet in the air, in the basket of an aerial lift at the construction site of a new hangar at the Boise Airport. Suddenly, the hangar collapsed, and a falling rafter caught the arm of their lift, according to a new lawsuit. Both men, construction workers from Guatemala, were slammed into the ground, according to the lawsuit. Coc, 24, was killed instantly. Sontay, 32, survived about five minutes after impact. Craig Durrant, one of the owners of Big D Builders, the general contractor for the project, was decapitated as he tried to flee the collapsing structure. Nine other workers were injured. Mario Sontay, 32, left, and Mariano Coc, 24, were two of the people killed in the collapse of a hangar at the Boise Airport. Enrique Serna, the attorney representing Cocs and Sontays families, blamed the collapse on the construction companies involved: Big D Builders, Steel Building Systems, Inland Crane and Speck Steel. Big D Builders, which is based in Meridian, said the company disputes the allegations listed in the complaint. Spokesperson John Segale said the company would not comment further because of the pending litigation. Inland Crane, which is based in Boise, said all evidence demonstrates that Inland Crane and our employees are not at fault for this tragedy. Spokesperson Doug Self said the company is confident that the judicial process will exonerate Inland Crane and our employees. Lawsuit cites bowing beams, snapping cables The lawsuit Serna filed Tuesday makes three main accusations: In an effort to speed up construction, the companies modified building blueprints, causing a significant reduction in structural support. They did not get these modifications approved by the city of Boise. The companies manufactured their own rushed and improperly and poorly welded materials for the structures bracing, rather than using parts that matched the prefabricated steel structure. The companies allowed work at the site to continue on Jan. 31 despite workers reports of bowing beams and snapping cables a day earlier, and despite high winds on Jan. 31 that created dangerous conditions for operating cranes. Rather than stop work at the hangar site to ensure everyones safety, all defendants pressed on, the lawsuit says. The hangar that collapsed near the Boise Airport in January was being demolished in June 2024. The suit did not mention the city of Boise or its contracted engineering firm, AHJ Engineers, though Serna had accused both of approving deficient building plans in a tort claim filed against the city in May. After reviewing public records Sernas firm requested from the city, the firm decided no suit against those entities was warranted, Serma said Wednesday at a press conference. The lawsuit reflects only the findings of Sernas firm, he said. The result of an investigation by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to determine the causes of the collapse is expected in late July. Hangar victims were following orders Coc and Sontay, employees of Big D Builders, had worked at the hangar site only for a few days before the collapse, according to the suit. They were asked to work there to help speed up the project, which was significantly delayed, the lawsuit said. Serna sued on behalf of the mens widows, mothers, fathers, children and siblings. Both men sent their families in Guatemala money on a regular and frequent basis, according to the suit, and their families depended on (them) financially. Both men were following orders, just like good husbands and fathers that were sending money, that were paying the bills, that were sending money to mom, dad, sister, brothers, Serna said. They were literally raising a village as a result of their efforts. The lawsuit did not request a specific amount of money. In the May tort claim, Serna wrote that their families were seeking $30 million. At the appropriate time, plaintiffs will seek to amend this complaint to add a claim for punitive damages, the lawsuit reads. In a February news conference, Serna shared more details about the men. They were very good at their trade, he said then. They were very happy in Idaho. They used to go to the Chevron station by the airport to get their morning coffee en route to building this hangar They were living the American Dream. Serna on Wednesday laid the families grief at the construction firms feet. These general contractors have been around the block, he said. They build a lot of buildings in Idaho and in the Northwest. This is not their first rodeo. They know better (than) to act like this. A lot of the time, they just think that its going to be OK, and thats worrisome My clients are dead. Their families are mourning. Are they going to continue these practices? Are we going to lose more people in the future? Did not look right: Workers flagged concerns before deadly Boise hangar collapse Demolition of Boise Airport hangar that killed 3 in collapse is set to begin this week Families of hangar collapse victims put city of Boise on notice of possible lawsuit At least 261 people have died in El Salvador's prisons under anti-gang crackdown, rights group says FILE - A mega-prison known as Detention Center Against Terrorism (CECOT) stands in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 5, 2023. On Wednesday, July 10, 2024, Cristobal, an NGO, reported it had documented the deaths of 261 people, four of them children, who were in Salvadoran state custody, after being detained during the state of exception in force since March 2022. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, File) SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) The human rights organization Cristosal said Wednesday that at least 261 people have died in prisons in El Salvador during President Nayib Bukele's 2 1/2-year-old crackdown on street gangs. Under a state of emergency originally declared in 2022 and still in effect, Bukele's government has rounded up 81,110 suspected gang members in sweeps that rights groups say are often arbitrary, based on a persons appearance or where they live. The government has had to release about 7,000 people because of a lack of evidence. The group said in a report that, as of April 15, 88 of the 261 deaths may have been the result of a criminal act, though it did not specify what those acts may have been. The report said 87 of the deaths were due to illnesses, 14 were apparently acts of violence and no cause could be immediately identified for the other 72. People have died in El Salvadors prisons and jails because of torture, a lack of food, unhealthy conditions, an inhuman lack of attention and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, said lawyer Zaira Navas, who authored the report. There is a deliberate policy of not protecting the rights of incarcerated people. There was no immediate reaction from the government to the report. While the government is accused of committing mass human rights abuses in the crackdown, Bukele remains highly popular in El Salvador because homicide rates sharply dipped following the detentions. The Central American nation went from being one of the most dangerous countries in the world to having the lowest homicide rate in the region. Bukele rode that popularity into reelection in February, despite the countrys constitution prohibiting second terms for presidents. In April, a report by the rights organization Humanitarian Legal Relief estimated that at least 241 people had died in Salvadoran prisons since the start of the crackdown. ___ Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america At least 27 killed in Israeli airstrike on makeshift camp near school in southern Gaza An Israeli airstrike on a tented encampment for displaced Palestinians outside Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Tuesday killed at least 27 people and injured dozens, Gaza Health Ministry officials said. The attack is the fourth since Saturday when an Israeli air strike hit Al-Jaouni School, a United Nations facility inside the Al- Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza where displaced people were sheltering, killing 16 people and injuring dozens. File photo by Mohammed Saber/EPA-EFE July 10 (UPI) -- An Israeli airstrike on a tented encampment for displaced Palestinians outside Khan Younis in southern Gaza killed at least 27 people and injured dozens, Gaza Health Ministry officials said. The strike near the entrance to al-Awda school in the town of Abasan al-Kabira on Tuesday injured at least 53 people with some in "critical" condition, the Hamas-run ministry said in an update on social media. Witness reports put the killed and injured far higher with one telling the BBC that the number of people caught up in the attack was "unimaginable". Israel Defense Forces, which confirmed it had carried out a precision attack targeting a Hamas operative who had participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, said it was investigating reports civilians had been hurt. The incident follows three similar attacks on schools sheltering displaced people since Saturday, CNN reported. CNN described footage filmed after Tuesday's incident showing dazed Palestinian children climbing over shards of concrete amid bombed-out buildings and traumatized family members weeping at the nearby Nasser Hospital where the dead and injured were taken. Tuesday's attack attracted widespread international condemnation, much of it couched in the strongest language. "A school sheltering families in Khan Younis has been bombed by IDF, with tens of people reportedly killed. For how long are innocent civilians going to bear the brunt of this conflict?" European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote in a statement on X. "We condemn any violation of international law: those responsible must be held accountable," he said, adding that an immediate cease-fire was crucial to bring respite to displaced civilians, free all the hostages and deliver the humanitarian assistance needed by Gazans. The German foreign ministry said in a post on X that the attack was intolerable and called for an urgent inquiry. "People seeking shelter in schools getting killed is unacceptable. The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop and an investigation must come quickly." Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations' Palestinian refugees agency, said schools had gone from being sanctuaries of learning to crammed shelters at best and places of misery and death at worst. "Nine months in, under our watch, the relentless, endless killings, destruction and despair continue," he said in a statement. "Gaza is no place for children," Lazzarini added, stressing that what he called the "blatant disregard" of international humanitarian law must not become "the new normal." An Israeli attack on a UNRWA school where displaced people were sheltering in the al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Saturday killed at least 16 and injured dozens, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. On July 1, the Israeli military ordered thousands of civilians to leave Abasan al-Kabira and other areas of eastern Khan Younis "for your own safety" ahead of a military operation targeting sites from which 20 rockets were fired at surrounding Israeli settlements. LEBANON COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) Lebanon Valley College has announced a new Graduate Autism Certificate, which will benefit students in the Colleges Education, Master of Education, and Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) programs. According to LVC, the program is completely online with an accelerated seven-week term to accommodate educators and individuals with professional and personal commitments. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Severe Weather Alerts The program is a collaboration between the Colleges Education and Speech-Language Pathology Departments, focusing on neurodiversity. Associate Professor of Education and Director of Special Education Dr. Jen Kanupka developed the curriculum for the new Autism Certificate alongside colleague and Assistant Professor of Education Dr. Susan Weiss. Our program is unique in that it can serve educators from all backgrounds interested in supporting students with autism, said Kanupka. While developing skills to use in the classroom and school community, students will learn how neurodiversity can be celebrated and respected. LVC said neurodiversity acknowledges how people interpret, absorb, and respond to situations, information, and knowledge. The Autism Certificate will provide education professionals with the specialized knowledge and skills needed to teach and support students on the autism spectrum. The certificate is designed according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE)s Autism Program Guidelines. The program is in the process of applying for PDE Endorsement approval. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27. Gary Hershorn / Getty Images Key Takeaways Apple shares gained Wednesday after Needham analysts lifted their price target for the stock. The analysts noted the iPhone maker is adding value for shareholders through its $110 billion share buyback, while other tech giants are raising spending on artificial intelligence initiatives. Advertising could also represent a major growth opportunity for Apple, the analysts said. They suggested running ads on Apple TV+ and the App Store could drive revenue growth and higher margins for Apple. Apple (AAPL) shares rose Wednesday as Needham analysts raised their price target for the stock, contrasting the company's share buyback program with competitors' increased spending and highlighting the iPhone maker's potential to gain from selling ads on Apple TV+, the App Store, and more. Needham analysts lifted their price target for the stock to $260 from $220. Shares of Apple finished close to 2% higher at $232.98 Wednesday, contributing to the stock's gain of about 21% since the start of the year. Apple Adds Shareholder Value With $110 Billion Buyback as Peers Raise Spending on AI In raising their price target for Apple stock, Needham analysts cited how the iPhone maker is adding value for investors through its $110 billion share buyback program, which set a record as the largest stock buyback program in recent history, beating the previous record also held by Apple. They noted the buyback comes as many other tech giants are increasing capital expenditures to invest in artificial intelligence (AI), raising concerns about AI's costs. Big tech companies, including Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Meta Platforms (META), and Amazon (AMZN), are set to spend more than $1 trillion on AI in the next five years, according to Goldman Sachs. Selling More Ads Could Unlock New Growth for Apple Needham analysts also suggested advertising could represent a major growth opportunity for Apple, pointing to Amazon's (AMZN) multibillion-dollar advertising business. Selling ads on AppleTV+ alone could double Apple's revenue growth rate in fiscal 2024, they said. Bringing ads to Apple's App Store could accelerate growth further. The analysts said they "can't think of another revenue stream that AAPL could pursue that is larger and more profitable" than advertising would be, especially given the high margin rates associated with ads. Read the original article on Investopedia. By Laila Bassam and Timour Azhari BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Hamas was conducting Gaza ceasefire talks with Israel on behalf of the entire "Axis of Resistance" and, if a deal was reached, Hezbollah would stop its operations with no need for separate talks. At the same time, Nasrallah warned that Hezbollah was ready for and did not fear a war and pointed to the ever-larger salvos of rockets and drones the group has fired at Israel as evidence. The Axis of Resistance is an alliance built up over years of Iranian support against Israel and U.S. influence in the Middle East. It includes the Yemen's Houthis and Shi'ite armed groups in Iraq. "Hamas is negotiating on its own behalf and on behalf of the Palestinian factions, and also on behalf of the entire Axis of Resistance. What Hamas accepts, we all accept," Nasrallah said, speaking in a televised address to mourn the recent killing of a senior Hezbollah commander. Hezbollah began firing at Israeli targets on the border in support of Palestinians after its ally Hamas launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that precipitated the war in Gaza. It has repeatedly labeled its attacks as a "support front" aimed at drawing Israeli military resources away from Gaza and supporting Palestinians. Tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese have been forced to evacuate from the area around the border between the two countries and international observers have warned in recent weeks of the growing risk of a wider conflict. The U.S. and France have spearheaded diplomatic efforts to try to secure a deal that would prevent the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah expanding. Nasrallah said that, for Hezbollah, a Gaza ceasefire would be enough to do that. "If there is a ceasefire in Gaza then our front will also cease fire without discussion, irrespective of any other agreement or mechanisms or negotiations." (Reporting by Laila Bassam and Timour Azhari; Editing by Toby Chopra) French newly-elected Member of Parliament and newly nominated President of the Les Republicains group at the National Assembly Laurent Wauquiez (2nd L) arrives for a press conference during a welcoming day at the National Assembly following the second round of France's legislative election. Alain Jocard/AFP/dpa The broad leftist coalition that banded together to beat back the French far-right is struggling to pick a candidate for prime minister. The multi-party New Popular Front (NFP) alliance, which was the surprise winner of Sunday's snap parliamentary elections, consists primarily of the Socialists, the Greens, the Communists and firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon's hard-left France Unbowed. At an overnight meeting between the Socialists and France Unbowed, no agreement was reached, broadcaster France Info reported on Wednesday, as both parties vie for supremacy in the alliance. The Socialists see their party leader Olivier Faure as the best candidate for the premiership. France Unbowed is pushing for Clemence Guette, a deputy in the National Assembly. Guette organized Melenchon's 2022 presidential election campaign. President Emmanuel Macron called the early polls on June 9. The NFP was launched shortly before the first round of elections for the National Assembly on June 30. The short window to prepare meant that the bloc did not go into the elections with a lead candidate. On Monday, the NFP said it hoped to name its pick for prime minister by the end of this week or early next. Left-wing government still uncertain The left-wing alliance came in first in the elections but failed to win a majority, leaving no clear path to a stable government in France. The parliament is now divided between the NFP alliance, the second-place camp belonging to President Emmanuel Macrons centrist allies, and Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally, which came in third. In a statement on Tuesday evening, the left-wing alliance called on Macron to task it with forming a government. But without other partners, the alliance would not be able to govern and could be blocked by the other political camps. The National Rally already sees itself clearly in the opposition role. As the various political blocs scramble to find a way to get a majority of seats and break the deadlock, broadcaster BFMTV said the Socialists were exploring whether to split from the NFP and join Macron's camp. The report said the conservative Republicans were also considering joining Macron's team. Macron had already asked Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to remain in office with the current government for the time being, in order to maintain "stability." This transitional period may also drag on in view of the upcoming political summer break. There is no prescribed deadline for Macron as to when a new government must be in place. Providence-based attorneys Max Wistow, left, and Jonathan Savage, right, provide an update on the potential for litigation against contractors who previously worked on the now-closed westbound Washington Bridge. The pair are leading a six-member legal team hired by Gov. Dan McKee. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current) The independent legal team hired by Gov. Dan McKee to identify and hold accountable those at fault for the emergency closure of the Washington Bridge may be ready to file a lawsuit next month. But taking that step would likely mean delaying the release of a forensic analysis detailing what led to the bridge to be in such poor condition a report Gov. Dan McKee promised last March would lead to a day of reckoning. Attorneys Max Wistow and Jonathan Savage appeared Wednesday morning at McKees request for a press conference in Savages downtown Providence office to summarize their plan to pursue legal action if necessary in a high profile case that has disrupted commutes around the region for seven months. This is not a slip-and-fall at Stop & Shop, Wistow told reporters. This is an extremely complicated, very fact-intensive, and very labor-intensive case. The western side of the Washington Bridge was abruptly closed last December after engineers discovered broken anchor rods that put the westbound section of I-195 at risk of collapse. At the time, the state said the span carried approximately 96,000 vehicles a day between East Providence and Providence. McKee hired the six-person legal team led by Wistow and Savage in April. Wistow said the team plans to hold on to its findings unearthed during a forensic investigation throughout the legal proceedings until instructed otherwise. Information that you all are interested in will come out through the litigation process, Savage told reporters. The press conference followed an announcement Tuesday by McKee that the Rhode Island Department of Transportation would issue a new solicitation seeking feedback from companies about the states initial request for proposals to replace the bridge. Although the state contacted 2,100 construction companies and saw 67 view the solicitation, only one asked a question and none submitted a bid by the July 3 deadline. McKee had deferred to the legal team Tuesday all questions on any steps the state plans to take to any firm or individual. He did not attend Wednesdays media briefing and was instead traveling to Salt Lake City to attend the National Governors Association 2024 Summer Meeting. The governor is scheduled to return to Rhode Island on Saturday, according to his office. If no legal case is brought forth, Wistow said the release of the long-awaited forensic report is at the discretion of the governor. At a March 14 news conference announcing the decision to tear the bridge down, McKee said the report would be released in a couple of weeks. McKee had also vowed in front of television cameras that the parties responsible for the bridges emergency closure would be identified and held accountable. Pressed by reporters Wednesday whether he has an idea of what went wrong with the Washington Bridge, Wistow said, Im going to answer yes, but Im not going to go beyond that. In April, Wistow and Savage sent letters to a dozen companies that have worked on or inspected the bridge advising them to notify their insurance companies that the states legal team was investigating potential claims relating to the Washington Bridge. They were also instructed to suspend all destruction or disposal of any documents related in any way to the bridge. Wistow stressed that issuing the letters did not mean all of those firms would be potential defendants. Sometimes insurance companies are not too eager to help people, Wistow said. We didnt want to be in a situation where some insurance company later says you should have told us about this litigation. The firms that received letters were also invited to inspect the bridge under supervision before it is demolished, something the state said is slated to begin July 17. None of the companies took up the legal teams offer, Wistow said. The states legal team declined to say if there are any other potential defendants outside of the 12 firms that received letters. Wistow also acknowledged the legal team is investigating any management failures made at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation but ruled out litigation against the state. Theres absolutely no sense in the state suing the state, he said. It would be not much of a recovery, if you could even do such a thing. The post Legal action on Washington Bridge could start in August, independent legal team says appeared first on Rhode Island Current. Water flows from the bypass tubes of Glen Canyon Dam at a rate of approximately 32,000 cubic feet per second Nov. 21, 2004 in Page, Arizona. (Photo by Jeff Topping / Getty Images) A bipartisan coalition of Arizonas congressional delegation introduced legislation to address one of the longest-running water issues facing three Arizona tribes. The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement (NAIWRSA) Act of 2024 would ratify and fund the largest Indian water rights settlement in the country, which will secure water rights for the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe. This legislation and the settlement it ratifies represent a historic step forward in resolving a decades-long water rights dispute, providing certainty and stability for the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly said in a written statement. Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, introduced the act in the U.S. Senate on July 8. Identical legislation was also introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, where it is cosponsored by Reps. Juan Ciscomani (R-Tucson), Raul Grijalva (D-Tucson), Greg Stanton (D-Phoenix) and David Schweikert (R-Scottsdale). Our historic bipartisan legislation delivers real, lasting results for the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe by strengthening water security, creating economic opportunities, and providing certainty and stability so their communities can continue to thrive, Sinema said in a press release. The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement will settle the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribes claims to the main stem of the Colorado River, the Little Colorado River, and relevant groundwater sources in Arizona. Securing water rights for these tribes upholds their sovereignty and lays the path for their growth and prosperity through increased investment in water infrastructure, Kelly said. Ratifying this settlement honors our commitment to the tribes and helps secure our states water future, and well work together as Republicans and Democrats to get it done. The bill states that the legislation aims to achieve a fair, equitable and final settlement of all claims to rights to water in Arizona for the three tribal nations. In addition to settling the tribes ongoing water claims in the Colorado River Basin, it includes billions in funding for essential water development and delivery projects for the tribes. Ciscomani said in a written statement that the settlement and legislation will provide a long-lasting partnership between Arizona and the tribes. This not only gives much-needed certainty to the Tribes but allows Arizona to better plan for a secure water future while providing for improved water infrastructure throughout the region, he said. As part of the settlement, the three tribes would gain access to reliable and safe water for their community through various outlets, including the upper and lower basins of the Colorado River, aquifers, shared washes and water infrastructure development. The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement is a monumental achievement and the product of negotiations spanning almost 30 years, said Leslie A. Meyers, the associate general manager of water resources for the Salt River Project. Salt River Project has participated in the negotiations from their inception. Meyers said SRP enthusiastically supports the bills because the settlement provides the three tribes with the desperately needed water supplies and infrastructure to secure their futures. The water settlement authorizes $5 billion to acquire, build, and maintain essential water development and delivery projects, including a $1.75 billion distribution pipeline. The three tribes would be guaranteed access to over 56,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water and specific groundwater rights and protections. Grijalva said that the legislation deserves the full support of Congress because the settlement was the historic culmination of a decades-long effort to bring water to the three tribes. As the climate crisis continues to exacerbate an already devastating multigenerational drought, the federal governments obligation to deliver clean, safe water and water infrastructure to the tribes could not be more pressing, he said. I urge my colleagues to move this legislation to the presidents desk quickly. Tribal leaders commend legislation introduction Leaders from the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe commended the work of everyone involved in writing the settlement and introducing legislation to Congress. Tribal councils from all three tribes initially passed bills supporting the water settlement in May. However, Congress must approve the settlement before it can go into law. For decades, our Navajo people have lived without piped water in their homes, with many of our elders hauling water over 30 miles roundtrip, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said during a press conference on Tuesday. More than 30% of the homes on the Navajo Nation lack running water. This is unacceptable. Nygren said that the Navajo people are American people, and no one in America should be denied access to water because of where they live. This settlement ensures that the Navajo people will have rightful access to water, providing certainty for our homelands future and an equal opportunity for health and prosperity, he added. If the act passes Congress, the Navajo Nation water infrastructure it would fund will bring substantial clean, safe and reliable drinking water to Navajo communities in Arizona, according to Nygrens office. The infrastructure will allow tens of thousands of Navajo people in Arizona to have piped water in their homes for the first time. It is a great opportunity here to claim what is ours as Navajo people, Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley said Tuesday. Water is essential to every living thing that we possess in the Navajo way. She said this is the first time a tribe is bringing this large of a water settlement to Congress, and she said it is unfortunate that the Navajo Nation is one of the last tribes in Arizona to bring its water settlement to a federal level. Curley said its as if the Navajo Nation is going up to Congress with an empty cup and begging for both what is rightfully theirs and what they deserve. Without this settlement, our communities will remain disproportionately vulnerable to diseases, and development on the Reservation will continue to be restricted by the lack of water infrastructure, she said in a press release. Curley noted how the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Navajo Nation particularly hard due to the tribes lack of access to clean water and plumbing. Through the water settlement, the Navajo Nation would gain access to 44,700 acre-feet per year of the Upper Basin Colorado River Water and 3,600 acre-feet per year of the Lower Basin Colorado River Water. The Navajo Nation will also lease, exchange, and accrue long-term storage credits for its Arizona water as part of the settlement. The tribe could store Arizona water in two reservoirs in New Mexico and aquifers on the Navajo Navajo for later recovery. The Navajo Nation would also be able to engage in inter-basin transfer of Colorado River water in Arizona and divert its water from New Mexico and Utah for use in Arizona. The San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, which spans Arizona and Utah, will not only receive water rights from the settlement but also ratify the treaty and create their reservation boundaries. We are so thankful to Senator Kelly and Senator Sinema for introducing legislation that will not only provide our Tribe with water but will also ratify a treaty negotiated and entered into by the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe and the Navajo Nation decades ago, Robbin Preston Jr., president of the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, said in a press release. The Tribe has waited far too long to have an exclusive reservation of its own, Preston added. The opportunities made available through this legislation will change the lives of our Tribal Members and the trajectory of our Tribe. As part of the settlement, the tribe will gain 5,400 acres of land within the Navajo Nation, which will be proclaimed the San Juan Southern Paiute Reservation. The land will be held in trust by the United States. Preston said the settlement would provide the San Juan Southern Paiute people with reliable electricity, water, and housing. Our people will have opportunities that have never been available to us before, he added. This legislation is more than a settlement of water rights; it is the establishment of an exclusive reservation for a Tribe that will no longer be forced to live like strangers in our own land. For the Hopi Tribe, the settlement guarantees access to 2,300 acre-feet per year of the Upper Basin Colorado River Water and a little over 5,900 acre-feet per year of the Lower Basin Colorado River Water. Hopi Chairman Timothy Nuvangyaoma expressed his gratitude to the state, tribes and neighboring communities for working to make the settlement a reality. Our collective action means a more secure water future for the Hopi Tribe and all of our neighbors in Northern Arizona, Nuvangyaoma said. As part of the settlement, the Hopi Tribe can lease, exchange, and accrue long-term storage credits for its water, store it in aquifers on Hopi land for later recovery and engage in inter-basin transfer of the Colorado River within Arizona. Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and X. The Leon County teacher's union is endorsing Leon County School Board candidates Rosanne Wood, an incumbent, for District 2 and Jeremy Rogers, a challenger, for District 4 in the August primaries. "They're recommendations," Leon Classroom Teachers Association President Scott Mazur said. "We have looked at what we believe in based on our mission and objectives, and what we believe creates strong communities, and ultimately that's our public schools." Leon County Teacher's Association The union doesn't provide financial contributions to candidates it endorses, Mazur said. Instead, it endorses candidates so teachers can make an informed decision. The union did not recommend any candidate for superintendent. Mazur said that would be decided after the August primaries, when incumbent Rocky Hanna and Florida A&M's Development Research Elementary School Principal Star Swain, both Democrats, are facing off. The winner will go on to face Chiles High School Principal Joe Burgess on the November ballot since he is filed as a no-party-affiliated candidate. Mazur said the union made the decision to give teachers more time to assess candidates in that race and the platforms they are running on. Scott Mazur is president of the Leon County Teachers Association. The union screened candidates on subjects such as school vouchers, solutions for high teacher turnover and other issues, to evaluate whether they aligned with the union's top priority to strengthen public schools, students and teachers. "When we support a candidate, particularly in the school board races, we look at those elements as an organization, and the organization decided that these were the recommendations that upheld those things," Mazur told the Tallahassee Democrat Wednesday morning. Mazur said both of the recommended candidates have expressed support for transparency with teachers, and incentives to help with recruiting and retention and other efforts that would positively affect the local public school system. Rosanne Wood is the incumbent running for the Leon County School Board District 2 seat. Wood, a Democrat, was initially elected in 2016 and has served as a teacher, a principal and school board member. She has advocated for teachers and students to find 'solace in the schoolhouse,' and for there to be more transparency between the school district's administration and its teachers. She is being challenged by first time candidate Daniel Zeruto, a Republican, who has expressed a need for more transparency with the district's parents and teachers and has supported raising teacher pay. Rogers, a Democrat in his first bid for public office, has been vocal about engaging teachers and students with new curriculums and incentives. The firefighter, father and nonprofit operator owns and operates a pre-school and supports at-risk youth through his non-profit organization. Jeremy Rogers is running for the Leon County School Board District 4. His opponent, Laurie Lawson Cox, the only Republican currently on the board, was not recommended by the LCTA in her first campaign in 2022. Instead, members supported her then-opponent Alex Stemle, the current assistant principal of Godby High School. Mazur made clear that the union's choice of one candidate over another is not meant to vilify anyone. "We're not here to place a scarlet letter on anyone," Mazur said. "Support doesn't mean that there aren't things to still work or that other candidates have brought up and identified." After the most recent teacher salary negotiations with the union concluded with a $5.12 million package for teachers, District 4 incumbent Cox suggested teachers should have an "attitude of gratitude." The comment took many parents and teachers by surprise, with some even calling it "tone deaf," considering Cox's over 30-year stint in Leon County classrooms. Mazur said the recommendations are meant to help remind candidates that teachers are vital voters, and remind teachers that their voices matter. "Teachers that are well informed, and teachers that are engaged with their union vote at a higher rate," Mazur said. "I think it's very important for candidates to understand that not only are they LCTA members, but they're also LCS employees, and they're Leon County residents, and many of them are parents." Alaijah Brown covers children & families for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at ABrown1@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter/X: @AlaijahBrown3. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Leon teachers union endorses Wood, Rogers in this year's elections Let Freedom Ring: Adams County among the first to receive new state welcome sign A major route in Adams County was among the first in the state to receive an update to a road trip staple: the "Welcome to Pennsylvania" sign. While Gov. Josh Shapiro announced that Pennsylvania will be celebrating the 250th birthday of the United States in 2026 with a new license plate and welcome sign design, crews recently placed one of those new signs on U.S. Route 15 Northbound. The new sign, which reads "Let Freedom Ring," welcomes visitors heading into Pennsylvania as they cross over from Maryland on the major route. The sign, adorned in patriotic shades of red, white and blue, features the Liberty Bell, an iconic American symbol from Philadelphia. A new "Welcome to Pennsylvania" state sign is seen along U.S. Route 15 Northbound, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Freedom Township, Adams County. The new design replaces the former "Welcome to Pennsylvania, Pursue Your Happiness" design, which was installed seven years prior in 2017. The Route 15 sign was one of the first eight to be replaced, according to a release from the governor's office. The other seven replaced include I-295 in Bucks County; I-90 in Erie County; I-70 in Fulton County; I-80 in Monroe County; Route 449 in Potter County; I-81 in Susquehanna County; and Route 1015 in Tioga County. Another 29 signs are set to be replaced, the release said, for a total of 37 signs around the state. A new "Welcome to Pennsylvania" state sign is seen along U.S. Route 15 Northbound, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Freedom Township, Adams County. With all eyes on Pennsylvania as we prepare to host our countrys 250th birthday in 2026," Gov. Shapiro said in a news release, "our new license plates and welcome signs will celebrate the best of what the Commonwealth has to offer and show the country why Pennsylvania is the Great American Getaway and the birthplace of American freedom." New license plates The "Let Freedom Ring" license plate design will be available to all drivers in state of Pennsylvania by 2025. The new welcome signs go hand-in-hand with the latest redesign of the official Pennsylvania state license plates. Although slightly different in color and style, the plates also feature the new slogan, "Let Freedom Ring," and patriotic colors of red, white, and blue. The plates replace the tri-color blue, white and yellow plates that were first introduced in the early 2000s. Existing stock of the tri-color plates will be used up before the new plates transition to become the new standard issue license plate, the release said. More: Pennsylvania's new license plate is a patriotic tribute ahead of America's 250th birthday The new license plates are expected to be available sometime in Spring 2025. Pennsylvania residents can sign up to receive an email updates about when the new plates will become available here. This article originally appeared on Hanover Evening Sun: Route 15 among the first to receive new Pennsylvania welcome sign New trial for Vedam is necessary Thomas Kinser. As Mr. Vedam was non-violent, no weapon was produced, and no motive was produced, the conviction made little sense to people who knew Mr. Vedam. Evidence uncovered by the Innocence Project last year, evidence that was known to the prosecution but not shared with the defense, much less the jury, points to Mr. Vedams innocence. For details, see freesubu.org. The Innocence Project has freed hundreds of wrongly convicted, innocent people from prisons all over this country. Sometimes prosecutors offices have helped these efforts; sometimes they have stood against them. The Centre County District Attorneys office needs to support this effort, not hinder it. On July 22 at 10 a.m.-noon, at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Mr. Vedams attorneys will argue for Mr. Vedams right to have the exonerating evidence seen and considered. If there is any reasonable chance that Mr. Vedam was wrongly convicted, this injustice must be addressed. A new trial for Mr. Vedam must be granted. It is necessary. It is honorable. It is just. Jesse L. Barlow, State College, and Nancy F. Parks, Aaronsburg Ruling creates clear and present danger Since 1215, the Magna Carta has stood for the principle that even kings are not above the law. Now, eight centuries later, the Supreme Court has fundamentally shattered one of the foundational principles of our democratic republic by holding that the President of the United States is actually above the law. No amount of legal sleight of hand, partisan propaganda, sophistry, or twisted logic can rationalize a decision that creates the real possibility that the next president will, with impunity, impose a dictatorship with the Supreme Court as its Pretorian Guard. Is it guaranteed that this will happen? No, but the ruling creates a clear and present danger, especially when one considers statements made by candidate Trump, or the plans laid out in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundations policy Bible for the next Republican administration. Trump has told us who he is and what he intends to do. The Supreme Court has given him the green light to do as he pleases. Its up to us to use the power of the ballot box to make sure hes stopped. I have children. I hope someday to have grandchildren. I pray that they will live in a democracy, but genuinely fear the possibility that they will not. Dean Phillips, Ambler Biden must remain in the race As we approach the critical 2024 election, President Biden must remain in the race despite his recent debate performance and cries from far too many media sources calling for him to stand aside. Media pundits seem obsessed with Bidens debate performance while ignoring Trumps inexhaustible penchant for lying, numerous lawsuit losses, authoritarian tendencies, and avowed sexual transgressions. Bidens tenure has been marked by significant achievements: navigating the nation through a pandemic, shepherding an historic infrastructure bill, and overseeing an economic recovery that has laid the foundation for steady growth in years to come. These accomplishments reflect the experienced leadership America needs and stand in stark contrast to the dark future that Trump will bring about if elected. Alternative democratic candidates to Biden present a risk, and some might say a near certainty, of a loss in November. Democratic unity is paramount. A change at this juncture could fracture the democratic coalition. Bidens experience, both domestically and internationally, provides a stark contrast to the chaotic, unpredictability of Trump and his MAGA cult followers who favor Americas enemies, stand for cutting ties with historic allies, and advocate a Project 2025 agenda that almost nobody agrees with except the most extreme far right. The Biden administrations policies on climate change, health care and social justice resonate with a majority of Americans. Continuity in leadership is essential. President Biden has proven his capability to guide the nation. For the sake of continued progress and stability, he must remain the Democratic nominee. WIlliam Rothwell, State College Change needed in White House I condemn both major party leaders. Theyve given us the worst two presidents in my nonagenarian memory. Trump was by far the most petulant president in our history and Biden has the most chaotic term in office. Bidens term gave us chaos in the Afghanistan abandonment, the government spending, his sons scandals, the scattered top-secret documents in Delaware and our horrible sieve-like border! If Biden does retire, I hope that the party has sense enough to support a proven winner and government leader, like Governor Josh Shapiro. He also happens to come from a great state! If the Democratic leaders dont do something soon, our American national government will be even more chaotic ... or Bidenesque! Guy O. Graybill, Selinsgrove The attorney representing a Levittown man accused of killing and beheading his father and calling for the violent overthrow of the federal government on social media wants a judge to decide if his murder case can move forward. Senior Chief Public Defender Joseph Haag has requested a mental competency hearing for 32-year-old Justin Mohn, who made international headlines following the Jan. 30 murder of his 68-year-old father, Michael Mohn, in their Middletown home. The hearing is scheduled before Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Stephen Corr on Aug. 1. The motion means the preliminary hearing for Mohn, set to take place at the Doylestown Justice Center on Thursday, has been rescheduled for late August. Bucks County District Attorney Jen Schorn, left, speaks to the media alongside Chief Deputy District Attorney - Chief of Child Abuse Prosecution, Matthew S. Lannetti, center, and other law enforcement partners while showing the mugshot of Justin Mohn in the background at the press conference about the Mohn murder case at the Bucks County Justice Center in Doylestown on Friday, Feb.2, 2024. Daniella Heminghaus | Bucks County Courier Times More about Justin Mohn Deep State plant or patsy: Conspiracy theorists converge on beheading suspect Justin Mohn What does the competency motion filed for Justin Mohn say? According to a copy of the July 2 defense motion, a psychologist hired by the defense evaluated Mohn in late April and determined he is not mentally competent and recommended treatment at Norristown State Psychiatric Hospital. The prosecution retained a different psychologist who evaluated Mohn and determined on June 30 that he is mentally competent to stand trial. What does PA law say about mental competency? Whenever a person charged with a crime is found to be substantially unable to understand the nature or object of the proceedings against him or her, or to participate and assist in his or her defense, the court shall find the person incompetent, under state law. If a judge finds a defendant is mentally incompetent, court proceedings are halted indefinitely until a defendant, if ever, is deemed mentally competent. According to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry the standards for assessing decision-making capacity are ability to evidence a choice, ability to understand relevant information, ability to appreciate the situation and consequences and ability to process information rationally. Where is Justin Mohn of Levittown now? Mohn remains incarcerated without bail in the Bucks County Corrections Center in Doylestown, according to VineLink. Justin Mohn of Levittown is captured in this screenshot of the gruesome YouTube video he allegedly made after beheading his father in Levittown on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. What authorities allege Justin Mohn did to his father in Levittown Mohn is accused of shooting, killing then decapitating his father in the familys Upper Orchard Drive home before recording a 14-minute video he posted on YouTube where he displayed his fathers severed head. In the video, Mohn identified himself ascommander of America's national network of militias and called for the killing of all federal workers and ordered his followers to seize control of all federal law enforcement offices and federal courthouses. After allegedly murdering his father, Mohn stole his fathers car and drove to the Army National Guard Training Center in Fort Indiantown Gap where he was apprehended. Authorities said Mohn claimed he went to the military base in an effort to mobilize the Pennsylvania National Guard to raise arms against the federal government and convince Gov. Josh Shapiro to join forces with him. Authorities allege Mohn had a flash drive containing photos of federal buildings and instructions that appear to show how to make explosive devices. He also had a loaded 9 mm handgun that he purchased the day before, police said. Mohn allegedly shot his father before decapitating him. What crimes is Justin Mohn charged with? First-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, two counts of possession of an instrument of crime, three counts of felony terrorism, robbery, firearms not to be carried without a license, theft, receiving stolen property, criminal use of a communication facility, possession of a weapon, terroristic threats, defiant trespassing. Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at jciavaglia@gannett.com This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Levittown beheading suspect Justin Mohn won't be in court Thursday The city of Lexington is seeking input on the draft designs for growth in Fayette County at an open house Monday, July 15, from 2-7 p.m. at the Lexington Senior Center, 195 Life Line. The designs include walkable town centers, neighborhoods and businesses, a news release stated. They also include roads, trails, green space, parks and other quality of life elements. The Urban Growth Master Plan team will be at the open house to guide residents through the plans and answer questions. The Urban County Council initially approved expanding the Urban Service Boundary in June 2023. Lexingtons Planning Commission recommended a 2,800-acre expansion of the boundary in five locations across Fayette County. The boundary identifies parts of the country where urban services (garbage collection, street lights, street sweeping, etc.) are provided and a high density for development is allowed. Lexingtons Division of Planning, with a team of consultants, will present the final plan for growth in October, according to the release. More information about the 2024 Urban Growth Master Plan can be found at urbangrowthlex.com. DENVER (KDVR) Two fires were still burning Tuesday in Boulder County after being sparked by lightning on Monday, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The first fire was sparked west of Button Rock Reservoir at about 12:54 p.m. Crews contained that blaze, which appeared to still be burning as of 9 a.m. on Tuesday, according to the Forest Service. The fire had been attacked with helicopter bucket drops and ground crews. One crew was deployed to the fire via helicopter. Forest Service crews also responded Monday to a second fire south of the Dry Saint Vrain Trailhead at about 5 p.m., according to the Forest Service for the Arapaho Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland. The trailhead fire was determined to be under a quarter acre in size when first reported and showed no new growth overnight. How to conserve energy amid Colorado heat wave Crews were continuing to make headway on the Dry Saint Vrain Fire Tuesday morning. The U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday that both fires were started by lightning strikes. A multi-mission aircraft conducted a lightning detection mission and found no additional fire starts in the area, according to the service. According to the National Weather Service Pueblo, lightning strikes are commonly the cause of forest and rangeland fires in Colorado. Many of these wildfires occur when lightning is generated from thunderstorms which produce little or no rainfall. This type of lightning is referred to as dry lightning, the agency said. The National Weather Service Boulder said about half of Colorados forest fires are caused by lightning. As of July 2, the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland were placed under Stage 1 fire restrictions. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. Astra Exploration has secured an option agreement with Patagonia Gold, granting the former the potential to earn up to a 90% stake in the La Manchuria property in Argentina. Spanning more than 5,600 hectares, the property is situated in the Deseado Massif geological region of Santa Cruz Province, known for its mineral prospects. The La Manchuria property, owned by Patagonia Gold, has significant gold and silver resources. Indicated mineral resources are reported at 474,000 tonnes (t), with a grade of 2.59 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold and 129g/t of silver. Additionally, inferred resources are estimated at 1.84 million tonnes, grading 1.3g/t of gold and 40g/t of silver. Under the terms of the agreement, Astra can initially acquire an 80% interest in the Manchuria Project by committing to a structured payment plan. This includes $150,000 in the first year, $350,000 in the second, $1.5m in the third and $1m in the fourth year of non-discretionary expenditures. Once an 80% interest is secured, Astra has the option to increase its stake to 90% with a $5m cash payment to Patagonia by the end of year six, with a provision to extend this period. Patagonia's interest will be carried forward until a 43-101 compliant resource report is published, indicating at least one million ounces of gold-equivalent in combined indicated and inferred categories. Following the resource publication, both parties will contribute proportionally to future expenditures. Should either party's stake fall below 10%, it will automatically convert to a 1% net smelter royalty. Astra will commence a 45-day due diligence period upon signing the agreement, which is contingent on approvals from the existing royalty holder and the Santa Cruz Provincial authorities for the agreed work plan between Astra and Patagonia. Astra CEO Brian Miller said: After reviewing many projects over the past several months, Manchuria stands out as an opportunity to make a significant high-grade discovery in a proven, yet underexplored land package. The grades are exceptional, preliminary metallurgy is favorable, and previous drilling was shallow and mostly focused on the current published resource. There is opportunity to expand the existing resource laterally near surface and along strike, but perhaps more important is the opportunity to discover high-grade feeder zones, which remain unexplored. Manchuria has multiple characteristics which support multi-million-ounce potential. With Pampa Paciencia, and now the addition of Manchuria, Astra continues to position itself as a premier explorer with a growing portfolio of high-quality precious metals projects in some of the most important mining jurisdictions in Latin America. Story continues "Astra options 90% interest in Patagonias Argentinian property" was originally created and published by Mining Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Lisa Nandy, Labours new Culture Secretary, has just made a terribly exciting announcement. In her first speech in the role, she said our society suffers from too much division so shes made it her mission to end it. The era of culture wars, she promised, is over. A noble aim. There is, however, one small problem. Which is that shes absolutely guaranteed to fail. Because, in reality, the culture wars are only just beginning. And its all the Lefts fault. Left-wingers like Ms Nandy love to blame the Tories for stoking culture wars. But this is the most brazen distortion of the truth. Think of all the culture wars that have been inflicted upon us in recent years. The rows over gender identity, Black Lives Matter, boycotting Israel, decolonising universities Every single one of those conflicts was started by Left-wingers seeking to impose their radical beliefs on the rest of us. So the Left accusing the Right of stoking culture wars is like Putin blaming Nato for his invasion of Ukraine. And its not as if Labour politicians have tried to rise above these conflicts. Time and again, theyve eagerly embraced them. Take, for example, our new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer who, at the height of the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, proudly released a photo of himself and Angela Rayner, his deputy, taking the knee. For another example: take Ms Nandy herself. When campaigning to be Labour leader in 2020, she was asked whether male criminals who identify as women should be placed in female prisons. She replied: I think trans women are women and trans men are men. So I think they should be accommodated in the prison of their choosing. Three years after Ms Nandy made these delightfully compassionate remarks, Isla Bryson, who was a man when found guilty of raping two women, was sent to a Scottish female prison. The resulting uproar which helped bring down Nicola Sturgeon as Scotlands First Minister suggested that, funnily enough, locking rapists in a building full of women can actually be quite divisive. Yet it was Left-wingers whod argued for it. To pretend that Labour will end the culture wars, therefore, is risible. Labour will only make the culture wars worse. In fact, theyve already started. In the role of minister for women and equalities, Sir Keir has just appointed Anneliese Dodds who, when asked in 2022 to define the word woman, insisted that it depends what the context is. So if Sir Keir, as he recently claimed, wants to bring people together on this issue, why did he choose someone who has so obviously picked a side? He will have known that JK Rowling and other women would deplore Ms Doddss appointment as they duly did. Yet he still went blithely ahead. Then we come to the small matter of Labours proposed Race Equality Act. According to the BBC, it will extend full equal pay rights to ethnic minority workers. But ethnic minority workers already have equal pay rights. Under existing law, you cant pay someone less because of their race. So what will this mysterious Act really do? Forgive my pessimism if I suggest that it sounds like a recipe for yet more furious social division. At any rate, one thing is clear. The Left are certainly not sick of culture wars. If they were, they would stop starting them. So when they say they want to end culture wars, what they really mean is that theyre sick of people daring to question their plans. They want to impose radical ideological change on our culture without even the faintest murmur of dissent. In short: they dont want peace. They want silence. 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. Lithuania has transferred 1 million to restore the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv, which was hit by a Russian missile during the massive attack on 8 July, as well as other affected hospitals. Source: Lithuanian PM Ingrida Simonyte on 10 July, as reported by European Pravda Quote: "The government has just allocated 1 million to support the restoration of the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv and other medical facilities deliberately and barbarically attacked by Russia," Simonyte stated. "The only way to stop a terrorist state is to increase support for Ukraine's victory. The only fair way to support Ukraine's recovery is to make the aggressor pay," she added. Background: Earlier, Remi Duflot, Deputy Head of the EU Delegation in Ukraine, stated that the EU would help Ukraine rebuild the Okhmatdyt hospital which was struck with a Russian missile on 8 July. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, in a phone conversation with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, condemned the attack and offered to accept patients from Okhmatdyt for treatment. German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach stated that Germany is ready to accept Ukrainian children for treatment following Russia's strike on the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital. The Hungarian opposition party Tisza leader Peter Magyar condemned the Russian missile attack on Ukraine on 8 July, announced a fundraising campaign and his trip to Ukraine with a shipment of medical equipment following the attack on Okhmatdyt. Support UP or become our patron! The Georgia General Assembly passed House Bill 631 in May 2021. The bill created Logans Law, a database meant to help first responders handle calls or incidents involving those with special needs. While the law passed and took effect in 2021, the governors office said the rollout of it was staggered out, depending on the law enforcement agency. As it is voluntary for departments, the rollout was not simultaneous across the state, the governors office told Channel 2 Action News. So, now that more metro area agencies are starting to roll out the program, how does Logans Law work? HB 631 created a database called Logans List, which was meant for local and state law enforcement agencies to collect, maintain and share information about individuals with physical, mental or neurological conditions. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] TRENDING STORIES: The information in Logans List is voluntarily submitted by those whose loved ones meet that criteria as a way for officers and other first responders to know that if theyre answering a call for help involving those people, they know how to approach it without overwhelming or triggering the individuals in need. Some of the conditions that may be entered for individuals on Logans List include autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, fear of lights, sirens or loud noises, and personnel in uniform, among others. In examples of forms for different law enforcement agencies, such as the Dunwoody Police Department, the Conyers Police Department and the Cherokee County Sheriffs Office, among others, those submitting the forms on behalf of their family members can list what school the relative goes to, as well as where they work, what they look like and what conditions, medications and sensitivities they may have. Theres even a section for potential triggers that could cause an interaction with law enforcement or first responders to escalate, as well as a section for emergency contacts. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: London bus passenger stabbed for challenging man who had feet on seats Police have released the picture after trawling through CCTV from the bus and the railway station - Metropolitan Police/SWNS A knifeman stabbed a fellow passenger on a London bus after the victim asked him to take his feet off the seats. Detectives have issued a picture of a suspect they want to speak to about the attack on the man, who was in his 50s, on a 64 bus in Croydon, south London. The attack took place at about 3am on June 4 after the suspect boarded and put his feet up on the seats. The victim confronted the suspect and during a brief struggle was stabbed several times in the leg. The injured man managed to get himself to a hospital, where police were called. The suspect left the bus at East Croydon train station. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: Detectives investigating a stabbing aboard a bus in Croydon have released an image of a man they want to identify and speak with. Anyone who can name the man pictured should report online, dial 101 or post on X @MetCC quoting 923/4JUN24. 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. LONGS, S.C. (WBTW) Fire heavily damaged a home near Longs Tuesday night, but no one was hurt, authorities said. Horry County Fire Rescue was called at 10:15 p.m. to the home in the 2000 block of Live Oak Road. It took crews about an hour to bring the fire under control. The residents displaced by the fire were offered assistance by the American Red Cross. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW. A look inside $1 million eyesore in Fresno. Buddhist priest says why building incomplete Inside Look is a Fresno Bee series where we take readers behind the scenes at restaurants, new businesses, local landmarks and news stories. By most accounts, its considered a neighborhood eyesore. With overgrown weeds and yellowed grass, the building itself is weathered and unfinished. The overall structure, which features upside down trapezoid shapes, looks more like the base of a bridge or highway still needing to be built out. Yet, this unique northeast Fresno property is estimated to be worth more than $1 million. Realtors, investors and businesses call multiple times a week to inquire about purchasing what they might assume is an abandoned property. Even the buildings architect, Arthur Dyson, admitted the property just looks awful now and deteriorated. But according to owner Bill Eidson, there are valid reasons why his place looks the way it does. Whats the story behind this million dollar monstrosity? Eidson, 73, essentially has been in the midst of a lengthy house renovation. The Fresno native has spent the past 14 years transforming what once was a one-story, single-family home built in 1976 into a modern Shingon Buddhist learning center. We have people who say its an eyesore; that its the stupidest looking building, said Eidson, who owns the place but lives elsewhere in Fresno. You know, whatever. It hasnt been sitting idle. Shingon Buddhist priest Bill Eidson stands on a west-facing rooftop of the Shingon Buddhist International Institute building adjacent to a Derrels Mini Storage on Nees Avenue near Millbrook in north Fresno on Thursday, June 27, 2024. At its root, the unkempt property on Nees Avenue just west of Cedar represents the struggle of a mans passion and patience versus the need to invest more time and money. Will Eidsons persistence to see his project through no matter how long it takes or how much it costs beat out the more convenient route of selling the property and letting someone else fix it up? Eidsons property, which sits on 0.77 acres, is located between Woodward Park Church of Christ to its west and a Derrels Mini Storage to the east. At this moment, Eidson said, Im not interested in selling. Learning Shingon Buddhism At his northeast Fresno property, Eidson teaches and conducts training about Shingon Buddhism (also known as Japanese esoteric Buddhism). People do not permanently live there, as some might assume when associating monks and Buddhism. But Eidson does get overnight visitors from time to time, particularly those coming from out of town to attend conventions or seminars about Shingon. Eidson said he is the only American Shingon Buddhist priest certified to train other Shingon priests in the United States. Shingon Buddhist priest Bill Eidson stands in the meditation room, an expanded area of the Shingon Buddhist International Institute building on Thursday, June 27, 2024. A 246-page book by Taiko Yamasaki, who is considered as one of the worlds recognized experts in Ajikan and other forms of meditation, describes Shingon Buddhism as the Tantric Buddhism of Japan. The book further explains that Eidsons religious practice teaches that it is possible to attain buddhahood immediately in life by performing certain practices of body, speech and mind. Almost everyone you talk to is being stressed by the modern things of society, Eidson said. There are so many things Shingon can teach people: How to manage their life. How to manage anger. How to have compassion. How to have wisdom. Eidson has made 256 trips to Japan, primarily to learn from within the spiritual heartland of Shingon Buddhism. Then, he returns to Fresno to spread the teachings. Eidson said his property has helped graduate six full Shingon Buddhist priests and held numerous seminars. From the outside, people think nothing is happening, Eidson said. But from the inside, a lot has been happening. A Buddhist statue stands in one of the rooms inside the Shingon Buddhist International Institute building where Bill Eidsen of Fresno teaches students about the sect. On-and-off renovations Why hasnt Eidson completed renovations? Hes owned the place since 2006 and has been remodeling in stages since 2010, often dependent when money has been available. Award-winning, veteran architect Dyson was brought aboard early on to turn what originally was a 6,359-square foot home into whats become a 11,460-square foot structure. On the internet, Eidsons property is listed as the Shingon Buddhist International Institute. This embedded content is not available in your region. It was a ranch house originally and was going to be a mixed-use project, Dyson said. We used some ideas from the client to come up with the design. It was kind of a unique renovation. Every project Ive been involved in has been different and becomes a new style within itself. It was interesting to see the composition; Bill just hasnt completed it, Dyson added. Hopefully, hell finish it out and itll be an asset to the area. Eidson said hes poured approximately $1.3 million into the renovations. A rendering shows what the Shingon Buddhist International Institute building was originally going to look like at its location on Nees Avenue near Millbrook in north Fresno. Among the renovations completed or partly done at Eidsons property: Building a library center detached from the original home. Expanding the house to the east to include a large prayer area. Expanding the house to the west to include a large meditation center, where religious mantras are performed. Turning a garage into a practice area. Installing a sunken bathroom thats more commonly seen in Japan. But like the outside of the building where plywood was used as a cost-saving measure despite its tacky look much of the inside of the property looks like a work in progress. Our vision is still here and we want to finish it, Eidson said. One of the rooms inside the Shingon Buddhist International Institute building where Bill Eidsen of Fresno teaches students about the sect. Neither Eidson nor Dyson thought itd take more than a decade to complete the renovations. Eidson cited time and money as primary reasons for the delays and the property not always looking well maintained. In particular, Eidson noted the rising cost of materials and labor. He also said that the value of the Yen, Japans money currency, dipped significantly in the past 10 years in relation to the U.S. dollar, and impacted his earnings as a teacher overseas. Eidson and his wife have taught more than 1,200 classes (regarding Shingon) in Japan since 1992. With classes in Japan having been reduced in size since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and still slow to come back to full capacity, Eidson estimated itd take teaching six times as many classes today as it did before 2014 to make as much as renovations currently cost in Fresno. On top of rising costs, Eidson has experienced health problems over the years, including prostate cancer and two heart attacks. Eidson, nonetheless, believes the finish line is near. Bill Eidson, known by his Shingon Buddhist priest name as Eijun, stands outside the Shingon Buddhist International Institute building on Nees Avenue near Millbrook in north Fresno on Thursday, June 27, 2024. He is a man of faith and kindness, having been raised as a Christian but finding inner peace and wisdom through Shingon Buddhism. In his eyes, the property is about 90% complete. He estimates the remainder of renovations can be completed in the next six to 12 months. Of course, it will be, Eidson said. The grass area might never be green, since Eidson believes in watering only vegetation that can produce food. The weeds, though, he said will be cut at some point. Eidson has plans to replace the plywood with stainless steel as originally part of Dysons redesign. The American Shingon priest also wants to get rid of the water markings on the outside walls, and organize and decorate the inside of the property, including filling his expansive library with 150,000 books. Maybe then, this northeast Fresno property might no longer appeal to investors who are looking to flip distressed properties and instead, it can attract those curious and wanting to learn more of the way to enlightenment through Shingon Buddhism. When I started this project, I thought it was a good purpose for using my social security money toward, Eidson said of building Shingon Buddhist learning center. I still believe that. I believe this facility can serve a purpose for the Fresno community. The Shingon Buddhist International Institute building on Nees Avenue near Millbrook in north Fresno was expanded from the original house at that location but left unfinished over the past years. Fresno Shingon Buddhist priest Bill Eidson says although the institute has held many classes and seminars over the years, the building itself should be completed in the coming months. Four decades ago in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Supreme Court directed lower courts to let administrative agencies take the lead in interpreting regulatory laws. Even if judges thought an alternative interpretation better suited the original meaning of a given piece of legislation, the landmark 1984 case held that courts should defer to the agencys reasonable interpretation of a statutes ambiguous language. Loper Bright v. Raimondo, decided at the end of the recently concluded Supreme Court term, marked the end of all that. Chevron is overruled, the court held in a 6-3 majority opinion by Chief Justice Roberts. Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority. No more deferring to an agencys interpretation just because it is a reasonable one: In the business of statutory interpretation, if it is not the best, it is not permissible. To observers not already immersed in the debates surrounding Chevron and Loper Bright, the courts holding might seem commonsensical. Isnt the courts job, going all the way back to Marbury v. Madison, to interpret laws? Why, then, are some critics painting Loper Bright as an imperialistic judicial power grab that gutted the power of federal agencies, while some optimists see it as an opportunity to make the federal government less divisive, erratic, and brutal? That courts need to independently interpret laws is indeed common senseoutside of modern administrative law (i.e., the body of law governing regulatory agencies procedures, fact-finding, policymaking, and legal interpretations). But within administrative law, Loper Bright is undoubtedly a significant development, even if its not the earthquake that some commentators have made it out to be. Loper Bright marks the end of what one might call administrative exceptionalism. In most areas of law, judges are expected to offer an authoritative interpretation of ambiguous statutes without an easy explanation. But since Chevronor arguably since even decades beforecourts treated regulatory statutes differently. Under Chevron, judges have often treated statutory ambiguity as a reallocation of power. It meant that the EPA, OSHA, and other administrative agencies, not the courts, would determine the meaning of a lawand redetermine it later, differently, if a given agency changes its mind. Dissenting in Loper Bright, Justice Kagan challenged the notion that judges could try to resolve a regulatory statutes ambiguity without trespassing on the agencys policymaking authority. Indeed, she rejected the premise that such ambiguities can be resolved with a courts best interpretation. Her dissent echoes her quip at oral argument: Sometimes law runs out. For the court, however, overturning Chevron simply brings an end to the agencies exemption from normal judicial review. After all, resolving statutes with textual ambiguities is simply the everyday work of the courts. As the majority opinion observes, courts understand that such statutes, no matter how impenetrable, do in fact, musthave a single, best meaning. That is the whole point of having written statutes, the majority opinion emphasizes: Every statutes meaning is fixed at the time of enactment. In that respect, the majoritys decision reflects not just a reassertion of judicial authority (as many of its critics lamented), but also a reacceptance of judicial responsibility. But the courts new approach reflects another concern. Under Chevron, agencies have often changed their interpretations of statutes, especially after a presidential election ushers a new administration into power. This was, in fact, one of the potential virtues of Chevron, as the late Justice Antonin Scalia and others noted from the start, allowing presidential elections to have policy consequences is a good thing. But you can have too much of a good thing. And in recent years, the consequences of myriad legal flip-flops from one administration to the next proved untenable. Our modern era of presidential administrationwith each election seeming like an outright regime change, with virtually every area of law subject to summary reversal through a flurry of post-inauguration executive orders and agency pronouncementshas come to resemble what Alexander Hamilton warned about in Federalist 72: the disgraceful and ruinous mutability in the administration of the government. In renouncing Chevron and trying to limit the ruinous legal uncertainty that it exacerbated, the Roberts Court isnt pretending that the problem of statutory ambiguity can simply be wished away. At the outset of his majority opinion, Roberts quotes James Madisons own recognition that every written law will inevitably contain ambiguitiessome more, some less. But given this inherent problem of ambiguity, Roberts continued, the courts must work to mitigate the problem, not exacerbate it. To ensure the steady, upright and impartial administration of the laws, the Framers structured the Constitution to allow judges to exercise that judgment independent of influence from the political branches, Roberts writes, quoting Hamiltons Federalist 78. Ironically, critics of the Roberts Court complain that Loper Bright will destabilize the law. Regulatory programs that agencies had once justified with reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes, they worry, might not pass muster under the courts newly undeferential interpretations of those laws. Furthermore, different courts will inevitably reach different conclusions in their search for the best interpretation of any given statute. This surely will create some uncertainty. That said, Loper Brights critics tend to minimize or ignore the far greater uncertainty that Chevron fostered: the radical regulatory uncertainty that carried from one administration to the next. Furthermore, they also minimize or ignore the other factors that will stabilize the law. First, lower-court disagreements over the interpretation of a law will be resolved by the Supreme Court, in its traditional work of resolving circuit splits. Regulatory cases are already becoming the Supreme Court dockets center of gravity; post-Loper Bright, circuit splits will accelerate that trend. Second, the courts interpretations of statutessometimes agreeing with agencies, sometimes disagreeing with themwill finally settle the matter from statute to statute. No longer will judicial review of an administrations regulatory program simply mark time until the next administrations interpretative about-face. Third, and crucially, this settlement of interpretive questions will redirect political energy to where it actually belongs: Congress. Now lobbyists and activists seeking to change the law will have to change the actual laws through legislation. Critics who complain that Loper Bright will unleash a torrent of lobbying and litigation seem to forget that Chevron itself unleashed torrents of lobbying and litigation, both within agencies and the courts. In this, Loper Brights biggest impact will not be felt in the judicial review of transformative, headline-grabbing new regulatory programs. The major questions doctrine, elaborated recently by the court in cases like West Virginia v. EPA (climate policy) and Biden v. Nebraska (student loan waivers) already constrains those. Rather, Loper Bright will be more important in smaller, but still significant, disputes of labor law, energy law, and other issues where agencies have consistently flip-flopped from one administration to the next. But the agencies wont be pushovers. To the extent that Loper Bright and the major questions doctrine make judicial review less appealing, the agencies will find ways to make policy outside the normal routes of agency action, in ways that are less susceptible to judicial review. Indeed, that trend, too, is already well underway. Over the last decade, administrations have become much more creativeand much more ambitiousin making policy passive-aggressively. Agencies can leverage one regulatory power to exacerbate concessions from companies or industries on other matters. (Concede this issue, or youll never get that permit. Let this one go, or prepare for regulatory scrutiny on another front.) They can make massive new regulatory programs by waiving laws (e.g., the student loan laws), knowing that such programs are much harder to challenge in court. And administrations can try to accomplish more policy goals through agencies whose actions are traditionally least susceptible to judicial reviewnamely, the financial regulators. Loper Bright will all but certainly speed up those trends. That said, it might just also accelerate a judicial reconsideration of at least some precedents that have insulated passive-aggressive administration from meaningful judicial review so far. Of course, judicial review of agency action involves more than just the interpretation of statutes. An agencys regulatory actions also involve fact-finding and discretionary policymaking. Agencies factual findings still receive a fairly deferential judicial review. So do agencies explanations justifying their policy choices, though the Roberts Court has become less deferential there, too, in cases against the Trump administrationon the census and on immigrationthat produced far less academic anguish than Loper Bright. The courts new decision alludes to these other parts of administrative law, as shown by the following (abridged) passage: When the best reading of a statute is that it delegates discretionary authority to an agency, the role of the reviewing court under the [Administrative Procedure Act] is, as always, to independently interpret the statute and effectuate the will of Congress subject to constitutional limits by recognizing constitutional delegations, fixing the boundaries of the delegated authority and ensuring the agency has engaged in reasoned decisionmaking within those boundaries. Its an important caveat, but also a fascinating one, because it papers over one of the biggest possible disagreements among the majoritys justices on one of the other big issues in modern administrative law: whether Congress violates the Constitution by writing statutes so broadly that it effectively delegates legislative powers to agencies. Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh have each voiced strong concerns over this issue; Roberts and Alito too, though less starkly. In the long quote above, when the court refers to agencies constitutional delegations, constitutional is doing a lot of work. Perhaps that will be another long-term consequence of Loper Bright: an acceleration of the nondelegation debates. The more that justices and judges have to grapple with the last centurys laws empowering agencies in practically open-ended terms, the more that judges will interrogate those statutes for best meanings only to come up either deeply divided or empty-handed. And the more that they come up empty-handed, the more that judges may conclude that at least some federal statutes simply have no real meaning at all, other than to empower regulators to write our laws in the first instance. For those statutes, Justice Kagan saw a solution in Chevron deference: courts should let the agencies write the statutes substance. Her conservative colleagues, by contrast, might see the solution in a nondelegation doctrine that declares the statute unconstitutional. Sometimes law runs out was a memorable line in defense of Chevron; it would be even more memorable in defense of a new nondelegation doctrine. 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. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) After shooting a New Mexico State Police officer in 2022, a 22-year-old from Los Lunas, Caleb Elledge, has received a 9-year prison sentence. Elledge was barred from owning a gun during the incident because he was a convicted felon. The incident began in February of 2022, when Lt. Jeremy Vaughan approached Elledges vehicle. Elledge fled, rammed the officers vehicle, and led officers in a chase, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says. Elledge fired a gun at Lt. Vaughan, leading to a medical retirement. FBI accuses 22-year-old of taking part in violent crime spree in Gallup, New Mexico After being captured, Elledge apologized, the DOJ says. After facing a federal charge for being a felon in possession of a firearm, he pled guilty and has now been sentenced to nine years in federal prison. Todays sentencing of the defendant is reassuring that violence, especially when directed towards law enforcement, is never acceptable in our society, Raul Bujanda, the special agent in charge of the FBI Albuquerque Division, said in a press release. The FBI will continue to work with our local, state and tribal partners to use all available resources to make sure that repeat armed offenders are held accountable and bring to justice anyone who assaults law enforcement officers. During Elledges sentencing, Lt. Vaughn spoke to Elledge saying, you and I should never have been enemies . . . I have never been angry with you, there is nothing for me to forgive . . . I care about you as a fellow human being, according to the DOJ. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. Michelle Orengo-McFarlane looks for her name on a voter registration list in San Francisco, California in a file photo. Alabama pulled out of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) earlier this year to create its own system, but experts say it may not have the safeguards of ERIC. (David Paul Morris/Getty Images) Alabama added Louisiana to the list of states that the Secretary of States Office has agreed to share voter data as part of an effort to maintain accurate voter rolls for the state under its new Alabama Voter Integrity Database (AVID). Secretary of State Wes Allen announced the memorandum of understanding (MOU) in a Wednesday news release, making it the sixth state that has signed an agreement with Alabama to share voter files, and completing an agreement with all states that border it. I want to thank our team in Alabama and Secretary (Nancy) Landrys team in Louisiana for their hard work on this MOU, said Secretary Allen. Over 140,000 potentially ineligible voters have been identified through AVID thus far, and I look forward to seeing the progress that will be made through AVIDs sixth state partnership. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX A consortium of other states uses another system, the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), to cross check voter registration information to ensure that voters are not registered to vote in a single state and to maintain their voter rolls. Allen made replacing the ERIC system a priority in his 2022 campaign for the office. He withdrew from ERIC almost immediately after taking office, claiming that ERIC is part of a liberal group funded by George Soros, a billionaire who funded liberal causes. ERIC is a nonprofit established in 2012 funded by states who are members, which includes both left leaning and conservative states. In September, he unveiled AVID to manage the states registered voter rolls. AVID uses state and federal resources, including the U.S. Postal Services Change of Address File and the Social Security Death Index, to check the registration status of voters. Another critical feature is the ability to obtain voter rolls from other states, particularly those adjacent to Alabama, to cross check the names contained within the files to maintain accurate voter rolls. AVID uses all the elements that ERIC is already implementing. According to the ERIC website, the shared data includes voter registration and motor vehicle data. ERIC also obtains death data from the Social Security Administration and the National Change of Address Program from the U.S. Postal Service. To cross-check voter rolls, the state must secure MOUs with other states critical as another means to identify and verify those who should be registered to vote. Election administration experts expressed skepticism last year about whether AVID could be as robust as ERIC, as more states are part of ERIC than AVID. Thus far, six states have signed an agreement with Alabama to be part of AVID. 25 entities are part of ERIC. They also say that ERIC has a robust process and stand by the results that it has produced for ensuring that the process ERIC uses for maintaining accurate voter rolls ERIC uses several factors to ensure those with the same name are, in fact, different people. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST (Bloomberg) -- NASA astronauts pressed into a longer-than-planned stay in space said theyre certain their Boeing Co. craft will return them safely to Earth despite a series of technical issues that have plagued the mission. Most Read from Bloomberg I feel confident that if we had to if there was a problem with the International Space Station wed get in our spacecraft and we can undock, talk to our team and figure out the best way to come home, Sunita Suni Williams, a NASA astronaut and pilot of the mission, told reporters Wednesday during a live webcast from space. I have a real good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring us home, no problem, Williams added. The comments underscored the lingering uncertainty over the Starliner mission after multiple helium leaks and failures of the capsules thrusters small engines used to maneuver the craft through space upended plans. Williams and her companion, astronaut and flight commander Barry Butch Wilmore, have been docked at the space station for more than a month. NASA and Boeing have not set a date for their return. NASA program manager Steve Stich didnt commit to a firm departure date during a separate news conference, but indicated a late-July return might be possible. If Starliner doesnt leave, Stich said the capsule would block another mission scheduled to come to the ISS in mid-August. The two astronauts are the first to fly to space in the capsule, which is designed to ferry NASAs astronauts to and from the ISS. The ongoing mission is a critical test of whether the Starliner vehicle is ready to perform regular crewed trips to space. However, Starliners test flight has been plagued by ongoing issues. After launching to space, the craft experienced as many as five separate helium leaks. Additionally, five of the capsules thrusters failed and had to be rebooted. NASA and Boeing said they were able to bring four of the thrusters back online, while one will remain off throughout the mission. Engineers have been analyzing the issues while Starliners been docked to the ISS. And on June 28, NASA and Boeing said they would be conducting a new testing campaign at the agencys White Sands facility in New Mexico. The plan entails firing up a thruster similar to the one Starliner uses to see how it might behave during different phases that the capsule will experience in space. Story continues Depending on what engineers learn from that test, NASA and Boeing will decide when and how Starliner will come home. Were going to learn from that, Wilmore said of the White Sands testing. And were going to incorporate new processes, new procedures that we will employ if necessary. (Updates with details from news conference in sixth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. New welcoming sign greeting motorists entering Florida. (Photo via Florida Department. of Transportation) The Florida Department of Transportation announced this week that language proclaiming the Free State of Florida has been placed on all welcome signs for motorists entering and departing the Sunshine State. Gov. Ron DeSantis has invoked that phrase for years now, since he made Florida one of the first states in the country to open its economy after the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. In his 2022 State of the State address, the governor proclaimed Florida the freest state in the United States, and in his 2021 State of the State address he said, The Florida sun now serves as a beacon of light to those who yearn for freedom. DeSantis newly formed political committee campaigning against the proposed state constitutional amendments on adult recreational cannabis and abortion rights is named the Florida Freedom Fund. Not everyone feels that Florida is so free particularly when it comes to reproductive rights, since the state now bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Speaking in Tampa at the Veterans Memorial Park and Museum on Wednesday to celebrate the DeSantis administration policies regarding veterans, Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez was asked by the Phoenix about the belief expressed by critics that Florida is free to some but not all. We continue to stand by the Free State of Florida, she replied. We believe that we provide freedom, freedom to right to life, of course for those babies. We continue to stand by freedom of opportunity, thats something that the governor has prided himself on, and I think the proof is in the pudding when we see how many people are moving to Florida vis-a-vis other states. The state has seen explosive growth in recent years. Florida was the fastest-growing state in the country in 2022, according to the U.S. Census, and virtually tied with South Carolina in that category last year. The Florida Department of Transportation has not yet reported how much the signs have cost taxpayers. Another reporter referenced that Nunez had posed in front of one of the new welcome signs and asked her to explain to taxpayers why the state was paying for them. Nunez responded that every state has such signs and that we want everyone to know that coming into the state that this is the free state of Florida. We will never back away from that, she added. Weve made sure to pride ourselves on providing so many opportunities for Floridians. Floridians themselves are loving the signs, so Im sure youll see a lot more people posting pictures in front of that sign. Controversial policies In addition to advocates for reproductive rights, people have raised objections to a number of controversial policies passed in recent years on the freedom front, such as removing books from public classrooms and, most recently, a ban on the sale, manufacture, or distribution of cultivated meat, on pain of up to 60 days in jail. DeSantis signing of that bill into law triggered GOOD Meat, one of only two companies in the United States that have been cleared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to produce such lab-grown meat, to issue a response. In a state that purportedly prides itself on being a land of freedom and individual liberty, its government is now telling consumers what meat they can or cannot purchase, the company said on its website. This bill sends a terrible message to the investors, scientists, and entrepreneurs that have built Americas global leadership in alternative proteins. Florida Department of Transportation Jared Purdue announced in May that as Floridians prepare for Freedom Summer, the states bridges would be illuminated in red, white, and blue colors from Memorial Day through Labor Day. That meant that bridges in places like Jacksonville, St. Petersburg, and Miami would not be lit up in rainbow colors for Pride Month, celebrated in June. Its one of the least free things, Todd Delmay, executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group SAVE, told WPLG Local 10 in Miami last month. Clearly, theres a very petty motive here to take away these very obvious symbols of an LGBTQ community thats been under attack, he said. The Florida Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to our request for comment. (Bloomberg) -- President Emmanuel Macron called on parties that represent republican forces to build a broad majority from the political center after snap elections left France with a divided parliament and no obvious path toward a stable government. Most Read from Bloomberg In his first substantive statement on the deadlock caused by his surprise decision to call the ballot, Macron said that although the far right won the first round with almost 11 million votes, you clearly refused to let them enter government. His definition of appropriate parties also de facto excluded the far-left France Unbowed. I call on all political forces that recognize themselves in republican institutions, the rule of law, parliamentarianism, a European orientation and the defense of French independence, to engage in sincere and loyal dialog to build a solid majority, necessarily diverse, for the country, Macron said in a letter published in Frances regional press on Wednesday. He acknowledged that the elections had demonstrated a clear demand for change and for power-sharing and so obliged such political groups to build a broad-based partnership. He said hed wait to name a prime minister in order to give the discussions a chance to bear fruit. The hurdles to any progress were laid bare on Thursday, however, as opposing forces dug into their positions. The far-left France Unbowed insisted the new premier must come from a leftist alliance that won the most seats, while the conservative Republicans pledged to bring down any left-wing government with a no-confidence motion. Macron isnt currently in France, having gone to meet with other NATO leaders at the military alliances summit in Washington. He left behind a cacophonous group of self-appointed candidates vying to become prime minister after Sundays second round produced a complex split in the National Assembly that sets the stage for very un-French deal-making to try to form a lasting governing coalition. While the New Popular Front which includes France Unbowed, the Socialists, the Greens and the Communists has the most lawmakers in the lower house of parliament, its around 100 seats short of an outright majority in the 577-seat lower house. No other parties, including Macrons, have any clear path to a majority either. The split parliament has left Macron in the role of potential kingmaker. While it appeared that he might look either to the center-left or to the center-right to try construct a workable government with enough members to survive, he instead appears to be trying to court both at the same time in an effort to forge a majority. Its a gambit he tried in 2022, though it didnt work for him then. Mathilde Panot, who leads France Unbowed in the National Assembly, said Macrons letter was shocking and that the president should accept that the left had won the vote. She told Franceinfo radio the leftist coalition is working on a single candidate to put forward for the post of prime minister and that Macron must nominate this person. We have a democratic result, she said. Its not possible to change the rules when the result doesnt suit you. Bruno Retailleau, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, called instead for Macron to pick a neutral premier from outside the National Assembly, warning that if a candidate is chosen from the New Popular Front, his party would launch a motion of no-confidence to try to bring down the government. What Bloomberg Economics Says... With no government and none seemingly imminent the policy outlook for France remains unsettled. Even so, its a lot less hazy than it was before the vote. Thats because the possibility of extreme fiscal policies being implemented by the far-left or the far-right has been taken off the table. Jamie Rush and Eleonora Mavroeidi. Click here for full INSIGHT. As jockeying intensifies, Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau warned on Thursday that the country cant afford to keep increasing the deficit or burden companies with more taxes and costs, highlighting the uncertainty created for the economy by the political drama. As we exit the inflation shock, unfortunately theres another shock threatening an uncertainty shock, he told Franceinfo radio. Business leaders are telling us they are worried about the wait-and-see approach of their customers who are choosing to save instead of spend, about delay of investment, and about freezing hiring. Macron said in his letter that the current government will continue to operate in the interim, and work is continuing. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire sent 2024 spending limits to ministries on Thursday and said he has instigated technical work on next years budget. It is my responsibility to ensure the continuity of the state and prepare a budget for the beginning of August at the latest, he said in Le Figaro newspaper. It will be the responsibility of the next government to validate these options or not. --With assistance from Gaspard Sebag and James Regan. (Updates with comments from political parties starting in ninth paragraph, updates with comments from Bank of France governor and finance minister starting in 14th paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Two pretrial hearings are scheduled on Wednesday for Stephan Sterns in Osceola County. Hes facing murder charges in the death of Madeline Soto, as well as dozens of other counts related to sexual battery and child sex abuse material. Sterns is not expected to be in court Wednesday because he filed a waiver of presence for both conferences. Read: State to seek death penalty against Stephan Sterns One of the hearings is for the murder charge he is facing; the other hearing is for the dozens of child sex abuse and possession of sex abuse materials charges he was arrested for before the murder charge. According to the Osceola County Clerk of Courts website, the trial for the murder charge is tentatively set to begin July 16. The trial for the other charges is planned for Aug. 19. Read: Stephan Sterns faces 60 new charges This all comes after Sterns and Maddies mom reported the teen missing on Feb. 26. However, deputies later said Sterns report was completely made up. Deputies said video surveillance showed him throwing Maddies items in a dumpster. Watch: Bodycam videos show Stephan Sterns 1st interactions with deputies Hes then accused of driving her body to Saint Cloud and leaving it for deputies to find days later. Channel 9 will have a crew monitoring both court hearings and will 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. He might not have been among the first officials asked to participate when late President Hugo Chavez decided to get into the drug business, but current ruler Nicolas Maduro ended up playing a leading role and exerting great influence in the so called Cartel de Los Soles as his power inside Venezuela grew, according to newly unsealed federal indictment. A previously sealed indictment introduced in a federal court in New York against leaders of the Venezuelan drug cartel alleges that Maduros involvement in the drug trade was more extensive than previously thought, and he eventually became one of the top bosses of the organization. Maduro helped manage and, ultimately, lead the Cartel de Los Soles as he gained power in Venezuela, the indictment reads. While officially charged in the U.S. in 2020 as being one of the Venezuelan officials responsible for turning the country into a drug-trafficking state, the prevalent view has been that Maduro played a minor role in the cartel, with the leadership of the organization frequently being attributed to former National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and his now disgraced rival, former vice president Tareck El Aissami. Maduros name does not often appear in court documents describing the initial meetings held by Chavez with his top lieutenants as he moved to set up a partnership with the guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, to ship cocaine to the United States. Often presenthe U.S. indictment says, based on testimony from informants. But Maduros influence in the cartel grew following Chavezs death as he assumed the Venezuelan presidency and as the interest of the drug trafficking operations began to intertwine with the matters of state, court documents show. The FARC, which eventually entered into a peace process with the Colombian government, was for many years considered one of the largest producers of cocaine in the world. The U.S State Department placed the annual volume of the drug transiting through Venezuela at more than 250 tons. Experts currently believe the current volume going out of Venezuela doubles that amount. The Venezuelan regime has two key reasons for entering the drug trade the indictment says. The Cartel de Los Soles sought not only to enrich its members and enhance their power, but also to flood the United States with cocaine and inflict the drugs harmful and addictive effects on users in this country, the document says. The previously sealed indictment says Maduro participated in negotiations to secure multi-ton shipments of cocaine from the FARC in exchange for the delivery of money and weapons to the guerrilla group. U.S. officials also accuse him of coordinating with the authorities of Honduras and other Central American countries for the uninterrupted passage of drug shipments heading towards the United States. Those efforts helped to set up an air bridge of drugs in the region. The State Department reported that 75 flights of small planes suspected to carrying drug loads were detected over Honduran airspace in 2010 alone. But flights are just one of several methods used by the cartel; a large portion of the drugs are shipped by speedboats on established routes through the Caribbean. The maritime shipments were shipped north from Venezuelas coastline using go-fast vessels, fishing boats, and container ships. Air shipments were often dispatched from clandestine airstrips, typically made of dirt or grass, concentrated in the Apure state in southwestern Venezuela, the document says. The indictment claims that Maduro was asked by Chavez in 2005 to help the cartel identify judges unwilling to provide protection to the FARC and their drug trafficking activities so they could be fired. The indictment also says that around that time, Maduro obtained $5 million from the drug trade and got involved in a money laundering operation involving the palm oil business. Eventually, the cartel used the state-run Petroleos de Venezuela to launder funds from its drug trafficking operation. As the partnership with the FARC grew, Maduro found himself getting more involved in the operation, participating in meetings with the rebel group to get more drugs in exchange for weapons and more money. One of his roles as foreign minister under Chavez was to ensure that the border with Colombia remained open to allow shipments coming from the neighboring country to enter without disruptions. The operation continued to grow after Maduro became president in 2013, following Chavezs death, with his family members seeking to benefit directly from the drug trade. Maduros nephews, raised by First Lady Cilia Flores, were arrested in 2015 in a DEA sting for attempting to export 800 kilos of cocaine into the United States. They were extradited and found guilty the following year and were sentenced to 18 years. The nephews, who were released in 2022 as part of a prisoner swap with Venezuela, had told DEA informants during a sting operation that they had sought to obtain $20 million to help finance Cilia Flores election campaign to the Venezuelan National Assembly. Their aim was political in nature, they claimed in the recorded conversations. While describing Maduro as their father, one of the nephews said what we want is for him [Maduro] to take control again of the National Assembly, which was at the time controlled by the opposition. After the arrest, two of the DEA informants involved in the sting were murdered. WELLS, Maine Maine student panelists and peers from Alaska and Oregon presented the Supporting Youth Leaders workshop at the 2024 League of Women Voters National Convention, June 27-30 in Washington, D.C. Maya Eichorn, 19, Kennebunk, Lianna Holden, 18, Lewiston, and Alex Wu, 17, Scarborough, helped answer recruitment and retention questions, shared what League of Women Voters Maine's Youth Council members do, how they address challenges and the larger impacts of their civic work with a 90-member audience. Our work in Maine is mostly youth-led, Eichorn said, so youth determine what we do, and recently its been a lot of advocacy at the State House. Maya Eichorn, Lianna Holden, Alex Wu outside the Capitol, Washington, D.C. She was particularly impressed by the different models the Alaskan panelists described. We learned about their programs within schools, including running mock elections throughout the school system, Eichorn said. What a great way to get kids involved in democracy at a young age. She met with staff in the offices of Sen. Angus King, Rep. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden and lobbied on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and GOSAFE Act. Her convention highlight was being nominated and accepted to serve on the League of Women Voters nominating committee, which picks national board delegates every two years. Eichorn interned twice with the League of Women Voters Maine and was a Youth Council representative to the board. She attended Kennebunk High School, then York County Community College where she was a civic engagement leader. A 2024 graduate of YCCC, she will be a freshman at Emerson College in Boston this fall. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Maine students shine at League of Women Voters national event CHICAGO (WCIA) Thanks to Governor J.B. Pritzkers signature, Illinoisans can see major changes to their healthcare. The governor signed the Healthcare Protection Act into law at a news conference Wednesday. The bill was one of Pritzkers major legislative priorities of the year. Pritzkers healthcare insurance reforms pass State Senate For thousands of Illinoisans, the reforms in this bill will mean the difference between people suffering with curable health conditions and getting the care they need in a timely manner Pritzker said at the conference. For some, this bill, will quite literally, save their lives. The law makes step therapy, when an insurance company only covers a less expensive treatment rather than the treatment a doctor prescribes to their patient until its proven to not work for the patient, illegal for insurance providers. The law now also bans insurance companies from requiring prior authorization for mental health treatments, which is a requirement from health insurance companies that the patient get the permission of their provider for a treatment their doctor already prescribed. This legislation will put power back in the hands of patients, Illinois Speaker of the House Chris Welch said Wednesday at a news conference signing the bill. Short-term health insurance plans, or junk insurance plans according to the Governor, will be banned, too. The plans do not follow the same regulations as normal health insurance plans. Finally, the bill also addresses network adequacy and ghost networks. In 2022, WCIA published a series investigating Blue Cross Blue Shields ghost networks in Central Illinois. The Illinois Department of Insurance has fined Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois twice in 2023 for not following the Network Adequacy and Transparency Act. The Bottom Line: Lawmakers, medical groups call for Pritzker administration to investigate Blue Cross Blue Shield The law goes into effect January 1. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com. Voters fill out their ballots during primary election voting held at the Utah County Health and Justice Building in Provo on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. The 2nd Congressional District primary race entered recount territory on Tuesday night when a final update from Washington County narrowed Maloys lead from over 300 votes to 219. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News The 2nd Congressional District primary race entered recount territory on Tuesday night when a final update from Washington County narrowed Maloys lead from over 300 votes to 214. The threshold for a losing candidate to request a recount is .25% of total votes cast, roughly 270 votes out of 107,000. Maloy has so far received 50.1% of the vote to Jenkins 49.9%. This is the closest Republican congressional primary in Utah in 30 years. Despite the tight race, Maloy appeared relieved during a video call with reporters on Tuesday night and said 214 votes is pretty close but its about 213 votes more than you need to win. Im glad to have some finality, Maloy said. I know were in potential recount territory but I dont anticipate that a recount will change the outcome. The new wrinkle in the already two-week-long saga to decide whether Maloy will serve out a full term after winning a special election last year follows a string of questions by the Jenkins campaign over the number of ballots rejected because of problems with signature verification or late postmarks from the U.S. Postal Service. I certainly want to win but more importantly, I want to make sure that every legal ballot, every voice is heard, Jenkins told the Deseret News. So many, including some of my own good friends, have shed blood to protect our nation, our Constitution and sacred right to vote. How dare leaders rubber stamp something that is more than obviously wrong and silencing the precious vote of so many. Multiple 2nd District lawsuits Last week, Jenkins, a former Army special forces Green Beret colonel, filed a lawsuit to obtain the names and addresses of voters on the uncured ballot list in Washington County, where he beat Maloy 59%-41%. Jenkins sought the list in an attempt to encourage voters to reply to messages from the county clerk to remedy the missing or mismatched signatures on their ballots. On Monday, a judge ruled that clerks have discretion as to whether they will release cure lists to candidates before the election canvass. Concerns over votes not being counted because they were postmarked on or after Election Day led to Iron County Commissioner Paul Cozzens refusing to certify election returns on Tuesday. He was overruled by the two other members of the county board of canvassers who shared Cozzens concerns but saw no legal pathway to count votes with late postmarks. Mail-in ballots must be postmarked (stamped by post offices) before Election Day to be counted by county election offices, according to state code. Jenkins campaign told the Deseret News that the candidate may consider challenging the election outcome on constitutional grounds based on the differential treatment of voters because of late postmarked ballots. During her Tuesday press conference, Maloy expressed confidence in Utah elections and a desire to let the process play out. Its important that we count every legal ballot. Its also important that people understand the rules of elections, Maloy said. Maloy said she trusts the state legislature to make any changes to the electoral system that are needed to improve election security and commended county clerks for their hard work making sure that the ballots are counted correctly. Im not going to question the validity of the election, Maloy said. I think we should all be careful doing that. We need, as Americans, to be able to trust that our elections are free and fair. We need to be able to accept outcomes and move forward. Maloy watched her election-night lead shrink from around 1,000 ballots to 214 as voters responded to requests from clerks offices to remedy their rejected ballots, she said. And Im still willing to say that I trust the clerks and I think theyre doing a great job. When will the 2nd District have a recount? The now-final county election returns will allow Jenkins to file a request for a recount with the state Lieutenant Governors Office. A recount includes recounting all ballots cast in a race and reexamining all uncounted ballots to ensure they were rightly discarded. A recount for a multi-county race must be requested within seven days of the statewide canvass on July 22. The lieutenant governor must conduct a full recount of the race no later than seven days after the request, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson clarified in a post on Tuesday night. This means the final results of the 2nd Congressional District primary recount could be released as late as August 5th. Jenkins campaign confirmed with the Deseret News they intend to ask for a recount if the results hold after the state canvass. Definitely not over yet, said Greg Powers, Jenkins general campaign consultant. Especially given that well be fighting for those late postmarked ballots in our southern Utah stronghold. The 13 counties touched by Utahs 2nd Congressional District finalized their vote tallies on Monday and Tuesday during canvass meetings where county election officials presented county commissioners, and sometimes other county officials filling an absence, with the total number of ballots counted and reasons for the ballots that were not counted. The canvass meetings followed public audits where 1% of ballots were hand counted and compared to tabulation results with members of the board of canvassers present. Maloy already looking ahead to her first full term Maloy said she doesnt know what her campaign will look like in the intervening weeks before a recount is conducted but she is already looking ahead to a potential first full term in office. Maloy cited a number of her bills on state water rights and federal permitting reform that shes working on right now that she said will benefit the 2nd District. Despite Utahs senior senator, Mike Lee, endorsing her opponent, Maloy said she looks forward to having a good relationship with both of our senators and our whole House delegation because that is whats best for Utah. Maloy said she has not talked personally with Lee but said their D.C. staffers have continued to work together on legislation they are co-sponsoring. Maloy also expressed a desire to foster a strong relationship with all those who supported Jenkins during the primary. What I would say to anybody who didnt vote for me in this race? Stick around, Im just getting started, Maloy said. KIPS BAY, Manhattan (PIX11) The man accused of dumping a womans body in a bag on a street in Manhattan allegedly threatened people with a gun after they confronted him on Monday about her death, police said. Chad Irish, 55, is charged with concealment of a human corpse in connection with the death of 31-year-old Yazmeen Williams, according to the NYPD. More Local News Williams was found dead wrapped inside a sleeping bag left among garbage bags on the street at 207 East 27th St. between Third and Second avenues in Kips Bay on Friday, police said. Williams had been fatally shot in the head, police said. Surveillance video showed a man in a wheelchair using a dolly to haul Williams body to the spot on East 27th Street where she was found dead, police said. Yazmeen Williams (Credit: Family handout) NYPD detectives used the surveillance video to track the suspect back to the nearby Straus Houses, where Irish was arrested on Monday, police said. People from the community confronted Irish outside the Straus Houses earlier in the day before his arrest, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. Irish got into arguments with people in two separate incidents that day outside the Straus Houses, police said. In both incidents, Irish allegedly threatened the people with a gun, according to police. The NYPD chief spoke about one of the incidents. Several people from the neighborhood were quite angry with Mr. Irish over [Williams death] and they surrounded him, Kenny said. He produced a pistol and menaced them. He then fled the location back to his apartment where he was placed under arrest by detectives and patrol. Irish was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon and two counts of menacing for both incidents, police said. Irish was then stormed by a crowd of angry neighbors at the Straus Houses as he was taken into custody, video of the incident showed. Police and medics had to shield him from the crowd as he was taken away on a stretcher. They more or less surrounded him like a mob and started to attack him, said witness Ted Oehmke. A memorial for Yazmeen Williams in Kips Bay, Manhattan (Credit: PIX11 News) Kenny believes Williams was killed in Irishs apartment in the Straus Houses. She was last seen alive on June 23, according to police. NYPD investigators searched Irishs apartment but didnt find the gun used to kill Williams, police said Wednesday. Were still working on the homicide itself, Kenny said about the investigation. Were doing what we normally do to try to tie him to this murder. Williams and Irish knew each other, according to police. She stayed with Irish at times at the Straus Houses, Kenny said. Im not sure if their relationship was romantic or if it was more convenient. She would just stay with him. Im sure there was some narcotics arrangement involved, Kenny said. The NYPD chief said police learned from witnesses and family members that Williams may have recently began taking drugs. Irish has a history of drug possession, according to Kenny. NYPD detectives are investigating whether the motive behind the killing of Williams was drug-related, police said. Family members of Williams previously told PIX11 News they didnt know why someone would want to kill her. Shes sweet. Shes a nice person, Williams aunt, Nisha Ramirez, said. Williams was known in the community as someone who would help people. She graduated from Buffalo State University and was about to begin a new job at the New York City Housing Authority. Finn Hoogensen is a digital journalist who has covered local news for more than five years. He has been with PIX11 News since 2022. See more of his work here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. A Missouri man accused of torturing a woman he kept locked in his basement dungeon is now alsocharged with killing another woman who was a potential witness in the kidnapping investigation, the Clay County Sheriffs Office announced Tuesday. Timothy Haslett Jr., 41, was indicted on a count of first-degree murder in the death of Jaynie Crosdale, 36, a woman from Excelsior Springs whose body was found inside a blue barrel in the Missouri River, Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson said at a news conference on Tuesday. A photo of Jaynie Crosdale posted on Facebook. Her body was found amid the investigation of another woman's accusation of kidnapping and torture. Facebook Haslett had previously been charged with nine felonies, including rape, kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child, according to court records reviewed by HuffPost. The case began in October 2022 when an unnamed woman escaped from Hasletts home and sought help at a nearby house, according to an arrest warrant obtained by HuffPost. Police said she was dressed in a trash bag and had a metal collar with a padlock and duct tape around her neck. The woman said she had been held hostage at a nearby home since September, according to the warrant. The woman told police she first encountered Haslett in September while she was walking in Kansas City, Missouri, and he was driving a four-door pickup, according to the warrant. Haslett allegedly offered her $350 to go back to his home, but on the way there he pulled out a gun and sexually assaulted her. Police in Excelsior Springs, northeast of Kansas City, said the woman was forced to take a narcotic and fell asleep, according to the arrest warrant. When she woke up, Haslett had allegedly taken her cellphones and kept her restrained in a secured room in the basement. In the warrant, police referred to this room as a dungeon. The woman described the room to detectives as having red lights and cameras along with all types of things that could be used for torture, according to a probable cause statement. The woman told officers she was tortured repeatedly inside this room and was fed just once a day. The physical, psychological and sexual violence are barbaric, Thompson told reporters at the news conference. Excelsior Springs police officers said that during the womans alleged captivity, she learned two other women had been held there and that Haslett said he had killed them, according to the warrant. Haslett told the woman that if she did not listen to him, he would put her in a barrel like the rest. The woman managed to escape by slipping her arms out of the chains after hearing Haslett leave the house with his son, according to the warrant. Haslett was arrested shortly after police spoke with her. A search of Hasletts home turned up several items, including a black gas mask and large blue barrels, according to the warrant. Police said they found several cameras and photos that depicted another victim in the dungeon. Thompson told reporters that detectives recovered more than 100,000 media files, one of which depicted Crosdale in Hasletts basement. The prosecutor alleged that Haslett had killed Crosdale between June and October of 2022. A family member of one of the alleged victims filed a police report on Jan. 11, 2023, stating that she had not heard from her relative since September, according to the warrant. Missouri authorities announced that day that Crosdale was identified as a potential witness in the rape and kidnapping investigation of Haslett. Authorities located Crosdales remains in June 2023, after receiving a call from kayakers who saw a blue barrel similar to those found in Hasletts home, according to Thompson and reports in the warrant. Thompson told reporters that Crosdales remains showed injuries consistent with a gunshot. Although the surviving woman told police that Haslett had bragged about killing two other women, Thompson said prosecutors could charge him with only one of the suspected killings based on the evidence available. An attorney listed as Hasletts representation declined to comment on the case. Court records indicate Haslett has been jailed at the Clay County Detention Center since his arrest in September 2022 in the kidnapping case, with the prosecutors office requesting a $5 million bond. Related... Man accused of stealing nearly $600 worth of meat from Florida Publix Man accused of stealing nearly $600 worth of meat from Florida Publix TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) Officials are searching for a man accused of stealing nearly $600 worth of miscellaneous meat products from a Florida Publix two separate times. According to Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers, a man was spotted at the Publix on Palm Beach Boulevard in Fort Myers, stealing a total of $597.26 worth of product. AC unit listed on Facebook Marketplace lands Tampa man in jail: HCSO The theft reportedly occurred on June 22, then again, exactly one week later on the 29th. Credit: SWFL Crime Stoppers Crime Stoppers said the suspect left the grocery store in a 2009 Toyota Camry. Anyone who recognizes this man or has any information on this incident is asked to call SWFL Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-8477 or submit a tip online. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. Man accused of using stolen truck to burglarize local business OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) Oklahoma City Police say they are searching for a man after he allegedly burglarized a local business. According to the Oklahoma City Police Department, a man used a stolen truck to burglarize a roofing supply business located in the 5100 block of NW 5th St. LOCAL NEWS: Suspect arrested after chase with OKC officer has history of eluding police Man accused of driving stolen truck to burglarize local business. Man accused of driving stolen truck to burglarize local business. Image courtesy OKCPD. Police are looking to identify him. Anyone with information is asked to contact OKC Crime Stoppers by calling 405-235-7300 or submitting an anonymous tip online. A cash reward may be available. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City. By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun apologized and vowed the planemaker would follow government rules after the National Transportation Safety Board said the company provided non-public information speculating about possible causes on a 737 MAX mid-air emergency, the safety panel's top official said on Wednesday. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told Reuters Calhoun called her after the NTSB criticized Boeing on June 27 for violating its investigation rules into the mid-air blowout of a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 door plug with four missing bolts. "He said they were revisiting with everybody what the rules are for NTSB investigations," Homendy said, calling it a "very good conversation." Boeing declined further comment on Wednesday but said previously the company deeply regretted "that some of our comments, intended to make clear our responsibility in the accident and explain the actions we are taking, overstepped the NTSBs role as the source of investigative information." The NTSB said Boeing would no longer see information produced during its probe. Unlike other parties, Boeing will now not be allowed to ask questions of other participants at a hearing on August 6-7. The NTSB said last month a Boeing executive comments during a factory tour attended by dozens of journalists "released non-public investigative information and made unsubstantiated speculations about possible causes." Homendy said Wednesday that NTSB investigators were still conducting interviews and still requesting information in the investigation and are likely to have more questions after next month's hearing. "Our investigators are getting the information they need," Homendy said. The NTSB also said it would refer Boeing's recent conduct to the Justice Department. On Sunday, the DOJ Boeing had agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay a fine of $243.6 million to resolve a U.S. Justice Department investigation into two 737 MAX fatal crashes. Homendy told Reuters Wednesday the NTSB had "shared with the DOJ what occurred to make them aware." (Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Nick Zieminski) A man who allegedly sexually assaulted an exchange student at the University of California, Los Angeles last week is facing multiple charges. According to a statement from Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascons office, Jeffery Stott Brewer, Jr. is charged with one count of sexual penetration by use of force and one count of first-degree residential burglary with a person present. He was originally arrested by the UCLA Police Department on charges of assault with intent to commit a felony, false imprisonment, burglary and forcible sexual penetration, a UCLA PD release indicates. Man arrested after destroying Los Angeles Rite Aid store The assault occurred in the early hours of July 5 at a room located in the Saxon Suites, UCLA police confirmed, and while it was not immediately clear how Brewer, Jr. gained access to the residence, the DAs office stated that he allegedly began loitering outside of a student housing building around 1:30 a.m. and was let in by a student who heard him knocking on a door. He then left at the request of two student residents, officials said. The Saxon Residential Suite dorm rooms on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. (KTLA) The Saxon Residential Suite dorm rooms on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. (KTLA) The Saxon Residential Suite dorm rooms on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. (KTLA) The Saxon Residential Suite dorm rooms on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. (KTLA) The Saxon Residential Suite dorm rooms on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. (KTLA) Less than an hour later, at 2:40 a.m., Brewer, Jr. allegedly broke into another residence within the same building where he committed the assault against the exchange student while she was sleeping. He was taken into custody on the same day as the assault, UCLA police said. Riverside County teen shot, killed 2 men: deputies The 41-year-old, who is being held on $1.15 million bail, was arraigned on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to all charges, the DAs office said. His next court hearing is set for Aug. 13. If convicted as charged, he faces a maximum of 25 years to life plus six years in a state prison. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. ITHACA, N.Y. (WETM) One person was arrested on Wednesday after police said they were trying to break into a house in an Ithaca neighborhood. According to the Ithaca Police Department, 59-year-old Angel Arce of Ithaca was arrested on Wednesday and charged with attempted burglary in the second degree, a class D felony, and criminal trespass in the third degree, a class B misdemeanor. Ithaca Police investigate downtown shooting Police said that units responded to the 100 block of Stewart Avenue around 12:52 a.m. on Wednesday, July 10, for a reported burglary in progress. Police said that Arce was found in the area when units arrived and was arrested without issue. Arce is currently waiting for further processing of the charges listed above. Anyone with information that can aid police in this investigation is asked to call the Ithaca Police at 607-272-3245. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WETM - MyTwinTiers.com. KANSAS CITY, Mo. A Kansas City man is facing four counts of criminal charges after stabbing a 14-year-old girl and cutting a 9-year-old boy early Tuesday morning, leaving them hospitalized. According to court records, 25-year-old Gabriel Martinez is facing two counts of first-degree assault or attempt of an assault (one resulting in serious physical injury), and two counts of armed criminal action. Prosecutors charge Timothy Haslett with first-degree murder At about 1 a.m. on July 9, officers with the Kansas City Police Department were dispatched to a home in Jackson County for a disturbance call. Upon arrival, they talked to a witness outside of the home who told officers that her boyfriend, Martinez, was inside with her three children an infant, a 9-year-old boy, and a 14-year-old girl and threatening to harm them. The girlfriend told KCPD that she ran from the home because Martinez had made verbal threats to her, had been drinking and had been violent with her in the past. This led officers to knock on the door in an attempt to enter the home. As officers knocked on the doors, court records said that Martinez called the girlfriend, telling her she fed up. Shortly after, officers heard a child screaming inside the home and then proceeded to kick down the door. Once inside, officers saw the 9-year-old boy standing near the entry door. As he ran out of the home to Martinezs girlfriend, officers continued to hear screaming from a young girl upstairs. KCPD officers then went to the upper level of the home, and Martinez walked out of a room with his hands up. Court documents said that Martinez was then escorted outside where officers found a knife in his left pocket. While searching the home, officers found a 14-year-old girl lying on the floor of the bedroom Martinez had exited. Court records said the girl was surrounded by blood and had a fresh stab wound to her abdomen. 6 months after men found dead in Northland backyard, families still await answers Officers then grabbed a shirt to apply pressure until emergency responders arrived at the scene. It was also reported that an infant child was found by police in a separate room. The infant had not been harmed, and according to Martinezs girlfriend, the only reason why the infant wasnt harmed is because it is Martinezs biological child. The 14-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy were then taken to Childrens Mercy Hospital, with the girl said to be in critical condition and the boy in stable condition. According to court records, the boy was stabbed in the chest and the back while the girl was stabbed in the stomach. The girl ended up requiring surgery due to having a Grade 3 liver laceration and a traumatic hernia. The boy only required three stitches to the wound in his chest and three stitches to the wound on his back. Later that night, the boy gave a statement to police. He said that had been in his room when Martinez called him downstairs. After reaching the lower level, he found Martinez with a knife in his hand. Then, Martinez began cutting and stabbing him multiple times, court records said. Hours later, the girlfriend gave multiple statements. One statement described Martinez as being violent and drunk on the night of the stabbings, and the next described concerns for her familys safety due to Martinezs gang affiliation in Kansas City, Kansas. At 10:45 Tuesday morning, Martinez talked with police and told them he recalled arguing with his girlfriend and asking her to come back inside. He said he then went upstairs to check on his son and then was arrested shortly after by police. Kansas City Chiefs to honor former cheerleader during 2024 season Martinez said he had been drinking and does not remember the events that happened between checking on his son and being placed in police custody. Gabriel Martinez could face up to 30 years or life in prison with a minimum sentencing of 10 years. He is being held in a Jackson County court under no bond and will have his first courtroom appearance on Wednesday, July 10 in Kansas City, Mo. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports. Man arrested in connection to death of cab dispatcher outside NYC hotel: NYPD MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11) A man was arrested in connection to an assault that led to the death of a cab dispatcher in Manhattan, according to the NYPD. Jaime Rosario, 54, was taken into custody on June 24 on an assault charge, police said. More Local News The victim, Efron Patino, 53, was working the cab stand out in front of the Riu Hotel on West 47th Street on June 18, according to the NYPD. Patino was assigning fares to the cabs as guests come out of the hotel and for some reason, he had to skip a driver, police said. At this time, Rosario, aggressively confronted Patino and punched in him the face, knocking him unconscious, police said. Patino fell, hitting his head on the concrete. Man arrested in Manhattan womans death pulled from angry crowd by NYPD officers Patino fell into a coma and passed away on June 27, police said. Upon further investigation, Rosarios charge was dropped from second-degree assault to third-degree assault and he was released on his own recognizance, police said. 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). Ben Mitchell is a digital content producer from Vermont who has covered both local and international news since 2021. He joined PIX11 in 2024. See more of his work here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. A man is facing charges after allegedly stabbing someone outside a firehouse in Bostons Back Bay neighborhood Tuesday night. Kris Jennings, 64, of Boston is facing an assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon charge after Boston police responded to the Back Bay neighborhood early Tuesday evening for a reported fight. Officers who originally responded to Newbury Street for the reported fight were then made aware that someone had been stabbed at the firehouse at 941 Boylston Street. Firefighters began to help the injured man and one firefighter was able to stop Jennings, Boston police say. Jennings was taken into custody and a knife was found at the scene. The stabbing victim was taken to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Jennings was arraigned in Boston Municipal Court Wednesday and charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW KANSAS CITY, Mo. A 37-year-old Kansas City, Missouri man is facing multiple charges in connection to a deadly shooting last month of a woman in east Kansas City. Jackson County prosecutors on Tuesday charged Richard Gerard Harris Jr. with second-degree murder, three counts of armed criminal action and two counts of unlawful use of a firearm and tampering with a motor vehicle. Man arrested, charged after stabbing two children in Kansas City According to court records, around 12:45 a.m. on Monday, June 17, Kansas City police officers responded to the area of Linwood Boulevard and Benton Boulevard when a person called the department, saying they heard gunshots outside and saw a person next to the building. When KCPD officers arrived on scene they found a woman, identified as 29-year-old Taylor Thomas, unresponsive with gunshot wounds. She was taken to the hospital where she later died from her injuries and the incident was ruled a homicide. FOX4 spoke with the victims family last month who said Thomas was a mother of seven and was shot only two days after her birthday. Download the FOX4 News app on iPhone and Android A witness told detectives that Harris shot the victim. Surveillance video also captured the suspect shooting Thomas. Family members of the victim are hurting, but they are glad to have some answers and see charges filed in this case. Its crushed our family, Taylor being gone. She has seven kids. She has three kids, who wont know their mom. All they will know is videos and pictures, said Thomas mom Lawonia Carlton. They will never know their moms voice. They wont know any of that, and thats the sad part. Thats what gets us the most is that these babies are suffering. On June 30, Taylors loved ones gathered at her memorial site near East Linwood Blvd. for a vigil and to raise awareness about her case in hopes it would lead to a tip that could help detectives solve the homicide. Less than two weeks after the vigil Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced the charges against Harris. Were very happy that theyve arrested the person who did this, Carlton said. Were very happy with the charges. Prosecutors requested a $500,000 cash-only bond for Harris. He was scheduled for his initial court appearance Wednesday afternoon, however that has now been scheduled for Thursday at 1 p.m. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports. The Jackson County Prosecutors Office charged a Kansas City man with assault after he allegedly attacked his girlfriends kids, stabbing two of them early Tuesday. Gabriel Martinez was charged with two counts of first-degree assault, one a class A felony and the other a class B felony, and two counts of armed criminal action. Officers responded around 1:08 a.m. Tuesday to a home in the 3800 block of Indiana Avenue, where a woman said her boyfriend, Martinez, was inside with her children and had threatened to hurt them, according to a probable cause statement. The woman told police she ran from the home after Martinez allegedly threatened her because he had violent toward her before, the probable cause statement said. While officers knocked at the door of the home and announced themselves as police, Martinez allegedly called his girlfriend and told her she f*cked up, the woman told police. Police heard a child screaming inside the home and believed the kids were in danger, so they kicked open the door, according to the probable cause statement. One of the children was at the door and ran from the home, and police then heard a girl screaming from the upper level of the home. As police went upstairs, they saw Martinez exit a room with his hands up, and officers handcuffed him. Officers escorted him from the home and saw a victim lying on the floor of a bedroom. Another person ran into the home saying one of the children had been stabbed. Police found the victim, the womans daughter under the age of 15, with a fresh stab wound on her abdomen and blood on the floor near her, according to the probable cause statement. Officers used a shirt from the bedroom floor to apply pressure to the wound until emergency medical crews arrived. The girl and her brother, who is under age 10 and had a laceration wound, were taken to Childrens Mercy. The boy was in stable condition, and the girl was listed in critical condition as of early Tuesday. Before officers put Martinez in a patrol car, they frisked him and found a knife in his left pocket, according to the probable cause statement. Police arrived at Childrens Mercy around 1:50 a.m. and spoke to a male victim, who said he was upstairs in his room when Martinez told him to go downstairs. Martinez allegedly had a knife in his hands and began to cut and stab at victim multiple times. The victim allegedly screamed and ran to the door to try to flee the home, the victim told police. Martinez allegedly then went upstairs and stabbed the female victim, who was in critical condition and unable to talk with police at the hospital. The boy was stabbed in the chest and the back, and the girl was stabbed in the stomach. The girl needed surgery because she had a Grade 3 liver laceration and a traumatic hernia. The boy needed three stitches on each of the wounds to his chest and back. The childrens mother told police she and Martinez, who was allegedly intoxicated, were arguing when he threatened to hurt her and her children and kill them. The woman left the home to try to deescalate the situation and call police, but Martinez allegedly told her shed regret calling authorities, according to the probable cause statement. The woman also told police she feared retaliation from Martinez, who she alleged is affiliated with gangs in Kansas City, Kansas. Martinez allegedly told detectives that he had argued with his girlfriend and trying to convince her to come back in the home when she left, according to the probable cause statement. He told police he went upstairs to check on his son, when he was arrested. When officers asked Martinez what occurred after the argument, he allegedly told them he had been drinking and didnt recall all the details. Martinez is being held in jail without bond. His first court appearance is on July 18. Man claiming to be predator hunter arrested on child porn charges in Rogers ROGERS, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) A man who claimed to be a child predator hunter was arrested in Rogers for allegedly possessing child pornography, according to court documents. Brandon San-Miguel, 38 (Courtesy: Benton County Detention Center) Brandon San-Miguel, 38, was arrested on June 17 on 10 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing sexually explicit conduct involving a child and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia. According to a probable cause affidavit filed on July 3, Rogers police conducted a traffic stop on San-Miguel on June 17 for outstanding warrants out of California for child pornography. San-Miguel was first arrested for the drug charge after debit and credit cards in other peoples names, drug paraphernalia and a semi-automatic rifle were found. San-Miguel was taken to jail and an inventory of his personal items was taken which included cell phones, flash drives, SIM cards and laptops. Hoodwinked: Arkansas man suing Las Vegas dancer for $38.5M after alleged fraud scheme The affidavit says child porn was found on one of the cell phones and a laptop. San-Miguel later told detectives he was part of an online predator hunter group and would set up fake accounts to get people to send him child porn, according to the affidavit. He said he would save the material sent to him and provide it to police. San-Miguel said he previously provided files to the San Diego Police Department. San-Miguel claimed he used cell phones and laptops to conduct undercover operations and reported that at the time of his arrest, he was still active in predator hunting. Brandon continually said he was not a bad person and that he wanted to help law enforcement, the affidavit said. Springdale man accused of robbing Fayetteville bank pleads not guilty Officers reviewed San-Miguels criminal history and found he was arrested in 2019 for alien smuggling and in 2023 for possession of a controlled substance while armed, possession of a controlled substance for sale, unlawful vehicle registration, and transport/sale of narcotics. On June 18, RPD contacted the Orange County Sheriffs Office in California, who said that after San-Miguels 2023 arrest, his devices were searched. OCSO found 47 child porn videos, 14 pictures. The average age of the victims was found to be between nine and 11 years old, the affidavit said. San-Miguels devices were searched on June 20 and multiple videos of child porn were found by authorities. He previously told police that there would be no child porn on his devices, according to the affidavit. Police said they also found Google searches on one device that said In Arkansas an adult can date a 16-year-old and What are some teen dating apps girls in Arkansas use? He is being held in the Benton County Detention Center on a $500,000 bond and has a court date set for August 12. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24. Man who exposed genitalia, tried to grab child in Homestead is on the loose, cops say Detectives are on the hunt for a man they say flashed his genitalia to a 10-year-old girl who was taking out the trash outside an apartment building in Homestead, police said. Hes been on the run for more than a month. On Tuesday, police pleaded with the community for help to track down the man who exposed himself to the young girl May 31. The 10-year-old was discarding the garbage near Phoenix Apartments, 1554 NE 8th St., when he approached her with his pants unbuttoned and private parts visible, police said. He tried to grab her before she escaped to a nearby playground to hide. The man was described as a 40 to 50-year-old, around 510 tall, and weighing between 150 to 175 lbs. He also has short hair. Police said he fled in a four-door beige or cream sedan, possibly an older Toyota, with multiple items inside. Anyone with information should contact the Homestead Police Department at 305-247-1535. The communitys assistance has been invaluable in solving many cases in the past, and we rely on your support once again to help us bring this suspect to justice, police said. Your vigilance and cooperation can make a significant difference in maintaining the safety and security of our neighborhoods. This is a developing story. Bulgargaz, the state gas company of Bulgaria, has commenced arbitration proceedings against Gazprom, seeking compensation for an alleged breach of contract, reported Reuters. The Bulgarian company is pursuing a claim of 400m (Lv782.33m) related to a contract dispute from 2022. The case has been brought before the Arbitration Court of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, France. "After the Russian side did not take action to settle the matter out of court, Bulgargaz took the necessary steps to protect the company's interests," Bulgargaz stated. Last year, Gazprom suspended its long-term contract with Bulgargaz, which accounted for 90% of the gas deliveries to Bulgarian customers. The Russian energy major ceased its gas supply to Bulgargaz in late April 2022. Reuters said that its attempts to reach Gazprom for a response were unsuccessful. Bulgaria, a member of both the EU and NATO, has joined international sanctions against Russia following its military actions in Ukraine in 2022. Last month, German energy company Uniper officially ended its gas supply agreements with Gazprom Export, a subsidiary of Gazprom, after an arbitration tribunal awarded Uniper more than 13bn ($14.06bn) for undelivered gas since mid-2022. The Stockholm-based tribunal, applying Swiss law, delivered a binding verdict, allowing Uniper to terminate contracts that would have lasted into the mid-2030s. Uniper, which had been under financial pressure due to the absence of Russian gas and the need to purchase gas at elevated market prices, initiated arbitration against Gazprom Export at the end of 2022. Separately, the Austrian energy minister has established a commission to explore the possibility of cancelling a gas supply contract with Russia, with the aim of reducing dependence on Russian energy. The contract between Austrias OMV and Gazprom is set to expire in 2040. "Bulgargaz seeks $432m in compensation from Gazprom for contract breach " was originally created and published by Offshore Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Man facing 10 years in prison after being accused of bringing sex worker into New Mexico ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) Federal prosecutors are accusing an Arizona man of bringing a sex worker through New Mexico on their way to Arizona. They claim the two made stops in New Mexico in order to engage in prostitution. In June of 2024, a woman called 911 to report that she was being trafficked, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says. Law enforcement then responded and found the woman with 24-year-old Hakeeme Kaleb Williams. Los Lunas man sentenced to 9 years after shooting New Mexico State Police officer The woman claimed Williams was in charge of her sex work and that she provides all her earnings to Williams, the DOJ says. The DOJ also says they found online ads showing the woman (along with another individual) that appears to advertise sex work in Albuquerque. Williams is considered innocent until proven guilty. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison, the DOJ says. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. Man found in pool of blood was arguing with girlfriend in Brooklyn park: NYPD BATH BEACH, Brooklyn (PIX11) The man found in a puddle of blood in a Brooklyn building was seen arguing with his girlfriend in a nearby park hours before he died, authorities said. A resident found Maurice Freeman, 30, lying in a pool of blood with a stab wound in the thigh in the building vestibule at 1491 Shore Parkway in Bath Beach at around 5:15 a.m. Monday, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. Freeman was rushed to the hospital, where he bled out just before 6 a.m. Freeman and the woman were seen fighting in the park across the street at around 2:30 a.m. and again at 3:35 a.m. before the girlfriend drove off, Kenny said. More Local News Investigators believe the victim was attacked in the park after finding a blood trail from the building to the park, officials said. Police are looking for the woman but are unsure of her involvement in the fatal incident. They have an extensive domestic violence history, Kenny said Tuesday at a briefing. We still need to talk to her to see if it was in fact her involved in this incident. The couple lived together in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, and were in Brooklyn visiting friends. They were staying in the building where Freemans body was found, police said. There have been no arrests and the investigation is ongoing. 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). Mira Wassef is a digital reporter who has covered news and sports in the NYC area for more than a decade. She joined PIX11 News in 2022. See more of her work here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) The man who killed a seven-year-old boy during a drunk-driving hit-and-run crash outside of the River of Lights in 2021 will spend more than two decades behind bars. Sergio Almanza was sentenced on Tuesday but before the judge issued his ruling, the family of Pronoy Bhattacharya got to speak on the boys behalf, two days after what would have been his tenth birthday. Story continues below He had an extremely bright future ahead of him and would have made a difference in so many peoples lives, if his life was not cut off by a callous, reckless man, said Aditya Bhattacharya, Pronoys father. Almanza was drinking at a restaurant on December 12, 2021, before getting behind the wheel of an ATV and driving down Central Ave. Pronoy and his father were crossing the street, just coming from the River of Lights, when Almanza hit them. Pronoy died at the scene. His father suffered numerous injuries. The last moment I had with him was when I was crossing the road, his hand in mine. Next time I saw him, he was in a casket, said Aditya Bhattacharya. He said Pronoys little brother is still traumatized. He still panics when he sees a moving vehicle because he thinks every driver behind the wheel is another monster who thinks nothing of mowing down an innocent child and his parent. He doesnt feel safe even when we are holding his hands because he is well aware that his father was holding Pronoys hand that night and that didnt help the least bit, said Aditya Bhattacharya. Almanza fled to Mexico before turning himself in more than a month later. In September, he was found guilty of homicide by vehicle DWI, great bodily harm by vehicle DWI, knowingly leaving the scene of an accident and more. Judge Brett Loveless sentenced Almanza to 25 years behind bars. Almanzas lawyer said while they respect the jurys decision, his client maintains he was not drinking and this was a case of reckless driving. No word if they will appeal. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. Colt Seward said he still cant fully remember what happened to him when he was arrested last year. The May 2023 incident garnered public scrutiny when a video captured by a bystander showed Meridian Police Officer Donald Heida punching the 32-year-old at least half a dozen times in the face and head. More than a year later, that arrest continues to have lasting impacts as the family weighs legal action. Seward suffered a broken bone by his right eye, medical records obtained by the Idaho Statesman showed. In an interview with the Statesman, Seward said hes undergone reconstructive surgery to place a prosthetic in his face to hold up his eye, had a traumatic brain injury, and still deals with blurred vision and numbness on the right side of his face. He has spasms, anxiety and memory problems stemming from the beating he took during the arrest, he said. This shouldnt have happened, Seward told the Statesman in a video interview from the Ada County Jail. It shouldnt have happened. Colt Seward has suffered lasting medical issues after he was punched at least eight times by Meridian Police Officer Donald Heida during a May 2023 arrest. Seward is pictured above with his wife, Mersades Seward. Seward, through his attorneys, filed a tort claim against the Meridian Police Department, alleging that Heida struck Seward with excessive and unreasonable force. Seward is seeking payment for any past and future medical expenses along with other damages, including lost wages, disfigurement, mental health problems and reduced quality of life. Police arrested Seward on suspicion of driving under the influence after somebody contacted the Meridian Police Department about a driver passed out in traffic, and while he was in the back of the patrol car, Seward slipped his handcuffs, police said. When officers went to re-cuff Seward, they said he struck one officer with his elbow, and two officers then forced him to the ground with Heida striking him at least eight times. His wife, Mersades Seward, said Colts medical expenses have totaled around $100,000. They also created a GoFundMe to help pay for legal expenses, with a goal of $20,000. Zander Engeman, of Boise-based Attorneys of Idaho, and Sewards civil attorney said they are still in the negotiation phase after filing the tort claim, but their next step would be to file a lawsuit if they arent able to settle things out of court. Lawsuits must be filed within two years of the incident. I understand police have a dangerous job, Engeman told the Statesman. But this situation felt like it went above and beyond what was needed to control the situation. Colt Sewards booking photo at the Ada County Jail after he was punched in the face by Meridian Officer Donald Heida. Seward accused of battering officer Since the arrest, Colt Seward has been in and out of jail. As of Tuesday, he was unable to bail out on a $250,000 bond after failing to appear at a hearing, court records showed. Mersades Seward said her husbands continued incarceration has made it difficult for him to work through the pain and trauma he sustained. The arrest also affected their 6-year-old daughter, she added. She said she struggles to understand why Heida didnt face any consequences given her husbands injuries, and gets angrier about it when she watches the footage. Heida, who is no longer a Meridian police officer, didnt respond to a call or text seeking comment for this story. When Seward was on his way to one of his court hearings last year, he thought he saw Heida walking up behind him at the Ada County Courthouse, and it caused him to panic, his wife said. Colt is the hero of the family, Mersades Seward told the Statesman. So to see him like really kind of nervous and scared of cops is very heartbreaking. Mersades Seward describes watching the video of her husband, Colt James Seward, getting punched in the face while being arrested by Meridian police. Seward was charged with several crimes, including one that accused him of battering Heida by elbowing him in the chest. Meanwhile, investigators determined that Heida violated no department policies, and he remained on duty. Meridian Police Chief Tracy Basterrechea said Heida and an accompanying officer in the incident, Sean McDonald, were within policy. While striking someone isnt encouraged, he added, its allowed. The agency is always looking for more effective ways to train their officers, Basterrechea said. We support our officers in this use of force, and I will emphasize these incidents dont happen if the suspect cooperates or at least complies with an officers legal commands, Basterrechea told the Statesman last year. Heida joined the department in April 2021. In December he was part of an internal affairs investigation after he failed to inform Meridian police that he was charged with two misdemeanors. He has since left the department, according to court documents obtained by the Statesman. Stephany Galbreaith, a spokesperson for the department, said in an email that Heidas departure was unrelated to the internal investigation but declined to provide more details. She declined to answer additional questions about when Heida left the department and whether he had been fired or resigned. Galbreaith also initially declined to even disclose Heidas employment status. She acknowledged his departure in a follow-up email only after the Statesman confirmed it through court records. Sewards defense attorney, Justine Parker, also learned Heida had left the department through court records, prompting her to request additional information about the internal investigation. I didnt even hit you: Body-cam footage shows use of force An initial video, captured by a bystander, of Sewards arrest showed Heida punching him half a dozen times. But a portion of the body-camera footage, which was provided to the Statesman by Sewards family, showed Heida striking Seward at least two more times before bringing him to the ground a fact that wasnt previously disclosed by the department. The two-minute portion of the footage, which showed the use of force, corroborated the 25-second video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, by a Boise-based Black Lives Matter group, and revealed new details about Heidas use of force. Heida responded to the intersection of North Ten Mile and West Ustick roads just before 5:30 p.m. May 16, 2023, after someone contacted authorities about a driver passed out in traffic, according to the Meridian Police Department. Seward admitted to falling asleep in his car, he told the Statesman. After Seward failed a sobriety test, he was arrested and placed in the back of Heidas police car, where police said he slipped off his cuffs. Meridian Police Department body-cam video shows the interaction between Meridian Police Officer Donald Heida and Colt Seward when he was arrested in May 2023. The footage, taken from McDonalds body camera, showed the officers trying to re-handcuff Seward behind his back when Seward pulled his left hand away. Heida then pushed Seward, face first, into the open patrol vehicle and hit him at least two times, with Seward repeatedly saying, I didnt even hit you. The men eventually fell to the ground in a struggle, according to the footage. While on the ground, Heida, with his knee on Sewards neck for part of it Seward was pinned to the pavement yelled at Seward to give him his hand, and punched him six times. He strikes me again, Seward told the Statesman, recounting his arrest. He strikes me again and again. Seward said he thinks Heida struck him 12-14 times. In the seconds after the encounter, while Heidas knee remained on Sewards back and a trail of blood streamed from Sewards face, he told Heida that the officer had no reason to hit him like that, according to the body-cam footage. I have a daughter, I work for a living, Seward said in the footage, lying prone on the ground next to a Maverick gas station. I need an ambulance right now. Seward said he was on his way to pick up his daughter when the arrest happened. He told the Statesman that the arrest altered peoples view of him. Im not a bad person, he said, choking up. Colt Seward has suffered lasting medical issues after he was punched at least eight times by Meridian Police Officer Donald Heida during a May 2023 arrest. It wasnt just a little broken nose, it was a huge break, Sewards wife, Mersades Seward told the Statesman. Heidas credibility will be a central issue Last November, Heida took a hunting trip in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, northwest of Challis, and killed a mule deer in an area where he didnt have a controlled hunting tag, according to court documents. Heidas tag was for the adjacent area, and he was cited for two misdemeanors by Idaho Fish and Game. Six months later, in May, court records showed that Heida pleaded guilty to possession or transporting improperly tagged wildlife and was granted a withheld judgment, meaning the court could vacate his conviction if he followed the terms of his probation. Fourth District Magistrate Judge Adam Dingeldein, who handles all magistrate cases in Valley County, revoked Heidas hunting license for a year and ordered that he pay over $4,000 in fees and restitution, according to court records. Heida was also barred from assisting other hunters. Heida didnt report the incident to the Meridian Police Department. Officers in Idaho are required to notify their agencies within five days of being charged with a felony or misdemeanor. If they dont, they can be decertified or barred from working in law enforcement by the Idaho Peace Officers Standards and Training Council. Meridian investigated Heida and found that hed brought discredit to the agency by failing to report the incident and for dishonest or disgraceful conduct, according to a discovery disclosure by the Ada County Prosecutors Office. Idaho Post Division Administrator Brad Johnson said by email that he couldnt comment on whether any officer is the subject of an investigation and pointed the Statesman to the agencys decertification database. Heida hasnt been decertified, according to that database. Parker, the public defender representing Seward in his criminal case, filed a motion to compel, asking the judge to force Ada County prosecutors to turn over additional documents regarding the Meridian police internal investigation into Heida. In a memorandum, Parker noted that Heida was the primary officer during Sewards arrest and that he repeatedly struck Seward in the face. Heidas credibility will be a central issue in this case, Parker said. Fourth District Judge Patrick Miller has scheduled a hearing on Parkers motion for July 22, according to court records. This embedded content is not available in your region. Meridian police officer who punched man 6 times violated no policy, chief says Watch video: DUI arrest leads to Meridian ID police officer punching suspect repeatedly A man has been sentenced after pleading guilty to producing child sex abuse material. >>Police lieutenant accused of pointing gun at over a dozen people, including kids, at July 4th party Dustin Johnson, 38, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for creating child pornography by paying women to sexually abuse minor girls on social media chats, according to United States Attorney Kenneth Parker for the Southern District of Ohio. He paid a woman to engage in sexually explicit conduct with a live girl on social media in June 2022 and recorded the communications with a screen recorder app, saving video recordings of approximately 10 minutes and 17 minutes on separate days, court documents said. Law enforcement found the woman and child, who were overseas. The victim was five years old and removed from the womans custody. Investigators also discovered more than 24,000 child pornography files on Johnsons hard drives, Parkers office stated. Johnson was arrested in February 2023 and pleaded guilty in February 2024 to producing child pornography. Getty Images An Indiana man who threatened to kill then-Rochester Hills Clerk Tina Barton, a Republican, days after the 2020 election has been sentenced to federal prison. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Laurie Michelson ordered 38-year-old Andrew Nickels of Carmel, Ind., to 14 months in prison following his guilty plea earlier this year to one count of making a threatening interstate communication, which carries a maximum five-year penalty. According to court documents, on or about Nov. 10, 2020, Nickels called Bartons office and left a voicemail saying she deserved a throat to the knife, for her statements concerning the integrity of the election results, which were being openly attacked by former President Donald Trump and his allies with false claims of mass fraud. Trump lost the state to Joe Biden by more than 154,000 votes. [Y]ou frauded out America of a real election, Nickels was reported to have said, who then told Barton, Youre gonna pay for it, and described how 10 million plus patriots will surround you when you least expect it [and] kill you. Nickels then threatened Bartons family and concluded by saying, You deserve a [expletive] throat to the knife. Watch your [expletive] back. Watch your [expletive] back. U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison for the Eastern District of Michigan said the threats made against Barton undermine our democracy by making elections workers fearful for their lives and for the safety of their families just for doing their jobs, adding that the sentence should send a clear message that those who seek to jeopardize the fair and free administration of our elections with threats of violence will be vigorously prosecuted and held accountable. Barton posted to social media following the sentencing, saying while more than 1,300 days had passed since Nickels threatened her life and the lives of her family, his words were forever seared into her memory. The cold, calculated tone of his voice, and the vile, despicable, and sexualized language he used to degrade and debase me are something that I hear in my head almost daily. His threat to end my life when I least expected it, robbed me of my sense of security, my peace of mind, said Barton. There is a resilience within me that refuses to be extinguished. I refuse to let the words of this man define me, to let his twisted fantasies of violence and domination dictate the course of my life. Barton now serves as a vice chair of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections (CSSE), a national organization of cross-partisan experts in election administration and law enforcement who aim to support policies and practices that protect election workers and voters from violence, threats and intimidation. CSSE Chair Paul Penzone, a former Maricopa County, Ariz. sheriff, issued a statement Tuesday calling the sentencing of Nickels a signal that threats against election officials would be taken seriously and those perpetrating them would be held accountable. Death threats like the ones Tina faced are never acceptable, and they endanger not only the public servants who administer our elections, but also democracy itself. Accountability and the rule of law matter, and we hope this sentencing helps deter others from threatening, harassing, or intimidating election officials, said Penzone. Tina has shown immense courage and grace throughout the legal process, drawing from her own experience to help shield other election officials from what she has experienced. In her role with CSSE, she builds relationships between election officials and law enforcement, develops resources, and facilitates dozens of tabletop exercises (TTXs) around the country. I am honored to work alongside her. The Detroit News quoted Nickels defense attorney Steve Scharg as saying his client suffered from mental illness. I wish we had more treatments available for helping people with mental health issues, Scharg said in February when Nickels entered his plea. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland also issued a statement, saying the Justice Department has no tolerance for violent threats against election workers, officials, and volunteers, and as this case demonstrates, we will aggressively investigate and prosecute such threats to the fullest extent of the law. Barton noted that threats against election officials were an assault on the democratic principles that form the backbone of our society and the message for those like Nickels was a strong one if you threaten the life of an election official, you will be held accountable and the price will be high. My faith in God gives me strength every day. The love of my family and friends has and will continue to sustain me. My commitment to this country, and serving the citizens who live here, is deeper than ever. My resolve is intact, Barton said. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Man sentenced to prison for threatening life of former Michigan clerk appeared first on Michigan Advance. Man sentenced for watching porn, exposing himself and touching woman in Penn State library A man was sentenced Tuesday to months in jail and years of supervision for watching pornography, exposing his genitals and inappropriately touching a woman in Penn States Pattee Library. Brandon J. Taylor, 35, was sentenced by Centre County Judge Julia Rater to a minimum of five months in the county jail. His maximum sentence is 23 1/2 months, Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna told the Centre Daily Times. He received credit for about six months served since his January arrest. Taylor, who was listed in charging documents as homeless, was also sentenced to two years of probation, Cantorna said. Taylor was accused of viewing pornography on a library computer. He then approached a woman, exposed his penis, asked her to perform oral sex and touched her inappropriately, university police wrote in an affidavit of probable cause. Taylor, an officer wrote, is a registered sex offender in New Hampshire. He pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor count of indecent assault and indecent exposure. Several charges were dropped, including a felony count of failure to comply with registration requirements. His previous convictions did not require him to register under Pennsylvania law, Cantorna said. Centre County First Assistant Public Defender Lora Rupert declined comment Wednesday. (KRON) A man was arrested for stealing thousands of dollars worth of products from Lululemon at the Hillsdale Shopping Center, the San Mateo Police Department (SMPD) announced Tuesday in a news release. The theft happened around 8 p.m. on Monday, and suspect Carlos Palafox is accused of stealing more than $5,600 worth of merchandise. Palafox, a 24-year-old Daly City resident, filled a bag of merchandise and ran out of the store without paying, police said. Officers located the suspect two blocks from the Lululemon store where he was safely detained, despite initially attempting to flee from police. According to SMPD, Lululemon employees recognized him because he had stolen from the store seven different times since February. The stolen items were returned to the store. Texas man steals $6K worth of merchandise from Livermore outlets: police More than $5,000 worth of merchandise was stolen Monday from the Lululemon store at the Hillsdale Shopping Center (San Mateo Police Department). According to police, Palafox had stolen from the same Lululemon store eight times since February (San Mateo Police Department). Months-long investigation leads to recovery of $90K worth of gas, $44K cash, credit card skimmers: Santa Clara Co. sheriff Palafox was booked into a San Mateo County jail. He is facing charges of second-degree burglary and organized retail theft. Since the amount stolen totaled more than $950, this kind of retail theft would be prosecuted as a felony, according to California law. Mondays theft marks the second time in one month the Lululemon store at Hillsdale Shopping Center has been victim of retail theft. In June, four people were arrested after nearly $10,000 worth of merchandise was stolen from the store. Palafox was not one of the four arrested in that theft. Similarly, most of the items stolen are Lululemons signature bottoms, particularly its yoga pants. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. Despite a day of fluctuating fortunes where the Swiss market largely hovered in positive territory, it ultimately closed with a slight decline. In such an environment, discerning investors might look towards stable dividend stocks like Burkhalter Holding as potentially resilient options amidst market inconsistencies. Top 10 Dividend Stocks In Switzerland Name Dividend Yield Dividend Rating Vontobel Holding (SWX:VONN) 5.50% Cembra Money Bank (SWX:CMBN) 5.10% Banque Cantonale Vaudoise (SWX:BCVN) 4.48% St. Galler Kantonalbank (SWX:SGKN) 4.38% Novartis (SWX:NOVN) 3.32% Roche Holding (SWX:ROG) 3.92% Julius Bar Gruppe (SWX:BAER) 5.09% Helvetia Holding (SWX:HELN) 5.12% Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank (SWX:BLKB) 4.71% EFG International (SWX:EFGN) 4.09% Click here to see the full list of 26 stocks from our Top Dividend Stocks screener. Let's take a closer look at a couple of our picks from the screened companies. Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: Overview: Burkhalter Holding AG specializes in providing electrical engineering services to the construction sector throughout Switzerland, with a market capitalization of CHF 955.33 million. Operations: Burkhalter Holding AG generates CHF 1.16 billion primarily from its electrical engineering services. Dividend Yield: 4.9% Burkhalter Holding is trading at 23.1% below its estimated fair value, suggesting potential undervaluation. Despite a volatile dividend history with significant annual fluctuations over the past decade, its current dividend yield of 4.94% ranks in the top 25% of Swiss dividend payers. The dividends are well-supported, covered by both earnings and cash flows with payout ratios of 89.9% and 87.1%, respectively. Earnings have increased by 34.7% last year and are expected to grow by 6% annually. SWX:BRKN Dividend History as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: Overview: St. Galler Kantonalbank AG, primarily serving the Cantons of St. Gallen, offers banking products and services to local residents and small to mid-sized businesses, with a market capitalization of CHF 2.59 billion. Operations: St. Galler Kantonalbank AG generates its revenue by providing banking services to individuals and small to mid-sized enterprises in the St. Gallen region. Dividend Yield: 4.4% St. Galler Kantonalbank offers a solid dividend yield of 4.38%, ranking it well within the top 25% of Swiss dividend payers. The company's dividends have shown stability and growth over the last decade, supported by a consistent earnings increase of 5.2% annually over the past five years. With a payout ratio currently at 54.9% and projected to improve to 49.2% in three years, its dividends appear sustainable. Additionally, trading at a 25% discount to its fair value suggests potential undervaluation. Story continues SWX:SGKN Dividend History as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: Overview: Swiss Re AG operates globally, offering wholesale reinsurance, insurance, and other risk transfer services with a market capitalization of approximately CHF 32.05 billion. Operations: Swiss Re AG's revenue is primarily derived from three segments: Corporate Solutions at $6.06 billion, Life & Health Reinsurance at $18.09 billion, and Property & Casualty Reinsurance at $23.74 billion. Dividend Yield: 5.5% Swiss Re presents a mixed dividend profile, offering a 5.53% yield, placing it in the top quartile of Swiss dividend stocks. Despite an unstable dividend history over the past decade, current dividends are well-supported with a payout ratio of 53.9% and cash flow coverage at 48.3%. Recent product launches and executive changes suggest operational enhancements but past volatility in dividends and a significant undervaluation (69% below fair value) indicate potential risks and opportunities for investors. SWX:SREN Dividend History as at Jul 2024 Turning Ideas Into Actions Get an in-depth perspective on all 26 Top Dividend Stocks by using our screener here. Are you invested in these stocks already? Keep abreast of every twist and turn by setting up a portfolio with Simply Wall St, where we make it simple for investors like you to stay informed and proactive. Discover a world of investment opportunities with Simply Wall St's free app and access unparalleled stock analysis across all markets. Searching for a Fresh Perspective? 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. Companies discussed in this article include SWX:BRKN SWX:SGKN and SWX:SREN. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Man Trying to Smuggle Over 100 Live Snakes in His Pants Caught by Officials The man reportedly had six bags filled with the slithery reptiles when he was found out HANDOUT/Shenzhen Customs Release/AFP via Getty Some of the snakes caught by China customs officials A man was caught attempting to smuggle more than 100 live snakes in his pants at a travel checkpoint. The individual was stopped by customs officials at Futian Port while trying to enter Shenzhen, China from Hong Kong, according to CNN and CBS News. Six drawstring bags sealed with tape were reportedly found stuffed in the man's pockets as he tried to go through the checkpoint undetected. A statement from China customs shared on Tuesday, July 9, and cited by the outlets, noted: "Once opened, each bag was found to contain living snakes in all kinds of shapes, sizes and colors. After counting, a total of 104 snakes were found. Related: Man Tries to Board Flight with Snakes in His Pants at Miami Airport Five species of snakes were discovered in total, including the milk snake, western hognose snake, corn snake, Texas rat snake and bullsnake, according to CNN. The outlet notes that the incident happened a few days ago and that its not clear if the man was arrested. However, the customs agency reportedly added in their statement, "Those who break the rules will be... held liable in accordance with the law. Related: 6 Surprise Snakes Who Slithered Into Shocking Places TSA Gulf/X Snakes found by TSA at Miami International Airport In April, a similar incident occurred at Miami International Airport when Transportation Security Administration officials found a bag of snakes hidden in a travelers pants. That man was attempting to conceal the snakes in a green camouflage bag when TSA officials caught him. On their official X (formerly Twitter) account, the TSA shared a statement about the incident and included photos of the reptiles that they found. Officers at @iflymia detected this bag of snakes hidden in a passengers pants at a checkpoint on Fri, April 26. @TSA called our @CBPSoutheast and Miami-Dade Police partners in to assist, and the snakes were turned over to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, they wrote in their statement. 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. Officers at @iflymia detected this bag of snakes hidden in a passengers pants at a checkpoint on Fri, April 26. @TSA called our @CBPSoutheast and Miami-Dade Police partners in to assist, and the snakes were turned over to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. pic.twitter.com/CggJob8IT8 TSA_Gulf (@TSA_Gulf) April 30, 2024 The passenger was attempting to go on an international flight and was denied boarding after the snakes were found, WFTV reported at the time. Per the U.S. Department of Transportations official website, "federal and state governments impose restrictions on transporting live animals. In addition, each airline establishes its own company policy for the proper handling of the animals they transport." For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Man wanted for allegedly threatening to shoot four men ROSS TWP., LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) An investigation is underway after state police say a man threatened to shoot four men at a gun range in Luzerne County. According to Pennsylvania State Police, on July 8 around 7:30 p.m., troopers were called to the State Game Lands Gun Range on Patla Road in Ross Township. ATV rider dies after crashing into tree Police say an unidentified man threatened to shoot four men, all 20-years-old from Kingston, Hunlock Creek, Sweet Valley, and Nanticoke. The suspect left the scene in a gray Dodge Neon and troopers described him as 58, with dirty blonde hair, and wearing an orange shirt. Anyone with information is asked to contact PSP Shickshinny. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PAhomepage.com. Manhunt Launched After Murder of 3 Women, Police Say Suspect May Have Crossbow Three women who are believed to be related were killed in a home in Hertfordshire, England on Tuesday, July 9, authorities said Hertfordshire police Police are searching for Kyle Clifford in connection with the incident Police in England have launched a manhunt after three women were killed in a home, with authorities saying the suspect may be in possession of a crossbow. In a press release shared on Wednesday, July 10, Hertfordshire Police said they are looking for a 26-year-old man called Kyle Clifford in connection with the incident after being called to a property in Bushey just before 7:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday, July 9. Officers attended alongside colleagues from the East of England Ambulance Service and on arrival, found three women with serious injuries, the release read in part. Sadly, despite their best efforts, the women, who are believed to be related, died a short time later at the scene. In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on July 10, police said Clifford "may be in possession of a crossbow" and warned the public not to approach him. Detective Superintendent Rob Hall from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit said in a statement, This is an incredibly difficult incident for the victims family and we would ask that their privacy is respected as they come to terms with what has happened. Whilst we are still in the early stages of this investigation, we are actively seeking Kyle Clifford who we believe could be in the areas of Hertfordshire or North London. Given the serious nature of the incident, I would ask anyone who knows where he is to contact police immediately, Hall added. If you believe you see him, please do not approach him and dial 999 straight away. He may still be in possession of a weapon. James Manning/PA Images via Getty The crime scene in Hertfordshire, England 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. An investigation into the incident is ongoing. Our enquires will continue over the coming days to ascertain the full circumstances of what happened, Hall continued, before asking anyone who was in the area before the incident and may have seen anything that could assist with the investigation to get in touch. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. (KRON) A lawsuit was filed against Sunrun Solar, a Marin County-based solar installation company that describes itself as Californias #1 Solar Company. According to the suit, workers at the solar company allegedly flooded a newly pregnant couples home. They claimed the house was livable and only fractionally paid the couple back in what is estimated to be approximately $100,000 for further repairs. The Marin County couple is alleging fraud, breach of contract, negligence, unfair business practices, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other claims. Flintstone House sushi pop-up abruptly canceled Maxwell Szabo and Belen Szabo, a Marin County couple in their first trimester of pregnancy at the time of the alleged flooding, have filed the suit against Sunrun. The couple moved into their new home in May 2023, three months before hiring the solar installation company. According to the complaint, Sunrun workers negligently struck a fire sprinkler line in July 2023, causing severe damage to the couples home. The couple alleges flooding and water damage occurred in the living room, dining room, and downstairs bedroom and closet, with attempted repairs by defendants result[ing] in extensive damage. The complaint also alleges damage to the new furniture bought for the house. Livable home: screenshots taken from a video sent from the Szabos. Due to the extensive damage in the home and the health concerns of being in the first trimester of pregnancy, the Szabos were forced to leave the home during repairs, the complaint read. Being forced to leave the home we had just moved into was devastating, Belen Szabo, the mother, said, Returning home knowing we will have to leave again for repairs to be completed properlyand this time with a newbornis just as painful. We want to move on with our lives, but we cant. Instead of taking responsibility, this company is pointing at its contractors and insurance companies. Its pathetic. According to a Contractors State Licensing Board complaint filed by the couple, Sunrun acknowledged the damage done to the couple and allegedly told them, Its our fault, and confirmed multiple times it would pay to restore the home and reimburse the couple for accommodations, food, travel while the couple was forced out of their home, the complaint read. Despite multiple written confirmations, the complaint alleges, This was a false, intentional misrepresentation. No timeline for repairs was given, and Sunrun only offered to pay for a fraction of [the Szobos] out-of-pocket costs in what is estimated to be approximately $100,000 of further repairs. FINAL-Szabo-complaint-breaach-of-contract-Download The Szobos allege the damage caused by Sunrun caused emotional distress as the first trimester of pregnancy especially leaves them in a vulnerable state. The Szobos allege other frustrations, such as moving necessities and not being provided a firm timeline, requiring them to book hotels for only a few days at a time. The lawsuit alleges fraud, breach of contract, negligence, unfair business practices, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other claims. KRON4 has reached out to Sunrun for comment but has not heard back from them as of this report. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson presented a first-of-its-kind award to a Craven County law enforcement officer on Wednesday. The North Carolina Medal of Valor, which is administered by the lieutenant governors office, was created by the legislature at Robinsons request in 2023 to honor first responders who performed great acts of heroism while under threat of personal risk to safety, beyond the call of duty in the field. Robinson, who is running for governor as a Republican, awarded the medal to Lt. Lyndsey Moses-Winnings of the Craven County Sheriffs Office for her involvement in stopping a shooter in 2021 who injured another officer. Today we pay tribute to someone who embodies the essence of strength, determination and selflessness, he said. It is with great honor and humility that I stand before you to recognize Lt. Moses-Winnings who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in her service to our fellow citizens and community. North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson presents the North Carolina Medal of Valor to Craven County deputy Lt. Lyndsey Moses-Winnings during a ceremony on Wednesday, July 10, 2024 at the General Assembly in Raleigh, N.C.. The event came as Robinson faces criticism for his remarks at a June 30 church service, where he said some folks need killing, after referencing the Germans and Japanese in World War II. He went on to talk about wicked people who he said should be punished by the military and police. Mike Lonergan, Robinsons campaign spokesperson, has criticized news organizations for their reporting on the comments, saying they were taken out of context and strictly referred to the war. After Wednesdays ceremony, Robinson rebuked a CBS-17 reporter who asked about his comments, saying You want to come out here and you want to besmirch this ladys award by coming out here and asking me that silly question. Thats what you got out of this? Theres your answer. Shameful, thats what it is. Pure shameful. And you should be ashamed. He did not take any questions before leaving the event. During a press conference on Wednesday, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton and Mo Green, the Democratic candidate for North Carolina superintendent of public instruction, decried Robinsons remarks at Lake Church in Bladen County. Mark Robinson makes North Carolina less safe. Despite what his campaign wants you to believe, his comments about people needing killing arent being taken out of context, Clayton said, calling on Robinson to clarify who exactly needs killing. Under the Dome Get the latest news about North Carolina politics from The News & Observer's award-winning team. Get the free digest sent to your inbox by signing up here. (The Hill) Marla Maples, the ex-wife of former President Trump, says shes open to being his vice presidential pick. Im open. Im open to whatever way that I can serve, Maples said in an interview with the U.K. publication, The Evening Standard, released Monday. Marla Maples speaks at The Cambridge Union on June 10, 2024 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. (Photo by Nordin Catic/Getty Images for The Cambridge Union) Right now everyone [in the Trump family] is just seeing how we can help, she said, when asked about potentially being the 45th presidents VP pick. Trump has teased an announcement of his running mate choice in recent weeks, but Maples has not been among the names of reported contenders. Sources have told The Hill that the short list of potential vice presidential candidates includes GOP Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and J.D. Vance (Ohio), and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Maples and Trump were married from 1993 to 1999 following a media frenzy amid the then-New York real estate developers split with his first wife, Ivana Trump and are parents to daughter Tiffany Trump. The 60-year-old actor kept a relatively low profile during her ex-husbands 2016 White House bid. Marla Maples gets a kiss from Donald Trump at the stage door of the Palace Theater in New York following a performance of Will Rogers Follies, Aug. 3, 1992. Maples, who plays the role of Ziegfelds Favorite in the musical, took over the role in the Tony Award-winning show from Cady Huffman, who was nominated for a Tony for her part. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Ive never been a fan of politics. I see how it can separate and divide us, Maples told The Evening Standard. At the same time, I found myself in the throes of it, the Dancing With the Stars alum said. But now, Maples said, Im ready. I am available if needed and Im not sitting back anymore. I want to step out more, share more and not be afraid of positive or negative outcomes that come from speaking out, she said. The Trump campaign didnt immediately respond to ITKs request for comment. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. The Mayor of Marseille has urged his citys main soccer club, Olympique de Marseille, not to sign former Manchester United striker Mason Greenwood, citing the dropped domestic violence and sexual assault charges against him. Benoit Payan on Tuesday lambasted the proposed move and said of the soccer player, per CNN affiliate BFMTV: Greenwoods behavior is unspeakable, unacceptable. Hitting his partner I saw images that deeply shocked me. Beating up his partner like this is shameful for a man and I dont think he can have a place on the team, he added. The values of Marseille and the values of Olympique de Marseille are anything but that Its anything but can you imagine, violence against women, Payan said. Do you realize that? And he wants to play for Olympique de Marseille, Greenwood? Its a disgrace. In February, the UKs Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that charges of attempted rape and assault filed against the striker in October 2022 had been dropped, as had a charge of controlling and coercive behavior. According to the CPS, a combination of key witnesses withdrawing from the investigation and new material coming to light meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of Greenwood being convicted. Greenwood has previously denied the allegations, and last August said in a statement: I want to start by saying I understand that people will judge me because of what they have seen and heard on social media, and I know people will think the worst. I was brought up to know that violence or abuse in any relationship is wrong, I did not do the things I was accused of, and in February I was cleared of all charges. However, I fully accept I made mistakes in my relationship, and I take my share of responsibility for the situations which led to the social media post. Benoit Payan called Greenwood's alleged behavior "unspeakable, unacceptable." - Alain Robert/SIPA/AP Multiple reports indicate that United and Marseille have agreed to a 30 million (roughly $32.46 million) deal for the transfer of Greenwood, though they did not cite sources. CNN has reached out to Olympique de Marseille and Greenwood, via Manchester United, for comment. Manchester United declined to comment, with a spokesperson adding: We will confirm if and when the transfer is completed. Greenwood hadnt played for the Red Devils since he was arrested in January 2022 following the emergence of graphic videos and images on social media. He was loaned to Spanish side Getafe for the 2023/24 season. Following the charges against Greenwood, Manchester United opened an investigation of their own, eventually making the decision to move Greenwood on citing difficulties with him recommencing his career at the club. Meanwhile, fans of the team took to a popular online forum about the club to express their distaste for the proposed move, writing in an open letter that Greenwoods joining the club would be a red line that would irreparably damage the passion that we have for this club. In an area in which the conviction rate is ridiculously low given the reality of sexist and sexual violence, and all the more so in cases in which the perpetrators are powerful and famous men, relying solely on the absence of a conviction in court to give carte blanche to the management to welcome Greenwood with open arms to the Commanderie is, to put it politely, frankly lazy, the statement posted to fan discussion board, the OM Forum noted. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Baltimore City Central Booking and Intake Center. Photo by Elijah Pittman Maryland Correctional Enterprises, which produces and sells goods using prison labor, failed to pursue millions in payments it was owed for the goods and services it sold last year, according to a recent state audit. The Office of Legislative Audits said that of $12.9 million in accounts receivable the agency held as of June 30, 2023, about $7 million had been due for more than 90 days with some accounts languishing for more than a year. MCE failed to send dunning notices threatening legal action or to turn the past-due accounts over to a state collection agency, the June 20 audit said. But the audit also noted that 96% of the past-due accounts or $6.7 million were owed by other state agencies that, by law, cannot be turned over to a collection agency. Its pretty clear from this audit that MCE has a fundamental problem in how it is able to do its work and sustain itself. Any other business would have gone under by this point if they cant invoice and collect on the work from services that theyre doing, said Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Howard and Anne Arundel). Its interesting that the primary customer, so to speak, of MCE are other state agencies, said Lam, the Senate chair of the Joint Audit and Evaluation Committee that received the audit. In fact, like almost all of the outstanding invoices over 90 days were from other state agencies. Calls seeking comment from MCE officials Tuesday were not immediately successful. But in its written response to the audit, the agency said it will begin reviewing accounts receivable at the end of every month and will send past-due notices at 30 days and again at 60 days. For state agencies that have outstanding bills longer than 90 days, MCE said its accounts receivable office will first turn to the secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services for help, and then elevate the issue to the governors office. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US For private organizations that have not paid their bills, MCE will turn the account over to the State Central Collection Unit and will put a hold on any new orders from the delinquent organization, it said. That is an option MCE does not have with state agencies, as state regulations prohibit one agency from referring another to the CCU. Lam said he wasnt sure whether the lack of collection of funds was MCEs fault or agencies exploiting a loophole. So its either a problem of MCE not properly invoicing, or following up on those invoices, or its a problem of the other agencies have figured out that the emperor has no clothes, Lam said, and if we dont pay MCE, nothing happens, which is basically true. MCE is a self-supporting agency that does not receive tax dollars but lives off profits from the goods and services it sells, from printing to furniture to laundry, among other services. It say its mission is to provide inmates with job skills that can help them on the outside. But Lam there are a lot of people in Annapolis, like him, who have questioned the purpose of MCE. I know some people have fundamental concerns of, you know, making those who are incarcerated perform labor for the state, Lam said. There are others who see that MCE brings very little value. I think there are many who have expressed concern that the quality of their work is not to the par of what could be procured in the private sector, Lam said. Sen. Antonio Hayes (D-Baltimore City), is one of those people who challenge the purpose and value of MCE. He noted that state agencies are pushed to do business with the prison industries agency. In Maryland procurement law, MCE is designated as a preferred provider. What a preferred provider means is essentially they have a monopoly over all of the services that they offer, Hayes said. If you are a state agency, a state university, and MCE carries a product, whether it be chairs, office furniture, whatever, you have to get it from MCE, he said. Hayes this year sponsored SB 194, which can waive the requirement in certain circumstances that state agencies do business with MCE. While that bill passed, two others to remove MCE from the preferred provider list, and to cross-reference products provided by MCE with products from private providers failed this year. But Hayes said he will continue fighting, because he thinks it is wrong that Maryland uses prison labor. I think this is like one of the greatest tragedies that we continue to participate in, state-sponsored kind of exploitation of people, Hayes said. The post Maryland prison industries failed to collect millions in past-due bills, audit says appeared first on Maryland Matters. Mass. bill would ban sale of reproductive and gender affirming care locations taken from cellphones BOSTON (AP) The Massachusetts House unanimously approved legislation Wednesday that would ban companies from selling cellphone location data collected during visits to reproductive and gender-affirming care clinics. Democratic House Speaker Ronald Mariano said the goal is to ensure that the right to receive and provide that type of care remains ironclad in Massachusetts. Supporters of the legislation say the location data in question could be used to target and harass patients and providers. Some state governments and federal regulators were already moving to keep individuals reproductive health information private when a U.S. senators report in February described how cellphone location data was used to send millions of anti-abortion ads to people who visited Planned Parenthood offices. While Massachusetts has a proud history of protecting and expanding access to reproductive health care, evolving efforts from extremist Republicans across the country, made possible by the Supreme Courts conservative supermajority, continue to threaten the safety of women who come to the commonwealth from other states to seek care, said House Speaker Ronald Mariano. Companies would need a customers permission to collect and process location information from a reproductive or gender affirming care location with limited exceptions, such as a response to an emergency service agency. The state attorney generals office would be required to issue regulations and have the authority to enforce those rules. The bill now heads to the Massachusetts Senate. Although abortion remains legal in Massachusetts, lawmakers have taken steps to further protect those rights and establish additional safeguards in the wake of Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. In 2022, the Legislature passed legislation designed to protect abortion providers, out-of-state patients, and insurers. The law also expanded access to contraceptives and helped ensure women who face grave circumstances after 24 weeks of pregnancy are not forced to leave Massachusetts to get access to reproductive health care services. This legislation is the first step in providing that protection at a time when more than 20 state legislatures have banned or severely restricted access to abortion and gender affirming care, Democratic Rep. Kate Lipper-Garabedian said of the bill approved Wednesday by the Massachusetts House. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Its been a crazy few years in the industrial sector. A new report, out from Citigroup analyst Kyle Menges, takes especial note of the machinery segment, a set of industrial companies that build and market specialized heavy equipment for a wide variety of applications, from construction to agriculture, and pretty much everything in between. The machinery segment built up heavy work backlogs during the pandemic lockdown period a few years ago, on the combination of increased demand and constrained supply chains. Since the lockdown policies were lifted, these companies have benefited from the high inflation regime and the imbalance between demand and supply, a set of circumstances that allowed them to realize expanded margins. The situation is normalizing now, as machinery companies have mostly worked through their backlogs and are getting back to their pre-pandemic modes of operation. This opens up opportunities for investors, opportunities for share gains as high as 67% as Citis Menges points out. He says of the sector, We think machinery companies will sustain higher through-cycle margins as inflation settles. Over the last ~12 months, we have seen a rebalance of supply and demand not seen since the GFC (global financial crisis), although this time around was more a function of correcting from pandemic-induced disequilibrium. Even if we assume Machinery gross margins fall by the amount that they did during the GFC, that would still suggest a much higher floor for Machinery gross margins going forward compared to historical levels. We can follow some of Menges machinery sector picks using the TipRanks platform. According to the data, these shares have earned Buy-ratings and solid upsides from the analysts consensus, so lets give them a closer look and find out why. CNH Industrial (CNH) The first stock well look at here, CNH Industrial, is a designer and manufacturer of heavy equipment for the agribusiness and construction sectors. CNH is one of this niches older names, and its roots extend back to the 1840s. The companys longevity backs up its solid reputation for quality with its customer base, the working farmers, builders, and contractors who make daily use of the companys products. Those products include lines of tractors, harvesting combines, tillers, bulldozers, excavators, and heavy-duty forklifts, to name just a few of the specialized vehicles that CNH produces. The company builds this line-up of heavy-duty equipment under several brand names, all with sound reputations in the business, such as Case IH, New Holland, and Steyr. CNHs industrial vehicles are sold, used, and supported in some 170 countries around the world, and the company has industrial and financial operations in 32 countries. CNH is incorporated in the Netherlands, keeps its global headquarters in the UK, and trades its stock on Wall Street, making it a truly global enterprise. Story continues This company is currently seeing some churn at the top, as outgoing CEO Scott Wine was replaced by Gerrit Marx effective on July 1. Mr. Marx takes over the top spot at CNH after serving as CEO of Iveco Group, the Italian multinational manufacturer of transport vehicles. On the financial side, we find that CNH reported a decline in industry demand, year-over-year, during its last reported quarter, 1Q24 a decline that points toward the normalization of the industry backlogs. The companys consolidated revenue came to $4.8 billion, down 10% year-over-year, but beating the forecast by $180 million. The companys quarterly bottom line came to 33 cents by non-GAAP measures, beating expectations by 7 cents per share. CNH reported a Q1 free cash flow absorption of $1.2 billion, and at the end of the quarter had $3.23 billion in cash and other liquid assets on hand. This brings us to Kyle Menges coverage of the stock, which he sees headed for better days. Menges writes, CNH is our top pick amongst our ag coverage. CNH stands out as the only ag OEM we cover that we expect to grow EPS next year. Our estimates reflect our confidence that incoming CEO Gerrit Marx can execute on significant cost savings initiatives that were already well underway under outgoing CEO Scott Wine. Our positive earnings outlook, taken together with the fact that CNH is currently an unloved stock (due to CEO transition concerns), creates plenty of upside from current levels, in our view. Tracking this forward, Menges goes on to rate CNH stock as a Buy, and sets a price target of $16, implying a robust upside potential of 67% on the one-year horizon. (To watch Menges track record, click here.) Overall, CNH has a Moderate Buy consensus rating from the Streets analysts, based on 12 recent reviews with a breakdown of 5 Buys to 7 Holds. The shares are priced at $9.58 and their average target price, $14.87, suggests that CNH will appreciate by 555% over the next 12 months. (See CNH Industrials stock forecast.) Oshkosh Corporation (OSK) The second stock well look at here is Oshkosh Corporation, based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, a town known for several eponymous manufacturing businesses. Oshkosh Corporation builds, markets, and distributes a range of specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies. The companys product lines include electric vehicles and EV platforms; smart vehicle fleet augmented reality upgrades; AI-powered autonomous operation and active safety systems; advanced data analytics, product modeling, and logistics optimization; and digital manufacturing technology upgrades for factories including wearable devices to enhance factory floor efficiency and safety. Some numbers will show how this company has expanded its horizons beyond its small Midwestern city. The company has more than 17,000 employees, building products based on more than 800 patents. Its products are sold under 13 brands, and the company operates in 125 locations across 19 countries. Oshkoshs operations and products can be found as far away from Wisconsin as Italy, India, Singapore, and Australia. Oshkosh Corporations customer base includes other industrial manufacturers, as well as end users such as fire departments and the military. The companys products are in high demand by the Department of Defense, for which Oshkosh produces the US Armys 2.5- and 5-ton trucks, 10-ton trucks, tank transporters, and mine blast protected vehicles, to name just a few. Turning to the financial releases, we find that in Q1 the company brought in $2.54 billion in sales revenue, a figure that was up almost 12% from the prior year and beat expectations by $50 million. At the bottom line, the companys non-GAAP EPS of $2.89 was up more than 80% compared to the 1Q23 result, and was 64 cents per share ahead of the estimates. In analyst Menges view, this adds up to a strong choice. He writes of the company, OSK is our top pick in construction, driven by a robust outlook for its unique Vocational (~30% of sales) and Defense (~20% of sales) segments. We anticipate growth in these two segments to more than offset shallow sales declines in its Access segment (~50% of sales) in 2025 & 2026. This is driven by our view that rental fleet replacement demand is likely to provide a solid cushion to NA Access equipment sales over the next few years. Menges goes on to put a Buy rating here, and his price target, of $130, shows his confidence in a 27% gain for the stock over the coming year. This is another stock with a Moderate Buy consensus rating from the Street, based on 10 analyst reviews, that include 4 Buys, 5 Holds, and 1 Sell. The shares are currently trading for $102.38 and have an average target price of $131.11, implying a one-year upside potential of 28%. (See Oshkoshs stock forecast.) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment. Following the rare, 21-hour surgery, Marty Kedian fulfilled his dream of reading his new granddaughter stories in his own voice Mayo Clinic Marty Kedian with Dr. David Lott A Massachusetts man is getting his voice back. After receiving the third-ever larynx transplant and the first on a patient with active cancer performed in the U.S. in February, Marty Kedian can speak again, according to Mayo Clinic. The 21-hour procedure, performed by a six-person surgical team at Mayo Clinic's Larynx and Trachea Transplant Program in Arizona and part of a clinical trial, allowed Kedian, 59, to fulfill his dream of speaking with his granddaughter in his own voice. Before the pioneering procedure which has been performed only a handful of times globally, per Mayo Clinic Kedian said he was alive, but I wasn't living. Mayo Clinic Dr. Girish Mour and Dr. David Lott As a result of his cancer a rare form of laryngeal cancer called chondrosarcoma he received a tracheostomy several years ago, which allowed him to breathe through a hole in his neck. Coupled with the loss of his voice, the procedure led to an isolated existence, he told Mayo Clinic. I love to talk to people everywhere I go, and I just couldn't, he said. I felt strange, and I wouldn't go out anywhere. Kedian was also told by doctors that, with the persistence of his disease, his only option for recovery was to have his voice box removed entirely but he refused. I didn't want a laryngectomy. I wanted to find a way to get my quality of life back," he told Mayo Clinic. "I wanted this so I could talk and breathe normally with my new granddaughter, he added of the clinical trial. I want to read her bedtime stories with my own voice. Related: Colorado Person Infected with the Bubonic Plague as Health Officials Detail Symptoms of the Disease The Massachusetts natives search led him thousands of miles from home, to the Larynx and Trachea Transplant Program on Mayo Clinic's Arizona campus, where Dr. David Lott was heading a clinical trial on laryngeal transplantation. The team operated, removing Kedians cancerous larynx and replacing it with a donated one, on Feb. 29, per Mayo Clinic. He has since regained about 60 percent of his voice a feat Dr. Lott thought would take at least a year. Plus, Kedian still speaks with the same voice and Boston accent he had prior to the cancer," the doctor added. As soon as he could, Kedian used his newly restored voice to speak with his 82-year-old mom, an experience he recalled to the Associated Press. That was important to me, to talk to my mother, he said. Its been four months since the procedure, and Kedians breathing is also steadily improving, per Dr. Lott. When he regains full ability to breathe on his own, his tracheostomy tube will be removed and he cant wait. "Every day it's getting better," Kedian said, adding that he is pushing myself to make it go faster because I want these tubes out of me, to go back to a normal life. The team of surgeons behind the operation, Kedian told Mayo Clinic, have given me my life back. 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. Related: TikTok's Bella Brave Is in a Medically Induced Coma: 'They Don't Know If She'll Survive' I'm so grateful, he said. I have the deepest gratitude for Dr. Lott's team and especially the generosity of my organ donor and donor family. I hope one day I get the chance to tell them, 'Thank you.' Kedians experience also offers hope to others who have lost their ability to speak, swallow and breathe on their own because of laryngeal cancer, as the program has been approved to perform more transplants in the coming years. "People need to keep their voice, Kedian told the AP. I want people to know this can be done. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Travelers enter a pick up location for ride-hailing companies, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in the lower level of a parking garage at Logan International Airport, in Boston. Drivers for ride-hailing companies in Massachusetts are pushing ahead with what they describe as a first-of-its-kind ballot question that would win union rights if approved. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) BOSTON (AP) Drivers for ride-hailing companies in Massachusetts are pushing ahead with what they describe as a first-of-its-kind ballot question that could win them union rights if approved. The push comes despite a landmark settlement last month guaranteeing that Uber and Lyft drivers will earn a minimum pay standard of $32.50 per hour in Massachusetts. Supporters of the measure last week delivered the final batch of signatures needed to land a spot on the November ballot. April Verrett, president of the Service Employees International Union, said the tens of thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers working in Massachusetts deserve the collective bargaining benefits of unions. This would be the first in the nation to establish a union for drivers in this way, she said. The group is working on a similar effort in California. Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who secured the settlement which included what she described as an unprecedented package of minimum wage, benefits and protections is also backing the ballot question. Its a strong foundation that can and should be built upon, Campbell, a Democrat, said of the settlement. Verrett said labor laws in the country aren't written to take into consideration gig workers, something the ballot question would begin to remedy in Massachusetts if voters support the question and drivers ultimately form a union. We fundamentally believe that workers are workers, she said. All workers deserve a union, a way to come together with their coworkers to have a say in their livelihood. Yolanda Rodriguez has driven for Lyft for about six years and says shes convinced that having union rights would benefit her and other drivers. The 33-year mother of three who lives in Malden, just outside Boston, said she begins most days at about 3 a.m., with many of her trips involving driving people to Logan International Airport. Rodriguez said about a year ago her account was canceled when she was pregnant. She said she went for five months before it was restored and she could begin earning an income again. I dont want that to happen to other women or men because there are often children behind the cancellations, she said through a translator. If I had a union, I would be able to turn to them and work with them. Under a policy Lyft announced earlier this year, the company said their goal is to make drivers feel supported and respected when a temporary hold is placed on a drivers account during an investigation including a streamlined, in-app button for drivers to appeal deactivation decisions. But not everyone thinks the question goes far enough if they support it at all. Henry De Groot, 28, of Boston, has driven for both companies on and off for five years but says the ballot proposal question isnt a fair deal. Im 100 percent pro-union and Im 100 percent opposed to the ballot question, he said. De Groot said the question doesnt create a democratic system where all drivers have rights. He said no rights are included in the initiative beyond basic collective bargaining, including details on how dues are spent. You cant have a regular union and not let workers have a vote, he said. There is no driver control over leadership. Its about the basic democratic rights that other unions have. Its a top-down organization. Kelly Cobb-Lemire, an organizer with Massachusetts Drivers United, which she describes as a grassroots, driver-led campaign, said other app-based workers including delivery drivers are left out of the ballot question. Were fighting to ensure that both drivers and delivery workers have the right to form a union and are classified as workers, she said. We support democratic collective bargaining where every driver has a vote. She said her group is instead pushing lawmakers to approve a bill that would enshrine full employee rights for all app workers and include a path to unionization for everyone. She said the legislation also would mandate that drivers and delivery workers be paid at least the Massachusetts minimum wage for all working time. The ballot question, if approved, would define active drivers as those who completed more than the median number of rides in the previous six months. Once a union signs up 5% of active drivers in a bargaining unit, it would get a list of all eligible workers and block any other union from being recognized without an election. If a union then signs up 25% of the eligible voters in a bargaining unit, it becomes the certified bargaining representative unless another union or a no-union group comes forward within the next seven days with signed cards from at least 25% of eligible voters, at which point there would be an election. Backers of the question had been preparing to go up against a possible series of industry-backed ballot questions that intended to classify drivers as independent contractors. But that threat evaporated after the settlement, which barred the companies from supporting all five proposed variations of their ballot question meaning they won't proceed to the ballot. In a statement after the settlement was announced, Lyft said the deal resolved a lawsuit that recently went to trial and avoided the need for the ballot initiative campaign this November. Uber also released a statement at the time calling the agreement an example of what independent, flexible work with dignity should look like in the 21st century. Under the agreement, drivers will earn one hour of sick day pay for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 40 hours per year under the deal. The two companies will also be required to pay a combined $175 million to the state to resolve allegations that the companies violated Massachusetts wage and hour laws, a substantial majority of which will be distributed to current and former drivers. ___ This story corrects the spelling of the Service Employees International Union president's name. It is April Verrett, not April Verritt. Matthews residents fed up over lack of short-term rental rules. That may change soon Looking for short-term rentals in Matthews? Well, some residents wish that wasnt even an option. Residents have voiced their concerns over existing short-term rentals in their quaint single-family neighborhoods and now town officials are looking at ways to regulate the expanding business. At Mondays Board of Commissioners meeting, Planning Director Jay Camp presented regulation proposals to leaders that included zoning permits, guest limitations per bedroom and a ban on events. The move makes Matthews the newest community in the state and the Charlotte area seeking to regulate short-term rentals. Lake Norman residents spoke up prompting Lincoln Countys Board of Commissioners to look into zoning regulations. Iredell County commissioners were also looking into increasing regulations but were soon faced with a lawsuit in February by property owners and managers alleging that the countys zoning regulations were illegal. Last year, the state almost passed a bill that would have prevented local governments from prohibiting short-term rentals but the bill stalled in the Senate. The town of Matthews looks to regulate short term rentals after residents voiced their concerns. How we got here Loud parties and noises day and night, rows of parked cars cluttering the small streets and a revolving slew of unknown neighbors are what concerns some residents regarding the short-term rentals. Back in February, a petition was started requesting that town leaders ban the establishments in single-family districts, according to news outlets. But an outright ban cant happen, Camp said at a March board meeting. An outright ban on a use is not allowed. You have to acknowledge the use and have a place for it, Camp said at the time. Right now, short term rentals arent a regulated use in the Matthews Unified Development Ordinance, according to Camp. They are allowed to exist but there arent any regulations. There arent strict state laws on what local governments can do in regards to short-term rental regulations either. The only known law is that municipalities cant require short term rental owners to register their properties,according to a 2022 ruling by the North Carolina Court of Appeals against the city of Wilmington. The ruling led to scrapped regulation calls in Charlotte. On Monday, Matthews leaders discussed proposed regulations on short term rentals. However, according to that same ruling, local governments can regulate where these rentals go and how they operate. So, Planning and Development began crafting what those regulations could look like over the past few months. They presented those ideas to the board on Monday. Heres what some Matthews proposals could be First, the town would need to define what is a short-term rental. Under the proposal, there would be three kinds of rentals: a bed-and-breakfast, which already existed in the UDO; a homestay, meaning a portion of the home is rented; and a whole-house rental. Next, there would be a limit on where these establishments could go. Short-term rental operators would need to apply for a zoning permit, post that permit and pay applicable taxes. Each operation would need to be at least 800 feet from the other. They would also be allowed in most traditional residential districts, along with mixed-use, historic urban core and concentrated multi-family. There also would be operational and use restrictions, such as no special events or gatherings, no more than two guests per bedroom and parking rules Also, the operator must live in or adjacent to Mecklenburg County. Camp said Mondays meeting was the start of a dialogue between officials and residents. Right now they are an unregulated use. Our ordinance is very silent, Camp said. Our powers as a local government are very specific in that they are delegated by the General Assembly. We have to more or less stay in our lane when we draft zoning regulations. The Matthews Board of Commissioners are discussing regulations on short term rentals. Right now, there arent any. As far as penalties go, two or more violations will lead to permit revocation. Those violations include noise ordinance violations, public nuisance violations and not following zoning regulations. Do these rental rules help Matthews? While these proposals are a first step in addressing residents concerns, they would only affect new establishments. These rules couldnt retroactively apply to short-term rentals that already exist. No matter what we do from an ordinance perspective you cant regulate a use out of your community, Camp said. The violations, however, would apply to existing rentals. According to Camp, there are approximately 30 short-term rentals listed on AirBnB and VRBO. But thats only an estimate. Theres no way to know how many exist in the area without a registration system. Camp said he sourced that information from the short-term rental websites, but some rentals dont utilize those sites. Some of the rentals currently operating are a nuisance, residents said during the public hearing. About 15 people spoke, and the majority opposed short term-rentals all together. Some said if they had to exist then the regulations should be strict. Many residents said rentals near them host parties, block traffic with numerous parked cars and change the environment of the neighborhood. They also likened living next to the rentals like living next to a hotel. Theres been some situations where people have stayed and it has been somewhat of a nuisance, said Katherine Hardister. Again, its a short-term nuisance. Then the next batch comes and you dont know. I can only expect that thats going to be my life for as long as I live there. You dont know what youre going to get. Most of the speakers echoed the sentiment. When you move to a new place, theres a chance you wont like your neighbor, Hardister suggested, but the rotating guests at the short-term rentals leave neighbors unaware of who is next to them. But some residents are short-term rental supporters and also favor regulations. Ian Goldstein said he owns a short-term rental in Matthews and understands why people are upset. However, hes against an outright ban. Goldstein urged residents to call authorities when noise ordinances are violated and to reach out to him if they had concerns. He added that most of the people he rents to are just looking for low-cost romantic getaways. I say roughly 80% are couples that are doing an in-town getaway and the other 20% are people visiting for business or theyre coming for families, Goldstein said. Putting regulations on AirBnbs, I have no problem with. That should be done for any business You guys want them banned and thats just not going to happen Just the beginning of debate As Camp said, this is just the beginning of the conversation. Planning members may look at reducing the number of residential zoning districts that allow the rentals. There may also be changes to the proposed parking measures. The conversation will continue on Aug. 12 at the next planning meeting. Air Force Col. Brent Toth needed to stay awake into the wee morning hours as he prepared for an upcoming marathon mission that would usher him and a crew around the world in less than 48 hours. For several days in late June, Toth, the commander of the 22nd Operations Group at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, relied on his Netflix queue to stay awake, adjusting his sleep cycle to go to bed around 3:30 a.m. local time and waking up around noon. There was a bunch of things in the queue, Toth said of his binge sessions on the streaming platform. And I just kind of let it pick things out for me. Flying a KC-46A Pegasus tanker nonstop around the globe takes stamina. For the McConnell-based airmen who recently pulled it off on REACH046, it involved adjusting work-sleep cycles to synchronize with events, like crucial aerial refueling rendezvous that require razor-sharp focus, that helped make the sortie a success. Airmen take KC-46 tanker on record-setting ride in the name of sleep and fatigue science Trying to stay up until 4 a.m. is difficult, especially when youre used to getting up around that time to come into work, Toth said. Dubbed Project Magellan, the flight builds on a sortie that took off from McConnell in May 2022, when a KC-46 from the 22nd Air Refueling Wing flew a record 24 hours straight around the contiguous United States. It also comes on the heels of a staggering 36-hour mission flown by the New Hampshire Air National Guards 157th Air Refueling Wing, one that went halfway around the world and back in November of that year. The latest mission took off from McConnell June 29 and landed back at the Kansas base, home to the 22nd ARW, on July 1. The crew flew more than 24,000 miles in the process. Along the way, the aircraft and its crew of nine airmen Toth as the aircraft commander, three additional instructor pilots, two flying crew chiefs, two boom operator instructors and a flight surgeon stretched the endurance of the Air Forces newest tanker jet as the service prepares for a protracted battle in the Pacific, one in which it may need to surge troops and supplies quickly. The first KC-46A was delivered to McConnell in 2019. The Air Force plans to buy 179 KC-46A tankers from Boeing under a $4.9 billion deal; so far, the aerospace contractor has delivered 84 of the aircraft to the Air Force, including five so far this year, according to a Boeing spokesperson and an announcement of second-quarter deliveries released Tuesday. Selfridge Air National Guard Base picked to host KC-46 squadron We wanted to demonstrate the ability of the KC-46 to go around the world, while also demonstrating Air Mobility Commands shifting focus on the Pacific, Toth said. So, we decided that we needed to go westbound based on showing our ability to project power anywhere in the world, but starting out in the Pacific. The crew relied on beyond-line-of-sight and other onboard communications to link with air and ground assets as it traversed the globe, aligning with an initiative set by Air Mobility Commands four-star boss Gen. Mike Minihan to connect 25% of the commands fleet by 2025. Heading west, REACH046 gassed up midair four times, meeting up with tankers from the 22nd ARW that were prepositioned at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam; U.S. Central Command; and RAF Mildenhall, England. It also offloaded fuel to eight other aircraft during the trip, including two KC-46As from McConnell, one of which left with REACH046 and gassed up over the California coast; a C-17 Globemaster III it met in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command; two F-15 Strike Eagles on a sortie in CENTCOM; and three B-2 Spirit Bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. Coordinating those rendezvous, which requires scheduling airspace, took months of advance planning, and was lead by Capt. Cody Donahue, a pilot and executive officer from the 22nd OG. Revamped KC-46 vision system slipping into 2026, nearly two years late Air refueling is all about being at a certain point in space at a certain time, Toth said. Real-time updates were crucial in achieving those goals, as the aircraft was often beyond radio contact for long stretches of the flight, Toth said. Two teams of four crew members, divided into A and B teams, alternated between flying and sleeping in cycles that shortened to match critical needs, such as flying over the ocean or during nighttime, according to Capt. Jacob Heyrend, Magellans flight surgeon. Crews were monitored for fatigue during the flight, including wearing smart devices. They were also enrolled in a Department of Defense-Army fatigue study run by a contractor that has advised NASA astronauts and professional athletes and performers. Flying crew chiefs and the flight doctor slept on bunks the cargo bay of an Air Force KC-46A Pegasus that flew around-the-world during Project Magellan, which landed after 45 hours at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas July 1. (Air Force) While the crew continues to evaluate lessons learned, they credit their success in part to putting in early work with Heyrend to customize sleep schedules. Three days before takeoff, Team A adjusted their bedtime to approximately 4 a.m., while Team B began retiring at 4 or 5 p.m. My dinner was basically during my kids breakfast, Capt. T.J. Buckley, a pilot and member of Team B, said. Early planning, coupled with climate control, adjustable LED lighting and assigned bunks helped the airmen get a good nights or days sleep in the air. Shift handoffs required trusting their fellow airmen to control the aircraft while one team focused on resting up. Project Magellan also notched firsts for the airmen, as well as for the Air Force, with a new record for the KC-46 as well as the longest sortie for AMC. For Master Sgt. Patrick Murray, a boom operator on Team B, fueling multiple aircraft became a highlight of his 16-year career. Our training and our mission preparation and briefs leading up to executing this mission were fantastic, Murray said. It also included a birthday. Capt. Daison Batangan, an instructor pilot who flew on Team A, turned 31 somewhere between Hawaii and Guam, based on Kansas local time, on June 30. The crew celebrated with strawberry shortcake and an unlit candle, packed by Batangans wife. The crew was able to wake up from their slumber and sing me Happy Birthday, he said. The Media Is Back to Deriding the Lab Leak as a 'Conspiracy Theory' For a brief moment, speculation that COVID-19 originated in a lab had been upgraded in the discourse from a conspiracy theory to a serious possibility worthy of serious inquiry. No longer. In an op-ed published in STAT on Tuesday, AIDS activist Peter Staley bemoans the "witch hunt" being carried out by an "anti-science mob" against EcoHealth Alliancethe New Yorkbased nonprofit that had been using federal funds to do gain-of-function work on potential pandemic pathogens at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. EcoHealth has been the subject of immense bipartisan controversy in recent months. Thanks to the work of congressional investigators and investigative journalists, we know that EcoHealth was creating SARS-like coronaviruses in Wuhan and had even proposed in grant applications to create viruses that bear a striking resemblance to SARS-CoV-2. In grant proposal drafts, the nonprofit's president, Peter Daszak, proposed to do this work at Wuhan because of its "cost-effective" lower biosafety precautions and tried to obscure from federal funders how much of the organization's work would be conducted at Wuhan. Republicans and Democrats on the House's Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic have criticized Daszak and his organization for their lack of transparency and failure to properly oversee their Wuhan partners' experiments. The Biden administration has since stripped EcoHealth of its federal funding and launched a debarment investigation that could see it banned from receiving future grants. former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci has said he agrees with that decision. So has former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins. According to Staley, all the bipartisan sanctions and scrutiny applied to EcoHealth are part of a right-wing "McCarthyite" crusade to stop the crucial basic research the group does into identifying likely sites of the next disease outbreak. "It scares meand should scare youthat conspiracy theorists are winning. And because of them, we will be less prepared for the next pandemic," he writes. He needn't be so worried. The actual history of the pandemic suggests that EcoHealth's work wasn't useful in spotting the next pandemic or preparing people to respond to it. This is true even if one dismisses the credible accusations that the nonprofit's work led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As Staley recounts in his piece, EcoHealth's mission is to surveil areas of the globe where animal viruses are mostly likely to spill over into human populations and cause the next pandemic. It received millions in NIAID grants to collect viruses in human and animal populations across China, and sequence and study those viruses at Wuhan to identify likely future pandemic pathogens. If one believes in a natural origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, one also has to believe that EcoHealth was caught totally by surprise by the outbreak of a coronavirus pandemic in its backyard. All its taxpayer-funded disease surveillance would seem to be naught. Staley compares sanctions on EcoHealth to stripping funding from a New York City firefighting company because a fire brought down the World Trade Center. A more accurate analogy would be that we're stripping funding from a firefighting company that failed to respond to a massive conflagration that destroyed the building next door. Indeed, this was a mainstream criticism of EcoHealth's work prior to the pandemic. There are so many viruses circulating in nature that the chances that disease surveillance will identify the one that will evolve into the next human pandemic are infinitesimally small. Staley is on firmer ground when he says that Fauci and Collins are throwing EcoHealth under the bus by agreeing with the Biden administration's decision to strip the nonprofit of its funding. If EcoHealth failed to properly oversee its Wuhan work, NIAID and NIH (which funded EcoHealth's work) also failed to properly oversee the nonprofit's grant work. Fauci and Collins' position, supported by Democrats in Congress, that they are totally blameless for EcoHealth's scandals is a remarkable exercise in blame-shifting. If EcoHealth deserves the sanctions they've received, NIH and NIAID have a lot to answer for as well. Congress' investigations into COVID's origins are ongoing. In time, perhaps the organizations that funded gain-of-function research on pandemic pathogens in Wuhan will face some accountability for failing to properly police the risky research they knew was happening there. The worst thing one can say about EcoHealth's work is that it helped create a pandemic it was supposed to prevent. The best thing that can be said about its work is it proved totally useless at stopping a pandemic it was supposed to nip in the bud. In either scenario, it's hardly anti-science to question the value taxpayers are getting by funding this work. The post The Media Is Back to Deriding the Lab Leak as a 'Conspiracy Theory' appeared first on Reason.com. From the G-File on The Dispatch Hi, There is outrage across the political right that the media hid Joe Bidens condition from the American people. I think two things are simultaneously true: This claim is widelyand often wildlyoverstated, and theres plenty of evidence to support a version of it. But its just a fact that the media reported on concerns about Bidens age and acuity. Cathy Young beat me to the punch with a deep dive into the receipts, but heres a CNN story from almost exactly two years ago. It begins: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed concerns Monday that President Joe Bidens age or stamina might pose a challenge for his reelection bid, saying, That is not a question that we should be even asking. (Emphasis mine.) This was around the time Jean-Pierre was claiming she couldnt keep up with Biden because he was so energetic. She was widely mocked for it. I could have picked dozens of other examples, but I think this one is worth pausing on for two reasons. First, its outrageous that the White House would say that the press shouldnt even ask about the presidents mental health and fitness. But, also, this is the kind of thing press secretaries say when they know they have a problem. You dont say, These arent the droids youre looking for, if you dont have any droids with you in the first place. And you dont say, Dont even ask about the presidents mental fitness if you dont think there are any problems. Here are a couple of things Cathy doesnt mention: In January 2022, Newsmax White House correspondent James Rosen asked Biden directly why half the electorate didnt think he was mentally fit. Biden also had a primary opponent in 2023 named Dean Phillips, whose only critique of the president was that he was too old for the job. I saw him on TV quite a bit. Even Saturday Night Live got in on the action. I come down a little harder on the White House press corps than Cathy does. I think its fair to say the issue was downplayed more than it should have been. Its pretty obvious that much of the press corps agrees, which is why theyre making up for lost time and now giving Jean-Pierre and Biden a brutally hard time. I dont blame thembeing a White House reporter is prestigious but kind of ceremonial. The extent of Bidens decline is rightfully very embarrassing for them as a group. I mean, why have a White House press corps if they cant report the story about the presidents cognitive decline until it spills out in a presidential debate? They let themselves be stonewalled and misled by the Biden Praetorian Guard. But contrary to a lot of outraged media critics out there, I think this had less to do with partisan wagon-circling per se and more to do with anti-Trumpism. The mainstream political press hates or fears Trump and is at least as susceptible to the distortion field of binary-choice-ism as anybody else. CNNs Hadas Gold said the quiet part out loud after the debate: It can be tricky to report on something as difficult to define as a person aging, when his opponent is a convicted felon, who regularly lies and has threatened to use the government to go after his political opponents. Im a CNN contributor and have no desire to needlessly make trouble for myself, for Gold, or for CNN. But come on. In physics, theres this thing called quantum entanglement, where seemingly independent particles can influence each other, even when billions of miles apart. This aint that. I dont think its particularly difficult to define aging, though I agree it can be complicated because people age differently. But whatever the complications may be, I dont think they are contingent on the legal or political status of Joe Bidens opponent. I mean, the guy is the president of the United States. His age and mental fitness are newsworthy, independent of his political opponent. Is the upshot that if Biden were running against Mitt Romney, the press would have investigated Bidens fitness more responsibly? In fact, you could argueor at least I could and do arguethat if you think its vital that Trump be kept out of the White House, the case for aggressive reporting becomes stronger. Maybe if the press were more intrusive and skeptical of White House claims, a more competitive challenger would have emerged, or Biden would have opted not to run, or he might have been more honest with the public so that it could price in his infirmity rather than be shocked by it. Its very hard for me to see how the current situation is the best of all possible outcomes, proving the press has handled this stuff just right. Or maybe all of these political calculations are wrong. Thats finebecause I dont care. It doesnt matter, or at least it shouldnt. Objective reporters arent supposed to be making such political calculations in the first place. Thats above their pay grade. As I wrote last week, one of the reasons you should do the right thing is that its hubristic folly to think you can manage reality and herd all of the possible outcomes like obedient sheep by shading the truth. Events arent sheep; theyre surly cats that will not be herded by force of intellect or clever framing. It just strikes me as axiomatically the right thing to do for the press to be really curious about the mental and physical fitness of the dude in charge of launching nukes, regardless of the partisan consequences. I guess Im just old-fashioned like that. And that holds true, even if you thinkfor good reasonthat his opponent has no business controlling nukes either. Deflate the Media I think part of the problem is that journalists think they are more powerful than they really are, and, as Spider-Man learned the hard way, they believe that with great power comes great responsibility. What other professionparticularly one that spends so much time and energy obsessing about ethicsis populated by people who think politics should influence their work? Imagine a surgeon saying, Its hard to operate on an aging patient properly when his opponent is a convicted felon who regularly lies and has threatened to use the government to go after his political opponents. Or a lawyer explaining how hard it is to represent a client in such a situation. Wed all make fun of a plumber who said, Its hard to snake the clogged toilet of a president when his opponent is a convicted felon But journalists hold conferences agonizing about this kind of thing because, you know, democracy dies in darkness. But enough with the media criticism. No really, enough with it. Because you know who else thinks journalists are much more powerful than they really are? Everyone who obsesses about how terrible the media is. Thats my problem with this media cover-up stuff. Nobody bought it! Polls have shown that Americans think Biden is too old to run for president for a long time. Heres just a smattering of headlines. Now, its true that some in the media pushed back against Republican claims that Biden is senile. But some of that pushback was warranted at the time. And again, the press should have pushed back much harder at White House claims that he wasnt senile. Its fine to fact-check the opposition party, but not to the exclusion of fact-checking the party in power. But heres the thing. If the media has been covering up Bidens infirmity, how is it that polls showed the vast majority of Americans, including Democrats, thought he was too old? Conservativesincluding yours truly on occasionhave been avidly mocking Bidens age-related deficiencies for years. But many on the right are now acting like no one else knew until the debate. Did I imagine all of the spinning, pro and con, about Bidens State of the Union Address provingor failing to provethat age wasnt an issue? Pretty much every conservative podcast I listen toand appear on!has been talking about Bidens deterioration for years. Whats particularly bizarre is that nearly all of the serious pre-debate punditry restedcorrectlyon the fact that Biden called for an early debate to reassure voters he was up to the job so he could change the narrative about him being too old. He utterly failed. But again, that whole conversation was in response to the widespread view Biden is too old and out of it. Its gaslighting to pretend that Biden isnt too old. Its also gaslighting to pretend no one has been arguing about or reporting on this stuff. The problem goes far beyond Trump. Many pro-Trump partisans have convinced themselves that Trumps longstanding unpopularity can be explained by a similar indictment of the media. Obviously, the press has gotten out over its skis more than a few times in going after Trump. It would be impossible and ridiculous to deny that. (Though, hilariously, many Democrats are now peddling the broken-brain claim that the press is tougher on Biden than Trump, which just helps highlight that we have a bipartisan problem with partisan idiocy in this country. Going forward, tweeted Kurt Bardella, a one-time GOP operative who is now a DNC adviser. I hope the media scrutinizes and fact-checks Donald Trump with the same vigor and enthusiasm they are with President Biden.) However much unfair media coverage hurt Trumpmedia coverage Trump relentlessly sought, by the wayit pales in comparison to the fair media coverage that simply conveyed his words and deeds accurately. His absurd pandemic press conferences hurt him more than any write-ups of his absurd pandemic press conferences, just as Bidens debate performance hurt him more than the coverage of his debate performance. But as I have learned in recent days, talking people out of their reflexive defense of their preferred president is virtually impossible. So, lets talk about something else. You know what gets an enormous amount of slanted coverage? Climate change. No, really, I defecate you negatory. The mainstream media is obsessed with educatingone might say browbeatingthe public on the climate crisis. As of 2021, for instance, the New York Times had 12 full-time staffers and more than 80 correspondents worldwide covering the issue, according to The Drum. That year, it published 4,000 articles dealing with the subject. Four. Thousand. In 2022, the Washington Post expanded its climate desk to 30 full-time journalists. I admittedly havent studied all of this output closely, but I am confident the coverage overwhelminglyperhaps even exclusivelyis somewhere between climate change is a grave problem and climate change is an existential crisis. And keep in mind, their coverage is aided by an unceasing stream of books, papers, college courses, foundation reports, celebrity stunts, propagandistic movies, corporate ad campaigns, Democratic policy initiatives, and U.N. warnings. This kind of groupthink is probably how you end up with headlines like James M. Inhofe, Senator Who Denied Climate Change, Dies at 89. But my point here isnt to argue with any of it. We can do that another time. My point is that all of this coverage has been wildly ineffectual. If the media is so frickin powerful, why do voters refuse to care about climate change as much as the biggest media outlets say they should? For 15 years, YouGov has asked what issues were most important to American voters, and for 15 years, climate change and the environment scored below a slew of other issuesoften well below. It did pretty well in 2024, landing in fifth placewith a whopping 7 percent of respondents saying it was their No. 1 issue. Gallups and Pew Research Centers findings land in roughly the same place. Now, its absolutely true that if you ask Americans whether theyre concerned or if they think its an important issue, the percentages increase. But some of that is social desirability bias. People are supposed to say theyre concerned about climate change, racism, etc. Despite an unrelenting media campaign that tells voters they should vote based on climate change, theres very little evidence that they do. In fact, there are countless issues where the mainstream media is almost exclusively on one side of the issueguns, immigration, voter ID, racial quotas, etc.and the public refuses to be educated the way editors and reporters want them to be. Hell, if the media was so powerful, how the hell is Trump winning? The funny thing is right-wing media critics routinely make this pointwhen it serves their purposes. If I had a dime for every time I heard someone on Fox News say some version of the media is totally discredited, I could start my own cable news network. But the moment events dont go their way, they start insisting that its all because of the all-powerful media. Which is it? Has it lost all credibility? Or is it successfully brainwashing Americans on behalf of the Deep State? Logically, you have to pick one, because both cant be true. Fortunately, its a trick question, you dont have to pick either optionbecause neither option is true. Authors Note: I am on a short quasi-vacation before the Republican National Convention next week. In fact, I started this newsletter on a plane to Montreal. And Im finishing it in the passenger seat en route to our destination (back in America). I dont know if there will be a Friday G-File. But there will be podcasts (Dispatch and Remnant), including the release tomorrow (I believe) of the long-awaited debate about Soviet America with Niall Ferguson. The dogs are in good hands. 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. Media show satellite images of aftermath of strikes on oil depot in Russia's Volgograd Oblast Aftermath of the attack on oil depots in Volgograd Oblast. Screenshot: Radio Liberty A satellite has recorded traces of fires at an oil depot in Kalach-on-Don in Russias Volgograd Oblast, where explosions occurred on 9 July. Source: Radio Liberty Details: The video shows two fires with thick smoke coming out of them. According to Radio Liberty, drones hit two groups of fuel tanks located a short distance from each other. The journalists also note that it was only on Wednesday morning that Russian firefighters had managed to extinguish the fire at the oil depot. Background: On Tuesday night, drones attacked the town of Kalach-on-Don in Russia's Volgograd Oblast. The target was a local oil depot. Russian propaganda media reported that the airports in the Russian cities of Volgograd and Astrakhan had restricted arrivals and departures due to the drone attack. Ukrainska Pravda sources in the Security Service of Ukraine and Defence Intelligence of Ukraine reported that a joint operation on the night of 9 July had resulted in fires breaking out at the Akhtubinsk military airbase in Astrakhan Oblast of the Russian Federation, at a power substation in Rostov Oblast and an oil depot in Kalach-on-Don in Volgograd Oblast. Support UP or become our patron! EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) Las Cruces residents will have the chance to meet the Las Cruces Police Department (LCPD) chief and deputy chiefs at the next Bridging the Badge livestream. The newest episode of Bridging the Badge will be livestreamed at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 30. Guests can see the livestream on LCPDs Facebook page or on the City of Las Cruces YouTube channel, LCPD said in a news release. Las Cruces Police Department Deputy Chief Eric Urenda. Photo courtesy to LCPD. Guests who wish to ask questions to Chief Jeremy Story or Deputy Chiefs Sean Mullen and Eric Urenda, may do so on LCPDs Facebook page, LCPD said. According to LCPD, the monthly Bridging the Badge programs are to promote understanding, collaboration and talking to Las Cruces residents about important topics. The livestreams are roughly one hour long and are held the last Tuesday of each month, LCPD said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. Richard Rohrer listens in the Michigan Senate Civil Rights, Judiciary, and Public Safety Committee on May, 16, 2024, as Sen. Veronica Klinefelt (D-Eastpointe) talks about a proposed law to criminalize necrophilia. In 2021, Rohrer's wife, Melody Rohrer, was killed and the prosecution in her case presented evidence that her killer had sexually assaulted her corpse. However, Michigan has no law explicitly criminalizing necrophilia. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols) The Legislature unanimously decided a loophole in Michigan criminal law needed to be closed and now its been signed into law by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Melodys Law explicitly criminalizes sexual contact with a dead human body. Previously, Michigan didnt cover necrophilia under its sexual assault laws. A dead body is not a person a 1995 Michigan Court of Appeals opinion reads, clarifying that Michigans state laws dont define sexual contact with a dead human body as sexual assault as the victim needs to be a person. A dead body is not a person. It cannot allege anything. A dead body has no will to overcome. It does not have the same potential to suffer physically or mentally as a live or even an unconscious or dying victim, the opinion reads. Within the 1995 opinion, there is a note that says the absence of laws forbidding necrophilia is an issue that our Legislature may wish to address. And three decades later, Sen. Veronica Klinefelt (D-Eastpointe) introduced Melodys Law to address that matter, saying she was shocked that the law didnt already criminalize necrophilia. Melodys Law consists of SBs 841, 842 and 843, assigning misdemeanor and felony criminal charges for sexual contact with dead human bodies, carrying penalties of up to 15 years in prison and requirements to register with the states sexual offender registry. The law closes a glaring loophole in Michigans criminal code and ensures that any horrifying acts of necrophilia can be properly prosecuted, Klinefelt said in a news release when the bills were signed on Monday. But it was the pain, courage and love of one family that made sure Michigan pursued the change, Klinefelt said ahead of the Senate vote in June. Melody Rohrer and her family In May, Richard Rohrer had photos of his wife of 45 years, Melody Rohrer, propped up in the Michigan Senate Civil Rights, Judiciary and Public Safety Committee as a way to introduce lawmakers to his beautiful wife, Melody Rohrer, who he called the love of my life. Melody was as fun and loving of a mom, grandma and wife a family could hope for, Richard Rohrer said, regaling them with stories of how she spent all her adult life as a nurse who cared deeply for the welfare of others. Melody Rohrer truly represented what is good in this world, Rohrer said. But in 2021, Melody was murdered by a man who intentionally hit her with his car while she was out for a walk. The evil that did this put her lifeless fractured body into a vehicle going to another location where he repeatedly raped her corpse, Rohrer told the Michigan Senate Civil Rights, Judiciary and Public Safety Committee in May. And despite the prosecution presenting DNA evidence of sexual assault and searches on the mans phone related to necrophilia, he did not face sexual assault charges. Angela Povilaitis is the Michigan Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention and Treatment Board (MDSVPTB) staff policy attorney and lead prosecutor in the states case against former MSU doctor Larry Nassar. During the May committee hearing, she told lawmakers that learning that theres no criminal punishment for necrophilia compounds grief and pain for families like the Rohrers who experience loss and the desecration of their loved ones bodies. These bills would help the families of those victimized after death by providing them with some recourse in the criminal justice system. Those families must already face news of a loved ones death unexpectedly and live with the knowledge that their loved ones body was violated for sexual gratification, Povilaitis said. Although there will be no more birthdays or holidays with Melody and her presence is greatly missed, Rohrer said in May that there is peace in knowing that another family could be spared from the law not protecting their loved one. While we are devastated that the person responsible for Melodys death was unable to be charged for this particular crime, it will give us peace of mind that no one else will have to endure the same injustice our family has had to endure over the past two-and-a-half years, Rohrer said. And now that the Melodys Law is law, Rohrer told Michigan Advance that hes on a tribute trip in honor of his wife, revisiting some of their travels during happier times. My family and I are thankful that this part of our nightmare is over, Rohrer told the Michigan Advance. We can now spend our time with our special memories of Melody, the wife, mother, grandmother and wonderful woman that she was. The post Melodys Law criminalizing necrophilia in Michigan signed into law appeared first on Michigan Advance. UPDATE, July 12: The City of Memphis told WREG retained Mary Claire Borys to oversee the shelters daily operations. This is on an interim basis, pending the outcome of the investigation. ** MEMPHIS, Tenn. WREG Investigators are digging deeper to find out more about the Memphis Animal Services director now on leave pending an investigation. A volunteer who worked with Ty Coleman at his last job in Midland, Texas, where he was an Animal Services Manager, is now speaking out about the things hes accused of there that led to him losing his job. She asked us to hide her identity because of her current role, and shes afraid of retaliation. In the beginning, I was a fan of him. He comes in and is very convincing and very well spoken, she said. WREG looks into MAS directors background, current investigation She said Coleman had the ambition and energy the shelter needed. He started in the summer of 2022. The red flags came quickly, she said. Probably December-ish. It was around Christmas that I picked up on things I wasnt comfortable about. She says there was a slew of issues like distemper outbreaks, their longtime veterinarian and other staff quitting, and dogs not being picked up. Got word of dog attacks on people and those animals were not being picked up, and medical dogs being turned away at the door, she added. She told us other protocols changed including moving dogs outside, sometimes in the heat, when they cleaned kennels. City council says MAS a hot mess after latest controversy He bought numerous kennels and would move dogs out there, she said. They were put outside with no shade or no water. Thankfully, we didnt have a dog die. Less than a year after Coleman started, he was let go. The city stated he did not successfully complete his one-year probation, but didnt provide further details. We requested his employment file from Midland as well as another city where he worked, but have yet to hear back. Coleman told the Midland media he was never informed he was doing anything wrong. The man knows why he was terminated. The city of Midland cant and wont release the reasons, the volunteer said. After ties were cut, Coleman spoke to the Midland City Council with his opinion on animal services. Ever since I was let go everybody has been upset with the city and what happened, he said. Three months later, the city of Memphis hired Coleman as interim Memphis Animal Services director. Its unclear what he said about Midland in his interview, but in the citys announcement, the former job was praised as well as Colemans dedicated experience of animal welfare and exceptional leadership. Mayor Paul Youngs office says they were aware of what happened in Midland. In January, Coleman went before the city council and secured a unanimous vote to make Mayor Youngs appointment and the director title official. Records indicate hes earning a $120,000 salary, and controls an almost $6 million budget while managing a shelter that cares for 9,000 pets annually and has more than 70 full-and part- time employees. This is a big community issue. We have no rabies shots being given, a concerned citizen told the council during a June meeting. Since June, animal lovers, rescue groups and the MAS Advisory committee chairwoman have voiced concerns like the shelters veterinarians quitting. MAS confirmed they resigned May 31 and have used relief vets and organizations to perform spay/neuter surgeries or had adopters to sign a contract promising to complete the surgery within 30 days. MAS assured us on June 28, its maintained its premise permit, which is required by state law and ensures facilities maintain minimum standards. Vet sheds light on problems at Memphis animal shelter On July 3, the mayors office stated the permit briefly lapsed since the permit was tied to a vet who left. They said they found a new vet to assume the role and applied for a new permit, which was expected to go into effect last week. They say shelter operations have not been impacted. Weve reached out to the state for more information. Its another concern on top of others that continue to mount. MAS confirmed a dog named LuLu died on June 24. She was in their outdoor play yard and preliminary assessments suggest it was heat-related. WREGs weather experts reported heat index values hovered around 105 that day. Memphis Animal Services says shelter dogs death believed to be heat-related Its unclear how long she was outside. MAS stated there will be an internal and external review and vowed to include more shade. Days later, Coleman was placed on leave pending an investigation. The focus of that investigation is broad, according to the mayors office. We are continuing to stabilize services there, said Memphis Chief Operating Officer Antonio Adams at a council meeting Tuesday. Adams and the deputy chief operating officer are currently in charge of MAS. Adams told councilmembers there is still no full time vet on staff, but they are developing a short-term plan as the investigation moves forward. We are going to provide the leadership to Memphis Animal Services that it deserves and needs. We are going to maybe reset, Adams said. Some council members said they are eager for answers. The word you used was reset. Our Memphis Animal Services is in a hot mess right now, Councilwoman Yolanda Cooper-Sutton responded. It seems some answers could come sooner than later. If you dont mind, could you bring us back a plan? A current state of where we are. Director Coleman is still on leave. Where we are with vets, medicine, supplies? Councilman Phillip Spinosa requested for their next meeting. WREG has been reaching out to Coleman since June 6 to speak to him. We tried contacting him again after he was placed on leave. We will continue to push for answers and let you know what we find out. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. Company Logo Dublin, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Cameroon Telecom Operators Country Intelligence Report" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. This report provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Cameroon today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2028. Total telecom service revenue in Cameroon will increase at a five-year CAGR of 5.2% over 2023-2028, primarily driven by strong growth in mobile data revenue and steady growth in fixed broadband service revenue. Mobile data revenue will increase at a CAGR of 11.4% over 2023-2028, driven by increasing mobile internet subscriptions, growing 4G subscriptions, projected growth in adoption of 5G services, and increasing mobile data ARPU. Fixed broadband revenue will grow at a CAGR of 8.7%, driven by growing adoption of broadband services, on the back of improving fiber broadband network coverage. Orange Cameroon led the mobile services market in terms of mobile subscriptions in 2023, followed by MTN Cameroon and Nexttel Cameroon. The report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across fixed telephony, broadband, and mobile, as well as a review of key regulatory trends. The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following : Demographic and macroeconomic context in Cameroon. The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, tariff regulation, and more. Telecom services market outlook: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, and mobile data markets. The competitive landscape: an examination of the positioning of leading players in the telecom services market as well as subscription market shares across segments. Company snapshots: analysis of the financial position of leading service providers in the telecommunications markets. Underlying assumptions behind our published base-case forecasts, as well as potential market developments that would alter, either positively or negatively, our base-case outlook. Reasons to Buy This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of Cameroon's telecommunications markets, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies. Accompanying the analyst's Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in Cameroon's mobile communications, fixed telephony, and broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares. With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality. The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in Cameroon's telecommunications markets. The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in Cameroon. Key Topics Covered: Market Highlights Key takeaways Country telecom market snapshot 2023 2028 (revenue and penetration) Operating Environment Economic outlook (population, GDP, CPI, and exchange rate) The analyst Country Risk Index (GCRI) Q1 2024 Country risk analysis - Cameroon compared to the AME and the world Regulatory highlights, fixed broadband development, and digital transformation ESG highlights and developments Telecom Services Market Outlook Total telecom services revenue by category, 2022-2028 FX impact on total telecom services revenue by category Mobile Services Mobile subscription penetration and subscription by device type Mobile subscriptions by payment type and mobile subscriptions by technology generation, 2022-2028 Data usage & traffic Mobile ARPU by payment type and service revenue by type Fixed Services Fixed service penetration and subscription Fixed ARPU and service revenue by service type Subscription Market Share by Service Area Competitive Landscape & Company Snapshots Product portfolios and positioning, service offerings by service provider, 2023 Company snapshot: MTN Cameroon Company snapshot: Orange Cameroon Company snapshot: Nexttel Cameroon Appendix A selection of companies mentioned in this report includes, but is not limited to: MTN Cameroon Orange Cameroon Nexttel Cameroon CamTel YooMee Mobile For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/uhdpx3 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. 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 Sen. Bob Menendezs defense attorney wrapped up his closing arguments Wednesday, saying the case against the New Jersey Democrat was shaky and rotten to its core. This case dies here today because they have failed to prove, they have failed to prove to that very high standard that Bobs actions were anything other than exactly what we want our elected officials to do. He was doing his job, and he was doing it well, the senators attorney Adam Fee said in Manhattan criminal court. Resist the temptation to pick a salacious story about a corrupt politician because its not, its not there, Fee said. You must acquit because there is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Bob took anything in exchange for a particular official action. Menendez and his co-defendants, New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, are accused of participating in a yearslong bribery scheme. Federal prosecutors say the senator tried to use his power to advance Egyptian military interests, interfere in criminal prosecutions, and secure investment from Qatari officials, among other things. Menendez and his wife allegedly received gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, a Mercedes Benz convertible and other bribes in exchange for his influence. The senators wife, Nadine Menendez, was also charged in the case, but will be tried separately later this year after she was granted a delay by the judge so she can focus on her treatment for breast cancer. She has pleaded not guilty. Bob Menendezs team called a total of five witnesses to testify in his defense during the trial, though not the senator himself. In all, 37 witnesses were called over the nine-week trial. Fee began his fiery closing arguments Tuesday afternoon and concluded Wednesday morning after spending roughly five hours addressing jurors. Fee said Tuesday that federal prosecutors had presented a cherry-picked case that asks the jury to convict the senator based solely on non-credible inferences and not on evidence. Assumption, speculation, fantasy, conjecture. They will call it inference, its not, he told jurors. You are being asked to imagine, in the gaps of evidence, the criminal stuff. In reference to the cash and gold found in the Menendez home, Fee reiterated that Bob Menendez customarily stored cash due to familial trauma from fleeing Cuba and that Nadine Menendez already owned gold, gifted to her by her family. They want you to conclude that every dollar, every piece of gold, every item of value that you have heard a reference to in this case, mustve been a bribe, he said. Fee said the senator didnt even know about the gold that the FBI seized from the Menendez home during the raid on June 16, 2022. He said that the cash found inside the senators home office was money he had withdrawn and that the cash found in the basement, stuffed inside shoes and jacket pockets, could not reasonably be pointed back to his client. The FBI seized a total of $486,461 of cash, 11 one-ounce gold bars, and two one-kilogram gold bars from the home, according to trial testimony. Corruption on a massive scale Federal prosecutors on Tuesday concluded their closing arguments, which also lasted approximately five hours over two days. This is a big case, but it all boils down to a classic case of corruption on a massive scale, Assistant US Attorney Paul Monteleoni told the jury. Its about a politician who put his power up for sale and the people who were willing to buy it from him. In his closing arguments, Monteleoni challenged the defenses suggestion that Nadine Menendez kept her husband in the dark about key parts of the alleged quid pro quo scheme. The pattern was the same: Menendez was in charge, the prosecutor said Monday. His wife, Nadine, was his go-between, demanding payment, receiving payment, passing messages but always, always keeping him informed. You dont get to be the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by being clueless, Monteleoni said of the senator. On Tuesday, Monteleoni focused on the part of the alleged scheme involving Jose Uribe, the New Jersey businessman who allegedly bribed the senator in exchange for legal favors and pleaded guilty before the trial began. Uribe testified in June that he gave Nadine Menendez a Mercedes-Benz convertible in exchange for the senators promise to intervene in criminal investigations into his associates. Monteleoni said messages between the senator and his wife show that he was in the weeds on the whole car purchase. Uribe previously testified that during a 2020 dinner, the senator told him in Spanish, I saved your a** twice. Not once, but twice. That is the boast of a corrupt politician about wielding power for the private benefit of the person paying him bribes, Monteleoni said Tuesday. Menendezs attorneys consistently tried to undermine Uribes credibility during the trial. On Wednesday, Fee argued that Uribe was good liar who embellished his testimony to invent corroboration with other evidence of text messages, phone calls and restaurant meetings that were presented at trial. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com (Bloomberg) -- US Senator Bob Menendezs lawyer told jurors that the politicians wife failed to tell him details of how she got a Mercedes Benz from a convicted felon who testified during the lawmakers corruption trial that the car was a bribe. Most Read from Bloomberg The defense attorney used his closing argument Wednesday in New York to undermine a sweeping case against Menendez, including a claim that former insurance broker Jose Uribe bribed the senators then-girlfriend Nadine Arslanian with the Mercedes to get him to influence two criminal investigations. Uribe, who pleaded guilty and testified against the New Jersey Democrat, lied to jurors about making a deal with Arslanian to give her $15,000 in cash for a down payment on the car and then make monthly payments for two years, defense lawyer Adam Fee argued to jurors. Nadine and Jose were keeping their bargain from Bob, Fee said in his summation following eight weeks of trial testimony. This is not proof of a conspiracy. It is the opposite. He was not aware of the bargain. Fee, who began his closing arguments Tuesday, assailed Uribes credibility and distanced Menendez from Nadine, who is now his wife, and claimed prosecutors failed to prove the senator committed any crimes. Menendez is accused of bribery, extortion, conspiracy, honest services wire fraud, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt. His lawyer disparaged the US case as a rolling blob of shifting and evolving inferences. Earlier this week, prosecutors argued the evidence is overwhelming that Menendez, a three-term senator, took 13 gold bars, nearly $500,000 in cash and the car to do favors for Uribe and two other businessmen on trial Wael Hana and Fred Daibes. Nadine Menendez was indicted but will be tried later. Prosecutors allege Menendez corruptly helped Egypt to secure US military aid and sensitive information; protected an Egyptian monopoly that Hana secured to inspect meat bound for Egypt; influenced a federal indictment in New Jersey of Daibes; and swayed New Jersey criminal probes of people close to Uribe. The prosecutors continue to tell you that Senator Menendez is a crook, a criminal, a corrupt politician, that he took a bunch of bribes, Fee said. They dont have any proof of a bribe. They cant prove to you anything more than a story where theres no proof. Fee said it was a total fantasy for Uribe to testify that, soon after Menendez began dating Arslanian in 2018, they entered into a bribery conspiracy. Uribe, who also pleaded guilty to insurance fraud in 2011, was a serial liar who deceived Menendez about the car payments, Fee said. Nobody ever told Bob that Uribe was making car payments, said Fee, who displayed a chart that said: Nadine told Bob that she would finance the car herself. Uribe said he bribed Nadine Arslanian so the senator would influence an insurance fraud indictment of a friend and another criminal investigation. Former New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal testified that Menendez spoke to him twice about discrimination by prosecutors against Hispanic trucking executives, but he didnt mention a specific case. Fee said Menendez did nothing more than make a brief call and set up a short meeting. No Follow-Up If a guy like Uribe had Bob on the take and had the threat of that hanging over Menendez, then wouldnt Bob have done something more, like a follow-up call, a text, an email? Fee said. Fee said that prosecutors failed to prove that Menendez took any improper actions relating to Egypt. Jurors also heard summations on behalf of Daibes and Hana. On Thursday, theyll hear more about Daibes, rebuttal arguments from a prosecutor and legal instructions from the judge. After that, jury deliberations will then begin. Prosecutors charge that Menendez took a bribe from Daibes, a developer, to back a Senate resolution praising Qatar so that a Qatari investment firm would finance a real estate project in New Jersey. Fee also said prosecutors failed to prove that Menendez acted with corrupt intent. Theres nothing even remotely controversial about Bob thanking Qatar for helping stave off a famine in Yemen, the lawyer said. You dont need to pay a bribe to get that sort of thank you. On Tuesday, Fee tried to explain cash found by FBI agents in several rooms of the house Menendez moved into after marrying Arslanian in 2020. Fee said the senator regularly withdrew cash from a credit union in $400 amounts for decades. I want you to have a sense of what Bob was doing with his own cash, because I actually think it is atypical, Fee said. It does seem weird. Coincidence of Timing In his summation, Hana attorney Lawrence Lustberg argued prosecutors were overly reliant on evidence summaries that erroneously build a circumstantial bribery case. The governments efforts to show a quid pro quo based on a coincidence of timing just gets it wrong, Lustberg said. He also said prosecutors have criminalized gifts that Hana gave to Arslanian as acts of generosity and kindness for an old friend. At every step of the way, the government asks you to assume the worst, Lustberg said. Not every action is criminal. Not every gift is a bribe. Daibes attorney Cesar DeCastro said prosecutors failed to prove cash and gold bars tied by prosecutors to the developer were given as bribes. Rather, he said, Daibes has been friends with Menendez for 30 years. Friends look out for each other, DeCastro said. You dont bribe a close friend. The case is US v. Menendez, 23-cr-490, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). (Updates with arguments from Fred Daibes lawyer) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Omakase Por Favor specializes in oysters, such as these ones broiled and served with marinated unagi. Omakase Por Favor stood out in Placer Countys dining scene. Now its expanding to midtown Sacramento. Jeana Marie Pechas raw bar, inspired by Japanese fine dining as well as Baja California seafood, will debut a second location in the MARRS building at the end of October. The new Omakase Por Favor will replace Good News Wine Bar at 1050 20th St., Suite 150. Announced Monday on social media, itll have a similar focus as the existing Lincoln location: oysters, choice sake and a relatively affordable prix-fixe menu, as well as a la carte options. Were building this horseshoe little oyster bar so that way you can have your oysters shucked tableside, Pecha said. I really feel like theres not a flagship oyster bar in Sacramento, and so we really want to fill that (void), and thats going to be our main go-to thing. Pecha began her career as a teenage McCormick & Schmicks dishwasher in Roseville before studying at the Culinary Institute of America and winning the Food Network show Guys Grocery Games in 2016. She helmed a Spokane raw bar, worked in Napa Valley, New Orleans and Los Angeles restaurants and cooked at a fine dining restaurant in the Mexican state of Colima before returning to Placer County to open Omakase Por Favor at 640 Twelve Bridges Drive, Suite 100 in Lincoln in October 2023. Omakase Por Favor merges coastal cuisines in dishes such as a tuna tostada with ponzu and serrando chiles, or guajillo-braised barbacoa bowl with soba noodles, pickled vegetables, chili oil and a soft-boiled egg. A seasonal six-course omakase menu runs $75 per person, with add-ons such as Sacramento County caviar on sturgeon skin chicharrones available for an additional fee. Omakase Por Favors second location is about 1,000 feet larger than the Lincoln restaurant, though most of that is in the kitchen, Pecha said. Itll seat approximately 50 people inside and be open for lunch and dinner. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) The latest high school graduation data for the 2023 cohort shows that New Mexico schools are making consistent progress toward higher graduation rates. Career Technical Education students, in particular, graduated at a high rate. Since the 2008 cohort, New Mexico has been tracking graduation rates in a consistent manner. And since then, the overall graduation rate has made a slow march upward. New Mexico looking to get more locals into the transportation industry Story Continues Below Data from the states public education department shows overall graduation rates have increased slightly over time. The 2023 cohort of high school seniors had a graduation rate of 76.7%. Thats similar to the rate over the last four years. While overall rates have increased by about 42% since the 2008 cohort, the graduation rates of Hispanic students and Native American students increased even more, at 52% and 64.5% respectively. ACLU-NM, advocates ask New Mexico governor to halt special session While New Mexico overall has lagged behind some other states, the data shows that New Mexicos Career Technical Education (CTE) students have a particularly high graduation rate, at 95.77%. That program combines technical and occupational training alongside traditional classwork. The 2023 graduation data is a testament to the power of practical, skills-based learning. When students view education as a pathway to a successful career, they are more engaged, New Mexico Public Education Secretary Arsenio Romero said in a press release. The PED will continue to develop our career technical programs and promote them to schools and districts. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. The front of the Montana Historical Society on the Capitol grounds in Helena (Photo by Eric Seidle for the Daily Montanan). A New Mexico author who has written several books on Montana pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing several items, including letters from C.M. Russells wife, from the Montana Historical Society during the course of a year, the U.S. Attorneys Office announced. Brian DAmbrosio, 49, of Santa Fe, N.M., pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of theft of major artwork. In exchange for his plea, the government agreed to dismiss nine other counts for which he was indicted last November. The count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but prosecutors agreed to recommend his DAmbrosios offense level be decreased because he pleaded guilty, which could lead to a more lenient sentence depending on what the judge decides. DAmbrosios indictment was unsealed in January. According to the records, DAmbrosio would go to the Montana Historical Society in Helena from April 2022 through September 2023 claiming he was doing research and would steal items, including some more than 100 years old, from the archives. He would then sell or try to sell them on eBay without saying they were stolen. Those included a Crow program for the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1926; a 1905 Centennial Brewing letter from Butte; an 1889 Montana Society of the Framers of the Constitution Convention Flag and Program; a Ravalli County sheriff card from the early 1900s; a telegram and letters written by Nancy Russell, the wife of C.M. Russell; and stock certificates and letters from the late 1800s and early 1900s involving the Silver Cliff Mining Company, U.S. Silver Service Commission; and Mexican Central Railway Company. DAmrbosio was caught when he tried to sell items to an undercover FBI agent posing as a buyer, according to the indictment. DAmbrosio has written numerous books with various ties to Montana, and online biographies say he lived here for more than 20 years. An Independent Record article from October said DAmbrosio also co-owns an herbal store in Santa Fe and is a private investigator in three states. The two sides had reached a tentative agreement in April in the case, but DAmbrosio agreed to the plea deal during a court hearing Tuesday. He was again released as he has been since his indictment pending his sentencing hearing, which is scheduled for Nov. 13. dambrosio-plea NEW YORK Michael Cohen asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to reopen his lawsuit against Donald Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr, and others for jailing him in 2020 when he refused not to criticize the then-president under house arrest. In his request for review, the former Trump fixer asked the justices to revive the case dismissed in January and decide whether there is any consequence for executives who incarcerate their critics. Cohen, 57, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, was about halfway through a three-year sentence for issuing the notorious hush money payoff to Stormy Daniels and other crimes when the Bureau of Prisons released him to home confinement in May 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. He wound up back in a prison camp in upstate Otisville the following July, when he wouldnt immediately agree not to publicly mouth off about Trump during the pendency of his sentence. Cohen spent 16 days in solitary confinement before Manhattan federal court Judge Alvin Hellerstein released him. In the July 2020 release order, the jurist remarked that the clause presented to Cohen which would have prohibited him from publishing a Trump book before the 2020 election, talking to reporters, or using social media had no purpose other than retaliation and was unlike anything hed seen in his decades on the bench. [He] was presented with a document that had no federal serial number attached to it that all documents like it have that had a paragraph with misspellings, unusual syntax, and punctuation, that said he would not speak, write and would cause his family to not speak or write about anything related to the reasons he was in prison, Cohens lawyer, Jon Dougherty, told The News. Dougherty said Cohen asked the U.S. Marshals if he had to agree to it, and they said they didnt know and would check with their superiors. They returned 90 minutes later with an order sending him back to prison even as he agreed to sign it. Its not clear who marshals spoke with in the interim. Cohen filed his suit against Trump, then-Attorney General Bill Barr, and others in December 2021, alleging they conspired to imprison him and violated his First Amendment rights. He sued them in their personal capacities, a type of lawsuit the Supreme Court has previously said can proceed in the most unusual circumstances. Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Liman dismissed the suit in November 2022, writing that Cohens release from jail was the appropriate remedy and that he was bound by precedent but believed the case demonstrated profound violence to Cohens constitutional rights by the executive branch. He described Cohens jailing as nothing short of the use of executive power to lock up the presidents political enemies for speaking critically of him. He said the available remedies wouldnt deter it from happening again. In January, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Limans decision, which Cohens Wednesday request asks the Supreme Court to reconsider. Cohen needs four justices to agree to review the case. Lawyers for Trump and representatives for the Bureau of Prisons and Barr did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment. _____ Michael Cohen, the one-time fixer for Donald Trump, is asking the Supreme Court to revive his lawsuit against the former president for allegedly retaliating against him for promoting his tell-all book critical of Trump, according to Cohens attorney. Cohen sued Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr and other federal officials in 2021 for alleged retaliation in response to public comments he made about the book. After declining to sign an agreement barring him from speaking with the media, Cohen was taken back into custody and placed in solitary confinement for more than two weeks, court records show. A US District Court dismissed Cohens lawsuit for damages, and the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in January. When Cohen, who was writing a book critical of Trump, did not agree immediately to waive his right to free speech, he was summarily sent back to prison and thrown into solitary confinement, Cohen told the Supreme Court in an appeal his lawyer said he filed Wednesday. As it stands, this case represents the principle that presidents and their subordinates can lock away critics of the executive without consequence. For the claim to survive, Cohen will have to clear a tall hurdle the Supreme Court has erected that makes it difficult for Americans to sue federal law enforcement officials. A 1971 Supreme Court decision, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, established that people could sue federal agents if their rights were violated. But the court has been unwilling to expand that right beyond a limited number of circumstances. Two years ago, the high court denied a Bivens claim against a Border Patrol agent in Washington state and further limited the conditions under which such lawsuits can be filed. That litigation followed an encounter in which the owner of an inn near the US-Canada border claimed the agent used excessive force and then retaliated against him for reporting the incident. Cohen, speaking with CNNs Kaitlan Collins Wednesday, described himself as, in essence, a political prisoner who was held because he refused to waive a constitutional right. I believe that its incumbent upon the Supreme Court of the United States to hear this case, Cohen said on The Source. He said people have to be very, very careful, and what they have to be very cognizant of is what happens now post the Supreme Courts decision on presidential immunity. Opponents of the conservative courts presidential immunity ruling earlier this month claim some illegal acts committed by a president like targeting political opponents may now be shielded from criminal prosecution. The Supreme Court will likely decide in the fall whether or not to hear arguments in Cohens appeal. A Trump campaign spokesman didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. Cohen pleaded guilty to nine counts, including for campaign finance violations tied to payments he made or orchestrated to women during the 2016 campaign, and was serving a three-year prison sentence. He was released from prison on furlough in 2020 during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. When Cohen met with probation officials later that year, they presented Cohen with an agreement that required him to avoid engaging with the media and using social media. After Cohen sought to change the terms of that agreement, he was transported back to prison and placed in solitary confinement for 16 days, according to court records. At the appeals court, Trumps attorneys described Cohens claims as meritless and said he failed to establish any connection between the former president and the agreement. A federal court ordered Cohens release days later. This story has been updated with additional details. CNNs Jack Forrest contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Michael Cohen is trying to take Donald Trump to the Supreme Court in a new round of litigation. The former fixer is petitioning the justices in a bid to get damages for being sent back to federal prison in July 2020, then told he could only get out by signing a gagging orderat a time when he was writing a tell-all book about his time as the then-presidents bagman. The unusual move means the court could hear oral arguments on the case if at least four justices are in favor, requiring Cohen to win over at least one of the conservatives, assuming he can convince liberals Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. His move comes after he warned in The Daily Beast Sunday that his experience of being returned to custody with an attempt to gag him foreshadowed how Trump would act if re-elected in November, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling that presidents enjoy immunity for their official actions. Cohen has been involved in multiple pieces of civil litigation since parting ways with Trump, and was also a key witness in Trumps criminal trial, which ended in the former presidents conviction on 34 felony counts in New York. But the appeal to the Supreme Court is separate from the immunity ruling and hinges on a little-noticed ruling by the same justices this year, which was part of the 6-3 conservative majority overruling Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Courts Dobbs decision overturning federal protections for abortion rights also overturned a 1971 case Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents. That case ruled a victim of unlawful search and seizure could sue the government for violating their Fourth Amendment rights despite the lack of a government statute outlining such a remedy. In overturning that ruling along with Roe v. Wade, the court undercut Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizureeffectively kicking back to individual states what rights people have to sue for unlawful search or seizure. Cohen filed a writ of certioraria direct appeal to the justicesseeking clarification on what happens when federal officials imprison a critic in retaliation for his refusal to waive his right to free speech and there is no remedy to deter them from doing so? He also cited a ruling on his conditions of release from Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who described the move from Trump and the DOJ as retaliatory. In 21 years of sentencing people and looking at the terms of release, the judge wrote in his July 2020 ruling, Ive never seen such a clause. The clause in the documents Cohen refused to sign included a ban on engagement of any kind with the media, including print, TV, film, books, or any other form of media/news Prohibition from all social media platforms. It also had a requirement that Cohen refrain from any communication with friends and family to exercise discretion in not posting on your behalf or posting any information about you. The DOJ explicitly stated the purpose is to avoid glamorizing or bringing publicity to your status as a sentenced inmate serving a custodial term in the community. Now Cohen wants to find out if another judges ruling would allow him to receive damages from the government, specifically under a clause around some citizens falling into the most unusual of circumstances which would still give them Fourth Amendment protections under Bivens at the federal level, rather than requiring a state law or act of Congress to outline specific remedies. More unusual circumstances in need of a deterrent Bivens remedy are difficult to imagine, Cohens petition reads. Cohen previously tried and failed to bring his retaliation claim in 2022 but his case was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Limana Trump appointee. 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. Chinas business leaders are barrelling ahead of their global peers in adopting generative AI, according to a new survey from North Carolina-based software company SAS. Over 80% of Chinese business leaders surveyed are currently using GenAI in their operations, above the global average of 54% and the U.S. at 65%, according to SAS's survey, conducted with Coleman Parkes Research. China is noticeably ahead, not only in the practical aspects of orchestrating AI into their existing systems and processes, but also in embedding trust by preparing to adhere to GenAI regulations, the report says. China is turning to generative AI to help manage its "massive population" and the data collected from them, Bryan Harris, chief technology officer at SAS, suggests. Pioneering work in generative AI can give China a competitive advantage in the world, with regards to unlocking value and data, he says. Still, safety and security issues like hallucination, deepfakes, and data privacy are pushing governments to quickly develop rules around the new technology. SASs survey reports that around 70% of Asia-Pacific business leaders report feel fully prepared or moderately prepared to comply with incoming generative AI regulations, compared to 59% in North America and 52% in Northern Europe. Last year, Beijing released some of the worlds first rules governing generative AI. The rules required chatbots to adhere to core socialist values and protect national security. Yet penalties were not as strict as observers feared, which analysts read as Beijing signaling support for the fledgling industry. In October, the Biden administration passed an executive order that, among other measures, called upon AI developers to share safety test data with the U.S. government. Then, earlier this year, the European Union passed its own comprehensive set of AI regulations, dubbed the AI Act. Still, AI companies may find it difficult to navigate a patchwork of different AI rules. Its good to have regulations. Its just not good to have three different ones, Brian says. Its inefficient. Chinas AI investment Since the release of OpenAIs ChatGPT in 2022, Chinese tech firms large and small are rushing to create their own large language models and generative AI programs. Big tech firms like Baidu, Alibaba, and JD.com are investing in their own large language models; Baidu claims its ERNIE LLM outperforms the latest version of GPT-4 in some Chinese-language tasks. Several Chinese startupslike 01.AI, founded by former Google China president Kai-Fu Leeare also racing to release chatbots and other generative AI products. Story continues Yet Chinas AI companies are also struggling with a shortage of AI chips, made worse by U.S. controls barring the export of advanced processors (like those made from Nvidia) to China. Startups are reportedly rationing the use of their products due to a lack of computing power. On Monday, iFlyTekone of Chinas leading AI developerssaid it was likely to post a net loss of up to $64.53 million for the first half of the year, which it partly blamed on the ultimate exertion of pressures from the U.S. in a Shenzhen stock filing. Shares are down 5.4% since Fridays close. "All countries are looking for information advantage as a result of AI," Harris says, from the level of national security all the way down to commercial applications. "Generative AI becomes the new nuclear arms race in that regard, he says. Yet Chinese companies have some advantages, such as being more aggressive than their U.S. peers when it comes to combining datasets and applying them to AI models, Harris says. Hes optimistic that Chinese companies like Alibaba can still catch up to their U.S. peers like OpenAI, even with a shortage of cutting-edge GPUs. Whats cool about this whole movement is that theres innovation happening almost simultaneously around the world. That's a good thing, right?" Fortune is bringing Brainstorm AI to Asia for the first time, convening executives, founders, venture investors, and regulators from around the world in Singapore on July 3031. Register here! This story was originally featured on Fortune.com Michael Cohen says his former boss Donald Trump is capable of absolutely anything and everything should he return to the White House now that the Supreme Court has granted presidents total immunity for official acts. You allow your mind to wander into the farthest level of dystopia, and then you will finally get a small glimpse into just how far that he will push this, he said Tuesday during an appearance on MSNBCs Deadline: White House. There is no limit to what he and his sycophants that will be there in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. will be successful in at least attempting to do, he added. Cohen sounded the alarm over Project 2025, an extreme policy playbook for a second Trump term crafted by multiple former Trump White House advisers who would also likely join a future administration. Trump has tried to distance himself from the document in recent days. Cohen predicted that journalists and others on Trumps enemies list could all be targets. Donald already has a blueprint of what he needs to do, and thats weaponizing the Department of Justice, weaponizing government, which he said he was also going to do, Cohen said. Every person that works in government will be working not for the United States government, but for him. Among the policies in the Project 2025 proposal is a scheme to reclassify government workers into a category that makes them much easier to fire. Experts have said the move could pave the way for authoritarianism and that it would fundamentally change the nature of federal government. Trump has also openly vowed to seek retribution against enemies should he win the election. Cohen, Trumps former fixer and personal attorney, testified extensively against Trump at his Manhattan hush money trial earlier this year. Trump was convicted on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump also faces three other criminal indictments. Should he return to the Oval Office before they go to trial, he could order the Justice Department to dismiss the two federal cases against him. Cohen served prison time on campaign finance and other financial charges after he helped facilitate hush money payments ahead of the 2016 election to silence women who said they had extramarital affairs with Trump. Michael Cohen is asking the Supreme Court to revive his case against Donald Trump, who is accused of violating his former attorneys constitutional rights by keeping him in solitary confinement after revealing plans for a tell-all memoir. A challenge that stems from a lawsuit from the one-time fixer who recently testified against Trump at his New York hush money trial asks whether a president and federal officials can be held accountable for retaliating against their critics. No president should ever be permitted to weaponize the Department of Justice through a willing and complicit attorney general, to have a citizen unconstitutionally remanded to prison, in my case, solitary confinement, because that person refuses to waive that First Amendment constitutional right, Cohen told The Independent on Wednesday. The actions of Donald J Trump and his administration are un-American, and I believe that this case is ripe for the Supreme Court of the United States to hear, he said. The case comes on the heels of an earth-shattering Supreme Court decision that affirmed a presidents absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts in office, radically expanding the scope of executive power. A decision that could embolden Trump in a possible second term has crossed my mind, Cohen said, though I dont believe that anyone could justify this blatant, unconstitutional act as being one that could be granted immunity under this presidential immunity ruling. A case that interrogates government retaliation provides the Supreme Court an opportunity to decide whether the US is a democratic republic and not an autocracy led by a monarch, a dictator, a ruler, a supreme leader or a fuhrer, Cohen said. Michael Cohen heads to Manhattan criminal court to testify in Donald Trumps hush money trial on May 14. Cohen is asking the Supreme Court to revive his case against Trump, who is accused of violating his former attorneys constitutional rights (AFP via Getty Images) In January, a panel of federal appeals court judges said they would not revive Cohens lawsuit after it was tossed out by a lower court. On Wednesday, Cohen filed his appeal to the nations highest court, arguing that the case raises major questions about constitutional abuses by the federal government against its sharpest critics. The questions presented in this petition are of paramount importance, Cohens attorney, Jon-Michael Dougherty, wrote in a brief to the court. The possibility that the federal government has the power to retaliate against critics with imprisonment, without any consequence for or check against the officials engaged in such retaliation, is a chilling prospect, Dougherty added. This Court should not turn its eyes away from this profound breach of the contract between a government of limited powers and a free citizenry. The filing points to Supreme Court precedent that allows defendants to sue for damages against federal officials for constitutional violations, and that such cases should deter officials from retaliating against citizens. Cohen was sentenced to prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, allegedly at the direction of his former boss. After he was released to home confinement in 2020 to prevent the spread of Covid-19, Cohen revealed his plans for a book about Trump. Weeks later, and nearly four years ago to the date of his Supreme Court appeal, Cohen was remanded back to prison and sent to solitary confinement. Prison officials had accused him of violating restrictions on his public communications. He was allegedly directed to sign an agreement that blocked him from any engagement with media, including in print. 4 years ago today, I was lured down to 500 Pearl Street by a corrupt and autocratic President @realDonaldTrump who weaponized the @TheJusticeDept through his POS Attorney General #BillBarr and remanded for refusing to sign this counterfeit document that violates my first pic.twitter.com/yk39HrV5BD Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) July 9, 2024 Cohen and his attorneys asked whether the bespoke conditions of his release could be removed. Instead, he was shackled and transported back to a federal prison in Otisville, New York, and kept in solitary confinement for nearly 24 hours a day alone in a cell with poor ventilation, no air conditioning, and a broken window, according to his complaint. In July 2020, after 16 days in solitary, and after a judge intervened, Cohen was released to home confinement. The federal judge who ordered his release said his transfer back to prison was clearly retaliatory in response to Cohens plans to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book critical of the President and to discuss the book on social media. Michael Cohen testified to the House Oversight Committee in 2019 a year after pleading guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance violations and lying to Congres. (Getty Images) Cohen sued Trump, his attorney general Bill Barr and prison officials, arguing that his imprisonment violated his Fourth and Eighth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure and cruel and unusual punishment. In 2022, District Judge Lewis Liman granted the governments motion to dismiss, but he noted that he was disturbed by the profound violence his order could have on Cohens constitutional rights, signaling that the question should be resolved by the higher court. The Supreme Courts precedents ensure that there is at best a partial remedy for the abuse of power and violation of rights against the perpetrators of those wrongs, Judge Liman wrote. He suggested that a proper inquiry should look into whether the constitutions authors intended for there to be such a remedy. There are powerful reasons to believe that, in many circumstances, the answer to that question will be yes, he added. If ones rights are violated by executive officials, the courts provide a legal remedy for that violation. Trumps 2024 campaign is fueled by the idea of retribution for those who have been wronged and betrayed, and his allies and the architects of a second Trump administration have vowed to prosecute his rivals. The former president continued to attack Cohen as a liar throughout his criminal trial in Manhattan, where Cohens damning four-day testimony walked jurors through dozens of pages of evidence, including each of the falsified business records at the center of the case. Trumps trial also revealed a pressure campaign against Cohen fromthen-President Trumps allies to pledge his loyalty while he was under federal investigation. Michael Douglas says Clooney ditching Biden is valid at this point Michael Douglas is joining a growing chorus of top Hollywood figures who have backed President Biden but are now suggesting he should end his reelection bid, with the Wall Street actor saying hes deeply concerned about the campaign. Its such a tough one. I adore the guy. Fifty years of public service a wonderful guy. This just happens to be one of these elections that is just so crucial. And its really hard, Douglas said Wednesday on The View, when asked by co-host Joy Behar about calls for Biden to step aside in the 2024 race. I dont worry necessarily today or tomorrow, but a year down the line, I worry. I am concerned, Douglas said. The 79-year-old Academy Award winner was asked to weigh in on George Clooneys New York Times essay published just minutes before Douglass appearance on the ABC daytime talk show. In the editorial, Clooney one of Hollywoods most prominent Democratic supporters who hosted a star-studded fundraiser for Bidens campaign only last month said Democrats are not going to win in November with this president. I think its a valid point, Douglas said. Im deeply, deeply concerned. Its especially difficult because the Democrats have a big bench. They have a lot of heavy hitters. When Harry Met Sally director and fierce former President Trump critic Rob Reiner had also expressed support for Clooneys opinion piece, saying while he respects Biden, We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside, Reiner said in a Wednesday social media post. Less than three months ago, Douglas had defended Bidens age and fitness for office, saying the 81-year-old president appeared as sharp as a tack. Everybody in Bidens orbit who hes consulted with says the president is fine, Douglas, who hosted an April fundraiser for Bidens campaign, said at the time. But Douglas expressed concern about Biden following last months debate between the commander in chief and Trump. Bidens shaky debate performance reignited questions about his health and led to calls from Democratic lawmakers for him to exit the White House race. In a letter earlier this week, Biden rejected those calls, saying, I can respond to all this by saying clearly and unequivocally: I wouldnt be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024. In his sit-down on The View promoting his new documentary Americas Burning, Douglas said, We need courage. We just generally need some strength and courage on the side of both parties. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. This will do little to heal the wounds of loss, but Lady Justice may have brought some sense of relief today. The woman who fatally shot Michael Latt in November 2023 will be behind bars for decades and decades, a judge made clear Wednesday. Charged with murder by authorities late last year, Jameelah Elena Michl was sentenced to 35 years to life. In his sentence L.A. Superior Court Judge Kerry White ordered Michl to serve her time in a California state prison. The odds of the 37-year-old Michl ever stepping outside the prison gates is pretty slim. More from Deadline The sentence is the maximum available to the judge under California law. Arrested mere days after shooting and killing the beloved studio marketer and social justice advocate in his mid-Wilshire home, Michl has been in custody since November 27, 2023 when she was arrested at the scene of the crime. Held on a $3 million bail since then, Michl pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder, and one count of first-degree burglary on June 24. Latt was targeted by Michl for him for being friends with a woman she had been stalking, the L.A. District Attorneys office said at the time. The woman in question is A Thousand and One director A.V. Rockwell. Michl had been stalking and threatening Rockwell for months and the filmmaker had gotten a number of restraining orders against her. Earlier in 2023, Latt posted a photo of himself, his mother and Rockwell online soon after A Thousand and One won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance that year. The founder and CEO of Lead With Love and a communications and marketing advisor to the likes of Netflix, Ava DuVernays Array, Ryan Coogler, Warner Bros Pictures, Common, and Annapurna Pictures, Latt was shot at close range by a semi-automatic handgun as Michl forced her way into his home that November evening. Latts fiancee, Hannah Lovingood, was there at the time of the attack by Michl. Latt, 33, passed away from his wounds soon afterwards at a local hospital. Today brings a measure of closure to a deeply painful chapter for Mr. Latts family, friends and our entire community, District Attorney George Gascon said in a statement after sentencing Wednesday. As a tireless advocate for social justice, Mr. Latt championed equality, justice and equity in our criminal legal system. Mr. Latts ability to uplift the community left an indelible mark. His legacy will continue to inspire us to strive for a more just and inclusive society. Widely mourned from all segments of Hollywood when news of his tragic death became known, Latt came from a family with deep ties to the industry. Latts brother is Franklin Latt, who is CAAs head of talent and the representative of top names. Latts mother is Michelle Satter, who was honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at this years Governors Awards for her decades of work on behalf of the Sundance Institute. Our prayers and thoughts are with Michaels family today. Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Microsoft relinquishes OpenAI board seat as regulators zero in on AI Microsoft is giving up its seat on OpenAI's board, saying its presence is no longer necessary as the ChatGPT maker's governance has improved since its boardroom upheaval last year. "We appreciate the support shown by OpenAI leadership and the OpenAI board as we made this decision," Microsoft stated in a Tuesday letter. The company's resignation is effective immediately, Microsoft said. The unexpected exit comes as antitrust regulators scrutinize Microsoft's partnertship with OpenAI, under which the software giant invested billions in OpenAI. Microsoft also took a seat on OpenAI's board after a chaotic period in which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was abruptly fired, then reinstated, with the board members who orchestrated his ouster later pushed out. "Over the past eight months we have witnessed significant progress by the newly formed board and are confident in the company's direction," Microsoft said in its letter. "Given all of this we no longer believe our limited role as an observer is necessary." Microsoft's decision means that OpenAI will not have observer seats on its board. "We are grateful to Microsoft for voicing confidence in the Board and the direction of the company, and we look forward to continuing our successful partnership," OpenAI said in a statement. The Federal Trade Commission and Britain's regulatory agency have also been reviewing Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI, and European regulators last month said they'd take another look at the partnership under the 27-nation bloc's antitrust rules. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Sneak peek: Unmasking the Zombie Hunter Sneak peek: Murder by Clown Extreme heat continues across the U.S. Keir Starmer, Britains newly-elected prime minister, participates in a photo opp with a bipartisan senatorial delegation as part of the Nato summit in Washington on June 10 (Getty Images) Britains new prime minister Keir Starmer was set to meet with leaders of the Democratic and Republican caucuses in the House of Representatives on Wednesday as the Nato summit in Washington entered its second day. Starmers journey to Washington for the summit comes as he is less than a week into his tenure as prime minister. The joint meeting with Mike Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries was likely to largely focus on establishing some of Starmers first relationships on Capitol Hill as prime minister while also touching on some policy issues including the most anticipated topic of the week: Ukraine, and the eastern European countrys journey to becoming a Nato member-state. US officials, alongside their counterparts in the UK and other Nato countries, are set to unveil what the Biden administration has been previewing as a bridge to Nato membership for Ukraine this week. Its still unclear what the exact details and requirements for that path to membership will entail, but more information is expected to be made public over the next few days and at President Joe Bidens widely anticipated press conference on Thursday. It will be his first fully open press conference since 2022. The prime minister also met on Wednesday with a bipartisan Senate delegation led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Keir Starmer, Britains newly-elected prime minister, participates in a photo opp with a bipartisan senatorial delegation as part of the Nato summit in Washington on June 10 (Getty Images) Ukraine is likely to be an issue of discussion between Starmer and congressional leaders, given the ever-present tough situation in which Speaker Mike Johnson, head of the House Republicans, still finds himself. Johnson has been personally supportive of continued military funding for Ukraine, a stance which has hardened since he became speaker and began receiving classified briefings. A significant portion of his partys caucus in the House is not, however. That has led the Republican speaker to look to Democrats for votes to pass an aid package that the chamber voted to approve earlier this year after much delay and debate. Those votes have been politically dangerous for Johnson, who has already survived one attempt to oust him led by a group of Republicans, again with the help of Democrats. The Labour leader told reporters on the flight to Washington that he wants to see another Ukraine aid package locked in during his trip. Such a prospect would require another vote in the Republican-controlled House. Should he speak separately with Jeffries, meanwhile, Starmer could very well also end up discussing the ongoing presidential election and the Democratic Partys debacle surrounding the presumptive nominee, President Joe Biden. No separate meetings with individual members of Congress have been announced, though they often happen on the margins of such major summits, particularly when they occur in the US. After last months presidential debate with Donald Trump, the incumbent president has lost the faith of a serious number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, a handful of whom are echoing those concerns publicly while the president and his supporters jam their fingers in their ears. Starmer is known to be personally disgusted by Trump: after the January 6 attack on Congress, Starmer told the BBC that the siege was a culmination of years of the politics of hate and division embraced by the Republican Party. This is where it leads, he said in 2021. And that is why we all have to make the case for tolerance and respect and changing that culture. This is where hatred and division gets you and it's a very, very bad place." The U.S. military's temporary pier will be reattached to a beach in Gaza on Wednesday and will likely be removed permanently a few days later, three U.S. officials told ABC News. The $230 million pier system, known as Joint Logistics Over the Shore (JLOTS), had been authorized to remain operational in Gaza through July 31 and, despite U.S. officials openly discussing it remaining operational beyond that date, it now appears it will cease operation before even reaching the end of the month. The three U.S. officials told ABC News the pier will be reattached to the beach just southwest of Gaza City on Wednesday and that after a few days of operations to transport humanitarian aid from Cyprus, the pier will likely be shut down for good. Cyprus was the gathering point for aid provided by international aid organizations to be vetted by Israeli security before its transport via JLOTS into Gaza. PHOTO: A truck carries humanitarian aid across Trident Pier, a temporary pier to deliver aid, off the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, near the Gaza coast, June 25, 2024. (Amir Cohen/Reuters) MORE: US military delivers supplies to Gaza via pier, but there's no one to distribute them The system's deployment to Gaza was announced by President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech earlier this year with the hope it would be a "maritime corridor" to help bring humanitarian aid into Gaza, especially as major land routes were closed by Israel, citing security concerns. But rough seas interrupted the pier's operations for lengthy stretches of time that have left it operational for only 23 of the 53 days since it was anchored on May 17. The temporary structure, built to rise and fall with the waves, has had to be moved several times to the Israeli port of Ashdod due to rough seas -- including once because portions of the pier broke and it had to be repaired. The pier has been in Ashdod since June 28, when it was moved for the third time due to rough sea conditions. PHOTO: Trucks carry humanitarian aid at Trident Pier, a temporary pier to deliver aid, off the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, near the Gaza coast, June 25, 2024. (Amir Cohen/Reuters) MORE: US military pier to deliver humanitarian aid repaired, reconnected to Gaza beach Prior to its move away from the beach on June 28, the pier system had delivered more than 19.4 million pounds of humanitarian aid into Gaza, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). But a very large portion of it had begun to gather at the staging area on the beach, since the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) had refused to pick up the aid. Aid organizations have said one of the issues is that there's no system to distribute the aid once it arrives. WFP had struck an agreement with the military to deliver the aid that arrives via the pier, as Biden has insisted that no U.S. troops deploy on shore in Gaza. But WFP temporarily suspended operations in June, pending a security review, and has not resumed operations. MORE: Pentagon and USAID watchdogs launch reviews of US pier and humanitarian aid flow into Gaza On Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman said that while the pier was in Ashdod, WFP had significantly reduced the amount of aid at the staging area and moved it to its warehouses in Gaza for distribution. Any remaining humanitarian aid still at Cyprus will be delivered to Gaza in the coming days, after which its operations will likely end for good, according to the U.S. officials. ABC News' Anne Flaherty contributed to this report. Military pier off Gaza likely to cease operations in coming days: US officials originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Can Millington be 'engine of growth' for West Tennessee? Its new city manager thinks so At just 20 years old, Rhodes College student Frankie Dakin became the youngest elected alderman to serve in Millington in 2012. The experience challenged me to grow, gave me purpose and completely changed my career trajectory, said Dakin, who served as an alderman until January 2019. Since that time, Ive spent over a decade in public service and want to use that experience to help my hometown reach its full potential. Dakin will have the chance to do just that in his new role. Frankie Dakin, deputy chief of staff for Shelby County Government, poses for a portrait in the office of Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris in Memphis, Tenn., on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. In August, Dakin will become the new city manager for Millington. The Millington Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted unanimously to appoint Dakin, 32, as the city manager on May 29. The Millington native is expected to start in his new role in August. The city gave me my first opportunity to serve in government and Im really honored to be returning in service in this new capacity, said Dakin, an official within the Shelby County Mayors Office. I bet that there is not a street in Millington that I have not walked down, and likely very few where I dont have an associated story or two to tell. Ive spent 14 years training for this, and Im ready to move the needle on a broad range of issues, build diverse coalitions and achieve results for the City of Millington. Dakin has spent almost the past six years serving in Shelby County government and has worked in various roles during his time there. He has spent the last two years as deputy chief of staff for Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris. Dakin noted he has worked with both parties on the Shelby County Commission to start solid waste programs, modernize the countys vehicle fleet, expand veterans services and make systematic changes to addressing the communitys mental health issue. "My time on (Mayor Harris) staff helped hone my purpose and helped me grow a network of people who wanted to move this community forward," Dakin said. Succeeding a Millington legend Dakin will succeed retiring Millington city manager Ed Haley, who has served in the role for nearly 10 years. Haley has been a fixture in Millington city government. He served on the Millington Board of Aldermen from 1972 to 1990. The 86-year-old Haley has more than five decades in public service including serving as Arlington town superintendent for almost 15 years and in the Tennessee House of Representatives for eight years. Haley worked with Dakin during his two terms on the Millingtons Board of Mayor and Aldermen. Dakin said Haleys appointment as city manager was one of the best decisions that Millington made. November 21, 2012 - Twenty-year-old Frankie Dakin, a junior at Rhodes College and 2010 graduate of Millington Central High School, will be sworn in as a Millington alderman in January. Dakin will be youngest alderman to ever serve in Millington. Under the leadership of the board of aldermen and Mr. Haleys management, we have seen the City of Millington go from a city in decline that experienced regular deficits with a fractured sense of community to an economic powerhouse, Dakin said. The city I see today has strong infrastructure, hard-working employees, and dedicated elected leaders with decades of experience. Haley is confident Dakin will step in and do a good a job as the city manager. He believed the Millington Board of Mayor and Aldermen made the right choice with his selection for the role. He described Dakin as someone with a strong academic background as well having extensive political and administrative experience. Haley also feels Dakins youthful exuberance is a plus for Millington. He is 32 and I am headed towards 87, and it will be quite a change in terms of age, vision, energy and enthusiasm for the job, Haley said. ... I think the city will do great under his leadership. Frankie Dakin, deputy chief of staff for Shelby County Government, poses for a portrait in the office of Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris in Memphis, Tenn., on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. In August, Dakin will become the new city manager for Millington. Memphis' smallest suburb looking to build up Haley believes Millington has a lot of opportunities for growth. He said over his nearly decade as city manager that Millington has made exceptional progress in preparing the city for growth in putting in infrastructure, water, sewer, roads and utilities. Dakin told The Commercial Appeal that, according to the Millington Area Chamber of Commerce, that the city has more than $1.4 billion worth of planned developments. Three of the biggest projects Forked River Commons, Millington Farms and Astoria Square represent a combined $308 million development in Millington. The $58 million Forked River Commons will be a shopping center at the corner of West Union and U.S. 51 and will include a Hobby Lobby, a TJ Maxx, Old Navy, Ulta and other similar stores. According to Dakin, most of Forked River Commons' stores open late 2023 and this year, with more coming on the way in that development. The second project called the Millington Farms is just down U.S. 51 next to Lowes. The $100 million project will include a movie theater, a bowling alley, two hotels and a retirement home. Dakin noted Millington has broken ground on a major road extension that will pave the way for the development planned there. The biggest of the three projects is the $150 million Astoria Square development that will be located off Navy Road between East Navy Circle and National Street and will include mixed-use retail, 280 luxury townhomes with rooftop decks, cottage-style homes, a clubhouse, common areas, a lake and as the name implies a large central square. The development is a collaboration between Meridian Premier Homes and Pro-Site Construction, and the architect on the project is A2H. Dakin said much of the infrastructure has been put in place and Millington is hopeful there will be additional announcements on the project soon. According to Haley, other projects in the works in Millington include a $20 million, 45,000-square-foot outpatient clinic for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Haley said construction is expected to begin by the end of September. The clinic will be built in the space of the former E.A. Harrold Elementary School, which will be demolished. Haley noted the clinic will sit on 15 acres, include 200 parking spaces and employ about 200 people. Weve got a lot of veterans in this area, Haley said. Arlington landed the nursing home up there and, of course, we get the clinic here. I think that is going to be good for the whole region." Activity is also happening at the Millington-Memphis Airport. Haley said Florida-based firm AerSale Corp., which services airplanes, recently opened at the airport. The Millington hangar will focus on airplane repair and maintenance, and the plan to have 50 to 55 employees working at that location, according to Haley. In addition, the Charles W. Baker Airport in Millington is going through a $2.5 million construction project for a new terminal, which is anticipated to be completed by early 2025, according to Glen Thomas, communications director for the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority. The new terminal is set to be 4,950 square feet, more than the current footprint of 2,400 square feet. Millington is growing and open for business, Dakin said. I plan to work hand-in-hand with the community and our elected leaders, from the local level to the federal level, to make sure that Millington is an engine of growth for West Tennessee. Ford's planned $5.6 billion BlueOval City campus in Stanton and Elon Musk's xAI project in Memphis are touted as two of the biggest economic projects in the area. Dakin feels Millington is in an ideal position to benefit from those projects, as it is a vibrant, safe and affordable community with strong schools. We are positioned right in between the future site of the worlds largest supercomputer [xAI] and BlueOval City, Dakin said. We definitely benefit from that prime location, and I expect we will welcome new residents and supporting businesses that choose Millington because of our unique assets and close proximity to BlueOval City. 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: New Millington city manager Frankie Dakin talks growth, goals & more A group of Chinese graphics processing unit (GPU) developers are taking advantage of Nvidia's absence in China at the country's largest artificial intelligence (AI) show to promote their offerings, although they face problems related to manufacturing and software ecosystem bottlenecks. Iluvatar Corex, Moore Threads, Tencent Holdings-backed Enflame Technology, Sophgo, Huawei Technologies' Ascend were the centre of attention last week at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, where the California-based designer of the chips against which all other AI GPUs are measured had no physical presence. Nvidia's name, however, was invoked constantly at the booths of Chinese chip makers comparing their own offerings to those of the US tech giant. "China's computing clusters are changing from being foreign-GPU-dominated to a combination of Chinese GPUs and foreign ones," Enflame chief ecosystem officer Li Xingyu said during a session on Friday. "There is a problem of a lack of demand, so much of the computational power in China still sits idle." Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. "Further lowering the barriers to using home-grown computational power is key to increasing its application in China," he added. Moore Threads' MCCX D800 AI server displayed at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 5, 2024. Photo: Che Pan alt=Moore Threads' MCCX D800 AI server displayed at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 5, 2024. Photo: Che Pan> Cooperating with Shanghai-based chip designer Enflame, AI solutions firm Infinigence - another start-up backed by Chinese social media and video gaming giant Tencent - is offering compute resources that use a variety of chips from Nvidia and other vendors, including Chinese GPU makers. "Companies don't need to worry about which GPUs they use," the company said. Nvidia is not allowed to export its most advanced chips to China under US export restrictions. Washington has also added major Chinese chip developers to a trade blacklist, making it hard for them to find foundries to manufacture their designs. Huawei - which has claimed its Ascend 910B is on par with Nvidia's A100 - is among those facing manufacturing hurdles, as it was initially blacklisted in 2019 and has seen sanctions tighten since then. Story continues The area around Huawei's booth was one of the busiest on the floor. Huawei Ascend chips are configured for open-source large language models including Meta's Llama2, according to a slide presentation on-site. The chips are also used for training half of China's more than 70 large models, Huawei previously claimed in a presentation at the Zhongguancun Forum in May. Enflame showcased its Cloudblazer T20 and T21 AI-training chips at the show. An employee said that the company's biggest advantage over bigger rivals such as Huawei, Moore Threads and Biren Technology is that it is not on the US trade blacklist. This means it has access to global foundries like TSMC, which makes roughly 90 per cent of the world's most advanced chips, despite broader sanctions that limit the computational power of its chips. Nvidia chips tailored for Chinese clients to get around US restrictions are also still proving popular. Nvidia is expected to deliver more than 1 million H20 GPUs in China this year, racking up US$12 billion in sales, according to San Francisco-based semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis. Dylan Patel, chief analyst at SemiAnalysis, said Nvidia's H20 still offers better performance than Huawei's 910B. "China is a large market with strong demand for AI, but the biggest problem is that the in-house technology is behind their global peers and won't be enough to meet the domestic demand," said Robert Cheng, head of Taiwan research and Asia-Pacific hardware at BofA Global Research. "The AI GPUs China can have are not as strong as global [alternatives] performance-wise, and ... [the Chinese supply chain] in general is still far behind," he added. Mainland China remained Nvidia's third-largest market in the financial year ended January 28, with sales from China up 78 per cent year on year to US$10.3 billion. Additional reporting by Iris Deng. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Police are warning all Milton residents to be vigilant after a string of motor vehicle thefts and break-ins in town. In the past few weeks, police have seen an influx of thefts, including three vehicles stolen from residents, police said in a statement on Facebook. The group of suspects seem to semi-organized and utilize dark clothing, facemask, gloves, and carry backpacks/bags, police said. The incidents typically occur during the early morning hours, primarily between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. but they can still occur at any time of day, police said. Investigators shared photographs and surveillance video showing a group of people wearing dark clothing and hooded sweatshirts. Police also offered the following tips to avoid car theft: 1. Take your vehicles key with you. Do not leave the key in or around your vehicle. 2. Close and lock all windows and doors when the vehicle is left unattended or parked. 3. Park in well-lit areas if possible. 4. Never leave valuables in your vehicle, especially if they can be seen from outside the vehicle. 5. Consider investing in a GPS or location device for your vehicle. 6. Consider investing in a home surveillance security system. Anyone who sees suspicious activity is urged to call 911 or the police departments non-emergency line at 617-698-3800. Milton is an upscale town in Norfolk County that is about a 20-minute drive south of Boston. The towns population was 28,630 at the 2020 census. 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 Getty Images. The state of Minnesota is investigating 15 autism providers and has already completed other investigations, withheld payments due to credible fraud allegations and forwarded cases to law enforcement when appropriate, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Services. DHS said in a statement that these investigations follow a national trend of identifying fraud in Medicaid-funded autism services. DHS administers Minnesotas version of Medicaid, known here as Medical Assistance, which is a federal-state health plan for poor and disabled people. The Reformer reported in mid-June that the FBI is investigating possible fraud in Minnesotas autism program, which has exploded in growth since launching in mid-2015. The number of providers who diagnose and treat people with autism spectrum disorder has increased 700% in the past five years, climbing from 41 in 2018 to 328 last year. The amount paid to providers during that time has increased 3,000%, from about $6 million to nearly $192 million according to DHS data. DHS has systems in place to identify fraud, waste and abuse, and the agency takes swift action when we suspect or find it, the agency said in a statement to the Reformer. Early identification and access to services are life-changing for people with autism especially children. Thats why its so important to make sure every dollar spent on services is accounted for. Minnesota doesnt license autism centers, but DHS is studying the prospect. When autism providers enroll for reimbursement through Medical Assistance, DHS verifies that they have the appropriate credentials. But beyond that, DHS is not out in the field checking in on whats happening in autism centers. Idil Abdull is a Somali-American immigrant whose son has autism, which led her to become an advocate, open an autism therapy agency and co-found the Somali American Autism Foundation of Minnesota. She and other Somali parents of children with autism fought for years to get the state Medicaid program to pay for intensive, one-on-one treatment called Applied Behavior Analysis for low-income children. Prior to that, the state subsidized treatment for wealthier families but denied it to low-income children in managed care plans. ABA is a science-based approach that takes more hours of therapy, and thus higher reimbursement. Lawmakers passed legislation this year to license behavior analysts joining 34 other states and increase reimbursement rates 15% for early intensive developmental and behavioral intervention providers to address high turnover and help providers maintain financial stability. Abdull said she opposed licensing behavior analysts but supports licensing autism centers. I like rules because these are vulnerable kids; they cant speak for themselves, Abdull said. But, she added, DHS needs to better train and oversee all autism centers and families fairly and equitably. Autism division short-staffed Meanwhile, DHS is grappling with vacancies in the autism division: Three of the divisions four employees left in recent months. The agency said other qualified staff are helping support the division while DHS fills the vacancies. There have been no significant gaps to the core function and services of the program, DHS said in a statement. One of the people who left is Rep. Kim Hicks, DFL-Rochester, who was the policy lead for the autism program at DHS, where she began working in September 2018. Prior to that, she was a disability advocate for a decade. Hicks said she resigned from the autism job in January and took a new role at DHS as an administrator in a grants division because she struggled with the dual roles of executive and legislative branches. Because Im a legislator, it gets complicated, she said. Hicks, elected in 2022, said she ran in part to provide the Legislature expertise in autism services; most of her bills relate to disability services. Hicks, who emphasized she was not speaking for DHS, said shes concerned about autism centers and supports the Legislatures human services chairs, who have requested more information from DHS about the safety and quality of autism centers in light of a WCCO story about abuse in a center. Im an autism mom, so its very near and dear to my heart, she said. You have to think about fraud, waste and abuse as a whole collective thing. Safety, oversight and supervision are intertwined, she said, so she worries about children not getting quality services. There are no standards for the facilities, Hicks said. Theres no licensing requirements for the support workers. Theres no licensing visits. Theres no licensing reports. Theres no licensing. Only the DHS Office of Inspector General goes out to the autism centers to investigate suspected fraud. The OIG can stop providers ability to bill, and fraud findings can be forwarded to the attorney generals Medicaid Fraud Unit for prosecution. Hicks said she plans to focus on autism centers next session because of the importance of effective, early intervention. And its a really hard job, she said, and so I just want to make sure that the people who are doing the really hard job are doing it in a way that helps children and doesnt cause harm. Dangerous heat threatens millions of Texans without power for days in largest outage in utilitys history Life-threatening heat is gripping southeast Texas, where more than 1.5 million homes and businesses remain without power and air conditioning for a third day after Beryl caused major power outages, including the largest in one major energy providers history. Restoring electricity across the region is expected to take days and in some cases weeks after Beryl tore through the state as a Category 1 hurricane Monday, flooding coastal communities, shredding homes and ripping down webs of power lines. And whats left of the storm is still threatening to cause destruction Wednesday in the form of tornadoes and flooding more than 1,000 miles away in the Northeast. So impactful was the storm in Texas that the utility provider responsible for most of the outages said it was a historic event. We have never seen an incident of this magnitude this is the largest outage in our history, Brad Tutunjian, CenterPoints vice president of Electric Distribution and Power Delivery, said during a Houston City Council meeting Wednesday. The utility has been servicing the area for over a hundred years, he noted. As power outages continue to plague Houston, there has been a three-time increase in call volume from residents contacting emergency officials. Weve seen over 200 carbon monoxide poisoning calls in the last 24 hours, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference. Pena cited the improper use of generators at homes and people turning on their cars to charge devices in their garages. He also said they are seeing an increase in medical emergencies related to the heat. Homes have become saunas and food languishes in warm refrigerators, mainly from Galveston to north of Houston, according to PowerOutage.us. Phone and internet access has also been cut off in some communities, including Galveston. No WiFi, no power, and its hot outside. Thats dangerous for people. Thats really the big issue, Houston resident Robin Taylor told the Associated Press. People will die in this heat in their homes. Beryl has been blamed for at least 11 deaths in Texas and Louisiana, mainly from fallen trees. Two deaths in Houstons Harris County were the result of carbon monoxide poisoning, Texas emergency officials said, prompting warnings about the dangers using generators in areas where families are living and sleeping. A 71-year-old woman died in Galveston County Monday after her oxygen machine ran out of battery while her power was out, state Sen. Mayes Middleton, confirmed in a news conference Tuesday. Cooling centers have opened across the region as air temperatures crept into the 90s and the heat index teased 105 degrees. The heat index a measurement of how the body feels under both heat and humidity will reach triple digits across Texas each afternoon through at least the weekend. Most of the West and South of the country are in the throes of a long-lasting heat wave that has seen dozens of records broken and caused multiple deaths. Prolonged heat exposure poses significant health risks for people without adequate cooling and may be especially dangerous for Texans working outdoors to clear debris or damaged infrastructure. Heat also presents increased risks for the elderly, people with chronic medical conditions, homeless people and children. Hospitals in Houston are at risk of overcrowding as they cannot release patients to homes without power, prompting city officials to organize overflow beds in an indoor sports stadium, Patrick said Tuesday. On Wednesday, the office of Houston City Council Member Joaquin Martinez delivered water to two senior facilities without power in his district. One room had some electricity in one of the facilities, but at the second, people had to gather outside to stay cool, a representative from his office told CNN. They were desperate and expressed concern, the representative said. The power outage also shuttered nine fire stations, as they didnt have generators, Houston Mayor John Whitmire said Wednesday afternoon. I get really, really upset when I learn the City of Houston does not have generators at essential services like a fire station, a frustrated Whitmire said during the news conference. Great cities should not operate like that its neglect, its severe neglect and were going to fix it as we go forward. Long lines of cars and residents snaked out of fast food restaurants, food trucks and gas stations in the hopes of getting a few minutes of cool air or a bite to eat, according to the AP. Dwight Yell, 54, had power at his house but took a disabled neighbor, who did not, to Dennys for some food, the outlet reports. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has stressed to CenterPoint Energy the importance of restoring power as quickly as possible. The utility estimates about 80% of its customers in Houston are without power. Its tough to be in the heat. Its tough not to be able to refrigerate anything and tough not being able to go out and get food, Patrick said. I made sure that CenterPoint was aware of that and asked them to pull out all the stops to get power back as quickly as they could. But CenterPoint officials say it could be several days before power is fully restored to its customers, though it hopes to restore service to 1 million customers by Wednesday night. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 1.2 million of its customers were still in the dark. Almost universally, people have lost patience with CenterPoint, City Council Member Julian Ramirez told CNN Wednesday. While some people are trying to stay with friends and family who have power, many cant afford to leave their homes, Ramirez said. Food is another concern, as many stores are still closed, he said, so his office, food banks and public services are trying to quickly distribute food to underserved areas. CenterPoint cant seem to tell us how long this is going to last, he said. A home in Surfside Beach, Texas, was destroyed by Hurricane Beryl on July 8. - Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images President Joe Biden on Tuesday approved a federal emergency disaster declaration that will assist with some recovery costs, including clearing debris, Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts office said. But before long-term recovery efforts get underway, many frustrated residents are grappling with how to address their immediate needs. Its catastrophic when you lose everything in your fridge and you are living check to check, Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones told the AP. Beryl barrels into Northeast Though Beryl has substantially weakened since slamming into Texas as a Category 1 hurricane, its remnants still pose serious flood and tornado threats Wednesday to the northern US. More than 10 million people are under flood watches across parts of the Midwest and Northeast. The watches will begin to expire for the Midwest by the end of the day Wednesday but will last in New England until Thursday morning. Heavy rainfall and a serious tornado threat began Wednesday afternoon in parts of the Northeast. Several tornado warnings occurred simultaneously in parts of New York and northern Pennsylvania. The most significant tornado threat will encompass areas from northern Pennsylvania to southern New Hampshire and Vermont through the evening. That includes Syracuse and Albany, New York, and Scranton, Pennsylvania. Beryl already whipped up more than a dozen tornadoes across Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana on Monday and two in Indiana and Kentucky on Tuesday. One damaging tornado in southwestern Indiana tore through a warehouse in Mount Vernon and shredded the roof and crushed tractor trailers. Wests heat wave stretches to second week Heat alerts engulf more than 140 million Americans on both coasts, but the brunt of the heat is still impacting the West, where communities have been baking under high temperatures for at least two weeks. Extremely dangerous heat has caused several deaths in the West and will persist in the region through Friday, bringing high temperatures well into the 100s in some areas as temperatures reach between 10 to 30 degrees above average to some areas. Californias Death Valley has reached or exceeded 125 degrees every day since July 4, and the streak is expected to continue through Friday, marking its second-longest streak of days above 125, behind 10 days in July 1913. In Nevada, Las Vegas hit 119 degrees Tuesday, which is its fourth straight day of breaking a daily high temperature record. The multi-day length and record warm overnight temperatures will continue to cause heat stress to anyone without adequate cooling and hydration, the National Weather Service warned. Human-caused climate change is driving far more frequent and intense heat waves across the globe, exposing communities to increasingly dangerous temperatures. When a person is unable to cool their body down amid prolonged heat, they are at risk for damage to the brain and other vital organs, as well as other heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion and stroke. The weather service in Houston has advised residents to limit outdoor activities, work early or late in the day, wear light clothing and sunscreen and check on loved ones, neighbors and pets. CNNs Robert Shackelford, Sarah Dewberry, Fabiana Chaparro, Mary Gilbert and Christina Zdanowicz contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com A recent post by ZirafaMedia, a U.S.-based pro-Palestinian outlet that has a presence on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, cites reporting by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz to claim that the Israel Defense Forces intentionally killed their own citizens on Oct. 7 and that the Israeli army was responsible for the largest number of Israeli civilian casualties on that day. Haaretz did report that the IDF launched attacks within three military outposts that day, but ZirafaMedia takes Haaretzs reporting out of context to make exaggerated claims, and there is no basis for the assertion that the IDF was responsible for the largest number of Israeli civilian casualties on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel. Haaretz obtained documents and soldier testimony showing that the Hannibal procedure, also known as the Hannibal directive, was employed on October 7 in at least three locations. The Hannibal directive is an Israeli military protocol initially established in 1986 in response to Israeli soldiers being abducted by enemy forcessuch as Hezbollah and other militant groups in the Middle East. The goal of the directive is to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers, even at the risk of a soldiers death. The directive gained notoriety because it allowed for extreme measures to thwart soldiers being captured by enemy forces, including the use of heavy firepower and putting soldiers lives at great risk. In 2016, Gadi Eizenkotthen the chief of staff of the IDFordered the formal revocation of the policy, in favor of new protocols that aim to greater balance the imperative of preventing future kidnappings with the need to protect the lives of civilians and soldiers. The Israeli government has not confirmed whether the policy was implemented during the Hamas-led massacre of Israeli civilians and soldiers on October 7. Haaretz reports in the piece that a senior defense official within the Israeli government chose to conduct attacks inside outposts in response to the IDF being overwhelmed by the sheer number of Hamas fighters. Furthermore, the media outlet reported that by the end of the night: One case in which it is known that civilians were hit, a case that received wide coverage, took place in the house of Pessi Cohen at Kibbutz Beeri. 14 hostages were held in the house as the IDF attacked it, with 13 of them killed. In the coming weeks, the IDF is expected to publish the results of its investigation of the incident, which will answer the question of whether Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of Division 99 who was in charge of operations in Beeri on October 7, was employing the Hannibal procedure. ZafraMedia posts claim that Israel intentionally killed its own citizens is exaggerated. The Haaretz article details the timeline of the orders reportedly given to soldiers, and notes that an order given at 10:32 a.m. on October 7 to fire mortars toward Gaza was criticized since at that time, the IDF did not have a complete picture of all the forces in the area, including soldiers and civilians. It also notes that a different order was given at 2 p.m. in which forces were instructed not to exit border communities toward the west, in the direction of the border, with an emphasis on not chasing terrorists. According to Barrons, Hamas October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the death of more than 1,160 people, mainly civilians. The death toll at the Nova music festival site alone is reported to be 364. While it is true there have been cases of fatalities caused by friendly fire from the IDF, nearly all of the Israelis who died that day were killed by Hamas. If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com. 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. Emergency rescue and recovery operations in Kyiv following the Russian strike on 8 July have been completed as of the morning of 10 July. Source: State Emergency Service of Ukraine Details: A total of 33 people have been killed, including 5 children, as a result of the Russian attack on 8 July in the capital. In addition, 121 people have been injured, including 10 children. Eleven people have been rescued. A rescue worker is clearing rubble Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine "These were tragic, intense and exhausting days. The enemy once again confirmed its 'terrorist state' status. Rescue workers and dozens of units of equipment tirelessly worked to clear the rubble, trying to save every life," the State Emergency Service summarised. Equipment at the scene Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine Background: On 8 July, the Russians launched a missile attack on Ukraine. They hit the Okhmatdyt hospital, the ADONIS private clinic and residential buildings in Kyiv. Two adults, one of them a doctor, were killed in the attack on Okhmatdyt. An entire section of a building in the Shevchenkivskyi district of Kyiv was destroyed as a result of the strike, killing 13 people. Two more people were killed at an industrial facility in Shevchenkivskyi district. The Domino business centre was damaged in the Solomianskyi district of Kyiv, killing seven people. A four-storey building belonging to the ADONIS clinic was partially destroyed in the Dniprovskyi district of Kyiv, and nine people were killed. Support UP or become our patron! A Missouri judge has ruled that Attorney General Andrew Bailey can be questioned about a meeting he had with a Jackson County legislator during Baileys litigation against the county related to increased property assessments. Associate Circuit Judge Karen Krauser ruled on Wednesday that attorneys for the defendants, which include Jackson County, can depose Bailey about his communications with the legislator, Sean Smith. Krauser also found that Travis Woods, an attorney in Baileys office, violated court rules by holding a separate virtual meeting with Smith. The Missouri Attorney Generals Office is not exempt from the requirements of the state ethical rules, and this Court finds that Travis Woods, Plaintiffs counsel, violated the Rules of Professional Conduct, Krauser, from Clay County, wrote in the order. The Missouri Supreme Court assigned Krauser to oversee the case after all judges from Jackson County were recused. The order centers on two separate meetings that occurred after Bailey sued Jackson County, alleging the county illegally increased homeowners property assessments. One was an in-person meeting between Bailey, a Republican, and Smith, a Republican who is running for Congress, on April 27. The other was a virtual meeting between Woods and Smith after Smith was deposed in the lawsuit against Jackson County. A spokesperson for Bailey did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Smith, in a phone call with a reporter, said he was unable to comment on the order. Im under, effectively, a gag order because Im a witness in the trial and Im presently under oath, so Im not supposed to comment, he said. Krausers order is in favor of Jackson County, which argued that Woods meeting with Smith violated a Missouri Supreme Court rule. The rule states that, while representing a client, a lawyer cannot communicate about that representation with another person represented by a lawyer in the case. The court found that the meeting with Smith was an ex parte communication because Smith regularly consults with the Countys lawyers regarding issues that are central to Plaintiffs lawsuit, has the authority to obligate the County with respect to those matters by way of resolutions and ordinances, and whose acts or omissions in connection with those matters may be imputed to the County for purposes of this lawsuit. During a hearing in the case on Monday, Krauser ordered Baileys office to provide to the court notes from the virtual meeting between Woods and Smith. She also ruled that Jackson County could depose Bailey about his meeting with Smith. According to the order, Baileys office later provided the court with notes taken during the virtual meeting. The court found that no attorney/client privileged information was contained in the notes and had the notes deleted. The order goes on to state that a member of Baileys staff was deposed about the offices meeting with Smith. During that deposition, the staff member testified that Baileys lawsuit against Jackson County was mentioned during that meeting and there was a discussion of preparing a joint statement regarding this lawsuit. Krauser ruled that Jackson County could depose Bailey about conversations he had with Smith that relate to the lawsuit after the case was filed. She also ordered that Bailey shall address the nature of the contacts, who was present for the contacts, and what was discussed during the contacts. The ruling comes as Bailey is seeking a full term and embroiled in a hotly-contested Republican primary against Will Scharf, a former federal prosecutor. Scharf was quick to criticize Bailey on Wednesday, saying that Bailey was putting politics before his duties as attorney general. It is absolutely outrageous that this important litigation against Jackson County is now imperiled because Andrew Bailey wanted a quick hit for his campaign, he said. Baileys lawsuit against Jackson County came after county homeowners expressed outrage after assessments jumped significantly last year. Residential property values increased by roughly 40% overall since the last assessment in 2021, according to county data. The lawsuit is set for a bench trial on Aug. 9. Missouri banned abortion. But has it prevented any, or just pushed them out of state? Reality Check is a Star series holding those with power to account and shining a light on their decisions. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at RealityCheck@kcstar.com. Anti-abortion advocates and lawmakers long championed the prospect of ending abortion in Missouri, but two years after the states ban took effect data shows thousands of Missouri women are still getting abortions just out of state. Missouris near-total abortion ban took effect minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2022, struck down Roe v. Wade in a case called Dobbs. The state law includes a medical emergency exception but contains no exemptions for rape or incest. A growing amount of data makes clear that thousands of Missouri women have received abortions in other states, primarily Kansas and Illinois, since the Dobbs decision. At the same time, Missouri residents are now competing for appointments with residents of other states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, where abortion is also banned. Even before Dobbs, Missouri residents were crossing state lines for abortion in large numbers. Decades of restrictions passed by the Missouri General Assembly steadily chipped away at access, leaving just one abortion clinic, in St. Louis, operating at the time of the Supreme Court decision. Anti-abortion lawmakers were so successful in the years leading up to Dobbs that once the ban came, it represented a final blow to abortion access in Missouri rather than a dramatic reduction. Missourians had basically been living in a post-Roe reality for a very long time and that the vast majority of Missourians who were accessing clinical abortion care were doing so out of state as far back as 2017, said Maggie Olivia, senior policy manager at Abortion Action Missouri. Olivia and other proponents of abortion rights say that reality hasnt decreased the need for access in the state. Indeed, abortion rights supporters are seeking to restore access through a state constitutional amendment that may go before Missouri voters in November. Election officials are currently verifying initiative petition signatures. The amendment would enshrine the right to an abortion in the Missouri Constitution, paving the way for abortion clinics to open or reopen in the state. However, rebuilding the states clinic infrastructure could take years and Missouri Republicans are also attempting to limit access to a common abortion drug. Abortion opponents readily acknowledge that the number of Missouri women obtaining abortions out of state hasnt changed significantly since the ban. That has not changed and its unfortunate and were disappointed in that, said Samuel Lee, a longtime anti-abortion activist and president of Missouri Stands with Women, the main campaign operation opposing the amendment. The challenge, Lee said, is how does the pro-life movement do a better job of reaching out to women who are pregnant, who are considering abortion and saying, You know, we have an alternative and we can help you with an alternative. That, I think, is still difficult for us as a movement to grasp with. Not from lack of desire, but what is the best way? Lee said. Kansas critical role in abortion access For now, Kansas and Illinois play a critical role in providing abortion access to Missouri women. More than 11,500 Missouri residents traveled to the two states in total for abortions in 2023, according to estimates released in June by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization supportive of abortion rights. Guttmacher estimates Kansas clinics saw 2,860 Missouri patients, while Illinois saw 8,710. If those estimates prove accurate, it would mean roughly the same number of Missouri residents traveled to Kansas in 2023 as in 2022, according to official state statistics (state of residence data isnt publicly available in Illinois). The estimate signals that while Kansas remains a central access point for Missourians, fewer residents are obtaining abortions there following the ban. Before 2022, the number of Missouri residents traveling to Kansas each year routinely exceeded 3,000. Now it sits closer to 2,800. Providers say clinic appointments that used to go to Missourians are now more often going to residents from other states. We used to be able to see a lot of Missourians at the health centers we operate in Kansas, said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, the organizations political advocacy operation. Those Kansas health centers in the past often saw roughly half Kansans and half Missourians, Wales said. Today more patients from elsewhere are competing for the same number of appointments. Fourteen states have total or near-total bans on abortion. An additional seven states restrict abortion between six and 18 weeks of pregnancy. The states include the entire South, along with the upper Great Plains. For many residents living in Southern states, Kansas or Illinois are the closest states with legal abortion. Now you may call our health centers in Kansas and find out that a whole lot of Texans are taking those appointments and people from Oklahoma and Arkansas, Louisiana, Wales said. And even though you may live 15 minutes across the state line from one of our health centers, you are going to have to wait a long time for care or even be referred to Colorado or New Mexico because we dont have an appointment quick enough for you to access it. In addition, official Missouri data shows the number of abortions performed in hospitals often because of health complications has dropped since the states ban took effect. The bans only exception is for medical emergencies, but the number of in-hospital abortions has fallen from 102 in 2022 to just 29 in 2023. Thats the lowest number in at least a decade, according to an analysis of the data by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Even if Missouri voters approve the abortion amendment, restoring access isnt like flipping a switch. Setting up new clinics, with enough geographic diversity so that most residents dont have to travel long distances, could take years. And lawsuits challenging existing abortion restrictions in state law will take time to pass through the legal system. Jennifer Smith, a St. Louis-based OB-GYN who supports the amendment, said she anticipates that if it passes, finding additional medical professionals willing to provide abortions wouldnt be a significant issue in the Kansas City and St. Louis regions. But other parts of the state could prove challenging. I think that will be an issue, Smith said. In the years following the Roe decision in 1973, more than two dozen clinics were established in the state, peaking in the 1980s before steadily declining ever since. By 2017, a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis was the only one still performing abortions. Rebuilding access will take time, supporters of abortion rights say. We have to think long term about this, and it would be irresponsible to not, said Mallory Schwarz, the executive director of Abortion Action Missouri. Schwarz said that despite Missouri having just one clinic offering abortions at the time of Dobbs, the state has a strong infrastructure for sexual reproductive health. Schwarz said that when we win this, and as we begin the next phases of litigation to challenge the existing laws, that infrastructure, those providers, are itching to be able to reopen this line of care. More out-of-state travel Interstate travel for abortion has exploded in recent years. Between 2020 and 2023, the percentage of abortions obtained by patients traveling out of state grew from 9% to 17% nationwide, according to Guttmacher. In Kansas, the percentage of out-of-state patients jumped from 52% to 69%. In Illinois, the percentage went from 21% to 41%. Traveling for abortion care requires individuals to overcome huge financial and logistical barriers, and our findings show just how far people will travel to obtain the care they want and deserve, Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a Guttmacher data scientist, said in a statement. Despite the amazing resiliency of abortion patients and providers, we cant lose sight of the fact that this is neither normal nor acceptable: A person should not have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to receive basic health care. Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, told a U.S. Senate hearing in June that most women seeking abortions already have difficulties paying for food, housing and transportation. Any additional costs associated with traveling for an abortion present a substantial barrier to access, Frye said. A 2023 study published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management found that an increase from zero to 100 miles in the travel distance required for an abortion was estimated to reduce abortion rates by 19.4% and increase birth rates by 2.2%. Another 100 miles reduced abortions by another 12.8% and increased births by an additional 1.6%. For many, being forced to travel often pushes abortion care entirely out of reach, Frye said. Some anti-abortion activists say that since Missouris ban took effect, state lawmakers have shown a greater focus on pregnant women and mothers. Lee pointed to an additional $2 million appropriated by lawmakers this year for alternatives to abortion services above the $8.6 million already budgeted. Missouris Alternatives to Abortion program provides pregnant women and new mothers with free assistance, including supplies, drug and alcohol treatment and transportation aid. Critics say these kinds of programs effectively operate simply as an effort to dissuade women from having abortions. Lee said the major needs of clients of pregnancy centers and maternity homes are child care, housing and transportation. Those are determining factors for women, Lee said. An Abortion is Health Care mural is shown on the front window at the new Planned Parenthood-Wyandotte Clinic in Kansas City, Kansas. The facility provides medical abortions, but not surgical abortions. Growing role of medication abortion As abortion bans have taken hold in Missouri and elsewhere over the past two years, providers have increasingly turned to medication abortions. Medication abortions accounted for 63% of all abortions in the United States in 2023, according to Guttmacher data, up from 53% in 2020. In Kansas in 2022, the last year for which full data is available, 59.6% of abortions were attributed to mifepristone, a common abortion drug that extensive research has shown is generally safe. Mifepristone holds the potential to significantly undercut abortion bans if patients can obtain the pills through the mail after a telehealth appointment eliminating the need to travel to another state. The FDA has approved mifepristone for online prescribing and mail delivery, but Missouri law requires that when any drug is used to induce an abortion, the initial pill must be taken in the presence of the prescribing physician. In Kansas, Planned Parenthood Great Plains offers medication abortion via telehealth but requires that the first pill mifepristone is taken at a clinic. Missouri Republicans have fought to limit access to mifepristone. While the U.S. Supreme Court in June tossed a challenge to the drug on procedural grounds, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach are continuing to pursue a lawsuit seeking to overturn the FDAs approval of the medication. Bailey and Kobach have previously argued in court papers that their states were affected by the FDAs decision allowing abortion medication by mail because it could lead to people in Missouri receiving the medication despite the states ban. They also argued that the states would have to contribute more to Medicaid because women could end up in the emergency room after taking the drug. A group of Texas doctors had sued to block the FDAs decision, but the U.S. Supreme Court found they lacked standing to challenge the authorization. The doctors were represented at the Supreme Court by Erin Morrow Hawley, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom and the spouse of U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican. Bailey and Kobach along with Idaho say their challenge wont be dismissed for lack of standing. My case is still alive at the district court, Bailey said on social media recently. Referring to Hawley, Bailey said, We will zealously continue her great work to protect both women and their unborn children. The outcome of the case is critical to the future of abortion access in Missouri. Even if voters approve the amendment in November, a federal court decision severely restricting mifepristone would prove a big obstacle to providers efforts to offer abortions in the state. But if voters approve the amendment and the legal challenge fails, the Missouri Constitution will almost certainly protect wide access to mifepristone. Part of the role of the campaign is increasing peoples awareness of what it means to live in a banned state, Schwarz said, and then empowering them to understand that we can change this, and we can do it now. A federal rule seeks to add protections to a section of the Affordable Care Act that prevent health care providers who discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation from receiving federal funding, including through Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program (photo illustration by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder). Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is leading a coalition of seven states challenging a rule by the Biden administration that would preempt state restrictions on gender-affirming care. Filed in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on Wednesday, the states are seeking to block the regulation and prevent the federal government from enforcing similar mandates. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US The rule seeks to add protections to a section of the Affordable Care Act that prevent health care providers who discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation from receiving federal funding, including through Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program. The rule was set to go into effect July 5, with some provisions beginning later. But another coalition of attorneys general succeeded in their petition to block its implementation just two days prior. The judge in that case cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Chevron Deference, a precedent that gave regulatory authority to federal agencies when statute is unclear. Bailey, along with attorneys general from Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Idaho and Arkansas, argues that the rule conflicts with their states restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. Each has varying restrictions on payments for gender-affirming treatment, with Missouri blocking payment for all treatments for medical transition through Medicaid and CHIP. states will be unable to enforce these duly enacted laws and longstanding policies without coming into conflict with the rule, the attorneys general wrote in the lawsuit. The American College of Pediatricians joins the attorneys general as a plaintiff. The ACPeds is a group of 400 physicians and other health care professionals in 47 states with a history of anti-LGBTQ advocacy. ACPeds members categorically do not provide medical interventions or referrals for, and do not facilitate or speak in ways that affirm the legitimacy of, the practice of gender transition, the attorneys general wrote. The lawsuit alleges that the organizations pediatricians would suffer significant financial harm to lose eligibility to participate in federal healthcare programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. One pediatrician in Utah is quoted in the lawsuit saying he would not self-censor his opinions on transition efforts if the rule goes into effect. Predicting his noncompliance with the rule, the Utah pediatrician faces the prospect of no longer caring for his patients, being fired from his employment and being unable to practice medicine in most settings, the attorneys general wrote. The rule violates physicians freedom of assembly, the lawsuit states, by coercing them to participate in facilities, programs, groups and other healthcare-related endeavors that are contrary to their views and that express messages with which they disagree. The lawsuit also says it coerces ACPeds members speech. By forcing ACPeds members to tell patients directly, on their walls, and on their websites that they do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, the rule forces ACPeds members to speak falsely, and it forces ACPeds members to fatally undermine their communication of their own medical ethical standards, it says. Beyond questions of constitutionality, the attorneys general allege that the rule goes beyond congressional authorization. The rule interprets gender identity as protected by both including gender dysphoria as a disability and interpreting sex discrimination to include gender identity. The attorneys general disagree with this application. Key to the case will be the judges interpretation of the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court Case Bostock v. Clayton County, in which a majority of justices ruled that gender identity was protected under Title VII, which is on employment discrimination. The rule leans on some courts interpretation that transfers the Bostock decision to Title IX and the Affordable Care Act, according to its publication in the Federal Register. But the attorneys general cite decisions from judges in red states that do not allow Bostock to apply outside of Title VII. The Department of Health and Human Services, which is the defendant in the litigation, did not respond to a request for comment. BEIJING (AP) Chinese auto sales slumped in June as the domestic economy remained sluggish, but buoyant exports offset the decline at home, an industry association said Wednesday. Sales in China dropped 7.4% compared to a year earlier to 1.8 million cars, while exports rose 29% to 400,000 units, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said in a monthly report. In the first six months of the year, exports rose 31.5% while domestic sales edged up 1.6%. The surge in exports comes at a time of growing concern in Europe and the United States that inexpensive China-made cars could overwhelm established automakers in the West. While much of the concern has been focused on China's flashy and moderately priced electric cars, export growth has been concentrated mainly in gasoline-powered vehicles. They climbed 36% in the first half of the year and accounted for 78% of vehicle exports. Chinese EV exports were down 2.3%, while hybrids jumped 180% from a smaller base. The exports have helped make up for weaker sales of gasoline vehicles in China as the overall market has stagnated and buyers have shifted to electric vehicles and hybrids. Russia is by far the largest and a still rapidly growing export market, where Chinese makers have filled a void left by the departure of other automakers after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Other sizeable markets include Brazil and Mexico in Latin America, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in the Mideast and Belgium and the U.K. in Europe. The European Union imposed provisional duties on Chinese electric vehicles last week, alleging that government subsidies give automakers in China an unfair advantage. Chinese makers are moving production overseas. BYD, the country's largest EV maker, opened a plant in Thailand last week and plans to build factories in Brazil, Hungary and Turkey. The sales drop in China was the second monthly decline in a row. Separate figures tabulated by the China Passenger Car Association show three straight months of falling sales. A severe real estate slump has dampened economic growth and depressed consumer confidence. A federal rule seeks to add protections to a section of the Affordable Care Act that prevent health care providers who discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation from receiving federal funding, including through Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program. (Getty Images) Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is leading a coalition of seven states challenging a rule by the Biden administration that would preempt state restrictions on gender-affirming care. Filed in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on Wednesday, the states are seeking to block the regulation and prevent the federal government from enforcing similar mandates. The rule seeks to add protections to a section of the Affordable Care Act that prevent health care providers who discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation from receiving federal funding, including through Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program. The rule was set to go into effect July 5, with some provisions beginning later. But another coalition of attorneys general succeeded in their petition to block its implementation just two days prior. The judge in that case cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Chevron Deference, a precedent that gave regulatory authority to federal agencies when statute is unclear. Bailey, along with attorneys general from Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Idaho and Arkansas, argues that the rule conflicts with their states restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. Each has varying restrictions on payments for gender-affirming treatment, with Missouri blocking payment for all treatments for medical transition through Medicaid and CHIP. states will be unable to enforce these duly enacted laws and longstanding policies without coming into conflict with the rule, the attorneys general wrote in the lawsuit. The American College of Pediatricians joins the attorneys general as a plaintiff. The ACPeds is a group of 400 physicians and other health care professionals in 47 states with a history of anti-LGBTQ advocacy. ACPeds members categorically do not provide medical interventions or referrals for, and do not facilitate or speak in ways that affirm the legitimacy of, the practice of gender transition, the attorneys general wrote. The lawsuit alleges that the organizations pediatricians would suffer significant financial harm to lose eligibility to participate in federal healthcare programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. One pediatrician in Utah is quoted in the lawsuit saying he would not self-censor his opinions on transition efforts if the rule goes into effect. Predicting his noncompliance with the rule, the Utah pediatrician faces the prospect of no longer caring for his patients, being fired from his employment and being unable to practice medicine in most settings, the attorneys general wrote. The rule violates physicians freedom of assembly, the lawsuit states, by coercing them to participate in facilities, programs, groups and other healthcare-related endeavors that are contrary to their views and that express messages with which they disagree. The lawsuit also says it coerces ACPeds members speech. By forcing ACPeds members to tell patients directly, on their walls, and on their websites that they do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, the rule forces ACPeds members to speak falsely, and it forces ACPeds members to fatally undermine their communication of their own medical ethical standards, it says. Beyond questions of constitutionality, the attorneys general allege that the rule goes beyond congressional authorization. The rule interprets gender identity as protected by both including gender dysphoria as a disability and interpreting sex discrimination to include gender identity. The attorneys general disagree with this application. Key to the case will be the judges interpretation of the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court Case Bostock v. Clayton County, in which a majority of justices ruled that gender identity was protected under Title VII, which is on employment discrimination. The rule leans on some courts interpretation that transfers the Bostock decision to Title IX and the Affordable Care Act, according to its publication in the Federal Register. But the attorneys general cite decisions from judges in red states that do not allow Bostock to apply outside of Title VII. The Department of Health and Human Services, which is the defendant in the litigation, did not respond to a request for comment. Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X. A group of protestors draped in transgender flags gather outside of the Utah Capitol. A crowd gathers outside of the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City to protest of transgender bathroom restrictions on Jan. 25, 2024. (Kyle Dunphey/Utah News Dispatch) Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is leading a coalition of seven states, including Utah, challenging a rule by the Biden administration that would preempt state restrictions on gender-affirming care. Filed in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on Wednesday, the states are seeking to block the regulation and prevent the federal government from enforcing similar mandates. The rule seeks to add protections to a section of the Affordable Care Act that prevent health care providers who discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation from receiving federal funding, including through Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program. The rule was set to go into effect July 5, with some provisions beginning later. But another coalition of attorneys general succeeded in their petition to block its implementation just two days prior. The judge in that case cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Chevron Deference, a precedent that gave regulatory authority to federal agencies when statute is unclear. Bailey, along with attorneys general from Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Idaho and Arkansas, argues that the rule conflicts with their states restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. Each has varying restrictions on payments for gender-affirming treatment, with Missouri blocking payment for all treatments for medical transition through Medicaid and CHIP. states will be unable to enforce these duly enacted laws and longstanding policies without coming into conflict with the rule, the attorneys general wrote in the lawsuit. The American College of Pediatricians joins the attorneys general as a plaintiff. The ACPeds is a group of 400 physicians and other health care professionals in 47 states with a history of anti-LGBTQ advocacy. ACPeds members categorically do not provide medical interventions or referrals for, and do not facilitate or speak in ways that affirm the legitimacy of, the practice of gender transition, the attorneys general wrote. The lawsuit alleges that the organizations pediatricians would suffer significant financial harm to lose eligibility to participate in federal healthcare programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. One pediatrician in Utah is quoted in the lawsuit saying he would not self-censor his opinions on transition efforts if the rule goes into effect. Predicting his noncompliance with the rule, the Utah pediatrician faces the prospect of no longer caring for his patients, being fired from his employment and being unable to practice medicine in most settings, the attorneys general wrote. The rule violates physicians freedom of assembly, the lawsuit states, by coercing them to participate in facilities, programs, groups and other healthcare-related endeavors that are contrary to their views and that express messages with which they disagree. The lawsuit also says it coerces ACPeds members speech. By forcing ACPeds members to tell patients directly, on their walls, and on their websites that they do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, the rule forces ACPeds members to speak falsely, and it forces ACPeds members to fatally undermine their communication of their own medical ethical standards, it says. Beyond questions of constitutionality, the attorneys general allege that the rule goes beyond congressional authorization. The rule interprets gender identity as protected by both including gender dysphoria as a disability and interpreting sex discrimination to include gender identity. The attorneys general disagree with this application. Key to the case will be the judges interpretation of the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court Case Bostock v. Clayton County, in which a majority of justices ruled that gender identity was protected under Title VII, which is on employment discrimination. The rule leans on some courts interpretation that transfers the Bostock decision to Title IX and the Affordable Care Act, according to its publication in the Federal Register. But the attorneys general cite decisions from judges in red states that do not allow Bostock to apply outside of Title VII. The Department of Health and Human Services, which is the defendant in the litigation, did not respond to a request for comment. Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X. FILE - This undated booking photo provided by Clay County, Mo., Sheriff's Office shows Timothy Haslett, of Excelsior Springs, Mo. Haslett was already in custody on kidnapping and rape charges, when on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, prosecutors charged him with the murder of another woman whose remains were found in a barrel in the Missouri River. (Clay County Sheriff's Office via AP, File) A Missouri man accused of keeping a woman hidden in his basement while repeatedly sexually assaulting her was indicted Tuesday for allegedly murdering another woman. Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson said Timothy M. Haslett was charged with murder in connection with 36-year-old Jaynie Crosdales death, adding that she was killed by an act of homicidal violence. He said her remains showed impact wounds consistent with a gunshot. Haslett, of Excelsior Springs, previously was indicted on one count of rape, four counts of sodomy, two counts of second-degree assault and one count each of kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child. He is being held in the Clay County Detention Center on $5 million bond. Hasletts public defender, Tiffany Leuty, did not immediately return an Associated Press call and email seeking comment Tuesday. Police arrested Haslett in October 2022 after a woman told law enforcement that she had escaped from weeks of torture in his locked basement, according to a probable cause statement. She fled to a neighbor's house wearing a trash bag, a padlocked collar around her neck, and duct tape. The survivor said Haslett had offered her money, and she agreed to go with him to his home. Once she was in his pickup truck, the woman told law enforcement that he held a gun to her, raped her and forced her to take narcotics. He then took her to his basement, restrained her arms and legs, and raped, whipped, tortured and choked her every day for weeks, according to the probable cause statement. She escaped after slipping out of the chains while she believed he was taking his child to school. The woman who survived also told authorities that Haslett had described killing two other women he previously kidnapped: one by suffocating her with a gas mask, and another who died after violent sexual torture. He told her if she did not listen to him, he would suffocate her and put her in a barrel like the rest of 'them, according to the probable cause statement. Thompson had said law enforcement officers followed more than 100 leads and spent more than 1,200 hours on the case, including searching for Crosdale and posting a missing person billboard with her photo in Kansas City. Police made progress after kayakers in June 2023 found a blue, 30-gallon barrel with a skeleton inside while camping off the Missouri River in Saline County, according to police. The remains were identified as Crosdale in July 2023, the Kansas City Star reported. The charges filed Tuesday are based on the evidence authorities currently have, Thompson said. He said the investigation is ongoing, and he urged anyone with information to come forward. Todays indictment represents the next step in our pursuit of justice for the victims, the families and our community, he said. The physical, psychological and sexual torture described by the defendants surviving victim is brutal and barbaric. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. Missouris highest court says it will not hear an appeal about a precedent-setting case out of Vernon County. In May, Jasper County Judge Gayle Crane issued an order saying the Vernon County Clerk could not put candidates on any ballot without first getting a receipt from the political party of that candidates choosing. In simple terms, a political party had to approve of the candidate and agree to accept that candidates filing fee before they were allowed on the ballot. The appeals court, however, issued a stay stopping Cranes order from being enforced, later dismissing the case but leaving in place the stay. This case involved a vetting process by the Vernon County Republican Committee and eight candidates who refused to go through that process. During the appeals court hearing, justices suggested it was the voters who should decide who their candidate should be not the political committees. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNF/KODE | FourStatesHomepage.com. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi insisted that diplomacy is the only solution to ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, a day after he wrapped up a controversial visit to Moscow where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin. Modi was in Vienna on Wednesday to meet Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer. "Problems cannot be solved on the battlefield," Modi said alongside Nehammer after their meeting. "The loss of innocent lives is unacceptable, no matter where it takes place." In Moscow, Modi and Putin had emphasized the close relations between India and Russia. The two-day visit upset Kiev and its allies, especially as it came during a Russian attack on a children's hospital in Kiev. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blasted Modi's trip as "a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world's largest democracy hug the world's most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day." In a joint statement, India and Russia said they will continue to cooperate on military technologies. Because Russian oil is cheap due to Western sanctions, India has become one of the largest customers. The country also purchases defence equipment from Russia. In the Ukraine war, the government in New Delhi has been muted in it criticism of Moscow and instead calls on all sides to engage in dialogue. Austria offers itself for Ukraine negotiations India took part in last month's Summit on Peace in Ukraine, but was only represented there by a senior official as Modi himself chose not to attend. Austria, which adheres to military neutrality and is not a NATO member, has tried to position itself as a mediator in the war. "We spoke today about an even stronger commitment," said Nehammer, adding that Austria is always available as a venue for future Ukraine diplomacy. More than 1.6 million homes in Texas still without power after Hurricane Beryl Vehicles trapped in flood waters on Monday following heavy rain from Hurricane Beryl. U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday granted a federal emergency disaster declaration to help speed recovery efforts in 121 Texas counties that were affected by Hurricane Beryl. Photo Provided by Carlos Ramirez/EPA-EFE July 10 (UPI) -- More than 1.6 million homes in Texas still had no power by Wednesday morning in the middle of sweltering heat in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl as it still could be several more days until power is fully restored in some places. President Joe Biden on Tuesday granted a federal emergency disaster declaration to help speed recovery efforts in 121 Texas counties that were affected by Hurricane Beryl. Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott is away on a diplomatic mission. The declaration will reimburse Texas up to 75% of recovery efforts. According to the National Weather Service, a heat advisory is currently in effect for all of Southeast Texas where a large part of the state is still with no power. The heat index is expected to feel 106 degrees Fahrenheit. "With power outages continuing across [Southeast Texas,] the lack of air conditioning will aggravate the risk of heat-related illnesses as high temperatures warm into the lower and mid-90s," NWS in Houston advised. A man looks on Monday at a fallen tree knocked over by wind and rain from Hurricane Beryl in Houston, Tex. The storm, which already caused widespread damage last week in the Caribbean, was downgraded to a tropical storm as it passed over the Gulf of Mexico before regaining strength into a hurricane. Photo Provided by Carlos Ramirez/EPA-EFE CenterPoint Energy, the Houston area's main energy supplier, said Tuesday night that power had already been restored to 850,000 customers which was one-third of the 2.26 million customers who had been impacted in Beryl's path. "Right behind public safety is restoring city and county services with the highest priority of electricity and energy," Houston Mayor John Whitmire said Tuesday. "We're doing everything we possibly can to see that your electricity is restored." CenterPoint officials said power would be restored to 1 million customers by Wednesday, according to Houston Chronicle. The company's website showed 1,357,077 customers affected by outages just before noon Wednesday with 11,653 active outages as 563,743 customers got power in the last 24 hours. More than 1.2 million of CenterPoint's more than 2.1 million Harris County customers reportedly still had no power by Tuesday afternoon as the company reported the "main elements" of its energy systems was intact following the hurricane. However, it claimed work crews had already walked 4,500 miles by foot to check circuits using helicopter and drone surveillance in preparation for the large task ahead. "We have made solid progress and exceeded the number of customer restorations following Hurricane Ike," Lynnae Wilson, CenterPoint's Senior Vice President of Electric Business, told multiple news sources on Tuesday. "But we have a lot of important work ahead, especially in the hardest-hit areas where the work will be more complex and time-consuming." Interactive maps provided by CenterPoint, which pointed to delays in reporting, indicated how the effort to restore is on an active "Step 2" phase. "We know we have a lot of customers counting on us to do our jobs as safely and quickly as possible, and that will continue to be our highest priority," Wilson stated Tuesday. According to the map, work crews appear to be in the very active stages between assessing Beryl's damage and the scope of work needed with some already in active repairing stages, along with scattered power outages shown in the area. "Please be prepared for restoration efforts to take several days," the company map advised. Texans have in recent years gone through a pattern of power outages and other electric grid issues as climate patterns change as both heat and freezing weather take their toll on the Texas power grid. Extreme heat knocked out power July 2022 during one Houston area news station's weather forecast. Meanwhile, the state suffered catastrophic power issues when 200 people died after the grid failed in February 2021. Then in May and June that year, the state's system was impacted by widespread solar farm shutdowns. Texas citizens have often been asked to conserve and cut back on their own electricity use as punishing heat wave like now across Texas drive record-high power demand. It arrives as the Biden administration in May unveiled an '"unprecedented" 21-state initiative to modernize the ailing U.S. power grid in a move Texas opted not to take part in. More than 23,000 Ukrainians have illegally entered Moldova since beginning of full-scale invasion, RFE/RL reports Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, more than 23,000 Ukrainians have illegally crossed into Moldova, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)'s Moldovan service reported on July 10. Under martial law, which has been in place since February 2022, Ukrainian men aged 18-60 with some exceptions are not allowed to leave the country because they could be called up for military service. BBC Ukraine estimated in November 2023 that as many as 650,000 Ukrainian military-aged men had left the country since the beginning of the full-scale war. According to data seen by RFE/RL, 7,700 Ukrainian men crossed into Moldova in the first six months of 2024. Moldova and Ukraine share a border of about 1,222 kilometers (760 miles). Many of those illegally crossing into Moldova intend to keep traveling into an EU country, although the Moldovan government offers differing levels of protection for foreigners who enter the country. Moldovan Frontier Police chief Ruslan Galusca told RFE/RL that Ukrainian men who are detained after crossing "are not sanctioned for illegal entry." A Ukrainian man who identified himself as Vasyl told RFE/RL that he had paid $10,000 for a smuggler to take him into Moldova via the Dniester River, adding that he intended to travel to Poland after. Read also: Romanian police: 11,000 Ukrainian men have illegally crossed border into Romania since February 2022 Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. More than 40 held in Italy for migrant visa fraud after Meloni complaints By Alvise Armellini ROME (Reuters) - More than 40 people have been held in Italy over migrant visa fraud, police and prosecutors said on Wednesday, weeks after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni complained that mafia groups were exploiting the system for profit. Forty-four people were apprehended, including 13 put in jail, 24 under house arrest and seven in custody. They were charged with various crimes, such as criminal association aimed at abetting illegal immigration, money laundering and false invoicing. A further 10 suspects were banned from business activities for 12 months. According to a statement by prosecutors from the southern city of Salerno, near Naples, the suspects filed fraudulent visa applications on behalf of migrants, who need the sponsorship of employers to start the process. They filed "around 2,500" applications from 2020 onwards "based on non-existent or falsified data", prosecutors said, adding that migrants paid as much as 7,000 euros ($7,575.40) each to push the process along through various bureaucratic hoops. Assets worth around 6 million euros were seized as profits from the alleged crimes, prosecutors said, indicating that some of the suspects accused of money laundering were linked to the Camorra, the Mafia in and around Naples. Speaking to reporters, Salerno Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Borrelli said investigations were accelerated after Meloni in June said she had reported her concerns about possible visa fraud to the national anti-Mafia prosecutor. As part of its tough stance on immigration, Meloni's rightist government has passed an array of measures to curb migrant arrivals, but has also expanded legal immigration channels in response to growing labour shortages. Last year, it raised quotas for work visas for non-EU citizens to a total of 452,000 for the period 2023-2025, an increase of nearly 150% from the previous three years. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Italy issued just 30,850 visas. The system is massively oversubscribed, with 151,000 places available for 2024 alone, and nearly 244,000 requests made in the first 10 days of the opening of the procedure, according to the interior ministry. Last month Meloni said a disproportionate amount of applications had come from Campania - the economically depressed region comprising Naples and its Camorra mafia - raising alarm bells. Migrant rights advocates say excessive red tape facilitates visa abuse, and, calling for a reform of the system, say it typically benefits undocumented migrants already in Italy, who use the quotas to legalise their situation. ($1 = 0.9240 euros) (Editing by Sharon Singleton) After years of failing to meet NATOs military spending targets, most of the alliances 32 members entered the 75th anniversary summit touting a statistic: more than two-thirds now meet the minimum threshold. It marks a rapid turnaround in a short period dominated by Russias invasion of Ukraine and comes a decade after NATO allies agreed to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense with 20% of that going to major equipment purchases. Still, some allies on Europes eastern flank and Republicans in the U.S. say thats not enough. Theyre pushing to increase the alliances defense spending targets beyond 2%, given the war in Ukraine and the risk of an American conflict with China. None of that stopped President Joe Biden from lauding Washingtons progress in getting its NATO allies to shoulder a greater share of the defense burden, a longstanding gripe of U.S. presidents from both parties. In the year 2020, the year I was elected president, only nine NATO allies were spending 2% of their GDP on defense, Biden said in his opening remarks to kick off the summit on Tuesday. This year, 23 will spend at least 2 percent. And some will spend more than that. Still, some in the alliance consider that an almost hollow victory. The Wales Summit was 10 years ago, well before Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We reaffirm that, in many cases, expenditure beyond 2% of GDP will be needed in order to remedy existing shortfalls and meet the requirements across all domains arising from a more contested security order, the allies wrote in a joint communique on Wednesday. The Baltic states in particular are pushing their allies to go beyond the mandatory 2% floor for defense spending as Russia shows no signs of backing down after more than two years of war in Ukraine. Well start to talk at least about 2.5% as a floor, Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas told Defense News, pointing to NATOs capability gaps. When we analyze what the countries need to develop in the near-future, for a decade maybe, its not even 2.5%. Its not even 3%. It should be more if you want more air defense systems, if you want more long-range strike capabilities. Tuuli Duneton, Estonias Undersecretary for Defense Policy, praised the 23 countries who now meet the 2% spending target but added we should start already the discussions on putting the target for defense spending even higher. We would support to have the discussion to set in the new target for the next NATO summit in the Hague to either 2.5% or 3% of GDP, Duneton told reporters. The U.S. spends roughly 3% of GDP on defense, but the Congressional Budget Office projects that will fall to 2.5% by 2034. Republicans in the U.S. are also starting to join the Baltic countries call to move the defense spending floor beyond 2% of GDP. Given these dangerous times, the alliance must do more, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said in a Tuesday statement. We must start working toward a greater defense spending commitment than the current 2% of GDP defense spending benchmark that better reflects this new era of authoritarian aggression we find ourselves in. Trump said this year that should he return to the White House, he would allow Russia to do whatever the hell they want to NATO allies who do not meet the minimum defense spending benchmark. Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump walks to the podium at a campaign event Tuesday, June 18, 2024, in Racine, Wis. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps) The former presidents allies are calling on NATO allies to replace the U.S. as Ukraines primary security guarantor a task made all the more complicated by years of Europes chronic underinvestment in weapons production lines. The things that Europeans most need are not necessarily guys with guns, as important as they are, but lift, logistics, C4ISR, long-range munitions, air defense, but those are exactly the things that are most needed in the Pacific and are most difficult to reconstitute, Bridge Colby, Trumps former assistant secretary of defense for strategy, said Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation. The best way to manage the situation is to be practical and candid with our European allies and say heres what we can provide. And this is what Ive said to the Europeans is were going to have to withhold some of these key capabilities. Collin Meisel, the associate director of geopolitical analysis at the University of Denvers Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, cautioned its going to take years for the European countries to make up that shortfall and be able to provide adequate support for Ukraine. If the U.S. pulls back its materiel support of Ukraine, then Ukraine is going to be in pretty rough shape. He also noted that when Ukraine military aid is framed as a percentage of GDP, the U.S. ranks far below multiple European countries, including countries like the Netherlands that have not met NATOs 2% of GDP benchmark for overall defense spending. And the spending targets themselves dont guarantee a ready military. Greece is the poster child for this, said John Deni, a former political adviser to U.S. military leaders in Europe. Athens has long spent more than 2% on defense, he noted, but much of it goes to areas that dont create a strong force, such as personnel and pensions. Its a jobs program, Deni said. The 2% and 20% thresholds are the only public thresholds affirmed as a floor, rather than a ceiling in the 2022 communique in Vilnius, Lithuania. NATO has 11 private metrics to measure burden sharing, which help assess the readiness of each force, Deni said. Its also working to finalize regional defense and deterrence plans that will in part guide procurement decisions for member states. Proponents of increasing the 2% benchmark hope these regional plans will also grow military spending. Its not only the percentage itself that matters, but taking into account that NATO military authorities have been assessing based on the regional plans: all military requirements for defense forces and capabilities said Estonias Duneton. The increased defense spending is most of all necessary for us to be able to deliver on those critical capabilities. This story was updated on Wednesday at 4:48 PM to include a statement from the NATO summit communique. Insights from Electrek, Nikkei, and South China Morning Post The News Chinese automakers are increasingly expanding their presence in the Global South including the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia as they face tougher prospects in American and European markets. The move to diversify geographically comes as the US and the European Union have imposed tough tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports, forcing the companies to adapt. SIGNALS Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories. Turkey is BYDs latest point of global expansion Sources: Bloomberg, Electrek Chinese auto giant BYD on Monday announced plans to build a $1 billion plant in Turkey, a move that analysts said could bolster its standing in Europe. While Turkey isnt a member of the European Union, it has a customs agreement with the bloc that could benefit BYD as it navigates the EUs tariffs and its trade tensions with China, which risk spiraling into a trade war. The plant could also serve a burgeoning domestic market in Turkey, with EVs making up 7.5% of new vehicle sales in the country last year, opening a significant opportunity for the Chinese EV maker, Electrek wrote. Turkey even eased its tariffs on the vehicles last week to boost global investments. Southeast Asia EV investments explode Sources: The Diplomat, Counterpoint Research, South China Morning Post Southeast Asia is home to a growing EV market, and Chinese companies have made major inroads. Last week, BYD opened its first factory in the region, in Thailand. Chinas Xpeng Motors and Geely are also pumping billions into the market, where EV sales more than doubled in the first quarter of 2024 compared with last year, according to Counterpoint Research, a technology market research firm. Southeast Asias relatively neutral geopolitical stance provides a window of opportunities for companies from China to expand, one Hong Kong-based economist said. Africa a growing market, but challenges remain Source: Nikkei Chinese EV makers Neta Auto and Xpeng Motors, meanwhile, are pivoting to Africa as trade tensions escalate with the EU. Neta opened a flagship store in Kenya last month, its first dealership in Africa, while Xpeng announced it is beginning sales of two EV models in Egypt, Nikkei reported. European and Japanese car brands are already well-known in Africa, but they offer mostly gas-powered models, leaving an opening for the Chinese players. Analysts say new-vehicle sales across the continent are expected to pick up as its economies grow, but a lack of widespread charging networks could pose a challenge to EVs growth. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) More schools in Tennessee are eligible to serve free breakfast and lunch to students after a change in the rules from the federal government. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is an optional program for eligible schools in the country to provide school meals at no cost to students. It was authorized through the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 and allows schools to eliminate the need for household income applications for free or reduced meals. In order to be eligible for CEP, a school, group of schools, or school district must meet a certain threshold of enrolled students in need based on income levels. For many years, the necessary threshold was 40% of enrolled students receiving free or reduced meals. Have breaking news come to you: Subscribe to News 2 email alerts But in September of last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture lowered the necessary percentage of students to just 25%, opening up free meals to more students in the nation. The rule took effect in October. Tullahoma City Schools is just one school district celebrating the move into CEP for the coming school year. School officials said they would also have more options for students needing breakfast at school. We are excited about this new opportunity and will be offering breakfast in alternative locations and at extended times to ensure that all students can start the day with a fueled body, helping to enhance their learning experience and set them up for success, said TCS Director of Nutrition Angela White. Even more great news is that every child automatically qualifies for free meals, so no Free and Reduced Meal applications are necessary. This streamlines our process and eliminates the paperwork hassle. Additionally, the state of Tennessee announced in early 2023 it was joining 13 other states in using Medicaid data to determine eligibility in CEP. Free meals available for children in Davidson County this summer According to the USDA, the move allows Medicaid eligibility data to directly certify students as eligible for CEP, thus helping schools and school districts meet the necessary threshold for providing no-cost food to students. Direct certification decreases errors in school meal program administration and helps ensure children in need receive healthy meals at school, USDA Food and Nutrition Service, Southeast Region Administrator Willie C. Taylor. With direct certification, the administrative burden on schools is reduced and the application process for families is simplifiedadditionally. According to the Tennessee Department of Education, CEP is a voluntary decision for any school district, and they must make certain opting into CEP is financially viable. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) gives school districts more flexibility to offer no-cost meals to all enrolled students if financially viable and helps with the administrative burden of collecting household applications. With the new minimum Identified Student Percentage (ISP) threshold, more districts were eligible for CEP. An increase in CEP participation was also seen due to Tennessee participating in a Medicaid Demonstration Pilot that allowed LEAs to use Medicaid data (for students already eligible or receiving Medicaid benefits) towards their ISP percentages, said Director of Media Brian Blackley. Sumner County food pantry seeks more donations for summer program The USDA changed their requirements so more LEAs have decided to inquire about CEP or decided to elect CEP due to the USDA change and Medicaid Pilot, he added. Providing more students with free, nutritious meals has been celebrated and practiced in Nashville for several years. Metro Nashville students have been receiving free meals since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, according to district spokesperson Sean Braisted. At first, the free meals were provided through a COVID-related USDA waiver program. Later, the meals came from additional funding through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) program and the Metro Nashville government, Braisted told News 2. Nutritious meals are essential to effective learning, growth, and development, said Dr. Adrienne Battle, Director of Metro Nashville Public Schools. It is not only the moral and right thing to do to provide all students with a free meal, it will also benefit their academic and social-emotional growth throughout the school day. We will continue this in 2024-2025 school year, Braisted added, so students who attend a non-CEP school will still receive no-cost meals. Read todays top stories on wkrn.com And while Metro Schools dont have in-house empirical data specifically tied to school nutrition programs, Braisted said the district has seen year-over-year growth and gains in TCAP results since the district implemented the free school meals. The districts growth has also outpaced state-level growth in several areas for the third year in a row since testing resumed for all students in the 2021-2022 school year. Outside of the pandemic-era programs, most of Metro Nashville schools qualify for CEP. Of the 142 schools in Metro Nashville, 111 qualify. Based on 2023-2024 enrollment figures, 58% of Metro students qualify under CEP with the newly expanded Medicaid certification. Before the expansion, it would have been 47.65%, according to Braisted. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. More work starting soon at Sacramento International Airport as county clears way for expansion As Sacramento International Airport prepares for major construction and expansion projects, county leaders this week cleared the way for work that will begin soon on a key roadway and a planned pedestrian walkway. In February 2023, the Sacramento International Airport announced plans for a $1.3 billion renovation known as its SMForward initiative. It plans to bring the pedestrian walkway, six to eight new gates in Terminal B, an additional garage, a new car rental center and ground transportation center by the end of 2027. During the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, the supervisors increased a contract with Balfour Beatty Construction by $1.3 million to purchase two buildings for the pedestrian walkway project and other SMForward initiatives. The previous agreement was for $104.5 million, but following an amendment to the contract with Balfour, it was increased to $105.8 million to account for the additional modular buildings for the project. The item passed as part of Tuesdays consent agenda. As we work to serve an increasing number of passengers here at Sacramento International Airport (SMF) we are close to breaking ground on two of our major SMForward projects: the Pedestrian Walkway and Terminal B Parking Garage, Sacramento International Airport spokesperson Lindsay Meyers said. Construction is set to begin in August for the pedestrian walkway and in October for the parking garage, according to airport officials. Renovating Lindbergh Drive In addition to approving an increase, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors also approved a bid to O.C. Jones and Sons for the widening and rehabilitation of Lindbergh Drive inside the Sacramento International Airport campus. The roadway runs on the east side of the airport, near Terminal B. Out of nine total bidders, O.C. Jones of Berkeley was selected at a bidding price of just under $8 million, 9% below the county engineers estimate of $8.8 million. As part of the overall plan, Lindbergh Drive will have increased traffic in the future and therefore is being widened, said Meyers. Executing the SMForward program will result in an improved experience for the growing number of passengers we are privileged to serve here at SMF. Soon our passengers will begin to see construction efforts underway. Airport operations will remain normal throughout construction. We always encourage travelers to give themselves plenty of time to navigate the airport. The Lindbergh Drive project is also expected to begin in August, and to be completed by April 2025. A KFC employee hangs a sign for job openings at a restaurant in Miami. Several states have passed pay transparency laws that require employers to be more open about the wages and benefits they offer. Joe Raedle/Getty Images To combat gender and racial wage gaps, nearly a dozen states recently have enacted pay transparency laws that require employers to be more open about the wages and benefits they offer. Most of the laws require employers to disclose wages in job postings and some bar them from asking a job candidate about their salary history. Even though its against the law, we definitely still see that women are being paid less than their male counterparts, even though theyre doing the same job, said Jessica Ramey Stender, a lawyer and the policy director at Equal Rights Advocates, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that focuses on sexual harassment and pay discrimination, among other issues. And thats a problem. Under the federal Equal Pay Act of 1963, employers cant pay different salaries on the basis of sex to employees who do equal work. States have similar protections. Nevertheless, women on average have been paid less than men as far back as federal data has been collected. Women on average earn about 84 cents for every dollar that men earn, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Federal data also shows a racial pay gap: Latino, Black and Native American workers on average earn from 73 cents to 77 cents for every dollar a white worker earns. We definitely still see that women are being paid less than their male counterparts, even though they're doing the same job. Jessica Ramey Stender, a lawyer and the policy director at Equal Rights Advocates Part of the pay gap comes from the fact that women and racial minorities are overrepresented in industries that pay lower wages, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. But there is still a gap, though a narrower one, when men and women are doing the exact same job. Pay transparency laws can close the gap further by providing women and people of color with more opportunities to see whether theyre being compensated fairly, Stender said. The hope is that with this additional information in their toolbox, everyone especially women experiencing the wage gap will be able to better negotiate pay for themselves, she said. But some critics of pay transparency laws question whether theyll have the desired effect. Todd Zenger, a professor of strategic leadership at the University of Utah, said requiring complete transparency is an extreme way to address pay equity. Theres also mixed evidence over whether prohibiting employers from asking about salary history could help or hurt job candidates, he said. Theres one argument that theres gender differences in ones willingness to bargain, Zenger said, noting research showing that women might not negotiate in the same way that men do. You can say, This is what I need to come and join you, and if theyre able to ask about your prior pay, that sets some sort of common ground. Pay transparency laws also could lead to flattened pay, he said. Some people are paid more because of good performance, for example, but transparency laws could make it difficult to change pay on those less objective criteria, he argued. Salary transparency and history bans The number of states with pay transparency laws has grown significantly within the past few years, said Glenn Jacoby, a policy associate in employment matters at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Labor force participation still hasnt reached pre-pandemic levels, but more people are looking to join the workforce and lawmakers want the job-seeking process to be smoother, she said. So far, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island, Washington state and the District of Columbia have approved pay transparency laws. The laws take varying approaches to ensuring transparency. They may require employers to disclose salary ranges for open positions, prohibit retaliation against employees who discuss their pay with colleagues, or require employers to report pay data to government agencies, according to GovDocs, a Minnesota-based company that tracks employment laws for large companies. Some laws also mandate that employers provide salary information upon request, or prohibit them from asking job candidates about their salary history, according to Jana Bjorklund, the senior counsel and director of employment law and compliance at GovDocs. And this is all driven by pay inequity, Bjorklund said. A handful of cities, including New York City, Jersey City, New Jersey, and Columbus, Ohio, have enacted their own transparency laws. Most states with pay transparency laws require employers of a certain size to post salaries for all open job positions. In California, companies with at least 15 workers must do so. But some states, such as Colorado, where lawmakers enacted new rules this year, require the transparency from all companies, even those with a single worker. When states first began considering pay transparency laws, they tended to focus on requiring employers to provide salary information upon request, Jacoby said. In some cases, the requirement would apply only for applicants selected for an interview. Now, several states are expanding these laws to require compensation-related information in the initial job posting, she said. In January, a law took effect in Hawaii requiring certain job listings to include an hourly rate or salary range. It also prohibits an employer from discriminating by paying one employee in a protected category less than another for substantially similar work. The bills original language was inspired by conversations among recent college graduates struggling to find jobs, said Hawaii state Sen. Chris Lee, a Democrat. These laws make sure everyone is on the same page through the entire hiring process, he said. Its both fair to the companies as well as the employees or prospective employees and helps ultimately saves a ton of frustration and time and effort by a lot of other folks who would be applying for these positions, Lee said. Still, Lee recalled that lawmakers heard complaints from small businesses concerned about being able to compete with larger companies. In the District of Columbia, new rules went into effect last week requiring employers to include salary ranges in job postings and to disclose health care benefits before the first interview. A Maryland law with similar rules will go into effect in October. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX As a Black woman and as someone who works professionally, this is personal to me, said Maryland state Del. Jennifer White Holland, a Democrat who helped pass the new law. When we look at families in Maryland, its womens earnings that matter now more than ever. She cited the states Equal Pay Day report for 2024, which found that more than 40% of Maryland mothers are the lead or only wage earner in their household. On average, women in Maryland are paid 86 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make, according to the report. Hispanic women in Maryland have the largest gender and racial wage gap, making just 50 cents for every dollar earned by white men. Do the laws work? While some states pay transparency laws are just going into effect, some preliminary research shows how such laws could be helping raise salaries for all workers. A recent study in Colorado, the first state to mandate salary transparency, in 2021, found that not only did more companies share salaries within job postings, but the posted salaries increased by 3.6%. One possible explanation for the boost is that some companies adjusted their salaries to match their competitors and reach market equilibrium, according to the paper, which was written by a pair of economists in the University of California system. According to a survey from the Society for Human Resource Management, a nonprofit for human resources professionals, 70% of organizations that list pay ranges in their job postings said they received more applications, and 65% said that listing pay ranges made the candidate pool more competitive. Isabela Salas-Betsch, a research associate at The Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, said the results are good news for businesses. When employees have more information, they feel more valued and motivated, which translates to greater performance and retention, she said. But some small employers fear that pay transparency laws will make it more difficult for them to compete with larger companies for talent. Close to half of the almost 400 companies that responded to a 2022 pay clarity survey by global advisory company WTW cited possible employee reactions as a reason for holding back on communicating about pay. Still, many companies said they plan to increase transparency in their postings, even without local mandates. Some experts warn that the laws could have unintended consequences. In a 2016 article for the Harvard Business Review arguing against pay transparency, Zenger, the University of Utah professor, cited an experiment in which University of California faculty who discovered they were being paid less than their peers became much less satisfied with their jobs and more likely to say they might leave. Theres always a trade-off associated with these kinds of things, Zenger told Stateline. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE (Bloomberg) -- France has become ungovernable after the snap legislative elections left the country with a deeply divided parliament and no obvious path toward a stable government, according to three-quarters of respondents in a poll by Elabe. Most Read from Bloomberg The survey also showed that 71% of the 1,002 adults interviewed are dissatisfied with the results of the vote and the new composition of the National Assembly. Additionally, two-thirds said it was a bad decision for Emmanuel Macron to have dissolved parliament. The president has been widely criticized for his surprise decision, which he took after his centrist alliance was trounced by Marine Le Pens far-right National Rally in European Parliament elections. The vote has left the lower house divided, with no political grouping holding a majority needed to pass legislation. The leftist New Popular Front coalition secured the most lawmakers, though it still fell more than 100 short of an absolute majority in the 577-seat lower house. It has said it will put forward a single candidate for prime minister in the coming days. Participants in the survey, carried out online on Tuesday and Wednesday, were split in half on whether Macron should appoint that person. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Detectives are investigating the death of woman whose body was found Monday evening at her North Sacramento home and are searching for her two missing children, who police said were with their father before the three disappeared. Officers were called just before 7:30 p.m. Monday to the 3700 block of Didcot Circle in the Oak Knoll neighborhood after a caller sought medical aid, according to the Sacramento Police Department. Officer Anthony Gamble, a Sacramento police spokesman, said the womans friends had alerted authorities to check on her. A woman was found unresponsive in a bathtub, according to archived audio dispatch calls reviewed by The Sacramento Bee. Dispatchers categorized the call as either a domestic violence incident or to investigate a dead body. Medics from the Sacramento Fire Department pronounced the woman dead at the scene, and homicide detectives arrived at the home to begin a death investigation, police said. The Sacramento County Coroners Office identified the mother as Angelica Marie Bravo, 28. How Bravo died is unclear. The Sacramento County Coroners Office has classified the death as undetermined until a further autopsy has concluded. Investigators also have been unable to find the children and their father. Athena Lee, 4, and Mateo Lee, 2, are missing with their father, Camron Lee, 38. He was driving a gray 2023 Honda Passport. Police said they learned on Tuesday that the vehicle was spotted on U.S. Customs and Border Protection surveillance video driving south into Mexico. The Sacramento Police Department is searching for, from left, Camron Lee, Athena Lee and Mateo Lee after a woman was found dead Monday, July 9, 2024. The death of the woman, who has not been identified but was confirmed to be the mother of the children, is being investigated and authorities want to locate the children and talk to the father. We dont know where the kids are When asked whether the father had any form of custody for his children, Gamble said he could not release those details because they were part of an active investigation. He also declined to discuss whether family members told police about any dispute or estrangement between the mother and Camron Lee. Gamble did say that other family members told police that they last saw the missing children on Saturday, two days before their mother was found dead. We dont know where the kids are, Gamble said in a Wednesday morning news conference. Gamble said they do not know where Camron Lee is, and they do not know if the children are still with him or if he dropped them off somewhere along the way. He said the Police Department was working with federal authorities to help find the father, but investigators were urging anyone who knew where the children were to notify authorities. Locating the kids right now is our number one priority, Gamble said. So what we will be doing as a Police Department is using every resource available, and were going to be working with every partner agency we can, from federal, state and local agencies. Gamble said the womans death has not been confirmed to be a homicide, because investigators are still trying to determine the cause of her death. It may change to a homicide investigation. It may stay a death investigation, Gamble told news reporters. We just dont have that information. Whats concerning right now is that these kids are nowhere to be found. And (the) dad hasnt called us, (the) dad hasnt reached out to us. We believe the kids to be with him or at least have been with him at some point. Police want to talk to childrens father Investigators also have stopped short of calling Lee a suspect in the womans death. Detectives would like to speak with Camron (Lee) regarding the whereabouts of the children, police officials said in a news release Tuesday night and again outside the departments Freeport Boulevard headquarters. Gamble said the Police Department was unable to ask the California Highway Patrol to issue an Amber Alert because the vehicle Camron Lee is believed to be driving had already been spotted crossing the border. The Police Department alerted news media about the death investigation and the missing children 24 hours after womans body was found. The police spokesman said they decided to release that information after investigators determined the children were missing. Initially, we were there doing a death investigation, Gamble said. Detectives didnt know if there was a crime that was committed, and thats why that information wasnt put out there. He said the childrens information has been entered into the missing persons database and shared with the U.S. Department of Justice. Officers also asked the FBI to share that information within its agency and with authorities in Mexico. Were asking the community to please if you know anything, if youve seen anything, if youve heard anything, if you locate these kids to please contact us, Gamble said Wednesday. Anything you think that maybe small may prove instrumental in our investigation. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the Police Department at 916-808-0560 or the Sacramento Valley Crime Stoppers at 916-443-4357. Callers can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a $1,000 reward. Officers also encouraged tips via an email address: missingpersons@pd.cityofsacramento.org. This article was published as part of a content-sharing agreement between Army Times and The Fayetteville Observer. The mother of a then-Fort Bragg soldier found dead in his barracks room in January 2020 hopes service members will check on each other to prevent future deaths like her sons. Sick paratrooper who died of infection was failed by leadership, investigation says Pvt. 2nd Class Caleb Smithers mother, Heather Baker, spoke to The Fayetteville Observer last June about her visit to Washington, D.C., to make members of Congress and Army leaders aware of her sons death and make changes so missteps dont happen again. During a phone interview from her Lubbock home Wednesday, Baker said that since last summer, shes met with Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth and nearly 30 members of Congress to tell them about her late son. Baker said she has letters from her local members of Congress who petitioned for a list of things, which included asking that the Army reopen Smithers death case and that Wormuth met with Baker. In less than a year, she gave me both of those things, Baker said. The very first thing she said to me was, Mrs. Baker, Im sorry that the Army failed you and your son, and I said, Wow, thank you, maam, so much. Smitty Check Smither, 19, was found dead in his room at Fort Bragg, now known as Fort Liberty, on Jan. 22, 2020, seven weeks after being assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division and five days after he was given an order to rest after striking his head in the motor pool earlier in the month. Months after his death, doctors concluded that Smithers cause of death was bacterial meningitis. Smither died alone in his room during a four-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, despite other paratroopers witnessing signs he was unwell, according to an Army Criminal Investigation Division report. The leadership failed for at least four days to check on the health and welfare of a junior paratrooper who injured his head, vomited, went to the emergency room twice, had a concussion, and seemingly was no better as the week progressed, the investigating officer wrote in the CID report. Paratroopers death under investigation According to the CID report, Smithers acting squad leader told investigators he lied during an initial report about the last time he checked on Smither. A corporal claimed he checked on Smither after noticing Smithers behavior at formation, but was unable to provide a call log showing the contact. The informal investigation concluded that despite no medical directive to keep an eye on Smither, two people in his chain of command who should have checked on him seemed apathetically disengaged in their responsibility for the welfare of PV2 Smither. Baker said that after she met with Wormuth, Wormuth drafted a policy outlining how leaders should check on sick soldiers and civilians. Baker and her attorney Daniel Maharaj provided The Fayetteville Observer with the Feb. 5 policy. The policy states that if a leader attempts to contact a soldier and the soldier does not respond, leaders must try other forms of communication, to include in-person contact, until accountability is attained. The Smitty Check, Baker said, is about human kindness and compassion, upholding the noncommissioned officer creed and being proud to take care of a battle buddy, she said. How do you teach that? Thats the question I posed across to the table to (the Army inspector general) and the secretary of the Army, Baker said. You choose good leadership, and you make sure thats part of the culture of the Army. Im so grateful that the Army chose to turn this ship around. DOD-wide change? Baker said that while Wormuth has assured her the Army is taking steps to implement the check, Bakers local congressman, Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, has added amendments to the House version of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that would establish similar checks DOD-wide. The House Armed Services Committee passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act on May 22, which included two amendments from Arrington, according to a news release from his office. The amendments would direct the Army to report to Congress how it is implementing the Smitty Check, and would require military leaders to thoroughly monitor service members following an injury. The Department of Defense would also be required to disclose in medical records whether a service member received care from a DOD or civilian doctor. Arrington spoke about Smither during a June 12 House meeting for the upcoming defense budget. Because the safety protocols werent there to check on a soldier who had such a serious injury and because there werent accountability measures for private contractors for healthcare services to the Army, this young man ended up dying, Arrington said at the meeting. I think his life could have been saved if those protocols were in place and if the accountability measures were in place. Baker credited Arrington for calling her the day after Calebs body was found and supporting her to get answers about her sons death. Medical accountability Baker said she also supports Arringtons other amendment, which would require the Department of Defense to disclose in a service members medical records names of the military or civilian doctors who treated them. While a more than 70-year-old law known as the Feres doctrine prohibits service members from suing the federal government, the Stayskal Act, named after a Fort Liberty soldier whose stage four cancer was misdiagnosed as pneumonia and missed in April 2017, allows military officials to review on a case-by-case basis injury or death claims caused by a DOD health care provider. Baker said officials told her that her claim was denied because an independent contractor who is a civilian doctor failed to diagnose her sons meningitis. Smithers captain and first sergeant wrote in their statements to investigators that after Smither hit his head, he was turned away from the hospital before soldiers in his unit took him to the emergency room, the CID report stated. According to a March 15, 2023, letter to Bakers attorney from the Army Claims Service, Smither was treated Jan. 14, 2020, by a physicians assistant in Womack Army Medical Centers emergency room. The letter states that in the initial determination of the medical malpractice case, a board-certified emergency room physician found Smithers care was within the standards of care. According to the letter, Smither had an essentially normal neurological exam, with no signs of a skull fracture or fluid leaking when he visited the hospital. According to the CID report, the emergency room originally labeled Smithers condition as post-concussion syndrome. A doctor in the CID report who diagnosed meningitis after Smithers death said that the strain of bacteria the young soldier had typically enters the brain via head trauma, and some symptoms of meningitis mimic those of a head injury. The letter states the emergency room physician who saw Smither on Jan. 15 was a civilian contractor. Baker said she was not told the doctors name until North Carolinas three-year statute of limitation to file a claim passed, she said. Its a loophole in the Stayskal Act, Baker said. During Arringtons June 12 congressional remarks, he said the amendments would actually save the lives of other soldiers who would find themselves in the same predicament. I think we all care about our soldiers, our sons and daughters in uniform and that we would want the abundance of precaution so that we would prevent this from happening, he said. Baker provided The Fayetteville Observer with a compilation of video clips of her son that she showed Wormuth and others that include audio of what she believes is a voicemail recording of him whimpering in pain leading up to his death. The video also shows clips of Smither taking his oath to join the Army and moments that Baker said captures his spirit. If you have a goal in life, Smith said in one clip, You should A, accomplish that goal, B, be aggressive with that goal and never stop striving for yourself because eventually youll get to that spot, and youll look back and say, Hey, I made that (expletive) happen. Baker said through her grief, she believes that her son would have willingly died in sacrifice if he knew that his death would prevent other deaths. My prayer is that the Army and DOD will take this as a challenge instead of a defeat, she said. Yes, the Army failed me and my son, Smitty, but together we can make it better. Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528. CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) A Moldovan news website claims that Diana Cojocari, mother of missing girl Madalina Cojocari, has left the United States. According to the website UniMedia, they claim a Facebook post, which has since been taken down, showed Diana Cojocari on a plane, with her mother sitting behind her. The screenshot of the post, translated from Romanian, indicated that she was en route from New York, to Frankfurt, Germany, to Romania. The post noted that it was a 9-year absence from the country, which may refer to her native Moldova. Cojocari, who lived in Cornelius, pled guilty in Mecklenburg County Court earlier this year to failure to file a report on the disappearance of a child, stemming from the 2022 disappearance of her daughter, Madalina. As of late June 2024, she was considered a suspect in her daughters disappearance, according to Cornelius Police. Madalina Cojocari was last seen in public getting off a school bus, just before Thanksgiving 2022. She has not been seen since. Madalina Cojocari Diana Cojocari, along with her now-estranged husband Christopher Palmiter, were both accused of failing to file the missing persons report. A missing report was finally filed after Madalinas school tried repeatedly to get in touch with both parents. A report was ultimately filed three weeks after Madalina was last seen. Cornelius Police have been actively investigating the case since. Palmiter pled not guilty but was later convicted of the failure to report the charge. He received a suspended sentence. He has since filed for divorce from Diana Cojocari. Diana Cojocari was sentenced to time served for the 17 months she was in the Mecklenburg County Detention Center. Cojocari faced the possibility of being deported as a result of her conviction. It is not clear if Cojocari had her passport returned to her, or if she had filed for a replacement passport. State evidence released during the Palmiter trial showed that Palmiter had asked Diana Cojocari about her daughters whereabouts after she was last seen, but he claimed he never received a specific answer. The evidence released also showed several wire transfers to Dianas mother, who lives in Eastern Europe. Evidence also included what appeared to be voice memo recordings taken by Diana Cojocari having conversations with Palmiter, recorded after Madalina was last seen but before her being reported missing. Notes on the conversations by authorities noted that the conversations were paranoid, with repeated accusations and questions. Palmiter said during the trial that Cojocari felt that Russian entities, including Vladimir Putin and the late singer Michael Jackson, were watching her. He additionally said Diana Cojocari had asked for him to hide her and her daughter somewhere. Queen City News has reached out to Cornelius Police for any further information related to Diana Cojocaris departure. Queen City News Finding Madalina Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Mountain biker mistakes a house cat for a cougar in attack from tree A mountain biker reported being attacked by a mountain lion that jumped on him from a tree as he rode by, causing scratches to his leg. Turns out, it was a case of mistaken identity. The 19-year-old was riding on James Way in Arroyo Grande, California, when the encounter occurred last Wednesday, according to the San Luis Obispo Tribune. Wildlife officers investigated the incident and took some of the victims clothes and bicycle helmet to the Wildlife Forensic Laboratory in Sacramento for DNA testing, which began on Sunday. By Monday morning, lab technicians had properly identified the feline. Lab results came back not with evidence of a cougar, but domestic cat DNA instead, the The Tribune stated. Mountain lion DNA was not detected on any of the samples, Patrick Foy, a captain with California Fish and Wildlifes law enforcement division, told The Tribune. Foy told The Tribune that the victim declined any medical treatment. Only 24 mountain lion attacks on humans have been reported since 1984, The Tribune reported. The majority of incidents were nonfatal, although in four cases in El Dorado, San Diego and Orange counties, victims died. No cases have been reported in San Luis Obispo County, however an attack in Gaviota State Park in Santa Barbara occurred in 1992. Generic photo of a real mountain lion courtesy of the Pocatello Police Department. Story originally appeared on For The Win Index fund investing has had a huge effect on the stock market. (Seth Wenig / Associated Press) The share of adult Americans who own stocks is approaching an all-time high of 63%, which may explain why events such as the surge in "meme" stocks like GameStop gets such generous play in the news. But it doesn't explain why the investment vehicles that dominate Americans' portfolios passive mutual funds tied to market indexes such as the Standard & Poor's 500 have traditionally drawn so much less interest in the news media. That may be changing, thanks to concerns about index funds expressed across the partisan spectrum. To put these concerns simply, Democrats and progressives are uneasy about the concentration of investment power in the hands of a few fund management firms that vacuum the vast bulk of investment dollars into their index funds, notably BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. Control of most public companies...will soon be concentrated in the hands of a dozen or fewer people. John C. Coates, Harvard Law School (2018) Republicans and conservatives also fret about the concentration of power, but their concern is more specific they complain that the passive fund managers deploying $15 trillion in assets globally are surreptitiously pushing a liberal agenda on corporate managements, especially in "ESG" categories, the environment, social issues and corporate governance. That was the claim of 21 red-state attorneys general, who groused last year in letters to the big asset management firms that they appeared to be pressing managers of their portfolio companies to act against global warming (as though that's a bad thing). More on that in a bit. First, a primer on passive investing and why it attracts so much money. As so many investors have learned from bitter experience, trying to pick individual winners in the stock market is a mug's game. Doing the financial analysis necessary to judge the potential gains of individual stocks is a full-time job, and most people already have full-time jobs. Few have the financial resources to brave the periodic downdrafts in the stock market without quailing. (As J.P. Morgan supposedly advised a friend who said he was so worried about his portfolio that he couldn't sleep at night, "Then sell down to your sleeping point.") Enter the index mutual fund. Jack Bogle of Vanguard launched the first such fund to be widely marketed to retail investors in 1975. It was designed to match the performance of the S&P 500 simply by replicating its holdings and their weighting in the index. It was, in short, a way for the average investor to ride the ups and downs of the stock market effortlessly. Story continues Read more: Column: In a major rebuke to Exxon Mobil, CalPERS will vote against its entire board Index funds have several virtues. Because the makeup of the 500 index changes only rarely, the 500 fund and funds like it make few purchases or sales. That reduces transaction costs, which allowed Bogle to keep fees low. They're also tax-friendly because they don't have to sell stocks very often, they incur minimal capital gains taxes, which would be passed through to its investors. The Vanguard 500 fund, along with other index funds, exposed the dirty little secret of the brokerage industry: "Active" fund managers, who bought and sold vigorously to dump losing stocks and ride winners, seldom did better than the broad market. Over the last year, only about 40% of actively managed large-company funds did better than the S&P 500 index, according to S&P's SPIVA scorecard (for "S&P Indices Versus Active"). Over the last 10 years, only about 12.6% of large-cap funds beat the S&P 500. It's true that a stock-picker here or there will have a successful run, but rarely for more than a few years. The most famous, Peter Lynch of Fidelity Investments, had a gilt-edged run from 1977 to 1990, during which he built Fidelity's Magellan Fund from $18 million in assets to $14 billion. In that time span Magellan averaged an annual return of 29%, possibly the most successful such run ever. But Lynch had some advantages that are rarely noted: For the first four years of his management, Magellan was a private investment fund for Fidelity's founding Johnson family; it wasn't opened to outsiders until 1981. For years after that it was relatively small, which is almost always an advantage for fund managers. By the end of Lynch's tenure Magellan was a behemoth struggling to eke out "a razor thin margin of victory," as an investment expert put it. Magellan actually fell behind the S&P 500 in two of Lynch's final four years of management. Read more: Column: Exxon Mobil is suing its shareholders to silence them about global warming That's not unusual. Fewer than 5% of all actively managed funds remain in the top half of funds by performance for even five years. So it's not surprising that passively managed index funds have outrun active funds for years. Finally, as of the end of December according to Morningstar, assets in passive investments including mutual funds and exchange-trade funds exceeded those in active investments, $13.29 trillion versus $13.23 trillion. That gap is destined to widen. But that success has generated a backlash. The issue boils down to whether there can be too much passive investing and if so, how much is too much. What unnerves some market experts is that passive investors by their nature don't care what they're buying in fact, they usually don't even know. (How many owners of Vanguard's S&P 500 index fund can name even 10 stocks in the index?) That relieves them of the chore, even the duty, of making judgments about a company's future, its competitive behavior, its prospects. A 2014 academic paper suggested that, because index fund investors are likely to own all the major competitors in a given industry (because all are in the S&P 500), aggressive competing by one will reduce the value of the others, possibly lowering the value of the index. So pressure on corporate managers to increase market share evaporates, and the industry begins to resemble a monopoly, which produces a "loss for the economy and adverse consequences for consumers." A related drawback comes from the dominance of the passive asset business by a small number of huge brokerage firms. This is what legal expert John C. Coates of Harvard Law School called "the problem of twelve" that "control of most public companies ... will soon be concentrated in the hands of a dozen or fewer people," namely, the top managers of the biggest passive investment firms. They, not individual investors, will decide what corporate policies should be, and they'll have access to trillions of dollars in assets belonging to billions of uncaring investors to make their own views heard. Read more: Column: A Trump judge eviscerates a pro-worker regulation at the request of big employers That's the prospect that had the red-state attorneys general vibrating. "You are not the same as political or social activists," they wrote, "and you should not be allowing the vast savings entrusted to you to be commandeered by activists to advance non-financial goals." Among those goals, they wrote, is changing corporate behavior "so that it aligns with the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goal of achieving net zero by 2050." (That is, achieving neutral impact on global warming by that year.) There are a couple of problems with the red-staters' argument. For one thing, there's no evidence that ESG policies are necessarily at odds with the goals of the average investor, who may indeed favor increasing diversity and fighting the threat of global warming. Some investors may indeed see the improvement of social and environmental conditions as a responsibility of corporate managements. Another problem is that defining racism and global warning as "non-financial" problems is a crabbed, highly partisan and erroneous viewpoint. A company that allows racial discrimination to reign on its factory floors is asking for regulatory problems and for a loss of customers. There are precious few businesses that will be immune from the costs of global warming, which could force them to close or relocate plants or deplete their profits. The authors of that threatening letter are performing for what may be a very narrow and shrinking voting base. They're the ones who may be pushing "non-financial" policies on corporations; they're just too blind to see the possible costs of the status quo. They're backed by right-wing organizations. That said, the concentration of financial power in passive investment funds has raised concerns in Washington, and not only among conservatives. In April, the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., a major federal bank regulator, began pondering whether the biggest index fund firms may own enough shares in banks to exercise unwelcome policy control. Read more: Column: Vanguard, one of our top investment firms, shuns crypto 'like the plague.' That's good for its customers Members of the FDIC board Republican Jonathan McKernan and Democrat Rohit Chopra met jointly with executives from BlackRock and Vanguard to get a better sense of their bank holdings, the Wall Street Journal reported. Nothing has come of those meetings as yet, but the big passive investment firms have taken steps to give their investment customers more say in how their shares are voted on shareholder proposals at corporate annual meetings. Up to now, the firms have done the voting of what may be sizable holdings in stocks in individual companies, often following the lead of proxy advisory services such as Glass, Lewis & Co. or Institutional Shareholder Services. Starting in 2022, BlackRock afforded clients in some of its funds to make their own voting decisions. The firm says that by the end of last year, investors in funds valued at $2.6 trillion of its $5.2 trillion in equity index funds were eligible to participate in what it calls Voting Choice; clients with $598 billion in holdings in those funds participated. Vanguard introduced a pilot program along the same lines last year and expanded it this year. Investors in five of its equity index funds can choose from among four approaches: casting votes consistent with a portfolio company management's recommendations; voting along with the ESG recommendations of Glass Lewis; leaving their vote up to Vanguard; or not casting a vote at all. Whether that will quell the backlash against concentrated passive investing isn't clear just yet. It may energize more investors to pay attention to the companies in their index funds. Or, given that retail investors are known not to bother voting on shareholder resolutions, it could even strengthen the hand of the big firms in seeking to guide policy of indexed corporations. The only thing that everyone seems to agree on is that passive investing does better than active management at the moment. Whether or when that tide will turn ... who knows? Get the latest from Michael Hiltzik Commentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize winner. Sign me up. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. EDMOND, Okla. (KFOR) A chilling 9-1-1 call led investigators to what they say was a body found at the Coltrane Mini Storage in Edmond. According to Edmond Police, the suspect is 36-year-old Kyle Fedus. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Edmond PD make arrest after body found in storage facility He was arrested on Saturday at an Edmond LaQuinta hotel for an outstanding warrant in North Carolina for violating probation on a robbery charge. Police say he also gave a chilling admission. He ended up confessing to a pact he had with this female where they would both take their own lives outside this storage facility. Thats his side of the story. Of course we dont have hers, said Emily Ward with Edmond Police Department. According to the affidavit, Fedus said he and the victim, Elyse Betz, were in Oklahoma hiding from police due to his warrant. And if they were caught, theyd both commit suicide by injecting themselves with deadly doses of drugs. The affidavit also says the suspect used a pre-made syringe of Fentanyl mixed with Meth. Investigators say the relationship between the two has not been confirmed. However, police say the two were staying together at an Edmond Best Western. Edmond PD says Elyse was found on her stomach, and the suspect did not call 9-1-1 for help. Elyses family has been notified. Edmond Police say Fedus has been charged with first degree murder and is now in the Oklahoma County Jail. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City. The search for a suspect behind the butchered body of an alleged sugar daddy and suspicious sweep of his financial accounts has finally come to an end. Authorities say a torn ligament was the key toward solving the mystery. Fasil Teklemariam, 53, was found dead in his Washington D.C. apartment in April, covered in stab wounds, cuts and pieces of broken glass, per an affidavit. His cause of death was ruled as a result of multiple blunt and sharp force injuries, per NBC. Also, his right thumb was missing, appearing to be severed from his hand, police say. The search for suspects began by examining the residences surveillance camera footage, which captured several people coming in and out of the victims apartment, including Tiffany Gray, 22, and Audrey Miller, 19. The police alleged the group was seen using Teklemariams key fob to access his home, stealing various electronics and watches on their way out. They also said witnesses informed them Teklemariam had relations with the two women who may have had a hand in his killing. A look into a complaint he previously filed with the police last year helped cement the claim. Read more from NBC Washington: Investigators got a break in the case when they learned of a complaint Teklemariam filed with D.C. police last year claiming Gray had taken his phone and used it to steal $1,800 his finance app, police said. Then investigators learned Teklemariams cellphone last pinged from a tower in College Park, Maryland, not far from where Gray rented an apartment. A law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said the claim Teklemariam was Grays sugar daddy has not been verified. Investigators do believe the victims severed thumb was used to access his phone. Following the probe into the mans slaying, police believed Miler and Gray worked in tandem to steal money from his accounts with his severed thumb and use it to ball out on liquor and marijuana, among other things. Police arrested Miller June 21 on charges of first-degree murder and armed felony murder. Gray was arrested July 1 on the same charges, per the report. Police say there may be a potential third suspect in connection to Teklemariams death. The two await their preliminary hearings whilein custody. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, 3001 Central Street in Evanston, Ill. will host a free community conversation "Homelessness and Chicagos Native American Community" on Thursday, August 1 from 6:30 to 8 pm - Central Time. The event is produced by Chicagos PBS station WTTW, which recently launched a multi-ear investigative project that looks at the firsthand perspectives of people facing homelessness in Chicago, called Firsthand: Homeless. Panelists will discuss the Native American homeless population, barriers to affordable housing, and the first affordable housing development for Native Americans in Chicago's history. Panelists will include Pamala Silas, the associate director of Outreach and Engagement at Northwestern Universitys Center for Native American and Indigenous Research, and Jaime Torres Carmona, the founder and principal of CANOPY, an award-winning architecture and urban design practice in Chicago. Shelly Tucciarelli, executive director at Visionary Ventures, will moderate the discussion. The event is free and open to the public. About the Author: "Native News Online is one of the most-read publications covering Indian Country and the news that matters to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other Indigenous people. Reach out to us at editor@nativenewsonline.net. " Contact: news@nativenewsonline.net The News Tesla CEO Elon Musk prioritized China over India when he canceled a highly anticipated visit to New Delhi, the Financial Times reported. Musk was due to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April and scout a potential location for a massive Tesla factory, but the last-minute change of plans sparked speculation about Musks commitment to India. His employees reportedly convinced him to snub Modi and focus on a Beijing trip instead, where the tech mogul made strides toward getting approval for Teslas self-driving technology in China. Musk wants to be everywhere, and thats how he operates, so he needs both China and India, one insider said. He is reportedly still obsessed with Indias potential as an auto market and manufacturing hub. N.C. man sentenced to prison for helping breach U.S. Capitol during Jan. 6 riots A 36-year-old man from the North Carolina mountains was sentenced to prison Tuesday for pushing with great effort against police during the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors said. Brevard resident Alan Michael St. Onge was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison during a federal court hearing in Washington, D.C., according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release. St. Onge pleaded guilty on Jan. 31 to two felony counts of civil disorder, the Observer previously reported. Held a stolen police shield St. Onge joined other rioters in breaching the Capitol and disrupting a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors said. Congress convened the session to count electoral votes, certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election over Donald Trump. St. Onge helped breach a police barricade on the east plaza of the U.S. Capitol and repeatedly pushed against a police line in an entrance to the Capitol building known as the lower west terrace tunnel, according to court documents. Some of the most violent attacks against police occurred in the tunnel, prosecutors said. Over at least two hours, people threw items at police defending the tunnel, sprayed officers with chemical irritants and stole items from them, court records show. Minutes before St. Onge entered the tunnel, closed-circuit television footage showed another crowd member handing him a stolen U.S. Capitol Police riot shield, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia said in a news release. St. Onge stood near the mouth of the tunnel at the time, prosecutors said. He held that shield for a moment and then set it down in the mouth of the tunnel, according to the release. Feds: He was everywhere outside Capitol St. Onge left the tunnel about a minute later, only to return and join the shoving of police, prosecutors said. Video shows him all around the U.S. Capitol grounds that day. St. Onge was arrested in Brevard on June 16, 2023. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols also ordered St. Onge on Tuesday to serve three years of supervised release when his prison term ends and pay $2,000 in restitution. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Months after a deadly March shooting, Metro Nashville police have added a man who was recently identified as a suspect in the case to their Top 10 Most Wanted list. The list is updated every Wednesday on the Criminal Warrants Divisions Facebook page. According to police, those featured on the list are often considered to be some of the most violent offenders in the city. Most Wanted fugitive arrested after chase on Belmont University campus Of the suspects on this weeks list, all but two are wanted for either homicide, murder or charges related to alleged sex crimes. The rest of Nashvilles Most Wanted suspects are accused of crimes such as aggravated burglary and facilitating aggravated kidnapping. Four of the suspects on this weeks list are wanted for homicide or murder charges, including the newest addition, 31-year-old Miqueal Williams. Authorities announced earlier this week that Williams had been connected to a deadly March 4 shooting. As the search for Williams and the rest of Nashvilles Most Wanted fugitives continues, the list has aided police in several arrests. Four suspects were recently arrested within the span of a week, including two men who had been on the run for almost three years. Suspect in multiple Nashville shootings arrested after high-speed chase In total, at least 120 Most Wanted suspects have been arrested since the program was launched in October 2022. Investigators have largely attributed the programs success to tips theyve received from the public. Below is a list of the suspects who made the police departments Top 10 Most Wanted list the week of July 10, 2024. 1. Adrian L. Cameron Adrian Cameron (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) At number one, Adrian Cameron, 19, is considered this weeks Top Most Wanted fugitive, according to the MNPD. This is the ninth week in a row Cameron has appeared on the list. However, police have been looking for him since mid-April. Investigators said Cameron is one of three suspects in the death of 32-year-old rapper Chris King, who was shot and killed just before 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 20. King and his friends were reportedly hanging out in an alleyway between Hayes Street and Church Street that night. RELATED: 1 killed, 1 injured in shooting along Hayes Street Eventually, three other men began interacting with the group. Kings friends told police it started out cordial, but after some time, the three suspects allegedly tried to rob them. Thats when gunfire ran out, injuring King and his 29-year-old friend. Both of them were brought to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, but King did not survive. Cameron, who was out on bond for the 2021 murder of 50-year-old Josh Evans at the time, was identified as a suspect in the shooting only days later. Officials believe Cameron cut his ankle monitor shortly after the shooting. Cameron had just turned 17 years old when police said he turned himself in for Evans murder. Evans was found shot and wrapped in trash bags in the Cumberland River in Sept. 2021. Unbelievable: Mourning Lebanon family outraged teen murder suspect was out on bond, accused of killing again Cameron was arrested again for gun charges in Rutherford County less than four months after turning himself in for the 2021 murder. Hes now charged with criminal homicide in connection with Kings death, as well as failure to appear. However, efforts to locate him have been unsuccessful. Anyone with information on Camerons whereabouts is asked to contact the MNPD at 615-862-8600 or Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463. 2. Lagarrion L. Blacksmith Lagarrion Blacksmith (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) Lagarrion Blacksmith, 35, has been at the top of Nashvilles Most Wanted list for several months as police continue to try to track him down. He was initially added to the list on Nov. 29, 2023, after investigators said they were able to connect him to a deadly shooting that took place outside a Dickerson Pike bar last year. Officers found 35-year-old Chancellor Eddins lying on the ground just outside of Trvth Lounge on Feb. 18, 2023. He had been shot and later died at the scene. Another man who had also been hit by the gunfire was able to give officers an account of what happened. RELATED: Man wanted for homicide, other charges following fatal February shooting on Dickerson Pike According to police, the injured man told them he and Eddins had gotten into an argument with the suspect inside of the bar. Then, shots were fired as they left the location. At the time, the identity of the alleged shooter was unclear. Months later, investigators announced Blacksmith had been identified as a suspect. On Nov. 22, 2023, officials said arrest warrants had been issued against Blacksmith for criminal homicide, attempted homicide, and felon in possession of a handgun. However, efforts to locate him have reportedly been unsuccessful. 3. Miqueal O. Williams Miqueal O. Williams (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) Miqueal Williams, 31, is a new addition to the list this week. Williams was recently indicted on a first-degree murder charge after police said they were able to connect him to the March 4 shooting of 32-year-old Samuel Edwards Jr. The shooting happened just after 3:30 a.m. at an apartment complex on Buena Vista Pike. Authorities said Edwards was at the apartment complex visiting an acquaintance when he noticed someone was following him. RELATED: MNPD working to locate suspect following indictment for March murder The man, who remained unidentified for several months, opened fire on Edwards, striking him one time, according to officials. Edwards was taken to TriStar Skyline Medical Center where he later died from his injury. The motive for the shooting remains unclear. However, on Monday, July 8, the police department announced that detectives had identified Williams as a possible suspect and that he had been indicted by a grand jury. Officers are continuing to search for Williams. His last location is unknown. 4. Michael A. Yarlett Michael A. Yarlett (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) Michael Yarlett, 29, is wanted on three counts of aided and abetted rape, according to authorities. Court documents indicate he is one of two suspects in the incident, which happened in September 2022. Yarlett was added to the Most Wanted list on Nov. 22, 2023. Officials said his last location is unknown. 5. Ladonte J. Groves Ladonte Groves (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) Ladonte Groves, 23, was added back to the list on April 3 after first being featured among Nashvilles Most Wanted on Aug. 16, 2023. Police said Groves has since been indicted by a grand jury on multiple charges related to alleged sex crimes. 3 killed, 2 injured in shootings over the weekend in Nashville The charges against him include two counts of rape, two counts of sexual battery and one count of domestic assault. Authorities said Groves was last seen in the East Nashville area. However, efforts to locate him have been unsuccessful. 6. Diego Camaja-Santiago Diego Camaja-Santiago (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) Police are continuing to search for Diego Camaja-Santiago, 24, after he initially appeared on the Most Wanted list nearly a year ago on Aug. 16. He was added back to the list on June 12 after being indicted by a grand jury on several charges related to alleged sex crimes. According to authorities, Camaja-Santiago has outstanding warrants for two counts of aggravated rape with bodily injury, two counts of statutory rape and probation violation. His last location is unknown. 7. Edgar Monje-Alfaro Edgar Monje-Alfaro (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) Edgar Monje-Alfaro, 24, is wanted by the MNPD after recently being indicted by a grand jury on two counts of statutory rape. Monje-Alfaro was added to the Most Wanted list last week. Officials said his last location is unknown. 8. Adrian Abernathy Adrian Abernathy (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) Adrian Abernathy, 30, is believed to have been behind the wheel of a stolen car in a deadly October 2022 crash on the Rosa L. Parks Boulevard exit ramp from I-65 North. Abernathy has outstanding warrants for vehicular homicide, three counts of aggravated assault, felon in possession of a weapon, theft of a motor vehicle, theft of a firearm, reckless endangerment and making a false report. RELATED: Man wanted after allegedly lying about driving stolen car involved in deadly crash According to police, Abernathy initially said he was a backseat passenger in the stolen Lincoln Navigator SUV. However, over the course of the investigation, detectives determined the seating positions were reversed and Abernathy was the one driving the car. Authorities said he was traveling over 100 mph shortly before the crash, which killed 29-year-old Todd Bryant of Antioch. Abernathy has been featured on the Most Wanted list several times since early February 2023. He was added back to the list on May 1 after last being featured in November. Officials said he was last seen in Hermitage. 9. Marisah D. White Marisah D. White (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) Marisah White, 21, is wanted on outstanding warrants for robbery, two counts of facilitating aggravated kidnapping and theft of property, according to police. Court records show she is one of two people involved in the alleged crimes, which took place more than two years ago on April 4, 2022. White was added to the list on June 19. Officials said her last location is unknown. 10. Joshua R. Starkey Joshua R. Starkey (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) Joshua Starkey, 19, is among some of the youngest suspects to appear among Nashvilles Most Wanted. Police said Starkey is wanted for one count of aggravated robbery with a weapon or object. He was added to the list last week. His last known location was in Hermitage. CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime news from Middle Tennessee Anyone with information on any of the suspects listed is asked to contact the MNPD at 615-862-8600 or Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. The National Park Service Awards Over $10M For HBCU Funding To Several Universities Including FAMU, Jackson State And More The National Park Service Awards Over $10M For HBCU Funding To Several Universities Including FAMU, Jackson State And More | Photo: Hennadii Havrylko via Getty Images The National Park Service announced its awarding $10,670,000 to help preserve HBCUs and on-campus repairs. The federal agency will contribute to 15 projects in eight states as part of the Historic Preservation Funds Historically Black Colleges and Universities grant program. Its vital for Americas HBCUs to preserve their vibrant history, ensuring that the places and the events that happened there are not forgotten, National Park Service Director Chuck Sams said in a press release. Im proud that the National Park Service can support this locally-led stewardship. Efforts will kick start this year with grants to support repairs at Simmons College in Kentucky, Delaware State University and Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. The grant will help rehabilitate historic infrastructure like Delaware States Hope House, a pre-1885 three-story frame building that will soon provide campus social services. At Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, funding will help restore Melrose Cottage, built around 1785. It served as the university presidents house in the first half of the 20th century and was later listed in the National Park Services National Register of Historic Places in 1986. The building will house the welcome center for campus tours and the admission team. Most universities will receive around $750,000 toward infrastructure repairs. FAMU was awarded $749,997 to rehabilitate the Carnegie Library, while Jackson State University was given $198,564 for the preservation of its Zachary T. Hubert Health Center. Alcorn State University is receiving the subsequent sum of $2,222,400, which will be put toward repairs of Harmon Hall, the rehabilitation of dormitories and the Belles Lettres Hall. Funding was approved by Congress through the Historic Preservation Fund, which uses revenue from federal oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf to assist with preservation projects. Created in 1977, the HPF authorized $150 million per year through 2024. So far, it has provided over $2 billion to states, tribes, local governments and nonprofits to help them preserve historic resources tied to Civil Rights, Tribal Heritage and more. NATO heads of state and government gathered on the 75th anniversary of NATO's creation in Washington, D.C., on July 9. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) The members of NATO issued their plan for the next year during the 75th anniversary summit in Washington, calling Ukraines path to membership in the alliance irreversible. The communique is a rhetorical flourish to the document issued last year in Vilnius, Lithuania, and the strongest commitment to date on having the embattled country join the security pact. We welcome the concrete progress Ukraine has made since the Vilnius Summit on its required democratic, economic, and security reforms, the Washington Declaration reads. As Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership. Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters the alliance will ensure that when the time is right, Ukraine will join without delay. It is not a question of if but when, he said. But to the disappointment of Ukraines biggest supporters, there is no invitation for the nation to join, nor is there a more specific plan to do so. Unlike during last years summit, Ukraines delegation understood that such an offer almost certainly wouldnt arrive. Officials in Kyiv instead turned to the material support they could gather from the summit, like air defense, F-16 fighter jets and an expanded role for NATO to aid Ukraines military. Negotiators working on the communique had jostled over whether it would call Ukraines path irreversible or a bridge. In the end, both made it into the document a win for those pushing to harden last years language. But as many Ukrainian officials and analysts told Defense News this week, its still only language. Beside the political decisions, which we understand can only go so far now, we need practical decisions on equipment, Igor Zhovkva, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told Defense News. The pledge includes a large package of such support for Ukraine, including a long-term support for its self-defense. Next year, the allies have pledged to send Ukraine at least $43 billion in funding, some of which will go toward security. Part of the motivation for this commitment is the U.S. presidential election in November, when former President Donald Trump a skeptic of NATO and the support for Ukraine could return to the White House. It also confirms a NATO command in Wiesbaden, Germany, made up of 700 personnel. As Ukraine wanted, this new group will supplement rather than entirely replace the work of another forum convened every month by the U.S. That said, there is still some disagreement within the alliance over which group will lead assistance to Ukraine in the longer run. In June, speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels, a senior U.S. defense official said the new command wouldnt replace the American-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group. But speaking the week before the summit at an embassy in Washington, a European official said something different. Progressively NATO will take that responsibility, the official said. Speaking with reporters on Monday, a senior NATO official attributed the disconnect in part to nascency. This is a new mechanism that has been set up, the official said of the Wiesbaden command. There will be an incremental stepping up of NATOs role. The communique also takes the harshest line on China to date, calling it a decisive enabler of Russias war against Ukraine through support for the Russian defense industry, part of a bigger partnership between the two autocracies. NATO called on China to cease such support, and also named two other partners offering military assistance to Russia: North Korea and Iran. We strongly condemn [North Koreas] exports of artillery shells and ballistic missiles, which are in violation of numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions, and note with great concern the deepening ties between [North Korea] and Russia, the document reads. Any transfer of ballistic missiles and related technology by Iran to Russia would represent a substantial escalation. One of the core struggles for NATO since the war has been surging its member states defense industries to compete in the kind of slogging warfare occurring in Ukraine. As a companion to the communique, the alliance also released a defense-industrial pledge, intended to help marshal their collective manufacturing sectors. Among its commitments are joint procurements, the lowering trade barriers and the fortification of supply chains. In the next five years, according to the pledge, the allies plan to buy thousands of air defense and artillery systems, 850 modern aircraft, mostly 5th generation F-35 jets and other weapons. Its Nato week in Washington. That means that traffic is backed up, metro stops are closed and American allies have descended on the nations capital to focus on its longstanding support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on its 75th anniversary. Ostensibly, this should be a moment of celebration. Nato coming to Washington should symbolize Americas status as a world leader. Amid the war in Ukraine, President Joe Biden and allies have shown a unified front against Russian President Vladimir Putins aggression. Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a major supporter of Ukraine, introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Reagan Institute (a reminder of a bygone era when Republicans supported the robust American interventionism that the institutes namesake championed.) House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Zelensky and newly-minted UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a sign they still want to make maintain the Cold War line that politics ends at waters edge. But like with everything in Washington, especially as Bidens re-election remains precarious, the specter of Donald Trump looms large over the summit. Trump has, of course, shown hostility to Nato. In February, that he said that when it comes to Nato allies who do not agree to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense, not only would the United States not defend their countries from a Russian attack but I would encourage them [the Russians] to do whatever the hell they want. Back in February, most Republicans brushed off Trumps remarks. Senator Rand Paul, one of the most isolationist Republicans, told The Independent that Trumps remarks were a stupid thing to say. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas said, I think that people need to realize that you should take everything that he says seriously, but not literally. Now that his presidency seems likelier each day, Republicans are adopting the Trump line. Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, the most dyed-in-wool MAGA Republican, chided Nato when I spoke with him on Wednesday. Well, first of all, I'd like to say thanks to the American taxpayers for last 75 years paying for the security of Nato, he told The Independent. We need to hold the hat out when they get on their private jets and fly home and said, Hey, put money in this hat, we need you to pay up for you to leave. That's what President Trump is all about. This has long been a complaint of Republicans: claiming that the United States shoulders an unfair amount of the burden. Ironically, Biden has specifically mentioned that only nine countries in Nato spent the 2 percent before he took office, whereas 23 countries will in 2024. Of course, that has not stopped Republicans from complaining. I think what President Trump's been pretty clear about and I share the point of view is that it's time for our Nato allies to step up from a financial perspective, Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri told The Independent. I think the American people don't appreciate subsidizing the social programs of European countries when they don't pay enough for their percentage of their GDP to defense. Republicans who preceded Trump also said that they believed in Nato but that the countries needed to cough up dough. I think the commitment to Nato is critical, but I also think the Nato needs to do more, Senator John Cornyn of Texas told The Independent. The son of Texas who came of age in the time of the Bushes touting international order Cornyn is one of the two frontrunners to replace McConnell at the end of the year. But he is clearly easing into the Trump, America First approach to foreign policy. Earlier this year, Congress struggled to pass a spending package that would have swapped aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in exchange for immigration restrictions, largely because of Trumps objections. It took the Senate passing a standalone aid package which Democrats wanted in the first place and many more months for the House to pass aid to Ukraine. Incidentally, its Senate Democrats who are more willing to defend Americas role as a world leader. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona told The Independent that in the case of Nato, hes already done the damage by saying he would not honor the defend a member nation that is attacked. If you just listen to what Donald Trump has said and continues to say about not only Nato, but about other alliances, he is a danger to national security, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona told The Independent. Its a far cry from the days of John McCain, the hawkish 2008 Republican presidential nominee whose seat Kelly is in now and who, Kelly added, he really looked up to. Conversely, McCains former best friend in the Senate, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, echoed Trump, as he does in many other cases. Graham said Nato countries should be ready to contribute more and kept it at that. Creditors for Ruby Giuliani told a judge this week that they want an investigation into the legal fees that former President Donald Trump owes the former New York City mayor. According to court documents, Under oath, (Giuliani) estimated that he is owed about two million dollars for those services. In a Feb. 7 deposition, Giuliani said the Trump campaign had never paid him anything, Newsweek reported. Giuliani filed bankruptcy after a jury awarded Fulton County election workers Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss $148 million after they said he continued to spread lies about them tampering with votes from the 2020 election. RELATED STORIES: Last week, Giuliani filed to have his bankruptcy case changed from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7. That would allow him to sell off his assets to pay for his debt but he would not have to provide creditors with a repayment plan. On Monday, the Creditors Committee, which is overseeing the money owed to Moss and Freeman, filed an objection to converting the case, saying, Giuliani has treated this Court, the bankruptcy process, and the Committee the same way he treated the D.C. District Court and the Freeman Plaintiffs in the Freeman Litigation, with utter disrespect and without accountability. Giuliani is playing the delay game. That filing was removed on Wednesday following a hearing in front of the judge. The creditors in this case have already expressed their frustration with Guiliani after months of trying to get complete information on his finances. The creditors have also asked that a trustee be named to oversee Giulianis finances. RELATED NEWS: NATO agrees to take on coordination of some Ukraine security support. How that will work President Joe Biden speaks during the opening session of the NATO Summit, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) WASHINGTON (AP) NATO has agreed to launch a new program to provide reliable military aid and training to Ukraine and help it get ready to join the alliance. The plan will supplement, but not replace, the two-year-old Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which was created by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after Russia launched its February 2022 invasion into Ukraine. That group, with more than 50 nations from Europe and around the world, coordinates the delivery of much-needed weapons and training to Ukraine. But the failure of the U.S. Congress to fund any weapons for months due to partisan gridlock late last year and early this year, as well as similar lags in European Union funds, underscored how vulnerable that effort was to the vagaries of politics. And the delays allowed Russian troops to gain the advantage on the battlefield, and led to widespread complaints from Ukraine's forces about lack of equipment and weapons. Some officials have described the new NATO organization as a way to Trump-proof alliance support for Ukraine in case former President Donald Trump wins the November election. But that may be a reach. Here's what is planned and what it will and won't do: Ukraine Defense Contact Group Over the past two years, the U.S.-created group has evolved into a more sophisticated and organized effort that so far has pumped more than $100 billion in weapons, equipment and training into Ukraine. The U.S. alone has sent more than $53.6 billion in security aid, including about $25 billion in presidential drawdown authority, under which weapons are taken from Pentagon stocks and sent quickly to Ukraine. The U.S. has provided more than $27 billion in longer-term funding for weapons contracts through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. The rest of the NATO members and other international partners have provided about $50 billion in weapons and security assistance, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an independent research organization based in Germany. An international coordination center was set up at Lucius D. Clay Kaserne, the U.S. Army base in Wiesbaden, Germany, to identify Ukraine's needs, and to locate equipment, weapons and spare parts in other countries that could fill those requirements. That group may eventually be absorbed into the new NATO organization. And the contact group set up eight so-called capability coalitions headed by various countries to concentrate on specific military requirements: such as fighter aircraft, tanks, artillery, naval assets, air defense, de-mining, cyber and drones. Those are expected to continue. The new NATO plan Under the plan endorsed by NATO heads of state on Wednesday, the alliance will take on a broader role to coordinate training and equipment donations. The effort will be based at the U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden in Germany and is expected to be led by a U.S. three-star general. There will be about 700 staff members, including some who will work at logistics nodes in eastern allied nations. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the new program would put support for Ukraine on a firmer footing for years to come but would avoid making the alliance a party to the war between Russia and Ukraine. And NATO also is pledging to provide at least 40 billion ($43.3 billion) within the next year, and to provide sustainable levels of security assistance for Ukraine to prevail, while taking into account budgets and other agreements. The new coordination effort is dubbed the NSATU NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine and it will oversee three main areas: A way to help Ukraine join NATO A critical component of the new NSATU is that it will help facilitate Ukraine's effort to become a member of NATO. Membership in the alliance requires that nations meet a litany of political, economic and security criteria. For example, Ukraine's military forces will have to meet certain standards of conduct and training, and their weapons and equipment have to be interoperable with those of other allied nations. The NSATU will help ensure that as time goes on the weapons and training for Ukraine fit what would be required for NATO membership. In announcing the effort earlier this year, Stoltenberg said it would help to organize training for Ukrainian military personnel in NATO member countries, coordinate and plan donations of the equipment that Kyiv needs, and manage the transfer and repair of that military equipment. But is it Trump-proof? Likely not. A key incentive for the broader NATO organization, according to some officials, is the worry that Trump could regain the presidency and scale back support for the alliance as well as help to Ukraine. Earlier this year, Trump reiterated his threat that he will not defend NATO members that dont meet defense spending targets. And he set off alarms in Europe by suggesting he would tell Russia to attack NATO allies he considered delinquent. And the gap in U.S. funding for Ukraine this year was the result of opposition from Republican allies of Trump in Congress who blocked the aid package for months. While moving some assistance for Ukraine under the NATO umbrella provides greater consistency, any change in U.S. administrations could trigger shifts in U.S. policy. And that could include limits on spending to support Ukraine or any other diplomatic or military operations. Participation in the Ukraine contact group, for example, could be upended, as well as any other Pentagon program. (Bloomberg) -- Nearly two dozen NATO countries will pledge this week to speed up efforts to bolster Ukraines military and defense capabilities, even as the prospect of another Donald Trump presidency looms large over the alliances summit in Washington. Most Read from Bloomberg The nations, which include the US, UK, France and Germany, will commit to meet within the next six months to agree on a roadmap to develop Ukraines future forces through 2027 and continue to strengthen them into the 2030s, according to a draft statement seen by Bloomberg. The overall aim of the so-called Ukraine Compact is to support Kyivs immediate defense and security needs as well as ensure it can deter future acts of aggression by Russia once the current war ends. The arrangement brings together allies that have in recent months and weeks signed bilateral security agreements with Kyiv, including Italy, Canada, Spain and the three Baltic nations. Listen and follow The Big Take on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts NATO is good for Europe, but its also good for the United States, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday. It makes the United States stronger and safer, because in NATO the US has something no other major power has that is more than 30 friends and allies. The NATO members are seeking to display a show of unity over the three-day summit meeting as Russian President Vladimir Putin steps up attacks on Ukraine. The allies also committed this week to provide more air-defense systems, although many of the commitments repeated past pledges. The new agreement with Ukraine comes as North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders meet in Washington, where much of the spotlight, both domestically and internationally, has been on President Joe Biden. His every move and word has been scrutinized following a disastrous CNN debate with Trump that raised doubts about his fitness to continue in high office. Stoltenberg tried to downplay fears of what a possible new Trump presidency would mean for the alliance. The presumptive Republican nominee previously threatened to pull the US out of NATO and more recently said hed let Russia do whatever the hell they want to alliance members that dont meet their defense spending obligations. I expect that, regardless of the outcome of the US elections, the US will remain strong and staunch NATO ally, Stoltenberg said on in Washington on Wednesday. Some allies worry about what happens to commitments agreed at this summit should Trump win the election in November and return to the White House. The former president has said he will seek a quick deal between Russia and Ukraine to end the war but has so far provided little detail of how he intends to do that nor has he said anything about future support for Kyiv. Compact signatories will also commit to convening swiftly in the event of future Russian armed attack against Ukraine following the conclusion of current hostilities and provide Kyiv with sustained security assistance and impose economic and other costs on Russia, according to the draft, which could still change before it gets the green light from leaders. On Tuesday, NATO allies promised five long-range air-defense systems for Ukraine in a fresh show of support, although the promise repeated some commitments that had already been made in recent weeks. Denmark and the Netherlands said they were donating US-made F-16s to Ukraine and its forces will begin flying the fighter jets this summer, US, Dutch and Danish leaders said in a statement Wednesday. They said Belgium and Norway have also committed to sending more aircraft. Battleground Stalemate The commitments come as fresh assessments indicate the conflict with Russia is headed toward indefinite stalemate. The latest assessment of the battlefield is that neither side is set to make significant gains, raising the possibility of a prolonged stalemate, according to people familiar with the situation. Ukraine has the resources to hold the line but not much more. One senior NATO official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity Tuesday, said Putin believes time is on his side and that the war will last well beyond 2025. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pushed for a concrete and time-bound plan for Ukraine to get membership to NATO, something that Putin is dead-set against and NATO nations have been so far unwilling to provide. In a summit statement expected this week, NATO is expected to offer Ukraine an irreversible path to membership, provided it makes necessary reforms meant to clean up corruption. --With assistance from Natalia Drozdiak, Daryna Krasnolutska, Jenny Leonard and Nick Wadhams. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaks during bilateral talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (not pictured) on the sidelines of the NATO summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa NATO leaders are expected to endorse a declaration of Ukraine's "irreversible path" to membership of the alliance on Wednesday, at a summit being held in Washington this week. The portion of text prepared for the summit declaration, seen by dpa on Wednesday, is intended to reassure Ukraine that its "future is in NATO." Leaders gathered on Tuesday for the first day of the summit, which is set to continue throughout Wednesday and Thursday. The text underscores that Ukraine can only join when all current members agree. The United States and Germany in particular are against rushing the process, diplomatic sources within the alliance said. But other NATO member states want to demonstrate that Russia cannot put the brakes on Ukraine joining NATO by waging war against the country. The text welcomes Ukraine's "concrete progress" on "its required democratic, economic and security reforms," since the last NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius a year ago. NATO has accepted the idea of Ukrainian membership in principle since 2008, while Ukraine has had its NATO membership ambitions enshrined in its national constitution since 2019. On the sidelines of the summit, the United States, the Netherlands and Denmark issued a joint statement saying that the transfer of US-made F-16 fighter jets from the Netherlands and Denmark to Ukraine was under way. "The transfer process for these F-16s is now under way, and Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer," the statement issued during the summit in Washington said. Belgium and Norway have also agreed to provide fighter jets to Ukraine, the statement noted. Speaking at a drinks reception in Washington on Tuesday, outgoing Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said his country would supply 30 jets, making Belgium the single biggest contributor of F-16s to Ukraine. During an event at the Ronald Reagan Foundation in Washington on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine was hoping to receive the first F-16s this summer. He said country needs at least 128 fighter jets, as Russia could deploy 300 aircraft per day. Zelensky is also attending the summit. US President Joe Biden on Tuesday opened the summit by announcing that NATO allies would supply additional air-defence systems to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Zelensky thanked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the delivery of Patriot air-defence systems from Germany. NATO leaders plan to continue to discuss support for Ukraine during Wednesday and Thursday. The talks follow a ceremony held on Tuesday to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the military alliance in the aftermath of World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The leaders are expected to discuss outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's plan to provide Kiev with military aid worth 40 billion ($43 billion) in 2025. NATO members have strongly supported Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. According to Stoltenberg, NATO needs to convince Russia that it cannot win its war against Ukraine by waiting for Western support to wither. But the 40-billion pledge has been watered down from the multi-year financial commitment for Ukraine that Stoltenberg initially wanted. The alliance plans to review the military aid again next year. The summit is Stoltenberg's last as secretary general. Former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is set to take over in October. Another part of the secretary general's plan to make long-term NATO commitments to Ukraine is a new support project called NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), approved by NATO defence ministers in June. The project, based in the German city of Wiesbaden, is to be staffed by 700 officials. Previously, NATO countries have been coordinating support to Ukraine through an informal, US-led group called the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. Doorstep statement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the start of the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington. -/NATO/dpa (L-R) US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stand together for the family photo at the NATO Summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa NATO leaders are expected to endorse a declaration of Ukraine's "irreversible path" to membership of the alliance on Wednesday, at a summit being held in Washington this week. The portion of text prepared for the summit declaration, seen by dpa on Wednesday, is intended to reassure Ukraine that its "future is in NATO." Leaders gathered on Tuesday for the first day of the summit, which is set to continue throughout Wednesday and Thursday. The text underscores that Ukraine can only join when all current members agree. The United States and Germany in particular are against rushing the process, diplomatic sources within the alliance said. But other NATO member states want to demonstrate that Russia cannot put the brakes on Ukraine joining NATO by waging war against the country. The text welcomes Ukraine's "concrete progress" on "its required democratic, economic and security reforms," since the last NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius a year ago. NATO has accepted the idea of Ukrainian membership in principle since 2008, while Ukraine has had its NATO membership ambitions enshrined in its national constitution since 2019. On the sidelines of the summit, the United States, the Netherlands and Denmark issued a joint statement saying that the transfer of US-made F-16 fighter jets from the Netherlands and Denmark to Ukraine was under way. "The transfer process for these F-16s is now under way, and Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer," the statement issued during the summit in Washington said. Belgium and Norway have also agreed to provide fighter jets to Ukraine, the statement noted. Speaking at a drinks reception in Washington on Tuesday, outgoing Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said his country would supply 30 jets, making Belgium the single biggest contributor of F-16s to Ukraine. During an event at the Ronald Reagan Foundation in Washington on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine was hoping to receive the first F-16s this summer. He said country needs at least 128 fighter jets, as Russia could deploy 300 aircraft per day. Zelensky is also attending the summit. US President Joe Biden on Tuesday opened the summit by announcing that NATO allies would supply additional air-defence systems to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Zelensky thanked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the delivery of Patriot air-defence systems from Germany. The United States and Germany also issued a joint statement on Wednesday announcing that the US will station long-range cruise missiles in Germany, in order to strengthen NATO's military deterrent in Europe. The statement said "episodic deployments" of the long-range missiles will begin in 2026. The cruise missiles include Tomahawks, SM-6 "and developmental hypersonic weapons," which have longer range than missiles currently stationed in Europe. "Exercising these advanced capabilities will demonstrate the United States commitment to NATO and its contributions to European integrated deterrence," the statement said. NATO leaders plan to continue to discuss support for Ukraine during Wednesday and Thursday. The talks follow a ceremony held on Tuesday to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the military alliance in the aftermath of World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The leaders are expected to discuss outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's plan to provide Kiev with military aid worth 40 billion ($43 billion) in 2025. NATO members have strongly supported Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. According to Stoltenberg, NATO needs to convince Russia that it cannot win its war against Ukraine by waiting for Western support to wither. But the 40-billion pledge has been watered down from the multi-year financial commitment for Ukraine that Stoltenberg initially wanted. The alliance plans to review the military aid again next year. The summit is Stoltenberg's last as secretary general. Former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is set to take over in October. Another part of the secretary general's plan to make long-term NATO commitments to Ukraine is a new support project called NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), approved by NATO defence ministers in June. The project, based in the German city of Wiesbaden, is to be staffed by 700 officials. Previously, NATO countries have been coordinating support to Ukraine through an informal, US-led group called the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. The heads of state and government stand together for the family photo at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa NATO leaders are expected to endorse a declaration of Ukraine's "irreversible path" to membership of the alliance on Wednesday, at a summit being held in Washington this week. The portion of text prepared for the summit declaration, seen by dpa on Wednesday, is intended to reassure Ukraine that its "future is in NATO." Leaders gathered on Tuesday for the first day of the summit, which is set to continue throughout Wednesday and Thursday. The text underscores that Ukraine can only join when all current members agree. The United States and Germany in particular are against rushing the process, diplomatic sources within the alliance said. But other NATO member states want to demonstrate that Russia cannot put the brakes on Ukraine joining NATO by waging war against the country. The text welcomes Ukraine's "concrete progress" on "its required democratic, economic and security reforms," since the last NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius a year ago. NATO has accepted the idea of Ukrainian membership in principle since 2008, while Ukraine has had its NATO membership ambitions enshrined in its national constitution since 2019. On the sidelines of the summit, the United States, the Netherlands and Denmark issued a joint statement saying that the promised transfer of US-made F-16 fighter jets from the Netherlands and Denmark to Ukraine is now under way. During an event at the Ronald Reagan Foundation in Washington on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine was hoping to receive the first F-16s this summer. He said country needs at least 128 fighter jets, as Russia could deploy 300 aircraft per day. Zelensky is also attending the summit. US President Joe Biden on Tuesday opened the summit by announcing that NATO allies would supply additional air-defence systems to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Zelensky thanked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the delivery of Patriot air-defence systems from Germany. Arriving at the summit venue on Wednesday, newly appointed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters he had met Zelensky to assure him that the change of government in Britain would not affect the country's support for Ukraine. Starmer added that the Washington summit was an opportunity for the country's new centre-left Labour government to reaffirm its commitment to NATO. The United States and Germany also issued a joint statement on Wednesday announcing that the US will station long-range cruise missiles in Germany, in order to strengthen NATO's military deterrent in Europe. The statement said "episodic deployments" of the long-range missiles will begin in 2026. NATO leaders plan to continue to discuss support for Ukraine during Wednesday and Thursday. They are also expected to endorse a text calling on China to cease "all material and political support to Russia's war effort." China "cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation," says the prepared text, seen by dpa. The leaders are expected to discuss outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's plan to provide Kiev with military aid worth 40 billion ($43 billion) in 2025. NATO members have strongly supported Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. According to Stoltenberg, NATO needs to convince Russia that it cannot win its war against Ukraine by waiting for Western support to wither. But the 40-billion pledge has been watered down from the multi-year financial commitment for Ukraine that Stoltenberg initially wanted. The alliance plans to review the military aid again next year. In June, NATO defence ministers approved a plan to coordinate aid to Ukraine through a new NATO structure called NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine. The summit is Stoltenberg's last as secretary general. Former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is set to take over in October. The heads of state and government stand together at the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Kay Nietfeld/dpa NATO leaders meet in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the alliance's support for Ukraine in the war against Russia. The talks follow a ceremony held on Tuesday to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the military alliance in the aftermath of World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The leaders are expected to discuss outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's plan to provide Kiev with military aid worth 40 billion ($43 billion) in 2025. NATO members have strongly supported Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022. According to Stoltenberg, NATO needs to convince Russia that it cannot win its war against Ukraine by waiting for Western support to wither. But the 40-billion pledge has been watered down from the multi-year financial commitment for Ukraine that Stoltenberg initially wanted. The alliance will review the military aid again next year, potentially weakening the package further. US President Joe Biden on Tuesday opened the summit by announcing that NATO allies would supply additional air defence systems to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is also attending, hopes that the meeting of national leaders from the 32 NATO countries will clarify Ukraine's prospects for membership of the Western military alliance. The Ukrainian leadership also hopes to see a commitment to stronger military support as its forces seek to take back large parts of the country in the east and south which were illegally annexed by Russia. The summit is Stoltenberg's last as secretary general. Former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is set to take over in October. Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz (C) joins Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy, and Jonas Gahr Store, Prime Minister of Norway, at the celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Kay Nietfeld/dpa US President Joe Biden (R) awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jens Stoltenbergduring the 75th anniversary of the NATO. Kay Nietfeld/dpa The heads of state and government stand together at the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of NATO. Kay Nietfeld/dpa NATO leaders meet in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the alliance's support for Ukraine in the war against Russia. The talks follow a ceremony held on Tuesday to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the military alliance in the aftermath of World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The leaders are expected to discuss outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's plan to provide Kiev with military aid worth 40 billion ($43 billion) in 2025. NATO members have strongly supported Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022. According to Stoltenberg, NATO needs to convince Russia that it cannot win its war against Ukraine by waiting for Western support to wither. But the 40-billion pledge has been watered down from the multi-year financial commitment for Ukraine that Stoltenberg initially wanted. The alliance will review the military aid again next year, potentially weakening the package further. The summit is Stoltenberg's last as secretary general. Former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is set to take over in October. US President Joe Biden on Tuesday opened the summit by announcing that NATO allies would supply additional air defence systems to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is also attending, hopes that the meeting of national leaders from the 32 NATO countries will clarify Ukraine's prospects for membership of the Western defence alliance. The Ukrainian leadership also hopes to see a commitment to stronger military support as its forces seek to take back large parts of the country in the east and south which were illegally annexed by Russia. Since 2019, Ukraine has had its NATO membership ambitions enshrined in its national constitution. But all current NATO countries must agree unanimously before that can happen. The United States and Germany are the main opponents of Ukraine joining NATO too soon, diplomatic sources within the alliance said. A source referred to the US and Germany's "strong opposition" towards inviting Ukraine to join the alliance without fulfilling the necessary preconditions. In an interview with dpa ahead of the summit, Stoltenberg said he hopes Ukraine can join NATO within the next 10 years. Another part of the secretary general's plan to make long-term NATO commitments to Ukraine is a new support project called NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), approved by NATO defence ministers in June. The project, based in the German city of Wiesbaden, is to be staffed by 700 officials. Previously, NATO countries have been coordinating support to Ukraine through an informal, US-led group called the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. The heads of state and government stand together at the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of NATO. Kay Nietfeld/dpa Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz (C) joins Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy, and Jonas Gahr Store, Prime Minister of Norway, at the celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Kay Nietfeld/dpa The heads of state and government stand together for the family photo at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa NATO leaders on Wednesday pledged 40 billion ($43 billion) worth of military aid to Ukraine in the next year and declared the country's path to NATO membership "irreversible." Leaders from NATO's 32 member states reached the agreement on the second day of a three-day summit in Washington, after a celebration of the alliance's 75th anniversary on Tuesday. The plan to spend 40 billion in 2025 was proposed by NATO's outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at a foreign ministers' meeting in Prague in May. However, Stoltenberg had wanted NATO members to make a multi-year commitment to Ukraine in order to show Russia it cannot win the war by waiting for Western support to wither. Instead, the funding will be reviewed next year, Stoltenberg said in a press conference on Wednesday. "We have agreed that 40 billion is a minimum baseline within the next year and to ensure sustainable funding for Ukraine to prevail," Stoltenberg said. "We also agreed to review this at our summit in 2025, not least to ensure it continues to meet Ukraine's needs." The summit declaration published on Wednesday also says allies will continue to support Ukraine's "irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership." It affirms that "Ukraine's future is in NATO." However, the declaration also underscores that Ukraine can only join when all current members agree. The United States and Germany in particular are against rushing the process, diplomatic sources within the alliance said. But other NATO member states want to demonstrate that Russia cannot put the brakes on Ukraine joining NATO by waging war against the country. The declaration welcomes Ukraine's "concrete progress" on "its required democratic, economic and security reforms," since the last NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius a year ago. NATO has accepted the idea of Ukrainian membership in principle since 2008, while Ukraine has had its NATO membership ambitions enshrined in its national constitution since 2019. Alongside the 40 billion pledge, NATO leaders also agreed to launch a project that will see the alliance coordinate military support and training for Ukraine for the first time. The project, called NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), is expected to launch on Friday. Until now, NATO countries have been coordinating support to Ukraine through an informal, US-led group called the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. NSATU will see NATO itself formally coordinate support. NSATU aims to put NATO allies' support for Ukraine "on an enduring footing," according to the NATO declaration. "NSATU will not, under international law, make NATO a party to the conflict," it stresses. The summit declaration also calls on China to cease "all material and political support to Russia's war effort." China "cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation," says the declaration. On the sidelines of the summit, the United States, the Netherlands and Denmark issued a joint statement saying that the promised transfer of US-made F-16 fighter jets from the Netherlands and Denmark to Ukraine is now under way. During an event at the Ronald Reagan Foundation in Washington on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine was hoping to receive the first F-16s this summer. He said his country needs at least 128 fighter jets, as Russia could deploy 300 aircraft per day. Zelensky is also attending the summit. US President Joe Biden on Tuesday opened the summit by announcing that NATO allies would supply additional air-defence systems to Ukraine. Arriving at the summit venue on Wednesday, newly appointed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters he had met Zelensky to assure him that the change of government in Britain would not affect the country's support for Ukraine. Starmer added that the Washington summit was an opportunity for the country's new centre-left Labour government to reaffirm its commitment to NATO. The United States and Germany also issued a joint statement on Wednesday announcing that the US will station long-range cruise missiles in Germany, in order to strengthen NATO's military deterrent in Europe. The statement said "episodic deployments" of the long-range missiles will begin in 2026. The summit is Stoltenberg's last as secretary general. Former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is set to take over in October. On Thursday, NATO leaders will hold a formal meeting with Zelensky to further discuss the alliance's support for Ukraine. NATO may invoke Article 5 over Russian hybrid operations in Europe if requested, official tells VoA Any NATO country could theoretically request protection under the alliance's Article 5 on mutual defense due to Russian hybrid operations, the Voice of America (VoA) reported on July 10, citing an unnamed senior alliance official. NATO's Article 5 commits each member state to consider an attack against one member state to be an attack against them all. When asked what NATO's response to Moscow's hybrid operations and attempts to destabilize Europe might be, the official said that "it all depends on what actions Russia continues to take." At this time, no NATO member state has made the request, the VoA's source said on the sidelines of the alliance's summit in Washington. Western intelligence officials have reportedly warned about increasing Russian sabotage operations across Europe. Such a threat led to heightened security at U.S. military bases in Europe, CNN reported in early July, citing unnamed sources. Over the past six months, Polish authorities have arrested 18 people on suspicions of pursuing hostile activities or sabotage in collaboration with Russia or Belarus, according to the Polish Interior Ministry. Several other suspects have been arrested over the past year in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, and other countries, for allegedly spying for Russia or other forms of collaboration with Russian intelligence. Read also: US, NATO allies to deliver dozens of air defense systems in coming months, including 4 Patriots Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Leaders of the NATO member states have unanimously supported the Alliances new wording with regard to Ukraines future NATO accession. Source: European Pravda correspondent in Washington Details: There is a separate section in the summits decision on political relations with Ukraine, and the decision is more ambitious than the 2023 Vilnius declaration. The key difference is a detailed statement that Ukraines full NATO membership is irreversible. "We will continue to support it [Ukraine] on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership," the declaration says. "Ukraines future is in NATO." As is known, NATO decisions are only adopted if no state opposes any of the provisions. As previously announced by NATO officials, the declaration also introduces the notion of the "bridge to membership" proposed by the US, but gives no definition of it. Instead, the Alliance "welcomes the concrete progress Ukraine has made since the Vilnius Summit on its required democratic, economic, and security reforms" and commits to supporting "democratic and security sector reforms, which NATO Foreign Ministers will continue to assess through the adapted Annual National Programme". Background: Earlier, the President of Finland explained that he considers it important to send a signal to the Kremlin that Ukraines path to NATO is irreversible. However, some allies believe that NATO should make even more ambitious statements Polish President Andrzej Duda would like Ukraine to be invited to join NATO at the next summit. Support UP or become our patron! Doorstep statement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the start of the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington. -/NATO/dpa Ukraine's path to NATO membership is "irreversible," according to a text prepared for an alliance declaration seen by dpa on Wednesday. The wording is intended to reassure Ukraine that its "future is in NATO." NATO leaders are expected to formally endorse the text in a declaration during an alliance summit in Washington that began on Tuesday and continues on Wednesday and Thursday. The text underscores that Ukraine can only join when all current members agree. The United States and Germany in particular are against rushing the process, diplomatic sources within the alliance said. But other NATO member states want to demonstrate that Russia cannot put the brakes on Ukraine joining NATO by waging war against the country. The text welcomes Ukraine's "concrete progress" on "its required democratic, economic and security reforms," since the last NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius a year ago. NATO has accepted the idea of Ukrainian membership in principle since 2008, while Ukraine has had its NATO membership ambitions enshrined in its national constitution since 2019. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaks during bilateral talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (not pictured) on the sidelines of the NATO summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa The heads of state and government stand together for the family photo at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa NATO leaders gathered in Washington are expected to warn China on Wednesday over its support for Russia's war against Ukraine, according to a prepared text seen by dpa. China "has become a decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine through its so-called 'no limits' partnership and its large-scale support for Russia's defence industrial base," the text reads. "This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbours and to Euro-Atlantic security." The document calls on China to cease "all material and political support to Russia's war effort." China "cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation." The text also accuses China of "malicious cyber and hybrid activities" that undermine Euro-Atlantic security, and notes the country's expansion of its nuclear weapons arsenal. It urges China "to engage in strategic risk reduction discussions." Navy Under Secretary Erik Raven will step down from his position next month, the Navy said. Raven took on the job in April 2022 and has served as the Department of the Navys chief operating officer and chief management officer, according to his official biography. He oversaw a variety of programs and was responsible for the departments business operations, risk management and performance management. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro praised Raven as a true leader in a statement announcing the end of his tenure. Raven was a key cog in the trilateral defense partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States known as AUKUS, Del Toro said, and also oversaw the largest-ever investment in shipbuilding as well as Guam infrastructure improvements, among other accomplishments. We have benefited from Eriks wise counsel and loyal service to the Department and to our nation, Del Toro said. Our national security, Navy and Marine Corps are stronger because of his service. We wish him the best in his future endeavors. Ravens successor has not been publicly announced, but the position requires Senate confirmation. "The Green Building," Westfield's oldest building, has sat at 102 South Union St. since around 1837, according to the Westfield Preservation Alliance. The historic building will be moved to a new location, near Westfield City Hall, due to reconstruction and widening of State Road 32 in the city's downtown. A significant piece of Westfields history is on the move, but it wont go far. Known as The Green Building, with its lime-colored siding, the structure has sat at 102 South Union Street for nearly two centuries. Its the oldest building in Westfield and was constructed around 1837, according to the Westfield Preservation Alliance. The historic building is expected to be moved Wednesday to preserve it while State Road 32 is widened and reconstructed throughout downtown. "The significance is it's very old and very representative of business in Westfield, said Linda Naas, a Westfield Preservation Alliance board member. More Hamilton County news: Forgotten in history: Fallen Westfield law enforcement officer honored 96 years later Traffic was closed on State Road 32 Tuesday as a company, contracted by the Westfield Board of Public Works, slid beams underneath the historic building in preparation for the move. It will be temporarily moved to the property directly to the east of its current site. Once overhead power lines are buried, as part of the construction project, the building again will be moved. It will be permanently located on North Union Street, directly west of Westfield City Hall and south of Basile Westfield Playhouse. The Green Building will no longer be green Known as "The Green Building," Westfield's oldest building has sat at at 102 South Union Street since around 1837, according to the Westfield Preservation Alliance. The historic building will be moved to a new location, near Westfield City Hall, due to reconstruction and widening of State Road 32 in the city's downtown. Once in its new location, the green on the historic building will be no more. That green siding is not original, Naas said. It will be taken down to the original clapboard it was built with, and it will look similar to how it looked in the 1800s. Most recently, a dance studio operated out of the historic building, but the preservation alliance has traced its history back to the 1860s when it operated as The Old Corner Drug Store. It also served as the town post office during the 1870s. Several businesses took over the drug store space before it became Funderburghs Grocery in 1889. Then the building became home to one of Westfields most well-known restaurants in 1958. More: Pride events gain traction in traditionally conservative Hamilton County "Picketts Cafeteria was the place where everyone met, Naas said. All the local organizations met there, and families had birthday parties there. It was kind of the community center as a restaurant." Over the years, Picketts Cafeteria averaged 405 customers each weekday and up to 600 customers on Sundays. The restaurant was best known for its fried chicken and handmade pies before it closed in 2002. After Picketts Cafeteria, several other restaurants operated out of the building before the dance studio moved into the space. "As typical with the history of Westfield, there's been a lot of real estate transactions with that building and a lot of different people have owned it, Naas said. The City of Westfield owns the property where the building will be moved to permanently. It has not yet been determined what the historic building will be used for at its new location, a city spokesperson said. The preservation alliance hopes it will be used as a space that is open to the public in some form or another. We just want to see it used, Naas said. It would be great if it continued to be a building the public could go in and out of on a daily basis, like its always been." Contact Jake Allen at jake.allen@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jake_Allen19. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana city moves its oldest building to make way for development PALESTINE, Texas (KETK) A man was arrested in Palestine last week for sexual assault of a child, and is accused of assaulting the child at a local motel. POLICE: Woman hit by vehicle while waiting at Tyler bus stop According to police, on June 28, authorities received a reported that a child had been assaulted at the Express Inn and Suites Motel at 1100 E. Palestine Ave. Officials said that the man was identified as Tanner Bradshaw, 34 of Omaha, Neb. after an investigation, and on July 3, a search warrant was obtained for his motel room and an arrest warrant for sexual assault of a child was issued. Photo courtesy of the Palestine Police Department. Bradshaw was arrested the same day, and officials said a small amount of narcotics and other evidence was found inside the motel room and additional charges are pending. He was booked into the Anderson County Jail where his bond was set at $850,000. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com. BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) Dozens of people upset about a proposed 124-foot tall tower at a new Mormon Temple were invited Tuesday night to learn more about the project that could be an eyesore in the community. Neighbors were invited to an open house at the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints near the proposed temple site on Stockdale Highway and Jewetta Avenue. Community members are concerned about the proposed tower that would be taller than what city code allows, which is 60-feet tall max. Parental Notification Policy discussed at Kern County Board of Education meeting Some west Bakersfield residents said they just want the temple to follow the rules. Unfortunately, I find that a 124-foot tower would be quite a negative existence on our residence, Brighton park resident Kathy Harlan said. Never miss a story: Make KGET.com your homepage Bakersfield City Council has already received the plans for the new temple, but no decision has been made yet. I think it was a really good night there was a lot of really great feedback, I think it was a positive experience, I think it was a positive experience for me, Latter Day Saints church member Kelley Taylor explained. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17. Police and forensics at the scene in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, Hertfordshire - Belinda Jiao The first indication that something truly awful had happened in Ashlyn Close came when a scream pierced the still suburban surroundings. It echoed across the quiet cul-de-sac, just as people were starting to come home from work, leading neighbours to rush towards the modern detached house from where the chilling cry had emerged. At 7pm, John Hunt, the BBC Five Live racing commentator, had returned home from a days working at Lingfield racecourse to make an unimaginable discovery. In the house, his wife Carol, 61, and daughters Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25, had all been critically injured after being violently attacked. The three women died at the scene shortly after paramedics arrived. Louise Hunt, 25, Carol Hunt, 61 and Hannah Hunt, 28, are understood to have died following the incident A 46-year-old neighbour, who did not wish to share their name but works in the media, recalled the moment. It was between 6.30pm and 7pm last night and it literally just sounded like kids, somebody, screaming, and then it was more shrill and I was like, thats definitely a woman screaming, and within 15 minutes, it was absolute chaos, they said. We had armed police running down, screaming stay in your house.... they shut us off and basically put us into lockdown. The resident said multiple ambulances, helicopters and at least 16 police cars arrived at the scene at high speed, with armed police going from house to house to question locals, requesting doorbell camera footage and urging them to stay indoors. Sarah Fernandez, 52, arrived at home just after 7.30pm to find Ashlyn Close swarming with armed police. She said: I was the last car allowed into the street before the police closed off access. There were about 15 armed police vehicles parked up. Its really frightening. Weve never had anything like this before here. On Wednesday morning, police issued the name of a man they wanted to speak to in connection with the grisly discovery. Officers said the man in question, Kyle Clifford, a 26-year-old former serviceman from Enfield, north London, was armed and dangerous. Police named the suspect as Kyle Clifford, a 26-year-old former serviceman from Enfield, north London - Hertfordshire Police Clifford was believed to be carrying a crossbow but officers said other weapons may also have been used. Armed police officers and specialist search teams were responding at pace, police said. At a press conference held at 12.30pm at Hertfordshire Police HQ in Hatfield, Chief Superintendent Jon Simpson, addressed Clifford personally, urging him to hand himself in. Addressing the assembled TV cameras he said: Kyle, if youre seeing or hearing this, please make contact with the police. As the police manhunt spread across Hertfordshire and north London, with officers focusing their searches on properties in Enfield, details began to emerge that threw a potentially troubling light on one of Louise Hunts recent relationships. A near neighbour of the Hunts said Louise had been left so upset by a recent break-up with her boyfriend she had crashed her car into a telegraph pole outside the family home. He suggested that Louise had been in a relationship with the man now wanted in connection with the murders of the three women and that the relationship had ended badly. In a telling gesture, just days before the incident, Louise had shared a tweet in which the author praised women who leave for having the strength to choose themselves. It stated: I admire women who leave. IDGAF if you left after the 1st time or the 12th time I admire that s---! IDGAF if ppl were calling you dumb for 11 years but in the 12th year you decided you was done. It takes a lot of strength to break a tie. It takes a lot of self-love to choose yourself. Neighbour Glyn Nicholas, 77, said: Louise split up with her boyfriend a few days ago and she crashed her car into a telegraph pole because she was so upset coming home. Shes a lovely, caring girl. She runs a dog grooming business in Bushey. Her sister Hannah and mother Carol are lovely as well. Its all so sad. Louise was a sweet, lovely girl. They all were. This is so sad for everyone, he said. And to think I only heard Johns voice on the radio yesterday morning, commentating from Lingfield, a few hours before all this happened. John Hunt, the BBC Five Live racing commentator, whose life has been devastated by crossbow killings Local councillor Lawrence Brass, who lives close by the scene, echoed the shock felt by those living nearby. He said: The worst thing thats ever happened in this part of Bushey is a bit of illegal fly tipping and then suddenly we get three murders and were all a bit shellshocked. This is a very traditional, quiet, leafy suburb, we dont get this sort of thing in this area and I want residents to know that the council will be ensuring that the liaison team is down here and doing everything they can to comfort them and make sure that they are reassured that everything is being done. But were worried that this guy is still floating around somewhere. Local residents lay flowers in Ashlyn Close - Belinda Jiao Police were worried too - and as the hours ticked by it became increasingly clear that a peaceful suburb of Enfield was the focus of their manhunt. Footage emerged from earlier in the day of armed officers raiding a house close to Gordon Hill railway station, the last address of Cliffords older brother Bradley, who is currently serving a life sentence for murder. Helicopters buzzed overhead and larger and larger numbers of officers could be seen patrolling the streets. A coordinated search was being undertaken, police said, with a car of possible interest found. At least one primary school, St Michaels, went into a form of lockdown, according to reports. As the day wore on they appeared to be increasingly interested in the Hilly Fields Park area, a bucolic haven just to the north of the residential area popular with dog walkers. Officers could be seen teaming up with the London Fire Brigade to use a drone to search the area. All at once, the search for the former soldier seemed to narrow - activity was seen in and around Lavender Hill cemetery on the edge of the park. Rae Cresswell, 26, a local resident who filmed police sweeping into the graveyard, said: I saw about 10 officers coming in, it was around 3pm Id say. I was quite worried because they were armed and there were dogs with them. About an hour later, police abruptly started moving back the members of the public and press who had gathered near the cemetery. Then aerial footage emerged appearing to show a person being stretchered through the graveyard, accompanied by multiple armed officers. Police announced that the suspect had been found alive but injured. No shots had been fired and police said he was receiving medical treatment. No one else is being sought in connection with the case. Detective Inspector Justine Jenkins from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit said: This continues to be an incredibly difficult time for the victims family and we would ask that their privacy is respected as they come to terms with what has happened. This investigation is moving at pace and formal identification of the victims is yet to take place. She added: We have had an overwhelming number of calls and would like to express our gratitude to the members of the public who have contacted us. We would still appeal for anyone with information or footage to please contact police directly and refrain from commenting on social media as this could affect the progress of the case. We have set up an information portal where people can submit any information, photos or video footage which they feel could assist us with our investigation. This incident will of course be of concern to local residents. Additional local officers will be in the area today so please do speak to them if you need to. 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. (Bloomberg) -- Brain-computer startup Neuralink Corp. aims to implant its device into a second human patient in a week or so, founder Elon Musk said during a video update Wednesday, and hopes to have devices in patients numbering in the high single digits by the end of the year. Most Read from Bloomberg In a wide-ranging discussion broadcast on Musks social platform X, the billionaire and several key Neuralink staffers described the current devices capabilities and future possibilities, such as repairing paralysis and memory loss. They also outlined steps the team would take in future surgeries to avoid some setbacks that occurred in the wake of the first implantation, on Arizona man Noland Arbaugh. The long-term goal is to mitigate the longer civilizational risk of AI, or artificial intelligence, Musk said. Neuralink can help with that by creating a closer symbiosis between human intelligence and digital intelligence. The idea, Musk said, is to give people super powers. In the short term, the company aims to help patients with brain injury and spinal injuries by enabling them to control phones and computers with their minds. It does that by implanting into the skull a device that it calls Telepathy, a round disk with electrode threads attached to it that insert into the brain tissue. In upcoming surgeries, Neuralink will make some changes to try to mitigate the issue of its electrode threads retracting from brain tissue, Musk said. Its proposed fixes include eliminating an air pocket, a normal part of brain surgery, that might have contributed to retracting threads in the first surgery. The company will aim to insert the threads more accurately on the folds of the brain, and put the implant flush with the contour of the skull. In the video, the team also discussed future generations of the device. Musk said it should be possible for patients with older models to upgrade to newer ones. You want the iPhone 15, he said. Not the iPhone 1. At the end of the presentation, Musk emphasized the good care Neuralink takes of the animals it uses for research. We really do everything we can to maximize the welfare of the animals, he said. The startup has come under fire in the past for the way it treats animals in the laboratory. Story continues Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. The Ministry of Defence of the Netherlands has announced the allocation of supplementary 300 million for ammunition procurement for the F-16 fighter jets, which will be soon transferred to Ukraine. Source: European Pravda with reference to the statement by the Dutch Defence Ministry Details: Additional funding will complement the 150 million already allocated by the Netherlands for arming the F-16s that will be sent to Ukraine and will be used to procure the equipment directly from the industry. "With the ammunition well procure the F-16s may help repel Russian attacks. Putins aggression knows no limits, so our support must continue at full speed," Ruben Brekelmans, the Dutch Defence Minister, commented. "By procuring this supplementary ammunition for the F-16s, we want to send a signal to Moscow that the NATO allies will keep supporting Ukraine. Russia must not win this war, and this is also done for the sake of our security," he added. Background: At the beginning of July, it was revealed that the Netherlands would soon supply Ukraine with the first out of 24 promised F-16 fighter jets. The US, Danish and Dutch leaders confirmed today that Ukraine would receive its first F-16s this summer. Support UP or become our patron! The Netherlands has allocated an additional 300 million euros ($324.8 million) to purchase munitions for F-16 fighter jets to supply Ukraine with, the Dutch Defense Ministry announced on July 10. These funds will be added to 150 million euros ($162.4 million) already allocated by the Netherlands to equip the F-16s that will be delivered to Ukraine, according to the statement. During this year's NATO summit in Washington, the U.S., Denmark, and the Netherlands announced that the first F-16 fighter jets were "on their way" to Ukraine. Ukraine is expected to receive the first F-16 jets this summer, a year after Denmark and the Netherlands founded the "fighter jet coalition" with nine other countries at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023. "(Russian President Vladimir) Putin's aggression knows no bounds, so our support must continue at full speed," Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said. "With the purchase of this additional F-16 ammunition, we therefore want to send a message to Moscow that NATO allies continue to support Ukraine unabated," he added. The Netherlands earlier pledged to deliver 24 of its fourth-generation U.S.-made jets to Ukraine, while Denmark confirmed sending 19 F-16 aircraft. Kyiv also expects to receive fighter jets from Belgium and Norway. Norway announced on July 10 that it will donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, with the deliveries starting this year. Read also: F-16s in Ukraine may create conditions for counterattack, Polish general says Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. County commissioners in Nevada voted against certifying the results of two local recounts from a primary last month, a move that could have implications for the swing states presidential race later this year. Three Republican members on the five-member Washoe County Board of Commissioners voted to reject the results of recounts in a commission race and a school board seat. Its not known what will happen next, The Associated Press (AP) reported. The AP noted that the rejection raises concerns that the same thing could happen in November. The vote was first reported by KRNV-TV. The commission held an hours-long public comment before the vote, where many people asked the board to vote no on the certification and demanded a hand recount of the votes. The outlet noted that under state law, ballots must be recounted the same way the election was conducted, which was by a machine. Since 2020, there has been a rise in issues around certifying election results for races of all size across the country. The county, the second most populated in the state, is home to Reno. Nevada is seen as a battleground state for both national and local elections, narrowly electing the Democratic candidate in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. Election conspiracies in the county have caused the local election office to have high turnover in recent years, the AP reported. One of the Republicans on the board, Clara Andriola, joined the other two Republicans, who have consistently voted against certifying results in the state. One of the races in question was Andriolas primary, which she won. Andriola told the AP that she wants an investigation of some kind into the recount but is not sure who would do it. The board previously voted to certify the other races in the countys June primary. KOLO TV noted that the matter will now head to the Nevada secretary of state. The Associated Press contributed. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. UPDATE: The Valley of Fire remains closed Thursday following a deadly shooting involving a park ranger on Wednesday. OVERTON, NV (KLAS) A Nevada State Park Ranger shot and killed a person in Valley of Fire State Park Wednesday afternoon, according to a release from the Nevada Division of State Parks. According to the release, a park ranger stationed at Valley of Fire shot their service weapon while responding to a call in the park, hitting one person. This embedded content is not available in your region. Medical personnel responded to the scene and pronounced the person dead. According to the division, the park ranger was not injured. Gunman killed at Yellowstone told woman he planned a mass shooting: authorities Valley of Fire State Park remains closed to visitors for the remainder of the day, the release stated. Those with camping reservations will be allowed to access the campground, but will not be able to access the rest of the park, the division said. The division did not release any details about the call or the person shot. This is an ongoing investigation. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. Newest Topeka coffee shop celebrates grand opening TOPEKA (KSNT) A new coffee shop in the capital city celebrated its grand opening. On Tuesday, Higher Grounds Coffeehouse & Deli opened its first physical location is located on Topeka Boulevard next to Laird Noller Ford. Higher Grounds started as a food truck, and after more than a years worth of hard work they were able to build this coffeehouse. With the capabilities of a brick-and-mortar shop, the coffeeshop was able to double the size of their menu. The community has been amazing, so this whole week that weve been open has been awesome, Terra Salser, Higher Grounds co-owner said. LaRoccas Pizza to be featured on nationwide food roadshow My favorite thing that makes this place unique is its not just breakfast and coffee, although it is, co-owner Jordan Noller said. She has amazing cookies, she has amazing breakfast items, she has egg bites, but its a deli, salad, you can come here for lunch and dinner in an afternoon or early evening meals, and so its like a fast-food place that is not that unhealthy, fast-food quality and I love that. After Thursday, July 11, the owners say the coffee shop will be open for their regular hours, Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) Clarissa Eley is proud of her first home. The shipyard workers three-bedroom, two-bathroom ranch was built in 2000. but theres just one problem. Her American dream of homeownership has turned into a nightmare that wont go away. The most recent nightmare started at 2:15 a.m. Sunday. Tuesday afternoon she took 10 On Your Side on a tour of damage. I woke up to some gunshot noise and it was like four of them it started up apparently back here in this room, Eley said. This is the first bullet hole. Thats where it came from. See, it knocked the corner of this off and it started there. This door was closed, so it hit this door right here. Then it came through my bedroom I heard something say ting. Thats when it hit the mirror. And then it went over to this side. And this is where [the bullet] ended up[in a closet]. The tour included gunfire damage from 2022 thats when a bullet hit the backsplash in her kitchen, and another incident in 2008 that included damage to her home and car. Eley said police told her casings from Sundays shooting were found outside a nearby convenience store. Just across from the store, the siding on her home is peppered with what appears to be bullet holes. I dont feel safe, Eley said. Just kind of still nervous and think its something going to happen. So Im thinking theyre going to shoot again. If you have any information about the case, police ask that you call Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WAVY.com. California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks to reporters after a presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. (John Bazemore / Associated Press) Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday said he would not run for president against Vice President Kamala Harris and remained steadfast in his support for President Biden as talks about seeking an alternative presidential nominee continue among Democrats. His comments indicate that if Biden gives into calls to step aside, the California governor will not challenge Harris, a front-runner in conversations about who should replace the president on the November ballot, if she seeks the nomination. "Of course," Newsom said when asked whether he stood by comments he made last year about not running against Harris. "Yes." Read more: Harris rallies in Las Vegas for Biden. Many Democrats agree, but some want her to face Trump Newsom's vow would avoid a potentially ugly political battle for the party and its donors. Newsom and Harris rose up in Bay Area politics to become the state's two most prominent elected officials. As vice president and Biden's 2020 running mate, Harris would be the presumed Democratic front-runner to lead the ticket if called upon. Newsom reaffirmed his stance during a news conference about California's wildfire response at Sacramento McClellan Airport after returning from a swing-state tour on behalf of the Biden campaign. Newsom campaigned for Biden in New Hampshire and Michigan as part of his effort to shore up support for the president after his poor debate performance against former President Trump in Atlanta in late June. The governor, who attended the debate as a surrogate for Biden, has attempted to swat down concerns about the president's mental capacity and attested to the president's abilities based on their personal interactions. He's continued to back Biden even as other Democrats question his ability to run. On Wednesday, Newsom said he hadn't read the full breadth of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comments about Biden on MSNBC that morning. Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run, Rep. Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. Newsom said he had also not read an opinion piece written by actor George Clooney calling for a Democrat to replace Biden. Read more: George Clooney calls on president to step aside: Aging Biden no longer the man he was Biden repeatedly has said he intends to remain in the race and even challenged Democrats who think they can beat him to step up. "I think I've had 100 media outlets asking the same question, and I think that I've amply answered my support for the president and the support I saw on the ground was demonstrable," Newsom said Wednesday. He referenced Biden's support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and compared the president with Trump, who Newsom said "didn't even know what NATO was." In the past, he's said the vice president would be naturally lined up to run if Biden ended his campaign. In New Hampshire, Newsom said he thought Harris could beat Trump. "I have no doubt about that," Newsom told reporters. "If it comes to that, but I don't expect it's going to come to that." Staff writers Noah Bierman and Seema Mehta 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. Vehicles, engines, and equipment eligible for funds include school and transit buses, locomotives, off-road vehicles such as those used in construction and agriculture, marine engines, and more. (Dave Cummings | New Hampshire Bulletin) New Hampshire has about $250,000 left to distribute for diesel emission reduction projects, according to a Wednesday email from the Department of Environmental Services. The figure reflects remaining funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made available through the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act. Applicants have until 4 p.m. on Aug. 2 to submit proposals for the reimbursement program to DES in this second round of requests. While modern diesel engines have become cleaner, millions of older, dirtier engines are still in use because of their long lifespans, according to the EPA. Federal and state governments have sought to curb these emissions because of the effects they can have on human health and the environment. Diesel exhaust can lead to asthma and other respiratory issues and worsen heart problems and lung disease, according to the EPA. They also contribute to the production of acid rain, ground-level ozone pollution, and the greenhouse gas effect that drives climate change. The grants will reimburse a portion of the costs of projects to which they are awarded. Exactly how much of the project is covered depends on how clean its footprint is. For example, a project replacing a diesel vehicle with an electric vehicle can be reimbursed for up to 45% of the project cost, according to the states program webpage; a project replacing an old diesel vehicle with a newer, cleaner diesel vehicle can be reimbursed for up to 25% of the project cost. Vehicles, engines, and equipment eligible for funds include school and transit buses, locomotives, off-road vehicles such as those used in construction and agriculture, marine engines, and more. Machines with engine model years of 2009 and older are also eligible; that model year requirement doesnt apply if the project will replace a diesel machine with an electric vehicle, according to the email. Projects must meet certain usage thresholds to be eligible. The machines must be fully operational and in use in the state; have gained at least 7,000 miles or 500 hours of use in the past two years; have at least three years of usable life left; and the existing units must be scrapped once they are replaced. Eligible applicants include state and local government agencies and departments, school districts, public and private transit companies, and marine operators, private fleets, and businesses operating in New Hampshire who are listed as businesses in good standing with the New Hampshire Secretary of State, according to DES. The former South Carolina governor has urged the 97 delegates she amassed during the Republican primaries to redirect their votes to Trump at the convention Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/Bloomberg via Getty Nikki Haley Nikki Haley will not be at the 2024 Republican National Convention. The former Republican presidential candidate was not invited to attend the monumental GOP event, which begins on Monday, July 15, according to Politico. Haleys spokesperson Chaney Denton told the outlet that she "was not invited, and shes fine with that." The spokesperson said that presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump "deserves the convention he wants." "Shes made it clear shes voting for him and wishes him the best," Denton added. Rachel Mummey/Bloomberg via Getty Nikki Haley The convention will take place from July 15-18 in Milwaukee, Wis., and will welcome "thousands of delegates and alternates" to formally vote on the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, per the event website. Ahead of the nomination ceremony, Haley urged the 97 delegates she amassed during the presidential primaries to support Trump during the election. "The nominating convention is a time for Republican unity," she wrote in a July 9 post. "Joe Biden is not competent to serve a second term and Kamala Harris would be a disaster for America." "I encourage my delegates to support Donald Trump next week in Milwaukee," Haley continued. Related: Milwaukee Mayor Responds After Donald Trump Reportedly Calls City Horrible: Right Back at You, Buddy Anna Moneymaker/Getty Donald Trump The former South Carolina governor announced her candidacy in February 2023 with a promise to prioritize fiscal responsibility, border security and foreign relations. She had been hinting at a possible run for months, saying at a 2022 fundraiser in Iowa she would run "if there's a place for me. Haley suspended her campaign in March 2024 and shared her well wishes to Trump. She stated that she was "filled with gratitude" for the support she had received since launching her campaign. The onetime U.N. ambassador, whom Trump nicknamed "birdbrain" on the campaign trail, said in her dropout remarks, "In all likelihood Donald Trump will be the party nominee," adding, "I wish him well." Without endorsing him, she went on to say that it was his responsibility to "earn the votes of those in the party who did not support him." In May, Haley revealed that she will vote for Trump for president during her first public remarks since dropping out of the race. She emphasized that Trump "has not been perfect" on policy issues, and advised his campaign to "reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me, and not assume that theyre just going to be with him." 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. As the Republican National Convention nears, many are wondering who Trump will select as his vice presidential candidate as he must do so ahead of being named the partys nominee. Both Trump and Haley have ruled out the potential of them joining forces. In January, Trump told New Hampshire voters, "She's not presidential timber. Now when I say that, that probably means that she's not going to be chosen as the vice president." Haley declared around the same time: "I don't want to be anybody's vice president. That is off the table." Her absence at the convention, where Trump's running mate will join in the ceremonies, all but confirms that she's out of the running. Marco Rubio, Doug Burgum and J.D. Vance are among the top names that are reportedly on Trump's vice presidential shortlist. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. It looks like Donald Trump isnt letting bygones be bygones with his former United Nations ambassador and onetime Republican presidential primary rival, Nikki Haley. On Tuesday, Politico reported that the former governor of South Carolina will not be attending the upcoming Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Haley spokesperson Chaney Denton told Politico that the failed Republican presidential contender was not invited, and shes fine with that. Trump deserves the convention he wants, Denton added. Shes made it clear shes voting for him and wishes him the best. Despite the snub, Haley was still willing to hand over her 97 convention delegates over to Trump. In a statement to media outlets on Tuesday, she called next weeks nominating convention a time for Republican unity. Joe Biden is not competent to serve a second term and Kamala Harris would be a disaster for America, she added in her statement. We need a president who will hold our enemies to account, secure our border, cut our debt, and get our economy back on track. Biden has strenuously rejected dropping out of the race, despite a disastrous performance against Trump in last months presidential debate. Nikki Haley announces her endorsement for Donald Trump during a Washington D.C. event in May. On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Haley confirmed she was not invited to this year's Republican National Convention. Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images During primary season, Haley tried to paint herself as the sensible alternative to the ever-divisive ex-president. In a February interview on Today, she told NBCs Craig Melvin that 2024s version of Trump was more unhinged than he ever was during his term in office. We dont want these two old men running, she added of Trump and Biden. We want someone whos going to go and fight for us and work for us, with no drama, no vendettas. By March, Haley conceded that she had no viable path to the presidency. It took her until May to endorse her former boss, however. Upon Haleys endorsement, Trump seemed less hostile towards his former primary adversary. You know, we had a nasty campaign, it was pretty nasty, he told News 12 New York in late May. But shes a very capable person, and Im sure shes going to be on our team in some form, absolutely. HuffPost has attempted to reach Haley for confirmation. Related... An aircraft of the Air France-KLM stands on the apron of Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt. Soeren Stache/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa The European Commission on Wednesday announced the approval of Dutch and French support measures totalling 10.4 billion for Air France-KLM. The Commission had initially approved the aid in May and July 2020 under the state aid Covid Temporary Framework, but it was annulled by the General Court in December 2023 and February 2024, stating that "the Commission erred in considering Air France and KLM to be the sole beneficiaries of respectively the French and Dutch State aid measures". "In the present decision, the Commission has re-assessed the measures with the Air France-KLM Group as the beneficiary of both the French and Dutch measures and come to the conclusion that they would also be compatible with the Covid Temporary Framework or directly with the Treaty", the Commission said. Air France-KLM welcomed the new decision, but noted that the decision has no impact on the appeals lodged by the European Commission, Air France, KLM, and Air France-KLM against the judgments of the General Court of the EU. "The Court of Justice of the European Union has still to decide on these appeals," the company said. Contractors move equipment as part of a 2021 study of removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) from the aquifer under Cannon Air Force base, near Clovis, New Mexico. New Mexico asked a judge to require the federal government to pay current and future damages from PFAS in court documents filed Monday, July 8, 2024. (Courtesy U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Maxwell Daigle) New Mexico requested a judge order the federal government to pay the past and future costs of cleaning up forever chemicals from military bases across the state, per court documents filed Monday. The costs to remove the toxic chemicals called per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) grows into the billions and cleanup efforts stretch for years. New Mexico officials argue the federal government needs to be accountable for PFAS contamination costs at Cannon Air Force Base, Holloman Air Force Base, Kirtland Air Force Base, White Sands Missile Range and Fort Wingate. Now, after a federal rules change on Monday, they hope it will allow the state to recover damages and future cleanup costs for PFAS contamination left by the U.S. Department of Defense at military bases across New Mexico. We applaud the EPAs listing of certain PFAS, or forever chemicals, as hazardous substances under the Superfund statute, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said. This enables us to pursue monetary damages and costs at federal facilities, as stated in our amended complaint. Forever Chemicals PFAS are a class of thousands of manmade chemicals which have had widespread contamination, threatening both people and the environment. The chemicals stable properties give them the moniker forever chemicals as they are resistant to breaking down, and resist heat and water. They are used in items from nonstick cookware, water-resistant clothing to firefighting foams. Their ubiquity is also one of their greatest threats. Theyre present in an estimated 97% of U.S. populations blood. The chemicals are linked to decreased fertility, immune system damage, lower vaccine effectiveness and increased cancer risks. Torrez said the change means a federal law requiring polluters to pay to clean up contamination now applies to PFAS. The designation of PFAS as a hazardous substance is separate from the EPAs efforts to remove the forever chemicals in drinking water. The filing makes the federal government liable to pay for current and future costs, repair damages to water, land, air and address impacts to wildlife and the states economy. This opens the door for us to really help communities like Clovis who have been suffering for far too long with this threat, if not actuality of PFAS, New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney said. He told Source New Mexico that if a judge grants the request, the timeline for payment would be uncertain, but pointed to a similar process on the Gold King Mine, which took several years. The state has spent an estimated $8 million to $10 million on technical, legal costs and clean-up at Cannon and Holloman, Kenney said, but the estimates for cleanup at all sites will be expensive. We could easily be looking at up to 150 million, if not more, especially once we understand the magnitude of the damages, Kenney said. He said its unclear when the state will have an estimated cost of damages available. It depends if we have cooperation by the United States, Kenney said. I would say to be five and-a-half years in, and to be where we are today, does not scream to me cooperation. As part of those costs, New Mexico is looking to recoup at least $850,000 for the removal of thousands of PFAS-contaminated cow carcasses from a dairy farm next to Cannon, another $1.3 million for investigation contamination around bases, according to the complaint. The filing amends a five-year old civil case before the federal District of South Carolina Court. That case combined 500 claims from across the country seeking damages from contamination caused by the use of a fire-fighting foam containing PFAS. The case has been in a discovery phase since 2020. Specifically, New Mexico said the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force broke state law by failing to contain or address contaminants, hazardous wastes, and hazardous substances, listing how PFAS was found in groundwater and surrounding environment. The original 2019 complaint only focused on Cannon and Holloman Air Force bases, but the amended complaint filed Monday expands to five sites. New Mexico argued in their 65-page motion that while the federal government has acknowledged that PFAS poses an imminent and substantial danger, at Cannon, that they have failed to take action to clean up. The complaint asked that the court grant the state the power to direct the federal government to to take all steps necessary on clean-up. The U.S. Department of Defense deferred comment to the U.S. Department of Justice Tuesday. New Mexico is embroiled in a second, separate federal lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Defense over PFAS, which is still in mediation, and is not part of the effort to recoup damages. For the second time in a row, Lockheed Martin will be at the forefront of the creation of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s next generation weather satellites. Last month, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded the aerospace company a $2.27 billion contract to develop and manufacture spacecraft for the next generation of NOAA satellites that will follow the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) series, Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) . The contract includes developing three initial spacecraft and will also allow the option for an additional four. Work on the satellites will be done both at Lockheed Martin's facility in Littleton, Colorado, and also at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "Our team is excited and ready to move forward to design and field this critical national capability," Kyle Griffin, vice president and general manager of Commercial Civil Space at Lockheed Martin, said in a statement . "Our GeoXO design draws heavily from what we've learned with GOES-R spacecraft over the last 15 years, while incorporating new, digital technologies not only onboard the vehicles but in the design and development of this powerful, weather-monitoring platform of the future." Like its predecessor constellation, GeoXO will continue to watch over the Western Hemisphere with mission goals to increase observations from geostationary orbit, which is 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth . This will include monitoring weather, climate, air quality and ocean patterns and ecosystems to provide scientists with state-of-the-art imagery and information. New instruments aboard the GeoXO satellites will enable the first geostationary observations of our coastal ecosystems and "continental U.S.-wide observations of harmful pollutants in the air we breathe," Lockheed Martin's statement adds. This is the first time that NASA has awarded a contract to the incumbent on a back-to-back series for NOAA. "We feel like we've broken the curse of the incumbent. It's all because of the legacy we're leaving with the GOES-R series and the fantastic work we did there; that's what helped us win this contract for GeoXO," Jagdeep Shergill, GOES-R Series program manager at Lockheed Martin, told Space.com. "We did a lot of work before we got the contract. Before we were even awarded, we went for a Phase-A series where we did a lot of preliminary design to make sure we had a very mature design leading into that proposal." Related Stories: Watch GOES-U weather satellite float above a brightly shining Earth in stunning video from space How the GOES U satellite will change Earth and space weather forecasts forever 2024 hurricane season should be busy, NOAA says Lockheed Martin has developed and launched more than 120 weather and environmental spacecraft for civil and military agencies in the government over the last 50 years. The initial GeoXo launch is set for the early 2030s and will continue on NOAA's geostationary observations program into the late 2050s. "We are so excited with GeoXO. We get to leverage everything we've learned on GOES, and we're going to put all of that in the GeoXO series and make sure it's an even better spacecraft," Shergill said. NOLAN COUNTY, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) The Nolan County Judge has been relieved of certain duties due to allegations that he is abusing cocaine and alcohol. Last month, Nolan County Commissioners met to discuss allegations that Judge G. Whitley May of the Nolan County Court was engaging in criminal activity. A press release on the allegations reveals commissioners received information June 10 that during a child custody matter, May had tested positive for cocaine and metabolites present when cocaine is used in conjunction with alcohol. Commissioners held an emergency meeting two days later and unanimously voted to relieve May of all magistrate responsibilities and on-call duties, meaning he will no longer have the responsibility of reviewing arrests, determining conditions of bond, or responding to matters that require judicial oversight outside of regular business hours, according to the press release. The County is also working to re-assign other tasks and move cases to different courts in light of these allegations. However, May will remain in the Nolan County Judge position until he resigns or is removed from office. Members of the public are invited to address their concerns during the next Nolan County Commissioners Court on Monday, July 22, 2024, at 9:00 a.m. Read the full press release from Nolan County below: COUNTY COMMENT CONCERNING THE NOLAN COUNTY JUDGE NOLAN COUNTY On Wednesday, June 10, 2024, individual members of the Nolan County Commissioners Court were made aware of allegations that Judge G. Whitley May of the Nolan County Court was engaged in criminal conduct, namely the use of cocaine and abuse of alcohol. The allegations were substantiated through an independent review of the public records found in Cause Number CC-8607, a child custody matter currently pending before the 32nd Judicial District Court in Nolan County, wherein the results of a hair follicle drug test showed Judge May to be positive for cocaine and metabolites present when cocaine is used in conjunction with alcohol. The whole of the Courts file showed that the drug test report was filed following an Order authorizing its disclosure and was relied upon and presumed valid by the Senior District Judge assigned to preside over the case. On Friday, June 12, 2024, the Nolan County Commissioners Court held an emergency meeting pursuant to Chapter 551, Open Meetings, of the Texas Government Code to address this matter of urgent public necessity. At this meeting, the Nolan County Commissioners Court, by unanimous vote of all four Commissioners, suspended the County Judge of all magistrate responsibilities and on-call duties. As such, Judge May would no longer have the responsibility of reviewing arrests, determining conditions of bond, or responding to matters that require judicial oversight outside of regular business hours. Collaborative action has also been taken by various County Officials to assume responsibility of administrative tasks that common practice, but not Constitutional provision or State law, had previously assigned to the County Judge and steps have been taken to redirect criminal matters from the County Court to courts of concurrent jurisdiction, pursuant to the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure and other pertinent statutes. Further suspension or limitation of Judge Mays authority as Nolan County Judge would require his resignation or removal from Office in accordance with Chapter 87 of the Texas Local Government Code or action by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. The Nolan County Commissioners Court will meet in regular session on Monday, July 22, 2024, at 9:00 a.m. There will be an opportunity for public comment at the meeting. When asked for comment, Judge May provided the following statement: In response to inquiries relating to my service as Judge of the Constitutional County Court of Nolan County, Texas relating to a private matter involving my family and my children, I provide the following information. I am aware that reporters have reviewed the courts file in the very personal and private matter of my youngest son, his mother and me. I understand these pleadings are public record and that citizens of Nolan County have a right to know about their elected officials. I will always defend the right of citizens to have reasonable access to the public records relating to the conduct of their elected officials. I believe the people are best informed when a vigorous media hold public officials accountable. However, it is also incumbent on the news media to provide truthful, accurate information to the public. The mere filing of a documents in a courts file does not make the content of that document or pleading accurate, valid or true. Further, I believe strongly that the media should, before publishing any material on its website or across the airwaves, ensure the validity, accuracy and truthfulness of the information. Further, the media should ensure that any information contained in any document or pleading was obtained properly, in accordance with state and federal law. In the instant matter, some who seek to discredit me obtained an invalid and improperly conducted drug test and have published these the invalid results in a public filings without any hearing or opportunity to be heard, to present evidence or to challenge the validity of the invalid, improperly conducted test. These same folks have chosen to improperly publish the invalid test results without a proper court order or any hearing in front of a judge. I submitted to a test for the presence of controlled substances voluntarily. There was no court order or other requirement that I submit to a test for controlled substances. After taking the test, it became clear to me that the initial test was not properly conducted and the results could not be trusted. There should have been a hearing before a judge to present evidence and allow the judge to determine whether the test results should have been released. There was no such hearing. There was no such hearing because the subpoena requiring that the test results be brought into court for an evidentiary hearing was ignored and the results were provided to other people without my consent or authorization. There has been no judicial determination as to whether the test was properly performed and whether the results are reliable and therefore admissible. Rather than have the lab technician come into the court and present evidence that the sample was properly obtained and the testing procedures properly followed, the results were published without any review by a fair and impartial judge. While no person is above the law, every person is entitled to the protection of the law. The irresponsible actions of the lab to which I submitted for the voluntary test has violated my right to private medical records in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. (HIPPA). The lab did not have my authorization to release the results of my voluntary test. The lab was ordered to produce the medical record before a court of lawnot hand them over to some person who showed up and asked to be given my personal medical records without my personal authorization. Obtaining and/or publishing my personal medical records is no different than someone going to your doctor or health care provider or pharmacist and demanding your health care recordsno matter what type of procedure or illness might be included in that record. At all times since the inception of this very personal legal proceeding involving my youngest son and his mother, I have been willing to submit to a voluntary test for controlled substances. I freely and voluntarily submitted to such a test and the test was improperly conducted. The results were compromised. More importantly, I have since voluntarily submitted to three US Department of Transportation qualified drug tests, conducted by a person qualified to administer such tests. Both test were negative for the presence of any controlled substance. I have attached a copy of each of these results to this statement. It is my hope that all media outlets will exercise discretion and seek out the facts before publishing the results of an invalid and improperly obtained test for controlled substances. Sincerely, G. Whitley May, Judge Constitutional County Court Nolan County Texas No further information is available at this time. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com. A federal rule seeks to add protections to a section of the Affordable Care Act that prevent health care providers who discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation from receiving federal funding, including through Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program (photo illustration by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder). North Dakota has joined a coalition of seven states challenging a rule by the Biden administration that would preempt state restrictions on gender-affirming care. The legal challenge, which is led by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, was filed in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on Wednesday. The states are seeking to block the regulation and prevent the federal government from enforcing similar mandates. The rule seeks to add protections to a section of the Affordable Care Act that prevent health care providers who discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation from receiving federal funding, including through Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program. The rule was set to go into effect July 5, with some provisions beginning later. But another coalition of attorneys general succeeded in their petition to block its implementation just two days prior. The judge in that case cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Chevron Deference, a precedent that gave regulatory authority to federal agencies when statute is unclear. Bailey, along with attorneys general from Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Idaho and Arkansas, argues that the rule conflicts with their states restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. Each has varying restrictions on payments for gender-affirming treatment, with Missouri blocking payment for all treatments for medical transition through Medicaid and CHIP. states will be unable to enforce these duly enacted laws and longstanding policies without coming into conflict with the rule, the attorneys general wrote in the lawsuit. The American College of Pediatricians joins the attorneys general as a plaintiff. The ACPeds is a group of 400 physicians and other health care professionals in 47 states with a history of anti-LGBTQ advocacy. ACPeds members categorically do not provide medical interventions or referrals for, and do not facilitate or speak in ways that affirm the legitimacy of, the practice of gender transition, the attorneys general wrote. The lawsuit alleges that the organizations pediatricians would suffer significant financial harm to lose eligibility to participate in federal healthcare programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. One pediatrician in Utah is quoted in the lawsuit saying he would not self-censor his opinions on transition efforts if the rule goes into effect. Predicting his noncompliance with the rule, the Utah pediatrician faces the prospect of no longer caring for his patients, being fired from his employment and being unable to practice medicine in most settings, the attorneys general wrote. The rule violates physicians freedom of assembly, the lawsuit states, by coercing them to participate in facilities, programs, groups and other healthcare-related endeavors that are contrary to their views and that express messages with which they disagree. The lawsuit also says it coerces ACPeds members speech. By forcing ACPeds members to tell patients directly, on their walls, and on their websites that they do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, the rule forces ACPeds members to speak falsely, and it forces ACPeds members to fatally undermine their communication of their own medical ethical standards, it says. Beyond questions of constitutionality, the attorneys general allege that the rule goes beyond congressional authorization. The rule interprets gender identity as protected by both including gender dysphoria as a disability and interpreting sex discrimination to include gender identity. The attorneys general disagree with this application. Key to the case will be the judges interpretation of the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court Case Bostock v. Clayton County, in which a majority of justices ruled that gender identity was protected under Title VII, which is on employment discrimination. The rule leans on some courts interpretation that transfers the Bostock decision to Title IX and the Affordable Care Act, according to its publication in the Federal Register. But the attorneys general cite decisions from judges in red states that do not allow Bostock to apply outside of Title VII. The Department of Health and Human Services, which is the defendant in the litigation, did not respond to a request for comment. Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X. Norway to deliver six F-16s to Ukraine, first ones to arrive this year The Norwegian government has decided to provide Ukraine with six F-16 fighter jets, the first of which will be delivered in 2024. Source: European Pravda with reference to the press service of the Norwegian government Details: Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre said that Ukraine's ability to defend itself against airstrikes is extremely important in the fight against Russian aggression. "Norway has decided to provide six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. We plan to start delivering the aircraft in 2024," he announced. Oslo announced back in 2023 that a certain number of the F-16s would be delivered to Ukraine as part of the Danish-led aircraft coalition. Stre made the announcement during his visit to Ukraine on its Independence Day. He noted that Western fighters would make a significant contribution to Ukraine's defence against airstrikes, in combination with air defence systems. "Norway has been involved in the training of Ukrainian pilots in Denmark since autumn 2023 and will continue to support the training," Stre said. The government press release reiterated that with the arrival of the first Western fighter jets in Ukraine and their increasing number, the issue of sufficient weapons and maintenance for them would also arise. This will be addressed within the framework of a broad international coalition. "This work involves Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Norway," the communique said. In 2021, Norway began to gradually decommission its F-16s as it switched to the new F-35s. A total of 32 fourth-generation fighters were sold to Romania, and some are still in Norway. Background: In early July, it was announced that the Netherlands would soon begin delivering the first of 24 promised F-16s to Ukraine. Read more on this topic: The F-16s, Ukraine's "irreversible" path to NATO and negotiations with Russia: an interview with the Netherlands new defence minister Support UP or become our patron! Norway to donate 6 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, first to arrive in 2024 Norway decided to donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, with the deliveries starting this year, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a press release on July 10. The announcement came as NATO allies gathered in Washington for an annual summit, with the assistnace for Ukraine on top of the agenda. Oslo confirmed its intention to donate some of its U.S.-made F-16s to Ukraine already last year but has not revealed their numbers until now. The Norwegian media reported in April that the country could provide Ukraine with 22 fighter jets, though only 12 of them were believed to be serviceable. Norway has phased out its F-16 fleet in favor of more modern F-35 jets. "Ukraine's ability to defend itself against air attacks is crucial in its battle against Russia. Norway has now decided to donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine," Stoere said. "We plan to start delivering the aircraft in the course of 2024." Apart from Norway, Ukraine is expected to receive over 70 F-16s from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Belgium. The first Danish jets are expected to arrive already this summer, and the deliveries are expected to continue in the following years. Read also: F-16s for Ukraine: When will they arrive and what can they do? Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Do not legalize until you equalize: State Black caucus on marijuana legalization HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) Lawmakers continue to work towards legalizing adult use recreational marijuana. On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus said they have policies they would like to see incorporated. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now This Week in Pennsylvania One of the messages is do not legalize until you equalize. It is time that we invest in the restoration of communities that have been impacted. We return incarcerated persons to their families, and we provide entrepreneurs with a pathway to lead in this emerging marketplace, said Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus chair Representative Napoleon Nelson. The Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus says if the state is going to legalize adult use cannabis, it has to be done right. Not just in terms of how much money we bring into state, but how we can help repair society from a place of public health and wellness and also social equity, said Democratic Representative Chris Rabb. They would like to see automatic expungements for those with previous convections, reimburse assets forfeited during cannabis-related arrests, resentencing for those already incarcerated and correction of past record scores. Black and brown people, particularly black people, have been getting arrested, incarcerated for marijuana for decades, said Democratic Representative Rick Krajewski. Centenarian takes birthday to new heights They would also like to see the creation of a cannabis development fund under a new office of social equity. This development fund would be able to reinvest in recidivism programs, land banks and transitional housing opportunities, community parks and recreation centers, street cleaning efforts and other development initiatives, said Representative Nelson. It would be funded by marijuana tax revenue, licensing fees, and initial appropriation. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27. BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) A Kern County jury found a man guilty of a ninth California bank robbery Monday, after he robbed a Wells Fargo Bank on California Avenue in September 2021 and led law enforcement on a high-speed chase, officials said. Ray Fitzgerald Green, was convicted Monday of second-degree robbery, grand theft, reckless evading of a peace officer and possession of a firearm by a felon, the Kern County District Attorneys Office said in a release. Green was previously convicted of eight previous bank robberies in the Bay Area seven between 1992 and 1993, and one in 2002. The bank robberies occurred in Santa Clara, San Jose, Milpitas and San Francisco. Man accused of using slingshot-type weapon against officers speaks out Santa Clara investigators dubbed Green 20/20, based on the clear lens square glasses he would often wear during the robberies. On Sept. 15, 2021, Ray Fitzgerald Green walked into the Wells Fargo Bank at 5401 California Ave. and gave the bank teller a note that read: I have a gun I want large bills only $20s, $50s, $100s. No dye packs. No trackers. If you do what I say, you and your family wont get hurt. Photos provided by courtesy of the Kern County District Attorneys Office. The teller surrendered cash to Green who then fled the scene. What Green didnt know was there was in fact, a tracker embedded within the stack of cash. BPD, with the help of a KCSO helicopter, followed Green heading northbound on Highway 99. Once officials caught up to Green, he avoided a traffic stop and led officers in a vehicle pursuit, weaving in and out of traffic. Green reached speeds of 140 miles per hour during the chase and even drove through a coned-off construction zone, the District Attorneys office said through a news release. Never miss a story: Make KGET.com your homepage Officers followed Green on a dangerous high-speed pursuit that reached speeds of 140 mph, according to prosecutors. The pursuit ended in Delano when Green crashed into a tree. Investigators said they found the note, the exact amount of cash and clothes worn during the bank robbery. Photos provided by courtesy of the Kern County District Attorneys Office. Officials said Green also wore a similar style of clear, square-lensed glasses during the 2021 Bakersfield Wells Fargo robbery. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 6. Because of his multiple prior strike convictions, Green faces up to 46 years to life in prison. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17. JAKARTA (Reuters) -Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk has signed a deal with Indonesia's state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma to package insulin to combat diabetes in the Southeast Asian country, a Bio Farma senior official said on Wednesday. Novo Nordisk has made international news in recent months for its popular diabetes drug Ozempic and is known for being one of the world's biggest producers of insulin. Novo Nordisk said in its 2023 annual report that the company has been expanding efforts to address diabetes care in Asia, increasing enrolments of children in India, Indonesia and other countries in one programme. A company spokesperson said the memorandum of understanding is related to the packaging of insulin in Indonesia, not the production of it in the country. Novo produces insulin itself in Denmark and the United States, the spokesperson added. The investment value or when production will start are still being finalised, Soleh Ayubi, Bio Farma's deputy chief executive officer, told Reuters, adding this is the first of Novo Nordisk's manufacturing deals in Indonesia. Novo Nordisk will provide the "expertise in diabetes treatment and insulin production" while Bio Farma will provide local manufacturing facilities, Bio Farma said in a statement. Sreerekha Sreenivasan, vice president and general manager of Novo Nordisk in Indonesia, said in the same statement the deal "strengthens our commitment in Indonesia." There are over 19 million Indonesians with diabetes or 10.8% of its total adult population of nearly 180 million people, 2021 data from the International Diabetes Federation shows. (Reporting by Stanley Widianto; editing by Alexandra Hudson) A convicted sex offender was arrested in San Bernardino County on Tuesday after police said he was walking around completely naked in public after committing a sexual assault on a public transit train. Officers in Upland responded to the area of 9th Street and 2nd Avenue around 6 p.m. on reports of a nude male near the Metrolink station and Cooper Regional History Museum, the police department posted on social media. They quickly located and detained the man and placed a towel around his waist, photos show. Man arrested after trashing L.A. Rite Aid store While dealing with the man, an LA County Sheriffs Deputy drove up and said they were looking for a subject who committed a sexual assault on the Metrolink train, police said. Authorities say Edward Rodriguez, 32, boarded an eastbound train at the El Monte station. A female rider told investigators that he was shirtless and carrying a box of beer when he tried to kiss her while grabbing her arm and touching himself, partially exposed. Upland Naked Man The alleged victim got away and exited the train at the Claremont Station, where she called the police, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department told KTLA 5 News. She later identified Rodriguez after he was detained in Upland. Rodriguez was turned over to deputies and booked on several charges. Police said he also had a felony warrant out of L.A. County for a parole violation related to a prior sex crime involving lewd acts against a child. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. Evotec and Pfizer have entered a multi-year partnership that will focus initially on early discovery research. As part of the master research collaboration and option and licence agreement, the two companies will focus on research for metabolic and infectious diseases. Evotec plans to undertake research activities at its facilities in France, including the advanced Campus Curie research site in Toulouse. The site is equipped with high throughput screening capacity, in vitro and in vivo biology, metabolomics and proteomics. Evotec chief business officer Dr Matthias Evers stated: We are honoured to collaborate with Pfizer to research potential new first-in-class therapeutic approaches. Focusing on diseases with severe unmet medical needs and highly innovative therapeutic approaches, we look forward to supporting our partners at Pfizer with integrated R&D [research and development] activities. Evotec will benefit from research support funding from Pfizer and may receive potential milestones and royalty payments contingent on the success of the programmes. Pfizer France vice-president and medical lead Dr Luca Mollo stated: We are thrilled to collaborate with Evotec to conduct discovery research that may help unlock new approaches to treating pervasive metabolic and infectious diseases that impact millions of patients worldwide. France has developed a strong biopharmaceutical ecosystem, which is why were thrilled to collaborate with Evotec to build on our shared commitment to advancing scientific discovery for diseases with unmet need. In April 2024, Evotec and Variant Bio teamed up to detect a treatment for ailments caused by fibrosis. The alliance will combine Variant Bios genomic discovery expertise and its VB-Inference platform with Evotecs antifibrotic drug discovery capabilities. "Evotec and Pfizer announce drug discovery collaboration" was originally created and published by Pharmaceutical Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Number of guns seized at U.S. airport security checkpoints keeps rising, TSA says TSA, which says it screened higher passenger volumes this summer and at a record-breaking 3 million passengers on July 7, intercepted 3,269 firearms at airport security checkpoints during the first half of the year ending June 30, officials said. That represents an average 19 firearms detected per day at TSA checkpoints -- with 94% reportedly loaded. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI July 9 (UPI) -- The Transportation Security Administration announced Tuesday that in the first half of the year it seized more than 3,000 guns at airport security checkpoints throughout the United States after a record-breaking numbers of travelers so far this year. "During a period of record-breaking travel volumes," TSA Administrator David Pekoske said Tuesday in a news release, "our officers are working hard to keep our transportation systems secure and the traveling public safe, and any time they detect a firearm, there is a real safety concern for frontline employees and travelers." The agency said it screened greater passenger volumes this summer and on July 7 saw a record-breaking 3 million individuals pass through the nation's airports. Agents reportedly intercepted 3,269 firearms at U.S. airport security checkpoints during the first half of 2024 ending June 30, representing an average 19 firearms detected per day at TSA checkpoints with 94% reportedly loaded, officials said. However, in the first eight days of this month, TSA added, an additional 166 firearms were intercepted. That brings the yearly total to July 8 at 3,435 firearms seized so far this year, in stark contrast with a reported total of 1,508 gun seized by April last year. Pekoske reminded air travelers that, in order to carry a firearm through TSA checkpoints, there are procedures in place. Passengers are permitted to travel on airplanes with a gun, subject to other foreign country travel restrictions. But in the United States, to travel with a firearm it must be: secured in the passenger's checked baggage, packed unloaded, locked in a hard-sided case and declared to the airline when first checking the bag at the airline ticket counter. "Do not bring it to the checkpoint," TSA's administrator said. "It is costly and delays you and everyone else traveling in the same lane with you." Firearms are not allowed at security checkpoints, in the secure area of an airport or passenger cabin of an aircraft -- even if a passenger has a concealed carry permit or is in a constitutional carry jurisdiction, TSA said. It pointed out that the federal agency does not "confiscate or seize" firearms, rather brings in outside law enforcement to take possession of andy weapons. The issue of guns, ammunition and air travel has been a noteworthy one of late. In June, an American tourist from Oklahoma, looking at the possibility of up to 12 years in prison, avoided jail time in the Turks and Caicos islands by paying a $2,000 fine for bullets found in his luggage in April at Howard Hamilton International Airport while on a trip to celebrate the birthday of several friends. In the first two weeks of 2024, TSA officials reported gun-related incidents at Frederick Douglass Rochester International Airport in Virginia, New York's LaGuardia Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va. A woman in December was stopped with a loaded handgun before boarding her Christmas Eve flight at Reagan Washington National Airport after it was detected in her carry-on items, and she now is facing a civil penalty of up to $15,000. Last year, even two elected officials faced travel issues related to guns in their own cases. In May, ex-Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., plead guilty to bringing a loaded gun through security at North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Cawthorn, a hard right Republican, made the guilty plea to a third-degree misdemeanor charge of possession of a dangerous weapon on city property and paid a $250 fine. That was followed in October when a Republican state Senator from Washington got arrested and charged with possession of an unregistered firearm in Hong Kong after it was discovered in his carry-on luggage on his way home, though his office claimed it was registered in Washington. The total number of guns taken at American airports appear to consistently keep rising. In January, TSA said it hit a record the year before after it had seized more than 6,700 guns at airport security checkpoints throughout the United States in 2023, beating 2022's record of 6,542 guns seized at American airports. At the time, Pekoske said he was particularly concerned about the growing number of loaded guns, which pose "an unnecessary risk to everyone at the TSA checkpoint," he said in January. CONEY ISLAND, Brooklyn (PIX11) Facing mounting pressure to do something about drownings at the citys beaches, New York City Mayor Eric Adams insisted on Tuesday that safety is improving. There were a record-breaking 800,000 visitors to the citys 14 miles of beaches during the Fourth of July holiday weekend. More Local News But with so many people comes risk. There have been several recent drownings, including two sisters who went for a swim off Coney Island Beach after hours. Adams attended their funeral. It was a real painful moment of having these two children die this way, Adams said. However, Adams said lifeguard staffing is improving after years of hiring issues. New York City has about 800 lifeguards citywide due to enhanced pay and bonuses and streamlined training requirements with the lifeguards union. Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi has been spearheading the efforts. She said the measures were only partially in place during this years lifeguard recruiting season, but there will be a real difference next year. More Brooklyn News Still, there have been calls to extend lifeguards hours past 6 p.m. Adams responded Tuesday by saying there are resources in place to warn about the dangers of after-hours swimming. This includes signs, park enforcement patrol officers, and an FDNY and NYPD presence, including drones flying into the early evening hours. Our hours are similar to other large cities around the country, Adams said. Its more about education, identifying what the flags mean when lifeguards are on duty. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. RODMANS NECK, Bronx (PIX11) An NYPD officer died after having a medical episode at a department training facility in the Bronx Wednesday, according to the NYPD. The 33-year-old recruit, identified by officials as probationary police officer Edgar Ordonez, suffered a medical episode around 11:25 a.m. while doing a training exercise at an outdoor range at Rodmans Neck, according to the NYPD. Man found in pool of blood was arguing with girlfriend in Brooklyn park: NYPD He was rushed to an area hospital in critical condition and died shortly after, officials said. Ordonez started with the department in January, according to police. NYPD officer Edgar Ordonez, 33, died after having a medical episode at a department training facility in the Bronx Wednesday afternoon, according to the NYPD. (Credit: NYPD) Edgar Ordonez was a beacon of joy and positive energy for his fellow recruits. He had the drive and determination necessary to become a New York City police officer, and he was just days away from hitting the streets and making a difference in protecting our city, said Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry. Ordonez was set to graduate on Monday, officials said. The NYPD posted a video to X showing police recruits and officers lining the streets in New York City in a tribute to Ordonez during his dignified transfer. Our hearts are heavy as we honor our fallen brother, NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said. As we continue to grieve this terrible loss, we will keep Edgars family, friends, and fellow officers in our thoughts and prayers. Rodmans Neck is used by police for weapons and tactical training, an NYPD spokesperson said. Ordonezs death did not involve gunfire, according to the spokesperson. Authorities were investigating whether the officer may have suffered heat stroke or a heart attack. New York City has seen temperatures above 90 degrees in the past few days, marking the second heat wave of the year. Temperatures in New York City hit the highest point all year on Monday at 95 degrees in Central Park. This story comprises reporting from The Associated Press. Emily Rahhal is a digital reporter from Los Angeles who has covered New York City since 2023. She joined PIX11 in 2024. See more of her work here and follow her on Twitter here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. A lab worker examines trapped mosquitoes for signs of disease at the Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District laboratory in Garden Grove. (Eugene Garcia / Associated Press) Another county in Southern California has confirmed finding mosquitoes that carry the West Nile virus. They were the first mosquito samples to test positive for the virus this year in Orange County, but according to the state Department of Public Health, 20 of California's 58 counties have experienced West Nile virus activity in 2024. Orange County has been "pretty lucky this year," said Brian Brannon of the county's Mosquito and Vector Control District. Current heat wave aside, he noted locally cooler temperatures, particularly in the evenings, have meant "we haven't seen a lot of mosquitoes." According to the agency, the infectious insects were found in Huntington Beach during routine testing in the region. West Nile which can cause symptoms including headache and fever and, in rare cases, may prove fatal is exclusively spread in Southern California by bloodsucking Culex mosquitoes that feast at dawn and dusk. Brannon said there was no reason for panic. The threat to the public is still low in Orange and Los Angeles counties, where no West Nile-related bird deaths have been reported. Birds are susceptible to contracting the virus, and such deaths would be a clear signal the disease is spreading. The state public health department counted 88 dead birds as positive for the virus so far this year. Santa Clara and Sacramento counties accounted for most of the birds. Notably, there have been no human cases in California thus far in 2024. Residents averse to getting bitten can reduce their risk by removing stagnant containers of water from around their homes such as uncovered outdoor grills and potted plants with saucers where mosquitoes breed. Also, opt for long-sleeved clothing and apply a repellent that contains DEET, oil of lemon eucalyptus or another effective active ingredient. Other agencies across Southern California are on the lookout too, monitoring types of mosquitoes and their population numbers, Brannon said. In recent years, the invasive Aedes aegypti has aggressively grown in numbers. These bloodsuckers need only a teaspoon of water to reproduce and, unlike the Culex, have an affinity for biting at all hours of the day. They can also spread diseases such as yellow fever, dengue and Zika. "So far this season, we've only seen the West Nile," Brannon said, "but we are on the lookout for any other potential disease that can be spread." The Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District has found three cases of the West Nile virus in mosquito samples from the San Fernando Valley, and officials are on the lookout for more as this year's heavy rainfall made conditions ripe for a mosquito takeover. "Currently we're still in normal season. We have not entered any high risk level," said Susanne Kluh, the general manager at the L.A. County agency. She said it's normal for these humidity- and heat-loving mosquitoes to be more active in the Valley. Read more: Mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus found in L.A. County "The virus amplifies more quickly at higher temperatures," Kluh said, noting that climate change has been a boon for subtropical mosquitoes and the diseases they carry. Mosquitoes have the capability to adapt to "drier or cooler climates," she added, where "they will keep distributing." In spring, vector control agencies across Southern California attempted a new and innovative way to stop the spread of Aedes mosquitoes by releasing more of them. The strategy, as counterintuitive as it sounds, is exciting, said Tristan Alexander Hallum, director of scientific programs at the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District. "We're starting to develop different techniques of sterilization to be able to curb those populations," Hallum said. Although it's too early to have data on the efficacy of these efforts, the idea is that sterilizing male mosquitoes with radiation will start to reduce the number of viable eggs. "Radiation has been a tried and tested method for different programs like the screwworm fly." This summer, Hallum said, the fear of catching West Nile or other illnesses from mosquitoes shouldn't prevent anyone from taking part in recreational activities outdoors. "I would never be afraid of mosquito-borne pathogens that we see on a consistent basis," Hallum said. "We're very much at a routine level of West Nile virus currently within our area." This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday introduced articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, citing their pattern of refusal to recuse themselves from matters to which they are connected and their failure to disclose millions of dollars in gifts over decades. The unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court has now spiraled into a Constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large, Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a press release announcing the impeachment articles. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alitos pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitutes a grave threat to American rule of law, the integrity of our democracy, and one of the clearest cases for which the tool of impeachment was designed, she continued. Both impeachment resolutions include an article citing Thomass and Alitos failure to disclose financial income, gifts and reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions, among other information. The impeachment resolution against Thomas includes two articles related to his refusal to recuse from matters concerning his spouses legal interest in cases before the court as well as her financial interest in cases before the court. The second impeachment resolution, against Alito, includes a second article citing Alitos refusal to recuse from cases in which he had a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party in cases before the court. Ocasio-Cortez vowed early last week to file impeachment articles against at least one justice on the Supreme Court, after a 6-3 ruling granted presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution, a major victory for former President Trump as he faces felony charges for his efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election. Todays ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture, Ocasio-Cortez wrote on the social platform X last Monday. I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return. Ahead of the Supreme Courts ruling on presidential immunity, Alito and Thomas faced calls to recuse themselves in cases related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, including in last weeks presidential immunity decision. Critics cited the public reports connecting the justices to the Stop the Steal movement behind the Capitol attack even if the justices themselves maintain they have no connection to the movement. Thomass wife was a major player in the Stop the Steal movement, while Alito has recently come under fire over a flag flying over his home that has been connected to the Stop the Steal movement. Both justices have refused calls to recuse. Alito said an upside-down U.S. flag over his home was the responsibility of his wife. Democrats have sharpened their focus on the Supreme Court after the presidential immunity ruling, hoping that a messaging blitz focused on the bench could turbocharge campaigns up and down the ballot in the lead-up to the November elections. In addition to Ocasio-Cortezs impeachment resolution, Democrats have floated a host of reform proposals that theyre hoping to adopt if voters deliver them the House majority at the polls in November. The list includes efforts to apply term limits to Supreme Court justices; establish a formal and enforceable code of ethics by which the justices must abide; increase the number of justices on the court; and grant Congress greater oversight powers over their conduct. This story was updated at 3:17 p.m. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. ODOT has removed patches of trees along Greater Cincinnati highways. Here's why Readers noticed a large patch of tree clearings along southbound Interstate 71 between the Kenwood Road and Stewart Road exits and asked The Enquirer what happened. Is the interstate expanding? Is a new building going in? At least part of the clearings are due to a statewide Ohio Department of Transportation project on interstates and "interstate look-alikes," ODOT spokesperson Kathleen Fuller said. Thanks to this initiative, drivers will notice an uptick in cleared paths and tree debris along highways in eight metropolitan areas, including Cincinnati. The Enquirer spoke to Fuller about what readers should know about the project, including why it's happening and when it will end in Ohio. What is the ODOT tree removal project? The Ohio Department of Transportation's Columbus office hired contractors to control vegetation overgrowth along Ohio interstates and "interstate look-alikes," which are multi-lane divided highways. Ronald Reagan Cross County Highway, comprised mostly of Ohio 126, is an example of an "interstate look-alike." Trees and debris are cleared from the median of I-275 near the 5 Mile Road exit in Anderson Township, Ohio, as seen on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. The clearing is limited to medians, ramp interchanges the sections of land between ramps and the interstate and roughly 30 feet from the pavement line, which includes road shoulders. Why is the project happening? The project is taking place for a number of reasons: Control invasive species: This is the primary reason for the project, Fuller said. ODOT is cutting back honeysuckle and Bradford pear trees, two pervasive invasive species. "We're trying to keep those invasive species from becoming too out of control and spreading all up and down the right-of-way," Fuller said. Reduce potential obstructions for drivers: ODOT is cutting down trees that drivers may hit if they were to depart from the highway and onto medians or sides of the road. Clearing tree canopy also minimizes the risk of branches falling onto the highway. Improve snow and ice operations: Eliminating overhanging tree branches will allow more sun exposure to roads, Fuller said, which will help thaw snow and ice on roads in the winter. Improve driver visibility: Large vegetation can block drivers' ability to see potential hazards like traffic on ramps or deer hiding in the brush. Maintain proper drainage: Removing vegetation enables ODOT to easily see areas that may cause potential drainage issues, like ditches, and address them. Where is the project occurring? The project is occurring across eight Ohio metropolitan areas, including: Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus Cleveland Youngstown Akron Canton The project has been completed in Cincinnati, but debris currently remains. In Cincinnati, the project occurred on interstates 71, 74 and 275. Drivers will see tree branches and other leftovers along these interstates. Fuller said she is not aware of the project having taken place on any "interstate look-alikes" in Cincinnati. In Columbus, ODOT hired contractors removed honeysucke bushes and other junk trees from highways over the course of March to June 2024. When will the project be finished? Crews began work in March and finished in Cincinnati as of July 9, Fuller said. Crews will continue to clear in the other metropolitan areas now that they are finished in Hamilton County. They likely have two years to complete the project across Ohio, said Fuller. Crews may return to Cincinnati in the future to address the debris that remains on the interstates, Fuller added. Curious as to why there's a bunch of debris along Cincinnati interstates? These twigs on I-71 North are leftover from an Ohio Department of Transportation clearing project. Will the project impact traffic? ODOT has rolled out temporary single-lane closures due to the project. It has, otherwise, had minimal impact on traffic across the state. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio Department of Transportation conducting tree removal project Man accused of breaking into Ohio pet store found with 4 hamsters in his pants A man accused of breaking into an Ohio pet store was arrested early Tuesday morning. >>Busy street closed after firefighters respond to Dayton recycling center fire Columbus Police officers were dispatched to report someone breaking into Roosters just after 3 a.m. on Tuesday, according to our news partner WBNS in Columbus. Officers discovered the restaurant was broken into as well as a pet shop. Several animals were set loose. To my knowledge, officers have been able so far to recover two dogs, multiple birds, I believe a hamster, and at least a couple of bunnies, said Sgt. Joe Albert, Columbus Division of Police When officers arrested the suspect, they found a sleep near Big Lots. They also discovered four hamsters in his pants. Matthew Pancake, 31, is in Franklin County Jail on two felony charges. They are breaking and entering as well as vandalism. Official: Most UNRWA schools in Gaza Strip hit during war Displaced Palestinians can be seen in a United Nations (UNRWA) school after the withdrawal of the Israeli army. Most educational and health facilities were destroyed, as noted by the European Union, which also warned of worsening humanitarian conditions due to the fierce battles between Israel and Hamas. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa Two thirds of schools run by the Palestinian relief organization UNRWA in the Gaza Strip have suffered damage since the start of the war nine months ago, the agency said on Wednesday. Some schools were bombed out, many were severely damaged, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, posted on X. "Schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery," Lazzarini wrote. Four schools have been hit in the past four days alone, the UNRWA chief added, without specifying which warring party was behind the attacks. According to the agency, it ran 284 schools in the sealed-off coastal strip before the Gaza war began on October 7. "Nine months in, under our watch, the relentless, endless killings, destruction and despair continue. Gaza is no place for children," Lazzarini said, calling for an immediate ceasefire. The "blatant disregard of international humanitarian law" cannot become the new normal, he stressed. In Berlin, the German Foreign Office wrote on X that it was unacceptable that civilians seeking protection in schools were being killed. The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop and be investigated "quickly," the office demanded. HERNDON, Va. (DC News Now) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said a man from Honduras received a five-year federal prison sentence on June 27 for receiving child sexual abuse material from her and for assaulting a federal officer. ICE said deportation officers from Enforcement and Removal Operations in D.C. arrested 23-year-old Jhoan Esau Lemus-Ramos, for raping a 13-year-old girl in Herndon. Hagerstown City Council steps up efforts to promote drug-free neighborhoods On Jan. 4, deportations officers went to Lemus-Ramos home in Springfield with a warrant for his arrest. As they attempted to arrest him, he hit an officer in the face, which required the officer to get stitches, according to a news release from ICE. Lemus-Ramos unlawfully entered the United States in 2021. Then in February 2022, Lemus-Ramos contacted a 13-year-old girl through an online messaging app, ICE said. In March 2022, Lemus-Ramos met the victim in a parking lot in Herndon. Thats when Lemus-Ramos raped her after she tried to resist his sexual advances. ICE said for the next couple months, until at last through August 2022, Lemus-Ramos asked the victim multiple times for nude or semi-nude pictures. She eventually complied and sent the photos. Utility worker dies after being electrocuted in Montgomery County Lemus-Ramos used the photos to threaten her and force her to have sex with him after she wanted to stop talking to him. ICE said Lemus-Ramos stopped threatening her after she reached out to Herndon police for help. Evidence of messages were found between Lemus-Ramos and the victim as well as child sexual abuse material. Jhoan Esau Lemus-Ramos represented a significant threat to the children of our Virginia communities, ERO Washington, D.C. Field Office Director, Liana Castano, stated in a news release. He not only traumatized his young victim by forcing himself on her; he also harassed her into sending him compromising images of her. Upon his apprehension, Lemus Ramos assaulted one of our officers. ERO Washington, D.C. will continue to prioritize public safety by apprehending and removing the most egregious noncitizen offenders from our neighborhoods. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. The Singapore stock market continues to show resilience amidst global economic fluctuations, attracting attention from investors looking for value in a diverse market landscape. In this context, understanding what constitutes an undervalued stock is crucial, especially when considering investments that may offer significant intrinsic discounts in the current environment. Top 5 Undervalued Stocks Based On Cash Flows In Singapore Name Current Price Fair Value (Est) Discount (Est) LHN (SGX:41O) SGD0.33 SGD0.38 12% Singapore Technologies Engineering (SGX:S63) SGD4.32 SGD8.20 47.3% Hongkong Land Holdings (SGX:H78) US$3.22 US$5.80 44.5% Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust (SGX:BUOU) SGD0.925 SGD1.65 44% Digital Core REIT (SGX:DCRU) US$0.575 US$1.10 47.7% Seatrium (SGX:5E2) SGD1.41 SGD2.61 46% Nanofilm Technologies International (SGX:MZH) SGD0.84 SGD1.47 42.7% Click here to see the full list of 7 stocks from our Undervalued SGX Stocks Based On Cash Flows screener. Let's dive into some prime choices out of from the screener Overview: Seatrium Limited specializes in engineering solutions for the offshore, marine, and energy sectors with a market capitalization of SGD 4.80 billion. Operations: The company generates revenue primarily through its segments in rigs and floaters, repairs and upgrades, offshore platforms, and specialized shipbuilding which collectively contribute SGD 7.26 billion, along with a smaller segment in ship chartering bringing in SGD 31.63 million. Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 46% Seatrium Limited is trading at S$1.41, significantly below its estimated fair value of S$2.61, marking a 46% undervaluation based on discounted cash flow analysis. Analyst consensus forecasts a substantial 92.4% potential increase in stock price, with earnings expected to grow by 72.23% annually. Despite this growth, its projected Return on Equity of 8.2% remains modest compared to benchmarks. Recent contracts with GE Vernova and BP hint at robust operational expansion but share price volatility persists, reflecting market caution amidst recent high-profile executive changes and legal settlements. SGX:5E2 Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024 Overview: Hongkong Land Holdings Limited operates in the investment, development, and management of properties across Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland China, Southeast Asia and other international locations with a market cap of approximately $7.11 billion. Operations: The company generates revenue from two primary segments: Investment Properties, which contributed approximately $1.08 billion, and Development Properties, accounting for about $0.76 billion. Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 44.5% Hongkong Land Holdings, priced at S$3.22, is significantly undervalued by 44.5% against a fair value estimate of S$5.8, reflecting strong potential despite moderate growth forecasts. The company's revenue is expected to grow annually by 4.6%, outpacing the Singapore market's 3.6%. While its Return on Equity is projected to remain low at 2.4%, earnings are anticipated to increase substantially each year at a rate of 43.34%. However, its current dividend yield of 6.83% is poorly supported by earnings, suggesting financial caution. SGX:H78 Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024 Overview: Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd is a global technology, defense, and engineering company with a market capitalization of SGD 13.47 billion. Operations: The company's revenue is segmented into Commercial Aerospace (SGD 3.97 billion), Urban Solutions & Satcom (SGD 1.98 billion), and Defence & Public Security (SGD 4.29 billion). Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 47.3% Singapore Technologies Engineering, trading at S$4.32, is valued below the estimated fair value of S$8.20, indicating a significant undervaluation by more than 20%. Earnings have shown modest growth of 1.1% annually over the past five years and are projected to increase by 11.6% per year, outpacing the Singapore market's average. Despite this promising growth and a recent share repurchase initiative signaling confidence from management, concerns exist due to its high level of debt and unstable dividend track record. SGX:S63 Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024 Taking Advantage Embark on your investment journey to our 7 Undervalued SGX Stocks Based On Cash Flows selection here. Have you diversified into these companies? Leverage the power of Simply Wall St's portfolio to keep a close eye on market movements affecting your investments. Elevate your portfolio with Simply Wall St, the ultimate app for investors seeking global market coverage. Contemplating Other Strategies? 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. Companies discussed in this article include SGX:5E2 SGX:H78 and SGX:S63. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com (BCN) Monterey County officials are closing Lake San Antonio to visitors Wednesday and asking all campers to vacate following a mass fish dieoff that county staff first noticed last week. State and county experts have not yet figured out why the fish are dying. For almost a week, larger and larger dead fish have washed up on the lakes shores. One dead bass weighed 3 to 4 pounds, county officials said in a statement. They issued a photograph that showed waves of hundreds of silver-colored fish on the lakes beach. Last Friday, parks employees noticed a large number of dead baitfish, mostly shad, on the shore of Lake San Antonio, roughly 30 miles northeast from Hearst Castle. Affected fish species spread to larger creatures like bass, trout, carp, crappie and catfish. New heat wave set to simmer San Francisco Bay Area Larger species should not have been affected by the recent heat wave, Monterey County officials said. The countys Chief of Parks Bryan Flores said fish who live in all depths have been affected, including catfish whose habitat is hundreds of feet deep. We just dont know whats causing it, Flores said. We hope it stops soon. Flores said neither he nor his staff had seen a dieoff of this scale or intensity at the lake before, including one employee who has served at the lake since the 1990s. Flores explained that they could be seeing the delayed effects of one spontaneous event that took time to ripple through fish populations. He said he didnt suspect someone dumped something deadly off their boat, in part because the dieoff has not extended to area birds or raccoons. If it was a poison, youd think it would be impacting the other species, Flores said. More than likely, it is some kind of biological process thats occurring, whether or not its algae or protozoa. The county called in state wildlife, water and environmental experts as the fish dieoff continued, spreading to the bigger and deeper water fish as the days progressed. The countys Environmental Health Bureau took the precautionary measure directive of asking parks officials to close the lake to swimming, boating and fishing, a county spokesperson said. We must keep the public safe by closing the park, Flores wrote in the statement. The same week, Fremont city officials saw a mass death of fish, primarily carp, in Lake Elizabeth. In a press release, a city spokesman blamed diminished dissolved oxygen levels in the water caused by the Bay Areas recent heat wave. Monterey County staff suspected the same cause in Lake San Antonios dieoff, but state biologists tests showed normal oxygen levels, county officials said in a statement. Flores said Lake San Antonio reaches close to 300 feet in depth, which should have given some fish places to escape heats effects. Scientists have linked fish dieoffs to climate change. University of California, Davis, researchers found that heat contributed to one in five such events in Wisconsin from 2010 to 2014. Monterey County officials asked the few campers who remain at Lake San Antonio to pack up and leave by noon Wednesday. Flores said that he hoped to have water testing results back by the beginning of next week. A state fish and wildlife biologist has visited the lake every day to investigate, according to Flores. If they can determine the dieoffs cause does not endanger humans, Flores said he hopes to reopen the lake after an initial cleanup. For the full cleanup, he estimated his department will need a few weeks. Copyright 2024 Bay City News, Inc. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. How often do Columbia SC police arrest homeless residents? See the data. More than 1,000 arrests of homeless residents have been made in Columbia since the beginning of 2023, according to police data provided to The State. More than two-thirds of police encounters with Columbias homeless end without an arrest. Officers can encounter homeless residents for several reasons, including the resident reporting a crime or an officer connecting a resident with social services, according to the police department. Columbia police officers self report their encounters with the homeless. Their reports show that between January 2023 and May 2024, 1,073 arrests were made of homeless residents. That equals to 29% of all encounters between police and homeless residents. The police department stressed that it does not track homeless residents, but it keeps data on all arrests. The data does not indicate if any of the arrests are of repeat offenders or what crimes the homeless were accused of committing. The State has requested incident reports associated with the arrests to get more information. Columbia leaders have discussed for several years how to reduce the number of homeless residents loitering in business districts, including Main Street and the Vista. The goal, leaders have said, is both to address longstanding quality-of-life issues for businesses and visitors, while also connecting chronically homeless residents with needed addiction, housing and job services. The Columbia Police Department has played a role in that effort. Last year, the department initiated Operation Hope and Order, which was meant in part to address homelessness downtown by cracking down on loitering as well as taking a specific look at businesses with a high number of police calls. Two downtown businesses had a combined 1,200 incidents in the first half of 2023, Holbrook previously said. Holbrook acknowledged that most of Columbias homeless residents are not committing crimes, but there are a handful of repeat offenders. Between January 2021 and June 2024, police reported 8,489 contacts with homeless residents, and 47% of the people encountered had at least one prior encounter with police, according to department data. Forty percent of the contacts were because police believed the individual was a suspect in a crime. The police department says it does not automatically arrest someone for things like loitering, and that the majority of arrests are for violent or disruptive crimes. Housing advocates say there is a misconception that homeless residents commit a lot of crimes. I think its a mistake to automatically associate homelessness with criminality, said Paul Bowers, communications director for the ACLU of South Carolina. People find themselves without a home for a lot of reasons. The ACLU of South Carolina last year accused the city of criminalizing homelessness after the city passed an ordinance making it illegal to have a stolen shopping cart and changing the warning rules for urban camping, among other policies. Bowers said that police arresting people for violent crimes is not the ACLUs worry, but the problem is that ordinances have been written in a way that lead police to confront unhoused people more than they would other communities. Alternative resolutions Police interactions with homeless residents can end in three ways, Columbia Police Major Chris Roberts said. Most often, police will conduct a field interview with a resident and take no further action. Police also respond when businesses ask for help in moving people trespassing on private property. In those cases police will note that the individual is on trespass notice but those encounters dont typically end in arrests. Police also make contact with homeless residents to help connect them with services, Roberts added. Between January 2023 and May 2024, Columbia police took 1,762 field interviews or information reports with homeless residents that did not lead to an arrest. Columbia police were able to connect homeless residents with services 802 times during that period. Those services can include connecting a person with the police departments mental health clinicians, or having a social service professional in the city meet the resident to offer assistance, Roberts said. The department also coordinates with the citys Rapid Shelter program, which provides temporary pallet shelters to chronically homeless residents. Holbrook previously said that avoiding arrests of homeless residents by leveraging mental health experts and officers trained in crisis management are department success stories. You could argue arrests are failures, he added. Roberts said that residents do not always want to be connected with those services, and the department can only make those connections if the resident agrees. In those cases, officers will try to build trust with residents over time, he added. We show that were not just there to arrest people, that were there to help. Roberts told The State that arrests are not a first response when police encounter homeless residents. Roberts said disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace are among incidents that could lead to an arrest if officers are not able to deescalate a situation. Its not against the law to be homeless, Roberts said. We dont address homelessness, we address criminal activity regardless of socioeconomic status. The police department has also been tasked with addressing loitering and illegal camping by clearing homeless encampments across the city. In 2023, the Columbia Police Department cleared 48 encampments city-wide. Between January and June of this year, the department has cleared 24 encampments, according to department data. The city has also hired the private security firm Allied Universal to patrol downtown areas for loitering. Columbia approved a $2 million contract with the security firm in July 2023 for a variety of security services across the city, including for armed security guards at fixed sites and patrol teams surveying properties for loitering and other crimes. Allied Universal employees are not able to make arrests, the police department previously told The State. As they reshape American life, the conservative Supreme Court justices are working to realize the vision developed by the right-wing legal world they came from: weak regulatory agencies, an omnipotent executive, a flexible enough rule of law to imbue the courts (particularly theirs) with awesome power. They employ (and create) a variety of tools to give their rulings a patina of legitimacy. Originalism is paramount. Theyve conjured up the nondelegation and major questions doctrines to help fill the gaps. The liberals have long been relegated to writing stridently in dissent, picking apart their conservative colleagues cherrypicked rulings. But in the years since the majority has charged hard to the right, liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson have increasingly and sometimes furiously started to outline a competing vision of America. And this term, in many of the banner cases, newcomer Jackson led the charge. In her sophomore year on the bench, Jackson hasnt shied away from writing alone on some of the terms biggest cases. She occasionally pushed beyond the often joint opinions of Kagan and Sotomayor both to intensify their critiques and, importantly, to situate them in a greater philosophical framework. That project has been, to this point, anemic on the political and legal left, to the movements detriment. The Republican Party and especially Trump folks and organizations like Heritage are very good at mobilizing their base and their intellectual movement around questions of constitutional structure, around the importance of, say, presidential power or judicial supremacy, Blake Emerson, professor of law and political science at UCLA, told TPM in a recent interview following the Courts immunity ruling. There is no liberal counter to that way of thinking and talking that makes the case why its important to have rule of law, regulatory protections, not to give the President a blank check while respecting the Presidents legitimate constitutional role. The three liberals and, in particular, Jackson are starting to fill some of that silence. The Vision In her solo dissent from the Donald Trump immunity case, where the conservatives granted presidents sweeping protections from criminal prosecution, Jackson situated the majority ruling as an ahistorical break with the individual accountability model that had long undergirded our criminal justice system (in theory). Our Government has long functioned under an accountability paradigm in which no one is above the law; an accused person is innocent until proven guilty; and criminal defendants may raise defenses, both legal and factual, tailored to their particular circumstances, whether they be Government officials or ordinary citizens, she wrote. She outlined a counterargument to the Trumpist, and thus Republican, vision of an untouchable, imperial presidency and super-powerful Supreme Court unchecked by a flaccid Congress and lording over increasingly hobbled federal agencies. Its a structure in which power pools in the least democratic corners of our governmental structure, insulated from popular will. In Jacksons vision of the rule of law, defendants, including former presidents, are given a gamut of protections, both before and during their trials, able to challenge prosecutions that are wrongly brought and to mount a robust defense of their actions. The Courts new theory of immunity is an affront to such a system, where the most powerful person, the one best equipped to avail himself of these protections, is shielded from being prosecuted even for egregious crimes committed in plain sight. Our criminal justice system, often punitive and discriminatory, is already a far cry from the dignified and just model she described and the Courts immunity decision only pushed that ideal further into the realms of fantasy. But, confined to the dissent, she formulated an overarching counterargument that those on the left have neglected to make outside of myopic cases or individual policy issues. It is a core tenet of our democracy that the People are the sovereign, and the Rule of Law is our first and final security, she wrote. She took a similarly philosophical view on United States v. Rahimi, where all but Justice Clarence Thomas ruled that domestic abusers could be stripped of their gun rights. Where Kagan and Sotomayor cheered the narrowing of Bruens demand for historical analogues to uphold gun restrictions and briefly voiced their misgivings about the Courts marriage to historical precedent more broadly, Jackson went further. She countered the conservative fixation on originalist tradition with a series of questions pointing out its obvious weaknesses including that laws at or around the founding were written to protect a vanishingly small slice of Americans. Who is protected by the Second Amendment, from a historical perspective? To what conduct does the Second Amendments plain text apply? To what historical era (or eras) should courts look to divine a historical tradition of gun regulation? How many analogues add up to a tradition? Must there be evidence that those analogues were enforced or subject to judicial scrutiny? How much support can nonstatutory sources lend? She asked. I could go on as others have. She again made the case for the rule of law, arguing that this inconsistent and arbitrary originalism has forced judges to don the ill-fitting hats of historians, leading to a patchwork of contradictory opinions. No one seems to question that [h]istory has a role to play in Second Amendment analysis. she wrote. But, per Bruen, courts evaluating a Second Amendment challenge must consider history to the exclusion of all else. In her vision, history would be a factor, and not the sole basis, for judicial review of gun regulations. Legislatures would know how they can regulate firearms within constitutional bounds. And individual judges wouldnt sift through historical episodes to get to their chosen end result. Unbalancing Power Jackson also earned the distinction of being perhaps the most consistent justice in her decrying of the conservatives project to unbalance the branches of government, to the detriment of both Congress and the regulatory agencies in the executive branch. This was a leading theme for all of the liberals, given the gargantuan strides the right-wing majority took this term in shifting power away from federal agencies to itself. But Jackson wrote on a couple major cases where the other liberals kept silent. She was the only one to write outside of the majority in Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney, partially dissenting from an otherwise unanimous decision that gave the coffee behemoth a modest victory in its efforts to quash unionization efforts at its stores. It raised the bar for the National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency, to get its preliminary injunction requests granted by district courts a step meant to immediately shield workers from their companies anti-union crackdowns, rather than delivering relief only after the months- or years-long duration of a case. She characterized the decision as yet another judicial power grab, another case where the Court blessed judicial discretion over the agencys, despite Congress clear intent to tilt the scales the other way. I am loath to bless this aggrandizement of judicial power where Congress has so plainly limited the discretion of the courts, and where it so clearly intends for the expert agency it has created to make the primary determinations about both merits and process, she wrote. And in this specific case, Congress insisted on empowering the board because courts have such a dismal record of protecting workers rights: To put it bluntly, courts exercising their equitable discretion amidst labor disputes today do so against the backdrop of an ignominious history of abuse, she added. She wrote alone, without the support of the other liberals, to underscore that the labor dispute was actually just the latest in an unmistakable trend of the rights long-pursued mission to defang the administrative state. She did similar work in Moore v. United States, a right-wing effort to preemptively head off a wealth tax, and Moyle v. United States, a case pitting state abortion bans against federal emergency room requirements. In Moore she was the only liberal to write, and used her concurrence to warn the Court off of interfering with future (impliedly, wealth) taxes, and leave it to voters to express their approval or dismay at the ballot box. In Moyle, she took a hammer to her colleagues, writing that, rather than punting the case, the Court should have decided it now, as it allows states to nullify Congress judgment a clear violation of the Supremacy Clause. All of these opinions flow in the same direction: In her vision, Congress is vital and its delegations of power to the executive branch deserving of utmost respect and protection. Judges are humble, loath to insert themselves as uber-legislators. Agencies, imbued with power by Congress, get to exercise it. These positions arent novel, but the left, outside of academia, has still failed to articulate them as the foundation of its policy goals, the ideology from which everything else (abortion rights, environmental and worker protections, progressive tax schemes) flows. With her solo opinions, Jackson is building up this progressive vision of the rule of law, of the balance of power, of judicial restraint and congressional vigor. She often writes in dissent and sometimes writes alone; but for any liberal on the bench, this game is a long one and the construction of a left-wing counterargument to the predominating right-wing theory of law and governance is a worthwhile cause in the meantime. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. (Photo by WEWS.) It was already controversial last fall when Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose acknowledged that he was moving his office to new digs and abandoning its home of 20 years. An analysis by a watchdog group now indicates that the move was substantially more expensive than LaRose claimed. And it all but demolishes one of the main reasons he gave for making the move that it would save taxpayer money. The analysis, by the progressive group American Oversight, is based on documents obtained through an open-records request. It found that the cost to move the state office in charge of elections and business filings came in almost 25% more than the estimate LaRose gave the public. Last September, as he was beginning his unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, local media learned that LaRose was moving his state office from 180 E. Broad St. to a swankier location along the Scioto Mile at 200 Civic Center Drive. The new location would be farther from the state Capitol, state office buildings and the heart of downtown than the three others under consideration, WCMH Channel 4 reported. More controversially, the new offices are also in the same building as the law offices of BakerHostetler, LaRoses campaign attorneys whose address LaRose used in registering his campaign with the Federal Elections Commission. That raised concerns among ethics experts that LaRose might use taxpayer-funded facilities intended to administer elections to also run for one of them. Suspicions were raised even further when LaRose claimed to not have a campaign headquarters as he ran for a top office in a major state. Political observers said such a large, complex campaign needed a headquarters, and there were concerns that LaRose would be using space somewhere in the new building as a de facto HQ. There were just too many temptations for abuse, they said. LaRoses office refused to answer questions from the Capital Journal about those matters, or for this story. But in October, he recorded a campaign interview with a now-imprisoned Steve Bannon in what was almost certainly the building that now houses the secretary of states office. Asked in person after the interview if he had used the building at 200 Civic Center Drive for campaign purposes or would in the future, LaRose stalked off without answering. Then in December, LaRoses spokeswoman conceded that he had campaigned out of the offices of BakerHostetler, but said he would not in the future. A major justification LaRose used for making the move was that it would save money. But even the numbers he initially employed made the assertion highly questionable. The move would save a little more than $11,000 a year on rent, but the relocation was estimated to cost $600,000. So it would be 2077 before the savings on rent would have covered the estimated cost of the move. If the estimate was accurate, that is. American Oversight requested all expense reports, invoices, charge card or credit card statements, and receipts reflecting the total cost of the move of the Office of the Ohio Secretary of State to its new office location. The states response included $183,000 in invoices from the movers themselves. But it also included $314,000 for building maintenance and another $139,000 paid to King Business Interiors in November, as well as other expenses. Taken together, they total $747,000 $147,000 more than LaRose said the move would cost. That disproves his claim that the move was a good deal for taxpayers or at least for the vast majority of those now living. If thats what the move cost, itll be 68 years or nearly the next millennium before the rent reduction pays what it cost to move the state elections office into the building where LaRoses U.S. Senate campaign was officially registered. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Ohio Secretary of State office move cost $147K more than promised, watchdog says appeared first on Ohio Capital Journal. OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) The Oklahoma City Fire Department is celebrating one year of its Safe Haven Baby Box. OKCFD Station 21. The box was installed in July of 2023 at Fire Station 21 and provides a safe and anonymous way for parents to surrender newborns. LOCAL NEWS: Applications open for OKCFDs Camp Inferno With the installation of the Safe Haven Baby Box at Fire Station 21, parents now have a discreet and secure method to surrender their infants, ensuring that they are protected and receive the care they deserve, said Chief Scott Douglas in a press release. The climate-controlled box is located on the northeast exterior and has motion sensors and a silent alarm for quick response. The baby box is first of its kind in Oklahoma, and two more are scheduled to be installed. OKCFD Station 21 Safe Haven Baby Box. Image courtesy OKCFD. OKCFD Station 21 Safe Haven Baby Box. Image courtesy OKCFD. OKCFD Station 21 Safe Haven Baby Box. Image courtesy OKCFD. Officials say under the states Safe Haven law, parents can safely surrender their unharmed babies up to 30 days old without prosecution. According to OKCFD, the box has not been used since its installation. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma County jail, built in 1991, is pictured in downtown Oklahoma City. The jail refused a second health inspection on Tuesday. (Photo by Carmen Forman/Oklahoma Voice) OKLAHOMA CITY The Oklahoma County jail has twice refused surprise inspections from the Oklahoma State Department of Health, setting the stage for a potential standoff between the countys district attorney and the state agency tasked with ensuring county jails are safe. The decision to block what should be a routine annual inspection has raised concerns among some who said unannounced visits are not unusual and are necessary to ensure inmates are receiving proper care. County officials first denied entry to an inspector on June 25, saying the jail did not have enough staff to support the inspection, and again Tuesday for the same reason. Jail officials instead invited the Health Department to conduct the inspection on a predetermined date. The state Health Department rebuffed that offer in its own letter dated July 1, which Oklahoma Voice obtained with an open records request. We will not be deterred from obtaining an accurate understanding of how the facility operates on a day-to-day basis and decline your invitation for a planned and potentially curated inspection, wrote Health Commissioner Keith Reed. He wrote that it was concerning that the jail did not have adequate staff for inspections given its history of noncompliance with basic health, safety, and sanitary standards. The agency then attempted a second unannounced inspection Tuesday morning. In response, the Oklahoma County District Attorneys Office sent a letter stating that the agency had exceeded its lawful authority. Aaron Etherington, assistant district attorney, wrote in the letter that the Health Department must submit a 10-day notice prior to any inspections. A district attorney spokesperson said Wednesday that the letter was the offices only comment on the situation. The Health Department maintained Wednesday that unannounced inspections are legal and necessary and 10-day notice is not required. According to Oklahoma law, inspectors employed by the health department are permitted to enter the jail for inspections. Damion Shade, executive director for Oklahomans For Criminal Justice Reform, said the agency has the right to conduct unannounced inspections. However, he said there could be legal context the public is unaware of that led the district attorney to support the jail in this case. Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane, said he is a long-time advocate for improving jails and detention centers around the state. When it comes to surprise inspections, hes very supportive of them. If they know something is coming, theyre gonna do things differently and prepare If we have random inspections, youre gonna have to be prepared at all times, Humphrey said. Who wouldnt want that? The Oklahoma County jail has been plagued with problems since it opened in 1991. A trust, the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority, took over administration of the jail in July 2020 but the jail continued to experience above average death rates, poor facilities, overcrowding and understaffing. I think there are historical issues that have plagued that jail, really, since its design and inception, Shade said. I think its unfair to blame them (the trust) for all of those years of lost public trust. In 2023, The Oklahoman conducted a lengthy investigation which covered the long history of issues with the jail. Since the trust took over, over 40 people have died in custody, with four people dead this year alone. A grand jury decided in March 2023 that the trust controlling the jail should be dissolved, returning control to the county sheriff. So far the nine-person trust has opted to continue running the facility. Shade said that abiding by state laws reflects a commitment to voters and the Oklahomans incarcerated in the jail. He said these unannounced inspections could help to rebuild public trust in the jail. If the state Health Department was going to a school and the school said, Hey, we dont have enough staff to walk you around. We cant do surprise inspections, I dont think the public would be satisfied with that type of explanation in the context of a school, Shade said. So we certainly shouldnt be satisfied with that explanation in the context of a jail where we have Oklahoma citizens. Back in 2022, unannounced inspections revealed repeated violations of state standards. Shade said such inspections help protect the civil rights of the people in the jail and ensure that they are being properly cared for. You (voters) all pay the taxes. You have a right to know what is happening in any space that you are paying for to house Oklahoma citizens. Be that a school, be that a jail or a prison, Shade said. Oklahoma voters have a right to know whats happening. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Oklahomas Social Studies Curriculum Is About to Get the Project 2025 Treatment Oklahomas top education official, who last month mandated that middle and high schools must incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments into their curriculums, unveiled a new plan this week to move his states public schools even further to the right. Superintendent Ryan Walters plans to overhaul Oklahomas social studies curriculum with the help of a committee that includes a laundry list of right-wing think tank veterans and influencersincluding Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, whose work on the presidential policy proposal document Project 2025 has gone viral in recent days. Also included on the list is conservative radio host and media personality Dennis Prager, whose empire of educational YouTube videosnamed Prager University despite its lack of accreditationhas been likened to ultra-nationalistic propaganda shown in authoritarian countries like North Korea and China. Walters promised his revisions to the social studies curriculum will eliminate DEI, indoctrination, and return teaching back to the basics in Oklahoma. Teachers unions have been rewriting history, teaching students to hate America. But not under my watch, Walters added in a statement to the conservative-leaning Washington Examiner. Our goal is to give Oklahoma students an education that focuses on history, not indoctrination. The executive committee that weve assembled are experts in American exceptionalism, our Founding Fathers, and historical documents like the Bible. These things are essential to understanding our history. It remains unclear what, exactly, the committee plans to change in the states curriculum, but the move is firmly in line with the priorities Walters has already expressed for his tenure as Oklahomas top education officialand builds on several initiatives he has already implemented. PragerU videos, for example, were already being played in Oklahoma classrooms after Walters approved them last September. The inclusion of Roberts, the creator of Project 2025, is sure to prove especially controversial. The 900-page conservative policy wishlist is intended to serve as a blueprint for President Donald Trumps second term should he win in November and includes a number of contentious proposals like gutting the federal workforce, mass deportations, reversing same-sex marriage, outlaw medical abortion and tighten access to abortion medication, among many others. The plan has in recent weeks been covered extensively, with many Democrats and media personalities decrying many of the proposals extreme nature. Roberts also found himself in the middle of a personal firestorm when he said during a cable news interview: We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be. Man Behind Project 2025 Just Said the Quiet Part Out Loud Trump, for his part, very publicly denied knowing Roberts or having any connections to Project 2025despite a number of his former aides working on it. He also met Roberts at least once in 2022, at the time offering profuse praise for the think-tank leader. In a release announcing his plans, Walters also noted several other conservative intellectuals that have agreed to serve on the advisory committee: Stacy Washington, the co-chairwoman of the Project 21 National Advisory Council of the National Center for Public Policy Research, an advisory group to Project 2025. David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, a company that creates educational resources that teach Americas forgotten history and heroes, emphasizing the moral, Christian, and constitutional foundation on which our nation was built. Steve Deace, who hosts The Steve Deace Show on the Blaze Network, which is owned by Glenn Beck. Mark Bauerlein, a senior editor of the publication, First Things, whose mission is to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society. David Goodwin, the president of the Association of Classical Christian Schools. Everett Piper, the former president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University and the author of Not a Daycare: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth, which criticizes contemporary colleges for their so-called liberal agenda. Robert Pondiscio, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on K12 education, curriculum, teaching, school choice, and charter schooling 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 peak of Lagginhorn is pictured in the Pennine Alps in Saas-Fee. One German mountaineer died and one was injured after an accident in the Swiss mountains, police reported on Wednesday. picture alliance / dpa One German mountaineer died and one was injured after an accident in the Swiss mountains, police reported on Wednesday. The women, aged 45 and 61, were descending from the 4,010 metre high Lagginhorn in the Saas Valley when they suddenly fell hundreds of metres down the western flank in quick succession, police said. The younger one died, the older one was flown to hospital by rescue workers. The Swiss police do not provide any information about the home towns, citing the protection of privacy. The women were part of a group of eight climbers, the police reported. The group was not roped up. The others alerted the rescue services after the accident. When the volunteers arrived by helicopter, they were only able to determine that the 45-year-old had died. The 61-year-old was flown to hospital injured. The accident happened on Monday morning. As with every mountain accident, the public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the circumstances. This is Totally Normal Quote of the Day, a feature highlighting a statement from the news that exemplifies just how extremely normal everything has become. Most of our caucus is still with him meaning hell stay in. Which sucks for our country. an unnamed House Democrat speaking to Axios after attending a meeting with a small group of swing-district Democrats Democrats are having a pretty miserable weekand its only Wednesday. Since President Joe Bidens disastrous debate performance two weeks ago, the party has been in a tizzy trying to figure out whether he should remain their nominee for the 2024 ticket or exit the race. And a small group of Democrats desperate to replace Biden are frustrated about how things are going. Most of our caucus is with him meaning hell stay in. Which sucks for our country, an anonymous House Democrat told Axios on Tuesday, right before the larger caucus met in a meeting described as a come-to-Jesus moment for Bidens candidacy. So far, 10 Democrats have called on Biden to step aside and let a different, younger member of the party take on Donald Trump in November. Their efforts dont seem to be working, with Biden going on a media blitz to double down on his message: I am still running. In a prime-time interview with ABCs George Stephanopoulos on Friday, Biden said he would only drop out of the presidential race if the Lord almighty told him to. Then he sent a letter to congressional Democrats that kicked off with I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump. Shortly after that, Biden went on MSNBCs Morning Joe and said he believes voters still want him as their Democratic nominee, therefore hes not dropping out. But some Democrats arent buying this, acutely aware of just how alarming Bidens performance was in the debate and even in his recent media circuit, which was supposed to reinvigorate confidence but instead reinforced that Biden cannot communicate a coherent message. During a radio interview last week, the president said he was the first Black woman to serve with a Black president. House Rep. Raul Grijalva, a progressive representing Arizonas 7th District, told the New York Times he wants the party to draw a line with Biden now, adding that the stakes of this election are too high to risk him losing to an antidemocratic, authoritarian despot. Other Democrats have also tried to emphasize just how dire for democracy it would be if Biden were to lose to Trump. A second Trump term is a continuation of the last days of his first term, which is a nightmare in every respect, Mike Quigley, a House Democrat from Illinois, told MSNBC, referencing Jan. 6. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hinted in an interview with Morning Joe that she believes Biden should reevaluate his decision to run, but when pressed, she would not outright call for him to step aside as the partys nominee. I want him to do whatever he decides to do, she said, without actually saying what she would like Biden to do. But party leaders are mostly ignoring these calls and sticking by Biden, despite the risks. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters on Capitol Hill they were unequivocally on Team Bidendespite Democratic House members privately telling Jeffries they want Biden to drop out. In a surprising but strategic decision, even Congress progressive Squad members are sticking by the 81-year-old president. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him, Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters this week. Since the BidenTrump debate, the president has consistently been trailing Trump in the polls. New Cook Political data shows Biden is losing at least three battleground states, all while a 59-year-old Black and Asian woman vice president is forced to sit on the sidelines and watch a historic opportunity become one of the messiest episodes for the Democratic Party in decades. And that does, truly, suck for our country. Only one man beat Joe Biden in 2024. Here's what he thinks he should do. The News Im almost a Jeopardy question, said Jason Palmer. Four months ago, the futurist presidential candidate surprised Democrats by winning the American Samoa caucus, a race few people were paying attention to. His 51 to 40 vote victory over Joe Biden made Palmer the first candidate to beat an incumbent president in a primary since Ted Kennedy in 1980, entitling him to three delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Palmer soon quit the race, endorsed Biden, and started a new political group called Together! But after the Atlanta debate, Palmer urged Biden to do the right thing and end his campaign. He was holding onto his delegates, raising money for their convention trip from Pago Pago to Chicago, and urging the president and the party to figure out a new, winning ticket. I work with a lot of companies where weve had to change the CEO of the organization, Palmer said over the phone from Las Vegas, where hes attending the annual FreedomFest conference this week. The best thing, when youre doing a CEO switch, is to have the CEO 100% bought in. Let them help interview and select their replacement. Let them lead the transition. There really is an art to doing this. In his Monday letter to House Democrats, Biden invoked his easy primary victory as a reason to stay: Do we now just say this process didnt matter? That the voters dont have a say? Palmers response: The party could figure something out. Nearly every Democratic delegate was pledged to Biden, but they had the power to pick a new nominee, if they wanted to. If he was in the mix, great, but that wasnt the most important question right now. DNC leaders should survey the delegates or maybe hold a formal vote, he said. Are they in favor of allowing other candidates or a mini-primary? Are they open to amending the bylaws, given this unique historical situation? In the short term, Palmer had two priorities. One: The party should drop talk of a virtual roll call vote this month, and absolutely withhold the vote until the convention in person. Two: He was planning a trip to Wilmington, hoping to meet with the Biden campaign, and the president himself, to see how he could be helpful. He would tell Biden to do the right thing. Did that mean telling him to drop out? Yes, he said. But I probably wouldnt say that in the first sentence. Its important to build a trusting relationship first. Davids view The collective decision not to put up a well-known challenger to Biden haunts Democrats now. If this is vindication, its never felt so unfulfilling, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips told reporters on Tuesday, reflecting on his brief and doomed primary campaign. Marianne Williamson, who won no delegates in the primary, re-started her campaign after the Atlanta debate. None of these people are being talked about, even politely, as Biden replacements. But theyre still here, and they are in the mix of voices who will show up over the next month to question if the party really wants to nominate a candidate who they dont think can win. Their target right now is that virtual vote, which would make Biden the nominee this month, and is no longer necessary to get him on state ballots. Notable Nancy Pelosi suggested Bidens nomination was an open question in an MSNBC interview on Wednesday, pouring fuel on a simmering fire of Democratic discontent towards his campaign. Amidst a backdrop of global economic shifts and localized market dynamics, the Hong Kong stock market has shown resilience with the Hang Seng Index gaining modestly during a holiday-shortened week. This context sets an intriguing stage for exploring undervalued small-cap stocks in Hong Kong, particularly those with recent insider actions that might signal unrecognized potential under current market conditions. Top 10 Undervalued Small Caps With Insider Buying In Hong Kong Name PE PS Discount to Fair Value Value Rating China Overseas Grand Oceans Group 2.7x 0.1x 3.96% Wasion Holdings 11.3x 0.8x 32.87% Xtep International Holdings 10.7x 0.8x 44.08% Sany Heavy Equipment International Holdings 7.8x 0.7x -21.00% Nissin Foods 14.5x 1.3x 40.78% Ever Sunshine Services Group 5.7x 0.4x 17.08% Kinetic Development Group 4.0x 1.7x 20.10% China Leon Inspection Holding 9.4x 0.7x 30.54% Transport International Holdings 11.7x 0.6x 43.85% Giordano International 8.4x 0.7x 38.02% Click here to see the full list of 20 stocks from our Undervalued Small Caps With Insider Buying screener. Let's review some notable picks from our screened stocks. Simply Wall St Value Rating: Overview: Xtep International Holdings is a Chinese company specializing in the design, development, manufacturing, and marketing of sports products including footwear and apparel, with a market capitalization of approximately CN7.93 billion. Operations: The company generates the majority of its revenue from the Mass Market segment, amounting to CN11.95 billion, with additional income streams from Fashion Sports and Professional Sports segments totaling CN1.60 billion and CN0.80 billion respectively. The Gross Profit Margin observed an upward trend, increasing from 40.29% to 42.17% over the analyzed periods, reflecting improved operational efficiency in cost management relative to sales revenue generated. PE: 10.7x Recently, Xtep International Holdings demonstrated insider confidence with Shui Po Ding acquiring 2 million shares for HK$14.15 million, signaling strong belief in the company's value. This move coincides with an executive reshuffle enhancing focus on financial strategy and growth areas. Additionally, the firm's earnings are projected to grow by 14% annually, complemented by a recent dividend increase to HK$0.08 per share, reinforcing its financial health and commitment to shareholder returns amidst strategic adjustments in governance and leadership roles. Story continues SEHK:1368 Share price vs Value as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Value Rating: Overview: Comba Telecom Systems Holdings specializes in providing wireless telecommunications network system equipment and services, primarily to operators, with a market capitalization of approximately HK$1.39 billion. Operations: The company generates significant revenue from wireless telecommunications network system equipment and services, amounting to HK$5.82 billion, compared to HK$157.83 million from operator telecommunication services. Its gross profit margin has shown an upward trend, increasing to 28.23% by the end of the reporting period, reflecting a gradual improvement in profitability over time without consistent growth every year. PE: 295.3x Recently, Comba Telecom Systems Holdings demonstrated insider confidence as Tung Ling Fok acquired 1.83 million shares, signaling a strong belief in the company's prospects. This move aligns with their presentation at MWC Shanghai 2024, emphasizing strategic initiatives and market positioning. Despite a challenging year with profit margins dropping to 0.1% from last years 3%, due to significant one-off items, the firm remains reliant on external borrowing for funding. Looking ahead, no share repurchases have been made since the announcement of their authorization on June 3rd, reflecting a cautious approach in capital management amidst financial adjustments. SEHK:2342 Share price vs Value as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Value Rating: Overview: Ferretti specializes in the design, construction, and marketing of yachts and recreational boats. Operations: The entity generated 1229.13 million from the design, construction, and marketing of yachts and recreational boats, achieving a gross profit of 455.82 million with a gross profit margin of 37.08%. Operating expenses for the period amounted to 358.24 million. PE: 11.6x Ferretti, a lesser-known yet promising entity in Hong Kong's market, recently confirmed its 2024 revenue forecast to range between 1.22 billion and 1.24 billion, signaling a growth of up to 11.6%. With earnings anticipated to climb by 12.46% annually, the company's robust financial health is underscored by a high level of non-cash earnings and reliance on external borrowing for fundingreflecting a strategic yet higher-risk financing approach. Insider confidence was evident as they recently purchased shares, underscoring their belief in the firms potential amidst its dividend increase announcement in April 2024. This blend of financial strength and insider activity paints Ferretti as an intriguing prospect for those eyeing undervalued opportunities. SEHK:9638 Share price vs Value as at Jul 2024 Summing It All Up Embark on your investment journey to our 20 Undervalued Small Caps With Insider Buying selection here. Invested in any of these stocks? Simplify your portfolio management with Simply Wall St and stay ahead with our alerts for any critical updates on your stocks. Take control of your financial future using Simply Wall St, offering free, in-depth knowledge of international markets to every investor. Seeking Other Investments? 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. Companies discussed in this article include SEHK:1368 SEHK:2342 and SEHK:9638. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) Schools across the state are starting to enroll students for the fall. Families who applied to schools outside of their home district are set to learn soon if theyve been accepted. Its the first year the state has required open enrollment. Some districts seeing declining numbers are hoping to draw students in with the policy, but they are already coming up short. For some districts in Kansas like Maize, their student populations are getting bigger. They say they dont have any space to accept non-resident students this year. For others, their student numbers are on a steady decline, which means their funding is, too. So far, open enrollment isnt giving them much of a boost. Less students over time is an issue at Newton Public Schools and Wichita Public Schools. We are in an enrollment decline, and data shows that we are going to be in that enrollment decline for several years to come, said Carly Stavola, Director of Communications for Newton Public Schools. Families are having less students, or theyre having less kids, and so because of that there just arent as many kids as there used to be that live within the Wichita community, said Fabian Armendariz, Division Director of Operations for Wichita Public Schools. Both districts are hoping to bring in more students to boost enrollment. Online enrollment for Wichita Public Schools starts Wichita Public Schools has 455 seats available. Were sitting at about 50 applicants, said Dee Dee Stroot, Executive Director of Innovation and Implementation for Wichita Public Schools. Newton has more than 260 open seats. We got probably around a dozen applications, and we have picked up 8 students with some level of acceptance, said Carly Stavola. The small influx of students in both cases is not enough to reverse the declines. Its not something thats going to save anybody, Stavola said. Most districts required non-resident enrollment applications to be submitted by the end of June. Wichita Public Schools is now extending the application deadline to the end of the regular enrollment period. Our experience has been that families really are not really thinking about school until later in July, so because of that, we wanted to give more families the opportunity to explore, said Armendariz. Newtons school district isnt extending its deadline. We wont know how many students are leaving Newton and Wichita school districts until after July 15, which is when families find out whether they were accepted to schools of their choice. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV. Witness testimony started on Wednesday in the trial of award-winning actor Alec Baldwin, who is charged in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust." Baldwin has pleaded not guilty in the case. Nicholas LeFleur, a Santa Fe county sheriff's deputy who was the first law enforcement officer to arrive at Bonanza Creek Ranch after the shooting, was the first witness to take the stand. Bodycam footage shown in the courtroom captured the frantic efforts to save Hutchins. Actor Alec Baldwin listens during his hearing in Santa Fe County District Court, July 10, 2024, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. / Credit: ROSS D. FRANKLIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Spiro tried to establish that neither LeFleur, nor the trial's second witness, former sheriff's Lt. Tim Benavidez, treated the scene as a place where a major crime had occurred, according to The Associated Press. Earlier Wednesday, prosecutor Erlinda Johnson delivered the opening statement for the prosecution, telling jurors that a prop gun "is a real gun" and alleging that Baldwin requested to be assigned the biggest gun available. Johnson said Baldwin mishandled the gun on set, such as using it as a pointer. "The evidence will show that someone who played make-believe with a real gun, and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety, is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin," Johnson said. Special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson shows a bullet in an evidence bag during actor Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial in Santa Fe County District Court on July 10, 2024 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. / Credit: ROSS D. FRANKLIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images During opening statements, Baldwin listened intently, taking notes as his family looked on. "Movie set safety rules require actors, like the defendant, to never point a firearm at another person," Johnson said. Throughout Johnson's opening statement, the prosecution played photos from the set, including photos of Hutchins and the church where the shooting took place behind her, Baldwin in costume, the church surrounded with crime scene tape and of emergency personnel working. Alex Spiro then began the defense's opening statement, telling the jury that critical safety issues on the set were not Baldwin's fault that safety checks should be performed before a gun goes into an actor's hand. "It was just a prop, the gun has to be safe before it gets into the actor's hands," Spiro said. The defense played scenes during the opening statement that included the director's comments to Baldwin to repeat the scene, which Spiro said indicated no one thought there was any danger from the gun. "The prop gun was placed into Mr. Baldwin's hands, and 'cold gun,' was announced," Spiro said. Law enforcement officer Nicholas LeFleur testifies in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Alec Baldwin in Santa Fe County District Court, July 10, 2024, in Santa Fe, new Mexico. / Credit: ROSS D. FRANKLIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Jury selection Tuesday was marked by delays, with the questioning of the 70 potential jurors starting several hours later than expected. But by the end of the day, that pool had been winnowed to 16 jurors, four of whom are alternates. The 11 women and five men seated will hear the case over the coming weeks and decide whether to convict the 66-year-old actor. What happened on the "Rust" set? Around 2 p.m. local time on Oct. 21, 2021, a prop firearm held by Baldwin went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza during a rehearsal in a small church on the set. Baldwin, the Western's star and coproducer, has said he pulled back the Colt .45's hammer, but did not pull the trigger. Authorities were called to the set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch and Hutchins was taken to the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque via helicopter, where she died of her injuries, according to the sheriff's office at the time. Authorities who searched the set recovered live ammunition. The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator determined in 2022 that the incident was an accident. What charge does Alec Baldwin face? Alec Baldwin faces a charge of involuntary manslaughter, a felony. If convicted, he could face up to a year and a half in prison. He has pleaded not guilty. He was initially charged in January 2023 but prosecutors dismissed those counts three months later. Prosecutors again indicted Baldwin on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in January. Baldwin asked for the charge to be dismissed, but the judge overseeing the case rejected his request. Where is the trial, when does it start and how long will it last? Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer is presiding over the trial in New Mexico's First District Court, in Santa Fe. The judge set the trial calendar to run from July 9-19. Jury selection was completed Tuesday and opening statements started on Wednesday. Courtroom proceedings are expected to conclude by July 19, after which the case will go to the jury for deliberations. While cameras were not allowed in the courtroom during jury selection, the trial is being livestreamed. Will Alec Baldwin testify? Baldwin's attorneys have not said whether the actor will take the stand in his own defense. The actor has been in court for proceedings and is expected to attend every day. Who else is expected to testify? The state's witness list contains 44 names, while the defense lists 14 individuals as potential witnesses. While prosecutors wanted to call the film's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who has already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the case, the judge ruled in June she could not be compelled to testify against Baldwin though she remains on the prosecution's list of potential witnesses. She did not testify in her own defense. On the prosecution's list of dozens of potential witnesses is Joel Souza, the film's director who was also wounded in the shooting, along with several people who also also testified at Gutierrez-Reed's trial, such as Seth Kenney, who owned the prop weapons company that supplied the film's ammunition; Wyatt Mortenson, a stuntman on the film; and Gabrielle Pickle, a line producer. The defense's shorter list of potential witnesses includes David Halls, assistant director and safety coordinator; Ryan Winterstern, a producer who also testified in Gutierrez-Reed's trial; and other members of the crew, among others. Who is Halyna Hutchins, the victim? The Los Angeles-based Hutchins, 42, was a self-described "restless dreamer" and "adrenaline junkie" who grew up on a remote Soviet military base. The Ukranian-born cinematographer earned a degree in International Journalism from Kyiv National University and graduated from the American Film Institute conservatory. Widely regarded as a rising star, her work included "Archenemy," starring Joe Manganiello, "Blindfire" and "Darlin'," which premiered at the SXSW film festival in 2019. Baldwin announced in 2022 he had settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Hutchins' family: her husband, Matthew Hutchins, and their son, Andros. Has anyone else been prosecuted in the case? Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer who oversaw firearms on the set, was also charged with involuntary manslaughter. Though she pleaded not guilty, she was convicted in March and sentenced to 18 months behind bars after a trial overseen by the same judge overseeing Baldwin's case. Gutierrez-Reed was acquitted on a charge of tampering with evidence. Earlier, Halls pleaded no contest to unsafe handling of a firearm. Halls, who agreed to cooperate in the shooting investigation, received a suspended sentence of six months probation. The production company overseeing the movie was fined $136,000, the maximum under state law, by New Mexico's Occupational Health and Safety Bureau over the incident. Elise Preston, Kathleen Seccombe and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Sneak peek: Unmasking the Zombie Hunter Sneak peek: Murder by Clown The success of renewable energy may depend on battery storage Prosecutors argued Alec Baldwin behaved recklessly and "violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety" during the filming of "Rust," while the defense said the actor "committed no crime" in the "unspeakable tragedy," during opening statements Wednesday in the manslaughter trial over the 2021 fatal on-set shooting. Baldwin was practicing a cross-draw in a church on the Santa Fe set of the Western when the Colt .45 revolver fired a live round, fatally striking 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin was indicted by a grand jury on involuntary manslaughter in connection with Hutchins' death earlier this year after prosecutors previously dropped the charge. He pleaded not guilty. PHOTO: Actor Alec Baldwin arrives for his hearing in Santa Fe County District Court with attorney Luke Nikas, left, July 10, 2024, in Santa Fe, N.M. Baldwin is facing a single charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a cinematographer. (Ross D. Franklin/AP) MORE: Jury selected as Alec Baldwin goes on trial over deadly 'Rust' shooting Baldwin committed 'numerous breaches' of firearm safety, state says "The evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, that like in many workplaces, there are people who act in a reckless manner and place other individuals in danger, and act without due regard for the safety of others," prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson told jurors during her opening statement. "That, you will hear, was the defendant -- Alexander Baldwin, the lead actor on this film." Johnson told jurors that while they will hear the revolver referred to as a "prop gun," it is a real gun that experts will testify was in proper working order. She told jurors they will hear about "numerous breaches" of firearm safety regarding Baldwin, from him using it as a pointer to cocking the hammer and putting his finger on the trigger when he was not supposed to do either. While handling the firearm prior to the shooting, Baldwin "would do his own thing," including having his finger on or around the trigger during two draws, Johnson said. "The evidence will show that that third and fatal time, he takes it out once again, fast," Johnson said. "He cocks the hammer, points it straight at Miss Hutchins and fires that gun, sending that live bullet right into Miss Hutchins' body." PHOTO: Actor Alec Baldwin arrives for his hearing in Santa Fe County District Court, July 10, 2024, in Santa Fe, N.M. (Ross D. Franklin/AP) Baldwin has maintained that he did not pull the trigger of the firearm, though the FBI's forensic report determined the gun could not have been fired without pulling the trigger. "After the shooting, the defendant began to claim he didn't pull the trigger. The evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, that's not possible," Johnson told jurors. Live bullet on set 'most critical issue,' defense says Defense attorney Alex Spiro told jurors the state will attempt to "tarnish" Baldwin but that the "most critical issue" in the case is how the live bullet got on set. "On this set, there was a real bullet, something that should never be on a movie set, something which has nothing to do with making a movie," Spiro told the jurors during his opening statement. "You will hear no evidence, not one word that Alec Baldwin had anything to do with that real bullet being brought onto that set." PHOTO: Attorney Alex Spiro listen during aator Alec Baldwin's hearing in Santa Fe County District Court, July 10, 2024, in Santa Fe, N.M. (Ross D. Franklin/AP) He said it was the armorer's responsibility to ensure the firearm was safe, and that the loading of the live bullet had nothing to do with Baldwin. "No one had any idea that this venomous, toxic element had been inserted into this magic they were creating," Spiro said. "But it did. It entered that place. It killed an amazing person, it wounded another, and it changed lives forever." Spiro said when the gun was handed to Baldwin, "cold gun" was announced, indicating it was safe. When it fired, everyone on set was "shocked," he said. "Alec is startled. He immediately says, 'I didn't mean to shoot. I didn't pull the trigger,'" Spiro said. Spiro said that Baldwin didn't pull the trigger but that on a movie set "you're allowed to pull the trigger." Even if the state could prove that Baldwin did intentionally pull the trigger, "that doesn't make him guilty of homicide," Spiro said. "He did not know, or have any reason to know, that gun was loaded with a live bullet," Spiro said. "That's the key. That live bullet is the key. That is the lethal element." PHOTO: Actor Alec Baldwin listens during his hearing in Santa Fe County District Court, July 10, 2024, in Santa Fe, N.M. (Ross D. Franklin/AP) Witnesses recount response to shooting Following opening statements, the state called its first witness, officer Nicholas Lefleur, who was the first law enforcement officer to arrive in response to a 911 call reporting the on-set shooting. Lefleur discussed his efforts to secure the scene at the Bonanza Creek Ranch and separate witnesses. During footage from his lapel camera shown to the jury, Lefleur seeks out Baldwin -- who is seen talking on his cellphone while still in costume -- and says he understands the actor was in the room during the shooting. "I was the one holding the gun, yeah," Baldwin responds. Prosecutor Kari Morrissey questioned Lefleur about several instances in which Baldwin was seen talking to other witnesses even though the officer asked him not to. In his cross-examination, Spiro addressed that at no point during those instances did Lefleur tell the witnesses to separate. The state's second witness, Lt. Timoteo Benavidez, who also responded to the shooting, recounted how he declared the movie set a crime scene due to the two shooting victims and collected the revolver from the film's armorer and secured it in his patrol vehicle. The firearm was entered into evidence in the trial. Marissa Poppell, a crime scene technician who examined the movie set following the shooting, testified that she sent the revolver to the FBI for firearms testing "to make sure the firearm was in proper working order." She also said she sent five suspected live rounds -- including one found in Baldwin's holster -- and a spent casing that she recovered from the set, along with the projectile recovered from Souza's shoulder, to the FBI for testing. Court wrapped for the day following the state's questioning of Poppell. Baldwin 2nd person to go on trial in shooting The jury was selected on Tuesday. The trial is currently scheduled to go through July 19. That does not include deliberations. Prosecutors were seeking to argue during the trial that, as a producer of the film, Baldwin bore responsibility for unsafe conditions on the set. However, during a pretrial hearing on Monday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer denied using evidence of his role as a producer during the trial. The judge also ruled that footage from the "Rust" set showing Baldwin's handling of the firearm can be admitted into evidence in the trial, but that videos of him yelling or cussing at the crew to hurry up were not relevant in the case. MORE: 'Rust' timeline: Key events in the Alec Baldwin on-set shooting Baldwin, 66, is the second person to go on trial in connection with the fatal shooting. The film's armorer -- 27-year-old Hannah Gutierrez -- was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in March. Prosecutors argued that she repeatedly failed to maintain proper firearm safety and brought several live rounds onto the set -- including the one that killed Hutchins. Her attorney told ABC News on Tuesday that they have been informed that she will be called to testify on Friday and plans to invoke the Fifth Amendment. Marlowe Sommer denied last month the state's request to use immunity to compel Gutierrez's testimony during Baldwin's trial. Prosecutors sought immunity so that Gutierrez's testimony could not be used against her in her appeal. At a pretrial interview in May, Gutierrez asserted her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, prosecutors said. Last year, David Halls, the film's first assistant director who had conducted the safety check on the Colt .45 revolver prior to the shooting, accepted a plea deal in the case after being charged with negligent use of a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to six months unsupervised probation. He could also be called to testify during the trial, court records show. Alec Baldwin trial: Actor's culpability in 'Rust' shooting disputed in opening statements originally appeared on abcnews.go.com A quick Google search on procurement in Ukraine renders pages upon pages of corruption-related headlines. National Anti-Corruption busts Defense Ministry food procurement scheme; Kyiv accuses military brass of procurement graft; Ukraine opens arms procurement corruption investigation. Ukraine introduced Prozorro, an electronic procurement system implemented in 2016, as part of broader reforms to increase transparency and combat corruption. Just a few months ago, for example, the Ukrainian government transitioned the process of defense procurement to Prozorro to ensure stable supply, transparent pricing, and increased security. But to what extent has the Prozorro system addressed concerns over the transparency of Ukraines public procurement processes? Ukraine conducted over 3.6 million procurements totaling Hr 922.7 billion ($22.6 billion) last year. Competitive methods, accounting for approximately 68% of this sum ($15.6 billion), enabled better pricing through competition among companies vying for contracts with the state. Read also: Opinion: Why Indias Modi wont play the peace negotiator The State Audit Service, Ukraines main procurement control body, monitored 12,191 tenders worth Hr 188 billion ($4.6 billion) last year. Violations were found in 8,000 cases amounting to Hr 92 billion ($2.3 billion) 0.2% of procurements by quantity and 10% by value. This figure does not necessarily equate to theft but represents the cost of procurements with violations, some of which may not significantly affect competition or savings and are merely formalities. Auditors claim to have saved Hr 19.8 billion ($485 million) for the budget in 2023 through contract terminations and procurement cancellations, approximately 2.1%. Despite suggestions for improving the State Audit Service's efficiency, its data remains the primary source regarding procurement violations. This information indicates that the situation may not be as dire as portrayed in the media. In procurement, savings are calculated as the difference between the expected cost and the amount spent on a tender. In 2023, savings from competitive procurement amounted to Hr 64.4 billion ($1.6 billion) (over 10%), demonstrating Prozorros effectiveness. The Ukrainian electronic procurement system is praised internationally. In 2021, it was highlighted in the U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) recommended it for procurement reform. Prozorro was recognized as the most transparent public procurement system in 2020 and has received eight international awards. During COVID-19, Ukraine quickly adapted its procurement methods to ensure transparency and efficiency, setting an example of openness and efficiency in combating the pandemic. Similarly, after the full-scale invasion, procurement adapted quickly, demonstrating unprecedented flexibility and stability. Special open bidding, the primary procurement method during martial law, combines pre-war open biddings with faster-simplified tenders for amounts from Hr 50,000 ($1,200) up to national thresholds. This approach allows for quicker procurement, even with only one bidder, while providing 24 hours for error correction, appeals to AMCU, and auditor monitoring. This combination ensures fast and efficient wartime procurement. However, the public procurement system's flexibility extends beyond this new procedure. The rules are continuously improved, sometimes too frequently, with more than 20 amendments to the resolution regulating procurement under martial law. Recent changes include extending deadlines for submitting proposals for construction tenders, based on research by our DOZORRO team, which showed that longer terms ensure higher competition. The Economy Ministry adopted this proposal to enhance procurement efficiency. An interesting innovation for 2024 is the construction procedure on Prozorro, developed for procurement with donor funds. Different international organizations have their own procurement approaches, which may not align with Ukrainian methods. Prozorro has developed a flexible procedure to meet donors' requirements. The World Bank has recognized Prozorro's compliance with its rules, recommending the system for all its projects in Ukraine. Conducting all tenders through Prozorro enhances transparency and accessibility for businesses, making it easier to track tenders and compete for contracts. We also see positive results from centralized procurement, particularly in defense procurement. The State Rear Operator (SRO), created in late 2023 to optimize non-weapon procurement for the military, achieved a 15% savings in the first quarter of 2024 compared to previous years' prices. This amounts to over Hr 1 billion ($24.5 million), which can be redirected to other military needs. A reform of food procurement for the Armed Forces has also been launched, though results are pending due to opposition from the old system. Over the past two years, e-catalog tenders have significantly developed, becoming mandatory for some goods categories like food and medicine. We are already seeing results, such as terminating several food contracts due to overpayment questions and finding better prices through Prozorro Market. Our regional journalist from Kremenchuk also noted savings in food procurements for local educational institutions through the e-catalog. Despite progress, some issues with Prozorro Market's functionality remain, indicating room for improvement. Read also: Opinion: The childrens hospital attack highlights the failure of American empathy While transparency concerns persist, Prozorro's track record suggests significant improvements in procurement efficiency and savings. The system has proven to be open and maximally flexible, capable of adapting to today's challenges. However, the key challenge remains reforming the institutions responsible for controlling public procurement. We need to continue improving what we have now: electronic contracts, appeals, centralized procurement organizations, etc. For example, technical documentation in non-machine-readable formats likely limits competition in construction tenders. The electronic system does not eliminate corruption but significantly reduces it and makes it more visible. To appreciate Prozorro's impact, consider the past: 10 years ago, procurement was paper-based, lacking transparency and efficiency. We could not analyze tenders, see violations, or access documents and data to understand legislative needs. Calculating savings and overpayments was impossible. With the war's duration uncertain and international support potentially finite, improving Prozorro and maximizing procurements through it is crucial. This will optimize state expenses and redirect savings to defense and restoration efforts. Public procurement should be a source of pride. To achieve this, we must stop focusing solely on shortcomings and actively eliminate them while developing advantages. Editors Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent. Submit an Opinion Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A voter submits their ballot during primary election voting held at the Utah County Health and Justice Building in Provo on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. Each election result is independently audited. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News In The Star Press of Muncie, Indiana, a man identifying himself as C.L. Arrington wrote to the editor to say, This is beyond all question the most important election ever to face the American people. Similarly, in Tennessees Johnson City Press, Moses E. Cantor bought an ad asserting that the November election will be the most important election ever held in this country. These may sound like they were written yesterday, but they werent. Arrington wrote his letter in 1952, telling readers a vote for Dwight David Eisenhower for president would reverse the wheels of progress. Cantors ad came before the 1964 election, warning that a vote for Barry Goldwater for president would put the future in peril. American election zeal is neither new nor unusual. People are prone to exaggeration and fearmongering in defense of candidates and ideas. What is new, however, is the widespread distrust of how election ballots are collected, verified and tabulated. That must stop. Elections in the United States are secure and fair. In Utah, they are especially so. Without trust in elections, democracy is in peril. We were inspired by the message former BYU general counsel Thomas Griffith recently shared at the annual conference of Braver Angels in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as reported by the Deseret News. The nations founders, he said, agreed to concessions that put the nations well-being ahead of (their) own interests. Utah gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman has refused to concede his primary election race to unseat Gov. Spencer Cox. Election results as of Tuesday show him trailing by nearly nine percentage points, or almost 30,000 votes. Fraud on that level would require conspiracies of mind-boggling proportions. Lyman and his running mate, Natalie Clawson, have filed a lawsuit seeking to obtain access to the names, addresses and signatures of voters who signed petitions that placed three different candidates on the primary ballot. In the 2nd Congressional District, incumbent Celeste Maloy leads challenger Colby Jenkins by a scant 214 votes. Jenkins lost a lawsuit Monday seeking names and addresses of Washington County voters whose ballots require signature confirmation before being counted. This race now will go to recount, part of the election process when a vote is so close that a recount is triggered to maintain voter confidence in the results. Jenkins trails, but certainly there would be no expectation of conceding until a vote this close is complete. When it comes to understanding how ballots are counted in Utah, it would be hard to find a more complete look than what Deseret News reporters Hanna Seariac and Brigham Tomco provided late last week. They interviewed clerks statewide about built-in safeguards to ensure ballots were cast by actual registered voters and that they are counted accurately. They reported how each mail-in envelope has a nine-digit identification number that is unique to the corresponding voter, thus preventing voters from casting more than one ballot, and allowing ballots to be tracked as they are processed. Signatures are checked against up to five examples each voter has on state records. The checking is done by people trained in verification. Each tabulation machine is tested prior to each election for logic and accuracy. After each election, random batches of votes are audited by teams that include members of the public. Each election result is independently audited. In addition, anyone can contact a county clerk and arrange to observe ballot counting firsthand. Few people do, despite the many uninformed criticisms of the process. Ryan Cowley, director of elections in the Lieutenant Governors Office, told the Deseret News that much has been done in recent years to improve processes. Weve done a lot over the last few years to codify and standardize those practices among clerks by chain of custody, doing that within view of the public, doing that within areas under camera surveillance, he said. In light of all this, the idea of stuffing ballot boxes, voting multiple times, forging signatures or successfully committing any other type of voter fraud, especially on a level of tens of thousands of votes, becomes absurdly difficult. On a national level, it is important to note that Donald Trumps campaign filed 62 lawsuits alleging irregularities in the 2020 election. None was successful. In some cases, attorneys for the campaign made sweeping public statements alleging fraud, but the lawsuits they filed contained much milder allegations. This isnt to say that improvements or changes couldnt be made, even in Utah. In some southern parts of the state, all mail is processed and stamped in Las Vegas before being delivered back to Utah destinations. Officials say this may have led to some ballots being postmarked too late, despite being mailed in time. State lawmakers may need to set new deadlines to account for this. But no one should doubt the integrity of Utah elections or the rigorous safeguards that keep fraud at bay. The process is more than adequate to overcome the passions of close elections. It keeps the interests of the state above those of any candidate. Fighting for his political life is a familiar, even invigorating role for Joe Biden. Hes been discounted enough times before but to be pushed outhis wordsafter winning every primary and more than enough delegates to secure the nomination, its not going to happen, he says. Im not going anywhere. His family is standing with him, his wife Jill and sister Valerie, who Democrats relied upon to provide wise counselnot just cheerleading. His son, Hunter, has been seen at the White House so much lately that one well-connected lawyer/lobbyist Democrat dubbed him the acting chief of staff. Hes the gatekeeper. Hes the one whos bucking up his dad. Hunter is the X factor here, wanting to encourage his father like deceased brother Beau did, and not wanting the stress of his felony convictions to hamper his father. Having Hunter on the scene is not helping Biden politically, but thats not what this is about. A Democrat who worked for Biden earlier in his career says simply, Biden stood by him through all the darkest times. This is more of a family thing than a political thing. It has nothing to do with his criminal cases, its much more about how the family operates. Top Democratic Donors Blast Jill and Hunter Biden Over Joe: Sullying Legacy Biden called into MSNBC to say hes not going anywhere, and the doubters can challenge him at the Democratic Convention next month. He sounded like the Biden Washington has known for decadescombative and cocky. The familyJill, Valerie, and Ted Kaufman, the longtime aide who for a short time filled his Senate seatmust be telling him he can do this, that he can beat Trump and embark on a second term. After the disastrous debate, Jill was holding her husbands hand and telling him how great he was. You answered all the questions! It was so out of kilter with what we had just seen of Bidens inability to forcefully debate that Jills judgment was brought into question. Did she want a second term too much? Was she setting aside any concerns about her husbands health? Nancy Reagan was the ultimate protector looking out for husbands wellbeing. She and others knew that he was faltering before his re-election, but a second term was too important for his legacy to willingly step aside. It was morning in America, the theme of his re-election campaign. He won 49 states. There were lapses. Reagan would forget the name of a Cabinet official and then joke about how he gets to meet new people every day. The Reagan team rolled the dice and Reagan made it through well enough, achieving a warmer relationship with the then-Soviet Union, which secured his legacy. The difference between Reagan and Biden, says the Democratic lobbyist, Reagan had Deaver and Nancy, and the power of the visuals. He never looked bad. Top aide Mike Deaver elevated photos of Reagan to an art form, filling television screens with imagery that overrode negative commentary from reporters and pundits. Ronald and Nancy Reagan wave from the limousine during their inaugural parade in Washington, D.C., U.S. in January 1981. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library/Handout via Reuters Reagan was formally diagnosed with Alzheimers eight years after leaving the presidency. His son, Ron Reagan, wrote in his 2011 book, My Father at 100: A Memoir, about his concerns that something beyond mellowing was happening to his father three years into his first term. This is his recollection of watching Reagan debate Walter Mondale in 1984: At 73, Ronald Reagan would be the oldest president ever re-elected. Some voters were beginning to imagine grandpawho can never find his reading glassesin charge of a bristling nuclear arsenal, and it was making them nervous. Worse, my father now seemed to be giving them legitimate reason for concern. My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered. If we go deeper into history, Woodrow Wilson had a debilitating stroke and his wife, Edith, covered for him for the last 18 months of his presidency. She acted as his gatekeeper, screening all communications and deciding what she would bring to her bedridden husbands attention. She described her role as a stewardship. Republicans belittled the arrangement as petticoat government. More recently, Melania may not even be on board for Trumps second term if he gets it. Ivanka Trump, the former presidents eldest daughter, has distanced himself from his third run for president, saying she loves him but that her life has taken a different turn and is now focused on raising her three young children. For now, the Biden familys dedication is helping to keep Biden in the race. He may win this game of chicken, with the congressional Black caucus and Hispanic caucus standing with him. Senator Mark Warner was scheduled to speak Monday evening at the Cosmos Club, a gathering place for elites in Washington. He cancelled after Biden called him out as one of the naysayers. A convention challenge is likely a fools errand. Almost 4,000 delegates are Biden delegates. And theyre not elites. Bidens message now, hes running against the party elites and the big donors. The polls havent collapsed for him. Its still the same tight race, just a little tighter. What just happened in France with the far left soundly beating back a challenge from the far right defied the polls, leaving President Macron, a Biden ally, a little less worse off. The unexpected results are undoubtedly cheering the White House, where Biden is running against the polls and the mediaas much as he is against Trumpin his effort to stay in the race and keep his job. 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. As foreign leaders and delegates gathered in Washington for the 2024 NATO Summit this week, Ukraine learned that it will not receive a formal membership invitation. This decision comes as a significant blow to Ukraine. During the three-day gathering, critics of Ukraines potential NATO accession reiterated familiar concerns. They argued that Ukraine must address corruption issues and modernize its military before qualifying for membership. Critics also warned that NATO membership could escalate tensions with Russia. Ahead of the Washington summit, dozens of foreign policy experts emphasized these points in an open letter to NATO leaders. However, such reluctance overlooks Ukraines ongoing progress. When Ukraines EuroMaidan Revolution began in 2013, then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych reneged his promise to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, opting instead to maintain strong relations with Russia. Yanukovych had imprisoned a political rival, and corruption was very apparent in his government. For example, Transparency Internationals Corruption Perception Index at the time ranked Ukraine 144 out of 175 places. Read also: Opinion: NATO at 75 is whistling past the graveyard Following Yanukovych's impeachment in 2014, Ukrainian citizens elected a pro-Western government, demanding stronger ties with Western organizations and institutions. The Ukrainian government signed an Association Agreement with the European Union, where it agreed to pursue economic, judicial, and financial reforms. The Ukrainian parliament even rewrote Ukraines constitution, stating that the country had committed itself to integrating with the West. Since then, Ukrainian society has transformed, and these efforts have not gone unnoticed. According to Transparency Internationals 2023 Corruption Perception Index, Ukraine now ranks 104 out of 180 places. Over the past decade, Ukrainian officials have worked hard to reform their government, closely interacting with representatives from the United States and the European Union. Ukraine was rewarded for its work in June 2017 when it was presented with visa-free travel to the EU. Ukraine was then granted EU candidate status in June 2022. Finally, EU accession negotiations officially began in June 2024. Kyiv still has work to do, but this progress suggests Ukraine is serious about its anti-corruption efforts. Ukraine has also worked to modernize its military. Following the initial Russian invasion in 2014, Ukrainian participation in NATO exercises increased. Ukraines involvement in these events contributed to Ukraines continued defense modernization. Kyiv implemented various defense reforms, and this paved the way for Ukraine to be named an Enhanced Opportunities Partner in 2020. Then, at the 2023 NATO Summit, the NATO-Ukraine Council was established to advance political dialogue, cooperation, and support Ukraine's membership aspirations. Recently, NATO announced at the Washington summit that it will station a senior official in Kyiv to strengthen its relationship with Ukrainian authorities, highlighting the crucial NATO-Ukraine relationship and Ukraine's strides in defense modernization. NATO leaders pose for a photo during the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., on July 9, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) Finally, despite critics' concerns that Ukraines NATO accession could provoke Russia, Finland and Sweden faced no such issues when applying to join NATO. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Finland and Sweden submitted their NATO membership applications, despite Russian warnings. Russia eventually withdrew many forces from its borders with Finland and Sweden, and relations did not escalate. Nevertheless, some NATO members oppose Ukraine's NATO membership, citing the need to resolve international disputes first. Others fear granting Ukraine NATO membership could lead to war with Russia, causing devastation across Europe. Despite the reasoning from these critics, Ukrainian officials are disappointed. Over the past two and a half years, many Ukrainians have questioned what more they can do to sway NATO's opinions. Throughout the ongoing Russian invasion, Ukrainian forces have demonstrated their proficiency with Western weaponry. In 2022, they successfully defended their capital and pushed Russians out of central and northern Ukraine. By 2023, they had retaken over half of the Russian-occupied territories in southern and eastern Ukraine. Most recently, Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian incursion in Kharkiv Oblast and continue to make gains along the Black Sea. If many NATO members remain unwilling to offer Ukraine formal membership during this summit, they should provide Ukraine with security guarantees in three critical areas: First, lifting restrictions on targeting Russian military installations would increase Ukraine's chances of success. Russia has military bases, airfields, ammunition depots, and weapons factories supplying their forces and launching missiles into Ukraine. Allowing Ukraine to strike these targets would disrupt Russian operations and limit their military capabilities. Read also: Opinion: The global implications of Irans election Second, NATO members should lift restrictions on providing defense equipment to Ukraine. Supplying weapons such as Tomahawk and Taurus missiles would enable Ukraine to more effectively target Russian military sites, including those deep within Russian territory, further disrupting their offensive. Third, NATO should help Ukraine protect its airspace. Providing advanced air defense capabilities would allow Ukraine to defend against Russian missile strikes, reducing damage to cities and villages and saving many lives. Overall, Ukraine has diligently reformed its government and modernized its military while defending against Russia. Their efforts demonstrate a commitment to Western integration and security. NATO must now decide whether to deepen its relationship with Ukraine. Providing security assurances, in lieu of immediate membership, would strengthen Ukraine's defense against Russian aggression and prevent prolonged conflict and devastation in Europe. Supporting Ukraine now is crucial to prevent a more deadly and devastating war. Editors Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent. Submit an Opinion Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Protesters gather in Prague, Czech Republic, to protest Russia's missile attack on Monday that killed at least 39 people in cities across Ukraine and struck a children's hospital in Kyiv. (Petr David Josek / Associated Press) We hear this refrain a lot these days: "America is only prolonging the war by helping Ukraine. We need diplomacy." To Ukrainian ears, however, "diplomacy" sounds like a euphemism for Ukraine surrendering and ceasing to exist. Admittedly, an honest question underlies the refrain: Why cant Ukraine seek peace with Russia? But heres how the question could be rephrased: Why not give away huge swaths of sovereign territory to a brutal and corrupt regime? Why not stay away from NATO, allow the Russian sanctions to be lifted, create a demilitarized zone (sacrificing more territory, of course) and aspire to mutual trust? Read more: Russia's heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in 4 months hits a children's hospital The answers are obvious, given the reality on the ground and in the fevered mind of Vladimir Putin, especially this week, after Russia bombed the childrens hospital in Kyiv in a massive daytime missile attack that killed at least 39 across Ukraine. For a decade, Russias President Putin has played the Wests fear of a European war like a master. The West initially gave in to his threats and persistently kept Ukraine out of NATO (God forbid we trigger a war!) and thus made the invasion of 2014, and the ongoing full-scale war, starting in 2022, inevitable. Ukraine was barred from the world's most successful defense alliance and was vulnerable to major aggression, which is exactly what the Kremlin wanted. Since then, exercises in "escalation management" and major restrictions on defense aid to Ukraine have not brought Putin to reason as he carries out the largest European war of aggression since Adolf Hitler. Instead, those limits have cost Ukraine a chance to disable Russia, and instead enabled a long war of attrition. Read more: Ukraines army retreats from positions as Russia gets closer to seizing strategically important town Half-measures of support have helped Putin to recover from his militarys early failure in northern Ukraine, as well as helping him to adapt to sanctions, to make the war profitable for his elites, to find allies and new markets, and to prepare Russia for perpetual war. Until very recently, Ukraine was strictly banned from using the West's weapons to attack military targets inside Russian territory, a red line that effectively tied Ukraines hands. Did the Kremlin appreciate the gesture? It did the Russian military used its safe haven status to prepare new offensives and devastating bombing campaigns unchallenged. Starting last fall, the chorus demanding a diplomatic solution grew louder on the know-nothing right in America, and defense aid foundered for six critical months in Congress, creating a gargantuan shortage of munitions in the Ukrainian military. Read more: Biden apologizes to Ukraine's Zelensky for Congress' holdup of weapons as Russians advanced The lack of U.S. help did nothing to precipitate a halt in hostilities or bring about the "compromise" that Putin hypocritically chatters about in his periodic surrender ultimatums to Ukraine. Instead, it expedited Ukraine's tragic loss of the city of Avdiivka to the Russians in early 2024, as well as Moscows overconfident spring offensive in Kharkiv. Ukraines front line did not fall, as many predicted, thanks to the valor and inventiveness of the Ukrainian military. Russia responded to the delay of aid from the U.S. by tripling its missile attacks on Ukraine's electricity and heating infrastructure, exploiting Ukraines under-resourced air defense. Now the lion's share of Ukraine's energy production and distribution system is destroyed. Ukrainians go most of the day without electricity, and only heaven knows what nightmare awaits us in the winter to come. Read more: In Ukraine, relief over U.S. aid vote and fear over what an angry Russia will do next Decision-makers in Washington keep following the same dangerous script over and over. Ukraine asks for weapons and the response comes back: providing X ammunition or Y missile system would cross a red line and cause an escalation. Months-long deliberations follow; the situation in Ukraine worsens. Belated permission is granted and the weapons artillery, armored vehicles, rocket systems, missiles, air defense, fighter jets arrive late. Then the whole scenario is repeated, as Ukraine plays catch-up and suffers. When Ukrainian troops finally got HIMARS rocket launchers in the summer of 2022, they were able to stunningly derail Russia's logistics, undermine Russia's immense artillery power, halt a Russian offensive and help precipitate the liberation of Kherson later that year. The U.S.-made PATRIOT air defense system was an absolute no-go until late 2022, when it could finally be used against Russia's air force. The long-belated arrival of ATACMS missiles, declared off limits for more than two years, eventually did devastating damage to Russia's airfields and air defense systems in occupied Crimea. All without escalating blowback. Read more: Editorial: Speaker Mike Johnson's Ukraine aid bill is better late than never After tallying up the red lines crossed and the consequences, the Kremlins nuclear saber-rattling begins to sound a bit tinny, doesnt it? As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has noted, Putin may be crazy, but his instinct for self-preservation is alive and well. We need to be brave enough to call his bluff. Placating Putin is not the way to peace; it's an open invitation to eliminate Ukraine as a nation, absorb its territory and its resources, and install Russian aggressors directly on Europes borders. Putin will stop only when he is made to, with a proper and powerful response that defeats his ability to fight on. Ukrainians held off Russias attempted decapitating blitz on Kyiv in February and March 2022 with just that kind of all-out effort. Read more: International court seeks arrest of Russian officials over attacks on Ukrainian power plants Commentators, politicians and decision-makers in Congress and elsewhere in the West need to stop ignoring the reality of what is needed to end the Russian war in Ukraine. Either that, or openly admit that they are working to aid the Russian aggressor's victory. Providing Ukraine with the support and weapons it needs is not about prolonging the war. It is about stopping Putin by speaking the only language he understands. Illia Ponomarenko is a former defense and security reporter at the Kyiv Post and subsequently a co-founder of the Kyiv Independent . His book I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv was published in May. 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. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 10, 2024) - Founders Metals Inc. (TSXV: FDR) (OTCQX: FDMIF) (FSE: 9DL0) ("Founders" or the "Company") announces the start of its 2024 Buese area drill program at the Antino Gold Project ("Antino" or "Project") in southeastern Suriname. The Company plans to drill up to 7,000 metres (m) at Buese in 2024 beginning with an initial 3,000 m phase 1 program. The drilling uses Founders' own recently acquired third diamond drill. The Company is focused on testing both high-grade shear zones along the margins of the Filuca intrusive and bulk-tonnage type targets hosted within the intrusive at Buese. Highlights Founders-owned third diamond drill rig now operating Start of 3,000 m phase 1 drilling program at Buese New induced polarization (IP) and ground magnetic surveys support previously unidentified mineralized structures confirmed with high-grade gold samples at surface Channel sample grading 9.34 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) over 8.0 m including 1.0 m of 42.56 g/t Au as well as previously released results of up to 113.0 g/t Au Over 35,000 m2 of mapped Filuca intrusive with potentially a much larger subsurface body supported by recent geophysics Buese Discussion The Buese area covers over 600 hectares (ha) and is ~6 kilometres (km) southeast of Upper Antino and the Froyo Gold Zone. Buese gold mineralization is mapped over 2 kilometres along the southeastern extent of the 8+ km Antino Gold Trend. Mineralization occurs within and along the margins of the Filuca tonalite intrusion. Recently exposed outcrops by artisanal miners show that the intrusion is heavily altered (quartz/sericite/iron-carbonate/tourmaline) and hosts multiple generations of centimetre to decimetre-scale quartz quartz-carbonate veins throughout the exposed body. Founders' recent exploration results combined with historical auger sampling and limited past drilling of the Filuca intrusive indicate significant, previously underexplored potential for bulk-tonnage gold mineralization. This represents a similar setting and style of mineralization as the multi-million ounce Omai and Yaou gold deposits in Guyana and French Guiana, respectively. Founders' exploration work to date includes new ground magnetic and IP geophysical surveys, auger and rock sampling, detailed mapping, and an analysis of historical drilling. From this work, Founders has defined several high-priority drill targets. Geological mapping has successfully defined over 35,000 m2 of the tonalitic Filuca intrusive and surface sampling confirms substantial gold mineralization spatially associated with an extensive quartz and quartz-carbonate stockwork vein system. The Company's channel sample results from Buese include 9.34 g/t Au over 8.0 m and 11.87 g/t Au over 12.0 m, with up to 113.0 g/t Au. Story continues Colin Padget, Founders' President & CEO, commented "We are very encouraged by the results of the preliminary work completed at Buese and are excited for the ongoing drilling. Historical work primarily targeted the high-grade shears and other mineralization separate from the Filuca intrusive. Given our recent work and updated geological interpretation, phase 1 of our drilling focuses on the bulk-tonnage potential of the Filuca intrusive and the high-grade shears zones along its edge." In addition to the maps below, take a virtual tour of the property by clicking here. Figure 1: Property Scale Map To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7574/216057_677690a814c7ba59_001full.jpg Figure 2: Plan Map of Buese To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7574/216057_677690a814c7ba59_002full.jpg Figure 3: Soil Anomalies & IP at Buese To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7574/216057_677690a814c7ba59_003full.jpg Figure 4: Cross-Section of Geology at Buese To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7574/216057_677690a814c7ba59_004full.jpg Figure 5: Cross-Section of Historical Drill Holes at Buese North To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7574/216057_677690a814c7ba59_005full.jpg About Founders Metals Inc. Founders Metals is a Canadian-based exploration company focused on advancing the Antino Gold Project located in Suriname, South America, in the heart of the Guiana Shield. Antino is 20,000 hectares and has produced over 500,000 ounces of gold from surface and alluvial mining to date1. The Company drilled 10,000 metres in 2023 and is fully financed for drilling in 2024. 12022 Technical Report - Antino Project; Suriname, South America. K. Raffle, BSc, P. Geo & Rock Lefrancois, BSc, P.Geo. Quality Assurance and Control Results from samples were analyzed at FILAB Suriname, a Bureau Veritas Certified Laboratory in Paramaribo, Suriname (a commercial certified laboratory under ISO 9001:2015). Samples are crushed to 75% passing 2.35 mm screen, riffle split (700 g) and pulverized to 85% passing 88 m. Samples were analyzed using a 50 g fire assay (50 g aliquot) with an Atomic Absorption (AA) finish. For samples that return assay values over 10.0 grams per tonne (g/t), another cut was taken from the original pulp and fire assayed with a gravimetric finish. Founders Metals inserts blanks and certified reference standards in the sample sequence for quality control. External QA-QC checks are performed at ALS Global Laboratories (Geochemistry Division) in Lima, Peru (an ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited facility). A secure chain of custody is maintained in transporting and storing of all samples. Drill intervals with visible gold are assayed using metallic screening. Rock chip samples from outcrop/bedrock are selective by nature and may not be representative of the mineralization hosted on the project. Qualified Persons The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Michael Dufresne, M.Sc., P.Geol., P.Geo., a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, Per: "Colin Padget" Colin Padget President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director Contact Information Katie MacKenzie, Vice President, Corporate Development katiem@fdrmetals.com Nick Stajduhar, Director nicks@fdrmetals.com Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the use of proceeds from the Company's recently completed financings and the future or prospects of the Company. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect ", "is expected ", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to business, market, and economic risks, uncertainties, and contingencies that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, other factors may cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated, or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Other factors which could materially affect such forward-looking information are described in the risk factors in the Company's most recent annual management discussion and analysis. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information except in accordance with applicable securities laws. All material information on Founders Metals can be found at www.sedarplus.ca. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216057 Editors Note: Norman Eisen is a CNN legal analyst and editor of Trying Trump: A Guide to His First Election Interference Criminal Trial. He served as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for the first impeachment and trial of former President Donald Trump. Timothy C. Parlatore is a CNN legal commentator, Navy veteran, criminal defense attorney and managing partner of Parlatore Law Group, LLP. He has represented clients in high-profile cases throughout the country, including Trump during the investigative phases of his federal investigations. Joshua Kolb is an attorney at Perry Law and served as law clerk for the Senate Judiciary Committee. The views expressed in this commentary are their own. Read more opinion at CNN. Former President Donald Trump quickly seized on the Supreme Courts historic presidential immunity ruling last week to attempt to wriggle out of his other criminal legal troubles. First he succeeded in New York court in getting a delay until September for his sentencing on 34 convictions for falsifying business records. Then he turned to Florida and special counsel Jack Smiths classified documents prosecution. Norm Eisen - Courtesy Norm Eisen Trumps effort to dismiss that case is spurious, potentially self-destructive and should fail but his request to the court will result in delays that will help ensure the Mar-a-Lago prosecution will not go to trial this year. The classified information case, which includes 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information and also alleges false statements and conspiracy to obstruct justice, is arguably the most straightforward of the prosecutions against Trump and is of the utmost seriousness. While there are some complicated legal and evidentiary issues related to classified information that led Judge Aileen Cannon to postpone the trial in May, the alleged criminal activity is straightforward and this fact is not in dispute: Trump possessed classified documents after he left office. Tim Parlatore - Courtesy Tim Parlatore The government claims he had no legal right to retain them and that he allegedly obstructed the Justice Departments attempt to retrieve them. Trump has pleaded not guilty. On Friday, Trump filed a motion asking Cannon for two things: Permission to file supplemental briefing regarding the implications of the Supreme Courts presidential immunity decision, and a partial stay of further proceedings in the case until Trumps motions to dismiss based on presidential immunity and Smiths authority as special counsel are resolved. On Saturday, the judge stayed some but not all of the deadlines. Notably, Trumps motion is remarkably light on any explanation of how the Supreme Courts immunity ruling which held that a president has absolute immunity for official acts connected to the exercise of his core constitutional powers but enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts impacts this prosecution. Perhaps the reason for this is that there is no serious argument that the immunity decision impairs the prosecution. We certainly see none. Joshua Kolb - CJ Studios As you would expect in a case about post-presidential conduct, the indictment containing the allegations against Trump deals almost entirely with that. Each of the offenses charged against Trump alleges conduct that began after he left office. Nowhere in the indictment does the government allege Trump did anything illegal before 12:00 p.m. on January 20, 2021 when Trump ceased to be president. Therefore, definitionally, none of the alleged criminal conduct related to retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after noon on that day would be an official presidential act and conceivably protected by the Supreme Courts new standard. The indictment does include some allegations pertaining to Trumps conduct while he was in office. But these merely provide further context for the charges. For example, the indictment details Trumps habits of collecting documents including news clippings and other personal memorabilia, and including government documents in the boxes; a statement he made while president about controlling access to classified information; and his involvement in the packing process, including boxes containing hundreds of classified documents, before leaving the White House on January 20, 2021. But none of those details are legally necessary for the government to prove its case. Remember, this is a case of unlawful retention, not unlawful removal. While those allegations provide further color for the governments case, the government does not allege those particular behaviors to be criminal, and these parts of the indictment do not describe conduct for which Trump is being charged. Trumps motion relies on an overly generous interpretation of the Supreme Courts decision, asserting that the government could not use evidence of official conduct to prove a case related to unofficial acts. However, a closer reading of the decision reveals that the court only ruled on the inadmissibility of immune conduct, or official presidential acts that would be considered unlawful but are shielded from prosecution by immunity. As this applies to none of the stray benign presidential conduct that we have described above and that is included in this indictment, there is nothing to exclude. If the Trump teams fanciful interpretation were accepted by Cannon, that may impact the way in which the government would try to prove its case at trial. But it does nothing to render the case dismissible. At worst, those allegations may be struck from the indictment, but they will have zero impact on the charges stemming from alleged post-presidential criminal conduct. Ironically, this broad interpretation may hurt Trump more than help him, as his prior legal team argued that the presidential conduct was exculpatory. They contended that the manner in which documents are handled at the White House, which led to them being moved to Mar-a-Lago, is an institutional problem that has crossed administrations. That has led to a mixture of classified and unclassified documents being found in the boxes of some former presidents or administration officials since Jimmy Carter, including famously at President Joe Bidens home in Delaware after his tenure as vice president. Thus, the manner in which documents are handled, stored and then moved at the conclusion of an administration is something that would likely be helpful for Trumps defense to present to the jury. Yet his lawyers are now unwisely moving to exclude that evidence. The remainder of Trumps motion requesting a partial stay is equally weak. Trump relies on a grab bag of reasons to justify halting the case none of them convincing. He points to the immunity decision but does not adequately explain why the courts ruling would be applicable here. Trumps lawyers quote from Chief Justice John Roberts opinion that questions about whether the President may be held liable for particular actions, consistent with the separation of powers, must be addressed at the outset of a proceeding. But Trumps earlier motion on immunity grounds is still pending, Cannon has yet to rule on it, and that is the appropriate vehicle for this dispute. Trump then highlights Justice Clarence Thomas solo concurrence in the immunity decision, in which he cast aspersions on the validity of the special counsels appointment. But that was the view of just one justice on an issue totally collateral to the case being decided and neither briefed nor argued by either side. Therefore, Thomas opinion provides no legal basis for any relief whatsoever. Finally, Trump claims that unwritten Justice Department policy the so-called 60-day rule, which aims to avoid perceived interference in elections by not moving to prosecute candidates two months out from Election Day essentially requires a stay because we are getting too close to the election for proceedings to continue. This is a misstatement of the 60-day rule, which does not even apply to this ongoing litigation; it is focused on investigative steps and filing new litigation, not going forward with existing cases. Trump was indicted in Florida 17 months before the 2024 election, and the case has featured substantial litigation in the intervening 13 months. The Justice Department has absolutely no legal obligation to halt Trumps prosecution now. And the policy is only guidance for subordinates within the Justice Department itself, not judges. If the special counsel chooses to keep litigating the case, that is sufficient to continue and it would be inappropriate for Cannon to cite Justice Department policy as justification for her own actions as a jurist. And, even if the 60-day rule applied to this case (which it doesnt), we are not in the 60-day window before the election in fact, far from it. The fact that Trumps team resorted to citing this policy to support even further delay reflects how weak his arguments are. Notwithstanding the lack of any obvious merit in Trumps motion, Cannon temporarily paused some deadlines, including over expert disclosures and document production, in order to allow for briefing over whether to grant a stay. But Trumps victories will be temporary theres no legal basis for them, just as there is none for the extension of the immunity doctrine to this case, and other deadlines further out in time are unaffected. We will see if Trumps lawyers come up with more compelling reasons for delay but doubt they will. Just because these arguments should fail doesnt mean all of them necessarily will. It is possible, for instance, that Cannon will use Thomass solo concurrence to rule that Smiths role is not proper and the case must therefore be dismissed, undoubtedly setting up a return to the Supreme Court to resolve the issue. Or she might find sympathy for the argument that Trump effectively declassified the documents under the authority of the Presidential Records Act, thereby finding that was an official act and thus the documents were properly within his possession. Two of the authors (Eisen and Kolb) have written here about why that argument is baseless and the third author (Parlatore), who represented Trump in the investigative phases of this case, declined to use that as a defense. And even Cannon seemed to recognize that, too, a few months ago. Of course, the case was already virtually certain to be delayed until 2025. If Trump loses the election, he will face trial next year. But the Supreme Courts opinion does not let Trump off the hook entirely even if he wins and dismisses the case. That is because the courts decision leaves impeachment intact as a remedy. Here, the plain text of the Constitution will apply: that the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. Any president who is impeached and convicted shall be liable and can claim no immunity. Last weeks Supreme Court decision only restricts the Department of Justices ability to act on its own against a current or former president and does not in any way affect the powers of Congress to exercise oversight or impeachment. Presumably, it also does not extend protection after Congress has acted. Whether it would act here is a question for another day, but once Cannon gets to the merits, she should not and likely will not act in favor of Trump. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Orban lays out Putin's views on war in leaked letter to European Council Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban summarized his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow while echoing the Kremlin's stances on its war against Ukraine in a letter to the EU obtained by Politico and published on July 9. Orban sent the letter to the European Council President Charles Michel on July 5 in the wake of the former's trips to Kyiv and Moscow, which the Hungarian prime minister described as a "peace mission." The EU has distanced itself from Orban's venture, saying he does not represent the European bloc despite Hungary's presidency of the Council of the EU. Orban told Michel that according to Putin, "time is not on the side of Ukraine, but on the side of the Russian forces," without providing backing to this claim, Politico writes. Breaking down his letter into nine key points, Orban claimed that the Kremlin estimates Ukrainian losses in the full-scale war at 40-50,000 troops every month, without mentioning Russian casualties. Moscow keeps a tight lid over the information on its losses, but Kyiv estimates they have amounted to over 550,000 killed or wounded soldiers as of July. Read also: Zelensky repudiates Orban, says only strong alliances can be mediators between Russia, Ukraine Leaked documents from the U.S. Defense Department suggested that Russia's losses may be higher than previously thought, amounting to 462,000-728,000 troops killed, injured, or captured by June. President Volodymyr Zelensky named Ukrainian losses at 31,000 soldiers as of February. The numbers could not be independently verified. Orban also said that Putin is "ready to consider any ceasefire proposal" that would not entail what the Russian president called "relocation and reorganization of Ukrainian forces." The Hungarian prime minister said he told Putin that "many argue that it is in the interest of Europe to return to a period of economic growth based on lasting peace as soon as possible," stressing the need for a "direct dialogue." Presenting his own suggestions to the EU, Orban said that a ceasefire and peace talks are possible and warned that the next two months could lead to "more dramatic losses and military developments on the frontlines than ever before" if the war does not end. Orban called on Europe to take a leading role in negotiating a peace deal as the U.S. is increasingly distracted by its upcoming presidential election. Hungary has remained the most Kremlin-friendly country within the EU and has repeatedly opposed Ukraine's accession to NATO and the European bloc, obstructed sanctions on Russia, and undermined Western aid efforts for Ukraine. There have been no direct peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow since unsuccessful negotiations in early 2022. While Ukraine called for a full withdrawal of Russian troops, Putin rejected this and instead demanded Kyiv give up four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed in 2022. After meeting both Zelensky and Putin, Orban publicly acknowledged that the views of the two countries on peace prospects are "very far apart." The prime minister's trip to Moscow sparked outrage in the EU, and his "mission" is to be discussed by European diplomats in Brussels on July 10, Politico reported. Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. These Diamond Shruumz brand products have been recalled after reports of illnesses and one potential death. (Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) These Diamond Shruumz brand products have been recalled after reports of illnesses and one potential death. (Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) The Oregon Health Authority said the state is now part of a nationwide outbreak linked to microdosing products that contain a substance in mushrooms. So far, one person in Oregon has become ill and recovered, the health authority said. It didnt provide any other information about that person. Nearly 60 people in 27 states from the East Coast to the West are part of the outbreak linked to microdosing products, federal officials said. Thirty people have been hospitalized and federal officials are investigating one suspected death. What to do The health authority said anyone who becomes ill after consuming the products should contact their health care provider or call the Oregon Poison Center at 800-222-1222. Officials advised providers also to report any suspected illnesses to the poison center. The Food and Drug Administration found that the products chocolate bars, cones and gummies sold under the brand Diamond Shruumz contain muscimol, a chemical found in Amanita mushrooms, the health authority said. Researchers have documented the use of these mushrooms by shamans in northern Europe and Asia, and though they do not contain psilocybin, they can cause a mind-altering effect, according to the U.S. Forest Service. In the U.S., the products include some labeled as Micro- and Mega/Extreme-Dose versions. The Diamond Shruumz brand is manufactured by Prophet Premium Blends of Santa Ana, California and have been recalled nationwide. They are not regulated by the FDA or other agencies for consumer safety. Patients reported experiencing seizures, agitation, involuntary muscle contractions, loss of consciousness, confusion, sleepiness, nausea and vomiting, abnormal heart rates and high or low blood pressure, the health authority said. Oregon officials were alerted to the case last week. The Diamond Shruumz products were sold online and at retailers nationwide, including at smoke and vape shops and at retailers that sell hemp-derived products such as cannabidiol CBD and marijuana related items. The FDA said theyre no longer for sale. Consumers whove purchased them should not consume them and should throw them away or return them to the company for a refund. The products appeal to children, the health authority said, and advised parents and caregivers to discuss the recall with kids and ensure they dont eat them. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) A new report from the Oregon Health Authority found youth suicide in the state remains all too persistent despite prevention efforts, especially among youth of color. The Youth Suicide Intervention and Prevention Plan report includes analysis of finalized data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention from 2022. The report found 109 youths who were 24-years-old and younger died by suicide in 2022, marking Oregons first year-over-year increase since deaths peaked in 2018, according to OHA. Kroger-Albertsons selling 186 Oregon, Washington stores in merger bid. Here is the full list In a letter to Oregonians accompanying the report, OHA Behavioral Health Director Ebony Clarke said, We have made some progress to create a system of suicide prevention that is better connected and better resourced. Yet, the tragedy of youth suicide remains. We need to do more, particularly for young people of color. Stark racial disparities According to the report, racial disparities in youth suicide persist in Oregon and across the country. Oregon deaths by suicide for youth identified as white decreased since the peak in 2018, whereas the number of suicides for youth of other races and ethnicities remained similar to 2018 or increased, the report said. At the peak in 2018, OHA reported 129 youth suicides. Of those, 96 youths were white non-Hispanic, one was two or more races non-Hispanic, 19 were Hispanic, five were Black, four were Asian, and three were American Indian or Alaska Native. Why is my thermostat changing? Opt-in program allows PGE to adjust settings during peak hours In 2022, OHA reported a total of 107 youth suicides. Of those, 69 were white, non-Hispanic, four were two or more races non-Hispanic, two were Pacific Islander, 17 were Hispanic, five were Black, seven were Asian, and three were American Indian or Alaska Native, according to the report. OHA said the most common circumstances surrounding the suicide deaths include mental health concerns or current depressed mood, history of suicidal ideation or attempt, family stressors, school problems, and a crisis in the last two weeks. The report also highlighted Oregons youth suicide prevention efforts, including the addition of nearly 350 suicide prevention trainers in the state, including 67 who speak languages other than English. Portland planners recommend approval of new concert venue in Central Eastside Among OHAs efforts to prevent youth suicide, the agency said it is also working on culturally specific initiatives to support youth in Oregon. This includes the creation of tribal prevention programs, sustaining the Black Youth Suicide Prevention Coalition, and adding $500,000 of funding to increase suicide prevention training to Latino/a/x and Spanish-speaking trainers over the last year, OHA said. Oregons youth prevention plan is funded at about 50%, officials said. The report also notes that OHAs Behavioral Health Division budget was around $5 million plus grants for culturally specific suicide prevention efforts. Mysterious boom lights up Hillsboro sky Researchers also found from 2017-2021, there were 21 suicides among transgender youth. Another nine suicides were among youth who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or had a sexual orientation other than straight or heterosexual, OHA said. These deaths accounted for 5% of Oregons youth suicides, which is likely undercounted for the LGBTQ+ community due to data collection methods, officials said. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available 24/7 through the suicide and crisis hotline available online by calling or texting 988. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. Orlando police arrest 4th suspect in shooting that injured man and 4-year-old girl An additional suspect has been arrested in connection to a shooting, the Orlando Police Department said. Three other suspects were arrested after a 4-year-old girl and a man were shot on Oxalis Avenue shortly after noon on Saturday. On Wednesday, the OPD Fugitive Investigative Unit arrested 23-year-old Jezer Alexander Gonzalez. Gonzalez is charged with attempted battery and armed robbery with a firearm. Read: Orlando police arrest 3rd suspect in shooting that injured man and 4-year-old girl Officers announced Tuesday that Juan Carlos Lopez-Ruiz was the third person arrested after a shooting over the weekend. Police announced the arrests on Monday of Yasmi Matamoros-Mendoza and Marvin Sanchez. Officers said Matamoros-Mendoza ran from the scene and was located by the United States Marshals Service in Louisiana. She initially gave a fake Mexican passport and ID to the police. Police said Sanchez was arrested at the shooting scene. Read: Preventing crime before it happens: How OPD is keeping your family safe Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. President Joe Biden speaks at the United Steelworkers Headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Union Progress) Pennsylvania lawmakers lauded a Wednesday announcement from the Biden administration of a new joint effort from the U.S. and Mexico aimed at preventing China and other countries from evading tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Chinese steel and aluminum entering the U.S. market through Mexico evades tariffs, undermines our investments, and harms American workers in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, Lael Brainard, director of the White Houses National Economic Council, said on a call with reporters. Brainard said tariffs will be levied through Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which covers imports considered a threat to U.S. national security. Steel and aluminum not melted or poured in Mexico would be subject to tariffs of 25% and 10%, respectively. According to Biden administration officials, the U.S. imported 3.8 million tons of steel from Mexico last year, 13% of which was poured or melted elsewhere. Of the 105,000 metric tons of aluminum the U.S. imported from Mexico last year, 94% was smelted or cast in the U.S., Canada or Mexico, and the remaining 6% was cast in four countries: China, Russia, Belarus and Iran, administration officials said. Western Pennsylvania and our people made the steel that built America, but bad trade policies tried to strip our region for parts and ship solid, union jobs overseas, U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-17th District) said in a statement Wednesday. President Bidens announcement today takes dead aim at Communist Chinas exploitation of loopholes that allowed foreign steel and aluminum into the country through Mexico, undercutting our workers and industries here at home. During an April campaign stop in Pittsburgh, President Joe Biden called for raising the 7.5% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum imports by nearly triple, and said his administration would apply new pressure on Mexico to prevent China from shipping metals to the U.S. through its ports. Also in April, the office of U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai launched an investigation into the Chinese shipbuilding industry. For too long, the Chinese government has poured state money into Chinese steel companies, Biden said in Pittsburgh. Theyre not competing, theyre cheating. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), along with Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was among a group of seven Democratic senators who urged the Biden administration to maintain or increase the tariffs to address Chinas continued actions to cheat and undermine our national security. On Wednesday, Casey called the Wednesday announcement a victory for Pennsylvania workers and our Nations steel industry. The tariffs took effect on Wednesday. AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff announced that federal funding is coming to a Historically Black College & University (HBCU) in Augusta. According to the press released issued on July 10, Paine College will get $2,249,039 to fund restoration projects, updating the infrastructure on campus. These buildings include Paine Colleges Historic Peters Campus Center, Eppworth Hall and Belle Bennett Hall. Founded in the post-Civil War era to educate and uplift Black men and women and help heal the ails of a nation, Paine College has been steadfast in developing scholars into leaders their communities need, said Senator Warnock. I am proud to champion our nations HBCUs in the Senate, and thrilled to secure this new federal funding alongside Senator Ossoff to restore vital campus infrastructure that makes a good education possible. I will never stop working on behalf of Georgias HBCUs, Senator Ossoff said. Senator Reverend Warnock and I are pleased to deliver this funding to Paine College. The funding is from the National Park Service and is park of a larger investment within the Historic Preservation Funds Historically Black Colleges and Universities grant program. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJBF. Parents of Child Injured by Alleged Abuse Locked 4 Other Kids in Car Outside Hospital. Their Son, 2, Died: Police Justin and Deja Rollins now face a capital murder charge in the death of their son Jay'Dien Jacksonville Police Department Arkansas Facebook (2) Justin, left, and Deja Rollins An Arkansas couple is charged with murder after their 2-year-old son died, allegedly having been left in a hot car along with three of their other children, according to authorities. Police in Jacksonville, Ark., say that they responded to a report of child abuse on Sunday, July 7, after a 3-year-old was taken to Arkansas Childrens Hospital in Little Rock for urgent medical treatment. The childs parents, Justin and Deja Rollins, were arrested, police say. During the investigation, Jacksonville police say they discovered that the couples four other children, aged 2, 4, 7 and 10, were left locked in a car in the hospital parking lot. Justin and Deja were allegedly not cooperative in providing the location of their remaining children, according to the police department. According to a news release from the city of Little Rock, the citys police department was dispatched to the hospital where the other four children were suffering from heat exhaustion. The youngest child, JayDien Rollins, died the next day, the city says. 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. Justin and Deja Rollins were subsequently charged with capital murder by authorities in Little Rock. They are also facing five counts of domestic battery, five counts of neglect, five counts of endangering the welfare of a minor, one count of obstructing government operations and a count of animal cruelty, after Jacksonville police say they found a malnourished dog after searching the couples home. It is not immediately clear if either Justin or Deja has entered pleas or retained an attorney. Both are in custody in Pulaski County and have been denied bond, according to jail records. 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. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. PARK TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) A Park Township man faces multiple charges for allegedly having and sharing child pornography, Ottawa County authorities say. David Schackow, 64, was charged Tuesday with two counts of aggravated distribution of child sexually abusive material and two counts of aggravated possession of child sexually abusive material. The Ottawa County Sheriffs Office said it learned in October that Homeland Security Investigations was looking into Schackow. When his house was raided, investigators found hundreds of thousands of images and videos of child porn, authorities said. He was arrested Monday. Schackows bond was set at $50,000. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. PHOTO: File image of a Boeing 737-990 belonging to Alaska Airlines flying at Anchorage Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska, on July 2, 2024. (Hasan Akbas/Anadolu via Getty Images, FILE) A pastor is facing federal charges after he allegedly hit his wife in the head during a flight when she got upgraded and he didn't. The incident allegedly occurred on July 2 on board an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Anchorage, Alaska. According to the complaint, Roger Allan Holmberg, Sr. and his wife were traveling for an event related to their ministry. According to witnesses interviewed by Anchorage Airport Police detailed in the complaint, Holmberg asked his wife, "How the hell did you get the upgrade?" PHOTO: File image of a Boeing 737-990 belonging to Alaska Airlines flying at Anchorage Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska, on July 2, 2024. (Hasan Akbas/Anadolu via Getty Images, FILE) She responded, "I'm a Gold Point member. Don't speak to me like that." Holmberg allegedly handed his phone to his wife from the aisle while telling her to read it and gestured with his middle finger, according to the complaint. MORE: New details emerge in case of Alaska Airlines plane where door plug blew out Some time after handing her his phone, Holmberg allegedly attempted to swing toward his wife and struck the top of her head. Another witness told airport police, according to the complaint, that Holmberg went to the first-class lavatory after the incident. When he came out, the witness confronted him and said, "If there were any further incidents, we would put him in handcuffs." In her interview with airport police, Holmberg's wife said he struck her in the head with the back of his knuckles. She said Holmberg knew she had epilepsy and contact with her head could cause a seizure. She claimed he had a history of abusing her and had previously broken her finger. MORE: Off-duty pilot charged with 83 counts of attempted murder for allegedly trying to shut off engines on Alaska Airlines flight According to the complaint, Holmberg told authorities he was upset that his wife "had been upgraded to first class because he wanted his wife to travel with him and sit next to him. Although he was upset, he stated he was not a violent person and did not intend to hurt his wife." He told authorities he "tapped his wife on the head in passing to get her attention," and added he and his wife had been going to marriage counseling and that his wife was "disrespectful to him often and had anger issues." He told authorities of a previous incident where she allegedly grabbed his leg while he was driving and broke her finger. The complaint said once the flight crew became aware that the incident occurred, they notified law enforcement. Holmberg was arrested upon landing for simple assault and transported to the Anchorage Correctional Center. According to court documents, he has since been released and cannot come within 100 yards of his wife. In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for Alaska Airlines said, "Mr. Holmberg has been banned from our flights and a simple assault charge was filed against him by the U.S. Gov't. (FBI) on July 3rd." Holmberg didnt respond to a request for comment. Pastor facing federal charge after allegedly assaulting his wife over flight upgrade originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Pat Ryan is first House Democrat from New York to call for Biden to step aside Rep. Pat Ryan on Wednesday because the first prominent New York Democrat to make a public plea for President Joe Biden to step aside as their party's standard-bearer after his shaky debate performance nearly two weeks earlier. Ryan, who's running for a second full-term in a competitive Hudson Valley district, made his break with Biden in interviews first with the New York Times and then with the USA Today Network. He said he had moved to that position after speaking with concerned constituents in his district since the June 27 debate and deciding Democrats need a stronger contender to defeat Donald Trump in November. He called Trump an "existential threat to our Constitution," and said he felt it was his "patriotic duty" and consistent with the oaths he took in Congress and when he graduated from West Point to speak out while his party can still choose another candidate. Failing to do so would be a "disservice" to his constituents, he said. More: Rep. Pat Ryan: Biden, its time to step aside. For the good of our country. "Trump is not fit to serve, clearly, and I've been very unequivocal about that from the moment I sought any public office," Ryan told the USA Today Network. "And it's my job to also be honest about my own party. So I want to be clear that I think President Biden is a patriot, I think he's a person of integrity. He's dedicated his whole life to serving this country and we owe him a debt of gratitude." Rep. Pat Ryan of the 18th C.D. in New York, photographed at 2 Alices Coffee Lounge in downtown Newburgh Jan. 12, 2023. Within hours of his announcement, another Democratic leader from New York followed suit, breaking from top Democrats in the state, including Gov. Kathy Hochul. Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado posted a statement on X that urged Biden to step aside so another leader can motivate voters and beat Trump, whom he called a "threat to democracy." "I believe we should move forward with a nominee capable of re-invigorating and re-energizing Americans who are determined to protect our democracy, and who want to do so with a candidate they believe can win," Delgado said. New York Democrats have been slow to weigh in during their party's post-debate hand-wringing about the 81-year-old president's ability to beat Trump and serve another four years. Two House members, Reps. Joe Morelle of Monroe County and Jerry Nadler of Manhattan, reportedly told colleagues Biden should quit the race in a private meeting last Sunday, but soon softened those remarks or voiced support for Biden. "I wouldnt write Joe Biden off because of one bad performance, Morelle told Rochester radio station WXXI the following day. By the same token, I think he has to make a decision, his family and his inner circle, about whether they think he feels he can still fulfill his obligations." President Joseph R. Biden Jr. speaks at the 2024 Graduation and Commissioning Ceremony at the United States Military Academy at West Point, in Highland Falls, New York on Saturday, May 25, 2024. One concern among New York Democrats is that a weak performance by Biden in November will hurt down-ballot candidates like Ryan who are running in competitive races, including those trying to win back House seats Republicans flipped in 2022 so their party can regain control of the chamber. A Democratic-led House would be a crucial bulwark for their party if Republicans win both the White House and a majority in the narrowly split Senate. Even before the debate, Democrats had reason to worry about Biden's relatively weak standing in New York and its potential impact on other races. He led Trump by eight points in a one-to-one matchup in a Siena College poll in June, two points less than his lead in an April poll and a smaller margin than he should have in a heavily Democratic state. By comparison, Biden beat Trump in New York by 23 points in 2020. "I think that's got to be concerning to Democrats who are running in swing districts," Siena pollster Steve Greenberg said of Biden's eight-point lead. Ryan, an Iraq war veteran and former Ulster County executive, won a special election for a vacant House seat in 2022 and then a second vote months later to represent New York's 18th District, which takes in all of Orange County and parts of Ulster and Dutchess counties. He's being challenged in November by Alison Esposito, a retired police commander who ran for lieutenant governor in 2022. In his interview Wednesday, he argued Biden could cement the legacy of his accomplishments by "stepping aside and passing the torch, for the good of our country and the good of our democracy." He said Democrats have a "wealth of great leaders that can step forward," and drew a contrast with Republicans for their "lock step" support for a "convicted felon" who tried to overturn the 2020 election and has "very damaging and divisive policies." Republicans returned fire after Ryan's announcement on Wednesday, accusing him of failing to say if Biden was fit to serve another term and pulling a "stunt" to win re-election. Everyone can see Ryan's statement for what it truly is, a transparent election-year ploy to try to cling to his seat," said Savannah Viar, a spokeswoman for the House Republicans' campaign arm. Hochul: Biden will "continue to run" and win Biden, who has vowed to stay in the race and moved to shore up his support, has so far kept the public backing of most of New York's top Democrats, including Hochul, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, the House minority leader. Hochul, during a stop in Rockland County on Wednesday, reaffirmed her support for Biden and said she and state Democratic leaders are working "to ensure we have the resources, the personnel, the grassroots campaign to help all of our congressional candidates, especially those that have battleground areas." "This has been my laser focus from the very beginning, regardless of who's president," she told a small media gathering after celebrating the completion of new apartments for veterans in Orangeburg. "And I believe that President Biden will continue to run, that he will be successful. But having run for Congress myself, I respect Congressman Ryan, I'll continue to work with him, and we are going to continue to make sure that he's re-elected to Congress." Jones: What about the "convicted felon and insurrectionist"? Other New York Democrats have voiced only tepid support for Biden or avoided the question, while hammering back at Republicans for what a second Trump term might mean and for Trump blemishes they say are far worse than a weak debate. Former Rep. Mondaire Jones, a Democrat who's taking on GOP Rep. Mike Lawler in a Hudson Valley swing district next to Ryan's, put out a statement on Tuesday that gave Biden only the faintest support and left open the possibility that another Democrat may replace him. Then he pivoted to his own race, blasting Lawler for backing Trump and warning that that he'd be a "reliable vote for Trump's dangerous legislative agenda." If President Biden is the nominee, Ill be voting for him," Jones said. "Meanwhile, Mike Lawler is supporting a convicted felon and insurrectionist who wants to punish women for having an abortion." Earlier in the day before he issued that statement, Lawler's campaign had swatted Jones for rebuffing media questions about Biden's continued re-election bid. Campaign spokesman Chris Russell said Jones backed Biden's priorities in Congress and called him the "best president in modern American history," but now wouldn't say if Biden should stay in race and was fit for the job. By this point, it should surprise absolutely no one that Mondaire Jones is willing to stab President Biden in the back to try and save his own skin, Russell said. Opposing views from county leaders Zak Constantine, Orange County's Democratic chairman, echoed Ryan's view in an interview Wednesday. He praised Biden for his work in the White House and noted that he's pledged to vote for Biden's nomination as a convention delegate in August. But he said the party must consider who can best "prosecute the case" against Trump while making a strong case for their own candidacy. "We can't scare and guilt voters into voting for Democrats," he said. Constantine also raised concerns that voters' uncertainty about Biden could hurt turnout for other Democrats. "People have to be inspired to vote, and low turnout could be the undoing of Democrats in this election," he said. Suzanne Berger, the Westchester County Democratic chairwoman, argued Democrats should stick with their ticket and stop anguishing over replacing Biden, which she said is only harming their party's chances. She rejected as unrealistic that idea of finding a new candidate at this stage and overriding the will of Democratic voters who chose Biden in nominating contests this year. "I think continuing this conversation is not helpful," she said, arguing Democrats instead should "focus on who the better team is" and emphasize Vice President Kamala Harris' strengths as part of the Democratic ticket. Berger also pointed to a potential silver lining for her party's House candidates: worries about Trump unseating Biden underscores the importance for Democrats of winning a House majority. And if pitched to voters in the right way, she said, that message could work to the party's advantage in November. 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: Biden should step aside for another Democrat, NY Rep. Pat Ryan says Pearl Jam touring member and former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer was sued today (July 10) for wrongful death involving a March 18 incident in Alhambra, Ca. Per the suit, Klinghoffer struck pedestrian Israel Sanchez with his GMC Yukon SUV while making a left turn at an intersection, allegedly while on his cell phone. Sanchez, 47, died hours later of blunt force trauma to the head. More from Spin: No criminal charges have been filed in the case, which Klinghoffer attorney Andrew Brettler told TMZ was a tragic accident. After Josh struck this pedestrian in the intersection, he immediately pulled over, stopped the car, called 911 and waited until police and the ambulance arrived. Obviously, hes cooperating with the police throughout the traffic investigation. This was purely a tragic accident. In a statement, Sanchezs family attorney said, Mr. Klinghoffer should be arrested and prosecuted for homicide. We have a video of him on his cell phone at the time he hit and killed Israel Sanchez, a loving father, in a crosswalk. Israel Sanchez was on his way to the grocery store to make soup for his family and never came home. He did everything right, looking for oncoming traffic and abiding by pedestrian signage, but tragically Mr. Klinghoffer, in a rush and on his phone, hit him fatally from behind with a large SUV. The loss and grief that the Sanchez family now faces is immense. We will not stop until there is accountability and justice for Mr. Sanchez and his family. Klinghoffer played lead guitar in the Chili Peppers from 2009 until 2019, after which he joined Pearl Jam as a touring multi-instrumentalist. He is currently in Europe with the group, who will perform tomorrow at Madrids Mad Cool Festival. To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here. A guitarist for Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers is facing a lawsuit claiming wrongful death and negligence when he struck and killed a pedestrian in Alhambra in March. Josh Klinghoffer was driving a GMC Yukon on March 18 when he fatally struck Israel Sanchez, according to a lawsuit filed by Sanchezs family. The suit adds that the family has video evidence showing Klinghoffer on his phone just before the collision. My dad was known for being a great chef, the most talented of his family, the greatest grandpa always full of love and joy, Ashley Sanchez, Israels daughter, said in a news release announcing the suit. His smile was so infectious. His life was taken by a careless act of a person who didnt bother to look where he was driving. Israel Sanchez is seen in an undated photo. (Trial Lawyers for Justice) Josh Klinghoffers SUV is shown on March 18, 2024. (Trial Lawyers for Justice) In this image released on May 2, 2021, Josh Klinghoffer and Eddie Vedder perform onstage during Global Citizen VAX LIVE: The Concert To Reunite The World at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Global Citizen VAX LIVE) Andrew Brettler, Klinghoffers attorney, told TMZ that it was a tragic accident. After Josh struck this pedestrian in the intersection, he immediately pulled over, stopped the car, called 911 and waited until police and the ambulance arrived, Brettler said. Obviously, hes cooperating with the police throughout the traffic investigation. This was purely a tragic accident. Klinghoffer, 44, became the youngest member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when he was inducted alongside the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the age of 32 in 2012. Ilan Rubin of Nine Inch Nails surpassed that record in 2020. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. AUSTIN (KXAN) Austin-Travis County EMS said one person was hurt Tuesday night after colliding with ATCEMS Community Health Paramedic unit near the intersection of Foster Avenue and Deep Eddy Avenue. ATCEMS said CHP immediately stopped to render aid and call for an ambulance. The pedestrian was transported to Dell Seton Medical Center with serious, but not expected to be life-threatening injuries. CHP units are administrative vehicles and are smaller SUVs, they traditionally assist in community outreach programs, according to ATCEMS. The Austin Police Department is investigating the incident, and ATCEMS is conducting an internal investigation which is standard protocol for ATCEMS vehicles involved in collisions with injuries. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin. Pelosi gives cagey response when pressed on Bidens re-election bid: Whatever he decides we go with Pelosi gives cagey response when pressed on Bidens re-election bid: Whatever he decides we go with Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to say on Wednesday whether she believes President Joe Biden should remain atop the Democratic ticket following his dismal debate performance and struggle to reassure the party that hes able to do the job for another four years. Appearing on MSNBC on Wednesday morning, Pelosi was asked if she still supported Biden to lead the Democratic ticket. Its up to the president to [decide] if hes going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short, she said. She added that Biden has the overwhelming support of the caucus, but she noted that Its not for me to say Im not the head of the caucus anymore. But hes beloved, he is respected. And people want him to make that decision, Pelosi said. Pressed again on whether she wants Biden to run, Pelosi said: I want him to do whatever he decides to do ... That's the way it is whatever he decides we go with. The former speaker said time is running short for the president to make a decision on his re-election campaign. (Getty) Pelosis comments come as the Biden campaign and White House have gone into survival mode following the presidents disastrous debate performance on June 27 in Atlanta. He appeared confused and frail, making several gaffes that immediately sent the Democratic party into a tailspin. Several House Democrats have since called on Biden to leave the race, but Pelosi is the highest profile Democrat to suggest he may want to reconsider his re-election bid. On Tuesday, New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill said in a statement that I know that President Biden and his team have been true public servants and have put the country and the best interests of democracy first and foremost in their considerations. And because I know President Biden cares deeply about the future of our country, I am asking that he declare that he wont run for reelection and will help lead us through a process toward a new nominee, she added. While no Senate Democrats have publically stated that Biden shouldnt run, there have been reports of growing unease with his candidacy within the caucus. Biden is attempting to use the ongoing NATO summit in Washington to prove his doubters wrong. In a forceful speech on Tuesday, Biden pledged to defend Ukraine against Russias invasion. Vladimir Putin wants nothing less, nothing less, than Ukraines total subjugation ... and to wipe Ukraine off the map, Biden said as he read off a teleprompter. Ukraine can and will stop Putin. He added: Today NATO is stronger than its ever been in its history. Some diplomats at the summit said the damage from the debate remains difficult to repair. We dont see how he can come back after the debate, a European diplomat told Reuters. I cant imagine him being at [the] helm of the US and NATO for four more years. (Bloomberg) -- Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Joe Biden should quickly consider whether to stay in the presidential race and top officials from his reelection campaign were set to meet anxious Senate Democrats, as unease over the incumbents age and ability to defeat Republican Donald Trump continued to reverberate across Capitol Hill. Most Read from Bloomberg Pelosi appeared Wednesday morning on MSNBCs Morning Joe and implored Biden who has said repeatedly since his faltering debate performance that he is not considering dropping out of the race to decide whether to continue atop the ticket. Its up to the president to decide if hes going to run, Pelosi said. We are all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. Separately, Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, two of Bidens closest advisers, and campaign chairwoman Jen OMalley Dillon scheduled a meeting with Senate Democrats for Thursday. Taken alongside new calls for the president to step aside delivered by Democratic lawmakers and Hollywood donors the Senate meeting and Pelosis comments underscore how perilous Bidens political position remains. While the president so far has avoided a jailbreak among influential party members that might make his continued candidacy impossible, allies remain deeply concerned about his campaigns viability and the risk it poses to other elected Democrats. Biden began the week by flatly telling members of Congress that he intends to remain the party nominee, as doubts swirl in the aftermath of his calamitous debate performance. He reiterated his intention to remain in the race again hours after Pelosis comments, telling labor leaders gathered in Washington he was staying atop the ticket. Pelosi, 84, faced calls herself to make way for a new generation of leaders before stepping aside as the top House Democrat in 2022. NBC News also announced that Biden planned to sit Monday for a primetime interview with anchor Lester Holt, during a trip to Austin, Texas. Biden is attempting to counterprogram the beginning of the Republican National Convention with remarks commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, followed by visits to the NAACP National Convention and a gathering of Latino activists organized by UnidosUS. Hollywood Donors The outcry, though, extended to one of the partys biggest celebrity supporters and donors, George Clooney, who called for a new nominee Wednesday just weeks after he co-hosted a fundraiser with Biden. We are not going to win in November with this president, Clooney wrote in a New York Times op-ed, adding that Biden, at the fundraiser, was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. Clooney said he had spoken to senators, members of the House, and governors about his concern and that every single one believed Democrats would lose control of both chambers of Congress. Actor Michael Douglas, who hosted a fundraiser for Biden at his home earlier this year, called Clooneys concerns valid during an appearance on ABCs The View. I dont worry necessarily today or tomorrow, but a year down the line, I worry. I am concerned, Douglas said. When Harry Met Sally director Rob Reiner, who hosted an event with Vice President Kamala Harris last month, tweeted that it was time for Biden to step down. Hold Off Pelosi urged lawmakers not to publicly air their concerns about the president until the NATO summit being held in Washington concludes. Biden is expected to hold a high-stakes news conference Thursday afternoon, with foreign allies attending the event closely watching the US president. I said to everyone, lets just hold off whatever youre thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you dont have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week, Pelosi said. The poor debate from Biden, 81, raised worries about the fitness and mental acuity of the already-oldest US president in history to defeat Trump and serve another four-year term. Those worries have been amplified by fears that a weak presidential candidate at the top of the ticket could wreck Democratic hopes of retaking the House and holding onto Senate control. The issue even came up as Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Powell said that while he had not met with Biden for years, he had not seen a cognitive decline in the president. A New York Times/Siena College poll after the debate found Trump ahead of Biden by six percentage points and Democratic worries intensified on Tuesday after the Cook Political Report updated their Electoral College analysis to show a more favorable map for the Republican. Still, many prominent Democrats have been reluctant to outright call on Biden to exit the race. In the hours after her MSNBC comments, Pelosi told CBS News she had not intended to signal Biden should reconsider his decision. She subsequently released a statement saying Democrats must turn our attention to why this race is so important: Donald Trump would be a disaster for our country and our democracy. Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina congressman who has long championed Biden in Democratic politics, said he would ask Pelosi what she meant by her remarks. Im still riding with Biden, he added. New Defection But Pelosis comments were followed by another Democratic lawmaker Pat Ryan, a congressman from New York calling on Biden to step aside. Id be doing a grave disservice if I said he was the best candidate to serve this fall, Ryan told the New York Times. Other prominent Democratic lawmakers simply echoed Pelosis tepid support. Katherine Clark, the No. 2 House Democrat, said Biden is the partys nominee but like Pelosi did not explicitly stand behind him. As always this decision is up to the president, Clark said. Ritchie Torres, a Democratic congressman from New York, said there must be a serious reckoning with the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate, nodding to the risk that an unpopular Biden could drag down House and Senate candidates. Kate Bedingfield, who was Bidens deputy campaign manager in 2020, said the presidents current team needed to demonstrate that he still has a viable path to victory. If they have data that supports the path to victory that they see, they should put it out there now, Bedingfield wrote on X. --With assistance from Erik Wasson, Steven T. Dennis and Zach C. Cohen. (Updates with NBC interview in 8th paragraph) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. President Biden awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) in May. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the most influential voices in President Biden's sphere outside of his family, sent a rare public signal Wednesday morning that suggested she is trying to nudge him to consider dropping out of the election. "It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run," she said on MSNBC. "We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short." Pelosi sandwiched her comments between praise for Biden and his record. But Pelosi is notably careful and calculating in her public comments and well aware that Biden has repeatedly and forcefully said he has already made that decision. She spoke on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Biden's favorite cable news show and the same venue where on Monday he gave one of his most defiant declarations that he would remain in the race. Read more: Amid confusion among Democrats, Pelosi sends a loud message: 'Time is running short' Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, is no longer in Democratic leadership but remains in the House after one of the most consequential tenures in history. At 84, she is three years older than Biden and served alongside him for most of his political career. She also had the experience of watching close friend Sen. Dianne Feinstein deteriorate before dying in office last year. Pelosi said Biden would have the "overwhelming support" of House Democrats. "He's beloved, he is respected, and people want him to make that decision." She also suggested that she would not make a more direct call for him to withdraw. Ive said to everyone, lets just hold off, whatever youre thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you dont have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week, she said. The comments preceded a high-profile call to withdraw from a different sort of influencer: George Clooney. The actor, who is a major backer for Democrats, headlined a Hollywood mega-fundraiser for Biden last month. "The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time," Clooney wrote in an op-ed published Wednesday in the New York Times. "None of us can. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe 'big F deal' Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate." Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox three times per week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. COPPER CENTER, Alaska A Harrisburg woman was killed in a rafting incident in the 49th State over the weekend, state troopers confirmed. Alaska State Troopers said the incident happened around 6:25 p.m. Sunday on the Klutina RIver near Copper Center, about 160 air miles from Anchorage. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now WHTM Daily Digest One raft in a group of three was pinned against landslide debris and rolled over. A guide and three passengers were aboard that raft. One of the passengers Deborah Burke, 65, of Harrisburg succumbed to her injuries, troopers said. The rafting guide and another passenger were flown to Anchorage with serious injuries. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27. The 22-year-old Pensacola man charged with the vehicular homicide of Christian Garner in 2022 was sentenced to nearly a year in Escambia County Jail Tuesday afternoon, avoiding the 15-year prison maximum. Joseph Squirewell took a plea deal in February for a vehicular homicide charge, in return for his manslaughter charge being dropped, after he caused the death of the 18-year-old Garner while towing him on an innertube at Community Maritime Park. Circuit Judge Coleman Robinson sentenced Squirewell to 364 days in county jail followed by 14 years of probation, and he will also have a five-year revocation on his driver's license. According to court documents, the 22-year-old's attorney reserved the right to appeal Robinson's previous denial of their motion to dismiss the charges. Squirewell was booked into Escambia County Jail at 5:51 p.m. Tuesday. Joseph Squirewell listens during a hearing on a motion to dismiss his case at the M.C. Blanchard Judicial Building in Pensacola on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. Squirewell is charged with negligent manslaughter after the death of Christian Garner near Community Maritime Park on April 30, 2022. What happened to Christian Garner on April 30, 2022? Around 7:30 p.m. on April 30, 2022, Squirewell joined Garner and some friends at a retention pond near the Blue Wahoos Stadium and Community Maritime Park where they would ride across a retention pond on an inner tube towed by a truck. During the incident April 30, security cameras at Community Maritime Park and City Hall captured images of Squirewell driving his Ford Ranger pickup truck "in a manner which he knew to be reckless and likely to cause serious bodily harm or death and actually resulted in the death of Christian Garner," according to Squirewell's arrest report. Squirewell's actions included performing "donuts" and almost running over a person in a parking lot, the report stated. Detectives later observed Squirewell's pickup truck reverse to the edge of the roadway adjacent to the pond, and Garner walked into the water with an inflatable inner tube that was attached to the rear of the truck. Squirewell then accelerated his pickup truck forward, pulling the inner tube through the water, out of the water, up a nearby embankment and into a parking lot. "The truck appeared to rapidly accelerate and continue to do so beyond a point in which the inner tube was pulled from the water," the report stated. "It appeared as though Garner was thrown from the inner tube as it left the water and collided with the grass embankment." Garner suffered trauma to his head and neck and was pronounced deceased at the scene. Joseph Squirewell and attorney ask judge to dismiss charges In December 2023, Squirewell's attorney Jason Cromey and Assistant State Attorney Matt Gordon had a hearing before Robinson where the defense argued Squirewell's charges should be dismissed since Garner knowingly participated in the act, therefore keeping his client from being culpably negligent. Cromey cited a judge's opinion from case law that says, "People frequently join together in reckless conduct. As long as all participants do so willingly and voluntarily, I see no point in holding the survivors guilty of manslaughter when the reckless conduct results in a death." Joseph Squirewells defense attorney Jason Cromey speaks during a hearing on a motion to dismiss the case at the M.C. Blanchard Judicial Building in Pensacola on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. Squirewell is charged with negligent manslaughter after the death of Christian Garner near Community Maritime Park on April 30, 2022. "So, it's our position that ... we really do have a participant who knowingly entered into the reckless conduct," Cromey said. "That's the basic legal premise to the argument." However, Gordon rebutted Cromey's argument and told the judge that Squirewell's case is not a proximate cause case, meaning the defendant is the cause of the death rather than the victim causing his own death. He said the cases Cromey referenced refer to people who, through negligence, killed themselves, but Gordon said in this case Squirewell's negligence killed Garner. "The defense is arguing equal liability between the two, and I disagree with that. This is not equal liability," Gordon told the court. "Mr. Squirewell had the engine, the tool which propelled (Garner), and Mr. Garner was completely at his mercy." Robinson denied the motion to dismiss and concluded that the evidence did not show Garner was the proximate cause of his own death, and that the jury, as the finders of fact, ought to be the ones to determine whether Squirewell's negligence was criminal. Why did Joseph Squirewell avoid prison? After the motion to dismiss hearing, both Cromey and Gordon told Robinson they planned on avoiding trial, with Gordon stating he would offer Squirewell a downward departure rather than facing the maximum 15-year prison sentence. According to Florida law, a downward departure permits a judge to sentence a defendant to less than the required minimum sentence allowable by law, and it is only allowed if "there are circumstances or factors that reasonably justify the downward departure." After the hearing, Gordon told the judge he believes there are mitigating factors to allow a downward departure. Robinson appeared to agree with the mitigating factors and levied a jail sentence rather than a prison sentence. This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Jail sentence for Christian Garner homicide at Community Maritime Park WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) A person of interest in a fatal shooting that happened in Oklahoma has been arrested in Wichita. According to the Bartlesville Police Department in Oklahoma, at 12:50 a.m. on Monday, July 8, officers responded to the report of a gunshot in the 1400 block of W. Hensley. They were advised that a man was lying in an alley. This embedded content is not available in your region. Upon arrival at the scene, officers began life-saving measures until EMS arrived. He was taken to an area hospital, where he later died. The BPD has identified the victim as 38-year-old Alexander Daugherty. An investigation led the BPD to find a person of interest. Man booked on suspicion of indecent liberties with child The BPD says the man was arrested later in the day in Wichita on an active warrant for the charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm after a felony conviction, maintaining a dwelling for keeping/selling a controlled dangerous substance, and unlawful use of a police scanner. The BPD says the Wichita Police Department was able to locate the suspect using its FLOCK safety camera system. Checking the Flock camera history in the city, WPD confirmed the presence of the suspects vehicle at 3:41 a.m. and again at 2:35 p.m. within a defined area. With this information, the East Bureau Community Policing Officers quickly flooded the vicinity and soon located the maroon Silverado parked in the driveway in the 5400 block of E. Funston, the WPD said in a Facebook post. The East Community Response Team, DIVRT, and K9 officers worked in unison, tracking the suspect to a nearby residence. Demonstrating remarkable coordination and precision, they apprehended the murder suspect inside a residence without incident. The suspect will be extradited to Oklahoma. The BPD Criminal Investigations Division and the WPD are continuing to investigate the fatal shooting. KSN does not identify suspects unless charges are filed in their case. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV. By Andreas Rinke BERLIN (Reuters) -The German government and mobile phone carriers have agreed in principle on steps to phase components by Chinese technology companies out of the nation's 5G wireless network over the next five years, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday. Newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung as well as broadcasters NDR and WDR earlier jointly reported the news, saying the agreement gives network operators Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica Deutschland more time to replace critical parts. Under the preliminary agreement driven by security considerations, operators will initially rid the country's core network of 5G data centres of technology made by companies such as Huawei and ZTE in 2026, said the sources, adding that a final pact has yet to be signed. In a second phase, the role of Chinese makers' parts for antennas, transmission lines and towers should be all but eliminated by 2029, they added. Asked for comment, Germany's interior ministry told Reuters that the government's talks with mobile carriers were ongoing. "The government is acting on the basis of the national security strategy and China strategy to reduce possible security risks and dependencies," a spokesperson said. The Chinese embassy in Germany did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Germany is considered a laggard in implementing the European Union's security measures for 5G networks. Telecoms operators in the country have previously resisted Berlin's efforts to drive the expensive phase-out of Huawei, while Huawei has rejected what it called the "politicisation" of cyber security in the country. Reflecting the costs of a transition, the U.S. communications regulator said in May that nearly 40% of U.S. telecom companies need additional government funding to remove equipment made by Chinese telecoms firms from American wireless networks to address security risks. (Writing by Ludwig Burger, additional reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Rachel More and Emelia Sithole-Matarise) Person in Jury Pool for Alec Baldwin's Rust Trial Admits They'd Be 'Very Biased' Against Actor If Selected On Tuesday, July 9, 11 women and 5 men were selected and sworn in as jurors out of group of 70 prospective jurors Luis Sanchez Saturno/Santa Fe New Mexican via AP Alec Baldwin in Santa Fe, N.M., during a preliminary hearing on Monday, July 8, 2024. The jury for Alec Baldwins involuntary manslaughter trial was selected on Tuesday, July 9. In October 2021, Baldwin, 66, held a prop gun on the set of the Western movie Rust when it discharged, injuring director Joel Souza and killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. If found guilty, Baldwin could face 18 months in prison. Sixteen jurors 11 women and 5 men were selected and sworn in out of a group of 70, per the Associated Press. Of those selected, only 12 will decide the case, while the remaining four will serve as alternates. During the process, the pool of prospective jurors were asked, Have you seen any press coverage that makes you feel biased one way or another? Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer also asked the possible jurors if they were familiar with the case. Everyone except for two people raised their hands to signify they were. Two others were excused after they said they would not be able to be fair and impartial. I have read about the case and would be very biased against Mr. Baldwin," one person in the jury pool said. ROSS D. FRANKLIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Alec Baldwin in Santa Fe, N.M., during a preliminary hearing on Monday, July 8, 2024. Related: Judge in Alec Baldwins Rust Case Upholds His Involuntary Manslaughter Charge for a Third Time During the rounds of questioning from the prosecution and defense which lasted approximately 50 minutes for both parties Baldwin was seen looking at them as he took notes on a yellow legal pad. Baldwin's attorney, Alex Spiro, asked prospective jurors about gun safety and if they would rely on experts to ensure safety and not themselves alone. "Let's say you took your car to a mechanic. And you don't know anything about cars. And the mechanic told you it's safe. You'd believe him, wouldn't you?" he asked one person. "Everyone knows you should check a gun before you fire it, whether it's real or a toy," one prospective male juror responded. When a prospective female juror was asked if there was any reason she couldn't serve, she told prosecutors she used marijuana daily for pain. The judge asked if she could still sit on the case. "If I can take my marijuana," she replied. "I didn't take it this morning because I knew I was driving." On Monday, July 8, Baldwin attended pretrial hearings in the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe, N.M. The prosecution and defense made arguments on various motions to preclude certain evidence and testimony from being admitted at trial. Baldwin is represented by Spiro, Heather LeBlanc, Stephanie Kelemen and Luke Nikas. The prosecution is comprised of attorneys Erlinda Ocampo and Kari Morrissey. Related: Alec Baldwin Wants to Be 'Brave' and Attend Trial 'Alone,' But Family Will Be There 'to Support Him' (Source) FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Alec Baldwin in Santa Fe, N.M., during a preliminary hearing on Monday, July 8, 2024. Since the fatal shooting occurred, Baldwin has insisted he did not pull the trigger or know that the gun mistakenly contained live ammunition. In January, the actor submitted a not guilty plea shortly after a grand jury indicted him on the involuntary manslaughter charge. Two months later, Rusts armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was in charge of the weapons on set, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for her role in Hutchins death. Gutierrez-Reed is now serving an 18-month sentence in prison, which was handed down by Sommer. Related: How Alec Baldwins Life Has Changed Since Starring in Beetlejuice, as He Prepares for Manslaughter Trial Gutierrez-Reeds guilty verdict has Baldwin "understandably worried, a source told PEOPLE in May. "He has an excellent legal team. I don't think anyone is thinking jail time, but given the decision for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, its hard to know." Luis Sanchez Saturno/Santa Fe New Mexican via AP Alec Baldwin and his attorney Alex Spiro appear for a pretrial hearing Monday, July 8, 2024, in Santa Fe, N.M. T Baldwin intended to remain in New Mexico alone, but his wife Hilaria Baldwin, two of their seven children, and his younger brother, actor Stephen Baldwin, were seen arriving to court on Tuesday. "Alec wants to put on a brave face and go to the trial alone, but his family will be present to support him," a source told PEOPLE. 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. Opening statements and testimony will begin Wednesday, July 10, at 8:30 a.m. MDT. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Two percent of the state's roughly 2,200 pharmacies are approved to dispense birth control to people without a prescription under a 2023 law. (Photo by Meghan McIntyre) Nearly two months after Gov. Phil Murphy announced newly adopted rules that allow pharmacies to dispense hormonal birth control without a prescription, only about four dozen pharmacies statewide have been approved to do so, state data shows. Forty-four pharmacies were approved to participate in the initiative as of June 24, according to a list on the states website. Essex, Middlesex, Passaic, and Warren counties each have just one qualified pharmacy. In Monmouth County, two pharmacies are approved, and in Hudson County, there are three, all in Jersey City. Bergen County, which is the states most populated county, with 960,000 residents, has five pharmacies participating. The rules have been in place since late May, nearly 18 months after Murphy signed a bill into law that removed the prescription requirement for self-administered, hormonal contraceptives. At the time, Murphy said the law marked an important step forward in our efforts to expand access to reproductive health care. Lawmakers and advocates wonder whether the law is working as intended, with a fraction of the states roughly 2,200 pharmacies participating. Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz, a nurse, said this could signal that health care providers have concerns about the law. Broadly, we as a Legislature pass these bills, and it sounds great. Its about reproductive rights, everybody gets a headline, and then the professionals push back, said Munoz (R-Union). Clearly, if they thought it was a great idea, theyd be signing up. Munoz, who voted in favor of the bill, said pharmacists may feel providing birth control without a prescription is outside of their scope of practice and may prefer getting input from a gynecologist or other physician. I dont know if thats the answer to why theyre not doing it, but I think it speaks to the fact that the Legislature, they push through legislation that has good sound bites, but perhaps not good policy and has some concern, she said. Pharmacists are not required to participate in the initiative, but if they do so, they must complete a four-hour training program on patient screening, the selection of a self-administered hormonal contraceptive, and patient counseling, according to Lisa Coryell, a spokeswoman for the Attorney Generals Office, which oversees the initiative. Coryell said pharmacists were notified in April that the rules would soon take effect and were directed to training resources and other requirements. In an effort to reach more pharmacies, the offices consumer affairs division created a page on the Board of Pharmacys website devoted to educating licensees and the public. Similar resources are also available at pharmacies throughout the state, she said. We are pleased with the progress thus far and will continue working with pharmacies to increase participation. We have received outreach from pharmacies that are preparing to offer this service and anticipate the number of participating pharmacies will continue to rise as coverage for pharmacist education and consultation related to furnishing hormonal contraceptives becomes available, she said. New Jersey is one of 28 states, along with the District of Columbia, that allow for pharmacist-prescribed contraceptives, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Most of the participating pharmacies in New Jersey are located at Acmes or Sav-Ons. Four pharmacies are independent. A spokeswoman for Walgreens said the company is still determining next steps, but offers Opill, an over-the-counter birth control pill, in its stores nationwide. Anjali Mehrotra is the founder of Equality, Period, an advocacy organization focused on menstrual equity. Mehrotra said implementation of a state program like this can be a long and arduous process, but she noted the law is intended to remove barriers, particularly students and young women, to obtain medication. More pharmacists need to take advantage of this law and provide this as a service, she said. Birth control is not only used as a contraceptive, she stressed. Many women use it to manage conditions ranging from severe cramps to endometriosis, or to maintain regularity. Kaitlyn Wojtowicz of Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey said shes hopeful more pharmacies will participate as the process is ongoing. People deserve access to timely, affordable reproductive health care, including birth control, she said in a statement. Several Democratic lawmakers declined to comment. The governors office deferred questions to the states consumer affairs division. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, New Jersey officials have taken numerous steps to bolster reproductive rights and continue to do so. Recently, Democrats introduced a package of bills aimed at womens health that they say they want to begin advancing in the fall, including one measure that would protect the privacy of people using period tracking apps by requiring consent for disclosure. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX (Bloomberg) -- The Philippines will continue increasing defense spending as it seeks private sectors support in safeguarding the nations claims in the disputed South China Sea. Most Read from Bloomberg Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said he has been pushing for his departments budget to rise to more than 1% of economic output, excluding military pensions. The Philippines is trying to upgrade its defense capabilities and catch up with its neighbors at a time when its military assets are sustaining damage from frequent clashes with Beijing in contested waters. Defense budget was increased to 278.1 billion pesos ($4.8 billion) in 2024. The defense chief is also asking the private sector to structure sale of debt instruments to raise funds that help support the Southeast Asian nations claims in the South China Sea. Its up to them to see what the appetite of the market is at any particular time, he told reporters at the sidelines of a business forum Wednesday. The target buyers are investors looking to gain from a potential improvement in the countrys credit rating and other defense industry ventures, he said, adding that there are a lot of creative ways to raise funds. The important thing is to ease the fiscal position of the government and not sacrifice modernization, Teodoro said. --With assistance from Ditas Lopez. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Photos show the mysterious ancient objects that mountaineers are finding on the Alps' melting glaciers Photos show the mysterious ancient objects that mountaineers are finding on the Alps' melting glaciers Hikers and mountaineers are finding ancient human artifacts in the melting glaciers of the Alps. Some discoveries are valuable snapshots of ancient economies, while others are total mysteries. Glacial archaeologists must race against time, decipher puzzling clues, and avoid dangerous viruses. Hikers and mountaineers are stumbling on mysterious ancient objects in the Swiss Alps, and their discoveries are keeping archaeologists busy. From the Iron Age to ancient Rome to the Middle Ages, people traveled across the Alps' icy mountain passes with cows, mules, oil, wine, skis, weapons, and more. Their lost or abandoned belongings are now surfacing as the mountains' glaciers melt, providing clues about past civilizations and eras. Archaeologists gave Business Insider an inside look at some of their most mysterious and most revealing discoveries. Melting glaciers in the Swiss Alps are uncovering objects that humans have left behind over the ages. This Iron Age statuette is one of the most mysterious objects to surface on Switzerland's melting glaciers. Morgan McFall-Johnsen Switzerland has more glaciers than any other European country, and they're receding quickly as global temperatures rise. In 2022 and 2023, the country lost 10% of its total glacier volume, according to the Swiss Academy of Sciences. People who find unique artifacts lying on the ice sometimes take them as keepsakes. Pierre-Yves Nicod showing off a mysterious wooden figure recovered from a melting glacier in the Alps. Morgan McFall-Johnsen This wooden statue, for example, hung on a mountaineer's living-room wall for nearly 20 years before Pierre-Yves Nicod, a museum curator, saw an old email about it and reached out. The mountaineer found the statue soaked in meltwater in 1999 and wiped it down with modern cleaning products, which could have damaged the ancient object. Still, after he donated it in 2018, archaeologists managed to date the wood to the first or second century BC the Iron Age. As the ice melts and discoveries accelerate, archaeologists in the town of Sion collect these objects for research. The Valais History Museum is inside an old chateau atop a rocky hill in the middle of town. Morgan McFall-Johnsen The Valais History Museum sits atop a steep hill towering in the center of town. It's at the forefront of the new field of glacial archaeology. The museum has even sent its artifacts on a traveling glacial-archaeology exhibit. The archives, where additional artifacts are kept and studied, are in a discrete building in a different part of town. Glacial findings are hidden in a giant freezer in the basement and rooms full of bins. In the museum's archives, researchers are studying new objects closely. Nicod in the basement of the museum archives. Morgan McFall-Johnsen Findings from glaciers are disclosing more about human history and ancient economies in the region. But it's a challenge. Up on the glacier, there's often nothing else associated with the artifact. There are no structures, roads, ancient cities, or other objects that can offer clues about an artifact's origins or purpose. "It's one of the difficulties of glacial archaeology that we find these objects in the ice, and therefore out of all archaeological context," Nicod said. Business Insider spoke with Nicod in French and translated his words into English. Some discoveries are total mysteries, such as these sticks. Researchers were processing all these sticks from one pass, or "col," between mountain peaks when Business Insider visited their archives. Morgan McFall-Johnsen All these sticks come from the same pass, or "col," between mountain peaks. Since it's far above the tree line, the sticks wouldn't be there unless humans brought them. Some of the sticks date to the time of the ancient Romans, who used the Celtics as guides over the glaciers and through the Alps, Romain Andenmatten, a local archaeologist, said. He thinks the Celtics used sticks to mark the passage. But the archaeologists were still working on radiocarbon-dating the sticks. And they continue to find more sticks each season when they visit the glacier. "We go back, we go back, and we still find wood," Nicod said. "This is really a research in progress." Archaeologists still aren't sure what the little wooden statue was for, either. Nicod thinks the statue could be a religious totem, but it's hard to say. Morgan McFall-Johnsen Nicod speculated that when people walked across the col, they placed this object there for "divine protection." Or maybe it marked a border. Maybe someone simply lost it on their long mountain trek. Like the statue, many glacier artifacts are made of organic materials such as wood, plant materials, and leather things that don't survive well at lower altitudes where they aren't frozen. That means artifacts such as these aren't common in archaeological digs. They don't have analogs in ancient cities or tombs places that provide the context to figure out an item's purpose. In the case of this statue, "We have no comparison," Nicod said. Other discoveries, such as these valuable belongings of a 17th-century man, shed light on the economy of the ancient Alps. A selection of items recovered from the site where a wealthy traveler was frozen in the ice. Valais History Museum, Sion; Michel Martinez This wealthy traveler is a mystery that archaeologists believe they've solved. Based on his fine clothes, coins from Northern Italy, and weapons from present-day Germany, the archaeologists think he was a merchant. Two mules whose remains were discovered nearby may have been carrying his wares. Archaeologists suspect the man died in an accident, such as falling into a crevasse in the glacier. He's a remarkably detailed snapshot of an ancient economy that stretched across the Alps. For centuries, people have braved treacherous cols and glaciers to reach settlements on the other side of the mountains. Some artifacts could carry long-extinct diseases such as the black plague. This hoof comes from the remains of a mule discovered on a melting glacier. Morgan McFall-Johnsen Archaeologists have to be careful and wash their hands after handling the remains of animals or people since they could carry viruses or other microbes that are still viable from being frozen. Researchers have previously found active viruses frozen in Tibetan glaciers and Arctic permafrost, tens of thousands of years old. Those viruses were prehistoric and suited to plants or amoebas, but there are also more recent, human-adapted pathogens such as plague or smallpox that could easily be preserved in the ice. There are relics in the Alps glaciers from the Middle Ages, including the peak of the black plague. Andenmatten told BI the Valais archaeologists hadn't had any infections from ancient microbes, but he said he didn't want to become an "archaeological experiment." "We know that in other regions, they have problems with that," Andenmatten said. For example, thawing permafrost in Siberia released anthrax that infected dozens of people and killed a child in 2016. Nicod is convinced this wooden artifact is a handle for some kind of tool. It fits perfectly in his hand. A smooth, twisted piece of wood that Nicod believes to be the handle of an ancient tool. Morgan McFall-Johnsen It's from the Iron Age. Nicod speculated it was the handle of a hooked blade for cutting back plants. Whatever it is, it's impeccably preserved. "These are exceptional wooden objects that would have been destroyed elsewhere," he said. Many objects are vulnerable once the ice around them melts. Archaeologists have to hurry. Archaeologists uncovering mule bones on the Theodul Glacier in Switzerland, near Zermatt. Sophie Providoli Once they melt out to the surface of a glacier, leather and other organic materials can be destroyed by the elements and the meltwater in just two years, Andenmatten said. Some of the wood sticks from the Col Collon, for example, had fungus growing on them. In glacial archaeology, that's an emergency. They had to dry the wood as quickly as possible, then put it in an anoxic (oxygen-deprived) chamber for several weeks to kill the fungus. "You have to have a rapid response, which is problematic for glacial archaeology," Andenmatten said. To help save as many objects as possible, the archaeologists created an app for hikers to report their findings. Archaeologists believe this small barrel was used to carry wine. Morgan McFall-Johnsen The IceWatcher app is an example of a growing practice of citizen science, with researchers recruiting enthusiasts to help them collect information in the field. Hikers reported about 30 discoveries on the app in its first two years, Andenmatten said. About half of those discoveries were recent human remains or old bombs, which became the police's responsibility, while the rest were interesting finds for the archaeologists, he said. Some objects that melt out may not be found until they've decomposed. "We say that glacial archaeology is to find a needle in an iceberg," Andenmatten said. "I think the citizen science is a good solution," he added. Read the original article on Business Insider A plan to connect Californias two high-speed rail projects via a dedicated corridor in the High Desert is continuing to make progress. On Monday, members of the High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Agency assembled in Palmdale to sign two landmark labor agreements to advance the project. Officials signed a Community Workforce Agreement and a Memorandum of Understanding, two contracts that will ensure the project moves forward with skilled union labor constructing, operating and maintaining the 54-mile transit connector. The High Desert Corridor will provide a connection between California High-Speed Rail and Brightline West, two electric high-speed rail projects currently under construction. Its eventual completion is considered a crucial step in Californias, and the nation as a wholes, mission to create a high-speed rail network in the West. L.A. to Bay Area bullet train gets full environmental approval In addition to providing better connectivity between Californias high-speed rail projects, the High Desert Corridor is expected to provide a major economic boost to the Antelope Valley, Victor Valley and beyond. Economic forecasters estimate the HDC High Speed Rail Project will generate $12 billion in economic activity for the Antelope Valley and surrounding region, said Kathryn Barger, Los Angeles County supervisor and chair of the HDC JPA. Rendering of a station platform along the planned High Desert Corridor in Southern California. (High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Agency) Rendering of the planned Palmdale rail station along the planned High Desert Corridor in Southern California. (High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Agency) Rendering of a possible rail station along the planned High Desert Corridor in Southern California. (High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Agency) Rendering of a possible rail station along the planned High Desert Corridor in Southern California. (High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Agency) More than 16 unions are included in the two agreements, which took about a year to develop with support of US High Speed Rail Association, an organization that advocates for high-speed rail projects across the U.S. and helps negotiate agreements between planning agencies and labor unions. We were delighted to help facilitate these two landmark labor agreements which will create thousands of good, skilled, union jobs in Southern California, said Ezra Silk, U.S. High Speed Rail Associations political director. The first phase of the project will connect Palmdale in Los Angeles County to Victorville in San Bernardino County with a high-speed intercity rail system. It will then connect to CAHSR and Brightline when the projects reach those cities. Brightline is tentatively planned to be completed in 2028; California High-Speed Rail could reach Los Angeles County in the 2030s. The High Desert Corridor and Palmdale Station are a vital link between Southern, Central and Northern California; and also it will eventually provide a link to Las Vegas on Brightline West. We look forward to working with the High Desert Corridor to develop connections throughout the state of California, a spokesperson for the California High-Speed Rail Authority told KTLA. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. Police investigating possible motive in killing of woman found in bag on NYC street Police investigating possible motive in killing of woman found in bag on NYC street KIPS BAY, Manhattan (PIX11) New details surrounding the death of a woman found in a bag on a Manhattan street were revealed Tuesday, including a possible motive for her killing that police are investigating. The body of 31-year-old Yazmeen Williams was found inside a sleeping bag left among garbage bags on the street at 207 East 27th St. between Third and Second avenues in Kips Bay on Friday, according to the NYPD. More Local News Williams had been fatally shot in the head, police said. She was last seen alive on June 23, according to police. Surveillance video showed a man in a wheelchair using a dolly to haul Williams body to the spot on East 27th Street where she was found dead, police said. Yazmeen Williams (Credit: handout) NYPD detectives used the surveillance video to track the suspect back to the nearby Straus Houses, according to police. On Monday, thats where police arrested 55-year-old Chad Irish, whos been charged with concealment of a human corpse, authorities said. Williams and Irish knew each other, according to police. She stayed with Irish at times at the Straus Houses, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. Im not sure if their relationship was romantic or if it was more convenient. She would just stay with him. Im sure there was some narcotics arrangement involved, Kenny said. The NYPD chief said police learned from witnesses and family members that Williams may have recently began taking drugs. Irish has a history of drug possession, according to Kenny. Man arrested in connection to death of cab dispatcher outside NYC hotel: NYPD NYPD detectives are investigating whether the motive behind the killing of Williams was drug-related, police said. Kenny said he believes Williams was killed in Irishs apartment in the Straus Houses. Were getting search warrants for his apartment. Were trying to find that gun. Were doing what we normally do to try to tie him to this murder, Kenny said. Kenny also spoke about the people from the community who confronted Irish in the neighborhood on Monday prior to his arrest. Several people from the neighborhood were quite angry with Mr. Irish over this incident and they surrounded him, Kenny said. Irish allegedly threatened the group with a gun, Kenny said. [Irish] then fled the location back to his apartment where he was placed under arrest by detectives and patrol, Kenny said. Irish was stormed by a crowd of angry neighbors as he was taken into custody, video of the incident showed. Police and medics had to shield him from the crowd as he was taken away on a stretcher. They more or less surrounded him like a mob and started to attack him, said witness Ted Oehmke. Community mourns death of Yazmeen Williams A memorial for Yazmeen Williams in Kips Bay, Manhattan (Credit: PIX11 News) A memorial in honor of Williams has been placed where her body was found in Kips Bay. The memorial includes flowers, candles and notes from people who knew her. Williams was known in the community as someone who would help people. She graduated from Buffalo State University and was about to begin a new job at the New York City Housing Authority. It makes it even more tragic someone young and bright as she was to help people and this is how it ended. Its very sad, said Michael Quinn, a longtime Kips Bay resident. Williams had a twin brother and an 8-year-old sister, according to her family. Shes sweet. Shes a nice person and she grew up here. We dont know why someone would have a motive to do something to her, Williams aunt, Nisha Ramirez, said. Finn Hoogensen is a digital journalist who has covered local news for more than five years. He has been with PIX11 News since 2022. See more of his work here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. A man is facing criminal chairs after police say he struck an elderly man with a chair and injured his dog during a recent altercation in New Hampshire. Donald Pierce, 55, of Manchester, is charged with first-degree assault, second-degree assault domestic violence, felony criminal threatening, felony criminal mischief, four counts of simple assault, criminal trespass, indecent exposure, misdemeanor criminal mischief, cruelty to animals, and resisting arrest, according to the Manchester Police Department. Officers responding to a report of a domestic incident in the area of 38 Pine Avenue in Manchester around 1 a.m. Sunday heard someone yelling for help in the rear of the home and found a man lying on a bloody porch with a naked man standing next to him, police said. The naked man, later identified as Pierce, allegedly started shouting and making threats before charging at the officers. An officer deployed a taser multiple times in an effort to subdue the man, the department said in a statement. Several officers worked to get the man into custody and were successful. An investigation later revealed that Pierce had been involved in a physical altercation with a woman at a nearby home before he punched and struck an 86-year-old man with a chair. The victim was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The elderly man was letting his dog out at the time of the attack and the animal was also injured by Pierce, according to police. Pierce and the victim didnt know each other, police noted. Pierce is being held in preventative detention pending a July 16th probable cause hearing. An investigation is ongoing. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Rep. Neil Friske | House photo Lansing Police requested felony sexual assault, assault and a weapons-related offense last month for state Rep. Neil Friske (R-Charlevoix) after his nighttime arrest, but the police department confirmed Tuesday that it is still investigating the case. For his part, Friske says hes being framed. The Lansing Police Department says it responded to a report of a male with a gun and possible shots that fired at around 2:45 a.m. on June 20, arresting the first-term lawmaker, whose legal name is Kornelius Friske. Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane said last month in a statement that the Lansing Police Department submitted the case to the prosecutors office the next day having learned of a possible sexual assault of an adult female during the investigation. I have asked the Lansing Police Department to continue their investigation. Our office will continue to work in coordination with law enforcement on this matter, Dewane said in last months statement. It is common for further investigation to be requested, prosecutor spokesman Scott Hughes told the Michigan Advance. Cases are regularly further-investigated and then later, upon the review of the further investigation, either authorized or denied, Hughes said. Of the 5,215 total cases the Ingham County Prosecutors office has reviewed since July 9, 2023, 679 of them have been returned to law enforcement for further review about 13% of cases Hughes said. Friske, a member of the Freedom Caucus, has denied wrongdoing, going on the right-wing Your Defending Fathers radio program on June 24 thats hosted by GOP activist Trucker Randy Bishop. Bishop opened the segment about Friske by calling attention to the fact that Friske had been passed over for a few endorsements shortly before the events of Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Friskes Republican opponent in the GOP primary, Parker Fairbairn, announced on Facebook Wednesday morning that U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Watersmeet) had endorsed him. At the start of that week, Fairburn announced that he had received Michigan Farm Bureaus AgriPac endorsement. Do you think Neil Friske was feeling a little depressed about his political chances of getting reelected? Do you think he was a little bit upset over the fact that Farm Bureau AgriPac and his very own congressman, Jack Bergman, endorsed his opponent in a primary election after serving just one term with a 100% conservative voting record? Bishop said. Did he make some bad decisions Wednesday night heading into the early hours of Thursday morning? Yes, he did. Hes a man. You cast the first stone if youve never sinned. Bishop didnt further elaborate on what those bad decisions were, and said numerous times that the Bergman machine is working to destroy Friske in the election. Bergman did not return a request for comment. Friske claimed that all the information Bishop presented was 100% accurate information. The way events unfolded, it was very clear to me that something wasnt right, and I was being framed, trying to be framed, and being set up, Friske said. And thats how these people work and its just so frustrating. Its just amazing to me how desperate people are that they go to these kinds of lengths to try to destroy someone. The post Police still investigating Michigan lawmaker on sexual assault and weapons charges appeared first on Michigan Advance. Grant Cardone Right now, you can begin collecting Social Security benefits at age 62, although the full retirement age is between 66 and 67, depending on the year you were born. Check Out: Im an Economist Heres My Prediction for Social Security If Biden Wins the 2024 Election Try This: 7 Reasons Future Retirees Should Consider a Financial Advisor However, Grant Cardone, a private equity fund manager and real estate investor, believes that this age will likely increase significantly in the coming years. Youre not going to retire at 63 its probably going to be 10 years later, he told GOBankingRates. Heres why Cardone believes the retirement age will soon be 73. Also see the most realistic retirement age in every state. Earning passive income doesn't need to be difficult. You can start this week. The Social Security Benefit System Is in Danger As the Social Security program currently stands, trust fund reserves are predicted to begin falling short in 2035. This means benefits will have to be reduced and/or the age to begin collecting benefits will have to be raised. Cardone believes the latter is likely to be the case. The money is going to run out, he said. Social Security cannot support [retirees]. Its been a busted system my whole life. So if it cant support people in retirement, people need to keep working to earn money. Read More: Im a Retirement Planner 4 Moves You Should Make If You Think Trump Will Win the 2024 Election Not only are funds running low, but people are living longer, which means Social Security will need to fund peoples retirement for longer. In addition, fewer people are paying into the Social Security fund via taxes. Weve got 10,000 people leaving the job force every single day right now, Cardone said. Some of these people are 65, 66 years old. Theyre going to live until theyre 91 not 84. Cardone does not believe that either presidential candidate Joe Biden or Donald Trump would be able to fix the Social Security system. I dont think anybody can benefit the Social Security program, he said. It doesnt have enough money. Our government is spending more money on interest right now than it does on our military, and it spends too much money on the military. Our education programs are broken, and we spend $800 billion a year there. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Grant Cardone: Heres Why I Predict the New Social Security Retirement Age Will Be 73 Police track down more than $200,000 in stolen Lego Police recovered 4,153 stolen Lego sets worth more than $200,000 after a monthslong investigation in Oregon, officials said Tuesday. Ammon Henrikson, the 47-year-old owner of a store called Brick Builders in Eugene, allegedly knowingly bought new, unopened sets of Lego that had been stolen from other stores, the Springfield Police Department said. Suspects would steal the sets, then bring them straight to Brick Builders in exchange for cash, police said. Brick Builders staff would buy the stolen sets "most often at a fraction of their actual retail value." Investigators said they learned many of the Lego thieves used the cash to buy illegal drugs. Some pricey sets retail for a whopping $849.99 on the Lego website. Police said several of the stolen sets found at the store had retail values of over $700. A spokesperson added that resale values for some of the Lego sets were well over $1,000 on independent online marketplaces, like eBay. Images of the Lego loot shared by police show a huge pile of the toys. Other pictures shared by officials show Lego officers arresting a Lego criminal and a Lego police cruiser. An image shared by the Springfield Police Department shows a Lego police officer arresting a Lego suspect. / Credit: Springfield Police Department Authorities said they worked with loss prevention officers from Target, Fred Meyer, Barnes & Noble and Walmart to find the Legos. "We all feel the impact of organized retail theft through the increasing cost of items we buy for our families. Recognizing this, SPD's Crime Reduction Unit, with the support of our retail partners, works diligently to hold accountable those who make the choice to engage in or support retail theft," Chief Andrew Shearer said in a Facebook post. Henrikson was charged with organized retail theft and theft by receiving. Police also arrested Albert Nash, 57, describing him as an accomplice and an employee. In January, a new law went into effect imposing harsher penalties for those convicted of retail theft, CBS affiliate KOIN-TV reported. A Lego police car sits in front of a stack of stolen Lego sets recovered in an image shared by the Springfield Police in Oregon. / Credit: Springfield Police Department Police have made several Lego-related busts in recent months. A California task force in April seized about $300,000 worth of stolen Lego sets throughout several raids. Last month, a 71-year-old man was arrested after police found nearly 3,000 boxes of stolen Lego sets sets at his California home. Sneak peek: Unmasking the Zombie Hunter Sneak peek: Murder by Clown The success of renewable energy may depend on battery storage Police: Worcester man arrested for possession of child porn and over 400 grams of crystal meth Authorities arrested a Worcester man on Tuesday for allegedly trafficking drugs and possessing child porn. Officers received a warrant out of Dorchester District Court for 39-year-old Michael Cox on charges of possession of child pornography, dissemination of obscene material to a minor, and enticement of a child under 16, according to Boston Police. Officers went to Coxs S Edlin Street residence in Worcester and arrested him without incident. Investigators allegedly found multiple packages of methamphetamine, several glass pipes, three cell phones, five hard drives, and two laptops. The crystal methamphetamine was later determined to weigh approximately 462 grams, according to police. In addition to the child porn charges, Cox was also charged with trafficking a Class B substance over 200 grams. No further information was immediately available. 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 New Jersey Democratic power broker and insurance executive George Norcross pleaded not guilty to racketeering charges Tuesday morning, in his first court appearance since he was indicted last month as part of a widespread corruption scheme. Norcross and four others his brother Phillip Norcross, his personal attorney William Tambussi, developer John ODonnell and ex-Camden mayor Dana Redd are accused of leading a criminal enterprise to collect millions of dollars in tax credits by controlling property deals on the Camden waterfront and hijacking a development program for the poorest city in New Jersey. The codefendants all pleaded not guilty at Mercer County Criminal Courthouse in Trenton. Sidney Brown the CEO of trucking company NFI and fifth codefendant has his arraignment delayed until August as his attorney, Larry Lustberg, is representing a codefendant of Sen. Bob Menendez in a corruption trial in New York. Prosecutors said they have collected more than 13,000 pages of evidence and 2.5 million documents and audio files dating from 2012 to 2024. The indictment has a lot of words, a lot of pages, a lot of allegations, Michael Critchley, Norcross attorney, told reporters after the arraignment. But one thing it does not have, it does not have elements of a crime. Critchley said he plans to file a motion to dismiss the indictment. Norcross, 68, is the executive chairman of the insurance firm Conner, Strong & Buckelew and is also the chairman of the board of trustees for Cooper Health. He now lives in Palm Beach, Fla. His brother Phillip is a lobbyist who helped design the tax incentive legislation the six are accused of abusing. It was signed into law by then-Gov. Chris Christie. New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin said the enterprise extorted and threatened anyone who got in its way, turning the Camden waterfront into Norcross fiefdom. Among the accusations, Norcross allegedly strong-armed a developer into giving up the property rights to what became the 18-story office plaza Triad 1828 Centre. Prosecutors said Norcross eyed the property as the new headquarters to his insurance firm. A previous investigation into Norcross political dealings in the early 2010s resulted in no charges. Norcross is one of the most powerful unelected Democrats in New Jersey and considered the de facto head of the South Jersey delegation. He is also involved in national politics. His brother Donald is a Democratic member of the House representing New Jerseys 1st U.S. Congressional District. The congressman is not accused of any wrongdoing. DENVER (KDVR) A new study from the Colorado Polling Institute shows new insight into how Denver voters feel about the city and its leadership. The numbers come from a bipartisan poll that was conducted in June. How do voters feel about Denver overall? According to the results, when it comes to safety and the community, 73% of those polled said they feel very or somewhat safe in Denver. This is up from 68% in 2023. Could your Safeway be sold soon? See 89 Colorado stores on planned sale list When Denver was compared to other big cities across the nation, seven out of 10 voters said Denver is doing better. Are taxes in Denver too high or just right? On the heels of a recently proposed sales tax increase by Mayor Mike Johnston, 35% of voters said taxes were way too high and another 35% said taxes were about right or lower than expected, according to CPI. The poll found the remaining 29% of voters felt taxes were high but acceptable. Denver voters top concerns Denver voters were asked about their top concerns and the following topics had the highest percentage points: 54% of voters were concerned about homelessness 31% of voters were concerned about affordable housing 30% of voters were concerned about safety How is Denvers leadership doing? Finally, Denver voters were asked what they thought about Denvers leadership. Of those polled, 48% of voters see the mayor in a favorable light. However, on the other side of the spectrum, those who said they had an unfavorable view of Johnston grew by 16% from 2023. In the past year, 57% of voters think Johnston has improved the city. Reading levels for Denvers youngest students rise toward pre-pandemic levels When it comes to the Denver City Council, 42% of those polled had unfavorable views. This is up 34% from 2023. Nearly half of Denver voters also had an unfavorable view of the Denver School Board at 47%. However, this is down from 55% in 2023. You can see the full results from the poll on CPIs website. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. Port Houston resumed operations Wednesday after being closed for two days due to the arrival of Hurricane Beryl. The port is the largest in Texas and the fifth largest by annual container traffic in the U.S., and handles 73 percent of U.S. Gulf Coast container traffic. More from Sourcing Journal In a notice, the port also indicated that it will offer extended gate hours at its container terminals. On Wednesday and Thursday, the gates will remain open from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. Central Time, with the ingate set to close at 7 p.m. On Friday, terminal gates will stay open between 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., with the last entrance allowed at 6 p.m. Saturday, the opening hours will be cut down to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The ports truck office will also be open tomorrow for normal hours of operation. From January to May, the port has handled 1,758,960 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), 14 percent more than the five-month period in 2023. In May alone, the number jumped 21 percent to 364,866 TEUs. Like other major U.S. ports, Port Houston is seeing an uptick in activity as more shippers are looking to import goods ahead of the traditional peak shipping season and possibly get out in front of increased tariffs on goods from China. Alongside Port Houston, the nearby Port of Galveston also resumed normal operations Wednesday. As of Sunday, there were more than 250 vessels in the vicinity of the ports that that were impacted by Beryl, according to data from supply chain visibility platform Project44. The company said it expected the two-day closures throughout the Texas ports to impact vessel volume, dwell times and berthing times. Project44 said in an update Tuesday that truckload on-time performance in the Houston area had not been impacted so far, but volume levels were 60 percent lower than prior to the storm. Late Tuesday, operations at BNSF Railway also resumed service after having been closed the prior two days. The Pearland Intermodal Facility is now open for ingates and pickups, and train flows have resumed throughout the Houston complex. Customers should expect lingering delays to traffic flow in this region as recovery efforts are ongoing, however, conditions and fluidity will continue to improve throughout the day, said the advisory. Prompt unit pickup is encouraged at Pearland to improve traffic flows, reduce lot congestion and provide space needed to process inbound freight quickly as operations continue to normalize following Hurricane Beryl. Beryl, which made landfall early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane, has been blamed for at least seven U.S. deaths and at least 11 in the Caribbean. CenterPoint Energy, the main electricity supplier for the Houston metropolitan area, said in a statement Tuesday night that it had restored power to 850,000 customers since Beryl arrived, one-third of the 2.7 million initially affected. AccuWeather estimates that the total damage and economic loss from Hurricane Beryl will cost $28 billion to $32 billion. President Biden granted a federal emergency disaster declaration for parts of Texas due to Beryls destruction, acting Texas Governor Dan Patrick announced Tuesday. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) In an unprecedented move, the district attorneys for Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties endorsed Portland City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez for mayor, Gonzalez campaign announced Wednesday. In a statement, Multnomah County District Attorney-Elect Nathan Vasquez said Portland is on a path to recovery that requires balancing compassion and accountability. Rene has the leadership and vision we need in our next mayor. I look forward to partnering with him to create a safer, more livable Portland. Echoing calls for increased public safety, Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton added, Public safety is a regional issue because crime doesnt stop at the county line. As the District Attorney in neighboring Washington County and a longtime Portland metro area resident, I believe Rene is the mayor Portland needs to help it become one of the safest cities in America again. 2 types of ultra-processed foods strongly linked to shorter lifespans, study findings suggest Rene Gonzalez is the leader Portland needs. He is a voice of reason and actually listens to the people he serves. When it was unpopular to talk about public safety, Rene spoke up on behalf of crime victims and ran for office to return Portland to the city we know it can be. His willingness to fight for Portland despite the personal cost is nothing short of heroic, Clackamas County District Attorney John Wentworth said. The announcement marks the latest high-profile endorsements in the race to become Portlands 54th mayor. In late June, Gonzalez who is commissioner of public safety announced the Portland Firefighters Association and the Portland Police Association backed his mayoral bid. Nicolas Cage recommends this must-see film of his made in Oregon That same month, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek endorsed mayoral candidate and current Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio who oversees Prosper Portland and the city bureaus for housing, development services and planning and sustainability. Having the support of all three county DAs shows just how important this election and the City of Portland are to the region, said Gonzalez. What happens in Portland affects our whole metro area, and Im committed to strengthening our regional bonds and reestablishing critical partnerships moving forward. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their community and that is true both locally and regionally. Were in this together. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) A new study found traffic in Portland worsened in 2023, with one Portland-area corridor also ranking among the most congested in the United States, according to the 2023 Inrix Global Traffic Scorecard. The study, released in June 2024, analyzed 947 urban areas around the world, as first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Of those areas, 78% saw an increase in traffic delays in 2022, according to the study. Across the U.S., the typical driver lost a full work week to traffic congestion, losing 42 hours in 2023. This cost the U.S. more than $70 billion in 2023, increasing by 15% from 2022, the study found. Mysterious boom lights up Hillsboro sky New York City topped the list for the most congested areas with the typical driver losing 101 hours to traffic jams in 2023, a slight decrease from 105 hours in 2022, according to the study. New York City was followed by Los Angeles, Boston, and Miami for cities with the most congestion. The Pacific Northwest also scored high on the list. Witnesses: Portland street racers fired guns, launched fireworks Seattle, Washington was ranked 10th on the U.S. for the worst congestion, a slight decline from the 12th spot in 2022. According to the study, this cost the city $1.6 billion, or $1,010 per driver in 2023. Meanwhile, Portland ranked 19th for the worst congestion, declining from the 20th spot in 2022. MOD Pizza exploring all options amid bankruptcy rumors This cost the average Portland driver $679 and the city $665 million in 2023, according to the study. The Rose City is also home to one of the top 25 busiest corridors in the U.S., the Inrix study found. At number 15, Portlands Interstate 5 Northbound corridor from I-405 to the Washington State border was ranked among the busiest corridors with peak congestion at 4 p.m. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. WASHINGTON President Joe Biden has largely stopped eroding support from congressional Democrats for now but he hasn't calmed fears about a brutal presidential campaign ahead that will put his mental fitness under the microscope for four more months. And some Democrats still aren't convinced he can defeat former President Donald Trump. Despite the concerns, Biden and his allies have so far succeeded in fending off widespread calls from Democrats in Congress for him to withdraw from the race against Trump, the former president, following his disastrous debate performance last month. Although seven House Democrats have said publicly Biden should end his campaign, no Democratic senators have gone as far, and he has held onto support from the entire Black and Hispanic caucuses, two key voices in the Democratic coalition. Yet in the 12 days since the 81-year-old Biden struggled to finish sentences and complete thoughts during his much-maligned debate against Trump, the scrutiny over his mental and physical wellbeing has only intensified and it's showing no signs of subsiding. Biden's Democratic skeptics still want him to prove he can change the trajectory of the race. "Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with it the Senate and the House, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said in an interview Tuesday night on CNN, delivering one of the bleakest assessments of any Democrat about Biden's campaign. "The White House in the time since that disastrous debate, I think, has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election." Bennet said, though stopping short of explicitly calling for Biden to exit the race. "This is something for the president really to consider." President Joe Biden waves as he embarks Air Force One as he prepares to depart Harrisburg International Airport on July 07, 2024 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The endless speculation on Biden's mental state has drowned out his campaign's efforts reset the stakes of the election against Trump. And the last two weeks might have offered a glimpse into rest of the 2024 campaign in which any slipup or sign of fatigue from Biden will feed more ammunition to detractors. "We need to see a much more forceful and energetic candidate on the campaign trail in the very near future in order for him to convince voters he is up to the job," U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Monday in another stinging critique. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., one of the six House defectors, was more blunt Tuesday in his assessment. "He can't win," Quigley said, later telling the Associated Press, "The fighting spirit and pride and courage that served the country so well four years ago, that helped Joe Biden win, will bring the ticket down this time. Still, the White House and Biden campaign were pleased overall with the last 48 hours since Congress reconvened in Washington following a holiday recess, with Biden maintaining considerable support for his reelection bid from Democratic lawmakers in the face of skeptics. That includes public backing from House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. However, another influential Democrat, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appeared to question whether Biden should be the party's nominee during an appearance Wednesday morning on "Morning Joe." "Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run," Pelosi said, even though Biden has made clear repeatedly that he's still running. "We're all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) speaks during a news briefing after a weekly Senate Democratic policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on July 9, 2024 in Washington, DC. Pelosi's comments came a day after some Biden critics seemed to backtrack and coalesce around the president. Whether or not I have concerns is besides the point," said Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who on Tuesday reversed his previous stance that Biden should step aside as the Democratic presidential nominee. "He is going to be our nominee and we all have to support him, Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told reporters. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who has a large following of young progressive supporters, was unwavering in her support of Biden. "The matter is closed, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Monday. He reiterated that this morning. He has reiterated that to the public. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him. During a Tuesday press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre highlighted the comments of Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats in support of Biden but wasn't ready to say Biden has completely weathered the political storm. "He's ready to go. He wants to get out there and continue to show that he has more work to do," Jean-Pierre said of Biden, who is set to return to the campaign trail in Michigan Friday after hosting a NATO summit this week in Washington. With his five decades in politics on the line, Biden spent Monday and Tuesday on offense to prove he should remain the Democratic nominee. He sent a letter Monday to congressional Democrats telling them, The question of how we move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And its time for it to end. Later in a surprise call into MSNBC's Morning Joe, Biden lashed out at "elites" who want him to drop out and argued Democratic voters have already made their preference for him clear in the Democratic primary. Yet over the last two weeks, an explosion of media coverage on Biden's mental fitness suggests it's not going to be easy for Biden and his campaign to simply move on. Biden has been the subject of reports from the New York Times and Washington Post detailing alarm within his own administration about Biden's mental lapses and signs of aging. White House officials faced questions Monday about a neurologist's multiple trips to the White House, with Biden's physician later clarifying that the visits weren't for Biden. And in his interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos last Friday, Biden was pressed about his ability to serve another term, whether he would commit to a cognitive test (he would not,) and whether he believes he's gotten frail. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) and Vice Chair of the Democratic Caucus Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) answer questions during a press conference following their weekly caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on July 9, 2024 in Washington, DC. A meeting Tuesday morning among congressional Democrats billed as a "family" conversation revealed a divided party over whether Biden is equipped to lead them to victory in November. Asked whether Democrats had gotten on the same page, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., told reporters, "We're not even in the same book." I have heard from people in my district who are united in their concern for our country and our future," said Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., who became the seventh House Democrat Tuesday to call for Biden to drop out. "They want a leader who can continue to build on our successes but is also able to turn the nations attention to the urgent threat that Trump presents." And despite despite his backing of Biden, Schumer gave a quick answer when asked whether he's confident Biden has what it takes to win the election and serve another four years. "As I've said before, I'm with Joe," Schumer said. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. a longtime Biden ally, who has defended the president since the debate, noted that Biden "has a lifelong history of slight stutters or misstatements." "You have to take what he's saying and doing now and reference it back against who he's been for his whole life and who he is: warm and connecting and genuine and motivating," Coons said. Amid the Democratic unrest, the Biden campaign has tried to reframe the election against Trump, taking aim above all at Project 2025 a set of policy goals created by the right-wing Heritage Foundation for Trump to implement if he's elected to a second president. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said he's telling his constituents that Biden had "one rough night," referring to his rocky debate performance. "If you elect Donald Trump, you're going to have four years of horrifically rough nights," Wyden said. But Biden and Democrats have struggled to push that message amid the fallout of Biden's dismal debate performance. President Joe Biden returns to the White House with first lady Jill Biden on July 7, 2024 in Washington, DC. Biden, who was already trailing Trump in most polls before the debate, is heading into the final months of the campaign a damaged candidate. A USA TODAY/Suffolk University post-debate poll found Trump ahead of Biden 41%-38%, gaining three percentage points on Biden since the debate. Other polls reflect a similar bounce for Trump. A poll conducted by AARP found Trump beating Biden 44%-38% in the critical battleground state of Wisconsin, while Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., holds a 50%-45% over her Republican challenger, Eric Hovde, in the same state. Whether Biden can turn around those numbers remains to be seen but it is increasingly looking like the party won't turn to someone else. "Right now, President Biden is the nominee and we support the Democratic nominee," said House Democratic Caucus chairman Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif. Contributing: Ken Tran, Riley Beggin, Sarah Wire and Rebecca Morin. Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden has stopped the bleeding but not the damage in race vs. Trump By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) - Honeywell did not violate workplace anti-discrimination laws by firing a white engineer who refused to participate in mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion training after the Black Lives Matter movement began, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Wednesday. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago found no proof that Honeywell retaliated against Charles Vavra, after he complained a video he was supposed to watch on preventing unconscious bias in the workplace contained racist content. In a 3-0 decision, the court said Vavra had no basis to reasonably believe the video violated Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act or an Illinois human rights law, because he never watched the video in the first place. Vavra assumed the training "would vilify white people and treat people differently based on their race," Circuit Judge Thomas Kirsch wrote. "But that presumption is purely speculative and insufficient to make his belief objectively reasonable." The judge also said Vavra had reason to believe Honeywell's training was not discriminatory, because his supervisor had taken the training and told him it was not racist. Kirsch and the other two appeals court judges were appointed to their positions by former President Donald Trump. Lawyers for Vavra did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Honeywell and lawyers for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based industrial conglomerate did not immediately respond to similar requests. The decision came amid growing complaints by some conservative groups and shareholders about the alleged illegality of workplace initiatives to counteract bias. Unconscious bias training became more common after a Minneapolis police officer's murder of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked nationwide protests over racial injustice. Vavra was fired in April 2021, and sued Honeywell eight months later. A trial judge dismissed the lawsuit in August 2023. Wednesday's decision upheld that dismissal. The case is Vavra v. Honeywell International Inc, 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 23-2823. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Jamie Freed) President Joe Biden attended the 75th anniversary NATO summit in Washington with leaders of 31 other member counties. In a speech, he said NATO "is stronger than it's ever been," and he pledged support for Ukraine to defend against Russia's invasion. The summit concluded Thursday with more U.S. military aid for Ukraine. View comments WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden saw a neurologist at the White House on Jan. 17 for a neurological exam, the results of which were later reported as part of his annual physical more than a month later, the White House said on Tuesday. The confirmation came after the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre inaccurately said during the daily briefing with reporters that the Jan. 17 meeting was not related to care for the president in response to a question from the Associated Press. The AP had asked whether a meeting, which was reported through the White House visitors logs, between renowned neurological expert Dr. Kevin Cannard and Dr. Kevin OConnor, Bidens personal doctor, was about the president himself. It was the only meeting between those two men, according to the logs, that had been reported between July 2023 and this past March a period that has come under scrutiny because Cannard had visited the White House eight times in that time frame. Because the date was not mentioned in the question, I want to be clear that the Jan. 17 meeting between Dr. OConnor and Dr. Cannard was for the Presidents physical, Jean-Pierre said in a statement to the AP on Tuesday. It was one of the three times the President has seen Dr. Cannard, each time for his physical. The findings from each exam have been released to the public. That statement is not the first time in the days following Bidens debate debacle which triggered a new round of concerns about the 81-year-old presidents fitness to serve that the White House has had to later clarify answers to questions about the presidents health. Last week, Jean-Pierre said Biden did not get checked out by the doctor for a cold that was noticeable during the June 27 debate. But Biden later said in a private meeting with Democratic governors that he had been checked out by his doctor after the debate concluded. Jean-Pierre said she meant Biden did not get a full medical exam and that the president did indeed have a check-in with his doctor, which he does a couple of times a week. And, on Monday night, the White House released a statement from OConnor describing the nature of Cannards visits to the White House after Jean-Pierre earlier in the day declined to confirm the name of the doctor or say why he was going to the White House. It also confirmed that Cannard had been the neurologist who had examined Biden in his three physicals during his presidency. Jean-Pierre contended Tuesday that a lot of the things I said right here in this briefing room were later restated in the letter from OConnor Monday night. Still, Jean-Pierre said this week that she and other White House press aides are doing our best in this briefing to provide the information that we have. I will be the first one to admit: Sometimes I get it wrong. At least I admit that, she said. And sometimes I dont have the information. And I will always, always admit that. Jean-Pierres clarification also shows how parts of the presidents annual physical, which is generally conducted at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, can be performed over a longer period rather than just the one day at the suburban Maryland hospital. When OConnor released the results of Bidens physical on Feb. 28, he wrote that an extremely detailed neurological exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy. The letter had not stated when the neurological exam had been conducted, or where it took place. The repeated presence of Cannard in the White House visitors logs also attracted attention because of the doctors expertise in movement disorders such as Parkinsons disease. But Jean-Pierre definitively said this week that Biden has not been treated for Parkinsons disease, nor is he being treated currently or taking medication for it. Cannard has been the neurology consultant to the White House medical unit for a dozen years. OConnor also said in a letter released Monday night that Cannard has held regular neurology clinics at the White House in support of the thousands of active-duty members assigned in support of White House operations. URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) A student involved in the pro-Palestine protests on University of Illinois campus earlier this year has been charged with Mob Action after U of I Police used social media to identify her. According to Champaign County States Attorney Julia Rietz, Yafa K Issa, 18 of Savoy, was charged with one count of Mob Action, which is a class 4 felony. On April 26, pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered in efforts to demand the U of I divests from companies involved with supplying weapons to Israel in the war in Gaza. The demonstrators erected tents near the Alma Mater statue, which University officials said was a violation of campus policy regarding Outdoor Displays and Expressive Activity on campus. Champaign County States Attorney consulted prior to police action at protest, says she is prepared to prosecute University officials told the protestors they were in violation of these policies and if they didnt take the structures down and continued, they would be asked to leave and could face consequences. Tensions escalated throughout the day as U of I Police and staff removed some of the structures while demonstrators continued to resist. Throughout the day, demonstrators continued to grow the encampment, calling for more supplies and others to join in defending the camp. By 3:15 p.m. that day, 16 UIPD officers along with university staff made efforts again to remove the tents. According to a document shared by Rietz, at this point, the demonstrators reached a total between 200-250 people. The demonstrators locked their arms together around the encampment to prevent being broken up by police. As police attempted to move in, the demonstrators pushed back, holding objects like a sheet of plywood, umbrellas and a drywall board to create a barrier between the officers and move them back from the encampment. UIUC faculty join pro-Palestine protests on campus According to the document, demonstrators grabbed at officers, shoved them, and attempted to strike at them using the objects. It goes on to say that the scene was described by a U of I staff member as like a mosh pit, and they were concerned the demonstration would continue to escalate. The police officers and U of I staff then retreated. Throughout the day, the pro-Palestine demonstrators had a large presence on social media. Many of the demonstrators filmed the encampment, posting the videos on social media in efforts to spread awareness of the encampment and to get other supporters to join. U of I investigators used one of these videos to identify those involved in the mob action. According to the document Rietz shared with WCIA, Issa was seen on video locking arms with other demonstrators to prevent the officers and U of I staff from getting to the tents. She also was seen holding a large sheet of plywood, using it as a shield against law enforcement to push them back. A cell phone with a unique case and a necklace Issa was wearing helped investigators identify her based on photos she had posted on her Instagram profile where she was wearing the same necklace and holding the same phone. The investigators then confirmed Issas identity from U of I databases. Hundreds of UIUC students participate in pro-Palestine rally On the day of the protest, two arrests were made, neither of which person was a student. Rietz identified the two men arrested as George Vassilatos, 25, and Christopher Zelle, 37. Issa is the first student to face legal consequences for the demonstration On June 26, Issa was issued a notice to appear. Rietz told WCIA the investigation is ongoing and additional cases may be expected. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com. A pro-Palestinian demonstrator gets in a car that is being swarmed by supporters of Israel near Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles on June 23, 2024. (Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times) A local Jewish man has filed a lawsuit against two groups that led a demonstration outside a Los Angeles synagogue last month that ended in violence and national condemnation against the demonstrators, including from President Biden and Mayor Karen Bass. Mark Javitch, attorney for plaintiff Ronen Helmann of Los Angeles, filed the lawsuit Sunday against Code Pink, a feminist antiwar organization, and the Palestinian Youth Movement, a grassroots group of Palestinians opposing Zionism and calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. The lawsuit alleges that the organizations targeted the Adas Torah synagogue in the Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood on June 23 to cause chaos, violence, and block the entrance to the synagogue, all because of their hatred of Zionism [and] the Jewish connection to the land of Israel. The complaint also claims that the two groups conspired or failed to prevent the violation of Helmann's 1st Amendment right to worship. Representatives for Code Pink and the Palestinian Youth Movement did not immediately respond to requests for comments. Read more: Protest violence outside L.A. synagogue spurs widespread condemnation. Bass vows quick action The groups have said that the protest was spurred not by antisemitism but by a real estate event at the synagogue. An advertisement for the event in the Jewish Journal said that information on housing projects in all the best Anglo neighborhoods in Israel would be provided. According to an archive of the website for My Home in Israel, one of the companies listed on the advertisement, homes were listed for $435,000 to $4.1 million in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the West Bank territories of Efrat and Ariel. Much of the international community including the Biden administration and the United Nations considers settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under international law, although the Israeli government disagrees. The lawsuit says that the event also included religious education and opportunities for members of the Los Angeles Jewish community to make Aliyah, or to fulfill their Biblical obligation to live in the land of Israel. The lawsuit also claims that Helmann approached the synagogue and was immediately surrounded by a group of demonstrators, some recording him with their cellphones, calling him a Nazi, a baby murderer and a colonizer. It also claims demonstrators shouted threatening and antisemitic remarks at him, such as Leave the neighborhood, we are coming and Slaughter the Jews. The lawsuit alleges that Helmann saw masked demonstrators walking house to house, looking for Jewish doorposts before taking photos of the homes and cars associated with them. Read more: What really happened when protesters, counterprotesters and police converged at an L.A. synagogue The demonstration that Sunday eventually ended in violence when fights broke out between supporters of Israel and supporters of Palestinians. The Los Angeles Police Department, which said more than 150 people were at the demonstration, eventually was able to clear the area. A pro-Israel counterprotester was temporarily detained and cited for carrying a sharp pole. The violence prompted the U.S. Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland to call for a federal inquiry into the demonstration. Helmann is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as attorney fees. "We must hold them accountable for violating laws that protect access to synagogues," Javitch said in an email Tuesday. "Singling out a local synagogue merely because they are holding an event related to Israel is unacceptable and must be met with an appropriate response." Times staff writers Summer Lin and Richard Winton 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. Project 2025 is an effort by the Heritage Foundation, not Donald Trump | Fact check The claim: Project 2025 is a plan from Trump A July 5 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) includes nine slides describing supposed policy propositions from former President Donald Trump. The slides include an image of Trump along with the title "Project 2025." Trump has made his authoritarian intentions quite clear with his Project 2025 plan, reads the post's caption. It received more than 500 shares in four days. More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page Our rating: False Project 2025 is a political playbook created by the Heritage Foundation and dozens of other conservative groups, not Trump, who said he disagrees with elements of the effort. There are, however, numerous people involved in Project 2025 who worked in Trump's first administration. President decides which policy recommendations to implement The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, collaborated with more than 100 conservative groups for Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project. The result is a more than 900-page playbook with policy recommendations for the next Republican president that reflect the think tank's goal of "(rescuing) the country from the grip of the radical Left." Trump, however, has sought to publicly distance himself from the effort, as reported by The Washington Post. I know nothing about Project 2025, Trump wrote in a July 5 Truth Social post. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things theyre saying and some of the things theyre saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them. Trump didnt specify which Project 2025 proposals he disagrees with in the statement. Fact check: No, AP did not report Trump may face 'molestation' charges Project 2025 said it does not speak for any candidate or campaign in a July 5 post on X, formerly Twitter. Its playbook is comprised of suggestions the coalition believes will benefit the "next conservative president." But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement, the post said. That said, Project 2025 does involve numerous Trump allies. Director Paul Dans, for example, was the chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management during the Trump administration. Trump advisor Stephen Miller and the Trump campaign's National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also appeared in a video supporting the projects Presidential Administration Academy." Jun 27, 2024; Atlanta, GA, USA; Former President Donald Trump during the debate at CNN's studios in Atlanta. CNN Anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are moderators of the debate. Mandatory Credit: Jack Gruber-USA TODAY There is also overlap between Trump's platform and Project 2025's proposals. The project has called for an end to illegal immigration while Trump has vowed to "carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history" and "terminate every open borders policy of the Biden administration," if re-elected. Project 2025 also supports shutting down the Department of Education, which Trump pledged to do in a 2023 campaign video. The Heritage Foundation said in a January 2018 news release that Trump had adopted nearly two-thirds of its policy recommendations within his first year in office. USA TODAY has debunked an array of claims about Trump, including false assertions that he selected Michael Flynn as his vice president, that a video shows Trump Force One buzzing a Washington-area airport after the June presidential debate and that Trump was found guilty in his hush-money trial by a jury stacked with Biden supporters. The Facebook user who shared the post told USA TODAY it's a "logical inference" that Trump supports the project because of the number of his allies who are involved, even if he has not publicly endorsed the effort. Our fact-check sources: Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here. USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Project 2025 is from Heritage Foundation, not Trump | Fact check The petition seeking to eliminate the property tax that pays the Garland County Library's maintenance and operating expenses. (Courtesy of George Pritchett) Garland County residents are circulating a petition for a countywide ballot measure that would eliminate the property tax funding the local library. If successful, it would be Arkansas second county in two years to reduce its library systems tax revenue with a public vote. The 1.6-mill tax has been in place since county voters approved it in 1998. It brings in roughly $3.6 million annually for Garland County Library maintenance and operations, library executive director Adam Webb said. Reggie Cowan, an advocate for the petition, wrote in a letter to the editor in Sundays Hot Springs Sentinel-Record that eliminating the tax would improve oversight of library spending and overall budget management and that the library would still be able to operate due to its millions set aside in cash reserves. Cowans letter disputed two letters in the Sentinel-Record a week earlier that called the petition an effort to defund the library. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US There is no petition to defund the library that Im aware of; however, there is one that would ask if you would prefer the library be funded with property taxes or county revenue, Cowan wrote. George Pritchett, another supporter of the petition, said he agreed with Cowan that the petition would change the amount and method of funding rather than completely defund the library. Webb said the librarys cash reserves are not meant to be used for operational purposes. He added that he bases the librarys budget every year on anticipated revenue, which he cannot do if the tax is repealed and there is no anticipated revenue. Its hilarious for [anyone] to say abolishing our tax isnt the same as defunding the library, he said. Its absurd, and because its not recurring revenue, once its gone, its gone. I havent gone down that dark road yet to try to figure out how long I could keep the library going without any recurring revenue, but it certainly wouldnt be in perpetuity Wed be closing Jan. 2 if this passes. The librarys funding sources State law dictates that a public library system can use its property tax revenue for administrative expenses, repairs and upkeep, advertising, utilities, insurance and a range of other things under the umbrella of maintaining and operating the library. Another statute says libraries property tax dollars shall not be diverted from the use for which they were levied. The Garland County Librarys separate reserve fund has built up over time from gifts, donations, loose change we find in the couches around here, state aid to public libraries [and] anything that isnt restricted by the tax, Webb said. Pritchett claimed property values have risen since 1998 to the point that the library receives too much tax revenue compared to what it spends. GCL 2024 Budget w Income We want to bring the money that they get for operations in line because that excess builds up into an increased reserve amount, he said. That reserve is from the tax-funded portion of it, not from the private donations. The Garland County Librarys 2024 budget anticipated $4.1 million in revenue and $3.9 in expenses, leaving about $200,000. Webb said having some money left over is important since tax revenue does not come in steadily throughout the year and expenses can change from one year to the next. We have a little bit that we float from year to year just to make sure we have enough to pay the bills between tax settlements, Webb said. The library recently launched a fundraising campaign for a planned expansion, according to the Sentinel-Record. Webb told the newspaper that the library has $5 million in reserves with an $8.5 million fundraising goal, and he emphasized that no tax money will be used for the project. Its really frustrating when youre trying to do things as a good steward [of peoples money] and then having this surprise attack dropped in your lap, Webb told the Advocate. Amendment 38 of the Arkansas Constitution requires at least 100 people to support any changes to a property tax that funds a local library and to submit the petition at least 30 days before the election in which they want the matter on the ballot. Pritchett said he and others have been collecting signatures for the past month and hope to gather a few hundred and submit them in the next two or three weeks. If the signatures are verified, the measure would be on the November ballot. A statewide issue Library systems in other Arkansas counties have seen recent scrutiny from the public about how much money they have and how they spend it. For the past three years, the Marion County Quorum Court has refused to approve a merit pay raise for the county library director, contrary to the recommendations of the library board. In November 2022, a narrowly-approved ballot measure cut Craighead County libraries funding in half after protests over an LGBTQ+ book display and a transgender authors visit to the library. The library system reduced its hours and made staff cuts at the end of last year to adjust to the budget cuts. Pritchett said the effort to eliminate the Garland County library tax is based on the one in Craighead County, which was led by a group called Craighead Citizens Taxed Enough. The group claimed the library was overfunded, citing financial information obtained via the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. Saline County residents repeatedly mentioned the Craighead County vote last year while decrying obscene and inappropriate content, often pertaining to LGBTQ+ issues and sex education, in the countys library system. Their objections followed the passage of Act 372 of 2023, which would alter Arkansas libraries processes for reconsidering material and create criminal liability for librarians who distribute content that some consider obscene or harmful to minors. A federal judge temporarily blocked two portions of Act 372 in July 2023 before it went into effect, and the case is scheduled for trial in October. Saline County Library staff received several FOIA requests last year from residents who wanted LGBTQ+ books kept away from minors, said Patty Hector, the former library director who was fired by the county judge in October. The residents said at quorum court meetings that they believed both the financial information and the librarys slow FOIA response time were signs of misconduct. The Garland County effort is driven exclusively by financial concerns, not library content, Pritchett said. Theres been a substantial amount of discussion about that in Garland County, books in the childrens section that are very explicit in nature and probably belong in a different section of the library, he said. However, I have no opinion about that. I personally trust that the library board itself properly vets the books and what they put on the shelves and where they put them. Webb said there has not been any discussion so far at local government meetings about the availability of certain library books. At Mondays Garland County Quorum Court meeting, a few residents spoke in favor of both the library and Julie Brenner Nix, whom the quorum court unanimously approved to the county library board. In our county, theres an overwhelming majority of our citizens [who] support the library and a small but loud minority trying to politicize our library, said Stacey Herron, a Democratic candidate for the quorum court. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Tiny homes have been popping up across the United States as an option for young couples who cant afford high mortgages, retirees who want to downsize, military veterans and homeless people. That has prompted Belleville city officials to propose zoning changes to regulate such developments. The Zoning Board of Appeals voted last month to recommend that the full City Council amend an ordinance, setting a minimum standard of 1,000 square feet for single-family homes and 800 square feet for duplexes and apartments, unless property owners get variances. Cliff Cross, the citys director of economic development, zoning and planning, told Zoning Board members at a June 27 meeting that tiny homes could lower property values in some neighborhoods. We feel like (the ordinance change is) the best way to protect those neighborhoods while we look into how this grows in the future, he said. Most tiny homes range from 100 to 500 square feet. Some builders use upgraded materials and install fancy features, while others keep it basic. Some offer the homes for rent through Airbnb. Belleville resident Michael Hagberg attended the Zoning Board meeting and questioned the ordinance change. Not that it would affect me personally, but in general I oppose it because I dont think the government should be restricting what people can do on their property to that extent, he said afterward. Hagberg argued that developers of assisted-living and other senior-apartment complexes with 500-square-foot units might be discouraged from building in Belleville. He also asked about mobile-home parks. The change wouldnt affect senior-apartment complexes or mobile-home parks, according to Cross. Hagberg said some cities have found success housing military veterans or homeless people in tiny homes, which can be grouped to share heating-and-cooling systems and other amenities. If youre taking homeless and putting them into a tiny home, then theyre no longer homeless, he said. Thats a good thing. Cross told Zoning Board members that the city encourages home ownership, and he has nothing against tiny homes. But they could work against Bellevilles Infill Redevelopment Program in some cases, he said. Under that program, developers who buy city-owned vacant lots for $1 are required to build homes that fit the character of existing neighborhoods in an effort to raise property values. Our goal is not only to protect whoever builds on that lot but also the neighborhood, Cross said at the Zoning Board meeting. No one else spoke for or against the ordinance change. The full City Council is expected to vote on the change at its next meeting on Monday. If its approved, developers and others who want to build tiny homes could ask for variances, and decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis, according to Cross. The actor's lawyer, however, argued "this was an unspeakable tragedy" but "Alec Baldwin committed no crime" Ross D. Franklin - Pool/Getty Alec Baldwin in court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on July 10, 2024 Alec Baldwins "reckless" behavior on the set of Rust directly contributed to the accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, special prosecutor Erlinda Johnson told a New Mexico jury in her opening statement July 10, the first day of the actors involuntary manslaughter trial. When someone plays make-believe with a real gun in a real-life workplace, and while playing make-believe with that gun violates the cardinal rules of firearm safety, peoples lives are endangered and someone could be killed," she said. "Ladies and gentlemen, thats what this case is about. Its simple and straightforward. The evidence will show that someone who played make-believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin, she continued, using the 66-year-old actor's real name. Baldwin was holding a prop gun while rehearsing a scene on the set of Rust in 2021 when it discharged, injuring director Joel Souza and killing Hutchins. Ross D. Franklin - Pool/Getty Alec Baldwin in court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on July 10, 2024 Baldwin, who has insisted he did not pull the trigger or know why the gun contained live ammunition, has pleaded not guilty to one charge of involuntary manslaughter. He faces up to 18 months in prison if convicted. "You will also learn that this workplace had some talented people and one of those was the director of photography, a vibrant, 42-year-old rising star named Halyna Hutchins, continued Johnson. Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office/ZUMA Press Wire Service/Shutterstock Alec Baldwin on the set of 'Rust' Related: Everything to Know About the Rust Shooting Case and Alec Baldwin's Upcoming Trial "You will also learn that the director of this film was Joel Souza, another talented individual who cares deeply for his projects. The evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, that like in many workplaces, there are people who act in a reckless manner and place other individuals in danger and act without due regard to the safety of others. That, you will hear, was the defendant, Alexander Baldwin, the lead actor on this film," she added. Ross D. Franklin - Pool/Getty Alec Baldwin in court on July 10, 2024 Johnson also claimed Baldwin repeatedly "mishandled" the gun and declined to do safety checks. On the day of the fatal accident, "once again, the defendant failed to do a gun check or a safety check with [armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed]," continued Johnson, who alleged he violated "set safety rules." She noted that Baldwin insisted he did not pull the trigger, but promised jurors they would hear from multiple experts that the gun would not discharge unless the trigger was pulled. While Johnson spoke, Baldwin took notes for much of the time and kept his head down while sitting between his attorneys. Baldwins attorney Alex Spiro emphasized in his opening statement that Baldwin was operating as actors normally do on a movie set involving weapons. He added at one point, This is a homicide trial and the prosecutors dont have any evidence of actual homicide. You will learn the truth, Spiro told the jury. Not a day goes by when we dont wish Alec had saved her life. But never, the witnesses will tell you, in history is [this] something that an actor has done intercepted a live bullet from a prop gun. No actor in history. No one could have imagined or expected an actor to do that. So just remember that truth. Justice is truth." "This was an unspeakable tragedy. Alec Baldwin committed no crime," he said. Fred Hayes/Getty Halyna Hutchins The highly-publicized trial marks the culmination of a dramatic three-year period for Baldwin, who publicly proclaimed his innocence in multiple interviews. He was investigated for his role in the accident, and prosecutors indicted him on involuntary manslaughter charges in January 2023, accusing him of extremely reckless acts. Just three months later, the prosecutors resigned and the cases new special prosecutors, Kari T. Morrissey and Jason J. Lewis (who has also since stepped down) announced that they were dropping charges against Baldwin, citing new facts in the case. They also said they reserved the right to re-charge him. That June, the prosecutors wrote in a court filing that the gun Baldwin was holding had been sent to an independent expert for further testing to see if it could discharge if the trigger was not pulled. The charges against Alec Baldwin were dismissed without prejudice because a possible malfunction of the gun significantly effects causation with regard to Baldwin, not with regard to Gutierrez. If it is determined that the gun did not malfunction, charges against Mr. Baldwin will proceed, they wrote. John Lamparski/Getty Alec Baldwin on March 6, 2023 In their August report, forensics experts Lucien C. Haag and Mike Haag found that the trigger must have been pulled sufficiently for it to fire. Although Alec Baldwin repeatedly denies pulling the trigger, given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver, the Haags wrote. The prosecutors then told Baldwins attorneys they intended to present that information to a grand jury, and offered him a lenient plea deal with no jail time, but they rescinded it for several reasons before Baldwin could accept. In January, Morrissey presented her case to a grand jury, which ultimately indicted Baldwin on one charge of involuntary manslaughter (negligent use of a firearm) or alternatively, with involuntary manslaughter (without due caution or circumspection). Related: Alec Baldwin Is 'Understandably Worried' as His Rust Involuntary Manslaughter Trial Looms (Exclusive Source) Since he was indicted, his legal team has filed multiple motions to have the charge dismissed ahead of trial. In each case, the judge overseeing the case, Mary Marlowe Sommer, declined to do so. Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was in charge of the weapons on the set of the movie, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for her role in Hutchins death. A month later, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison the maximum punishment by Sommer, the same judge in Baldwins trial. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. LONDON, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Wine Challenge, the world's most influential, impartial and rigorously judged global wine competition, has announced the six highest scoring New Zealand wines in its 2024 competition, with wines from Hawke's Bay, Auckland, Central Otago and Marlborough making the list. Church Road Winery, winner of International Chardonnay Trophy. Credit: Church Road In its 40th year, the International Wine Challenge awarded medals to 38 countries following an intensive blind tasting by a global panel of experts. New Zealand came sixth for medals overall, with six wines being awarded coveted trophies. The country claimed two of the seven International Varietal Trophies, with its Syrah and Chardonnay being recognised as the best in the world. New Zealand wines judged best in show at IWC 2024: Church Road Grand Reserve Chardonnay 2021 International Chardonnay Trophy, New Zealand White Trophy, New Zealand Chardonnay Trophy Church Road 1 Merlot 2021 New Zealand Red Trophy, New Zealand Merlot Trophy Kennedy Point Syrah 2021 International Syrah Trophy, IWC Organic Trophy 2024, New Zealand Syrah Trophy McArthur Ridge Brassknocker 2022 New Zealand Pinot Noir Trophy Marisco Vineyards The King's Series "A Sticky End" Noble Sauvignon Blanc 2022 New Zealand Sweet Trophy Marisco Vineyards The King's Favour Sauvignon Blanc 2023 New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Trophy It was an outstanding year for Hawke's Bay Producer Church Road which took home 11 medals in addition to the New Zealand White and Red Trophies. Church Road's Grand Reserve Chardonnay 2021 was named the best Chardonnay in the world, knocking South Africa off the top spot. In addition to two Golds and two Silvers, Auckland producer Kennedy Point Vineyard beat wines from eleven countries to claim the International Syrah Trophy. The winning wine, Syrah 2021, which judges described as "everything you could desire from a cool climate Syrah" also took home the IWC Organic Trophy. Of the 58 New Zealand Pinot Noirs awarded medals, it was Central Otago's McArthur Ridge Wines that claimed the New Zealand Pinot Noir Trophy for its "beautifully supple" and "expressive" Brassknocker 2022. Marisco Vineyards took home more medals than any other New Zealand producer, with 2 Golds, 8 Silvers and 13 Bronzes. Its Sauvignon Blanc stood out both in still and sweet styles. The King's Favour Sauvignon Blanc 2023 took home the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Trophy while The King's Series "A Sticky End" Noble Sauvignon Blanc 2022 claimed the New Zealand Sweet Trophy. Story continues The full list of Trophy and Champion winners released on 9th July can be viewed here. NOTES TO EDITORS: In its 40th year, the IWC is widely acknowledged as the world's most rigorous, impartial, influential and global wine competition. The IWC assesses every wine "blind" and judges each for its faithfulness to style, region and vintage. Awards include medals (Gold, Silver, Bronze) and Commended awards. Trophies are awarded to the best wines in each category. The IWC is committed to helping consumers discover great wine, and the medals offer a trusted guarantee of quality. For more information, please contact the IWC team at Phipps: iwc@thisisphipps.com +44(0)2080506073 Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/international-wine-challenge-2024-names-six-new-zealand-wines-amongst-best-in-the-world-302189668.html SOURCE International Wine Challenge Protest rights may look a little different during the 2024 RNC. What to know Scores of demonstrators are expected to protest outside the Republican National Convention next week. Marquette University Law School professor Scott Idleman and the American Civil Liberties Union offered insight to the Journal Sentinel about the freedom of speech and protest rights you should know about during the convention. What are the RNC demonstration zones and where are they? A demonstration zone is a designated area for political demonstration during major events. There are two designated demonstration areas for the RNC, one on the north side near Fiserv Forum and another on the south side near the Baird Center. Each area has a speaker's platform. On the north side, the platform will be located at Haymarket Square at West McKinley Avenue and North King Drive, and on the south side, the platform will be at Zeidler Union Square. A speakers platform for the public will be placed on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive at McKinley Ave. with space for assembly at Haymarket Square Park. Milwaukee and U.S. Secret Service officials announced the locatoins on Friday, June 21, 2024. Zeidler Union Square Park will serve as a speakers platform for the public on the south side of the RNC security perimeter. Milwaukee and U.S. Secret Service officials announced the location along with a parade route on Friday, June 21, 2-24. The hard zone, where credentials will be required to enter, surrounds the primary RNC venues at Fiserv Forum, UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena and the Baird Center. That area is surrounded by a security footprint, where members of the public can enter but where various objects are not allowed. Do you need a permit to protest at the RNC? Marches, parades and large rallies, like the ones planned for the RNC, require permits from the City of Milwaukee. According to the ACLU, the usual permit distribution process includes submitting an application well in advance of the planned event. However, in March, Ald. Robert Bauman assured people that "all other First Amendment rights that otherwise exist still exist." "So, if someone wants to stand on a corner and talk to members of the public, if someone wants to do what they normally do around City Hall stand outside, stand across the street and express their point of view this ordinance does not preclude that in any way, shape or form, even inside the security zone," he said. What happens if protesters leave the demonstration zones? In most cases, individuals have the right to demonstrate on public property, like plazas in front of government buildings, as long as they do not block access to the street or building entrances. According to the ACLU's "Know Your Rights Guide," demonstrators' rights are strongest in traditional public forums, such as streets, sidewalks, plazas and parks. But the RNC's strict security rules impose more restriction. According to Idleman, the broad language of the City of Milwaukee's protest ordinance confines large rallies and parades to the designated demonstration areas. When asked about how police would respond to protesters leaving the demonstration zones, the Milwaukee Police Department said only that it "respects the rights of all individuals who wish to peacefully express their First Amendment rights." More: How Milwaukee police will handle protests at the RNC and what some say is missing from their plan If a police officer asks for the name of a protester, but is not placing them under arrest, does the protester have to respond? According to an ACLU spokesperson, individuals are not required to answer any questions of law enforcement under the Fifth Amendment. It is not a crime in Wisconsin to refuse to identify yourself to a police officer, unless you are being detained or arrested. However, according to Idleman, the RNC's strict security perimeters might leave a bit of gray area. Normally, law enforcement cannot demand identification unless there is "reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity." If a protester makes their way toward or near the hard security perimeter, they could be asked to display credentials or identification that show that they are allowed to to enter the area. ACLU officials added that failing to offer proof of identification could lead the police to be more suspicious. If the police believe they have enough evidence of a crime, they could initiate an arrest. Individuals should never lie about their name, because that is obstruction. The ACLU encourages people stopped by the police to respectfully ask, "Are you detaining me, or am I free to go?" If a person is being arrested, they have the right to state that they do not want to answer questions without an attorney present. Are there rules that govern the behavior of opposing groups at a protest? According to the ACLU, police are permitted to keep antagonistic groups separated, but, according to state law, the groups should be allowed within sight and sound of one another. Protesters of opposing groups are allowed to speak to and shout at one another during rallies and demonstrations. A protester cannot be arrested for exhibiting those behaviors. At a protest, the police are responsible for protecting each group and their expression. What types of speech are not protected? Is hate speech protected? Though almost all speech is protected at a protest, there is an exception for so-called "fighting words" that have the potential to cause harm to an individual or group. This type of speech is an incendiary, obscene or defamatory statement that aims to incite violent action. This speech is directed at a specific individual or group that creates an imminent threat or violence. Protesters should avoid using this language, as it could lead to arrest or removal from the protest premises. According to Idleman, hate speech and usage of slurs on the basis of race, religion, skin color, sexual identity, gender identity, ethnicity, disability, or national origin are protected speech and are not necessarily considered fighting words. What rules should people be aware of when capturing video or photos at a protest? Generally, the courts state that if a person is in a public space, they do not have any particular expectation of privacy. Therefore, individuals can be photographed or surveilled while walking down a public street, protesting, or partaking in any activities within a public area. In an April interview with the Journal Sentinel, ACLU attorney Timothy Muth said, "If the police are arresting people or using force, protesters have the First Amendment right to to record and photograph. We generally encourage people not to photograph identifiable pictures of protesters who have not agreed to be photographed." Do police officers have the right to view photos and videos captured at an event? Protesters can only guarantee that their photos and videos are not accessible to law enforcement if they establish a lock or password on their phone before attending a protest. "Under the Fourth Amendment, it is prohibited for the police to search your phone without a warrant, but that doesn't mean they won't look through an unlocked phone," Muth told the Journal Sentinel in April. The ACLU said anything that protesters post publicly to social media can be evaluated by law enforcement following a protest and used as evidence. More: What to know about Milwaukee police rules for handling mass demonstrations outside RNC Are there any banned items that attendees cannot bring into the security footprint? Yes, there is a long list of banned items for the security footprint. These include air rifles, paintball guns, combat gloves, billy clubs, swords, axes, slingshots, metal water bottles, aerosol cans, ladders, BB guns, pellet guns, nunchucks, shovels or other things that could be used to hurt people or damage property. Review the full list of restrictions here. Are there any restrictions when it comes to carrying guns? In the "hard perimeter," U.S. Secret Service officials has said that weapons are not allowed. However, most guns will be allowed within the RNC security footprint. According to the City Attorney's Office, the weapons that are banned under state law include machine guns, short-barreled shotguns, short-barreled rifles and silencers. According to Idleman, for the guns that are allowed in the security footprint, people cannot use the weapon expressively or in a threatening way such as unholstering a weapon and showing it to someone or pointing it in the direction of a passerby. In Wisconsin, individuals need a permit to conceal and carry a gun. They do not need a permit to open carry. What other safety precautions should demonstrators keep in mind? Attorneys recommend that people know their rights and establish safety precautions ahead of engaging in protest activities. "I would urge people to be mindful of the police, who are probably under a lot of stress," Idleman said. "They don't know people's intentions. They don't know who's carrying weapons. They don't know what your purpose is... I think both sides have to be a little bit flexible and not necessarily view each other always and ever as enemies." If protesters think there is a possibility of getting arrested, the ACLU advises them to memorize a phone number for a person who can pick them up from the police station or contact a lawyer on their behalf. If protesters believe their rights have been violated, the ACLU recommends they complete the following steps: Write down everything they can remember, including officers' badge and patrol car numbers and the agency they work for Get contact information for witnesses Take photographs of all injuries File a written complaint with the agency's internal affairs division or civilian compliant board Tamia Fowlkes is a Public Investigator reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at tfowlkes@gannett.com. Alison Dirr of the Journal Sentinel contributed to this story. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Rules and reminders for the 2024 RNC protest zones in Milwaukee Protestors Spray Tourists with Water Guns During Demonstration Against Overtourism in Barcelona Footage of the demonstrations shows protesters chanting Tourists go home! and carrying signs bearing the same message Barcelona locals took aim at tourists, squirting them with water guns as they protested overtourism in the region this past weekend. Video footage shows marchers chanting Tourists go home! and carrying signs bearing the same message. Daniel Pardo Rivacoba, one of the demonstrations organizers, told the Washington Post up to 20,000 people from 170 organizations participated, adding that the choice to use water guns was made by individual protesters. Receiving water on your face is not nice, but its not violent, he said. According to Spanish news outlet El Pais, the municipal police force put participant estimates at only 2,800 people. Javier Mostacero Carrera/Getty Barcelona residents protest mass tourism Related: Man Trying to Smuggle Over 100 Live Snakes in His Pants Caught by Officials The protesters, who were organized by the Assemblea de Barris pel Decreixement Turistic, or the Neighborhood Assembly for Tourism Degrowth, laid out their concerns in a manifesto published Saturday. The demands of the organizers, who were frustrated with housing shortages and the cost of living, included restricting tourist accommodations and ending the use of public money for tourism advertising. The tourism and hotels is the group that really makes big money, but all the people are in a very poor situation and they dont have enough money to live. Thats the problem, protester Joan Navarro-Bertran told NBC News. Getty Barcelona city skyline Related: Photo of Deltas Spoiled Meals That Were Served to Passengers Reveals Mold on Food: Tasted Really Sour 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. Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni announced Saturday that he would return 10,000 residential units currently used by tourists to housing for local residents and increase the tourist tax surcharge. Rosario Sanchez, a high-ranking Spanish tourism official, told the New York Times that the residents were not saying no to tourism, but rather seeking changes to quality of life. Spain is one of the safest tourist destinations that exist, she claimed in an email. Specific incidents with tourists are reprehensible uncivil behavior that has nothing to do with the reality of our country. As home to major tourist attractions like the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia and Antoni Gaudi's Park Guell, Barcelona has long been a popular travel destination for international visitors. According to the Catalan capitals official tourism website, nearly 26 million people visited the region in 2023. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. JERSEY CITY, N.J. (PIX11) In Jersey City, tempers flared during an open house held by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority when opponents walked out in the middle of a presentation the agency was giving on rebuilding the Newark Bay-Hudson County extension. The programs first project is the reconstruction of the Newark Bay Bridge between Newark, Bayonne, and Jersey City. It will start in 2026 and last approximately 10 years. Jersey City launches affordable housing lottery portal Daniel Ramirez, with Iron Workers Local Union No. 11, said the bridge doesnt have the capacity for the load of weight that travels across it daily. Bayonne port, Newark port, Elizabeth port, so we have tons and tons of weight, so that bridge is not built for that, Ramirez said. The ports are expanding, Jersey City, Bayonne are thriving and growing. This program will support local and state economy in order to provide regional mobility, Lisa Navarro, the program manager at NJ Turnpike Authority, said. Earlier in the day, opponents held a rally against the extension. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and other elected officials oppose the multi-million project, citing that New Jersey is already congested. Ten-billion (dollars) can go to solve every mass transit issue facing New Jersey now, Fulop said. Jersey City residents are also concerned about the ever-growing congested streets, saying the two main state agencies are not communicating and theres a complete disconnect between public transportation and highways. More New Jersey News There should be some sort of coordinated system of transportation. This is a major transportation hub, said Joyce Booth. The agency said meeting formats include one-on-one opportunities to speak directly with program members and ask them questions. You can visit the website, where the public can submit their questions or concerns. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. Supporters of a resolution to call for a ceasefire in the Middle East clap as a speaker returns to her seat. About two dozen community members, some of whom wore a keffiyeh, attended a Pulaski County Quorum Court meeting on July 9, 2024, to show their support for the resolution. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate.) The Pulaski County Quorum Court in Central Arkansas on Tuesday rejected a resolution to support permanent ceasefire and prevent further loss of human life in the Middle East. The Justices of the Peace also voted to table the matter indefinitely upon a motion from Justice Phil Stowers. The resolution stated a desire to save lives regardless of faith or ethnicity, urged national leaders to end the crisis and noted that harassment, discrimination and violence towards the Muslim and Jewish communities are contradictory to the values that define Pulaski County. Several legislative bodies across the country have considered resolutions that call for a ceasefire in the Middle East. Activists brought such a proposal to a Little Rock Board of Directors meeting in April, though officials havent acted on it. The Fayetteville city council shut down its own ceasefire resolution in May. Stowers motion to table the matter indefinitely prohibited justices from voting on the resolution directly. When given the opportunity to discuss the motion of tabling, only Justice Lillie McMullen spoke, and she questioned why Stowers or others would want to do so. Why on earth would we want to table it? McMullen asked. Why would we not go forward with it at this point? What is it that we are afraid of or want to avoid? Stowers quickly called for immediate consideration, which passed unanimously. Four justices then voted against tabling the resolution indefinitely: McMullen, Diane Curry, Curtis Keith and resolution sponsor Donna Massey. Honestly speaking, [the resolution] is not picking sides, Massey told the Arkansas Advocate ahead of the vote last week. Of course we could, but its just asking for a ceasefire to save lives on all sides. Me, personally, I dont see how that could be that political. Its just asking them to stop for the sake of humanity. Stowers was escorted out of the meeting room quickly upon adjournment. During a phone interview afterward, Stowers said he was proud of his motion and his colleagues who voted with him. The people who elected us to serve Pulaski County elected us to take care of their business as it relates to Pulaski County, Stowers said. I feel that we have congressional representation on the national level that I certainly personally believe in and rely on. Stowers also said he believes Hamas was the aggressor and Israel has the right to protect itself. He said he believes in peace. Three community members spoke in favor of the ceasefire during the quorum court meeting, and staff read one written comment in opposition to the resolution. Supporters shared statistics of the ongoing violence and referenced residents in Pulaski County who have family that are directly affected. The resident in opposition wrote that the resolution was not appropriate for county-level involvement and the language was not equitable. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST After the vote, about two dozen supporters in attendance stood and chanted Shame and Justices, where is the peace? toward the quorum court. Massey extended her apologies to the supporters as she left. Among those community members was Anika Whitfield, who told the Arkansas Advocate that she has people in her life who have been directly affected by the violence in the Middle East. Whitfield said the quorum court tabling the resolution indefinitely was an obvious work of not allowing direct democracy to happen. Whitfield said it seemed like the justices decision was already finalized before the meeting started. When Massey talked with the Advocate last week, her confidence that the resolution would pass was wavering based on secondhand communications about what her colleagues might do. Following Tuesdays vote, Massey noted that there was no validity to her colleagues reasons to vote against the resolution. They dont feel that we should get involved in international affairs, but we are involved, Massey said during a previous interview. We are involved whether we like it or not. Some just dont want to get into anything too political during election season. Im just keeping it real. The Pulaski County Quorum Court is made up of 15 Justices of the Peace, each of whom represents a designated district for two-year terms. Two are up for election this November, Kathy Lewison of District 3 and Julie Blackwood of District 4. Three seats were determined during the primary election, and those justices will take office in January. In total, the legislative body serves approximately 380,000 residents. Massey was first elected in 1999. She currently represents District 6, which covers downtown Little Rock and a western portion of the city. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX A group of 18 people with ties to the Pulse nightclub were chosen to spearhead efforts to design a permanent memorial to the Orlando mass shooting by year-end, city officials announced Wednesday. Among the Pulse Memorial Advisory Committee members, all but one have ties to the tragedy as survivors, family members or friends of survivors and victims, or provided services after the shooting. Some have professional art, architecture and landscape expertise which the city hoped to include in the committee. The group will meet monthly for the rest of the year to try and reach consensus on what a memorial on the nightclub property should look like. Mayor Buddy Dyer has said he hoped the group would settle on a design and it would be built by 2028. Last month the community marked eight years since the massacre that killed 49 and wounded 53 at the nightclub just south of downtown. The initial memorial effort by onePulse Foundation started in 2016 and ultimately failed last year with the group shuttering. The city purchased the Pulse land last year from its owners, the Poma family, and took control of the memorial effort. How onePulse broke Orlandos heart Brett Rigas, who survived the shooting but whose partner was killed, was selected for the committee and hopes the city-led effort will accomplish what onePulse could not. After everything the onePulse Foundation hadnt done, I felt it was best that somebody who has gone through this and has dealt with things in the past, that if I wanted any change that I needed to get involved in the committee, Rigas said. We all want the same thing: a memorial to be built. More than 150 applications were received, city officials said, and members were chosen by a panel of community leaders: JahKiya Bell, senior advisor to the president and cEO, Heart of Florida United Way; the Rev. Jose Rodriguez of the Episcopal Churches of Christ the King and Jesus de Nazaret; Joel Junior Morales, foundation manager, Contigo Fund; and Jesse Arias, director of the Orlando United Resiliency Services, LGBT+ Center Orlando. The first meetings are July 24-25 at 4 p.m. in the Hourglass Room at Kia Center, with a public open house at 6 p.m. July 25. The committee members are: Aracelis Maria Jimenez, lost a family member Brett Rigas, a survivor, lost a family member Brian Reagan, a survivor, former Pulse employee and artist Carlitos Diaz Rodriguez, family member of a survivor, architect/design professional, landscape architect and artist Cesar Rodriguez, a survivor Felicia Burt, lost a family member Jamie Reed, lost a friend, an architect/design professional, marketing professional Joshua Garcia, former Pulse employee, provided services after the tragedy, mental health professional Keinon Carter, a survivor Kelly Dawson, lives in the Orlando area and felt the loss as a community member, architect/design professional Rev. Marcelino Rivera, lost a friend, provided services after the tragedy, clergy, artist Mayra Alvear Benabel, lost a family member Norman Casiano-Mojica, a survivor Nancy Rosado, provided services after the tragedy, mental health professional, community advocate, former first responder Perry T Snider Jr., lost a friend, former Pulse employee, artist Siclaly Laly M. Santiago-Leon, lost a family member Terrance Hunter, regularly visited Pulse, educator, museum professional Tommy Connelly, a survivor, artist rygillespie@orlandosentinel.com COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) A railway union strike stopped most trains across Sri Lanka on Wednesday, leaving tens of thousands of passengers to brave the few dangerously overcrowded trains that kept running or be stranded at the station. The Station Masters Union launched the strike to demand that vacancies be filled and other administrative issues be resolved. Hundreds of scheduled train journeys were canceled Wednesday due to the strike, leaving the very few trains that ran jam-packed with passengers. Local TV stations showed people risking their lives to get to school and work, barely hanging on to the sides of the train while balancing on footboards made slippery by the rain. Some of the passengers opted to simply go back home. Anura Samantha, 43, who serves as a clerk at a retail shop in the capital, Colombo, said he decided not to go to work because of the strike. Its really disgusting. I waited for about one hour, but couldnt get into a train. Buses are also crowded. Now, there is no time to go to work. I will take a leave today, said Samantha who travels daily from Gampaha, a suburb town about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Colombo. Transport Minister Bandula Gunawardena condemned the strike, saying the union launched the strike in an arbitrary manner when the government was taking steps to resolve the issues they raised. During a similar strike in September, two passengers were killed while traveling on packed trains: One was traveling on the roof of a compartment when his head hit an overhead railway bridge, and the other succumbed to injuries after he fell from the trains footboard. Sri Lankas train services are substandard, with poorly maintained compartments and tracks because of years of mismanagement and a lack of proper planning. Frequent and sudden strikes have exacerbated the situation, with most trains experiencing delays. FILE - This file image made from video provided by AuBC shows a part of an area in Palumpa, Australia, Thursday, July 4, 2024, where a girl was reported missing Tuesday after she went swimming. Crocodile numbers in Australia's Northern Territory must be either maintained or reduced and cannot be allowed to outstrip the human population, the territory's leader said after the 12-year-old girl was killed while swimming. (AuBC via AP, File) MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) Rangers have shot dead a 4.2-meter (14-foot) crocodile in northern Australia after it killed a 12-year-old girl while she was swimming with her family last week, police said Wednesday. The girls death was the first fatal crocodile attack in the Northern Territory since 2018 when an Indigenous woman was killed while gathering mussels in a river. The attack has rekindled debate on whether more should be done to curb the crocodile population in the Northern Territory, where the protected species has increasingly encroached on human populations. Wildlife rangers had been attempting to trap or shoot the crocodile since the girl was attacked last week in Mango Creek near Palumpa, an Outback Indigenous community in the Northern Territory. They shot the animal Sunday after getting permission from the regions traditional landowners. Saltwater crocodiles are considered a totem by many Indigenous Australians. Police said analysis had confirmed the animal was the one that killed the girl. The events of last week have had a huge impact on the family and local police are continuing to provide support to everyone impacted, senior Sgt. Erica Gibson said in the police statement. Northern Territory-based crocodile scientist Grahame Webb said a reptile the size of the one shot had to be male and at least 30 years old. They grow throughout their lives and can live up to 70 years. The girls death came weeks after the Northern Territory approved a 10-year plan to contain croc numbers, lifting the rate of culling near human habitat from 300 to 1,200 a year. The Northern Territory government said after the latest fatality that crocs could not be allowed to outnumber humans. The Northern Territory has a land area around the size of France and Spain combined but only 250,000 people. Croc numbers are estimated at 100,000. The crocodile population was as low as 3,000 before hunting them was outlawed by federal legislation in 1971. Webb said the territorys crocs had largely stabilized their own population in recent years by killing each other for food or territory. They eat each other. The crocs have been controlling their own population. Its not really people that have been controlling them, Webb said. (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co.s analysts raised their price targets for BYD Co. by more than 80% on expectations the Chinese automaker will deliver 6 million vehicles globally in the next two years. Most Read from Bloomberg The bank, which now has the highest target prices for BYDs Hong Kong and Shenzhen shares based on data compiled by Bloomberg, increased them to HK$475 and 440 yuan, respectively, while maintaining an overweight weighting. It estimates BYD will deliver about 1.5 million units in overseas markets and three times that domestically by 2026. The company sold around 3 million vehicles in 2023. Shares rose as much as 2.6% to HK$241.40 during early trade in Hong Kong on Wednesday. BYD has focused on boosting international sales and localization efforts while engaging in a brutal price war in its home Chinese market. Its shares have defied heavy losses in electric-vehicle stocks to gain around 12% this year in Hong Kong, while those of its smaller peers Li Auto Inc. and XPeng Inc. have each tumbled more than 45%. BYD could see a re-rating in the next 1 to 2 years, driven by its global expansion and potential rising plug-in hybrid electric vehicle opportunity, JPMorgan analysts including Nick Lai wrote in a note. The company will start to export price-competitive plug-in hybrid EV products such as the Seal U SUV in Europe from July and Shark in Mexico from June, according to JPMorgan. Read: BYD Plays Winning Hand in China EV Market With Hybrid Models In 2026, BYD will also mark an important milestone for its global ambitions as four of its overseas production bases or assembly lines in Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, and Hungary should be completed and ramping up, the analysts wrote. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. People use umbrellas to block the sun while waiting to take a photo at the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign Monday, July 8, 2024, in Las Vegas. Nearly a week of extreme heat is sweeping the Southwest, causing all-time high temperatures in cities from Washington to Arizona. | Wade Vandervort LAS VEGAS Nearly a week of extreme heat is sweeping the Southwest, causing all-time high temperatures in cities from Washington to Arizona. In Las Vegas, where summer temperatures routinely break into triple digits, a pair of longstanding records are being shattered: On Sunday, the temperature reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest the city has ever been. And on Wednesday, temperatures are expected to once again surpass 115 for a fifth straight day, the hottest five-day stretch in the citys history. This is the most extreme heat wave in the history of record-keeping in Las Vegas since 1937, meteorologist John Adair told The Associated Press. The heat wave is expected to continue through the rest of the week in many parts of the West. Across the country, some 160 million Americans were under excessive heat warning Tuesday, the highest-level alert. Much of them were in the West: The Pacific Northwest is seeing temperatures 10 to 30 degrees above average for this time of year, USA Today reported. Phoenix broke its daily temperature record when it hit 118 on Monday. In California and Oregon, officials have confirmed eight suspected heat-related deaths since last week. In Las Vegas, the heat has turned the Strip, usually a bustling tourist destination during the summer months, into a pedestrian ghost town. Its so hot, said Phylicia Allen, who works at a frozen drinks stand near the Strip. Its super slow for a Tuesday. Allen, who moved to Nevada from San Diego a decade ago, says she doesnt look at the thermometer. I measure it by hot, to hotter, to hottest. she said. Right now, were in hottest. The record temperatures may be dissuading tourists, said Andrea Montibeller, a visitor from Guanajuato, Mexico. I feel like I opened the oven door, and I feel the hot air rushing onto my face, Montibeller said. I think my eyelashes will burn off. MONTROSE COUNTY, Colo. (KREX) After thousands of votes were cast, the race between Larry Don Suckla and J. Mark Roeber for the GOP State House District 58 primary seems destined to be recounted. Suckla, a Montezuma County Commissioner, and Roeber, a former Delta County Commissioner, are within a three-vote difference, according to the Colorado Secretary of State website. A recount is likely. According to state statute, a difference between the highest number of votes in an election is less than or equal to .5% can lead to a recount. Colorado Secretary of State Communications Director Jack Todd told WesternSlopeNow that the race is within that threshold as the vote differential is currently at .046%. Todd said the deadline for Secretary Jena Griswold to order a mandatory recount is July 19. As of Tuesday, Suckla is at 6487 votes while Roeber has 6484. You have no idea how much I appreciate everybody that voted for me, Suckla wrote on Facebook. District 58 represents Gunnison, Hinsdale, Ouray, Montrose, San Miguel and Dolores, as well as parts of Delta and Montezuma counties. The winner of the race will face Democratic candidate Kathleen Curry, who ran unopposed in the primary, in the general election. Rep. Marc Catlin, who currently holds the seat, is running for the state senate in District 5. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. Recovery Point WV beating the heat with sponges and rags PRINCETON, WV (WVNS) One local organization is beating the heat for a good cause. Recovery Point West Virginia is hosting a car wash for the next four weeks in Princeton. This event is to raise money for Recovery Points Bluefield, West Virginia facility. Recovery Point West Virginia offers rehabilitation services for drug and alcohol use. Help needed in Mercer County animal cruelty investigation Jordan Brammer, Program Coordinator for Recovery Point in Bluefield, West Virginia, expressed that his guys are getting a great opportunity, even in the heat. It gets them to work together. It gets them outside of the building. It just gets them doing outside physical activity and it creates bonds between the guys, said Brammer to 59News. The car washes are located outside of the OReilly Auto Parts in Princeton, Mercer County. Brammer said this event depends on weather as well. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WVNS. The Redding Rancheria said it has gotten the federal approval needed to move forward with a controversial plan to expand and relocate the tribe's Win-River Resort and Casino to prime freeway frontage property along the Sacramento River. The U.S. Department of the Interior on July 1 issued its decision to transfer the Rancheria-owned Sacramento River-front land just south of Redding on Interstate 5 into federal trust status for gaming purposes, the Rancheria said in a statement on July 9. On July 25, members of the tribe raised a tribal flag on a 100-foot-tall pole alongside I-5 and held a blessing of the land and watched Pow Wow dancers perform around the flag. "The Tribe will continue to move forward no matter what obstacles get in our way because we are descendents of survivors of genocide," said Chairman Jack Potter Jr. in a statement released the day the flag was raised. "We have a place in today's society and we are not going anywhere, as the original inhabitants of this land." The tribe first announced in 2016 that it planned to relocate its Win-River Casino to the area known as Strawberry Fields in Churn Creek Bottom near Redding's southern border. In order for the tribe to operate a casino, its land must be moved into trust of the federal government for the benefit of the tribe. Such a move exempts the land from both local taxes and local development rules. "This monumental decision concludes the federal agency review process that included nearly two decades of comprehensive expert analysis into the environmental, economic, and social impacts of our proposed casino relocation project," the Rancheria said in the statement. More: Why Redding Rancheria's plan to expand, relocate Win-River Casino has caused a divide Members of the Redding Rancheria raised the tribal flag on their property located alongside Interstate 5 just south of Redding, California on July 24, 2024. As for when they might break ground on a new casino, the Rancheria said Tuesday that they expect "specialinterest groups" that have opposed the project to challenge the government's decision in federal court. Opponents including Speak Up! Shasta have said opening an expanded casino on the Rancheria-owned Strawberry Fields land will bring more crime and traffic to the community and also fear the large-scale development would pave over what is now largely agricultural land. Supporters have said the expanded complex would mean new jobs and more visitors and their dollars in Shasta County. Also, supporters said, other commercial development has opened not far away, including a new Costco and other retailers. Speak Up! Shasta spokesman Robb Korinke said in a statement issued Tuesday: "Thousands of Shasta County residents oppose this harmful project and the Redding Rancheria wants local taxpayers to foot the bill through their sham 'deal' with the Board of Supervisors. Let me be clear: We are going nowhere and neither is that casino." A telephoto view of Strawberry Fields from the backyard of a residence at the end of Riverside Drive in south Redding. The Redding Rancheria wants to build a new, bigger casino on the property. Note to readers: If you appreciate the work we do here at the Redding Record Searchlight, please consider subscribing yourself or giving the gift of a subscription to someone you know. Thank you for your continued investment in our community coverage. In March, after the casino relocation projects Final Environmental Impact Statement was published in the Federal Register for public review, Korinke was critical of a 30-year financial agreement reached last year between the Shasta County Board of Supervisors and the Redding Rancheria. In February, a group called the California Land Stewardship Council sued the Shasta County Board of Supervisors over its approval of the agreement to help fund law enforcement, fire and emergency services for the proposed casino project. The agreement that supervisors approved last summer is illegal, the lawsuit alleges. An illustration of the Redding Rancheria project According to the Rancheria's statement this week, "challenges are, unfortunately, common in Indian Country, and we are confident that the DOIs decision making process for our casino relocation project is thorough, sound, and in compliance with federal law. The Tribe has waited for more than two decades for the restoration of these aboriginal homelands to trust and will monitor developments over the coming weeks to take any necessary action to preserve our interests in the decision." The Rancheria intends to build a 69,541-square-foot casino, nine-story, 250-room hotel, restaurants, a conference center, an event center, convention center and a 132,000-square-foot regional retail center on a portion of 232 acres of undeveloped land west of Interstate 5 known as Strawberry Fields. The property is just south the I-5-South Road interchange near a new Costco store that opened in late 2022. Win-River's current hotel has 84 rooms, while its casino covers about 60,000 square feet on Highway 273 between Clear Creek and Canyon roads. The Rancheria aimed to move its 232 acres into trust of the federal government for the benefit of the tribe. The move exempts the undeveloped land that's zoned for agricultural use from both the local taxes and local development regulations that now apply. Record Searchlight reporter David Benda contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Redding Rancheria gets federal approval to relocate casino An anti-carbon pipeline sign is set up along the road near Canton. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) An anti-carbon pipeline sign is set up along the road near Canton. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) A seventh ballot question has been validated by the Secretary of States Office for the Nov. 5 general election. The referendum asks voters to consider a recently adopted state law concerning carbon dioxide pipeline restrictions and landowner rights. Based on a random sample of signatures, the office estimated that 92% percent of the more than 34,000 signatures on the petition are from South Dakota registered voters, which means the estimated number of valid signatures is 31,432. The petition needed 17,508 to qualify for the election. Opponents of the law want voters to reject Senate Bill 201, which the Legislature and Gov. Kristi Noem approved last winter. Supporters said the legislation will implement new protections for local governments and landowners while preserving a path forward for pipeline projects. Opponents view it as a capitulation to pipeline companies. A 30-day window is now open for challenges to the validity of the petition. The bill came in response to an $8.5 billion pipeline proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions, which is headquartered in Iowa. The pipeline would collect carbon dioxide from 57 ethanol plants in South Dakota and neighboring states and pipe it to North Dakota for underground storage. The project could benefit from federal tax credits that incentivize carbon sequestration to fight climate change. The Iowa Utilities Board approved Summits project in June. The company announced shortly afterward that it plans to apply again for a permit in South Dakota this month, after the Public Utilities Commission denied its initial application last year. The companys pipeline application in North Dakota is under consideration, and it still needs an underground storage permit in North Dakota. The South Dakota denial was partly due to conflicts with county ordinances that require minimum distances known as setbacks between pipelines and other features. The project has also faced opposition from some landowners concerned about property rights and safety, including health risks associated with potential leaks. The last referred law to appear on a South Dakota ballot was in 2016, after the state Legislature tried to exempt workers under age 18 from receiving a minimum wage increase (which had been approved by South Dakota voters in 2014). South Dakotans voted by a majority of 71.13% to reject the Legislatures action. Ballot question status update Measures placed on the Nov. 5 ballot by the Legislature: An amendment to the state constitution updating references to certain officeholders and people (replacing male-specific pronouns with neutral language). An amendment to the state constitution authorizing the state to impose work requirements on certain people who are eligible for expanded Medicaid. Citizen-proposed measures validated for the ballot: An initiated measure prohibiting state sales taxes on items sold for human consumption, specifically targeting state sales taxes on groceries. An initiated amendment to the state constitution re-establishing abortion rights. An initiated amendment to the state constitution establishing open primary elections. An initiated measure legalizing adult recreational use, possession and distribution of marijuana. Referred law validated for the ballot: A referendum on a new law regulating carbon dioxide pipelines. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Election officials sort mail-in ballots at the Washoe County Registrar of Voters Office on Nov. 8, 2022 in Reno, Nevada. (Photo by Trevor Bexon/Getty Images) A Nevada countys rejection of the official results of two primary election recounts that yielded few changes from the original count should be seen as an attempt to spread misinformation and sow distrust in the democratic process, say voting advocates. Washoe County Commissioners on Tuesday voted 3-2 against certifying the results of an official recount of two races from Nevadas June 9 primary. The boards three Republicans, Commissioners Michael Clark, Jeanne Herman and Clara Andriola voted against certification while Democratic Commissioners Alexis Hill and Mariluz Garcia voted in favor of certification. Clark and Herman have now twice voted against certifying the results of Washoe Countys primary election. The duo also voted against certifying the countys original canvas two weeks ago. Andriola voted for certification of the original canvas but joined her Republican peers in opposition on Tuesday. Washoe County Assistant District Attorney Nate Edwards, as legal counsel for the board, told the commissioners that not certifying election results in Nevada is a little bit of uncharted water and that any next steps would likely come from the secretary of states office. Counties are required by law to canvas election results within five business days of the completion of a recount. Canvas is defined in Nevada Revised Statute as a review of the election results by the board of county commissioners or the mayor and city council or the justices of the Supreme Court, by which any errors within the election results are officially noted and the official election results are declared. Edwards told the commissioners they have a duty to canvas but should vote (their) conscience. After a motion to certify failed 2-3, he advised the board to vote in the affirmative against certification, which they then did, 3-2. Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilars office did not respond to the Currents request for comment Tuesday. Protect Democracy, which describes itself as a nonpartisan, anti-authoritarian group, in March released a report pointedly titled Election Certification Is Not Optional that warned even ultimately unsuccessful interference with certification indeed, even mere threats not to certify can amplify election conspiracy theories and further undermine public confidence. The report places the start of the recent focus on the election certification process as a means of undermining democracy in Wayne County, Michigan where two of four members of the board of canvassers briefly refused to certify election results after the 2020 general election. According to Protect Democracy, at least 21 counties across eight states have since seen similar incidents happen. Each county board has a non-discretionary duty to certify and deliver the election results (there is no legal basis to refuse to do so), a spokesperson for the group concluded in an email to the Current. Any effort by election officials to subvert certification or to refuse to perform their duties could expose those officials to civil or criminal liability. After the 2022 midterms, two of three members of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors in Arizona refused to certify their election results. In response, the Arizona secretary of state sued the supervisors, who had acted against the recommendations of the county attorney, and a judge ordered them to reconvene and certify the results. The Cochise supervisors reconvened and the results were certified in a 2-0 vote (because one of the supervisors did not attend the meeting). The two supervisors who caused the delay in certification were later investigated by the states attorney general and are now facing felony charges of conspiracy and interference with an election officer. Voting rights advocates have applauded the swift and strong response in Arizona following the non-certification incident in Cochise. We should not normalize this, says Hannah Fried, executive director of All Voting Is Local, which advocates for expanded voter access in eight states, including Nevada and Arizona. This is abnormal. Fried, who spoke to the Current about the issue last week, believes there are legal enforcement mechanisms that can force certification in Nevada. She is more concerned about the broader implications. They are laying groundwork, she said. The intention isnt to actually certify or not certify (the primary). The point is to question election results in November, to say, There are improprieties that have been here since the primary. She continued, This is about setting precedent, so it doesnt shock the conscience. But it should shock all of us. Fried, who has worked as an election advocate for 15 years, said that election denialism and election skepticism are sometimes viewed as chaos for the sake of chaos but should be viewed differently in light of the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. The chaos of disinformation is to lay the groundwork for a fight that has no bottom, she added. That all of this is happening in Washoe County the swingiest county of a swing state that might be crucial in this years federal elections is not lost on observers. The Northern Nevada county in recent years has been a hotbed of election denialism and skepticism, much of it fueled by Robert Beadles, a prominent GOP donor and far-right activist known for touting conspiracy theories about voting, vaccines and minorities. Beadles, on his Operation Sunlight website, said the non-certification buys time for the courts to rule on whether or not a hand count should be done and allows time for them to investigate the massive manipulation of our election referring to pending litigation he is backing. Local elections officials have conceded there have been errors but none that influenced outcomes. Voters in one Reno precinct received mail ballots with the wrong races and had to be reissued new ballots. Voters who had opted out of receiving a mail ballot still received them. Washoe County elections made some mistakes, acknowledged Kerry Durmick, Nevada director for All Voting Is Local, but the same mistakes have been made in Lyon, in Humboldt. Their county commissioners are not treating them the same way. Durmick emphasized that no mistakes should be taken lightly, but that the proper avenue for addressing those issues is not delaying the ministerial step of certification, which has long been such a rote task that it never received public attention. Added Fried, There is no good faith reason not to certify. Commissioners deny being election deniers Prior to the votes Tuesday, Andriola asked Edwards, the board attorney, questions about their obligation to vote and what could happen if they voted in opposition. I am not going to certify the vote, she said afterward. I believe it warrants further investigation, and hearing Mr. Edwards, this may give us that opportunity. Im basing my vote on the fact that (Edwards) used the word conscience and we have, not just today, but an ongoing concern (about elections). There has to be trust. I am not an election denier, she insisted. Herman in comments from the dias acknowledged she has a record of not approving the elections but she did not further elaborate on her vote. Clark in his comments pushed back on the characterization of him as an election denier. Ive won my last six elections, so I couldnt be an election denier, he said, but Ive seen a lot of mismanagement, and thats a different thing than denying what took place in an election. Mismanagement. People not understanding what theyre doing. Trying to wing it. Trying to use the NRS statute for their own personal gain. Telling half the story. Clark has said he did not receive his own ballot in the mail but received the ballot for someone who no longer lives in the country and had attempted unsuccessfully to remove themselves from the states voter roll. He has also pointed to acknowledged errors, such as a misprint on the sample ballot, as reasons why he does not trust the process. This is a missed opportunity for transparency, he said. The leadership of this board could have had samples, could have had a hand count, could have had a parallel count to check this, especially when somebody else was paying for it. Clark was referring to Beadles, the right-wing activist who funded the recounts whose results were being voted on Tuesday. On the issue of hand counting ballots, Edwards noted that state law is clear that the process used for a recount has to be the same as the process used during the original tabulation meaning the county couldnt switch from machine tabulation to a hand count. The county could explore the option to hand count ballots for future elections, he added, but would have to contend with the onerous requirements set by the secretary of states office. Additional flirting with election skepticism Earlier in Tuesdays meeting, Andriola suggested that election process issues were better left to the legislature to address. Andriola expressed support for some election reforms, including a voter id requirement and automatic county-paid recounts for close races, but she said implementing such changes are beyond the power of a county commission and would have to be done at the state level by legislators (or, in the case of a proposed voter id requirement, by a vote of the people). Get folks in Carson City that understand that election reform is critical, she said. Clark in response to Andriola said he believes county commissioners dont need to wait for somebody in Carson City to do our job for us. Weve got lots of things we can do here, he said. Maybe we cant ask for showing of id. Maybe we cant do this, that or the next thing. But we have the ability to do lots of other things that will certainly clean up the process, that will certainly instill confidence in the voters, instead of saying were going to wait til Carson City fixes it. Clark said the commission can control who the county manager is, noting that the county manager is directly over the registrar of voters. Andriola invited Mark Kampf, the former Nye County clerk who two years ago oversaw the rural countys controversial attempts to use paper ballots and hand count, to give a presentation to the Washoe County Commission on June 25. Andriola suggested at the time she supported the idea of auditing being done via hand. Durmick of All Voting Is Local said her group is concerned about attempts to move toward paper ballots because they can disenfranchise voters who benefit from more accessible machines and create longer lines at polling places, which also makes it more difficult for people to cast ballots. Primary recount results In Washoe County, recounts were requested by two primary candidates Mark Lawson, a Republican who challenged Andriola in Washoe County Commission District 4, and Paul White, a candidate for Washoe County School Board District G. Neither race was considered particularly close after the original count, and unsurprisingly their outcomes did not change because of the recount. Lawson had about 1,700 fewer votes than Andriola in the original vote count. The recount saw him lose one vote. In the nonpartisan school board race, White gained one vote nowhere near enough to change the outcome of the original results, which placed him fourth in a field of seven. White received 12% of votes compared to incumbent trustee Diane Nicolets 18% and fellow challengers Perry Rosenstein and Alicia Woos 35% and 15%, respectively. White would have had to gain more than 2,300 votes to move onto the general election as the second place finisher. Another Washoe County race the nonpartisan primary for Reno City Council Ward 1 did not have a recount despite just 15 votes separating two candidates. Lily Baran, a progressive candidate who placed third in the race where the top two advance to a runoff, initially requested a recount but withdrew her request after being inundated with criticism for accepting money from Beadles to pay for the recount. She told media outlets she had been convinced she might face jail time for accepting the money, which some argued constituted an illegal campaign contribution by Beadles. In Nevada, the cost of a recount falls to the candidates who request them. Beadles provided the funding for Lawson and Whites recounts and had offered to pay for Barans. The day after Baran requested the recount stop, she attempted to withdraw her withdrawal and wanted the county to commence with the recount, but elections administrators denied that request because regulations state a withdrawal cannot be revoked. The new science minister has said that there was an opportunity to make it easier again for people to move to the UK to contribute to the science sector. Sir Patrick, the former chief scientific adviser to the Government between 2018 and 2023, also criticised Brexit as definitely a problem for science. In April, the Conservative government tightened up visa rules to make it more difficult for someone applying for a visa to bring their dependants to the UK. Asked whether a more benign visa system was needed, Sir Patrick told BBC Radio 4: We know theres an impact of the difficulty of some of those schemes and so that means that there is an opportunity there to try and make this easier again, for people who do come in to (make) contributions to scientific knowledge creation and indeed, to companies. So we have just got to be realistic as to how we do that, but we need to be as competitive as other countries in terms of attracting that power. Sir Patrick cited specifically the cost of visas as something that needs to be looked at, but also suggested that rules around dependants should be re-examined. High costs Asked whether changes to visas should involve a relaxation of rules surrounding dependants, he replied: There are lots of different bits of the visa issue, including the cost, which is very high at the moment for people coming to the UK that needs to be looked at. We need to think about how we can make the environment right for people to come, who we want to have here contributing to science. Asked whether he would be pushing Sir Keir Starmer to forge a closer relationship with EU countries, even if it involved making concessions on freedom of movement, he said: You cant do the type of science that everyones trying to do to make progress in isolation. You mean brains that come with other backgrounds, other thought processes, other training. His comments came after the Prime Minister said that work had begun on improving the Brexit deal, which would involve closer ties in relation to research and development. Sir Keir said on Sunday: I do think that we can get a much better deal than the botched deal that Boris Johnson saddled the UK with. A government spokesman said: As we have said, we are not reversing Brexit and there will be no return to freedom of movement. We are determined to bring down historically high levels of legal migration and tackle the root causes behind it. The scale of international recruitment for work reflects the need to tackle skills shortages here at home. 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. From the The Morning Dispatch on The Dispatch Happy Wednesday! Wed like to congratulate New York Citylong considered the center of art, culture, and innovation in this countryon discovering trash bins. Mayor Eric Adams unveiled the citys official new receptacles this week, heralding the next step forward in our Trash Revolution. Quick Hits: Todays Top Stories ISIS Detention Area a Ticking Time Bomb In March 2019, a U.S.-backed coalition declared mission accomplished in the campaign to retake territory controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Soon after, then-President Donald Trump withdrew American troops from northern Syria, marking the effective end of a high-profile battle to put down the brutal terrorist organization. Though ISIS attacks and threats have made headlines again in recent months, the days of worrying about the would-be terrorist caliphate taking large swathes of territory in the Middle East are mostly over. But the story isnt finished for the thousands of ISIS fighters, supporters, or their children living in prisons and detention camps in Syria. Five years after the ISIS defeat, western nations and their Middle Eastern allies are divided over repatriating former ISIS fighters and their familiesmany of whom are or were citizens of Western democraciesto their native countries or leaving them in detention in dire living conditions, risking both further terror threats and the potential radicalization of a new generation. Though ISIS lost its strongholds in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist organization that scarred the 2010s with international attacks still perpetuates violence in the region. Its affiliates are growing in Afghanistan and in sub-Saharan Africa, and the international threat is increasing once again. Islamic State Khorasanor ISIS-K, the Afghan branch of the terrorist groupclaimed responsibility for a deadly shooting in a Moscow concert hall in March that killed more than 100 people. Last month, gunmen carried out shootings targeting a synagogue, Orthodox churches, and police stations in two cities in Dagestan, a majority-Muslim region in southern Russia, that left 21 people dead. Although ISIS has not officially claimed responsibility for the attack, the Institute for the Study of Wara think tank that conducts open-source intelligence analysisconcluded that the groups local affiliate was likely responsible. Meanwhile, eight Tajik nationals with connections to ISIS were arrested last month after crossing the U.S. southern border. The threat of an ISIS-K attack likewise looms over the upcoming Paris Olympics. The groups expanding international reachand successful efforts at radicalizationhave drawn attention back to the remnants of the 2010s caliphate. Approximately 9,000 ISIS fighters are currently being held in some two dozen detention facilities in Syria, run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia that was the primary ground force in the key battles of Raqqa and Baghouz that largely curtailed ISIS. An additional 44,000 people affiliated with the terror groupmore than 90 percent of whom are women and childrenremain in detention, nearly all located within the Al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria. The camp was originally set up for refugees during the first Gulf War and is now full of those displaced from the caliphate, a mix of ISIS sympathizers and victims of ISIS persecution, the latter including members of the Yazidi ethnic and religious minority targeted in a genocide by the terrorist group between 2014 to 2017. Some 10,000 women and children in the camp are originally from outside of Iraq and Syria, part of a phenomenon that saw peopleoften radicalized onlineleave their homes in places like Texas, Sweden, or Malaysia to join the caliphate, as fighters or brides or both. At the height of the ISIS caliphate, more than 50,000 people went to Syria and Iraq from some 80 countries around the world. While SDF forces control the boundaries of Al-Hol, preventing people from leaving the camp, they do little to influence what goes on inside, allowing some of the residents to create an environment that resembles the former caliphate. Radical Islamists have taken over life inside parts of the camp, creating religious squads to enforce Sharia codes, meting out floggings, and even carrying out executions. Images and videos from within the camp show womenmany of whom were or still are married to former ISIS fightersin full burqas, with their entire bodies covered in opaque cloth. The security situation in the camp is dire. A United Nations (U.N.) human rights official visited Al-Hol last summer and found that insecurity pervades daily life in the camp, and incidents of violence including murder, physical harm, intimidation, and sexual assault occur with some regularity, with no investigation or measures in place to prevent reoccurrence. An April examination by human rights advocacy group Amnesty Internationalbased on interviews with camp residentsalleged rampant sexual violence in Al-Hol and torture in other SDF detention centers, though the SDF denies those claims. A separate investigation by Save the Children revealed more than 100 alleged murders in Al-Hol between 2019 and 2022. Counterterrorism analysts fear that the poor humanitarian conditions in the detention centers and camps create prime conditions for radicalization, offering a resurgent ISIS potential recruiting ground. The Red Cross called [the conditions] apocalyptic, Colin Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group, said of the camp. Theres few opportunities for education, and people are being taught to continue worshiping the Islamic State. That ideology is still alive and well in these camps. There are also reports that young boys are regularly smuggled out of Al-Hol to join ISIS training camps. CNN reported last month that, in a tragic attempt by the SDF to forestall radicalization, some children who were brought to Syria and Iraq by their parents or who were born and came of age there have since been detained in a maximum security prison for ISIS fighters, or otherwise sent to SDF-run rehabilitation centers. There is, however, no legal process justifying their detention. Gen. Michael E. Kurillathe head of U.S. Central Command, which controls U.S. military operations in the Middle Easthas described Al-Hol as a ticking time bomb. He testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee last year that the children in the camps are prime targets for ISIS radicalization, warning that they are at risk of becoming casualties to an ideological war within the camps: ISIS leaders want their minds. Kurilla argued that, unlike the original campaign against ISIS, there is no military solution to this crisis. Our long-term goal must be the successful repatriation, rehabilitation, and reintegration of the camp residents back into their country of origin, he said. Since 2019, the U.S. has pushed countries to repatriate fighters, ISIS-affiliated camp residents, and displaced victims alikeconsidering such a move the only way to clear out the crowded and dangerous camps. But its a legally complicated, potentially dangerous, and politically thorny proposition that has sparked deep controversy in Western countries. The United Kingdom, for example, has been particularly averse to repatriation. In one emblematic case, the U.K. stripped Shamima Begumwho was born in the U.K. but left at 15 to join ISIS of her citizenship. Im not putting at risk British peoples lives to go looking for terrorists or former terrorists in a failed state, then-Defense Minister Ben Wallace said in 2019 after Begum said she wanted to return to the U.K. Actions have consequences. The difficulty of the task is clear from the relatively small number of repatriations in the four years after the caliphate fell. Fewer than 10,000 people 6,500 Iraqis and some 2,700 so-called third-country nationals from outside Iraq and Syriawere repatriated between 2019 and the summer of 2023, according to the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), a Netherlands-based think tank. Roughly 300 Americans had gone to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS as of 2018, just before the fall of the caliphate. Similarly, 260 Dutch citizens fought for the Islamic State. The U.K., by contrast, saw 850 British jihadis join the caliphate. Its unclear how many of them are still alive and in the camps, and repatriations have been scant, with just 21 returned to the U.K. The U.S.leading the repatriation chargehas returned roughly 50, including 11 who were repatriated in May. The Netherlands has brought back 66 Dutch fighters. What happens to these one-time terrorists once they get back to their countries of origin? Prosecutions and jail sentences are common. Between 2019 and 2023, 11 Americans who joined ISIS were repatriated, prosecuted, and convicted. For example, Warren Christopher Clarkea Texas man who traveled to Syria and received military training from ISISwas sentenced to 10 years in prison for his involvement with the organization. The State Departments Bureau of Counterterrorism has, alongside the Department of Justice, assisted prosecutors both in the U.S. and in partner countries in obtaining more than 275 successful convictions. The U.S. plan seems to be well studied, well planned, but it might be slow, Omar Mohammed, a senior research fellow at George Washington Universitys program on extremism, told TMD. It might take more time, but we have seen, for example, there were successful prosecutions, but others were also benefiting from rehabilitation and reintegration. The State Department believes that reintegration and rehabilitation will be vital to ending ISISs cycles of violence, according to a progress report from the end of last year. Mohimanul Alam Bhuiya, a former Columbia University student from Brooklyn who fled the Islamic State in 2014 just three months after joining the group, pleaded guilty to charges of aiding the terrorist organization and provided intelligence agencies and prosecutors with ISIS documents and other information about the organization. Federal prosecutors then recommended that Bhuiya be placed under supervised release rather than receiving prison time. The U.S. also has taken steps to repatriate the children of American ISIS fighters, but their reintegration poses some unique security risks. Intelligence services and law enforcement security agencies, they would argue that their bandwidth would be overstretched by having to monitor all these folks, Clarke told TMD. In the most recent resettlement of 11 Americans in May, five were the American children of an American ISIS bride and of an unrelated ISIS fighter who had pleaded guilty to his terrorist activities. The two sons of the male terrorist were to be raised by their grandparents in Minnesota. Other countries are more resistant to taking in people who may have been radicalized while held in the camps, even if they were not complicit in terrorist activities. Lets say 10 French children who are now adults, but they grew up in a very radical environment in the camps, Mohammed told TMD. How should France deal with them? They might think about them as a flight risk. Radicalized, they might commit crimes on the French soil as retaliation for [their detention in SDF camps], he added. So its really the problem of having waited that long, and now you are faced with a new problem. The question that countries now face is whether the near-term risk of repatriating individuals who could potentially pose a threat is safer than the Al-Hol camp. Western policies have been incredibly short-sighted over the years, Clarke said. If you condemn people into these camps and you never bring them home, youre essentially making them stateless, and youre offering them no other opportunity but to become a citizen of one state and one state onlyand thats the Islamic State. Worth Your Time In his latest Washington Post column, George Will argued that the White House and the medias handling of the crisis of confidence in Biden will further accelerate public distrust in our institutions. The leakage of trustworthiness from American institutions began with the lies that enveloped Watergate and Vietnam, he wrote. It accelerated during the 2008 financial crisis, when cynicism (You never want a serious crisis to go to waste) fueled the governments indiscriminate and lawless response: The law restricted bailouts to financial institutions? Declare automobile manufacturers to be such. The leakage became a cataract during the pandemic because of the public health establishments plucked-from-the-ether edicts (about masks, social distancing, which political gatherings should be exempt from social distancing, etc.) and the sacrifice-the-children opportunism of the most powerful segment of organized labor (teachers unions). Now the worlds oldest political party and its media accomplices have effected a gigantic subtraction from trust: Leaders of the former lied about President Bidens condition until, on June 27, continuing to do so became untenable. The latter had allowed the lying because they believe Donald Trumps many mendacities are an excuse for theirs. For Plough magazine, Tara Isabella Burton faced her technology addiction head-on by severely limiting her tech use. My new life, such as it is, is enabled by technology, even as it rejects its excesses, she wrote. I am grateful for my watch, my air fryer, evenbook purists might be appalledmy Kindle, which can slip into a small purse more easily than a print book, and thus makes it more likely I will take the chance to read when out. But the technology I use is, increasingly, in the service of making possibleeven in a city like New Yorka life of smallness: a life where I can remain in touch with friends, go see theater, read books, write, cook simple meals for myself, and check what time the bus is leaving. The technology I retain access to, in other words, is technology that makes the good things possibleeven as I am stricter than ever with myself about technology that does not. Presented Without Comment CNN: [Nikki] Haley Says She is Releasing Her Convention Delegates and Urging Them to Support Trump Also Presented Without Comment Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who challenged President Joe Biden for the presidential nomination: If this is vindication, vindication has never been so unfulfilling. Also Also Presented Without Comment Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, who sustained four gunshot wounds in a May assassination attempt, returned to work yesterday, writing the following on his Facebook page: Dear progressive liberal media and opposition, sorry to have survived, but I am back. In the Zeitgeist Pour one out for (Declan, and also) Cubs reliever Colten Brewer, who landed himself a spot on the 60-day injured list when he fractured his hand punching the wall of the dugout at Wrigley Field after a rough outing against the Angels on Saturday. I paced in the dugout a couple times and my frustration got the best of me, Brewer said Sunday. Just let a couple of punches into the wall. My intention wasnt to break my hand. Colten Brewer of the Chicago Cubs punches the dugout wall at Wrigley Field after being relieved in the third inning of a game against the Los Angeles Angels on July 6, 2024. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images) Toeing the Company Line In the newsletters: Nick decried () the cynicism of Democrats closing ranks around Biden, a candidate that most lawmakers plainly believe is unfit for office. On the podcasts: Sarah and Steve checked in on their High Steaks () bet again in light of Bidens obstinance, and Jonah is joined on The Remnant by Daniel Hannan, a member of the British House of Lords, to discuss the recent U.K. elections. On the site today: Kevin reports from the National Conservatives conference on the learned helplessness of Sens. Mike Lee, Rick Scott, and Ron Johnson; Adam White analyzes the impact of the end of Chevron deference, and Jonah offers a reminder that Trump is neither loyal nor conservative. Let Us Know Should the U.S. government and other countries repatriate ISIS fighters? 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. When renters get locked out, it's unlikely they'll ever get back in When renters get locked out, it's unlikely they'll ever get back in In April 2022, a young aspiring permanent makeup artist named Henisha Dunn rented a basement unit in Atlanta's Venetian Hills neighborhood from an old middle-school acquaintance who lived on the home's first floor. The damp, poorly lit unit wasn't ideal for Dunn and her fiance, but the couple had a baby on the way and the rent was much cheaper than anything they could find in the city. Problems quickly emerged. "We noticed leaking four days after we moved in," Dunn said. After making some inadequate repairs, she said, their landlord, a woman named Zion Griffin, refused to do any more work and instead tried to get them to leave. Griffin tried everything to get rid of the young couple, repeatedly filing for eviction in court and then pursuing informal, in some cases illegal, tactics to get them out. By October, one of those tactics was blocking the couple's rent payments, an email Dunn shared with BI shows. Griffin then hired an attorney, who wrote to Dunn that Griffin would agree to forgive all of the back rent for $2,000, later $1,200, if the couple agreed to leave. If they didn't take the deal, the attorney wrote, Dunn's family could have their electricity cut off. "It is in everyone's best interests for you to agree to move out," the attorney wrote, adding that the power would be "disconnected for non-payment" if Griffin "does not obtain the funds to pay it." One afternoon in February 2023, Dunn and her fiance were watching TV while their infant daughter took a nap. She heard the sound of a circuit break, a "voom," and then silence. Everything went dark. "What the hell was that?" Dunn remembers saying. Dunn was a young mother and aspiring makeup artist when a lockout left her homeless. Alyssa Pointer for Business Insider The illegal pressure tactic worked. As their groceries spoiled in the refrigerator, Dunn said, the young family stayed first with relatives, then in a hotel, returning to their rental only to care for their dog, Poppa. Meanwhile, Griffin filed a third eviction in April 2023, court records show. (Reached by phone, Griffin denied breaking the law in seeking to evict Dunn and her family, saying they had not paid for their portion of the electrical bill. She did not answer a follow-up email with detailed questions.) Evictions require a judge's sign-off in most states, including Georgia. Strong-arm tactics like cutting off power or changing the locks to get rid of a tenant are against the law in almost every state. Even so, few states offer tenants easy remedies for reversing an illegal ouster, a Business Insider investigation has found. In most states, locked-out tenants have no recourse but to sue their landlord over an illegal removal, if they hope to recover the costs of losing all their possessions and abruptly becoming homeless. So after the shutoff, Dunn set out to try to find a lawyer. What she didn't know is that even a win in court might not mean she could get back into her home or reach a settlement large enough to help her find a new one. Dunn and her fiance. Their landlord tried everything to get rid of them, repeatedly filing for eviction in court and then pursuing illegal tactics. They're still looking for stable housing. Alyssa Pointer for Business Insider 'What's the worst I'm going to owe?' Business Insider pored over state laws regarding evictions, and found that 45 states have statutes that bar landlords from locking tenants out without first going before a judge. Five states, such as New Jersey and Minnesota, explicitly make lockouts a crime punishable by fines or jail time; California has an attorney general directive that accomplishes the same thing. A handful of states, including Texas and Nevada, have set up dedicated systems designed to restore tenants to their homes after an illegal lockout. In most states, however, lockouts are only a civil violation, enforced by fines or the prospect of paying a court judgment. That means for most tenants across the country, like Dunn, their only official recourse is to sue. The hurdles are extensive. Data from the 2021 American Housing Survey indicates that many renters would struggle to pay for an attorney. While homeowners had an average household income of $78,000, renters had an average household income of nearly half that $41,000. Few attorneys will take cases on contingency, tenant advocates said an agreement in which attorneys get paid only if they win a case as many states don't guarantee that lawyers can recoup fees in illegal-eviction cases. And data from the Department of Justice shows that fewer than half of those who seek pro bono representation for civil suits through legal aid organizations receive it. "It's a barrier to even get to court," said Caryn Schreiber, a housing attorney who has represented tenants in New Jersey and New York. Read more from our series on illegal evictions: Locked out Unprotected at the margins of the rental market Damages in lockout cases are often small capped by state law in proportion to the cost of lost possessions or temporary stays, or capped at two or three months' rent. Tenants' damaged or stolen possessions may not be worth a large amount of money, and the lost wages for days of missed work caused by a lockout may not be high. "The landlords who are doing this intentionally are doing a cost-benefit analysis," Paul Panusky, an Atlanta attorney, said, "thinking to themselves, what's the worst I'm going to owe?" Panusky has represented dozens of tenants in wrongful-eviction suits. His most successful cases, he said, have involved six-figure settlements, a large enough penalty to offer real deterrence for a landlord. He's been able to recoup those amounts in part because landlord-tenant laws in Georgia, which don't explicitly ban lockouts, also don't set specific limits for damages related to an improper eviction. Other states explicitly ban lockouts, but cap damages at very small amounts: In Nevada, tenants are awarded actual damages, plus up to $2,500. Michigan sets it as three times actual damages or $200, whichever is greater. Jeffrey Uno, the managing attorney for the eviction defense center at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said that he counsels locked-out tenants that lawsuits can be lengthy and costly and may not solve the immediate problem of a place to live. "Where are people going to cook, sleep, to take their medicine?" Uno said. "What happens to your memorabilia, your old pictures? Those things matter." David Brogan, the executive director of the New Jersey Apartment Association, a group representing landlords, property managers, and developers, said his members would not engage in illegal lockouts because of the state's protective tenant laws. "To be a landlord in New Jersey," he said, "I'd recommend you fully understand the law, because it's at your own peril if you don't." When Dunn went to court about her landlord shutting off her electricity, the damages she won didn't even cover the amount of back rent the judge said was due. State Court of Fulton County For Dunn, the electricity shutoff was a turning point. She tried to find a lawyer but couldn't afford the fee. An Atlanta Legal Aid attorney offered Dunn some guidance, but she said the organization was overwhelmed with cases and couldn't take hers. Meanwhile, Griffin's third eviction attempt was granted, court records show. Still without a lawyer, in disbelief the judge had awarded her nothing, Dunn filed an appeal, again bringing up the unrepaired water leaks and electricity cutoff. This time, the court found the utility shutoff was tantamount to an illegal eviction. A judge awarded her $250 for it and $1,000 for the landlord's lack of repairs. But her eviction was still granted. What the couple received didn't even cover the amount of rent the court said Griffin was due. The ordeal was draining, Dunn said, especially with a new baby in tow. She and her family still don't have a new apartment, she said, and the eviction cases on her record don't help. "I feel like the judicial system failed us," she said. Few tickets, fewer fines Some cities offer more significant protections than state laws require. BI looked at how eight major cities with a high density of renters handle illegal lockouts and found only one, Chicago, that uses municipal fines as a way to discourage landlords from breaking these laws. There, where more than half of the city's residents are renters, a residential lockout is a municipal violation and the police can issue tickets, similar to a traffic infraction. Those citations are processed by the city's administrative hearings department. If sustained, they result in a fine paid out to the city, commonly about $500. But such outcomes are rare. BI reviewed two years' worth of lockout cases from the department and found city lawyers routinely dismissed tickets, often without documenting why. Some citations were dismissed because of paperwork errors. Others were thrown out because the tenant did not attend the hearing, a common occurrence. Administrative law judges lawyers contracted by the city to rule on the cases often spent less than two minutes on each ticket and sometimes appeared unfamiliar with relevant city law. Records show most final hearings are held more than a month after a lockout occurs, long after the tenants would have been forced to find a new place to live. No part of the fine ever goes to the tenants. And the judges don't have the power to order a tenant restored to their home. For damages, as in other locales, the tenant has to sue. From the first day they began tracking the phenomenon in February 2021 through March 2023, the Chicago police received more than 3,000 calls complaining of illegal lockouts. Police officers ticketed only 79 landlords over that time period, according to data from Chicago's hearing department. More than half of those tickets were thrown out. In the end, landlords were found guilty of locking out their tenants seven times over those two years. Fifteen other landlords were fined after failing to appear. That means in Chicago only about one in every 140 lockout calls results in a fine. In January last year, for example, a police officer ticketed a landlord for switching the locks to the front door in his six-unit building. Four months later, the owner attended a hearing where the citation was thrown out at the request of the city. Chicago's hearings department did not provide documentation of why city lawyers dropped the case, and the administrative judge didn't ask, according to audio of the hearing. Instead, he issued a weak warning to the landlord to follow the law. "I know you like to do certain things, but you just stick to the landlord-tenant ordinance, OK?" The office of Chicago's mayor, Brandon Johnson, which oversees both the hearings department and the city attorneys who appear there, did not respond to requests for comment. Lockout hearings are held at Chicago's Central Hearing Facility. Abel Uribe for Business Insider The case of one landlord, Rolando Quebrado, illustrates how ineffective the tickets are in deterring landlord lockouts. Quebrado was cited at least twice in 2021 over illegal evictions in Chicago's Jefferson Park neighborhood. The first time, a police officer wrote a ticket for illegally changing locks. About three weeks later, an officer wrote another ticket because Quebrado turned off the electricity at the same duplex. The administrative judge dismissed both citations because the officers did not write the date of the hearing clearly. "This is the second citation in a row for the same person where the only scribble, the only problem, the only illegible section is the date of the hearing," the administrative judge said. "Either they deliberately are trying to make certain that the respondent shows up on the wrong date ... or they're deliberately giving the respondent an out of being found not liable." Quebrado said the tickets were a big misunderstanding. He said he had recently purchased the home, not intending to become a landlord to the family living in the basement. He said that he changed the locks only because he didn't know which keys corresponded to which door, and that the basement electricity was cut off by accident when he registered meters for the home's other floors with the electric company. "I should have done more research," Quebrado said. But he said he had a young family of his own and felt overwhelmed. "That was me not being knowledgeable about being a landlord," he said. Chicago has also repeatedly cited big landlords. One of them, Pangea, which is embroiled in a class-action lawsuit over unsafe conditions and disrepair at hundreds of properties in the city, was ticketed for locking out tenants at least three times in recent years. (Pangea has denied the claims in the suit and declined to comment to BI on legal matters.) For Troy Marr, the words an officer chose when issuing his landlord a ticket became a sticking point at his hearing. Marr's access to his building's common areas was cut off through an app in November, leaving him unable to get into the lobby, garage, or elevator. He had a physical key to his 22nd-floor apartment in a swanky new building in River North, but he found himself in the bizarre situation of having to follow other tenants inside or wait for the concierge to escort him in. He called the Chicago police multiple times, Marr said. An officer issued a ticket to the building's management company, then Common Living, but only after he took a trip to his local precinct and talked to a sergeant, Marr said. Troy Marr rented a 22nd-floor apartment in a new building near downtown Chicago. There, according to a police ticket, he got locked out of the building by means of an app. Abel Uribe for Business Insider "Building access was terminated without court process," an officer wrote, telling Common Living's James Byczek to restore Marr's access. Byczek told the administrative judge at the hearing that there had been no lockout, a claim he repeated to BI. "How is it a lockout if he is in and out of his unit?" Byczek said. After briefly questioning whether he had jurisdictional standing, the administrative law judge, Michael Dudek, sided with Common Living. He wasn't convinced Marr had been locked out for several days, pointing out that the lone police ticket didn't mention the chronic access problems that had preceded it. "Maybe it's a little inconvenient," Dudek said of Marr's tortured access to his unit. "Did he get kicked out? No way." Marr was flabbergasted by the result. (He separately filed a lawsuit against his landlord over the lockout, which remains pending. According to the building's website, Common Living no longer manages the property.) "This is not deterring landlords," he said of Chicago's ticketing process. "I'm a tenant. They're a landlord. I can't get to my unit now. Black and white, that's it." James Byczek, of Common Living, a management company that ran the building where Marr lives, appears for a hearing about Marr's lockout complaint. It was thrown out. Abel Uribe for Business Insider A quick relief option in Nevada Business Insider visited Las Vegas, where tenants have a pathway to fight lockouts that's not dependent on the police. The state of Nevada has a system of justice courts in which a tenant can file a petition for "expedited relief" after an illegal lockout or utility disconnection. The system is designed to offer quick results. But tenants have to move fast, too. By statute, they have at most eight working days to file a complaint and get an independent third party to serve notice to their landlord. In Las Vegas, tenants need to have an email address to make an electronic filing. Last fall, Hearing Master David Brown presided over hearings BI attended virtually and in person at Las Vegas' Regional Justice Center. The sounds of fidgeting children, crying babies, and the occasional snore would sometimes rise above hushed chatter. During one early-November court session, locked-out tenants who filed for expedited relief waited for nearly an hour for their cases to get called: Landlords' formal eviction cases were heard in the same courtroom and got called first. In front of the judge, two long tables with placards reading "tenant/defendant" and "landlord/plaintiff" hinted at how the courts are dominated by landlords seeking evictions rather than tenants seeking redress. At Nevada's justice courts, like this one in Las Vegas, tenants have an unusual pathway: They can petition to regain access to their apartments after a lockout. Bridget Bennett for Business Insider That afternoon, Brown had three cases on his docket in which tenants were alleging they'd been illegally locked out and dozens of cases in which landlords were seeking formal evictions. Nearly two hours in, Brown started calling the lockout complaints. Brown denied one because the tenant hadn't properly served her landlord, which he said violated the landlord's due-process rights. The woman offered up that she had been in the hospital and her home was infested with mold. Brown cut her off: "Ma'am, you're starting to testify," he said. "Today I only can proceed if there is a hearing." Another case met the same fate. That tenant, also a woman, said she had asked the constable to serve her landlord but had been turned away. Brown countered that she should have found another way to serve her landlord. The woman was desperate and tried to plead her case. "I have texts of them saying they'll throw my stuff away," she said. Brown simply directed her to the courthouse's self-help legal center, a sort of help desk. The woman was in tears afterward and told BI she would likely sleep on the streets that night. "It's a hard statute because of the timing," Brown told BI after the hearing. "Sometimes tenants don't know what they're doing." Hearing master David Brown at the Las Vegas Regional Justice Center in November. He tossed multiple cases because tenants failed to properly serve notice to their landlords. Bridget Bennett for Business Insider BI requested data on filings for relief after an illegal eviction since 2019 in the Las Vegas Justice Court. To gauge how often tenants prevailed by filing lockout complaints, BI analyzed the outcomes for 67 cases, a 5% sample. Out of those 67 cases, BI identified 11 petitions where relief was granted, compared with 56 that were denied or dismissed. According to details the courts provided, the most common reason tenant complaints were set aside was tenants failing to file on time or improperly serving their landlords. Others were denied or dismissed over lack of sufficient proof, or because the hearing master judged them irrelevant such as a flooded unit that didn't constitute a lockout. In seven of the complaints BI sampled, the removals were deemed legal after all. BI observed similar patterns in court. One woman filed the wrong court form. Another gave notice of the hearing by email, which the judge didn't consider valid. A third tenant was unaware of the requirement to serve notice. A few tenants did receive help. Two family members were able to stay in their home and won a $600 rent reduction after their landlord admitted to locking a gate to their rental. Two other landlords were ordered to let their tenants back in. No anti-lockout judgment precludes a landlord from pursuing a legal eviction later. Brown heard the case of a woman whose landlord had sent a maintenance worker to change her locks while her 11-year-old daughter was home alone. The landlord had started the eviction process, the judge noted, but shouldn't have changed the locks prematurely. He ruled in the woman's favor and ordered the landlord to change the locks back. "You haven't been removed, so I guess that's the good news," Brown said. "And I guess I'll see you when the case comes before the court." The modest penalties appear to have done little to dissuade landlords from locking tenants out. BI's analysis of data from the Las Vegas Justice Court found at least 100 landlords who faced multiple lockout complaints from 2019 through 2023. A streamlined system in Texas Business Insider examined another state Texas where tenants can file an emergency petition to reenter their home after an illegal eviction, in this case by getting something called a writ of reentry. The Texas process has a key advantage for tenants: They're not burdened with having to serve their landlord before a justice of the peace can make a ruling on their case. The landlord doesn't even have to be present, though they can later contest the findings. BI requested data from 2019 through 2023 on such filings in Harris County, where Houston is the county seat. We received 742 tenant petitions (some of them filed by commercial tenants) and analyzed the outcomes as of March 1. Of those, 326 cases nearly half showed residential tenants were granted an order to get back into their home or their landlords were ordered to turn their utilities back on. In Texas, locked-out tenants can file a complaint with a Justice Court and win a Writ of Re-Entry forcing their landlord to let them back into their home. Harris County Justice Court These orders ranged from judgments for tenants of less than $200 to cover the cost of filing and serving their landlords to same-day orders to let tenants back into their homes. In one case, constable officers tried on more than one day to contact property managers to get a tenant back in. In another, a tenant's successful petition to have her electricity turned back on resulted in fixes to other units as well. Dana Karni, the litigation director at Lone Star Legal Aid in Houston, said few locked out tenants know they can ask a justice court for help. "For every illegal lockout where a tenant actually stands on his or her rights, there are multiple lockouts where a tenant has no idea they have rights," Karni said. And there is little evidence that these outcomes were enough to deter landlords from future lockouts. BI found that at least 26 landlords were sued repeatedly over claims of illegal lockouts, a likely undercount given that landlords are named in a variety of ways. Brooke Boyett, a spokesperson for Harris County's Office of County Administration, declined to comment on the efficacy of the system in dissuading landlords from locking out tenants, referring BI to the court, but noted that the county has put $9 million in COVID recovery funds toward eviction defense. The county's court management office declined to comment. As with Nevada, a Texas landlord can file for a lawful eviction at any time, even after a justice court determines they illegally locked out their tenant. An eviction order overrides one to restore a locked-out tenant to their home. One Houston man was living with his sister; when he decided to move, she locked him out, with all his possessions inside. He complained and was granted a Writ of Re-Entry. Harris County Justice Court Marlon Coleman thought filing a complaint would be his ticket back into his apartment. But he was wrong. Coleman said his property manager, Texas Excel Property Management, cut his electricity in the middle of a Houston summer. With temperatures climbing to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, Coleman left his place in the Greater Inwood neighborhood to stay with family. When he returned a couple of days later, in the evening, his apartment locks were changed, he said, and there was a note from property management saying they would consider the unit abandoned. Coleman's bed, his TV, and most of his clothes, he said, were gone. Coleman called 911. But when the police arrived, he said, they didn't even get out of their squad car, saying there was nothing they could do. Records show his call was closed as civil the same night. Shay Awosiyan, a spokesperson for the Houston Police Department, said Coleman was directed to the "best avenue" after he called. "Mr. Coleman was provided the phone number for the constable's office," Awosiyan said. "Our officer was out there, helped him out, and provided information to him." Coleman said he confronted property managers at Excel's Villa Nueva apartments the next day. "They couldn't give me an explanation," Coleman said. "To be done like this, it's ridiculous." Marlon Coleman said his property manager cut his electricity in the middle of a hot Houston summer. When he returned a few days later, he'd been locked out. Callaghan O'Hare for Business Insider He filed a petition with the court alleging he'd been illegally locked out, asking a judge to order the landlord to let him back in. On the day of his court appearance, he said, a woman representing the landlord told him he'd get a key and a chance to get back his furniture and his other possessions. Coleman's complaint was voluntarily dismissed. But Coleman said he was never let back into his unit. Texas Excel, which manages Villa Nueva Apartments, confirmed Coleman was no longer living at the building but did not respond to additional queries. Leaving the burden on tenants Schreiber, the housing attorney, said housing remedies for tenants are fundamentally flawed. They're not strong enough to deter landlords from locking out tenants. They rarely result in what tenants most want: getting back into their apartments. And they depend entirely on tenants taking legal action on their own behalf in the midst of a crisis. "There needs to be a shift away from burdening tenants with the responsibility to prove they are entitled to habitable condition, access to their homes," she said. "Someone's right to property isn't greater than someone's right to a home." Some cities and counties have sought to strengthen protections against evictions in recent years, only to face a backlash. In 2022, Miami-Dade County passed a tenant's bill of rights that underlines the illegality of lockouts and limits a landlord's ability to harass tenants. It also bars landlords from requiring a prospective tenant to disclose their eviction history on a rental application. The following March, a Republican state senator, Jay Trumbull, introduced a preemption bill specifically to undercut it. "One of the more egregious local ordinances happens to be in Miami-Dade County," Trumbull said on the Senate floor. He had the backing of the local real-estate lobby, Florida Realtors, who have said local laws risk discouraging development and worsening rental costs. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed legislation last year preempting local laws that protect tenants. Joe Raedle/ Getty Images "We supported both of those bills due to their emphasis on the protection of private property rights, which is a priority of our organization," Tom Butler, a spokesperson for Florida Realtors, told BI. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law last June. In Houston, where Coleman was locked out, the city council can't easily enact a law to help tenants like him, either. Texas lawmakers followed Florida's lead in dissolving municipal tenant protections by passing a far-reaching preemption law that nullifies local regulations on not only housing, but also labor, agriculture, finance, and natural resources, if they're inconsistent with state law. The bill's backers argued that it simplified a patchwork of local laws. Detractors called it the "Death Star bill." Dallas and Austin had in recent years passed protections for tenants that included the right to remedy a lease violation or late payment before an eviction is filed. A last-minute amendment took aim at them, explicitly barring local laws that "prohibit, restrict or delay" an eviction. Houston city attorneys challenged the state law, arguing for the right of Texas cities to govern themselves, and a district judge agreed that the law was unconstitutional. But that decision is stayed pending appeal, so the new state law went into effect in September. Since Coleman's failed attempt to reverse the lockout, he has been staying with an uncle in Houston, working at Applebee's as a server. Like Dunn, the Atlanta mother, he must also contend with a recent eviction on his record. Coleman was unaware, until BI told him, that after locking him out, Texas Excel filed a suit for his official eviction. Court documents hint at why he'd been unaware of the filing. A server noted they couldn't make contact with him because his apartment door had a "lock-out device on it." The eviction was still granted. Read the original article on Business Insider Amidst a backdrop of global economic fluctuations and mixed performances in key markets, the Hong Kong stock market has shown resilience, with the Hang Seng Index posting modest gains. This stability presents an intriguing opportunity for investors to consider stocks that may be trading below their fair value, potentially offering attractive returns in a cautiously optimistic economic environment. Top 10 Undervalued Stocks Based On Cash Flows In Hong Kong Name Current Price Fair Value (Est) Discount (Est) Giant Biogene Holding (SEHK:2367) HK$40.70 HK$75.83 46.3% China Cinda Asset Management (SEHK:1359) HK$0.66 HK$1.29 48.8% Super Hi International Holding (SEHK:9658) HK$13.92 HK$26.04 46.5% Shanghai INT Medical Instruments (SEHK:1501) HK$26.45 HK$48.23 45.2% Zhaojin Mining Industry (SEHK:1818) HK$14.98 HK$29.86 49.8% BYD (SEHK:1211) HK$235.20 HK$464.83 49.4% AK Medical Holdings (SEHK:1789) HK$4.34 HK$7.95 45.4% Vobile Group (SEHK:3738) HK$1.20 HK$2.31 48.1% MicroPort Scientific (SEHK:853) HK$5.16 HK$9.48 45.6% Q Technology (Group) (SEHK:1478) HK$4.05 HK$7.45 45.7% Click here to see the full list of 42 stocks from our Undervalued SEHK Stocks Based On Cash Flows screener. Let's take a closer look at a couple of our picks from the screened companies Overview: Pacific Textiles Holdings Limited is a company that manufactures and trades in textile products, with a market capitalization of approximately HK$2.34 billion. Operations: The company generates its revenue primarily from the manufacturing and trading of textile products, totaling approximately HK$4.67 billion. Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 38.3% Pacific Textiles Holdings is currently trading below its fair value by 38.3% at HK$1.67, against a fair value estimate of HK$2.71, highlighting its potential undervaluation based on cash flows. Despite a significant decrease in net profit and a drop in sales from HK$5.02 billion to HK$4.67 billion year-over-year, the company's earnings are expected to grow by 37.7% annually, outpacing the Hong Kong market average growth of 11.3%. However, profit margins have declined and recent corporate governance updates aim to align with new regulatory standards. SEHK:1382 Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024 Overview: Shanghai INT Medical Instruments Co., Ltd. operates in the healthcare sector, focusing on the development and manufacture of medical instruments, with a market capitalization of approximately HK$4.63 billion. Operations: Shanghai INT Medical Instruments primarily generates revenue from its cardiovascular interventional business, totaling CN641.32 million. Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 45.2% Shanghai INT Medical Instruments is significantly undervalued based on DCF, with its current price of HK$26.45 sitting well below the estimated fair value of HK$48.23. The company's revenue and earnings are projected to grow at 26% and 25.4% per year respectively, outstripping the Hong Kong market averages significantly. Despite past shareholder dilution, recent dividend increases reflect a positive cash flow outlook, further underscoring its potential as an undervalued stock in Hong Kongs market. SEHK:1501 Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024 Overview: China International Capital Corporation Limited operates as a financial services provider in Mainland China and globally, with a market capitalization of approximately HK$101.29 billion. Operations: The company generates its revenues from various financial services both in Mainland China and internationally. Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 13.4% China International Capital Corporation Limited, trading at HK$8.19, is positioned below the estimated fair value of HK$9.46, suggesting a modest undervaluation based on discounted cash flow analysis. The company's revenue and earnings growth projections of 8.4% and 20.35% annually are poised to surpass Hong Kong market averages of 7.6% and 11.3%, respectively. However, its forecasted return on equity in three years at 6.9% remains low, indicating potential concerns about profitability efficiency despite positive growth metrics. SEHK:3908 Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024 Turning Ideas Into Actions Embark on your investment journey to our 42 Undervalued SEHK Stocks Based On Cash Flows selection here. Are these companies part of your investment strategy? Use Simply Wall St to consolidate your holdings into a portfolio and gain insights with our comprehensive analysis tools. Discover a world of investment opportunities with Simply Wall St's free app and access unparalleled stock analysis across all markets. Seeking Other Investments? 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. Companies discussed in this article include SEHK:1382 SEHK:3908 and Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Democrat Earl Blumenauer, an avid cyclist, is one of Oregon's six U.S. representatives. He's seen here talking to reporters about a House Democratic infrastructure plan before the party lost control of the chamber in November 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Oregons longest-serving U.S. representative on Wednesday called for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, while other members of Oregons Democratic congressional delegation and nominees are keeping mum. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from east Portland who plans to retire in January after nearly three decades in the House, became the first member of Oregons delegation to take a public stand on Bidens ability to win in November. Blumenauer said the conclusion he and a growing chorus of members of Congress and Democratic donors have reached is not just about extending Bidens presidency but protecting democracy. It is a painful and difficult conclusion but there is no question in my mind that we will all be better served if the president steps aside as the Democratic nominee and manages a transition under his terms, Blumenauer said. He has earned that right. Meanwhile, Oregons other congressional Democrats and nominees have kept quiet or stopped short of either full-throated endorsements of Bidens prospects or calls for him to step aside. The Capital Chronicle sent questions this week to the states two U.S. senators, four Democratic members of Congress and Democratic congressional nominees Janelle Bynum and Maxine Dexter. Dexter did not respond, while Rep. Suzanne Bonamici sent a statement after publication. The reticence of most of Oregons delegation to take a stance on Biden continuing as the nominee reflects national trends, as most congressional Democrats have circled the wagons in response to Bidens insistence that hell remain the nominee. Only eight other Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, have publicly called for Biden to withdraw. Oregons senior senator, Ron Wyden, responded to the Capital Chronicle with a two-sentence statement. Im proud of the results that Democrats and I have delivered with President Biden the last four years here in Oregon and nationwide, he said. Voters in our state and America fired Donald Trump with cause in 2020 and theyre not going to rehire him in 2024. Visibly annoyed But on Capitol Hill, Wyden has been more blunt. The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that Wyden was visibly annoyed that Biden and his advisers ignored Wydens suggestions that the president get out and meet voters in unscripted town halls like the events Wyden holds each year in every county. Instead, Bidens post-debate schedule has consisted mostly of scripted speeches. Sen. Jeff Merkley, meanwhile, focused on former President and current Republican nominee Donald Trump, saying the election was a clear choice between democracy and autocracy. It is Presidents Biden decision whether he will remain in the 2024 race, Merkley said. He has said that he will. As long as hes the nominee, I will do everything I can to help him win. NPR reported Wednesday that Merkley said he shared concerns expressed by Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet during a closed-door meeting that Biden would lose in a landslide and cost Democrats the House and Senate. I think President Biden should look at all of the information and carry on detailed conversations with key leaders, including Leader Schumer and Leader Jeffries, and should do whats best for the nation, Merkley told NPR. Our questions The Capital Chronicle sent these questions to each of the six Democratic members of Oregons congressional delegation and two nominees. Do you still believe President Biden is the best person to defeat Donald Trump? If so, what do you think he needs to do to convince uncertain voters? If not, how do you think the party should handle finding a new nominee? Do you have any concerns about how Bidens poor polling could affect down-ballot races in Oregon? Bonamici, meanwhile, said shes still trying to decide on the best path forward. Defeating Donald Trump remains my top priority, Bonamici said. I am currently speaking with constituents and colleagues to identify the best path forward so we can stop the dangerous Project 2025 agenda and keep building on the many successes of the Biden administration. Rep. Val Hoyle, who was elected in 2022 and faces a potentially tough reelection campaign in the 4th Congressional District in southwest Oregon, reiterated her support for the Biden-Harris administration. Im with the Biden-Harris administration because they have been incredibly effective and Joe Biden has been the single most pro-union President in the history of this country, she said. Trump and Republicans running for the House are more focused on ensuring his downfall than on the safety, security and prosperity of this country. At the end of the day elections are about a choice, and in this case the choice is clear. Biden and his administration have had our back in Oregon and I am going to do all I can to ensure that we protect our democracy which means electing Democrats up and down the ticket. Hoyle also defended Biden during a July 5 interview with Eugene-based KVAL, calling his debate performance awful, disastrous and disappointing but said Biden is still the best choice. We have a man that has said he will be a dictator on day one, that is undermining our election integrity, versus Joe Biden who had a really awful debate performance, Hoyle said during that interview. She dodged a question during that interview about whether she was concerned about Bidens ability to defeat Trump by asking why people werent calling for Trump to step down as Republican nominee. Rep. Andrea Salinas, meanwhile, said Biden should do the best thing for the country, without specifying what that would be. I think President Biden should do what is best for the American people, she said. The reality is that we cannot afford another four years of chaos and tyranny under Donald Trumpand we have to stand united in our efforts to defeat him and protect our democracy. In the meantime, Im staying focused on winning reelection so I can continue delivering for the people of the Sixth District. Bynum, who is running against Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer in the states most competitive congressional district, declined to comment on Biden. This district, not the top of the ticket, is my biggest priority, she said. Thats why Ive developed a reputation in the state as a person who produces results. Unlike Lori Chavez-DeRemer, I put this work delivering for Oregonians first. Ill continue to focus on that. Updated at 7 a.m. Thursday July 11 with a comment from Rep. Suzanne Bonamici SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Repairs were completed Tuesday evening on a water main leak that disrupted service to Gadsden and to communities that are customers of the city's Water Works and Sewer Board. It followed a herculean effort from board personnel, aided by cooperation from agencies not just locally but across Alabama. Gadsden Water Works and Sewer Board personnel are shown July 8, 2024, working to repair a leak in a water main that disrupted service across Gadsden and elsewhere. A similar level of effort, cooperation and coordination was cited earlier Tuesday during the City Council work session and meeting, as officials reviewed the response to the leak that left customers in Gadsden and as far away as Whorton Bend and North Etowah County either without water at all until the leak was valved off, as the heat index reached triple digits, or with insufficient pressure. Chad Hare, the water board's general manager, said a 20-foot section of 20-inch cast iron pipe located between North Fifth and Sixth streets, behind Etowah County's Willie F. Brown Sr. Engineering and Fleet Maintenance Facility, split the whole length of the pipe, sending water shooting into the air. Mayor Craig Ford said during Tuesday's council work session that he was notified of the situation about 3:30 a.m. Monday by Hare and by John Moore, the city's director of economic development and governmental affairs. Ford said he opted to keep City Hall, which was heavily impacted, open because we're a service industry, and by 8:30 a.m. one of the city's portable restrooms was deployed there for employees and customers. Gadsden Water Works and Sewer Board personnel are shown July 8, 2024, working to repair a leak in a water main that disrupted service across Gadsden and elsewhere. The focus then turned to the Colley Homes public housing community, which is located near the leak site, and the adjoining Tuscaloosa Avenue area. City crews brought in another portable restroom, brought in bottled water for residents and set up a cooling station at the Carver Community Center. Meanwhile, water board crews the agency is a separate entity from city government were at work trying to locate the leak. Hare said about 15 people from the water distribution and collection departments worked on the leak itself. Another seven water plant operators were tasked with distribution production at the plant and maintenance department personnel monitored the water levels in the system's tanks to ensure water was available while the work was ongoing. Customer service representatives handled calls from customers. It was a total team effort, Hare said. The valve used to stop the acute problem was provided by the Anniston Water and Sewer Board, he said, and the pipe for the repair came from Athens Utilities. Gadsden Mayor Craig Ford gets a status report on July 8, 2024, as Gadsden Water Works and Sewer Board crews work to repair a leaking water main. We were also contacted by other utilities offering help, Hare said, and the City of Gadsden was awesome in its support. He said he stayed in constant communication with Ford and his own board members during the crisis. Ford called the water board employees real heroes, noting that they were digging ditches with shovels in brutal heat with water shooting up around them. They were doing a fabulous job, he said. The city provided lunch for the crews on Tuesday. We get a lot of flak about the water board and Gadsden's water, Ford said, but we have a fine water department, and I'll go to bat for them all day long. Hare echoed the mayor's praise, saying his crews answered the bell for a daunting, hard task, but they certainly came through. Ford also offered kudos to members of his own staff Moore, Chief of Staff Brett Johnson, Director of City Services Tena King and secretary Melcie Guyton as well as Gadsden-Etowah Emergency Management Agency Director Derek Mummert; Jessie Lindsey in the public affairs office; the city's public affairs, public works and building departments; and the Greater Gadsden Housing Authority. Above all, he praised the city's first responders, noting that members of the police department's Street Crimes Task Force handed out water and Todd Entrekin, working for the city as a consultant, provided vital expertise and knowledge from his time as Etowah County's sheriff. Gadsden Water Works and Sewer Board personnel are shown July 8, 2024, working to repair a leak in a water main that disrupted service across Gadsden and elsewhere. However, the fire department came through in a massive way, using its pumper trucks with support from the Ball Play, Tidmore Bend and Glencoe departments to provide necessary water for hospitals, surgery centers and physician's offices for air conditioning chillers and surgical procedures. Council President Kent Back said Ford's military background a major in the Army National Guard, he's a logistics specialist in charge of units at Fort McClellan, Fort Rucker, Eglin Air Force Base and Redstone Arsenal aided the city's response, noting that essential services were provided in a way that went above and beyond what any of us could imagine. He said the city's good relationship with other agencies and governmental entities also was a plus. Council member Larry Avery, whose District 3 includes the leak site and Colley Homes said he appreciated the patience and cooperation of our businesses and residents during a challenging time, adding, Together, we have demonstrated the resilience that defines our community. This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Crews finish repairs of Gadsden water main Form from the 2020 U.S. Census. A new report warns of threats to the federal systems for collecting and analyzing data and makes recommendations for increasing resources and shielding the national statistical infrastructure from political interference. (Getty Images) The national system of tracking numbers that count births, deaths and countless details in the lives of people and the country between those mileposts is underfunded and in danger of manipulation for political ends, according to a new report released Tuesday. Our bottom-line assessment is that federal statistics are at risk, states the report, produced by the American Statistical Association (ASA) and George Mason University. Federal statistical agencies face increasing challenges to their ability to produce relevant, timely, credible, accurate, and objective statistics and to innovate to the extent necessary to meet the nations information and evidence requirements in the 21st century, the authors write. The report, titled The Nations Data at Risk: Meeting Americas Information Needs for the 21st Century, examines the federal governments 13 principal agencies that produce statistical data information that the report calls essential U.S. infrastructure. It is the first in what the sponsors describe as an ongoing project to measure the health of the federal governments principal statistical agencies. Our professional judgment is that these [federal statistical] agencies have been overlooked in investment and innovation, which we have known for several years but feel now is the time to raise the alarm with data users and taxpayers that the system is at risk, said Steve Pierson, a coauthor of the report and director of science policy at the ASA, in a statement announcing the study. Margo Anderson, a history professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said the report outlines issues that statistics insiders have been concerned about for years. Things are not well on the governmental statistical side, Anderson told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview. Anderson has spent her career studying the demographic and social history of the United States, including the history of the U.S. census, a requirement embedded in the U.S. Constitution. Through that work and her interest in the interrelationship between policy and politics in this country, she has worked closely with the American Statistical Association for decades, although she was not directly involved with the production of the new report. Theyre making the simple argument that you cant write good policy unless you have credible, sufficient, timely and reputable information, Anderson said of the authors. The authors argue that official statistics population, employment and unemployment, jobs, health information including the frequency of specific illnesses, household incomes and much more are not only essential to the nations economic prosperity, but are critical social tools. The importance of this infrastructure goes beyond commerce, the report states. Federal statistics are a core democratic institution, supporting free and fair elections, fair and impartial courts, informed civil discourse, and other vital functions that are not easily replicated by the private sector. While the report enumerates a series of challenges that threaten the nations statistics infrastructure, its not all doom and gloom. It acknowledges grounds for optimism, such as innovations made by federal statistical agencies to meet the needs for rapid data related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The report highlights two pieces of legislation, the 2018 Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act and the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, for provisions responding to the need to modernize how we collect, disseminate, and use information to realize the best value for the many purposes for which federal data are used. Inadequate resources But more work is needed to bolster the statistical system as a whole and enable it to add value for policymakers and the public, the authors write. If federal statistical agencies cannot produce accurate and timely data, policymakers and legislators such as members of Congress will not have trustworthy information or evidence to make essential public policy decisions or administer important programs, they write. Statistical agencies, they argue, need Much more decision-making authority on the methods and processes for collecting, estimating and disseminating statistical data to assure data quality and protect against inappropriate political interference. Strong support from the cabinet departments or other agencies of which the statistical agencies are a part, so the statistical agency can exercise its autonomy appropriately, obtain adequate budget and staffing, and do its best work. Sufficient budget and staff to carry out more than their basic responsibilities, so they can test and develop solutions that meet demands for new, revised, and more detailed information. One of the most important challenges statistical agencies face is inadequate resources, the reports authors contend. Thats an obstacle at the top, where the federal governments chief statisticians office has shrunk from more than 40 staff a half-century ago to 12 today. But it also shows up in other ways, such as the lack of funding to test new methods for measuring some of the core data for which theyre responsible, such as monthly economic metrics. There are also societal and environmental challenges that impede the statistical agencies current work, such as less public cooperation with surveys, a traditional source for data such as monthly unemployment statistics, the report finds. Poorly-defended agency autonomy makes federal statistical agencies vulnerable to political meddling and improper influence, the report states risking their ability to support civil discourse and policymaking as well as an erosion in public trust in the data they produce. Political interference Political interference with government data reporting has been a recurring issue over time, Anderson told the Wisconsin Examiner. There was huge controversy in the 1930s over whether unemployment was a real problem, Anderson said. President Herbert Hoover, in the White House when the Great Depression started, opposed the collection of national unemployment statistics. After Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, he established a central statistics board and assigned it to figure out how to measure the jobless rate. The tool that resulted, the monthly current population survey, took 10 years to develop, Anderson said. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration stopped the Bureau of Labor Statistics from collecting and publishing data on labor strikes, something the government had done for a century, she said. And during his presidency, Donald Trump installed political appointees in the U.S. Census Bureau with the aim of pushing Trumps agenda. The Trump administration did not see that information system of the U.S. as an asset, Anderson said. They saw it as the Deep State that was hampering their policy initiatives. One such initiative was to include a census question asking people to identify if they were citizens or not. That was ultimately blocked in court. A public good The report includes a series of legislative recommendations to expand the agencies autonomy, ensure adequate and sustainable funding, allow agencies to share data more easily while building a shared culture of responsible data access and confidentiality, the report states. Other recommendations focus on how the statistical agencies, their parent agencies and the White House Office of Management and Budget, in which the chief statistician resides, each operate as they participate in managing the nations statistical infrastructure. The Nations Data at Risk heads off the suggestion that private companies can replace the work of government agencies in producing critical national data. Federal statistics are a public good, the report states. Just like our national defense and national parks systems, the public is best served when the federal government collects and disseminates critically needed data. The private sector may produce many useful statistics, but businesses do not commonly have an economic incentive to produce the kinds of comprehensive, high-quality data produced by federal statistical agencies. The report was two years in the making begun long before the publication of the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 document that details a complete overhaul of the federal government should the former president win Novembers election. Project 2025 includes proposals to downsize the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and privatize the National Weather Service. While The Nations Data at Risk wasnt published in direct reaction to the Heritage document, Anderson suggested it serves as a pointed rejoinder. ASA is, in some senses, laying down a marker, saying, We know what youre up to, she said. If you go there, youre going to have to deal with all of us. Correction: This report has been updated to state that in the 1980s the Reagan administration stopped publishing data on labor strikes, not price statistics. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX A $1.25 million life insurance policy for Teena Kamal was changed days before the Dover mother and her teenage daughter, Arianna, were shot dead in December by her husband, Rakesh Kamal, who then turned the gun on himself, the Boston Globe reported. The fax, which was sent to Genworth, a life insurance company in Virginia on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, added Rakesh Kamals brother, Manoj Kamal, as the contingent beneficiary to her policy in the event of Teena Kamals death, the Globe reported. Before the change, the primary beneficiary had been Teena Kamals husband of more than three decades, Rakesh Kamal, also known as Rick. The backup, or contingent, beneficiary was her teenage daughter, Arianna Kamal, the Globe reported. Four days after that fax arrived, on Dec. 28, 2023, authorities said Rick Kamal, 57, Teena Kamal, 54, and their 18-year-old daughter, Arianna Kamal, were found dead in their Dover mansion from an apparent murder-suicide. Since their deaths, a court battle has started over Teena Kamals life insurance payout, with Rick and Teena Kamals families at opposing ends, as the couples troubled finances wind through probate court, the Globe reported. Unbeknownst to even his immediate family, Rick Kamal had amassed massive debt in the years leading up to the murder-suicide, from the mortgage on their $4 million house, to six-figure loans from a family member, to a slew of ill-fated business deals involving associates in the Boston area and beyond, the Globe reported. After the Kamals deaths, Ricks brother, Manoj Kamal, filed a claim to collect the payout from Teena Kamals policy, the Globe reported. Teenas brother, Sandeep Bedi, who is administering her estate, also contacted the life insurance company with concerns about the circumstances of the deaths and the change of beneficiary form. Genworth in April asked a federal court in Boston to decide who should get the proceeds of the policy, the Globe reported. Manoj Kamal and Sandeep Bedi have until Aug. 2 to respond to Genworths filing, either by reaching a settlement or taking steps toward a civil trial. Court documents show the Kamals were facing financial troubles in the months leading up to the apparent murder-suicide. In September 2022, Teena Kamal filed for Ch. 13 bankruptcy, listing liabilities between $1 million and $10 million, according to filings in federal bankruptcy court. The bankruptcy case was dismissed a month later after Teena Kamal failed to comply with court orders, documents show. Wilsondale Associates LLC was listed as a creditor listed among the bankruptcy filings. Assessors records show the Kamals sold the home at 8 Wilsons Way to Wilsondale Associates in December 2022 for $3 million, well below the towns assessed property value of $6.8 million. According to the Globe, the Kamals lived in a 21-room mansion in Dover that included a spa, a movie theater, and a pool. The Kamals purchased the home in Feb. 2019 for $4 million, most of it borrowed. A $3.8 million mortgage taken from its builder was due in full in two years. The Kamals, who were served an order to vacate the Dover mansion in late Dec. 2022, were served with eviction proceedings in May 2023, the Globe reported. By December 2023, Metro South Housing Court issued an order to Wilsondale allowing the company to enforce the Kamals eviction, according to the Globe. Rick Kamal, a 1987 graduate of Boston College who worked as a software developer and entrepreneur, had been talking with a listing agent about buying a $16.5 million waterfront estate on Chickamauga Lake in Tennessee since Oct. 2022, the Globe reported. The family had also toured that house last August. Teena had no clue that there were financial problems, her brother, Sandeep Bedi, told the Boston Globe. She thought that they were rolling in money. Rick Kamal had previously worked for Fidelity Investments in Boston alongside Teena, whom he wed by arranged marriage, according to the Globe. Autopsy results in January indicated that Teena Kamal, and her daughter Arianna Kamal, were victims of homicide by gunshot, investigators said in January. Rick Kamal died of a gunshot wound that was consistent with being self-inflicted. Investigators allege Rick Kamal fatally shot his wife and daughter with an unregistered .40 caliber Glock 22 that troopers found near his body. The firearm was not registered to Mr. Kamal and he was not licensed to possess it, the Norfolk County District Attorneys Office said in January. Officers responding to a 911 call at 8 Wilsons Way just before 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 28, 2023 spoke with a relative who stopped by the house for a well-being check and found Rick, Teena, and Arianna dead inside, according to authorities. Arianna Kamal, a 2023 graduate of Milton Academy, was a first-year student at Middlebury College in Vermont when she was killed. Her mother, Teena, served as president of Milton Academys Upper School Parents Association and also on the regional board of the American Red Cross of Massachusetts. Dover is an affluent community in Norfolk County, west of Dedham and southwest of Boston. The towns population was 5,923 at the 2020 U.S. Census. 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 Prisoner who escaped from Warren County rest stop back in custody WARREN COUNTY, Mo. A prisoner who escaped custody Monday night at a Warren County rest stop is now back in custody. Authorities say Steven Woodson, 35, escaped from a rest stop off of Interstate 70 around 8:30 p.m. Monday as he was being transported from Nebraska to North Carolina. The Wright City Police Department tells FOX 2 that Woodson was arrested in nearby Jonesburg, Missouri around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. Woodson is currently being held in Warren County as he awaits extradition to North Carolina. Manchester Police Chief placed on administrative leave amid investigation A private transport service was taking Woodson from Douglas County, Nebraska, to the Orange County jail in Hillsboro, North Carolina, prior to his escape. The Missouri State Highway Patrol told FOX 2 on Tuesday that Woodson was wearing a white t-shirt and black pants as he escaped. He also had multiple tattoos covering his face, arms and back. This is a developing story. FOX 2 will update as more information becomes available. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. Kroger and Albertsons have released a list of North Texas grocery stores it would sell if their merger is approved, including multiple locations in Arlington and elsewhere in Tarrant County. The grocery giants announced plans in fall 2022 for Kroger to acquire Albertsons for $24.6 billion. The proposal was initially met with some public opposition and is still pending approval from federal regulators. With a total of 5,000 stores, a Kroger-Albertsons merger would position the chain competitively against the countrys largest grocers, Walmart, Amazon and Costco. Kroger and Albertsons each operate a family of other grocery banners, including Tom Thumb, Ralphs, Harris Teeter, Fred Meyer, King Soopers, Safeway and Vons. If regulators approve the merger, Kroger and Albertsons would sell hundreds of stores to New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers, including 28 locations in Texas. The Federal Trade Commission has raised red flags about the proposed deal, saying it could diminish competition, raise consumer prices and lower wages. C&S is a grocery supplier to more than 7,500 independent supermarkets and chain stores. It has promised to honor collective bargaining agreements and benefits for employees of the stores it purchases. Ohio-based Kroger has more than 200 stores in Texas, clustered in the Metroplex and the Houston metro. Kroger employs more than 30,000 workers in the state. Idaho-based Albertsons has more than 40 stores in Texas, as well as 65 Tom Thumbs. Here is the list of stores the companies say they plan to divest: Market Street 985 W. Bethany Drive, Allen Albertsons 6220 U.S. 287, Arlington Albertsons 301 S.W. Plaza Shopping Center, Arlington Tom Thumb 1701 W. Randol Mill Road, Arlington Tom Thumb 2755 N. Collins St., Arlington Tom Thumb 6333 E. Mockingbird Lane, Dallas Albertsons 2321 W. University Drive, Denton Albertsons 1155 N. Main St., Euless Market Street 3800 Long Prairie Road, Flower Mound Tom Thumb 4301 Cross Timbers Road, Flower Mound Market Street 11999 Dallas Parkway, Frisco Market Street 4268 Legacy Drive, Frisco Tom Thumb 4848 Preston Road, Frisco Tom Thumb 5550 FM 423, Frisco Randalls 2931 Central City Blvd., Galveston Randalls 14610 Memorial Drive, Houston Tom Thumb 612 Grapevine Highway, Hurst Tom Thumb 1000 Keller Parkway, Keller Market Street 3145 E. Broad St., Mansfield Market Street 6100 W. Eldorado Parkway, McKinney Tom Thumb 6800 W Virginia Parkway, McKinney Tom Thumb 1501 Pioneer Road, Mesquite Tom Thumb 3945 Legacy Drive, Plano Tom Thumb 1380 W. Campbell Road, Richardson Tom Thumb 3070 N. Goliad, Rockwall Tom Thumb 551 Laurence Drive, Rockwall Albertsons 1201 N. Saginaw Blvd., Saginaw Tom Thumb 101 Trophy Lake Drive, Trophy Club Rep. Celeste Maloy, R-Utah, listens as Colby Jenkins speaks during Utah's 2nd Congressional district debate on Monday, June 10, 2024, at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City. (Scott G. Winterton/The Deseret News via AP, Pool) SALT LAKE CITY (AP) The Republican primary race to represent Utahs 2nd District in Congress narrowed into recount territory on Tuesday after dueling endorsements from influential Republicans created a conundrum for voters who had little time to get to know the incumbent before casting ballots. The Associated Press declared the race between U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy and challenger Colby Jenkins too close to call after nearly all counties in the district certified results on Tuesday. Maloy, who is seeking her first full term in Congress after winning a special election last fall, had a lead of about 220 votes over Jenkins. That margin of 0.2 percentage points put the race within the recount zone, which in Utah is when the difference in votes for each candidate is equal to or less than 0.25% of the total number of votes cast. I know were in potential recount territory, but I dont anticipate that a recount will change the outcome, said Maloy, who addressed reporters on Zoom from Washington, D.C. I have confidence in the county clerks and their teams and the way theyve done their jobs. Maloy has tried to leverage a late endorsement from former President Donald Trump to undercut the conservative credentials of her challenger, who spent much of the campaign touting his loyalty to Trump. Jenkins, a retired U.S. Army officer and telecommunications specialist, defeated Maloy earlier this year at the state GOP convention, which typically favors the farthest-right candidates. He got the nod from delegates after earning the support of Utahs right-wing U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, but he did not win by a wide enough margin to bypass the primary. Jenkins had been trailing Maloy in the two weeks since Election Day, watching his opponent's lead gradually shrink until it was within bounds to request a recount. There are many ballots in our southern Utah stronghold that have still yet to be counted due to postmarking issues," Jenkins told the AP in a text message. "After the final state canvass, we intend to request a recount to ensure that every last vote in the district has been counted. Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the states chief election officer, said the recount process may begin after the statewide canvass on July 22. Jenkins will have a week to file a formal request, and the recount must be conducted within a week of that submission, she said. All ballots will be recounted, all uncounted ballots will be reexamined and election officials from each county will tabulate their results. Maloy's primary victory would notch Trump his only win of this election cycle in Utah, a rare Republican stronghold that has not fully embraced his grip on the GOP. A Jenkins win would mean all of Trump's picks in Utah lost their primaries this year. A Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidate lost to the more moderate U.S. Rep. John Curtis in the race for Sen. Mitt Romneys open seat. Many others who aligned themselves with the former president, in Utah and beyond, have lost recent primaries, dealing a blow to Trumps reputation as a Republican kingmaker. The 2nd District groups liberal Salt Lake City with conservative St. George and includes many rural western Utah towns tucked between the two cities. Democratic voters in and around the capital city make it the least red of Utahs four congressional districts, which are all represented by Republicans. But the Republican primary winner is still favored to win in November over Democratic nominee and family law attorney Nathaniel Woodward. The district has not been represented by a Democrat since 2013. The Utah Democratic Party chose Woodward in late May to replace its previous nominee who withdrew from the race after party members criticized him for defending some participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Maloy, who lives just north of Zion National Park in Cedar City, began her career at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, working to conserve natural resources, improve water quality and manage nutrients in the vast farmlands of southwest Utah. As an attorney, she specialized in public land issues involving soil and water and land ownership. In her brief congressional tenure, she has served on subcommittees focusing on water resources and rural development. Jenkins repeatedly attacked Maloy on the campaign trail for voting in favor of recent bipartisan spending bills. The congresswoman defended her voting record, noting that those deals were negotiated by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who she said is the most conservative speaker of the House weve had in my lifetime. Republicans are heading to Wisconsin next week for their national convention, underscoring the importance of a battleground state that will help determine the presidency this fall. The Republican National Convention is set to kick off on Monday in Milwaukee, a liberal stronghold in a largely purple state that Donald Trump narrowly lost to President Biden in 2020 by just over 20,000 votes. Wisconsin is one of the handful of states that has flipped back and forth between the last two presidential elections, so for a party thats concerned about winning the Electoral College, this is a state where they would naturally look, explained Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Republicans are set to officially coronate Trump as their 2024 nominee. Wisconsin was one of the critical battleground states to deliver the former presidents win in 2016 by roughly 22,000 votes. It also constructed the Blue Wall that flipped for Biden four years later. But Bidens disastrous debate performance in Atlanta has raised concerns that the event could jeopardize his path back to the White House in key states like Wisconsin. An aggregate of polls from The Hill and Decision Desk HQ shows Biden leading Trump by a hair, 47 percent to 46 percent. Meanwhile, Democrats are also looking to hold onto Sen. Tammy Baldwins (D) seat in the upper chamber, making Wisconsin one of the crucial states in an election that will likely hinge on just a handful of battlegrounds. Recent polling has shown the president faring better in Wisconsin compared to the other battleground states. An aggregate of Pennsylvania polls from The Hill and Decision Desk HQ shows Trump leading in Bidens birth state by 4 points; in Arizona, the aggregate shows Trump leading Biden 4 points and in Georgia, by roughly 3 points. The only state where Biden appears to be faring just as competitively as Wisconsin is Michigan, where the polling average between Biden and Trump shows the two essentially tied at 47 percent. Though its too soon to tell whether Bidens first debate performance against Trump about two weeks ago may have damaged his standing in the race long term, some surveys have started to suggest the president will see a dip in the state. An AARP Wisconsin poll, conducted by Fabrizio Ward and Impact Research and released on Tuesday, showed Trump leading Biden in a head-to-head matchup 50 percent to 45 percent. When theyre placed on the full ballot with several other long-shot candidates, Trump leads the president 44 percent to 38 percent. Burden said there wasnt an easy explanation for why Biden seemed to fare better in Wisconsin polling versus other battleground states. Still, the president still had his work cut out for him in the Badger State. It seems to me as though Trump has his arms around the Republican electorate more convincingly than Biden does around Democrats, and thats even before the debate performance from a couple of weeks ago, the Wisconsin political science professor explained. Both candidates are keenly aware of the importance of Wisconsin in the race to the White House. Trump has traveled to the Badger State three times alone this year; Biden has traveled to Wisconsin five times, most recently last week, when he held a rally in Madison. Wisconsin, too, will play an important role in the road to the Senate majority with Baldwin up for reelection. For now, the seat is favored to remain in Democratic hands, with the nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report rating her seat lean Democrat. Baldwin was notably absent from the presidents rally in Madison last week due to a preplanned statewide tour conflict, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Wisconsin Democrat declined to weigh in on Bidens candidacy during a campaign event on Sunday, saying Im focused on my own campaign right now and its his decision, WKOW reported. She noted she would be fighting for the entire Democratic ticket. Some Democrats say the bedwetting is nothing new but feel still feel confident with Biden in the race. Both sides, frankly, have work to do because both sides have challenges unique to their candidacy. And all of that said I would still rather be Joe Biden than Donald Trump, because Democrats have won 14 of the last 17 statewide races here, said Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki. [Tammy] Baldwin was an incredibly strong candidate who I think will help Joe Biden, in the same way that [Sen.] Ron Johnson helped Donald Trump in 2016. At the same time, a not insignificant portion of voters cast ballots for somebody other than Trump during the GOP primary in April, with roughly 20 percent voting for Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie or the option of uninstructed delegate. Republicans suggest many of those Wisconsin voters will eventually come back to the base. Trump was aided by the fact that Haley endorsed the former president and urged for her delegates to recommit to Trump during the RNC. If youre motivated enough to go vote in a presidential primary, youre probably likely to come home to your partys candidates, but not all of it will, said GOP strategist Mark Graul. I think there are more options for the dissatisfied Democrats than there are for dissatisfied Republicans to be honest, he added. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. An emergency land-use ordinance that would have removed some regulatory barriers to allow more temporary homeless shelters to be built in unincorporated Pierce County failed Tuesday afternoon in a split vote. Democrats Ryan Mello, Robyn Denson, Jani Hitchen and Marty Campbell voted in favor. Republicans Dave Morell, Paul Herrera and Amy Cruver voted against. At least five members needed to vote in favor for the emergency ordinance for it to pass. There were no amendments proposed. The vote came after nearly two hours of public comment. There was emotional testimony from shelter organizers, people who are currently homeless in Pierce County, people who have benefited from shelter services, as well as other residents, the majority of whom spoke in favor of the ordinance. Some who testified against the measure said the county shouldnt prioritize helping the homeless community over other law-abiding citizens and should take a more aggressive approach to crime and mental health treatment. The emergency ordinance, sponsored by Mello, Denson and Hitchen, would have made it easier to build more emergency shelters by removing some regulatory barriers for Temporary Housing Communities. Temporary Housing Communities include tent encampments, tiny-house encampments, outdoor encampments, emergency-shelter sites and stability sites. Mello clarified in the meeting that Temporary Housing Communities are not unsanctioned homeless encampments and cited examples of successes existing Pierce County tiny-home villages have seen with rules, on-site case managers, services, housing and employment help. Under the ordinance Temporary Housing Communities would still have been regulated by Pierce County and required approval from the director of Human Services. If the ordinance had passed, it would have gone into effect for six months, with the possibility of another six-month extension after a public hearing and findings of fact. Discussion to continue next week In the meeting Mello, Denson, Hitchen and Campbell said the council needs to take more immediate steps to address the lack of available shelter space in the county, emphasizing that the county saw a 23% increase in homelessness from last year, a record. In 2023, 295 people experiencing homelessness died while unsheltered in Pierce County, according to the Tacoma/Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness. Thats a 77% increase from 167 people who died in 2022, as previously reported by The News Tribune. The Democrats on the council expressed frustration at the pace the council has taken to address homelessness and called upon Republicans to support the ordinance or bring forward amendments. I certainly hope we get a fifth vote tonight because this is not political theater. This is real people, real lives, real projects, Mello said before the roll-call vote. If we let politics get in the way and misinformation get in the way, Im going to be incredibly disappointed that folks are not putting their responsibility to house our community and add one more solution to the toolkit. Before the vote, Herrera expressed concerns about veterans being used as political pawns in the shelter debate and worried about the impact of stability sites on neighbors. He also expressed concern about whether building more stability sites in unincorporated Pierce County would make it harder for people experiencing homelessness to find services or use public transportation. Cruver said there is a need for shelters but added, The need isnt going to be fulfilled by building and building and building in rural areas. Cruver also expressed concerns about the cost to maintain shelters as well as the homeless-industrial complex at large. I dont know what the answer is, because all over the world weve got humans that are exposed to the elements, and theres just no easy fix to the human condition, she said. This isnt really an emergency. Theres decades of poor decisions that are made by the government and people, and this is life. Anyone can find themselves without shelter, and I think its unreasonable to change our codes by claiming an emergency because its giving the illusion that we only care about a specific group. Next week Mello said the council would be hearing another ordinance about Temporary Housing Communities with input from Planning and Public Works director Jen Tetatzin, who said at the meeting her department was not invited to assist in the drafting of this ordinance, and we havent had a lot of time to digest it. Tetatzin said Tuesday evening her staff would love to work with the council to add amendments to the ordinance to ensure that we can both support implementation of your intent and reduce the countys risk. Shelter projects at risk At least two known shelter projects would have benefited from the interim regulation proposed Tuesday. A tiny-home village the Low Income Housing Institute is building in Spanaway is awaiting land-use approval, and the FOB Hope Veterans Homeless Village is still looking for a new site after the land it once used was reclaimed by Tacoma Public Utilities. A Pierce County Council staff report dated July 9 said LIHI has encountered regulatory barriers in the permitting process that have prevented siting in Spanaway. Additionally, $2.5 million of American Rescue Plan Act funding previously allocated by the council for a stability site could be returned to the federal government if it is not allocated under contract by the end of the year. Pierce County senior policy analyst Erika Rhett Hunt told the council in several July study sessions the ordinance was considered an emergency given the most recent Homeless Point-in-Time count, which showed a 23% increase in homelessness compared to 2023, with 59.4% more of those people living in unsheltered conditions (like on the streets or in a tent or their vehicle). Only the Pierce County Executive, Bruce Dammeier, has the power to declare a local state of emergency on homelessness, which has not happened. With the upcoming closure of Pierce Countys only sanctioned Veterans tent encampment, Forward Operating Base, existing shelter space is expected to decrease, the staff report said. In the absence of emergency shelter or permanent housing, people are at risk of living in unsanctioned encampments that may be exposed to the elements, lack of sanitation, hygiene facilities and safety and exposure to extreme weather, vectors of disease and violent crime. Regulatory barriers that prevent the establishment of emergency housing and emergency shelters were identified by the Planning and Public Works Department and are already part of the departments work plan. The regulations wouldnt be due for adoption until Dec. 31, which means they wouldnt be updated in time for ARPA dollars to be spent, according to the staff report. What would the ordinance have changed? The interim emergency regulations were based on Pierce Countys existing Safe Parking regulations, which include general provisions for site safety, security, operations, sanitation, on-site supervision, code of conduct, background checks and public notice. The regulations also were based on best practices in other cities that have seen success in running emergency-shelter sites, including Tacoma, Shoreline and Bellingham, the July 9 staff report said. Under the changes religious organizations, nonprofits and government entities could apply for a Memorandum of Understanding to create a Temporary Housing Community. After review from the Human Services director and a community meeting with neighbors, an approved Temporary Housing Community would be authorized to operate for 180 days (an increase from the current 90-day maximum), with a possible 180-day extension, according to the report. Site standards would include a maximum of 100 inhabitants based on area (an increase from a prior 60 inhabitants maximum), a fence enclosure, an on-site operations manager present 24 hours a day, no new permanent structures, a resident screening requirement for active warrants for violent or sex offenses, minimum standards for hygiene facilities, approved areas for food storage and preparation, approved fire and emergency safety measures, adequate waste disposal, shoreline buffers and two parking spaces per 25 residents, among others. The idea is these sites would be low-barrier, but operators could create their own screening criteria and rules, Rhett Hunt clarified at a July 2 study session. The ordinance does not explicitly prohibit drug or alcohol use on site, but does require applicants submit a written code of conduct for inhabitants, site managers, sponsors and volunteers, as well as an operations and security plan prior to approval, according to the measure. Rhett Hunt said the ordinance doesnt specify what social services operators have to provide to residents, but says the site provider should be preparing the occupants to find more permanent housing solutions during its operations. Efforts made to transition people into other temporary, long-term or more stable housing, as well as a report documenting the status of jobs, skills or behavioral training would be documented in a report to the Human Services director to review upon approval of contract extensions, the ordinance said. The dueling campaign emails that landed in my inbox back to back Monday afternoon captured the whipsaw essence of this ridiculous race. "Joe Biden is dropping out of the race!" the email from former President Donald Trump's campaign declared. "You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. It can happen at any moment." President Joe Biden's campaign offered this counter-declaration from him in an email nine minutes later: "Let me be clear: I'm running. I'm the Democratic Party's nominee. No one is pushing me out. I'm not leaving." Both asked for donations that they said they need to beat the other guy. But Biden is also asking for something else from his supporters the kind of pass Republicans give Trump and his troubled bid for a second term. Will Democrats give Biden the same pass Republicans give Trump? President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrive at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on July 7, 2024. That's a tall order. I'm not so sure Biden catches that kind of a break from Democrats seriously freaked out by his disastrous debate performance, followed by days of limited, scripted appearances and then a 22-minute ABC News interview that did nothing to reset his campaign. There's a reason for that, which probably seems unfair to many Democrats hoping Biden stays in the race. The Democratic Party these days holds its candidates far more accountable than the Republican Party does. Sorry, but politics has never been an endeavor rooted in a foundation of fair play. You know who can change that approach to candidates? Democrats. Biden fails in critical moment: Biden's attempt to save his campaign and presidency was too underwhelming for the moment They're the only people with the power to give Biden the sort of pass that Republicans give Trump, an immensely popular candidate who in the past year has become a convicted felon, was held liable in a civil case for sexual assault and faces fines of $454 million for running a business rife with fraud. But here's the catch: A crucial Democratic argument for giving Biden a second term plays into the understandable trepidation that a second Trump term invokes. Biden has been previously cast as competent and stable, the opposite of Trump's autocratic irascibility. But if Democrats treat Biden the way Republicans treat Trump, looking past the president's very evident physical and mental issues, then drawing distinctions between the two candidates goes all fuzzy. Remember when Hillary Clinton had pneumonia? Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton debate in St. Louis, Mo., in 2016. There's nothing new about this. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to keep quiet about the pneumonia she was suffering from in September 2016 while battling Trump for the White House. That went sideways when she was spotted nearly collapsing in public. Clinton took all kinds of heat as Trump reveled in her brief medical crisis, claiming she lacked the stamina to be president and required "naps" on the campaign trail. His supporters ate that up. Did they care eight years later when Trump had a hard time keeping his eyes open through his own criminal trial? They did not. The closest Trump ever came to accountability was in October 2016, when the infamous Access Hollywood videotape leaked and voters heard the would-be president boasting about getting away with groping women. Some Republicans briefly suggested that Trump should drop his bid for the presidency. He flatly refused. Sound familiar? And why? Because Trump had already correctly claimed that there was a significant portion of the Republican Party that would never dare to hold him accountable for anything. SCOTUS immunity ruling helps Biden: The Supreme Court just did Biden a huge favor by giving Trump immunity Consider one of Trump's most memorable boasts in the 2016 election: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters," Trump told supporters in Iowa that January. Trump supporters have been consistent in their forgiveness Former President Donald Trump campaigns for reelection in Grand Rapids, Mich., on April 2, 2024. Trump isn't just forgiven for demolishing norms and standards in American politics. A big chunk of his supporters celebrate it. This very vocal minority of Americans revel in Trump's distaste for civility and disregard for anyone in pursuit of his ambition. Trump showed up for the first debate in 2020 in the middle of A pandemic after a positive COVID-19 test but didn't share that publicly. While hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment, Trump forced Secret Service agents to pile into the presidential limousine so they could drive around the block, letting him wave to assembled supporters. 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. On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump sat sullenly in the White House, watching his supporters attack police officers during the riot at the U.S. Capitol. He spent hours shrugging off pleas from allies to intervene and stem the chaos. Ask Trump supporters about all that, and they'll flip the accountability on anyone but Trump. They'll pivot to complain about efforts to contain the coronavirus and suggest the Capitol riot was some sort of setup. Democrats will soon have to rally behind Biden, like it or not And Democrats? Members of the U.S. House and Senate spent this week arguing in private and staking out positions in public. They all want to defeat Trump. Not all of them think Biden is up to that. President Joe Biden addresses a 2024 Fourth of July celebration at the White House for military and veteran families, caregivers and survivors. Biden has rejected calls to step aside, and Vice President Kamala Harris has shown no inkling or political leverage to push him off the ticket. The Democrats don't want a convention fight in Chicago next month, so they're stuck with Biden unless he upstages his debate debacle with another public calamity. Biden has nearly 40 days until the Democratic Party makes the presidential nomination official and nearly four months until November's election. In a normal election year, that would look like plenty of time to right the ship. Nothing about this election year is normal. The presumptive Republican nominee is a criminal campaigning on a promise of "retribution." The presumptive Democratic nominee is an incumbent fighting some in his own party for political survival. Now we wait to see if Democrats can move like Republicans here. If Biden makes it to the convention and then to November's ballot, Democrats might have to load the gun, take him to Fifth Avenue, choose a target and hope his aim is true. Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden, Democrats need to focus to beat Trump: Election is almost here Republicans want to hear shielded interview tapes of Biden. Heres what we know about the recordings Republican lawmakers say the Biden administration is refusing to release a set of audio recordings that could help settle the debate over whether President Joe Biden's faltering performance at last month's presidential debate was just a one-off "bad night," as he has repeatedly claimed. "We all know why they don't want to turn over the audio because it will ... show exactly what we all saw on the debate stage a couple weeks ago," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, told reporters on Tuesday. "That is something they want to cover up." The recordings capture Biden's two-day interview last October with then-special counsel Robert Hur, who ultimately concluded that while Biden improperly retained classified documents, he shouldn't be charged with any crimes because -- unlike former president Donald Trump, who was indicted for allegedly hoarding hundreds of classified documents and then trying to cover it up -- Biden cooperated with investigators and would likely convince a jury that he made "an innocent mistake." Trump, meanwhile, has denied all charges. MORE: Biden asserts executive privilege over audio of interview with special counsel Hur Nearly two years ago, caches of classified documents from Biden's time in the Obama administration and the Senate were found in his Delaware home and in private offices elsewhere, prompting Hur's probe. In his recorded interview with investigators, Biden appeared to be a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," and that's how he would likely appear to a jury, Hur wrote in his final report. Democrats and the White House immediately blasted Hur for making what they insisted were unfair and inaccurate conclusions. Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, demanded the audio recordings, claiming that to fulfill their oversight responsibilities they wanted to assess for themselves the evidence that Hur used to reach his conclusions. White House Counsel Ed Siskel later said Republicans had no "legitimate need" for the recordings and likely only wanted them to "chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes." PHOTO: President Joe Biden during a campaign event in Madison, Wisconsin, July 5, 2024. (Mustafa Hussain/Bloomberg via Getty Images) In response to Republican demands, the Justice Department released a transcript of Biden's interview to Congress, but Biden -- at Attorney General Merrick Garland's behest -- asserted executive privilege over the recordings to shield them from release. Then the presidential debate happened -- raising new questions over whether Biden could handle another four years as commander-in-chief. "Most of us are concerned ... about President Biden's health," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told CBS News on Sunday. "I want those tapes released." As early as this week, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., could try to push forward a resolution she drafted to hold Garland in "inherent contempt" of Congress, which Luna has said would draw on rarely-used legislative branch authority to fine Garland $10,000 a day until he hands over the recordings. Her effort is controversial even within Republican ranks, and it's unclear if it would succeed. But if it did, the Justice Department could try to challenge it in court. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment to for this story, and the White House counsel's office did not respond to questions from ABC News, including whether Biden would now consider allowing the recordings to be released. What could the recordings show? Testifying before lawmakers in March, Hur said that the recordings of Biden's interview -- which began the day after Hamas launched its large-scale attack on Israel -- "were part of the evidence, of course, that I considered in coming to my conclusions." Hur's conclusions were blunt: The president showed "diminished faculties and faulty memory" during his five hours with Hur's team, at times exhibiting "limited precision and recall," Hur wrote in his final report. Even six years earlier, in recorded conversations with a ghostwriter that Hur obtained, Biden was "often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries," Hur wrote. "In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse." Hur, in his final report, wrote, "It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict [Biden] ... of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness." Republicans say Americans who are worried about Biden's fitness for office deserve more than a written report and a transcript. MORE: Transcript from documents probe contradicts Biden's account of exchange with Hur over son's death Last week, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee filed a federal lawsuit in Washington to obtain the recordings, saying that there are "inherent limits of a cold transcript" and that audio recordings can provide "verbal and nonverbal context" such as tone and pace. "The audio recordings, not the cold transcripts, are the best available evidence of how President Biden presented himself during the interview," the lawsuit says. "The Committee thus needs those recordings to assess the Special Counsel's characterization of the President, which he and White House lawyers have forcefully disputed." Republican lawmakers aren't the only ones pushing for the recordings to be released. In March, the conservative groups Judicial Watch and The Heritage Foundation filed federal lawsuits in Washington seeking the recordings and other case materials under the Freedom of Information Act. Shortly afterward, CNN filed a similar lawsuit, which a dozen other news organizations, including ABC News, then joined. "The subsequent release of the interview transcript has made it possible for the press and public to somewhat assess Hur's description of Biden for themselves," the lawsuit says. "Transcripts, however, are no substitute for recordings, which reveal 'intonations, hesitancies, inflections, and tone of voice.'" It's unclear if any of the legal cases could be resolved before the presidential election in November. A 'chilling' effect? In May, after Garland recommended it, Biden asserted executive privilege over the recordings. Then, last month, the Republican majority in the House referred Garland to the Justice Department for prosecution after Garland refused to turn over the recordings despite a congressional subpoena. But the Justice Department declined to move forward with the case. According to the Justice Department, the law enforcement interest in keeping the recordings private outweighs any other public interest. In particular, releasing the audio recordings could "chill witness cooperation in future, high-profile investigations," Garland has said. "It is our view that we need witnesses to be willing to be audio recorded and they are going to be less willing to if they know it is going to be made public," Garland told lawmakers last month. MORE: Special counsel won't charge Biden in classified docs probe, despite evidence he 'willfully retained' materials Biden's case, however, is unique: For him, the interviewee is the one with the authority to waive executive privilege, which would essentially give the Justice Department permission to release the recordings of himself. Nevertheless, the Justice Department has also pointed to another law enforcement interest in keeping the recordings private: concern that enemies of the United States could manipulate them. "If the recording of President Biden's interview were released, there is substantial risk that malicious actors could alter the record to (for example) insert words that President Biden did not say or delete words that he did say," a senior Justice Department official wrote in a declaration submitted in court in May. Using widely available technologies, malicious actors could even "create an audio deepfake in which a fake voice of President Biden can be programmed to say anything that the creator of the deepfake wishes," the official added. MORE: House Republicans vote to hold Garland in contempt over Biden interview audio Meanwhile, Garland told Republicans last month that he has "not been shown any reason why audio evidence of demeanor would make a difference in any legislative purpose that you have." "You have yet to suggest any law that you intend to pass or are thinking about in which the audio would make a difference over the transcript," he said. In their lawsuit, House Republicans called Biden's executive privilege claim a "self-serving attempt to shield the audio recording" from becoming public. "Any privilege that could conceivably apply to President Biden's interview with the Special Counsel was waived when the Executive Branch released a transcript of that interview," the lawsuit argued. The Justice Department has until the end of next month to respond to the suit. ABC News' Lauren Peller and John Parkinson contributed to this report. Republicans want to hear shielded interview tapes of Biden. Heres what we know about the recordings originally appeared on abcnews.go.com (Getty Images) RICHMOND Michael, a resident of Richmonds Southside who declined to share his last name, sat on Forest Hill Avenue waiting for a bus Tuesday just before 2 p.m., when a car thermometer recorded the temperature at 94 degrees. Michael wasnt waiting under a bus shelter as he headed home from a doctors appointment. Rather, he was sitting underneath a narrow sign that provided a sliver of shade as the sun beamed down. Theres very little shade right here, said Michael, who added additional cooling centers would help alleviate heat stress in the city. They dont have cooling stations everywhereits hot everywhere. Scientific journal GeoHealth recently published a report detailing the number of heat-related health emergencies and the inequitable effects of urban heat exposure in Virginias capital city. Researchers found Black people in Richmond have experienced disproportionate heat-related illnesses during the warmer months of the year, while communities they live in have historically received little investment to help them keep cool. While human-caused climate change is driving average global temperatures to rise, some communities and neighborhoods in Richmond, Virginia experience hotter temperatures than others, the research paper stated, largely due to a pattern of government disinvestment in Black and low-income neighborhoods. Hotter, less resourced neighborhoods experience more heat-related health emergencies like heat stroke and heat exhaustion. The research relied on Emergency Medical Services data reported to the Virginia Department of Health that found there were 492 heat-related incidents between May and September from 2016 to 2022. Of those, Black or African-American patients counted for 306, or 62% of the incidents, despite comprising only 39.9% of the citys population. Conversely, white patients made up 32.9% of the incidents while comprising 42% of the population. The research also mapped the citys cooling centers, which include nine libraries, and three centers that are opened when temperatures rise above 95 degrees. About 53.9% of the heat-related illnesses occurred within a 1.4 km, or .8 mile, walk of the centers, the report found a distance that takes about 15 minutes for a fast walker to cover. Opening the citys 24 community centers as additional cooling stations would put another 17% percent of the heat-related illnesses within that 1.4 km walking radius. Spending just a few hours at a cooling center can help prevent heat-related illnesses, but a lot of Richmonders might not know these cooling centers exist or they might not have a safe way to get there, said Peter Braun, one of the researchers and a built environment policy analyst with the Richmond and Henrico Health District. In some neighborhoods, if you have to walk down a street without sidewalks or shade from street trees or if you have to wait at a bus stop without a shelter, youre going to be exposed to extreme heat. Jeremy Hoffman, another of the papers researchers and director of climate justice and impact at Groundwork USA, said having access to cooling options, is a matter of life and death. The research also reviewed the locations of the Greater Richmond Transit Companys 1,618 bus stops, of which 5% have shaded shelter. Just under 200 of the heat-related incidents happened within 100 meters of a bus stop. The bus company is offering zero-fare service for their air conditioned buses, Hoffman noted. The findings build off work by Hoffman in 2020 that studied the effect of past housing policies on urban heat islands. Southside Richmond, an area Hoffman said lacks historical investment in sidewalks that could help people get to cooling centers, only has one such location on Hull Street. Last year, Hoffman had published research that found cooling centers around the state were sparsely located. Protections for people working outside have also gained attention this summer season. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently released draft rules that require companies to schedule breaks for people who are working outdoors. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental nonprofit, called the rules a crucial step forward. Workers in our nation should not be denied something as simple as a water break or a few minutes to regroup in the shade, said Juanita Constible, a senior advocate in the environmental health program with NRDC. Thats just basic human decency. It shouldnt be controversial. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Restaurant business impacted by customers not dining outside in DC amid heatwave Restaurant business impacted by customers not dining outside in DC amid heatwave WASHINGTON (DC News Now) With the scorching temperatures baking the DMV, many people are not eating and drinking outside at restaurants and bars in D.C., which is having a big impact on business. Tuesday was yet another day with a feels-like temperature of more than 100 degrees. Dangerous heat forces delays, cancellations of many events around Northern Virginia At Jane Jane on 14th St. in Northwest, the bar inside was packed but the outdoor seating was not. D.C. summers are known to be humid, but this week was on another level. Insanely hot. Overall, like yeah, stepping outside from the air conditioning you can obviously tell its not the best out here, Warren Small said. Small is a host and server at Jane Jane where inside people took advantage of the cocktails and air conditioning. I work remote so I dont have to go outside very much and luckily this is not too far of a walk but I will be staying inside and hunkering down, customer, Eric Peterson, said. Some customers decided to go elsewhere because outdoor seating was the only option, but not everyone. We came to just grab a drink from Jane Jane, but they were they were all full inside. So its, a little hot out, but isnt too bad in the shade, customer, Sam Klaas, said. People in DC hit pools, patios to beat extreme summer heat Business isnt as good this week as it could be. We try to accompany as many people as we can. But obviously thats not easy given the size of our space, Small said. But then also, when people do have the option of outside, its miserable for them overall. Thats been evident up and down 14th St. with empty tables and other restaurants telling DC News Now that theyve seen fewer customers wanting to sweat it out outside. Im sure thats not great. But cant really control it, right? Peterson said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. After Anthony Andrews was shot dead in a Cahokia Heights front yard, he was kicked in the head by the alleged gunman, whose son had also been killed in the shootout, a St. Clair County prosecutor said Tuesday. This was a revenge killing, St. Clair County Assistant States Attorney Levi Carwile said in a detention hearing for 62-year-old Louis E. Hopkins, who faces charges of first-degree murder and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon in connection with Andrews death. Patrick Sullivan, an attorney appointed by the St. Clair County Public Defenders Office to represent Hopkins, said this was a case of self-defense as Hopkins needed to neutralize a threat so he could try to help his wounded son, Torian T. Hopkins. After listening to the two attorneys, St. Clair County Associate Judge Sara L. Rice ordered that Hopkins be detained in the St. Clair County Jail before his trial. Andrews, 41, and Torian Hopkins, 40, were both pronounced dead in the front yard at 123 Judith Lane in Cahokia Heights on Friday afternoon. They had shot at each other as part of landlord-tenant dispute, authorities said. Autopsy records show that Andrews suffered gunshot wounds from two different weapons, Carwile said. Andrews was staying with his girlfriend, who rents a place at 123 Judith Lane from Louis Hopkins. Hopkins family did not want Andrews living in the building, Carwile said. The dispute between Andrews and the Hopkins family began on Thursday and it continued on Friday, Carwile said. Torian Hopkins and Andrews exchanged gunfire in the confrontation Friday afternoon, police said, and Torian Hopkins was killed in this shootout. According to witnesses, Carwile told Rice, Andrews was still alive when Louis Hopkins shot him right through the brain. Andrews girlfriend said Andrews looked at her just before Hopkins shot him, according to Carwile. She also said Andrews was kicked in his head several times after he had been shot dead. The public defender said Louis Hopkins wanted to tend to his son to see if he could assist him. Louis Hopkins needed to protect himself because Andrews had just killed his son, he was still moving and he still had a gun, Sullivan said. Carwile countered that Andrews was not crawling around and that this was not an act of self-defense by Louis Hopkins. The charges against Louis Hopkins will be dealt down to some minor offense, Sullivan told Rice. After the detention hearing, Sullivan declined to comment on Rices ruling. Since Sept. 18 when Illinois ended its cash-bail system, judges have been conducting detention hearings to determine whether someone charged with a serious crime can be released from jail before their trial. One of the components of the new criminal justice system calls for judges to decide whether someone could be a threat to any person or persons in the community if released from jail. In this case, Rice ruled that Louis Hopkins could pose a threat to the community. As part of her ruling, Rice noted that Louis Hopkins has a criminal record that includes convictions for federal and state weapons offenses. Belleville News-Democrat reporter Carolyn P. Smith contributed information for this article. Passengers head to gates at Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport in early June 2024. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current) Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport has landed among the top best airports in the United States, Travel + Leisure announced Tuesday. Awards were based on reader surveys submitted to the New York-based travel magazine, with T.F. Green receiving a score of 82.31. Just ahead by .01 points was Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Last year, the Warwick airport ranked third in the nation. The only other New England airport was the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in New Hampshire, which ranked at seventh place. Voters praised T.F. Green for its lack of crowds and lines, cleanliness, and bountiful parking. The magazine noted there were an extraordinary number of comments about the bathrooms. The bathrooms are magnificent! This seems like a small thing, but when you travel a lot, large stalls with privacy doors and sinks with built-in faucet/dryer combinations are such a gift. And the live plants and fresh flowers by each sink really made me feel like someone cares about my well-being, one voter wrote. Likely the best experience of my 30 years as a traveling consultant. This award marks the 13th time T.F. Green ranked highly by a major publication since 2017, according to a statement from the Rhode Island Airport Corporation. Last year, the airport was ranked 10th best in the world by Conde Nast Traveller. RIAC President Iftikhar Ahmad said he was grateful to see T.F. Green received another accolade. The Rhode Island Airport Corporation takes our commitment to excellence in customer service with the seriousness our patrons have come to expect, and we appreciate the support of all voters as we expand on our efforts to provide meaningful connections to the nation and the world, Ahmad said in a statement. The post Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport named second best in U.S. appeared first on Rhode Island Current. Stormwater from a controversial, stalled school construction project in Lower Richland has routinely flooded a nearby neighborhood, severely damaging the inside of at least one home and making it unlivable, according to a lawsuit. The 12-acre swath of land on Caughman Road in Lower Richland had once been forested, but the property was clear-cut to build the Vince Ford Early Learning Center, an expansive $31 million facility that was initially intended to serve infants and young children. The land, now only partially developed after Richland One was ordered to stop work more than five months ago, diverts massive amounts of stormwater into the Creekside neighborhood in Lower Richland, according to the lawsuit filed Monday by attorney Chris Kenney. Repeated flooding into resident Johna Wilkes yard and home has damaged furniture, cabinetry, flooring, walls, a pool and more. The home, which the lawsuit calls Wilkes single most valuable asset, is now unlivable. According to the lawsuit, her home will suffer every time there is substantial rain. Wilkes has lived in the home since 1997, the lawsuit said, which is adjacent to the districts property and separated by a small easement. Richland 1 broke the law by beginning construction and spending public money on the center before procuring the necessary permits and legal authority, the lawsuit said. When the school district was forced to put the project on hold, it caused the land to lay fallow. During the first week on March 2024, the Creekside neighborhood experienced its first major flooding event after seasonal rains, the lawsuit claims. Many homes flooded, included Wilkes. Her home again flooded twice in June 2024, which caused even more damage. Wilkes had to periodically miss work to attend to the clean-up and repair of her home. The school district failed to build and maintain a stormwater drainage system for the Vince Ford Early Learning Center site to avoid routinely flooding neighboring properties with excessive water, which the lawsuit called negligent. According to the lawsuit, Wilkes had never experienced any flooding in the previous 27 years she had lived in her home. She is seeking compensation and damages, and an injunction to compel the district to fix the problem. A Richland 1 spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit. The site of the Vince Ford Early Learning Center on Caughman and Rawlinson roads, was heavily forested before being clear cut priot to construction in 2023. The district has been heavily criticized for its efforts to build the learning center. At state education Superintendent Ellen Weavers request, Richland 1 has been under investigation by the South Carolina Inspector General since Jan. 22 after she raised alarms about the districts construction project. The district had already been placed on fiscal watch because of its procurement card policy and employee usage. The referral of a matter to your office for investigation is a high bar to cross and one that requires credible evidence of potential malfeasance, Weaver wrote to Inspector General Brian Lamkin. I believe this situation rises to that threshold. Under state law, school districts must first seek approval from the state superintendent before constructing a public school building. But John Tyler, deputy superintendent and general counsel for the state Department of Education, wrote to the district in December that because the center would be serving infants, it could not be considered a public school building. By then, construction had been underway for four months. Despite the education departments concerns, construction continued until Richland County issued a stop work order Jan. 19. The Richland 1 school board attempted to pivot, voting to modify the centers scope on Jan. 23. In the new plan, the building would operate as another elementary school, serving students in kindergarten through second grade. Superintendent Craig Witherspoon requested another permit for the project from the education department. But Tyler told the district it would have to wait until the Inspector Generals investigation was over. The district is still waiting. The project has cost Richland 1 at least $813,000 for site inspections, stabilization and security. A list of stores that would be sold under a proposed merger includes some 30 Vons locations, including the store on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, as well as one on West 3rd Street. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times) Supermarket giant Kroger Co. announced plans to offload more than 60 supermarkets in California as part of its planned merger with Albertsons. The 63 supermarkets primarily in Southern California are among hundreds of stores, distribution centers and plants on a list the companies released on Tuesday identifying which ones it plans to sell to C&S Wholesale Grocers. The sale, however, would occur only if federal regulators approve Krogers bid to buy its smaller rival Albertsons. The grocery store chains proposed to sell off a package of stores and other facilities to allay regulators' concerns about the megamerger, upping the number to 579 from 413 in April after the Federal Trade Commission blocked the deal this year. The sale of hundreds of stores and facilities was valued at $2.9 billion in April. The 63 California stores listed consist of 15 Albertsons locations, including two in Huntington Beach; 31 Vons locations, including the store on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, as well as the location on West 3rd Street; 16 Pavilions locations; and one Safeway in the Bay Area. Read more: In one L.A. neighborhood, the prospect of losing 'our little Vons' hits hard The companies have started notifying workers at affected locations, Chief Executive Rodney McMullen wrote in a memo to employees Tuesday, Bloomberg reported. Workers will become employees of C&S Wholesale Grocers after the transaction closes, McMullen wrote. C&S has committed to transferring pay and health plans and assuming all collective bargaining agreements, he added. In February, the FTC announced it was suing to block the merger, arguing the joining of the two businesses would obliterate competition, leading to higher prices and lower-quality products for millions of Americans. The grocers, which announced their $25-billion merger in October 2022, are sharing the list ahead of a trial expected in August that will determine the fate of their deal. A coalition of United Food and Commercial Workers union locals in California has opposed the merger, organizing protests and meetings with grocery company representatives as well as state and federal regulators. "We remain focused on stopping the proposed mega-merger for the same reasons we have stated since it was first announced over 20 months ago because we know it would harm workers, it would harm shoppers, it would harm suppliers and communities, and it is illegal," five UFCW locals said in a statement Tuesday. Kroger and Albertsons say they need the merger to compete with larger, nonunionized rivals Amazon.com, Walmart and Costco. The companies have pledged to invest $500 million to cut prices and $1 billion to raise worker wages and benefits, in addition to $1.3 billion to improve Albertsons stores. Story continues Kathy Finn, a longtime leader at United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 in Southern California, said this year that the proposed merger would impact California as much or more than any other state. UFCW Local 770 represents nearly 30,000 members in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Luis Obispo and Kern counties in the grocery, cannabis, retail drug, healthcare and packing industries. Other stores listed for sale include 124 supermarkets in Washington state, 101 in Arizona and 91 in Colorado. The full list: Vons 5671 Kanan Rd, Agoura Hills Pavilions 9467 W Olympic Blvd, Beverly Hills Pavilions 1110 W Alameda Ave, Burbank Vons 301 N Pass Ave, Burbank Vons 820 Arneill Rd, Camarillo Vons 6951 El Camino Real, Carlsbad Read more: These are the Vons, Pavilions, Albertsons to be sold in California under proposed merger Vons 3439 Via Montebello, Carlsbad Albertsons 200 E Sepulveda Blvd, Carson Vons 185 E 17th St, Costa Mesa Pavilions 11030 Jefferson Blvd, Culver City Albertsons 33601 Del Obispo St, Dana Point Vons 2606 Del Mar Heights Rd, Del Mar Albertsons 2899 Jamacha Rd, El Cajon Albertsons 7201 Yorktown Ave, Huntington Beach Albertsons 16600 Bolsa Chica St, Huntington Beach Vons 500 E Manchester Blvd, Inglewood Vons 3233 Foothill Blvd, La Crescenta Pavilions 7544 Girard Ave, La Jolla Vons 78271 Hwy 111, La Quinta Pavilions 600 N Pacific Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach Albertsons 1500 N H St, Lompoc Vons 1820 Ximeno Ave, Long Beach Vons 11322 Los Alamitos Blvd, Los Alamitos Albertsons 3901 Crenshaw Blvd, Los Angeles Vons 3118 S Sepulveda Blvd, Los Angeles Vons 3461 W 3rd St, Los Angeles Vons 1430 S Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles Vons 6571 W 80th St, Los Angeles Vons 4033 Laurel Canyon Blvd, Studio City Vons 18439 Ventura Blvd, Tarzana Vons 7789 Foothill Blvd, Tujunga Vons 6040 Telegraph Rd, Ventura Pavilions 29211 Heathercliff Rd, Malibu Vons 410 Manhattan Beach Blvd, Manhattan Beach Pavilions 4365 Glencoe Ave, Marina del Rey Vons 2039 Verdugo Blvd, Montrose Albertsons 730 Quintana Rd, Morro Bay Read more: Kroger-Albertsons mega-merger would cause grocery price hikes, FTC says in suit to block deal Albertsons 541 S Reino Rd, Newbury Park Pavilions 2660 San Miguel Dr, Newport Beach Pavilions 1000 Bayside Dr, Newport Beach Albertsons 9022 Balboa Blvd, Northridge Vons 17380 Sunset Blvd, Pacific Palisades Albertsons 42095 Washington St, Palm Desert Albertsons 1751 N Sunrise Way Ste 1, Palm Springs Vons 4733 E Palm Canyon Dr, Palm Springs Pavilions 7 Peninsula Ctr, Palos Verdes Peninsula Albertsons 804 Avenida Pico, San Clemente Pavilions 989 Avenida Pico, San Clemente Pavilions 3850 Valley Centre Dr, San Diego Vons 11986 Bernardo Plaza Dr, San Diego Vons 1702 Garnet Ave, San Diego Vons 2495 Truxtun Rd Ste 100, San Diego Safeway 1499 Washington Ave, San Leandro Read more: California preparing lawsuit to block Albertsons-Kroger deal Vons 1440 W 25th St, San Pedro Vons 163 S Turnpike Rd, Santa Barbara Vons 9643 Mission Gorge Rd, Santee Pavilions 1101 Pacific Coast Hwy, Seal Beach Pavilions 14845 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks Albertsons 543 Sweetwater Rd, Spring Valley Vons 25850 The Old Rd, Stevenson Ranch Pavilions 6534 Platt Ave, West Hills Pavilions 8969 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood Albertsons 23893 Clinton Keith Rd, Wildomar Source: Kroger Bloomberg contributed to this report. Sign up for our Wide Shot newsletter to get the latest entertainment business news, analysis and insights. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. LOWER MANHATTAN (PIX11) For nine decades, the City of New York has operated the jail on Rikers Island. On Tuesday, the possibility of the federal government taking over was the center of a hearing before a judge, with no fewer than 14 attorneys making their cases for or against the change. A variety of activists also demonstrated outside of the courthouse, calling for the federal takeover, called a receivership, as part of a larger process to shut down the historic jail facility, permanently. More Local News The protesters, numbering about five dozen or so, were convened by an organization called the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice. Shut Rikers Down! they chanted, in unison, and they called on the city to stick to the plan it made seven years ago to close Rikers permanently and replace it with smaller jails one in each borough by 2027. The activists said that in the meantime, having federal authorities operate the facility would mean justice for the more than 6,000 people being held on Rikers Island now. NYC Mayor Eric Adams wont increase lifeguard hours following drownings One protester, Gordon Lee, vocalized the types of alleged abuses that some inmates have said take place behind the Rikers Island bars. There are ongoing legal disputes involving some of them. Being a victim of violent inmates, Lee began, and then ticked off other forms of alleged abuse on Rikers Island. Deprived of needed health care, deprived of your lawyer, health care provider, access to your family. Other demonstrators had similar complaints about, and concerns for, the conditions Rikers inmates live. Its not safe, said Lakenya Smith, who described herself as a community activist, including for the community behind bars on Rikers. Conditions are horrible, she continued, people are not getting the correct treatment that they need. Its about getting the mayor to wake up. For his part, Mayor Eric Adams, whose administration has for years fought a potential federal takeover, changed his tune somewhat when asked about the Rikers situation at his weekly press briefing. Ill respect the decision that the court makes, he said, while also saying that the federal prison system is certainly not a model of what prisons should look like. He said that currently, the jail is operating well. We continue to move Rikers in the right direction, the mayor said. The jail had 19 deaths behind bars in 2022. That number declined last year, to nine. So far this year, the jail has had three deaths. At Tuesdays hearing, in front of Judge Laura Taylor Swain, attorneys representing both the city and the federal government, the latter of which has been monitoring but not operating Rikers for the last nine years, agreed that the current Rikers administration has improved conditions at the jail this year. They also agreed that the Department of Correction is in better compliance with federal monitoring requirements than it has been in some time. Whether or not that could prevent a federal takeover is an open question. Judge Taylor Swain said from the bench that she will consider written arguments presented to her in the next few weeks, and will then hear in-person oral arguments on Sept. 25. She also said that she wants to determine if the city is in contempt in some way, before deciding if federal receivership should happen. It was apparent in the hearing that a final decision is months away. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance has come a long way since his memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" launched him into the national spotlight eight years ago. And now Vance could reach new heights in his transformative career, as he has been chosen to run as vice president with the man he once heavily criticized, former President Donald Trump. Vance's rise began when he released his memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," where he reflects on his upbringing and growing up in a low-income family involved in violence and addiction in Middletown, Ohio -- part of America's Rust Belt. MORE: How Trump's top VP hopefuls have criticized him in the past Vance overcame his childhood struggles and attended Ohio State University and Yale Law School, he recounted in his book. After working at a corporate law firm, he moved to San Francisco to work as a venture capitalist in the tech industry before moving back to Ohio. A 'never-Trump guy' Vance's memoir led him to become an emissary between the media, the political class and those who live in the Rust Belt -- a group that helped send Trump to the White House in 2016. During this time, Vance would make clear his disdain for Trump, saying he was a "never-Trump guy" in an interview with Charlie Rose in 2016. PHOTO: Sen. JD Vance speaks to reporters at the McCamish Pavilion on the Georgia Institute of Technology campus on June 27, 2024 in Atlanta. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, FILE) In August 2016, he told ABC News that he didn't see Trump "offering many solutions." But Vance would eventually align with the former president, praising his time in office and apologizing for his attacks on him during an interview with Fox News in July 2021. His apology came around the same time Vance entered the race for the open Ohio Senate seat, which became the most competitive GOP primary of the 2022 election cycle. But one of Vance's close friends -- who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity -- said many media organizations' negative response to Trump contributed to Vance's shift in perception. "It was a gradual shift that I think was really triggered by the media and the left's overreaction to Trump," the friend said. MORE: What Trump's VP pick could mean for 2028 Fox News anchor Bret Baier confronted Vance last month about his previous anti-Trump comments. "Look, I was wrong about Donald Trump. I didn't think he was going to be a good president, Bret," Vance said. "He was a great president, and it's one of the reasons why I'm working so hard to make sure he gets a second term." The two would go on to mend their relationship, with the former president endorsing Vance in the very crowded Ohio GOP Senate primary in May 2022. The endorsement helped Vance win the primary and general elections in November. Vance's shift to politics Prior to embracing Trump and taking on a life in politics, Vance already had a successful life, finding success through his book and work. But by coming out and aligning himself with Trump, Vance left his old lifestyle behind. "He had the life that most people run for office to get one day -- the elites loved and respected him. But by running for Senate and coming out as pro-Trump, he was knowingly and happily turning his back on those very people. Not many people would make the decision to reject the charmed life that came with being the toast of the elites the way J.D. did," the same close friend told ABC News. PHOTO: JD Vance, co-founder of Narya Capital Management LLC and Republican Senate candidate for Ohio, right, talks on stage with former President Donald Trump during a 'Save America' rally in Vandalia, Ohio, Nov. 7, 2022. (Joshua A. Bickel/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE) Vance's start in Congress as the junior senator from Ohio began shortly before the East Palestine, Ohio, toxic train derailment, which became the first major disaster Vance responded to as an elected official. The accident led MAGA-aligned Vance to work with Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, Ohio's senior senator, on Congress' railway safety legislation. However, Vance has stayed true to his tough conservative brand, including opposing aid to Ukraine. But as Vance's political stock began to rise, so did his ability to become an effective communicator for Trump's reelection campaign. During Trump's reelection campaign, Vance has been an active surrogate, attending campaign events, doing media hits and helping court wealthy donors for the campaign. Most recently, Vance attended fundraisers for Trump in Ohio and California. Vance also helped organize the June Silicon Valley fundraiser hosted by entrepreneur David Sacks and acted as the point of contact between Sacks and the Trump campaign. The fundraiser raised $12 million. MORE: Trump's VP announcement will come by next Monday: Adviser That same day as his fundraiser for Trump, Sacks announced he would be backing him in the election on X. "With respect to economic policy, foreign policy, border policy, and legal fairness, Trump performed better. He is the President who deserves a second term," Sacks wrote on X. Sacks told Axios that Vance was "instrumental in making the Trump event happen." Overall, Vance has been strong at fundraising for Trump, given his ties to Silicon Valley through previous work as a former venture capitalist. What Vance could bring to the ticket Trump's VP announcement was highly anticipated. Allies of both Vance and Trump say Vance's ability to be an effective messenger for the campaign sets him apart from others. "J.D. was always talented at delivering an effective message on TV and on the campaign trail, but over time, he just got better and better," said a close friend of Vance. "He's one of the few people I've seen in politics, who really has an ability to appeal to both working-class voters because of his blue-collar background, and also highly educated suburban voters because of his intelligence." PHOTO: Sen. JD Vance gestures while speaking during a news conference on Capitol Hill on May 22, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images, FILE) Vance, who is currently 39 years old and will turn 40 later this summer, could become one of the youngest vice presidents in U.S. history if he and Trump win in November. But compared to others in the mix who were also under consideration for being Trump's running mate, such as Sen. Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Vance has the least political experience. However, many of those who spoke to ABC News for this article pointed to Vance's work ethic and intelligence as indicators of his performance as vice president. The continued fallout from President Joe Biden's debate with Trump has left him more optimistic about his chances of winning this November, allowing him to be more flexible in picking a running mate, senior GOP sources told Axios. An Ohio GOP operative told ABC News that Vance's background is critical to his effectiveness as a messenger for the Trump campaign. The operative emphasized Vance's background growing up in the Rust Belt and how it would be crucial in attracting those voters who have felt left behind by both parties. "That experience that he had growing up in Appalachian watching the collapse of the Rust Belt [his] book, it spoke to what was happening in American politics at that moment in time, in a way that nobody else really had captured, and he has lived that out " MORE: Would Marco Rubio need to move out Florida if Trump picks him for vice president? A source close to Trump told ABC News that Vance "is going to be successful because he actually believed the things that he was saying." "He's gonna be believable because he's sincere," the source said. The former president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. -- who also developed a friendship with Vance -- has publicly advocated for Vance to be his father's running mate because of his policies. Donald Trump Jr. also said on his podcast that he would like to see Vance debate Vice President Kamala Harris. It seems Democrats are also aware of the possible threat Vance could pose to Biden's reelection campaigns -- particularly in a match-up against Harris at the debate set for later this summer. In June, Harris' former communication director Ashley Etienne said on CNN that she believes Vance "would pose the greatest threat" to Harris in a vice-presidential debate. "He's an incredible debater," Etienne said. "I think he has this quality that makes him seem palpable to the 1 to 2% that are undecided, that will actually pay attention to the debates I think he's just got a quality about him where he's super smart, and sharp and quick-witted. I think it's going to be a challenge to see the two of them face to face." The rise of JD Vance: From 'never-Trump guy' to VP pick originally appeared on abcnews.go.com JOPLIN, Mo. Among the many things that cost more today, is insurance for your home. Its become so expensive, that some people even choose to forego coverage. Don Gould has been in the insurance industry for several decades, but even hes never seen anything like it. Theres just a lot of people out there that cant afford it and we just dont know whats going to happen in the future, said Don Gould, Don Gould Agency Inc. Hes talking about the high cost of insuring the American dream. According to the Insurance Information Institute, 12 percent of homeowners have done away with their insurance due to rising premiums. To put it in perspective, it was 5 percent in 2019. In some cases, insurance companies are dropping customers who still want to insure their homes. There are some companies that are in a high catastrophic area, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and of course California with the wildfires, Florida with the hurricanes and there are some companies that are just pulling out of those states and longer writing in them, if they do write in them theyre forcing a five thousand or ten thousand dollar deductibles, said Gould. In Missouri, he says dont be too surprised if you eventually need a separate insurance company and policy to cover your roof, for example, because we get so much damage from wind and hail. The cost of rebuilding has increased tremendously, labor has increased tremendously, the cost of material has increased tremendously so therefore, its costing more to replace these homes and that has increased the cost to insurance them also, said Gould. He doesnt see premiums coming down anytime soon. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNF/KODE | FourStatesHomepage.com. RIVERVIEW, Fla. (WFLA) A Florida woman was arrested for making online death threats to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office (HCSO) announced Tuesday. On July 8, the FDLE contacted HCSO to alert them of threats made on the Governors website from Danyele Callaway, 20, from Riverview. The comments left included a request for an immediate in-person meeting and life-threatening statements, HCSO said. Investigators said Callaway has a history of interactions with law enforcement, including arrests for domestic violence-related charges and battery on public servants. She reportedly made verbal threats against Gov. DeSantis in the past. On Tuesday, just after 9:30 a.m., deputies responded to Callaways home for a mental health evaluation, during which she reportedly admitted to making the comments and was taken into custody. The Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office will not tolerate any threats, especially from individuals who think they can hide behind their keyboards to spread fear and harm. We will not accept a threat against anyone in our community, especially our Governor. Threatening the lives of those who serve our democratic institutions is an attack on the very principles of our society and justice system, said Sheriff Chad Chronister. While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, no one has the right to endanger others lives. This case is a stark reminder that violent threats will not be tolerated. We will continue to pursue and hold accountable anyone who seeks to disrupt the peace and safety of our community. Callaway is facing charges of written or electronic threat to kill or inflict bodily injury and is being held under the Baker Act. The investigation is ongoing, according to the sheriffs office. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. One way or another, Rudy Giulianis ability to leverage bankruptcy to retain control of his finances appears headed for an end. But the question remains, whats next? U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane at a Wednesday hearing is set to address three competing proposals from Giuliani and his creditors, any of which would drastically shift the status quo after months of rising tensions. Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in December after two Georgia election workers won a $148 million defamation judgment against the mayor-turned-Trump-attorney for spreading a baseless conspiracy that they were involved in mass election fraud in 2020. Giuliani has vowed to appeal. Never mincing words, his creditors have portrayed Giulianis Chapter 11 proceedings as a delay tactic to keep control of his finances while avoiding paying the sum. Since day one, Giuliani has regarded this case and the bankruptcy process as a joke, hiding behind the facade of an elderly, doddering man, a committee of creditors wrote in court documents filed Monday. Until now, Giulianis creditors remained united. They accused Giuliani of spending egregiously, hiding assets and stalling progress. They increasingly brought concerns to a head, filing motions seeking sanctions and an independent trustee to take control. But as the bankruptcy case reaches a crossroads this week, the judge now must wade into an emerging split between those trying to collect from the former federal prosecutor. The two Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss shifted from a plan to appoint a Chapter 11 trustee. They now want to dismiss Giulianis bankruptcy entirely. Rudolph Giulianis bad faith now warrants dismissal of this case. For over six months, the Freeman Plaintiffs have waited patiently as Mr. Giuliani has abused the chapter 11 process by pursuing a self-serving, delay-oriented strategy, Rachel Strickland, their attorney, wrote in court filings Monday. Kicking Giuliani out of bankruptcy would enable the mother-daughter duo to begin enforcing their $148 million judgment. But it could leave out to dry other creditors who didnt join the election workers new idea competing for Giulianis assets. At Wednesdays hearing, Lane is expected to mull the two proposals alongside yet another one put forward by Giuliani. After weeks of fending off creditors requests for oversight, as those efforts gained steam, Giuliani changed strategy. Last week, Giuliani personally signed a motion to convert his bankruptcy to Chapter 7. The move gives up proposing a Chapter 11 reorganization plan to instead liquidate his assets, effectively stripping Giulianis control of his finances. It signaled a sudden twist. Just two weeks prior, Gary Fischoff, Giulianis attorney, said his client was moving forward with purpose and direction in Chapter 11. The one-page motion abandoning that plan contained no explanation. Ted Goodman, Giulianis spokesperson, released a statement indicating Giuliani was simply following available options. I can promise you this. No matter what they do, they cant take away Mayor Giulianis most important assets integrity, courage and love for America, Goodman said. At a hastily scheduled hearing to sort things out, Fischoff told the judge the motion speaks for itself and asserted his client has an absolute right to convert to Chapter 7. His creditors claim more cynical motives. We do not have a good-faith debtor. He has misbehaved every step of the way, Philip Dublin, a lawyer representing a committee of creditors, said at last weeks hearing. The creditors committee includes as members Moss, one of the two Georgia election workers; Dominion Voting Systems, an electronic voting machine company that also sued Giuliani following the 2020 election; and Noelle Dunphy, Giulianis former employee who sued him alleging sexual assault, harassment and nonpayment of wages. Converting to Chapter 7 could make it more difficult for creditors to access Giulianis income he earned after filing for bankruptcy, such as revenue from his now-suspended radio show and new coffee deal. The creditors also say its no coincidence Giulianis maneuver came three days after their motion to compel him to produce documents and seek sanctions on top of the existing effort to appoint an independent trustee. Giulianis proposal would sideline the creditors committee and their legal team, which has spent months familiarizing itself with and investigating the former New York City mayors finances. Giuliani may have seen the writing on the wall and come to the conclusion that if he is going to be ousted as a debtor in possession, then he might as well get rid of the Committee and its investigation on his way out and, among other things, get the benefit of further delaying disclosure of his and his businesses financial records, Dublin wrote in the committees objection filed Monday. The committee also invoked Giulianis recent disbarment in New York. The New York Supreme Courts decision on Giulianis disbarment just as easily could have been written about Giuliani and this bankruptcy case. This chicanery is what he does and who he is, Mondays filing read. At Wednesdays hearing, the judge will choose which path to take. He could accede to Giulianis request to convert the bankruptcy to Chapter 7, accept the committees proposal to appoint a Chapter 11 trustee or agree with the election workers to toss the bankruptcy entirely. Just as notably, no one proposes keeping the status quo any longer. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Rudy Giuliani interrupts his own bankruptcy hearing, yelling it's 'defamatory' to accuse him of bankruptcy fraud Rudy Giuliani interrupted his bankruptcy hearing after an attorney said he would commit fraud. He's $152 million in debt, almost all of which is owed to election workers he defamed. Giuliani scored a legal win as the bankruptcy judge said he'd probably dismiss the case, allowing appeals. Rudy Giuliani erupted during a bankruptcy hearing Wednesday morning, interrupting the proceedings to complain it was "defamatory" to suggest he would commit bankruptcy crimes by hiding his assets. His interruption came as Rachel Strickland, an attorney representing two Georgia election workers whom Giuliani defamed and owes $148 million, urged the judge to dismiss the bankruptcy case and allow the claims against Giuliani to play out in different courts. Strickland said keeping the case in bankruptcy court would inevitably lead to Giuliani hiding his assets and being charged with bankruptcy crimes. "We will all be stayed while the trustee in this court wades through the morass of sexual assault and other allegations while Mr. Giuliani continues to play golf," Strickland said, her voice scathing. Giuliani's attorneys appeared in person in Manhattan's bankruptcy court for the hearing, but Giuliani himself called in by phone. "Ted! Would you get them on the phone and stop" Giuliani shouted, appearing to refer to his spokesperson Ted Goodman. "Alright, someone's got a live microphone, and that's not a good situation," the bankruptcy judge said. As muffled noises continued to emerge from Giuliani's phone line, the judge, Sean H. Lane, tried to silence it. "We keep having that same telephone pop up," Lane said. "Let me ask in court if we can make sure to have that muted, please." "Your honor, this is the Rudolph Giuliani," Giuliani said amid the static of his phone. He asked for a break to talk to his lawyers and address Strickland's "defamatory remarks." Lane asked Giuliani to wait his turn to speak. Later in the hearing, Giuliani's attorney Gary Fischoff assured the court his client wouldn't commit bankruptcy fraud. "I just wanted to state something for the record," Fischoff said. "There were some statements that the debtor would commit bankruptcy fraud. So I just wanted to state for the record that Mr. Giuliani, the debtor, would not commit any bankruptcy fraud." The judge said he'd probably dismiss Giuliani's bankruptcy case Wednesday's bankruptcy hearing came at a major turning point for Giuliani's bankruptcy process when he may actually score a major legal win. Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, shortly after a jury in Washington, DC, found him liable for $148 million in damages for defaming Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, the two election workers who he falsely claimed manipulated ballots in the 2020 election. The bankruptcy filing meant their lawyers had to pause enforcing the judgment against him, which formed nearly all of his $152 million in debt. It also paused all the other civil cases against Giuliani, including a sexual-abuse lawsuit from Noelle Dunphy and another defamation lawsuit from the election-technology company Dominion Voting Systems. Over the past seven months, Giuliani has tried to buy time with motions to slow down the bankruptcy process as he appeals the $148 million judgment. At the same time, creditors have accused Giuliani of filing misleading and incomplete financial statements and hiding streams of income. They asked Lane to appoint a Chapter 11 trustee, who would have the power to seize legal control of Giuliani's assets and sell them to satisfy everyone who was owed money. The trustee also may be able to waive attorney-client privilege on Giuliani's behalf, possibly opening him up to further legal risk. Wandrea Moss testifying in front of the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the US Capitol while her mother, Ruby Freeman, comforted her. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin But in court filings this week, lawyers for Giuliani, Freeman, and Moss all agreed that dismissing the bankruptcy case entirely would be the best course of action. They said Giuliani would agree not to file for bankruptcy again for another year, giving time for appeals in the $148 million defamation judgment to play out. "It is in the interest of creditors for their claims to be heard in the forum of their choosing" and not bankruptcy court, Strickland said in Wednesday's hearing. Lane said he was inclined to agree and dismiss the bankruptcy, citing "the difficulties we've had in terms of transparency in this case." "That's not going to magically change if you continue the case in 11 with the trustee," Lane said. The judge said a Chapter 11 trustee could easily liquidate Giuliani's two apartments and jewelry, which comprise the bulk of his estimated $8 million estate. But liquidating Giuliani's other assets, such as his media company and coffee operation, would be difficult to disentangle from the former New York City mayor's personal brand, he said. Dealing with those could incur expenses that would ultimately come out of the pockets of creditors who were owed money, the judge said. Philip Dublin, an attorney representing the other creditors in the bankruptcy including Dunphy and Dominion objected to that plan. He said the best way to fairly split Giuliani's assets would be to appoint a Chapter 11 trustee who would liquidate them. But Strickland said her clients had priority and they wanted the case dismissed. "We are the significant focus of the case," she said. "We are $148 million." The judge said he'd issue an order by Friday and asked the parties to meet and figure out how to pay expenses for a discovery vendor, a third-party company that has already done months of work obtaining and organizing Giuliani's records for the case. Lane also said he wouldn't approve Giuliani's preferred backup plan of converting the bankruptcy process from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, which would allow him to save future income for himself while liquidating his current assets. Justin Kelton, an attorney representing Dunphy, told Business Insider that Dunphy would continue to pursue her sexual-abuse claims in court if the judge were to dismiss the bankruptcy case. "Our client Noelle Dunphy remains as strong and steadfast as ever in her commitment to pursuing justice," he said. "If Mr. Giuliani's bankruptcy is dismissed, she will continue pursuing her claims in court, and we look forward to the day when we can present this case to a jury." Giuliani has brought upon himself a barrage of indignities as he falsely insisted that the 2020 election results were rigged. In addition to his numerous civil cases, the former US attorney and personal lawyer to Donald Trump was disbarred in New York and is on the verge of losing his law license in Washington, DC. He was also indicted in two criminal cases, in Georgia and Arizona, over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in those states. Correction: July 11, 2024 Due to an editing error, an earlier photo caption in this story misstated who was testifying in front of the House committee in the photo. Wandrea Moss was testifying while her mother, Ruby Freeman, comforted her. Read the original article on Business Insider Rudy Giuliani threatened with jail as he yells at judge during chaotic bankruptcy hearing Rudy Giuliani threatened with jail as he yells at judge during chaotic bankruptcy hearing Rudy Giulianis bankruptcy hearing devolved into chaos when the former New York City mayor interrupted the court after a lawyer for his creditors said she would consider seeking prison time for his alleged bankruptcy crimes. At the hearing on Wednesday morning, Rachel Strickland, lawyer for the two election workers who Giuliani defamed and now owes $148m, argued in favor of dismissing the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. She said that she feared Giuliani would get a hall pass if the case was not dismissed, citing his pattern of filing late and inaccurate financial reports. Strickland then suggested that Giuliani had committed bankruptcy crimes, and that she would seek jail time, not financial repercussions. Giuliani, who was on the call, interjected, yelling: Would someone get them on the phone? The judge then asked for Giulianis microphone to be muted. Your honor, this is Rudolph Giuliani, he told the judge, adding that Stricklands comments were highly defamatory, your honor. Giuliani said he wanted a break but the judge said he would have to wait until after Strickland finished her presentation. Sir, everybody gets a chance to be heard but you cannot interrupt someone else while theyre being heard, the judge said, before threatening to cut his line off if he didnt stop talking. Later in the hearing, Giulianis lawyer Gary Fischoff told the court: There were some statements that the debtor was going to commit bankruptcy crimesGiuliani would not be committing any bankruptcy crimes. Strickland filed a motion on July 8 in favor of the dismissal of the case. Rudy Giuliani pictured advertising his new business, Rudy Coffee. A lawyer told bankruptcy court on Wednesday that if the former mayor is working for himself, I suspect he will be hustling for Rudy Coffee and all the rest of his money-making endeavors and funneling cash to all of the businesses that he claims are out of the reach of creditors (Rudy Giuliani) Although Giuliani had initially requested to convert the case from a Chapter 11, which would see his assets reorganized, to a Chapter 7, which would see his assets liquidated. However, he changed his tune less than an hour before Wednesdays hearing: Giulianis legal team signalled support for the dismissal plan. Fischoff argued at the hearing that a dismissal was the best option for his client. The best chance of getting an appellate determination would be a dismissal, Fischoff said, referring to his appeal of the $148m judgment against Giuliani. Although the election workers already have a judgment, other creditors cases are ongoing. Fischoff said a dismissal means those other creditors would be free to pursue their cases in court, since a dismissal would lift the stay on the ongoing cases against Giuliani. However, Phil Dublin, a lawyer for the creditors committee, said his clients prefer to appoint a Chapter 11 trustee rather than dismissing the case, arguing that the appointment of a trustee would result in the most equitable outcome for the creditors. Dublin said keeping it as a Chapter 11 case would permit investigations into Giulianis finances, including the alleged unpaid $2 million in legal fees owed by Donald Trump, the Trump campaign or the Republican National Committee. The former mayors assets would still be available to creditors, Giulianis lawyer argued. His only income is social service payments, Fischoff said, adding that hes an 80-year-old disbarred attorney who may choose to discontinue working should a Chapter 11 trustee be appointed. Strickland pounced on his own lawyers admission. We all suspect that if a trustee is appointed, Giuliani is going to sit on his butt, she said. The lawyer added that if the former mayor is working for himself, I suspect he will be hustling for Rudy Coffee and all the rest of his money-making endeavors and funneling cash to all of the businesses that he claims are out of the reach of creditors. Giuliani regards this court as a pause button on his woes while he continues to live his life, she said. The judge said he hopes to make a ruling on the matter before the end of the week but revealed that he is leaning toward dismissal. Im concerned that whats past is prologueand that issues about transparency will continue, the judge explained. The creditors committee has complained in filings about the lack of transparency into his finances. The committee has taken issue with Giulanis deficiencies in his financial reporting and disclosures, like discrepencies related to payments on his Florida condo; his unauthorized payments to his alleged girlfriend; and his failure to comply with discovery requests. Because he did not comply with the requests, the committee asked on June 28 that the court hold Giuliani in contempt and impose sanctions. In a July 8 filing, the committees lawyers accused him of treating the bankruptcy process as a joke, hiding behind the facade of an elderly, doddering man. NEW YORK Rudy Giuliani was warned by a judge to keep his mouth shut Wednesday after the ex-mayor interrupted an opposing lawyer at his chaotic bankruptcy hearing. Judge Sean Lane threatened to push the mute button after Giuliani angrily erupted on speaker phone to yell at a lawyer for two Atlanta election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgement against him over his campaign of lies. Everybody gets a chance to be heard but you cannot interrupt someone else while theyre being heard, the judge chided Giuliani. The judge told lawyers for Giuliani and his creditors, including election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, that he may decide as soon as Friday to pull the plug on Giulianis entire bankruptcy case. He cited a lack of transparency from the onetime personal lawyer for former President Donald Trump. Im leaning towards dismissal, frankly, because Im concerned that the past is prologue and that issues about transparency will continue, said Lane, a bankruptcy judge in Manhattan federal court. If the judge dismisses the bankruptcy case, Freeman and Moss could seek to immediately seize Giulianis assets, including his multi-million dollar homes in Manhattan and Florida. Giulianis lawyer told the judge he does not object to dismissing the case, even though it was Giuliani himself who filed for bankruptcy protection last December after a jury socked him with the massive judgment. Without elaborating, he said Giuliani would have a better chance of upending the judgment on appeal if the bankruptcy case were dismissed. Rachel Strickland, a lawyer for the two election workers, said they agree with dismissing the case because they fear Giuliani is using the bankruptcy proceedings to push pause on his financial woes without making any changes to his lavish lifestyle. She argued against an alternate plan to appoint a trustee to manage Giulianis financial affairs, suggesting he would try to funnel cash and assets to entities outside the reach of creditors. If the case is dismissed, creditors will be able to hold Americas mayor accountable for the harms hes caused, she said. Giuliani owns an opulent co-op on Manhattans upper East Side that is on the market for $5.7 million and a condo in Palm Beach, Florida. Giuliani was found liable for engineering a disinformation campaign that accused Freeman and Moss of rigging votes for President Joe Biden during ballot-counting in the Democratic stronghold of Fulton County. Biden narrowly won Georgia but Trump and Giuliani falsely claim the win was tainted by widespread fraud. Russia aims to undermine support for Ukraine during US election, intelligence warns Russia plans information campaigns to sow division in the U.S. society and undermine support for Ukraine in swing states during the upcoming presidential race, American intelligence officials told journalists on July 9. When asked whether Moscow seeks to boost a specific candidate, an official of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said that they have "have not observed a shift in Russias preferences for the presidential race from past elections, given the role the U.S. is playing with regard to Ukraine and broader policy toward Russia." Russia has been accused of using social media disinformation, bot farms, and other means to back Donald Trump against his Democratic opponents Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden during the 2016 and 2020 elections. President Biden is most likely going to face Trump again in the November vote. Sign up for our newsletter WTF is wrong with Russia? Sign up "We are beginning to see Russia target specific voter demographics, promote divisive narratives, and denigrate specific politicians," the ONDI official said. Moscow is "undertaking a whole-of-government approach to influence the election, including the presidential race, Congress and public opinion," the official added. "To accomplish this, Moscow is using a variety of approaches to bolster its messaging and lend an air of authenticity to its efforts. This includes outsourcing its efforts to commercial firms to hide its hand and laundering narratives through influential U.S. voices." Read also: Exclusive: Congresswoman says Biden should ease restrictions on Ukraines use of US weaponry on Russian soil The U.S. Justice Department announced on July 9 that it had uncovered close to 1,000 accounts on X linked to a Russian bot farm disseminating disinformation in the country. The result of the election could have a profound impact on Ukraine as it faces Russia's full-scale invasion. The Biden administration positioned the U.S. as the leading force in the pro-Kyiv coalition, albeit attracting some criticism from allies over the president's incremental approach to providing weapons and restrictions on the use of American arms. While Trump criticized the aid for Kyiv in the past, he has been evasive in public regarding his stances toward Ukraine as the election drew near. The former president repeatedly promised to end Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine within 24 hours, with several media reports suggesting this could involve blocking Ukraine's NATO accession or forcing the country to cede territory to Russia. Read also: Its not a pretty picture: What a second Trump presidency could mean for Ukraine Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Russian forces struck the city of Voznesensk in Mykolaiv Oblast on July 10, killing a man and injuring eight other people, Governor Vitalii Kim reported. Voznesensk Mayor Yevhenii Velychko is among the victims, according to Kim. All eight people suffered injuries of moderate severity. The attack caused a fire at a civilian facility. Rescuers eliminated it at around 6 p.m. local time, the State Emergency Service reported. Voznesensk, a city with a pre-war population of around 33,000, lies around 90 kilometers (around 55 miles) northwest of the regional center, Mykolaiv, and about 155 kilometers (95 miles) northwest of the front line. Mykolaiv Oblast is regularly targeted by Russian strikes due to its proximity to the front lines. Read also: EBRD to provide nearly 25 million euros to restore Mykolaiv water supply, mayor says Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons announced on Tuesday a list of 35 Illinois stores, most of them Marianos, that they plan to sell off in hopes of securing federal approval for their planned megamerger. Eight of the stores slated for sale are in Chicago. If Kroger and Albertsons which first announced plans to merge in 2022 secure approval for the deal, the store locations listed would be sold to C&S Wholesale Grocers for $2.9 billion. Most Kroger-owned Marianos would be divested under the plan, which calls for selling 31 of the companys 44 stores. Kroger has also said it would sell the Marianos brand name to C&S. Just four of the planned divestitures are Albertsons-owned Jewel-Osco locations. In an initial divestiture plan announced in September, the companies said they planned to sell off more than 400 grocery stores nationwide, including 14 in Illinois. Facing federal scrutiny over their planned $24.6 billion megamerger, the companies upped the number of planned divestitures to a total of 579 in April with 35 planned divestitures in Illinois, though they did not specify at the time exactly where those stores would be located. Its still not clear if the plan will satisfy federal regulators. The Federal Trade Commission sued to block the merger in February, saying it could lead to higher prices for consumers and lower wages for workers. A trial in that case, which was joined by several states including Illinois, is scheduled to begin Aug. 26. The merger has also faced scrutiny from labor unions and elected officials. When Illinois joined the FTC lawsuit filed in February, Attorney General Kwame Raoul said the planned merger would greatly reduce competition in the grocery market while leading to fewer choices for consumers and increased grocery prices at a time many families are struggling to keep up. On Tuesday, a coalition of United Food & Commercial Workers local unions released a joint statement pledging to continue their opposition to the merger, saying it would harm workers, shoppers and suppliers. Todays announcement changes nothing, the statement from the coalition of locals, all of which are located outside of Illinois, read. The merger is not a done deal, far from it. In a news release in April, Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said all frontline grocery workers would keep their jobs and that their existing collective bargaining agreements would be honored. Our proposed merger with Albertsons will bring lower prices and more choices to more customers and secure the long-term future of unionized grocery jobs, McMullen said in a statement at the time. _____ The Russian Federation hosted a luncheon on July 9 to celebrate Russia's presidency of the U.N. Security Council, featuring the Ukrainian dish chicken Kyiv on the menu, the news outlet Ukrinform reported. The celebration came one day after Russian forces launched a missile strike on Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, killing two people and injuring 32 others. Eight children were hospitalized following the attack. The Security Council convened on July 9 to discuss the Russian attack in an emergency meeting. Directly after the session, the Russian delegation hosted its celebratory lunch. A photo of the menu reveals that the entree course was chicken Kyiv. Read also: How Russia broke through Ukraines air defense to strike Kyiv childrens hospital "The moral degradation of Russian diplomacy is obvious," Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the U.N. Security Council, told Ukrinform. Kyslytsya also said the lunch was paid for with "blood money." During the emergency meeting, multiple members of the Security Council condemned Russia's missile attack in stark terms while the Russian delegation denied responsibility. "If this was a Russian strike, there would have been nothing left of the building and all the children would have been killed and not wounded," Vasily Nebenzya, Russia's envoy to the U.N., said during the meeting. Russia assumed the Security Council presidency on July 1. Each of the Council's 15 members, including Russia, holds the presidency for a month. Read also: I want Russians to feel it on their own skin: Shock, fury at the site of childrens hospital attack Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A Moscow court on Tuesday ordered the arrest of the widow of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny on charges of extremism. Yulia Navalnaya, who has lived abroad in self-exile since 2021, was accused of participating in an extremist community and placed on an international wanted list, according to The New York Times. Vladimir Putin is a murderer and a war criminal, Navalnaya tweeted in response to news of the arrest order. His place is in prison, and not somewhere in The Hague, in a cozy cell with a TV, but in Russiain the same colony and the same two-by-three-meter cell in which he killed Alexei. An explicit reason for Navalnayas charges was not shared in a press release from the Basmanny District Court, which issued the arrest order. But Leonid Volkov, Navalnys former chief of staff, pointed to Navalnayas work with the Anti-Corruption Federation in a post on X. Founded by Navalny in 2011 with the goal of exposing Russian government corruption, the nonprofit was branded an extremist organization by Moscow a decade later. Navalnaya sits on its advisory board. Volkov added that the order was quite a recognition of Yulias determination to continue Alexeis fight. Kremlin Disputes Report Putin Didnt Order Navalnys Death Navalny, long Putins fiercest critic, died in a remote Arctic penal colony in February after months of reported psychological and physical abuse. He was arrested after flying into Russia with Navalnaya in 2021a defiant return that followed his near-fatal poisoning with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok the previous year. Collared on criminal charges that were internationally condemned as trumped-up, Navalny was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. His sentence was later extended by 19 years. Navalnys collapse and subsequent death sparked an international furor and a fresh round of sanctions against Russia. But Navalnaya cautioned European leaders soon after that economic penalties would not be enough. If you really want to defeat Putin, you have to become an innovator, she said in a speech to European Parliament in Strasbourg, France in late February. You have to stop being boring. You cannot hurt Putin with another resolution or another set of sanctions that is no different from the previous ones. She and her two children did not attend Navalnys funeral in Russia over fears they could be arrested. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in his death, but Navalnaya and her allies have repeatedly accused Putin of orchestrating his calculated murder. Navalnaya has vowed to continue her husbands fight, promising the European Parliament she would do her best to make his dream come true. She was elected the new chair of the Human Rights Foundation earlier this month, and has been at work on his posthumous memoir, due out in October. 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. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office ruled on July 10 to declare the independent Russian media outlet the Moscow Times an "undesirable organization," which establishes criminal penalties for anyone who works with or has links to the outlet. The law on "undesirable" organizations has existed since 2015 and has been used to target perceived opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime, including NGOs, independent media outlets, human rights groups, and others. The prosecutor's office justified their decision by claiming that the work of the Moscow Times is "is aimed at discrediting the decisions of Russia's leadership in both foreign and domestic policy." The Moscow Times said that beyond banning its work in Russia, the decision "puts staff members at risk of jail time, and criminalizes engagement with the outlet, including sharing its content online." The Russian government passed a law in May expanding the list of "undesirable" organizations to include those funded by foreign states. Following a subsequent court case brought by Russian organizations operating outside of the country, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the expanded law violates the European Convention on Human Rights. The Moscow Times relocated its headquarters to Amsterdam in 2022 in the aftermath of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and related crackdown on media in Russia. The Russian language service of the online paper was blocked by Russian authorities in April 2022. Read also: Russia labels RFE/RL an undesirable organization Sign up for our newsletter WTF is wrong with Russia? Sign up Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Russia lacks troops and ammunition for major offensive in Ukraine senior NATO official Russia has neither enough ammunition nor troops to launch a large-scale offensive in Ukraine, a senior NATO official has said. Source: Reuters, citing a statement by the official at a briefing for journalists before the opening of the NATO Summit on Tuesday, as reported by European Pravda Details: The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stressed that Russia is suffering "very high" losses on the battlefield, struggling to hold on to small territorial gains and is short of troops and ammunition for a large-scale offensive. "What they are having to do is order undermanned, inexperienced units to move into areas to achieve unrealistic objectives. To sustain real offensive operations, we think that Russia would have to secure significant ammunition supplies from countries beyond what it is already getting from Iran and from North Korea," the official said. They also believe that Russian ruler Vladimir Putin will have to initiate a new large-scale mobilisation. The official said Russia is currently recruiting about 30,000 troops a month, which allows it to absorb heavy battlefield losses. He also stressed that, based on NATO's estimates, Ukraine's defence has improved significantly, but Kyiv has also suffered significant losses. The Alliance believes that Russia will be able to maintain its war economy for another 3-4 years. Nevertheless, they emphasise that "it will be some time" before Ukraine accumulates the required ammunition and personnel for future large-scale offensive operations. The official further stressed that China is continuing to provide Russia with "critical enabling pieces" for drones, missiles and the Russian defence industry and that Putin "still thinks time is on his side" and is ready to endure "truly staggering numbers of military casualties". Background: US President Joe Biden stated at the opening of the summit in Washington that Ukraine could still stop Putin. Support UP or become our patron! Russia lacks the munitions and soldiers needed to launch a new major offensive in Ukraine, Reuters reported on July 9, citing an undisclosed senior NATO official. Speaking ahead of the NATO summit in Washington, the official told reporters that Russia has suffered "very high" losses as it attempts to utilize limited territorial gains. Russia's new May offensive in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast has effectively ground to a halt, but Moscow's troops maintain their pressure in Donetsk Oblast, pushing into the town of Chasiv Yar. "What they are having to do is order undermanned, inexperienced units to move into areas to achieve unrealistic objectives," the official reportedly said. "To sustain real offensive operations, we think that Russia would have to secure significant ammunition supplies from countries beyond what it is already getting from Iran and from North Korea," the source noted, adding that a new wave of mobilization would also be necessary. Sign up for our newsletter WTF is wrong with Russia? Sign up Moscow has deepened military cooperation with Tehran and Pyongyang during the full-scale war. While Iran provided Russia with Shahed drones used to attack Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, North Korea has reportedly supplied Russia with ballistic missiles and millions of artillery shells and even dispatched military instructors to the country. According to the source, Ukrainian defenses have improved significantly, albeit also suffering heavy losses. It will take some time before Kyiv accumulates enough resources to launch its own counter-offensive, the official noted. Kyiv's military found itself in a difficult position earlier this year due to delays in U.S. assistance. President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that while the American Congress finally approved the $61-billion aid package, the military equipment is flowing to Ukraine only slowly. The head of state said that, at the moment, it is not appropriate to talk about a Ukrainian counteroffensive as Kyiv must focus on protecting what it has. Any pushback against Russian forces will be possible once sufficient weapons arrive, he added. Read also: Kyiv can push Russia out of southern Ukraine if US lifts restrictions on deep strikes, Zelensky says Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A court in Russia on Tuesday ordered the arrest of Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who died earlier this year in a Russian prison. Navalnaya left Russia in 2021, and has lived in Germany since her husbands death. She would face an immediate arrest if she returned to Russia after being added to an international wanted list, The New York Times reported. Her husband died in a northern Russia penal colony in February and the circumstances surrounding his death have raised questions. Navalny was one of the most vocal opposition leaders against corruption in Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Navalnaya has accused Putin and the Russian government of killing her husband. Shes promised to carry on his opposition work. The Basmanny District Courts press office released a statement announcing the arrest order. It did not give a reason for the charges but it is likely tied to her work since his death. Navalnayas spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, confirmed on the social media platform X that the court argues she had participation in an extremist community. In her own post on X, Navalnaya addressed the arrest warrant and mocked the unusual steps in the warrant. When you write about this, please do not forget to write the main thing: Vladimir Putin is a murderer and a war criminal, she wrote. His place is in prison, and not somewhere in The Hague, in a cozy cell with a TV, but in Russia in the same colony and the same 2 by 3 meter cell in which he killed Alexei. Navalny was serving out his 19-year sentence in Russias highest security prison near the Arctic Circle at the time of his death. The Russian Federal Prison Service said he was out on a walk and suddenly lost consciousness and efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. His sudden death sparked concern of foul play among global leaders, including President Biden, who previously claimed Putin is responsible for Navalnys death. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Russia pledges to discharge Indians fighting for Moscow in Ukraine, New Delhi says Russia has promised to discharge Indian nationals who were misled into joining its army to fight in Ukraine, Indias foreign secretary said Tuesday. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly raised the issue of early discharge to Russian President Vladimir Putin during his two-day trip to Moscow this week, stressing the need to bring all Indians home as early as possible, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra told reporters in a news briefing. The Russian side promised the early discharge of all Indian nationals from the service of the Russian army, he said. Moscow has not commented on the agreement, but New Delhi has been pushing for the release of its nationals from the Russian army for months, telling CNN in April that it was a top priority. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs previously told CNN it has been in continuous contact with Russian authorities to secure their release. By some estimates, Russia has been sending thousands of foreign men to fight in Ukraine since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of its southwestern neighbor in February 2022. Many of them are young men from South Asia, enticed by the prospect of steady employment and higher salaries in Russia. In Nepal, prominent opposition lawmaker and former foreign minister Bimala Rai Paudyal told parliament earlier this year that between 14,000 and 15,000 Nepalis were fighting on the front lines, citing testimony from men returning from Ukraine. The Russian government last year announced a lucrative package for foreign fighters to join the countrys military, including a monthly salary of at least $2,000 and a fast track to Russian citizenship but the Kremlin has not said how many foreigners it has recruited under the plan. In early March, Indias Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said it had busted major human trafficking networks that were duping men into Russian military jobs, with 35 such cases identified. The trafficked Indian Nationals were trained in combat roles and deployed at front bases in Russia-Ukraine War Zone against their wishes, the CBI statement said. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Kwatra said he does know the precise number of Indians recruited to fight for Russia in Ukraine, but anticipates it is between 35 and 50 people. Of those, 10 Indian nationals have already returned to India, he said. Now, the two sides will work on it and see how expeditiously we can get them back into the country, Kwatra said. India has no law preventing its citizens from serving in a foreign states military. One family from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad recently told CNN they spent two months trying to find out what happened to their brother after he traveled to Russia on the promise of job opportunities. Imran Mohammad said an employment agency had enticed his brother Asfan Mohammed with an offer for helper and security jobs in the Russian army, saying he could get a Russian passport and national card within a year. Instead, Asfan was sent to the battlefield in Ukraine and was killed in combat. These brokers duped the boys and put their lives in danger, Imran said, referring to Asfan and other Indians sent to war. In neighboring Nepal, lawmakers have called on the Russian authorities to provide figures for its nationals fighting in Ukraine. Several returned Nepali fighters who spoke with CNN earlier this year blamed Russia for using them as cannon fodder in the war. Its the Nepalis and other foreign fighters that are actually fighting in the front of war zones. The Russians position themselves a few hundred meters back as support, said Suman Tamang, after he returned from Russia. The Nepalis who fought for Russia said they had received only brief training before being sent into combat. Ramchandra Khadka, who returned to Nepal after suffering injuries in Ukraine, told CNN that after only two weeks of training, he was sent to the front lines in Bakhmut a town in eastern Ukraine that saw some of the heaviest fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces with a gun and a basic kit. I didnt join the Russian military for pleasure. I didnt have any job opportunities in Nepal. But in hindsight, it wasnt the right decision, Khadka said. We didnt realize we would be sent to the front lines that quickly and how horrible the situation would be. CNNs Brad Lendon, Vedika Sud, Sugam Pokharel, Matthew Chance, Mihir Melwani, and journalist Nishant Khanal contributed reporting. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Global private equity firm Levine Leichtman Capital Partners has entered into an agreement with Improve International Group's management team to invest in the company; financial details of the deal were not made public. Improve International, which was established in 1998, is the pioneer in postgraduate veterinary education and training worldwide. The company, which was started by vets for veterinary professionals, is dedicated to improving veterinary care globally and equipping medical professionals with the knowledge and abilities needed to provide treatment for animals. Improve International offers continuing professional development needs (CPD) content and training in addition to working with veterinarians around the world to upskill them. It also offers courses in 20 countries and nine languages by utilising modern training facilities and captivating digital material. With offices in Germany, Spain, Portugal, the United States, and France, the company, which has its headquarters in Swindon, UK, employs over 170 people. Improve International will remain under the direction of its current management group and CEO, Heber Alves. Heber Alves said: "Our partnership with LLCP comes at a very exciting time for Improve International. We are proud of the offering we have built and are excited to continue to broaden access to veterinary professionals across the world, so they can enjoy their lifelong learning journey, and benefit greatly from its many rewards along the way. LLCP's deep experience in education and medical training will be highly valuable to us as we enter the next phase of growth." Josh Kaufman, partner, and head of Europe at LLCP, added: "We are delighted to partner with Improve International. The management team has built a leading education business that is well positioned to service the growing needs of the veterinary industry globally. We are excited to help them scale the business through organic initiatives, including new course development and geographic expansion, as well as through strategic M&A." Moreover, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners will make its seventh investment in Improve International. LLCP has made significant investments in education through its many funds, including GL Education, Skill Dynamics, Therapeutic Research Center, Squla, CJ Fallon, and Mander Portman Woodward. LLCP has also invested in the veterinary sector through Suveto in the United States. LLCP received advice from DC Advisory (debt), KPMG (finance), Deloitte (tax), Willkie Farr & Gallagher (legal), and CIL (commercial). Story continues "Levine Leichtman Capital Partners invests in Improve International Group" was originally created and published by Private Banker International, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Russia to produce own version of Boeing, Airbus spare parts due to sanctions Russia will start producing spare air parts for Boeing and Airbus aircraft due to sanctions restricting the import of these components from abroad, Russian news outlet Izvestia reported on July 10, citing Russian airline Aeroflot. Sanctions introduced after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine included a ban on the ability of Russian airlines or Russian-owned airplanes to use EU airspace, as well as a prohibition on exporting aviation-related technology. The domestic production of spare parts is the result of collaboration between Aeroflot, Russia's largest carrier, and a division of Rosatom, Russia's state atomic agency. A production facility will open in August and focus on the "repair of components of onboard equipment of foreign-made Aeroflot airliners," in particular air conditioning, power supply, and lighting systems, Izvestia said. Aeroflot told Izvestia that in the coming month, Rosatom will apply for a license to produce metal, plastic, and composite products for the aviation industry. According to Aeroflot, Rosatom has already produced a batch of locks for baggage and cargo compartments for Airbus A320/321 aircraft. The locks will "be installed in the coming weeks during periodic maintenance" and are "40% cheaper than the original spare part and are not inferior to them in quality and safety requirements," the airline claimed. The safety of Russian airlines appears to have deteriorated as companies scramble to find spare parts. In October 2023, three planes from Aeroflot broke down within one day, while in December 2023, two Russian airplanes experienced technical malfunctions that resulted in emergency landings on the same day. Russian state-controlled media Kommersant reported in May 2023 that 2,000 flights had been recorded by planes using expired parts. Sign up for our newsletter WTF is wrong with Russia? Sign up Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Russia serves chicken Kiev at UN dinner after striking childrens hospital in Ukraines capital Ukraine criticises Russia for serving chicken kiev at UN dinner Ukraine has criticised Russia for serving chicken Kiev at a UN Security Council dinner. Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, shared an image of the menu which highlighted chicken Kiev served with potato paille. The moral decay of Russian diplomacy is glaring, he said. He criticised diplomats for attending the dinner, which he described as being funded with blood money. The Ukrainian capital was known as Kiev under Soviet rule but Ukrainians call it Kyiv. Since the invasion of Ukraine the name has become even more politically contentious with supporters of Ukraine making a point to pronounce it Kyiv. Some say the dish was invented in Moscow in a restaurant called Kiev, while Ukraine maintains that it adapted it from a French dish. Russia held the dinner to celebrate assuming the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council on July 1. The luncheon took place directly after the UN Security Council convened to discuss a Russian missile strike that hit a childrens hospital in Kyiv, killing two people and injuring 32 others. France and Ecuador asked for the session at the Security Council, but Russia led it as the current holder of the councils rotating presidency, putting ambassador Vassily Nebenzia on the receiving end of the criticism. Mr. President, please stop this war. It has been going on for too long, Slovenian ambassador Samuel Zbogar appealed. US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told colleagues that they were there because Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, current rotational president of the Security Council, attacked a childrens hospital. Even uttering that phrase sends a chill down my spine, she added. Mr Nebenzia characterized the slew of criticism as verbal gymnastics from countries trying to protect Ukraines government. Follow the days updates below 03:33 PM BST Thanks for following todays live blog Thank you for following todays live coverage of the war in Ukraine. Well be back soon with more updates and analysis from the conflict. 03:25 PM BST Poland must prepare army for full-scale conflict, army chief says Poland must prepare its soldiers for full-scale conflict, its armed forces chief of staff has warned. General Wieslaw Kukula said the country must find a balance between army training and border security, as it boosts the number of troops on its border with Russia and Belarus from 6,000 to 8,000 by August. Today, we need to prepare our forces for full-scale conflict, not an asymmetric-type conflict, said General Kukula. In May, Poland announced details of East Shield, a major $2.5bn programme to bolster its physcial border with Belarus and Russia. Volunteers takes part in basic training with the Polish army in Nowogrod, Poland - AP 03:12 PM BST Kyiv refutes Russias claims of capturing village in Donetsk Ukrainian military on Wednesday denied reports that Russian forces had captured the village of Yasnobrodivka in the eastern Donetsk region, military spokesperson Nazar Voloshyn has said. The announcement comes after the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Tuesday that its forces had captured Yasnobrodivka, a front-line village located around 45 km from the town of Pokrovsk. Lieutenant Colonel Nazar Voloshyn, the spokesperson of the Khortytsia group of forces, dismissed these claims. The published information does not correspond to reality: Yasnobrodivka is under the full control of the (Ukrainian) defence forces, Mr Voloshyn said. Mr Voloshyn said that some 274 Russian soldiers were killed and injured in the area. Ukraine also reportedly destroyed two cannons, a mortar, and eight vehicles. The claims have not been independently verified. Ukrainian sniper takes part in a military training in Donetsk - Anadolu Ukrainian snipers are highly trained and capable of causing damage, and are therefore a priority target for Russian troops - Anadolu 02:44 PM BST F-16 fighter jets will fly in Ukrainian skies this summer, Blinken says We reported earlier that Norway announced it will donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine (see post at 1:07 pm). Now, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Denmark and the Netherlands will follow suit. The planes are en route to Ukraine from the two national right now, he said at the NATO summit in Washington, and will be flying in Ukrainian skies by this summer. An incredibly robust package for Ukraine will be unveiled over the next couple of days, he added. The plan is expected to lay out a clear and strong bridge for Ukraines NATO membership. President Zelenskyy said he expected further decisions on more F-16 jet deliveries to be made today. We are increasing the number of aircraft available to Ukraine, he said. 02:28 PM BST Kremlin threatens Starmer over Ukraine The Kremlin has said it will respond if Sir Keir Starmer allows Ukraine to strike Russia with UK-supplied weapons. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman said that allowing Kyiv to strike Russia with British weapons would be an absolutely irresponsible step towards escalating tensions and seriously escalating the situation. He added:We will carefully record all of this and, of course, take appropriate measures. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria as they board a plane to Washington DC to attend a Nato summit - REUTERS The Labour leader told reporters en route to the Nato summit in Washington that military aid supplied by Britain, including Storm Shadow missiles, are for defensive purposes but Kyiv can decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes. Mr Starmer added that the long-range missiles should obviously to be used in accordance with international humanitarian law as you would expect. Former foreign secretary Lord Cameron made similar comments about Ukraines use of Storm Shadow missiles earlier this year. At the time, Russia called it a very dangerous statement. 01:57 PM BST Nato to announce 33bn minimum spend on Ukraine Nato allies will announce at its summit today a minimum baseline of 40bn (33.8bn) in funding for Ukraine within the next year, the White House confirmed on Wednesday. The nations aim to provide sustainable levels of security assistance for Ukraine to prevail, Washington said in a statement. A senior civilian NATO representative will be stationed in Kyiv as part of its bridge to membership, it added. 01:34 PM BST Russia scrambles fighter jet to escort Norwegian plane Russia sent a MiG-31 fighter jet to escort a Norwegian patrol plane away from Russian airspace over the Barents Sea, the Russian defence ministry has said. There was no violation of the air border by the Norwegian patrol plane, according to the ministry. Moscow has reported similar incidents before when its planes have confronted military aircraft from Nato countries. A Russian Air Force MiG-31K jet - AP 01:07 PM BST Norway to donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, PM says Norway will donate six American F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, daily newspaper Verdens Gang reported, citing the Norwegian prime minister at the Nato summit in Washington. Prime minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told reporters that the deliveries are planned to begin in 2024. The American jets have been the object of Ukraines desires for months, with President Volodymyr Zelensky hailing them as potential war-winners. The jets, which cost $43 million and can reach speeds of 1,500mph, are among the most advanced in the world. 12:53 PM BST One dead and three injured in Russian strike on southern Ukraine At least one person has been killed and three injured in a Russian strike on the southern Ukrainian city of Nikopol, the state emergency service has reported. As a result of an enemy attack in the morning in Nikopol, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, a man was killed and three more people were injured, the service said on X. Rescuers extinguished all fires. 12:33 PM BST Japan arrests first Russian for sanctions evasion A Russian man has been arrested in Japan on suspicion of evading sanctions for the first time, according to Japanese news outlet Nikkei. Andrei Sova, 38, was suspected of illegally exporting dual-use items worth 43 million yen (208,000) to be used by the Russian military, Nikkei reported. The items included jet skis, boat engines and second-hand motorcycle. Mr Sova is expected to have illegally transported the items on a shipping container to South Korea in January 2023 despite knowing that the items were subject to export restrictions, local reports have said. Mr Sova was reportedly arrested in the Osaka Prefecture, the site of Japans second largest airport, Kansai Airport. 12:03 PM BST Pictured: Hungarian opposition leader delivers aid to damaged Kyiv childrens hospital Hungarian opposition politician Peter Magyar, Prime Minister Viktor Orbans main challenger, delivered aid on Wednesday to the Kyiv childrens hospital hit during Russian airstrikes earlier this week. Magyars Tisza party raised more than $41,000 (35,000) and collected medical supplies and food supplies donated by Hungarians. This was a sudden decision after we saw the brutal Russian missile attack, Mr Magyar told reporters before leaving for Kyiv. A UN rights mission said on Tuesday there was a high likelihood Kyivs main childrens hospital was hit directly from a Russian missile. The Kremlin claimed that the hospital was hit by Ukrainian anti-missile fire, but failed to provide evidence. Peter Magyar, former government insider and leader of the Respect and Freedom (TISZA) Party, brings the collected aid to support the children's hospital in Kyiv that was damaged in missile strikes - REUTERS A supporter of Peter Magyar organises and packs the collected aid to support the children's hospital in Kyiv - REUTERS The UN there was a "high likelihood" Kyiv's main children's hospital was hit directly from a Russian missile - REUTERS 11:37 AM BST EU welcomes one year roaming extension between EU and Ukraine The European Commission has welcomed the extension of a unified roaming system between the European Union and Ukraine for another year. In times of war, a phone line is a lifeline, connecting people who sought refuge in Europe to those who stayed on the front, European Commission President, Ursula Von der Leyen, said on X on Wednesday. It is the fifth extension of a voluntary agreement between 22 European and seven Ukrainian telecommunications operators, ensuring that Ukrainian refugees can stay connected across borders for another twelve months, the Commission said in a statement. I welcome the extension of roaming between the EU and Ukraine for another year. In times of war, a phone line is a lifeline, connecting people who sought refuge in Europe to those who stayed on the front. We stand with the people of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/PEgBo19Few Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) July 10, 2024 11:04 AM BST Ukraine creates new legion to recruit exiled men to fight The Ukrainian military has launched a new legion to entice fighting-age men living abroad to enlist, as Kyiv desperately tries to bolster its manpower on the front lines. The establishment of the initiative comes after more than two years of relentless fighting, where the military has incurred a large number of casualties that drained its ability to hold off Russias advancing forces. The creation of the new unit was part of a wider security agreement signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk earlier this week. Sniper takes part in a military training in Donetsk, Ukraine - Anadolu We call on all Ukrainians in Europe to join the Ukrainian Legion. Your contribution is invaluable in our struggle for freedom and independence, Defence Minister Rustem Umerov announced on social media. It aims to recruit volunteers from the pool of Ukrainian men living in Europe, especially Poland and Germany, where the largest numbers of Ukrainians have sought refuge. An estimated 300,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are believed to be living in Poland alone. 10:42 AM BST Kremlin says creation of buffer zone in Ukraine needs time The Kremlin said that Russias military is still working to create a defensive buffer zone in Ukraines Kharkiv region, but that it requires more time. President Vladimir Putin said in May that Russian forces advancing in Ukraines northeast were carving out such a zone that would limit Ukrainian strikes on cities and towns in Russia. It comes amid reports that Russian troops invading the Kharkiv region are short of food and water, Ukrainian soldiers have said, citing intercepted communications and interrogations of POWs. 10:23 AM BST Zelensky unsure of Trump support for Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he does not know if Donald Trump will support Ukraine if he is elected US president in November. Mr Zelensky, speaking in Washington ahead of this weeks Nato summit, said he hoped Trump would not leave the 75-year-old Nato alliance and that America would continue to aid its defence against the bloody Russian invasion that has been raging for more than two years. I dont know (him) very well, Mr Zelensky said of his relationship with Trump , the presumptive republican nominee for presidency. He added that he had good meetings with him during Trumps first presidency, but added that it was before Russias invasion in 2022. I cant tell you what he will do, if he will be the president of the United States. I dont know. Trump has frequently criticised the extent of US military support for Ukraine - some $60 billion (46.9 billion) since Russias full-scale invasion in 2022 - and called Mr Zelensky the greatest salesman ever. 10:03 AM BST Starmer indicates Ukraine could use UK missiles to strike inside Russia Sir Keir Starmer has said its up to Ukraine to decide how it uses UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles, in a suggestion that its forces would be allowed to attack targets inside Russia. The UK prime minister said that aid supplied by Britain was for defensive purposes but Kyiv can decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes, he told reporters en route to the Nato summit in Washington. The Labour leader added that the long-range missiles should obviously to be used in accordance with international humanitarian law as you would expect. Former foreign secretary Lord Cameron made similar comments about Ukraines use of Storm Shadow missiles earlier this year. At the time, Russia called it a very dangerous statement. 09:48 AM BST Why Trump-proofing Nato is a priority The purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), its first secretary-general once remarked, is to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down. But as Nato leaders gather in Washington to mark the 75th anniversary of the alliance this week, the aphorism feels more relevant than ever. The Russians are banging on Europes door in a way they have not for years. The Germans, no longer in need of keeping down, are now under pressure from allies to raise themselves to the occasion. But it is keeping the Americans in that will be the unspoken priority. [Donald] Trump will be talked about a lot, despite the fact he is not at the summit, and that demonstrates the power he has over the alliance despite not being a head of state, Ed Senior, a research fellow for European security at the Royal United Services Institute, told The Telegraph. Read the full story here 09:35 AM BST Keir Starmer to meet US president and NATO leaders today Sir Keir Starmer will meet the US president and other Nato leaders at a summit later today, where he will continue to press for European nations to increase defence spending. Mr Starmer has refused to guarantee that he will meet his flagship commitment on defence spending within his first term in office, despite a cast iron promise to get there. Speaking to reporters, Sir Keir was repeatedly pressed on whether the goal of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP would be reached. We are committed to the 2.5 per cent, as I have said before the election and I say again after the election. That is obviously subject to our fiscal rules, but the commitment is there, he said. He said that the details of their commitment will be set out with the strategic review next week. Sir Keir Starmer talks to journalists as he travels onboard a plane to Washington DC to attend a Nato summit - PA 09:16 AM BST Russia promises release of Indians fighting in its army Russia has promised an early release of all Indian citizens fighting in its army, Indias foreign ministry has said. The announcement follows a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis to Moscow, during which he raised the issue with President Vladimir Putin. Delhi has been seeking the release of Indians, who say they were duped by agents, on the promise of non-combat jobs in the army, into fighting for Russian forces in the countrys war with Ukraine. At least four Indians have been killed in the fighting. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin - AFP 08:59 AM BST Russias FSB detained Ukrainian agent over plan to attack warship, state media say Russias Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had thwarted a plan for a terrorist attack on a Russian warship and detained a Ukrainian special services agent, state media reported on Wednesday. According to the media, the targeted warship was Russias only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, which has suffered a series of repair delays in the port of Murmansk. The FSB said that one of the warships servicemen was contacted by a Ukrainian citizen who tried to persuade him to commit an attack on the ship but was detained. The Telegraph could not independently verify the report. 08:44 AM BST Biden calls Nato more powerful than ever US president Joe Biden has welcomed Nato leaders to Washington DC with a forceful speech where he called the military alliance more powerful than ever as it faced a pivotal moment with the war between Russia and Ukraine. Warning that autocrats had overturned global order, Mr Biden announced more military aid for Kyiv. The US president and the leaders of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania are donating Patriot missile batteries and other systems to strengthen Ukraines ravaged air defences. In total, Nato plans to donate five strategic air defence systems and dozens of smaller, strategic anti-air batteries over the coming year, the White House said. The announcement comes two days after a Russian missile levelled a childrens hospital in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. US President Joe Biden at the Nato 75th anniversary celebratory event during the Nato summit in Washington - Yuri Gripas/Abaca 08:30 AM BST Russia lacks munitions and troops for big Ukraine offensive, Nato official says Russia lacks the amount of munition and troops to mount a major offensive in Ukraine, a senior Nato official has said. The official said Moscow would been to secure a significant supply of munitions from other countries beyond the stocks it already has in order to do so. However, he warned Russia would be able to keep its economy on a war footing for several more years. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told reporters that recent arson attacks, assassination plots and sabotage in Europe are part of a covert drive by Russian President Vladimir Putin to undermine public support for Ukraine. What they are having to do is order undermanned, inexperienced units to move into areas to achieve unrealistic objectives, the official said. To sustain real offensive operations, we think that Russia would have to secure significant ammunition supplies from countries beyond what it is already getting from Iran and from North Korea. 08:13 AM BST US rivals exploit internet to fuel distrust ahead of election, intelligence chief says Iranian efforts to covertly whip up American outrage over Israels war against Hamas in Gaza ahead of the November presidential election are unacceptable, the nations top intelligence official said on Tuesday. Groups linked to Tehran have used popular social media platforms in the US to pose as activists, encourage American protests and provide financial support to some opposition groups, Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, said in a statement. Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their foreign influence efforts, seeking to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions, Ms Haines said. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines - MELINA MARA/AFP She warned Iran that meddling in our politics and seeking to stoke division is unacceptable. It comes amid refined efforts by Americas opponents - particularly Iran, Russia and China - to exploit the internet to widen political divides in and disfigure domestic debates in the US in recent years. Russia remains the greatest threat, according to the officials, who said the Kremlin is mounting a government-wide effort to spread election disinformation ahead of the 2024 race. 07:57 AM BST Russia attacks energy facility in Ukraines Rivne region, national grid operator says Russia-launched drones attacked an energy facility in Ukraines Rivne region, national grid operator Ukrenergo said on Wednesday. Fire has been localized at the site and no casualties were reported, according to Rivne regional governor Oleksandr Koval. The attack caused temporary power cuts for consumers in the region, Ukrenergo said. 07:46 AM BST Russian attack on Odesa region kills two and damages port infrastructure, governor says Russia launched five missiles and 20 drones to attack Ukraine overnight with Odesa port infrastructure as one of the targets, the Ukrainian air force said on Wednesday. Ukrainian air force shot down 14 out of 20 drones launched in the attack, it said, but the Russian missile attack killed two people and damaged port infrastructure on Wednesday, according to the regions governor. The attack damaged warehouses, trucks and a civilian ship, the governor said. One person was also injured, he added. 07:43 AM BST Hello and welcome to our live coverage Were bringing you the latest updates from the Ukraine war. 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. The Russians struck a residential building in the village of Inhulets, Kherson Oblast, resulting in the death of a 57-year-old man, on 10 July. Source: Oleksandr Prokudin, Head of Kherson Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote: "A local resident was killed due to the Russian attack on the village of Inhulets. The enemy strike hit one of the residential buildings. A 57-year-old man, who was in the yard, sustained fatal injuries." Details: Prokudin also expressed his condolences to the family and friends of the deceased. Background: An elderly man was killed in the village of Kizomys in Kherson Oblast as a result of a Russian strike on 9 July. He was outside during the attack. Support UP or become our patron! Russian attacks against Ukraine over the past day killed six people and injured 16, regional authorities said on July 10. Ukrainian air defense shot down 14 out of the 20 Shahed-type attack drones launched by Russia overnight on July 10, Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk reported. Moscow's troops launched the drones from the Russian port town of Primorsko-Akhtarsk, located on the coast of the Sea of Azov, and Cape Chauda in occupied Crimea, while one Iskander-M ballistic missile and four Kh-59/Kh-69 cruise missiles were fired from the peninsula, according to Oleshchuk. Aircraft, missile, and electronic warfare units and mobile fire groups of the Ukrainian Air Force intercepted the 14 drones over Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, and Rivne Oblasts, the commander said. In addition, three Kh-59/69 missiles and three drones reportedly "missed their targets." The port infrastructure in southern Odesa Oblast came under the Russian missile attack, Governor Oleh Kiper said. The wreckage damaged warehouses, trucks, and a civilian ship. Two men, a security guard and a truck driver, were killed, and a sailor suffered injuries, according to the governor. Russian drones also attacked a power facility in Rivne Oblast, leaving some areas without electricity, the state-owned energy operator Ukrenergo said. No casualties were reported. In Donetsk Oblast, Moscow's troops killed one person in the town of Toretsk on July 9, Governor Vadym Filashkin reported. Seven other people were injured in Kramatorsk and Chasiv Yar after Russian attacks, he added. Russian attacks on Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi in Kharkiv Oblast damaged a four-story residential building, caused a fire at a house, and destroyed another one, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. A 73-year-old man and a 67-year-old woman were killed, while two other women, aged 18 and 88, and a 40-year-old man were injured in the village. Russian attacks against Kherson Oblast killed one civilian and injured four others, according to Governor Oleksandr Prokudin. An educational institution, a multi-story building, and 18 houses were damaged. One man suffered injuries in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Governor Ivan Fedorov reported. Read also: How Russia broke through Ukraines air defense to strike Kyiv childrens hospital Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Screenshot of the document of the US Department of Justice with the bot accounts The US Department of Justice has published documents concerning several hundred accounts and domain names on the X network (formerly Twitter) used by Russian state media and the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia to operate a bot farm spreading disinformation in the US and abroad. Source: Institute for the Study of War (ISW) Details: The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced the seizure of two domain names and the search of 986 accounts on X linked to an AI-enhanced bot farm created by Russian state media network RT and operated by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). This bot farm used AI to fabricate social media profiles impersonating US citizens to disseminate messages supporting Russian government goals. RT leadership has been seeking alternative methods to distribute Russian narratives beyond its international TV broadcasts since at least 2022 and began establishing this bot farm in April 2022. The Kremlin approved and provided financial backing for this operation in early 2023. US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the DoJ's actions have disrupted a Russian AI-enabled propaganda campaign designed to spread disinformation across US and international social media platforms. The DoJ reported that X voluntarily suspended the remaining identified bot accounts. These accounts promoted debunked narratives and Kremlin talking points about the war in Ukraine, including claims that parts of Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania were "gifts" from Russia. The bot farm also disseminated video content, such as a video of Russian leader Vladimir Putin asserting that the war in Ukraine is not about territorial conflict or geopolitical balance but about the "principles on which the New World Order will be based". To quote the ISWs Key Takeaways on 9 July: Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a joint statement on 9 July about strengthening mutually beneficial political, economic, energy and military-technical cooperation between Russia and India. Putin has been intensifying efforts to strengthen Russian relations with non-Western countries through individualised appeals, although he is likely emphasising Russo-Indian cooperation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS as part of a wider Russian effort to create an alternative "Eurasian security architecture" leveraging existing Eurasian multilateral organisations. Modi tacitly supported the Kremlin's false narrative that Russia is interested in a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the war in Ukraine, likely in exchange for deepening economic, energy and technological cooperation with Russia. Putin may have pledged to return Indian volunteers fighting in Ukraine during a private dinner with Modi in Novo-Ogaryovo, Moscow Oblast on 8 July. Some unnamed US government officials appear to believe that Ukraine does not need to liberate its occupied lands and people to win the war, despite Russian leader Vladimir Putin's recent clear statements that Russia will not accept a negotiated ceasefire on any terms other than Ukrainian capitulation and will not abandon its goals of the total destruction of the entire Ukrainian state not just the lands it currently occupies. Several independent investigations, including one conducted by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), concluded that a Russian missile struck the Kyiv City Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital on 8 July amid continued official Russian denials and deflections. Ukrainian forces conducted a series of drone strikes against Russian energy and military infrastructure in Belgorod, Kursk, Rostov, Astrakhan and Volgograd oblasts overnight on 8 to 9 July. Russian leader Vladimir Putin appointed new military prosecutors on 8 July, likely in support of ongoing, long-term Russian military reforms. Newly-elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated Iran's continued willingness to enter a comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia, emphasising the continuity in Iran's support for Russia even under a new presidential administration. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) released affidavits on 9 July for several hundred X (formerly Twitter) accounts and domain names used by Russian state media and security services to operate a bot farm aimed at spreading disinformation in the US and abroad. Russian forces recently made confirmed advances southeast of Chasiv Yar, near Avdiivka and southwest of Donetsk City, and Ukrainian forces recently advanced north of Kharkiv City. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree ordering the reestablishment of the Saratov Higher Artillery Command School on 8 July, likely as part of ongoing efforts to build out a cadre of Russian officers. Russian authorities continue to deploy Rosgvardia contingents to occupied [territories of] Ukraine to serve law enforcement functions. Support UP or become our patron! Russian forces have deployed 10,350 troops for the offensive in the border areas of Kharkiv Oblast, which commenced two months ago. Source: Army Inform news outlet, citing Colonel Viktor Solimchuk, Deputy Commander of the Kharkiv Operational Tactical Group (OTP) and its Chief of Staff at a briefing Details: The colonel reported that, as of early July, Russian losses included 2,939 soldiers killed in action and 6,509 wounded in action. Additionally, 45 Russian troops have been captured by Ukrainian forces. "Therefore, the estimated enemy losses on our front are approximately 91%," Solimchuk said. The Russians have lost most of their 138th Motorised Rifle Brigade in the war-torn city of Vovchansk, with their 83rd and 157th Tank Regiments suffering considerable losses. Russia's 83rd Air Assault Brigade is also constantly suffering losses, sometimes several dozen people a day, which is confirmed by both prisoners of war and radio intercepts, the Ukrainian military said. The Kharkiv OTP reported that, given the enormous losses, the Russian military command is compelled to withdraw units from other areas, deploy reserves, and engage the so-called volunteer Orthodox communist-fascist brigades. One of them is named after Alexander Nevsky, a key figure in mediaeval Russian history. At the same time, Ukraine's defence forces stressed that Russian troops still have a fairly serious offensive potential. They are regrouping, restoring their forces and logistics, and training assault groups in the rear. Quote from Solimchuk: "We recognise the strength of the [Russian] occupying forces and understand their intentions. Our soldiers, artillery, and drones are making significant and tangible adjustments to the enemy's plans. All their attempts to ramp up their activities and expand their control zone are failing. We shall continue to crush the occupiers along the entire state border and the war zone, disrupting their aggressive plans." Support UP or become our patron! The Russian Kh-101 missile that destroyed Kyiv's Okhmatdyt children's hospital contained Western-made parts, experts and Ukrainian officials say, which indicates the Kremlin's success in circumventing sanctions. Source: Financial Times Details: A Kh-101 cruise missile was captured on camera seconds before it hit an oncology hospital on 8 July. The Kh-101 is one of Russia's most advanced cruise missiles and is crucial to intensifying its campaign of air strikes on Ukraine. Russia is producing almost eight times as many Kh-101s as it did before the full-scale invasion in 2022, and is still depending on Western-made, and especially US-made, components. "Western technology is allowing them to build these smarter missiles, which allow their terror attacks to get past our struggling air defences," said Olena Bilousova, a leading sanctions researcher at the KSE Institute in Kyiv. Despite the sanctions against Russia cutting off its supply of some advanced components, the Kremlin's defence sector has been using microprocessors and other advanced technologies not intended for military use. A Ukrainian analysis of Kh-101 missile launched in January, which found 16 pieces of Western-made electronics inside the missile, confirmed this shift. According to the analysis, among the Kh-101s Western-made components two were manufactured by Swiss company STMicroelectronics, headquartered in Switzerland, while the rest were made by American chip manufacturers, including Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, and Intel. All the goods are intended mainly for civilian uses, and some are quite old. An analysis of Russian documents conducted by the Financial Times shows that all Russian companies in 2023 had to do to obtain the parts used in the Kh-101 analysed in January was to buy them on the open market and import them through China. Although Russian documents indicate that the parts were manufactured by Western manufacturers, all of them are listed as manufactured in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan or Thailand. The analysis of a single missile wreckage probably underestimates the degree of Russia's dependence on foreign production. According to a study by the Office of the President of Ukraine provided to the FT, an intact Kh-101 can contain more than 50 different foreign-made parts. Background: On the morning of 8 July, Ukraine's Air Force reported that Russia had scrambled Tu-95 bombers from the Olenya airfield. Later, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that the Russians had launched missiles and guided aerial bombs on Ukraine, causing an air-raid warning to be issued across the country. Explosions rocked Kyiv and a number of other cities. As a result of the Russian missile attack on 8 July, the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialised Hospital in Kyiv was hit, causing casualties. Support UP or become our patron! Russian missile strike on Kyiv: 33 adults and 6 children are still in hospital Thirty-three injured adults and six children are still in hospital following the Russian missile attack on Kyiv on 8 July. Source: Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko on Telegram Quote: "Currently, 33 injured adults are being treated in hospitals throughout the capital. Four of them are in a serious condition. Six children from the Okhmatdyt hospital have also been hospitalised." Background: The Russians launched a strike on the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialised Hospital in Kyiv on 8 July. One of the buildings was destroyed. The Kyiv authorities reported that two adults had been killed and 32 injured. The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has defined Russia's attack on the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialised Hospital in Kyiv as a war crime and initiated criminal proceedings into the matter. Early reports from SSU investigators indicate the Russians used a Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile to attack the medical facility. The Ukrainian Air Force has also clearly refuted the possibility that a Ukrainian air defence missile could have hit the Okhmatdyt hospital. The evidence is a screenshot of a video and a photo of a Kh-101 missile, as well as a photo of an AIM-120 missile, the kind of projectile that NASAMS surface-to-air missile systems use. Bellingcat analysts, as well as a number of independent nuclear weapons and missile technology experts, have concluded that the attack on Kyiv's Okhmatdyt hospital involved the use of a Russian Kh-101 missile. On 10 July, it was reported that a boy who suffered from the Russian attack on the Okhmatdyt Childrens Hospital had died in hospital. Support UP or become our patron! The Prosecutor Generals Office of Ukraine will investigate another war crime by the Russians: shooting two Ukrainian soldiers on the Zaporizhzhia front. Source: Andrii Kostin, Prosecutor General of Ukraine, on Twitter (X) Details: The investigation reports that the crime was committed in June 2024 near the settlement of Robotyne in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The video was posted on social media on 10 July. The criminal proceeding regarding the violation of the laws and customs of war, combined with premeditated murder, has been initiated. Quote by Kostin: "The terrorist state of Russia keeps demonstrating utter disregard of law and basic human morals. Another proof of that is the video of the murder of two captured Ukrainian soldiers by Russian troops. In the video, it can be clearly seen that the defenders of Ukraine laid down their arms and did not resist in any way. The occupiers cynically shoot disarmed people. We know this is not a coincidence. This is the deliberate policy of the Kremlins criminal regime to destroy everything Ukrainian. We will find and punish all those involved: both those who gave this order and direct executors of this brutal crime." Background: Since the end of November 2023, prosecutors have recorded an increase in the number of executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war by the Russian forces. Support UP or become our patron! ozgurcankaya / Getty Images Its estimated that up to 40% of divorces result from financial problems. This is not surprising since we live in a culture in which talking about money is as taboo as talking about religion at a dinner party. From a young age, we learn not to ask people about money; indeed, we dont inquire how much someone makes or even try to ask questions to understand someones financial goals. Trending Now: I Followed Mark Cubans Genius Advice and Am on Track To Become a Millionaire Try This: 7 Reasons You Should Consider a Financial Advisor Even If Youre Not Wealthy In light of this cultural aversion to talking about money, many partners dive headfirst into relationships and marriages, only to find out later that theyre financially incompatible. But whether we like it or not, money is essential to our lives. Money is not something couples should stuff under the rug and ignore. Money should be discussed between couples out in the open. In a recent interview on the Live Richer Podcast, Bachelor Nation alum and podcaster Jason Tartick shed some light on why not talking about money in relationships could cause major issues. Based on the studies we did for my book and the studies that we researched, in 43% of married and cohabitating couples, at least one person is committing financial infidelity, he said. Couples should understand each others money values and goals, their money attitudes, and trauma about spending or lack of it. Households can learn to work together to hold each other accountable and create a financial life that makes both parties happy. Lifestyle Investor Justin Donald follows a similar process of staying within financial harmony that aligns with your values, ethics and goals. You want to be on the same page with your significant other to achieve your dreams, he said. And hes not the only financial expert that emphasizes the importance of being aligned with your partner. Here, Matt Watson, CEO of Origin Financial, shares why he believes couples should start discussing money as early as possible. Be Aware: How Can You Withdraw Money From a Bank Account? 3 Ways To Know Wealthy people know the best money secrets. Learn how to copy them. Talking About Money Brought My Partner and I Closer Together Watson and his wife Alyson both highly successful entrepreneurs actually began talking about money before they married. They asked each other about how their parents related to money, what their goals were as a couple and how money would play a role in the new family they were making. They inquired about how they manage and think about money now, and they sought to understand how each wanted to evolve and grow financially in the years ahead. Story continues These conversations might have been uncomfortable for most couples, but for them, the money talk brought them closer together. Today, happily married with children, their relationship and financial values have meshed in a more substantial way. The first step to being better with money is to talk about money, Watson said. Talking about money is fundamental, and its a muscle that my company, Origin, helps people grow. The very act of talking about money, whether its with your spouse, partner or financial advisor, is something we should all start doing. He did this in his own relationship, making money acceptable for him and Alyson to talk about. This opened the door to collaborating to create the financial life they both aspired to. How My Money Conversations Inspired My Company Now, years into a relationship built on among other things financial accountability and alignment, Watsons all-in-one financial management platform, Origin, has unveiled a suite of tools designed to help couples co-manage their financial lives. Origin is built to empower couples to take control of their finances together, Watson said. From tracking spending and investments to planning for the future with estate planning and tax management, Origin offers a comprehensive approach to financial wellness. Origins platform encourages couples to link their accounts, providing a clear, unified view of their financial situation. This transparency fosters better communication and helps couples make informed decisions together. One of the biggest challenges couples face is understanding their joint financial picture, Watson said. With Origin, both partners can see where the money is going, set goals together and track progress in real time. This joint effort reduces stress and builds a stronger, more united approach to financial management. In addition to its powerful tracking and planning tools, Origin offers access to certified financial planners who can provide personalized advice tailored to each couples unique situation. These experts help couples navigate complex financial decisions and ensure they are on the right path to achieving their goals. Watsons vision for Origin extends beyond just managing money; its about helping couples build a future together. Whether saving for a home, planning for childrens education or preparing for retirement, he aspires for Origin to provide the tools and support needed to turn dreams into reality. The goal is to create a platform where couples feel empowered and supported in their financial journey, Watson said. By bringing money conversations to the forefront, we can help couples avoid misunderstandings and work together towards a shared future. We Need To Break the Taboo Around Money Talks Ultimately, Origin aims to shift the cultural narrative around money. By normalizing financial discussions, couples can break free from the stigma and build healthier, more transparent relationships. Talking about money shouldnt be taboo, Watson concluded. It should be an integral part of any relationship. With Origin, were making it easier for couples to have these essential conversations and, in doing so, strengthen their bond. In a world where financial discord can tear relationships apart, Watson and Origin ensure that money, when managed together, can bring couples closer and make them wealthier. Through open dialogue, joint planning and professional guidance, couples can survive financial challenges and thrive together. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Im a Financial Expert: Why I Started Talking About Money With My Partner Before We Got Married Russian strike on Okhmatdyt hospital: experts identify more than 30 parts and fragments of Kh-101 missile photos Specialists from the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise of the Ministry of Justice have identified more than 30 parts and fragments of the Kh-101 missile used by the Russians to hit the Okhmatdyt Children's Specialised Hospital in Kyiv on 8 July. Source: Ukraine's Ministry of Justice Details: It is noted that from 8 to 9 July, experts from Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise worked on the territory of the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialised Hospital of Ukraine's Ministry of Health to quickly identify the weapons used by the Russians. More than 30 missile parts and fragments were identified, including: - a part of the rotation drive with fragments of the rocket's wing console spar; - fragments of the tail section with parts of aerodynamic rudders; - a fragment of the engine; - fragments of the engine's outer skin with parts of the engine's serial number and production number. Based on the video of the missile hitting the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital available to the experts of Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise, the investigators made an approximate calculation of the size of the cruise missile 7.5 metres. Quote from Andrii Haichenko, Deputy Minister of Justice: "The specific engineering and design features of the found wreckage and the corresponding standard markings indicate that the Russian armed forces used a Kh-101 strategic air-launched cruise missile. Its length is 7.5 m, the warhead weighs about 400 kg, the maximum speed is 720 km/h, and the range is up to 5000 km." Background: The Russians launched a strike on the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialised Hospital in Kyiv on 8 July. One of the buildings was destroyed. The Kyiv authorities reported that two adults had been killed and 32 injured. The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has defined Russia's attack on the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialised Hospital in Kyiv as a war crime and initiated criminal proceedings into the matter. Early reports from SSU investigators indicate the Russians used a Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile to attack the medical facility. The Ukrainian Air Force also clearly denied the possibility that a Ukrainian air defence missile could have hit the Okhmatdyt. The evidence is a screenshot of a video and a photo of a Kh-101 missile, as well as a photo of an AIM-120 missile, the kind of projectile that NASAMS surface-to-air missile systems use. Bellingcat analysts, as well as a number of independent nuclear weapons and missile technology experts, concluded that the attack on Kyiv's Okhmatdyt hospital involved the use of a Russian Kh-101 missile. Support UP or become our patron! The Russians attacked the village of Shyroka Balka in Kherson Oblast on the morning of 10 July, wounding a man and a woman. Source: Kherson Oblast Military Administration Quote: "An enemy shell landed a few dozen metres from a residential building. As a result of the Russian attack, a married couple a woman, 57, and a man, 56, were injured. They were diagnosed with concussions, encephalopathy and blast injuries." Details: It is noted that the couple were taken to hospital and are currently receiving the necessary medical care. Background: On 10 July, the Russians hit a residential building in the village of Inhulets, Kherson Oblast, killing a man, 57. Support UP or become our patron! Russian forces attacked a power facility in Rivne Oblast on the night of 9-10 July with drones, causing a power outage for some consumers. Source: Ukrenergo, Ukraines state-owned power distribution company, on Telegram; Rivne Oblast Military Administration on Telegram Quote: "The enemy attacked a power facility in Rivne Oblast with UAVs last night. In some areas of the oblast, household and industrial consumers were left without power." Details: It is reported that as of 07:00, the power supply to consumers has been restored. Emergency repair works are currently underway at the facility. Oleksandr Koval, Head of Rivne Oblast Military Administration, reported that the fire had been contained, and there were no casualties. Support UP or become our patron! Russia's brutal missile strike on a Ukrainian children's hospital just before the big NATO summit appears to be backfiring Russia's brutal missile strike on a Ukrainian children's hospital just before the big NATO summit appears to be backfiring A huge Russian attack hit multiple sites in Ukraine, including a children's hospital. The attack came just before a major NATO summit where a big topic is support for Ukraine. An expert said Russia's attack "backfired" by highlighting how much Ukraine needs those defenses. Russia's deadly strikes on Ukraine just days before the NATO summit, including an attack on a children's hospital, have blown up in its face, stirring outrage in Ukraine, gaining international media attention, and fueling support from partner nations at a time when war fatigue threatens Kyiv's fight. Monday's attack was one of the worst against Ukraine in months. It destroyed part of the Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv, the capital, where children get cancer treatment and organ transplants, and sites in other cities. Ukraine said the attack killed at least 41 people and injured 166 more. The attack aggressively highlighted Ukraine's critical need for air defenses, something for which it has been begging Western partners. Russia's attack was met with more attention than most recent developments in Ukraine, and viral images spread of injured and bloodied children and searches in the rubble. Emergency officials and civilians conduct search and rescue operations among the rubble of Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital on Monday. Kyiv Regional Military Administration / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images "Russia's missile strikes that today killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians and caused damage and casualties at Kyiv's largest children's hospital are a horrific reminder of Russia's brutality," US President Joe Biden said afterward. Biden said at the NATO summit Tuesday that a number of alliance members will send Ukraine dozens of air defense systems, including at least four more Patriot systems, in the coming months. While such an announcement would have been long in the works, the timing of Russia's attack one day before NATO's biggest event massively highlighted Ukraine's need at a key time when the alliance will be weighing next steps, potentially solidifying its convictions. Air defense priorities The annual NATO summit kicked off in Washington, DC, on Tuesday with leaders of the 75-year-old Western military alliance gathering to discuss its priorities, including Ukraine. Ukraine's primary aim for this summit was to secure more air defenses. The missile attacks the day before underscored that need, just before NATO's biggest gathering of the year, where Ukraine and its partners can meet, negotiate, and strike deals. The deadly Russian missile attack saw child cancer patients evacuated and moved with medical tubes still in their bodies. Rescue workers and volunteers were seen digging through the post-strike debris. Ukraine's presidential office shared an image of a child, awake in a woman's arms, with a head injury of some kind and covered in blood and dust. Women hold patients at Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital that was damaged during Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine on Monday. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo Rajan Menon, a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, said Russia's strikes had "backfired" by highlighting how badly Ukraine needs more air defenses. He said that because one of the sites struck was a children's hospital, it drew far more attention to Russia's attacks and Ukraine's needs. Ukraine's cities have long been bombarded, but this particular tragedy triggered new outrage. "The nature of the site and the nature of the occupants made a very big difference," Menon said. Ukraine has issued a challenge to its international partners in the wake of the attack, demanding more than just air defenses. Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said that the Russian missile attack and its timing were meant to show that even with children being killed, the alliance will not do everything necessary to help Ukraine. Ukrainian officials say allies need to drop restrictions on hitting military targets inside Russia, where many attacks originate, and give Ukraine additional support. Highlighting Ukraine's needs One of Russia's more brutal tactics in its invasion has been to fire barrages of drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities far from the front lines in the country's east. Those attacks have killed civilians and destroyed power infrastructure and residential and medical buildings. Ukraine has been asking for more help from allies throughout Russia's invasion and has received many systems from the West. But Ukraine has repeatedly said it needs more, though those requests rarely make international headlines anymore. Ukrainians and supporters attend solidarity with Ukraine demonstration in front of the Washington Monument during the 75th NATO Summit in Washington, DC, on Tuesday. Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images Now, more than two years into the war, many of Russia's missile attacks no longer draw huge international reactions. But this week's attack was different. World leaders, including the EU's foreign policy chief and the head of the UN, publicly condemned the attacks. Menon said that this attack had "without question" drawn more public attention from world leaders than other recent events in Ukraine. He said that "when you hit not just a hospital or a children's hospital and not just a children's hospital, but a children's hospital in which there are children were being treated for cancer it doesn't get much worse than that in terms of brutality." France's foreign minister called the strikes "barbaric" and "war crimes" and promptly called for Ukraine's allies to strengthen their support. New UK prime minister Keir Starmer condemned "attacking innocent children" as the "most depraved of actions." A doctor carries a child out of the Okhmatdyt Children's Clinic Hospital who was injured after a rocket attack Aleksandr Gusev/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Biden called the strikes "horrific" and said "I will be meeting with President Zelensky to make clear our support for Ukraine is unshakeable." The Russian missile attacks were also a notable talking point at the NATO summit. The head of Ukraine's parliament started his address by holding up photos of its aftermath and described it as Russian President Vladimir Putin laughing at the red lines the West has set. He added that it showed how the remaining restrictions need to be lifted. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also spoke at the start of the summit. Blinken acknowledged the hospital attack and said that it "underscores" how Russian aggression continues. A devastating hit The children's hospital appeared to have been struck by a Russian Kh-101 missile, something the UK MOD previously described as being among Russia's "most valuable weaponry," but it is unclear if the hospital was Russia's intended target. War analysts looking at videos of the strike said there were no signs of damage or distress on the missile that would suggest it went off course. Russia has, however, long struggled with intelligence reliability and targeting for its devastating barrages. A UN investigation found the children's hospital likely took a direct hit from a Russian missile, likely a Kh-101. Ukraine also said it found Kh-101 remnants at the site. Rescue and military forces clear the rubble of the destroyed building of Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital following a missile strike in Kyiv capital of Ukraine on Monday. ORI AVIRAM/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images Moscow has denied hitting the hospital, arguing instead that a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile was responsible. Russia, throughout its invasion, has repeatedly made claims that have been disproven by evidence. War analysts said available visual evidence disputes Russia's claims. Russia has hit multiple hospitals, medical sites, and civilian sites throughout its war. Menon said "it doesn't in the end matter whether Russia did it deliberately or it was an errant missile or some commander screwed up. The fact is it was done, and it's a war crime in a legal sense." Multiple Ukrainian officials have also called the missile attack a war crime, and a UN official said that "intentionally directing attacks against a protected hospital is a war crime and perpetrators must be held to account." Ukraine's new air defense systems will bolster the country's ability to prevent strikes like this, but they likely won't fully meet its defense needs. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in April that Ukraine needs 25 Patriot systems with between six and eight batteries each to fully protect the country. That's a tall order as is, but Ukraine wants its international partners to go further still. It wants a clear path into NATO, as well as the lifting of the remaining restrictions on attacking legitimate targets in Russia. It remains unclear if the ongoing NATO summit will produce these results. Senior defense reporter Jake Epstein contributed to this reporting from the NATO summit. Read the original article on Business Insider RUTHERFORD COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) A month before the start of the school year, Rutherford County Schools is showing off its new look. On Tuesday, RCS unveiled its new branding and marketing initiative. (Source: Rutherford County Schools) Branding is much more than a new logo. It is a vital, strategic initiative that helps define an organization, its messaging, and its image, Director of Schools Dr. Jimmy Sullivan wrote in a statement. Rutherford County Schools managing growth through construction projects The new marketing plan cost the district $85,000 and was met with some pushback from community members who felt it wasnt a good use of funds. However, RCS Communications Chief James Evans said there were limitations on uses for the federal funding from COVID relief initiatives. It was in one of those situations where we had to either use it or lose it, Evans said. And so we thought this would be a good investment because it wasnt being used for classroom programs we already had a lot of those programs in place for those through this fundingwe had exhausted a lot of those opportunities. Evans also said that in this day and age, it is important for a school district to have strong branding. Group has questions after Rutherford County Schools removes numerous books Its just the reality of public education these days, that we have to market ourselves just like a business would, he said. We know that charter schools and vouchers and those kinds of things, private schools, homeschooling, all the different options that parents have, those options are not going to go away. In fact, Evans hopes this new branding and the marketing strategy that comes with it highlight all the options RCS can offer students and families. He said one of his goals for the upcoming school year is for people to know what career and college readiness opportunities exist within RCS. | READ MORE | Latest headlines from Murfreesboro and Rutherford County People usually know what their schools are good atthey didnt know as much about what else is offered, and so if they had a high school a town over, they maybe didnt know that they have a culinary arts program or construction program, or a dental program that their kids could study, he said. The branding video can be found here while more information is available here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. (FOX40.COM) The Sacramento Police Department is asking for help to find two children and their father after their mother was found dead in a residence. Around 7:30 p.m. on Monday, SPD responded to the 3700 block of Didcot Circle for a medical aid call. Upon arrival, law enforcement found a woman who was pronounced dead at the scene. Detectives discovered the woman had two children who were missing; 4-year-old Athena Lee and 2-year-old Mateo Lee. Police suspect the children are with their father, Camron Lee, 38, who they havent been able to get in contact with. On Wednesday, the Sacramento Police Department said the 2023 Honda Pilot, originally identified as a Passport, has entered Mexico. Its license plate number is 9JUS091. Police said that because of the vehicle entering Mexico, an AMBER alert will not be issued. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call (916) 808-5471 or (916) 443-4357. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg affirmed his support of President Joe Biden following a phone call the president had with California Democratic mayors on Tuesday evening. During a call, Biden emphasized abortion rights and infrastructure, Steinberg said. His presence was powerful, Steinberg said in a statement to The Sacramento Bee Wednesday. His voice resonated with conviction and clarity. He thoroughly articulated the stark differences between a second Biden administration and that of Trump, emphasizing critical issues such as choice, pledging that Roe v. Wade will once again become the law of the land. Additionally, he underscored the importance of investing in American cities. Unlike Trumps tenure, his leadership has paved the way for a decade of robust infrastructure development. The call, organized by the Democratic Mayors Association lasted about 40 minutes mostly consisting of listening to Biden, Steinberg said. The call came in the wake of a debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump, where Bidens performance has spurred a call for him to not seek reelection due to his age. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Steinberg ally, has also been standing by Biden during this time, including campaigning for him in battleground states. Some see the Democratic Party debate over these past weeks as division and weakness, Steinberg said. I dont. Leaders and people of good will care deeply about our democracy and the country, and are appalled by the prospect of the insurrection President regaining power. Now that the discussion has been had, and without ignoring the challenge, we have one choice: Fight to win. President Biden is running. We must uplift his innumerable great strengths, his character, his record, and his fight for our country. Just like Harry Truman, we have one choice. Give em hell Joe. Steinberg, former Senate pro tem in the California Senate, will have his term end as mayor in December. The Los Rios Community College Districts Prison and Reentry program, which teaches college classes within local correctional facilities, has an uncertain future after the district investigated nine faculty members. The crux of the investigation, faculty members said, is the distribution of student-written letters. Kalinda Jones, the programs faculty coordinator, said these letters included ones detailing student concerns and a class project where students write letters to their future selves, a project the program has done for years. The district claimed the physical transportation of letters possibly violated a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation policy, which requires a prison warden to approve the transport of letters. The investigation has now been completed, a spokesperson with Los Rios said, which found no evidence of any wrongdoing by any Los Rios employee. However, the future of the program is still uncertain, said Jones. During the investigation, faculty contracts to work inside the prison expired, and for classes to be held in the fall, a contract must be negotiated. This contract clarifies clear working conditions and protections, like safety, training and academic freedom for professors, Jones said. Because Los Rioss faculty union does not have information about working conditions specific to prisons, they must work with the district to outline them. The contract later needs to be voted on by the faculty unions executive board, which does not meet during the summer. Despite this, the district said they plan to still offer classes this fall and are continuing to work with faculty to put together as complete a schedule as possible for the upcoming semester. The district said there are ongoing conversations about how to provide the best possible environment for faculty in this program. Our goal had always been to continue the program and offer as many classes as possible this fall, and from the districts perspective any investigation was unrelated to that goal, said Gabe Ross, chief strategy and communications officer for the district. Student pen letters of concern During the winter of 2023, several incarcerated students wrote letters to the colleges student senates expressing concerns and criticism about the program. Students reported they did not have proper counseling needs and classes were taught without books and computers. The district said they hired a counselor the year before. I feel like incarcerated students are being treated like three-fifths of a student, said program alum Angelo Ward, who is now studying at Sacramento State. Its like our voices dont matter because we are incarcerated. Out of sight, out of mind. For Ward, the program gave him a different perspective on life. As a Black and Pomo Native American man, he recalled being dismissed and racially profiled. As a result, Ward said he would take his anger out on others. His courses and instructors taught him to grow, to interact with others differently and that he has a voice to make a positive change. Today, he is working on becoming better, not just for himself, but for his daughter. Programs like this have shown to be beneficial for incarcerated students. Higher education lowers an individuals recidivism rate and provides a new life path for incarcerated students. Ward believes his instructors did nothing wrong, and said the investigation began with student letters expressing concerns and the formation of a student task group. Faculty like Jones said this mistreatment was done because the district could get away with it. Unlike their non-incarcerated peers, incarcerated students can go unseen. This would never happen on campus, Jones said. Its just because our people are hidden behind wire fences. Even now that the investigation has been concluded, Jones still doesnt know if students will receive the resources they requested. Jones said that the district has not followed the corrections education penal code, which requires colleges to adhere to specific requirements for their prison education programs. Los Rios has not aligned resources for incarcerated students to make sure they have an education that is equitable to students on campus or that aligns to the penal code, Jones said. Ward said when incarcerated students spoke up to administration, it felt like their concerns fell on deaf ears. He said district administration was encouraging of the task group in the beginning, but over time, he said it seemed like the support was for show. The goal of this task group was to receive some type of aid to the program, Ward said. Faculty said the district was slow to provide resources to classes and failed to meet the programs accommodations. Im just frustrated and just saddened, said Veronica Lopez, one of the professors. This is an amazing program and it changes lives. Student after student has said it has changed their perspective. The letters at the center of the investigation The biggest point of the investigation was the transportation of letters. Letters addressing student concerns about the program were sent to student senates from Jones. After she sent the letters in an email on Dec. 5, Jones was told she was being investigated. Later that month, Jones said she was called into a meeting right before Christmas break, where she said she was read a statement saying she put the safety of Los Rios administration and classified employees at risk. Jones said she was told she could not teach at another prison until the investigation was concluded. For her, she said its still unclear what exactly (the district was) investigating. She said the only details she received was that she illegally used district email to distribute student letters. Theres no distributing student letters. Its student work that they did for a project in class where they were advocating, Jones said. In March, eight other faculty were notified that they were also being investigated. I would have never imagined I would be investigated because I was ccd on an email, said Veronica Jones, the prison reentry faculty coordinator. I was doing my job. Not only do faculty involved in the sending letters dont believe they violate any law, but they said the district is criminalizing their curriculum. Theyre kind of picking and choosing that law to sort of criminalize us, when it obviously doesnt apply to people teaching inside a prison, faculty member Joshua Fernandez said in June. That law is for people who are actually transporting personal letters outside of the prison. Thats what that law is for, not for people teaching. Faculty were investigated for other reasons. Fernandez, who teaches English, was told teaching material that wasnt explicitly on his syllabus was a criminal act, he said. Legally, all thats required to be on a syllabus is the courses description, time and grading structure, Fernandez said, the rest is up to the instructor. Jones said she has never heard complaints on the letter project before, and that it was even praised by college administrators, including her department chair, Folsom Lake College Administration, district academic senate faculty members and Los Rios Prison Education Administration. I dont think that (Los Rios) is willing to provide the resources behind it, or the respect, Jones said. We would never be where we are with this investigation if they had just asked faculty some questions. Just ask for clarification, just have communication with us. (The Hill) A junior Navy sailor unsuccessfully attempted to access President Bidens medical records in February via a military medical database, the Pentagons top spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. CBS News first reported that the sailor, whose name has not been released, used the Genesis Medical Health System three times Feb. 23 to search Joseph Biden but did not pull up the correct person. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was notified of the attempted breach in February, when the Navy became aware, and the White House was also notified through channels at the time, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder later told reporters. The bottom line is that they confirmed that at no time was the presidents personal information compromised, and that the record that the sailor inappropriately accessed was not the electronic health record of the president of the United States, Ryder said. An investigation into the incident was launched by Navy Criminal Investigative Service on Feb. 26 after a co-worker of the sailor reported what had happened, Navy spokesperson Cmdr. Tim Hawkins told The Hill. The junior enlisted sailor, who was serving in the Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command based at Fort Belvoir, Va., admitted he looked up the presidents name out of curiosity, Hawkins said. The investigation, which wrapped up April 24, concluded that the record the sailor accessed was not the electronic record of the president and the sailor could not have used the Genesis system to do so, as Bidens medical record is restricted. The MHS Genesis system is a secure health system and at no time was the Presidents personal information compromised, Hawkins said. Biden underwent his annual physical Feb. 28 at Walter Reed National Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. At the time, the president was deemed fit for duty, according to a summary of the examination the White House later released. That assessment has been called into question after Bidens disastrous debate performance last month, with some Democrats contending that he lacks the mental acuity to stand as commander in chief for another four years. The White House on Monday also sparred with reporters over whether the administration has been honest about Bidens health after reports surfaced indicating visitor logs showed a neurologist specializing in Parkinsons disease was at the White House eight times over an eight month period. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Malaysia is set to achieve its 40% renewable energy capacity target by 2035, according to new analysis by Power Technologys parent company, GlobalData. In 2021, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of Malaysia (KeTSA) aimed to reach 31% renewable capacity by 2025 and 40% by 2035. Later, in the National Energy Policy (20222040), the government set a target to achieve 18.4GW of renewable capacity by 2040. Currently, 13.3% of the countrys total capacity is accounted for by renewables. If it continues its current rate of growth, Malaysia is expected to achieve 18.2% renewable capacity by 2025 and 36.4% by 2035, according to GlobalData. The data and analytics companys latest report Malaysia Power Market Size, Trends, Regulations, Competitive Landscape and Forecast, 20242025 claims that Malaysia is rich in the untapped potential of renewable energy sources, which it can develop to achieve energy security while addressing climate change concerns. Sudeshna Sarmah, power analyst at GlobalData, said: In 2016, Malaysias energy commission, Suruhanjaya Tenaga, introduced a large-scale solar programme with a total quota of 1.25GW allocated for the 201720 period, which resulted in the accelerated growth of grid-connected PV systems. Moreover, the Net Energy Metering programme led to the rise of a distributed renewable energy market. Currently, solar, biopower and small hydro generate most of the countrys renewable energy. The country only has one small onshore wind farm with a capacity of 0.2MW, as temperamental wind speeds during the off season in the region are not complementary to the power source. Nevertheless, according to GlobalData, several small wind projects could still make a difference. GlobalData highlights that the Malaysian Government has advanced several efforts to support renewable energy in the country, including extending the Green Investment Tax Allowance and Green Income Tax Exemption until 2023. The government has announced an income tax exemption for solar leasing companies, which will run to December 2026. "Malaysia to achieve 40% renewables by 2035 report" was originally created and published by Power Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Saline County residents start to clean up after flash flooding caused by Beryl Saline County residents start to clean up after flash flooding caused by Beryl BENTON, Ark. Many Saline County residents are cleaning up after the county faced flash flooding that impacted drivers, homeowners and those living in apartments. Beryl brought heavy rain and damaging winds in parts of Arkansas. Saline County Emergency Management Director Stuart Duke said the rain was significant and caused the flash flooding. Approximately 30 roads had issues, Duke said. We had some calls in the county that required some evacuations. YOUR PHOTOS: Beryl tears path through Arkansas Duke said on Tuesday that crews are still assessing the area after much of the flood water has receded. As for the evacuations, he said they did around 10 at the Revive Benton Apartments but there are no reported injuries. Jasper Wolcott lives at the apartment complex and said the water that was coming into the apartment got worse and worse. It was coming in through the front door, it was coming in from underneath the walls, in every single room, Wolcott said. Wolcott said when the water kept coming in the apartment, they chose to leave through the window instead of opening the front door to avoid more rushing in. The water was literally rushing past here (the front door and parking lot), Wolcott said. We had to go towards the flow because if we had gone against it, it probably would have swept us away. Thousands without power after Tropical Storm Beryl hits Arkansas Tanisha Lews said she hunkered down when her apartment started to fill with water. It was like a little river in here, Lews said. Kevin Belt and his family live in a home a few minutes away from the apartment complex. He said their entire house was flooded and parts of their fence was brought down by the strength of the storm. We had about six inches of water in our garage, and it pushed under the door into the walls, Belt said. Belt said his family is now in clean-up mode. We had to get the mud up off the floor, get the carpets out, the beds out so get the living place as clean as possible, Belt said. Bowman Road sinkhole causing massive headache for drivers, businesses in Little Rock Those living in the apartment complex said they are doing their best to clean up and save what they can. Duke said as of Tuesday there are no injuries reported but if people need to report any damage they should contact the county emergency management office. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) A San Angelo man actively registered as a sex offender was arrested for using Snapchat to solicit a minor who lived in Louisiana, according to court records. Fulton was booked into the Tom Green County Detention Center on July 10 at 10:22 a.m. on one charge of soliciting a minor under the age of 14. He has a posted bond of $250,000. An affidavit filed within Tom Green County stated that a Tom Green County Sheriffs Office peace officer spoke with an investigator of the Ouachita Parish Sheriffs Office, which is located in Louisiana, on July 9 in regards to a case involving 32-year-old Joshua Fulton, a San Angelo resident. The investigator stated that Fulton was sexting a 13-year-old Louisiana girl using Snapchat. The investigator also told the peace officer that their investigation into the case revealed that Fulton and the girl had sent nude images of themselves to one another. Additionally, the investigator said that they had copies of messages Fulton and the girl sent to each other, stating that Fulton had told the girl he wanted to have sex with her, he wanted her to have his baby, and he wanted to come to Louisiana and pick her up and take her back to his house. The investigator also told the TGSO officer that the girl informed Fulton of her age and that Fulton told her that he was from Texas. According to the Texas Public Sex Offender website, Fulton is currently listed as a sex offender with a lifetime registration requirement. The affidavit stated that he was required to register as a sex offender following his conviction on March 15, 2016, for sexually assaulting a child. His most recent yearly required verification with the San Angelo Police Department was on Jan. 10, 2024. The TGSO peace officer also spoke with an SAPD member who had been contacted by an investigator of the Oswego County Sheriffs Office in New York regarding a separate instance of Fulton soliciting an underage girl. The investigator told the SAPD member that the case they were working on involved Fulton sexting and exchanging nude media files with the New York girl. The peace officer then contacted an SAPD Patrol Division officer who also spoke with the Oswego County investigator. The investigator told the SAPD officer that Fulton had sent nude media files of himself masturbating to the underage girl, files that depicted distinct tattoos he had on his hands and arms. Records reviewed by the peace officer also indicated that Fulton had been caught using a Facebook account to message with an underage girl in a sexually explicit manner in early 2019. Fulton admitted to messaging the underage girl during an interview, and it was discovered during an investigation that Fulton had multiple social media accounts not declared during his yearly sex offender registration. The investigation into Fultons most recent arrest is currently ongoing. If you believe you or your child may be a victim of Fulton, the Tom Green County Sheriffs Office asks that you contact it or your local law enforcement agency and reference this investigation. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ConchoValleyHomepage.com. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) The Illinois State Police and Sangamon County Sheriff have both issued new statements regarding the investigation and lack of public information on last weeks deputy-involved shooting. So far, it is publicly known that deputies responded to the 2800 block of Hoover Avenue on Saturday for a report of a prowler. After spending 30 minutes on the scene, a deputy shot 36-year-old Sonya Massey, whose home was in the area. She was later pronounced dead. No further details are available, and both State Police and Sheriff Jack Campbell said they are trying to protect the integrity of the investigation by not releasing further information. In a post on his offices Facebook page, Campbell addressed concerns about a lack of public statements since the shooting happened. In response, he pointed out that his office did in fact publish a new release within hours of the shooting, which stated ISP had been contacted to perform the investigation, which is routine in shootings involving law enforcement. Campbell said that right now, protecting the integrity of the investigation is imperative, and that includes waiting for determinations from State Police. Former Sangamon Co. police chief gets 1 year of jail for child pornography charges My normal procedure is to respond to inquiries and to give public statements in regard to major events. And as an elected official, that is always my instinct, Campbell said. In this case, it would not be appropriate. Im asking for the public and the media to be patient as we seek the facts surrounding this tragic event. State Police, meanwhile, said they are trying to protect the legal process and the right to a fair trial should charges be filed. For that reason, officials said they will not be releasing body camera video from the deputies or other information at this time. When appropriate, additional information, including the video, will be shared with Sonya Masseys family before releasing further, State Police officials said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com. (KRON) An unruly Fourth of July crowd at Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz launched fireworks at deputies and their patrol vehicles, according to the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office. Deputies are currently working to identify suspects. There were hundreds of people within the crowd when the incident occurred at 10 p.m. July 4. All fireworks, including safe and sane, are illegal across the county. Every July 4, however, crowds gather along the beaches after sunset and launch countless illegal fireworks into the sky. Sheriffs deputies were enforcing anti-fireworks regulations along East Cliff Drive when the crowd, which included many juveniles, turned against them. Several unidentified suspects threw lit explosives at deputies, patrol vehicles, and civilian vehicles. Although no serious injuries were sustained, multiple deputies suffered headaches and temporary hearing loss due to the proximity of the blasts. We are now seeking help from the public to identify the people who intentionally targeted our deputies, the Sheriffs Office wrote. Berkeley HS football player hospitalized after firework explodes in hand Anyone who has information or videos related to the incident is asked to call 831-471-1121. You can also message the Sheriffs Office on social media with any relevant information. Throughout the holiday, deputies conducted 375 beach patrol checks, issued 30 citations for fireworks or alcohol-related offenses, and helped a juvenile who was injured by fireworks. While many people celebrated responsibly with friends and family, we will continue to investigate and pursue those who did not, the Sheriffs Office wrote. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) The San Angelo Police Department has announced that one of its detectives who was arrested over the Fourth of July holiday for driving while intoxicated has since resigned from his role. According to a release issued by the SAPD, James Hernandez resigned from his position as a police detective on Monday, July 8, just four days after he was arrested. The arrest occurred during a traffic stop conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety on July 4, during which probable cause was found for Hernandez being intoxicated. He was taken into custody and charged with Driving While Intoxicated 2nd. He was off-duty at the time of the arrest. A mugshot of SAPD detective James Hernandez taken following his arrest for driving while intoxicated on July 4, 2024. The incident prompted SAPD Police Chief Travis Griffith to hold a press conference the following morning. During the conference, Griffith stated that Hernandez would be afforded due process under the law and would not be given deferential treatment. RELATED: TxDPS arrests SAPD detective for DWI I just want to address this: Just like anybody else, theres no difference between a citizen versus one of our personnel, that everyone is afforded due process under the law and that theyre innocent until proven guilty through that process, Griffith said. The SAPD also launched an investigation and immediate internal review into the incident. Hernandez would resign in the days that followed, putting an end to his 17-year career in the department. The San Angelo Police Department takes such matters very seriously, and the actions of one officer do not reflect the values or conduct of the department or its other officers, the SAPD said. The department remains committed to transparency and accountability. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ConchoValleyHomepage.com. New Sarasota city guidelines for development, roads and more targeted for fall 2026 Sarasota city commissioners are considering updates to how the city will regulate development and construction for years to come. Sarasota's Engineering Design Criteria Manual (EDCM) which has not been revised since 2002 is a comprehensive guide to the construction and reconstruction of the right-of-way and land development within Sarasota, according to a presentation to commissioners at a workshop Monday. The new, 534-page draft for a new manual was created after city officials consulted with local developers, planners, engineers and public workers for the design of new roads, improvements to infrastructure or property redevelopment. It focuses on regulating subdivisions, street and drainage design, utilities engineering and solid waste. The manual does not touch on public transportation, parks and open space, land use and zoning, or building facades and structural requirements. Sarasota construction, development manual revisions in the works Dense, downtown areas such as Palm Avenue would be classified as "Downtown Core" under the new proposed Engineering Design Criteria Manual City Manager Marlon Brown emphasized that the manual revisions are not finished, with a future public hearing planned. The city staff began to meet with focus groups in September 2022 on the revisions, including people who work in development, such as architects and environmental engineers; agencies such as the Florida Department of Transportation and the Sarasota County government; and with various neighborhood associations and community groups such as the Coalition of City Neighborhood Associations. Three public meetings were held between November 2022 and July 2023; and city staff received 260 responses from their resident surveys. Staff members also told the commission that after a recommendation from the city attorney, the platting process the subdivision of property for official records will be removed from the manual and left to the zoning code. The new manual divides Sarasota into seven context classification zones to provide high-level planning guidance to the application of engineering principles: Downtown Core The most developed parts of the city; with tall, mixed-use buildings. Urban Village Smaller, urban centers such as St. Armands Circle. Urban General Commercial/Mixed-use Areas with a diverse mix of housing that often connect urban residential areas, such as Martin Luther King Jr. Way Urban General Residential Active streets with both single family and multi-family dwellings that are close to Sarasotas major commercial centers. Suburban Commercial or Industrial Lowdensity areas with large lots and railroads that are primarily used by businesses. Suburban Residential Residential areas that mostly consist of single-family homes. Special Districts Difficult to define areas with a variety of functions and characteristics. Sarasota city commissioners react St. Armands Circle City commissioners raised no major concerns with the plan. Commissioner Debbie Trice asked city staff about the prioritization of street traffic in the draft. Pedestrians and bicyclists were deemed the most vulnerable users, followed by public transit and commercial trucks, while passenger vehicles were last. Senior Transportation Planner Corinne Arriaga responded that the ranking is a guide for designing streets. In response to Commissioner Kyle Batties questioning about how the manual would impact ongoing developments, City Engineer Nikesh Patel said any project currently in the pipeline would not be affected by revisions. In order to ensure that the impacted parties have plenty of time to catch up to new standards, were making that implementation in fall of 2026, Patel said. So, theyll have sufficient transition time to meet up to the new standards. Patel added that when the new manual is implemented, developers must adhere to the new rules. Christian Casale covers local government for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Email him at ccasale@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter @vanityhack This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota City Commission discusses first draft of new engineering plan As Sarasota County Commissioner Mike Moran is engaged in a legal battle between most Florida tax collectors and a financing agency for energy efficient home improvements that he leads, the commission he chairs unanimously approved a deal with that agency at a Tuesday meeting. Moran is the executive director of the Florida PACE funding agency, one of four governmental organizations in the state for the Property Assessed Clean Energy. The term-limited County Commission chairman is also running for the office of Sarasota County Tax Collector. The County Commission first provided the Florida PACE Funding Agency with local authorization in 2017 Moran's first year on the board. But in January 2023, the county received a letter from Moran's group stating that the program had independent authority to carry out its mission of offering PACE financing statewide, without requiring additional efforts from individual counties or cities. The Sarasota County administrator then informed the board that a new agreement with Florida PACE would not be pursued. However, since then, Florida PACE requested to renew a formal agreement. Nonprofit funding cut: Sarasota foundations urge do-over after county commission changed nonprofit funding rules Moran abstained from the Tuesday vote, which passed 4-0, but also referenced an opinion several years ago by the Florida Commission on Ethics that he said cleared him from criticism of a conflict of interest when he lobbied for the program in Sarasota County two years before he was offered a position with it. In a memo to the county administrator, Sarasota UF/IFAS Extension Director Lee Hayes Byron wrote that the proposed PACE programs would not impact the county budget. It is the responsibility of each PACE Local Government and (Third-Party Administrators) to secure the private financing necessary for the implementation of the program and to work with the Property Appraiser and Tax Collector to levy the assessments, Byron wrote. There would be minimal county staff time involved in overseeing program implementation. PACE programs were created to provide a financing option for owners who had difficulty accessing traditional credit options or without the cash for needed home improvements. Improvements include rooftop solar panels, solar water heaters, energy-efficient air conditioning units, cool roofs, impact windows, insulation and more, according to the Sarasota County website. With the County Commission's vote of approval, PACE providers will now begin to negotiate agreements with the Tax Collector and Property Appraiser offices. Byrons memo said that the Florida PACE Funding Agency must provide documentation that the program design meets state and local requirements before it can enter into financing agreements with Sarasota County property owners. Asked how the boards vote would affect her office, Sarasota Tax Collector Barbara Ford-Coates told the Herald-Tribune she had the same question, and is consulting with legal counsel. Property Appraiser Bill Furst did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. Florida PACE program raises objections among tax collectors Morans income as the head of Florida PACE is more than $194,000 a year, according to his financial disclosure forms. Since the commissioner became executive director, his net worth has more than doubled from about $621,000 in 2020 to over $1.5 million as of April 2024. Tax collectors have objected to the agency he leads and filed a collective lawsuit that is before the Florida Supreme Court. Florida PACE won a ruling from a lower court that the organization claims allows it to operate throughout Florida without local oversight. The Attorney General's Office criticized how Florida PACE achieved that victory. "In this case, the Florida PACE Funding Agency pulled a fast one, smuggling into a bond validation order rulings that purport to shield it from consumer-protection regulations by all of Florida's local governments," Deputy Solicitor General Kevin A. Golembiewski wrote in a brief for the Supreme Court case filed on June 17. The 2022 bond validation proceeding allows Florida PACE to sidestep local requirements while at the same time forcing tax collectors across the state in essence to be the program's debt collection agency, whether they agree to participate in the program or not. Tax collectors argue the program lacks consumer protections given that PACE loans have the power to force the sale of property if Florida homeowners fall behind on payments. The program has also been blasted by consumer advocacy groups for a lack of transparency, above-market interest rates, and inadequate protections for homeowners. Those who cannot pay their loans risk a tax lien against their property and could lose their houses. May 22, 2024 - Sarasota County Commissioner Michael Moran, District 1. The ordinance passed by the County Commission also includes indemnification agreements between the county and two Delaware-based PACE funding companies: FortiFi Financial and Home Run Financing. Moran has previously told the Herald-Tribune he would resign from Florida PACE if he won his campaign to become tax collector. Moran faces Charles A. Bear in the Republican primary for the chance to take on Ford-Coates in the November general election. This story was updated to clarify that Commissioner Moran's Florida PACE Funding Agency is one of four PACE providers in Florida. Derek Gilliam contributed to this story. Christian Casale covers local government for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Email him at ccasale@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter @vanityhack This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota County approves agreement for Florida PACE to operate locally SC senators regularly leave judges they control in limbo; 39 are waiting on new terms. Of South Carolina's 302 county-level judges, state legislators have left 40 judges sitting in office, even after their terms have expired. (File/Getty Images) COLUMBIA More than one of every 10 county judges in South Carolina who answer to their local senator remain on the bench long after their terms expired. Two have been kept in what amounts to a temporary status for two decades. Gov. Henry McMaster wants to see it stop. Most of these judges handpicked by their senator, called magistrates, arent attorneys. Yet, they handle a large caseload. Theyre responsible for setting bail, issuing warrants and deciding low-dollar civil disputes. They also preside over trials and decide sentences for crimes punishable by 30 days in jail and/or a $500 fine. When McMaster signed a law last week that adjusts the Legislatures selection process for most other judges in the state, he called for further reforms. At a minimum, he said, senators need to end the widespread practice of leaving magistrates in whats known as holdover status indefinitely without officially re-recommending them for their next four-year term. Magistrates who arent officially approved for a new term could be fired by their senator at any point. Of the states 302 magistrates, 39 are in holdover status. All but one are over a year overdue. You end up having these judges who control very important functions serving terms that can be ended in days and thats not a good situation, McMaster said. Magistrates are technically appointed by the governor. But theyre actually chosen by their local senators, who control when and if theyre replaced. Some senators who are lawyers may even regularly appear before these judges in magistrates court. McMaster said if senators dont end the practice and give him recommendations for new terms, he could make nominations on his own without their input. But such action could simply result in a standoff, since the governor would be making nominations to the senators. By law, magistrates are confirmed by the Senate. Spartanburg County currently has the most magistrates in holdover, with six judges waiting for re-appointment, followed by Union County, with five. Oconee County has four. Two of them were last confirmed over 20 years ago: Judge William Derrick and Chief Magistrate Blake Andrew, who have been in holdover since their terms expired in April 2006. As the only senator whose district covers the Upstate county, Senate President Thomas Alexander controls their seats. There has been some improvement. When McMaster sent a letter admonishing senators last October, there were 70 magistrates in holdover. Spartanburg County alone had 20 of those, 14 of which have now been reviewed and reappointed. Most of the judges in holdover contacted by the SC Daily Gazette did not respond. One declined to comment. But Alexander said the records of the long-serving magistrates in his district speak for themselves. They do a fine job, and I appreciate their service, the Walhalla Republican said. Alexander said he values McMasters input but said he does not share the governors opinion that these holdover magistrates are serving in a state of constant worry theyll lose their jobs. Alexander declined to comment on the warning from the governors office that McMaster may take nominations into his own hands. Sen. Dick Harpootlian, who is also an attorney, said he disagrees with the practice of leaving magistrates in holdover. But he does not think senators motivations for doing so are nefarious. The reason in many instances that magistrates are left in holdover is because a senator is happy with the job theyre doing and does not want a rejection from the governor, he told the SC Daily Gazette. The Columbia Democrat, who was recently defeated in a Democratic primary, said some senators dont want magistrates in their districts to have to go through drawn-out reviews conducted by the governors office. These include criminal background checks and financial audits. However, Harpootlian still disagreed with the archaic position. Every other judge in the state goes through some sort of periodic review, he said. I dont think its good for the system, and I certainly dont think its healthy to have someone appointed and not reviewed at all. Former Sen. Mike Rose had a different take, calling it a public abuse of power to keep a magistrate in indefinite holdover status. If magistrates are doing something illegal or unprofessional like not showing up to work state law allows them to be replaced regardless of whether theyre in a new term or not. But if theyre in holdover, the senator can replace them for any reason, said the Summerville Republican. The effect is the magistrate always has to worry about being replaced by a senator who doesnt like a decision thats been made, Rose said. The harm caused by a senator being able to indirectly influence the decision of magistrates outweighs any benefit. The public can lose confidence in the judicial system if they have reason to fear the decision of judges is based on politics who knows who instead of on the facts and the law itself, he continued. Rose said during his 13 years in office he does not recall ever leaving a magistrate in holdover for a long period of time. Terms were set at four years to prevent a judges replacement at will, he said. Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey has said he personally supports magistrate reform. But the Edgefield Republican, who is also an attorney, called it a little disingenuous for the governor to criticize holdovers given the dozens of magistrate appointment recommendations sitting on McMasters desk for months. Brandon Charochak, a spokesman for the governor, said its true that, with so many magistrates in the state, the governor has yet to take action on many of those who have been recommended to new terms. There are usually dozens under review at any point, but thats because the vetting process takes time. That should inspire public confidence that the governor is not just rubber-stamping every candidate put forth, Charochak said. However, of the 39 in holdover, three are more than a decade past their last term and six others are between five and 10 years overdue. Thats not due to scrutiny from the governors office, he said. Harpootlian and Rose both agreed with the governors calls for reform. For example, Rose thinks there should be greater education requirements, including at least one magistrate with a law degree in each county. State law only requires that magistrates pass a test for certification within one year of appointment. The House version of the bill changing the judicial selection process attempted to give magistrates authority over more cases. But all proposed changes to the magistrate system were taken out of the final compromise, as senators wouldnt agree to them. Editors Note: The length of holdover status for two Oconee County judges has been corrected. They were last confirmed over 20 years ago but have been in holdover status since April 2006. Six judges have been in holdover status between five and 10 years; 39 total are serving past their term. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaks during bilateral talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (not pictured) on the sidelines of the NATO summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has described the support provided to Ukraine with air-defence systems to date as a "major step," on the fringes of the NATO summit in Washington. At the same time, he held out the prospect of the delivery of further aid. "In my view, this process is not complete," Scholz said on Wednesday before a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The United States, Germany and other allies had promised Ukraine five systems to defend against Russian airstrikes at the start of the NATO summit on Tuesday. Ukraine had already requested seven additional systems in April, so the demand is not yet covered. Germany has already delivered three Patriot systems and is counting on other NATO states to follow suit. "Germany has taken a big step in encouraging others to realize that this is necessary," said Scholz. It is safe to say: "Without Germany leading the way, this step would not have been taken now." Scholz also emphasized that he considers the prospect for Ukraine's joining NATO, which is to be set out in a joint declaration by the 32 member states, to be sufficient. He was certain that this would "also provide Ukraine with the degree of clarity that they need to be able to rely on," he said. "And that is why I believe it will be a great success and a sign of unity." In the NATO declaration, which has not yet been finalized, the accession process for Ukraine is to be described as "irreversible," Scholz said. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (L), shakes hands with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (2nd R) ahead of bilateral talks on the sidelines of the NATO summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (L) meets Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, for bilateral talks on the sidelines of the NATO summit. The heads of state and government of the 32 member states also want to discuss strengthening their own deterrence and defense capabilities as well as fairer burden-sharing within the alliance. Kay Nietfeld/dpa German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (L) meets Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, for bilateral talks on the sidelines of the NATO summit. The heads of state and government of the 32 member states also want to discuss strengthening their own deterrence and defense capabilities as well as fairer burden-sharing within the alliance. Kay Nietfeld/dpa School calendar: What's the first day? Also, holidays for 2024-25 in Palm Beach County Summer is flying by for students, parents and school employees in Palm Beach County. The Fourth of July weekend marks the unofficial halfway point of summer which means popsicles and days spent on the water will soon be replaced by earlier alarms and shopping for school supplies. But when does the new 2024-25 school year actually start for students in district-run schools? And when are the major breaks for students this year? The upcoming school year will begin on Monday, Aug. 12 and end on May 30, 2025. School start times will be normal this year, although a new law requires middle and high schools to begin later starting in 2026. Palm Beach County school leaders are weighing three different proposals to push back school start times for middle and high schoolers. Here's what else to know about the upcoming school year: When is Palm Beach County's first day of school 2024? The first day of school is Monday. Aug. 12. Teachers will have pre-school work days starting Aug. 5. No students will be on campus during those work days. When is fall break 2024 for Palm Beach County schools? Students will get two weekdays off in October. They'll be off Thursday, Oct. 3. Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset on Oct. 2 and ends at nightfall on Oct. 4. Students will also get a day off on Monday, Oct. 14. That day is observed as Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day. Boynton Beach resident Zahir Matilus, 4, hi-fives a faculty member during the first day of school at S.D. Spady Elementary School in Delray Beach in 2022. When is Thanksgiving break for Palm Beach County schools in 2024? Students in Palm Beach County will be off school starting Monday, Nov. 25 for Thanksgiving, which falls late this year on Thursday, Nov. 28. Schools will be closed the entire week. The calendar for Palm Beach County schools for the 2024-25 school year. They'll go back to school on Monday, Dec. 2 after Thanksgiving. When are schools closed for winter break for 2024 holidays? Students will be out of school from Monday, Dec. 23 through Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. They'll return to school on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. When is spring break in Palm Beach County 2025? Students will not have school from Monday, March 25 through Monday, March 31. It's no joke: Students will go back to school after spring break on April 1. When is the last day of school in Palm Beach County 2025? Palm Beach County students will end the school year on Friday, May 30. It will be a four-day week, as Memorial Day 2025 will be observed on Monday of that week, May 26. To see the entire school calendar, visit the Palm Beach County School District's website. The calendar for Palm Beach County schools for the 2024-25 school year. Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at kkokal@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today! This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County school calendar: What's the first day for 2024-25? (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. has avoided the threat of a lengthy European Union antitrust probe into its cloud business after it brokered a deal with an Amazon.com Inc.-backed trade lobby that had complained about its software license agreements. Most Read from Bloomberg The association of Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe struck a deal with Microsoft on Wednesday that will see the lobby withdraw its complaint to the EUs competition department, Microsoft said in a statement. CISPE had argued Microsoft made it too difficult for customers to change cloud providers by tying its business software to its Azure cloud services. After working with CISPE and its European members for more than a year, I am pleased that weve not only resolved their concerns of the past, but also worked together to define a path forward that brings even more competition to the cloud computing market in Europe and beyond, Brad Smith, Microsofts president, said in the statement. The agreement will allow CISPE members to use enhanced Microsoft Azure features, with service providers permitted to offer Microsoft applications and services on their local cloud infrastructures, the association said in a statement. A European Commission spokesperson said it would assess the impact of the settlement on competition in European cloud markets. The deal however was not offered to CISPEs largest member, Amazon Web Services or to Googles Cloud Platform and Alibaba Group Holding Ltds cloud service, CISPE said. AWS said in a statement that the settlement does nothing for the vast majority of Microsoft customers who are still unable to use the cloud of their choice in Europe and around the world. The agreement between Microsoft and CISPE puts an end to a long-running back-and-forth between the parties, that saw Microsoft make a spate of concessions in order to appease the concerns of cloud service providers. On the heels of those complaints, EU regulators had been informally asking market rivals and customers about Microsofts conduct. We are exploring our options to continue to fight against Microsofts anti-competitive licensing in order to promote choice, innovation, and the growth of the digital economy in Europe, Amit Zavery, head of platform at Google Cloud, said. Story continues Microsoft is no stranger to EU antitrust scrutiny and in previous decades fought a long battle with regulators over abuses linked to the market dominance of Windows. More recently, its $13 billion investment into OpenAI Inc. is the focus of an informal investigation by regulators, after concerns emerged about the AI firms exclusive use of Microsofts cloud technology. In June, the EU also accused the company of abusing its market power by bundling the Teams video-conferencing app to its other business software. (Updates with European Commission comment in fifth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. A researcher working alone apart from the world and the rest of the wider scientific community is a classic yet misguided image. Research is, in reality, built on continuous exchange within the scientific community: First you understand the work of others, and then you share your findings. Reading and writing articles published in academic journals and presented at conferences is a central part of being a researcher. When researchers write a scholarly article, they must cite the work of peers to provide context, detail sources of inspiration and explain differences in approaches and results. A positive citation by other researchers is a key measure of visibility for a researchers own work. But what happens when this citation system is manipulated? A recent Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology article by our team of academic sleuths which includes information scientists, a computer scientist and a mathematician has revealed an insidious method to artificially inflate citation counts through metadata manipulations: sneaked references. Hidden manipulation People are becoming more aware of scientific publications and how they work, including their potential flaws. Just last year more than 10,000 scientific articles were retracted. The issues around citation gaming and the harm it causes the scientific community, including damaging its credibility, are well documented. Citations of scientific work abide by a standardized referencing system: Each reference explicitly mentions at least the title, authors names, publication year, journal or conference name, and page numbers of the cited publication. These details are stored as metadata, not visible in the articles text directly, but assigned to a digital object identifier, or DOI a unique identifier for each scientific publication. References in a scientific publication allow authors to justify methodological choices or present the results of past studies, highlighting the iterative and collaborative nature of science. However, we found through a chance encounter that some unscrupulous actors have added extra references, invisible in the text but present in the articles metadata, when they submitted the articles to scientific databases. The result? Citation counts for certain researchers or journals have skyrocketed, even though these references were not cited by the authors in their articles. Chance discovery The investigation began when Guillaume Cabanac, a professor at the University of Toulouse, wrote a post on PubPeer, a website dedicated to postpublication peer review, in which scientists discuss and analyze publications. In the post, he detailed how he had noticed an inconsistency: a Hindawi journal article that he suspected was fraudulent because it contained awkward phrases had far more citations than downloads, which is very unusual. The post caught the attention of several sleuths who are now the authors of the JASIST article. We used a scientific search engine to look for articles citing the initial article. Google Scholar found none, but Crossref and Dimensions did find references. The difference? Google Scholar is likely to mostly rely on the articles main text to extract the references appearing in the bibliography section, whereas Crossref and Dimensions use metadata provided by publishers. A new type of fraud To understand the extent of the manipulation, we examined three scientific journals that were published by the Technoscience Academy, the publisher responsible for the articles that contained questionable citations. Our investigation consisted of three steps: We listed the references explicitly present in the HTML or PDF versions of an article. We compared these lists with the metadata recorded by Crossref, discovering extra references added in the metadata but not appearing in the articles. We checked Dimensions, a bibliometric platform that uses Crossref as a metadata source, finding further inconsistencies. In the journals published by Technoscience Academy, at least 9% of recorded references were sneaked references. These additional references were only in the metadata, distorting citation counts and giving certain authors an unfair advantage. Some legitimate references were also lost, meaning they were not present in the metadata. In addition, when analyzing the sneaked references, we found that they highly benefited some researchers. For example, a single researcher who was associated with Technoscience Academy benefited from more than 3,000 additional illegitimate citations. Some journals from the same publisher benefited from a couple hundred additional sneaked citations. We wanted our results to be externally validated, so we posted our study as a preprint, informed both Crossref and Dimensions of our findings and gave them a link to the preprinted investigation. Dimensions acknowledged the illegitimate citations and confirmed that their database reflects Crossrefs data. Crossref also confirmed the extra references in Retraction Watch and highlighted that this was the first time that it had been notified of such a problem in its database. The publisher, based on Crossrefs investigation, has taken action to fix the problem. Implications and potential solutions Why is this discovery important? Citation counts heavily influence research funding, academic promotions and institutional rankings. Manipulating citations can lead to unjust decisions based on false data. More worryingly, this discovery raises questions about the integrity of scientific impact measurement systems, a concern that has been highlighted by researchers for years. These systems can be manipulated to foster unhealthy competition among researchers, tempting them to take shortcuts to publish faster or achieve more citations. To combat this practice we suggest several measures: Rigorous verification of metadata by publishers and agencies like Crossref. Independent audits to ensure data reliability. Increased transparency in managing references and citations. This study is the first, to our knowledge, to report a manipulation of metadata. It also discusses the impact this may have on the evaluation of researchers. The study highlights, yet again, that the overreliance on metrics to evaluate researchers, their work and their impact may be inherently flawed and wrong. Such overreliance is likely to promote questionable research practices, including hypothesizing after the results are known, or HARKing; splitting a single set of data into several papers, known as salami slicing; data manipulation; and plagiarism. It also hinders the transparency that is key to more robust and efficient research. Although the problematic citation metadata and sneaked references have now been apparently fixed, the corrections may have, as is often the case with scientific corrections, happened too late. This article is published in collaboration with Binaire, a blog for understanding digital issues. This article was originally published in French. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Lonni Besancon, Linkoping University and Guillaume Cabanac, Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse Read more: Lonni Besancon receives funding from the Marcus And Amalia Wallenberg foundation. Guillaume Cabanac receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) and the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). He is the administrator of the Problematic Paper Screener, a public platform that uses metadata from Digital Science and PubPeer via no-cost agreements. Thierry Vieville does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. A massive dust storm that impacted two states in the desert southwest surprised even seasoned scientists who have observed "haboobs" for decades. What's happening? Scientists marveled at the immense "haboob" that was captured on satellite imagery in late June. The American Meteorological Society's Glossary of Meteorology defines a haboob as "an intense sandstorm or duststorm caused by strong winds, with sand and/or dust often lofted to heights as high as 1,500 meters (around 5,000 feet), resulting in a 'wall of dust' along the leading edge of the haboob that can be visually stunning." Tom Gill, an environmental scientist at the University of Texas at El Paso, said: "Largest haboob I've observed in 20 years or perhaps longer," on X, formerly known as Twitter, per The Washington Post. The dust storm whipped up during a wild week of weather in New Mexico. Wildfires charred more than 20,000 acres, leaving "burn scars," or land that was burned and stripped of vegetation. These charred areas don't absorb water, making the environment vulnerable to flash flooding. In just 30 minutes, nearly 2.5 inches of rain came down in a deluge in Ruidoso, New Mexico, prompting the National Weather Service to declare a flash flood emergency. Air flowing out at the base of thunderstorms that produced locally heavy rain kicked up massive amounts of dust and swept it along a path more than 200 miles long in northern Mexico and portions of New Mexico. The dust was visible on satellite imagery as far west as Arizona, making Phoenix's skies hazy. Why are large dust storms important? Dust storms are more than just a nuisance. The dust storm that hit New Mexico in June turned deadly as it lowered visibility north of Albuquerque, leading to a multi-vehicle crash near Algodones that killed two people. The United Nations Environment Programme says climate change "is amplifying" factors contributing to an increase in dust storms, such as deforestation, overgrazing, and the overuse of water. The United Nations warns that dust storms are increasing in frequency as heat-trapping gases warm our world. Scientists estimate that 2 billion tons of sand and dust enter Earth's atmosphere each year, and they attribute more than 25% of the problem to human activities. Climate change exacerbates the problem. What's being done about increasing dust storms? The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification recommends improved soil and water management practices to protect vulnerable soils and increase vegetation cover. There are things we can all do to reduce the heat-trapping gases released into the air that compound the problem. An impactful place to start is changing how we use gas, water, and electricity. Reducing the water we waste each day can save nearly 6,000 gallons over a year. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the coolest innovations improving our lives and saving our planet. In a bit of positive environmental news, Hawaii Governor Josh Green signed a new bill into law yesterday, officially banning seabed mining in all Hawaiian waters. The move is meant to protect the states territorial waters, home to humpback whales, monk seals, manta rays, and economically important tuna fisheries, just to name a few. What is seabed mining? It's basically a way recover minerals from the bottom of the ocean. While it's been advocated as a lower impact alternative to land-based mining (which is objectively destructive), it poses an ecological risk to the marine ecosystem, thus why this new law is so important. Studies have found seabed mining creates large sediment plumes and increased levels of toxins, at the very least. According to the presser, "The Hawaii Seabed Mining Prevention Act (SB2575), introduced by Senator Chris Lee, prohibits the mining, extraction and removal of minerals from the seabed in all state marine waters and prevents the issuance of permits associated with seabed mining activities." Related: Governor DeSantis Vetoes Safe Waterways Act, Surfrider Responds "The waters around Hawaii are home to some of the most endangered ecosystems on earth, with some of the oldest living organisms such as corals that are thousands of years old," adds Senator Chris Lee, who first introduced the bill. "But stopping the irreversible unintended consequences isnt only about protecting the endangered habitats, it's also about ensuring the sustainability of fishing, respecting cultural rights, and preventing harm to tourism and our economy, which is inextricably linked to the health of our environment." The presser continues: "The move sees Hawaii join US Pacific states that have enacted similar state-level legislation to protect vulnerable sea life and ecosystems, safeguard the fishing and tourism industry and protect waters important to many Pacific Island groups. Together, they protect a sweep of ocean covering an area of approximately 10,000 square miles." Unfortunately seabed mining is also popular offshore of countries like Africa and Indonesia. Hopefully, this bill inspires them to consider following suit. Related: Aussie Surfers Are Fighting This Mining Project and You Should Too The Seattle City Council unanimously approved a $1.55 billion Transportation Levy package Tuesday. According to a media release from the City Council, the levy aims to enhance safety, maintenance, and modernization while limiting the impact on taxpayers. This is a cost-effective investment that will save lives. Through collaboration and compromise, we have won a consensus levy proposal that will deliver on the everyday basics in an extraordinary way. From filling potholes and keeping our bridges running to addressing the safety crisis on our streets, this is an investment in our future that our entire community can be proud of, said Seattle Councilmember Rob Saka. The current transportation levy, which accounts for roughly 30% of the Seattle Department of Transportations budget, is set to expire this year. Once Mayor Bruce Harrell signs, the new levy will be put to a final vote in November. Funding Breakdown The $1.55 billion will be allocated as follows: $403 million for street maintenance and modernization. $221 million for bridge infrastructure and safety. $193 million for pedestrian safety. $160.5 million for Vision Zero and school and neighborhood safety. $151 million for improving transit corridors and connections. $133.5 million for bicycle safety. $100 million for traffic signals and mobility improvements. $69 million for climate change initiatives and environmental protection. $66.5 million for activating public spaces, neighborhoods, and business districts. $45 million for freight transportation system improvements. $7.5 million for governance, oversight, and property tax relief education. The proposal also includes a $1.5 million fund for community outreach and education about property tax exemptions for seniors, people with disabilities, and disabled veterans. According to the Seattle City Council, the package emphasizes accountability and transparency. It includes detailed spending requirements, strengthens the levys oversight committee, and provides funding for auditing. Property owners will fund the levy with an estimated property tax bill of $499 per year for the median assessed value home, an increase of $18.58 per month compared to the expiring levy. Mayor Bruce Harrell expressed his support, saying, This proposal invests in the critical infrastructure Seattle needs to support a safe, sustainable, and reliable transportation system. I look forward to signing this legislation tomorrow. Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth added, Were charting a new path focused on delivering the bold basics of local government. This levy will address infrastructure inequities and keep Seattle moving forward. Nicole Grant of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 36 highlighted the economic benefits, saying, This levy will create thousands of living-wage, union jobs in our community. This is about investing in our people, and when Seattle does that, we can accomplish great things. Former Seattle city councilmember Alex Pedersen issued a statement opposing the levy, saying, Its insensitive for politicians to act like cheerleaders for such a massive transportation tax increase while renters, homeowners, and small businesses struggle to stay in Seattle. Why would anyone want to pay more than $500 each year to let SDOT aggravate traffic congestion, leave most roads in worse condition, and fail to fix dangerous bridges? No matter how lobbyists try to sugarcoat the largest tax in Seattles history, its up to voters to reject City Halls unaffordable, unfair, and ineffective transportation levy and send it back to the drawing board, Pedersen added. Seattle-Portland bike ride is this weekend. Expect delays on these Pierce County roads This weekend roughly 6,000 bicyclists will take part in an annual 206-mile bike ride from Seattle to Portland along Washingtons state highways and local roads. That means motorists should expect some company. As part of the 2024 Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic, congestion and delays are expected early Saturday morning, July 13, on State Route 7 in Pierce County, according to a press release from the Washington State Department of Transportation. You can find a full map of the route on the Cascade Bicycle Clubs event website. The Pierce County portion follows West Valley Highway East along State Route 167 near Edgewood to Sumner before snaking through Puyallup along county roads and city streets, including on West Pioneer Avenue and 72nd Street East, heading south on Waller Road East. From there the route follows Military Road East through Spanaway Park into Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Bikers will ride south to Roy and head to McKenna along State Route 507. Race organizers, WSDOT and law enforcement will be directing bicyclists, drivers and pedestrian traffic along some portions of the route, including on State Route 507 between Roy and Yelm. Under Washington law bicycles are considered vehicles, which have a legal right to ride in the roadway even if a bicycle lane is present. Drivers should yield to oncoming bicyclists and check their blind spots and mirrors. Turning cars are one of the greatest causes of bicyclist fatalities and injuries, according to an FAQ about driving among bicyclists in Washington. A new parking spot located in front of the sheriffs office at 77151 Citizens Circle in Yulee was unveiled by Sheriff Bill Leeper as a safe location during child custody exchanges. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< The Child Custody Exchange Safe Zone provides a secure, neutral location for parents sharing custody to safely transfer their children. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] The safety and well-being of our communitys children are paramount, Sheriff Leeper said. This new safe zone offers a secure environment for custody exchanges, reducing potential conflicts and ensuring peace of mind for parents during what can often be a stressful process. Sheriff Bill Leeper announced the opening of the Child Custody Exchange Safe Zone parking spot right in front of the sheriff's office. The designated parking location was opened as part of a Florida law requiring all sheriffs offices in the state to create at least one safe exchange location. Governor Ron DeSantis signed this legislation into law in early June. READ: Man shot during reported argument over child custody in the Ortega Farms area, JSO reports The exchange zone is under 24/7 video surveillance and is next to the sheriffs office and the memorial wall. We encourage parents and guardians to take advantage of this new resource, designed to prioritize the well-being and safety of children during custody exchanges, the sheriffs office said. Action News Jax reported in June when a man was charged after biting off part of another persons ear during a custody swap in Nassau County. This embedded content is not available in your region. [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. The tagline Working for you will no longer appear on official Sedgwick County government branding. The County Commission voted Wednesday to drop the tagline, which for decades has appeared packaged with the official county seal featuring a stylized illustration of the Keeper of the Plains. The change comes as the commission adopted an updated brand guide detailing how employees should and shouldnt represent the county in official materials. Commissioner Jim Howell cast the only vote against the brand guide, saying he believes Working for you sums up the countys mission well. This is the moment where were going to get rid of that tagline. Can I steal it? Howell asked Strategic Communications director Nicole Gibbs. To the extent that the county gets rid of that tagline, Im going to put that on everything I do personally. I love it, Howell said. Gibbs said dropping the tagline will improve the aesthetic appeal of county branding. The goal, she said, isnt to imply that the government has stopped working for people. Just because we dont have the words out there doesnt change the work that we do, and we all continually work to serve the community and work for the people, but for our marketing purposes and what weve been doing going forward, it makes it a little bit cleaner look and easier for us to go forward without the slogan, Gibbs said. She said the change will be gradual, and wont cost the county extra money. Its not an immediate change. As things phase out and signage is updated, we would then phase out items that have the Working for you slogan, Gibbs said. Commission Chair Ryan Baty, whose mattress store chain The Mattress Hub has 13 locations across Kansas, said he understands the logic of streamlining a brand identity. An organization with twenty-eight hundred plus employees, the size we are, I understand the need to clean up, make sure theres uniformity and consistency with how the brands being used all the way down to font and color code, Baty said. I think that is important. I think thats pretty customary for organizations, particularly of this size. WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) The Sedgwick County Sheriffs Office joins other agencies in warning residents about the law enforcement phone scam. Someone is calling people in Sedgwick County, claiming to be Deputy David Wayne with the Sedgwick County Sheriffs Office. The caller ID is showing up as 600-3922 and appears to be from the sheriffs office. The scammer is using a program to spoof a legitimate number. The sheriffs office says do not speak to the person calling and dont answer the phone. New smishing attack may target your iPhone, Apple ID: What to know No law enforcement agency, local, state, or national, will ever call you to tell you that have to pay a fine or fee immediately to avoid arrest. Scams like these have seen a sharp increase in recent weeks. On Monday, Butler County warned about a scammer that has stolen thousands from residents there over the course of several weeks. Police in Northeast Kansas sent out a warning Tuesday about a scammer targeting residents in Burlington. In law enforcement phone scams, the caller claims to be with some type of law enforcement agency, usually on a local level, but they have also used federal or even international agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, postal inspectors, Internal Revenue Service, and even Interpol. They will even use the names of actual officers, deputies and agents at the agencies they are claiming to be from. The scammers use urgency, fear, and threats to convince people to cooperate. In recent cases, they have had their victims purchase untraceable Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency and transfer it to them. Clearwater police say donation calls are a scam However, they may also try to get their victims to conduct a wire transfer, purchase gift or reloadable debit cards, money transfer apps like Venmo, or even send cash directly to a P.O. Box. Cryptocurrency transfers are nearly impossible to recover. If you receive a call like this and are still unsure whether or not it is legitimate, contact the actual agency or department directly at a verified phone number. Do not call the number back that appears on your caller ID. The Federal Trade Commission offers these tips on recognizing and avoiding scams. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV. See what upgraded rapid bus service in Columbus could look like View a previous report on efforts to pass a transit sales tax levy that would fund LinkUS in the video player above. COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) You can use your phone to see what Columbus bus rapid transit system could look like if a sales tax increase is approved by voters in November. Its part of a push from local leaders to garner support for the 0.5% tax, put forward by the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA), that would increase Franklin Countys rate to 8%, one of the highest in the state. It would be used to fund a $2 billion initiative to add dedicated bus lanes, in addition to wider bike and pedestrian lanes, along multiple Columbus thoroughfares. Unsolved Ohio: Woman vanishes after man seen driving her car with new bullet holes Called BRT, it would mark major progress toward bringing mass transportation to the city, Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla said. I will say to the folks who are really interested in light rail, this is the baby steps for light rail, Barroso de Padilla said. We dont have the density for light rail. Thats why we could never have pulled down the federal dollars for it. This is our first step at providing a mass transportation system for the City of Columbus. A self-guided augmented reality tour is available through the LinkUS Columbus site. You can scan QR codes from certain locations along the West Broad BRT route, and an app will use your phones camera to give you a glimpse at what the completed project would look like. City leaders, including Mayor Andrew Ginther, took the tour themselves recently. Mayor Andrew Ginther experiences the West Broad Street LinkUS corridor augmented reality tour at Westland Mall. (NBC4 Photo/Aaron Burd) Mayor Andrew Ginther and other city leaders and officials experience the West Broad Street LinkUS corridor augmented reality tour at Westland Mall. (NBC4 Photo/Aaron Burd) Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla and Council President Shannon Hardin board a COTA bus for the West Broad Street LinkUS corridor tour. (NBC4 Photo/Aaron Burd) Mayor Andrew Ginther, Council President Shannon Hardin, and City Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla took an augmented reality tour of the West Broad Street LinkUS corridor. (NBC4 Photo/Aaron Burd) The $314 million West Broad Street corridor is just one under a proposal that received partial funding in April. Others include an East Main Street corridor running from Downtown to Reynoldsburg, and a Northwest Corridor with an undetermined route from Downtown to the Dublin area. The West Broad corridor would include 17 stops along a 9.3-mile route: Doctors Hospital Hollywood Casino Wilson Road Park Hilltop Branch Library Ohio Department of Transportation Ohio Department of Public Safety Mount Carmel Franklinton COSI National Veterans Memorial and Museum Scioto Mile Palace Theatre Ohio Statehouse Capital University Law School Grant Medical Center Columbus Metropolitan Library Columbus State Community College Columbus College of Art & Design Columbus Museum of Art The augmented reality tour includes visualizations from three points along the route. Residents wait for Weinland Park to be rebuilt after it was torn down by mistake I think its really important for people to realize how this is going to improve their quality of life, Ginther said. Its going to connect our entire community, whether you live in Dublin, Grove City, the Near East Side, in a township, all over the COTA service area. One stop on the tour was at the former Westland Mall site near Hollywood Casino. It would be turned into a BRT activity center. Two other stops included a station by the Third Way Cafe, near Wilson Road Park, and a station by COSI, the National Veterans Memorial and Museum and the Scioto Mile. Fred Brothers, CEO of Fortuity, a customer service company along the corridor, spoke in favor of the project after taking the tour. Tax increase in any form, no one jumps up and down and is excited about it; lets be honest, Brothers said. But weve got to invest in our community. Weve got to invest in our workforces. He said half of his employees take the bus to work and thought BRT could help improve their commutes. Bipartisan Ohio bill seeks to fight food insecurity on college campuses Were using a very urban core and inner-city labor force, Brothers said. They rely on public transportation every day, and they dont want to change. We are incredibly excited about the West Broad Street corridor. Columbus is the largest city in the country without a mass transit system, and thats one reason that Council President Shannon Hardin said hes in favor of the sales tax. We do not believe that weve been serving our population the best, Hardin said. In Columbus, you almost have to have a car. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV. FILE - This aerial photo shows cooling ponds alongside Dominion Energy's North Anna Power Station along the shores of Lake Anna in Mineral, Va., Aug. 15, 2018. Virginia's largest utility said Wednesday, July 10, 2024, that it will explore the possibility of using small nuclear reactors to help meet growing electricity demands while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File) Virginia's largest utility said Wednesday that it will explore the possibility of using small nuclear reactors to help meet growing electricity demands while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear power has been emerging as an attractive option for states transitioning away from coal, oil and other fossil fuels. Proponents of a new generation of smaller reactors have said they'll be cheaper and quicker to bring online. There are no small modular reactors, known as SMRs, in operation in the U.S., according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the independent agency that oversees civilian uses of radioactive material. A project to build the first SMR, in Idaho, was terminated last year following cost increases and a lack of subscribers. But a pilot project is underway in Tennessee, while Bill Gates and his energy company plan to build a commercial SMR plant in Wyoming. Dominion Energy Virginia said Wednesday that it has asked SMR companies to evaluate the feasibility of developing a project at the site of its existing North Anna nuclear power plant outside Richmond. Speaking near its cooling towers, Dominion CEO Robert Blue said nuclear power already makes up 90% of Virginia's carbon-free electricity. A new state law allows the company to explore the use of SMRs, with associated costs capped at $1.40 per month for a typical residential customer. Blue said he expects the cost impact to be much lower. Dominion serves about 2.7 million customers in Virginia. It has been erecting solar farms and is installing a massive windfarm off the coast of Virginia Beach. A 2020 state law set a target for 100% of Virginias electricity to come from carbon-free sources by 2050. Speaking at Wednesday's news conference, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said it's important to embrace new technologies for power generation. We can't build enough wind," Youngkin said. We can't build enough solar in order to power the Virginia of the future. We need all of the above. A 2022 Associated Press survey of energy policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia found that a strong majority about two-thirds say nuclear will help replace fossil fuels. But opponents, mostly in Democratic-led states, cite the cost of new reactors compared to installing wind turbines or solar panels, as well as safety concerns. There's also the question of how to store hazardous nuclear waste. Some environmentalists oppose small modular reactors for similar reasons. And a 2022 Stanford-led study found that SMRs will generate more waste than conventional reactors. But interest in SMRs appears to be growing, even though one project was already canceled. In January 2023, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission certified the first design for one from Oregon-based NuScale Power. The company worked with a group of Utah utilities to demonstrate a six-reactor plant at the Idaho National Laboratory, generating enough electricity to power more than 300,000 homes. But the project was terminated in November. Costs had increased by more than 50% in two years to $89 per megawatt hour. And it was unlikely that enough local power providers would subscribe for the project to continue. Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the commission, said Wednesday that the NuScale Power design remains certified and is available for companies to consider. Meanwhile, the commission has other designs for other locations under review. For example, NRC has granted a construction permit to Kairos Power, which is building a test version of an SMR in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Burnell said. It also submitted an application for a larger test version on the same site. Burnell said another application is under review from the company TerraPower, which is chaired by Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft. That project would use an SMR for a commercial power plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming. We have several other reactor designers who are talking to us about potentially applying, either for other construction permits or to have their designs generically approved, Burnell said. So there are a lot of other names (of companies) that are in discussions with us. But no formal applications at this point. The oil and gas industry has been the backbone of the world economy for several decades. Disregarding the anomaly during the Covid-19 pandemic, oil and gas demand has consistently grown over the years. New oil and gas discoveries and oilfield clusters with massive reserves are helping to sustain global production to meet this demand. Barring geopolitical outliers such as Venezuela, oil and gas developments across the world play a crucial role in sustaining the world economy. Leading data and analytics company GlobalData conducted a poll in May 2024 to gauge which oil field developments have the best prospects in the short to medium term. Around 33% of the respondents felt that the emerging oil patches of Guyana-Suriname could be the largest growth engine for oil development. The Guyana-Suriname Basin came to attention following the announcement of the Liza-1 discovery well offshore Guyana in 2015. So far more than 40 oil fields have been discovered and are expected to contribute significantly to the countrys future production. The basin holds approximately 6.3 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil and condensate reserves according to GlobalData. As of 2024, ExxonMobil produced 514,000 barrels per day of crude oil in the Guyana-Suriname Basin. Nearly 22% of the respondents opined that the frontier African countries, comprising Namibia, Senegal, Mauritania, and Tanzania, will have the best prospects for production growth in the coming years. Recent discoveries in offshore Africa, both in the Atlantic, as well as the Indian Ocean, have yielded vast reserves for these countries. These countries are seeking to attract investments for the development of their hydrocarbon reserves, especially for gas production. Roughly 20% of the respondents considered the US Gulf of Mexico as the best oil and gas prospect in the short to medium term. The region has been a longstanding heavyweight in global oil and gas production. It benefits from well-developed infrastructure for the transmission, processing, and export of hydrocarbons along the coast of Texas and Louisiana in the US. Several new deepwater discoveries in the region in 2023 have further deepened its production capability. The top producers in the US Gulf of Mexico include bp, Shell, and Chevron. Nearly 8% of the respondents said that Southeast Asian gas developments will have the best prospects in the timeframe considered. There are a number of upcoming natural gas fields in the region. These are expected to boost the gas-based power generation and liquified natural gas throughput in the region. Story continues The countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines are pushing for these developments to take place, amidst concerns of hampering energy transition in the region. Meanwhile, about 7% of the respondents claimed the Brazilian pre-salt oil reserves have the best prospects for hydrocarbon development. The pre-salt reserves in the Santos Basin offshore Brazil were first discovered in 2006. Companies developed newer technologies to drill approximately 8,000m below sea level and extract hydrocarbons from these pre-salt reserves. The Brazilian government also eased certain regulations to invite foreign companies to explore and produce from these reserves. Companies such as Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, QatarEnergy, and China National Offshore Oil Corporation have notable interests in the region, in collaboration with the national oil company Petrobras. Lastly, about 10% of the respondents professed they were unsure as to which of the listed oil and gas developments would have the best prospects in the short to medium term. Nevertheless, growing oil demand is expected to primarily drive the above-mentioned oil and gas developments. The alignment of regulatory framework, timely funding for infrastructure construction, and geopolitical equations are expected to play a pivotal role in the success of these developments. "Next wave of oil growth could come from Guyana-Suriname, as per GlobalData poll" was originally created and published by Offshore Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Seminole County plans to demolish a house that neighbors call an eyesore, and the county labeled a public nuisance. A county spokesperson confirmed Tuesday the demolition permit was approved this week. Commissioners gave the owners of the 120 South Crystal View until May 9 to fix the property-- or else the county would demolish it. Tuesday marks two months since that deadline passed. Channel 9 visited the property to see its condition. Theres been little to no change our crew visited the property earlier this year. Debris is still in the front yard. A tarp is over most of the roof. The windows and doors are boarded up. Read: Osceola Sheriff Marcos Lopez responds to accusations of sending inappropriate text The property faces a serene view of Crystal Lake and surround by well-kept houses in the neighborhood. Neighbors have spoken to Channel 9 and in front of commissioners in recent months about how this house sticks out like a sore thumb. There was no upkeep or maintenance, said Josue Martinez, whos lived next door for the past five years. Its rat infested. Its by definition a nuisance. It has been a nuisance to me and my neighbors, Robert Lundquist told commissioners in April. Read: Well take anything: Public urged to come forward with tips in 13-year-old girls murder Neighbors and the county say its been more than just an eyesore to them, but a public safety concern. The number of calls to that address for service is astronomical, Commissioner Amy Lockhart said in a Board of Commissioners meeting in April. Records reveal more than 160 calls to the address within three years. It includes calls of squatters, vandalism, alleged drug deals and a shooting last year. While responding to the shooting, deputies walked in to find the house in disrepair. It was condemned because it had no power and no water, said Mary Baker. One of the property owners, Mary Ellen Baker, told commissioners in April, she and her late brother inherited the property. She said she planned to renovate it. This is despite years of no upkeep to the property and more than $200,000 in liens. Read: New Smyrna Beach could get a 5-story shopping center with a rooftop restaurant & parking garage Youd be surprised. It can be the best-looking house in the neighborhood. I have the finances behind me now. Just give me a chance, Baker said. She disagreed with the countys decision to label it a public nuisance. I dont even theres a way you guys can tear it down, Baker told commissioners. The county gave the owners 30 days to take corrective action. Two months has passed since that deadline and the property still is in disrepair. Neighbors say theyve waited years for this demolition. No word from the county on when they plan to demolish the structure. A county spokesperson says the structure was flagged for asbestos. Once thats resolved, the county will move forward in the process. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. Firefighters in Seminole County made a difficult and muddy rescue Monday night, but they werent helping a person. A horse in Geneva fell into a muddy pond and became stuck. Firefighters believe the 26-year-old horse was walking along the edge when the mud gave way, causing the horse to tumble down. Photos: Seminole County firefighters rescue horse trapped in muddy pond Fire crews used a tractor, a winch, and a ramp to rescue the horse. Despite the fall, the horse did not appear to suffer an injury. Read: A difficult decision to make: Orlando Police Department retires its horse-mounted patrol unit Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. Jurors who will weigh Sen. Bob Menendezs fate heard dueling closing arguments at his federal bribery trial Tuesday, with a prosecutor summing up the actions of New Jerseys senior senator as a classic case of corruption on a massive scale and a defense attorney dismissing that as cherry-picked nonsense. Prosecutor Paul Monteleoni, wrapping up a five-hour summation he started Monday, blasted Menendez for claiming he didnt know his wife, Nadine, took cash, gold, a luxury car, mortgage payments, and other valuables beginning soon after the couple started dating in 2018. Going count by count of the 18-count indictment, Monteleoni reminded jurors of evidence prosecutors presented since the trial started in mid-May that linked the riches to the couples co-defendants, Fred Daibes, Wael Hana, and Jose Uribe. Uribe, who pleaded guilty in March, and Daibes wanted the senators influence to end their criminal troubles, while Daibes and Hana sought the senators power as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help them land lucrative business investments from Egyptian and Qatari officials, prosecutors have charged. Ladies and gentlemen, the buck stops here. The thousands and thousands of bucks stop here. Its time to hold him responsible. Its time to hold them all responsible, Monteleoni said. Menendez attorney Adam Fee faced jurors Tuesday afternoon to deliver the first half of his closing statement, ridiculing the prosecutions case as a towering Jenga stack of stuff. United States Senator, Bob Menendez walks towards the Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse where he will be on trial for bribery and corruption charges. The jury selection for the trial is expected to start today, Monday, May 13, 2024. If you listen to the prosecutors, you might think there was cash and gold in every room of that house, just like Scrooge McDuck swimming in gold coins, Fee said. FBI investigators found $486,000 in cash jammed in jackets, bags, boxes, and boots, gold bars worth over $100,000, a $67,000 Mercedes-Benz convertible, and other valuables in the couples Englewood Cliffs home during a June 2022 raid. The senators defense team claimed Menendez stashed the cash over decades because of his distrust of banks a Cuban thing common among refugees. The gold bars were gifts and family inheritances, they added. Hoarding cash at home and investing in gold bars is quirky behavior but not criminal, Fee said. But Monteleoni reminded jurors that testimony showed investigators linked much of the cash and gold to Daibes and Hana through fingerprints, DNA, and serial numbers, and that many of the bank envelopes stuffed with cash brimmed with bills dated after 2018, when prosecutors say the bribery scheme began. The case isnt about whether every dollar in Menendezs house is a bribe. Its about whether any of the cash in his house or the other valuables are bribes, Monteleoni said. He accused all three defendants of acting with an entitlement that breached the sacrosanct trust the public deserves from its elected officials. Menendez was elected to the U.S. Senate to represent the interests of the United States and its people. He cannot hold that position and at the same time act on behalf of a foreign government. But what youve seen at this trial is that that is exactly what he did, he said. Menendez occasionally shook his head during Monteleonis summation, while most jurors listened attentively, sometimes taking notes. Fee told them the senators actions were lawful, normal, and good for his constituents and this country. The government has not proven a single count under the very high burden they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt, he said. He accused prosecutors of telling a story that they workshopped during the trial whenever defense attorneys cast doubt on the testimony of government witnesses. He urged jurors not to confuse the inferences prosecutors hoped they would make with assumption, speculation, fantasy, conjecture. A one-sided story sounds compelling. So our goal throughout the trial has been to show you where are you getting the half-truths, where are you seeing the absence of evidence get filled in by a story that is not supported by proof, Fee said. Arguments went on so long that Judge Sidney H. Stein stopped proceedings before lunch and directed jurors and everyone else to stand up for a minute for a stretch break. Still, the closings drew so many observers that officers opened an overflow room, and the defendants relatives including the senators daughter, MSNBC host Alicia Menendez, and his older sister, Caridad Gonzalez, who testified in his defense last week packed a pew reserved for family that has remained largely empty throughout the nine-week trial. More from the trial: Sen. Bob Menendez put his power up for sale, federal prosecutors tell jurors Fee is expected to finish his closing argument Wednesday, followed by summations by Hanas attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, and Daibes attorney, Cesar de Castro. Prosecutors will have an opportunity for a rebuttal, and Stein has yet to instruct the jury, so deliberations likely will begin Thursday. The ongoing corruption trial is the second for Menendez, 70, whose 2017 trial ended in a hung jury. His wife also was indicted, but Stein postponed her trial until at least August after she told the court she needed medical treatment for breast cancer. Editor's note: This story was originally published by the New Jersey Monitor, for which Dana DeFilippo is a staff writer. The New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, the nations largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bob Menendez trial: Senator's lawyer urges jury to reject nonsense NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 09: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) leaves Manhattan Federal Court on July 09, 2024 in New York City. Prosecutors wrapped up closing arguments, giving way to the defense to begin in Sen. Menendez's trial. Menendez is charged with corruption after gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash were found at his home. Menendez and his wife, Nadine, are accused of extortion, obstruction of justice and accepting bribes to perform favors for businessmen with connections to Egypt and Qatar. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) Jurors who will weigh Sen. Bob Menendezs fate heard dueling closing arguments at his federal bribery trial Tuesday, with a prosecutor summing up the actions of New Jerseys senior senator as a classic case of corruption on a massive scale and a defense attorney dismissing that as cherry-picked nonsense. Prosecutor Paul Monteleoni, wrapping up a five-hour summation he started Monday, blasted Menendez for claiming he didnt know his wife, Nadine, took cash, gold, a luxury car, mortgage payments, and other valuables beginning soon after the couple started dating in 2018. Going count by count of the 18-count indictment, Monteleoni reminded jurors of evidence prosecutors presented since the trial started in mid-May that linked the riches to the couples co-defendants, Fred Daibes, Wael Hana, and Jose Uribe. Uribe, who pleaded guilty in March, and Daibes wanted the senators influence to end their criminal troubles, while Daibes and Hana sought the senators power as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help them land lucrative business investments from Egyptian and Qatari officials, prosecutors have charged. Ladies and gentlemen, the buck stops here. The thousands and thousands of bucks stop here. Its time to hold him responsible. Its time to hold them all responsible, Monteleoni said. Menendez attorney Adam Fee faced jurors Tuesday afternoon to deliver the first half of his closing statement, ridiculing the prosecutions case as a towering Jenga stack of stuff. If you listen to the prosecutors, you might think there was cash and gold in every room of that house, just like Scrooge McDuck swimming in gold coins, Fee said. FBI investigators found $486,000 in cash jammed in jackets, bags, boxes, and boots, gold bars worth over $100,000, a $67,000 Mercedes-Benz convertible, and other valuables in the couples Englewood Cliffs home during a June 2022 raid. The senators defense team claimed Menendez stashed the cash over decades because of his distrust of banks a Cuban thing common among refugees. The gold bars were gifts and family inheritances, they added. Hoarding cash at home and investing in gold bars is quirky behavior but not criminal, Fee said. The government has not proven a single count under the very high burden they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Menendez attorney Adam Fee But Monteleoni reminded jurors that testimony showed investigators linked much of the cash and gold to Daibes and Hana through fingerprints, DNA, and serial numbers, and that many of the bank envelopes stuffed with cash brimmed with bills dated after 2018, when prosecutors say the bribery scheme began. The case isnt about whether every dollar in Menendezs house is a bribe. Its about whether any of the cash in his house or the other valuables are bribes, Monteleoni said. He accused all three defendants of acting with an entitlement that breached the sacrosanct trust the public deserves from its elected officials. Menendez was elected to the U.S. Senate to represent the interests of the United States and its people. He cannot hold that position and at the same time act on behalf of a foreign government. But what youve seen at this trial is that that is exactly what he did, he said. Menendez occasionally shook his head during Monteleonis summation, while most jurors listened attentively, sometimes taking notes. Fee told them the senators actions were lawful, normal, and good for his constituents and this country. The government has not proven a single count under the very high burden they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt, he said. He accused prosecutors of telling a story that they workshopped during the trial whenever defense attorneys cast doubt on the testimony of government witnesses. He urged jurors not to confuse the inferences prosecutors hoped they would make with assumption, speculation, fantasy, conjecture. A one-sided story sounds compelling. So our goal throughout the trial has been to show you where are you getting the half-truths, where are you seeing the absence of evidence get filled in by a story that is not supported by proof, Fee said. Arguments went on so long that Judge Sidney H. Stein stopped proceedings before lunch and directed jurors and everyone else to stand up for a minute for a stretch break. Still, the closings drew so many observers that officers opened an overflow room, and the defendants relatives including the senators daughter, MSNBC host Alicia Menendez, and his older sister, Caridad Gonzalez, who testified in his defense last week packed a pew reserved for family that has remained largely empty throughout the nine-week trial. Fee is expected to finish his closing argument Wednesday, followed by summations by Hanas attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, and Daibes attorney, Cesar de Castro. Prosecutors will have an opportunity for a rebuttal, and Stein has yet to instruct the jury, so deliberations likely will begin Thursday. The ongoing corruption trial is the second for Menendez, 70, whose 2017 trial ended in a hung jury. His wife also was indicted, but Stein postponed her trial until at least August after she told the court she needed medical treatment for breast cancer. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Sen. Michael Bennet says Democrats could 'lose the whole thing' the White House and Congress with Biden running Sen. Michael Bennet says Democrats could 'lose the whole thing' the White House and Congress with Biden running Sen. Michael Bennet said Tuesday he does not think Biden can win the election. Bennet's comments came after a report that three Democratic senators don't think Biden can win. Bennet said Biden's team has not done enough to address voters' concerns and show Biden can win. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado came closer than any other Democratic senator has yet to calling for President Joe Biden to bow out of the presidential race. Bennet appeared on CNN's "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" Tuesday evening after Axios reported earlier in the day that he was among three Democratic senators who privately expressed they do not think Biden can win the election in November. Bennet told Collins he was there to confirm publicly that he doesn't think Biden can win. "I just think the race is on a trajectory that is very worrisome," Bennet said, "if you care about the future of this country." Bennet cited polling that suggests former President Donald Trump is ahead of Biden and pointed out that at this point in 2020, Biden was polling ahead of Trump, as was Hillary Clinton in 2016. "Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win the election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House," Bennet said. "I think that we could lose the whole thing," he said, adding, "The stakes could not be higher." Though he stopped short of answering whether or not he'd call on Biden to bow out, Bennet said it was a discussion that needs to be had. He also said the White House had not done enough after Biden's disastrous debate performance to demonstrate they had a plan to win the election and win the battleground states. In a statement provided to Business Insider, Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz defended the president's commitment to beating Trump in November. "This was always going to be a close race and the dynamics at play are the ones we've long anticipated: voters continue to be deeply concerned by Donald Trump and his harmful agenda, and the more we engage and reach out to voters, the more they support President Biden," the statement said. "There are a lot of days between now and election day, and the hard work of earning every single vote is far from over." The campaign also noted the many expressions of support Biden has received from House and Senate Democrats since the debate. When Collins pressed Bennet on whether he could see himself eventually calling for Biden to bow out, he did not answer directly but said the White House needed to be doing more to assuage voters, adding, "I think it's critically important they address the concerns of the American people, not ignore them." "If we just sit on our hands, if we say we're going to disregard what is plainly in front of us and plainly in front of the American people, and we end up electing Donald Trump again as president of the United States, that's going to be a huge tragedy beyond epic proportion," he said. "And it's something I can't live with." A representative for Bennet did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI. Read the original article on Business Insider What do GOP Sens. Rick Scott, Mike Lee, and Ron Johnson have in common? All three of them wish that they knew somebody in Washington with some real power. There is nothing quite as magnificent, quite as magisterial, as watching former Sen. Jim DeMint interview a panel of senators and listening to those august worthies complain that somebody in Washingtonyou know: somebody!should do something! Not them, of course. It was the weirdest thing: They were speaking Tuesday before an audience of would-be rightist insurgents at this years gathering of so-called national conservatives known as NatCon4, and they got an honest-to-goodness standing ovation for spending the better part of an hour declaring that they dont do jack all day and cant do jack and nobody should expect them to. They tell us when to work, what were voting for, everything, Scott said. It is as though he has never heard of the word no. The senator should think about expanding his vocabulary. The problem, of course, is mean old Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, who is, in the words of Scott, a dictator. But hes a funny kind of dictatorthe elected kind, for one thing, which isnt unheard of, but McConnell is the outgoing head of the minority caucus in one house of one branch of our governmentnot exactly Julius Caesar, or even Charles de Gaulle. In 2023, Republicans were given a choice between Mitch McConnell and Rick Scott as their leader and, although the result was closer than McConnells previously unanimous victories, it was not close! (Even if it wasnt a Saddam Hussein-style landslide.) And so Republicans remain in the iron grip of Cocaine Mitch, who ruthlessly enforces discipline by threatening to rearrange the Republican org chart and maybe take away a little of that status and prestige that these supposed mavericks say they dont care about. These senators want to do big things but they cant go against McConnell, Scott explained, because he will take away their committee assignments. These guys are talking about fighting a second American Revolution, but Mike Lee is reduced to putty-like inaction because of the terrifying prospect that this nation might one day wake up and find that the esteemed gentleman from Utah is no longer the No. 3 minority member on the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks? That Rick Scott is no longer the ranking sub-dude on the Subcommittee on Personnel? The vapidity and banality of the senators conversation would be nearly impossible to overstate. Johnson says that the Republican conference needs a strategy. You know how that goes: business-guy talk. In business, we deal with problems. First, you have to admit that you have a problem. Second, you define the problem. Third, you find a solution. So, thats his big advice: Figure out what your problems are and then find solutions for themwhich surely represents a level of intellectual originality not seen since Plato. And, of course, Republicans also need a strategy, he says, and a mission statement with that strategy written down. What would it say? To fight and defeat the ideology and policies of progressive Democrats that are destroying this country. Make sure to write that down. So the big Republican idea this year is going to be: Beat Democrats. Insert your own galaxy-brain meme here. Lee says he wants to democratize the U.S. Senate, by which he means replacing the current leadership structurewhich again, Republicans voted forwith a different one that would devolve more power and decision-making to individual senators. Scott for his part argues for a recommitment to the committee system, a robust amendment process on the floor, and a general reorientation towardthough he does not use the termregular order. The tragedy here is that these are basically the right ideas: A lot of the legislative agenda is too centralized in leadership in the Senate and maybe even more so in the House (thank Nancy Pelosi for that). The old way of doing things, the committee system in which the name of the Appropriations Committee chairman was one with which to conjure, certainly had its deficiencies, but it worked better than what we have now. But reclaiming that would require the minor miracle of senators abandoning their self-importance and rediscovering their self-respect as members of an important institution. (A national one!) Lee almost gets that, at times, describing the Senate as a bulwark against political abuses. But these senators are not really men of the Senateright now, their big idea is doing yet one more thing to aggrandize the power of the president, in this case by keeping the next government funding agreement strictly short-term (theyre thinking of providing funding no further than through March) so that Donald Trump will have more influence on the budget process should he be elected in November. Spending and taxing are not the presidents businessthose are congressional powers in that Constitution theyre always going on aboutbut these senators are ready to bend their institution over backward in order to create political opportunities for Trump, who, having already served a term as president, still doesnt know what is in the federal budget or how it works. But Lee is undeterred. His plan? Punt the spending decision forward through a [continuing resolution] that would take us to March, and then say thats it, no more spending bills this year, were going home. Then, no more mischief can occurthats how we win! And that way we provide as much flexibility for President Trump when he comes on board as possible. Some men were born to be subordinates. But those men probably should not be leaders in the Senate. Listening to all that happy horse pucky, DeMint declared these guys three of the best minds in the conservative movement. Well, then, God help the conservative movement. But the audience stood and cheered lustily for that pabulum. De gustibus, etc. 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. BALTIMORE Whether the federal government will pay 90% or 100% of the new Francis Scott Key Bridge a difference that is expected to be roughly $170 million was at the center of a discussion Wednesday in a U.S. Senate hearing. President Joe Biden, a Democrat who is up for reelection this fall, has pledged full federal support and Marylands congressional legislators introduced a bill in April that would completely fund the Baltimore bridge with federal money. Generally, federal highways such as the portion of Interstate 695 that the new bridge will carry over the Patapsco River are funded with 90% federal money and 10% state money. In times of disaster, though, the federal government can move to fully fund rebuilding efforts and has done so in the past. That was at the crux of the arguments from Maryland Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats, citing other disasters, including the 2007 collapse of a bridge over the Mississippi River in Minnesota. It has been a tradition in the United States of America of providing 100% support for states that have undergone this kind of tragedy, Van Hollen said Wednesday in the hearing of the Senates Environment and Public Works Committee. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia, questioned whether the federal government should completely fund the new span. She noted that the federal governments Emergency Relief Program has a funding shortfall of more than $3.5 billion, with a backlog of 130 projects in 38 states and territories. She also said the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the federal governments Highway Trust Fund has a shortfall of more than $284 billion over a 10-year budget window. So you see where we are, she said, adding that Congress should determine an equitable basis for which projects receive more funding than others. Capito said that because the state of Maryland receives revenue from Key Bridge tolls $56 million in fiscal year 2023, she said it could afford to eventually pay off 10% of the span, which is expected to cost $1.7 billion in total. If Congress does not require Maryland to share in the costs of a project like the replacement of the Key Bridge, which will have a revenue source, how can Congress require any other recipient of [Emergency Relief] Program funding to pay their cost share? she said. Maryland Secretary of Transportation Paul Wiedefeld, who testified before the committee, countered that Maryland needed those toll funds to operate and maintain its toll bridges and tunnels. He also added that the state will experience further economic loss for the next four years, since it will not receive toll revenue from the Key Bridge, which was knocked down by a cargo ship on March 26. The new bridge is expected to be completed by October 2028. Capito also asked Shailen Bhatt, administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, what factors are used to determine which disasters warrant 100% financial support from the federal government. Bhatt answered that scope and scale are what Congress should consider in making such decisions. In response to a question from Cardin, Bhatt said the Key Bridge collapse will be the largest maritime claim ever, calling it unprecedented. I hope that puts somewhat to rest, Cardin said, the difference between this tragedy and emergency relief funding versus a lot of the others that are nowhere in that category whatsoever. Cardin stressed the urgency of rebuilding the bridge, saying that Baltimore city streets are being inundated by truck traffic forced to drive around the harbor. He also said tunnels under the Patapsco River are seeing an 18% increase in usage. The Baltimore collapse has spurred questions into the durability of bridges nationally and Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, asked Army Corps of Engineers Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon and Bhatt if other U.S. bridges are at risk. Some bridges across the country lack the proper protection were they to be struck by an errant ship, as happened at the Key Bridge. That has been a key focus for us since the FSK disaster, Bhatt said. As he has before, Wiedefeld said the state is looking into immediate and longer term efforts to protect the Chesapeake Bay Bridge near Annapolis. Other senators pressed Bhatt on funding for their local bridges. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, asked about funding for repairs to a bridge in Providence and Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, asked about spans in the Pacific Northwest, which Bhatt agreed were in dire need of investment. While the new Baltimore span would cost roughly $1.7 billion, the federal government is expected to be reimbursed at least some of that money from insurance and third-party claims. About $350 million is expected to come from Chubb, which insured the bridge. More funds could be recovered from culpable parties, Wiedefeld said. Those third-party claims, I admit, its gonna take years before they can recover that. But there is at least very serious evidence that there could be wrongdoing in the manner in which the vessel was handled, which could bring in substantial funds. That will go to the federal emergency relief fund, as it should, Cardin said. The National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI are investigating the cause of the ship strike. The cargo ship, which had just left the Port of Baltimore, hit the bridge after losing power. The Maryland Transportation Authority has received proposals from prospective builders for the new bridge and will select a team by mid- to late summer, it has said. At this point, full federal funding has not been codified into law, but Marylands federal legislators hope that will happen. At one point during Wednesdays hearing, Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware and the chair of the committee, noted he would need to step out of the meeting to attend another one. Cardin joked, When you step out, can I take the chair, and move my legislation forward? ------- One of the most cruel cases to be prosecuted in Westchester County this year just got even worse following the discovery of new details behind the alleged murder of a Black woman. On September 15, 2023, New Rochelle police officers responded to a tip they received from a city resident who alleged they discovered a dead body, according to a press release from the Westchester County District Attorneys Office. The police were led to the remains of 27-year-old Concetta Morton, which were found inside a storage bin inside a Franklin Avenue apartment. Police said her intimate partner, 41-year-old Kenya Tilford, was seen on Home Depot surveillance video purchasing a hooded coverall, bleach, tarps, paper towels, rubber gloves, a chainsaw and the storage bin where Mortons body was ultimately found. Mortons body was still intact when recovered. Tilford has been in custody without bail since the incident. She initially told authorities she was in Virginia at the time of the crime, per CBS News. She then added that she was using drugs and suffered from mental illness. However, an exhaustive investigation into Mortons death revealed even more grueling details behind what led up to the fatal tragedy. Prosecutors claim Tilford inflicted torture on Morton for three months leading up to her death. The official cause of death was ruled as asphyxiation. She pretends to have this good image, but she has a black soul. She should never be let out of prison for the rest of her life, said Gyllian Dunkley, a friend of Mortons, via CBS. Tilford faces a whopping 18-count indictment in Mortons death, including counts of murder, strangulation and concealment of a human corpse. The case is the first time that the county has issued charges of torture murder. She is also accused of intimidating, threatening, sexually assaulting and torturing two prior intimate partners. In a first for this Office, we are charging the defendant for not only murder, but also for allegedly acting in an especially cruel manner and inflicting torture upon Ms. Morton before her death, said Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah in a statement. We commend the New Rochelle police for their role in this exhaustive investigation. My Office will seek justice for all of the victims. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Air defence mobile fire group. Photo: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine A series of explosions rocked the city of Odesa on the night of 9-10 July. Sources: Suspilne, a Ukrainian public broadcaster; Hennadii Trukhanov, the mayor of Odesa, on Telegram; Dumska, a local media outlet; Ukraines Air Force Quote from Trukhanov: "Explosions are heard in the city. Stay in safe places." Details: At least three explosions occurred in the city. Ukrainian air defence responded to the Russian attack in both Odesa and Odesa Oblast. Prior to that, the Air Force noted that Russian tactical aircraft were active in the east and south of Ukraine. Also, they stressed that air defence systems were responding to a drone attack in Odesa Oblast. Support UP or become our patron! Credit: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images Few things are more certain than Jim Keller, ex-AMD and ex-Tesla engineer and current CEO of AI computer company Tenstorrent, making bold claims in public appearances. There is at least one thing more more certain than this, however, this being that Nvidia is firmly cemented as the king AI hardware. Combine the two certitudes and you have Keller, in a recent DemystifySci podcast, stating that "Nvidia is slowly becoming the IBM of the AI era." According to Keller, for AI, Nvidia currently has "the best processors by functionality and obvious proof points," which has meant that "all the big tech companies are in an arms race and they're all calling Nvidia to get allocation" for their new AI processors. This, at least, is certainly true. 2024's exploding AI market almost feels like the stirrings of a brave new world for tech. We don't need futurist Kurzweils persistent and wacky techno-optimism to see that. We also don't need Keller's industry experience to see Nvidia's gigantism. We know it just from the numbers. For instance, Nvidia raked in over $26 billion in Q1 2024, with over $22 billion of this coming from AI datacentre demand. And Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang figures that AI constitutes the "next industrial revolution" that has Nvidia at the centre. Nvidia's foresight to pivot to AI early on, combined with infrastructures already in place, put them in the prime spot for AI market dominance. No other chip foundry can match demand like Nvidia can. And with big shots like Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta all wanting a slice of the burgeoning but not-quite-there-yet AI pie, there's good reason to suppose that Keller's right and Nvidia could become to AI what IBM was to computers a few decades ago. After achieving dominance in the mainframe market for businesses, in the 1980s IBM went on to spawn the personal computer, for a while being the only real game in town for PCs. If you said "PC," you were talking about IBM. That's what Keller seems to have in mind when he talks about Nvidia and AI. Putting aside the obvious concerns over monopoly, to follow through on Keller's analogy we shouldn't forget what happened with IBM back in the 1990s and early 2000s. Its PC dominance was short-lived, in part thanks to its own decisions. Microsoft made the operating system for IBM PCs, IBM allowed them to sell the MS-DOS OS to other companies, and that was that: Companies started to associate "PC" with Microsoft. IBM started divesting its production in the 1990s, and in 2005 it sold its PC division to Lenovo. Now, I'm not saying the same fate is in store for Nvidia, but it is important to remember that monopolistic markets rarely remain thus, and Keller's own analogy should remind us of it. Story continues This is even more important to remember in such an incredibly new market as the AI one. We don't know how any of it will turn out, but there are already intimations that the AI datacentre market is built on slippery foundations. AI, explained OpenAI logo displayed on a phone screen and ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 5, 2022. What is artificial general intelligence?: We dive into the lingo of AI and what the terms actually mean. Sequoia analyst David Cahn (via Tom's Hardware) reckons that, to pay for the AI infrastructure they've erected, AI companies need to earn about $600 billion per year, which even optimistic projections say is impossible. This could hint (or perhaps scream) the growth of a financial bubble that nobody wants to see pop. Butand not to sound like a broken record, herethe AI market is new. As in, completely fresh-out-of-the-oven-and-scalding-hot new. And if it does mark the next industrial revolution, we can't rule out changes and innovations that give AI companies all the revenue they need. In which case, if Nvidia had the foresight to get in on the booming AI chip fabrication market before anyone else, maybe it also has the foresight to grow a scary bubble that unforeseen revenue-generating innovation will fill. Or, perhaps Keller's IBM comments will be even more prescient than he maybe realised. I suppose we'll see. BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) Major changes to parking in downtown Buffalo are being weighed. A new proposal from Fillmore District Council Member Mitch Nowakowski laid out a plan that would introduce a new restricted parking district that would encompass a significant portion of downtown Buffalo. It would also introduce revised parking meter rates as well as extended meter operative hours in the restricted parking districts. You can see how the plan is laid out below: Restricted parking district The district, which is newly designed, would cover many of Buffalos busiest streets, including: Georgia Street West Chippewa Street South Elmwood Avenue Virginia Street Delaware Avenue Michigan Avenue Scott Street Louisiana Street Ohio Street South Park Avenue Allen Street Hertel Avenue Franklin Street Elmwood Avenue Pearl Street Main Street Ellicott Street The streets were picked in order to improve traffic flow, ensure adequate parking for residents and businesses, and enhance overall parking management in those areas, according to a release. Revised parking meter rates The amendment introduces several parking meter rates, ranging from 25 cents for 15 minutes to up to $7 per hour for a maximum of 10 hours. It also says that specific locations will see graduated rates, starting at $2 per hour for the first one to two hours and increasing up to $7 per hour. Extended meter hours The proposal calls for meter hours to be extended from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Currently, the hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Parking meters would continue to not be in effect on legal holidays, including New Years Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. There is no mention of any changes for event rate parking, which is on several streets in downtown Buffalo and applies from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday for $2 an hour. We are committed to enhancing the economic health and quality of life in downtown Buffalo, Nowakowski said in a news release. This ordinance amendment is a significant step towards better parking management, making downtown more accessible and convenient for residents, businesses, and visitors. The amendment was introduced at the Common Councils meeting on Tuesday, where it was send to the legislation committee to be further discussed. 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. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. Parents of tweens and teens are well aware that social media is full of landmines for our children. Now, theres a new one to worry about: sextortion, a term derived from a combination of the words sex and extortionand even the federal government is on alert. Near the end of 2022, after receiving more than 7,000 reports of sextortion of minors, the FBI joined forces with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to issue a national public safety alert. More from SheKnows What Is Sextortion? In a press release, the United States Attorneys Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania explained that sextortion occurs when an individual, often a child, is threatened or blackmailed, usually online, by a person demanding sexual content (photos/videos) or money from the child against his or her will. Predators are motivated either by a desire to obtain explicit images of children, or they are financially motivated, Special Agent Eric Slaton, supervisor of the FBI Boston Divisions Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, explained to NBC News. In either case, the criminals obtain sexually explicit images of children by hacking their phones or convincing them to send photos including their faces by pretending to be just another kid in the next town over. Once theyve procured the images, they threaten to release the images to family, friends, and/or the general public unless the child complies with certain demands. If the kids dont pay, the predators may threaten to harm them, their family members, or their loved ones. We prosecute a lot of individuals who are, you know, 50-, 60-year-old men pretending to be teenage girls or teenage boys that engage with minor victims as romantic interests, Slaton told NBC. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, the schemes originate overseas (mainly Nigeria, India, and the Ivory Coast), and its hard to prosecute them. Teenage Boys Are Particularly Vulnerable The horrifying reality is that anyone online, who is active on social media or online gaming platforms, is at risk of sextortion victims come from every background and every demographic, according to the FBI. However, most often, the victims of sextortion are boys between the ages of 14 and 17. The FBI has seen a horrific increase in reports of financial sextortion schemes targeting minor boys and the fact is that the many victims who are afraid to come forward are not even included in those numbers, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray. Authorities have identified victims as young as 10 years old. Boys are easier to coerce into sending explicit photos than girls, and coupled with the impulsive teenage brain, it makes them very vulnerable to sextortion. Predators will often pretend to be attractive girls of the same age and develop relationships with the boys on gaming sites and other social media apps where teenagers may feel the most comfortable and safe. Which Social Media Platforms Are Most Often Targeted? According to a June 2024 report compiled by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and anti-child sexual abuse technology company Thorn, which analyzed the sextortion cases reported to NCMEC between 2020-2023, reports of sextortion increased dramatically after 2022 up to more than 800 reports a week in the past year. A staggering 90% of reported financial sextortion cases involved male victims aged 14 to 17. The primary platforms for offenders to initiate contact with victims were Instagram and Snapchat. Instagram was the platform mentioned in 45.1% of reports where the initial contact was identified, followed by Snapchat at 31.6%. Instagram emerged as the platform of choice for both threats and distribution of intimate imagery. Among reports where threats were made, 81.3% involved threats to spread the material on Instagram. When it came to actual dissemination, 60% of reports indicated Instagram was used. While threats also frequently involved YouTube, Facebook, and Snapchat, Facebook was the runner-up for actual dissemination, appearing in 33.7% of such reports. What Happens to Victims Often a sextortion scheme unravels within a few days, or even a few hours, according to Donald Asper, a supervisory special agent with FBI Philadelphia: Its not just a single actor. Youre looking at organizations, youre looking at people where this is their sole source of income. In one tragic case which ended in suicide, the victim received a message around midnight from someone posing as a teenage girl and took his life less than two hours later. Overwhelmingly, the victims of sextortion feel shame and embarrassment, and its this shame and embarrassment that keeps them from telling their parents. Likewise, teenagers who dont understand that they are the victims may be worried that theyve broken a law. In many cases, even when the victim complies with the predators request, the predator will still release the images or continue to harass the victim. Victims may feel like there is no way out, notes Wray. The FBI has received reports of more than a dozen suicides by victims of sextortion. How To Talk to Your Kids The best defense against this crime is to talk to your children about what to do if theyre targeted online. We want everyone to know help is out there and theyre not alone, Michelle DeLaune, CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, said in a press release. One of the most important conversations parents should have on this topic is to remind kids to be selective about what they share online, and educate them on how easy it is for a criminal to gather information. Dave Frattare, Commander of the ICAC Task Force of the Cuyahoga County, Ohio Prosecutors Office in Cleveland urges parents to tell their kids to never send explicit pictures to anybody. Parents should ensure that kids understand that once the images are sent, even over a private messaging app, they have no control over what happens to them after where they are sent and/or who they can be seen by. Also, parents should remind kids to be wary of people they meet for the first time online. Parents should talk to kids about how easy it is for someone to pretend to be anything or anyone online. Videos and photos are not proof that a person is who they claim to be. Images can be altered or stolen. Most importantly, parents should tell kids to ask for help. They should know to block the sender, report the messages but not delete them and go to a trusted adult. Remind kids that that if they do get caught up in something, its OK to ask for help, no matter what time of day or night it is, says Frattare. More information, further resources, and conversation guides are available here. Where To Seek Help If your child has gotten caught up in a scheme, there are two important things to remember: one, its not your fault; the predator is to blame, and two, help is available. HSI and the FBI both have resources available to help. Families can contact HSI through its toll-free tip line at 1-866-347-2423 or by completing its online tip form. Families can also contact their local FBI field office, the national office, or report the predator online at tips.fbi.gov. The NCMEC has outlined a number of steps parents and kids can take if anyone is a victim of sextortion. First, seek help before complying with the predators demands. Cooperating or paying rarely stops the blackmail and continued harassment. Instead, victims should report and block the predators account. However, do not delete the profile or messages, as those can be used to identify and stop the predators. If explicit images are already posted, families can get help from the NCMEC to remove the images from the Internet or can visit here to learn how to alert companies to the images. Kids who feel like they have no adult to turn to can reach out to NCMEC directly at gethelp@ncmec.org or call NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST. The reality is that most kids today have grown up with the Internet and it can feel like a safe place to these digital natives but they need to be aware that its not. They need to be aware, and they need to know if they do make a mistake that they arent alone or at fault and that help is available. Best of SheKnows Sign up for SheKnows' Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) The San Francisco Zoo reintroduced toads considered to be threatened back into the Yosemite National Park ecosystem late last month, officials announced Monday. The Yosemite toads have not previously been seen in the national park since 2013. The small but significant toads were reared by the conservation team at the zoo in an effort to bolster their numbers, eventually leading to the reintroduction of a self-sustaining population at their Yosemite home, according to the SF Zoo. In 2022, the first group of toads were reared from the tadpole stage. That group, for the first time ever, was reintroduced to the wild on June 27. Yosemite toads after release. (Photo: San Francisco Zoo & Gardens) Yosemite toads ready for release. (Photo: San Francisco Zoo & Gardens) The zoo said that 118 Yosemite toads were flown by helicopter to the park and released in an area that was deemed to be suitable habitat. Yosemite toads are found only in the Sierra Nevada, and Yosemite National Park is a significant portion of the species entire range, SF Zoo wrote in a news release. These toads survive in the higher elevation areas (6,400-11,300 ft., with the majority of the sites between 8,500-10,000 ft.) of the Sierra Nevada where few amphibians can survive. Beloved Oakland Zoo elephant to reunite with other African elephants at sanctuary The Yosemite toad project of rearing and reintroduction is expected to take place over the course of up to five years, the zoo said. Radio transmitters were attached to 30 of the released toads to track their movements. Yosemite toad with radio transmitter. (Photo: San Francisco Zoo & Gardens) The Yosemite toads population have declined by 50 percent and were added to the list of federally threatened species in 2014. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. Shark attack summer: Heres how many Florida swimmers were bitten in recent weeks While Discovery Channel's annual "Shark Week" didn't officially kick off until July 7, some might be thinking it has been more of a "shark summer" after recent shark attacks around the country. Florida continues to lead the nation in attacks, the state alone seeing several reports of shark bites. In addition to the attacks around Florida, two people were bitten by a shark at South Padre Island, a popular tourist destination on the Southeast Texas Coast, on the Fourth of July. A 14-year-old was also attacked in North Topsail Beach, North Carolina, and "Pirates of the Caribbean" actor Tamayo Perry died after being fatally injured by a shark in Oahu, Hawaii. But is there really a spike in shark bites? Here's a recap of all the shark attacks in Florida this summer and how to avoid bites when heading to the beaches. June 7: One woman and 2 teenagers attacked in Panhandle All three shark bites occurred in Walton County in the Florida Panhandle, with the incidents happening between Miramar Beach and Panama City Beach. A 45-year-old woman was swimming with her husband past the first sandbar near Founders Lane in Watersound Beach, west of Seacrest Beach when she was bitten. She suffered significant trauma to her mid-section and pelvic area and the amputation of her lower left arm. The second shark attack was reported nearly two hour later near Sandy Shores Court in Seacrest Beach, about 4 miles east of the first incident. The two victims were girls ages 15 to 17, hanging out with a group of friends just inside the first sandbar in waist-deep water. One girl, later identified as Lulu Gribbin, suffered significant injuries to one upper and lower extremity and required the application of tourniquets. In an interview with her mother, Anne, she shared her daughter would likely need for or five more surgeries to finalize the amputations. The second girl suffered flesh wounds to her lower right extremity and was transported by South Walton Fire District first responders to Ascension Bay Medical Center in Panama City Beach, where she was listed in stable condition. June 28: Man bitten in Nassau County A man was critically injured with a severe bite to his right arm near Fernandina Beach, Nassau County authorities said. According to the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union, the department's Marine Unit was on patrol off Amelia Island when they received a distress call over the emergency radio. When deputies got to the boat, they found a man with a severe shark bite to his forearm and was "bleeding pretty badly." The man was airlifted to a local hospital where he was set to recover. July 4: Ohio man bitten in Volusia County A 21-year-old Ohio man was bitten by a shark on Independence Day in New Smyrna Beach while playing football in knee-deep water, according to a Volusia County Beach Safety report. Connor Graham Baker of Belpre, Ohio, sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment. The shark bit him on the right foot at the beach near Flagler Avenue. July 5: Sarasota man bitten in Volusia County A 26-year-old man visiting from Sarasota was bitten on his left foot while wading in an inner tube in approximately five feet of water, according to Volusia County Beach Safety spokeswoman Tamra Malphurs. According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the victim's injuries were not life-threatening. He received treatment on scene before being transported to the hospital for further care. His name was not released. July 8: Third bite in Volusia County A 14-year-old boy was bitten in his right calf by a shark during a lifeguard training camp at Ponce Inlet. Witnesses said the teen dove into the water and landed on the 4 to 5-foot black tip, a shark that is common for Volusia County beaches, said Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue Interim Director Tamra Malphurs on Tuesday. The teen was treated on scene and released to a custodian, who took the boy to the hospital with non-life-threatening lacerations, Malphurs said. Why are there so many shark bites this year? Sheriff's Office helicopters and officials from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission patrolling the shores have reported seeing unusual amounts of shark activity at different times around encounters. Capt. Gary Jarvis, who has been fishing out of Destin for over 40 years, told The Destin Log that the shark population in the Gulf of Mexico is larger than he'd ever seen. There are more people that swim in the water than before and there are more sharks in the water than ever before. So, the incident rate of shark bites is only going to go in one direction, Jarvis said. Curious about Florida sharks? We asked an expert about things you should know However, it also must be pointed out that while news reports seem more frequent, actual shark bites are still incredibly rare and Florida likely sees more just because the state has a longer period of beach weather, has nearly 8,500 miles of shoreline and has a higher number of people in the water at any given time than most places. "I think because Florida's a year-round beach destination, you have this scenario whereby people are more likely to be bitten here simply because there's so many people in the water all the time," Dr. Stephen Kajiura, a professor of biological sciences at Florida Atlantic University, told The Excerpt podcast. How many shark bites were there worldwide in 2023? TOPSHOT - A bull shark swims off the coast of Jupiter, Florida on February 12, 2022. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images) The Florida Museum of Natural Historys International Shark Attack File investigated 120 alleged shark-human interactions worldwide in 2023. Sixty-nine were confirmed as unprovoked shark bites on humans and 22 were found to be provoked bites. But fatalities from shark bites doubled in 2023 from the year before, with 14 confirmed shark-related fatalities, including 10 classified as unprovoked. Two were in the United States, in California and Hawaii. Breakdown of 2023 reports around the world: Unprovoked bites: 69 Provoked bites: 22 Boat bites: 9 Scavenge: 2 (post-mortem bites) Public Aquaria: 1 No assignment could be made: 1 Not confirmed: 16 Is Florida still the shark bite capital of the country? Shark bite capital of the world? Florida continues to be the No. 1 location for the number of shark bites, according to the International Shark Attack File. There were 16 bites although none were fatal confirmed in 2023. That's lower than Florida's historic average of 19 incidents a year. Eight of them were Volusia County, home of Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, which has long been dubbed "the shark bite capital of the world." Florida: 16 bites, none fatal Hawaii: 8 bites, 1 fatal New York: 4 bites, none fatal California: 2 bites, 1 fatal North Carolina: 3 bites, none fatal South Carolina: 2 bites, none fatal New Jersey: 1 bite, none fatal Top 10: Confirmed unprovoked shark attacks in Florida from 1882 to present Volusia County: 351 Brevard County: 158 Palm Beach County: 83 St. Johns County: 45 Duval County: 46 Martin County: 41 St. Lucie County: 39 Indian River County: 22 Monroe County: 21 Miami-Dade County: 20 Why are sharks so common in Florida? Florida has one of the largest year-round concentrations of sharks. Scientific data from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission shows that many shark species migrate in and out of Florida's waters each year. These migrations are often linked to temperature and the presence of prey such as mullet, sardines, menhaden and other species of baitfish. What breed of sharks mostly bite humans? The ISAF reported earlier this year that 36% of unprovoked shark bites in Florida were caused by requiem sharks, which are 50 species of small to large sharks. Additionally, 16% of bites were from bull sharks and 15% by blacktip sharks. However, the University of Florida notes that all sharks, regardless of size, are predators and could be capable of inflicting wounds if provoked. How do I avoid shark bites? While the chances of being bitten by a shark are very rare, the FWC offers some tips on how to avoid being attacked while out in the ocean: Always stay in groups since sharks are more likely to bite a solitary individual. Do not wander too far from shore; this isolates an individual and places him or her far away from assistance. Avoid being in the water during darkness or twilight hours when sharks are most active. Do not enter the water if bleeding from an open wound or if menstruating a shark's ability to smell blood is acute. Wearing shiny jewelry is discouraged. When light reflects off shiny jewelry, it resembles the sheen of fish scales. Avoid waters with known discharges or sewage and waters used for any type of fishing especially if there are signs of baitfishes or feeding activity. Diving seabirds, which frequently feed on baitfishes, are good indicators of such activity. While there are myths and anecdotes about dolphins saving humans from shark bites, the presence of dolphins does not indicate the absence of sharks both often eat the same foods. Use extra caution when the waters are murky. Remember that sharks see contrast particularly well. Uneven tans and bright-colored clothing may draw a shark's attention. Refrain from excess splashing, as this may draw a shark's attention. Do not allow pets in the water; their erratic movements may draw a sharks attention. Be careful when occupying the area between sandbars or near steep drop-offs these are favorite hangouts for sharks. Swim only in areas tended by lifeguards. Do not enter the water if sharks are known to be present, and get out of the water if sharks are sighted. Never harass a shark. Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY, contributed to this story. This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Shark attacks in Florida: Are there more bites in 2024 than usual? Sharks are coming within feet of Massachusetts beaches. See a list of recently spotted great whites Sharks are coming within feet of Massachusetts beaches. See a list of recently spotted great whites Shark sightings and predations in the water off Massachusetts have been climbing steadily as the summer heat and humidity continue to grip the region. Mass. shark tracker: Interactive map with real-time tools shows where great whites are lurking The Chatham-based Atlantic White Shark Conservancys Sharktivity app has reported great white sightings as far north as Nova Scotia with many coming off Cape Cod and the Islands in recent days. According to one report, a shark came within 50 feet of a Cape Cod beach. Several other reports indicated sharks were swimming about 50 yards offshore. In addition to the shark sightings, predations involving dead seals have also been reported by Sharktivity users. Multiple reports of dead seals with bite marks as great white sharks return to Mass. waters Heres a list of sightings and predations so far in the past week: Shark spotted 100 feet off of Chathams North Beach Island on July 3 Pilot spotted a shark just northeast of Bournes Sagamore Beach on July 3 Pilot spotted a shark west of Truros Head of the Meadow Beach on July 3 Pilot spotted a shark a mile off a mile of Wellfleets Beachcomber on July 3 Shark sighting and seal predation off Nantuckets Great Point on July 7 Dead seal found in Truros Pamet Harbor with a shark bite wound on July 7 Shark spotted 100 feet off of Chathams North Beach Island on July 9 Shark spotted 150 yards off the North Cut of Chatham Harbor on July 9 Shark spotted 59 yards off Nauset Outer on July 10 Shark spotted 50 feet offshore just south of Orleans Nauset Beach on July 10 The Sharktivity app tracks sightings fed by researchers, safety officials, and users who upload photos for confirmation. John Chisholm, adjunct scientist at New England Aquarium, recently told Boston 25 they are expecting more sharks this year as the seal population continues to grow. No matter where youre going into the water, whether thats Cape Cod or Gloucester or Plymouth, you need to be shark smart, Chisholm cautioned beachgoers. While the last shark attack in Massachusetts was in 2020, the growing numbers of seals and sharks should make beachgoers more alert, Chisholm advised. RELATED: Dazzling: 161 whales, including orca with tuna in its mouth, spotted off Mass. on the same day Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Newsmax personality and former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka described Vice President Kamala Harris a DEI hire and colored in an interview on Tuesday. In the segment, Gorka, himself accused of inflating his credentials as a terrorism expert, predicted that Biden will be forced to withdraw from the presidential race if major Democratic donors pull the plug. Host Rob Schmiddt then asked if Democratic donors really think Harris is going to do better in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania than Joe Biden would? This embedded content is not available in your region. Gorka responded sarcastically: Shes a DEI hire, right? Shes a woman. Shes colored, therefore shes got to be good. And at least her brain doesnt literally freeze mid sentence, he added. The term DEI hire has been widely used by Republicans as a camouflaged racial slur, referring to corporate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts. Gorkas remarks come days after John Ulyot, another former Trump aide, made similar remarks in a Newsmax interview. Ulyot said that Harris will likely replace Biden as the next Democratic candidate because she is a DEI hire. "She was hired because President Biden said when he was a candidate that he wanted to hire a woman to be his number two, Ulyot told Newsmax host Sarah Williamson. Last week, The New York Post, a right-wing tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, published an opinion piece in which writer Charles Gasparino said Harris could be the United States first DEI president. The comments come as pressure for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential election grows, with Harris being named his most likely replacement. Shooting of teens inside Bronx McDonalds came after victims argued with girls there: cops Two boys ages 12 and 13 who were shot and wounded in a Bronx McDonalds were targeted after getting into an argument with two girls with gang ties, police said Tuesday. The victims were shot inside the fast food joint on White Plains Road near Mace Ave. in Allerton around 9:50 p.m. Saturday, according to cops. Before the gunfire, the boys had harsh words with the girls, ages 15 and 16, one of whom was on the phone, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a Tuesday news conference. Our belief is that words were exchanged with the girls [and] the girls called their fellas, Kenny said. Shortly after, a gunman and a posse of about 10 others walked into the restaurant and asked, What happened? before firing off shots. The younger boy was shot four times in the back and buttocks and twice in the lower leg. The 13-year-old victim was shot twice in the lower leg, Kenny said. The shooter and his crew took off and the victims were taken to Jacobi Medical Center, where they survived the shooting. Neither of the victims had any previous contact with the Police Department, and they have no gang ties, according to police. The girls they first argued with are both linked to gangs, according to Kenny. Police are still looking for the gunman, who was last seen wearing a black hoodie with pink writing on the front. Shots fired at car on I-5 on-ramp in Seattle Authorities are seeking information about a shooting on the Columbia on-ramp to northbound I-5 early Monday morning. At approximately 12:10 a.m. on July 8, the Washington State Patrol (WSP) responded to a report from a driver saying their vehicle had been shot at. The caller, who was not injured, pulled over at the James Street exit to wait for troopers. When they arrived, troopers saw that the callers black four-door sedan had been struck by gunfire in multiple places. Evidence was recovered from the car. According to the victim, they were driving on Columbia and preparing to take the ramp to northbound I-5 when they heard loud pops and noticed their window had shattered. The victim reported seeing only one other vehicle in the area, entering the ramp to southbound I-5. No details about the other vehicle or its driver are known. The WSP asks anyone with information about this incident to contact the Washington State Patrol. Chinese developers have continued to find ways to access OpenAI's artificial intelligence (AI) models from the mainland after the Microsoft-backed start-up further restricted access to the technology behind its popular ChatGPT service. Seven developers spread across China told the Post on Wednesday that they were using virtual private networks (VPNs) and third-party services that still have GPT access to continue to use the AI models that are considered the global industry benchmark. OpenAI was once aggressive about blocking VPN access by banning internet protocol (IP) addresses known to be associated with such services. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. OpenAI was still accessible using a Chinese VPN service that advertises ChatGPT access on Wednesday, the first full day in China that OpenAI had blocked the country from accessing its application programming interface (API), according to tests by the Post. The developers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the murky legality of using foreign AI technologies and VPNs on the mainland, are based in cities around the country including Guangzhou in southern Guangdong province, Chengdu in southwestern Sichuan province, and Dalian, a port city in northeastern Liaoning province. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (right) speaks as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on during the OpenAI DevDay event in San Francisco on November 6, 2023. Photo: AFP alt=Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (right) speaks as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on during the OpenAI DevDay event in San Francisco on November 6, 2023. Photo: AFP> OpenAI announced late last month that it would start blocking connections to its API from regions that it does not support starting from July 9 in the US. Unsupported regions include those that are sanctioned by the US - such as Iran, North Korea and Russia - along with China, Hong Kong and Macau. Other large AI services such as Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude have also blocked access from China and Hong Kong amid geopolitical uncertainties exacerbated by a US-China tech war. Microsoft, however, has maintained access in the region. Third-party services that still have GPT access such as Microsoft Azure are another means through which developers in China can use GPT models. While most Chinese services offering this access have been shut down owing to regulatory pressure, Microsoft maintains enterprise access in mainland China and has repeatedly committed to maintaining access to its Copilot AI service in Hong Kong, where it hopes to put AI in every school. Story continues The jury is still out on whether OpenAI can effectively restrict unwanted access to its publicly available services. One developer explained that using an account linked to a foreign mobile phone number while connected to OpenAI's API through a VPN makes it difficult for the company to determine where the connection originated from. But there are anecdotal signs that it is getting harder to access OpenAI in China, where the use of unapproved VPNs is illegal and publicly available large language models (LLMs) must be licensed. One developer said that his GPT service provider has disabled some OpenAI services. Still, most of the developers said the move is unlikely to deal a significant blow to their work, as there are now many LLM alternatives from both local and global AI firms. Many of the developers said that they are coming up with backup plans, such as migrating to Anthropic, whose latest Claude Sonnet 3.5 has received wide acclaim for its capabilities relative to the latest GPT-4 models. However, Anthropic also restricts API access in China, according to tests by the Post. Some developers are also considering switching to domestic AI platforms, which have been scrambling to find ways to match the capabilities of overseas models. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. SPRINGDALE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) UPDATE: The Silver Alert has been inactivated. SPRINGDALE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) The Arkansas State Police activated a Silver Alert for a 65-year-old man last seen in Springdale last night. Harold Dean Dyer was last seen wearing a red shirt and blue jeans. He is described to be a white man 5 foot 9 inches tall weighing 190 pounds with brown short hair and blue eyes. ASP said he was last known to be at 3405 S. 40th St., Springdale near Tyson Park. Dyer is driving a red Toyota Rav 4 with Arkansas plates: 205 XKC. Police ask the public to contact Springdale Police Department at 479-756-8200 if they have any information about his whereabouts. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24. SISTER BAY - A Door County judge granted a temporary injunction against the village of Sister Bay to allow a short-term rental property there to resume renting out its space until a final decision is made in a dispute over renewal of the STR's license. Issuing the injunction, Circuit Court Judge David Weber said in a June 26 hearing the village didn't follow its own ordinances when it denied the owners of Captain's Cottage, LLC their license renewal and then obstructed the owners from appealing the denial. The previous year's license was valid through June 30, and the question over its renewal caused owners Adam and Brigid White to cancel all reservations they had received after July 1 in case they weren't licensed, which they said cost them $52,500. The owners of Captain's Cottage, a single-family residence and short-term rental property in Sister Bay, has received a temporary injunction that allows them to keep their short-term rental license after a judge ruled the village didn't follow its own ordinances when denying renewal of the license. The case drew more than local attention, as the Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) became involved by working with local attorney Bjorn Johnson on the Whites' behalf. Johnson said he brought in WILL because of their expertise and experience in cases such as this involving people's rights with municipalities. "I think everyone agrees due process is something that should have been in place from the beginning," Johnson said. This is a local government at its worst," WILL deputy counsel Luke Berg, one of two WILL attorneys on the case, said in a press release. "Wisconsin law clearly protects homeowners like our clients, yet the village not only unlawfully denied their license, but then refused to allow them to appeal the denial, as they have a right to do. The dispute mainly started over parking spaces. Other issues the village had with the property a single-family residence the Whites rent out were mentioned in an April 23 email to the Whites from village administrator Julie Schmelzer explaining why the village wouldn't issue a license, but "the most significant issue is your parking situation." The email and other correspondence is included in the complaint as evidence. According to the complaint, Adam and Brigid White filed the application to renew their STR license March 1, the first day the application period opened. They've owned the property since 2020 and rented it out since, as the previous owner did starting in 2018, and have received or renewed an STR license since the village began requiring one in 2021. The Captain's Cottage parking spaces don't meet the village's current codes for STRs, which requires two to four 10-by-20-foot asphalt parking stalls that aren't in the public right-of-way and with at least 10 feet of setback from the neighboring lot line. Schmelzer's email said the Whites' plan shows one stall adjacent to the road, but an inspection revealed no true stall or asphalt area, and the space indicated doesnt meet setback requirements. The plan also shows "pull-over" parking space in the right-of-way. However, in an April 29 reply email, Johnson asked the village to reconsider, saying code violations cannot be applied retroactively to pre-existing nonconforming conditions, according to state law and the village's own ordinances. The complaint said the home was built in 1919, the village adopted parking and setback codes related to the case between 1995 and 2006 and the parking situation hasn't changed at the property, so the parking stalls should be grandfathered in as acceptable. The complaint also noted the village issued the Whites a license every previous year. The complaint further said it appeared the village's position was that the act of applying for a renewal constituted a change of use in the property from single-family residential to short-term rental, thus erasing the grandfathered protections and forcing owners to "update their property every year to conform to whatever changes the village has made to their zoning code," which would be in violation of state and local ordinances. Following another exchange of emails, Johnson wrote the Whites would immediately begin an appeal of the nonrenewal, which the village allows within 14 days of the denial. Johnson said he requested an appeals form from the village but received no reply, and no such form existed on the village's website. Johnson drafted an appeal and submitted it to the village, but a letter from village attorney Randy Nesbitt dated May 8 said the village wouldn't consider or schedule a hearing on it because it didn't receive the required fee for it. The complaint noted, however, that the village didn't have the amount of the fee posted on its website, didn't reply when asked what was the fee, and didn't appear to have such a fee in place at all until it the Village Board approved implementing one during its regular June 18 meeting. Schmelzer had no comment other than saying the property was out of code and that Nesbitt has been discussing the situation with the Whites and Johnson, giving an update to the village board in closed session during a special July 5 meeting. With the injunction now in place, Johnson said he'll wait for the village to decide on its next step. He is working on a potential appeal if the village decides to not renew the license. "At this point, I think the ball is at least somewhat in (Sister Bay's) court," Johnson said. "(The Whites) are happy, I think, because they'll finally be able to get some answers. We're going to go through their appeal rights, as they should have been given from the start." Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@gannett.com. MORE: A $906,000 grant enables Sister Bay to build a pedestrian and cycling trail along State 57 MORE: Door County man, 80, is charged with defrauding two elderly women of more than $600,000 FOR MORE DOOR COUNTY NEWS: Check out our website This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Sister Bay short-term rental wins court case over its license renewal The News President Bidens attempt to quash a simmering rebellion among Congressional Democrats remains incomplete, raising the stakes for his NATO summit press conference on Thursday even higher than they were already. I think voters are legitimate to ask questions and I think the [NATO] press conference and other events like that will be helpful in getting us back to the contrast between Biden and Trump that we need and the country deserves, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told Semafor. A number of influential Democrats have come out for Biden since he demanded they cut off talk of a replacement on Monday, but others continue to raise grave concerns about his viability and many more have hesitated to take a clear position on his status either way. Caucus meetings in the House and Senate on Tuesday both ended without any clear consensus on the path forward. At the end of the day, he is our nominee right now til hes not our nominee, Rep. Pramila Jayapal told the Wall Street Journal. Democrats, it seems, are waiting for something more. And more public opportunities to take questions, starting with Thursdays press conference, have been a near-universal demand. Anything where he can be unscriptedI think its great, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, told Semafor. He said hes urged the Biden administration since some time ago to do more events away from teleprompters. California Rep. Pete Aguilar, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, told NBC News that he was taking a lets see approach to Bidens comeback even as he supported him. Lets see the press conference, he said. Lets see the campaign stops. Lets see all of this, because all of it is going to be necessary. Benjys view Bidens coming Big Boy press conference, as his aides have jokingly called it, might explain at least a little of the hesitation among Democrats. Decisively endorse the president, only to see him stumble again, and you might get embarrassed. Call for him to drop out, only to see him deliver a vintage performance on the world stage, and you might get pressured into falling back in line. But this all points to a broader issue for Biden: His support is brittle to the point that public appearance right now feels like a potential turning point. The president has so far reasserted his dominance over the party by leveraging relationships with key leaders and publicly bullying so-called elites into standing down. What he hasnt done is use the nearly two weeks since the debate to dispel allies doubts about his political and cognitive abilities with a robust schedule of events that test him the same way the debate did, something many Democrats have demanded over the entire period. As Massachusetts Rep. Lori Tahan, another member of leadership, put it in a statement after the House meeting: While President Biden has made clear he feels he is the best candidate to win this election, nothing that has happened over the past twelve days suggests that voters see things the same way. Thats created an uneasy standoff. Momentum appears to have slowed for demanding his removal, but it hasnt disappeared entirely. The default stance among Senate Democrats, in particular, seems to be passive-aggressive seething about campaign tactics, generic statements of concern, and cryptic answers about Bidens future. If they wanted to end talk of a replacement on Tuesday, they could have easily ended talk of a replacement. Instead, theyre buying time. Thats an environment that could be prone to rapid shifts depending on events. Get used to every speech or interview being a potential debate moment. Room for Disagreement Some of Bidens critics have argued that his status is no longer actually in question. Whether or not I have concerns is besides the point, New York Rep. Jerry Nadler told reporters, per Axios. He is going to be our nominee and we all have to support him. Nadler had earlier suggested Biden should step down in a private call. Notable The morale of the caucus is at historic lows one House Democrat told Semafor after Tuesdays caucus meeting. Read more from our team about how Bidens faring on Capitol Hill. Bidens opening speech at the NATO summit was a hit. Per Politico: The president didnt fumble over words as he often does during remarks. He was clear and forceful, appearing energized by the transatlanticism that he has embraced throughout his political career. Photo that goes viral results in Kentucky firefighter being placed on administrative leave A Kentucky fire department has placed one of its members on administrative leave after a photo of a volunteer firefighter sitting on the outside of a moving car went viral. The photo was posted to an Estill County community group page on Facebook. The user who posted the photo said the vehicle was traveling on KY 82 in Irvine and the firefighter sat outside the vehicle on the passenger door for roughly two miles. The firefighter was identified as a male between 20-30 years old. The individual sitting outside the vehicle was wearing a Clay City Fire Department shirt. He was not identified in the Facebook post or by the fire department. On Monday, the Clay City Fire Department said the photo had been brought to their attention and theyve identified the individual in the photo. The firefighter has been placed on administrative leave while a board of directors reviews the incident. The information has also been turned over to law enforcement, the fire department said. We do not condone this kind of behavior from any of our members, the fire department said in a Facebook post. We appreciate the community making us aware of this incident. Cincinnati police on the scene of an early morning shooting on East University Avenue at Hamilton Avenue in Corryville, Monday, July 1, 2024. Three died and two were injured in the early morning shooting. One of the bodies is at right. Regarding, "Data shows Cincinnati shootings decline in 2024," (July 5): The stats are the stats, but it seems to me that almost every evening's newscast begins with breaking news from OTR, Avondale, Madisonville, Westwood, Price Hill, Corryville, Mt. Airy or The Banks regarding another shooting or some form of violence in the city. In fact, the very next day after the Enquirer reported on the decline in shootings, there was an article titled, "Man shot, killed in OTR on Fourth of July." I have no desire to patronize the establishments in OTR, despite the mayor and other high-profile individuals and organizations promoting how safe it is. Just read the news and tell me you would feel safe in OTR and some of these other areas of the city. How successful have city officials been in addressing this issue? Holding press conferences to condemn this "unacceptable" (an obvious and overused word in my estimation) violence, politically-motivated speeches regarding gun control and well-intentioned organizations handing out pamphlets seem to have little if any effect. Despite the valiant effort of the police to arrest these criminals and prosecutors to prosecute them, soft-on-crime judges administer weak sentences to these perpetrators of violence, allowing them to repeat their heinous actions in many cases. I personally believe that anyone who is convicted beyond any doubt of intentionally, purposefully and willfully killing another individual should be imprisoned for life to send an effective message to others considering the same crime. Some people may feel powerless to have any effect on this important issue, but every Hamilton County resident does have the power to vote for judges who will administer tough sentences for serious crimes. Before the next election, do your research and vote out soft-on-crime judges. Glenn Harmeyer, Colerain Township This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Hamilton County judges must give tougher sentences for serious crimes COVID is back COVID is on the rise again. Get tested if you have symptoms. The rapid test is not as accurate as the PCR test. Remember to do basic things, like covering your mouth when coughing and frequent handwashing, especially around older people and the sick. Allies NATO and now the EU are not supporting Vladimir Putins war against Ukraine. Yet, Donald Trump continues to praise him. Let that sink in. If you dont know the abbreviations, look them up. Itll provide a little lesson in how easy it is to research. Disney I didnt know the Disney heiress is a staunch Democrat. One more reason to go elsewhere. Decision time It is quite evident that President Biden will not quit the campaign for president. Now Democrats who want him to step down have to make a decision. Support him or apply Amendment 25, declare him incompetent and give the presidency to Vice President Harris. Then declare the convention open for competition for a presidential candidate. That is a drastic decision but that is how you do it. They need to decide to support him, remove him or shut up. War zone Well the news is out: Chicago was more deadly than Ukraine over the Fourth of July weekend. What does that say about crime in American cities? Dont do it In a news story about a recent shark bite in Florida, it was mentioned that Volusia County seems to be the shark attack capital of the world. Hawaii got an honorable mention as second runner up. Oh my, what might the numbers be if we counted the provoked attacks? Who are those people that swim off the beach, seek out a good black tip or bullnose candidate and agitate it for a decent bite? Timmy, stop that right now or youre in big trouble. Patriotic tree If you get the opportunity, go see the big beautiful red, white, an blue decorated tree at Popps Pizza in Biloxi. You cant miss it. You can bring a Veterans ornament and hang it on the tree. I love this. Send your Sound Offs to soundoff@sunherald.com. Sanford Health and Marshfield Clinic are moving on from failed mergers with Minnesota health systems and announced Wednesday plans to combine their operations by year's end. The tentative deal comes nearly a year after South Dakota-based Sanford Health and Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services withdrew plans for a megamerger. Duluth-based Essentia Health, meanwhile, announced in January that it was pulling out of a deal to merge with Wisconsin-based Marshfield, citing the clinic's financial challenges. Under the agreement announced Wednesday, the newly combined system would be based at Sanford's headquarters in Sioux Falls. It would employ nearly 56,000 people across 56 hospitals, more than 250 clinics and two health plans, with operations spanning the Upper Midwest. "We are excited to combine our common purpose to lead the way for the future, drive innovation and solve the most pressing challenges facing rural health care," said Bill Gassen, president and CEO of Sanford Health, in a statement. Last July, Sanford Health and Fairview announced they were halting merger plans following opposition from the University of Minnesota. Earlier this year, the U and Fairview announced plans for the university to acquire from the health system its teaching hospital in Minneapolis. In 1997, Fairview acquired University of Minnesota Medical Center in a financial bailout. Sanford Health currently operates a number of hospitals and clinics in western Minnesota in addition to locations in the Dakotas and Iowa. Marshfield runs dozens of clinics and hospitals in northern and western Wisconsin and in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. (Bloomberg) -- One of the most influential people attending the NATO summit leads a country that is not a member. Yet it holds vast stores of weapons sought by the bloc to help Ukraine fight off Russia, and perhaps tip the battle in Kyivs favor. Most Read from Bloomberg Ukraine needs artillery shells. South Korea has millions and there is a push to convince its President Yoon Suk Yeol to change a government policy that prohibits Seoul from sending lethal aid to countries at war. Yoon is attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit this week for the third time but this visit is different. Just weeks before it opened, his government said a defense pact signed between Russia and North Korea in June has made it consider whether its time to start sending weapons to President Volodymyr Zelenskiys forces. Zelenskiy, who has been seeking weapons from South Korea since Russias full-scale invasion started in 2022, will be attending the summit in Washington aimed at proving that NATO is as strong as ever in its 75th year. He is expected to speak at a meeting of the Indo-Pacific Four partners Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea the Yomiuri newspaper reported, where he could again lay out his case for weapons. The types of weapons South Korea can provide Ukraine are the ones that can make breakthroughs in the current stalemate on the front lines, said Park Won Gon, a professor at South Koreas Ewha Womans University, specializing in international relations. Apart from the appeals from Zelenskiy, leaked intelligence obtained by the New York Times last year indicates Washington has been seeking to have Yoon send artillery to help Ukraine. Yoons aides were worried about pressure from US President Joe Biden, a document showed, and the Yoon government has denied the claims. Congress finally approved $61 billion in funding in April, helping shift the balance of firepower, but the US and its European partners still need to ramp up their ability to make artillery shells. The European Union missed a pledge to provide Ukraine with 1 million rounds of artillery by end-March and any munitions from South Korea could help fill shortfalls. Ukraine is estimated to need at least 200,000 rounds a month. An unnamed senior NATO official said anything that South Korea provides to help Ukraine defend itself would be welcome, Yonhap News agency reported. South Korea has 155 millimeter artillery shells that are the NATO standard used by Ukraine. The stock is estimated to be at over 3 million shells, Yonhap reported. Seoul may be less worried now about drawing down its inventory after seeing North Korea sending to Russia what Yoons government believes could be nearly 5 million shells. These arms transfers translated into Kyivs troops being outgunned by as much as 10-1 by President Vladimir Putins forces as military aid to Ukraine was delayed in the US Congress this year. South Korea could also consider sending 105 mm artillery shells, which have less range but are fired from howitzers that are lighter and more mobile, the Center for Strategic & International Studies said in a report in March. South Korea has as many as 3.4 million shells that can be used by Ukraine, it said. Meanwhile, countries bordering Russia have been buying weapons from the likes of South Koreas leading defense contractor Hanwha Aerospace Co. Its tanks and howitzers are seen as less expensive than those from US makers and able to defeat Russian systems. The company signed a deal worth nearly $1 billion to sell 54 K9 howitzers and other military supplies to Romania, South Koreas arms procurement agency said Wednesday. Yoon has said any decision on sending weapons would depend on Russias action. Lawmaker Kim Gunn, who served under Yoon as a chief nuclear envoy until February, said the threat to supply arms to Ukraine is leverage to deter Russia from providing military support to North Korea. Officials in Seoul have indicated a red line would be material, particularly technology that enhances Kims ability to make weapons of mass destruction. Putin has said he cant exclude providing Kim with high-precision weapons in response to Western military assistance for Ukraine. From Seouls point of view, Russias cooperation with North Korea is a direct threat to its national security, said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior fellow with the 38 North Program at the Stimson Center. She said it not only aids in advancing North Koreas weapons development but helps Pyongyang manage and even improve its national economy by reviving the munitions industry. Lee, who worked as an analyst for the CIAs Open Source Enterprise, said South Korea has been able to deflect pressure by promoting other ways to contribute to NATO, such cyber security, and Seoul should move cautiously. Direct provision of weapons to Ukraine is a major step, and that decision should be made based on South Koreas national interest, which should also take into consideration its longer-term interest vis-a-vis Russia, she said. (Updates with Hanwha Aerospaces latest deal with Romania in paragraph 13.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Oracle ORCL has announced a significant collaboration with Palantir Technologies PLTR, marking a new chapter in the realm of cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI). The tech giant revealed that Palantir's Foundry Platform and Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) have been certified on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and are now generally available across all of Oracle's distributed cloud deployment options. This partnership aims to leverage Oracle's robust distributed cloud, AI infrastructure and sovereign AI capabilities in conjunction with PLTR's renowned AI and decision acceleration platforms. The collaboration is expected to empower businesses and governments to expedite their AI initiatives, potentially revolutionizing how organizations harness data and AI technologies. The certification of Palantir's Foundry and AIP on OCI extends across ORCL's diverse range of cloud offerings. These include public cloud regions, OCI Dedicated Regions, Oracle Alloy, Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud, Oracle Government Cloud, Oracle Roving Edge and the companys air-gapped regions designed for defense and intelligence customers. This comprehensive deployment strategy ensures that customers can leverage Palantir's tools while benefiting from OCI's efficient, high-performance and secure compute infrastructure. Year-to-Date Performance Zacks Investment Research Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Oracle's Strategic AI Integration: Driving Enterprise Innovation & Growth Oracle's unique position as the only hyperscaler capable of delivering AI and a full suite of more than 100 cloud services across dedicated, public and hybrid cloud environments globally sets it apart in the market. Shares of ORCL have gained 33.4% year to date compared with the Zacks Computer and Technology sectors growth of 29.5%. The company's sovereign cloud offerings are designed to meet stringent regulatory, security and performance requirements, allowing customers to fully exploit the benefits of cloud computing and AI technologies. This strategic partnership between Oracle and Palantir represents a significant step forward in the AI and cloud computing landscape, promising to accelerate AI adoption across various sectors while maintaining high standards of security and compliance. This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company continues to expand its AI footprint, as evidenced by recent enhancements to its Oracle APEX low-code development platform. The introduction of the APEX AI Assistant marks a significant step forward, simplifying application development and enabling developers to rapidly create feature-rich and mission-critical applications at scale. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Oracle's AI ecosystem also includes sophisticated services like the Oracle Digital Assistant, which facilitates the creation of conversational interfaces for applications and Oracle AI Services, offering pre-trained models for various tasks, including language recognition, image analysis and anomaly detection. These tools demonstrate Oracle's focus on making AI accessible and practical for businesses across different sectors. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ORCLs fiscal 2025 revenues is pegged at $57.45 billion, indicating year-over-year growth of 8.5%. The consensus mark for fiscal 2025 earnings is pegged at $6.14 per share, down by a penny in the past 30 days. The figure indicates year-over-year growth of 10.4%. To maintain its competitive edge in the fast-paced AI market, Oracle has forged strategic partnerships with industry leaders to counter competition from the likes of Amazon AMZN and Microsoft. Collaborations with SambaNova Systems for AI hardware and NVIDIA NVDA for GPU-accelerated AI computing are set to enhance Oracle's AI capabilities in the near term, ensuring the companys position at the forefront of AI innovation. As AI continues to reshape the technology landscape, Oracle's strategic integration of AI across its product lineup, coupled with its partnerships and ongoing innovations, positions the company to play a pivotal role in enterprise AI adoption. Story continues Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Oracle Corporation (ORCL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research South Korea needs more doctors but 9,000 are on strike South Korean doctor Choi Dae-zip (R), head of the Korean Medical Association, holds an emergency press conference in front of the Seoul Metropolitan Agency on the latest updates concerning the nationwide doctors strike. -/YNA/dpa By many measures, South Korea's healthcare system is among the most successful in the world. Seeing a doctor is easy. The mortality rate from preventable illnesses is low. And though most hospitals and clinics are privately run, a nationalized single-payer health insurance program keeps costs affordable. An appendectomy costs $2,500 less than a fifth of the average price that one pays in the United States for example with 80% of that covered by government insurance. But a four-month-old strike by more than 9,000 medical residents and interns across the country is turning the public against the medical establishment. At issue is a government plan to add 1,497 slots to medical school admissions a 48% increase in order to meet the rising need for healthcare as South Korea's population ages. The government says it is simply trying to plug shortages in essential fields such as paediatrics or gynaecology which doctors are increasingly shunning for higher-paying specializations. But junior doctors, backed by their senior peers, say that a wave of new graduates will compromise the quality of medical education, lead to unnecessary medical appointments and drive down physician salaries. "Of course we are conscious of the fact that these new graduates will end up joining the competition in the private practice market later," said Dr. Peter Han, a 30-year-old internal medicine resident who resigned from his job at a major teaching hospital in Seoul in February. "Nothing good will come of that." At a rally in Seoul last month organized by the Korean Medical Association, doctors held placards that read: "The rushed increase of medical school admissions will collapse the medical system." Given South Korea's fertility rate the lowest in the world senior citizens are expected to make up 40% of the total population by 2050. With around 112,000 active physicians as of 2022, the government has estimated the country will need at least 10,000 more in the next decade. Some fields are already facing shortages. A survey of 59 teaching hospitals by Medi C&C, a local medical data company, found that paediatric departments failed to fill 152 of their 205 residency openings this year. Dermatology and plastic surgery departments faced overflows. The protesting doctors have accused the government of failing to factor in artificial intelligence which they say will someday reduce healthcare's reliance on human labour They have also suggested that much of the problem could be solved by increasing efficiency in a system that has long been a marriage of a strong social safety net and the free market. South Koreans visit the doctor an average of 15.7 times a year far more than in any other country, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And despite being classified as tertiary care institutions meant for the sickest patients, university hospitals are chronically overcrowded because costs are low and primary care physicians give out referrals for even minor ailments. Therein lies another factor motivating the strikers: Medical residents say they are the cheap labour propping it all up. At leading US hospitals, residents make up around 14% of total physicians on staff. In South Korea, they account for around 40% of the physicians at the hospitals where they train. They earn nearly $2,900 a month while working an average of nearly 80 hours a week, often in 36-hour shifts. "People will say, 'That's why we're trying to graduate more doctors,' but hospitals won't necessarily hire more of us when it's more profitable to run the ones they have into the ground,' " Han said. "All of these frustrations are just finally boiling over." As the strike grinds on, the doctors are losing the battle for public opinion. More than 80% of South Koreans oppose the strike and support the government's plan, according to a recent poll by research company Southern Post. Amid reports of cancer patients experiencing disruptions in their treatment and patients being shuttled from one emergency room to the next in search of care, some patient advocacy groups have called on the government to permanently revoke the medical licenses of striking doctors and bring in replacements from abroad. The government has tried to force the absentees back to their posts with threats of legal punishment, a hard-line strategy that appears to have backfired. "The government and doctors' groups are behaving the same way, which is why dialogue isn't happening," said Yoon Tae-ho, a health management expert at Pusan National University. "The people have simply become a tool and object in this fight." Among them is Suh Yi-seul, whose 12-year-old son Kai was born with a rare congenital disorder called Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome that has caused his right leg and foot to grow to twice as thick as his left and occasionally triggers skin infections that have kept him from school. "All he can do when that happens is lie still for 10 days while taking antibiotics," Suh said. "And each time, after the swelling goes down, his leg has grown a little bit bigger." The departure of residents from his hospital in Seoul has put an indefinite hold on evaluating him for an experimental therapy that research has suggested could help prevent his condition from worsening. She said she empathized with the doctors but suggested they were behaving selfishly: "Shouldn't they also think of the social good, and not just their group interests?" As the head of a nationwide network for patients with her son's condition, Suh recently met with lawmakers from the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee. It went nowhere. "It really just felt like they showed up just to let us vent," Suh said. "They don't know what to do for us either." A reception area remains vacant at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) in Seoul, as its medical professors began an indefinite walkout in protest against an increase in medical school enrollment. -/YNA/dpa Hundreds of Menard Correctional Center employees and their supporters staged a rally alongside a busy street in Chester on Monday, highlighting what they described as perilous working conditions at the states largest maximum-security prison. The problems at the southern Illinois facility stem from low staffing levels, said Rick Hepp, a correctional sergeant at the prison. Hepp said that in recent months the prison has been operating with about 50 fewer correctional officers than it should have daily. Theres lots of issues here that add up to a big powder keg and the fuse is lit, said Hepp, who is president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1175, a union representing Menard employees. He said the staffing shortages often lead to restrictions in the normal activities that prisoners can engage in, such as yard time, visits to the commissary and even showers. This is frustrating inmates, leading to an uptick in assaults on workers and fights among inmates, he said. Hepp said that over a recent three-week period, 13 correctional officers were out due to injuries sustained on the job. In one instance, a prisoner headbutted a guard, breaking his nose and necessitating emergency surgery. In another, an inmate being escorted outside of his cell broke out of his cuffs and took off running. When a guard tried to apprehend him, the inmate punched him in the face with his cuffs, he said. Though they eventually secured him, Hepp said that six correctional officers had to seek medical care following the incident. Amid the chaos, Hepp said that some employees have started calling in sick on their scheduled days because they are burned out or afraid, exacerbating the staffing crisis. For five hours, the workers gathered in a strip mall parking lot near the entrance to Menards medium-security unit. They held up signs reading Safety Matters at the edge of the road, even as the rain began to fall. Menard, a 146-year-old prison located along the banks of the Mississippi River, houses about 1,500 maximum-security and 300 medium-security individuals. Eddie Caumiant, a regional director with AFSCME, who helped coordinate the event in Chester, said that though Menards staffing and safety problems are acute, they are not unique. The union, he said, expects to hold similar pickets in prison communities across Illinois in the coming weeks. Caumiant said the union is also concerned about the impacts of Gov. JB Pritzkers plan to close Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security mens prison in Crest Hill, while a replacement facility is built. The recently passed budget included $900 million for the new construction of Stateville as well as Logan Correctional Center, a female lockup in Lincoln. AFSCME has expressed support for constructing new prisons near their current locations but has pushed the state to keep them open until construction is complete. Other prisons, he said, are not in a position to handle an influx of new inmates from Stateville, even temporarily. Naomi Puzzello, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Corrections, said the agency recognizes that prison staff face demanding and challenging situations daily and said that staffing challenges are a nationwide problem. The department, she said, has worked to reduce Illinois prison population, while it has continued to aggressively recruit to fill openings statewide. Menard Correctional Center had 817 employees as of May, which she said is 68 short of the number budgeted for the fiscal year ending June 30. But Puzzello said that number included staff for a South Cell House that remains unoccupied. This year, she said, IDOC has hired 76 staff members at Menard, including 31 correctional officers. Puzzello said that, to date, no inmates transferred into Menard have been related to the plan to rebuild Stateville. Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association. Association. The Home Office is expected to introduce tighter laws on the ownership of crossbows - CPS/PA A spate of killings and threats involving crossbows have previously led to promises of a crackdown. Firearms-style licensing rules were among the options set out in a consultation ordered by Dame Priti Patel, the former home secretary, after an attempt to kill the late Queen with one such weapon. There is currently no registration system for owning a crossbow, no requirement for a licence and hundreds of the powerful weapons capable of killing are on sale online, and in the high street, with no restrictions other than it being an offence to sell one to a child under 18. However, anyone carrying a crossbow in public without a reasonable excuse faces up to four years in prison. The triple murders of BBC racing commentator John Hunts wife and two daughters with a crossbow at their home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, will accelerate the plans for a crackdown and could lead to changes in the law. The Home Office said on Wednesday that Yvette Cooper, the new Home Secretary, will urgently consider the findings of the consultation ordered by Dame Priti to see if tougher laws are needed. In opposition, Ms Cooper called for a ban that would stop their sales as weapons but exempt their use for sporting activities, film and theatre and as historical or cultural artefacts, in museums for example. Plans for crossbow owners to face police checks were suggested in the consultation as part of efforts to step up action to prevent violence on our streets. Although the Home Office said there had been fewer than 10 killings involving a crossbow between 2011 and 2021, the department said it was clear that when used as a weapon, crossbows do pose a risk. One option was for a registration scheme, which is understood to have been supported by the Conservatives policing minister Chris Philp. There are estimated to be up to 300,000 crossbows in circulation but there are no figures on ownership because the weapons are not registered. There were also three options for a range of licensing schemes to control the use, ownership and supply of crossbows, with anyone looking to buy one facing police checks similar to regulations already in place for firearms. The prompt for the review was would-be assassin Jaswant Singh Chail who broke into Windsor Castle on Christmas Day 2021 with a loaded crossbow to kill the late Queen. He claimed he had been encouraged to do so by an AI chatbot. The 21-year-old was jailed for nine years in October last year and handed a further five years on extended licence after admitting treason, making a threat to kill the then Queen, and having a loaded crossbow. Other crossbow incidents include convicted stalker Bryce Hodgson being shot dead by police in January after he broke into a London home armed with weapons including a crossbow. In 2021, Jaswant Singh Chail broke into Windsor Castle with the intention of killing the then Queen - Metropolitan Police/PA In January last year a domestic homicide review found the Metropolitan Police missed opportunities to protect Sana Muhammad from her ex-husband before he killed her with a crossbow. The 35-year-old was eight months pregnant when former nurse Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo, then 51, burst into her home and fired an arrow into her stomach in 2018. She died after sustaining catastrophic internal injuries from the attack but her unborn son who was delivered by Caesarean section miraculously survived. Unmathallegadoo is likely to die in jail after he was found guilty of murder and handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 33 years in 2019. The Home Office said the triple murder of Mr Hunts family was appalling and Ms Cooper was being kept updated by the police. We keep legislation under constant review and a call for evidence was launched earlier this year to look at whether further controls on crossbows should be introduced. The Home Secretary will swiftly consider the findings to see if laws need to be tightened further, said a Home Office spokesman. Tough action can be expected given Labours statements on the issue in the election. It said it would take robust action to stop their sale as weapons and take tough action to get crossbows and other dangerous weapons off Britains streets. 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) Speeding and failing to yield were contributing factors in a crash that killed a 22-year-old man Tuesday morning, July 9, in West El Paso, according to El Paso Police. Crash involving motorcycle, van turns fatal in West El Paso Police say Peter Jaden Gonzalez, 22, who was traveling in a motorcycle, died at the scene of the crash which was located at the intersection of Redd Road and Dakota Ridge. Just before 10 a.m., a 49-year-old man was traveling south on Redd Road in a van and approached the intersection of Redd Road and Dakota Ridge. The man then entered the mandatory left turn lane to go east on Dakota Ridge and while turning left he was hit by Gonzalez who was traveling north on Redd Road. Gonzalez was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash and died at the scene. Police say the mans failure to yield was a contributing factor in this crash and speeding on behalf of Gonzalez was also a contributing factor. This is the 37th traffic fatality this year compared to 39 last year. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. ST. LOUIS A St. Charles County man appeared in federal court on Tuesday to be sentenced after being caught with child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said Philip D. Shurtliff, 34, pleaded guilty in February to two counts of receipt of child pornography. In March 2021, a tip filed to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) was reported to the St. Charles County Cyber Crimes Task Force. They said Shurtliff was using the Kik Messenger app to send CSAM. Detectives connected Shurtliff to the Kik account and searched his home the following month, finding five videos on his cell phone. He said he obtained the videos and sent them to gain access to a group on the app. Shurtliff was arrested at the time. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News In 2023, the task force received another report from NCMEC concerning child sexual abuse material, leading them to Shurtliffs home once again. Shurtliff told detectives he is a monster and had collected and traded child pornography for approximately 19 years. Detectives found 97 photos and 27 videos involving child pornography on his phone. A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Shurtliff to 97 months in federal prison, which is just over eight years. He had faced up to 20 years in prison. Shurtliff will have to register as a sex offender upon his release. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. ST. LOUIS Authorities are searching for a St. Louis murder suspect accused of fatally shooting a man on a FaceTime call two years ago. Jonathon Xavier Jones, 19, faces felony charges in a shooting death that happened on the morning of March 2, 2022, in the 2400 block of Whittier Street in The Ville neighborhood. Prosecutors with the St. Louis Circuit Attorneys Office formally filed charges of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, and unlawful use of a weapon on Monday. Authorities issued an at-large warrant for his arrest on Tuesday. Affton Fire Captain James Cova found dead at station According to court documents obtained by FOX 2, a witness observed the victim walking on a parking lot just moments before a driver in a Dodge Journey vehicle approached the victim and fired shots. The victim, identified as JaDun Byrd, according to our news partners at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, died after being shot several times. Byrds mother told authorities she was actively FaceTiming her son at the time of the murder and that her son had taken a Lyft ride with plans to meet her at work, per court documents. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News Police used surveillance footage to eventually locate the Dodge Journey vehicle, later confirming Jones fingerprints on the drivers side and recovering a weapon that matched evidence found at the scene of the murder, according to court documents. Jones allegedly escaped from a juvenile detention center prior to the deadly shooting on Whittier Street. He is currently at large and will be held without bond upon arrest, according to Missouri court records. If you have any relevant information on Jones whereabouts, contact SLMPD at 314-444-2500 or CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS (8477). Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. Starmer admits small boats crisis could get worse before it gets better Sir Keir Starmer has admitted that the small boats crisis could get worse before it gets better and that the numbers coming across the Channel are going up, not down. The Prime Minister declined to pledge that he would stop the boats or put targets on the reduction in crossings. The Labour leader made the comments while in Washington for a Nato summit, where he met European leaders, including Emmanuel Macron, the French president, who are crucial to tackling the Channel crossings. Speaking to reporters, he also warned that Britains prison crisis was much worse than he thought prior to winning the election, but indicated that criminals convicted of serious violence would not be released early to ease overcrowding. Asked directly whether his ambition was to stop the migrant boats, Sir Keir did not respond. Pressed again, he said. Nobody but nobody should be making these crossings. The numbers are going up, not down. That is why we want to smash the gangs to stop those crossings. What Im not going to do is pick an arbitrary date, an arbitrary number because that hasnt worked in the past. But I do want to be clear that my intention is to break down the gangs that are running this vile trade putting people into boats on the coast of France. Nobody but nobody should be making that crossing. Asked whether the situation will get worse before it gets better, the Prime Minister said: It cant be changed overnight. What we can do is set up our first steps straight away. Figures showed that 484 migrants have reached the UK since Sir Keir was elected with a landslide 172-seat majority and scrapped Rishi Sunaks Rwanda deportation scheme on day one of his Government. Home Office figures show 419 people made the journey in six boats on Tuesday taking the provisional total for 2024 to date to 14,058. That is 10 per cent higher than the number recorded this time last year (12,772) and up six per cent on the same period in 2022 (13,318), according to Government data. Senior Tories claimed that it showed Labours election had led to open season for Channel migrant crossings. A Border Force vessels transports migrants to Dover after they encountered difficulties in the Channel - Gareth Fuller/PA Robert Jenrick, a former immigration minister, posted on social media: Scrapping Rwanda without a plan was sheer stupidity. Open season has begun. More and more migrants crammed into boats. Smash the gangs? Sir Keir has surrendered to the people smugglers. James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, said: The illegal migrants who we knew were waiting for a Labour government have got their wish, and at the first break in the weather they have made their move. The people smugglers are evil but they arent stupid. They have seen the first steps taken by this Labour government and moved quickly to cash in, cramming more and more vulnerable people into dangerous small boats. Without any deterrent we can sadly only expect to see more of the same in future. Sir Keirs first steps include the establishment of the Border Security Command, announced by Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, soon after taking office. The Prime Minister said: This a Command that will lead on smashing the gangs and as lve said many times before, having been myself part of operations that have taken down gangs police and prosecutors across borders gathering evidence and intelligence, sharing data, having an arrest strategy, a prosecution strategy. an evidence strategy has successfully brought down many gangs, including terrorist gangs. I do not accept these are the only gangs that cant be brought down. Im determined that our Border Security Command working with others will do so. Thats why its got such a rich mix of security and intelligence, alongside prosecutors, alongside law enforcement. And we will get on with the recruitment and setting up that Command at speed. He added: I have always said the previous governments Rwanda policy was a gimmick, it wouldnt be a deterrent. They argued, if I recall, that even the passing of the legislation would be a deterrent. it clearly hasnt worked, wasnt going to work weve had record numbers coming over this years. That unfortunately is what weve inherited we cant change that overnight. Prison crisisworse that expected Sir Keir also said it had been reckless of the Tories to let the prison service get into such a bad state. Earlier this year the crisis was so acute that there were fewer than 250 spaces left in the mens estate in England and Wales out of a capacity of 85,000. Labour is understood to be considering plans for prisoners to serve just 40 per cent of their sentences to tackle the overcrowding problem. In May, Sir Keir used Prime Ministers Questions to criticise Mr Sunak over the decision to bring forward the release of an inmate from HMP Lewes deemed a risk to children. Asked whether he could guarantee whether any early release scheme would not include high risk prisoners, he said: We will make a statement in relation to this in the coming days. Were going to have to set out the state of affairs; what we intend to do about it, but it will include this question of risk categories. I did press Rishi Sunak hard I think in relation to someone being released from Lewes prison, if I remember, because there was a threat, considered a risk to children. So we will set that all out when we make a statement in the coming days. But you know from my question to Mr Sunak, when he was Prime Minister, where I stand on this. He added: Some of what weve found is shocking, not so much about the finances, but I have to say on prisons. The situation is worse than I thought it was. Im pretty shocked that its been allowed to get into that situation. Its reckless to allow them to get into that place. Upholding standards Sir Keir also confirmed his plans for upholding standards among ministers. Under Mr Sunak, Sir Laurie Magnus could only investigate ministers conduct if the prime minister asked him to. The Prime Minister said: I did see Laurie on day one in Government to have a discussion with him about standards and the enforcement of standards. I do intend him to have an ability to investigate. Youll have to forgive me, because Im not quite sure whether that requires a formal change to the rules or not but the intention is clear, whatever the technical way of doing it is, well find a way to do it, so its not reneging on that. He added: I was really clear with the Cabinet that standards apply. I made it clear the ministerial code, they will be receiving a copy of it, and it will have the Nolan principles inside and alongside it. That is the standards I expect of them. As Ive said throughout, people falling short of the required standards will face consequences, as you would expect. 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. Sir Keir Starmer has begun to reset Britains relations with key allies as his plan to ensure Ukraines pathway to joining Nato is irreversible is set to be adopted. The new prime minister arrived in Washington with support for his aim to protect Ukraines entry process into the Nato alliance from any potential interference from a Trump presidency. He has spoken of his hopes that military and economic aid to Ukraine from Nato will be Donald Trump-proof should the former US president retake the White House in November. With Nato leaders making the war in Ukraine one of their main topics, Sir Keirs long-term call which he made as Labour opposition leader for the irreversible membership strategy is expected to be a key part of discussions. Prime minister Keir Starmer meets Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the Nato summit in Washington on Wednesday (via Reuters) One of his first Nato meetings was with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky who is also in the US capital to discuss Russias war against his country. The UKs new defence secretary John Healey flew to Ukraine on Friday immediately after being appointed. Following Wednesdays meeting, Sir Keir said: I've just had a very good meeting with President Zelensky, where I made it absolutely clear that as far as the UK is concerned, the change of government makes no difference to the support that we will provide. We'd been united on this when we were in opposition, and it was really important to me to be able to affirm that face to face at the meeting. I did speak to him immediately after I was sworn in as prime minister last week. And so we build on it here at Nato at this important summit because it is an opportunity for our Labour government to reaffirm our commitment to Nato. We obviously signed the original treaty, way back, we reaffirm today, but also to discuss with President Zelensky what further support that he needs and to use our opportunity here with our allies to make sure that that support is agreed. And to reinforce, in a sense as a message to Putin, the resolve of Nato, bigger now than it's ever been, more united than it's ever been and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression. In a statement posted to X, Mr Zelensky said he had thanked Sir Keir for the UKs military and financial support for Ukraine. He added: This morning, I learned about the permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military targets in Russian territory. German chancellor Olaf Scholz was among the world leaders meeting the new British PM in Washington (AP) Today, we had the opportunity to discuss the practical implementation of this decision. Im grateful to the UK for its unwavering support for Ukraine and our people. Sir Keir has a wider strategy as he pushes for a united defence against the threat of Vladimir Putins Russia to the European continent. With plans already moving to rewrite Brexit with a defence and security pact with the EU, Sir Keirs first meeting at the summit was with German chancellor Olaf Scholz. After the meeting, a UK government spokesperson said: The chancellor welcomed the prime ministers commitment to resetting the UKs European partnerships, noting how important our friendships with like-minded countries will be in a challenging international environment. They discussed the importance of having the widest possible cooperation across all aspects of the relationship. They agreed that the Nato summit was an opportunity to strengthen our support for Ukraine. The two leaders agreed a firm commitment to deepen in particular UK-Germany defence ties, working at pace to deliver those objectives. The prime minister and the chancellor look forward to meeting again at the European Political Community summit in the UK next week to continue these discussions. Sir Keir also set about building relations on both sides of the political divide on Capitol Hill, having meetings with Democrat Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell. He is due to meet Republican House speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. But the most important meeting of the day was with Joe Biden, whom he met for the first time since the US president called to congratulate him on his election victory last week. Sir Keir meets Joe Biden in the Oval Office on Wednesday (REUTERS) The Labour leader took part in a full bilateral meeting with the president, while the pair also enjoyed dinner with their wives Victoria and Jill at the White House on Wednesday evening. Speaking as he met Mr Biden at the White House on Wednesday, Sir Keir said the special relationship between the UK and the United States is stronger than ever. The special relationship is so important, it was forged in difficult circumstances and endured for so long and is stronger now than ever, he said. Mr Biden called the US and UK the best of allies and described Britain as the transatlantic knot that ties Nato together. Under the Tories, the special relationship cooled between the White House and Downing Street. President Biden made it clear that he was unhappy about Brexit, particularly the impact on the Northern Ireland peace process. When he visited Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, he held the briefest of meetings with Rishi Sunak in a cafe. The difference between his warm welcome for the Starmers and chilly responses to Mr Sunak, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson has already been noted by officials. Ms Truss felt forced to shelve US/UK trade talks because of the issues with the White House, while Mr Sunak never initiated them. In contrast, Sir Keir has stated in an interview with The Independent that he believes he can get a trade deal over the line between the UK and US. But White House officials have suggested that an Anglo-American trade accord isnt a priority for Mr Biden given the pressures of his re-election campaign, making it unlikely that there will be any movement to open negotiations until a second term begins for the 46th president if he is successful in winning one. With the uncertainty over who will control the White House after Americans go to the polls on 5 November, the prime minister is throwing an eye forward towards the prospect of Mr Trump retaking the White House. He has insisted that he will deal with whichever president American voters choose and still hopes to do a trade deal with a Trump administration if he is elected. Sir Keir has also recommitted to the UKs 3 billion support for Ukraine as he joins Nato allies in attempting to make aid for the war Trump proof. Sir Keir held meetings with Democrat Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (right) and Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell (Getty Images) With all the allies aware that a Donald Trump led White House after a potential election victory in November could see a new policy on Ukraine, Sir Keir has used his first major conference as prime minister to lock in support. On Thursday, he will warn allies that the frontline defence of the Euro-Atlantic region is the Ukrainian trenches which comes after the UK pledges to accelerate lethal aid support to Kyiv. The confirmation of the UKs multi-year 3 billion military funding package for Ukraine comes after President Putin unleashed a string of attacks this week, including a devastating strike on a childrens hospital in Kyiv. Nato officials believe that the attack may have been a deliberate provocation by Putin ahead of the summit this week. The UK has also confirmed today it will contribute 40 million to Natos Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine. The UK is the third largest donor to the Package, ensuring Ukraine can access vital assistance in key areas including counter drone protection, demining of recaptured land and medical rehabilitation of its injured military personnel. In addition, the UK-administered International Fund for Ukraine will place a new order, worth 300million, for 120,000 rounds of 152mm soviet-era ammunition bolstering Ukraines defences against Russia. In his speech to the summit on Thursday, Sir Keir will say: Nato was founded by the generation who defeated fascism. They understood not just the value of our strength, but the strength of our values. Those values are under attack once again. Putin needs to hear a clear message ringing out from this summit a message of unity and determination, that we will support Ukraine with whatever it takes, for as long as it takes to uphold our shared values and our shared security. After more than two decades in business, family-owned Budget Blinds of Lees Summit is still going strong thanks to its downtown storefront and community involvement. This location is the backbone to our success, said Courtney Laufketter, vice president of sales and marketing as well as a third-generation employee. We have always described downtown Lees Summit as our own little Mayberry. Living and working downtown makes it feel like a small town. Even with over 100,000 people, you will always run into someone you know. Laufketters grandparents and parents Richard and Gloria Guthrie, and Jim and Debbie Stoddard purchased a Budget Blinds franchise 22 years ago. My dad was a dealer rep for different building products, and we were moving around a lot as kids, she said. My grandpa had retired early and wanted to move up to be near us. With my dads experience, and my moms college focus of interior design they settled on this franchise and the rest, as they say, is history. The Budget Blinds national company was founded in 1992 in California. The business, which includes nearly 1,500 franchise territories throughout North America, specializes in incorporating home interior features such as blinds, shades, shutters and drapery. Custom design team members work with customers. Budget Blinds, pictured here during an open house, has been in business for more than two decades. We bought into the franchise in 2002 and worked most of the KC area at the time, she said. Over the years, surrounding territories were purchased and now there are 11 franchises in the KC metro area. Since buying into the franchise, the familys Budget Blinds business has been located in four storefronts in downtown Lees Summit, as well as a few early years in Richard and Gloria Guthries basement. Laufketter said they are now in their current and forever location at 239 S.E. Main St. Over the years, window treatment trends have changed, and Laufketter said the local business originally began selling just 2-inch blinds, later moving into more specialty treatments. Everything we do is custom and has always been custom, she said, but we have grown into more customization over the years. From automation, to color, to texture, everything can be adjusted to fit exactly what you are looking for in your home or business. A recent trend in the industry is incorporating layers in window treatments by including blinds underneath draperies or layered draperies, Laufketter said. Family members currently involved in the business are Laufketter, her parents and her sister, Taylor Kistler. Their business owns three of the territories in the area and operates two showrooms. Story continues Although combining family and work can be challenging, the Budget Blinds owners have found that having an office away from the home environment can be helpful. Having a separate location and switching from being an in-home business to an office-based business was a big game changer, she added. When we are doing family stuff we try not to talk about work. Of course it will come up but the less it does the better. An additional family member, who has worked at Budget Blinds for several years, can be relied on to never talk about business at family events. Burt Macklin, listed on the companys website as a customer service representative, works out of the showroom, usually taking it easy on one of his chairs. Burt is our head of customer service, said Laufketter about her canine co-worker. He is a big crowd-pleaser and always up for a party. We are so lucky to have him. He will be 10 years old this December. Within the Lees Summit community, Budget Blinds is involved in a number of charitable organizations. Laufketter has organized Hope Houses 12ish Bars of Christmas fundraising pub crawl for 10 years. The event has raised more than $200,000 for the domestic violence shelter during this time. We also support Coldwater, Habitat for Humanity, KC Pet Project and the Salvation Army with many events, she said, adding that the business donates blinds to veterans homes organizations. This summer, the local business is sponsoring the 2024 Music in the Park Concert Series, offered free at the downtown Lees Summit Howard Station Park. The concerts take place on the fourth Friday of each month May through August. The biggest secret is community, said Laufketter when asked about the companys continued growth over more than two decades. We would not be around if it were not for the communities that we are a part of every day supporting us and helping us grow. (Bloomberg) -- Keir Starmer said the overcrowding crisis in UK prisons was his main domestic priority and signaled the terrible state of public services left by Rishi Sunaks Conservatives meant unpopular decisions were unavoidable. Most Read from Bloomberg Some of what weve found is shocking, Starmer told reporters during a trip to the NATO summit in Washington on Wednesday, when asked what he and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves had found since being granted full access to the governments books after Labours election win last week. Not so much about the finances, but I have to say on prisons, a visibly angry Starmer said. The situation is worse than I thought it was. Im pretty shocked that its been allowed to get into that situation. The government will say how it intends to manage the situation shortly, he said. The issue is politically sensitive as appearing tough on law and order is regarded as a prerequisite for electoral success in the UK, where the issue dominates especially the right-leaning press. But years of underfunding has left the justice system on the precipice of failure, according to the Prison Governors Association, which recommends that all prisoners should be released automatically after serving 40% of their sentence to tackle overcrowding. The previous Conservative government had drawn up a plan to release some prisoners early to try to ease the overcrowding, and Starmer has said he would have no choice but to enact it. He indicated he would try to prevent violent criminals and sex offenders from having to be released early. Last year, the Ministry of Justice resorted to desperate measures, making a 253 million claim on the governments emergency reserves and plundering the investment budget for 190 million to cover day-to-day costs. Departments only make reserve claims after exhausting every other option. Starmer condemned what he called the terrible state that weve been left in the justice system. Forget Labour, Conservative, he said. It is shocking for our country to have got into a state where we have too many prisoners and not enough prison places. To a point where any government is now in a position where it has to release prisoners early. That is a shocking indictment. While the Tories will struggle to credibly blame Labour for the crisis, the issue still carries major political risk for Starmers government. The right-wing media and Nigel Farages Reform UK party take a hard line on prison sentences and will look for ways to present Labour as soft on crime. Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, has frequently talked about prevention and intervention as a way of solving crises in the justice system, as well as in healthcare. But it needs to work to avoid a right-wing backlash. Labour has appointed Timpson CEO James Timpson, who has advocated for the rehabilitation of prisoners and employs people with criminal convictions in his company, as minister for prisons, parole and probation. In a past interview with Channel 4 News, Timpson said Britain was addicted to sending people to prison and suggested only a third of prisoners should be there. Starmer has defended Timpsons huge experience and said tackling recidivism would be a priority for a Labour administration. Starmer said his government is working through problems it inherited. What Ive done at the moment, as youd expect, is to prioritize the most significant and the most important. And prisons is top of that list, Im afraid, he said. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. (Bloomberg) -- Keir Starmer signaled Ukraine can strike military targets inside Russia with Britains Storm Shadow missiles, confirming he would continue the previous UK governments policy on the use of its long-range weapons in the Russia-Ukraine war. Most Read from Bloomberg Starmer agreed it was up to Ukraine how it used the Storm Shadow missiles donated by the UK. He was speaking to journalists while traveling to the NATO summit in Washington late Tuesday. The missiles must obviously to be used in accordance with international humanitarian law as you would expect, the premier added, stating his position that Storm Shadows were to be used for defensive purposes. But it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes, he said. Storm Shadows are precision-guided cruise missiles with a firing range in excess of 250 kilometers (155 miles). Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Starmer at a meeting Wednesdya he had seen his comments on Storm Shadow missiles, thanking him for his permission to use them and describing them as very strong and high quality. Starmer told Zelenskiy that even though there had been a change of government in Britain, there had been no change in position on its support for Ukraine. Ukraine has said it needs to strike military targets inside Russia to defend itself and repel Russian attacks, and its one of the main issues that will be discussed at the NATO summit. Listen and follow The Big Take on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts Some European countries such as the UK have expressed support for Ukraines position, but the US government has so far resisted lifting all restrictions on the use of its weapons by Kyiv. The Biden administration says it has not enabled Ukrainian strikes deep within Russia, considering that a red line in order to prevent escalation with Moscow. The remarks are the first time Starmer has committed his new administration to the policy following his UK election victory last week. They echo the words used by predecessor Rishi Sunaks government, which never explicitly said Ukraine could use Storm Shadows to strike inside Russia, but indicated that was the case by saying it was up to Kyiv how to deploy them. At the time, the Kremlin called that a very dangerous statement. Keir Starmer has given President Zelenskiy a shot in the arm, Jamie Shea, a former NATO official and now associate fellow at Chatham House, told Bloomberg Radio. The Ukrainians have to be able to strike back against those significant Russian military targets but obviously not Russian civilian targets. I think Keir Starmer and other NATO leaders will draw a red line on that, the strikes have to be against the genuine military targets. Responding to a Monday strike on a hospital in Ukraine by Russia, Starmer said it was an absolutely shocking, appalling attack that provided a very important if tragic backdrop to this summit. He added: Its the duty of everyone to describe it in those terms. My message to President Putin is this: this NATO summit should be seen as a clear and united resolve by NATO allies and others that are there at the same time to stand with Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression, Starmer said. --With assistance from Isabella Ward. (Updates with comment from ex-NATO official Shea in ninth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to be robust with China, as Nato was set to issue its first official rebuke to Beijing over its military support for Russia. The Prime Minister, who is in Washington for the 75th anniversary Nato summit, said he was willing to challenge China on human rights and security concerns. Nato leaders are preparing to issue the alliances strongest-ever language condemning Chinas military support for Russia in Ukraine, it is understood. The Asian superpower is said to be developing an attack drone for use by Russia in the conflict. A draft communique shows that Nato is set to describe China as a decisive enabler of Russias war against Ukraine. It details Chinas supply of dual-use materials such as weapons components, equipment and raw materials that are eventually used by Russias defence sector. The document is reported to say that Beijing poses systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security, including through cyber activities and disinformation as well as its development of counter-space capabilities. Speaking about Labours policy on China, Sir Keir said: The approach we will take is the one, again, that we set out during the campaign, which is one of cooperation where it is necessary and it is on issues like climate change for example. But challenge where necessary, equally, and robust challenge with that. One of the first things that we will do is carry out the audit that we set out in our manifesto of relations with China, of UK-Chinese relations. We will get on with that audit and take action accordingly. The Prime Minister will on Thursday morning pledge to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes, and matched Rishi Sunaks pledge to give 3 billion a year of military support to the country. In addition, the UK-administered International Fund for Ukraine will place a new order, worth 300 million, for 120,000 rounds of 152mm Soviet-era ammunition bolstering Ukraines defences against Russia. The UK will deliver a new package of artillery and 90 Brimstone missiles in the coming weeks, and will contribute 40 million to help Ukraine protect itself against drones and mines. Sir Keir is expected to tell Nato leaders: Nato was founded by the generation who defeated fascism. They understood not just the value of our strength, but the strength of our values. Those values are under attack once again. Putin needs to hear a clear message ringing out from this summit a message of unity and determination, that we will support Ukraine with whatever it takes, for as long as it takes to uphold our shared values and our shared security. Meeting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, on Wednesday Sir Keir said that the countrys path to Nato membership was irreversible. And Sir Keir described this weeks Russian attack on a childrens hospital in Kyiv as awful, and said the depraved acts would only serve to steel the international communitys resolve to support Ukraine. He told Mr Zelensky that there had been a change of government but no change in position. I also want to say how awful that attack was just shocking. The Prime Minister met Joe Biden, the US president, on Wednesday for the first time at the welcome ceremony for the Nato summit. He later held a bilateral meeting with him in the White House, before attending a dinner for all Nato leaders and their wives. Speaking after the meeting between the two leaders, the president hailed Britain as the knot binding Nato together after Sir Keir congratulated him on hosting the alliances 75th anniversary summit. I kind of see you guys as the knot tying the transatlantic alliance together, Mr Biden said. The closer you are with Europe, the more youre engaged, because we know where you are, we know where we are. Sir Keir replied: I think thats absolutely right. Now we go into a cup final on Sunday, on top of all that. Earlier at the meeting, Sir Keir met German chancellor Olaf Scholz, and the two leaders agreed to co-operate on defence. A Downing Street spokesman said: The chancellor welcomed the Prime Ministers commitment to re-setting the UKs European partnerships. The two leaders moved on to discuss the need for enhanced defence cooperation in Europe to act as a deterrent for aggression by hostile actors. The Prime Minister told reporters he would use his first two international summits to strengthen ties with Europe in days, not months. Pledge to spend 2.5pc on defence Because of the timing of the election, which was much discussed for other reasons, it has provided a really important window of opportunity for me and my team, because weve got the Nato summit within a week of the election, so we get the opportunity to strengthen our relations with various of the Nato leaders and others obviously that are there, including EU leaders, he said. Also on Wednesday, Sir Keir pledged to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence, but did not put a timeline on when the target would be reached. Earlier, Armed Forces minister Luke Pollard said the government would not increase spending on the military unless it was able to grow the economy. He told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: The way we deliver increased public spending on defence, on schools, hospitals or prisons, is by growing our economy. If we dont grow our economy, there wont be the money to support those public services and the ambitions that we have and that includes defence. But later Downing Street said that defence spending would increase even if growth did not. A senior official said: The commitment to defence is absolute. But we are also confident that we will get growth in the economy so I dont accept that we dont have to wait for one, for the other. The official also said there was scepticism about whether the maths added up on the Tories election pledge to spend 2.5 per cent by 2030, following criticism of Labour for not matching the commitment. Root and branch defence review Ahead of the summit, the Labour government pledged a root-and-branch Strategic Defence Review which will set out a roadmap to achieving the 2.5 per cent goal. John Healey, the Defence Secretary, confirmed the review, which will be officially launched next week, will be delivered within the year. Speaking from the NATO Summit in Washington, Mr Healey said: Ive said for some time and we said in the manifesto, we will conduct the Strategic Defence review within a year. We will do that, well do that in less than a year. We will do it properly. Well do it at pace. Well do it so that we can get to grips with difficult decisions that need to be taken early and that defence can then become the foundation for a mission-led government that is at the heart of both the security of the country and the economic growth and prosperity of the country. He said the review would include deep reform within defence. Mr Healey added that the Labour government would secure our role as Europes leading nation in NATO and make Britain again democracys most reliable ally around the world. He said the UKs commitment to NATO would be at the heart of the review. 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. Keir Starmer has indicated that he hopes the Nato summit in Washington will Trump proof aid to Ukraine to help it hold off Russia. Speaking to journalists on his flight over to the summit in the USA, the new prime minister insisted that the defence and security of Britain and its allies will be his first priority. But he again declined to give a timetable for when his iron clad commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent will come into force. His comments came as it emerged he had not been included in a discussion on air cover for Ukraine organised by the US government and including other allies. But Sir Keir made it clear in the press briefing that he believes the summit over the next few days will lock in financial aid to Ukraine for its war effort. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria board a plane (Stefan Rousseau/PA) (PA Wire) His statement came when asked if the allies could Trump proof any deal, with the threat that if Donald Trump retakes the White House he will pull the plug on money and weapons for the war. He said: On the question of how we show that commitment here at this summit given there is going to be an election in America later this year, I think its very important at this summit, and I think there is a real opportunity for real unity. Its the largest group of Nato countries together with the additions that weve got, and the package that we are seeking to advance, it goes beyond the support thats been put in before and will be locked in, I hope, at this Nato conference. Thats the financial package, thats the military aid, and the strand that is the industrial strategy as well which is really important given what Russia is doing in this in terms of its industrial backup strategy." On defence spending, Sir Keir insisted he would prioritise it over everything else but any increase to get to 2.5 per cent will have to fall within his new governments financial rules. Trump wants to cut a deal to end the war in Ukraine (AP) He refused to set a timetable to meet the target even declining to say it will happen by the time of the next election in 2029. He said: The defence and security of the country is the first priority of government. That is well understood by me. Its been well understood by Labour governments, whenever weve had Labour governments. It is very well understood by this Labour government. It is the first priority. And that is why we are carrying out the strategic review. That is wider than the money question. Talking about the strategic defence and security review (SDSR) he will launch next week, he went on: It is obviously looking at the challenges that we face, the capabilities and making sure that the two match. And the reason were carrying that out straightaway is that although, in fairness to Rishi Sunak and his government, they did share quite a lot of intelligence, particularly on Ukraine, there is certain intelligence they couldnt share with us and thats why I want to carry out this review straightaway. Sir Keir was repeatedly attacked by the Tories on defence with social media adverts claiming Putin would be pleased if he becomes prime minister. While Mr Sunak committed to 2.5 per cent by 2030, Sir Keir has refused to give a date. Sir Keir also arrives with a message for Putin as he meets other Nato leaders for the first time since the election. He hinted that the bombing of a childrens hospital by Russia should be considered in the war crimes investigations by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Sir Keir said: It is absolutely shocking, appalling attack on a hospital and I think thats plain for all to see and nobody should be short on consent of that attack in relation to the specific delegation of that attack thats a matter for others in due course but it is shocking and appalling and its the duty of everyone to describe it in those terms. My message to President Putin is this - this Nato summit should be seen as a clear and united resolve by nato allies and others that are there at same time to stand with Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression whether in Ukraine or whether elsewhere including cyber aggression and other ways in which Russia is aggressive around the world, a very clear statement of resolve. In relation to that particular attack it strengthens the resolve and that is a very important if tragic backdrop to this summit. He also made it clear he agreed with the Sunak government over giving Ukraine a free hand over using British war shadow missiles. He said: Were obviously providing military aid, that is obviously to be used in accordance with international humanitarian law as you would expect. It is for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes. Im not going to get into a discussion here as youd imagine on targeting, that wouldnt be appropriate, but that is the position. The Pennsylvania House LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus is calling for action after the brutal murder of Pauly Likens, 14, of Mercer County, who identified as a transgender girl. >> Man charged with killing, dismembering missing 14-year-old in Mercer County Police say Pauly was murdered and dismembered by DaShawn Watkins, 29. Some of Paulys remains were found in and around the Shenango River Lake. The Mercer County District Attorney does not believe Paulys murder was a hate crime because Watkins is a gay man, despite local activists calling for hate crime charges. >> Mercer County DA doesnt believe brutal murder of transgender teen was a hate crime The caucus is now pushing for the state Senate to pass House Bill 1027 in response to Paulys murder. A news release says the bill would update Pennsylvanias Ethnic Intimidation Statute to ensure protections for victims targeted because of their race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, and disability, including autism. >> LGBTQ+ advocates mourn Mercer County teen as some call for hate crime charges The bill was passed by the state house in October 2023 but has not yet been considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Gov. Josh Shapiro said he would sign a bill to update hate crime laws in response to Paulys murder. The caucus released the following statement: We mourn the death of Pauly Likens and refuse to stand idly by while LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians are targeted because of who they are. Its unacceptable that current hate crime laws in our commonwealth are not applied to crimes motivated by a victims sexual orientation or gender identity. As incidents of violent hate crimes continue to rise across the nation, we urge our colleagues in the state Senate to pass H.B. 1027 and send it to the governors desk. Its far past time to update Pennsylvanias hate crime statute so that charges may reflect the especially heinous nature of hate-based violence. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: 2 bodies pulled from creek near Montour Trail identified $2.3M Pennsylvania Lottery ticket sold at local Giant Eagle Demolition begins on Monongahela River dam VIDEO: Braddock considering merging with new Eastern Regional Mon Valley Police Department DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts New state line signs welcome drivers to Free State of Florida TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) Drivers traveling into Florida across state lines will now be treated with new signs. Over the weekend, FDOT Secretary Jared Perdue shared a new look at the signage, which now reads WELCOME TO THE FREE STATE OF FLORIDA. No better way to celebrate Independence Day Weekend, Perdues post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, reads. The phrase free state of Florida was first mentioned in Governor Ron DeSantis second inaugural address in January 2023. It has become a signature for the Florida governor, who often mentions the phrase multiple times at his various news conferences and bill signings. Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez also shared a photo of herself next to the new signs on X, writing this, with a bullseye emoji. The new signage also features a HURRY BACK TO THE FREE STATE OF FLORIDA message on the opposite side, which FDOT said is an homage to the historic welcome centers pictured above. WFLA reached out to the Department of Transportation asking how many signed were replaced and what the total cost was for the replacements and has not yet received a response. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. The coal-fired Brandon Shores Power Plant in Anne Arundel County. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images. Last month, Marylanders heard with alarm about a freak set of tornados that took weather forecasters by surprise, injuring five people and crashing trees onto buildings from Montgomery to Carroll counties. We hear ominous weather stories with more regularity these days, and most likely many of these events are a byproduct of climate change caused by greenhouse gas pollution. Our counties, cities and state governments are facing enormous challenges as a result including paying for the damage from climate change; payment that at the moment comes from all of our own checkbooks. And the price tag is only going up. The only folks who arent paying their fair share of the costs are the fossil fuel companies themselves, who are making record profits in many cases while they make climate change worse. Thats why a coalition of Maryland citizens has been urging our state legislators to move forward with a mature, carefully and thoroughly studied policy that will make sure the most appropriate parties pay the bill. The Rebuild Maryland Coalition, a diverse group of stakeholders working to establish practical solutions to climate change, will urge lawmakers to pass the Climate Crisis and Environmental Justice Act (CCEJ) when the General Assembly gavels open next January. The measures in this bill will help pay for the enormous costs of climate change while providing much-needed support to our most vulnerable communities. The bill fell short again this past session. It could have set Maryland to join Washington, Illinois, New York and other states in implementing carbon pricing, a type of program that charges the companies that import fossil fuels into our state by each ton of carbon pollution they cause. Carbon pricing is a broadly supported, rapidly advancing policy that results in revenues to pay for the impacts of climate change that were feeling in our livelihoods and our wallets. The worst polluters oppose carbon pricing, because they fear it will hurt whats most important to them their bottom line. However most fossil fuel companies know carbon pricing is coming, and some including Conoco Phillips and BP, through their membership in the Climate Leadership Council endorse carbon pricing. Many leading energy and environmental policy organizations agree that carbon pricing is a practical approach to solving climate change. As the result of General Assembly action in 2022, Maryland now is a leader in greenhouse gas emissions policy, requiring a 60% reduction by 2031 and targeting net-zero emissions by 2045. The impressive state law that set those requirements also laid out a framework of policies to help get us there, but the landmark legislation didnt provide the funds needed to pay climate change costs. The CCEJ will help fund these efforts by charging the fossil fuel companies a fair fee for the greenhouse gases they emit. When passed, the Climate Crisis and Environmental Justice Act will generate billions of dollars for investment in clean energy infrastructure and protect Marylands most vulnerable communities. The Moore administrations policy blueprint for climate change, Marylands Climate Pollution Reduction Plan, reads initial estimates show that achieving an equitable transition to a clean energy future could require a public sector investment of approximately $1 billion annually. It goes on to say that those funds will have to come from new funding sources. Weve found the money. Our endorsed Climate Crisis and Environmental Justice bill is expected to raise an average of $1.25 billion per year. It goes without saying that the costs are coming whether we do anything or not. The states choice is simple: Charge the people living and working in our great state, or charge the companies responsible for the pollution. We think the answer is obvious. The post The state needs $1 billion a year for climate change costs; we found the money appeared first on Maryland Matters. Administrative Law Judge Gregory Albert (lower left) held a virtual hearing Wednesday in Andy Sanborn's casino licensing case with the Attorney General's Office and Sanborn's attorneys. (Annmarie Timmins | New Hampshire Bulletin) During a hearing Wednesday on the states forced sale of Andy Sanborns Concord Casino, the state refused several demands from Sanborns attorneys. A sale, Assistant Attorney General Mark DellOrfano explained, would benefit Sanborn but is not in the publics interest. Its in Mr. Sanborns commercial interests to sell his business to someone, if he wishes, DellOrfano said. Its not in the publics interest that that sale happened and closed. It just isnt. State budget writers and New Hampshire charities would likely disagree. In May alone, the states casinos generated nearly $3 million for public education and almost $3.4 million for charities. If Sanborn manages to close a deal by the states Sept. 30 deadline, Concord Casino would continue generating money for the state and charities. If Sanborn doesnt, the gaming license that brings in the real money the one that allows historic horse racing disappears for the foreseeable future and with it revenue to the state and charities. Lawmakers passed a moratorium this year that prohibits new historic horse racing licenses until 2028. Sanborns attorneys, who have accused the state of trying to thwart a sale out of spite against Sanborn, immediately disputed DellOrfano statement. I think its worth zooming out here and remembering whats at stake, said Adam Katz, during an hour-long hearing. Yes, obviously its in Mr. Sanborns interest to sell. But whats actually at stake here is hundreds of thousands of dollars or more likely millions of dollars that wont be going to the state and not going to charities. Sen. Tim Lang, a Sanbornton Republican who sponsored gaming legislation this year, described the revenue from casinos as significant in an interview following the hearing. Lang did not attend and did not comment on Sanborns case in particular, but said gaming and the states oversight of it is in the publics interest. He cited the money for education and commented specifically on the millions given to charities. Thats a huge help, he said. Without that, the state would pick up a portion of (services charities provide). This is a way to help the charities of New Hampshire without direct state involvement. The Attorney Generals Office did not respond to a message seeking clarification of DellOrfanos comment. The state moved nearly a year ago to revoke Sanborns gaming license after Attorney General John Formella announced he was investigating Sanborn, his wife, Rep. Laurie Sanborn, and his gaming company for alleged pandemic fraud. The couple deny Formellas allegations that they spent nearly $844,000 on race cars and other illegal uses. They have not been charged. Sanborns legal team succeeded in turning the proposed license revocation into a suspension by agreeing that Sanborn would close and sell his casino. The outcome was a win for Sanborn because his access to a gaming license is his casinos most valuable asset. But, the possibility that Sanborns gaming company could be criminally charged has led some potential buyers to walk away, according to documents the Bulletin obtained through a right-to-know request. That sale has been further complicated by disagreements over how much input the state, which must approve a buyer, should have in the terms of a sale. The parties met with an administrative law judge again Monday with hopes of reaching agreement on some of those issues. It was the fourth hearing in less than a month, and it appeared to bring the parties no closer to agreement. Though, the administrative judge, Gregory Albert, encouraged the parties to find agreement where they can. I really do genuinely believe that theres an awful lot of agreement and theres also an awful lot of bad blood, he said. And there is history and there are all sorts of things that cloud that. But these commercial transactions are challenging, especially when theres a regulatory authority above and beyond just kind of like a private contract. Theres a lot happening here. Asked about DellOrfanos comments following the hearing, Sanborns legal team responded via email. It was a complete shock to hear the (Attorney Generals) Office admit on the record that the AG thinks a sale to a new suitable operator which would generate many millions in revenue for New Hampshire and its charities is not in the public interest, said attorney Zachary Hafer, who also represents Sanborn. The AGs position is directly contrary to the Legislatures adoption of charity gaming, (the ruling allowing Sanborn to sell), and the entire mission of the Lottery Commission. In fact, it suggests that the AG would rather injure Mr. Sanborn personally than facilitate substantial additional revenue for NH and its charities. Lottery Director Charlie McIntyre drew a distinction between gaming and the sale of a business, when asked about the publics interest in the sale of Concord Casino. New Hampshires charitable gaming system has made and is continuing to make a tremendous positive impact throughout New Hampshire, generating vital revenue for hundreds of nonprofits performing meaningful work in all corners of the state, while also supporting the New Hampshire Lotterys mission of driving maximum revenue in support of public education in the Granite State, McIntyre said in an email. The New Hampshire Lottery makes a distinction that, while a successful charitable gaming system is very much in the public interest here in New Hampshire, a potential private sale of any commercial gaming establishment is of a private commercial interest. State says six inmates injured in fights at prison in Springfield Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield on July 10, 2024. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight) SPRINGFIELD The South Dakota Department of Corrections says six inmates were hurt at a prison in Springfield following an overnight bout of unrest. Agency spokesman Michael Winder said Wednesday morning that the inmates suffered non-life-threatening injuries in fighting that began Tuesday evening at Mike Durfee State Prison. His emailed message said several inmates were involved in the fighting, but did not elaborate on how many, where they may have been in the facility or what sparked the fighting. Winder also said some DOC staff suffered minor injuries while acting quickly to restore order. There were no assaults on staff, no loss of facility operations, and no damage to property, he wrote. Winders email did not specify if any of the injured inmates were taken to outside medical facilities for treatment. A social media post Tuesday night from the editor of the Springfield Times newspaper, Alex Bochman, showed emergency vehicles parked outside the prison. Bochman reported hearing the sound of alarms and inmates shouting from inside. Tea Storm Chasers, a media outlet in southeast South Dakota that focuses on public safety, reported Tuesday evening that multiple agencies responded to the incident, and that ambulances were seen outside the facility. At 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, Winder sent another email verifying that a second fight broke out in the morning after the initial incident was over. DOC staff responded immediately and restored order, he wrote. He said the DOC will continue to investigate both fights, and that any criminal activity that is identified would be referred to the state Division of Criminal Investigation. The Springfield Living Center nursing home had a sign on its door through the afternoon saying that visitors are welcome to call for entry, but that the doors would remain locked due to the situation at the prison. On Wednesday morning and through the afternoon, inmates yelled at reporters from their cell windows. One shouted that an inmate had died as a result of the fighting and said 20-plus inmates have been hospitalized. They also said the prison wasnt staffed well enough to manage the fighting, that theyre not receiving adequate medical care or mental health care, and that theyve lost recreation time and access to phones. We dont feel safe, an inmate said. Others blamed DOC Secretary Kellie Wasko for the trouble, and said they dont want anybody to know whats going on in here. Theyre telling us not to talk to yall right now, one man said. South Dakota Searchlight has sent some of the inmates claims to Winder but has not yet received a response or been able to independently verify the inmates claims. Bon Homme County Sheriff Mark Maggs arrived on the scene at around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. He did not ask reporters to step away from the fence between the inmates dorm-style hall, but asked that they not say anything to rile them up. Maggs said his deputies were on scene from 10:30 p.m. until about 2:30 a.m. to help maintain a secure perimeter. No deputies went inside the facility, he said, but their patrolling allowed the DOCs regular perimeter security staff to help out inside. Obviously, this put a lot of strain on their staffing, Maggs said. Deputies returned at around 8 a.m. to check on the situation. Maggs office has a memorandum of understanding with the state to provide mutual aid for the prison when needed. Maggs, who started as a deputy with Bon Homme County in 2013, said this weeks troubles mark the first time the state has asked for help under that agreement since hes been working for the sheriffs office. A sign on the door of Springfield Living Center on July 10, 2024. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight) The incident is the second acknowledged bout of unrest behind state prison walls in the space of four months. A multi-day incident in March at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls saw at least one correctional officer injured, and ultimately resulted in felony charges for 11 inmates. The unrest in Sioux Falls came after the DOC opted to shut down tablet-based communications for inmates at all state prisons. Gov. Kristi Noem said inmates had been using the devices for nefarious purposes. Neither the governor nor the DOC have offered further details on the alleged activity. Inmates and their families said the decision unfairly punished them for the actions of a few. Inmates inside East Hall, the building where the March incidents in Sioux Falls took place, could be heard yelling we want phones and we have rights on the second night of unrest. The director of the South Dakota State Employees Organization told South Dakota Searchlight the loss of tablet communications was the spark for that situation, but that lax security policies had emboldened inmates and put staff at risk. The DOC reopened phone calls in late March, but put new restrictions in place. Calls can be placed from the contractor-provided tablets or using wall phones, but inmates are now limited to five calls a day, with a maximum of 20 minutes per call. EDITORS NOTE: This story has been updated since its initial publication with additional details. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Department of Human Services Secretary Cynthia Persily, seen here speaking to lawmakers on April 5, 2024 in Charleston, W.Va., said that the department has "devoted substantial resources" to making improvements in the foster care system, and "will continue to do so." (Will Price | West Virginia Legislative Photography) The state Department of Human Services is seeking a conclusion in a years-long lawsuit over West Virginias overwhelmed foster care system. The agency vowed that it has made improvements that dispute the lawsuits allegations of mistreatment of vulnerable kids in the states care. There are more than 6,100 children in West Virginia foster care a number that surged alongside the states drug epidemic. A 2019 class-action lawsuit, filed by nonprofit organization A Better Childhood and West Virginia attorneys, alleged that for years state foster care leaders failed to properly care for thousands of foster kids, putting some in dangerous and unsafe situations. It also alleged Child Protective Services workers were understaffed with high case loads, and, in turn, ignored or delayed responding to complaints of child abuse. DoHS leaders this week requested a summary judgment in the case that would avoid a costly and unnecessary trial. As required by federal litigation rules, over the last five years, DoHS has turned over 3.2 million pages of documents, including reams of data, and made dozens of its employees available for examination by plaintiffs counsel, the agency said in a news release. The motion asks the court to find, based on undisputed facts reflected in these documents and testimony, that there is no scenario under which plaintiffs could win if this case were allowed to proceed to trial at the taxpayers expense. The motion went on to outline improvements DoHS has made to its child welfare system, including increasing the rate of CPS workers, recruiting foster families and reducing reliance on residential treatment for children. The percent of foster children placed in residential treatment has decreased from 28% to 17% over the last decade, according to the agency. DoHS also boasted that it has the nations highest rate of placing children in whats known as kinship care, which regularly involves family members. The child welfare program of 2024 looks vastly different from the program as it existed when plaintiffs brought suit, they wrote. Attorneys for the state also pushed back on the class-action status of the suit, saying that undisputed facts show that the overwhelming majority of children in foster care were not subject to maltreatment, unacceptable conditions or any deprivation of basic human needs. While there is still room for improvement, DoHS has devoted substantial resources to making those improvements, with the support of the West Virginia Legislature and the courts, and will continue to do so, said DoHS Cabinet Secretary Cynthia Persily. A Better Childhood Executive Director Marcia Robinson Lowry said she does not believe that the DoHS filing is persuasive. She added that a judge will make that decision. Most importantly, the state simply does not have and is not even trying to hire enough caseworkers to protect children. Their latest data shows that they currently have 100 unfilled caseworker positions based on a serious undercount of what they need. Backlogs on investigations into harm to children are extraordinarily high a year ago they were 400 for Kanawha County [and] more than 3,000 statewide, she wrote in an email. She continued, Professional standards require that caseloads be counted by children West Virginia continues to count them by families, leaving many children unprotected and workers unable to get their critically important jobs done. Children continue to suffer because the state simply wont address this problem. The suit, which was originally filed against Gov. Jim Justice and the now-defunct West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, ultimately sought improvements to the states foster care system. DoHS has faced criticism for hiding how it manages its foster care system, and recently, journalists were denied documents that could show if or how CPS responded to alleged calls made before 14-year-old Kyneddi Miller was found dead in April in her Boone County home. Police discovered the girl in a skeletal state; her mother and two grandparents were charged with child neglect related to her death. Attorneys suing the state have struggled for years to get key documents in the suit. They said in court filings last month that DoHS was again attempting to shield emails, documents and more related to foster care. The department was already sanctioned earlier this year for its role in failing to preserve emails from former top foster care officials related to the case. The misstep could cost the state $172,000 in sanctions, according to fees requested by plaintiffs. Editors note: This story has been updated to include a response from A Better Childhood. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Which states could have abortion on the ballot in 2024? Boxes containing signatures supporting a proposed ballot measure to scale back Arkansas' abortion ban are delivered to a room in the state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark. Friday, July 5, 2024. Organizers submitted petitions to try and get the proposals on the November ballot. (AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo) A ballot measure to scale back the abortion ban in Arkansas wont go before voters after the secretary of state on Wednesday found that organizers failed to submit required paperwork about the paid canvassers it used to help gather signatures that were submitted earlier this month. But the issue will be directly before voters in at least five other states, plus a sixth state where an amendment would bar discrimination based on pregnancy outcomes. There are four more where election officials are determining whether similar measures qualify for the ballot this year, including Nebraska, where there could be competing abortion-related questions. The U.S. Supreme Court removed the nationwide right to abortion with a 2022 ruling, which sparked a national push to have voters decide. Since the ruling, most Republican-controlled states have new abortion restrictions in effect, including 14 that ban it at every stage of pregnancy. Most Democratic-led states have laws or executive orders to protect access. Voters in all seven states that have had abortion questions before voters since 2022 California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont have sided with abortion rights supporters. What is on 2024 ballots? COLORADO Colorados top election official confirmed in May that a measure to enshrine abortion protections into the state constitution, including requirements that Medicaid and private health insurers cover it, made the ballot for the fall election. Supporters said they gathered over 225,000 signatures, nearly double the requirement of over 124,000 signatures. Amending the state constitution requires the support of 55% of voters. Those backing a dueling measure a law to ban abortion did not turn in signatures, and the measure will not go before voters. Abortion is legal at all stages of pregnancy in Colorado. FLORIDA The state Supreme Court ruled in April that a ballot measure to legalize abortion until viability could go on the ballot despite a legal challenge from state Attorney General Ashley Moody, who argued that there are differing views on the meaning of viability and that some key terms in the proposed measure are not properly defined. Advocates collected nearly a million signatures to put a state constitutional amendment to legalize abortion until viability on the ballot, surpassing the nearly 892,000 required. Sixty percent of voters would have to agree for it to take effect. Abortion is currently illegal in Florida after the first six weeks of pregnancy under a law that took effect May 1. MARYLAND Maryland voters also will be asked this year to enshrine the right to abortion in the states constitution. The state already protects the right to abortion under state law, and Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1. Abortion is allowed in Maryland until viability. NEVADA The Nevada Secretary of State s office announced in June that a ballot question to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution has met all of the requirements to appear in front of voters in November. Under the amendment, abortion access for the first 24 weeks of pregnancy or later to protect the health of the pregnant person would be enshrined. Such access is already ensured under a 1990 law. To change the constitution, voters would need to approve it in both 2024 and 2026. SOUTH DAKOTA South Dakota voters will decide this fall on a measure to ban any restrictions on abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. It would allow the state in the second trimester to regulate the pregnant womans abortion decision and its effectuation only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman. An abortion ban would be allowed in the third trimester, as long as it included exceptions for the life and health of the woman. The states top election official announced May 16 that about 85% of the more than 55,000 signatures submitted in support of the ballot initiative are valid, exceeding the required 35,017 signatures. Opponents have sued to try to take the initiative off the ballot. Whats on the ballot in New York? While not explicitly preserving a right to abortion, a reproductive rights question is on the ballot in New York. The measure would bar discrimination based on pregnancy outcomes and reproductive healthcare, along with sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin and disability. Abortion is currently allowed in New York until fetal viability. The question was on the ballot, then removed in May by a judge who found lawmakers missed a procedural step when they put it there. An appeals court reinstated it in June. Where else could abortion be on the ballot in 2024? ARIZONA Abortion rights supporters submitted more than 823,000 signatures on July 3 to put an abortion access measure before voters in November. That is more than twice as many as required. Election officials still need to verify signatures, though. Under the measure, the state would not be able to ban abortion until the fetus is viable, with later abortions allowed to protect a womans physical or mental health. Abortion is currently legal for the first 15 weeks of pregnancy in Arizona. An Arizona Supreme Court ruling in April said enforcement could begin soon for a near-total ban that was already on the books. The governor has since signed a bill repealing that law. It is still expected to be in effect for a time, however. MISSOURI Missouri abortion rights advocates turned in more than 380,000 signatures more than twice the required 171,000 for a measure asking voters to approve a constitutional amendment to guarantee abortion until viability. Local election officials have until July 30 to verify the signatures, then it is up to the secretary of state to declare whether there were enough. A group of moderate Republicans have for this year abandoned efforts for an alternate amendment that would have allowed abortion up to 12 weeks, with limited exceptions after that time. Abortion is currently banned in Missouri at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions. MONTANA Abortion rights proponents in Montana have proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar the government from denying the right to abortion before viability or when it is necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant person. After a legal battle over the ballot language, the Montana Supreme Court in April wrote its version of the language that would appear on the ballot if enough valid signatures are certified. Sponsors were required to submit about 60,000 by June 21. They turned in nearly twice that many about 117,000. Counties have until July 19 to verify them, and the secretary of state would have until Aug. 22 to determine whether it goes on the ballot. Abortion is legal until viability in Montana under a 1999 Montana Supreme Court opinion. NEBRASKA Competing abortion measures could be before voters in November after supporters of each said this month they turned in far more signatures than the 123,000 required for ballot access. One, like those on other states ballots, would enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution until viability. Supporters of that said they submitted more than 207,000 signatures. The other would write into the constitution the current law, which bars abortions after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Its backers said they submitted more than 205,000 signatures. Organizers for a third effort did not submit petitions: It would have defined embryos as people, thus barring abortion at all stages of pregnancy. With the competing measures, only the one that gets the most votes would become part of the state constitution. Where did ballot efforts fail to gain traction? Some efforts that sought to restrict or ban abortion have also failed to reach ballots. Arkansas organizers of a measure to scale back that state's ban said they submitted enough signatures in July, but it's not going on the ballot because of paperwork deficiencies. In Wisconsin, the House approved a measure asking voters to ban abortion after 14 weeks, but the legislative session ended without a vote from the state Senate. Likewise, Iowa lawmakers ended their session without approving a measure asking voters to find that there is no constitutional right to abortion. Pennsylvania lawmakers previously pursued a similar amendment, but it is not expected to be added to the ballot this year. A Louisiana measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution died in committee, one in Maine effectively died when it fell short of receiving the approval of two-thirds of the House and a Minnesota measure was not passed by lawmakers, either. Paramedics carry a patient in an ambulance at night. (Getty Images) A second statewide 911 outage this year is suspected to have been caused by Hurricane Beryl making landfall in Texas on Tuesday night and damaging network infrastructure, according to South Dakotas 911 telecommunications provider Lumen, formerly known as CenturyLink. Investigations into the cause are still ongoing, said spokesman Matthew Villarreal. Our techs worked hard to fix an intermittent disruption affecting some customers ability to reach 911 in South Dakota and parts of Nebraska, Villarreal said in an emailed statement. We appreciate our customers patience and understanding. South Dakota signed its contract with Lumen for Next Generation 911 services in 2019 and has since renewed the contract until 2029. The contract is for up to $36.33 million. Lumen is headquartered in Louisiana, with network infrastructure running throughout the country. Aprils statewide 911 outage in South Dakota was caused by a company installing a light pole in Kansas City, Missouri, the company said at the time. In addition to the statewide outages, an outage in January disrupted 911 service in southeastern South Dakota, leaving customers in Lincoln, Union, Miner and Minnehaha counties unable to call 911 with a landline for hours, according to reporting from Siouxland Proud. This weeks hurricane also caused an AT&T network outage impacting 911 calls in Texas and Louisiana. Sioux Falls residents were without 911 services for about six hours between two outages Tuesday night and into early Wednesday morning, said Michael Gramlick, Sioux Falls assistant fire chief and director of Metro Communications. The outage affected hundreds of calls for emergency services throughout South Dakota. Gramlick said the states largest city was immediately aware of the outage, and its Metro Communications took steps learned from Aprils outage to troubleshoot and keep 911 services up and running, including alerting residents to call a non-emergency number or text 911. The city had 522 calls for service (including text messages and calls to the non-emergency number) during the outage twice as many calls as a typical day. Many were test calls by residents, Gramlick added, and all calls received a call back from 911 services. The two outages are forcing 911 communications offices both locally and at the state level to reevaluate redundancy efforts, Gramlick said. We dont want to believe that this is a regular occurrence, but our job is to plan for those occurrences, Gramlick said. Stephanie Olson, deputy director of operations for Pennington County 911, said the western side of the state experienced a similar outage timeline. Staff in the dispatch center were notified of the first outage Tuesday night by the state 911 coordinator, but noticed the second outage themselves. We can see when someone is attempting to call 911, but then our phone system doesnt ring, so we know theres a problem with the phone system, Olson said. The county called back 32 residents when the initial call didnt come through. Sixty-five other calls for service came through text messaging or the non-emergency phone number. Residents calling from Verizon and AT&T phones were calling a dead line, Olson explained, while some T-Mobile and landline phones were diverted to alternate 911 centers in Canada and Colorado that handle misrouted calls. Were learning to continue educating our staff and citizens on the capabilities of 911 and that text is available. That was up and running all night, Olson said. If they call and cant get through, we have redundancies in place. The Federal Communications Commission announced after this years earlier statewide outage it would investigate recent outages across the country. The FCC recently declined to provide an update on the investigation to South Dakota Searchlight. As a general practice, we dont comment on investigations, an FCC spokesperson said in an email. After a 2020 outage in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Colorado, Arizona, Utah and North Carolina, the commission investigated whether Lumen, in addition to three other companies, failed to deliver 911 calls and timely notify public safety customers. In a settlement, Lumen agreed to implement a compliance plan and pay a $3.8 million civil penalty. Lumen serves the Omaha area and some other eastern Nebraska counties. The company is being investigated there for recent outages in 2023 and earlier this year, according to the Nebraska Examiner. The South Dakota Department of Public Safety, which manages the state contract with Lumen, did not issue a news release about this weeks outage and did not respond to emailed questions from South Dakota Searchlight by the time this article published. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Nothing in the Supreme Courts decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson keeps cities from having humane and effective policies concerning the unhoused. In a terribly wrong decision from June 28, the court held that cities may enforce anti-camping ordinances, including criminal laws, against homeless individuals. The ruling does not require that cities do so, however, and hopefully local governments will be far more compassionate than the Supreme Court. Grants Pass, Oregon has a population of about 39,000 and a homeless population of around 600. It does not have nearly that many shelter beds. Grants Pass adopted a series of ordinances meant to keep unhoused individuals from sleeping on public property, even going so far as to prohibit having a blanket, a piece of cardboard or a pillow for sleeping in public. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declared this unconstitutional, concluding that Grants Pass cannot, consistent with the Eighth Amendment, enforce its anti-camping ordinances against homeless persons for the mere act of sleeping outside with rudimentary protection from the elements, or for sleeping in their car at night, when there is no other place in the city for them to go. Opinion Yet, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision split along ideological lines, reversed the Ninth Circuits decision. In an opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court held that cities may use anti-camping ordinances against the unhoused without violating the Constitution. In other words: A city can make it a crime for a person to sleep in public, even if there is nowhere else for the individual to sleep. But everyone must sleep. In both this case and in an earlier ruling in 2018s Martin v. City of Boise, the Ninth Circuit held that it is cruel and unusual punishment to impose criminal penalties on a person for sleeping in public if there are not adequate shelter beds. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent of the Grants Pass ruling, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, agreed with the Ninth Circuit: It is possible to acknowledge and balance the issues facing local governments, the humanity and dignity of homeless people, and our constitutional principles. Instead, the majority focuses almost exclusively on the needs of local governments and leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested. Although the court held that there is no constitutional limit on the ability of cities to use their criminal laws against the unhoused, that does not mean that cities are compelled to do so. Instead, cities can and should follow the wisdom of the Ninth Circuit and Justice Sotomayor and not make sleeping in public a crime, nor should they enforce criminal laws against the unhoused where there is no place else for a person to sleep. The criminal law is a terrible way to deal with the problem of homelessness. No city is going to solve homelessness by criminally prosecuting the unhoused. Imposing fines that they cannot pay or temporarily putting them in jail is not going to take them off the street. Instead, policies like more low-cost housing and shelter beds have proven effective. Sacramento, under the leadership of Mayor Darrell Steinberg, has reported a 41% decrease in unsheltered homelessness since 2022. The city did this by increasing temporary housing capacity by 84% and permanent housing slots by 29%. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has also made decreasing homeless a top priority, and she is succeeding: In 2024, homelessness decreased in Los Angeles for the first time in six years. The overall number of people experiencing homelessness decreased by 2.2%, while the number of unsheltered people in the city (homeless people who are not in emergency shelter and are sleeping on the street, in tents or in cars) decreased by 10.4%. Moreover, the Supreme Courts decision does not preclude the California Supreme Court from finding that its a violation of the state constitution to criminally punish a person for sleeping in public when there is nowhere else for the person to sleep. The California legislature and city councils could also adopt sensible, humane policies. Solving the problem of homelessness is difficult and expensive. But putting people in jail for sleeping in public does absolutely nothing to solve homelessness or help people in need. Sotomayor concluded her dissent by observing: I remain hopeful that our society will come together to address the complexities of the homelessness challenge facing the most vulnerable among us. I share this hope. Erwin Chemerinsky is dean and professor of law at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Stephen King: Biden should bow out "in the interests of the America he so clearly loves" Acclaimed horror writer Stephen King has joined a number of other high-profile Democrats in asking President Joe Biden to bow out of the presidential race against Donald Trump. The "Shining" and "It" author on Monday took to X/Twitter to share his thoughts, writing, "Joe Biden has been a fine president, but its time for him in the interests of the America he so clearly loves to announce he will not run for re-election. Joe Biden has been a fine president, but its time for himin the interests of the America he so clearly lovesto announce he will not run for re-election. Stephen King (@StephenKing) July 8, 2024 King's remarks follow Biden's widely panned June 27 debate, in which he appeared to suffer from a series of age-related gaffes. Since then, his ability to not only defeat Trump but also lead the country successfully for another presidential term has fallen under question. Despite being heavily scrutinized across media platforms since the debate, the president affirmed that he intends to continue his campaign. Speaking to ABC's George Stephanopoulos last week during a prime-time interview, Biden argued, I dont think theres anybody more qualified to be president or win this race, than me. He chalked up his bad night at the debate to being "exhausted," adding that he would only drop out of the race if "the Lord Almighty" instructed him to do so. A less polite, less patient, less polished individual me, for instance would simply have told Elon Musk that hes full of you-know-what. But that is not Stephen Richers way. The Maricopa County recorder is a reasoned, courteous person, one who would rather enter into a dialogue than launch into a diatribe, even when the person to whom he is reaching out may not deserve such deference. And Elon Musk does not. Particularly since this isnt the first time that Musks willingness to spread misinformation and easily debunked conspiracies has come Richers way. Recorder invites Elon Musk to see the process Republican county recorder candidate and incumbent Stephen Richer gives his opening statement during a Citizens Clean Elections debate at BitFire Studios in Phoenix on Monday, June 24, 2024. This time around, the billionaire posted to his 189 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, which he owns, Electronic voting machines and anything mailed in is too risky. We should mandate paper ballots and in-person voting only. As any number of baseless lawsuits by people like Kari Lake and Mark Finchem have proven that such statements are simply BS. Its one of the reasons Lake decided not to challenge the defamation suit Richer filed against her in a case for which the only thing left unresolved is how much Lake owes Richer in damages. In responding to Musks terse, ignorant claims about machines and ballots, Richer politely invited the ill-informed mogul to visit him at the countys offices. Stephen Richer politely asks Musk for expertise Richer wrote: Can I please give you a tour of our election facility and mail voting process (Maricopa County, AZ)? You can go into all the rooms. You can examine all the equipment. You can ask any question you want. Wed love to show you the security steps already in place, which I think are very sound. And then of course wed love to hear any recommendations for improvement (as long as consistent with state and federal law which we dont write, but have to follow). Would be pretty neat to put one of the worlds best entrepreneurial brains on to election administration. Probably more productive than just social media analysis. Thanks very much for considering! Does Musk care to know how elections work? Richer is happy to explain exactly how the process of collecting, verifying and counting votes is done. He has conducted many, many tours for regular folks and members of the media. If Musk is unable to visit with Richer, Im sure the county recorder would be happy to provide a tour for one or more of the aides or researchers or trusted friends that Musk (with his billions) could fly to Arizona. Arizona voters: Are about to blow up how elections work But Im guessing that wont happen. Musk could have done the same thing a few months back when, out of the blue, he reposted an easily debunked, totally incorrect post suggesting that 220,731 illegal immigrants had registered to vote in Arizona. In response, Richer politely noted that only 39,653 new voters have registered in Maricopa County in 2024 in total. For Arizona, that number is about 60,000. Not all of us would be so courteous to ignorance And he then went on to calmly and clearly explain the procedures that are followed in order for a person to become a voter in our state, and how the authenticity of the registration is verified. Without Musks cooperation, however, not many of Musks 189 million followers on X would have seen the corrected information. Just as not many of them will have the opportunity to see how ignorant Musks latest conspiracy-driven claptrap really is. Still, the ever courteous Richer told Musk it would be neat for him to drop by and even thanked him in advance for considering it. A less polite, less patient, less polished individual me, for instance would simply have told Elon Musk something else. Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com. For more opinions content, please subscribe. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Elon Musk posts more election BS. Stephen Richer handles it nicely NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the Alliance is stepping up its cooperation with Ukraine. NATO is taking a leading role in providing security, training and increasing Ukraine's ability to produce its own weapons. Source: Stoltenberg at the Defence Industry Forum in Washington on the sidelines of the NATO Summit; Suspilne, a Ukrainian public broadcaster Quote: "...The need for us to work more closely with partners. Thats partly Ukraine. And we are stepping up our cooperation with Ukraine. We are now taking over the lead as NATO for the provision of security assistance and training. Well have the command in Germany, 700 people there, and in some logistics hubs in the eastern part of the Alliance. We are doing that also to help to not only support but also to invest and develop projects together and increase the capability of Ukraine to produce weapons and munitions themselves." Details: Stoltenberg said that the reality of the war in Ukraine had demonstrated not only that stockpiles and production capabilities were too small, but also that there were huge gaps in interoperability between troops. Stoltenberg gave an example of a German-Dutch brigade that was supposed to be ready for joint operations, but in reality, the standard 155mm ammunition that the Netherlands had could not be used in German howitzers and vice versa. He stressed that the summit intends to decide on increasing defence spending and defence orders to stimulate the military industry and to offer new opportunities for joint arms production by different alliance countries. Background: The NATO summit in Washington is taking place from 9 to 11 July and, according to media reports, is expected to declare Ukraine's "irreversible" path to the Alliance. Support UP or become our patron! Columbus, Ga (WRBL)- Another afternoon of strong storms for your Tuesday, thanks to a cold front. Some of these produced winds up to 45mph, frequent lightning, and heavy rainfall. We also had a few areas see downed trees from heavy downbursts and strong winds. For the remainder of the workweek, conditions begin to dry out, giving us a break from afternoon storms. A few showers will remain to our south Wednesday as the viewing area enjoys passing clouds. With more sunshine comes warmer temperatures. Afternoon highs reach into the upper 90s by Friday. Starting Friday afternoon, stray storms will move back into the First Alert Forecast. Few storms will be possible every day through midweek next week. Readings will remain in the mid 90s through next Wednesday. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WRBL. A social worker and nurse practitioner demonstrated how to administer Narcan nasal spray a potentially life-saving treatment during an opioid overdose to a classroom of more than a dozen barber college students on the citys South Side on Tuesday. It was part of an initiative by Rush University Medical Center to help combat the opioid crisis in typically underserved communities. While the students arent training to be health care workers or medical providers, the next generation of barbers and hair stylists are uniquely poised to disseminate information about substance use disorders to their clients as well as administer Narcan to reverse an opioid overdose in the event of an emergency, said Keisha House, a nurse practitioner and assistant director of Rushs Substance Use Disorder Center of Excellence. You all are our eyes and ears, in the barbershop, House told the audience at Larrys Barber College in the Washington Park neighborhood, during a presentation on substance use disorders just before the Narcan demonstration. An opioid overdose in real life looks very different from whats often portrayed on television and in movies, she explained to the students. Symptoms can include unresponsiveness, constricted pupils, a limp body and breathing that slows or stops, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health. House said theres no stereotypical or textbook individual who struggles with use disorders, adding that people have been using drugs since the beginning of time. She noted that substance use disorders can include illicit drugs as well as prescription medication. Opioid overdose deaths have risen dramatically nationwide in recent years, from a little over 21,000 in 2010 to nearly 50,000 in 2019 to just over 81,800 in 2022, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics. In Illinois, opioid overdoses have increased more than 8% from 2021 to 2022; in 2022, there were 3,261 opioid fatalities more than twice the number of car accident deaths and homicides, according to Illinois Department of Public Health data. State health department officials attribute the rise in opioid overdose fatalities to the increase of synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl. Naloxone the generic name for the brand-name product Narcan can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, if administered right away. The nasal spray medication was approved for over-the-counter use by the Food and Drug Administration in 2023; it works on overdoses in street drugs, including fentanyl and heroin, as well as prescription versions, such as oxycodone. While House noted that all types of people grapple with substance use disorders which span different ages, education levels, races and backgrounds opioid overdose deaths tend to disproportionally impact Black and brown neighborhoods. In 2018, Chicago residents who died from an opioid-related overdose lived all across the city, according to the Chicago Department of Public Healths 2018 Opioid Overdose Surveillance report; but the neighborhoods with the most fatalities were Austin, Humboldt Park and North Lawndale, all areas with predominantly Black and Latino populations. Emergency officials responded to opioid overdoses in all city neighborhoods in 2018, but most frequently to Austin, Humboldt Park and West Garfield Park. These three communities accounted for over 30% of all emergency medical services overdose responses, the report said. House said the problem is often compounded by a dearth of health care infrastructure in Black and brown neighborhoods, as well as a prevalent mistrust of medical providers in these communities due to historical abuses. A lot of what African Americans know about health is from negative experiences, she said. If we can educate our stylists, they can help change some of these negative perceptions in the health care industry so people can get help. House said shes spoken at several barber colleges recently and plans to give similar presentations at beauty salons as well. The center at Rush is also working with churches and faith groups to bring these kinds of demonstrations to religious spaces. Health officials around the country have turned to hair salons and barber shops to help combat public health epidemics in the past, from tackling vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic to promoting education about health problems such as HIV, diabetes and high blood pressure. In 2017, a new Illinois law required hair stylists, barbers, cosmetologists and certain other professions to receive domestic violence and sexual assault awareness training, enlisting them to help prevent these kind of abuses. While the legislation doesnt require these workers to report violence, advocates cited the close relationship between many clients and their hair stylists or cosmetologists, potentially offering one more avenue of help for assault or abuse survivors. In the beauty shop, barber shop, its a safe haven, House said. If we increase the knowledge, the training, the awareness were able to promote positive health behaviors among their customers, where they feel safe. Part of her message includes challenging the stigma that often surrounds substance use disorders. A lot of people who have developed use disorders and addictions, theyre looking for a way out of being in pain, she said. Whether its pain from trauma, from emotions, from mental illness or pain in their bodies. Maybe they have chronic pain arthritis or fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis, sickle cell disease. A lot of times people are trying to avoid pain, in the mind or in the body, and they turn to substances. Or they were using a substance to help and developed a dependence and a tolerance and later an addiction. Across the Chicago area, public health officials have been testing novel ways to make naloxone more accessible. South suburban officials announced in May that a vending machine at the Pace Harvey bus terminal will provide free Narcan kits. Last year, the Oak Park Department of Public Health added publicly accessible boxes with naloxone at various intersections in the village, part of an Opioid Overdose Prevention Project. Narcan is also available for free in all public libraries in Chicago, and the Chicago Department of Public Health trains librarians on opioid overdose prevention and how to use naloxone. After the presentation at Larrys Barber College, the students were given Narcan kits to take with them. Some participants expressed unease or hesitancy at the prospect of administering naloxone during an emergency. But 30-year-old Laniah Davis said she felt ready to do so after watching the demonstration and presentation. Now that we know this information, were able to save a life or two, she said. And we can pass it along to other people to save lives. She added that shes always been the type of person to jump into action. If it was somebody in my family, I would want someone to help them, she said. So whether I know them or not I would see myself jumping into action to do whatever it takes. eleventis@chicagotribune.com Black holes form when massive objects collapse under their own gravity. Einstein's theory of relativity suggests that such an object can form from large enough concentrations of light itself but new research pokes a hole in this prediction. | Credit: Vikiverse / Pixabay New research suggests that extreme objects known as "kugelblitze" black holes formed solely from light are impossible in our universe, challenging Einstein's theory of general relativity . The discovery places significant constraints on cosmological models and demonstrates how quantum mechanics and general relativity can be reconciled to address complex scientific questions. Black holes massive objects with such a strong gravitational pull that not even light can escape their grasp are among the most intriguing and bizarre objects in the universe. Typically, they form from the collapse of massive stars at the ends of their life cycles, when the pressure from thermonuclear reactions in their cores can no longer counteract the force of gravity . However, more exotic hypotheses exist regarding black hole formation. One such theory involves the creation of a "kugelblitz," German for "ball lightning." (The plural form is "kugelblitze.") "A kugelblitz is a hypothetical black hole that, instead of forming from the collapse of 'ordinary matter' (whose main constituents are protons, neutrons, and electrons), is formed from concentrating humongous amounts of electromagnetic radiation, such as light," study co-author Jose Polo-Gomez , a physicist at the University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada, told Live Science in an email. "Even though light does not have mass, it does carry energy," Polo-Gomez said, adding that, in Einstein's theory of general relativity, energy is responsible for creating curvatures in space-time that result in gravitational attractions. "Because of that, it is in principle possible for light to form black holes if we concentrate enough of it in a small enough volume," he said. Related: Tweak to Schrodinger's cat equation could unite Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics, study hints These principles hold true under classical general relativity, which does not account for quantum phenomena. To explore the potential impact of quantum effects on kugelblitz formation, Polo-Gomez and his colleagues examined the influence of the Schwinger effect. "When there is an incredibly intense electromagnetic energy for example, due to huge concentrations of light part of this energy transforms into matter in the form of electron-positron pairs," lead study author Alvaro Alvarez-Dominguez of the Institute of Particle and Cosmos Physics (IPARCOS) at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, told Live Science in an email. "This is a quantum effect called the Schwinger effect. It is also known as vacuum polarization." This artist conception illustrates one of the most primitive supermassive black holes known central black dot at the core of a young, star-rich galaxy. In their study , which has been accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters but has not been published yet, the team calculated the rate at which electron-positron pairs produced in an electromagnetic field would deplete energy. If this rate surpasses the replenishment rate of the electromagnetic field's energy in a given region, a kugelblitz cannot form. The team found that, even under the most extreme circumstances, pure light could never reach the required energy threshold to form a black hole. "What we prove is that kugelblitze are impossible to form by concentrating light, either artificially in the laboratory or in naturally occurring astrophysical scenarios," study co-author Luis J. Garay , also of IPARCOS, told Live Science. "For instance, even if we used the most intense lasers on Earth, we would still be more than 50 orders of magnitude away from the intensity required to create a kugelblitz." This finding has profound theoretical implications, significantly constraining previously considered astrophysical and cosmological models that assume the existence of kugelblitze. It also dashes any hopes of experimentally studying black holes in laboratory settings by creating them through electromagnetic radiation. Nonetheless, the study's positive outcome shows that quantum effects can be efficiently integrated into problems involving gravity, thus providing clear answers to actual scientific questions. "From a theoretical viewpoint, this work showcases how quantum effects can play an important role in the understanding of the formation mechanisms and appearance of astrophysical objects," Polo-Gomez said. RELATED STORIES Forbidden black holes and ancient stars hide in these 'tiny red dots' This impossibly massive black hole wasn't very hungry during the dawn of time Milky Way's black hole 'exhaust vent' discovered in eerie X-ray observations Inspired by their findings, the researchers plan to continue exploring the influence of quantum effects on various gravitational phenomena, which have both practical and fundamental significance. "Several of us are very interested in continuing the study of the gravitational properties of quantum matter, particularly in scenarios where this quantum matter violates traditional energy conditions," said Eduardo Martin-Martinez , also of the University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute. "This type of quantum matter can, in principle, give rise to exotic space-times, resulting in effects such as repulsive gravity or producing exotic solutions like the Alcubierre warp drive or traversable wormholes." Starkweather Creek empties into Lake Monona at Olbrich Park in Madison. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner) Researchers at UW-Madison have found that PFAS are higher in naturally occurring foam on Wisconsin lakes and rivers than the waters below, according to a study released this week. Researchers analyzed samples from foams at the top layer of 43 lakes and rivers across the state, looking for 36 different types of PFAS harmful man-made chemicals commonly known as forever chemicals because they dont break down easily in the environment. PFAS, which have entered the environment through certain types of firefighting foam and household goods such as nonstick pans, have been connected to certain types of cancer, fertility problems and other health defects. PFAS are surfactants, which means they are drawn to where the air meets the water. The researchers found that samples of foam from Madisons Lake Monona showed PFAS at the astronomically high level of 328,000 parts per trillion, the highest level statewide. Lake Monona has known PFAS contamination because it is downstream of Starkweather Creek, which is contaminated from firefighting foams used at the Dane County Airport. Across the state, researchers found PFAS concentration in the foam was 50-7,500 times higher than in deeper water. Federal drinking water standards for PFAS set the allowable level for specific types of PFAS compounds at four parts per trillion. Wisconsin and Michigan have previously issued warnings about avoiding contact with foam on surface waters. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) A new study that analyzed the contents of different brands of tampons found traces of at least 16 metals, including several at toxic levels. The study, led by Jenni Shearston from the University of California Berkeleys School of Public Health, was published last week in the academic journal Environment International. In a blog post, Shearston explained that as the public becomes more conscientious of polluting our environment, we are learning more about we are polluting our bodies. Despite this large potential for public health concern, very little research has been done to measure chemicals in tampons, Shearston said. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to measure metals in tampons. Concerningly, we found concentrations of all metals we tested for, including toxic metals like arsenic and lead. Legally, contraception is free. But 25% of women still paying Sixty samples were taken from 30 different tampons, covering 14 different brands and 18 different product lines. Kristen Upson, a professor at Michigan State University and co-author of the study, told News 8 affiliate WILX-TV that the study doesnt provide many answers but serves as a starting point for more investigations and to serve as a notice to people who use the products. These metals could be introduced into the product either in the raw materials, during manufacturing, or theyre intentionally added, Upson told WILX. We found the chemicals were present in all the tampons we tested. No matter the tampon brand, whether it was name brand or store brand, we were detecting metals, include lead, cadmium and arsenic. There wasnt a single brand that ran low on these metals. What does a midwife do? The study did not dig into the long-term health impacts of what exposure to those metals would entail, but metals have been found to increase the risk of several ailments, including dementia, diabetes, cancer and infertility. Dr. Mitchell Kramer, the chair of OB-GYN at Huntington Hospital Northwell Health in New York, told NBC News Today that the results of the study doesnt mean tampons are not safe. It certainly requires more evaluation. I think it has potentially some significant impact moving forward in terms of how tampons are produced and the effect on the users, Kramer told Today. The researchers also clarified that there is much more to learn, stating the results only show the metals are present, not whether they are released or even absorbed by the body. Pioneers paved the way for female students at the University of Michigan According to WILX, the research has been passed along to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for further testing. Shearston said she hopes it promotes more study and encourages manufacturers to learn more about their products. I really hope that manufacturers are required to test their products for metals, especially toxic metals, Shearston said. It would be exciting to see the public call for this, or to ask for better labeling on tampons and other menstrual products. According to Today, the research teams next steps are to test the tampons for other types of metals and conduct experiments to see if the metals leach out of the products. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. The Government Is Investigating Lead And Arsenic In Tampons. Doctors Explain How To Protect Yourself The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating the safety of tampons after a July study suggested that there could be toxic metals in them. On September 10, the agency announced in a statement that they're "aware of concerns about tampon safety after a 2024 study found metals in tampons during laboratory testing" and have therefore "commissioned an independent literature review and initiated an internal bench laboratory study to evaluate metals in tampons." While the study "found metals in some tampons, the study did not test whether metals are released from tampons when used," they added. "It also did not test for metals being released, absorbed into the vaginal lining, and getting into the bloodstream during tampon use." Here's what to know about the links between toxic metals and tampons, including if the products are currently safe to use. Meet the experts: Christine Greves, MD, an ob-gyn at the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies in Orlando, Florida. Jamie Alan, PhD, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University. Jenni Shearston, PhD, MPH, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. Is there lead or arsenic in tampons? According to a study published in the journal Environment International in June, researchers found several toxic metals, including lead and arsenic, across 14 brands of tampons. Researchers analyzed materials from 18 products lines from 14 brands of tampons. They picked from products listed as "top sellers" from an online retailer and store-brand versions from New York City, Athens, Greece and London. Scientists then measured the presence of 16 metals, all of which were found in measurable traces. "Several toxic metals," including lead, were detected. But it wasnt just lead: The study also found measurable concentrations of arsenic, barium, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, manganese, mercury, nickel, selenium, strontium, vanadium, and zinc, too. We detected all 16 metals in at least one sampled tampon, including some toxic metals like lead, that has no safe exposure level, the study says. Unfortunately, the study didnt name which brands of tampons they researched, only noting that the tampons are available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Greece. The researchers pointed out nonexistent regulations in those countries don't require companies to test their products for harmful chemicals or metals. Are organic tampons safer than non-organic? The researchers discovered that levels of lead were higher in non-organic tampons, while levels of arsenic were higher in organic tampons. "No category had consistently lower concentrations of all or most metals," the study says. This isn't great news, since researchers also noted that the vagina has more permeable skin than other parts of the body. That skin allows it to absorb chemicals that directly enter systemic circulation. However, the study notes that further testing should be done to replicate their results and measure the presence of other chemicals in tampons. It is the first study of its kind to research metal levels in menstrual products. So, are tampons safe? You may be freaking out right about now, but you shouldn't throw out your tampons just yet. The study's press release notes that "its unclear if the metals detected by this study are contributing to any negative health effects." "We know the metals are there, but we dont know how much gets into the body, Jamie Alan, PhD, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University, tells Women's Health. Christine Greves, MD, an ob-gyn at the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies in Orlando, Florida, adds that you shouldnt panic based on the results of one study. Dr. Alan agrees. We are exposed to these metals every day and we even need some of these metals, like zinc, for our body to function, she says. Its important to point out that even the studys researchers tell tampon users "not to panic." Jenni Shearston, PhD, MPH, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, notes that "we do not yet know if metals can leach out of the tampon and whether they are absorbed by the body." "We therefore cannot yet assess to what extent (if any) metals in tampons contribute to any health problems," she tells Women's Health. "We definitely need more research on this severely understudied area, especially because millions of people could be affected." If you're freaked out by the findings, there are other ways of dealing with period blood. You can use pads or menstrual cups, if youre concerned, Dr. Greves says. The study's author Dr. Shearston agrees, noting, "it's too soon for us to recommend people use a specific kind of menstrual product." "What your readers can do is push for better labeling of ingredients in tampons and other products, and for more testing of products to make sure they don't contain toxic chemicals," she adds. Is the FDA investigating heavy metals in tampons? Yes. On September 10, the agency announced in a statement that they're "aware of concerns about tampon safety after a 2024 study found metals in tampons during laboratory testing" and have therefore "commissioned an independent literature review and initiated an internal bench laboratory study to evaluate metals in tampons." "The comprehensive review of the published literature will provide a better understanding of the data currently available regarding the presence of chemicals in tampons and, importantly, any associated health effects of those chemicals, the agency said. "The FDAs laboratory study will measure the amount of metals that come out of tampons under conditions that more closely mimic normal use. These initiatives will enable the FDA to complete a risk assessment of metals contained in tampons, based on a worst-case scenario of metal exposure." Findings will be announced when they are available and have been peer reviewed, the agency adds. You Might Also Like The new European launcher Ariane 6 takes off into space for the first time at the European spaceport in Kourou. The rocket lifted off from the European spaceport in Kourou in French Guiana at around 9 p.m. (CEST). Rachel Bomeyer/dpa Europe's Ariane 6 rocket blasted off on its inaugural flight into space on Tuesday, lifting off from the European spaceport in Kourou in French Guiana. The European Space Agency (ESA) described the operation as a success, as Europe seeks to recover from a crisis in its launch sector, although one part of the flight did not go as planned. "Ariane 6 demonstrated a successful liftoff, launch to orbit and deployment of satellites," ESA wrote on X. "We have now entered into a new era of spaceflight for Europe, powering us into space and allowing us to realize our ambitions on the world stage," the agency wrote. The flight experienced one hitch towards the end of the mission, when the upper stage was supposed to burn up on the way back to Earth. An auxiliary drive in the upper stage initially ignited, but then stopped for unknown reasons, the head of the rocket manufacturer ArianeGroup, Martin Sion, said in a press conference. This meant that two re-entry capsules on board were not released. The upper stage will now remain in space, with the two capsules on board. "But all of the rest of the mission was according to plan," Sion said. Tuesday's planned launch comes four years later than initially scheduled, and development of the rocket began a full decade ago. Ariane 6 is the successor to Ariane 5, which was in operation from 1996 until the summer of 2023. It is designed to launch satellites into space for commercial and public clients and is significantly cheaper than its predecessor. Ariane 6 is scheduled for its first commercial launch before the end of the year. The launch would "make an impact on European history," Josef Aschbacher, the ESA's director general, said in a post on X ahead of the launch. The 56-metre high and 540-ton rocket was carrying The Exploration Company's Nyx Bikini space capsule, OOV-Cube satellites from RapidCubes and Curium One from Planetary Transportation Systems into space. The Ariane 6 is a multi-national European project. The upper stage of the rocket was built at the ArianeGroup's Bremen plant, and the main stage in the French town of Les Mureaux to the north-west of Paris. ESA has praised the Ariane 6 design as modular and flexible. Depending on the mission, it can be equipped with two or four boosters and accommodate different payloads in a smaller or longer upper section. Not everyone is convinced that the rocket is competitive with other recently developed launch craft Space expert Martin Tajmar from the Dresden University of Technology in Germany said that, despite the innovations compared to its predecessor, Ariane 6 is by no means up to date. Back in 2015, the US private space company SpaceX ushered in the age of reusable space travel with the company's Falcon 9 rocket. ESA's Tolker-Nielson said the next rocket to replace Ariane 6 will be reusable, although the agency is planning to use the new launcher until at least the mid-2030s. However, Tajmar also emphasizes that the main aim is not to keep up commercially with the competition. He sees the central task of Ariane 6 first and foremost as giving Europe its own access to space again and securing its independence. The last Ariane 5 took off into space for the last time almost exactly one year ago. Since then, the 22 European countries that are members of ESA have had no means of their own to launch larger satellites into space. In some cases, ESA has switched to SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets. There are also currently no European launchers for smaller satellites either. The first commercial launch of ESA's Vega C rocket failed in December 2022 and it has been grounded since. It is due to take off again for the first time in November. France and Germany are among the biggest financial backers of the Ariane 6 project, while additional funding was also provided by the other 20 countries that are members of the ESA. A new European Ariane 6 launcher is ready on its launch pad to fly into space. The rocket is to be launched into space for the first time on Tuesday. Rachel Bomeyer/dpa Sue Thoresen missed on Seacoast for joy and humor she brought to all her endeavors Portsmouth lost an important community leader and one of its most enthusiastic supporters with the passing of Sue Werner Thoresen, Friday, June 14. Thoresen, a devoted wife, mother, and friend, was a philanthropist, activist, and avid community leader, passionate about the arts, reproductive health, gender equality, and matters that fostered the community's stability and future, for more than 50 years on the Seacoast. Sue Thoresen "The community has lost one of the most selfless and nurturing people I have ever met," Bob Thoresen said of his wife. "Sue's entire life was purposeful, productive, and accomplished, and it was filled with joy and humor. "She met people where they were and always saw the best in everyone. She was a role model who led by example with optimism, grace, humility and extraordinary generosity. She leaves an indelible legacy for others to follow," he added. "I feel very blessed to have had Sue as my best friend and life partner for almost 57 years." Sue Thoresen's leadership and supportive roles, over the course of 50-plus years, extended throughout the state. She was a founder and treasurer of the Womens Fund of New Hampshire, and a delegate to the 1974 New Hampshire Constitutional Convention, where she was instrumental in creating a more gender neutral state Constitution, replacing the word men with people. She served on numerous boards and committees, including boards for the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion, and Society for the Protection of NH Forests, and committees at South Church, League of Women Voters, and Portsmouth YWCA, where she was instrumental in creating Camp Gundalow. "One of the most impressive things for me personally and professionally in knowing Sue, and her husband Bob, was their dedication to creating a safe personal and psychological community of individuals and families," said Sandi Denoncour, executive director of the Lovering Health Center, one of the recipients of their generosity. "She and Bob are perfect examples of how to provide community support across the continuum, through arts, through family support, family programs and reproductive health care. Most philanthropists pick a point along the way. She identified points ... and supported them. That is an impressive legacy on its own." In equal partnership, Sue and Bob Thoresen volunteered and led multiple renovations and capital campaigns, including the Lovering center and the Plains School (Pontine Theatre's home) renovations, and the Seacoast Repertory Theatre capital campaign. The couple's involvement with Pontine's Plains School project epitomizes the Thoresens' generosity of spirit, energy and commitment to all the projects they took on, said Greg Gathers, Pontine's co-artistic director. The two were distinct among philanthropists, with their involvement often going beyond financial support. "It goes without saying that Sue and Bob together and individually were generous donors, as they were for many, many organizations," Gathers said. "But they were also pretty unique among philanthropists in the community. They threw themselves whole-heartedly into their projects, not just financially, but with time, energy and whatever other resources they could pull into it." In the case of the Plains School, that involvement began with the initial contact with the city, which owned the property. They designed an innovative proposal, and oversaw construction and financing. "It was Bob and Sue that convinced the city that it would benefit us and the city and the community," said Gathers. "I am honestly privileged to have known Sue." "As a person Sue was incredibly organized, smart as a whip, and really cared about people and the community," he added. "She's just going to be so sorely missed." Among the couple's joint honors are the Sumner Winebaum Award for Seacoast Repertory Theatre; the Association of Fundraising Professionals' Outstanding Philanthropist, Northern New England chapter; the Inspirational Philanthropist Award from the NH Women's Foundation, and the Pioneer Circle Award for the Lovering Health Center (raising $460,000, in addition to supervising construction). Thoresen's own projects include moderating "Inside the Issues," developing and hosting "State for the Seacoast," bothfor Continental Cablevision, and hosting the candidates mights for the Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters. Thoresen authored two books, "The YoYo and the Piggy Bank," for young people, and "Choose Joy: 28 Sunday Stories," completed shortly before her passing. Thoresen is a graduate of Smith College and received a master of public administration degree from Syracuse University's Maxwell School. Her careers included metropolitan planning and financial planning (Morgan Stanley vice president), and co-founder and principal for the Thoresen Group, a multi-disciplinary consulting firm, created with her husband, Bob. For all her serious endeavors, one of Thoresen's great passions was humor and laughter. A lifelong comic book and comic strip reader, she was passionate about laughter and joy. In her own words, she wasn't a funny person. But she was a strong proponent for finding moments of happiness in daily life, dedicating chapters to the subject in "Choose Joy," which will publish later this summer. Practicing gratitude was another of her daily pursuits to the end. "She was one of the very important people who have shaped Portsmouth as we know it today," said Arthur J. Carakatsane, a lawyer and former Seacoast Repertory Theatre Board of Trustee president during major campaigns and projects led by Sue and Bob Thoresen. "She was in the forefront and behind the scenes of innumerable forward thinking efforts over the last 50 years. Sue very much walked the walk." This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Sue Thoresen missed on Seacoast for her joy, humor, good works EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) When El Paso County voters head to the polls for the Nov. 5 general election, they could see a multi-million dollar bond proposal, should El Paso County commissioners approve project recommendations from the Countys Bond Advisory Committee. However, according to county agenda documents, the current proposal doesnt include improvements to UTEPs Sun Bowl Stadium. UTEP proposes $99M in improvements to Sun Bowl stadium Commissioners heard the committees recommendation on Tuesday, July 9 for a $295 million bond proposal that includes $188 million in projects that would be funded with certificates of obligation. Commissioners Court will narrow down the final project list before formally voting in mid-August whether to order the bond election. There are about 100 projects included in the plan, but the Sun Bowl stadium didnt make the cut, for now. The proposal calls for new County facilities such as a far Eastside animal shelter, improvements to Ascarate Park and the El Paso County Coliseum, expansions to the juvenile justice center, as well as water, wastewater and flood control projects across the County. UTEP President Dr. Heather Wilson proposed a $99 million project to upgrade and improve the Sun Bowl in May, which the university says is needed to attract more and bigger touring shows and increase local jobs and tax revenue to the community while doing so. To fund the project, UTEP is asking El Paso County officials to add the Sun Bowl Uplift project to a proposed quality-of-life improvement bond so they can attract A-list acts. UTEP estimates an annual economic impact of tourism, tourism retention, and retail spending of $2.06 billion over the life of a 30-year bond. While it still remains a possibility the Commissioners Court could discuss and consider the project before calling for the bond election, multiple commissioners have expressed their unwillingness to include the Sun Bowl on the November ballot, saying their main priorities are parks and infrastructure. Despite the pushback, El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego remains one of the projects advocates. I particularly feel strong that it (Sun Bowl Uplift project) could be a great revenue source for the for the community and it could be a quality of life, said Samaniego. It could bring a lot of people into El Paso. We can have huge concerts because of the new venues and what theyre trying to accomplish. Commissioners would have until Aug. 19 to call for the bond election, which would be held in conjunction with the general election in November. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. Support for Israeli military campaign in Gaza ticks up in US: Gallup Support for Israels military action against militant group Hamas in Gaza increased modestly in a poll released Wednesday. In the Gallup poll, 42 percent of Americans said they approve of Israels military action in Gaza, while 48 percent said they disapprove. That gap has narrowed significantly since March, when 36 percent of Americans approved and 55 percent disapproved. In the polling firms first survey about the war conducted in November more Americans approved (50 percent) than disapproved (45 percent) of Israels response to the Oct. 7 surprise attack that killed more than 1,100 Israelis and led to more than 240 being taken captive. The poll was conducted after Israel began to expand its military operation into Rafah in southern Gaza. The move sparked global criticism and deepened tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Biden. Prospects of a potential hostage and cease-fire deal have also dimmed, Gallup noted in its analysis. The increase in American support in June for Israels military action extends across political groups. Republicans saw the most notable increase in support for Israels military campaign, the survey shows, rising to 76 percent the highest level since before the war began. In March, only 64 percent of Republicans approved of the military action. In November, 71 percent approved, per the survey. A similar, but less stark, trend exists among Democrats and independents approval of Israels military action. In the most recent poll, 23 percent of Democrats and 34 percent of independents said they support Israels military action in Gaza a 5-point increase in approval from both groups since March. In the November poll, approval was higher among these groups with 47 percent of independents and 36 percent of Democrats approving of Israels military efforts at the time. The Gallup poll was conducted from June 3-23 and included 1,005 U.S. adults. The margin of error was 4 percentage points. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. In a blow to homelessness activists, the Grants Pass ruling means local governments can fine or jail people sleeping in public. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Grants Pass v. Johnson: In a 63 decision, the nations highest court allowed cities to enforce camping bans, effectively allowing local governments to fine or jail unhoused residents. According to Harvard Law Today, the case originated when a group of unhoused residents in Grants Pass, Oregon, sued the city over ordinances that punish those sleeping in public spaces. "Because sleep is a physical need, and because Grants Pass has no public shelters for homeless people, the plaintiffs argued, its laws punish their mere existence in the municipality," reads the story. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, under the premise that such anti-homeless laws where there are no shelters offered violate the constitutions eighth amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment." But the Supreme Court disagreed. "The Constitutions Eighth Amendment serves many important functions, but it does not authorize federal judges to wrest those rights and responsibilities from the American people and in their place dictate this Nations homelessness policy," reads the decision penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch. A tent community Grants Pass, Oregon. Reversing the ruling made by the Ninth Circuitwhich covers nine states in the western United Stateswill open the door for states like California and Washington, which have seen some of the highest rates of homelessness in the country, to enforce their own anti-camping policies. For instance, Los Angeless 41.18 ordinance bans sitting, lying, or sleepingor placing personal propertyon or near public property. Journalist Alissa Walker notes in a recent Torched newsletter that the Supreme Court ruling could prompt LAs city council to further criminalize homelessness and unravel the citys recent housing gains, especially as it prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games. But in Grants Pass, Oregon Public Broadcasting states that even under the new ruling the future of the citys ordinances is uncertain. The state of Oregon passed a law in 2021 requiring that any rules that regulate where unhoused residents can sleep on public property must be "objectively reasonable"though that term remains vague. "The city will now have to figure out what restrictions it can have while still following Oregons state law," reads the story. Though Vox calls the Grants Pass case, "the most significant legal challenge to the rights of homeless people in decades," it also notes that advocates for the unhoused are planning to push for other local and federal legislation that redirects the national conversation to solutions to homelessness, including, "including universal rental assistance, repairs to public housing, and funds for eviction prevention." Related reading: Barcelona Mayor Puts An End to Short-Term Rentals Hawaii Has a Severe Housing Shortage. Will Allowing Counties to Ban Short-Term Rentals Help? Top image credit: Kevin Dietsch A statue of a seated figure of justice outside the U.S. Supreme Court. The Guardian or Authority of Law, created by sculptor James Earle Fraser, rests on the side of the U.S. Supreme Court on September 28, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Al Drago/Getty Images) This story first appeared on KFF Health News. A landmark Supreme Court decision that reins in federal agencies authority is expected to hold dramatic consequences for the nations health care system, calling into question government rules on anything from consumer protections for patients to drug safety to nursing home care. The June 28 decision overturns a 1984 precedent that said courts should give deference to federal agencies in legal challenges over their regulatory or scientific decisions. Instead of giving priority to agencies, courts will now exercise their own independent judgment about what Congress intended when drafting a particular law. The ruling will likely have seismic ramifications for health policy. A flood of litigation with plaintiffs like small businesses, drugmakers, and hospitals challenging regulations they say arent specified in the law could leave the country with a patchwork of disparate health regulations varying by location. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Agencies such as the FDA are likely to be far more cautious in drafting regulations, Congress is expected to take more time fleshing out legislation to avoid legal challenges, and judges will be more apt to overrule current and future regulations. Health policy leaders say patients, providers, and health systems should brace for more uncertainty and less stability in the health care system. Even routine government functions such as deciding the rate to pay doctors for treating Medicare beneficiaries could become embroiled in long legal battles that disrupt patient care or strain providers to adapt. Groups that oppose a regulation could search for and secure partisan judges to roll back agency decision-making, said Andrew Twinamatsiko, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown Universitys ONeill Institute. One example could be challenges to the FDAs approval of a medication used in abortions, which survived a Supreme Court challenge this term on a technicality. Judges will be more emboldened to second-guess agencies, he said. Its going to open agencies up to attacks. Regulations are effectively the technical instructions for laws written by Congress. Federal agency staffers with knowledge related to a law say, in drugs that treat rare diseases or health care for seniors decide how to translate Congress words into action with input from industry, advocates, and the public. Up until now, when agencies issued a regulation, a single rule typically applied nationwide. Following the high court ruling, however, lawsuits filed in more than one jurisdiction could result in contradictory rulings and regulatory requirements meaning health care policies for patients, providers, or insurers could differ greatly from one area to another. One circuit may uphold a regulation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, while other circuits may take different views. You could have eight or nine of 11 different views of the courts, said William Buzbee, a professor at Georgetown Law. A court in one circuit could issue a nationwide injunction to enforce its interpretation while another circuit disagrees, said Maura Monaghan, a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton. Few cases are taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, which could leave clashing directives in place for many years. In the immediate future, health policy leaders say agencies should brace for more litigation over controversial initiatives. A requirement that most Affordable Care Act health plans cover preventive services, for example, is already being litigated. Multiple challenges to the mandate could mean different coverage requirements for preventive care depending on where a consumer lives. Drugmakers have sued to try to stop the Biden administration from implementing a federal law that forces makers of the most expensive drugs to negotiate prices with Medicare a key cog in President Joe Bidens effort to lower drug prices and control health care costs. Parts of the health care industry may take on reimbursement rates for doctors that are set by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services because those specific rates arent written into law. The agency issues rules updating payment rates in Medicare, a health insurance program for people 65 or older and younger people with disabilities. Groups representing doctors and hospitals regularly flock to Washington, D.C., to lobby against trims to their payment rates. And providers, including those backed by deep-pocketed investors, have sued to block federal surprise-billing legislation. The No Surprises Act, which passed in 2020 and took effect for most people in 2022, aims to protect patients from unexpected, out-of-network medical bills, especially in emergencies. The high courts ruling is expected to spur more litigation over its implementation. This really is going to create a tectonic change in the administrative regulatory landscape, Twinamatsiko said. The approach since 1984 has created stability. When the FDA or CDC adopt regulations, they know those regulations will be respected. That has been taken back. Industry groups, including the American Hospital Association and AHIP, an insurers trade group, declined to comment. Agencies such as the FDA that take advantage of their regulatory authority to make specific decisions, such as the granting of exclusive marketing rights upon approval of a drug, will be vulnerable. The reason: Many of their decisions require discretion as opposed to being explicitly defined by federal law, said Joseph Ross, a professor of medicine and public health at Yale School of Medicine. The legislation that guides much of the work in the health space, such as FDA and CMS, is not prescriptive, he said. In fact, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said in an episode of the Healthcare Unfiltered podcast last year that he was very worried about the disruption from judges overruling his agencys scientific decisions. The high courts ruling will be especially significant for the nations federal health agencies because their regulations are often complex, creating the opportunity for more pitched legal battles. Challenges that may not have succeeded in courts because of the deference to agencies could now find more favorable outcomes. A whole host of existing regulations could be vulnerable, said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF. Other consequences are possible. Congress may attempt to flesh out more details when drafting legislation to avoid challenges an approach that may increase partisan standoffs and slow down an already glacial pace in passing legislation, Levitt said. Agencies are expected to be far more cautious in writing regulations to be sure they dont go beyond the contours of the law. The Supreme Courts 6-3 decision overturned Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which held that courts should generally back a federal agencys statutory interpretation as long as it was reasonable. Republicans have largely praised the new ruling as necessary for ensuring agencies dont overstep their authority, while Democrats said in the aftermath of the decision that it amounts to a judicial power grab. 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. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST The Senate Armed Services Committee has directed the Pentagon to look into the possibility of transferring retired A-10 Warthog ground attack jets to Jordan. Jordan has emerged as a possible future operator of A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft. The U.S. Air Force is planning to stop flying the venerable Warthogs operationally before the end of the decade. The impending retirement of the type in U.S. service has already prompted discussions about sending A-10s elsewhere, including to Ukraine. On Monday, the Senate Armed Services Committee formally directed the Pentagon to look into transferring A-10s to Jordan. This came in a report accompanying a new draft of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the upcoming 2025 Fiscal Year. As of the beginning of the year, the Air Force still had around 218 A-10s in service spread across active duty, reserve, and Air National Guard units. An A-10, seen here firing its iconic 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger cannon. USAF An A-10 fires its famous 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger cannon during training. USAF Specifically, the committee directs the Secretary of Defense to report to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and the House of Representatives, not later than February 1, 2025, on the feasibility and advisability of transferring retiring A-10 aircraft to Jordan, the Senate Armed Services Committees report says. The report should include an analysis of Jordans ability to maintain the aircraft on their own. How active Jordans interest in acquiring A-10s might be and when the country first started eyeing the Warthogs is unknown, but it is hard to imagine this matter being raised at all if there wasnt a real desire for the aircraft. The War Zone has reached out to the Jordanian government for more information. Before the Senate published its recent report, Colombia and Ukraine were the only countries known to have expressed interest on any level in acquiring A-10s in the past. At a hearing before members of the House Armed Services Committee in April, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall did mention that he was aware of one country that had expressed interest in potentially acquiring A-10s, but that he was not aware of any active discussions in this regard at that time. At that same hearing, he also alluded to the country in question not being Ukraine. The Air Force declined to identify the country Kendall was referring to in response to subsequent questions from The War Zone. Ukrainian authorities very publicly looked into getting A-10s soon after Russia launched its all-out invasion in February 2022. At that time, U.S. officials pushed back on that request, citing the general condition of the approximately 100 Warthogs then in storage. Many of the A-10s then in storage at the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, especially dozens of older A variants, are non-flyable and could not be reasonably returned to service due to heavy cannibalization for spare parts over the years. The Warthog has been out of production since 1984, which has created supply chain complexities for the aging jets. There is also a question of what it would take to train pilots to fly these aircraft and maintainers to support them. An example of the condition of some of the A-10s at the boneyard. USAF / J.M. Eddins Jr At the same time, as the Air Force now moves toward retiring its A-10s for good, the Warthogs going to the Bone Yard will include newer A-10Cs that have received significant life-extension modifications, including new reinforced wings, and other deep upgrades in recent years. Best known for its iconic 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger cannon, the Warthog today is a capable precision strike platform that can employ a broad array of munitions. The GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) just got added to the jets arsenal last year. The aircraft also still retains the designs other trademark features, including its ability to loiter over particular areas for extended periods of time. An A-10C armed with a mixture of GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDB), laser-guided Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets, and AIM-9M Sidewinder air-to-air missiles at an undisclosed location in the Middle East in November 2023. USAF For Jordan, a major U.S. ally in the Middle East in counter-terrorism and other operations, A-10s could give its Air Force a valuable boost in close air support and general air-to-ground capabilities if the jets can be reasonably sustained. Jordan is also currently actively engaged in a counter-drug campaign along its border with Syria, which has reportedly involved air strikes. The Warthogs are particularly well suited to supporting lower-intensity operations in permissive airspace and could also be used to conduct armed surveillance and border patrol missions. The Royal Jordanian Air Forces fixed-wing aerial combat fleets currently consist of nearly 60 F-16AM/BM Viper fighters and smaller numbers of turboprop light attack aircraft. Some years ago now, the country put its pocket fleet of CN-235 and C-295 cargo aircraft that have been converted into gunships up for sale and the current status of those aircraft is unclear. As such, the infusion of A-10s could also expand the services ground attack capacity, which could help free up the F-16s for other missions, including against aerial threats. Just in April, Jordanian F-16s shot down a number of Iranian drones headed toward Israel as part of larger reprisal strikes. A Jordanian single-seat F-16AM Viper, in front, flies together with one of the countrys two-seat F-16BMs. USAF The committee appreciates the long-standing alliance between the United States and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan The committee commends Jordan for [the] defense of its air space [against Iranian threats headed for Israel] on the night of April 13, 2024, a separate section of the Senate Armed Services Committees recently released report says. The committee also recognizes the need for additional critical capabilities, including F-16 aircraft, to counter growing air threats, including unmanned aerial systems, within Jordan and across the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. Jordan is currently in the process of acquiring a dozen new Block 70 F-16C/D Vipers. A further section in the report also calls on the Pentagon to help Jordan otherwise expand its air and missile defenses with a particular focus on countering threats from Iran and its regional proxies. Whether or not the Pentagon ultimately concludes that it would be both feasible and advisable to transfer A-10s to Jordan, or if the country actively pursues the acquisition of Warthogs regardless, remains to be seen. The Senate just raising the possibility of sending A-10s to Jordan could well reignite discussions about other potential future operators, especially Ukraine. Other interested parties could emerge if a fleet of Jordanian A-10s looks increasingly viable. If nothing else, the Senates recently published report points to the potential for a new chapter in the A-10s story even as the Air Force moves to retire the Warthog before 2030. If it is deemed to be workable, sending A-10s to Jordan could be a welcome addition to that countrys air force that also opens up new possibilities for the Warthogs after they leave Air Force service. Contact the author: joe@twz.com A new Gallup survey found that an estimated 72 million women in the United States have skipped or delayed a recommended health screening. The survey, conducted for medical technology company Hologic, found that despite the fact that 90% of women acknowledge how important it is to get regular health screenings, more than 40% of them have skipped or delayed a test their doctor recommended. The survey showed how hard it is for women to prioritize their own health. Over 60% of women who participated in the survey said they had a hard time making their own health a priority. This was especially an issue for younger women who participated 74% of women who belong to Gen Z and 70% of millennial women said they struggled to prioritize their health, compared to 52% of Baby Boomers and 39% of women from the Silent Generation. The women in the survey who said they struggle to put their own health first cited many relatable things, like caring for other family members first and taking care of their work responsibilities and other pressing matters, as reasons why they were putting off important healthcare. Dr. Leana Wen, a CNN wellness expert, said thats consistent with what shes seen personally with her own patients. Unfortunately, too many women focus on their health only after they have been diagnosed with a chronic illness, she said. Our society places too little emphasis on prevention, and there are many barriers in the way of people obtaining preventive care. But Dr. Wen said its important for women especially young ones to get the health screenings their doctors recommend, when they recommend them. This is because cancer rates among younger patients have been on the rise for a number of years, pushing doctors to recommend important preventative screenings, like tests for breast and colorectal cancers, to younger ages. Early treatment is key to improving survival rates, and that hinges on early diagnosis. This is why screenings are so important. Cancer screenings are conducted before people develop symptoms, Dr. Wen said. There is a disturbing global trend of a rise in early-onset cancers, which is defined as cancer cases diagnosed in people younger than 50. Between 1990 and 2019, early-onset cancers increased by 79%. In the US, while people older than 50 have experienced a drop in overall cancer rates between 1995 and 2020, the cancer incidence has increased in people younger than 50. She called the trend in younger people skipping or delaying screenings distressing. She added, According to the survey, 41% of US women delayed or skipped screenings for breast cancer, 35% for cervical cancer and 33% for colorectal cancers. Recently, recommendations for screenings for those cancers have changed. Currently, women should start getting screened: For breast cancer every other year beginning at age 40. For cervical cancer every three years from ages 21-29, and every five years from age 30 onward. For colon cancer beginning at age 45. Its important to note that these recommendations apply to women of average risk of developing these cancers. If you have a family or personal history or are otherwise high risk, talk to your doctor about whether you should start screening earlier or be screened more frequently. A suspect is facing murder and other charges after the remains of a transgender teen who had been missing in Pennsylvania since late June were found in a lake, according to a criminal complaint. Dashawn Watkins, 29, has been charged with first degree murder, aggravated assault, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of 14-year-old Pauly Likens of Sharon, Pennsylvania, police said in a complaint filed in Mercer County District Court. CNN has reached out to Watkins attorney for comment but has not yet received a response. If convicted, Watkins could face the death penalty or life in prison, according to Pennsylvania state law. Mercer County District Attorney Peter C. Acker told CNN at this point investigators have not found any evidence that suggests Likens murder was a hate crime. However, investigators are also not ruling out the possibility, and if anyone has evidence that would suggest this is a hate crime, he said, authorities will investigate it. Likens relatives had been searching for the teen for several days when police began finding dismembered human remains in and near the Shenango River Lake in Mercer County, the criminal complaint said. Mercer County Coroner John A. Libonati said in a July 3 statement the remains belonged to Likens. The cause of death was determined to be sharp force trauma to the head and the manner was ruled as homicide, Libonati said. Pamela Ladner, president of LGBTQIA+ Alliance Shenango Valley who spoke on behalf of the teens family, told CNN Likens was a selfless, loving child who loved nature, getting her nails done, and shopping. She aspired to be a park ranger like her Aunt Liz, Ladner said. Our community is mourning with Paulys family at this tragic loss of young life. We are hoping justice is served. Likens was last seen walking home on June 22 after leaving a friends house, police said in the complaint. In the early hours of June 23, the teenager posted on Snapchat that she had gone on a late-night walk. She replied initially when her friend asked if she was OK but did not reply to further messages, the complaint said. Video surveillance from nearby businesses and homes showed a person that appeared to be Likens walking near a canoe launch along the Shenango River in Sharon, as well as a vehicle arriving and leaving the area around the same time on June 23, according to the complaint. Police said Watkins, the suspect, was seen in video footage leaving a nearby apartment complex with a large duffel bag that appeared empty and returning about 20 to 25 minutes later with the bag looking heavy and awkward, the complaint says. Video shows a vehicle leaving the apartment complex, arriving to the canoe launch area and returning to the complex during the same time frame, the complaint states. The footage shows Watkins struggling to carry the duffle bag and placing it on the floor of a hallway in the building, and then again before entering an apartment, the complaint said. Hes also seen coming to the apartment later that day with a shopping bag and leaving with multiple bags and garbage bags the next day. When officers went to the building, they saw what appeared to be blood stains in the places where Watkins rested the bag on the floor, the complaint said. When Watkins was detained by police on July 2, he told authorities that he recently met with a person he had met on Grindr, who police said matched Likens description, according to the complaint. Watkins claimed his memory was poor when asked about where they met or where he had gone, the complaint said. He said the person did not come to his apartment and noted that he brought in a large rolling luggage bag that he had left in his car from a recent vacation, the complaint said. When police searched Watkins apartment, they found traces of blood, a saw, and a receipt for the purchase of the tool, the complaint said. A candlelight vigil for Likens will be held in Sharon on Saturday. The teenager is being remembered for her will to help others, her love of animals and her contagious laughter, according to her obituary. Pauly lit up every room she entered, always making people smile and passing around her contagious laughter. Pauly was a selfless person, never missing a chance to help others and give what she could. Even as a young child, she donated her spare change to the veterans stand outside Walmart, her obituary reads. A sassy kid, Pauly loved to give her family a hard time, cracking jokes and loving every moment with her family. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) The Bernalillo County District Attorney said a suspected serial burglar will remain in custody until trial. On Tuesday, a judge granted a pretrial detention request for Dorsett Matthews who is accused in at least two home burglaries last month. 14-year-old injured in shooting in Southwest Albuquerque Police said in one break-in, he shoved an elderly homeowner to the ground. Prosecutors said he had five prior burglary convictions and was out for less than a year when he was arrested again. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. New information is emerging about the murder of a Leesburg convenience store owner from a witness hearing horrific screams on a cellphone to a tipster who believes suspect Alex Lopez is a member of a vicious international gang. Lopez, 25, has been charged with first-degree murder in the May 30 slaying of Raied Ray Shihadeh. Court documents now detail how police identified him from store security video, how he continued to get into trouble after being released from prison and chilling details from the crime scene. The probable cause affidavit details how the tragedy unfolded at 9:02 p.m. on that Thursday night. It began when an employee of the Walgreens entered the M&M Market on Picciola Road after her shift ended and heard the screams from Shihadehs wife, Monique, who had been talking to him on his phone using Facetime. she noticed a panicked look on the victims face, the document said. She then heard the victim state, No, no! Shop owner: 'I want the world to know what we lost': Family mourns slain Leesburg shop owner Monique Shihadeh told police the phone hit the floor, but she could see the shooter wearing red clothing, walk by. She then called 911. Investigators believe they can link the clothing to Lopez. When the Walgreens employee saw the 51-year-old on the floor behind the cash register, she ran outside and called 911. Soon, she was flagging down the first police car to arrive at the store. Shihadeh was still alive and gasping for air, despite being shot once in the chest and once in the head above his right eye. Officers rendered first aid and called for an ambulance. He later died at the hospital. Raied Shihadeh is shown in this family photo. Store video would show the killer run into the store, drop a black bag by the store, shoot Shihadeh while he was talking on the phone and shoot him again as he crawled behind the counter. He jumped behind the counter, took rolls of coins, cash and vaping equipment before running out of the door in 33 seconds. He came back in to retrieve the bag and left again in the span of two seconds. He took less than $100. It would take hours for police to download the images and to enhance them, but when they did, police in Wildwood quickly identified Lopez as the gunman. One of the officers emailed Leesburg police to say, I was able to make this identification based upon numerous prior law enforcement contacts I have had with Alex Lopez. One of the clues, he said, were distinctive tattoos that he tried to cover with a head covering. Detectives surmise that the covering was actually a T-shirt with the letters FLEX on it and the wings of a metal-looking eagle. Investigators believe Lopez can be seen wearing that same shirt in a social media video in April. Lopez was released from prison on July 1, 2023, after being sentenced to prison for four years and five months for grand theft auto, burglary of an occupied dwelling, grand theft and fraud in Lake County from 2017 to 2019. He didnt waste much time getting into trouble again. Four months later, he was arrested in Sumter County on Nov. 10, 2023, charged with grand theft auto. He was released the next day. On Nov. 13, he was arrested and charged with petty theft from a merchant, dealing with stolen property (third subsequent offense), and burglary of an unoccupied structure. While in jail on those charges he was charged with battery on a fellow prisoner on Jan. 20. The State Attorneys Office later dropped that charge, on Feb. 16. Monique Shihadeh told the Daily Commercial she was furious when she learned of his arrests leading up to her husbands murder, and that Lopez was not on supervised probation. Lopez was arrested at a Kissimmee motel on June 26 by the Florida Department of Law Enforcements (FDLE) Violent Crime Task Force/Orlando. Court records indicate that a stun gun may have been used in the arrest. It is not clear if authorities recovered the handgun used in the robbery. Also, Monique Shihadeh told police that her husband carried a 9 mm handgun, which was not found in the store. It is unknown if the victim was in possession of the firearm at that time, the report said. Police Chief Joe Iozzi declined to release any information about those questions, saying the case is still under investigation, and he referred questions about the arrest to FDLE. The Daily Commercial has requested the information from FDLE. The probable cause affidavit includes tipster information, including second-hand reports of Lopez being a member of MS-13, an especially notorious gang formed in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Family members allegedly also have information. Lopez has pleaded not guilty to the charges of first-degree premeditated murder, armed robbery, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a concealed firearm and use of a firearm in a felony. The State Attorneys Office has not yet decided if it will pursue the death penalty if Lopez is convicted. A grand jury will be convened at some point. Shihadeh was married to his wife for 23 years and was the father of five children. This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Shooting death of Leesburg store owner blamed on suspected gang member Chinese carrier passes close to Philippines on way to Pacific drills, Taiwan says By Ben Blanchard TAIPEI (Reuters) -Chinese aircraft carrier the Shandong passed close to the northern Philippines on its way to drills in the Pacific, Taiwan's defence minister said on Wednesday, as Taipei reported dozens of warplanes joining the ship for exercises. The manoeuvring of the carrier through waters closer to the Philippines than to Taiwan comes during a period of rising tensions between Beijing and Manila over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, keeps a close watch on all Chinese movements given the daily military activity around the island. Taiwan's defence ministry said starting around dawn on Wednesday it had detected 36 Chinese military aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, flying to the south and southeast of the island heading to the Western Pacific to carry out drills with the Shandong. Speaking to reporters at parliament shortly before his ministry announced details of the latest mission by the Shandong, commissioned by China in 2019, Taiwan Defence Minister Wellington Koo said they had a "full grasp" of the ship's movements. "It did not pass through the Bashi Channel," he said, referring to the waterway that separates Taiwan from the Philippines and is the usual route Chinese warships and warplanes take when they head into the Pacific. "It went further south, through the Balintang Channel, to the Western Pacific," Koo added, a waterway between the Philippines' Batanes and Babuyan Islands. China's defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The Philippines military said it was concerned with the deployment of the Chinese carrier group. "We emphasise the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the region and urge all parties to adhere to international laws and norms," said spokesperson Francel Margareth Padilla. The Philippines is currently involved in a bitter stand-off with China over the disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. Late Tuesday, Japan's Self Defense Forces said they detected the Shandong along with an escort of two missile destroyers and a frigate around 500 km (310 miles) south of its Okinawa islands. Two Japanese navy ships were observing their movements while Japanese fighter jets scrambled in response to the aircraft launched by the carrier, it said in a statement. Taiwan has previously reported the Shandong operating near the island, including in December when it passed through the Taiwan Strait just weeks ahead of Taiwanese elections. Taiwan President Lai Ching-te told the new de facto U.S. ambassador to Taipei, Raymond Greene, on Wednesday that his government will strive to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Strait "in the face of China's repeated challenges and attempts to change" it. Greene highlighted to Lai the U.S. commitment to supporting Taiwan's ability to defend itself, according to a statement from the American Institute in Taiwan. The United States is Taiwan's most important arms supplier, despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties. Taiwan holds its annual Han Kuang war games starting July 22, and China has stepped up its own activities ahead of that. Since the start of this month, Taiwan has reported detecting a total of more than 270 Chinese military aircraft operating around the island, as well as two Chinese "joint combat readiness patrols" with warplanes and warships. One security source, who is familiar with Chinese deployments in the region, told Reuters the better weather of the summer months was when China traditionally carries out drills, but noted the "unusual" uptick in recent movements. "The security situation around Taiwan is worrying," the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to comment publicly. China has made no secret of its dislike of Lai, and carried out two days of war games shortly after he took office in May. China says he is a "separatist" and has rebuffed his repeated offers of talks. Lai rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan's people can decide their future. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Karen Lema in Manila and Tim Kelly and Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Michael Perry) TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) A Tampa man has surrendered to authorities after he allegedly killed his own brother, deputies said. The Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office said Juan Rafols, 53, and his brother Joe Ruiz, 38, got into an argument that escalated into violence Monday evening. The video above is from the scene of the shooting Monday night. Deputies said they responded to the shooting at 5:43 p.m. and found Rafols dead from a gunshot wound on North Cameron Avenue. According to detectives, Ruiz turned himself into the University of South Florida Police Department Tuesday, telling officers he wanted to surrender for his brothers murder. Officials cancel missing child alert after 4-year-old Florida boy found dead During an interview with detectives, the suspect confessed to killing Rafols. He was then arrested. It is heartbreaking that a family disagreement has led to a loss of life, Sheriff Chad Chronister said. My heart goes out to this family as they cope with this tragic and senseless violence. Violence is never the answer. Situations should never be allowed to escalate to this extent. The suspect will now have to face the consequences of his brutal actions. Ruiz was charged with murder in the second degree with a firearm and tampering with physical evidence. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. A Tarrant County family court judge has been warned by a state commission over allegations that he sexually harassed female county employees and colleagues. The Texas Sate Commission on Judicial Conduct issued a public warning on June 21 to Judge Jesus Jesse Nevarez of the 231st District Court. Sexual harassment in text messages began in December 2021, when Nevarez started sending an associate judge personal messages in which he would refer to her with pet names including babe, babes, hon, baby, and beautiful, according to the written warning. He also told her in the messages he loved her, the warning states. In August 2022, the associate judge recorded a conversation about her resignation from her position. In the recording, Nevarez is heard referring to her as baby and trying to convince her to change her mind, the warning states. He is heard saying he has loved her forever. In his testimony to the commission, Nevarez said he has been referring to women, including his female colleagues, with pet names for 40 years. He said he was never informed that calling women by these names or any other actions made women feel uncomfortable and that he does not believe they constitute sexual harassment, the warning reads. While the associate judge said she tried coming forward to Nevarez with her discomfort, he said she never informed him. Nevarez testified that he and the associate judge were friends before she was sworn into her position. When the associate judge became his subordinate, Nevarez failed to formalize their working relationship and treated her as a friend instead of a colleague, the warning says. The judge further testified the nature of their friendship changed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, his deployment in the Texas State Guard, and the workload. He was also accused of commenting on the associate judges attire when she wore dresses to work. Nevarez said he made these comments because she did not consistently wear appropriate court attire, but he never reported this to Human Resources, according to the warning. A family law attorney is also alleging the judge made inappropriate advances toward her, according to the document. Nevarez provided the attorney his personal cell phone number and sent her a personal message on Facebook, the warning says. When the attorney missed a 9 a.m. hearing, Nevarez conducted the proceeding without contacting her. He allegedly told her had she contacted him on his personal cell phone, he wouldnt have held the hearing without her, which Nevarez denied saying. According to the commission, it is not standard practice in Tarrant County family law courts to conduct a hearing without an attorneys presence. The attorney interpreted this as retribution for not responding to Nevarezs advances. She felt the need to be accompanied by a paralegal or another attorney when entering the same courtroom as Nevarez, according to the warning. Nevarez denies ever sexually harassing the attorney, but admitted to providing her with his phone number and sending her a message on Facebook. He explained he provides attorneys with his number for when they have questions and to mentor them, the warning reads. The commission reported Nevarez had not taken a sexual harassment training since receiving the complaint and has only attended a training twice in the 11 years he has been a district judge. He is being ordered by the commission to take four hours of instruction with a mentor, with two hours each on demeanor and sexual harassment within 60 days of receiving the notice. We recently compiled a list of the 10 Very High Yield Dividend Stocks With Upside Potential. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Rithm Capital Corp. (NYSE:RITM) stands against the other stocks with over 8% dividend yield. High yields have always sparked debate between analysts and investors. Analysts typically advise caution with extremely high yields, while investors often find them attractive. Analysts' concerns are valid; high yields can sometimes be warning signs of financial instability within a company. Many companies offering exceptionally high yields have been on the brink of cutting or suspending their dividends. That said, no company is completely out of the woods regarding its challenges, and dividend yield plays a minor role in a company's financial difficulties. In fact, many reports have highlighted that high-yield stocks have performed well over the years. Newton Investment Management published a report revealing that high-yield dividend stocks outperformed the broader market during high inflationary periods from 1940 to 2021. The report also showed that investment portfolios with high-yield dividend stocks outperformed those with low or no dividend stocks in terms of value-weighted performance. High-yield portfolios outpaced low-yield ones by 199 basis points and zero-yield portfolios by 330 basis points. This outcome is informative, yet it does not provide insights into the market conditions of that time, offering only a general overview of high-yield stock performance. Analysts have been particularly attentive to how dividend stocks perform during periods of market volatility, recognizing that the demand for regular income is most keenly felt during these times. Therefore, analysts recommend considering stocks with high yields only if these companies also demonstrate strong dividend growth streaks. The S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrat Index seeks to track the performance of companies with at least 20 consecutive years of dividend growth with an average dividend yield of 3%. According to a report by S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a backdrop of slowing growth but rising inflation, the index achieved a monthly average total return of 0.39% from 1999 through April 2024, surpassing the benchmark by approximately 120 basis points. Historically, inflationary environments have typically benefited short-duration stocks like Dividend Aristocrat companies. During slow growth phases with declining inflation, the performance of the High Yield Dividend Aristocrats has aligned closely with the benchmark. The report further mentioned that the dividend growth rate for the index also surpassed inflation over the long term. Story continues As mentioned above, when investing in dividend stocks, high yield and dividend growth must go hand in hand, as many companies have shown that it is indeed possible. Analysts typically view yields between 3% to 7% as healthy. The health of dividend stocks is often assessed based on their ability to generate cash flow and their track record of dividend growth. Investors favor stocks that not only offer high yields but also maintain or steadily increase their dividend payouts, rather than frequently cutting them. Examples include some of the best dividend stocks such as Altria Group, Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., and British American Tobacco p.l.c. that have above-average dividend yields coupled with robust dividend growth histories. To read more about strong dividend payers, have a look at Best Blue Chip Dividend Stocks To Buy. Our Methodology: For this list, we screened for dividend stocks with yields higher than 8% as of July 8. Then, we narrowed down the choices by finding stocks with an upside potential according to analyst predictions. Finally, we selected companies with the most hedge fund investors holding stakes in them, using Insider Monkey's Q1 2024 database. The stocks are ranked in ascending order of hedge fund investors having stakes in them. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletters strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points. (see more details here). A real estate executive standing in front of a row of newly constructed townhomes. Rithm Capital Corp. (NYSE:RITM) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 20 Dividend Yield as of July 8: 9.49% Rithm Capital Corp. (NYSE:RITM) ranks sixth on our list of the best dividend stocks with over 8% yield. The American asset management company focuses on real estate and financial services. The company was founded in 2013 and now has grown into one of the largest non-bank mortgage originators in the US. In the beginning, it concentrated on investments in mortgage servicing rights (MSRs). Previously known as New Residential Investment Corp., the company underwent a rebranding in June 2022 and now operates under the name Rithm Capital. Since July 2022, the stock has surged by nearly 11%. Throughout its history, Rithm Capital Corp. (NYSE:RITM) has significantly leveraged its relationships within the industry. In 2023, the company acquired $1.4 billion worth of prime unsecured consumer loans from the Goldman Sachs Group. This acquisition was particularly advantageous for the company, capitalizing on its established expertise and experience in consumer finance. Later that year, the company acquired Sculptor Capital Management in a transaction valued at nearly $720 million. This strategic move brought in $32 billion in the company's assets under management (AUM), with a total standing at $35 billion as of 2023. While Rithm Capital Corp. (NYSE:RITM) is currently expanding and competing with major players, we believe it has substantial growth potential in the years ahead, given its strategic direction. The company has revamped its business model and is actively forming alliances within the industry to leverage opportunities. In addition, it continues to benefit from its servicing revenues, further enhancing its competitive position and outlook for future growth. Its net servicing revenue for the first quarter of 2024 jumped to nearly $555 million, from $15.8 million in the same period last year. Rithm Capital Corp. (NYSE:RITM), one of the best dividend stocks on our list, announced a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share on June 18, which was consistent with its previous dividend. In the most recent quarter, the company returned approximately $121 million to shareholders through dividends. As of July 8, the stock has a dividend yield of 9.49%. Insider Monkey's database of Q1 2024 indicated that 20 hedge funds held stakes in Rithm Capital Corp. (NYSE:RITM), up from 19 in the preceding quarter. These stakes have a total value of more than $212 million. With over 4.7 million shares, Long Pond Capital was the company's leading stakeholder in Q1. Overall RITM ranks 6th on our list of the best high yield dividend stocks with upside potential. You can visit 10 Very High Yield Dividend Stocks With Upside Potential to see the other high yield dividend stocks that are on hedge funds radar. While we acknowledge the potential of RITM as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some deeply undervalued dividend stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for a deeply undervalued dividend stock that is more promising than RITM but that trades at less than 7 times its earnings and yields nearly 10%, check out our report about the dirt cheap dividend stock. READ NEXT: Analyst Sees a New $25 Billion Opportunity for NVIDIA and 10 Best of Breed Stocks to Buy For The Third Quarter of 2024 According to Bank of America. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Tattooed Bloods leader nicknamed Mousey sentenced to life plus 132 years for NY reign of terror Howard Mousey Davis, 36, of Bellport, New York, was sentenced to life plus 132 years on Tuesday by a federal judge in Central Islip, US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. The heavily tattooed leader of a Long Island Bloods gang affiliate will spend the rest of his days in prison for a laundry list of racketeering-related crimes including shootings, assaults and home invasions that were part of a campaign of violence directed at his rivals. Howard Mousey Davis, 36, of Bellport, New York, was sentenced to life plus 132 years on Tuesday by a federal judge in Central Islip, US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. Davis and his violent gang tormented our Long Island neighborhoods for years, Peace said. Todays sentence ends his reign of terror. Howard Mousey Davis, 36, of Bellport, New York, was sentenced to life plus 132 years on Tuesday for a litany of shootings, robberies and assaults, among other things. The heavily-inked gangbanger who led the violent G-Shine set of the Bloods street gang was convicted in June 2021 of participating in three shootings, ordering another pair of shootings that left two people wounded and demanding his armed peons bust into two homes and rob two other people on separate occasions, the feds said. He also shattered a persons nose and kneecap in a barfight; sold hard drugs like fentanyl, heroin and crack; and kept countless guns, prosecutors added. Davis had a standing order to kill certain rivals whenever and wherever they were found, prosecutors alleged. But his symphony of savagery which ran from June 2016 to November 2017 apparently didnt end after his arrest. Davis also known as Mr. Fedup convinced the mother of one of his children to lie to a federal grand jury and got another to smuggle drugs into the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan during Christmas in 2018, Peace said. Davis was convicted in 2021 of all 48 counts outlined in his indictment, the US Attorney said. zwiebackesser stock.adobe.com He also racked up nine disciplinary violations while in the clink, including assaults and a slashing that left his victim with a gash on their face, according to the allegations. Ivan J. Arvelo, head of Homeland Security Investigations New York field office, said Tuesday that Davis was a prolific gang leader responsible for heinous crimes that terrorized Long Island communities. He actively recruited other members of the Bloods to perpetuate the same brutality, Arvelo said. Todays sentencing has effectively stripped him of the violent power he once wielded with impunity. Davis was convicted of all 48 counts detailed in his indictment, Peace said, including attempted murder, assault, robbery and drug and gun charges. "The fondness of magistrates to foster Christianity has done it more harm than all the persecutions ever did." Rev. John Leland, Baptist Leader in Colonial Virginia Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and his Republican colleagues have passed legislation requiring all public schools and universities to display a poster-sized version of the Ten Commandments in large, easily readable font. These officials surely know that even our current Supreme Court is almost certain to strike down their new law as a violation of the Constitutions prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion. If mandating the display of a sacred text isnt a law respecting an establishment of religion, nothing is. But thats missing the point. The point of such laws is for show. Political theater. In red-state Louisiana, its good politics to portray yourself as being on Gods side. Never mind that Jesus warned against those who make a show of their faith. Southern churches mostly ignore those passages anyway tending to focus instead on the Bibles dos and donts. But suppose Im mistaken. Suppose the Supreme Court upholds the Louisiana law and a bevy of southern states immediately enact their own copycat versions of it. Would that be so bad? Yes, and heres why. This law will violate religious freedom for all Lets start with the legal reasons before moving on to the moral and religious ones. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, reflects on democracy and religion in a conversation with Jon Meacham, Vanderbilt University historian, in Langford Hall at Vanderbilt on Jan. 14, 2022. America is a pluralistic society. In Los Angeles alone, the Mass is conducted in more than 40 languages. And thats just the Roman Catholics. According to the Pew Research Center, we also have millions of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus to go along with the hundreds of different Christian denominations and sects. In short, there is no religious consensus in America. Never has been. Once we begin allowing the government to pick and choose which religions it will promote or discourage the lid flies off. It will be the Mormons in Utah, Jews in New York, Muslims in Detroit, Catholics in New Orleans and Baptists in Birmingham. Tennessee-endorsed Aitken Bible tied to national movement to erode church and state Where does it stop? Ill tell you where. With bloodshed. Its what went on in Europe for hundreds of years before the founding of America whose founders wisely protected us from such sectarian strife by including a legal prohibition against any type of religious test for public office (See Article VI of the U.S. Constitution) as well as laws respecting an establishment of religion (See the First Amendment of the Constitution). The government should not have a say in theological debate Now for the moral and religious reasons to oppose this law. Any sort of government coercion in matters of faith any message that conveys that a particular religion should be favored or disfavored violates liberty of conscience that sacred right of every human being to choose his or her own personal beliefs. As Thomas Jefferson famously said, Almighty God hath created the mind free, and it is none of the business of government to tell any of us what we should or should not believe. With Jesus as their example, colonial Christians understood this. Jesus never once solicited the civil authorities to assist his spiritual crusade. To the contrary, his only direct comment on the subject implies a clear separation of church and state. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods. To Jesus, Gods things and Caesars things are not the same. Contrast that with the European model where some churches are favored and in many cases financed by the state. Yet these church buildings stand empty of all but the tourists. Government establishment has been the kiss of death. So ask yourself, good Christian. Do you favor the sort of arrangement in Iran or Saudia Arabia where the clergy run things and faith is imposed? Or do you prefer that church and state each stay in its proper lane? You may think that posting the Ten Commandments in every school is a harmless acknowledgement of our religious heritage, but believe me, it is more. It is a dangerous step towards a slippery slope that should be condemned by every freedom-loving American. Especially the Christians. Buzz Thomas Buzz Thomas is a retired Baptist minister and professor of constitutional law as well as a member of USA Todays Board of Contributors. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Freedom of religion: Mandating Ten Commandments is a slippery slope Tennessee asking residents to verify their citizenship is not voter suppression Re: I'm a naturalized citizen and the letter Tennessee sent me reeks of voter intimidation, by Charles Lieou, July 7. Charles Lieou complains that he was asked to verify his voting privileges, claiming that the request he received was voter intimidation. Sadly, as Mr. Lieou states, Tennessees voter registration process relies on the honesty of the applicant as to their qualifications, evidenced by the form available at https://ovr.govote.tn.gov/Registration/RegistrationDetails/BM. Sadly, not everyone is honest and others make mistakes that require correction. Secretary of State Tre Hargett speaks during Tennessees 2020 Electoral College at the State Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Dec. 14, 2020. Chattanoogas former police chief, Celeste Murphy, claimed to be a Tennessee resident in her fraudulent voter registration and Tennessee drivers license application. Is her indictment voter intimidation? No it is not. Mr. Lieou is correct to identify that a weakness of Tennessees voter registration system is its ongoing lack of verification of an individuals domicile location, citizenship, and criminal record. What percentage of people who move immediately change their voter registration to reflect their new address? Learn about candidates running in August primary election for Congress in Tennessee How many college students register to vote in the precinct where they live near their school while maintaining their domicile, drivers license and automobile registration, and other such information in another location? Who else has done what Celeste Murphy did? A great solution would be to coordinate voter registration with other government databases, such as registrations with drivers license, motor vehicle, Social Security, and even the IRS that are coordinated with state and federal law enforcement databases. If I change my voters registration as to assert that the submitted address is my domicile, that should trigger a change in my drivers license and automobile registration and other databases reliant on the integrity of this information. As to Mr. Lieous complaint, it should not matter if one is a government official, a nuclear scientist, a doctor, or even a dishwasher; the only ones who will be intimidated by a request to verify ones compliance with law are those who were not careful to do so in the first place. Im grateful that Mr. Lieou does not have to endure what Celeste Murphy is facing at this time. I believe we should all be glad that Tennessee government is working to ensure the integrity of our election process. Like Mr. Lieou, I believe that election law verification compliance must be done prior to authorizing voting privileges. Jim Kennedy, Smyrna 37167 Agree or disagree? Or have a view on another topic entirely? Send a letter of 250 words or fewer to letters@tennessean.com. Include your full name, city/town, ZIP and contact information for verification. Thanks for adding to the public conversation. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Voters must be citizens and Tennessee should ask about legal status In May, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled against the state after wildlife agents trespassed onto private land and planted cameras to look for hunting violations. This week, the Tennessee Attorney General's Office declined to file an appeal, meaning the ruling is affirmed. It's a good first step in reclaiming Americans' property rights. State law allows officers of the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency (TWRA)or any other state or federal wildlife agencyto "go upon any property, outside of buildings, posted or otherwise," in order to "enforce all laws relating to wildlife." As Reason first reported in 2022, TWRA agents interpreted this directive to trespass onto private lands at will; in at least two cases, agents then coordinated with federal wildlife officers to plant trail cameras without a warrant and without the property owner's knowledge or permission. One man who found a camera on his land took it down, at which point agents raided his home and arrested him for "stolen government property." Under Supreme Court precedent dating back to a century-old Prohibition case, "open fields" do not receive the same constitutional protections as a person's home and the "curtilage," the area immediately around the home. In Hester v. United States (1924), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that "the protection accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their 'persons, houses, papers, and effects,' does not extend to open fields." The two Tennessean property owners sued in 2022, claiming that the state law violated the Tennessee Constitution. Article I, Section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution uses very similar language to the Fourth Amendmentonly swapping out "effects" with "possessions"but goes even further, adding "that general warrants, whereby an officer may be commanded to search suspected places, without evidence of the fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, whose offences are not particularly described and supported by evidence, are dangerous to liberty and ought not be granted." The district court agreed, finding that "Tennessee's prohibition on unreasonable searches offers a broader guarantee of security for an individual's real property than its federal counterpart." The state appealed the ruling, and in May 2024, the Tennessee Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's ruling. While the appeals court stopped short of finding the state law unconstitutional, as the district court had done, it nonetheless found the TWRA's application of it "a disturbing assertion of power on behalf of the government that stands contrary to the foundations of the search protections against arbitrary governmental intrusions in the American legal tradition, generally, and in Tennessee, specifically." To appeal a judgment to the state supreme court, Tennessee code provides "60 days after the entry of the judgment." The deadline for the state to appeal the decision in this case passed on July 9. (The Tennessee Attorney General's office did not respond to Reason's request for comment.) As a result, the decision is now settled law in the state, although a separate case could make its way to the state supreme court in the future. The ruling is great news for Tennesseans, as is the state's decision to let it stand. It provides further protection against unwarranted intrusion and surveillance at the hands of government agents. But it's only the first step in undoing a century of harmful jurisprudence. After all, the ruling only applies to the state constitution, leaving the open fields doctrine untouched. As a result, any federal wildlife agent is still free to come onto your land with impunity and even plant cameras at will, so long as they keep a distance from your home. The practice also varies by state law. As Reason documented in 2022, some states will only plant cameras on private property with a warrant or the owner's permission, while others claim free rein to come onto private land and place cameras. All is not lost: Tennessee joins several other states that have affirmed greater privacy protections than the Fourth Amendment allows. As far back as 1970, the Mississippi Supreme Court decided in Davidson v. State, "This right to be secure from invasions of privacy by government officials is a basic freedom in our Federal and State constitutional systems." In 2018, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed in State v. Dupuis that "Vermont's Constitution establishes greater protection against search and seizure of 'open fields' than the U.S. Constitution, requiring that law enforcement officers secure warrants before searching open fields when the landowner demonstrates an expectation of privacy." The post Tennessee Will Not Appeal Ruling Over Wildlife Agents Planting Cameras appeared first on Reason.com. FILE - This booking photo provided by the Metro Nashville Police Department on June 12, 2024, shows Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas. The sitting Tennessee sheriff pleaded not guilty Wednesday, July 10, to charges that he illegally profited from the work of jail inmates under his supervision and housed dozens of them in a home outside of the prison without permission. (Metro Nashville Police Department via AP, File) MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) A sitting Tennessee sheriff pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges that he illegally profited from the work of jail inmates under his supervision and housed dozens of them in a home outside of the prison without permission. Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas entered the plea to 18 charges during a circuit court hearing in Trenton, his lawyer, William Massey, said in a text message. Gibson's next court hearing in the county where he remains sheriff is set for Oct. 22, Massey said. Thomas was indicted in May in Gibson and Davidson counties on 22 charges, including official misconduct, theft, forgery and computer crimes involving jail inmates in his custody. Thomas will have an arraignment hearing on the four Davidson County charges in Nashville on a later date. Massey has said that Thomas deserves the presumption of innocence, and he looks forward to defending himself in court. Investigators said Thomas was an investor in three for-profit companies that provided staffing assistance to local businesses, housed current and former inmates in a transitional home, and provided transportation to work-release inmates and former inmates traveling to and from work. Thomas failed to disclose his ownership interest in the companies, known as Alliance Group, in his annual filings with the Tennessee Ethics Commission, Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower said June 13. Thomas directed more than $1.4 million in inmate wage fees and deductions to profit Alliance Group, investigators said. At least 170 inmates in Thomas custody were employed by Alliances staffing agency during the investigation, investigators said. Alliance Transportation was paid $18 per day to bring inmates to and from work, while 82 inmates were allowed, without proper approval, to live at Orchard House transitional home instead of the Gibson County jail, investigators said, noting that they were charged $40 per day by the home, He received more than $181,000 in compensation, payroll benefits and legal representation services from Alliance money that was illegally derived from inmate labor, the comptrollers office said. Investigators said Thomas also deceived the Tennessee Department of Correction by showing the county jail as the inmate location in the states offender management system rather than the transitional home, resulting in the county collecting more than $500,000 in reimbursements from the state. Thomas then required the county to give that money to Orchard House without the correction departments knowledge or consent, officials said Orchard House was neither attached to the jail nor staffed by jail personnel, and no contract existed between the county and Orchard House, the comptrollers office said. The Associated Press in May released a series of stories related to U.S. prison labor. Rural Gibson County is northwest of Memphis. Thomas indictment comes more than seven years after another Gibson County sheriff, Chuck Arnold, pleaded guilty to charges including fraud, theft, forgery and official misconduct related to the removal of drugs and money from a jail medication fund. Arnold was sentenced to probation. Texas House panel reflects on law that allows for removal of elected district attorneys Part of an ongoing effort to "remove politics from prosecution," the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence heard testimony Tuesday over a state law meant to rein in "rogue" district attorneys, which sparked an attempt earlier this year to remove Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza from office. Lawmakers last year passed House Bill 17, creating an avenue for Texans to initiate a removal process against elected and local prosecutors who implement policies against pursuing certain crimes. After a near-total abortion ban went into effect in Texas in 2022, several district attorneys across the state announced that they would not use their offices to pursue abortion-related cases. A policy that rallied conservative lawmakers, including the state's leading Republicans Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont HB 17 has since resulted in several unsuccessful removal proceedings and has spurred further questions on potential, future tweaks to the law. More: Millions without electricity in Texas the day after Beryl. See power outage map Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield, who authored the bill, explained to the House committee on Tuesday that the law's intent is to eliminate "ridiculous" blanket prosecution polices and to reinforce to prosecutors the importance of handling each proceeding on a case by case basis. "It was striking a balance between preserving prosecutorial discretion and removing politics from prosecution, and that was really the goal that ultimately came to be the focus of HB 17," Cook said. Under the law, prosecutors are subject to an official misconduct removal proceeding for "categorically refusing" to pursue criminal offenses, which have typically revolved around local polices to skirt prosecutions of low-level drug offenses and forgo abortion-related cases. Texas House Reps David Cook, left, and Jared Patterson, right, listen to testimonies from members of the Texas Police Chiefs Association during a joint committee hearing at the Texas Capitol on June 23, 2022. In April, Travis County resident Mary Elizabeth Dupuis filed a lawsuit against Garza under HB 17, accusing the district attorney of refusing to prosecute certain crimes, which she contends amounts to incompetency and official misconduct. The lawsuit alleges that Garza presented every use-of-force police case to a grand jury, assembled a do not call to testify list of police officers and instructed his office not to prosecute classes of crimes such as drug possession and abortion cases. Memos previously obtained by the Statesman suggest that the latter policy was abandoned in August. Cook similarly confirmed that timeline while detailing the case against Garza during Tuesday's hearing, indicating that despite a judge's order for additional evidence to be presented, the case is likely soon to be dismissed. Jose Garza, Travis County District Attorney, speaks during a press conference regarding Governor Greg Abbott's pardon of Daniel Perry. Following Governor Abbott's pardon of Daniel Perry, the District Attorney's office intends to take action due to concerns regarding the fairness and justice of the decision. They believe that the pardon undermines the accountability and consequences for Perry's actions, and they are committed to upholding the principles of justice and protecting the rights of the victims and their families. While the committee did not take any action during the Tuesday meeting, it did hear concerns over the effect prosecutors' discretion has on crime victims and the difficulty district attorneys face once receiving a complaint. Shannon Edmonds, who testified on behalf of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, said that when a removal proceeding is initiated a prosecutor is then required to fund their own defense, which is an additional burden on top of the job security concerns. Including the case in Travis County, there have been four removal proceedings brought under HB 17, Edmonds said. One of those case, which has since been dismissed, was filed by former Hays County District Clerk Avrey Anderson against Hays County District Attorney Kelly Higgins. An early tiff between the elected officials resulted in both lodging complaints against one another, culminating in Anderson's decision last week to resign from his post amid a separate proceeding seeking his removal from office. "That, I think, concerns prosecutors who are subject to some of these removal situations that are mostly just local politics taken to the courthouse," Edmonds said. Rep. Joe Moody, D - El Paso, votes against an amendment during the debate of SB 7, which would ban COVID vaccine mandates, at the Capitol on Wednesday October 25, 2023. One of a handful of Democrats who supported HB 17 last year and the chairman of the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, acknowledged the difficulty in protecting prosecutors from unwarranted complaints while still allowing for legitimate concerns to be addressed. "That's the really tough needle to thread here," Moody said. Moving forward, the committee is expected to hold two more meetings and then draft a report to present to the broader chamber ahead of the legislative session that begins in January. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas lawmakers discuss HB 17, removal of district attorneys in state (Bloomberg) -- Thailands plan to reclassify cannabis as a narcotic just two years after its historic decriminalization sends the wrong signal to foreign investors, the second-biggest party in the ruling coalition warned. Most Read from Bloomberg The country should pass a law to regulate the plant rather than completely reverse the policy, Anutin Charnvirakul, the interior minister and leader of the Bhumjaithai Party, told reporters in Bangkok late Tuesday. If laws in Thailand can keep changing at the leaders whim, who is going to come invest? Anutin said. If one day Bhumjaithai gets to control the health ministry again, well have to decriminalize cannabis again. This wont affect investors just in the cannabis industry but across the nation. Anutins public disagreement with Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin reveals tensions within the uneasy ruling coalition stitched together following months of difficult talks after a 2023 general election. Sretthas ruling Pheu Thai Party promotes a hard-line stance against drugs and has cited concerns among many Thais about the proliferation of dispensaries and weed use by younger people as reasons for the policy u-turn. Bhumjaithai spearheaded the decriminalization push with Anutin as health minister in the previous military-backed government. He took cannabis off the countrys narcotics list in 2022, making Thailand the first country in Asia to decriminalize weed. The warning by Anutin, a former construction tycoon, now comes amid stock-market losses, baht weakness and capital outflows. Rattled by signs of political turmoil, foreign investors have pulled more than $3 billion from local markets this year, sending Thailands benchmark index close to a four-year low and making it one of the worst performers of all global bourses tracked by Bloomberg in the past year. Anutin vowed to vote against the policy reversal when the countrys Narcotics Control Board, in which other cabinet ministers are also among the members, likely meets later this month to make the final decision on re-criminalization. Im going to lose but Ill do it anyway, he said. The decriminalization policy, initially pitched as a way to boost agricultural income and wellness tourism, helped attract almost four million votes for Bhumjaithai Party, making it the third-biggest party in the military-backed government that was formed following an election in 2019. But the change also effectively unleashed a new industry before lawmakers could pass a bill to regulate cannabis, resulting in widespread frustration at the legal vacuum that has allowed more than 8,000 dispensaries to mushroom all over the country. The policy volte-face has upset growers, entrepreneurs and activists, concerned the move will effectively snuff out one of the few fast-growing parts of the Thai economy. They have planned a legal challenge against the prime minister and taken to the streets to pressure the government to scrap the plan. Writing Thailands Cannabis Future, a leading advocacy group, said on Wednesday its members will go on a hunger strike until the government reconsiders the re-criminalization plan. The group has camped out overnight near the Government House since Monday. Cannabis is being judged and sent back to prison through no fault of its own, the group said in a statement. Our civil disobedience is to show we want the government to do an investigation before passing judgment on cannabis. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. (Bloomberg) -- Thailands Election Commission certified the results of the first Senate contest since a coup in 2014, paving the way for new lawmakers to replace the previous military-appointed upper house of parliament following a complex selection process last month. Most Read from Bloomberg The 200 winners of the Senate race must pick up certificates at the office of the Election Commission this week before formally joining parliament, Sawaeng Boonmee, secretary-general of the poll body, said in a briefing on Wednesday. The official winners list will be submitted later in the day for publication in the Royal Gazette, he said. The Senate plays a pivotal role in Thai politics and has for the last decade served to safeguard the interest of the pro-military royalist establishment. While it no longer has a say in who becomes prime minister, the new Senate retains the power to amend the military-backed charter and make appointments to posts in the Constitutional Court, the anti-graft agency and the Election Commission. The confirmation of the Senate lawmakers came two weeks after the contest ended, with a former army commander and ex-provincial governors ranking among the preliminary list of winners. The process was delayed as the Election Commission received more than 800 complaints over qualifications of applicants and irregularities during the three voting rounds between June 9 to 26. More than 46,000 people contested the race. Under the new system, the public had no role in picking the senators. Qualified candidates voted among themselves across 20 pre-determined categories, ranging from farmers to lawyers, women and ethnic minorities. This was carried out at local, provincial and national levels and the top ten candidates from each group would become Senate members. The incoming batch of senators will serve a five-year term. New members must show up in parliament by Monday, and the inaugural upper house session will be scheduled soon after, according to the Secretariat of the Senate. The incumbent Senate last year played a significant role in Thai politics, blocking the prime ministerial candidate of the winning reformist party from taking power for his campaign to amend a royal insult law. He had earlier obtained enough support in the 500-member House of Representatives. The new Senate will be watched for how it takes to any proposed amendments to the constitution, which requires support from at least a third of the upper house. Nearly all attempts to change the charter in recent years have failed due to insufficient Senate votes, despite the proposals clearing the lower house of parliament. (Updates with details and context throughout.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. The South Australia (SA) Government has announced the allocation of approximately A$15.4m ($10.3m) towards the redevelopment of the Whyalla Hospital and Health Service. The redevelopment project is being funded jointly, with the SA government contributing A$4m and the Australian Government investing nearly A$11.4m. It aims to provide an enlarged and improved emergency department (ED) in the hospital along with a six-bed high dependency unit (HDU). The government highlighted that the work involves expanding the existing capacity of the ED to accommodate 12 new treatment bays compared to the existing seven, resulting in a 70% increase. Additional upgrades under this project will include the development of a negative pressure isolation room, a new triage and assessment zone, as well as two rooms for behavioural assessment of patients in distress. The work is planned to take place in different stages and will incorporate new waiting rooms and reception areas designed for improved visibility. It also includes the delivery of clear pathways facilitating seamless patient transfers to operating theatres, acute care wards, and the mental health unit as per the requirement. Meanwhile, the HDU upgrade work will involve relocating six beds to a space directly adjacent to the ED for the first time. This unit is integral to the hospital's operations, providing essential care and observation for patients requiring a higher level of treatment, the SA government noted. By bringing the two units closer together, the government aims to improve patient management, ensuring that critically ill individuals receive prompt urgent care if their condition deteriorates. The project also includes the development of kitchenettes, light-filled offices, and break room areas designed to enhance the comfort and functionality of the hospital's staff. Work is anticipated to begin later this year and is projected to be finished by the end of next year. The hospital will continue to deliver services without interruption during this project. SA health and well-being minister Chris Picton said: This is the biggest investment in the Whyalla Hospital and Health Service in a decade. The new birthing unit is already providing a wonderful service to the community in a fresh and welcoming space. Now, the ED and HDU are getting a revamp too. "SA government announces Whyalla Hospital upgrade project " was originally created and published by Hospital Management, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Do you have a legal question to put to Gary? Email money@telegraph.co.uk or use the form at the bottom of the page. Dear Gary, We live in an Edwardian purpose-built mansion block where one unit was renovated, sold, then rented out. Ever since the tenants moved in a couple of months ago, neighbours have noticed many random males coming and going day and night, staying for an hour or less. They sometimes buzz the wrong flats, and carry alcohol on their person. There are CCTV cameras mounted at the estate gates (although without any CCTV in operation signage). Some neighbours have door cams as well. In addition to the unpleasantness, we fear such business could easily bring drug dealings and who knows what else. We all feel very unsafe and disturbed. Please advise what we can do to stop this kind of activities. The owners of the offending flat have been made aware of the situation by our management company. They have visited the flat (finding nothing questionable), and have supposedly written a letter to their tenants, spelling out that such immoral business would be in breach of the tenancy. Weve heard nothing since, but the business carries on with male visitors. Your thoughts and advice would be much appreciated. Tom, by email Dear Tom, Your question is worded very delicately, but it is clear your concern is the newly renovated flat in your otherwise sedate block is being used as a brothel. If that is correct, it is clearly a very serious criminal offence, and the police should be asked to investigate. Under section 33a of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 (SOA 1956), it is an offence for a person to keep, or to manage, or act or assist in the management of, a brothel to which people resort for practices involving prostitution (whether or not also for other practices) and the maximum sentence is seven years imprisonment. There is no statutory definition of a brothel. But applying the case of Stevens v Christy [1987], to successfully prosecute it is likely to require two or more persons to occupy the same premises simultaneously for the purposes of prostitution. Of course, you and your neighbours observing what is going on and the police gaining hard evidence to prosecute are two different things. But you do need to go down the route of a police report, not least because other distressing situations, such as offences under section 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 trafficking for sexual exploitation may be taking place. Such offences carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. It is disappointing the owners of the flat are turning a blind eye to what is going on. You should point out to them that under section 34 of the SOA 1956 it is a criminal offence for a landlord of any premises or his agent to let the whole or part of the premises with the knowledge that it is to be used, in whole or in part, as a brothel, or, where the whole or part of the premises is used as a brothel, to be wilfully a party to that use continuing. All of which means that turning a blind eye could see the flat owner prosecuted as well. I am setting out the law above because I suggest you quote it to the police so as to kick start their investigation. The CCTV and door cams on site may be able to supply evidence to be used by the police in terms of the comings and goings from the flat. I assume the management company controls the CCTV. As you hint at, it is unlawful for CCTV to record data without clear signage to say recording is taking place and why (presumably for security reasons). So, the management company should remedy this forthwith, especially so the persons frequenting the flat of interest may not complain of a breach of their personal data. In this case, they could ask the government body which supervises the general data protection regulations (GDPR), namely the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), to fine the management company. Likewise, the owners of door cams are data controllers, so far as the ICO are concerned, and should be aware of their legal responsibilities in that regard. The burden of proof regarding criminal prosecutions is beyond reasonable doubt so the police will seek evidence to that degree. The burden of proof with civil matters is on the balance of probability so is a lesser burden. If the police find evidence to prosecute, you will on the face of it have sufficient reason to ask the management company to intervene based on a breach of the so-called covenants (promises) in the lease all flat owners are signed up to. I have not seen the precise wording of the leases for your mansion block, but it would be extraordinary for a lease of this nature not to include a covenant not to use the flat for immoral purposes or similar wording, and you indicate this is indeed the case here. The ultimate threat with breaches of the lease is forfeiture, which means losing the lease because it reverts back to the freeholder. Hence forfeiture equates to losing the value of the flat, so its a threat the flat owner should sit up and listen to. If you have a management company you control as flat owners because youre shareholders in it, it will be more straightforward for you to insist on the immoral conduct being investigated. But even if you are not shareholders in the management company, if a high proportion of flat owners report concerns they should be acted upon. So, it will help if you can encourage collective action. In summary, report these goings on to the police and even if they decide there is not sufficient evidence to prosecute, go down the route to the management company putting pressure on the flat owner through the forfeiture procedure. Ask a Lawyer should not be taken as formal legal advice, but rather as a starting point for readers to undertake their own further research. 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. YOSEMITE, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) Yosemite National Park had a threatened species reintroduced to the park on Tuesday, the San Francisco Zoo said. The San Francisco Zoo announced that they are excited to release the zoo-reared Yosemite toads back to Yosemite National Park. According to the National Park Services website, the toad was listed as a federally threatened species due to their widespread population decline. Yosemite National Park has been monitoring the toad populations across the park since 2009. Zoo officials say that over the past several years, SF Zoos conservation team has been raising hundreds of small significant amphibians from the tadpole stage. They say that the Yosemite toads is a species only found in the Sierra Nevada, for the purpose of reintroducing them to the area of Yosemite they were last seen in. According to zoo officials, the toad was last seen 11 years ago, when the Rim Fire destroyed much of their habitat. Zoo officials say the project to reintroduce the federally threatened toad is slated to take place over the course of up to five years in an attempt to re-establish a self-sustaining population. According to zoo officials, 118 zoo-reared toads were transported via helicopter to a meadow this species formerly occupied. They say National Park Service teams will monitor and track the toads through a radio telemetry project. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com | KSEE24 and CBS47. Sign up for CNNs Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Two lion brothers, including one with an amputated leg, were spotted making a record-breaking night swim through treacherous waters in Ugandas Queen Elizabeth National Park. Researchers believe that the nearly mile-long (1.6-kilometer) crossing of the crocodile-infested Kazinga Channel is the longest documented swim by lions. And its another chapter in the story of Jacob, a resilient lion who has survived numerous life-threatening situations, including losing part of a leg to a poaching trap, during his 10 years in the park. But why did Jacob and his brother, Tibu, cross the waterway connecting two lakes in the first place? They were likely in search of females after losing dangerous fights to another group of male lions and to avoid humans while doing so, according to the researchers. The scientists findings published Wednesday in the journal Ecology and Evolution. Competition for lionesses in the park is fierce and they lost a fight for female affection in the hours leading up to the swim, so its likely the duo mounted the risky journey to get to the females on the other side of the channel, said lead study author Dr. Alex Braczkowski, research fellow at Griffith Universitys Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security in Australia, in a statement. Jacob hangs out in a tree in the Ugandan park when he was younger. - Alex Braczkowski/Griffith University Braczkowski has been following Jacobs story for eight years during his long-term study of African lions in Queen Elizabeth and other Ugandan national parks. As the scientific director of the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trusts Kyambura Lion Monitoring Project, Braczkowski has worked with the Ugandan government since 2017 to record information about predator populations. Jacob has had the most incredible journey and really is a cat with nine lives, Braczkowski said. Id bet all my belongings that we are looking at Africas most resilient lion: he has been gored by a buffalo, his family was poisoned for lion body part trade, he was caught in a poachers snare, and finally lost his leg in another attempted poaching incident where he was caught in a steel trap. A dramatic river crossing Braczkowski and his team, including field coordinators Orin Cornille and Bosco Atukwatse and camera operator Luke Ochse, wanted to capture videos of the brothers hunting and to find other lions by tracking Jacob and Tibus movements. Under the supervision of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, Ochse operated high-definition heat detection cameras on drones. Jacob's leg was amputated after getting it caught in a steel poaching trap. - Alex Braczkowski/Griffith University At the end of January, the team witnessed Jacob and Tibu enter into two vicious fights with other male lions within 48 hours. The other lions were trying to drive Jacob and Tibu out of their territory, and Jacob took the brunt of the damage, said Braczkowski and study coauthor Duan Biggs, associate professor and Olajos-Goslow Chair of Environmental Science and Policy at Northern Arizona University. Tibu led the other lions away from Jacob, and shortly after, they approached the channel. The brothers made three attempts to cross the channel, turning back to shore during the first two tries. The video footage shows a heat signature trailing the brothers during one of their attempts, which may have been a crocodile. While lions are fearsome predators, a Nile crocodile can easily kill a lion in the water, Braczkowski said. The crocodiles can weigh up to four times more than a male lion and have been observed killing lions as the big cats swam anywhere from 10 to a couple of hundred meters, according to the study authors. With only brief stints of about 15 minutes between each attempt, the brothers were successful on their third try, taking about 45 minutes to cross the river. Jacob trailed his brother by 98 to 131 feet (30 to 40 meters), but both made it to the other side safely. The biggest surprise was the fact that they were getting into water with high densities of crocs and hippos, Braczkowski said by email. But finding females to breed with clearly is more important to the male lions than their own wellbeing or the potential risk of getting killed by crocs and hippos. The lions could have taken a small connecting bridge, but the researchers suspect that human foot traffic on the bridge deterred the brothers from choosing that path. Shifting lion populations Braczkowski has studied ratios of male to female lions, and his findings suggest that the lion population within the park is dropping. In healthy lion populations sex ratios are 2 females for every male, in Queen Elizabeth (its) the opposite, he said. Our latest lion census suggests lions in the park have declined by 50% in just 5 years. Other African reserves, such as the Maasai Mara or Serengeti, boast large lion populations, but they have measures that limit poaching and prevent lions from encroaching on livestock populations. In Queen (Elizabeth National Park) in contrast, you have 60,000 people living in the park, there are thousands of cows, and poaching rates are high, Braczkowski said. When these threats converge lions decline rapidly. Unlike other big cats, lions are social creatures, said Dr. Craig Packer, founder and director of the Lion Center at the University of Minnesota and Distinguished McKnight Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior. Packer was not involved in the research but has dedicated decades to studying African lions and is the author of The Lion: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation of an Iconic Species. Previous research has shown that big cats such as lions and tigers can swim when necessary. They have these big plate-like feet, theyre strong, and theyre going to look for ladies somewhere, Packer said after seeing the video. There was terrific incentive to get across. Looking out for one another Packers research has shown that when male lions stick together, they sire more cubs. And females in prides tend to give birth at the same time. So you get these cohorts of youngsters that grow up together, and they form a coalition, Packer said. Now if youre a single male and you see a coalition of nine males, you would do more than just swim across the channel. Jacob (left) and Tibu stretch before going on an evening hunt. - Alex Braczkowski/Griffith University Lions of the same gender are incredibly affectionate with each other, and they regard each other as lifelines, he said. Even groups of two or three males have a much better life expectancy, and solitary lions have a smaller chance of survival, Packer said. So, its no surprise that Jacob and Tibu have stuck together, which has enabled them to survive. Multiple agencies have also stepped in to provide Jacob with veterinary assistance over the years, Braczkowski said. But the biggest threat to lion populations is dwindling land, Packer said. As the human population near wildlife reserves grows, more land is dedicated to agricultural spaces, reducing the areas where lions can roam and hunt for prey. Then, the lions cross over into populated areas and attack cattle. Seeing Jacob and Tibus river crossing shows the lengths lions will go to for new living spaces and mates, Braczkowski said. These kinds of behaviors are emblematic of wildlife having to make increasingly risky decisions for resources and mates in human dominated landscapes, Biggs said in an email. If conservation is going to work for lions in places where people live, we need economic models that will support the communities that live closely to lions and suffer the brunt of their conflict with cattle. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Thunderstorms with hail, severe winds expected in El Paso on Wednesday Rain, wind and hail are expected to hit El Paso as more thunderstorms move into the area on Wednesday, June 10. The afternoon storms could produce quarter-sized hail, severe winds and flash flooding, according to the National Weather Service. Its still early in the monsoon season it began on June 15 and runs through Monday, Sept. 30 but unexpected moisture levels in the atmosphere are impacting rainfall levels in the region. While most flooding happens in mountain areas, El Paso and Las Cruces experience flooding in lowland areas with poor draining, said Kerwyn Texeira with the National Weather Service. The afternoon storms on July 10 could produce quarter-sized hail, severe winds and flash flooding. El Paso can expect a marginal risk of thunderstorms, along with nearby Dona Ana County, according to a National Weather Service map. The biggest threat to rainfall still lies in the areas impacted by recent wildfires. As of now, our main area of concern is in the Northern Sacramento Mountains due to the burn scar from recent fires, Texeira said. With a burn scar area, it would not take a lot of rainfall to cause flooding." More: It's monsoon season, but when will it rain? Here's what National Weather Service said El Paso can expect a marginal risk of thunderstorms, along with nearby Dona Ana County on July 10, according to a National Weather Service map. More thunderstorms are expected on Thursday, July 11, before dry air moves in, according to the National Weather Service. Rain chances dwindle on Friday, July 12 and Saturday, July 13, before moisture returns for more possible thunderstorms next week. Ruidoso continues evacuations, closures The village of Ruidoso urged some areas to evacuate on Tuesday, June 9. Residents were instructed to leave belongings and move to higher ground immediately. Due to flooding, all bridge crossings were also closed. One video captured a woman stranded in her home while water rushed by just inches from her doorstep. With more rain on the way, burn scars created by the South Fork and Salt Fires could make the situation even more dire. The village warned flooding could continue to be dangerous for residents living in downstream areas. Sandbags available at El Paso Water distribution sites El Paso Water announced its seasonal sandbag distribution centers are now open. Sandbags are free for residents who show a Texas ID or water bill. Stormwater Operations Center: 4801 Fred Wilson Ave.; hours: Monday-Friday: 8 a.m.-8 p.m., Saturday-Sunday: 2 p.m.-8 p.m. Artcraft Booster Station: 7830 Paseo Del Norte; hours: Monday-Sunday: 2 p.m.-8 p.m. Black Chesher Park: 9292 Escobar Drive; hours: Monday-Sunday: 2 p.m.- 8 p.m. This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Monsoon season brings flash flooding risk to El Paso and Las Cruces (Bloomberg) -- Like most 75-year-olds, NATO needs some help reaching out to the younger generation. Most Read from Bloomberg The military alliance is this week wrestling with such heady topics as the eventual accession of Ukraine and the ailing health of the octogenarian US president. To stay relevant in the modern era, it has turned to a group of 20-something influencers to spread its message. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization invited 16 content creators from countries including the UK, Germany and France with followings on TikTok, Instagram and other social-media platforms to attend its summit in Washington on July 9-11. Another 10 influencers from the US will come at the invitation of the US Defense and State Departments. The move is an acknowledgment that the traditional media outlets, which are offering wall-to-wall coverage of the summit, may not be reaching Generation Z. It also shows how long-standing institutions like NATO increasingly need to think outside the box to bolster public support especially at a time when former President Donald Trump and other Republicans have advocated for the US to cut spending on European defense. The alliance paid for the content creators travel expenses but doesnt exert any editorial control over their posts and wont pay them a fee, according to a spokesman. It didnt confirm the names of the invited influencers, but the official NATO social media accounts feature an explainer video about the origins of the alliance, narrated by 25-year-old DC social-media fixture and an advocate for vibrant masculinity, Anthony Polcari. Creators will be given the opportunity to attend the NATO Public Forum and engage with numerous experts and senior NATO and allied officials, the spokesman said in an email. And its not a first a group of content creators visited NATO headquarters in Brussels in April to mark its 75th anniversary. A similar program was organized in 2022. Polcari said in an interview that he was invited to help with the introductory video but was unable to join the influencer program during the summit due to a scheduling conflict. He believes that content creators like him can help convey NATOs message to a generation on the cusp of taking power. Our generation is going to be taking the reins of power very soon. Many people, a lot smarter than me, are going to be leading this country, he said. I think its incumbent upon these organizations to make sure that the younger generations know what they do. Necessary Organization At the Canadian embassy in Washington on Tuesday, 22-year-old Amanda Round sat in the media section listening to Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus speech on the security implications of climate change. She listened carefully, considering how to convey the days events to her 161,700 TikTok followers. Round said members of her generation dont really consume traditional media, particularly if its behind a paywall. They tend to get their information from social media instead, she said. She has seen disinformation and misinformation spread like wildfire, and views the invitation from NATO as an important opportunity to help her audience mostly girls and young women aged 16 to 24 understand NATOs importance. I believe that its a necessary organization, obviously in our political climate right now in terms of defense, but also in terms of other looming threats such as climate change, she said in an interview. I would encourage young people to become more engaged with it. The group of nearly 30 influencers in Washington this week has an audience of around 40 million across social media channels, a State Department spokesperson said in an email. We know that more and more people are receiving news through social media channels, including via content creators, the spokesperson said. During the NATO Summit, we are engaging with these voices to reach additional audiences and explain the importance of the alliance and its 75th Anniversary. --With assistance from Iain Marlow. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Senator Timothy Kaine gave a vague answer when asked about his thoughts on Joe Biden continuing his campaign to be reelected as president. Speaking to NewsNations Joe Khalil Wednesday, Kaine said, I have complete confidence that Joe Biden will do the patriotic thing for the country. And hes going to make that decision. Hes never disappointed me. Hes always put patriotism and the country ahead of himself, and Im going to respect the decision that he makes. Sen. Tim Kaine to @JoeKhalilTV: "I have complete confidence that Joe Biden will do the patriotic thing for the country. And he's going to make that decision. He's never disappointed me. pic.twitter.com/3k3ykeJmbD Kristen Eskow (@KristenEskow) July 10, 2024 What decision would that be, though? Biden has already said that he will not drop out of the race, so the ominous wording hints at what Kaine really thinks the president should do. The Virginia senator is a senior member of the party, having also served as the states governor and lieutenant governor, and was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2016. His opinion carries a lot of weight and signals that Biden has not won over his party, even after he has declared that he wants to stay on the ticket. Virginia, normally a solid Democratic state, was not polling well for Biden even before his disastrous debate two weeks ago. An internal Democratic poll taken 72 hours after the debate showed the state in play for Donald Trump, so Kaines opinion could be reflecting that of the states electorate at the moment. Kaines words also echo another leading Democrat, Representative Nancy Pelosi, who said on Wednesday morning that I want him to decide whatever he decides to do, and thats the way it is, whatever he decides, we go in. Both Pelosi and Kaine were given chances to give their unequivocal support to Bidens reelection campaign, and each declined. Right now, the mood among Democrats appears worried at best. A closed-door meeting of the House Democratic caucus revealed a party very much divided on Bidens prospects. While Biden is trying to tamp down calls for him to withdraw, many Democrats want just the opposite and are willing to say so privately and publicly. If party leaders like Kaine and Pelosi continue to hedge, will Bidens stance lead to a party revolt? EXCLUSIVE: No, Trump Didn't Ask Tim Scott If He Thought The Election was Rigged As Part of VP Vetting Sen. Tim Scott (R) (R-SC) shakes hands with Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the Grappone Convention Center on January 19, 2024 - Image: Chip Somodevilla (Getty Images) Both Democrats and Republicans are holding their breath, patiently waiting for GOP nominee Donald Trump to reveal who he wants to be his running mate come November. On his short list of potentials are Senators Marco Rubio, Fla., J.D. Vance, OH and Tim Scott from South Carolina, according to Forbes. Although the former president has not decided when he will announce his candidate for VP, many in the Trump campaign say he is close to finalizing his decision. Trumps former national security advisor, John Bolton recently appeared on CNNs The Source to predict how the former president will select his running mate. According to Bolton, Trump is only asking two questions: Do you think the 2020 election was stolen? and If I told you to do what I told [Vice President] Mike Pence to do on Jan. 6, would you do it? Whether Bolton meant his comments as fact or just prediction, social media and media outlets are perceiving it as fact. Senator Scott sat down in an exclusive 33-minute interview with Tatsha Robertson, Editor-in-Chief of the Root, and said rumors are totally false. According to Scott, those questions arent being asked... and he continued to say President Trump has never asked those questions of any of the contenders for vice president. Scott also suggested these questions wouldnt even matter to the overall selection of Trumps running mate. When asked if he believed the 2020 election was stolen, Scott replied Vice President Pence did the right thing. He continued to say Pence confirmed the 2020 election because it was an election that needed to be certified. As the first Black Republican Senator elected in the South since Reconstruction, he is arguably the most prominent Black Republican in recent years. Even though Scott has been criticized for his close relationship with the Trump Administration and even ran against the former president during the Republican primary, he continued during the interview to speak highly of Trump and Trumps time in office. When asked about Trumps racially-motivated comments, the senator turned the tables and pointed to comments made by Biden and Democrats. He also claimed that the former president has done more for Black Americans than Biden or his administration. (Come back tomorrow to read more about Tim Scotts comments to the Black Community) For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Time almost up for mystery winner of unclaimed $1 million Powerball prize in Kansas Time almost up for mystery winner of unclaimed $1 million Powerball prize in Kansas Update: This prize was claimed just before noon on July 10. Learn more here. TOPEKA (KSNT) The clock is ticking for the winner of a Powerball prize valued at $1 million through the Kansas Lottery. Purchasing a lucky ticket valued at $1 million is usually a cause for celebration. However, the winner of one such prize in the Sunflower State is running out of time to claim the winnings as a September deadline approaches. Cory Thone with the Kansas Lottery told 27 News in a written statement that winners of Powerball prizes like this have one calendar year to collect their money. For this prize, the largest currently sitting unclaimed in Kansas, the deadline is fast approaching on Sept. 27, 2024. They were our family: Topeka woman grieves after soul-shattering loss of 9 pets in house fire Per Kansas Lottery policy, if the prize money is still unclaimed by that date, it will be put back into the prize pool for use in future winnings. Thone is hoping to raise awareness about the prize before the deadline passes. It is unusual for a prize of this size to go unclaimed, Thone said. It is not uncommon for a player to wait several months before claiming their prize, so we have our fingers crossed that they are just biding their time! If claimed before Sept. 27, the prize will amount to $710,000 after the 5% state tax and 24% federal tax on the cash. The winning numbers for the prize were 1-7-46-47-63 with a Powerball of 7. The south-central region where the ticket was purchased include the following counties: Barton Rice McPherson Marion Stafford Reno Harvey Pratt Kingman Sedgwick Butler Barber Harper Sumner Cowley Scammer drains Kansas victims debit card down to $6 You can check the full list of unclaimed lottery prizes in Kansas by clicking here. For more Kansas news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Follow Matthew Self on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MatthewLeoSelf Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. Sir Tony Blair left office 17 years ago but his influence and legacy remain strong. The former prime minister is busy offering advice to his successor Sir Keir Starmer. His institute is also urging the new administration to embrace the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence. These could transform poor productivity in the public sector, making it better and cheaper to run. The number crunchers at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change have calculated that 40 per cent of the tasks in the Department for Work and Pensions, for instance, could be automated and they would improve as a result. Since there are 90,000 staff in the department, the trade unions will doubtless have something to say about any job losses, especially as Labour plans to enhance workers rights. Indeed, Sir Tony is right, but you can be certain the area most likely to resist it will be the public sector. The former prime minister has also advised Sir Keir to get tough on immigration, which may invite a hollow laugh from the country since it was after he took office in 1997 that the numbers soared. Sir Tony says this was because he did not block the free movement to the UK of people from Eastern European countries joining the EU. This brought millions into the country, which helped bankroll Labour spending. It was done deliberately but the party claimed that just a few thousand would take up the opportunity. Sir Tony said that most of those people were single Europeans, whereas now they are people from Africa and Asia. He stopped himself from expanding on this point, even as he warned about the need to confront the threat posed by Reform UK. Why so reluctant to join the dots? 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. Tony Blair is right about two crucial things but Labour is in denial You dont need to be a fan of Tony Blair to know that he is surely right about at least two of the things he has been highlighting this week. One is that, unless something is done to cure Britains miserable productivity record, taxes will have to rise further to pay for the countrys ageing population, rendering everyone relatively worse off over time. The other is that AI offers possible salvation, with the potential to cut the public sector headcount by anything up to 40pc. Technology, it is hoped, is about to come to our rescue. Getting more for less from our public services has long been the holy grail of government ministers. There is nothing particularly original or insightful about Blairs observations. The potentially transformative powers of AI were a particular hobby horse of the last chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, but the electoral cycle intervened before he could properly road test his ideas. The need for radical action has also been self-evident for a long time now. Both in absolute terms and relative to private enterprise, the public sector headcount has been on a relentless upward trajectory ever since the vote for Brexit eight years ago. Under George Osborne as chancellor, the Government had made some progress in reducing the numbers from the record levels that presided at the tail end of the Blair/Brown government. But all that hard work has since been squandered, and we are now back to where we were when Labour was last in office. The pandemic is plainly the main immediate explanation for this explosion in public sector employment, yet it had been rising strongly from well before then. Nor has there been any improvement since. To the contrary, the latest statistics to March this year show a continued rise, with total public sector employment reaching its highest level since early 2012. At the same time, standards have plunged our public services have become an object of national shame. Sadly, we have had to get used to paying more for less. All economies have their breaking points the threshold at which any additional rise in the tax burden starts to impact growth and therefore becomes counterproductive in terms of its revenue raising purpose. For some, the threshold is higher than others. The Nordics seem to sustain a particularly high tax burden without undue damage to the wider economy. France, too, appears to tolerate a very high level of tax, but somehow still manages to show some growth. But for Britain, it seems to be much lower at around a third of GDP. Anything below is likely to be stimulative much above it and growth begins to falter. At a projected 37pc, the UK is already right up there on the very edge of its pain threshold. It cannot afford to go much higher. Back to Blairs analysis. As it happens, the last government was already on the case. Hunts last Budget was all about productivity, though nobody took much notice amid the wider spectacle of the Tory partys slow motion train crash. Yet the thinking was spot on. To pay for extra spending on defence, the then government committed to shrinking the size of the civil service back down to at least pre-Covid levels. It also earmarked 3.4bn for health service IT, with the aim of improving NHS productivity growth from its present level of 1.5pc per annum to just under 2pc. This might not seem an overly ambitious target, but set against overall trend productivity growth in the public sector of a negligible 0.5pc, it would have been a major step forward. Underpinning it all was the idea that AI, if effectively applied, could free up resources for front line services, thereby delivering the prize of more for less. Hope is not a strategy, it is often said, but a good deal of it has been vested in the idea that AI is capable of providing a catch-all solution to the problem of public sector reform. The history of this stuff, it has to be said, is not encouraging. It is hard to recall a public sector IT project that has delivered as hoped. In the NHS, the record has been poor to abysmal. An IT system to digitise patient records, said to be the largest in the world at the time, was finally abandoned in 2013 at a cost of more than 10bn. As for the Post Offices Horizon IT system, the least said the better. There are exceptions. The Passport Office, which only a few years back was thought of as a complete basket case, seems now to function remarkably effectively on a substantially automated basis. All the same, the case for AI is far from proven. Widely assumed to be the eminence grise behind the new prime minister and the rest of the Labour leadership, Blair may not in any case be as influential as he seems. His resurrected idea of ID cards as a gateway to more efficient public services as well as a mechanism for controlling migration has already been slapped down by both the new Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, and the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper. It looks too much like Big Brother for their taste. You also have to wonder just how robust Labour is going to prove in holding the line even on public sector pay, let alone allowing AI to cut a deep swathe across public sector employment, as Blair suggests it should. As prime minister, Blair avoided confrontation with public sector unions like the plague, mindful perhaps of the damage inflicted on previous Labour governments by repeated bouts of industrial strife. But economic conditions were far more benign when he ruled the roost and, largely defanged by previous Conservative governments, the unions were easier to manage. Today is completely different, and much more challenging. If Labour caves in, and gives junior doctors the 35pc pay rise they demand, it will set off a domino effect of increased pay demands across the public sector, and all those campaign pledges from Chancellor Rachel Reeves not to raise taxes will fly out the window. The Tony Blair Institute calculates that such are the pressures on public spending from an ageing population that, without a change in approach, taxes would need to rise by 2pc of GDP by the end of this Parliament, 3pc by the end of the next Parliament, and 4.5pc by 2040. These would be German levels of taxation in GDP, but without the Vorsprung durch Technik of German public services. Structurally, it would be very hard for the UK economy to cope with. Growth would struggle, and British living standards would fall further behind other advanced economies. Widely applied, AI offers the prospect of less alarming alternatives, but does Labour have either the stomach or the vision for it? 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. The News European Council President Charles Michel carefully voiced concerns about the potential return of Donald Trump to the White House in November, telling Semafor he has doubts about the former presidents support for a strong and stable European Union. I feel the sincerity of [US President] Joe Biden and his administration to support the EU integration because I think Joe Biden understands very well that the EU integration, a strong and stable EU, a strong and prosperous EU, a strong and secure EU, this is good for the world, this is good for the United States, he said in an interview Wednesday in Washington on the sidelines of the NATO summit. I am not certain that Trump has the same conviction, Michel said. Michel, who said he hasnt had any recent contact with Trumps team, noted the two did interact when Trump was president and he was serving as Belgiums prime minister. He added that the choice is ultimately the responsibility of the American electorate. Europeans will work with the American administration in the future and we will defend and promote our common values, our common interests, and defend our interests, he said. Michel also noted that, across Democrats and the GOP, there is a similar approach in terms of economic protectionism, referring to trade. The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment. Asked whether he has confidence in Bidens ability to lead the US given the doubts over his mental acuity following the June presidential debate, Michel declined to comment. This is really part of the electoral debate in the United States and Im not going to comment on the question, he said. Know More Michel also rebuked Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his recent trip to Moscow for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing it as a political mistake and a blatant violation of the principle of loyal cooperation among the European institutions. He welcomed plans by EU members to show Orban, who recently took over the rotating EU presidency, a yellow card and to express their objections. This situation has shown the very strong unity of the member states to support Ukraine and to make clear this rotating presidency, when he went to Moscow, was not speaking on behalf of the EU and was not expressing the EUs position, Michel, who initially raised objections to Orbans trip last week, told Semafor. The View From Trump In an interview with Fox News Radio on Wednesday, Trump said that NATO countries should be happy if he is reelected because you wouldnt have had Ukraine attacked if I were president. Trump also said he isnt seeking to pull the US out of NATO, but he also accused Europe of taking advantage of the US. I just want them to pay their bills, he said. Step Back Semafor interviewed Michel as NATO member states gathered to ink plans to support Ukraine amid Russias brutal war, including a commitment to provide a minimum of 40 billion support for Kyiv in the next year. Biden also announced Tuesday evening that the US, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, and Italy would provide Ukraine with additional air defense systems to help defend against Russian strikes. And leaders plan to move control of elements of Ukraine military aid from the US to NATO control, in what some have described as a push to Trump-proof the alliance. The former president has pushed NATO allies to spend more on defense and suggested the US may not defend those who do not meet specific targets. The forthcoming NATO communique is set to declare that Ukraines path toward membership in the alliance is irreversible, and to sharply criticize China for its support to Russias defense industrial base. I believe that the path to NATO for Ukraine is irreversible, Michel said in the interview. I feel that NATO will be stronger in the future with Ukraine as a NATO member. Over the long term, European nations are also trying to boost their own domestic defense production capabilities as the US puts its focus on China and becomes increasingly isolationist. We understand that we have to develop our own sovereignty, our own autonomy, not to take distance from the United States but to be a stronger ally and to be a better partner and also because we have our own interests that we have to defend, Michel said. We see and we accept that for the United States, its a bipartisan approach, China is the topic number one and the competition between the United States and China is totally number one for the United States. We respect that. Notable Trump will broker peace in Ukraine if he is reelected , US House Speaker Mike Johnson told Semafor in an interview earlier this week. Michel snapped back at Trump earlier this year for suggesting Europe needed to do more to support Ukraine. Some top European officials have met with Keith Kellogg , a former Trump White House official, while in town for the NATO summit, Reuters reported. After his Putin meeting, Orban surprised Europe with a visit to China. (The Hill) George Clooney, who just last month hosted a star-studded fundraiser for Joe Bidens campaign, is reversing course, saying Democrats are not going to win in November with this president. I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, hes won many of the battles hes faced, the Ticket to Paradise star, one of Hollywoods most prominent Democratic supporters, said in an editorial published Wednesday in The New York Times. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can, Clooney wrote of the 81-year-old commander-in-chief. Last month, Clooney joined former President Barack Obama and actor Julia Roberts for a buzzy and record-breaking Los Angeles fundraiser for Bidens campaign. The event raised $30 million. But in his New York Times essay, Clooney acknowledged that he observed a difference in Biden at the glitzy fundraiser. Its devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate, Clooney wrote. Bidens shaky performance, which critics and some allies described as disastrous, in his debate last month against former President Donald Trump in Atlanta renewed concerns about his age and viability as the Democratic presidential candidate. Several House Democrats have called on Biden to exit the White House race an idea that hes repeatedly rejected. Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didnt see what we just saw. Were all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that weve opted to ignore every warning sign, Clooney, 63, said. Biden leads Trump among Asian American voters, but sees drop from 2020: Poll Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed, the Academy Award winner said. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we wont win the House, and were going to lose the Senate, he said, citing the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that he said he had spoken with privately. We love to talk about how the Republican Party has ceded all power, and all of the traits that made it so formidable with Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, to a single person who seeks to hold on to the presidency, and yet most of our members of Congress are opting to wait and see if the dam breaks, Clooney said. But the dam has broken, he said. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth. Reached for comment, Bidens campaign pointed to his earlier remarks indicating he has no intention of dropping out of the race. It is disingenuous, at best, to argue that Democrats have already spoken with their vote and therefore the nomination is settled and done, when we just received new and upsetting information, Clooney said. The entertainer argued that top Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside. Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would, Clooney said. Biden, Clooney wrote, is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024, he said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. New top US envoy to Taiwan pledges to help the island with self-defense as threats from China loom In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, Taiwan's President William Lai Ching-te, right pose for photos with American Institute in Taiwan's (AIT) director Raymond F. Greene in Taipei, Taiwan on July 10, 2024. Raymond who newly assumed his office on July 9, met with Taiwan President William Lai in the morning of July 10, when both reiterated on the strong partnership Taiwan and the U.S. nurtured from the past, with ups and downs. (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP) TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) The United States new top envoy to Taiwan promised Wednesday that Washington will help the self-ruled island defend itself as China ramps up its military threats. The weight of the message from Raymond Greene, who assumed his new role as director of the American Institute in Taiwan on Monday, was underscored by the strong show of force from China's People Liberation Army displayed toward Taiwan on the same day. First of all, and the most important thing, the U.S. will strongly support Taiwans self-defense capabilities, Greene said as he met with Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te. We both have common and long-term interests in peace and stability over the Taiwan Strait. Lai said Taiwan will strive to maintain the status quo with Beijing, which claims the island democracy of 23 million people as its own territory, to be reclaimed by force if necessary. Taiwans Defense Ministry also said Wednesday it detected 36 Chinese military jets, including J-16 fighters and H-6 bombers, flying south and southeast of the island and headed into the Western Pacific to carry out drills with Chinas Shandong aircraft carrier. By Thursday morning, that number had ratcheted up to 66 warplanes in total, across a 24-hour period. Taiwan also said it tracked 7 warships around its waters. The U.S., like most countries, does not recognize Taiwan as a country. But it's the islands main partner and is bound by U.S. laws to provide it with the means to defend itself. Less than a month ago, the U.S. State Department approved the sale to Taiwan of missiles and drones for an estimated $360 million. In April, the House of Representatives approved an $8 billion military aid package for Taiwan. Taiwan and the U.S. are solid partners to each other who strive to maintain regional peace and stability, Lai said Wednesday. The Chinese government didnt immediately comment on the meeting. The American Institute in Taiwan functions as a de facto embassy. Taipei also operates an Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S. and similar de facto embassies in other countries. China has ramped up its military pressure against the island since Lai took office in May. Beijing sees Lai as a separatist and refuses to speak with him. In late June, Beijing threatened to hunt down and execute hardcore Taiwan independence supporters. In response, Taipei urged its citizens to avoid traveling to China and the semi-autonomous Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macao. TOPEKA (KSNT) City Councilmember Spencer Duncan discussed the Westover murder, property taxes, the new city manager and a new tree trimming ordinance on the 27 News Morning Show on Wednesday. Duncan discussed a petition calling for a public vote before raising property taxes and what the city could do for property tax relief. Duncan said the city should consider budget cuts and holding property taxes steady. He mentioned a property tax rebate program the council passed last year. Duncan said hed like to expand the property tax rebate program. While this petition has good heart, its not the right vehicle to get us to the destination, Duncan said. Newest Topeka coffee shop celebrates grand opening Duncan mentioned the new City Manager Robert Perez who took the position in the last week of June. He has a vision which is one of the reasons we hired him and hes already working on ways to put that vision into place, Duncan said. 27 News asked Duncan what he thought about the individual in the Westover murder case not yet being charged. Duncan said from the citys perspective the police did their job and will continue the investigation. Topeka leaders cast aside property tax petition Im very confident that the police got on this very fast and took the appropriate actions, Duncan said. You can watch the full interview above. For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. TOPEKA (KSNT) Topeka City Council has cast aside an ordinance on property taxes. A petition brought by Topeka resident Earl McIntosh sought to require a vote by citizens, to approve any property tax increase. McIntosh gathered thousands of signatures on the petition. This forced the City Council, by law, to consider his proposal. The city had three choices; pass the proposal as it is, put it to a city-wide vote, or do nothing. City leaders chose to do nothing. The City attorney said the ordinance is not legally valid, giving the council the right to take no action on it. Annual Emporia firework show shoots off almost 800 shells McIntosh and his lawyer disagree. KSNT 27 News spoke to McIntosh who said it is time for city leaders to take action. It affects everybody. Like I mentioned earlier, you know who really pays the most? People who are on fixed income, McIntosh said. These people work hard all their lives and then they get taxed out of their homes. Thats not fair and thats not right. McIntosh and his lawyer told 27 News they are not giving up on the petition and that they are reviewing their options. They said they may take legal action against the city. For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. It's tornado season. These are the 3 biggest tornadoes to ever hit Massachusetts. When you hear about bad tornadoes, do you think of Massachusetts? If the answer is no, you should think again, because the Bay State has seen its share of twisters bad ones, in fact. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 190 tornadoes have been recorded in Massachusetts since 1951. Tornado season in Massachusetts runs during the summer months, with many of the storms sparked by powerful thunderstorms. In fact, one of the expensive tornadoes in American history struck Central Massachusetts, claiming many lives and destroying property. Here are some details about the three most destructive tornadoes to ever touch down in the commonwealth. How are tornadoes measured? They are measured through what's called the Fujita Scale. Through this, tornado severity is ranked from F1 to F5 (the "F" stands for Fujita), with F5 being the worst on the scale. An F5 is the most powerful level for a tornado. The inventor of the Fujita Scale was Dr. Tetsuya Theodore Fujita. The Worcester tornado of 1953 The worst tornado on record in Massachusetts was June 9, 1953, when a tornado that was a mile wide ripped through Worcester and the surrounding area, lasting nearly 90 minutes. The path stretched from Petersham to Southborough, according to historical records. The Fujita Scale wasn't in use yet, but meteorologists believe it was an F4 and likely reached F5 intensity in some locations. The tornado brought hailstones the size of baseballs and winds exceeding 300 mph. Debris was thrown as far as Cape Cod. According to the Massachusetts Historical Society, the tornado killed 94 people and injured 1,288 others. About 4,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed with the damage valued at nearly $600 million in today's dollars. "When it hit the county seat of Worcester the second most populated city in Massachusetts and home to over 200,000 people at the time the storm was a mile wide," the Massachusetts Historical Society wrote. "Ten thousand residents, or 5% of the population, lost their homes that day." Sen. John F. Kennedy inspects tornado damage on St. James Road in Shrewsbury with Melissa Tyler, 13, and Richard Meyer, 15. The Springfield tornado of 2011 The second worst tornado in Massachusetts was the Springfield tornado that hit June 1, 2011, spawned out of a supercell thunderstorm. The F3 tornado traveled 39 miles through Hampden and Worcester counties, ripping through West Springfield, Westfield, Springfield, Monson, Hampden, Wilbraham, Brimfield, Sturbridge, Southbridge and Charlton. It spent a total of one hour and 10 minutes on the ground. In the end, the tornado killed three people, injured about 200 others and left hundreds homeless. It is considered one of the deadliest, costliest tornadoes in Massachusetts history. June 2011 tornado: Damage in Brimfield included this overturned recreational vehicle at Village Green Family Campground, in which Virginia Darlow was killed. The West Stockbridge tornado of 1973 This tornado started in New York before crossing the border into West Stockbridge Aug. 28, 1973. "The carnage, the destruction, was hard to imagine unless you saw it," Lawrence Tonini, the town's assistant fire chief at the time, told the Berkshire Eagle. The tornado traveled on the ground for six miles in the town. The Tornado Project reported that four people were killed and 31 people were injured as a result of the twister. How many deadly tornadoes have there been in Massachusetts? Massachusetts had the distinction of being home to the first tornado ever recorded in America. On July 8, 1680, a tornado hit Cambridge, killing one person. According to The Tornado Project 14 other deadly tornadoes have hit the state, for a total of 16 deadly tornadoes. This article originally appeared on wickedlocal.com: Massachusetts tornadoes history: These are the 3 biggest to hit MA Tourist Trampled to Death by Elephant in South Africa While Taking Photos at National Park The tragic incident occurred during a drive in the park on July 7 Arterra/Marica van der Meer/Universal Images Group via Getty An African bush elephant in the Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa A Spanish tourist has been trampled to death by an elephant at a national park in South Africa, local authorities have shared. The 43-year-old man was killed after an adult elephant charged at him as he allegedly left his vehicle to take photos of a breeding herd at Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa on Sunday, July 7, The North West Parks and Tourism Board confirmed the incident, Newzroom Afrika, NBC News and The Guardian reported. Authorities from the Spanish government identified the victim as Carlos Luna from Zaragoza, Spain, per Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. His body is being retrieved to be brought back to Spain, according to the outlet. Luna had been traveling with his fiancee and two other women when he left their vehicle to snap the photo, NBC News reported. An elephant then separated from its group and attacked him. The other passengers were left unharmed, according to the outlet, but Luna was rushed to hospital. He later died there from his injuries. Related: American Tourist, 64, Dies After Elephant 'Knocked' Her from Vehicle and Trampled Her in Zambia Despite warnings from his fellow passengers, and occupants from two other vehicles that were at the sighting, he unfortunately did not heed their warnings, the North West Parks and Tourism Board said in a statement obtained by The Guardian. An adult elephant cow charged at the man, who then ran from the elephant. He was unfortunately not able to escape or evade the elephant, which was now joined by the whole herd, and was caught and trampled to death. The board added that tourists are forever educated on the importance of remaining in the safety of the vehicle as the animals are "unpredictable" and that tourists must respect distance between vehicles and animals and allow them first right of passage, and to only alight in specially designated areas. Condolences were passed by the board on to the victims family. Getty A 43-year-old man has died after being trampled by an elephant at Pilanesberg National Park Related: American Tourist, 80, Dead After 'Aggressive' Bull Elephant Charges at Safari Vehicle in Zambia Pieter Nel, the boards chief conservation officer told Newsroom Afrika following the attack: Were not going to act against the elephants there was a breeding group, they acted in defense of their family. ... After the attack, they simply just turned around and disappeared into the world. So theres no action planned against that. I think it was a pure natural instinct for them to respond so we dont plan anything further. A police investigation has opened following the incident. 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. PEOPLE has reached out to the North West Parks and Tourism board for further comment. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. African elephants remain endangered across the continent, making seeing one of these majestic animals in person an incredible gift. One visitor to a South African wildlife reserve, however, experienced what can happen if you get too close to them. According to South Africa's The Citizen newspaper, a herd of elephants trampled a Spanish tourist to death at Pilanesberg National Park on July 7. It reportedly happened after the unnamed 43-year-old visitor got out of his vehicle and got close to the massive animals to snap some photos. He was quickly rushed to the hospital but succumbed to his injuries. The man's fiancee and two other women were also in the vehicle but weren't harmed. There were some young elephant calves in the herd, which could explain if the elephants were protective of their young and trying to ward off a perceived threat. Piet Nel, acting chief conservation officer for the North West Parks and Tourism Board, reiterated the rules of Pilanesberg National Park for all visitors. He noted that guests are told not to leave their vehicles while driving through the park and are required to sign forms confirming they understand all regulations. "In some cases, people are oblivious to the dangers in the parks," Nel said, according to The Associated Press. "We must remember that you are entering a wild area." An anonymous park employee told The Citizen that just because it's a contained zone doesn't mean the animals don't pose any real danger. "Visitors to the park must realize that these are wild animals," they said. "You cannot simply get out of your vehicle and approach an animal. Selfies or getting closer photo opportunities with an animal that may see you as a threat or invader of their territory can have dire consequences." (Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co. sees the addition of AI features as the key to reclaiming its title as the worlds leading maker of foldables, mobile chief TM Roh said on the eve of unveiling its latest models. Most Read from Bloomberg The company that pioneered the foldables segment in 2019 staged a gala event in Paris on Wednesday to unveil its new products, the $1,100 Galaxy Z Flip 6 and $1,900 Galaxy Z Fold 6. Both are the slimmest and lightest iterations of their respective lines and both come with a price tag thats $100 higher. Samsungs new phones add a bevy of new artificial intelligence features that Roh said would help differentiate the companys products and fire up sales. Among them is an automatic interpreter that now works with calls in social apps like WhatsApp or WeChat to allow people to converse in different languages, extending the function first introduced with regular phone calls with the Galaxy S24. Samsungs Galaxy AI suite also benefits from Googles AI tools, which the Alphabet Inc. unit is propagating across Android. We continue to work closely with Google on our Galaxy devices because they are our strongest partner ever, 55-year-old Roh said in an interview in Paris. But Samsung is working with other partners, like Microsoft Corp. and its Copilot+ Windows software, and is open to collaborating with AI startups to meet the evolving consumer demands from this rapidly developing field of technology, he added. Rick Osterloh, Googles senior vice president of platforms and devices, also reaffirmed the companys plans to roll out an extended-reality headset platform with Samsung. Roh said separately on stage that Samsungs XR device is coming this year. Roh has sought to position Samsung as the purveyor of open standards and ecosystems, in contrast to Apple Inc.s proprietary tech, and the new foldable Galaxy handsets come only weeks ahead of the debut of iPhones with Apples new AI services on board. More challenging in the foldable segment, perhaps, will be competition from Chinese Android device makers, which have accounted for much of the growth in the category over the past year. Chinas local service content ecosystem is very strong, and we have been working very closely with the big service content companies to optimize for the Chinese market, Roh said. The executive had put a priority on breaking through in China the worlds biggest smartphone market, where Samsung commands only a small fraction of sales and is now pursuing that goal by targeting the premium tier with products better customized for the local consumer. For the Chinese Galaxy AI, were going to have strategic cooperation with big Chinese IT companies. Story continues Samsung adopted Baidu Inc.s AI tools for its Galaxy S24 release in China earlier this year, substituting Google, whose software is not available in China. Roh declined to specify what additional partners Samsung may be working with or consider, but nodded that the Baidu linkup will continue. The new handsets improvements come largely on the software side. The updated Samsung Keyboard will generate text based on keywords, reflecting the users usual tone by analyzing their previous social media posts. Samsungs S Pen stylus on the Fold can also be used to sketch an idea or draw on top of photos, which the device will then convert into a generated image. The new foldables come as part of a wave of new devices introduced by Samsung in Paris. The companys effort to build out an ecosystem of products leans heavily into health and wellness as well as the premium segments of each category, with the highlight debuts being the new $400 Galaxy Ring and $650 Galaxy Watch Ultra. Samsung also introduced refreshed models of its Galaxy Buds earphones, starting at $180, and a $300 Galaxy Watch 7. The company is opening pre-orders immediately. (Adds comments on timing for XR platform in fifth paragraph) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Tow truck driver among 2 killed during apparent shootout on Far South Side: CPD Tow truck driver among 2 killed during apparent shootout on Far South Side: CPD CHICAGO Two people were killed after an exchange of gunfire on the citys Far South Side, according to Chicago police. Police responded to a person shot in the 11300 block of South Lowe around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. Upon arrival, officers found a 59-year-old man and a 45-year-old man who were both shot. Police said the 59-year-old, who was operating a tow truck, was shot in the head and pronounced dead on the scene. The 45-year-old was shot multiple times and transported to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. ISP: Fatal crash shuts down all lanes on part of outbound Kennedy Expressway According to police, a preliminary investigation indicates that there was an exchange of gunfire between the two men. Police have not revealed the circumstances surrounding the shooting. Area Two Detectives are investigating the deadly shootout. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Emotional pleas on social media about dogs dying because of toxic algae blooms are heart-wrenching. But are they true? A private Facebook group devoted to Lake Mead went through the topic a couple of weeks ago and the original post is no longer visible, having devolved into a nasty argument over who is right and who is wrong. Now a new video originally posted on TikTok is making the rounds, and immediately misinforming the Facebook audience with an overline, Blue green algae at Lake Tahoe and Lake Mead causing dog deaths. The video doesnt say a word about Lake Mead. The video telling the story of a family dogs death at Lake Tahoe also doesnt say specifically where the incident occurred. A CBS report on Tuesday focused on El Dorado Beach on the California side of the border, but the dog might have been exposed at Nevada Beach. The videos claims were not confirmed, but the CBS report revealed that officials are testing the water at both beaches. Test results will not be available for five to seven days. Now a Nevada Department of Health and Human Services dashboard is adding some hard data on the topic, and its clear that if dogs are dying the state has not been notified or at least there has been no confirmation. A map of Nevada lakes and reservoirs shows four of 24 sites monitored for algae blooms are currently on watch status, indicating hazardous conditions are likely present. Lake Mead and Lake Mohave are among the 20 sites with no bloom advisories in place. The four sites under watch in Nevada: Eagle Valley Reservoir (Lincoln County) Lahontan Reservoir (Lyon County) Virginia Lake (Washoe County) Washoe Lakes (Washoe County) By Wednesday morning (July 10), three additional reservoirs had been added: Chimney Reservoir (Humboldt County), South Fork Reservoir (Lyon County) and Wild Horse Reservoir (Elko County). The dashboard still indicated no illnesses have been confirmed. The dashboard includes information on each sites status and the number of human and/or animal illnesses reported. A description on the Overview tab summarizes of the possible dangers and what to look for. As of July 9, there have been no illnesses, human or otherwise, that the state has confirmed. Make no mistake, its a serious problem. But social media posts deserve skepticism, particularly when there are scant facts to check for accuracy. Its easy to spread fear when theres a willing audience. While hot days have settled in for the summer, its best to rely on official sources of information when making decisions about spending your time and money and recreation is no exception. At Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which includes Lake Mohave, report suspected cases to the parks dispatch staff at 702-293-8998. Park personnel will investigate and verify the findings. The Nevada Department of Wildlife promoted the dashboard on Tuesday, linking to more tips and phone numbers to report blooms. Report harmful algal blooms to Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (NDEP): 888-331-6337 Report sick or dead wildlife to Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW): 775-688-1500 If you have any questions about cyanobacterial toxin poisoning, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 Report human and domestic animal illnesses, email stateepi@health.nv.gov. NDOWs news release on blooms also offered this email address to report suspicious blooms to the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection Biological Assessment and Monitoring Branch: wfettgather@ndep.nv.gov. Please provide a photo of the suspected HAB, to help with monitoring and response efforts. Blooms in Nevada occur in freshwater lakes, ponds, streams and rivers. They can occur throughout the year but are most common in late summer and early fall. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. Cotton supply chains have traditionally been highly opaque, but this is changing as companies adapt to a growing demand for transparency. The historic lack of visibility stems from the cotton supply chains complexity, as the fiber changes hands multiple times from field to final product. Add the incentive to chase lower costs and the pressure of quick manufacturing turnarounds, and it creates a ripe environment for substitutions to occur as companies either accidentally or knowingly try to pass off one type of cotton for another, explained executives from Oritain and Supima during Sourcing Journals Is Your Cotton Safe? Pinpointing Supply Chain Risks webinar. More from Sourcing Journal Cotton is a commodity market, and so that means that inevitably, theres a drive to source cotton at the lowest cost, said Kate Jones, senior science advisor at Oritain. That means its vulnerable to potentially unethical practices, and thats both on the cultivation side and also in the processing side. But now, the industry is starting to peel back the onion on transparency as the repercussions of getting sourcing wrong rise, said Jason Thompson, vice president of brand development at Supima. For one, legislation on forced labor and due diligenceincluding the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA)requires companies to have a better grasp on where their goods come from. Consumers are also asking more questions and becoming more skeptical of claims, requiring proof that products are legitimate. Providing authentication of product provenance, Oritain uses forensic testing to identify environmental markers specific to where plants or animals were grown or raised. Everything from the climate to the soil leaves behind trace elements, creating a unique profile that Oritain calls an Origin Fingerprint. Oritain has taken samples from farms worldwide covering about 90 percent of all cotton growing regions, allowing it to compare cotton in fiber, yarn or textile forms to this reference database of Origin Fingerprints to determine if it is a match. Unlike DNA testing that is focused on verifying that a product is a certain typesuch as Pima instead of Upland cottonOritains tests tell where something is grown. Ideally, testing happens throughout the supply chain to weed out issues before a product is finalized, preventing companies from losing sales on fully manufactured goods. Although Oritains verification alone is not a silver bullet in contesting a detention from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) since it does not provide insight into labor practices and how goods were manufactured, it is a critical piece of compliance in proving provenance, explained Jones. Story continues Supima, the brand for American-grown Pima cotton, has had a longstanding partnership with Oritain to verify that products licensing its trademark are actually made with materials that originated in the U.S. Per Thompson, the benefit of Oritain is that the testing is based on the fibers inherent qualities does not rely on additives like markers. Together, they have been able to build farm- or state-specific sourcing and verification programs, allowing brands and retailers to have a direct relationship with cotton growers. Last year, Supima introduced the AQRe Project (which stands for Authenticity, Quality and Responsibility), combining Oritains authentication with TextileGenesis transactional traceability. Both panelists noted that while there is a place for chain of custody tracking, there is a need for physical authentication to validate the data entered in these systems. Otherwise, Jones noted, it could lead to a garbage in, garbage out system. [TextileGenesis is] so much more elevated than a paper-based system transactionally, said Thompson. But again, its only as good as the information that is being fed. Having a clear picture of a products origin enables companies to more confidently talk about sourcing and sustainability claims without having to worry about greenwashing accusations. Some of Oritains customers are deploying consumer-facing communications like QR codes that tell the story of how something was made. Its not just about compliance and regulation; it is about trying to have a more sustainable sourcing and supply chain and actually telling that story [to] consumers as a point of difference, said Jones. Customers are really engaging in that story, with both their purchase and also their brand loyalty. Aside from supporting compliance and product claims, transparency also adds value to products, which has an upstream impactall the way to the farmers that grow the cotton. If we can shift the discussion towards value and away from cost, then we can see a benefit throughout the entire supply chain, said Thompson. Is Your Cotton Safe? Pinpointing Supply Chain Risks Watch the webinar to learn more about: What has traditionally held the industry back from traceable supply chains, and why that is changing How Supima and Oritain have worked together to bake traceability into Supima-branded fibers Why non-compliant cotton is still circulating, and the steps companies can take to protect themselves The remaining hurdles in scaling traceability to the entire cotton growing world How traceability and sustainability intersect Click here to watch. Scientists may have solved a lingering mystery surrounding the ice giant Uranus and its weak radiation belts. It's possible the belts' weakness is linked to the planet's curiously tilted and lopsided magnetic field; the field could be causing "traffic jams" for particles whipping around the world. The mystery dates back to Voyager 2's visit to Uranus in January 1986, far before the probe left the solar system in 2018. The spacecraft found that Uranus' magnetic field is asymmetric and tilted roughly 60 away from its spin axis. Additionally, Voyager 2 found that the radiation belts of Uranus, consisting of particles trapped by this magnetic field, are about 100 times weaker than predicted. The new research, based on simulations made using Voyager 2 data, suggests these two strange aspects of the ice giant are related. "It has a magnetic field like no other in the solar system. Most planets that have strong intrinsic magnetic fields, like Earth, Jupiter and Saturn. They have a very 'traditional' magnetic field shape, which is known as a dipole," lead author Matthew Acevski told Space.com. "This is the same magnetic field shape as you would expect from your everyday bar magnet. At Uranus, this is not the case; Uranus' field is highly asymmetric and it becomes increasingly so closer to the planets surface." Related: Uranus and Neptune are actually similar blues, 'true' color images reveal Acevski explained this research highlights how Uranus' magnetic asymmetry warps the structure of the planet's proton radiation belts, especially near the region passed by Voyager 2. "My hypothesis was that the magnetic asymmetry was warping the proton radiation belts, forming regions around the planet where the radiation belts were more compressed," Acevski said, "and, thus, with stronger intensity; other regions where they were more spread out, leading to weaker intensity. "If Voyager 2 flew through a region where the radiation belts were more spread out, that could explain its observations of weaker-than-expected proton radiation belts." A solar system anomaly The coldest planet in the solar system and the seventh planet from the sun, Uranus is odd among the other worlds of our planetary system. The ice giant rolls around like a cosmic ball, tilted in one direction at a 97-degree angle from the plane of its orbit. That means, when it rotates, it does so kind of "sideways." It's the only solar system planet that does this. The tilt, which is believed to be the result of a collision with an Earth-size object in the distant past, causes Uranus to have the most extreme seasons in the solar system, with a winter that lasts 21 years. Completing an orbit once every 84 Earth years, Uranus is also only one of two planets in the solar system (the other is Venus) that rotates around the sun in the opposite direction to all the other planets. About four times wider than Earth and located around 19 times as far from the sun as our planet sits, Uranus is looped by 13 faint rings and at least 28 moons. Uranus also has auroras, similar to the northern and southern lights of Earth, but because of the planet's tilted magnetic field, these don't appear over its poles as they do over our planet, Jupiter and even Saturn. Like with all planets that have magnetic fields, there are trapped charged particles around Uranus, creating radiation belts but why these radiation belts seem so weak has remained a puzzle for five decades. A light blue orb next to a striped blue yellow and red orb with a black circle at its center. The background is black The team's simulation abandoned the idea that Uranus' magnetic field acts as a dipole and used a more complex quadrupole magnetic field to replicate its lopsided nature. This revealed that particles accelerate and decelerate as they pass through regions of different field strengths. The particles' changes in speed cause them to bunch up in some regions and become more dispersed in others. This effect only appears when a single, complex quadrupole magnetic field is factored into the simulation, which is why it had never been seen before. "We found that Uranus' magnetic asymmetry could result in regions around the planet where the protons drift slower and are more compressed and other regions where they drift faster and are more spread out," Acevski said. "This is analogous to how traffic jams form on a ring road. When cars travel slower, it causes more dense traffic; if cars travel faster, the traffic is more spread out." Acevski and colleagues theorize that when Voyager 2 visited Uranus, it passed through a weak area of the ice giant's radiation belt. "We projected Voyager 2's trajectory onto this profile and found that the spacecraft did, in fact, fly through a region of 'fast drift,' which would imply it should have observed lower than normal proton radiation belt intensity," Acevski said. "It is important to note that our particle simulations show this result accounts for a maximum variation of approximately 20% of the proton intensity around the planet." That means the team's model can't fully account for the 100 times lower intensity observed by Voyager 2. "It is possible that whatever primary effect did cause these much weaker proton radiation belts could have been compounded by this effect that we found," Acevski continued. "We were extremely surprised by the results. It is amazing to see how much of an influence magnetic asymmetry can have on radiation belt structure. This is something that was not previously known." Gray machinery with a white circular dish at its front against a black and brown background Acevski pointed out that the results obtained by himself and the team could help inform future spacecraft missions to Uranus. Thus far, Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to visit the ice giant. This means direct data about the world is extremely limited. Plans are underway at NASA to launch a mission to Uranus as soon as 2030. Such a mission could help experimentally verify the conclusion of this simulation. "What we need to verify these simulations is a flagship spacecraft mission to Uranus to get new, in-situ measurements of the planet over the course of several years rather than just a few hours as Voyager 2 did," Acevski said. "A new mission could also allow us to uncover new physics that we couldn't even predict with simulations. "As this is a planet with a magnetic field that we have never seen before, it is entirely possible that completely new phenomena are found, which would broaden our understanding of planetary science." Related Stories: In the quest to find alien life, scientists are searching for extrasolar Earth-Jupiter duos Infrared aurora on Uranus confirmed for the 1st time James Webb Space Telescope spots jet stream on Jupiter stronger than a Category 5 hurricane Acevski certainly is not finished with this strange solar system world yet. The ice giant is a particular fascination for the researcher. "Uranus presents a unique challenge to science, one which I am finding great enjoyment in tackling. It is truly fascinating how much you can uncover with so little data, and we are quite literally only scratching the surface," Acevski concluded. "As of today, there are not many people researching the icy giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, despite the fact that they exhibit such strange features, particularly in their magnetic fields, and so drawing attention to the strange phenomena that can occur there is a very exciting prospect to me." The team's research was published in June in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) Progress has come rather rapidly around the Carolina Panthers practice field, located near Bank of America Stadium in Uptown Charlotte. For those living nearby, they said it comes with the cost of living so close to being able to walk to Panthers home games, but new arrivals into nearby neighborhoods said they are surprised by the amount of traffic already there. It wasnt in the Zillow ad when I got this place, said Casey Godbold, who recently moved into one of the neighborhoods close to the Panthers practice property. The property is surrounded by fencing and some nearby construction, which has been a consistent feature there since plans were drawn out for the Panthers practice facility in Uptown. Queen City News Carolina Panthers Godbold is just now realizing what she moved into. Were already sitting in traffic while just trying to get into our house, For the uninitiated, Panthers Training Camp, when it was at Wofford College in Spartanburg, drew sizable crowds that only let up somewhat during the length of the camp. However, there is a general feeling that the crowds will only be bigger, and more consistent, given the camps new address in the Queen City. Free tickets to the camp can now be reserved as work continues at the site. Queen City News reached out to Panthers officials on the progress at the site and noted that parking and traffic would likely be consistent with game days. Officials also said that seating areas would have covered bleachers, so fans could stay out of the sun. A crew was out Tuesday constructing a part of what will be the ultimate facility. While some are used to all the action happening so close by, others are not, but said they will have to get used to it. I know there was construction that was going to be coming in, but not this much, Godbold said. The training camp starts July 27, 2024, and lasts three weeks. FOX Charlotte is your HOME for the Carolina Panthers Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. The transfer of F-16s from Denmark and The Netherlands to Ukraine is now underway, U.S., Danish and Dutch officials say. The long-anticipated transfer of donated F-16 Vipers to Ukraine is now underway with the anticipation they will be operational this summer, U.S., Danish, and Dutch officials say. Im also pleased to announce that as we speak, the transfer of F-16 jets is underway, coming from Denmark, coming from the Netherlands, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said today during the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C. And those jets will be flying in the skies from Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression. "The transfer of F-16 fighter jets is underway, coming from Denmark and The Netherlands. Those jets will be flying in the sky of Ukraine this summer, to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression", Blinken pic.twitter.com/vqbJzDg6wW MAKS 24 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) July 10, 2024 U.S. President Joe Biden, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen issued a joint statement on the F-16s Wednesday. They are being provided under an Air Force Capability Coalition for Ukraine. We, the co-leaders of the Air Force Capability Coalition for Ukraine, have been working to provide operational F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, the statement read. The Danish and Dutch governments are in the process of donating American-made F-16s to Ukraine, with the support of the United States. The transfer process for these F-16s is now underway, and Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer. We are unable to provide additional details at this time due to operational security concerns. The three leaders also expressed gratitude to Belgium and Norway for committing to provide further aircraft, and to the other members of the Air Force Capability Coalition for their support. The coalition is committed to further enhancing Ukraines air capabilities, which will include squadrons of modern fourth-generation F-16 multi-role aircraft. The coalition intends to support their sustainment and armament, as well as further associated training for pilots to enhance operational effectiveness. The Joint Statement on F-16s for Ukraine. White House After months of discussion about whether to give Ukraine the F-16s, it became a reality in August 2023 when Denmark and the Netherlands officially pledged dozens of Vipers to Ukraine. You can read more about that here. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) reacts as he sits in a F-16 fighter in the hangar of the Skrydstrup Airbase in Vojens, northern Denmark, on August 20, 2023 after Washington told Denmark and the Netherlands that they will be permitted to hand over their F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) reacts as he sits in a F-16 fighter jet in the hangar of the Skrydstrup Airbase in Vojens, northern Denmark, on August 20, 2023. (Photo by MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images) However, it is one thing to have the jets. Ukraine still needs pilots to fly them and there are not enough yet trained, according to the Kyiv Post. The Ukrainian Air Force will soon gain roughly 60 aircraft and only has 15-20 pilots, the publication reported. For clarity, 60 aircraft would traditionally demand 90-120 pilots to maximize fleet effectiveness. And just flying them and employing basic tactics is only a small part of unlocking their capabilities. It will take years for Ukrainian F-16 pilots to become highly proficient in everything the Viper has to offer, including executing complex missions alongside less experienced combat aviators. So, while the F-16s will be a factor when they arrive, there is a long road to getting the most out of them. You can read all about this stark reality in this past special feature of ours. And, of course, they will also be top targets for Russian forces once they touch down on Ukrainian soil. Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com As the disastrous presidential debate raged on my television screen, the smallest of screens in my household my phone, that is managed to bring my attention back to local politics with a jolt. A text from a Los Angeles-area number invited me to participate in a study of the city of Sacramento residents to get their opinions about issues facing our nation, state and local communities. Since I love sharing my opinions especially about the City of Sacramento I decided to take a break from watching the downfall of American democracy to participate. Opinion But the questions on this particular survey were so obviously written in favor of Sacramento mayoral candidate Kevin McCarty, that its hard to believe this was anything other than a poor attempt at a push poll (a tactic meant to sway voters using loaded and manipulative questions, widely denounced by organizations like the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the American Association of Political Consultants, the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research and the National Council on Public Polls). Sacramento targeted by pollsters The poll asked respondents to rate several public figures and organizations in Sacramento from Very Positive to Very Negative. Names included Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, District Attorney Thien Ho, Congresswoman Doris Matsui and Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen. The public officials, however, appeared without their titles, (i.e. Darrell Steinberg) so the average Joe would have to guess who they were. Respondents were also asked to rate The Sacramento Bee, which is interesting because our editorial board endorsed McCartys opponent, Flo Cofer, in the primaries. Other questions asked respondents to rate whether McCarty or Cofer has more experience in legislative governance; which one is more forward-looking ... (with) bold plans for Sacramentos future; who is more honest; and who believes more is possible. The poll implied that top-of-mind issues for Sacramento voters are police funding, the citys involvement in foreign affairs like Israel and allowing the citys homeless population to find shelter in city parks. (By comparison, a recent poll of more than a thousand Sacramento County residents said their top priorities were homelessness and the high cost of housing.) The poll was a giant red flag full of deceptive and manipulative descriptions. It framed McCarty as a consensus builder with proven practical solutions who believes there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the housing affordability crisis, Cofer was described briefly as an epidemiologist and an advocate for change who supported the legalization of marijuana. We know that Sacramentos political insiders are afraid of change, Cofers campaign manager, Jeff Rousset said in a prepared statement. Theyre spending lots of money to deceive the public about Dr. Flo. But she won 57% of the primary precincts because people want change. We need to spend our time and money on real solutions to homelessness instead of push polls and smear campaigns. McCarty says it wasnt him McCarty declined to speak with me about it for more than a moment. He said neither he nor his campaign were responsible for the poll. He did not denounce it. A representative from the American Directions Research Group who ran the survey said in an email that they would not disclose who hired them. They confirmed that the questions they asked were provided by their clients. If we take McCarty at his word then I think its a safe bet that the push poll was at least commissioned by someone who supports his candidacy, and has the money to put it out in the field. In this city, the number of people who can do this is limited, so take your best guess. Ive certainly got mine. Its an interesting tactic so early in the race. (Read interesting as dumb.) A similar poll was run in the primary by former Senator Richard Pan. That poll showed Pan leading by 6%, with 24% of the four-way vote in the March primary. It also showed McCarty in second and Cofer in dead last, with just 8% of the vote. Of course, the primary election resulted in Cofer as the clear winner, with 28% of the vote. McCarty was second with 22%. Isnt there already enough turmoil and mudslinging in the national election? Its too soon to go this mean in Sacramento. Frankly, this tactic could backfire and make voters more sympathetic to Cofer, and McCartys candidacy ought to be able to stand on his own without it. I hope Sacramentans are wise enough to recognize this poll as an ill-mannered play by McCarty supporters who want to start the general election season with insults. The candidate with the best vision for the future of Sacramento should be our next mayor. That vision simply cannot be found in a push poll. Donald Trumps self-proclaimed secretary of retribution is touting a wild plan to arrest politicians, police officers, and journalists he views as disloyal to the former president, according to a sweeping new investigation by Raw Story. Conservative political activist Ivan Raiklin claims to have assembled a Deep State target list that includes high-ranking Democrats and Republicans, U.S. Capitol Police officers, officials at the FBI and other intelligence agencies, witnesses in Trumps impeachment trials, and journalists at The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, and other news outlets. Their supposed crime? Being Trumps political enemies. And Raiklin views himself as justice incarnate. During one podcast appearance earlier this year, Raiklin said his nickname was the deep state marauder, a.k.a. the mauler. Raiklins plan for what to do with his list isnt nearly as gruesome, but it is still terrifying. He intends to enlist right-wing sheriffs to carry out mass arrests, and in May, he declared his intention to arrange livestreamed swatting raids. Raiklin reportedly claims that if he went public with all of the so-called evidence he collected on Trumps enemies in the deep state, it would be probable cause to arrest those high-ranking officials and journalists on his list. Those arrests would be carried out by constitutional sheriffs, specifically a right-wing anti-government group called the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. Those sheriffs would then deputize the 75,000 veterans Raiklin claims were dismissed from the military for refusing to comply with Covid-19 vaccine mandates, forming a rogue army intent on revenge. Thus far, attempts at assembling his troops have proved less than successful. Raiklin attempted to recruit some at the groups convention in April, where he asked a panel whether theyd be willing to go to the maximum level to create consequences for these federal actors, who he alleged had committed some kind of seditious conspiracy. The response was underwhelming, according to Raw Story. Despite being fairly sympathetic to Raiklin, officers warned that his plot was illegal, and it would be unlikely that prosecutors would ever press charges. Even Sheriff Dar Leaf, who gained notoriety among the far right for suggesting that the group that attempted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was simply attempting to make a citizens arrest, felt that Raiklins plan went too far. Were not going to be able to just go out and arrest, Leaf said. Weve got to do a grand jury indictment, just like the Constitution says. When asked by Raw Story about Raiklins plan, Leaf said he didnt know who Raiklin was, and opposed political prosecutions. Former Sheriff Richard Mack, who leads the Constitutional Sheriffs group, told Raw Story that he had severed ties with Raiklin in early June and did not approve of his rhetoric. Quite frankly, he talks about that list of 350 peopleIm sure they can afford lawyers, said Mack. It reeks of lawsuits, and it doesnt follow due process. Raiklin has also emailed sheriffs offices across the country hoping to enlist them to his cause. Not one has signed on, according to Raw Story. Trump or Biden, Ukraine focused on building 'arsenal for democracy' with US, top minister says The News No matter who wins the US election, Ukraine will become an arsenal for democracy, Oleksandr Kamyshin, the Ukrainian Minister of Strategic Industries, said at an event in Washington, DC, that took place on day one of the NATO summit. Kamyshin spoke hours after Ukraines state-owned arms manufacturer opened an office in Kyiv to help foster joint US-Ukraine defense projects. We want to be closer to your defense industry, he said at the EU Defense Night, which was co-hosted by Semafor. US Republicans have a history of defense spending and a strong security agenda, Kamyshin noted. His comments come as other European officials in Washington have sought to build ties with the GOP many European diplomats are concerned that the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trumps commitment to protecting Ukraine and Europe cant be taken for granted. We are looking forward to work with Democratic America or Republican America, Laurynas Kasciunas, the Lithuanian Minister of Defense, also said at the event. Republicans are very much connected with the defense industry. Kasciunas made the case that Lithuania was well placed to work with a future Trump administration, arguing that, along with the rest of the Baltic states, Lithuania was among NATOs top spenders. He also added that procurement from the United States defense industry, we are ready to do it. Know More Despite the charm offensive, some Republican foreign-policy experts have warned that Eastern Europe will need to do more on defense to secure US support. I dont think its pretty impressive that Lithuania is spending 3 percent; Estonia spends 3 percent. If I were them, I would spend 10, if theyre serious about how threatening the Russians are, Elbridge Colby, a former Trump official that has been touted for top roles in a future Republican administration, told Politico. Trump has previously suggested he would encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want to any NATO member that was not paying its fair share. Samsung is jumping into the smart ring race with the debut of its Galaxy Ring at its Galaxy Unpacked event in Paris, France, on Wednesday. Smart rings are a category of connected devices designed to track your health and fitness more discreetly than a smartwatch or fitness band. Oura's eponymously named Oura Ring is perhaps the most well-known smart ring, offering users insights into everything from sleep and heart rate variability to skin temperature and automatic workout detection. But the overall market is still relatively small compared to the smartphone space. Now Samsung is looking to get in on the action, making it the largest tech company to offer a smart ring. Samsung is entering the smart ring market with its new AI-enabled Galaxy Ring. (Image: Howley) (Howley) The Galaxy Ring, which Samsung says gets a shot of generative AI capabilities via its Galaxy AI platform, starts at $399 and will be available in nine sizes. Customers can visit their nearest Samsung retailer to try out different sizes in person or order sizing kits online. My wedding ring is a 10.5, but I opted for a size 12 when trying on the Galaxy Ring as it was the most comfortable option. I'll blame that on swollen fingers from my flight to Paris, the summer heat, and the wine I had the night before my demo. The ring itself is rather fashionable and unassuming. You wouldn't look at it and immediately assume it was a piece of technology. Available in three colors black, silver, and gold the Galaxy Ring felt comfortable during the brief time I wore it. Samsung says you should get upward of seven days of battery life depending on the size of your ring. The company says smaller sizes will get five days of battery life. The Galaxy Ring feels like any other ring, though it sports a series of sensors designed to help you track your health and fitness goals. (Image: Howley) (Howley) The Galaxy Rings' built-in sensors provide sleep-tracking features, including heart and respiratory rate tracking, and monitor movement and skin temperature changes throughout the night for cycle tracking. The ring also offers heart-rate alerts when your heart rate gets too high, auto walking and running workout detection, and an inactivity alert that lets you know when you've been stationary for too long. Samsung says it combines all of these metrics using its Galaxy AI platform into what it calls its Energy Score, which is essentially a numerical representation from 0 to 100 of your health and fitness. For example, if you worked out for a long time but didn't get a good night's sleep, your Energy Score will be on the lower side. Sleep well and get in a shorter workout, and your score will be higher. Samsung is pairing this with AI-powered Wellness Tips that provide tailored suggestions to improve your metrics, such as getting to bed sooner. Story continues The Galaxy Ring charger features a circular LED battery indicator. (Image: Howley) (Howley) Samsung isn't the only company with a health scoring system, Oura uses a similar feature it calls its Readiness score, while Fitbit has its Daily Readiness Score. Both Oura and Fitbit's offerings are meant to give you a sense of whether you can exercise or if you should take a break for the day. It's still not clear if the smart ring market will become as popular as the modern smartwatch market or if Samsung will remain the largest company in the space for long. According to Bloomberg, Apple (AAPL) has mulled building its own smart ring in the past, and some within the organization are pushing for it to move forward with the concept. For now, though, it looks like Samsung will soon be the biggest player in the up-and-coming market. Subscribe to the Yahoo Finance Tech newsletter. (Yahoo Finance) Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley. Click here for the latest technology news that will impact the stock market. Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance As Democratic Party officials debate whether Joe Biden should step away from the 2024 presidential race, the Republican Party is facing a hairy situation of its own: J.D. Vances beard. Vance is reportedly on Donald Trumpsshort list to be his vice presidential running mate, along with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. However, one thing that may affect the Ohio senators chances is his beard because Trump reportedly hates facial hair, according to The Bulwark. J.D. has a beard. But Trump is a clean-shaven guy. He just doesnt like facial hair, a Trump source who supports Vance told the website, adding, You just never know. But shaving the beard presents a problem for the senator, according to another source, who pointed out that Vance, who turns 40 on Aug. 2, has a baby face and looks like hes 12 without one. Trump denied that Vances beard could be a dealbreaker during a Wednesday radio interview with Brian Kilmeade. Real quick, on your vice president candidate, word is that you wont pick J.D. Vance because of his facial hair. Is that true? Kilmeade asked. No, the former president replied, adding that he thinks Vance looks good ... like a young Abraham Lincoln. Kilmeade agreed. Right? Hes a handsome man, the radio host said. But Trump didnt want to go that far with compliments. Nah, hes a nice guy, Trump responded. You can watch the exchange below. Vances office did not immediately respond to HuffPosts request for comment. However, Marc Caputo, co-author of the Bulwark article, argued that the fact Vances beard is a topic of discussion is a tell. JD Vance is the best bet on thepredictive markets to be Trumps running mate. But an only-in-MAGAville issue might stand in his way: facial hair Trump is a clean-shaven guy But the fact that Vances beard is part of the chatter is a tell https://t.co/ieBQccIIHA Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) July 9, 2024 Meanwhile, people on social media started making predictions about Vances next career move (spoiler alert: It involves a razor blade). Trump doesnt like beards. The GOP convention is next week. Lets start a pool with the date and time that JD Vance first appears in public without his beard. Go! Darlene Bremer (@DarBFreelance) July 10, 2024 The question is not whether JD Vance will shave his beard. The question is when. 5 days to the convention. My money is on Friday. pic.twitter.com/Mh9c4uRo0O Jez Bell (@jezzie_bell) July 10, 2024 lets just take a moment to enjoy jd Vance growing a beard to look less doughy, and that disqualifying him from consideration Merrill Overturf (@merrillov3rturf) July 10, 2024 Trump to JD Vance: shave the beard and stop being weird JD Vance to Trump: no Mark R. Yzaguirre (@markyzaguirre) July 10, 2024 'Trump's got his quirks': Trump VP hopeful, JD Vance, may lose out because Trump doesn't like beards. Because Trump claims 'presentation is very important.'.....the kind of 'presentation' exemplified by orange skin and matching ferret bouffant. https://t.co/8NIIHOf3I4 Mar-a-Hell-No!! (@Mar_a_Hell_No) July 9, 2024 Personally, I think the issue with the vapid ambitous hypocrite JD Vance is his vapid ambitious hypocrisy...but if his beard sidetracks his rise to power that works too... https://t.co/QLeVfLxdps Andrew Donaldson (@four4thefire) July 9, 2024 One person noted that Vance may already be changing his look. JD Vance. He shaved his beard down to a designer stubble a couple of days ago. pic.twitter.com/oaVP0slLZc Karen J (@KaJo503) July 9, 2024 Related... Trump Donors on the Brink of Civil War Over J.D. Vance for VP In his rise from Donald Trump critic to viable contender to be the presumptive Republican nominees running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio has come so far. But he may fall just short thanks to some risk-averse GOP donors. Ironically, the bearded 39-year-oldat least for now, given Trumps well-documented aversions to facial hairIvy League author may end up hoisted by his own petard. The best thing Vance has going for him in the Trump veepstakes, among the base, may also be his undoing as a potential running matesome donors are scared of him. The very same coastal elites who once adored Vance have been trying to sabotage his vice presidential aspirations, according to three Republicans familiar with the veepstakes who spoke to The Daily Beast. All spoke under the condition of anonymity in order to relay private conversations among donors around the most hush-hush of discussions in Trumpworld. Vances two main rivals, according to most reports, stand to benefit: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, for whom Trump has a soft spot as someone seemingly perfectly cast for the job with his founding father-type look, and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, whom sources described as the safe option. Donors have really coalesced around Burgum and Rubio at this point, a Republican strategist who has been in contact with donors for months over the Trump veepstakes told The Daily Beast. Vance, on the other hand, hasnt done anything meaningful in the eyes of some of the more traditional Republican major donors. Hes just gone on Fox. Donald Trumps Totally Unverified but Not Utterly Impossible VP Short List Ohio has produced eight presidents and three vice presidents in the nations history. Yet long-simmering grievances among Trump donors may pull the rug out from under Vance, The Daily Beast has learned. Yet theres another, more dangerous wrench donors have quietly tried to throw into the engine behind Vances chances to land the No. 2 spot on the GOP presidential ticket. One of Trumps co-campaign managers is perceived among the donor crowd as playing favorites with Vance, according to two sources familiar with the discussions. The person whos had some outside influence here is Susie Wiles, the same GOP strategist said, based on conversions with donors, and she certainly wants Vance. Vance is like her little pet. Vances team did not return a request for comment, nor did Wiles, a Palm Beach-based GOP political operative exiled by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2019 who has been widely credited within Trumpworld for the 2024 campaigns more buttoned-up tactical approach. Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung denied that Wiles had any involvement in the veepstakes. Susie, and the rest of the campaign team, have never tried to influence the choice for vice president, Cheung said in an email before reiterating that the VP decision alone belongs to President Trump and he will make a decision at the place and time of his choosing. Donald Trump invites J.D. Vance to the stage during a Save America rally held in Vandalia, Ohio. Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images Cheung also described anyone who thinks otherwise as obviously out of the loop and has no idea what is actually going on. He also described the Republicans in contact with donors as bottom-feeding parasites who do nothing more than to leech of [sic] drama and fake news because they have to disassociate themselves from their sad, miserable existence. The big announcement is expected sometime in the days right before or during the Republican National Convention scheduled to begin on Monday in Milwaukee. Aside from what Vances proponents call his realist foreign policy viewsa fresh polish on Trumps isolationisma sect of foreign policy-focused donors was already worried about Vance compared to Rubio as The Daily Beast reported in May. According to Trumpworld sources who spoke to The Daily Beast about the veepstakes in recent weeks, Burgum remains the favorite heading into the convention. More recently, the concerns around Vance have shifted among the so-called smart-money crowd from foreign policy to other realms. A Trump-Vance T-shirt at the 2024 Turning Point USA Convention in Detroit. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images J.D. Vance is a guy who wrote a book and helped with a Netflix show, the strategist said. The source said the most common qualms with Vance among donors are around his lack of Senate experiencejust two yearsas well as a lack of business experience. Vance did, however, cut his teeth in corporate law and then in the venture capital sector starting in 2017 under the tutelage of conservative billionaire Peter Thiel. Then theres an often-overlooked data point from his 2022 midterm victory. Even though he had a comfortable enough 7-point margin of victory over former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) in the increasingly red Buckeye State, Vance underperformed Republican Gov. Mike DeWine by almost 10 percentage points when they were both on the ballot in 2022. Among a certain type of donor, its like, not only does he lack the experience there was a wide set of DeWine-Ryan voters who did not want J.D. Vance, the strategist relaying the Vance concerns said. Those voters are replicable in the main battleground states, particularly in the Rust Belt, the strategist and others told The Daily Beast. And in such a high-stakes election, thats a risk the smart money donors wont take. Among the Republican base, Vance has emerged as a clear favorite, considered by some to be the future of the MAGA movement. He also enjoys the support of other big-time donors. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) speaks to reporters in the spin room following the CNN Presidential Debate last month. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Silicon Valley billionaire and former Ron DeSantis-backer David Sacks said during the opening remarks of a June California fundraiser that the soiree wouldnt have happened without Vance, who worked to get Sacks to endorse Trump. The flattering remarks were seen in Trumpworld as a major notch in his column. Vance has also hosted multiple fundraisers for Trump, including a large-dollar one in Cincinnati in May and another smaller one in Cleveland. Yet as Burgum has continued to rise, given his own net worth of an estimated $100 million and wealthy connections from his software business career, hes emerged as an initially unlikely favorite among GOP bigwig donors. Burgum makes the most sense to me, the GOP strategist said. Burgums team did not reply to a request for comment. Still, those who spoke with The Daily Beast for this story acknowledged donor influence is waning by the day the closer Trump gets to the convention. At this point, another Trump operative said, I think the Republican donor class wants a GOP president more than anything. 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. Donald Trumps donors are reportedly fighting with each other over the prospect of Senator J.D. Vance becoming Trumps running mate. The Daily Beast reports that Republican donors are sharply divided over Vance, with criticisms over his lack of political experience and business expertise. Some are also upset about one of Trumps campaign managers, Susie Wiles, reportedly playing favorites with Vance. The person whos had some outside influence here is Susie Wiles, one GOP strategist said, based on conversions with donors, adding that she certainly wants Vance. Vance is like her little pet. Donors are more inclined toward Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who demonstrate more experience, as well as safer foreign policy stances in Rubios case. In contrast, J.D. Vance is a guy who wrote a book and helped with a Netflix show, the strategist said. Vance also underperformed in his 2022 Ohio election victory, running nearly 10 points behind the states Republican governor, Mike DeWine. The strategist said that this shows that many Republicans in Ohio didnt support Vance, which may translate to other swing states. The article did point out that Vance has the support of at least one big-time donor: Silicon Valley billionaire David Sacks, who is part of the infamous PayPal mafia that includes the likes of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, among other tech moguls. Will those connections be enough to elevate Vance to be Trumps running mate above Rubio and Burgum? Rubios establishment support has hurt him with some MAGA personalities, including Trumps son Donald Trump Jr. It seems the decision will come down to whether Trump wants a safe choice or an antiestablishment figure like himself. Donald Trump isnt normally thought of as a consensus-builder, but in one sense thats exactly what he is. Many of Trumps most ardent fans and foes alike believe he is the leader of a political movement with a clear and defined set of principles and goals. They disagree only on whether that agenda is good or bad. The tendency to cast Trump as a tool of the ideological right serves the purposes of both sides. The right needs to believe Trump is a warrior for its causes to justify its support for him, and the left wants to believe the same to justify its opposition. Ill concede that this is not an outlandish view. Its certainly how he ran in 2016, when he promised in many respects to be an instrument of the Republican bases will. He even quite brilliantly agreed to a list of potential Supreme Court appointments compiled by the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society to reassure skeptical conservatives that he would be their servant. And since he left office, Trump has frequently told right-wing groups that he remains their loyal champion. So maybe you cant blame people for believing him. Or maybe you can. While the notion that Trump is an ideological conservative isnt outlandish, it is outdated. Its certainly true that if Trump is reelected, he will do things that please the GOP and conservatives. But lets not get the causality backward: His supporters will like what he does and his enemies will hate itbecause Trump did it. Theyll look up the arguments later. Right-wing apologists attempt to construct an intellectually consistent Trumpism is one of the oldest stories of the Trump era. And time and again, Trump has beclowned them for it. Consider the recent humiliation of Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundations president. Roberts has worked tirelessly to turn the storied think tank into the ideological avant-garde of Trumpism. Along with a whos-who of former Trump administration officials and conservative groups, he launched Project 2025 as both a playbook for another Trump term and a how-to manual for the true believers the group is screening to staff the administration. Appearing on MAGA goon Steve Bannons War Room podcast last week, Roberts told a guest host (Bannon being busy serving a stint in federal prison) that he is leading a second American revolution that will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be. This typically dopey radical posturing invited a wave of legitimate criticism, annoying Trump. I know nothing about Project 2025, the former president declared on Truth Social. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things theyre saying and some of the things theyre saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them. Never mind that this is a demonstrably audacious lie: Project 2025 has enough ties to Trump that it might as well rent space at Mar-a-Lago. The point is that Trump rewarded Roberts for his efforts by publicly disavowing them. Or consider the Trump campaigns success in softening the GOP platforms position on abortion. For years, dedicated opponents of abortion rights rationalized their support for Trump with the conviction that he would champion their cause. Their gamble paid off with the Supreme Courts overturning of Roe v. Wade. But now abortion is a political problem for Trump, so he has changed his position again. As president, Trump supported a 20-week abortion ban but now says that the issue should be left entirely to the states and that the abortion pill mifepristone should remain legal nationwide. The leading contenders to serve as Trumps running mate responded by changing their positions, too. I think our platform has to reflect our nominee, longtime pro-life Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida explained over the weekend. Its a tactically defensible position, but it illuminates the absurdity of claiming the party supports Trump because he reflects the party. The only platform Trump cares about is whichever one he happens to be standing on. Its not just abortion, either. The platform also dropped any reference to gun policy, referencing the Second Amendment only briefly in the preamble where it described protecting our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms. Trump has always wanted the party to be his pool of Narcissus, reflecting his personal glory and dominance. Thats why he supported candidates who hewed to his lie that the 2020 election was stolen, preferring that the party lose with loyalists than win with truth-tellers. Thats why he no longer cares about the Federalist Society, which produced judges who rejected his false election claims. Oh, and last month, the guy who infamously called for a ban on Muslim immigration said he wants to give every foreign-born graduate of a U.S. college a green card. The problem with the search for an intellectually serious Trumpism is that Trump has no use for ideas except as expedients of his ambition. The instrumentalism that paved the way for Trump sought to make him the rights tool. Instead, it made a lot of right-wingers look like tools. 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. Former President Trump expressed support for Rep. Anna Paulina Lunas (R-Fla.) effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt. Luna signaled that she plans to move to call up her resolution to hold Garland in inherent contempt of Congress sometime this week. The Florida Republican has criticized the Justice Departments refusal to turn over the audio from President Bidens interview with special counsel Robert Hur about his handling of classified documents, moving to hold the attorney general in contempt. Instead of directing the House sergeant-at-arms to take Garland into custody to enforce the GOP subpoena for the tapes, Lunas resolution would fine Garland $10,000 per day until he turns over the audio. In a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump said he agreed with the move to hold Garland in contempt over the tapes. I AGREE with Anna Paulina Luna and the many House Members who think Merrick Garland should be held in INHERENT CONTEMPT for refusing to release the Biden Tapes even though they were subpoenaed!, he wrote. He also called on House Republicans to subpoena special counsel Jack Smith over his investigations into him, which he described as illegal. He urged Republicans to also pass the the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in an election. Republicans MUST GET TOUGH about stopping weaponization and cheating! They may just be coming for me and my elections today, but they will come for all the Republicans very soon if they succeed! Trump said. Luna said in a recent post on social media platform X that she will bring a vote on the resolution Wednesday. In a statement, she argued that holding Garland in inherent contempt is the ONLY mechanism that can be used to force compliance with subpoenas. The Hur tapes are not just an issue of national security, as it is evident Joe Biden is impaired, but has now become a criminal organized effort to usurp Congress as a co-equal branch of government, she said. She also sent a letter to Democrats earlier this week asking them to support her effort by pointing to rising concerns about Bidens age and ability to do his job following a rocky debate performance last month. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. With just days until former President Donald Trump is expected to reveal his vice presidential pick, on Wednesday he commented on the characteristics he likes about each candidate on his shortlist -- while also highlighting some potential challenges. Trump joined Fox News radio host Brian Kilmeade on his podcast on Wednesday morning where he discussed an array of topics including his thoughts on his top vice presidential contenders. Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum are considered to be the contenders to be Trump's running mate, though advisers have repeatedly cautioned that Trump has discussed other options and they have denied knowing who his final pick will be. MORE: The rise of JD Vance: From 'never-Trump guy' to potential VP pick After dispatches circulated about Trump's reported disdain for facial hair, which campaign advisers poked fun at, Trump dismissed the idea that Vance's facial hair would complicate his chances of earning the No. 2 spot. "No," Trump said laughing about the idea he had a problem with Vance's appearance. "He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln," he quipped. Trump, however, did reveal that there were certain complications regarding Rubio and Burgum that are factoring into his decision-making process. PHOTO: Sen. JD Vance speaks to reporters June 27, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) MORE: How Trump's top VP hopefuls have criticized him in the past On Rubio, Trump acknowledged that it would be "complicated" picking him because they were from the same state, while saying it doesn't necessarily mean that he was out of the running. "No, but it does make it more complicated There are people that don't have that complication," Trump said of the Florida senator, who introduced him at his rally in Doral, Florida Tuesday night. Trump was referring to the 12th Amendment to the Constitution that states that presidential and vice presidential candidates running on the same ticket "shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves," which would be applicable to Trump and Rubio, who reside in Palm Beach and Miami, respectively. This means that if Trump selected Rubio as his running mate, the 30 crucial electors from Florida could not vote for both Trump and Rubio, while electors from other 49 states could. MORE: Would Marco Rubio need to move out Florida if Trump picks him for vice president? PHOTO: Sen, Marco Rubio arrives before Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Trump National Doral Miami, July 9, 2024, in Doral, Fla. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP) On the podcast, Trump said the issue can be "fairly easily fixed," but noted "it's not like picking some people, where it's very easy" and added that forgoing delegates from Florida would be "very risky." During an interview with NBC News' Miami station Tuesday night, Trump suggested if Rubio isn't picked as his vice president, "he certainly will" play a role in his possible second administration. MORE: As Trump weighs vice presidential pick, abortion becomes issue of focus For Burgum, abortion has become an issue of focus as Trump weighs his decision. The North Dakota governor has backed one of the strictest laws in the country -- signing a six-week state abortion ban last April. Trump indicated his signature could be a "little bit" of an issue as he moves forward with his selection. "Well, it's a little bit of an issue. It's a pretty strong ban. You know, I think Doug is great, but it is a strong ban. He's taken a very strong stance. Or the state has, I don't know if it's Doug, but the state has, so it's an issue," Trump said. PHOTO: Gov. Doug Burgum speaks to reporters June 27, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) Campaign advisers have claimed Trump's announcement will be known before the start of the Republican National Convention, which begins on Monday in Milwaukee. Though Trump has said he would much rather build suspense and wait until convention week. "No, not tomorrow, I'll make it close to the convention," said Trump to Kilmeade when asked if he would reveal his pick on Thursday. "I would love to do it, the, you know, it used to be picked during the convention it made the convention, frankly, more interesting" One factor not in play, claimed Trump, was the consideration of a last-minute Democratic ticket switch up. "I don't think it does," said Trump when asked if he was considering another candidate due to the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris might not be the vice presidential nominee -- instead the presidential nominee -- should Biden choose to step aside. "Whether we plan for him or anyone else, the planning, I think it's the same," he added, projecting confidence regardless of the Democratic ticket. "I think I'm pretty well set in my own mind, but you know, you got some good people, and I have changed a little bit, but you have, they're all great -- anyone would be fantastic." Trump speaks on VP hopefuls: Vance's facial hair, Rubio's Florida residency, Burgum's abortion stance originally appeared on abcnews.go.com (The Hill) Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., joined former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Florida on Tuesday as the senator has emerged as one of the finalists to be Trumps running mate. Rubio addressed the crowd well before Trump took the stage, attacking President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and questioning whether Biden was fit to remain in office. Trump made multiple references to Rubio during his remarks, directly acknowledging the speculation about whether he would choose the senator as his vice president. At one point, Trump took note of all the media in attendance at the Doral rally, saying, I think they probably think Im going to be announcing that Marcos going to be vice president. Later in the rally, Trump was highlighting his idea to eliminate taxes on tips for service workers when he addressed Rubio. Marco youre going to vote for it, I hope. Well, you may or may not be there to vote for it. But youll be involved, Trump said. Trump blasts Harris at Florida rally as Democrats discuss Bidens future Sources have told The Hill that the former president is focused on Rubio, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) as his top potential running mates, though Rubio and Vance have reportedly been at the center of discussions. Trump is expected to make his choice public ahead of the Republican National Convention, which kicks off next Monday, though the former president said he may wait until the convention itself to announce. Vance and Rubio said Sunday they had not heard one way or the other about whether they were the pick to join Trump on the ticket. Rubios allies have argued the senator could help expand Trumps appeal to minority voters, which could chip away at Bidens coalition and potentially flip swing states in Trumps favor. However, Rubio and Trump were bitter rivals in the 2016 presidential race, and the senator would need to move outside of Florida to join the ticket. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Temper Tantrum If Donald Trump gets reelected to the presidency, he has a long list of enemies he wants imprisoned apparently including Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. "All I can say is that if I'm elected President, we will pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time," he wrote in a Tuesday post on his social media platform Truth Social. "We already know who you are. DONT DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!" Trump was alluding to past news about a Zuckerberg-linked organization giving millions in non-partisan grants to local election boards in 2020 so they could run elections during a pandemic. Conservatives like Trump falsely accused Zuckerberg of trying to sway the 2020 presidential election against Trump with these donations, calling them "Zuckerbucks." After these false complaints, the Federal Election Commission looked into the matter and cleared Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, of any wrongdoing but facts seldom get in the way of Trump's bluster. Dark Horizon Trump has been nursing a grudge against Zuckerberg for some years, according to Business Insider. One cause for his ire? Facebook kicked Trump off the social media platform after the Capital Riots on January 6, 2021 (though he was allowed back in 2023.) With the polls indicating a not-unlikely Trump win in the fall, what are the chances of Trump making good on his threat to jail Zuckerberg and his other enemies, like his one-time opponent Hillary Clinton or former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney? Who knows, but the recent US Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity does increase the chances of Trump using federal law enforcement to go after political opponents, according to some political commentators. This would be ironic, of course, because many election experts say Facebook was a hotbed for misinformation that helped Trump get elected back in the 2016 elections against Clinton. If Trump follows through with the threat, Zuckerberg getting jailed for trumped up charges of election fraud just might be the twist ending we deserve to the American experiment in democracy. More on Zuckerberg: Mark Zuckerberg Bragged That He Was the "Most Well-known Person of My Generation" (Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co.s largest labor union of more than 30,000 workers declared an indefinite strike, a surprise move that raises the risk of production disruptions at the worlds largest memory chipmaker. Most Read from Bloomberg The unions call for a general strike sharply escalates a dispute with South Koreas biggest company. Thousands of workers rallied earlier this week outside Samsungs chipmaking complexes south of Seoul to kick start what originally was a three-day walkout demanding better pay. Its the largest organized labor action in the South Korean conglomerates half-century history. Its unclear how many in total will respond to the unions call, but the concern is that the action may snowball to hurt the countrys best-known corporation, or trigger similar responses across a recovering tech and chip industry. Management has no intention of dialogue, the union said in a statement on its website. We have clearly identified line production disruptions and the company will regret this decision, it said. The union will first target a smaller 8-inch production facility that relies more on human workers, before it targets high-bandwidth memory production in Pyeongtaek. Management will eventually relent and come to the negotiating table. Shares of Samsung pared earlier gains to dip 0.3% in Seoul on Wednesday, while suppliers including Wonik IPS Co., TES Co. and Soulbrain Holdings Co. lost ground. Much of Samsungs production is automated, but the company can ill-afford any manufacturing snarls in the coming weeks. The companys trying to convince Nvidia Corp. to use its high-bandwidth memory, a prerequisite for it to catch up to smaller rival SK Hynix Inc. in the booming AI arena. Samsung will ensure no disruptions occur in production lines, the company said in a statement. We remain committed to engaging in good faith negotiations with the union. The strike also comes as the global semiconductor supply chain navigates heightened US-China tech rivalry and geopolitical challenges. Samsung accounts for roughly 20% of the global DRAM market and around 40% of NAND flash, which is used in smartphones and servers. Investors remain largely unfazed, analysts said. The market is focused on how quickly Samsung is able to win approval from Nvidia to supply HBM, and has little interest in the strike, said Lee Seung-woo, head of Eugene Investment & Securities research center. Its also difficult to assess what the impact will be on earnings, as a potential production disruption may drive up chip prices, he said. Story continues The workers demands follow Samsung posting a 15-fold surge in operating profit in the June quarter, reflecting a rebound in memory chip demand and an investment boom in AI infrastructure. Investors remain concerned about the companys market position in AI chips against SK Hynix, however. Samsungs largest union spent weeks preparing for the walkout, after negotiations over pay and vacation time collapsed last month. This weeks development is a rapid escalation from a single-day strike in early June the first in Samsungs 55 years of existence. The action is intended to drive home their demands by disrupting production at one of the companys most advanced chip facilities, union leaders have said. It also coincides with Samsungs biggest product launch of the year in Paris, where its expected to unveil new foldable phones and watches with AI and novel health tracking features. Union leaders said more than 6,500 people signed up to take part in the three-day walkout. Police later put the turnout at closer to half that number on Monday. (Updates with company and analyst comments.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. The endorsement is in: Donald Trump likes J.D. Vances beard. Just days away from Trump announcing his running mate, the former president weighed in on the challenges that could hold back each vice presidential hopeful on the shortlist in an in an interview with Brian Kilmeade on Fox News Radio. He didnt, however, name his pick. Everythings an issue, Trump said, when asked about concerns over his shortlist of potential running mates that includes Vance, Ohios Republican senator; North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum; and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. During the interview, Trump was asked about Burgums stronger abortion stance, Rubios residency complications since both he and Rubio hail from the same state and, of course, Vances beard after reports surfaced that Trump doesn't like facial hair. It looks good, Trump said in his glowing endorsement of the Ohio senators facial hair. He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln. Trump had no other comments about Vance. But he had some wider concerns about Burgum and Rubio. He called Burgums past signing of strong abortion limits as North Dakota governor a little bit of an issue. It's a pretty strong ban. I think Doug is great, Trump said. He's taken a pretty strong stance or the state has. I dont know if its Doug but the state has. So its an issue. And after rallying with Rubio in Miami Tuesday night where Trump toyed with a possible Rubio running mate Trump discussed the Florida senator's residency problem in Wednesday's interview. Trump and Rubio would need to forgo Floridas 30 electors if they ran on the same ticket, meaning that Rubio may have to move states and give up his Senate seat to run with the former president. Trump said that wouldnt prevent Rubio from being picked as vice president but that it does make it more complicated. You do that and it makes it more complicated. There are people that don't have that complication. Now its fairly easily fixed but you have to do something with delegates or there has to be a resignation, Trump said. So its not like picking some people where its very easy, where there is none of that." Trump added that picking Rubio could take delegates which is a very risky thing to do. Spokespeople for Vance, Burgum and Rubio did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump said he wouldn't announce his pick on Thursday. He said he would prefer to "be old-fashioned" and announce during the convention, but modern technology makes it harder to wait until the GOP convention next week. "I'll make it close to the convention," Trump said. "It used to be picked during the convention Brian, and it made the convention frankly, more interesting. The pick used to be during the convention that's what I'd like to do." President Joe Biden's reelection is in a critical moment. Biden entered the debate trailing. Since then, polls and pundits have shown further struggles. In the meantime, the president has been clear that he's not going anywhere. President Joe Biden's reelection campaign is barely holding on. He was already in a difficult spot before his debate with former President Donald Trump. Since his horrendous performance, Biden has, at best, fallen slightly further behind. At worst, some New York Democrats are afraid the race there could be much closer than expected. A Republican hasn't won the Empire State since Ronald Reagan in 1984. "We're still acting like this is a one-party state, which for pretty much 20, 25 years it has been," Democratic Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine told Politico. "I truly believe we're a battleground state now." Political prognosticators are moving more states closer to Trump. While no one is ready to say he has a chance in New York, the former president now has better chances in Minnesota and New Hampshire even New Mexico could become closely contested. "The notion that the presidential is a Toss Up was a stretch even before the debate," Dave Wasserman, senior editor & elections analyst for Cook Political Report, wrote on X. "Today, Trump has a clear advantage over Biden and a much more plausible path to 270 Electoral votes." The best feature of our polling average: crosstab averages & trend lines for key demographic groups. Bottom line: Biden's current numbers w/ Black (71%-21%), Hispanic (48%-41%) and young (46%-41%) voters are incompatible w/ any plausible Dem win scenario. https://t.co/fMWvW8NxrA pic.twitter.com/0iOQxeZNbW Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) July 10, 2024 Even some voices that were once close to Biden are expressing some uneasiness. "I think the questions and worries about Biden's path are legitimate. I think Biden has work to do, but I think he can do it," former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield wrote on X in a series of posts. "We need to see it, though, and we need to see it soon." Bedingfield has cautioned Democrats who think ditching Biden will somehow make it significantly easier to beat Trump. Biden's path was already narrow before the debate. He hasn't led in a single poll conducted in Georgia, a state he won by only 12,670 votes, throughout this entire cycle, according to Decision Desk HQ. There isn't better news in Arizona, according to RealClearPolitics' polling average Trump is up over 5 points there. Nevada, a state Democrats have carried since 2008, also looks bad. The president's best-case scenario would be to fall back on Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Omaha-metro area 2nd District in Nebraska. Cook Political Report, a widely respected political prediction group, moved the Nebraska 2nd closer to Trump on Tuesday when it moved five states closer to the former president. Biden now has the unfortunate distinction of being the first Democratic candidate to trail in national polling in July of an election year since Vice President Al Gore in 2000. Biden's dismal approval rating of approximately 38% has remains below the roughly 48% threshold incumbents have needed to win reelection. Biden's worst 2020 position was a four point lead over Trump, according to CNN. Biden now trails the former president by anywhere between 2 to 3 points nationally. "Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House," Sen. Michael Bennett, a Colorado Democrat, told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday evening. "So for me, this isn't a question about polling. It's not a question about politics. It's a moral question about the future of our country." Biden's campaign does not share the same state of panic. Their belief is that Trump's campaign will rue its decision to opt against an extensive on-the-ground presence in the key battleground states. "For months, the Biden-Harris campaign has been on the ground talking to the voters who will decide this election, and Donald Trump's been nowhere to be found. Now, with just over four months until the election, Donald Trump couldn't match our battleground infrastructure if he tried," Biden-Harris 2024 battleground states director Dan Kanninen said in a statement. Read the original article on Business Insider Trust has hit a critical low in Britain this might be the only way to fix it Who do you trust? The Government? The police? Science? Businesses? The media? Over two decades, the annual Edelman Trust Barometer has globally surveyed how much (or how little) the public trusts these institutions. You wont be surprised to learn that we have all become less trusting over time, and are now more likely to trust someone like me rather than an institution. Britain ranks as the least trusting of authority out of the 28 countries covered just 30pc of Britons surveyed last November said they trusted the institution of government for example. The most recent survey focuses on technological innovation a critical issue for us all. Without proper controls around artificial intelligence, including both legal and ethical frameworks, we are vulnerable to the abuse of privacy, cyber-security attacks and mental health issues. Yet the Edelman survey suggests we are far from convinced. Respondents were asked who they trusted to integrate emerging technologies into society to be as safe, understood, beneficial and accessible as possible. All the scores were low, but business was ranked best. Government meanwhile was seen as lacking competence to regulate emerging innovations and having too much influence on science. We say we want a closer partnership between business and government on these difficult issues 60pc of survey respondents would be more trusting of innovation if business and government worked together. Its a specific example of a general demand for business leaders to get more engaged 62pc of those surveyed said they expect chief executives to manage changes occurring in society, not just those occurring in their business. Only a minority think this risks business becoming politicised. Unsurprisingly, we place even higher importance on our own chief executive (that is, the chief executive of the company we work for) getting involved 82pc say its important that our chief executive speaks publicly about job skills of the future, 79pc that they play a part in the ethical use of technology and 78pc that they talk about the impact of automation on jobs. All important issues especially for the young people in our lives. So where are the British business leaders speaking out on these and other topics? They are few and far between. There are notable exceptions entrepreneurs like Luke Johnson and Sir James Dyson, or hedge fund managers such as Sir Paul Marshall. But most corporate leaders seem wary of getting publicly involved. I have long believed that we need greater transparency and more business leaders willing to speak up yes, to build trust, but also to come up with solutions and hopefully preempt problems. My view is borne out of the global financial crisis, when I was Newton Investment Managements chief executive. At one point Newton was the second largest shareholder in Northern Rock by the start of 2007 we had sold out completely, concerned about its funding model that proved the banks undoing. We also stopped using Lehman Brothers as a counterparty in March 2008, six months before it collapsed. The moves were good for our clients, but a pyrrhic victory. We and others with concerns should have spoken up ahead of the disaster. After the fact, I spoke to regulators and sent them our analysts notes showing how Newtons thinking had evolved over preceding months. There was nothing I could do about the past; I resolved to speak up if there was a next time. But it was important that everyone did things differently to prevent that next time. In a speech to the investment community in 2013, I urged fund managers to step out of the shadows. But the shadows are where many prefer to lurk, fearful of exposure or being seen as outspoken. Theres a lot of deference to PR teams, who in turn tend to take a risk-averse stance. But corporate-speak isnt authentic and certainly doesnt build trust. Whats more, the greatest risk to growth and innovation is not taking any risks at all. Business leaders should see contributing to debates as a way to shape the right answers, not something to shy away from. Some of the anxiety is justified by poor examples of corporate activism virtue-signalling, or where the chief executive gets the balance wrong, neglecting the business in favour of fashionable causes. I am certainly not suggesting chief executives get involved in every issue of the day. A start would be for leaders to be straightforward about their own business agendas. Weve seen a few great examples at a conference last year Gerry Murphy, chair of Burberry, called directly on Rishi Sunak to reverse the removal of VAT refunds for tourists, which he said made the UK the least attractive shopping destination in Europe. Dame Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, has been urging for a scrapping of stamp duty on share dealing something that would benefit British capital markets and the economy as a whole. Sure, both leaders are speaking in their own interests but also in the national interests. To my mind, open campaigning is better than behind-the-scenes lobbying; it raises the profile of key issues and helps ideas to gather momentum. Neither of these suggestions has been acted upon (yet) but the strong, public arguments have shifted the way politicians of all parties are considering the issues. With a new Government, theres also a new opportunity for business leaders to step forwards, to influence and fill policy gaps or help resolve uncertainties about the way ahead. The rest of us may feel theres little we can do, but when the stakes are high, as they are around artificial intelligence, we can at least ask what our employer is doing to help shape the answers. I have learned through years of campaigning that as individuals we cannot do everything, but we can most definitely do something. And if enough of us get involved, the crescendo grows. Meanwhile if business leaders responded collectively by playing a bigger role, they would in turn have more influence and be more trusted. Helena Morrissey is a member of Edelmans Advisory Board. 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. Two-car crash in New Milford causes gas leak and evacuation of several homes A two-car crash in New Milford Wednesday morning caused a high pressure gas leak, forcing the evacuation of several homes, police said. The crash involving a four-door sedan and pickup truck occurred shortly before 9 a.m. on Boulevard at Madison Avenue, said New Milford Capt. Nicholas DiGenio. Occupants of both vehicles were not injured. Jul 10, 2024; New Milford, NJ, USA; Emergency responders on the scene where a car struck a gas line on Boulevard near Madison Avenue. One of the vehicles went off the roadway during the crash and landed on a gas vent pipe, causing a high pressure leak, DiGenio said. For precautionary reasons, residents in nearby homes were told to evacuate, he said. PSE&G responded and crews were able to temporarily place the leak under control. The area was deemed safe for residents to return to their homes between 9:30 and 10 a.m., according to DiGenio. Jul 10, 2024; New Milford, NJ, USA; Emergency responders on the scene where a car struck a gas line on Boulevard near Madison Avenue. New Milford police and fire departments remained on scene late Wednesday morning as workers repaired the gas line, which could take some time, DiGenio said. As of 10:30 a.m., the Boulevard at Madison Avenue was closed with detours in place, according to a Facebook post by police. Email: lcomstock@njherald.com; Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH or on Facebook. This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: New Milford NJ crash causes gas leak and evacuates homeowners Two murder convictions and one burglary conviction in Crawford County were upheld by the Third District Court of Appeals. In the first case, Robert W. Pinyerd, 42, was found guilty of the shooting death of Cynthia Jo Heath, 47, by a jury of five women and seven men in April 2023 after a weeklong trial. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus three years for a gun specification, to be served consecutively, for aggravated murder. The case was investigated by the Crestline Police Department and Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI). Pinyerd alleged in his appeal that his due process rights were violated when the state was permitted to have a witness discovered one week before the trial testify, according to a release from Crawford County Prosecutor Matthew Crall. The appellate court found that the trial court took sufficient steps to safeguard the defendants rights and the state had acted in good faith in providing information to the defendant. Robert Pinyerd's 2023 murder conviction has been upheld by the Third District Court of Appeals. (Telegraph-Forum file photo) Pinyerd also contested that the weight of the evidence was insufficient to warrant a conviction. The Appellate Court did not agree and the conviction was affirmed. In a murder case that also occurred in Crestline, Jacqueline D. Montgomery, 44, was found guilty by a jury of one count of murder, an unspecified felony, in April 2023. She was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison on the murder conviction, the same sentence her husband, Timothy Montgomery, received after he was convicted of the same offense during a jury trial on two counts of murder. The charges stemmed from their roles in the beating death of Michael "Mikey" Benedict in October 2021. Benedict, the 40-year-old father of six, was found unconscious after a beating that occurred on Union Street between South Wiley Street and Clink Boulevard. Benedict never regained consciousness after the assault took place and was declared brain dead over a week before he died Nov. 4, 2021. He had suffered from multiple skull fractures and both of his jaws were broken along with his left ankle. Jacqueline and Timothy Montgomery, along with their neighbor, Cameron Davis, 32, were indicted by a Crawford County grand jury on murder charges in November 2021. Davis testified against the Montgomerys during their trials as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. He was sentenced to 20-25 years in prison but may receive early release after serving at least 10 years. In her appeal, Crall said Jacqueline Montgomery alleged her rights were violated because she was limited in discussing the amount of prison time received by Davis before he testified against her. Jacqueline "Jackie" Montgomery's appeal of her 2023 murder conviction has been denied by the Third District Court of Appeals. (Telegraph-Forum file photo) The appeals court found the trial court did not abuse its discretion in doing so and there was sufficient evidence to warrant upholding the conviction. Timothy Montgomerys conviction was affirmed by the Third District Court of Appeals earlier this year. In the third case before the Third District Court of Appeals, Juan A. Rosas, 29, of Bucyrus, appealed his prison sentence of four-six years for a second-degree burglary conviction. He alleged he did not receive effective assistance of counsel because his attorney had not filed a motion to suppress evidence related to a photo lineup administration. Crall said since the trial court did not allow testimony regarding the lineup, the Appellate Court did not find any prejudice in not filing the motion in question. Rosas also contended the trial court should have granted a mistrial but since the issue at question was never presented to the jury, Crall said Rosas could not show any prejudice. As a result, his appeal was denied, and his conviction was affirmed. Crall said in all three cases, his office defended the rulings of Judge Sean Leuthold who conducted all three trials. Assistant Prosecutor Dan Stanley handled all three appeals and argued them well. He has established a high standard of excellence at the appellate level. Few counties can say they have successfully defended three verdicts of this level and received favorable results all on the same day, Crall said. Justice was served through the investigation, trial and appeal of this trio of cases. Crawford County is a better place because of this work by law enforcement, the prosecutors office, and the court. This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Crawford County murder, burglary convictions upheld by appeals court Pictured is the profile of an account that was part of Russia's AI-enhanced bot farm that spread disinformation on the X social media platform. Image courtesy of U.S. Department of Justice/Release July 10 (UPI) -- The United States has foiled a Russian propaganda campaign of nearly 1,000 artificial intelligence-enhanced accounts promoting pro-Kremlin messaging on the X social media platform, prosecutors said. The Justice Department revealed the covert Russia-controlled social media bot farm Tuesday, saying it consisted of 968 accounts, many purporting to be run by Americans, that targeted the United States, as well as other countries, including Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine and Israel, with disinformation. A joint cybersecurity advisory warning social media companies of the propaganda campaign states Russia used Meliorator covert artificial intelligence software to create the fictitious online personas to assist "Russia in exacerbating discord and trying to alter public opinion." Those accounts then spread disinformation, with the Justice Department offering as an example one account that purported to be a U.S. constituent that replied to a social media post about Russia's war in Ukraine by a candidate for federal office with a video of President Vladimir Putin of Russian justifying his invasion. Another account, this one pretending to be a resident of Minnesota, posted a video of Putin stating parts of Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania were so-called gifts to those countries from Russian forces that liberated them from Nazi Germany during World War II. "Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government," FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. Federal prosecutors said that to register the fictitious social media accounts, the bot farm relied on private email servers tied to two domain names, which the Justice Department also seized Tuesday. It added that it was developed by the leadership at Russian state-owned RT news channel and operated by the Federal Security Service. Though the bot farm was only on X, formerly known as Twitter, federal authorities are warning social media platforms that Russian state-sponsored actors are using covert software, such as Meliorator, for foreign malign influence on behalf of Russia. "As malign actors accelerate their criminal misuse of AI, the Justice Department will respond and we will prioritize disruptive actions with our international partners and the private sector," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. "We will not hesitate to shut down bot farms, seize illegally obtained Internet domains and take the fight to our adversaries." U.S. House passes bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal races Voters walk into cast their ballots at the Center Point Church on Nov. 8, 2022 in Orem, Utah (George Frey/Getty Images). WASHINGTON The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would require individuals registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship to participate in federal elections. The legislation, passed 221-198, would also require states to check their voter rolls for registered noncitizens. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE, is intended to prevent noncitizens from voting. That act is already illegal, since under current U.S. law, only citizens can vote in federal elections, but the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 prohibits states from confirming citizenship status. Voting laws vary by state, with some states like Georgia and Wisconsin requiring photo identification and others, such as Pennsylvania and New Mexico, requiring no documentation at all. States that do mandate photo identification or other documents use drivers licenses, military ID cards, student ID cards, birth certificates, tribal ID cards, or even a recent utility bill. The SAVE Act, introduced by GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas in May, would require most individuals to have a passport to register to vote. Only about 48% of U.S. citizens have a passport, according to State Department data. Drivers license and tribal ID cards typically do not prove a persons citizenship and couldnt be used to register under the SAVE Act. Data also indicates that noncitizen voting is not a prevalent issue, as many House Republicans have said. According to The Associated Press, states such as North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, California, and Texas reviewed their voter rolls between 2016 and 2022. These audits found that fewer than 50 noncitizens in each state had voted in recent elections, out of upwards of 23 million total votes per state. The measure is unlikely to advance in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Partisan divide House Republicans have stood staunchly in favor of Roys bill, H.R.8281. On the House floor Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, urged his colleagues to pass the bill, saying it was one of the most important votes that members of this chamber will ever take in their entire careers. Last month, Johnsons office released a 22-page report asserting the SAVE Act was critical for American election integrity. Johnson blamed the Democratic Party for keeping American borders wide open to every country on the planet, and claimed Democrats want illegal aliens voting in our elections. On Monday, the Biden administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy against the legislation, saying there is no cause for concern about noncitizen voting and that it would only hinder the voting rights of eligible Americans. Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, urged his House colleagues during Wednesday floor debate to vote no on the bill, saying it would be devastating for all American voters. This bill is about scaring Americans, this bill is about silencing Americans, this bill is about disenfranchising Americans, he said. This bill is about further damaging the foundations of our democracy. But House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil backed the legislation during a Rules Committee hearing. In the past few decades, Americans faith in the integrity of our elections has eroded and it is Congress responsibility to restore confidence in our election system, said Steil, a Wisconsin Republican. The SAVE Act would do just that. Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana in a Monday press conference called the bill a safeguard to ensure that only American citizens vote in Americas elections. Election implications Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York during Wednesday floor debate alluded to the broader implications of the SAVE Act, looking towards the November election and the possibility of a second term for President Joe Biden. He said Republicans could use the bill as a cover, already trying to set up an excuse for what may happen in November. Voting rights advocates have expressed concern over the SAVE Act, saying it contains many falsehoods and conspiracy theories that perpetuate extreme views. At a Tuesday press conference hosted by Americas Voice, an immigrant advocacy nonprofit, Sean Morales-Doyle from the Brennan Center for Justice said the bill plays into greater themes of racism and xenophobia. Its also a very damaging lie with an ulterior motive: to lay the groundwork for challenging legitimate election results down the road, he said. One House member equated the bill to a Jim Crow poll tax during floor debate. Jennifer McClellan, a Virginia Democrat, said she is not aware of any single proof of citizenship document that doesnt cost an individual money to get it. Wesley Hunt, a Republican from Texas, responded that Jim Crow is over. U.S. House passes bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal races Voters walk into cast their ballots at the Center Point Church on Nov. 8, 2022, in Orem, Utah. (George Frey | Getty Images) WASHINGTON The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would require individuals registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship to participate in federal elections. The legislation, passed 221-198, would also require states to check their voter rolls for registered noncitizens. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE, is intended to prevent noncitizens from voting. That act is already illegal, since under current U.S. law, only citizens can vote in federal elections, but the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 prohibits states from confirming citizenship status. Voting laws vary by state, with some states like Georgia and Wisconsin requiring photo identification and others, such as Pennsylvania and New Mexico, requiring no documentation at all. States that do mandate photo identification or other documents use drivers licenses, military ID cards, student ID cards, birth certificates, tribal ID cards, or even a recent utility bill. The SAVE Act, introduced by GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas in May, would require most individuals to have a passport to register to vote. Only about 48 percent of U.S. citizens have a passport, according to State Department data. Drivers license and tribal ID cards typically do not prove a persons citizenship and couldnt be used to register under the SAVE Act. Data also indicates that noncitizen voting is not a prevalent issue, as many House Republicans have said. According to The Associated Press, states such as North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, California, and Texas reviewed their voter rolls between 2016 and 2022. These audits found that fewer than 50 noncitizens in each state had voted in recent elections, out of upwards of 23 million total votes per state. The measure is unlikely to advance in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Partisan divide House Republicans have stood staunchly in favor of Roys bill, H.R.8281. On the House floor Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, urged his colleagues to pass the bill, saying it was one of the most important votes that members of this chamber will ever take in their entire careers. Last month, Johnsons office released a 22-page report asserting the SAVE Act was critical for American election integrity. Johnson blamed the Democratic Party for keeping American borders wide open to every country on the planet, and claimed Democrats want illegal aliens voting in our elections. On Monday, the Biden administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy against the legislation, saying there is no cause for concern about noncitizen voting and that it would only hinder the voting rights of eligible Americans. Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, urged his House colleagues during Wednesday floor debate to vote no on the bill, saying it would be devastating for all American voters. This bill is about scaring Americans, this bill is about silencing Americans, this bill is about disenfranchising Americans, he said. This bill is about further damaging the foundations of our democracy. But House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil backed the legislation during a Rules Committee hearing. In the past few decades, Americans faith in the integrity of our elections has eroded and it is Congress responsibility to restore confidence in our election system, said Steil, a Wisconsin Republican. The SAVE Act would do just that. Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana in a Monday press conference called the bill a safeguard to ensure that only American citizens vote in Americas elections. Election implications Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York during Wednesday floor debate alluded to the broader implications of the SAVE Act, looking towards the November election and the possibility of a second term for President Joe Biden. He said Republicans could use the bill as a cover, already trying to set up an excuse for what may happen in November. Voting rights advocates have expressed concern over the SAVE Act, saying it contains many falsehoods and conspiracy theories that perpetuate extreme views. At a Tuesday press conference hosted by Americas Voice, an immigrant advocacy nonprofit, Sean Morales-Doyle from the Brennan Center for Justice said the bill plays into greater themes of racism and xenophobia. Its also a very damaging lie with an ulterior motive: to lay the groundwork for challenging legitimate election results down the road, he said. One House member equated the bill to a Jim Crow poll tax during floor debate. Jennifer McClellan, a Virginia Democrat, said she is not aware of any single proof of citizenship document that doesnt cost an individual money to get it. Wesley Hunt, a Republican from Texas, responded that Jim Crow is over. LAKE CITY, S.C. (WBTW) Federal officials, including the head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, will visit Lake City on Friday as part of a nationwide tour celebrating the success of local entrepreneurs`. Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman and U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Charleston, will meet with small business owners, attend an industry exposition and participate in a fireside chat. Guzman is hosting a Small Business Boom Tour highlighting the more than 18 million new business applications filed during the Biden administration, including 316,000 in South Carolina alone. * * * 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. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW. Chakkarat, July 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Maura Gems and Jewellery Co Ltd is making waves with its collection of exquisite gemstones and jewellery to any destination globally at reasonable prices. Maura Gems and Jewellery Co Ltd stands at the forefront of the gemstone industry and is renowned for its exceptional collection of gems, especially sapphires and rubies along with all coloured gemstones. Headquartered in the vibrant heart of Thailand, Maura Gems has become a pivotal player in the global gemstone market, supplying precious and semi-precious stones to an international clientele, including markets in the USA, UK, and Australia. Widely recognised as a global gemstone hub, Bangkok is renowned for its excellent craftsmanship in gemstone cutting and trading, making it the perfect location for Maura Gems. The company's presence in Thailand allows it to source the finest gemstones directly from the region's skilled artisans and traders. This direct access to high-quality gemstones, including emeralds and diamonds, ensures Maura Gems consistently delivers top-tier products to its international clientele. Mark Smith, a distinguished UK-based jeweller and founder of Maura Gems and Jewellery Co Ltd, has been instrumental in establishing its office in Bangkok. Hailing from Richmond upon Thames, where he runs a successful jewellery outlet, Smith advocates fair trade practices and ethical sourcing in the gemstone industrya commitment evident in every facet of Maura Gems' operations. By working directly with local artisans and traders in Bangkok, Maura Gems provides top-quality gemstones while supporting sustainable and ethical practices within the industry. Maura Gems has built a robust e-commerce platform https://mauragemsandjewellery.shop to cater to a diverse clientele, offering a seamless shopping experience for those seeking exquisite gemstones and bespoke jewellery designs. One of the standout features of its online services is the provision of first-stage concept design free of charge, allowing customers to collaborate with the company's skilled designers, creating unique and personalised jewellery pieces handcrafted by their world-class goldsmiths that reflect their tastes and preferences. If youre looking for the best jewellery in the world at the most affordable prices, youve come to the right place. Maura Gems and Jewellery is your one-stop shop for exquisite custom-made and affiliate jewellery products. Whether you want to treat yourself or someone special, we have something for everyone and every occasion, said Smith. With a commitment to excellence reflected in its extensive and meticulously sourced collection of gemstones that meet the highest quality standards, Maura Gems is dedicated to providing only the finest gemstones and has earned a reputation as a trusted supplier among jewellers and precious stone enthusiasts worldwide. For more information, visit https://mauragemsandjewellery.co.uk/. Maura Gems and Jewellery Co Ltd's reach extends far beyond Thailand, with a distribution network that spans the globe. By leveraging its strong e-commerce platform and efficient logistics, Maura Gems ensures that its gemstones are accessible to customers in these key markets. This global distribution capability allows the company to meet the growing demand for high-quality gemstones and bespoke jewellery in some of the world's most prominent gemstone markets. Maura Gems emphasises customer satisfaction and its experienced gemologists and designers work closely with clients to understand their needs and preferences, offering personalised guidance and support throughout the purchasing process. This commitment to customer service has helped Maura Gems build lasting relationships with its clients, many of whom return time and again for their gemstone and jewellery needs. Maura Gems and Jewellery Co Ltd continues to set new standards in the gemstone industry, combining ethical sourcing practices with unparalleled craftsmanship and customer service. Its strategic presence in Thailand, coupled with its global distribution capabilities, positions Maura Gems as a leader in the market, delivering exquisite sapphires and rubies, emeralds and diamonds to customers worldwide. About the Company: Maura Gems and Jewellery Co Ltd, headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand, is a premier provider of high-quality gemstones. Renowned for its extensive collection of sapphires and rubies, emeralds and diamonds, the company ensures ethical sourcing and fair trade practices under the leadership of UK-based jeweller Mark Smith. With a robust e-commerce platform, Maura Gems caters to a global clientele, including markets in the USA, UK, and Australia. The company offers bespoke jewellery services, providing first-stage concept designs free of charge, and is dedicated to delivering exceptional customer service and top-tier gemstones worldwide. ### For more information about Maura Gems and Jewellery Co Ltd, contact the company here: Maura Gems and Jewellery Co Ltd Mark Smith (Founder) +66949355718 mark@markthegemmologist.com 49 Moo 11, Wangsai, Pakchong, Nakhonratchasima, 30130, Thailand CONTACT: Mark Smith (Founder) An Irish woman who had been charged by authorities in the United Arab Emirates with attempting suicide and alcohol consumption has been permitted to leave the country after being detained briefly, a legal advocacy group says. Tori Towey, 28, from Ireland's County Roscommon, had been a crew member with Emirates Airlines since April 2023, was briefly detained and had her passport confiscated and destroyed, the "Detained in Dubai" (DiD) legal group said. DiD said Towey had been the victim of "brutal domestic violence leading to an attempt to take her own life" in Dubai. "Rather than helping her go home to Ireland with her mother, Dubai authorities charged her with attempted suicide and alcohol consumption," the group said in a statement. Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Ireland's Sinn Fein political party, confirmed Wednesday that Towey "will now travel home" after the travel ban, apparently along with case against Towey, was dropped. McDonald said the Irishwoman would return home with her mother from Dubai, adding: "We await her safe return." Tori Towey, an Irish cabin crew member with the Emirates airline, is seen in a file photo provided by the legal advocacy group Detained in Dubai. / Credit: Courtesy of Detained in Dubai The opposition party leader had brought Towey's plight to the attention of Ireland's national leader, Taoiseach Simon Harris, during a parliamentary session on Tuesday, stressing that the cabin crew member "is not a criminal, she is a victim of abuse." Social media influencer from Texas leaves Dubai after arrest for "shouting" "The Taoiseach must intervene, the UAE Ambassador must be called in and it must be made clear to the authorities of Dubai that no woman should be treated in this way, and an Irish citizen will not be treated in this way," McDonald said in a social media post on Tuesday. Ireland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin also confirmed that Towey had been permitted to return to Ireland in a tweet on Wednesday. According to DiD, Towey was physically and emotionally abused by her South African husband, whom she met while working in the Emirates. DiD said the man, whom it has not identified, was dismissed by UAE authorities after facing questioning over "behavioral issues." "He cut her off from her friends and family. If we tried to contact her, she got in trouble," Towey's mother Caroline, who few to Dubai to be with her daughter, told DiD. DiD said that after the most recent alleged attack by her spouse, Towey locked herself in a bathroom at their home and attempted to take her life. "The next thing she remembers is an ambulance crew and police waking her up. She was taken to Al Barsha police station and kept for several hours before going home again," the group said. "Tori's experience is nothing short of tragic and quite frankly, she is lucky to be alive," said Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai and another advocacy group called Due Process International. "The UAE used to charge rape victims with sex outside marriage. Now they're charging domestic violence victims with attempted suicide and alcohol consumption," Stirling said. "Dubai police need to be educated on victim care." Media in the UAE, a tightly controlled conservative Islamic nation, did not report on Towey's case. CBS News has sought comment from the UAE Ministry of Justice and will update this article with any reply, but the country's authorities rarely comment on specific cases. Video shows two planes appear to nearly collide Sneak peek: Unmasking the Zombie Hunter Sneak peek: Murder by Clown FILE PHOTO: Human rights advocates protest in solidarity with political prisoners in Egypt and United Arab Emirates on the sidelines of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai DUBAI (Reuters) - A United Arab Emirates (UAE) court on Wednesday sentenced 43 dissidents to life in prison for operating what it said was a Muslim Brotherhood group that aimed to commit attacks in the country, state news agency WAM reported. Eleven others received lesser sentences and six companies were convicted of money laundering to support a terrorist organization, it added. A human rights coalition, which includes Human Rights Watch, said the convictions followed a mass trial that was "fundamentally unfair" and called for them to be immediately overturned. The UAE's media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The verdict can be appealed before the UAE's Federal Supreme Court, WAM said. Those convicted were members of the Justice and Dignity Committee, a local group of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world's oldest and most influential Islamist movements which the UAE listed as a terrorist organization in 2014, WAM reported. They "worked to create and replicate violent events in the country, similar to what has occurred in other Arab states," including protests and clashes with security forces, WAM said, citing the court, without specifying their plans. "These over-the-top long sentences make a mockery of justice and are another nail in the coffin for the UAE's nascent civil society," Joey Shea, Human Rights Watch's UAE researcher, said in a statement. "The UAE has dragged scores of its most dedicated human rights defenders and civil society members through a shamelessly unfair trial riddled with due process violations and torture allegations." The Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center said those convicted had already been convicted in 2013 for their involvement with the group, raising concern that the UAE is trying people twice for the same offense, a principle known as double jeopardy. (Reporting by Andrew Mills; Editing by Richard Chang) British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (L) speaks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the NATO Summit. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/dpa The change of government will make "no difference" to Britain's support for Ukraine's defence against the Russian invasion, newly appointed Prime Minister Keir Starmer reassured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington on Wednesday. "I just had a very good meeting with President Zelensky, where I made it absolutely clear that as far as the UK is concerned, the change of government makes no difference to the support that we will provide," Starmer told reporters. King Charles III appointed Starmer as prime minister on Friday, following a landslide election victory on Thursday by Starmer's centre-left Labour Party, which had been in opposition for 14 years. Despite their domestic disagreements, Labour and the ousted Conservative Party have been closely aligned on the provision of military support to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. "We've been united on this when we were in opposition, and it was really important to me to be able to affirm that face-to-face in the meeting; I didn't speak to him immediately after I was sworn in as prime minister last week," Starmer said. He added that the Washington summit was an opportunity for his new Labour government to reaffirm its commitment to NATO. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (L) speaks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the NATO Summit. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/dpa (Bloomberg) -- Britains biggest developers are increasingly turning to a costly service to try to sidestep delays in the countrys broken planning system, a trend that underlines the extent of the challenge awaiting the new Labour government as it looks to make reforms. Most Read from Bloomberg Freedom of Information requests by Bloomberg to councils across the UK show that builders are using a tool called planning performance agreements more and more to get their proposals looked at. So-called PPAs per local authority climbed to the highest on record last year following eight years of consecutive annual rises. Britains planning system is buckling under the strain of years of underfunding thats allowed increasingly strident NIMBYism to slow construction amid an acute housing shortage. Critics warn that the use of PPAs which are only available to builders able to pay substantial amounts of money is hiding the true extent of that underfunding and the cost of fixing the planning process. It is a system that is not fit for the 21st century, said Tom Stanley, head of development and planning at BNP Paribas Real Estate. Good planning is needed to drive the economy forward. PPAs are agreements between developers and local authorities that hold planning departments to stricter deadlines and more frequent communication regarding housebuilding applications. Developers essentially pay for the local authoritys time, and spend even more if they want a dedicated planning officer, BNPs Stanley said. Paying for a PPA will leapfrog you over other applications. But even paying more in this two-tier system does not guarantee a smoother housebuilding process, and some developers have reported equally as slow decision-making after dishing out thousands of pounds in fees. PPAs are not legally binding contracts, and there is no penalty for a local authority if deadlines are missed. Thats despite their hefty cost. In Westminster, a PPA for a major proposal, such as one involving 10 or more residential units, has a price tag of 60,024 while for larger developments the price is on application. In Birmingham, the base fee for planning performance agreements is around 20,000 for large projects. Builders typically fork out thousands more for further meetings and advice during the planning process, with applicants complaining about amounts being charged that are plucked out of thin air, according to research published by the Planning Advisory Service. A Bloomberg investigation last year found that the average annual funding in local government planning departments has tumbled 44% since 2010, while the average number of employees in those teams has more than halved over the same period. Some 80% of major planning applications were not resolved within the statutory time period of 13 weeks between October and December last year, according to government statistics. Fourteen Years of Tory Rule Gave NIMBYism a Free Pass in the UK UKs Broken Planning System Costing Taxpayers More Than Ever UK Home Buyers Thwarted by System That Cant Build Enough Houses Britains Chronic Housing Shortage Is About to Get Even Worse Pledges to fix the planning system by Labour including a more heavy-handed approach on the local authorities that arent allowing construction have been met with scepticism by some industry experts, who argue that a lack of resources is the main issue holding back effective planning. Labours manifesto promise to hire 300 planning officers would replace fewer than 10% of the planners that left public service during the first decade of the previous Conservative government, according to analysis from the Royal Town Planning Institute, cited in the Financial Times. Some housing experts, including former Bank of England rate-setter Kate Barker, have called Labours target a Herculean task that would be very difficult to pull off. Barker, who led a 2004 review into housing supply for the government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair warned the party that its not that easy just to turn the taps on again. Its a headache for Labour, which has put planning at the center of its promises to boost homebuilding. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already said its unlikely the party would deliver 300,000 new homes in Labours first year, admitting it is more likely to ramp up development over the parliament in a bid to hit its five-year commitment of 1.5 million new homes.In the meantime, wealthier developers are likely to keep leaning on PPAs. Two-Tier System In the Planning Advisory Service research, local authorities warned that PPAs require a significant amount of officer time, resulting in large strains on resources, particularly if the income generated is not used to backfill existing posts. Thats having a knock-on effect on smaller housebuilders who cannot afford to use them. The downside is that the smaller schemes are held up because PPAs divert resources to the biggest developers, said Antony Antoniou, managing director at property firm Robert Irving Burns. We are trying to build 12 flats and a bit of workspace in London, but we just cant get the attention we need. In a 2018 report, law firm Addleshaw Goddard warned that a two-tier planning system could develop from their use as theyre increasingly seen as a prerequisite to application processing. The report said that PPAs should not be seen as a shortcut to a well-funded planning system. Regardless, their use is increasing even as planning applications for projects of ten units or more have slumped to their lowest in at least a decade in 2023, according to researcher Glenigan Ltd. That suggests that a higher share of builders are using the agreements. The average number of PPAs agreed between developers and local authorities is on track to rise for a ninth consecutive year in 2024. The average local council had agreed to at least six in the first half of the year, putting it on course to beat an annual record of nine set in 2023 even in the midst of a development slump. It is desperation, Robert Irving Burns Antoniou said. No one wants to write a cheque up if they dont need to. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. New U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer signaled that Ukraine could use Storm Shadow long-range missiles to hit military targets inside Russia, Bloomberg reported on July 10. Starmer outlined his position, saying that it is up to Ukraine how to use British missiles. His remarks echoed the words of former U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron. Cameron said in early May that Kyiv had the right to use the weapons provided by London to strike targets on Russian soil. The Kyiv Independent's source in the president's office disputed the statement, saying that there was no green light from the U.K. at that time. The missiles are "obviously to be used in accordance with international humanitarian law" and "for defensive purposes," but "it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy (them) for those defensive purposes," the prime minister said during the NATO summit in Washington. Ukraine has reportedly used U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles, with a range of up to 250 kilometers (150 miles), to hit Russian military targets in Crimea, a sovereign Ukrainian territory illegally annexed by Russia. When Russia launched its intensified offensive against Kharkiv Oblast in May, a number of countries said they had lifted restrictions on the use of Western-provided weapons against military targets inside Russia. The U.S. granted Kyiv limited permission to use certain American weapons to strike Russian targets near the region's border. President Volodymyr Zelensky keeps urging Washington to allow Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia, including military aircraft stationed on bases. "And we can significantly limit Russian actions in southern Ukraine and push the occupier out of there if American leadership assists us with the necessary deep-strike capabilities against the Russian military and logistics in our Ukrainian Crimea," he said on July 10. Read also: US doesnt change policy on Ukrainian strikes inside Russia after attack on childrens hospital Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. The United Kingdoms sugar tax led to a nearly 50 per cent reduction in childrens added sugar intake from sodas and other soft drinks, according to new research. In March 2016, the UK government introduced a tax on soft drinks containing added sugar in a bid to curb childhood obesity. The rule prompted soft drink manufacturers to cut the amount of sugar in their drinks before the tax was implemented in April 2018. Overall consumption of added sugars had also been falling for years, as Brits switched to lower-sugar alternatives. By looking at 11 years of data, researchers from the University of Cambridge and other top British universities could model the expected intake of added sugars based on existing trends. They compared those levels to what actually happened in early 2019. The researchers found that after the tax was announced and implemented, childrens added sugar consumption from soft drinks alone dropped by 45 per cent compared with previous years. Intake also dropped by 33 per cent among adults, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Compared with a scenario where the tax had not been introduced, and taking the existing decline in sugar consumption into account, the study indicates the tax led to a 23.5 per cent relative decrease in added sugar intake from soft drinks among children, and a 40.4 per cent relative decrease among adults. It all just reinforces that the policy is having an impact, Dr Peymane Adab, a professor of chronic disease epidemiology and public health at the University of Birmingham, told Euronews Health. She was not involved with the study. But Adab also cautioned that these are still relatively short-term impacts. We know from other types of behaviours, like tobacco and alcohol [consumption], that sometimes these reductions don't last. It isnt clear whether the decrease in sugar consumption was due to manufacturers cutting down on added sugars in their products, a greater preference for low-calorie artificial sweeteners, or public health messaging around sugary foods and drinks that prompted parents to make different purchasing decisions. While the tax doesnt apply to some high-sugar drinks that are popular with children, like fruit juices and milk-based drinks, the findings suggest that people didnt substitute their soft drinks with other sugary foods and drinks, researchers said. Room for improving sugar reduction Even so, researchers noted that added sugar intake remains too high overall, according to international guidelines. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that people limit their sugar consumption to less than 5 per cent of their daily energy intake for maximum health benefits, but in 2019 British kids were still getting 9.9 per cent of that total from added sugars in food and soft drinks. We still have room for improving sugar reduction even further, Adab said. Weve still not hit the right level. At least 54 countries have implemented taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages, according to the Obesity Evidence Hub in Australia. Sugar-sweetened drinks put kids at higher risk of obesity, which can cause type 2 diabetes, stroke, arthritis, and some cancers. About a quarter of 10 and 11-year-olds in the UK are obese, with the childhood obesity rate surging during the COVID-19 pandemic before ticking down slightly. Sugary drinks arent the only problem. Children ages 4 to 10 get most added sugars from cereal, while soft drinks are the top culprit for those ages 11 to 18, and adults are most likely to turn to preserves and sweets. The latest study didnt measure whether there were differences in added sugar consumption by age group, which could help identify how different groups are affected by taxes and other health interventions. Prior findings, for example, show that the sugar tax helped curb obesity in girls but not boys. Adab said a multi-sector approach that addresses health disparities among disadvantaged groups will be needed to lower childhood obesity rates in the UK. That could include public awareness campaigns about the impact of added sugars, initiatives to encourage healthy eating in schools, limits on advertising to children, and taxation and reformulation for certain products. Not one of them is going to be the single silver bullet, Adab said. Taxation has had some impact, but without other things around to support, it's unlikely on its own to achieve a reduction in obesity. Ukrainian Air Force pilots will soon be taking to the skies in US-made F-16 fighter aircraft provided by the Dutch and Danish governments in a multinational effort to bolster Kyivs air defense capabilities this summer. In a joint statement issued with the Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof and Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen, Biden said the Netherlands and Denmark are in the process of donating from their stocks of F-16 jets, with the support of the United States. The transfer process for these F-16s is now underway, and Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer, the leaders said, adding that the exact timing of when those jets would first be patrolling Ukrainian airspace wont be provided due to security concerns. Biden and the other two heads of government also said Belgium and Norway would soon be providing Ukraine with F-16 jets from their stocks and promised that Kyiv would be able to field squadrons of the US-made fourth-generation fighters. They added that the multinational Air Force Capability Coalition for Ukraine intends to support sustainment and armament of the Ukrainian F-16 supplies, plus further associated training for pilots to enhance operational efforts. The announcement of Ukraines impending receipt of the long-awaited jets fulfilling a long-held wish of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky comes less than 24 hours after Biden announced plans for the US and other partner nations to provide Kyiv with five strategic air defense systems and dozens of tactical air defense systems in the coming months to counter new waves of Russian air attacks. All told, Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional interceptors over the next year, helping protect Ukrainian cities against Russian missile Ukrainian troops facing their attacks on the front line, he said while speaking to an assembly that included the 31 other Nato heads of state and government at an event to mark the start of the alliances annual summit in Washington. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto on July 10 after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Ukraine and Russia on what he called a "peace mission." During a meeting between the foreign ministers, Kuleba said he briefed his counterpart on the situation on the front line and preparations for a second peace summit. Kuleba added that no peace initiatives can be based on "Russia's narratives." Russian President Vladimir Putin said in June that, as a condition for peace negotiations, Ukrainian troops must leave Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. He added that Ukraine must recognize Russia's illegal annexation of the regions and abandon any ambition to join NATO. Kuleba in his post on X also recalled the recent Russian July 8 attack, which targeted the Okhmatdyt children's hospital. The attack against the medical facility killed two people, including a doctor, and wounded 32 others. He stressed that the attack once again demonstrated that Putin continues to "seek war." "We must jointly make him accept just and lasting peace," he said. The parties also discussed further joint steps to develop bilateral relations. Later in the day, Szijjarto said that he had handed Kuleba an action plan for the development of cross-border economic cooperation and the creation of special economic zones, the Hungarian news outlet Telex reported. "I have proposed the construction of new border crossings, the renovation of the Tisza bridge and new rail links, and also that we should strengthen our cooperation in the field of energy because it is obvious that if two neighboring countries cooperate, energy security can be mutually improved," Szijjarto said. Szijjarto added that this plan would place relations with Ukraine in a "different development framework." Kyiv will study the plan and send back its proposals, according to Szijjarto. Shortly after Hungary took over the rotating presidency on July 1, Orban visited Kyiv for the first time since the start of the full-scale war. During his talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky, he urged him to consider a ceasefire as a step toward peace, which the Zelensky dismissed, saying it would only provide a window of opportunity for Russia to regroup its forces. Just days after meeting Zelensky in Kyiv, Orban visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on July 5. Hungary has remained the most Kremlin-friendly country within the EU and has repeatedly opposed Ukraine's accession to NATO and the European bloc, obstructed sanctions on Russia, and undermined Western aid efforts for Ukraine. After meeting both Zelensky and Putin, Orban publicly acknowledged that the views of the two countries on peace prospects are "very far apart." The prime minister's trip to Moscow sparked outrage in the EU, and his "mission" is to be discussed by European diplomats in Brussels on July 10, Politico reported. Read also: Orban lays out Putins views on war in leaked letter to European Council Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. More details have come to light about the shadowy FrankenSAM a number of ground-based air defense systems rapidly developed by the United States for Ukraine and now proven in combat. Most intriguingly, U.S. lawmakers are proposing that the U.S. Air Force look at adopting the FrankenSAM in one of its short-range iterations for air base defense. The growing vulnerability of airfields is something that we have explored on several occasions and its a problem compounded by a general lack of short-range air defense systems, or SHORADS, something that the FrankenSAM program could help rapidly address. The FrankenSAMs could also plug other gaps in air defenses and connect with a greater integrated air defense network, as well as provide independent point defense for vulnerable infrastructure. What is likely the most comprehensive publicly available outline of the FrankenSAM is provided in the Senate Armed Services Committees (SASC) markup of the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill, filed on July 8 and which details how lawmakers propose to spend around $25 billion on top of previous budget caps. One of the first official photos to show a Soviet-era ground-based air defense system upgraded with Western surface-to-air missiles under the FrankenSAM program. In this case, a tracked self-propelled Buk-M1 system known in the West as SA-11 Gadfly said to have been adapted to fire the RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missile. Ukrainian Ministry of Defense Operational Command East First off, the document provides some more background on how the FrankenSAM was developed for Ukraine, to meet what was an urgent requirement for more robust ground-based air defense capabilities after Russias full-scale invasion, to deal with crewed aircraft, drones, and cruise missiles. According to the document, the FrankenSAM emerged from a U.S. Air Force requirement of Fiscal Year 2023, which called for a mobile ground-based air defense solution that could be rapidly and affordably developed and fielded for use in Ukraine. The FrankenSAM resulted in the design of a family of systems three of which are so far known. Broadly speaking, these each comprise a ground launch system (understood to be based, at least in some versions, on existing Soviet-era hardware) that integrates an existing supply of air-to-air missiles into an open-architecture fire control backbone. The specific reference to air-to-air missiles is interesting since the ship-launched radar-guided RIM-7 Sea Sparrow is also known to be a part of at least one of the FrankenSAM iterations. The first FrankenSAM system to be seen in detail in official imagery comprises a Soviet-era Buk (SA-11 Gadfly) mobile surface-to-air missile system apparently armed with RIM-7s. However, the similar AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile has also been provided to Ukraine and is also understood to be employed in one or more FrankenSAM versions. The aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) launches a RIM-7 Sea Sparrow System missile during an exercise in August 1997. U.S. Navy A RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missile is launched from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) during an exercise in August 1997. U.S. Navy The second FrankenSAM that we know about is another ad-hoc system, but it uses repurposed U.S.-supplied heat-seeking AIM-9M Sidewinder air-to-air missiles as its effector. Finally, there is understood to be a longer-range FrankenSAM system (not mentioned in the document) that combines U.S.-designed Patriot surface-to-air missiles and their launchers with elements from existing Ukrainian air defense systems, which might include radars from the countrys S-300P (SA-10 Grumble) systems. Ukrainian personnel remove camouflage netting from canisters for PAC-2 missiles, in this case, carried on a normal Patriot launcher. Ukrainian Air Force Ukrainian personnel remove camouflage netting from a Patriot launcher, which is loaded with missile canisters associated with older interceptors like the PAC-2-series. Ukrainian Air Force FrankenSAMs ability to leverage what are often surplus munitions is a huge draw as these weapons have diminishing relevance in their original roles and are plentiful in number. New missiles cost many hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars each and can take years to procure. By their very nature they are a finite, not easily replenished resource at any given time. As well as the various different mobile launchers and missiles, FrankenSAM also includes communication towers; passive infrared camera systems; early warning radar trailers; and small-form-factor communication kits, enabling a networked air defense architecture. The entire open-architecture system was designed, built, and successfully completed live-fire testing within eight months from contract award, according to SASC, and was fielded by Ukraine by the end of 2023. The time taken to get the system into combat was equally impressive: Within two months of arriving in theater, and with less than two weeks of operator training, FrankenSAM fully demonstrated its range of capabilities, providing an immediate impact on the battlefield, the document states. No details are provided about the Ukrainians experience of using the FrankenSAM in combat, but its clearly been successful enough for lawmakers to suggest that the U.S. Air Force looks at adapting it for its own use, specifically for air base defense. The committee recognizes that the standard budget and acquisition process of the Department of Defense (DOD) does not often allow for agile development and rapid procurement of innovative technological solutions designed to solve real-world challenges, SASC contends. However, todays continually evolving threats require DOD to adapt and allow for creative and agile responses to emergent problems. In this sense, the FrankenSAM has become something of a case study for the ability of the U.S. Air Force and industry to rapidly and effectively develop systems for critical missions. The core of FrankenSAM leverages easy-to-use, proven technologies that limit the dependence on component development timelines, while emphasizing integration of existing and new equipment into an open-architecture system, SASC highlights. The modular approach of the system can be quickly integrated into existing air defense systems where gaps may occur in protecting installations, or by providing quick reaction, standalone point defense where a larger comprehensive air defense system may not exist. The video below is apparently the first evidence of a Ukrainian FrankenSAM having been destroyed in combat. Again, this is an example of the Buk/Sea Sparrow version, just one of several FrankenSAMs to have been developed: The first visually destroyed Ukrainian FrankenSAM air defense system the Buk complex, adapted for launching American-made RIM-7 Sea Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. pic.twitter.com/zd9coeERD1 Clash Report (@clashreport) May 10, 2024 Furthermore, the document notes that the FrankenSAM as developed for Ukraine is currently utilizing a mobile, truck-mounted configuration, it could be adapted to use a palletized or fixed-base platform that can be easily integrated into various shore, ship, or land-based environments. Again, the reference to a truck-mounted configuration is interesting and suggests that the previously mentioned adaptation of the Buk to fire the RIM-7 and/or AIM-7 has, for some reason, been neglected from the description. As described, the truck-mounted FrankenSAM would appear to most likely be the iteration thats armed with Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, the smallest of the known effectors. At this stage, we cant say for sure. There remains the possibility that multiple other FrankenSAM systems are now being employed in Ukraine or have been developed. Regardless, its obvious that the basic ability of the FrankenSAM system to host various different types of missiles (so-called effector agnostic) is seen as a major advantage. It is therefore able to be armed with surplus munitions that are already in either United States or partner inventories. Having a truck-mounted system would make sense for airfield defense, as well, since its not required to offer a high degree of off-road mobility and it should be fairly easy to transport by air, being flown into the bases where its needed. Once in theater, a truck-based system would also be able to move quickly to new locations, making its presence unpredictable and ensuring that its harder to target a notably important factor when faced with long-rang drone attacks and cruise missile attacks. Versions of FranenSAM systems could also be installed as platforms in semi-permanent locations or even at sea aboard support vessels and sea bases. Armed with Sidewinder missiles, the M48 Chaparral self-propelled surface-to-air missile system is typical of the Cold War-era mobile SHORADS concept that the FrankenSAM project has sought to resurrect. U.S. Army A truck-based SHORADS solution separate from the FrankenSAM program, but very similar to it, has also appeared in Ukraine, in the form of a ground-launched version of the AIM-132 ASRAAM mounted on a 66 Supacat all-terrain truck chassis, with a twin-rail launcher for a pair of the missiles mounted at the rear. A 66 Supacat all-terrain truck chassis fitted with a twin launcher for ASRAAM missiles. Ukrainian Armed Forces A picture of one of the ASRAAM/Supacat air defense systems supplied to Ukraine. Ukrainian Armed Forces With all this in mind, SASC calls for the U.S. Secretary of Defense to provide a briefing to the congressional defense committees, no later than March 31, 2025, that will look into U.S. Air Force use of the FrankenSAM, or at least the overarching concept behind it. In particular, the U.S. Secretary of Defense is tasked to look at how DOD and partner countries have utilized the FrankenSAM system in contingency operations (this presumably refers to Ukraine specifically, since, as far as we know, no other countries have used it), any additional resources that may be required to expand and improve the FrankenSAM system, and how the U.S. military could exploit the capability for quick reaction or extended use in other theaters. Its no secret that the U.S. military in general has a SHORADS deficit. This is something that TWZ has highlighted for years now. At the same time, it should be recalled that limited numbers of ground-based air defenses also extend to the supplies of longer-range systems like the Patriot, and there is no mid-tier system fielded by the U.S. military in significant numbers. The realities of future conflicts likely being fought in non-permissive aerial environments have forced a shift in thinking and with SHORADS being needed sooner rather than later, a semi-off-the-shelf solution like one of the FrankenSAM systems is obviously of interest. The fact that the FrankenSAM is being specifically suggested for the defense of U.S. Air Force airfields is also notable. The vulnerability of air bases is something we have also discussed at length over recent years. Simply put, the Air Force will likely have to fight future wars that will be heavily expeditionary in nature, forcing assets to operate far from home, and in contested environments. Americas once significant air superiority margin has gradually shrunk, meaning that available airbases will increasingly be threatened by airstrikes, as well as by missiles and drones of various kinds. A Ukrainian air defense operator posing with the wreckage of a Russian drone said to have been shot down by a FrankenSAM system. Operational Command East The kinds of threats that might be employed by China, for example, against an airfield used by the U.S. Air Force in the Pacific will be complex and varied. The ability to protect against cruise missiles and drones that might have penetrated the outer layers of the air defenses and directly threaten the air base and the critical assets that it hosts could well make the difference between victory and defeat. Very small units that are far forward deployed in less conspicuous areas and those farther back will also need some form of protection against lower-volume aerial threats. Threats directed against airfields might also not necessarily be particularly high-end in terms of their capabilities. The war in Ukraine has provided ample evidence of how relatively unsophisticated drones can disrupt the operations at an air base, even if its hundreds of miles beyond the front line. A SHORADS like the Sidewinder-based FrankenSAM, however, might well be enough to defend against these kinds of attacks, albeit only limited ones, and to do so at an acceptable financial cost. While drone threats and cruise missiles could also be tackled by crewed fighters, the reality of almost any kind of future large-scale conflict is that every warplane will likely be needed elsewhere, very likely also operating at significant distances from their bases. This makes it all the more important that airfields are defended by organic SHORADS. U.S. Air Force F-35As during austere operations on Northwest Field, an austere airstrip on Guam that is seen as a less vulnerable option compared to the nearby Andersen Air Force Base. U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Jonathan Valdes Montijo In fact, the idea of a more capable new-generation SHORADS armed with Sidewinder air-to-air missiles is not new for the U.S. military. In the past, Boeing has demonstrated at least two different weapons turrets for the existing Avenger air defense system that add the AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile. In its original form, the Avenger is based on a Humvee armed with FIM-92 Stinger missiles and a 50-caliber machine gun. Adding AIM-9X gives the system a much greater reach, a more reliable seeker system, and a better ability to engage maneuvering targets. The aforementioned AIM-9M doesnt offer the same level of capability as the AIM-9X, but its available in large numbers, has already been integrated in at least one iteration of the FrankenSAM, and as such would appear to offer a readymade SHORADS solution, especially for the point defense of air bases and other critical infrastructure. A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle weapons load crew team lifts an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to attach to a pylon, at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates, in July 2019. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Chris Thornbury Staff Sgt. Chris Thornbury Intriguingly, the U.S. has supplied AIM-9X missiles to Ukraine as well, although it is not entirely clear if they are being used as part of the FrankenSAM initiative or if they are fired by the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) that Ukraine also operates. Reports that the Ukrainian NASAMS are firing AIM-9X as well as AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles are something that TWZ has addressed in the past. The AIM-9M provided that is the missile used, and there are certainly other options, too would also be a much less expensive alternative than many of the missiles and interceptors used by higher-end SHORADS. Whats more, stocks of AIM-9Ms (and other Sidewinder variants) can be easily sourced from U.S. stocks and those of allies. U.S. Marine Corps aircraft ordnance technicians load an AIM-9M Sidewinder onto an AV-8B Harrier during flight operations aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD-5), in December 2023. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Matthew Romonoyske-Bean An AIM-9M Sidewinder is loaded onto an AV-8B during flight operations aboard USS Bataan, on December 26, 2023. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Matthew Romonoyske-Bean Either way, aside from the FrankenSAM, there is a precedent for using the Sidewinder missile in a ground-launched form. Between the 1960s and the 1990s, the U.S. Army fielded such a system, called the Chaparral. This consisted of a turreted four-round launcher mounted on either a tracked vehicle based on the M113 armored personnel carrier or a trailer. Chaparral used derivatives of the AIM-9 Sidewinder known as MIM-72s. Chaparral was exported to a number of countries during the Cold War and remains in limited service today, including in ground-based and navalized forms in Taiwan. The Taiwanese military tests fire a ground-launched Sidewinder missile during a military exercise in Pingtung, southern Taiwan, in October 2003. PATRICK LIN/AFP via Getty Images PATRICK LIN Ultimately, the same kinds of threats that the FrankenSAM is helping protect Ukraine against low-flying fighter aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles, and drones are the same kinds that the U.S. Air Force would likely have to defend its air bases against, especially in a future conflict in the Pacific theater. Here, the air defense problems will be compounded by Chinas expanding anti-access and area denial capabilities as well as the very practical limits on Americas ability to guarantee air superiority over such a vast area. While the U.S. military has, in recent years, made efforts to address its SHORADS deficiencies, if predictions are correct, then time may be fast running out to procure and field such systems before the U.S. Air Force is involved in a potential conflict with China in the Pacific. Its this kind of urgency that may well have driven official U.S. interest in the FrankenSAM system. At the same time, there is a very real need for air defense of air bases outside the Pacific theater, with installations in the continental United States also being potentially vulnerable, including to drone attacks. The growing need for defenses against lower levels of threats at air bases in the United States, as well as around critical infrastructure, and elsewhere overseas could well be met by a lower-end SHORADS solution of this kind. It might yet be the case that a system developed under a crash program to provide a rapid and inexpensive air defense solution for Ukraine ends up providing critical short-range air defense capabilities for the U.S. Air Force, and potentially other operators too. Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com The frequency and effectiveness of Ukraine's strikes on Russia's Black Sea Fleet have significantly increased over the past year. Source: UK Defence Intelligence review dated 10 July, as reported by European Pravda Details: Open-source data indicates that between February 2022 and June 2024, Ukrainian forces damaged or destroyed 26 Russian Navy vessels operating in the Black Sea region. Strikes were conducted across the northern part of the Black Sea region and the Sea of Azov, the review reads. The Ukrainian General Staff officially reports 28 Russian ships and boats, as well as one submarine, being hit. The UK intelligence has noted that over the past year, the frequency and level of damage caused by Ukrainian attacks in the Crimean Peninsula area have increased, with nearly two-thirds of the strikes occurring during this period. Background: In May, the UK Defence Intelligence assessed the impact of the strike on the carrier of Russian Kalibr missiles in Sevastopol. In April, the intelligence stated that after the change of command, Russia's Black Sea Fleet became the least active it has been since the beginning of the war. Support UP or become our patron! Saudi Arabia has raised more than $12bn (SR45bn) from selling additional shares in state-owned Aramco, after the offering was increased for the energy giant. The company, one of the most valuable in the world, raised $1bn more than expected from the stake sale. The sale, the results of which were published on Aramcos website, came after a stabilisation period for the companys shares ended. The stabilisation period lasted for 30 days. The revenue will likely go towards helping Saudi Arabia diversify its economy away from oil and gas production under the kingdoms Vision 2030 plan. The plan aims to leverage Saudi Arabias unique strengths, such as its pivotal role in the Arab and Islamic worlds, its strong investment capabilities, and its strategic geographical position, according to a previous Saudi Government statement. The government sold a 0.64% stake in Aramco at 27.25 riyals ($7.2) a share last month. In addition, 154 million shares were made available a few days after the initial sale. The energy giant previously said the offering raised a minimum of $11.2bn. The Saudi Government is currently involved in huge infrastructure projects and equally huge spending in an effort to create non-energy jobs and build new industries. However, oil and gas will remain central to the Saudi economy for several years to come, with the kingdom keen to develop export relations with large, energy-guzzling nations in its vicinity, such as China. Offshore Technology reported this week that crude oil from Saudi Arabia heading for the huge Asian nation is likely to reach 44 million barrels in August following price cuts from Aramco. In May, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman assured Japans Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, during a video conference that stable oil supplies to Japan will be maintained, the Japanese foreign minister said in a press release at the time. During the video conference, Kishida said he expects Saudi Arabia to continue stabilising the global oil market through further production increases. "Saudi Arabia nets $12bn from Aramco share sale after increasing offer" was originally created and published by Offshore Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Ukraine may not be entirely satisfied with NATO Summit outcome Poland's foreign minister Ukraine may not be fully satisfied with the outcomes of the NATO Summit that has begun in the US capital. Source: Polish radio station RMF FM, citing Polish Foreign Minister Radosaw Sikorski in Washington, DC, as reported by European Pravda Details: Answering a question about the prospects of Ukraine's accession to NATO at a briefing for the Polish press, Sikorski admitted that this is a "difficult issue" as "there is nothing more dangerous than unreliable security guarantees". Sikorski said NATO currently believes that Ukraine can only join the Alliance once the war has ended. Consequently, the minister noted, Kyiv is likely to remain unsatisfied with the "bridge to NATO" proposed at the summit, as it will only be content when it achieves victory in the war. "But we are doing a lot to make it happen," he said. Sikorski added that the allies will commit to "huge" materiel aid to Ukraine at the summit, amounting to US$40 billion a year, and a group of countries, including Poland, will be formed to sign a security cooperation agreement with Ukraine. "First of all, we will show that we are united. NATO was created to deter Russian aggression. Russia is aggressive again. NATO won the first time, it will win the second time," he concluded. Background: NATO is not expected to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance at the Washington Summit. On the night of 9-10 July, US President Joe Biden announced that Ukraine would receive more Patriot air defence missile systems. European Pravda reported that President Biden's announcement of new Patriot air defence systems for Ukraine mostly referred to systems previously known about, with only one truly new system being provided by the US, along with several shorter-range systems. Later, the White House elaborated on what other air defence systems they would provide to Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! (Bloomberg) -- Kyiv wants to convene a second meeting to achieve a fair peace settlement in Ukraine before the US elections in November, this time with Russia attending, according to people familiar with the matter. Most Read from Bloomberg The plan follows the first summit that took place in Switzerland last month and included representatives from more than 90 countries. Russia was not invited, several states sent lower-level delegations and Ukraines bid to win over key nations from the Global South faltered as some declined to sign on to a final statement. Many of those countries as well as China which didnt join the Swiss meeting have long argued that Moscow should be part of the talks. Beijing has put forward its own proposals with Brazil to bring about an end to Russias war on Ukraine. The push to organize the meeting before the US elections points to a sense of urgency on the part of Ukraine as it faces the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has boasted that hell end the war by the time hes inaugurated in January and has argued against the USs continued military support for Kyiv. Russia is open to dialogue, but its necessary to understand what its about, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, the Interfax news service reported. Ukraine has been keen to use the summit process as a pathway to reaching a broad agreement on a set of key principles that would form the basis of a just peace before engaging with Russia. The Swiss summit focused on nuclear safety, food security and returning abducted children, and it is around those issues that initial contact with Russian officials could be established. A Ukrainian official confirmed the plan to hold a second summit before the US elections. Several officials from some western allied nations said any meeting would need to be carefully organized with a clear purpose and expectations managed. Some US officials, however, are unconvinced a summit with Russia and Ukraine would happen. They declined to be named because the talks are private. Speaking at the Reagan Institute in Washington on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the US to help organize the second summit to make it more powerful and truly decisive. Listen and follow The Big Take on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts (Updates with Kremlin comment in the fifth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Ukraine to sign security agreement with Romania in Washington Klaus Iohannis, President of Romania, has announced the signing of a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington. Source: Iohannis at a press conference on 10 July broadcasted by the Romanian Presidents administration, as reported by European Pravda Details: Iohannis did not specify the details of the future security agreement with Ukraine but noted that the agreement would be signed on the morning of 11 July. "Thus we will join other allies who signed this bilateral document with Ukraine," he added. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, announced the signing of two security agreements in Washington. After that, it was revealed such an agreement had been signed with Luxembourg. This is the 22nd security agreement between Ukraine and its allies. Latest surveys showed that 65% of Ukrainians consider security agreements with the partners useful, but their hopes for them are modest. Support UP or become our patron! President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister of Luxembourg Luc Frieden have signed a bilateral Agreement on Security Cooperation and Long-Term Support on Wednesday, 10 July, in Washington. Source: European Pravda, Office of the President of Ukraine Details: The agreement, posted on the website of the Office of the President, consists of twenty chapters that specify Luxembourg's support for Ukraine in the context of countering full-scale Russian invasion. Among other things, Luxembourg is to provide military assistance and support to Ukraine over the ten years of the agreement "at the same pace" as in 2022 (at the time of signing the agreement, the country has allocated 80 million since the beginning of the year). The agreement also reinforces Luxembourg's leading role in the coalition to build Ukraine's IT capabilities and its commitment to support Kyiv in the fields of satellite technology, intelligence and surveillance. This is the twenty-second security agreement Ukraine has signed with its partners, the previous one was signed with Poland during Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Warsaw. On Thursday, alongside the NATO summit, the United States will host a meeting of states that have pledged their security assistance to Ukraine. Recent polls reveal that 65% of Ukrainians believe security agreements with allies are beneficial, but their expectations of them are low. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraine war latest: F-16s from Netherlands, Denmark on their way to Ukraine, Blinken announces Key updates on July 10: F-16s from Netherlands, Denmark on their way to Ukraine, Blinken announces NATO allies to announce $43 billion commitment to Ukraine for next year, White House says New UK PM signals Ukraine can use Storm Shadow missiles to hit targets inside Russia Hundreds want to join new Ukrainian legion in Poland, Polish media reports Kyiv refutes Russia's claims of capturing village in Donetsk Oblast The first F-16 fighter jets are on their way from the Netherlands and Denmark to Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on July 10 during the NATO summit in Washington. "Those jets will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against Russian aggression," Blinken said. Ukraine was expected to receive the first F-16 jets this summer, a year after Denmark and the Netherlands founded the "fighter jet coalition" with nine other countries at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023. U.S. President Joe Biden, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen also confirmed the transfer of aircraft in a joint statement published on July 10. The statement reiterated Blinken's comment that the transfer of the jets was underway and that Ukraine would be flying F-16s this summer, adding that they are "are unable to provide additional details at this time due to operational security concerns." "We are committed to further enhancing Ukraine's air capabilities, which will include squadrons of modern fourth-generation F-16 multi-role aircraft," the statement read. "The coalition intends to support their sustainment and armament, as well as further associated training for pilots to enhance operational effectiveness." The Netherlands earlier pledged to deliver 24 of its fourth-generation U.S.-made jets to Ukraine, while Denmark confirmed sending 19 F-16 aircraft. Both countries earlier announced that they would deliver the first batch of fighter jets this summer. Former Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said last month that the Netherlands will deliver its first F-16 fighter jets "shortly after Denmark." Kyiv also expects to receive the aircraft also from Belgium and Norway. Norway announced on July 10 that it will donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, with the deliveries starting this year. Read also: Ukraine can use Netherlands F-16s to strike inside Russia as self-defense, Dutch minister says NATO allies to announce $43 billion commitment to Ukraine for next year, White House says NATO allies will announce their plans to provide Ukraine with a minimum baseline funding of 40 billion euros ($43 billion) for the next year at the Washington summit, the White House confirmed on July 10. The nations aim to "provide sustainable levels of security assistance for Ukraine to prevail," the statement read. NATO is also expected to announce a new military command in Germany to train and equip Ukrainian troops, as well as appoint a new NATO senior representative in Kyiv. Ukraine has voiced hope that the NATO summit on July 911 will bring a more definite signal about its future membership in the alliance. American officials made it clear that the country is unlikely to receive an invitation during the conference. Partners assured Kyiv that the event would define a specific position for Ukraine's membership in the alliance, namely its irreversibility and the roadmap toward it, said Olha Stefanishyna, the deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration. On the first day of the summit, the U.S. and at least nine other NATO allies pledged to send "dozens" of air defense systems to Ukraine in the coming months, including at least four Patriot batteries. President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has arrived in Washington, urged the U.S. to allow Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia, including military aircraft stationed in bases. "And we can significantly limit Russian actions in southern Ukraine and push the occupier out of there if American leadership assists us with the necessary deep-strike capabilities against the Russian military and logistics in our Ukrainian Crimea," Zelensky said. Read also: F-16s, multi-billion pledge, more Patriots, irreversible membership what Ukraine will and wont get at the NATO Summit New UK PM signals Ukraine can use Storm Shadow missiles to hit targets inside Russia New U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer signaled that Ukraine could use Storm Shadow long-range missiles to hit military targets inside Russia, Bloomberg reported on July 10. Starmer outlined his position, saying that it is up to Ukraine how to use British missiles. His remarks echoed the words of former U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron, indicating there will be no change of policy on the matter after Starmer's Labour Party won the elections last week. Cameron said in early May that Kyiv had the right to use the weapons provided by London to strike targets on Russian soil. The Kyiv Independent's source in the president's office disputed the statement, saying that there was no green light from the U.K. at that time. The missiles are "obviously to be used in accordance with international humanitarian law" and "for defensive purposes," but "it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy (them) for those defensive purposes," the prime minister said during the NATO summit in Washington. Ukraine has reportedly used U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles, with a range of up to 250 kilometers (150 miles), to hit Russian military targets in Crimea, a sovereign Ukrainian territory illegally annexed by Russia. When Russia launched its intensified offensive against Kharkiv Oblast in May, a number of countries said they had lifted restrictions on the use of Western-provided weapons against military targets inside Russia. The U.S. granted Kyiv limited permission to use certain American weapons to strike Russian targets near the region's border. President Volodymyr Zelensky keeps urging Washington to allow Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia, including military aircraft stationed on bases. "And we can significantly limit Russian actions in southern Ukraine and push the occupier out of there if American leadership assists us with the necessary deep-strike capabilities against the Russian military and logistics in our Ukrainian Crimea," he said on July 10. Read also: US doesnt change policy on Ukrainian strikes inside Russia after attack on childrens hospital Hundreds want to join new Ukrainian legion in Poland, Polish media reports Hundreds of Ukrainians in Poland have expressed interest in joining a new legion of Ukraine's army that will be trained in Poland, just days after President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the plans, Polish news outlet RMF reported on July 10. RMF said that "hundreds of Ukrainians living in Poland have already expressed their willingness to join the Ukrainian legion," citing an unofficial source in one of Ukraine's diplomatic missions. "These people have applied, even though the recruitment for this formation has not yet been announced," RMF said. The legion was officially announced as part of the security agreement signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on July 8, which laid out further developments in political, economic, and military cooperation between Ukraine and Poland. Unlike other specific legions in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, such as the Georgian Legion, the Freedom of Russia Legion, and the Belarusian Pahonia Regiment, the legion will be made up of Ukrainians. "The Ukrainian legion will train in Poland and be equipped with the help of our partners," Zelensky said. "Every Ukrainian citizen who decides to join the legion will be able to sign a contract with the Ukrainian Armed Forces," Zelensky said, adding that "our teams are currently working out all the details." Preliminary estimates suggest that "several thousand" Ukrainians may request to join the legion, and the opportunity to apply may be opened to Ukrainians living in other European countries, RMF said. "Efforts are underway to have other EU countries participate in the costs of training and equipment," as Warsaw is convinced that "training the Ukrainian legion is also an investment in European security," RMF said. The legion would most likely be trained in military bases that have already been instructing Ukrainian soldiers, as around 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in Poland since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, RMF said. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on May 31 that Warsaw considered Ukraine's request for military instructors to be sent to Ukraine, but "came to the conclusion that it would be both safer and more effective to train a Ukrainian unit formed of Ukrainians in Poland." Sikorski said in April that forcibly returning men of draft age to Ukraine is "ethically ambiguous" and Ukraine, rather than Poland, will have to "take the initiative" in the process. Read also: US provides Poland with $2 billion for financing of F-35s, Patriots, Abrams Kyiv refutes Russia's claims of capturing village in Donetsk Oblast Ukraine controls the situation near the village of Yasnobrodivka in Donetsk Oblast, Lieutenant Colonel Nazar Voloshyn, the spokesperson of the Khortytsia group of forces, told the Kyiv Independent on July 10. The statement comes after the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on July 9 that its forces had captured Yasnobrodivka, a front-line village located some 45 kilometers (27 miles) from the town of Pokrovsk. Voloshyn dismissed these claims, saying, "This is another Russian lie. Defense forces control the situation near this village." Moscow's forces suffered some 274 casualties in this sector, according to Voloshyn. Ukraine also reportedly destroyed two cannons, a mortar, and eight vehicles and damaged other equipment. The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims. Russia is carrying out intense attacks in multiple sections of the eastern front, including in Donetsk Oblast, after it captured the city of Avdiivka in February. Earlier in July, Ukrainian troops withdrew from the Kanal neighborhood of the embattled town of Chasiv Yar in the region. Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi said on July 2 that fighting had been particularly intense in recent weeks around the town of Toretsk, located some 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of Chasiv Yar. Read also: What Ukraines partial Chasiv Yar withdrawal actually means Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine's air defence down 14 of 20 Shahed drones over Ukraine Mobile fire group. Photo: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Russian forces attacked Ukraine with missiles and Shahed-131/136 drones from the temporarily occupied Crimea and Russias Kursk Oblast on the night of 9-10 July. Source: Ukraine's Air Force Details: The Air Force reported that the Russians launched one Iskander-M ballistic missile and four Kh-59/Kh-69 guided missiles as well as 20 Shahed drones. Ukraines air defenders managed to down 14 Shaheds over Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia and Rivne oblasts. The Air Force also added that missiles had been fired on the port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast. Due to active countermeasures, three Kh-59/Kh-69 missiles and three drones did not reach their targets. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraines Air Force has destroyed four Shahed drones over Mykolaiv Oblast and one over Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on the night of 9-10 July. Source: Vitalii Kim, Head of Mykolaiv Oblast Military Administration; Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration Quote from Kim: "Air defence forces and assets destroyed four Shahed 131/136 UAVs over Mykolaiv Oblast on the night of 9-10 July. Dry grass in an open area caught fire due to the fall of wreckage from the downed UAVs. Firefighters promptly extinguished the fire. There were no casualties." Details: Another Shahed drone was destroyed by an Air Command Skhid (East) unit in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Quote from Lysak: "Dry grass caught fire due to falling wreckage. The fire has been extinguished." Details: Lysak added that the Nikopol district suffered from Russian attacks with artillery and kamikaze drones in the evening and morning. The Russians attacked the city of Nikopol and Marhanets hromada, damaging infrastructure but without causing casualties or injuries [a hromada is an administrative unit designating a town, village or several villages and their adjacent territories ed.]. Background: Russian forces attacked a power facility in Rivne Oblast on the night of 9-10 July with drones, causing a power outage for some consumers. Support UP or become our patron! Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, is reportedly being considered to replace Denys Maliuska as Ukraines Justice Minister. As a result, Stefanishyna will vacate her current position. Source: an article by Ukrainska Pravda Details: Ukrainska Pravda sources in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's team report that the incumbent Justice Minister Denys Maliuska signed a letter of resignation some time ago, although it lacks a specified effective date and has not yet been implemented. Ukrainska Pravda sources stressed that Stefanishyna is to be left as Deputy Prime Minister for European integration and appointed as the new Minister of Justice. In addition, Zelenskyy is still weighing up the option of not replacing Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal but rather reshuffling his cabinet. "There are so many potential changes in the Cabinet of Ministers [the Ukrainian government] that even without replacing Shmyhal, they are enough to talk about a global government reset," UP sources said. Support UP or become our patron! Yuliia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, is the only candidate being seriously discussed as a potential replacement for Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. Source: Ukrainska Pravda article Details: Andrii Yermak, Head of the Ukrainian President's Office, reportedly perceives Svyrydenko as 100% loyal and a part of the team. "Yermak is known to do only what the president tells him to do, so it is likely that the president also supports Svyrydenko's candidacy. After all, she got into the government under the patronage of Yermak's team, having previously served as deputy head of the President's Office before being appointed Minister of Economy," the article says. Moreover, Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska is believed to be a supporter of Svyrydenko. Svyrydenko accompanies the First Lady on every official foreign trip aboard a state plane, and they share a close relationship with common views on many issues. Another factor in Svyrydenko's favour is her substantial track record of cooperation with key foreign donors. They regard her as transparent, and she hasn't been involved in any corruption cases. Journalists found that only Svyrydenko's candidacy generally has received favourable reviews from Western partners. Meanwhile, the article points out that many within the Ukrainian government and the ruling Servant of the People party do not consider Svyrydenko a serious contender. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraine's Foreign Minister meets Hungarian counterpart, saying peace initiatives cannot be based on Russian narratives Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has met with his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto. Source: European Pravda, citing Kuleba on X (Twitter) Met with my Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto. I briefed Peter on the situation on the frontline as well as the preparations for the second Peace summit. In this context, I emphasized that no peace initiatives can be based on Russias narratives. The recent Russian attack pic.twitter.com/3TZ9RXF311 Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) July 10, 2024 Kuleba briefed Szijjarto on the situation on the frontline and preparations for the second Peace Summit. "In this context, I emphasized that no peace initiatives can be based on Russias narratives," he noted. The Ukrainian foreign minister stressed that the Russian strike on the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv once again demonstrated that appeasing Russian leader Vladimir Putin yields no results, as he pursues war, and "we must jointly make him to accept just and lasting peace." Kuleba pointed out that they also discussed further joint steps to develop bilateral relations, building on agreements reached during Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's recent visit to Kyiv. Background: The EU started discussing punishing Hungary and the government of Viktor Orban for their international activity and fake "mediation" to end the war in Ukraine. On 8 July, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy explained why Orban cannot be an intermediary between Ukraine and Russia . After the trip to Moscow, Orban explained how he had hidden these plans from Western allies. Support UP or become our patron! German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (L) meets Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, for bilateral talks on the sidelines of the NATO summit. The heads of state and government of the 32 member states also want to discuss strengthening their own deterrence and defense capabilities as well as fairer burden-sharing within the alliance. Kay Nietfeld/dpa Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday thanked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the delivery of air defence systems from Germany. "Thank you, Olaf, for the air defence," Zelensky told Scholz at a meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington. Air defence systems are a key element of the military aid Germany has provided to Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion of the country in February 2022. Most recently, the German armed forces provided three Patriot air defence systems. Scholz is lobbying other NATO allies to offer Ukraine further protection from Russian airstrikes. "In my view, this process is not complete," said Scholz before his meeting with Zelensky. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (L) meets Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, for bilateral talks on the sidelines of the NATO summit. The heads of state and government of the 32 member states also want to discuss strengthening their own deterrence and defense capabilities as well as fairer burden-sharing within the alliance. Kay Nietfeld/dpa Ukrainian agriculture ministry employee lost both her children in Russian attack on Kyiv video Anastasiia lost both her children in the Russian attack. Photo: State Emergency Service on Facebook Anastasiia Straulat, who worked at Ukraine's Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, was injured in a Russian missile strike on Kyiv's Shevchenkivskyi district on 8 July. As of 9 July, she was in a serious condition in intensive care. Source: a statement from Ukraine's Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food Details: Anastasiias two children were killed in the attack on their apartment building. "Staff at the Ministry of Agrarian Policy send heartfelt condolences to their colleague Anastasiia Stratulat, who lost her dearest ones during yesterday's bombardment of the capital: her son Andrii and her daughter Mariia. We share this great anguish and bow our heads in profound sorrow," the statement says. The ministry stated that their employee was with her children at the time of the attack and was severely injured. As of 9 July, Anastasiia was in a serious condition in an intensive care unit at one of the city's hospitals. Zoia Shkurko, a colleague of Anastasiia's, wrote on social media that Anastasiia's daughter Mariia loved animals and volunteered at a rescue organisation, Chotyrylapyi Santa (Four-legged Santa). "I didn't recognise her Nastia (Anastasiia) Stratulat, a beautiful, young and enthusiastic mother of two children who have now become angels, my colleague at the Ministry of Agriculture, and my neighbour who lives only 10 minutes away. When I read the news, I didn't realise it was about people I knew," Zoia said. The Russian missile attack on an apartment block in Kyiv's Shevchenkivskyi district also killed 10-year-old karate star Maksym Symaniuk, his younger sister Anastasiia, and their mother, Zoriana, 40. According to Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, 33 Ukrainians, including five children, have been killed in the Russian missile strike on the city as of 14:00 on 10 July. Later, it was reported that a boy who was injured in the Russian attack on the Okhmatdyt Childrens Hospital had died in hospital. Svitlana Lukianchuk, a 30-year-old from Lviv who worked as a paediatric nephrologist, was also one of those killed in the Russian attack on the hospital. Support UP or become our patron! A Ukrainian minister says she's frustrated by the West's inability to adapt its weapons to Russian tactics: report A Ukrainian minister says she's frustrated by the West's inability to adapt its weapons to Russian tactics: report Western-supplied weapons are having a diminished impact in Ukraine as Russia adapts its tactics. A Ukrainian minister expressed frustration at the pace of adaptation, The Wall Street Journal reported. But Western manufacturers have little incentive to adapt older weapons. A Ukrainian minister has expressed concerns over the lack of adaptation in weapons being sent to Ukraine from the West. Some weapons systems that were immensely effective when they were first deployed in Ukraine have since seen limited results or have even fallen by the wayside as Russian forces adapt their tactics to counter them. Anna Gvozdiar, Ukraine's minister of strategic industries, told The Wall Street Journal that she was frustrated that these systems were not being adapted to catch up. In contrast to this, she said Ukrainian forces "learn faster because we are on the front line." Excalibur artillery rounds which had a huge impact on Ukraine's fighting ability well into 2023 had been all but abandoned by this spring after Russian forces repeatedly foiled them with advanced electronic warfare techniques, as The Washington Post reported. A similar story has played out with US-made HIMARS missiles, whose precision has also been somewhat blunted, the Journal reported. Ukraine has also given up using Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs, pending a review, according to the Journal. Sent to Ukraine with some fanfare in February, by this spring their effectiveness was already on the wane, again due to Russian jamming, Reuters reported. It could take months for manufacturers Boeing and SAAB AB to create a fix, one source told Reuters. Despite Gvozdiar's complaint, there is little incentive for US manufacturers to try to adjust their weapons to this rapidly changing battlefield. Many of them are older stocks that are being phased out of the US' inventories anyway, the Journal reported. Over the course of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has developed increasingly sophisticated jamming methods at a pace that far outstrips the current capabilities of the US, former Pentagon officials have previously warned. Russian forces have also been able to adapt to threats by moving logistics sites out of range of some munitions, albeit at a cost to their efficiency. Experts have told Business Insider that the problem of this fading usefulness of allied weapons on the Ukrainian battlefield is compounded by the piecemeal manner of their delivery. "Weapons systems have been consistently released to Ukraine too late to have their optimal effect, and also have often been trickle fed," Justin Bronk, an air power expert at the Royal United Services Institute, told BI. "By the time they're available in larger numbers, the Russians have had time to adapt," he said, adding that it was a particular problem during the counteroffensive of 2023, but is still "at play" now. Some weapon systems are still proving their worth, such as ATACMS and the UK- and France-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles, the Journal reported. But Russia can ultimately be expected to adapt to those, too. Some Western governments are taking note. In January, the Swedish government launched an initiative to speed up its weapon manufacturers' response to developments in Ukraine, according to the Journal. Read the original article on Business Insider Ukroboronprom, a Ukrainian state-owned defence industry company, has opened its first foreign representative office in Washington, D.C. Source: Oleksandr Kamyshin, Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine Details: The opening took place on the sidelines of the NATO summit in the US capital. Quote: "On the sidelines of the NATO Summit, we opened the first foreign office of Ukroboronprom in Washington, USA. Its main task is to promote joint US-Ukrainian defence projects and enhance our integration into NATO's defence industrial base." On the sidelines of the #NATOSummit we opened the first foreign office of @ukroboronprom - in Washington, USA. Its main task is to promote joint US-Ukrainian defense projects and enhance our integration into NATO's defense industrial base. pic.twitter.com/3fGoPJrwH6 Alexander Kamyshin (@AKamyshin) July 9, 2024 More details: Kamyshin added that the opening of the office in Washington would bring the Ukrainian industry closer to the US defence industry and help Ukraine integrate into the NATO defence industry. Background: The US president announced on the night of 9-10 July that Ukraine would receive new Patriot air defence systems, but not all of the announced deliveries were new. Later, the White House explained what other air defence systems they would provide to Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! Ukrainian strikes with various types of weapons have had a significant impact on the Russian economy, notably reducing oil refining by 17%. NATO expects these strikes to continue. Source: European Pravda with reference to a high-ranking NATO official at the Alliance summit in Washington Quote: "We do see that Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory are impacting the Russian economy, oil refining and Russian energy exports." Details: According to the official, Ukrainian strikes with various types of weapons are capable of reaching deep into Russian territory and are significantly affecting the Russian economy. The impact is so substantial that Russia has imposed internal restrictions on petrol exports and other measures. The official said Russian oil refining volume has decreased by about 17% and it is anticipated that further impacts on the Russian economy will continue as Ukraine employs various types of weapons. Background: In May, the US Department of Defense stated that Ukrainian drone attacks in early 2024 disrupted 14% of Russia's oil refining capacity and led to an increase in domestic fuel prices. In March, the media reported that the United States had allegedly urged Kyiv not to strike Russian oil refineries and other energy infrastructure anymore. Oksana Markarova, Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States, stated that she hadnt received any official notifications from Washington with a ban on Kyiv attacking oil refineries in Russia with its weapons. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraine's drone strikes on Russian oil refinery sites have caused the volume of Russia's oil refining to fall by around 17%, a NATO official reportedly told journalists in Washington on July 9. "I think we will continue to observe this, as Ukraine uses different types of weapons, and this will have a further impact on the Russian economy," the unnamed official reportedly said on the sidelines of the NATO summit. Ukraine has carried out increasingly long-range drone strikes into Russian territory, often targeting oil refineries and depots to disrupt fuel supplies to the Russian military and diminish Moscow's fossil fuel export revenues, crucial for funding the war. Bloomberg reported in March that the strikes have disrupted between 12-14% of Russia's oil refining capacity. Sign up for our newsletter WTF is wrong with Russia? Sign up An attack on April 2 targeted Tatarstan's Nizhnekamsk oil refinery, which has an annual production capacity of around 8 million tons, amounting to 2.6% of Russia's total annual oil-processing capacity. The refinery is over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from Ukraine. More recently, Ukraine confirmed it struck the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia's Rostov Oblast on June 5, and said the attack destroyed 1.5 million tons of oil and oil products worth $540 million. Ukrainian drones also attacked four refineries in Russia's Krasnodar Krai and Astrakhan Oblast overnight on June 21, and an oil depot in Volgograd Oblast overnight on July 9. As a result of repeated attacks, "the volume of Russian oil refining has decreased by about 17%," the unnamed NATO official said, as quoted by Ukrainska Pravda. Strikes against Russian energy targets prompted criticism from U.S. officials in April. Washington said it does not support Ukraine's attacks on oil refineries, citing fears that it could threaten the global energy market. Read also: US, NATO allies to deliver dozens of air defense systems in coming months, including 4 Patriots Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ukrainians raise nearly $7 million in less than 2 days to restore children's hospital hit in Russian missile attack Ukrainians have raised Hr 300 million (around $7 million) to rebuild the Okhmatdyt children's hospital hit by a Russian missile on July 8, the fundraising platform United24 reported on July 10. The Okhmatdyt hospital, Ukraine's largest children's medical center, was struck with Kh-101 cruise missile during a Russian mass aerial attack on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. The attack against the medical facility killed two people, including a doctor, and wounded 32 others. The strike also destroyed one building and damaged four others in the hospital. United24 and Monobank, Ukraine's largest mobile-only bank, launched a fundraising campaign for Hr 100 million (nearly $2.5 million). Within 22 hours, Ukrainians had collected Hr 250 million (nearly $6 million). The collection amount reached 300 million (around $7 million) at around 10 a.m. local time on July 10, according to United24. The funds were raised within 41 hours. Some 320,000 Ukrainians from 55 countries joined the fundraising campaign, Oleh Horokhovskyi, Monobank's co-founder and CEO, said. The largest one-time donation was worth Hr 20 million (nearly $500,000), he added. In total, Russia's missile attack on the capital on July 8 killed 33 and injured 121 others. Search and rescue operations related to this attack concluded on July 10. In total, emergency workers rescued 11 people in the aftermath of the attack. Read also: How Russia broke through Ukraines air defense to strike Kyiv childrens hospital Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. The UKs new prime minister, Keir Starmer, has made it clear that Ukraine could use UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to hit military targets inside Russia. Source: Starmer answering questions from Bloomberg, as reported by European Pravda Details: Answering a question, Starmer agreed that it was Ukraine's call on how to use the Storm Shadow missiles provided by the UK. In doing this, Starmer confirmed that he would follow the previous UK government's policy on the use of long-range weapons in the Russo-Ukrainian war. The missiles, he said, should obviously be "used in accordance with international humanitarian law as you would expect". He added that Storm Shadow should be used "for defensive purposes". "But it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes," Starmer said. Starmer's statement echoes his predecessor Rishi Sunak's stance, who, while never explicitly authorising Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian territory, emphasised Kyiv's right to decide on their usage. This stance was previously labelled as "very dangerous" by the Kremlin. Commenting on the Russian attack on the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, Starmer said it was an "absolutely shocking, appalling attack" that created a "very important if tragic backdrop to this summit". Background: Following a visit to Kyiv in May, former UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Ukraine had the right to strike Russian territory with UK-supplied weapons. On the other hand, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the UK had not granted "100% authorisation" for its missiles to be used in strikes against targets in Russia. Support UP or become our patron! What is Project 2025 - and will Trump back it? Donald Trump has claimed he does not know who is behind the document - Joe Raedle/Getty Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, has told supporters that an ultra-conservative instruction manual that could underpin Donald Trumps second term is an assault on democracy. The 922-page document, Project 2025, sets out proposals for a second Trump stint in the White House. Below, the Telegraph takes a closer look at the document and answers your key questions: What is Project 2025? Produced by a conservative think tank, the document sets out a potential blueprint for a Trump administration, should he win the election in November. Democrats are hoping that it contains enough ammunition to take down Trump. What is included in the document? The Heritage Foundation, the think tank behind the project, says that it paves the way for an effective conservative administration and can be used to prize the country from the hands of the radical Left. In several key areas, the document echoes positions that Trump has set out in the past and outlines how he could implement them as president. It proposes mass deportations of more than 11 million illegal immigrants; Trump has pledged to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. It proposes giving the executive power to sack thousands of civil servants in favour of political appointees a move Trump ordered but did not have time to usher in before leaving office. Kamala Harris told a rally on Tuesday that, among other things, Project 2025 abolish the department of education - Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America And it proposes bringing the justice department and FBI under the presidents control. Trump has called for both to be defunded following his criminal indictments, and said he would weaponise them against political rivals. Ms Harris told a rally on Tuesday that Project 2025 will cut social security, remove the price cap on insulin and abolish the department of education. But most worryingly, Ms Harris told supporters: If implemented this plan will be the latest attack in Donald Trumps full-on assault on reproductive freedom. Abortion access would be further restricted and limits on birth control introduced, she added. Does Trump support Project 2025? Trump has professed ignorance about the document, despite many of its proposals being in accord with his own priorities. The document mentions him by name several hundred times. The former president tried to distance himself from Project 2025 this month, claiming: I have no idea who is behind it. He wrote on his Truth Social platform: I disagree with some of the things theyre saying and some of the things theyre saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them. However, those behind Project 2025 have floated in and out of Trump orbit over the last eight years. In some areas the sprawling policy document goes well beyond Trumps publicly stated views. As Ms Harris said, it endorses limiting access to the abortion pill mifepristone. Trump was forced to furiously backpedal earlier this year when he appeared to be considering cuts to Medicare - Brian Snyder/REUTERS The official Republican platform, released this week, omitted a national abortion ban as an ambition for the first time in 40 years. Project 2025 also calls for limits to be placed on Medicare claims, to disincentivise permanent dependence on the health insurance programme among over-65s. Trump was forced to furiously backpedal earlier this year when he appeared to be considering cuts to Medicare. The newly released Republican platform vowed to maintain current levels of spending softening another longstanding position. Who is behind Project 2025? Kevin Roberts, the foundations president, believes it will be part of a transformation of US politics. We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the Left allows it to be, he said this week. In total, 31 authors and editors of Project 2025 were Trump administration officials, according to the Biden campaign. The director is Paul Dans, who served in the Office of Personnel Management during Trumps term in the White House. The document was co-edited by Steven Groves, who spent three years in the administration, while Spencer Chretien, the former special assistant to the president, is the projects associate director. One chapter was written by Russ Vought, Trumps director of the office of management and budget. Earlier this year, Trump named Mr Vought as policy director to craft the Republican party platform ahead of its national convention. Ed Martin, the platforms deputy policy director, leads a conservative pressure group listed on the Project 2025 advisory board. Stephen Miller, a longtime Trump adviser, is the president of America First Legal, which also advises the project, and appears on a video promoting its presidential transition academy. Ben Carson, Trumps former housing secretary; Peter Navarro, the former White House trade adviser; and Mark Meadows, Trumps final chief of staff, are all involved in the project. 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. Ukraines largest childrens hospital likely took a direct hit from a Russian missile on Monday, a United Nations assessment has found, as NATO agreed to strengthen Kyivs air defenses in the wake of the attack. Russia has repeatedly denied targeting the hospital in Kyiv and alleged, without evidence, that a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile caused the blast. But a UN human rights official said evidence suggested Moscows forces were responsible for the deadly strike. Analysis of the video footage and assessment made at the incident site indicates a high likelihood that the childrens hospital suffered a direct hit rather than receiving damages due to an intercepted weapons system, Danielle Bell, head of the UNs Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, told reporters Tuesday. Bell said the attack damaged the intensive care, surgical and oncology wards at Kyivs Okhmatdyt hospital, which has been vital in the care of some of the sickest children from across the country, adding that Ukrainian officials have since transferred 600 children to other hospitals. This terrible attack shows that nowhere is safe in Ukraine, Bell added. The UN assessment tallies with weapons experts, who told CNN that it was highly likely a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile struck the childrens hospital in Kyiv on Monday. Reviewing video footage that CNN had verified and geolocated and images of fragments from the scene, weapons experts said that evidence strongly suggests the hospital was struck by a Russian cruise missile as opposed to a Ukrainian air defense projectile. Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told CNN Wednesday that the flight profile in the footage of the missile hitting the hospital is exactly correct for the Kh-101, with the right dive angle, under power and not tumbling or falling like a spent air-defence missile might. The silhouette of the rocket visible in the footage also matches the Kh-101, Bronk said. Two adults were killed in the strike and 16 others - including seven children - were injured, according to Ukrainian officials, as Russia launched a brazen daytime aerial assault on targets in cities across Ukraine during morning rush hour, killing at least 43 people in total. Closer view of damage to Okhmatdyt hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 9. - 2024 Maxar Technologies The strikes across Ukraine were strongly condemned by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, while the UNs human rights chief Volker Turk called for prompt, thorough and independent investigations into the attacks. The Russian attacks came as NATO leaders gathered in Washington, where the United States and NATO allies agreed to give Ukraine more Patriot batteries and additional systems to strengthen Kyivs air defenses, members of the defense alliance said in a joint statement on Tuesday. US President Joe Biden also announced plans to supply new air defenses to Ukraine in a speech opening the NATO summit providing much-needed support for the country at a critical juncture in its defense against Russias invasion. During his speech on Tuesday, Biden vowed that the United States will make sure that when we export critical air defense interceptors, Ukraine goes to the front of the line. Targeted attack by Russia Images and video from the aftermath of the strike on the Kyiv hospital show children with cancer being treated outside the facility and an injured toddler with blood on his face and arms. A CNN team at the site on Tuesday said the level of destruction there showed how forceful the explosion must have been. A pile of debris could be seen in place of where part of the facility once stood, while underneath a section of flooring lay the remnants of a car that was completely flattened when the building came crashing down. The UNs monitoring mission said it was likely that a KH-101 cruise missile launched by Russia struck the childrens hospital. It made the determination based on video footage, which shows the technical specification of the type of weapon that was used and that such footage shows the weapon directly impacting the hospital rather than being intercepted in the air, Bell said. People clear rubble from a building of the largest childrens hospitals of Ukraine, which was partially destroyed by a Russian missile strike on July 8, 2024 in Kyiv, Ukraine. - Valentyna Polishchuk/Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images A military expert who visited the site following the blast said the damage is consistent with a direct hit, according to Bell. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in Washington on Tuesday that Russia always knows where its missiles hit. Always. On Tuesday, Russias UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia reiterated Moscows denial that it had targeted the childrens hospital. We have not bombed the childrens hospital, Nebenzia said at a special meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC) convened following the attack. If this had been a Russian strike, there would have been nothing left of the building at all. All the children and most of the adults would have been killed, not wounded. But the US also blamed Russia for the hospital strike. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UNSC meeting that the Russian attack makes abundantly clear: Putin is not interested in peace. Kyiv described the strike as a targeted attack by Russia, with the Ukrainian State Security Service (SBU) saying a Russian long-range cruise missile struck the facility. Relevant evidence has already been found at the scene of the tragedy: in particular, fragments of the rear part of the Kh-101 missile with a serial number and part of the steering wheel of the same missile, the SBU said. SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk vowed the agency would respond to what he said were Russian war crimes. This retribution will be both legal and moral, he said. CNNs Gianluca Mezzofiore, Benjamin Brown, Sahar Akbarzai, Richard Roth, Daria Tarasova, Eve Brennan, Niamh Kennedy, Oren Liebermann and Kayla Tausche contributed reporting. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Insights from Semafor, ABC News, and Axios The News Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment Wednesday against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, alleging that their refusal to recuse themselves from cases in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements has created an unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court. The New York congresswoman was referencing Alitos controversial refusal to recuse himself from two cases related to former President Donald Trump after the justices wife flew apparently pro-Trump flags outside their home. The other charges were related to the justices failure to disclose lavish gifts via the Courts official ethics process, as well as Thomas wifes role in Trumps efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Arizona. SIGNALS Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories. Impeachment push follows controversial Trump immunity ruling Sources: Semafor, ABC News Congressional Democrats renewed talks of judicial reform after the Supreme Court ruled in Trumps favor last week, dramatically expanding the powers of the presidency and protecting him and all other presidents from prosecution over official acts taken while in office. Todays ruling represents an assault on American democracy, Ocasio-Cortez posted on X, vowing to draft articles of impeachment. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture. Rep. Joe Morelle, a fellow New York Democrat, proposed introducing a constitutional amendment to reverse the courts immunity ruling. Impeachment unlikely to move in current House Sources: ABC News, Axios The impeachment of a Supreme Court justice which has only been achieved once in the nations history is a political longshot. Congress can remove a federal judge for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors via an impeachment vote by the House of Representatives and a trial and conviction by the Senate. Two thirds of the Senate must find the justice guilty to remove them from office. But for the House to even adopt the articles of impeachment, it would need a simple majority vote of 218. Republicans hold 219 seats and Democrats hold 213, making that milestone unlikely. Scandals highlight failure of Supreme Courts ethics rules Sources: The Washington Post, The Brennan Center, The Chicago Sun-Times, Forbes The recent spate of scandals shows that the Courts recently released code of ethics is falling short and requires Congress to step in and shore up rules for justices, two Brennan Center experts wrote. The court needs genuine ethics rules, not the hazy and unenforceable guidelines it approved last year that have no teeth, The Chicago Sun-Times editorial board wrote, adding that Senate Judiciary Committee head Dick Durbin has a civic duty to hold hearings on Alitos flag-related actions. Judicial watchdog group Fix the Court suggested that Congress could appoint an inspector general to investigate potential misconduct, or the court could take other steps to self-regulate. How United Methodists across the US are responding to historic policy changes In a matter of days, Ohio pastor Angie Cox and her wife went from contemplating moving to a more permissive region of the United Methodist Church to preparing for a long career in local ministry in Columbus. Cox unsuccessfully tried six times in five years to take the first of two major steps to becoming an ordained United Methodist elder, a pursuit that at times caused Cox to consider transferring to another denomination or to another region where UMC officials are less strict about LGBTQ+ clergy. But Cox, lead pastor of Livingston UMC in Columbus, also knew she was a United Methodist to my core and that she was called to ministry in West Ohio. Then, the UMC General Conference in early May lifted a 40-year-old ban on LGBTQ+ clergy at the international policymaking bodys gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina, positioning Cox to receive what she had been in arms reach of for so long. I never considered myself an institutional disrupter and I still dont, Cox said in an interview. But when I see injustice, Im stubborn about facing it. So, thats shown me a different part of me that I didnt realize I had. Columbus pastor Angie Cox has sought to be commissioned the first of two major steps to become an ordained elder in the UMC for six times in the past five years. Following historic UMC policy changes in May 2024, the West Ohio Conference commissioned Cox and celebrated the decision at a celebration of ministry service on June 1, 2024 during the local United Methodist authority's annual legislative assembly. Four days after the ordination policy change took effect, Cox petitioned the local United Methodist authoritys board of ordained ministry to reconsider her application for commissioning. Twenty-four days later on June 1 at the West Ohio Conference annual legislative assembly, Coxs peers cheered and clapped for her during a celebration of ministry service. They were acknowledging that moment what it meant for so many people, not just for me, Cox said. Coxs experience, albeit a unique one due to her persistence, is shared by other LGBTQ+ people, who were commissioned, ordained or reinstated at local United Methodist conferences recent legislative assemblies held across the nation in recent weeks. In a significant shift in messaging from prior years, at least 10 local conferences showed support for LGBTQ+ inclusion through resolutions, motions, or reports to delegates. Progressives see these local actions as establishing a baseline for the long work ahead to promote a more inclusive United Methodism. Likewise, these local conference gatherings exhibited the ongoing cultural tension among the church body between the post-general conference goals of LGBTQ+ inclusion and to remain a big tent denomination. Between July 10-13, the UMC faces its next test at a series of simultaneous meetings of jurisdictions comprised of groupings of local U.S. conferences, also known as annual conferences to decide on bishop appointments. Actions by these five jurisdictional legislative assemblies spanning the entire U.S. will primarily deal with the new challenges of a drastically reduced budget approved by the UMC General Conference. The message was received and now were all figuring out what it means for our local churches, said Derick Scott III, a Florida-based United Methodist lay leader and voting delegate. Its easier to spend time on legislation than it is to do groundwork. Because with groundwork, you have to deal with details and with actual humans. The long-delayed UMC General Conference followed a splintering over church policy and theology, including dealing with LGBTQ+ rights, that caused 7,500-plus U.S. churches to leave the denomination between 2019-2023 through a process known as disaffiliation. The general conferences many decisions amid this season of upheaval, though a feat of historic proportions, created new dilemmas and frustrations for United Methodisms ideologically diverse and globally dispersed fellowship of believers. The UMC General Conference, which is the denomination's top legislative assembly, gathers for its second and final week in Charlotte. This is the general conference in session on April 30, 2024 at the Charlotte Convention Center. Scott, an organizer with several centrist and progressive advocacy groups in the UMC and who traveled to several annual conference meetings in May and June, said he observed a struggle among some local church leaders to promote a more inclusive vision for the church while also trying not to alienate conservatives who chose to stay in the denomination. Meanwhile, the Cote dIvoire Conference decided in late May to leave the denomination due to the general conference changes. The decision by the largest United Methodist conference in Africa was a blow to optimism for regionalization the general conference proposal to restructure the denomination and give more autonomy to local United Methodist bodies worldwide and created a predicament for the UMC Council of Bishops and ultimately a decision by the episcopal leadership to help find a legislative path to honor the West African conferences wishes. The system still bends its ear toward the traditionalists, Scott said. I think the details will continue to haunt us and it will be part of our hard work. UMC General Conference summary: United Methodists just held a historic, worldwide gathering: 3 key takeaways Too far for some, just the start for others Traditionalists have an entirely different analysis and felt many actions by local conferences and their bishops laid bare a liberal bias that conservatives have long accused UMC administrative leaders of quietly or sometimes openly endorsing. "I first attended an annual conference in 1985 at age 20 and quickly realized annual conference doesnt represent most local church people," Mark Tooley, president of The Institute on Religion & Democracy, a group that long advocated for traditionalist policies in the UMC, said in a statement. "Half the conference is clergy, who are more progressive and institutional." In one positive development for traditionalists, at least five U.S. conferences approved or showed support for allowances for churches to continue leaving the UMC despite a policy allowing for disaffiliations expiring at the end of 2023 and then the UMC General Conference striking the provision altogether. Many of the churches that have left the UMC have joined a more conservative breakaway denomination call the Global Methodist Church. But at far more conferences, there was more open tolerance for sexual and gender minorities and acknowledgement of the churchs past harmful actions toward LGBTQ+ people. Traditionalists see it as swift rejection of their decades of work to uphold Methodist orthodoxy and that people were quick to express their disagreement with upon changes to the UMC Book of Discipline. "Dissenting voices even if reflective of wider church are marginalized. And so the denomination continues even if its policies are failing," said Tooley, who still attends a United Methodist church but ultimately wants to be part of the Global Methodist Church. The annual conference at First United Methodist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., Monday, June 17, 2024. Progressives see those acknowledgements of past harms as necessary and only a first step toward deeper healing and cultural change. At least three conferences sought to confront that past harm by reinstating the ordination credentials of LGBTQ+ people who surrendered those credentials or lost them to disciplinary proceedings. One of the most publicized cases was that of Beth Stroud, a Philadelphia pastor who the church defrocked in 2004 for coming out as a lesbian. Another person to be reinstated was Deen Thompson, an 86-year-old Nashvillian who surrendered his ordination credentials in 1985 after coming out as gay when he was a pastor in Louisiana. When I received the call from the bishop that I would receive my ordination back, it was one of delight and thanksgiving, Thompson said. It has given our family a feeling of peace and a love relationship with the United Methodist Church. After his tenure in ordained ministry in Louisiana and upon separating from his then-wife the two of whom have a daughter together Thompson started a new life in Nashville. He got a job with a UMC general agency, eventually met his now-husband, and became an active lay leader through his congregation, Edgehill UMC, and with the national movement for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the UMC. Thompson also stepped into leadership roles in the local conference and the Southeastern Jurisdiction as an openly gay layperson, making him one of the first to do so. My ministry in Nashville as a lay person has been as powerful and as deep as any ministry I had being ordained, said Thompson. I would not want to relive much of my journey, but I wouldnt be who I am if I had not gone through it. At this point, Thompson didnt see reinstatement as necessary. But a decision by the UMC General Conference to create a pathway for reinstating clergy inspired Thompson to petition the Louisiana Conference at the last minute. As part of that petition, Thompson included parts of his life story, and his ex-wife and daughter wrote letters on his behalf. Soon after, Louisiana Bishop Delores Williamston called Thompson to deliver the good news. If were talking about affecting real people, the way by which a clergy can be reinstated if they were defrocked because they were queer is maybe the most impactful thing we did around queer inclusion, said Scott, reflecting on the material impact of general conference decisions at the local level. It was literally the last thing we were able to pass. Edgehill UMC and Reconciling movement: A pro-LGBTQ movement in the United Methodist Church eyes future after conservative exodus A daunting future, yet familiar mandate Besides reinstatement, Scott and other progressive voices said many of the other general conference changes have yet to bear fruit in significant ways. The UMC General Conference also reversed a prohibition on United Methodist clergy and churches blessing same-sex unions, lifted a so-called funding ban on United Methodist agencies supporting causes that promote the acceptance of homosexuality, and a resolution supporting full communion with the Episcopal Church. Reconciling Ministries Network, a group that advocates for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the United Methodist Church, hosts a celebration event as part of the UMC General Conference in Charlotte. Guests at the Ri Ra Irish Pub on Sunday, April 28, 2024 during their visit. Following the general conference, the Episcopal Church gathered for its general convention in Louisville, Kentucky and its House of Bishops approved a resolution supporting full communion with the UMC. Its an important step to finalizing that relationship between the sister mainline Protestant denominations following bumpy negotiations over the Episcopal Churchs disagreement with the UMCs now-defunct anti-LGBTQ+ policies. With conferences recently commissioning and ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, both Scott and Cox said it doesnt guarantee a congregation will accept a pastor assigned to that community. People going into ministry now that the rules have changed will probably have an easier time legally, but that doesnt necessarily mean it will change practically, Cox said. Just because the rules have changed doesnt mean hearts and minds have. Also, many LGBTQ+ clergy will be in a similar position to Cox, who has started a two-year approval process to becoming a fully ordained elder. Once fully ordained, they can serve as clergy delegates at regional and denomination-wide legislative assemblies and have the ability to order the life of the church, Cox said. Columbus pastor Angie Cox has sought to be commissioned the first of two major steps to become an ordained elder in the UMC for six times in the past five years. Following historic UMC policy changes in May 2024, the West Ohio Conference commissioned Cox and celebrated the decision at a celebration of ministry service on June 1, 2024 during the local United Methodist authority's annual legislative assembly. That future work of shaping the church will only grow more demanding, especially at the local level, when local conferences face votes this next year to ratify the regionalization plan. Though daunting, United Methodists future mandate for a steadfast commitment to building a healthier church amid upheaval and disagreement isnt a new experience for Cox. Anytime we push further for a greater understanding of what it means to be a more inclusive church, I think thats always worth it, Cox said. Theres such power in remaining and building relationships. TN conference aims to be "big tent": Tennessee United Methodists seek consensus, chart future after historic church splintering Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on social media @liamsadams. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: United Methodists, LGBTQ+ clergy: How the UMC is responding NEW YORK A legal victory for Sen. Bob Menendez is a victory for the country, the senators attorney said at the end of his closing arguments on Wednesday. When you acquit Senator Menendez, the United States wins, Menendez attorney Adam Fee told jurors at the end of a five-hour closing argument that began Tuesday afternoon. Federal prosecutors accuse Menendez of accepting bribes to disrupt state and federal criminal cases and acting as an agent of Egypt. While his lawyer argues an acquittal would equate to success for America, a guilty verdict brought by overzealous or mistaken prosecutors would certainly mean the worst for 70-year-old Menendez. He faces decades in prison because of the 18-count indictment against him and a pair of co-defendants. The schemes are alleged to have begun shortly after Menendez began dating his now-wife Nadine in early 2018. Fee said it doesnt make much sense that the New Jersey Democrat would begin massive, intricate criminal conspiracies after like, two dates. One key element of Menendezs defense is blaming his wife, claiming he was left in the dark. She was also charged but will stand trial separately following a cancer diagnosis just before the trial started mid-May. During the trial, the government relied heavily on documents, including text messages, phone records and emails. Fee said these failed to show Menendez was in on schemes or received bribes in exchange for taking specific actions. But prosecutors have also pointed to hundreds of thousands of dollars and gold bars found by the FBI in Menendezs house in North Jersey, and weird and gross interactions others had with the senator they say was proof Menendez was selling his office. Jurors are expected to begin deliberations later this week. They also heard closing arguments on Wednesday afternoon from an attorney for Wael Will Hana, an Egyptian businessperson accused of bribing the senator with gold and a fake job and other things for his wife; and from an attorney for Fred Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer also accused of bribing the senator, his longtime friend, with cash and gold bars. Attorneys for the businesspeople did not dispute that gold or cash the FBI found in the Menendez home came from their clients but they said the government did not prove these were bribes and, in fact, could not show when or why the gold or cash got there. You dont bribe a close friend, Daibes attorney Cesar de Castro told jurors. A third New Jersey businessperson, Jose Uribe, has pleaded guilty to bribing Menendez by buying a Mercedes Benz for his wife Nadine in a scheme alleged to have involved Hana. Uribe is cooperating with federal prosecutors. Fee and Hana attorney Larry Lustberg used their closing statements to attack Uribes credibility and distance their clients from him. A group of children are indoors in their preschool classroom. The camera focuses on a boy who is playing with wooden building blocks. When Tanya Gillespie-Lambert goes to an event in a local park in Camden, New Jersey, she takes a handful of brochures about free preschool with her. She has no hesitation about approaching strangers moms with kids especially to plug the service in the local public school district, where shes director of community and parent involvement. Gillespie-Lambert and her team also hold door-knocking events several times a year to put the word out on free pre-K, dressing up in matching blue T-shirts and hats. Thats in addition to billboards, public service announcements and posters all over town. I still get a little shocked when they dont know about it, she said in an interview. They always say, I didnt know they could start when they were 3 years old, and they dont have to be potty trained. And its free? Forty-four states offer some free preschool, and states from Colorado to Mississippi are expanding their programs. But even when states claim to have universal pre-K for 4-year-olds and sometimes 3-year-olds, some of the most comprehensive programs only serve a slice of the kids who are eligible. Theres a host of reasons for that, beyond a lack of awareness. Some states only provide funding for 10 or 15 hours of preschool per week. Some parents cant afford the cost of before- and after-care, or have transportation problems if theres no bus. In some states, private pre-K providers, who often get state money for their pre-K programs, oppose shifting more state funds to public schools. And many states have a shortage of early education teachers and assistants, limiting the number of slots they can provide. Studies show preschool is highly beneficial for young children, giving them a jump on reading and math skills and the socialization that are key to later school success. Preschool differs from child care, which has less emphasis on academics and often doesnt employ certified teachers. But private preschool is costly, making it difficult for parents with lower incomes to afford pre-K unless its state-funded. Everybody doesnt define universal the same way, said Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. You cant just wave a magic wand. Barnett said a state pre-K program should not be considered universal if theres a cap on funding or a waitlist for slots. He advocates for states to treat pre-K like first grade automatically available. But providing universal preschool is expensive for states. Participation varies More than 1.6 million 3- and 4-year-olds attended state-funded preschools in the 2022-2023 school year, with states serving 7% of 3-year-olds and 35% of 4-year-olds, according to Barnetts institute. But participation varies widely from state to state. The number of 4-year-olds enrolled in state-funded pre-K programs in the 2022-2023 school year ranged from a high of 67% in Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma and West Virginia to single digits in Alaska, Missouri, Nevada, Delaware, North Dakota, Arizona, Hawaii and Utah, according to the institute. Six states have no state-funded preschool: Idaho, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Wyoming. Some states are starting pre-K programs or expanding them. Mississippi doubled the number of kids in preschool in 2022-23 from the previous year to more than 5,300, added another 3,000 seats in 2023-24 and committed to future expansion, according to the state. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, signed a universal preschool bill in April 2022, and classes started in the 2023-24 school year. But Colorados program provides only 15 hours of free preschool per week in the year before kindergarten. Similarly, Vermonts universal pre-K program, enacted in 2014, provides only 10 hours a week of free school. In addition to being problematic for parents who work 40 hours a week, 10 hours a week of preschool is not enough to provide quality learning, Barnett said. It has to be a big enough dosage of truly high-quality education. Vermont state Sen. Ruth Hardy, a Democrat, called the program technically universal because all 4-year-olds are allowed to participate but acknowledged there are gaps. She filed a bill last year that would have expanded the pre-K program to include full school days but it died, amid other expansions to child care and educational priorities. Hardy, a former educator and school board member, said in an interview that the legislature did enact a measure to study expanding pre-K to all 3- and 4-year-olds and report back by July 2026. It was part of a larger law that focused on providing more child care subsidies, including for families with incomes up to middle-class or close to upper-middle-class levels, she said. To pay for it, the state instituted a new payroll tax of 0.44%. Employers may choose to pay all of it or deduct up to 0.11% of it from employees wages. Concerns about access Hardy said that in Vermont, as well as other states, a roadblock to expanding public pre-K programs is the tension between public and private schools. Many states take a mixed delivery approach to public preschool, under which pre-K is offered in settings ranging from public schools to community-based centers to private schools. But private providers sometimes see expanding the public preschools as competition. Aly Richards, CEO of Lets Grow Kids, a Vermont child care advocacy organization, said the groups concern is equitable access to pre-K programs, especially when parents need kids in all-day instruction and public programs only operate on school-day hours, while private programs often last all workday. Working-class families cant leave their job in the middle of the day if they have to move their kid, she said. She also said there is often not enough room in nearby public schools to accommodate all the children who want pre-K programs. Similar tension is roiling efforts to expand public pre-K in Michigan. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Democratic lawmakers want to make more children eligible, but private schools worry that legislative proposals would eliminate requirements that a percentage of slots go to private providers and thereby cut their state funding. In Hawaii which has one of the highest-quality public preschool programs, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research the problem is getting enough educators into the classrooms. Hawaii plans to open 44 more classrooms for 3- and 4-year-olds in the fall, bringing the states total to about 90, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, a Democrat, said in a statement. But more staffing is needed if the state is going to reach its goal of getting all 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool by 2032, The Associated Press reported. California is in the third year of a four-year phase-in of a universal pre-K program launched in the 2021-22 state budget. A draft report from the Learning Policy Institute, a California educational research group, found that while most school districts in the state are on track toward getting all 4-year-olds and income-eligible 3-year-olds in pre-K, staffing is a problem and is expected to get worse as new teacher requirements go into effect. Hanna Melnick, a senior policy adviser at the Learning Policy Institute and one of the co-authors of the report, said its unclear how many of the eligible kids are actually taking advantage of the pre-K program. Some families cant afford before- and after-care, she said. Extended care is a really critical barrier. And some families want more of a familylike environment [for their preschoolers]. They might not feel comfortable using out-of-home care or care in a school setting. Back in New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy announced in March that an additional $11 million in state funding had been secured to bring preschool to 16 more school districts in the state. But despite the effort, workers such as Gillespie-Lambert need to keep walking neighborhoods. People dont read, she said. We found canvassing not just flyers, but having a conversation with them seems to work a lot better. This article was originally published by Stateline, which like the Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom. Sandie Okoro, a prominent lawyer and equal rights activist, was appointed the new chancellor of the University of Birmingham in England. She is the institutions eighth chancellor since it was established in 1900. She is also the first woman to hold the position. I am truly honoured and delighted to be appointed Chancellor, Okoro said in a press release. Its a fantastic opportunity for me to give a little something back to the amazing University that has given so very much to me and my family. Okoro has a personal connection to the University of Birmingham: She graduated with a degree in law and politics before enrolling at City, University of London and qualifying as a barrister. Both her mother and her son are also alums. The wonderful University of Birmingham is the alma mater to three generations of the Okoros, my mum, me and my son. So my connection to it is very special indeed, she said in the same press release. I have followed the Universitys outstanding progress very closely since my days there as a student on a full grant back in the 1980s its dedication to impactful research, its focus on creating an inclusive environment for talented, minority students and educational excellence are themes very close to my heart. Okoro currently serves as group general counsel of Standard Chartered, where she heads the banks Legal, Group Corporate Secretariat and Shared Investigative Services functions. She has also held positions such as Head of Legal for Corporate Services at Schroders or Vice-President for Compliance for the World Bank Group. She was recently appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2024 New Year Honours for her services to Diversity in International Finance. Okoro also received the 2019 Vanguard Women Award from Howard University for her commitment to advancing the rights of women and girls internationally. We are excited to welcome Sandie as our new Chancellor, Adam Tickell, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, said in a press release. She is a highly respected trailblazer in the corporate legal sector and is of course a proud University of Birmingham graduate. To hear her talk about breaking glass ceilings and aiming high is inspirational and reflects the attitude and passion of our university and our commitment to championing equality, diversity and inclusion. Okoro will succeed Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea CBE, who is expected to step down as Chancellor this month after occupying the position for 10 years. In secretive hearings, the University of Florida set aside recommendations to lightly punish some of the college students arrested after pro-Palestinian protests on campus and instead kicked them all out of school for three to four years. The decisions by the new dean of students, Chris Summerlin, overruled what were effectively sentencing recommendations by the juries, known as hearing bodies, who heard testimony and watched police video of the protests and arrests during the disciplinary cases. The students were among nine people who university police and Florida state troopers arrested April 29 during a demonstration on the Plaza of the Americas on the east side of the University of Florida campus. They were among the first college arrests in Florida, and all remain banned from university property. In at least two cases, the hearing bodies recommended probation for Keely Nicole Gliwa, 23, of Gainesville a masters student who expected to graduate May 2 and a deferred suspension for Parker Stanely Hovis, 26, of Naples. The university withheld Gliwas diploma and suspended both Gliwa and Hovis for three years. In other cases, the hearing body recommended a one-year suspension for Tess Jaden Segal, 20, of Weston, and Allan Hektor Frasheri, 21, of Largo, but UF suspended Segal for three years and Frasheri for four years. Allan Hektor Frasheri, 21, of Largo, is detained by police on April 29 during a protest on the University of Florida campus. Frasheri has been suspended by the university for four years. More: DeSantis' University of Florida press conference met with chanting pro-Palestinian protesters The university suspended Roseanna Yashoda Bisram, 20, of Ocala for three years, the same duration as the hearing body recommended. Augustino Matthias Pulliam, 20, a freshman theater major from Jacksonville, also was suspended three years. Charly Keanu Pringle, 21, of Jacksonville, said she had been suspended for three years in a separate disciplinary process at nearby Santa Fe College, but that was not true. Pringle hadnt been a student there since spring last year, according to school records, and administrators said she had not been suspended. The students said they have submitted appeals to overturn their punishments, which they said were pending. The suspensions mean that each would need to reapply for admission to UF. The only worse punishment would have been to expel them, which would have prevented them ever from returning. Meanwhile, all nine people arrested at UF said they have turned down deferred prosecution agreements offered to them by the Alachua County State Attorneys Office under plea bargains. Under such deals, a defendant would plead no contest or guilty and the charges would effectively be dropped from their records if they committed no further crimes during a period of time, usually 12 months. None of the nine had any prior criminal convictions. We did not resist arrest, and we are prepared to fight our charges, Hovis said in a statement. "We're standing in solidarity with each other, and collectively demanding that the state drop the charges against us. Their court cases were expected to unfold over the summer. The state attorney, Brian Kramer, is a Republican facing re-election in November. Of the nine, Ember Boerboom, 24, of Chesapeake, Virginia, was a former UF student, Pringle was a former Santa Fe student and Jinx Rooney, 23 of Valrico, Florida, had no apparent affiliation with the university. All faced misdemeanor criminal charges of resisting arrest without violence except Frasheri, who prosecutors charged with felony battery on a police officer. Hovis also faces another misdemeanor, a trespass count. Police said at the protest Hovis declined to say whether he would leave, so they arrested him. Under university disciplinary rules, Summerlin was permitted to reject the recommendations of the hearing bodies, which are typically composed of faculty members. Summerlin, who started his job at UF in April, the same month as the arrests, declined Tuesday through a spokesperson to say why he handed out tougher-than-recommended sanctions in nearly every case. The outcomes of the disciplinary hearings which happened during May and June were described in a news release Tuesday distributed by the students. The privacy of the schools disciplinary process is protected under federal law, and only the students involved can lawfully disclose what happened behind closed doors. Two of the UF students, including Segal, are Jewish, they said. I stand in solidarity with Palestinians not in spite of my Judaism, but because of it, she said in a statement. Meanwhile, newly released law enforcement video appears to capture the moment that one of them was accused of spitting on a police officer in the most serious case. Prosecutors have accused Frasheri of spitting on the right arm of university police Officer Kristy Sasser as she was helping a state trooper walk away with another protester under arrest. Sasser, who also testified in at least one university disciplinary hearing, said in court papers that Frasheri walked up to us and spit on me. His spittle landed on my right arm. I disengaged from the escort and arrested Frasheri for battery. Protesters are chained together as they are loaded into an Alachua County Sheriff's Office van on Monday, April 29, 2024, on the University of Florida campus. In video of the arrests obtained from the Florida Highway Patrol under Floridas public records law, Frasheri is seen fidgeting with a water bottle with a medical-style mask down to his chin, joining the crowd in screaming shame at the officers arresting their peers. As Sasser walked by, the top part of Frasheris body appeared to lunge sharply toward her as he held a water bottle. Sasser turned and appeared seconds later behind Frasheri to arrest him. Frasheri is expected at an upcoming court hearing July 24 for an update in his case. UF President Ben Sasse, during a May press conference, praised police: What you have done in the face of being spit on, being shouted at with profanities has been amazing, Sasse said. The university has declined so far to release other police video showing the arrests, despite a reporters request for copies April 30 70 days ago under state law. The school also hasnt turned over requested copies of communications among its general counsel, Sasse and police departments. This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at vivienneserret@ufl.edu. This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: University of Florida suspends arrested pro-Palestinian protesters In secretive hearings, the University of Florida set aside recommendations to lightly punish some of the college students arrested after pro-Palestinian protests on campus and kicked them all out of school for three to four years. The decisions by the new dean of students, Chris Summerlin, overruled what were effectively sentencing recommendations by the juries, known as hearing bodies, who heard testimony and watched police video of the protests and arrests during the disciplinary cases. The students were among nine people who university police and Florida state troopers arrested April 29 during a demonstration on a plaza on the University of Florida campus. They were among the first college arrests in Florida, and all remain banned from university property. In at least two cases, the hearing bodies recommended probation for Keely Nicole Gliwa, 23, of Gainesville a masters student who expected to graduate May 2 and a deferred suspension for Parker Stanely Hovis, 26, of Naples, Florida. The university withheld Gliwas diploma and suspended both Gliwa and Hovis for three years. In other cases, the hearing body recommended a one-year suspension for Tess Jaden Segal, 20, of Weston, Florida, and Allan Hektor Frasheri, 21, of Largo, Florida, but UF suspended Segal for three years and Frasheri for four years. The university suspended Roseanna Yashoda Bisram, 20, of Ocala for three years, the same duration as the hearing body recommended. Augustino Matthias Pulliam, 20, a freshman theater major from Jacksonville, also was suspended for three years. Charly Keanu Pringle, 21, of Jacksonville, said she had been suspended for three years in a separate disciplinary process at nearby Santa Fe College, but that was not true. Pringle hadnt been a student there since spring last year, according to school records, and administrators said she had not been suspended. The seven students said they have submitted appeals to overturn their punishments, which they said were pending. The suspensions mean that each would need to reapply for admission to UF. The only worse punishment would have been to expel them, which would have prevented them ever from returning. Meanwhile, all nine people arrested at UF said they have turned down deferred prosecution agreements offered to them by the Alachua County State Attorneys Office under plea bargains. Under such deals, a defendant would plead no contest or guilty and the charges would effectively be dropped from their records if they committed no further crimes during a period of time, usually 12 months. None of the nine had any prior criminal convictions. We did not resist arrest, and we are prepared to fight our charges, Hovis said in a statement. Were standing in solidarity with each other, and collectively demanding that the state drop the charges against us. Their court cases were expected to unfold over the summer. The state attorney, Brian Kramer, is a Republican facing re-election in November. Of the nine, Ember Boerboom, 24, of Chesapeake, Virginia, was a former UF student, Pringle was a former Santa Fe student and Jinx Rooney, 23 of Valrico, Florida, had no apparent affiliation with the university. All faced misdemeanor criminal charges of resisting arrest without violence except Frasheri, who prosecutors charged with felony battery on a police officer. Hovis also faces another misdemeanor, a trespass count. Police said at the protest Hovis declined to say whether he would leave, so they arrested him. Under university disciplinary rules, Summerlin was permitted to reject the recommendations of the hearing bodies, which are typically composed of faculty members. Summerlin, who started his job at UF in April, the same month as the arrests, declined Tuesday through a spokesperson to say why he handed out tougher-than-recommended sanctions in nearly every case. The outcomes of the disciplinary hearings which happened during May and June were described in a news release Tuesday distributed by the students. The privacy of the schools disciplinary process is protected under federal law, and only the students involved can lawfully disclose what happened behind closed doors. Two of the UF students, including Segal, are Jewish, they said. I stand in solidarity with Palestinians not in spite of my Judaism, but because of it, she said in a statement. Meanwhile, newly released law enforcement video appears to capture the moment that one of them was accused of spitting on a police officer in the most serious case. Prosecutors have accused Frasheri of spitting on the right arm of university police Officer Kristy Sasser as she was helping a state trooper walk away with another protester under arrest. Sasser, who also testified in at least one university disciplinary hearing, said in court papers that Frasheri walked up to us and spit on me. His spittle landed on my right arm. I disengaged from the escort and arrested Frasheri for battery. In video of the arrests obtained from the highway patrol under Floridas public records law, Frasheri is seen fidgeting with a water bottle with a medical-style mask down to his chin, joining the crowd in screaming shame at the officers arresting their peers. As Sasser walked by, the top part of Frasheris body appeared to lunge sharply toward her as he held a water bottle. Sasser turned and appeared seconds later behind Frasheri to arrest him. Frasheri is expected at an upcoming court hearing July 24 for an update in his case. UF President Ben Sasse, during a May press conference, praised police: What you have done in the face of being spit on, being shouted at with profanities has been amazing, Sasse said. The university has declined so far to release other police video showing the arrests, despite a reporters request for copies April 30 70 days ago under state law. The school also hasnt turned over requested copies of communications among its general counsel, Sasse and police departments. One of the governments expected witnesses in the upcoming criminal trials for the defendants is identified in court records as Aaron Michael Sarner, 24, of Hollywood, Florida, a UF law student listed as vice president of the group Students Supporting Israel. Sarner did not respond to phone calls or messages over several days asking about his role in the cases. This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at vivienneserret@ufl.edu. You can donate to support our students here. The University of Minnesota is shutting down a nurse practitioner clinic in the Downtown East neighborhood that was heralded at its opening for addressing potential shortages in primary care. Nurse practitioners at the Minneapolis clinic cared for an average of 800 patients per year during nearly a decade of operations, according to Connie White Delaney, dean of the U's School of Nursing. The school has provided more than $3 million in operational subsidies since the clinic opened in 2015. "Despite its positive health outcomes and exceptionally high patient satisfaction scores, the nurse practitioner clinic has not been financially viable," Delaney said in a statement to the Star Tribune. "The U.S. continues to face a significant shortage of primary care providers ... but the financial model to sustain these [nurse-practitioner led] primary care practices has not evolved." Health insurance reimbursements at the clinic have been a key problem, the U says. Medicare payments are 15% lower when treatment is provided by nurse practitioners rather than physicians, according to the university. "Both commercial and government payers reimburse primary care at lower rates than other kinds of care, which creates a built-in financial pressure for clinics that focus on primary care," Delaney said. The U Medical School continues to support five community clinics that also receive funding from the state and local health systems dollars that weren't available, the university says, for the nurse practitioner clinic. Last year, the U closed another nurse practitioner-led clinic at its Clinics and Surgery Center building on its East Bank campus. The Downtown East clinic is scheduled to close Oct. 31. University of Minnesota Physicians, the medical group for U doctors, is working to find other jobs for clinic staff within the U health system. Patients are being notified and offered help in finding a new clinic location. The closure comes as the U has been touting its primary care investments while making a broad push to bolster academic health programs including the purchase of University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis. The U's commitment to primary care was lauded over the past year by a task force on academic health convened by Gov. Tim Walz. The group formulated recommendations for policymakers about funding the U's training programs during meetings that frequently touched on the university's goal to reacquire its teaching hospital from Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services. A final report from the task force noted the challenge for academic health centers to fund primary care training and services, even though primary care is one of the critical areas where access has diminished. "Minnesota has unrealized potential in its broad health ecosystem to develop innovative models of prevention and care from community-based to primary care to highly specialized care," the report said. "Within that ecosystem, the University of Minnesota has a unique opportunity to use the breadth and strength of its health sciences schools collectively, and maximize collaboration with its schools of design, engineering, law and technology, to design and implement the models of the future." Kenneth Ferraro, 46, says going to college later in life hasn't helped him much in the job market. Kenneth Ferraro A Texas-based truck driver went to college in his 40s because he wanted to switch careers. He said getting a degree hasn't helped him find a job and that he has over $100,000 in student debt. He thinks his age and having a college degree have sometimes held him back in the job market. At age 40, Kenneth Ferraro decided to pursue a college degree for the first time. He's come to regret this decision. Ferraro, who's based in Texas, had worked as a truck driver for decades, he told Business Insider via email. He said the job provided a stable income, but that he long desired a different career. He thought going back to school was the best way to make this a reality. "I traveled across the country, worked long hours, and was more than a little burned out," he said. "This was not a career I had chosen, but like many people, I happened into it. Going to college out of high school was not financially possible." In 2018, Ferraro began his studies by attending a local community college part-time, but he said he enjoyed the experience so much that he quit his truck driving job to focus on school. After completing his associate degree, he went on to pursue a bachelor's degree in political science from New York University. "I knew it would be financially crippling, but I believed the prestigious credential would bolster my employment opportunities after graduation," he said. However, despite applying for countless jobs over the past few years, Ferraro's had little luck. He said the only role he's been able to land is a delivery driver position for a large beverage company and he's stuck with over $100,000 in student loan debt. "After all my hard work and sacrifice, the only work that I have been able to secure is the same type of work that I have been doing my whole life," he said. "My education and dedication to bettering myself have cost me financially and emotionally." The US male unemployment rate is low compared to past decades, but Ferraro is among the men who have struggled to find work or have stopped looking altogether. In 1950, about 97% of American men ages 25 to 54 had a job or were actively looking for one, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of June, this figure had fallen to about 89%. Among the several explanations for this trend is that in recent decades, it's become difficult for some men to land a well-paying job without a college degree a development that's contributed to some men leaving the labor force. These challenges persist today for men even as more companies have started hiring candidates without a degree. Story continues The perceived benefits of a college degree have led more Americans to go back to school later in life. About 34% of college undergraduates and 44% of community college enrollees are age 25 or older, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But as Ferraro and many recent college graduates can attest to, having a degree doesn't guarantee success in the job market. Last November, the unemployment rate of US college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 was 5% compared to the 3.7% overall US unemployment rate. That was the most the "recent graduate" unemployment rate had exceeded the overall rate in the over three decades of New York Fed data. Factor in the cost of college and pursuing a degree might not be worth it for some people. Ferraro shared the biggest challenges he's faced in his job search, including why he thinks having a college degree has sometimes worked against him. Being an older college graduate could make it hard to land certain types of jobs Ferraro always knew that pursuing a new career wouldn't be easy. At age 42, he was happy to spend six months interning for a local congressperson. However, Ferraro's struggles to find a full-time government job left him frustrated. While having a college degree improved his credentials, he thinks his age has held him back in the job market. Ferraro recalled applying for an entry-level position in the office of a government official, a role he thought would be the "perfect" job for him to kick-start his new career. The early stages of the interview process seemed promising, but he said things changed when he had an in-person interview. "As soon as the hiring manager saw me, his whole demeanor changed," Ferraro said. "He ran through the questions and never truly engaged with me." A few weeks later, Ferraro learned that he was no longer being considered for the role. The only explanation that made sense to him was that the hiring manager wasn't interested in candidates as old as him. "A man in his forties, who is the perfect candidate on paper, willing to work, willing to learn, and willing to apply himself to any task, is still a man in his 40s," he said. "Therefore, not a valid candidate." Ferraro needed an income, and after struggling to land jobs in his field of study, he reluctantly decided to expand his search to the truck driver jobs he'd hoped to escape. But despite his decades of prior experience, Ferraro said he struggled to land an interview for driving jobs a development that baffled him. But then he had an idea: What if he removed his college education from his resume when he applied? "I did not start receiving interviews until I removed the education section on my application," he said. "My degree was holding me back." Despite Ferraro's challenges, truck drivers have generally been in high demand in recent years, in part due to the e-commerce boom tied to the pandemic. But as online shopping trends have begun to normalize, some drivers have had a harder time finding work. Ferraro eventually landed a job similar to the one he had before his schooling began in 2018, but he said he's earning about 20% less per hour than he used to. He said his employer prioritizes experience at the company over experience in the broader trucking industry. As things stand, Ferraro said he regrets going to college. However, he still hopes that his education will eventually help him secure an entry-level government role. After working as a driver during the day, he said he attends graduate school at night. He's working toward his master's in public administration and is continuing to apply for jobs. "This situation is very frustrating," he said. "It feels like I am putting in so much effort, without any return." Have you given up looking for work or are you struggling to find a job? Have you gone back to college later in life? If so, reach out to this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider It was a Tuesday afternoon just after Labor Day weekend in 2020 and a flurry of 911 calls were coming in to Dekalb County police dispatchers from the Efficiency Lodge. One man called to report that armed security guards were being aggressive toward long-staying residents at the motel in Panthersville, a community just southeast of Atlanta. Then a woman called, saying she lived in unit 118, to report that "people are being kicked out, illegally evicted without notice." Another woman called in concerned about the security guards with guns. "Somebody needs to come take control of this, because it's getting ridiculous," she said in the recording. Dekalb County police officers arrived on the scene. Though they'd responded to the panicked calls of residents, the officers described them as suspects. Officers interviewed two motel residents who called 911; they said they did not want to leave their homes. In the police report, the residents were not referred to as tenants, even though some had lived there for over a year. Instead they were recorded as "guest/suspect" and "offender." Their alleged debts, down to the cent, were listed next to their names: one woman owed $2,508.70; one man $2,468.00. The report noted that the motel staff had previously warned those who were behind on their rent that they would change the locks on their units and were now proceeding to do so. In this and other cases, whether a person qualifies as a tenant would prove crucial. The Efficiency Lodge, just outside Atlanta, was home to multiple long-term tenants. Alyssa Pointer for Business Insider In Georgia, an eviction requires a court order, but the law doesn't explicitly make lockouts illegal. In this case, an officer classified the incident as a "crime against property" a crime committed by the residents themselves. A Business Insider investigation has found that in cities across the United States, complaints about illegal lockouts are on the rise. Most states require landlords to seek a judge's approval before removing a tenant, a process that gives tenants a chance to plead their case and offers them notice if an eviction is approved. But court filings and 911 calls BI obtained from several major cities record tenants complaining of landlords bypassing the legal process, instead resorting to tactics such as changing the locks or cutting off utilities to get them out. People in informal housing arrangements are particularly vulnerable to lockouts, housing advocates say, because laws in many states leave them out of tenant protections. And a recent wave of anti-squatter laws, in states including Florida, Kentucky and Georgia risks muddling tenants' right to due process, advocates say. "Any time somebody doesn't have formal legal protections they're at risk of others taking advantage of that," said Eric Tars, the senior policy director at the National Homelessness Law Center. Read more from our series on illegal evictions: Locked out When renters get locked out, they may never get back in An outreach worker, Marshall Rancifer from the Justice for All Coalition, arrived at the Efficiency Lodge that afternoon, hoping to halt the removals. He called 911 to report the lockouts, claiming they violated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's new COVID emergency order banning evictions. Then someone from the hotel called 911 to report that Rancifer was engaging in obstruction. Police officers returned to the motel, where the showdown had escalated. Rancifer had by then been joined by members of the community group Housing Justice League and local journalists. By the end of the day, Larry Johnson, then a DeKalb County commissioner, had called on Atlanta Legal Aid to get involved. "When I got over there, I was like in a war zone," Johnson said. "I saw people with vests on with guns. I saw people outside scrambling around and it was just so surreal." In the midst of it all, he recalled seeing a young girl playing quietly with her toy kitchen set. "They kicked out about two dozen families that night," said Lindsey Siegel, an attorney who worked on the case for Atlanta Legal Aid. "It was a traumatic event for the community." "DeKalb County botched this," she said. Millions of rental gray zones Traumatic events like this are playing out across the nation, as ambiguous housing arrangements have become more common in the face of a national affordable-housing crisis. Half of all renters in the US spend more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities a benchmark used to gauge affordability pushing more people into less traditional modes of housing. Lacking a traditional written lease or other documentation of their status as renters, these tenants exist in legal gray zones. A 2019 survey of extended-stay motels in one Atlanta suburb, called "When Extended Stay Becomes Home," found that roughly a third catered mainly to travelers; the rest were primarily residential. And nearly two-thirds of the residential tenants surveyed said they had stayed there for a year or more. Data from the US Department of Education shows that during the 2021-2022 school year, nearly 107,000 students reported hotels or motels as a primary nightly residence. More than 900,000 reported living doubled up meaning they were staying with family or friends without being named on a lease. Hundreds of thousands of other US families live in unpermitted units, making it difficult to exercise their rights as tenants. A 2008 report from the Pratt Center for Community Development estimated 114,000 illegal rentals, such as basement apartments and rooming houses, in New York City alone; in 2014, a researcher at UCLA estimated 50,000 illegal backyard or garage units just in the city of Los Angeles. A 2020 report from Freddie Mac identified approximately 1.4 million so-called accessory dwelling units nationwide, with the vast majority likely unpermitted. Others in search of housing have settled long-term into Airbnbs. DeLaRoca and Rausch had been renting backyard space for their trailer in unincorporated Clark County, Nevada. After their eviction, they ended up living in separate states. Bridget Bennett for Business Insider Even in locales with more protective laws, tenants in informal or unpermitted housing situations may think twice about rocking the boat, said Harrison Bohn, an attorney at the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada. "The hardest part about people who live in these really odd lease scenarios of either renting a room or renting a couch," he said, "is that if you do want to start a process of enforcing your rights, you are disrupting that relationship with your landlord." The tagline of the Efficiency Lodge is "stay a nite or stay forever." But residents, even longtime residents, had to sign a contract stating they were not tenants. For some, the motel was their only home. The property's address was listed on residents' IDs; school buses made stops at the motel to fetch children. "Many of them were never intended to be people's homes," Charlie Bliss, another Atlanta Legal Aid attorney who worked on the Efficiency Lodge case, said of long-stay motels. "They're the home of last resort because there is not affordable housing." Some states, such as Nevada and California, spell out when a resident earns tenant status after, say, 30 days. But Georgia's regulations leave room for ambiguity. According to rules governing hotels and motels, the state stops collecting hotel taxes after 30 days, at which point a rental becomes an "extended stay," but those rules are silent on whether the renter gains the protections of landlord-tenant laws. A statute defining the landlord-tenant relationship is vague, saying it begins "when the owner of real estate grants to another person, who accepts such grant, the right simply to possess and enjoy" it. Asked about how the police handled the lockouts at the Efficiency Lodge that day in September 2020, a Dekalb County spokesperson, Andrew Cauthen, said in an email that while officers told two people they were trespassing, they "were not arrested or required to leave." Brandon Turner, the president of Natson Hotel Group, said his company had acquired this and other Efficiency Lodge properties in 2022. He declined to comment on an incident that took place prior to the purchase. 'It can't be obvious that people live here' Darlene DeLaRoca was actually hopeful when she attended her own eviction hearing. That day in November 2023, she thought she'd get a chance to expose what she saw as her landlord's illegal pressure tactics. Instead, she found herself out of a home in a matter of minutes. DeLaRoca and her partner, Mike Rausch, had been renting backyard space on their landlord's property in unincorporated Clark County, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas, for at least three months at that point. After living out of their truck for a few months, the couple said they traded it for a motor home that, even if it wouldn't run, got them closer to stability. They invested over a thousand dollars to move, the couple said: from the cost of towing the motor home to paying the deposit for the backyard space and buying a special extension cord to plug into the electricity in a shed behind the house. "It was all worth it," Rausch said. "It was getting us a home and getting us power and off the streets." The two lived in the backyard with their dogs and, they said, five other trailers of families who shared the space. DeLaRoca with the Facebook ad that offered her and her partner power, water, and a place to live in their trailer for $650 a month. Bridget Bennett for Business Insider They had found the listing for the lot on Facebook and, at the time, considered it a godsend because of how close the location was to Rausch's work at Harry Reid International Airport's car-return center, less than an hour's walk away. The couple used a rented U-Haul as their main form of transport. As they were driving back from a Walmart run one day, DeLaRoca said, police officers stopped them in front of the landlord's house, saying the U-Haul had been reported as stolen. The couple, it turned out, had failed to return it on time. Once officers walked into the property's backyard and saw their living arrangement, DeLaRoca said, the couple's relationship with their landlord, a man named Luis Barraza, soured. After that, Barraza told them they had to leave. In a subsequent recording reviewed by BI, DeLaRoca asks for a receipt for $300 she had paid toward her monthly rent. In the recording, a man she identified as Barraza tells her others haven't asked for receipts and he won't give her one. After telling him that she's recording, DeLaRoca asks why he wants them out. "We established some rules," the man tells her. "One thing I said is that it can't be obvious that people live here." In unincorporated Clark County, where the property is located, operating a short-term rental without a license is illegal. Barraza cut off their power, DeLaRoca said, blaming a code inspection. County records show inspectors had visited the property after receiving an anonymous complaint that the owner was using his land for short-term rentals; photos they took document at least half a dozen mobile homes there. But the records make no note of inspectors asking for utilities to be discontinued. Last September, Clark County inspectors photographed the property where DeLaRoca and Rausch lived in a trailer. DeLaRoca said her landlord had told her, "It can't be obvious that people live here." Clark County Building & Fire Prevention "Code Enforcement did not order utilities to be disconnected in this case," Stacey Welling, a spokesperson for Clark County, said by email. She said that "it was a violation of County Code to reside in an RV on the property" but that Barraza was not fined. Barraza did not respond to a request for comment. When DeLaRoca brought up the utility disconnection during her November hearing in the Las Vegas Justice Court, she hoped her landlord would be held accountable. Hearing Master David Brown told her their situation wasn't a normal tenancy, she said. But he still issued a "no cause" eviction order; in Nevada, landlords don't have to name a reason. DeLaRoca and Rausch had 10 days to move out. Landlords are generally given wide leeway to use the eviction process even for people not strictly considered tenants, according to Eric Dunn, the director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project. "Even if the property is not a space that somebody should be living in, if the landlord is seeking to remove the person from it, then you want them to at least go to court," he said. A debate over what constitutes a tenant The battle over the Efficiency Lodge lasted for years. Lawyers at Atlanta Legal Aid filed suit in 2020 on behalf of three former residents who were locked out of the motel: Armetrius Neason, who had lived there continuously since 2016 before falling behind on his payments in 2020; Lynetrice Preston, who had lived there with two of her children and a grandchild for two years, when she fell behind on her weekly payments after her pandemic employment benefits ran out; and Altonese Weaver, who lived at the motel for a total of 11 months prior to being locked out in July 2020 after she fell behind on her weekly payments, with all of her possessions locked inside. In September 2020, a flood of 911 calls came in from the Efficiency Lodge outside of Atlanta. Tenants said they were being threatened and locked out; police wrote them up as suspects. DeKalb County Police Department The case largely centered on the ambiguity in Georgia state law: whether the residents were tenants or merely guests. The Legal Aid lawyers argued that their clients had made a life at the motel and that it was illegal to evict them without going before a judge. "When you leave families susceptible to being locked out of their only home with no notice at the whim of a landlord, that's a very troubling situation," Bliss said. "It creates the possibility of abuse and exploitation." The Efficiency Lodge had high-powered representation former Gov. Roy Barnes, whose brother was then a co-owner of the motel chain, who argued that the residents were just like any other inn guests and, having signed a contract accordingly, could be removed without a formal eviction process. Courts ruled in the residents' favor in 2021 and 2022 and ordered the Efficiency Lodge to file an eviction if it wanted to remove them. But Barnes appealed the rulings to the Georgia Supreme Court, which finally issued guidance in June 2023 on what constitutes a landlord-tenant relationship, saying it hinges upon a person's use of a place as a home, with the permission of the owner. These questions, the guidance states, are dependent on the intent of both parties. The Supreme Court did not make a ruling on the Efficiency Lodge residents, remanding the decision back to a lower court. But the Supreme Court laid out specific factors for courts to take into consideration, such as the length of time someone lives in the property, whether they routinely clean their unit, and whether they can have guests. The court said the granting of permission to occupy the property as tenants can be implicit. The case settled in August 2023 before the lower court decided the question of whether the three plaintiffs qualified as tenants. Bliss declined to comment on the terms of the settlement; Barnes did not respond to a request for comment sent to his law firm. Landlords and loopholes In Nevada, state law is more explicit, laying out that people who stay in a hotel or motel for more than 30 days gain the protections of a tenant. But the Desert Moon Motel in Las Vegas appears to have found a way around the provision. Tera Strawter and her boyfriend, Khari Varner, had been living at the vintage downtown motel for nearly three months at the time they were locked out in October 2023, far longer than should have been required to trigger the status change. During that time, she gave birth to twins, the couple said in a court complaint. All of their possessions were inside, Strawter said, including her medications. The night of the lockout, Varner said, he and Strawter managed to get back into the room and slept there. The next day, Strawter took to Facebook to livestream at least two law-enforcement officers as they arrested Varner after telling the couple to leave the unit. Police officers stood by as a motel representative read Strawter a statement warning her that she would be considered a trespasser and would be arrested if she came back. Varner filed two complaints with the Las Vegas Justice Court, claiming the Desert Moon had illegally evicted them. The second complaint, which BI obtained, asserts that the couple had been living at the motel for almost three months. One detail would prove critical as the couple fought the motel in court: They had received financial help from two different nonprofit agencies Puentes Las Vegas and Lutheran Social Services of Nevada which had each paid for 28-day stays, Strawter said, before she and Varner took over the weekly payments themselves. In November 2023, Khari Varner filed a complaint against a downtown Las Vegas motel, the Desert Moon, saying he and his fiancee had been illegally locked out. Las Vegas Justice Court Puentes' president, Guy Girardin, declined to confirm details of this case but said the organization does provide housing assistance and sometimes refers people to extended-stay motels. He said the group caps its payments at 28 days at the request of the motels. Puentes has seen an increase in the number of people who have made homes at extended stays in recent years, Girardin said, turning a model once geared to business travelers to "almost 100% housing." BI sat in on the couple's hearings over the complaint. The first hearing ended quickly after a judge ruled that Varner had failed to give Desert Moon proper notice, a common occurrence with tenant-lockout complaints, according to a sample of outcomes BI examined and hearings one reporter attended. A hearing room at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas. Nevada offers tenants a speedy pathway for fighting a lockout. Bridget Bennett for Business Insider At the second hearing over the lockout, in November, the couple explained to Brown, the hearing master, that they had been living in the motel since August through a variety of payment structures. First, the cost of the room was covered by one nonprofit, then another, and then the stay rolled over into their names. The motel's owner, Brian Michael Schwalbe, said he thought the couple had agreed to leave. The couple countered that they had verbally told the motel of their intent to stay for at least 90 days. When Brown said continued occupancy of the motel would make them tenants, Schwalbe said he thought the payments from other entities would change the situation. "I'm really grappling with the fact that you've been there," Brown said to the couple, adding that if they had proof they had personally paid for even two days after their last, self-funded, 28-day stay, he would rule in their favor. Varner started to cry. The couple could not provide proof of payment, Strawter later told BI, because they had paid in cash. Brown denied their petition, stating their relationship with the Desert Moon didn't qualify as a landlord-tenant one under the law. "I'm sorry, it's not fun for the judge at all," he said. Natalie Bergevin, the manager of Desert Moon, said the motel always considered Strawter and Varner as short-term guests, not tenants. Though the couple had stayed for more than a month, the motel's agreement was with the paying agencies, not with Strawter and Varner, she said. Bergevin said they had each signed written agreements that they would not be considered tenants. They weren't locked out, she added; their key was simply deactivated. She insisted, as Schwalbe had in court, that the couple had previously agreed to leave. "Long-term residency is never our intention," Bergevin said, calling the situation "truly unpleasant and unfortunate." Matthew Main is an attorney who has represented residents in similarly precarious housing situations in New York City, where state law also grants residents tenants' rights after 30 days. He said courts had become overly restrictive about whom tenant laws cover, making them less effective at preserving housing stability than at protecting the economic interests of landlords. "Removing someone from their home is a violent act," he said, adding that public officials shouldn't tolerate landlord gamesmanship. Main said he had seen hearings about illegal evictions of residents in "shady gray areas of housing" get bogged down in fights over whether residents are tenants under the law. "The litigation should take five minutes: Was this person there with permission? That's the end of the question," he said. "The reason these proceedings become so lengthy is occupants have to litigate their status." Makeshift rooming houses Paul Panusky, an attorney in Atlanta who represents tenants in unlawful-eviction cases, said he had been getting more calls lately from people living in unlicensed makeshift rooming houses. And Sara Heymann, a community activist with Unete, a volunteer-led housing advocacy group in Chicago, said rooming houses had also become more common in her city. One single-family home in Chicago's Roseland neighborhood, converted into a 16-unit rooming house, illustrates how these illegal conversions increase tenants' vulnerability. In this case, lacking formal leases, the tenants were even accused of being squatters. In August 2022, the landlord, Go Home LLC, filed for eviction against one named resident along with "all unknown occupants" of its "single family home" and was granted an eviction through the courts. BI obtained bodycam footage of what followed: two attempts by the Cook County Sheriff's Office to execute the eviction on what they discovered was a far cry from a single family home. Sheriff's officers entered a single family home on Chicago's South Side in February 2023 to evict a tenant. Their body cameras documented signs that it was being used as a rooming house. Cook County Sheriff's Office On the first attempt, in February 2023, the footage shows several rooms connected by a long hallway, each door bearing a number. "You know I've had a problem with him before," an officer said, "where he told us it was one house and there were separate rooms." The officers departed without removing anyone. Two months later, the sheriff's office made a second eviction attempt. That time, a representative of the landlord assured the officers that individual rooms were not being rented out anymore. "If we go in there, and it's numbered, turn right the fuck back around," one officer said. The first room they checked was small, with only one window. In the video, the bed was pushed to the end of the room and toys were strewn all over the floor. This time, only remnants of the numbers were visible on the doors; a resident later told a deputy the owner took down the numbers just hours before the deputies showed up. At one point an officer asks, "Does anyone have a rental agreement? A lease?" But no one appears to have one; one resident says he has text messages. The lead officer calls off the eviction. "We can't pick apart the house," he told Michael Duckworth, the CEO of Go Home, which manages the property. "The way that you guys are going about this is just really illegal." Duckworth told BI that he'd described the property in court as a single-family home on the advice of counsel but that in fact "each room was its own entity." He said that while he didn't usually offer traditional leases, the sheriff's officers declined to evict only because the occupants were colluding to create confusion. "Basically, if there's anything that looks like it may be off a little bit or if they're not 100% sure," he said, "they're kind of tasked to call it off." He wanted the residents out because, he claimed, they were "maliciously refusing to pay" and the company had "lost control of the house." But he insists he handled the eviction by the book and did everything legally. The renovated interior of the informal Chicago rooming house after it was vacated over building safety concerns. Abel Uribe for Business Insider Matthew Walberg, a spokesperson for the sheriff's office, said Go Home failed to properly serve notice to the home's occupants. "The order for eviction did not describe the property as it was," he said. "It was all these multiple units and officers couldn't enforce" the eviction order. In April of last year, Go Home filed a new motion asking for emergency intervention, claiming all of the tenants were squatters. The judge denied it. He pointed out that Duckworth, representing himself as the landlord's agent, had admitted that several tenants had rented from him at other properties, casting doubt on his claim that everyone at the property was a squatter. The eviction order, however, remained in place. Ultimately, the City of Chicago vacated the home over building safety concerns. Left living under a freeway After their hearing last November, Darlene DeLaRoca and Mike Rausch faced a 10-day deadline to vacate their trailer home outside Las Vegas. That wasn't much time given that the trailer still wasn't working and they'd have to repair it before they could move. If they weren't out by then, the court-ordered eviction meant a county constable would remove them by force. But DeLaRoca wasn't ready to give up. Instead of using their savings to pay for a tow or repair the trailer, she told BI, she and Rausch decided to pay a bond of $250 to appeal their eviction. Without an attorney, DeLaRoca said, she had trouble figuring out the paperwork and wasn't sure whether she had filed the appeal correctly. She worried she had doomed their chances of being heard by a judge. Meanwhile, the constable's visit loomed. On nights she couldn't sleep, depressed about the prospect of spending Thanksgiving on the streets, she'd work on drafting a post for a GoFundMe. "The judge says we need to be out in 10 days, we don't have enough money to move," she and Rausch wrote. "In 10 days we will be homeless. We are asking for help, because if this landlord can do this to our family and 5 other families and get away with it, he will do it to other families." On the day the constables came, DeLaRoca said, everything went wrong. They had been able to pack some things but, in the shuffle, left their bags inside, along with the motor home's keys. The interior of DeLaRoca and Rausch's trailer. The day of their eviction, they lost almost all of their possessions. Bridget Bennett for Business Insider "We left with the clothes on our backs," DeLaRoca said by email shortly after they were put out. "I should have been more prepared. It's my own fault, but it's kind of hard when you're not really sure what you're doing or have the means to do it." They didn't have even a day's worth of food for them or their two dogs. The removal upended their lives. The pair spent some nights under a freeway overpass; some days, they resorted to panhandling for food. Eventually, they separated. On Christmas Day, Rausch sent Business Insider a text message. It was too cold on the street for DeLaRoca, he wrote. He sent her and the puppies to California, where her daughters live. "I am still in Vegas," he wrote. "Alone." The promise of a stable life had gone as quickly as it had come. DeLaRoca said she wished they had never answered that Facebook rental ad. Read the original article on Business Insider CLEVELAND (WCMH) In 2021, surveillance cameras captured Rajah McQueen in the passenger seat of her car, which later reappeared with bullet holes but not the young mother. The vehicle and woman remain missing, leaving her family desperate for answers. Rajah was outgoing with a huge personality and a variety of talents, such as singing, rapping and doing nails, her sister Shamir McQueen told NBC4. The mother of two young boys, Rajah was 27 when she disappeared. She is one of eight close-knit siblings. Unsolved Ohio: Ohio State student who disappeared at bar still missing 18 years later Such a sweet girl, Shamir said. Very religious. She was actually, currently right before this happened, she was in school to study ministry. She has a beautiful voice. Before her disappearance, Rajah had recently come home to Cleveland for her schools summer break. She went to Madison Countys Rosedale Bible College, about two-and-a-half hours southwest of Cleveland and 35 minutes west of Columbus. On June 24, 2021, Shamir unknowingly had her last conversation with her sister. Rajah had called her, as she frequently did, and the sisters had what Shamir described as a normal conversation. That Saturday, June 26, one of Shamirs sisters told her she felt something was wrong, as she was trying to get ahold of Rajah but was not getting an answer. It was unlike her to not answer her phone. By June 28, family members became more concerned. Shamir said she called a man that Rajah had been romantically involved with and often saw when she was in town, to ask if he had seen her. Shamir said he gave conflicting accounts of when he last saw Rajah. Unsolved Ohio: Elderly woman who vanished on Halloween night in 1961 still not found So that right there kind of sent a red flag with me, Shamir said. It went back and forth with that, with him, with many different stories on if hes seen or didnt see her. After relatives and friends repeatedly failed to get in contact with Rajah, a family member reported her missing on Wednesday, June 30. They said Rajah had not been heard from in six days. Cleveland police wrote in the missing persons report that a family member told them the man Rajah was romantically involved with had previously assaulted her. As police began to investigate, they discovered surveillance footage of Rajah timestamped for June 26, the same day Shamirs sister could not get ahold of her. A camera captured Rajah at a gas station near East 131 Street and Harvard Avenue in Cleveland. At about 7:30 a.m., she was seen inside her Silver 2018 Nissan Sentra with the license plate number JGH3952. Shamir, who told NBC4 she saw the footage, said there was a man, whom she recognized, in the drivers seat of the car. Police have not released his name and he has not been arrested or publicly identified as a suspect. New Albany farm market closing after over 50 years in business She went into the store, he was in the drivers side, Shamir said. Then she got back in the car, which is her car, but she got on the passenger side and he was driving and the car went off the grid. Hours later, around 11:40 a.m., other surveillance cameras spotted her car heading west on Harvard Avenue near Broadway and Union Avenue but Rajah was not seen in the car, which had new bullet holes in the roof and passenger side. The cars license plate and hubcaps were also removed and a dealer plate was placed in the back window, according to the FBI. Rajah and the car both vanished and have never been found. (Photo Courtesy/FBI) (Photo Courtesy/FBI) Shamir believes one of the reasons there have been no arrests is because the car is missing, since it likely holds crucial evidence. But every June that passes with no arrests is difficult for her family, she said. Rajahs two sons are now 9 and 10 years old. Her youngest son hurt me so bad the last time he was here, because he was like, I just cant wait to see my mom, so I could give her a big hug and kiss, Shamir said. Because at first, I felt like he thought that his mom neglected him and just left. And thats not the case. She has two boys, so its affecting those kids really, really bad. The family has already dealt with a tragic loss: Shamir said one of her brothers, Demetrius McQueen, was murdered in 2019, and that case also remains unsolved. The sisters mom is battling cancer, so Shamir hopes the case is solved in the near future. Court: Drivers, not prosecutors, must prove they werent illegally using phone My mom has stage IV bowel cancer, Shamir said. This is her second time having cancer, and I feel like my mom is really just holding on for closure for her child, you know, so it hurts me that my mom has to live every last bit of her days not knowing where her child is. Shamir said she prays daily for closure and is prepared for the worst outcome. She pleaded through tears for anyone who may have information to come forward. If anybody out there knows anything that can help us, I just really wish they would because I miss her so much, Shamir said. I really want this all to be over with. I just really want our family to get some kind of closure, especially my mom. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the recovery of Rajah or her missing Nissan Sentra. Bipartisan Ohio bill seeks to fight food insecurity on college campuses At the time of her disappearance, Rajah was 5 feet 6 inches tall, 133 pounds and had black hair and brown eyes. She had a pierced nose and ears, as well as multiple tattoos, including a half-sleeve on her upper arm with images of scissors and a woman with a cross, the date IV-III-XXI in red ink on the inside of her wrist, a butterfly on her chest and a rose on her leg just above the knee. As of Wednesday, she would be 30 years old. Cleveland police ask anyone with any information on the disappearance of Rajah to call 216-623-5262. Anonymous tips may also be submitted to the FBI at 216-583-5383 or tips.fbi.gov. If youre a family member of an individual with an unsolved missing persons or homicide case in Ohio, reach out to aboldizar@wcmh.com. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV. Pictured is the Imperial Geyser in Yellowstone National Park's Lower Geyser Basin. (Lauren Harrison/U.S. Geological Survey) The person who died after being shot by law enforcement rangers in Yellowstone National Park on the Fourth of July had been shooting a semi-automatic rifle toward a dining facility at Canyon Village, the park said Tuesday in a news release. The deceased shooter was Samson Lucas Bariah Fussner, 28, of Florida, according to a news release from the park citing the Park County, Wyoming, coroner. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US Fussner, who worked for a private company that operates in the park, died at the scene after being shot by officers who had responded to a 911 call of a possible mass shooting. Officers tracked down Fussner at the Canyon Lodge occupied by roughly 200 people at the time, the park said. It said more than 20 rangers were on the job. Fussner reportedly walked toward the service entrance of the facility while firing a semi-automatic rifle, the park said. Several officers engaged Fussner, and during an exchange of gunfire, Fussner was shot by law enforcement rangers, the park said. A law enforcement ranger who was shot in a lower extremity and injured has since been released from the hospital, the park said. No other physical injuries were reported, according to Yellowstone. Shooter was employee of Xanterra Parks and Resorts Fussner was an employee of Xanterra Parks and Resorts, a private business that operates in the park. We are deeply saddened by the incident that occurred at Yellowstone National Park on July 4 involving a Xanterra employee, Xanterra said in a statement. We extend our heartfelt condolences to those who were impacted by this incident. Xanterra said it is working diligently to bring all facilities back to regular operations in the Canyon Lodge area. It is providing counseling and support to its employees in Yellowstone and cooperating with the FBI and National Park Service investigation. The safety and well-being of our employees, guests and the wider community are our top priorities, and we are committed to ensuring a safe environment for everyone, Xanterra said. The company said a limited number of rooms and most visitor services opened at Canyon Lodge on Tuesday and remaining lodges will open today. Regular service is expected to resume for food service as well. In its news release Tuesday, Yellowstone National Park officials outlined the series of events as follows: Just after midnight on July 4, Yellowstones 911 dispatch center received a report that a woman had been held against her will by a man with a gun in a residence at Canyon Village. She also reported to law enforcement rangers that Fussner threatened to kill her and others, including plans to allegedly carry out a mass shooting(s) at July 4th events outside the park. Responding law enforcement rangers located his vehicle unoccupied in the Canyon area, in the central part of the park. The preliminary investigation indicated Fussner was likely armed and dangerous. With the individual at large, law enforcement rangers were deployed to protect areas with park visitors and employees while searching for Fussner, and the parks 911 dispatch center notified surrounding jurisdictions. By the early hours of July 4, more than 20 National Park Service law enforcement rangers, including the parks special response team, were working to protect people and locate Fussner. At approximately 8 a.m., law enforcement rangers posted near Canyon Lodge, which houses employee and public dining rooms, encountered Fussner. Fussner reportedly walked toward the facility occupied by approximately 200 people while firing a semi-automatic rifle. During an exchange of gunfire, Fussner was shot by law enforcement rangers. The park did not respond to an emailed question about the number of times Fussner was shot: The incident is still under investigation, and we have no additional information to share at this time. Additional rangers with emergency medical training rendered aid to the injured law enforcement ranger and Fussner. Fussner died at the scene, the park said. The FBI, with support from the National Park Service, Xanterra and other partners, is providing victim and witness support to anyone who was involved in the incident. National Park Service policy for a law enforcement involved shooting calls for involved law enforcement rangers to be placed on paid administrative leave during the investigation of an incident. In the email late Tuesday in response to questions from the Daily Montanan, the park did not address the number of rangers who would be on leave and whether the park would need to bring in other support temporarily as a result. Consistent with Department of the Interior and NPS policies, the NPS will release available body worn camera footage of the incident within 30 days, the park said in the news release. Thanks to the heroic actions of our law enforcement rangers, many lives were saved here last Thursday, said Superintendent Cam Sholly in a statement from Yellowstone. These rangers immediately confronted this shooter and took decisive action to ensure he was no longer a threat to public safety. We are working now to provide maximum support to those involved and their families. We appreciate the support of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Park Service, Department of the Interior, and many other partners as we continue to manage through the aftermath of this incident. The investigation into this incident, including the actions of the National Park Service (NPS) law enforcement rangers, is being led by the FBI and will be reviewed by the United States Attorneys Office for the District of Wyoming, according to the news release. The Daily Montanan, like the Idaho Capital Sun, is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com. Follow Daily Montanan on Facebook and X. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) The Urbana Police Department has become the latest Central Illinois law enforcement agency to warn people of scammers impersonating them. Department officials said on Facebook that an Urbana resident in their 70s reported that they received multiple calls from someone claiming to represent the Urbana Police Department. The caller ID showed the departments actual phone number, but Urbana Police did not make the call; this was the result of scammers spoofing the number. The caller claimed to the resident that their bank accounts were at risk and asked for personal information, officials said, but the call escalated to threats of arrest and threats that federal authorities would get involved. Mt. Zion Police warns of impersonation scam Urbana Police stressed that no officer will ever ask for banking information or electronic payments over the phone. If officers need personal information during criminal investigations, they will typically ask for such information in person. Even though the scam phone call used the Urbana Police Departments actual phone number, dialing the same number will connect people with the police department, not the scammer. Anyone who receives a phone call similar to this example is asked to contact the Urbana Police Department immediately. Their phone number is 217-384-2320. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com. US and allies disrupt Russian propaganda operations in the West The United States and the Netherlands have thwarted a Russian-backed propaganda campaign using artificial intelligence to spread disinformation in Western countries. Source: US Department of Justice, as reported by European Pravda Details: This concerns a little less than a thousand fake accounts generated by artificial intelligence in the so-called "troll factory" to propagate false news and information. The operation was carried out by the FBI and the Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), in cooperation with the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), as well as Dutch intelligence and police. Quote: "As the Russian government continues to wage its brutal war in Ukraine and threatens democracies around the world, the Justice Department will continue to deploy all of our legal authorities to counter Russian aggression and protect the American people," said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that NATO is aware of the risk of hybrid attacks by Russia aimed at undermining the Alliance's cohesiveness and is taking precautions to fight it. A few months ago, European intelligence agencies informed their governments that Russia was planning a pan-European sabotage. It was also reported recently that US military bases in Europe were put on high alert for the first time in ten years due to intelligence indicating that Russian-backed entities were planning sabotage against these sites and the US military. Support UP or become our patron! President Biden announced that NATO allies will be providing Ukraine with a significant air defense package, in remarks kicking off the 75th anniversary celebrations of the alliance and a three-day summit focused on shoring up support for the war-torn country. Today, Im announcing a historic donation of air defense equipment for Ukraine, Biden said in remarks at the summit being held in Washington, D.C. He said the U.S., along with Germany, Netherlands, Romania and Italy, will provide Ukraine with the equipment for five additional strategic air defense systems and in the coming months, the United States and our partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air defense systems. Biden added that the U.S. will make sure that Ukraine gets this assistance before anyone else gets it and that Ukraine will receive dozens of additional interceptors over the next year. He said interceptors will help Ukraine protect civilians against Russian missiles. The new package follows a White House announcement last month that the U.S. would send Ukraine air defense missiles that were contracted for purchase by other countries after Kyiv pleaded with its supporters to send at least seven Patriot missile systems. Make no mistake, Russia is failing in this war, the president said. Make no mistake, Ukraine can and will stop [Russian President Vladimir Putin]. Biden is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday. Bidens remarks come ahead of the presidents highly anticipated press conference Thursday at the end of the summit. Laura Kelly contributed to this report. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A British judge has been barred by the US from hearing a migrant claim on the British island of Diego Garcia in a move that threatens to spark a diplomatic row. State documents, marked sensitive, show that the US Government said it would refuse the judge food, accommodation and transport if she and other lawyers tried to reach the territory which houses a top secret American navy base. The judge, Margaret Obi, who is acting for the British Indian Ocean Territory Supreme Court, had been due to fly to Diego Garcia last week to decide whether a group of 60 Sir Lankan Tamil asylum seekers were being unlawfully detained on the coral atoll. Dozens of migrants arrived on the island in October 2021, saying they had been fleeing persecution and trying to sail to Canada to claim asylum when their boat ran into trouble near Diego Garcia and were rescued by the Royal Navy. Diego Garcia is is part of the Chagos archipelago and site of a major United States military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean - Reuters The US military facility on the British territory of Diego Garcia has been described as an important strategic base. Earlier this year, two B-52 bombers were sent there for training exercises. US planes have been previously sent from the base to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq. The US, which controls the airstrip, last week said it was withdrawing its consent for lawyers representing the migrants and members of the press the BBC to access the island, according to official communications now made public in a court hearing. It said it would not allow participants of the hearing including the judge to board US military flights to Diego Garcia and would not provide housing, transportation, and food for the visit. The US added that it would be willing to reconsider if the visit was conducted in a manner that addressed its security and operational concerns. Diego Garcia is the site of a joint military facility of the UK and the US - Getty Images David Lammy, the new Foreign Secretary, is being urged to intervene. A lawyer representing the asylum seekers told legal expert Joshua Rozenberg: That the British Indian Ocean Territory [Biot] Supreme Court has been prevented from sitting in its own territory on crown land is an extraordinary affront to the rule of law. We trust that the Foreign Secretary will now do everything in his power to ensure the hearing goes ahead as soon as possible. Risks security and effective operation of the base Tom Short, a lawyer from the UK firm Leigh Day representing some of the migrants, said the cancellation of this weeks hearing had been a devastating blow to our vulnerable clients, and called for it to be rearranged as soon as possible. The conditions on the island are deplorable and we are extremely concerned about the impact of this delay on the rapidly deteriorating mental health and wellbeing of our vulnerable and traumatised clients. In a communication on 3 July, entitled United States Notification to the United Kingdom of denial of the 6-12 July 2024 visit by of [sic] the Biot Supreme Court to Diego Garcia, US authorities said the site visit presented risks to the security and effective operation of the base. The US had previously said it was willing to allow access to areas including the migrant camp, beaches around it and a chapel where children receive schooling. But the country had said it would not provide access to areas open to civilian contractors and other non-military personnel, such as a movie theatre, a barber and a bowling centre, the airport terminal and all US-controlled areas occupied by the Biot administration, the Royal Overseas Police, and the Royal Navy. A Foreign Office spokesman said: We are working with the BIOT Administration and US authorities to enable a court hearing to go ahead in a manner that respects the unique context on Diego Garcia. The welfare and safety of the migrants remains a top priority. 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. (Reuters) -The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has declined to approve Novo Nordisk's weekly insulin in patients with diabetes, the Danish drugmaker said on Wednesday. The health regulator in its so-called "complete response letter" sought more information related to the manufacturing process and the type 1 diabetes indication to complete the review, Novo said. Novo said it does not expect to be able to fulfil the requests this year, and that it will work closely with the FDA regarding the next steps. The regulator's decision follows its outside panel's vote against the use of the weekly insulin icodec, in patients with type 1 diabetes due to risks of low blood sugar. (Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber) US FTC to sue drug middlemen over insulin prices, source says FILE PHOTO: The corporate logo of the UnitedHealth Group appears on the side of one of their office buildings in Santa Ana, California FILE PHOTO: The corporate logo of the UnitedHealth Group appears on the side of one of their office buildings in Santa Ana, California By Jody Godoy and Mariam Sunny (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is planning to sue UnitedHealth, Cigna and CVS Health over their tactics as middlemen in negotiating prices for drugs including insulin, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The three companies own the largest pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, which are being investigated for the rebates, or volume-based discounts, they negotiate with drug manufacturers, and how these influence drug access and pricing. CVS said the company intends to defend itself vigorously. UnitedHealth declined to comment; Cigna was not immediately available for comment. "Any action that limits the use of these PBM negotiating tools would reward the pharmaceutical industry and return the market to a broken state, leaving American businesses and patients at the mercy of the prices drugmakers set," a CVS spokesperson said. The FTC is also looking at drugmakers as part of the insulin probe, the source said. The three largest insulin makers include Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. Sanofi said its pricing practices have always complied with the law and that the company is committed to helping patients access the medicine they need at the lowest possible price. Novo declined to comment and Lilly did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. U.S. President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act capped insulin prices for government-backed Medicare insurance recipients at $35 per month but that cap does not apply to patients with private insurance or without insurance. Americans without health insurance pay an average of $98 for Eli Lillys generic insulin despite the companys May 1 pledge to cut its list price to $25 per vial, according to a survey of more than 300 U.S. pharmacies by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warrens office released a year ago. As of 2023, around 8.4 million people in the United States with diabetes used insulin, according to the American Diabetes Association. Insulin is vital for patients with type 1 diabetes to control their blood sugar and for some patients with the more common type 2 diabetes. On Tuesday, the FTC issued an interim report, saying the three biggest middlemen - managing 79% of U.S. prescription drug claims - have used years of dealmaking to gain outsized influence on drug prices. The report said the companies enriched themselves at the expense of smaller pharmacies and consumers. UnitedHealth's Optum unit, CVS Health's CVS Caremark and Cigna's Express Scripts all disputed the report's findings. (Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru and Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Maju Samuel and David Gregorio) By Moira Warburton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have asked all federal agencies to begin reviews of regulations that could be affected by a recent Supreme Court ruling overturning a legal precedent known as "Chevron deference," in letters released on Wednesday. Three House committees - Agriculture, Oversight, and Education and Workforce - targeted agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Labor in what the chamber's No. 2 Republican, Steve Scalise, called a "fight to free the American people from the power-hungry administrative state." The letters follow a Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down the so-called Chevron deference. The latter refers to a 1984 precedent involving oil company Chevron that gave government experts the final say in how laws passed by Congress should be interpreted. Conservatives have insisted for decades that the ruling gave too much power to government bureaucrats over elected lawmakers. The letters from the three committees' chairs requested lists of existing regulations that were challenged in court and upheld based on the Chevron deference, as well as pending rules that could have been defended using the Chevron deference. The chairs also asked for a list of rules that could have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more, a "major increase in costs or prices for consumers," or "significant adverse effects" on competition and employment, among other factors. The requests could provide a road map for conservative activists to sue agencies over specific regulations. Michael Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, told the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that the court's decision "hits the EPA extremely hard." (Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Matthew Lewis) I usually do not start with the history of a company to present my investment thesis, but Texas Pacific Land Corp. (NYSE:TPL) is such an atypical enterprise that it is better to start from the beginning. Its historical background explains its current business model. Founded in 1871, Texas and Pacific Railway Company was created through a federal charter to build a railway that would link East Texas to the Pacific Ocean in California, crossing Arizona and New Mexico. The company never completed the full line and had to file for bankruptcy in 1888. As a way to compensate the bondholders that invested in the railroad, the vast amounts of land (3.50 million acres in Texas) were put in a public trust for the benefit of these bondholders. The trust was later named Texas Pacific Land Trust, which is now known as Texas Pacific Land Corp. A few decades later, the first oil well was drilled (1920) and again many decades later (2010), lands owned by the trust were going to be the subject of an oil production revolution: shale oil extraction. It is no coincidence that the stock price started to rise in 2010. Texas Pacific Land: An Atypical Real Estate Growth Stock The company's business model is, simply put, the holding of strategic lands and receiving royalties on every economic activity that happens on these properties. Investment thesis Texas Pacific Land is often wrongly considered an energy company. While it derives most of its revenue from oil and gas production, the company does not produce a single barrel of it. It is first and foremost a real estate company that holds vast amounts of land across Texas, particularly in the oil-rich Permian Basin. The Permian Basin is the highest-producing oil field in the United States with 1.60 million barrels of oil produced per day. It holds an estimated 50 billion barrels of oil, the second largest in the world. It previously had been in decline since the 1970s, but unconventional oil production methods (i.e., fracking) have boosted shale oil extraction in the region since 2010. The company makes its revenue from a variety of sources: fixed-fee payments for use of the land by tenants, revenue for sales of materials used in the construction of infrastructure, provision of sourced water or treated produced water, revenue from oil and gas royalty interests and revenue related to saltwater disposal on its land. Texas Pacific Land also generates revenue from all types of infrastructure projects on its properties like solar and wind installations. Further, it has no competition and its moat (ownership of lands rich in resources) is here to last essentially forever. As Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) said, When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever. Texas Pacific Land is truly one of those stocks that, from my point of view, every long-term portfolio should hold some exposure to with a forever time horizon. Story continues The royalties received on every barrel produced on the 880,000 acres it owns in the Permian Basin, the high growth of its water business, the ultra-high financial margins and the shareholder-friendly management make the stock an unavoidable one in a long-term, growth-oriented portfolio. Two distinct business lines Texas Pacific Land has two distinct business lines through which it collects royalties and fees. The company makes a large portion of its revenue by lending land to reliable and growing oil-producing tenants like Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM), Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX) and EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE:EOG). Global oil demand has witnessed a rather steady rise over the last decade and, even if the demand in developed countries were to weaken, the rapid demand increase in emerging markets ensures a continued uptrend in oil demand and production. Texas Pacific Land: An Atypical Real Estate Growth Stock Global Crude Oil Demand. Source: Statista Texas Pacific Land's revenue is somewhat correlated to the U.S. and global demand for fossil fuels and oil price, although it does not produce any oil and gas directly. In a way, this allows the company to participate in the upside (increased royalties) without suffering as much as these oil producers when demand weakens because it still receives fees for the lease of the lands and royalties on a number of different economic activities occurring on the lands it holds. And one business line in particular is promising: its water business (production, treatment and desalination). Indeed, TPL announced in the last earnings release on May 8 an increase in revenue of $27.70 million (18.90% total revenue increase) from the first quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024. All revenue streams increased year over year, but the $15.40 millionn increase in water sales was the biggest contributor, representing more than half of the company's revenue growth. Texas Pacific Land continues to invest in its water business with the development of new energy-efficient technologies, the construction of a facility with an initial capacity of 10,000 barrels of water per day and even filed an application patent for a water desalination and treatment process. In the meantime, oil and gas royalty revenue increased by $3 million due to higher production volumes in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the first quarter of 2023, which clearly indicates the water business line is where the high growth potential lies. A pristine balance sheet justifies an expensive valuation The balance sheet of Texas Pacific Land is pristine. The company currently has no debt and $837 million in cash. If we take a step back, we easily understand how the company's cash situation is the way it is; its operating margin (i.e., operating income relative to total revenue) has fluctuated between 72% and 96% since 2016, with the current operating margin standing at a whopping 78.50%. The high margin allowed the company to reach a free cash flow level of $114.5 million in the first quarter alone, significantly increasing its prior cash amount. This stock might not be a favorite of dividend investors due its low yield (currently around 0.60% based on the recently announced $1.17 per share payable on June 17). Texas Pacific Land prefers reinvestment in the business (e.g., development of technologies useful for the water business unit, which contributed to the growth we discussed in water sales) and share buybacks over dividends. As an investor holding the stock as one of my top positions for the long term, I prefer the company reinvest in the business and continue buying back shares because both aspects have the highest impact on the stock price over the long term. Paying too high a dividend might cause the company to end up trapped in meeting the dividend payments, in a way similar to Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) with limited stock price appreciation over the years. The valuation of the stock is currently not the most attractive given the recent price rally from $582.07 on June 7 to $777.27 on June 12 (33.50% gain in five trading days) after excellent earnings news. At the time of writing, it was trading around 40 times earnings, up from 30 times earnings before the recent rally. It is difficult to time the market, but it could make sense to keep accumulating shares while the stock cools down to 35 times earnings (the average historical valuation of the stock). However, given the high financial growth profile of the company (average revenue growth of 40% per year in the last 10 years), I have very little doubt the financials of the company in the coming quarters will automatically readjust the valuation without the stock having to pull back. Texas Pacific Land: An Atypical Real Estate Growth Stock Given the high margins and growth profile of Texas Pacific Land, starting or continuing to accumulate shares today will likely prove to be a profitable move over the medium and long term. Risk factors to my case There are always risks to an asset, even though the company has high margins and low competition. One of the key risks is energy demand in the United States. If oil demand and production fade in the U.S. due, for example, to the energy transition, the royalties received by Texas Pacific Land would also decrease. The royalties received for its lands could also sharply decline in the case of a prolonged recession, induced by the tight monetary policy of the Federal Reserve. There is an interesting caveat here, however; the company receives royalties on all types of economic activity on its lands, including infrastructure projects and renewable energy projects. In the case of an energy transition, Texas Pacific Land would continue benefitting from green energy demand because its lands are ideally located for solar and wind energy production. Another key risk is when business becomes too easy. Although there is no competition possible on its own lands, it is possible that, when things become too easy for management thanks to high margins, the management team may be inclined to rest on its success rather than continue to aggressively pursue the growth and efficiency paths it has been on over the years. For now, though, there is no indication management's interests are not strictly aligned with shareholders. The company loves share buybacks and still has roughly $200 million worth of repurchases remaining on its current buyback authorization. The last earnings call also proved management continues to reinvest in new technologies and pilot programs to support growth. Bottom line Texas Pacific Land is an attractive stock to buy and hold for any investor that has a long-term growth portfolio, but may not be as attractive for dividend investors. The company has a unique moat that allows it to virtually have no competition. The stock is particularly attractive given its high margins and high growth rates, while at the same time allowing investors to have indirect exposure to several sectors at the same time, namely real estate, oil, renewable energy and infrastructure. The current valuation might be a bit expensive, yet a pullback might not be necessary to justify a buy today. Indeed, it is likely the company's financial growth will itself reduce the multiples at which it is trading given the company's ability to support continued growth. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. US House to vote on bill to require proof of citizenship to vote despite no evidence of non-citizen ballots The House speaker, Mike Johnson, who has claimed we all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, though there has been no proof of that. The House speaker, Mike Johnson, who has claimed we all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, though there has been no proof of that. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock Congressional Republicans will vote this week on a bill to require people to show proof of citizenship to register to vote, a move that comes as they lay the groundwork for undermining election results in November. The House will vote on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility bill, or Save Act, which would make states require, in person, documents that prove a person is a US citizen when registering to vote. This can include a Real ID, passport or other kinds of identification that show a persons place of birth. It wouldnt include a standard drivers license as a sole form of identification and calls for a secondary proof of place of birth alongside it, like a birth certificate. It also calls for states to remove non-citizens from their rolls and for the homeland security department to potentially start the deportation process for people unlawfully registered. These changes, voting rights advocates warn, would prevent some US citizens from voting such as those who dont have the proper documentation or the ability to provide it in person. The bill could lead to people who are able to vote, such as naturalized citizens, college students and tribal voters, being removed from voter rolls. It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. Its also illegal to register to vote if you arent eligible federal voter registration forms require you to attest that you are a US citizen. Some local elections allow non-citizen participation, but it is not the norm. There is no evidence of widespread non-citizen voting. Trump pressured Congress to approve the bill on Tuesday, writing on Truth Social: Republicans must pass the Save Act, or go home and cry yourself to sleep. Non citizen Illegal Migrants are getting the right to vote, being pushed by crooked Democrat Politicians who are not being stopped by an equally dishonest Justice Department. Our whole voting system is under siege. The bill is unlikely to pass in the Democrat-controlled Senate or make it into law, as the Biden White House has said it does not approve of it. The White House said in a statement that it strongly opposes the bill, indicating the president would veto it if it somehow made it to his desk. This bill would do nothing to safeguard our elections, but it would make it much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls, the statement says. Non-citizen voting has become a key plank for Republicans as it combines two red-meat issues in the Trump era: illegal immigration and voter fraud. With an influx of asylum seekers coming into the country in the Biden administration, Trump and his allies have turned up the heat on non-citizen voting claims, a longtime Republican talking point. Far-right figures, including Cleta Mitchell, have formed a coalition to push the idea. Heritage Action, the political arm of the conservative thinktank behind Project 2025, considers approval of the Save Act a key vote in its scorecard for lawmakers. Elon Musk, the owner of X, has promoted the bill as well, alluding to the death penalty as a consequence for people who didnt support the Save Act: Those who oppose this are traitors. All Caps: TRAITORS. What is the penalty for traitors again? Proponents of the bill have not offered proof that rampant non-citizen voting, or even non-citizens registering to vote, is happening, relying instead on gut feelings. Mike Johnson, the House speaker, said during a press conference on the bill that we all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But its not been something that is easily provable. The bill is just one part of Republican efforts to go after perceived non-citizen voting. An executive order from Biden in 2021 that called on agencies to increase voter registration has become an unlikely source of pushback because of claims it could involve registering non-citizens. The Tennessee secretary of state sent out letters to some voters saying they needed to provide proof of citizenship, a move that is legally questionable at best and that voting rights advocates have said amounts to voter intimidation. Some states have tried to require proof of citizenship or otherwise attempted to remove potential non-citizens from the rolls, resulting in legal battles and erroneously identifying thousands of qualified voters for potential removal. The US supreme court has said that states cant require proof of citizenship for federal elections. Arizona voters approved a law in 2004 to require such proof in order to vote there. But the top court ruled in 2013 that the state could only require it for state or local elections, setting up a bifurcated system for voting proof in Arizona. By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, fueled by Donald Trump's false claims about election fraud, approved a bill on Wednesday that would ban non-citizens from registering to vote in federal elections, a rare practice that is already illegal. Less than four months before Trump's Nov. 5 election showdown with Democratic President Joe Biden, the House voted 221-198 to approval the measure, which is based on claims that people who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally could cast ballots in this year's presidential and congressional elections. The legislation now goes to the Democratic-led Senate, where it is likely to be dead on arrival. Titled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, the bill would require those registering to vote to provide proof of U.S. citizenship and compel states to purge suspected non-citizens from their voter rolls. It is already a felony offense for a non-citizen to vote in a federal election, and independent studies have shown that such things happen only rarely. The bill is opposed by Democrats, who describe it as a voter suppression effort targeted at key Democratic constituencies with a Trump-inspired message calculated to undermine overall public confidence in the U.S. election system. "This bill would do nothing to safeguard our elections," the White House said in a statement this week. But it would make it much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls." Republicans have couched the bill in Trump-like apocalyptic rhetoric. House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed in a floor speech ahead of the vote that failure to support the bill would "hand over our country to illegal aliens, cartel traffickers, and violent criminals and murderers." Trump, who favors the bill, continues to repeat false claims that the 2020 election was stolen through massive voter fraud. Johnson, who relied on Trump's support to hold off a bid to oust him from leadership by Republican hardliner Marjorie Taylor Greene, unveiled plans for the legislation during an April joint press conference with the former president in Florida. Johnson and other Republicans have gone so far as to allege that Democrats are actively encouraging non-citizens to vote. "For all the hysterical rhetoric ... Republicans have one real purpose here: to continue to erode the confidence of Americans in our election system," said Representative Joe Morelle, top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, which oversees election policy. Johnson and other Republicans have cited data showing non-citizens are registered to vote in some states and point to municipalities, including New York City, Washington, D.C., and Montpelier, Vermont, that have allowed resident aliens to vote in some local elections. Republicans also rely in part on a widely rejected 2014 study that claimed to show a level of noncitizen voting capable of swaying congressional and presidential elections. Trump used the study to support his claim that Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election because of illegal ballots cast by non-citizens. "This is a scare tactic," said Wendy Weiser, who directs the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. "Non-citizens cannot vote in U.S. elections. There are multiple layers of protections in place, including it being a crime under federal and state law." A Brennan Center study examined 42 jurisdictions, accounting for 23.5 million votes in the 2016 presidential election, and found only 30 incidents of possible non-citizen voting, or 0.0001% of votes cast. (Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone, Christian Schmollinger and Aurora Ellis) US intelligence officials are warning that Russia is trying to influence the 2024 presidential election (Getty Images) Russia will attempt to influence the 2024 US presidential election using familiar tactics like spreading misinformation online to subvert the publics faith in the democratic election process, according to intelligence officials. On Tuesday, officials in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters that Russia is using covert social media tactics like targeting voter groups in swing states with bot farms. The goal, they said, is to drive a larger rift in domestic political ideology, promote mistrust in the electoral system and sway public opinion in favor of a certain candidate. We havent observed a shift in Russias preferences for the presidential race from past elections, a senior official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said. Though officials did not name a particular candidate, investigations into Russias interference in the 2016 election found that their strategies were aimed at helping Donald Trump. Officials said the current activity is far less invasive than that in 2016, but Russia is likely to ramp up its efforts as the November election approaches. The findings underline US intelligence officials concerns about foreign governments using social media or other online platforms to create domestic instability by furthering political divide or spreading disinformation. Officials said they have observed efforts by Iranian government actors to escalate tensions within the US. by promoting protests or financially supporting protests regarding the war in Gaza. Though these actions do not have to do with the election directly, they contribute to heightening political tensions., A person reads a YouTube blog's update on US election misinformation in Los Angeles, June 2, 2023 (AFP via Getty Images) I know Americans who participate in protests are, in good faith, expressing their views on the conflict in Gaza this intelligence does not indicate otherwise, National Intelligence director Avril Haines said in a statement. Moreover, the freedom to express diverse views, when done peacefully, is essential to our democracy, but it is also important to warn of foreign actors who seek to exploit our debate for their own purposes, Haines added. Several US agencies are working to find and stop the social media disinformation campaigns. The Department of Justice (DoJ) said on Tuesday they seized two domain names and 968 social media accounts used by Russian actors to create an AI-enhanced social media bot farm to spread disinformation. They released a joint advisory warning about the technology to stop future use. US, NATO allies to deliver 'dozens' of air defense systems in coming months, including 4 Patriots The U.S. and at least nine other NATO allies have agreed to send "dozens" of air defense systems in the coming months to Ukraine, including at least four Patriot batteries, according to a joint agreement issued on July 9. The announcement comes at the start of the NATO summit in Washington, with the war in Ukraine expected to dominate the summit's proceedings. According to the statement issued by the White House, the U.S., Germany, and Romania will "rapidly" provide Ukraine with additional Patriot batteries, while the Netherlands will provide components to operate one other Patriot battery. Italy will also provide additional SAMP-T air defense system. "These five strategic air defense systems will help to protect Ukrainian cities, civilians, and soldiers, and we are coordinating closely with the Ukrainian government so that these systems can be utilized rapidly," the joint statement read. In the coming months, Canada, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom will also contribute to the additional provision of "dozens" of tactical air defense systems to Ukraine, including NASAMS, HAWKs, IRIS T-SLM, IRIS T-SLS, and Gepard systems, according to the agreement. Opening the NATO summit, U.S. President Joe Biden announced the provisions of air defense systems. "Today Im announcing a historic donation of air defense equipment for Ukraine, Biden said. "The United States will make sure that when we export critical air defense interceptors, Ukraine goes to the front of the line." Biden added that Ukraine is also set to receive "hundreds" of additional interceptors over the next year. No definitive timeline was provided as to how quickly Ukraine can expect to receive the air defense systems. The agreement noted that there would be an additional announcement "this year of additional strategic air defense systems for Ukraine." Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ukraine is expected to get "more news" on air defense at the summit. Ukraine has insisted on a declaration of the coalition on air defense and the announcement of 10 additional Patriot systems by the end of the year, with Kyiv saying that at least seven Patriot systems are desperately needed to protect the country's skies. The announcement of additional air defense systems comes a day after Russia unleashed one of its deadliest attacks against the city of Kyiv, killing more than 30 civilians and injuring over 100. Residential buildings and medical facilities suffered damage, with one Russian missile hitting Ohkmatdyt, the country's largest children's medical center. Following the announcement, President Volodymyr Zelensky commended the U.S.-led effort to deliver additional air defense systems. "This is yet another significant step following the U.S. decision to prioritize Ukraine in air defense missile deliveries," Zelensky wrote on social media. "I am grateful to President Biden for his leadership and to all partner countries for their commitment to providing us with air defense capabilities as quickly as possible." Read also: Russia probes for air defense gaps to wreak havoc on Kyiv Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. US and Ukraine discuss possibility of using American weapons to strike Russian territory The US and Ukraine are discussing a possible authorisation for Ukraine to use American long-range weapons to launch attacks deep into Russian territory. Source: Chris Smith, Deputy Assistant to the US Secretary of State, in an interview for the Voice of America, as reported by European Pravda Details: Smith stated that the US condemns Russias attacks on Ukrainian civilians "in the most decisive way". "And we will do everything within our power to either help Ukraine counteract these threats in the air or strike them where they appear. In a sense, this corresponds to our policy," he said. Smith noted that the US "thoroughly and closely cooperates with Ukrainian counterparts in order to adapt and coordinate the assistance in the security sector and leading principles that we provide along with this aid in order to counteract against these threats". "These discussions are ongoing. I do not want to telegraph any of our strikes to the Russians, but we are closely cooperating with Ukraine on this critical issue and we will keep closely cooperating," Smith added. He made this comment after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the US to lift all the restrictions concerning the strikes on the territory of Russia following a large-scale missile attack on 8 July as a result of which a building of the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital was destroyed. As it is known, Joe Biden, the US President, opposed potential strikes with Ukrainian weapons deep into Russian territory after giving a limited authorisation to Ukraine to use American armament to launch strikes on Russia. With that, Kyiv seeks to extend the scope of this permission. Support UP or become our patron! University of Texas police officers arrest a man at a pro-Palestinian protest April 24 at the University of Texas. Some UT students facing disciplinary proceedings after the protests are being offered deferred suspensions, but only if they accept responsibility for their actions and agree to follow the school's policies. The University of Texas is offering some students who are facing disciplinary proceedings after being accused of breaking university rules during pro-Palestinian protests on campus in April deferred suspensions, but only if they accept responsibility for their actions and agree to follow the school's policies in the future. "The University of Texas at Austin provides a world-class learning environment where every student can thrive. Your actions on April 24, 2024 disrupted this environment and violated our Institutional Rules," said a letter UT sent a student facing discipline. "At this juncture, suspension appears to be the appropriate consequence for these serious infractions. However, recognizing our commitment to educational growth, we want to offer you an alternative path to avoid suspension by proving that you have learned from this experience." UT spokesperson Mike Rosen declined to comment on the administrative dispositions but has previously said the university gives all students due process. He also said the university's student conduct proceedings are separate from the legal proceedings that Travis County Attorney Delia Garza's office has considered and dismissed. All protesters who were arrested during the April 24 and 29 demonstrations on campus have had their criminal trespassing charges dropped, a decision UT has publicly criticized. While several students facing discipline received the deferred suspension dispositions, Stanley Davis, a UT senior who was arrested April 24, said his disposition would require a two-year suspension and ban from campus, he told the American-Statesman. Davis is currently facing a criminal resisting arrest charge, which UT cites in his letter, obtained by the Statesman. Davis is also accused of damaging property for hanging up signs on UT property that "necessitate(d) further clean-up and restoration," according to the letter. UT, citing law enforcement, also said he "injured an officer while he was being removed," which he denies. A case supplemental report attached with his June letter indicates Davis will not be charged with assaulting an officer. More: UT Austin initiates discipline for student protesters, places hold on transcripts "They took me to the ground," Davis said about the four officers who arrested him. "I think if anything it was just them jumping on me that got them to be injured." Davis' letter states he must reapply to UT after his suspension period ends. If he breaks any other rules, the letter states, the disciplinary action could be elevated up to "further suspension or expulsion." Not all students who received disciplinary notices have received their findings. According to UT's count, 60 students were arrested in total at the two April protests. Pro-Palestinian protesters, in solidarity with protesters across U.S. college campuses, held demonstrations to demand their schools to divest from weapons manufacturers that contribute to Israel's bombardment of Gaza amid the Jewish state's war with Hamas. What does deferred suspension mean? Most student protesters were investigated based on allegations that they violated dispersal orders and participated in disruptive behavior. Some students sent UT a collective letter denying the charges and asking for a fair investigation in response to the university's prompts for a written statement, which students told the Statesman felt biased against them. The administrative dispositions, the first round of which came July 3, follow the university's investigation. To accept the university's punishment, students who were offered a deferred suspension would be required to take a test on the university's Speech, Expression and Assembly rules, which were changed after the protests in ways that seem to codify the university's response, the Statesman's reporting revealed. More: Analysis: UT increases limits on free speech after pro-Palestinian protests, Abbott order Students would also have to "take responsibility" and promise in writing to follow all UT and UT System rules going forward, with the understanding that suspension would be the outcome of not doing so. If students don't accept the findings, they can appeal the disposition. Tuesday was the deadline for those students to tell UT if they accept the disposition or want to appeal, giving them less than a week after the letter was sent to them to decide. If they accept, their punishment wouldn't appear on official transcripts, and any associated holds, such as those blocking students from registering for classes or accessing their degrees, would be released, the letter said. More: Why UT president dismissed TAs grievances over work reassignments after pro-Palestinian note Aryel Mejia, a student protester who was arrested April 24 and has since graduated from UT, said her letter stated that if she were to re-enroll at UT, she would be under deferred suspension. However, she worries about the current students who face deferred suspension and the effect that could have on their free speech. "We were arrested while protesting. So it's like, can they not do anything of that sort anymore?" Mejia said. "If they're just at a protest in the future, coincidentally even, would they, in turn, be suspended?" Rosen has said UT supports free speech and that protesters were punished for violating institutional rules, not their expression. But Mejia disagrees. She said that she and other students were injured by police officers at the protests, and now they're also facing the mental health ramifications of being jailed, something UT hasn't addressed. "UT is ignoring all of that," Mejia said. "It's like, oh, you're not going to talk about this stuff that you let happen." Reactions to decisions? The deferred suspension offers mirror the dispositions several protesters received for violating school policy when they entered a dean's private office in December to demand the reinstatement of two teaching assistants who were reassigned after sending a pro-Palestinian message to their social work class. More: UT outlines punishment for 4 students after pro-Palestinian activism at dean's office Gov. Greg Abbott's March executive order requires colleges to better protect against rising antisemitism, including by punishing students "up to expulsion." It names Students for Justice in Palestine and Palestine Solidarity Committee, student organizations that organized the April 24 protest, as groups to enforce updated free speech policies against. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas has warned UT President Jay Hartzell that the disciplinary proceedings "may be squelching the First Amendment rights of its students." And Davis said he and other students fear that accepting the administrative disposition might be used against them in legal proceedings, and he is unsure about what to do. More: ACLU Texas, students send letters to UT in response to disciplinary notices for protesters Mejia said she is disappointed in the university's punishment of students and the lack of a "personalized response," and she wants administrators to know that students stand by their protest cause to support the people in Gaza. "We're protesting for Palestinians' rights," Mejia said. "That's something we still believe regardless of what people decide to do with the sanction." This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: UT decides punishments for some pro-Palestinian student protesters A voter drops their ballot in a ballot drop box during primary election voting at the Orem Public Library in Orem on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. The 2nd Congressional District primary race between Rep. Celeste Maloy and Colby Jenkins is headed toward a recount in the final week of July. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News The 2nd Congressional District Republican primary race between Rep. Celeste Maloy and Colby Jenkins is headed toward a recount in the final week of July. After all 13 counties in the 2nd District finalized their election returns on Tuesday night, Maloy held a lead of just 214 votes. The threshold for a losing candidate to request a recount is .25% of total votes cast, roughly 270 votes out of 107,000. Jenkins confirmed on Wednesday morning that following the Utah law, we will be requesting a recount on July 22nd per the laws timeline. This is a longer and more drawn out process than we had hoped, but we are duty-bound by the 53,534 voters who have voted for us to not give up the fight until every last legal vote has been tabulated, Jenkins said in a post on X. During a Tuesday night press conference, Maloy expressed relief that she maintained her lead two weeks after the June 25 election 214 votes is pretty close but its about 213 votes more than you need to win and said she didnt anticipate that a recount will change the outcome. The last recount in a GOP congressional primary was almost exactly 30 years ago. The 1994 3rd District GOP primary saw Emery County Commissioner Dixie Thompson pull ahead of Provo real estate developer Tom Draschil by just 156 votes out of the 31,596 votes cast. The margin barely fell within the then-broader recount threshold of .5%. The subsequent recount extended Thompsons lead to 185 votes. Here is how the recount will work to decide the final outcome of the prolonged Maloy-Jenkins matchup. How will a recount work in the 2nd District? All multicounty primary races in Utah are certified by the state at noon on the fourth Monday after the election, which in this case is July 22. During the statewide canvass, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson will verify the reports that the counties provided to us, state elections director Ryan Cowley told the Deseret News. Jenkins may request a recount within seven days of the statewide canvass. Once he does, Hendersons office must direct a full recount of the race within the next seven days, meaning final results for the 2nd District race could come as late as July 29. Cowley said they are not sure exactly how many days the recount will take. A recount involves each 2nd District county reprocessing all of their ballots. This includes retabulating every ballot that has already been counted and reexamining every ballot that has not been counted because of a signature verification failure or a late postmark. County clerks will make sure each of these rejected ballots was rightly discarded, double checking ballot signatures and postmark dates on ballots that were received by mail. Rejected ballots cannot be cured by voters during the recount process. While this process is identical to the first count after Election Day, it will move faster because clerks will already have all of the ballots organized into batches and will not have to redo the signature verification for ballots that were counted last time. County clerks will rescan all of their countable ballots for their recount vote total. The office of the lieutenant governor does not count any ballots. Our office doesnt count ballots, Cowley said. Thats not our job. Its simply that oversight role. And so the clerks counted them originally. The clerks will recount them. After counties complete their recount, they will conduct an audit similar to the one that preceded the county election canvass. But instead of auditing a random 1% of ballots, a recount audit requires county election officials and members of the county canvass board to audit a random 3% of ballots, Cowley said, hand counting them and comparing them to a photo tabulation record, one ballot at a time. The certified election returns from county officials will be the official results of the recount. Can late postmarked ballots be counted in a recount? The Jenkins campaign, as well as some county officials and voters in southern and rural Utah, expressed concern over a number of mail-in ballots that were allegedly put in the mail in time to be postmarked before the June 24 deadline but were then postmarked late by the U.S. Postal Service mail distribution center in Las Vegas. Cowley said election officials want to count every ballot thats legally cast. But nothing can be done if a ballot has just one clear postmark that came after the pre-Election Day deadline, even if a voter says they mailed their ballot on time. Unfortunately, with the way the law is written, the clerks have done everything they can, Cowley said. Mail-in ballots must be postmarked or otherwise marked by the post office prior to Election Day, according to state code, Cowley said. Every way that weve looked at it, every way that the clerks have looked at it, theres just not a path under the code or the law to be able to count those ballots. If a ballot carries a clear hand stamp from a local post office that falls within the deadline, the ballot will be counted, even if it also has a later postmark from Las Vegas, Cowley said. Correction: This story previously said that the state board of canvassers, consisting of the state auditor, the state treasurer and the attorney general, will meet to certify multicounty races on July 22. The state board of canvassers only convenes after the general election, not after the primary. Editors note: This story is available as a result of a content partnership between WFTV and the Orlando Business Journal. A local businessperson is proposing a unique new outdoors-focused concept within the Central Florida county known as Floridas natural choice. The July 10 meeting of Seminole Countys Development Review Committee includes an agenda item for Glamping Haven a sustainable and luxurious outdoor retreat that would rise on nearly 20 acres off the north shore of Lake Jesup near Sanford, according to a memorandum submitted by the applicant. The project riffs on the idea of glamping, short for glamorous camping, and would include 25 camp sites among the trees the elevated design necessary to mitigate impact to the wetlands on the property and fit with the projects focus on preservation and education. Read: Altamonte Springs City Library to close permanently this fall Click here to read the full story on the Orlando Business Journals website. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. In Utah , far from the progressive West Coast LGBTQ+ communities in San Francisco or the East Coast queer enclaves like Washington, D.C. , and New York City , a drag queens battle against bigotry in the heart of conservatism has reached a devastating climax. Tara Lipsyncki, 36, was forced to sell her childhood home in Riverton, near Salt Lake City, after relentless harassment from right-wing extremists. Lipsyncki, who is transgender , is a performer and a fierce advocate for LGBTQ + rights. She founded Mosaics, an LGBTQ+ resource center in Provo, to provide a haven for her community. However, her mission to create a safe space has made her a target. Lipsynckis ordeal, shared with The Advocate in an interview, reveals a grim portrait of the pervasive dangers LGBTQ+ activists face in narrow-minded communities. Related: Drag Producer Cancels Shows After Armed Proud Boys Threaten Event Lipsyncki says the nightmare began in December when the anti-trans hate group Gays Against Groomers doxxed her, exposing her private information, including her home address. The home was the only thing that I got when my mother passed, she tells The Advocate. The harassment escalated quickly suspicious packages, threatening drive-bys, and ominous messages created an environment of perpetual fear. Despite reaching out to local police and the Utah attorney generals office, Lipsyncki says she found no relief. In April, a bomb threat targeted Mosaics, amplifying the terror. Lipsyncki says she contacted civil rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center, but jurisdictional constraints limited their ability to act. It led to the home having to be put on the market for the safety of my family, Lipsyncki explained. The sale of her home, finalized in the first week of Pride Month , marks the end of a 30-year connection to her past. The Advocate reviewed screenshots and videos of a prolonged, targeted harassment campaign by Gays Against Groomers against Lipsyncki. In one video, Jaimee Michell, the groups lesbian leader, admitted to targeting Lipsyncki. Correspondence provided by Lipsynckis attorney, Don James Knight Ord III, documented repeated outreach to law enforcement to protect her. A letter to the Salt Lake County district attorneys office revealed a troubling pattern of inaction: While the severity of the threats was acknowledged, no authority seemed willing or able to intervene effectively. Related: Bomb Threats Target LGBTQ+ Events Across the U.S. Over the Weekend The continual harassment and lack of protection have taken a severe toll on Lipsyncki and her family. Its ruined it, to be completely frank, she says. Her husbands health suffered due to stress, resulting in hospitalization. Lipsyncki herself has lost nearly 50 pounds, and her mental health has deteriorated, with thoughts of self-harm becoming distressingly frequent. This troubling chapter is part of a larger pattern of hostility. In 2023, The Advocate reported on multiple incidents of harassment faced by Lipsyncki, including threats at various drag events. During an all-ages, family-friendly drag show at Tea Zaanti in Salt Lake City, armed members of the far-right Proud Boys disrupted the event, hurling homophobic slurs and menacing patrons. This was the first show in a while that we didnt have security, Lipsyncki recounts, adding that the police response was lackluster, with officers appearing indifferent to the threats posed by the protesters. Ords letters to authorities offer a detailed chronicle of inaction. In a February letter to Sim Gill, the Salt Lake County district attorney, Ord detailed the breadth of harassment and the systemic failures to address it. Gays Against Groomers doxxed [Lipsyncki], claiming she was grooming children for sexual interference. Her personal details, email address, social media, and private home address were broadcast for retaliation, Ord wrote. The letter highlighted the refusal of multiple police departments to take action, leaving Lipsyncki and her husband to fend for themselves against credible threats. In one instance, the venue hosting the Bes-TEAS drag show, Sweet Hazel, was revealed to have ties to a registered sex offender. Lipsyncki says that the information about the spouse of the venue owner was not disclosed during background checks. The revelation provided fodder for Gays Against Groomers to escalate its attacks, further endangering Lipsyncki and her community. Despite swift action to sever ties with Sweet Hazel, the damage had been done, and the harassment intensified. Lipsynckis sworn police report, included in the correspondence, provided a detailed account of her experiences and requested interventions. She highlighted the failures of multiple police departments, including those in Riverton, Provo, and Midvale, to take her complaints seriously. As a result of the online harassment and death threats, [Lipsyncki] and her husband have had to list their home and move to an undisclosed location, Ord wrote. The harassment has also placed her neighbors at risk, further exacerbating the sense of fear and urgency, she says. On July 2, Jeffrey William Hall, the chief deputy district attorney, responded to an inquiry from The Advocate, explaining the role and limitations of the DAs office. He acknowledged that he received correspondence from Lipsynckis attorney in April. He explained that, except under very specific circumstances, the DAs office does not conduct investigations into allegations of criminal wrongdoing. "That function is the purview of law enforcement agencies. They conduct fact-gathering investigations and bring the case to the DAs Office for screeningthe consideration of filing criminal charges." Hall emphasized that the district attorneys office takes seriously allegations of violence, discrimination, and other unlawful activity, especially when it involves the victimization of a member of a protected class or vulnerable community. "As of today, the DAs Office has not received a screening packet regarding these allegations from a law enforcement agency for us to review. If and when we do, at that time, we can fulfill our statutory prosecution functions and address the matter," Hall said. Despite these harrowing experiences, Lipsynckis resolve remains unbroken. Im not going anywhere. Theyre going to have to literally succeed at killing me to stop me, she says. Financial strains add another layer of difficulty. Initially funded through a home equity line of credit, Mosaics is now at risk of closure. Lipsyncki urgently calls on those with disposable income to step up. People will pay $250 to go and see a stupid gala but wont give $50 to a local nonprofit thats actually on the ground doing the work, she laments. In her interview with The Advocate, Lipsyncki expressed frustration with the lack of support from wealthy allies and LGBTQ+ community members. If this had happened to a nightclub or a popular social media influencer, there would have been fundraisers and national attention, she says. Yet, despite the personal cost, Lipsyncki continues her advocacy with unwavering dedication. She stresses the urgent need for resources to keep Mosaics open and operational. Donations can be made through the United Drag Alliance, an organization dedicated to supporting the local LGBTQ+ community. The future of Mosaics and the safety of its patrons depend on the broader communitys support. Lipsyncki called on those who can make a difference. Hand me the resources, and I can make it work, she urges. Will Utah lead the way in combating election deepfakes? Former Gov. Gary Herbert reacts to Utah Gov. Spencer Coxs speech as a candidate for governor at the Utah Republican Party state nominating convention at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday, April 27, 2024. A pilot program launched in Utah ahead of this year's election helps candidates authenticate digital identities amid rise of artificial intelligence. | Megan Nielsen, Deseret News No, former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert is not running for president, even though a voice that sounded eerily similar to his said as much at a press conference on Tuesday. The recording was a deepfake one that Herbert had no involvement in making. The fake audio recording was used to illustrate the dangers of artificial intelligence in the 2024 elections, and to set up an announcement about the creation of a Utah pilot program to combat deepfake AI images and audio. While the Herbert deepfake was created to make a point, Brandon Amacher, program director at the Emerging Tech Policy Lab for Utah Valley Universitys Center for National Security Studies, said AI is already being used to spread misinformation across the globe. Amacher gave several examples: Indias recent national election was rife with AI election interference, Amacher said. There were falsified celebrity endorsements, candidates claiming legitimate media was AI and the circulation of doctored videos. A deepfake video of State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller that circulated suggested that the U.S. authorized the use of American weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory amid the conflict in Ukraine. In Taiwans 2024 election, AI was used to undermine candidate credibility and create false media stories such as the unfounded rumor that President Lai Ching Te had fathered an illegitimate child. Closer to home, deepfake audio of President Joe Biden was used for political calls in New Hampshire before the presidential primary there. These examples, and the potential for AI to affect local races come November, have prompted the Gary R. Herbert Institute for Public Policy, the Center for National Security Studies at UVU and Provo startup SureMark Digital Identity Services to partner to launch a pilot project to combat deepfakes in Utah elections. The projects scope is the races for the states four congressional seats and the open Senate seat by giving the candidates the ability to authenticate their digital identity for free. In addition, voters can use a free browser plug-in that will verify digital content coming from candidates. The project is to instill faith in the election system in voters, those involved said. How does the program work? W. Scott Stornetta, chairman of SureMark Digital Identity Services, said there are three steps: The program verifies the identity of the candidate for public office. Content from the verified candidate is authorized. The sources are validated for the public by the free browser plugin, which will be available next month. This is the place At the press conference, Stornetta said Utah is an optimal place to launch the pilot project because of a tradition of the political process working in the state. The Utah Compact, the Utah Compromise and Gov. Spencer Coxs Disagree Better campaign were brought up as examples. Stornetta said the aim is to capture the attention of all Utahns in the process. The rise of AI may make some people complacent, thinking theres nothing they can do to differentiate whats real and whats made up, Stornetta said, but if citizens combine together and candidates are credentialed through the program its a way to take responsibility in a time of so much disinformation. Having accuracy and authenticity is as important on the local level as it is nationally or globally, Herbert said. Im proud to say that I believe, in fact, that we can trust the election process in the state of Utah, he said. Looking ahead Utah County Commissioner Amelia Powers Gardner said launching the program now is important because over time deepfakes will become more convincing. You cant just trust your eyes and ears, she said. You need to be able to look deeper. Amacher said 2024s election will have some AI influence, but future elections are expected to be affected much more. We want to learn from this election so there is a more robust way to secure public confidence in future elections, he said. The candidates in Utahs House races and Senate race can choose if they want to participate or not. The pilot runs from this month until winning candidates are sworn into office in January 2025. Congresswoman Celeste Maloy takes her opportunity to talk after Utahs 2nd Congressional district debate between and herself and Colby Jenkins at the KUED studios at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Monday, June 10, 2024. (Pool photo by Scott G Winterton/Deseret News) The margins in the Republican primary for Utahs 2nd Congressional became so razor thin on Tuesday as some of the last remaining votes were counted, that Rep. Celeste Maloys challenger Colby Jenkins could be on track for a recount. Yet, Tuesday evening as counties across the state hit the deadline to canvass their elections Maloy declared victory on a call with reporters with a slim lead of about 214 votes as of about 8 p.m. 214 votes is pretty close, but its about 213 more votes than you need to win, Maloy said. I watched my lead shrink a lot in the last two weeks, but Im holding strong. Updated election results posted Tuesday evening showed Maloy barely hanging onto her lead with 50.1% of the vote (53,748 votes) to Jenkins 49.9% (53,534). A screenshot of Utah Rep. Celeste Maloy declaring victory on a virtual call with reporters on July 9, 2024. (Katie McKellar / Utah News Dispatch) Ever since polls closed on June 25, Jenkins has been holding out hope for the possibility of calling a recount, indicating many of his supporters waited until the final days before the primary to cast their votes. As the days ticked by with more votes added to the tally, Jenkins slowly gained ground on Maloy, but it wasnt until Tuesday evening that he crossed the vote margin threshold for it to be legally possible at least if the margin holds. For a losing candidate to be able to call a recount, Utah law requires a margin of equal to or less than 0.25% of the total number of votes cast. As of Tuesday night, there were roughly 107,282 ballots cast and counted in the 2nd Congressional District race, putting the required recount margin at about 268 votes. If the margin stays under that roughly 268-vote threshold after the statewide canvass on July 22, Jenkins could call a recount within seven days after that date. Ive been in a lot of battles in my life, victory isnt something you declare, Jenkins said in a statement to Utah News Dispatch after Maloy declared victory. You win it, or you dont. Let Celeste declare victory, and we will win it. Greg Powers, Jenkins campaign manager, told Utah News Dispatch that as long as the margin stands his campaign intends to call a recount. If were able to be in a recount, well be in a recount, he said, still hoping that a recount will provide an opportunity to review for any possible ballots that should have been counted but werent, if there are any ballots that were counted incorrectly, or if there are any ballots that were counted that should not have been. Maloy acknowledged the possibility of a recount but I dont anticipate that a recount will change the outcome. Utahs 2nd Congressional district debate between Colby Jenkins and Congresswoman Celeste Maloy at the KUED studios at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Monday, June 10, 2024. (Pool photo by Scott G Winterton/Deseret News) Jenkins campaign hopes recount will allow ballots postmarked late to be counted During the recount process, Powers said the Jenkins campaign hopes to resolve an issue thats stirred frustration in southern Utah and that led one rural county commissioner to vote against certifying his countys election. The Iron County Commission on Tuesday eventually did vote 2-1 to certify, but not without heartburn over nearly 500 vote-by-mail ballots that were not postmarked on time, the day before Election Day. Many of those, county officials worried, should have been counted but werent due to delays by the postal service because theyre routed to Las Vegas for processing. Tallying a total of 491 ballots that were disqualified because they werent postmarked on time, Whittaker wrote a seething letter to the U.S. Postal Service, saying he was livid to learn of so many pointlessly rejected ballots, even though many had been mailed days before the deadline, due to the maddening, 340-mile journey to Las Vegas for processing. The Iron County Commission was originally scheduled to vote to certify its election results on Monday, but delayed the vote to Tuesday until right before its deadline under state law amid outcry over those rejected ballots. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX One Iron County resident, Camille Topham, of Enoch, was in tears Monday while she told the Iron County Commission she dropped off her familys ballots on June 23 (two days before the primary and one day before the postmark deadline), at a postal box at Enoch City Hall. Later on, she said her family members all received letters saying they were rejected because they werent postmarked on time. I was shocked. Ive been voting in Iron County for 33 years, since I was 18. I have never had anything like this happen, she said, choking back tears. I voted for Jenkins. And to know how close that (race) came, like, yeah. I feel invalidated. Topham told commissioners her faith in the election system has faltered for quite some time, but now shes lost all faith in the U.S. Postal Service, urging county officials not to use Utahs automatic vote-by-mail system anymore. The Iron County Courthouse where the Iron County Commission holds its meetings is pictured on July 9, 2024. (Katie McKellar / Utah News Dispatch) Iron County Commissioner Paul Cozzens sympathized with Topham and many other voters who he said reached out to him and told him of similar experiences. He vowed to refuse to certify the results. However, Cozzens two fellow commissioners after conversing with state officials including House Speaker Mike Schultz and Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers said they believed they were bound by the law. If they refused to certify Iron Countys results, it would force the state to take the county to court and ask a judge to order the county to certify the election. Their role, as county canvassers, they argued, was to ensure the clerk followed the law while counting votes, and Utahs law requiring vote-by-mail ballots to be postmarked before Election Day is clear, they said. Without iron-clad evidence that the ballots that were postmarked late were mailed on time, Iron County Commissioner Michael Bleak said state officials told him, the county would not have a case that would hold up in court. While Cozzens had been collecting voters willing to sign affidavits that they dropped off their ballots on time, state attorneys said that likely wouldnt be enough to constitute iron-clad evidence. This sucks, Bleak said. But at the end of the day, were a nation of rules thats governed by the rule of law. And in this particular case, the rule of law is very clear and there is no wiggle room. Iron County commissioners Paul Cozzens (left), Michael Bleak, and Sheriff Kenneth Carpenter (right) debate whether to vote to certify the countys election results in Parowan, Utah on July 9, 2024. Ultimately, the commission voted 2-1 to certify with Cozzens the lone dissenting vote. (Katie McKellar / Utah News Dispatch) Jenkins campaign, however, believes a recount will provide an opportunity to figure out this postmark issue and potentially get those disqualified ballots counted. We think we need to shine more light on this, not just for our race but for future races, Powers said, expressing gratitude to Cozzens for raising the issue. Were really disappointed in the way that mail-in ballots have been handled, and the potential for somebodys constitutional rights to be taken away over something so silly. Cozzens said he believed Iron County should have taken a stand, and it would have been worthwhile to hash out the issue in court rather than vote to certify. While it appears the race is on track for a recount, Powers also said the Jenkins campaign is keeping its options open and has been considering possibly contesting the election in court, depending on how the next two weeks play out. When asked if she shared concerns over the number of ballots disqualified because they missed the postmark deadline, Maloy told reporters she wanted to be really careful how I answer questions about ballots. She said she trusts clerks to do their jobs, and Im not going to question the validity of the election. I think we should all be careful about doing that. Its important that we count every legal ballot. Its also important that people understand the rules of elections, she said, noting that when she was a deputy county attorney she helped work on curing ballots, so I know that our counties do a really good job. Theyre very thorough, and they make sure people get every chance they can to cure their ballots. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST What weve been saying all along: where do critical voters stand on Biden dropping out? Concerns about Joe Bidens fitness for re-election on the left may have been muted over the last year. But they were not absent. Theres a lot of people, especially on the left, that have been talking about this, said Alex Johnson, an IT worker in Atlanta. Democrats in the center of the party would chastise critics on the left as ageist or radical when bringing up the presidents age before the disastrous debate, he said. Theyre telling everybody that they were crazy. And then one thing happened, and all of a sudden, all of the people who have been calling progressives crazy, theyre like: You know, maybe they were right. Biden has repeatedly reiterated that he will not withdraw from the race. Democratic party leaders are locking arms behind the president, instructing their ranks to be circumspect in conversation with news reporters and are strategizing ahead of the Democratic national convention. The conversation about Bidens fitness ratcheted up after his debate performance last month. But they did not begin then, even among Democrats. Editorials from David Ignatius at the Washington Post and Mark Leibovich at the Atlantic last year called for Biden to refrain from running. Cenk Uygur, progressive co-creator of The Young Turks program, wanted Biden to give up re-election for more than a year and has been more than vocal about it, describing Bidens supporters on the left as dead-enders. At this point, eight out of 10 Americans think that Joe Bidens mental health is not sufficient to be president, Uygur said. Thats what weve been saying all along. That number was already sky high before the debate. Uygur has been arguing that its more than Bidens age; no president with poll numbers in the 30s at this point in the election cycle has won re-election. Uygur tried to run as a candidate himself, despite being born in Istanbul a constitutional disqualification for the office simply to make the point. Karl Olson in St Louis Park, Minnesota, generally votes for Republican candidates. In 2020, to save democracy, Olson made the maximum possible legal contribution to the Biden campaign, he said. He voted for Biden in 2020, but has been calling for Biden not to run for re-election for years. He voted for Nikki Haley in the 2024 primary. Now he is considering a vote for Trump. I have long held that [Biden] should quit while hes ahead, Olson said. I have concluded that if the Democrats insist on renominating Biden and Harris, they deserve to lose. Heres the thing, he added. If Donald Trump is a political antichrist who will destroy democracy, then why are Democrats insisting on renominating Biden-Harris when hes too old and shes not enough of a leader to win? Much of the anger today is being directed at the media, both for ignoring the substance of concerns about Bidens age before the debate, and now the seeming pile-on after it. Related: This country needs him: Biden draws rapturous applause at a Philadelphia church The headlines may be overdue, said Blue Tannery, a radio engineer in Atlanta. But they are not helpful. The age thing in particular; yes, its an important problem. Im really, really, really sick of seeing headlines about it, Tannery said. The one thing that Biden said that makes any sense: you should all shut up about how old that I am and start talking about what Ive done over the last four years. Tannery said he had wanted Biden not to run, but also said the standard the media applies to Biden is unfair. This is eight years of being in this country, watching Trump just open his mouth onstage and exhale a horde of locusts and the headline is about Biden, Tannery said. Because thats what Trump does every time. Thats not news anymore. It is exhausting. Samantha Ruddy, a comedy writer in Philadelphia, may be typical of reluctant Biden voters. Shes still voting for Biden. But now she also thinks hes going to lose. I have wanted Democratic candidates more politically aligned to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders during the past two election cycles, Ruddy said. In 2020, I felt Biden was better than Trump. I still feel hes better than Trump. However, I dont think he can win in 2024. I believe the best move is to replace him on the ticket. That being said much like Donald Trump Im an entertainer who looked at the eclipse, so what do I know? Brian Lowry, the veteran Hollywood scribe and media critic who has worked at CNN as a senior writer since 2016, is set to exit the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed news outlet as part of a group of layoffs unveiled Wednesday. The news outlet is cutting approximately 100 jobs as it works to boost its digital business. In a memo released to staffers Wednesday morning, CNN Chairman and CEO Mark Thompson spotlighted the need for CNN to devise new subscription-based digital products and indicated one would launch on CNN.com by the end of 2024. He also unveiled plans to overhaul the newsroom, a move that he said would result in some cuts to CNNs employee base, which numbers around 3,500. More from Variety Lowry holds deep knowledge of the television and studio business and an ability to discuss it with both wit and concision, qualities that have buoyed him over a long career also spent at Variety and The Los Angeles Times. In recent weeks, he has reviewed both the newest season of The Bear and the Pixar film Inside Out 2; written an obituary for actor Donald Sutherland; and offered new insight into the latest front in the the industrys so-called streaming wars a new turn toward the same type of bunding that benefitted cable. When he first joined CNN, Lowry was part of a team of contributors working on the outlets influential Reliable Sources newsletter, a popular daily round-up and analysis of developments in the media space. In recent years, CNN has reduced the newsletters frequency and pared back the number of staffers working on it. Lowry also has been a contributor to National Public Radio and FoxSports.com, and was a co-host of TV Guide Networks Square Off, a weekly talk program about the television business. He also has written two authorized companion guides to the Fox series The X-Files. Best of Variety Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are calling on the FDA to approve psychedelic-assisted therapy for veterans with PTSD. This just represents one day of veterans suicides, Heroic Hearts Project Founder Jesse Gould said, holding a handful of dog tags. Former Army Ranger Jesse Gould laid 17 dog tags on an exhibit outside the Capitol. The pile of about 150,000 represents the number of veteran suicides since 9/11. Enough is enough, Gould said. Gould and other veterans joined lawmakers on Capitol Hill to shed light on the problem and support a new treatment option for PTSD. MDMA-assisted therapy in particular has shown great promise, Marine Corps Veteran and Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer said. Meyer says MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, was the only thing that helped his PTSD after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. It lifts the heavy burden, transforming you from a chaos in a downtown New York City rush hour into the calmness of a quiet country road, Meyer said. Other veterans say it helped them, too. Can I have a hand of those veterans that have gone through this therapy, that believe it has saved their lives, Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) said as several veterans at the press conference raised their hands. Most of those veterans received the treatment overseas. Its not currently approved in the US, and an FDA advisory committee last month recommended against approval, calling its effectiveness unproven. That hasnt stopped lawmakers, like Michigan Republican Congressman Jack Bergman, from supporting the treatment. Im confident their recommendation, however, will just be a speed bump, Bergman said. The FDA will take an official vote on the treatment in August. Correa wants to see it approved. FDA, do your job. Take care of our veterans, Correa said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. When voters head to the polls to cast their ballots this November, at least one out of every 10 election workers they see will be a veteran or a family member of a veteran, said Ellen Gustafson, the co-founder of a nonprofit that recruits military-connected individuals to volunteer at polling places. The nonprofit, We the Veterans, reached its goal this month of recruiting 100,000 people to serve as poll workers in their communities. As of Wednesday afternoon, 136,815 had signed up. In total, about 1 million temporary workers will be needed to staff polling locations across the country this November, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Those workers welcome and check in voters, issue ballots and explain how to use voting equipment. Having veterans and their family members perform those tasks lends credibility to the process and helps quash skepticism during a time when public trust in the government is low, We the Veterans believes. You can be pretty confident that when you go vote, somebody in the direct line of your ballot is a veteran or military family member, Gustafson said. We think this is a great opportunity to engage our population in an important civic service, and we think a side benefit is that having our most trusted group of Americans doing the work of running elections should absolutely bring more trust across America into the process. Widespread misinformation about the voting process first prompted We the Veterans to recruit veterans and their families to work the polls in 2022. That year, the group recruited 63,500 people. Disinformation creates precarious year for democracy, experts warn The group launched a renewed Vet the Vote campaign in February at the Super Bowl. Now that the group has surpassed its goal, its going to continue signing up as many veterans and family members as it can. Many jurisdictions start training poll workers in August for the presidential election and cease recruiting by September or early October, said Dan Vallone, director of Vet the Vote. The new way were looking at it is that we want to have as large a proportion as we can get, Gustafson said. We the Veterans also plans to continue its voting education programs. The group began traveling state-to-state last year, hosting events with secretaries of state to teach communities about the election process. Group members have recently visited Nevada, Arizona and South Carolina, and theyre planning more events across the country this summer. Aboard the USS Yorktown near Charleston this May, We the Veterans hosted an event during which veterans walked people through a mock election process, explaining the check-in process and how voting machines worked. Experts are already tracking rampant misinformation and disinformation about the upcoming presidential election including domestic campaigns, as well as efforts by Russia, China and Iran designed to encourage Americans to question the validity and integrity of their voting process. We believe giving people that education is a really important service in this time when theres so much confusion, Gustafson said. A baseline education in how elections work can go a long way in building trust in the system. This story was produced in partnership with Military Veterans in Journalism. Please send tips to MVJ-Tips@militarytimes.com. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) The community has planned a candlelight vigil to honor the life of Matt Carney, a restauranteur killed in a June hit-and-run. ORIGINAL STORY: Beloved owner of restaurant Smokin Thighs remains unconscious, loved ones seek help Carney was believed to have suffered serious head trauma when he was hit by a truck on June 19. He died from his injuries at Vanderbilt University Medical Center on July 4. The celebration of life and candlelight vigil has been scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. at Carneys restaurant, Smokin Thighs. Carney started Smokin Thighs as a food truck in 2012 before opening the Wedgewood-Houston location in 2014. The restaurant invited customers and friends to join staff and honor the owner. We want nothing more than to gather as a community and let him feel the love and support he garnered during his time with us, the post announcing the vigil reads. In addition, we want to raise awareness that justice has still not been found for the senseless act that resulted in this devastating loss. PREVIOUS: Metro Police release video of truck suspected of hitting Smokin Thighs owner Metro Police released surveillance footage of the truck involved in the fatal incident. Days later, authorities found the suspected vehicle in the parking lot of the LaQuinta Inn on Sidco Drive and impounded it. Officials added that the truck had been spray painted and had a temporary tag. If you want to help Carneys family in the aftermath of his death, you are asked to visit Smokin Thighs and support his business, donate to this GoFundMe or contribute to this Meal Train. Smokin Thighs will be closed all day Thursday so that family can attend funeral services and so that staff can prepare for the vigil. CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime news from Middle Tennessee If you have any information about the driver of the vehicle that hit Carney, you are asked to call Nashville Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463. More than $10,000 in reward money is being offered for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the driver. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. (Bloomberg) -- Turkeys sovereign wealth fund is weighing whether to sell its 26.2% stake in Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, the countrys biggest telecommunications operator, according to people familiar with the matter. Most Read from Bloomberg The board of Turkey Wealth Fund, or TWF, has yet to make a formal decision, the people said, asking not to be named because the talks are private. While informal discussions with potential buyers have taken place, some within the sovereign wealth fund are opposed to a sale because they consider the company a strategic asset, one of the people said. A final decision will likely be made by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who leads the funds board. Investors from the Arabian Peninsula and Azerbaijan have expressed interest in purchasing a stake in the company. The fund has approached at least one investment bank about advising on a potential sale but has not issued a formal mandate, some of the people said. TWF and Turkcell declined to comment. Turkcell shares rose as much as 5.4% to 111.7 liras after the report, the highest level since the companys IPO in 2000. The stock has risen more than 50% in dollar terms since TWF acquired the stake in 2020, giving the company a $7.3 billion market capitalization. New from Bloomberg: Get the Mideast Money newsletter, a weekly look at the intersection of wealth and power in the region. LetterOne Investment Holdings, an investment firm founded by the Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, has a 19.8% stake, and the rest of the shares are traded on Borsa Istanbul and as depository receipts on the New York Stock Exchange. When TWF bought the stake, it became both the largest shareholder and gained the right to appoint five of the nine members on Turkcells board of directors. Turkcells main competitors domestically are Turk Telekomunikasyon AS and Vodafone Group Plc. The Turkish government established the sovereign fund in 2016 and mandated it to play a major role in making investments deemed too big for the private sector. It holds a number of assets taken over from Turkeys Treasury, including stakes in state lenders Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS and TC Ziraat Bankasi AS. It also owns stakes in Turkish Airlines and the local stock exchange. --With assistance from Beril Akman. Story continues (Adds share prices in fourth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Violations could come down on 60% of oil and gas facilities inspected in NMs Permian Basin The shadow of an oil jack is on a white metal building with red trim. More state lawmakers are introducing bills to keep their state governments from doing business with financial institutions that take environmental, social or corporate governance into consideration when making investment decisions. Critics say these bills are designed to boost fossil fuel companies and will end up costing taxpayers. (Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images) A state Environment Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency inspection of oil and gas facilities in New Mexicos portion of the Permian Basin found more than half may be violating air quality rules. New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney said the results are cause for alarm. LISTEN TO THE FULL STORY FROM NASH JONES AT KUNM NEWS: https://sourcenm.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/NashKUNM_oil-and-gas-release_Audio.mp3 Of the 124 facilities inspected over six months, 60% were found to be emitting volatile organic compounds. Those help create ozone, which can cause health problems from lung infections to cancer, according to the Environment Department. Sec. Kenney said regulators have told the industry quarter after quarter that compliance with the federal Clean Air Act and state Air Quality Control Act needs to improve. The EPA has even warned it may redesignate the area as ozone nonattainment, creating even stricter regulations. Theres been multiple wake up calls to do better, Kenney said. And those wake up calls arent being heeded by the industry as a whole. Kenney said official violations are likely, and the department is simply making sure it has its evidentiary ducks in a row before moving forward with legal claims against the companies, which could face civil or even criminal penalties. The EPA and U.S. Department of Justice have taken the lead on resolving the matter, according to the Environment Department, due to its short staffing. Kenney has decried for years his agencys skeleton crew, saying the agency lacks capacity to regulate the second highest oil-producing state in the nation. According to the department, only six people are responsible for enforcing air quality rules on 55,000 facilities. Kenney said he is grateful lawmakers met his departments budget request this year, which was hyper-focused on staffing, as it afforded existing employees needed raises. But, being very clear, weve not expanded the capabilities of the department, he said. Weve merely made people whole. Kenney said higher permit fees could fund additional air quality staff. The Environmental Improvement Board is considering the departments proposal to raise general construction permits fivefold, from $5,100 to $25,500, and fees from major sources of air pollution from $38.47 to $81 per ton of air pollutant, according to the department, which could generate more than $15 million in new revenue. The fees have not been updated in about two decades beyond consumer price index adjustments, according to the request, despite a 2,235% uptick in permitting from 2012 to 2023. I am hopeful and optimistic that they will agree with the department and raise those permit fees commensurate with the ability to do our jobs, Kenney said. He said he expects a decision in the fall. Violet Affleck Advocates Against Mask Bans in Los Angeles: They Do Not Keep Us Safer "Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Violet Affleck is speaking out against a proposed mask ban in Los Angeles. The 18-year-old daughter of actors Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner gave a minute-long speech on Tuesday at a meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. As seen in a video posted to X yesterday, Affleck began by introducing herself: Violet Affleck, Los Angeles resident, first-time voter of 18. She then revealed that she contracted a post-viral condition in 2019. Nathan Howard - Getty Images Im okay now, but I saw firsthand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses, she said. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharp relief. One in 10 infections lead to long Covid, which is a devastating neurological cardiovascular illness that can take away peoples ability to work, move, see, and even think. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes long Covid as a chronic condition that an individual has an increasing risk of contracting each time they are infected with the COVID-19 virus. Affleck continued: [Long Covid] stands to exacerbate our homelessness crisis as well as the suffering of many people in our city. It hits communities of color, disabled people, elderly people, trans people, anyone in a public-facing essential job the hardest. She then introduced a set of propositions that would confront the long Covid crisis. I demand masks availability, air filtration, and far-UVC light in government facilitiesincluding jails and detention centersand mask mandates in county medical facilities, she said. You must expand the availability of high-quality free tests and treatment and, most importantly, the county must oppose mask bans for any reason. Affleck concluded, [Mask bans] do not keep us safer. They make vulnerable members of our community less safe and make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together. Despite increasing cases of COVID-19 in the city, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass recently announced that city officials are looking into banning masks at public demonstrations. The news comes amid several pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protests at which many participants have worn masks. Other cities, like New York, are also considering mask bans within their own jurisdictions, and Republican lawmakers in North Carolina restricted the wearing of masks in public with a controversial bill passed in June. They are creating a narrative that they know will have a chilling effect on people exercising their constitutional rights to protest, Dawn Blagrove, executive director of Emancipate North Carolina, told NBC. You Might Also Like Violet Affleck, Jennifer Garner And Ben Affleck's Daughter, Spoke Out About Her Health In An Impassioned Speech Here's What She Said Violet Affleck is speaking up about her health. Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty Images Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's 18-year-old daughter made a rare public appearance on July 9 to speak before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors about her medical journey and the importance of mask mandates. She spoke during Public Comment, which was an "opportunity for members of the public to address the board on items of interest that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Board." @joaquinlife/ x.com Violet is the eldest of three children of Jennifer and Ben, who married in 2005 and divorced in 2018. Closeup of Jennifer Garner Ben Affleck at a red carpet event, dressed in a formal suit with a blue shirt and tie Steve Granitz / FilmMagic, Unique Nicole / WireImage "I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019," Violet said. "I'm OK now, but I saw firsthand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharper relief." "One in 10 infections leads to long COVID," she continued before the board, "which is a devastating neurological and cardiovascular illness that can take away people's ability to work, see, move, and even think." The World Health Organization (WHO) defines "Long COVID" as the "continuation or development of new symptoms three months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least two months with no other explanation." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 5.3% of all adults in the United States reported having Long COVID as of April 2024. Further data suggested that Long COVID disproportionately affects women and people between the ages of 40 and 59, who have the highest reported rates of the syndrome. Rafmaster / Getty Images Violet's address noted that the virus disproportionately affects vulnerable communities beyond these gender and age groups. "It stands to exacerbate our homelessness crisis, as well as the suffering of many people in our city. It hits communities of color, disabled people, elderly people, trans people, and anyone in a public-facing essential job the hardest." Anne Czichos / Getty Images "To confront the Long COVID crisis," Violet said, "I demand mask availability, air filtration, and far-UVC lights in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical facilities." Violet concluded that LA County should provide more testing and oppose mask bans. "They do not keep us safer. They make vulnerable members of our communities less safe and make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together." Violet Affleck holding it down at the LA County Board of Supervisors demanding mask availability, mask mandates in hospitals, and clean air in all government buildings including jails and detention centers. Go Violet! pic.twitter.com/B8PN3jl5F6 Joaquin Beltran for a Free Palestine (@joaquinlife) July 10, 2024 Twitter: @joaquinlife Violet's impassioned plea comes not too long after her mother, Jennifer, admitted she couldn't stop crying and was a "wreck" for an entire month ahead of her daughter's high school graduation. In an interview on Today with Hoda & Jenna, Jennifer said sitting alongside her mother, Pat Garner, "I was a wreck the whole month leading up to [Violet's graduation]," she added. "Every awards ceremony, every final, everything, I just cried at everything." Nbc / Nathan Congleton / NBC via Getty Images "I cried on planes trying to think about it," Jennifer added, before revealing: "Then the day of was so happy that there was nothing to be other than just so proud and happy." Well, we should expect some more tears from Jennifer because Violet's conviction during her address to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is another moment to be proud of. Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty Images Cheers to the next generation of adults speaking up for what they believe in! Long gone are the days of mandated masking in public to protect against COVID but many people still benefit from the practice. Violet Affleck, the 18-year-old daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, spoke during the public comments section of a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting asking for a return of mask mandates in county medical facilities. I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019, she said according to CNN. Im OK now, but I saw first-hand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses. She went on to ask public health officials to consider the effects of long COVID, in which the symptoms of the disease linger for months or even years. One in 10 infections leads to long COVID, which is a devastating neurological and cardiovascular illness that can take away peoples ability to work, see, move and even think, Affleck said. To confront the long COVID crisis, I demand mask availability, air filtration and far-UVC lights in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical facilities. She added that the county should oppose mask bans for any reason. Indeed, this comes at a time when city officials in New York City and Los Angeles have signaled that theyre open to establishing mask bans again after tense pro-Palestine protests. Critics have called these moves a "dog whistle" to squash protest. In North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed legislation that would have banned masking in public, also brought forth in response to recent protests. But Cooper only vetoed the law because the bill included provisions related to campaign financing, not because of the implications for public health. State lawmakers eventually overrode the veto in June, passing a revised version of the law that restored health exemptions for masking. Affleck concluded that the bans do not keep us safer, they make vulnerable members of our community less safe and make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together." Violet Affleck is using her voice to advocate for public health. The 18-year-old daughter of actors Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck delivered an impassioned plea during the public comments portion of a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, which was captured on video and shared on X, formerly Twitter. During her speech, Affleck who was wearing a face mask opened up about a medical condition that has impacted her life. I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019, Affleck, who spoke quickly to fit her message within the allotted minutelong time frame, revealed. Im OK now, but I saw firsthand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharper relief. Violet Affleck, with her mother, Jennifer Garner, as well as with her father and stepmother, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Getty One in 10 infections leads to long COVID, which is a devastating neurological and cardiovascular illness that can take away peoples ability to work, see, move and even think, Affleck said. To confront the long COVID crisis, I demand mask availability, air filtration and far-UVC lights in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical facilities. She also advocated for more free testing and treatment opportunities, while adding most importantly the county must oppose mask bans for any reason. They do not keep us safer, they make vulnerable members of our community less safe and make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together, she concluded. Thank you. Although its unclear what condition Affleck contracted, post-COVID symptoms can include fatigue, symptoms that get worse after physical or mental effort, fever and respiratory symptoms, including difficulty breathing or shortness of breath and cough, according to the Mayo Clinic. Mayo Clinic Proceedings added that post-COVID conditions are common and have caused widespread unemployment and billions in lost wages. Data shows that COVID cases are steadily rising this summer, due to variants that may be more contagious and better at bypassing vaccine protection than previous ones. Afflecks speech comes on the heels of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) announcement in June that she was considering banning masks at protests, according to The New Republic. Bass announcement came as a response to a pro-Palestinian protest near a Los Angeles synagogue that made international headlines, per The Guardian. Both outlets note that other political leaders, such as New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, both Democrats, have supported the idea of banning masks at protests and on public transit because they feel the masks offer anonymity to people who wish to engage in antisemitic behavior. Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told USA Today that bans on the use of masks strongly inhibit one of the options that public health has to reduce the impact of pandemics in our population. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's 18-year-old daughter Violet is urging Los Angeles officials to oppose mask bans and to issue a mask mandate in medical facilities to help reduce the risk of long COVID, a condition that persists in some patients after being infected with the virus. After she introduced herself during an L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday as a Los Angeles resident and first-time voter, Violet Affleck explained that she developed a post-viral condition in 2019. In a clip shared on social media, she said that while she is OK now, it showed her that "medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharper relief." "One in 10 infections leads to long COVID, which is a devastation neurological, cardiovascular illness that can take away people's ability to work, move, see and even think" she said. To help reduce the risk, she called for mask availability and other COVID prevention measures like air filtration and the use of far UV-C light, which can kill viruses, in government facilities, including jails. She also urged mask mandates in county medical facilities. "We must expand availability of high quality, free tests and treatment," she said. "And most importantly, the county must oppose mask bans for any reason. They do not keep us safer. They make more vulnerable members of our community less safe and make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together." Violet Affleck and Jennifer Garner are seen on May 18, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. / Credit: Bellocqimages/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/Getty Images Affleck said COVID still "hits communities of color, disabled people, elderly people, trans people, women and anyone in a public-facing essential jobs the hardest." Her comments come at a time when COVID cases are once again on the rise in the U.S., particularly in western states. Since the beginning of the pandemic, millions of Americans have experienced long COVID, also known as post-COVID syndrome or condition, which may include a continuation of symptoms similar to the original infection, like fatigue and shortness of breath, according to the Mayo Clinic, Symptoms can also include memory loss, generalized pain and orthostasis, decreased blood pressure when standing up or sitting down, and an array of other problems. Mask mandates to prevent the spread of COVID were issued in cities across the U.S. at the height of the pandemic in 2020, but as cases went down, most places stopped requiring masks. Recently, some cities have weighed proposals to ban masks a development that concerns those who rely on masks to help prevent illness. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul backed the idea of a mask ban in New York City's subway system aimed at criminals covering their faces but with exceptions for people wearing masks for their health. A similar mask ban was proposed by a local alderman in Chicago earlier this month, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass weighed a mask ban for protesters to make it easier to identify those who allegedly commit crimes, according to the Los Angeles Times. California's Division of Public Health rescinded its mask requirement for medical professionals in February when COVID cases receded. The state, however, said it could reverse course if the threat of COVID increases. The department recommends those infected with COVID or who could have been exposed should still wear a mask, as well as people who are vulnerable to getting sick, like the elderly or those with medical conditions. So-called strategic masking, or "wearing a mask where and when it might matter most," can be an option for decreasing your risk of COVID, according to a 2023 report from Yale Medicine. The report recommends considering your personal risk, such as if you have a medical condition, live in a care facility, are elderly or pregnant, or if you are in a medical facility or a crowded place, when choosing whether or not to wear a mask. Sneak peek: Unmasking the Zombie Hunter Sneak peek: Murder by Clown The success of renewable energy may depend on battery storage Violet Affleck is taking a stand against Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass proposed mask ban. On Tuesday, Jennifer Garner and Ben Afflecks 18-year-old daughter spoke up at a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting, expressing how harmful the ban could be. More from The Hollywood Reporter While taking the podium, the teen described herself as a first-time voter. The younger Affleck explained that she contracted a post-viral condition in 2019. Im OK now but I saw firsthand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharper relief. she said. The teen then said, One in 10 infections leads to long COVID, which is a devastating neurological, cardiovascular illness that can take away peoples ability to work, move, see or even think. To confront the long COVID crisis, she added, I demand mask availability, air filtration and Far-UVC lighting in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates at county medical facilities. She also asked for a wider availability of free COVID testing and treatment. Most importantly, the county must oppose mask bans for any reason, she continued. They do not keep us safer, they make vulnerable members of our community less safe and everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together. Following a pro-Palestine protest outside of the Adas Torah synagogue in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood of Los Angeles, Mayor Bass announced she was considering a mask ban for protests. During a news conference held on June 24, Bass declared that she would be in conversation with city attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto to discuss several things that we need to examine, such as permits for protests, the idea of people wearing masks at protests and establishing clear lines of demarcations of what is legal and what is not. A mask ban was also proposed in New York by Gov. Kathy Hochul, out of concern over people hiding their identity while committing antisemitic hate crimes. We will not tolerate individuals using masks to evade responsibility for criminal or threatening behavior, Hochul said in a news conference in June. My team is working on a solution. But on a subway, people should not be able to hide behind a mask to commit crimes. Best of The Hollywood Reporter By Liya Cui (Reuters) - Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has issued an executive order to limit or ban cell phone use for roughly 1.2 million public school students, in what he described as a response to mental health issues and academic underachievement among adolescents. The order, issued on Tuesday, directs the Virginia Department of Education to create procedures that would restrict cell phone use during instructional time, such as pouches or dedicated cell phone lockers. Education officials will consider exceptions for parents to communicate with children for necessary reasons, as well as protocols for students with medical needs or for emergency situations. The decision follows a similar cell phone ban announced last month by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The chancellor of New York City Public Schools has said that he, too, is considering a phone ban for the nation's largest school district. They join a number of smaller school districts that have blocked access to phones or social media out of a growing concern that cell phones are detrimental to students' learning and mental health. Virginia's Department of Education has until Sept. 16 to issue its final guidance on the new policy, which schools will implement by Jan. 1, 2025. "Creating a cell phone-free education environment in public schools is not only a prudent measure but an essential one to promote a healthier and more focused educational environment where every child is free to learn," Youngkin, a Republican, said in the order. Youngkin's order references a study published in the American Psychological Association which found that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media double their risk of poor mental health. It also cites studies indicating that cell phone use in class hurts students' ability to focus and engage, resulting in lower grades. (Reporting by Liya Cui in New York; Editing by Sandra Maler) Its unfathomable: A San Francisco home worth $1.8M was just listed for $488,000 but there's a big catch In San Franciscos upscale Russian Hill neighborhood, theres a gorgeous Edwardian-style home painted in periwinkle blue, selling for a surprising $488,800 even though its worth $1.8 million. If it seems too good to be true, it is. The new owners cant move in for nearly 30 years. The listing clearly states the home is already occupied by tenants whose lease appears to grant them "possible occupancy rights until 2053" and "strong long-term rent rate amount restrictions. The tenants claim to be paying $416.67 a month in rent, in addition to utilities. The property will be sold as-is, tenants and all meaning the new owners will become their landlords. A family betrayal The current tenants of the three-bedroom home are Sandra Lee, 83, and her 66-year-old daughter, Cheryl Lee. The current homeowner and seller is Sandras son, Todd Lee. Sandras parents originally purchased the property in the 1970s for $52,000 and lived there until they died in 2006 and 2018. She claims Todd and her brother, Cedric Goo, have taken advantage of her and her daughter and listed the home against her wishes. We had a large family, Sandra told The San Francisco Standard. Now were destroyed. Sandra says her stepfather (the original homeowner) wrote her a lease in secret before he passed granting her long-term rent rate restrictions until 2053. If it wasnt for the lease that [my son] didnt know about that was made in 2018, I dont know where wed be, she said. Its unfathomable, the deception, the betrayal this is my son doing this to me. The Standard notes Todd and Cedric did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Is it worth the wait? Steven MacDonald, an attorney that specializes in landlord tenant law, told ABC7 the home could be a great deal for a buyer thats willing to wait. "It's for a very, very unique buyer that's willing to get a big discount maybe two-thirds, MacDonald said. "Maybe pay $1 million for a $3 million house and wait 20 to 30 years before you can move in." Of course, there are less intensive options for investors who dont want the hassles of being a landlord but still want to reap the benefits of growing real estate value. You can put money in real estate investment trusts (REITs), most of which are publicly traded, or you could consider buying shares of properties on online real estate crowdfunding platforms. This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. Vista Fire in San Bernardino National Forest doubles in size overnight to 2,354 acres More than 400 firefighters worked Wednesday to control the flames of the Vista Fire burning in the San Bernardino National Forest between Lytle Creek and the Mt. Baldy Ski Resort after it doubled in size overnight to 2,354 acres, officials said. The fire remained 0% contained as it continued making runs through steep and hazardous terrain, U.S. Forest Service officials said. "The majority of growth occurred along the south, southeast edge of the fire with an increase of 1,200 acres toward Coldwater Canyon," according to a statement from incident commanders. "Last night, quick reaction forces consisting of two heavy helicopters dropped 60,000 gallons of water, cooling the fire area and aiding fire fighters in holding the fires edge," the statement said. "Along the northwest flank, the fire is holding in Stockton Flats." The Vista Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest between Lytle Creek and the Mt. Baldy Ski Resort grew tomore than 1,295 acres on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Nearly 150 structures were threatened, according to a statement from incident commanders. During Tuesday's firefighting operations, the fire displayed "very active" on its northeast side, making multiple runs toward the southeast into an area previously burned by the Knob Fire in 2023, according to forest officials. The northwest flank of the fire produced heavy smoke as it burned its way through dead fuels, officials said. Light winds caused the smoke to linger in the area, moving slowly toward the east and prompting an air quality advisory for the High Desert. More: Smoke from Vista Fire pushes into High Desert, air advisory issued The flames ran into a trail near Devil's Backbone, "making for a good firebreak that should help mitigate potential spread," according to the statement. A series of spot fires that broke off from the main body of flame also kept firefighters busy, officials added. Firefighters continued attacking the fire from the ground and the air while hand crews continued working to build hand lines around the spot fires. The Mt. Baldy Ski Resort remained under evacuation orders, and nearby hiking trails were also closed. A closure on Lytle Creek Road that had previously been put in place at Glen Helen Parkway was moved farther north to Meyers Canyon Road, officials said. Only residents were being allowed access. More: Vista Fire near Mt. Baldy Ski Resort surpasses 1,000 acres A community meeting for Lytle Creek residents was planned for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Lytle Creek Community Center, 14082 Center Road. It will be open only to residents of Lytle Creek who live north of Glen Helen Parkway. It will be streamed live on the San Bernardino National Forest Facebook page at facebook.com/SanBernardinoNF. Vista Fire Operational Update for July 10th #VistaFire July 10th Morning Operational update. California Interagency Incident Management Team 15 assumed command of the Vista Fire at 6am on July 9th. San Bernardino National Forest and San Bernardino County Fire are in Unified Command. Posted by U.S. Forest Service - San Bernardino National Forest on Wednesday, July 10, 2024 The Vista Fire first ignited on Sunday morning northwest of Lytle Creek. The cause remained under investigation. This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Vista Fire doubles in size overnight to 2,354 acres VSP: 6 killed in crashes over Fourth of July holiday in Virginia VIRGINIA (DC News Now) Virginia State Police (VSP) said six people were killed in crashes on highways across the Commonwealth over the Fourth of July holiday. Preliminary data from state police showed that of those six crashes, one involved a pedestrian who died in a hit-and-run. VSP said the fatal crashes took place in Richmond and Bedford, Charles City, Henrico, and Wythe counties. Woman dies after getting struck by falling tree branch in Southeast DC Excessive speeding, drivers and passengers failing to buckle up and distracted driving continue to put too many at risk traveling on our highways, said Colonel Gary T. Settle, Virginia State Police Superintendent. On July 4th in the middle of the afternoon on I-495 in Northern Virginia, Trooper J.T. Pappas stopped a driver for doing 137 mph in a posted 65 mph zone. A few days before that a motorist was cited for driving 125 mph on I-64 in Rockbridge County. Virginia highways are no place for triple-digit speeds. To save lives on our roads, Virginians must put forth the extra effort and comply with posted speed limits. Each year, state police take action in Operation Reduce Crash Awareness Effort (C.A.R.E), a national effort to reduce deadly crashes and fatalities on the highways. During this years five-day counting period, state police investigated 1,027 crashes, and cited 4,044 speeders and 1,868 reckless drivers. VSP said police arrested 95 people for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and officers gave 574 citations to people for failing to wear a seatbelt. Officers handed out another 191 citations for children not being properly secured in a vehicle, and 423 drivers were cited for violating Virginias hands-free law. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. WA abortion clinics scramble to care for out-of-state patients. How far are they traveling? Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion, Washington remains one of 21 states where abortions are protected. But the courts decision is nevertheless shaking up abortion services in Washington state. For decades patients have come to Washington for abortions from other Northwest states, including those where rural residents might not have had access close by to abortion services. But since the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision, the number of abortions performed in Washington has increased as more people from out-of-state seek services. And there is some data that shows it now takes longer on average to get an abortion in Washington. Just because the state of Washington protects an abortion right, it doesnt mean that were immune from the impacts of the Dobbs decision, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said in a recent news conference on the second anniversary of the decision. The Guttmacher Institute released data in late May that looked at the change in travel patterns as the number of people traveling out of state for abortions nationwide doubled from 81,000 in 2020 to 166,000 in 2023. Whats striking about this new data is how often people are traveling across multiple state lines to access abortion care, said Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a Guttmacher data scientist. Out-of-state patients in Washington The largest number of out-of-state patients came to Washington from not only nearby Oregon, Idaho and Alaska, but also Texas following the Dobbs decision, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Idaho and Texas are both states that criminalized abortion following the Dobbs decision. Until last year, Eastern Oregon had no facility offering in-clinic, procedural abortions, making the Tri-Cities at 25 miles across the Oregon and Washington state line the nearest clinic for many in Eastern Oregon, according to AbortionFinder data. A protester shows off their sign during a demonstration in support of abortion rights along George Washington Way near Jon Dam Plaza in Richland on May 4, 2022. The Kennewick clinic in Eastern Washington also was the closest clinic offering procedural abortions, in addition to abortions with medications, for Idahos largest population center when Idaho banned abortions in August 2022. The drive to Kennewick from Boise part of the five Treasure Valley counties that are home to about 750,000 people takes more than four hours. In the first five months of 2023, the Kennewick clinic saw 91 patients from Idaho, up from just two for the same time period a year earlier, according to data compiled by Cantwells staff. Planned Parenthood responded by opening a clinic in Ontario, Ore., that offers procedural and medication abortions in the spring of 2023. It is about a 50-minute drive from Boise. Planned Parenthood also launched a campaign in 2023 to make sure people in Idaho knew where they could go to get a legal abortion. Hot pink billboards dotted the Boise area and Northern Idaho, saying Abortion is legal in Oregon and Washington. Despite the additional clinic in Ontario to provide services for the Boise area, the number of abortions in Eastern Washington still increased 10% in 2023, with 17% of patients from out-of-state. A protester supporting abortion rights at a Richland demonstration holds two signs, one reading A womans place is in the resistance which is a reference to the late Carrie Fisher and her iconic Star Wars character General Leia Organa. The other reads, Not your body, not your choice. Hundreds demonstrated at Jon Dam Plaza in Richland on May 4, 2022. A UW Medicine study of abortions performed at Cedar River Clinics in Seattle, Tacoma, Renton and Yakima found that its out-of-state patients had increased 50% since the Dobbs decision, from 4% to 6% of abortion patients. While previously just over half of out-of-state abortion patients had come from Alaska, Cedar River Clinics reported post-Dobbs patients are: 27% from Texas 26% Alaska 8% Idaho 6% Louisiana 6% Florida However, the number of out-of-state residents traveling to Washington for abortions may be undercounted. It is not in the best interest of abortion providers and patients for providers to press for information about where patients live, said Sarah Dixit, organizing director of Pro-Choice Washington. Some patients may be hesitant or fearful to give that information, instead listing their address as their hotel or giving a friend or relatives address. Washington enacted a shield law in 2023 that protects people in Washington from civil and criminal actions in states that restrict abortions, including prohibiting law enforcement from arresting people, with or without a warrant, for violating the laws of states where abortions are banned. It also prohibits state and local agencies and law enforcement from providing information or complying with subpoenas related to bans on abortion in other states. The Kennewick, Wash., Planned Parenthood clinic saw a dramatic increase in abortion patients from Idaho after that state banned abortions in August 2022. Emergency abortions in Washington The strict Idaho abortion ban included even medical emergencies that threatened the pregnant patients life until a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in late June. The court did not decide whether Idahos ban conflicted with a federal emergency room law requiring care, instead sending the issue back to the U.S. 9th Circuit of Appeals. Emergency abortions in Idaho have been allowed to resume, at least temporarily, while litigation on the issue continues. Cantwell said on the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision that Washington has had to step up and be the maternal emergency provider from pregnant women from Idaho and around the country. Her snapshot report said that some obstetricians in Idaho have recommended that their pregnant patients purchase air ambulance insurance. One Idaho patient was airlifted every week to hospitals in Washington, Oregon and Utah, the report said. They may be flown out of Idaho because the fetus is not viable or the life of the mother is at risk, Dr. Edward McEachern, co-chairman of the Idaho Physician Well-Being Action Collaborative, was quoted as saying in the Cantwell report. Theyre not able to find someone to provide them care in Idaho, McEachern said. That helicopter ride can cost over $70,000. That bankrupts families. Air ambulance services, such as the Life Flight Network, cost about $85 a year to subscribe. Lilith Clinic in Seattle has seen a surge in patients who are experiencing fetal anomalies or other medical emergencies that require later pregnancy terminations, according to Cantwells report. One patient flew from Texas to Florida because she had a medical complication with her pregnancy, only to discover that she couldnt get an abortion in Florida and had to fly to Seattle, the report said. On the two year anniversary of the Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, overturning Roe v. Wade, women dressed as characters from Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel The Handmaids Tale, protest the current state of womens reproductive rights in Idaho. Idaho lost 22% of its obstetricians 15 months after its abortion ban took effect, according to the Idaho Physician Well Being Action Collaborative. Without enough OB/GYN care, women will lose out on access to reproductive care, something that may actually help them keep a pregnancy, if they just got the right care, Cantwell said. WA abortion delays The increase in demand for abortions for out-of-state patients in Washington, appears to be putting pressure on some clinics offering abortions in Washington. A UW Medicine study published in JAMA Network Open at the end of May tracked the number of abortions at Ceder River Clinics in Washington and found an average one-week delay for all patients seeking abortions. The study compared pre-Dobbs data back to 2017 to data after Dobbs through July 2023. While one week delay does not sound significant, any delays in receiving abortion care are problematic because it adversely affects the health of the pregnant person, said Dr. Emily Godfrey, a UW Medicine family medicine doctor and obstetrician gynecologist, and the papers senior author. Later abortions pose an increased risk of complications and negative mental health impacts and are more expensive, she said. UW Medicine researchers also found that post-Dobbs a higher proportion of out-of-state patients sought procedural abortions, rather than medication abortions, compared with in-state patients. Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, most Republican-controlled states new abortion restrictions in effect while most Democrat-led states have laws or executive orders to protect access to abortion. Godfrey said that out-of-state patients may choose procedural abortions over medication abortions in order to be 100% certain that they are no longer pregnant when they return home, especially if they live in a state that now criminalizes abortion. Planned Parenthood clinics in Western Washington, which have seen three times as many patients from Texas as from Idaho, also are reporting longer wait times for all patients due to the increase from out-of state patients, according to Cantwells report. Oregon Health and Science University is seeing many patients from Idaho, but also is seeing patients from California and Washington where there are no abortion bans because they are struggling to get timely appointments, said OHSU Dr. Maria Rodriguez, according to Cantwells report. Abortions also may be later in pregnancies because of the need of out-of-state patients to figure out logistics to travel to Washington at an already stressful time in their lives, Dixit, of Pro-Choice Washington, said. Patients may be confused about where they can obtain an abortion. And then if they decide to travel out of state they have to find transportation and a place to stay, get time off work or from school, and possibly arrange child care for while they are gone, Dixit said. Programs are in place to help them. Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho created a Hospitality Fund after the Dobbs decision to support patients traveling to Washington. It also has hired patient navigators, primarily to work with out-of-state patients, and help them with expenses that travel may cause. The increasing number of abortions and out-of-state patients has left Washington in need of increased investment in and resources for abortion services, according to the UW Medicine study authors. Will Wade Wilson get death sentence? FL killer seeks new trial as death penalty decision nears The Florida man found guilty of murdering two Cape Coral women, is seeking a new trial as the death penalty sentencing decision in his case draws near. Wade Wilson, 30, was found guilty in June of killing Kristine Melton, 35, and Diane Ruiz, 43, in the fall of 2019. During the penalty phase of the trial, Wilson's jury voted in favor of the death penalty for each of the murders. The trial judge will decide whether to impose the death penalty or life without parole during sentencing scheduled for later this month. However, on July 3, Wilson's legal team filed a motion for a new trial or acquittal on the murder, burglary and grand theft charges. Here's what to know about Wilson's crimes, victims, sentencing and recent defense motion: Wade Wilson crimes Wilson, then 25 years old, met Kristine Melton, 35, and her friend Stephanie Sailors on Oct. 7, 2019, at Buddah LIVE, a Fort Myers bar. After the bar closed, Wilson and the two women went to the home of Jayson Shepard where they stayed for several hours before leaving in the morning. Wilson, Melton and Sailors then went Melton's Cape Coral home. After Sailors left, Wilson strangled Melton to death as she slept in her bed and stole her car. A short time later, Wilson saw 43-year-old Diane Ruiz walking along a Cape Coral street, asked her for directions to a nearby school and lured her into the car. When Ruiz tried to exit the car, Wilson attacked her, beating and strangling her before pushing her out of the car and running her over 10 to 20 times. After the murders, Wilson called his biological father Steven Testasecca several times confessing to and narrating the gruesome details of his crimes. "He was excited," Testasecca testified in court, adding Wilson said he wanted to make Ruiz "look like spaghetti." Testasecca contacted police and Wilson was arrested Oct. 8, 2019. Wade Wilson victims Kristine Melton and Diane Ruiz Kristine Melton, 35, of Cape Coral, was murdered Oct. 7, 2019, by Wade Wilson, 30. Kristine Melton grew up in Illinois and moved with a friend to Cape Coral where she worked as a waitress. She reportedly was godmother to her cousin Samantha Catomer's child, owned a cat and lived in a Cape Coral duplex. Melton loved to dress up and her favorite holiday was Halloween, Catomer testified during Wilson's trial. Melton had a quick wit, made everyone around her feel safe and understood and "was precious, not just to me, but to everyone who knew her," Catomer said. Melton was 35 years old when she met Wilson at Buddah LIVE, a Fort Myers bar. After leaving the bar and spending several hours at the home of Jayson Shepard, Melton, her friend Stephanie Sailors and Wilson went to Melton's duplex. After Sailors left, Wilson strangled her to death in her sleep. Diane Ruiz's body was found in a field in Cape Coral on Oct. 10, 2019, four days after she was reported missing. Diane Ruiz, 43, a mother and engaged to be married, was described as caring and hardworking. She worked as a bartender at the Moose Lodge in Cape Coral and never missed a shift in five years. Ruiz was walking to work for her 10 a.m. shift when she encountered Wilson. A short time after killing Melton, Wilson saw Ruiz walking along a Cape Coral street and lured her into the car after asking her for directions. When she tried to leave, Wilson beat and strangled Ruiz, pushed her out of the car and ran her over repeatedly. Her body was found in a field three days later, as vultures circled overhead. Wade Wilson charges Wilson, who shares his name with Marvel character Deadpool, was tried and found guilty of six charges: Two counts of first-degree murder First-degree murder Grand theft Battery Burglary Petty theft Wilson also faces charges in unrelated crimes, including attempted escape from jail and drug charges. Jury's death penalty recommendation doesn't have to be unanimous in Florida Florida juries were required to vote unanimously for a death sentence recommendation until April 2023 when Gov. Ron DeSantis lowered the threshold by signing into law a bill allowing juries to recommend death with as few as 8 votes. Wade Wilson sentence On June 25, 2024, the jury in Wilson's trial recommended he receive the death penalty for each of the murders. During the penalty phase of the trial, jurors had the option of recommending life in prison without parole or death. After considering aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the jury voted 9-3 and 10-2 for death. Trial judge Nicholas Thompson will decide whether the death sentence or life without parole is imposed. Sentencing is scheduled for July 23. Wade Wilson's attorney files motion for new trial On July 3, Wilson's attorney filed a motion on his behalf requesting a new trial or acquittal for the murder and grand theft charges. The motion contends the court made an error and violated Wilson's constitutional rights by using the new law that allows a death penalty recommendation with as few as 8 jurors voting in favor. Before the new law went into effect, a unanimous vote was required. The motion further argues Wilson should have had separate trials for the various charges and that the state failed to prove Wilson had possession of Melton's car without her consent. Lee County Circuit Judge Nicholas Thompson has not yet ruled on the motion. Contributing: Tomas Rodriguez, Fort Myers News-Press This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Wade Wilson: FL killer seeks new trial, death sentence decision nears A federal appeals court has ruled that Walmart will be required to face a class-action lawsuit alleging that it charges consumers higher prices at the register than advertised on the shelf. Yoram Kahn first filed the lawsuit in 2022, alleging that Walmarts shelf pricing frequently misrepresents the prices consumers are charged at the point of sale. As a result, consumers fall victim to a classic bait and switch, and unknowingly overpay Walmart a higher price for the falsely advertised merchandise at checkout. More from Sourcing Journal But in 2023, the Illinois district court where Kahn filed the lawsuit decided it would not proceed after the big-box retailer filed a successful motion to dismiss. The appeals courts decision on July 3 overturns that ruling. Now, Walmart will have to defend itself against the allegation that it charges consumers on average 5 percent to 10 percent more at the register than the prices marked on store shelves. In the complaint, Kahn stated that he purchased a variety of grocery items that had been marked up from their on-shelf price tags. He alleged that those pricing issues were not isolated to Illinois, but that they extend from coast to coast. He noted price discrepancies in stores in Florida, Indiana, Maryland, New York and New Jersey, among other states. The complaint also stated that, in years past, Walmart was investigated or fined by various statesincluding California and North Carolinabecause of its pricing practices. Kahn said those investigations have done little to prevent Walmart from continuing with the status quo, noting that government efforts have been a game of whack-a-mole for local agencies because even when Walmart is fined, the fines are a drop in the bucket for the $500 billion retailer and dwarf the hundreds of millions of dollars Walmart profits each year from selling overcharged goods. Kahn has proposed a nationwide class action, which would include any consumer affected by Walmarts purported deceptive pricing practices. The district court judge that dismissed the original case at Walmarts request did so in part because she said Kahn failed to provide enough evidence to show deception on the retailers part. If Walmart had refused to provide a receipt to a customer, the story might have been different. But providing the receipt to a consumer enables that consumer to confirm the accuracy of Walmarts pricing claims on shelf, just as Kahn did, she said. But, as the appeals court judge said in her ruling, Who does that? The judge pointed to a number of considerations that could prevent customers from keeping track of shelf prices and comparing them to what theyre charged at the register: lack of smartphone to capture images of shelf prices; children to keep track of in a store; not wanting to hold up long checkout lines and more. She went on to say, Reasonable consumer behavior does not require shoppers to audit their transactions and to overcome those additional hurdles just to ensure that they receive merchandise at the advertised shelf prices. As a result of the judges decision, a court will now be required to hear consumers arguments on deception and unfair practices. A Walmart spokesperson said the company will continue to deliver on its Save money, live better mantra. Well always work to provide our customers everyday low prices they can count on. We are confident in the evidence and look forward to arguing our case, the spokesperson said. I want her to worry about whos waiting on the corner: How one man uses Facebook to frighten his childrens mother and why police do nothing CHICAGO -- Shortly before Christmas 2022, Dominique Ward made an unplanned stop at Target to do some last-minute shopping with her 3-year-old daughters. She was miles from her home, in a neighborhood where she didnt know a single person. She assumed no one there knew her or her girls, either until the following day when someone sent her a screenshot of a Facebook page belonging to the girls father. He had posted an open letter to his daughters, identical twins he had been barred from contacting without court supervision after multiple allegations of abusive behavior toward their mother. I got to see you the other day, the note stated. You were in a target shopping cart wearing matching cute outfits. You were (sic) absolutely gorgeous, the most beautiful little babies I have ever seen. You were sitting next to each other playing with each other as your mom pushed you around. Your smiles were infectious and silliness was so familiar. What you dont know (is) that there is a community of love surrounding you, sending Daddy pictures and videos keeping me updated on your progress. The post stopped Ward cold. She had been locked in a custody and child support battle for years with her ex-partner, a computer whiz with a sizable social media following and a well-documented disregard for court orders. Since moving to Florida in 2021, he had been offering money on Facebook for information regarding his children, including: $25 per photo of the girls. $50 for videos. $100 for the address of a mother-child yoga class Ward was organizing. $10,000 for anyone who can bring the girls to him for a peaceful, arranged meeting. The Target post was a reminder that people usually complete strangers were taking him up on the various offers and tracking her whereabouts. And it was proof, yet again, that no one in authority cared enough to stop it. Records show that in the year leading up to the shopping trip, Ward and her attorney Lindsay Nathan had sought help from the Chicago police, Cook County prosecutors and Facebook employees. They all listened to her story and then explained why they couldnt do anything about the posts, a reflection of the complex and, often, apathetic response to electronic harassment in towns across Illinois. A Tribune analysis of crime data shows Chicago police made arrests in only 2% of the domestic-related electronic harassment and cyberstalking complaints received in the past 10 years. And since 2021 the year Ward first went to authorities with her concerns the arrest rate has been about 1%. How do I protect my children if I cant even go to the store without someone following us or stalking my girls? asked Ward, now 39. We have targets on our backs every time we leave the house, but no one is taking it seriously. In a telephone interview with the Tribune, the childrens father, Micah Berkley, confirmed he wrote the posts soliciting pictures of his daughters on social media. He said he also seeks photographs through targeted Facebook ads that appear in the feeds of people who live within a -mile radius of Wards house and the childrens school. Berkley, 41, considers his actions which continue to this day to be technological warfare, a social media-driven, 21st-century way to fight back against custody and child support rulings that havent gone his way. He estimates he has paid about $6,000 for images and other information since he and Ward broke up in late 2020, though the Tribune could not independently verify that. No one has been able to claim the $10,000 reward for arranging a peaceful meeting with the girls, he said. I hear shes scared, he told the Tribune. She should be scared. She should be terrified. I want her to worry about whos waiting on the corner whenever she walks outside. An analysis of data from nearly two dozen Illinois police departments found police rarely arrest people for electronic harassment, even as complaints increase. And though state laws have kept up with this very modern intimidation method, the laws enforcers police, prosecutors, judges have not, experts say. We have great laws on the books, but the problem is that they arent implemented, said Vickie Smith, former CEO of the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Nobody thinks it is a big deal because they dont understand how this kind of non-physical domestic violence can harm someone on a daily basis. Public records show Ward has gone to the Chicago Police Department at least twice to file a report since 2021, explaining the situation just as her father a retired CPD officer instructed. Each time, she says, officers told her it would be difficult to prove her former boyfriend was behind the keyboard when the messages were posted and that prosecutors would be reluctant to charge the case. Berkley, who readily acknowledges he wrote and published the messages, says he has never been contacted by law enforcement in regards to his social media accounts. A Tribune analysis found the Chicago Police Department receives thousands of electronic harassment and cyberstalking complaints each year, more than a third of which are categorized as domestic-related. In 2023, for example, more than 2,400 people reported being electronically harassed or cyberstalked in Chicago with more than 800 of them saying the abuse was perpetrated by someone with whom they have a familial or intimate relationship. Of those 824 domestic-related complaints last year, only nine 1% resulted in an arrest. Its an arrest rate more than 15 times lower than other domestic crimes in 2023, including battery and order of protection violations. Of more commonly reported crimes, only those involving deception such as pickpocketing, unauthorized credit card use and confidence games have lower arrest rates. A deeper look into the data offers a hint at how Chicago police handle these cases. In a review of those 824 cases from last year, while most were suspended unless more evidence developed, police outright closed more than a fourth of them, almost always using a category of disposition that describes when police are confident they know who did it but for some reason decide they cant make an arrest. Even the number of arrests can be deceiving. A look at arrests over the past decade found many came only after allegations of more serious crimes committed at the same time as the alleged harassment from arson to strangulation and home invasion. The lack of arrests isnt exclusive to Chicago. An examination of Illinois State Police and suburban department data shows police outside Chicago rarely make arrests. There are also very few people charged with cyberstalking on the federal level. A 2023 Rand study found there were 412 cases charged by the U.S. Justice Department between 2010 and 2020. Though the number of cases has grown steadily since 2014 reaching a peak of 80 new cases in 2019 researchers found the legal system is largely unprepared to handle electronic harassment. The big hurdles that we found, as far as law enforcement goes, relate to the capabilities to investigate electronic crimes, said Sasha Romanosky, a senior policy researcher at Rand and co-author of the study. Theres a lot of variation across the police departments in their skills and capabilities. Electronic harassment and cyberstalking can be difficult for law enforcement because they often involve tech-savvy offenders who are deft at hiding their tracks and it is sometimes hard to prove the suspect actually wrote the offending message, experts said. As a result, law enforcement seldom allocates substantial resources or prioritizes investigating these crimes. In its findings, the Rand study recommended increased training on emerging technologies and investigative strategies for law enforcement. It also suggested police officers and prosecutors be taught the complicated nature of working with victims, including recognizing that electronic harassment is a form of abuse. There is a need for training for both police and prosecutors in regards to dealing with these kinds of intimate crimes to begin with so they can build that trust with the victim, Romanosky said. Theres also a similar story about training for police and prosecutors when it comes to understanding digital evidence. The Chicago Police Department did not respond to questions about the handling of Wards complaints or electronic harassment cases in general. A February 2021 police report involving Berkleys social media behavior states the case was closed because Ward did not want to press charges. Both Ward and her attorney dispute the CPD report, insisting she always wanted the electronic harassment to be investigated. Their recollection is bolstered by a July 2021 email to the Cook County states attorneys office in which Nathan expresses frustration with the lack of police response. My client has made multiple police reports and at this point we just dont know what to do, she wrote to a supervisor in the Cook County states attorneys Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence division. No charges were ever filed. The Cook County states attorneys office did not respond to questions. Frustrated by the lack of help from local law enforcement, Nathan reached out to the FBI last year. Nathan shared Berkleys Facebook posts, court records and Wards order of protection against Berkley with at least two federal agents, who expressed concern for Wards safety in emails reviewed by the Tribune. In the emails, the agents also said they were consulting with federal prosecutors, but nothing came of those conversations. She doesnt know how far his social media followers might go. Its like no one is going to care about this until Im dead, Ward said. And by then it will be too late. The FBI declined to answer the Tribunes questions. Berkley contends he has a First Amendment right to his social media messages, including one post that published part of her cellphone number and another that revealed the name of Wards therapist and intimated without proof that the counseling centers staff was providing him with information. He repeatedly said he does not want to physically harm Ward nor has he instructed any of his social media followers to do so. He also stated he did nothing improper when he created a video in May 2023, using artificial intelligence, that purports to be an NBC Nightly News broadcast and proclaims Ward to be Americas most despicable mother. With an AI-generated voice nearly identical to anchorman Lester Holts delivery, the piece accuses Ward of using every dirty trick in the book to ensure these girls are cruelly ripped away from their loving fathers embrace. It took me about an hour to make, Berkley said. Its not that hard for me. This is what happens when you make a nerd mad. Berkley and Ward agree about the basic facts of their shared history: They began dating in 2015 and moved in together in July 2018. They broke up a few months later, around the same time Ward learned she was pregnant. Both wanted their children to be raised in a two-parent household similar to their own upbringings, so they reconciled. When the girls were born in May 2019, the couple was thrilled and, for a brief time, happy with their new life. Berkley soon began posting pictures of their twins on social media, drawing positive responses and significant traffic to his account. On his way to becoming an influencer, he started his own line of clothing aimed at Black parents, he said. The girls are part of my brand, Berkley said. Everyone loved seeing a Black dad being so involved with his children. He lost access to his so-called brand, however, after Ward broke up with him and went back to her parents home. Police records state Berkley showed up at the house on April 5, 2020, armed with what turned out to be a pellet gun, and threatened to harm himself and Wards family. Berkley was charged with violating an order of protection and aggravated battery. Ward said she later asked for the charges to be dropped so Berkley could work and help support the children. A few months after the case was dismissed, Berkley began his social media campaign against Ward and started offering money for photographs of the girls. Berkley said most of his online support and photographs of the twins come from women. Nathan, Wards lawyer, used the Facebook posts to successfully extend an order of protection that, so far, has not been served on Berkley and as such makes it harder to enforce. The attorney has been told authorities cant find Berkley, even though he frequently shows up for court hearings via Zoom and his photograph appeared on the front page of the Miami Herald late last year as part of a glowing feature on his AI business. A Cook County judge recently issued a body attachment for Berkley, allowing for his detainment in light of more than $50,000 in unpaid child support. Such orders are similar to bench warrants, though they are rarely executed in civil cases where the subjects live out of state. Berkley has been representing himself in family court, using AI programs he designed to write his own motions and memorandums. He often lashes out during the Zoom hearings, accusing Ward of kidnapping his children and ignoring the judges order to stop posting photographs of the children on social media. Dominiques case is an extreme example, but this is an issue that many, many women are struggling with every day, said Nathan, director of family law for Ascend Justice, which helps victims of gender-based violence with legal matters at no cost. I cannot accept that there is nothing that can be done about it. Law enforcement, however, isnt the only obstacle to preventing online harassment. Facebook also failed to address Wards concerns, despite numerous reportings and at least five letters or memorandums from Nathan since 2022. The social media network only took action after political consultant Joanna Klonsky learned about Wards struggles in late 2023 and asked Gov. J.B. Pritzkers office to help. Public records show that Emily Miller, one of the governors senior advisers, reached out to a Meta lobbyist and requested Berkleys account be deactivated. The page was removed almost immediately, raising questions about equal access and the social networks efforts to protect users without political connections. Miller told Meta officials that the company had to do better and requested a meeting to discuss ways to make it easier for people to seek account suspensions, according to emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. It is troubling to us that a woman who was being so clearly harassed, and whose abusive partner was offering money to strangers to stalk her children, tried for so long to have the content removed but was unsuccessful, Miller wrote. When the Governors office stepped in to escalate on her behalf, the content was quickly found to violate community standards and the content was removed. This woman and her attorney had written communication with five Meta employees, none of whom could or would help them. The governors office declined to comment. A Meta spokesman said the company could not discuss specific cases. Berkley reacted to the suspension by posting his offers for photographs and videos on other Facebook accounts he managed. After he thanked followers for sending him a video of his daughters at a party this past April, Miller sent another scathing email to Meta officials. The Governors office does not have time to keep people safe on Metas platform, she wrote. Meta has to figure out how to prevent people from offering money for videos of children that show their location either directly with tagging or indirectly through context clues. Meta must make this stop. Meta has, quite literally, all of the data it needs to fix this. Meta responded by suspending all accounts connected to Berkley, which he says has hurt his business. After the pages were removed, a website called americasworstmother.com popped up, featuring a computer-generated image of Ward wearing an orange prison uniform, as well as her personal cellphone number and her business email address. It is unclear who owns or manages the site, as most of that information has been redacted from its registration. Ward, for her part, says she is grateful to the Pritzker administration for intervening, but she worries about the women who dont have a way to reach the governors staff. Advocates share those concerns, saying people with access even through a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of Wards attorney shouldnt be the only ones to have protection. It sounds odd to say given everything she has been through, but Dominique is one of the lucky ones, said Smith, former CEO of the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She has an attorney who is providing legal assistance for free and who is fighting for her. She had a way to reach the governors office. Most women arent so lucky. Theyre suffering alone. Despite the support, Ward doesnt know how this situation will end and it frightens her. Shes not sure if shell ever feel safe again or when shell be able to stop looking over her shoulder in public. One thing I wont do? I wont be silent about this, she said. I will keep talking. I will keep telling my story. She shared her story recently at a breakfast to raise awareness for domestic violence. Before Ward spoke, the moderator asked the audience not to take pictures or post about her speech on social media. Outside the banquet room, a police officer sat watching the entrance because Berkley had made reference to the event on Facebook a few days earlier. He never showed, but he clearly had someone there taking notes. In an interview with the Tribune, he quoted parts of Wards presentation verbatim and wove details of her talk into the conversation. He lost his Facebook accounts on the same day of the speech, but he says the banishment will not stop him. He vows to keep his so-called technological war going, with plans to branch out to other platforms and rebuild his audience. This ends, he says, with me getting my kids back. Theres no other option. Ward also feels like she has no other options. She will keep pushing police and prosecutors to treat electronic harassment more seriously. People tell me just figure out a way to live with it. No, no, no, I wont do that, she said. I refuse to live with it. I refuse to let my daughters live with it. This has to stop now. I want him to do whatever he decides to do: Nancy Pelosi, when asked whether Joe Biden's has her support to run. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday declined to endorse President Joe Biden's candidacy, as several Democrats call for him to step down and more express concerns. "Does he have your support to be the head of the Democrat ticket as long as the president had the present?" MSNBCs Jonathan Lemire asked the California Democrat in an interview on the show "Morning Joe." Its up to the president to decide if hes going to run," Pelosi said. "Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. I think overwhelming support of the caucus it's not for me to say, I'm not the head of the caucus anymore, but he's beloved, he is respected, and people want him to make that decision, Pelosi added. But Lemire pushed Pelosi, noting that Biden was adamant that he was not going anywhere. He has said he has made the decision. He has said firmly this week, he is going to run," Lemire said. "Do you want him to run?" I want him to do whatever he decides to do, Pelosi responded. On Tuesday, Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey was the seventh House Democrat to call on Biden to step down, and Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado became the first Democratic senator to publicly predict Biden will lose the presidential election to Donald Trump. The University of Minnesota is searching for donors who can provide $10.5 million to cover the costs of its presidential mansion, saying the historic home has a beloved place in U history but public money could be better spent on other causes. "This really strikes, I think, the balance of keeping a property that has so much value, not just financially, but a lot of different connections to the university and really thinking about the budget, how to make it work," Regent Bo Thao-Urabe said during a meeting Wednesday. Overlooking the Mississippi River in St. Paul, Eastcliff has served as the backdrop for weddings, graduations, protests and a visit from the Dalai Lama. It's currently serving as a temporary home for Gov. Tim Walz and his family while their state-owned mansion undergoes renovations. But the number of events held at Eastcliff decreased during the coronavirus pandemic, prompting some U leaders to question whether it was time to sell the building, which is valued at about $2.6 million. Instead, a task force of U employees and a leader for the University of Minnesota Foundation recommended the U seek donations to cover the cost of renovations and Eastcliff operations. On Wednesday, regents seemed to agreed; they'll vote at a future meeting on whether to move head with the fundraising drive. The task force anticipates the U foundation will need a $4.5 million endowment to cover $200,000 in operating expenses each year, and $6 million to cover repairs, security and other updates needed in the next decade. The U will continue to contribute about $100,000 each year. The mansion was constructed in the early 1920s for lumber magnate Edward Brooks. He and his wife, Markell, entertained a number of famous guests there, including Helen Keller, Katherine Hepburn and Clark Gable, according to records kept by the National Register of Historic Places. In 1958, four years after Edward Brooks died, the family donated the mansion to the University of Minnesota to serve as a new home for its president. The university's previous presidential home, Pillsbury House, had been constructed in 1877 and was by then in need of renovation. A feasibility study found "that sufficient private funds can be raised over five years to transition Eastcliff away from University operating and capital support," according to a task force report. It left open the possibility that regents could reconsider the building's fate, if donations don't come through. The state's lease for Eastcliff runs through September but includes options to extend through the end of the year. Curtis Yoakum, assistant commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Administration, said the $12.8 million construction project on the governor's mansion is on track to be completed by the end of the year, but officials haven't yet finalized the governor's schedule for moving back. Data from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) 2023 Washington crime report revealed crimes against people, crimes against property, and violent crimes have each decreased overall while crimes against society including hate crimes and car thefts have gone up since last year. The report comes as Washington has the least amount of commissioned officers in the country per capita, according to FBI data compiled by the WASPC. The state of Washington ranked 51st out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia for the number of officers per thousand residents. WASPC Executive Director Steve Strachan said during a press session Tuesday that Washington has approximately 10,700 law enforcement officers. If the state were to reach the national average of 2.31 officers per capita, it would need to hire 8,000 more officers. Washington crime report shows hate crimes have increased Washingtons crimes statistically against society have gone up. Crimes against society include animal cruelty, drug/narcotic violations, drug equipment violations, pornography/obscene material, prostitution, weapon law violations, and gambling offenses. The data showed one of these types of offenses is committed every 24.5 minutes. According to the same data, drug violations are occurring every 47.7 minutes. For drug/narcotic violations, the majority of violations are possession (67.2%) and consumption (18.6%). Hate crimes increased by 6%, according to WASPC data with African Americans, Jewish, disabled people, transgender people and people in the LGBTQ+ community the most affected by the increase in hate crimes. Strachan said that within hate crimes, aggravated assault where the victim suffers injuries went up 11%. These are severe assaults and we had 79 of those last year related to hate crimes in the state of Washington, he said. That is a number that should be very concerning to us. State vehicle theft surges Car theft remains one of the regions most persistent problems, with the total amount of car thefts increasing by 5.4% from 2022 to 2023. Strachan said that 54,187 vehicles were stolen in 2023, more than 6,700 more than in 2022. Car thefts have increased by 112% since 2019. People have blamed the rise in thefts on the Washington state pursuit law and the Kia Boyz trend. Crimes against people: A person is murdered every day Crimes against people including murder, manslaughter, rape, assault, and human trafficking among others occurred every 4.7 minutes in 2023, while crime against property occurred every 90 seconds. In comparison, Strachan noted that violent crime fell 5.5% overall. However, the numbers are far from 2019 levels. Were seeing some promising numbers in crime rates and crime numbers in the state of Washington, but we are nowhere near pre-pandemic levels, Strachan said. While crimes against people have gone down slightly 0.6% to be exact according to the published data people are being murdered every day within the state. To be more specific, there is one murder every 23.3 hours. 2023 showed some slight progress with 376 reported murders compared to 399 the year before. To compare, Oregons murder rate saw less than half of Washingtons with 177 murders in 2023, according to the State of Oregons website. However, in California, there were 1,485 arrests for homicides in 2022, as reported by the State of California. Of the crimes against people, white people saw the most activity. In 2023, 227 white people were murdered, 87 Black, 26 Asian, 12 American Indian/Alaskan Native, 3 Native Hawaiin/Pacific Islander, and 21 labeled as unknown race. The offense with the largest victim pool was simple assault, of which 36,864 white people were simply assaulted, 5,867 Black people, 1,913 Asian, 892 American Indian/Alaskan Native, 363 Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and 5,031 labeled as unknown race. According to Washingtons Office of Financial Management in 2022, 72% of Washingtons population was white, 4.5% was Black, 10% was Asian, 2% was American Indian/Alaskan Native, 1% was Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and 10% was two or more races. More young people are committing crimes in Washington Looking at arrest data, the top crimes for juveniles in Washington in 2023 were liquor law violations, drunkness, robbery, and vehicle theft. Strachan believes more juveniles are living a life of crime. More than 20% of arrestees for motor vehicle theft in 2023 were juveniles, he said. And weve seen an increase just from 2022 to 2023 of 24% in juveniles arrested. Of those who committed crimes last year, 100,880 were men, 34,635 were women and 116 had an unknown gender. The crime with the most reported arrests was for DUI. More than 17,000 male drivers were cited for a DUI in 2023, compared to 5,800 women. Looking further at overall data, arrests by race, relationships The race who was the most arrested was white with 105,848 arrests in 2023, 20,126 arrests were Black, 5,164 were Asian, 4,503 were American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 6,835 were unknown. The most common relationships of offenders with victims were boyfriend/girlfriend and acquaintances, showing the person most likely to hurt you is someone you already know. However, a stranger was the third most common, and many relationships were unreported. As of July 2024, the U.S. stock market continues to exhibit resilience, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite reaching new heights amid anticipations of rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. In this climate, growth companies with high insider ownership can be particularly intriguing, as significant insider stakes often signal confidence in the company's future prospects from those who know it best. Top 10 Growth Companies With High Insider Ownership In The United States Name Insider Ownership Earnings Growth GigaCloud Technology (NasdaqGM:GCT) 25.9% 21.3% PDD Holdings (NasdaqGS:PDD) 32.1% 23.3% Atour Lifestyle Holdings (NasdaqGS:ATAT) 26% 22.1% Super Micro Computer (NasdaqGS:SMCI) 14.3% 40.2% Bridge Investment Group Holdings (NYSE:BRDG) 11.6% 98.2% Duolingo (NasdaqGS:DUOL) 15% 48.1% Credo Technology Group Holding (NasdaqGS:CRDO) 14.7% 60.9% Carlyle Group (NasdaqGS:CG) 29.2% 23.6% EHang Holdings (NasdaqGM:EH) 32.8% 74.3% BBB Foods (NYSE:TBBB) 22.9% 94.7% Click here to see the full list of 179 stocks from our Fast Growing US Companies With High Insider Ownership screener. Below we spotlight a couple of our favorites from our exclusive screener. Simply Wall St Growth Rating: Overview: LifeMD, Inc. is a direct-to-patient telehealth company in the United States, facilitating connections between consumers and healthcare professionals, with a market capitalization of approximately $279.54 million. Operations: The company generates revenue primarily through two segments: Telehealth, which brought in $108.79 million, and Worksimpli, contributing $54.77 million. Insider Ownership: 13.1% LifeMD, recently added to multiple Russell indexes, demonstrates a robust growth trajectory with expected revenue increases and a forecast to turn profitable within three years. Despite recent insider selling, its strategic expansions into virtual healthcare and partnerships for advanced health monitoring underline its innovative edge. However, investors should note the high volatility in its share price and recent earnings showing a widening net loss of US$6.77 million from last year's US$4.01 million. NasdaqGM:LFMD Ownership Breakdown as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Growth Rating: Overview: Oddity Tech Ltd. is a consumer tech company that develops digital-first brands in the beauty and wellness sectors, operating both in the United States and internationally, with a market cap of approximately $2.30 billion. Story continues Operations: The company's revenue from personal products amounts to approximately $554.66 million. Insider Ownership: 29.3% Oddity Tech, with high insider ownership, shows promising growth prospects. Recently, the company raised its 2024 revenue guidance to between US$626 million and US$635 million and initiated a substantial share repurchase program valued at up to US$150 million. Despite a highly volatile share price in recent months, Oddity Tech's earnings have grown significantly over the past year by 87.8%. The firm's revenue is expected to grow at 17.3% per year, outpacing the U.S market average of 8.7%. However, its forecasted annual profit growth is below significant levels at 19% per year. NasdaqGM:ODD Earnings and Revenue Growth as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Growth Rating: Overview: Warby Parker Inc. operates in the United States and Canada, specializing in the provision of eyewear products, with a market capitalization of approximately $1.84 billion. Operations: The company generates revenue primarily from the sale of optical supplies, totaling approximately $697.80 million. Insider Ownership: 20% Warby Parker, characterized by high insider ownership, has shown resilience with a revised 2024 revenue forecast between US$753 million and US$761 million, indicating a growth of about 12.5% to 13.5% year-over-year. Despite recent losses narrowing significantly in Q1 2024 compared to the previous year, the company still faces challenges in achieving profitability. However, insider transactions over the past three months suggest confidence among key stakeholders, with more shares purchased than sold. NYSE:WRBY Ownership Breakdown as at Jul 2024 Next Steps Dive into all 179 of the Fast Growing US Companies With High Insider Ownership we have identified here. Have you diversified into these companies? Leverage the power of Simply Wall St's portfolio to keep a close eye on market movements affecting your investments. Streamline your investment strategy with Simply Wall St's app for free and benefit from extensive research on stocks across all corners of the world. Curious About Other Options? 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.The analysis only considers stock directly held by insiders. It does not include indirectly owned stock through other vehicles such as corporate and/or trust entities. All forecast revenue and earnings growth rates quoted are in terms of annualised (per annum) growth rates over 1-3 years. Companies discussed in this article include NasdaqGM:LFMD NasdaqGM:ODD and NYSE:WRBY. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com President Joe Bidens debate debacle has left Washingtonians paralyzed in a collective state of anxiety over fear of the unknown. Many, it seems, are eating, drinking, texting or crying their way through a strange darkness, hoping a feeble lightbulb will shine brightly enough at least to save them from a life sentence at Gitmo. It feels akin to the disorienting shock of Donald Trumps election in 2016, which is triggering stress, according to Paul Sheesley, a Washington-based psychotherapist whose clients include CEOs, politicians, lobbyists and diplomats. Sheesley told The Daily Beast that given Bidens disastrous debate performance, people are concerned that the person they may be cheering for, Biden specifically, may not win the presidency, much less the Democratic nomination. So there is definitely a mental health reaction to that, he said, adding that many of his clients are really feeling blindsided and really uncertain. No longer able to ignore what they had already feared, they hang on Bidens every word as if hes a visiting great uncle from their parents home country whose language they dont speak. Democrats Give Joe Biden Just Hours to Save His Second Term Run Theres suddenly this rapt interest in watching and listening to everything Joe Biden says, and gauging how well hes doing, Washington social doyenne Juleanna Glover told The Daily Beast. And plenty of anguished politicos have taken to the bottle. A regular client at Violet Salon in Washingtons tony Georgetown neighborhood didnt even hide it at a recent visit. She was really upset. Weve never seen her drunk. That was really surprising, Sydney Darko, a Violet employee, told The Daily Beast. In a city where residents livelihoods, careers and identities are tightly bound to politics, that tipsy salon regular isnt the only one suffering post-debate stress. Even senators are reportedly drowning their sorrows in vodka cranberries. Linda Roth, the founder and CEO of the public relations firm Linda Roth Associates, sees the collective stress. That debate caused more questions than answers, which leads to a lot of anxiety, she said in an interview. Roth, who represents D.C-area restaurants and hotels, said that until debate night, many of her clients had the tacit assumption that Biden would win reelection. There was comfort to that predictability. In 2016, Trumps victory caused chaos, with booked-out venues scrambling to cancel Democratic reservations to make room for Republican ones. President Joe Biden walks offstage with first lady Dr. Jill Biden at the conclusion of his debate with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Reuters/Brian Snyder This time around, the D.C. hospitality industry had been anticipating another four years of doing business with familiar contacts in and around the Biden administration. Then, less than two weeks ago, it got thrown for a loop. I cant tell you how many people I know that said, I didnt stay till the end. I had to walk away. It was just way too uncomfortable, Roth said of the presidents confused and halting demeanor. Democratic political operatives, even those who worked to get Biden elected, have been among the loudest voices panicking about his debate performance, with several calling on him to end his campaign. Former Obama adviser David Axelrod posted that Biden is dangerously out-of-touch with the concerns people have about his [capacities] moving forward and his standing in this race. Veteran Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen piled on. If he doesnt step down to increase our chances of winning, then yeah, well have to circle the wagons, and I am a soldier against Trump, but please stop pretending or casting blame, she wrote. President Biden and his behavior alone is responsible for this problemnot the voters, not the media, not his opponents, not the party and not the elite. At Cafe Milano, the see-and-be-seen Italian mainstay frequented by Washingtons wealthy and powerful, patrons watched the anxiety playing out on TVs at the bar, one tuned to CNN, the other to Fox News. But one of them told The Daily Beast she hadnt even watched the debate. Theres no point to it, said Francoise Brito, a Washingtononian whose family was in the newspaper business but doesnt follow much media anymore. They just repeat the same things. Another diner, retired labor lawyer Ron Gladney, watched part of the Trump-Biden faceoff. I wasnt happy with Bidens performance, he said. He couldnt pronounce evenyou know, if theres one thing he should know about, it is, how do I put this he should know about pension issues and about what he stands for and why hes going afterI sound like Biden now. Which is primarily my rationale. If I cant run for president, and Im three years younger than he is, how can he run? Despite being what he described as a left-of-center Democrat, he said hes not necessarily going to vote for Biden and is considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr., even though he doesnt like the independents views on vaccines. Were going to elect Trump and then a bunch of whack jobs, he predicted. Thats great. Gladney, such a regular at Cafe Milano that the bartender knew to start him with an old fashioned and a beef carpaccio, said he was ready to leave it all behind. Im already planninglisten, lets move to Iceland, he said. Im ready to go. 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. How To Watch Alec Baldwins Rust Trial In New Mexico Alec Baldwin is finally standing trial for involuntary manslaughter in New Mexico nearly three years after the customized Colt .45 he held on the set of the indie Western Rust shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in March. She was also charged with evidence tampering, but the split verdict she received lowered the three-year prison sentence she faced; she is now serving 18 months in a New Mexico state prison. More from Deadline Baldwin first appeared at Santa Fes First Judicial District Courthouse for the trial on Monday for a pre-trial hearing, followed by jury selection Tuesday. RELATED: Alec Baldwin Racks Up Rust Trial Win; Defendants Co-Producer Role Now Not Part Of Involuntary Manslaughter Case For details on how to watch Alec Baldwins Rust trial live, read on. When does Alec Baldwins Rust trial start? The trial began Tuesday, July 9, with the selection of the jury. Opening statements begin July 10. Court will gavel into session each day at 8:30 a.m. MT/7:30 a.m. PT. How long is Alec Baldwins Rust trial? Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer aims to wrap up the process by July 19. The pool of jurors contained almost 80 people from which to select 12, plus alternates. Where can I watch Alec Baldwins Rust trial? Court TV will provide a live feed starting July 10. The network will also provide pool coverage to media outlets. Tuesdays jury selection was not livestreamed. The broadcasting networks website will also have coverage of the trials developments. Court TV also produced a 45-minute documentary special, The Case Against Alec Baldwin, that features phone calls to 9-1-1 on the day of the shooting as well as the aftermath of October 21, 2021. What does Alec Baldwin face in the Rust trial? The actors lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter involves negligent use of a firearm, in addition to a charge of involuntary manslaughter without due caution or circumspection. The jury only has to return one verdict on one count at the end of the trial. Should Baldwin be found guilty, he could face up to 18 months in jail dictated by the maximum New Mexico prison sentence as well as $5000 in fines. RELATED: Rust Armorer Guilty Of Involuntary Manslaughter In Fatal Shooting Of Halyna Hutchins Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Donald Trump gave a particularly incoherent speech during a recent rally, as he rattled through a lengthy list of odd grievances that didnt quite ring true, devoid of some very necessary segues. In front of a crowd of about 700 people (although Trump claimed it was 45,000) in Doral, Florida, on Tuesday, the former president hit all of the normal beats of his campaign trail speeches, and then some. Trump attacked President Joe Biden for his weak performance in the presidential debate last month, and for many of his policies. He dropped Kamala Harriss name more than a few times, arguing that it doesnt matter who the Democrats candidate is, he will beat anyone in a thundering landslide. Over sweeping music, Trump went for a tear-jerking moment, only to suddenly veer into complaining about something else. Its included in full because its just that wild. We will institute the powerful death penalty for drug dealers, where each dealer is responsible for the death, during their lives, of 500 people or more, he said. Mothers will never again be forced to watch their children overdosing in hosp and we will never allow mothers to watch their child hopelessly dying in their arms screaming, What can I do, what can I do? Help me God, what can I do? We are a nation whose once revered airports are a dirty, crowded mess, Trump continued, pivoting suddenly. You sit and wait for hours and then are notified that the plane wont leave, that they have no idea when they will. Where ticket prices have tripled. They dont have the pilots to fly the planes, they dont seek qualified air traffic controllers, and they just dont know what the hell they are doing. Trump in Doral: "Mothers will never again be forced to watch their children overdosing and hosp--lee. And we will never allow mothers to watch their child hopelessly dying in their arms, screaming, 'What can I do? What can I do? Help me God, what can I do?' We are a nation whose pic.twitter.com/kESw73FQ44 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 10, 2024 From the death penalty to crying mothers and crappy airports, if Trump was hoping for an emotional moment, he seems to have missed it by a mile. His breakneck pace and awkward delivery suggests that the presumptive Republican nominee doesnt actually care about a single one of his randomly assembled points. How can anyone take him seriously when he speeds from his often-repeated, baseless claims about immigrants to whining that as a country, We dont eat bacon anymore? Trump continued to rely on blatant fearmongering to excite his supporters, who grew sleepy and disinterested as the former president rattled on through his 75-minute speech, according to The Guardian. We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation in Washington, D.C., and clean it up, renovate it, and rebuild our capital city, so that it is no longer a nightmare of murder and crime. But rather it will become the most beautiful capital anywhere in the world, Trump said. Right now, if you leave Florida, Oh, lets go, darling, lets look at the Jefferson Memorial, lets look at the Washington Monument, lets go and look at some of the beautiful scenes, and you end up getting shot, mugged, raped, he warned, promising that hed run the city tough and smart. Trump in Doral: "We will take over the horribly run capital of our country in Washington DC ... right now if you leave Florida -- 'oh, let's go darling, let's look at the Jefferson Memorial' ... and you end up getting shot, mugged, raped. We're gonna take over our capital and pic.twitter.com/NFnuQSMnoq Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 10, 2024 The violent crime rate in D.C. has dropped 30 percent since 2023, according to the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia. But of course, Trump is unconcerned with actual crime statistics. Instead, hes interested in keeping his base in red states ignorant, fearful, and angry about life in blue states. BEACON, N.Y. (WETM) The man convicted of murdering a 15-year-old girl in 2000 in Watkins Glen was denied parole once again, and wont be eligible for several years. According to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), Joshua Horein was seen by the parole board on June 20, 2024, and was denied. Horein had a similar denial in April at the Fishkill Correctional Facility in Dutchess County, New York. Watkins Glen 2000 teen killer denied parole again; where he belongs says DA This marks another denial in Horeins case where he was convicted of murdering 15-year-old Amber Brockway in Watkins Glen on August 5, 2000. Horein, who was 16 at the time and is now 39, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on March 9, 2001, and was given a sentence of 20 years to life in prison. Horein was first eligible for parole in 2019 and has been denied every time since becoming eligible. In his April appearance, the parole commissioners said that Horein was still blaming the victim and even wrote Borckways mother an apology letter that could have been construed as intimidation. The parole commissioners added that Horein wrote a letter to Schuyler County District Attorney Joseph Fazzary that blamed him and the legal system for putting a 16-year-old in prison for life. The commissioners said there were concerns about Horeins lack of truthfulness during the April hearing, and added that they didnt believe his rehabilitation was complete. Horein wont be eligible for parole again until June 2026. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WETM - MyTwinTiers.com. Two women Destiny Wells and Beth White are vying for the Democratic nod on Saturday, hoping to face to incumbent AG Todd Rokita in November. (Getty Images) On Saturday, the Indiana Democratic Party will host its own convention to nominate its candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general similar to the Republican Partys convention last month in which delegates chose Noblesville pastor Micah Beckwith over party favorite Julie McGuire. Two women have stepped up as candidates for attorney general: Lt. Col. Destiny Wells and former county clerk Beth White. Both described the actions of the offices current inhabitant Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita as a disservice to Hoosiers and decried his partisan approach to the largely technocratic office. Hes not doing what he can be doing or could be doing to protect people, White said. I think that the Attorney Generals Office has just been politicized by Todd Rokita in a way thats not helpful to Hoosiers. Even advisories have taken a turn for the political, White said, including one on the use of preferred pronouns in the workplace. Wells previously worked in the office under former Attorney General Curtis Hill. Morale under both officeholders has fallen after repeated controversies, she said, and dozens of experienced attorneys have left to pursue other opportunities. I think the more partisan the office has gotten (and) leadership having a partisan agenda really degrades the work of the attorneys, Wells said. Recruiting the next level of attorneys and improving the health of the office would be two of the biggest challenges, Wells said, upon assuming office. But there are also transformative opportunities, like adding a position to oversee labor law violations like the Illinois Attorney Generals Office. We need to reimagine how that office can better help Hoosiers, Wells said. Candidate particulars Wells said her journey in politics was always about the Office of Attorney General, where she was a deputy attorney general for government litigation. But in 2020, Wells said she was too new to run for the office, instead opting to run for secretary of state in 2022 a race she lost on a 54-40 vote to current officeholder Diego Morales. Im really glad I did that because that was the preparation I needed to actually run for attorney general, Wells said. One of the reasons that 2024 will be different from 2022, Wells said, was because of the timing of the election with national races. In 2022, Morales was one of many right-wing candidates and nobody was focused on Indiana. But in 2024, just a dozen states have attorney general elections and the Democratic Attorneys General Association has identified Indiana as a potential flip in an undated DAGA memo. Sabatos Crystal Ball has moved the race from Safe Republican to Lean Republican, signaling weakened support for the incumbent after a public reprimand following his actions in a case involving an Indianapolis doctor who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim. It would be a heavy lift for any Democrat to beat Rokita no Democrat has won a statewide contest in Indiana since 2012 but a Democratic win is no longer outside the realm of possibility, Sabotos Crystal Ball concludes. Wells enlisted in the Army National Guard at 19, working her way up to lieutenant colonel a position she has held since 2003, according to her LinkedIn. Currently, she holds a position as the Indiana Democratic Partys deputy chair for coalitions and expansion. White, on the other hand, is the president and CEO of the Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault and Human Trafficking but previously won back-to-back terms as Marion County Clerk between 2006 and 2014. My career has provided tremendous opportunities, not only for me to work and have (experience in) those different spaces, but also for me to understand the relationship between federal government, state government (and) local government, White said. She likened a campaign to a long job interview but said she had what it took to actually execute those duties once in office. All of those things really have helped prepared me. Not only to be an effective leader as an attorney general but also to understand the relationships that the attorney general has to navigate. And I have many of those relationships already, White said. On Todd Rokita Both candidates said that friends within state government have reported simple tasks taking an inordinate amount of time if the Office of the Attorney General is involved, such as approving contracts or routine legal work. Some attorneys have fled the office, which has several expensive contracts with outside attorneys for work that could be handled by state employees. When I went in there, I was surrounded by all these people who had these enormous dockets which I eventually had but everybody was very helpful. It was very much a team effort. But Wells said the office lacked leadership at the top levels, noting that she only saw Hill once during her tenure. Everything felt like it was left until the last minute, she said including multimillion dollar settlements while one-on-one mentoring partnerships and staff training were left to the wayside. All these things that have been instilled in me from being a senior officer in the military now were absent. These are just basic principles I would expect to also see in corporate America, Wells said. Though Wells left the office before the transition, she said she still hears about the same lack of morale and absent leadership in the office under Rokita due to his partisan approach. For instance, though Rokita has put out several versions of a Parent Bill of Rights, Wells said he has overlooked children who are sometimes harmed by those very decisions. During her time practicing family law, Wells said she saw parents who opted to homeschool their children but neglected to teach them age-appropriate basics. I then have seven- and eight-year-olds who, because their moms took them out, do not know how to read. They do not know how to write Administrators come in and say theyve been socialized like theyre in a cage, Wells recalled. White said Rokita has extreme positions on reproductive choice, abortion rights, medical privacy or the lack thereof and gender identity. We, the people of Indiana, have got to have an attorney general whos behaving differently, White said. Im motivated by seeing whats happening and being discouraged and, frankly, full of a little bit of despair. And I decided to channel my despair into action. With Whites position combating sexual assault and human trafficking, the offices opposition to Title IX changes that included updated language on gender identity hurt the college students who needed her services. Indiana told its schools to ignore those guidelines, which also includes requirements for addressing sexual violence, serving pregnant or breastfeeding parents and more. Its an ideological battle that he is fighting that is not helping it is hurting, White said. Todd Rokita doesnt care about (those things), because hes decided that we should just ignore the federal regulations, White said. he needs to stop getting involved in ideological battles that have nothing to do with making Hoosier lives better. For White, politics is a combination of timing, preparation and luck and timing plays a crucial role due to the actions of Rokita, she said. Elections are about choice and the people of Indiana are going to have a very stark choice, even if I dont succeed at the convention. The other convention race The race between Wells and White wont be the only contest on Saturdays calendar four other Hoosier politicians have thrown their hats in the ring to compete alongside Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jennifer McCormick. McCormicks top choice, former state Rep. Terry Goodin, was controversial for some due to his conservative voting record on abortion and gay marriage seemingly at odds with McCormicks campaign focus on reproductive choice. Three others have filed to challenge Goodin: perennial candidate Bob Kern, Indianapolis Clif Marsiglio and Tammie Dixon-Tatum, who fell short on ballot signatures when running to challenge McCormick. Notably, the Indiana Democratic Party doesnt allow contenders to address delegates unless theyve been nominated by a delegate and receive a second from another delegate. At least one candidate has reportedly struggled to find two supporting delegates. It has been a rule of the convention for decades that a candidate for state office must be nominated by a delegate and a second from a separate delegate on the floor in order to have their name placed on the ballot for nomination. This remains the case for this convention and the rules havent been altered this year in that regard at all, Democratic spokesperson Sam Barloga told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. Signs are allowed in the hall or on the floor but not behind candidates as they speak. The convention is set to be held at the Indiana Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis on Saturday afternoon. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX West Virginia police chief responsible for hiring of officer who killed Tamir Rice steps down FILE - In a Monday, Dec. 1, 2014 file photo, Tomiko Shine holds up a picture of Tamir Rice during a protest in Washington, D.C. Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who shot and killed Tamir Rice and ultimately was fired, resigned Monday, July 1, 2024, from a police department in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. White Sulphur Mayor Kathy Glover said Loehmann had been hired as a probationary officer at the recommendation of the small towns police chief. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File) WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. (AP) A West Virginia police chief responsible for the hiring of a former Cleveland officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 has stepped down. White Sulphur Springs Police Chief D.S. Teubert returned to his former job as a patrolman, WVVA-TV reported. Mayor Kathy Glover said Teubert had recommended the hiring of Timothy Loehmann as a probationary officer. Loehmann resigned from the White Sulphur Springs police force last week. It marked the third time in six years that Loehmann had left a small police department amid backlash shortly after he had been hired. I did not know who he was, and I did not have all of the information that should have been given, Glover said at a town council meeting Monday night. It was something we were unaware of and not prepared for all the way around. Glover said she also apologized to the family of Rice. Rice, who was Black, was playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in Cleveland on Nov. 22, 2014, when he was shot and killed by Loehmann seconds after Loehmann and his partner arrived. The officers, who are white, told investigators Loehmann had shouted three times at Tamir to raise his hands. The shooting sparked community protests about police treatment of Black people, especially after a grand jury decided not to indict Loehmann or his partner. Cleveland settled a lawsuit over Tamirs death for $6 million, and the city ultimately fired Loehmann for having lied on his application to become a police officer. Loehmann later landed a part-time position with a police department in the southeast Ohio village of Bellaire in October 2018 but withdrew his application days later after Tamirs mother, Samaria, and others criticized the hiring. In July 2022, he was sworn in as the lone police officer in Tioga a community of about 600 in rural north-central Pennsylvania, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) from Cleveland but left without having worked a single shift amid backlash and media coverage over his hiring. White Sulphur Springs Deputy Police Chief Julian R. Byer Jr. has been sworn in as the new police chief. A call to the White Sulphur Springs police department went unanswered Wednesday. Glover did not immediately return a telephone message. White Sulphur Springs is home to the posh Greenbrier resort, owned by Republican Gov. Jim Justice in southeastern West Virginia along the Virginia border. Westchester Board of Legislators Chairman Vedat Gashi, who turned a co-op he obtained under a New York City affordable housing program into part of his real-estate investment portfolio, will sell the unit, following a probe by the administration of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The pending sale comes nine months after a Tax Watch investigation detailed how Gashi and his wife purchased the four-bedroom co-op at 72 West 88th St. on Manhattans Upper West Side in 2015, and subsequently sublet the unit over several years in apparent violation of city regulations. The status of Gashi's unit mobilized New York City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, who brought pressure on the city to investigate Gashi's co-op, raising questions about the city's Housing Development Fund Corporation program. In a letter sent Monday to New York City Housing Commissioner Adolfo Carrion, Brewer asked whether someone like Gashi can be subject to penalties for violating HDFC income requirements, residency regulations and sublet rules. She also asked about the maximum rent Gashi could charge for his sublet, and whether tenants had recourse if they were overcharged. Gashi has declined to disclose how much he charged his tenants. Brewer does not want Gashi to profit from the sale. "I do not want to see Mr. Gashi walk away with a profit," Brewer wrote. Westchester County Board of Legislators Chair Vedat Gashi, D-Yorktown, will sell his 4-bedroom affordable co-op on 72 W. 88th St. in Manhattan following a probe by the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and criticism from NYC City Councilwoman Gale Brewer. Affordable unit supposed to be primary residence Gashi, a real estate lawyer, bought the unit in a co-operative apartment building organized through the citys HDFC program, designed to provide housing ownership possibilities for low-income New Yorkers. The Gashis were required to maintain their primary residence at the co-op and were restricted to subletting it for 18 months over a five-year period. But the Gashis moved to Yorktown in 2017 and have sublet the apartment for several years, with Gashi listing it as an income property on Westchester County ethics filings while he pursued his political career in Westchester. Gashi claimed he had permission to do so from the co-op board, on which he served as secretary. But Gashi never made public such an agreement. Mr. Gashi has confirmed to the agency that hes making steps to turnover the apartment back to the co-op board, said HPD spokeswoman Ilana Maier. We are working with Mr. Gashi and the board to hopefully find the current residents alternative housing. Gashi, through his legislative chief of staff, Dylan Tragni, said he plans to put the unit back on the market. The Gashi family is in the process of selling the apartment, said Tragni. Gale Brewer, a New York City Councilwoman, stands across the street from an apartment building at 72 W. 88th Street in Manhattan July 3, 2024. Vedat Gashi, Chairman of the Westchester County Board of Legislators owns a four-bedroom apartment in the building that he has rented out since 2019. Brewer has asked the city to enforce regulations that require owners to make the affordable coop their primary residence. The city has told Gashi he must give up ownership of the unit. Gashi's decision to sell comes as one of Gashis former Democratic colleagues on the county board, Chris Johnson, has found a buyer for his affordable condominium in Yonkers that the city forced him to put on the market in 2023. More: NYC probes Westchester county legislator's affordable co-op used as investment property Chris Johnson's affordable condo now in contract A Tax Watch investigation found that Johnson had rented his condominium, purchased through a city of Yonkers affordable housing program, after he and his wife had purchased a new home outside of Johnsons legislative district. Johnson subsequently resigned from the county board. The Yonkers program also required that an owner make the affordable unit their primary residence. Subletting the condominium was prohibited. Johnsons 1.5-bedroom apartment at 421 N. Broadway is under contract for $251,000, according to Yonkers spokeswoman Christina Gilmartin. More: Chris Johnson resigns as Westchester legislator, ending need for residency investigation Gale Brewer, a former Manhattan borough president, got angry Gashis profiteering off New York City's affordable housing program angered Brewer, whose cramped district office is on the same block as the apartment complex that includes Gashi's unit. After the Tax Watch column about Gashi's apartment in September, Brewer followed up with Housing Development Fund Corporation, criticizing Gashis flaunting of city housing regulations while pushing the city to crack down on the abuse. She said that affordable housing is in great demand in Manhattan, especially in her district, where four-bedroom apartments can rent for as much as $20,000 a month, according to current listings. Vedat Gashi, Chairman of the Westchester County Board of Legislators owns a four-bedroom apartment in a building at 72 W. 88th Street in Manhattan, photographed July 3, 2024. Gale Brewer, a New York City Councilwoman, has asked the city to enforce regulations that require owners to make the affordable coop their primary residence. The city has told Gashi he must give up ownership of the unit. During an interview outside the building in early July, Brewer said it was time for Gashi to put the unit back on the market because he no longer lived there. Its outrageous that hes someone who is not living in the apartment, said Brewer, a former Manhattan borough president. Number 2, hes making money off it, and number 3, hes an elected official in Westchester, who should have known better. Brewer said every affordable unit should be made available to income-eligible New Yorkers. We are desperate for affordable housing, so every unit counts, said Brewer. Dan Branda raised issue in campaign Among Gashis biggest critics in 2023 was Dan Branda, a Somers Republican who unsuccessfully challenged him in the 2023 election. Branda said it appears that Gashi profited off his abuse of the affordable housing program. After a decade benefitting from substantial ill-gotten property tax breaks meant for low-income families, Mr. Gashi, a wealthy real estate lawyer and lawmaker has effectively exploited a system designed to support those in need, and walked away with a profit, Branda said. The city's Housing Development Fund Corporation provides sizable tax breaks to co-op shareholders as part of the programs mission to provide affordable home-purchase opportunities for city residents. The property-tax break delivers an exemption of 75% to shareholders, which in 2023 reduced the building's property taxes to $52,546, to be split among 12 co-op apartment owners and commercial tenants on Columbus Avenue. Gashi purchased the affordable apartment on West 88th Street for $849,000 in 2015. To qualify to purchase the apartment, buyers can earn no more than 120% of the area median income, which in 2015 was $82,950 for a couple and $103,600 for a family of 4. Nine years later, those limits are $149,160 for a couple and $186,360 for a family of 4. The program requires that 30% of any profits in the sale of HDFC units revert to the co-op for building repairs. In 2009, six years before Gashi bought the affordable unit, he was part of a limited liability corporation that paid $1.6 million for a 25-unit apartment building in the Bronx. He has family involved in real estate in Westchester and the Bronx. Civil rights attorney Craig Gurian, who forced Westchester into a landmark housing desegregation settlement in 2009, said Gashi was wrong to leverage his ownership of the affordable housing unit for personal gain. Clearly is something that should not have been done, said Gurian. Its an affront to the purpose of the program. It says very bad things about his judgment. Tragni did not respond to a request for comment about Gurian and Branda's criticisms. Sign up for Wilson's weekly newsletter for insights into his Tax Watch columns. David McKay Wilson writes about tax issues and government accountability. Follow him on Twitter @davidmckay415 or email him at dwilson3@lohud.com. This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Westchester chair Vedat Gashi, under fire, to sell NYC co-op Western F-16 fighter jets are on way to Ukraine and will be flying this summer The News More than 60 fighter jets are on their way to Ukraine and will be flying later this summer, the US, Denmark, and Netherlands announced Wednesday. The warplanes are among the most advanced weapons the West has provided to Ukraine; officials had initially ruled out transferring the jets to Kyiv, citing fears of Russian escalation. Belgium and Norway will also transfer F-16s, although these arent expected until later this year. Russias Monday strike on a Kyiv childrens hospital, which Western officials believe was likely timed as a warning from Putin to NATO, underscored Ukraines urgent need for air defenses. The country had asked for the jets to help it shoot down Russian missiles and glide bombs. Western countries have also committed to providing Ukraine with dozens of air defense systems, including at least four Patriot systems. Nico Olalia, a nurse at Cedars-Sinai, is one of the few out trans women in her profession in an industry where transgender people make up fewer than 1% of healthcare providers. (Jireh Deng / Los Angeles Times) Nico Olalia had just finished her initial nurse training in the Philippines when she realized her aspirations were growing bigger than her home archipelago. "There are a lot of trans Filipinos, but they're always known in the beauty industry, and they're very seldom found in the professional side," Olalia said. So she moved back to the United States, where she was born, for better career prospects. Today, she is a clinical nurse at Cedars-Sinai, one of the largest hospitals in Southern California, where she assists new hires and cares for patients in the neurology division. Olalia feels like it's a dream come true; her peers and patients respect her and welcome her contributions. Its a hope shared by a small but growing number of trans and nonbinary healthcare workers in the U.S. Yearly surveys of first-year medical students by the Assn. of American Medical Colleges show that the percentage identifying as transgender and gender nonconforming doubled from 0.7% in 2020 to 1.4% in 2023. These numbers align with the growing LGBTQ+ population in the United States. Today, younger generations are more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ than generations before. A national survey this year found that 28% of Gen Z respondents identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer. But that rise in LGBTQ+-identified youths and trans healthcare workers has coincided with escalating restrictions on gender-affirming care. Between 2022 and 2023, anti-trans legislation proposed across statehouses tripled, with a majority of the bills proposing restrictions on gender-affirming care. According to the Movement Advancement Project, at least half of the states exclude transgender-related healthcare for youths from their Medicaid programs, while only 22 explicitly cover it. U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, center, is shown at a transgender health event in Miami with Tatiana Williams, left, of Transinclusive Group and Arianna Inurritegui-Lint of Arianna's Center. (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press) "We've created medical refugees who have to leave their state to get that care," said U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, the first transgender person confirmed by the Senate to a high government post. Transgender medicine can be suicide prevention care. Its been shown in many studies that it improves the quality of life and can save lives for youth and adults, said Levine, a pediatrician specializing in adolescent care. When Levine was doing her medical residency at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City during the 1980s AIDS crisis, she saw friends and co-workers succumb to the epidemic an experience that has echoes in the discrimination she sees transgender people facing today, she said. One study from 2023 showed that 70% of transgender and gender nonconforming patients faced at least one negative interaction with a healthcare provider, ranging from an "unsolicited harmful opinion about gender identity to physical attacks and abuse." It was only in 2019 that the World Health Organization removed gender dysphoria from its list of mental health illnesses. Alex Keuroghlian, a clinical psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, directs training programs through the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center that educate healthcare providers across the country on gender-affirming care. Theyve noticed a double standard when it comes to the doubts that people raise against transgender healthcare. "Given how well resourced anti-trans political groups are, it can really distort the public discourse and make it harder to advance evidence-based, clinically sound practices," Keuroghlian said of the rampant misinformation theyve seen online. Mack Allen, an 18-year-old transgender high school student from Leavenworth, Kan., stands with other young advocates of LGBTQ+ rights after a rally at the state capitol in Topeka, Kan. (John Hanna / Associated Press) An uptick in the number of transgender-identifying youths seeking gender-affirming care sparked a theory that "social contagion" was influencing teens to experience "rapid-onset gender dysphoria." Some practitioners oppose this framing, and research published by the American Academy of Pediatrics has disproved it. Both the American Psychiatric Assn. and the American Pediatric Assn. support gender-affirming care for adolescents. The news on the legal front hasn't been all bad for trans healthcare providers; last month, a federal court judge struck down Florida's law restricting gender-affirming care for minors and adults. However, the practice of categorizing gender in a binary medical system continues. That's problematic, said Mauricio Dankers, the intensive care unit director at HCA Florida Aventura Hospital, because the medical erasure of trans people can prevent a proper diagnosis. When doctors have to make split-second decisions in the ICU, he said, failing to recognize a transgender person could prevent them from receiving lifesaving care. "If I don't know that a transgender woman may have gone through laryngoplasty to change the tone of her voice, I'm going to go and put the breathing tube [and] I may run into trouble," Dankers offered as an example. Chest binding used by some transgender people to appear more masculine can also lead to pneumonia if done improperly, he said. Violet Rin, a transgender woman in Florida, gives herself estrogen injections once a week. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times) Dankers, a gay immigrant who left Peru for the more tolerant New York City, worries that the politicization of transgender healthcare will put a target on LGBTQ+ healthcare providers. These restrictions "are going to change how the LGBTQ+ trainee thinks about their career, Dankers said. He said they might think, Im not going to a place where they dont want me by law. After Texas banned gender-affirming care for teens, a pediatric endocrinologist closed her practice and moved out of the state because she feared violence from armed protesters. And this year, a Texas man was sentenced to three months in prison for threatening a Boston physician serving transgender patients. Fear and violence have had a ripple effect even on states that have enshrined transgender healthcare into law. Baltimore Safe Haven, a nonprofit that provides transitional housing service focused especially on Black trans women, received an increase of 7,000 calls last year after Gov. Wes Moore signed an executive order protecting gender-affirming medical care in Maryland, according to the Baltimore Sun. Most of the callers lived out of state. Demonstrators gather on the steps to the state capitol to speak against transgender-related bills being considered in the Texas Legislature. (Eric Gay / Associated Press) I cant even see my own doctor, said Jules Gill-Peterson, a transgender woman and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who studies the history of transgender medicine. Anecdotally, shes heard of doctors' caseloads tripling with the slew of requests they receive from new transgender patients. Its only going to put greater pressure on [the] system as people migrate from states where its illegal to transition medically to states where its not, Gill-Peterson said. LGBTQ+ healthcare workers are on the defensive, said Kate Steinle, a queer nurse and chief clinical officer at Folx, a nationwide healthcare provider that serves transgender and queer patients. Our general counsel wakes up in the morning and is looking at every single possible legislation that could affect our care, Steinle said. Folx lobbies the government to ensure that its patients have access to gender-affirming care, but Steinle said fighting anti-trans legislation can sometimes feel like a game of whack-a-mole as one goes down, another takes its place. Anti-trans legislation is largely symbolic because most of these bills fail, said D Dangaran, a lawyer and director of gender justice at Rights Behind Bars. According to the Trans Legislation Tracker, of the 617 bills introduced, 44 have passed, 348 failed and the rest are pending. But the fate of transgender healthcare could shift dramatically depending on the outcome of the presidential election in November. A Trump presidency will signal to the states another possibility to move forward on all fronts with anti-trans legislation, Dangaran said. Former President Trump has promised to end gender-affirming care for minors if he wins, and Dangaran anticipates that he would sign executive orders that are antithetical to protecting trans rights. Glenda Starke wears a transgender flag as a counterprotest during a rally in favor of a bill to ban gender-affirming care at the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo. (Charlie Riedel / Associated Press) Keuroghlian worries that many career government employees in the Department of Health and Human Services could be ousted by political appointees as part of Trump's ambition to reshape the federal workforce. "There is a lot of important healthcare and research funded by the federal government," he said. All of this could reverse the progress that the Biden administration has done to advance gender-affirming care across the country. There hasn't been any president that has more explicitly supported access to gender-affirming care, said Elana Redfield, the federal policy director at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to consider the Biden administrations challenge to Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for teens. The administration argues that the ban violates the 14th amendments equal protection clause. A ruling is expected next year that could cement or further erode transgender rights. Redfield warns that people who are multiply marginalized are also most affected by these laws," particularly people of color who live in the Deep South. Beyond the legal restrictions to care, they face problems affording the cost of procedures such as gender-affirming surgery and traveling to where care is available, she said. Nor can lower-income transgender people afford Folx, a private subscription service that charges $39.99 a month on top of any out-of-pocket costs and copays levied by an insurer. "Trans people have a lot to tell us about just how bad U.S. healthcare can get, Gill-Peterson said. Trans healthcare is not really that different than the rest of healthcare. People attend a rally as part of a Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31, 2023, by the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press) Increasing the representation of transgender people in a healthcare system where profit is placed over people wont solve those fundamental inequities, she said. Even if doctors support their transgender patients, Gill-Peterson said, they are still bound by law to follow state regulations and insurers' dictates. On the other hand, studies have linked positive health outcomes in LGBTQ+ patients and patients of color to having a healthcare provider who shares their background. That's one reason University of Michigan medical student Gaines Blasdel, a trans man, wants to become a urologist who can provide gender-affirming surgery to transgender patients such as himself. Blasdel said gender-affirming care can be an abstract social justice issue to his cisgender classmates, but it isn't to him. "I've been embedded [in medicine] and I'm going to be, no matter how hard it is." Jona Tanguay, a physician assistant and medical lead in the medical substance use disorder programs at Whitman-Walker Health in Washington, said its important not to discredit the incremental but meaningful progress in the representation and quality of care offered to transgender people. "Progress isn't always linear," they said. Tanguay, who is nonbinary, is also the president of GLMA, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Medical Assn. They already see the curriculum expanding and the number of out transgender healthcare providers growing steadily. "Every generation after is going to be more self-aware than they used to be about health disparities." Nico Olalia, a transgender woman, moved back to the United States from the Philippines for better career opportunities as a nurse. (Jireh Deng / Los Angeles Times) Olalia said her story demonstrates that trans people can practice medicine just as well as their cisgender colleagues. Because she's also enrolled full time in a nursing doctoral program, her days start at 4:30 a.m., when she wakes up to prepare for her 10- to 12-hour shifts. Her efforts at Cedars-Sinai earned her a prestigious $10,000 no-strings-attached grant from the Simms/Mann Institute & Foundation. "I do hope that I can have more power to inspire transgender women," Olalia said. "I want those who are walking behind me to ... have that opportunity to go beyond what they're told to do or what society deems them to be." This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. In December 2020, law enforcement officials descended upon a typically quiet residential neighborhood on Highland Street in Middleboro. What began as a simple health and welfare check for Middleboro police turned into a "horrific and tragic situation," according to Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz, when a man and woman were found dead inside the 3 Highland St. home. A 21-year-old man, Ryan True, was later charged with two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of his parents, David True, 52, and Renee True, 55. Years later, the case is still pending in Plymouth County Superior Court. Here's what we know. Ryan True, 21, of Middleboro, is arraigned in Wareham District Court on two counts of murder, Friday, Dec. 11, 2020, in connection with the deaths of his parents David True, 52, and Renee True, 55, inside their Highland Street home in Middleboro on Wednesday. They were found dead on Thursday morning. WHO IT IS Ryan True was arrested on Dec. 10, 2020, after Middleboro police responded earlier that morning to 3 Highland St. for a health and welfare check. The boss of resident David True called police because he didn't show up for work, which the boss said was unlike him. Police weren't able to get the attention of anyone inside the home and a sergeant decided to force entry about an hour later after learning David True's wife, Renee True, also didn't show up for work. Detectives were immediately summoned to the home after police located the husband and wife dead inside the house. Ryan True, the couple's son, who also resided at the house, was arrested a short time after the incident after police learned one of the vehicles registered to the home a gray Kia Sorrento SUV was missing. Detective Sgt. Simmone Ryder made contact with Ryan True, who was driving the vehicle, shortly after 8 a.m. and learned he was still in the area. A Middleboro police officer located the SUV, which Ryan True was still driving, on Marion Road at 8:08 a.m. Police say Ryan True agreed to drive back toward the home and was taken into custody a short distance from the home at 8:14 a.m. 'It's like she never mattered' Brockton daughter is looking for answers in mother's murder LAST WE HEARD At his arraignment, a prosecutor said Ryan True had told his half-brother that his father was drunk and came into a room where he was playing video games "to harass him." The brother also told police that Ryan True had been having "a tough time" with his parents and refused to take medication. But in his account to police, Ryan True said that on Wednesday evening, the night before his parents' bodies were discovered, he and his father got into an argument and he took out a pocket knife to defend himself. His mother came into the house a short while later and he stabbed her, too, he allegedly told police. Police said there was no evidence that Ryan True's injuries were the result of self-defense. Ryan True was held without bail following his arraignment and sent to Bridgewater State Hospital for a mental health evaluation. WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW? Ryan True was later indicted by a Plymouth County grand jury on two counts of murder. Following an evaluation, he was deemed incompetent to stand trial and committed again to Bridgewater State Hospital. Ryan True has remained hospitalized and is still deemed incompetent to stand trial. His last court appearance was on Dec. 5, 2023, and the prosecution and defense agreed to continue to case until Sept. 16, 2024, for a pre-trial conference. A jury trial is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 7, 2024, if Ryan True is deemed competent to stand trial by then. According to Massachusetts law, the trial of a case shall be stayed until a defendant becomes competent to stand trial or the case is dismissed. Free speech or hate speech? Middleboro student who wore 'only two genders' T-shirt loses court appeal. What's next? WHATEVER HAPPENED TO The Enterprise is reviving its "Whatever Happened To?" feature. Whatever happened to that person? Whatever happened to that project? You have questions we'll try to get you answers in this feature. To send in your questions or ideas for people and places we should write about, please email us at newsroom@enterprisenews.com. A new story will run every Wednesday. Enterprise senior reporter Cody Shepard can be reached by email at cshepard@enterprisenews.com. This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO: Ryan True, charged in Middleboro murders What's behind the rise of white supremacist flyers in Indy, and what to do if you find one INDIANAPOLIS Stephen Aldrich, a resident of Woodland Trace, was taking his dog on a walk on June 19 when he started noticing little Ziploc bags scattered on the driveways of every few houses. Upon a closer look, Aldrich saw papers inside the bag with the German phrase "AUSLANDER RAUS!" printed on them. The phrase translates to "Foreigners out!" On the back was an antisemitic flyer, blaming Jewish people for creating abortion. After walking about a mile, Aldrich said he passed around 40 of these neo-Nazi propaganda bags around both the Woodland Trace and Waters Edge, suburban neighborhoods in Franklin Township, on the southeast side of Indianapolis. While Aldrich said there was no way to know for sure, the bags seemed to target the minorities in the neighborhood. He noticed that while his house did not receive a bag, his Hispanic neighbor and an Indian-American family nearby both did. "Free speech is free speech, but littering in the name of white supremacy and hatred seems like a crime," Aldrich said. Aldrich called the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department to notify them of the bags and an officer came by the neighborhood to assess the situation. By later that evening, the bags had been cleared. Woodland Trace community member Stephen Aldrich found resealable bags filled with rice and flyers that included neo-Nazi flyers while on a walk in his neighborhood with his dog. Aldrich said the flyers appear to be tossed onto many driveways in a couple of neighborhoods. White supremacist flyers: a nationwide trend The bags in Franklin Township were not the first instance of white supremacist flyers spread across Indianapolis neighborhoods in recent weeks, according to local Jewish community organizations. Suzanne Rothenberg, an associate regional director for the Anti-Defamation League's Midwest Office, said the propaganda trend has been seen and reported across the country. The organization's incident tracker showed that the number of antisemitic incidents, including flyers, has been increasing for the past 10 years. In Indianapolis, she said the Anti-Defamation League has seen reports of flyers in both suburban and urban areas. "The incidents of putting these flyers in Little Free Libraries or putting them in baggies all over people's neighborhoods, we've seen them from the north suburbs to the southeast suburbs and everywhere in between," Rothenberg said. Rothenberg pointed out that often the content of the flyers blames the Jewish community for what perpetrators see as bad aspects of society. For example, tying the Jewish community to political figures like Donald Trump or Joe Biden. "Especially in June, we've seen a resurgence of flyers that tie the Jewish community to the LGBTQ community in a really negative way. And we're very strong allies of the LGBTQ community, we have a lot of LGBTQ Jews," Rothenberg said. "And so, I think it also speaks to the fact that white supremacy, antisemitism, that type of hate doesn't stay quarantined. We've also seen flyers that tie the Jewish community to the immigrant community as if it's a bad thing. And we don't see it as a bad thing." Jacob Markey, executive director of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council, said that in the two years he has lived in Indianapolis, he has seen probably a half dozen instances of antisemitic and white supremacist flyers. "It just has that visceral impact inside and makes people feel less, less safe and feel less safe in their neighborhood," Markey said. Rothenberg recounted an instance where she was stunned to find a flyer herself. "You're wondering if somebody's watching you. You're wondering what happened next. Who put it there? How long ago? It's a very violating, threatening feeling. And it's so easy for people to just get out there and do, which I think is one of the reasons that we're seeing such a rise in this," Rothenberg said. The bags found in Franklin Township had a few tablespoons of rice and several white supremacist flyers in them. Carmel synagogue: Anti-Semitic graffiti found Few people, lots of noise Rothenberg said the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Community Relations Council are aware of the main group spreading neo-Nazi flyers in Indianapolis but did not want to share the name to avoid giving them more publicity. She said groups often put the flyers up at night. "The incident of leaving antisemitic flyers is very low risk for the perpetrator, and generally has a high impact," Rothenberg said. "Targeting a marginalized community with an action like this has the potential to affect the entire community. One person finds it at their house, but hundreds of people are wondering what it really means for them next." Rothenberg said it is important for the Jewish community to understand that while the flyers should be taken seriously, they do not always reflect an immediate threat and that many times, it can just be one person or a few people putting up the messages. "(White supremacists) will put stickers that say, 'America first' or 'Take back America for the white race.' They'll go through and vandalize an entire downtown," Rothenberg said. "And again, it makes you feel like, 'Did 30 people just roll through my neighborhood last night?' When in reality, it might have just been one person." Fabio Rojas, a sociology professor at Indiana University who has researched radical social movements, said the number of people who engage in far-right radicalism is small nationwide. "I think it's important to not give them legitimacy," Rojas said. "Because if you really think there's millions of them, you're kind of boosting their power, right? But if you say, 'one very sad individual in your town who's making life miserable for his Jewish neighbors,' then it puts things into a lot of perspective." As for the movement itself, Rojas said antisemitic and radical right-wing movements tend to focus on similar themes: traditional family values, anti-LGBTQ sentiments, anti-abortion sentiments, etc. He said the Franklin Township flyers seemed on par with common neo-Nazi rhetoric and the movement as a whole. "They see themselves as being threatened by a giant wave of immigrants, they see themselves as a white Christian nation. That's often the kind of phrasing they use," Rojas said. Rojas said that the reason for targeting suburban neighborhoods like Woodland Trace and Waters Edge specifically may simply have to do with proximity, or what he calls "crimes of convenience." "When crime happens, usually, it's local. It's people who live around that neighborhood," Rojas said. "Homicides and personal assaults are usually done by people you have some connection with. So, this is probably the same thing, which is, they're probably a couple of anti-Semites living somewhere in southern Indy and they just think that that's what they want to do, and it's easy and close." Rothenberg acknowledged that white supremacist flyers and propaganda can negatively impact a swath of minority communities. "As much as we appreciate the solidarity that we feel from others, we are still standing in solidarity with other marginalized communities when things like this happen to them, too," Rothenberg said. "Hate is hate. You have to call it hate regardless," Markey added. What to do when you find a flyer Markey, executive director of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council, said that when people find a flyer, the most important thing to do is to speak up. "If you see something, say something," Markey said. Markey said people can contact local law enforcement to report a flyer or report the incident on the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis' webpage. Rothenberg said another action people can take is to pick up flyers so that others do not have to find them. "Please do not post it on social media because it is a publicity stunt, but if somebody wants to say something on social media, a message of solidarity is really helpful right now," Rothenberg said. Sergeant Anthony Patterson, a spokesperson for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, said that when incidents like the one in Franklin Township happen, police are not able to take action unless a law is broken. He said protocol is to visit the site and determine if someone is exercising their freedom of speech or if there is a need for a report. "I understand and IMPD understands that there are times where people say things or write things that people dislike or disagree with, but it doesn't fall under the, 'Hey, this person broke the law,'" Patterson said. "There's just not a whole lot that IMPD can do about it, but certainly, those are case-by-case situations." Yasmeen Saadi is a Pulliam Fellow, primarily covering breaking news and crime. You can email her at YSaadi@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: White supremacist flyers reported across Indianapolis, suburbs Whitmer: Biden has to prove to people he is up to the moment Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) called on President Biden to prove himself to voters in the coming weeks, as he faces concerns about his health and ability, and some Democrats have called on him to end his campaign. Whitmer, who made clear she still supports the president, said in an MSNBC interview with Alex Wagner on Tuesday that Biden has work to do to recover from a shaky debate performance last month. I think its important to recognize the debate did not go well, right? I think we all understand that. What weve seen from this president since then, though, is an aggressive calendar, she said. The governor added that Biden appears to be up to the challenge, based on their conversations. Hes in it, and he is going to fight like hell to make sure that we continue the work that he has begun in this first term, Whitmer said. Ive got confidence in him, and Im continuing to support him Hes got to prove to people he is up to the moment, and I think hes going to. Whitmer was in Washington last week for a meeting with Biden alongside other Democratic governors as the president sought support and advice given criticism over his campaign. Governors in the meeting have since doubled down on their support for the president. Some critics floated Whitmer as a possible replacement for Biden should he choose to end his campaign, though she has cast off the idea of seeking higher office this year. Biden himself has also emphatically rejected calls to leave the race. She called on Democrats to move past questions over Bidens campaign and get to work on his reelection. The only one whos going to make a decision about whether or not the Presidents in the race is the president. He has made the decision, she said. So now its time to stop ringing up our hands and roll up your sleeves. We got a lot of work to do, but we are capable of meeting this moment. There is no question in my mind, she continued. Continuing to talk about what may or may not happen, is all based on one persons decision. Hes made his decision. So, lets go. Trump and Biden candidates remain neck-and-neck in national polling. Trump leads Biden by 1.3 percent in The Hill/Decision Desk HQ average of polls. In Michigan, Biden has a 0.4 percent lead over Trump on average. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the Executive Office | Andrew Roth Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has embarked on a tour for her first book, True Gretch, but not surprisingly, shes been fielding an avalanche of media questions about President Joe Biden and whether he should stay in the race including from the Michigan Advance. As a national co-chair of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign who was considered to be on the ticket in 2020, Whitmer has been out front in support of the president. In a Tuesday afternoon telephone interview with the governor while she was in New York, the Michigan Advance asked her why she issued such a short tweet last week following a White House meeting with the president where Democratic governors expressed concerns about Bidens rambling debate performance and if he was up to defeating former President Donald Trump. .@JoeBiden is our nominee. He is in it to win it and I support him. Gretchen Whitmer (@gretchenwhitmer) July 4, 2024 Ill just say, I wanted to be there because I wanted to see the president and I wanted to show my support, she said. Whitmer added that she couldnt stay for the press conference afterward that Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz held because she had to get on a plane and the pilots can only be out for 12 hours total. But I wanted to make sure that people didnt read my absence from it as anything other than what it was. And so I did want to make sure that people knew that the president has my support, Whitmer said. The Advance also asked Whitmer if she has any concerns about Biden being the nominee. I dont. That debate was rough. I think everyone acknowledges that that was a setback, she said. By the same token, the president that I saw that day and that I talked to just this past Saturday, has got the same kind of energy that Ive known him to always have. So hes got to keep showing that, and only he can do that. But Ive got confidence in him. I know he is going to be in Michigan on Friday, and hes got quite a schedule that hes keeping up. And I think hes showing people that he really is up to this. When asked if she would be joining Biden at his scheduled campaign stop in Detroit on Friday or if she would be traveling, Whitmer told the Advance, I dont know that Ill be there on Friday. Deadline reported that Whitmer had been at a Biden campaign fundraiser and debate watch party in California with celebrities and Govs. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, but she corrected the record. Its so funny because I was at the event prior to the debate. It was a three governors event. And then I left, unfortunately, before the debate, so I wasnt there during that part of it, Whitmer told the Advance. When asked if she watched the Biden-Trump debate on her own, Whitmer said, You know what, I actually didnt see the whole debate. I saw clips of it. I had to head to the airport and get home. Whitmer carried a similar message Tuesday morning to a national audience, telling George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America that shes all in for Biden. I have great confidence in this president, said Whitmer. Hes got receipts. Hes delivered for the American people, and Im glad that hes ready to continue this fight. When asked how she responded to Democrats like U.S. Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) or Jon Tester (D-Mont.) saying Biden still must prove his fitness for office, Whitmer said she was confident that he has and will continue to do so. I respect the conversation thats happening, and, certainly, I think what weve seen from the president is an eagerness to get out and about, she said. Hes going to be in Michigan later this week. Hes getting all across the country. I think hes shown that hes got the energy, and hes ready to take this on. Whitmer also appeared on The View on Tuesday and was questioned by the hosts whether Biden was doing enough to show he is capable of doing the job. She said he does it every day. Hes with NATO this week. Hes got all these different events that are happening. So were seeing hes keeping up a heck of a schedule. He went to Europe back and forth twice in one week, she responded. You know, thats a brutal schedule. Hes keeping it up. So I think that were going to see him have this incredible rigor to his schedule, and hes going to show up, and hes going to talk about what hes done and what the future looks like. And I think thats what Americans want, deserve, and need to see from our president. Then she was asked if she would serve as Vice President Kamala Harris running mate in the event Biden were to step aside. I have never looked at opportunities in Washington, D.C., with a lot of excitement because I love Michigan, she said. I love state government because I know when were feeding 1.4 million Michigan school kids free breakfast and lunch, I can see what it means to people. And thats why I love state government. But, you know, Ill never say never, but thats not something that I am angling for. That dovetails with Whitmers office on Wednesday putting out a press release celebrating that next years budget will continue funding free school meals because when students are fed, Whitmer said, they can focus better in class. Back on The View, co-host Sunny Hostin made note of Whitmers never say never statement, the governor quickly shot that down. No, she said. Ive made a commitment to serve through my term. The Advance asked her about that exchange and Whitmer said that a writeup of the interview might have also overplayed that remark. I dont believe this tickets going to change, Whitmer said. It is going to be Biden and Harris. And I am supporting them. And I have got absolutely zero interest in leaving Michigan before my term is up, thats for sure. In a previous interview with the Michigan Advance before the Mackinac Policy Conference about a month before the debate Whitmer had similarly pledged to finish out her tenure as governor. Whitmer clashed frequently with Trump when he was president, particularly during COVID-19, as she noted in her book. At one point he bragged that he was instructing the federal government not to give Michigan help because Whitmer had criticized him, calling her that woman from Michigan. In contrast, she and Gilchrist have frequently praised Biden and Harris as being great partners to the state. The Advance asked Whitmer how a second Trump term would change the last two years of her governorship. I dont believe that hes going to win a second term. I think at the end of the day, people are going to remember that the chaos that we lived under during his time as president, no question, people know that fundamental rights have been eroded because of the nominees he put on the Supreme Court, Whitmer said. We know that manufacturing is coming back in America thanks to Joe Bidens work. The cost of living is more manageable thanks to things like the work he did to bring down the price of insulin, as one important example. But this is a stark decision that we have. And its, the work that Im doing to make sure that Joe Biden continues to be president is really important, she continued. Now that being said I will work with whomever is in the White House because my oath is the people of Michigan, and thats first and foremost in terms of how I show up to work every single day. Whitmer is termed out in 2026 and has long been at the top of most pundits lists as a 2028 presidential contender long before Biden was inundated with criticism over his debate. The Advance asked the governor if she did run for president in the future, what she would want to accomplish. Susan, I dont know that Ill ever run for president, Whitmer said, somewhat wearily. I know this, that we need leaders who care about people and can solve problems and can work with anybody. I will always be an enthusiastic supporter of great candidates. I dont know that Ill be one myself. But I think that I understand where the questions are coming from. Sorry, I dont have a more satisfying answer for you. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Whitmer calls the debate a setback, but says Biden has my support appeared first on Michigan Advance. LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) During a live, national interview on Good Morning America, Governor Gretchen Whitmer made it clear that she still fully supports the Biden-Harris campaign. The recent presidential debate sparked a conversation about President Joe Biden and whether he should drop out of the 2024 race. Despite concern from many democrats, Governor Whitmer said she has great confidence in Biden. Hes got receipts hes delivered for the American people, said Whitmer. Im glad that hes ready to continue this fight. She continued on to say she respects the conversation surrounding President Bidens capabilities, but believes hes shown he has the energy and eagerness to get the job done. Whitmer was quick to shut down widespread speculation that she may step in as the Democratic presidential candidate. I dont foresee any change in this race, she continued. The president and the vice president have my full support. Whitmer also spoke about the political state of Michigan a state that is considered a must-win for Democrats. I think Michigan is always going to be a state you cant take your eye off ofits always going to be a close race, said Whitmer. So, as Ive told people, dont clutch your pearls when you see a poll where we are down two points. Dont celebrate when were up two points. Governor Whitmer also mentioned speaking with farmers in midland Michigan a prominently conservative area saying it was powerful to listen and see they were experiencing many of the same things. When talking about fellow democrats who have expressed worry for the Biden-Harris campaign, Whitmer said the focus should be on rolling up sleeves and doing the work something she believes will drive the party to success in November. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WLNS 6 News. Taylor Shelton enjoys time with friends, reading, running and cooking with her partner. The Lowcountry resident connects to spirituality through meditation in yoga. She hikes and enjoys the mountains, but considers herself more of a beach girl. Shelton is just like any other 27-year-old woman, except in the last year, she became the face of the battle for abortion and womens health in South Carolina. She wasnt ready to have a child. The hurdles she had to jump through caused her physical, financial and emotional hardships. Shelton took precautions to prevent pregnancy. She had a copper IUD for nearly seven years, which is supposed to be 99.9% effective. But it wasnt foolproof, and the Pinehurst, North Carolina, native was in a position she had tried to avoid with a quickly approaching deadline. A few weeks after the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the states fetal heartbeat law, touted by state lawmakers to reduce the number of abortions and prevent people from using abortion as birth control, Shelton found out she was pregnant and started to scramble on what to do next. The earliest Shelton could get an appointment in South Carolina was after the six-week mark of her pregnancy. So, frustrated and in physical pain, Shelton traveled to North Carolina three times to terminate the pregnancy she didnt plan. I wouldnt wish it on anyone, Shelton said, when talking about the abortion. So it is what it is. But Im grateful that I could have it done and that it was successful. It was my decision and I knew exactly what I wanted. And I knew that I wasnt ready. Shelton is trying to turn the challenges she faced into change. Shelton signed onto a lawsuit with Planned Parenthood against the six-week ban, arguing the ban should be at nine weeks and the laws vague parameters makes it nearly impossible for anyone to get an abortion. Eighty-two House representatives and 27 senators voted in favor of the six-week ban, even though the heart isnt fully formed. Gov. Henry McMaster signed the bill in May 2023. The lawmakers, however, didnt and still dont understand a key piece, Shelton says. A lived experience: her own. Through the process and especially after, Shelton has found herself spending a lot of time in the ocean, where she can find serenity. Its why she lives in Charleston, where she obtained a degree in biology at the College of Charleston. I love being in the water, Shelton said The ocean water is so much fun it feels so soothing, actually, it really helped me kind of through the process of grieving. Taylor Shelton of Charleston was faced with wanting an abortion and being unable to find a South Carolina provider who could schedule the procedure within the state-mandated allowable timeframe. South Carolina passed legislation in 2024 that only allows an abortion during the first six weeks after conception. An ineffective system In early September, Shelton was in shock. Her pregnancy test was positive, despite her 99% effective copper IUD. She had been to her gynecologist two weeks earlier to have her IUD checked at a yearly appointment. She thought she needed a new one, but her doctor assured her it was good for 10 years, and it had only been seven. South Carolinas six-week abortion ban had recently gone into effect. Before Aug. 23, abortion had been legal up until 20 weeks of pregnancy. So, when Shelton stared down at the double lines on the test, it was infuriating, frustrating and almost unbelievable. I think I was in disbelief honestly the first day after my missed period, I had gone to get the pregnancy test and waited until Thursday night to take it because I just was I really didnt believe that that would be the case, Shelton said. She tracks her periods, and considers herself lucky to have a normal cycle where she gets her period once a month around the same time. When she missed it by two days, she immediately took a test. Between 14% to 25% of women have irregular periods, which can cause shorter or longer cycles among other effects such as pain and menstrual flow. Because of this, some women wouldnt consider it abnormal to miss a few days. With a six-week ban, they dont know if theyre pregnant because of irregular cycles. With a six-week ban, a few days are vital. Under the new law, Shelton had less than two weeks before she could no longer seek abortion services in South Carolina. Shelton knew what she had to do, and she was confident in that decision, she said. But she had to go over a host of hurdles to obtain an abortion out of state. She wouldnt change her decision to have an abortion, but she certainly would change the accessibility of the care and length of time to be more reasonable. I wanted people to understand that, its a whole system, the whole system is messed up, Shelton said. Its not working correctly, efficiently. South Carolinas pregnancy-related mortality rate is 47% higher than the national average. In 2020, the states Pregnancy-Related Mortality Ratio was 32.3 pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 live births, most occurring after birth. The mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women is nearly four times the rate for non-Hispanic White women while pregnant or postpartum. Protestors speak out against the South Carolina Supreme Courts decision to uphold a six-week abortion ban on Wednesday, August 23, 2023. Protestors say that since many people do not know they are pregnant before six weeks, it is effectively a ban. Confident in her decision, confused on where to go She was confident in her decision to get an abortion, because its what she needed to do for her health and body. About a week after the state Supreme Court decision allowing the law to go into effect, Shelton found out she was pregnant, and almost immediately decided she wanted an abortion. One could say I slept on it, Shelton said, because the next morning she woke up and immediately drove to her boyfriends place to talk over the abortion. He was supportive, and she started by calling Planned Parenthood. There were no spots in South Carolina until after her six-week mark. Considering the ban had recently gone into effect when the state Supreme Court upheld the fetal heartbeat law, it led to a rush by women to the three abortion providers in South Carolina for appointments. Once I found out that I couldnt get an appointment with them until after six weeks, which would have been right after six weeks, which I think is hilarious I called my gynecologist office, the same office that put my IUD in place, who I had seen two weeks prior. Shelton said she wished she had asked to speak with a nurse, but instead she spoke with someone in administration. Do you have any resources for me, do you know where Id be able to get an abortion? Shelton asked her. It was a stark No, Shelton said the person replied. I felt like she was unwilling to help me and so it was just like, Okay, well have a nice day and she was like mhmm you, too. And that was that. So I felt like I couldnt go to my gynecologists office. At the time of the court decision in August, doctors were hesitant to perform abortions because they didnt have guidance on how the law would be enforced. Taylor fell into a really confusing time, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic Director of Public Affairs Vicki Ringer said. Everybody was then suddenly swamping North Carolina, because it was all the southern states. Shelton called Planned Parenthood again, and got an appointment in North Carolina. However, North Carolina has a 72-hour waiting period for both medication and procedural abortions as a part of the Womans Right to Know Act. During this time, the pregnant individual receives counseling information about the medical risks of an abortion and other information. Shelton would either have to stay there or make two trips. The quickest they could get her in was the end of the following week. She also wanted it to be over. The situation was already stressful on her health, but mentally, the anxiety and stress was something she needed to be over soon. Shelton had to look for a quicker result, so she called what she perceived as a pregnancy center in North Carolina. She asked when their next availability was, and let them know of her situation: She was four weeks pregnant, had an IUD in place and wanted an abortion. The center said it couldnt help her with the abortion, but could offer her an ultrasound three days before her appointment with Planned Parenthood. Shelton was already freaking out about her timeline, so she said OK, and set off on the three-hour journey to Charlotte. She canceled her Thursday Planned Parenthood appointment, which she later would regret. The moment she got to the center, something felt off. It felt very uncomfortable the moment I stepped in, Shelton said. The counselor, at what turned out to be a crisis pregnancy center, said she had no idea Shelton wanted an abortion or had an IUD, even though she had spoken about them when making the appointment. The counselor said her options were to have the child and keep it, or have it and give it up for adoption, Shelton said. Shelton told the counselor she was experiencing pain and had an IUD. The counselor said that they couldnt give ultrasounds to people with IUDs, Shelton said. She then told me that my baby was in danger and I needed to go to the hospital immediately, Shelton said. It sounded like they were more worried about the unborn baby than her, Shelton said. She left immediately. I felt that they were judgmental, Shelton said of what she described as disrespectful, comparing it to her gynecologists office unwillingness to help. Its like their personal beliefs, opinions were being kind of used against me, in a way and, yeah. It felt dehumanizing. The whole experience felt dehumanizing. The center, attempts to counsel women out of abortions, gave her $100 in gas money. She drove the three hours back and called her gynecologists office in Charleston, got an appointment with them to get her IUD taken out. Her Charleston OB-GYN got her into the office the next day. There was a concern she was undergoing an ectopic pregnancy, when a fertilized egg grows outside the uterus. It can cause the fallopian tube to burst, causing major internal bleeding and in some cases death. She didnt have an ectopic pregnancy. Her IUD had bent, which had been pushing against her cervix causing the intense pain. Her doctor said I assume you want an abortion because of the IUD, which Shelton replied with yes. Her doctor then consoled her and said she was sorry she had to be going through the experience in such chaotic times. She then said good luck, and that she was a candidate for another IUD, and to call her if she wanted another one. Shelton said it was difficult enough figuring out how to ask for what she needed, and when she did seek help, it felt like no one was willing to support her. She called Planned Parenthood again, which got her into a Chapel Hill Planned Parenthood center in North Carolina for the following Tuesday to get the abortion. She went that following week with her parents, where she received an ultrasound Tuesday and scheduled her abortion that Thursday in Wilmington. Shelton said the decision to have an abortion wasnt traumatic. The procedure, however, isnt something she wishes for anyone to experience. I wouldnt wish it on anyone, Shelton said. Overall, its just like, just emotional and painful for a second and youre in a white room . and you know your legs are in the air and its um its not fun. For an hour afterward, it was painful, but it wasnt terrible, she said. It was quick, and she felt unbelievably relieved. I was crying and it was because I was just happy to be done with it and felt like I could breathe again. Lawmakers pushed ban forward South Carolina bans abortions after an embryos heart is beating steadily, repetitively and rhythmically, which is usually around the six-week mark of a pregnancy, before a woman may know shes pregnant. The law was signed in 2023, after a 2021 version of the law was struck down by the state Supreme Court. During the discussion of the abortion ban on the state house floor, state Rep. John McCravy, R-Greenwood, was widely viewed as one of the most outspoken anti-abortion voices, even filing bills to ban abortion at conception. When a mother sees and hears the heartbeat everything changes. She knows and we know she has a life that must be protected, McCravy said during the 2023 abortion ban debate. This bill saves thousands of lives that are currently being aborted for birth control. Lets not pretend any more that abortion is health care. Ive heard that said over and over again. He cited Democratic amendments to allow abortions if the baby has sickle cell anemia, fetal alcohol syndrome, the woman is in a bad relationship with a man, the mother had no sex education, lack of insurance or for financial reasons. All these examples are for convenience, for birth control, McCravy said. In the rare care case outlined in this bill, where the mothers life or health is in danger, that is health care. But thats less than 1% of all abortions. The other 99%, what are they for? Ringer objects to McCravys assertion that abortion is most used as birth control. One, it implies that women are irresponsible, were lazy and were promiscuous, Ringer said. When you consider that on the low end of the totem pole that abortions are about $600. It can run up to $20,000 depending on the circumstances and how far along you are if you have to go to a hospital and that doesnt include any travel. Birth control itself is not cheap, particularly if you work in a low income job, which is a lot of women in South Carolina. We have a really high rate of poverty. So if youre making minimum wage, you think $25 to $50 a month doesnt sound like a big deal. But minimum wage, thats a full day of work. Shelton said the idea that abortion is used for birth control is a poor point to make. Every woman has an individual experience, Shelton said. A majority of women, I dont think are using abortion as birth control. Also by the way, birth control is not 100% effective. So when they have one that is then they can start saying things like that, but I just think that its unfair and its really untrue. From left, Rep. Josiah Magnuson, Rep. Rob Harris and Rep. John McCravy during a House of Representatives session in Columbia, S.C. on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. (Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA) Shelton took responsibility for her reproductive health Responsibility for her reproductive health is something Shelton feels strongly in. Its why she tracked her period, why she was on birth control, and why she took the test after two days. She didnt consider waiting. Shelton got her IUD in college. She was on the birth control pill in high school, but she didnt like how the hormones affected her and it didnt suit her lifestyle. She said her IUD was wonderful for the seven years she had it, and she considered herself blessed that she didnt have many issues with it. Until she became the .01% of women to get pregnant with it. I got it because its the most effective form of birth control on the market. 99.9% effective, so consider me the .01%. I definitely wasnt trying to get pregnant and thats why I had an IUD in place, and if I wanted to have a child then I would have gotten it taken out, Shelton said. Being a mother at 27, when she wasnt in a financially secure place in her life, wasnt something she wanted. She had been dating her partner for six months, but the conversation of children hadnt been brought up before, she said. Having a child wasnt something she could even consider because of her own health. Shelton is a Type 1 diabetic, which can be life-threatening for a pregnant woman if left untreated. In the last few years, its been difficult to take care of her blood sugars. For the nearly two weeks before her abortion, she had high insulin resistance, she said. I was feeling sick a lot of the time because it was hard for me to figure out how much insulin to give myself, if I gave myself too much then my blood sugar would drop too low, and Id feel off, or I didnt give myself enough it would be high and Id be irritable. Womens health vs. protecting life If you havent experienced an abortion, or havent had a loved one experience it, most people really dont understand what an abortion really is, Shelton said. I really dont think that youd have any idea, especially men. They dont know what its like to get periods and to have that stress of being the ones to add the birth control or take the birth control or the shame that has been in our history of women having sex in general, Shelton said. Shelton emphasized how grateful she was to been able to have had the procedure done. Between driving more than 20 hours, missing multiple days of work and the financial strain it put on her, she couldnt imagine how women who didnt have the resources she did ever would be able to get an abortion. I was exhausted. Like I said my blood sugars were not happy with me because of the pregnancy itself. So that was also taxing but I just finished a summer job. So I was in a bit of a transition, therefore I did have the time. I think most women do not because they are working or because they are taking care of other children or have other things that theyre doing where they dont have the time to get to these appointments, Shelton said. If she hadnt been able to get the abortion in North Carolina, she would have gone to New York, where she had some friends who she could go to. My mom did ask me a few times, Are you sure you dont want to keep it? But I didnt and she was unbelievably supportive. My dad was supportive, Shelton said. My mom, my aunt, my partner, my friends. I mean, I really had all the support I could ask for. And I dont think many women do have that support. Shelton said she feels unbelievably grateful and privileged to have the resources she had. But, she did everything in her power to do the procedure as quickly as possible and do it the way the government wanted her to and still couldnt get the care she needed in South Carolina. I would have done what I needed to do because I really didnt want to be pregnant. I dont think I should be forced to have a child if Im not ready to have one, which is why this whole thing is ludicrous, and which is why Im here, speaking about it. After the abortion and the experience she went through, Shelton said she is not going back on birth control, mostly because she doesnt trust it. Getting an IUD inserted was painful enough, and when it failed her, she said using condoms and tracking her period has been what is working best for her and her partner. Taylor Shelton, who lives in the lowcountry, speaks to reporters at the Richland County Courthouse on Thursday, May 2, 2024, about how she had to travel to North Carolina to have an abortion because she could not schedule an appointment in time to have an abortion in South Carolina. Anger into action For someone who hated public speaking, the interviews, court appearances and advocacy that became her reality felt unimaginably daunting; but Shelton said there was no other choice. She had to step up. Shelton felt she wasnt a priority through the process, she said. And she had to jump through a number of hoops that were completely unnecessary, she said. She was angry. So, she sought out Planned Parenthood again, but this time to fight along side them. That wasnt the intention to begin with, it was more like I was just frustrated and wanted to know if there was a way I could tell my story or be a part of something. In the state Supreme Court decision to uphold the six-week ban, Planned Parenthood argued there was an unsettled question remaining: When is a fetal heartbeat detected? Planned Parenthood filed a subsequent lawsuit to say it really is around the nine-week mark when a babys heart is fully formed. When Planned Parenthood filed the lawsuit, the organization added Shelton as a plaintiff. Her parents and Planned Parenthood were more concerned for her safety than she was, she admitted. Mainly because Shelton decided to use her name, and not be anonymous. It meant appearing publicly in court, standing in front of news cameras and now publicly advocating for greater abortion access. I felt drawn to using my name because I feel like it makes a difference, Shelton said. Its more impactful when you see the person and you and the name, that this is a real person experiencing the situation, and Im one of thousands of women who are experiencing this. I thought the best way to do it would be to go all out and use my name and be myself. To Shelton, a six-week ban is a total ban. Even if it is enough time she is living proof that its not, she said. She thinks the lawmakers did it on purpose, so abortions couldnt happen anyway. A judge denied a temporary injunction saying that the legislative intent of the law is six weeks, leaving Planned Parenthood a decision on whether to file an appeal. Shelton said she feels she was meant to be a mother, just not at 27. Sometimes she wonders about the state of the world, which is in a dark place, she said, and isnt sure she wants to bring a child into it. But when shes financially stable enough to have a child, she would consider it again. A good law or policy allows for access to the care someone needs, she said. Other peoples personal beliefs should not run the show. Its her decision to not have a child, and no one elses belief should dictate that, she said. If you dont believe in what I believe in and you dont agree with it, thats not my problem. This is my life, and having a child drastically changes your life, and I was not ready for that, Shelton said. NEWTON The crowd showed up for the annual reading of the Declaration of Independence on the Newton Green last week, just as their forebears might have nearly 250 years ago. But this year's reading was different. Instead of gathering around the gazebo that's been the focal point of the park for decades, the crowd was forced to move to a nearby hillside to celebrate Independence Day. Just days earlier, the gazebo was dismantled and its parts and pieces carted off to a landfill. The flowers that lined the base of the structure were still there, as was the path from the sidewalk along Park Place. But the white wooden structure at least the third iteration to grace that spot was gone. "We were stunned," said Harry Kaplan, a former commander of the Newton American Legion post and an organizer of many events held in Newton. "Nobody told us. We showed up and it just wasn't there." County got 'too many police calls' The gazebo, which doubles as a bandstand for outdoor concerts, is owned by Sussex County, along with the surrounding park. On Monday, county Administrator Ron Tappan said officials had determined the structure was a nuisance that attracted the homeless and that there were "too many police calls there." The 17-acre "Village Green" park is part of an area that also includes the historic county courthouse and adjacent public buildings, all of it on the National Register of Historic Places. Sussex County also owns Ginnie's House Children's Advocacy Center on the western end of the green, which provides services for victims of child abuse. The park also has an natural spring that flows into a stone watering trough at the beginning of High Street. There are also memorials to branches of the military, a POW monument and a tall statue commemorating the Civil War. There are several large trees which provide shade over park benches where, on Monday, several people gathered. "That was my home since I was 11," one of them, a middle-aged man, said of the Green. "I didn't live there, but I spent a lot of time there with friends." This view from Park Place of the Newton Green shows the area where the gazebo once stood. The less-than 30-year-old structure had become a haven for homeless and drug users according to Sussex County officials who had it torn down on July 2. The Newton Green is owned by the county and is part of a National Historic Register entry. A different scene at night During the day, the gazebo, open for a refreshing breeze, offered a shady stopping place for mothers with babies in strollers or people out for a walk. But it was at night that the scene changed and raised more concern, said Tappan. The structure became a gathering place for the homeless and drug addicts, he said. Working with Newton officials, the county installed a traffic camera to watch over the structure so the Newton police dispatch center could monitor the area. "The problems just wouldn't go away," the administrator continued. Most troubling, he said, was a reported rape earlier this year. Newton report: 61 incidents over six months Asked about the problems, Newton Town Manager Thomas Russo provided a police report which includes 61 reported "incidents" at the site between Jan. 1 and July 7. The list notes a "sexual offense" as well as 13 "ordinance violations," and 10 incidents categorized as "disturbance/disorderly" conduct. There were also three "medical emergency" calls, though no other details were given, as well as eight calls for "suspicious activity" and six labeled "assist public." An organizer of the July Fourth event said the group had reserved the gazebo through the county but got a notice at the last minute that the structure was going to be razed "because it was unsound." More: Dennis Library in Newton closer to overhaul as county approves funding Asked about the structure, Tappan cited the homeless and nuisance complaints but made no mention of an unsound structure. County Commissioner Director Jill Space said she was aware of the pending demolition and took a picture in late June of what the bandstand looked like. "Something had to be done," she said. "A woman being assaulted in there? Right behind Ginnie's House?" As to the timing of the demolition, Space said it needed to be done as quickly as possible, and "who knows what could have happened over that long weekend." Newton Green history A wooden structure has stood on the village green since the mid-1800s, according to Wayne McCabe, formerly the official Sussex County historian. While he understood concerns that the site had become an "attractive nuisance," there might have been other options explored, he said. The site was also a place for political speeches in the days before radio and television made "barnstorming" a lost tradition. President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt spoke from "a platform" on the Village Green during a campaign stop in 1912, according to a New Jersey Herald account from the time. The platform was built specifically for that event to hold Roosevelt and his entourage. McCabe used aerial photographs to come up with a date of origin for the most recent structure and said "it definitely wasn't there in a 1995 photo and is there in a 2005 one." Tappan, the county administrator, said future events at the site won't have to require loud oratories, as Roosevelt's did. The county has no plans to replace the structure but it will provide for electrical connections for portable amplifiers and a level space for future organizers to set up pop-up tents, he said. Email: bscruton@njherald.com Twitter/X: @brucescrutonNJH This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Newton Green gazebo torn down as county cites homeless, drug addicts New wildfire hazard map will be released with few changes after yearlong makeover A fire burns close to a home near the Rogue River. Many lobbyists in Oregon are advocating policies on behalf of groups responding to and preventing fire and other disasters exacerbated. Some of those same lobbyists also work for fossil fuels companies, an analysis from lobbying watchdog group F Minus found. (Oregon Department of Forestry/Flickr) A fire burns close to a home near the Rogue River. (Oregon Department of Forestry/Flickr) A statewide wildfire risk map that drew the ire of many Oregonians will return in several weeks with few changes but with a new name following a yearlong makeover. The new wildfire hazard map, set to debut in mid-to-late July, will not differ in substance too much from the previous map published in 2022, according to lead researcher Chris Dunn, an Oregon State University forestry professor and wildfire expert. That first map was quickly taken offline in August 2022, just months after it was released, due to public backlash over many areas classified as high risk. Property owners saw the map as a state attempt to regulate their properties, and it coincided with some insurers raising premiums and choosing not to renew or write new wildfire policies. In the new Oregon Statewide Wildfire Hazard Map, some grass and ranch lands will no longer be considered at high-risk depending on what theyre used for and on whether, and how often, theyre irrigated. The replacement of the word risk with hazard indicates that the map is an environmental assessment, not an assessment of individual properties. There will be three hazard categories, rather than the five risk categories in the previous map. The latest map and the public rollout is the result of broader collective efforts, unlike the last one, Dunn said. The Oregon Department of Forestry and OSU stood alone the last time, Dunn said about the previous maps public debut. The biggest change is just that all of these other agencies have come together to participate in community meetings and to meet with the county commissions and county planners, Dunn said. Unraveling of the risk map Dunn and Oregon State researchers worked with the U.S. Forest Service and the Oregon Department of Forestry in 2022 to develop the searchable Wildfire Risk Explorer map, which the state Legislature mandated under Senate Bill 762, a sweeping wildfire mitigation package passed in 2021. State agencies were given one year to produce a map and release it publicly. The final map allowed anyone to plug in their address to see where their area fell among five risk categories from no risk to extreme risk. The Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer map from the Department of Forestry was taken offline shortly after it was first publicly shared. In it, everything around Ashland was identified as high to extreme risk. (Oregon Department of Forestry/Screen Shot of Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer) It was meant to bring attention to the potential for wildfire across Oregons different landscapes, but was instead seen by many as a property-specific wildfire risk assessment. It didnt help that for many categorized as living in an area of high or extreme risk, the maps findings werent widely known until letters started arriving in the mail alerting them to their risk status. People would step out their backyard or their front porch and say: Theres no way Im at high risk. Ive already cleared my property or whatever. Most people were making an assessment from their individual susceptibility perspective, not from an environmental exposure perspective, Dunn said. Assigning risk to individual properties is not what the map makers were trying to do, according to Dunn. They were looking at the landscapes around the state and using data to understand the potential exposure for wildfire across a given landscape. But they failed to make that case. The public rollout was a disaster, Dunn said. There was no real hard and concerted effort to reach out to the counties and to the public, mostly because we just didnt have the time, Dunn said. Also, the timing couldnt have been worse. The rollout coincided with a sea change in the insurance industry, heavily hit by growing natural disasters and costs over the past few decades. Insurers were beginning to not renew policies or stop writing new policies in parts of California due to wildfire risk, and similar trends were beginning to show up in Oregon, on top of rapidly rising premiums. While insurers had been planning such moves for a while, according to industry experts, the public blamed the map, which was seen as an attempt by the state to regulate properties, and property owners, to make them wildfire proof. Just a few months after being made public, it was pulled by the state forester and sent back to the drawing board. Redoing the rollout When rolling out the latest maps, Dunn, researchers and officials at several public agencies with a stake in mitigating wildfire are presenting a unified front, Dunn said. Last fall, Dunn and a cadre that included officials from the State Fire Marshals Office, the Building Codes Division, the Department of Forestry and the Division of Financial Regulation met with county commissioners to hear their concerns. The researchers and agencies also have held joint public meetings in parts of the state where residents were most concerned about the mapping last time, including Grants Pass, The Dalles, Medford, La Grande and Redmond. Some of the meetings have drawn hundreds of people, while others have drawn less interest. Dunn said in Redmond, about 100 people showed up and in Grants Pass, over 300 people attended. But in La Grande, staff told Dunn about 13 showed up. Dunn said in Grants Pass, the general take was that people werent there to argue but to get more information. I think people were generally interested in learning, which is what the intent of these are, he said. The target for stakeholders is to get the map finished and online by mid-July. The draft map is currently with county planners across the state, who have had two months to review the data and provide feedback. Once online, the map will be open for at least a 30-day public comment period before the Oregon Board of Forestry votes to adopt it in September. The process is moving faster than Dunn and others had expected, he said, due to political pressure on the Department of Forestry. After its finalized, the state officials in charge of guidelines for shoring up homes against wildfires, or home hardening, and creating defensible space around structures to make it easier to fight fires will need to get to work implementing new recommendations and rules. The Oregon Building Codes Division is developing residential building material rules that will apply to all new dwellings and in high wildfire hazard zones that are within the wildland-urban interface. The standards would also apply to existing homes and buildings when exteriors are replaced. The standards are ready to adopt, said Mark Peterson, a spokesperson for the agency, in an email. The division is waiting on the final map, at which point we will do rulemaking to adopt the map, add it to the Oregon Design Criteria Hub, and apply the standards based on the map. The State Fire Marshals Office is also developing statewide, minimum defensible space standards that will be adopted following the finalization of the map. Dunn said no one is going to immediately demand Oregonians start spending to wildfire proof their homes and properties. Their (the agencies) stance to date has always been that we educate first, regulate last, and so I think theres going to be a fairly substantial, multi-year gap before theres any real, substantial regulations that occur, Dunn said. Hes hopeful the general attitude from the public to the newly rolled-out map will be one of curiosity rather than contempt. He said that despite the trouble with the first attempt to bring it to Oregonians in 2022, it wasnt a total blunder. Even if the map failed, it put fire in peoples minds, and theyre thinking about it, and that is a difficult thing to do, he said. Reporting for this story was made possible with a fellowship from the nonprofit Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Backpacks fill cubbies at Mayo Demonstration School in Tulsa on April 8. Oklahoma academic standards for K-12 social studies will be under review in 2025. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel / Oklahoma Voice) OKLAHOMA CITY National conservative media personalities and right-wing policy advocates will develop Oklahomas academic standards for social studies, the states top education official announced on Tuesday. State Superintendent Ryan Walters said his goal is to overhaul the existing social studies standards and emphasize American exceptionalism. He said the new standards also will eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion, though he gave no explanation of what specifically would be removed. Oklahomans citizens, parents, and business leaders alike are disgusted with the lack of civic knowledge, love for our country, and historical education among our young people, Walters said in the announcement. It is crystal clear that we need to return to more rigorous social studies standards that emphasize the unique and exceptional nature of the American republic, promote a proper understanding of the nations founding, and instill pride in our civic traditions and Oklahoma heritage. Academic standards are a lengthy list of topics and concepts Oklahoma schools are required to teach. They are developed on a six-year cycle, and social studies is up for review in 2025. The Oklahoma State Department of Education gathers subject-matter experts and educators in review committees to update the standards for each subject. The Oklahoma State Board of Education and the state Legislature must approve the final version. Walters chose nationally recognizable names for the review committee, like radio host and PragerU founder Dennis Prager, conservative talk show host Steve Deace and Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation, a national Republican think tank. Only a few of the committee members Walters identified have lived in Oklahoma author and journalist John Dwyer and former Oklahoma Wesleyan University President Everett Piper, who is now a Fox News contributor. Another committee member, Texas resident David Barton, attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. Barton is the founder of Wallbuilders, an organization and media outlet focused on Christian education. More than 75 Oklahomans, most of whom are public school teachers, are involved in updating the academic standards, Walters said. He did not name any of the local educators. I am very excited to have enlisted some of the brightest minds available to serve on our Executive Review Committee, Walters said. Their unparalleled expertise will help craft new academic standards that will serve as a model for the nation and help Oklahoma students for years to come. House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, called the group of out-of-state advisers extremist Republicans who are seeking to strip Oklahomans of their right to freedom of religion and a well-rounded, public education. Munson said the changes Walters promised could drive even more educators out of the classroom in a state already suffering from a teacher shortage. It is a continued attack on Oklahomans and another attempt at erasing the valuable programs that are actively benefiting Oklahomas students and the future of our state, she said. Tulsa Democrat Rep. John Waldron, a former social studies teacher, said Walters announcement represents a dangerous politicization of our academic process. Its not the first time the state superintendent enlisted a far-right-wing voice from out of state to advise him. Walters named Chaya Raichik, who runs the social media account Libs of TikTok, to a Library Media Review Committee. The state Education Department has refused to identify any other members of the Library Media Review Committee, despite the panels attempt to have bestsellers The Glass Castle and The Kite Runner removed from an Oklahoma high school. Tuesdays announcement is yet another conservative push from Walters administration, following his recent order that all public schools in Oklahoma incorporate the Bible in their history teaching. Last year, he encouraged public schools to use pro-America kids content from PragerU. Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on Facebook and X. TOPEKA (KSNT) One lucky person cashed in a winning Powerball ticket valued at $1 million in Kansas Wednesday one day after 27 News published an article about the prizes deadline approaching. Cory Thone with the Kansas Lottery told 27 News the $1 million prize was claimed anonymously just before noon on July 10. The winner walked away with $710,000 following the usual 5% state tax and 24% federal tax on the money. Its winning numbers were 1-7-46-47-63 with a Powerball of 7. I guess the players ears must have been burning, because this ticket was claimed this morning just before noon, Thone said in a written statement. Due to the prizes value, the retailer that sold it gets a $1,000 selling bonus. The ticket was sold at True Lies LLC located at 607 Oil Hill Road in El Dorado. This is listed as a bar and grill on the the business website. They were our family: Topeka woman grieves after soul-shattering loss of 9 pets in house fire The $1 million ticket was set to expire one year after it was sold on Sept. 27. If the winner had not come forward before this, the prize money would have gone back to the Kansas Lottery. The current Powerball jackpot is set at $41 million with a cash value of $19.4 million. The next drawing will be the evening of July 10. Learn more about the Powerball by clicking here. You can check the full list of unclaimed lottery prizes in Kansas by clicking here. For more Kansas news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Follow Matthew Self on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MatthewLeoSelf Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. Woman, 61, arrested after dousing man in gasoline and lighting him on fire then throwing Molotov cocktails Hong T Huynh, 61, is accused of throwing Molotov cocktails to intentionally set fires at homes in Gwinnett County, Georgia, about 31 miles from Atlanta, on June 1 (Dunwoody Police Department) A 61-year-old woman has been charged with murder after police say she killed a man by setting him on fire. Hong T Huynh is accused of throwing Molotov cocktails to intentionally set fires in homes in Norcross, Georgia, about 30 miles from Atlanta, on June 1. Warrants revealed that the woman is also accused of throwing gasoline on a man outside of a home in Buckingham Court. The 25-year-old victim, identified as Thuy Huynh, died on June 25. She also torched the house, leaving the mans family displaced, according to police. The woman is a relative of the man she killed, a witness told Atlanta News First. A second fire resulted in moderate damage and displaced six people. One person from the residence was treated for non life-threatening injuries. Hong T Huynh, 61, is accused of throwing Molotov cocktails to intentionally set fires at homes off of Buckingham Court and Turners Ridge Drive in Gwinnett County, Georgia, about 31 miles from Atlanta, on June 1 (Dunwoody Police Department) Police says the woman intentionally tried to hurt one of the families. She also threw liquid on Huynh, causing his body to become engulfed in flames. I dont know what was in there, said a witness, who did not want to be identified. Whether it was grease or gasoline, she was a good distance from the flame. However, instead of throwing it onto the flames, she threw it onto the father of the family. When she threw that, there was a large combustion that caused him to catch on fire. Huynh remains in Gwinnett county jail without bond. Woman Accused of Slicing Off Dead Mans Thumb and Using It to Steal from His Financial Apps: Reports A witness reportedly said they saw the woman use the man's thumb to draw money out of his account Metropolitan Police Department Fasil Teklemariam A woman has reportedly been accused of cutting off a mans thumb and using it to access his financial apps and steal money. Fasil Teklemariam, 53, was found dead with stab wounds on April 5 after police officers were called to his apartment for a report of an unconscious person, according to a Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police release. The release added that 19-year-old Audrey Miller was arrested on June 17 in connection with his murder and was later charged with first-degree murder and armed felony murder. On July 1, police said in a second statement that another suspect, 22-year-old Tiffany Taylor Gray of Bowie, Md., was also arrested and charged with the same crimes as Miller. New charging documents obtained by WUSA, NBC News and the Washington Post reportedly stated that Teklemariam had been found dead inside a bedroom with blunt force injuries to his head and torso, several cuts on his legs and right hand and his right thumb cut off. GoFundMe Fasil Teklemariam According to autopsy results cited by WUSA and NBC News, the coroner determined that Teklemariam's body had been found between two to five days after he'd been killed and that his thumb had been removed while he was close to death or shortly afterward. Investigators also noted that cleaning products had been used at his apartment, per WUSA though police were eventually able to identify a bloody shoe print by using a forensic crime scene tool, Miller was captured on camera in Teklemariams building entering his apartment with him four days before he was found dead, reported WUSA, citing the court documents. She and Gray were also captured on camera coming and going from his apartment with two other men wearing masks and hoods a few hours later, the outlet added. "The suspects stole several items from resident," the court documents said, per WUSA. "A search of [Teklemariam's] residence showed that several electronic devices and household items were stolen." 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. A witness told investigators, per the documents cited by WUSA, that Gray and Teklemariam had a relationship, while another witness said they saw Gray use the stolen thumb to draw money out of his account to pay for things such as an Uber ride, marijuana and alcohol. Investigators also found that Teklemariam previously filed a complaint accusing Gray of theft last year after his phone went missing and more than $1600 was stolen from his finance app. The Washington D.C. District Attorneys Office did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment. Police said that Gray is undergoing the extradition process to return to Washington, D.C. where she will face charges. It is unclear if additional people will be charged in this case. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) A Utah woman wanted in connection to an aggravated kidnapping case was taken into custody after allegedly siccing her dog on a Salt Lake City police officer during the arrest. Mariah Toni Arteaga, 26, was booked into the Salt Lake Metro Jail on Tuesday, July 9 on a second-degree felony charge of assault on a peace officer with force to produce death or injury. She also faces misdemeanor charges of failure to stop at the command of police, providing false info, and possession of drug paraphernalia. According to the probable cause statement, the SLCPD officer found Arteaga along with another man slumped over in a car. The officer woke the two up and asked them to step out of the car. Arteaga was reportedly cooperative initially, stepping out of the car with her unleashed dog. The officer reported performing a routine records check which is when he discovered Arteaga had an outstanding warrant for her alleged role in first-degree felony aggravated kidnapping in February 2024. Rebate program offers Salt Lake City residents up to $1,300 off a new e-bike After I informed her I would be taking her to jail, [Arteaga] released the dog and fled from me, the officer wrote in his probable cause statement. When she let her dog go, [she] started yelling get him and bite him.' After a small foot chase where Arteaga allegedly continued to try and get her dog to attack the officer, Arteaga was safely taken into custody. Police reported finding several items of drug paraphernalia in the car she was in. Arteaga allegedly admitted to officers to swallowing 15 fentanyl pills during the arrest. Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. Woman dies after being attacked and dragged away by bear in Romania A brown bear is pictured at its enclosure in Aschersleben Zoo. Woman dies after being attacked and dragged away by bear in Romania. Matthias Bein/dpa A 19-year-old woman died in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains after being attacked by a bear, Romanian news agency Mediafax reported on Wednesday. She was dragged away by the wild animal while hiking in the Bucegi massif south of Brasov on Tuesday evening, a witness reported who then made an emergency call. Less than an hour later, mountain rescuers and police came and recovered the woman's body. They shot the bear, as it had also tried to attack the rescue workers, the report said. Around 8,000 brown bears live in Romania's Carpathian Mountains, according to government estimates. The nation has the second-largest bear population in Europe, after Russia. The animals, facing increasing urbanization and encroachment of human activities, have in Romania repeatedly attacked hikers, invaded farms and rummaged through rubbish bins in cities including Brasov in search of food. After the latest death, Romania's Environment Minister Mircea Fechet called for higher shooting quotas for bears. As minister, he had demanded an annual quota of 500 animals, but after consultation with other institutions, this figure was lowered to 220. Aggressive bears are repeatedly brought to other regions of Romania by the authorities but this method does not help, Fechet told the Antena 3 CNN radio station. It only leads to "shifting the problem from one county to another." CHICAGO The woman who was found guilty of killing her landlord and storing body parts in a freezer maintained her innocence as Judge Ursula Walowski sentenced her Wednesday to 58 years in prison. I understand a jury found me legally liable for murder. But I did not commit this crime. With God as my witness, I never harmed Fran, Sandra Kolalou told the court as she learned her fate in the death of 69-year-old Frances Walker. Kolalou, 39, earlier this year was found guilty of first-degree murder, dismemberment and aggravated identity theft in Walkers death. Police in the fall of 2022 discovered body parts in a freezer at Westridge Boarding home on the 5900 block of North Washtenaw Avenue while investigating Walkers disappearance. Walker owned the boarding house for single women and lived there. At the time Walker was reported missing, Kolalou was a tenant at Walkers boarding house. Woman convicted of dismembering landlord in Chicago At the Leighton Criminal Courts Building, Walkers family reacted emotionally. Sandra asked the judge for mercy, but she did not give my sister any mercy, said Walkers sister, Benita Walker. Its just extra sad that it was like one of the best people that I knew in my life, Walkers brother Arnold Walker added. She had no enemies. Kolalous attorneys vowed to appeal, alleging the police investigation into the matter was flawed and too narrowly focused on Kolalou. They didnt go after anybody. Sandra Kolalou was the first and only suspect, defense attorney Samuel Jackson III said. But Cook County Asst. States Attorney Dan Crone alleged that Kolalou, among other things, attacked a jail guard. Shes a dangerous person with no regard for the safety of anyone she encounters, he said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) A woman was sent to the hospital Tuesday night after being injured during an altercation in Pacific Beach, authorities said. According to the San Diego Police Department, the 41-year-old victim was involved in a verbal fight with a 45-year-old woman in the area of Ocean Boulevard at Hornblend Street shortly before midnight. Shark that bit swimmer in Del Mar identified as great white During the altercation, police said the suspect pulled out a knife and used it against the victim, who suffered a laceration to her right arm. The injured woman was transported to a local hospital for treatment. The suspect reportedly left the scene riding a multicolored bicycle southbound on Ocean Boulevard, police said. She was described as a white woman who stands 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs around 135 pounds. She has long blonde hair and was last seen wearing an oversized blue T-shirt and jeans. The Northern Division is handling the investigation. No arrests have been made at this time. Anyone with information related to the incident is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. Floodwaters race past homes in Ruidoso on Sunday, June 30, 2024. (Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Albuquerque). Monsoon rains continue to pummel the burn scar of the South Fork and Salt fires in the Ruidoso Village area, causing widespread flooding and damage, according to the latest reports from the National Weather Service. Between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Tuesday night, the service confirmed 10 flash flood reports and one sighting of a landspout, a relatively rare tornado-like event caused by the thunderstorm. According to the service: The floods destroyed a bridge on Main Road about two miles west of the center of Ruidoso. Floods carried the roof of a home and a car downstream. And a woman was rescued after being trapped in a tree due to high rushing waters. This is extreme flash flooding, Brian Guyer, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told Source New Mexico on Wednesday. That means the floods pose life-threatening hazards, including to people seeking shelter, Guyer said. Theres parts of homes being pulled downstream, water rescues, people being picked up from helicopters because theyre stranded, he said. Large debris flows, mud, rocks, culverts moving down the street. The South Fork and Salt fires ignited in mid-June and went on to burn more than 30,000 acres. They are mostly contained, thanks in part to the arrival of early monsoon rains that also brought floods and debris flows. Rain falling on burned scars doesnt absorb as well into the soil, and there is less vegetation to hold back floods and debris flows. The July 9 floods were the second major flood event that has occurred in the area since the fires started. The other major floods, about a week ago, were primarily along a stretch near the Salt Fire burn scar. Rains on Tuesday caused overflowing canyons in and around Ruidoso, Guyer said. The risk of floods continues today, according to the National Weather Service. A flood watch is in effect in the area until midnight. See a map below of the latest flood reports: A Woman's Body Was Found in a Sleeping Bag on an N.Y.C. Street. A Crowd Swarmed the Suspect as He Was Arrested The body of 31-year-old Jazmeen Williams was found July 5 in a sleeping bag next to trash bags on East 27th Street in the city's Kips Bay neighborhood GoFundMe Yazmeen Williams An ex-con was arrested and charged in connection with the death of a woman whose body was found inside a sleeping bag on a New York City street, authorities said. On Monday, July 8, officers arrested Chad Irish, 55, on a charge of concealment of a human corpse after responding to East 27th Street and 2nd Avenue in the Kips Bay neighborhood on a report of a dispute, the NYPD said in a statement shared with PEOPLE. As he was being taken into custody, police said a disorderly crowd gathered and became irate, according to the statement. According to reporting by ABC 7, someone in the neighborhood had identified Irish, who uses a wheelchair, as a possible suspect, leading to the dispute. Police said they had obtained surveillance video of a man in a motorized wheelchair transporting the body of 31-year-old Jazmeen Williams on East 27th Street, where it was discovered inside a plastic bag next to several trash bags on Friday, July 5, according to the outlet. When police opened the bag, they found Williams' remains inside a sleeping bag. In a video cited by Fox 5, an angry crowd can be seen swarming the suspect as hes being taken into custody on a stretcher, shouting profanities and seemingly trying to attack him before he was ultimately taken away in an ambulance. Police said in the statement that Irish was taken to a hospital in stable condition and that the investigation remains ongoing. According to the NYPD statement, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined Williams died from a gunshot wound to the head and declared her death a homicide. While police have not charged Irish with murder, they said they have executed a search warrant at his apartment, where they suspect Williams was killed, according to ABC 7. The outlet also reported that Irish has been in and out of prison, noting he has 21 prior arrests. According to the New York Daily News, police said Irishs criminal history dates back to as early as 1985 on crimes including robbery, assault, arson and drug possession. Its unclear if Irish has entered a plea to the current charge of concealment of a human corpse or retained an attorney to speak on his behalf. Police have not detailed whether Irish and Williams knew each other. 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. He just threw my baby out like garbage, the victims mother, Nicole Williams, told the Daily News. This is evil. Its so evil. As of Wednesday, July 10, the victims loved ones have raised nearly $10,000 on a GoFundMe campaign created to help offset funeral expenses. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Property tax sign on a house model. (iStock / Getty Images Plus) Woodbury County supervisors are seeking state approval of a new law that would provide tax relief to the families of fallen first responders and officers. The tax-relief proposal would eliminate property taxes for the surviving family members of police officers and first responders killed in the line of duty. Woodbury County Supervisors Jeremy Taylor and Daniel Bittinger II have led the effort to approve the measure. At a Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, members unanimously approved sending a letter to the Iowa Legislature asking for legislative approval to create the new tax law. Taylor said the effort is designed to ease the burden on the families of killed first responders and officers. We can shoulder this burden, not your family. You shouldered enough, Taylor said. Taylor said part of the inspiration for the proposal came from a military policy that provides other forms of tax relief for the families of fallen members of the Armed Forces. Five years ago, the county made a similar decision to extend health insurance benefits to the families of first responders and officers who died on the job so their survivors wouldnt be left without coverage. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE Taylor said working on those policies with the families of fallen first responders and officers made him realize the true impact of their sacrifices. Working with those families, you just come to realize those families have suffered and sacrificed more than is imaginable and they shouldnt have to continue to make that sacrifice thereafter, Taylor said. Especially when it comes to something like property taxes. According to Taylor, Republican state lawmakers Rep. Bob Henderson and Sen. Kevin Alons will introduce companion bills that would allow Woodbury County to implement the tax relief. Under state law, local officials cannot offer an abatement or refund of property taxes without enabling legislation. If such legislation is passed, other Iowa counties would not be required to pass a law similar to that of Woodbury County, but they would have the option to do so. If lawmakers approve the concept, the Woodbury County board would still need to officially pass the measure. The property tax abatement would only apply to the immediate family members of the fallen heroes and would expire upon the sale of the property. Taylor said the proposal is a way to support the families who made the ultimate sacrifice without adding to the states expenses. To us, this is a rare win-win. This costs the state of Iowa no money. This mandates nothing. This honors a sacrifice, the letter to lawmakers reads. The post Woodbury County wants to provide tax relief for families of fallen heroes appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch. (Bloomberg) -- A group of investors led by Vista Equity Partners has agreed to acquire a majority stake in hybrid cloud storage provider Nasuni. Most Read from Bloomberg The deal values Nasuni at about $1.2 billion, according to a statement Tuesday that confirmed an earlier Bloomberg News report. KKR & Co. and TCV invested alongside Vista. Founded in 2009, Boston-based Nasunis platform enables enterprises to store, protect and collaborate on files across locations at scale. Its cloud solutions are used by more than 850 companies in 70 countries. Nasunis Chief Executive Officer Paul Flanagan said in an interview that the new investment would help with the companys mission to build a multibillion dollar company in a multibillion dollar market. Flanagan, who was formerly CEO at IT systems integrator StorageNetworks and Chief Financial Officer at online print services provider VistaPrint, said Nasuni has the chops to be a large publicly traded company. Nasuni said in a statement in January that its annual recurring revenue grew by 30% in 2023 and that it secured more than 120 new enterprise customers, including Patagonia Inc., Autodesk Inc. and the state of Vermont. Vista is backing Nasuni with money from its middle market-focused Foundation fund, which recently completed an acquisition of energy software provider Energy Exemplar alongside Blackstone Inc. Last month, Bain Capital agreed to acquire Vista-backed education software provider PowerSchool Holdings Inc. for about $5.6 billion. Bank of America Corp. advised Nasuni on the stake sale. (Updates with context throughout.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Woodridge man arrested after allegedly leading police on 3 separate chases over the weekend Woodridge man arrested after allegedly leading police on 3 separate chases over the weekend DUPAGE COUNTY, Ill. Pre-trial release has been denied for a Woodridge man accused of leading police on three separate chases over the weekend. According to DuPage County States Attorney Robert Berlin, 32-year-old Jason Wesley has been charged with one felony count of aggravated fleeing and eluding a police officer. The charge stems from a string of chases involving a handful of police departments that allegedly unfolded in the western suburbs late Saturday night and into Sunday morning. Authorities investigate after bicyclist killed in Morton Grove crash It all began just after 11:40 p.m. on Saturday when Carol Stream police attempted to conduct a traffic stop on a Toyota Corolla that was allegedly driven by Wesley near North Avenue and Schmale Road. Prosecutors said the officers were familiar with Wesley and the vehicle as he had several outstanding arrest warrants for offenses including retail theft, criminal damage to property and violation of an order of protection. 32-year-old Jason Wesley has been charged with one felony count of aggravated fleeing and eluding a police officer in connection with a string of police chases over the weekend. According to prosecutors, when the officer activated his emergency lights and siren, Wesley allegedly fled, leading police on a pursuit, eastbound along North Avenue. During the pursuit, Wesley allegedly reached speeds up to 109 MPH in a 45 MPH zone while narrowly missing other cars and passing cars on the shoulder. Authorities eventually terminated the chase for safety reasons after pursuing Wesley for about 1.8 miles. 2 accused of stealing thousands in merchandise from Oak Brook stores, crashing into 4 cars during attempted escape Prosecutors said several hours later, at around 1 a.m. on Sunday, July 7, Wheaton police spotted the vehicle and attempted to conduct a traffic stop, but Wesley allegedly fled again and police immediately terminated the pursuit for safety reasons. Several hours after the second pursuit, at 4:57 a.m., Elmhurst and Villa Park police spotted the vehicle and attempted a traffic stop, but Wesley allegedly fled a third time. Prosecutors said officers pursued Wesley for about 12 miles but eventually terminated the pursuit near Busse Road and Central Road when he allegedly reached speeds up to 114 MPH. Later in the morning, officers learned that Wesley was staying at a Comfort Suites hotel in Lombard. According to prosecutors, Lombard officers responded to the hotel and found Wesley allegedly hiding in a vacant room and was taken into custody. Franklin-Orleans Bridge to close for 2 weeks for repairs Prosecutors said at the time Wesley was arrested, he was out on pre-trial release on multiple violations of an order of protection cases. The allegations that a man with multiple active arrest warrants led police on three separate high-speed chases in one night are outrageous, Berlin said in a press release on Tuesday morning. Mr. Wesleys alleged actions demonstrate a continued disregard for public safety and the rule of law, which will not be tolerated in DuPage County. Thankfully, no innocent motorists or bystanders were injured or worse, as a result of Mr. Wesleys alleged actions. On Monday afternoon, Judge Joshua Dieden granted the states motion to deny Wesley pre-trial release. He was also ordered to be detained for two prior violations of an order of protection cases. Wesley is set to appear in court on Monday, August 5, for arraignment. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. Shot of a businessman looking extremely stressed while sitting at his desk For Sancar Sahin, a chicken masala was the last straw. He had come home one Friday night, exhausted from another week working every hour under the sun as head of marketing for a software company, and placed an order for dinner. Instead of requesting two meals, it transpired he had ordered two pieces of dry chicken and their arrival ruined my evening, he reflects. In my mind I was telling myself, youre an idiot, you cant do anything right. If you cant even do this, then how can you go and lead for a VC-backed company? It was, he realises now, a very disproportionate response to the mistake I had made. But mentally fried from the pressure that came with his 100,000-plus salary, thats the kind of cycle you get into. Sancar Sahin co-founded Oliva, a platform for employees to access mental health help, after his own burnout - Jeff Gilbert Pitfalls of being a high achiever Sahin was one of a growing number battling the dirty little secret among businesses top brass: chief executive burnout. According to stats from Challenger Gray & Christmas, in the first quarter of 2024 chief executive departures in the US hit record levels. Last year 19 died while in their roles. Some 75pc said they were seriously considering throwing in the towel to get better wellbeing support, in a Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence Survey. All the while, the cost to individuals and the economy swells: burnout is a 28bn-a-year problem in Britain, with money primarily being haemorrhaged via days lost to stress, fatigue and poor mental health. An AXA Mind Health study showed that 21pc of UK adults are in emotional distress. This comes as no surprise to 41-year-old Sahin, who felt like any moment I wasnt working, I wasnt doing enough. He had convinced himself that his salary and senior role meant the suffering came with the territory but he now sees this mindset as a common trap those at the top fall into. Perfectionism, being a high achiever these kind of traits make great chief executives, but they are also the things that can chip away at your mental health. The things that push people to the top of their game are also the traits that can bring them down, he says. After the curry incident, Sahins partner suggested he seek help. He began trying to find a therapist, but found the whole process to be complicated, old-fashioned and generally off-putting. He was then connected with Javier Suarez by a mutual contact, who recognised the parallels in both their experiences. Suarez was a co-founder of the worlds then-fastest-growing SaaS company, who had taken just 12 hours of paternity leave and developed paralysing anxiety due to workload stress. Together they set up Oliva, a platform designed to connect employees to personalised mental health help, which raised 4.3m in its third funding round last year. At the same time a clutch of retreats for broken C-suite workers have sprung up at pace. The SHA Wellness Clinic last year launched its Leaders Performance programme a seven-day intensive reset for optimal physical and mental performance. At Paracelsus Recovery, a 100,000-per-week addiction clinic, there has been a 30pc rise in executive clients over the past 12 months. Chief executive burnout is becoming more commonplace, says Jan Gerber, Paracelsuss chief. Part of this may be down to growing stakes: FTSE 100 chief executives now earn 109 times the average UK salary, compared to 79 times in 2020. It is fair to say that there is a mental health crisis in the boardroom, and companies are not investing as they should in something that could prove exceptionally damaging to their business. The chief executive disease While employee wellbeing drives have become a common post-pandemic fixture, those at the top are often not only overlooked but in need of help the most. We know that chief executives and company executives are more vulnerable than others, Gerber says, particularly as adrenaline junkies and those on the narcissism spectrum are more likely to climb the corporate ladder quickly. Bipolar disorder, which typically entails manic periods with flashes of creative genius, is so common among the people we see that we call it the chief executive disease. Self-medicating with alcohol, prescription or illegal drugs often follows for those battling boardroom-induced demons, he adds. Burnout can easily spiral into a more serious problem. Both male and female executives are caught up in the burnout crisis, though their issues manifest differently. At the Dawn Wellness and Rehab Centre in Thailand, where a third of clients are from the UK, high-functioning male clients are typically from a corporate background and are more prone to self-medicate with substances, explains Helen Wells, its clinical director. Our high-functioning female clients, on the other hand, are mostly entrepreneurs, juggling many roles chief executive, wife, mum, mentor and they tend to reach out to us only after they have reached a state of crisis that has developed far beyond burnout, where they have now developed a major depression disorder, high anxiety, panic attacks and more. I had a heart attack at 35 years old Abdullah Boulad outside at his rehab clinic surrounded by nature In 2019 Abdullah Boulad started The Balance, a luxury rehab clinic in Mallorca, because I wanted to be part of the solution, he says. He had been earning a seven-figure salary helming his own venture capital consultancy firm, sleeping poorly and barely making time to eat lunch, when his wife fell down the stairs at seven months pregnant. She was rushed into surgery. The year after my sons birth was a never-ending cycle of stress. I could not balance work with my personal life. Things came to a head one night when ruminating on the amount on his plate: then just 35 years old, Boulad had a heart attack. A couple of days after he was hospitalised, he was told he could go home. But he began asking himself questions: What led to this? What can I do differently? Will this happen again? Youre afraid about that. Thats why I needed to understand for myself what led to the heart attack. He got a series of certifications in health and wellbeing and learned everything I wish I had known when I was working. He set up his clinic in Spain because the sun is the cheapest form of burnout therapy. Boulad says client numbers have doubled since Covid, with individuals spanning finance, investment and tech industries. But he notes that burnt-out chief executives seem to be getting younger. Perfect storm for burnout Being young not knowing your personal values, not knowing what gives you energy, what takes away energy if you mix all of that together, its a recipe for burnout, Sahin says. Its the perfect storm. Social media can make things worse, he says, telling us that if youre not hugely rich, successful in business, you dont have a million followers, then you basically dont exist. Sahin welcomes companies taking employees mental health more seriously, but says that commitment is key. Many organisations founded in the post-Covid wellbeing rush were just set up as money-making machines, not actually solutions to help people get better and businesses perform better. Such businesses and the companies that began panic buying their services without assessing the potential impact on staff could only ever be a band-aid to a growing problem, he says. Boulad agrees and warns that although awareness of the impact of work on mental health is growing, chief executives must no longer consider themselves immune. Executives need to realise [the effects of the pressure] for themselves. I dont see enough recognition in that field, unfortunately. 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. WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) A Wichita State University assistant professor and researcher has been awarded nearly $1 million from the National Science Foundation. WSU has announced that Dr. Tom Luhring has received the award as part of the Faculty Early Career Development Program. According to the National Science Foundation, the award is for faculty members early in their careers who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Dr. Luhring says that early in his career, he remembers hearing about professors in his department and colleagues in the field earning National Science Foundation awards, which inspired him. I just remember it being a huge deal, he said. Its pretty humbling to receive the same reward as a lot of those researchers that I really respect such as Holly Moeller (UCSB). The grant will be used by Luhring for his research on the effects of drying and warming on aquatic systems like lakes, rivers, and streams and how those changes impact those bodies of water, including the organisms that live in them. Luhring says when researchers study ecosystems, they typically only look at the flow of materials across different systems or groups, like from plants to animals or from water to the plankton in the water, and only two to three elements, like carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous. Organisms are made of about 20 or so elements, and we generally havent considered how the balance of all these things works together, says Dr. Luhring. Thats what this project is doing: integrating multiple elements as they respond to the refilling of dried waterbodies and different temperatures, and the effects that this has on organisms living in them. Luhring will be focusing on waterbodies that dry up and refill. Heavy Metal Summer Experience to introduce students, recent grads to trades In Kansas, 70-80% of all the streams, pools, ponds and rivers that are natural in Kansas dry out and refill regularly. When a wetland dries and refills, that completely changes the chemistry of the water. The elements that are in the water are very different than a system that stays wet all the time. But generally, most of our knowledge on the elemental composition of waterbodies is based on systems that are full all the time, says Luhring. The award also supports the opportunity for local high school students to participate in the research. This specific award is designed for recipients to develop as a teacher-scholar, Luhring says. Youre supposed to have an intentional link between your research and teaching. My project works with USD 259 and their drive to address next-generation science standards, particularly around quantitative reasoning. Wichita State says the award will support local high school teachers through mentored joint curriculum development so students at Wichitas North, Northwest, Southeast and Heights high schools can enroll in Field Ecology at their schools and earn college credit at WSU. Molly Russell, from Aurora, Ohio, is a first-year WSU graduate student in biological sciences participating in the project. I also have a bit of experience working in aquatic systems with variable nutrient concentrations because that was always a big focus back home as harmful algal blooms were a pretty pervasive issue in Lake Erie every year, says Russell. The blooms damaged local ecosystems and caused many problems for the humans, flora and fauna living nearby. Russell says what also interested her in joining the project was working with high school students and teaching them about research and ecology. I like the fact that a large part of this plan is to promote ecological studies, fieldwork and opportunities among historically underrepresented students another topic I am especially passionate about and have found myself advocating for as well, says Russell. The ecological field is historically underrepresented both in terms of secondary education and professional careers. This award places ecological education and engagement among high school students at the forefront, underscoring the pillars of scientific excellence. Scientific advancement depends on creativity; that creativity emerges from diversity; and the advantages of diversity are ultimately realized through inclusion. To learn more about academic programs available through Wichita State University, click here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV. Many of Wheeling, W.Va.'s unhoused population stayed in an encampment on a state-owned parking lot across the street from the Catholic Charities Neighborhood Center in March 2024 before the state closed and cleaned the camp, forcing people to move. (Daniel Finsley | Finsley Creative for West Virginia Watch) Days after the United States Supreme Court upheld an Oregon citys public camping ban targeting homeless people, a Morgantown councilwoman called for the city to consider expanding its own camping ban. Councilwoman Louise Weez Michaels comments came during the regular July 2 meeting of city council. Morgantown has an ordinance banning camping or temporary lodging within a park without the written consent of the city manager. Michael said she wants the city to consider expanding the ban to include residential properties, city streets, alleyways and sidewalks. This I believe has become an immediate and serious safety and health issue that we can no longer wish the issue to go away. We need to send a message that this city will no longer tolerate nefarious behaviors, Micheal said. Michael did not respond to an emailed request for further comment. The Morgantown councilwoman is so far the only known representative of a West Virginia city to call for an expanded camping ban after the Supreme Court recently upheld similar laws in Grants Pass, Oregon. A representative for Mountain State Justice, a legal advocacy organization, said they do not know of any other West Virginia city that is considering a public camping ban. Which isnt to say they arent its just not on our radar yet, advocacy and access programs director Lindsey Jacobs wrote in an email to West Virginia Watch. Locally, [it] seems to just be Morgantown so far. At least one other West Virginia city Charleston is reviewing the Supreme Court ruling, according to Matt Sutton, chief of staff for Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin. In the June 28 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that ordinances by the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, prohibiting unhoused people from sleeping within the city limits do not violate the Constitutions ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Basically the Supreme Court said that the Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment clause do not apply to whether conduct is regulated, but how conduct is regulated so you cant disembowel or burn them at the stake, how they used to do in Old English law, but as far as regulating conduct, states have the full discretion to do that, said London Henderson, an intern for the ACLU of West Virginia. Henderson is a student of American University Washington College of Law who is working on a dissertation focusing on the Grants Pass ruling. The ordinance in Grants Pass does not make it illegal to be homeless, but makes it legal to camp on public lands, Henderson said. [The Supreme Court] said that [the ordinances are] constitutional because its a volitional act and the argument that homeless people dont have control over that, especially if theres no space in shelters was void or invalid, because theyre engaging in a volitional act, she said. Aubrey Sparks, legal director for American Civil Liberties of West Virginia, said many West Virginia cities seek to make life more difficult for people who are homeless by passing camping bans, panhandling bans and others. It is not a one off here. We see them just across the state, Sparks said. And it oftentimes feels like cities are just in a race to see who could make the cruelest rule just to make a point. Across the country in recent years, states and cities have enacted laws prohibiting camping or sleeping in public as the number of people experiencing homelessness has increased. So far this year, at least three states Oklahoma, Kentucky and Florida have passed camping bans. According to a recent report from the state Department of Human Services, last year 1,416 individuals in West Virginia were experiencing homelessness, an increase of 3 percent over the previous yet, according to point-in-time estimates. Experts say point-in-time estimates often underestimate the number of people experiencing homelessness. In the last year in West Virginia, Wheeling and Parkersburg have enacted public camping bans that target homeless people. Morgantown recently repealed a 2005 panhandling ordinance after a resident represented by Mountain State Justice sued the city for enforcing the law. The suit argued that panhandling and soliciting of charitable donations constitute speech protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. But just because the Supreme Court decision limits one potential claim against camping bans, it does not mean that homeless people are without protections, Sparks said. This doesnt say that theyre second-class citizens, that theyre allowed to be discriminated against, that their other constitutional rights are limited, Sparks said. And so we think that for some of these bans that are being proposed, and maybe even some of these bans that are already in place, that theres other constitutional challenges that could be made to say that theyre violative of peoples rights, even after Grants Pass. Michaels comments drew condemnation from several advocacy organizations serving Morgantown, including Mountain State Justice, Milan Puskar Health Right, Morgantown Pride and the ACLU of West Virginia. In an open letter to council members Friday, the organizations wrote that public camping bans dont address the root causes of homelessness, including poverty, violence and disability and that fines, arrests, prosecutions, and criminal records are incompatible with getting affordable housing. The only solution to homelessness is housing, they wrote. If Councils goal is to combat homelessness, it must come to terms with the truth that the path is neither straight nor easy, but that saving lives is worth the effort. If Councils goal is to further stigmatize, punish, and traumatize the most vulnerable people in our community those with the least power to change their material conditions then Councilor Michaels proposition will do just that. Notably, both paths are trod at the taxpayers expense. Sutton told West Virginia Watch the administration is reviewing the Grants Pass decision. Charleston currently has a policy of notifying homeless people and advocates in writing days before a homeless encampment is dismantled. The policy stems from a settlement the city reached with homeless advocates after the city dismantled a tent city along the Elk River in below-freezing temperatures in 2016. We already have those rules, we dont think this impacts at all, but at the same time were going to read it and see how other folks interpret it and try to figure out whether it does or not, Sutton said. But on first blush, it seems like what were already doing will continue to work. We already have a policy in place that this wouldnt impact one way or the other. But that does leave the option open for what the state could do, or what could be done in the city in the future. Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, a Democrat who is running for governor, said in an emailed statement that after the Grants Pass decision, the city would continue to do what we have been doing all along. We always strive to strike a balance between the demands of the citizens for a safe, vibrant city and the needs of the unsheltered population for the provision of dignified living conditions, Williams said. We believe in compassionate accountability. We are doing what we can to compassionately assist those who are marginalized while holding them accountable to follow the expectations set forth within community. A Huntington city spokesman did not respond to a question about whether the city currently enforced a camping ban. In Morgantown, Michael asked that issue be discussed during a future Committee of the Whole meeting. As of Tuesday the agenda for the next Committee of the Whole, slated for July 30, had not been posted. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) The YMCA of Abilenes pool has been shutdown by the health depart after receiving 16 violations. Health department officials conducted a routine inspection at the pool at Redbud Park on S 32nd Street Tuesday, July 9, during which inspectors noted several safety issues. Violations were recorded as follows: Combined chlorine is greater than 0.4 ppm. Free Chlorine/Bromine level tested using DPS method. Reliable mans of testing for all chemical parameters required. *The YMCAs testing regents were out of date and they could not test calcium hardness. Suction entrapment avoidance. *The YMCA pool has no drain cover. Safety signs for pools. USCG ring bouy w/throwing rope and non-conductive reaching pole. *Inspectors noted the YMCA pool needs to of these ring bouys. Emergency summoning device available. Pump gages & flowmeter operating, and piping/direction of flow marked. *The YMCA pool has a broken flowmeter. Lifeguards provided as required. *The YMCA only had one lifeguard present and called in a second after inspectors arrived. Lifeguard mandatory in-service training as required. *No record of YMCA lifeguards receiving training. Lifeguard access to First Aid Kit, backboard, AED, BVM. *The YMCAs first aid kid is expired and missing components. The BVM are not in good condition and need to be replaced. Enclosure gates, windows, doors supervised or closed and locked. *The chain link fence gate was open at the outside sitting area of the pool. Gates/doors SC/SL, open out, latch 3.5 above deck, no midrail. Gates/doors not propped open. Gate/door between indoor/outdoor pool self-closing and latching. Operator certification provided. In response, health inspectors said YMCA needs to take care of these issues before reopening the pool: please install an emergency phone, provide more extensive lifeguard training, at all times of operation have a minimum of two lifeguards present, provide require trainings for the lifeguard (pre-season/in-service); provide lifeguards with whistles and other necessary equipment. Lock the gates by the garage door windows. Repair or replace the broken flow meters to be operational. Install required signage for the pool area. Its currently unknown when the pool will reopen. KTAB and KRBC have reached out to the YMCA for comment on the pools closure. Stick with BigCountryHomepage.com for any additional information. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com. (Bloomberg) -- New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, one of the states most prominent Democrats, called on Joe Biden to step aside Wednesday, becoming the latest elected official to call for the president to end his reelection bid. Most Read from Bloomberg While Biden deserves our eternal gratitude for what he has accomplished, Delgado said in a social media post, He can add to his legacy, showing his strength and grace, by ending his campaign and making room for a new leader. Delgado is second in line to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who came out strongly in support of Biden days after his disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump. The performance exacerbated concerns over the 81-year-olds health and ability to beat Trump, whos 78, this November. President Joe Biden is in it to win it, Hochul said July 3 after a meeting Biden held with Democratic governors from around the country. We feel very confident in his abilities, Hochul said. Delgado, whos held his position since 2022, is among a small but growing number of Democrats whove publicly called on Biden to step aside, ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August, including New York Congressman Pat Ryan, who issued a public call for Biden to relinquish the nomination earlier Wednesday. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado called on President Joe Biden to end his presidential campaign and allow new leadership to step up in the wake of what critics have considered his concerning performance in the recent debate. More Local News I join with millions of Americans including everyday New Yorkers from all walks of life who are expressing legitimate concerns about President Bidens ability to wage a successful campaign against Trump, Delgado posted Wednesday. I believe we should move forward with a nominee capable of reinvigorating and re-energizing Americans who are determined to protect our democracy, and who want to do so with a candidate they believe can win. Delgados statement breaks with the sentiments of Gov. Kathy Hochul, who pledged her support to Biden after a meeting between the president and a group of Democratic governors last week. Rochester Mayor Malik Evans also came out of a virtual meeting between Biden and other mayors this week expressing support for Bidens continued candidacy. The President was clear eyed about the future and clearly articulated his vision to the mayors in attendance, Evans said. President Biden support for the nations cities can not be understated and I look forward to continuing to support him. Congressman Joe Morelle was among a number of prominent Democratic lawmakers who reportedly expressed a desire for President Biden to step aside during a phone call earlier this week. More PIX on Politics Statement from New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado President Biden deserves our eternal gratitude for what he has accomplished. By defeating Donald Trump in 2020, and leading our nations recovery out of the pandemic, he has helped to restore faith in America both at home and abroad. I have immense respect and admiration for his deep and abiding commitment to the American people and our founding democratic ideals. He can add to his legacy. showing his strength and grace, by ending his campaign and making room for a new leader. There is no greater threat to our democracy than former President Donald Trump. He must be defeated. That is why I join with millions of Americans including everyday New Yorkers from all walks of life who are expressing legitimate concerns about President Bidens ability to wage a successful campaign against Trump. Sustaining our collective belief in democracy and trust in our democratic institutions requires those of us in elected office to be straight with the American people. Dismissing these voices out of hand is misguided and dangerous. I believe we should move forward with a nominee capable of reinvigorating and re-energizing Americans who are determined to protect our democracy, and who want to do so with a candidate they believe can win. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. PANAMA CITY BEACH Local organizations are partnering to help clean the Gulf Coast. In a news release on Monday, the Young Professionals at the Central Panhandle Association of Realtors announced it is gearing up to host its annual beach cleanup on Saturday from 8 to 10 a.m. The group will work alongside the Women's Council of Realtors Central Panhandle, Keep PCB Beautiful and Gulf World Marine Institute. The Young Professionals at the Central Panhandle Association of Realtors is gearing up to host its annual beach cleanup on July 13 from 8-10 a.m at Rick Seltzer Park. "Volunteers are invited to join in the effort and make a positive impact on our environment," the release reads. "The event is part of a statewide Florida Realtors 'Clean up Florida Waters' initiative, which calls upon thousands of Florida realtors to do their part in preserving our state's waterways arguably one of our greatest assets." The cleanup will begin at 8 a.m. at Rick Seltzer Park, 7419 Thomas Drive in the Panama City Beach area. Those who participate will be provided buckets, gloves and water. The event will the end at 10 a.m. with the trash weigh-in. "Participants can keep up with their progress using the Clean Swell app, which can track clean-up history, time spent, distance covered and pounds of trash removed," the release reads. Central Panhandle Association of Realtors is a local organization that oversees more than 2,000 real estate agents in Bay, Calhoun, Washington, Holmes and Jackson counties. 'It was so busy': Panama City Beach lifeguards rescue 21 beachgoers in one day According to the group's website, past Beach Clean Up events have garnered dozens of participants who removed hundreds of pounds of trash from the coast. "Across the state, Florida Realtors will host clean-up events during the month of July," the release reads. "The statewide push encourages realtors and residents to join forces to pick up trash and clean the state's lakes, rivers, streams, retention ponds, bays, intracoastal waterway, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. "This CPAR YPN Beach Clean Up event is our local contribution to this remarkable statewide effort." This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Young Professionals at CPAR to host annual beach cleanup event Vivo Infusion has announced the acquisition of Infusion Associates, significantly expanding its operational footprint in the US. The companies have not disclosed the financial details of the transaction. As part of this acquisition, Vivo Infusion will now be responsible for overseeing around 80 ambulatory infusion centres spread across 15 states in the US. Established in 2001, Infusion Associates has experienced growth through new centre openings and strategic acquisitions, particularly in the Midwest. It has centres across various US states, including Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Infusion Associates has developed a distinctive operating model that encompasses physician partnerships as well as a clinical trials division, thereby enhancing its service offerings to patients, pharmaceutical partners, and payors. Post-acquisition, Vivo Infusion is poised for continued expansion in the Midwest region of the US, with plans for additional de novo centre buildouts. Vivo Infusion CEO Chris Reef said: Infusion Associates brings several unique capabilities to Vivos growing business which will continue to strengthen our relationships with our patients, payors and pharma partners. We are delighted to partner with the entire team. Since 2021, InTandem Capital Partners, which is a private equity company specialising in healthcare services, has been a capital partner and key investor in Vivo Infusion. In relation to the acquisition of Infusion Associates, Vivo Infusion said that InTandem has secured nearly $150m of additional equity capital from its limited partners. This funding is intended to support Vivo Infusion's growth strategy throughout the country for the remainder of the current year and beyond. TripleTree acted as the exclusive financial adviser to Infusion Associates during the latest deal. "Vivo acquires Infusion Associates to expand ambulatory services " was originally created and published by Hospital Management, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Young Thug and his lawyer Brian Steel at the Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta on Monday, June 10, 2024. - Credit: Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP Young Thugs lawyers are calling for the rappers immediate release from jail, a mistrial, and the disqualification of the Georgia judge overseeing the now-notorious YSL racketeering conspiracy trial, claiming a recently unsealed transcript from a secret meeting with a sworn witness shows Judge Ural Glanville has morphed into an essential part of the prosecution team. In a blistering new court filing obtained by Rolling Stone, Young Thugs defense lawyers Brian Steel and Keith Adams say Judge Glanville must be disqualified from handling the high-profile case after he engaged in an improper, secret and coercive pressure campaign with prosecutors on June 10 to get key prosecution witness Kenneth Woody Copeland to testify. The defense lawyers say after the secret meeting, Judge Glanville and meeting participants Fulton County Deputy District Attorneys Adriane Love and Simone Hylton stonewalled them with a cover up, secrecy and silence. In their 233-page filing, the lawyers call the response unforgivable and accuse Glanville of gross misconduct, violation of his oath of office, ethical violations and potential criminal conduct. More from Rolling Stone Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, is now asking for an immediate and reasonable bond because his right to a fair and speedy trial has been totally upended and trampled by the allegedly derelict judge, the new filing states. His defense lawyers say Williams also has a right to demand details about other possible improper ex parte communications that may have taken place since his trials inception. This is the definition of a biased judge and unethical prosecutors. This trial is Constitutionally broken forever because of the outrageous actions of these three public officials, the lawyers write in their new motion paperwork. Mr. Williams must be released from custody, instanter and cleared of all charges based upon prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. Steel and Adams previously called for Judge Glanvilles removal after they first learned of the secret meeting with prosecutors and Copeland last month. The highly controversial meeting, which excluded defense lawyers, focused on Copelands ongoing refusal to testify even after he was granted use immunity and spent a weekend in jail for getting on the witness stand on a Friday and still invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Lawyers for Williams and his five co-defendants say they had a right to be informed of the meeting considering Copeland already was a sworn witness and anything he told the court would be fair game for their defense cases. (Prosecutors had described Copeland as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case and say he had knowledge of the 2015 murder of Donovan Thomas, one of the three homicides cited in the 2022 RICO indictment that already has kept Williams behind bars for two years.) After the allegedly improper June 10 meeting, Copeland was released from custody in exchange for agreeing to testify. That same day, defense lawyers learned about the secret meeting, and Steel confronted Judge Glanville on the record, saying he was worried Copeland had been threatened with more jail time. Rather than order the meeting transcripts immediate release, Judge Glanville voiced concern with how Steel found out and held him in contempt when Steel refused to give up his source. The meeting, combined with Judge Glanvilles punitive response, quickly led to multiple calls for recusal and release of the meeting transcript. After initially resisting, Glanville released the transcript under pressure last week and halted the trial, now in its 19th month, until another Fulton County judge can decide whether Glanville should be removed from the case. In their new motion, Steel and Adams claim the transcript proves their worst suspicions that Judge Glanville acted in lockstep with prosecutors as the trio cajoled perjured testimony from Mr. Copeland, hid (exculpatory) evidence and worked together to wrongly convict Mr. Williams. The defense lawyers allege the judge and prosecutors had an agenda to ensure that Mr. Copeland testifies against Mr. Williams in order to convict Mr. Williams. Rolling Stones request for comment from Judge Glanville on Tuesday was returned by a Fulton County spokesperson who said Georgias code of judicial conduct prohibits judges from commenting on actions still pending before the court. Prosecutors Love and Hylton did not immediately respond to Rolling Stones request for comment. The scathing new filing from Steel and Adams systematically dissects the June 10 meeting transcript, alleging Judge Glanville attempted to intimidate Copeland by claiming that if Copeland did not get back on the witness stand, he could be held in jail not only until the end of trial for Williams and the five co-defendants, but until a dozen others who also were indicted with Williams finished their severed cases as well. If I dont testify, I have to stay in until when? Copeland asked the court during the June 10 meeting. Until the trial is over. Until all the defendants have been Ive got these six that we have right now, and then theres another six, Judge Glanville replied, according to the transcript. DDA Hylton then corrected the judge, saying the tally was actually 12 other defendants who were awaiting separate trials. The judge then noted the corrected number to Copeland. In their filing, Williams lawyers say Judge Glanvilles claim was just not true and amounted to improper pressure placed on Copeland. In fact, Judge Glanville is not even the judge on the other co-indictees cases, they wrote. The lawyers also faulted Glanville for telling Copeland his immunity agreement protected him from prosecution. In reality, Copeland received only use immunity, not transactional immunity, the new filing states. That means other prosecutors outside Fulton County could possibly charge him over an offense covered by his testimony if other evidence emerges that implicates him. (Transactional immunity is broader and protects a witness from prosecution for the offense involved.) If you are worried about what the defendants may ask you [on cross-examination] because they may know your business you cant be prosecuted for any of those, Judge Glanville told Copeland, according to the transcript. Steel and Adams claim Glanville misled Copeland, improperly dispensed legal advice, and made biased statements that presumed Williams could draw on insider knowledge of other criminal endeavors during cross-examination. The lawyers say the transcript proves Judge Glanville was far from acting as an impartial judge during the ex parte meeting. The lawyers also highlight the fact that Copeland made several statements during the secret meeting that defense lawyers were entitled to have for possible impeachment. For instance, Copeland said, I have never been truthful a day in my life until I just made this statement right now, according to the transcript. He later added, I [told the police] whatever different story I could think of to try to finesse my way out of the situation. In yet another statement, Copeland said, I did these crimes. Im telling you that, according to the transcript. Beyond Judge Glanville, the new motion from Steel and Adams further seeks to recuse Judge Rachel Krause, the Fulton County judge recently tapped to step in and determine whether Judge Glanville should be removed. The new filing points out that Judge Glanville previously contributed $2,000 to Judge Krauses reelection campaign. Judge Krause has not yet ruled in Judge Glanvilles recusal matter beyond giving county officials until Wednesday to file a response. In a separate order issued Tuesday, Judge Krause declined to recuse herself. Douglas Weinstein, a defense lawyer representing fellow rap artist Deamonte Yak Gotti Kendrick in the same trial as Williams, tells Rolling Stone he found the content of the transcript horrifying. Weinstein filed his own motion to recuse Judge Glanville last month and is also seeking the recusal of Judge Krause. Now that Ive seen the transcript, I am appalled, Weinstein says. Seeing the judge in league with the prosecutors, coercing a witness to testify, is something Ive never seen nor heard of before. I imagine Mr. Copeland sitting in the judges chambers, sitting there with a couple investing officers, members of the DAs office, the judge, the court reporter, and four deputies, and I cant help thinking about the pressure he must have felt. I just feel for him. He had an attorney there trying to give him some guidance, but hes being hot-boxed by the judge in cooperation with the prosecutor. Weinstein says he agrees with everything in the new motion from Steel and Adams. Brian Steel has a real honest sense of justice and believes in our system, and you can read and see how aghast he is at what has happened, Weinstein says. He has every right to be as outraged as he is, and I am equally outraged. Best of Rolling Stone Yulia Navalnaya, 47, is the exiled widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a Siberian prison on Feb 16. For years she sought to avoid the limelight, but after vowing to continue her husbands work and declaring Vladimir Putin my enemy, a Moscow court on Tuesday ordered that she be arrested in absentia on extremism charges. For many Russian dissidents, she represents the best hope for the future. Others however wonder what she can achieve while living abroad beyond the Kremlins reach, but cut-off from her supporters. How did Yulia Navalnaya and Alexei Navalny meet? The Navalnys met on holiday in Turkey in 1998 when Alexei was a young real estate lawyer from a military family in the Moscow region who was just becoming involved in opposition politics. Both were 22 (Yulia is six weeks older than Alexei). Alexei is said to have been struck by her looks after spotting her through the window of a tour bus. After they got to know each other, he would become enamoured by her intellect and political understanding. He immediately felt that I would be his wife, Yulia said in an interview in the Russian edition of Harpers Bazaar. What was Yulia Navalnayas job? After giving up her job in banking to raise the couples first child Daria, she acted as Alexeis press secretary and gatekeeper, editing his articles and speeches. In public, however, she always insisted that she saw her main role as a homemaker. My main task is to make sure that, in spite of everything, nothing in our family changes, she told Harpers Bazaar. So that the children can remain children, and the house a home. After Putins attempt to murder Alexei with nerve agent in August 2020, Yulia was thrust into the spotlight. With Alexei recovering inside a hospital in Omsk, Yulia gave briefings to the worlds press outside. She also issued demands to Putin that he give permission for Alexei to be transported to Germany for further treatment. What is Yulia Navalnaya doing now? Yulia left Russia in 2021 and has been forced to move around in recent years due to her familys exile. It is understood that she currently lives in Germany. After the death of Alexei, Yulia vowed to continue his work to fight for a free Russia. On July 1, she was announced as the chairwoman of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). She used the occasion to say that her main ambition was to continue Alexeis work and that collaborating with the HRF can help me and the entire team achieve this . On July 9, a Moscow court issued an arrest warrant for Yulia on extremism charges five months after the death of her husband. When was Yulia Navalnaya last seen? On June 16, Yulia attended her daughter Darias graduation from Stanford University in California, sharing photos of the celebration on social media. I am very proud and congratulations! The smartest, most beautiful, and most importantly, the best friend in the world. Our girl, she said of the event. Yulia also appeared at a concert in Berlin held in memory of Alexei on June 4, which would have been his 48th birthday. Addressing the crowd, she said: Love is stronger than separation. Love is stronger than fear. And love is stronger than death. Happy birthday, beloved. One day, and I believe that very soon, you will receive the gift that you wanted so much. Free, happy, beautiful Russia. 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. By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy returned to the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to cement relationships with lawmakers who will vote on future U.S. aid for his country, which could be in jeopardy if former President Donald Trump is reelected. Zelenskiy, who is in Washington for this week's NATO summit, met with leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives and members of committees involved in defense, spending, diplomacy and national security. "It's an incredibly important mission and we've got to stand by Ukraine," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner told Reuters. The visit comes amid deep uncertainty about this year's U.S. presidential election, which pits incumbent Democrat Joe Biden, a strong supporter of aid to Ukraine, against the Republican Trump, who has expressed skepticism about the amount of aid given. Zelenskiy awarded the Order of Merit of Ukraine to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell before having lunch with a group of Democratic and Republican senators. He later sat down with the Republican House of Representatives speaker, Mike Johnson, telling reporters he had just invited Johnson to Kyiv. Johnson, a close Trump ally, said it would be difficult to find the time for a trip before the November election, when every seat in the House will be up for grabs and his fellow Republicans hope to preserve or expand their narrow majority. "We'd sure like to. The schedule's pretty tight through the election for us, so it's difficult to find the time to go, but we'd certainly like to," Johnson said. Biden's uneven June 27 debate performance against Trump and low public approval have raised fresh doubts about his mental fitness, and a handful of congressional Democrats have called for Biden to step aside. Reuters reported last month that two Trump advisers had presented the Republican candidate with a plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine - if he wins the Nov. 5 election - that involves telling Kyiv it will only get more U.S. weapons if it enters peace talks. Zelenskiy urged U.S. political leaders in a speech on Tuesday not to wait for the outcome of the U.S. election before moving forcefully to help Ukraine and called for fewer restrictions on the use of U.S. weaponry. JOHNSON CHANGED COURSE In Congress, dozens of Trump's closest allies have voted repeatedly against assisting Zelenskiy's government, although Democrats and more internationally focused Republicans have worked together to approve the $175 billion in aid for Ukraine Washington has approved since Russia invaded in February 2022. Most recently, Johnson changed course in April - months after Biden requested the money - and allowed the House to vote on and pass $61 billion in assistance for Ukraine. When Zelenskiy last visited Congress in December, Johnson had said he would not support Biden's request for additional funding. The House passed the supplemental spending package by 311 to 112, with the "no" votes coming from conservative Republicans closely allied with Trump. The vote fueled concerns Trump's party will not approve more money for Ukraine if they take control of the House, Senate and White House in November. However, Johnson said in his first major national security address this week that Russia poses a threat beyond Ukraine, and that American voters have expressed support for the aid as he traveled around the country. "People understand that (Russian President Vladimir Putin) would not stop if he took Kyiv. He's a ruthless dictator in my view," Johnson said. (This story has been refiled to correct the spelling of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy's name in paragraph 1) (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Don Durfee, Michael Perry and Deepa Babington) Zelenskiy Urges NATO to Help Kyiv Now, Before the US Election (Bloomberg) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged NATO allies to act decisively in helping his country repel Russias invasion instead of waiting for November in an oblique reference to the US presidential election. Most Read from Bloomberg Speaking at the start of a three-day summit of the alliances leaders in Washington on Tuesday, Zelenskiy called on the US to take further steps in allowing his military to hit targets, including air bases, inside Russia and assist the country with deep-strike capabilities in Crimea. Its time to step out of the shadows, to make strong decisions work, to act and not to wait for November or any other month, Zelenskiy said at the Reagan Institute in Washington. To this end, we must be strong and uncompromising. All together. And first of all America. The firm tone of the address underscores the sense of urgency that Ukraine is feeling with the war well into its third year and the prospect of Donald Trumps returning to the White House following the election. The presumptive Republican presidential candidate has decried the billions of dollars spent on Ukraines defense and has boasted that hell end the war by the time hes inaugurated in January. Zelenskiy challenged Trump to present the plan on how to end the conflict in a Bloomberg TV interview last week, warning any proposal must avoid violating his nations sovereignty. Why Russia-Ukraine War Is So Hard to Win, and How It Might End Earlier on Tuesday, NATO allies promised five long-range air-defense systems for Ukraine, part of a push to counter a stepped-up Russian campaign of missile strikes. In a summit statement this week, the alliance is expected to offer Kyiv an irreversible path to membership, provided it makes necessary reforms meant to clean up corruption. Zelenskiy signaled the move will fall short after his country has long hoped to receive an invitation to join the alliance. For 75 years, Europeans could be confident that no matter the friction within the alliance no one, when talking to Russia, would trade the membership of European nations, he said. But why does Moscow hope for this now? And why do the words Ukraine is a NATO member cause more fear not in Moscow? He urged the US to show leadership so that our enemies such as Russian President Vladimir Putin fear our actions, Zelenskiy said. Dont wait months America can be great every day. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Kyiv can push Russia out of southern Ukraine if US lifts restrictions on deep strikes, Zelensky says The United States should allow Ukrainian forces to use American weapons to carry out strikes against military targets in Russia and occupied Crimea, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address at the Ronald Reagan Institute in Washington, D.C. on July 9. Zelensky delivered remarks on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Washington, a three-day conference celebrating the Alliance's 75th anniversary and focusing heavily on Russia's war against Ukraine. "Imagine how much we can achieve when all restrictions are lifted," Zelensky said. U.S. policy currently prevents Ukrainian troops from using ATACMS and other long-range weapons from the U.S. to strike targets deep within Russian territory. When Russia launched its intensified offensive against Kharkiv Oblast in May, the U.S. granted Ukraine provisional permission to use American weapons to strike Russian targets near the region's border. Zelensky praised the decision in his speech, saying it allowed Ukrainian forces to beat back the Russian offensive and better protect cities in Kharkiv Oblast from relentless aerial attacks. "Similarly now we can protect our cities from Russian guided bombs if American leadership makes a step forward and allows us to destroy Russian military aircraft on their bases," he said. The president said such a decision would produce "an instant result." Zelensky went on to say that long-range strikes with U.S. weapons could advance Ukraine's counteroffensive in Russian-occupied territories. "And we can significantly limit Russian actions in southern Ukraine and push the occupier out of there if American leadership assists us with the necessary deep-strike capabalities against the Russian military and logistics in our Ukrainian Crimea," he said. The address came a day after Russia launched a deadly mass missile attack on July 8 that killed over 200 civilians and targeted a children's hospital. U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. would not change its policy on Ukrainian strikes within Russia in light of the attack. Read also: Russia probes for air defense gaps to wreak havoc on Kyiv Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the world is watching with uncertainty as the U.S. gets closer to the November presidential election, adding he is unclear how a second Trump administration would handle policy related to Kyiv. I dont know [him] very well, Zelensky said of former President Trump in Tuesday night remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Washington following the opening ceremony of the NATO summit. I had meetings with him, we had good meetings when he was president. We didnt [go] through the war with him. And only during the war can you understand, can you count on somebody or not, he added. Zelensky renewed his call for Trump to release his ideas for ending Russias war in Ukraine, after the former president boasted during his June 27 debate with President Biden that he could find a solution before taking office in January. I cant tell you what he will do, if he will be the president of the United States we need answers, Zelensky said. With support from Congress, Trump delivered lethal military aid to Ukraine in 2019 a step not taken by the Obama administration for Kyivs defense against Russias five-year occupation of territory in eastern Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula. The step was welcomed and celebrated by pro-Ukraine lawmakers and Trumps supporters. I hope his policy with Ukraine will not change, Zelensky said, in an apparent reference to the early commitments. But Trump was impeached by the Democratic-led House in December 2019 over allegations he was holding back U.S. military assistance until Zelensky agreed to launch investigations into Bidens son Hunter as part of a political attack on his then-rival. Zelensky said at the time he didnt view Trumps request as a quid pro quo but did criticize the former president for delaying sending the aid. In his remarks in Washington on Tuesday night, Zelensky called for the U.S. and allies to deliver on key assistance for Ukraine ahead of the November election. While NATO allies have largely agreed on new pledges of military and financial assistance for Kyiv, Zelensky said Ukraine needs an embargo lifted on using U.S. and Western-provided weapons to strike military targets inside Russia. If we have this very special weapon, some of them we have, and if we can use it on the territory of Russia, especially on these military targets, if we can do it, of course we can defend civilians, hospitals, schools, children, we can do it, he said. It is time to step out of the shadows, to make strong decisions to act and not to wait for November or any other month. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stands for a moment of silence during a wreath ceremony at the Memorial Stele to the fallen Navy servicemen during an event honoring Navy Day at the Port of Odesa. Ukraine Presidency/Ukrainian Pre/Planet Pix via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa On the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked his allies for large numbers of Western fighter jets as he seeks to fend off the full-scale Russian invasion launched more than two years ago. Ukraine is hoping to receive the first individual F-16 aircraft this summer, but his country needs at least 128 fighter jets, Zelensky said during a speech at the Ronald Reagan Foundation in Washington. Russia was able to deploy 300 aircraft a day to attack Ukraine, he said. "You know, we always wait. Just like my mum used to wait for me after school and I always found a reason to come later. It's the same, only much more serious," Zelensky said, according to Ukrainian media reports With the approval of the United States as the maker of the jets, the Netherlands and Denmark want to supply Ukraine with F-16s. Ukrainian pilots and ground crews have been receiving training for this type of aircraft for months. However, the jets have not yet arrived in Ukraine. Their main purpose is to prevent Russian aircraft from dropping bombs unhindered. The discussion is only ever about 10 or 20 aircraft, Zelensky said. "Even if there are 50, that's nothing. They [the Russians] have 300," he said. "Until we have 128 aircraft, we won't be able to compete with them in the sky." He did not give any further details on this figure. A general view of destruction following a Russian missile attack on the Okhmatdyt National Specialized Childrens Hospital. -/Ukrinform/dpa Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to rebuild the children's hospital in Kiev which was badly damaged in a Russian missile attack earlier this week. Some 100 million hryvnia (about $2.45 million) had already been allocated to support the hospital, and a further 300 million hryvnia would follow, Zelensky said in a video message. He promised help to all families whose relatives were killed or injured in the attack. The strike on the hospital was part of a wave of missile attacks that left more than 40 people killed and well over 100 injured across the country on Monday. The shelling of the children's hospital and surrounding area, which left several people dead, provoked international outrage, including at the level of the UN Security Council. Moscow dismissed the Ukrainian response as "kind of a PR [public relations] stunt." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed a stray missile from Ukraine's own air defences for the damage to the hospital. Kiev was trying to exploit the tragedy to coincide with Zelensky's participation in the NATO summit in Washington, he said. At the summit on Tuesday, NATO countries announced more air defence systems would be delivered to Ukraine. Zelensky, who is also attending, said the air defence systems would help ward off the kind of "brutal attack" that hit the paediatric hospital in Kiev. A response effort is underway at the Okhmatdyt National Specialized Childrens Hospital attacked by Russias Kh-101 strategic cruise missile. -/Ukrinform/dpa Rescue workers work at the site of the Okhmatdyt National Specialized Childrens Hospital attacked by Russias Kh-101 strategic cruise missile. -/Ukrinform/dpa President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said in Washington that a new decision on the F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine is expected soon. Source: Zelenskyy in an address during the NATO summit in Washington, European Pravda reports Details: He noted that yesterday there was a decision on five more Patriot air defence systems and dozens of other systems for Ukraine, and today, 10 July, there will be a decision on the aircraft. "Today, we continue our work in Washington. Very soon, there will be a decision regarding the F-16s. We are increasing the number of aircraft available to Ukraine," Zelenskyy said. He also announced two new security agreements. "These agreements include support for sanctions against Russia, support for our accession to the EU and NATO, support for our defence our soldiers, all our people, and reconstruction all of this is taken into account in the security agreements exactly as needed," he said, without specifying which countries he was referring to. Zelenskyy also announced that he would hold at least ten talks with the leaders of these countries. "Today, there will also be meetings in the U.S. Congress both parties, both chambers. We appreciate the American support and will discuss how to add even more good results to our cooperation with America preferably, long-range and far-reaching," he said. As reported, the Washington NATO summit is not expected to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance. Background: On Wednesday night, the US President announced the provision of new Patriot systems to Ukraine, but it turned out that not all of the announced deliveries were reported earlier. Later, the White House explained what other air defence systems they would provide to Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a wartime president who knows when to be diplomatic. Tuesday was one of those times. Asked about the prospect that former President Donald Trump could be reelected, the Ukrainian leader took a pragmatic approach: He dodged. Zelenskyy, in Washington for the annual NATO Summit, told an audience at the Ronald Reagan Institute that he has had good conversations with the former president in the past and is optimistic he would have them again if Trump returns to the White House. "I hope that if the people of America will elect President Trump, I hope that his policy with Ukraine will not change," he told Fox anchor Bret Baier, who was moderating the conversation. The response likely obscures significant concern within the Ukrainian government and among its supporters about the possible return of Trump, who has sought closer relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelenskyy acknowledged that his positive interactions with Trump were before Putin launched the invasion, and that the election was weighing heavily on Ukrainians, the Russian leader and others. Now, everyone is waiting for November. Americans are waiting for November. In Europe, Middle East, in the Pacific, the whole world is looking to November," he said. "And, truly speaking, Putin awaits November." He also said actions must be taken now to resist the Russian invasion. "It's time to step out of the shadows to make strong decisions to act and not wait for November." Trump has claimed he could end the war on his first day in office and has threatened to cut aid to Ukraine. And while advisers and allies have taken to the pages of opinion sections and magazines to say the new administration would continue to support Kyiv, fears have not abated that Trump could exact revenge on Ukraine for what he views as contributions to his past political problems. Those worries have weighed over the gathering of NATO countries happening a few blocks away. NATO leaders have rushed to Trump-proof key security initiatives and protect them from political maneuvering they anticipate will occur during a second Trump presidency. European leaders have also adjusted their messaging on aid to Ukraine and the NATO alliance in the hopes of appealing to the former president. The former president and his allies, for their part, insist the fears are overblown and stem from unfair animus toward the former president. Trump has pledged to continue U.S. involvement in NATO, so long as member states meet defense spending targets and continue contributing to the defense of Ukraine. Zelenskyy spoke to a sympathetic audience that included Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a longtime supporter of aid to Ukraine who gave the introductory remarks. Also in attendance were Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Michael Turner (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Both men have vocally supported aid to Kyiv as it continues to repel Russias two-year invasion and pushed the White House to reduce restrictions on the usage of American-made munitions against targets in Russian territory. Ahead of Zelenskyys remarks, McConnell appeared to make a contrast of his own between the two ideological poles within his party, reflecting on Reagans support for anti-communist movements and combating Soviet aggression. Its no mystery where he would have stood while a proud nation gave him sons and daughters to beat back Soviet imperialism asking only that America and the West had its back, McConnell said. He understood that supporting their democratic aspirations wasn't a matter of charity. Volpak, a horizontal form-fill-seal solutions provider, and European speciality paper manufacturer Lecta have teamed up to advance the development of sustainable paper-based packaging materials. The collaboration is focused on assessing the viability of Lecta's eco-friendly papers for flexible packaging applications across various sectors, including foodservice. Lecta noted that the focus on paper-based packaging will help the partners meet the preferences of consumers while lowering the packagings impact on the environment. As part of the project, Volpak is conducting extensive tests within its pouch lab, an internal research and development facility dedicated to evaluating the materials machinability and durability. The aim is to ensure these sustainable papers can be integrated into current packaging processes, maintaining efficiency and quality. The partnership is a multiphase project, currently in the trial stage, with actual products to verify the effectiveness of the papers and achieve necessary certifications for market release. It is driven by a shared mutual commitment between the companies towards innovation and sustainability in the packaging industry, which is increasingly seeking greener solutions, Lecta said. Lecta has already launched barrier products suitable for various packaging needs such as flow packs, sachets, and butter wrappers, and continues to develop materials with specific barrier properties and heat-sealability. Volpak caters to the pouch-type packaging industry and specialises in horizontal form-fill-seal solutions. "Volpak and Lecta to test sustainable materials for packaging applications" was originally created and published by Packaging Gateway, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Zelenskyy on F-16s: We are anxiously expecting them, although they are late President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed hope that the F-16 fighter jets promised by international partners would arrive in Ukraine this summer, as Kyiv needs at least 128. Source: Volodymyr Zelenskyy during an interview after his speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute Quote: "It's like the dialogue about F-16s... but [how many]? You know, we are always waiting. Just like my mother used to wait for me after school, and I would always find a reason to come later. This is the same, but much more serious." Details: Zelenskyy expressed hope that the F-16s would arrive this summer. The problem with these fighters is the number and dates of their arrival. The president stressed that Russia uses 300 aircraft in the war against Ukraine every day, while partners have made decisions on 10 or 20 aircraft. Quote from Zelenskyy: "Even if there are 50 of them, it's nothing. They [the Russians ed.] have 300. Because we are defending ourselves, we need 128... Until we have 128, we will not be able to match them in the skies, and it will be difficult." Support UP or become our patron! Zelenskyy meets with newly-elected UK PM for first time, discusses Ukraine's needs Keir Starmer, the UK Prime Minister, has spoken about his first meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington. Source: Starmer before the start of a meeting of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in Washington, as reported by European Pravda Details: Arriving at the NATO Summit, Starmer stated that he had just had a "very good meeting" with President Zelenskyy, during which he "made it absolutely clear that a change of government in the UK made no difference in terms of supporting Ukraine". He added that his political force remained united in support while still in Ukraine and that he spoke with Zelenskyy over the phone shortly after becoming prime minister last week. According to Starmer, the discussion centred on Ukraine's future needs. Quote: "It is important for us today to make sure, together with allies, that there is agreement on this support and that it must be strengthened," the prime minister said. "This is also a message for Putin: NATO's resolve is stronger than ever, and NATO is united more than ever in history and is also absolutely aware of what Russian aggression is," Starmer asserted. Earlier, Keir Starmer indicated that Ukraine could use UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to hit military targets inside Russia. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer was officially appointed as the United Kingdom's new prime minister following a meeting with King Charles last week. On the same day, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a phone conversation with Starmer, who assured the president of his unwavering support for Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! Zelenskyy meets with U.S. leaders as NATO summit boosts Ukraine WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the rounds in Congress as Ukraine was a dominant topic of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit Wednesday. Zelenskyy spoke Tuesday at the Ronald Reagan Institute where he emphasized the U.S. as an important part in protecting freedom throughout the world. The world cant be secure without America, Zelenskyy said. Ahead of the summit Wednesday, he met in closed-door sessions with many U.S. political leaders including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). Aid to Ukraine has been a hot button issue in the U.S. Congress, especially with Republican opposition signaled by former President Donald Trump. A package was blocked for months earlier this year while Ukraine ceded ground to Russia. Eventually, President Joe Biden signed a foreign aid package into law in April that included $95 billion to allies abroad, $61 billion of which went to Ukraine. America should not shy away from its strengths. It is America that keeps the freedom for the world, Zelenskyy said. Leaders like NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed the future of Ukraine and NATO as irreversible. I strongly believe that when the fighting stops, we need to ensure that Ukraine has the capabilities to deter future aggression from Russia, and they need security guarantees, Stoltenberg said. The Associated Press contributed to this story. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. Zelenskyy wants to hold second peace summit this year President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed the desire to hold a second peace summit later this year and hopes for US support on this matter. Source: Zelenskyy during a speech at the Reagan Institute in Washington, as reported by European Pravda Details: Zelenskyy mentioned the Peace Summit in Switzerland, attended by 101 countries and international organisations. He noted that in response to this, Putin had held his own summit with Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang to obtain more artillery for the war against Ukraine. Quote: "We must react firmly. We must and can organise the second Peace Summit this year based on the Peace Formula even more powerful, and truly decisive. We need that support from the US." Background: Zelenskyy is waiting for new ideas next month to achieve peace in Ukraine based on the first founding Peace Summit, which took place in Switzerland on 15-16 June. Support UP or become our patron! Zelenskyy in Washington calls for lifting all restrictions on strikes on Russian territory Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hopes that the US will lift all restrictions on strikes on Russian territory, allowing the protection of Ukrainian cities from guided aerial bomb attacks. Source: Zelenskyy during a speech at the Reagan Institute in Washington; European Pravda Details: Zelenskyy emphasised the need for a US leadership that does not wait but acts now. He gave the example of the new Russian offensive in Kharkiv Oblast, which was thwarted thanks to the US allowing Ukraines Armed Forces to strike military targets in Russia with Western-supplied weapons. Zelenskyy said this decision can bring immediate results and Ukraine is waiting for this step. Quote: "Imagine how much we can achieve when all limitations are lifted. Similarly now we can protect our cities from Russian glide bombs if American leadership makes a step forward and allows us to destroy Russian military aircraft on their bases. And we can significantly limit Russian actions in southern Ukraine and push the occupier out of there if American leadership assists us with the necessary deep strike capabilities against Russian military and logistics in our Ukrainian Crimea." Background: After giving Ukraine limited permission to deploy American weapons to hit Russian territory, US President Joe Biden expressed resistance to US weapons potentially being used to strike deep into Russian territory. Meanwhile, Ukraine wishes to expand the scope of this authorisation. Support UP or become our patron! Airbus plans to use a series of small electric motors to power its first hybrid airliner as it bids to slash carbon emissions by relying on technology developed for the car industry. Trials of the motors are already underway on an experimental helicopter that first flew last year, boosting hopes of rolling them out across other types of aircraft. Karim Mokaddem, the firms head of electrification, told The Telegraph that Airbuss approach to building a hybrid successor to the best-selling A320 jet will form a blueprint for all other models. The strategy will simplify the task of scaling up electrification, he said, as it will mean the planemaker will only need to add or remove motors depending on the size of a plane. Crucially, the deployment of smaller motors and batteries will also help Airbus build on advances pioneered by the automotive sector in its own shift away from fossil fuels. That will help Airbus access higher volumes of the required hardware without relying on suppliers to develop bespoke technology solely for the aviation industry. Mr Mokaddem said: When it comes to batteries and electrical parts we will have to compete with a market thats much bigger than the one were in today. The beauty of a modular approach is that we can work with the automotive sector and enjoy the benefits of volume production. While all-electric propulsion may be practical for very small aircraft, batteries lack the energy required to power full-sized airliners such as the 180-seat A320, Airbuss rival to the Boeing 737 and a workhorse on short-haul flights around the world. Airbus is working on concepts for planes that would use a liquid hydrogen propellant instead of jet fuel, but views hybrid power as a more immediate pathway toward reducing emissions. A hybrid airliner would use auxiliary batteries to supplement its traditional jet engines, which would continue to provide the bulk of the required thrust. Electric motors would kick in at certain times, such as when the engines were idling during descent. They would also power non-propulsion-related activities, such as taxiing at the airport. Airbus originally looked at deploying much larger motors and batteries but changed tack after calculations showed the plan would add too much weight to be viable. It has instead settled on a more modest hybrid design that aims to reduce fuel consumption by about 5pc on a standard flight. That would be accompanied by savings from other technological advances, including more efficient jet engines and a longer, thinner wing that Airbus is developing in the UK. Combined, the changes should help propel the industry toward a target of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050, Mr Mokaddem said, even as airlines attempts to switch away from kerosene are held back by high prices and low availability of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). He said: If we know that, ultimately, SAF wont be sufficient and will be costly, we need to increase the performance of the plane. That can only come from the introduction of a new, clean energy, and the only clean energy that we have today is electricity. Mr Mokaddem said that hybrid technology suitable for future jets is already being trialled on Airbuss experimental DisruptiveLab helicopter, which first flew last year. While previously described as a stepping stone toward a more efficient helicopter, two or three motors from the model could be combined in a hybrid successor to the A320, he said. The executive said: I cannot go too far into the architecture but the idea is that you size it up two or three times. In settling on the hybrid strategy, Airbus has had to accept the limits of battery technology for high-powered aircraft. Mr Mokaddem said: In the automotive industry, the bigger and more powerful the battery the better, until ultimately it becomes a fully electric car. But we have come to realise that in aviation you need to size the battery with frugality. If you try to electrify everything you need almost a nuclear plant inside the aircraft. And when that battery is empty you are flying around a huge weight. Neither are aircraft able to recover energy through braking like a hybrid car, while the auto industrys view that passengers can evacuate in the event of a battery fire is hardly transferable to those flying at 38,000 feet. Airbus plans to fit numerous small electric engines to its A320 model in a bid to reduce the carbon intensity of traditional propulsion - Matthieu Rondel/Bloomberg Airbuss path towards electrification has not been straightforward, with some projects taking it down blind alleys before it settled on the plan for what it calls micro-hybridisation. The companys E-Fan X demonstrator, developed with Rolls-Royce, saw one of four engines on a BAE 146 jet replaced with a 2-megawatt electric motor producing a colossal 3,000 volts. The project was wound up after three years in 2020. Mr Mokaddem said: These are limits that we would never reach. The honest feedback is, yes, we learned a lot. Was it something that could represent a real product? No. Airbus now envisages that an A320 hybrid would require something of an order of magnitude of one megawatt and 800 volts, he said. Another project, EcoPulse, developed with jet engine maker Safran, is flight testing a so-called distributed propulsion system that may not feature in a production aircraft. Mr Mokaddem, who joined Airbus in 2021, spoke at the firms London offices after making a joint presentation with a Renault executive at a conference on urban mobility. Earlier in his career he spent 14 years at Peugeot Citroen, where he admits to having been sceptical about the potential for hybrid and electric cars when Renault unveiled the ground-breaking Zoe model in 2005. He said: I was among the people saying that it would never happen because the charging ecosystem wasnt there, the car was too expensive and people would never accept a 200-kilometre range. And look at what is happening today. Its the exact opposite. But it took a century of hesitation for the automotive industry to get to where they are now. We are expecting to do the same exercise in 20 years. Thats why we have started to discuss it with the automotive industry. Even with such collaboration, a hybrid A320 is unlikely to reach the market until the middle of the next decade, when a new generation of batteries with double todays energy density should be available, Mr Mokaddem said. The batteries must also be of a solid-state design since lithium-ion modules use a liquid electrolyte that poses a fire risk. While under development in China, Europe and the US, such batteries are unlikely to become available soon given the billions of dollars lavished on existing gigawatt factories. Meanwhile, firms such as Heart Aerospace are developing much smaller hybrid and electric aircraft that should help establish the safety case for the planes, Mr Mokaddem said. He said: Not everything will happen the way we see it today. And we need to learn from others. But when you look at how the technology is evolving and realise that the same ecosystem could feed the aerospace and automotive industries, you have to say, wow, were writing a completely new story on the future of transportation. 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. Nearly a year and half after Indiana Wesleyan University acquired Eleven Fifty Academy, the university announced Tuesday that the once-troubled coding and cybersecurity boot camp is rebranding with a refined mission under a new name. Eleven Fifty Academy is now called Blaizing Academy. The university said in a statement that the name signifies the academy's shift to position itself as a training ground for students interested in artificial intelligence technology. "In a rapidly changing environment, our new Blaizing Academy must meet the challenges of building a tech workforce by providing them with new skills," said executive director John Qualls, who announced the name change at the academy's inaugural Fusion Ai event. The Eleven Fifty Academy began as an immersive coding and cybersecurity boot camp created by inventor and entrepreneur Scott Jones, who gained prominence and influence for improving the technology that made storing voicemail less expensive and more capable of catering to large metro areas. Jones, who joined in lobbying for Indiana to adopt Daylight Savings Time, initially ran the academy from his Carmel home, eventually establishing a headquarters in downtown Indianapolis. Revisit: Scott Jones called his tech boot camp a 'Ferrari.' Now it's mired in debt and doubts The academy was initially hailed as a successful workforce training program, but financial instability plagued the boot camp in its latter years. Eleven Fifty Academy experienced abrupt and disruptive layoffs, an inability to meet payroll, declining enrollment, a loss in state funding and accusations of overall financial mismanagement. Renowned tech entrepreneur Scott Jones accepts the Best in Tech Award on behalf of Eleven Fifty Academy at the 2022 Mira Awards By the end of 2022, the academy was in debt and facing a pending foreclosure. Critics blamed Jones' leadership for the academy spiral. Indiana Wesleyan University struck a deal that winter to acquire Eleven Fifty's assets in exchange for Jones retaining the academy's liabilities. Qualls, who once served as Eleven Fifty Academy's president, was re-established as the academy's top leader. He said the new name reflects the academy's renewed commitment to innovation, excellence and being at the forefront of tech education. Blaizing Academy plans to expand events such as the Fusion Ai Conference to new communities and offer new short-form AI workshops to address skill gaps and increase the accessibly of advanced technology training. The cybersecurity program also will be reconfigured to integrate AI. "Academy leaders are dedicated to creating a supportive and accessible learning environment for all," the university said in the press release. "From foundational courses to advanced specializations, Blaizing Academy offers a range of programs that caters to beginners and seasoned professionals alike. Their hands-on approach ensures that students gain practical experience and are job-ready upon graduation." Contact IndyStar investigative reporter Alexandria Burris at aburris@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @allyburris. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Eleven Fifty Academy rebrands as Blaizing Academy, will focus on AI By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Microsoft has given up its board observer seat at OpenAI in a move aimed at easing U.S. and UK antitrust regulators' concerns about the extent of its control over the AI startup amid the soaring popularity of generative artificial intelligence. But the change was unlikely to resolve concerns by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, a source at the agency said on Wednesday. The FTC is conducting an antitrust review of deals by Big Tech firms and top AI companies. The move shows Microsoft sees significant potential antitrust exposure and is trying to get ahead of it, the FTC source said. A spokesperson for Microsoft did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Apple, which said last month it was bringing OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT, to its devices, will not take an observer role on OpenAI's board after being widely expected to do so, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The person added that OpenAI has no future plans to offer any board observer roles. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. An OpenAI spokesperson said the company would establish a new approach to engaging with stakeholders by hosting regular meetings with strategic partners such as Microsoft and Apple, and investors such as Thrive Capital and Khosla Ventures. Microsoft took a non-voting, observer position on OpenAI's board in November after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took back the reins of the company. The seat meant Microsoft could attend OpenAI's board meetings and access confidential information but had no voting rights on matters including electing or choosing directors. The observer seat and Microsoft's more than $10 billion investment in OpenAI have triggered unease among antitrust watchdogs in the European Union, Britain and the U.S. over how much control it exerts over OpenAI. The position provided insights into the board's work without compromising its independence, Microsoft said in a letter to OpenAI dated July 9. It cited OpenAI's new partnerships, innovation and growing customer base since Altman's return to the startup as reasons for giving up its observer seat. "Over the past eight months we have witnessed significant progress by the newly formed board and are confident in the company's direction. Given all of this we no longer believe our limited role as an observer is necessary," it said in the letter. EU antitrust regulators last month said the partnership would not be subject to the bloc's merger rules because Microsoft does not control OpenAI, but they would instead seek third-party views on the exclusivity clauses in the agreement. Story continues In contrast, British and U.S. antitrust watchdogs continue to have concerns as well as questions about Microsoft's influence over OpenAI and the latter's independence. Bill Baer, a former U.S. antitrust official and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, said on Wednesday that it seemed the risk of simultaneous antitrust investigations outweighed the benefit of being an observer on the OpenAI board. "That looks like the right call," he said, but added that regulators' concerns seem to go beyond the board seat. Microsoft is making a smart move by removing the only tangible evidence of possible control/influence over OpenAI, making it very difficult for antitrust regulators to prove otherwise, said an antitrust lawyer who declined to be named due to industry sensitivities. Britain's Competition and Markets Authority declined to comment. Microsoft and OpenAI are increasingly competing to sell AI technology to enterprise customers, aiming to generate revenue and demonstrate their independence to regulators to address antitrust concerns. Additionally, Microsoft is expanding its AI offerings on the Azure platform and has hired the CEO of tech company Inflection to head its consumer AI division, a move widely interpreted as an effort to diversify beyond OpenAI. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Additional reporting by Krystal Hu and Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco, Nilutpal Timsina in Bangalore, Jody Godoy in New York and Matt Scuffham in London; Editing by Jamie Freed, Miral Fahmy, Mark Potter and Matthew Lewis) NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spoke about flying aboard Boeing's glitchy spaceship. In a call from the International Space Station, they recounted taking manual control of Starliner. The astronauts are waiting for NASA to finish troubleshooting the wonky thrusters and helium leaks. NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been on the International Space Station way longer than they'd planned. The duo flew into space aboard Boeing's Starliner spaceship, testing it out as its first-ever human passengers, on June 5. They were supposed to stay on the station for eight days, then return home so NASA could certify the spaceship and start using it regularly. Shortly after they reached space, though, the Boeing spacecraft started glitching. They've been on the ISS ever since, while NASA and Boeing troubleshoot and insist the astronauts are "not stranded." Boeing's Starliner spaceship, which Williams and Wilmore flew on, docked to the space station 262 miles above Egypt. NASA In a brief call with journalists on Wednesday, Williams and Wilmore finally shared their take on the situation and described what it was like to realize something was wrong with their spaceship. Williams did a flip in the space station's microgravity and Wilmore gave a thumbs up as the press call ended. NASA TV What astronauts experienced flying on a glitchy spaceship "Launch was spectacular. I mean, truly amazing," Wilmore said. The astronauts were pressed back into their seats as the rocket roared through the atmosphere, then experienced the relief of microgravity as Starliner slid into orbit. Then, in space, they began checking the spaceship's operational capabilities and it "performed unbelievably well," Wilmore said. Astronauts use a scale of 1 (best) to 10 (worst) to rate spacecraft handling qualities. Wilmore said he's never given a 1 rating before, "but I was tempted." He added, "It was truly amazing, the precision that this spacecraft held" until day two of the mission. As they approached the space station, one of Starliner's 28 Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters unexpectedly shut down. Then another went offline. Starliner approaching the space station for docking in June. NASA "You could tell the thrust, the control, the capability was degraded. The handling qualities were not the same," Wilmore said. The astronauts took manual control for over an hour while ground teams were troubleshooting. Ultimately, five RCS thrusters unexpectedly shut down. They got a few thrusters back, Wilmore said, but things weren't the same. "From that point on, you could tell that the thrust was degraded," though they didn't know why at the time, Wilmore said. Still, when it came time to dock to the space station, where there were only a few inches of room for error, the spaceship did the job. "Starliner came right down in automatic mode at this point right down the middle, even with the degraded thrusters, which was truly impressive knowing what we know now," Wilmore said. What's wrong with Boeing's spaceship NASA has also discovered five leaks in Starliner's helium supply, which is used to pressurize its propulsion system. NASA is working to understand all the issues on the spacecraft and get more data to ensure the return trip will be safe. Engineers are testing an RCS thruster at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, trying to replicate the unexpected issues that arose mid-flight and ensure the thrusters will perform well on the return journey. In the meantime, Wilmore and Williams have been busy working on experiments and station maintenance with the other astronauts on the space station. "We've been thoroughly busy up here integrated right into the crew," Williams said. "About once a week we get to jump into Starliner and talk to our control team there and work through all the nuances that they're working very hard on the ground." Boeing keeps falling behind NASA requires Boeing to put Starliner through extensive testing to uncover issues like these. In addition to ground testing, the spaceship had to fly an uncrewed mission to the space station. The first attempt never reached the space station and experienced multiple failures, but eventually, in a later uncrewed attempt, Starliner reached the ISS. This crewed mission with Williams and Wilmore is supposed to be the final test to certify the spacecraft for routine astronaut missions, and the astronauts expected to uncover some imperfections. The leaks and thruster failures are the latest of many issues Boeing has faced with its spacecraft over the years, which has set it far behind competitor SpaceX. SpaceX's Crew Dragon was developed on a similar timeline through the same NASA program as Starliner, but it finished testing and NASA certification in 2020. It's been flying people to and from the space station ever since. It's not yet clear how the new issues will affect Boeing's ability to get its spacecraft into the regular space station rotation. Still, Wilmore and Williams expressed confidence. "We are really satisfied with putting more people in the spacecraft once we get back and we work through all the issues that we've found already," Williams said. Read the original article on Business Insider (Reuters) -Billionaire Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI and tech giant Oracle have ended talks on a potential $10 billion server deal, the Information reported on Tuesday. The startup and Oracle have ended talks to expand an existing arrangement under which xAI has been renting Nvidia's AI chips from the cloud provider, the report said, citing several people involved in the talks. Musk's xAI is building a system using Nvidia's H100 graphics processing units by itself "for fastest time to completion", the billionaire said in a post on his social media platform X. The specific capacity that Oracle was talking about with xAI has been contracted to another customer, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. "The company is always in discussion with customers about upcoming capacity and continues to engage with xAI on its infrastructure needs," the source said. A multi-year agreement to rent Nvidia processors from Oracle for a planned supercomputer was underway, but talks were held back by issues such as Musk's demands to build a supercomputer faster than Oracle deemed possible, the Information said. Oracle also raised concerns that xAI's preferred location had inadequate power supply, the report added. xAI already has a contract to train AI models in Oracle's Gen2 Cloud. (Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Maju Samuel) Where 10 years ago it was unthinkable to leave the house without your wallet, now across the globe and particularly for younger generations, physical wallets are falling out of fashion for their mobile, digital alternative. The reason can be put simply: Digital wallets make payments more seamless, convenient and secure. Worldpays Global Payments Report data found there is strong consumer appetite for digital wallets no matter what country was being looked at. For example, in 2023, digital wallets accounted for 50% of global e-commerce spending, totalling just under $3.1trn. But people are tapping into the conveniences of digital wallets in person as well, with point-of-sale transaction volumes reaching $10.8trn globally, or 30% of all in-person spending. So, what is a digital wallet? A digital wallet is an application that safely stores payments credentials like bank account and credit card numbers along with personal billing and shipping information. Once loaded, a digital wallet is used via a digital checkout experience online on mobile phones or via a contactless payment terminal or QR code, which is common across Asia. As these payment modalities proliferate across the world, and as the EUs Digital Markets Act continues to impact the tap and go industry, its worth taking a look at different regulations impacting digital wallets across the globe to see what may be in store for the UKs payments landscape. Continental Europe While big names have gained prominence in Europe, the EU has worked to legislate against one digital wallet brand taking a competitive advantage. The EUs Digital Markets Act which requires phone companies to allow alternative digital wallet options contributes to keeping Europes e-com payment landscape diverse. Digital wallets are Europes leading e-com payment method overall and also lead in the following four markets (Denmark, Germany, Italy, Spain). Accounting for 30% of e-com transaction value in 2023, wallets are projected to grow at 17% CAGR through 2027 when they will account for an estimated 40% of e-com value. On top of the recognisable brands, homegrown wallets have become particularly influential in Denmark (MobilePay), Finland (Pivo), Norway (Vipps) and Turkey (BKM Express and Maximum Mobil). We expect more firms offering digital wallet solutions to appear as phone providers start allowing alternatives to their own payment products. The UK will be watching closely to see how widely these are adopted and whether a shakeup in the digital wallets market has a place in the UK. Story continues But Europe doesnt only see diversity in the digital wallets sphere. The continents entire payments landscape differs vastly from country to country. According to our data, credit cards, debit cards and account-to-account (A2A) payments each led in at least two European markets in 2023. Take A2A for example, which accounted for 18% of Europes e-com transaction value in 2023. A2A is especially dominant in The Netherlands due to the overwhelming popularity of the domestic A2A scheme iDEAL. iDEAL is ubiquitous in the Netherlands, used by nearly 100% of Dutch consumers and making over one billion transactions per year among more than 210,000 merchants. With iDEAL now owned by EPI and its replacement WERO expected in the coming years developments will be interesting to follow. The variety of payments methods in Europe is reflective of the critical importance of local histories, politics, cultures and economics in the evolution of each nations payment markets. Looking forward, payment innovations will likely continue to be decentralised with varied methods finding success while resisting winner-take all scenarios. Asia taking a different approach Data from 2023 found digital wallets to be far more ubiquitous than in Europe. APAC consumers led the world in digital wallet use online, accounting for 70% of e-com transaction value in 2023, or over $2trn. Digital wallets were the leading e-com payment method in five of fourteen APAC markets, these being China, India, Indonesia, The Philippines and Vietnam. By 2027, Worldpay forecasts that Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan will join that list. And unlike Apple Pay in Europe, digital wallet brands such as Alipay and WeChat Pay, have gained a competitive presence in APAC markets. Part of their surge in popularity can be attributed to the fact that many markets in this region never had a strong card payments culture before innovations in digital wallets became widespread. The payments landscape in certain markets in APAC is very dynamic. In China, state-owned UnionPay has historically transacted nearly all domestic card volume, but that is beginning to change. In July 2023, digital wallet giants Alipay and WeChat Pay separately announced they will allow visitors to link their Diners Club, Discover, JCB, Mastercard and Visa cards to use wherever Alipay and WeChat Pay are accepted. Then, in November 2023, The Peoples Bank of China issued a bank card clearing license to Mastercard for issuing and processing in China. Payment ecosystems are complex and sometimes small state interventions can lead to major changes in the way consumers pay. The future of digital wallets Digital wallets are set to continue exploding in popularity, further reshaping the payment landscape with their ease and security. Europe's diverse payments market, influenced by the EU regulations, fosters competition and innovation, while Asia leads in pure adoption figures. As the UK observes these trends, it is clear that the future of payments is digital, with solutions tailored to local needs and regulations ensuring a varied and dynamic marketplace. Silvia Mensdorff-Pouilly is Head of Business Development EMEA Enterprise at Worldpay "Wheres my wallet? Digital wallet use around the world" was originally created and published by Electronic Payments International, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. What you need to know A massive leak of marketing images and press materials for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 revealed basically everything about the upcoming devices. A small but effective change Samsung is rumored to make with its next-gen foldables is dust resistance. Foldables have long featured water resistance, but the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 would be the first U.S. phones to feature both water and dust resistance. Last week, a massive leak uncovered nearly everything about Samsungs upcoming foldables the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 which will be officially announced at a Galaxy Unpacked event on July 10. The leak featured official marketing images and press materials, leaving little to the imagination. One change is so small that you might have missed it, and yet it could have the most impact of any change Samsung is making this year. Its no secret that folding phones have had a durability problem since day one. Samsungs first Galaxy Z Fold device broke into the hands of reviewers before the phone became fully available for consumers. Subsequent versions of the Z Fold 2, Z Fold 3, and Z Flip were better but still had serious durability concerns. It wasnt until the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Z Fold 4 that Samsung seemed to really perfect the folding phone design. In the beginning, foldables were brittle, lacked water resistance, and featured weak screens. Eventually, Samsung added water resistance with an IPX8 certification on more recent models. Those folding phones still lacked dust resistance, making them susceptible to durability problems over time. Its not an issue exclusive to Samsung, either. Motorolas foldables are the only ones in North America to feature dust resistance, but they arent water-resistant beyond IPX2, so theres a trade-off. If the latest leaks are to be believed, Samsung is about to shake things up by revealing foldables that are both dust-resistant and water-resistant. It reportedly comes with an IP48 rating, which will give it some degree of protection from both dust and water ingress. Image 1 of 4 Galaxy Z Fold 6 marketing images leak Image 2 of 4 Galaxy Z Fold 6 marketing images leak Image 3 of 4 Galaxy Z Fold 6 marketing images leak Image 4 of 4 Galaxy Z Fold 6 marketing images leak IP ratings can be understood by looking at the first and second numbers separately. The first number represents a devices dust-resistance rating, and the second represents its water-resistance rating. Because prior Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip devices had an IPX8 certification, they didnt have dust resistance at all. For what its worth, the 8 is the highest level of water resistance. This means that a device can withstand being submerged in a few meters of water for at least 30 minutes. Water resistance is always important on smartphones since theyre with you pretty much all the time. However, on folding phones, dust resistance is arguably the more important IP rating. There are real points of entry for dust and debris due to the hinge mechanism, as well as more moving parts than a traditional smartphone. All it takes is for one piece of dust to get in the hinge or under the display to cause a whole lot of damage. The rumored IP48 rating featured on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 means that large bits of dust wont interfere with the operation of the phones. Its not completely dustproof that would be IP6X but its a considerable improvement. Larger objects, like those 1mm or greater, wont be able to get into Samsungs new folding phones. There is still work to do when it comes to dust resistance, but this IP rating might significantly improve the durability of Samsung foldables. Why dust resistance is so important S Pen Fold and Slim S Pen for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 Im an early adopter of foldables. Ive used four different folding phones over the years, and three of those I (foolishly) spent my own money on. Thats how Ive seen firsthand the ways that dust and debris can considerably affect the experience of using a folding phone. My first foldable was the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, and this was the generation where Samsung almost made folding phones durable. This model year didnt have many crippling issues at launch, but the problem with foldables is that their durability issues might not show up until a year or two after theyre purchased. That was the case with my Galaxy Z Flip 3. It was fine for the first year, but the built-in screen protector and folding display started to crack right down the middle after a tiny spec of dust got underneath it. I then upgraded to the Galaxy Z Fold 4, which was a very expensive foldable. Luckily, that smartphone didnt suffer from the issues that my Z Flip 3 had. It seems to have held up over time, even though it isnt my daily driver anymore. The same goes for the Motorola Razr+. It had dust protection, and its been mostly fine. My Google Pixel Fold review unit is the next example of how dust can cause problems for foldables. There was so much talk about the Pixel Fold not unfolding completely flat when it first launched. It has turned into something of a debate among users and foldable enthusiasts. The real answer, based on my experience, is that it does unfold completely flat when you first start using it. But all it takes is a few pieces of dust for the Pixel Fold not to unfold flat anymore. About a year after receiving my review unit, the device clearly does not open up fully. So, after many years and four folding phones, Im excited that Samsung is making a foldable that is both dust and water-resistant. These problems Ive listed arent something you have to think about while using a slab phone. Thats why, for foldables to grow, its a problem that companies like Samsung have to solve. Scientists unveil revolutionary heat pump that doesn't use air: 'At the heart of it is the same technology' Heat pumps are widely recognized by experts as the most environmentally friendly method of heating and cooling your home. Now, researchers at Edinburgh University in Scotland have come up with a similar home heating/cooling method that uses water instead of air, the Guardian reported. As water tends to have a more predictable temperature than outside air, the new system works even better, the team responsible for its design said. "It's about trying out a whole series of constellations, but at the heart of it is the same technology," said Professor Chris McDermott, the project's lead designer from the Edinburgh School of GeoSciences. The system designed by the Edinburgh team of hydrogeologists isn't just theoretical. It's already being trialed at an affordable housing project close to the Firth of Forth, at a lead-mining museum in southwest Scotland, and at a commercial greenhouse in Fife another trial at the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick is soon to follow. All of the systems draw energy from the sea or nearby rivers. The devices are designed to be compact and easily portable for use in homes and smaller buildings located in coastal areas or anywhere with easy access to a water source. In addition to saving energy, reducing air pollution, and avoiding dirty fuel, installing a heat pump for your home can save you a lot of money potentially around $1,000 per year on energy bills. In the United States, you can also get tax credits and incentives for installing one. People who have taken the plunge and installed a heat pump seem to be satisfied with how they work and the savings they're accruing. The Edinburgh team behind the water-powered heat pump predicted similar long-term savings. One of the team members, hydrogeologist Gus Fraser-Harris, told the Guardian that the system would be more expensive than an air-source heat pump but cheaper than a ground-source heat pump once it becomes publicly available. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the coolest innovations improving our lives and saving our planet. Elected leaders on Monday advanced property tax incentives for an area meat distributor whose owners plan to build a new facility and move operations back across the state line to Wyandotte County. Mies Family Foods, a wholesale distributor of beef, pork and poultry, is slated to relocate its headquarters and the local arm of its operations from North Kansas City to Kansas City, Kansas. Under the drafted agreement a Unified Government committee greenlighted Monday, the company would receive a graduated property tax break over the course of 10 years. Todd Fender, the Mies chief financial officer, told the committee the family-owned company has outgrown its current facility. The new building, to be located in an industrial park in the 6000 block of Speaker Road, would be roughly 78,000 square feet, more than triple the size of the current warehouse. Coming with the new building are the companys 37 employees. Mies owners want to add 15 more jobs over the next three years. The median annual wages paid is $58,000, according to documents submitted to the Unified Government. Along with the property tax break, the committee approved up to $17.5 million in industrial revenue bonds. Those bonds allow the company to save on taxes paid toward building and material costs. Kevin Wempe, a private attorney representing the Unified Government, said the property tax abatement in the aggregate is about 50% of the taxes paid over its lifespan. The abatement is valued at roughly $1.2 million, according to a cost-benefit analysis conducted to study the impact on the tax rolls. The study determined the net benefit to the community would be about $8.4 million generated in taxes and fees. Paul Mies, an owner whose parents founded the company, said his mother and father got started selling meat products out of their Bonner Springs home. The company later moved to a warehouse in Armourdale as well, Mies said. We never didnt enjoy working in Wyandotte County, Mies told the committee Monday. Its just an opportunity presented itself over there, were in the market and this piece of property works. The Economic Development and Finance Committee approved the tax incentive package by a vote of 5-1. Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, commissioners still have to give final approval. The stock of tech-focused consultancy Accenture (NYSE: ACN) couldn't quite keep pace with the rest of the equity market on Wednesday. The company's shares closed the day nearly 1% lower, on news that it's opening its wallet to buy a cutting-edge technology business. By comparison, the benchmark S&P 500 index landed in positive territory at roughly the same percentage rate. Boosting its chip design expertise Accenture's new asset is Cientra, a privately held U.S. company with a presence abroad in both Europe (specifically Germany) and India. The move seems rather synergistic, as Cientra is a peer. In Accenture's words, the company "brings consulting expertise in embedded IoT and application-specific integrated circuit design and verification capabilities." Accenture added that this will complement its own expertise in microprocessor design. The big consultancy did not disclose either the price or the terms of the deal. Investors tend not to like uncertainty, so this was probably one factor in their mildly negative reaction to the news. On the plus side, the acquisition will provide an immediate and tangible boost to Accenture's efforts in this important tech industry segment. Cientra has a large workforce of around 530 engineers, who will be staffed at Accenture's advanced technology centers in India. Always on the hunt for acquisitions For quite some time, Accenture has been fond of building out its business through acquisitions. In fact, earlier this week it announced another one, that of India-headquartered semiconductor design services provider Excelmax Technologies. Stretching back a few years, in 2022 it purchased and absorbed a similar business, Canada's XtremeEDA. Should you invest $1,000 in Accenture Plc right now? Before you buy stock in Accenture Plc, 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 Accenture Plc wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $805,042!* 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 quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of July 8, 2024 Story continues Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Accenture Plc. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2025 $290 calls on Accenture Plc and short January 2025 $310 calls on Accenture Plc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Why Accenture Stock Lagged the Market Today was originally published by The Motley Fool Hungarys cash flow-based budget deficit was 2,656.4 billion forints (EUR 6.8bn) at the end of June, the finance ministry said in a preliminary release of data. The central budget had a 2,640.1 billion forint deficit at the end of the month and the social security funds were 161.9 billion in the red, but separate state funds were 145.6 billion forints in the black. The budget posted a deficit of 107.8 billion forints in the month of June alone. In January-June, interest expenditures, which included large payments on retail government securities, came to 2,009.5 billion forints, up 649.4 billion from the same period a year earlier. Expenditures for European Union-funded programmes reached 945.7 billion forints, while transfers from Brussels came to 578.2 billion forints, the ministry said. ********************************* You're very welcome to comment, discuss and enjoy more stories via our Facebook page: Facebook.com/XpatLoopNews + via XpatLoops groups: Budapest Expats / Expats Hungary You can subscribe to our newsletter here: XpatLoop.com/Newsletters Do you want your business to reach tens of thousands of potential high-value expat customers? Then just contact us here! The government has expanded the total funding available in subsidies for installing domestic solar panels by adding Ft 30 billion to the original Ft 75.8 billion, Energy Ministry state secretary Attila Steiner announced on Facebook on Monday. More than 18,000 applications have already been approved for the programme, which exhausted the original amount, he said. Steiner estimated that, with the increased funding, the total number of supported projects could increase from the originally planned 15,000 to more than 25,000. The first winners of the tender call announced in January were selected in February, and the actual money transfers started in May. To date, the average amount of support requested is Ft 4.1 million. ********************************* You're very welcome to comment, discuss and enjoy more stories via our Facebook page: Facebook.com/XpatLoopNews + via XpatLoops groups: Budapest Expats / Expats Hungary You can subscribe to our newsletter here: XpatLoop.com/Newsletters Do you want your business to reach tens of thousands of potential high-value expat customers? Then just contact us here! Marton Nagy, the national economy minister, on Monday met representatives of fuel distributors to discuss high fuel prices in Hungary and to review international developments and economic trends that have an impact on fuel distribution and prices, his ministry said. Nagy held talks with representatives of the Hungarian Petroleum Association (MASZ), including those from oil and gas company MOL, and from the Independent Petrol Stations Association (FBSZ). According to the ministrys statement, Nagy noted that the average per-litre price of petrol is 618 forints (EUR 1.57), while a litre of diesel costs 631 forints. Citing data from the Central Statistical Office released last week, Nagy pointed out that the per-litre price of petrol averages 610 forints in neighbouring countries, while the price of diesel stands at 616 forints. FBSZ and MASZ both proposed using monthly, rather than weekly, statistics for motor fuel price comparisons because of deviations due to factors peculiar to markets in neighbouring countries; which the minister said was worth considering. Nagy added, at the same time, that the governments expectation that fuel prices be kept below the average of neighbouring countries was unchanged, urging immediate steps from distributors. He said the government was prepared to intervene on the motor fuel market if prices did not fall. ********************************* You're very welcome to comment, discuss and enjoy more stories via our Facebook page: Facebook.com/XpatLoopNews + via XpatLoops groups: Budapest Expats / Expats Hungary You can subscribe to our newsletter here: XpatLoop.com/Newsletters Do you want your business to reach tens of thousands of potential high-value expat customers? Then just contact us here! Shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM) rose 2.3% through 10:45 a.m. ET on Wednesday. This morning in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, TSMC reported that its June 2024 revenue fell 10% in comparison to May, but its sales year over year increased by nearly 33%. And zooming out to a big-picture view, sales in the first half of 2024 are now up 28% in comparison to the first half of 2023. Sales surge for TSMC That's great news for TSMC stock, and investors are rewarding it as such. The first six months of this year have seen it collect about $38.8 billion, meaning that the company has so far achieved about 46% of analyst's revenue forecasts for the full year. As long as revenue continues growing at its present rate, TSMC appears to be on course to either meet or surpass analyst forecasts. Is Taiwan Semiconductor stock a buy? Management did not say how much profit it earned in June, nor how much it expects to earn through the end of this year. Consensus forecasts have the company earning about $6.35 per share by the end of fiscal 2024, and if it's on track to meet revenue targets, then it makes sense to assume it's on track to meet earnings targets as well. That being said, $6.35 per share in earnings would value TSMC stock at nearly 30 times earnings, and for 28% growth, that's only a fair price, not a bargain price. Factor in the company's modest 1.3% dividend yield, though, and the valuation picture starts to improve a bit. On balance, I would say that the stock still looks attractive today. But after rising 77% already over the past year (three times the growth of the S&P 500), most of the profit that's going to be made on TSMC stock probably already has been made. Should you invest $1,000 in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing right now? Before you buy stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, 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 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $805,042!* 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 quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. Story continues See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of July 8, 2024 Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Why Taiwan Semiconductor Stock Popped on Wednesday was originally published by The Motley Fool The Hungarian state, as a financial and strategic investor, will be the one to decide on the development of Budapests Liszt Ferenc International Airport, the national economy minister said. Passenger traffic at the airport could reach an annual 20 million by the end of the decade even according to conservative estimates if the developments are carried out, Marton Nagy told a press conference. Nagy said French airport operator Vinci, the states investment partner in the airports acquisition, was an ideal partner, as it operates more than 70 airports in over a dozen countries, and as an owner it was interested in ensuring that the airport is run as efficiently as possible. The minister said the government was exploring its options for financing the infrastructure developments needed for expanding the airport, adding that planning had to begin as soon as possible so that a third terminal could open in 2032. The planning and implementation schedule will be ready in the autumn, he said. The financing, he added, would not be covered solely from the budget, with concession agreements also being an option, as the cost of railway and road developments could exceed 1 billion euros. He also said there was a possibility of involving a Qatari investment fund as a third investor in the airport. This will be decided by the current owners, he said, adding that the new investors stake could be less than 10%. Nagy said the airports 3.1 billion euro purchase price was realistic and in line with market expectations. In response to a question, the minister said the windfall profit tax on airlines will be phased out from January. ********************************* You're very welcome to comment, discuss and enjoy more stories via our Facebook page: Facebook.com/XpatLoopNews + via XpatLoops groups: Budapest Expats / Expats Hungary You can subscribe to our newsletter here: XpatLoop.com/Newsletters Do you want your business to reach tens of thousands of potential high-value expat customers? Then just contact us here! Hundreds of security forces have been deployed to protect the holy Amarnath Yatra. Tight security has been put in place on the 300-km long Jammu-Srinagar national highway. Teams of security forces are also deployed on the Srinagar-Baltal and Qazigund-Pahalgam routes. Pilgrims are issued RFID cards for real-time tracking, and an insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh has also been provided for further security. After the attack, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), BSF, Army, ITBP, and Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel have been alerted on the routes, camps, and highways from Jammu to the holy cave to prevent any untoward incidents, as intelligence inputs were received that terrorists may target the annual Shri Amarnath Yatra. Apart from this, hi-tech gadgets have also been installed, including CCTV, PTZ cameras, hexacopters, drones, and sniffer dogs. Vijay Kumar Bidhuri, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, said, "Security arrangements consider the situation. We also get inputs, and accordingly, the security forces analyze the situation and plan security. Security has been kept at a dynamic level by the security forces, all are well-coordinated, and it is not done as work but as a service." Multi-layered security arrangements have been made by the security forces to ensure the safety of the pilgrims. These measures have been taken after several terrorist attacks and encounters in Jammu and Kashmir since June 9. There have been terrorist attacks at four places in Reasi, Kathua, and Doda, in which nine pilgrims and a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawan were killed. At least four encounters took place in Kashmir, and about 12 terrorists were killed. To increase the strength of the security forces engaged in security, the Army's elite para commandos have been deployed in the most sensitive areas of the region. To prevent any terrorist attack on the Jammu-Srinagar highway, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel have been deployed in adequate numbers on the highway in Reasi, Udhampur, and Ramban districts. Vijay Kumar Bidhuri, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, said, "So far, 2.30 lakh pilgrims have visited the holy cave, which is the highest number ever in the history of Amarnath Yatra. The track has been widened and improved on both sides; people have no complaints this year. All departments are coordinating very well." The annual Shri Amarnath Yatra has created new history. Despite the disappearance of the naturally formed ice Shivling, there has been no decrease in the devotion and faith of Baba's devotees. The 52-day pilgrimage will end on August 19 on the eve of Raksha Bandhan. Last year, more than 4.5 lakh pilgrims visited the Amarnath cave shrine. NASHIK: In yet another hit-and-run case in Maharashtra, a 31-year-old woman was killed after a speeding car knocked her down in Nashik city, police said on Wednesday. The 51-year-old car driver, who was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident on Tuesday evening and fled from the spot, was later arrested, they said. The accused has been identified as Devchand Rambhau Tidme, resident of Dhruv Nagar who worked at a company in Satpur MIDC area here, an official from Gangapur police station said. The victim, Archana Kishore Shinde, resident of Hanuman Nagar, was walking home after work at around 6 pm when the speeding car hit her from behind on Bardan Phata-Shivaji Nagar Road, near Gangapur Road, the official said. The woman received a serious head injury. She was taken to a nearby hospital where doctors declared her dead, he said. Before the accident, two youth coming from the opposite direction saw the car heading towards the woman and they tried to alert the driver. However, the car driver did not reduce the speed and the vehicle hit Shinde. The car driver then fled from the spot, the police said. The incident was captured in the CCTV cameras installed in the area. An alert citizen present at the spot also noted down the car's number. The police later reached the driver's home and arrested him. He was on his way home when the accident took place, the official said. His medical check-up report indicated he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident. As a result, he could not control the vehicle and hit Shinde. After the accident, he did not help the victim and went home instead, the police said. The Gangapur police have registered a case against the man under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 281 (rash driving) and provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, the official said. A probe was on into the case, the police added. On Sunday, a woman was killed in Mumbai's Worli area after a BMW car hit a two-wheeler on which she was travelling and dragged her for 1.5 km, police earlier said. Three persons, including the son of a Shiv Sena politician, have been arrested in connection with the incident, according to police. Late Sunday night, a police man was killed in Pune when a car rammed into the motorbike of two cops on patrolling duty in Khadki area. A 24-year-old man was arrested in this connection on Monday. In another hit-and-run incident on Sunday night, a 23-year-old man was killed after an unidentified vehicle knocked him down in Nagpur city. On February 25, a woman drove her Mercedes car recklessly allegedly under the influence of alcohol and crashed into two men travelling on a scooter on Ram Jhula bridge here. Both riders died after the crash. The woman surrendered before police on July 1, more than four months after the crash, and was subsequently placed under arrest. On July 2, a court here ordered her release, terming her arrest in the case unlawful. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Austria after he visited Moscow. Over the next two days, the nation will seek to enhance their bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges. Prime Minister Modi was welcomed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at the airport. The PM shared a picture on a microblogging site X and called out his Austria visit special. He added that both nations are connected by values and a commitment to a better planet. "Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and more," the post read. Landed in Vienna. This visit to Austria is a special one. Our nations are connected by shared values and a commitment to a better planet. Looking forward to the various programmes in Austria including talks with Chancellor @karlnehammer, interactions with the Indian community and pic.twitter.com/PJaeOWVOm1 July 9, 2024 This is the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Austria in over 40 years, the last being of Indira Gandhi in 1983. "As the two countries are celebrating 75th Anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations this year, this momentous visit will add renewed momentum to India-Austria ties." the Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs said in a post in X. Following the visit to Austria, Austrian Chancellor Nehammer said that this is the opportunity to talk about further deepening our bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges Modi's remark came a day after Austrian Chancellor Nehammer posted on 'X', "I very much look forward to welcoming Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, the world's largest democracy, next week in Vienna." "This visit is a special honour as it marks the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over 40 years and a significant milestone as we celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations with India," he said. "We will have the opportunity to talk about further deepening our bilateral relationship and closer cooperation on the many geopolitical challenges," the Austrian chancellor said. From modest beginnings, the company has evolved into a robust organization with a workforce of over one hundred highly qualified professionals. With a mission to foster commercial relationships and facilitate global trade since its inception in 2020, GTP has been the bridge that connects manufacturers, exporters, suppliers, or any B2B seller with a vast base of national and international buyers, providing an interactive marketplace platform to exhibit their products and reach potential buyers. At GTP, success is not just about numbers, but about the people who drive it. The team of professionals are not just nurtured, but empowered with guidance, enabling career growth and skill enhancement. GTP is equally committed to upgrading the business capabilities of other companies, driving collective growth in the industry. Gender equality is not just a buzzword for GTP; it's a cornerstone of its values. The majority of staff members are women, who are not just given opportunities but are encouraged to demonstrate their talent and potential. This dedication to gender equality is not just a policy, it's a reality, with most departments led by women who utilise their skills and abilities to drive GTP's success. Highlighting the platform's exponential growth and ethos, Co-founder- Mr Pulkit Dwivedi shared, "Our journey as a B2B marketplace in India commenced with the aim of addressing the problems in the B2B sector, particularly those affecting small and medium-scale businesses and Indian exporters. In this highly competitive export sector, small-scale exporters have long struggled with obstacles such as language barriers and supply chain complexities, making it difficult for them to thrive. We at Global Trade Plaza understand these challenges and offer a one-stop solution to help such companies make a profitable business." "We provide a feature-rich B2B marketplace in India and numerous other countries, enabling sellers to attract and reach a diverse customer base while avoiding the competitive pressures of traditional online B2B portals. Simultaneously, we ensure that buyers on our platform have access to a comprehensive and reliable seller base. In our journey to becoming a global name in the B2B ecosystem, we have assisted several companies in achieving their business objectives and establishing themselves in the overseas market," added Co-founder- Mr. Satyakam Sahoo. GTP has amassed a robust community of over millions of users, with more than 500 positive testimonials uploaded on their YouTube channel. This underscores the company's steadfast dedication to customer satisfaction and highlights the trust bestowed upon them by their clients. These success stories aptly illustrate the profound impact of GTP's relentless efforts and steadfast commitment to delivering quality service. Global Trade Plaza has forged numerous strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as SGS and Cashfree, enriching the value proposition for customers. To date, over 100 successful SGS verifications of suppliers have been facilitated. Furthermore, Global Sources has acknowledged GTP as one of the top 30 B2B portals. This acknowledgement underscores GTP's ambitious goals and its position as a prominent player in the industry. Global Trade Plaza remains steadfast in its dedication to nurturing growth, empowering individuals, and supporting businesses in realizing their global aspirations. Continuous innovation, strategic alliances, and an unyielding commitment to excellence characterize the platform's journey. In a brief period, the leading B2B marketplace platform established offices in the UK and cultivated a partnership with Russia. As a part of its strategic expansion, GTP also aims to strengthen its footprint with new offices in China and Dubai by next year. In conclusion, Global Trade Plaza's commitment to enhancing user experience is not just a promise, but a reality. This is epitomized by its latest innovation, AI-Tradechat. This cutting-edge tool is not just a 24/7 assistant for exporters and importers, but a game-changer that significantly streamlines the efficiency and convenience of international trade. Through continuous efforts to make its platform more user-friendly and accessible, GTP is not just revolutionizing the landscape of global commerce, but empowering businesses to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world. For more information, visit www.globaltradeplaza.com (This article is part of IndiaDotCom Pvt Ltds Consumer Connect Initiative, a paid publication programme. IDPL claims no editorial involvement and assumes no responsibility, liability or claims for any errors or omissions in the content of the article. The IDPL Editorial team is not responsible for this content.) IAS officer Puja Khedkar, a trainee from Maharashtra, has been transferred from Pune to Washim following allegations of demanding VIP treatment and misusing her official position. The controversy erupted when Khedkar reportedly requested a VIP number plate and installed a red beacon on her private Audi car. Additionally, she allegedly commandeered the Pune Collectors private chamber, displacing its furniture for her use. Complaints were filed against her by Additional Collector Ajay More, who accused Khedkar of occupying his office space during his absence. Further allegations include Khedkar using a fraudulent disability certificate to gain IAS status and applying undue pressure for various privileges. Her father, a retired IAS officer, is also implicated in exerting influence on district officials. Khedkar, who secured the 821st rank in the 2021 UPSC exams, faces a significant setback as her transfer to Washim unfolds amidst these serious accusations. VIP Demands Lead to Transfer: Maharashtra's trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar faced significant consequences for demanding VIP treatment, resulting in her transfer from Pune to Washim. VIP Number Plate and Red Beacon: Allegations state that Khedkar used her influence to request a VIP number plate and even installed a red beacon on her private Audi car. Seizing Pune Collectors Chamber: Khedkar reportedly commandeered the Pune Collectors private chamber, displacing the furniture and occupying the space for herself. Misuse of Official Space: During Additional Collector Ajay More's official trip to Mumbai from June 18 to 20, Khedkar allegedly removed furniture from More's adjacent room and occupied it. Collectors Intervention: Ajay More filed a complaint with Collector Suhas Divas, who subsequently removed Khedkars belongings from the chamber. Khedkar then allegedly messaged the Collector, stating that such actions would humiliate her. Fraudulent Disability Certificate: Khedkar also faces accusations of obtaining a fake disability certificate to aid her in becoming an IAS officer. She allegedly used this certificate to demand various perks, including a VIP number plate and official staff. Pressure from Family: Reports indicate that Khedkars father, a retired IAS officer, exerted pressure on the District Collectors office to fulfill his daughters demands. Unauthorized Use of Government Symbols: Khedkar is accused of placing the Maharashtra Government board on her private car, misrepresenting her official status. Controversial Appointment: Khedkar passed the UPSC exam in 2021, securing the 821st rank. She filed a petition against the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances, and Pensions, arguing that differently-abled candidates face more challenges compared to SC and ST candidates and deserve equal benefits. Mental Health Claims: In her affidavit, Khedkar claimed to be visually impaired and mentally unwell. The 2023 court hearing by Justice MG Shevlikars bench brought these issues to light, ultimately resulting in her transfer to Washim before completing her training in Pune. In an unprecedented move, the Ministry of Finance has approved the request of a senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer named M Anusuya to change both her name and gender in all official records. This marks the first time such a request has been granted within the Indian civil services. Who is M Anusuya? M Anusuya is a 35-year-old Joint Commissioner based in Hyderabad. Anusuya, who serves in the office of the Chief Commissioner (Authorised Representative) of the Customs Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), requested to change her name to M Anukathir Surya and her gender from female to male. Mr Surya began as an Assistant Commissioner in Chennai in December 2013. He was promoted to Deputy Commissioner in 2018 and took on his current role in Hyderabad last year. Educational Qualifications Mr Surya holds a Bachelor's degree in Electronics and Communication from the Madras Institute of Technology in Chennai. Additionally, he earned a Postgraduate Diploma in Cyber Law and Cyber Forensics from the National Law Institute University in Bhopal in 2023. Official Recognition The Ministry of Finance issued an official order stating, "The request of Ms M Anusuya has been considered. Henceforth, the officer will be recognised as 'Mr M Anukathir Surya' in all official records." Probably for the first time in its history, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) has seized over 108 gold bars weighing a total of 108 kilograms. The smuggled gold was confiscated from the possession of two suspects in the Ladakh Sector. An ITBP official confirmed to Zee News that this seizure marks the largest in ITBP's history. He stated that both suspects would be handed over to the Customs Department after questioning. Regarding the operation, ITBP officers earlier disclosed details at a press conference in Leh. "On July 9, 2024, around 01:30/02:00 PM, the 21st Battalion of ITBP launched a Long-Range Patrolling (LRP) operation in the border areas of Southern and Sub Sector in Eastern Ladakh (specifically in the general area of Chismule, Narbula top, Zakle, and Zakla) to counter infiltration and smuggling activities, which are heightened during the summer season. There were also some intelligence inputs about smuggling activities near Sirigaple, Ladakh," it said. An ITBP official stated that during patrolling, two suspects were observed in the area. Initially, they claimed to be collecting medicinal plants, but upon further questioning and a search of their tent, a significant quantity of gold was discovered. The recoveries included: 108 International Gold Bars weighing 108.060 kilograms 2 mobile phones 1 binocular Chinese food items 2 knives 2 ponies, and other items. The official identified the suspects as Tenzin Targy, 40 years old, and Tsering Chamba, 69 years old, both residents of Hanley village in Ladakh. The official further mentioned that both suspects were arrested, questioned, and based on their statements, another suspected individual was apprehended. He added that the suspects attempted to evade capture and flee, but their efforts were thwarted by the patrolling party. According to the official, the operation was conducted by the 21st Battalion of ITBP with active support from the Ladakh and Srinagar Sectors. On June 4, when the results of the Lok Sabha Elections were announced, Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party was expecting that the people of Maharashtra would understand his choice of rebellion and support him in the polls. However, in a shocking turn of events, the NCP could win just one Lok Sabha seat of the four it contested. On the other hand, the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) bagged eight out of 10 seats it contested. The election was a test for Ajit Pawar as he was leading the NCP in the first Lok Sabha polls after its split last year. Ajit Pawar even fielded his wife Sunetra against cousin sister Supriya Sule but lost the Baramati seat. Ajit Pawar knows that the NCP has failed in its debut test and if he doesn't act, then it may go further downhill in the upcoming state assembly elections. With only three months left for the Maharashtra assembly elections, Ajit Pawar has decided to turn the fortunes in his party's favour. The NCP is facing stiff competition from NCP-Sharad Pawar. Ajit Pawar is facing twin challenges - first to woo the voters and second to overcome the Sharad Pawar conundrum. On Sunday, Ajit Pawar warmly welcomed the Sant Tukaram Maharaj Palkhi, part of the Pandharpur pilgrimage, to his hometown of Baramati. True to his promise made in the Assembly to walk with the pilgrims, or 'warkaris,' when they passed through Baramati, the Deputy Chief Minister joined them in traditional attire, accompanied by his wife, Sunetra. Furthermore, the Budget he presented as Finance Minister last week included a special allocation for the warkaris Rs 20,000 for every 'dindi' (group) participating in the Sant Dnyaneshwar Maharaj and Sant Tukaram Maharaj palkhis to Pandharpur. Ajit Pawar knows that he will have to be on the ground if he wants to make the NCP race ahead of the rival faction. Speaking to reporters recently, Ajit Pawar said that he will start campaigning for the Assembly elections soon. After the Lok Sabha setback, the Mahayuti comprising of the BJP, Shiv Sena-Shinde and the NCP-Ajit Pawar is banking on the monetary payout announced for women in the state Budget, on the lines of Madhya Pradesh's Ladli Behan yojana. Ahead of the polls, Ajit Pawar will hold a mega rally or show of strength in Baramati on July 14 via the 'Jan Samman Rally'. NCP President Sunil Tatkare said that the party leadership will interact with party workers to strategise future plans. In the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections, Ajit Pawar is determined not to take any risks, as the NCP (SP) plans to field Sharad Pawar's grand-nephew, Yugendra Pawar. Ajit, a seven-time MLA from Baramati, is aware of the competition within the family, with another of Sharad's grand-nephews, Rohit Pawar, currently serving as an MLA from Karjat-Jamkhed in Ahmednagar district. By catalysing the grassroots workers and making his presence felt in Baramati, Ajit Pawar is trying to send out a message that he is down but not out. The NCP is confident that the Lok Sabha election results would have no bearing on the state assembly polls. With both - Ajit Pawar out on the battlefield to strengthen his factions, all eyes on Sharad Pawar's next move. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's unusual gesture for getting the infrastructure work expedited has gone viral on social media. During a public function in Bihar, at one point, CM Kumar got up from his seat and moved a bit towards an IAS officer with folded hands requesting him to get the project completed at the earliest. The IAS officer was Pratyaya Amrit, additional home secretary of the state. On Wednesday, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar visited Patna to inaugurate the extension of the JP Ganga Path up to Kangan Ghat in Patna City. Emphasizing the need for rapid progress, the Chief Minister urged officials to expedite the work as the Ganga Path is set to extend further. In the midst of this, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar suddenly remarked, "If you insist, I will touch your feet." He then made a gesture as if to bow down and touch the feet of his subordinate, IAS officer Pratyaya Amrit. Pratyaya Amrit, taken aback, folded his hands and tried to stop him. In Bihar, the assembly elections are scheduled for October-November next year. Before every election, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar aims to complete several major projects. He has consistently urged officials to expedite the work on the JP Ganga Path. Nitish has made it clear to his subordinate officers that the work must be completed before the elections to facilitate his engagement with the public. Former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav said that the state never had such a weak CM in the past. ,,,, ,, BDO, SDO, - ? , , pic.twitter.com/5a5lY4Pq5t Tejashwi Yadav (@yadavtejashwi) July 10, 2024 On Wednesday, during a similar discussion, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was emphasizing the timely completion of the JP Ganga Path. He urged the engineers from the construction agency and the officers associated with the project to expedite the work. At least nine servitors of the Puri Jagannath temple were injured on Tuesday when the idol of Lord Balabhadra fell on them while it was being taken out from the chariot to a temple as part of the Rath Yatra festival, an official said. Of the nine, five were admitted to a hospital while four others suffered minor injuries, Puri Collector Siddharth Shankar Swain said. The mishap happened shortly after 9 pm when the heavy wooden idol was being brought down from Lord Balabhadra's chariot to be taken to the Gundicha temple. This is known as 'Pahandi' ritual. It appears that those who were carrying the idol lost control of it. An injured servitor said that the mishap happened due to some problem with the rope-like material tied to the idol. Two of those who were hospitalised were later released and they joined the rituals. Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi expressed concern about the incident and wished for the speedy recovery of the injured servitors. He directed Law Minister Prithiviraj Harichandan to visit Puri immediately and take appropriate steps. The Puri Jagannath temple is under the state government's law department. Deputy Chief Minister Pravati Parida also went to Puri and, along with Harichandan, visited the hospital and talked to the injured servitors. With the blessings of Lord Jagannath, all injured persons are doing fine and the rituals are also going on, Harichandan told reporters. We will report to the chief minister for further action, Parida said. The ritual of the sibling deities - Lord Jagannath, Devi Subhadra and Lord Balabhadra - resumed soon after the mishap and all the idols were taken inside the Gundicha temple, considered their birthplace. They will remain in the Gundicha Temple till Bahuda Jatra' or the return car festival on July 15 when the deities will go back to the Jagannath temple. VIENNA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on the President of the Republic of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, in Vienna on Wednesday. PM Modi arrived in Vienna on Tuesday evening for a day-long State visit under the second leg of his two-nation tour. He was in Russia on a two-day visit where he met President Vladimir Putin. This historic visit of PM Modi to Austria has reinforced the commitment to strengthen bilateral ties between India and Austria, emphasising core democratic values and the rule of law as shared foundations. The visit holds special significance as it marks several decades since an Indian Prime Minister last visited Austria, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations. PM Modi expressed his delight, saying, "Had an excellent meeting with Chancellor Karl Nehammer. This visit to Austria is very special because it is after several decades that an Indian Prime Minister is visiting this wonderful country. It is also the time when we are marking 75 years of the India-Austria friendship." Had a very good meeting with Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and discussed ways to expand India-Austria cooperation. @vanderbellen pic.twitter.com/mrCtr0mg28 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 10, 2024 "There are several shared principles that connect us such as democracy and rule of law. In the spirit of these shared values, Chancellor Karl Nehammer and I agreed to further cement the India-Austria friendship across various sectors," he said in a post on X. In addition to bilateral matters, PM Modi and Chancellor Nehammer exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest, underscoring the importance of collaborative approaches to international challenges. PM Modi and Austrian Chancellor Nehammer also participated in the India-Austria Business Meeting, bringing together around 40 businesses from both nations to explore new economic opportunities and strengthen bilateral trade relations. The two also addressed India-Austria joint press statement, following their delegation-level talks. Notably, this is the first time an Indian Prime Minister has visited Austria in 41 years. Indira Gandhi was the last PM to visit Austria in 1983. New Delhi: The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted extremely heavy rainfall over the isolated regions of West Bengal, Assam, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya on Wednesday. The states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and Uttarakhand may receive heavy rainfall on June 10. The weather department raised an orange alert for Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for heavy rainfall and informed that isolated regions of these states may witness thunderstorms accompanied by lightning. IMD Predicts Rainfall In Delhi The weather department predicted that Delhiites may receive light rains during the day. The forecast says a generally cloudy sky would prevail over the city with the possibility of more rain. Delhi may witness a minimum temperature of 27.5 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, while, the maximum temperature is likely to be recorded at 27.5 degrees Celsius. On Tuesday, the national capital received heavy rainfall that inundated parts of the city. Mumbai Likley Witness Cloudy Sky IMD predicted light rains in some parts of the western suburbs. Mumbai centre may witness cloudy sky with intermittent moderate to heavy rain spells in the next 24 hours, a civic official said, PTI Reported. After more than 300 mm of rainfall in just six hours on Monday, Mumbai witnessed intermittent light showers since Tuesday morning, while on Wednesday morning there were light showers in some western parts of the city. In a landslide victory of women, the Supreme Court of India has ruled that divorced Muslim women can seek maintenance from their husbands under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). A bench led by Justice B.V. Nagarathna addressed a special leave petition which was filed by a husband who questioned the interim maintenance of Rs 10,000 per month awarded to his ex-wife. The bench emphasized that maintenance is a right for all married women, regardless of their religion, and that it is not charity but a legal obligation. Importance of Homemakers The Supreme Court also highlighted the crucial role of homemakers in families. Speaking in favour of women, SC stated that husbands must provide financial support to their wives. The court suggested practical measures like maintaining joint bank accounts and sharing ATM access to ensure economic stability for women within households. NCW Welcomes Ruling Rekha Sharma, the chief of the National Commission for Women (NCW), praised the Supreme Court's decision. She said, "I wholeheartedly welcome the Supreme Court's landmark ruling that affirms the right of Muslim women to seek maintenance under Section 125 of the CrPC. This decision is a significant step towards ensuring gender equality and justice for all women, regardless of their religion, she said. What Is The Case About? The judgment came in response to a petition by Mohd Abdul Samad, who was ordered by a family court to pay his divorced wife a monthly allowance of Rs 20,000. The Telangana High Court later reduced this amount to Rs 10,000, which led Samad to approach the Supreme Court. His counsel argued that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, provides more benefits than Section 125 of the CrPC and should take precedence. However, Amicus Curiae Gaurav Agarwal countered that personal laws do not override a woman's entitlement to relief under the gender-neutral CrPC. The Supreme Court's ruling reinforces the principle of gender equality and financial security for all married women, transcending religious boundaries. It asserts that maintenance is a fundamental right and should be upheld regardless of personal laws. The husband argued that according to the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, a divorced Muslim woman must seek maintenance through this Act rather than Section 125 of the CrPC. However, the Supreme Court dismissed this petition. New Delhi: Markets hit their fresh closing peaks on Tuesday led by gains in auto and FMCG shares. Ajit Mishra SVP, Research, Religare Broking Ltd said, Nifty is approaching the key resistance level of 24,500, and the banking index's participation will be crucial to surpass this mark. Meanwhile, traders are advised to adopt a "buy on dips" strategy and focus on sectors/themes in line with the current market trend. Meanwhile, ahead of the market opening today, as per Zeebiz Infosys, Tata Elxsi, JSW Steel, Vedanta, Crompton Greaves Consumer, Mphasis are likely be in focus today. 1. JSW Steel JSW Steel reported consolidated Crude steel Production of 6.35 Million Tonnes for Q1 FY25. The Crude Steel production was lower by 1% YoY and 6% QoQ mainly due to a planned maintenance shutdowns. Capacity utilisation at Indian Operations stood at 87% for Q1 FY25, said the company. 2. Infosys Infosys said it has collaborated with Sector Alarm to fuel growth through Cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics ERP. "Through this collaboration, Infosys will work closely with Sector Alarm to migrate their disparate, on-premises Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform onto Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (F&O), helping them modernize their financial and business operating models. Capitalizing on Infosys digital transformation capabilities, the Microsoft platform will enable Sector Alarm to streamline finances, gain business insights, and help seamlessly integrate with their existing CRM platform," the company told in a regulatory filing. 3. Tata Elxsi Tata Elxsi is set to report its financial results for the June quarter today. 4. Vedanta Mining company Vedanta will conduct an annual general meeting (AGM ) today. 5. Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Ltd Crompton Greaves shares are set to trade ex-dividend today. The board of directors of the company had recommended a Final Dividend of Rs 3 per equity share of face value of Rs 2 each for the financial year 2023-2024. Los Angeles: The star told The New Yorker: Theyre all different experiences. Each one has a different mother. Its not what I had originally thought would happen when I fell in love or got married -- that I would have three different children with three different moms -- but nonetheless, thats whats happened. Cage added: "So every child is different. Theres a different kind of level of attention. The actor shares Weston with his former partner Christina Fulton, Kal-El with his third wife Alice Kim, and August with his fifth wife Riko Shibata. Cage mentioned that he worries about his very adorable 22-month-old daughter, saying, So this is all different levels of worry and protection and taking it into overdrive." He also remarked on how being a father is intrinsic to his personhood, reports people.com. "Being a dad -- to me, its not an art form, its... How do I put this? Its like breathing. Everything is about her. You know, I can make a movie or not make a movie. I cant stop being a dad. With her, its life. Its my survival," he said. The actor welcomed his eldest son, Weston, with his girlfriend, Fulton, in December 1990. In a 2015 interview, Cage called Weston a total artist. "He can do things I dream about doing... compose music, sing, act, sculpt, and cook, and now he is a loving father," he said. "To see my son with my grandson is as close to a sense of blissful completion as Ive ever had." Moto G85 5G India Launch: Lenovo-owned brand Motorola has launched the Moto G85 5G smartphone in the Indian market. The phone appears to be a rebranded version of the Moto S50 Neo, which was unveiled in China last month. The handset is equipped with Gorilla Glass 5 protection for the 3D curved display at the front and a Lytia sensor for the main camera. The handset comes in Olive Green, Cobalt Blue, and Urban Gray colour options. It is available in two storage variants: 8GB RAM + 128GB and 12GB RAM + 256 GB. The Moto G85 5G comes pre-installed with Android 14 and guarantees updates to Android 16, providing users with 2 major OS upgrades and 4 years of security updates. Moto G85 5G Price and Availability: The handset is priced at Rs. 17,999 for the base 8GB RAM + 128GB storage variant in the country. Meanwhile, the top-end model with 12GB RAM + 256GB storage variant carries a price tag of Rs. 19,999. Consumers can purchase the smartphone via Flipkart, Motorola.in, as well as select retail stores in the country. (Also Read: Tech Showdown: Redmi 13 5G Vs CMF Phone 1; Battle For Best Buy In Rs 15,000 Price Segment) The phone will go on sale starting July 16 at 12pm IST. Moto G85 5G Offer: Customers purchasing the Moto G85 5G can benefit from either an instant bank discount of Rs. 1,000 or a Rs. 1,000 exchange bonus on their old phone's value. Moreover, they can opt for up to nine months of no-cost EMI offers. Moto G85 5G Specifications: The phone features a 6.67-inch full-HD+ 3D curved pOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and peak local brightness of 1,600 nits. It offers a resolution of 1,080 x 2,400 pixels and a 20:9 aspect ratio. The smartphone is equipped with a 5,000mAh battery and includes a 33W charger in the box. It is powered by a Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 processor with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. The company claims that the phone supports expandable storage up to 1TB using a microSD card and virtual RAM of up to 24GB. (Also Read: Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024: From Foldable Phones to Galaxy Ring; What to Expect From Event?) In terms of cameras, the smartphone boasts a 50MP main camera equipped with a Lytia sensor and OIS, complemented by an 8MP ultra-wide + macro camera. For selfies and video calls, it includes a 32MP front-facing shooter. New Delhi: South Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung will be hosting its flagship Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event on Wednesday (July 10). The Galaxy Unpacked 2024 will be held in Paris, France, that will give a glimpse into a host of new products from the tech major that includes foldable phones, earbuds, smartwatches, and the Galaxy Ring health wearable. Another major highlight of the event is the likely inclusion of new Galaxy AI system in the upcoming Galaxy Z series --the unannounced Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Flip 6. Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Event 2024: How And Where To Watch Livestream The highly anticipated event will be livestreamed online on several official channels of the company. You can watch the event on various official social media channels of Samsung. https://www.facebook.com/events/811188514322491/?ref=embed_post https://x.com/SamsungMobile/status/1805737794163085678 Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Event 2024: India Timings Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event will kick off in Paris at 3 pm CEST (9 AM ET, 2 PM BST, 11 PM AEST, 6:30 PM IST) today. In India, you could watch the event live at the above Samsung official channels at 6:30 PM today. Reports have it that Samsung might go in for a significant upgrades to Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 foldable phones. Another big surprise that the company might spring is the unveiling of a new flagship smartwatch. Reports say that it could be the Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra that might come with a new "squircle" case design, a third button. It could also have proprietary watchband connector aping the Apple Watch Ultra, says the report by The Verge. US President Joe Biden pledged to support NATO to defend Ukraine against Russian President Vladimir Putin's "war of aggression." This comes just a day after PM Narendra Modi concluded his strategic visit to Russia. "Putin wants nothing less -- nothing less than Ukraine's total subjugation; to end Ukraine's democracy; to destroy Ukraine's culture; and to wipe Ukraine off the map," Biden said in his welcome address at the opening of the three-day NATO summit in Washington DC on Tuesday (local time). "Ukraine can and will stop Putin," Biden, 81, said to applause. The US president said that the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, and Italy will provide Ukraine with the equipment for five additional strategic air defence systems. "And in the coming months, the United States and our partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air defence systems," Biden said. The US President said that Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional interceptors over the next year, helping protect Ukrainian cities against Russian missiles and Ukrainian troops facing air attacks on the front lines. Biden said, "The United States will make sure that when we export critical air defence interceptors, Ukraine goes to the front of the line." "They will get this assistance before anyone else gets it," Biden added stating that Ukraine continues to be a free country and "the war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country." "Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail," the US President said to applause. Biden's speech at the NATO came a day after Russia conducted strikes across Ukraine including a strike on the country's largest children's hospital. "All the Allies knew that before this war, Putin thought NATO would break," Biden said adding that the 32-member military alliance is "stronger than it's ever been in its history." Joint Statement on Strengthening Ukraine's Air Defences was signed by US President Joe Biden, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The US, Germany, and Romania will each provide a Patriot battery of their own, while the Netherlands will work with other countries to enable an additional Patriot battery, each country announced in the joint statement. Meanwhile, Italy would also provide a SAMP-T long-range air defence system. The statement said the five strategic air-defence systems, "will help to protect Ukrainian cities, civilians, and soldiers, and we are coordinating with the Ukrainian government so that these systems can be utilized rapidly." "We are working on a further announcement this year of additional strategic air defence systems for Ukraine," it added. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would fight for "decisive actions" from the United States and Europe to help Ukraine. "It is not only our country that needs it - everyone needs it, literally every partner, all nations," Zelensky said in his first remarks after arriving in the US. The Ukrainian president said he would ask for more air defense systems, F-16 fighter jets, and additional security guarantees, "including weapons and finances, political support." Meanwhile, at the innagural ceremony of the NATO Summit, the US President awarded the NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg with the highest civilian honour of the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Leaders of the 32 NATO members and five partner countries - Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, South Korea and Japan are participating in the summit to commemorate the setting up of the military alliance April 4, 1949. Recently, PM Modi went on hid first trip to Russia after the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022 and the first in Modi's third term as the prime minister. After Landing in Moscow he posted on X(formerly Twitter), " "Landed in Moscow. Looking forward to further deepening the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between our nations, especially in futuristic areas of cooperation." 2019 XI Accelerator participants pitch their companies to the community at the kickoff event. XI, or Exponential Impact, is a nonprofit dedicated to giving entrepreneurs the best start humanly possible. The organization was approved on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, to receive $55,000 for its "Survive and Thrive" program to help 25 El Paso County residents with finding employment. One person died at the Avett Brothers July 5 concert at Red Rocks, officials from the city of Denver and Jefferson County Sheriff's Office confirmed Wednesday. Preliminarily, this appears to be nothing more than a very sad, unforeseen medical event, said Jacki Kelly, public affairs director for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. On Sunday, the third consecutive Avett Brothers concert at Red Rocks, Scott Avett took a moment to honor the victim, whom he said was a man named Rusty. Friday night, we lost somebody in the parking lot, Avett said. What we understand is they fell ill and they didn't make it. So, we consider that losing one of our own. That man's name was Rusty, and we want to send Rusty love, his family love, and we want to dedicate this show and this song to Rusty. Kelly said the man was standing in line for the restroom at the bathrooms after in the upper north parking lot when he collapsed. Concertgoers tried to take care of him, and performed CPR, she said. He later died at an area hospital. The identity of the man has been revealed by his family on social media, but not yet confirmed by authorities. The Jefferson County Coroner did not respond to an inquiry about an autopsy or identification by press time. The Avett Brothers tribute on Sunday was a poignant moment that showed just how close the bands relationship is with its fan base. I am going to say this as clear and as straight as I can, Scott Avett told the 9,500 gathered. When we talk to you guys and say we love you and thank you for coming out, we are not just talking to the blur of the crowd. We are talking to each one of you. The band which includes Scotts brother, Seth, sister, Bonnie Avett Rini and joined Friday by their father, Jim then dedicated a song called Through My Prayers to the victim. It includes the lyrics: If you have love in your heart, let it show while you can. Later, the Avett Brothers posted on the bands social media accounts: Night 3 of The Avett Brothers annual run at Red Rocks was a poignant reminder of the fragility of life as we remembered a fan who passed away after Friday night's show. May his memory inspire us to cherish life and the moments we share with loved ones. We wish love and peace to Rustys family and all those who are processing the grief of losing someone close to them. This article had been updated throughout the day. Through My Prayers Hard to believe I won't see you again We were just fighting when winter began The coldness of our words competing with the wind from the north Still they make me shiver but in a very different way The pages of the calendar kept turning away I have some better words now, but it's too late to say them to you Featured Local Savings My dream of all dreams and my hope of all hopes Is only to tell you and make sure you know How much I love you and how much I always did And yes I know you loved me I could see it in your eyes And it was in your struggle and it was in your mind And it was in the smile you gave me when I was a kid Feels like no one understands And now my only chance To talk to you is through my prayers I only wanted to tell ya I care Every night after and every day since I find myself crying when the memory hits Sometimes it knocks me down, sometimes I can just put it away Down in my mind where I don't care to go The pain of a lesson is letting me know If you have love in your heart let it show while you can Yes now I understand But now my only chance To talk to you is through my prayers I only wanted to tell ya I care I only wanted to tell ya I care The Fourth Judicial District Nominating Commission announced three finalists for a vacant El Paso County court judge position Tuesday. The vacancy was created by the appointment of Dennis Luzinas McGuire to the vacant 4th Judicial District Judge position in Teller County. The three finalists are Douglas Bechtel of Castle Rock, Marika Frady of Colorado Springs and Christopher Strider of Manitou Springs, according to a news release from the Colorado Judicial Branch. Betchel is currently a prosecutor for the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office, Frady is an attorney for the Frady Law Firm, a self-owned law firm located in Colorado Springs, and Strider is a county attorney for El Paso County. Gov. Jared Polis has until July 24 to select one of the three finalists, according to the news release. China to probe into improper use of tanker trucks in edible oil transportation Xinhua) 10:13, July 10, 2024 BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- The office of the food safety commission under China's State Council said Tuesday that it has set up a joint investigation team to look into the reported improper use of tanker trucks in the transportation of edible oil. The joint team, which involves public security, transport, market regulation and other authorities, will thoroughly investigate all links in the transportation of edible oil with tanker trucks. Enterprises and individuals found violating the law through improper use of tanker trucks will face severe punishment, the office said, adding that China will also launch a campaign to identify risks related to edible oil. The findings of the investigation and handling of the matter will be promptly disclosed, according to the office. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) A Hancock County man was arrested in Clear Lake on Tuesday for intimidation with a dangerous weapon and domestic abuse additional charges against the former North Iowa police officer. The Clear Lake Police Department obtained arrest warrants for Benjamin S. Mehmen, 28 of Duncan, on July 8 for intimidation with a dangerous weapon, a class C felony, and domestic abuse assault impeding the flow of air, an aggravated misdemeanor. On July 9, Mehmen was arrested at his residence without incident and taken to the Cerro Gordo County Jail and held without bond. Law enforcement said the new charges Tuesday stem from information obtained during an investigation conducted by the department in April, when an additional victim was identified. In April, Mehmen was charged with domestic assault with strangulation, a class D felony, and four counts of intimidation with a dangerous weapon, a class C felony. Law enforcement received a report Mehman had assaulted a former girlfriend on several occasions. From September 2023 to February of this year, law enforcement found multiple instances of intimidation with a Taser. Both incidents remain under investigation and no further information will be released at this time. Mehmen is a former Britt police officer who was fired in March. The Clear Lake Police Department was assisted by the Cerro Gordo County Attorneys Office during the investigation. MATTOON Both the second night of main stage music at the 2024 Bagelfest and the World's Biggest Bagel Breakfast are getting an early start this year to help make room for a schedule full of festivities. The main stage concerts on Grimes Field at Peterson Park typically start at 8 p.m., as is the case for the Blessing Offor contemporary Christian free concert on July 18 and for Resurrection: A Journey Tribute's ticketed concert on July 20. City Tourism and Arts Director Angelia Burgett said the start time of the July 19 ticketed concert has been moved up half an hour because the evening will feature two separate country acts. Confederate Railroad will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. and then, following an intermission, Eddie Montgomery of Montgomery Gentry will perform at 9 p.m. Tickets can be purchased in advance by going to exploremattoon.org/bagelfest/ or visiting the Peterson House at the park's southwest entrance during business hours. Burgett noted that concertgoers ages 21 and older will be able to purchase adult beverages from La Luna Mexican Restaurant and Warren James Winery to drink at Grimes Fields, where a city festival liquor license will be in place on the evenings of July 19-20. She said Bagelfest debuted this beverage option for concert-goers last year. "I think they were appreciative of that being part of the concert experience," Burgett said. The annual contemporary Christian concert on July 18 will be preceded once again by children's games at Grimes Field. These activities will be provided by Pepsi, Bimbo Bakeries USA, Truth & Grace Fellowship and other sponsors. Regarding the World's Biggest Bagel Breakfast, Burgett said the time of this annual event provided by the Bimbo Bakers USA plant in Mattoon has been moved up half an hour. Free Lender's Bagels and Thomas' bagels made at the plant will now be served from 7:30-9:30 a.m. in the Demars Center at Peterson Park. Burgett said the early start time will help those who eat at the breakfast or volunteer there also participate in the parade at 10:30 a.m. This procession will travel east on Western Avenue and then Broadway Avenue through downtown and past Peterson Park. Festival organizers have observed that the Bagelfest parade is drawing floats and other entries that had planned to be in the Mattoon Fourth of July parade until it was cancelled due to rainy weather, Burgett said. The Bagelfest parade already has drawn more than 100 entries. "It's going to be a monster-sized parade," Burgett said. The Bagelfest Academy school-focused theme for the 2024 festival will be incorporated into decorations for the parade, as well as the Miss Bagelfest pageants starting at noon Saturday, July 13, at the Fields Church and the Bagel Baby Contest on Tuesday, July 16, at the Cross County Mall. Bagelfest carnival will be open 6-10 p.m. July 17 and 18, with armbands available both nights. The carnival will then be open 1-11 p.m. July 19, with arm bands available 1-5 p.m., and noon-11 p.m., July 20, with arm bands available noon-4 p.m. Armbands can be purchased for $20 each through noon July 17 at the Peterson House, after which they will be $25. The remnants of a hurricane are Berylling (barreling) down on a large section of Illinois, demonstrating that significant weather, which originated in the eastern Atlantic, can have an impact on your plans to dine on the deck, as well as the 2024 corn and soybean crop. The rain that caused motorists to turn on their lights and windshield wipers did not come from the area around the devastating floods in Texas but was moisture in the atmosphere triggered by the low-pressure trough moving northeastward from Texas toward New England. Your dinner party was interrupted, and local farm fields benefited from the rainfall. Fortunately, it was not the 13-15 inches of rainfall which inundated the 100-mile radius around Sioux Falls, South Dakota, washed out roads, bridges, and people from their homes. Then there were the grain bins full of corn. Combined, Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota farmers are still holding on to 1.25 billion bushels of corn. No, not all of that was in the flood zone, but there may have been upwards of 50-75 million bushels of corn that is no longer an asset, but a liability. Nationally, such a loss is a gnat on a semitrucks front bumper. But for farm families impacted by the flooding, it is one of those losses that may spell the end to their farming career and family life on the farm. Certainly, there is insurance, but there is never enough to cover all the loss from devastating flood water. The Brazilian farm folks in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Parana know it all too well, and can commiserate with the folks in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota. Incessant rains earlier this year in the southern tip of Brazil flooded an estimated 2.4 million acres, washing out corn and soybean crops, along with grain already harvested and stored in hundreds of grain bins. Some 180 Brazilians lost their lives in the South American flooding, a tragedy fortunately unseen in the Corn Belt flooding. The crop loss here has not been officially estimated, but Michael Cordonnier, a specialist in South American agriculture, suggested the U.S. flooding is between a half and one million acres. While that loss could be a fatal impact for some farms, a devastating impact on the economy of some counties, and a serious impact on some state agricultural industries, it did not pause the needle on the grain markets downhill accelerator. The grain price plunge has caused farmers to hold tighter to their unsold grain, as has been widely reported, with Illinois farmers still holding on to 875 million bushels of corn and nearly 160 million bushels of soybeans. This is in the face of Hurricane Beryl, which is delivering rain to eastern Corn Belt corn and soybean fields which were in dire need of a drink. When drought or thirst is involved, moderation is the key to survival, not a gully washer. Not even those had any bullish impact on the grain market. From the Caribbean to Texas, Hurricane Beryl leaves a trail of destruction DECATUR Decatur Public Schools students will face a much stricter cellphone and electronic device policy beginning on the first day of school, if the school board approves the new policy. The proposal calls for all electronic devices phones, pagers, smart watches, earbuds, headphones to be turned off and stored in lockers for secondary students, or in the classroom or office for younger students, with the preference being that those devices are left at home and not brought to school at all. High school students could be allowed to use their phones during their lunch breaks, but some board members suggested banning that, too. The board discussed the proposal during a special meeting Tuesday and will vote on the policy at its July 16 meeting. I won't vote against it if you leave (the lunch use) in, said board member Mark Reynolds. I like the policy otherwise. Board member Kevin Collins-Brown said he would prefer all or nothing, with a blanket ban on all cellphone use during the school day, but that he, too, would vote for the policy even if that provision remains. Superintendent Rochelle Clark said she and her staff will create new discipline codes for cellphone infractions that will allow for tracking discipline issues, which the district already does, but with a code just for cellphones, it will make it possible to know if the ban makes a difference overall. The reason for creating a cellphone ban is because social media and bullying are behind a number of the other discipline issues such as arguments and fights at school. Board Vice President Jason Dion said he would prefer a policy that doesn't ban phones, instead teaching students responsible use of them. Why not teach them how to use them? he said, citing that when students get jobs, for example, they will need to know when it is appropriate and when it isn't to use their phones. Clark also included consequences for non-compliance in the proposed policy, with a warning for a first offense, a classroom referral for the second offense so there is a written record that the student has already been warned, an office referral for the third offense and a parent or guardian must come to school to retrieve the phone, and for fourth and subsequent offenses, discipline under the Student Code of Conduct. She also said that she knows it is possible that students and possibly parents will react badly, with belligerence and even threats or violence when told that they can't have their phones or if parents have to come to school to pick up a phone. If students display gross defiance or belligerence, they will face suspension of up to three days, and if parents threaten staff, they could be arrested and receive no trespass orders that will exclude them from school property. Dion also asked about electronic devices that are required by an Individualized Education Plan or devices that monitor a student's blood sugar for diabetes. Clark said she has never seen an IEP that required use of a cellphone, but if that should come up, it would be worked out as the IEP is created, and health devices such as blood sugar monitors require, and always have, a meeting with the school nurse to establish a record of the student's health needs. If the policy is adopted at the July 16 meeting, Clark said, she will get letters and public notices out to make sure district families know the policy well ahead of the first day of school on Aug. 12. Registration is already underway and families are urged to log into Skyward to get their children enrolled to ensure that the district has adequate plans in place for schedules and bus routes before classes begin. 5 emerging trends that will change how you use your phone in 2024 What to watch for Augmented reality integration AI technology Expanded biometric security technology 5G network integration Foldable phones China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Wednesday launched a trade and investment barrier investigation into the relevant practices adopted by the European Union (EU) in the EU's foreign subsidy investigations, the ministry said in an announcement. The investigation was initiated at the request of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, whose qualifications and request documents have been verified, according to the MOC. Under its foreign subsidies regulation, the EU has conducted preliminary, in-depth and raid investigations into Chinese companies involved in sectors such as locomotives, photovoltaics, wind power and security check equipment. The EU's practices in such investigations will be examined, said the MOC. The MOC said its investigation will involve surveys, hearings and on-site activities in order to gather information from all stakeholders. While the investigation is set to conclude by January 10, 2025, it could be extended to April 10 under special circumstances, according to the ministry. Finnish telco vendor Nokia and British telco BT announced they successfully aggregated 5G Standalone (SA) spectrum using 5CC Carrier Aggregation (5CC CA). Nokia said BT is the first European operator to achieve this milestone. The tests were conducted in the field on live network spectrum at Adastral Park, BT's headquarters for R&D, using Nokias 5G AirScale portfolio and a device powered by a Snapdragon 5G Modem-RF system from Qualcomm . Downlink speeds of 1.85 Gbps were reached, using three FDD carriers NR2600 (30MHz), NR2100 (20MHz), NR1800 (20MHz) aggregated with two TDD carriers NR3600 (40+40MHz). Nokia and BT used a device powered by Snapdragon 5G Modem-RF from semiconductor company Qualcomm. 5CC CA will boost data rates in areas that have high demand by combining all mid-band radio spectrum when the 5G SA device requires high-speed connection. According to British media, BT chief security and networks officer Howard Watson has hinted that EE may begin their commercial deployment of 5G SA during the second half of 2024. EE will have the capability to leverage a low frequency sixth carrier to provide 5G experience in more places, including indoors. In 2023, BT and Nokia successfully demonstrated 4CC CA in 5G SA downlink with concurrent 2CC CA in 5G SA uplink. The 5G SA announcement today achieves performance uplift in connections from the device to the network by increasing throughput and capacity. This milestone is particularly important as more and more devices come to market with 5CC CA capabilities. We are focused on maximising our spectrum assets to deliver the very best experience to our customers with that in mind, says BT chief networks officer Greg McCall. This successful trial with our long-standing partner, BT is another great example of Nokias clear leadership in 5G carrier aggregation technology. Multi-component carrier aggregation helps mobile operators to maximize their radio network assets and provide the highest 5G data rates at more locations to subscribers, says Nokia senior vice president and head of RAN Mark Atkinson. Qualcomm is committed to pushing the boundaries of 5G connectivity, and our Snapdragon 5G Modem-RF Systems are designed to unlock the full potential of 5G, delivering unparalleled speed, efficiency and capacity for networks and their users, says Qualcomm Europe vice president technology Dino Flore. This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 9 July 2024. Australian telco Optus has signed a multi-year partnership with American multinational digital technology company Cisco to strengthen the network security and data security services of Optus enterprise and business customers tackling complexities associated with hybrid workforces. With over one-third (37%) of Australians regularly working remotely and with many adopting a hybrid working model, organisations have been increasingly adopting SaaS public and on-demand network services. This shift, combined with increasing vulnerabilities, exposes systems, and users, to potential significant risks across devices and software. In response to this demand, the partnership will see increased investment into the expansion of Optus Integrated Network Operation Centre and Security Operation Centre. This will enable secure design networks and remove complexity through managed services for customers and their hybrid workforce. This fusion will offer observability of the network and connections, as well as visibility into security incidents. The new solution features 24/7 security monitoring for Optus Enterprise and Business customers and will help ensure connections, systems, and data are secured. These services are backed by Cyber Incident Response services from Ciscos Talos Intelligence Group. Additional services will be added throughout the multi-year partnership. The platform is available now, with Cisco-Powered Secure Firewall and Managed Secure Service Edge (SSE) services on offer with additional capabilities covering Vulnerability Management, Advanced Email Security, Identity Intelligence, and Threat Hunting to follow. Native integration with Cisco Meraki and ThousandEyes will help deliver the programs objective of Secure Networking for Optus customers. The Optus and Cisco alliance continues to deliver innovative solutions for businesses to address complex business challenges to enable growth while managing risk in an ever-changing world, says Cisco ANZ managing director partner routes to market and SMB sales Rodney Hamill. Activating the power of the network to deliver security outcomes will go a long way to meeting the cybersecurity challenges that are a top priority for Australian businesses. The collective focus of the partnership is to provide scalable, reliable, and repeatable secure network services, together. This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 9 July 2024. American telecommunications company Motorola Solutions will open a new research and development (R&D) centre in Cork, Ireland that is expected to generate 200 highly-skilled jobs. In a statement, Motorola said the team will design software for the brands land mobile radio (LMR) portfolio. It also plans for expansion across other technologies in the future. Motorola claimed it has investments of more than US$12 billion ($17.8 billion) in R&D and acquisitions over the past decade centred on safety and security with LMR as core. The company also claimed it has deployed more than 13,000 LMR networks worldwide. Modernised with broadband and advanced data applications, LMR provides public safety agencies with the communications they rely on and need. Our new centre in Cork will contribute to advancing our future vision for LMR, while building upon the collective impact of our more than 20,000 employees who are innovating whats next for our customers around the world, said Motorola Solutions chairman and CEO Greg Brown. The R&D centre is backed by IDA Ireland. The new R&D centre, planned for Corks vibrant city centre, complements Motorola Solutions existing footprint in Ireland, which is focused on delivering the emergency services secure communications network, Irelands National Digital Radio Service. Minister for Enterprise, Trade, and Employment Peter Burke is elated Motorola has chosen Cork City for its new global R&D centre. Regional investment is a priority for government and the creation of 200 highly skilled jobs in R&D is a significant boost for the region. The Irish Times reported Motorolas Q1 2024 sales hit 2.4 billion ($3.8 billion) up 10% from the same period a year ago. It is forecasting revenue growth of about 7%. In 2022, Motorola acquired Tetra Solutions, which provides communications to first responders in Ireland. This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 9 July 2024. Known Pty Limited, trading as Kudosity Co, is pleased to announce the appointment of Victoria Whitby as managing director, effective July 2024. Victoria brings extensive leadership experience in finance and technology, having led teams in ASX-listed companies Lendlease and Commonwealth Bank of Australia. In her previous role as chief financial officer at property software platform Archistar.ai, Victoria had a proven track record of securing partnership alliances with global cloud and channel partners and designing capital and expansion strategies for global operations. As Kudosity's first managing director, Victoria will work closely with Kudosity's chief executive officer. Alex Macpherson, chief executive officer and co-founder of Kudosity, said, "I'm delighted to have secured a leader of Victoria's calibre to drive Kudosity's continued growth and success. Victoria is known for building high-performing teams in both commercial and technology sectors and developing multiple business models for product launches and market expansions. "She brings a range of qualities that we believe are well-suited to taking the business through its next stage of growth, particularly her proven success in leading technology strategy and driving organic growth in challenging environments." Since its inception, Kudosity has consistently achieved impressive year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth, averaging 38 per cent each year over the last decade. This wholly organic growth is a testament to the company's commitment to delivering high-quality products and services that meet the evolving needs of its customers. Key to its success is the calibre of its people, who bring a wealth of expertise, creativity, and dedication to their roles, driving innovation and pushing the boundaries of what's possible in the messaging space. With its proven success and expertise in the Australian and New Zealand markets, Kudosity is well-positioned to continue expanding and providing valuable solutions to businesses across Asia and the United States. As the company grows into these regions, it will use its extensive experience and industry knowledge to help businesses across various sectors thrive in an increasingly digital world. Victoria Whitby said, "I am delighted to join Kudosity at such a pivotal moment in the company's growth journey. Kudosity has established itself as a leader in the messaging technology industry, and I'm excited to be part of the team that will drive the company's next phase of expansion and innovation. With its talented team, innovative messaging solutions, and unwavering commitment to customer success, Kudosity is poised for continued growth and impact on a global scale." In addition to this leadership change, Kudosity has relaunched its newly optimised website. The redesigned website is underpinned by a simplified navigation structure and enhanced search functionality that lets users find the information they need easily with a more intuitive and efficient browsing experience. The websites new content management system (CMS) also drives faster development and seamless content updates, keeping Kudositys digital assets current and engaging. This enhances the businesss ability to connect with customers and deliver a superior online experience. Alex Macpherson said, The websites relaunch addresses challenges, including market confusion regarding Kudositys brands and products. This new site represents Kudositys dedication to continuously improving and innovating in all aspects of business, from the inside out. The office of the food safety commission under China's State Council said Tuesday that it has set up a joint investigation team to look into the reported improper use of tanker trucks in the transportation of edible oil. Fifth Third Bank, which has a significant presence in Charlotte and the Triangle, is the latest bank to draw a federal regulatory fine for fake customer accounts. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Tuesday it was fining the Cincinnati-based bank a total of $20 million as a repeat offender. The bank joins Bank of America Corp., US Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co. with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fines in the tens of millions of dollars. Fifth Third Bank said the settlement resolves disputed sales practices issues related to a limited number of accounts opened beginning in 2010 and ending in 2016. The penalties are broken down to $15 million for opening the fake accounts and $5 million for forcing vehicle insurance onto borrowers who had coverage. The bank also has been ordered to pay redress to 35,000 customers, including about 1,000 who had their automobiles improperly repossessed. A proposed court order that would serve as a settlement bans the bank from setting employee sales goals that incentivize fraudulently opening accounts. The settlement also addresses concerns about an auto collateral protection insurance program that Fifth Third voluntarily discontinued in January 2019. The CFPB has caught Fifth Third Bank illegally loading up auto loan bills with excessive charges, Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement. We are ordering the senior executives and board of directors at Fifth Third to clean up these broken business practices or else face further consequences. Fifth Third Bank said in a statement that we have already taken significant action to address these legacy matters, including identifying issues and taking the initiative to set things right. The financial institution operates about 1,300 branches in 12 states, including 79 in North Carolina with a location in Banner Elk, Sparta and West Jefferson. It is the 18th largest U.S. bank with $214 billion in total assets. The consumer bureau said its investigation determined Fifth Third illegally triggered repossessions and charged illegal fees by forcing loan borrowers into unnecessary and duplicative coverage policies. Between July 2011 and December 2020, more than 50% of the policies were charged to borrowers who had either always maintained their own coverage or obtained the requisite coverage within a 30-day timeframe of their prior policy lapsing. These borrowers paid more than $12.7 million in illegal, worthless fees, the CFPB said. Industry officials said most financial institutions have incentive programs for branch employees to sell additional products. The goal is entrenching a customer so that they are less likely to move their accounts to a competitor, either out of perceived or real inconvenience, or out of loyalty. The settlement prohibits the bank from setting sales goals for its employees that incentivize the opening of unauthorized accounts. Fifth Third Bank is far from alone in drawing Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fines for their customer account practices. Wells Fargo & Co. has been ordered by the CFPB to pay a combined $4.7 billion in penalties, redress and compensation to customers since its fraudulent customer-account scandal erupted in September 2016. In July 2023, Bank of America was fined a combined $150 million by the CFPB and the U.S. Office of the Controller of the Currency for customer actions that include fraudulently opening accounts without permission. Affected were hundreds of thousands of Bank of America customers, some as far back as 2012, according to regulators. In July 2022, US Bancorp was fined $37.5 million for a fraudulent customer account initiative that dates back to at least 2010. A Winston-Salem man was sentenced to prison Monday after he pleaded guilty to killing his roommate in 2023, authorities said. Archie Corey McArthur, 36, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in the death of Benjamin Hastings Beeson, 39, who lived on Wharton Avenue, the Forsyth County District Attorneys Office said. McArthur and Beeson lived in the Wharton Avenue home together. Judge Richard Gottlieb of Forsyth Superior Court sentenced McArthur to serve 20 years to 25 years in prison, the district attorneys office said. McArthur was initially charged with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and robbery with a dangerous weapon in Beesons death, according to an arrest warrant. Winston-Salem police found Beesons body in his home on Feb. 16, 2023. Beeson, a local landscaper, died from blunt force trauma to his head, the district attorneys office said. When police found Beesons body, they noticed wounds to his face and forehead consistent with a struggle or fight, the search warrant said. On the day Beesons body was found, McArthur had called a friend and left a voicemail saying that McArthur had threatened to kill Beeson, according to a search warrant. On the voicemail, McArthur could be heard threatening to kill Beeson in the background, the warrant said. McArthur tells Beeson not to move, the district attorneys office said. Beeson can be heard pleading and crying in the background. Witnesses told investigators that McArthur told them he had beaten Beeson, but he didnt kill him, the district attorneys office said. McArthur was arrested in Surry County four days after Beesons death. Ben was a valuable member of our community, who was senselessly taken from his friends and family, District Attorney Jim ONeill said. He opened his home to (McArthur), who repaid him by taking his life. Nebraska Medicine CEO Dr. James Linder has been named chairman of the Nebraska Medicine Board of Directors, replacing Dr. Jeffrey Gold, who recently became president of the University of Nebraska. The board voted unanimously to make Linder its next chairman. He begins the new role immediately in addition to continuing his duties as CEO. Gold previously served for a decade as chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Nebraska Medicines academic partner. On July 1, Gold took over NU president duties. Nebraska Medicine is an independent, nonprofit organization. Its board, made up of area leaders in business, health care and academia who serve as volunteers, is solely responsible for the governance of the health system. Dr. H. Dele Davies, who was named UNMCs interim chancellor last week, also became a voting member of the board. Linder has been Nebraska Medicines CEO since 2018 and a part of the UNMC faculty for more than 40 years. He also has served as interim president of the University of Nebraska and dean of UNMCs College of Medicine. He served on the board before being named CEO. His research led to new screening technologies that reduced the incidence of cervical cancer as well as the development of an instrument that enabled the rapid diagnosis of blood disorders. He and his wife, Karen, co-lead Linseed Capital and co-chair the University of Nebraska Foundations Only in Nebraska campaign, which is in the process of raising $1 billion in charitable support for Nebraska Medicine and UNMC. Top Journal Star photos for July 2024 Nine months after the first in a string of 911 phone service outages rattled Southeast Nebraska in August, the State 911 Department on Tuesday filed a formal complaint against one of the telecommunications providers at the center of the disruptions, which were the subject of a monthslong investigation. Windstream, the Arkansas-based provider alleged to be responsible for three 911 service outages in Nebraska between September and January, could be ordered to pay millions of dollars in fines or have its carrier designation revoked as a result of the complaint filed Tuesday by David Sankey, the director of the State 911 Department. The complaint filed with the Public Service Commission, which closed its investigation into Windstream's service outages and issued findings Tuesday, paving the way for Sankey's complaint alleges that Windstream failed to comply with state and federal requirements governing the "operation, maintenance, reliability and functionality of 911 services." As a result of those failures, Sankey alleged, state residents were "denied access to 911 services on three separate occasions," eroding public trust in Nebraska's 911 system. In a statement Tuesday, a company spokesman said Windstream "is committed to being a reliable communications provider to Nebraskans, and we will continue to work with the commission on this matter." Sankey's complaint allows the Public Service Commission the state regulatory body that oversees numerous industries, including the telecommunications industry and the 911 department to sit in a quasi-judicial capacity at a hearing scheduled for late August, when commissioners could decide whether and how to penalize Windstream for the outages. The complaint's filing coincided Tuesday with the release of a 13-page summary of the commission's investigation into Windstream, along with 55 pages of exhibits, that combine to offer granular details about what caused the company's service outages and what actions Windstream took in the wake of the disruptions. Much of the probe seems to have focused on a Sept. 2 outage that regulators began investigating last fall and held a public hearing over in December. The complaint into Windstream includes allegations stemming from the outages that occurred Nov. 28 and Jan. 13, which regulators also probed as part of their investigation into the company. In the September instance the longest-lasting of the company's three 911 service outages a third-party contractor installing a natural gas line at Windstreams data center in downtown Lincoln cut a city irrigation line, kicking off a chain of events that eventually led to 911 working either sporadically or not at all in Southeast Nebraska for several hours between Sept. 2 and 3. Water from the sliced irrigation line found its way into the concrete vault housing Windstreams electrical systems at 1440 M St. and onto a copper busbar, causing a short that ignited a fire and small explosion, leaving the facility without commercial power and reliant on a backup generator. The generator which company officials testified should have lasted for days had been running for about 13 hours when a loose thermocouple wire erroneously signaled the generator was overheating and triggered an automatic shutdown at about 12:23 p.m. on Sept. 2. The generator hadn't been inspected since 2018, said Brad Hedrick, Windstreams regional president of operations for Nebraska, who maintained that the loose thermocouple wouldnt have been discovered during routine maintenance. The machine's failure forced Windstream to resort to batteries to operate the three switches housed in the facility. But the batteries dropped to "dangerously low voltage levels" the following evening, a spokesman said, prompting Windstream to shut down one of the three switches, interrupting services across Southeast Nebraska. At December's public hearing, Hedrick defended that decision, which he said helped avoid an equipment crash that he said could have resulted in a catastrophic" failure that would have extended the duration of the outage. But in the commission's findings released Tuesday, regulators concluded the "evidence indicates that Windstream had insufficient engineering and administrative procedures along with failing to conduct ongoing reviews to maintain adequate and reliable access to 911 services." The commission's conclusion paved the way for Sankey's complaint, in which he accused Windstream of failing to identify "insufficient power back-up systems," among a slew of alleged shortcomings. Sankey also alleged Windstream's engineering and administrative procedures failed to identify insufficient redundancies that ultimately allowed for a single point of failure to cause a broad 911 outage. The Public Service Commission is scheduled to take up the complaint at a two-day hearing beginning Aug. 27, nearly a full year after the initial 911 outage. The pace of the investigation had been a point of frustration for some state lawmakers dating back to December, when lawmakers questioned Sankey and commissioners over the "systemic" nature of the outages and the perceived slow-walking of the investigations into Windstream and Lumen, the other telecommunication provider at the center of 911 outages in Nebraska. Sankey has not yet filed a complaint against Lumen, which like Windstream has been under investigation since September for its role in an outage that disrupted 911 phone service for more than 60% of the 911 centers in Nebraska on Aug. 31. Regulators opened a separate probe into Lumen in May after a fiber optic cable cut in April disrupted 911 services in at least three states, including Nebraska. The repeated outages there have been at least five disruptions to 911 services in Nebraska since late August prompted lawmakers to pass a bill this year requiring telecommunications providers that submit outage reports to the Federal Communications Commission to provide duplicate copies to Nebraska's Public Service Commission. The change, which took effect in May, is meant to bring state regulators up to speed at the same time as federal regulators, who are owed reports within 30 days of a 911 service outage. And last month, regulators signed a $1.32 million contract with a public safety technology provider for software that Sankey said will, among other things, serve as a "supplement" to the redundancies the state's telecommunications providers like Lumen and Windstream are supposed to offer. Top Journal Star photos for July 2024 RACINE COUNTY As of June 24, the police chiefs of Mount Pleasant and Caledonia have more than a border in common. The two chiefs also share a last name. Robert Botsch was sworn in as Mount Pleasants police chief on June 24. Christopher Botsch, his brother, has served as the chief of police in Caledonia since 2020. Im humbled by the opportunity to be able to accept the position and serve the citizens of the village. But I kind of want to move the conversation away from me and to we, Robert said during the swearing in ceremony at last months village board meeting. Over the last month, Ive had the opportunity to speak with folks within the village leadership, within the police department, operations and admin. And it is an amazing group of people. Since he began on June 24, Robert has set a goal of meeting one-on-one with each member of the 66-person department. He brings more than 30 years of law enforcement experience into his new role as police chief. After serving with the Fox Point, Cudahy and Milwaukee police departments, Robert spent 22 years as an agent with the FBIs Milwaukee Division. Robert joined the agency shortly after the 9/11 attacks and occupied senior leadership roles with the division for the last eight years. During his tenure with the FBI, Robert contributed to cases such as the Sikh temple shooting in Oak Creek, the theft of a 300-year-old Stradivarius violin, the 2018 kidnapping of Jayme Closs and the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine tampering in Milwaukee. He was drawn to the FBI because of the opportunity to work on large cases with broad impact, but he ultimately knew he wanted to return to local law enforcement. You can really never take the cop out of the person, Robert said. Once youve been a police officer for a while, its sort of seared in your soul. Although work on a federal level has ripple effects through society, the effects are drawn out. With local law enforcement, the effect of service is tangible. At the local level, you are looking people directly in the eye, he said. You have the opportunity to make their lives better. His brother, Christopher, offers a parallel view of the job. We have a front row seat to the greatest show on Earth. We get to see all sorts of things and work through all sorts of issues, Christopher said. Not all of them are great. Theres a lot of tragedy and sadness in there. But even within that tragedy and sadness, you get to try ... to be that calm professional that brings the calm to chaos. Christopher began work as a police officer when he was 18. His first policing job was in Beaver Dam in 1997. He returned to southeast Wisconsin and spent more than 20 years with the West Allis Police Department, working his way up to a role as deputy chief. For the Botsch brothers, law enforcement was the natural career path. I think we just kind of knew that this was eventually where we would end up, Christopher said. Ever since I can remember, probably going back as early as 5 or 6, I knew I wanted to be a cop, Robert said. I thought that that was probably the coolest job in the world. In Caledonia, the departments motto is Community Focused Data Driven. The department prioritizes accountability and compares metrics for crime statistics, clearance rates, fuel usage and even engagement activities to department-wide goals. In Mount Pleasant, Robert plans to emphasize community engagement and business outreach. For him, police are responsible for more than just responding to service calls. The department should strive to determine what factors are driving service calls by using data to inform community-based policing strategies. Its a great department, so being able to determine how to make it better is the goal. And I say that not from the standpoint that anything is broken, Robert said. (If) the Packers win the Superbowl this year, they dont stop practicing. They want to get better for next year, so they have to figure out where their gaps are. Ultimately, Robert said, he wont know his vision for the department until he spends time listening. I need to understand what this department needs in order to craft a vision, Robert said. The call to service doesnt stop with the Botsch brothers themselves. Christophers brother-in-law recently retired as the assistant police chief in Milwaukee. Christophers wife did clerical work for Milwaukees detective bureau, and Roberts wife, her sister, filled a similar role. The law enforcement gene also passed down to Andrew Botsch, Roberts son, who is set to become a police officer in Sturtevant after he graduates from the police academy in Fox Valley. Christopher and Roberts mother was a dispatcher for the Saint Francis police department, and their father, a full-time machinist, volunteered as an auxiliary police officer throughout their childhood. He instilled in us a very strong work ethic and commitment, drive and dedication, Christopher said. We took that and I guess reformulated it into law enforcement. With a brother just across the border, both Robert and Christopher look forward to opportunities for collaboration and open and honest discussion. RACINE Attorneys for the state called nine more witnesses to testify Tuesday in the trial of Tommy Johnson, who is accused in connection to the September 2023 shooting death of Willie Henderson Jr. The shooting took place around 11 p.m. on Sept. 4, 2023, on the 3000 block of Victory Avenue in Racine. Henderson, who was 58, was shot more than a dozen times. Johnson, who is 32, was charged with first degree intentional homicide using a dangerous weapon; endangering safety with the reckless use of a firearm; and the possession of a firearm by an individual convicted of an out-of-state felony. If convicted, he could face a life sentence. Tuesdays witnesses included Hendersons neighbor, Brianna Kurth; six law enforcement officers with the Racine Police Department and the Racine County Sheriffs Office; Michael Smith, the man who sold Johnson a 2017 black Audi in July 2023; and Lauren Decker, a medical examiner with Milwaukee County. According to Monday testimony from Hendersons sister, Janetta Hicks, family members had gathered at her home that day to celebrate a birthday. Video from a neighbors doorbell camera shows Henderson backing out of his sisters driveway in a silver SUV before a person approaches and fires several gunshots at his silver SUV and the residence. The recorded volley of gunshots echoed through the courtroom and gallery Tuesday, where more than 20 spectators sat, including Hendersons family and friends. The video also showed Hendersons car reverse across Victory Avenue into a neighbors yard. Inferred from the audio, the SUV collided with the neighbors home. Hicks testified Monday that she identified the person in the video as Tommy Johnson, who she knew at the time as Tommy Guns. She allegedly saw Johnson from her bedroom window on the second story of her home but was not certain whether she was wearing her prescription glasses at the time. Defense attorney Mindy Nolan played audio from Hicks 911 call in which she, when asked who the shooter was, said somebody shot my brother rather than identifying Johnson. Bodycam footage from later on Sept. 4 depicts Hicks repeatedly stating that Tommy Guns was responsible for the shooting. Photos taken from the scene show multiple bullet holes in the passenger side windshield of Hendersons SUV. Other photos show projectiles that lodged in or around the driver seat and an interior cabin that appeared bloodied. Also present at Hicks home on the night of the shooting was her son, Guy Evans, her grandchildren, her husband and Antwon Tubbs, Hendersons cousin. Tubbs drove Evans away from the scene before police arrived. According to testimony from Monday, Evans left because of an outstanding warrant for his arrest. It wasnt until May 2024 that he contacted the police. The witnesses at the scene did not tell police that Evans was present that night. Evans alleges that he saw Johnson shooting at his uncles car before aiming at him. Evans also testified that Johnson shot in the direction of his children, who were inside and near an open window. When questioned by the defense on Monday, Evans explained that he waited to speak to the police because he feared legal consequences. Evans, who reportedly lived in Ohio at the time, testified that he cleared his Wisconsin warrants at the end of September and rarely visited between Sept. 4 and when he spoke to the police in May 2024. In their opening arguments on Monday, the state implied that Johnson had planned to shoot Evans and mistakenly shot Henderson. In February 2022, Johnson and several others reportedly assaulted Evans at a bar on Mound Avenue. Evans testified that he didnt know Johnson before the assault but that he had previously dated the same woman Johnson was dating at the time of the assault. Henderson reportedly took Evans to the hospital. Hicks, Evans mother, also reportedly told the police that Johnson had assaulted her son. She made this statement based on a video that recorded some of the assault. She told the court that she searched Johnson on Facebook and found the profile associated with his nickname, Tommy Guns. According to the defense, Johnson could not have shot Henderson because he had spent the night with his young son at their home, which is a 35-minute drive from the Victory Avenue address. The video footage shown in court is too distant and too dark to accurately show the persons face. Kurth, Hicks neighbor, testified that she saw the shooter but could not accurately describe his features. She testified that he had a medium build. Johnson stands taller than six feet. Smith, the last witness to testify, said that he sold Johnson his black Audi in July 2023. Tubbs testified on Monday that he saw a car parked near the Victory Avenue home shortly before the shooting. The state has so far implied that the car present just before the shooting belonged to and was operated by Johnson. The state plans to call its final two witnesses on Wednesday. 1. Yes. They look better and require less maintenance. Most high-end housing areas have them. 2. Yes. Wood fences can weather and look unsightly, plus masonry walls help to block sound. 3. No. Residents should have a choice of what kind of barriers are put up near their homes. 4. No. Allowing a variety of materials will be better for aesthetics, and costs may be lower. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say. Masonry walls may be sturdier, but mandating them is problematic. Vote View Results Flash The largest ocean theme park operator in China, Haichang Ocean Park Holdings, said on Thursday that it will build Saudi Arabia's first large ocean park, which is expected to inject new vitality into the country's tourism industry as it aspires to become a Top 10 tourist destination globally by 2030. The company said it has previously cooperated on the development of tourism projects in Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia, adding that there is no exact timetable for the start of construction in Saudi Arabia. Haichang has been engaged in marine-themed tourism for more than two decades. Its parks, in cities including Shanghai, Dalian in Liaoning province, Zhengzhou in Henan province, and Sanya in Hainan province, attract more than 20 million tourists a year. Saudi Arabia has welcomed Chinese group tours since the start of this month, with the country's Tourism Ministry aiming to make China its third-largest source of international tourists by 2030. According to online travel agency Ctrip, bookings for Saudi Arabian holidays by Chinese tourists have increased nearly fourfold this month and next when compared to the same period last year. Haichang said the project will help create job opportunities and promote Saudi Arabia as an international leisure destination by attracting more visitors from China and elsewhere. "The recreational facilities related to the marine park operated by Haichang Ocean Park are exactly the resources that are scarce in Saudi Arabia's tourism, and the collision of 'desert and sea' creates a theme of contrast, which may bring a new highlight to the country's tourism," said Li Jun, general manager of Haichang's enterprise development department. In April last year, Haichang and Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Investment signed a memorandum of cooperation on culture- and tourism-related investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia. In December, Haichang signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Tourism Development Fund of Saudi Arabia to jointly develop a Haichang Ocean Park project in the country that will be a world-class, integrated ocean-themed park resort and a comprehensive tourist destination. (7-Eleven) With the early onset of summer heat, the convenience store industry is accelerating the release of summer health foods to meet rising customer demand. Sales of nutritious convenience foods like samgyetang and sagol gomtang increased by about 25% in May and June compared to the same period last year at 7-Eleven. In response, 7-Eleven will start its nutritious food event a week earlier than usual, in preparation for Chobok on the 15th. The event will feature discounts and 1+1 offers on 12 types of nutritious convenience foods, including samgyetang, grilled eel, and chicken dishes. GS25 has also released six new convenient health food products one to two weeks earlier than usual. Sales of GS25s approximately 40 types of convenient health food products in Q2 2023 increased by 380.5% compared to last year. GS25 attributes this surge to the early summer heat and rising dining-out costs, driving demand for affordable health food options. To stabilize prices during Boknal, a 1+1 event will run until the 31st for products like Yuus Harim Mara Bangyetang and Yuus Myungpum Galbitang. GS The Fresh is also focusing on selling eight types of convenient health food products until the 31st. Ottogi Refrigerated Samgyetang, released on the 22nd of last month, is a GS The Fresh 50th-anniversary exclusive product and will be available for 6,000 to 7,000 won with GS Pay during Chobok, Jungbok, and Malbok. Additionally, a one-week discount event for 120,000 raw chickens will start today. Flash China will continue to embrace the world with open arms, inject new dynamism into the world through its development and create more energy and enthusiasm for people-to-people exchanges, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday. China has recently become quite a popular destination for foreign tourists. Many have posted their experiences on social media. Figures show that "China Travel" has become a top trending search term on multiple global social media platforms. "Very glad to see the popularity of China as a tourist destination for foreign visitors," spokesperson Lin Jian said at a press briefing in response to a related query. Government figures show that in the first half of this year, China received nearly 14.64 million foreign travelers, up 152.7 percent year on year. Of these, over 8.54 million entered China visa-free, up 190.1 percent year on year, Lin noted. As more and more countries benefit from the visa-free policy and as China adopts more measures to ease cross-border travel, "on-a-whim travel" to China is becoming a reality, he said. "We have seen recently a lot of videos posted by foreign travelers -- many are first-person view or snapshot videos -- which give people a glimpse of China's robust dynamism," Lin said. "Through their lens, we see the light-show on the Liangma River in Beijing, Shanghai street delicacies, food delivery by drone in Shenzhen, and the futuristic sky train and self-driving air taxi in Optics Valley, Wuhan," he said. Figures show that 86 percent of the foreign visitors who had been to China before find it much easier today to make payments in China. Scanning the payment codes with one's phone has become a stylish experience for foreign friends in China, Lin added. The competent government agency expects more foreigners to travel to China in the second half of this year, the spokesperson said. The "China travel" boom stems from China's unique charm, and more importantly, an open and inclusive Chinese society, and the warm and hospitable Chinese people, said Lin, adding that it's also the result of China's high-standard opening up. "There is so much to see and experience, and so many opportunities to share and turn into cooperation. We welcome more foreign friends to make China the destination of their next journey abroad," he added. Flash Senior Chinese and Maltese officials have agreed to deepen cooperation in jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative and to push forward the China-Malta and China-European Union (EU) relations. The two sides expressed their willingness when Lu Kang, deputy head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, met respectively with Malta's Foreign Minister Ian Borg, Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech, Labour Party President Ramona Attard, and representatives from think tanks, local authorities and friendly locals. Lu, who led a CPC delegation to pay a visit to Malta from Sunday to Tuesday at the invitation of the Labour Party of Malta, also briefed the Maltese side on the opportunities brought to the world by China's further comprehensive deepening of reforms and the advancement of Chinese modernization. Both sides highlighted the strong development momentum in China-Malta relations, vowing to continue their traditional friendship and strengthen inter-party exchanges. The number of Americans studying in China has decreased by large amounts in recent years, from around 11,000 in 2019 to 800 this year. Some people with knowledge of China worry that the U.S. could lose a generation of China experts as a result. David Moser is an American who has lived and worked in China for more than 30 years. He is the former academic director of China Educational Tours (CET) in Beijing. He said, I havent seen an American student in years. CET was launched in 1982. The organization helps bring American students to China for language and cultural studies. It used to have programs in several cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Harbin and Hangzhou. Now, the program is only available in Beijing and Shanghai. Moser thinks the U.S. has already lost a generation of students who could be Chinese experts 10 years from now. During the 2011-12 school year, the number of American students in China was around 15,000. Since then, under Xi Jinpings leadership and growing tension between the two countries, the number has decreased. At one point after the pandemic, the number dropped to 200 students. Loss of understanding Moser said having fewer people who understand China is a huge loss for the U.S. "You really need people who understand the two academic systems, the two college systems, and the way these things work in order to not make a huge mistake, he said. Compared with China, however, CET's projects in Taiwan have been attracting students. Moser said CET started its first summer study abroad program at National Taiwan University in 2022. The program brought in more than 120 American students. He said the program was set up in Taiwan because too few American students wanted to go to China. Moser believes that starting around 2008, air pollution and reports of human rights violations in China began to turn some American students away. China's strict lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic also had a large effect. At that time, many foreigners, including American students, left China. In addition, a revised Chinese anti-spying law that took effect on July 1, 2023, has made some Americans worry about traveling to China. The law expands how the Chinese government can look into the activities of foreigners in China. As the law negatively affected China, the Chinese government tried to build up exchange programs. In November 2023, President Xi offered to invite 50,000 Americans to China for exchanges and studies for the next five years. Meghan Burke is a former sociology professor at Illinois Wesleyan University. When VOA asked her about the 800 American students in China today, she said that the low number was a problem for the United States. "Language is key to understanding culture. So, any (limits) on learning Mandarin or other Chinese languages only hold back our ability to have a broader and more complex intercultural understanding, Burke said. In contrast, 300,000 Chinese students are studying in the U.S. Moser, of CET, said the unequal number of students between the two countries is bad for both countries. However, he added that it is even worse for the U.S. Moser said while the U.S. lacks knowledge of China, The Chinese have very good knowledge of the U.S., of its culture, of its government, everything. Im Andrew Smith. Bo Gu reported this story for VOA News. Andrew Smith adapted the story for Learning English. Quiz - Decline of US Students in China Means Fewer Experts Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz _______________________________________________ Words in This Story academic -adj. relating to work done in schools, colleges, universities abroad -adj. relating to foreign countries or being in a foreign countries key -adj. central or very important for doing or understanding something The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is seeking closer ties with non-member partners from Asia at its 2024 leaders meeting. It opened Tuesday in the American capital, Washington, D.C. Leaders from Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand are attending the NATO leaders meeting for the third straight year. Australia sent its deputy prime minister. Expert say China will follow the three-day meeting closely to measure NATOs interest in places beyond Europe and the Western Hemisphere. China and Russia have strengthened ties recently as Russias war in Ukraine continues. In the Pacific area, North Korea has increased support for Russia while South Korea has sided with NATO allies. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke at the Brookings Institution in Washington. He said: Partners in Europe see challenges halfway around the world in Asia as being relevant to them, just as partners in Asia see challenges halfway around the world in Europe as being relevant to them. Countries with shared security interests appear to be strengthening ties. They see the competition between the United States and China as growing. U.S. officials are concerned about Chinas efforts to challenge the U.S.-led world order. China considers its rise inevitable and that U.S. concerns come from the Cold War competition of the past. Chinas foreign ministry criticized NATOs reported interest in deepening its partnerships with Asian nations. At its usual press briefing Tuesday, a Chinese foreign ministry official said NATO was breaching its boundary, expanding its mandate, reaching beyond its defense zone and stoking confrontation The war in Ukraine The war in Ukraine has placed Russia and its allies against the U.S., Europe and their Asian allies. For example, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told the U.S. Congress in April that, Ukraine of today may be East Asia of tomorrow. In addition, the U.S. and South Korea have accused North Korea of supplying Russia with ammunition for the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea in June and signed an agreement on joint military assistance. Both Japan and South Korea are sending military supplies and aid to Ukraine. The U.S. says China is providing Russia with machine tools, electronics and other technology that can be used to make weapons to use against Ukraine. A national security advisor to South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Yoon will bring a strong message regarding the military cooperation between Russia and North Korea. The official also said the president would discuss ways to increase cooperation between NATO allies and Indo-Pacific partners. Mirna Galic is an expert on China and East Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington. Galic says the partnership between Asian countries and NATO does not make NATO a direct actor in the Indo-Pacific areas. For example, she wrote in an analysis, they can share information and align on actions such as sanctions and aid shipments. But, she continued, they do not intervene in military crises outside of their own areas. Zhu Feng is the dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing University in China. He believes China is worried about NATOs interest in the East and wants to be seen as a force for peace. Zhu said, NATO should consider China as a positive force for the regional peace and stability and for global security. He added, We also hope the Ukraine war can end as soon as possible NATO and China had little conflict until 2019. That year, the NATO summit in London raised China as a challenge that needed to be dealt with together as an alliance. Two years later, NATO called China a systemic challenge and said it was cooperating militarily with Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. At the Shangri-la Dialogue security meeting in Singapore this year, American Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was asked about the alliance and the Indo-Pacific area. Austin said the U.S. was working with like-minded countries with similar values and a common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Chinese Lieutenant General Jing Jianfeng also attended the Shangri-la Dialogue. He told delegates that Western alliances in Asia were an effort to continue what he called the hegemony as led by the United States. Im Mario Ritter, Jr. And I'm Caty Weaver. Didi Tang reported this story for the Associated Press. Mario Ritter, Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. _______________________________________________ Words in This Story challenge n. a difficult problem relevant adj. related to a subject in a useful way inevitable adj. incapable of being avoided or evaded cyberattack n. an attack on computer systems that is meant to take information or damage the systems or the things that they control breach v. to fail to do something that is required by law or agreement mandate n. an official order or requirement stoke v. to cause something to increase in intensity confrontation n. the clashing of forces or ideas mutual adj. shared between two or more cohesive adj. to stick firmly together hegemony n. the strong leadership or influence expressed by one leader or one state We want to hear from you. Our comment policy is here. Scientists have identified a kind of desert moss that could help support possible colonies on Mars, a study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences showed recently. The moss - Syntrichia Caninervis - was able to survive Mars-like conditions of extreme dryness, very low temperatures and radiation, the research shows. The study appeared recently in the publication The Innovation. The moss could serve as the "basis for the establishment and maintenance of the ecosystem by contributing to oxygen production, carbon sequestration, and soil fertility, the study said. The paper added, "(It) can help drive the atmospheric, geological, and ecological processes required for other higher plants and animals while helping to create new environments that could support long-term human settlement. The study shows that the moss could return quickly to health even after losing more than 98 percent of its cellular water. The plant was able to recover its normal operation seconds after getting water. The plant can also survive very low temperatures. It can recover or regenerate after being stored in a freezer at -80 degrees Celsius for five years. It can survive a month in liquid nitrogen, the researchers found. Researchers collected the study plants from a desert in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. The moss also grows in Tibet, the American state of California, the Middle East and polar areas. China and the United States have announced a number of space exploration plans in recent years. Chinese missions include launching a near-Earth asteroid probe Tianwen-2 next year, and Tianwen-3 around 2030 to collect material from Mars and bring it to Earth for study. Last month, a Chinese mission collected materials from the far side of the moon. The American space agency NASA has developed a 20-year plan for Mars exploration. It is investigating whether the red planet could support human population. Im John Russell. Liz Lee and Ryan Woo reported on this story for Reuters. John Russell adapted it for VOA Learning English. ___________________________________________ Words in This Story maintenance n. the act of keeping property or equipment in good condition by making repairs contribute v. to give or supply (something, such as money or time) as a part or share carbon sequestration n. any of various methods for capturing and storing carbon dioxide probe n. an attempt to explore or learn about some unknown place The armed forces of Britain, the United States and Canada have landed on the Mediterranean island of Sicily. It is the first major landing of British troops on European soil since the fall of Crete two years ago. Initial resistance has been surprisingly weak against British forces with little anti-aircraft fire and no enemy naval intervention. However, the US forces faced a tougher fight on their beaches. The Times reports Allied air forces acted in close co-operation with naval and ground forces. Late last night airborne troops in parachutes and gliders many of whom fought in North Africa were dropped over the island. American paratroops were the first to land at 2110 under the command of Colonel John Cerny, who said a whole battalion had been dropped in one area alone. They were followed by British airborne troops two hours later. There is little news about them at the moment but all the aircraft carrying them returned to base in North Africa safely. Meanwhile hundreds of ships of all sizes sailed across from North Africa carrying thousands of troops, weapons, armoured vehicles and heavy artillery. The invasion fleet was described by one pilot as stretching across 40 miles of water consisting of huge barges and merchant ships escorted by destroyers. At about 0300 local time today the British and Canadian troops were brought ashore at Pachino, near Cape Passero on the south-east coast of the south-eastern tip of Sicily. Americans arrived three hours later near Gela to the west of the British beaches. The Canadians had to cope with fairly choppy seas in the area of their operations but the British were protected by the bay at Passero and were able to land their equipment ashore fairly easily. They did encounter some heavy sniping from coastal defences but have made swift progress inland. Over the past month Sicilian airfields have been attacked to weaken air power on the ground and prevent the arrival of reinforcements. Courtesy BBC News In context In reality, the airborne drops faced huge problems including Allied ships shooting at Allied planes. But once ashore the Allies advanced north and west and controlled a quarter of the island within three days. The German General Hans Hube took charge of the Italian forces soon after the invasion, withdrew to a defensive line across the north-east of the island and organised an orderly withdrawal. The American 7th Army under US General Patton made swift progress north-west as the Italians and Germans retreated arriving in the capital, Palermo, on 22 July. Faced with tough German resistance in mountainous terrain, General Sir Bernard Montgomerys 8th Army consisting of British and Canadian troops made slow progress towards Catania midway up the east coast. They finally arrived on 5 August. General Patton entered Messina on 17 August, a few hours ahead of Montgomery. By this stage 70,000 Italian and 39,000 German troops had been evacuated to the Italian mainland. The campaign was in effect a draw. The liberation of Sicily marked the first time part of the home territories of the Axis powers had been captured and precipitated the fall of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. He was ousted on 25 July by Italian King Victor Emmanuel in favour of Marshal Pietro Badoglio who eventually signed an armistice with the Allies on 3 September. Flash Yemen's Houthi group on Tuesday said they have attacked three ships owned by the United States and Israel in the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden. The targeted ships were "Maersk Sentosa, Marthopolis, and MSC Patnaree," said Yahya Sarea, the Houthi spokesman, in a televised statement aired by the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV. The first operation "targeted the U.S. ship, Maersk Sentosa, in the Arabian Sea with several ballistic and winged missiles," Sarea said. The second operation "targeted the ship, Marthopolis, in the Arabian Sea with drones" due to the company owning it had entered a port of Israel, he said. The third operation targeted "the Israeli ship, MSC Patnaree, in the Gulf of Aden with several drones," he said, adding that "the three operations achieved their goals successfully and the hits were direct and accurate." "Our operations will not stop until the Israeli aggression and siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip stop," he said. This is the latest in a series of Houthi attacks against ships transiting off Yemen since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict broke out last year. The Houthi group, which controls much of northern Yemen, began in November last year to launch anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones targeting what they said were Israeli-linked ships transiting the Red Sea, to show solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In response, the U.S.-British naval coalition stationed in the waters has since January conducted air raids and missile strikes against Houthi targets to deter the group, but this only led to an expansion of Houthi attacks to include U.S. and British commercial vessels and naval ships. The Australian government named a special envoy yesterday to confront a rise in antisemitism across the country since the Israel-Hamas war began. A similar envoy will soon be appointed to challenge Islamophobia in Australia and both will promote social cohesion, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters at the Sydney Jewish Museum. Albaneses own Sydney office has been targeted with pro-Palestinian graffiti as rival activists clash over the Israeli-Hamas war in Australian cities and university campuses. Albanese appointed Jillian Segal, a Sydney lawyer and business executive, to be special envoy to combat antisemitism in Australia for three years. She will consult with community groups and report back to Albanese and Multicultural Affairs Minister Andrew Giles. Segal called statistics on antisemitism in Australia shocking. Reports of antisemitism spiked 700% immediately after Hamas militants sparked the war in Gaza by attacking Israel on Oct. 7, and are still running 400% to 500% higher than before the conflict, she said. The reports include Jewish-owned businesses being boycotted and vandalized as well as Jewish artists being excluded or subjected to social media shadow bans that restrict their visibility on platforms, Segal said. Unfortunately there is no single answer to the perennial problem of antisemitism, she said. But the creation of this role shows a determination by the government to confront this evil and to ensure that it does not erode the goodness that exists in our society, she added. Albanese said a graffiti attack that marked his inner-Sydney office as a Hamas target in December was being taken seriously and acted upon. He also condemned last months vandalism with spray paint at the Australian National Korean War Memorial and the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial in the national capital, Canberra. I have spoken with members of the Jewish community here, in Melbourne, right around Australia, who have not felt safe, members of the Jewish community whose children are worried about wearing their school uniform in our capital cities, Albanese said. Thats not acceptable. Not acceptable, ever. And certainly not in Australia in 2024. What we need to do is to make sure that the conflict that is occurring in the Middle East that has caused a great deal of grief for the Jewish community, for members of the Islamic and Palestinian communities Australians overwhelmingly do not want conflict brought here, Albanese added. ROD McGUIRK, MELBOURNE, MDT/AP Lawmaker Wong Kit Cheng has urged the government to provide senior residents with the option of viewing elderly housing units via video to set realistic expectations when selecting flats. Currently, information about the flats is mainly shared through illustrations, making it challenging for many elderly individuals to visualize the specific layout, view, and proximity to public facilities such as rubbish collection areas and elevators. Applicants who qualified for the first phase of government apartments for senior residents began selecting accommodation units on Monday. Prospective applicants arrived at the showroom that morning to participate in the selection process to secure their government apartment. Within the first 15 minutes, starting at 9 a.m., 40 units were selected, most of which were high-rise units facing the park. By 5 p.m. Monday, 82 applications for unit selection had been completed, including 29 single-person applications and 53 double-person applications, totaling 135 people. Of these, 63 cases were handled online and 19 offline. Most applicants expressed satisfaction with their apartment, finding these new units more convenient than their previous living situations. Hon Wai, director of the Social Welfare Bureau (IAS), visited the area in the morning and reported that the average selection process took about 10 minutes. Qualified applicants are expected to complete their selections by early November. The first batch of 759 units is slated for occupancy in October, while the remaining 700 units will not be ready until early 2025. The bureau reminded applicants to choose a unit within the 90-day period specified in their official notification letter, and to submit applications on time. The relevant procedures cannot be completed before the designated period. Lawmaker Wong hopes that after the initial 1,500 flats in the first phase are allocated, the government will promptly allocate the remaining flats to other eligible applicants on the waiting list, and consider providing the same concessionary user fees to subsequent tenants, thereby expanding the scope of beneficiaries. Wong also urges the government to consider population forecasts and continue assessing the communitys long-term need for apartments for the elderly, ensuring that land is allocated to build new units in a timely manner. This comes as the government has forecasted that by 2041 there will be more than 160,000 people aged 65 or above in Macau, according to its population forecast report. Lynzy Valles & Nadia Sha The Public Security Police Force (PSP) has been carrying out its Operation Thunder 2024. The taskforce, coordinated by police authorities has been inspecting various establishments for the past four days and has increased patrols in key areas during the same period. Over the past two days, a total of 91 officers from the Public Security Police Force (PSP) have been deployed across the city to conduct the operation. They have led inspections at numerous internet cafes, gaming centers, and massage parlors, billiard rooms, and bars in the Macau Peninsula, Taipa and Cotai. During the operations recently (July 5 to July 8), a total of 291 people (196 men and 95 women) were intercepted and investigated. Among them, five individuals (four men and one woman) were found to be involved in illegal activities, including suspected illegal currency exchange and suspected supply of accommodation. The suspects have been handed over to the relevant departments for further proceedings. In terms of vehicle inspections, a total of 66 vehicles were stopped, leading to seven prosecutions. Vehicle inspections were conducted at irregular points to prevent and combat various illegal acts and criminal activities. The taskforce uncovered several vehicular violations, including failure to use driving lights, tires not matching the registration certificate, lack of insurance, motorcycles with less than one year of driving qualification carrying passengers, failure to install identification marks, and improper installation of color lights. The police will continue to closely monitor the security situation in Macau and make timely adjustments to our operational deployments, said a spokesperson for the PSP. Nadia Shaw The temporary housing project on Lot P in Areia Preta is expected to be completed by the end of 2024, providing much-needed transitional accommodation for property owners affected by urban renewal projects in the city. According to Macau Urban Renewal Limited (MUR), the project, encompassing Lot B and Lot C, will consist of eight residential towers with over 2,800 units and ample parking spaces for cars and motorcycles. The structures of all eight towers were topped out in December 2023, and fit-out works are currently underway along with the removal of scaffolding from the exterior walls. To ease traffic flow in the area, the project will add two 24-meter-wide public roads with four-lane two-way carriageways and pedestrian walkways. A ground-level bus interchange, green leisure spaces, and pedestrian precincts will also be included to connect surrounding communities and create a livable environment. Construction on the Lot P project, at the site of the failed Pearl Horizon project, began in mid 2021. The project has achieved significant milestones since then, including the completion of pile foundation works in 2022 and the topping out of the main structures of the eight residential towers in December 2023. Ming Shun Construction and Property Investment Limited-Tat Cheong Engineering & Construction Company Limited were awarded a MOP1.9 billion contract to build two 41-story residential towers and two 50-story temporary housing towers on one of the lots. For the other lot, Cheong Kong Construction Company Limited-J&T Construction Company Limited won the MOP1.1 billion bid to construct two 50-story residential towers for temporary housing units. Additionally, a letter of intent was signed for China State Construction Engineering to receive MOP4 billion for replacement housing works in Lot A. Coneer Engineering Limited-China Road and Bridge Corporation-Top Design Consultants also secured a MOP878.6 million contract for the works in Lot B. The project is expected to be the first destination for residents of the Iao Hon Estate, which is scheduled for renovation works, ensuring that urban renewal projects are carried out smoothly while prioritizing affected residents. Nadia Shaw In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Macaus return to Chinese sovereignty, the Macau Museum will host a special photography exhibition titled Old Meets New: A Historical Photo Exhibition Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Macaus Return to the Motherland from July 13 to September 8. The exhibition opens this Friday at 5:30 p.m. in the museums lobby and will showcase nearly 120 old and new photographs along with other artifacts that capture the dramatic changes in Macaus urban landscape and cultural characteristics since the 1999 handover. Divided into five sections Historical Buildings, Everyday Life, Scenes of the Past, Celebrating the Return, and Todays Macau the exhibition will pay tribute to Macaus prosperous development over the past 25 years. In addition to the physical exhibition, the Macau Museum will also launch an online virtual reality exhibition on the same theme, allowing the public to visit the exhibition remotely via the museum website. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day but Mondays, and admission is free for residents and on the 15th of every month. This exhibition is a wonderful opportunity for the public to reflect on Macaus remarkable transformation over the past quarter-century, said a spokesperson for the Macau Museum. We hope visitors will be inspired by the citys progress and proud of its unique cultural heritage. The Old Meets New exhibition is part of Macaus broader celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of its return to China. The city is also hosting a series of student and youth performances, including parades and artistic workshops at various locations around Macau from July 20 to July 25. Nadia Shaw In the third year of the war in Ukraine, NATO is set to deepen relations with its four Indo-Pacific partners, which, although not part of the military alliance, are gaining prominence as Russia and China forge closer ties to counter the United States and the two Koreas support opposing sides of the conflict in Europe. The leaders of New Zealand, Japan and South Korea for the third year in a row will attend the NATO summit, which started yesterday in Washington, D.C., while Australia will send its deputy prime minister. China will be following the summit closely, worried by the alliances growing interest beyond Europe and the Western Hemisphere. Increasingly, partners in Europe see challenges halfway around the world in Asia as being relevant to them, just as partners in Asia see challenges halfway around the world in Europe as being relevant to them, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week at the Brookings Institution. Americas top diplomat said the U.S. has been working to break down barriers between European alliances, Asian coalitions and other partners worldwide. Thats part of the new landscape, the new geometry that weve put in place. Countries with shared security concerns are strengthening ties as competition escalates between the United States and China. Washington is trying to curb Beijings ambition to challenge the U.S.-led world order, which the Chinese government dismisses as a Cold War mentality aimed at containing Chinas inevitable rise. On Monday, Beijing responded angrily to unconfirmed reports that NATO and its four Indo-Pacific partners are expected to release a document laying out their relationship and ability to respond jointly to threats from cyberattacks and disinformation. Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, accused NATO of breaching its boundary, expanding its mandate, reaching beyond its defense zone and stoking confrontation. The war in Ukraine, which has pitted the West against Russia and its friends, has bolstered the argument for closer cooperation between the U.S., Europe and their Asian allies. Ukraine of today may be East Asia of tomorrow, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told the U.S. Congress in April. The U.S. and South Korea accused Pyongyang of supplying Russia with ammunition, while Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea last month and signed a pact with leader Kim Jong Un that envisions mutual military assistance. South Korea and Japan, meanwhile, are sending military supplies and aid to Ukraine. The U.S. also says China is providing Russia with machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that allow it to make weapons to use against Ukraine. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will bring to Washington a strong message regarding the military cooperation between Russia and North Korea and discuss ways to enhance cooperation among NATO allies and Indo-Pacific partners, his principal deputy national security adviser, Kim Tae-hyo, told reporters Friday. New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said discussions would focus on our collective efforts to support the rules-based system. The partnership does not make NATO a direct player in the Indo-Pacific but allows it to coordinate with the four partners on issues of mutual concern, said Mirna Galic, senior policy analyst on China and East Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. For example, she wrote in an analysis, they can share information and align on actions such as sanctions and aid delivery but do not intervene in military crises outside of their own regions. The NATO summit will allow the United States and its European and Indo-Pacific allies to push back against China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, according to Luis Simon, director of the Centre for Security Diplomacy and Strategy at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The fact that the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific alliances are structured around a clear anchor U.S. military power makes them more cohesive and gives them a strategic edge as compared to the sort of interlocking partnerships that bind China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, Simon wrote in a commentary last week on War On the Rocks, a defense and foreign affairs website. Beijing is worried by NATOs pivot to the east, said Zhu Feng, dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing University in eastern China. Beijing has insisted that NATO not interfere in security affairs in the Indo-Pacific and that it should change its view of China as a strategic adversary. NATO should consider China as a positive force for the regional peace and stability and for global security, Zhu said. We also hope the Ukraine war can end as soon as possible and we have rejected a return to the triangular relation with Russia and North Korea. In todays volatile and fragile world, Europe, the U.S. and China should strengthen global and regional cooperation, Zhu said. NATO and China had little conflict until tensions grew between Beijing and Washington in 2019, the same year the NATO summit in London raised China as a challenge that we need to address together as an alliance. Two years later, NATO upgraded China to a systemic challenge and said Beijing was cooperating militarily with Russia. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand attended a NATO summit for the first time, where statements noted the geopolitical challenges China poses. Beijing accused NATO of cooperating with the U.S. government for an all-around suppression of China. Now, Beijing is worried that Washington is forming a NATO-like alliance in the Indo-Pacific. Chinese Senior Col. Cao Yanzhong, a researcher at Chinas Institute of War Studies, asked U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last month whether the U.S. was trying to create an Asian version of NATO by emphasizing partnerships and alliances. They include a U.S. grouping with Britain and Australia; another with Australia, India and Japan; and one with Japan and South Korea. What implications do you think the strengthening of the U.S. alliance system in the Asia-Pacific will have on this regions security and stability? Cao asked at the Shangri-la Dialogue security summit in Singapore. Austin replied that the U.S. was simply working with like-minded countries with similar values and a common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Beijing has its own conclusion. The real intent of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy is to integrate all small circles into a big circle as the Asian version of NATO in order to maintain the hegemony as led by the United States, Chinese Lt. Gen. Jing Jianfeng said at the forum. DIDI TANG, WASHINGTON, MDT/AP Hundreds of Europeans touring the American West and adventurers from around the U.S. are still being drawn to Death Valley National Park, even though the desolate region known as one of the Earths hottest places is being punished by a dangerous heat wave blamed for a motorcyclists death over the weekend. French, Spanish, English and Swiss tourists left their air-conditioned rental cars and motorhomes Monday to take photographs of the barren landscape so different than the snow-capped mountains and rolling green hills they know back home. American adventurers liked the novelty of it, even as officials at the park in California warned visitors to stay safe. I was excited it was going to be this hot, said Drew Belt, a resident of Tupelo, Mississippi, who wanted to stop in Death Valley as the place boasting the lowest elevation in the U.S. on his way to climb Californias Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states. Its a once in a lifetime opportunity. Kind of like walking on Mars. Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds cautioned visitors in a statement that high heat like this can pose real threats to your health. The searing heat wave gripping large parts of the United States also led to record daily high temperatures in Oregon, where it is suspected to have caused four deaths in the Portland area. More than 146 million people around the U.S. were under heat alerts Monday, especially in Western states. Dozens of locations in the West and Pacific Northwest tied or broke previous heat records over the weekend and are expected to keep doing so into the week. The early U.S. heat wave came as the global temperature in June was record warm for the 13th straight month and marked the 12th straight month that the world was 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times, the European climate service Copernicus said. In Oregons Multnomah County, home to Portland, the medical examiner is investigating four suspected heat-related deaths recorded on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, officials said. Three of the deaths involved county residents who were 64, 75 and 84 years old, county officials said in an email. Heat also was suspected in the death of a 33-year-old man transported to a Portland hospital from outside the county. Portland broke daily record temperatures on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and was on track to do so again on Monday with a forecast high of 102 F (38.9 C), National Weather Service meteorologist Hannah Chandler-Cooley said. High temperatures were expected in Portland through Tuesday evening. The temperatures arent expected to reach as high as they did during a similar heat wave in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, which killed an estimated 600 people across Oregon, Washington and western Canada. But the duration could be problematic because many homes in the region lack air conditioning. The largest national park outside Alaska, Death Valley is considered one of the most extreme environments in the world. The hottest temperature ever officially recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 in Death Valley, though some experts dispute that measurement and say the real record was 130 F (54.4 C), recorded there in July 2021. TY ONEIL, CLAIRE RUSH & ANITA SNOW, DEATH VALLEY, MDT/AP * Taxi Order Community wants Macau to emulate Hong Kongs example by regulating online ride-hailing platforms through licensing a move that has long been called for * Time capsule | Macaus 25-year transformation captured in photos * Temporary housing in Areia Preta enters final stages * Consumer confidence index reached a record high during the second quarter, according to a survey from the MUST * Lack of visuals a challenge for senior residents in choosing apartments * Kyiv mourns as rescuers make last-ditch efforts at childrens hospital hit by missile DOWNLOAD PDF Wednesday, July 10, 2024 edition no. 4520 A Sun Prairie woman was sentenced to seven years in federal prison Wednesday for trafficking fentanyl pills inside stuffed animals, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Brianna M. Reno, 27, was also sentenced to five years of supervised released after pleading guilty in April to conspiracy to possess and distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl. She is one of four people who have pleaded guilty in the scheme. The U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release that on Jan. 26, police intercepted two suspicious packages being shipped to the Madison area from Arizona. After getting a search warrant, officers opened the packages and found stuffed animals containing approximately 2.2 kilograms of or more than 40,000 counterfeit prescription pills that testing revealed contained fentanyl. Officers arranged for a controlled delivery of one package and co-defendants Jontell C. Shepherd and Alexis K. Davis were arrested after arriving at the delivery location to pick up the package, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The investigation revealed that Reno arranged for co-defendant Keyshawna D. Draper to ship the fentanyl pills to Madison from Arizona. Shepherd's and Drapers sentencing hearings are scheduled for July 23, and Davis will be sentenced on July 25, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Which states have the worst substance abuse problems? Which states have the worst substance abuse problems? Drug deaths are rising Fentanyl's damage has been widespread Which states have the worst substance abuse problems? Sino-Guinean Friendship Hospital adds vascular surgery unit Xinhua) 11:10, July 10, 2024 CONAKRY, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Guinean health authorities and the 30th Chinese medical mission have inaugurated a vascular surgery unit at the Sino-Guinean Friendship Hospital in Conakry, the Guinean capital. During the launch ceremony held Monday, Huang Wei, Chinese ambassador to Guinea, highly raised the contribution made by the Chinese medical team, and said that China is willing to deepen cooperation and add new impetus to the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership with Guinea. The new surgery unit will help better manage cardiovascular diseases in Guinea, where patients often seek treatment outside the country, said Mohamed Diane, director general of the Sino-Guinean Friendship Hospital. On the occasion of the opening ceremony, the 30th Chinese medical mission donated medicine and medical supplies for neurosurgery, cardiology, vascular surgery and other specialty services at the hospital. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) You are here: World Flash A man injured in an Israeli bombing is seen at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on July 9, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] At least 25 Palestinians were killed and some others wounded in an Israeli airstrike targeting a school in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources said Tuesday. Security sources told Xinhua that Israeli aircraft targeted the gate of the Al-Awda School, which houses hundreds of displaced people in the town of Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis, using at least one missile. The videos shared by Palestinian activists on the social media platform Facebook showed dozens of bodies lying on the ground, covered in blood. Medical sources said the Israeli airstrike killed at least 25 people, including women and children, and wounded dozens in varying degrees. The sources told Xinhua that the number of victims is expected to rise due to the overcrowding of displaced people in the area. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about the incident. Philippine officials in the Czech Republic must be proactive and must have the capability to ensure equal pay and other benefits for thousands of Filipino workers, said Senator Robin Padilla. At least 7,000 skilled Filipino workers in the Czech Republic would benefit from equal pay, Padilla also said. - Advertisement - He stressed this in a courtesy meeting with officials of the Philippine Embassy led by Philippine Ambassador Eduardo R. Menez and Consul General Indhira Banaresin Prague Tuesday afternoon (Tuesday evening in Manila). He said our government needs to become proactive and our embassy in particular should be prepared not only to ensure the welfare of our Filipino workers there but also to enhance our bilateral relations with the Czech Republic. Following the state visit of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to the Czech Republic last March, an agreement was forged to allow the entry of some 10,000 Filipino workers to the Czech Republic every year. During the meeting, Padilla and the embassy officials also tackled the good relations between the Philippines and the Czech Republic. The leading superapp bags Silver at the prestigious global creatives award-giving body for its viral No Sweat Summer online video Grab continuer to blaze the trail, not just in tech and consumer experience, but also in marketing and advertising as it bagged a Silver in the Viral Film subcategory of the Cannes Film Lions, a pillar of the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, for its No Sweat Summer Online Video. Spearheaded and produced by Grab and creatives agency Gigil, the film secured the highest placement the Philippines has gotten in the Cannes Film Lions. - Advertisement - The No Sweat Summer video made huge waves in the online sphere, with the majority of netizens praising it for being funny, unconventional, and above all, authentic with a beloved touch of odd yet relatable storytelling. Distributed across a multitude of social media platforms, the film garnered more than 32 million views and has been shared close to 100,000 times catapulting it to viral status not only in the Philippines but also across Southeast Asia, including Singapore and Thailand. A testament to the power of effective and creative storytelling, the No Sweat Summer video successfully convinced more passengers and consumers to rely on Grab for their summer escapades and regular day-to-day endeavors during the hottest season in the Philippines. This led to a six-week streak of record-breaking transactions for GrabFood and GrabCar following the release of the video in the first week of April. Grab Philippines Country Marketing Head J-Anne Aruta shares, Our commitment is to always capture how Grab uplifts the everyday reality of our users. The overwhelming positive reception of the No Sweat Summer video can be attributed to the strong consumer insight that the campaign amplified which is the portrayal of the hassles of summer heat that we as Filipinos have learned to weather over time. However, every Filipino has a partner in Grab, showing us that indeed a no-sweat summer is possible and achievable, even in a tropical country like the Philippines. Relate na Relate sa Pawis: Banking on a Shared Truth The award-winning film showcases the story of a Filipino as he beats the Summer heat in the Philippines through the convenience of GrabCars smooth rides and the refreshing experience offered by GrabFoods wide selection of coolers. Reinforcing the relatability of the video is the shared truth depicted in the film, where a random Kuya is seen (literally) sweating buckets as he goes about his day. Several commenters shared how this perfectly captures the experience of regular Filipinos during summer. Init is pawis both undesirable whether youre heading to work or simply trying to unwind at home. As fellow commuters and consumers, weve experienced the hassle of having to leave the house in the scorching midday heat, especially during the summer. We know that most Filipinos would prefer to avoid this, especially considering the record-breaking heat indices this year. And this shared truth, which we hoped to have captured in the film, resonated strongly with our audience, Aruta adds. In the summer of 2024, Grab launched the No Sweat Summer campaign in the Philippines, which then was experiencing its hottest summer on record. The campaign emphasized the convenience and ease of using Grabs services to avoid the intense heat. As a result, the affordable mobility option, GrabCar Saver, saw an average increase in transactions of nearly 30 percent in areas such as Metro Manila, Pampanga, Bacolod, and Iloilo. Additionally, many food enthusiasts turned to Grab to help them cool down, with a noticeable increase in orders compared to the summer of 2023 with the most popular cooling orders being Halo-Halo, Spanish Latte, and Milk Tea from April to May. Flash Europe's latest rocket Ariane 6 successfully lifted off Tuesday on its maiden flight from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. The 56-meter-tall rocket is carrying four deployers that will release nine satellites away from the Ariane 6 upper stage at 600 km above Earth, the European Space Agency (ESA) said. According to the ESA, Ariane 6 is available in two versions depending on the performance required: a version with two boosters, called Ariane 62, and Ariane 64 with four boosters. Ariane 62 can launch payloads of approximately 4.5 tonnes into geostationary transfer orbit or 10.3 tonnes into low Earth orbit, while Ariane 64 can launch payloads of approximately 11.5 tonnes into geostationary transfer orbit and 21.6 tonnes into low Earth orbit, the ESA said. Ariane 6 rocket has the ability to restart its upper stage up to four times. This innovation allows Ariane 6 to deorbit its upper stage after the mission has ended, minimizing space debris, the agency added. The decision to start developing Ariane 6 was made in 2014 to ensure Europe's independent access to space. Europe's Ariane 5 rocket completed successfully its final flight in July 2023. The state authority that manages the science and technology campus in downtown Richmond is seeking a new leader. Chandra Briggman, president and CEO of Activation Capital, said Monday that she would resign. Members of Gov. Glenn Youngkins administration expressed dissatisfaction with her performance, said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. But a spokesperson for Youngkin said the governor himself was not involved, adding that Briggman played a significant role in business growth. For the past year, Activation Capital has sought a science or technology company to fill a not-yet-built $53 million innovation center downtown. Last year, state leaders awarded the authority $15 million contingent on finding a tenant for the building. But a tenant has not been identified, and the building hasnt gone up. Its a hard market (for) what were trying to do, said Sickles, vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee. Shes in charge of building a technology authority and growing that is a hard business. Sickles said the administration was involved in Briggmans decision to resign. An interim replacement has not been identified. But Christian Martinez, a spokesperson for Youngkin, called Briggman an exceptional leader. With many exciting developments in the life sciences and entrepreneurship sectors in the commonwealth, we hope Chandra will continue to be a vital leader, Martinez said. In a statement, Briggman said it was always her goal to create a team, prove its model and transition to the next opportunity to build. Asked about the administrations role, a spokesperson for Activation Capital referred back to Briggmans remarks. Michael Rao, president of Virginia Commonwealth University and chairman of the Virginia Biotechnology Research Partnership Authority board, said Briggmans time here has been defined by impact, and her impressive body of work has energized our region. Kipton Currier, vice president of operations at Activation Capital, will lead day-to-day operations while the group searches for an interim director. Activation Capital operates the 34-acre VA Bio+Tech Park, a science campus in downtown Richmond that houses nearly 70 research groups, including VCUs Medicines for All and drugmaker Phlow. It also oversees the regions advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing cluster and supports small-business groups. Hired in 2020, Briggman came from the Boston area, where she led a nonprofit that helped spur innovation. In Richmond, she helped launch a cluster of medicine-building organizations called the Alliance for Building Better Medicine, which includes VCUs Medicines for All, Phlow and Civica. The collaboration won a $53 million grant as part of the Build Back Better Regional Challenge, and Greater Richmond was designated as a national tech hub. Several state agencies have lost their leaders during Youngkins term, including the Department of General Services and the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority. Theyre supremely confident in everything they do, said Sickles, referring to the administration. Im not too surprised. ... There are too many cooks in the kitchen. The Ugandan army has supported the M23 rebels operating in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while some 3,000-4,000 Rwandan soldiers fought alongside them, a recent United Nations report said, as escalating clashes in the mineral rich region fuel fears of a new all-out conflict. A part of the UN expert report reportedly details the continued involvement of Uganda and Rwanda in plundering DRCs resources and arming militia groups. The UN Security Councils group of experts has also said that Kigali had de facto control of the M23 rebel groups operations while Uganda is still conducting joint operations with the DRC troops against a rebel Ugandan group. The DRC has been plagued by conflicts for decades. Uganda and Rwanda invaded their neighbor in 1996 and 1998 for what they said was defense against local militia groups, but both are now accused of continuing to back proxies in the neighboring countrys mineral rich east, despite officially withdrawing their troops. Meanwhile, in late 2021, M23 (March 23 Movement) waged a fresh rebellion in the troubled region. A year later, 1,000 Ugandan troops were part of an East African Community (EAC) force deployed to monitor a ceasefire with the M23, but Congolese authorities called for the force to withdraw last year, saying it was ineffective. The UN report also points to evidence confirming active support for M23 by officials from Ugandas military and military intelligence, with M23 leaders traveling to the country for meetings. However, some experts have expressed their concerns that these revelations could undermine DRCs fragile peace deal which was sealed in July, ending a five-year war that claimed over three million lives. Johnson & Johnsons decision to not enforce its patent on bedaquiline, a crucial tuberculosis medication, marks a significant win for medical advocacy groups in South Africa. This move allows for the production of cheaper generic versions, potentially saving thousands of lives in a country where TB is the leading cause of death. The pharmaceutical giants concession came after South African authorities launched an investigation into alleged abuse of market dominance. J&J has agreed to drop the price charged to South Africa by about 40%, making the treatment more accessible. This development sends a strong message to the pharmaceutical industry about prioritizing public health over profits. Activists hope local manufacturers can soon begin producing bedaquiline, complementing existing production in countries like India. The case highlights the ongoing tension between patent protection and affordable healthcare access. South Africas proactive stance in challenging J&Js pricing policies represents an unusual move against big pharmas influence. This precedent could pave the way for similar investigations into patenting strategies for other essential medicines, including treatments for HIV, cancer, and cystic fibrosis. The outcome underscores the importance of holding pharmaceutical corporations accountable for their pricing policies, especially in regions grappling with significant public health challenges. Shadrack Chaula, a young Tanzanian portrait artist, has been freed from prison following a successful public fundraising campaign. Chaula was convicted of cybercrime for burning a picture of President Samia Suluhu Hassan and insulting her in a viral social media video. The case sparked controversy, with some lawyers arguing that Chaulas actions did not violate any laws. However, he was charged with spreading false information about the president, contravening Tanzanias cybercrime laws. The court ruled his actions constituted cyber harassment and incitement. Social media users raised over $2,000 in just six hours to pay Chaulas fine, preventing him from serving a two-year prison sentence. This swift public response is seen as a statement against perceived government overreach and in support of freedom of expression. The incident has reignited debates about Tanzanias strict laws against fake news and their impact on free speech. While President Samia introduced reforms to increase political and civic freedoms after taking office in 2021, opposition and rights groups expressed concerns about a potential return to more repressive governance. Chaulas case highlights ongoing tensions between government control and civil liberties in Tanzania, as well as the power of social media in mobilizing public support for individual cases. 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: Role for ABCB1 in PDAC chemoresistance. Credit: Oncotarget (2024). DOI: 10.18632/oncotarget.28597 A new editorial paper titled "Targeting ABC transporters in PDACpast, present, or future?" has been published in Oncotarget. In this new editorial, Cecilia Bergonzini, Elisa Giovannetti and Erik H.J. Danen from Leiden University discuss targeting ABC transporters in pancreatic ductal carcinoma (PDAC). Despite its lower incidence when compared to more common cancers such as lung or breast carcinomas, PDAC ranks as the third-leading cause of cancer mortality in the US and the sixth worldwide. This is due to the fact that PDAC survival rates are among the lowest for cancer patients, around 13% in the US. ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters represent a family of transmembrane proteins thatusing the energy from ATP hydrolysisextrude molecules from the cytoplasm to the exterior or into vesicles. Some of these transporters have been associated with resistance to a spectrum of structurally diverse chemotherapeutic drugs, earning them the name of multidrug resistance (MDR) pumps. One of the best-characterized ABC transporters is ABCB1 (MDR1). It is physiologically expressed in tissues such as kidney, liver, pancreas, intestine, the blood-brain barrier, and more, where it exerts a protective role, by extruding xenobiotics and potentially toxic molecules. Moreover, increased ABCB1 expression in tumors has been associated with poor prognosis. "Paclitaxel is a bona fide substrate for ABCB1 and ABCB1 has been implicated in paclitaxel and nab-paclitaxel resistance in multiple types of cancer. Could ABCB1 represent a therapeutic target in PDAC patients to suppress resistance against GnP? We have recently reported that ABCB1 can indeed play a critical role in paclitaxel resistance in PDAC cells," the researchers write. More information: Cecilia Bergonzini et al, Targeting ABC transporters in PDAC - past, present, or future?, Oncotarget (2024). DOI: 10.18632/oncotarget.28597 Journal information: Oncotarget Provided by Impact Journals 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: Social distance during COVID-19 at the Kalerwe Market, in the suburb of Kampala, Uganda. Credit: Yasin Nsubuga/International Labor Organization/Rural Development Media Communications While many studies over the past several years have examined people's access to and attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines, few studies in sub-Saharan Africa have looked at whether there were differences in vaccination rates and intention between men and women. In a new study appearing in the journal Frontiers in Global Women's Health, researchers found that while women and men self-reported similar COVID-19 vaccination rates in 2022, unvaccinated men expressed more intention to get vaccinated than unvaccinated women. Women tend to have better health-seeking behaviors than men overall. However, most studies relating to COVID-19 vaccination have found that intention has been lower among women. "We wondered whether this would hold true at the uptake level," says Rawlance Ndejjo, a leader of the new study and an assistant lecturer in the Department of Disease Control and Environmental Health at Makerere University. The comparable vaccination rates between men and women in the study is "a good thing to see," adds Lula Chen, research director at MIT Governance Lab (GOV/LAB) and a co-author of the new study. "There wasn't anything gendered about how [the vaccine] was being advertised or who was actually getting access to it." Women's lower intention to vaccinate seemed to be driven by concerns about vaccine safety, suggesting that providing factual information about vaccine safety from trusted sources, like the Ministry of Health, could increase uptake. The work is a collaboration between scholars from the MIT GOV/LAB, Makerere University's School of Public Health in Uganda, University of Kinshasa's School of Public Health in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), University of Ibadan's College of Medicine in Nigeria, and Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal. Studying vaccine availability and uptake in sub-Saharan Africa The authors' collaboration began in 2021 with research into COVID-19 vaccination rates, people's willingness to get vaccinated, and how people's trust in different authorities shaped attitudes toward vaccines in Uganda, the DRC, Senegal, and Nigeria. A survey in Uganda found that people who received information about COVID-19 from health workers were more likely to be vaccinated, stressing the important role people who work in the health-care system can play in vaccination efforts. Work from other scientists has found that women were less likely to accept COVID-19 vaccines than men, and that in low- and middle-income countries, women also may be less likely to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and less likely to intend to get vaccinated, possibly due to factors including lower levels of education, work obligations, and domestic care obligations. Previous studies in sub-Saharan Africa that focused on differences between men and women with intention and willingness to vaccinate were inconclusive, Ndejjo says. "You would hardly find actual studies on uptake of the vaccines," he adds. For the new paper, the researchers aimed to dig into uptake. People who trust the government and health officials were more likely to get vaccinated The researchers relied on phone survey data collected from adults in the four countries between March and July 2022. The surveys asked people about whether they'd been vaccinated and whether those who were unvaccinated intended to get vaccinated, as well as their attitudes toward COVID-19, their trust in different authorities, demographic information, and more. Overall, 48.5% of men said they had been vaccinated, compared to 47.9% of women. Trust in authorities seemed to play a role in people's decision to vaccinatereceiving information from health workers about COVID-19 and higher trust in the Ministry of Health were both correlated with getting vaccinated for men, whereas higher trust in the government was correlated with vaccine uptake in women. Lower interest in vaccines among women seemed related to safety concerns A smaller percentage of unvaccinated women (54%) said they intended to get vaccinated, compared to 63.4% of men. More unvaccinated women said they had concerns about the vaccine's safety than unvaccinated men, which could be driving their lower intention. The researchers also found that unvaccinated women and men over 40 had similar levels of intention to get vaccinatedlower intention in women under 40 may have driven the difference between men and women. Younger women could have concerns about vaccines related to pregnancy, Chen says. If this is the case, the research suggests that officials need to provide additional reassurance to pregnant people about vaccine safety, she adds. Trust in authorities also contributed to people's intention to vaccinate. Trust in the Ministry of Health was tied to higher intention to vaccinate for both men and women. Men with more trust in the World Health Organization were also more likely to intend to vaccinate. "There's a need to deal with a lot of the myths and misconceptions that exist," Ndejjo says, as well as ensure that people's concerns related to vaccine safety and effectiveness are addressed. Officials need "to work with trusted sources of information to bridge some of the gaps that we observe," he adds. People need to be supported in their decision-making so they can make the best decisions for their health. "This research highlights linkages between citizen trust in government, their willingness to get vaccines, and, importantly, the differences between men and women on this issuedifferences that policymakers will need to understand in order to design more targeted, gender-specific public health interventions," says study co-author Lily L. Tsai, who is MIT GOV/LAB's director and founder and the Ford Professor of Political Science at MIT. More information: Rawlance Ndejjo et al, Sex and COVID-19 vaccination uptake and intention in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda, Frontiers in Global Women's Health (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fgwh.2024.1356609 This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site that covers news about MIT research, innovation and teaching. 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 To make someone put their phone down while driving, show them the moneywith a catch, according to research published in JAMA Network Open. When a group of auto insurance customers were tempted with a cash incentiveand regular feedback letting the driver know how they were doing compared to other drivers trying to reduce their phone timehandheld phone use dropped significantly, a team at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found. The researchers examined several different strategies informed by behavior science to curb distracted driving in a seven-week trial. One strategy paired weekly feedback on phone use with a cash incentive of up to $50 at the end of the study if the drivers used their phones less than others. That approach yielded a 15% decrease in handheld phone usage compared to drivers given no incentive or feedback. However, when drivers were told that they would receive the same amount of money paid out in weekly installments, but lose it if they engaged in handheld phone usage while driving, phone use decreased by 21%. "In the United States, there are over 800,000 crashes per year due to distracted driving, with cell phone use while driving being a leading cause. This occurs despite numerous laws banning handheld phone use, suggesting additional scalable interventions are needed," said lead author M. Kit Delgado, MD, MS, faculty director of Penn Medicine's Nudge Unit and an associate professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology. "We were able to use the power of humans' natural aversion to loss and regret, as well as our desire to fit in to social norms, to achieve some significant results." Insurance companies saw a 30% climb in distracted driving-related crashes between 2011 and 2020, largely tied to cell phone usage. Twenty-eight states have passed bans on handheld phone usage while driving, with Pennsylvania the latest state to enact a law, which takes effect mid-2025. The practice of incentivizing drivers' behaviors is rising. Auto insurance companies are increasing "usage-based insurance (UBI)" where customers agree to download smartphone apps to monitor driving performance and cell phone usage. The data is then used to adjust rates for individual drivers, with safer drivers being offered discounts on future insurance policies. For the study, Penn Medicine researchers worked with researchers at Progressive Insurance, which invited customers participating in their own UBI program to participate, enrolling over 2,000 participants in the study. With deidentified data, Penn Medicine's researchers determined that a group of drivers who were told (and updated weekly) that they could lose up to $7.15 a week were the ones who used their phones least compared to the control group of drivers that had no incentives or feedback. Interestingly, doubling the incentive to $14.29 per week didn't lead to a greater reduction in phone use, though there was a significant decline. There were also notable results among drivers who received feedback and were offered the $50 incentive at the end of the test period. Drivers offered the delayed $50 incentive at the end of the intervention but received no weekly feedback and no incremental loss for weekly performance did not achieve significant results. The reason why feedback and loss-framed payments appeared to be so critical, Delgado believes, is innately human. "People tend to think they are better drivers than others," he said. "Providing objective data on how they compare to others is a proven way to motivate people toward a social norm. Also, prior studies have shown that those who engage in handheld phone use tend to have 'present bias' and place stronger weight on payoffs that are closer to the present time." When broken down into time, the top achieving interventionthe $7.15-per-week grouplowered their phone usage by an average of 56 seconds per hour down from a baseline of 216 seconds per hour. When taking one's eyes off the road for 5 seconds increases the risk of crash nine-fold, at scale, these interventions could reduce distracted driving by millions of hours per year. This work continues research performed by Delgado into distracted driving dating back to 2016 (which led to a 2018 paper) and continues with further nudge data analysis. Future research includes testing interventions leveraging smartphone usage data that could help high-risk drivers build lasting habits. "This line of work is promising because insurance companies already spend billions of dollars per year offering incentives for safe driving behaviors," said Delgado. "Rigorously testing strategies these companies can use to engage customers to be safer can help reduce crashes, save lives, and save money, and, importantly, be sustained through a strong business case." More information: JAMA Network Open (2024) Journal information: JAMA Network Open 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: Eco-Environment & Health (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.eehl.2024.04.008 Childhood obesity is a growing global public health concern, significantly increasing the risk of various health issues later in life. Factors contributing to obesity include genetic, socioeconomic, behavioral, and environmental influences. Air pollution, particularly ozone exposure, has recently been identified as a potential risk factor for obesity and metabolic disorders. Based on these challenges, there is a need to conduct in-depth research on the effects of prenatal air pollution exposure on child development to better understand and mitigate these risks. A recent study conducted by researchers from Fudan University and Zhengzhou University, published in Eco-Environment & Health, examined the impact of prenatal ozone exposure on childhood growth and obesity. The study assessed ozone exposure during pregnancy using a high-resolution random forest model based on the Shanghai Maternal-Child Pairs Cohort. It provides critical insights into how increased prenatal ozone levels are associated with higher risks of accelerated growth and obesity in early childhood. The study involved 4,909 maternal-child pairs from the Shanghai Maternal-Child Pairs Cohort. Researchers used a high-resolution random forest model to estimate prenatal ozone exposure based on the home addresses of pregnant women. Physical growth parameters of the children were measured at multiple time points during the first two years of life. The study found that each 10 g/m increase in prenatal ozone concentration was associated with significant increases in BMI-for-age Z score (BAZ), weight-for-age Z score (WAZ), and weight-for-length Z score (WLZ). Specifically, this exposure was linked to a 1.208-fold and 1.209-fold increase in the elevated-increasing group for BAZ and WLZ trajectories, respectively. Moreover, prenatal ozone exposure was associated with a 1.355-fold increase in the risk of overweight and obesity (OAO) in children for the first two years of life. The findings suggest that prenatal ozone exposure can lead to accelerated BMI gain or decelerated body length gain in early childhood, increasing the risk of obesity. Dr. Yunhui Zhang from School of Public Health at Fudan University, a corresponding author of the study, stated, "Our research highlights the significant impact of prenatal ozone exposure on early childhood growth and obesity. These findings underscore the importance of addressing air quality issues to protect the health and development of future generations." The study's findings emphasize the need for stringent air quality regulations to minimize prenatal exposure to ozone. Policymakers and public health officials should prioritize strategies to reduce air pollution, particularly in urban areas with high ozone levels. Pregnant women should be made aware of the potential risks of ozone exposure and take preventive measures to protect their health and their children's development. Further research is needed to explore the underlying mechanisms and long-term health impacts of prenatal ozone exposure on children's growth and obesity. More information: Xinyao Sui et al, Prenatal ozone exposure is associated with children overweight and obesity: Evidence from the Shanghai Maternal-Child Pairs Cohort, Eco-Environment & Health (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.eehl.2024.04.008 Provided by TranSpread 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: Hospitals serving communities with large proportions of Black and Hispanic residents and with residential segregation are less likely to adopt percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) services, according to a study published in the July issue of Health Affairs. Renee Y. Hsia, M.D., from the University of California San Francisco, and Yu-Chu Shen, Ph.D., from the Naval Postgraduate School Monterey in California, examined PCI service adoption in U.S. general acute hospitals across communities during 2000 to 2020. The researchers found that 1,621 of the 5,260 hospitals offered PCI services in 2020 or before, with 630 and 225 adding PCI services between 2001 and 2010 and between 2011 and 2020, respectively. Compared with hospitals serving non-Black, racially segregated communities, hospitals serving Black, racially segregated communities were 48 percent less likely to adopt PCI services, while adoption was 41 percent less likely for those serving Hispanic, ethnically segregated communities versus those serving non-Hispanic, ethnically segregated communities. The likelihood of adopting PCI services was 1.8 times higher for hospitals in high-income economically integrated communities versus those in high-income economically segregated communities; rural hospitals were more likely to adopt PCI services than urban hospitals. "Successful policy interventions addressing the observed disparities in service adoption will rely on a thorough understanding of where PCI services currently exist and where they are expanding in relation to community needs," the authors write. More information: Renee Y. Hsia et al, Structural Inequities In The Adoption Of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Services By US Hospitals, 200020, Health Affairs (2024). DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2023.01649 Journal information: Health Affairs Copyright 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved. 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: In this photo provided by the Mayo Clinic, Marty Kedian poses for a photo in Mayo Clinics Head and Neck Regenerative Medicine Laboratory in Scottsdale, Ariz., on June 12, 2024. Kedian regained his voice after surgeons removed his cancerous larynx and, in a pioneering move, immediately replaced it with a donated one. Credit: Mayo Clinic via AP A Massachusetts man has regained his voice after surgeons removed his cancerous larynx and, in a pioneering move, replaced it with a donated one. Transplants of the so-called voice box are extremely rare, and normally aren't an option for people with active cancer. Marty Kedian is only the third person in the U.S. ever to undergo a total larynx transplantthe others, years ago, because of injuriesand one of a handful reported worldwide. Surgeons at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona offered Kedian the transplant as part of a new clinical trial aimed at opening the potentially lifechanging operation to more patients, including some with cancer, the most common way to lose a larynx. "People need to keep their voice," Kedian, 59, told The Associated Press four months after his transplantstill hoarse but able to keep up an hourlong conversation. "I want people to know this can be done." He became emotional recalling the first time he phoned his 82-year-old mother after the surgery "and she could hear me. That was important to me, to talk to my mother." The study is smalljust nine more people will be enrolled. But it may teach scientists best practices for these complex transplants so that one day they could be offered to more people who can't breathe, swallow or speak on their own because of a damaged or surgically removed larynx. "Patients become very reclusive, and very kind of walled off from the rest of the world," said Dr. David Lott, Mayo's chair of head and neck surgery in Phoenix. He started the study because "my patients tell me, 'Yeah I may be alive but I'm not really living.'" In this photo provided by the Mayo Clinic, Dr. David Lott, Mayo Clinics chair of head and neck surgery, lifts the donor organ out of a perfusion container at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix, on Feb. 29, 2024. Marty Kedian regained his voice after surgeons removed his cancerous larynx and, in a pioneering move, immediately replaced it with a donated one. Credit: Mayo Clinic via AP Lott's team reported early results of the surgery Tuesday in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The larynx may be best known as the voice box but it's also vital for breathing and swallowing. Muscular tissue flaps called vocal cords open to let air into the lungs, close to prevent food or drink from going the wrong wayand vibrate when air pushes past them to produce speech. The first two U.S. larynx transplant recipientsat the Cleveland Clinic in 1998 and the University of California, Davis, in 2010had lost their voices to injuries, one from a motorcycle accident and the other damaged by a hospital ventilator. But cancer is the biggest reason. The American Cancer Society estimates more than 12,600 people will be diagnosed with some form of laryngeal cancer this year. While today many undergo voice-preserving treatment, thousands of people have had their larynx completely removed, breathing through what's called a tracheostomy tube in their neck and struggling to communicate. Although the earlier U.S. recipients achieved near normal speech, doctors haven't embraced these transplants. Partly that's because people can survive without a larynxwhile antirejection drugs that suppress the immune system could spark new or recurring tumors. "We want to be able to push those boundaries but do it as safely and ethically as we can," Lott said. Head-and-neck specialists say the Mayo trial is key to helping larynx transplants become a viable option. In this photo provided by the Mayo Clinic, Dr. David Lott surrounded by multi-disciplinary team of doctors operate on Marty Kedian at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix, on Feb. 29, 2024. Kedian regained his voice after surgeons removed his cancerous larynx and, in a pioneering move, immediately replaced it with a donated one. Credit: Mayo Clinic via AP "It isn't a 'one-off,'" but an opportunity to finally learn from one patient before operating on the next, said Dr. Marshall Strome, who led the 1998 transplant in Cleveland. This first attempt in a cancer patient "is the next important step," he said. Other options are being studied, noted Dr. Peter Belafsky of UC Davis, who helped perform the 2010 transplant. His patients at high risk of larynx loss record their voice in anticipation of next-generation speech devices that sound like them. But Belafsky said there's "still a shot" for larynx transplants to become more common while cautioning it likely will take years more research. One hurdle has been achieving enough nerve regrowth to breathe without a trach tube. Kedian was diagnosed with a rare laryngeal cartilage cancer about a decade ago. The Haverhill, Massachusetts, man underwent more than a dozen surgeries, eventually needing a trach tube to help him breathe and swallowand struggled even to muster a raspy whisper through it. He had to retire on disability. Still the once gregarious Kedian, known for long conversations with strangers, wouldn't let doctors remove his entire larynx to cure the cancer. He desperately wanted to read bedtime stories to his granddaughter, with his own voice rather than what he called robotic-sounding speech devices. Then Kedian's wife Gina tracked down the Mayo study. Lott decided he was a good candidate because his cancer wasn't fast-growing andespecially importantKedian already was taking antirejection drugs for an earlier kidney transplant. In this photo provided by the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Girish Mour, left, medical director of Mayo Clinic's Larynx and Trachea Transplant Program, and Dr. David Lott, right, standing on either side of Marty Kedian one week after his transplant surgery in Phoenix, March 8, 2024. Kedian regained his voice after surgeons removed his cancerous larynx and, in a pioneering move, immediately replaced it with a donated one. Credit: Mayo Clinic via AP It took 10 months to find a deceased donor with a healthy enough larynx just the right size. Then on Feb. 29, six surgeons operated for 21 hours. After removing Kedian's cancerous larynx, they transplanted the donated one plus necessary adjoining tissuesthyroid and parathyroid glands, the pharynx and upper part of the tracheaand tiny blood vessels to supply them. Finally, using new microsurgical techniques, they connected nerves critical for Kedian to feel when he needs to swallow and to move the vocal cords. About three weeks later, Kedian said "hello." Soon he'd relearned to swallow, working up from applesauce to macaroni and cheese and hamburgers. He got to say hi to granddaughter Charlotte via video, part of his homework to just keep talking. "Every day it's getting better," said Kedian, who moves back to Massachusetts soon. His tracheostomy remains in place at least a few more months but "I'm pushing myself to make it go faster because I want these tubes out of me, to go back to a normal life." And just as Lott had assured him, Kedian retained his beloved Boston accent. 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. 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: Expansion microscopy image with synaptic boutons (green) of climbing fibers on a Purkinje cell (blue) from the cerebellum of a mouse. Credit: CC BY IN-CSIC-UMH The Institute of Neurosciences (IN), a joint center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Miguel Hernandez University (UMH) of Elche, leads, together with Keio University in Tokyo, a study that demonstrates the crucial role of one of the receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate in the functioning of the synapses of the cerebellum. The work published in the journal Cell Reports describes the molecular mechanism by which kainate receptors act as synaptic receptors and as 'scaffolds' that support the structure of connections between neurons. These results enable the design of new synaptic connectors using specific combinations of kainate receptor subunits and offer promising avenues for future therapeutic applications. Synapses are the connection points where neurons establish contact with each other to transmit information. For this communication to occur, the presynaptic neuron releases a neurotransmitter, which is then received by a postsynaptic neuron. The Synaptic Physiology laboratory directed by CSIC researcher Juan Lerma at the IN has extensively investigated glutamate receptors, which are neurotransmitters involved in various processes of the central nervous system, particularly kainate receptors, one of the three families of glutamate receptors that mediate communication between neurons. "For many years, we have tried to find out what the function of kainate receptors is in synaptic physiology and brain pathologies," says the researcher. His laboratory has made significant contributions to understanding the roles of these proteins in synaptic communication, which, when dysfunctional, lead to multiple neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. This team of IN researchers had previously detected the role that the GluK4 protein, one of the five subunits that make up kainate receptors, can play when it is overexpressed in pathologies such as autism, depression, and anxiety. They also demonstrated that the GluK1 protein is triplicated in patients with Down Syndrome and that these decompensated levels are responsible for the spatial memory deficits observed in these patients. Furthermore, the laboratory directed by Michisuke Yuzaki in the Department of Neurophysiology at the Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo has studied the functioning of synapses in the cerebellum over the years and discovered that an interaction between the C1ql1 and Gai3 proteins occurs in this region to enable the formation of synapses. However, the results of this new study modify this concept by demonstrating that without the interaction of both proteins with kainate receptors, synapses do not form: "By combining our experience and knowledge in this new collaboration, we have been able to completely redefine synapse formation in the cerebellum," says Yuzaki. The experts confirmed that the presence of GluK4, which is expressed by cerebellar Purkinje neurons, is essential for the interaction that supports synaptic transmission between climbing fibers and these neurons to occur. To confirm this, the researchers used mouse models in which they genetically manipulated the expression of these proteins. Experiments were carried out both in Lerma's laboratory in Alicante and in Yuzaki's in Tokyo and show that in the cerebellum, synaptic plasticity, necessary for motor learning, is seriously affected when either of these kainate receptors is suppressed, both being necessary for synapse formation. Impacts of synaptic plasticity failure Ana Valero Paternain, the co-first author of the study, explains, "Synaptic plasticity is the brain's ability to form connections and modulate them depending on its needs. When plasticity fails, serious motor defects occur." "In the laboratory, we have verified that when the number of synapses is reduced, mice are not able to learn motor behaviors," says Wataru Kakegawa, the other co-first author of the article. Synthetic synaptic connectors modeled after analogous proteins have shown promise for restoring damaged synapses in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease and spinal cord injuries. Therefore, the results raise promising avenues for future therapeutic applications. More information: Wataru Kakegawa et al, Kainate receptors regulate synaptic integrity and plasticity by forming a complex with synaptic organizers in the cerebellum, Cell Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.114427 Journal information: Cell Reports 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: Number of news articles that covered climate-mental health outcomes and were published in English or French by news outlets in Canada and U.S. between 2016 and 2020. Credit: Environmental Research: Health (2024). DOI: 10.1088/2752-5309/ad44cb The media needs to do more to report on the mental health impact of climate change, according to a new public health study out of the University of Alberta. Climate change is adversely affecting mental health in a number of direct and indirect ways, says Breanne Aylward of the School of Public Health. Severe climate eventssuch as wildfires, floods and extreme heatcan initiate anxiety, depression and PTSD in some people. Even those who aren't as directly affected by climate change, especially the young, can suffer anxiety, sometimes known as "eco-anxiety," just from exposure to the news. Media outlets often report on climate disasters, but there's a valuable opportunity to enhance coverage by also focusing on the ongoing adaptation measures that communities implement in response, says Aylward. "We know climate change is already impacting mental health. Focusing on the protective factors, interventions and coping strategies people use is really important for prompting action to reduce risks in the future." Aylward's study, published in the journal Environmental Research: Health, looked at how the press in Canada and the United States covered climate and mental health in more than 1,000 articles in English and French between 2016 and 2020. In the first year, few outlets gave the topic much space, she says. But coverage increased by 2019 before dipping again in 2020, likely because of the COVID pandemic. And though media reports about climate and mental health fluctuated somewhat, there was a dramatic spike in September 2019, says Aylward, likely driven by events such as the Canadian federal election in October, the international Global Week for Future climate strikes and the United Nations Climate Action Summit. "More news outlets were talking about mental health during climate events, but it wasn't a sustained conversation," she says. "The volume of news coverage on climate-mental health issues starkly contrasts with overall climate change reporting." Only about half of the articles that referred to the effects of climate change on mental health mentioned adaptations or response strategies to prevent or reduce detrimental mental health outcomes, she adds. "We found that pretty surprising." When the reporting did include interventions or coping strategies, most focused on "individual lifestyle or behavioral strategies." Fewer identified institutional or government-led interventions, nature-based approaches or technological solutions. For more general ecological grief and anxiety, strategies could include establishing spaces accessible to community members, such as climate cafes, where people can share their emotions, says Aylward. Researchers who focus on climate and mental health need to communicate their findings "beyond academic papers" to the media, she adds, while combating misinformation. Toward that end, the U of A launched a new research initiative last month called the Climate Change and Health Hubthe first of its kind in Canadapulling together more than 30 researchers from across faculties in the health sciences, natural and applied sciences and social sciences and humanities. Included in the hub's mandate is evidence-informed advocacy that includes communicating research findings and adaptation strategies to the public. Studies in the U.S. have shown that the best way to inspire people to take action on climate change is through a health lens. Framing climate change as a public health issue, says Aylward, could engage a wider audience and underscore that climate change action also has health benefits. As for the press itself, she recommends more coverage of "a broad range of interventions and coping strategies," which could help the public and policy-makers manage the mental health consequences of climate change. More information: Breanne Aylward et al, Headlining mental health in a changing climate: a systematic analysis of climate change and mental health news coverage from Canada and the United States, Environmental Research: Health (2024). DOI: 10.1088/2752-5309/ad44cb 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: Risk matrix of risk-adjusted 30-day mortality by sex and hospital quality. Credit: JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.14354 Women over the age of 65 who require complex heart surgery are more likely than men to receive care at low quality hospitalswhere they also die in greater numbers following the procedure, a Michigan Medicine study finds. The research, published in JAMA Network Open, covered nearly 450,000 Medicare beneficiaries who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting, or heart bypass surgery, between late 2015 and early 2020. Compared to men, women were 1.26 times more likely to be treated at low quality hospitals, meaning facilities with the highest 30-day mortality rates. At those low quality hospitals, women died in 7% of overall cases while men died nearly 5% of the time. The sex disparity in mortality doubled from high quality to low quality hospitals. "Nationwide, women are both more likely to die after heart bypass surgery and more likely to undergo surgery at low quality hospitals," said Catherine M. Wagner, M.D., M.Sc., first author and integrated thoracic surgery resident at University of Michigan Health. "It is known that women have a higher mortality rate for this procedure. And our findings suggest a major need for improvement at low quality hospitals, as well as more equitable referral of women to high quality hospitals to narrow the gap we are seeing after high risk surgery." In the study, women more commonly had unplanned admissions ahead of coronary artery bypass grafting, often called CABG, and had a higher burden of comorbid conditions than men. The results echo prior findings that female patients with coronary artery disease are referred later for surgery. The late presentation to the hospital, researchers suggest, may be due to understudied biological differences between male and female patients. Additionally, higher quality hospitals that take on a greater volume of CABG cases each year have demonstrated better surgical outcomes for moderate to high risk cases. "Altogether, there is likely a combination of both patient risk and quality of care provided at each hospital that leads to the differences we are seeing by sex for these surgical procedures," said co-author Andrew Ibrahim, M.D., M.Sc., associate professor of surgery at U-M Medical School and co-director of the Michigan Medicine Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy. . "In addition to improving the process of referral for female patients to high quality centers, prior work has found that surgeon-patient gender concordance could lead to improved outcomes for female patients. So, policies that aim to increase gender diversity in cardiothoracic surgerya field that is more than 90% malecould also help to narrow this disparity." A national study published in March 2023 found that the mortality rate for female patients undergoing CABG increased from 2011 to 2020. One call to action published in JAMA Surgery said the findings "should be regarded as an exploding flare in the sky for all clinicians who care for women." In November 2023, the White House announced its first-ever Initiative on Women's Health to "spur innovation, unleash transformative investment to close research gaps, and improve women's health." The Department of Health and Human Services later announced a $100 million commitment to fund research and development efforts in women's health. Despite recent improvements in outcomes for patients undergoing heart bypass surgery, Wagner says, there is a gap in outcomes for women that remains. "Our study shows that improvement in care at low quality hospitals and equitable referral of women to high quality hospitals may narrow these long-standing gaps in care," she said. "Overall, it's a really exciting time to be doing research in women's cardiovascular health, and I am optimistic that with this renewed focus on studying cardiovascular disease in women, we will achieve equitable outcomes for women undergoing heart surgery and improve care for all of our patients." Introduction Stock splits are a common occurrence in the financial world, often seen as a strategic move by companies to manage their share price and make their stock more accessible to investors. A stock split involves dividing each existing share into multiple shares, effectively lowering the price per share while increasing the total number of shares outstanding. This article delves into the histories of several companies that have executed successful stock splits and analyzes their impact on shareholder value and market performance. Learning from past stock splits can offer valuable lessons for future investments. Discover expert guidance with Immediate Ai to navigate the complexities of the market. Apple Inc. (AAPL) Apple Inc., one of the most valuable companies in the world, has a history of executing stock splits to manage its share price and make its stock more affordable to a wider range of investors. The company has split its stock multiple times over the years, with notable splits occurring in 1987, 2000, 2005, and 2014. Each time, Apples stock price surged following the split, fueled by increased investor demand and confidence in the companys growth prospects. The decision to split its stock reflects Apples commitment to maintaining an attractive valuation for its shares and ensuring broad investor participation in its success. Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Unlike many of its counterparts in the tech industry, Amazon.com, Inc. has not historically engaged in stock splits. Despite its meteoric rise in the stock market, Amazons share price has remained high, often surpassing the $1,000 mark. This unconventional approach to managing its stock price has allowed Amazon to focus on long-term growth without the distraction of periodic stock splits. Instead, the company has chosen to reinvest its profits into expanding its business operations and driving innovation, resulting in substantial returns for shareholders over the years. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Microsoft Corporation, a pioneer in the technology industry, has a track record of executing successful stock splits to manage its share price and enhance shareholder value. The companys first stock split occurred in 1987, shortly after its initial public offering, and subsequent splits followed in 1990, 1991, and 1996. Each split was accompanied by a surge in Microsofts stock price, driven by investor optimism about the companys growth prospects and market dominance. Microsofts strategic use of stock splits has contributed to its long-term success and solidified its position as a leading player in the technology sector. The Coca-Cola Company (KO) The Coca-Cola Company, a global beverage giant, has a history of frequently splitting its stock to maintain an attractive valuation and promote shareholder participation. Since its initial public offering in 1919, Coca-Cola has executed numerous stock splits, reflecting its commitment to making its stock accessible to a wide range of investors. The companys iconic brand, strong financial performance, and consistent dividend payments have made Coca-Colas stock a popular choice among investors seeking stable returns and long-term growth potential. Google (Alphabet Inc.) (GOOGL) Google, now a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., has a unique approach to managing its stock price through a structure known as a stock dividend. This unconventional method allows the company to issue new Class C shares to existing shareholders without diluting their ownership stake in the company. While Google has not executed traditional stock splits like other companies, its innovative approach to managing its stock price reflects its commitment to balancing shareholder value with long-term growth objectives. Googles stock dividend structure has garnered attention from investors and analysts alike, highlighting the companys willingness to challenge conventional wisdom in the pursuit of sustainable value creation. Conclusion Stock splits play a vital role in shaping investor sentiment, managing share price volatility, and enhancing shareholder value. By examining the case studies of companies like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Google, we gain valuable insights into the various strategies employed by companies to navigate the complexities of the stock market. Whether through traditional stock splits or innovative approaches like stock dividends, companies have demonstrated their ability to adapt to changing market conditions while delivering long-term value to shareholders. As investors continue to seek opportunities for growth and diversification, the role of stock splits in shaping the financial landscape remains as relevant as ever. Wiper Party Leader Kalonzo Musyoka has issued a warning to fellow political leaders about the enduring influence of the emerging Gen Z movement in national affairs. During President William Rutos signing of the IEBC bill into law at KICC on Tuesday, Kalonzo urged Ruto to take the concerns of Kenyan youth seriously. He cautioned that if the older political class does not tread carefully, Kenyan youth, particularly Generation Z, will replace them. If we are not careful all of us will be thrown out by the Gen Z because they say they have come of age you say we are leaders of tomorrow but we are leaders of now. We cant wish them away, Kalonzo cautioned. In addition, Kalonzo called on President Ruto to implement the recommendations of the NADCO report, which he co-chaired. He highlighted that the enactment of the IEBC bill into law was among these recommendations. Furthermore, Kalonzo demanded that President Ruto dismiss Inspector General of Police Japheth Koome following the deaths of 42 individuals during peaceful protests. Order IG Japeth Koome to resign and take responsibility for the deaths of the 42 young Kenyans who lost their lives because they were exercising their constitutional rights to peaceably assemble, demonstrate and picket. Mr President, the Army should be ordered off our streets and sent back to the barracks, Kalonzo insisted. Godfrey Otunge, the commander of the Kenyan police contingent on the peacekeeping mission in Haiti, emphasized the urgency and necessity of their efforts to combat the powerful gangs wreaking havoc in the country. In his first public address since the Kenyan force arrived in Haiti, Otunge underscored the critical nature of their mission, highlighting that there is no room for failure in overcoming the challenges posed by the gangs. Otunge stressed that the United Nations-backed police mission is committed to creating security conditions conducive to holding free and fair democratic elections in the Caribbean nation. During the press briefing, he affirmed the Kenyan forces determination to fulfill their mandate and bring peace to Haiti, despite the challenging task ahead. We have a job that we are committed to do, said Commander Godfrey Otunge. Despite the obstacles, Otunge expressed optimism about the missions success, noting that by working closely with the Haitian National Police and other stakeholders, the Kenyan contingent can significantly contribute to restoring peace and security in Haiti. We intend to achieve this by working closely with Haitian authorities and local and international partners dedicated to a new Haiti, he added. During the press briefing on Monday, July 8, Haitian police chief Normil Rameau revealed that the Kenyan police had retaken control of the countrys largest public hospital, which gangs had occupied for over four months. He said the operation took place on the night of Sunday, July 7, successfully reclaiming the Hospital of the State University of Haiti, also known as the General Hospital. Additionally, Rameau noted that the U.N.-backed mission would focus on reclaiming all areas from gang control, reinstating police presence in regions lacking authority, and assisting Haitians displaced by the gangs in returning home. The National Police Service Commission (NPSC) has moved its offices from Sky Park Plaza in Westlands to the Nairobi Central Business District. In a public notice issued on Tuesday, the Commission announced its new location on the 6th floor of CBK Pension Towers on Harambee Avenue. This is to notify the general public and our stakeholders that we have relocated from Sky Park Plaza, Westlands to the 6th floor of CBK Pension Towers, Harambee Avenue, the notice stated. Constructed at a cost of Kes. 2.49 billion, the CBK Pension Towers was officially opened by former President Uhuru Kenyatta in May 2022. President Kenyatta noted at the time that the building was fully financed from the internal resources of the Pension Fund, with no contributions from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). The imposing 27-storey skyscraper features six basement levels and includes space for a Kenya currency museum, offices, conference rooms, and other amenities. NPSC explained that the move aims to enhance collaboration, productivity, and satisfaction for its employees and stakeholders. By relocating to the Nairobi Central Business District, the Commission hopes to provide a more accessible and efficient environment for its operations. The National Police Service Commission (NPSC) is one of the independent commissions established under Chapter Fifteen of the Constitution of 2010. Established under Article 246 of the Constitution, NPSC took over the human resource management function of the Police Service, a responsibility previously handled by the Public Service Commission. The creation of NPSC to oversee the human resource functions of the National Police Service is not only anchored in the Constitution but also stems from the findings and recommendations of various government-appointed task forces on the role of the Police in providing security and maintaining law and order. To reach the NPSC, the public can call 0709099000, email [email protected], or send mail to P.O. BOX 47363-00100, Nairobi. President William Ruto and ODM party leader Raila Odinga have announced a six-day multi-sectoral dialogue forum aimed at addressing pressing issues facing Kenyans. Scheduled to commence on Monday, July 15, and conclude on Saturday, the forum seeks to facilitate national dialogue and propose lasting solutions for Kenyas future. Speaking at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in Nairobi on Tuesday, Ruto informed journalists that the forum will bring together representatives from political parties, religious groups, civil society, employers, and youth. This forum will begin on Monday, next week and end on Saturday next week, it will be a 6-day forum and will propose the way forward for the country, Ruto stated. Regarding logistics, President Ruto mentioned that all participants are expected to cover their own attendance costs to ensure fiscal responsibility. In our efforts to maintain financial prudence, all participants will finance their own attendance costs following our morning consultations, Ruto explained. Raila Odinga echoed the sentiment, emphasizing that dialogue is crucial amidst the current national challenges. He highlighted the forums role in providing a platform for all stakeholders to voice their concerns and contribute to resolving issues affecting the country. Weve agreed that a dialogue is the way forward out of the crisis were having in our country, added Raila. Raila underscored the forums significance, stating, We will provide an opportunity for people to express themselves, emphasizing its role in addressing issues such as unemployment, corruption, ethnic relations, national debt, and economic management. We will give people an opportunity to be heard, Odinga said. There are many issues affecting Kenyans but all of them are solvable. Unemployment, corruption, ethnicity, debt and the management of the economy are issues we need to talk about, added the former prime minister. Ahead of the forum, stakeholders are required to submit their representatives by the end of this week. Calistoga announced a reopening of a city cooling center in response to a new spate of hot weather expected in the Napa Valley this week. The cooling space will be available from noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday to Friday at the Calistoga Community Center, 1307 Washington St. The building was one of several locations across Napa County to offer air-conditioned refuge last week, when temperatures well above 100 degrees prompted excessive heat warnings across Northern California. A new heat advisory by the National Weather Service is in effect from 11 a.m. Wednesday to 8 p.m. Friday, and applies to both valley and mountain areas of the North Bay. Forecasts said people who are sensitive to heat, including homeless people, seniors and children, will be at risk for heat illnesses, particularly if they lack adequate cooling or hydration. High temperatures in Santa Rosa, the weather service station closest to Calistoga, were forecast to reach 99 on Wednesday, 104 Thursday and 100 on Friday. Photos: Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduates its Class of 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 Calistoga Junior/Senior High School graduation 2024 GUANGZHOU, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and African officials emphasized the need for increased cooperation among local governments at the 5th Forum on China-Africa Local Government Cooperation held in south China's Guangzhou on Tuesday. Around 350 delegates attended the event, including political leaders, officials and organization heads from China and Africa. They agreed to enhance cooperation between local governments for shared governance experiences, joint responses to issues, and mutual benefits. Christian Ntsay, Prime Minister of Madagascar, said at the forum that strengthening local government cooperation is essential for sustainable development. This forum provides an opportunity for African countries to explore development opportunities by strengthening collaboration and friendship between the Chinese and African people, he added. During the forum, Ntsay witnessed the signing of a letter of intent to strengthen friendly exchanges and cooperation between Foshan City in Guangdong and Sambava City in Madagascar. Data released by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries indicated that 28 provinces, regions and cities in China have established 166 sister-city relationships with counterparts in 35 African countries. Among them, Guangzhou has formed sister-city and sister-port relationships with 10 African cities and 5 ports, respectively. Zhao Baogang, deputy mayor of Weihai City in east China's Shandong Province, said that in the first five months of this year, Weihai's imports and exports to Africa increased by 73.2 percent. The city has established enterprises in 22 African countries, covering fields such as agriculture, energy and healthcare. The Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the provincial government of Guangdong jointly hosted this year's Forum on China-Africa Local Government Cooperation, which was inaugurated in 2012. PNN New Delhi [India], July 10: Indore, the cleanest city in India, is known for its delectable culinary and historical monuments. However, you often have heard from people saying that 'Indore doesn't have a nice place to visit or something unique'. To those people, we want to tell how beautiful and amazing Indore actually is. Who hasn't explored the history of Rajwada, Holkar Chatris, telling their stories through the great architectural designs and when it comes to food, how we can forget the most famous "Raat ka raja - Sarafa", Chappan and Meghdoot Chaupati where everyone finds the unmatched variety of street food to treat their taste buds. Who hasn't explored the grandness of Phoenix Citadel Mall, where the most renowned brands share their legacy with us. Who hasn't explored the liveliness of Indore Zoo, where animals are in full charm and amazing birds can be viewed. Alongside all these cheerful places, Indore has Central India's biggest adventure park, Simcha Island. Spanning an expansive 33-acre, Simcha is a beacon of adventure in Indore. A perfect place for a staycation, a weekend getaway, or a day outing. It is an exhilarating adventure park that promises a thrilling escape from the ordinary and offers ultimate comfort by its hospitality. From adrenaline-pumping activities to serene moments of relaxation, Simcha offers a diverse range of experiences that cater to all ages and preferences. For those seeking a rush, this adventure park boasts a variety of exciting attractions. Take on the challenge of go-kart racing on professionally designed tracks, where speed meets competition, and enthusiasts can test their skills against their friends and family. For those with a penchant for heights, Simcha's coffers a breathtaking experience. Glide through the air and take in panoramic views of the park, offering a bird's-eye perspective of the bustling park below. Simcha Island's trampoline park is a haven for those who love to bounce and defy gravity. Jump, flip, and soar to new heights in a safe and exhilarating environment. Whether you're perfecting your jumping gymnastics or simply enjoying the buoyant sensation, the trampoline park ensures endless fun for everyone. For the ultimate thrill-seekers out there, Simcha offers experiences like the rocket ejector and giant swing. Feel the adrenaline surge as you're catapulted into the air or swung high above the ground, experiencing a rush that leaves a lasting impression. To feel the chills of snow, Simcha has a newly launched c, where snow lovers can get the real snow wali feeling through their hands and feel the Manali vibes while staying in Indore. And for the pool lovers, cool off and make a splash at Splash Island, Simcha's vibrant water park. Dive into a pool of excitement with thrilling water slides, refreshing pools, and aquatic adventures that can be fun for all ages. Whether you're racing down slides or lounging by the poolside, Splash Island promises endless fun and relaxation under the sun. After all these adventure activities, you might be tired, right? Don't worry. Simcha has your back here, as well. Indulge your palate at Cafe C at Zone Connect by the Park in Simcha, their exceptional dining destination within the resort. Zone Connect offers a memorable dining experience with a diverse pure veg menu that caters to all tastes, ensuring every visitor finds something delicious to enjoy. Whether you're craving hearty meals, light bites, or refreshing beverages, Zone Connect provides a welcoming atmosphere perfect for refueling after thrilling activities. Meanwhile, Cafe C invites guests to savour a wide range of delectable dishes in a cozy setting, complemented by Yumcha's street-side offerings that promise to satisfy every craving. Whether you're enjoying a quick snack or settling in for a leisurely meal, Zone Connect provides the perfect culinary complement to your Simcha adventure, ensuring a complete and satisfying experience for all visitors. Simcha Island invites visitors to explore the new side of Indore, where adventure meets leisure and every moment is filled with excitement. Whether you're planning a family outing, a thrilling day with friends, or a unique event like a destination wedding or corporate gathering, or you're a local looking for a weekend escape or a traveler looking for new thrills, Simcha promises an unforgettable experience. Come and experience why there's more to Indore than just its food. (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) ULAN BATOR, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia celebrated its National Flag Day on Wednesday to honor the national flag, preserve historical customs and traditions, and strengthen national unity. A national flag-raising ceremony took place at the central square, attended by Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, Parliament Speaker Dashzegve Amarbayasgalan, Prime Minister Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene, cabinet and parliament members, veterans, as well as thousands of citizens and representatives of embassies and diplomatic missions in Mongolia. In commemoration, a parade featuring 1,500 military and police personnel was held in the central square. Additionally, by decree of the Mongolian President, a ceremony was held to permanently raise a 16x8-meter national flag on a 60-meter-high pole in Ulan Bator Park in the capital city. National Flag Day has been celebrated since 2009 on July 10, one day before the traditional Naadam festival kicks off. PNN New Delhi [India], July 10: In today's world, where environmental consciousness is at an all-time high, businesses are increasingly looking for ways to reduce their impact on the planet. Amulya Mica, a leading manufacturer of laminates, PVC boards, and plywood, is at the forefront of this movement by offering a range of eco-friendly products that are both kind to the environment and high-performing. Amulya Mica's commitment to sustainability starts with its use of recycled materials. The company incorporates a significant amount of post-consumer material into its products, diverting valuable resources from landfills and reducing the need for virgin materials. This not only lessens the environmental footprint of their products but also promotes a circular economy. Furthermore, Amulya Mica prioritizes the use of sustainable forestry practices. They source their wood from responsibly managed forests, ensuring that their products are derived from renewable resources. This helps to combat deforestation and preserve valuable ecosystems. Amulya Mica's commitment to eco-friendliness extends beyond just materials. The company utilizes low-emission manufacturing processes that minimize air and water pollution. Additionally, they invest in renewable energy sources to power their facilities, further reducing their environmental impact. By prioritizing sustainability throughout their operations, Amulya Mica is setting a new standard for the industry. Their dedication to eco-friendly practices demonstrates a clear understanding of the environmental challenges we face today. In Conclusion Amulya Mica is a shining example of how businesses can successfully integrate environmental responsibility into their core values. Their commitment to sustainability is not just a marketing ploy; it's a genuine effort to make a positive impact on the planet. By choosing Amulya Mica's products, consumers can be confident that they are making a responsible choice for the environment, without sacrificing quality or performance. Website: https://www.amulyamica.com/ (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) PRNewswire Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], July 10: Locobuzz, a global leader in customer experience management (CXM), is thrilled to share that it has been recognised for its pioneering work in AI-powered CXM solutions as AI First Mover by Microsoft. Locobuzz believes the future of customer experience management lies in AI as a copilot, augmenting an agent's capabilities to draft complex responses with a click of a button and enabling them to navigate intricate knowledge bases and business processes efficiently. By leveraging AI, agents can minimize their learning curve and maximize their effectiveness. "We are thrilled to be recognised as an AI First Mover by Microsoft," said Vishal Agarwal, CEO of Locobuzz. "This recognition is a testament to our dedication to pushing the boundaries of AI in customer experience management. Our partnership with Microsoft has been instrumental in our journey, and we look forward to continuing to drive innovation in this space." Enhancing Agent Capabilities with AI led Data-Driven Insights At Locobuzz, AI is viewed as a valuable copilot, assisting agents by summarizing conversations, suggesting next steps, and even recommending appropriate responses by also translating it to desired languages. This innovative approach is made possible through the use of Azure GPT APIs, which drive Locobuzz's AI solutions. "At Locobuzz, our vision is to empower businesses with deeper insights into their digital data, enabling them to understand what works, identify areas for improvement, and automate content categorization for enhanced decision-making. We are committed to helping our customers unlock the full potential of their data to stay ahead in the digital landscape," added Nitin Agarwal, CTO at Locobuzz. Measurable Results and Continuous Innovation Locobuzz's AI solutions have delivered measurable results for clients, including a 20-30% reduction in average handle time (AHT) and a 25-40% increase in agent productivity. By continuously enhancing its platform with advanced AI capabilities like predictive analytics and real-time sentiment analysis, Locobuzz empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions and improve customer loyalty. About Locobuzz Locobuzz is a global enterprise software company specializing in digital customer experience management. Its unified CX platform integrates advanced AI, ML, Big Data, and Analytics to provide real-time customer insights, automated support, and end-to-end social media management. Trusted by over 300 Fortune 500 companies across various industries, Locobuzz operates in seven countries, including India, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, the USA, the UK, and Sri Lanka. Learn More: https://locobuzz.com About Microsoft AI First Movers Program The Microsoft AI First Movers Program recognizes organizations at the forefront of AI innovation. These companies leverage Microsoft's advanced AI technologies to drive digital transformation and deliver cutting-edge solutions across various industries. For more details on Locobuzz's recognition as an AI First Mover, visit: Locobuzz - AI First Movers. Disclaimer:The information in this press release is as of its release date and based on what was available to Locobuzz at that time. It may include forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Locobuzz is not obligated to update these statements. All product names and trademarks are owned by their respective owners. Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2337873/4601414/Locobuzz_Logo.jpg (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) India's built environment sector (construction, real estate, and infrastructure) is poised for strong growth powered by investments in specific focus areas, including housing, urban infrastructure, and various development projects. This ambitious vision of enhancing the country's global competitiveness and improving the quality of life has opened avenues in the built environment for professionals in the architecture and engineering fields to scale up their careers. In a conversation with ANI, officials at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) shared how the RICS School of Built Environment has been producing industry leaders who excel in their careers, helping them cement their place as a premier institution in India. Ashwani Awasthi, Managing Director, South Asia, RICS, says that the institution has been catering to this extensive industry demand for years now. Each year, RICS SBE graduates are equipped with the standards and guidelines of RICS, making them not only industry-ready but also highly sought-after in the eyes of employers in the sector. You can trace this demand by the growth these students see in a short span in their respective careers. Tushar Nagare, a civil engineer who completed the MBA Construction Economics and Quantity Surveying (CEQS) programme (2015-2017) from the SBE, has seen his salary rise by over 330 per cent in the last six years. Nagare currently leverages his expertise as a cost manager at the renowned Turner & Townsend. Another student, Divyansh Gupta, a nanotechnology engineer, transitioned into the realm of real estate after enrolling in the MBA in Real Estate and Urban Infrastructure (REUI) programme at RICS SBE and graduating in the year 2018. Today, Gupta is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS), a qualification that is highly regarded in the industry as it signifies a high level of professional expertise and competence. A degree from RICS SBE fulfils the academic requirement for applying to the Assessment of Professional Competence (APC), the gateway to becoming an MRICS. The unique background and comprehensive education received by Divyansh propelled him to a leadership position at Reliant Surveyors, where he is currently serving as the Director of Advisory Services. Divyansh has seen a salary surge of over 500 percent in the last five years, underscoring his expertise and skills in the field of built environment. Karishma Chourasia's journey from architect to manager is also exceptional. Karishma joined the MBA in Real Estate and Urban Infrastructure (REUI) programme and graduated in 2019. Her exposure to the industry's best practices facilitated her rise to the position of Manager (APAC Advisory and Transactions) at Cushman & Wakefield, one of the leading global real estate services firms. She also saw a salary increase of over 560 per cent in the past five years. The official said, "We are dedicated to serving the industry with the best, and RICS accreditation truly sets these professionals apart in the job market." The RICS SBE 2024 admissions are now open, and prospective students can apply by visiting the university's site, RICS SBE. (ANI) India and Taiwan signed a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) for organic products during the 9th Working Group on Trade Meeting with Taiwan in New Delhi. An official press release from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that the agreement between both countries is significant as it is the first bilateral agreement for organic products. The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) will be a node agency working with the Agriculture and Food Agency, Ministry of Agriculture (AFA) of Taiwan, to closely work toward fulfilling the objectives of the agreements. This agreement permits the sale of agricultural products in Taiwan as organically produced, including the display of the "India Organic" logo, as long as they are produced and handled organically in accordance with the National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP) and accompanied by an organic demonstration document (transaction certificate, etc.) issued by an accredited certification body under NPOP, as per the release. Similar to this, agricultural products produced and handled organically in accordance with the Organic Agriculture Promotion Act will be sold in the country, along with the display of the "Taiwan Organic" logo. The ministry said that the mutual recognition will ease the export of organic products by avoiding dual certifications. After the agreement, the organic products of both countries will see a reduction in compliance costs and a simplified compliance requirement by adhering to only one regulation. The agreement will also help both countries enhance trade opportunities in the organic sector. The MRA will pave the way for the export of major Indian organic products such as rice, processed food, green/black and herbal tea, medicinal plant products, etc. to Taiwan, the release further added. As part of its Look East policy, the country is enhancing its relations with the countries in the region. India has sought to cultivate ties with Taiwan in trade and investments. As per the Invest India National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency, both countries hold annual meetings to enhance trade relations. (ANI) VMPL New Delhi [India], July 10: Mind IT concluded its landmark AI CXO event, Mirai 24, on July 5, 2024, at The Lalit, Central Delhi. This exclusive CXO conclave brought together over 250 leaders, primarily from North India, establishing itself as a pivotal platform for AI innovation and collaboration. Keynote Highlights The event began with an inspiring keynote by Shailendra Gupta and Vikas Garg, Co-Founders of Mind IT. Their vision for AI innovation emphasized the technology's potential to address global challenges and foster community collaboration through events, working groups, and strategic retreats. Speakers and Presentations Rajiv Sikka, Group CIO at Medanta, highlighted AI's role in identifying TB in remote areas and aiding radiologists, sparking a lively Q&A session on grassroots innovation. Krishnamurthy Rajesh, IT Director at Greyorange, discussed the challenges of deploying AI in areas with limited connectivity and emphasized the need for space solutions to ensure AI's future success. Raminder Singh Bedi, Group VP of Engineering at Publicis Sapient, captivated the audience with his insights into the future of computer vision, resonating with both business owners and industry professionals. Addresses for Services Industry Manoj Jain, Senior Director of R&D at Axtria, provided insights into AI's impact on quality and testing, sharing tools that have enhanced his team's performance and agility. Sarita Singh, GM Tech at Commonwealth Bank, addressed the challenges in the fintech industry, focusing on AI's role in tackling fraud. Policymakers and Government Insights Ram Chandra Yemal from the Abu Dhabi Government discussed global government adaptations to AI, emphasizing the significance of public-private collaboration. Rajneesh Kumar, COO of NeGD, Digital India, shared insights on innovative policymaking, highlighting the Indian government's successful implementation of AI in large-scale systems. Panel Discussions A panel hosted by Saurabh Ganeriwala, CBO of Mynd Solutions, featured participants from the government, private sector, academia, and AI experts. The discussion covered AI usage, biases, cybersecurity, IT requirements, and startup opportunities, with highlights from Rakesh Viz, CEO of Truminds, Harneet Singh, MD of Techcurators, Rajneesh Kumar, and Raminder Bedi. Interactive Sessions and Networking Kanicka Gupta, Co-founder of Mind IT, engaged the audience in working groups focused on Market Disruption, Investment Validation, Ecosystem Relationships, Accountability and Trust, and Innovation and Growth. These groups aim to build a global network poised to become an authority on AI innovations. Networking sessions allowed attendees to connect, share experiences, and build meaningful relationships, underscoring the Mirai 24 success. Organizer's Remarks Shailendra Gupta, CEO of Mind IT, expressed his gratitude to all speakers, sponsors, and attendees. "Mirai 24 has been a remarkable journey. The engagement and enthusiasm witnessed are truly inspiring. We intend to continue this tradition of excellence and innovation in future editions." Looking Ahead The success of Mirai 24 sets a promising precedent for future events organized by Mind IT. Committed to driving progress through innovation, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing, Mind IT aims to bring together the best minds in the industry to drive improvement and excellence. About Mind IT Mind IT stands at the forefront of IT innovation, specializing in transformative digital solutions, AI, and Innovation. Recognized with Clutch Champions 2024 and Global Leader Fall 2023, Mind IT continues to lead the industry with unparalleled expertise and a customer-centric approach. For more information about Mind IT and future events, visit Mind IT. Mind IT remains committed to driving technological innovation and fostering collaboration in the tech industry. Watch out for upcoming events and initiatives that continue to push the boundaries of what's possible. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by VMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) SMPL Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], July 10: Bidfe International Auctioneers Pvt. Ltd., a company founded in India by Vijay Kishore Kandukuri, is now also officially registered in the United Kingdom and the United States. Headquartered in Chennai, the company is also set to expand across the Middle East and other Asian countries. Bidfe began as a vision of a 23-year-old MBA student, Vijay Kishore Kandukuri. In his project report, Vijay predicted the rise of online sales and the elimination of middlemen, which will make it easier for sellers to reach end customers directly. This hypothesis now stands true and practical, with numerous e-commerce marketplaces simplifying life for consumers. At Bidfe, people can auction their goods, offering buyers access to antiques, paintings, coins, banknotes, books, and other rarities. The company's sites sell a wide range of rare items, from music to mats- there's something for everyone under one roof. Discussing the company's recent expansion, Founder Vijay Kishore said, "Our mission is to create a global marketplace where buyers and sellers can connect effortlessly. With this expansion, and the upcoming ones in the Middle East and rest of Asia, we will be able to provide even more opportunities for artists, collectors, and vendors to develop a broader base. Ultimately, this growth will bring unique and rare items to people everywhere. They will be able to find exactly what they are looking for." Chairman Vijay Kishore shared the journey of how he connected with offline sellers across India. He and his team visited art schools, flea markets, dealers, artists, petty sellers, collectors and others who are engaged in promoting, buying and selling art, coins, banknotes, books, music and others such products. The team encouraged them to register and sell through Bidfe. Today, the platform boasts over 25,000 users and thousands of registered sellers. The site features original art from renowned artists like S.H. Raza and M.F. Husain, as well as other promising artists from India as well as across the world. A panel of experts selects standout pieces from artists such as Aastha, Kavina, Srijan, Devansh, Rupali, Bhargavi, Snehal, and Ashish, from an art academy in Delhi. Highlighting the platform's success, Vijay mentioned that a Raza painting recently sold for over 50 crore Indian Rupees. "Investors are becoming smarter. They are recognizing the value of original art and music," he said. Bidfe also encourages album sales from around the world, further adding to its diverse offerings. Vijay Kishore Kandukuri's innovative approach has not gone unnoticed. He was recently awarded by Blindwink Business Awards as the founder of Bidfe- a platform creating significant opportunities for sellers, buyers, and vendors. Additionally, Franchise India recognized him as a "Successpreneur." Looking ahead, Vijay confidently states, "Bidfe will soon be a billion-dollar company." Bidfe International Auctioneers is, thus, not just a marketplace; it's a testament to how visionary ideas can transform industries and create new opportunities for many. To explore Bidfe's diverse offerings, please visit https://bidfe.in/. UK website: https://bidfe.co.uk/ (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by SMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) Ahead of the first Modi 3.0 budget, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), an industry body, on Wednesday listed several recommendations addressed to the Union Ministry of Finance. The industry body sought exemptions on custom duties on telecom equipment, sexemption from GST under Reverse Charge Mechanism on payments made to DoT for license fees, spectrum usage charges, and spectrum acquired in auctions among other recommendations. COAI also recommended that the license fee be reduced from 3 per cent to 1 per cent, relieving the telecom service providers from additional financial burden. The much-awaited full Budget for 2024-25 is scheduled to be tabled on July 23 - the first Budget under Modi 3.0. The budget session of Parliament is scheduled to commence on July 22 and conclude on August 12. Considering the huge capital that Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) have to invest in the current scenario, especially for the deployment of 5G, the industry body has recommended abolition of Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) levy. Alternatively, it suggested that the government may consider suspension of the USO contribution of 5 per cent of Adjusted Gross Revenue till the existing USO corpus of approximately Rs 80,000 crore is exhausted. COAI stated that it is also concerned over the definition of gross revenue (GR). According to the industry body, under the present definition revenue from all telecom activities is covered. This, it argued, has created ambiguity because the term telecom activity is not defined clearly, so it may include revenue from activities believed to be incidental to telecom activity. COAI thus recommended that the definition of gross revenue be made precise, stipulating that the revenue from activities for which no license is required should not be a part of gross revenue. "We hope the government will consider these recommendations in the upcoming budget and help the industry navigate through these prolonged challenges," said Lt. Gen (retd), Dr SP Kochhar, Director General, COAI. Owing to the intense price competition in the market, the telecom industry in India has consolidated from over 10 companies in 2017 to three private and one public sector company. Coming to customs duty, over the past 5 to 6 years, the government has gradually increased the customs duty on telecom equipment to 20 per cent, which the industry says significantly impacted the rollout of 5G services in India. COAI has requested exemptions on customs duties for certain telecom equipment to alleviate the cost challenges associated with deploying this critical infrastructure. "The industry body recommends that the customs duty be reduced to zero and then gradually increased depending on creation of ecosystem for manufacturing of telecom gear in India. Until high-quality equipment is available domestically at competitive prices, COAI urges the government to reduce customs duties for 4G and 5G network products, as well as other related items, to nil," COAI said. Faced with tight market dynamics, the telecom operators, Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, raised prepaid tariffs in a range of 10-25 per cent, invariably, a few days ago. (ANI) Prosecutors have indicated that additional alleged victims will come forward to testify against him, Variety confirmed. Nicole Blumberg, Manhattan's Assistant District Attorney, disclosed during a hearing on Tuesday that several women who had previously remained silent are now prepared to testify against Weinstein. "A number of women came forward to indicate they were raped by the defendant in Manhattan," Blumberg informed the court, describing the alleged incidents as involving "violent" and "trauma-informed" behaviour within the statute of limitations, according to reports obtained by Variety. The retrial stems from a decision by New York's highest court in April, which ruled that Weinstein's earlier conviction was flawed due to the inclusion of testimony from too many women about incidents unrelated to the case. Weinstein's defence team, led by lawyer Arthur Aidala, accused the prosecution of delaying tactics in preparing for the retrial while emphasising Weinstein's health issues, which include fluid in his heart and lungs, spinal stenosis, macular degeneration, and severe diabetes. Weinstein, who was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair, remains in custody due to a separate sexual assault conviction in Los Angeles, for which he is serving a 16-year sentence. His extradition to California has been rejected as he prepares to defend against new allegations in New York. Jennifer Bonjean, Weinstein's attorney handling his California appeal, expressed confidence despite the legal setbacks, stating, "There is a lot of light at the end of the tunnel" for her client. Variety confirmed that the next hearing in Weinstein's case is scheduled for July 19. (ANI) Earlier in May, the ED registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on the FIR and charge sheet filed by the Noida police against Elvish Yadav and others involved in the snake venom case. In November last year, the People for Animals (PFA) organization filed an FIR against six people including Elvish. The FIR was registered against the six people in Noida Sector 49 police station for allegedly supplying snake venom suspected to be used as a recreational drug at a rave party in Noida. The case was transferred from Noida's Sector 49 police station to Sector 20 police station on the orders of Gautam Buddha Nagar Police Commissioner Lakshmi Singh. He was arrested on March 17 by the police along with five others and all were charged under the Wildlife (Protection) Act and Section 120A (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. Elvish was granted bail by Gautam Buddha Nagar District Court five days after his arrest. Later, police arrested two more suspects in the case who were identified as Ishwar and Vinay, both residents of Haryana and said to be known to Elvish. On April 6, the Noida police filed a chargesheet against the YouTuber and seven others in connection with allegations ranging from snake smuggling to organizing rave parties. The 1200-page chargesheet stated that Elvish was in touch with snake charmers and that a poisonous snake and 20 millilitres of venom from the Krait species were also recovered from the location. (ANI) The news was confirmed during filming at the British Grand Prix, where Ashley was spotted with Idris over the weekend, according to Variety. Directed by Joseph Kosinski, known for 'Top Gun: Maverick,' 'F1' follows Brad Pitt's character, Sonny Hayes, a former Formula 1 driver who returns to the sport. He mentors rookie Joshua Pearce (played by Damson Idris) on APXGP, a fictional 11th team on the grid. The film is unique in that it is shot during actual Grand Prix weekends, providing a realistic backdrop as the fictional team competes against established giants in the sport, according to Variety. Ashley joins a stellar ensemble cast that includes Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem, Tobias Menzies, Sarah Niles, and Samson Kayo. Her role in the film has been kept under wraps, adding to the anticipation surrounding her involvement. The announcement of Ashley's casting coincided with the release of the first teaser for 'F1' during the British Grand Prix, which was won by Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time Formula 1 world champion and co-producer of the film through Dawn Apollo Films. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Chad Oman, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Lewis Hamilton, 'F1' is a collaboration between Apple Studios and Formula 1. The screenplay, penned by Ehren Kruger, promises a high-octane narrative set to hit theatres and IMAX screens internationally on June 25, 2025, followed by a North American release on June 27, 2025, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, according to Variety. For Ashley, 'F1' marks another milestone in her career following her acclaimed portrayal of Kate Sharma in 'Bridgerton' and her role as Olivia in 'Sex Education.' Her upcoming projects include starring in the psychological thriller 'This Tempting Madness' and executive producing, as well as starring in the rom-com 'Picture This' for Prime Video. (ANI) ADDIS ABABA, July 9 (Xinhua) -- The impact of recent global shocks on Africa's financing landscape has significantly affected the momentum toward gender equality and women's empowerment in Africa, a senior official of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has said. The statement was made by Oliver Chinganya, director of the African Center for Statistics at the UNECA, on Monday while addressing the opening session of the Africa Gender Statistics Forum, which is held on July 8-12 virtually and in-person in Gaborone, Botswana, under the theme "Pooling Together for Gender Statistics: Financing the Numbers that Make Women and Girls Count." "Africa's financing landscape has been worsened by recent global shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and climate threats; and the financing gap for the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa is estimated at 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars per year," he said. Chinganya said recent estimates by the African Center for Statistics show that at the current pace, gender equality will only be achieved in 2094 in Africa. He said that the lack of harmonized collection and use of gender statistics in Africa is hindering continental and national efforts toward women empowerment and gender equality. The forum, among other things, aims at linking gender statistics financing for accelerated progress toward gender equality and women's empowerment, according to the UNECA. The UNECA called on African countries to make better use of limited resources through sharing best practices and developing common strategies to rationalize, harmonize and improve the measurement and use of gender statistics, as a critical enabler to make informed decisions in ensuring gender equality. According to Chinganya, harmonized and quality statistics provide a basis for good decision-making and help African governments identify the best course of action in addressing development problems, as well as gender-specific development initiatives. He underscored the need to harness new technologies, including geospatial information systems, to improve data collection, processing, analysis, dissemination and archiving capabilities, and facilitate access to national, sub-regional and regional databases. Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray has claimed that the Worli hit-and-run case is a murder, as the accused dragged the deceased to a dairy and then hit her again by reversing the car. "Will you get what you need in the blood if you'll take blood sample after 7 hours? My demand is that don't go by the blood sample and all for now, what can be seen on CCTV, what the driver has said, what the victim has said, it's a murder and it should be dealt with like that only. Hit-an-run is another thing, but they have dragged (the deceased) till dairy and again hit by reversing (the car), and hence it's a murder," Thackeray said on Tuesday. Mihir Shah (23), the son of political leader Rajesh Shah, is the main accused in the Worli hit-and-run case, which resulted in the death of 45-year-old woman Kaveri Nakhwa. A Mumbai court on Tuesday extended the police custody of Rajesh Shah's driver, Rajrishi Singh Bidawat in the case until Thursday, July 11. According to officials, Shah's driver, Bidawat, was with Mihir Shah when the luxury car hit and killed a 45-year-old woman, Kaveri Nakhwa, and injured her husband. "We have to interrogate Mihir and the driver together. We need his custody because he takes drugs and was present at the time of the accident. They ran over a woman with the car," Mumbai police said while arguing in court on Tuesday. During the hearing, the defence lawyer said that police had no evidence of the driver's involvement. "The driver was not in that pub. Police have no evidence that he took drugs or consumed any such thing. There is no point in police custody without evidence," the lawyer said. Mihir Shah was arrested from Virar on Tuesday. Shah had been absconding after the car he was allegedly driving hit a scooter on Dr Annie Besant Road in Worli on Sunday, July 7. Fourteen teams were formed by Mumbai police to nab him. Police arrested Rajrishi Singh Bidawat and Mihir's father, Rajesh Shah, for their alleged involvement in the case. Pradeep Nakhwa, husband of the victim said that the main accused in the case is a big person who can buy anyone. "These party leaders will do nothing, this is the son of their leader only. He is a big person who can buy anyone...who is there on our side? Did Fadnavis or Shinde come to our house, to know what happened? Did Ajit Pawar come? They all have become blind in greed for power...they come to meet the public only to beg for votes and then they forget...for them, we public are waste material," he said. (ANI) The deceased has been identified as Amir Shaikh, as per the police. "The deceased's wife, Nikita Gaikwad, had filed a missing complaint on June 15, which was followed by a complaint from Amir's father on June 27, suspecting foul play," DCP Pimpri Chinchwad Police Shivaji Pawar said. Investigations revealed that the girl's family, originally from Ahmednagar district, had opposed the marriage, but the couple had defied them and settled in Pune four months ago. The police found that the husband of Nikita's sister, along with other relatives, conspired to abduct and kill Amir. "Three accused have been arrested, while one remains at large," DCP Pawar said. A police team has been formed to apprehend the absconding accused, and further investigation is underway. (ANI) Vijayapura MP and BJP leader Ramesh Jigajinagi said that he is upset for not being made a Minister in the Union Council of Ministers, saying, he was "deeply hurt". "In the whole of South India, I am the only Dalit MP to have been elected to Parliament seven times. Look at my luck - all the upper castes became cabinet ministers. Didn't Dalits support BJP? I am deeply hurt," Jigajinagi said in Vijayapura on Tuesday. "I don't seek a cabinet post for myself. When I returned to my constituency, many people criticised me. Many had warned me earlier that the BJP is anti-Dalit," he added. "There is pressure from the people for me to become a minister at the centre. Is it fair or unfair?" he questioned. Ramesh Jigajinagi has served as an MP for seven consecutive terms, three from the Chikkodi constituency and four from the Bijapur constituency. Throughout his four-decade political career, he has never lost a parliamentary election. In the 2024 general election, Ramesh Jigajinagi Won from Karnataka's Bijapur Parliamentary Constituency by a margin of 77229 votes. He had secured 672781. BJP won 17 out of the 28 Parliamentary Constituencies in the 2024 general election in Karnataka, while Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) won 9 and 2 seats, respectively. In the 2024 general election, the BJP and JD-S allied to contest the Lok Sabha election in Karnataka. The BJP fought on 25 seats, while the JD-S contested on three seats. In the Modi Cabinet 3.0, two leaders from Karnataka hold key positions. Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy, the leader of the party, has been appointed as Minister of Heavy Industries and Steel. At the same time, Nirmala Sitharaman, who represents Karnataka in the Rajya Sabha, has been reappointed as the Finance Minister, a crucial portfolio she previously held. (ANI) The apprehended individuals included two women and three men. According to an official, they were trying to reach destinations such as Hyderabad and Jammu & Kashmir by train. The arrested individuals have been identified as Md Imran (22 years), Md Abu Jamir (20 years), Md Azizul Hossen (22 years), Yasmin Ara (20 years), and Raju Begam (35 years). The Government Railway Police (GRP) made the arrests late on Tuesday as part of a coordinated effort to prevent illegal immigration. According to authorities, the group had entered India using unauthorised routes and intended to disperse across various regions of the country. A case has been registered at the Agartala GRP Police Station concerning this incident. The apprehended individuals will be presented before the court on Wednesday, an official said. This, however, isn't the first time that such case has come to light. Last year in July, the Special Task Force (STF) of Assam police apprehended 8 people including two Bangladeshi nationals from Tripura for helping illegal Rohingya immigrants enter India by using fake documents, officials said. The crackdown was a result of an all-out operation conducted by the STF, Assam as per the direction of the CM and under the supervision of Partha Sarathi Mahanta, DIG (STF), against the linkman/touts of Rohingya Muslims by deputing five numbers of police teams, headed by Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) level officers to various bordering districts of Tripura. (ANI) Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma on Tuesday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on receiving Russia's highest civilian award the Order of St Andrew the Apostle in Moscow. Bhajan Lal said "The country's favourite Prime Minister Narendra Modi has received the Order of St Andrew the Apostle. This is a special occasion for all of us as well. Under the rule of PM Modi, the country has reached new heights." Further, he talked about how Modi has now only made contributions at just the national level but also at the international level. He also talked about advancements and contributions that have been brought by Modi in the areas of environment, energy and world peace. "The PM has not only made contributions at the national level but also made a lot of developments and contributions at the international level. As a global leader, the PM is a very important figure for our nation and the globe. He has also been awarded in the notable fields of environment, energy and world peace. I want to congratulate him on this auspicious occasion," he said. Additionally, Union Minister Amit Shah had also congratulated the PM on Tuesday for being conferred with the award. He said "Congratulations to PM Narendra Modi on being conferred with Russia's highest civilian award, the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle, today. This is a glorious honour to the nation, which stands as a testament to the formidable stature attained by Bharat in the global arena under the leadership of PM Modi." Further, he continued, "The new award in the list of global accolades garnered by PM Modi over the last ten years not only boosts every Indian's pride but also immortalises the Indian-Russian friendship," he posted on X. The PM was ceremoniously presented with Russia's highest civilian award, the Order of St Andrew the Apostle at St Catherine's Hall of Moscow Kremlin on Tuesday. (ANI) Another batch of Amarnath Yatra pilgrims departs from the Pantha Chowk Yatra base camp for Baltal and Pahalgam routes amid high security. Conducted by the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board, the Amarnath Yatra has two routes: one through Pahalgam and the other via Baltal. Baltal serves as the camping ground for pilgrims in the Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir. Coming from Delhi, Sukhpal Singh, a Pilgrim told ANI, "We are going to undertake Amarnath Yatra via Baltal. I am excited. Facilities here are up to mark. Security has been deployed (to ensure smooth conduct of the Yatra). It is a moment of happiness". Sharing his excitement, Sunil another pilgrim who came from New Delhi told ANI, "We are going to Baltal. This time proper arrangements have been made. Army soldiers have been deployed to facilitate the Amarnath Yatra, and Jammu and Kashmir police also chipped in. Everyone should come and undertake the Amarnath Yatra," he said. Meanwhile, this year the Amarnath Yatra is taking place amid a significant increase in the number of terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. Five Army soldiers lost their lives and as many as were injured in an ambush by terrorists in Kathua district on July 8. Further, to ensure a safe and efficient movement of the pilgrims and commuters during the holy Amarnath Yatra, the Jammu and Kashmir Traffic Police issued an advisory on July 6 on the National Highway 44 -- with cut-off timings and clear instructions for the various convoys and non-convoy movements. This year, the yatra started on June 29 and will end on August 19, lasting 52 days. The devotees of Lord Shiva undertake the arduous annual pilgrimage to the holy cave which is located in the Kashmir Himalayas. (ANI) Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Balwinder Singh, the father of Gagandeep Singh who is a trapped Indian youth in the Russian army, said that there is now a ray of hope for the stranded Indians in war-hit Russia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, took a strong stance on the issue of Indian nationals being recruited into the Russian army and the Russian government has assured an "early discharge" of these Indians from the army service, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra said on Tuesday. In a conversation with ANI, Balwinder Singh said, "I have come across several media reports and got to know that Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Russia. Even my son told me over the phone that PM Modi reached Russia and held talks with the government regarding the release of the trapped Indians." Singh further said that his son, Gagandeep Singh, informed him that the trapped Indians are sent to the battlegrounds and kept in 'bunkers', which are defensive military fortifications to shield people in the war-hit zones. "My son told me over the phone that the trapped Indians are sent to battlegrounds, having been handed over guns and grenades. They are kept in bunkers. However, with Prime Minister Modi's visit to the country, there is now a ray of hope for our trapped countrymen in the Russian army", he said. Several Indians were allegedly duped into fighting in Russia's war with Ukraine on the pretext of lucrative jobs. In April, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), had busted a major human trafficking network running across the country targeting Indian nationals on the promise of offering lucrative jobs abroad but allegedly sending them to the Russia-Ukraine war zone. The CBI stated that these traffickers have been operating as an organized network and were luring Indian nationals through social media channels like YouTube, etc., and also through their local contacts and agents for highly paid jobs in Russia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was on an official visit to Russia and Austria held a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. Calling peace "most important" for future generations, PM Modi said that there is no solution on the battlefield and added that peace talks do not succeed amid bombs, guns, and bullets. During his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, PM Modi said, "As a friend, I have always said that for the bright future of our coming generations, peace is of utmost importance. But I also know that solutions are not possible on battlegrounds. Amid bombs, guns, and bullets, solutions and peace talks do not succeed. We will have to follow the path to peace only through talks." It is PM Modi's first visit to Russia since the war started between Moscow and Kyiv in 2022. India has always advocated "peace and diplomacy" for resolving conflict between India and Russia. (ANI) Congress President Malkarjun Kharge took to social media platform X to express his grief on the tragic incident that occurred on the Lucknow-Agra expressway and posted "The news of the death of 18 people in a tragic road accident on the Lucknow-Agra expressway, Unnao is extremely sad." Further, he said "We express our deepest condolences to the bereaved families of the victims. We wish a speedy recovery to all those injured in the accident. The administration is requested not to leave any stone unturned in helping the victims. There is an appeal to all the workers of the INDIA party to provide all possible help to the victims." 18 people lost their lives and more than 19 were injured when a double-decker sleeper bus rammed into a milk container on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao district in Uttar Pradesh today. The incident occurred at 5:15 a.m. today. The injured people have been brought to the CHC Hospital, Unnao. Speaking about the incident Unnano DM Gaurang Rathi said "Today at around 5:15 AM, a private bus coming from Motihari, Bihar collided with a milk tanker. 18 people have lost their lives and 19 others have been injured in the accident. After initial investigation, it looks like the bus was overspeeding. The injured are getting treatment." Speaking about the incident, Uttar Pradesh Deputy CM Brajesh Pathak also said "18 people have lost their lives while 19 have been injured. Injured are being shifted to higher-level hospitals. All hospitals near Unnao are being put on alert. The trauma centre of KGMO is also on alert. I have come and seen all the arrangements. Most of the injured people are from Bihar, and we are in contact with the Bihar government. Reasons for the accident will come after investigation, our priority is to provide proper treatment to the injured people." Upon receiving information about the incident, the police force led by Circle Officer of Bangarmau, Arvind Chaurasia, reported to the spot and began the rescue operations. (ANI) 100 live turtles were confiscated by the Uttar Pradesh Police after they nabbed a smuggler who deals in the smuggling of turtles and other extinct species on Tuesday. Bheem (38), who resided in the Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh, was arrested by the police from Geeta Colony yesterday afternoon after he was identified as a suspected smuggler by an informer. Police confiscated a total of 100 live turtles, which include 50 Indian-roofed turtles, 45 black-spotted pond turtles, three Indian Eye Turtles (Schedule-I) and two Indian soft shield turtles (Schedule-I). On Tuesday, the police at Geeta Colony Police Station received secret information regarding the arrival of a smuggler of banned turtles in that area. After verifying the information, at about 1:15 pm, a person was noticed coming on a scooty carrying a big bag from Shakarpur. The informer identified the scooty driver as the suspect smuggler and at that instance, the suspect was apprehended. Upon searching the bag, the police found several live turtles. On inquiry, the accused could not give any satisfactory answer regarding the possession of such turtles and bearing the sensitivity of the matter, the accused with the bag containing turtles was brought to the police station. On being thoroughly checked, a total of 100 live turtles were recovered from the bag and a case under the Wild Life Protection Act and 11(A) Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act was registered at Geeta Colony Police Station. The information was later also passed on to the officials of the Wildlife Department. Upon further interrogation, the accessed Bheem disclosed that he, along with his associate, Ravi Bhatnagar, have been smuggling turtles and other extinct species as per the demand of customers for a long time. As per his disclosure, Bheem procures the species of turtle from the Ganga River stretched in the Garhmukteshwar area called Garh Ganga and from the subsidiary rivers. He further disclosed that recently a case was registered against his associate Ravi Bhatnagar regarding the smuggling of turtles at the Nandgram Police Station in Ghaziabad. The search for co-associate Ravi is also going on. (ANI) After a double-decker bus rammed into a milk tanker claiming 18 lives in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district, President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday expressed grief over the incident, terming it 'extremely sad'. "The news of the death of many people in a road accident on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh is extremely sad", an official statement from the Rashtrapati Bhavan said in a post on 'X'. https://x.com/rashtrapatibhvn/status/1810885736276660245 The President further expressed her condolences to the family of the deceased in the tragic accident. "I express my deepest condolences to the family members of those who have become victims of such sudden death and wish for the speedy recovery of those injured", the statement mentioned. As many as eighteen people lost their lives and more than 30 were injured when a double-decker sleeper bus rammed into a milk container on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Unnao district, Uttar Pradesh. The incident occurred at 5:15 am. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed his condolences to the families of the deceased and instructed the district administration to ensure the injured receive proper treatment. He also wished for their speedy recovery. On X, CM Adityanath said, "The loss of life in a road accident in Unnao district is extremely sad and heart-wrenching. My condolences are with the bereaved families. District administration officials have been instructed to reach the spot and speed up the relief work. I pray to Lord Shri Ram to give a place to the departed souls and provide a speedy recovery to the injured." The double-decker sleeper bus was travelling from Motihari, Bihar, to Delhi when it hit the milk tanker from behind on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway near Gadha Village in the Behtamujawar Police Station area. Upon receiving information about the incident, police led by Circle Officer of Bangarmau, Arvind Chaurasia, rushed to the spot and began rescue operations. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak also reached the hospital in Unnao to meet the injured. The Deputy CM assured proper treatment to the injured. "...18 people have lost their lives while several are injured and have been sent to Unnao district hospital. Injured are being shifted to higher-level hospitals. All hospitals nearer to Unnao are being put on alert," Deputy CM Pathak told ANI. He further said that most injured people are from Bihar and that the UP government is in contact with its Bihar counterpart. "The trauma centre of KGMO is on alert, I have come and seen all the arrangements. Most of the injured people are from Bihar, and we are in contact with the Bihar govt. Reasons for the accident will come after investigation, our priority is to provide proper treatment to the injured people," Brajesh Pathak stated. (ANI) Islamic militants affiliated to ISIS killed 639 Christians in the Democratic Republic of Congo between January and June, 2024. This is according to a report released by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a US-based monitoring and analysis organization. The report revealed that out of the five African countries - DRC, Mozambique, Nigeria, Cameroon and Mali, 92% of the Christians fatalities happened in the DRC. The report, which was produced by MEMRIs Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM), indicated that Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) claimed responsibility for either beheading or shooting 698 Christians in the five countries. In Mozambique and Nigeria, jihadists claimed to have killed 29 and 23 Christians respectively during the first-half of the year while 3 Christians lost their lives in Cameroon and 4 in Mali. An additional 50 Christians in DRC were kidnapped in the first 6 months of 2024 while 93 Christian homes were torched. In Mozambique, ISIS claimed to have burned hundreds of Christian homes, churches and schools. Matt Schierer, research fellow at MEMRI JTTM project, said the jihadists routinely publish photos and videos documenting attacks in an effort to further terrorize the countrys Christian community. He added that the nature of the executions claimed by ISCAP is also distinct compared to other IS affiliates in Nigeria, Mali and Cameroon, but has similarities with the Islamic State Mozambique Province group. Over half of the total deaths in DRC were as a result of beheading. In one horrific attack on June 7, ISCAP claimed responsibility for the beheading of 60 Christians in Masala villages within North Kivu province. Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up All attacks occurred in the DRCs northeastern provinces of North-Kivu and Ituri, which border Uganda. Fatalities also rose sharply toward the end of the timeframe, with ISCAP claiming to have killed 300 Christians in June alone, said Schierer. It was also at the end of June that two aid workers from Christian charity organization Tearfund were killed in North Kivu. In a statement, Tearfund said the aid workers were traveling in a convoy that had arrived in Butembo from Lubero when they were attacked. It was unclear at this time whether the attack was carried out by the same groups. Tearfund unequivocally condemns this horrific attack on humanitarian aid staff who were working selflessly to serve the people of the DRC. Our priority now is to provide support to the families of our deceased colleagues during this incredibly difficult time. We are also working closely with the local authorities to ensure the safety and security of our remaining staff in the country, said Tearfund in a statement. Several armed groups such as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and the March 23 Movement (M23) have continued to make inroads in the eastern parts of DRC especially in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces. This has emboldened jihadists groups to attack Christians and burn churches contributing to the deteriorating state of security in eastern DRC. A 2023 BBC Monitoring analysis of content published by ISIS revealed that ISCAP significantly increased the number of attacks on Christians in DRC by 57% compared to the previous half of 2022, an indication of the growing threats to Christians. Abdirahim Saeed, BBC Monitoring Jihadist Media Specialist, reported that the intensity of the attacks had shifted from Mozambique to DRC. The drop in IS attacks against Christians in Mozambique in 2023 does not necessarily mean the group is less interested in such targets, but is reflective of a major decline in the groups activity in the country, said Saeed. Citing local media and analysts, Saeed said the attacks on Christians had intensified due to the involvement of ADF, which aligned itself to IS and has been reported to be involved in some of the attacks in North Kivu and Ituri. Open Doors, a non-profit organization that monitors Christian persecution, warned that the situation in DRC continues to be extremely violent and volatile for believers. Church leaders who speak out against the violence are at risk of being targeted, making it difficult to raise their voices against the atrocities. The violence has led to a massive displacement crisis in the DRC, and many believers are among the displaced, said Open Doors in its 2024 World Watch List assessment. On July 8, UN special envoy Bintou Keita expressed hope that a 2-week humanitarian cease-fire in eastern Congo would be respected by DRC forces and the armed groups led by M23, in a conflict that threatens to pull in neighbors Uganda and Rwanda - who have been supporting the armed groups, according to the UN and the US. 100 live turtles were confiscated by the Uttar Pradesh Police after they nabbed a smuggler who deals in the smuggling of turtles and other banned species on Tuesday. Bheem (38), who resided in the Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh, was arrested by the police from Geeta Colony yesterday afternoon after he was identified as a suspected smuggler by an informer. Police confiscated a total of 100 live turtles, which include 50 Indian-roofed turtles, 45 black-spotted pond turtles, three Indian Eye Turtles (Schedule-I) and two Indian soft shield turtles (Schedule-I). On Tuesday, the police at Geeta Colony Police Station received secret information regarding the arrival of a smuggler of banned turtles in that area. After verifying the information, at about 1:15 pm, a person was noticed coming on a scooty carrying a big bag from Shakarpur. The informer identified the scooty driver as the suspect smuggler and at that instance, the suspect was apprehended. Upon searching the bag, the police found several live turtles. On inquiry, the accused could not give any satisfactory answer regarding the possession of such turtles and bearing the sensitivity of the matter, the accused with the bag containing turtles was brought to the police station. On being thoroughly checked, a total of 100 live turtles were recovered from the bag and a case under the Wild Life Protection Act and 11(A) Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act was registered at Geeta Colony Police Station. The information was later also passed on to the officials of the Wildlife Department. Upon further interrogation, the accessed Bheem disclosed that he, along with his associate, Ravi Bhatnagar, have been smuggling turtles and other banned species as per the demand of customers for a long time. As per his disclosure, Bheem procures the species of turtle from the Ganga River stretched in the Garhmukteshwar area called Garh Ganga and from the subsidiary rivers. He further disclosed that recently a case was registered against his associate Ravi Bhatnagar regarding the smuggling of turtles at the Nandgram Police Station in Ghaziabad. The search for co-associate Ravi is also going on. (ANI) Security forces are conducting a search operation in the Kathua and Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir days after five Army soldiers were killed in an ambush by terrorists on July 8. Five Army soldiers lost their lives and as many as were injured in an ambush by terrorists in Kathua district on July 8. The attack occurred on the Machedi-KindliMalhar road in a remote area, approximately 150 km from Kathua town, at around 3.30 pm on Monday. The attack is believed to be the latest in a series of terrorist incidents in the region, which have been attributed to attempts by Pakistan to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere in Jammu and Kashmir. The region where the ambush took place is part of the old infiltration route along the international border, which the attackers appear to have reactivated. The area is primarily monitored by the BSF and falls under the jurisdiction of the 9 Corps of the Army, under the Western Command. The army personnel who lost their lives in the attack belonged to Uttarakhand. They are Rifleman Anuj Negi from Pauri, Nayab Subedar Anand Singh Rawat from Rudraprayag, Naik Vinod Singh from Tehri, Kamal Singh from Pauri and Adarsh Negi from Tehri. The attack took place when a group of heavily armed terrorists ambushed the patrolling party of the Army in the Badnota area in Kathua. This incident comes on the heels of several other terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, including a recent attack in Reasi area on a bus carrying pilgrims to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine on June 9, which left nine people dead and 33 injured. The NIA has been investigating these incidents and has identified several suspects. The region has seen a surge in terrorist activity in recent months, with several attacks on security forces and civilians. (ANI) Jammu and Kashmir Police, SP-SOG, Guru Ram Bhardwaj emphasised that regular search operations are conducted by security forces following a terror attack to monitor the situation and ensure safety in the area. Security forces are conducting a search operation in the Kathua and Samba districts of Jammu and Kashmir days after five Army soldiers were killed in an ambush by terrorists on July 8. Giving details about the necessity of search operations, Bhardwaj told ANI, "This is a routine search operation and aerial domination exercise... Whenever such incidents (terrorist attacks) happen, it becomes obvious for us to ensure the safety of the area that falls under our jurisdiction..." Highlighting that the Monday Kathua terror attack took place near the border area, he said, "Joint exercises are regular and since the area is close to the border, regular search operations and keeping an eye on the activities in the area becomes a necessity..." Five Army soldiers lost their lives and as many as were injured in an ambush by terrorists in Kathua district on July 8. The attack occurred on the Machedi-KindliMalhar road in a remote area, approximately 150 km from Kathua town, at around 3.30 pm on Monday. The attack is believed to be the latest in a series of terrorist incidents in the region, which have been attributed to attempts by Pakistan to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere in Jammu and Kashmir. The region where the ambush took place is part of the old infiltration route along the international border, which the attackers appear to have reactivated. The area is primarily monitored by the BSF and falls under the jurisdiction of the 9 Corps of the Army, under the Western Command. The attack took place when a group of heavily armed terrorists ambushed the patrolling party of the Army in the Badnota area in Kathua. (ANI) Manas Kumar Ghosh, the BJP candidate from the Raiganj assembly seat, alleged that the ruling TMC had tried to create disturbances in some booths in the constituency during the voting for the by-polls, which started at 7 am and concludes at 6 pm on Wednesday. "Voting is going on smoothly. We want voting to take place peacefully and everyone should be able to cast their vote. TMC tried to create disturbances at 2-4 booths but we opposed them and voting is going on peacefully," Ghosh told ANI. The by-election in the Raiganj assembly constituency is necessitated because of the resignation of Krishna Kalyani as MLA, who won the 2021 election but later left the BJP and switched to the TMC. Krishna Kalyani is the TMC candidate from the Raiganj assembly seat in the by-election. Along with Raiganj, other assembly constituencies in the state that went to the poll in the by-polls on Wednesday are Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda, and Maniktala. Ranaghat Dakshin BJP candidate Manoj Kumar Biswas on Wednesday also accused the ruling TMC of creating a chaotic situation to prevent voters from exercising their franchise freely. "Ranaghat Dakshin is the BJP's area. It has been proven again and again. There is tremendous enthusiasm among the voters. I am confident that in this election, voters will again make us win but the fact is that TMC, supported by the administration with criminal personnel, is trying to create a chaotic situation so that no voter comes to the voting centre," Biswas told ANI. "They are threatening our voters and workers. A free and fair election is not possible in West Bengal because the government does not want it," he added. Bypolls in Ranaghat, Dakshin, Raiganj and Bagda are necessitated because the BJP MLAs who won these constituencies in the 2021 election switched to the TMC. The TMC won the Maniktala seat in the 2021 election, however, the sitting TMC MLA, Sadhan Pandey, died in February 2022, necessitating the election. Mukut Mani Adhikari, whose resignation as MLA necessitated the election, is the TMC candidate in the Ranaghat Dakshin constituency. For both the BJP and TMC, these by-polls are seen as high-stakes elections. The TMC wants to carry on the momentum of its better performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, while for the BJP, repeating the win in Ranaghat, Dakshin, Raiganj and Bagda is seen as prestigious. The TMC won 29 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, up from 22 in the 2019 parliamentary polls. On the other hand, the BJP's tally came down to 12 from 18 in 2019. Other states where by-polls are being held today are Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh. In these seven states, 13 Assembly constituencies went to the polls today. The voting started at 7 am will conclude at 6 pm.Assembly by-polls are being held in West Bengal's Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda, and Maniktala; Badrinath and Manglaur in Uttarakhand; Jalandhar West in Punjab; Dehra, Hamirpur, and Nalagarh in Himachal Pradesh; Rupauli in Bihar; Vikravandi in Tamil Nadu; and Amarwara in Madhya Pradesh. (ANI) The Supreme Court on Wednesday held as maintainable the West Bengal government's suit challenging the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) undertaking an investigation into the cases in the State without its statutorily mandated prior consent. A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta said the Bengal government's suit on the CBI probing cases despite the withdrawal of consent by the state shall proceed by law on its own merits. The apex court rejected preliminary objections of the Union government on the maintainability of the suit. The bench observed that West Bengal's suit raised a legal issue as to whether after general consent is revoked by a State, the CBI could register and investigate cases in violation of Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act. It has now said the hearing of the suit will take place on August 13 for framing of issues. West Bengal approaching the apex court had contended that such a situation where CBI investigating the cases without the State's consent would be in derogation of the federal nature of the Centre-State relationship under the Indian constitution. The Central government on the other hand had questioned the maintainability of the West Bengal government's suit in which it has made the Central government a respondent and not the CBI. Centre had said that CBI is an independent body and is not under the control of the Union of India and opposed West Bengal's suit against the Centre over the CBI probes in the State. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Centre, had raised preliminary objections on a lawsuit filed by the West Bengal government on the CBI going ahead with its probe in several post-violence cases without the prerequisite nod from the State as per law. The West Bengal government had filed an original suit in the apex court against the Centre under Article 131 of the Constitution, alleging that the CBI has been filing FIRs and proceeding with its investigation, despite the State having withdrawn the general consent to the federal agency to investigate cases within its territorial jurisdiction. Article 131 empowers a State to move the Supreme Court directly in case of a dispute with the Centre or any other State. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing West Bengal, had said that the CBI cannot probe cases concerning West Bengal without the State government's general consent. He had contended that the CBI cannot be viewed as an independent "statutory" authority. On November 16, 2018, the West Bengal government withdrew the "general consent" accorded to the CBI to conduct probe and raids in the State. The West Bengal government in its suit while referring to provisions of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946 said that the CBI has been proceeding with the investigation and filing FIRs without getting consent from the State government as mandated under the statute. The State government had sought a stay of investigation in FIR by CBI in cases of post-poll violence in West Bengal in pursuance of the Calcutta High Court order. It had said that as the general consent given to the central agency by the Trinamool Congress government (TMC) has been withdrawn, the FIRs lodged cannot be proceeded with. Earlier, the Centre had told the top court that it has nothing to do with the post-poll violence cases registered by the CBI in West Bengal and the lawsuit filed by the State government in which the Union of India is made a party is not maintainable. The Centre had stated that CBI being an autonomous body set up under the special Act of Parliament is the agency that is registering and investigating cases and the Centre had no role in it.In its affidavit, the Centre had stated that West Bengal's power to withhold consent to the CBI is not absolute and the probe agency is entitled to carry out investigations that are being carried out against Central government employees or have a pan-India impact. (ANI) Union Minister of State for Tourism, Suresh Gopi, has said that spiritual and adventure tourism will be in its newest shape in the coming days. He said this after chairing a review meeting with Tripura tourism department officials. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while giving interviews to two Malayalam channels, focused on two main modules. He said that India tourism means Kerala. By this, he tried to say that the substance of Kerala tourism or the elements involved in it are the factors that he is looking up to. That is an indicator for me. I think all these elements should be exercised by the whole country for better results in the field of tourism. And also, spiritual tourism and adventure tourism will be implemented in the newest shape," Gopi told reporters. On the ongoing projects, he said, "There are projects that are under progress that need enhanced allocations. I will take up with the cabinet chief and I hope all these things will be taken care of." When asked about the new plans, he said, "Discussions took place on many excellent ideas but to get those ideas implemented in reality may take time. Because it has to go to the cabinet, and only after approval could these thoughts be institutionalised." Tripura Tourism Minister Sushanta Chowdhury, who attended the meeting, said, "We had a very detailed discussion on the ongoing projects in the presence of the Director of Tourism and Secretary of the departments and other higher officials." (ANI) A survivor of the accident on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway, in which 18 people were killed after a bus collided with a milk container early Wednesday morning, said that passengers who were asleep in the bus originating from Bihar's Shivhar district were awakened by loud commotion in the crash. The mishap occurred this morning at 5.15 am on the Expressway near Gadha Village in the Behtamujawar Police Station area. The survivor, a woman identified as Raushan who was travelling to Delhi on the 'Namaste Bihar' bus with her daughter said they were jolted awake by a sudden sound that seemed like a storm or a hurricane. "We were both asleep when suddenly we heard a commotion as if there was a aandhi (storm) and toofan (hurricane). Somehow, my daughter and I managed to get out of the vehicle with someone's help. We live in Delhi for employment... Our luggage and my phone are still on the bus. ...We didn't expect that we'd have to travel on a bus which was in bad condition." According to the official report, the bus was carrying a total of 57 passengers. While 18 people succumbed to their injuries, 19 passengers sustained injuries and the remaining 20 who were safe were sent to Delhi in other vehicles. Unnao District Magistrate Gaurang Rathi said, "About 57 passengers were travelling in a private bus which was going to Delhi. 18 people died and 19 others were injured after the bus collided with a milk container at 5:15 am. About 20 people were safe, and they are being sent to Delhi. We have referred six people to the Trauma Centre, the rest will be treated at the district hospital. We have adequate arrangements for treatment and we will take all necessary action as soon as possible." Arvind Chaurasia the Circle Officer of Bangarmau in Unnao said that the 'Namaste Bihar' bus plies from Shivhar district of Bihar. He said that the District Magistrate had provided instructions to the Regional Transport Office and an FIR has been lodged in this case. "This is an unfortunate incident. A bus named 'Namaste Bihar' that runs from the Shivhar district of Bihar collided with a milk container due to which 18 people died and 19 people were injured. The other 22 safe people are being sent to Delhi by another bus. DM has taken cognizance of the matter and has given instructions to RTO, FIR is being lodged in the case..." Chaurasia said. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath condoled the deaths in the accident and has instructed the district administration to immediately take the injured to the hospital and provide them with proper treatment. He also wished the injured speedy recovery. Taking to X, Adityanath said, "The loss of life in a road accident in Unnao district is extremely sad and heart-wrenching. My condolences are with the bereaved family. District administration officials have been instructed to reach the spot and speed up the relief work. I pray to Lord Shri Ram to give a place to the departed souls in his feet and provide speedy recovery to the injured." Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed his grief over this incident. "The road accident in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh is extremely painful. My condolences to those who have lost their loved ones in this. May God give them strength in this difficult time. Along with this, I wish for the speedy recovery of the injured. Under the supervision of the state government, the local administration is engaged in helping the victims in every possible way," he said on X. PM Modi further announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh from the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund for the next of kin of each deceased in the accident and Rs 50,000 to the injured. (ANI) Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and MP Sanjay Raut said that efforts to save the accused in the Worli hit-and-run case had started from day one. Raut was speaking after the arrest of the main accused Mihir Shah whose father was associated with the Palghar unit of the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena. Speaking to ANI, Sanjay Raut said, "Efforts are being made by the government to save the accused. This is not an ordinary case of hit-and-run; it is a similar case to what happened in Pune." Sanjay Raut demanded that the police check the criminal record of accused Mihir's father, Rajesh Shah, who is also a leader in the Shinde faction of Shiv Sena. He further claimed that Rajesh Shah was also related to the underworld gang and also questioned how he became a special man for the Chief Minister. "You can check the criminal records of the father of the accused... The Mumbai Police will now have to investigate his association with an underworld gang and how is he able to afford his properties and such fancy cars. How did he become a close aide to the CM? Also needs to be exposed," he said. Sanjay Raut has also demanded the Commissioner of Mumbai Police bring before the people the records of the father of the accused, who was arrested in this case. He further said that the accused was under the influence of drugs, and to avoid it coming into the medical records, he was hidden for three days. "The accused was under the influence of drugs, and to avoid this from coming into his medical records, he was hidden somewhere for three days," Raut said. Sanjay Raut also raised questions on the handling of the case by the Mumbai Police. He further stated that these people who have repeatedly crushed an innocent woman while intoxicated should never be released from jail and if anyone tries to release them, the people should ask the police for answers. "The way an innocent woman was crushed to death by him while intoxicated is inhuman. Such people should not be released from jail....," Raut said. On July 7, Mihir Shah (23), the son of political leader Rajesh Shah, allegedly hit a bike on Dr Annie Besant Road in Worli, which resulted in the death of 45-year-old woman Kaveri Nakhwa. Mihir Shah was arrested in Virar on Tuesday. The police have also arrested Rajrishi Singh Bidawat and Mihir's father, Rajesh Shah, for their alleged involvement in the case. (ANI) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath extended his wishes to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the occasion of the latter's birthday on Wednesday. "Hearty congratulations to the popular politician, a senior member of the @BJP4India family, Honourable Defence Minister Shri Rajnath Singh ji on his birthday! May you be blessed with good health, and a long and glorious life by the grace of Lord Shri Ram, this is my prayer," the Chief Minister posted on X. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also wished Rajnath Singh on the occasion of his birthday. The PM said the Defence Minister was at the forefront of strengthening India's defence apparatus. "Best wishes to Shri @rajnathsinghJi on his birthday. A valued Cabinet colleague, he's a leader widely respected for his wisdom. He's risen in public life based on hard work and commitment to service. He is at the forefront of strengthening India's defence apparatus and making our nation self-reliant in the sector. Praying for his long and healthy life," PM Modi wrote on X. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh replied to the Prime Minister thanking him for his wishes and said that India had made tremendous progress under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Pradhanmantriji, I'm deeply grateful for your kind words. India has made tremendous progress under your able leadership. Your vision for #AtmaNirbharBharat is an inspiration to India's defence sector. I'm confident that your goal for self-reliance in Defence will be achieved by the collective will of this Great Nation," Rajnath Singh posted on x. Union Home Minister Amit Shah also extended birthday wishes to Rajnath Singh. "Heartiest birthday wishes to Union Defence Minister and senior BJP leader Shri @rajnathsinghji. Your role in strengthening the BJP's organisation and in strengthening the country's security and army under the leadership of Modi ji is remarkable. I pray to God for your good health and long life," Amit Shah posted on X. A Member of Parliament from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, Rajnath Singh, had taken up the responsibility to head the Ministry of Defence for the first time on June 1, 2019. Born on July 10, 1951, in the Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh, Singh pursued a Master's in Physics from the University of Gorakhpur and was a teacher by profession. He served as a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly in 1977-1980 and 2001-2003. He was Minister of Education in the government of Uttar Pradesh from 1991 to 1992, while also serving as Minister of Surface Transport in the Union Cabinet from 1999 to 2000. Later, he was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2000-2002. In 2003, he served as Minister of Agriculture in the Union Cabinet. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha for two terms in 1994-1999 and again in 2003-2008. In 2009, he was elected to the 15th Lok Sabha. He also served as a member of the Committee on Ethics on October 7, 2009.Rajnath Singh was inducted into the Union Cabinet in the first term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 27, 2014, as the Minister of Home Affairs. He is married to Savitri Singh and they have two sons. (ANI) The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to Bhavani Revanna, mother of Prajwal Revanna, over the Karnataka SIT plea against a High Court order granting anticipatory bail to her in connection with the abduction case. However, SC remarked, "Let us not politicise the matter." A bench of justices, Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan, issued notice to Bhavani Revanna. However, the court said to leave aside the political reasons, as it noted the reasons given by the High Court in its order. The court also noted the serious allegations against her son, who ran away and was eventually caught. Thereafter, the court asked, in such kinds of allegations, what kind of role the mother played in abetting the crime committed by her son. The court also said that there is only a limited point as to whether the High Court is justified in protecting her against arrest. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Karnataka State, said that the victim was kept in captivity under the family's direction and that she is the one who directed the captivity. Karnataka SIT has moved a petition through advocate-on-record VN Raghupathy challenging the High Court order granting anticipatory bail to Bhavani Revanna, mother of suspended JD(S) leader Prajwal Revanna, in connection with the abduction case. The bail has been granted to her on the condition that she is not allowed to enter Mysuru and Hassan. HC said that when she has already answered 85 questions, it's not fair to say that she's not cooperating with all of the questions asked by the SIT. (ANI) Busy 'summer diplomacy' season in China highlights openness, cooperation Global Times) 11:22, July 10, 2024 This photo shows the Great Hall of the People nestled within architectural clusters in Beijing, capital of China. Photo: Xinhua This week, China is experiencing a busy "summer diplomacy" season, with seven foreign dignitaries from Africa, Europe, Pacific Island countries, and Asia visiting China one after another. This reflects China's stance on opening up to the world and the tangible benefits that practical cooperation brings to the Global South countries. Under the US pressure, some developing countries continue to choose to strengthen ties with China, demonstrating their commitment to independence and resistance to hegemony, some experts said. A flurry of visitors was mainly from developing countries, who all share close development cooperation with China, particularly under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, experts noted. And cooperation with China has significantly promoted the development and modernization processes in these countries. Therefore, these countries have shown a strong affinity for China's proactive diplomacy, they said. Despite US' interference, these countries have come to realize, through their own actions and experiences, the disruptive and insincere nature of US policies. These countries have also recognized China's genuine contributions to the Global South. President Umaro Sissoco Embalo of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Minister of Foreign Affairs Maris Sangiampongsa of Thailand, Foreign Minister Maksim Ryzhenkov of Belarus, Prime Minister Charlot Salwai of the Republic of Vanuatu, Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele of Solomon Islands and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of the People's Republic of Bangladesh were scheduled to visit China this week, according to China's Foreign Ministry. Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary paid a flying visit to China on Monday. Mutually beneficial ties When Chinese Vice President Han Zheng met with Minister of Foreign Affairs Maris Sangiampongsa of Thailand on Tuesday, he said that China is ready to work with Thailand to follow the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, strengthen high-level exchanges, deepen practical cooperation, enhance people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and promote regional cooperation. China is also willing to join hands with Thailand to advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and promote the building of a China-Thailand community with a shared future, said Han. Bangladeshi PM Hasina attended a business forum on Tuesday in Beijing after arriving in the Chinese capital on Monday. She called the Chinese business community to invest in Bangladesh in sectors such as infrastructure, energy and logistics, Bangladeshi media The Daily Star reported on Tuesday. When introducing Hasina's visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in an earlier press conference that the visit marks her first visit to China since her new term began and five years after her last visit to China. China and Bangladesh are good neighbors, good friends and good partners. We have similar visions for development and well-aligned development strategies, Mao said. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations 49 years ago, the two countries have treated each other with respect and equality, engaged in mutually beneficial cooperation, supported each other on issues concerning our respective core interests, and jointly advanced modernization. "We have set a good example of friendship and cooperation between developing countries," the spokesperson noted. "China is engaging closely with countries that have different social systems, cultural backgrounds, histories, and levels of development. This demonstrates that even with different systems, China can build strong connections and establish an open partnership," Yang Xiyu, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times on Tuesday. "It also reflects a major characteristic of Chinese diplomacy: strengthening bilateral diplomacy while using various bilateral platforms to advance global openness and inclusiveness," Yang said. In a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday, Foreign Minister of Belarus Maksim Ryzhenkov said Belarus greatly appreciates and will continue to participate deeply in the series of global initiatives proposed by China, and adhere to the practice of multilateralism to jointly address global challenges. Also, some experts anticipated that the visits of the leaders from Vanuatu and Solomon Islands will further strengthen the relations between China and the Pacific Island countries (PICs) to a higher level, as there is still great potential for further cooperation. "China's cooperation with Global South countries is based on practical and effective outcomes, not just verbal commitments," Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Tuesday. China's diplomacy is multifaceted and covers all regions, and the scope of China's diplomatic engagement is extensive, covering a wide range of fields, Li said. He noted that although some developing countries have been disturbed by the US policies when they cooperate with China, they have recognized tangible results through mutually beneficial cooperation. The US has been increasing pressure on the PICs by citing the so-called growing influence of China in the region. In March, for example, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the US had already opened two of the four new embassies it had announced plans for in the region, Reuters reported. Earlier in the hearing, the ranking member of the Senate committee, Republican James Risch, said Washington had "been too slow to get our diplomats permanently on the ground to push back against Chinese influence" in the Pacific, the media report said. Despite the pressure exerted by the US on these developing countries in the South Pacific Ocean, urging them to take sides based on geopolitical and Cold War mentality, China's cooperation with these countries has brought them tangible development results, which are evident to all, Song Wei, a professor at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times on Tuesday. "From the perspective of their own development strategies, these countries have chosen to continue strengthening their development cooperation with China, sharing the opportunities brought about by China's rapid development and learning from China's development experience," Song said. In commenting on Orban's visit to Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a routine press conference on Tuesday that China appreciates Hungary's constructive efforts to promote a political solution to the Ukraine crisis. China will continue to promote peace and negotiations in its own way, playing a constructive role in seeking a political resolution to the crisis, Lin said. Sharp contrast While China is hosting these foreign dignitaries from developing countries this week, the US is using the 2024 NATO summit to hype up the "threats" posed by Russia and by China, stepping up efforts in forming small cliques in the "Indo-Pacific" region. Some experts said Beijing's aspiration of establishing open partnership relations strikes a sharp contrast with the Washington-led bloc confrontation that creates division, turmoil and conflict around the world. NATO is set to deepen relations with its four "Indo-Pacific" partners, and the US has been working to break down barriers between European alliances, Asian coalitions and other partners worldwide, the AP reported on Monday. "Our diplomatic activities demonstrate that we oppose bloc confrontations. We hope to and are working toward practicing the principle of sovereign equality of all countries globally, avoiding the mind-set of handling international relations through hostile camps," Li said. NATO, on the other hand, is a military alliance that maintains US hegemony and supports the West's dominant role in global affairs, which is an exclusive alliance with specific enemies and clear objectives, Li noted. "China's diplomatic philosophy and practices are fundamentally different from those of NATO." While NATO creates division, turmoil, conflict, and war in the world, China aims to bring lasting stability, prosperity, security, indivisibility, and ultimately the goal of a community with a shared future for mankind, Li said. (Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun) A widening split could affect the Church of England (C of E) following opposition by evangelicals to the General Synod approving the prospect of trialing a standalone blessing service for homosexual couples. On Monday, the General Synod, the governing body for Anglican churches, met in the city of York, England, to debate progress made since February on the Living in Love and Faith initiative by the Bishop of Leicrester, the Rt Rev. Martyn Snow. Clergy are currently allowed to bless gay couples marriages in regular C of E services. Yet a motion at the debate passed to remove restrictions on using Prayers of Love and Faith at standalone services for same-sex couples. The initiative also caters for pastoral reassurance to support clergy not wanting to take part in such services. Proposals for the initiative, narrowly approved by both the House of Clergy and House of Laity, also include enabling further conversations on whether to remove current restrictions on clergy being in same-sex marriages for decision by the House of Bishops in early Jan. 2025 and to be presented at the Feb. 2025 General Synod. At the moment, the proposals are in outline form and will require constructive and wide engagement as they are developed in detail. A paper for the initiative opined the overall aim as being to articulate how we can remain in unity despite our differences. Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up However, an influential group of evangelical clergy known as The Alliance, including the Rev. John Coles, from the New Wine church network, the Rev. Nicky Gumbel, leader of the Alpha course, the Rev. Archie Coates, vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, and Ade Adebajo, chair of Lambeth partners, wrote to the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the College of Bishops, to vocalize their concerns. In a letter dated June 26, The Alliance said a Parallel Province faithful to biblical teaching on relationships would be set up if the General Synod went ahead with blessing the same-sex standalone services. The signatories believed it is a matter of deep regret that the General Synod had allegedly reneged on following correct legal processes requiring a two-third majority votes in both houses for a change of liturgy. If the further departure from the churchs doctrine suggested by the Synod papers does go ahead, we will have no choice but rapidly to establish what would in effect be a new de facto parallel Province within the Church of England and to seek pastoral oversight from bishops who remain faithful to orthodox teaching on marriage and sexuality, said The Alliance, in the letter. We will encourage all church leaders who are in sympathy with The Alliance to join the parallel Province, added the evangelical leaders. The Alliance expressed concern about the proposals evoking Western elitism by ignoring the views of the Global south and unlawfulness by failing to follow the canons of the Church of England which are designed to preserve unity. Signatories vowed to take action with immediate effect to open up a new channel of ordination for trainee priests, overseen by Orthodox bishops, to reverse the decline caused in part by this unconstitutional and unorthodox process. However, The Alliance insisted that its supporters were not leaving the Church of England or Anglican Communion. We wish to stay loyal to the one holy catholic and apostolic church throughout the world rather than be part of a schismatic move which departs from the teaching received and upheld not only by the vast majority of the Anglican Communion (representing around 75% of the Anglican Communions 80 million members), the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches but also the vast majority of other churches around the world. The new Province will seek to cooperate with the other orthodox Provinces within the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rev. Justin Welby, spoke at the General Synod meeting, which he said is about salvation. He also said he cannot imagine the Church of England without the members listed in the Alliance Network. Under God, I owe that tradition my salvation, he added, referring to his own conversion at Holy Trinity Brompton in London. Welby then said as the years went by he found churches drawing people to salvation by engaging with unjust structures and practicing reconciliation. That is one reason, one of many, why I cannot imagine the Church of England without the Together network, members and friends as well as the Alliance. They all deepened my love for God. That they all flourish is indispensable to the gospel in this land. The Together network is a group of C of E churches prioritizing diversity and social action. Welby said a final decision on same-sex blessings was nowhere near and the next step in the process was detailed work, to bring different traditions and views and theological and doctrinal understanding to a place so that all may flourish. Sanjay Kumar Jha, the newly appointed working president of Janata Dal-United (JDU), affirmed that the Bihar assembly polls in 2025 would be fought under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. In an interview with ANI, Jha said, "Nitishji is completely healthy. He managed the whole Lok Sabha election campaigns. There is no problem. We will contest the Bihar assembly polls under his leadership."' The JDU leader further said that whenever it feels that the downfall of CM Nitish Kumar has begun, he will surprise you with his excellent comeback. "Whenever it feels that the downfall of CM Nitish Kumar has begun, he will surprise you with his excellent comeback. The Lok Sabha polls were a message that people still have faith in Nitish Kumarji", he said. Nitish Kumar, who switched back to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in January this year, has emerged as a 'kingmaker' having gained 12 seats in the Bihar Lok Sabha polls. Several other BJP leaders, meanwhile, have indicated that the state assembly polls in Bihar would be fought under Kumar's leadership and that he would not be 'sidelined' by the alliance. Speaking about the special status for Bihar, Sanjay Kumar Jha attacked the opposition saying that the latter never worked towards it while in power from 2004 to 2014. "The opposition, when in power under the Manmohan Singh government for 10 years, never raised the issue of special status to Bihar. As far as we are concerned, this is our demand. From the beginning, CM Nitish Kumar held such a big rally for this. If Bihar gets a little support in the future, then Bihar will also stand in the position of a developed state. We are demanding that special state status be given or if there is any issue, give us a special package. The purpose is that Bihar has to get help, politics should not be done on this", he said. Bihar leaders including CM Kumar himself have long advocated special status and special packages for Bihar from the central government, citing the state's economic and social backwardness. Earlier this month, the National Executive meeting of the JD(U) passed a resolution backing special status for Bihar. Meanwhile, JDU working president Jha also reacted to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Chief Lalu Yarav's remarks that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre, which came to power last month, could fall by August and elections can happen anytime. "Laluji says a lot of things. Even before the Lok Sabha polls, he claimed that the Modi government would not retain power but it did, and that too, with a huge majority. They dipped to four Lok Sabha seats. The people have Bihar have given a befitting reply to them", Sanjay Jha said. He further assured that the NDA government will run for the next five years under the leadership of PM Modi. "The NDA government will run for the next five years under the leadership of PM Modi. After Nehruji (former PM Jawahar Lal Nehru), Modiji formed a government for the third consecutive time. It is not an ordinary thing", he said. The JDU leader also took a jibe at former Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav over the issue of caste census, claiming that the public does not trust him. "The public's trust is not on Tejashwi Yadav's side, rather it is on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's side. No matter how much he goes to public meetings in a wheelchair, the public has told him whom they prefer to trust", he said. Sanjay Jha further said that the issue of caste census arose with CM Nitish Kumar speaking about it. "When did the issue of caste census arise? It is when Nitish Kumarji started speaking about it and working towards it. The BJP also supports it", he said. The opposition leaders of the INDIA bloc have been demanding a nationwide caste census, claiming that it would be conducive to 'economic justice'. (ANI) The Mukhya Mantri Samipeshu (MMS) programme, launched on April 12, 2023, has made significant strides in assisting citizens, according to recent data released by the Government of Tripura on Wednesday. According to recent data, the programme has handled a total of 29 initiatives and received 627 applications since its inception. The programme has been particularly successful in addressing financial assistance requests, with all 121 cases resolved and no pending applications. The programme also made substantial progress in medical referrals, with all 153 cases referred to the MS GBP Hospital and 61 cases referred to the Cancer Hospital being resolved. In terms of social welfare and pension cases, the programme referred 63 cases, resolving 58 of them, with only five cases still pending. Additionally, 229 cases were sent to other departments, with 227 of these resolved and just two pending. Overall, the MMS programme has demonstrated efficiency and promptness in addressing the needs of applicants, and the swift resolution of financial assistance and medical referrals highlights the government's commitment to providing timely aid. The programme has also managed to keep the number of pending cases minimal, showcasing an organised approach to handling applications. Tapas Roy, Secretary of Social Welfare and Social Education, said, "We provide a foster pension of Rs 4000 per month to the children who are not kept with family. We provide this up to 18 years of age or a maximum of 3 years. We also have financial assistance for medical patients of any age who come to Mukhya Mantri Samipeshu. We also provide financial assistance to children with poor financial backgrounds." Dr Sankar Chakraborty, MS, AGMC and GBP Hospital, said, " Mukhya Mantri Samipeshu has been started almost 1-1.5 years ago, in which people can directly meet with our CM, Dr Manik Saha and discuss their problems to get relief. In Mukhya Mantri Samipeshu, most of the applications are for medical assistance from the CM." Dr Shiramani Debbarma, MS, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Regional Cancer Institute, said, "Patients from far and wide come to Mukhya Mantri Samipeshu and receive benefits. We all sit together with the chief minister and listen to everyone's problems. We solve the problems of everyone who comes here and provide help. The Chief Minister attends Samipeshu once a week, and it has been observed that about 6-7 cancer patients come and receive benefits each time. Talking to the mother of a beneficiary named Rachana Saha, she said, "My daughter has been admitted to the cancer hospital for a long time, so I went to the Chief Minister and requested that to improve my daughter's chemotherapy treatment. My financial condition is not good, so I applied to get the chemotherapy on time. The medical superintendent assured me that everything will be facilitated and that the allowance I have deposited will be provided at the right time. The Chief Minister has assured me that everything will be done properly." Another beneficiary of the MMS programme, Prasenjit Das, said, "I am physically eighty per cent handicapped and suffer from elephantiasis lymphedema. I spoke to the Chief Minister at the Chief Minister Samipeshu event, and he assured me that he would arrange for my treatment at AIIMS hospital in Delhi free of charge, using his own funds. I am very thankful to our Chief Minister, who has taken full responsibility for my operation." (ANI) Former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister Raaj Kumar Anand on Wednesday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday here in the national capital and criticized the AAP Chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal saying that he had requested the former to work towards the welfare of Dalits, however, he denied his requests. He was welcomed into the party by BJP's Delhi president Virendra Sachdeva and national general secretary Arun Singh. "I am grateful to the BJP for giving me the opportunity to join the party. I am committed to working for the welfare of all, particularly the Dalit community, to which I belong", Anand said while addressing the media. Attacking the AAP Chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Anand said that he had requested the former to work towards the welfare of Dalits, however, he denied his requests. "It is my responsibility to give back to society. I had requested Mr Kejriwal to work towards Dalit welfare, but he consistently denied my requests, which led to my resignation from the ministerial post. Despite the allocation of funds for Dalit welfare through the SC/ST fund, crores of rupees have not been utilized for the benefit of Dalits in Delhi over the past nine years", he said. The former AAP leader further added that the Dalit community is questioning the whereabouts of their welfare funds. "The Dalit community is questioning the whereabouts of their welfare funds. Unfortunately, Mr Kejriwal ignored the Dalit community during the Trith Yatra Yojana. I am determined to work for the upliftment of Dalits and ensure that their rights are protected", he said. Veena Anand, Raaj Kumar Anand's wife, also joined the BJP among other leaders. Earlier in April, Anand resigned from AAP and as minister of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's cabinet, alleging corruption in the party. Later, he joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to contest the Lok Sabha polls. Anand faced raids by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) earlier in November last year in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam. Reportedly, around nine premises linked to Anand, including his official residence, were raided by the ED. Anand was elected to the Delhi assembly in 2020 and he represented the Patel Nagar assembly constituency. He held multiple portfolios in the Kejriwal cabinet, including Social Welfare, SC and ST, Gurudwara elections, and Registrar of Cooperative Societies. Before joining AAP, Anand was a businessman and was pictured beside Kejriwal in the Anna-Hazare-led movement against corruption in 2011. (ANI) Security forces intensified their search operations in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, a day after an encounter broke out between terrorists and security forces in the district. An encounter broke out between militants and security forces in the Sezan forest area of Jammu and Kashmir's Doda district on Tuesday evening, even as the Army, police and CRPF launched a search operation to track down militants involved in the attack on an Army convoy on July 8. Five soldiers lost their lives while eight soldiers sustained injuries when a group of heavily armed terrorists ambushed a patrolling party of the Army in Badnota area in Kathua on July 8. Jammu and Kashmir Police, SP-SOG, Guru Ram Bhardwaj said that regular search operations are being conducted by security forces in Kathua and Samba districts following the terror attack to monitor the situation and ensure safety in the area. Giving details about the necessity of search operations, Bhardwaj told ANI, "This is a routine search operation and aerial domination exercise... Whenever such incidents (terrorist attacks) happen, it becomes obvious for us to ensure the safety of the area that falls under our jurisdiction..." Noting that the July 8 terror attack took place near the border area, the police official said, "Joint exercises are regular and since the area is close to the border, regular search operations and keeping an eye on the activities in the area becomes a necessity..." The attack on the Machedi-KindliMalhar road in a remote area, approximately 150 km from Kathua town is believed to be the latest in a series of terrorist incidents in the region, which have been attributed to attempts by Pakistan to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere in Jammu and Kashmir. The region, the site of the ambush is part of the old infiltration route along the international border, which the attackers appear to have reactivated. The area is primarily monitored by the BSF and falls under the jurisdiction of the 9 Corps of the Army, under the Western Command. (ANI) Uttar Pradesh Minister Dharmveer Prajapati expressed his condolences for the victims of the Unnao incident and assured that better arrangements will be made for the treatment of the injured. "Better arrangements will be made for the treatment of the injured. Our government's sympathies are with the victims," said Dharmveer Prajapati. Lashing out at BSP chief Mayawati for targeting the UP government and Bhole Baba regarding the SIT report in the Hathras incident, Minister Dharmveer Prajapati said, "This is not the time to do politics on the incident but to express our condolences to the victims. The Hathras incident was very big." Earlier, after the Special Investigation Team (SIT) submitted its report on the Hathras stampede to the government, Cabinet Minister Anil Rajbhar assured that no one would be spared. After five days of intensive investigation into the case of the death of 121 devotees due to a stampede in the Satsang of Suraj Pal Singh alias Bhole Baba in Sikandrarao of Hathras, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) has submitted its report to the government on Tuesday. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the stampede in Hathras recommended action against six officials for negligence in performing their duties, following which they have been suspended from their services. The local SDM, CO, Tehsildar, Inspector, and Chowki in charge have been held responsible for negligence in performing their duties. The suspended officials include Sub- the District Magistrate of Sikandrarao, the Police Circle Officer of Sikandrarao, the Station Officer of Sikandrarao, the Tehsildar of Sikandrarao, Chowki Incharge of Kachora, and Chowki Incharge of Pora. The investigation committee also found the program organizer and tehsil-level police and administration guilty. The SIT probing the stampede mishap recorded 119 statements and submitted a report on Tuesday stating that the committee that organized the 'Satsang' was responsible for inviting more people than permitted. (ANI) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has said that Union Minister Amit Shah will inaugurate the Prime Minister College of Excellence in all 55 districts in the state on Sunday, July 14. CM Yadav made the remark at a cabinet meeting held at Mantralaya in the state capital Bhopal on Wednesday. "It is a matter of happiness that Union Home Minister Amit Shah will simultaneously inaugurate the Prime Minister College of Excellence in all 55 districts in the state on July 14. The specialty of Excellence Colleges is that all courses are included in them according to the New Education Policy (NEP) and the colleges will be equipped with all the resources. The young generation will get the benefit of these colleges," CM said. He further said that all the ministers should attend the inauguration programme of the Excellence colleges in their respective areas. CM also said that the state budget was appreciated everywhere and dialogue programmes should be held in all districts on the key points of the budget related to public welfare and development. "The state budget is being appreciated everywhere. Dialogue programmes should be held in all districts on the key points of the budget related to public welfare and development. There should be discussions in the districts regarding the impact on the development in the state by the express-way being built to connect various regions of the state directly to the capital and the adequate amount provided to all departments," he added. The chief minister further said that industrial activities should be expanded in all the districts in the state. "Investors Summit is being organised in Jabalpur on July 20. Support and guidance programmes should be conducted in all the districts to expand industrial activities in the state. The problems of the local industrial unit operators in the state should be resolved and they should be encouraged by providing necessary assistance to expand their activities and increase investment," the CM said. Besides, highlighting the ongoing 'Ek Ped Maa ke Naam' campaign, CM Yadav said that a target should be set at district level and plantation should be undertaken in coordination with all departments. "5.5 crore saplings are being planted in the state under the 'Ek Ped Maa ke Naam' campaign. All districts should set a target for plantation and it should be carried out in coordination with all departments. People should also be motivated to look after the saplings planted in the campaign," CM added. (ANI) The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to the Delhi Police after the petitioner, who filed a contempt case against the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) over illegal tree felling in Delhi Southern Ridge forest area, claimed harassment by the police. A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih was told that the police were making enquiries in relation to the petitioners and had even sought details regarding their bank accounts. Petitioners, including Delhi-based NGO New Delhi Nature Society, had filed case in the apex court related to the felling of trees by the DDA in the Ridge area. As the bench issued notice to Delhi police, it said, "We will look into this." Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan representing petitioners told the bench that the Delhi Police has been making enquiries regarding the petitioners and alleged that the police has reached out to their bank and demanded detailed information about the accounts. The top court was hearing a plea filed by Delhi resident Bindu Kapurea, the NGO and others alleging that trees were cut despite a March 4 apex court order denying permission to the DDA and the fact that the trees had been cut was suppressed from the court. In May, the top court initiated a suo motu contempt of court case against DDA Vice-Chairman Subhasish Panda for felling of trees in violation of the apex court's orders in February this year. In June the bench had noted that Lt Governor VK Saxena in his capacity as Chairman of the DDA had approved the proposal for cutting of trees and also visited the site in question. It had then directed the Vice-Chairman of DDA to apprise it whether there was any record of the LG's visit. (ANI) After Prime Minister Narendra Modi was bestowed with Russia's highest civilian award, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Foreign Affairs Department in-charge, Dr Vijay Chauthaiwale, said that the PM has been recognised as "a global leader who matters for global peace and prosperity." On being asked what the award moment signifies for India and its relations with Russia, Chauthaiwale told ANI, "There are two aspects linked to it, which include strengthening the bilateral relationship between India; and the second is that PM Modi has been recognised as the global leader who matters for global peace and prosperity." Notably, PM Modi on Tuesday received the Order of St Andrew the Apostle, Russia's most prestigious civilian honour. He received the honour from President Vladimir Putin for his outstanding efforts to promote partnership and friendship between India and Russia. Upon receiving the honour, PM Modi thanked Putin and Russia saying that it was a 'samman' for 140 crore Indians and a reflection of the centuries-old friendship between the two countries. Chauthaiwale further spoke about the relationship between PM Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin and said, "Prime Minister Modi and Putin have very good personal chemistry and it has been reflected in this visit also. The free and fair discussion on the topics shows the maturity of this relationship." Talking about India's stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, Chauthaiwale said that at the very beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, PM Modi had made a statement that this is not an era of war and India has been consistent in its stand on the effort. He said, "India has expressed this stand in a very candid way in front of Russian leaders and they have also appreciated it. It shows that there is tremendous maturity in the relationship between of two countries." On being asked about the significance of PM Modi's visit to Austria, Chauthaiwale told ANI that the Prime Minister is visiting Austria after a gap of 41 years and before that, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited Austria. He added, "Later on, no one went and it shows the ignorance of the previous government, especially the Congress government towards that country. India-Austria has tremendous potential in the field of tourism, and trade. I am sure this visit will further strengthen the relationship between the two countries." Prime Minister Modi concluded his two-day visit to Russia and emplaned for Austria on Tuesday. PM Modi interacted with the Indian diaspora at a hotel in Moscow before departing for Austria. PM Modi stressed that the ties between India and Russia are giving new energy to global prosperity. He also praised the Indian community for giving new heights to the ties between India and Russia. (ANI) Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday claimed that as per a new report by credit ratings firm India Ratings, the Unorganised sector which contributes more than 44 per cent to India's Gross Value Added and grew at 7.4 per cent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) between Financial Year 11 and Financial Year 16 suffered an average yearly contraction of 0.2 per cent since then. "Unorganised sector contributes 44+% to India's Gross Value Added (GVA). The unorganised sector grew at 7.4% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) between FY11 and FY16, but has suffered an average yearly contraction of 0.2% since then," the senior Congress leader said. By FY23, GVA by unincorporated businesses was 1.6 per cent below FY16 levels, the Congress General Secretary said alleging that this recession in the unorganised sector cost India 4.3 per cent of its GDP or Rs 1.3 lakh crore. "Sixty three lakh informal enterprises shut down due to these three shocks, leading to the loss of 1.6 crore jobs. At a time when a record number of youth are entering the labour markets, the Modi Government was destroying jobs," the Congress leader said. Slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government, Ramesh said, "For all the hype and bluster of Make in India, manufacturing jobs reduced from 3.6 crore in FY16 to 3.06 crore in FY23. Manufacturing is India's ticket to solving unemployment and reaching a sustainable middle-income status. The non-biological PM oversaw the destruction of India's manufacturing." The Congress leader further said that the "non-biological PM's" surprise announcement of demonetisation on November 8, 2016, which virtually halted all economic activity, the "botched roll-out" of the GST in July 2017, with a convoluted tax structure, high compliance burden, and punitive enforcement and the "non-biological PM's" decision to impose a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown on March 24, 2020 without prior notice, adequate preparation, or an economic program to protect the informal sector has led to a "systematic bludgeoning" of India's MSMEs and informal businesses causing an economic catastrophe. Jairam Ramesh said that the Congress has repeatedly warned the "non-biological PM" of these consequences. He mentioned that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took to Parliament to decry demonetisation as "organised loot and legalised plunder" and Rahul Gandhi (now Leader of Opposition) has repeatedly drawn attention to the GST's devastation of job-creating MSMEs, pointing out that it was "neither a Good nor a Simple Tax". Jairam Ramesh said that the Congress has suggested some measures in its manifesto to revitalise the informal sector, like establish GST 2.0, with a single, moderate rate and relief for small taxpayers like MSMEs; lessen the burden of tax on MSMEs owned by individuals and partnership firms; and ensure a level-playing field and oppose the rampant monopolisation and oligopolisation that has crowded out MSMEs. "The non-biological PM's cronyism and arbitrary policymaking has cost India Rs 1.3 lakh crores in GDP and 1.6 crore jobs," Ramesh said. (ANI) Indian Army on Wednesday rescued a trekker who suffered from breathlessness and lost consciousness while trekking at 11,700 feet in Gangbal lake area of the Kangan subdivision in the Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir, said the Army in a press release. The Medical Officer of 34 Assam Rifles at Trunkhal Army Camp and his team rescued the trekker and administered a continuous oxygen supply. The rescued trekker has been identified as Debasmita Rana (30 yrs) from West Bengal who was part of a team that was attempting the Great Seven Lake Trek in the Ganderbal District. "Army rescues a Trekker from the Gangbal lake area of Kangan subdivision, Ganderbal district on 10 July 2024. The trekker Debasmita Rana (30 yrs) from West Bengal was part of a team which was attempting the Great Seven Lake Trek in the Ganderbal District," read the statement. Debasmita Rana was brought to the Trunkhal Army Camp of 34 Assam Rifles in an unconscious condition. According to the information, she complained of breathlessness when the group was crossing Zazibal Gali and coming down towards Twin Lakes Gangbal and Nundkol, at a height of 11,700 feet. "While the group was crossing Zazibal Gali and coming down towards Twin Lakes Gangbal and Nundkol (11,700 ft), Debasmita Rana started complaining of breathlessness. Soon after that she went unconscious and was brought in the unconscious condition to the Trunkhal Army Camp of 34 ASSAM RIFLES," said the army in a press release. The Medical Officer and his team at the Army camp rescued her and administered a continuous oxygen supply. Their swift response and audacious rescue mission resuscitated her and saved her life. Debasmita who is presently at Kangan Trauma Centre expressed gratitude towards the army personnel for saving her life and said, "I am eternally grateful to 34 ASSAM RIFLES and their heroic team. They are true heroes, and my words can't fully express the depth of my gratitude. They saved my life, and for that, I'll be forever thankful. Thank you, Indian Army, for giving me a second chance of life." The co-trekkers of Debasmita also thanked and appreciated the efforts of the Medical Officer of 34 ASSAM RIFLES at Trunkhal Camp. (ANI) The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in Washington, DC, has acquired the earliest known photograph of US First Lady Dolley Madison, the wife of the fourth U.S. president, James Madison, for its permanent collection. The newly discovered image of the former first lady is a remarkable quarter-plate daguerreotype by John Plumbe Jr. that most likely dates to 1846. The daguerreotype was bought by the Smithsonian Institution for $456,000 at a Sotheby's auction in June. Sotheby's said the portrait is "one of the exceedingly few surviving photographs of the woman who has defined for two centuries what it means to be the First Lady of the United States of America." According to the auction company, the photo was discovered while its sellers cleared a basement after a relative's passing. The Smithsonian Institution reported that Plumbe took the quarter-plate-sized daguerreotype of Ms. Madison in her late 70s, most likely in the spring or summer of 1846. Plumbe, an English immigrant who arrived in America in 1821, began a professional photography career around 20 years after his arrival. He developed studios in over a dozen towns and sold his company in 1847. In addition to his portrait of Ms. Madison, he produced the earliest surviving image of the U.S. Capitol. According to the White House Historical Association, the first lady was known for "her hospitality" and "establishing herself at the center of the Washington social season" during her husband's presidency. James, the father of the U.S. Constitution, became the president from 1809 to 1817. The image of his wife has been added to the collection of over 230 first lady pictures held by the National Portrait Gallery. Furthermore, the acquisition follows the 2017 purchase by the National Portrait Gallery of the first known image of a U.S. President, an 1843 daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams. The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed an order of the Gujarat High Court for implementing the recovery of land allotted to Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd in Mundra in Gujarat. A bench headed by Justice BR Gavai and comprising Justice KV Viswanathan also issued a notice to the Gujarat government, asking it to file a reply to the petition. The court was hearing an appeal moved by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited challenging a Gujarat High Court order. The Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited sought an interim stay on the Gujarat High Court order. The land was allotted to the Adani Group entity in 2005. The petitioner Adani Ports said that it is valid and lawful possession of the land for nearly 20 years and no prejudice has been caused to the PIL petitioners in the last 13 years. "No prejudice would be caused to Respondents if the Impugned Order is stayed pending adjudication of the present Special Leave Petition. For the last over 20 years from the date of allotment, cattle have been grazing and therefore, the status quo should not have been altered. However, irreparable damage and prejudice will be caused to Petitioner if the operation of the Impugned Order is not stayed," the petitioner urged to the top court. "The High Court was fully aware that the Order of July 4, 2024 was without any notice, without any hearing, without an opportunity to Petitioner to show cause and therefore, the High Court ought not to have directed the implementation of such an illegal order, especially when the Petitioner had no opportunity to bring on record its objections in the said PIL," the petitioner said. Gujarat High Court on July 5 directed the Government of Gujarat to complete the process for resumption of certain lands, in terms of the resumption order. The petitioner, who was aggrieved by the HC's decision said that the impugned order was passed in a Public Interest Litigation pending for over 13 years. The petitioner further questioned that High Court July 5's decision directed implementation of an administrative order and said the decision seeks to resume lands that had been allotted 20 years back. The petitioner also questioned the resumption order and said it has passed in blatant breach of Natural Justice. Even the Adani Port questioned the PIL which was filed in 2011 belatedly challenging an order passed in 2005 for allotment of lands. "During the pendency of the PIL, there was no interim order of any kind operating against the petitioner," Adani Ports informed the top court. The present Special Leave Petition under Article 136 of the Constitution of India, 1950, raises an important and fundamental question of law as to whether the High Court in exercise of public interest litigation (PIL) jurisdiction can direct implementation of a per se illegal order passed in breach of Natural Justice, and, which purports to recall/ cancel an allotment of land made for consideration over 20 years back," the petitioner said. Adani Port also flagged the issue that the Gujarat HC decision came when the allottee has changed its position and made huge investments to set up an industrial establishment (Special Economic Zone). "In the said PIL, after a further period of 13 years, the High Court has by impugned order directed implementation of an administrative order which was beyond the scope of the PIL," the petition pointed out. The land deals began in June 27 when the Department of Revenue, Government of Gujarat, took a decision to sell 3154-90-62 hectares of land to the company. On 15.07.2005 the Collector Kutch passed an order resuming grazing lands (gauchar lands) and allocated 93-48-99 hectares (village, Navinal) to the the company for industrial purpose (Special Economic Zone, "SEZ"). Petitioner paid the amount for the said land in 2005 and became owner of the land. "On June 23, 2006, the Ministry of Commerce and Industries, Government of India, notified areas in Mundra, including the aforesaid land at aforesaid village, Navinal to be developed as an SEZ. The SEZ was to be developed by Petitioner terms of the Special Economic Zone Act, 2005 ("SEZ Act"). Pursuant to the sale, the petitioner has invested substantial monetary investments amounting to several crores. As at 2011, 2,284 people were directly employed at the SEZ and 15,921 persons were indirectly employed," the petition read. In 2011 a writ petition was filed in the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad, challenging, Notification dated 27.06.2005,' in terms of which Government of Gujarat took a decision to sell 3154-90- 62 hectares of land to the company. The Gujarat High Court by its order dated July 5 2024 has directed Government of Gujarat to complete the process for resumption of lands, in terms of the Resumption Order. The Petitioner protested before the Gujarat High Court about the illegality and arbitrariness of the said Resumption Order. Being aggrieved by the impugned direction of the Gujarat High Court to implement an ex parte and per se illegal order of July 4 2024, Adani Port moved the top court with this Special Leave Petition. "Whether the High Court ought to have heard the Petitioner before passing an adverse order directing implementation of an illegal administrative order which directly and materially impacted Petitioner's rights in the land," the petition raised the issue. "Whether the impugned direction to implement the Resumption Order is in violation of principles of Natural Justice, as the Gujarat High Court has directed implementation of the State Government's order dated July 4 2024 (i.e.. Resumption Order), and Petitioner was never granted an opportunity to respond to the Resumption Order," the petition said. (ANI) Madhya Pradesh cabinet has given approval to the implementation of the centrally sponsored scheme of the Government of India 'National e-Vidhan Application' (NEVA) in the state Legislative Assembly, according to an official release. A proposal in this regard was tabled at the cabinet meeting held under the chairmanship of CM Mohan Yadav at Mantralaya in Bhopal on Wednesday, and the council of ministers approved it unanimously. "The Council of Ministers approved to implement the 'National e-Vidhan Application' (NEVA) project worth about Rs 23 crore in the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly. Under the Digital India program of the Government of India, the centrally sponsored 'National e-Vidhan Application' scheme has been launched by the Government of India to make all the Legislative Assemblies of the country paperless and bring them on one platform. The 60 percent of the cost to implement the scheme will be borne by the Government of India and 40 percent by the state government," the release read. The cabinet further approved the rationalisation of students residing in hostels, ashrams, and community welfare centres operated under the Denotified, Nomadic, and Semi-Nomadic Tribe Welfare Department as per the scholarship rates determined by the Scheduled Caste Welfare/Tribal Affairs Department. According to the approval, the present monthly scholarship for boys will be increased from Rs 1230 to Rs 1550 and for girls, it will be increased from Rs 1270 to Rs 1590 a month. Along with this, it has been decided by the Scheduled Caste Welfare/Tribal Affairs Department to increase the rate of scholarship in the future based on the price index and also accept it for Denotified, Nomadic, and Semi-Nomadic Welfare Department, it added. The council of ministers also gave its nod to invite tenders for seven projects of Narmada Valley Development Department worth Rs 9,271.96 crore. Approval has been given to invite tender for Sondwa Lift Micro Irrigation Project, Niwali Lift Micro Irrigation Project, Sendhwa Lift Micro Irrigation Project, Maheshwar Janapav Lift Micro Irrigation Project, Dhar Micro Lift Irrigation Project, Badadev Joint Micro Irrigation Project and Ma Rewa Lift Irrigation Project, the release further read. Along with this, the state cabinet granted administrative approval for the Bokaro Micro Irrigation Project worth Rs 46 crore, an irrigation area of 3310 hectares. Through the project, irrigation facilities will be provided to farmers of 11 villages of Tehsil Rampura Naikin, the statement read. Furthermore, the Council of Ministers gave administrative approval of Rs 217.73 crore for the remaining construction works of the under construction Central Jail on Sanwer Road in Indore. Besides, the cabinet approved the decision to purchase aircraft model Challenger 3500 jet aircraft for the state government, it added. (ANI) Amity University Uttar Pradesh, in collaboration with Bharat Forge Limited, Pune, organized "Bhartiya Raksha Vimarsha" (Indian Defence Dialogue) on the theme "Defence Technology & Integrated Joint Warfighting Perspective". On this occasion, an MoU was also signed between Bharat Forge Ltd. and Amity University to strengthen the industry-academia partnership in the defence sector. Sharing his enriching experiences, enlightening ideals, and empowering epitomes of transformative leadership in an entrepreneurial 'student-centric' perspective, Baba Kalyani, the Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Forge Ltd. who was the Chief Guest, averred, "Amity University has established itself as a world-renowned institution known for its academic excellence and research initiatives. In 2047, India will become Viksit Bharat and it is in our DNA to make that happen. Today there are around 31 countries who are at war with each other, and defence is extremely important for the safety and security of a country but also for developing technology. Defence should not be driven by policy and procedures and should always be driven by technology." "Aatm Nirbharta or self-reliance means designing and developing your products and India needs to develop its product, in order to become self-reliant. India has many advantages over other countries since the average population of India is around twenty-nine years old, which is very young compared to Western countries. Therefore, the opportunities are huge and unlimited for the younger generation provided they use it to the fullest," he added. "All big defence manufacturers are being replaced by young startups and the whole world is moving towards AI. Once Quantum Computing and AI are rigorously used in the manufacturing industry, there will be unlimited opportunities for India. These opportunities are rare and not many countries have it, therefore, it is up to us to make the most of these opportunities and make India technologically the most advanced country, in the defence sector as well," Kalyani said. Delivering his address, BK Das, Distinguished Scientist and Director General (ECS), DRDO, opined, "India has emerged as a fast-developing country in the world and has achieved many milestones in the recent years. Every Indian must strongly believe that their country is the best in the world in all areas including spirituality, economy, research, science and innovation. Indian economy is the fifth largest economy in the world today, however, export is very important for the economy to grow and have grown to 2.63 billion dollars in the last one year, which is a testimony of excellent growth." He described INDIA, wherein "I stands for Industries, N for National Forces including the MSMEs, D for DRDO, I for Incubation Centres and A for Academics, which together will pave the way for national development." He emphasised that India is moving towards taking the lead in the manufacturing sector. Addressing the gathering, Atul Chauhan, Chancellor of Amity University asserted, "We are extremely grateful to Shri Baba Kalyani, Chairman and MD Bharat Forge Ltd. to share his inspirational success story with the students. The defence industry sector of India is strategically important in India and Amity University was the first university to start M Tech in Defence Technology. The current generation is very fortunate to be growing up in times, when the future belongs to India and the whole world is looking towards our country. The future lies in the hands of our young transformational leaders who are responsible for making their country the most developed country in the world." Highlighting the significance of the MoU Signing Ceremony, Balvinder Shukla, Vice Chancellor stated, "Amity University has the great mission of transforming the world through education. It is extremely crucial to have a strong industry-academia collaboration and the curriculum needs to be designed in line with the industry requirements. Through this partnership, we aim to train the students of Defence Technology and the MoU is not a ceremony but a commitment to work towards fulfilling the vision of Viksit Bharat." W Selvamurthy, President of Amity Science Technology and Innovation Foundation, said, "Research and innovation are the key focus areas at Amity and companies like Bharat Forge have changed the defence research ecosystem of the country. Today's sessions and inspiring talks will be highly beneficial for our students, and they must take the lead in contributing significantly to the defence sector since the future belongs to them." Welcoming the guests on the occasion, Lt Gen SK Gadeock, AVSM (Retd), Director General Amity Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said, "Today marks a momentous day as Shri baba Kalyani ji has consented to grace the occasion and enlighten us through his exemplary contribution to the defence industry, visionary thoughts and inspirational words. Such events are organized to veritably leverage the 'Awareness & Cerebral Quotient' of Amitians on strategic issues towards better 'Assimilation & Rational Understanding' of defence and national security conundrums, with its systemic ramifications in perspective. Students of Amity must take a pledge to contribute to the development of the country." During the one-day Bhartiya Raksha Vimarsha, sessions on topics such as, "The Transforming Landscape of Warfare: Gaining Insight into the Dynamic Changes" and "The Technological Revolution: Analyzing the Effects on Military Operations", were also conducted wherein defence experts including Air Marshal Anil Chopra, Former Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), New Delhi, Major General BK Sharma, AVSM, SM and Bar, Director, United Services Institute of India (USI), Lt Gen Sunil Srivastava, AVSM, VSM (Retd), former Director Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS), Lt Gen Dushyant Singh, PVSM, AVSM, VSM (Retd), Director General Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), Swasti Rao, Associate Fellow, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (MP-IDSA), amongst many others elucidated on significant contextual issues. The event was very well attended by faculty, students and PhD Scholars from Amity Universities, Tri-Services Institutions, various dignitaries, senior veterans from the Armed Forces and other eminent citizenry from the NCR. (ANI) Samajwadi Party (SP) spokesperson Fakhrul Hasan Chand on Wednesday spoke about the SIT report on the Hathras stampede and said that the government by not taking action on big people wants to cover up the entire matter. Speaking with ANI, Chand said, "The SP from the first day is saying that the BJP didn't take actions that it should have taken, and they did not fulfil the responsibilities of the administration and the government. The government wants to cover up the entire matter." The SP spokesperson further claimed that the SIT report is trying to save big people. "The government by taking action on small people wants to end this matter completely." He added further, "The party believes that the families who have lost their loved ones should be given compensation, and the ones who are injured should be treated. Efforts should be made to ensure that administrative failure does not happen in the future." Emphasising on party's belief that the Hathras case is a failure of the government, Chand said, "The government should accept its mistake and strict action should be taken against big people." After five days of intensive investigation into the case of the death of 121 devotees due to a stampede in the Satsang of Suraj Pal Singh alias Bhole Baba in Sikandrarao of Hathras, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) has submitted its report to the government on Tuesday. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the stampede in Hathras recommended action against six officials for negligence in performing their duties, following which they have been suspended from their services. The local SDM, CO, Tehsildar, Inspector, and Chowki in charge have been held responsible for negligence in performing their duties. The suspended officials include Sub- the District Magistrate of Sikandrarao, the Police Circle Officer of Sikandrarao, the Station Officer of Sikandrarao, the Tehsildar of Sikandrarao, Chowki Incharge of Kachora, and Chowki Incharge of Pora. The SP leader also talked about the Unnao accident and called the incident unfortunate and sad. He said, "The party urges the government to provide them compensation." The Unnao incident occurred at 5:15 am today when a double-decker sleeper bus travelling from Motihari, Bihar to Delhi hit a milk tanker from behind on the Agra-Lucknow expressway near Gadha village in the Behta Munjawar Police Station area. 18 people were killed in the accident, 19 were injured. Six of the injured were referred to Lucknow, while the rest were taken to the District Hospital in Unnao for better treatment, according to the officials. Twenty people managed to escape unhurt in the incident. Chand also expressed his views on Prime Minister Narendra Modi receiving Russia's highest civilian honour, he said, "The party congratulates the Prime Minister. He was representing the nation and this is not a topic of politics. However, the Samajwadi Party asks one question. When PM Modi will go to Manipur? When he will meet the victims of Hathras?" Notably, PM Modi on Tuesday received the Order of St Andrew the Apostle, Russia's most prestigious civilian honour. He received the honour from President Vladimir Putin for his outstanding efforts to promote partnership and friendship between India and Russia. Upon receiving the honour, PM Modi thanked Putin and Russia saying that it was a 'samman' for 140 crore Indians and a reflection of the centuries-old friendship between the two countries. (ANI) The Delhi High Court on Wednesday reserved the order on a bail plea moved by Bibhav Kumar, aide of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in the Swati Maliwal alleged assault case. The court fixed July 12 for the pronouncement of the order. The bench of Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta after hearing the arguements at length of all sides, decided to reserve the order. During the hearing, Swati Maliwal was present in the court and submitted that "not only I was brutally assaulted by the PA, later Chief Minister himself came on the street to protect him. Many press conferences were done by the Delhi Ministers making malicious allegations against me. I was shamed...". "My life and my family's are in threat. In the relative's car when I went for medical, even those detail of the car were made public. Please give me Justice," stated Swati Maliwal. Senior Advocate Sanjay Jain who appeared for Delhi Police strongly opposed the bail plea of Bibhav Kumar and submitted that by July 16 they will file the chargesheet in the case. "Bibhav was a highly influential person. Despite being dismissed as a Government officer, he was drawing a salary equivalent to a joint secretary. This shows how highly influential Bibhav is, the kind of power he exercises. He exercises enormous powers. With that kind of powers, he has the propensity to tamper with the witnesses and evidence," Jain said. However, Senior Advocate N Hariharan appeared for Bibhav and submitted, "This is my 54th day in custody, including eight days remand period. This will amount to pre-arrest trial. The incident is of May 13, 2024. The FIR was registered on May 16. As per the case, Swati chose to go to the Police station on May 13, however, he didn't register any FIR." "There was no appointment given to her, she just barged in. It is highly unimaginable that a political secretary will beat Swati Mailwal, who is a sitting MP. Why was there a delay of three days in the registration of the FIR?" the lawyer asked. Bibhav, through a plea, stated, "The present is a classic case of abuse of criminal machinery and subterfuge investigation, as the petitioner or accused and the complainant have both lodged complaints against each other. But it is only the case of the complainant that is being investigated. This is because the complainant is an influential person, being a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha. No investigation is being done on the part of the complaint given by the petitioner regarding the breach by the complainant, as demonstrated by the breach report prepared at the date of the incident by the officials deputed at the CM Camp Office." Speaking about the case to the reporters, Bibhav Kumar's advocate, Rishikesh Kumar said, "Today there was a hearing on Bibhav Kumar's bail application. We kept our arguments that the investigation has almost completed. He has been in custody for 54 days. The complainant's statement has been recorded. All the evidences have been collected. Taking into consideration all these, we pleaded for Bibhav Kumar's bail. From their side, our bail application was opposed. They said that there are chances of tampering of evidence. After hearing both sides, the court has reserved its judgement and will give its verdict on July 12." On the chargesheet that is yet to be filed by the Delhi Police, Kumar said, "The Police has given an undertaking to the court that it will file the chargesheet by July 16." Delhi's Tis Hazari Court recently dismissed the second bail plea of Bibhav Kumar in view of the threats received by the victim, Swati Maliwal and apprehension of influencing the witnesses by the accused. While dismissing the bail application, the court observed, "In view of the fact that investigation is at initial stage and there is a fear in the mind of the victim regarding her security as well as the security of her family members. There is also apprehension that the accused Bibhav Kumar would influence the witnesses, if at liberty..." "So I do not find any merit in the bail application of the accused, Bibhav Kumar. Hence, the present regular bail application of the accused Bibhav Kumar is hereby dismissed," Special Judge Ekta Gauba Mann ordered on June 7. The victim Swati Maliwal earlier alleged that her family and extended family members are receiving continuous threats. She also stated that she is scared as there is a risk to her life as well as lives of her family members if the accused is granted bail. She strongly opposed the bail application. Bibhav Kumar was arrested on May 18 in connection with the alleged assault on AAP MP Swati Maliwal. Kumar was picked up from the Chief Minister's residence by a Delhi Police team, a day after Maliwal recorded her statement before a magistrate at the Tis Hazari court. (ANI) The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday directed the Haryana government to remove the barricades from Shambhu border after a PIL was filed challenging the unlawful barricading by the Haryana government. In an order, the Punjab and Haryana High Court pointed out that the national highways due to the blocking of the Shambhu Border are causing inconvenience to the commuters. Advocate Uday Pratap, while speaking with ANI on the court's direction said, "Punjab and Haryana High Court has passed an order that unlawful barricading (due to farmers' protest) at Shambhu border by Haryana should be removed within one week." He added, "I had filed a PIL to challenge this barricading done by Haryana. On May 28, we argued that the barricading of the Shambhu border is causing trouble to the daily commuters." He added that Haryana on Wednesday argued that to maintain public order, they have closed the border. "We reverted back that to maintain public order, this reason (to barricade the border) is totally illegal. If an individual wants to exercise their fundamental right, it cannot be assumed that they could be a threat to public order." "The judge, considering our argument, said that within one week, all the unlawful barricading on the Shambhu border should be removed. And now within one week, the unlawful barricading will be removed." The Haryana government had set up barricades after the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political), the two umbrella bodies that led the farmers' protests, gave a call to farmers from across the country to reach the national capital. Their various demands to the central government included a legal guarantee on MSP for crops, pension for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, and no hike in electricity tariffs. (ANI) Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami on Wednesday participated in a felicitation ceremony in the national capital for implementing in the State the Uniform Civil Code, which aims among other things towards ensuring the safety of youth in live-in relationships. CM talked about the provision made for registration regarding live-in relationships. He told ANI that this provision is made to ensure that the parents of the couple are aware of the relationship. He said "A lot of journalists asked me why has a provision of registration been introduced regarding live-in. I said that provision for registration has been introduced so that their parents know about it." Dhami said, "Many times when the relationship turns sour and the couple do not share a good bond between them, there have been many cases where murders and other crimes take place". He said that when these kinds of crimes take place then the parents are left with nothing but only regret. "Our first priority behind this provision is to ensure the security of the youth who enter into live-in relationships", he said. CM said that this provision will also help to maintain law and order in the state. On February 7, 2024, the Legislative Assembly of Uttarakhand passed the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill. On March 13, the bill was granted assent by President Droupadi Murmu. The bill was among the poll promises of the BJP in Uttarakhand before the 2022 elections. (ANI) A man and his father died by suicide after lying down on the tracks in front of a moving train approaching them, holding hands, and being eventually hit, police said. The incident occurred at Bhayandar railway station near Mumbai on Monday morning around 10 am. According to the information received from the Vasai Railway Police, the police rushed to the spot after receiving information about two dead bodies lying under the train on the railway track. The police took the bodies in their possession and has sent them for postmortem. They were found lying at a short distance from Platform number 6 of Bhayander railway station, on the way towards Mira Road. The CCTV footage installed at the railway station showed that both men got down from the platform and walked towards Mira Road following the tracks. As soon as they saw the train approaching, they laid down on the track and got hit by the train bound to Churchgate. The police has registered a case and has launched an investigation into the matter. Based on preliminary investigation by the railway police, the father-son duo died by suicide owing to heavy debt caused by huge losses in the stock market. The father has been identified as Harish Mehta and the son was Jai Mehta. Both were residents of Nala Sopara in Maharashtra. While Harish Mehta used to work in the stock market, Jai Mehta was a DTP operator. Earlier last week, in a shocking incident from Madhya Pradesh, five members of the same family died allegedly by suicide in the village Raudi of Alirajpur district. The police recovered five bodies found hanging in the house. The family included a couple and three children. The police have registered a case and started an investigation. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been formed under the leadership of SDOP Jobat to investigate the case. In a post on the social media handle 'X', Madhya Pradesh Police said, "The police have registered a case and started an investigation after five members of the same family died allegedly by suicide by hanging themselves in village Raudi of Alirajpur district. An SIT has been formed under the leadership of SDOP Jobat to investigate the case." (ANI) Assam Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday disbursed Rs. 68.44 crore to 349 institutions under Phase-I of the Pragyan Bharti scheme at a function held at Janata Bhawan in Guwahati. It may be noted that with the distribution, nearly one lakh students secured the way forward towards free education under the State government's policy to ensure free higher education to poor and middle-class students. Launched in the year 2016-17, till 2023-24, a total of 22,30,257 students attained benefits from the scheme. Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Dr. Sarma said that with an aim to increase the Gross Enrolment ratio in higher education in the state, the Pragyan Bharti scheme was started in the year 2016-17. "However, subsequently the scheme has been replicated to cover the students of higher secondary and postgraduate. Under the scheme, besides 1,38,085 students in the year 2016-17, a total of 2,94,633 students got benefitted in the year 2023-24. These statistics prove the success of Pragyan Bharti in the state. Stating on the use of technology for admission in the institutions of higher education," Dr. Sarma said. The Assam Chief Minister further said that, using 'Samarth Portal' 2,28,399 students have applied for admission and 85.2 per cent of students got admitted. "Technology and AI have a great role to play in the future education system. Therefore, State government, using the technology 'Samarth Portal' has tried to make the entire process of admission clean and hassle-free," Dr. Sarma said. The Chief Minister further said that the State government has taken a series of steps for the intellectual development of the students. "Ranging from free enrolment in educational institutions, free bicycle and scooty distribution to nijut moina scheme, etc, these schemes have brought about revolutionary changes in the academic landscape of the state," the Assam Chief Minister said. He said that while he was a student in Cotton College (now university), he saw the financial ordeal faced by sections of students while paying fees. Realizing that, he as the Chief Minister of the state, decided to implement free admission of students belonging to BPL and middle-income group families of the state. Commenting on the reactions stemming from the notification of the Higher Education Department regarding the exemption of PRC for the appointment of Assistant Professor, librarian, Grade III and Grade IV employees in colleges, Dr Sarma said that PRC cannot protect the rights of the local people, as PRC can be obtained if a person lives in Assam for three years. He said that on the other hand, the government has made Proficiency of the Local Language mandatory for selection which according to him would protect the rights and interests of the local people. "Disbursal under Pragyan Bharti has been made under Phase-I as the rest of the eligible admissions like CUET and others will be entitled to the financial benefits under the scheme in the month of September," he said. Education Minister Dr Ranoj Pegu, VC Cotton University Prof. Ramesh Chandra Deka, VC Bodoland University Prof. Babulal Ahuja, VC KKHSOU Prof. Rajendra Das, VC Kumar Bhaskar Varma Sanskrit and Ancient Studies University and Bhattadev University Prahlad Joshi, VC Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore University Prof. Amalendu Chakraborty, VC Madhavdev University Prof. Arup Jyoti Chowdhury, VC Majuli the University of Culture Prof. Nirode Baruah, VC Birangana Sati Sadhani Rajyik Vishwavidyalaya, Prof. G Singaiah, VC Assam Women University Prof. Ajanta Borgohain Rajkonwar and host of other dignitaries were present on the occasion. (ANI) Dr Jitender assumed charge as the new Director General of Police (DGP) of Telangana at the DGP office in Hyderabad on Wednesday. On the same day, he was appointed as the new Director General of Police (DGP) of Telangana by Revanth Reddy's government. After his appointment, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy met Dr Jitender, the newly appointed Director General of Police (DGP) of Telangana at the Telangana Secretariat. He is an IPS officer and was serving as Principal Secretary in the Home Affairs Ministry of the state. After taking charge as Telangana DGP, Dr Jitender IPS said, "I have taken charge. I will try to do my best. I understand the priorities of the government that we should maintain law and order, and prevent crimes. Narcotics is another issue. We have already appointed a Director of Narcotics. We have an emphasis on cyber-crimes also and we have specialisation for it. We have senior officers who are looking after the cyber-crimes. I will try my level best. We will ensure that Telangana remains peaceful. I also want to thank the government for considering me for this post. I will give my best." Emphasising the police department's measures on narcotics, he said, "Government has clearly said that narcotics is our priority for which Narcotics Bureau has been already appointed. Recently, CM has flagged off some vehicles and sanctioned some manpower for it. We have good control over narcotics." Dr Jitender also posted on a social media platform X after taking charge and wrote, "I am honoured to take charge as the Director General of Police (DGP) for Telangana. My commitment is to work diligently to ensure the peace, harmony, and safety of all citizens in our state. @TelanganaCMO #TelanganaPolice #DGP." (ANI) Frieze has recently announced the appointment of Kyla McMillan as its next director of New York's Armory Show. McMillan will replace Nicole Berry, who held the position for eight years before leaving to work at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. McMillan took up her post-July 8 as the event prepares for its 30th anniversary edition, scheduled for September 6-8 at the Javits Center in New York. "We are thrilled to welcome Kyla McMillan as director of the Armory Show," Kristell Chade, Frieze's executive director of fairs, said. "Her wide-ranging experience and creative drive will undoubtedly take the fair to new heights, fostering an inclusive and dynamic environment. Her past projects have demonstrated a talent for reaching new audiences and forging meaningful connections with art." After ten years in the art world, McMillan came to the Armory Show, where he worked for David Zwirner and Gavin Brown's company. She established Saint George Projects, a traveling gallery and consulting firm that held shows in several locations, including Berlin, Johannesburg, and New York. She graduated from the Studio Museum and the University of Maryland with a BA in art history. In a statement, McMillan expressed her gratitude for joining the Armory Show at this important moment in the fair's history. She claimed her goal is to empower collectors and emphasize the fair's role as a platform for artists, galleries, and art enthusiasts. Furthermore, she has acknowledged that the Armory Show has long been celebrated as a foundational fair for New York and the US art market. Now, she looks forward to building on the Armory Show's achievements while championing new voices and creating opportunities for diverse perspectives in contemporary art. Delhi police on Wednesday claimed to have arrested three persons in connection with the murder of a 40-year-old African national in Nihal Vihar area. According to officials, the accused trio was caught in Uttam Nagar area and a scooter was also seized from them. The arrested accused have been identified as Rajesh, Abhishek and Mohit. In the initial interrogation, the accused disclosed the reason behind the crime and said that the deceased used to sell drugs and had taken money from them for providing the narcotics, but he neither provided the drugs to them nor returned their money. One of the accused Mohit is a drug addict, while Rajesh and Abhishek provided logistics support to him. All three accused were earlier arrested in separate cases and met in jail. According to the information, the police team observed around 150 CCTV cameras to find the pictures of the criminals. Further, local information was also being developed to identify the accused and secret information was received by the team regarding the hideouts of the accused. They were hiding in the Mangol Pur Kalan area of Delhi. At the same time, the Delhi Police team conducted a raid at Mangol Pur Kalan but failed to nab the accused. Further, on receiving secret information, one more raid was conducted at Uttam Nagar, Delhi and finally, the accused were apprehended along with the recovery of a scooty. Earlier, it was reported that a 40-year-old African man, identified as Sunday Ernest Morah, was shot dead in Outer Delhi's Nihal Vihar area last night. The incident occurred around 10 pm outside a garment shop in A Block, Vikash Vihar, Chander Vihar, Nilothi Extension. The police were alerted to the shooting via a PCR call and immediately dispatched a team to the scene. Upon arrival, they found blood stains on the ground and inside a nearby shop, but the injured man had already been transported to Sanjay Gandhi Hospital by an unknown individual. The Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) team was called to inspect the scene, and a complaint was subsequently filed. According to reports, on Sunday Ernest Morah, a resident of Chander Vihar, had sought refuge inside the shop after being attacked by two armed individuals. He sustained three bullet injuries: two in the abdomen and one in the leg. Despite efforts to save him, Morah succumbed to his injuries early this morning. (ANI) Karnataka Chief Minister K Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said that he will place a proposal in the cabinet to rename Ramnagar as Bengaluru South. Speaking on the issue of the name-change of Ramnagar, Siddaramaiah said, "Ramnagar district leaders came and met me in the leadership of DK Shivakumar, they asked for renaming the district as Bengaluru South. I told them that it has to be decided by the cabinet and I'll place the proposal in the cabinet." On questions the BJP can change the name, if they will come to power, he stated, "They (BJP) will not come to power again to rename or remove the name if we change it. People have chosen us; they can't say that they will come to power. Did HD Kumarswamy or the BJP get the blessings of the people? Informing about the district level meetings, he said, "I have told all the in-charge ministers to hold district level meetings, janaspandana meet. We held meetings two days with DCS, CROs and secretaries." Responding to the questions on ED Raid, CM Siddaramaiah asserted, "It's their job, we have no objection to that. Let them do their job legally. I'm not aware whether they take B Nagendra into custody or not." Earlier on Tuesday, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said that a delegation of district leaders has proposed renaming Ramanagara district as Bengaluru South. "Keeping in mind the future and development of Ramanagara, Channapatna, Magadi, Kanakapura, Harohalli taluks, a delegation of district leaders led by them has proposed to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to rename Ramanagara district as Bengaluru South District," Shivakumar said. The delegation comprising district in-charge ministers, MLAs and leaders met the Chief Minister at Vidhana Soudha and presented the district renaming proposal to the Chief Minister today. Responding to questions by mediapersons, Shivakumar said, "We all originally belong to Bengaluru district, including Bangalore city, Doddaballapur, Devanahalli, Hoskote, Kanakapura, Ramanagara, Channapatna, Magadi. Administratively, it was previously divided into Bangalore city, Bangalore rural and Ramanagara district. It is necessary to rename the district as Bengaluru Dakshina district while keeping Ramanagara as a central administration, he said adding that Bengaluru has global recognition and under my leadership, the leaders of the district submitted a proposal to the Chief Minister to save the name of this district. (ANI) Chhattisgarh state BJP working committee meeting was conducted at Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Auditorium in Raipur on Wednesday in the presence of Chhattisgarh CM Vishnu Deo Sai, Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and other party leaders. Addressing the state-level working body meeting of the party, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said that it's very fortunate that Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar attended this meeting. In his speech, Chhattisgarh CM Vishnu Deo Sai said, "It's very fortunate that Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar attended the working body meeting. He also reviewed the working of energy, housing and urban administration departments and assured allocation of funds for the development of Chhattisgarh." Hitting out at the Congress party, Sai said, "Six months ago, before the assembly elections, Congress was not considering us as a contestant and even members of our party were also not confident about the status of BJP. But when the leaders like Ajay Jamwal and Om Mathur and others came to Chhattisgarh, it was a major boost to the party workers in inculcating the confidence of party workers." Emphasising PM Modi's role in the victory, Sai stated, "When PM Modi raises the slogan of "Nai Sahibo Badal ke Rahibo", it plays a significant role in the victory". "Party workers played a remarkable role in the victory of BJP by highlighting the schemes of central government led by PM Modi and simultaneously exposing the shortfalls of then Congress government in Chhattisgarh, said Sai. "As per the promise of PM Modi, the promise related to the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana was fulfilled. Similarly, the state government also fulfilled the promise related to pending bonuses to farmers," said the Chief Minister. Speaking on the occasion, Sai highlighted the works done by the Government in Chhattisgarh and stated that the government is determined to fulfil the guarantees of PM Modi. "The state government is working with the policy of zero tolerance to corruption. We are working on this direction and the state government has made major changes in FL10 license and removal of offline TP (transport permit) for coal transportation," said Sai. Highlighting the government's efforts to counter Naxalism in the state, "The double-engine government is bravely fighting Naxalism in insurgency-hit districts of Bastar region and forces succeeded in eliminating 42 naxals. Over 1000 naxals surrendered and camps are being established rapidly. The government is ensuring facilities to the region on a priority basis. The government is combating Naxalism very strongly. The way we are battling naxalism, we will succeed in eradicating naxalism in coming years as promised by PM and Home Minister." (ANI) Austria's Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg extended a warm welcome to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, highlighting the 75-year anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. https://x.com/a_schallenberg/status/1810769399944720825 "A warm welcome to Indian PM @narendramodi on his historic visit to Austria, marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. The partnership between our nations is based on a joint commitment to global security, stability and prosperity," Alexander Schallenberg said in a post on X after PM Modi's arrival on Wednesday (local time) https://x.com/karlnehammer/status/1810769299696668774 Following this, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer also welcomed PM Modi, calling India a friend and partner adding that he also stated that he looked forward to discussing politics and economics during the visit. "Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi ! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!," Karl Nehammer wrote in a post on X while sharing a selfie with PM Modi. https://x.com/narendramodi/status/1810779657933074794 In response to Nehammer's warm welcome, PM Modi thanked him and stated India and Austria will continue to work together. In a post on X, PM Modi said while sharing some really good pictures of him and Nehammer, "Thank you, Chancellor @karlnehammer, for the warm welcome. I look forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good." https://x.com/MEAIndia/status/1810773873065132296?t=4Ug7TAVXJjf8gTzhZy-34Q&s=08 Meanwhile, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal also shared a post on X and stated the official meeting an important milestone in the partnership between both nations. "An important milestone in - partnership! PM @narendramodi hosted by Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer for a private engagement. This is the first meeting between the two leaders. Discussions on realising the full potential of bilateral partnership lie ahead," Randhir Jaiswal said on X. After PM Modi landed in Austria, he was welcomed by Indian Ambassador to Austria Shambhu Kumaran and Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. Notably, this is the first time an Indian Prime Minister has visited Austria in 41 years. In 1983, Indira Gandhi was the last PM to visit the country. (ANI) The Urumqi Massacre, is remembered as one of the blackest chapters in the history of China's systematic oppression and genocide of ethnic minorities. According to governmental sources, 197 people were killed and 1700 were injured during these riots. However, human rights organizations emphasize that these figures have been excessively undermined, according to a report by the European Values Center for Security Policy (EVCSP) released on Tuesday. The EVCSP report quoted the statement of Dolkun Isa, the President of the World Uyghur Congress who while describing the Urumqi Massacre said that "the turning point in from China's ethnic segregation and discrimination policy to the beginning of the genocidal ethnic policy." Currently, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been tightening its grip on the East Turkistan region under the guise of counterterrorism, the same report claimed. Genocidal activities have been continuing in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) even when the country has been receiving criticism from the US and Europe over subjecting the Uyghur community to forced labour. Additionally, the country has also been rapidly attempting to deprive Uyghurs of their political, social, and cultural rights, effectively leading to the complete vanishing of the Uyghur identity, culture and customs. The response adopted by the CCP to subvert the Urumqi riots was making mass arrests, putting people in detention, beefing up the operations of the security apparatus across East Turkestan, and exposing people to torture, forced confessions, and other human rights abuses starting a campaign of repression against the Uyghurs. Hence, the XUAR has now become one of the most heavily monitored areas in the world, with heightened use of technology to track and control the population of XUAR, the same report by EVCSP a Czech non-governmental organisation founded in 2005 claimed. As a result of the genocidal activities of China in the XUAR and the Urumqi Massacre, China is condemned by the international community and has strained and severed China's international relations. Additionally, multiple human rights organizations have criticized China's atrocities in East Turkestan, leading to calls for sanctions and other punitive measures. Various individuals belonging to the Uyghur diaspora from around the world held events to commemorate the Urumqi Massacre. This year, the World Uyghur Congress organized a protest in front of the United Nations Office in Geneva to honour the victims of the peaceful demonstrations, the same report mentioned. The report also emphasized that The Urumqi Massacre highlights critical issues of ethnic human rights, regional stability, international relations, and state policies of China, and addressing these issues now requires a nuanced and informed approach after considering the historical, cultural, and socio-political complexities of the region. (ANI) After Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated the US's stance over the ongoing war in Ukraine and urged New Delhi to support international efforts for a peaceful resolution in the war-torn country, leveraging its longstanding relationship with Moscow to encourage President Putin to end the war. Further speaking about the war, he emphasized that it is crucial for all allies, including India, to support efforts towards a peaceful resolution in Ukraine. Further, the White House Secretary also reiterated that India is a strategic partner with whom the US engages in frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia. "India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in full and frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia and we've talked about this before. So we think it's critical that all countries, including India, support efforts to realize an enduring and just peace when it comes to Ukraine. It is important for all our allies to realise this." Jean-Pierre stressed that President Putin alone can end the war, which he started. "The US believes India's relationship with Russia positions it to encourage President Putin to take this step," he added. "We also believe India's long-standing relationship with Russia gives it the ability to urge President Putin, to end his brutal war, an unprovoked war in Ukraine. It is for President Putin to end. President Putin started the war, and he can end the war." Jean-Pierre added The White House remarks came after PM Modi met Putin at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence in an informal meeting on Monday where the two leaders covered prospects for further development of relations between Moscow and New Delhi. Also, the two leaders discussed the situation in Ukraine and further comprehensive discussions were held on Tuesday. Notably, PM Modi and Putin have met 16 times over the past 10 years. After arriving in Moscow, PM Modi said he looks forward to further deepening the "Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership" between the two nations. In a post on X, PM Modi stated, "Landed in Moscow. Looking forward to further deepening the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between our nations, especially in futuristic areas of cooperation. Stronger ties between our nations will greatly benefit our people." (ANI) PM Modi landed in Austria on Wednesday where he was welcomed by Indian Ambassador to Austria Shambhu Kumaran and Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. Austria's Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg extended a warm welcome to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said "A warm welcome to Indian PM @narendramodi on his historic visit to Austria, marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. The partnership between our nations is based on a joint commitment to global security, stability and prosperity." Following this, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer also welcomed PM Modi, calling India a friend and partner adding that he also stated that he looked forward to discussing politics and economics during the visit. "Welcome to Vienna, PM @narendramodi ! It is a pleasure and honour to welcome you to Austria. Austria and India are friends and partners. I look forward to our political and economic discussions during your visit!," Karl Nehammer wrote in a post on X while sharing a selfie with PM Modi. In response to Nehammer's warm welcome, PM Modi thanked him and stated India and Austria will continue to work together. In a post on X, PM Modi said while sharing some really good pictures of him and Nehammer, "Thank you, Chancellor @karlnehammer, for the warm welcome. I look forward to our discussions tomorrow as well. Our nations will continue working together to further global good." Notably, this is the first time an Indian Prime Minister has visited Austria in 41 years. In 1983, Indira Gandhi was the last PM to visit the country. (ANI) Abu Dhabi [UAE], July 10 (ANI/WAM): General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, met with the UAE police support team following their completion of specialised training, as they prepare to join international counterparts in supporting security efforts for the upcoming Olympic Games Paris 2024 this summer. He expressed full confidence in the UAE team's capabilities and the competence of its members in undertaking this significant international mission. The Ministry of Interior received an official invitation extended by the French Ministry of Interior to assist in ensuring security for this prestigious global sporting event hosted in Paris. He encouraged the team to exemplify the nation's standards of excellence, bolstering the UAE's distinguished reputation and its prominent role in international cooperation and collaboration. The UAE police support team comprises members from MoI and various General Police HQs, bringing together qualified and trained personnel representing specialised units from all police sectors. French authorities are implementing a comprehensive security plan involving additional police, military personnel, and civilian security staff across Olympic venues, athletes' villages, media hubs, and other key locations. This plan includes heightened security at tourist landmarks and sensitive sites. (ANI/WAM) The White House on Tuesday said that India's ties with Russia give it the ability to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict in Ukraine. The statement came after PM Modi emphasised to President Putin that the solution to the Ukraine conflict lay in dialogue and not on the battlefield. While addressing a press briefing, Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary, called India the US' "strategic partner" with whom they hold "full and frank dialogue", including their ties with Russia. She called it critical that all nations, including India support efforts to realise an enduring peace when it comes to Ukraine. Asked about PM Modi's meeting with Putin, Jean-Pierre said, "India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in full and frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia and we've talked about this before. So we think it's critical that all countries, including India, support efforts to realize an enduring and just peace when it comes to Ukraine. It is important for all our allies to realise this." "We also believe India's long-standing relationship with Russia gives it the ability to urge President Putin, to end his brutal war, an unprovoked war in Ukraine. It is for President Putin to end. President Putin started the war, and he can end the war." Jean-Pierre made the statement after Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his bilateral talks with Russian President Putin raised the issue of killings of children during conflicts and said it is "heart-wrenching" when innocent children die. The Prime Minister said that everyone who believes in humanity is hurt when there is a loss of lives. This comes in the wake of the recent missile strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv, which killed 37 children. "Be it war, conflicts, terror attacks - everyone who believes in humanity is pained when there is loss of lives. But when innocent children are murdered, when we see innocent children dying, it is heart-wrenching. That pain is immense. I also held a detailed discussion with you over this," PM Modi said during the meeting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that there is no solution on the battlefield and added that peace talks do not succeed amid bombs, guns and bullets. PM Modi said, "As a friend, I have always said that for the bright future of our coming generations, peace is of utmost importance. But I also know that solutions are not possible on battlegrounds. Amid bombs, guns and bullets, solutions and peace talks do not succeed. We will have to follow the path to peace only through talks." It was PM Modi's first visit to Russia since the war started between Moscow and Kyiv in 2022. India has always advocated "peace and diplomacy" for resolving the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed disappointment over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Russia, which he termed a "devastating blow to peace efforts." Zelenskyy took to social media platform X to post that on the same day 37 people, including three children, were killed and 170 others were injured due to Russia's missile strike at the largest children's hospital in Ukraine's capital city Kyiv. "In Ukraine today, 37 people were killed, three of whom were children, and 170 were injured, including 13 children, as a result of Russia's brutal missile strike. A Russian missile struck the largest children's hospital in Ukraine, targeting young cancer patients. Many were buried under the rubble. It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world's largest democracy hug the world's most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day" the Ukrainian leader said. PM Modi was on a two-day official visit to Russia from July 8-9. During his visit, he held a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. PM Modi also addressed the Indian community in Moscow. (ANI) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization will appoint a senior representative in Ukraine's capital Kyiv "to deepen Ukraine's institutional relationship with the alliance" and also announce a new military command in Germany for training Ukrainian troops, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said. Speaking at the NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum in Washington on Tuesday, Sullivan said that the transatlantic alliance will launch four new joint projects with its Indo-Pacific partners- Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea its partners in the Indo-Pacific -relating to Ukraine, artificial intelligence, disinformation and cybersecurity. He said that the ties between the United States, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific have "never been more important or more integrated than they are today." "Each initiative is different, but the main goal is the same- Harness the unique strengths of highly capable democracies to address shared global challenges," Sullivan said at the event before the start of the three-day NATO summit to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the transatlantic alliance. The US official noted that Russia's defence industry is on a wartime footing and with help from Iran, China, North Korea, and is "attempting to undertake the most significant defence expansion since the height of the Cold War." "NATO can, NATO will, and NATO is rising to meet this challenge without disturbing, or distorting, our national economies the way Russia has. We are making robust investments in our defence industrial bases," Sullivan said. North Korea is providing ballistic missiles to Russia that are used to kill Ukrainian civilians while China's dual-use trade with Russia, which includes microelectronics or technologies used in cruise missiles, is enabling Russia's war machine, Sullivan stated. The US official stated that it should not be expected that China, North Korea and Iran are lending their support to Russia for free. "We're watching carefully to see what Russia provides these countries in return and what impact that has on the security of the Indo-Pacific and other parts of the world." Sullivan said that during the ongoing Summit, NATO would announce a new military command in Germany that will launch a "training, equipping and force development programme for Ukrainian troops". The command will be set up in the German city of Wiesbaden. "We'll also make announcements outlining how we plan to strengthen critical Ukrainian air defence capabilities and build Ukraine's air power through the provision of F-16s," he said. NATO will appoint a senior representative in Ukraine's capital Kyiv "to deepen Ukraine's institutional relationship with the alliance". Other measures to be announced at the NATO summit include a pledge from all Allies to collectively provide Ukraine with at least 40 billion euros worth of security assistance this next year. Sullivan underscored the deepening of NATO's cooperation with partners in the Indo-Pacific stating that events in Europe impacts the Indo-Pacific and vice versa. The US official said the alliance is "committing to stand with Ukraine" in the face of Russian aggression and to send Russian President Putin a message that he "cannot divide us, he cannot outlast us, he cannot weaken us, and Ukraine - not Russia - will prevail in this war". (ANI) US President Joe Biden pledged support of the NATO to defend Ukraine against Russian President Vladimir Putin's "war of aggression." "Putin wants nothing less -- nothing less than Ukraine's total subjugation; to end Ukraine's democracy; to destroy Ukraine's culture; and to wipe Ukraine off the map," Biden said in his welcome address at the opening of the three-day NATO summit in Washington DC on Tuesday (local time). "Ukraine can and will stop Putin," Biden, 81, said to applause. The US president said that the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, and Italy will provide Ukraine with the equipment for five additional strategic air defence systems. "And in the coming months, the United States and our partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air defence systems," Biden said. The US President said that Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional interceptors over the next year, helping protect Ukrainian cities against Russian missiles and Ukrainian troops facing air attacks on the front lines. Biden said, "the United States will make sure that when we export critical air defence interceptors, Ukraine goes to the front of the line." "They will get this assistance before anyone else gets it," Biden added stating that Ukraine continues to be a free country and "the war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country." "Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail," the US President said to applause.Biden's speech at the NATO came a day after Russia conducted strikes across Ukraine including a strike on the country's largest children's hospital. "All the Allies knew that before this war, Putin thought NATO would break," Biden said adding that the 32-member military alliance is "stronger than it's ever been in its history." Joint Statement on Strengthening Ukraine's Air Defences was signed by US President Joe Biden, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The US, Germany, and Romania will each provide a Patriot battery of their own, while the Netherlands will work with other countries to enable an additional Patriot battery, each country announced in the joint statement. Meanwhile, Italy would also provide a SAMP-T long-range air defence system. The statement said the five strategic air-defence systems, "will help to protect Ukrainian cities, civilians, and soldiers, and we are coordinating with the Ukrainian government so that these systems can be utilized rapidly." "We are working on a further announcement this year of additional strategic air defence systems for Ukraine," it added. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would fight for "decisive actions" from the United States and Europe to help Ukraine. "It is not only our country that needs it - everyone needs it, literally every partner, all nations," Zelensky said in his first remarks after arriving in the US. The Ukrainian president said he would ask for more air defense systems, F-16 fighter jets, and additional security guarantees, "including weapons and finances, political support." Meanwhile, at the innagural ceremony of the NATO Summit, the US President awarded the NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg with the highest civilian honour of the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Leaders of the 32 NATO members and five partner countries - Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, South Korea and Japan are participating in the summit to commemorate the setting up of the military alliance April 4, 1949. (ANI) A court in Moscow has ordered the arrest of the wife of late opposition politician Alexey Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, in absentia, her spokesperson announced on Tuesday, CNN reported. The Basmanny District Court in Moscow accused Navalnaya of "participation in an extremist organization," her spokesperson Kira Yarmysh announced in a post on social media. Yulia Navalnaya's name has also been included in an international wanted list, CNN reported, citing Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. Additionally, the court granted a request by the Investigative Committee of Russia to detain Navalnaya. According to a press release, the period of detention would be calculated from the moment of possible extradition to Russian territory or from her detention on Russian territory. It is pertinent to note here that Navalnaya does not reside in Russia. On February 16, Alexey Navalny died in the penal colony in Siberia, where he was serving a 19-year sentence after being found guilty of causing an extremist community, financing extremist activists and various other crimes in August, according to CNN report. He was already serving sentences of 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges. He had denied the allegations and called it politically motivated. Navalny was Russia's high-profile opposition leader and spent years criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin. His death came weeks before Russia's presidential elections that were scheduled to begin on March 15. Earlier in February, Yulia Navalnaya had accused Putin of being responsible for her husband's death and hinted that she would pick up her husband's mantle, for a "happy, beautiful Russia," CNN reported. In March, a Russian court rejected a lawsuit by late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, alleging that the Kremlin critic had received "inadequate medical care" in the Arctic penal colony where he died, Al Jazeera reported. Ivan Zhdanov, head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which was started by Navalny, said on the court in the town of Labytnangi turned down the lawsuit because it said only Nalvany could make the complaint himself. "Alexei filed lawsuits many times for failure to provide medical care in the colonies," Zhdanov wrote on the Telegram app. "Now that he has been killed, they deny his family's claim with mocking language." Navalny's family and supporters have accused the Russian President of being responsible for his death, an accusation rejected by the Kremlin, Al Jazeera reported. Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, said that the court had rejected the lawsuit because it would have meant disclosing video and other information about the circumstances of his death. Russian prison authorities claimed that the Kremlin critic had fallen unconscious and died on February 16 after a walk outside the "Polar Wolf" prison where he was serving a three-decade sentence. His death certificate stated that he had died of 'natural causes'. Lyudmila travelled to the Arctic city of Salekhard, 2,000 km from Moscow, shortly after the former opposition leader's death, where she said investigators refused to release his body from a local morgue until she agreed to bury him without a public funeral, as reported by Al Jazeera. Thousands lined the church perimeter for his short funeral ceremony in Moscow, then went to the cemetery to lay flowers, defying the Kremlin's warnings against large gatherings. (ANI) India and Russia have expressed "deep concern" on the situation in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Gaza and called for immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. The joint Statement following the 22nd India-Russia Annual Summit said the two sides called for the effective implementation of the relevant United Nations General Assembly resolutions and United Nations Security Council resolution 2720 and for immediate safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip. In the joint statement, India and Russia said, "The Sides expressed deep concern on the situation in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Gaza. In this regard, they called for the effective implementation of the relevant UNGA resolutions and UNSC resolution 2720 and for immediate safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip." "They also called for the effective implementation of the UNSC resolution 2728 for a lasting and sustainable ceasefire. They equally called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages as well as humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs," it added. The two nations affirmed their support for Palestine's full membership in the United Nations and reiterated their commitment to the principle of the two-state solution. The joint statement reads, "They reaffirmed their support for Palestine's full membership in the United Nations and reiterated their unwavering commitment to the principle of the two-state solution according to internationally accepted basis." The conflict in Gaza escalated after the October 7 attack by Hamas, where about 2,500 terrorists breached the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip, leading to casualties and the seizure of hostages. Israel has since, characterised its Gaza offensive as targeting Hamas' infrastructure with the goal to eliminate the entire terror group while making efforts to minimize civilian casualties. The statement was issued after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Moscow. India and Russia agreed to strengthen joint efforts to build an architecture of equal and indivisible regional security and to intensify consultations on complementarities between integration and development initiatives in Greater Eurasian space and the regions of the Indian and Pacific oceans. The joint statement further said, "The Sides underlined the importance of strengthening cooperation within various regional fora, aimed at deepening regional peace and security, including East Asia Summit, ASEAN Regional Forum on Security (ARF), ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus)." The two nations noted the importance of expanding efforts to combat climate change and achieving the goals of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. The joint statement reads, "The Sides noted the importance of expanding efforts to combat climate change and achieving the goals of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement." "In this regard, the Sides agreed to develop cooperation in the field of preventing climate change and adapting to it, including the exchange of experience on the organization and operation of greenhouse gas emission quota systems, the implementation of joint Russian-Indian investment projects in the field of low-carbon development, as well as sustainable and "green" financing," it added. The two nations agreed to continue interaction within G20, BRICS, and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on key issues like increasing the sustainability and developing resiliency of international supply chains, compliance with free and fair trade rules and climate change, according to the joint statement. India and Russia welcomed the launch of the BRICS Contact Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development within the framework of the Environment Working Group under the Russian Chairship in BRICS in 2024. During his visit to Russia, PM Modi held talks with Russian President Putin. The two leaders also visited the Rosatom Pavilion at the VDNKh Exhibition Centre in Moscow. PM Modi was ceremoniously presented with the Order of St Andrew the Apostle the First-Called, Russia's highest civilian honour, by Putin. Notably, the award was bestowed on PM Modi in 2019, but he received it physically on Tuesday. The Prime Minister was presented with this award for his distinguished contribution to the development of a privileged strategic partnership between Russia and India and friendly ties between the two countries. (ANI) Bhutan's Foreign Minister DN Dhungyel and Myanmar's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister U Than Swe on Wednesday arrived in New Delhi to attend the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated that Dhungyel's visit will further strengthen the close bonds of friendship and cooperation between India and Bhutan. In a post on X, Jaiswal stated, "Warm welcome to @FMBhutan D.N. Dhungyel as he arrives in New Delhi for the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat. The visit will further strengthen close bonds of friendship and cooperation between India & Bhutan and advance regional cooperation." Mentioning details regarding Myanmar Deputy PM's visit, Jaiswal in a post on X stated, "Deputy PM & FM U Than Swe of Myanmar arrives to a warm welcome in New Delhi for the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat. Productive discussions on strengthening regional cooperation for a prosperous, connected and secure Bay of Bengal region lie ahead." External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will host his counterparts for the 2nd BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat in New Delhi on July 11-12, MEA announced on Wednesday. In a statement, MEA stated, "The Retreat will present an opportunity for the Foreign Ministers of the BIMSTEC countries to discuss, in an informal setting, avenues to broaden and deepen cooperation across various sectors including in the fields of security, connectivity, trade and investment, people to people contacts etc, in the Bay of Bengal region and littoral." The first edition of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat was held in Thailand's Bangkok on July 17, 2023. In the press release, the MEA stated, "The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), brings together seven countries of South and South East Asia for multifaceted cooperation." The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a regional organization that was established on 06 June 1997 with the signing of the Bangkok Declaration. Initially known as BIST-EC (Bangladesh-India-Sri Lanka-Thailand Economic Cooperation), the organisation is now known as BIMSTEC and comprises seven Member States with the admission of Myanmar on 22 December 1997, and Bhutan and Nepal in February 2004. (ANI) They stressed the significance of Baloch national solidarity in halting the atrocities experienced by their community. Using social media platform X, the BYC urged individuals to participate in the event on July 28th in Gwadar, aiming to protest against the violence impacting the Baloch community. https://x.com/BalochYakjehtiC/status/1810706827409330236?s=08 Recently, Baloch activist Mahrang Baloch, speaking on behalf of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee in a video statement, announced plans for the Baloch National Gathering in Gwadar. In an impassioned plea, she addressed several key issues, highlighting the committee's strong opposition to the ongoing Baloch genocide perpetrated by Pakistan. Mahrang pointed out various forms of genocide affecting the Baloch community beyond direct violence, including deaths from road accidents, illnesses exacerbated by neglect, and drug-related problems among Baloch youth. She also emphasised the economic oppression faced by Baloch farmers, labourers, and fishermen, citing instances of debt accumulation and land seizures for state projects. Mahrang also denounced the exploitation of Baloch labourers and fishermen due to government policies. Furthermore, Mahrang detailed the military's harsh tactics in border regions and urban areas, such as curfews, home invasions, and violence against civilians. She drew historical parallels to underscore the gravity of the situation. Mahrang's speech encapsulated the Baloch Yakjehti Committee's efforts to raise awareness, foster unity among Baloch people, and mobilize against state-sponsored atrocities in Balochistan. Balochistan faces several pressing human rights issues, many of which stem from longstanding political, economic, and social tensions. There have been numerous reports of enforced disappearances in Balochistan, where individuals, often activists or critics of the state, are abducted by security forces or unknown groups and held incommunicado without due process. There are allegations of extrajudicial killings of activists, journalists, and political dissidents in the region, often carried out under the guise of counter-insurgency operations. The presence of military forces and paramilitary groups in Balochistan has led to allegations of indiscriminate attacks, aerial bombings, and abuses against civilians in conflict-affected areas. Journalists, bloggers, and activists face intimidation, harassment, and violence for speaking out against human rights abuses or advocating for Baloch's rights. There are reports of censorship and arbitrary arrests. (ANI) Nepal's Foreign Ministry has announced that Foreign Secretary Sewa Lamsal will travel to India later today to attend the BIMSTEC Foreign Minister's Retreat. In a press release, Nepal's Foreign Ministry stated, "Foreign Secretary Ms Sewa Lamsal is leaving for New Delhi today, leading a Nepali delegation to the Second BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat scheduled to be held on 11-12 July 2024 in New Delhi, the Republic of India." During the Retreat, the Foreign Secretary will also hold a discussion on further strengthening regional cooperation and partnerships in agreed areas of mutual interests and complementarities within the BIMSTEC framework, according to a press release. During the visit to Delhi, Sewa Lamsal is scheduled to call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with the BIMSTEC delegation. The release further said, "On the occasion, the Foreign Ministers and Heads of Delegations of the BIMSTEC Member States are scheduled to pay a joint call on His Excellency Shri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India." Nepal's Foreign Secretary will be accompanied by a senior official of the Ministry and will return to Kathmandu on July 13. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will host his counterparts for the 2nd BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat in New Delhi on July 11-12. The Retreat will present an opportunity for the Foreign Ministers of BIMSTEC nations to discuss avenues to broaden and deepen cooperation in various sectors, including security, connectivity, trade and investment, people-to-people contacts etc in the Bay of Bengal region and littoral, according to Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). In a press release, MEA said, "The Retreat will present an opportunity for the Foreign Ministers of the BIMSTEC countries to discuss, in an informal setting, avenues to broaden and deepen cooperation across various sectors including in the fields of security, connectivity, trade and investment, people to people contacts etc, in the Bay of Bengal region and littoral." The first edition of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat was held in Thailand's Bangkok on 17 July 2023. BIMSTEC comprises seven Member States - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The MEA noted, "The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), brings together seven countries of South and South East Asia for multifaceted cooperation." (ANI) India, France and UAE trilateral focal points meeting were held virtually, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Wednesday. The discussions between the officials of the three nations focussed on cooperation as per the Joint Roadmap agreed upon last year. "India-France-UAE Trilateral Focal Points meeting held virtually," the official spokesperson of MEA, Randhir Jaiswal wrote in a post on X. "Discussions covered progress in trilateral cooperation as per the Joint Roadmap agreed in Feb 2023, including in areas of economy, infrastructure, innovation, energy, environment, culture, education & P2P exchanges," the post added. https://x.com/MEAIndia/status/1810921211591020685 At the beginning of February 2023, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra participated in the India-France-UAE Trilateral Dialogue and discussed taking the cooperation forward in the fields of defence, energy and environment, innovation and people-to-people exchanges, according to the statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs. This meeting came as the follow-up after the Foreign Ministers of India-France-UAE adopted a roadmap during their telephone call on February 04, 2023. The three foreign ministers had met for the first time in a trilateral format in September 2022 on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. They agreed to establish a formal trilateral cooperation initiative, with the aim of expanding cooperation in various fields of mutual interest in acknowledgement of their shared desire to promote international stability and prosperity and to further build upon the constructive and collaborative ties that exist between the three countries. At that time, the three sides had agreed that the trilateral initiative would serve as a forum to promote the design and execution of cooperation projects in the fields of energy, with a focus on solar and nuclear energy, as well as in the fight against climate change and the protection of biodiversity, particularly in the Indian Ocean region, as per a joint statement. For this purpose, the three countries planned to explore the possibility of working with the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) to pursue concrete, actionable projects on clean energy, the environment, and biodiversity. The statement further explained that the trilateral initiative will serve as a platform to expand cooperation between the three countries' development agencies on sustainable projects. India-France-UAE agreed that they will seek to ensure greater alignment of their respective economic, technological, and social policies with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. "In support of these endeavours, a range of trilateral events will be organized in the framework of the Indian Presidency of the G20 and the UAE's hosting of COP-28 in 2023, respectively," the statement had said. The three countries also agreed to expand their cooperation through initiatives such as the Mangrove Alliance for Climate led by the UAE and the Indo-Pacific Parks Partnership led by India and France. (ANI) Also, IAF warplanes attacked a Hezbollah weapons warehouse in the area of the village of Kfarkela in southern Lebanon. The attacks came after two people, a married couple, were killed on Tuesday when Hezbollah fired 40 rockets on the Golan. (ANI/TPS) The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) has criticised the Pakistani administration and defence forces over their human rights atrocities and genocidal acts inflicted upon the Baloch community. The statement was released by the BYC on the sidelines of the major "Baloch Raji Muchi" (Baloch community gathering) scheduled to take place on July 28. In the statement, the BYC said, "Every intelligent person is aware of the problems faced by the Baloch nation in the present time. The oppression, exploitation, military brutality, forced disappearances, mutilated bodies, murderous roads, deserted educational institutions, and other human rights abuses have reached their limits." https://x.com/BalochYakjehtiC/status/1810646027122409739 The BYC said that the Baloch Solidarity Committee is running a public resistance movement against the Baloch genocide. In the statement, BYC said, "Baloch as a nation is facing a regular genocide. Against this Baloch Genocide, the Baloch Solidarity Committee is running a public resistance movement, the purpose of which is to unite the Baloch people, including all the social and political forces of the Baloch society, against the Baloch genocide and as a collective nation against the Baloch genocide. To pave the way for an orderly, prosperous and developed Baloch society by completely ending the Baloch genocide from the Baloch land through a popular resistance movement." While referring to the upcoming Baloch community gathering led by the Baloch Solidarity Committee, the BYC urged the people to show their optimum participation. The BYC said, "We understand that the people's movement cannot survive without the support and cooperation of the people, the Baloch Solidarity Committee has received the full support and support of the Baloch people in this movement since the beginning, so this movement against the Baloch genocide today. It exists in a strong and organized manner." "Today, once again we request the Baloch people to fully support this movement by realizing all their national responsibilities to make "Baloch Raji Muchi" a success. Help and support the Baloch Solidarity Committee in every way," it added. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday emphasised the importance of "dialogue and diplomacy" in resolving global conflicts, particularly the ongoing war in Ukraine. "I have said earlier also that this is not the time for war," said PM Modi addressing the India-Austria joint press statement. His remarks came after delegation-level talks with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer at the Federal Chancellery in Vienna. "We won't be able to find a solution to problems in the warfield. Wherever it is, killing of innocent people is unacceptable. India and Austria emphasize dialogue and diplomacy, and for that, we are together ready to give any support required," PM Modi also said. Austrian Chancellor Nehammer echoed PM Modi's sentiments, highlighting the strong relationship between Austria and India. "There is a very good relationship between India and Austria. It's a relationship of trust which began in the 1950s... India helped Austria and in 1955, the negotiations came to a positive conclusion with the Austrian State Treaty. What unites India and Austria is concern over the development of the geopolitical situation," he said. Nehammer elaborated on the discussions held with PM Modi, stating, "Last night and this morning, we had very intensive talks about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. For me, as the Federal Chancellor of Austria, it is particularly important to get to know India's assessment and to understand it and familiarise India with European concerns and worries. Moreover, the conflict in the Middle East was a major topic, and in addition to this challenging geopolitical situation, we also referred to the positive aspects of our cooperation." The issue of killings of children during conflicts was also featured prominently in the PM Modi's bilateral meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. PM Modi said that it is heart-wrenching when innocent children die adding that everyone who believes in humanity is hurt when there is a loss of lives. The same day Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed disappointment over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Russia, which he termed as a devastating blow to peace efforts. Zelenskyy took to social media platform X to post that on the same day 37 people, including three children, were killed and 170 others were injured due to Russia's missile strike at the largest children's hospital in Ukraine's capital city Kyiv. PM Modi arrived in Vienna on Tuesday evening as part of his two-nation visit to Russia and Austria. (ANI) Toyota, whose logo is seen here, said Wednesday its investing in Ionna, teaming with seven other automakers to support the companys implementation of its charging network for battery electric vehicles across North America. Paul Sancya/Associated Press file photo Toyota Motor North America is investing in Ionna, teaming up with seven other automakers to support the companys rollout of its charging network for battery electric vehicles across North America. The investment announced Wednesday gives Toyota and Lexus EV drivers access to the public network of DC fast chargers Ionna will start deploying later this year. The deal comes as Toyota Motor Corp. is planning significant expansion of its North American EV lineup from two models to 30 by 2030. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We believe this will not only promote the adoption of BEVs and increase customer confidence in the technology, but it will provide our Toyota and Lexus customers with access to IONNAs rapidly growing charging network in North America, Ted Ogawa, president and CEO of Plano-based Toyota Motor North America, said in a statement. The size of Toyotas investment in the joint venture was not disclosed but is clearly intended to boost its plans for increased EV production. The automaker currently offers two mass-market battery EVs in the U.S. and Canada. They are the Toyota bZ4X and Lexus RZ. The companys focus has been on more popular hybrid-powered vehicles like the two models it builds in San Antonio. But under CEO Koji Sato, Toyota is looking to add more fully electric models across its Toyota and Lexus brands. Its goal is 3.5 million battery EVs produced annually by 2030. Ionna, based in Durham, North Carolina, plans to install at least 30,000 charge ports in North America by 2030. The stations will include both CCS and NACS connectors to support all battery EV drivers. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The majority of EVs currently have one of those two plug styles to connect to public fast-charging stations. The first is called the Combined Charging System, or CCS, and the second is the North American Charging Standard, or NACS, which is used by all Tesla vehicles. The White House is lending its support to an auto industry effort to standardize Tesla Inc.s electric vehicle charging plugs for all EVs in the United States, part of a broad administration effort to stimulate their sales to help combat climate change. Other automakers supporting Ionna are BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis. Toyota operates a factory in San Antonio that produces two hybrid models the Tundra pickup and Sequoia SUV. Hybrids, which use both internal combustion engines and electric motors, dont require chargers. Hybrid vehicles batteries are charged by their gasoline engines and regenerative braking while being driven. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Partly because of concerns about access to the still-limited network of charging stations, sales of hybrid vehicles have outrun battery electric vehicles in recent years in the U.S. Last year, hybrid sales increased by 65% while EV sales were up 46%. In the meetings between Fazlur Rehman and PTI leaders, the JUI-F chief advised Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to come out of assemblies and join the street movement for solution of problems, ARY said, quoting sources. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, rejecting the advice of Fazlur Rehman said the party already made a mistake by coming out of assemblies in the past. A decisive meeting on forging alliance between the JUI-F and PTI is likely to be held next week, ARY said, quoting the sources. Earlier on June 27, The US House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution on Wednesday, in support of democracy and human rights in Pakistan and called for a "thorough and independent investigation" into interference claims in Pakistan's 2024 elections. The resolution- passed with 85 per cent of House members participating and 98 per cent voting in its favour- urged US President Joe Biden to collaborate with Pakistan in "upholding democracy, human rights, and the rule of law". "It underscores the importance of upholding democratic values and respecting the rights of the people of Pakistan as they face economic instability and security threats," an official statement read. On May 2, Maulana Fazlur Rehman once again rejected the results of the general elections and demanded fresh polls, citing 'widespread rigging and irregularities'. Addressing a public gathering in Karachi, Maulana Fazlur Rehman said that said that assemblies were 'sold'. "Sindh Assembly and President House were also sold," he added, ARY reported. The JUI-F chief demanded for immediate re-elections to ensure the integrity of the democratic process. "The recent elections were fake, and its results are unacceptable," he added. The JUI-chief demanded fresh elections to ensure that the people's voice is heard and their mandate is respected. (ANI) Mir criticised the government for what he perceived as inconsistency in its policy and its implications for the public. Sharing a video on X, Hamid Mir said, "Is it not a big violation of government policy by the government itself? The government of Pakistan imposed a ban on X many months ago but why the Prime Minister and his senior ministers are using X through VPN continuously? What kind of message is it to the people of Pakistan?" https://x.com/HamidMirPAK/status/1810907603515457635?s=08 The Pakistani authorities in Islamabad recently informed the Sindh High Court that the decision to ban X adheres to Pakistan's legal framework. This comes in response to a case challenging the ban, underscoring ongoing debates on censorship, freedom of expression, and digital rights in the country. Pakistan has a history of imposing bans or restrictions on various social media platforms, with some lawmakers advocating for permanent bans citing concerns about negative impacts on younger generations. These measures have raised broader discussions on the balance between security and freedom of speech, particularly regarding censorship of books and online content deemed sensitive or provocative. The legal landscape in Pakistan includes laws addressing blasphemy, defamation, and national security, often invoked to justify restrictions on dissenting opinions. Journalists, writers, and activists critical of government policies or religious institutions frequently face harassment or legal repercussions. (ANI) During his official visit to the European nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited Austrian companies to invest in India, to strengthen the economic ties between the two nations, according to the Ministry of External Affairs. Both Prime Minister Modi and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer jointly addressed Austrian and Indian CEOs at a round table business meeting in Hofburg Palace, Vienna today. "Strengthening India-Austria economic ties! PM @narendramodi and Austrian Chancellor @karlnehammer jointly addressed renowned Austrian and Indian CEOs at a round table business meeting in Hofburg Palace, Vienna today," the official spokesperson of MEA, Randhir Jaiswal wrote on X. https://x.com/MEAIndia/status/1810992110776242202 PM Modi also underscored the "potential for collaboration" between Indian and Austrian companies in Vienna. "PM highlighted significant potential for collaboration between Indian and Austrian companies in various sectors including infrastructure, renewable energy, green sectors, new and emerging technologies, fintech, start-ups, innovation among others. He invited Austrian companies to invest in India," the MEA said. Earlier today, Prime Minister Modi and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer participated in the India-Austria Business Meeting, bringing together around 40 businesses from both nations to explore new economic opportunities and strengthen bilateral trade relations. PM Modi arrived in Vienna on Tuesday evening for a day-long State visit. Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that the visit marked the first bilateral visit of Prime Minister Modi to Austria. Chancellor Nehammer also praised India's advancements in infrastructure and digitalisation."It is impressive to look at India's success when it comes to infrastructure digitalisation in society and developing infrastructure at an enormous pace. Today's Business Forum which is taking place right now, about 40 businesses from India and Austria are coming together to engage in new cooperation and identify new economic opportunities," he said addressing the India-Austria joint press statement. Chancellor Nehammer emphasised the importance of finding new economic partnerships in the current global economic climate. "Currently the world economy finds itself in a challenging situation. Against this background, it is particularly important for Austria - a strongly export-oriented country to find new forms of economic cooperation," he said. (ANI) After Prime Minister Narendra Modi was bestowed with Russia's highest civilian honour during his Moscow trip, Dhruv Katoch, a defence expert said that this act by Russian President Vladimir Putin holds much significance and reflects the friendly relations between India and Russia. "Order of St Andrew the Apostle is not given to everybody. There are very select heads of state who get it. I think the act by the Russian President to bestow this honour on PM Narendra Modi is very significant," Katoch told ANI. The expert further said that the honour reflects the friendly relations between India and Russia, "I think it's very significant and I am very happy that he has got it. PM Modi is one person who has got strings of awards from all over the world and it's a great honour." PM Modi on Tuesday received the Order of St Andrew the Apostle, Russia's most prestigious civilian honour from President Vladimir Putin for his outstanding efforts to promote partnership and friendship between India and Russia. Upon receiving the honour, PM Modi thanked Putin and Russia saying that it was a 'samman' for 140 crore Indians and a reflection of the centuries-old friendship between the two countries. Expressing his views on PM Modi's statement that the death of innocent children causes pain, and solution to any conflict cannot be found on the battlefield, Katoch said, "I think that's a well-known stand that PM Modi has taken consistently, by saying that war is not the option." He added, "When he (PM Modi) said that innocent lives are lost, it's not just the reflection of innocent lives on one side only. It is a reflection of all sides of the war, which means Russia and Ukraine. Obviously, war is not a solution." The defence expert further said that he thinks there is a need for pullback, not just from Putin's side, but also from the side of NATO. "You cannot allow the war to go on the way it has. I think it's important to understand that if you are looking for peace, then one of the countries which have good relations with all parties concerned, is India. We are friendly with Russia and we are also friendly with Ukraine and its partners US and NATO. India has got friendship on both sides and simply because we are friends with one, doesn't mean we will go against the others." Asserting that India will maintain a de-hyphenated position on this particular war, he said, "We don't want this war, we want the war to end and we want peace." Speaking on the Russian President's remarks that PM Modi dedicated his "whole life" to strengthening India, Katoch said that the actions that have been taken by the Modi-led government for the last two decades have improved the lives of people. "There has been a significant improvement in the lives of the people. If you look at the poorest of the poor, you can see what their life was 10 years ago and what their life is now. I am not saying that everybody has become rich but there has been a significant improvement. People are much better today than they were 10 years ago, and which is why, he got the third term," Katoch said. He further said that very few leaders across the world can win a third term. "You have seen what is happening in Europe, what is happening in Italy, France, Germany. Getting a third term is very difficult and it only comes after performance. So, this was a very clear reference by the Russian President. India is growing at a very fast rate, India is the fifth largest economy, and very shortly, it will become the third largest economy. And maintaining good relations with India, which is friends to all, I think this is a very good signal for world peace," Katoch added. Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded his two-day visit to Russia and emplaned for Austria on Tuesday. The Prime Minister interacted with the Indian diaspora at a hotel in Moscow before departing for Austria. The Prime Minister stressed that the ties between India and Russia are giving new energy to global prosperity. He also praised the Indian community for giving new heights to the ties between India and Russia. (ANI) Dubai [UAE], July 10 (ANI/WAM): Under the patronage and in the presence of H.H. Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, a gala awards ceremony was held in Ras Al Khaimah to honour the recipients of the 2024 RAK Awards for Educational Excellence. Now in its 18th edition, the RAK Awards for Educational Excellence is coordinated by the Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research and celebrates excellence and innovation within Ras Al Khaimah's education sector, fostering a culture of achievement across the Emirate. "Education holds transformative power, driving positive social impact for all citizens and residents of Ras Al Khaimah," said Dr. Natasha Ridge, Executive Director of the Al Qasimi Foundation. "The RAK Awards for Educational Excellence acknowledges and celebrates leaders and learners across our local education sector, playing a pivotal role in driving positive social change." At the gala event, over 60 winners received awards across various categories, including Distinguished Research, Excellence in Innovation, School Sustainability, Well-Being Initiatives, and Educational Performance. In addition, exceptional schools, principals, educators, parent councils, and students were recognized for their noteworthy contributions. Through the RAK Awards for Educational Excellence, the Al Qasimi Foundation is committed to being a catalyst for positive and inclusive change within its local community. The Foundation's ambition is to support the continued well-being and progress of UAE nationals and residents and help them achieve their true potential as meaningful contributors to the advancement of Ras Al Khaimah and the United Arab Emirates. (ANI/WAM) India is an "important, influential and credit-worthy," country and can contribute to a "more than important" role in global peace processes including, in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said on Wedesday. Addressing a joint press conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Vienna today, Nehammer said that for him it was an important signal that India, as a founding member of the BRICS, participated in the Swiss Peace Summit on Ukraine. "Today, we have been talking about an even stronger commitment and about the possibilities of reviving the peace process. PM Modi and myself discussed the unique position of India in the so-called Global South," the Austrian Chancellor said. "India is an important, influential and credit-worthy country. India is the biggest democracy in the world. Therefore, India's role, especially for Austria, is more than important when it comes to the peace process and future peace summits. As a reliable partner, Austria will be available as a site for dialogue, making use of its unique position as a neutral country - a member of the EU but not a member of NATO" Nehammer said. Further, Nehammer said that it was important for him to hear about PM Modi's personal assessment of Russia's intentions in the ongoing war in Ukraine. "Before his visit to Austria, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a visit to the Russian President. Therefore, it was particularly important for me to hear about the Prime Minister's personal assessment regarding the intentions of Russia in respect of the peace progress. Our shared objective is to achieve a comprehensive, just and permanent peace in line with the UN Charter," he said. The Austrian Chancellor further said that his cabinet has been in constant contact with the European Union. "Yesterday, I talked to Charles Michel (President of the European Council) on the telephone about potential perspectives and issues in this context. What is particularly important, is the support of EU for a free and prospering Ukraine. Austria is making a substantial contribution. We are supporting the policy of the EU on the one hand, but on the other hand we have also delivered 250 Million Euro in bilateral aid," Nehammer said. Notably, this is the first time an Indian Prime Minister has visited Austria in 41 years. Indira Gandhi was the last PM to visit Austria in 1983. PM Modi's visit to Austria comes after his two-day official visit to Russia, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin. PM Modi's visit to Austria also comes at a time when the two countries are marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. (ANI) The CPN- UML (Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist) has issued a whip to its lawmakers to vote against Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, aka 'Prachanda' ahead of Friday's vote of confidence. UML Chief Whip Mahesh Bartaula on Wednesday issued the whip to the UML MP's to vote against the Prime Minister's proposal to be presented on July 12. PM Dahal is seeking a vote of confidence following the UML's withdrawal of support from his government and their new alliance with the main opposition, the Nepali Congress. This coalition significantly diminishes PM Dahal's chances of securing the vote. According to the agreement between UML and Nepali Congress, CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli is set to be the next Prime Minister. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal now is leading a minority government after his major ally CPN-UML formally walked out of the government on July 3, 2024. Past midnight of July 2, the UML had forged an alliance with the Nepali Congress changing the political course of the Himalayan Nation. All the eight ministers from the UML had tendered their resignation to the Prime Minister after the change in the political course of the Himalayan Nation. In the 275-member house, the Nepali Congress has the highest 88 seats, CPN-UML has 79 seats while the RSP has 20 seats and the Maoist Center led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal has 32 seats. Taking advantage of the hung parliament, Dahal has been switching sides in course of months garnering support from either the Nepali Congress or CPN-UML. With the latest round of political change, the Maoist Center will be sitting in opposition for the first time within a decade. With the formal withdrawal of CPN-UML from the government, Dahal was mandated to take a vote of confidence within 30 days as per the provision stated in Clause 76 of the Constitution of Nepal. In less than 20 months in power, PM Dahal already has faced 4 votes of confidence. In the first round of vote of confidence after the commencement of General elections in November 2022, Dahal had secured a whopping over 99 per cent of votes. At that time Dahal set a record by garnering 268 votes out of the 270 existing lawmakers present in the meeting that day. Back then Dahal was able to get the whopping majority only because the Nepali Congress whom Dahal December 2022, 2022 had bigoted to become the next Prime Minister stood on his side. Within 3 months, Dahal dumped CPN-UML to walk out of government again aligning with Nepali Congress and managed to secure a majority in the vote of confidence on March 20 last year. In the second round of vote of confidence, Dahal got 172 votes out of 262 lawmakers present at the time of voting. Only 89 votes came in against Dahal while one member abstained from voting. On March 13 this year Dahal took his third vote of confidence where he had received a total of 157 votes in favor. On May 20, Dahal took the vote of confidence amid the obstruction by opposition where he got 157 votes which was denounced by the opposition political parties. The vote of confidence was conducted amidst vocal dissent from key opposition parties, such as the Nepali Congress, Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), Loktantrik Samajwadi Party, and Janata Samajwadi Party Nepal. The constitution has mandated a Prime Minister to cross the mark of 138 votes to redeem posts and control the government. Dahal was appointed as the Prime Minister by then President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on December 25, 2022, after he showed the support of 169 lawmakers. As per the constitutional provision, a prime minister appointed under Article 76(2) needs to secure a vote of confidence from the parliament within 30 days of the appointment. (ANI) George Clooney, the Hollywood actor and influential Democratic financial supporter, has called for US President Joe Biden to end his re-election campaign, arguing that the president is too old to run again. In a New York Times guest essay published on Wednesday, Clooney wrote, "The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate." Last month, Clooney co-hosted a USD 28 million fund-raiser in Hollywood for Biden, which the campaign cited as the largest ever for a Democratic candidate. Now, his public plea makes him the most high-profile figure within the party to urge President Biden to withdraw from the race, as reported by The New York Times. Clooney's essay came just hours after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested in a television interview that "it's up to the president to decide if he is going to run." This statement has added fuel to the ongoing discussions within the Democratic Party about Biden's viability as a candidate. Despite the mounting concerns, President Biden and his top aides have maintained that he will stay in the race. On Monday, Biden reassured top donors that he would not address the debate controversy any further, though he mentioned it again during a video call with Democratic mayors on Tuesday night. Clooney's essay echoes the personal sentiments of many Democrats, who worry that Biden's continued candidacy could jeopardise not only his own re-election but also the prospects of fellow Democrats in down-ballot races. Clooney wrote, "We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won't win the House, and we're going to lose the Senate. This isn't only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I've spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly." The actor's stance comes at a critical juncture, as Biden had seemingly managed to stabilise his standing within the party after recent debates. However, the combination of Pelosi's comments and Clooney's public call for Biden to step down is likely to intensify the scrutiny on the president and his campaign. A representative for the Biden campaign referred back to the president's letter to congressional Democrats on Monday, in which he reiterated his commitment to stay in the race, The New York Times reported. Notably, Biden's health at 81 years old has raised many concerns among voters as the November elections near. Several top House Democrats have urged President Biden to step aside from the 2024 campaign, expressing deep concerns about his potential impact on the Democratic Party's chances in the upcoming elections, CNN reported. Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod too publicly called for President Biden to step aside from the 2024 race, citing concerns over Biden's age and performance. In an op-ed for CNN, Axelrod emphasised that he believes Biden's duty to the country should prompt him to withdraw, suggesting that failing to do so could overshadow his legacy. Axelrod's stance underscores growing pressures within the White House following Biden's lacklustre showing in a recent CNN presidential debate. (ANI) Altaf Hussain, the founder and leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has vehemently condemned the Pakistani government's decision to initiate a military operation named "Azm-e-Isthekam" in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan provinces. In a recent video message, Hussain demanded that the government and the army halt the operation, which he claims targets Pakhtuns under the pretext of combating the Taliban. Hussain drew historical parallels to past military actions, criticizing the legacy of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan's first civilian martial law administrator. "During the era of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the army conducted a military operation against the Bengalis, and Bhutto supported that military operation, which resulted in the dismantling of Pakistan," he stated. He further recalled that Bhutto intensified military operations in Balochistan and implemented a quota system in Sindh that discriminated against Mohajirs (Urdu-speaking migrants), a system that persists today. Hussain did not spare Bhutto's descendants from his critique. He noted that Benazir Bhutto, Zulfikar's daughter, continued to support military operations against the MQM and the Mohajir community. The condemnation comes in response to a statement by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who, during a press conference in Peshawar on July 8, 2024, highlighted a rising wave of terrorism in KPK and Balochistan and called for decisive action. Although Bilawal did not specifically mention "Operation Azm-e-Isthekam," Hussain interpreted his comments as an endorsement of violence against innocent Pakhtun and Baloch citizens. "Bilawal Zardari did not mention the name of Operation Azm-e-Istehkam, but directly announced the killing of Pakhtun and Baloch mothers, sisters, daughters, elders, innocent children, and youth under the guise of this military operation," Hussain declared. The Pakistani government, led by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, has maintained that the operation is aimed at terrorists, but Hussain is sceptical. He asserted that such operations are often directed against democratic parties opposing military rule. "The army and Prime Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif have announced that this operation is against the terrorists, but actually this operation will be against the democratic parties who take a principled stand against the military dictatorship instead of the terrorists," he argued. Hussain expressed frustration over previous military operations, such as Operation Zarb-e-Azb and Operation Rudd-ul-Fasaad, which, despite official claims of success, have not improved the situation for innocent citizens. "So far, in all the operations like Operation Zarb-e-Azb, Operation Rudd-ul-Fasaad, it was claimed that we have fixed everything, but there has been no change in the situation, and innocent people of the country have been destroyed," he said. He warned that the new operation would lead to further devastation. "For God's sake do not shed the blood of Pakhtuns under the guise of an army operation against the Taliban," he pleaded. Hussain accused the Pakistani military and intelligence services of creating the Taliban and now using their existence as a pretext for further military action. "The whole world knows that the Taliban were created by the Pakistan army and ISI's generals, and today they are talking about killing the Pakhtun people in fire and blood in the name of the same Taliban," he charged. He called for unity among all oppressed groups in Pakistan, including Mohajirs, to resist this operation. "The oppressed people will not allow this to happen, and including Mohajirs, all oppressed nations will demonstrate unity. We will also continue to raise our voices in favour of the oppressed people of Pakistan. If this army operation takes place, it will be disastrous for the country," he warned. Hussain demanded an immediate halt to military operations in KPK and Balochistan, threatening a united struggle by oppressed groups to save Pakistan. "Stop military operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, otherwise we oppressed people will unite and struggle and save Pakistan. Our slogan will be that the corrupt military generals, judges, politicians, landlords, and capitalists are down down... and long live honest people's Pakistan," he declared. He also questioned why Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was advocating for military operations in KPK and Balochistan while ignoring the lawlessness in the Kacha area of interior Sindh, where the PPP has provincial governance. "Bilawal Zardari wants a military operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan; why doesn't his government conduct a military operation against dacoits in the Kacha area of interior Sindh where his party has a provincial government?" Hussain asked. Concluding his statement, Hussain questioned the Bhutto family's legacy of supporting military operations and condemned the threatening remarks of Major General Kashif Khalil towards the people of Gilgit Baltistan. "What did Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Shahnawaz Bhutto, and Murtaza Bhutto get for supporting the military generals?" he asked, condemning the general's remarks as well. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer have expressed strong support for collective efforts to facilitate a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. PM Modi is visiting Austria for a day-long State visit, the first time an Indian Prime Minister has visited Austria in 41 years. In a joint statement released on Wednesday, the leaders emphasised that any resolution must be consistent with international law and the principles outlined in the United Nations Charter. "Concerning the war in Ukraine, both leaders supported any collective effort to facilitate a peaceful resolution consistent with international law and the UN Charter," the statement read. The leaders underscored the importance of achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace, which they believe requires bringing together all stakeholders involved in the conflict. The joint statement highlighted the necessity for a sincere and earnest engagement between the two primary parties to the conflict. "Both sides believe that achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace in Ukraine requires bringing together all stakeholders and a sincere and earnest engagement between the two parties to the conflict," the statement continued. Prime Minister Modi and Chancellor Nehammer reaffirmed their commitment to diplomatic solutions and stressed the need for a concerted international effort to address the situation in Ukraine. They called on the international community to support initiatives aimed at fostering dialogue and reconciliation. Earlier in the day, PM Modi underscored the importance of "dialogue and diplomacy" in resolving global conflicts, particularly the ongoing war in Ukraine. "I have told earlier also, this is not the time for war," said PM Modi addressing the India-Austria joint press statement. His remarks came after delegation-level talks with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer at the Federal Chancellery in Vienna. "We won't be able to find solution to problems in the Warfield. Wherever it is, killing of innocent people is unacceptable. India and Austria emphasize dialogue and diplomacy, and for that, we are together ready to give any support required," PM Modi also said. The issue of killings of children during conflicts was also featured prominently in PM Modi's bilateral meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. PM Modi said that it is heart-wrenching when innocent children die adding that everyone who believes in humanity is hurt when there is a loss of lives. The same day Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed disappointment over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Russia, which he termed as a devastating blow to peace efforts. Zelenskyy took to social media platform X to post that on the same day 37 people, including three children, were killed and 170 others were injured due to Russia's missile strike at the largest children's hospital in Ukraine's capital city Kyiv. (ANI) FILE - In this Nov. 21, 1963 file photo, President John F. Kennedy walks past young bystanders during his visit to San Antonio. "Our goal must be an educational system in the spirit of the declaration of independence - a system in which all are created equal," Kennedy said in a graduation speech at San Diego State College on June 11, 1963. "A system in which every child, whether born a banker's son in a Long Island mansion, or a Negro sharecropper's son in an Alabama cotton field, has every opportunity for an education that his abilities and character deserve." (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle) ORG XMIT: TXHOU613 AP President John F. Kennedy looked over the Texas Military Institute cadets during a November 1963 visit to San Antonio with Gov. John Connally and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. The president's car stopped so Kennedy could shake hands with cadet Hugh Scott, acting battalion commander. Courtesy photo/Texas Military President John?F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy arrive in San Antonio on Nov. 21, 1963. Billy Calzada/Courtesy Julia Duchow MILLENNIUM / TUESDAY 9/14 / KENNEDY -- President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline are surrounded by security during their visit to San Antonio on 11/21/1963, one day before his assassination. CREDIT: EXPRESS-NEWS FILE PHOTO EXPRESS-NEWS FILE PHOTO President John?F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy arriving in San Antonio on Nov. 21, 1963. Billy Calzada/San Antonio Express-News President John F. Kennedy greets well-wishers at Kelly AFB before his departure from San Antonio, Nov. 21, 1963. File photo FILE - Seen through the foreground convertible's windshield, President John F. Kennedy's hand reaches toward his head within seconds of being fatally shot as first lady Jacqueline Kennedy holds his forearm as the motorcade proceeds along Elm Street past the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, on Nov. 22, 1963. Some of the last surviving witnesses to the events surrounding the assassination of Kennedy are among those sharing their stories as the nation marks the 60th anniversary. Associated Press reporter Peggy Simpson said she rushed to the scene that day, staying with police as they converged on the Texas School Book Depository,(AP Photo/James W. "Ike" Altgens, File) James W. (Ike) Altgens/Associated Press In 1979, Cynthia Orozco was working on her senior honors thesis at the University of Texas-Austin. The young scholar looked everywhere for archives on the League of United Latin American Citizens. There were zero LULAC archives, Orozco said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad That was surprising given that the Texas-born U.S. civil rights organization was at its 50-year mark. It is the oldest, largest Latino organization of its kind, advancing the struggle for civil, voting and educational rights, for employment and socioeconomic advancement and a just role for Latinos in U.S. life. The void prompted Ruben Bonilla, a Corpus Christi attorney and then its national president, to press UT-Austin to create a repository. LULAC archival material was gathered in the Benson Latin American Collection. Other archives followed at the University of Houston by way of its Arte Publico Press and its own history project, Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage. Advertisement Article continues below this ad More advances came. David Contreras, LULACs national historian, had his own aha! moment at a Houston public library decades after Orozco. In search of information about LULACs participation in the 1963 visit of President John F. Kennedy to Houston a day before his assassination, Contreras had better luck. He was doing research for the 50th anniversary of that visit in 2013 and Contreras found close to 100 collections donated by Mexican American figures, he said, sitting in the library collecting dust, a minute percentage digitized. ELAINE AYALA: Court ruling will turn presidents into kings Advertisement Article continues below this ad Even if Orozco and LULAC officials like Contreras can cite some successes in archiving, it still falls short, especially as LULAC prepares for its 100th anniversary in 2029. So, LULAC is renewing a push to fill out the record by encouraging its past presidents to collect, secure and make plans to donate their personal papers to an archive. It will ask its councils, or chapters, to collect and preserve what they can and start building archives with more standardized record-keeping. Its creating a national committee to oversee the arduous volunteer work as a way to grow membership and get LULACs history in school curriculum, too. LULAC isnt alone in taking history into its own hands. Orozco noted the work of San Antonios Esperanza Center in creating the Museo del Westside, which is capturing family histories largely ignored by mainstream museums and archives. Advertisement Article continues below this ad She mentioned the Raza Unida Partys 50th anniversary conference in San Antonio a few years ago, when its old guard created an online repository to share its history through documents and photos. Those efforts are good, but we still need archives in the libraries, where they can be cared for in terms of heat, light, rodents, mold, fires and family members, the latter being another threat to preservation. Orozco believes most LULAC materials from the 1930s and 40s are gone. But theres significant stuff out there from the 1960s onwards. She noted the work the University of Houston did to acquire the papers of Alonso Perales, a San Antonian she regards as LULACs intellectual founder and the subject of her latest book, Pioneer of Mexican-American Civil Rights: Alonso S. Perales. When I visited the Perales papers in 79 or 80, they were both in the home and in the garage, she said. Mrs. Perales would not let them go because she had a personal attachment. There were some audio recordings that I saw laying around at that time, but by the time (his papers) got to Houston in 2009 there were no more audio recordings. So, things get lost. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Getting buy-in will require LULAC to put peacekeepers on its front lines. Its diplomatic, painstaking work. In the case of LULAC, that may prove challenging given its record of political infighting. There are successful collectors and collections to emulate, however, such as librarian Martha Cotera, who was instrumental during her time at the Benson library. Were still benefiting from what Martha did at UT-Austin, said Sarah Zenaida Gould, executive director of the Mexican American Civil Rights Institute in San Antonio, a major player in preserving history. She really helped build a fantastic collection of all kinds of important papers related to Mexican American history and Mexican American civil rights history. Gould also points to Nicolas Kanellos, founder of Arte Publico, and Arturo Schomburg, an Afro-Latino historian and archivist and one of the first to collect papers of important U.S. Latino figures. She mentioned several others, including members of MACRIs scholars council university librarian Kathryn Blackmer Reyes of San Jose State University, who founded the Latino Digital Archive Group that created a portal to Latino archives, and Maria Cotera, an associate professor at UT-Austin and a founder of a digital archive called Chicanas Por Mi Raza, which is documenting Chicana feminist activism. Shes Martha Coteras daughter. Then there are places like the Wittliff Collections down the road from us at Texas State University, Gould said, and UTSAs collections that include Chicano newspapers from the 1960s and 70s. Such entities are in different stages of digitizing records to improve access. But its a process, Gould admitted. Digitization is slow and expensive. LULAC will face another issue, namely people unsure or not ready to donate their papers to any group or institution. India and Austria on Wednesday underscored the importance of sustainable economic partnership and supported the cooperation between institutions in renewable/green hydrogen. PM Modi paid an official visit to Austria from July 9-10. During his visit, the Prime Minister held bilateral discussions with Chancellor Karl Nehammer. Being parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and as countries committed to holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the leaders focused on sustainability and recognised that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. Noting the scope for engagement in the context of the Austrian government's Hydrogen Strategy and the National Green Hydrogen Mission launched by India to address the energy transition challenges, both the leaders supported a wide-ranging partnership between the companies and Research and Development institutions of both countries in renewable/green hydrogen, a press release by the PMO said. The two leaders also recognised the importance of research, scientific tie-ups, technology partnerships and innovation in driving forward the bilateral partnership and called for such opportunities to be explored. They emphasised the need for stronger collaboration to develop and commercialise technologies in identified areas through new business, industry and Research and Development partnership models, a press release by the PMO office said. In the field of economic partnership, both countries welcomed the convening of the first-ever high-level bilateral Business Forum with the participation of the CEOs of several companies in Vienna during the visit. PM Modi and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer addressed the Business Forum and encouraged business representatives to work towards new and more dynamic tie-ups across different sectors. The leaders also welcomed initiatives to connect the innovation and start-up ecosystems of the two countries through the Start-Up Bridge, which was set up during the visit of the Austrian Minister of Labour and Economy to India in February 2024 and the successful visit of a group of Indian Start-Ups to Austria in June 2024. The leaders also identified a variety of environmental technologies for targeted cooperation in areas such as clean transportation, water and wastewater management, waste management, renewable energy and other clean technologies. "They encouraged public and private institutions to extend financing for ventures and projects in these sectors to support an expanded engagement in these sectors. They also recognised the growing role of digital technologies in industrial processes (Industry 4.0), including in the area of sustainable economy," the release said. Notably, this is the first time an Indian Prime Minister has visited Austria in 41 years. Indira Gandhi was the last PM to visit Austria in 1983. PM Modi's visit to Austria comes after his two-day official visit to Russia, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin. PM Modi's visit to Austria also comes at a time when the two countries are marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. (ANI) Torrential rains caused significant damage to infrastructure, property, and roads. Landslide warnings were issued for at least 50 regions, and around 3,500 people were stranded, according to the South Korean Ministry of the Interior and Safety, as reported by Al Jazeera. South Korean Interior Minister Lee Sang-min described the situation, saying, "It was a level of severity seen once in about 200 years." On Wednesday, the area received 131.7 mm of rainfall, which is over 10 per cent of Gunsan City's average annual rainfall. A man trapped in the lift of an apartment in Nonsan died after the apartment was flooded. Rescue personnel found a man in his 70s inside a house that had collapsed due to a landslide. He was rushed to a hospital but succumbed to his injuries. Another man in his 60s died in Daegu after being sucked into a drainage system while inspecting his farm. Additionally, a man in his 70s died when his car was swept away by an overflowed stream. On July 18, 2023, 44 people had died due to floods in South Korea. The Marine Corps rescuers found the body of a woman in Yecheon, and a police rescue dog found another woman in her 70s in piles of wood shortly after noon, fire authorities said. Later in the day, the body of a male victim was also found in the same county. The three were among the nine people who remained missing in the aftermath of the landslides and floods caused by the heavy rains, which pounded the country. (ANI) Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra on Wednesday categorically denied any cancellations of scheduled programmes during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Moscow. Foreign Secretary Kwatra also refuted claims of friction or disruptions during PM Modi's "successful trip" to Russia. "No cancellation of programming element during PM Modi's visit to Moscow. Your reference to friction is surprising and factually incorrect. PM Modi's visit to Moscow was successful and there was no cancellation of any programming elements," Kwatra said addressing a special briefing on the Prime Minister's visit to Austria. He further clarified, "To the best of my knowledge, there were no cancellations of any particular programming element during the prime minister's visit to Moscow." During the briefing, Kwatra also divulged the details of issues on which PM Modi held discussions. Kwatra said, "The third issue on which the two leaders spent a considerable time was the Russia-Ukraine conflict. PM Modi spoke about India's perspective on the Russia-Ukraine conflict..." The Foreign Secretary also highlighted PM Modi's extensive engagements with world leaders concerning the Russia-Ukraine crisis. "PM met President Zelenskyy in Tokyo and G20 summit in Italy, then meeting with President Putin. All through this engagement and there were numerous phone calls. All this engagement, we have been urging to find a way forward through dialogue. We will provide all support and for the meeting, two sides need to decide...We have been extremely consistent about it. Our readiness to play whatever role possible," Kwatra emphasised. He also reiterated Modi's stance on the conflict, stating, "The PM said it clearly and had 3 elements - this is not a time of war, a solution to Russia-Ukraine conflict cannot be found on the field and wherever innocent lives are lost those are unacceptable. In discussion today dialogue and diplomacy is the way forward for solution. Whatever India can contribute to dialogue, India will do it. Prime Minister elaborated in detail on challenges in the country of the Global South and its impact on the economic aspect. Energy security was impacted and is still a matter of stress." Regarding India's messaging on Russia-Ukraine relations, Kwatra affirmed, "Messaging on Russia Ukraine by India, PM has been consistent in what he articulated in his meeting in Moscow and he has been consistent about it. When he met the Russian president at the SCO summit in Samarkand, he mentioned that this was not the era of war and said it publicly." Prime Minister Narendra Modi held significant meetings with Austrian leaders, including Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and Chancellor Karl Nehammer, to bolster bilateral cooperation and explore new avenues for collaboration between India and Austria. Notably, this is the first time an Indian Prime Minister has visited Austria in 41 years. Indira Gandhi was the last PM to visit Austria in 1983. PM Modi's visit to Austria comes after his two-day official visit to Russia, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin. PM Modi's visit to Austria also comes at a time when the two countries are marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi has departed for Delhi on Thursday (local time), marking the end of his three-day official visit to Russia and Austria. This is his first bilateral visit in the 3rd term. After concluding his visit, PM Modi shared a post on X and thanked Austria's Chancellor, government, and people for their warm welcome and hospitality. He also stated this visit was immensely productive and described it as 'historic.' "My visit to Austria has been historic and immensely productive. New vigour has been added to the friendship between our nations. I am glad to have attended diverse programmes while in Vienna. Gratitude to Chancellor @karlnehammer, the Austrian Government and people for their hospitality and affection," PM Modi said on X. Earlier in the day, PM Modi also attended a community event in Vienna and stated that this wait has ended on a historic occasion marking the 75 years of their friendship Further, he also expressed his gratitude and delight at the enthusiastic welcome, acknowledging that it was a historic moment as an Indian Prime Minister visited Austria after a gap of 41 years. As PM Modi arrived on the stage at a community event people welcomed him 'Modi, Modi' chant. https://x.com/MEAIndia/status/1811104014261735625 Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal also shared a post on X stating that PM Modi interacted with the Indian community in Vienna. The community warmly welcomed PM Modi, and the event showcased the strong connection between India and its diaspora. "Forging deeper bonds with the diaspora. PM @narendramodi interacted with the members of the Indian community in Vienna today. The community welcomed PM with great joy and fervour," said Randhir Jaiswal. "PM highlighted the progress made by the country in the last 10 years and shared his vision for the future. He also dwelt on India being a 'Vishwabandhu' and contributing to global progress and well-being. He thanked the Indian community for its role in strengthening - partnership," he added https://x.com/karlnehammer/status/1811098751496527946 Following this, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer extended his appreciation to the teams involved in organizing the successful state visit of PM Modi to Austria. Further in a post on X, Chancellor Nehammer acknowledged the dedication and hard work of numerous individuals and teams, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Federal Army, the police, protocol officers, and many others behind the scenes. He thanked them for their professional planning, organization, and execution of the visit. "In order for a state visit as big as that of @narendramodi to Austria to work, dozens of employees are intensively busy for weeks. Hundreds more are involved on the day of the visit," Nehammer said. "Many thanks to the teams of @MFA_Austria , @bkagvat as well as the Federal Army, the police, the protocol and the many helping hands in the background for the professional planning, the careful organization and the perfect execution. Thank you!," he added (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the community event in Vienna on Wednesday where he highlighted the long and significant history and culture of both India and Austria, noting that the historical connection has benefited both countries in terms of cultural exchange and trade. "Just like India, Austria's history and culture have been very old and grand. Our contact with each other also has been historic. This has benefitted both countries. This benefit has been regarding culture as well as commerce...," said PM Modi at the event. Further, PM Modi said that there is a lot of interest globally in India's thoughts and actions and emphasised that India has shared knowledge and expertise with the world for thousands of years, promoting peace and prosperity, rather than war. "Across the world, a lot of discussion is going on over India...What is India thinking today, what is India doing - it is essential to build a better-informed world regarding this...We have shared knowledge & expertise with the world for thousands of years. We can proudly say that India has not given 'yuddh' (war) but 'Buddha'. When I speak of Buddha, it means that India has always given peace and prosperity." He also expressed pride in India's role as a global partner (Vishwa Bandhu) and its commitment to continuing this role in the 21st century. "That is why, even in the 21st century, India is going to strengthen this role it has. When the world views India as 'Vishwa bandhu' today, it is a matter of pride for us," he added. Moreover, PM Modi expressed his belief that governments alone cannot forge strong connections between nations and stressed the need for public participation to deepen relationships. "I have always been of the opinion that the relations between two countries are formed not just by governments. Public participation is essential to strengthen relationships. That is why, I consider your role very significant for these relations," PM Modi said. Further in his address, PM Modi shared his ambitious vision for India's future at a community event aiming to become one of the top three economies globally. He targets achieving this goal by 2047, when India celebrates its 100th independence anniversary, and envisions a strong, developed India for the next 1000 years. "Today India is growing at the rate of 8 per cent. With this speed, we will reach the top 3 (economies of the world). I had told the people of the country that in my third term, I would take the country to the top 3 economies of the world...Our Mission is 2047...The country would celebrate 100 years of independence, but that would be the century of Viksit Bharat," PM Modi said. "India will be 'Viksit' in every manner. We are laying a strong foundation for India for the next 1000 years," he added Members from the Indian diaspora chanted 'Vande Mataram' and 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' after PM Modi's address during a community event. (ANI) Nepal's foreign secretary Sewa Lamsal arrived in India to attend the BIMSTEC Foreign Minister's Retreat. In a press release, Nepal's foreign ministry stated, "Foreign Secretary Ms Sewa Lamsal is leaving for New Delhi today, leading a Nepali delegation to the Second BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat scheduled to be held on 11-12 July 2024 in New Delhi, the Republic of India." During the Retreat, the Foreign Secretary will also discuss further strengthening regional cooperation and partnerships in agreed areas of mutual interests and complementarities within the BIMSTEC framework, according to a press release. During the visit to Delhi, Sewa Lamsal is scheduled to call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with the BIMSTEC delegation. The release further said, "On the occasion, the Foreign Ministers and Heads of Delegations of the BIMSTEC Member States are scheduled to pay a joint call on His Excellency Shri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India." Nepal's foreign secretary will be accompanied by a senior official of the Ministry and will return to Kathmandu on July 13. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will host his counterparts for the 2nd BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat in New Delhi on July 11-12. The Retreat will present an opportunity for the Foreign Ministers of BIMSTEC nations to discuss avenues to broaden and deepen cooperation in various sectors, including security, connectivity, trade and investment, people-to-people contacts etc in the Bay of Bengal region and littoral, according to Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). In a press release, MEA said, "The Retreat will present an opportunity for the Foreign Ministers of the BIMSTEC countries to discuss, in an informal setting, avenues to broaden and deepen cooperation across various sectors including in the fields of security, connectivity, trade and investment, people to people contacts etc, in the Bay of Bengal region and littoral. "The first edition of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat was held in Thailand's Bangkok on 17 July 2023. BIMSTEC comprises seven Member States - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The MEA noted, "The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), brings together seven countries of South and South East Asia for multifaceted cooperation." (ANI) With the eyes of the world on him, President Joe Biden delivered a forceful speech to open the NATO summit in Washington, aiming to reverse doubts about his fitness for the job domestically while boasting that his leadership revitalized the storied alliance and saved Ukraine. The address, which kicked off three days of high-profile meetings in the steamy U.S. capital, served as both a political and geopolitical test for Biden. With every speech, he must prove that age is just a number and that his shambolic debate performance against former President Donald Trump was a one-off bad night. And with every appearance at the NATO Summit this week, Biden must demonstrate he can still rally allies to Ukraines cause for the long haul. Ukraine can and will stop Putin, he said at the ornate Mellon Auditorium in Washington. Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail. The president didnt fumble over words as he often does during remarks. He was clear and forceful, appearing energized by the transatlanticism that he has embraced throughout his political career. The speech was more than atmospherics. Biden used the occasion to announce the delivery of new air defenses for Ukraine, one of Kyivs top requests for this summit. The U.S. and four NATO allies the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Romania will this year send four Patriot air-defense systems and related components as well as one SAMP/T system. In the coming months, Washington and its partners will also deliver dozens more tactical air-defense systems to bolster Ukraines security and expect to make similar announcements later in the year. A critical part of the new assistance package will see some countries who have ordered air defense missiles from U.S. companies bumped down the list, as supplying those interceptors to Ukraine will take priority. Make no mistake: Russia is failing in this war, Biden declared before noting that 350,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, with another 1 million people fleeing the country. When this senseless war began, Ukraine was a free country. Today, its still a free country, and the war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country. In a joint statement released shortly after Bidens remarks, the president and the leaders of the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Romania and Ukraine said: Our message to Moscow and the world is clear: Our support for Ukraine is strong and unwavering. The move ends months of a U.S.-led search for air-defense systems to send to Ukraine and negotiations over how to procure them. Some nations didnt want to part with the sophisticated defensive weapons, at least not before figuring out how to replace them. Last week, a senior Biden administration official told POLITICO we're shaking the hell out of the trees, and were going to get the highest number that we can. A boost in air-defenses was high on Ukraines list, as Russias superior arsenal allowed it to bombard cities and key military targets. On Monday, Russia overwhelmed Ukraines defenses in Kyiv, launching a deadly strike on a childrens hospital one of Europes largest leading surviving patients to receive cancer treatments on the street. Andriy Yermak, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyys office, told POLITICO reporters before the announcement that he was pleased his country would get more support, but he lamented that the delivery was unnecessarily delayed and shouldve been completed much sooner. Now its necessary to close our cities, he said, claiming these and future air-defense system transfers will better protect against Russian missiles and deter future barrages. Biden will continue to be under a microscope this week as he manages a busy schedule, including a jam-packed Wednesday and a rare news conference on Thursday, when he will face questions about his age and mental acuity. Biden will use the days ahead to reassure NATO allies and skittish Democrats at home that hes up to the job of taking down Trump, as heads of state from Europe and North America prepare for the possibility of his predecessors return. The president has said the summit is a good venue for judging his abilities and has pointed to his leadership in rallying NATO support for Ukraine as evidence that hes equipped to serve four more years. With the potential of Trumps return to power looming, the president has repeatedly highlighted his commitment to NATO, while warning voters that his predecessor would abandon the alliance if he returns to the White House. Unlike in 2016, NATO allies are actively preparing to manage the return of a NATO-skeptic Trump administration. NATO officials are ramping up weapons production, consulting with Trumps advisers and holding meetings to prepare for the former presidents return, and with that, an America-first, restraint-focused approach and a deep skepticism toward Europe. Paul McLeary contributed to this report. A car theft suspect was arrested after a high-speed police chase that began in Portsmouth and ended when the alleged perpetrator struck a New Hampshire State Police cruiser early Tuesday morning in York, Maine, authorities allege. Steven Hebert, 42, of Worcester, Massachusetts, faces multiple charges in New Hampshire and Maine, according to New Hampshire State Police. Late Monday, around 11:45 p.m., New Hampshire State Police Troop A Trooper Cameron Vetter witnessed a car traveling northbound on I-95 in Portsmouth driving in excess of 100 mph, police said. Vetter observed the car having lane control issues, police said, then attempted to stop the vehicle, which sped up and evaded him, setting off the chase, police said. New Hampshire State Police are investigating a suspect who allegedly crashed into a trooper's cruiser. The gray 2012 Toyota Camry was reported stolen out of Wilmington, Massachusetts, according to state police. The vehicle continued at a high rate of speed, driving into Kittery, Maine, and exiting the highway as authorities from both New Hampshire and Maine responded. Police say the car then drove into York, Maine, where it turned down a dead-end road. The suspect then turned around and struck the cruiser of New Hampshire State Police Trooper Matthew Dushame, a state police arrest announcement states. The collision brought the pursuit to a conclusion." Steven Hebert of Worcester, Massachusetts, is charged with allegedly striking a New Hampshire State Police cruiser in York, Maine, following a chase. No injuries were sustained in the crash, nor in the pursuit, state police said. Hebert was arrested and transported to the Kittery police station. Kittery Police Chief Robert Richter said Hebert was booked at the Kittery police station around 12:45 a.m. Tuesday before being transported to York County Jail. Hebert was charged by Kittery police with single counts of eluding an officer, theft by receiving stolen property and being a fugitive from justice. According to Richter, New Hampshire State Police will obtain warrants for Heberts arrest to charge him separately. During his alleged getaway attempt, Hebert drove right past Kittery police officer Molly Bossi near the Premium Outlets on U.S. Route 1. Bossi took over the pursuit as Hebert allegedly sped into York, Richter said. It all worked out. There were no injuries. Everybody was safe. Nice job by all, Richter said. More local news: NH Air National Guard commander killed in Rochester hit and run Maine State Police, the Kittery and York police departments and local EMS providers additionally assisted in the incident, which remains under investigation. Members of the public with information about the incident are asked by police to call Vetter at (603) 223-4381 or email Cameron.S.Vetter@dos.nh.gov. A spokesperson for New Hampshire State Police did not immediately respond Tuesday afternoon to an inquiry about Heberts arrest. It was not immediately known if Hebert has an attorney. This story may be updated. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Car theft suspect from Worcester hits 100 mph in NH, strikes cruiser A Canyon Lake grocery store has installed an ammunition vending machine, allowing customers to buy bullets without having to speak to or show their identification to a real person. Lowes Market has added an American Rounds automated ammo dispenser at its store on Sattler Road, with plans for another machine at its second location near Canyon Lake later this month. The company also has five machines in Alabama and Oklahoma, and will add one in Colorado in July, CEO Grant Magers said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He said the vending machines are rolling out to grocery stores in mostly rural areas, with more than 200 stores in line for machines. The machines require buyers to scan their photo identification, then use facial recognition technology to verify that the buyers identity matches. Customers must be at least 21 years old. This undated photo provided by American Rounds shows a vending machine that sell ammunition in several locations across the United States. The machines scan a customers drivers license and uses facial scanning to verify a purchasers identity and that they are at least 21. (American Rounds via AP) Associated Press In this undated photo provided by American Rounds is a vending machine that sell ammunition in several locations across the United States. The machines scan a customers drivers license and uses facial scanning to verify a purchasers identity and that they are at least 21. (American Rounds via AP) Associated Press Magers said the scanning requirements make the kiosks more secure than other forms of ammunition sales. Before starting the business, he and his partners started visiting big retailers and saw ammunition just sitting on the shelf, he said, where it could easily be stolen, no different from a loaf of bread in the grocery. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In my life, Ive never been carded one time buying ammunition, he said. Online shopping also makes it easy for minors to make purchases, Magers said. We believe that we are the safest, most secure method of ammunition sales in the country, Magers said. He said someone looking to harm others is more likely to shop online and have it shipped, buy with cash or steal it than they are to go to a kiosk where their identification and face is scanned inside a store with security cameras. He said the company doesnt store, sell or share identification information or facial recognition data, which is purely used to complete the sale. There are no limits on the amount of purchases, other than the amount of product in the machines, which he said are restocked regularly. Only American Rounds employees have access to the inside of the machines; grocery store employees dont have keys, Magers said. He said the machines carry ammunition for rifles, handguns and shotguns, and said inventory will be adjusted as needed heading into different hunting seasons to meet demand. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We are creating convenience for customers in rural communities, he said. One gun safety advocate said technology to improve sales should be used in gun stores, not in other types of retail businesses. Innovations that make ammunition sales more secure via facial recognition, age verification, and the tracking of serial sales are promising safety measures that belong in gun stores, not in the place where you buy your kids milk, Nick Suplina, Everytown for Gun Safetys senior vice president for law and policy, told the Associated Press. In a country awash in guns and ammo ... we dont need to further normalize the sale and promotion of these products. In a report released in March, the organization said its review of seven major online ammunition retailers found that none actually verified customers' ages. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Magers said Lowes Markets approached American Rounds at a trade show and thought it would be a good fit for their stores. Joseph E. Corcoran is first in line when Indiana resumes executions. Here's what he did. After a pause of nearly 15 years, Indiana officials have announced plans to resume executions of convicted killers who have received the death penalty. The last execution of a state prisoner in Indiana was Dec. 11, 2009, and there are eight men sentenced to death on Indiana's death row. There were, however, 13 executions of federal prisoners at Terre Haute between July 14, 2020 and Jan. 16, 2021. In Indiana, Joseph E. Corcoran is first in line when the state resumes lethal injections, according to a petition filed in June asking the Indiana Supreme Court to set an execution date. Who is Joseph E. Corcoran? Corcoran, 49, of Allen County was sentenced to death in 1999 for fatally shooting four people on July 26, 1997. He has been held longer than all but two of the eight men facing the death penalty in Indiana. They are held in a unit at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City called X Row. Joseph Corcoran was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing four people in Allen County. Who did Corcoran kill? Corcoran, then 22, was living in Allen County with his brother, James Corcoran; his sister, Kelly Nieto; and her fiance, Robert Turner in 1997. Court documents say he became enraged when he heard his brother, Turner and two of his brother's friends, Timothy Bricker and Doug Stillwell, talking about him. After putting his 7-year-old niece in an upstairs bedroom, Corcoran loaded his semiautomatic rifle and fatally shot his brother, his brother's two friends and Turner. How was Corcoran tied to the crime and arrested? After the shootings, Corcoran laid down the rifle, went to a neighbor's house and asked them to call police. Why did Indiana stop executions? A lawsuit and other complications that prevented the state from obtaining the mixture of drugs used in its lethal injection protocol prompted the pause after the 2009 execution of Matthew Eric Wrinkles, 49, of Evansville. Wrinkles was convicted of murdered in the killings of his estranged wife and two for her relatives. Since then, no other inmate has been executed by the state of Indiana. Why is Indiana planning to resume executions now? In June, Gov. Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita said the Indiana Department of Correction has acquired a drug for the injections and asked the Indiana Supreme Court to set an execution date for Corcoran, one of four men on X Row who have exhausted their appeals. Holcomb said he believes the death penalty is the right way to discourage particularly gruesome violent acts. Reporter watched execution: Here's what he saw and felt What drug will be used for the lethal injections? Holcomb and Rokita said IDOC will use the drug, pentobarbital, to carry out death sentences. Pentobarbital has become the drug of choice for executions in the United States in recent years, as the other drugs traditionally used for lethal injection have become increasingly difficult to obtain because pharmaceutical companies often refuse to allow drugs they make to be used in executions When will Corcoran be executed? No date has been set at this time. In an order issued June 28, the Indiana Supreme Court set a 15-day deadline for filing a response or objection. "Accordingly," Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush wrote, "if no response is filed by Thursday, July 11, 2024, the Court will enter an order setting an execution date." As of the end of the day Tuesday, online court records show no response yet from Corcoran's attorneys. Is Corcoran going to fight the execution? Corcoran is represented by state and federal public defenders, who are expected to challenge the state's request to set an execution date before the deadline Thursday. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Joseph E. Corcoran is next in line when Indiana resumes executions Nato to send dozens of air defences to Ukraine, says Biden Nato will send dozens of air defence systems to Ukraine, Joe Biden has said, including four Patriot systems that Kyiv has been seeking to fight off the Russian advance. The US President declared that Ukraine can and will stop Vladimir Putin, but did not commit to sending additional F-16 fighter jets something Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader, signalled he had hoped to secure on Tuesday. The United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Italy will provide Ukraine with five additional strategic air defence systems, Mr Biden said. It marked a gaffe-free performance for the 81-year-old following his disastrous debate with Donald Trump last month. He continued: In the coming months, the United States and our partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air defence systems. The United States will make sure that when we export critical air defence interceptors, Ukraine goes to the front of the line. The US, along with Germany and Romania, will send the Patriot batteries over to Ukraine, while the Netherlands and other Nato member states will send components to make up another battery. Italy will provide a SAMP-T air defence system. Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg urged countries across the alliance to maintain their backing for Kyiv, warning that if Russia wins it will be the greatest risk for Nato. The outcome of this war will shape global security for decades to come, Mr Stoltenberg said. The time to stand for freedom and democracy is now. The place is Ukraine. Joe Biden embraces Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of Nato - Abaca Mr Biden paid tribute to Nato as the greatest military alliance in history, saying it was supported by the overwhelming bipartisan majority of Americans. The American people know that all the progress weve made in the past 75 years has happened behind the shield of Nato, he said. He did not mention Donald Trump, a longstanding critic of the alliance. However, he stole his Republican rivals talking points when he claimed that member states had started spending more on defence during his time in office. Some 23 allies will spend meet their two per cent spending obligations this year, the US President said up from nine when he came to office in 2021. Biden awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Stoltenberg - Bloomberg Mr Biden awarded the presidential medal of freedom, the highest civilian award in the US, to Mr Stoltenberg. A billion people across Europe and North America, indeed the whole world, will reap the rewards of your labour for years to come in the form of security, opportunity and greater freedom, he said. 11:40 PM BST Thats all for now Thanks for following our coverage of Joe Bidens speech to the Nato 75th anniversary summit. This live blog is now closed. 11:00 PM BST Stoltenberg awarded presidential medal of freedom Joe Biden bestows the presidential medal of freedom of Jens Stoltenberg, the outgoing secretary general of Nato. A billion people across Europe and North America, indeed the whole world, will reap the rewards of your labour for years to come in the form of security, opportunity and greater freedom, he says. 10:58 PM BST Biden: Americans know that Nato keeps us safe Let me say this, an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Americans understand that Nato makes us all safer, Joe Biden says. Joe Biden speaks at a NATO event to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the alliance, in Washington, DC - REUTERS/Yves Herman The American people know that all the progress weve made in the past 75 years has happened behind the shield of Nato. Mr Biden quotes Ronald Reagan: If our fellow democracies are not secure, we cannot be secure. 10:56 PM BST Defence systems being sent to Ukraine, says Biden The US, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Italy will send five strategic defence systems to Ukraine, Joe Biden announced. Make no mistake Russia is failing in this war, Joe Biden says, saying 350,000 troops have been wounded while nearly one million Russians have fled the country to avoid conscription. He adds: Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail. 10:53 PM BST Biden: Ukraine will stop Putin Make no mistake, Ukraine can and will stop Putin, Joe Biden says. 10:52 PM BST Nato allies are spending more under me, says Biden Joe Biden is speaking about the growth of Nato. Finland and Sweden joined the alliance not just because their leaders thought it, but because their citizens called for it, in overwhelming number, he says, calling the bloc Better resourced than it ever has been. Only nine Nato allies were meeting defence spending obligations when he came to office, Mr Biden says. This year 23 will spend at least two percent - and some will spend more than that, he claims. 10:49 PM BST Biden: Nato is greatest alliance in history Joe Biden, who is speaking clearly and has so far avoided any verbal mishaps, calls Nato the single greatest, most effective defensive alliance in the history of the world. He calls the support from Nato allies following the September 11 attacks a breathtaking display of friendship. They have a stake in our success, and we have a stake in theirs, he says. 10:47 PM BST Biden onstage now Joe Biden is beginning his speech at the Nato summit, speaking about the foundation of the alliance under former president Harry Truman. 10:45 PM BST Stoltenberg: Nato needs politicians to show courage Nato allies need to take difficult decisions with political courage and moral clarity, Jens Stoltenberg says. He concludes: We are stronger and safer together in Nato. It is good to have friends. 10:41 PM BST We cannot let Russia win in Ukraine Russias war against Ukraine is the biggest security crisis in generations, Jens Stoltenberg says. He continues: Ukraine has shown remarkable courage. And Nato allies have provided unprecedented support. But lets be honest. Not even our support for Ukraine has been a given. It is not straightforward. Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg speaks at a NATO event to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the alliance - REUTERS/Yves Herman Because our support comes with costs and risks. The reality is there are no cost-free options with an aggressive Russia as a neighbour. The greatest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine. We cannot let that happen, Mr Stoltenberg says, adding that it would embolden autocrats in North Korea, Iran and China. 10:37 PM BST Stoltenberg: Nato is longest-lasting military alliance ever Nato is most successful, strongest and longest-lasting alliance in history, Jens Stoltenberg, the blocs secretary general, says. He pays tribute to courageous leaders on both sides of the Atlantic who faced down critics to create Nato in the 1940s. 10:33 PM BST Pictures: World leaders gather onstage before Biden speech President Joe Biden takes his place alongside world leaders at the Nato summit - AP Photo/Evan Vucci Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, US President Joe Biden, President of Finland Alexander Stubb and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gather onstage for a group photo - JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images 10:18 PM BST First Lady takes her seat ahead of Biden speech Jill Biden, the First Lady, is taking her seat in the front row at the Nato summit in Washington, DC. Joe Bidens speech should be imminent. Jill Biden arrives for the NATO 75th Anniversary Celebratory Event at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington - SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Image 10:08 PM BST Why Trump-proofing Nato is a priority The purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), its first secretary-general once remarked, is to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down. Lord Ismays aphorism has always been a useful way to describe the alliance. But as Nato leaders gather in Washington to mark the 75th anniversary of the alliance this week, it feels more relevant than ever. The Russians are banging on Europes door in a way they have not for years. The Germans, no longer in need of keeping down, are now under pressure from allies to raise themselves to the occasion. But it is keeping the Americans in that will be the unspoken priority. Read the full analysis from Roland Oliphant here. 09:55 PM BST Pictures: European leaders gather in Washington for summit Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni arrives for the NATO 75th Anniversary summit in Washington, DC - BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for the NATO 75th Anniversary summit - BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, arrives with his wife at the Nato 75th Anniversary summit - JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock 09:52 PM BST Pictured: PM to make first international appearance at Nato summit The Prime Minister will soon be making his debut on the world stage as he heads for the Nato summit in Washington, DC. Sir Keir Starmer has previously said he looks forward to sitting down with Joe Biden, the US President, at the gathering. He is also expected to meet Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer talks to journalists as he travels onboard a plane to Washington DC to attend a Nato summit - Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire 09:46 PM BST Zelensky: We need F-16s and air defences Now in Washington. Today marks the beginning of the NATO Summit. We are fighting for more air defense systems for Ukraine, and I'm confident we will succeed. We are also striving to secure more aircraft, including F-16s. Additionally, we are pushing for enhanced security pic.twitter.com/ydkHQjK6RL Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) July 9, 2024 09:45 PM BST Nato is bigger and better than before, says Blinken Nato is ready to take on the challenges facing the military alliance, Antony Blinken has said, as he welcomed Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg to Washington, DC. We have an alliance that is stronger, that is larger, and that is more fit for purpose than its been, and ready to take on the challenges of this moment, the US Secretary of State said. Its a product of leadership, and Ive seen it every single day these past three and a half years with the Secretary General. Ive also seen it with President Biden and everything hes done to lead our alliance to the place that it is today and that well be putting a real spotlight on over the next three days. 09:38 PM BST Pictured: Spectre of Trump looms over Nato summit A mock magazine cover of Joe Biden at Donald Trump's golf resort in Doral, Florida - REUTERS/Marco Bello 09:32 PM BST Blinken: Ukraine will get very strong support package Ukraine will come out of this weeks Nato summit with a very strong support package, Antony Blinken has said. The US Secretary of State, appearing alongside his Ukrainian counterpart, said the gathering of Nato allies would further strengthen Ukraines ties to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its path to membership. Weve done a lot of work in recent weeks and recent months on that, and I think youll see a very strong package emerge from the summit for Ukraine, he added. He added: Weve been working closely together to make sure that as things move forward, Ukraine has what it needs to stand strongly on its own feet militarily, economically, democratically. Mr Blinken went on to say that Nato was committed to seeing Ukraine succeeded as a strong country... that will be manifested in very concrete ways over the next couple of days. 09:16 PM BST Welcome Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Nato 75th anniversary summit. Benedict Smith here. Well be bringing you the latest updates for Joe Bidens speech, which is due to begin at 10pm BST (5pm ET). 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. Editors Note: Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune. His work can be seen in The New York Times, Politico, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, among other publications. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more at CNN Opinion. A year ago, NATO heads of state gathered in Vilnius, Lithuania, for their annual summit. A gathering designed to send Russian President Vladimir Putin a message about NATOs resolve and commitment became clouded instead, however, by the question of Ukraines eventual membership in the alliance. Daniel R. DePetris - Courtesy Daniel R. DePetris The communique released after the multi-day event reaffirmed a commitment given by the alliance during the 2008 summit in Bucharest: Ukraine will become a NATO member, even if the timing is yet to be determined. For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the reaffirmation was far short of his expectations. He called NATOs unwillingness to establish a concrete timeframe for Ukraines membership unprecedented and absurd, causing consternation in the Biden administration and nearly derailing the summit. Washington and Kyiv were able to patch up the acrimony. But with NATO leaders in Washington this week to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the alliance, the Ukraine membership question continues to hover over the proceedings like humidity in the dog days of August. The United States and its allies will no doubt continue to insist ad nauseam that its only a matter of time before Ukraine is given the privilege of joining NATO. Indeed, according to the draft communique for this weeks summit, NATO is preparing to emphasize that Ukraines path to joining the allliance is irreversible, a declaration first made by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in April. In reality, however, Ukraine is nowhere near membership. NATO doesnt look prepared to bring Ukraine into the alliance, and theres a good case to be made that bestowing membership status on Kyiv would be bad policy. Its long past time for the Biden administration to stop pretending otherwise. The White House should give Zelensky the honesty he deserves. First, the US should be clear up front about how difficult it is for an aspiring country to become a member of NATO. Its charter makes clear that member nations agree to defend any other member of the alliance that comes under attack: The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. On paper, Poland is as obligated to come to the defense of the US as the US is obligated to come to the defense of Poland. Several key NATO members, however, havent been especially eager to come to the defense of Ukraine. In 2008, when then-President George W. Bush wanted to offer Ukraine (and Georgia, another former Soviet state) a plan to get the accession process started, allies like France and Germany were opposed to it. After the Russian annexation of Crimea in March 2014 put the issue on the agenda once again, it was the US that had qualms. Then-President Barack Obama instead said that Washington would call a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, a body to nurture the bilateral relationship. Biden stated as recently as last month that he is not prepared to support the NATO-ization of Ukraine. Because NATO makes decisions through consensus, any single member can block Ukraines accession. The notion that Kyiv will enter NATO as long as the war in Ukraine is churning is of course fanciful for the simple reason that the members of the alliance would then be compelled to fight Russia directly, which raises the question of whether bringing Ukraine into NATO, even if feasible, is actually wise. Zelensky, who has spent a great deal of time since Russias invasion trying to press the subject of membership, himself understands this necessary delay quite well. Some foreign policy scholars, like former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, have recommended extending a NATO invitation to Ukraine to pave the way for when the war is over. This would presumably deter Putin over the long-term and prevent Moscow from using any ceasefire to rebuild its military for another invasion of Ukraine months or years down the line. But this scenario is also problematic. Why would Putin consider a ceasefire or diplomatic settlement with Kyiv if he knew that NATO membership for Ukraine was just around the corner? Far from promoting a settlement, this idea could make the wars termination virtually impossible for Putin, who explicitly called on Ukraine to drop its aspirations to join NATO as a core condition of any peace negotiation. As dozens of foreign policy experts wrote in an open letter last week (which I signed), The closer NATO comes to promising that Ukraine will join the alliance once the war ends, the greater the incentive for Russia to keep fighting the war and killing Ukrainians so as to forestall Ukraines integration into NATO. All that aside, its not altogether clear that extending a NATO security guarantee to Ukraine would be fully honored which could undermine the alliance itself. NATO countries have repeatedly demonstrated that they wont get into a direct shooting war on Ukraines behalf. The Wests justifiable reticence to get involved militarily in Ukraine suggests that when push comes to shove, NATO is not going to plunge itself into a war with the worlds largest nuclear power. A NATO security guarantee without credibility is merely a paper promise, one which Russia might choose to test. NATO would then be presented with two unpalatable options: stand idly by and erode the power of its collective defense clause or wage an unwanted war against a country with more than 5,500 nuclear warheads. In short, insisting Ukraine will become a member of the NATO family, even if the practical roadblocks are easy to foresee, does a disservice to the United States and NATO, as well as Ukraine. The US exposes itself as a superpower giving a prospective client state false hope. NATO reveals itself to be divided on the Ukraine accession question. And Ukraine is forced to endure the humiliation of being strung along, like a proverbial hamster on a wheel that cant reach the hunk of cheese in front of it. The best Ukraine is likely to get from NATO is more air defense batteries and missiles, a stronger training program for its troops and a commitment to help Kyiv hold the line. Biden should tell Zelensky point-blank that NATO membership is a fools errand and while hes at it, he ought to apologize to all Ukrainians, for waiting so long to state the obvious. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley released all of her delegates on Tuesday and encouraged them to support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president at next weeks Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The nominating convention is a time for Republican unity, Haley said in a statement. Joe Biden is not competent to serve a second term and Kamala Harris would be a disaster for America. We need a president who will hold our enemies to account, secure our border, cut our debt, and get our economy back on track. I encourage my delegates to support Donald Trump next week in Milwaukee. However, Haley, the only woman to seek the Republican presidential nomination, was not invited to attend the convention. According to her spokesperson Chaney Denton, Haley was not invited, and shes fine with that. Trump deserves the convention he wants. Shes made it clear shes voting for him and wishes him the best. Haley, the last viable alternative to Trump, secured 97 delegates from 12 states during the 2024 Republican primaries. Haleys decision to release all of her delegates was the final detente between the GOP runner-up and Trump. After Haley dropped out of the race in March, she called on Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond who did not support him. But Trump did not make any public effort to reach out to Haley or her voters. Voters, however, continued to support her in state primaries after she ended her 2024 bid. In the weeks after she dropped out, 22 percent of voters in Indianas open GOP primary picked Haley. In April, she received 20 to 25 percent support in suburban counties around Philadelphia. Similar patterns played out elsewhere. Trumps campaign declined to comment, but pointed to the former presidents comments about Haley after a rally in New York. "I think she's going to be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts," Trump told News 12 New York. "I appreciated what she said. You know, we had a nasty campaign, it was pretty nasty. But she's a very capable person, and I'm sure she's going to be on our team in some form, absolutely." During a speech at the Hudson Institute, Haley, who is currently serving as the conservative think tanks Walter P. Stern chair, said she would support a president who backed Americas allies, secured the border, supported capitalism and freedom and would lower the national debt. And while Trump has not been perfect, Haley said, she would vote for him in the general election. Trump has not been perfect on these policies. Ive made that clear many, many times, Haley said. But Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump. Having said that, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech, Haley said. In June, Haley told the Wall Street Journal that she reached out to Trump after she announced she would be voting for him and had what she described as a good conversation, but said there was no discussion of any role on the campaign or at the upcoming convention. Haley served as Trumps first United Nations ambassador. The group of Republicans known as the House Freedom Caucus this week ousted a Cincinnati-area lawmaker from its group, according to reports from Politico and USA Today. Washington, D.C.-based think tank Pew Research Center has described the Freedom Caucus members as among the most conservative members of Congress. The Freedom Caucus removed Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from Troy whose 8th Congressional District includes Cincinnati's western suburbs in Hamilton County and all of Butler County. The Monday vote was 16-13, Politico reported, citing an anonymous source. Ohio 8th Congressional District detail Why was Rep. Warren Davidson kicked out of the Freedom Caucus? The reason, according to Politico and USA Today, was Davidson's support for Virginia state Sen. John McGuire, who defeated Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Bob Good in Virginia's Republican Primary in June. Both Davidson and former President Donald Trump endorsed McGuire, who edged out Good by 375 votes. Davidson tweeted on Tuesday that he was not happy with the Freedom Caucus' decision but content, adding that "Congress will soon be a better place without Bob Good, as will Freedom Caucus." He said Freedom Caucus members viewed his support for McGuire as an attack on them. I am not happy, but very content. Congress will soon be a better place without Bob Good, as will Freedom Caucus. I am disappointed that some HFC members (a very narrow majority of those present) viewed my opposition to Bob and support for John McGuire as an attack on them or the Warren Davidson (@Vote_Davidson) July 9, 2024 "While that was not my intent, their opposition to me was intended," Davidson said. "Nevertheless, God is good, and real friendships mend." Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who also found herself ousted last year from the Freedom Caucus, tweeted her support for Davidson. "Their loss!" Greene tweeted. "You are one of the best and smartest members of Congress. Backstabbing Bob Good and the Never Trump freedom caucus members are the problem. They have destroyed Freedom Caucus and have made it ineffective. In doing, so they have made our entire Republican majority ineffective." Their loss! You are one of the best and smartest members of Congress. Back stabbing Bob Good and the Never Trump freedom caucus members are the problem. They have destroyed freedom caucus and have made it ineffective. In doing, so they have made our entire Republican majority pic.twitter.com/6o4iJwxhTr Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) July 9, 2024 This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Why Warren Davidson was ousted from the Freedom Caucus After losing a bitter primary race, U.S. Rep. Bob Goods time in Congress is coming to a close, but hes still making waves as chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus. On Monday evening, the caucus voted to oust one of its own members, retribution for Rep. Warren Davidsons decision to endorse Goods primary opponent. I am disappointed that some HFC members (a very narrow majority of those present) viewed my opposition to Bob and support for John McGuire as an attack on them or the group, Davidson, who represents Ohios 8th District, posted on social media Tuesday morning. Despite Good heading the very caucus of which Davidson was a member, the Ohio representative chose to turn against his colleague, supporting Virginia state Sen. John McGuires bid to boot Good from Congress. McGuire narrowly defeated Good by 374 votes in the June 18 primary, and barring any surprises that could come from a potential recount, Good will be out of power in 2025. His defeat is a significant blow for the Freedom Caucus, one that many of its prominent members worked to avoid by joining Good on the campaign trail in Virginias 5th District. Among them were Matt Gaetz of Florida, Chip Roy of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Andrew Clyde of Georgia. On a rainy March morning at a Scottsville rally, Gaetz highlighted the importance of Goods role as chair of the caucus, telling The Daily Progress the Good-McGuire matchup was the most important primary in the country. Bob Good is the leader of the Freedom Caucus. He is the masthead for House conservatives. And if an establishment-backed candidate like McGuire were to prevail, it would deflate a lot of the fighting spirit throughout the Republican conference in the House, Gaetz said. So on Monday night in a closed-door meeting with caucus members, Davidson paid the price for his perceived betrayal. The Ohioan is not relenting in his criticism of the Virginian. I am not happy, but very content. Congress will soon be a better place without Bob Good, as will Freedom Caucus, Davidson wrote on X. Good has found himself at odds with multiple factions of the Republican Party. His role in ousting former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy lost him favor with some establishment colleagues, and then he found himself in the crosshairs of those most closely aligned with GOP presidential contender and former President Donald Trump. In a measure of irony, just as Davidsons endorsement decision likely cost him a seat in the House Freedom Caucus, Goods own endorsement decision likely cost him a seat in Congress. Good endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential primary, leaving an opening for McGuire and others to accuse Good of disloyalty to the former and perhaps future president, a figure who is tremendously popular among conservatives in Virginia's 5th District. Trump ultimately endorsed McGuire, writing in a social media post that Good was, BAD FOR VIRGINIA AND BAD FOR THE USA. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, one of Trumps most vocal supporters, also threw her support behind McGuire, even joining him on the campaign trail and echoing the McGuire campaigns message that Good was a backstabber. She continued that attack on X in a response to Davidsons post. Their loss! You are one of the best and smartest members of Congress. Back stabbing Bob Good and the Never Trump freedom caucus members are the problem, Greene wrote. They have destroyed freedom caucus and have made it ineffective. In doing, so they have made our entire Republican majority ineffective. In July, Greene herself was removed from the caucus, in a vote that came less than two days after Greene got into a verbal altercation with fellow member Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado on the House floor, during which Greene called her colleague a little b---h. Less than 10 years old, the House Freedom Caucus has already had its fair share of drama, with Davidsons ouster only the most recent chapter. And there may be more strife to come. According to reporting from Politico, the decision to eject Davidson passed in a narrow 16-13 vote. Miles Coleman of the University of Virginias Center for Politics pointed out that apart from Davidson and Greene, a number of members have voluntarily left the House Freedom Caucus in years past. While this vote perhaps is a win for Good, the caucus must also decide whether they want him to remain as chair. Yes he lost his primary, but hes still going to have some semblance of power, at least for the rest of the year, Coleman told The Daily Progress. For now, that appears to be true. Goods office did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Progress, which included a question about whether he expects to remain caucus chair even though he will not be in Congress in the next term. It is a little odd, said Coleman on the caucus having a chair whose time in Congress is coming to an end. This is kind of new ground for the caucus in a sense, because its only been around for 10 years or so and Bob Good is the first acting chairman of it who has lost a primary. Many conservatives in the 5th District are fiercely loyal to Good. On the campaign trail, the congressman said he was able to organize larger rallies than McGuire because he has true support from the grassroots. And even after Trump, the head of the party, publicly and repeatedly bashed Good, the incumbent still came within 0.6% of winning reelection. But he has not seen that same devotion from his Republican colleagues in Congress, and it remains to be seen if he has it from his own caucus members. Bob is uniquely skilled at alienating others even when he has the right policy position, Davidson wrote on X. Things that don't grow die. Conservatives need to grow the movement, not divide it. We will be more effective with John McGuire than Bob Good. An inmate walks up the stairs in a unit in the Bexar County Detention Center in May 2019. Incarceration rates at the Bexar County jail have skyrocketed over the last four decades, according to new data from the Vera Institute of Justice. Bob Owen /Staff photographer The Bexar County jail is bursting at the seams and for weeks has housed more than 100 inmates in neighboring county lock-ups. Sheriff Javier Salazar reached a handshake agreement with Burnet and Kerr counties about three weeks ago when the Bexar County facility was at risk of exceeding its maximum capacity of 5,075 inmates. The two rural counties have consistently housed between 120 and 150 inmates from Bexar County over the past few weeks. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Those inmates have been convicted of crimes and are waiting to be transferred to state prison. The county reached 99% of the jail's capacity before it started busing inmates to Burnet and Kerr counties. State prison officials say jails shouldn't exceed 90% of their capacity so there's room in case inmates need to be shifted around because fights or gang tensions and they forbid county jailers from crowding in more prisoners than their facilities are built to hold. THE DAY MY MOTHER NEVER CAME HOME: Reginald Reed Jr. still visits the convicted killer of his mom A pair of factors have put a strain on the local jail: the facility sees an increase in the inmate population every summer, and lately the state has been slow to pick up inmates because of it own capacity and staffing problems. Salazar, whose office oversees jail operations in addition to patrolling county communities, said about 300 inmates are waiting to be moved to state jails on any given day. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "I think this is the new normal," the sheriff said. "I think we need to be preparing for this on a constant basis." Even when the summer surge of inmates recedes, as officials expect it to, space in the jail will still be tight. Starting in January, portions of the facility will have to be shut down to make intercom upgrades and other improvements. Looking ahead, Salazar and Bexar County Commissioners Court, which funds the sheriff's office's budget, may have to consider a jail expansion in the coming years. Building a fourth tower to the existing facility could be one possibility, Salazar said. Booming population(s) In June 2022, the jail held 4,586 inmates. This June, there were 4,919. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The number of inmates is growing in tandem with Bexar County's population, which hit 2.1 million between 2000 and 2023, an increase of nearly 4 percent. Burnet County was promised $80 per day per inmate and Kerr County agreed to $65 per day, but they are still working out formal agreements with Bexar County. Bexar County commissioners could vote on the deals later this summer. It costs Bexar County between $70 and $90 per day to house each inmate in its own jail. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This isn't the first time Bexar County has had to seek help from other counties. The county has signed similar agreements with La Salle, Burnet, Johnson and Live Oak counties between 2009 and 2014. HYOGO, Jul 10 (News On Japan) - A union has demanded the resignation of Hyogo Governor Saito following the death of a former senior official who distributed documents alleging workplace harassment by the governor. Fumio Tochitori, Central Executive Committee Chairman of the Hyogo Prefectural Employees' Union, stated, "It is extremely regrettable that we could not protect the employee who made the accusations. We call for a responsible response from the governor." On the morning of July 10th, just before 11 a.m., the union submitted a request to the prefectural government, stating, "Since the problem arose, there have been significant disruptions to workplace operations, making it impossible to restore public trust," and demanded Governor Saito's resignation. In Hyogo, a 60-year-old former senior official who was disciplined after internally exposing harassment allegations against the governor died on the 7th. Governor Saito has so far denied the calls for his resignation, stating, "It is my significant responsibility to thoroughly reform the prefectural administration." Source: ANN TOKYO, Jul 10 (News On Japan) - Japan's Imperial Family, including Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako, Crown Prince Akishino, Crown Princess Kiko, and Princess Kako, gathered for a special music concert to celebrate the 90th birthdays of former Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko. Also in attendance were Sayako Kuroda and other family members. The concert was held at the Tokagakudo music hall within the Imperial Palace. Former Emperor Akihito, now 90, and Empress Michiko, who will turn 90 in October, were honored with this event. Both have a deep appreciation for music, with the former Emperor playing the cello and the Empress playing the piano. Musicians with long-standing connections to the couple performed in their honor. Notably, renowned Japanese jazz musician Sadao Watanabe, 91, performed three jazz pieces. Watanabe, born in 1933 like the former Emperor, remains active in the music scene, releasing an album in April and embarking on a domestic tour. He previously served as the general director for the Japanese government's exhibit at the 2005 World Expo, where he guided the then-reigning Emperor and Empress. Last month, Empress Michiko recovered from a COVID-19 infection within a week and privately visited the Meiji Jingu Museum with the former Emperor. Emperor Akihito continues his research at the Imperial Palace's Biological Laboratory. This was the first time in nearly five years, since April 2019, that the former Emperor and Empress attended a music concert with their family, making for a cherished and memorable occasion. Source: TBS What is the word for the color red in other languages? Albanian: Red is i kuq. Red is i kuq. Bulgarian: Red is (cherven). Red is (cherven). Dutch: Red is rood. Red is rood. French: Red is rouge. Red is rouge. Vietnamese: Red is mau o (mow daw). Red is mau o (mow daw). Italian: Red is rosso. Red is rosso. Portuguese: Red is vermelho (ver-mel-yo). Red is vermelho (ver-mel-yo). Russian: Red is (krasny). Red is (krasny). Hindi: Red is (laal). Red is (laal). Persian: Red is (ghermez). Color and sight have a close relationship. Historically, color has been of far less significance to people than it is today. Color is described in many strange ways in Greek texts. For example, blue is never mentioned. Red in 10 Other Languages below are 10 words of other languages for red. English speakers may find some tough words to learn for red in different languages. Red in Albanian Red is called i kuq by Albanian speakers. Its a bit tricky to pronounce, but youll get the hang of it! Red in Bulgarian Red, in Bulgarian, is called (cherven). This word sounds quite unique and different from English. Red in Dutch The Dutch word for red is rood, which sounds like road. Red in French In French the word is rouge which describes the color red. It sounds a bit like roozh. Red in Vietnamese Writing and speaking words can be tough in some languages, like Vietnamese. The English word red is mau o in Vietnamese. Its pronounced like mow daw. Red in Italian The Italian word used for red is rosso. Its pronounced just like it looks: roh-so. Red in Portuguese The word for red in Portuguese is vermelho. Its pronounced ver-mel-yo, which is quite different from the English version. Red in Russian Similarly, the word for red in Russian is totally different. In Russian, the word (krasny) is used for red. To say red in Russian, you must say krah-sniy. Red in Hindi The word red in Hindi is (laal). Its pronounced exactly as it looks: laal. Its important to note that many Hindi and Urdu words sound the same but are written differently. Red in Persian The Persian word for red is (ghermez) and it sounds like gher-mez. History of Red Color According to historians, red has always been a significant color throughout human history. Red is one of the first colors humans ever used, often associated with wine, blood, and fire. In ancient cave paintings, red was one of the most common colors, created using iron oxide. Red has often been used symbolically in various cultures. In ancient Egypt, red was associated with life and health but also with destruction and evil. The Romans used red to signify warfare and heroism. In China, red is a color of luck and prosperity. Throughout history, the symbolism of red has been both positive and negative, but it has always been powerful. This vivid color has been used in art, religion, and fashion, influencing societies around the world. Humans began to perceive and use red pigments early on, with evidence of red ochre use dating back to prehistoric times. The significance of red in language and culture is vast, making it a fascinating subject to explore in different linguistic contexts. Learn more about the color blue The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), has commended President Bola Tinubu for the creation of the Ministry of Livestock Development. The President of the association, Alhaji Baba Othman-Ngelzarma, who stated this in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja, said the creation of the ministry would unlock the trillion naira livestock economy. He also said that the ministry would create qualitative and productive jobs across the livestock value chain to improve the Nigerian economy. With this development, MACBAN believes, the hope of the Nigerian pastoralists is now achieved under the Renew Hope Agenda. The promise made by President Tinubu, to raise the productive capacity of Nigerian agriculture to ensure food security is being fulfilled. We as an association had for years been agitating tooth and nail to actualise the creation of a stand-alone ministry to modernise livestock production system in line with global best practices, he said. Othman-Ngelzarma pleged support to the federal government to turn livestock production into a foreign exchange earner, and reduce the farmer/ herder conflicts and its related security challenges. According to him, Nigerian pastoralists appreciate this historic development, adding that they would reciprocate the gesture. On behalf of the Chairman and members Board of Trustees of MACBAN, his Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar III, and entire members of the Cattle Breeders association of Nigeria across the nation heartily congratulate the President and Commander-in-chief of the Nigerian Armed forces for this wonderful development. It will be recalled that President Tinubu on Tuesday announced the creation of the Ministry of Livestock Development. The president made the declaration during the inauguration of the Renewed Hope Livestock Reform Implementation Committee at the Council Chambers of the State House, Abuja. Tinubu, who is the Chairman of the committee, announced Prof. Attahiru Jega as the deputy or Co-chair of the committee. When you have great opportunity as this, why should Nigeria continue in conflict with the calibre of the people that is here? This presents a unique opportunity also to delineate and establish a separate ministry called the Ministry of Livestock Development. We will develop the economy, and give people the opportunity to excel. Our vet doctors can give us the necessary opportunity to rear, crossbreed and stop the wanton killings, even animal feeds is a huge economy, Tinubu said. Present at the inauguration were Vice-President Kashim Shettima; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Sen. George Akume, the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, among others. By Ikechukwu Nnochiri The Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, on Wednesday, decried what he termed as unpalatable cocktail of misleading and conflicting judgements emanating from courts of coordinate jurisdictions in the country. He said the National Judicial Council, NJC, has already activated the process that would ensure that errant judges are made to face the consequence of their despicable and odious conduct. Speaking shortly after he inaugurated 22 judges into the Court of Appeal Bench, the CJN, lamented that the avalanche of frivolous interlocutory orders emanating from the various courts, have continued to make a mockery of the judicial system. He said: I have made it known at different fora that we have been treated to an unpalatable cocktail of misleading and conflicting judgments as well as frivolous interlocutory orders emanating from courts of coordinate jurisdictions, which have literally attempted to make a mockery of our judicial system and flagrantly desecrate the revered Temple of Justice. Several cases of such abound across the length and breadth of the country. This is, largely, an embarrassment to our jurisprudence, and we will never handle it with levity. Punitive measures must definitely be meted out to such erring Judges. We have already activated the process of reining-in such errant Judges with a view to making them face the consequence of their despicable and odious conduct. As Judicial Officers, we have to continually remind ourselves the fact that we are not occupying our respective positions to serve ourselves, but the Nigerian masses; and the best way we can serve them is by doing what will make them feel safe in our hands and also trust us to always deliver the right judgments that will not be tainted by sentiments, emotions or other clandestine considerations. Justice Ariwoola, who also swore in 12 legal practitioners that were recently appointed as judges of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court, implored the new judicial officers to always abide by their oath of office. He described as unprecedented, the number of Justices that were elevated to the bench of the appellate court, noting that the last time such large number of judicial officers were inaugurated, was on June 28, when the court got 18 Justices at the same time. Todays ceremony is an indication of the perilous times that we are currently in, which has resulted in an upsurge in litigation. Several unfathomable crimes are being committed in the country, aside from the usual political matters that have made litigations to go on alarming rise. No court in the land is spared of this litigation deluge, as it were. We are constantly on our toes and the dockets are ever increasing in response to the challenges of the time. This underscores the fact that Nigeria is fast emerging as a front-line crime-infested country that we all have to urgently curtail, the CJN stated. He said the enormous task of cleaning the Augean stable rests squarely on the Justices. Your Lordships, so, you must hastily fasten your belt and roll up your sleeves to face the challenges head-on. In other words, you should hit the ground speeding at a supersonic velocity; and not just running. You must redouble your pace to catch up with the expectations of the sprawling community of litigants. As judicial officers, you have a divine mandate on earth that you must discharge with unveiled honesty and sincerity. You must give good account of yourselves to justify your elevation to the Court of Appeal. In the next couple of months, we shall be having two governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States, respectively. As usual, the courts will be besieged with Plethora of petitions. It is our statutory duty to hear all matters that come before us and adjudicate according to the laws of the land. We must not falter; and we must not tread the path of infamy. Yes, it is true that we cannot please everyone through our actions and work, but with the right application of the law and the Constitution of the land, which we all have collectively pledged to uphold, we can go a long way to do those things that our conscience will be very proud of; and the generality of the Nigerian citizens will equally be happy about. Every position we attain in life always avails us that unique opportunity to do something novel and impactful, especially if there was any previous act of wrongdoing or misapplication of discretion. With Your Lordships elevation to the higher Bench today, you have to be very mindful of the enormous confidence the public is now reposing in you vis-a-vis their expectations. Like we often say, to whom much is given, much is expected. Your Lordships must not rest on your oars, as the onus now lies more heavily on you to discharge your judicial duties more dispassionately, discretionally, and transparently. So, you must, individually and collectively, guide your loins to do more to earn lasting trust and integrity. Your conduct and disposition must tally with the yearnings and aspirations of the generality of the citizenry, the CJN added. By Ikenna Ngere The House of Representatives has refuted claims that it asked the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led government to suspend the implementation of the Samoa agreement. According to The Nation, the House spokesman Hon. Akintunde Rotimi clarified in a statement that the Houses resolution was to investigate the controversial clauses allegedly contained in the Samoa Partnership Agreement. Naija News learnt that the goal is to ensure these clauses align with constitutional provisions, existing laws, and national interests and values. Rotimi stated that the Green Chamber also urged the Federal Government to ensure thorough consultations and stakeholder engagement on matters related to the agreement. These decisions followed the adoption of a Motion of Urgent National Importance titled Alleged Controversial Samoa Partnership Agreement by the Federal Government, sponsored by House Deputy Minority Leader Rep. Aliyu Sani Madaki (NNPP, Kano), and co-sponsored by 88 lawmakers, Rotimi said. The motion, which debated the Samoa Partnership Agreement aimed at enhancing food security and promoting inclusive economic development, sparked significant discussion in the Green Chamber upon its introduction. During the debate, concerns were raised regarding alleged clauses purportedly mandating support for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community as a prerequisite for financial and other aid from developed nations. Additionally, apprehensions were expressed about several specific articles within the agreement, including Articles 2.5, 29.5, 36.2, and 88, which some lawmakers believe may not align with Nigerias national interests and values, especially in the absence of a reservation clause. Rep. Aliyu Sani Madaki argued that Article 97 of the agreement, which asserts the supremacy of the agreement over any conflicting treaties involving European Union (EU) member states or the Organisation of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS), potentially infringes upon Nigerias sovereignty. In response, House Leader Rep. Julius Ihonvbere (APC, Edo) clarified that the agreement, as officially presented, does not include provisions related to a $150 billion fund or any clauses promoting LGBT rights in Nigeria, contrary to public speculation. Emphasising the importance of parliamentary oversight, House Minority Leader Rep. Kingsley Chinda (PDP, Rivers) underscored the need for transparency in treaty negotiations, citing Section 12 of the Nigerian Constitution (1999, as amended), which mandates parliamentary involvement in such matters. It is important to clarify that the House of Representatives did not resolve to call for the suspension of the agreement nor for the suspension of its implementation, as has been erroneously reported by some media houses, Rotimi added. Instead, the House resolved to thoroughly scrutinise the Samoa Partnership Agreement for all contentious clauses through legislative hearings. Furthermore, the House mandated its Committees on Treaties, Protocols and Agreements; Justice; and National Planning and Economic Development to engage with relevant stakeholders to address any ambiguities in the agreement. The Committees are expected to report back to parliament within four weeks. In reaffirming its commitment to shaping Nigerias foreign policy in line with national interests, the House emphasised its Legislative Agenda 7 (Influencing and Directing Nigerias Foreign Policy) to harmonise constitutional requirements with the Treaty Ratification Act for consistency and transparency. U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, shown at a 2022 news conference, has resigned from the far-right House Freedom Caucus. The move came after a divisive vote to remove another member. Nathan Howard/Getty Images U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Richmond, has resigned from the far-right House Freedom Caucus after a divisive vote this week to kick out another member. Nehls was on the losing side of a 16-13 vote that ousted Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio over his endorsement against the groups chair, Rep. Bob Good of Virginia. The move leaves just three Texans in the group of archconservatives, down from five at the start of the term. Davidson is the third Republican to be ousted from the Freedom Caucus over the last year. In a statement first reported by Axios, Nehls said he had wanted to see the group continue to grow, rather than boot members. Advertisement Article continues below this ad With tonights vote, it was clear that is not their objective, Nehls said in his statement after Monday nights vote. I value what the HFC brings to the table, and I can assure them I will continue to support their conservative agenda. I just wont be a member. Davidson faced the groups ire after he endorsed John McGuire over Good in the Virginia primary. Good, who as chairman frequently clashes with GOP leaders, narrowly lost that primary in June but says he is pursuing a recount. Nehls is not the first Texan to leave the Freedom Caucus, which has become famous for antagonizing GOP leadership. Rep. Randy Weber, R-Friendswood, was kicked out in March after a spat with Good over Webers attendance in caucus meetings. Weber had been in the group for nearly a decade but said he came to dislike the groups increasingly fiery tactics under Goods leadership. Rep. Brian Babin, R-Woodville, was a member of the group during his first term in Congress but quit in 2017 over the caucus obstruction of the GOP agenda under former Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and then-President Donald Trump. Rep. Ted Poe of Humble, who is now retired, also left for similar reasons. The Freedom Caucus has long been known as the most conservative bloc of Republicans in Congress. But its growing ranks and increasing willingness to buck the party line have caused headaches for party leadership, especially in the current Congress, where the Republicans hold the majority by only a handful of members. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The caucus gained more clout this term when former Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California agreed to place three Freedom Caucus members, including Rep. Chip Roy of Austin, on the powerful House Rules Committee, which sets the terms for floor debate on all bills going through the House. Roy, the caucus policy chair, has since used his position to bend the committee further to the right. Freedom Caucus members were also instrumental in the push that ousted McCarthy from his speakership last year. Nehls departure leaves just three Texans: Keith Self of McKinney, Michael Cloud of Victoria and Roy, who has been floated as a replacement chair if Good steps down early. Goods term as chairman technically ends in 2025, but he will have to step down at the end of year as he exits office. Ethiopias Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed becomes the first foreign leader to visit Sudan for a meeting with army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan since the countrys descent into brutal conflict that has driven nearly 10 million people from their homes and created a humanitarian crisis. Abiy and al-Burhan met in Port Sudan, the new seat of Sudans government, on Tuesday (9 July) for talks that are part of the Ethiopian leaders efforts to find sustainable solutions for Sudans stability, according to Abiys office. Sudan descended into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the countrys military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere in the country. Abiys visit takes place only weeks after the RSF took the capital of the southeastern state of Sennar last month, thus bringing the war closer to Sudans border with Ethiopia. Until then, the army which was loyal to Burhan had controlled most of the eastern and northern parts of the country. Meanwhile, the visit of the Ethiopian leader comes days after an Egypt-sponsored meeting of Sudanese political and civil society groups in Cairo that aimed to find ways to end the war engulfing Sudan. While the Sudanese political and civil society groups agreed on Saturday (6 July) on the necessity to end the war, the warring parties, however, didnt take part in the conference. Any real political solution to the crisis in Sudan must be based on a purely Sudanese vision emanating from the Sudanese themselves, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said in his opening speech. Previous efforts to end the war in Sudan included US-Saudi-mediated talks between the Sudanese army and the RSF but these failed to end the fighting. The Moroccan government has pledged to work with China and African countries to ensure success to the China-Africa Cooperation forum scheduled in Beijing in September. The pledge was made by Moroccos top diplomat Nasser Bourita during talks held Wednesday in Rabat with Chinese Special Envoy for the Middle East Zhai Jun. The Chinese official said his country counts on Moroccos active participation in the Forum and its leadership in Africa for the success of the event destined to showcase the continents huge assets and capacity to overcome various challenging obstacles. For his part, Bourita underlined Moroccos commitment, under the leadership of King Mohammed VI to peace, stability and development in the continent. China is a major investor in Africa. It is investing heavily in the African services sector, scientific research, technology, transport, infrastructures, industry, mining, energy, defense The African Development Bank has agreed to provide Morocco four loans totaling over 600 million to enable the North African Kingdom build a 105-km long highway, enhance territorial competitiveness, modernize the university, and support sustainable forest development. The agreements were signed Wednesday in Rabat by Minister in charge of the budget Fouzi Lekjaa and the Banks Country Manager Achraf Tarsim. The first loan worth 200 million is destined for the construction of Guercif-Nador motorway project. The second also worth 200 million will serve to improve territorial competitiveness in Morocco. The third loan valued at 120 million will support the Kingdoms efforts for a digital, entrepreneurial and inclusive Moroccan university, while the banks fourth funding worth 84 million will be used for inclusive and sustainable development of forest areas. Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images One very central dynamic in the recent saga of Democratic anxiety over Joe Bidens chances against Donald Trump, given the weaknesses he displayed in his first 2024 debate, has been the role of his understudy, Vice-President Kamala Harris. My colleague Gabriel Debenedetti explained the problem nearly two years ago as the Kamala Harris conundrum: Top party donors have privately worried to close Obama allies that theyre skeptical of Harriss prospects as a presidential candidate, citing the implosion of her 2020 campaign and her struggles as VP. Jockeying from other potential competitors, like frenemy Gavin Newsom, suggests that few would defer to her if Biden retired. Yet Harriss strength among the partys most influential voters nonetheless puts her in clear pole position. The widely shared perception that Harris is too unpopular to pick up the party banner if Biden dropped it, but too well-positioned to be pushed aside without huge collateral damage, was a major part of the mindset of political observers when evaluating Democratic options after the debate. But now fresher evidence of Harriss public standing shows shes just as viable as many of the candidates floated in fantasy scenarios about an open convention, mini-primary, or smoke-filled room that would sweep away both parts of the Biden-Harris ticket. For a good while now, Harriss job-approval numbers have been converging with Bidens after trailing them initially. These indicate dismal popularity among voters generally, but not in a way that makes her an unacceptable replacement candidate should she be pressed into service in an emergency. As of now, her job-approval ratio in the FiveThirtyEight averages is 37.1 percent approve to 51.2 percent disapprove. Bidens is 37.4 percent approve to 56.8 percent disapprove. In the favorability ratios tracked by RealClearPolitics, Harris is at 38.3 favorable to 54.6 percent unfavorable, while Biden is at 39.4 percent favorable to 56.9 percent unfavorable. Theres just not a great deal of difference other than slightly lower disapproval/unfavorable numbers for the veep. On the crucial measurement of viability as a general-election candidate against Trump, there wasnt much credible polling prior to the post-debate crisis. An Emerson survey in February 2024 showed Harris trailing Trump by 3 percent (43 percent to 46 percent), which was a better showing than Gavin Newsom (down ten points, 36 percent to 46 percent) or Gretchen Whitmer (down 12 points, 33 percent to 45 percent). After the debate, though, there was a sudden cascade of polling matching Democratic alternatives against Trump, and while Harriss strength varied, she consistently did as well as or better than the fantasy alternatives. The first cookie on the plate was a one-day June 28 survey from Data for Progress, which showed virtually indistinguishable polling against Trump by Biden, Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Gretchen Whitmer. All of them trailed Trump by 2 to 3 percent among likely voters. Then two national polls released on July 2 showed Harris doing better than other feasible Biden alternatives. Reuters/Ipsos (which showed Biden and Trump tied) had Harris within a point of Trump, while Newsom trailed by three points, Andy Beshear by four, Whitmer by five, and Pritzker by six points. Similarly, CNN showed Harris trailing Trump by just two points; Pete Buttigieg trailing by four points; and Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer trailing him by five points. Emerson came back with a new poll on July 9 that wasnt as sunny as some for Democrats generally (every tested name trailed Trump, with Biden down by three points). But again, Harris (down by six points) did better than Newsom (down eight points); Buttigieg and Whitmer (down ten points); and Shapiro (down 12 points). Theres been some talk that Harris might help Democrats with base constituencies that are sour about Biden. Theres not much publicly available evidence testing that hypothesis, though the crosstabs in the latest CNN poll do show Harris doing modestly better than Biden among people of color, voters under the age of 35, and women. The bottom line is that one element of the Kamala Harris conundrum needs to be revised. There should be no real drop-off in support if Biden (against current expectations) steps aside in favor of his vice-president (the only really feasible replacement scenario at this point). She probably has a higher ceiling of support than Biden as well, but in any event, she would have a fresh opportunity to make a strong first or second impression on many Americans who otherwise know little about her. Photo: Bonnie Cash/Bloomberg/Getty Images In an op-ed in the New York Times on Wednesday, tequila magnate and actor George Clooney wrote that President Joe Biden should not run as the Democratic nominee in 2024. I love Joe Biden, Clooney wrote. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. Clooney may know a thing or two about this: If anyone is winning the battle against time, it is him. But by joining the whimpering chorus of Democrats calling for Biden to step aside after his disastrous debate performance, Clooney is taking on a noted grudge-holder in Joe Biden. Their relationship has been a little tense for a couple months now. Before May, Clooney was in lockstep with the Biden campaign, bundling millions for his effort in 2020 as he did for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (a friend) before him. But two months ago, Amal Clooney, the esteemed human-rights lawyer who happens to be the actors wife, sat on a review board that essentially greenlit the International Criminal Court prosecutors decision to apply for a warrant to charge Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant with war crimes over the invasion in Gaza. (A recent calculation by The Lancet puts the civilian death toll in Gaza at around 186,000 people, roughly 8 percent of the territorys population.) As the administration supplying Israel with its munitions to carry out the war, the Biden camp wasnt thrilled by this action, coming from an international body that the U.S. is not even a party to. White House officials called the decision an overreach, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly told Republican senator Lindsey Graham he would welcome working with you on sanctioning ICC members. With the prospect of his wife facing sanctions by the U.S. government, the Washington Post reported that Clooney texted Biden fundraiser and adviser Steve Ricchetti to express his concerns and hinted that his support of the president was not unconditional. It appears that the beef was partially resolved: In June, Clooney hosted a star-studded event for Bidens reelection that raised $28 million. But after Oldgate, Clooney went in on just the issues. The Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe big F-ing deal Biden of 2010, he wrote. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. The campaign, in full defensive mode, even tried to intervene to stop the story from publishing, according to the Wall Street Journal. In the hours after Clooney bravely stood up for Hollywoods disgruntled donor class, he has attracted some notable haters. Delaware Senator Chris Coons, a close Biden ally, said on MSNBC that that he was more of a Matt Damon guy than a George Clooney guy. Donald Trump, meanwhile, wrote on Truth Social that Clooney turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are and that he should go back to where he came from. Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television, Trump wrote. Movies never really worked for him!!! He also posted a clip from Up in the Air in which Biden is spliced in showing Clooney firing the president. Clooneys op-ed is even fueling speculation about what his friend Barack Obama is doing behind the scenes, with Politico reporting that he informed the former president before publication. While Obama did not encourage or advise Clooney to say what he said, he also didnt object to it, the report states. For the time being, Biden has bigger problems to deal with, though he has unfollowed Clooney on X. But with presidential powers at an all-time high, thanks to the Supreme Court, we would advise that Clooney does not take any unchaperoned drives upstate anytime soon. Representative Steve Cohen after a House Democratic Caucus meeting Tuesday on Joe Bidens candidacy. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, In/Getty Imag Normally when a party is facing a crisis on Capitol Hill, emotions are high. People get angry at one another. The quotes get spicy, and the intrigue builds. Look no further than the past 18 months among House Republicans. Thats not happening among congressional Democrats this week, though. Instead, theyre just sad. A full day of internal meetings in Washington didnt produce a hallelujah moment with Democrats uniting in confidence that Joe Biden could actually win in November. But there wasnt the consensus needed to try to urge him to drop out of the race, either. As Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee said when asked if Democrats were on the same page, Were not even on the same book. Congress returned to work this week, the first time it has been in session since the June 27 debate in which Biden imperiled his candidacy. Expectations had been rising that the veritable dam would break and the private concerns over Biden would spill out publicly, perhaps to the point where leaders would march to the White House and tell the president to drop out. On Tuesday, House Democrats held a rare meeting at Democratic National Committee headquarters, where they put their cell phones in a cubby lest any members leak details of the meeting as it happened. Senate Democrats gathered for their weekly lunch in the Capitol. By the end, the dam remained mostly intact. After filing out of the two-hour House meeting, some Democrats still enthusiastically backed the incumbent. Lou Correa of California argued that the results of the presidential primary are binding: At the end of the day, the voters chose Biden as the nominee, not us. He went on to dismiss concerns about Bidens age as well: When you talk about his age, 80 is the new 60, right? Adriano Espaillat of New York shouted at reporters as he left the morning conclave that he was staying with Papa. Many others were simply rote in their support. Speaking in his weekly press conference, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer repeated the phrase Im with Joe in response to every question about the nominee. Pete Aguilar, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, gave a similar refrain as some other Democrats: Right now, President Biden is the nominee, and we support the Democratic nominee that will beat Donald Trump. Democrats also repeatedly pivoted to fears about a potential Trump return to the White House. Maxwell Frost of Florida told reporters that when he talked to voters, the thing people bought up wasnt Bidens age but the fact that they are scared to death of Project 2025 and the far-right wing. Those willing to publicly urge Biden to drop out, who tally a handful or so, did so with grim-faced resolve. Adam Smith of Washington told reporters that the concerns that I had leading up to that were significantly elevated after the debate, elevated to the point where I became convinced that we would be better off without him. Dean Phillips, who mounted a quixotic primary campaign against Biden based on concerns over his age and his ability to beat Trump, felt mixed emotions over the events of the past weeks. If this is vindication, vindication has never been so unfulfilling, he said. The Minnesota Democrat added Am I disappointed at those in power for not heeding my call when they knew the same thing I did? Absolutely. Late Tuesday night, Michael Bennet of Colorado became the first Democratic senator publicly say Biden cant win. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House, he told CNN, adding that the White House has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election. The varying opinions on Biden had left Democrats frozen: While most of his critics figured the president would likely lose if he remained on the ticket, they also estimated that an unsuccessful effort to oust him would just widen the margin of defeat and cause collateral damage downballot, possibly dooming their own campaigns. Many took an abstract view of the process as if it were an intellectual question that needed to be worked out on a blackboard. I think we are having an important national conversation, and I am confident that the president will make a decision in the best interest of the country, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland told reporters Monday. There was no sense that Biden had already announced his decision a number of times, including in a letter to congressional Democrats and again during a phone interview with Morning Joe. By Tuesday evening, a sense of fatalism gripped the party, fueling a desire among many just to resolve the crisis quickly and salvage what they could politically. As one Democratic donor said, The longer it lingers, the worse it is going to be in November. Only Biden could truly decide to remove himself from the ticket, and barring a shocking turn of events, he wasnt going to relinquish his grip. In the meantime, the longer the media feeding frenzy continued, the tougher it would be for Democrats in competitive races the last thing Democrats want to do is spend day after day answering questions about Bidens cognitive abilities. There would be no open convention, no Sorkinesque sacrifice, just another grim four months of plodding along with a flawed nominee. One senior Democratic aide recycled a T.S. Eliot line that was on its way to becoming a cliche more than ten years before even Biden was born: This wont end with a bang but a whimper. It seemed applicable not only to the effort to remove Biden from the ticket but to his reelection campaign as well. A Biden rally in May in Philadelphia. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images On Sunday morning, President Joe Biden visited Mt. Airy Church of God in Christ, one of the biggest Black churches in Philadelphia. In a concise seven-minute speech, he shared a message of hope and unity. I, honest to God, have never been more optimistic about Americas future if we stick together, he reassured the congregation. Across the country, the mood among Democrats was the opposite. Ten days earlier, the president gave what MSNBCs Joe Scarborough called the worst debate performance in modern history, a painful display of meandering half-thoughts and mumbled utterances that sent party donors, liberal columnists, and lawmakers into a panic. The president dismissed this setback as the result of a nagging cold and traveled to Philadelphia to convince Black voters to, in so many words, save him. Bidens plea was more overt in a call with members of the Congressional Black Caucus the following day. I need you guys, the 81-year-old president said, according to Politico. The thrust of Bidens post-debate damage-control strategy has been to show that, while some party elites and self-important podcasters may have written him off as a desiccated has-been, his base still believes in him. I think its interesting that not one African American member has called on the president to step down, Cedric Richmond, a Black co-chair of Bidens reelection campaign, told Politicos Jonathan Martin, who described the Biden teams motto as being, Its older Black women in church pews who will decide the nominee, thank you very much. Indeed, many rank-and-file Black lawmakers, from Ohios Joyce Beatty to Californias Maxine Waters, have rallied to the presidents defense, endorsements that have helped his campaign run roughshod over legitimate concerns about his cognitive fitness and reframe his refusal to step aside as a product of Black wisdom rather than his own hubris. Unfortunately, Black people are not political sages, but human beings who can be just as short-sighted as anyone else. And the CBC, in particular, has positioned itself at the vanguard of a bigger movement to imperil the very democracy Black voters have been credited with saving. For Team Biden, Black support is meant to invoke the dubious post-2016 motif that Black people, and Black women in particular, are uniquely prescient and capable guardians of the republic. In the wake of Trumps election, social media was flooded with an erroneous exit-poll statistic that said 52 percent of white women voted for the GOP nominee. (The real number was closer to 47 percent.) This was contrasted with Hillary Clintons overwhelming 96-point advantage with Black women, which led to a proliferation of posts and paraphernalia touting their unmatched foresight. Black women tried to warn you was emblazoned on T-shirts and repeated like a mantra on social media whenever Trump did something beyond the pale. When the 2020 primaries came around, Biden recast this allegiance as a political debt. You brought me back! he gratefully proclaimed to Representative James Clyburn after the South Carolinians endorsement revived his campaign in a state where most Democrats are Black. In return, Biden promised to choose a Black woman running-mate, and once Election Night rolled around, with Kamala Harris at his side, the resilience of his Rust Belt Blue Wall, along with his surprise victory in Georgia, were widely attributed to Black voters in Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia. It was thanks to them that the Democrats had produced a candidate capable of defeating Donald Trump. A year into his presidency, Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. He followed through by seating Ketanji Brown Jackson while presiding over record-low Black unemployment and temporarily halving the number of Black children living in poverty. The presidents comparatively strong record on Black economic issues largely made up for the fact that his pledges to empower Black women often felt weirdly transactional and a tad performative. He looked like a wise investment ousting Trump and narrowing the racial wealth gap would have seemed a success to almost any Black voter. But Biden was also 78 years old in 2020, and the degree to which age has since diminished him has become starkly apparent to everyone, very much including Black voters. The presidents uncanny stare and alleged difficulty recalling the names of people hes known for years can make him seem almost somnambulant. Though its plausible hes a more competent commander-in-chief than he is a campaigner, its hard to envision him going full throttle until he is 86. The irony of Bidens recent emphasis on the wisdom of Black voters is that he is currently doing worse with those voters than any recent Democratic candidate. The presidents overall Black support he won 92 percent of the Black vote in 2020 has eroded considerably, according to multiple surveys. Ipsos reported in June that Bidens favorability among Black voters fell from 55 percent in 2022 to 48 percent today. A New York TimesSiena poll in May painted an especially dire picture of Bidens outlook in six swing states: Across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, only 63 percent of Black voters said they would vote for Biden over Trump in November. That number fell to a subterranean 49 percent when third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West were included. If these figures hold, they would make Biden the weakest Democratic nominee with Black voters in decades, probably an insurmountable disadvantage when a majority of voters across every demographic already thinks hes too old to be president. Whatever supposed Black wisdom led to his victory in 2020 appears not to have anticipated the extent of his struggles in 2024. At worst, his most vocal Black boosters, including those in Congress, are guilty of buying into the same delusion that has reportedly afflicted his inner circle and family members: the notion that Bidens mental deterioration was a minor inconvenience that could be concealed as part of a triumphant reelection bid, rather than a major problem that needed to be confronted. Now, as the Congressional Black Caucus doubles down as the most reliably pro-Biden cohort on Capitol Hill, its hard not to reflect on that organizations migration from the fringes of Democratic Party influence to its center. At its inception in the early 1970s, the CBC was a thorn in the side of the party Establishment, with a redistributive platform, anchored by guaranteed health care, that was inspired by the pan-Africanist politics of the era. But as its ranks swelled, it became a negotiating force in Congress and a fundraising juggernaut. It started to soften its principles, regularly backing incumbents sometimes even white ones over upstarts with fresher ideas for advancing Black interests. With its crucial intervention into the debate over Bidens age, it may have hurt those interests even further, shoring up a candidate who most analysts believe is setting the stage for Trump to take back the White House. As Black voters and activists well know, the line between credit and blame is perilously thin. While they are sometimes hailed as heroes, its also common to see Democratic losses at the ballot box blamed on insufficient Black turnout, even though it is white voters who have fallen in such vast numbers under Trumpisms thrall. Bidens use of Black support as a crutch for his shortcomings similarly asks far too much of Black people, who are caught between being his imagined saviors and enablers. The greater reward for their loyalty would be to treat them like people and provide a clearer path to the candidate we all deserve, rather than settling for the one weve got. Annasofia Scheve covers trending news for the Express-News. She can be reached at Annasofia.Scheve@express-news.net. Annasofia has bachelor's degrees in journalism and political science from the University of Missouri. She is an Ohio native, and wrote for Cincinnati Magazine and the Cincinnati Enquirer before joining the Express-News in 2023. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images During a Wednesday morning appearance on Morning Joe, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered praise for President Joe Biden, who is in the middle of an intraparty debate over the viability of his candidacy. But the California congresswoman notably stopped short of saying she thought Biden should continue his reelection bid, instead offering a decidedly mixed, yet clear, message that he should reconsider. Its up to the president to decide if hes going to run. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short, Pelosi said. Does Biden "have your support to be the head of the Democratic ticket? Nancy Pelosi's non-answer: "It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short." (He has repeatedly said he's running.) pic.twitter.com/nyeZunyY30 Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 10, 2024 She continued, He is beloved. He is respected. And people want him to make that decision, not me. Biden made it clear earlier this week that he has, in fact, made his decision, sending a letter to congressional Democrats stating that he has no plans of dropping out and that hes the strongest possible candidate to run against Donald Trump. The president followed up his statement by calling in to Morning Joe which Pelosi knows he watches religiously daring his critics to challenge him at the Democratic National Convention in August. Pelosi also suggested that members of the party wait to address the question of Bidens fitness while the eyes of the world are on the president as he hosts the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., adding that hes doing so magnificently. Lets just hold off. Whatever youre thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you dont have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week, she said. When pressed on whether she wants Biden to run, Pelosi once again deferred to the president. I want him to do whatever he decides to do and thats the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with, she said. Pelosis comments mark a strong contrast from other leaders in the Democratic Party, who have offered either full-throated or medium-throated support of Biden. On Monday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that he is still backing the president. I made clear publicly the day after the debate that I support President Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket. My position has not changed, he said. Since Bidens disastrous debate performance last month, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has repeated one consistent refrain when asked whether he should step aside: Im with Joe. Jim Clyburn, the South Carolina congressman and former House majority whip whose 2020 endorsement played a key role in Bidens eventual win, has also stood by the president among the calls by some party members for him to drop out. Were riding with Biden, he said following the House Democrats caucus meeting Tuesday morning. However, Pelosis remarks demonstrate that theres still some uneasiness within the Democratic Party despite the many members who have voiced their support of Biden in recent days. In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Senator Michael Bennet confirmed that he said in a closed-door caucus meeting that Biden will likely lose in November. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House, he said. So for me, this isnt a question about polling. Its not a question about politics. Its a moral question about the future of our country, and I think its critically important for us to come to grips with what we face if together we put this country on a path to electing Donald Trump again. When Pelosi arrived back on the Hill later Wednesday morning, she told CBS News that she was not telling Biden to reconsider his decision with her televised remarks as reported by some outlets. I think the president is great. And there are some misrepresentations of what I have said, she said. Her office later issued a statement in an attempt to clarify her words. New statement from Speaker Pelosis office: Speaker Pelosi fully supports whatever President Biden decides to do. We must turn our attention to why this race is so important: Donald Trump would be a disaster for our country and our democracy. Rachel Scott (@rachelvscott) July 10, 2024 Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters The Democratic Party appears to have mostly coalesced behind President Biden this week after he wrote a letter to members of Congress emphatically stating that he wouldnt leave the race despite his disastrous debate performance. A raft of lawmakers has come out in support of Biden, while only a few dissenters have made their doubts public. Bidens most vocal cheerleaders include unsurprising names like longtime ally Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and former Democratic leaders like Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn. But the president is also getting strong backing from the Squad, the small group of House progressives who have often strongly disagreed with Biden on policy in the past. On Monday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that she was sticking with Biden after speaking to him over the weekend. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him, she said. Ocasio-Cortez said she expressed to Biden that the campaign needs to focus on issues affecting everyday working-class voters, including expanding Medicare and Social Security as well as continued work on student-loan debt and achieving a ceasefire in Gaza. Progressives have frequently taken a pragmatic approach to their interactions with the Biden administration. Though theyre often looked at as party rabble-rousers, the Squad provides reliable Democratic votes while being willing to push on particular issues where they differ from the president. Though Ocasio-Cortez, along with other members of the Squad, voted against Bidens signature infrastructure package, shes embraced the president in public, like when she appeared alongside him and Senator Ed Markey to celebrate the creation of the American Climate Corps, a key issue for the two congressional members. With Biden unlikely to step down, congressional progressives appeared to have made a clear calculation to stand behind Biden. Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, another Squad member, put it simply: We are losing the plot. Joe Biden is the nominee, she said, per Axios. Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar, who has frequently challenged the Biden administration on its support for Israels war in Gaza, said that she, too, is behind the president. Hes been the best president of my lifetime and we have his back, Omar said Monday, according to the Washington Post. Omar, who is facing a tough primary rematch against her 2022 challenger, Don Samuels, put her support of Biden front and center in a recent ad that features video of Biden praising her during an event. Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, though, has yet to weigh in on Biden following his debate performance. Tlaib, who is seen as Bidens strongest progressive critic, supported a campaign for Michigan voters to vote uncommitted in lieu of the president in order to express disapproval for the White Houses handling of the conflict in Gaza. Politico reported that she also declined in February to say if she would be supporting the president in November, but urged voters against sitting out in November entirely. Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photos: Frances Higgins, Amy Santos, Jessie Winograd Our tip came from Sight Unseen editor Monica Khemsurov, who got word from lawyer Meg Brown. Brown saw the lightweight, quilted, no-name Amazon pants on Jessie Winograd, a massage therapist who is part of the cast of the play Terce: A Practical Breviary, which opened in January at the Space at Irondale in Fort Greene and was created by Heather Christian, who also has a pair. Winograd sent a link to the pants to the plays 30-plus-person cast after being sent the same link by fellow cast member Ciera Cope who, it turns out, had noticed the pants during rehearsal on musician Amy Santos. The first time Santos wore the pants, she happily received a handful of compliments but didnt think too much of it. Until, all of a sudden, it seemed like every cast member of Terce a play that reimagines what happens during Catholic morning Mass was walking around in a pair. The pants in question are from Wrolem, one of those mysterious Amazon brands like Orolay, the company behind the Upper East Sides favorite coat. Though technically called Winter Warm Down Cotton Pants Thicker Padded Quilted Pants, the Wrolem pants are made from a summery padded cotton and come in either black, green, gray, or orange with a gingham-lined hem that can be cuffed. You might even mistake them for old Caron Callahan or new Cordera (a version of its quilted pants is selling for $416 on sale at Ssense). They look like I got them from one of those places that only sells beige things, says cast member Sarah Lefebvre, who works in marketing and owns a pair. I could imagine seeing the pants for $100 somewhere. In fact, theyre just $39.65 which, of course, was part of their intrigue. They only have 17 reviews on the site, and if you werent sent a link you might not have clicked on them at all. I did a lot to publicize the pants by never taking them off, Winograd, who many Terce cast members credit with popularizing the pants, says. I was a billboard. The pants, which have a thick elasticized waistband and are available in sizes small to XL, fit all shapes and sizes of cast members. Truly, it was Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in real life, says Avery Richards, a cast member who also works as a costumer. A few cast members even own more than one pair including Reverend Grenetta Briggs Mason, who was part of the plays choir and didnt wait a week after her first pair arrived before ordering her second. According to Mason, on any given day of Terces run, You could expect one of us to have on our pants. The number of people who owned the pants grew. One person wearing those pants is a statement ten is a cult, says Frances Higgins, a cast member. The pants appeal, according to cast members, lies in their sweatpant-esque silhouette, and the fact that you can throw them on without drawing too much attention to yourself. Theyre not supposed to be flattering I mean, they are, but theyre not going to cinch your waist, says Richards. Theyre not intended at all for the gaze of anyone else except for those in the know, Winograd says. I wouldnt say theyre pants that your run-of-the-mill straight man would think are attractive. As Winograds husband puts it: They leave everything to the imagination. Most of all, the pants are versatile: Cast members have worn them everywhere from running errands to a Kentucky Derby party. While the play closed at the beginning of February, the popularity of the Wrolem pants has endured. Its funny because I feel like people see them and immediately just become a little obsessed with them, says Winograd, who was wearing the pants at a matinee showing of Appropriate recently, and was asked about them by the person sitting next to her (Winograd promptly shared the link). When Santos and producer Rachel Karp attended a Gaia Music Collective event together, both showed up in the pants and were asked by numerous people about them. Brown a lawyer who was not part of the Terce cast but originally noticed the pants on Winograd has convinced at least one other friend to get a pair and says that several other friends are thinking about it. According to Winograd, Brown now has started her own circle of pants influence. In a scene straight out of theater: One morning after Terce closed, Brown and Karp, who werent acquainted at the time, passed each other in Prospect Park, both wearing the pants. We clocked each others pants and we locked eyes, says Karp. Neither said a word, but Karp messaged the casts WhatsApp about it. Meanwhile, Brown texted Winograd that she had seen them on someone at the park. She was freaking out because they already had a message that said, I just locked eyes with someone who was wearing the pants, says Brown. Its something Santos the original pants lady, as Winograd describes her cant wrap her head around. Its snowballed out of the quote, main group, she says. 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Photo: Marcus McDonald As someone with two cats that shed quite frequently, I know how essential a good vacuum is in battling the hair and dander constantly accumulating all over my living space (not to mention the kitty litter they blithely leave in their wake). Having tested many vacuums for this guide and the guide to the best cordless vacuum cleaners, Ive found the best vacuum for the job is one thats relatively quiet and efficient and that has ample suction and bin capacity. For heavy shedders, stronger suction and an even larger bin can make picking up after your pets somewhat less of a Sisyphean undertaking. In addition to testing several top-of-the-line and best-selling vacuums (with the help of my feline housemates) to find the best options for homes with furry pets, I included recommendations from pet-hair experts and Strategist staff members who are also pet parents. The list below includes models from some of the best-known brands in the space, including Dyson, Shark, Bissell, and Black+Decker. Note that some pets are more bothered by vacuum noise than others; if volume is an issue for yours, you may want to opt for a robot model, which tends to be quieter than cordless or upright vacuums. Updated July 9, 2024: We replaced several picks after a new round of testing, including the Best Vacuum for Pet Hair Overall with the Dyson Gen5detect; updated prices; and checked stock for all other products. What were looking for Suction Suction strength (given in air watts, or AW) is included here whenever it was made available. When youre shopping for a pet-specific vacuum, Jon Gibbons, a cleaning consultant for the site Smart Vacuums, recommends choosing one that lists at least 200 AW in its specifications. Cord length or battery life Most vacuum cord lengths are between 30 and 35 feet. The cord can be annoying to deal with, but the vacuum wont run out of juice mid-cleaning. Most cordless vacuums can run for around an hour on regular or lower settings, which means you may be able to clean only a few rooms before needing to charge. And when some robot vacuums run low, they can dock themselves for additional charging to ensure they have just enough power to finish the job. Capacity If your pet is a heavy shedder, consider a bin size above 0.13 gallons (0.5 liters), which may need to be emptied at least once per vacuuming session. Weight A heavier vacuum often means a bigger, more powerful motor, though to get that deeper clean, you may have to accept that youll be lugging a weightier machine around your house or apartment. Cordless models generally sit on the lighter side, between six and ten pounds, while corded vacuums are between 15 and 20. Extras Vacuums may come with features like LED lights that help illuminate pet hair, high-powered settings for quick cleaning or tackling especially hairy situations, and attachments specially designed for gathering long strands. Best vacuum for pet hair overall Dyson Gen5detect Cordless Vacuum Cleaner $868 $950 now 9% off $868 Suction: 280 AW | Run time: 70 minutes | Capacity: 0.2 gallons | Weight: 7.72 pounds | Extras: Fluffy Optic cleaner head, hair screw tool, combination tool, mountable docking station, LCD data display, HEPA filter As a proud cat mom to two beautiful heavy shedders, I found the Dyson Gen5detect more effective than all the other vacuums I tested at removing the gray and brown fur they leave all over my apartment. Its powerful motor sucked up more hair and dust in less time than the other models and made the task hassle free with its smooth maneuverability and streamlined design. When dealing with pet cleanups, a HEPA filter is a must to truly tackle pet hair, dander, and other microscopic debris; the Gen5detect has a washable one to ensure its never too clogged to be effective. The Motorbar cleaner head is set with 56 detangling vanes to prevent hair from wrapping around the brush roll on thick carpets and rugs, and the Fluffy Optic cleaner-head attachment has an LED light that illuminates hair and other debris on hard surfaces. The hair screw tool was particularly effective at removing pet hair from my chairs, sofa, throw pillows, and bedspread. Weightwise, this vacuum is comparable to the Shark Pet and much lighter than the corded models. The Gen5detect is also Strategists pick for best vacuum overall. $868 at Amazon Buy $950 at Best Buy Buy Best (less expensive) vacuum for pet hair overall Bissell FeatherWeight Stick Lightweight Bagless Vacuum $33 $33 Suction: Not listed | Cord length: 15 feet | Capacity: 0.18 gallons | Weight: 2.6 pounds | Extras: Crevice tool The Bissell FeatherWeight lacks the bells and whistles of other vacuums on this list but gives you exactly what youre paying for: a low-cost vacuum that will pick up pet hair and other detritus. The FeatherWeight has one setting and an automatic power button and can readily transform into a handheld vac if you remove the stick handle. Its also as the name suggests incredibly lightweight, almost one-third the weight of the Dyson Gen5detect. The crevice tool attachment aided in the removal of dust from elevated places such as the tops of bookshelves and countertops, though I found the short cord length (15 feet) an annoyance at times because some spots in my home have outlets only near the baseboards. The short cord length also had me stopping to plug into new outlets twice during my cleaning session. The bagless dustbin was easy enough to empty, though the filter was more of a hassle; I ended up having to remove clumps of hair by hand. $33 at Amazon Buy $33 at Amazon Buy The Bissell FeatherWeight doesnt cost as much as the other vacuums on this list, but it can still get the job done. Photo: Madeleine Kuhns Best upright vacuum for pet hair Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Turbo Lift-Off Upright Vacuum $280 $280 Suction: Not listed | Cord length: 27 feet | Capacity: 0.26 gallons | Weight: 15.5 pounds | Extras: TurboBrush Pivot Pet Tool, LED combination tool, SmartSeal Allergen System, HEPA filter The Bissell Turbo has a HEPA filter and a proprietary system that traps fine dust and allergens to prevent them from being rereleased into the air. At 15 pounds, the vacuum still maneuvered well, though because of its bulkier design, I could not reach as far under my sofa and bookshelves as I could with slimmer cordless models. The self-cleaning brush roll, which can be turned off for delicate rugs and hardwood floors, kept hair and other debris from getting wrapped around the roll: Even a kitchen twisty tie that got caught up in the roll was sucked into the bin after mere moments. The two modes Plush Carpet and Low Carpet/Bare Floor work in tandem with the brush roll to customize your vacuuming based on your living space. The Turbos attachments are well designed, the brush tool worked great on countertops, and the crevice and dusting tool have an LED light, which was useful for identifying dust in darker nooks and crannies. $280 at Target Buy $280 at Wayfair Buy The Bissell Pet Hair Erasers headlights help illuminate messes for more targeted cleaning. Photo: Madeleine Kuhns Best robot vacuum for pet hair iRobot Roomba j7+ $800 now 50% off $400 Suction: Not listed | Run time: Up to 85 minutes | Capacity: Up to 60 days worth in docking station | Weight: N/A | Extras: Camera- and laser-based navigation, object detection, dual-brush system For a hands-off option, the Roomba j7+ is our pick both for best robot vacuum overall and for pet hair. Strategist writer Jordan McMahon has used the j7+ in his home weekly for about a year and found that no other robots (excluding those with a mop function) have done a better job of keeping his floors clean. The dual brushes, made of durable rubber, pick up even hard-to-grab pet fur with ease. According to McMahon, the Roomba j7+ needs minimal maintenance the docking station both charges and empties the robot, and the docks dustbin will hold up to 60 days worth of detritus. The docking station opens from the top, however, making it more challenging to remove the full dust bag. As with other iRobot vacuums, the app lets the user schedule cleanings. Also, if the j7+ senses it needs more time to complete a particularly dirty sweep, it not only estimates how long the task will take but charges itself enough to get through it. McMahon particularly liked how the robot uses both a camera and lasers to map the space, along with its ability to detect objects in its path. With the app, a user can go in and review every new object the Roomba j7+ detected a sock, for example that wont be there next time and let the robot know not to avoid that area in future runs. And if youre worried about privacy, you neednt be, explains McMahon: That all happens on iRobots end after any photos with personally identifiable information have been deleted on your vacuum. The pictures that do get sent to iRobot are totally encrypted and not tied to your account. $400 at Amazon Buy $400 at Amazon Buy Best (less expensive) robot vacuum for pet hair Eufy BoostIQ RoboVac 11S Max $250 $250 Suction: Not listed | Run time: Up to 100 minutes | Capacity: 0.16 gallons | Weight: N/A | Extras: None The Eufy 11S has fewer bells and whistles (and a price to match) than the j7+, but it does a reliably good job of cleaning. Unlike the Roomba, it has no accompanying app, no room mapping, and a single brush system. But its dustbin capacity is similar to that of the j7+, and it has a remote control for added maneuverability as well as drop-sensing technology to prevent it from taking a tumble down the stairs. According to McMahon, this model has earned numerous Strategist admirers himself included. $250 at Amazon Buy $250 at Eufylife Buy Best vacuum for allergy sufferers Dyson Gen5detect Cordless Vacuum Cleaner $868 $950 now 9% off $868 Suction: 280 AW | Run time: 70 minutes | Capacity: 0.2 gallons | Weight: 7.72 pounds | Extras: Fluffy Optic cleaner head, hair screw tool, combination tool, mountable docking station, LCD data display, HEPA filter Thanks to its combination of features and effectiveness, our pick for best vacuum for pet hair overall is also our pick for allergy sufferers. Im an asthmatic married to an allergy sufferer, so I need to eradicate as much dust, dirt, allergens, and other aggravating microscopic particles while cleaning as possible. The Gen5detects washable HEPA filter, powerful suction, and specialized attachments have left our apartment feeling cleaner and both of us breathing easier. Clifford Bassett, M.D., medical director of Allergy & Asthma Care of New York, told Jennifer Conrad, the writer of a previous version of this guide, that he has seen significant improvements in symptoms when patients use HEPA air purifiers and a HEPA-filter-equipped vacuum at home. $868 at Amazon Buy $950 at Best Buy Buy Best vacuum for heavy shedders Shark IX141H Pet Cordless Stick Vacuum $200 $260 now 23% off $200 Suction: Not listed | Run time: 40 minutes | Capacity: 0.2 gallons | Weight: 7.63 pounds | Extras: Crevice tool, HEPA filter, anti-allergen seal The Shark Pet picked up an astonishing amount of dust and hair. Its combined HEPA filtration and anti-allergen seal felt on par with the Bissell Turbo for trapping dust, allergens, pet hair, and dander, though the Gen5detects suction-powerandHEPA-filter combo still beat out both. The bristle brush roll worked well to capture shorter pet fur as well as my own long hair strands without letting them get tangled around the roll. And I found it easier to reach under chairs and dressers with this Shark model than with the larger Bissell Turbo. The hand vac and crevice tool were handy for picking up crumbs around my cats food bowls and sucking up hair between sofa cushions. I also liked how the eject button on the dust cup (which is the same size as the Gen5detects) allowed me to swiftly dispose of all that grime. $200 at Amazon Buy $260 at Target Buy Best (less expensive) vacuum for heavy shedders Black+Decker Powerseries Extreme Cordless Stick Vacuum $119 $200 now 41% off $119 Suction: Not listed | Run time: 55 minutes | Capacity: 0.2 gallons | Weight: 10.8 pounds | Extras: Anti-tangle brush head, LED lights Another option with a purpose-built brush head for long hair is the Black+Decker Powerseries Extreme. Shelby Semel, a canine-behavior expert and trainer, has a Samoyed at home that sheds basically pounds of hair a month. To get all that fur out of her carpet, Semel uses this stick vacuum along with a robot vacuum. For her, the selling points were the low price and the fact that its cord free. It boasts a longer run time of up to 55 minutes and an average-size dustbin for a cordless model, plus it converts to a hand vacuum. $119 at Amazon Buy $119 at Amazon Buy Best handheld vacuum for pet hair Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Cordless Pet Vacuum $72 Suction: Not listed | Run time: 15 minutes | Capacity: 0.18 gallons | Weight: 3 pounds | Extras: Motorized brush, upholstery tool This handheld model is strong enough to get at deep-rooted dog hairs between couch cushions and the litter that sometimes gets stuck into corners. When Strategist writer and cat owner Lauren Ro tested this Bissell, she was happy to find that it picked up everything from tumbleweeds of cat hair and dust bunnies to strands of her own long hair. $72 at Amazon Buy $80 at Best Buy Buy 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. As the Lee County Commission continues to consider options regarding unpaved roads across the county, another Lee County resident raised concerns about the roads in his neighborhood. During the new business of Monday's meeting, Ashley Lucas spoke before the commission regarding his concern about three county roads in Salem and how it affects him and his neighbors. While the commission did not initiate any official action during the meeting, they provided Lucas and perhaps other concerned citizens with a roadmap to getting the issues addressed. Lucas lives in the Cedar States Subdivision. He raised concerns on Monday about Lee Roads 2182, 2183 and 2184 to the commission. "The roads in our community are in desperate need of repair from county, medical use, regular traffic and erosion. As it stands today, the condition of the roads far exceeds the capability of the residents to have the repairs brought to a reasonable standard of repair," Lucas said. "As it stands, residents feel that there are two solutions to the problem. One, that the county bring in appropriate amounts of material to rebuild and motor grade the roads. Number two would be to asphalt the roads." Lee County Engineer Justin Hardee confirmed that the roads are unpaved and have gravel, which is due to the subdivision being established in 2007 before county regulations were different. Hardee said the plat shows that the roads are easements across private property and not public right of ways. Additionally, Hardee said that the plat showed that the maintenance of the roads were to be the responsibility of the homeowner's association. Hardee said in order for the county to step in and assist, the commission would first have to accept the roadway into maintenance for the highway department and even then Hardee said there would have to be a deeded public right of way and not just an easement. Hardee said the reason for that was that an easements across private property that has never been accepted or maintained by the commission is not supposed to be worked on by the county, according to Alabama law. Lucas said he plans to get a petition with the signatures from all of the residents to deed the public right of way and the commission expressed interest in looking into the issue if the petition is signed by all 40 residents. Ward 3 Commissioner Gary Long asked Lucas if he was looking to get it paved or just maintained. Lucas said that while paving the roads would cost the county more initially, he felt it would save them money down the line. With unpaved roads, they would have to rebuild and motor grade it fairly often, which would add up. Lucas said he estimated the total length of the three roads is 2.2 miles and Hardee said it could cost between $250,000 and $300,000 to pave those roads. Meanwhile, Hardee and Lee County Probate Judge and Commission Chairman Bill English said they could maintain the dirt road with $300,000 for a very long time. Other commission business The commission held the first reading for an opening on the East Alabama Health Care Authority Board. The commission granted final plat approval for the Forest Ridge Subdivision and the approval will create 14 lots. The subdivision is located at Lee Road 158 in District 4. The commission voted to set a public hearing regarding the vacation of a section of right-of-way along Lee Road 57A. According to the memorandum from County Engineer Justin Hardee, the Lee County Highway Department was approached by the attorney of adjacent property owners on Lee Road 57A that requested the county vacate the right-of-way along Lee Road 57A, approximately 450 feet in length. The adjacent property owners have submitted a petition to the commission and the public hearing will be held during the Aug. 26 Lee County Commission meeting. The commission set a work session to discuss funding for the county's dirt road paving program as well as the preferences on the Arrow Disposal Services and GFL Landfill contracts. The work session was set for after the July 29 meeting. China's government support for nuclear fusion research is nearly double that of the U.S. Nuclear fusion research and development has gained momentum in recent years after several momentous breakthroughs and achievements. The global race to overcome the engineering challenges to achieving zero-emission power from a nuclear reaction without risking disaster and radiation has heated up. The U.S. and other Western nations have worked for decades on technology that could make nuclear fusion possible and commercially viable. Now China is looking to take a lead in the race, and it is leading in at least one areagovernment spending on research and development. China is spending about $1.5 billion annually for fusion research. Thats nearly twice as much as this years budget for nuclear fusion of the U.S. government, JP Allain, head of the U.S. Energy Departments Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, has told The Wall Street Journal. China also appears to stick to a research program that is similar to a U.S. scientific and engineering road map from 2020. Thats very frustrating, as you can imagine, Allain told the Journal. Although nuclear fusion has been long recognized as totally carbon- and by-product-free and the source atoms in hydrogen are abundant on Earth, replicating the Sun's natural processes of fusion energy generation on Earth has been a challenge for decades. Related: The Value of Norways Oil Fund Soars to New High of $1.7 Trillion Fusion is the natural process that heats the Sun and all other stars, in which a huge amount of energy is produced by the fusion of light atoms, such as those in hydrogen, into heavier elements like helium. Nuclear fusion has long been considered the answer to zero-emission by-product-free energy generation. However, no one has cracked the nuclear fusion code yet because of the challenges associated with the environment in which the process could take place. Recent breakthroughs in the U.S. have encouraged more R&D efforts in America and elsewhere, including in China. At the end of 2022, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory made history, demonstrating fusion ignition for the first time in a laboratory settingan achievement six decades in the making. The fusion energy released was greater than the laser energy delivered to start the reaction, passing the threshold of ignition. LLNLs National Ignition Facility (NIF) has so far achieved ignition four times since 2022, giving hope to scientists that fusion for energy may not be only a pipe dream as it has been for decades. LLNL uses lasers to create fusion reactions, which is another approach to fusion. The more widespread technology to achieve fusion ignition is the so-called tokamak a machine that confines a plasma using magnetic fields. According to DOE, fusion energy scientists believe that tokamaks are the leading plasma confinement concept for future fusion power plants. Months before LLNL achieved first ignition, the U.S. Administration launched in 2022 the U.S. Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy to accelerate the viability of commercial fusion energy. But China is catching up on the race for fusion technology. It is building a Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology (CRAFT) in Hefeia project in which key components for fusion energy reactors are developed and tested. The facility is expected to be finished in 2025. Last month, Chinese firm Energy Singularity said that the worlds first fully high-temperature superconducting Tokamak device, which it has developed and constructed, had successfully achieved first plasma. China also has a national fusion consortium in which some of its biggest industrial firms collaborate on fusion technology. The U.S. has several large private fusion companies, including Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), which has just signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy worth $15 million to meet research and development goals leading to commercial fusion power. The incentives in the U.S. Administrations Milestone program to support fusion energy can help us keep moving step by step toward our goal of building our first fusion power plant by the early 2030s, CFS chief executive and co-founder Bob Mumgaard said last month. China has made leaps in its fusion efforts, after decades of almost nothing in the field, Dennis Whyte, a professor of engineering at MIT, who has sat on Chinese fusion advisory committees, told the Journal. Dont underestimate their capabilities about coming up to speed, Whyte said. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Driven by a need to diversify its energy sector and pivot away from cheap Russian gas, Serbia is moving to end the countrys decades-old policy banning the construction of nuclear power plants on its territory. Several Serbian ministries announced on July 10 that the country is weighing whether to end the 35-year-old, Yugoslav-era ban on nuclear reactors and said public debate was being opened on the shake-up of Belgrades long-standing energy policy. If successful, the Serbian government could also find itself on a new geopolitical fault line involving nuclear energy in Eastern Europe as countries look to move away from relying on Russia -- which has dominated the nuclear energy sector -- and consider alternative partnerships with countries like China, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is looking to navigate the new realities created by Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine and deploy the same hedging strategy for the countrys nuclear future thats been used by Belgrade to play the United States and the European Union against Russia and China on a host of security and foreign policy issues. Even though Serbia has not been hard on Russia like the European Union has, its looking to preserve a balancing act with the West, Stefan Vladisavljev, program director at Foundation BFPE, a Belgrade-based think tank, told RFE/RL. That means distancing away from Russia for big strategic projects, but where exactly that leads Belgrade remains to be seen. Prior to the start of Russias February 2022 war, Serbia relied on cheap local labor and discounted Russian gas to make its mining and manufacturing industries competitive and attractive to investors. But Western sanctions and market turbulence have increased the price of Russian gas and seen Brussels and Washington attach a political price tag to making new deals with Russian companies. That leaves Vucic walking a tightrope between the need to improve Serbias energy security by adding nuclear power and the geopolitical considerations brought by the country Belgrade decides to partner with. Serbian officials have actively weighed their options, having already held meetings with Britains Rolls-Royce and Frances state-owned Electricite de France (EDF), in April, when a memo was signed assessing the potential for the development of the civil nuclear program in Serbia. In June, the Energy Ministry said it is laying the groundwork for an assessment on partnering with EDF. EDF did not respond to RFE/RLs requests for details on what cooperation with Serbia would entail but, in the meantime, China has also entered the mix. The state-owned China National Nuclear Corporations (CNNC) could supply small modular reactors (SMRs), which proponents say are less cumbersome to build and may better suit a country like Serbias more modest nuclear power needs. Another option involves buying a stake in the still under construction Paks 2 nuclear power plant -- a joint Hungarian-Russian project launched in 2014 that is 100 kilometers southwest of Budapest -- which could then send power south to Serbia. The Serbian Energy Ministry told RFE/RL in a statement that it is currently exploring all potential partnerships. After changing the legislative framework, Serbia will analyze the potential for cooperation at the regional and international level with countries that already have a developed nuclear program, both with China as well as with France, the United States, Russia, Japan, and other relevant countries, it said. The New Nuclear Chessboard While Russia has lost its dominant position in oil and gas exports since the 2022 start of the Ukraine war, it continues to be the biggest player globally in providing nuclear fuel, accounting for more than 40 percent of the global market. Russia also has a complete monopoly on the production of advanced nuclear fuel that will be needed to power the next generation of nuclear reactors. For countries with Russian-made reactors this dependence runs even deeper, with Russias state-owned nuclear power giant Rosatom operating 18 reactors across the EU, the bulk of them in Central and Eastern Europe. This reliance has so far left Rosatom and Russian nuclear materials off sanctions packages passed in Brussels, but the United States, Britain, France, and important Western nuclear fuel providers have announced plans to expand their own capacity to enrich uranium and build reactors across Europe. Its against this backdrop that Belgrade must make a decision and plan for the long-term implications. Currently, Serbia gets almost 70 percent of its electricity from coal, but has committed to completely phase it out by 2050. Incorporating nuclear power along with more green energy is necessary to meet that goal. Where a country gets its reactor from is extremely important and keeps them tied together, Jennifer Gordon, the director of the Atlantic Council's Nuclear Energy Policy Initiative, told RFE/RL. The buyer-vendor relationship can be a 100-year relationship when you take into account building the reactor, its lifespan, and then needing to decommission it. Countries like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland, and Bulgaria have relied on Russian nuclear-fuel imports to make up for the lack of Russian gas and oil as a result of the war, but theyve also begun to pivot away from Rosatom for any future plans. Bratislava, Helsinki, and Prague have excluded the Russian company from future tenders, and the Czech energy company CEZ has signed contracts with the U.S. firm Westinghouse Electric and the French company Framatome to supply fuel assemblies for its plant in Temelin. Westinghouse is also constructing two new reactors in Bulgaria, where it is to also become the countrys main supplier of fuel rods. For Belgrade, the nuclear decision could also be a harbinger for where Vucic is looking to take his country. While Serbia remains nonaligned, Vucic insists his goal is membership in the EU, but talks have made little progress in 12 years amid EU concerns over the rule of law and the status of Kosovo. Serbia has a traditionally close relationship with Moscow, but Belgrade has been looking for distance from Russia since the war in Ukraine. Vucic has also built strong ties with China, which has invested heavily in the Balkan country and often tops Serbian opinion polls as the most popular foreign power. Serbia, along with Hungary, were also the only two European countries Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited in May after his state visit to France. Xis visit opened up new frontiers for cooperation, said Vladisavljev. China is already a leader in renewable energy sources and is looking for new ways to expand its presence. For Belgrade, the best way to utilize its ties with China is to focus on areas that Serbia cant do on its own. Vucic has also strengthened ties with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has made developing nuclear energy across Europe and championing European firms a key part of his strategic autonomy policy, which seeks to reshape the political order across the continent. The View From Belgrade While Frances EDF -- once the worlds leading nuclear energy developer -- appears to be making headway with Belgrade, Serbias other options are still in contention. The Serbian Energy Ministry told RFE/RL that an analysis on whether to choose a conventional reactor or SMRs will be carried out in the near future, and Vucic said in March at an energy summit in Brussels that we are interested in getting at least four small modular reactors to replace 1,200 megawatts of output. Prefabricated SMR units can be manufactured and then shipped and installed on site, making them potentially more affordable to build than large power reactors, which are often custom designed for a particular location and sometimes lead to construction delays. But some estimates have shown the cost for SMRs could be similar or more expensive than traditional reactors in the long term due to higher maintenance costs. China and Russia are racing to pull ahead in the SMR field, but a collection of American and European firms are also making advances in the market. Serbias presidential administration and the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade did not respond to RFE/RLs request for comment about Beijings potential role. One major obstacle for an SMR deal could be the cost. In his March comments, Vucic said the price for four SMRs could total 7.5 billion euros ($8.1 billion) and that external funding would be required because he doesn't know how it would be financed. A less costly option is buying a stake in Hungarys Paks 2 plant, which is an idea that Vucic first discussed with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in 2021. We are ready to be a minority owner in order to ensure our energy security, especially because of our strong economic activity, Vucic said in 2021. Buying a stake in Hungarys nuclear reactor is appealing to Belgrade as it would avoid needing to build a nuclear reactor on its own soil and face any potential public backlash. But the Hungarian project spearheaded by Russias Rosatom has been delayed and over budget. While Hungarian officials say the main reactor is still planned to be shipped from Russia, Paks 2 CEO Gergely Jakli told the Hungarian financial newspaper Portfolio in May that Russias involvement is increasingly expensive and he is considering bringing on other investors to complete the project. China has been floated as a potential option, especially since Budapest and Beijing signed a nuclear-energy cooperation agreement during Xis visit in May, and China is looking for opportunities to showcase its nuclear expertise overseas. Framatome is also a subcontractor in Paks 2 and while Chinese and French nuclear companies have partnered together in the past, souring relations between Beijing and the West along with growing resistance to allowing Chinese firms to build strategic infrastructure in Europe could derail any such cooperation. This leaves Serbia balancing the technical and financial dimensions to any offer, as well as the strategic ones, as it pushes ahead in its pursuit for nuclear energy. This is about a civilian nuclear energy program, the Atlantic Councils Gordon said. But whatever option Serbia chooses, it will have a geopolitical bearing. By RFE/RL More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Over the last year, it has become clear that deep-sea mining for metals and minerals is likely to be approved in some regions of the world, as companies fight for the right to invest in innovative mining projects. There are huge critical mineral reserves worldwide under the seabed, which have made companies increasingly eager to commence deep-sea mining activities to extract the minerals as demand continues to rise. The push for a global green transition has sent the global demand for minerals, such as nickel, copper, and cobalt sky-high. Onshore mining activities have intensified in recent years to address this demand and several companies are looking to the sea to respond to this demand. However, scientists are concerned about what impact deep-sea mining could have on the environment, such as the potential disruption of marine ecosystems. Earlier this year, Norway approved the worlds first deep-sea mineral mining, with the government suggesting that it may be less harmful to the environment than land-based mining. There is an abundance of potato-sized nodules of critical minerals that Norway says are vital for a green transition. However, Norway did not plan to immediately commence mining operations, rather, the government aimed to assess proposals from mining companies on a case-by-case basis for license approval. However, without an international regulatory framework in place to manage deep-sea mining, there were concerns over the potential environmental impact of operations. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), the U.N. regulator that oversees deep-sea mining, sees the launch of deep-sea mining activities in the coming years as an inevitability and has been working to develop sectoral regulations. The ISA regulates mining across an area covering 54 percent of the worlds oceans, representing 68 member states as well as the EU, but not the U.S. The ISA aims to produce deep-sea mining regulations by 2025. However, 24 countries have called for a pause on deep-sea mining, supported by several major companies, such as Google, Samsung, and Volvo, due to the lack of comprehension of the impact of such activities. The ISAs secretary general, Michael Lodge, is fighting to get environmental rules finalized that would make deep-sea mining possible in the Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and Mexico. However, his opponent, Leticia Carvalho, believes that it could take several years to write the rules needed to regulate the sector, and no mining applications should be approved during that time. Leadership elections are coming up and whoever takes the reigns of the ISA will have significant power over deep-sea mining, with several countries in favor for economic reasons and several staunchly against the idea for environmental reasons. Now, there is a major controversy over the ISA leadership of the worlds seas. There have been recent accusations of trickery, which could undermine the legitimacy of the organizations coming agenda. It recently came to light that a former senior ISA executive filed a complaint with the UN in May, accusing Lodge and his top deputy of misusing agency funds. Supporters of each of the candidates have accused the other side of attempting to influence the outcome of the election by offering to pay for travel costs for delegates and pay delegations past-due membership fees. As countries in arrears are not permitted to vote, this could influence the outcome. Last month, the ambassador of Kiribati, a small Pacific Island nation that supports Michael Lodges candidacy, asked Carvalho to step down in exchange for a possible high-level staff job at the Seabed Authority. In response to the accusations, Lodge stated, You have a collation of vague, unsubstantiated, unfounded and anonymous rumors, gossip and hearsay which are demonstrably untrue, lack any foundation of fact or evidence and do not stand up to any objective scrutiny. Last month, Japan announced that it had made a new discovery of over 200 million tonnes of manganese nodules rich in battery metals in the Pacific Ocean, within the countrys exclusive economic zone. Experts from the University of Tokyo and the Nippon Foundation found the deposits on the seabed near Minamitorishima, a remote Tokyo Island, at depths of about 5,500 meters. The Nippon Foundation and partners hope to start extracting the nodules in 2025, to support Japans green energy sector. As more countries are looking to commence deep-sea mining operations, following several discoveries of critical mineral deposits in recent years, the ISA must act fast to ensure the sector is adequately regulated. The lack of regulation means that governments and private companies could start mining without the proper rules in place to ensure safety standards are adhered to for environmental preservation. However, with the recent controversy over the ISA leadership elections, the organization must restore trust with its member states while continuing to develop mining regulations in line with previous aims for a mining code. By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com